Household words, No. 18, July 27, 1850
Author: Unknown
Date: 2026-03-11T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: English literature -- Periodicals

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Title: Household words, No. 18, July 27, 1850

A weekly journal

Editor: Charles Dickens

Release date: March 11, 2026 [eBook #78183]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Bradbury & Evans, 1850

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78183

Credits: Richard Tonsing, Steven desJardins, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSEHOLD WORDS, NO. 18, JULY 27, 1850 ***

Transcriber’s Note:

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

“Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS.”—Shakespeare.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

No. 18.]      SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1850.      [Price 2d.

A DETECTIVE POLICE PARTY.

In pursuance of the intention mentioned at the close of a former paper on “The Modern Science of Thief-taking,” we now proceed to endeavour to convey to our readers some faint idea of the extraordinary dexterity, patience, and ingenuity, exercised by the Detective Police. That our description may be as graphic as we can render it, and may be perfectly reliable, we will make it, so far as in us lies, a piece of plain truth. And first, we have to inform the reader how the anecdotes we are about to communicate, came to our knowledge.

We are not by any means devout believers in the Old Bow-Street Police. To say the truth, we think there was a vast amount of humbug about those worthies. Apart from many of them being men of very indifferent character, and far too much in the habit of consorting with thieves and the like, they never lost a public occasion of jobbing and trading in mystery and making the most of themselves. Continually puffed besides by incompetent magistrates anxious to conceal their own deficiencies, and hand-in-glove with the penny-a-liners of that time, they became a sort of superstition. Although as a Preventive Police they were utterly ineffective, and as a Detective Police were very loose and uncertain in their operations, they remain with some people, a superstition to the present day.

On the other hand, the Detective Force organised since the establishment of the existing Police, is so well chosen and trained, proceeds so systematically and quietly, does its business in such a workman-like manner, and is always so calmly and steadily engaged in the service of the public, that the public really do not know enough of it, to know a tithe of its usefulness. Impressed with this conviction, and interested in the men themselves, we represented to the authorities at Scotland Yard, that we should be glad, if there were no official objection, to have some talk with the Detectives. A most obliging and ready permission being given, a certain evening was appointed with a certain Inspector for a social conference between ourselves and the Detectives, at our Office in Wellington Street, Strand, London. In consequence of which appointment the party “came off,” which we are about to describe. And we beg to repeat that, avoiding such topics as it might for obvious reasons be injurious to the public, or disagreeable to respectable individuals, to touch upon in print, our description is as exact as we can make it.

The reader will have the goodness to imagine the Sanctum Sanctorum of Household Words. Anything that best suits the reader’s fancy, will best represent that magnificent chamber. We merely stipulate for a round table in the middle, with some glasses and cigars arranged upon it; and the editorial sofa elegantly hemmed in between that stately piece of furniture and the wall.

It is a sultry evening at dusk. The stones of Wellington Street are hot and gritty, and the watermen and hackney-coachmen at the Theatre opposite, are much flushed and aggravated. Carriages are constantly setting down the people who have come to Fairy-Land; and there is a mighty shouting and bellowing every now and then, deafening us for the moment, through the open windows.

Just at dusk, Inspectors Wield and Stalker are announced; but we do not undertake to warrant the orthography of any of the names here mentioned. Inspector Wield presents Inspector Stalker. Inspector Wield is a middle-aged man of a portly presence, with a large, moist, knowing eye, a husky voice, and a habit of emphasising his conversation by the aid of a corpulent fore-finger, which is constantly in juxta-position with his eyes or nose. Inspector Stalker is a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman—in appearance not at all unlike a very acute, thoroughly-trained schoolmaster, from the Normal Establishment at Glasgow. Inspector Wield one might have known, perhaps, for what he is—Inspector Stalker, never.

The ceremonies of reception over, Inspectors Wield and Stalker observe that they have brought some sergeants with them. The sergeants are presented—five in number, Sergeant Dornton, Sergeant Witchem, Sergeant Mith, Sergeant Fendall, and Sergeant Straw. We have the whole Detective Force from Scotland Yard with one exception. They sit down in a semi-circle (the two Inspectors at the two ends) at a little distance from the round table, facing the editorial sofa. Every man of them, in a glance, immediately takes an inventory of the furniture and an accurate sketch of the editorial presence. The Editor feels that any gentleman in company could take him up, if need should be, without the smallest hesitation, twenty years hence.

The whole party are in plain clothes. Sergeant Dornton, about fifty years of age, with a ruddy face and a high sun-burnt forehead, has the air of one who has been a Sergeant in the army—he might have sat to Wilkie for the Soldier in the Reading of the Will. He is famous for steadily pursuing the inductive process, and, from small beginnings, working on from clue to clue until he bags his man. Sergeant Witchem, shorter and thicker-set, and marked with the small pox, has something of a reserved and thoughtful air, as if he were engaged in deep arithmetical calculations. He is renowned for his acquaintance with the swell mob. Sergeant Mith, a smooth-faced man with a fresh bright complexion, and a strange air of simplicity, is a dab at housebreakers. Sergeant Fendall, a light-haired, well-spoken, polite person, is a prodigious hand at pursuing private inquiries of a delicate nature. Straw, a little wiry Sergeant of meek demeanour and strong sense, would knock at a door and ask a series of questions in any mild character you chose to prescribe to him, from a charity-boy upwards, and seem as innocent as an infant. They are, one and all, respectable-looking men; of perfectly good deportment and unusual intelligence; with nothing lounging or slinking in their manners; with an air of keen observation, and quick perception when addressed; and generally presenting in their faces, traces more or less marked of habitually leading lives of strong mental excitement. They have all good eyes; and they all can, and they all do, look full at whomsoever they speak to.

We light the cigars, and hand round the glasses (which are very temperately used indeed), and the conversation begins by a modest amateur reference on the Editorial part to the swell mob. Inspector Wield immediately removes his cigar from his lips, waves his right hand, and says, “Regarding the Swell Mob, Sir, I can’t do better than call upon Sergeant Witchem. Because the reason why? I’ll tell you. Sergeant Witchem is better acquainted with the Swell Mob than any officer in London.”

Our heart leaping up when we beheld this rainbow in the sky, we turn to Sergeant Witchem, who very concisely, and in well-chosen language, goes into the subject forthwith. Meantime, the whole of his brother officers are closely interested in attending to what he says, and observing its effect. Presently they begin to strike in, one or two together, when an opportunity offers, and the conversation becomes general. But these brother officers only come in to the assistance of each other—not to the contradiction—and a more amicable brotherhood there could not be. From the swell mob, we diverge to the kindred topics of cracksmen, fences, public-house dancers, area-sneaks, designing young people who go out “gonophing,” and other “schools,” to which our readers have already been introduced. It is observable throughout these revelations, that Inspector Stalker, the Scotchman, is always exact and statistical, and that when any question of figures arises, everybody as by one consent pauses, and looks to him.

When we have exhausted the various schools of Art—during which discussion the whole body have remained profoundly attentive, except when some unusual noise at the Theatre over the way, has induced some gentleman to glance inquiringly towards the window in that direction, behind his next neighbour’s back—we burrow for information on such points as the following. Whether there really are any highway robberies in London, or whether some circumstances not convenient to be mentioned by the aggrieved party, usually precede the robberies complained of, under that head, which quite change their character? Certainly the latter, almost always. Whether in the case of robberies in houses, where servants are necessarily exposed to doubt, innocence under suspicion ever becomes so like guilt in appearance, that a good officer need be cautious how he judges it? Undoubtedly. Nothing is so common or deceptive as such appearances at first. Whether in a place of public amusement, a thief knows an officer, and an officer knows a thief,—supposing them, beforehand, strangers to each other—because each recognises in the other, under all disguise, an inattention to what is going on, and a purpose that is not the purpose of being entertained? Yes. That’s the way exactly. Whether it is reasonable or ridiculous to trust to the alleged experiences of thieves as narrated by themselves, in prisons, or penitentiaries, or anywhere? In general, nothing more absurd. Lying is their habit and their trade; and they would rather lie—even if they hadn’t an interest in it, and didn’t want to make themselves agreeable—than tell the truth.

From these topics, we glide into a review of the most celebrated and horrible of the great crimes that have been committed within the last fifteen or twenty years. The men engaged in the discovery of almost all of them, and in the pursuit or apprehension of the murderers, are here, down to the very last instance. One of our guests gave chase to and boarded the Emigrant Ship, in which the murderess last hanged in London was supposed to have embarked. We learn from him that his errand was not announced to the passengers, who may have no idea of it to this hour. That he went below, with the captain, lamp in hand—it being dark, and the whole steerage abed and seasick—and engaged the Mrs. Manning who was on board, in a conversation about her luggage, until she was, with no small pains, induced to raise her head, and turn her face towards the light. Satisfied that she was not the object of his search, he quietly re-embarked in the Government steamer alongside, and steamed home again with the intelligence.

When we have exhausted these subjects, too, which occupy a considerable time in the discussion, two or three leave their chairs, whisper Sergeant Witchem, and resume their seats. Sergeant Witchem, leaning forward a little, and placing a hand on each of his legs, then modestly speaks as follows:

“My brother officers wish me to relate a little account of my taking Tally-ho Thompson. A man oughtn’t to tell what he has done himself; but still, as nobody was with me, and, consequently, as nobody but myself can tell it, I’ll do it in the best way I can, if it should meet your approval.”

We assure Sergeant Witchem that he will oblige us very much, and we all compose ourselves to listen with great interest and attention.

“Tally-ho Thompson,” says Sergeant Witchem, after merely wetting his lips with his brandy-and-water, “Tally-ho Thompson was a famous horse-stealer, couper, and magsman. Thompson, in conjunction with a pal that occasionally worked with him, gammoned a countryman out of a good round sum of money, under pretence of getting him a situation—the regular old dodge—and was afterwards in the ‘Hue and Cry’ for a horse—a horse that he stole, down in Hertfordshire. I had to look after Thompson, and I applied myself, of course, in the first instance, to discovering where he was. Now, Thompson’s wife lived, along with a little daughter, at Chelsea. Knowing that Thompson was somewhere in the country, I watched the house—especially at post-time in the morning—thinking Thompson was pretty likely to write to her. Sure enough, one morning the postman comes up, and delivers a letter at Mrs. Thompson’s door. Little girl opens the door, and takes it in. We’re not always sure of postmen, though the people at the post-offices are always very obliging. A postman may help us, or he may not,—just as it happens. However, I go across the road, and I say to the postman, after he has left the letter, ‘Good morning! how are you?’ ‘How are you?’ says he. ‘You’ve just delivered a letter for Mrs. Thompson.’ ‘Yes, I have.’ ‘You didn’t happen to remark what the post-mark was, perhaps?’ ‘No,’ says he, ‘I didn’t.’ ‘Come,’ says I, ‘I’ll be plain with you. I’m in a small way of business, and I have given Thompson credit, and I can’t afford to lose what he owes me. I know he’s got money, and I know he’s in the country, and if you could tell me what the post-mark was, I should be very much obliged to you, and you’d do a service to a tradesman in a small way of business that can’t afford a loss.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I do assure you that I did not observe what the post-mark was; all I know is, that there was money in the letter—I should say a sovereign.’ This was enough for me, because of course I knew that Thompson having sent his wife money, it was probable she’d write to Thompson, by return of post, to acknowledge the receipt. So I said ‘Thankee’ to the postman, and I kept on the watch. In the afternoon I saw the little girl come out. Of course I followed her. She went into a stationer’s shop, and I needn’t say to you that I looked in at the window. She bought some writing-paper and envelopes, and a pen. I think to myself, ‘That’ll do!’—watch her home again—and don’t go away, you may be sure, knowing that Mrs. Thompson was writing her letter to Tally-ho, and that the letter would be posted presently. In about an hour or so, out came the little girl again, with the letter in her hand. I went up, and said something to the child, whatever it might have been; but I couldn’t see the direction of the letter, because she held it with the seal upwards. However, I observed that on the back of the letter there was what we call a kiss—a drop of wax by the side of the seal—and again, you understand, that was enough for me. I saw her post the letter, waited till she was gone, then went into the shop, and asked to see the Master. When he came out, I told him, ‘Now, I’m an Officer in the Detective Force; there’s a letter with a kiss been posted here just now, for a man that I’m in search of; and what I have to ask of you, is, that you will let me look at the direction of that letter.’ He was very civil—took a lot of letters from the box in the window—shook ’em out on the counter with the faces downwards—and there among ’em was the identical letter with the kiss. It was directed, Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post-Office, B——, to be left ’till called for. Down I went to B—— (a hundred and twenty miles or so) that night. Early next morning I went to the Post-Office; saw the gentleman in charge of that department; told him who I was; and that my object was to see, and track, the party that should come for the letter for Mr. Thomas Pigeon. He was very polite, and said, ‘You shall have every assistance we can give you; you can wait inside the office; and we’ll take care to let you know when anybody comes for the letter.’ Well, I waited there, three days, and began to think that nobody ever would come. At last the clerk whispered to me, ‘Here! Detective! Somebody’s come for the letter!’ ‘Keep him a minute,’ said I, and I ran round to the outside of the office. There I saw a young chap with the appearance of an Ostler, holding a horse by the bridle—stretching the bridle across the pavement, while he waited at the Post-Office Window for the letter. I began to pat the horse, and that; and I said to the boy, ‘Why, this is Mr. Jones’s Mare!’ ‘No. It an’t.’ ‘No?’ said I. ‘She’s very like Mr. Jones’s Mare!’ ‘She an’t Mr. Jones’s Mare, anyhow,’ says he. ‘It’s Mr. So-and-So’s, of the Warwick Arms.’ And up he jumped, and off he went—letter and all. I got a cab, followed on the box, and was so quick after him that I came into the stable-yard of the Warwick Arms, by one gate, just as he came in by another. I went into the bar, where there was a young woman serving, and called for a glass of brandy-and-water. He came in directly, and handed her the letter. She casually looked at it, without saying anything, and stuck it up behind the glass over the chimney-piece. What was to be done next?

