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^arbarb (College library
THE GIFT OF ALFRED CLAGHORN POTTER CLASS OF 1889
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D CU6HUKR rui itH DEC, IM#15
ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ HALL
COPES TOBACCO PLANT
A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
No. 84.—Vol. IL]
MARCH, 1877.
rPMCE TWOPENCE.
L Annual Subscription—Post Free, 2/
nicotian Aspects of tbc Cast.
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The account we have given of Arminius VAmb^ry as a traveller and a student has sufficiently prepared our readers I for relishing his copious, correct, and vivid delineation of “Tobacco and Narcotics,” in his recent work 44 Sittenbilder ana dem Morgenlande,” which we now in a faithful English । dress present:—
Among the enjoyments which, in the whole length and । breadth of Mahometan Asia, have conquered for themselves an i immense territory, Tobacco and the pipe play a foremost part. They are not there articles of luxury, but indispensable means j of pleasure; and the same importance which is attributed to the pipe in the sovereign palace at Stamboul is bestowed । ea Uin the felt tent of the poor native of Central Asia who has never seen bread, never eaten it, and to whom, after a ’ meal of dried horse flesh and a draught of mildly sour kumiss, the pipe is a supreme delight. Whether Tobacco was intro-| (faced into Western Asia from Europe, or from China, has | been often a subject of discussion. The notion that the small brass pipe heads of the pigtailed sons of the celestial kingdom made their way along with the Chinese influence, it an early period, across the Mongolian steppes to the Tien-sehan mountains is a very plausible notion, and yet it is wholly erroneous; for that in the middle ages Tobacco was wholly unknown to the Orientals is proved by the circumstance that the interpreters of the doctrine of Mahofnet, in their ( treatises on the “prohibition of intoxicating enjoyments,” do not make mention of this plant till modern times. Another * fact, equally conclusive, is that in no Oriental literature— j Turkish, Persian, Tartaric, or any other—is a trace of Tobacco | to be discovered. The poets, who have sung love, wino, flowers, music, so exuberantly and so exultingly, would i assuredly not have passed by Tobacco, that highest enjoy-। ment of the Orientals. Among the nations of Asia, a long | time must elapse before they take a foreign object completely into the domain of their customs. It is only well-known things and circumstances that their phantasy finds interesting and suggestive; and it is unquestionably owing to the newness of Nicotian pleasure in the East that no poet in the East has I hitherto celebrated Tobacco. That the proverb, 44 He smokes like a Turk,” is of ancient date I am inclined to doubt, forasmuch as those Turks who paid their disagreeable visits to the south-east of Europe had not yet formed an acquaint-। mce with Tobacco, and only during the reign of Ahmed IV. was, by a sovereign decree, opposition to the consumption of Tobacco first offered. At present, however, the Imperial Ottoman State is the region, above all, where men love Tobacco so well as to worship it. In Roumelia, in the very home of the great Macedonian, Alexander, grows the King of Tobaccos, and especially in a small place called । Jendische Bardar, situated to the south-east of Salonicha, I iThessalonica). This small brownish-yellow plant is allowed to dry for weeks, yea, often for months, after it has been gathered; then it is packed in small bales (bogtsche), and not till it has remained for years in the storehouse of the Tobacco merchant, is it honoured by the Stamboul Nicotian epicures with the name of Aala Gobeck. The Tobacco, cut as small as the finest silk, is thereupon in hot request in the imperial palace, in the sovereign harem, and likewise in the Sublime । Porte, where the Ministerial Council, in the midst of ascending aromatic clouds of smoke, discusses state affairs. The pipes, I stalk as well as mouthpiece, which are used for the enjoyment
of this best of all Tobaccos, are with great care both chosen and kept. The clay head must bear the mark of Hassan, a noted maker at Findekli, a suburb of Constantinople. The long jessamine stalk, with its silken-velvety bark, must come from the Broussa plantations. The mouthpiece, of bright transparent amber, is carved after the most approved fashion; its zivana (the thin shank on which it is fixed) has come from the hands of some most accomplished turner. Such perfect smoking requisites and this best of all Tobacco are deemed worthy of each other; and when pipe and Tobacco are both of the first quality, the pipe-attendant (tschibuktschi) must be immensely deft in the performance of his duties.
Often have I, alike with amusement and astonishment, observed the proceedings of the tschibuktschi, and especially the prodigious care he displays in placing symmetrically together the various parts of the pipe. The clay head, tilled some days before, and enriched with a fringe-like ornament, is deposited in a tin box. Frequently I heard it asserted that the taste of the Tobacco depended on the form and the size of the piece of burning charcoal placed on it, and the tschibukt-schi, when kindling the pipe, rakes with his tongs in the coal pan till he has found a flat round piece. Though the Turk tinds it all quite natural, yet it is a comical spectacle to follow the attendant in the discharge of his various duties. Holding the long pipe in his right hand, and the round brass dish in his left, the attendant moves with serious face and with measured step toward his master. At a distance from his master which is exactly equal to the length of the pipe stalk, he kneels. He puts down the brass dish, then he places the pipe on the dish ; then, describing a half circle with the stalk, he inserts the mouthpiece with the utmost accuracy between the open lips of his master. While the master is taking hold of the stalk the attendant rises from the floor, and he has scarcely retreated a step, when a cloud of smoke, sent forth by a deep breath, envelopes him and everything around. The first draiD is deemed insignificant; the second and third are reckoned the best; the fourth is regarded as bad; the fifth is thoroughly despised by the Nicotian epicure.
Of the deceased Sultan Abdul Medschid, I have heard it said that of a pipe he never took more than three draws; also the former Foreign Minister, Aali Pascha, never smoked a pipe out. What remains, and is despised by the dainty smoker, is a delicate morsel for the servants in waiting. That which for the refined taste of the Turk is too rough and sharp, is delicious to the coarse gums of the wild Anatolian, who likes something which bites his tongue sharply.
‘ As every one uses his own pipe, we must not be astonished that this instrument has become an indispensable vade mecum for every man of rank. In effect, the pipe is for ever found in close proximity to the Turk. To wait upon his pipe, the man of rank keeps two, and sometimes even three, servants. One servant has to look after the home arrangements; another accompanies his master when he goes riding or walking. The long stem is carried in a beautifully ornamented cloth bag; the head of the pipe, the Tobacco, and the other accessories are contained in a pouch which hangs by the servant’s side. A foreigner in Constantinople often contemplates with curiosity a proud Ottoman, proceeding on foot or on horseback, followed by a servant with this long, well-packed instrument, who, from the airs he gives himself, looks like the armour-bearer of some gallant blade on the way to a first fight. How times change! What the armour-bearer was to the old warlike races, the tschibuktschi is now to the effeminate descendants.
It is not an uncommon thing to see a Turk smoke from sixty to eighty pipes daily. The pipe is the indispensable
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companion of the Turk in every occupation, how earnest and important soever it may be. In the Supreme Porte, in the Ministerial Council, where the Turkish grandees debate regarding the welfare of their fatherland, which extends over three-quarters of the globe, the question was once discussed, whether, during the consideration of State affairs, the tschi-buktschis (pipe-bearers) should not be excluded. Great was the difference of opinions; long was the contest between the yearning of the palate and the sense of propriety; till at last was victorious the sentiment of some corpulent members, who thought that it would be wrong to reject ignominiously the old custom, and that the blameless tsohibuktschis must be permitted, as before, to enter the chamber and give the needful attention to the pipes. And yet all the members knew very well that this resolution was pregnant with mischief and danger, for the cunning servants, while busy with the pipes, snatch up with quick ear many a secret of State, and before even the Sultan and the official world have any knowledge of the decisions of the Supreme Council, many weighty debates and decrees have already (through the pipe-bearers) been divulged. Consequently, the tschibuktschi is, next to the servant of the harem, the most valuable reporter whom journalists and ambassadorial dragomans can find. How often have I seen a proud Levantine, who, in his contempt for the rest of the world, seemed as if he would strike the stars with his nose, cringing and crawling in the most abject fashion before a tschibuktschi, in order to entice him to communicate some important secret or to furnish a glance into some valuable document. That this playing the part of the go-between is for the pipe-bearer a lucrative affair needs not be said. What alone, what exclusively makes the tschibuktschi the alter ego of his master is the boundless love of smoking which distinguishes the Turks. Tobacco and pipes are thus not merely the distinctive tokens of the different ranks, but of the gradations of particular ranks. A Muschir (marshal) would think it altogether unsuitable to smoke with a pipe shorter than two ells, while the handicraftsman, or the official of a lower order, would be deemed presumptuous if his pipe-stem transcended the measure of that habitual with his class. The grandee, in contact or contrast with the man of low degree, can parade his pipe to its full length; but the man of low degree, modestly thrusting aside or concealing the instrument, must not show more of it than the mouthpiece which he holds in his hand. The pascha can, like the chimney of a steamer, throw forth clouds of smoke; but the subordinate must only allow small circles of smoke, light as zephyrs, to flow from his lips, and he must so in his humility contrive it that the smoke does not go in front of him, but turns backwards. In the presence of a grandee, not to smoke is regarded as a testimony of respect. This sign of respect a son is likewise expected to show toward a father; and a well-trained and well-mannered son is he regarded who, spite of the repeated request of his father, refuses to smoke.
The ladies are not less passionately devoted to smoking, though somewhat more moderate in the use of the pipe. A girl, when not more than twelve years old, seizes the opportunity, when no one sees her, to smoke a cigarette about as thick as a pack-thread. In their fourteenth or fifteenth year, an age when women in Turkey are nubile, they are freely allowed to smoke. With increasing years the diameter of the cigarettes increases, and in a woman of twenty-four no one thinks it astonishing to find her sitting on a low divan and smoking a tschibuk of respectable proportions. Matrons—and every Turkish woman is a matron at forty—are ardent adorers of Tobacco. It is true that only pipes and stems of a prescribed kind are supposed to be used. This, however, does not hinder the ladies from consuming the sharpest and strongest Tobacco; so that their mouth, which, according to the saying of the poet, smells in their youth of musk and amber, emits, when they are forty, such a coarse and repulsive odour that many of them, like old weather-beaten mariners, may be scented from afar. Like the men, the II any nut of rank have their female tschibuktschis, whom they take with them when they go walking or pay visits. There is this difference: that the stem of the pipe is only half the ordinary length, and that it is carried not in a cloth, but in a silk sheath. A favourite mode of enjoying a pipe, both with men and women, is on a rising ground that offers a beautiful view. The men are at liberty to choose for this purpose any public place, but the women have to seek a spot concealed from the general gaze; for when a Turkish beauty draws aside from her lips her thin Jaschmak (veil) to pay homage to the pipe, even-thing around her must have the solitude and sanctity of the harem. Sometimes (when ladies are smoking in the open air) eunuchs are placed as a watch, and if an unknown man draws near, the smoker waits with closed visor till the spy has gone by.
But the pipe plays its most important part when the ladies are taking their bath. That the Turkish fair ones frequently pass their time in Turkish baths, and often remain whole hours there, is sufficiently known. They usually enter them about eight o’clock in the morning, eat while there their noonday meal, and do not leave the bathing apartments till three or four o'clock in the afternoon. In the pauses, the happiest of all hours for Mahometan ladies, the pipe is in universal request. In the middle of the innermost chamber is a round, terrace-like elevation called Gobektasch. On this place repose, in the most picturesque medley, Circassia’s snow-white daughters and Soudan’s coal-black beauties; some lying at full length, some sitting with crossed legs, but
all indefatigably smoking—all amusing themselves with conversations that never end. Often one of the older ladies tells a tale for the general entertainment: occasionally one of the more learned ladies discourses on religion, or praises Aischa Fatima’s virtues and graces. The thread of conversation is never broken. Very interesting, no doubt, a pictorial representation of the Gobektasch would be; but any photographer who attempted to reproduce the same by his art would have to pay dear enough for his boldness.
As contrasted with the provinces, Constantinople represents the civilised, the rich part of the country; and this is true also in respect to the pipe. The Anatolian and the the Roumelian sell the more valuable part of their products, and content themselves with Tobaccos of a third or a fourth quality. On the shores of the Black Sea Samsun Tobacco is usually smoked; a plant which, in aroma and taste, is far inferior to the Roumelian Tobacco. Here the pipe and its long stem are not much in fashion. On the Eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea grows the black Latakia. The pipe is only half filled therewith; and the finer sort of this Tobacco is recognisable by the circumstance that at the second draw the Tobacco rises up like pressed-down wool, and with a crackling noise seems to seek wider room. Many prefer greatly Latakia, which we call an Arabian Tobacco, to Roumelian; it is an affair of taste. The finer sort undeniably possesses an agreeable aroma; but it is strong, affects the head, and makes us regret or long for the mildness of the Jendische Bardar.
For the most part the Turks and Arabs make use of the pipe, properly so called ; and it is exceptionally that we meet with the nargile—as the bastard species of water pipe is called—in the Ottoman kingdom. Nargile (or narghily, or nargheely) is derived from the Persian word, Nardschil (cocoa-nut), because the original water flask was a cocoa-nut, which form was afterwards copied in the vessels made of glass or clay. In the country districts, especially in coffeehouses, the pipe is an indispensable medium in all political or religious conversations or debates. In the city the Turk of rank never enters a public coffee-house; but in the country he does not rigidly adhere to this strict etiquette. If we wish to obtain an idea of the material and mental condition of a market town, or of any small town (in the East), we must visit the coffee-houses. The evermore serious look of the keeper or owner of the coffee-house, and the keenly-inquiring glance discernible in the features of the newly-arrived traveller, are profoundly stamped on my memory.
From the beard and from the garments a decision is made respecting the quality of the pipe, the stem, and the mouthpiece which have to be offered to the stranger who has just entered. If his conversation and manner make a good impression, all present hasten to offer him some draws out of their own pipes. The rejection of such offers is regarded as uncourteous; and it is considered an intolerable rudeness to wipe the mouthpiece of the pipe presented, though it may be covered with spittle and foam. To show loathing, before or at a friend, is deemed a mortal sin; and just as the Central Asiatics lick each other’s fingers, the Turk has not the slightest hesitation in taking the offered pipe of a comrade.
^ittasqut ^ollanir.
Monsieur Henry Havard has fallen in love with Holland; and he pursues his inamorata with all the impetuous ardour and exaggerated devotion which are characteristic of his race. Only the other day—in the Tobacco Plant of October last— we reviewed his pleasant book, “ The Dead Cities of the Zuyder Zee; ” and already he is upon us with another copious volume. It is not reasonable, perhaps, to demand consistency in a Frenchman—at all events, it would be cruel to exact consistency in the verbal forms with which he clothes the sentiments of his admiration; but it is odd that, having so lately taken exception to the second title of his first book— “ A Voyage to the Picturesque Side of Holland ”—on the ground that it was exclusive, and, indeed, invidious when applied to the limited shores of the “ Southern Sea,” we now find him journeying through three-fourths of the whole Dutch kingdom, and calling it all “ Picturesque Holland.” The truth would seem to be that M. Havard has an eye for the picturesque, much as Sterne had an eye for the sentimental; and, as a man generally finds what he looks earnestly for, it may save trouble if, for the future, M. Havard will adopt a general title, and call each new book he writes—“ More Picturesque Journeys,” or “ Further Picturesque Voyagings.” We shall have no fear of his failing to make his volumes worthy of their name, provided he will take time; for, when he is not in breathless haste, he writes with the genuine charm of appreciative taste and with a truthful simplicity of style.
It has been suggested that the popular success of his former book prompted the making of this new one. We will not pay the author so bad a compliment; for we were amongst those readers of the “Dead Cities” who were sorry to find the pleasant volume at an end, and we readily concede that
♦ “ Picturesque Holland: A Journey in the Provinces of Friesland, Groningen, Dn nthe, Overyssel, Gui lders, and Limbourg. By Henry Havard.” London: Richard Bentley and Son. 1876.
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the subject becomes neither wearisome nor hackneyed in “Picturesque Holland.” The worst we have to say about it is, that there is too much the air of business—too evident a suggestion of purpose—about this volume ; and too little of the holiday repose which had much to do with the peculiar attractiveness of its predecessor. If we may suggest one other fault, it must be that M. Havard forgets how few enthusiastic archaeologists there are in the world; and so fills too many pages with minute descriptions of ancient edifices, and with historical and architectural details that are far less luminous to the eye of the general public than we may assume them to be to his own. Yet, when ample liberty has been given to adverse criticism, we have to confess that the book is full of interest; that it is a natural and pleasing sequel to his earlier volume ; and that, having once got it, we should be sorry to lose it. The avowed purpose of the journey, of which it is the practical result, is not unnatural, or in any way incredible. The arrogant temper of the Prussian conqueror, which may provoke a Briton to nothing more serious than a contemptuous grimace, rouses a Frenchman’s most passionate ire ; and while the memory of 1870-71, and the picture of Alsace, are quick within him, he may be pardoned for taking every successive German boast too much au strieux. Two Prussian geographers, it seems, have claimed the Netherlands as part of what they call “Deutsche Aussenlander,” or “ Out-lying Germany”; and, when a learned German to whom he mentioned the subject argued, on the grounds of manners, language, history, and traditions—not without a hint at common sympathies—that Denmark, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Lichtenstein, Belgium, and the Netherlands “ are the natural completion of the Empire of Germany,” M. Havard was resolved: his fixed purpose, so far as his beloved Holland was concerned, was “to traverse those frontier provinces, to explore them thoroughly, to ransack their traditions, and to learn their history at the fountainhead.” He found a companion, provided himself with introductions, and started away. Necessarily, he satisfied himself that Holland is not Germany, and that the true Dutchman reserves his choicest hatred for the Prussian. The thought and its accompanying sentiment break out continuously as we go along, and there is a triumphant retort upon the rapacious geographers at the close of the excursion; but the reader is not bored by these patriotic antipathies. They give a spice of malice to the book which sometimes relieves a certain tameness in the narrative, and is not altogether unpleasant in itself.
Some of our readers will remember a description we quoted from “ The Dead Cities of the ZuydSr Zee,” in which the author presented to us a view of the municipal council of the city of Leeuwarden in solemn conclave assembled:—“ Thanks to the door being open, a portion of the smoke escaped, and showed us seven or eight majestic municipal councillors seated at the everlasting green-baize table; who, rising to receive us, did not, however, discontinue to pour forth volumes of white smoke from their long clay pipes.” It is amusing to find that M. Havard “got into trouble” on account of that vivid representation of the manners of the grandees of Leeuwarden; and that he has grown more cautious. Now, when describing a similar chamber at Bols-ward, he says:—
“The only famiture in the room consists of the large traditional table, covered with a green cloth, on which are placed several pewter inkstands, and a number of high-backed armchairs. A long white pipe filled with Tobacco, and ready for use, lies by the side of each place. It would not do for me to affirm that each of these pipes awaits a councillor, because I once made a similar remark in reference to the Town hall at Leeuwarden, and I got into trouble through it. It appears that the magistracy of the Prison capital are not addicted to smoking a pipe—in fact, only a cigar. Those whom I my smoking pipes were simple setters, whose business it was to adjust imposts on patents. I was informed of this in such a peremptory fashion when I returned to Leeuwarden that I was not likely to expose myself to a similar rebuff again.”
Afi becomes a lover of the antique and the picturesque, M. Havard shows less toleration for the cigar than for the pipe. In one instance, he treats the roll of Tobacco with such wild exaggeration that it is easy to believe he regarded it with resentment, as the partial, if not the chief cause of another discomfiture. From Leeuwarden, at the close of his second visit, he and his artist friend—for he has always an artist friend: formerly it was Mr. Van Heemskerk van Beest; latterly the Baron de Constant-Rebecque, “a gentleman grafted on an artist, a cultivated, energetic, robust individual, whose never-failing good humour charmed away all fatigue ”— “proceeded to Veenwouden, a pretty village buried in trees,” to inspect the feudal castle of Schier-Stins; and, as he says—
“ Our Inspection finished, we hod to return to Dockum before evening; ud although the paint-box was not very heavy, we inquired for some one to earrv it and show us our road. A lad was brought to us in a long coat, smoking a cigar as large as his head. We at once saw he was not the kind of person ve wanted, as it seemed more than probable that we should not only have to relieve him of his burden, but also carry him on our shoulders. He, however, after weighing the box and taking a few whiffs at his cigar, consented to accompany us. We therefore started; but what we foresaw soon happened, at least partly, for we had scarcely accomplished a quarter of the journey when we were obliged to take the box from the poor boy, who was done up. Luckily we were not obliged to carry him—only to drag him aa far as MurmerYoude (otherwise known as the • Wood of the Murder
Here is a Sunday morning picture that an aesthetic smoker would surely travel far—aye, even to the northernmost boundaries of the Dutch kingdom—to feast his eyes upon:—
“ Cornelias Kemp, as an ardent lover of his country, worshipping it as Montaigne did Paris, even to its alleys, describes the free portion of Friesland that stretches from Dockum to the sea as the most lovely, most fertile, and the most populated country in the world: * pulchcrrima, populous et
totiut mvndi fertiliMima.' Although this euloginm is somewhat hyperbolic, yet we must admit it to be partly justified. Certainly if riches constitute the beauty of a country, then there are few countries that can vie with North Friesland. Everywhere one meets with fields covered with golden harvest, colza, tlax, aud outs; immense luxuriant meadows, stocked with glossy-coated cows and magnificent black horses; and, further, in the midst of this abundance, wealthy farms, surrounded by orchards, the trees of which bend beneath the weight of their still green fruit. On the horizon can be seen the pointed spires of ten churches, indicating as many villages, and the wide twisting road stretches like a gigantic serpent through this carpet of verdure. All along the road can be s?cn peasants, dressed in black, with large Bibles under their arms and long pipes in thtir mouths, gravely walking along, whilst their female companions, with their head-plates glistening in the sun, chatter by their side.”
Students of tenant-right may find good reading in M. Havard’s account of the Beklemminq which is said to make the province of Groningen “the peasants’paradise.” Antiquarians will find “metal more attractive” in the description of the museum of zVsen, with its rare ethnographical treasures, and the “ chignon ” discovered amongst Boman remains. The last, by-the-by, is no longer unique; for a similar relic of a by-gone civilisation has recently been found in York, and is at present an object of proud solicitude to Mr. Wakefield, the assiduous curator of the York museum. Those who seek social curiosities will linger over the picture of the Retreat for Disabled Soldiers near Arnhem; where each military veteran is allowed tifteenpence a week for gin and Tobacco, but where woman is strictly tabooed. ‘“It seems to me, my dear General,’ I could not help remarking, ‘that all you want, to complete your list of amusements, is to give a ball.’ ‘Ah! you think so? But to do that we should have to admit women, and that is strictly forbidden------’	‘ What! you
think it might be dangerous for the old fellows --------? ’
* There is no knowing; they might fall in love, you know,’ added the General, smiling.” Lovers of fine scenery can desire nothing better than is given them here, in M. Havard’s description of Hosendaal (“The Valley of Roses”), Zonsbeek, and those other parts of Guelderland which are called “The Dutch Switzerland,” and those who delight in patriotic humour will rejoice in the reason why the men of Arnhem decline to drink water:—
“ The inhabitants of Arnhem are thorough judges of good wine, and, if they do not indulge in the wild excesses of their ancestors, they take care to have the quality of their drink of the best. The Rhine furnishes them with the finest, besides sending them its clear or clouded waters according to the seasun. But water is not much drunk in Arnhem. ‘I taste that water!’ said one to me whom I was congratulating on having such water. ‘ When I think that, may be, Germans have bathed in its coolness—pouoh—it makes me sick.’”
Connoisseurs of high art will be attracted by what is said of the artists of Roermond. We are told of a wooden carving in the studio of M. de Leeuw, in which “the nymphs are not more than a couple of inches high, and yet one can distinctly count the dimples in each cheek; ” and of cameos in which “with a magnifying glass we discovered flies settled on the roses, which could not be seen by the naked eye, all beautifully carved.” Tobaccoites, like ourselves, are interested in learning that in 1673 the French soldiers introduced the pipe to the priests of Roermond, who “ took so kindly to smoking, that a few years later, in 1677, Bishop Reginald Cools issued a mandate to forbid the priests of Roermond the immoderate use of Tobacco, alleging that it was more a military habit— 'tabaci more militari immodicum u»um'“ There is a dash of poetry in the concluding sneer which M. Havard flings at the Germans:—“It is light, it is heat, which illumine and warm the world. Who would have remembered the armies of Darius if they had not basked in the sun of Marathon?” And there is something comfortable for these times of threatening war in the noble sentiment he quotes from the arms of Nymegen—something eminently typical of the indomitable independence which is the greatest'of Dutch virtues: —“Melius ext beilicosa Libertas quam pacifica Servitas”— Better is warlike freedom than peaceful slavery.
limber.
XI.
According to the most recent researches and statistics accessible to us, the annual amount of amber obtained from sea and from land is, for the whole earth, 250,000 pounds. Of this amount 200,000 pounds, worth about a million thalers, fall to the share of Prussia. We learn from the Prussian Budget of 1867 that, of the mineral productions of Prussia, amber held in value the seventh place, as maybe seen from the following table:—
Coal ....................... 39,157,939	thalers.
Lignite............................ 5,234,247	„
Iron Ore ......................... 5,163,408
Zinc Ore .......................... 2,660,537	„
Lead Ore........................... 4,773,894	„
Copper Ore ........................ 1,278,201	„
Rock Salt............................ 369,054	. „
It thus appears that the annual value of the Prussian amber is nearly equal to that of the Prussian copper ore, and about thrice the value of the Prussian rock salt. Apart, then, from every other characteristic, amber has considerable commercial importance.
