% <$' "+ 4 ■V " * v, 3 s°°- ^ V V ( ^ N a t ^"h 108 50 Cents Xcweirs International Series Notes from the 'News 9 BY JAMES PAYN AUTHOR OF "THICKER THAN WATER," "THE CANON'S WARD," ETC. NEW YORK JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 150 Worth Street, corner Mission Place Every work in this series is published by arrangement with the author Issued Semi-Weekly. Annual Subscription £30.00 Ju-c iy, 1890, (Extra. BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH THE AUTHORS. LOVELLS International Series MODERN NOVELS. THE NEW WORKS PUBLISHED IN THIS EXCELLENT CCRIES, SEMI-WEEKLY, ARE ALWAYS THE FIRST IGSUED IN THIS COUNTRY. EVERY ISSUE IS PRINTED FROM NEW, CLEAR ELECTROTYPE PLATCS, PRINTED JN FINE PAPER AND BOUND IN ATTRACTIVE PAr-ER COVERS OF ORIGINAL DCCIGN. RECENT ISSUES. Long Odds. By Ilawley Smart 30 On Circumstantial Evidence. Ey Florence Marryat 30 Miss Kate ; or Concessions of a Caretaker. By Rita 30 A Vagabond Lover. By Rita ., 20 The Search for Basil Lyndhurst. By Rosa Kouchette Carey 30 The Wing of Azrael. By Mona Caird 30 The Fog Princes. By F. Warden 30 John Herring. By S. Baring G0..I1 1 50 The Fatal Puryne. By F. C. Phillips and C. J. Wills 80 Harvest. By J*ohn Strange Winter 30 Mehalah. By S. Baring-Gould 50 A Troublesome Girl. By The Bueh- &.- 30 Berrick Vaughan, Novelist. By Edna Lyall 30 Sophy Carmine. By John Strange Winter 30' The Luck of the House. Bv Adeline Sergeat.t SO The Pennycomequicks. By S. Baring-Gouia 50 Jezebel's Friends. Ey Bcra Russell , 30 Comedy of a Country House. By Julian riturgis 30 The Piccadilly Puzzle. By Fergus Hume 30 That Other Woman. By Annie Thomas 30 The Curse of Carne's Hold. By G. A. Henty 30 Uncle Piper of Piper's Hill. By Tasma 30 A Life Sentence. By Adeline Sergeant 30 Kit Wyndham. By Frank Barrett 30 The Tree of Knowledge. By G. M. Robins 30 Roland Oliver. By Justin McCarthy 30 Sheba. By Rita. 3C Sylvia Arden. By Oswald Crawfurd 30 Young Mr. Ainslie's Courtship. By F- C. Phillips 30. The Haute Noblesse. By George Manville Fenn 30 Mount Eden. By Florence Marryat 30 Buttons. By John Strange Winter 30 Nurse Revel's Mistake. By Florence Warden 00 Arminell. By S. Baring-Gould 50 The Lament of Bives. By Walter Besant 30 Mrs. Bob. By John Strange Winter 3 NOTES FROM THE l NEWSS its to send me presents, but I would much rather not know than not have them. There are, I fear, unscru- pulous persons who like to have a doubt about the quarter from which the good wind blows. They write to all their acquaintances they think capable of such a benevolence, 4 with many apologies if it is not so, but they really know no other human being whom it can be, and it is so like them,' and thereby one gift often makes many. There is one anonymous present, by-the-bye, which is simply detestable, and that is a newspaper, generally of enormous size, which somebody sends us because, as it turns out, 4 lie knows there is something in it which will interest us greatly,' but forgets to mark the place. We spend hours over the hateful sheet in vain ; and a week afterwards learn from him that it con- tained some paragraph about himself. That is a gift which is a mistake indeed, and ought to be returned to the original proprietor in a closed cover — with a brick- bat inside it — unpaid. The old question has turned up again, in circles so called 'charitable,' about the sinfulness or innocence of bazaars. Some argue that out of that whirlpool of dissi- pation and excess no good thing can come, and that even the money thrown up by it for the relief of the widow and the orphan is polluted, and ought not to be touched. Poor people's opinion is, of course, of no value to an} r - body ; or else one would like to know what the widow and the orphan themselves have to say about this. I'm an orphan myself, and have my views. The last deliv- erance upon this matter affirms that charity is no longer charity when it is mingled with amusement. 4 One of the saddest aspects of these exhibitions,' it says, NOTES FROM THE 'NEWSS 47 4 is, perhaps, when little children are brought on the scene, frequently in varied and fantastic costumes, with the object of importuning their elders to purchase. They lose their early bloom by contact with such scenes as these/ To see little children in fancy dresses beg- ging with natural eloquence for money for the poor docs not seem to me, I confess, either a sad or demoralizing spectacle ; but the rather important point, that money is procured by this means for good purposes which cannot otherwise be procured, is absolutely ignored by these amiable but too cocksure persons. A colonial bishop whom tjiey have annexed to their cause goes so far as to affirm that the only proper method of getting money for charitable purposes is 4 the exercise of self- renunciation/ But the point again is, who will open their purse-strings for that exhibition ? Is a charitable institution only to be supported by persons who enter- tain the loftiest ideals? In that case (since the idealist has very seldom money to spare) they would be in a very bad way. If one was not dealing with obviously well-meaning persons, it might fairly be pointed out that the advocates of this narrow creed seem much more taken up with their, own virtues, and with the effect of bazaars upon themselves, than with the good objects these institutions have (admittedly) in view. If the widow and the orphan are not helped by these good folks in their own way, it almost seems that they would not have them helped at all. Personally, rather than offend these tender consciences (and also for other rea- sons), I am quite prepared to withstand the temptation of bazaars for the rest of my natural life ; but I think some protest ought to be entered against those who, in a world of sin and sorrow, select an almost blameless 48 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: custom, which has well-doing for its raison d'Stre, and which, without doubt, does bring help to the poor, not otherwise obtainable, for such vehement animad- version. A lady lion-tamer has come to grief through the dilatoriness of a photographer. Her ambition was to be taken in her celebrated performance of putting her head into the lion's mouth. Unlike most of her sex, she cared nothing for her personal appearance in the picture ; she literally ' effaced herself ' to give greater prominence to the King of Beasts, who, unhappily, could not be brought to understand the self-sacrifice she was making for him. Not a shadow of blame seems to attach to his conduct. He behaved, in fact, just as a man does when he is being photographed. He yawned — which the lady took advantage of — was bored to extremity by the delay of the operator, and, at the flash of the magnesium light, arranged his mouth for a smile. When the closure took place, he was probably not even conscious of any obstruction. I cannot see the slightest reason for the public indigna- tion against that lion. Though nothing succeeds like success, there are drawbacks to it. Even an ovation — a thing I should dearly like to have myself, but I don't see the least prospect of it — has, it seems, its inconveniences. The enthusiasm at a provincial opera-house the other night was so excessive that nothing would satisfy the occu- pants of the gallery short of taking the prima donna's horses out of her carriage, and dragging it to her hotel. A man who had distinguished himself in many ways NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 7 49 once told me that there was nothing in life so exciting or gratifying to one's self-esteem as the tumult of ap- plause which greets successful dramatists upon the stage. I can see him now — though I hope he can't see me — with his hair flying in all directions, and his knees knocking together before the footlights, in answer to 'a call/ which he was not quite sure, as he confessed to me afterwards, was of a favorable character or not. His reception was really rapturous ; but even he was never drawn home by an audience in his carriage — for he had none. If one wasn't in a hurry for one's sup- per, I can fancy nothing nicer than this mode of con- veyance. Only, in the case of the prima donna, the hand-bag which contained the diamonds she had worn at the play, and which were known to be very valua- ble, was, unhappily, abstracted en route. I have no doubt the enthusiasm was genuine ; but, nevertheless, there is an alternative. It is possible that those dia- monds were at the bottom of it from first to last. There has been much correspondence of late respecting the deterioration of social manners, yet, strangely enough,. the greatest blot of all, the practice of arriving late for dinner, has hardly been alluded to. There is nothing that illustrates the snobbism of soci- ety more than the impunity that attends this offence : for it is almost always Croesus who commits it, and it is forgiven him because he is Croesus. If the host owes him money, of course the reason why he waits for him to the inconvenience of all his other guests is intelligible ; but every host can't owe him money. If he could only hear what is said of him by the males, as he enters the room with his shameless wife, half an 4 50 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWSS hour behind time, but without a word of apology be- tween them, I really don't think he would dare do it. Lesser lights who arrive a little earlier, but still very late, do murmur some platitude about 4 the distances being really so great in London ' ; yet they manage to get in time for the trains at the railway-stations. The defenders of this rudeness say that coming too late is better (for them) than coming too early and having to drive twice round the square — a significant illustra- tion, indeed, of the sort of friendship that must exist between them and the dinner-givers. Surely the time of even the most fashionable hostess is not so very valuable but that she might be in her own drawing- room five minutes before her dinner hour to receive her guests ? Men are not so prone to put up with this slight as women ; yet I have known a Benchers' dinner at an Inn of Court kept waiting for three-quarters of an hour for a one-horse Prince. To do them justice, the real Roy- alties are never guilty of this misdemeanor; and I should like to see Croesus or the people who ' find the distances so great in London' being late for them! Even at clubs — where people, as a rule, are not allowed to give themselves airs — this practice of coming late for dinner is very prevalent. Where hosts are weak enough to wait, of course the dinner suffers. One of the best club cooks in London used to be so well aware of this fact as always to delay 4 dishing up ' for half an hour. When remonstrated with for this, he would reply, in his broken English, 4 It is better that gentle- mens should wait for my dinner than my dinner should wait for the gentlemens.' He respected himself and NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 51 his art; but, unhappily, nobody, and nothing else. Once he knocked down a kitchenmaid with the rolling- pin ; of course the club could not afford to lose him for a trifle of that kind. But presently lie threatened to kill the secretary; even then he had his defenders: one old gourmand on the committee hinted that sec- retaries were more easy to procure than cooks ; another said c And if he had killed him, I'll answer for it he would have made a very good ragout of him.' But, nevertheless, that good cook had to go. One smaller breach of good manners, now almost extinct, was the habit some men had of bringing their crush-hats in to dinner with them. A great poet, a great artist, and a literary lord were, I remember, among these offenders. The poet always sat on his hat; the artist set it carefully under the table, and put his feet in it ; the lord, with apparent recklessness of what became of it, that well became his rank, threw it into the first corner ; but there was always a row when he went away and it couldn't be found. I sus- pect the origin of the practice was the bringing crush- hats in summer-time to ' routs ' — a fine old name and very appropriate— so that the owners could slip away when they liked, without scrimmaging for their prop- erty in the hall ; but to bring them in to dinner is surely a custom worthy of Colney Hatch. The Times correspondent, ' G., ' reminds one of that hero of old whose valor was such that he didn't care much if he fought with the French, or the Spaniards, or Dutch ; for war so exciting he took such delight in, he didn't; care whom he fought so he was fighting. 52 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 Scarcely nas he finished his set-to with the doctors than he squares up to the Cardinal, and delivers his facers as freshly as ever. It is not always that one can get a Prince of the Church to tackle, and he evidently enjoys the experience immensely. The good Churchman has been driven, like the Bailie in 'Rob Roy' with his red- hot coulter, to use very queer weapons — for argument, like poverty, acquaints us with strange bed-fellows — and has even thrown Mill and Fawcet in the teeth of his audacious opponent. ' G.'s ' most swashing blow has been directed against his Eminence's dogma that a starving man has a natural right to food, and raises the cry of 4 Stop thief ! ' If the Cardinal, instead of quot- ing from the political economists, had done so from the Proverbs, i Men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry,' he would have found firmer footing ; but perhaps he thought it wrong to quote the -Bible in English, or else that a text from the Scriptures would be utterly thrown away on ' G.' No one can deny, however, that if the Law is on i G.'s' side, the Gospel is on the Cardinal's, and also com- mon sense. His Eminence is probably much better acquainted with fasting than * G,' and has some approxi- mate notion of what real hunger is. One of the best and best-known clergymen of the Church of England, who from benevolent motives once followed the wars, tells me that one of the strangest experiences of warfare is the sensation of going into an inn from which the inmates have fled, and taking eat- ables without paying for them. He would have paid, if he could, of course , but it was absolutely necessary to eat ? so he ate without pajdng. This is exactly the case NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 53 of the starving man. What he ought to do, I suppose, according to 4 G.,' is to find out the relieving officer (which may take hours) and procure from him an order for the work-house ( two miles off) — whereas the Car- dinal recommends the nearest baker. So far as my sleeping arrangements were concerned, it is possible that I might take ' G.'s ' advice , but in the meantime, as his Eminence suggests, I should most certainly procure a loaf. The baker, let us hope, would never miss it ; but bread, as I should explain to him if he did (though not upon an empty stomach), it was absolutely neces- sary for me to have. The case, of course, must be an extreme one; I should not be justified in taking more than enough to support life ; and I need not say, no luxuries, such as a bath bun or a jam tartlet. But to say I am actually to starve rather than break the law is rubbish. If ' G.'s ' house caught fire, I suppose he would not hesitate to escape by his neighbor's roof because it would be committing a trespass. I can imagine ' G.' making very pretty hay of the Sabbata- rians, yet what he would teach us is that the law is not made for Man, but Man for the Law. A very remarkable case of alleged murder has been lately tried on appeal in India. The gist of the whole matter was the shape of the wound in the body of the deceased, which wound, being triangular, it was argued, could not have been inflicted by the spear of the ac- cused, which was round and without angles. Years ago, in Scotland, there occurred an incident that curiously resembles this. Two drovers were sleeping in the same room, and one of them was found, in the morning, dead. There was no mark of violence about him. 54 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' except a small incision at the back of the head, which was supposed to have been caused by a nail in the uncarpeted floor. The survivor admitted that there had been a scuffle, and that his adversary had fallen backwards and never spoken again. No weapon of any kind was found in the room, or, it was proved, had been in the possession of either of them. No less than nine surgeons examined the body ; eight of them were satisfied with the theory of the nail, but the ninth, a very young man, protested that the wound could not have been inflicted by such means, but must have been caused by some sharp and pointed instrument driven by the hand into the head. He was overruled, of course, and the accused acquitted. On his death- bed, however, the murderer confessed that he had accomplished his purpose with the snuffers. One is glad to add that the discovery made the fortune of the astute young surgeon. As to those thirteen trumps in a single hand, I have not a word to say, either against it or the veracity of card-players generally ; but, amongst other advan- tages, there is no doubt that the practice stimulates the imagination. Southey, who was quite free from prej- udice in the matter, and couldn't even call a spade a spade of his own knowledge, has embalmed a curious anecdote upon the subject. A party of respectable persons, who knew they were doing wrong, left the opera-house on Saturday night to attend the faro-table at Mrs. Sturt's. In the middle of their game — and, of course, after midnight — they heard a thunder-clap and felt a slight shock of an earthquake. That didn't stop them ; but presently the clubs became the color of blood, NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 55 and the hearts black, when they thought it high time to leave off. This happened nearly a hundred years ago, in 1776, and has not, I believe, occurred since. M. Pasteur, who if he has not 4 gone up like a rocket and come down like the stick,' is certainly not the success he was once thought to be, has taken a new departure : having failed to convince the world that a hair of the dog that bit you is a remedy if the dog is mad, he has given himself up to hospitality. It is difficult, however, for an apostle of vivisection to become genial all in a moment. His first dinner was given the other day, I read, to a number of rabbits, fowls, sheep, and other animals — to whom he certainly owed something. The menu consisted of a variety of dishes, all of them seasoned with microbes of chicken cholera, and the object of the entertainment was to see the rabbits and fowls succumb to this fare, while the others were none the worse for it. By this he hopes to prove that his scheme for destroying all the rabbits in Australia by inoculating them with a virulent and hereditary disease will succeed, and gain him the £25,000 offered for their extirpation. As the Laureate once wrote when asked to express his admiration of a certain poet, 4 1 dare not say what I think of this gentle- man.' Curiously, enough, Dr. Darwin (the first), in his 4 Temple of Nature,' suggests a scheme for the extir- pation of rats in England by importing from America some which were suffering from the tapeworm to infect them. That was bad enough ; but perhaps it was c only his fun' (for the family were full of it), and besides, rats are not rabbits* 56 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWSS At Chesapeake Bay, in Maryland, we are told oysters pass as current money, and editors receive subscrip- tions in them instead of in dollars. In Chesapeake circles editors are pitied on this account, and thought to be ill-remunerated, and 200 bushels of bivalves is considered a small salary. At the present London prices it would be a princely revenue, if turned into cash. I am an oyster-lover myself ; but, from circum- stances over which (though small ones) I have no control, I have long ceased to be an oyster-eater — at my own expense. Some people say, when they are balancing one invitation against another, ' Will there be a Lord to meet me, or a Member of the Cabinet? ' or, ' Will there be improving conversation, and a word in season from the Bishop ? ' But I have long got over all those weaknesses, and simply say to myself, ' Will there be oysters ? ' and where they are most likely to be, I go. There are some people — which proves that there is Beneficent Design — who don't like oysters; and not even an unprofessional beauty can be compared, in my eyes, with such a neighbor ; it is not a question of six of one and half a dozen of the other — but of half a dozen and a dozen. Some hosts — and these are Nature's noblemen — give one eight oysters before dinner, which, under the favorable circumstances above alluded to, may become sixteen. How shocking it is to reflect that the Chesapeake editor gets so much too much of oysters, and that I get so much too little ! Of course they are imported ; but the fact is, they don't bear travel. Out of six American oysters in England five have no taste whatever, the sixth is too aesthetic. One doesn't forget him for months ; and, what is especially fiendish, the recollection of him spoils one's relish for good oysters. NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 57 There is woe in the courts of the law — The Q. C. smites his bosom, And the Serjeant rends his cope — because of the words of doom that the Solicitor-Gen- eral has spoken. He ' doesn't see ' why barristers and solicitors should not be amalgamated, and cease to ex- ist as separate bodies ; it is a mistake, he says, to sup- pose that Nature has placed an insuperable bar — the ' sol, ' 4 solor, ' or solicitor — between the client and the man that pleads his cause. Many barristers know a great deal about law, he thinks, after all; and many solicitors could doubtless speak in court if they were given the chance. Of course, this plain speaking will bring the Reformer into evil odor ; but it will not ruin him, as it would have done twenty years ago — for all that time, it seems, he has carried this awful secret locked up in his bosom. He has won one of the thirty- six prizes open to the calling of a barrister, none of which, he tells us, is less than X5,000 a year, and he can snap his fingers at everybody. It was only a few weeks ago that some ignorant miscreant was complain- ing of the incomes made by literary men , whereas I honestly believe that there are not thirty-six persons following the profession of pure literature who are making even five hundred pounds a year. Nor is there any pretence that the solicitors are at all behind the barristers in the amount of their profits. Under these circumstances, I can hardly be expected to sympathize with either of these learned bodies. But, as a student of human nature, I shall have cause indeed to grieve if the two callings are amalgamated. 58 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: There is nothing, to my mind, more agreeable than to watch the behavior, at the social board, of a i rising ' young barrister (a term also used for a horse's age, and, unhappily, with much more certainty) towards a member of ' the lower branch of the profession. 1 There is no patronage (far from it), but an obvious desire to please. He singles out his inferior as an especial object for courteous behavior, and is charmed to find himself his neighbor. Beside hiin place the God of Wit, Before him Beauty's rosiest girls, Apollo for a ' Sol ' he'd quit, Or Love's own sister, or an Earl's. And the Solor knows all about it, and takes the in- cense for what it is worth. If anything comes of it, all is well ; but, otherwise, the young barrister has been sometimes heard to complain of his host's conduct in having placed him, though with the most good-natured designs, by the side of ' that unsatisfactory old fellow ! ' Vested interests have been always respected by the Law, and I do hope that, if the change foreshadowed by the Solicitor-General should take place, I shall be compen- sated for the loss of this social pleasure. There is some- thing like it to be gathered from the behavior of a young author to a critic under the same circumstances, but the literary character is more shy and retiring than the legal one, and does not offer the same sport. A great authority upon the subject has informed the world that it takes three years to make a good bicyclist. In the first year a man is prone, it seems, to throw himself into the pursuit with too much ardor; then he begins to tire of it ; but presently gets what? NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 59 pedestrians call their ' second wind,' and off he goes again. I know nothing of the second wind, but a good deal about 4 off he goes again.' We must, says this two-wheeled sage, ' not be too hot upon the bicycle at first.' In that particular I obeyed his instructions, and yet have never succeeded in becoming a master of the art. I don't know how long ago it is since I began to learn ; but it is certainly more than three years. It was at some establishment in Piccadilly, which had a slanting floor ; this was supposed to be a great advan- tage, because the machine went of itself, and, as the proprietor of the place asserted, c encouraged you. ' Nobody ever went there, that I ever heard of, except myself; but dead men tell no tales. As I rushed down that declivity, by the dim gaslight, I used to wonder whether others had attempted to perform the same reckless feat, and fallen victims to their foolhard- iness. If you didn't turn the machine sharply when you arrived at the bottom you were as dead as the wall. I had given two guineas for twelve lessons, and was bound to go through with them ; but after the first I hired a boy, as I gave out, to instruct me, but in reality to ensure my personal safety. He ran by my side, and I clung to him with one hand, and sometimes with both, as Mr. Winkle on the ice clung to Sam Welle r. When I learnt to go alone I stationed him with his back to the wall, ostensibly to give me verbal directions ; but of course it was understood that he was there to pre- vent a catastrophe, which, being very stout for his age, he was well fitted to do. His presence there gave me confidence, though I protest it never made me careless — no, not for a single instant — and I let myself go rather 60 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: more freely than I should have done. I am sorry to have to record it, for the sake of our common nature, but, forgetful of the loyalty due to his employer — he had not one trace of that feudal feeling which was once our country's pride — he ' dodged ' at the critical mo- ment, and, but for a spasm of terror which turned the handle of the vehicle, I should not now be alive to relate his treachery. The machine was shattered to fragments ; but the Welsh are right, I think, in attribut- ing a certain malevolence as well as ill-luck to some inanimate objects — in its last agonies it bit me severely in the leg. I have never been ' hot upon bicycles' since then. Mr. Buskin has been complaining that ' one of the increasing discomforts of his old age' is his not being allowed by 'the novelists to stay long enough with the people he likes ; that the history of all the interest- ing persons concludes with marriage. This is surely not quite accurate ; for have we not seen Rowena after she became Lady Ivanhoe, and did not that popular favorite the ' Widow Barnaby,' reappear in fiction as c The Widow Married ' ? Of course, however, there is a foundation for the statement ; it may be also true that 'the varied energies and expanding peace of wedded life would be better subjects of interest than the narrow aims, vain distresses and passing joys of youth ' ; but in this case novels must be in two parts or in six volumes ; and the hero and heroine would have to be changed, as completely as at the end of the panto- mime, when the harlequinade begins. We may be in- terested in ' The Belle of the Ball,' but how could our interest be transferred to 4 Mrs. Something Rodgers ' ? NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 61 We may be charmed with the bride ; but is our ad- miration to endure when she becomes a mother-in-law? We may weep with the governess ; but how shall we sympathize with her when she sets up a school on her own account? These ladies have lost, not, of course, their virtues, but their attractions. Their characters have become not only different, but opposite. Our feelings towards them would not only have to be changed, but to be reversed. Volumes 4, 5, and 6 would appeal to quite another set of readers. It is quite possible that a novel which has nobody under middle age in it might be full of c varied energies and expanding peace ' ; but who would inquire for it at the circulating libraries? When a lady becomes — how shall I express it ? Let me borrow aline from the poet, that hints at female married maturity : ' We hope she is happy : we know she is fat.' Well, after that age, she rarely reads novels ; nor would men read novels con- cerning her. It is dreadful to anybody — and must be more so to Mr. Ruskin — to think of the laws of supply and demand having anything to do with literature ; but I am afraid they have something to do with 4 his never being allowed to stay long enough with the people he likes' in fiction. It was suggested by a naval reformer that the ter- centenary of the defeat of the Spanish Armada would be a good one for re-christening our war-ships by names with ' historic memories,' and doing away with those vulgar little 4 Bouncers ' and i Grippers ' and 1 Spankers ' that disfigure our list of gun-boats. This reformer can never have gone to sea. A sailor sticks to his ship, and to the name of it, as he sticks to his 62 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.'' guns. Who that lias read Scott— not Sir Walter, but the other — can forget how ' the Torches ' and ' the Firebrands' and 'the Midges' identified themselves with their gallant barques ? To those who have sailed in them they will never smell as sweet under any other name. And, after all, what does it matter? The only instance where a crew has suffered from nomenclature was in the case of the two ships that missed finding Sir John Franklin, the failure of which expedition was always attributed to 4 those on the Discovery not being on the Alert.' There can be no harm, and there is some appropriateness, in calling gun-boats 4 Wasps ' and * Spitfires.' Historic titles are often connected with the classics, and give persons of culture great pain through their mispronunciation by mariners. Polycrates was very fortunate till he became a figure- head, when he changed his sex and was made to rhyme with 'mates'; the tresses of Ariadne, when she went to sea, were always dwelt upon, thanks to an un- necessary aspirate, as though she had no other charms; and everybody knows what a sea-change happened to the Bellerophon. If what one reads, or even a part of it, is true re- specting the Whistling Lady, we are likely to hear more about bird music — which she has studied so carefully — than we have hitherto known ; her imitations of the feathered songsters will have a much more general in- terest than her accomplishments in other ways, just as the Herr Yon Joel of our boyhood (at Evans's) was infinitely more popular than the operatic performers who trilled and quavered under the same roof. Was it mere curiosity and the strangeness of the thing, I NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 63 wonder, that made us so rapturous over our devilled kidneys and champagne, at his rendering of the thrush and the nightingale ; or was it the touch of nature, the thought of the sylvan scenes his harmony conjured up, and in which we had once been virtuous ? There was nothing of unreality in his imitations, for birds are more imitative than man himself. Even the skylark, after it has learned the parent note, will catch the note of any other bird in its vicinity ; for which reason bird- fanciers place the caged bird near another skylark that has not long been caught, to keep it, as they term it, * honest.' The difference of the notes and passages executed by birds of this kind, though delicate, is very marked. The Kentish goldfinch and the Essex chaf- finch are held superior to all others, and the Surrey nightingales are more highly thought of (however the London newspaper may sneer at the provincial press) than those of Middlesex. Perhaps it is their provincial accent itself which is so pleasant. i The nightingale,' says Mr. Barrington, ' has sixteen differ- ent beginnings and closes,' with many intermediate notes, while other birds have not above four or five changes. 