“I turned it over in my mind while I drank my brandy-and-water (looking pretty sharp at the letter the while), but I couldn’t see my way out of it at all. I tried to get lodgings in the house, but there had been a horse-fair, or something of that sort, and it was full. I was obliged to put up somewhere else, but I came backwards and forwards to the bar for a couple of days, and there was the letter, always behind the glass. At last I thought I’d write a letter to Mr. Pigeon myself, and see what that would do. So I wrote one, and posted it, but I purposely addressed it, Mr. John Pigeon, instead of Mr. Thomas Pigeon, to see what that would do. In the morning (a very wet morning it was) I watched the postman down the street, and cut into the bar, just before he reached the Warwick Arms. In he came presently with my letter. ‘Is there a Mr. John Pigeon staying here?’ ‘No!—stop a bit though,’ says the barmaid; and she took down the letter behind the glass. ‘No,’ says she, ‘it’s Thomas, and he is not staying here. Would you do me a favor, and post this for me, as it is so wet?’ The postman said Yes; she folded it in another envelope, directed it, and gave it him. He put it in his hat, and away he went.

“I had no difficulty in finding out the direction of that letter. It was addressed, Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post-Office, R——, Northamptonshire, to be left till called for. Off I started directly for R——; I said the same at the Post-Office there, as I had said at B——; and again I waited three days before anybody came. At last another chap on horseback came. ‘Any letters for Mr. Thomas Pigeon?’ ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘New Inn, near R——.’ He got the letter, and away he went—at a canter.

“I made my enquiries about the New Inn, near R——, and hearing it was a solitary sort of house, a little in the horse line, about a couple of miles from the station, I thought I’d go and have a look at it. I found it what it had been described, and sauntered in, to look about me. The landlady was in the bar, and I was trying to get into conversation with her; asked her how business was, and spoke about the wet weather, and so on; when I saw, through an open door, three men sitting by the fire in a sort of parlor, or kitchen; and one of those men, according to the description I had of him, was Tally-ho Thompson!

“I went and sat down among ’em, and tried to make things agreeable; but they were very shy—wouldn’t talk at all—looked at me, and at one another, in a way quite the reverse of sociable. I reckoned ’em up, and finding that they were all three bigger men than me, and considering that their looks were ugly—that it was a lonely place—railroad station two miles off—and night coming on—thought I couldn’t do better than have a drop of brandy-and-water to keep my courage up. So I called for my brandy-and-water; and as I was sitting drinking it by the fire, Thompson got up and went out.

“Now the difficulty of it was, that I wasn’t sure it was Thompson, because I had never set eyes on him before; and what I had wanted was to be quite certain of him. However, there was nothing for it now, but to follow, and put a bold face upon it. I found him talking, outside in the yard, with the landlady. It turned out afterwards, that he was wanted by a Northampton officer for something else, and that, knowing that officer to be pock-marked (as I am myself), he mistook me for him. As I have observed, I found him talking to the landlady, outside. I put my hand upon his shoulder—this way—and said, ‘Tally-ho Thompson, it’s no use. I know you. I’m an officer from London, and I take you into custody for felony!’ ‘That be d—d!’ says Tally-ho Thompson.

“We went back into the house, and the two friends began to cut up rough, and their looks didn’t please me at all, I assure you. ‘Let the man go. What are you going to do with him?’ ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do with him. I’m going to take him to London to-night, as sure as I’m alive. I’m not alone here, whatever you may think. You mind your own business, and keep yourselves to yourselves. It’ll be better for you, for I know you both very well.’ I‘d never seen or heard of ’em in all my life, but my bouncing cowed ’em a bit, and they kept off, while Thompson was making ready to go. I thought to myself, however, that they might be coming after me on the dark road, to rescue Thompson; so I said to the landlady, ‘What men have you got in the house, Missis?’ ‘We haven’t got no men here,’ she says, sulkily. ‘You have got an ostler, I suppose?’ ‘Yes, we’ve got an ostler.’ ‘Let me see him.’ Presently he came, and a shaggy-headed young fellow he was. ‘Now attend to me, young man,’ says I; ‘I’m a Detective Officer from London. This man’s name is Thompson. I have taken him into custody for felony. I’m going to take him to the railroad station. I call upon you in the Queen’s name to assist me; and mind you, my friend, you’ll get yourself into more trouble than you know of, if you don’t!’ You never saw a person open his eyes so wide. ‘Now, Thompson, come along!’ says I. But when I took out the handcuffs, Thompson cries, ‘No! None of that! I won’t stand them! I’ll go along with you quiet, but I won’t bear none of that!’ ‘Tally-ho Thompson,’ I said, ‘I’m willing to behave as a man to you, if you are willing to behave as a man to me. Give me your word that you’ll come peaceably along, and I don’t want to handcuff you.’ ‘I will,’ says Thompson, ‘but I’ll have a glass of brandy first.’ ‘I don’t care if I’ve another,’ said I. ‘We’ll have two more, Missis,’ said the friends, ‘and con-found you, Constable, you’ll give your man a drop, won’t you?’ I was agreeable to that, so we had it all round, and then my man and I took Tally-ho Thompson safe to the railroad, and I carried him to London that night. He was afterwards acquitted, on account of a defect in the evidence; and I understand he always praises me up to the skies, and says I’m one of the best of men.”

This story coming to a termination amidst general applause, Inspector Wield, after a little grave smoking, fixes his eye on his host, and thus delivers himself:

“It wasn’t a bad plant that of mine, on Fikey, the man accused of forging the Sou’ Western Railway debentures—it was only t’other day—because the reason why? I’ll tell you.

“I had information that Fikey and his brother kept a factory over yonder there,” indicating any region on the Surrey side of the river, “where he bought second-hand carriages; so after I’d tried in vain to get hold of him by other means, I wrote him a letter in an assumed name, saying that I’d got a horse and shay to dispose of, and would drive down next day, that he might view the lot, and make an offer—very reasonable it was, I said—a reg’lar bargain. Straw and me then went off to a friend of mine that’s in the livery and job business, and hired a turn-out for the day, a precious smart turn-out, it was—quite a slap-up thing! Down we drove, accordingly, with a friend (who’s not in the Force himself); and leaving my friend in the shay near a public-house, to take care of the horse, we went to the factory, which was some little way off. In the factory, there was a number of strong fellows at work, and after reckoning ’em up, it was clear to me that it wouldn’t do to try it on there. They were too many for us. We must get our man out of doors. ‘Mr. Fikey at home?’ ‘No, he ain’t.’ ‘Expected home soon?’ ‘Why, no, not soon.’ ‘Ah! is his brother here?’ ‘I’m his brother.’ ‘Oh! well, this is an ill-conwenience, this is. I wrote him a letter yesterday, saying I’d got a little turn-out to dispose of, and I’ve took the trouble to bring the turn-out down, a’ purpose, and now he ain’t in the way.’ ‘No, he an’t in the way. You couldn’t make it convenient to call again, could you?’ ‘Why, no, I couldn’t. I want to sell; that’s the fact; and I can’t put it off. Could you find him anywheres?’ At first he said No, he couldn’t, and then he wasn’t sure about it, and then he’d go and try. So, at last he went up-stairs, where there was a sort of loft, and presently down comes my man himself, in his shirt sleeves.

“‘Well,’ he says, ‘this seems to be rayther a pressing matter of yours.’ ‘Yes,’ I says, ‘it is rayther a pressing matter, and you’ll find it a bargain—dirt-cheap.’ ‘I ain’t in partickler want of a bargain just now,’ he says, ‘but where is it!’ ‘Why,’ I says, ‘the turn-out’s just outside. Come and look at it.’ He hasn’t any suspicions, and away we go. And the first thing that happens is, that the horse runs away with my friend (who knows no more of driving than a child) when he takes a little trot along the road to show his paces. You never saw such a game in your life!

“When the bolt is over, and the turn-out has come to a stand-still again, Fikey walks round and round it, as grave as a judge—me too. ‘There, Sir!’ I says. ‘There’s a neat thing!’ ‘It an’t a bad style of thing,’ he says. ‘I believe you,’ says I. ‘And there’s a horse!’—for I saw him looking at it. ‘Rising eight!’ I says, rubbing his fore-legs. (Bless you, there an’t a man in the world knows less of horses than I do, but I’d heard my friend at the Livery Stables say he was eight year old, so I says, as knowing as possible, ‘Rising Eight.’) ‘Rising eight, is he?’ says he. ‘Rising eight,’ says I. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘what do you want for it?’ ‘Why, the first and last figure for the whole concern is five-and-twenty pound!’ ‘That’s very cheap!’ he says, looking at me. ‘An’t it?’ I says. ‘I told you it was a bargain! Now, without any higgling and haggling about it, what I want is to sell, and that’s my price. Further, I’ll make it easy to you, and take half the money down, and you can do a bit of stiff[1] for the balance.’ ‘Well,’ he says again, ‘that’s very cheap.’ ‘I believe you,’ says I; ‘get in and try it, and you’ll buy it. Come! take a trial!’

1. Give a bill.

“Ecod, he gets in, and we get in, and we drive along the road, to show him to one of the railway clerks that was hid in the public-house window to identify him. But the clerk was bothered, and didn’t know whether it was him, or wasn’t—because the reason why? I’ll tell you,—on account of his having shaved his whiskers. ‘It’s a clever little horse,’ he says, ‘and trots well; and the shay runs light.’ ‘Not a doubt about it,’ I says. ‘And now, Mr. Fikey, I may as well make it all right, without wasting any more of your time. The fact is, I’m Inspector Wield, and you’re my prisoner.’ ‘You don’t mean that?’ he says. ‘I do, indeed.’ ‘Then burn my body,’ says Fikey, ‘if this ain’t too bad!’

“Perhaps you never saw a man so knocked over with surprise. ‘I hope you’ll let me have my coat?’ he says. ‘By all means.’ ‘Well, then, let’s drive to the factory.’ ‘Why, not exactly that, I think,’ said I; ‘I’ve been there, once before, to-day. Suppose we send for it,’ He saw it was no go, so he sent for it, and put it on, and we drove him up to London, comfortable.”

This reminiscence is in the height of its success, when a general proposal is made to the fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced officer, with the strange air of simplicity, to tell the “Butcher’s story.” But we must reserve the Butcher’s story, together with another not less curious in its way, for a concluding paper.

“SWINGING THE SHIP.”
A VISIT TO THE COMPASS OBSERVATORY.

The noble ship with her floating battery of heavy guns, her hundreds of seamen, smart and brave, her powder, shot, and shell for destroying an enemy, and her tons of provender to supply her crew; with her anxious captain and aspiring lieutenants, mates, middys, warrant officers, and her pipeclayed marines are on board. The long pennon whips the winds; the hurry, bustle, and noise of preparation has subsided into the quietude of everything in its place; when the word passes that she is “Ready for Sea.”

Next morning the newspapers find just a line and a half in their naval corner for the announcement,—“Her Majesty’s ship Unutterable, 120 guns, went out of harbour yesterday. After she has been swung, and had her compasses adjusted, she will sail for the Pacific.”

“Swing a hundred and twenty gun ship?” says the good citizen interrogatively to himself, as he devours his coffee and his newspaper at breakfast. He pays his taxes and is proud of Britannia and the British navy, but his admiration of the nautical does not help him to a solution. “After she has been swung!” he repeats, and then more immediate affairs draw off his attention, and he leaves the Unutterable to undergo the mysterious. He turns to the debates.

Naval officers are of course more wise on the point, and some of them have more knowledge of the operation than liking for it. It’s apt to spoil the paint now and then, and gives trouble, and upsets some of their arrangements. Many, it must be confessed, have more experience than science in their composition, and when they let out their true feeling, indulge, perhaps, in a half growl, in which the words “new-fangled” and “deal of trouble” might be heard. But the operation goes on nevertheless, and little doubt but the toil is forgotten and the growl repented when—far, far at sea, a murky sky shuts out the sun and the stars, and forbids heaven to tell the navigator where he is—with a waste of waters, hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles around him, he has nought but his figures and his little trembling needles of magnetised iron to guide him on his way; to direct him wide of the sunken rock and the sandy shoal as he nears the wished-for coast.