By all scientific inquirers amber is now admitted to be the fossil resin of various primaeval conifers, a conclusion which harmonises with the opinion of the Ancients—an opinion
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ridiculed by the stupidity and ignorance of the Middle Ages. In every zone of the globe Conifera still abound; and everywhere they have the attributes which they had long ages ago. It is a pity, however, that those of them have perished which produced the substance which has hardened into amber. Though amber is both dug from the ground and gathered from the sea, yet even the amber which is dug from the ground bears strong and very distinct traces of a marine influence. A glimpse at the geological aspects of amber is given by Wilhelm Runge, one of the best authorities; and the wisest and most modest thing we can do is to repeat his words, containing information gleaned from many different sources:— In Poland and North Germany it is diluvial loam and rubble strata that for the most part contain amber, which is accompanied by ligneous remains, by fossil stems of trees, by sea tangle, and so on; and it is in contact with similar things that Baltic amber is also found. The marine traces are, therefore, here too distinct to be overlooked. The oldest stratum in which amber is met with is the Segeberg gypsum. This amber is in small quantities, is of a yellowish-white or of a yellow colour, and is mixed with boracites. The gypsum itself belongs to the trias formation. Of more recent origin is the amber occurring in Westphalia, in the lower oolithical formation. Of amber in the chalk formation mention is made from time to time. In pitch-coal, not far from Richenberg, in Germany, amber has been seen; and at various places in Germany in the greensand formation lying under the coal strata. The Sicilian amber lies at Castragiovanni and Calta-scibetta in the older secundary rocks; at the latter place we come upon it in a brownish-grey, loose sandstone, in contact with small pieces of quartz about the size of peas, with clay, and with wood resembling lignite. Rightly or wrongly, these strata have been supposed to belong to the chalk formation. It is from them that the Giaretta or St. Paul’s River carries away amber, bears it along close to Catania into the sea, which throws it forth again near the mouth of the river. Much more frequent in Samland and elsewhere are the deposits of amber in decidedly tertiary strata. At some spots in France amber is encountered in grey schistose clay; at others in coal; at Saissons and at Hombli^res, near Saint-Quentin, in a pyritiferous layer of a yard and a*half thick. For about a hundred years, what may be called an amber mine has been worked at Trabenidres, in Hainaut. The amber—which has a reddish-orange colour, has the characteristic aromatic odour, and is chiefly used for fumigating powder or incense powder— lies in a fat, fine, grey, firm clay, which contains fossil coniferous wood and gypsum crystals. In the river Magothy,. near Cape Sable, in North America, and in the Ann Arundal district of the State Maryland, amber offers itself to the explorer, either in pieces of a yellow, grey, or brown colour, with beautiful agate-like or jasper-like aspects and concentric lines, or in earthy, friable, porous fragments. In or above lignite strata, and in contact with fossil wood, which itself contains amber, it is embedded; when burned it exhibits the characteristic scent of Prussian amber. At Mizun, in the direction of the Lutta, amber of a yellow or green colour frequently presents itself in marly sandstone strata. Galicia— which, at the first dismemberment of Poland, was seized by Austria, and now forms a portion of the Austrian monarchy— contains amber, which lies in beds of calcareous and quartzose “Braunkohlensandsteinen,” (to use a German word which it is impossible to translate except by periphrasis); with those beds alternate loose sand, plastic and calcareous clay, and thin strata of yellow marl. Intermingled are often marine shells. In Bucovina, the south-eastern part of Galicia, detached masses of amber figure by the side of fragments of bituminous wood, and have the imprint of reeds upon them. In other parts of Galicia amber has been dug from what is called the Carpathian sandstone; in a different region from the cronstone seams of marly sandstone. In the forest of Klobuk, in Moravia, amber appears in the ferruginous Carpathian sandstone, belonging, according to some geologists, to the chalk formation. At St. Jago, in St. Domingo, in the valley of the brook Acagua, amber in pieces, some of them as large as the egg of a goose, reward the explorer. The brook Acagua receives the amber from hills of marl, which greatly resembles the miocene clay of the Vienna basin, and is rich in petrifactions. In the neighbourhood of the village Kalt-schedanskoi, in Siberia, a stratum of alum earth covered with sandstone contains a large mass of lignite, of ferruginous flints, and of amber. In the black tertiary coal strata near the river Tizil, in Kamschatka, amber has a resting-place which there are few hands bold enough or diligent enough to disturb. In that part of Pomerania which lies to the east of the Oder, amber slumbers in the immense strata of a fine white or yellow sand, which is free from erratic blocks. One winter, amber worth 9000 thalers was excavated at Rohr; while ’Treten produced amber of the value of 12,000 thalers. At one very rich deposit the shaft was sunk to a depth of ninety feet. These are the geological features of the principal localities where amber is found, with the exception of Samland, which Runge minutely and in all its lineaments described. Both for the geologist and for the mineralogist his descriptions of Samland have the very highest interest. As, however, amber was flung forth by the ocean long before men dreamed of mining operations to win it from the earth, it is fitting that the modes of getting the ocean’s great and predous gift should first be depicted.	We have previously, however, to state, as Runge and others have stated, that amber is chiefly limited to the northern regions of the earth, North America, Siberia, and the coast lands of the North Sea and the Baltic. Sicily, it is true, produces beautifully-coloured amber, but only in small quantities; it is therefore, sold at a high price. East Indian, African, and Brazilian amber, and in general the amber derived from warm and southern lands, is, so far as is hitherto known, not genuine amber, but copal, or a resin resembling amber, and which frequently cannot be distinguished from amber till it is burned. Though amber occurs frequently in strata of loam and sand, and occasionally in other strata, and though here and there the quantity obtained may be considerable, yet by far the greatest amount which forms an article in commerce is the product of the North Sea, the Arctic Ocean, and the Baltic. The west coasts of Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, and the north coasts of Prussia, from Stralsund to Memel, occupy the place of honour, the former yielding yearly three thousand pounds of very beautiful amber. But it is the latter, as the chief amber region, which must principally occupy our attention. Moreover, in this amber region by excellence, there are chosen, what wre may call sacred, spots which have been famous for their treasures of amber for thousands of years. On a good map of Germany the reader beholds a sort of blunt and clumsy peninsula called Samland, with the Frische Nehrung and Frisches Haff to the left, and the Kurische Nehrung and Kurisches Haff to the right. The Frische Nehrung and the Kurische Nehrung are long narrow belts of beach, and the Frisches Haff and the Kurisches Haff are small inland seas. Now, it is the Frische Nehrung and the coast of Samland, from Pillau to Briisterort, which have been from immemorial time the peculiar amber doinain. So abundant here is sometimes the amber harvest that, in an autumn night of the year 1862, 4000 pounds of amber, worth 12,000 thalers, were obtained near Palmnicken and Nodems. In this district it is chiefly the violent north-west winds which sweep and stir the waters and loosen the masses of amber from the bottom of the sea. The small specific weight of amber (1’07), which does not much exceed that of sea water, makes amber the sport of the waves. Moreover, the sea tangle, which along with the amber is torn up by the storm, wraps the amber round and carries it on the billows to the shore. The experience of the dwellers on the coast goes to show that it is not so much the direction of the tempest which is decisive for the winning of amber in a particular region as the direction of that wind by which the sea is tran-quillised after a fierce hurricane. Consequently, each part of the coast, according to its position and direction, has a special amber wind, which brings to it the amber which has been roused from its long slumber far down in the depths. Thus it cometh to pass that, when the special amber wind is unfavourable, the dwellers on the strand, anxiously watching, see the amber, though at only a short distance from them, borne along to their neighbours. The gatherers of amber, however, do not content themselves with the pieces which the wind and the waves scatter on the beach; but, in order that the amber may not be carried back to the sea, they wade out in shallow places as far as they can go. They carry on their shoulders a pole twenty feet long, to one end of which a large net, shaped like a so-called butterfly net, is fastened. The mode of manipulating this net as an instrument for gathering amber is called Schilpfen, and is the following:— As soon as the dwellers on the shore perceive in the distance the Bernsteinkraut, the fucus vesiculosus, Andfucusfa^tigiatus —in other words, the amber tangle—driving toward the coast, they all, men and women, assemble on the beach. The men march boldly into the water, each of them provided with his Kaescher, or bag net. With the bag nets they seize the amber tangle as it is borne along by the surge, and when they have obtained a due supply they empty the haul on the beach, where the women and children separate the amber from the tangle and arrange the pieces according to their size and value. As a rule, the amber dealer is on the spot to purchase with ready money the product of the strenuous and perilous labour. The Schi'rpfen goes on day and night, winter and summer, because the amber fishers have to be continually watching for a favourable moment. The most violent and most productive storms occur in November and December. The occupation, therefore, demands very vigorous and hardy men. When the cold is severe the amber fishers protect themselves with leathern cuirasses, which often before being put on, or after being taken off, have to be thawed by the women at the fires which they kindle and keep up along the beach. When, undaunted, the men rush into the tempestuous water, the waves often break over their heads, or carry them off their feet. They therefore, like the travellers amid the icy grandeurs of the Alps, occasionally form a line, connected by a cord. Also, when the billows threaten to overwhelm them, they firmly fix the free end of their Kaescher pole in the sand or the gravel, and nimbly climb up the pole till the wave has spent its fury. The product of the Schdpfen varies greatly. According to Hartmann, who wrote two hundred years ago, when the fishing is favourable from twenty to thirty bushels can be got in three or four hours. The bushel of amber weighs about seventy pounds, and the so-called Schopfberrwtein is worth, on an average, two and a-half thalers a pound; so that
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the yield would here be about two thousand pounds of amber, worth five thousand thalers. Such abundant hauls, however, are not common. Some shores remain for years unproductive, till a favourable wind brings the treasure of amber to them.	. Schtyfen and the gathering of the pieces thrown on the beach are the oldest modes of obtaining amber. Tacitus, who wrote his book on Germany in the reign of the Emperor Trajan, about a hundred years after Christ, mentions Xchirpfen ; and from the most ancient times no change seems to have taken place in the very simple mode of manipulation. When large stones lie close to the beach the force of the waves is broken by them, and the amber falls among the stones. Here what is called Bernsteinstechen takes the place of Sch^pfen. This manner of getting amber is mentioned by Aurifaber (1551), and by Wigand (1590); but it seems for a time to have been given up, as Hartmann does not allude to it. After a while it was resumed. It can only be carried on in a clear, calm sea. The amber fishers, to the number of four or five, go to sea in a boat. They have a very sharp and practised eye to discover the amber among the large stones at the bottom. One of the boatmen tries to loosen the amber with a particular kind of spear; while another, to catch the amber, holds his Kaescher in the Sucht, qt under current. The Kaescher poles and spear poles vary in length from ten to thirty feet. The iron spear head is semilunar or triangular in shape, and three or four inches in length and in breadth. The Kaescher is six or eight inches in circumference. When large blocks of stone have to be moved in order to set the amber free, crooked forks of a peculiar kind are employed. The prongs are sometimes eighteen inches long, and at a distance of twelve inches from each other. During operations the boat leans over so that the gunwale nearly touches the surface of the water. Deviating somewhat from the preceding mode is the Stecherei, which is carried on in the vicinity of Briisterort. . On a tract which extends eastward along the north shore of Briisterort, and which is from three to four hundred paces wide and six hundred paces long, lies, from fifteen to tliirty feet below the water, a rich deposit or stratum of amber. Here, therefore, the object and the occupation are not boldly and dexterously to snatch what is flung forth by the tempest, but to win the treasures of the amber stratum. In this case the labour can be carried on even when the sea is not perfectly clear and tranquil. The large stones, which here exist in great numbers, are first loosened by hooks or forks similar to those already described; then, grasped by the prongs of other powerful instruments, the stones are raised and placed on a raft and carried away. Thereupon, the bottom of the sea having been freed from the ponderous blocks, it is swept with the bag nets, whose sharp, hard mouth or rim acts as a scraper to dislodge the small stones and the pieces of amber, and to fill with them the bag nets. It is said to be a very striking and interesting sight to behold the sea near Briisterort covered with hundreds of boats all bending to the gunwale, and all filled with men devoting their eager, unwearied hands to Stecherei. As the amber of Briisterort, called riffstein or reefstone, is held in especial estimation on account of its colour, purity, and firmness, and the stratum maintains its reputation of enduring richness, there has often been a desire to work this marine mine by means of dredging machines, divers, and diving bells. According to Wilhelm Runge, whom I mainly follow, dredging machines and divers have not hitherto been used, and Runge doubts whether they ever can be used. From a tempestuous sea no large vessel could readily escape. The storm would dash the vessel on the dangerous coast. The creek of Klein Kuhren could alone offer shelter, and when the storm comes on suddenly the creek cannot always be entered. Diving, however, has repeatedly been attempted. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the Government sent diyprs to Halloren and Briisterort. But they were obliged to discontinue their labours, because diving at the cold season of the year was unfavourable to their health, and because the natives of the various localities, from jealousy and spite, annoyed and interfered with them in every possible way. Later attempts at diving for amber purposes have been more successful. The divers, however, can only carry on their perillous labours when the water is calm and clear; for when it is agitated they can see nothing. If Schtyfen and, perhaps, Stcchen have been in use for thousands of years, it is only in our own days that Baggerei, or dredging, has been employed. We have seen that for reasons stated it was not found applicable to the richest of all amber regions; but in the Kurisches Haff dredging has begun on a tolerably extensive scale. To keep open one of the most important channels, dredging machines were stationed by the Government. It was noticed that by these machines amber was brought up along with other substances from the bottom of the Haff. The firm of Becker and Stantien, of Memel, undertook to keep the channel open, and to pay besides a considerable rent, if the right of getting amber in the Kurisches Haff were granted. Forthwith the firm commenced Baggerei in a large way. At Schwarzort, on the Kurische Nehrung, three dredging machines worked by hand, and nine others worked by steam, were placed. For six months in the year they were busy day and night raising amber. A colony of workmen to the number of six hundred,	engaged in various occupations connected with the undertaking, arose. The annual product was 73,000 pounds of amber, worth 180.000 thalers. The cost of working was, of course, considerable, and a large capital had to be sunk. Such an enterprise may not have a brilliant, but it is sure to have an abiding success. The amber stratum, which is worked in the manner aforesaid in the Kurisches Haff, has all the signs of being of comparatively recent formation. The amber is found in a green sand, along with many ligneous remains, and a peatlike mass consisting of sea tangle. In companionship with the amber are discovered, from time to time, products of art such as are met with in numerous old Prussian graves. Among them are rings, button-shaped things, perforated pearls, some of them an inch and a half in diameter, flat dishes, clumsily made tubes, perforated on both sides. Once a small image came to the light. The existence of the amber stratum has been accoimted for by the assumption that formerly the Baltic sea and the Kurisches Haff were connected. This assumption is supported by old maps, which show that within the historical period the Kurische Nehrung has extended as far northward as Memel. For thousands of years, therefore, before the extension, the stormy waves of the sea may have swept the amber into the Haff, where in the more tranquil Haff water it found a resting place. Nevertheless the occurrence of productions of human art in this stratum is very striking. We are driven to the conclusion that the sea occasionally overwhelmed human habitations, destroyed human graves, and carried away the amber they contained, and here deposited it. Similar productions of human art are occasionally encountered in the Baltic when amber is fished for. Attempts to establish a Baggerei in the Frisches Haff, similar to that which exists in the Kurisches Haff, failed, because the water as a rule is too rough to allow operations to be persistently carried on, and because the stratum is comparatively unproductive. About the time that one of Runge’s books was published, the Leipziger Illustrirte ZeBung ^&ye a detailed account of Bernsteinbaggerci at Schwarzort. $Jipts of ^ahr gms. IL—THE COTTAGE ORNE. A certain somebody, who now-a-days sometimes sits uncom* monly close beside me, and of whom more anon, says, . Says she: “All men are green more or less in some things, and sailors are the greenest.” Well, I’ve generally considered myself rather knowing than otherwise; but then it is so much more easy to get on at sea than on shore, because, as everyone knows, there are fewer rogues there. But, granting that “somebody” is right, and that sailor men are the greenest of men, I think I can prove that I am not the greenest of sailors—to wit: After paying off the saucy old “ Pen-gun,” and after fooling around in London for six weeks, both Pelham of ours and myself had £500 each to the good in our agent’s hands. This was not savings. I’m not aware that any sailor saves. It was the remainder of our prize money, after paring all debts and visiting every place of amusement in the little village. Cried Pelham to me one day, as he rushed excitedly into my apartments, looking as radiant as a kingfisher: “Look here, my boy—the straight tip—Loadstone wins the Derby. Hurroar! I mean to lump it on the winning animile. Hurroar!” And he capered round the room like a born nigger, or a born fool, waving aloft his “straight tip,” until Jack, my Skye terrier and bosom friend, couldn’t stand it one second longer, so he simply slipped from beneath the couch, and helped himself to a mouthful of my friend’s trousers leg. Whether he took a little bit of flesh along with it or not, I can’t be certain. Anyhow, Pelham grew as serious as an old Tomcat all at once, kicked Jack under the table, and sat down. Now, what was the good of me trying to convince my friend that there was danger on the turf. That was the beauty of it, Pelham said. It was no use my saying “Don’t.” Pelham would, and he would, and he would; and away he went, after making me promise in the most impressive manner to come to champagne supper at his rooms on the evening of the eventful day. The Derby eve came round. Pelham was in high glee, and betting fifty to one on the favourite. The Derby day came. Pelham made one in a drag; and had you seen him sitting there in that hat, and with that veil, you would have sworn he had been on shore all his life. The Derby was run, and the Derby was won; but not by Loadstone. This horse sadly disappointed his backers. I went to Pelham’s to supper. . Tn doleful dumps, his chin on his breast, hands deep in empty pockets, cigar in mouth, and legs stretched out in front of his arm-chair—thus poor Pelham. I didn’t upbraid him. I merely stood the supper myself, and lent my friend a fiver. # Next day I went down to a likely locality in the Midland Counties, and began to look for a house. •
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This was my plan: I took lodgings. I chartered all the advertising papers—the “largest circulation in the world” among the number—and every morning I read them over at breakfast, and noted the most likely. And every morning after breakfast I started for somewhere, and every evening I returned, rather tired, with my finger—so to speak—in my mouth. N.B.—One can manage to get through a little money in this way, and see the country at the same time. After a month of this sort of work—when, in fact, it was beginning to pall upon me—my eye one morning alighted on the following taking advertisement:— “ Singularly desirable Cottage Orne Residence, most delightfully situated in the country, but close to a railway station. Garden back and front, beautifully stocked with fruit trees. Rent only 	 to a careful tenant Apply. &c.” “Eureka!” I cried, almost overturning the table as I jumped up. I read no more that morning. I simply clapped on my hat, and hurried out, and off to the nearest telegraphic office, and took the cottage orne slap-dash, as a sailor would. No fear of me losing time in even dreaming of going to see it, and then, perhaps, find that somebody else had secured the cottage orne before me. I wasn’t so green as that—so I thought. In one way it might have been better if I had. In the long run I do not regret it. When I did pay a visit to my cottage orn6, the first thing I looked at was “ the grounds.” Whether a landlord is justified in advertising a garden as beautifully stocked with fruit trees, when it only contains nine-and-twenty currant bushes, overrun with wild convolvolus, and densely populated with snails—nine-and-twenty currant bushes and one pear tree—I do not know to this day, and shall not pay solicitors Quirk and Quibble six-and-eightpence to enlighten me. The tenant whom I had had the good fortune to succeed seemed to have gone in for weeds rather. Not that he hadn’t affected vegetables as well. There they were, of all sorts and sizes: potatoes, cabbages, carrots, lettuces, and onions flourished, or pretended to flourish, amidst a profusion of dockweed, chick weed, nettles, wild poppies, sow thistle, and tussilago. Quite a communistic garden it was, in fact, and the trail of the wild vine was over it all. Neither did I find my cottage orn6 itself all I had expected. I may as well confess to this at once. To begin with, there was no bay window in it. Now if I have a weakness, it is for a ’ bay window. Again, the rooms were big enough to be sure, but the last man had not gone in for pretty wall paper. I like pretty wall paper. There was one thing, however, to be said in favour of my cottage orn6. It presented the rarest and most unlimited opportunities for the study of entomology. I had a whole household of pets of this kind. From garret to cellar my cottage orn6 was a living museum illustrative of this branch of natural history. I still had my £500, and very handy I now found it in furnishing and regenerating my cottage orn6. For, after all, what is the use of having a cottage orn6, if you don’t do it up, and put something in it. I don’t think that Robinson Crusoe himself could have found more pleasure and interest in getting up his dwellinghouse and surroundings, than I did in attending to my cottage orn6, in the romantic little village of Twintieton. The first thing I did was to throw out a bay window—and a grand one too—with steps leading down to the lawn. The chimneys wanted sweeping, and afterwards the paper wanted seeing too. I sent sweeps. These gentlemen took the £1 I gave them, but I afterwards found it had never occurred to them to sweep the chimneys. “ Which I’ve charred to a many a gentry, sir.” This was what the little old woman said, whom I employed to clean out the room floors after the paper had been hung. “And Lor’ bless yer, sir, for your kindness.” Particular kindness here meant was, that she might help herself to a little rum if she felt she required it; that “there was the bottle, and I was going to take a stroll in the garden.” N.B.—It was dusk when I returned, and I found the little old woman on her back in the passage, with her little old head on the scrubbing brush; but I failed to find any rum. I now commenced to furnish. The man who “furnished me”—“Til furnish you, sir,” were his very words—was a man who furnished people with everything from a pianoforte down to a toasting fork. He sent his fellows to measure the windows for the blinds, ditto the stairs for the carpets, ditto the floors for ditto. But what struck me as somewhat remarkable was the fact that these men had to make separate journeys for each measurement. However, that is doubtless the routine of their service, and I respect routine. Still they do things differently on board a man-o’-war. At the furniture warehouse I was waited on by the proprietor himself in propria persona. He was a tall, middle-aged, bland man, with bland grey eyes, white hair, no whiskers, and that peculiarly transparent, white, soft-looking flesh which a medical man would long to prod with his forefinger in expectation of seeing it “pit.” He was bland, and mostly wore a steel pen in his mouth, and his spectacles on his brow—a sort of dead lights, I thought, to his massive brain tank; and he said, “decidedly, sir” at every other sentence. Decidedly, sir, decidedly. And would I like to purchase or to hire; it decidedly didn’t make any odds to him.	Thought I’d like to try his hire system, as in the event of war breaking out I	 Decidedly, sir, decidedly. Can’t possibly do better. And I’d better leave it all to him. And just take a little tour for a week, and on my return I would find everything in order. Decidedly. I did as suggested. Ran up to town to see Pelham. Poor beggar, he was going off in a fortnight to join his ship in the Pacific station. I pitied Pelham. When I returned, and marched up my avenue, the avenue that led to my cottage orn6, and inserted the key in my latch, I felt—a proud man, I assure you. I hadn’t a doubt upon my mind at that moment but that I should find everything, not only tastefully, but even elegantly done up. I entered my best room first. N.B.—The best room with the bay window. Donner und blitzen, teas is das ? Nothing short of a foreign language could have expressed my feelings at that moment. Furniture not only old but ancient. A table that almost filled the room—big enough for a midshipman’s berth—and with a look about it which reminded one forcibly of the committee meetings of a goose club. A huge leathern sofa, starry with tacks of brass. Ancient high-backed arm chair, that seemed beckoning to beings in another world to come and rest therein. A terrible-looking, great, tall black mahogany thing, that stretched nearly to the ceiling, and inspired me with a sort of awe as I gazed on it. A bookcase that hung on strings, and a chimney glass that gave me facial paralysis when I looked in it. And my best bedroom was in keeping. The delf was dark blue, and dismal. Many a granddame must have died in the bed, and the walls were adorned with a coloured engraving of the day of Judgment; Abram offering up Isaac, with the ram looking complacently on; Jephthah killing his daughter, with her little brother holding the basin; and a lively selection of elegantly-framed funeral cards. Angry ? Riled ? Well, rather. What the dickens did the fellow mean ? Did he take me for a griffin ? I strode across the floor. I kicked the hassock, then I gazed into the misty looking-glass that adorned my toilet table. What did I see ? A rather comely, rough-bearded, rather red-faced sailor, with blue eyes; but with nothing soft, nothing green about him. Most certainly not. Decidedly not. I’d “decidedly” him. Clapped on my hat. • Banged the door. Hired a cab and drove off boiling. Remembered a few minutes afterwards that I could have gone by train for sixpence. N.B.—It is’nt a bit of good being furious with a furniture dealer. I found that out. Mr. M‘Asser was at his desk reading a letter. He said: “ Only a moment, sir ;” read on, and I fumed. When he had made an end of reading, he came down, stuck his glasses on his brow, and—“Now, sir,” said Mr. M‘Asser. I re-fumed, and when I had made an end of re-fuming, “ Decidedly, sir, decidedly,” said Mr. M‘Asser. Now, who could be angry, or argumentative with a man of Mr. M‘Asset’s calm exterior and general affability? I couldn’t. Especially when he asked me to walk round his new warehouse, and choose whatever I had a mind to, and that his superior articles, one and all, were credit prices; but he hadn’t the slightest objection to take ready cash if that would suit me better. I thought this exceedingly generous of Mr. M‘Asser, particularly the last portion of the sentence. So I forthwith did as I was told. And when everything was home, and everything was in, and the carpets down, and the pictures up, I think, had you seen it, that you would have agreed with me that there wasn’t a bit of use for a prettier parlour than the best room of my cottage orn6—the one with the bay window, and the steps leading down to the lawn. It strikes me now, however, that I had to pay for all this. Through the nose? Well, yes; so says “ somebody,” who is sitting by me now, though “somebody” puts it in ever so much more elegant language. Of one thing, at least, I am certain, Mr. Messer got a very large slice of my £500. The very day after I got fairly settled in my cottage orn6, who should run down to see me but Pelham himself. Poor Pelham’s ship had broken down in the Bay of Biscay, and he was back again for another week. It didn’t signify a bit to us, just then, that I had as yet got no servants. Pelham and I had both been to sea, and knew how to make the kettle boil as well as most people. In the evening, when the lamps were lit, and cards and Kinnahan were on the table, Pelham pulled his cigar out of his mouth, and, gazing on the rolling smoke, “ By Jove,” said Pelham, “you have got a nice little crib here. Don’t I envy you just? ” N.B.—Pelham was going to sea in a week. Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
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dope’s ^irfure.
A legend has become current of late amongst the persons who circulate Tobacco-trade items for the information of dealers, that Continental cigars are gradually supplanting British-made cigars in this country. A correspondent of the Deutsche Tabaka Zeitung would seem to hold some of them in small esteem; for he says the growing practice of the German manufacturers, which is to colour their cigars, not only deceives smokers but also destroys their health; and he would have their names—the names of the makers, not of the cigars—published, “pour encourager les autres“ I presume. An American critic of these views thinks there is no harm in colouring, if “pernicious stuffs” be not used; because smokers’ fancies are capricious, and they are, like the elder Athenians, constantly going about seeking “ some new thing.” This is a peculiarity not without some justification. I, myself, for example, would change my brands daily if I could reasonably hope for the luck of a certain musical New Yorker. Thus:—“The Boston Transcript says that all true music is in the middle notes. We had,” says the Herald, “remarked this fact when a member of the Philharmonic Society found ten cents in a paper of Tobacco.” If ten-cent notes go to papers of Tobacco, ten-dollar notes may be expected in cigars; and that is the sort of adulteration I should approve. The notion might commend itself to the Anti-Tobacco Societies. It would cure a good many smokers of their vile, self-indulgent, wasteful, irreligious, Ac., vice. Upon the slightest hint that the manufacturers have degenerated into this sort of “colouring,” I will pledge myself never to smoke another cigar— until I have first carefully unrolled it, to look for greenbacks. There is another kind of adulteration I hold in less esteem; as when the “Walsall publican extinguished a customer’s cigar by throwing a jug of water upon it.” That cigar would scarcely be worth smoking, after the operation; and I am glad to know that the publican “has been fined one shilling for assault.” The cigar prosecuted, of course, and that seems odd; but ria f justitia, though mat codum, and even though Walsall magistrates adulterate the law. Another kind of “colouring” I demur to is that which seems to be in vogue in Connecticut:—“ * Young man,’ said he, solemnly, * I’m sorry to see you smoking Tobacco;’ and the young man assured him that he wasn’t—that it was a Connecticut cigar.” On the supposition that these are the brands alluded to in the astounding statement of one of your American contemporaries—“Eight million cigars are burned daily in this country”—I don’t see the point of his pathetic reflection that “the loss isn’t covered by any insurance.”
The gentleman described in the following paragraph was well acquainted with Connecticut cigars, in the days when he was unreformed:—
“Thrillingstories were told by reformed drunkards at Mr. Moody's temperance meeting in Chicago, last Thursday. Oue of the witnesses stated that he had been drinking for 13 years, and had not stopped longer than six months at a time. He had taken the oath time after time. He had gone before a justice of the peace, and had signed the pledge with his own blood, drawn from his arm by a penknife. He had sworn not to drink for a year, under the penalty that he was to be sent to the penitentiary as a perjured man. He had broken the oath, and only escaped the penitentiary by stepping out of town. He had committed every crime but murder. He had broken up half-a-dozen happy homes. Two years ago he had married a Christian girl, and made her life mis: ruble. He hud seen her walking about the house with only one shoe, and with tattrred clothes, and even then he stole the little change there was in her pocket and spent it for drink. Four weeks ago he had wandered into the Tabernacle, and he knew that now his sins were forgiven. He had lost his appetite not only for drink but for Tobacco.”
What I mean is this:—That the gentleman would, have found his varied Uiches incompatible with an “appetite” for true Tobacco; and that the abandonment of Connecticut brands would just about match the strength of his self-reforming strength of mind. His notions of Tobacco were probably as hazy as his conceptions of religion; and these seem to be on a par with the ideal of the angelic Orders formed by the twa laddies who, when out a-gunning, shot a white owl. Gazing on the stricken bird, “so sprawled in the grass as to present to view only a head with staring eyes, and a pair of wings attached,” one of them cried to the other—“We’re in for it now, Jock; we’ve shot a cherubim!” There is much of the spirit of Brother Higgins about in the world. Brother Higgins took his fighting dog with him to a camp meeting; and while the good brother was exhorting, the faithful hound got a-fighting with another of his tribe. Deacon Thompson contrived to stop the fight by spitting in the eye of Brother Higgins’s dog. “‘But I just want to say,’ continued Mr. Higgins, ‘that outside of the sanctuary that dog of mine can eat up any salmon-coloured animal in the State, and then chaw up the bones of his ancestors for four generations without turning a hair! You understand me.’ Then the services proceeded.” A dog with an eye like Brother Higgins’s dog’s eye would be invaluable in the circumstances indicated in this paragraph (which, I need hardly say, comes from the same fertile country):—“ Uncomfortable.—To be caught in a splendid parlour with a big wad of Tobacco in one’s mouth, and no place to spit.” Splendid “parlours,” however, are not the only places where a man’s Tobacco may get him into difficulty. To illustrate the fact, read this:—“Deficient Accommodation.—Taking his cigar out of his mouth, the minister said to one of his parishioners, fond of sleeping in sermon time: * There is no sleeping car on the road to heaven.’
‘ And no smoking car either, I reckon,’ said the man, in reply, now wide awake.” If that drowsy philosopher was anywhere near the truth, there ought to be a place on the heavenward tramway for the street car conductor who lately delivered his soul in the formula—“If you want to smoke in this car, you must put out jour cigar, or else get off right away.” I don’t remember a case in which it was more necessary to remember the excellent rule that a man should be judged by the spirit, rather than by the letter, of his utterances.
It is well that one’s pet passion should now and then be moderated, even when it happens to be the adoration of the magical herb, and the check is painful. How pleasant is it to dream fondly that the common love of Tobacco begets a spiritual free-masonry in human hearts! But it is possible to presume too confidingly upon that cheering fancy. Take the late Parisian incident of the “purchaser” of cigarettes who found he had “forgotten his purse;” and, excusing himself, “offered to return the cigarettes.” This was the ensuing dialogue:—
Tobacconist: “No, sir, you can pay me another time.” Purchaser : “ Merci! Then I inspire you with confidence ? ” Tobacconist: “Oh! it is such a trifling sum.”
It is needful to take heed, lest, in a world where motives are so “mixed,” we ascribe to Charity what is due to Contempt.
Nevertheless, Tobacco has its virtues—even on the muscles of the ladies who work in its manufacture. An Anti-Tobac-coite lecturer, bent on proving the debilitating influence of the Weed, would find the Widow Brooks, of Rockingham, a tough subject. I have it on the authority of the Raleigh Observer that, while the widow was out in the barn, stripping Tobacco, Doc Horton arrived to test the question whether he or she could bear the palm at wrestling. The results are chronicled as follows:—
“ ‘Good morning, Mrs. Brooks; my name is Horton; I’ve come over to rasnle with you.’ ‘Sir! do you mean to insult me?* asked the widow. ‘ Not at all, ma’am,’ said Doc: ‘but I’ve thrown the crack roasters in this country, and I ain’t goin’ to have it said a woman can throw me, so cut your capers!' and Doc reached out for an under holt and made for the widow. A bulk of Tobacco laid near the door; and as Doc ambled up, the widow seized him by the coat collar with one hand and the hip of the pants with the other, and she dashed him head-foremost over the Tobacco, flat on his back to the floor. As soon as breath returned Doc crawled out to get his horse, the widow merely saying to the hands: ‘ Don’t stand lookin’ at that fool; goon with your bizuiss.’ She’s there yet, and makes the best Tobacco in Rockingham.”
One of the most extraordinary mixtures of the adulterated sort with which I have made acquaintance recently concerns the veteran Tobaccoite philosopher at Chelsea — Thomas Carlyle. Most newspaper readers have seen the letter ascribed to him the other day by certain newspapers; but all those who read it don’t know that it was spurious, and few know its origin. A Yankee interviewer in London, who scrapes up personalities in Europe for the enrichment of the Hartford Courant, professed to report certain sayings which had been dropped by the Sage in the free confidence of a friendly conversation. The style of the historian of Frederick the Great was smartly imitated; but the imitator succumbed to the ordinary folly of his tribe—exaggeration. He made him describe three generations of Darwins as “atheists all,” and travestie the teachings of one of the most modest and painstaking seekers after truth this century has known. He made him libel the whole generation of reading and thinking men and women to which he himself belongs. Imagine Carlyle maudling in this wise:—
“ A good sort of man is this Darwin, and well meaning, but with very little intellect. Ah! it is a eud and terrible thing to see nigh a whole generation of men and women, professing to be cultivated, looking around in a purblind fashion and finding no Godin this universe. I suppose it is a reaction from the reign of cant and hollow pretence, professing to believe what in fact they do not believe. And this is what we have got. All things from frog spawn; the gospel of dirt the order of the day. The older I grow—and I now stand upon the brink of eternity—the more comes back to me the sentence in the catechism, which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes—* What is the great end of man ? To glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.’ No gospel of dirt, teaching that men have descended from frogs through monkeys, can ever set that aside.”
This is what comes of filtering the wisdom of Herr Teufels-droch through the muddy brains of a newspaper scavenger. But, in the interests of true religion, the editor of a Scotch paper carried the fraud a little further. He turned this selfconvicted paragraph into “a letter from Mr. Carlyle to a Friend; ” and in this guise it went the round of the periodical press of this country. Regarded as a testimony to the infallible truth of the Catechism, it became itself a fair specimen of “ the gospel of dirt.” The advertiser of a quack pill would hardly stoop to the meanness of the pious editor, who thus slandered Carlyle by making him the mouther of an ignorant libel, in order to glorify a creed. And how soothing is the picture we get of the honour and peace which attend the last days of the sturdy Thinker of whom all English-reading men have reason to be proud! Because he is great, forsooth! an impertinent eavesdropping Yankee scribbler may lie as he listeth about the words that drop in courteous indulgence from the great man’s lips, in the privacy of his own room; and the organs of the “unco’ guid” may add a lie to make the first lie tell. There is no “Mixture” I should better like to “smoke,” with the pillory for a pipe, than the compounded relics of this well-matched pair of public malefactors! Au revoir!
Your Man-of-All-Work.
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The King’s kindness did not stop here. In September, 1628, on the death of Middleton, the office of City’s Chronologer had been conferred on Jonson, with a salary of one hundred nobles per annum. In November, 1631, this salary was suspended until he should have “presented some fruits of his labours in that his place.” But in September, 1634, there is an entry in the City Records: “This day Mr. Recorder and Sir James Hamersley Knight and Alder man declared unto this Court His Majesty’s pleasure signified unto them by the right honble. the Earle of Dorsett for and in the behalfe of Benjamine Johnson the Cittyes Chronologer, Wherupon it is ordered by this Court that his yearely pencion of one hundred nobles out of the Chamber of London shall be continued and that Mr. Chamberlen shall satisfie and pay unto him his arrerages thereof.” He, no doubt, as is remarked by Mr. Dyce, to whom we owe the extracts from the Records, continued to hold the office till his death, when he was succeeded in it by Francis Quarles, of the “Emblems.” This, with any other succours, must have been most welcome. Already, in 1631, he had addressed to the Lord High Treasurer an “Epistle Mendicant” (“Underwoods” XC.), wherein he says:
“ Disease the enemy, and his ingineers, .
Want, with the rest of his concealed compeers, Have cast a trench about me now five years.
“ The Muse not peeps ont, one of hundred days: “ But lies blocked np and straitened, narrowed in, Fixed to the bed and boards, unlike to win Health, or scarce breath, as she had never been;
“ Unless some saving honour of the crown, Dare think it, to relieve, no less renown, ▲ bed-rid wit, than a besieged town."
This places the commencement of his disease and want in 1626. The want would have been much less had he not been not only liberal but lavish, with table ever free and purse ever open to his friends. And he was himself a generous liver. “Wine he always considered as necessary—and perhaps it was so—to counteract the occasional influence of that morbid tendency to melancholy generated by a constitutional affection of the scurvy; which also rendered society desirable, and in some measure indispensable to him.” This sad “ Mendicant Epistle” appears to have brought him help from various quarters, and especially from the munificent Earl of Newcastle, one short letter to whom may be quoted:
u My Noblest Lord and Best Patron,
“ I send no borrowing epistle to provoke your lordship, for I have neither fortune to repay, nor security to engage, that will be taken; but I make a most humble petition to your lordship's bounty to succour my present necessities this good time [festival] of Easter, and it shall conclude all begging requests hereafter on the behalf
“ Of your truest beadsman and “ Most thankful servant, “B. J."
Though his maladies continually increased he bravely struggled on, and in 1632 a contemporary records: “Ben Jonson, who I thought had been dead, has written a play against the next term, called the * Magnetic Lady;’” which we learn was generally esteemed an excellent play. Howell wrote a characteristic letter to his “Father Ben” concerning it. Having quoted the “ Nullum Jit magnum ingenium sine mix-tura dementia, There’s no great wit without some mixture of madness,” he goes on: “It is verified in you, for I find that you have been oftentimes mad: you were mad when you writ your “Fox,” and madder when you writ your “Alchemist;” you were mad when you writ “Catiline,” and stark mad when you writ “Sejanus;” but when you writ your “Epigrams” and the “Magnetic Lady” you were not so mad. . . The madness I mean is that divine fury, that heating and heightening spirit which Ovid [Plato had been yet better] speaks of.” Granting the truth of this, filial piety should have kept him from blurting it out to “Father Ben,” considering his age and state and circumstances. In 1633 he Sroduced his last comedy, “A Tale of a Tub: ” a title which as been made his own by England’s greatest satirist writing in his prime; who, turning over the leaves of the masterpiece in his far sadder decline, justly exclaimed, “My God! what a genius I had when I wrote this! ” In the same year the King, going to Scotland to be crowned there, was magnificently entertained by the Earl of Newcastle at his seat at Welbeck, in Nottinghamshire; and in the following year, during a Royal “progress” into the north of England, yet more magnificently at another of his seats, Bol so ver Castle, in Derbyshire; and Jonson on both occasions furnished little Antimasques, each entitled “Love’s Welcome.” The splendour of these entertainments may be estimated from what the Duchess records in the Life of her husband (he was afterwards Duke), that the first cost him between four and five thousand, and the second between fourteen and fifteen thousand pounds. Clarendon, in his “History of the Rebellion,” recording this “ stupendous Entertainment,” concludes, “which, God be thanked, though possibly it might too much whet the appetite of others to excess, no man ever after imitated.” About this period Jonson writes to the Earl, in reference to we know not what work: “The faith of a fast friend with the duties of an humble servant, and the hearty prayers of a religious beadsman, all kindled upon this altar to your honour, my honourable lady, your hopeful issue, and
your right noble brother, be ever my sacrifice!—It is the lewd printer’s fault that I can send your lordship no more of my book. . . . My printer and I shall afford subject enough for a tragi-comedy; for with his delays and vexation I am almost become blind; and if heaven be so just, in the metamorphosis, to turn him into that creature which he most resembles, a dog, with a bell to lead me between Whitehall and my lodging, I may bid the world good night. And so I do.” But one more play calls for notice, the “ Sad Shepherd; ” of which, unfortunately, only the first two acts and two scenes of the third have come down to us. Gifford says: “ That it was completed I have little doubt: its mutilated state is easily accounted for by the confusion which followed the author’s death. Into whose hands his papers fell, as he left apparently no will nor testamentary document of any kind, cannot now be told: perhaps into those of the woman who resided with him as his nurse, or some of her kin: but they were evidently careless or ignorant, and put his manuscripts together in a very disorderly manner, losing some and misplacing others. Had they handed down to us ‘The Sad Shepherd* in its complete state, we should have possessed a poem which might have been confidently opposed to the proudest effort of dramatic genius that time has yet bequeathed us.” It is a pastoral drama; the scene in Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood and his band among the dramatis persona. It is indeed very beautiful in parts, and one gladly welcomes such a sunset succeeding the overcast afternoon, as showing that the great light which had been clouded was by no means extinguished, that the genius of the brave old poet could still triumph ere it sank into the night of death; but I can hardly concur in the measureless praise of Gifford, who was perhaps less qualified to judge a purely poetical drama than one abounding in keen observation, satirical humour, and masculine eloquence. I think the Prologue clearly proves that it wax completed, and seems to fix the date at 1635-6, the latter the year before Jonson’s death. The theatres were shut up this year; otherwise the whole piece might have been preserved to us. That Jonson himself was proud of it is evident from the opening lines of this Prologue:
“He that hath feasted you these forty years, And fitted fables for your finer ears, Although at first he scarce could hit the bore; Yet you, with patience harkening more and more, At length have grown up to him, and made known The working of his pen is now your own’: He prays you would vouchsafe, for your own sake, To hear him this once more, but sit awake. And though he now present you with such wool. As from mere English flocks his Muse can pull, He hopes when it is made up into cloth, Not the most curious head here will be loth To wear a hood of it, it being a fleece To match or those of Sicily or Greece.”
These smooth-flowing lines are a further sample of the “jagged mis-shapen distiches” of my Lord Macaulay! The last, it need scarcely be said, alludes to the pastoral poems of Theocritus, Moschus, and Bion. It is pleasant to observe the friendly tone in which the poet addresses his audience, the grateful recognition of his well-earned popularity; though his self-esteem asserts itself in the characteristic interjections, “for your own sake,” and “but sit awake.”
It remains to speak of the Miscellaneous Poems and of the prose “Discoveries.” The Epigrams, as will have been gathered from the quotations I have given, are seldom epigrams in our modern sense of the word: they are simply “short poems, chiefly restricted to one idea, and equally adapted to the delineation and expression of every passion incident to human life.” They comprise eulogies, satires, epitaphs. I give two of the briefest, which are among the most epigrammatic as we now commonly understand the word:—
“ON THE UNION.
“ When was there contract better driven by Fate, Or celebrated with more truth of state ?
The world the temple was. the priest a king, The spoused pair two realms, the sea the ring.”
“ON COURT-WORM.
“ All men are worms, but this no man. In silk Twas brought to court first wrapt, and white as milk; Where afterwards it grew a butterfly, Which was a caterpillar; so 'twill die.”