4 It continues its song for not less than twenty seconds, and whenever respiration becomes necessary it is taken with as much judgment as by an opera singer.' Little is really known of nightingales, though they are such popular favorites. It is gener- ally supposed that they are untamable. Yet a near relative of my own, who in her old age gave herself up to their society, became so popular in it that I have seen half a dozen of them flying round her head like pigeons, and taking from her very lips the dainty seeds she had placed there for their delectation. Few 64 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' persons are aware that the canary is not an original singer, but borrows its notes from the tit-lark and the nightingale. The chief breeding-place for canaries used to be Innspruck, whence every year four Tyro- lese imported about 1,500 of them into England, 4 Though they carried them on their backs a thousand miles,' says Barrington, ' as well as paid a duty of £20 on the whole number, they made a handsome profit by selling them at five shillings apiece.' Now that we have a lady who has given so much attention to birds, and also possesses the art of imitating them we shall look for a popular entertainment indeed. I hope she will give us their action and movement, which are always graceful and characteristic, as well as their song. The strut of the peacock, and the sudden and fanlike expansion of his tail, would be perhaps a little too farcical (the same remark will certainly, apply to the water wagtail) ; but the ' going ' of most birds is the very poetry of motion. The 4 run ' of the thrush, for example — those half a dozen quick paces he takes with the worm in his eye before he transfers it to his beak — is infinitely more graceful than that with which the ballet-dancer trips on to the stage. The jerks and flirts of birds are ravishing to the lover of nature. There is nothing in humanity more humor- ous than the conduct of the magpie in the exercise of his profession — stealing. Even the rook has great gifts. As I sit here, looking on to the field by the seaside close to a rookery, I see a couple of them — evi- dently husband and wife — who have found a dead crab on the sand. They are in deep mourning, but the sight of it causes them to forget whatever bereave- NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 05 ment they may be suffering from, as they pounce upon this treasure-trove with a hoarse cry of joy. It was injudicious and fatal to secrecy but they really couldn't help it. Half a dozen other rooks wing their way towards them at the glad sound. But the sagacious couple are now on their guard. They turn their backs on the crab, and even hop a few paces away from it ; they talk to one another in ' caws ' of unconcern ; their bright eyes glance to left and right in admiration of the scenery. ' Crab ? Nothing of the kind,' they say, in answer to eager inquiries. ' Upon our word and honor, we were only expressing our satisfaction at the extraordinary beauty of the ' Here they break off, for the crab has been seen by another rook, and hop back to it with incredible speed. Nothing is left for them but to gobble it up as quickly as possible, so that nothing may be left for the others. Action ! passion ! There is nothing wanting (except more crab) to complete the felicity of their movements. It is as good as a play, and better than the nigger minstrels ! I am in the country, which must excuse my ' Notes ' dealing with bird-notes. Let me speak for a moment of that familiar — sometimes a little too familiar — bird, the parrot. I don't think much of his whistle. Our whistling lady will probably beat him at that ; but, on the other hand he gives his own imitations of humanity, which may rival her efforts to portray his feathered friends. There was of late advertised a par- rot who could make original observations — not mere slavish ' copy,' but the most apt remarks. A parrot- fancier answered this advertisement, and the advertiser brought his bird. He was not beautiful, and he did not 66 NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: look accomplished. He no sooner opened his mouth, however, than his genius discovered itself. ' Suppos- ing that this bird is all that you say of it,' inquired the possible purchaser, ' what do you want for it? ' ' Fifty pounds,' said the dealer. 4 Make it guineas ! ' exclaimed the parrot. The enraptured bird-fancier bought him at once. Weeks rolled on, and the bird never said another word. Not even that solitary sentence, ' Make it guineas,' which the purchaser naturally thought he had learned by rote — as was the case with that world- famous bird that cried, i What a precious lot of parrots ! ' (on finding himself in a bird show), and for evermore held his peace. He sent for the dealer, and thus frankly addressed him : 4 Of course, I have been taken in. This infernal bird is dumb ; can't even say, " What's o'clock" or "Pretty Poll." ' 'He only professes to make original observations,' put in the dealer. k Non- sense ! he does nothing but scratch himself. You have got your money ; at least, tell me how he contrived to say "Make it guineas," at so appropriate a moment. I'll forgive you, if you'll only tell me the truth.' ' Very good, sir. Then, he didn't say it at all ; 1 said it for him. I'm a ventriloquist. My parrots all make orig- inal observations, but only in my presence.' Then the parrot-fancier shook hands with the dealer, and gave him a list of other parrot-fanciers (his personal friends), who also in due time were taken in, which, of course, was very soothing. I wish some one would have the patience (for I confess I am dreadfully stupid about it) to explain to me the details — the ins and outs — of the great leg- before- wicket question. I am all for the leg be- NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 67 fore the wicket. I would rather wear defensive armor of the most cumbrous kind, and be put out fifty- times (and I am very easily ' put out ') than get a blow on the shin ; but I have an idea that this partisanship is without knowledge. There is more than meets the eye, or, at all events, my eye, in the controversy. What I object to is the pretence which other people make of understanding it who are as ignorant as my- self. The familiarity with which the point in dispute is treated by editors of newspapers, for example, is positively indecent. What can they know about it? If the game were 4 Nurr and Spell,' they might be ac- quainted with the latter part of it, but their cricket I should fancy is mostly 4 on the hearth.' Yet to hear them talk — or rather read what they write — one would think their round of life had been ' the Oval.' I ex- tract from one of their leading articles as follows : I That bowlers may change ends as often as they please (provided that no one bowls two overs in succession) is a change as needful as wise.' 'Overs' is here obvi- ously a clerical error for ' over.' It is clearly high time that something should be done when a man has bowled two over ; in my opinion, one such accident is enough. And what does it mean by ' changing ends ' ? Are they Skye terriers, so that it doesn't matter which way you look at them ? As the scribe goes on he becomes still more mysterious. ; Bowlers often change ends when they are not doing well. Jones taking Brown's end, and Brown taking Jones's.' I have often heard j Jones say, ' I wish I had Brown s headpiece,' and vice- versa ; but I had always thought it a mere complimen- tary expression, incapable of being practically carried out. I say nothing about ' the determination of the 68 NOTES FROM THE l NEWSS counties to begin at eleven o'clock,' because I can make neither head nor tail of it. The limits of counties I always understood were settled by land measure. The moral question is, however, made a little more intelligi- ble. My leading-article-writer says he has 4 no sym- paty with scientific legging.' I hope not, indeed, though there is much too much of it about. We are a good deal humbugged, I fancy, by the men of science. I don't go so far as Hampden, junior, who asserts that the earth is as flat as a flounder, and that the astrono- mers know it ; but I have always had a suspicion that it is not quite so round as some people would have us believe. If one dips into any report of scientific ' pro- ceedings,' it is quite frightful to see how men with half the alphabet after their names will use the whole of it in applying unpleasant adjectives, suggesting men- dacity, to one another. I wish to part good friends with my scribe — for, after all, he is not the only person who writes with confidence about matters other than cricket- balls which are not at his finger-ends — and am happy to agree with his concluding remarks: 4 If with any part of his body a man wilfully stops a ball, which would have otherwise hit the wicket, it should be pro- nounced unfair.' Well, of course, it would be unfair to any part of the body, and the tenderer it was, the worse; but 'unfair' seems hardly the word. To one who has watched the velocity of a cricket-ball, and felt its hardness, it seems incredible that anybody should be fool enough to try it. If the bat can't stop the ball, try youv hat; but, at all events, not your leg before wicket. There is another little thing I should like to have some information about — sham battles, These, I am NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 69 told, are of the greatest use to the country ; but as they are at present described they are not of the slight- est use to me. There have been as many columns in the newspapers about the late Easter manoeuvres as in the Volunteer forces engaged in them ; but they give me no information whatever. It is not that they have no interest for me, for I admire and respect our Volun- teers beyond measure. They are the only body of men, except jurors and witnesses, who give the State their services almost gratuitously, and, like them, they are most scurvily treated by it. Talk of martyrs ! If mar- tyrs get no money, they get a great deal of credit (and perhaps eventually a canonry) ; but here are men getting up on their March mornings by gaslight, travelling hundreds of miles by rail, standing anything but ' at ease,' in snow and mud for hours, repelling the assaults of an invisible enemy with blank cartridges till dusk ; and not only not being paid for it, but losing their day's work — perhaps to be told after all's done, by somebody who gets £10,000 a year for looking on, that they were c a little unsteady' in marching past him. It is surely reasonable that the efforts of these patriotic persons should be made intelligible to their admirers. How can one understand a game the object of which is never explained to one, even when it is over? 'The authori- ties,' no doubt, know all about it ; but in that case they are bound to secrecy, for they keep the matter most inviolably to themselves. There have been great generals who (after retirement with a pension) have confessed that the issue of all engagements depends on luck. In that case, it would be much better before battle to toss up, when the whole thing (unless one lost the coin) wouldn't cost a halfpenny. But if there 70 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.* is anything in the game of war, it is surely explicable. It is no use giving us 4 maps of the district,' with little arrows pointing, like mad weathercocks, in all direc- tions, without telling us what they are pointing at. A yacht race is bad enough, where one always confuses the drown-you-for-a-shilling-a-head sailing boat, or the ReVenue cutter, with the competitors, and the one that comes in first, a mile ahead is never the winner (because of tonnage) ; but it is clearness itself compared with a sham battle. It requires the talents of the Mar- chioness, who could pretend so much that she thought orange-peel and water Madeira, to understand it ; or the audacity of a Dick Swiveller to say one does. Everyone knows the lucky prophecy which made the fortune of 4 Zadkiel's Almanac.' In China, it seems, the almanac — published by the Government only — is considered of the utmost importance, as its chief mission is to foretell what times and places will be lucky for performing all the acts of everyday life. We are told that the new Chinese Minister to Germany refused to sail on a day declared by this veracious publication to be unlucky, and that the departure of the German mail-steamer was delayed in consequence. I wonder whether any stroke of good fortune, such as happened to Zadkiel, was the original cause of this ? As a rule, our English prophets — except those numerous ones who affirm ' they always told us so ' after the event — have not been great successes. The luckiest one was an Irish poet, scourged by Pope, called De la Cour. He had an idea that, like Socrates, he was attended by a demon, who enabled him to foresee future events. During our siege of Havannah he predicted very confi- MOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 71 dently at the end of June that it would be taken on August 14, which turned out to be the very day of its surrender. This established his reputation, and he went on prophesying for the remainder of his days, and was never right again. It is sad enough to hear of any lady the ' mistress of five languages,' and who has maintained herself most respectably as a day governess for a long life, dying at last friendless and deserted, and so penniless as to be 4 buried by the parish ; ' but how much more shocking it seems — from the sense of contrast it awakens — when we read, 4 she was the daughter of Theodore Hook ! ' It is true it is nearly fifty years since he who set the table in a roar at so many a rich man's feast ended his days on earth ; but he left a legacy of fun behind him, if of nothing else. Did none of those whose dainty ears he had tickled give a thought to those who belonged to him, I wonder ; or only a thought ? 4 Put not thy confidence in princes ' is a text that has a special appli- cation to him who lays himself out to amuse them. It was on one of this class that Moore wrote those terrible lines : How proud they can press to the funeral array Of one whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow ! How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow ! But when the man is dead there seems a still lower depth of callousness and ingratitude in not providing for the wants of those belonging to him, for whom the mere crumbs from the rich men's tables would have sufficed. Hook would not have been to my taste, but be was to theirs ; except, perhaps, Douglas Jerrold, no 72 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' man had ever so ready a wit; even Sydney Smith, we are told, shrank from a contest with it ; and it was almost always employed in their entertainment. ' Ser- vice," it is written, ' is no inheritance,' and, least of all, this sort of 4 dinner service ' ; the obligation which 4 the cordial and soul-giving beam ' of the wit confers upon his patrons is the one of all others that is never repaid. To be the head of our profession is an aspiration for everybody, but which can only be realized by one. From the existence of this little difficulty it happens that ambitious, but only moderately -gifted persons, often go into out-of-the-way lines of business, in which there are but few competitors, and become chief of this and that particular calling with comparative ease. Dando, the great oyster-eater, was an example of this class. Up to his time people had contented themselves with eating as many dozens as they wanted to eat ; but he introduced the principle of competition, and became the Champion Oyster-Eater. America boasts of many such champions. Mr. Hannibal Chollop, of the thriving city of Eden, could create 'perfect circles' around himself with tobacco-juice, and in that vocation acquired an undisputed supremacy. The latest honors accorded to exceptional talent have been paid to a young lady of Utica, U. S., for gum-chewing. The word may appear slightly tautological, but the art is a recognized one, and pre-eminence in it lies in chewing spruce gum — the chunk in the mouth to be never less than the size of a thimble, and the same to be chewed at least once every two seconds — for a greater number of hours than anybody else can stick to it. In the case in question, there were four competitors only, all ladies. NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 73 * Time was called at 8 A. M.,' when these Graces (and one over) commenced their task. Each was carefully watched, but allowed a special helper, whose mission it was to rub her jaws with brandy, administer warm water to soften the gum, and supply fresh chunks. At dinner-time, the gum was held on one side of the mouth, and the food masticated with the other. At noon, toothache prostrated Number One ; at four o'clock, Number Two; and at six, we are told, Number Three, i with her cheeks wrapped in red flannel, was chewing as though each tooth were an egg-shell.' 4 Inspiring airs were played on the piano ; ' but at ten o'clock she owned herself vanquished, and Number Four, after a contest of fourteen hours and ten minutes, pocketed twenty dollars, and was declared the Cham- pion Gum-Chewer of the World. Of all the criminals to whom the sensational novelist owes his being (or, at all events, his being so popular), the gentleman who lives on ; black-mail ' is the one to whom he is most indebted. This personage may not possess the audacity of the Murderer of the story (I mean the real murderer, not the novelist), the personal attractions of the Wicked Woman, or the superhuman intelligence of the Police Detective ; while I need not say, he is utterly destitute of the nobility of the Hero, the ethereal mildness of the Heroine, or the angelic disposition of the Rightful Heir, cut off, in early boy- hood, by a marble (thrust down his throat by the W.W., but supposed to have been swallowed accident- ally). But without him all these various personages would often have no raison d'etre whatever, and might just as well have never been born. It is the Black- 74 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: mailer who discovers the first false step, awakens sus- picion and remorse, and dogs the heels of crime (though with far from disinterested motives) from first to last. His thread in the web of fiction is a most important one, and leads unerringly to the catastrophe. I don't know what those eminent writers who have that secret of curdling human blood, which gives them their own fine circulation, would do without him ; and yet, with an ingratitude that does them little credit, they have utterly neglected his idiosyncrasies, and shown no appreciation of his character. I have never seen so much as an essay on 4 Black-mailing,' or heard a ser- mon directed against this exceedingly popular offence. It is to the stories of real life, as told in our Courts of Justice, that we are indebted for what information we possess upon the subject, and very curious it is. -_ case nas just occurred of two young gentlemen, aged respectively but sixteen and nineteen, who are alleged to have taken up with this profession, and to a certain extent admitted the soft impeachment — though it was a pretty long one. Their defence seems to be that ' the prosecutor never complained of their coming to him for money.' They may be innocent as the new- fallen snow, or even snow that has not ' fallen,' and I hope they are ; I quote only the prosecutor's story, a youth of as tender years as themselves, though at present languishing in chains for stealing from his employer's till. He not only stole, which was a crime, but boasted of it, which is a blunder indeed; and from that moment became the prey of his two confidants. 4 You haven't got two half-crowns about you ? ' was their first remark ; then every other day or so, ' Have NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 75 you five shillings ? ' i Have you a pound ? ' 4 Have you five pounds ? ' — a rate of increase one had supposed to be the peculiar property of geometrical progression. 4 Because if you haven't,' they always added, 'we must knock '—an elliptical expression for knocking at his employer's door, which I suppose was handy. Hence- forth, according to the prosecutor's statement (who may be a novelist himself for all I know, and invented it all), he went to the till, as naturally as to his own house, though no longer with a selfish motive, but only to oblige his friends. What is interesting in the matter is the amazing greed and reckless importunity of these (alleged) black-mailers. There is no other crime to be compared with this for voracity. The drunkard who (if we are to believe our teetotal friends), begins with a glass of alcoholic liquor on Sunday, and takes his quart of gin without winking on Saturday night, goes slowly down the hill in comparison with the black- mailer. He doesn't know how to wait — as the Prince Regent, according to the Duke of Wellington, knew how to be a gentleman — even for ten minutes. Supply creates demand with a precipitation beyond the teach- ings of Political- Economy. Upon the whole (though it doesn't look like it), this is a benevolent provision of nature. The poor wretch yields up his guilty secrets, the goose lays her last golden egg^ and makes a clean breast of it — all the sooner. There are many persons better qualified than myself to speak of the attainments of Matthew Arnold, but I know something of the impression they produced on the world at large. If not, like Shelley, a poet's poet, he was the poet of the cultured classes ; and his prose 76 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 appeals, though less exclusively, to a public of excep- tional intelligence. The ear of the people he had not, nor, perhaps, sought to have ; but this by no means detracted from his fame, and, indeed, in a manner heightened it. The general estimation in which his works are held is very similar to that of some long- established and ancient author, without whom no gentleman's library can be pronounced complete, who is read by a comparative few, but those few readers of the highest class. Lord Beaconsfield once said to him, 4 You are the only writer I ever knew, Mr. Arnold, who has become a classic in his lifetime.' And he never made a more sagacious remark. It pleased the object of his eulogy exceedingly, and very frankly he was wont to confess it. It has been often said of Matthew Arnold, that he had a great deal of vanity ; but, if so, it was the only superficial thing about him ; it was but skin-deep, and, like a woman's blush, became him exceedingly. There was no sort of pretence about it, and a great deal of pleasantness. The first time I saw him, now forty years ago, was at Harriet Martineau's, close to his own home at the Lakes, and when he was ' disgustingly young and hand- some,' as old Crabbe Robinson said of him. I had been reading his ' Strayed Reveller,' which had then just been published, and was full of youthful admiration of it; but there was something more attractive in the man to me than even in the poet. He had a gentle, affectionate way with him, which he never lost — a genial naturalness contrasting strangely with the arti- ficiality and fastidiousness of his ' views ' ; and it will embalm his memory with all who knew him. He was kind, as I have cause to know, even to the Philistine. NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 77 The times in which we live have been described as an age of incredulity ; we are accused of believing in nothing, but least of all in the fidelity of the female and in the comfort and consolation of the marriage tie. It has been cynically stated that if a general release from the matrimonial bond could be obtained to-day, there would be no more married couples to-morrow than there would be meli in a club after a ballot had been held for the exclusion or retention of its mem- bers ; and that none of the Emancipated would marry again. For my part, I believe this to be a monstrous libel, utterly without foundation ; and it is pleasant to find this healthy view corroborated by an instance from real life, though culled from a police-court. In South wark lived a young married couple of the name of Lang, between whom existed what is called in higher circles ' an incompatibility of temper ' ; instead of 'saying things ' at one another, it is probable that they threw things. Lang had a chivalrous friend, one Dawson, who pitied Mrs. L. and resented her husband's treat- ment of her. Instead of being angry at this, as many a better-born man would have been, L. took a prac- tical view of the matter. ' Since you are so precious fond of my Rosina,' he said, 'you'd better take her. If you'll give me forty shillings I'll burn my marriage certificate, and then, of course, you can marry her yourself.' And the little matter was so arranged accordingly. It was faulty in law, but the parties con- cerned were simple people. If you burn a will, the whole transaction becomes invalid ; and the same thing happens, they doubtless thought, if you burn a marriage certificate. Now comes the idyll. Mr. and Mrs. Daw- son were perfectly 4 compatible ' in temper, and would 78 NOTES FBOM THE 'NEWS: have ' lived happy ever afterwards,' like any prince or princess in a fairy tale ; it was seldom that a marriage, certainly de conveyance, had turned out to be such a union of the affections. ' George and I are as happy as the day is long,' said Rosina, when she stood in tears before the Magistrate. Her demeanor, indeed, is described by the reporter as a ' most affecting sight.' Lang had discovered that there was something amiss in the transfer, and wanted ten pounds from Dawson to make it right. Rosina said : ' Don't give it him ; I'm not worth it.' So they all three went together to the police-station, to get, as it were, 'counsel's opinion.' The result — as often happens when you do get it — was deplorable. Lang, it is true, was found to have com- mitted bigamy, after getting rid, as he then thought, of Rosina (another proof, by-the-way, that even after an experience of matrimony, it still has its attractions) ; but poor Rosina and her beloved object found them- selves accused of the same offence. ' It seems very hard,' said Dawson, as he well might. He had paid fortyi shillings for his wife ; and all the forms of law, so far as he knew, had been complied with. In France (he might have added) it is universally believed that Englishmen may and do sell their wives — but it is probable this last reflection was spared him. The death of the actor Frederic Baker on the stage at Melbourne has made a great sensation in that city. The fact that he was playing the part of Mephis- topheles in 'Faust' no doubt heightened the melo- dramatic effect of it on the beholders, and it was also probably the first time a similar catastrophe has taken place in Australia. Death on the stage, however, is a NOTES FROM THE l NEWSS 79 not very uncommon occurrence, and when we consider the highly-wrought condition of an actor's nerves, and the exciting nature of his occupation, it seems strange that it should not be more frequent. How many of us, who pursue other callings, are told by the doctor that 4 all violent emotion and exercise should be avoided,' and that getting into a passion, or running ' to catch a train,' are equally deleterious ! And what are these excitements compared with the feelings of an actor who identifies himself with his part? The curious coincidences, as they are called, in the fitness of the words of the drama spoken by the dying man, are merely instances of cause and effect ; their peculiar appropriateness to his situation no doubt brings to a head, as it were, the catastrophe that was impend- ing, and which would have happened in any case. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why, in so many instances, the fatal seizure should take place at so apt a moment. The best-known case is that of John Palmer, who died in 1798, at Liverpool, while perform- ing as 4 The Stranger,' and in the very act of saying, 8 There is another and a better world.' In this instance there were predisposing causes, for on that very day the actor had received the news of the death of his favorite son. Mr. Bond, an amateur, met the same sudden fate as Lusignan in Voltaire's c Zara ' : his (scenic) emotion at the discovery of his daughter is described as ' excessive ' and 4 prodigious,' and the house • rang with applause,' we are told, at the faint- ing-fit from which he never recovered. Mr. Paterson, at Norwich, as the Duke in 4 Measure for Measure,' expired in the act of saying : 80 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' Reason thus with life, — If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep. And at Leeds in 1817, Mr. Cumming, in ' Jane Shore,' fell dead upon the stage just after he had pronounced the benediction : Be witness for me, ye celestial hosts, Such mercy and such pardon as my soul Accords to thee, and begs of Heaven to show thee ; May such befall me at my latest hour. What seems curious in this last case, and sheds some light upon a recent controversy, the actor had played Dumont for half a century, and yet, as it would appear, still experienced the emotions proper to the part in only too great intensity. A newspaper has been falling foul of a platform orator for applying an old joke to a modern circum- stance, without acknowledgment. ' Better late than never,' is a proverb, I suppose, as applicable to the censure of plagiarism as to anything else ; but that the journalist should feign astonishment at the offence, as though he had discovered a new crime, was surely superfluous. I seldom read political orations, but when my eye glances over them and is attracted by the interpolation, ' Laughter,' I am pretty sure of meeting with an acquaintance of some standing. Poli- ticians may not be so roguish as their opponents make them out to be, but they steal jokes by wholesale, and, though they sometimes spoil them, have not the time, I suppose, to destroy their identity. Of course there are a few orators of original wit, but, in front of most platforms, one could stand, as Piron did before the NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 81 dramatic plagiarist, and take off one's hat twenty times to an old friend. What I admire most is the courage with which they relate an anecdote i curiously apposite,' they venture to think, 4 to the occasion,' as having happened to themselves personally, which in that case must have done so a century and a half ago. That the story gives so much satisfaction to their adherents arises, perhaps, from the proof it affords of the robustness of their idol's constitution; for even the people that delight in being c speechified ' can hardly fail to recognize its hoar antiquity. If they read anything but ' election intelligence,' they must have seen it somewhere. It is not only the platform, however, which plagiarizes ; the pulpit is almost as bad, and especially in the article of jokes ; and it is very hard, considering how light literature is looked down upon from both those eminences, how heavily they lay it under contribution. In last week's report of the great guns of politics and divinity, I note no less than five instances where, to say the least of it, they were not using their own thunder. Of course, literary people are often plagiarists ; but their sin is pretty certain to find them out, or to be found out for them ; whereas our orators and divines owe their most attractive features — their fireworks — to sources they do not condescend to indicate. I once ventured to point out to one who had made a very telling speech (not on my side) in the provinces, that three of his anecdotes could only have been said to be his own (and, indeed, one of them was mine) in the same sense that Shakespeare has been said to 4 convey ' things — by divine right of genius. He answered me in a manner which gave me a much higher notion of his wits (and 6 82 NOTES FROM THE 91 there are crimes committed amongst us worse than murder, and more deserving of being punished with death ; and surely the deliberate torture of little chil- dren (often too, by their own flesh and blood !) is one of them. There are many evil things done in the far West of America, but not these things ; Judge Lynch sees to it. With all our boasted culture and civilization we might well take a lesson from the most homely people in this matter. In Finland — so far back even as sixty years ago — cruelty of this fiendish kind was nipped in the bud. It was held, and rightly held, to be a crime not only against the individual but the State ; and it was not allowed to grow. If a boy tor- tured an animal it was concluded that he would become a dangerous citizen, and he was therefore made a public criminal. 