The loss of British ships by wreck has been stated at between five and six hundred in a year—or about “a ship and a half-a-day.” This terrible loss has been ascribed to many causes—to the tides and currents of the ocean; to imperfect logs; inaccurate charts; unsteady steerage; inattention to the lead; stress of weather; defective ships, and defective management; but last, if not greatest, says Captain Johnson, who gives this catalogue of sources of disaster, we have the errors of the compass. These errors were noticed—now nearly a couple of centuries ago, and from those days to the present time careful mariners have often called attention to the subject. “Officers in charge of convoys during the war,” continues Captain Johnson, “will probably remember the care with which the general signal was displayed at sunset, to steer a given course during the night,” with what alacrity that signal was repeated by the ships of war in their stations, and answered by every merchant-vessel in the fleet; and they will also possibly remember with what surprise,—nay, indignation,—they observed when daylight came, almost the entire convoy dispersed over the ocean as far as the eye could reach, and mayhap a suspicious looking stranger or two escorting those farthest away, further astray, in despite of all the shots fired during a morning watch to recall them. That such dispersements were in part attributable to the differences of the compasses in each ship, there can be no doubt; but the greatest delinquents in this particular, in all probability, were not the merchant vessels, but rather the ships of war; the attractive power of their guns upon the compasses being now a well-known and constantly proved fact.

The Apollo frigate, and forty merchantmen of her convoy, in 1803 were wrecked together on the coast of Portugal, when they believed themselves to be two hundred miles to the westward. The error of the frigate’s compasses is believed to have been the cause of the disaster; and a similar belief exists with respect to the dreadful wrecks of our line of battle ships on the coasts of Jutland and Holland in 1811. The wreck of the Reliance, Indiaman, on the coast of France, when one hundred and nine lives were lost, in 1842, is another painful accident ascribed to errors of the compasses induced by the presence on board of a large iron tank forty-six feet long, the attraction of which had been overlooked—for a hollow tank has a magnetic influence as great as a solid mass of the same external dimensions—and such a mass would weigh four hundred and sixty-eight tons.

These errors in the needle that guides the ship, so dangerous in their results, at last attracted official attention in England. Inquiries were extended in various directions, and it was found that “in some ships the deviation was small; in others it was large enough to cause the loss of a ship, even during a short run; whilst in others, again, from the position of some iron stancheon, bolt or bar, or stand of arms, the error might be changed in the opposite direction; so that the deviation in one vessel was not a guide to its amount or direction in another; and that there was no other remedy but ascertaining the fact by direct experiment in each ship.” These facts were recognised by a committee of English officers, appointed to investigate the matter, one of whom was the Captain Johnson whom we have already quoted, and of whose subsequent labours we shall have further presently to speak.

With these words of explanatory preface, let us set out on a visit to the establishment where the dangers of those afloat are sought to be lessened by scientific investigations on shore.

About two miles and a half eastwards from the Greenwich Observatory, in the picturesque parish of Charlton, and on the extreme corner of the high land that runs from Blackheath, till it juts out close upon the banks of the Thames—stands the building we are in search of. Those who may try to discover it will probably find some little difficulty in the task, for the place is unpretending in outward aspect, and is little known in the neighbourhood; has never before been publicly described—except, perhaps, in those unread publications called Blue Books, and in the technical volume of the naval officer who has charge of this sanctum of science.

It is called the Compass Observatory; and its locality may probably be more completely indicated by saying that it is not very distant from, though on a far higher level than that corner of the Woolwich Dockyard whence the great chimney soars up like a rival monument to that on Fish Street Hill, and where the engine that sets the Dockyard Machines in motion hums like a bee of forty-horse power. When the place is reached, those who expect to see “a public building,” will be disappointed; those who like to find that Science may abide in small and humble places, will be pleased. A long strip of newly-reclaimed land, a detached brick house, and in its rear, an octagonal wooden structure of little greater outward pretensions than a citizen’s “summer house,” make up the whole establishment.

Passing under the pleasant shade of two fine oak trees, and then between a collection of very promising roses, we enter the house. Once inside, we see that the spirit of order, regularity, and neatness, is there paramount. The exactitude requisite for scientific observation, gives a habit of exactness in other things. In one room we perceive a galvanic battery ready for experiments; a disc of iron for showing a now defunct mode of steadying the vibrations of the compass; a specimen of the mixed iron and wood braced together as they are now employed in the construction of first-class ships of the Royal Navy, like the Queen’s Yacht; and more, interesting than all the rest, a copper bowl, contrived by Arago, for stilling the irritability (so to speak) of the magnetic needle.

The French astronomer and ex-minister of the Provisional Government here claims our admiration of his scientific skill, and his work suggests the reflexion how much more pleasant the calm pursuit of nature’s laws must be to such a man, than the turbulent effort to enact rules and constitutions for an impetuous and changeable people. Passing from this room to another, we find books, and charts, and maps, on which are laid down the magnetic currents over the great oceans, and amongst its instrumental relics, a magnetic needle that belonged to poor Captain Cook. It is a plain small bar of steel in a rough wooden case, but to the mariner who loves his craft and its heroes, this morsel of iron has an interest greater than the most perfect of nautical inventions—for Cook was a seaman who achieved great ends with humble means and from humble beginnings. A third room is full of compasses of all sorts, sizes, and kinds, from China, from Denmark, from France; from the most rude and simple, to the most complex and finished. All the schemes and plans ever proposed for improving this useful invention are here preserved. Many of the contrivances have been discovered more than once. A sanguine theorist completes what to him is perfectly new. Certain that he is to be immortalised and enriched, he sets off to the Observatory with his treasure, to reveal his grand secret, and receive the anticipated reward. He is shown into the compass-room, and there,—horror of horrors,—upon the table, amidst a host of others, there is an old discarded instrument the very counterpart of his own! It was made, and tried, and discarded, years ago.

From the main brick building we pass through another line of roses, and under a bower, boasting some fifty different varieties of that charming flower, to the wooden structure in the rear, which is, in fact, the Observatory.

This building is entirely free from iron. It is approached by stone steps; the door has a pure copper lock, which being opened by a copper key, swings on copper hinges to admit the visitor after he has first cleared the dirt from his shoes upon a copper scraper. Nearly facing the door is a stove to keep up the temperature in cold weather. It looks black enough, and has a black funnel. When the visitor is told that Captain Johnson has his coat-buttons carefully made without any iron shank concealed under their silken cover; and that his assistant, Mr. Brunton, repudiates buttons to his jacket altogether, and has pockets guiltless of a knife; he is apt to turn to the stove, and hint the presence there of the forbidden metal.

“Ah, ah!” is the reply, it looks like iron sure enough; but the fireplace, the chimney, the poker, the shovel, are all alike. Nothing but copper, copper, pure copper. This suggests an anecdote. When the operations in this Compass Observatory were first commenced, there was found to be a small variation in the magnet. The instruments were readjusted; their character was investigated, their construction re-examined; other observations were made—but still the variation continued. Pockets were searched for knives; the garden looked over to see that no stray spade or rake had been left outside the building, yet near enough for mischief. Nothing could be discovered. At length the brass bolt on the window was suspected; and though brass had a good character, not being thought capable of coaxing the magnet from its truth, it was, in despair of finding any other delinquent, unscrewed from its position. No sooner was this done, than the wayward needle returned to its true position; the brass bolt was ejected in disgrace, and no morsel of the brazen metal has since been allowed to show itself within the precincts of the building sacred to the mysterious fluid that draws the iron needle to the North.

Once inside the Observatory, the first impression is one of isolation and quietude. Look up to the wooden roof, and you see two shutters, to be opened when an observation is to be made upon a star. Through the floor rise three pedestals of masonry, built solidly from the earth, and isolated from the Observatory floor, so that no vibration may be communicated to them. All three stand in a row, running north and south. The object of two of them is to support with complete steadiness and truth two instruments for determining, at any moment of time, the exact magnetic north, whilst the third pedestal holds one by one the compasses brought there to be tested. The most northern of these three narrow stone tables is, in fact, a bed of trial—a place of ordeal—whilst the other two support the instrumental judges, who are to pass sentence upon the fluttering needles brought under their unyielding gaze. The test is a severe one. It is easy, with proper means, to get the true magnetic north with a fixed instrument on shore, but to make something that shall tell it with equal truth upon the deck of a ship, as it heaves and tosses, and plunges on the sea, is a very different thing. Yet, instruments equal to such triumphs of skill are obtained, and in this place it is that their qualities are first investigated. The south pedestal has upon it a tall tube of glass, within which there hang some long fibres of untwisted silk, supporting a magnetic tube so beautifully poised, that it obeys without let or hindrance its natural tendency towards the magnetic north. This tubular magnet has at one end a glass on which a scale and figures are engraved, but so fine and small as to be with difficulty seen by the naked eye. The second pedestal supports a telescope, with which the observer looks down the tubular throat of the magnet towards this tiny scale on the glass at its extremity. Our friends, the “spiders,” have contributed some lines to the telescope, and the centre one of these crosses the exact figure showing the magnetic position at the moment.

With this figure in his mind, the telescope and the observer’s eye are poised in the opposite direction, through the window of the Observatory, towards a spot some half mile to the north, called Cox’s Mount; an eminence on which a wall has been raised to bear a numbered scale similar to that on the magnet—with this difference—that the one is very minute, and the other very large. To the corresponding figure on the distant wall the instrument is directed, and being thus pointed towards the true magnetic north, it is brought to bear upon the pivot of the compass—which by this time occupies a place on the top of the third pedestal to be tested. Without a complex description, and the free use of scientific terms, it would be perhaps impossible to convey a thoroughly exact conception of the steps of the whole process. Such a detail would be not only too technical, but unnecessary, here. It will be enough in general terms to say, therefore, that the indication obtained from a star, or from the instrument on the south pedestal, called the collimator, is, by means of the instrument in the centre, combined with a mark upon a distant object, and then brought down to prove the true powers of the compass placed on the third pedestal. It is a beautifully exact operation. The silence of isolation, the steadiness of stone tables and practised operators, the most beautifully constructed instruments, are combined to ensure accurate realities as a result. The tests are so varied, and so often repeated, that no error can escape, and the compass, when it leaves the building to begin its adventures afloat, commences its career with an irreproachable character as a Standard Compass of the Royal Navy—to be, on board the ship of war to which it is sent, a kind of master instrument of reference, by which ruder and cheaper compasses may be checked and regulated.

Just as the history of the stars and of the variations of the magnet is registered and posted up at the Greenwich Observatory, so is that of the compasses entered up here. Every compass that passes its examination may be said to receive its commission, and be appointed to a ship. Its number is taken; its vessel and destination are noted, and, subsequently, its length of service. On its return home from successive trips, it comes back to this place, when its character is again investigated and note made of any loss of magnetic power, of any deviations it may have exhibited, how it may have lost and how gained, and of any other circumstances showing either improvement or deterioration. Now and then one is blacklisted, but this seldom happens; the greatest loss yet noted being 30 minutes. The Standard Compasses cost, when made new, with tripod and all complete, 25l. each. After they have been some years in service afloat, they are sent into hospital for overhaul and repair. This costs generally 4l. or 5l., and they are then again as good as ever, and ready to guide another ship on her way over the mighty waters. The scientific part of the fittings of a ship of war, though of greatest value, are thus of lowest cost. A Standard Compass is, indeed, a beautiful result of human ingenuity. Generations of seamen and men of science have discussed the best form and materials, and the best mode of suspending the needle, that it may most freely and truly follow its mysterious love for the north. From the days of the old adventurers round the globe, to the date of the last voyages to the Arctic regions, successive sea captains have thought, and watched, and suggested, and the Standard Compass of the English Navy combines, it is believed, all that is best in all their thinking. After the Observatory was established, and one of its duties had been defined to be to pursue investigations on the deviation of the needle, it was thought desirable to have specimens of the instruments used in the war ships of other naval nations. With the open liberality that unites in brotherhood the scientific men of all countries, France and Denmark sent specimens of what their best men had succeeded in perfecting for the use of their navies. These instruments are very good, and attract deserved attention in the observatory-collection of specimens. The Frenchman is scientific, simple, and with an excellent contrivance for a moveable agate plane to avoid friction in the motion of the needle. The Dane is a good substantial instrument, even more excellently finished than the compasses issued to our navy.

The English Compass is, however, believed with good reason to be the best yet contrived. It has grown up to its present excellence by slow degrees. Human ingenuity has been taxed to its utmost, and it has passed to its present perfection through the various trials of needles of all sorts of shapes swung in all sorts of ways, and by springs, and floating cards, modifying the instrument to the varying conditions of a small boat tossing on waves, or a line of battle ship jarring under the recoil of a broadside. And now we find our Compass-needle made of iron that, being got from the Swedish mines, has travelled to Strasbourg to be prepared for clock springs; thence to Paris, to be still more highly wrought by the watchmaker; and then to London, to take its sea-going shape. Four bars of this choice metal, or of shear-steel of equally fine quality, are ranged edgewise under a card, thickened and stiffened yet kept transparent by a sheet of mica, brought from the Russian mines; this card moves upon a point made of a metal harder than steel, and incapable of corrosion; and which sometimes, under the name of Iridium, but more correctly under that of “native alloy,” is found by the refiners as they smelt the platinum and silver gained from the Ural Mountains or the mines of Spain. The Iridium or alloy comes to the workshop in the tiniest of glass bottles—bottles as small round as a goose-quill, and about an inch long—in morsels not much bigger than a pin’s head, and weighing each less than half a grain. Some of these prove too soft, some too spongy, some too brittle, but at last one is found hard and good, and it is soldered upon the pivot, that, when sharpened and polished, is to work upon a cap, formed of a ruby, brought from the East. A bowl of the metal suggested by the French philosopher being prepared, from the produce of the mines of Cornwall; and the science of the English philosopher, and the skill of the English workman, having brought all these things into their proper shape and places; we have, as the result, the Standard Compass, whose fitness to guide her Majesty’s ship the Unutterable, we have just seen tested by Captain Johnson at the Woolwich Compass Observatory.