One of the panegyrics is so exquisite that I cannot refrain from citing it, though rather long: it is No. LXXVI., “On Lucy, Countess of Bedford” (to whom also LXXXIV. and XCIV, are addressed), a lady worthy of the high praise; the patroness not only of Ben, but of Donne, Drayton, and Daniel, one of the best pieces of this last, a stately and truly noble one, being written in her honour. Here is Ben’s:—
“ This morning, timely rapt with holy fire, I thought to form unto my zealous Muse, What kind of creature I could most desire To honour, serve, and love; as Poets use.
I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise, Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great;
I meant the day-star should not brighter rise,
Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat.	,
I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,	'
Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride;
I meant each softest virtue there should meet, Fit in that softer bosom to reside.
Only a learned and a manly soul
I purposed her; that should with even powers The rock, the spindle, and the sheers control Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours.
Such when I meant to feign, and wished to see, My Muse hade Bedford write, and that was she I ”
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I wonder whether to my Lord Macaulay these were jagged mis-shapen quatrains! The other collections are entitled “The Forest” and “Underwoods.” They comprise many eulogiums, and specially many pieces in cordial praise of contemporary writers. There are also some beautiful songs, too I little known; and it may be observed generally that Jonson’s lyrics are strangely neglected, with the exception of three or four popular favourites, such as “Drink to me only with thine eyes,” and that serene invocation of Hesperus in “Cynthia’s Revels” (Act v. Sc. 3), “Queen and huntress, chaste and fair.” But the most remarkable of the shorter poems are the Epitaphs and Elegies, of which the finest are, I believe, the finest in the language. I will not speak here of the magnanimous and fervent tribute to the memory of Shakespeare; and I merely mention the Epitaphs on his own first daughter and first son, on Margaret Ratcliffe (the only acrostic I remember in his works), on Vincent Corbet, Philip Gray; and the Elegies on Lady Jane Pawlet, and on Lady Venetia Digby, whom he termed his Muse, and to whom the Epigram, “ Underwoods ” XCVIL, is addressed, being in praise of her husband, the celebrated Sir Kenelm Digby. But there are three which I am loth to omit, though two of them are generally known. The first is on Salathiel Pavy (Epigram CXX.), one of the boys of the Queen’s Chapel who performed in his “Cynthia’s Revels” and “Poetaster,” and of whom he was very fond:—
•‘Weep with me, all yon that read
Thia little story:
And know, for whom a tear you shed
Death's self is sorry.
Twas a child that so did thrive In grace and feature, Aa Heaven and Nature seemed to strive Which owned the creature.
Years he numbered scarce thirteen, When Fates turned cruel, Yet three filled zodiacs had he been The stage’s jewel;
And did act, what now we moan, Old men so duly, As, sooth, the Parc® thought him one, He played so truly.
Bo, by error, to his fate They all consented; But, viewing him since, alas, too late! They have repented;
And have sought, to give new birth, In baths to steep him ;
But, being so much too good for earth, Heaven vows to keep him.”
The second (Epigram CXXIV.) is on Elizabeth L. H., a lady, I believe, still unidentified:—
“ Wouldst thou hear what man can say In a little? reader, stay.
“ Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die: Which in life did harbour give To more virtue than doth live.
“ If at all she had a fault, Leave it buried in this vault. One name was Elizabeth, Tbe other let it sleep with death: Fitter, where it died, to tell, Than that it lived at all. Farewell 1 ”
It will be remembered that Mrs. Barrett Browning has a beau-tiftil little poem, “A Portrait,” bearing for motto the line, “One name was Elizabeth’* ; a line applicable to the poetess herself, to whose other names, both of maidenhood and marriage, it will be long ere the next can be applied.
The third (“Underwoods” XV.), perfect and unequalled unless by the second section of the above, is on the Countess of Pembroke:—
“ Underneath this sable herse Lies the subject of all verse, Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother; Death I ere thou hast slain another, Learn’d and fair and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee.”
“Timber; or, Discoveries made upon Men and Matter. As they have flowed out of his Daily Readings, or had their reflux to his peculiar Notion of the Times.” Under this somewhat quaint title we have some of “the last drops of Jonson’s quill,” in a collection of notes moral and critical, showing how great must have been the loss when fire destroyed those accumulated during twice twelve years, when his powers were in full vigour. Gifford more than once expresses his opinion that Jonson’s prose was the best of the time. This is a rather hazardous judgment, considering that among his contemporaries were Lord Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne, Sir Walter Raleigh, together with such less ornate writers as Selden and Donne, not to speak of those who made the authorised version of the Bible. Without exalting Ben’s prose to this perilous elevation, we can recognise that it is truly admirable; terse, unaffected, perspicuous, sincere, weighty with knowledge and thought; and so little out of date that it might have been written yesterday. In reading the moral reflections in these “Discoveries” one may often fancy himself occupied with Bacon’s “Essays,” until he misses the copiousness of illustration. Here are one or two of the shortest:—“Consilia”: “No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel sometimes; and no man is so wise but may easily err if he will take no other’s counsel than his own. But very few men are wise by their own counsel; or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself had a fool to his master.” “Applausus”: “We praise the things we hear
with much more willingness than those we see, because we envy the present and reverence the past; thinking ourselves instructed by the one and overlaid by the other.” “Comit. Suffragia”: “Suffrages in Parliament are numbered, not weighed: nor can it be otherwise in those public councils, where nothing is so unequal as the equality; for there, how odd soever men’s brains or wisdoms are, their power is always even and the same.” Under the head of “Memoria” he tells us: “I myself could, in my youth, have repeated all that ever I had made, and so continued till I was past forty; since it is much decayed in me. Yet I can repeat whole books that I have read, and poems of some selected friends, which I have liked to charge my memory with. Of Shakespeare, “De Shakespeare Nostrat”: I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, Would he had blotted a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who choose that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted, and to justify mine own candour; for I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantsie. brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too.” On the birthday of Lord Bacon, 22nd January, 1621, when newly made Lord Chancellor, and at the height of his prosperity, Jonson had written beautifully (“Underwoods” LXX.):—
“England’s high Chancellor: the destined heir, In his soft cradle, to his father's chair: Whose even threads the Fates spin round and full, Out of their choicest and their whitest wooL”
It was not long, as we are all aware, before wool anything but white came into that spinning; but Jonson, in his own old age, and after Bacon’s death (who died ten years before him), writes thus nobly to the honour of both:—“My conceit of his Person was never increased towards him by his place or honours; but I have and do reverence him for the greatness which was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many Ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength; for Greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest.” And really, when one considers, it appears possible that Jonson knew Bacon quite as well as did Pope or even the omniscient Macaulay. Again, of his oratory:—“Yet there happened in my time one noble Speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end.” And finally, after naming Lord Chancellor Egerton:— “But his learned and able (though unfortunate) successor is Ite who hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome. In short, within his view, and about his times, were all the wits born that could honour a language or help study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downward, and eloquence grows backward; so that he may be named and stand as the mark and acme of our language.”
Sigvat.
^ Oorir foit^ ^bloral-^aktrs.
In the Belgravia number for April, 1875, there appeared an article by the present writer, entitled, “ The Confessions of an English Chloral-Eater,” which created some little sensation at the time, and was pretty freely reviewed. The general opinion among critics, however, was that the sad tale was either purely imaginative or, if founded on fact, very highly finished. Probably I was in some measure to blame for this myself, for sending the paper to a magazine devoted to fiction of a more or less romantic description. Two years have elapsed since then, and I dare say no one will doubt my word when I say that the article in question was not meant to be understood as a tale of the Edgar Allan Poe type, but that it was as true and faithful an account of my feelings and sufferings, both mentally and bodily, during the period I was in the habit of using that baneful narcotic chloral, as my pen could write. Many were the journals, however, I am happy to say, that looked upon the story in the light in which it was written, and even brought forward cases in support of my statements, almost parallel with my own.
I have the satisfaction, too, to know that some good was done—that I did not write quite in vain. One poor young widow, who had commenced the use of chloral soon after her husband’s death, at the end of six months found herself face to face with the king of terrors; but, at the last moment, her
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friends found out what it was that was really killing her, and deprived her of the drug, when, after a few months' suffering, she was restored to perfect health. But, for one individual who has the moral courage to give up the terrible habit of chloral-eating, there are ten who die by the accursed drug. Many there are, again, who continue the use of chloral till the bitter end, for the simple reason that they are unaware of the fatal action of their nightly potion. And how can the public know anything about the dangerous nature of this narcotic when they not only see the syrup of chloral standing in dainty bottles, “with directions,” in every chemist’s show-case, and sold as freely as eau de Cologne, but also read of it in newspapers, in advertisements recommending its use in all cases of sleeplessness, and assuring the reader that it positively has no bad after effects. When, I wonder, will the newspapers of this country take to following the lead of the brave old San Francisco Newsletter, and banish the advertisements of quacks from their sheets. I don’t care who or what he is, but the man who, for sake of filthy lucre, advertises the hydrate of chloral as an antidote to “sleepless nights” ought to be hanged higher than Haman, and the proprietor of the journal who accepts such advertisement ought to be tucked on to his legs to keep him steady. Referring to my own case, there was one symptom which I did not care to mention in the pages of Belgravia, and a most distressing one it was: I mean constipation. Never once, for months during the last stage of my illness, was my system opened without large doses of aperients, aided by enemas, and this only once a week. The very first day, however, after I had been deprived of chloral, the whole of the secreting glands became unusually active, and diarrhoea, often accompanied with pure blood, continued for weeks. If I were asked to give a short summary of the usual symptoms of chloralism—that is, the disease induced by the use of hydrate of chloral—I should do so in the following manner: Chloral hydrate acts upon the brain and nervous system, through the blood, into which it is carried almost as soon as swallowed, through the coats of the stomach. It is supposed to resolve itself into chloroform in the blood, and this is probably the case. One dose every night, gradually increased —which it must be to have any effect—if persisted in for some length of time, is certain to produce chloralism. The chloralist is the most miserable being in existence. His nervous energies are entirely paralysed; his brain, except at night, when he lies in the deep stone-like sleep which the drug induces, is in a continuous state of painful congestion. He is irritable in temper, desponding in mind, and quite unfit to perform his duties satisfactorily. The secreting system seems almost quite dammed up. The bowels are constipated, and the kidney, almost the only gland which is not very much affected, has to do double work. In the latter stage of the disease the chloralist is entirely unable to retain the upright position; if placed on a chair he may sit a while, but he will gradually slide off on to the floor. The heart becomes very much enfeebled, and the whole body emaciated. There is urgent dyspnoea and terrible feelings in the head on any any attempt to get up a hill or ascend a stair. There is entire inability to read or write, although the chloralist is calmed by being read to, great intolerance of light, dilatation of the pupil, and a burning, bursting sensation in the eyeballs. Then congestion of the walls of the superficial veins of the extremities comes on, and the sufferings are increased tenfold. Each vein can be traced by its tenderness along its whole length. This is more marked towards nightfall, about two hours before the time for taking the accustomed dose. Then the condition of the sufferer is pitiable in the extreme. The pains are racking, and much more severe than those of muscular rheumatism, and the restlessness is so extreme that one position cannot be retained for even sixty seconds, while the veins seem at least triple the size, and the mind, while clear, is in a condition of the most acute atonic suffering (if I may so term it) that any one could conceive. And this last stage may last for some months. Then Death steps in, the curtain is dropped; but a worn and woeful looking corpse is the dead chloralist. I myself have some slight reason to love Tobacco. I, for one, do not object to call it the holy plant. During all those sad months when I was suffering from the effects of chloral hydrate I seldom smoked, and latterly never. During the months of my convalescence my long clay—humble though it sounds—was my only solace, and I stick to it still. Now, a medical man would be sure to ask me, “ Have you quite recovered the effects of chloral?” and “What is the present state of your general health?” And I should answer: “Tolerably good; and, if you don’t believe me, just drop in about dinner-time.” There is no doubt that chloral does weaken and attenuate the heart; and this was, no doubt, the cause of my being pronounced by one practitioner ill of heart complaint. I’ve got over it, then, I fancy; but of one thing I’m pretty sure, my heart will last me all my time. Oh! ’Baccy, ’Baccy! and I would likewise add Io Bacche! but I never owed for ’Baccy all my life. But, oh! ’Baccy, ’Baccy! you’re the king of narcotics; and if ever I climb the hill of Parnassus, won't I bring down an ode in your praise —that’s all ? Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.	^^t Smoke ^loom Sable. Clytie: a Novel of Modern Life. By Joseph Hatton. London: Lindley and Co. Inasmuch as no amount of praise will make a bad book any better than It truly is, so no abuse, however freely it may be Hhowercd, will detract from the merits of a good work. “ Clytie ” has been abused extensively, both as a play and a novel, but it is none the less a good book in many respects; though the faults may appear many and glaring, owing, in a great measure doubtless, to the excellence of the work with which they arc contrasted. The sketching of the quiet, sleepy old city of Durham—or Dunelm, as it is called—is worthy of the pen that has given us “ The Valley of Poppies ” and the “Tallants of Barton.” Clytie, the heroine, is a charming figure in the early part of the story, where she figures as the daughter of Old Waller the Cathedral organist; but when she comes up to London, gets into trouble, marries Lord St. Barnard, and finally appears at Bow Street Police Court in a parody of the “Twiss” case, she is not so interesting, and she loses her hold on onr attention. Tom Mayfield, her rejected lover, on the other hand, does not make such a good figure in his student’s room over St. Cuthbert’s Gateway, smoking his favourite meerschaum and raving to his bust of Clytie in a mad fashion, as he does on his return to England, after many years’ absence, as “ Kalmat,” the “ Poet of the Sierras,” “ broad of shoulder and agile of tread." Mr. Hatton, it would appear, docs not believe in the dictum “ Poeta nascitur" 4c.: “ It is sorrow that makes the Poet. There is no singer who is all joy. Nature in woods and dells inspired the first dreamers ; but Love and Death taught them the tender beauty of woe. Poetry is the soul of things, and Kalmat had turned the melancholy of his own heart to the everlasting music which is the most precious gift the world can receive from man.” This is how Kalmat became a Poet: how he cleared Clytie from slander, and rid the earth of vermin, in the shape of Phil Ransford, readers of this very-far-from-dull book will discover. Rubdiydt of Omar Khayydm, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia, Rendered into English Verse. 3rd Edition. London: Bernard Quariteh, 1872. [By Edward Fitzgerald.] This is the remarkable little book with the remarkable history, to which a notice in the Contemporary Review called public attention about a year ago. Originally produced some eighteen years back, at half-a-crown, it did not sell at all, and the price was reduced to a shilling, to threepence, and finally to a penny, at which lost some copies were sold. The third edition is said to be now sellbig well at seven shillings and sixpence. Omar Khayyam’s period was from about A.D. 1050 to 1125. As astronomer and mathematician he was so eminent as to be one of the eight appointed to correct the Calendar; and his Algebra was reprinted at Paris, with a French version by F. Woepcke, in 1851. His science, of course, is superseded, but his poems will endure. They consist of quatrains, sometimes independent, sometimes connected several together; in a few all four lines have one rhyme, but usually the third is rhymeless, giving, as Mr. Fitzgerald remarks, the effect of the Greek Alcaic, in lifting and suspending the wave which falls over in the fourth. His version, whose accuracy is said to be vouched by competent scholars, and which adheres to the forms of the original, is a masterpiece of energy and beauty. Omar is an intense thinker, a daring heretic among the faithful; putting small trust in the Prophet and his Paradise, mocking the Saints and the sages, laughing even at the Sufis, or mystics, to which most of the Persian poets belonged, making light of his own serious labours, and singing with a real Rabelaisian jollity to the theme, Let us eat and drink and love, for to-morrow we die. Do the wise men think they have solved the for ever Insoluble ? Hear Omar:— “ Myself, when young, did eagerly fre<;uent Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument About it and about: but evennore Came out by the same door that in I went.” Would they allure or affright him with the promises or menaces of the Koran ? “ Oh 1 threats of Hell and hopes of Paradise 1 One thing at least is certain—thia life flies; One thing is certain and the rest is Lies; The Flower that once has blown for over dies.” Would they appal him with the predestined doom of the wicked? By the predestination very he justifies himself:— “ What 1 out of senseless Nothing to provoke A conscious Something to resent the yoke Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke! ” Or to the sourer Muslim Calvinists he will answer carelessly, in his fable of the Potter’s Vessels:— “ • Why,* said another, ‘ Some there are who tell Of One who threatens he will toss tn Hell The luckless Pots he marr’d in making—Pish I He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well.’ ’’ Does the Koran strictly forbid wine and strong drink ? Our philosophic Persian Pantagruelist makes frank confession;— “ Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before I swore—but was I sober when T swore? And then and then come Spring, and Rose-in-hand My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore. •‘ And much as Wine has played the Infidel, And robb’d me of my Robe of Honour—Well, I wonder often what the Vintners buy, One-half so precious as the stuff they sell.” That last touch is exquisite, and applies equally to the Tobacconist, who parts with his choicest brands and most fragrant growths for cash which can buy nothing half so good! What a smoker our bard would have made, had the weed flourished in the Orient in his time I Hear him address his Beloved in the very mood of the narghile:— “ A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Leaf of Bread—and Thou Beside me, singing in the Wilderness— Oh 1 Wilderness were Paradise enow! ” In default of the weed, he celebrates the rose—the rose and the nightingale, wine and love; his exquisite relish of them sharpened by the haunting thought that he cannot enjoy them long: “Ah I make the most of what we yet may spend, Before we too into the Dust descend; Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie, Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End 1 “A Moment’s Halt—a momentary taste Of Being from the Well amid the Waste— And Lol—the phantom Caravan has reach’d The Nothing it set out from—Oh I make haste 1 ” In concluding by warmly commending to all good readers this magnificent version of magnificent Eastern poetry, we must remark with regret that Mr. Fitzgerald in this third edition has only given 101 quatrains (there were half-a-dozen more in the second). Professor Palmer, of Cambridge, has just published a volume containing some pieces from Omar and Hafiz. The famous Orientalist, Von Hammer-Purgstall, gives many specimens from Omar in his “Geschichte der scloinen Redekunste Persiens,” containing an anthology from two hundred Persian poets. And a Persian text, with face-to-face version in French prose, from a lithograph copy at Teheran, comprising no fewer than 464 quatrains, was brought out ten years ago by J. B. Nicolas. The writer in the Contemporary appeared to know nothing of Omar Khayyam beyond what he learnod from Mr. Fitzgerald’s choice booklet.
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Much, 1877.]	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	*	11
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^w/4/


A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
jj°j|JEzEZSiZIZZZZZ^ZA£iS^^
Tobacco in Jhaln.
On the 23rd February, 1877, appeared in II Sole (The Sun), a Milan newspaper, under the title of “La Libera Coltivazione del Tobacco” (The Free Cultivation of Tobacco) what follows, consisting of an introductory note by the editor, and the letter, supremely important in many ways, of an Italian Deputy:—
Our excellent friend, the Deputy Luigi Canzi, sends us the letter given herewith, which corresponds exactly to what Signor G. Semenza has, in the columns of II Sole, always advocated on the free cultivation of Tobacco. We are delighted that a young and intelligent deputy takes such earnest interest in our agriculture. Would that there were many like him! How much more brilliant would be the nation’s financial position! As for our part, we promise him all the aid which we have always rendered to those who devised schemes useful, practical, beneficial to our native land:—
Rome, 18th February.
Veby Dear Friend,—The worthy Signor Ferri, in his admirable article published in II Sole of the 12th January, had the goodness to allude to what I had written on the cultivation of Tobacco, and this served to me as an inducement to persevere in my intentions. I broke a first lance in Parliament when the Budget was discussed; and now I am about to propose a measure of reform. Will it be accepted? Meanwhile, I deem it useful to avail myself of your kindness to call, by the help of print, public attention to this important object.
In Italy a very erroneous notion has prevailed respecting the possibility of cultivating Tobacco, the contracts with the Ministry of Finance being taken into consideration. The Financial Administration, in accordance with the Convention of 25th July, 1868, has no right to hinder the extension of the cultivation in all Italy. There was conceded to it for fifteen years the privilege of manufacturing, of selling and re-selling, in whole and in retail, Tobaccos of every species and nothing more (Article HI.); and the Government has not only reserved the right of extending the cultivation of Tobacco, but has urged on the Financial Ministry the duty of stimulating that cultivation by suggestive examples and directions, and also by prizes (Article XVI).
The only obligation assumed by the Government is to watch over the cultivation so that private persons may not dispose of the products clandestinely, thus causing a loss to the revenue; and this inspection had to be exercised on the basis of a regulation proposed by the Financial Administration and approved by the Government. Therefore hereanent we are perfectly in rule, and can do what seemeth unto us best.
My idea is not only that the cultivation should be extended to the whole of Italy, but that the existing regulations should so be modified as to make the cultivation profitable; though it must be observed that if the right of / cultivation were granted, but bound by the chains which now fetter it in those parts of Italy where cultivation is permitted, it would not be worth accepting.
In effect, in those parts the cultivation of Tobacco is bad, and the quality of the product is likewise bad; and thence is derived one of the favourite arguments against my scheme. The adversaries maintain that in our native land this quality can never attain excellence! But their conviction would be entirely overthrown if they knew the real cause of the conditions in which Italy is placed.
The Tobacco grown in Italy is bad in consequence of the existing regulations, which are the negation of every sound
principle of economy. Those regulations give to the Ministry of Finance the power of fixing the place, the fashion of cultivation, the quality to be cultivated; moreover (and this is colossal in its absurdity) they give it the power of fixing the price for which the cultivator of Tobacco is bound to sell his products I
Yes, it is the buyer who fixes the price of the article he buys I How men at the head of public affairs could sanction similar enormities is inexplicable.
It is with these regulations we burn to wage war.
Let us suppose for an instant that the Government, impelled by exceptional financial needs, were to assume the exclusive privilege of making and selling the wines of Piedmont, and were to concede the exercise of the right to a financial department, with power to buy the grapes at the price it thought proper to fix!
There is some sense of shame in all, and even in financial departments. Hence, doubtless, this particular one would commence by paying for the grapes at the rate of twenty lire the hundredweight. Then, infatuated by a false idea of its own interest, it would pay for the same grapes fifteen, shortly after ten, lire; and who knows how far it might go in this downward course?
It is well known that there is a certain equivalence between quality and expense and quantity. If it is desired to produce a good article, a smaller quantity is obtained, and greater expenses are incurred. Proceeding, therefore, with my example, what would the viticulturist do ?
He who, without hesitation, spent large sums on manures, on labour, and so forth; he who planted vines producing scantily, but producing what was exquisite, which obtained a most exquisite price, on seeing that the Financial Department paid for the grapes incomparably less than their worth, would devote himself to the production of a cheap article. He would spend little on poles, whereby the grapes would be hindered from ripening perfectly; he would employ liquid manures, whereby the quantity would be increased but the quality deteriorated; he would plant vines which had no strength, but which yielded abundantly. Then some fine day he would be told that the Financial Department paid little because the products were bad; and thereupon the discovery would bo made that the soil of Piedmont is not at all adapted to viticulture. The next step would be that the Financial Department, no longer finding the kind of grapes needful for the making of wine, would have to purchase them in France, in Spain, and so on, to the great joy of those countries, but to the infinite impoverishment of our own, thus transformed into a large importer, instead of being what it ought to be—a large exporter?
This illustration, by means of an imaginary case, is the exact picture of our condition relating to the cultivation of Tobacco.
In 1875, the Financial Department bought about thirty-one millions of foreign Tobacco, and only two and a-half millions of native Tobacco, paying on an average for the hundredweight as follows:—
Java ................................... 845	lire.
America................................. 160	„
Europe ................................. 140	„
Holland ................................ 114	„
Native................................... 51	„
I may be met with the assertion (which, however, I do not admit without exception) that the Tobaccos of Java and the American Tobaccos are specialities, like the wines of Bordeaux, Champagne, and so on, and that we must renounce the hope of obtaining similar products. But what are we to say about
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the Tobaccos of Europe, paid for at the rate of 140 lire, and those of Holland, paid for at the rate of 114 lire? Who can * have the courage to maintain that Holland is in better conditions than Italy for cultivating Tobacco ? We have heat; we have a splendid sky, the envy of all; we are between the 36th and 46th parallel, exactly the same latitude as Virginia and Kentucky. Who, therefore, dares maintain that we cannot produce good Tobaccos? Whoso makes such an assertion cannot be an Italian. The truth is that, compared with Italy, Holland, Belgium, France, and Hungary are in much inferior conditions. Verily, this kind of opposition is by no means serious. I believe that, with wise regulations, we could in few years furnish the Tobacco needful for our own manufacture, and also a considerable quantity for exportation. Possibly we may always have to purchase foreign Tobaccos to the extent of a few millions, on account of certain specialities; but this outlay would be abundantly counterbalanced by the sale abroad of our own Tobaccos. At present we annually import about thirty millions. Well, then, I am convinced that, after a few years of good cultivation, we could limit our importation to four or five millions, and export from ten to twenty millions. Who knows to what point of excellence we might arrive if we did what ought to be done? But let us accept the more modest supposition that We diminish the imports to the extent of twenty millions, and that we carry our exports to ten millions. We should in that fashion have ameliorated the national economical balance to the extent of thirty-five millions in the year. This appears to me a very grand result. And if this possibility had been realised during the last sixteen years, five hundred millions (of lire) less would have been sent out of Italy. Evidently the question is one which deserves the earnest study of the economist. Now let me briefly examine what the advantages to agriculture would be, and especially the agriculture of the non-irriguous zones of Upper Italy. I have proclaimed it, and others have proclaimed it anew better than I—we need to introduce a new product which may not leave those regions in absolute dependence on the silkworm, the profit from which is precarious, which requires hands too numerous, and which involves costs of manufacture too great. Well, then, Tobacco is exactly this new and precious product. I say precious advisedly, and here are some of the data which confirm my assertion—data which I take from the most accredited treatises on the cultivation of Tobacco. The average of the results of quantity obtained by hectare in Belgium, in France, and in Holland is about twenty-three quintals; and I hope no one will venture to say that we could not produce as much. The prices of Europe and of America for inferior, for good, and for prime qualities, go from 50 to 500 lire; and I believe that I am very moderate if I start from the supposition that for our Tobaccos we might take an average of 100 lire. The worthy agriculturists would sell them for a much higher price; but let us make the reckoning in a large and rough way, and let us not go beyond the hundred lire the quintal. We should then have an average yield of 2300 lire the hectare. Let us now deduct the expenses, and here I shall be generous; I shall take the average of the countries mentioned above, where labour and materials are much more costly than in Italy. The average amounts to 500 lire; but suppose 600 lire more were added to the expense of cultivation, there would still be a net profit of 1200 lire the hectare, equivalent to 80 lire the Milanese perch. But, as I have already said, the expenses of cultivation in Italy are far lower than those in the North of Europe. Besides, it is obvious that, writing with all possible brevity, I calculate the value of manures as if these had all to be bought, whereas in reality most of them are produced on the estate itself, at small expense; and we have furthermore to take into account the benefit from the cattle and from the labour which they contribute in cultivation. I think, therefore, that the profit might be reckoned at a higher figure than I have ventured on. It is my opinion that the most practical mode of getting profit from the Tobacco cultivation in Upper Italy would be to entrust it to the peasants, assigning them the half of the benefit. The proprietor could furnish instructions, keep and supply the seed, and pay in advance for the artificial manures, special tools, and so on. The peasant could give his labour and the stall manure. Remaking the account on this basis, we should have per hectare:— 23 Quintals of Tobacco, at 100 lire	 2300 lire Smaller Expenses	100 lire Artificial Manures	200 „ 	 300 „ Net Yield	'.	2000 lire, to be divided between the proprietor and the cultivator, or 66 lire the Milanese perch for each of them. Herefrom may be seen of what enormous advantage the Tobacco cultivation would be, both for the proprietor and for the poor peasant, who in many parts of Italy is in the most deplorable condition. With this new source of income, a small family cultivating not more than four perches of ground	could gain from 200 to 250 lire; a larger sum than is obtainable from the tedious and troublesome rearing of silkworms. I venture to hope that my proposal may be favourably received, both by agriculturists and by Parliament, and so much the more that I intend to be very moderate, contenting myself with demanding a law which permits the cultivation of Tobacco in every part of Italy—the expense for governmental surveillance excepted or deducted—and which leaves the cultivator free to sell his products to the Finance Department or to foreign purchasers, just as he deems best. Let us, therefore, go forward with courage. As to me, in the Chamber I shall do my duty. But an unanimous manifestation of the will of the country is indispensable, forasmuch as ideas run the risk of never being transmuted into facts unless they are spread abroad and vigorously supported by public opinion. Understand me well, dear Bellini! This stone now thrown is fitted to stir your waters also. I should like the press to call persistently the attention of agriculturists to this proposal, so that there may be discussion and agitation. Whoso sleeps cannot catch fish (as the Italian proverb says). Pardon me for occupying so much space in your esteemed journal, and believe me to be always, from the heart, your affectionate friend, Luigi Canzi. An Italian lira is equal to a French franc, and a French franc is equal to ninepence-halfpenny English. A hectare comprises rather more than two French acres. A quintal contains a hundred pounds. The letter of Luigi Canzi is interesting for showing the financial and agricultural .position of Tobacco in Italy. Surely, in reference to Tobacco, no Government can blunder more completely than the Italian Government blunders; and we cordially hope that Canzi and other Italian patriots may not agitate in vain against a monstrous absurdity, which is also, so far as the welfare of a great nation is concerned, a monstrous crime. But in regard to Tobacco all Governments blunder, and our own Government blunders just as stupidly as the rest. In whatever shape Tobacco should contribute to the revenue, surely it is not by hindrances placed on its free cultivation. What an immense and beneficent revolution would the free cultivation of Tobacco in Ireland accomplish I Oh! would that in this matter Irish patriots had the insight and the nobleness of Italian patriots! |ipw of ^ahr gms. HL—MY SERVANTS. Bridget, I think, deserves a word, just by way of explanation, as it were. Bridget was my factotum, my housekeeper, and chief supervisor over all the other servants at my cottage orn6. All the other servants on the establishment consisted solely of one little girl of thirteen, whose dress seemed about a mile too long for her, and was composed chiefly of an enormous canvas apron—reaching from chin to toes—and a pair of shoes, which, I believe, had originally belonged to her mother. This little wench was called Tick. I’m sure I don't know why. I didn’t get her on “tick”—it was quite the other way; for the truth is, I paid deep and dear for her—I don’t mean in wage, that was a mere flea-bite. Neither did I begrudge her food, although Bridget often told me, “ She be a powerful eater, sir, a’most double I eats.” [N.B., Bridget, it will be readily observed, had not had the advantage of a liberal education.] But I did begrudge paying up to Tick’s breakages. It was positively trying to see Tick washing the plates and dishes up. Handles of tea-cups and such trifles seemed in Tick’s way rather; and every morning, when Tick went to take in the milk, she knocked the nose of another jug off. I have many a time and oft had serious thoughts of going in for tin and pewter plate—that and nothing else. Bridget larrupped her well, too. In fact, she was always larrupping her when she had nothing else to do; and she was in no wise particular what she larrupped her with, either. It might be the porridge-stick, it might be a broom, or a brown Holland towel; and I found Bridget on one occasion, larrupping poor Tick across the back with a large wooden ladle. “Oh! good gracious! Bridget, don’t!” I painedly remonstrated. “ Oh! don’t ’ee be afeard,” Bridget replied, “ it won’t break.” I think I am justified in adding that it was the ladle Bridget referred to, and not Tick’s back. During the process of larrupping, Tick used to wriggle round the kitchen, grinning savagely, but bearing it, then— “Ha! ha!” she would say exultingly, “ye couldn’t make me cry, though!” But entre you and me, reader, I know that poor Tick did cry sometimes—all on the quiet, you know—because I’ve observed black marks on her cheeks and nose. It is only fair to say, however, that Tick spent much of her time among the pots and pans, and that might have accounted for those suspicious marks. Well, when not making number one in a larrupping match —Bridget being the larruppcr and Tick the larruppee—“ all
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the rest of the servants ” (meaning Tick) spent the most of their time in the kitchen or in the cellar. Bridget was a strict disciplinarian, if not a bright grammarian.
“Look’ee,” I’ve heard her tell Tick, “ye cleans the grate where the grate is, o’ coorse; but down to the back cellar ye bundles with the boots and the knives.”
Tick slept in a little cupboard bed in the kitchen. “Ye don’t sleep along o’ I,” said ^Bridget, “and so ye needn’t think it.”
But I don’t suppose this excommunication troubled Tick particularly much.
There is nothing else worthy of note about Tick, except that she made faces behind Bridget’s back, and didn’t walk very gracefully, owing, I think, to her having to wear her mother’s shoes. By the way, though, I should tell you, because it is somewhat curious, Tick drunk just the same allowance of beer as Bridget—viz., two pints in the twenty-four hours. I have Bridget’s own word for it: “Which it’s the only thing I doesn’t begrudge her, sir,” said Bridget, “and it’s Utile enough too, sir.”
Poor Tick! she mightn’t have been elegant, but she was honest.
When I hired Bridget—but just one moment, reader; now that I come to think of it I’m not so sure, after all, that it wasn’t Bridget who hired me.
It happened in this manner—thus. Of course, no fellow who has a cottage orne, furnished, and with a garden and a bay window, could be without servants. To be sure, you might suggest spirit-lamps, and portable cooking stoves, and that kind of thing; but then it isn’t respectable. Besides, cooking isn’t everything; there is the washing up, and the making of beds, and the boots, and the bath-water—no, I couldn’t do it: servants are indispensable articles of use and luxury.
I went to a register office—Mrs. Trott’s. Rang the bell.
“Would I walk in, and what name, sir, if you please?” I was shown into a room that seemed a kind of hybrid between a lawyer’s office and a best parlour. No evidence of femininity here.
Five shelves, one above the other, were filled with packets of letters. Five shelves seemed positively to groan under the load. The table, too, was littered with letters.
“By George!” thought I, “what a business the lady must have! ”
But I removed my hat, as if by instinct, when I glanced towards another shelf, and saw displayed thereon about a million—more or less—of postal telegrams, that had done duty; had all been sent to Mrs. Trott. On the table there also lay a good many open letters, which anyone could read.
“How thoughtless of Mrs. Trott,” said I to myself, “to leave her letters in such an exposed position! ” for I could not help seeing a few words of some of them, and I observed they were all from ladies of title; which, of course, caused me to have all the more respect for the (as yet) unseen Mrs. Trott.
Presently the door opened, and a lady—oh! a real lady, mind you! you should just have seen the ribbons in her hair —a lady of fair proportions, dark tresses, silver streaked, and a second mourning gown, sailed—apparently with a good press of canvas, and the wind abaft—into the apartment, and I felt smaller than ever, and correspondingly shy.
“Pray be seated,” said the lady; “you want some servants, doubtless?”
“Yes, madam,” I replied; “indeed,” I added, “that is the sole object of my visit.”