4 In Abo,' we read, 'a dog that had been run over by some vehicle crawled into a doorway, where the boy of the house first stoned and afterwards poured boiling water over the poor animal.' ( l Hor- rible ! ' exclaims the gentle reader, with a shudder. Read the report above mentioned, my fastidious friend, and see what is done next door to you — but not to dogs !) A magistrate heard of it, and told his fellows. The lad, fifteen years of age, was brought before them, and thus addressed : ' Inhuman young man ! because you added to the torments of the poor animal that im- plored your aid by its cries, and who derived its being from the same God as yourself, the Council of the City sentences you to wear on your breast the name that you deserve, and to receive fifty stripes.' After he had had twenty-five of them the magistrate continued his lecture : 4 You have now felt a very small degree of the pain you inflicted on a helpless animal in its hour of 92 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: . death. As you wish for mercy from that God who ere- ated all that live, learn humanity for the future.' Then he got the other twenty-five. The lash, I am glad to see, is going to be used in punishment for these fiendish crimes ; and why not the placard also ? There is always, unhappily, a doubt as to how our matrimonial ventures will turn out. There can be no trial-race for the Marriage Stakes. If not actually in the dark about it, the prospect is misty. Still, how- ever applicable in the way of metaphor, it is scarcely a nice thing to do to celebrate a wedding by fog-signals. This has just been done, on the Great Western Rail- way, with the result that a team of cart-horses close to the line were frightened out of their wits, ran away, and killed the wagoner. At the inquest, the jury ' requested * that the railway company should be in- formed that fog-signals ought not to be used for wed- ding purposes.' A very proper presentment, too ! But conceive the state of mind of any company that thought they ought to be ! It may be said it had no other means — short of a collision — to express its delight on the happy occasion. This reminds me of the tribute of admiration paid to a justly popular English astron- omer by an agricultural State in America. ' We have no academical distinction to offer you,' said the chair- man of the board of reception ; ' but we have done our best. We have named our trotting-pony after you, sir.' The course taken by those who write of our illus- trious dead is invariable, but to the student of human nature not the less remarkable on that account. An ex- NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 93 ample of it has just happened, to which it is not neces- sary to allude, but which draws one's attention to the fact. First, then, when a great man is lost to us there is a salute, varying, according to the fame of the deceased, from twenty-one to a hundred and one guns. The laudation is excessive, and fills the air; no whis- per of detraction can be heard in it ; the atmosphere is thick with praise. One would think that no man had ever left his fellow creatures whom they had (though some of them hitherto in secret ) so much admired as that man. The gaiety of the nation is hushed. Then there is a silence ; then a dropping fire of eulogy. Gentlemen who have known the departed, and are not unwilling that their acquaintance with so illustrious a personage should be generally understood, lay their individual wreaths upon his tomb. This aggravates their friends, who did not know him so well, or know him at all, excessively, and instead of attacking these later eulogists they attack him — a most illogical, and, as I venture to think, a very unchivalrous proceed- ing. If they have really cause for censure, why have they not had the courage to mention it before? It cannot be from delicacy of feeling, for the grass has not even yet grown over his grave^ Why, then, do they wait ? Because it is not till the paean of praise has rolled away that the penny trumpet of detraction can gain a hearing ; and it is curious how often the lesser sound outlives the greater. It should be some solace to poor people to reflect on the discomforts rich ones often put themselves to in the pursuit of what they call their pleasures. As we retire to our lowly beds, at our usual modest hour, it 94 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 is not unsatisfactory to dwell upon the fact that the sons and daughters of Fashion are about to begin the labors of the night ; to perspire in crowded rooms, to jostle one another on staircases, to partake standing* as at a City lunch, of very necessary refreshment, and often to emerge from one sparkling throng only to go through the same ordeal in another. Above all, as we smoke our pipe after our simple meal, how it delights the soul to picture the formal dinner-party descending two by two into the ark of boredom, not to be emancipated therefrom till the waters of small talk, two hours and a half hence, abate ! In dining, provided they have had the wherewithal to dine at all, the poor have always had their advantage. In the days of Rome they sat on benches (like Christians) ' while the upper ten ' poised themselves on one elbow on beds of silver, and at the shrine of fashion sacrificed both comfort and digestion. It is only people that go to picnics, with- out the precaution of taking campstools with them, that have any notion of what Heliogabalus and Pom- pey, and the Roman aristocracy generally, suffered at their dinner-parties. Economy, indeed, was not wholly neglected ; for if you omitted to remove your sandals, the lady of the house would remark, rather sharply (though of course in Latin), ' I say, be so good as to remember my cushions,' or even give a still broader hint by the production of a pair of her husband's slip- pers. I suppose not even Fashion will ever again per- suade us to eat lying down ; but it is always devising some new discomfort or another. The last comes from the Land of the Free. We are told that at very dis- tinguished tables in America the wretched men have to rise at every course, and take their places by the side NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 95 of a new enslaver. Conceive, after having got on tolerably good conversational terms with one's fair neighbor — done with the weather, and waded half through the theatres and the picture galleries — having to begin all over again with a fresh one ! No ; not a fresh one — with a poor damsel who has just suffered the same wrongs at the hands of somebody else ! This method of entertainment, which seems in a measure to combine dancing (the ; Lancers ') and dining, is pro- nounced by the social journals to be 'agreeable and unique.' But the more unique, I should imagine, the more agreeable. In the Century for May there is an interesting article upon ' The Chances of Being Hit in Battle,' culled from the records of the great war between North and South. Upon the whole, the result is encouraging to warriors. We know what Falstaff's views were upon the subject. He thought the bet- ter part of valor was discretion, but was much too sagacious to run away. It may be said that he was too fat to run, but I am sure that he was also too wise. The danger of running away from battle is extreme; a course only to be recommended if total defeat is cer- tain beforehand. A case of the latter kind is recorded (but not in the histories) in our Indian annals. A certain lieutenant, in command of a small company, who had been already wounded in the leg in a pre- vious engagement, found himself face to face with an immensely superior force of the enemy. 4 My men,' he said, i your bravery is well known to me ; I foresee you will go at these fellows with the greatest pluck, though they are ten to one. I also foresee that you 96 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' will get a tremendous licking, and have to run for your lives. As I am a little lame, you will excuse me for starting at once.' And off he went. This pru- dence is indeed unusual. Still, nobody wants to be hit. To the majority of combatants a battle is prob- ably less enjoyable in itself than in its retrospection. It is like dining with the King — full of honor and glory, but still a thing to congratulate one's self upon having got over without a hitch ! The general notion is that a large proportion of soldiers in a bloody war are either killed or wounded. A considerable number, indeed, are killed ; many more are wounded ; very many more die of disease of various kinds ; and about the same number that are killed desert at favorable opportunities. ' Nothing is definitely known about them at the time, so the tendency is to consider only the total of casualty, and in time to think of them as all killed or lost.' The Civil War in America was a very sanguinary one ; even the horsemen suffered ter- ribly, in spite of General Hooker's inquiry, ' Who ever saw a dead cavalryman ? ' The total of ; killed ' on the Union side was no less than 110,070 men out of 2,200,000, or five per cent. — 4 a greater percentage than that of the Crimean or Franco-German wars.' Some regiments had frightful losses. In the First Maine Artillery 423 men were killed, or died of wounds, out of 2,202 men enrolled — an average of twenty per cent. ! The Confederates, though their casualty-list is not so trustworthy, seem to have suffered even more. The 26th South Carolina Regi- ment, who went into action at Gettysburg 800 strong, had 86 killed and 512 wounded. Still, no regiment was ever ' cut to pieces,' or ' utterly annihilated,' as NOTES FBOM THE 'NEWS.' 97 the historians phrase it. The general average, as has been said of ' killed ' was but five per cent. ; and of wounded — i.e., 'hit,' perhaps twenty per cent. A father who wishes the days of his soldier son to be long in the land, might give him a few words of good advice — 'Never run away; it is not only disgraceful, but dangerous. It is a popular error to suppose that the rear is a safe place. Choose the main body. As for the van-guard, a lad of your sense will, of course, avoid that. The Van is only another name for the Ambulance.' The chorister boys in a Western cathedral have been getting into trouble for what in theatrical circles is called 4 gagging ' — singing things that are not in the programme. I have always pitied these poor little fel- lows. The duties that sometimes get to be mechanical with persons much more elevated in the ecclesiastical profession than they are must be more liable to become so in their case. Even choristers are doubtless decorous and respectable now; but Thomas Ingoldsby used to aver that he once heard the white-robed youths at St. Paul's in his time perform the following ' voluntary ' (that is not the right name for it, but it ought to be), with all the rhythmical exactness proper to the words they should have used : 4 Oh, lawk ! here's a precious lark ! The soot has fallen down the chimney and spoilt the Sunday's mutton ! Never mind ! Wipe it dry with a towel, and nobody will find it out.' The worthy Canon was not favorable to young people taking up with what he thought, perhaps, too automatic a pro- fession of religion. In one of his poems he describes indeed, the acolyte tenderly enough ; but what he is 7 98 NOTES FBOM THE 'NEWS. 1 doing is 'swinging his incense and making a smell.' For my part, I have pitied the Chorister every since my Eton days. Boys were then just getting to be respect- able, but it was a long road, and I remember some of us used to give him nuts just before chapel, to spoil his high notes. At a ' scratch ' sale of very ancient furniture a secret drawer with a false bottom has lately been discov- ered, I read, in an old bureau, with a thousand guineas in it, packed tightly edgeways. That is a circumstance which, I think, if it had happened to most people, would not have been communicated by them to the papers. There is a dreadful story told of a person who, wishing to test the honesty of his fellow-creatures, took his place in an omnibus next to the conductor, and after good- naturedly passing the silver of the passengers into his hand, returned them in every case a penny too much. The result of his experience is too painful to describe in detail ; suffice it to say that nobody told him of his error. This was very mean of those 'bus people. They were penny wise; but who envies such wisdom? Be- sides, they were cheating somebody, though it was only a public company (which, of course, makes a great difference). But a thousand guineas, belonging to some- body unknown that had died centuries ago, is a very dif- ferent matter. I could never, I am sure, bring myself to keep them ; for what would be the good of that? I think I should change them — gradually — into current coin, and spend it in doing good. The original owner would, probably, have belonged to the ancient faith ; perhaps one ought to have Masses said for the repose of his soul? On the other hand he might have been a NOTES FBOM THE l NEWS: 99 Lollard. The whole subject of giving things away is surrounded with difficulties. Most of the money, of course, I should spend in charity ; and, if there was a little over, after all, who would grudge it me for all my thought and trouble in the matter ? That is how I think it would work out in my case. What would you do, gentle reader ? It cannot be too often stated that the present tendency of Londoners of moderate means, to rush away alto- gether in the same two months is as foolish as it is un- economical. In June and July the country is quite as delightful as in August and September ; accommoda- tion is much more plentiful, and not nearly so expen- sive ; and there is a much better supply of provisions. It is, moreover, much easier for comparatively humble persons to take their holidays at that earlier period, since their betters prefer the autumn, for their exodus, to the summer. The only reason that is urged against it is that there is ' nobody in town ' when one comes back ; and this circumstance would, of course, be altered if the time of departure and return were spread, as it should be, over a greater space. At all events, families who like one another's society could so arrange matters. The real truth is, no doubt, that — speaking generally — we are very gregarious, and enjoy our pleasures most among a host of our fellow-creatures. ' The average man,' as Matthew Arnold called him, has his attrac- tions to a good many people, and when ' he comes in his thousands ' is irresistible to them. Still, there may be a leaven — and more than eleven — of quiet folk to whom these words of advice may seem worth taking. 100 N TES FROM THE SE H Thz se ns :ve plant has inspired the most beautiful poem tV. : was ever addressed to a flower: otherwise, it has not hitherto been much thought of : but every K — and dc --: se — has its dav. and it is now the turn of the Mimosa pudica for being appreciated. A partic- ular variety of it is being exhibited i:i Vienna which claims be foretell storms ; id earthquakes for forty- eight hours in advance of their occurrence, and this circumstance has natural icted public attention to it. It is very seldom that Botany gets a hearing. A tain professor of my acquaintance, of whom, as of Wheweli. it could have been said that * Science was his forte, and Omniscience his weakness.* once ob- served : ■ I am not a conceited man. but I'm hanged if I don't know everything except botany." He thought it beneath his attention: but:: at the : e plant at le - ery noteworthy. Sir Hans Sloane mentions a variety of it which he calls ■ sensible grass.* on which a i puff of wind from your mouth,* or, in other words, talking to it. • wi'l make an impres- sion.* Man. we are told, is grass, but not ofte:: sc sible as this: you may talk to him for a month without effecting anvthincr of the kind. In Central America the sensitive plant grows to some height, and vrhen approached salutes those who retire under its shade * ; but under the veil of politeness it also plays the eavesdropper, and ■ inclines its leaves to those who converse near it.' This is not the only example of one who is very delicate and impressionable being also redingly mean. A well-informed correspondent of an evening paper cites the case of an S. P. so actually sensitive that 'being carried about for some time in the carriage of a French so. susceptibility NOTK8 FROM THE SEWS: 101 quite destroyed ' ; but that I should think would happen to almost anybody. The Vienna plant would, of course, be most appreciated where earthquakes were ordinary visitations : in such places it would Le invaluable as a * button-hole ' at evening parties. 4 1 am very sorry." one would say to one's hostess, when the entertainment palled, 'but my mimosa (which never deceives me) says •* Earthquake ! " You know how easily shocked my poor mother [or whoever it may be] is by little things of that kind : I must be off home." A gbhtlbmab has been complaining to the papers because a young lady (not his wife) was debarred access to the railway platform from which he was * taking his departure for an indefinite period.' The wicket keeper (usurping the office of the bowler) ■ blocked * her. She appealed to him with tears and tender reproaches — • What ? may I not say one word of farewell to my dear one before he goe< : South America, or perhaps only to Southend. But he merely replied. 4 Show your ticket. Miss.* She had nothing to show except her ob- vious affection for one unknown to him. and that was of no avail. A common scene, no doubt, enough (indeed, as the official might have pleaded in his turn. * If everyone is to be let in as wan: od bye/* what would be the good of our by I . but one which has never been described, that I am aware of, by the poets. The nearest approach to it is to be found in Moore. The Peri in that case. too. is on the wrong side of the wicket, and offers all sorts of ridiculous bribes to be let in ? but the janitor is equally firm, un- e produces (if I remember right) the tear of some 102 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' penitent criminal. The young lady at the railway-sta- tion never thought of this (or, perhaps, had not such a thing in her possession) ; if her own tears failed to move the man, she naturally enough distrusted the effect of anyone else's tears. If had been in her place I should have tried a shilling ; but my mind, as the re- viewers tell me, is prosaic. If she objected, on princi- ple, to bribery, she might for the shilling have bought a railway-ticket to the next station, and got in to her Eden that way. Perhaps the poor maiden did not pos- sess a shilling, in which case I pity her very much. But I confess I don't pity her young man. The pref- erence of our 'Arries for making love in public, on Bank holidays and similar occasions, instead of select- ing some secluded spot, has lately been severely and justly commented upon. And surely the same objec- tion is to be' urged against leave-takings at railway-sta- tions. Why should we exhibit the tenderest emotions of the human heart to the lamp-cleaner, the foot-warmer porter, and the newsboy ? Are there not places more suitable for farewells than the platform ? Is not the refreshment-room available, or, if melancholy surround- ings are essential, is there not the waiting-room? Nay if you insist upon saying 'good-bye ' after leaving home (which I still venture to think is the proper place for it), is there not the four-wheeled cab ? ' Breathe on the windows,' and, as I am assured (for I protest I never tried it), a temporary seclusion is obtained scarcely in- ferior to that afforded by blinds. The poor literary folk are just now, as usual, being held up to public reprobation for their extravagance in expenditure, and for inadequately insuring their lives. NOTES FROM THE 'NEIVS.' 103 There is no more fertile theme for the moralist to ex- patiate upon. 'These writing fellows are surely not so thoughtless,' he says, ' as not to be aware that they must die.' They are quite aware of that, but also, unfortunately, that they are liable to fall ill or grow old, in which case they may have no money to pay their premiums. This is a reflection which does not occur to the moralist, who has generally a good balance at his bankers', but it is one that the author must needs take into consideration. As for extravagance, there is nothing so easy to 'live up to' (as the aesthetic people call it) as a small income, which is what most authors have to make shift with. The gentleman who has been making it his business to inquire into the private affairs of the professors of literature is so shocked at their disinclina- tion to look the future in the face that one cannot help having a suspicion that he is connected with Life Insur- ance by stronger bonds than those of sentiment. He shows not the least desire to pay our premiums. A sermon was once preached in a country village for the benefit of certain farmers who had suffered heavily from incendiary fires. A well-dressed stranger, in answer to an eloquent appeal to his benevolence, dropped into the collection box what the preacher fondly hoped was a check for a large amount. It was, however, only a piece of valuable advice — ' Let them insure as they wish to be saved.' It is needless to add what was his calling. The improvidence of journalists, critics, and reviewers in this matter is, we read, even greater than that of authors. The New York Press Club ' is called upon with increasing frequency to stand the expense of burying impecunious journalists.' The poor are always willing to help the poor ; sometimes 104 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' they are even eager for it. Nothing would give me greater pleasure — I mean, so far as my humble means will admit I shall be always happy to subscribe towards burying a critic. What is it that makes 4 Boards ' so wooden, so des- titute of human feeling ? or do they begin with being wooden and derive their name from their material? The late action of a provincial Burial Board in taking away the glass case of flowers which a poor man had placed upon his daughter's tomb is unintelligible on any other ground ; no man would have done it, nor any body of men that was not a Board. In purchas- ing the grave, it appears that the father did not pur- chase the legal right of putting flowers on it ; yet surely it is the flowers that sanctify the grave? The glass case may not have been very appropriate ; but in these matters the very want of appropriateness is often touching. There is nothing more common in the cemeteries of the poor than to see sea-shells placed upon the graves of those who had never been to sea; they are the only permanent record of piety within the means of the mourners, and are not, after all, more out of keeping with him who rests below than an angel insufficiently clothed, or one of those marble beasts to be bought in the Euston Road, supposed to be symbolic of human virtue. When I was a boy, I used to think it a recreation to wander among the tombs in Kensal Green ; but they are much thicker on the ground than they used to be, and it is difficult to find one's old favorites ; moreover, some who were my companions are lying there, which makes a difference. There used to be a picture of a beautiful child on one of the NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 105 graves with the affecting inscription : ' Is it well with the child? It is well.' (1 wonder what the provin- cial Burial Board would have said to that .?) Got an ' injunction,' perhaps, to remove it.) Some of the epitaphs were, on the other hand, unintentionally humorous. I remember one on the west side of the cemetery, near the entrance, over a Frenchman : ' Suffocated in a London fog.' One poor fellow had no epitaph, nor apparently any surviving friend; his name stood out amid the multitude of sorrowing adjec- tives — 'beloved,' 'respected,' 'deplored,' etc. — with pathetic blankness : ' Captain Somebody, Unattached. y Perhaps the wittiest epitaph ever written (but it is not to be found in Kensal Green) was that composed on the heir of the Due de Penthievre, who died of love for Mademoiselle Mire, the musician ; it was composed of the five musical notes, 'MI, RE, L'A, MI, LA,' which were made a double debt to pay : ' Mire has placed him there.' Alexandre Dumas has just been made Commander of the Legion of Honor for his ' distinction in litera- ture ; ' but he doesn't like Emile Zola being made a Knight of it for a similar reason. In France, it appears, there is some literary jealousy among novel- ists. In England we have nothing of the sort. Sir William Black does not turn up his nose at Sir Walter Besant, nor Sir Richard Blackmore at Sir George Meredith. They enjoy the titles conferred upon them by a grateful country without being envious of one another. It is understood that they have had much higher honors offered to them, but have declined them on the ground that they already 'sit among their 106 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' peers.' It is only lately that men of letters have been 4 decorated ' in France, unless being published in an edition de luxe, with illustrations, can be so considered ; but, even when admission to the Academy was their only reward, they showed their teeth at one another, and — when they were not admitted — at the Academy. Everyone remembers Piron's epitaph, written by him- self : Ci-git Piron, qui ne fut rien Pas-meme Academicien. Much later Vige'e wrote to the Journal des Debats : 4 Sir, — 111, in pain, and feeling my end approach, I have thought it right to make my epitaph in order to spare my friends the trouble, and, above all, the embarrassment, of making it for me. Have the good- ness, I beg, to give it a place in your paper. It is not very poetical, but, if my extreme age has not destroyed my judgment, I think it has, at least, common sense : Here lies a poor poet ; his verses were flat ; And yet he the Institute missed for all that.' From Russia — of all places to hear of ready money ! — comes one those rumors of buried treasure which, if it does not turn the i sluggard's blood to flame,' has power at least to quicken his pulse. To become rich unexpectedly, and on a sudden, is always an excite- ment, but still more so when the wealth comes from some source a very long way off and unconnected with ourselves. A crock full of old gold coins, found in one's back garden, is welcome to everybody, whether they are numismatists or not ; and even the stories of such discoveries have a charm for us all. In this par- NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 107 ticular case the treasure — which, by-the-by, is not found yet — is only three-quarters of a century old, but full of dramatic interest. It is a chest containing £ 34,000 in bullion, which, when its convoy in the Retreat from Moscow was pursued by the Russians, was buried, as certain documents declare, by the roadside near Grodno. A Frenchman, the grandson of the sole survivor — the whole detachment having been cut to pieces but him- self — has found the narrative among the manuscript 4 tales of his grandfather,' and laid it before the Russian Government, who have promised him a third of what he finds. I wish he may get it, and that, if he does, it may not be paid to him in rouble notes. This is the sort of money that is described in the histories as ' blood and treasure ' ; what a lot of it there must be underground, if one did but know where to look for it ! Perhaps the richest and oldest lost treasure in the world, and also the one invested with the greatest interest, is the Urim and Thummim, the sparkling of whose jewels is supposed to have manifested the presence of the Highest — though Josephus tells us that this property became extinct (through the degeneracy of the age) two centuries before his time. Those jewels, as the late Mr. King, the great authority on precious stones, tells us, are absolutely indestructible, and must exist somewhere. No lapse of time can produce any visible effect upon them— indeed, the tablets bearing the title of Thothmes III., the contemporary of Moses, are still in existence, though they are of a far softer material; nor can they shine unrecognized among the State jewels of their captors, for their inscriptions must 108 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWSS needs remain unchanged. We know that the breast- plate described by Josephus was carried to Rome after the destruction of the Holy City by Titus, and, after that, we lose sight of it. There are three stories of the subsequent fate of these jewels: I. That they were sent off: by Genseric to Carthage upon the sack of Rome. II. That the reason why the Franks, in the sixth century, pressed the siege of Narbonne was because this precious 4 loot ' was reported to have been sent thither by Alaric. III. That they were returned by Justinian to the Holy City, where they fell into the hands of Chosroes, the Persian, in 615. When he sacked the city he no doubt ' sacked ' them, and Mr. King's conclusion is that they now lie buried in some unknown Persian treasure-chamber, to have a chance of emerging from oblivion at the hands of some modern explorer. I have no turn for exploration myself, but I should like some enterprising friend to find these jewels, and give them to me, as a token of esteem and regard, upon my birthday (or, indeed, any day), very much. Mr. Frederic Harrison has been bringing his heavy guns to bear from the deck of the Nineteenth Century against the light bark of Fiction. This literary Nero seems never so well pleased as when breaking butterflies upon the wheel. It is, of course, impossible for a poor novelist to return his fire ; but I can tell him a story illustrative of the danger of cultured persons dictating to the unlearned. A man of letters, not un- known to him, came up to London at seventeen years of age, with the usual half-crown in his pocket, and all the proper intentions — ' honorable but remote ' — of NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 109 regenerating his. species. On the second day of his arrival, he passed, in an obscure part of the town, a shop with ' Jones, Tobaconist,' written over it. His literary sense was shocked ; his ardor to set a fellow- creature right — always ready laid, like a housemaid's fire — burnt high within him. 4 It is surely my duty,' he murmured to himself, ' to tell this person that his trade is spelt with two c's.' Tobacco always made him ill (though scarcely more so than to see it printed in this fashion), so that he had no excuse for entering the shop as a purchaser. He entered it in the character of an elevator of the human race, and the instant he had done so, and caught sight of the person to be elevated, he felt that he had made a mistake. The tobacconist, a huge and hairy man, was sitting behind the counter in his shirt sleeves, reading a democratic newspaper and smoking a short black pipe. The modest though intellectual appearance of the literary youth did not impress him favorably ; the sale of a penny Pickwick was probably the best business he looked to do with him (and even that, as we know, was a far too sanguine expectation). He looked carelessly over his newspaper without quitting it with either hand : ' Well, and what do you want, young shaver? ' Here was the beginning to a philological discussion ! The knees of the literary reformer, already 4 loosened with dismay,' fairly knocked together. 