Our favourite newspaper has just stated that that gallant ship “is now at Greenhithe waiting to have her compasses adjusted.” So, then, the instruments so accurate at the Observatory a few days ago, are all wrong again on shipboard. Just so. The moment they get to their places afloat, their fidelity to the north wavers,—in one ship more, in another less; but in all in a greater or smaller degree in proportion to the quantity of iron used in the construction of the vessel, and the nearness of that metal to the compasses; in proportion to the number of the iron guns and the total weight of metal carried; to the length of the funnel in steamships, and to the condition of that funnel whether upright or hauled down. All this is both new and strange enough. We have learnt already what loss of ships convoyed and ships wrecked has arisen from these deviations: deviations long neglected on board all vessels and to this hour unrecognised or unattended to in our mercantile marine! Since the Royal Navy, however, has a scientific officer, Captain Johnson, especially employed in attending to the important duty of adjusting the compasses: let us go with him and his assistant, Mr. Brunton, from the Compass Observatory to the anchorage at Greenhithe, and see how he will “swing” the gallant line of battle ship, the Unutterable.

The trip occupies a very short time, for we have steam at command. Arrived in the Reach, we find five floating buoys anchored in the stream, one forming a centre, and four being disposed at equal distances about it, just as the five pips are placed upon a card—say the five of spades. The good ship to be operated upon is already fast by the head to the centre buoy, and Captain Johnson having mounted her deck, and his assistant, Mr. Brunton, having been rowed ashore, a rope is run out from the ship’s stern and made fast to one of the corner buoys. The Standard Compass being fixed in the proper position which it is to occupy in the ship, neither too high nor too low, and the guns and other iron being round about it, as they are to remain during the voyage, the mooring ropes are adjusted, and the ship’s head is put due north. Meanwhile, Mr. Brunton has set up a compass ashore, and all being ready, Captain Johnson, at a given moment, observes the bearing of a distant object—the Tower at Shooter’s Hill—noting the bearing of the needle on board. At that instant the pennant that floated at the mast-head is hauled down from the truck. This being the concerted signal, at the same second of time the assistant ashore observed the needle of his compass. The two instruments vary, and the deviation of that on board, compared with that ashore, is due to the iron of the ship. The stern ropes are hauled from one buoy to another, and again made fast, the ship’s head now pointing in another direction. The observations and the signals are repeated. Each deviation of the ship’s compass is carefully noted upon a card previously prepared for the purpose. The ship’s stern is then hauled round to the third outside buoy, and the compasses being again examined, she is next hauled round to the fourth buoy. Her head by this time has been north, east, south, west; on each point the deviations of her compasses have been tested, noted, and the card shows their character and proper adjustment. The ship has been swung. Science has done its best for her, and the word is given to heave anchor, for she is now truly “Ready for Sea.”

AN EXPLORING ADVENTURE.

The Litany of a Bushman on the Borders might well run, “From native dogs, from scabby sheep, from blacks, from droughts, from governors’ proclamations, good Lord, deliver us.”

The droughts come in their appointed season, and the day will be, when wells and tanks and aqueducts will redeem many a part from the curse of periodical barrenness: the blacks soon tame or fade before the white man’s face; unfortunately the seat of the native dogs, and home-bred or town-bred governing crotchets are more plentiful in long settled than new found countries. At any rate, I have experienced them all, and now give the following passage of my life for the benefit of the gentlemen “who live at home at ease,” hatching theories for our good—Heaven help their silliness!

I had been two years comfortably settled with a nice lot of cattle and sheep, part my own, part on “thirds,” when the people south of me began to complain of drought. I had enough feed and water; the question was, whether it would last.

I called my bullock-driver, Bald-faced Dick, into consultation. He was laid up at the time with a broken leg. Dick strongly advised looking for a new station “to the nor’ard.”

The sheep would do for months, but he thought we were overstocked with cattle. I had a good deal of confidence in Dick’s judgment; for he was a “first fleeter,” that is, came over with Governor Phillips in the first fleet; had seen everything in the colony, both good and bad; had, it was whispered, in early years fled from a flogging master, and lived, some said, with the blacks; others averred with a party of Gully-rakers (cattle-stealers); he swore horridly, was dangerous when he had drunk too much rum, but was a thorough Bushman; by the stars, or by sun, and the fall of the land, could find his way anywhere by day or night, understood all kinds of stock, and could make bullocks understand him. He knew every roving character in the colony, the quality of every station, and more about the far interior than he chose to tell to every one. With all his coarseness, he was generous and good-natured, and when well paid, and fairly and strictly treated, stood upon “Bush honour,” and could be thoroughly depended on.

Having had an opportunity of serving him in a rather serious matter previous to his entering my service, I was pretty sure of his best advice.

The end of it was, for a promise of five pounds he obtained from a friend of his a description of a country hitherto unsettled, and first-rate for cattle. These men, who can neither read nor write, have often a talent for description, which is astonishing.

Having heard a minute detail of the “pack,” and studied a sort of map drawn on the lid of a tea-chest with a burned stick, I decided on exploring with my overseer, Jem Carden, and, if successful, returning for the cattle and drags, all loaded for founding a station.

We only took our guns and tomahawks, with tea, sugar, a salt tongue, and small damper ready baked, being determined to make long marches, starting early, camping at mid-day, and marching again in the evening as long as it was light.

Our first stage was only twenty-five miles to young Marson’s cattle-station. Marson was a cadet, of a noble family, and having been too fast at home and in India as a cavalry subaltern, had been sent out with a fair capital to Australia, under the idea that a fortune was to be had for asking, and no means of expense open in the Bush. What money he did not leave in the bars and billiard rooms of Sydney, he invested in a herd of six hundred cattle; to look after these, he had four men, whom he engaged, one because he could fight, another because he could sing, and all because they flattered him. With these fellows he lived upon terms of perfect equality, with a keg of rum continually on the tap. Then, for want of better society, he made his hut the rendezvous of a tribe of tame blacks.

We found him sitting on the floor in a pair of trowsers and ragged shirt, unwashed, uncombed, pale-faced and red-eyed, surrounded by half-a-dozen black gins (his sultanas), a lot of dogs, poultry, a tame kangaroo, and two of his men. The floor was littered with quart pots, lumps of fat, and damper outside the hut; the relations of the black ladies had made a fire, and were cooking a piece of a fine young heifer. What with the jabbering of the gins, the singing and swearing of the men, and the yelping of the dogs, it was no place for a quiet meal, so we only stayed long enough to drink a pot of tea, so as not to offend, and passed on to camp an hour under the shade of a thicket near the river.

Marson having, with the assistance of his black friends, consumed all his stock, has returned home; and, I hear, asserts everywhere that Australia is not a country a gentleman can live in.

Our course next, after crossing the dividing range, lay over a very flat country, all burned up as far as the eye could reach,—a perfect desert of sand. The chain of pools which formed the river after rain, were nearly choked up by the putrifying carcases of cattle, smothered in fighting for water. The air was poisonous; the horses sank fetlock-deep at every stride; the blazing sun was reflected back from the hot sand with an intensity that almost blinded our half-shut eyes. After three hours of this misery, we struck into a better country, and soon after came up to the camp of a squatter, who had been forced forward by the drought. He had marked out about twenty miles along the river for his run,—a pretty good slice, I thought, when, before turning back, he said, “That is all I want.” It was no business of ours, as we had views further a-field. For three days we pushed on, making from thirty to forty miles a day, without seeing anything exactly to our mind. We rode over arid plains, dotted with scrubby brushwood, then up precipitous hills; now leaping, now clambering down and up, and now riding round to avoid dry gullies and ravines; passing occasionally breaks of green pasture, but insufficiently watered for my purpose. Sometimes our way lay along mountain sides, sometimes in the dry bed of a torrent. Sometimes huge boulders interrupted our course, sometimes the gigantic trunks of fallen trees. More than once we had to steer through a forest of the monotonous, shadeless gum, with its lofty, dazzlingly white trunks festooned with the brown, curly bark of the previous year, and its parasol-like but shadeless branches, where crimson, green, and snowy parrot tribes shrieked and whistled among the evergreen leaves. It is impossible to conceive anything more gorgeous than these birds as they fluttered in the sun; but I confess that, “on serious thoughts intent,” during this journey, they were more often associated with my ideas of supper than anything else.

The evening of the third day, we found ourselves obliged to camp down with a scanty supply of brackish water, and no signs of any living thing. The next day was worse; a land of silence and desolation, where it seemed as if mountains had been crumbled up and scattered about in hills and lumps. The dry earth cracked and yawned in all directions. Failing to find water, we camped down, parched, weary, silent, but not despairing.

The next morning the horses were gone.

I cannot find words to describe what we suffered in the subsequent twelve hours. I had walked until my feet were one mass of blisters, and was ready to lie down and die ten times in the day; but somehow I found strength to walk, always chewing a bullet. At length, at nightfall, we found our horses; and, nearly at the same time, to crown our delight—water. At the sight of this, we both involuntarily sank down on our knees to return thanks for life saved.

The next morning, after a scanty breakfast, we set to work, and by dint of cutting away with axe and jack-knife, at the expense of clothes and skin, through a brigalow scrub for half a mile, found our way into a gap through which our track lay, and which we had missed. It led straight to the dividing range.

After crossing five miles from the foot of the range, through a barren tract, our eyes and hearts were suddenly rejoiced by the sight of the wished-for land.

A plain, covered with fine green barley-grass, as high as our horses’ heads, and sprinkled over with the myal shrub, which cattle and sheep will eat and thrive on, even without grass. Such was the delicious prospect before us. A flood had evidently but lately subsided, for lagoons full of water were scattered all about; a river running at the rate of five miles an hour, serpentined as far as the eye could see, from which the water-fowl fluttered up as we passed; the eagle hawks were sweeping along after flocks of quail, and mobs of kangaroos hopping about like huge rabbits. There was not a sign of horn or hoof anywhere, but it was evident the aborigines were numerous, for there were paths worn down where they had been in the habit of travelling, from one angle of the river to another; we could trace their footmarks and of all sizes, and thereupon we unslung our guns and looked at the priming. Altogether I thought I had discovered the finest place for a cattle-station in the colony; I found out afterwards that the first appearance of a new country before it has been stocked is not to be depended on.

We formed a camp in an angle of the river, so as to have protection on three sides, ventured, in spite of the danger, to light a fire and cook some game. Oh, how delicious was that meal! As I lay near the river’s edge, peeping through the tall grass, I saw the horrid emus, that rare and soon to be extinct bird, come down the slopes on the opposite side to drink in numbers; a sure sign that white men were as yet strangers to these plains.

We spent some days in examination, and during the exploration met with adventures with the aborigines, I will not now relate. Having marked a station with my initials, and in returning made out a route practicable for drays, by which I afterwards made my way with a large herd of cattle, although not without enduring more than I could tell in a few lines.

Our horses having picked up their flesh in a fortnight’s spell on the green plains, we got back at a rattling pace, but, before arriving home, met with an adventure I shall not soon forget. It was at the first station we reached after crossing the “barrens” that divided our newly discovered country. A hut had just been built for the Stockman, a big strong Irishman, more than six feet high, a regular specimen of a Tipperary chicken. He had been entertaining us with characteristic hospitality; and we were smoking our pipes round the fire, when the hut-keeper rushed in without his hat, crying—

“Tom! Tom! the blacks are coming down on us, all armed, as hard as they can run. Shut the door! for Heaven’s sake shut the door!” Tom banged it to, and put his shoulder against it, while the keeper was pulling up the bar, and Carden and I were getting the lock-cases off our fire-arms. Unfortunately the door was made roughly of green wood, and had shrunk, leaving gaps between the slabs.

In the mean time about thirty blacks hurled a volley of spears that made the walls ring again; and then advancing boldly up, one of them thrust a double-jagged spear through the door, slap into Tom’s throat. My back was turned towards him, being busy putting a fresh cap on my carbine. I heard his cry, and, turning, saw him fall into the arms of the hut-keeper. I thrust the barrel of my piece through a hole against a black devil, and fired at the same moment that my man did. The two dropped; the rest retreated, but turned back, and caught up their dead friends. Carden flung open the door again, and gave them the contents of his other barrel. My black put the hut-keeper’s musket into my hand; I gave them a charge of buckshot. Three more fell, and the rest, dropping their friends, disappeared across the river. All this was the work of a moment. We then turned our attention to the stock-keeper. The spear had entered at the chin, and come out on the other side three or four inches. There was not a great flow of blood, but he was evidently bleeding inwardly. He was perfectly collected, and said he was quite sure he should die.