She herself had sunk—or floated, rather—into a large chair, and in front of her was a mighty ledger as big as a ship’s log. And she held a quill gracefully in one white hand, and smiled on me sweetly, interrogatively, and encouragingly.
“I have lately,” I said, “taken possession of a—a—cottage om^.”
“I understand, sir, precisely; butler, valet, upper housemaid, cook”----
I began to rise considerably in my own estimation; but, at the same time, hastened to put the gracious lady right.
“No, no!” I interrupted. “The truth is, I wish to live in retirement for the present”—she bowed—“and only want a retinue of one housekeeper and a tidy housemaid.”
“I’ll send them, sir”—down went the entry in the ledger— “depend upon me, sir; five shillings, sir, if you please.”
I was so “ flamgastrated ” with the new sensation of hiring servants, that if this gracious lady had asked me for five pounds, instead of five shillings, she would have had the money on the spot. And she bowed me out so politely, and smiled all the while so sweetly, that, whether you believe me or not, I found myself a long way down the street before I discovered I hadn’t put my hat on.
One morning, about a week after this interview, I had just finished cooking a modest morsel of bacon and an egg over the spirit lamp, and had my breakfast laid on the kitchen table, when suddenly there came a smart rat-tat-tat-tat-a-rat to the front door, followed immediately by a pull at the bell.
When I opened the door, behold! an elegantly-dressed lady stood there; and I, being rather en d^shabilU^ would have gladly crept into my shoes—only I wore awfully old slippers.
I showed her into the drawing-room at once, and begged of her to be seated. Then I inquired to what I was indebted for the honour of her visit. She looked all round the room twice before she replied, and even keeked into a half-open sideboard. Then she turned towards me.
“My name is Bridget,” said the lady, “and I’m come to be your housekeeper, and the ’ead of yer servants’ ’all.”
She wasn’t a lady then, after all, but merely the “ ’ead of my servants’ ’all.”
“Ah! indeed!” I said, thinking it my duty to freeze up a little at the intelligence. “Mrs. Trott sent you, I suppose; very kind of Mrs. Trott, indeed.”
“Well, sir,” continued Bridget, coming to business at once; “Supposin’ we arranges the perliminaries. I thinks ye’ll suit I, sir, nicely. My wages is £30, sir.”
I couldn’t help thinking this extremely moderate for a girl dressed as Bridget was, and I said as much.
“Saturday nights to myself, sir, and out o’ Sundays.”
“Only fair, Bridget,” I replied.
“As for beer,” continued Bridget, “I ain’t no fist at that. Which two pints ’ll serfice, sir, and a extra drop when friends calls, sir.”
Bridget came on the following Monday, and set about at once putting things straight.
Didn’t appear to be half a bad sort, and evidently willing to work.
“La! sir,” she said, when she spied all the unwashed plates and crockery, “La! sir, you ’w been ’aving a lark.”
Tall, and about five-and-tweuty, was Bridget, and very straight in the back.
She was quick in all her movements. When she bent down, she did so with a jerk like a jack-knife, and appeared to go back again with a snap. Her hair was raven black, her eyebrows were black; and when you looked closely at her, I confess she appeared just a little grim. If the truth must be told, I was, if anything, a little afraid of Bridget.
But Bridget took the whole management of my cottage orn^.
On the very next morning the remainder of my retinue arrived.
Tick came.
Pulled along by one hand by her mother, and with her free hand almost wholly in her mouth, I wasn’t very favourably impressed with Tick. She didn’t strike me as being the clean, tidy, little girl which Mrs. Trott had promised me. But then, to be sure, Mrs. Trott knew best.
I wasn’t very favourably impressed with Tick’s mother either: a tall, scraggy, indefinable sort of a person, in an old black chip hat, and a very faded Indian shawl.
But she said, “Here’s Tick, sir, as I’ve brought ye.” Here she handed her over, as if Tick had been a frying-pan or something of that sort. And she “ wouldn't mind a glass o* ale, sir, and here was ‘luck and fortin,’ and good mornin,* sir, and thank ye.”
Bridget took Tick, and, I think, began to larrup her the very next morning.
And such were my servants.
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
Stocks anb Stoats.
Mb. Stock is an old smoker, and it is a comfort to know that we live in an age when the very Stocks and Stones, which have not been used to cut up into briar roots and meerschaums, cry out, and assail us even in our smoking divan. The author is a convert from the use of Tobacco, and has not lost his charity for smokers. We reciprocate his sentiments thoroughly. We never had any charity for him, and therefore have lost none.
“He reckon* the abandonment of smoking among the greatest moral victories that he was ever enabled to gain over himself. His deliverance he ascribes to a higher power than his own.”*
Let us now trace his career. He admits that he began occasional smoking at the mature age of fifteen. When, as an apprentice in a large and highly respectable (we doubt it not; the pipe might have been as good if it nad been a disreputable) West-end house, he admits that he had not a spark of religion, and this ingenui vultus puer (0, was’nt he a cure !), soon after he turned the corner of fifteen, bought, like a naughty little boy as he was, a cigar, and surreptitiously getting into a back yard, inhaled his first puff of Tobacco smoke. Here the introduction of non-essential facts into the history rather blinds us to the real import of the narrative. Whether, if any, he would have felt the better or the worse on his own door stock, or in a front garden, than in a back yard, is a point on which we are left in perfect ignorance. Whatever the case may have been, there were undoubtedly reasons which told him that he had had enough for the time; and whether those reasons were concomitant with, or necessary of back gardens in general, or this particular back garden, the cigar and the narrative alike come to an end. He was glad to creep unobserved to bed, and while the nausea lasted vowed he would never touch the abomination again. He absolutely, a minister of the Gospel, considers this nausea to have been the voice of God. No doubt he would speak with contempt of an ancient Egyptian who could, like a modern cook, find Omnipotence in an onion. It was reserved for hie theology to confuse the Deity with a dose of ipecacuanha. Even Dr. Richardson could hardly rival this in his speculations on the properties of “mercaptan.” By-and-by he began to smoke even a whole cigar at one and
♦ “ Confessions of an Old Smoker, respectfully addressed to all Smoking Disciples.” By the Rev. John Stock, LL.D. London; Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, 1877.
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the same time. We are left in perfect ignorance as to whether at the time of his first experiment he did or did not smoke a whole cigar. It is painful for the student of future history to contemplate this fact, and to meditate on the ignorance in which a future generation may be placed.
But ere we wade further into this book, we may just notice the title of the pamphlet. It is respectfully addressed “ to all smoking disciples.” But who is a “ smoking disciple” ? Whose coat-pockets burn? Does it mean a disciple of smoking ? We have heard in our time of “ hot gospellers,” but never of their “ smoking disciples;” and yet, as wherever there is smoke there must be fire, we imagine there must be some mystic connection between'the two.
The Rev. Mr. Stock then goes on to say that the essential oil of Tobacco is one of the most deadly poisons in the pharmacopoeia, and he quotes Sir Benjamin Brodie in his appendix in vindication of this statement. He is quite certain (in fact he says “it is equally certain”) that the smoke of Tobacco is charged with this poison, and that it is deposited along the tube of the pipe through which the smoke travels, until in time the passage gets choked up. Here his description is both in advance of his facts and in advance of our knowledge, as we were under the impression that pipe stems usually got foul from the dust which the oil takes with it, but never by the oil itself. But the essential point on which all smokers are agreed, that the greater proportion of the smoke passes, as a product of combustion, out of the pipe bowl into the air, is one which Mr. Stock has not yet seen. We proceed with his argument. He says—
“We do not need to educate the infant to the use of its mother’s milk. The schoolboy who munches his crust of bread and butter experiences no inconvenience from his diet. The full-grown man needs no t-eosoning to enable him to digest good beef and mutton. Nature, when in a healthy state, always receives, after a kindly and contented fashion, the food which God intended for its nourishment. It never rebels against divine ordinances in the matter of food; but the tremendous uproar which it raises in every part of the human system, when Tobacco is first used, is satisfactory evidence that God never meant us to smoke. The pain which the weed at first inflicts is Jehovah’s warning voice, saying, ‘ Taste not, touch not, handle not I ’ ” Now this is what we really object to. Quantification is necessary. If a schoolboy has only a crust of bread and butter to munch he may feel serious inconvenience from his diet if he could eat another crust or a little more crumb. And we must point out that the omnipotent Jehovah did not say “ Smoke not.” If the text is to be taken as prohibitory of the use of Tobacco at all, we merely see that it forbids the sailor to nibble or taste at his quid, while it clearly indicates that the pipe bowl shall be filled by a spoon or other convenient instrument, to prevent the fingers from being dirtied by the Tobacco.
He then pleads that smoking, and especially the smoking of cigars, is a very expensive, and consequently (!) a very wasteful habit; and one which will expose youths of limited means to many temptations to dishonesty. Here we must demur. Whether Tobacco smoking is a vice or not, there can be no doubt that it is a cheaper one than many others. To smoke expensive cigars may be an expensive act, but it is not consequently wasteful, any more than paying a high price for a musical instrument. A greater, sounder, and more solid gratification can be obtained by the poor man by the investment of twopence in Tobacco than if he spent the twopence in a meal, which it cannot buy, or in drink. Few smokers (contrary to the assertion of the Rev. Mr. Stock) are really hard drinkers. We refrain from criticising Mr. Stock’s autobiography, in which he gives the history how, at a time when he was what he is pleased to call a minister, he relapsed into a confirmed habit of smoking. In fact, at this time of his life he appears to have been not at all a bad fellow, and to have refrained from uncharitable insinuations against his neighbours. He says that—
“ Tn company the smoker is an abomination, who must be turned into a separate room. He must seek a retreat in some obscure nook, where his nauseous fumes will not offend the nostrils of the other members of the party. And when he returns from his banishment to the general circle, the stench that he brings with him makes many keep at a very respectable distance from him.”
Now this shows, either that the company which Mr. Stock kept were extremely squeamish, or else that he was quite right in giving up Tobacco smoking, if indeed it made him smell so nasty. We have not heard of a similar case since poor Dr. James Hunt lectured on the Negro, fourteen years ago, at Newcastle, and when a full-flavoured buck negro jumped up to say that he himself did not smell.
By-and-by Mr. Stock felt a suspicion that he was slowly sapping and undermining his health, as he felt his appetite becoming capricious; whether this was through love or not we are not told. But there was a wife and family growing up around him; and as he observed the intercourse of the Christian people around him who smoked was very frothy, light, and unprofitable, and that their communications were generally as empty of good as their own pipes, he determined, like the man who could not answer the conundrum, to “ give it up.” He accordingly, after referring to Robinson’s Lexicon of the New Testament, and Greenfield’s Concordance, and demonstrating clearly to his mind that he was in a state not fit to judge of the grammatical interpretation of an easy passage in Greek, determined to smoke no more.
That our readers may see the depth of mental weakness to which he had sunk, we transcribe the following passage, which sufficiently illustrates his state of mind:—
“The reason added by the apostle, ‘because he eateth not of faith (la wiartu* that is, with confident assurance of being right in so doing),
for whatsoever is not of faith ex iriareu^ is sin,* shows that the contrast is between doubting and believing. If, however, any smoking brother, learned in the Greek New Testament, thinks to ride out of the field with his lance unbroken, by insisting on rendering o fit fiioKpivo/Kvoc ‘he who discerneth,’ i.e., a difference between one kind of meat and another; he cannot evade the force of that home-thrust; ‘he is condemned because he eateth (smoketh) not of faith, lor whatsoever is not of faith is sin.’ Either translation of fiiaKpu'o/xeeov is equally in harmony with the use that we make of the passage in this controversy.”
After this, comment is needless, and criticism unnecessary. We think it was Nat Lee (we are unable to verify the quotation), who said to a critic who objected to one of the speeches put in the mouth of one of his lunatics, that it was very difficult to write like a madman; very easy to write like a fool. Mr. Stock, without the use of Tobacco or a Greek grammar, has managed to do both.
Nicotian ^sptds of f^t ,®asf.
m.
Anew we go back to the East, with our interesting and intelligent guide VAmb6ry. To his discourse on pipes and on other Eastern things we could listen for ever, so much does thorough knowledge gained by valour and resolution surpass in attraction alike and in value the dreams even of the most brilliant imagination:—
Even when travelling on horseback, many, whether proceeding at a slow pace or a rapid pace, cannot sever themselves from their beloved pipe. If we gaze at such a horseman, while he holds firmly the round mouthpiece between his lips and dashes along on his swiftest horse, we cannot help thinking that his teeth run great risk of being shaken out of his mouth. Such would be the inevitable fate of an inexperienced rider. Turks and Arabs, however, are too much accustomed to this mode of smoking to run any risk of injuring themselves; and we must marvel at the skill with which, when riding, they fill their pipe, and light it, without losing a particle of the Tobacco.
Even the poor Koord, who leads a life eternally nomadic, is an adorer of the Nicotian plant. He uses it in a thin mealy form, and it is for the most part a product from the neighbourhood of Rovandiz and Suleimania. The leaf of the Koordish Tobacco is longer, but narrower, than that of the Roumelian kind; and its brittle nature is supposed to be the reason why it is always met with pulverised, and seldom found cut. It is exported to the East and takes an extensive range to all provinces of Persia, and is especially in request among the Turkish inhabitants of Iran. It has a harsh taste and a very disagreeable smell. It is mostly smoked in small brass pipes with short stems, instruments of which everybody in Persia makes use, from the Khan down to the lowest muledriver. The mule-drivers seem to love Tobacco passionately; and if a vigorous mule-driver has been smoking in a stable only a short time, the smoke thence arising is far more intense and prevailing than the exhalations from the beasts of burden there—even if, as often happens, the animals are very numerous.
The commerce whereby the Koordish Tobacco finds its way to the consumers is of a tolerably primitive kind. On my travels, in many a village, in the midst of many a tribe, whither assuredly no other hawker would have ventured to approach, I now and then met dealers in Tobacco, who exchanged their products for wool, goat’s hair, ready-made carpets, and so on. The covetous Koord, who is capable of denying himself every enjoyment, cannot nevertheless resist the temptation to exchange something for a pound of Tobacco; and, even if nothing else excites him to sell, Tobacco he must have. The solitary herdsman, often absent for days from his tent, and roaming about with his herds and flocks in the mountains, scarcely keeps watch over his bread, his cheese, his money, more carefully than over his provision of Tobacco, which is wrapped up in a clout. The chieftains of the tribes, who in the presence of their guests smoke the mild Turkish Tobacco, give, when they are alone, the preference to the national product. Meschhed was the furthest place at which I met with this Tobacco; in general it is only used where the good Turkish Tobacco is not obtainable.
Persia, which of all the regions of anterior Asia boasts of the most cultivated and refined taste, of the most extraordinary mental endowments, and of the oldest civilisation, has, in truth, been the most brilliant in achievements, so far as pipes and Tobacco are concerned. The Persian Tobacco called Tumbaku is considerably different from the sorts previously described. The smoking apparatus has likewise a distinctive individuality. It has various portions. The first is the water vessel. This is either of clay—and the best vessels of the kind are made in Ispahan—or of glass, and imported either from Russia or Bohemia; or, finally, of cocoa-nut. The last is regarded as the most luxurious, and with justice; for the cocoa-nut, the best that can be found, has a setting of silver or gold, is richly carved, and often garnished with precious stones. The second is the wooden appendage. It is internally hollow, often twelve inches high, and made of black wood. With the rich it is made of silver, and small chains and other adornments hang down from it. At its point is found the third piece, the pipe-head proper, called Serkallian, and made of clay or wood. The inner side is coated with lime; the outer side is covered, among the rich, with silver or gold plates, and
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I viably adorned with all things costly. Among these figure htnitifuby executed paintings in enamel, and the most cele-h ated masters of this art at Ispahan and Schiraz often obtain, , the painting and ornamentation of a single pipe-head, twenty to thirty ducats. The fourth piece is the stem ed to the water pipe, through which stem the distilled moke ascends. Instead thereof a long leathern, serpent-like called Marpitsch, is made use of when the smoker is taking the air on horseback or travelling. On such occasions 5 the apPara*us *a carried by a mounted servant, while the 1 aster retains nothing but the mouthpiece.
m^e Persian water pipe (Kallian), when it is made and put together with taste, can be regarded as a singularly comely article °- domestic furniture. As it is only when sitting that ♦he smoker can use it, it has a more Oriental character than the Turkish pipe. The Persian loves it passionately, and vhen he, the water meanwhile pleasantly bubbling, sends forth the light smoke of his odorous Tobacco, he is in the Elvsium of his enjoyments. The Turkish pipe is at all times and in all places equally agreeable. On the other hand it is in the early morning and after sunset that the Persian pipe offers the highest delight, and as every Persian house has in the midst of the court a small basin, the brink of these tiny . pools may be considered the best of all smoking places. It is maintained in Persia that the smoking of Tumbaku is an infallible remedy for diseases of the chest. I am inclined to assert the very contrary, forasmuch as the long inhalations and exhalations exhaust the lungs much more than is the case with other kinds of pipes and smoking. According to the opinion of the Persians, the true rapture is only attainable vhen the strongly moistened Tobacco (it is never smoked dry), touched by the burning coal, streams forth light azure clouds.
The best Tumbaku grows in Schiraz and its neighbourhood, especially in the village Zergan, and in tolerably large quantities, so that the export trade in this article amounts yearly to a hundred thousand ducats. It is exported for the most part in whole leaves, packed in sacks, and as it is very crumbly, the consumer is accustomed to break it to pieces with his haud. The Tobacco intended for immediate smoking must not remain moist more than an hour, and the water of the flask must be renewed with every fresh pipe; and as a rule, attendance on a Persian pipe requires much more care and trouble than attendance on a Turkish one. The wealthy Persian requires for this article of luxury several servants. Two, at least, are always indispensable: the one who gets the pipe ready, and the otlier who presents it. On journeys the servant, in fulfilling his functions, has a horse to himself. On one side of the saddle bangs the water vessel, on the other the everglowing chafing dish, while pipe and Tobacco are fastened in round sheaths to the pommel. The servants are usually very dexterous, and truly it is a very interesting sight to watch the servant putting together the various parts of the apparatus as he rides along; and often, when galloping as fast as he can, presenting with outstretched arm the mouthpiece to his master.
As the Persians are known to be strict observers of etiquette, it must not surprise us if countless ceremonies are connected with the use of the pipe. There are summer and winter pipes, pipes for the diversities of rank, age, and sex; and on seeing the solemn mien with which the Kallian etiquette was accomplished, I found it a hard task to keep from laughing. To a number of assembled guests pipes are presented in regular order, and at once. The servants enter, marching together with a military step; they all draw near at one particular moment to the guests present (with the pipe); and not till they have withdrawn does the master of the house, with a delicate gurgle, begin the overture of the bubbling and gurgling concert. Strictly observed is the rule, that after the first draws the smokers must exchange pipes. Here the giving and the taking of the pipes are accompanied by particular bendings of the body forwards. To wipe the mouthpiece after the exchange has been made is regarded as a gross violation of politeness. It is equally regarded as a sin against politeness to have the mouthpiece further than half an inch in the mouth. These and many other smoking ceremonies are customary, not only among the rich and the cultivated, but among the lowest ranks of the people, for every Persian strenuously strives to be courteous.
The Persian ladies, who, as a rule, enjoy much more freedom than the Turkish ladies, are likewise accustomed to allow themselves much more liberty in reference to Tobacco. ^°uog maidens, as well as matrons, devote themselves for b°urs to the pipe, and the rich among them are accustomed a^r every third whiff to eat a piece of sugar. As smoking of the same pipe is regarded as a sign and proof of special ^^macy, the pipe plays an important part at every meeting flowers. The expression “ to eat out of the same dish,” r^onnes in Persia ‘‘to smoke the same pipe. In general the Persian women are much more passionately devoted to poking than the Turkish women, and the strong and -agreeable smell coming from the mouth is equally remarkable in Persian princess and in Persian peasant woman.
Nowhere does the pipe assert itself with such frequency distinction as in Schiraz. Though I resided for long y®*rs in Eastern lands, I never felt for any kind of Tobacco a special predilection. Yet I confess that when at Schiraz, a Musalla, (public place for prayer and recreation), at «® grave of Hafis, or in the garden of Saadi, I could with
I m7 pipe mingle in a joyous company, and when the curling I imoke rose to the marvellous azure of the south Persian
sky, the pipe yielded me a rapture which in no place in Persia, yea, no place in the world, I ever again met. Deeply, vividly engraven in my memory is an evening spent with genial and cheerful comrades in the churchyard where Hafis rests, and where the noble Chullari wine played its part along with the pipe. This admirable wine of Persia is during the first two years very like Tokay, and though it is not quite equal to it, it holds the next rank after it. The tombstone of this illustrious poet, who has sung the praises of wine more splendidly and beautifully than any other bard, was our sideboard. Not far from us we had kindled a small fire, and till the dawn of the day the wine-cup went round. Countless times was the pipe re-tilled, and the exquisite relish of the Tobacco stimulated to ceaseless renewal. Moreover, on horseback I have found the Persian pipe delicious. The usual time for the traveller on horseback to smoke is when, after a wearisome march through the deserts of Persia, he indulges his horse with a little rest; that is to say, when, after a sharp trot, he allows the horse to go at a gentle pace. The slower movement of the horse tranquillises the excited blood of the rider, and if at such a moment the Kallian is presented to him, its enjoyment far outweighs many other luxuries of life. The travellers exchange pipes, and in the rapture of smoking the monotony of the journey is less felt. Delightful, in a supreme degree, is smoking when, instead of being on horseback, the traveller sits in the Kedschewe (a sort of pannier carried by the sumpter beast). The bent position is, when long continued, intolerable: the traveller longs for movement, and deems himself unspeakably happy when he can fill his pipe, make the charcoal blaze, and furnish to himself and to his fellow-travellers the sweetest pleasure.
Turning away from Persia’s antique and classic soil, let us throw a glance at the land stretching to the North—Tartary, called also Turkestan or Central Asia. The nomads, as well as the settled tribes on the banks of the Oxus and Jaxartes, are rough and wild, and occupy the very lowest point of Moslem civilisation. Rough and wild like themselves are their enjoyments. In harmony with their state of culture, their pipe is the simplest, most tasteless in the world. And yet it is an indispensable article of luxury to them all, and yearned for with unexampled passionateness. Here, where Islam attains the utmost limit of fanaticism, smoking is fiercely forbidden. Nevertheless, Islam is defied and the prohibition is disregarded. As smokers, the nations of Central Asia are not behind their brethren more to the South; and Turcomans, Kirghises, Oezbegs, and Tadschiks are alike enchained by the enchantment of the Nicotian plant. The pipe of the Central Asiatics has been imported from Persia, and may be described as a degenerate form of the Persian pipe. Instead of the artistic water tiask a hollow gourd is here employed, or, w’here this is lacking, a vessel roughly cut out of wood. The appendage is exceedingly small, and, like the pipe-head itself, clumsily made. The characteristic peculiarity of the whole instrument consists in the circumstance that on the one side of the flask there is a thin stem, on the other a round opening, which during the smoking is closed with the finger. If when smoking the Central Asiatic gives his neighbour the pipe—a custom here as in other parts of Asia—the neighbour blows out the smoke left in the water by his predecessor. By his fingering of the pipe the Tartar smoker resembles a player on the flute.
The Tobacco plant is indigenous in Central Asia. The best sort grows in Karschi and in Schehri-Sebz, the birthplace of the great Tamerlane. In the Khanate of Chiva there is also a species, Rafanek, which is know n and famous. But all the sorts are far inferior to the Persian Tobacco in aroma and mildness. The Tobacco is only used in the dry state, and its sharp, biting, and burning smoke only Tartar gums and lungs can bear. For strangers a single draw brings on a cough which lasts for hours. Even natives have hard work in accustoming themselves to a Tobacco so harsh. Elderly smokers have invented a modification which is by no means a'sthetical. They receive the smoke out of the pipe by the help of a servant; that is to say, the servant makes the draw, keeps the burning, biting part of the smoke to himself, blows with full cheeks the remainder down the throat of his master, who stands opposite to him with mouth wide open. It is especially the nomads who ardently seek the narcotic joys which Tobacco yields. How often have I been astonished to see our caravan stopped on its march through the desert by a Kirghis or a Turcoman, dashing towards us in impetuous gallop, to ask for a smoke, he having caught sight from afar of the travellers. At first I thought that these nomads were coming as robbers to make an assault. But the Kervanbaschi (conductor of the caravan) knew the men better. The pipe was hastily filled and offered to the nomad with the usual courtesies. With eager haste the Turcoman seized the pipe. At the first whiff his eyes began to sparkle; at the second he threw himself completely stupefied on the ground; at the third the narcotic poison had produced such an effect that the pipe fell from his hands, and the smoker sank into wild delirium. Many began after violent smoking to tremble; others fell down in a narcotised condition which resembled a swoon. While the smoker, like a demoniac foaming at the mouth, lay on the ground, it was the custom of the caravan to go on its way. Long was the nomad in recovering from this condition, which to us w’ould seem a terrible evil, but which to him is the highest enjoyment; and he gallops many a league to be able to renew it.
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^ust before gabrn.
But just before the daytime,
I have a little playtime, Especially
in Maytime,
My old pipe’s getting stronger, I mustn’t stay much longer, That would be wrong and wronger, ’Tis time to work, not play. I taste the beauteous flower Of Nicotina’s bower;
By Jove! if that’s the hour, I soon must cut away.
When summer blows sweet breath.
My pipe as black as boulder, Supported by my shoulder. Old Mrs. H. They told her I’d smoke myself to death.
But I must be forgiving,
And hate no man that’s living,
Advice they’re always giving, The best advice I get.
But on my bed of feather,
I laugh and smoke together,
And wonder what’s the weather Outside, if fine or wet.
• Anatolian ^bbenfurts.
i.
A charming book has fallen in our way, entitled, “ L’Asie Mineure et Les Tures, in 1875 : Souvenirs de Voyage: Par Auguste Choisy, Ingcnieur des Ponts et Chaussees.” It is as instructive as it is charming, and should be read by all those who wish to understand the Eastern Question; by all who take an interest in the fate of Turkey; and especially by all who like a book with a Nicotian flavour, for the author is himself a smoker, and delighted on his rambles to hold fellow’-ship with smokers, of whom he gives us many fascinating glimpses. It was chiefly to study architectural remains that he undertook his journey; and next he wished to know as much as he could of Turkey and the Turks. He displays great frankness and fairness, is just but genial, and appreciative as well as just. To the Turks as Turks he is lavish in eulogy; while deploring their idleness and want of energy and enterprise, he represents them as good, honest, hospitable, charitable creatures. The official class he unsparingly condemns. But if a nation is to be annihilated because the official class is corrupt, where is the nation that should not be doomed to annihilation ? And is it in Russia that we are to seek for models of official purity? M. Choisy is not a partisan, not a theorist; has no pet scheme for saving Turkey, or, if salvation is impossible, giving her a merciful euthanasia. He simply gives us in picturesque speech, but without any exaggeration, the impressions which rose up in his soul day after day. We have no ambition to discuss in the Tobacco Plant the Eastern Question. We intend to do what must be much more to the taste of our readers—glean what has either a Nicotian attraction or a grand and abiding human interest.
I think at day’s beginning Of yarns I have been spinning, To set my comrades grinning, While fourpenny they swill.
A flea! I nearly killed him, I would that I bad stilled him, With my blood he has filled him— He takes a lot to fill.
To hunt a flea and lose him Al out your bitten bosom, It makes the nose to blossom, And turns each word to sin.
A little fka—what is it?
And yet we mostly miss it
When wetted thumb would kiss it: The brute doth simply grin.
To feel the stung flesh thicken, And all the pulses quicken, And yet the beast, unstricken, Goes for another bite.
We rub until we tire, And make the place like fire; If I had my desire, All fleas should die ere night.
He hops, still unaffrighted, One moment gone, then sighted; There—on my hand he lighted, The deuce is in the flea.
If I catch him he’ll wonder:
I’ll cleave the brute asunder, And crack his ribs like thunder.
Hark! Susan’s calling me.
All beetles black she’s scorning, Herself but half adorning, She murmurs in the morning, “Get up, it’s nearly six.”
So I must now “unkiver,” And in my hip-bath shiver— ’Tis cold as any river, Not e'en omitting Styx.
I think I’ll have some cresses For breakfast; those queer messes Which Mrs. Harris dresses, And nominates “hontrees,”
Stale fat or butter fried in, Set my poor inside chiding: With pain on pleasure riding, My stomach’s hard to please.
I must get up; so be it. Ah, where’s my pipe? I see it, And from the blanket free it.
Awhile, old pipe, retire ! I must not careless use him, Lest Mrs. H. abuse him; A pretty go, to lose him, And set the bed on fire.
SlMBURN.
The Turhs of Salonichi (Thcssalonica).
As to the Turks, Salonichi is too large a city to allow us to approach them. In order to penetrate into their abodes we must have the pretext of hospitality, and it is difficult to find that pretext in a place where inns, which are almost hotels, exist. I content myself, therefore, with looking at the Turks in the Bazaar, and everybody knows what a Turk in the Bazaar is—a man, or something looking like a man, sitting in silence, with crossed legs, smoking his narghily in a shop low and narrow—a baboon in a box. Truly this Turk scarcely resembles an animated being, and in effect it is not to him that Salonichi owes its movement and its life. The living population—a population which, fortunately, we can visit and know—is the Greek population.
The Greehs of Salonichi.
I am devoting myself to-day entirely to visits in the Greek quarter, and everywhere I find the cordial welcome which the Greeks give to all foreigners, and especially to the French. The forms are those of every reception among the Orientals : you are offered coffee, sweetmeats, smoking materials; then there is discourse on Greek Politics, on the Future of Hellenism, on its Past. A Greek said to me :—“ You see what w’ere our sufferings formerly; even the arrangement of our houses corresponds thereto. That door which opens near you is in correspondence with the neighbouring house, which, in its turn, communicates with the following house by a hidden door. All the houses of the Greek quarter are thus connected by doors more or less secret. So much is this the case that, without putting our foot in the street, we can traverse the whole quarter. Our women still visit each other from house to house by means of these interior passages; but
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. a long time, alas! they could not use any others. Our mothers did not dare to appear in the street except in a Tnrkish disguise. Formerly, moreover, these doors served as 1 retreat, unceasingly open to those whom the distrust of a Sloomy ^ iead°us Government constrained to seek safety in ahi.” Saying these words, the Greek pointed to his aged other for confirmation, and added:—“ Calm reigns now, but ? w long may w® expect it to last ? Meanwhile, let us be ready m help each other, and let our children learn in the presence f these speaking vestiges what have formerly been our suffer-
• w.” Th*8 ^ast utterance is profoundly Greek. It seems 2 if face to face with a conquering race the Greek acquires a learer consciousness of his nationality. All the traditions f his Pa8^ become sacred to him. To maintain them seems a protestation of every instant against foreign oppression; Ind it i8 perhaps to this sentiment of personality, kept awake . the incessant sight of their masters, that the Greeks are indebted for the power of retaining down to these days a distinctive physiognomy which carries us beyond the Greek invasion to the time of classical antiquity.
leaving Broussa.
rpbe commencement of the journey is beautiful, as all beginnings are. Beasts and men, the Turks included, form the most exemplary association. There is nothing which these good people are not willing to do to make themselves agreeable to me. Sometimes they offer me a cigarette; some-tinies they gather me chestnuts, which I am obliged to munch raw in order to be polite in my turn. Their obligingness proceeds from a feeling which does them honour. At our departure I advanced them some money for their equipments. They deem themselves bound to me, and gratitude is a sacred thing among the Turks. They are ardently eager to demonstrate it, saying to me: “We are willing to follow you to the end of the world.” And I believe that the sentiment expressed by this Oriental hyperbole is sincere. Try if you can find as much gratitude, in a Paris cabman or a Paris waiter. We contrive, however, to get into the wrong road. We want to go to Koutahia, and we arrive toward the gloaming at Dimbos, which is by no means on the route we should follow. AU the men of the village are at the khan, and, by smoking an enormous quantity of narghiles and drinking an enormous quantity of coffee, they make up for the fast which the Ramazan has imposed upon them during the day. The Ramazan, as every one knows, is not merely the Lent of the Turks, but also their Carnival. I was very desirous to know the idea which the mass of the Turks formed of this usage. The occasion was admirable, and I seized it; and my conclusion was that they practise the Ramazan mechanically, without attaching the slightest serious sense thereto. It is the rule, and they conform to the rule. “Four hundred prophets have prescribed its observation,” it was said. Prescribed! Yea; but why? No one had thought of asking himself that question. One of the guests, who appeared to be more intelligent than his neighbours, ventured, however, to assign a reason:—“Mahomet one day lost his camel, and spent forty days in running after it without eating or drinking. Thereupon, in memory of his own privations, he prescribed a fast, and this fast is the Ramazan. During forty days, from the dawn to the setting of the sun, we must neither eat nor drink.” “ But smoking? ” said I, interrupting him, “how has Mahomet forbidden smoking? ” “ There was no smoking in the time of the prophet.” “ Wliat? Has not Mahomet forbidden drinking? And is not smoking drinking?” This looks like special pleading; but it is rather a grammatical subtlety. The expression for smoking in the Turkish language is Tutun Itchmek (“ To drink smoke”). If I mistake not, we have here a proof of the influence which words can exercise on life.
Brigands.
Very important persons are here the brigands; the authorities have to reason with them. Take, as an example, a certain Spanovangeli, from whom peace was sought as if he bad been a sovereign. Spanovangeli had an interview with the Pascha of Broussa. They entered into discussion, as if they had been two supreme powers. Each of them came to the rendezvous followed by an escort. The escorts remained «t a certain distance. Spanovangeli presented to the Pascha b®^, Havana cigars, fresh cheese. Offers and promises were made to the brigand himself, but all was in vain; he regained inflexible. He said:—“ I wish to pass in the moun-teins the remainder of my life.” And in the mountains he dwells, but peacefully, and enjoying his past in the ®idst of a population which venerates him. A brigand of ^ount Athos, whom I saw, was not so fastidious: the offers °fthe Government overcame his scruples, and he is at present * 8ei*darme. I must confess that we have here a brigand with-
principles. But fortunately such examples are rare in corporation, and almost all the brigands are very earnest ® their endeavours to justify the respect with which opinion wrtounds them.