4 1 want nothing, my dear sir,' he stammered. 'What?' The proprietor dropped his paper, and glared at him with fury. 4 At least, not for nryself,' murmured the intruder. 4 You'll get something for yourself before you are two minutes older ; what do you mean $ ' 110 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: Nothing in Mr. Collins's ' Ode of the Passions,' my friend tells me, approached the emotions that were here depicted in that tobacconist's face. 4 If you'll only step outside,' observed the literary youth, with the courage of despair, ' and give your attention to the very peculiar way in which the painter — for I am sure it was not your mistake— has spelt the word " tobacconist " over your ' The sentence was never finished. The man of letters assures me, though he cannot tell what exactly happened, that even at this distance of time (more than forty years ago) he has a confused recollection of over- whelming disaster and catastrophe. An earthquake and volcano (I think he must have been pelted among other things with boxes of vesuvians) seemed to have taken place simultaneously. That awful lesson, not to interfere with other people's business, he has never forgotten. Let Mr. Frederic Harrison lay it to heart. Wisdom, though it may die with him, did not begin with him. Others have written upon the same subject, and differed from him upon the propriety of stuffing the human mind like chickens. ' We do not want readers,' says Sydney Smith, ' for the number of readers seems very much on the increase, and mere readers are often the idlest of human beings . . . The ambition of a man of intelligence should not be to know books, but things.' 'The wisest clerks,' says Chaucer, 'are not the wisest men.' 'One had better never see a book,' says Emerson, ' than be warped by its attraction out of one's own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.' Mr. Harrison says it is better to dance with a dairymaid all night than to pass it in reading Mr. Mudie's novels. I see no objection to either one or NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 9 Ill the other amusement; and for my own part, would rather dance with half-a-dozen dairymaids than wade through six volumes of Mr. Auguste Comte. M. Henri De Laserre has bowed to the veto of the Sacred College and desisted from his work of Bowdlerizing the Bible for the Parisian Upper Ten Thousand. A small child of mine, who had observed the popularity of the Scriptures without quite under- standing its cause, once suggested to me that I should 1 write a Bible ' ; but, for my part, I have never even thought of ' adapting the work to our modern social needs.' How men would differ in their mode of treatment if they took up M. de Laserre's unfinished task for him ! How each would leave out the denun- ciation of the sin he was inclined to and retain that of the sin he had no mind to ! In the French translation of the Bible, published in 1538 by command of Charles VIII., there are two interpolations, both in Exodus ; one is curious : ' The dust of the Golden Calf which Moses burnt and ground and strewed upon the water, of which he obliged the children of Israel to drink, soaked into the beards of those of them who had really worshipped it and gilded them, which remained upon them a special mark of their idola- try.' The other is less strange, but of a similar kind ; the reason of their being forced into the text is now inexplicable. In one of Theodore Hook's (or is it Hood's?) stories there is an account of two lovers walking on Margate Cliff, and very nearly over it, through the fair one's want of control of her aspirates. She keeps 112 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' on saying 4 nearer the edge ' when she means, for she is very frightened, ' nearer the hedge,' and what can her true love do but obey her? A similar mistake took place, we may be sure, pretty often in reference to the great auk's egg^ the sale of which for so much money the other day formed a topic of general con- versation. The hawk, and the auk, being both birds, must have led, indeed, to even greater confusion of the cockney tongue. And now there will be more of it, for I read there is another great auk's egg i in the market,' though I can hear nothing of it about Leaden- hall. What is curious about this creature is its compara- tively recent extinction. In 1838, a Danish professor gave warning that in consequence of the raids made upon its breeding haunts, for it was good to eat, and also because the female (one hardly likes to call her 4 a great auk,' it sounds so rude) only laid one egg each season, the species was in danger ; but even he did not look forward to the fact that within five years there would not be a single specimen of it alive. In America, its biographer, Mr. Symington Grieve, of Edinburgh, tells us, more than thirty years have passed since there has been even a report of its exist- ence, and all authenticated manifestations of it have ceased in both hemispheres since 1844. This is, of course, why the great auk's eggs have grown to be so valuable to the collector. There are now but sixty- eight and a half of them in the world (if the remains of the egg broken by the clumsy footman of Lord Garvagh, and very carefully preserved, can be called a half), forty-five of which are in the British Isles. In NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 113 1833 one was bought by a Paris dealer for three francs ; in 1835 one at Leipsic for a guinea, and was sold in 1857 for £7 10s. In 1860 the price was £18. In the same year, according to Mr. Grieve, a curious incident took place, similar to the strokes of luck which sometimes happen to the haunters of bookstalls. A naturalist walking near Boulogne was offered by a fisherwoman some guillemot's eggs, which she said she had at home; he went to her cottage, and found among them a great auk's egg, which he bought for two francs, and sold at Stevens' for £26. In 1865 four were sold in London at an average of £32 apiece. These were from a box found, Professor Newton tells us, in the College of Surgeons, simply ticketed ' Pen- guin's Eggs,' and containing ten of these costly curiosi- ties; but 4 when or how they came into the possession of the college there was no record.* In 1869 the price rose to £64. In 1880, at Dowell's auction-rooms, in Edinburgh, a 4 job lot' of eggs was bought comprising two of the great auk, for £1 12s., which were sold two months afterwards, at Stevens', for £100 and £107, respectively.- It is, therefore, by no means wonderful that the price of these rarities should be now 120 guineas, which, I believe, is the last quotation. There is one great advantage enjoyed by the possessors of these golden eggs — they can never be tempted to kill the bird that lays them. Our actors are being interrogated as to how near to the heel of reality comes the toe of their imitation ; and especially whether their feigned tears are 4 real water,' such as the advertisements of Sadler's Wells used to boast of. Even the boldest of them dare not 8 114 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWSS say what Baron, the great French player, used to aver : that he could change color at pleasure. After his return to the stage, at nearly seventy years of age, he acted Cinna, and it is recorded of him, by credible witnesses, that at the line : Leur fronts palir d'horreur et rougir de colere he turned pale and red, as conformity with the verse required. He affirmed, and doubtless with truth, that 4 the force and play of declamation ' with him was such, that 4 tender and plaintive sounds might be transferred to gay, and even comic, words, and still be productive of tears.' The story is well known how Garrick, in Paris, complimented Preville upon his act- ing the part of a drunken man, except that he didn't make his legs drunk — a nicety of detail which he at once proceeded to exhibit, to the French actor's gener- ous admiration. It is not generally understood that almost all the modern appliances for the safety of a theatrical audience were known, if not put in practice, nearly a hundred years ago. In an epilogue, written by George Colman the younger, to ' The Virgin Unmasked,' Miss Farren (afterwards Countess of Derby) was made to speak as follows at the opening of Drury Lane, in April, 1794 : The very ravages of fire we scout, For we have wherewithal to put it out; In ample reservoirs our firm reliance, Whose streams set conflagrations at defiance. Panic alone avoid; let none begin it: Should the flames spread, sit still: there's nothing in it. We'll undertake to drown you in a minute. NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' U5 Behold, obedient to the prompter's bell, Our tide shall flow, and real waters swell. No river of meandering paste-board made; No gentle tinkling of a tin cascade ; No brook of broadcloth shall be set in motion ; No ships be wrecked upon a wooden ocean. But the pure element its course shall hold, Kush on the scene, and o'er the stage be rolled. Consume the scenes, your safety still is certain: Presto ! for proof let down the iron curtain ! Among the many subjects about which eminent per- sonages are now induced by enterprising editors to give their opinions, the most popular, as might be expected, is the ' secret of success in life.' There is not much doubt, I fear, in the mind of most of them, as to what success consists in ; though they drape it more deco- rously than the ordinary apostles of Self-help, the most brilliant examples of whose teaching come to London on foot with half-a-crown in their pocket, and are eventually taken by four horses to a mausoleum of marble, on which, by some strange forgetful ness, their chief merit — the sum they died worth — is omitted from the long record of' their virtues. There is at least some honesty in these receipts for prosperity, and more good sense than is generally supposed; for, while great wealth is a snare, the acquisition of a competence is very desirable, even from the moral point of view. That sworn enemy of cant and humbug, Sydney Smith, averred he was a better man for every guinea that was added to his income ; and though the philoso- phers recommend to other people ' the root and the spring,' I notice that, with a noble unselfishness, they are apt to put up with diet far less wholesome - but nicer. Success in life is not prosperity, but still less is 116 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' it the absence of it. The Preacher, of course, is right when he tells us it does not consist in wealth or honors, but in ' a soul filled with good ' ; but this is as seldom found in the workhouse as in the palace. Suc- cess, we may take it for granted, includes, at all events, the ordinary comforts of life. The son of Jakeh (otherwise unknown) has pronounced with great authority upon this matter, in favor of the via media. There is a row of houses in a Hampshire town called ' Agur's Buildings.' When the good man who had run them up was asked why he had given them so strange a name, he answered : ' Well, it was this way. Agur's prayer, you know, was neither for riches nor poverty ; and these houses are meant for a middling class of people.' In teaching us ' How to attain success in life,' it would be interesting if those who have accomplished that object would tell us frankly whether the game is worth the candle. That 'nothing succeeds like suc- cess ' we all know ; but that is only the view of the outsider. There are a good many drawbacks to winning the game of life. The losers are very numer- ous, and a good many of them do not know how 'to pay and look pleasant,' but become the enemies of the victor; even the lookers-on resent what they call his luck. There is not a man who has achieved a great success in any walk of life who is not a target for the calumny of knaves and the gossip of fools. We have it 'on the best authority' that he has broken the heart of his mother, robbed his sisters, starved his wife, and fully deserves to be suffering from that disease, hitherto unknown to the human frame, for which, ' as NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 117 everybody knows,' the Faculty are in vain attending him. For him, too, there is no peace, even in the grave ; for are there not the biographers ? Who make it seem more sweet to be The little life of bank and brier, The bird that pipes his lone desire, And dies, unheard, within his tree, Than he that warbles long and loud, And drops at Glory's temple-gates, For whom the carrion vulture waits To tear his heart before the crowd. An artificial flower, I read, has been patented, which in its stalk contains a powder emitting precisely the same perfume that its blossom possesses in nature. This is certainly an advance in luxury; for though we can purchase many agreeable scents, they have seldom much likeness to those they are supposed to resemble. It will scarcely be contended, for example, that violet powder smells of violets, as emery powder smells of emery. It is strange that only the scent of flowers should be imitated, when there are so many other objects that give pleasant and powerful odors. How nice it would be to have the scent of Russia leather for instance, presented to us at will, or that delicious and refreshing odor we call ' the smell of the sea ! ' I feel sure indeed, with regard to the latter, that science is still in its infancy, and that some day we shall have atmospheres of all kinds, if not on draught, in bottle. How nice it would be to uncork a quart of concen- trated Brighton or Scarborough air, and fill our London breakfast-room with it, instead of having to take a hateful railway journey to drink it, as it were, 4 on the premises.' When this comes to pass, people 118 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' will remember the intelligence which predicted it, and exclaim, 'Let us give him a statue!' But 1 should prefer something less costly — a bust, or half the price of a bust, presented to me immediately. Some of my countrymen have been shocked to read how the sympathies of the whole Spanish nation are being wasted upon the popular bull-fighter, Frascuelo, who has been tossed in the ring (and serve him right! ). But the late revival of prize-fighting among ourselves does not indicate a much more wholesome public opinion. The attraction of novelty may be some excuse for it, but to those who remember what the old prize ring was, it seems an evil sign. Its so-called patrons were the scum of the aristocracy, and its habitual frequenters the dregs of the people. They were actuated by the motive some foolish folk attributed to them, of encouraging British pluck, hardihood, and the physical virtues, about as much — I do not say as the owner of race-horses, though Admiral Rous has left it on record that no owner he ever knew had any other object than that of making money — but as the welsher is by that of * keeping up the breed of horses.' Their sole object was to win their bets, and the pleasure of seeing their fellow-creatures rendered unrecognizable by lumps and bumps was quite a secondary matter. It was but rarely that the best man won j but it is not" to be denied that, where the fight was not sold beforehand, much 4 gameness' was exhibited. There is an off-quoted story connected with Brough- ton, the prize-fighter, and the Duke of Cumberland, his backer. The gladiator, was on one occasion, from NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 119 obvious reasons (though he himself could not see them), unable to come up to time. ' You are beat, sir,' cried his patron irascibly. ' No, not beat, your Royal Highness ; but only blind. Let me be put within fighting distance.' I hope we are not going to see the ' good old times,' of which this anecdote is so significant an illustration, revived again. A generation or two ago — for people live so long now that it is scarcely worth while to particularize such matters — one of the most popular songs in Eng- land was 'The Old Arm-Chair.' 'Who shall dare,' inquired the poetess, 'to chide me for loving that old arm-chair ? ' and I am not aware that anyone took up the challenge. For myself, I have never fallen in love with any article of furniture ; but the throne-chair of Queen Hatasu (late, or, at least, formerly of Egypt), just presented to the British Museum, seems to have considerable claims to veneration. It is beyond doubt, the oldest chair in the world, the date of Her Majesty's dynasty being 1600 B.C. I wonder whether it was ever mended ! Did its legs never 'give'? Did no one ever sit the bottom out, like little Silver-hair in the fairy story ? I see arm-chairs in the Tottenham Court Road outside the shops ticketed ' everlasting ' ; but ' who shall dare ' warrant any one of them to last for 3,487 years? A writer on ladies' clubs, in a magazine this month, has made us wish for more. She has confined herself too much to the material aspects of the subject, which, I am glad to read, are encouraging. It seems hard, indeed, that ladies should have nowhere to go for a 120 NOTES FROM THE 'N.EWSS modest lunch in London, except that depressing back parlor at the pastrycook's, while their male relatives have a Meeting-House (though not exactly a" Zion), which, compared with their own houses, is to many of the in a palace. I am all for the ladies in this matter, as in all others ; but I want to know what they do in their clubs. About this, in the article in question, there is (as Bradshaw sometimes complains) 4 no infor- mation.' What men tell one about ladies' clubs is, of course, utterly untrustworthy. In those to which gen- tlemen are not admitted, they affirm, the members are bored to death. I am too old to dress in girl's clothes and ascertain this for myself. I should be found out in a moment. But I want to know. Where gentle- men and ladies are both admitted, men hint that, sooner or later, some lady — to borrow the charmingly exclusive phrase of one of the prospectuses — ' who has been, or would probably be, precluded from attending her Majesty's Drawing-rooms,' is sure to get in, and then there is a row. I don't believe one word of this. I have been occasionally a guest in one of these admirable institutions, and if there was a fault to be found with it, it was its stupendous respectability. It was like go- ing to church (as I often do) on a week day. The men were few and not gay — certainly not gay Lotharios : they gave me the impression of being there on suffer- ance, and slightly but distinctly sat upon. What is wanted is some female Michael Angelo Titmarsh to describe life at a lady's club. Does one lady monopolize all the papers, and another the fire, standing with her back to it, as Brown and Jones do in our clubs ? Do they steal one another's parasols ? Do they abuse the waitresses? Do they play whist in the afternoons? NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 121 Is there a billiard-room ? Is there a smo No, of course there isn't ; but this total absence of information makes one suspect things. They had much better tell us what really does happen. 4 Vivat Rex,' which used to be the motto of the Cornish folk, seems to be now adopted in the Baltic. The Novosti informs us that not only have false light- houses been erected on its coast, but even harbors with false light-houses. This is an unlooked-for develop- ment of that Russian civilization of which we hear so much. The proverb, 4 Any port in a storm,' must now have the reservation, 'except in the Gulf of Finland,' which is the scene of these deceptive havens. In days when a Czar was not afraid to travel in his own dominions, it was a happy thought of his courtiers to 4 run up ' model villages, full of ' happy countrymen," to greet his eyes, and assure him of the general pros- perity of the people under his paternal rule. The downward path of duplicity is easy; if sham villages, says the Russian, why not sham light-houses ? In the latter case, moreover, there is much more to be got by it. The wreckers will not be the only gainers by this device, but (though the wretches never thought of that) Romance also. It is wrong to think of ' copy ' in the presence of such flagrant immorality, but what a splendid finale is thus suggested for a sea story ! A ship full of scoundrels, and their wicked gains, is caught in a tempest ; all seems lost ; when suddenly the harbor lights appear ; repentance vanishes, suc- ceeded by insolent triumph ; each promises himself a life of voluptuous ease ; then, quite unexpectedly, the whole concern (put in maritime language) goes to 122 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: pieces. I make a present of this excellent idea to Mr. Clark Russell. A remarkable public dinner was given the other day in Paris, from which we may with advantage take a lesson. There was not, perhaps, quite so much con- versation as is desirable — indeed, for Frenchmen ; the company were unusually taciturn. Even the toasts were drunk in silence, as though they had been a trib- ute to somebody's memory ; this may be thought to be carrying a virtue a little too far ; but, on the other hand, there was no speechifying. Think of a public dinner without the tediousness of public speaking! All seemed to have enjoyed themselves immensely, and interchanged their sentiments, both at table and afterwards, without that confused babble which so often accompanies similar entertainments. If a disa- greeable remark came to the tip of the tongue, in no case did it get any farther. 4 How,' one may well ask, 4 was all this accomplished ? ' The guests were deaf- mutes; they proved themselves good trenchermen, but the sentiment of the evening (there were no songs) was 'Fingers were made before forks!' The enter- tainment was so successful that next year it will be made an international one. Diversity of language will be no obstacle, for deaf-mutes have a Volapiik all their own. The council of the Birmingham Institute has been writing to our authors for the original MSS. of their works, ' to add attractions to their annual conver- sazione.' The answers they have received are very illustrative of the modesty that belongs to the literary NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 123 character. The author of ' Lorna Doone ' ' does not know whether he has got the MS. of it or not.' The author of ' Vice Versa' 'knows, but does not like to say ' (it was stolen from him, as I happen to know, by a literary admirer, and he is unwilling to expose him). Mr. Justin McCarthy never had a MS.; he composes his works on the type-writer at first hand, like a musi- cian. Only one author seems to be at all impressed with the value of his MS., and even that can be accounted for from the circumstance that he has long labored under a most unfounded imputation of getting other people to write his books for him. So careless, it is rumored, was one of these geniuses of the treasure demanded of him that he placed all his MSS. at the disposal of the Institute, upon the understanding that it should undertake to let him know which was which : a detail that he had been unable to gather from his own handwriting. Again and again have his friends implored this gentleman to take 4 twelve lessons in caligraphy for a guinea,' and even offered to pay for them, but he says 'No; no check of mine has yet ever been dishonored, and it is certain that if my sig- nature became at all like my name, my banker would decline to pay it.' The only person I have ever read of who can match this gentleman is that correspondent of Bishop Barrington, who wrote, ' Out of respect to you I write in my own hand ; but to facilitate the reading, I send you a copy made by my amanuensis.' An interesting discussion has been lately carried on in the newspapers respecting ' luck.' It is a question, however, which will never be settled. All the scien- tific people scoff at its existence ; all gamblers and 124 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: speculative persons believe in it. There is certainly- more to be said for it than the belief in ghosts, for there are many examples of it at first-hand. There are few of us who do not know somebody who is exceptionally fortunate or the reverse. It is certainly not true that ' we count our hits, but not our misses ' ; for some men are eloquent upon their misfortunes, though, perhaps, with the object of calling attention to them 'in the proper quarter,' and getting the bal- ance redressed. It is sometimes redressed the other way: I have observed men to be remarkably lucky in their youth, against whom the average is restored with a vengeance as they grow old. It is idle to assert that men have all the like chances ; there is no flood-time to fortune with some, and no ebb-tide with others. Occasionally some unfortunate fellow gets a piece of good luck the size of which makes amends for a life- time of ill-treatment ; but this is very rare. De Quincey — himself certainly an unlucky man — thus speaks of one to whom the cup of life had been dealt in quite another measure, namely, Wordsworth. He numbers six separate examples of his good-luck — 4 Six instances of pecuniary showers emptying them- selves into Wordsworth's very bosom, at the very moment when they began to be needed ; and amidst the tumults of chance, wearing as much the air of pur- pose and design as if they supported a human plan.' He goes on to say that if a seventh had been required, it would have happened to him. 4 As Wordsworth needed a place or a fortune, the holder of that place or fortune was immediately served with a summons to surrender it; and had J known of any peculiar adap- NOTES FROM THE l JSTEWS: 125 tation in an estate or office of mine to an existing need, of Wordsworth's — forthwith and with the speed of a man running for his life, I would have laid it down at his feet. " Take it," I should have said, " take it, or in three weeks I shall be a dead man." ' Perhaps the prettiest story connected with luck is that of the poor French country girl who (in the year before the revolution) gained a £ 1,500 prize in the Paris lottery. .She instantly placed 200 louis d'or in the hand of her parish priest to be bestowed upon the in- digent and deserving of her own class — c For Fortune surely could only have been kind to me,' she said, 'in order that I might be kind to others.' The instinct consequent upon a stroke of good-luck is generally benevolent, but only too often evanescent. That is why I say, ' Put up your hospital boxes at Epsom and Newmarket,' which I cannot persuade the patrons of charities to do. One of Dickens's Scrooge-like characters informs us that there is no such thing as a broken heart ; and science, it appears, endorses that unsentimental state- ment. * It is only,' says a medical journal of last week, 4 people of whose education physiology has formed no part, who can talk of such a thing. If it happens at all, it would be immediately fatal ; but there seems a doubt whether it ever did happen, except to one old woman in the Liverpool Workhouse, and even then it was called 4 a rupture.' If produced by any emotion of the mind, it would be a joyful one, which would i accelerate the circulation and increase the blood-pressure.' This is bad news for the novelist, and not only throws the 126 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: gravest doubt upon the cause of death of half the heroines of fiction, but suggests their having departed in the highest spirits. An American critic is very angry with Mr. Browning because that gentleman's poetry is unintelligible to him. Mr. Browning might use the retort of another great poet and reply, that ' the clearest handwriting is not decipherable by twilight '; but he will probably preserve a dignified silence. It seems hard that a man can't write as he likes, since no obligation is imposed on anybody to read him. Mr. Browning is not the first English poet who has been thought to be a little obscure. Mr. Samuel Rogers has the reputation, if not a bard of the first class, of being a severely simple one, of writing poems To the purpose, Easy things to understand. And yet the following lines come from his pen : But hence ! away ! yon rocky cave forbear ! A sullen captive broods in silence there. There, though the dog-star flame, condemned to dwell, In the dark centre of its inmost cell, Wild winter ministers his dread control, To cool and crystallize the nectar' d bowl ! His faded form an awful grace retains ; Stern, though subdued, majestic yet in chains ! Without being informed of the fact, the reader would scarcely recognize in this ' sullen captive' the rough ice which in pre-refrigerator days, used to be stored in the ice-house built in every country gentleman's grounds. The lines occur in the first edition of the ' Epistle to a Friend.' In connection with the recent decease of a well-known and well-off man of letters a discussion has arisen, NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 127 whether it is better for persons who follow the literary profession to be well off or not. The parties them- selves are not consulted, their opinion on the subject, perhaps, being taken for granted. If it is pleasant to cultivate letters on a little oatmeal, it is pleasanter, doubtless, to have a little cream and sugar to mix with it ; but your literary people never know what is good for them. On the whole, it seems concluded that it is better to keep them on short commons. A Judge — though not a very good one — has decided that all 'artificial advantages,' such as copyrights, should be denied to authors, because genius (like murder) ' will out,' whether it is remunerated or not. Therefore, why remunerate it ? To this, however, it has been replied that the Judge in question knows much more about murder than about genius. It is positively certain from data within reach of all, that Shakespeare would not have written so manv plays, nor Scott so many novels, without the stimulus of pecuniary rewards ; but would they not have written better if they had written less ? Some writers, again, like Johnson, would probably not have written at all had not Poverty been close behind them with her bradawl. This class, as might have been expected, write by fits and starts. The question resolves itself into three heads. First, is it best (for the public, of course, not the author; nobody cares for him) for writers to be rich ? Secondly, to be tolerably well off? Thirdly, to be starving? The first is so very rare a case as hardly to be worth con- sidering. Grote was rich, Rogers was rich, Beckford was rich ; other rich men have had a ' great turn for literature/ and would, no doubt (as Byron tells us of 128 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' this class in his day), have beaten all the mere literary- people out of the field ; but — from motives, doubt less, that did as much honor to their hearts as their unwritten MSS. did to their heads — they have generally abstained from the competition. Then there is the starvation system — I put