We cut the end of the spear short off, but did not dare to take it out. The hut-keeper got on a horse, leading another, and rode for a doctor who lived one hundred and fifty miles off; he never stopped except to give the horses a feed two or three times in the whole distance, but when he reached his journey’s end, the doctor was out. In the mean time poor Tom made his will, disposing of a few head of cattle, mare and foal, and also signed a sort of dying testament to the effect that he had never wronged any of the blacks in any way. The weather was very hot, mortification came on, and he died in agony two days after receiving his wound.

The outrage was reported to the Commissioner, but no notice was taken of it although we were paying a tax for Border Police at the time.

Not many years have elapsed since we fought for our lives—since I read the burial service over the poor murdered Stockman. A handsome verandah’d villa now stands in the place of the slab hut; yellow corn waves over the Irishman’s grave, and while cattle and sheep abound, as well white men, women, and children, there is not a wild black within two hundred miles.

THE BIRTH OF MORNING.

Pure, calm, diffused, the twilight of the morn

Is in the glen, among the dewy leaves.
Its gentle radiance, more heavenly-born
Than the half-loving sunbeam, never grieves
A nook, unvisited. This Earth receives
The light which makes no shade, as the caress
Of God on his creation, and upheaves
Her soft face, innocent with peace, to bless,

Babe-like, his watchful eye with waking tenderness.

A gate admits us to the Hill we seek;

Through woods a track upon the turf we find;

The trees are dripping dew, their tall stems creak

And rub together when the morning wind
Lightly caresses them. We pause to mind
The note of one awakened bird, whose cry,
Quaint and repeated, is not like its kind.
Our ears are ignorant. Now up the high

And mossy slope we climb, beneath an open sky.

We reach the summit. Earth is in a dream
Of misty seas, and islands strangely born—
The unreal, from reality. The stream

Of wraith-like sights which, ere he can be torn

From peaceful sleep, delights the travel-worn
At slumber’s painted gate, is not more wild
Than the imagining of Earth when Morn
Bids her awaken. So a dreaming child

Looks through white angel wings, and sees all undefiled.

The blessed dream-land fancy of the young,
More truthful than the reasoning of age,
Is like this vision of the morning, sprung
Of earth and air. These lines upon the page
Of Nature have life in them. They assuage
The fevers of the world, they are the dew
Of calm,—and God is calm. How mortals wage
Their wars of weakness Light reveals to view;

Reason fights through the false, but Fancy feels the true.

AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY.

In one of the dirtiest and most gloomy streets leading to the Rue Saint Denis, in Paris, there stands a tall and ancient house, the lower portion of which is a large mercer’s shop. This establishment is held to be one of the very best in the neighbourhood, and has for many years belonged to an individual on whom we will bestow the name of Ramin.

About ten years ago, Monsieur Ramin was a jovial red-faced man of forty, who joked his customers into purchasing his goods, flattered the pretty grisettes outrageously, and now and then gave them a Sunday treat at the barrier, as the cheapest way of securing their custom. Some people thought him a careless, good-natured fellow, and wondered how, with his off-hand ways, he contrived to make money so fast, but those who knew him well saw that he was one of those who “never lost an opportunity.” Others declared that Monsieur Ramin’s own definition of his character was, that he was a “bon enfant,” and that “it was all luck.” He shrugged his shoulders and laughed when people hinted at his deep scheming in making, and his skill in taking advantage of Excellent Opportunities.

He was sitting in his gloomy parlour one fine morning in Spring, breakfasting from a dark liquid honoured with the name of onion soup, glancing at the newspaper, and keeping a vigilant look on the shop through the open door, when his old servant Catherine suddenly observed:

“I suppose you know Monsieur Bonelle has come to live in the vacant apartment on the fourth floor?”

“What!” exclaimed Monsieur Ramin in a loud key.

Catherine repeated her statement, to which her master listened in total silence.

“Well!” he said, at length, in his most careless tones; “what about the old fellow?” and he once more resumed his triple occupation of reading, eating, and watching.

“Why,” continued Catherine, “they say he is nearly dying, and that his housekeeper, Marguerite, vowed he could never get up-stairs alive. It took two men to carry him up; and when he was at length quiet in bed, Marguerite went down to the porter’s lodge and sobbed there a whole hour, saying, Her poor master, had the gout, the rheumatics, and a bad asthma; that though he had been got up-stairs, he would never come down again alive; that if she could only get him to confess his sins and make his will, she would not mind it so much; but that when she spoke of the lawyer or the priest, he blasphemed at her like a heathen, and declared he would live to bury her and every body else.”

Monsieur Ramin heard Catherine with great attention, forgot to finish his soup, and remained for five minutes in profound rumination, without so much as perceiving two customers who had entered the shop and were waiting to be served. When aroused, he was heard to exclaim:

“What an excellent opportunity!”

Monsieur Bonelle had been Ramin’s predecessor. The succession of the latter to the shop was a mystery. No one ever knew how it was that this young and poor assistant managed to replace his patron. Some said that he had detected Monsieur Bonelle in frauds which he threatened to expose, unless the business were given up to him as the price of his silence; others averred that, having drawn a prize in the lottery, he had resolved to set up a fierce opposition over the way, and that Monsieur Bonelle, having obtained a hint of his intentions, had thought it most prudent to accept the trifling sum his clerk offered, and avoid a ruinous competition. Some charitable souls—moved no doubt by Monsieur Bonelle’s misfortune—endeavoured to console and pump him; but all they could get from him was the bitter exclamation, “To think I should have been duped by him!” For Ramin had the art, though then a mere youth, to pass himself off on his master as an innocent provincial lad. Those who sought an explanation from the new mercer, were still more unsuccessful. “My good old master,” he said in his jovial way, “felt in need of repose, and so I obligingly relieved him of all business and botheration.”

Years passed away; Ramin prospered, and neither thought nor heard of his “good old master.” The house, of which he tenanted the lower portion, was offered for sale: he had long coveted it, and had almost concluded an agreement with the actual owner, when Monsieur Bonelle unexpectedly stepped in at the eleventh hour, and by offering a trifle more secured the bargain. The rage and mortification of Monsieur Ramin were extreme. He could not understand how Bonelle, whom he had thought ruined, had scraped up so large a sum; his lease was out, and he now felt himself at the mercy of the man he had so much injured. But either Monsieur Bonelle was free from vindictive feelings, or those feelings did not blind him to the expediency of keeping a good tenant; for though he raised the rent, until Monsieur Ramin groaned inwardly, he did not refuse to renew the lease. They had met at that period; but never since.

“Well, Catherine,” observed Monsieur Ramin to his old servant, on the following morning, “How is that good Monsieur Bonelle getting on?”

“I dare say you feel very uneasy about him,” she replied with a sneer.

Monsieur Ramin looked up and frowned.

“Catherine,” said he, dryly, “you will have the goodness, in the first place, not to make impertinent remarks; in the second place, you will oblige me by going up-stairs to inquire after the health of Monsieur Bonelle, and say that I sent you.”

Catherine grumbled, and obeyed. Her master was in the shop, when she returned in a few minutes, and delivered with evident satisfaction the following gracious message:

“Monsieur Bonelle desires his compliments to you, and declines to state how he is; he will also thank you to attend to your own shop, and not to trouble yourself about his health.”

“How does he look?” asked Monsieur Ramin with perfect composure.

“I caught a glimpse of him, and he appears to me to be rapidly preparing for the good offices of the undertaker.”

Monsieur Ramin smiled, rubbed his hands, and joked merrily with a dark-eyed grisette, who was cheapening some ribbon for her cap. That girl made an excellent bargain that day.

Towards dusk the mercer left the shop to the care of his attendant, and softly stole up to the fourth story. In answer to his gentle ring, a little old woman opened the door, and, giving him a rapid look, said briefly,

“Monsieur is inexorable; he won’t see any doctor whatever.”

She was going to shut the door in his face, when Ramin quickly interposed, under his breath, with “I am not a doctor.”

She looked at him from head to foot.

“Are you a lawyer?”

“Nothing of the sort, my good lady.”

“Well then, are you a priest?”

“I may almost say, quite the reverse.”

“Indeed you must go away, Master sees no one.”

Once more she would have shut the door; but Ramin prevented her.

“My good lady,” said he in his most insinuating tones, “it is true I am neither a lawyer, a doctor, nor a priest. I am an old friend, a very old friend of your excellent master; I have come to see good Monsieur Bonelle in his present affliction.”

Marguerite did not answer, but allowed him to enter, and closed the door behind him. He was going to pass from the narrow and gloomy ante-chamber into an inner room—whence now proceeded a sound of loud coughing—when the old woman laid her hand on his arm, and raising herself on tiptoe, to reach his ear, whispered:

“For Heaven’s sake, Sir, since you are his friend, do talk to him; do tell him to make his will, and hint something about a soul to be saved, and all that sort of thing: do, Sir!”

Monsieur Ramin nodded and winked in a way that said “I will.” He proved however his prudence by not speaking aloud; for a voice from within sharply exclaimed,

“Marguerite, you are talking to some one. Marguerite, I will see neither doctor nor lawyer; and if any meddling priest dare—”

“It is only an old friend, Sir;” interrupted Marguerite, opening the inner door.

Her master, on looking up, perceived the red face of Monsieur Ramin peeping over the old woman’s shoulder, and irefully cried out,

“How dare you bring that fellow here? And you, Sir, how dare you come?”

“My good old friend, there are feelings,” said Ramin, spreading his fingers over the left pocket of his waistcoat,—“there are feelings,” he repeated, “that cannot be subdued. One such feeling brought me here. The fact is, I am a good-natured easy fellow, and I never bear malice. I never forget an old friend, but love to forget old differences when I find one party in affliction.”

He drew a chair forward as he spoke, and composedly seated himself opposite to his late master.

Monsieur Bonelle was a thin old man with a pale sharp face and keen features. At first he eyed his visitor from the depths of his vast arm-chair; but, as if not satisfied with this distant view, he bent forward, and laying both hands on his thin knees, he looked up into Ramin’s face with a fixed and piercing gaze. He had not, however, the power of disconcerting his guest.

“What did you come here for?” he at length asked.

“Merely to have the extreme satisfaction of seeing how you are, my good old friend. Nothing more.”

“Well, look at me—and then go.”

Nothing could be so discouraging: but this was an Excellent Opportunity, and when Monsieur Ramin had an excellent opportunity in view, his pertinacity was invincible. Being now resolved to stay, it was not in Monsieur Bonelle’s power to banish him. At the same time, he had tact enough to render his presence agreeable. He knew that his coarse and boisterous wit had often delighted Monsieur Bonelle of old, and he now exerted himself so successfully as to betray the old man two or three times into hearty laughter.

“Ramin,” said he, at length, laying his thin hand on the arm of his guest, and peering with his keen glance into the mercer’s purple face, “you are a funny fellow, but I know you; you cannot make me believe you have called just to see how I am, and to amuse me. Come, be candid for once; what do you want?”

Ramin threw himself back in his chair, and laughed blandly, as much as to say, “Can you suspect me?”

“I have no shop now out of which you can wheedle me,” continued the old man; “and surely you are not such a fool as to come to me for money.”

“Money?” repeated the draper, as if his host had mentioned something he never dreamt of. “Oh, no!”

Ramin saw it would not do to broach the subject he had really come about, too abruptly, now that suspicion seemed so wide awake—the opportunity had not arrived.

“There is something up, Ramin, I know; I see it in the twinkle of your eye: but you can’t deceive me again.”

“Deceive you?” said the jolly schemer, shaking his head reverentially. “Deceive a man of your penetration and depth? Impossible! The bare supposition is flattery. My dear friend,” he continued, soothingly, “I did not dream of such a thing. The fact is, Bonelle, though they call me a jovial, careless, rattling dog, I have a conscience; and, somehow, I have never felt quite easy about the way in which I became your successor down-stairs. It was rather sharp practice, I admit.”

Bonelle seemed to relent.

“Now for it,” said the Opportunity-hunter to himself.—“By-the-by,” (speaking aloud,) “this house must be a great trouble to you in your present weak state? Two of your lodgers have lately gone away without paying—a great nuisance, especially to an invalid.”

“I tell you I’m as sound as a colt.”

“At all events, the whole concern must be a great bother to you. If I were you, I would sell the house.”

“And if I were you,” returned the landlord, dryly, “I would buy it——”

“Precisely,” interrupted the tenant, eagerly.

“That is, if you could get it. Phoo! I knew you were after something. Will you give eighty thousand francs for it?” abruptly asked Monsieur Bonelle.

“Eighty thousand francs!” echoed Ramin. “Do you take me for Louis Philippe or the Bank of France?”

“Then, we’ll say no more about it—are you not afraid of leaving your shop so long?”

Ramin returned to the charge, heedless of the hint to depart. “The fact is, my good old friend, ready money is not my strong point just now. But if you wish very much to be relieved of the concern, what say you to a life annuity? I could manage that.”

Monsieur Bonelle gave a short, dry, churchyard cough, and looked as if his life were not worth an hour’s purchase. “You think yourself immensely clever, I dare say,” he said. “They have persuaded you that I am dying. Stuff! I shall bury you yet.”