The Impenetrable Turk, have to pass the night at Tchitli. Here there is no i “^ (house of entertainment), and we are very fortunate in I finding hospitality from a kinsman of Mehemed (one of M. I Chois^g atendants). The house, built of trunks of trees laid \ on each other, has a striking resemblance to a ch&let of the I Alps. The welcome is cordial—too cordial, indeed, for my
taste; for the polite attentions are prolonged far into the night, and I should have preferred some hours of repose to demonstrations so repeated. Coffee is roasted in our honour and pounded and prepared. There is recommencement and eternal recommencement, and thus the evening passes away. To roast coffee, to pound it, to drink it while smoking, such is the whole life of a Turk, the only variation and recreation of his long evenings. Exempt from needs, the Turk labours little; consequently he feels neither fatigued nor sleepy. The night arrives too soon, and we experience the same difficulty in keeping him in the evening from sitting up to an unconscionable hour, as in dragging him in the morning from a dreamy torpor which he would wish to make eternal. I have already said that the Turk is impenetrable to us; and yet the more I gaze at the faces of the Turks the more I feel persuaded that all the characteristics can be condensed into one characteristic: the Turk is a lazy animal. Idleness is so much the sum and substance of his character that it explains everything in him—his sententious language, his dragging walk, his solemn and apathetic air, and what is to me more significant still, the very principle of his politeness. The supreme politeness for this indolent race consists in sparing you fatigue. If you descend a stair, promptly an arm is offered you to save you from being troubled by the weight of your own person. If the Turks offer you a cigarette, they think it more polite to give it to you made than to let you make it. And to carry logic to the furthest point, they would think that they were neglecting courtesy and duty if they gave you the bother of Ugh ting the cigarette; they therefore offer it to you lighted, and you are compelled to accept the offer. But let me return to the evening spent at Tchitli. I find realised there the ideal of the sort of politeness just described. We all sit squat, in the Turkish fashion, round a bright fire of firwood, which burns in the centre of the floor. All, Turks and Christians alike, have taken off their chaussures, according to the custom of the country. A young Turk has been busy for a quarter of an hour cracking nuts with his teeth. Promptly I divined that, as he did not eat them, it was for my benefit he was cracking the nuts. But how great is my surprise when I behold him gather up the kernels in his two hands, place them in the heel of his slipper, and present them to me! Nuts in the heel of a slipper! There are certain repugnances which the Orientals will never feel or understand. If you are taking a glass of any beverage, and leave it where a Levantine is near, you cannot keep him from drinking a part. If figs are presented to us in a handkerchief this must not be deemed worthy of remark, far less of disgust; for the idea of the handkerchief is by no means that which our habits bestow upon it. For a Turk, for a Greek even, with rare exceptions, this accessory is a mere ornament, and it is the imagination alone which prepossesses us against the mode of presentation. As to the rest, it is education which does everything so far as customs are concerned. At how many things in our customs these excellent Orientals would have good cause for laughing, if, indeed, in the East people were much in the habit of laughing at anything! Let us, then, in reference to this point, not be too severe on the Turks; for a hundred times more than ourselves they are attached to forms. Books of etiquette constitute the half of their literature, and perhaps, so far as the proprieties are concerned, the balance would not turn to the side usually supposed.
The Improvidence of the Turhs.
My attention is called away for an instant from the legend of Houssni-Pascha, by a spectacle of systematic devastation— the Turks are burning a forest. Next year, they say, young shoots are sure to come on which the flocks can feed. But what immense havoc for a benefit so slender! The fact is, they destroy from the mere wantonness of their idle life. There they are crouching on their heels, watching the progress of the flames; and that amuses them just as it amuses them to listen to the water which gurgles in a narghily. To destroy for the sake of destroying is an idea which has always revolted me; but it is in the blood of the men of the East. Everywhere in the East war is waged with trees. They are burned in Greece, burned here in Anatolia, burned in Syria. Whenever about to traverse a forest I am prepared to find charred trees—testimonies to this fury of destructiveness. It seems as if the ruin of this unhappy Turkey was not prompt enough for the wish and the will of Turkey itself; it seems as if Turkey must lay a crushing, annihilating hand on the small amount of wealth which it still possesses. As to the rest, everything is contradiction in these ignorant and superstitious men. By the side of forests which they burn from caprice, you see others which they venerate. And here, exactly meeting us on our route, is one of these sacred woods. No one would venture to cut a bough thereof or therein. The trees are perishing from old age, but no one dares to remove even the debris. If the axe is ever used in such forests, it is for sacred purposes; to make repairs in the mosques. Nikolaki (M. Choisy’s chief attendant) assures me that in Macedonia the Greeks have some of these inviolable woods. A small chapel occupies the centre, whose sanctity no one pollutes. In all such cases we have the living tradition of the sacred woods of the Pagans. Paganism has changed its form, but it has taken deep root in the soil where it formerly had birth. Its memories and its practices have invaded Islamism itself.
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The men are for the most part mounted.on asses, and the children are tied or stowed away in some fashion behind the saddles of the camels. The women follow on foot. They are tall, well-proportioned, but their physiognomy is by no means fascinating. Their forehead is narrow, their cheeks prominent, the features are those of a man; in short, the women are ugly. Yet they wear no veil. In truth, they must have little of the vanity which characterises women not to make use of the veil, which would hide so completely the large features of their face. The husbands seem to show them very little respect and affection. When travelling in this country, the woman has to walk, and not merely has she to walk, but she has to carry her baby. In addition, a quantity of kitchen utensils is put on her back. Verily, verily, such treatment is inhuman. One day I expressed to a Turk my opinion on the subject:—“Is it right to condemn your wife to travel on foot, while you are mounted on an ass?” At first he did not seem to understand me. I proceeded:— “ To let her carry her infants may, perhaps, be pardoned: she might not be willing to sever herself from them; but why ^nake her drag along pots and pans and plates?” “Ah,” replied he, with admirable coolness, “it is because tee de not want to overload the ass." In this answer the whole history of woman in Turkey is contained.
It was chiefly in that part of Asia Minor, or Anatolia, called anciently Phrygia that M. Choisy travelled, though, as some of our extracts show, European Turkey came also under his gaze; and it was in Syria that he ended his Oriental wanderings.
We regret that an observer so keen, so intelligent, and so impartial has nothing to tell us respecting the growth of Tobacco in the Turkish empire, and that he did not visit the meerschaum regions when so near them. This is ever our way with travellers: the more they tell us something which interests us, the more we are dissatisfied with them for not telling us something which would have interested us in a much higher degree.
^orb ^mhrltD’s ^osf^nnous ^ooh.*
The late Viscount Amberley was not a man of common mould. It would not be wise—it would probable not be true, and it is certainly premature—to say that he was a great man; but the time is gone by when there could any longer be even superficial justification for the contemptuous estimate of his intellectual character which largely prevailed during his lifetime. The world is too apt to be swayed in its estimate of character by physical peculiarities; especially in the judgments it forms and pronounces on contemporaries. One of the chief obstacles to its acceptance of Edmund Kean as a great actor was the insignificance of his bodily presence. “ The little man with the big capes ” stood small chance of fair criticism in comparison with the stately and majestic Kemble; although the memory of Garrick, who was no giant, should have helped him. The splendid physical proportions of genial John Wilson added something to the popular estimate of the “ Noctes Ambrosian®; ” and all Christendom knows that even Paul the Apostle felt himself at a disadvantage because of the paucity of his bodily graces. Perhaps no man has been more generally popular amongst the great mass of the British public during the past half century than Lord Amberley’s father; and yet it is conceivable that he may have suffered from the reproach which Punch so pleasantly veiled in the caricature which represented Lord John Russell as a sort of political Johnny Tetterby. It is always a misfortune for a man in public life to have had a father who was himself a man of note; and there was a sense in which Viscount Amberley—if he had ever condescended to the indulgence of a sense of humour—might have echoed with sympathetic emphasis the lament of Mr. Alfred Wigan’s Frenchman in the comedy, “Ah! it is von of ze ter-reeble necessities of our lives—I, also, have a fadare!” For, while the intellectual differences between Lord Russell and his son were sufficiently striking, their physical resemblances were too obvious to go unnoticed; and the world is quick to arm itself with unreasoning resentment against the imaginary claims of intellectual pedigree. A second Pitt was a miracle; a second Herschell, or a second Stephenson, a tardily recognised exception. A second Peel is voted impossible; a second Darwin is calmly ignored, and the possibility of a third is dreaded; while all the world chuckles over the historical farce of a second Cromwell. There can be little doubt that Viscount Amberley would have made his way more easily with the public if he had come into the world unburthened with the unfair responsibility of his father’s great reputation; and it would have been better for him by far if he had not courted comparison by entering the House of Commons, where he was totally unqualified to shine. But, after all, the comparison was in every sense unjust. The peculiarities which have enabled Earl Russell to enjoy for fifty years the plaudits of his countrymen were those which were most conspicuously absent from his son; while it is certain that Viscount
♦An Andy sis of Religious Belief, by Viscount Amberley. London: Triibner and Co., 1876.
Amberley’s repute stands higher within a year of his untimely ' death than at any period of his short lifetime, and is much • more likely to grow than to fade.
By this book he will be best known, alike to those who were familiar with his figure in society and in public life, and by those who never met him, or have yet to hear his name. Few who saw him in his lifetime could have been prepared for the estimate of his character placed on record by his bereaved mother, in the address prefixed to these volumes. Some allowance, must, doubtless, be made for parental fondness; but one who knew him so well, and whose pious heart must often have been oppressed with doubt as to the intellectual tendencies of her son, is entitled to be heard when the question is put—“What sort of man was this?” That question inevitably rises in the mind of a reader who takes up with serious purpose such a book as this “ Analysis of Religious Belief.” There are some subjects upon which we resent the interference of the frivolous or the cynical; and such a subject is Religion. The assurance of honest and kindly purpose in the teacher has induced the world to receive with forbearance more foolish and pernicious doctrine on religious topics than upon any other subject to which the human intellect addresses itself; and, on the other hand, there is no argument which tells so well against heterodox opinions as the argument that those who held them have * been persons of imperfect sympathy or tainted morals. The priests and scribes of orthodoxy have never omitted that argument, from the day when they charged Jesus with too much familiarity with publicans and sinners down to our own. Those who may have been impressed by the curious estimate of Lord Amberley—his stunted sympathies, the unhealthy development of his precocious intellect, and so forth—with which the Times introduced this book to its readers, will do well to contrast with it these words of Lady Russell:—
“ Ere the pages now given to the public bad left the press, the hand that had written them was cold, the heart—of which few could know the loving depth—had ceased to beat, the far-ranging mind was for ever still, the fervent spirit was at rest.
“ Let this be remembered by those who read, and add solemnity to the • solemn purpose of the book.
“ May those who find in it their most cherinhed beliefs questioned or contemned, their surest consolations set at naught, remember that he had not shrunk from pain and anguish to himself, as one by one he parted with portions of that faith which in boyhood and early youth had been the mainspring of his life.
“ Let them remember that, however many the years granted to him on earth might have been, his search after truth would have ended only with his existence; that he would have been the first to call for unsparing examination of his own opinions, arguments, and conclusions; the first to welcome any new lights thrown by other workers in the same field on the mysteries of our being and of the universe.
“Let them remember that while he assails much which they reckon unassailable, he does so in what to him is the cause of goodness, nobleness, love, truth, and of the mental progress of mankind.
“Let them remember that the utterance of that which, after earnest and laborious thought he deemed to be the truth, was to him a sacred duty; and may they feci, as he would have felt, the justness of these words of a good man and unswerving Christian lately passed away: *A man’s charity to those who differ from him upon great and difficult questions will be in the ratio of his own knowledge of them: the more knowledge, the more charity.’ ”
The Times' critic, unless we do him injustice, made light of the third paragraph of this appeal; and voted the fourth out of court. He could not believe in the “pain and anguish” caused by the relinquishment of an early faith; because, forsooth, Lord Amberley never lived to grow old. He forgot that the faith of youth is the quickest, most intense of all faith; and that the pain of its loss is proportionate to the ardour with which it has been held. As to the fourth paragraph, when the critic objects—“ How can you tell what sort of a man he would have been if he had lived longer? ”—it is sufficient to answer—“ That is the sort of man he was while he continued to live.” And we might do worse than take Lady Russell’s testimony on that point..
With the main issues of the book we, of the Tobacco Plant, have nothing to do. As an attempt to focus all the prevalent beliefs of the world, from the earliest historic times to the present, and to bring them under the scientific lens of comparative analysis, it could not be without value. Those who deny the right to subject to scientific examination the grounds of religious faith will either loudly anathematise it, or sorrowfully shake their heads, or severally let it alone—each suo more.
As part of his plan of comparing the various forms of belief, in order to sift the elements of universal faith from the accidental features of particular periods, places, and races of men, he treats at large of the “External Manifestations of Religious Sentiment;” and having, under this general heading, paid attention to those “consecrated” actions, places, objects, persons, and mediators by means of which man seeks to communicate with the Divine, he proceeds to notice those “holy” events, places, objects, orders, and persons by means of which the Divine is believed to have communicated with man. Amongst the “holy events” thus classified, we have dreams, omens, divination, ordeals, miracles, and the like. Here and there we meet with facts which have a special interest to the readers of the Tobacco Plant. For instance, we are told that “The priests of the North American tribes have a peculiar method of divination. Having received a handful of Tobacco as a fee, they will summon a spirit to answer the inquiries of their visitors;” and then the authority of Dr. Brinton, the author of “The Myths of the New World,” is quoted to support Lord Amberley’s judgment that “ as may be supposed, the spirits who obey the summons of the Indian priest are not much more
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COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
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geful aS guides to action than those who figure at the ce °^ h*8 civilised competitor, the medium.” What inion Lord Amberley held of the modern “medium” and big‘‘^esn ^^ ^e ’mft^net^ by those who remember that, bring encountered the spirit of Socrates at a stance in Tendon, his lordship addressed him in Greek, and found that the sag® k^—like a later notability, the “Claimant”—for-1 iten h*8 na^ve tongue. Amongst instances of sacrificial Stea we we reminded that “the Red Indians used to offer to their ap^8” ^°^ ‘“petun, Tobacco, or birds.’” Other •\tances are not wanting; but perhaps the most remarkable •naatrstion of the readiness of men to associate supernatural nroperties with natural events will be found in this singular which we may quote under the title of
DIVINE SNEEZING.
“Another involuntary action through which God communicates with man l metfiDfr From the lowest savages to the most educated nation on the the earth, this simple physical event is viewed as an omen. A peculi-attending this particular kind of manifestation is, that it is usual for present when it occurs to notice it by saying something of favour-^angury. In Samoa, one of the Polynesian islands, it was common Life to you! ’ an exclamation which in sense, corresponds almost jLjy to the German * Gesundheit! ’ (health), to the Italian ‘ Salute I ’ and Loor own ‘God bless you!’ on the some occasion. South African savages hit the same sentiment of the religions nature of the omen involved in mixing. Thus, among the Kaffirs we learn that ‘ It used always to be said
man sneezed, “May Utikxo [God] ever regard me with favour.”’ Canon Call^y* who has acutely noticed the parallelism among various -ggonsin respect of the feeling associated with this action, further informs that ‘Among the Amazulu, if a child sneeze, it is regarded as a good vL • and if it be ill, they believe it will recover. On such an occasion they
“ Tutuka, ” Grow. When a grown up person sneezes, he says, «Bakith ngi hambe kade,” Spirits of our people, grunt mo a long life. As he believes that at the time of sneezing the spirit of his house is in some •special proximity to him, he believes it is a time especially favourable to «mer, and that whatever he asks for will bo given; hence he may say, “Bakwiti. inkomo.” Spirits of our people, give me cattle; or “Bakwiti, ahantwana,” Spirits of our people, give me children. Diviners among the natives are very apt to sneeze, which they regard as an indication of the produce of the spirits; the diviner adores by saving, “Makosi,” Lords, £ Masten.’ A similar belief prevails among the Parsecs, who consider a ineese as a mark of the victory obtained over the evil spirits who besiege the interior of the body by the fire which animates man, and who accordingly render thanks to Ahurzamardawhen this event happens.
“Classical antiquity presents us with an example of a famous sneeze. At a critical moment in the expedition of the Ten Thousand against Artaxerxes, when they were left in a hostile country surrounded with perplexities and perils, Xenophon encouraged them by an address in which he urged that if they would take a certain course, they had, with the favour of the gods, insny and good hopes of safety. Just at these words, ina.pi'VTai nv— ‘ somebody sneezes,’ and immediately the drooping hearts of the soldiery were comforted by thia assurance of divine protection. With one impulse they worshipped the god; and Xenophon remarked that since, when they ven in the very act of speaking of safety, this favourable augury of Zeus the Saviour had appeared, it seemed proper to him that they should vow thank-offerings to this deity, to be presented on their first arrival in a friendly country, and also that they should make a vow to sacrifice to the other gods according to their ability. Not only is it customary in Germany to welcome a sneeze with the above-mentioned exclamation of ‘ Gesundheit 1’ but a notion is stated to prevail that should one person be thinking of wmething in the future, and another sneeze at the moment he is thus engaged, the thing thought of will come to pass. So that the commonest character ascribed to sneezing is that of an auspicious omen.”*
The devotees of snuff have ascribed many virtues to the powder of Tobacco; but there is a possible wealth of blessing in its occasional use by novices which should not be forgotten when the tale of its merits is told. Not everyone amongst us who has cried—“God bless me!” when overcome by a sadden and uncontrollable titillation of the nasal membrane, knew that he was perpetuating a devout ceremonial; or, indeed, doing anything better than semi-blasphemously venting his astonishment and impatience. There would appear to be another and less complimentary interpretation of a sneeze, if we may trust this comment in the Globe upon “a case which is just reported from the Faubourg St. Honorg. A young lady inhabiting that aristocratic quarter was suddenly seized a few days ago with a violent and prolonged fit of sneezing. Her relations, her nurse, and finally every one in the house began to be alarmed. The orthodox “God bless you” had been shouted and reiterated in her ears; but the demon of sneezing refused to be exorcised, and the doctors had to be called in.” Chloroform was of no permanent avail, but at length the attack was overcome and the lady restored by a young doctor who resorted, luckily to “ hydrotherapic ” treatment. Our contemporary, being in a moralising humour, thinks t^e case “may serve as an awful warning to those feckless persons who, like Lord Dundreary, profess to delight ^ » good sneeze. There is, indeed, some reason for alarm just now. Sneezing, according to the scientific account of it, j® caused by irritation of the inner membrane of the nose. Aad since snuff-taking has been so completely banished from “®hionable society, there is reason to fear that the membrane 111 Question must be a good deal more sensitive, and perhaps irritable than it was a century ago.” This may be very
J but it would be a great relief to one’s mind to have ome decision as to the real origin and significance of these so that the next time we encounter a sneeze we may be compelled to doubt it as Hamlet doubts the Ghoet:—
“ Be then a spirit of health, or goblin damn’d.
Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thon comast in such a questionable shape, That I”----
w°uld fain be rid of thee!
^^^ ^^e8 quoted by Viscount Amberley for the references in this Me Turner’s ‘•Nineteen Years in Polynesia;” Canon Callaway’s b5TOWl System of the Amazulu;” M. du Perron's translation of the «« Areata;’’ and Xenophon’s " Anabasis,” HL, 2,9.
“^n ^umo ©mne ©fit!”
[The Pictorial World, January 20, 1877.']
In lazy clouds towards the skies
From out my meerschaum curls the vapour, Blue as the depths of Celia’s eyes, And dreamy as the folds that drape her. And, gazing on the same yeux bleue, Sad as the sighing of Melpomene, Rings in mine ear the warning true— “ In fumo exit omne! ”
Yes, sweet! the flowers that deck your brow, And those that in your cheeks blush deeper, Their summer fled, meek heads will bow Beneath the sickle of the reaper.
Still, though in smoke our gladness end, The sigh that clouds, the tear that checks it, Will each in turn in vapour blend— “ In fumo omne exit! ”
H. T. M. Johnson.
& Smohc in a ^ouborr.*
Some weeks ago there appeared one of Du Maurier’s drawings in Punch, in which an elongated swell was represented as reading some sloppy verse to a bevy of run-to-seed damsels, who were pictured, some in kinks of delight, and some in depths of woe engendered by the lovely poetry they were listening to. Change the scene and the actors a little, and the representation will do for a pretty picture which we can easily imagine in connection with this book. Instead of a drawing-room we should have a charming little boudoir, with its
“ Chairs, like to conches of heather;
The carpet, like moss to the tread;
And the screen of choice Cordovan leather, The sofa as soft as a bed.”
The damsels, instead of being ancient and run-to-seed, would be young and charming, and would be scattered about in the most enticing attitudes: Maud would be in a chair opposite the reader, gazing into his face with her “ bewitching hazel eyes,” and rapturously drinking in every word of the musical verse; Annie, the industrious one of the party, would be seated on a low stool engaged in embroidery or some such folly which girls take up when they want to be idle and to appear industrious at the same time, and with her “rosy laughing lips full of fun” would be enjoying the liquid rhythm; Helen would be reclining in lovely attitude on a couch, while
“A soft white robe, a broidered chemisette Scarce veils her rounded bosom, as it steals A subtle charm from what it half reveals— As sweet and modest os the violet! ”
Kate,
“ In the daintiest of dresses, and sweet freshly-braided tresses, With a rosebud in her bosom and a smile upon her face,”
would be there also, as indeed all the other of Mr. Ashby-Sterry’s sweet collection of girls, the while he read from the dainty volume of “Boudoir Ballads” the verses which he must have written for their special gratification.
The Spectator made this book the pretext for a snarling attack on light versifiers, and declared that there was not a line of poetry from cover to cover. Although these verses do not claim to be poems, and even Mr. Sterry himself, in “ My Lady’s Boudoir,” would seem not to aspire to the poetic bays:
“ There’s something omitted. I know it, And own it at once when I say, If I had but the pen of a poet, And magical brush of Millais,
I should feel I’d neglected no duty— As sadly I say an revoir—
Forced to leave undescribed the chief beauty That reigns in My Lady’s Boudoir.”
Yet we should not like to assert that there is not a poetic idea in the book. Perhaps the two old ladies who govern the periodical above mentioned did not approve of the “ Laureate of Frills,” and were shocked at the numerous allusions to “slim legs and ancles neat” and “snow-white pantalettes.” At least, we are of opinion that one must be very ill-natured and bilious if one cannot find pleasure in listening to the strains of Mr. Sterry’s music.
Generally he is contented in singing his pets and their belongings in the most flowing and rhythmical manner he can attain to; but occasionally he decks a stanza with a Pradesque quip or antithesis in a not unsuccessful style.
“ A small glove was pressed, it was six and a quarter, A hand rather smaller was p’rhaps pressed as well.”
and in “ Pets of the ‘ Petrel ’ ” after declaring alliteratively that “Dinners on deck are divinely delectable.”
he adds—
“ Starlight is good for confession auricular, Lunatics thrive in the light of the moon* I ”
which is exceedingly neat.
Though in the Boudoir, he does not forget his devotion to the Fair Nicotina—being a delightful young lady, he might
* Boudoir Ballads, by J. Ashby-Sterry. London: Chatto and Windus.
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[April, 1877.
surely have admitted one lyric wholly addressed to her!—as will be seen from “The Pets of the ‘Petrel.’”
“ Dreaming when heats of the moontide bo hazily Shimmer around our becalmed little craft;
Smoking and mooning, bo languidly lazily. Whilst someone reads 'neath the awning abaft.” or in the Italian reminiscences—
“ Then that night at Baveno, whilst smoking, When someone lit my cigarette, To be found by mamma ’twos provoking— Your eyes flashed a tearful regret.”
Which was very naughty of “ Someone.”
Altogether this is a very charming book—the publishers having striven to make itexternally as attractive as is possible with its dainty blue and gold cover, and internally with the clean, sharp type on the thick, creamy paper; and Mr. Ashby-Sterry having done all that within him lay to render it palatable to the reader. It is a book to place on a drawingroom table, to be picked up to while away a few moments while waiting for the lady of the house, or ... . her daughter; a book to moon over while lying in a hammock, puffing cigarettes, and gazing at the green tracery of leaves overhead; a book to give your lady-love as a valentine; a book to have on board a yacht to read from, on still summer nights, to someone “with fathomless brown eyes;” and a book, seeing that we can never hope for fine weather again, to read
“ When the room is deliciously mellow— Weird shadows come fast as they go— And the ceiling is chequered and yellow, And gloom gives a glory to glow.”
T. W. Littleton Hay.
£lje Smoke ^oom Sable.
The Discourses of Epictetus, with the Encheiridion and Fragments. Translated, with notes, a Life of Epictetus, and a View of his Philosophy, by George Long. (Bohn's Classical Library Series.) London: Bell and Daldy, 1877.
Mr. Long, who was before this century, has worthily crowned a life devoted to the study and elucidation of ancient Greece and Rome, by this rendering of Epictetus. The translation of the learned lady, Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, is now scarce and somewhat cut of date, though Mr. Long bears witness, “perhaps no Englishman of that time would have made a better.” His version, for the same series, of the “ Thoughts of Marcus Antoninus, with a Sketch of his Life and Philosophy,” is simply invaluable to the earnest English student; and now that he has added the indomitable Slave to the pure and benign Emperor, the real Dirut Imperator, he has given us the noblest outcome of all the ages of Imperial Rome. We may best express our admiration for Mr. Long's achievement in these two standard works, by the statement that he is not better qualified for them by his sound and thorough scholarship than by his mental and moral affinity to these high-hearted and high-minded, yet unorrogont Stoics, whose culture grafted a fine Greek grace on the stern strength of Rome. Here are real heroic manuals for who would bear themselves erect and clean among the multitudes cringing and groping in slime.
A History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. By Leslie Stephen. 2 vote. 28s. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1875.
If we remember rightly, we have come across some parts of these volumes in the magazines; and we are bound to say that the work appears to us rather an accumulation of magazine articles than an organic whole- The author seems to lack grasp and power; the book, though large, as the subject requires, is not weighty; we miss co-ordination, subtlety, and insight; and the absence of ideas, in any high sense, is painfully conspicuous. We cannot, therefore, look upon the work as any accession to what De Quincey calls the literature of power, but merely as a well-indexed collection of general information for the general reader, whose knowledge of our last century writers is both scanty and vague. And, even considered in this lower class, it is not so complete and accurate as it ought to be; the author having apparently in some cases trusted to the materials readiest at hand, when very little research would have proved them untrustworthy. We have, of course, no room here for details: two familiar instances must suffice. As for facts, in dealing with Thomas Paine, the falsehoods, again and again refuted, of the convicted libeller, Cheetham, are adopted as absolutely authentic; os for criticism, in dealing with the poet Thomson, his lasting reputation is made to rest on " The Seasons,” and the “ Castle of Indolence ” is not even mentioned among his chief works!
Uttos of ©lb ^oohs.
The Early English Text Society.
[continuation]
1866.
22.	The Bomans of Partenay, or of Lusignen: otherwise known as the Tale of Melusine: translated from the French of La Coudrette (about 1500-1520, a.d.) Edited from an unique MS. in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, with an introduction, notes, and glossarial index, by the Bev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A.	'
This is an English version of the weird story of Melusine, first told by Jean d’Arras about the year 1887, since repeated by many fabulists. Jean, doubtless, trusted for the basis and main strength of his work to the family traditions of the Lusignans respecting their fairy ancestress. He is thought to have written it first in Latin. There ore many versions and adaptations of it. That given in the present text was written by La Coudrette, a Poitevin, at the request of one of the family of Partenay. The story of the mystic lady, who only espouses her mortal husband on condition that he shall not invade her privacy upon one day of the week, and who at length breaks the compact and finds that she is a fairy—half serpent and half woman— has spread all over Europe. There is an Icelandic saga of her story, whilst her memory is equally perpetuated by the name of Millicent once commonly given to English lasses, and by the Mclusenet, the gingerbreads of Poitiers, where a vegetarian may enjoy some of the raptures of cannibalism whilst eating these cakes with human head and serpent tail.
23.	Dan Michel's Ayenbite of Inwyt, or Bemorse of Conscience.
In the Kentish Dialect, 1340, a.d. Edited from the autograph MS. in the British Museum, with an introduction on the peculiarities of the Southern Dialect, and a glossarial index, by Bichard Morris, Esq.
About the same time the Hermit of Hampole was inveighing in his strong northern dialect against the vices of the day, and trying to stimulate his countrymen to better lives by the action of the Pricke of Conscience. Dan Michel, the Monk of Northgate, was translating for the use of the southern folk the French book on “ Le Somme des Vices et de Verities,” written in 1279 by Frt*re Lorens, known by his Latinised name of Laurentius Gallus. Dan Michel ought to have had some little remorse of conscience himself, for he throughout claims the work as his own, and gives no hint that he was merely “ adopting from the French.” Apparently it is the fate of our friends beyond the Channel to be plundered whether they write devoutly or dramatically. Chaucer’s Parson, it may be observed, was indebted to Frire Lorens, though he greatly improved upon the Gallican orator. From a philological point of view the version of Dan Michel is of the highest importance from the certainty of the place—Northgate in Kent—and of the date of its composition, 1840, and from its full portrayal of the English of Kent of the period. Dr. Morris has shown its value in his elaborate grammatical introduction. It would be an infliction to recite anew any of these old Kentish sermons, with their queer anecdotes, such as that of the Knight who, whilst gaming, swore by “God's eyes,” whereat his own orba flew out upon the checker board.
24.	Hymns to the Virgin and Christ, the Parliament of Devils, and other Beligious Poems, chiefly from the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth MS. No. 853. Edited by Frederick J. Fumivall.
This title is sufficiently explanatory of the nature of the contents, wherein piety is more predominant than poetry, and where even the piety assumes what might be regarded as a profane aspect.
1867.
25.	The Stacyons of Borne, in verse from the Vernon MS. (about 1370, a.d.), and in prose from the Porkington MS. No. 10 (about 1460-70, a.d.); and the Pilgrim's Sea Voyage, from the Trinity College, Cambridge, MS. B. 3-19 t. Hen. VI., with Clene Maydenhod. From the Vernon MS. (about 1370, a.d.), in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Edited by Frederick J. Furnivall, M.A.
The Stations show the serious side of the Pilgrim undertaking. It is a guide to the sacred places of the papal city, with the amount of purgatorial indulgence entailed by each pious visit. At “ Our Lady’s Chapel,” where Thomas a Becket kept school, there con be hod 800 years of pardon, but at St. Urban’s 4384 years I Tlie Pilgrim's Sea Voyage shows the comic and grievous side of the undertaking. Mal de mer had even in the middle ages no respect fur perengrinating piety. The last piece is another dissausive to our foremothers to avoid the pains and dangers Of married life and to become the brides of heaven.
26.	Beligious Pieces in Prose and Verse. Edited from Bobert of Thomtone's MS. (about 1460 a.d.), by the Bev. G. Perry, M.A.
This volume, another addition from the famous Thornton folio, is not less valuable for its mirror of religious thought than for its exhibition of the peculiarities of the Northern English in which it is written. Dan Jon (Mr. Gaytryge’s) sermon is a compendium of the practical theology of the age and ranges from the creation to the seven deadly sins. It appears to have been written originally in accented and partially alliterative verse. “The Mirror of St. Edmund” is the only surviving work of the ascetic Rich, Archbishop of Canterbury, one of whose pupils was Roger Bacon. “ The Abbey of Saynte Spirit ” has been attributed to the Hermit of Hampole, but with small probability. Bishop Alcock has also been named as its author, but it was in writing a century before his death. The work itself is a religious allegory, charitably allowing the possibility “ of keeping himself undefiled from the world ” even amidst the active duties of life, but of course insisting upon the greater beatitude of the cloister. William of Nassvngton, former lawyer of York, writes of the Trinity and Unity, the work of God and the Passion of Jesus Christ. Amongst the smaller poems is a version of that once popular poem, “ Earth out of Earth.”
27.	Manipulus Vocabulorum: a Bhyming Dictionary of the English Language, by Peter Levins (1570). Edited, with an Alphabetical Index, by Henry B. Wheatley.
This is the first, probably, of the class of books dear to the aspiring poetaster, the rhy ming dictionary, by which limping verse may pass, with halting feet, to oblivion. The value of such a work to the philologist is, of course, obvious. The careful Yorkshire man who compiled this work was no hackney, but, as Mr. Wheatley well says, wrote from the fulness of knowledge.
28.	The Vision of William concerning Piers Plowman, together with Vita de Dowel, Dobet et Dobest. 1362, a.d., by William Langland. Edited from numerous MSS., with Prefaces, Notes, and Glossary, by the Bev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A. Part I.
This contains the earliest, or Vernon, text of this famous poem.
29.	Old English Homilies and Homiletic Treatises. (Sawles Warde and the Wohunge of Ure Lauerd: Ureisuns of Ure Louerd and of Ure Lefdi, etc.) of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Edited from MSS. in the British Museum, Lambeth, and Bodleian Libraries; with Introduction, Translation, and Notes. By Bichard Morris. First Series. Part I.
These are not a consecutive series of medieval homilies, but “ a bundle of fragments and smaller treatises arrayed in the order in which the editor was fortunate enough to meet with them.” The sermon In diebus daminicis contains a very curious folk-tale. The souls of the damned have rest on the Bunday, says the medieval moralist, and informs us that this boon was obtainra for them by the intercession of Paul and Michael, who visited the place of pain by Divine command, to see how the people fared there. They saw wretched souls hanging upon trees, fiery ovens with seven flames, wells of lire, the Sea of Hell, with its seven bitter waves, filled with horrible creatures who torment the bodies of those unhappy men who hod not completed their shrift in this life. They saw a bishop tortured because he had not obeyed the laws of Christ; they saw a maiden led about by three devils because in life, though chaste, she had not been charitable. At the urgent request of Paul, the Lord consented to give them respite from Saturday noon to Monday’s dawn, until the day of doom.
30.	Piers, the Ploughman's Crede (abopt 1394.) Transcribed and edited from MS. Trin. Coll., Cam., B. 3. 15., collated with MS. Bibi. Beg. 18, B. xvii. tn the British Museum, and with the old printed text of 1553; to which is appended God Spede the Plough (about 1500, a.d.), from MS. Lansdowne, 762. By the Bev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A.
The creed of Piers Ploughman is well known, with its invectives against the degeneracy of the monastic orders, their pride, riches and gluttony, and general disregard of those motives which actuated their "founders. What, for instance, can be more remarkable than the contrast between the humble and spiritual Francis of Assissi and the worldly and covetous successors who claimed to be his disciples *?
(To be continued.)
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Printed and Published for the Proprietors at the Office, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by John Fraskb, of 1, Spekeland Road, Edge-Hill, Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster.
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ZiZ^
COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT

INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
No. 86—Vol. II.]
MAY, 1877.
PRICK TWOPENCE.