it second, though it comes third, to get it over, because it is rather an unpleasant subject (at all events, to me). Savage tried it, and Churchill tried it. Nobody who has read these authors can fail to observe that privation affected their tem- pers. Besides which, though you keep your author on ever so small an allowance of food, he manages some- how to make it up in drink. There are advantages, no doubt, in this treatment to one portion of the public — the publishers ; but to take an author's clothes away and lock him up in a room till he had written his epic poem (or whatever it was), was surely a strange method of 4 encouraging ' literature ! I have myself known a once popular and agreeable writer reduced to such straits that he was, while engaged in literary composi- tion, compelled to rock the cradle in which his young- est born would not repose ; but, notwithstanding what may be said about association — the noblest feelings of the paternal nature being stirred to their depths by so tender an occupation, and so on — I think he would have succeeded better with his feet unemployed and his mind disengaged. No. Looking at the matter quite dispassionately, I am all for No. II. (not for Number One, and far less for No. III.) — a moderate competence for the author. This would prevent the necessity for pot-boilers, and that tendency to be prolific, which is so truly deplor- NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 129 able. The question is, How to confer the competence? Well, we have all heard (and perhaps more than once) that they who make the ballads for a nation are of more consequence to it (though they get much less) than they who make the laws. And how much more true is this — I am quite willing to take a plebiscite of readers upon this point — as regards the people who make the stories for a nation ! It is clear, therefore, that it would be worth while, from a national point of view, to endow our story-tellers — only the really good ones, of course — with such an annual allowance as will make them easy in their circumstances, or, I should rather say — because that is the matter with which the public is concerned — in their minds. As to the exact sum to make them 4 easy,' that, of course, would vary. Some people require more room, as it were, to turn about in than others. But, by way of experiment, I shall be happy to take charge of a moderate competence (paid quarterly), and apply it (with great delicacy and regard for his feelings, I need hardly say) to the case of a par- ticular (and particularly deserving) author I have in my eye, and report (after a sufficient interval — say, ten or a dozen years hence) how the thing works. I am afraid there are mischievous people who expe- rience a certain pleasure when they hear of the artistic world being taken in by some imposture or another — and they are rather often pleased. The sham old masters that have been passed off as real ones on the conductors of the Dresden Gallery will be quite a God- send to these cynics. For the Dresden Gallery has a very high reputation, and not to know an old master — or, as the author of c Vice Versa ' irreverently puts it, 9 130 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 'at all events, a master old enough to know better' — ■ from a young one is very shocking. The French will also be delighted, because the pictures were bought by Saxony out of its share of the war indemnity. Persons with any sense of propriety are, on the other hand, much distressed ; they understand the principle upon which art is valued, and admire a picture not upon the vulgar ground of merit, but on its being the work of some particular hand, the older the better. One hardly likes to associate a deplorable catastrophe of this kind with the ludicrous ; but what is really rather funny, the rogue who took in the Saxon committee (the very finest superfine Saxony) actually invented an old master for their special benefit — David Myttens. I repeat, I don't like to speak lightly of such a matter ; but the device was certainly droll, and had even itself a sort of Art in it. Think of the scores of critics who have stood with telescopic palms before that picture in Dresden, and murmured in hushed and reverent accents, ' David Myttens ! ' I know an authority in art who, when in an admiring vein, is wont to write, c When once we have seen one of this great man's immortal works, it is impossible to imagine a world without them; ' and then follows some Dutch or Italian name. If he ever wrote that of David Myttens he was in error. Nevertheless, there was an old master of that name, and even a pair of Myttens, father and son, both painters, but both Daniels ; a portrait of the former was taken by Vandyke, and the engraving from it now lies before me. He practised his art in this country, and painted (for Charles I.) the dwarf Geoffrey Hud- son holding a dog with a string, which may be seen to-day, I believe (if you get an order), in St. James's Palace. NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 131 Kidnapping is very much gone out of fashion. It jwas once quite a happy hunting-ground for the novelist lin search of a plot ; but the gipsy is not the man he was, and I doubt whether the child of noble family has been whisked out of his coroneted perambulator, steeped in walnut-juice, and compelled to ' dwell in 'tents ' for these fifty years. On the other hand, pet animals are stolen more than ever. It is not very long ago that a lady of fashion, who, after buying her own iFido six times from the dog-stealers, declined to pur- chase it any more, received a peremptory notice from the robbers — borrowed probably from the custom of Italian brigands — that if two sovereigns were not paid by a certain date she would receive Fido's skin by par- cel post. A sagacious physician of my acquaintance fwho lost his pet dog put a little notice in the paper headed 4 Warning ! ' which charitably described the animal as having ' strayed.' 4 It is of no value, not even to the owner ; but having been experimented upon for scientific purposes with many virulent poisons, a lick from its tongue — and it is very affectionate — would probably be fatal.' That dog came back the next day. Talking parrots are much sought after by good judges of birds, who also deal in them. One changed owners the other day, and was the subject of another Solomon's judgment in the police-court. The gentleman — to put it without offence — who was decided not to have been the original proprietor, had adopted the most ingenious device to prove possession. ' Your parrot ! ' he exclaimed indignantly to the claimant. 4 Did your parrot swear like this?' whereupon Polly indulged in the most 'cursory observations.' ' Can your parrot sing ? ' upon which Polly sang this : 132 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 Oh, dear doctor, Polly is sick — Run for the doctor— quick, quick ! D the doctor, he is gone away ; Why the devil didn't he stay ? After this there was quite a German-Reed entertain- ment given by the parrot, except that the rules of pro- priety and good-breeding were utterly set at nought. The claimant, who was a very genteel person, stood aghast. He recognized his parrot, but not its manners and novel gifts. In six months its morals had been utterly debauched, though probably more with the intention of concealing its identity than from mere wickedness. I wonder how long it will be before pretty Poll becomes fit for society again ? It had better be sent to some public school to acquire ; the tone.' On the other hand, the young gentlemen have to be con- sidered, who, among themselves (I am assured by emi- nent educationalists), never use a naughty word. The technical organ Invention sounds a note of warning to ingenious but too ingenuous persons, who speak of their discoveries over the social board before registering them in an official manner. This practice too often, it seems, causes their ideas, or, rather, the proper record of them, to be anticipated. Some, per- haps scientific, but certainly larcenous, fellow-guest, goes to the Patent-Office before the inventor. This is hard, but not harder than having one's little jokes (small things, perhaps, but one's own) taken out of one's mouth and appropriated without acknowledgment by other people ; that is, at least, as common a crime, and much more cruel in its circumstances ; for the patent is still one's patent, and has been only too accu- NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 133 rately described, whereas one's joke is often so muti- lated and misquoted that he is a wise father indeed who knows his own offspring. There is another wrong, too, from which the would-be patentee is free, to which the poor joker is subjected if in course of time (which he really can't help) he has become ancient. If he writes his biography and narrates something humorous that happened to himself in his youth, the critics, who are often as young as they are notoriously unscrupulous, point at it with derisive finger, and say, 'Why, this is a very old joke ! ' Quite true — it happened before they were born ; but it was new when it happened to the autobiographer. This, unhappily, is an experience of my own. How I came across the objectionable observa- tion I don't know ; it must have been the merest acci- dent, for I shrink from such things as though they had the small-pox. (I have not a word to say against the 4 higher criticism,' of course, and only refer to persons who write of me in an uncomplimentary way.) Many authors, on the contrary, have a morbid passion for reading everything that is said against them. They subscribe a guinea a year to the gentlemen who under- take to send you fc cuttings ' of everything that is printed about you throughout the universe. An accomplished journalist was once called upon by one of these bestowers of immortality at second-hand, and besought to become a subscriber. 4 But, my good, sir,' urged the journalist, 4 my unfortunate profession compels me to read all the newspapers for myself.' 'The English newspapers, perhaps,' rejoined the enterprising agent ; 4 but you have no idea what offensive things are said about you in the Colonies and America.' 134 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: A correspondent of the Athmceum, who writes from Stationers' Hall, lays the blame of the uselessness of that institution, as regards the titles of books, upon the law of copyright. Its uselessness has, however, nothing to do with the law, but arises from the miscon- duct or idleness of those who are in authority. All that authors ask of Stationers' Hall, and have asked for the last quarter of a century, is that it should keep its books in a proper manner — i.e., with their titles alpha- betically arranged. It persists in mentioning only the authors' names ; how is it possible then for an author who wishes to discover whether his title has previously been used to inform himself of the fact? This simple suggestion, which meets all difficulties, is treated by Stationers' Hall with contemptuous indifference. The law is so far to blame as not to insist upon the adoption of this remedy. If the class who are interested in this matter had any political platform, the authorities of Stationers' Hall would see their way to amendment quickly enough. . A wretch, who calls himself the ' champion contor- tionist,' was brought up before a Magistrate the other day for torturing a child of four } r ears old — whom he had purchased for his trade — by ' bending' back its little limbs, and beating it black and blue with a brush. His whining defence was that he did not know the brush hurt so. If I had been the Cadi, I would have convinced him as to what hurts, and taught him a contortion or two not in his programme. Considering the age of the victim, I remember nothing so shocking since that of the Miniature Tiger King in Paris — a little fellow who was shut up in a cage with cats to NOTES FROM THE l NEWS. y 135 imitate wild-beast taming, with the results that always happen when those animals have no escape from ill- usage. I would have treated his proprietor more leniently than he did the poor boy. I would have shut him up with only one cat — with nine beautiful tails — and plenty of room to swing it in. Let the philanthro- pists say what they will, there is no punishment so deterrent for the cruel. Some philosophers attribute cruelty to misdirected high spirits — a sort of malignant horse-play. There was certainly a grim humor in the defence made by a gentleman of this class the other day, charged with beating his wife with a poker ; he said he only used the ' soft end ' — the handle. The suggestion that has lately been made that men- cooks should take the place of women, not as at present in rich households only, but in those of people of moderate means, is well worthy of consideration. The greatest plague of domestic life has long been cooks ; and they are getting worse instead of better. It is the custom to blame the mistresses for this, and they are certainly by no means free from reproach : a lady, in other matters trustworthy enough, will often tell a downright falsehood to get a bad cook out of her house. She excuses herself upon the same ground on which dishonest persons defend their passing bad money on us, because somebody else has passed it on them. They remind me of that member of a religious body who observed to a deacon of the neighboring parish that he didn't think much of the new minister he had sent them, though he had l cracked him up ' so. To which the deuci >n calmly replied : 'And you will have to '* crack him up," too, if you want to get rid of him.' 136 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: Still, it is the cooks themselves who are the chief impostors. According to their own account, there is nothing they can't cook — till they try. In every other calling the applicant has to give his proofs — the clerk has to forward his handwriting ; the Government official has his examination to pass — but we must take the cook's own opinion of her efficiency, backed by her late mistress's interested warranty. These things ought not so to be. Why are we all liable to be poisoned for a month, or to pay a month's wages for nothing ? If the so-called schools of cookery are worth even their salt, they should guarantee to their patrons at least one trial of their clients, which the latter would willingly pay for ; it would be much more satisfactory than their present assurance that their Mary Janes can 4 cook for a* Prince.' I have had cause to wonder who that Prince is, and (especially) whether he still sur- vives. In the abstract of i Crime in the Army ' which has just been published, I see no notice of malingering. The short-service system has probably done away with it. The contests between the soldiers who wanted to get out of the army and the doctors who wanted to keep them in it were often very obstinate and protracted. What the sham sick went through in pursuit of their evil end threw the tortures of the martyrs into the shade ; but they were generally successful. On the other hand, an unexpected ordeal would sometimes blast the fruits of years of imposition. In one case, a poor fellow, who was supposed to have lost the use of his lower limbs, was sent home from the Mediterranean, after no less than two years of duplicity, to be discharged. NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 137 A fire, however, broke out on board the ship, and the first man in the first boat — he also had his trunk of clothes with him — was that chronic invalid. Nowadays there is still some malingering among schoolboys when Dr. Blimber receives his little friends at the conclusion of the holidays ; but it is nothing to what it used to be in the old hard days of school. Even schoolgirls were adepts at it. One of the most famous cases was that of a girl of fifteen who feigned tic-do uloureux. She was very good-looking, which, no doubt, helped her to take in the physicians ; but she did it very completely. The great Dr. Thomson of her day — as one may read in the Medical and Surgical Journal — made her case an illustration of ' the effects of mental impressions on the nervous system.' It was a scientific l precedent ' for eight years, when the young lady, who had then become a wife and a mother, wrote to apologize for making a fool of him. 'The fact is,' she wrote with charming frankness, ' I didn't like my school.' The Giant, the greatest, if not the most popular, attraction of the Winter Circus in Paris, has 'bolted,' and, with his personal raiment, many yards of cloth of gold, the property of his proprietors. Giants are gen- erally a trouble to those who keep them : perhaps from seeing so much of themselves ; they think too much of themselves; but they are always dis- satisfied. The Giant at Cremorne once poured his woes into the sympathizing ear of Frank Buckland , he complained that he was shown for a shilling in the same compartment with the straight-haired negress, at whose woolly-head visitors were allowed a pull apiece, to satisfy themselves of its genuineness. The good- 138 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: natured naturalist recommended the son of Anak to strike for more wages and a separate exhibition. He did not say : ' If you fail, come to me ' ; but that was just what he did. A cab arrived one morning at F. B.'s residence — which was not at all fitted in size for the reception of such a person — with a head and shoulders out of window, ten feet of legs inside, and a great crowd of admirers all around it. Never was guest of eminence less welcome. Still, he was the only giant, F. B. used to say, who had good legs, and thanks to them and his host's knowledge of the proprietors of travelling caravans, which was both 4 extensive and peculiar,' he soon got an engagement. But F. B. never forgot his visit. The details were unpleasant, and can be best described, as it were, negatively. .Everyone has heard of, and some of us have read, 4 The Angel in the House.' Well, a giant in the house is just the reverse of all that. We have heard a good deal, and not very much to its credit, of 4 How History is written,' but we have only lately been informed how this is done in China. I once heard a clergyman in the pulpit dilate upon the evils of poverty, which he described as a very unpleas- ant and inconvenient thing ; when he had quite done (as we all hoped) he added, as if struck with a new idea, 'and all this, my dearly-beloved brethren, is still more true of abject poverty.' Similarly, whatever may be said against history in the abstract is still more trne of Chinese history. It is made up, we are told, of two equal parts : the first is composed by a commission of accomplished scholars, who give their views of what has been happening in the world, or so much of it as NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. ' 139 they can see from a Chinese standpoint ; the second consists of the Emperor's view of the same affairs, which he has still fewer opportunities of observing. Moreover, the first account of matters is subject to the influence of what to the c commission of accomplished scholars ' seems most likely to be the Emperor's views. 4 Historical candor, therefore,' says our informant, 4 can scarcely find a place in reference to nations, or persons, who have been in conflict with the Court.' This is really the most delightful state of things (for the Emperor) that has ever fallen to the lot of a human being. I have never envied anyone connected with literature so much. There is a foolish song written by a wise poet, which ascribes the greatest amount of power to two potentates, who of late years have been at rather low water. ' Oh, if I were King of France, or, what is better, Pope of Rome, etc' A better-informed bard would now, perhaps, sing, 4 Oh, if I were Chancel- lor B., or, still better, Mr. G. ' ; but, for my part, I bow the knee to the Emperor of China. Think of writing history (he dictates it, but that's a detail) out of one's own head, and according to one's own taste and fancy ! I suppose, as in the Annual Register, there is a department headed 4 Literature,' where I should exceedingly like to say a word or two. I would see that the natives of the Flowery Land ( 4 largest circu- lation in the world ' ) came to the right shop (or, at least, to the right author) for books. The idea of the opportunities (for good) in the hand of his Celestial Majesty positively takes my breath away. The potentate I used to envy most was Louis XIV., who had the privilege, after he had taken up his hand at cards, of selecting what should be trumps. But what 140 NO TES FR OM THE 171 do tricks, just as a young gentleman who distinguishes himself in orthodox fashion at the public school, or the university, seldom i leaves the metals, ' or makes a groove for himself. It is not the high-born King Charles's spaniel, with all the advantages>of aristocratic surroundings, that delights you with his intelligence and high spirits, but the half-breed from whom one expects nothing. The collie is a dog of great sagacity, and very distinguished in his profession ; but for great (if somewhat eccentric) intelligence, we must go to the French poodle. He has also some of the drawbacks that are too often found in connection with genius : he is not a domestic dog (in the moral sense), and has a temper that is charitably called ' uncertain,' but which can, in fact, be relied upon as an exceedingly bad one. The Continental Powers have been trying various breeds of dogs for military purposes : to 4 relieve sentinels '- — not quite in the ordinary way, however, but to keep what at sea are called 4 dog-watches ' — to search for the wounded, etc. This novel branch of canine industry has caused several French naturalists to give their attention to the dog. The Russians, M. Jupin tells us, prefer the Caucasian breed for army use ; the Austrians, the Dalmatian ; and the German, the Pomeranian wolf-dog ; but the preference in France is given to the smugglers ' dogs, of whatever breed, in the frontier towns, because (I am sorry to say) of their immoral, or at all events illegal, anteced- ents, which give them habits of duplicity. They are quite capable of pretending to belong to the dog- contingent of the enemy, and will probably be shot as 172 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' spies. M. Robert narrates some unpleasant stories about that ' friend of man, ' the Newfoundland. He not only corroborates the view of his drowning more people than he saves, but adds that he is vindictive. He tells how Alphonse Karr was almost eaten up by one which he had, too, immortalized in fiction ; and how another gentleman had his left eye torn out by a Newfoundland which he had awakened rather suddenly by dropping his newspaper on him. In this case the animal however, is excused on the ground of being 4 highly nervous, ' which was also, I should think, the case with his master ever afterwards in respect to Newfoundlands. The country that is credited with the invention of gunpowder (which it has never known how to use) and of printing (which no one can read) has ideas of the same intelligent class respecting the human form divine. It applies torture without stint, and delights in the spectacle, but it is very solicitous about keeping the limbs intact ; decapitation is thought seriously of, not on account of its putting folk to death (which is a trifle to a Chinaman), but because of its mutilating the body. 'Amputation is vexation' is the motto even of its mathematicians ; and when an operation is per- formed upon a native of the Flowery Land he literally 4 keeps the piece,' or, if possible, even devours it, under the impression that he has thereby restored it to its rightful owner. The North China Herald cites a case of a Chinese gentleman who lost his eye, and disposed of it in this manner, though it could be of no more use to him than ' the Pope's eye ' in a leg of mutton. When their teeth fall out, the Chinese grind them to powder NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 173 and swallow them in water. They may be ' The Nation of the Future ' for all I know, as they have long been the most bepuffed people of the Past ; but judging of them by their ' tricks and their manners,' they are cer- tainly for the Present, the most idiotic race under the sun. There is one lesson, however, that the disciples of Confucius are in a position to teach us, and which it would be well for us to lay to heart — that it is quite possible to educate a nation, as well as an individual, beyonds its wits. A GOOD instinct should always be indulged, because it may never occur again, but we should be quite sure of its being good. An Anarchist of Rheims (a profes- sional description that somehow reminds one of those in Mr. Lear's ' Book of Nonsense ') was suddenly seized the other day with a desire (as Thomas Ingoldsby pleasantly expresses it) ' to pink a bourgeois.' He had not a small sword by him, which ought to have given him an opportunity for reflection, but, rather than let the aspiration fade away, he loaded his revolver. The Anarchist has an advantage over the sportsman in not having to go into the country to find his game ; what, according to his own account, this gentleman was in search of was ' a young, plump, and overfed citizen,' and this is to be found in every street. The first bour- geois he ' flushed ' was in some respects attractive ; he was a magistrate, in comfortable circumstances, but he was aged, and did not, perhaps, satisfy the conditions of 'plumpness.' 'I drew back,' said the Anarchist, with dignity, 'on finding myself face to face with so venerable a man.' His forbearance was presently rewarded by meeting with a prosperous young wine- 174 NOTES FROM TBE l NEWS: merchant, at whom he fired a couple of shots, but in his excitement missed him. For this venial offence, from which, too, no harm resulted to anybody, this unhappy victim of impulse has been sentenced by a bourgeois Judge, without a trace of humor, to twelve years of penal servitude. Even in civilized countries, the language of courtesy in the mouth of Kings is, from a humorous point of view, exceedingly charming. They are 4 graciously pleased to accept' what, as a matter of fact, they are uncommonly glad to get, such as a present or a subsidy, and 'deign' to do things which to the vulgar eye seem rather to involve an obligation than to leave it on the other side. But in the East this imperial (and imperious) style is much more worthy of admiration. When a monarch flies in the face of Nature so far as to bestow something on his people instead of exacting it for himself, words absolutely fail him to express his sense of his own mag- nanimity. The last proclamation of the Shah of Persia, whatever may be its faults, has certainly no mock mod- esty about it. After stating that the Creator has ' made his [the Shah's] holy person the source of justice and benevolence,' he has decreed ' in sign of the watchful- ness, tempered with justice, of his Sovereign mind,' that in future 'all his subjects may exercise the right of proprietorship over their own belongings.'' The style of this announcement is unapproachable , but the princi- ple of it reminds one of the cry of the fruit sellers of Constantinople — ' In the name of the Prophet, figs ! ' Whatever is is right, and I suppose even teeth are no exception ; but there are certainly occasions when NOTES FROM THE l NEWSS 175 one is tempted to envy the gentleman described in the ancient Classics who was born with 4 two semicircles of ivory above the jawbone, without any separation or division in them whatsoever.' Whatever ached in that connection it was not his teeth ; he knew nothing of the things that have been justly described as ' a trouble in coming, a trouble when they have come, and a trouble in going.' It has even been reckoned among the few advantages of extreme old age, that we have then done with our teeth and go to the rhinoceros (or whatever it is) for a fresh supply of quiet ivories warranted not to ' jump' or ' plunge,' and to last for our little ' ever.' But now it seems even this poor blessing is fraught with danger. Within a very few weeks there have been two cases, and there was last week a third, of a gentleman's false teeth being very literally the death of him, through his swallowing them while asleep, and, probably, in the fc ivory gate' of dreams. There seems to be something almost demoniacal in the trouble these things give us. There is a Rabbinical legend that our first parents, be- fore the Fall, were made of a smooth, hard, transparent substance, and that flesh and blood was substituted for it, for their sin, except in the places where we still see it — videlicet, the finger nails. Filbert nails, vulgarly supposed to be a mark of good breeding, are thus in reality a proof of a more than usually spiritual nature. For my part, however, I don't believe a word of it. The novelists have been having (for them, poor souls !) quite a good time lately. It has been discovered by the playwrights who steal their plots that the theft is not very successful, since they have been forbidden to steal their dialogue. Though, it is true, only by an 176 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' indirect action of the law, writers of fiction are placed on the same footing as the modern Persians, who as we have just read, have actually been allowed the privilege of possessing their own property. They have also been patted on the back by a Bishop. This is rare indeed, for hitherto they have received at the hands of the Church, like the monkeys that are attached to hurdy- gurdies, 4 more kicks than halfpence.' As a rule, there is nothing ecclesiastics resent so much as the discourses of the lay preacher ; and the novelists, though they speak to the million, and, moreover, to an audience who can scarcely be got to listen to anybody else, have been hitherto held lower than the 4 uncovenantecT divines of the street corner. The Bishop of Ripon has taken a juster view of their position and influence, and held out the olive-branch, instead of the birch, to his literary brother. If his lordship had only mentioned names, what an advertisement it would have been for somebody ? The dream of the popular novelist (though he never breathes it to anybody, because he wishes people to think he has no more realms to conquer) is to tap a new public. For finding out the truth of matters by ' frying ' or 'boiling down,' the Americans, notwithstanding their passion for 4 gas,' are generally to be depended upon. The question of whether young gentlemen who distinguish themselves in athletics make good scholars or otherwise has long been a debated one. In England it is the fashion to associate intelligence with muscle, though a few people are violent partisans of the contrary theory. From the calculations re- cently made from the educational and sporting data at NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 177 Cornell University, it would seem that the athletes have their fair share of honors, considering that they do not devote so much of their time to study as the others, but very rarely distinguish themselves. This is pretty much what common-sense would have ex- pected. If the inquiry, however, had gone beyond mere scholarship, and concerned itself with other in- tellectual powers than that of acquisition, I cannot think that the disciples of baseball and ' the track ' would have made so respectable a record. I would back, for keenness, the professors of what Mr. Caudle called ' the manly and athletic game of cribbage M against those who indulge in the more 'violent delights ' of football : outdoor games, too, are some- times a source of weakness, which cannot be said ( except in a moral sense ) of billiards and cocky- maroo. Lawn-tennis produces the ' tennis arm ' ; while whist (with the rare exception of the whist 4 leg ') has nothing deleterious of that kind ; the 'game hand ' which you