The mercer glanced at the thin fragile frame, and exclaimed to himself, “Deluded old gentleman!” “My dear Bonelle,” he continued, aloud, “I know well the strength of your admirable constitution; but allow me to observe that you neglect yourself too much. Now, suppose a good sensible doctor——.”

“Will you pay him?” interrogated Bonelle sharply.

“Most willingly,” replied Ramin, with an eagerness that made the old man smile. “As to the annuity, since the subject annoys you, we will talk of it some other time.”

“After you have heard the doctor’s report,” sneered Bonelle.

The mercer gave him a stealthy glance, which the old man’s keen look immediately detected. Neither could repress a smile: these good souls understood one another perfectly, and Ramin saw that this was not the Excellent Opportunity he desired, and departed.

The next day Ramin sent a neighbouring medical man, and heard it was his opinion that if Bonelle held on for three months longer, it would be a miracle. Delightful news!

Several days elapsed, and although very anxious, Ramin assumed a careless air, and did not call upon his landlord, or take any notice of him. At the end of the week old Marguerite entered the shop to make a trifling purchase.

“And how are we getting on up-stairs?” negligently asked Monsieur Ramin.

“Worse and worse, my good Sir,” she sighed. “We have rheumatic pains, which make us often use expressions the reverse of Christian-like, and yet nothing can induce us to see either the lawyer or the priest; the gout is getting nearer to our stomach every day, and still we go on talking about the strength of our constitution. Oh, Sir, if you have any influence with us, do, pray do, tell us how wicked it is to die without making one’s will or confessing one’s sins.”

“I shall go up this very evening,” ambiguously replied Monsieur Ramin.

He kept his promise, and found Monsieur Bonelle in bed, groaning with pain, and in the worst of tempers.

“What poisoning doctor did you send?” he asked, with an ireful glance; “I want no doctor, I am not ill; I will not follow his prescription; he forbade me to eat; I will eat.”

“He is a very clever man,” said the visitor. “He told me that never in the whole course of his experience has he met with what he called so much ‘resisting power’ as exists in your frame. He asked me if you were not of a long-lived race.”

“That is as people may judge,” replied Monsieur Bonelle. “All I can say is, that my grandfather died at ninety, and my father at eighty-six.”

“The doctor owned that you had a wonderfully strong constitution.”

“Who said I hadn’t?” exclaimed the invalid feebly.

“You may rely on it, you would preserve your health better if you had not the trouble of these vexatious lodgers. Have you thought about the life annuity?” said Ramin as carelessly as he could, considering how near the matter was to his hopes and wishes.

“Why, I have scruples,” returned Bonelle, coughing. “I do not wish to take you in. My longevity would be the ruin of you.”

“To meet that difficulty,” quickly replied the mercer, “we can reduce the interest.”

“But I must have high interest,” placidly returned Monsieur Bonelle.

Ramin, on hearing this, burst into a loud fit of laughter, called Monsieur Bonelle a sly old fox, gave him a poke in the ribs, which made the old man cough for five minutes, and then proposed that they should talk it over some other day. The mercer left Monsieur Bonelle in the act of protesting that he felt as strong as a man of forty.

Monsieur Ramin felt in no hurry to conclude the proposed agreement. “The later one begins to pay, the better,” he said, as he descended the stairs.

Days passed on, and the negotiation made no way. It struck the observant tradesman that all was not right. Old Marguerite several times refused to admit him, declaring her master was asleep: there was something mysterious and forbidding in her manner that seemed to Monsieur Ramin very ominous. At length a sudden thought occurred to him: the housekeeper—wishing to become her master’s heir—had heard his scheme and opposed it. On the very day that he arrived at this conclusion, he met a lawyer, with whom he had formerly had some transactions, coming down the staircase. The sight sent a chill through the mercer’s commercial heart, and a presentiment—one of those presentiments that seldom deceive—told him it was too late. He had, however, the fortitude to abstain from visiting Monsieur Bonelle until evening came; when he went up, resolved to see him in spite of all Marguerite might urge. The door was half-open, and the old housekeeper stood talking on the landing to a middle-aged man in a dark cassock.

“It is all over! The old witch has got the priests at him,” thought Ramin, inwardly groaning at his own folly in allowing himself to be forestalled.

“You cannot see Monsieur to-night,” sharply said Marguerite, as he attempted to pass her.

“Alas! is my excellent friend so very ill?” asked Ramin, in a mournful tone.

“Sir,” eagerly said the clergyman, catching him by the button of his coat, “if you are indeed the friend of that unhappy man, do seek to bring him into a more suitable frame of mind. I have seen many dying men, but never so much obstinacy, never such infatuated belief in the duration of life.”

“Then you think he really is dying?” asked Ramin; and, in spite of the melancholy accent he endeavoured to assume, there was something so peculiar in his tone, that the priest looked at him very fixedly as he slowly replied,

“Yes, Sir, I think he is.”

“Ah!” was all Monsieur Ramin said; and as the clergyman had now relaxed his hold of the button, Ramin passed in spite of the remonstrances of Marguerite, who rushed after the priest. He found Monsieur Bonelle still in bed and in a towering rage.

“Oh! Ramin, my friend,” he groaned, “never take a housekeeper, and never let her know you have any property. They are harpies, Ramin,—harpies! such a day as I have had; first, the lawyer, who comes to write down ‘my last testamentary dispositions,’ as he calls them; then the priest, who gently hints that I am a dying man. Oh, what a day!”

“And did you make your will, my excellent friend?” softly asked Monsieur Ramin, with a keen look.

“Make my will?” indignantly exclaimed the old man; “make my will? what do you mean, Sir? do you mean to say I am dying?”

“Heaven forbid!” piously ejaculated Ramin.

“Then why do you ask me if I have been making my will?” angrily resumed the old man. He then began to be extremely abusive.

When money was in the way, Monsieur Ramin, though otherwise of a violent temper, had the meekness of a lamb. He bore the treatment of his host with the meekest patience, and having first locked the door so as to make sure that Marguerite would not interrupt them, he watched Monsieur Bonelle attentively, and satisfied himself that the Excellent Opportunity he had been ardently longing for had arrived. “He is going fast,” he thought; “and unless I settle the agreement to-night, and get it drawn up and signed to-morrow, it will be too late.”

“My dear friend,” he at length said aloud, on perceiving that the old gentleman had fairly exhausted himself and was lying panting on his back, “you are indeed a lamentable instance of the lengths to which the greedy lust of lucre will carry our poor human nature. It is really distressing to see Marguerite, a faithful, attached servant, suddenly converted into a tormenting harpy by the prospect of a legacy! Lawyers and priests flock around you like birds of prey, drawn hither by the scent of gold! Oh, the miseries of having delicate health combined with a sound constitution and large property!”

“Ramin,” groaned the old man, looking inquiringly into his visitor’s face, “you are again going to talk to me about that annuity—I know you are!”

“My excellent friend, it is merely to deliver you from a painful position.”

“I am sure, Ramin, you think in your soul I am dying,” whimpered Monsieur Bonelle.

“Absurd, my dear Sir. Dying? I will prove to you that you have never been in better health. In the first place you feel no pain.”

“Excepting from rheumatism,” groaned Monsieur Bonelle.

“Rheumatism! who ever died of rheumatism? and if that be all——”

“No, it is not all,” interrupted the old man with great irritability; “what would you say to the gout getting higher and higher up every day?”

“The gout is rather disagreeable, but if there is nothing else——”

“Yes, there is something else,” sharply said Monsieur Bonelle. “There is an asthma that will scarcely let me breathe, and a racking pain in my head that does not allow me a moment’s ease. But if you think I am dying, Ramin, you are quite mistaken.”

“No doubt, my dear friend, no doubt; but in the meanwhile, suppose we talk of this annuity. Shall we say one thousand francs a year.”

“What?” asked Bonelle, looking at him very fixedly.

“My dear friend, I mistook; I meant two thousand francs per annum,” hurriedly rejoined Ramin.

Monsieur Bonelle closed his eyes, and appeared to fall into a gentle slumber. The mercer coughed; the sick man never moved.

“Monsieur Bonelle.”

No reply.

“My excellent friend.”

Utter silence.

“Are you asleep?”

A long pause.

“Well, then, what do you say to three thousand?”

Monsieur Bonelle opened his eyes.

“Ramin,” said he, sententiously, “you are a fool; the house brings me in four thousand as it is.”

This was quite false, and the mercer knew it; but he had his own reasons for wishing to seem to believe it true.

“Good Heavens!” said he, with an air of great innocence, “who could have thought it, and the lodgers constantly running away. Four thousand? Well, then, you shall have four thousand.”

Monsieur Bonelle shut his eyes once more, and murmured “The mere rental—nonsense!” He then folded his hands on his breast, and appeared to compose himself to sleep.

“Oh, what a sharp man of business he is!” Ramin said, admiringly: but for once omnipotent flattery failed in its effect: “So acute!” continued he, with a stealthy glance at the old man, who remained perfectly unmoved. “I see you will insist upon making it the other five hundred francs.”

Monsieur Ramin said this as if five thousand five hundred francs had already been mentioned, and was the very summit of Monsieur Bonelle’s ambition. But the ruse failed in its effect; the sick man never so much as stirred.

“But, my dear friend,” urged Monsieur Ramin in a tone of feeling remonstrance, “there is such a thing as being too sharp, too acute. How can you expect that I shall give you more when your constitution is so good, and you are to be such a long liver?”

“Yes, but I may be carried off one of those days,” quietly observed the old man, evidently wishing to turn the chance of his own death to account.

“Indeed, and I hope so,” muttered the mercer, who was getting very ill-tempered.

“You see,” soothingly continued Bonelle, “you are so good a man of business, Ramin, that you will double the actual value of the house in no time. I am a quiet, easy person, indifferent to money; otherwise this house would now bring me in eight thousand at the very least.”

“Eight thousand!” indignantly exclaimed the mercer. “Monsieur Bonelle, you have no conscience. Come now, my dear friend, do be reasonable. Six thousand francs a year (I don’t mind saying six) is really a very handsome income for a man of your quiet habits. Come, be reasonable.” But Monsieur Bonelle turned a deaf ear to reason, and closed his eyes once more. What between opening and shutting them for the next quarter of an hour, he at length induced Monsieur Ramin to offer him seven thousand francs.

“Very well, Ramin, agreed,” he quietly said; “you have made an unconscionable bargain.” To this succeeded a violent fit of coughing.

As Ramin unlocked the door to leave, he found old Marguerite, who had been listening all the time, ready to assail him with a torrent of whispered abuse for duping her “poor dear innocent old master into such a bargain.” The mercer bore it all very patiently; he could make allowances for her excited feelings, and only rubbed his hands and bade her a jovial good evening.

The agreement was signed on the following day, to the indignation of old Marguerite, and the mutual satisfaction of the parties concerned.

Every one admired the luck and shrewdness of Ramin, for the old man every day was reported worse; and it was clear to all that the first quarter of the annuity would never be paid. Marguerite, in her wrath, told the story as a grievance to every one: people listened, shook their heads, and pronounced Monsieur Ramin to be a deuced clever fellow.

A month elapsed. As Ramin was coming down one morning from the attics, where he had been giving notice to a poor widow who had failed in paying her rent, he heard a light step on the stairs. Presently a sprightly gentleman, in buoyant health and spirits, wearing the form of Monsieur Bonelle, appeared. Ramin stood aghast.

“Well, Ramin,” gaily said the old man, “how are you getting on? Have you been tormenting the poor widow up-stairs? Why, man, we must live and let live!”

“Monsieur Bonelle,” said the mercer, in a hollow tone; “may I ask where are your rheumatics?”

“Gone, my dear friend,—gone.”

“And the gout that was creeping higher and higher every day,” exclaimed Monsieur Ramin, in a voice of anguish.

“It went lower and lower, till it disappeared altogether,” composedly replied Bonelle.

“And your asthma——”

“The asthma remains, but asthmatic people are proverbially long-lived. It is, I have been told, the only complaint that Methuselah was troubled with.” With this Bonelle opened his door, shut it, and disappeared.

Ramin was transfixed on the stairs; petrified with intense disappointment, and a powerful sense of having been duped. When he was discovered, he stared vacantly, and raved about an Excellent Opportunity of taking his revenge.

The wonderful cure was the talk of the neighbourhood, whenever Monsieur Bonelle appeared in the streets, jauntily flourishing his cane. In the first frenzy of his despair, Ramin refused to pay; he accused every one of having been in a plot to deceive him; he turned off Catherine and expelled his porter; he publicly accused the lawyer and priest of conspiracy; brought an action against the doctor, and lost it. He had another brought against him for violently assaulting Marguerite in which he was cast in heavy damages. Monsieur Bonelle did not trouble himself with useless remonstrances, but, when his annuity was refused, employed such good legal arguments, as the exasperated mercer could not possibly resist.

Ten years have elapsed, and MM. Ramin and Bonelle still live on. For a house which would have been dear at fifty thousand francs, the draper has already handed over seventy thousand.