.Annual Subscription—Poti Free,!/
^u^arbson nn Sobarca
Thibi are some people in thia world who claim universal omniscience. Dr. Richardson is one of these. There is no subject in the universe on which he will not write; many on which he cannot. The history of past meetings of the British Association for the advancement of science shows how many discoveries he has made, and of what value they are. A fresh theory of the causes which operate on living things always comes in with the grouse about August. Sometimes it is “bichlorid of methyl” which is destined to be the universal aiuesthetio, and which will send patients to sleep without doubt, whether they have listened or not to Dr. Richardson’s lectures. Sometimes it is a “vital atmosphere” which he demonstrates to his own satisfaction to exist around and about every living being. Sometimes a theory is broached that life, t>., the production of the phenomena of vitality and * oxygenation of blood, is merely due to the addition of a little ammonia to the blood, and that the distinction between a chemist’s shelf which contains hartshorn or Preston salts and one which does not, indicates that the former is a living thing, and the latter is dead. Such pretentious announcements have been made respecting the value of the discoveries of Dr. Richardson that, if we were Jews we should be always in a doubt as to whether he was not the coming Messiah. Perhaps he may be, and his speculations on the longevity of the Jewish race indicate his hope that the children of Israel will at least continue to survive until he comes with clouds of Tobacco smoke descending to finish the researches which he undertook in obedience to the vote of the British Association. We now have a work composed of some articles which have appeared in “Macmillan’s Magazine,” in which attention is drawn to the physical injuries of the body that are induced by the use of Tobacco, and by other baneful practices of the century which tolerates bis drivel. He ostentatiously announces that he will not accuse Tobacco of producing cancer or consumption. How he carried on his researches on smoke is curious. He constructed a small pair of bellows which would act like the lungs, when a man is smoking a lighted pipe or cigar. Part of the smoke produced by the combustion was allowed to escape from the lighted end of the pipe or cigar in the ordinary way; the remaining part was drawn into the bellows as it would be into the lungs, and thus obtained it was submitted to examination. Various descriptions of pipes were used, and we congratulate Dr. Richardson that he was able to procure a “ pure virgin clay ” pipe, of whose innocence there is no doubt.
His classification of the substances contained in Tobacco smoke is crude and inexact, and contrasts forcibly with the elaborate analyses which we owe to Eulenberg and Vohl, which he quotes without precision. Evidently the memory of his own ancient blood-theory was forcibly present to his uuud, as he describes some ammonias as existing in a state of vapour, and giving to the smoke an alkaline reaction. A more exact chemist would have said what ammonias these J®8- We are inclined to ask, were they blood products?
evidently fights shy of the elaborate analyses which gave pyndine, viridine, picoline, lutidine, collidine, parvoline, coridine, and rubidine as integral elements of Tobacco smoke, ™ wys very sensibly (for even Dr. Richardson can exhibit ®ome scintillations of intellect on occasion) it would be wrong tofiuppose that in the ordinary process of smoking these products are all formed and inhaled. They are not. We are
of this, as it saves the retail Tobacconist much trouble m labelling his wares. If a demand is made for a twopenny
“viridine” smoke, or a full flavoured “collidine” cheroot, there will inevitably be some confusion. The poor ignorant shopman, who may inadvertently supply “ coridine” for “ collidine,” must be blamed. It is, however, clear that “ parvoline” cigars are intended for the juveniles, and “picoline” for misanthropic turnpike gatekeepers.
The author then goes on to examine the effects of the constituents of Tobacco smoke on the body. We are thankful that he sets down the water as harmless, as it shows a degree of toleration which does not precisely accord with what he alleges in another part of his work—that fluids, especially water, are deleterious, and occasionally produce death. Even the internal use of fluids is, according to Dr. Richardson, prejudicial. We are not, of course, now concerned with cases of death by drowning, but with the immoderate use of the teapot. The free carbon, according to Dr. Richardson, acts mechanically as an irritant; and, in confirmed smokers, discolours the secretions of the bronchial tubes, and even “the hard structures of the mouth, such as the teeth.” We were not previously aware what hard structures existed in the mouth, outside the mucous membrane, but the teeth. He has not to find out till page 298 that charcoal is an antiseptic. But it is the free ammonia which plays a very important part; it is the ammonia that bites the tongue after long smoking, that makes the tongue of the smoker so dry, induces “him to quaff” (why not sip?) as he smokes, and that excites the salivary glands to secrete so freely. We are told next that the ammonia (which? we had to deal previously with some ammonias, and just now with the free ammonia) also exerts a solvent influence on the blood. We knew we would come to the blood in time. Dr. Richardson could not forget his early account of the loves of the blood with the ammonias. Tu Vas voulut Georges Dandin!
The carbonic acid next comes on the scene. He prudently says that it differs so greatly in amount from various specimens of Tobacco, that it is difficult to estimate the extent of its action, but its tendency is to produce sleepiness, headache, and lassitude.
The carbonic oxide, on the other hand, varies in extent; if the combustion of the Tobacco be slow and incomplete, it is present in small quantities, but “if the combustion be rapid, it is absent.” When present, it is a very active poisonous agent, which produces drowsiness, unsteady movements of the heart, and the usual symptoms with which Tobacco as a whole has been credited. We are thankful for this, as Dr. Richardson indicates the remedy. If the smoker only consumes his pipe rapidly, and acts on Macbeth’s principle that things should be done quickly, then there is no risk whatever of ingesting the fearful carbonic oxide. There are many rapid smokers who will be thankful to Dr. Richardson for this hint.
Of course, the effect of nicotine proper is, according to its custom, to produce tremor, palpitation of the heart, and paralysis. The volatile empyreumatic substance causes a sense of oppression, gives an unpleasant odour to the breath, and produces the well-known odour of stale Tobacco smoke. To the bitter extract is assigned the role of communicating the exceedingly nauseous sharp taste, recognised by every unpractised smoker who takes a foul pipe in his mouth, and excites vomiting in persons unaccustomed to Tobacco. Dr. Richardson carefully avoids all minuteness of detail respecting these products.
We then have his great physiological experiment. A few mites from a cheese were placed under the microscope, and on them a current of Tobacco smoke was directed from an ordinary pipe. In a few seconds the little animals reeled over, became convulsed, and even appeared to die; but on them the
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effect of fresh air was active, and as the poisonous vapours exhaled readily from their bodies, they recovered. Some animals, such as the goat, can eat large quantities of Tobacco with impunity; but even these animals do not escape from the effects of the fumes. What parity there is between man and cheese-mites we are not aware—except that man, like cheesemites, eats cheese. We need not follow Dr. Richardson through the numerous inaccurate facts which he inflicts on that unfortunate section of the purchasers of his work who have passed the 272nd page in their perusal. It is true that these are not likely to be many; but the rule of the survival of the fittest will lead to the extinction of a great number of readers long before they come to the part of the work relating to Tobacco. The next glaring inaccuracy which Dr. Richardson gives out is, that the volatile matters of Tobacco exhale by the lungs (of which there was no doubt). But to give an absurd reason for a true fact, he goes on to say: “We have evidence of this in the empyreumatic and ammoniacal breath of every smoker.” The assertion is, therefore, that every smoker alike smells of empyreumatic and ammoniacal odours. With due respect to Dr. Richardson, we would suggest that this was a little too much to do at the same time. He then says that in the confirmed smoker there is a constant functional disturbance. His organs are doing work which is not essential to their duties; but they do it with moderate ease, they return nothing that is detrimental to their structure, “ and, let alone, they soon regain their natural condition.” He then sums up what he is pleased to call the whole gist of the Tobacco controversy. “ It is on the presence of the functional disturbance that the vehement opponent of Tobacco bases his arguments; it is on the absence of organic mischief that the advocate of Tobacco rests his defence.” The admission is here made that whatever devilry is perpetrated by the smoker, whilst imbibing his pipe, the natural organs soon regain their normal condition. It cannot, therefore, do so much harm if mere continuance of the habit exists. We question whether the theory of alternate exaltation and depression of the nerve system, concomitant with smoking or non-smoking, will hold water as a scientific hypothesis. But taking it as Dr. Richardson has said, he has conceded the main point, that soon after the organs have smoked they get well again, immediately afterwards. We have next to consider, and we shall do so very briefly, Dr. Richardson’s statements as to the action of Tobacco on the blood. We are told, for the hundredth time, that the fluid of the blood is made thinner than usual, and, in extreme cases, paler. When Dr. Richardson, who wastes much space on the description of the elementary facts known respecting the bloodcorpuscles, deliberately gives us these crude and & priori notions, we simply would ask him for a single experiment effected on man in which his facts are proven. He well knows that there are none in which the facts alleged are not such as might have been associated with any amount of inaccuracy of observation, or of falsity of deduction, on the part of the experimentalist. After this, we have the usual bill of indictment against the poor digestive organs, the salivary secretion, and a minute description of smoker’s sore throat. We are, however, delighted to observe that our poor teeth are left us, and that Dr. Richardson says that in the teeth, setting aside the accumulation of tartar, he does not think Tobacco smoke exercises any injurious influence; nay, he believes that the smoke has a tendency to preserve rather than to destroy these structures. It leaves upon them, truly, a deposit of carbon, which stains the white enamel black, and, by virtue of its antiseptic action, which at last he has discovered, this deposit possibly prevents decay. After this, let us wash our mouths, if, indeed, we have been reading Dr. Richardson’s book aloud after our pipes, forget the subject, and go on with our usual course. gouqud be figure. [Harpe^e Weekly.] “ My favourite perfume,” dear Jennie ? Had you asked me an hour ago, I am sure I’d have lazily answered, “My darling, I really don’t know.” For Tve flirted with many a fragrance, And never been constant to one, But welcomed the roses of summer When the dainty spring blossoms were gone. I find it quite hard to be partial; Most delicious the whole of them are; So I’ll leave you the sweet-smelling flowers— My choice is “bouquet de cigare.” That note that was brought me this morning (How it made my heart flutter and thrill!)— Well, the scent of the weed he’d been smoking As he wrote it was clinging there still. And as I read on, dear, it mingled With words, oh! so welcome to me: He loves me! he loves me! and, Jennie, Next summer a bridemaid you’ll be. How you stare!—your blue eyes full of wonder; Yet it may be the day isn’t far When for you, too, the perfume of perfumes Will be, dear, “ bouquet de cigare! ”	®^e JJalue of a ®igar. [Tte Hairdreuen* Chronicle and Trade Journal, March 17,1877.] Between the dealer, on the one hand, and the consumer, on the other, there is a depth of mystery about the value of a cigar which the plummet of truth has never yet sounded. The smoker avers that he cannot get a really good cigar, whatever price he pays for it, while the vendor invariably professes to have a stock of cigars worthy of the patronage of an emperor. Every cigar dealer in the kingdom can produce, according to his own account, the finest cigars ever smoked; and when we remember how numerous are the people who trade in the article, it is really marvellous that consumers should be so ill supplied. The marvel, however, like other apparently inscrutable matters, is capable of being explained, and in giving the explanation, we are obliged to be so ungracious as to confess that nine-tenths of the people who smoke cigars have no more idea of their value than has the man in the moon; and of those who sell cigars, the proportion of skilled dealers is in about the same ratio. It is with cigars as with wine. He would be a poor sort of fellow who could not pronounce, offhand, an opinion upon the merits of either luxury, although the grounds for the opinion expressed would probably contain more assumption than judgment. The amateur always affects the connoisseur, and as it is easier and safer to condemn than approve, he errs on the right side by depreciating on speculation. Offer such a critic your cigar case, stocked, maybe, with jewels of excellence. He will draw forth a weed, light it, and, after a sagacious puff or two, will favour you with an opinion that it is a good sort. Privately, he wonders how you can smoke such things, and pities you that you know no better. This assumption of knowledge and skill is a human weakness not confined to cigars. That the cigar dealer should claim the possession of the choicest brands and growths, known or unknown to the trade, is also natural. He has his goods to sell, 'and his profit to make, and he must not depreciate his wares. Moreover, the possession of a Tobacco licence and a stock-in-trade does not constitute a cigar dealer save in a commercial sense; and the most showy and pretentious shop is too often nothing more than an empty advertisement that some decayed draper, or coal dealer, or scheming commission agent has ventured upon what to many persons appears to be an easy business, involving no judgment, little skill, and an unlimited amount of effrontery. It is, therefore, obvious, that the question of the value of a cigar becomes narrowed in proportion as the number of practical judges are reduced. The dealer who knows his business may always be relied upon for a good • article. His shop or warehouse may be fusty and old-fashioned, or it may indulge in the brilliance of plate-glass; but the quality of the goods is there, with no other adornment save that of a good reputation. As a rule, he buys from first hands, and does not permit middle men to regulate his prices. He is thus enabled to sell a good cigar at its fair value, without putting fancy quotations on goods which no one would look at but for the absurd prices attached to them, and he will be content to ask 40s. a pound for cigars which others, less experienced than he, would set down at about 50 per cent, higher at the very least. Eightpence and a shilling are not exceptional prices for foreign cigars, and the smoker will often be puzzled to understand why such high-priced articles are neither better nor more fragrant than others purchasable at half these prices. The locality and class of trade done will furnish the explanation in most cases; but if it comes to a question of merit, and the issue is to be decided by the character of the cigar, it cannot be doubted that sixpence is the maximum value of a good foreign cigar, and that anything beyond that is a fancy price, due to other causes than the quality of the Tobacco or the excellence of its manufacture. ^ipes of ^ahr gears. IV.—THE VILLAGE OF TWINTLETON. The village of Twintieton was not a model village by any means, neither were we Twintletonians model villagers. A long, straggling, single-breasted sort of a town was Twintieton, primeval in its ways, cut its own hair, and burned its chimneys. Its maidens were pretty but proper, its young men modest. It had a wonderful grocer, who could do fifty things and talk on fifty subjects at one and the same time. It had a postoffice, too, where beauty and civility, both combined, sold you cigars while they wired you a “’gram.” Its mill was old, and its miller merry. A good-sized church it had, and an undersized parson; and public-houses, dusted in, apparently, with a pepper-pot. The whole of Twintieton’s resident gentry lived all by himself in a great big house, which would have looked like a palace had it not borne so striking a resemblance to a model lodging-house. All Twintieton’s resident gentry was celebrated—not for intellect—for coals. In the long winter evenings, when it was all dark and gloomy out of doors, for the village had not yet got the length of street lamps, Twintieton—the male Twintieton—sat around a roaring fire, in the spare parlour of the King’s Arms, discussing long clays and stout; and in the summer evenings	
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Ttfintleton might have been seen outside the inn door, still Jessing long clays and stout. But whether it were winter or h ther it were summer, the law did not allow Twintleton to J its long clay and its modest pint of stout beyond the of ten of a night. And precisely at that hour a tall youth, J^bed as a bobby, would suddenly appear on the scene, and stand just over the way; and he never spoke, but stared. baby bobby represented the majesty of the law. Then would start the burly landlord of that inn, just as if he been struck on the hull with a nine-pound shot, pull an ^nnous watch from a gigantic fob, throw down his pipe, with just one withering glance at the baby bobby (which, the youth not been so excessively green, would have him up, staff and all), proceed at once to close the ^nd^wintleton never needed another hint, but departed h fwintletonian to his respective place of abode. Bo । was Twintieton. Yet hi the sacred interests of truth, I am compelled to ute that there were evenings (although they came but Idem) ^ben there really seemed to be something—some disturbing element—in the air. Then Twintieton used to fight, fight in the street. I do mean to say there was any great display of science, or nch artistic hitting from the shoulder, or cross-buttocking, ® anything of that sort; but you would see some as good roneh and tumble shake-and-falls as there was any occasion look upon. After which Twintieton would weep—which, must be confessed, was somewhat humiliating for Twintieton—w^ shake hands»vow eternal friendship, and go home ^But only on the occasion of a cricket match did Twintieton deem it the correct thing to go out of its mind in downright earnest; nor did Twintieton seem to consider there was any-thiM to be ashamed of in so doing. Twintieton was always challenging the surrounding villages, and it must be frankly confessed, the Twintletonians usually made the biggest scores, and whipped their opponents; and that too, fully as often on their own grounds as at Twintieton. It was upon one of these festive occasions that I first met my friend and neighbour, Roddy M‘Koy. It happened thus: A tall, handsome farmer’s son had called upon me at my cottage orne. Begging my pardon for the intrusion, but did I play at all? “Well ” I had told him, “cricket was not the sort of thing one could play with any degree of comfort on the quarterdeck of a man-of-war, but I used to do a little at it when a youngster.” “Oh, then, I would join the club,” he told me; “indeed, I must* and he wouldn’t take a denial.” Well, if he wouldn’t take a denial, what was a man to do but quietly become a member? Which I did. Now, the first match was to be played in a meadow, down by the’side of the broad, winding Thames; and on the day and hour appointed, all Twintieton. myself included, duly put in an appearance. When we were all assembled, and the rival village in full force, and we Twintletonians certain of success, suddenly arose the cry—“ But where is our scorer?” “Look, yonder he comes,” some one answered. And, sure enough, round the bend of the river, a light boat came sweeping, impelled by the strong arms of one who evidently knew how to row. Tall was the rower, white as to beard, and rubicund and jolly in countenance. This much I could see at a distance. Evidently a favourite, too, was Roddy M‘Koy (for it was he) with all hands, as might easily be gleaned from the exclamations that greeted his appearance. “Bravo!” cried the rival club. “Well rowed, Roddy,” exclaimed the Twintletonians. Well rowed, indeed, but the gallant scorer could not see that dark and treacherous log of wood floating down stream. One moment more and the tiny bark was stove in the bows, and the scorer had disappeared. He was away down under tomewhere. “ By George, he’ll be drowned,” was now the cry, and a general rush was made to the edge of the river, and a shout went up for a boat. Now boats are like bobbies; they are never at hand when wanted. But Roddy was taking it very easy indeed. He came to the surface just as coolly as if he had gone down on purpose to examine the bottom. He evidently didn’t mean to lose the oars anyhow, for after lashing them together with a scarf, he gave them a great send in towards the shore; and then, flat on chest, in the good old-fashioned style, he commenced to follow them. Well, if you’d heard the cheers just then, and the laughing, you’d have said the Twintletonians weren’t half bad folks nor the rival club either. And “was’nt M‘Koy a brick?” and “ a broth of a boy?” and “ one of the real sort ? ” Meanwhile Roddy had reached the bank, and given himself two great shakes, after the manner of a Newfoundland dog. All Twintleton instantly clustered around him ; Twintieton hoped he was none the worse; Twintleton offered its united flasks. “Faith, boys,” said Roddy, “ I was never wetter in my life, and I never was drier.” Ont of courtesy, I suppose, and by way of proving what he said, he accepted two flasks, and took a pull out of one and had a drain out of the other, went into a tent to wring his garments, came out again, looking as bright as a sand boy,	and with an enormous quid in his mouth. Then he had another pull at another flask, and the match was begun and —Twintleton won. Now when I inform the gentle smoker that Roddy was, like myself, a sailor, need I add that we were soon as thick as thieves. And, as Roddy’s house was not more than a mile from my dwelling, it always fell out, of a summer evening, that if he and I were not to be found seated out on the lawn in front of the bay window of my cottage orne, serenely smoking our pipes, and taking an occasional keek into honest pewter, you had only to look for the two of us in Roddy’s orchard, employed much of a much. Roddy M‘Koy was an Irishman. There was no mistaking that. A rich brogue hung all about and around him, and clung to him, as the bouquet does to this “ bit o’ ship’s.” I’ve said he was a sailor. An “ ould tar” I used to call him, likewise B. 0. T., which, mind you, stood for “beloved ould tar,” though to be sure the B. might have stood for anything. Roddy had rather the advantage of me in years, and consequently he deemed it his duty to give me advice in all matters relating to the management of my garden and cottage orn6. “ Me dear boy,” said Roddy to me one day, when I ventured to remark that when a man verged on forty he wasn’t a mere chicken, and might make bold to have an opinion of his own, “ You haven’t been a dog’s watch in the world yet, you don’t know you’re alive yet—ye don’t indade.” A pleasant figure-head had Roddy, washed though it had been by the storm waves of many a strange ocean; he had a long grey beard and a glittering eye, but not a skinny hand by any means ; and when Roddy gave you his hand you could tell by the honest grasp thereof that he was what the Twintletonians called him—“one of the real sort.” Lastly, Roddy M‘Koy owned a decent nose. Now, I do think myself that a good nose is not only ornamental but useful. It is useful to put a pinch of good snuff in, for example; and, moreover, the nose is very often an index to a man’s character. If I were once to get astride of the subject of noses, I don’t know, any more than Adam, where it would carry me to. Heavens! what multitudes of noses of all shapes and sizes seem to bob and beckon to me from out that wreath of curling “ azure cloud!” Straight noses and parrot noses, red noses and white, noses worn on one side, celestial noses, button noses, noses you could get a hold of with two hands and hang on by, and noses with drops to the end of them. Why, I declare, one by one, as I sit and smoke, every one of my dead and gone friends and relations seem to be led back to me by the nose. Yonder sits Roddy. At this very moment his beak is in his bicker. Now, that is where one’s beak ought to be—occasionally f at all events; but I knew an old fellow—no myth this, he was the storekeeper at Haulbowline victualling yard, Cork— whose nose was so monstrously large that when you gave him a quart pot of ale he had to hold his beak aside with one hand, while he drank with the other—which was funny. Well, there was one of my own ancestors, Fraser to name —and what better name could you have ? Fraser had a tidy, lady-like wife, who couldn’t speak much else save Gaelic, and who greatly objected to two of her husband’s habits—namely, snuffing and wearing a drop at his nose. Honest Angus Freeshol (which is the Highland way of saying Fraser) never could blow his nose often enough to please his wife. There was one night the two were out at a party, and there among the ladies at one side of the room sat Mrs. Fraser, and on the other, in earnest argument, her goodman. Poor Mrs. Fraser sat on nettles. Whenever, by means of a volley of “ Ahem—hem’s ! ” she succeeded in catching the eye of Angus, as far as pantomime could, she endeavoured to induce her thoughtless spouse to use his bandana, but all in vain. Honest Angus was high on the doctrine of predestination, and didn’t give a dump for her. The good lady lost all patience at last, however. “ Mr. Freeshol,” she screamed, “ Mr. Freeshol, will you blow your snosh.” In olden times, in Scotland, every laird of any consequence kept his own fool. Shrewd and witty were some of those so-called fools to a degree. The Laird of Uduy’s fool was rather a character. Once a friend of the laird’s came to dine with him, who snuffed perseveringly, and was addicted to a drop—at his nose, an unusually long one. Before he arrived, the laird gave Jamie the tip. “Have at the gentleman, said he, “anent his nose.” “A’ richt,” replied Jamie; “I’m no to pu’ it, I suppose?” “No, no,” said the laird; and “Weel, weel,” said Jamie. As soon as the punch bowl was put on the table, Jamie was summoned to wait, and attend to master and guest; but, no sooner had Jamie cast eyes on the latter than “The Lord preserve us, what a neb,” cried Jamie, after which he appeared to go off into a convulsion of some kind; he was bent like a jack-knife; he had stuffed, apparently, about half-a-yard of towel into his mouth, and the most extraordinary sounds emanated from his nostrils. “What the deuce are you laughing at?” roared the laird, in seeming wrath. Jamie dared not extract the towel to speak; he could only touch his own nose, point to that of the guest, and go off again in another fit. “How dare you insult the gentleman?” cried the laird. “Leave the room instantly, if you cannot behave, sir.”
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“ Weel, sir,” said Jamie, “I’ll just try and no look at it.”
It is questionable whether Jamie’s ludicrous attempts to attend properly at table without seeing the nose were a whit less insulting to the poor lang-nebbit guest. He would try to walk round the table with his eyes shut, or backwards, and while presenting the guest with the apples or nuts he was sure to keep his eyes on the roof of the room. He was only a fool, you know. But once again during the evening Jamie exploded behind the gentleman’s chair, and the laird felt bound to throw the tongs at him. This had the effect of changing Jamie’s tune. He began to weep, although no tears were seen. *‘ Just look’ee at that, noo, hoo, hoo; a bonnie row I’ve gotten into wi’ you and your nose, aboo, hoo, hoo-oo; deil speed your nose and a’ sich noses; ha, ha, hoo, hoo. As sure’s death, I dinna ken whether to lauch or greet (cry), he hee-ee. Damn your nose.” And off went Jamie, slamming the door. His exit was highly theatrical, too, for he had retreated with his right arm and the tongs extended towards the guest, and the vengeful snip Jamie gave the tongs, at the concluding sally, spoke volumes. But then, Jamie was only a fool.
The minister of the parish of my nativity—far away in the godly north, you know—had a fiddle, but he dared not play; he had a gun, but durst not shoot. His language was subdued and clerical, his smile—for to laugh would have endangered his stipend—was stereotyped, and his whole physiognomy like unto castor oil—cold drawn. Poor man! Nature had seen fit to inflict him with a very, very long nose. At home, in his own study, this nose and he got on well enough together, and he used frequently to treat it to snuff. But snuff in the pulpit! Ma conscience!!
Now—and kindly remember, Sir smoker, I am relating truthful incidents, although I do not give names—this nose of Mr. Mac’s, before his induction, was urged as an objection.
“But,” remarked a farmer friend of his, at an indignation meeting of the parishioners, “ his nose is his only objectionable point; otherwise his tout en semble (which the farmer pronounced “toot in simble”) is perfect.”
Up sprang the Laird of Dubbyloanin.”
“What” roared the laird, “perfect, d’ye say? The point o’ his tootin’ cymbal, as ye grandly call it, the only objectionable part! Man, hae ye neither sense nor mense? Ye call that nose a tootin’ cymbal! I call it a tootin’ horn, and no a gospel trumpet either; and not only is the point hookit and crookit like a water-kelpie’s, but the whole apothec o’ it is objectionable.
“ Losh! can you look at that nose and no laugh ? Ordinary sized deeviliks could sit stridelegs on the brig o’it,and mon! to hear him blaw it! Na, na, it’s no a natural nose, it’s no a righteous nose, it’s no the nose to sound the glad tidings o’ the gospel through and it’s no the nose a God-fearin’ congregation should sit under the shadow of; and I for one wash my hands o’ the whole bilin’ o’ it. Faugh! Baugh 1 Ipse dixi.”
Despite the Dubbyloanin party, however, poor Mr. Mac was duly installed, but the good man never walked up the pulpit stairs without a certain air of diffidence, such as one might exhibit if met in the company of a questionable character; and if ever he had occasion to blow the “ tootin’ cymbal,” as it was always called, in the pulpit, he did so with a sigh of resignation, such as an ill-used slave might heave while obeying the mandate of a tyrannical master; and a glance of apology round at the congregation which was quite touching to behold.
And here, positively, I’ve been led by the nose to the end of my chapter. Gordon Stables, M.D., B.N.
^hiisH Aspects of % (East
IV.
Without long preface, which is unnecessary, we herewith present to our readers the concluding portion of VAmb€ry’s charming chat on “ Tobacco and Narcotics: —
But, even among the Nomads, a Tschilim (as the pipe in Central Asia is called) is no rarity in the tent of the richer classes. In the Khanate of Khiva the pipe is very often to be met with; in Bokhara most smoking is secret; in Khokand there is not observably much smoking. As the Central Asiatic seeks in the pipe more a narcotic intoxicant than an enjoyment, a luxury, those smokers who have become accustomed to the biting quality of the Tobacco have sought and found a surrogate. This surrogate is opium; which, so far as my experience extends, is much more frequently used in Tartary than in Turkey or Persia. It is mostly dervisches who use, and who teach others to use, pipes made appetising with opium; dervisches, those arrant charlatans who, under the mask of religion, sneak away from the tumult of the world into their chankas (monasteries), not only themselves to revel, but to tempt and to teach others to revel, in this enervating luxury. In Central Asia the chanka is what the coffee-stall is in Turkey, and the tea-stall in Persia. Certain localities enjoy a special renown in the preparation of the poppy poison; on market days and festive days such localities swarm with opium smokers, indulging their appetite to excess. Unfortunately this vice is regarded as an attribute of higher culture; and during my residence at Khiva, the Khan, his Ministers, and the whole official class were enslaved by it. What a striking
fact it is, that the smokers of opium, though they may be emaciated to skeletons, enjoy in general a long life, which, from the terrible effects of this poison, appears truly inconceivable ! Those who go to very great lengths in the use of opium, fill their pipes with an incredibly strong dose; and never to be forgotten by me are the moments which I spent near such opium smokers when they were suffering from the most violent convulsions. Many distort their face into horrible grimaces, and round their cold, pale lips plays what seems the fierce fury of the destroying angel. Others with their hands and feet strike wildly round them, till, after the awful excitation, they sink into a sleep which resembles death.
In the city and in the Khanate of Bokhara, those mollahs who affect a superlative piety place Tobacco in the rank of “intoxicating drinks;” and as these are forbidden by the Koran, public smoking is strictly, sternly prohibited by the Government and the priests. Nevertheless, countless Tobacco shops are to be seen in the Bazaar of Bokhara. Consequently the trade in Tobacco is tolerated; and whether the consumers give themselves up to the narcotic enjoyment in their own house or in some hidden spot no one cares, for a sin committed in secret is regarded as no sin at all. Many proverbs and moral maxims are directed by the Nomads against the enjoyment of Tobacco. For instance, “When a traveller smokes he wastes six days on a four days’ journey;” “ When a hero smokes he takes away his love from his horse and his wife;” and so on. Spite of this, smoking gains ever a wider and wider extension, and the Nomads swarminground a newly-arrived caravan seek with the same avidity for pipes and Tobacco as their wives for bright-coloured cotton tatters and glittering beads.
On their marauding expeditions the Turcomans have at one side of the nosebag a small supply of food for their horse, and at the other the indispensable and supremely dirty smoking apparatus. They renounce the most necessary meal, if they can only deliver themselves up unreservedly to the wildly intoxicating enjoyment of the pipe. It is easy to understand that in Central Asia Tobacco is not employed very extravagantly. One pipe often suffices for a whole company. The old men, and the men of higher social position than their neighbours, have the first and fullest draws, the men of low degree the next; the youths and the slaves have to do their best to coax a few light clouds from the blackened powder. When the pipe is smoked out there is nothing but the minutest and dnest residue. The Ulemas, or learned men, with whom, especially in Bokhara, persons of a high social posi tion are classed, regard the pipe as impure. Tobacco, in their case, is not smoked, but snuffed, and verily in a revolting fashion; so revolting, indeed, that it must be difficult in Europe to conceive it. Almost all these prodigies of erudition, and many others besides, carry at their girdle a miniature gourd, which serves the purpose of a snuff-box. Every few minutes the snuffer seizes the snuff-holder, shakes out on the upper surface of his hand the dark yellow dust, which is tolerably sharp and tasteless, and then draws it with robust inhalation into the colossal nostrils. This mode of snuffing can also elsewhere be found; but horrible is the habit here of neglecting the nose, and of thrusting with the three fingers a mass into the mouth; or, to be more particular, between the gums and the teeth, and of then spitting out, after a few minutes, the loathsome mouthful. Woe to the poor man who is condemned to carry on conversation with a snuffer of this description, at the risk of being bedaubed by snuff-spittle!
The nasty and nauseous habit of eating snuff prevails in Bokhara, Afghanistan, and Northern India. It is thought to be a preservation against toothache. This is possible ; but it is certain and easily conceivable that the teeth, by such a mode of snuff taking, are frightfully disfigured. A very disgusting sight is offered by the women, who, shrinking from the smoking of Tobacco, yet give themselves up to this abominable custom. In the men, the beard to some extent catches and keeps the downfalling snuff; but in the women, the smooth chin always bears the dirty traces of this enjoyment; and I deem it very natural that a lady thus besmutted is not specially attractive in the eyes of her husband. As accompaniment of the pipe, tea figures in Central Asia, especially the black brick tea. This drink, seasoned with fat and salt, harmonises admirably with the rough smoking of coarse Tobacco, and has, after a long march of many leagues in the desert, a truly marvellous effect on the exhausted persons forming a band. The tea is taken boiling hot, and every gulp is followed by a whiff from the pipe. According to the opinion of the Tartars, tea and Tobacco are inseparably connected; and they believe that while the tea widens the veins and makes the blood more flowing, the head and brain are made clearer by smoking. They are convinced that a good pipe gives to the eye a double strength.
Finally, let mention be made of the improvised pipe of the Kirghis. This Nomad in the midst of the desert is often accustomed to smoke Tobacco without any artistic apparatus, if water be at hand. Often I had heard of such a mode of smoking, and to gain the conviction that it was a reality, I got the marvel of legerdemain performed before me. The Kirghis sought diligently in the fields till he found a loamy earth. First of all he dug a hole in the ground about as deep as a man’s two fists, making, however, the mouth of the hole much narrower than the interior space. This space he filled with water, and covered with a pipe head formed of wet clay.
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flose to the cavity, and brought into connection with the ater, ® PT° Rtem was slantingly inserted, and projected bout*the length of two fingers from the surface. Before this Nation®1? apparatus the Kirghis stretched himself at full
8 and enjoyed his pipe with delight as great and genuine
if he had been at a Nicotian feast in the house of a Turkish r Persian grandee. The cleanliness of the whole proceeding 0 naturally not be much boasted of. The Nomads extend Lrther their smoking propensities and practices, and employ • stead of Tobacco a plant of the desert. This surrogate is found growing as a tiny shrub; is long in proportion to the breadth, and is so biting in its effects that a single draw makes a stranger suffer for hours from headache. We see from what precedes that the pipe, from its most refined to its jest form, is everywhere loved and used with the same assionateness. The Mahometan nations, from Turkey to the frontiers of the remote celestial kingdom (China), regard the pTe a8’ nei* ^° bread, the enjoyment which can least be dispensed with. It offers moreover entertainment to the Orientals accustomed to the dolce far niente, who behold so willingly the slowly gliding hours vanish along with the ascending smoke; and even if the inhabitants of the West should forsake the Nicotian plant, the Orientals can never be unfaithful to it, for the pipe is identified with their whole mode of life* with all their customs.
Even as the unnatural constitution of the Harem has produced a still more unnatural and disgusting vice, so has the abstinence from wine and spirituous drinks engendered and cherished the liking for narcotic enjoyments. Haschisch, beng (or bang), opium, and, whatever their name, all the different substances which with paralysing and intoxicating effect act on the nervous system and the mental faculties of man, have comparatively small sway when certain members oftheMoslim community disregard the prohibition of wine and spirituous drinks. It is a well demonstrated fact that with the increasing consumption of arrack, the number of opium smokers has considerably diminished in Turkey; and that on the contrary in the more Eastern lands, where the religious laws are strictly observed, the number progressively increases. In Stamboul still lives the memory of the place called “ Asiundschilar, ” (opium smoker), where those horribly disfigured victims of an evil passion, under the shade of lofty trees, violently killed soul and body. Often have I heard it said how this place of amusement, and doubtless there were many such, was crowded from early morning to latest evening. While the opium smoker held in his left hand the pipe convulsively clutched, and with his right waved the large cup hither and thither to cool the coffee, the impudent young street ragamuffins crept behind him, and with long straws sucked the delicious Mocha of the half-conscious man. The living skeleton, believing that he had himself drank the coffee, cried, with a smile peculiar to him whois intoxicated with opium:—“Coffee waiter, fill the cup again.” It is notable enough that religious law winks at the wickedness and madness of these self-murderers; pretending that the intoxication of such persons is an intentional and powerful means for the suppression of sensual appetites, and for the more complete and fervent surrender of the whole soul to religious contemplations. Many who through devoted-ness to this vice had become half crazy were regarded as saints; and I myself knew a half dead creature of the sort who told me, in all earnestness, that the fire dwelling in his body was at certain seasons so powerful, that by a single touch he could change the wine in a large vessel into vinegar.