occasionally get at it does you, on the contrary, a great deal of good. Why is it, I wonder, that there is always a tempta- tion to laugh at any incident with the least humor in it on the most solemn occasions ? Why do jokes, which in print read rather feeble, when uttered in the House of Commons move that august assembly to 4 roars of laughter ' ? Why are the law courts 4 con- vulsed ' by very small witticisms, even though they do not proceed from the Judge? I should be sorry to think so ill of human nature as to believe it arises from mere 4 cussedness.' Perhaps it is that the sense of humor, too long repressed by pretentious surround- 178 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' ings and an atmosphere of twaddle or tediui£, uncon- sciously swells and swells within us, and at the least opportunity explodes in what seems uncalled-for mirth. The greatest man I ever knew, and one of the most tender-hearted, once confessed to me that his well- known disinclination to attend funerals arose chiefly from the difficulty he experienced in keeping his countenance. A New York paper announces the discovery of a new wonder in the memory ' department ' — a lady who attends chapel, and, without taking a single note, goes home and writes down every word of her minis- ter's discourse without omitting a ' the ' or an ' and.' This seems to me to be a little rough upon her minis- ter, especially if he is an extempore divine ; but she does not mean it roughly. She has been at it for five- and-twenty-years, and written out two thousand of his sermons. Now and then she binds them, and has pre- sented him altogether with forty volumes. When he 6 drops into ' Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, she even fol- lows him, having studied those languages, no doubt, for that especial purpose. The alligator ( I think ) is said to be accompanied by a little bird who devotes itself to him, in a somewhat similar fashion; but, with that exception, it is only popular preachers who are favored with such faithful and constant admirers. The poor layman may ' lecture ' for a week, and even his own children (to judge by their conduct; don't remember a word he says. There is much discussion just now as to whether various eminent persons speak or do not speak provin- NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 179 cially 5 even when they do, it seems to me to matter little, though unhappily, thanks to a growing deaf- ness and the absence of the bump of ' language,' I find a greater difficulty in understanding them than most people. But why should authors who are acquainted with ordinary English persist in writing in a provincial dialect ? It is not helped out, like speech, with gesture and expression, and therefore puzzles one far more ; and though, no doubt, it gives a local coloring to a story, its readers, unless they are a local public, are more or less color-blind. If nov- elists must do this, let them put their dialect in the notes, as translations from the dead languages used to be put, i for the convenience of country gentlemen and others.' What would be said of an author born within the sound of Bow Bells who, because he was writing of Londoners, should put v's for w's, and leave out his h's ? I have also noticed this peculiarity in dialect stories : that all the people who come from the place the author would describe by this means protest that he knows nothing about the tongue in question. As it doesn't please them, and certainly fails in pleasing anybody else, why on earth does he do it ? It is curious, by-the-by, that the phrase, ' talking through the nose ' — a habit attributed by an American humorist to the English — should be applied to a nasal pronun- ciation ; this is so far from being the case that the the sound, or an admirable imitation of it, is caused by closing the nose. I HOPE one of the good fellows who took charge of the sixty Polytechnic boys on their month's holiday on the Continent the other day will give the world his 180 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 reminiscences of it. It is a long time since the delight- ful 4 Voyages en Zigzag ' appeared, and though the Boy has not changed (it is not in the power of any Polytechnic upon earth to change him), the conditions of travel have greatly altered since that time. The book should have illustrations, of course — instantane- ous photographs of what its French author called their ' scenes of anarchy ' (bolsterings and the like), while to the edition de luxe might also be attached a phono- graph, stating exactly what they said in commenda- tion of the sublime scenery and foreign 4 tuck.' Travels among savages may be exciting, but think of travels toiih savages ! ' The Boy Abroad, and How He Made Himself at Home There,' would be an excellent title. They did it for five pounds apiece, too, and seem to have stolen nothing but a few cherries. Why are not all young persons taught to make their money ' go ' this distance? The sunburn on our boy's cheek, which delights his mother so, disappears when his holiday is over ; but however short it may have been, and how- ever ample his allowance, we never see 4 the color of our money ' again. If the Polytechnic can teach its pupils economy, it can teach them anything. I had once a lesson there, on another subject, myself (from the Electrical Eel), which I never forgot; but that was under the old regime- The present institution seems a still more admirable one ; and it speaks well indeed for the courage and conduct, as well as kind- ness, of its promoters that they should have played 4 the schoolmaster abroad ' with such complete suc- cess. They certainly do not share what is said to be the weakness of the present age — the shrinking from responsibility. I once took charge of one boy on his NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 181 travels abroad (from Saturday to Monday), and that is why (though I am quite young) my hair is gray. In China a gentleman has only to commit suicide upon his enemy's doorstep to make that individual miserable for life ; his blood is for the future on the householder's head, and, what is more material, the maintenance of his family upon his shoulders. This custom, in the Flowery Land, where folk do not mind putting themselves (or, indeed, other people) to death, upon the smallest provocation, is found to be incon- venient : yet, strange as it may seem, we are gradually adopting it in England. The law, it is true, is not so exacting, nor are Englishmen so ready to sever their 4 mortal coil ' (as the poets terms the jugular vein) as Chinamen ; but when they do so, it has now become almost customary with them to leave a statement behind them, explaining their reasons for departure, and point- ing out with vindictive finger the person at whose door they wish the catastrophe to be laid. Sometimes, of course, the terrible punishment which this involves is a just one; but sometimes it is not so — as, consider- ing the vehemence of passion which often drives the accuser to leave this world, is not to be wondered at ; whether sound or unsound, his state of mind can hardly be a judicial one. In old times this habit was almost unknown among us, except in the best families, which were accustomed to be anathematized, root and branch, by some wronged retainer, and, if we are to believe in ancestral legends, with excellent effect (no male child ever reaching his majority from that moment, and no female being unprovided with a hump like a dress-improver in the wrong place) ; but now there is 182 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: no family, however humble, which is not subject to these post-mortem maledictions. It is noticeable that they are of two kinds : one in which individuals are denounced by their full name and address, as though the writer were making his will, and exceedingly anxious that they should not be excluded from its benefits; and the other, wherein he only mentions them by their initials — a sort of half-measure by which he leaves them to their own unpleasant reflections, but spares them the indignation of the world. This milder method is, however, accompanied by the disadvantage of innocent persons with the same initials — since there is always plenty of malicious guessing — being identified with the wrongdoers, and suffering, like Mr. Besant's hero, who was ' haunted ' by a misinformed spectre for a deed which he had never done. I have noted in one week no less than three initial denunciations. One poor fellow is so soft-hearted in his revenge as to con- fine himself to writing the letters ABC, like a pro- position in Euclid. The terms in which he expresses himself are also exceedingly vague. ' If I had of been something like done to by one who could, I should not have taken to what I have been forced into.' Whatever may be said against this unfortunate person — of whom nothing good or bad, however, seems to be known by anybody — no one can accuse him of being a Gram- marian. That large class of our fellow-creatures whose chief topic of conversation is ' the weather ' must have had a hard time of it of late, as regards variety. In Vienna, however, they have got a weather plant to talk about, which must be a great relief. It is, we are told, NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 183 1 a legume ' — a piece of information which, to many people, will have the advantage of not disclosing too much at once, and thereby spoiling the story; its botanical name is the Abrus peregrinus, but it is also called the ' paternoster pea,' which, to my ear at least, sounds much more familiar. It is published — I mean grown — chiefly in Corsica and Tunis ; but they seem to have an edition de luxe of it in Vienna. ' Thirty- two thousand trials of it in two years,' writes an ex- tremely cautious disciple of science, 'tends to prove its infallibility.' On the leaves of its upper branches one can read the state of the weather forty-eight hours in advance, but in those of the lower it is inscribed for three days to come. To us in England, it would have been useless ; for we have been able, by reasoning from analogy, to say l wet ' for the next three months, and the prophecy has never failed. Meteorologists tell us that the notion of a change of a climate here is all rubbish ; but certainly there have been seasons even in Scotland, where not only sunshine seems to have occurred, but people got so spoilt as to look for the most delicate gradations of favorable weather, and, when they didn't get them, to apply for them (it strikes one rather peremptorily) to the proper quarter. In one of the northern counties of Scotland, says Dean Ramsay, the minister, in his Sabbath sermon, expressed the needs of his agricultural parishioners for a wind to raise the corn for the sickle with a very detailed particularity : 4 O Lord, we pray Thee to send us wind ; no' a rantin', tantin', tearin' wind, but a noughin', soughin', wiruin' wind.' ' More expressive words,' remarks the Dean, ' cannot be found in any language,' nor, it may be added, words more suggestive of dictation. Our poor 184 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: farmers in England would certainly have been thank- ful most summers for much less — a few hours of sun- shine, for example, on alternate days. It is hard to have one's holiday spoilt by the weather, but how much worse one's harvest ! The virtues of hot water have had a great develop- ment of late years. People of fashion, whose digestions have been impaired, fancy that they still can eat half a dozen courses at dinner, if the water they drink with them is only hot enough. 4 1 must trouble you,' they whisper to their hostess, ; to let it be very hot ; merely warm water, you know, has — ahem ! — an unpleasant effect.' The water is, therefore, brought as if for shav- ing purposes, and generally cracks the tumbler. The broken glass in one's pantry which the butler used to attribute to ' the cat ' is now set down to the guests who adopt this new regime. Another purpose for which it is used is to send people to sleep at nignt. It is a little inconvenient to have to supply boiling water in the small hours of the morning to one's wakeful visitors ; but, to do them justice, most of them bring spirit-lamps and kettles of their own. I have a private suspicion that they put something in the water, to induce somnolency ; but, as they bring this with them also, that is not my business. The Russians have now discovered that hot water has a quieting effect upon prisoners who are insubordinate ; by means of a short hose, specially made to resist the heat, and attached to a steam-pipe nozzle, they squirt boiling water upon the offenders, and at once produce peace and quietness (by parboiling). The proverbial phrase of being ' in hot water ' has, therefore, not so much lost its meaning in NOTES FROM THE ( NEWS: 185 Russia as obtained a precisely contrary signification. This will, probably, form a supplementary chapter in the next edition of ' The Language of Thought,' and need not therefore be here enlarged upon. A medical paper furnishes us with the interesting information of how a collection for charitable purposes is made up from a concert audience of about 10,000 persons. There were found in the bags 2 sovereigns, 4 half-sovereigns, 20 florins, 150 shillings, 605 six- pences, 706 threepenny-pieces, 6,714 pennies, and 2,224 halfpennies. It has been found by experience that in book-buying (which is the reason why there are so many two-shilling novels) a florin is the largest sum which the ordinary railway passenger parts with easily ; in charity, it seems, the coin is much smaller. Indeed, it is rather surprising to observe, in church-going fami- lies of means, how very small a sum is generally pro- vided beforehand when a sermon 4 for the benefit ' of something or other has been announced on the previous Sunday. Of course, however, there are exceptions to this economical practice. I remember a friend of mine, constant in his attendance at what used to be a famous 1 High Church ' place of worship in Knightsbridge, being asked in church, in my presence, by a total stranger to lend him his address-card and also a five- pound note for the collector. My friend complied ; and after church I ventured to point out to him that he had been a little imprudent. It would have been easy enough to pretend to put something into that highly-ornamented velvet bag, and then to withdraw it; moreover, the charitable gentleman need not have been so eager with his handsome subscription, but 186 NOTES FBOM THE 'NEWS: might have sent his check the next day. My friend admitted the cogency of my remarks, and I (being very young at the time) congratulated myself not a little upon my superior intelligence and forethought. Only, by the first post next morning my friend got his money. Both these gentlemen were what, of course, would be called in the Great Republic 4 champion churchgoers ' ; but there are many benighted persons whose only notion of orthodoxy is a subscription, not to the Thirty- nine Articles, but to the plate. There is a pleasant American story of a storm at sea, when matters had become so serious that the skipper requested anyone acquainted with such matters to conduct a prayer- meeting in the chief cabin. Either through ignorance or modesty, everyone declined this office ; but one gentleman, anxious to do something, however slight, in the direction indicated, observed that though preaching was out of his line, he would willingly 4 make a Col- lection.' It is an unfortunate peculiarity of the more combat- ive of our philanthropists, and especially of those who have been called (not without some justice) Anti-every- thingarians, that they seldom trouble themselves to study the nature of the subject they assail. They may be right enough in their views, but when they give their reasons for entertaining them they often show quite a curious ignorance of the matter in question and of those who practice what is found fault with. The teetotaler, for example (as if he had not work enough on his hands without making enemies outside the ring of spirit- drinkers), almost always falls foul of tobacco as being an incentive to intoxication — a statement which, to those NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 187 acquainted with the subject, does not hold his favorite beverage — water. The habitual smoker hardly ever drinks, and tobacco has done more to banish wine from our dinner-tables than all the arguments that have been directed against it. This ignorance is caused, probably, by extreme virtue ; the teetotaler knows nothing about 4 the poison pipe ' and its contents ; but the display of it weakens his cause. The Bishop and Chancellor of Carlisle have recently been denouncing gambling, and with great propriety ; for, next to drink, it is, perhaps, the vice that causes the most widespread misery. But (what is not surprising, perhaps, in a Bishop and a dio- cesan Chancellor) they do not seem very well acquainted with what they denounce. They contend that its im- morality consists in the fact that ' money passes from one man to another with a dead loss to one, and an un- reasonable gain to another.' This may be said of ' three- penny whist ' (and even that great moralist, Dr. John- son, expressed his contempt for playing at cards 4 for nothing ' as being a sheer waste of time) or of a bet of a pair of gloves with a lady. No person of common- sense would call this 'gambling,' any more than specu- lating in a raffle, which the Bishop admits he has done — though with an unsatisfactory result. The simple fact is that the proper definition of gambling is, playing for more than we can afford. Penny points at whist may be gambling in a very poor man, and pound points not be gambling in a rich one. When the game ceases to be an amusement from the size of the stake, and the stake, and not the game, is the attraction, then, and then only, gambling begins. The next greatest gamblers to the bookmakers on the turf, and the City clerks and small tradesmen who are ruined by them and led into 188 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: crime, are often our bankers and merchant princes, who, though they never bet a shilling", ' back their own opin- ion' in their ' operations ' with a freedom rarely seen at Doncaster or Ascot ; their success in this is termed ; commercial enterprise.' A great French critic has been placing on record his views of cruelty, and a still greater English one (if I recognize his Roman — and Grecian — hand) has been commenting on them. They are neither of them in favor of cruelty, which, considering their profession, is very creditablele to them ; but the former states his hatred of it to be so extreme that he 4 cannot be cruel even to the cruel.' If he means that he prefers someone else instead of himself to hang them, I sympathize with him ; but if he means that he would not have them hanged at all, I differ from him. There is a vaulting Philanthropy that overleaps itself and falls on the other side, and in its hatred of brutality encourages the Brutal. I have no doubt that there are people who would find excuses for Mary's Chancellor, who, history tells us, incensed by the obstinacy of Anne Askew, cast off his mantle, and, ' plying the rack with his own hands, almost tore her asunder ' ; but such apologists, while imagining themselves charitable, are in reality callous. Moreover, really tender-hearted persons are often ignorant of the worst attributes of human nature. Without at all agreeing with Dr. Bain, in his recent assertion that the sentiment of Malignity is universal, it is much more widespread than is imagined. I remember a speech made by Michael Davitt, much to his honor, denounc- ing in the most scathing terms the practice, then only too prevalent, of the mutilation of dumb animals, which NOTES FROM THE 'NETVS: 189 was listened to by a large audience without a single ex- pression of sympathy. About the same time a 4 Lady ' wrote a letter, and got a newspaper to publish it, point- ing out that there were still cows with their tails on. The existence of such persons would probably be in- credible to the French critic, who could not read the martyrdoms in the 4 lives of the saints ' without his heart seeming to be crushed in a vice ; but 4 shut the book, and dared not open it again.' The English critic, with the remembrance, no doubt, in his mind of how he had himself occasionally disem- bowelled an author — though with as much tenderness and much more grace than old Izaak treated his worm — denounces this as a sign of weakness, and then goes on to inquire whether we have gained much, or even have not lost more than we have gained, by the discon- tinuance of torture for the extraction of evidence, and of the good old customs of bull-baiting, badger-draw- ing, and cock-fighting. ' Does not all our loathing of the Terrible arise,' he asks, ' from the failure of the national nerve ? ' I answer, ' No. In the whole history of our nation I do not believe nobler or more disin- terested acts of heroism are recorded than have hap- pened within the last half -century.' Moreover, I venture to differ from him in his bringing forward, apparently as evidence of brutality, such an incident as that of Walter Scott making one of a party to see Burke hanged. Why should he not have made sure with his own eyes of the extinction of one of the most cruel wretches that ever disgraced human form? What sen- timent of tenderness or pity could such a spectacle have evoked ? Our critic cannot imagine any man of 190 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.* letters in the present day attending a similar spectacle. Yet Charles Dickens, one of the kindest-hearted of men, went to see an execution. I feel this rather a personal matter, for I myself went — in the interests of literature, of course, and not like your Lord Tom Noddy, but still I went— to see the Malay crew of the Flowery Land hanged at Newgate. They had thrown their captain and officers (with whom they had no fault to find) into the sea, and pelted them as they were drowning with champagne bottles. Two of the mildest of these ruffians had been reprieved, of whom the Sheriff told me this story : * When the Governor came to break the news to them, expecting the usual expres- sions of gratitude and penitence, one of them observed, " Since Antonio is to be put away, I hope you will let me have his shoes, as they exactly fit me." ; I trust my nature is not brutal, but I cannot say that the spec- tacle of Antonio and the rest being removed from the world deeply affected me. I am now too old for sensa- tional experiences ; but I believe I could still see the Whitechapel murderer hanged without one tributary tear. Mr. Fukntss, though he makes such excellent fun of portrait-painters, seems to take the art himself more seriously than most people. From my own experience of it, I have always thought that it was more serious for the sitter than for the painter ; but this is not, it seems, at all the case. 4 To paint a man rightly,' he says, 'you should live with him as a Japanese artist lives with the flower he sketches, and watch him when utterly un conscious.' This reminds me of a still more aesthetic person, who has informed us that ' to properly NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: 191 paint a tree it is necessary that we should become a tree ' — with, I suppose, a bark. It does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Furniss that it is not everybody who could stand a portrait-painter always at his elbow i looking out for characteristic expressions. For my part, if I am to believe a distinguished artist who once did me the honor of painting me, I lose, after a sitting of five minutes, all resemblance to humanity. 4 My good sir,' he used to remonstrate, ' you are completely gone ; you have no face ! ' As to watching me ' when I was utterly unconscious,' if that was the opportunity he desired, he had plenty of them. If his price was high, on the other hand I cost him a good deal in cigarettes, coffee, and liqueur-restoratives. At the Church Congress it was objected by a Divine, who, unless very unselfish, must look forward to being a Bishop, that candidates for confirmation are apt to put a great deal of grease on their heads, to the incon- venience of the officiating Prelate. It is not, of course, an agreeable custom, but it is well intended. In the country especially, young people would as soon think of attending church in their workaday clothes as without some capillary ointment, though it may not be a capil- lary attraction to others. The rite in question, albeit imperfectly understood, and ignorantly prized as a remedy for other than spiritual complaints, is thought highly of by the agricultural class. I once saw a Berkshire carter-boy insist upon its being conferred upon him, in spite of the most strenuous ecclesiastical opposition. As he was making his way to join the kneeling line, the Bishop's chaplain stopped him with silvery voice : ' Stay, my'lad ; you have been confirmed 192 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: already/ 'No, I hasn't.' 'But, indeed, I think you have.' To make sure he went up to the Bishop, who thought he remembered the boy's face. ' Yes, my lad, you are mistaken; his Lordship says he has already confirmed you.' ' Ee lies,' was the confident reply ; and, indeed, so far as it was possible for a Bishop to be in error, it turned out that his Lordship was so. In old times it was not bear's grease that the Fathers of the Church objected to, but false hair. ' If you will not fling away your false hair, as hateful to Heaven,' says Tertullian, 'cannot I make it hateful to yourself by reminding you that the false hair you wear may have come from the Ivead of one already damned ? ' Clemens of Alexandria was more judicious, if less vehement in his denunciation: 'When you kneel- to receive the blessing, my brethren, you must be good enough to remember that the benediction remains on the wig and does not pass through to the wearer.' Perhaps there was a trade in wigs that had been blessed ! It was not concerning false but gray hair that Russell of the Scotsman made his famous saying. A contem- porary had remarked to him that, though it was true he was growing gray, he had not grown bald, as Russell had done. ' That's true,' admitted the latter ; ' my hair preferred death to dishonor.' Of course, there may be too much of a good thing ; but it is generally admitted that partial baldness gives the appearance of intelligence. In a recent description of the great swindler Allmayer, I read that he had ' that slight tendency to baldness which often goes with elegant manners.' I am afraid this observation was caused by some confusion in the NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 193 writer's mind between elegant manners and i polish.' A head on the road to baldness may be rough enough, but when it has reached maturity — when its proprietor brushes it with his hat on, for instance, which is a sure sign — it almost always presents a smooth and brilliant surface, on which the eye lights yet does not linger, but, like i the bird, o'er lustrous woodland,' slides away. But as for temper, if elegant manners have anything to do with that, I confess that 1 have no confidence in baldness. -On the stage, too, which is supposed to hold the mirror up to Nature, the most irascible of grumpy uncles, the most peppery of Indian Colonels, are always bald. It is not generally known that bald- ness lends itself to caricature of a very peculiar kind. I was once staying in a country house, where an eminent portrait-painter, the late Sir George Hayter, came down to paint the host and hostess. One evening, after dinner, the Knight, who was a humorist in his way, persuaded a good-natured fellow-guest, who was very bald, to submit himself to his pencil. On the back of his head he drew a human countenance, which what hair there was there set off charmingly as whiskers. He became literally a double-faced man ; and when we put his coat on hindside before, and led him into the drawing-room backwards, he made a more striking impression on the ladies than he had ever done before — that is, previously. A clergyman who took up the case of Father Damien, the priest who, in ministering to the lepers became a leper himself, has written to the papers to complain how small have been the sums subscribed by the class which calls itself 4 Society.' He is surprised 194 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: at this, lie says, because lie has so constantly heard rich people express their opinion that the poor leper priest was the 'greatest saint living.' This, however, he ought to have known, is a very different thing from their subscribing to him. The simplicity of this good clergyman is, indeed, almost as touching as his appeal itself. 'Society so-called,' he writes, 'subscribed almost nil, but bigotry was entirely absent' (by which he means that it was present enough, but gave no contributions). 'Both these facts are instructive.' Certainly they are, but only to one who has never studied human nature. Whenever I see one of those severe leading articles against money given in charity I welcome' it, for it bestows happiness on the greatest number — the people that never give anything to any- body, and are delighted to find their parsimony defended. 