The once red-faced, jovial Ramin is now a pale haggard man, of sour temper and aspect. To add to his anguish, he sees the old man thrive on that money which it breaks his heart to give. Old Marguerite takes a malicious pleasure in giving him an exact account of their good cheer, and in asking him if he does not think Monsieur looks better and better every day. Of one part of this torment Ramin might get rid, by giving his old master notice to quit, and no longer having him in his house. But this he cannot do; he has a secret fear that Bonelle would take some Excellent Opportunity of dying without his knowledge, and giving some other person an Excellent Opportunity of personating him, and receiving the money in his stead.

The last accounts of the victim of Excellent Opportunities represent him as being gradually worn down with disappointment. There seems every probability of his being the first to leave the world; for Bonelle is heartier than ever.

REVIEW OF A POPULAR PUBLICATION.
IN THE SEARCHING STYLE.

The Bank Note. Oblong Octavo. London, 1850. The Governor and Company of the Bank of England. Price, from Five to One Thousand Pounds.

The object of this popular but expensive pocket companion, is not wholly dissimilar from that of its clever and cheaper contemporary “Notes and Queries.” As the latter is a “medium of intercommunication for literary men,” so the former is a medium of intercommunication for commercial men; and surely there is no work with which so many queries are constantly connected as the Bank Note. Nothing in existence is so assiduously inquired for; nothing in nature so perseveringly sought.

This is not to be wondered at; for in whatever light we view it, to whatever test we bring it, whether we read it backwards or forwards, from left to right, or from right to left; or whether we make it a transparency to prove its substantial genuineness and worth, who can deny that the Bank Note is a most valuable work?—a publication, in short, without which no gentleman’s pocket can be complete?

Few can rise from a critical examination of the literary contents of this narrow sheet, without being forcibly struck with the power, combined with the exquisite fineness of the writing. It strikes conviction at once. It dispels all doubts, and relieves all objections. There is a pithy terseness in the construction of the sentences; a downright, direct, straightforward, coming to the point, which would be wisely imitated in much of the contemporaneous literature that constantly obtains currency (though not as much). Here we have no circumlocution, no discursive pedantry, no smell of the lamp; the figures, though wholly derived from the East (being Arabic numerals), are distinct and full of purpose; and if the writing abounds in flourishes, which it does, these are not rhetorical, but boldly graphic: struck with a nervous decision of style, which, instead of obscuring the text and meaning, convinces the reader that he who traced them when promising to pay the sum of five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred, or a thousand pounds, means honestly and instantly to keep his word: that he will pay it to bearer on demand, without one moment’s hesitation.

Strictly adapted for utility, yet the dulcet is not wholly overlooked; for, besides figures and flourishes, the graces of art are shed over this much-prized publication. The figure of Britannia is no slavish reproduction of any particular school whatever. She sits upon her scroll of state utterly inimitable and alone. She is hung up in one corner of the page, the sole representative of the P. R. F. P., or pre-reissue-of-the-fourpenny-piece, school. Neither, if judged by the golden rule of our greatest bard, is the work wholly deficient in another charm. As we have just explained, its words are few: brevity is the soul of wit. And we fearlessly put it to the keenest appreciator of good things, whether a Bank Note (say for a hundred) is not the best joke conceivable—except, indeed, a Bank Note for a thousand.

A critical analysis of a work of this importance cannot be complete without going deeply into the subject. Reviewing is, alas, too often mere surface-work; for seldom do we find the critic going below the superficies, or extending his scrutiny beyond the letter-press. We shall, however, set a bright example of profundity, and having discharged our duty to the face of the Bank Note, shall proceed to penetrate below it: having analysed the print, we shall now speak of the paper.

The late Mr. Cobbett, to express his idea of the intrinsic worthlessness of these sheets, in comparison with the prices at which they pass current, was wont to designate Bank Notes as “Rags.” It may, indeed, be said of them that, “Rags they were, and to tinder they return;” for they are born of shreds of linen, and, ten years after death, are converted in bonfires into the finest of known tinder. It may be considered a curious fact by those who wear shirts, and a painful, because hopeless one, by those who make them, that the refuse or cuttings of linen forms, with a slight admixture of cotton, the pabulum or pulp of Bank Note Paper. Machinery has made no inroads on this branch of paper-making. The pulp is kept so well mixed in a large vat, that the fibrous material presents the appearance of a huge cauldron of milk. Into this the paper-maker dips his mould, which is a fine wire sieve, having round its edge, a slight mahogany frame, called the “Deckel,” which confines the pulp to the dimensions of the mould. This dip is quite a feat of dexterity, for on it depends the thickness and evenness of the sheet of paper. The water-mark, or, more properly, the wire-mark, is obtained by twisting wires to the desired form or design, and stitching them on the face of the mould; therefore the design is above the level face of the mould, by the thickness of the wires it is composed of. Hence, the pulp in settling down on the mould, must of necessity be thinner on the wire design than on other parts of the sheet. When the water has run off through the sieve-like face of the mould, the new-born sheet of paper is transferred to a blanket; this operation is called “couching,” and is effected by pressing the mould gently but firmly on the blanket, when the spongy sheet clings to the cloth. Sizing is a subsequent process, and, when dry, the water-mark is plainly discernible, being, of course, transparent where the substance is thinnest. The paper is then made up into reams of five hundred sheets each, ready for press. The water-mark in the notes of the Bank of England is secured to that Establishment by a special Act of Parliament. Indeed, imitation of anything whatever connected with a Bank Note is an extremely hazardous feat.

A scrupulous examination of this curious piece of paper, implants a thorough conviction that it is a very superior article—in short, unique. There is nothing like it in the world of sheets. Tested by the touch, it gives out a crisp, crackling, sharp, sound—a note essentially its own—a music which resounds from no other quires. To the eye it shows a colour belonging neither to blue-wove nor yellow-wove, nor to cream-laid, but a white, like no other white, either in paper and pulp. The rough fringiness of three of its edges are called the “deckled” edges, being the natural boundary of the pulp when first moulded; the fourth is left smooth by the knife, which eventually cuts the two notes in twain. It is so thin that, when printed, there is much difficulty in making erasures; yet it is so strong that a “water-leaf” (a leaf before the application of size) will support thirty-six pounds; and, with the addition of one grain of size, half a hundred weight, without tearing; yet the quantity of fibre of which it consists, is no more than eighteen grains and a half.

The process of engraving the Bank Note is peculiar. Its general design is remarkably plain—steel plates are used, and are engraved in a manner somewhat analogous to that employed in the Mint for the production of the coin, except that heavy pressure is used instead of a blow. The form of the Note is divided into four or five sections, each engraved on steel dies which are hardened. Steel rollers, or mills, are obtained from these dies, and each portion of the Note is impressed on a steel plate to be printed from by the mills until the whole form is complete.

By means of a very ingenious machine, the engraving on the plates when worn by long printing is repaired by the same mills, and thus perfect identity of form is permanently secured. The merits of this system are due to the late Mr. Oldham, and the many improvements introduced not only into this, but into the printing department, are the work of his son and successor, Mr. Thomas Oldham, the present chief engraver to the Bank of England. The plate—always with a pair of notes upon it—is now ready for the press; for it contains all the literary part of the work, except the date, the number, and the cashier’s signature.

We must now review the manner of printing. Before passing through the press, all paper must be damped that it may readily absorb ink; and Bank Note paper is not exempt from this law; but the process by which it is complied with is an ingenious exception to the ordinary modes. The sheets are put into an iron chamber which is exhausted of air; water is then admitted, and forces itself through every pore at the rate of thirty thousand sheets, or double notes, per minute!

In a long gallery that looks like a chamber of the Inquisition with self-acting racks, stands a row of plate-printing presses worked by steam. Every time a sheet passes through them they emit a soft “click” like a ship’s capstan creaking in a whisper. By this sound they announce to all whom it may concern that they have printed two Bank Notes. They are tell-tales, and keep no secrets; for, not content with stating the fact aloud, each press moves, by means of a chain, an index of numerals at the end of the room; so that the chief of the department can see at any hour of the day how many each press has printed. To take an impression of a note plate “on the sly,” is therefore impossible. By a clever invention of Mr. Oldham the impression returns to the printer when made, instead of remaining on the opposite side of the press, after it has passed through the rollers, as of old. The plates are heated, for inking, over steam boxes instead of charcoal fires.

When a ream, consisting of five hundred sheets or one thousand notes, have been printed, they are placed in a tray which is inserted in a sort of shelf-trap that shuts up with a spring. No after-abstraction can, therefore, take place. One such repository is over the index appertaining to each press, and at the end of the day it can at once be seen whether the number of sheets corresponds with the numerals of the tell-tale. Any sort of mistake can thus be readily detected. The average number of “promises to pay” printed per diem is thirty thousand.

As we cannot allow the dot over an i, or the cross of a t to escape the focus of our critical microscope, we now proceed to apply it to the Bank Ink. Like the liquid of Messrs. Day and Martin, this inestimable composition, with half the usual labour, produces the most brilliant jet-black, fully equal to the highest Japan varnish, and is warranted to keep in any climate. It is made from the charred husks of Rhenish grapes after their juice has been expressed and bottled for exportation to the dinner-tables of half the world. When mixed with pure linseed oil, carefully prepared by boiling and burning, the vinous refuse produces a species of blacks so tenacious that they obstinately refuse to be emancipated from the paper when once enslaved to it by the press. It is so intensely nigritious that, compared with it, all other blacks are musty browns; and pale beside it. If the word of a printer’s devil may be taken, it is many degrees darker than the streams of Erebus. Can deeper praise be awarded?

The note is, when plate-printed, two processes distant from negotiable; the first being the numbering and dating—and here we must point out the grand distinction which exists between the publication which we have the satisfaction of stating, now lies before us (but it is only a “Five”) and ordinary prints. When the types for this miscellany, for instance, are once set up, every copy struck off from them by the press is precisely similar. On the contrary, of those emitted from the Bank presses no two are alike. They differ either in date, in number, or in denomination. This difference constitutes a grand system of check, extending over every stage of every Bank Note’s career—a system which records its completion and issue, tracks it through its public adventures, recognises it when it returns to the Bank, from among hundreds of thousands of companions, and finally enables the proper officers to pounce upon it, in case of inquiry, at any official half hour for ten years after it has returned in fulfilment of its “promise to pay,” To promise an explanation of what must appear so complicated a plan, may seem to the reader like a threat of prolixity. But he may read on in security; the system is as simple as the alphabet.

Understand then, that the dates of Bank Notes are arbitrary, and bear no reference to the day of issue. At the beginning of the official year (February) the Directors settle what dates each of the eleven denominations of Bank Notes shall bear during the ensuing twelve months, taking care to apportion to each sort of note a separate date. The table of dates is then handed to the proper officer, who prints accordingly. The five-pound Note which now rejoices our eyes is, for example, dated February the 2nd, 1850; we therefore know that there is no genuine note in existence, for any other sum, which bears that date; and if a note for ten, twenty, fifty, hundred, &c., having “2nd Feb., 1850,” upon it were to be offered to us or to a Bank Clerk, we or he would, without a shadow of further evidence, impound it as a forgery.

Now, as to the numbering:—It is a rule that of every date and denomination, one hundred thousand Notes—no more and no less—shall be completed and issued at one time. We know, therefore, that our solitary five is one of a hundred thousand other fives, each bearing a different number—from 1[2] to 100,000—but all dated 2nd Feb., 1850. The numbers are printed on each Note by means of a letter-press, the types of which change with each pull of the press. For the first Note, the press is set at “00001,” and when that is printed, the “1,” by the mere act of impression, retires to make room for “2,” which impresses itself on the next Note, and so on up to “100,000.” The system has been applied to the stamping of railway tickets. The date, being required for the whole series, is of course immovable. After this has been done, the autograph of a cashier is only requisite to render the Note worth the value inscribed on it, in gold.

2.  To prevent fraudulent additions of numerals, less than five figures are never used. When units, tens, &c., are required, they are preceded by cyphers. “One” is therefore expressed on a Bank Note thus:—“00001.”

While the printers are at work, manufacturing each series of Notes, the account-book makers are getting-up a series of ledgers so exactly to correspond, that the books of themselves, without the stroke of a pen, are a record of the existence of the Note. The book in which the birth of our own especial and particular “Five” is registered, is legibly inscribed,

“Fives, Feb. 2, 1850.”

When you open a page, you find it to consist of a series of horizontal and perpendicular lines, like the pattern of a pair of shepherd’s plaid inexpressibles, variegated with columns of numerals; these figures running on regularly from No. 1, on the top of the first page, to No. 100,000 at the bottom of the last. It must therefore be obvious to the meanest capacity that the mere existence of that book, with its arbitrary date and series of numbers, corresponding to the like series of Notes, is a sufficient record of the existence and issue of the latter. The return of each Note after its public travels, is recorded in the square opposite to its number. Each page of the book contains two hundred squares and numbers; consequently, whatever number a Note may bear, the Clerk who has to register its safe return from a long round of public circulation, knows at once on which page of the book to pounce for its own proper and particular square. In that he inserts the date of its return—not at full length, but in cypher. “S” in red ink means 1850, and the months are indicated by one of the letters of the word Ambidextrous, with the date in numerals. Our only, and therefore favourite, five is numbered 31177. Should it chance to finish its travels in the Accountant’s Office on the 6th of August next, it will be narrowly inspected (for fear of forgery) and defaced—a Clerk will then turn at once to the book lettered “Fives, Feb. 2,” and so exactly will he know which page to open, and where the square numbered 31177 is situated, that he could point to it blindfold. He will write in it “6 t,” which means 6th August; that being the eighth month in the year, and “t” the eighth letter in the chosen word.