In Turkey, as we have just said, the driuking of arrack has in some measure antagonised and neutralised the empire of opium; and at the present day it is for the most part dervisches who, by the use of haschish and opium, try to excite in their soul visions, in order thereby to have the foretaste of future felicity. On that account, they give to these narcotics the name of “Esrar” (secrets). The chief esrar of Turkey is for the most part obtained from the celebrated P°PPy plantations of Broussa, Izmid, and Mosul. The highest leaves of the stalk are carefully collected, dried, pulverised, and, by means of a syrup, kneaded into small pas-tilles, portions of which are placed on the burning charcoal of the water pipe, and inhaled with the smoke. Sometimes aromatic ingredients, designed to increase the intoxicating effect, are mixed with the pastilles, in order to heighten the contours of the marvellous images of Paradise and the forefeeling of celestial happiness and other raptures. The esrar appears also in the form of small thin stalks, and of one of these a piece about as big as a pea I once swallowed to try in my own person the effect. My experience thereanent is ihnost too trifling to be recorded, for the beginning and the ead of the intoxication reminded me simply of an intoxication from drink. The society in which I was told me afterwards Mtonishing stories of my extraordinary joyousness, which, it is unnecessary to say, ended in deep sleep. I know Europe® who, under the influence of haschisch, thought them-*heB great poets, and threw their inspirations on paper, but ™i on becoming sober, were convinced of the crass absurdity °f their hallucinations. Alas! many Europeans have fallen a sacrifice to this vice; among others, the English General G. and Baron 8. The last of these—a highly gifted man, and, at the outset, a rich nobleman—sank so fast and so far that ne wasted to a skeleton, and, uncombed and unwashed, and covered, instead of clothes, with rags, wandered about for years in the streets of Constantinople. He might have tan thought mad, if a person entering into conversation
with him had not been persuaded of the contrary by his highly intellectual discourse in various European languages. Never, never can I forget seeing this former magnate, ill protected against the fierce winter’s cold by a few tatters, pass the house in which I resided at Stamboul, while he sang the song—
“ Thn Orient, the Orient,
Where ever blue the firmament.”
As might have been expected, he died of starvation on the street.
As already indicated, the use of narcotics increases the farther we go eastward. In Persia, benk, a preparation from the leaves of the Canabie Indica, cultivated by the der-visches, plays an important part, while opium or tirjak is taken in the shape of small pills by every man belonging to the so-called better classes. Polak states:—“ Even if the Persian takes opium for forty or fifty years, he seldom increases the dose, which, on an average, amounts daily to tw’o grammes, so that one person consumes in a month a miskal or a miskal and a-half (from sixty to ninety grammes: a gramme is equal to rather less than nineteen grains English). In the humid lowlands on the shores of the Caspian Sea, the dose is usually twice as large, that is, from three to four grammes. Partaken of with such regularity, even when there is a slow and gradual increase of the dose, opium seldom produces any hurtful effect on the organism. It causes no disturbance of the mental and corporeal functions, frequent constipation excepted; torpor of the intestines occurs, but not so often. In all other respects there is no perceptible effect. In the fortieth, and on the shores of the Caspian Sea in the thirtyfifth year, opium eating is less pernicious than at an earlier age; indeed the Persians maintain that after the fiftieth year a man must take opium to retain his vigour and freshness, and to reach extreme old age. In effect, I have known old men of from sixty to ninety, who for half-a-century had taken their daily portion of opium.” Malcolm mentions a Persian dignitary with whom he became acquainted on his first visit to Persia, and with whom he was especially struck, on account of the large doses of opium he was in the habit of taking. Malcolm warned the man against the terrible poison, which must soon bring him to the grave. Twelve years later, Malcolm met this same Persian, who looked corpulent and vigorous, and who shouted to him while yet at some distance: “He Sahib! I have doubled my dose of opium, and am, as you see, thoroughly stalwart, instead of lying in the grave.” With the narcotic called Tschers the case is naturally very different. It is exclusively used as an intoxicant, and, by the help of a pipe, inhaled in the shape of smoke. Polak states that when in the smoking of Tschers due moderation is not exceeded, it is neither depressing nor debilitating; that, on the contrary, it excites the phantasy, disposes to cheerfulness and joy, and gives to the mind a certain elastic pith. By my own experience, I can confirm Polak’s statement, for i have known some Persian men of culture whose phantasy, when under the empire of Tschers, was kindled to extraordinary force and brilliancy. To Tschers is likewise ascribed a marvellous power in the augmentation of valour; and, to give an example from the history of the present day, we may mention that this drug is said to have been the cause of a most treacherous deed: during an interview, Ekber Khan shot down the English Colonel Macnaughten, and thus brought on that terrible catastrophe which was so fatal to the English in Afghanistan. With great probability, many convulsions in the political and religious life in Iran are ascribed to the frequent use of this poison, forasmuch as the state of ecstasy which it engenders elevates the phantasy in a supreme degree in some men, while it depresses others into the weak, unresisting tools of revolutionary leaders. It has been thought that we may find similar causes and similar effects in the once formidable sect of the Assassins, which word is derived from the Arabic haschaschin (haschisch eaters), and also in the Communistic sect of the Babis. Assuredly the opium eater, if excess does not act destructively on the nervous system, is distinguished above other Orientals by greater vivacity; his eye has a fiery brilliancy; his speech, his movements are more rapid; and, favoured by these qualities, he is able to keep his vigour of will and action to an advanced age. But experience shows that the moderate use of this dangerous stimulant is after the fortieth year a very rare thing; and in Central Asia we may regard eight out of ten opium smokers as the deplorable victims of this passion. There, where the enjoyment of spirituous drinks is branded as a deadly sin, opium smokers, especially in the vicinity of the monasteries of the dervishes, are very numerous; and it was a horrible sight to me to behold strong, robust men becoming in a short time, through the inhalation of this poison, mentally and corporeally ruined. Death is very seldom the result of this vice. The victim, a ghastly skeleton, and with all his faculties dulled and deadened, attains for the most part a good old age, and he is subject to fewer diseases than other men; yet how tragical is the existence of these walking corpses! and how enormous is the harmfulness of opium compared with the effects arising from the use of spirituous drinks!
A Kind Son.—Paterfamilias (to his eldest son, who is at St. Bartholomew’s): “George, these are uncommonly good cigars! I can’t afford to smoke such expensive cigars as these.” George (grandly). “Fill your case—fill your case, gov’ner! I ”—Punch.
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^^t ^arbtn of "^t prosper” ^nn.
^Here, sit down
where it’s quiet, We cannot
well be seen; Please don’t create a riot, Be snug and all serene. Let’s keep the pot a-biling, And drink our cooper smiling, All dreariness beguiling With sweet Saint Nicotine.
We’re tired of children crying; How dismally they croak, As if they’re ever trying
To prove that life’s no joke. We’re weary of the showers Of tears that last for hours; Awhile we seek these bowers To do a peaceful smoke.
Here pewter kisses glasses, With none to interfere;
The daintiest of lasses
Is waiting on us here; Care shows itself a bubble, And vanishes with trouble, And if we do see double, It multiplies the beer.
No metal-buttoned “coppers” Look for a glass of wine, But happy green grasshoppers
In the gay sunlight shine: A cloud of blue smoke rises From mouths of various sizes, And freely advertises For ’Bacca none repine.
Pork, animate and feeding, Is grumbling in its sty;
Its fate needs little reading, I shall bespeak the fry;
And when it’s on the table, My family, all able, Will quite outbabel Babel: Methinks I hear the cry.
That pig, though strong as seven, Shall speedily be dead, Nor fly with wings to heaven, Though “pigs may fly,” ’tis said.
Observe how grand his nose is, Dwell eyes upon his toeses; D’ye think that he supposes For profit he is fed.
Beyond the broken portal The pretty waitress stands;
The chickens they have caught all The food from her fair hands.
She smiles, but will smile sweeter When William comes to greet her, For he has vowed to treat her To hear the Sunday bands.
_ We men wink at each other, And try to look forlorn;
We ask her “How’s her mother?” She tilts her nose in scorn.
So draughts of beer we swallow,
We know there’s more to follow, And vow that love is hollow, Uneasy night and morn.
The bees go liither, thither, Secure on flower or wing;
His skin must be of leather
Who dares to tempt their sting.
The while with nerves unshaken, We sit and talk of bacon: With eggs it should be taken, For that’s the proper thing.
We’ll come again to-morrow, Should we so long endure;
Jones says the cure for sorrow
Is “ Beer and ’Bacca, sure.”
We must not be forgetful
Of wives, or they’ll grow fretful, And presently be met full
Of looks not quite demure.
Though too much easy living With men does not agree. We take, with glad thanksgiving, A little quiet spree.
But no spree lasts for ever,
Or else good-bye to liver,
And nerves that could but shiver, Impaired beyond degree.
Now Brown, our neighbour, waken, And hand to me a light;
The poor man’s health is shaken, By study day and night.
“ Tish strange—I can’t—discern all—
The ’Bacca—didger burn all
Ze mashes—what?—I spurn all Your winkings—Pm not tight! ”
Sinbubn.
Copt’s ^idurt.
There is an advantage, now and then, in arriving the day after the fair. Next to the perfect blessedness of being totally ignorant of an evil is the comparative bliss of knowing that the mischief is over before you are made aware of its existence. It is a great relief to my nervous system to know —as one of your “ Press friends ” informs me—that “ The silly habit ladies have of wearing their lovers’ cigarette ashes in lockets is going out of fashion.” I don’t know which ladies. I don’t want to know where they live. I only hope the pretty custom may have died out altogether before I get there. I am aware that to wear the actual ashes of the departed lover himself in a locket “In Memoriam” is one of the charming fancies of the cremation devotees; but a smoker must have become a veritable “Tobacco Man”—as I think Lady Ptarmigan calls an old friend of mine in Tom Robertson’s comedy, “ Society ”—before his lady-love can mistake the ashes of his cigar for his own poor mortal remains. For myself, I have no great weakness for being hawked about dead, either in proprio persona or in the shape of a vicarious smoked cigar; and, if I must be worn by proxy upon Belinda’s snowy breast, my notion of “ sweetness and light” would be a suspended trinket enclosing a miniature photograph, safe from “prying eyes.”
When either a cigar or a smoker has died out, it is better to leave the ashes to the beneficent chemical offices of Mother Earth. “ Dying out ” is not so wholly cheerful in either case as to demand commemoration in those halls of dazzling light and haunts of gaiety where Belinda is most likely to seek consolation for vanished endearments. But the practice in question is not the only social custom or institution to which the process of “ dying out” is appropriate and healthful. Being informed that “When a New York man gets out of work he goes in debt for an Ulster coat, and smokes ten-cent cigars: meanwhile, his wife lives on pancakes and wears summer clothing,” I long for some more instances of “ dying out.” If we are to put our trust much longer in kid gloves, here is another case in which “ dying out ” might not be a bad idea:—
New York Herald loquitur: “Jersey City has a goat that chews Tobacco for a living; and not one of the Oddfellows’ lodges offers to take the poor old thing in.”
Whereupon, the New York Graphic thus: “The Herald says a Jersey City goat chews Tobacco. Sad! Only the third month of the New Year!”
The Glasgow News reported a case lately, fit for the same category. A street pedlar was arrested for fraud; in that he had driven a roaring trade in “ meerschaum ” pipes at eighteenpence and half-a-crown a-piece. But he was dismissed by Justice on the pretext that he had described his
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		— as “mere sham.” They were of French clay, well-with yellow glass mouthpieces to represent amber, mounted with tin. Punsters might say that silver is that the yellow glass was an ambiguous sort of outbpicce, and that the “ mere sham ” was a “ colourable” detest- My own opinion is, that the vendor took out a Let’s licence instead of a pedlar’s; and that the sooner his amusement is “ dying out ” the better for honest trade, justice m that case was clearly “ colour-blind.” JI am patiently awaiting the hour when it will be announced that “some S0-caUed Fine Art Association—National, Uni-verSftl	or other” (as the Newsvendor puts it) is “ dying out.” is very nice to be offered a guinea engraving for seventeen nV stamps; but it is not likely that the advent of the millennium will be hastened by the discovert’that your “guinea ngraving” is a lithographic or metalographic print, obtained bv transfer from some worn-out plate. Frequent repetitions of this kind of experience are not the most successful provocatives to loving your neighbour better than yourself— especially when you live next door to an artistic agent deep in philanthropic projects for the extension of culture among the poor, and the systematic elevation of the plebeian mind. If I am to rely upon Mons. E. Decroix, who rejoices in the appellation of “ Fondateur du Comit6 de la Viande de Cheval,” --liberally translated, “ Founder of the Horse Butchers’ Society,” “Inventor of Roast Horse,” dr “ Starter of the Pony Steaks,” (thought to be “horsey” enough)—“ L’Association Franvaise centre i’Abus du Tabac et des Boissons Alcobliques ” is “dving out.” Hence, Mons. E. Decroix has set on foot a new organisation, which he calls “ Societe contre I’Abus du Tabac.” Now, no man is more conscientiously opposed to the Abuse of Tobacco than myself; and as it is more abused by the Anti-Tobaccoites than by anybody else I am acquainted with I should rejoice in their universal agreement to vanish into thin smoke, after the example of their grand projects and their visionary finances. I should like to be made acquainted with any more successful attempt at the Abuse of Tobacco than that which prefaces the pamphlet in which M. Decroix embalms his views. I have so often quoted this kind of thing in English that I shall venture to seek recreation for myself and your readers by giving its latest development in the native tongue of its author; and should anybody fail to extract its essence because of the difficulties of the language, I ran conscientiously assure him he will find a fac-simile of the sense (if sense it be) in Dr. Drysdale’s last letter to the papers:— “Introduit en France vers le milieu du XVIe siecle, commo plants medieinale, et vant^ commo uno panacde universelie, le Tabac s’est propage progreMivement sous diverses formes, au point qu’aujourd’hui, une grande partie de la population en fait un abus qui determine I'affaiblisHement physique et moral, trouble lea fonctiona digestives et porte atteinte aux sens dugout et de lavue; trop sou vent, il eat une des causes de la folie, de la paralyse, des affections cancereuses dea levres et de la langue; il exerce une influence depressive sur lea facultea intellectuelles, notamment aur la memoire. et plus specialement chez lea jeunes gene.qu’un sot orgeuil fait tamer prematurement; enfin, il eat une des causes du decroissement de la population en France 1 ” That last argument seems to me a very effective one. To cany it a little further is not unfair. Because the French use so much Tobacco, they are becoming enfeebled and degeuerate. As the Germans use more Tobacco than the French, the Germans are becoming more enfeebled and degenerate than the French. Hence—Alsace and Lorraine have become German. You have not of the comprehension of so much?—but, yes? There are thirty-four Articles in the “Statute” of M. Decroix’s society; and, after reciting them, he asks me to hasten to subscribe, and so constitute myself a “fondateur.” I should say my present enthusiasm will not cany me quite so far. He has a tremendous lever, doubtless; but, like Archimedes, he lacks the foot of earth for a fulcrum, and he won’t move the world yet. There will be no early blazing of the Seine. An interesting volume might be written on “ Tobacco in Strange Places.” I believe the original of the following little story is to be found in the volume lately printed in Paris under the title of “ Offenbach en AmGrique.” Its contents— “Notes d’un Musicien en Voyage”—have, as you know, been repudiated by their putative author, and some parts of the narrative may not be absolute “ gospel.” But you have heard the Spanish proverb, and will tolerate this specimen:— “ At the Lyceum stiff more extraordinary things happened. The orchestra been put out of sight; an arrangement which proved in some respects inconvenient. It was difficult to hear; and the musicians,crowded together a pit and suffering from the heat, cooled themselves off as they could. The first evening one of the violins loosened his cravat and unbuttoned his The next, they took off their coats and played in shirt-sleeves, the course of a week the whole orchestra was in dishabille; then, one •gening the audience suddenly perceived a thin cloud of smoke rising from ^ "tage, and a panic began. But it was only the musicians who had lighted their cigars.” From the New York Lyceum to the Vatican, and from the tneatneal musicians to the Franciscan friars, is “ a far cry.” Nor should I attempt the adventurous flight, but that the devout friars presented the other day a grand box of snuff to “®P°pe; and their ancient and venerable spokesman, after expression of a tremulous but pious hope that the ™sure might afford the Holy Father “a little drop of consolation in the midst of all his afflictions,” eagerly (and * ^^dlily) cried aloud—“ Only smell it, Holiness!—just w*eUit!” That is how the Tobacco last came near Holy church. It got into York Castle less respectably. It was smuggled in—at the bottom of two butter tins, and under the butter—for the benefit of two incarcerated husbands; and	the self-sacrificing wives who took it in were fined five shillings each for breach of rules. But John Franklin, an “old soldier” in two senses—(having no wife to trust to in all probability)—adopted a more ingenious way of providing for his own modest wants. Being searched, he was found to have “ Twist” in his nectie, three yards of it on his legs as garters, a quantity in his coat lining, and plenty in his pockets. It cost him a fine of twenty shillings, with etceteras; and the old soldier now knows the meaning of the antique phrase— “Our dear Tobacco.” The other day, in the American House of Representatives, the speaker said that “ numerous complaints had come to him that there was a great deal of smoking on the floor of the House. He hoped that members would do their smoking in the cloak rooms;” and the New York Times, commemorating the occasion, says he “ might have borrowed the phrase of that great American orator, the peripatetic Pratt, when the college boys got him into a small close room, and proceeded maliciously to smoke and smoke and smoke—‘Gentlemen, your speaker ain’t a ham.’ ” One could understand this sort of amusement in the British House of Commons; for there would seem to be a continuous incitement to cigar-smoking when you have a good Brand in the Speaker’s chair. I fear, however, those two great authorities on points of order, Mr. Whalley and Dr. Kenealy, might find the practice objectionable. As for the member for Peterborough, instead of his smoking the Speaker, the Brand generally smokes him—much as they use the useful and exhilarating mosquito in warmer climates. Tobacco and the British Legislature do not coalesce quite so comfortably as of yore. It would be startling to find any modern chronicler employing now the language of Burton’s “Parliamentary Diary”—“Sir John Reynolds had numbered the House, and said, at rising, there were 220 at the least, besides Tobacconists.1* That extremely serious person, the late John Wilson Croker, was good enough to explain (in Notes and Queries for September 28th, 1861,) that the “ Tobacconists” in question were the smokers, who used to retire to what in late years became the tea-room, to dissipate the fogs of debate in the fumes of the fragrant weed. There, they were within call; and ready to prevent that Nemesis of prosy speakers and joy of the Reporter’s Gallery of later ages—“ a count ”—in case the magical “ forty” could not be made up without them. That our law-makers never (even in the early enthusiasm of “Tobacconists”) got so far in the toleration of the Divine Herb as have our cousins at Washington, is indicated by a rule of a bygone House of Commons, quoted by Sir Erskine May in the 1863 edition of “ The Law, Privileges, Proceedings, and Usage of Parliament”—“ That no member do take Tobacco.” Your Man-of-All-Work. S^e Just digar. [Translated from the German.'] Following the fashion of the Times, I intend to celebrate in a few days a small jubilee. It is exactly five-and-twenty years since I smoked my first cigar. With pride I can boast that during that quarter of a century I have made an important contribution to the Austrian Tobacco revenue. If I had been for the same period the doorkeeper of an imperial bureau, or the heater of an imperial stove, I should probably, in recognition of my services, have obtained the silver, perchance even the gold Cross of Merit. I have reason, however, to fear that my regular contributions to the income of the State are not destined to obtain the recompenses which are so readily bestowed on the loftier or lower participators in the State’s expenditure. I might, it is true, hold it on high as a circumstance calling for special recognition, that at the beginning of my Nicotian career I smoked only (so-called) Cubas, Portoricos, and Cabanos, and displayed therein a self-sacrificing patriotism worthy of the warmest approbation. It cannot, however, be denied that at a later period I did not bestow on the native sorts of cigars the same absolute, exclusive, and becoming favour; especially when I began analytical studies on the internal contents of a Cuba, and in my investigations came upon organic remains of a very peculiar order. Tn any case, it comes to pass that I have to renounce a cross, or any similar ornament, to be placed on the left side of my breast, and have to content myself with a festive celebration, sacred to memory. As a conscientious man, I feel bound to answer the question why I happened to stick the first cigar between my lips. While I ponder thereon, the time of youth, that beautiful period in which every human being darts about as a tadpole in the waters of life, in which we think we are men but are treated by all the world as children, in which we rub our soft heart round on the angles of existence; that period when the senses take a higher aim and the voice a deeper tone, the time of the first verses, the first love, and (an indispensable accompaniment, perchance, of human things) the first follies. The young man is usually discontented: he grumbles at Destiny as often as he looks into the mirror and sees that his upper lip is still as smooth as that of a maiden; that, as to moustaches, even his aunts are able to beat him. To conceal the sorrowful lack he keeps plucking at those parts of his face where hairs are fated finally to sprout; and the first needless expenditure which he ventures on from his ill-filled purse is the purchase of a razor.
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Tn the presence, in the company of men, he is pert and saucy, to show that he is their equal; but when his self-consciousness, recklessly dashing hither and thither, is cruelly smitten by the fly-flap of ridicule, the child in him gains a supremacy, and he seeks a place of refuge on the heart of his mother. She places her hand on his head, and tries to console him by saying, “Grieve not; your mother still loves you.” That at such moments we have the greatest happiness which earth can yield, we do not feel or know till a much later period. A young fellow whose blood is made rebellious by certain emotions previously unknown, is not aware what a precious blessing he possesses in the love of his mother; for, like a fish out of water and eager to return to it, he yearns for other love.
It was in a like disposition of soul that I found myself at the age of fifteen. Deeply and tenderly though I loved my mother, I thought less whether her eyes rested on me with satisfaction, as whether I could inspire sympathetic feelings in the bosom of my neighbour’s daughter. With her image I rose in the morning and went to sleep in the evening—that is, figuratively speaking; for, though photography was already invented, it had not yet penetrated into the little town in which I was brought up. All my thoughts were fixed on her, and before I went to the school in the morning I tried to catch a glance of her or a word from her. Verily this was not difficult, for our families dwelt on the same floor and had a corridor in common. In that corridor I stood, with freezing blood and chattering teeth, in the grimmest winter cold, patiently waiting till the lovely one made herself visible. As her mother held her stiffly and stoutly to home duties, it was generally armed with a duster that the enchantress burst on my vision. But this duster seemed to me more beautiful than Oberon’s lily-stalk. I seized her hand tenderly, and bashfully asked her how she had slept. If she answered, “Like a marmot,” I longed to throw my arms round her neck; and if, moreover, she said, “ And you, Mr. Charles ? ” I wholly forgot in my joy to give a reply, and dashed down the stairs with enormous leaps.
But if the adored one did not appear on the scene (of the corridor), I went to the school in a very mournful mood; not before, however, I had written with my finger on all the window panes within my reach, which were covered with frost, the initials of her name. That I did invariably and everywhere; and even in a place signally unfavourable to poetical sentiments and associations. But thither she might go, and have one proof more how much and how continually I thought of her. Likewise I scrawled on my school books, and even on the margin of my theme books, a large “ F. R.,” for she was called Friederike, and to utter this name a hundred times in the course of the day, to speak of Friederike, even when I had not the slightest occasion, seemed to me the sweetest of pleasures and the holiest of duties.
Friederike, like myself, was fifteen years old. She was a tall, slim maiden, with smooth blonde hair, blue eyes, and a Madonna-like face, full of innocence and tenderness. I called her Friederike von Lesenheim. When on one occasion I gave her this name she was offended, for she was not acquainted with Goethe’s works, and I am afraid that her literary culture had been somewhat neglected. She read little, but displayed great zeal and energy in the kitchen at a large old-fashioned open fireplace, in whose heights sundry hams were undergoing their internal development by means of smoking. At this fireplace the flame of my love always found new nourishment ; for every vacant hour I had I hindered Friederike in her operations, and watched her with intensest rapture when she made dumplings. Her hands were by no means either small or delicate—were, on the contrary, tolerably large and rough; but they seemed fairy hands to me. I was never tired of looking at them; never stirred from her side. She sometimes said to me, “You are in my way;” and I replied to her by a look which might have touched the heart of the dumplings themselves.
Naturally, all my aims and efforts were directed to make Friederike love me. That a maiden of fifteen cannot love a schoolboy of fifteen I was at that time, as may be supposed incapable of understanding. I took it for granted that I must succeed in winning her heart. But how?—that was the question. In my personal appearance I did not place excessive confidence. Modesty prevents me from entering into any minute details respecting my exterior; yet I must mention a remarkable peculiarity which caused me infinite trouble. In the period which has received the flattering name of the clown years, my hair had a curious characteristic: the whole mass of it stood on end. I might brush it and comb it as much as I liked; I might drench it with water, or twist it with curling irons—all was in vain I If my hair were cut I looked like a hedgehog, and if I allowed it to grow long I looked like a porcupine. The consciousness of this heaven-storming frisure almost plunged me in despair; for Friederike, though a good-natured creature, laughed at the outrageously obstinate horror. That made me still more faint-hearted, and night and day I racked my brains to discover how I could make the maiden’s soul turn in tenderness toward me.
A desultory observation of Friederike illuminated my intellect with an inspiring spark. “Do you not smoke yet? ” she asked, and it seemed to me that she placed on the yet a significant emphasis. Suddenly I now became convinced that I must smoke. Up to this period, spite of the standing and stern prohibition of smoking which extended to all my
schoolfellows, and which drove most of them to a precocious indulgence in Nicotian pleasures, I had made no attempts in that direction. Omnipotent love, however, now impelled me to enter the nearest Tobacco shop. The mere smell of the American plant made me shudder internally, and on my way to the shop dark presentiments seized hold of me. A few days before I had seen one of my schoolfellows smoking in the garden of his parents his father’s meerschaum, which he had secretly prigged. During our conversation I beheld him grow pale and ever paler, even as Heine’s Asra did; thereupon with tottering steps he suddenly vanished, and he returned no more. This vision rushed afresh on my fancy, and my heart beat the more violently the nearer I approached to the painted Turk sitting in majestic calm in the shop. But I said to myself, “Whoso resolves to win a woman’s love must be a man. Whoso resolves to be a man must smoke. So Forward! Forward! ”
With a defiant and determined air I entered the Tobacco shop, and trying to speak with as deep a voice as possible, I asked for half-a-dozen Portoricos. These were the smallest cigars which at that time were obtainable. The shopwoman darted an insulting look at me, and said with a wicked smile, “ Do you smoke already, young gentleman?” “I have long been a smoker,” answered I, keenly offended; “give me also three Cabanos.” When, furthermore, I had received the matches which I demanded, I went away with the immense, the becoming pride of a German youth.
That same evening I entered the abode of Friederike’s parents. Here there was a social gathering, many young people being present. All sorts of pastimes were going on. ^°sy joy glowed on the faces of the maidens, whose kind approving smiles the youths were doing their best to gain. I watched till there was a lull in the talk, then rose and bowed to the mistress of the house, and said, with the solemn mien of an ambassador presenting his credentials, “Gracious lady, is it permitted to smoke here?” The good woman looked at me with astonishment, then replied kindly, “It neither harms nor annoys me.” And now came the awful moment. Slowly I took a cigar from my breast pocket, bit off the wrong end, which in the excess of my zeal I swallowed, rubbed a match into such a prompt and powerful flame that I btirned my breeches; and now from my mouth rose the first blue clouds heavenwards.
I was in a state of ecstasy. I sat close to Friederike, and poured the smoke upon her as if she had been made of meerschaum. She seemed to me more beautiful than ever, and I thought her eyes were fixed on me longer and more tenderly than had been their wont. It is true that after five minutes I began to feel rather uncomfortable. The fist of a giant appeared to have a tight and terrible hold of my temples. But I stoutly combated the discomfort, and smoked on recklessly, while I whispered in Friederike’s ear those preposterous hints and allusions in which an awkward lad of fifteen takes refuge who has not the courage to say right out, “I love thee.” Peradvanture, also, I was haunted by the conviction that I was not old enough yet to make a frank and full confession. The maiden did not listen very attentively. All at once, however, she interrupted me with the exclamation, “Good God! How ill you look! Is anything the matter with you?” I flung a look at the mirror: a face white as chalk and full of anguish glared toward me. Drops of perspiration stood on my forehead; my hands trembled; but I did not lay the cigar down, for a youth three years older than I had just said to me, mockingly, “Probably you are not yet able to stand smoking.”
At that moment the voice of the master of the house came from the next chamber: “To supper.” We all rose up, and I offered Friederike my arm, in order, as a gallant knight, to conduct her to the table. But a terrible doom was in store for me. My feet tottered; the room began to reel round me, and a nameless queasiness, such as, seventeen years afterwards, assailed me when I was in a storm on the Black Sea, seized me with its catlike claws. In a state of half-unconsciousness, I left the adored one standing, and rushed out of the door. Behind me I heard a roar of boundless laughter, and that roar was the knell of my love.
Such is the melancholy history of my first cigar. Calmly and contemplatively I intend to celebrate my first cigar’s twenty-fifth anniversary. Of the happiness of youth, of all youth’s golden dreams, nothing remains to me except what remains when we have smoked a cigar: a small heap of ashes.
^tn Jonson.
VI.
Jonson died in his sixty-fifth year, in August, 1637; according to Gifford, on the 6th, the funeral being on the 9th. But Col. Cunningham cites from “Notes and Queries” the following record, by Sir Edward Walker, Garter:—“Thursday, 17 August. Died at Westminster, Mr. Benjamin Johnson, the most famous, accurate, and learned poet of our age, especially in the English tongue, having left behind him many rare pieces, which have sufficiently demonstrated to the world his worth. He was buried the next day following, being accompanied to his grave with all or the greatest part of the nobilitye and gentry then in the towne.” The different
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j tefltorthe death may arise from the one being Old style and the other New (although the New was not legally established in g gland until more than a century later, 1752), but those of J funeral cannot be thus reconciled. He was buried in West-■nster Abbey, “in the north aisle, in the path of square t ne opposite to the scutcheon of Robertas de Ros.” His J >nds and admirers projected a noble monument to his mory*10 be ra^sed by subscription, and in the meantime h’s rennin® were covered with the pavement stone which had h n removed for the interment. Aubrey relates that Sir j bn Young, chancing to pass through the abbey, and not J during that the remains of so great a man should lie at all 6 thout a memorial, gave one of the workmen eighteenpence tn cut the famous inscription, “O rare Ben Jonson!” An •de sum was raised for the monument, but its erection was hindered by the political and religious agitations resulting in the great Civil War, and the money was returned to the subscribers. He left no family. His wife appears to have died some time before his journey into Scotland. If he married nothing is known, I believe, of the second wife and currish save what is recorded in the following entry, which probably, but not quite certainly, relates to him, extracted bv Mr. Collier from the register of St. Giles, Cripplegate: “Married Ben Jonson and Hester Hopkins, 27th July, 1623.” He would be then just past fifty.
monument of another kind was achieved to him in the “Jonponus Virbius; or, the Memory of Ben Jonson. Reeved by the Friends of the Muses;’’ being a collection of elegies in English and Latin, with one in Greek, published about six months after his death, under the care of Duppa, Bishop of Winchester and tutor to the Prince of Wales, and reprinted by Gilford at the end of the “Works.” In the list of contributors are some of the best known names of the period (we must bear in mind that most of the supremely great men whom we are wont to think of as Jonson's contemporaries, the “Elizabethans” and their juniors associated with his prime, died before him); including Lord Falkland, who is said to have given the title “Jonsonus Virbius;” Sir John Beaumont, son of the anther of “Bosworth Field,” and nephew of the dramatist; the good Henry King, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, a genuine, though a minor poet; Thomas May, translator of Lucan, and historian of the Parliament; William Habington, Edmund Waller, John Cleveland, Jasper Mayne, William Cartwright, Owen Feltham of the “Resolves,” James Howell of the “Familiar Epistles,” Shackerley Marmion, Ralph Brideoake (Bishop of Chichester after King), and John Ford the dramatist. I have already quoted some Unes from Falkland’s “Eglogue;” but a few more may here be given:—
“Alts! that bard, that glorious bard is dead.
Who, when I whilom cities visited. Hath made them seem but hours which were full days, Whilst he vouchsafed me his harmonious lays.
“Jonson you mean, unless I much do err, I know the person by the character.
* Her great instructor gone, I know the age No less laments than doth the widowed stage, And only vice and f< >lly now are ghul;
Oar gods are troubled, and our prince is sad.
“ How he, when he could know it, reaped his fame, And long outlived the envy of his name: To him how daily flocked, what reverence gave, AU that bad wit, or would be thought to have, Or hope to gain, and in so large a store, That to his ashes they can pay no more, Eicept those few who censuring, thought not so, But aimed at glory from so great a foe: How the wise too, did with mere writs agree, As Pembroke, Portland, and grave Aubigny; Nor thought the rigidest senator a shame, To contribute to so deserved a name.”
Lord Clarendon, in the “History of his own Life,” says of Falkland, whose name always suffuses his style with a cordial glow: “He had naturally such a generosity and bounty in him that he seemed to have his estate in trust for all worthy persons who stood in want of supplies and encouragement, as Ben Jonson and others of that time, whose fortunes required, and whose spirits made them superior to ordinary obligations.” There is a letter from Ben to the Earl of Newcastle, dated 4th February, 1632:—“I have here obeyed your commands, and sent you a packet of my own praises, which I should not have done if I had any stock of modesty instore; but ‘obedience is better than sacrifice,’ and you command it. I am now like an old bankrupt in wit that am driven to pay debts on my friends’ credit; and, for want of satisfying letters, to subscribe bills of exchange.” This letter enclosed several poems, among which were two from Falkland, then Sir Lucius Cary; the first being “ An Anniversary Epistle on Sir Henry Morison, with an Apostrophe t° my father Jonson,” and the other an “ Epistle to his noble father Ben.” Falkland, in the letter accompanying, speaks most modestly of his verses: “ What is ill in them (which I fear is all) belongs only to myself; if there be anything tolerable, it is somewhat you dropt negligently one day at The Dog, and I took it up.” Morison died young in 1629 or 1630, just before Cary, then twenty, married his aster Letitia, of whom Clarendon says: “ She was a lady of a most extraordinary wit and judgment, and of the most aPml virtue, and exemplary life, that the age produced, and who brought him many hopeful children in which he took great
delight.” “ Underwood’s ” LXXXVIII. is termed “ A Pindaric Ode to the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison,” being written on the early death of the latter. Here is the second Antistrophe:—
“ Alos! but Morison fell young:
He never fell,—thou full’st, my tongue.
He stood a soldier to the last right end, A perfect patriot, and a noble friend;
But most a virtuous sou.