'Among the people who in the sixth century,' writes a well-known philosopher, 'were con- verted to the Christian faith were two tribes, called the Lazi and the Zani. Methinks it would have been better if they had been left unconverted, for they have multiplied prodigiously.' A well-known Professor of the healing art has been giving a lecture to medical youth upon the value of attention. Many, he says, who plead their ' bad memory ' as an excuse for ignorance, do so on false grounds ; they have not forgotten, but, through inatten- tion, have never learnt. This is admirably true, and what he goes on to say about the same fault when they have ceased to be medical students and have become practitioners is, doubtless, true also — only to us laymen much more alarming. It seems that it is by no means NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 195 uncommon for our medical adviser to visit us with a preoccupied mind ; while we are telling him about our symptoms, and eloquent upon the size and color of our great toe, he may be thinking about the next Derby, or the hue of the new dado in his dining-room. This, says the Professor, is very dangerous — that is, for the doctor, of course. ' All men are thought-readers, and our patients more so than any others.' It is not neces- sary for the doctor to mechanically murmur, ' It ought to be green,' to convince an intelligent patient that he is not thinking about his toe. Again, what is called 'a nervous operator,' remarks the Professor, 'is simply one who cannot bring his attention to bear upon a difficulty that suddenly arises.' Instead of cutting one's leg off, for example, the lilt of some grand old song, I suppose, beloved in infancy, may vaguely float into his mind, and his knife become, as it were, a tuning- fork. Being under chloroform, the patient would, of course, be unconscious of this distraction of the sur- geon's mind ; but it is just possible it might interfere with the success of the operation. If the Professor were not as honest as he is scien- tific he might have given us some hints as to the simu- lation of attention, which would be invaluable to his fellow-creatures, whether they belong to the medical profession or otherwise. How difficult it is to listen to a bore with any semblance of interest, however impor- tant it may be for us to do so ! He may be the father of the girl we want to marr} T , or we may owe him money, or he may be the editor of the magazine to which we wish to contribute, and yet, as he bores on and on, we are conscious that our eyes are growing lack-lustre, and 196 NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: reveal the palsy that is attacking our vitals. If this good Professor would give us something to make us look bright and pleased under an infliction of this kind for twenty minutes at a stretch, that would be a prescrip- tion indeed. Somebody advertises his pills, ' No more disease or death ; well worth five shillings a box ' ; but pills that could be conscientiously trade-marked *No more necessity for counterfeiting attention ' would be worth any money. They would have to be taken on the sly, of course, as people take dinner-pills; but who would have scruples about duplicity when under the harrow of an art critic or a china maniac ? Even Emperors experience the need of some anodyne (or, rather, ansesthetic) of this kind. The most amusing incident in the progress of the Emperor of Germany through Europe is the account of his being shown the objects of art and antiquity (for which he doesn't care sixpence) in the Museum and Basilica at Rome. The poor young- fellow, we are told, rushed through the halls and through the church, repeating always : 4 1 shall return ; I shall return ' in a loud voice ; but adding to himself softly, we may be sure : * Not if I know it,' or ' If I do I'm a Dutchman,' or, more probably, 'a Frenchman.' The alternative suggestion that he meant 4 1 shall return and take them'' (as another Emperor did who had a greater turn for bric-a-brac), offered by a cynical friend, is one, I am thankful to say, that could never have entered into my head. Everyone (I hope) remembers how the vulgar per- sons who ventured to express a doubt that because a thing was written in Greek and two or three thousand years ago, it was not on that account necessarily worth NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 197 reading, were put to the rout by the publication of a volume called i Greek Wit ' — a striking example indeed of how a very small thing can put some people down. The quotations were all assigned to their proper authors (including the oft-cited 4 Ibid '), so that the most ignor- ant of us learnt to whom he was indebted for each spark- ling sally. Sometimes quite a galaxy of great names were included in a single illustration, when the bril- liancy of the story was, of course, proportionably daz- zling. As, for example : ' Antagoras, the poet, was cooking a conger eel, and holding the pan himself, when Antigonus came behind him, and asked : " Do you sup- pose Homer, when he was writing Agamemnon's deeds, cooked a conger 9 " "Sir," replied the other, "do you suppose Agamemnon, the doer of such deeds, troubled himself to inquire whether any of his men cooked con- gers in camp." : Of course, ' Greek Wit ' is not always of this side-splitting description ; human nature could not have stood it, but must have burst blood-vessels in its mirth. Some of the humor is quite of a material kind (though full of philosophy), and — to compare great things with small — has an affinity with our humble 4 practical jokes.' Alcibiades, having bought a remark- ably handsome dog for a large sum, cut off its tail. 4 This I do,' said he, 4 that the Athenians may talk about it, and not concern themselves with any other acts of mine.' Even a person who has not received a classical education will be able to appreciate the vigorous droll- ery of the above anecdote ; but there are other stories in the collection of much greater subtlety, the full aroma of which, perhaps, demands for its conveyance the unrivalled faculty of expression of the Greek aorist. For example : • Philip once gave away a favorite horse 198 NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: that had been badly wounded. The man sold him, and on being asked some time afterwards by the generous Monarch, " Where's your horse ? " he replied : " He is sold of his wound." ' Admirable as this is as it stands, something seems to have escaped in translation. The following, however, one of the many charming stories from Plutarch, is perfectly intelligible (and only to think that it might have been burnt or mislaid, like the Sibylline Books and other works of antiquity, and never come down to us !) : ' Alcibiades, going to school, asked for Homer's " Iliad." ' We don't keep Homer here," said the schoolmaster. Alcibiades knocked him down, and went on.' To extract more beauties from 4 Greek Wit ' would be to rob the dead, or, rather, the Immortals. ' There are positively none in the collection (which seems exhaustive) much inferior to those I have ventured to quote. Having performed this good office to classical wit —so far as the Greek prose-writers were concerned — the English editor has now favored the unlearned public with selections from the Greek comic poets. We read how everybody (who is anybody) roars over the Westminster Play (' The Frogs,' you know, and so on — not ' The Boys and the Frogs,' but the other), and why, says this good fellow to himself, should not the poor people who have been brought up in the 4 Modern ' schools, and even commercial academies, learn to appreciate what their betters enjoy so? Every- one has heard of Menander, but only a favored few have hitherto been in a position to relish his amazing wit: That wine of yours to queer sensations leads, I thought this morning I had got four heads. NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. ' 199 This, it is true, is the very best of the poet's wit- ticisms, but how excellent ! And, of course, how new ! These authors were not like the miserable wits of to- day, who can never hit on anything novel. They had all the world (of subjects) before them where to choose, so that (if a word of detraction is permissible) their complete success is not, perhaps, after all, so wonderful. Long before the Daily Telegraph exploited the topic, Menander wrote of wedlock : Marriage, if truth be told (of this be sure), An evil is — but one we must endure. What must have enhanced the charm of these ancient utterances is that they are almost all longer in Greek — the linked sweetness more drawn out — than they are in English. Many persons, I trust, for hie name is in the Scriptures, have heard of Philemon ; but that was not the Philemon who wrote the following epigram : 1 Hail, father !' when a crab was served, Agyrrhius said ; and rather Than such a prize should wasted be, preferred to eat his father. This witticism, with which I conclude, reminds one of what Cheirisophus said to his patron Dionysius when asked why he laughed at a joke, when he was too far off to catch it. ' Well I saw you laughing at it, and trusted to you for the joke being a good one.' Sim- ilarly, we have now and then to trust to the English editor for the goodness of his Greek jokes. There is no question, as I understand, among scholars but that he has rendered them admirably. And notwithstand- ing our boasted march of intellect, and all the rest of it, I doubt whether the contents of either volume can be much surpassed by the wit of the first Shakespearian 200 NOTES FROM TEE 'NEWS.' clown in any travelling circus in the United Kingdom. If the Wisdom of the ancient Greeks is on a par with their Wit, or anything like it but the English Editor has probably got that in hand by this time, and I will not anticipate the treat he must needs have in store for us ! It must be a satisfaction to those who are tied and bound by literary dogma to hear a man of undoubted genius like Mr. Stevenson expressing his opinion freely upon subjects about which, though (like the parrot) they may ' think the more,' they dare not open their mouths, and it will be a boon, indeed, if his example emboldens them to say what they like and dislike in literature, or, at all events, to cease from pretending to likes and dislikes. The hypocritical subserviency that is so manifest in the world of art is hardly less general, though it is much less obvious, than in that of letters ; when what is generally understood by criticism has decided that this or that is to be admired, the question is held to be settled ; let no dog henceforth bark, but only cringingly wag his tail. Matthew Arnold was a ter- ror to those who held, but did not dare express, an independent opinion. He was a sort of policeman of literature, bidding them ' move on ' from what they would fain have lingered over, and turn their atten- tion to what he affirmed was alone worthy of it. To appreciate the freshness and vigor of ' The Lays of Ancient Rome ' was, in his view, a proof of vulgar- ity ; and to prefer Shelley's poetry to his prose showed want of taste. Such statements would be amazing if they were peculiar to himself; but other able NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 201 writers who have taken upon themselves the office of school-master, before his time, have fallen into similar errors. Dr. Johnson could see nothing in Gray's 'Elegy,' and Macaulay little to admire in 'Martin Chuzzlewit.' The two points that need to be borne in mind, in consideration of this matter, are — first, that criticism itself is not an exact science ; and secondly, that men of great literary powers have, like everybody else, their deficiencies. Flogging, or, as it is called at Eton, 'swishing,' is to be abolished at that aristocratic seminary, except for 'really serious offences.' It was, indeed, high time. The frequency of its infliction, for the smallest crimes, if it had occurred in a Board-school, would have set the democracy in a flame ; but the ' blood of all the Howards has taken it very coolly for cen- turies. An illustration in any pictorial paper of the actual ceremony would probably have put an end to it at any time — and also to the paper. What old Etonian can forget the first time he received notice in the class-room to ' stay ' after school ? That was the euphonious phrase which appointed your inter- view with the Head-Master. All your friends — and, of course, your enemies — ' stayed ' too, to see it. I dare not lift the veil ( it was the privilege, by-the-bye, of two young gentlemen on the foundation to do that, or an analogous office) from the subsequent proceedings, from which there was but one appeal : ' Please, sir ; first fault ! ' How well I remember old Hawtrey, birch in hand, and gold pencil-case around his neck, inquiring into this vital matter. ' He thinks he has seen the culprit's face ( or other portion of him ) before ; but 202 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS* he will examine the books.' The humor of the scene, to all but the chief person concerned, was admirable ; but more suited to Fielding's time than ours. I think Mr. Stevenson would have classed it with some inci- dents in ' Tom Jones.' There was something pathetic, nevertheless, about that appeal of ' first fault,' which (except where the offender was lying ) was always allowed, if proved to be genuine. It is not so except at Eton. First faults are not, elsewhere, so easily for- given ; or the first fault is too often, alas, the last, because the next is a crime. There was general disappointment if Justice was thus robbed of her prey. It was on the second occasion of offence when the spectators were most gratified. The execution was then certain to come off, and the culprit was not inno- cent, of course, but — tender ; perhaps even alarmed, which enhanced the public enjoyment immensely '. I suppose half the Cabinet have been flogged in their time at Eton, and half the leaders of the Opposition. Only think of it ! Gracious goodness ! Medical science would charm us more by its new discoveries if they did not so often consist in merely effacing the old ones. Every 'treatment' has its day, and is hailed with enthusiasm ; it is then found to be the worst thing that could have been hit upon, and its exact opposite is adopted with the same loud cries of 'Eureka!' How marry times have the terms 'kill' or 4 cure ' been applied to the same remedies for gout, I wonder? How many times have our great medicine men blown ' hot ' and ' cold ' in the matter of the best climate for consumption? The last discovery is that the notion of ' constant support ' to produce nourish- NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 203 ment is an error. The proper way, it now appears, is to starve and stuff : ' Hunger first, and plenty after.' We are told that 4 a time of starvation puts the organ- ism in a position to make the most of everything that enters it.' This I can believe ; in a boat full of ship- wrecked persons scantily supplied with provisions, 4 everything ' — if there is any organization at all — ' is made the most of.' At the same time my experience of people who take but one meal a day, and eat enor- mously at that, is that their tempers, at least, are not well nourished. They are generally cross and snappish as feeding time approaches, and only agreeable after- wards in a negative way : they throw their handker- chief over their faces and snore. If, instead of these contradictory discoveries, our physicians would be so good as to make castor oil less loathsome, and physic, generally, more palatable, I should have a higher opinion of their intelligence. It is monstrous that a calling which claims to be scientific should have nothing to offer its patients but drugs the smell and taste of which cause the modern artist, in his house-boat on the Thames, the same shuddering horrors that Noah prob- ably experienced from his rhubarb and senna in the ark. The one poor triumph of medicine, as yet, in this way (for it takes an alligator to swallow the k globule ') is the silvered pill — surely a small harvest to be reaped from four thousand years of professional practice ! Copenhagen has set a fashion which London, I fear, will be slow to follow. Instead of the expensive wreaths which it is our barbarous fashion to throw into the earth upon the coffins of our friends, the pious 204 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: Danes place offerings much more appropriate to the dead. These are tablets which represent some sub- scription, according to the means of the donor, towards the abatement of human suffering. The originator of this idea recommends it to us in very touching words. 4 In the great country of love there are no frontiers ; there is no difference between great nations and small; in this respect we ought to assist one another in word and deed. Bearing this in view, we have resolved to acquaint you with what has been done in Denmark.' (If he errs, it is on the side of simplicity. What I have ventured to call ' tablets ' he calls 4 cards.' I don't like the notion of throwing cards into a grave ; in some cases it might be too appropriate ; no, 'no cards.') This linking of regret with charity is a method of keeping the memory green far better, surely, than the ordering of a pound's-worth of sympathy at the flower-shop. ' The actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust ' (as flowers born to bloom above the earth, not under it, can never do), and such a custom is typical of them. If thank-offerings are gracious things, this way of c honoring the dead by good works ' is surely more so. If our lost friend was not prone to charitable deeds himself, he will not take it as a sarcasm, nor will it be the first time that his charity has been done by proxy : the idea is so pious, so useful, and so unostentatious (for the amount of the subscriptions is not read out by the undertaker) that there is, I fear, but slender hope of its being substituted for camellias from the conservatory or roses from Nice, witli the names of the donors printed in the fashionable journals ; but I venture to think it a good idea. NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 205 Even the London world will miss for a while one of its most striking figures in that of Sir Francis Hastings Doyle, a true poet (if but of limited range) and genuine humorist. He was one of the kindliest-natured men with whose friendship I have been ever honored, and in some respects he has not left his like. In politics he was a Tory, 'a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,' but the most pleasant of Pagans; the charm, too, of his conversation and manners was an Old World charm. He was a raconteur of the ancient type, full of anecdote and personal reminiscence, hut also (which is a very different thing) a most agreeable conversationalist. He did not ignore the present for the past, as is the case with so many men of his years. His University career was brilliant. He had afterwards mingled with all the men and women of the century who were best worth knowing, and remembered what was interesting about them, and not the rest. What was also unusual, his acquaintance had been very various : he knew almost as much of jockeys as of the great patrons of the Turf; unlike another more famous litterateur, who once con- fessed to me that he 'never felt so comfortable as when he had his legs under the mahogany of a person of quality,' he had hobbed and nobbed with everybody. Nothing of human nature was alien to him. One might almost say the same of equine nature. I never knew a man of so great an intelligence so fond of horses. Those who have read his noble poem (for it really deserves that epithet) on the Doncaster St. Leger, will easily credit this. He had of late years domestic misfor- tunes, in addition to much physical ailment. 4 How fond and foolish is the idea,' he once said to me, 'that when we are old we are less sensitive to calamities ; we 206 NOTES FiLOM THE 'NEWS. are only, alas ! less able to bear them.' Yet he was always courageous ; he came ' smiliug,' as he would have himself expressed it, ' up to time.' The last letter I had from him after he became paralyzed in his speech is at least as full of humor as pathos. 'Being deaf, and blind, and speechless,' he says, ' 1 can now scarcely be considered an ornament to dinner-parties ; and in reply to invitations shall henceforth send my photograph.' The heart he wore upon his sleeve was as brave as it was kind. In the late interesting communications from eminent persons respecting the literature that is best for us all to read, whether we like it or not, there was generally a reference to the books that have shaped their lives. From it we learn how ' Blobbs on Three-Quarter Immersion ' gave grace to one, and ' Xenophon's Mem- orabilia ' philosophy to another. (Not a word, how- ever, about banker's books or betting-books, which shape a good many people's lives without giving them the curve of beauty.) Of course there is something in it. A young man — or, for that matter, an old one — must be worthless indeed who can read (to take unam- bitious examples to which the eminent persons would scorn to stoop) 'The Christmas Carol' or 'Little Lord Fauntleroy ' without feeling some desire for good stir within him that may be more or less permanent. When I read the 'Arabian Nights' (at seven), I remember that I made up my mind to be a merchant trading between London and Bussorah (with the agency in London, and the residence at Bussorah) in gold and precious stones; but somehow — perhaps, because I had no gold to start with — the idea evaporated. This is 2T0TES FJIOM TJffE 'NEWS.' 207 the case with most good books; their teaching evapo- rates, while, on the other hand, that of the bad ones remains. Of course, one only reads bad books— -like M. Zola's— for literary purposes, to understand his 4 school,' and be in a position to denounce it, or other praiseworthy motive; but it is much better to let them alone. The scrofulous French novel On gray paper with hlunt type ! Simply glance at it, you grovel Hand and foot in Belial's gripe. And he doesn't let go of you in a hurry. It is most humiliating to both writer and reader, but also very true, that the influence of a base book lasts infinitely longer than that of a noble one, and may even undo the good that all the noble ones have done for you before you read it. A curious example of this has just been afforded by that of a foot-page who became a foot- pad (or something like it) by reading a novel. Up to that date the page was clean, innocent as the new-fallen snow. His character was exemplary, he attended church, and was only waiting to be old enough to be confirmed. Unlike Mrs. Wititterley's page, he was more like an ' Alphonse ' than a plain Bill. But during the Christmas holidays he read Slack Sheppard,' and before the snowdrop appeared he had committed two burglaries. I wonder whether it was Mr. Ainsworth's story or the penny novelette of the same name that changed him ? The former I read without the slightest after-inclination to break into anybody's house ; but some people are born so much better than others. There has been a robbery at a post-office by some 208 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' individual who broke through the roof, which does not affect me (though of course I am sorry) so much as the remarks that have been made upon it. Nothing is more common, a daily paper assures us — if such 'a statement can be called assuring — than this mode of ingress. 4 To come through the tiles and into the upper rooms of a house while the occupants are all be- low, can be done very quietly, and by a very simple and ingenious mode of procedure well known to the police. ' Good Heavens ! What mode ? I really think the writer might have been a little more explicit. There was an article in a magazine last month which stated that there was no journalist in England who would hesitate to publish anything to increase the cir- culation of his paper, no matter how ruinous the dis- closure might be to the country at large. I didn't agree with it, but certainly here is a case of a journalist not publishing what it is highly desirable for every householder to know. I have heard that the British Workman is apt to loosen a tile or two when he gets (for quite other purposes) to the top of one's house ; but that is surely only for the good of trade, not for the convenience of the burglar. The system as a sys- tem is quite new to me ; but the incident reminds me of a novel, which, when I read it, I thought the most exciting that was ever penned. It was the very first of the 4 Sensation Novels ' ; its title ' Paul Periwinkle, or the Press-gang,' and it was, I think, dedicated to Thackeray. The hero, who has betrayed some bush- rangers, is hunted by two negroes of the gang with bloodhounds, and after four-and-twenty-hours' chase just manages to reach a settler's cottage. 4 You are safe enough here,' says his host, '« for I have four sons NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 209 six feet high to guard you.' He is lodged in an attic chamber and falls into a death-like slumber from fatigue, when the two negroes, using no doubt ' the ingenious mode of procedure so well known to the police' (but not to the settler), break through the roof and abstract him. T^ere have lately appeared, both in this country and America, certain so-called reminiscences of Charles Dickens, purporting to be written by persons who knew him well ; but, to all who did so know him, mani- festly false and venomous. That he was not as these writers depict him it is hardly necessary to point out to the readers of Dickens, for his works witness for him ; but it is well that they should have testimony to the same effect from one who enjoyed his friendship. In some particulars these libels overshoot their mark in a manner which, if their target were not a dead man, would be ludicrous, indeed. I am told that the latest addition to this slough of slander even accuses him of moroseness and illiberality. This reminds me of what Mr. Harold Skimpole, in his autobiography, is made to say of his benefactor. ' Jarndyce, in common with most other men I have known, was the Incarnation of Selfishness.' A more genial and openhearted man than Charles Dickens I never met. It is not strange that the memory of one so exceptionally bright and who has done more to brighten the lives of others than any writer, should be selected as a spawning- ground by Malice and Envy. It is the instinct of some creatures to defile what is fairest and rarest, and of other creatures to take pleasure in the spectacle. The snail, it was believed of old, « doth disdain all common 14 210 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 stones if it can find lapis lazuli to crawl and slime upon.' There are three ladies in America who make a pro- fession of teaching whist. If there were but a fourth — for one cannot imagine any lady playing 4 dummy ' — they would form the most charming rubber in the world. But of course these blessings to civilization are scattered over the United States, like missionaries; only, instead of forming congregations, they 'establish whist-centres.' I hope also they have another institution in common with missionary enterprise — that of 4 making a collec- tion ' ; for the laborer in every field is worthy of his hire. We learn from the Milwaukee Sentinel that that town rejoices in the presence of the most eminent of these three lady professors. The Milwaukee young women, of whom no less than 193 are, or have been her p'upils, are as distinguished in this branch of science as are our own Girton and Newnham girls in other branches. Their i head ' — to use the term employed in, 4 The Princess ' for the lady who occupied a somewhat similar position — has written treatises on whist, we are told, ' for several railroad companies for issuance in book form.' It would therefore seem that these students are so eager to attain proficiency that they even play in the trains. This is diligence indeed ; and it is humil- iating to reflect that if they followed this wholesome and delightful pursuit in our own country, they might be taken up, under a by-law, and prosecuted as card- sharpers. I noticed only last week, an indignant letter from some morose traveller on the Brighton railway, demanding to know why this law was not enforced, and the whist-players — the spectacle of whose simple enjoy- NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 211 ment had stirred his bile— were not thrown into dun- geons. But in Milwaukee — rather a faster place, one would think, than its name suggests — there is Liberty, though no licence (unless I have been misinformed) for spirituous liquors. What I would like to read, even more than this professor's treatises, would be her educational experiences. I have tried to teach young ladies whist myself — of course I played (and I venture to hope there was reciprocity in the stake) for love — but with rather un- successful results. They did not say, as I once heard a well-known philosopher observe, when compelled to make up a rubber, 4 1 protest, at starting, against any inference being drawn by my partner from any card I may happen to play,' but it was evidently on that un- derstanding that they proceeded. Unlike him, however, they always professed to know the game : ' We are not scientific players, you know, as we want to become ; but we have family whist at home.' Do your people play the penultimate ? ' I once inquired of one of them. 4 Not that I know of,' she answered (very sweetly, but with some of that 4 amazement ' which is so deprecated in the marriage service). ' Sophie plays the piano, and Julia the harp ; but none of us play the penultimate.' It was one of my chief difficulties that I could not pre- vent my pupils' thoughts from straying from the matter in hand into distant spheres. I could never make them perceive the conventional invitation for trumps. 