The intermediate history of a Bank Note is soon told. Nineteen-twentieths are issued to Bankers or known houses of business. If Glynn’s, or Smith’s, or any other banking firm, require a hundred ten-pound Notes, the Clerk who issues them makes a memorandum showing the number of the Notes so issued, and the name of the party to whom they have been handed—an easy process, because Notes being new,[3] are always given out in regular series, and the first and last Note that makes the sum required need only be recorded. Most Bankers make similar memoranda when notes pass out of their hands; and the public, as each Note circulates among them, frequently sign the name of the last holder. When an unknown person presents a Note for gold at the Bank of England, he is required to write his name and address on it, and if the sum be very large, it is not paid without inquiry. By these expedients, a stolen, lost, or forged note can often be traced from hand to hand up to its advent.

3.  The Bank ceased to re-issue its Notes since 1835.

The average periods which each denomination of London Notes remain in circulation has been calculated, and is shown by the following

Account of the Number of Days a Bank Note issued in London remains in Circulation:—
£5 | 72·7 | days
10 | 77·0 | „
20 | 57·4 | „
30 | 18·9 | „
40 | 13·7 | „
50 | 38·8 | „
100 | 29·4 | „
200 | 12·7 | „
300 | 10·6 | „
500 | 11·8 | „
1000 | 11·1 | „

The exceptions to these averages are few, and, therefore, remarkable. The time during which some Notes remain unpresented are reckoned by the century. On the 27th of September, 1845, a fifty pound Note was presented bearing date 20th January, 1743. Another for ten pounds, issued on the 19th November, 1762, was not paid till the 20th April, 1843. There is a legend extant, of the eccentric possessor of a thousand pound Note, who kept it framed and glazed for a series of years, preferring to feast his eyes on it, to putting the amount it represented out at interest. It was converted into gold, however, without a day’s loss of time by his heirs, on his demise. Stolen and lost Notes are generally long absentees. The former usually make their appearance soon after some great horse-race, or other sporting event, altered or disguised so as to deceive Bankers, to whom the Bank of England furnishes a list of the numbers and dates of stolen Notes. In a Chapter on Forgery, which we are preparing, the reader will see some singular facts on this point.

Mr. Francis, in his “History of the Bank of England,” tells a curious story about a bank post bill, which was detained during thirty years from presentation and payment. It happened in the year 1740:—“One of the Directors, a very rich man, had occasion for 30,000l., which he was to pay as the price of an estate be had just bought; to facilitate the matter, he carried the sum with him to the Bank and obtained for it a Bank bill. On his return home, he was suddenly called out upon particular business; he threw the Note carelessly on the chimney, but when he came back a few minutes afterwards to lock it up, it was not to be found. No one had entered the room; he could not therefore suspect any person. At last, after much ineffectual search, he was persuaded that it had fallen from the chimney into the fire. The Director went to acquaint his colleagues with the misfortune that had happened to him; and as he was known to be a perfectly honourable man he was readily believed. It was only about four-and-twenty hours from the time that he had deposited his money; they thought, therefore, that it would be hard to refuse his request for a second bill. He received it upon giving an obligation to restore the first bill, if it should ever be found, or to pay the money himself, if it should be presented by any stranger. About thirty years afterwards (the Director having been long dead, and his heirs in possession of his fortune), an unknown person presented the lost bill at the Bank, and demanded payment. It was in vain that they mentioned to this person the transaction by which that bill was annulled; he would not listen to it; he maintained that it had come to him from abroad, and insisted upon immediate payment. The Note was payable to bearer; and the thirty thousand pounds were paid him. The heirs of the Director would not listen to any demands of restitution; and the Bank was obliged to sustain the loss. It was discovered afterwards that an architect having purchased the Director’s house, had taken it down, in order to build another upon the same spot, had found the Note in a crevice of the chimney, and made his discovery an engine for robbing the Bank.”

Carelessness, equal to that recorded above, is not at all uncommon, and gives the Bank enormous profit, against which the loss of a mere thirty thousand pound is but a trifle. Bank Notes have been known to light pipes, to wrap up snuff, to be used as curl-papers; and British tars, mad with rum and prize-money, have not unfrequently, in time of war, made sandwiches of them, and eaten them between bread-and-butter. In the forty years between the years 1792 and 1812 there were out-standing Notes (presumed to have been lost or destroyed) amounting to one million, three hundred and thirty odd thousand pounds; every shilling of which was clear profit to the Bank.

The superannuation, death, and burial of a Bank of England Note is a story soon told. The returned Notes, or promises performed, are kept in “The Library” for ten years, and then burnt in an iron cage in one of the Bank yards.

A few words on the history and general appearance of the Bank of England Note will conclude our criticism.

The strong principle to insure the detection of forgery is uniformity; hence, from the very first Note issued by the Bank, to that, the merits of which we are now discussing, the same general design has been preserved,—only that the execution has been from time to time improved; except, we are bound to add, that of the signatures, some of which are still as illegible as ever. Originally, Notes were granted more in the form of Bank post-bills,—that is, not nominally to a member of the establishment, but really to the party applying for them, and for any sum he might require. If it suited his convenience, he presented his Note several times, drawing such lesser sums as he might require; precisely as if it were a letter of credit, after the manner of the Sailor mentioned in the latest edition of Joe Miller. Jack, somehow or other, got possession of a fifty pound Note; the sum was so dazzlingly enormous that he had not the heart, on presenting it for payment, to demand the whole sum at once, for fear of breaking the Bank. So, leaning confidentially over the counter, he whispered to the cashier, that he wouldn’t be hard upon ’em. He knew times were bad,—so, as it was all the same to him, he would take five sovereigns now, and the rest at so much a week. In like manner, the fac-simile on the opposite page, while it presents a specimen of one of the earliest Bank Notes in existence, shows that the holder took the amount as Jack proposed;—by instalments. It was granted to Mr. Thomas Powell, on the 19th of December, 1699, for five hundred and fifty-five pounds. His first draft was one hundred and thirty-one pounds, ten shillings, and one penny; the second “in gould,” three hundred and sixty; the third, sixty-three pounds, nine shillings, and elevenpence, when the note was retained by the Bank as having been fully honoured.

With this curious specimen of the ancient Bank of England Note, we take leave of the modern ones—only, however, for a short time. In a week or two, we shall change the topic (as we have previously intimated) to one closely bearing upon it. Circumstances, however, demand that we should change the subject of it at a much earlier date.

INNOCENCE AND CRIME.
AN ANECDOTE.

A benevolent old gentleman—the late Mr. Harcourt Brown of Beech Hall—was plodding his way home to his hotel from a ramble in the suburbs of London; and having made a bold attempt at “a short cut,” soon found himself lost in a maze of squalid streets, leading one into the other, and apparently leading no where else. He inquired his way in vain. From the first person, he received a coarse jest; from another, a look of vacant stupidity; a third eyed him in dogged silence. He stepped with one foot into several wretched little shops; but the people really seemed to know nothing beyond the next street or alley, except one man, a dealer in tripe, of a strange, earthy colour, who called over his shoulder, “Oh, you’re miles out o’ your way!” The only exception to the general indifference, rudeness and stupidity, was a thin sallow-cheeked man, who had a fixed smile on his face, and spoke in rather an abject cringing tone of obsequiousness, and even walked up one street and down a second to show Mr. Brown the way. But it soon became evident that he knew nothing about the matter, and he slunk away with the same fixed unmeaning smile.

In this state of affairs Mr. Brown buttoned up his coat, and manfully resolved to work his way out of this filthy locality by walking straight forward.

Trudging onward at a smart pace, the worthy gentleman presently heard the sound of sobbing and crying, and behind the boards of a shed at the side of a ruined hovel he saw a girl of some nine or ten years of age, clasping and unclasping her hands in a paroxysm of grief and apprehension. “Oh, what shall I do?—what shall I do?” sobbed the child.

She started with terror as Mr. Brown approached, and hid her head in the folds of her little apron; but on being assured by the mild voice of Mr. Brown that he had no thought of hurting her, she ventured to look up. She had soft blue eyes, flaxen hair of silvery glossiness, pretty features; and, notwithstanding the stain of tears down a cheek which had a smear of brickdust upon it, had a most innocent and prepossessing face.

“What is the matter, my little girl?” inquired Mr. Brown.

The child turned one shoulder half round, and displayed the red and purple marks of blows from a whip or stick.

“What cruel wretch has done this?” asked Mr. Brown. “Tell me, child; tell me directly.”

“It was mother,” sobbed the child.

“Ah—I’m sorry to hear this. Perhaps you have been naughty?”

“Yes, Sir;” answered the child.

“Poor child,” ejaculated Mr. Brown; “but you will not be naughty again. What was your offence. Come, tell me?”

“I shook it, Sir; oh, yes, it’s quite true; I did shake it very much.”

“What did you shake?” inquired Mr. Brown.

“I shook the doll, Sir.”

“The doll! Oh, you mean you shook the baby; that, certainly was naughty of you;” said Mr. Brown.

“No, Sir; it was not the baby I shook—it was the doll; and I’m afraid to go home—mother will be sure to beat me again.”

An impulse of benevolence led Mr. Brown’s hand to search for his purse. Had he tried the wrong pocket? His purse was on the other side. No, it was not—it must be in this inner pocket. Where is Mr. Brown’s purse? It is not in any of his pockets! He tries them all over again. And his pocket-book!—chiefly of memorandums, but also having a few bank notes. This is gone too—and his silk handkerchief—both his handkerchiefs!—also his silver-gilt snuff-box, filled with rappee only five minutes before he left the hotel this morning—he is certain he had it when he came out—but it is certainly gone! Every single thing he had in his pockets is gone.

The child also—now she is gone! Mr. Brown looks around him, and yonder he sees the poor child flying with frequent looks behind of terror,—and now a shrill and frightful voice causes him to start. Turning in that direction, the sudden flight of the little girl is immediately explained. Over the rubbish and refuse, at a swift, wild pace, courses a fiendish woman, with a savage eye and open mouth, her cheeks hollow, her teeth projecting, her thin hair flying like a bit of diseased mane over her half-naked shoulder; she has a stick in her hand, with which she constantly threatens the flying child, whom her execrations follow yet more swiftly than her feet.

Mr. Brown remained watching them till they were out of sight. He once more searched all his pockets, but they were all empty. He called to mind the man with the fixed smile on his hollow cadaverous cheek, and several other faces of men whom he had casually noticed in the course of the last half hour, thinking what a pity it was that something could not be done for them. He now began to think it was a very great pity that something had not already been done for them or with them, for they had certainly “done” him. Poor Mr. Brown!

Some six or seven months after this most disagreeable adventure, it chanced that Mr. Brown was going over the prison at Coldbath Fields, accompanied by the Governor. As they entered one of the wards, the voice of a child sobbing, attracted the ears of our philanthropist. In answer to his inquiries, the Governor informed him that it was a child of about eleven years of age, who had been detected in the act of picking a lady’s pocket in one of the most crowded thoroughfares.

On a few kind words being spoken to her, she looked up; and in the blue eye, glossy flaxen hair, and pretty features, Mr. Brown at once recognised the little girl who had “shaken the doll.”

“This child is an innocent creature!” cried he, turning to the Governor, “the victim of ignorance and cruel treatment at home. I recollect her well. Her mother had beaten her most shamefully; and the last glimpse I had of her was in her flight from a still more savage assault. And for what crime do you suppose?”

“For not picking pockets expertly, I dare say:” replied the Governor.

“Nothing of the sort!” exclaimed Mr. Brown. “Would you believe it, Sir; it was for nothing more than a childish bit of pretence-anger with her doll, on which occasion she gave the doll a good shaking. Mere pretence, you know.”

“My dear Sir,” said the Governor, smiling, “I fancy I am right, after all. She was beaten for not being expert in the study and practice of pocket-picking at home. You are not, perhaps, aware that the lesson consists in picking the pockets of a figure which is hung up in the room, in such a way that the least awkwardness of touch makes it shake, and rings a little bell attached to it. This figure is called the ‘doll.’ Those who ring the bell, shake it in emptying its pockets, are punished according to the mind and temper of the instructor.”

“Good heavens!” ejaculated Mr. Brown, “to what perfection must the art be brought! Then it is all accounted for. The sallow gentleman with the fixed smile must have been master of the craft of not shaking the doll, when he took my purse, pocket-book, snuff-box, and both handkerchiefs from me, without my feeling so much as the motion of the air!”

Monthly Supplement of “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,”
Conducted by Charles Dickens.
Price 2d., Stamped, 3d.,
THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
OF
CURRENT EVENTS.

The Number, containing a history of the past month, was issued with the Magazines.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

- Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

- Renumbered footnotes.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSEHOLD WORDS, NO. 18, JULY 27, 1850 ***

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Table of Contents

- HOUSEHOLD WORDS. A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

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