4 You didn't notice my ask-for-trumps ? ' I would sometimes delicately observe, when all had been lost through that neglect. My fair partners would only smile (which, however, I need not say was recompense enough for 212 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 9 me) and shake their pretty heads : one of them replied, ' 1 never heard you.' My best pupil used to boast that she could ' always see a " picture peter ";' but she couldn't. As for asking for trumps themselves, to give you an idea of how they grasped the meaning of it — not that they were stupid (they were as sharp as needles, only some other magnet than the game of whist was always attracting them) — one of them once said to me, 'Why should I have asked? I had plenty of them.' In Milwaukee — whose whist-club is, we are told, the largest in the West — its lady professor may not have had these difficulties to overcome; or, as is very probable, she was much sharper with her pupils than I ever dared, or wished, to be; but her experience with them would be very interesting, and, for once, a novel contribution to the great female educational movement. Justice to jurymen ' would not be a bad cry to go to the country with — and also the town. There is, very properly, much sympathy expressed for the unem- ployed, but very little for this unhappy class, who are employed but don't want to be. They are summoned in the most violent and offensive terms that the Law can devise, though (because in this case she is not paid for tediousness) in unusually curt ones, and with a vague threat ( i whereof fail not') to conclude with. The affair is so managed that the greatest possible inconvenience is inflicted ; there is no name on the summons to indicate to whom you are to state that you are dangerously ill, while 'personal attendance' to ex- plain your reason for exemption to the Court is abso- lutely insisted upon. If one had an infectious disorder, NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 213 it would be a great temptation to accede to this pro- posal, and ' give it ' the Court. If you do go, you are hustled by ushers, and kept ' cooling your heels,' and much more delicate portions of your frame, in draughts, and told « to wait,' or that you are not wanted to-day, but must come to-morrow, and all this with an imper- tinence of manner that only belongs (with the excep- tion, perhaps, of an underling in a Government office) to a myrmidon of the law. If, on the other hand, you are one of the Elect, you have by no means the great advantages ascribed to persons in that condition. You will be shut up in a box without a lid to it, and have, perhaps, to listen for many days to arguments about the right of way through some moor or wood, where nobody in his senses, one would think, would ever want to go, and in which it is impossible to take the faintest interest —and all for twenty-one shillings by way of recompense. The jury system may be a necessity, for all I know ; but the victims who are sacrificed to it, and are the only persons concerned, from the judge to the door- keeper, who are not decently remunerated for their ser- vices, should at least be treated with civility and shield- ed from discomfort. It is not a personal matter, for, thank Heaven ! I have an infirmity which releases me from this obligation ; I am pleading for my fellow-crea- tures to whom this public service is made so abhorrent that— worse than soldiers who maim themselves to escape the military yoke— some of them will even pre- tend to have neither creed nor morals in order to evade it. And now— last grain that breaks the camel's back —a Judge has decreed that the consolations of lit- erature (even throughout a right-of-way case) must be denied to jurymen. Once in the box, they are to be 214 NOTES FROM THE l NEWS: spared not one syllable of forensic eloquence — the open- ing of the counsel, the contests between himself and his learned friend on the other side, the badgering of the witnesses, the summing-up of the Judge. To look at a newspaper is pronounced to be contempt of Court. Well, perhaps there is something to be said against newspapers : the newspaper has speeches in it, and may produce somnolency ; but would there be any harm in a juryman who is getting vertigo from a right-of-way case refreshing himself with a pocket novel, and then voting with his foreman or the majority, whichever seems to promise the quickest way out of his trouble ? I notice — if I may say as much without disrespect to any Commission, Parliamentary or otherwise — that wben Judges themselves have to act as jurymen they don't seem to like it. f There are some things which, though to the ordinary mind they seem perfectly right and natural, remain so long undone that when they are done one is as much tilled with amazement as though the discovery of their propriety had just been made. This is especially the case with reforms in the law. To every one of common sense the idea of shutting a criminal's mouth, from the moment he is taken into custody — ( 4 Take care what you say, my good-fellow; any admission you make will be used against you ') — to that of his acquittal or con- viction, has long seemed absurd and monstrous ; but lawyers have such a contemptuous pity — and such a precious sharp way of expressing it — for the opinions of laymen who venture to find fault with their pro- ceedings, that nobody who values his nose dares open his mouth. On the other hand, when a reform does NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 215 take place, it must be admitted there is nobody like your Attorney-General (though it is generally one that is out of office) for pointing out i the absurd, chaotic, and intolerable ' state of affairs that has so long been permitted to exist. It has at last been decided that in place of one's counsel being instructed by one's solicitor to state that at the proper time and place we shall have a complete explanation to offer respecting our very suspicious conduct, one may get into the witness-box and explain it one's self in five minutes. I wonder how long it will be before the legal mind will discover that deeds affecting all we have in the world should be written in the English language, and also in the English character, so that we can read them with- out vertigo? I am informed (not, indeed by an Attor- ney-General, but by one who means to be one) that, in nine cases out of ten, every legal document now in hieroglvphic and on parchment, might, for all practical purposes, just as well be printed with the type- writer on ordinary paper. Then why isn't it ? When the ' Flying Scotchman ' was blocked by the snow the other day, a Scotch Duke with Conservative leanings was rescued from the train by a Radical M.P., and hospitably entertained at his country seat. This has suggested the remark to a serious-minded journalist that it would be well, indeed, if the leaders of all the sects in Christendom could be snowed up together for a night, that they might 'learn how much humanity they had in common, and what comfort there is in mutual helpfulness.' He ought to have said that 'the survivors ' would learn it. A first-class carriage filled by the Pope, Mr. Spurgeon, Mr. Bradlaugb, Mr, 216 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' Swinburne, Professor Huxley, and Mr. Hampden, junior (who thinks the world is 'flat,' in a different sense from that in which it appeared to Hamlet), would not in my opinion be good company. Mr. Bradlaugh would probably be the only one of them who could be depended upon not to — well, extract from the Com- mination Service. And yet there are dinner-givers in the fashionable world who pride themselves upon bringing people together who would otherwise, from their well-known antagonism, never meet. Their object, however, is less to afford an agreeable evening to their guests than to earn a reputation for themselves as lion-tamers. Dr. Johnson's invitation to meet Wilkes is the only instance in favor of this mixture of con- flicting elements ; and, to those who can read between the lines, it i^ evident that their mutual forbearance was owing to the fact that they were both horribly afraid of one another. It is very well for large-minded persons (like the reader) to aver that they are never put out by the expression of antagonistic opinions — but they don't like the people that hold them. The system of 4 fagging ' at the public schools used to be defended upon the ground that it discounte- nanced bullying. The theory was that under an author- ized system of superiors and inferiors there would be less individual oppression ; but it somehow happened that the small boys reaped the benefit of both sides, and got • more kicks than halfpence ' than ever. However they secured that immense advantage of ' roughing it ' in its completeness to which certain old gentlemen refer, with such offensive boastfulness, 'as having made them the men they are,' that one is sometimes NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 9 217 tempted to ask whether they could possibly have been worse without it. Whether ' fagging ' was practiced in Charterhouse in Thackeray's day I do not know, though his denunciation of it is most vehement ; but, I think, at that date, at all events, it was confined to the more aristocratic schools. It was one of the few extras that was not paid for, but was given in along with the ' tone.' In middle-class seminaries it had no existence. In the great Republic, of course, those humiliations have been always impossible which our juvenile Lord Algies and Berties used to put up with so patiently, and— if their young master was popular — even proudly, though, it must be confessed, to the outsider it seemed a strange sort of pride. ' Fagging ' has been much relaxed, and bullying greatly discour- aged in English schools of late, which makes the recent reports of the latter vice — under the name of ' hazing ' — in American schools the more remarkable. The ill- treatment of the younger cadets at West Point, for example, 'in the country of the free,' seems to be quite as bad as anything that used to take place, in the old days, at Woolwich or Sandhurst. ' One never sees three boys together,' says a great student of human nature, 4 but one of them is crying.' The psycholo- gists tell us that, in adolescence, when 4 the young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,' his purified nature scorns to maltreat the companions of his own age, to worry the harmless necessary cat, or to play tip-cat with frogs that have not blown themselves out like the frog in the fable. But, in the meantime, why are boys such brutes ? I wonder how many 4 original ideas ' are indebted 218 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' for their discovery to wits and humorists, which after- wards assume in other hands, though entirely without acknowledgment, a practical shape. It is common enough to see advertised nowadays some pleasure-trip Round the World, in a steam-yacht ; but ten years ago such an expedition had all the attraction of novelty. Yet in a play of nearly fifty years back the project was treated of, though with admirable humor, with a pre- cision that leaves nothing to be desired in the way of detail. It is a promoter of companies who speaks: 4 We propose to hire a threedecker of the Lords of the Admiralty, and fit her up with every accommodation for families ; we've already advertised for wet nurses and maids-of-all-work. ... A delightful billiard- table in the ward-room, with, for the humbler classes, skittles ofi the orlop deck. Swings and archery for the ladies, trap-ball and cricket for the children, while the marine sportsman will find the stock of gulls unlimited. At every new country we shall drop an- chor for at least a week, that the children may go to school and learn the language ; while, for the conve- nience of lovers, the ship will carry a parson.' I wonder how many of my readers will remember that play — once so well thought of, and written by the greatest wit of his time ! 'Strange that honey can't be got without hard money ! ' sings the poet, and the same thing can surely be averred, and with even greater force, of snowdrops ! Yet a British farmer has been found to prosecute two little children for plucking them in his paddock. If he had owned the fields of Enna, it is probable that he would have done the same to Proserpine herself for NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS. 1 219 gathering flowers, only he would not have sacrificed her to Pluto, but to Plutus. If it had been the crocus, one could imagine its golden hue to have given it some sort of fictitious value in his greedy eyes ; but the snow- drop ! It is difficult, I hope, for most people to con- ceive the nature of a man who would wish to send a child to jail for such an offence. I have not one word to say for this churl ; but the general indignation he has aroused, it strikes me, might take a more useful and broader channel. Farmers nowadays are in great straits, and it is possible that a crop of snowdrops at a penny- a bunch in the London market may be worth their consideration. What is far more discreditable is the selfishness of some of our great landowners, who would keep the children's feet off the very grass. I know a park, not an hour's journey from town, through which there is a right of wa}-, and where, in summer- time, there are men employed by its noble proprietor to warn all passers-by to keep to the road. He forbids the dusty wayfarer to cool his feet even for a moment on the greensward. The ' warners,' poor fellows, are dreadfully ashamed of their office. 'It is my lord's will,' they say apologetically, as though they would have added,' ' and you know the sort of man he is.' I remember on one occasion seeing a contest between them and a sort of comic village Hampden, who per- sisted in sitting down on the grass. ' Touch me if you dare,' he said, i and I'll bring an action against you for assault. I've got my feet on your beastly road.' The distinction was too subtle for them, and I left him sitting, and the 4 warners ' watching him with doubtful looks. The snowdrop farmer was, doubtless, a surly dog, but, to my mind, not so utterly contemptible as this other, though he had a coronet for his collar. 220 NOTES FHOM THE 'NEWS, The inequality of udicial sentences is complained of daily, as it it were a new thing; but whenever what is called ' discretionary power ' is left in the hands of one who has no discretion, miscarriages of justice must needs take place. They are neither more frequent nor worse than they used to be, though of course we hear much more of them. Seventy years ago two men stole some fowls in Suffolk. One of them was caught at once and tried by Judge Buller, who, not thinking his crime very serious, gave him three months' imprison- ment. The other was arrested some time afterwards, and, being found guilty at the next Assizes, was sen- tenced by Judge Gould to seven years' transportation. 4 It so happened,' says the chronicler, with quaint in- difference, 4 tflat the one man was leaving prison at the expiration of his punishment, at the very time the other was setting out for Botany Bay.' The accusations of the wholesome literature societies against ' highwayman stories ' are, no doubt, well founded, though I think they are exaggerated. The natures that are attracted by the violent delights of robbery and manslaughter are not imaginative, nor given to literature of any kind. Stories which treat of actual vice, though disgusting to cultured minds, are very attractive (however well-meaning folk may maun- der to the contrary) to coarse ones ; but crime, in my opinion, is under very small obligations to letters. It ought, of course, to be under none at all ; but the steps taken by the societies in question to prevent it are, to say the truth, not calculated to effect their object. The 4 pure literature ' they furnish is of such a very milk-and-watery character that, so far from winning NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS: 221 readers from their pabulum of lawless peril, it attracts no one. One is almost tempted to say of it what the poet sang of the aesthetic lover of sunflowers, that ' if he's content with a vegetable love, it will certainly not do for me ! ' It is surely possible to be moral, and yet not so deadly dull. The same difficulty seems to ob- struct the success of the teetotalers. They exclaim, 4 No alcohol ! ' but the drinks they offer in place of it are all of them more or less sickly and distasteful, and too much like ' the excellent substitutes for butter at breakfast.' If a drink could be concocted with no spirit in it, but which was really attractive to the palate, half the temperance battle would be won. Why is not a re- ward offered for its discovery. Similarly, why do not the pure literature societies, instead of producing stories which remind one of the immortal parody upon Hans Christian Andersen (' And lo, in the morning, the foot of the peasant had trodden on the flower that the child had planted upon his mother's uncle's grave '), get Mr. Stevenson, or somebody (no, my cynical friend : ' Terms will not be sent on application ' ), to supply them with stories for the masses that shall be pure as snow, but not so soft and cold, and with a fine flavor of adventure in them ? When I read in my weekly newspaper a month ago or so, under the heading ' Miscellaneous,' that a private in the Royal Marines had suddenly inherited half a million of money, I anticipated amusement. It was not difficult to imagine that that worthy soldier would become well thought of, and that the etiquette which separates the bombardier from the commissioned officer would be waived. If, as has lately happened, the 222 NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' maiden fancy of the daughter of a noble house can stoop to a policeman on a pound a week, how much more likely that that of 4 the daughters of the regiment ' (that is, of the officers of the regiment) should settle on a soldier with <£400 a week ! It was only in the nature of things that needy majors should borrow money of him, and good-natured lieutenants teach him games of cards. Of all this I made a humorous picture in my mind ; but, as it has turned out, far short of the fun of the reality, for the story of this (semi-) millionaire of the marines ought, it seems, to have been told to the Horse Marines. Nobody has ever left him a penny. All those who have pressed upon him the offer of a lifelong friendship (and, what is of more consequence, a little money in advance of his expectations) have been the victims of his perfervid imagination. He has left the army (as they all advised him to do), but without leaving his address. His wife, indeed, takes in washing at her usual humble residence ; but they don't want her, they want her husband, the (semi-) million- aire who has taken them in. The roll-call is called in vaii, so far as he is concerned. His military career is closed ; but his name will live in army circles as long as that of many a much more highly decorated warrior. In the long night of winter, ' when the kid turns on the spit,' the story of his 4 kidding ' will enliven both the canteen and the mess-table. One is compelled to maintain one's wife — though not indeed in a high state of efficiency — but there is no such responsibility as regards one's w T idow. A tes- tator has just proved his independence in that respect, by bequeathing his consort just nothing at all. She is NOTES FROM THE 'NEWS.' 223 his relict, but only in name. He has followed the example of 4 the pious founder,' with a difference : his wealth has gone to * religious purposes,' but on the principle of quick returns and small profits. He has no desire for the gratitude of unborn generations. Through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault no pealing anthem will swell the note of praise for his money. He has distributed it among a lot of chapels, not to their building funds, but to the people who go to them. This is the way, he has justly concluded, to make the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust immediately : there is no time lost, as in the planting of trees ; it is like sowing mignonette. The 1 Judge, compelled to ratify the arrangement, has ex- i pressed his regret that the law has so decided it. Per- j haps he sympathized with the widow ; perhaps he was jealous of the religious body to which the deceased be- longed, and regretted that his own convictions pre- vented him from sharing the pecuniary advantage they derived from chapel-going. In the meantime, however, the congregations have increased, and the secret of how to ensure attendance at public worship appears to have been discovered. THE END. JOHN Yv\ LOVELL COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. "©rforb" Ebition of 12mos. The best selection of Classic Fiction, etc., forming a most; de- sirable line of two hundred 12mos. Printed uniformly m large, clear type, on fine paper, from new electrotype plates, and very beautifully bound in extra cloth and gold, extra stamping wuh ribbon marker. Price 50 Cents per Volume, 1 Abbot, The. By Sir Walter Scott. 2 Adam Bede. By G. Eliot. 3 iEsop's Fables. 4 Airy Fairy Lilian. By The Duchess. 5 Alice : a Sequel to Ernest Maltravers. By Lytton. 6 Alhambra. By Washington Irving. 7 Andersen's Fairy Tales. 8 An April Lady. By The Duchess. 9 An Egyptian Princess. By Georg Ebers. 10 An Ocean Tragedy. By W. Clark Russell. 11 Aurelian. By Wm. Ware. 12 Aurora Flv ert Louis Stevenson. 164 Strange Story, A. By Lord Lytton. 165 Sunshine and Koses. By Bertha M. Clay. 166 Swiss Family Bobinson. 167 Syrlin. By Ouida. 168 Tale of Two Cities. By Charles Dickens. 169 The Young Duke. By Beaconsfield. 170 Thaddeus of Warsaw. By Jane Porter. 171 The Countess Eve. By J. H. Shorthouse. 172 The Fairy of the Alps. By E. Werner. 173 Three Guardsmen. By Alexandre Dumas. 174 Tom Brown's Schooldays. By Thomas Hughes. 175 Tom Brown at Oxford. By Thomas Hughes. 176 Tom Cringle's Log. By Michael Scott. 177 Tour of the World in 80 Days. By Jules Verne. 178 Twenty Years After. By Alexandre Dumas. 179 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. By Jules Verne. 180 Twice Told Tales. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. 181 Two Years Before the Mast. By R H. Dana, Jr. JOHN W. £OVELL COMPANY, NEW YORK. JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. "©jforo" jEDftion of I2mo0— Contfnueo. 182 Uarda. By Georg Ebers. 183 Vanity Fair. By W. M. Thackeray. 184 Vendetta, The. By Balzac. 185 Vicar of Wakefield. By Oliver Goldsmith. 186 Vivian Grey. By Lord Beaconsfield. 187 Vixen. By Miss M. E. Braddon. 188 Waverley. By Sir Walter Scott. 189 We Two. By Edna Lyall. 190 Wee Wifie. By Rosa N. Carey. 191 What's Mine's Mine. By George Macdonald. 192 Whittier's Poems. By J. G. Whittier. 133 Widow Bedott Papers. Mrs. W T hitcher. 194 Willy Reilly. By William Carleton. 195 Woman's Face, A. By Mrs. Alexander. 196 Woman in White, The. By Wilkie Collins. 197 Woman's Love Story, A. By Bertha M. Clay. 198 Wooing O't. By Mrs. Alexander. 199 Zanoni. By Lord Lytton. 200 Zenobia. By Wm. Ware. JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY. 142 to 150 Worth Street, Corner Mission Place, NEW YORK, t JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. IRuob^ Ebition OF BOOKS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. These are handsome 12mo. volumes, substantially bound iu best English cloth and stamped from original designs in colored ink and gold, PRICE, 75 CENTS PER VOLUME. The works have been especially selected from the most noted authors of juvenile literature and in every case are works that can be brought into the home for instruction and entertainment without fear of the results which often follow the reading of low-priced li'erature. Abbott's Stories for Children. By Jacob Abbott. Adventures among the Indians. Adventures, Forest and Frontier. Adventures of Famous Travellers. Adventures of Famous Sailors. Adventures of Kob Boy, The. By James Grant. Afloat in the Forest. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. By Lewis Carroll. Audubon the Naturalist. By Mrs. Horace St. John. Aunt Diana. By Rosa Nouchette Care}\ Barbara's Triumph. By Mary A. Denison. Boy Conqueror. Boy Crusoes ; or, The Young Islanders. Boys' and Girls' Story Book. Boy Hunters. By Capt. "Mayne Reid. Boys in the Forecastle, The. By Geo. H. Coomer. Boys of the Bible. Boy Slaves. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Boy Tar. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Bruin. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Bush Boys. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Cast Up by the Sea. By Sir Samuel Baker. JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, NEW YORK. JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. TRugbE coition— Continued Cliff Climbers. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Daniel Boone, Life of. Children's Stories. Deep Down. By Ballantyne. Desert Home. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Dick Chevelcy. By W. II. G. Kingston. Dick Rodney. By J. Grant. Eastern Fairy Legends, Current in Southern India. Edge worth's Parents' Assistant. Edgeworth's Moral Tales. Edgeworth's Popular Tales. Edgeworth's Classic Tales. Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon. By Sir S. Baker. Eric Dane. . Bv M. White, Jr. Erling the Bold. By R. M. Ballantyne. Esther. By Rosa IT. Carey. Famous Boys. Famous Men. Fire Brigade, The. By R. M. Ballantyne. Flag of Distress. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Flat Iron for a Farthing, A. By Mrs. Ewing. Forest Exiles. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Fort Pillow to the End. By William M. Thayer. Fort Sumter to Roanoke Island. By Wm. M Thayer. Frank Wildman's Adventures on Land and Water. By Frederick Gcrstaecker. Gascoyne. By B. M. Ballantyne. German Fairy Tales. Translated by Chas. A. Dana. Gilbert the Trapper. By Capt. C. M. Ashley. Giraffe Hunters. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Golden Magnet, The. By G. M. Fenn. Gracie Goodwin. A Story for Girls. Grandfather's Chair. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Grey Hawk. By James Macaulay. Harlie's Letters. By Jacob Abbott. Hauffs Fairy Tales. JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, NEW YORK, JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. IRugbE j£<ion— Contfnueo. In Southern Seas. By Frank H. Converse. In the Wilds of New Mexico. By G. M. Fenn. Jackanapes and Other Tales. By Mrs. Ewing. Jack Wheeler. By Capt. David Southwick. Land of Mystery. By R. H. Jayne. Luke Bennet's Hide Out. By Capt. C. B. Ashley. Magician's Show-box, The, and Other Stories. Mark Seaworth. By W T . H. G. Kingston. Merle's Crusade. By Rosa N. Carey. Midshipman, The. By W. H. G. Kingston. Mountain Cave, The. By Geo. H. Coomer. Murfreesboro to Fort Pillow. By William M. Thayer. Mystery of a Diamond, The. By Frank H. Converse. Nature's Young Nobleman. By Brooks McCormiek. Number 91. By Arthur Lee Putnam. Ocean Waifs. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Odd People. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Old Merry's Travels on the Continent. On the Trail of Geronimo. By R. H. Jayne. Oriental Fairy Tales. Our Young Soldiers. By Lieut. V. R. Hamilton. Paul Blake. Adventures of a Boy in the Island cf Ccr sica, etc. Perils of the Jungle. By Lieut. R. II. Jayne. Peter the Whaler. By W. H. G. Kingston. Pirate Island. By Harry Collingwood. Plant Hunters. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Popular Natural History. Ran Away to Sea. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Red Eric, The. By R. M. Ballantyne. Rifle and Hound in Ceylon, The. By Sir Samuel Baker. Roanoke Island to Murfreesboro. By Wm. M. Thayer. Robin Hood and His Merry Forresters. Round the World. By W. H. G. Kingston. Salt Water. Bv W. H. G. Kingston. Sandford and Merton. JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, NEW YORK. JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. IRuabg Boftfon— Continued. School Life ; or, Three Years at Wolverton. Smuggler's Cave, The. By Annie Ashmore. Spanish Fairy Tales. Stories about Animals. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Stories from American History. Through the Looking Glass. By Lewis Carroll. Tiger Prince, The. By "William Dalton. Tom Tracy. By Arthur Lee Putnam. Twice Told Tales. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Voyage to the Gold Coast, A. By Frank H. Converse. War Tiger, The. By William Dalton. White Elephant, The. By William Dalton. White Mustang, The. By R. H. Jayne. Wild Sports in the Far West. By Frederick Gerstaecker. Wolf Boy in China, The. By William Dalton. Wonders of the Great Deep. By P. H. Gosse. Young Acrobat. By Horatio Alger. Young Adventurer. Young Foresters, The, and Other Tales. Young Folks' Book of Birds. Young Folks' Book of Book. Young Folks' History of France. By C. M. Yonge. Young Folks' History of Germany. By C. M. Yonge. Young Folks' History of Greece. Young Folks' History of Rome. Young Voyagers. By Capt. Mayne Beid. Young Yagers. By Capt. Mayne Reid. Young Folks' Historical Tales. Ey William and Robert Chambers. Young Folks' Tales of Adventures. By William and Rob- ert Chambers. Young Folks' Popular Tales. By William and Robert Chambers. Young Folks' Scottish Tales. By William and Robert Chambers. Young Folks' Natural History. JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, NEW YORK. (3ooJ> Boofts for Boss anb (5irls. Handsomely Bound in Cloth. 3Ball&1tt$1te (1R» /!&♦)♦ -^ Library of Story and Advent- ure. Printed from large, clear type; handsomely Illustrated. 4 vols., 12mo. Cloth, black and gold ; boxed, $3.00. 1. The Red Eric, or the Whaler's Last Cruise. 2. Erling the Bold ; a Tale of the Norse Sea Kings. 3. The Fire Brigade, or Fighting the Flames. 4. Deep Down ; a Tale of the Cornish Mines. 5. Gascoyne, the Sandal Wood Trader. TRin^BtOn (XKHiiltam 1b* <&♦)♦ A Library of Adventure. Printed from large, clear type; handsomely Illustrated. 6 vols., 12mo. Cloth, black and gold, $4.50. 1. Marx Seaworth, a Tale of the Indian Ocean. 2. Round the World. 3. Salt Water, or the Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy. 4. Peter the Whaler ; his Early Life and Adventures. 5. The Midshipman, Marmaduke Merry. 6. The Young Foresters, and Other Tales. Greenwood's (Grace) Stories* New edition. The volumes are finely printed on heavy paper, Illustrated, handsomely bound in cloth, with ink and gold stamp- ing. 8 vols., Library cloth, $4.75. 4 vols., Popular cloth, $2.50. 1. Stories for Home Folks ; Stories and Sights of France and Italy. 2. Stories from Famous Ballads ; History of My Pets ; Eecollections of My Childhood. 3. Stories of Many Lands ; Stories and Legends of Travel and History. 4. Merrie England ; Bonnie Scotland. JOHN W. LOYELL COMPANY, NEW YORK. <5ooD aBooftg for ffioys anD <5irls— Continued Brabfan IFtfgbts' Entertainment* The Thousand and One Nights. Translated from the Arabic. New plates, large, clear type. 1 vol., 12mo. Illustrated. Cloth, black and gold. Oxford Edition, 50 cents. Generations of wise fathers and mothers have thor- oughly proved the high educational value of the Arabian Nights as a book of amusing stories for children. They stimulate young minds and create a taste and desire for reading at a time when almost all other forms of literature would be irksome and uninstructive. CbiR>'5 UMBtOtS Of England By Charles Dickens. A New Edition for the use of schools. With numerous Illustrations. Printed from large type. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth, black and gold. Oxford Edition, 50 cents. Charles Dickens wrote the Child's History of England for his own children, because, as he himself said, he could find nothing in the whole line of English histories jnst suitable for them, at a time when they were beginning to read with interest and profit, but not sufficiently advanced to take up the great standard authors. It was a labor of love, and has been well appreciated by the multitude of 3 r oung people who have gained their first knowledge of history from this delightful little volume. It is written i:i the most pure and simple language, and has for young readers all the picturesque and vivid interest that one of the author's novels possesses for the older ones. All the great characters of English history become as familiar and produce as permanent impressions, as the heroes of tho Arabian Nights and of the other favorite books of child- hood. It is not only indispensable in every household where any care at all is bestowed upon the education of children, but it is also one of the best brief and compen- dious histories of England for all classes of readers. JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, NEW YORK. 45 Was Ever Woman in this HumOr Wooed. By Chas. Gibbon 30 49*. The Mynns Mystery. By George Manville Fenn 60 50. Hedri. By Helen Mathers. •■ 51. The Bondman. By Hall Came. •••••••••• ™ 52. A Girl op the People. By L. T. Meade . . • .•••••■ <£ 53 Twenty Novelettes, by Twenty Prominent Novelist: 60 54 A Family Without a Name, By Jules Verne fo 55". A Sydney Sovereign. By Tasnia. ; ... ■•••••■ ft 56. A March in the Ranks. By Jessie Fothergill JO 57. Our Erring Brother. By F. W. Robinson f0 58. Misadventure, By W. E. Norris... >■■■■■■■ ■•-•":'• "' ?X 59 Plain Tales from the Hills. By Rudyard Kipling M GO Dinna Forget. By John Strange Winter °> Gl. Cosette. By Katharine Macquoid. ...... ™ G2 Master op His Fate. By J • Maclaren Cobban <£ 63. A Very Strange Family. By F. W. Robinson «JJ 64. The Kilburns. By Annie Thomas..., °u Go The Firm op Girdlestone. By A. Conan Doyle j« CO*. In Her Earliest Youth. By Tasma. °" 67. The Lady Egeria. By J. B. Harwood °" G8. A True Friend. By Adeline Sargent ••■■•••; ' °X G9 The Little Chatelaine. Bv The Earl of Desart. . . <*' 70. Children op To-Morrow. By William Sharp 71. 72. Ihe Haunted Fountain and Hetty's Revenge. By Katharine A Daughter's Sacrifice. By F. C. Philips and Percy Fendall. . . . 50 73. Hauntings. ByVernonLee • ■••••« •*> 74. A Smuggler's Secret. By Frank Barrett • ™ 75. Kestell op Greystone. By Esme Stuart. . . •■■■ ™ 76. The Talking Image op Urur. By Franz Hartmann, M.B. &u 77. A Scarlet Sin. By Florence Marryat ™ 78 By Order op the Czar. By Joseph Hatton • • • °y 79. The Sin op Joost Avelingh. By Maarten Maartens oo 80. A Born Coquette. By The Duchess ^ 81. The Burnt Million. By James Payn v £" 82. A Woman's Heart. By Mrs. Alexander ™ 83. Syrlin. ByOuida • •••• ••••v ■•■• ■■• •• ■ • ^X 84 The Rival Princes. B^ Justin McCarthy and Mrs. C Praed • • • £0 85. Blindfold. By Florence Marryatt :••••'* >n 86. The' Parting op the Ways. By Bctham Edwards ™ 87. The Failure op Elizabeth. By E. Frances Poynter w 88. Eli's Children. By George Manville Fenn ™ 89 The Bishop's Bible, r^ David Christie Murray and Henry Hermann.. 5U 90. April's Lady. By The Duchess ™ 91. Violet Vyvian, M. F. H. By May Crommelm gu 92. A Woman op the World. By F. Mabel Robinson " 96. The Mystery op M. Felix. By B. L. I arjeon gu 97 With Essex in Ireland. By Hon. Emily Lawless. . 98! Soldiers Three, and Other Stories. By Rudyard Kiplnn 50 DULmc/UB mini., anu viiii.ii u../...^- -j u— i _„ 99. Whose was the Hand. By M. E. Braddon 100 The Blind Musician. By Stepniak and William Wes all m 101. The House cnto Scab. By Bertha Thomas £« 102. The Wages of Sin. By Lucas Malet. .•••.••• j?X 103. The Phantom Rickshaw. By Rudyard Kipling au 101 The Love of A Lady. By Annie Thomas... •" 105. How Came He Dead? By J. Fitzgerald Moll- y. ™ 10(5 A Romance op the Wire. By Mrs. Betham-Ed wards w 107. A New Novel. By B. L. Farjeon • •** 10«. Notes from the Nbwp. By Jam«s Payn 109. The Keeper of the Kei ■ ■ By F. Y\ . Robinson « Any of the above sent postpaid, on receipt of price, by the publishers, JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 150 WORTH STREET, NEW YORK STRIPPING SOAPS & PERFUMES ROSEtEAVEB COLGATE'S To secure the most delicate and refined perfume from the rose, it is necessary to discard the green central bulb. The above picture, reproduced from a photograph, shows a large number of girls and women seated around tables piled high with roses, engaged in stripping off the leaves. Although this is a very tedious and expensive operation, yet Colgate & Co., each year, have millions of roses separately handled and stripped of their leaves, to obtain the most delicate odor for their unrivalled soaps and perfumes, the favorite oi which is CashmSre ScHiquet ^ ^ \ A °/ ^ <, y o ,0 c A' O \0 I B k ++ ,