All ofllces were done	x
By him so ample, full, and round,
In weight, in measure, number, sound, As, though his ago imperfect might appear, His life was of humanity the sphere.”
The third Strophe has been often quoted:—
“	It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, thres hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:
A lily of a day. Is fairer far, in May, Although it fall and die that night; It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in abort measures life may perfect be.”
Whence the Antistrophe swells triumphant over grief: —
“	Call, noble Lucius, then for wine,
And let thy looks with gladness shine: Accept this Garland, place it on thy head, And think, nay know, thy Morison’s not dead.
He leaped the present age, Possest with holy rage, To see that bright eternal day; Of which we priests and poets say Such truths os we expect for happy men: ”
Many features of Ben’s character have been incidentally illustrated in the course of these articles, but now some special attention must be given to it. Let us commence with Drummond’s sketch in exceedingly black chalk, “ the portrait composed almost entirely of shadows,” already referred to (Tobacco Plant, January, p. 992), and try whether we can work up from this something like an accurate likeness:—
“He is a great lover and praiser of himself; a contemner and scorner of others; given rather to losse a friend than a jest; jealous of every word and action of those about him (especiallie after drink, which is one of the elements in which he liveth); a dissembler of ill parts which raigne in him, a bragger of some good that he wanteth; thinketh nothing well hot what either he himself or some of his friends and countrymen hath said or done; he is passionately kynde and angry; carelesse either to gaive or keep; vindicative, but, if he be well answered, at himself.
“For any religion, as being versed in both. Interpreteth best sayings and deeds often to the worst. Oppressed with fantasie, which hath over mastered his reason, a generail disease in many Poets. His inventions are smooth andeasie; but above all he excelleth in a Translation.”
This is indeed a bright testimonial from “your loving friend, W. D.,” who had written two days before, “there is nothing I wish more than to be in the calendar of those who love you”! “Save me from my friends!” said the wise Italian; “against my enemies I can guard myself.” Lotus consider this magnanimous eulogium somewhat in detail. “He is a great lover and praiser of himself.” That Jonson, like every other man, loved and praised himself (such as make show of most humility praising themselves most intolerably), I do not deny; but that he was a great lover and praiser of himself, exceeding common men in these respects, I find no proof. True, he had a full share of self-esteem, to which he frankly gave voice when occasion demanded; but this selfesteem was firmly based on solid merits. High-minded, brave, sincere, never writing from unworthy motives, or with intentions other than honourable, planning with patient care, and working out with conscientious thoroughness; aware, as he could not but be aware, that in classical learning, and in the sober taste and judgment which such learning nourishes, he was almost if not quite unequalled; he would neither bow nor pretend to bow to vulgar censures of what he knew to be above the vulgar comprehension; neither consent nor affect to consent to be mixed up with the lower class of playwrights, unlearned and unskilful, producing in hottest haste, pandering to the mob, often scurrilous, profane, and obscene.
“ A contemner and scorner of others; given rather to lose a friend than a jest; jealous of every word and action of those about him (especially after drink, which is one of the elements in which he liveth).” Everything we know of Jonson, bearing upon these charges, tends to falsify them. Gifford says, and says well: “It cannot be too often repeated that this writer, who has been described as a mere mass of spleen and ill-nature, was, in fact, the frankest and most liberal of mankind. I am fully warranted in saying that more valuable books given to individuals by Jonson are yet to be met with than by any [other] person of that age. Scores of them have fallen under my own inspection, and I have heard of abundance of others.” And in a note he cites confirmation from the elder Disraeli (“Quarrels of Authors”): “No [other] has left behind him in MS. so many testimonies of personal fondness as Ben Jonson, by inscriptions and addresses, in the copies of his works, which he presented to his friends. Of these I have seen more than one fervent and impressive.” And William Godwin (in “Appendix to the Lives of E. and J. Philips;” where, by tne way, he points out in some detail, how largely Milton was indebted to Jonson): “ That he was envious, and sparing in
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commendation to his contemporaries, may as well immediately be denied. His Commendatory Verses on Shakespeare, Drayton, Donne, Fletcher, Sir John Beaumont, and others [many others] may easily be consulted; and he that finds in them any penury of praise, any malicious ambiguity, or concealed detraction, may safely be affirmed to have brought a mind already poisoned to their perusal.” Indeed, it is scarcely too much to assert that in his Poems we find generous and hearty while discriminating eulogy of all the most justly eminent persons of his time, and especially of those eminent in literature and in his own department of literature; as well as most kindly and encouraging praise of many writers of a lower degree. And how cordial were his relations with the worthiest of his literary brethren, may be seen not only from his commendations of them, but from their commendations of him. Besides those named as contributing to the “ Jonsonus Virbius,” we have Commendatory Verses, either on particular dramas or on his works in general, from George Chapman, Donne, Francis Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden (in Latin), and Selden’s “most beloved Friend and Chamberfellow” Edward Heyward, to whom the “Titles of Honour” was dedicated, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Oldham, Herrick, Shirley, and others. Shirley having, as Gifford notes, been singled out with exquisite propriety, by Steevens and others, as the most scurrilous of Jonson’s enemies, it may be well to give some lines from his Prologue to the “Alchemist,” written for a performance of it after Jonson’s death:—
“ ‘ The Alchemist,’ a play for strength of wit, And true art, made to shame what hath been writ In former ages; I except no worth Of what or Greeks or Latins have brought forth; Is now to be presented to your ear,	1
For which I would each man were a Muse here To know, and in his soul be fit to be Judge of this master-piece of comedy;
Which, though some men that never reached him may
Decry, that love all folly in a play;
The wiser few shall this distinction have, • To KNEEL, NOT TREAD, UPON HIS HONOURED GRAVE.”
Strange scurrile enmity this!—as strange, in its kind, as the loving friendliness of “your loving friend, W. D.”
Sigvat.
Uttos of @b Hooks.
The Barlj English Text Societg.
[CONTINUATION.]
1868.
31.	Instructions for Parish Priests. By John Myrc. Edited from Cotton MS. Claudius A. II., by Edward Peacock, Esq., F.S.A., etc., etc.
This is a sort of “ priestcraft made easy,” whereby a parson who was ** not grete clerk ” might learn what to preach and teach his people. The duties of the parson are very plainly laid down. He must not swear, avoid the deadly sins, keep away from taverns, trading and athletic festivals, avoid dancing, fine clothes, women, and lewd jokes. He must be hospitable, gentle, given to reading the psalter, and be careful to have his crown and beard duly shaven. The priest is to be a sort of guide, philosopher, and friend to the entire parish, even to the teaching the midwife her duties. There is no indication of either benches or pews in the church, and the fact that the church-yard was in a great measure also the village gymnasium becomes evident. There is even a touch of grim humour in our author:—
“I holde hyt but an ydnl thynge To speko myche of teythinge, For thay a preste be but a fonne, Aske hys teythenge welle he conne.”
A priest, when so drunk as to be unable to use his tongue, is not to baptise I
32. The Babees Book, Aristotle's ABC, Urbanitatis, Stans
Puer ad Mensam, The Lytille Childrene's Lytil Boke. The Bokes of Nurture of Huyh Rhodes and John Russell, Wynkyn de Worde's Boke of Kervynge, The Booke of Demeanor, The Boke of Curtasye, Seager's Schoole of Vertue, etc., etc. With some French and Latin Poems on like subjects, and some Forewords on Education in Early England. Edited by F. J. Fumivall, M.A., Trin. Hall, Cambridge.
Tins is one of the most interesting, and probably the most amusing, of the books issued by the Society. It is a photographic picture of the dirt and discomfort of merry England in the olden times, with its girls of the period, who were not to get drunk too often, its naked scullions even in the palaeo of the king, its horror of water, paucity of soap, and general filthiness of habit and speech. Doubtless there was a brighter side. The manners of the fifteenth century may be conceived from the injunctions that those who learned the rules of courtesy and good breeding were not to quarrel at table, not to make grimaces, not to fill their cheeks with food, like apes, not to eat on both sides of the mouth, not to laugh with the mouth full, nor to sup with fir eat sounding, not to put back in the bread dish that which had been already bitten, not to spit on the table, not to pick teeth at meals, and that it was necessary to make specific commandments against other nastinesses!
33.	The Book of the Knight de la Tour Landry, 1372. A Father's Book for his Daughters, Edited from the Harleian MS., 1764, by Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., and Mr. William Rossiter.
The castle of La Tour-Landry, in the old province of Anjou, still remains, though but a fragmentary resemblance of the feudal homo that rose there in the twelfth century. Geoffroy de la Tour-Landry, the author of the book, took an active share in the wars of his day, but had probably more literary tastes than many of his contemporaries; so that when, as a widower with daughters rising to womanhood, he thought upon the days of his youth, and the subtle devices of his “ felawes ’’ against the purity and fair fame of ladies, he resolved to compile a book which should point out to them the more excellent way of living and warn them against the wiles of the wicked world. The result is a work curious to us now, as showing clearly what was thought to be the proper conduct of life for the daughters of a well-born gentleman of France in the fourteenth century. It is still more curious from the variety and oddity of the anecdotes and apologues with which the
duties and graces of life are enforced. These tales do not give one a favourable opinion either of the morality or courtesy of the period when shrewish or jealous wives (there were many of the latter with good cause) seem to have come in for beatings and broken noses. This last is, of course, a great misfortune; for, as the good knight truly observes, “it is the farest membre that man or woman hathe, and sittithe in the middille of the uisage.” One of the tales shows the antiquity of the bit of folk-lore still current, that they who look overmuch in the looking-glass will see the devil. In the case narrated his appearance was of the most indecorous description, but then Satan had not been civilised by Goethe when this book was written.
34.	Old English Homilies and Homiletic Treatises. (Sawles Warde, and the Wohunge of Ure Lauerd: Ureisuns of Ure Louerd and of Ure Lefdi, etc.) of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Edited from MSS. in the British Museum, Lambeth, and Bodleian Libraries; with Introduction, Translation, and Notes, by Richard Morris. First Series, Part H.
35.	Sir David Lyndesay's Works. Part UI. The Historie of ane Nobil and Wailzeand Sqvyer, William Meldrum, umqvhyle Laird of Cleische and Bynnis, compylit be Sir Dauid Lyndesay of the Mont alias Lyoun King of Armes. With the Testament of the said Williame Meldrum, Squyer, compylit alswa be Sir Dauid Lyndesay, etc. Edited by F. Hall, D.C.L.
1869.
36.	Merlin, or the Early History of King Arthur. A Prose Romance (about 1450-1460, a.d.), edited from the unique MS. in the University Library, Cambridge, by Henry B. Wheatley. With an Essay on Arthurian Localities, by J. S. Stuart Glennie, Esq. Part HI. 1869.
This part concludes the print of the Merlin romance, and is prefaced by Mr. Stuart Glennie’s elaborate essay, in which the localities of the mythical hero of the Round Table are attempted to be identified with Scottish places. There is also a defence by Mr. C. H. Pearson of the old-established theory which regards Arthur as a West of England monarch. The story of Merlin and of his connection with the blameless king, is one that will long serve as a quarry whence poets and painters will draw inspiration.
37.	Sir David Lyndesay's Works. Part IV. Ane Satyre of the thrie estaits, in commendation of vertew and vituperation of vyce. Maid be Sir David Lindesay, of the Mont, alias Lyon King of Armes. At Edinburgh. Printed be Robert Charteris, 1602. Cvm privilegio regie. Edited by F. Hall, Esq., D.C.L.
Lindsay has many sly hits at the manners and morals of his time, having a special fondness for showing up the vices of the clergy, such as the rich abbot who boasts of his mistress, and says:—
** I send my sons to Pareis/to the senilis: I traist in God that thay salbe na fuillis. And all my dochters I haue weill providit.”
38.	The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman, together with Vita de Dowel, Dobet, et Dobest, Secundem Wit et Resoun, by William Langland (1377 a.d.). The “Crowley" Text; or Text B. Edited from MS. Laud Mise. 581, collated with MS. Rawl. Poet. 38, MS. B. 15.17. in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, MS. Dd. 1. 17. in the Cambridge University Library, the MS. in Oriel College, Oxford, MS. Bodley 814, etc. By the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A., late Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge.
This the learned editor regards Text B as being probably an autograph copy of the poem.
39.	The “Gest Hystoriale" of the Destruction of Troy. An Alliterative Romance, translated from Guido de Colonna's “Hystoria Troiana." Now first edited from the unique MS. in the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow, by the Rev. Geo. A. Panton and David Donaldson. Part I.
1870.
40.	English Gilds. The Original Ordinances of more than One Hundred Early English Gilds: Together with the olde usages of the cite of Wynchestre; The Ordinances of Worcester; The Office of the Mayor of Bristol; and the Customary of the Manor of Tettenhall-Regis. From Original MSS. of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Edited with Notes by the late Toulmin Smith, Esq., F.R.S. of Northern Antiquaries (Copenhagen). With an Introduction and Glossary, etc., by his daughter, Lucy Toulmin Smith. And a Preliminary Essay, in Five Parts, On the History and Development of Gilds, by Lu jo Brentano, Doctor Juris Utriusque et Philisophia.
This volume, whilst interesting as a collection of philological documents, is of still more importance as data respecting the social life of the middle ages. It is difficult to over-estimate the importance of the part played by the Guilds. They were friendly societies, insurance companies, trading associations,and fulfilled a perplexing variety <>f functions and offices. Dr. Brentano, in his preliminary introduction, expresses his belief that England is the birthplace of the guilds. The frith guilds of London are an early example of local selfgovernment. This was the point about them which had the greatest attraction for Mr. Toulmin Smith, the result of whose researches forms the bulk of this volume. It is to be regretted that death prevented him from giving the views which he had based upon them. The want is, however, supplied in a degree by the introduction written by his daughter. The method of these bodies may be understood from the regulations of the Gild of Palmers at Ludlow, which was founded a.d. 1281, had three chaplains, one for the living, one for the dead, and one for the holy cross, and had for object to give help to its members suffering from theft, fire, shipwreck, or other mishap. If a brother or sister of the gild had goods wrongfully seized, the common funds were to be applied in securing lawful remedy. The members were to be helped in sickness; dowries were to be provided for “ good girls,” that they might either marry or go into a religious house. Services for the dead were to bo attended by all the nu mbers. “Night watches” with the de ad were allowed, but only on condition that “ the watcher neither calls up ghosts, nor makes any mockeries of the body or its good name, nor does any Other scandal of the kind.”
An interesting matter in connection with the returns made in 1389 is the fact that several of them are written upon linen paper, which one would not expect to find in use at that date in England.
[To be continued.}
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Ew^JL]	JUNE, 1877.	[M®^/
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Tn “Tegetthoff,” an Austrian screw steamer of 300 tons, left Bremerhaven on the 13th of June, 1872. She had on board stores and provisions which were calculated to last about three years. The crew numbered in all twenty-four men, including Captain Carlsen, the well-known Norwegian navigator, who joined the expedition at Tromso as ice-mate and harpooner. Sixteen were Dalmatian seamen, who must have been keenly alive to the strange difference between the wintry Arctic and the sunny Adriatic.
Long before the appearance of the magnificent book whose title is placed on the bottom of this column,* all eager watchers of the progress of Arctic exploration had been made acquainted with the general history, experiences, andresultsof the splendid effort of the Austrians. So far back as November 10th, 1874, an admirably succinct paper, by Lieut. Julius Payer, was read before our own Royal Geographical Society, which was afterwards printed in the Society’s Journal, and illustrated with one of Mr. Ravenstein’s lucid maps. In September, 1875, his companion, Lieut. Weyprecht, read an account of the expedition before the Naturforscher-Versammlung at Gratz, in Styria, a summary of which was communicated to an English scientific periodical.! The two explorers had managed, in the summer of 1871, to reach, in a small hired vessel, a very high latitude in the Novaya Zemlya Sea. They found there open waters to the eastward. This discovery aroused the hope that a passage towards Behring Straits might be found by the north of Novaya Zemlya, “ in spite, ”as Sir Henry Rawlinson observed, “of the adverse experience of centuries of enterprise in this direction.” The sailing of the “Tegetthoff” expedition in 1872, under the command of the two lieutenants, was the result of the excitement raised in Hungary and Austria by the account of their 1871 voyage. A national subscription was started for covering the expenses of the undertaking.
The “Tegetthoff” left Tromso on the 14th of July, 1872. At the south of William Island it was overtaken by Graf Wilezek’s yacht, in which that nobleman, the generous and enlightened originator of the expedition, had effected his difficult passage from Spitzbergen, in order to establish a depttnear Cape Nassau for the use of the expedition. The two vessels remained in company some time. On the 21st of August the “ Tegetthoff ” steamed away towards the north, bound for the supposed open route past the shores of Siberia. But the season of 1872 was less favourable than that of 1871. The ship was caught in the drift-ice not far from the shores of Novaya Zemlya. For two long and dreary the members of the Austro-Hungarian expedition were utterly helpless prisoners in the iron grip of King Frost. “Barren of all hope,” says Lieut. Payer, “the first year lay before us. We were no longer discoverers, but were doomed to remain as powerless voyagers on a floe of drifting ice.” The unusually severe frost of 1872 embedded their ship faster 111 the ice, from which, indeed, it never got free. The grounding fragments of ice were frozen into huge masses, which neither sawing nor blasting could release the the pieces of ice froze together again immediately wing sawn asunder. On the 13th of October their
*4^ ^^ within the A retie Circle.” Narrative of the Discoveriee of JlT^lhiP “Tegetthoff” in the years 1872-1874. By Julius Payer, Ccnunanden of the Expedition. Two vole. Macmillan, 1876.
t Nature. Vol. xii., pp. 460-9.
situation became appalling. The long dead lethargy was succeeded by astonishing commotion, and they found that they were exposed to the fearful pressure of the ice. Again and again, in the midst of a polar night, they expected to be summoned to save themselves by flight from the foundering ship, not knowing whither to turn for safety. The floe in which the ship was embedded was uplifted by other floes forcing their way beneath it. Preparations were made for passing the winter as bravely and cheerfully as possibly. A rampart of ice was built up round the vessel, and had to be kept in continual repair. Special care was taken to find employment for the spring-expectant crew. Watches were set regularly, exercises instituted, and a school opened. On the Sundays a simple but impressive service was celebrated under the awning with which the deck was roofed in; the Bible was read in Italian by the dim light of a train-oil lamp. The fine dogs were reduced to seven, and when the stock of dried horse-flesh wasexhausted the crew were fed on the flesh of bears and seals. On the 28th of October commenced the dreariest day of this veritable winter of winters. The sun disappeared below the horizon, and the whole crew knew that they would not behold his cheerful face again for one hundred and nine days. A hut of coal, which they had built upon the ice in case of being compelled to leave the ship, was destroyed on Christmas eve, 1872, by a movement of the ice. The dawn of 1873 brought them no release. The floe on which the “Tegetthoff” was fast fixed continued drifting toward the north-east, and the explorers imagined that they might be borne upon this magical vehicle to the coast of Siberia ; but after they had crossed beyond the 73rd degree of latitude, the wind shifted, and the ice-floe, the “Tegetthoff,” and the Austro-Hungarians were borne along helplessly toward the north-west. On the 16th of February they were gladdened by the reappearance of the sun above the horizon.
It is no part of my plan to give a summary of this most fascinating book: I hasten to say that the summer brought them no release. It passed, and left them still bound. Two long winters, in comparison with which our severest winter is a genial summer, they stayed faithfully by their ship. They at last abandoned the “ Tegetthoff,” and after passing a surprising series of adventures and hardships, they came safely back to Tromso, their starting-point.
The story of these brave explorers deserves telling at greater length than I can give to it in these columns, and I hope that I may send some readers to Herr Payer’s book. It is full of unusually good woodcuts, which assist us toward a more lively realisation of the situation. The two noble leaders have both protested against regarding this expedition, or, indeed, any other attempt at Arctic exploration, in the comparatively low light of a feat of daring and endurance. “It was the desire for material gain,” said Lieut. Weyprecht at Gratz, “which originally prompted Arctic exploration. Later on, this impulse was displaced by the ambition of making geographical discoveries of a sort which can be readily appreciated by the general public. The running after this kind of fame gradually took such proportions as to make Arctic expeditions a sort of steeplechase of nations toward the North Pole. Geographical discovery in these regions is only of superior importance in proportion as it extends the field for strict scientific investigation.” “ The geographical Pole,” he says, “ has for science no greater significance than any other point in high latitude.” Again, he observes, “Minute Arctic topography is of quite secondary importance,” although, indeed, the explorers have left their permanent mark upon the way in the names of Franz-Josef Land, Wilczek Land, and many
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other names which the reader will find in Lieut. Payor’s volumes. The story of the exploration has a peculiar interest for us, quite apart from its higher features, in the witness which it affords to the super-eminent place allotted to Tobacco and the Pipe as the most amazing and potent of all soothers. I shall close this paper with a few excerpts from the ** Narrative ” in illustration of this fact. On the 3rd of June a party, who had been sent to the abandoned ship to rifle it of some of its stores, returned to the settlement of boats in which the explorers had taken up their dwelling, bringing with them boiled beef, shot, and other necessaries. “On our return to the boats,” says Lieut. Payer, “we found their crews were sitting up and looking out, like young birds in a nest, to see what we had brought from the ship.” The keenest inquiries were made concerning the amount of Tobacco booty. “Tobacco was regarded as a right royal gift, and Dr. Kepes, to whom I gave a shirt-sleeve well stuffed out with the precious weed, regarded himself as a Croesus.” The explorers as a boat settlement were quite as much prisoners as they had been as a ship’s crew; day after day in this summer month they looked eagerly for signs of a fissure in the ice, hoping each day that they would be able to launch the boats. It seemed as if the time for launching would never arrive. A visit from a bear was a welcome change. “ Throughout the day we sat penned up in the boats, worn-out with a feeling of indescribable weariness, each morning longing for the end of the day, and at every meal thinking when the next would be ready.” “Happy the man,” says the Journal, “who has any Tobacco.” Again he says, a little later, “ There is still, however, one solace left us, the solace of smoking. Some, indeed, have already exhausted their whole stock of Tobacco. He who has half a pouch of it at his disposal is the object of general respect, and the man who can invite his neighbour to a pipe of Tobacco and a pot of water is considered to do an act of profuse liberality. Tobacco becomes a medium of exchange among us, and provisions are bought and paid for with it, its value rising every day.” At the beginning of August they were still forced to abide in the boats. The ice of the surrounding floes was so thin that the men could not venture to walk on them; and, though fissures abounded, no seals were to be seen in them. This forced abode in the boats grew almost unendurable. They could not always sleep; and smoking, the only variation besides sleeping, had become the distinguished privilege of the few. “ Only a frugal few had any Tobacco left to smoke. Some of our party had for a long time smoked dry tealeaves in the form of cigarettes, or had filled their pipes with match paper. All the tinder had been long used up in this way, and a dreadful trial it had been to the olfactory nerves of those who could not so indulge. Haller went further still, and smoked paper in the close covered boat! Besides many leaves of his note-books, he had still a quantity of packing-paper; but, in the interest of the community, I was compelled to interfere against its use in this fashion.” In spite of their continual hunger, which was increased by the forced and wearying leisure, most of the men grew very fat. “If we had been found dead on the floes,” says Herr Payer, “it would have been thought that we had died in consequence of over-eating, so stout had most of us become.” On the 18th of August came at last the memorable day of their liberation, “a day of paradisiacal happiness.” They landed on a spot at the south of Black Cape, remarkable for the luxuriance of its vegetation: at all events, to eyes accustomed for so long to the sight of the monotonous white of snow and ice, it seemed to be a magnificent garden. It was the first terra Jirma which they had seen for many long months; and the Bay, but for its circle of glaciers, might have been taken for an Italian gulf. There was nothing in the land, temperature, or weather to remind them that they were in a Polar region. By a happy coincidence, it was the birthday of the Kaiser of Austria and King of Hungary. They celebrated it with unusual splendour and luxury, dressing the boats with flags, bathing in a little fresh-water lake, and flavouring their tea with a small quantity of alcohol. It struck them that, amidst the luxurious vegetation, there must grow something or other which they could put in their pipes. A party ascended the ravines in search of flowers; they found quantities of forget-me-nots and of coltsfoot. The latter (Tussilago farfara) was a noble prize. It was soon dried and smoked, and pronounced to be excellent Tobacco. Before leaving the book, it is worth while to notice that there is a certain degree of cold in which smoking is found to be nearly, if not quite, impossible. Their coldest day in Franz-Josef Land was the 13th of March, 1873, when the thermometer on the Sonklar Glacier sunk to 40*5° (Reaumur) below zero. Their rum tasted as mild as milk, and had the consistence of oil. Each knelt to receive his share, which had to be dropped carefully into his throat, lest the cup should touch his lips. “ The bread was frozen so hard that we feared to break our teeth in biting it, and it brought blood if we ate it.” But, cruellest of all, “the attempt to smoke a cigar was a punishment rather than an enjoyment, because the icicles on our beards always put them out; and when we took them out of our mouths they were frozen: even the shortest pipes met the same fate.” T. H.	IJipts of ^aitr gtara. V.—NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY. When I was a very little boy at school, Artaxerxes was King of Persia. I am sure of that, because I remember getting thrashed for him three times a day as certain as sunrise. I’m a little hazy still about him and his doings; and I couldn’t even swear that it wasn’t Artaxerxes who dethroned Nebuchadnezzar, and sent him to eat grass like a goose, instead of stopping at home and chewing Tobacco like a Christian. At ail events, Artaxerxes must have been a good fellow at heart, for one thing I distinctly recollect, namely, that whenever the king had anything very tasty for dinner, he always sent a bit of it to one of his favourite generals (vids Xenophon’s “Anabasis”). For example, if it happened to be a nicely cooked canvas-back duck, he would only take just one leg for himself, or if it were a luscious pear, he would merely take one good large bite out of the thick end of it, and pack Thomas the flunkey off with the rest of it, and his compliments, to General So-and-so, to show him how much the king loved him. That proves, I think, that Artaxerxes wasn’t a bad sort. Well, and neither am I a very bad sort. Anyhow, I can’t enjoy anything all to myself; that is the reason why I present my cloud-blowing readers with the following delicate morceaus of natural history, horticulture, and weeds. Did I write these pages on tea? By no means. Nor could any green-skinned, gin-swilling son of an Anti-Tobaccoite have penned them. Let gentry of this persuasion bite their weazened tongues with envy, as they read and admire the deep erudition of one who is not ashamed to say he smokes at home and chews in church. I wrote them at night when all was still, with pipe in mouth, a wet towel around my head, which had been shaved for the purpose, and with Bridget, “the ’ead of my servants ’all,” bathing my calves with warm water eleven over proof. Let me commence with natural history, and, by degrees, we will get on to horticulture and weeds. My cottage orn6 presented the rarest opportunities for the study of entomology. From garret to cellar it was a living museum. * They grew in beauty side by side. They filled one home with glee. You’ve seen a snail? Yes. Well, whole lots of these shell fish had taken up their abode in and around my cottage orn6. Now, seeing that each and every one of the beggars carried a small cottage orn6 of his own on his back, I thought this was hardly fair. But, bless you, sir smoker, they didn’t look upon the matter in the same light. I came to hate snails at last, and wished them all at sea. They used to walk up and down my cellar stairs, as cool as you like, and go to sleep on the window panes, promenade along the doorstep, and lodge by the score behind the outside window shutters. Now, you won’t find snails very profitable in a garden patch. They are more ornamental than useful, and they aren’t very much at that. Snails are easily caught; it is easy to run them down, but the difficulty is what to do with them when you do take them. N.B.—It is positively mean to pitch them over into your neighbour’s garden when you think he isn’t looking. Somebody advised me to catch my snails and pop them into a pan of boiling water. This couldn’t have been agreeable for the snails, and I know it was rather awkward for poor Bridget, who managed to get through about two dozen of them. “ Which they was the biggest pennywinkles, I thought, sir, as ever Fd seed, sir, and did taste the greenest, but what’s down can’t be hupped.” Snails may be slow, but they are wondrous sure. Do you think I had any cabbage in my back garden that first year? Never a leaf. Snails don’t like the sunshine. It evaporates their essentials, and you always find them ensconced on the shady side of their victuals. They are very independent sort of chaps, too, and never run away from you, but look you straight in die face with one or more of their eyes; and they wear their visual organs upon stalks, for handiness in keeking round corners. Snails are like salmon: a shower of rain makes them uncommonly lively. Snails are like leeches: they can’t bear salt; it makes them squirm. On the whole, I would rather snails had no sublunary existence. From snails to caterpillars the transition is easy. The Scotch call these vermin “kail worms,” with the accent on the r, thus: kail worrrums. It is not absolutely necessary you should know this, but it can do you no harm to know it, and I think you will admit the nomenclature is both more simple and conveys more. A kail worm is almost too well known to need a description ; but, for the benefit of those smokers who have had the misfortune to be reared in towns, I may just mention that it is a worm who wears legs and walks on them, and lets his hair grow long all down his back, and sings “I’d be a butterfly” while he is devouring your winter greens. He isn’t very nice; in fact, he is decidedly nasty; but he is ’cute, for he wears a green pl^id dress when at work, so as the sparrows shan’t see him. I had quite a colony of these animalcules in my cottage om6 as well as in my garden, so I know all their tricks and their manners.
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gome of them used to come into my best room, and lay ♦heir eggs in a corner of the bay window, while a great big brown ant stood by, picking his teeth and watching. •‘Isn't she green?” the ant would say, giving me a wink, got the kail worm would labour away, and cover up all her little yellow progeny in the very softest and warmest of fluff, uj think that’ll about do,” the kail worm would remark, <hen she had put the finishing stroke to her work. Then . _ would tumble down, give a kick or two, and die, and the would at once begin to carry away the youngsters. Wasn’t she green? jjow, I’m rather partial to a dish of Scotch kail, and I also like the taste of a nicely boiled cabbage. In the middle of September, had you visited my cottage orn6, you could have geen rows upon rows of these delicious esculents, tall and stately» crisp and closing; your very mouth would have watered at the sight of them. Two weeks later, had you returned, you would have beheld a picture that would have drawn tears of sorrow from a telegraph pole—to wit. nothing left standing save stems and stalks, and the mid ribs of the butchered blades. ••Sow soot,” said Roddy M‘Koy, “sow soot, me boy; that’ll kill them as nate as ninepence.” I determined to sow soot. I chartered a sweep early one morning, and made him clean one of the chimneys of my cottage orne for the express purpose. “Here, I say sweep, don’t you walk off with that.” Would you believe it, the beggar was going to march off with all my soot in a bag. “It’s my perquisite,” replied the sweep. “Your peck o’ soot?” I cried, “I’ll soon let you know that it’s my peck o’ soot.” Then I went for that man in proper sailor fashion. I cared not for consequences. I closed with him. We tugged and rugged and wrestled for that peck o’ soot, and five minutes afterwards I returned to the house—grimy but triumphant. Next day I sowed my soot. It struck me soon afterwards that sowing soot is one of these things which doesn’t come to one by instinct, as it were. It needs a little experience. I really don’t know anything that makes you feel you want a wash more than soot sowing does, unless perhaps a ride in a first-class railway carriage in the middle of August. If ever I’ve got to sow any more soot in this world above, there are one or two things which I won’t do. I won’t put on a best white shirt to do it in; I won’t wear my boating pants either; and I won’t choose a day when it is “blowing a buster” from the nor’ard. I declare to you honestly, when I returned to my cottage orn^ after having sowed ray peck o’ soot, my own mother wouldn’t have known me; the dog flew at me barking, and the cat ran up the chimney. Never mind, I killed the kail worrrumx. Where the mystery did all the frogs come from that sometimes appeared so suddenly around my cottage orne after a Bhower? This question used to exercise my mind a good many times. It couldn’t surely have rained them. Plague take them anyhow, I used to say; for there were times when they made themselves as much at home on my premises'as if they had paid the rent and not I. If I had been a Frenchman, what delicious fries and curries I could have gone in for. The pan would never have been off the fire, and never been without a good fat fry in it. Now, for example, on a fine summer’s afternoon Roddy and I would be sitting in a little arbour, in rear of the cottage, enjoying our pipes and our coffee, and there wouldn’t be the signs of a frog anywhere. Suddenly it would darken a bit, and come on to rain; hey presto I hop, hop, hop, hop, out they came, there they were, by the dozen and by the score; grey frogs and green frogs, big frogs and little frogs, old mother frogs and young son frogs, some large enough to fill a teapot or build a shoe on, and others so wee that if they jumped into your mouth you wouldn’t feel them among your teeth; and the queerest part of it all was that they always made directly for the back door of my cottage orn^. Well, by-and-by—that means when she had time to tidy herself, put on a clean apron over her dress, and a snowy antimacassar on top of her chignon; for, mind you, “the ’ead °f my servants ’aU” was a tidy lass, and wouldn’t go to the ashpit without dressing—forth would walk Bridget, with that eternal tin shovel of hers, which she never seemed to go anywhere without, and which latterly became the bane of my otherwise peaceful existence; for morn, noon, and night—here, there, and everywhere—she used to glide around with that tin shovel, sweeping up a dead fly here and brushing down a cobweb there, and making herself a sanitary nuisance. Out, then, Bridget would come with a frog neatly balancing him-jelfonthe shovel, and looking as if he rather relished this of locomotion, and by-and-by out she would come vitb another, and so on; and if you had sat with us in •hat arbour a whole live-long summer’s afternoon, deuce the thing would you have seen but Bridget walking out and in ^ the kitchen door, going in empty singing low to herself, •nd coming out again presently with a frog neatly balancing himself on the shovel, and looking as if he liked it. frogs were one of the nine plagues of Egypt. At one time, we ire told, they tried it on in Ireland too. but St. Patrick W a deal too many for them. It would have been better for	the frogs if they had deferred their visit to a more convenient season. Frogs have many noticeable peculiarities. They hop, they don’t walk. N.B.—If they had only one leg this would be excusable. A frog race is very exciting, and less sinful than pigeon shooting. You and your friend catch a frog each after a shower and set them a-hopping across the turnpike. You are allowed to follow and cry “Shoo!” and “Gee up!” but you mustn’t use a switch. Frogs vary greatly in their jumping powers. Mark Twain had a frog that he would have backed against any other fourfooted frog in creation. But somebody went and took and put small shot into his frog, and he wouldn’t jump at all after that. Positively refused to budge an inch. That, I think, was past a joke. I should have made the joker jump. I would have put small shot into liim. Frogs haven’t any teeth to bite with, and they donVspit in your face. They merely sit still and consider.	” Frogs are born inside a jellyfish—apparently. When they come out of the jelly fish they swim about in a pond, and bare-legged little boys come round and catch them. They have no feet at first—only a tail. Wlien they get their legs though, don’t they go ashore quickly to try them. I rather like frogs. I never took to toads, however. Some rare good specimens lived under my cider-barrel, but we didn’t get along well together. Paralysis and gout seem to be hereditary to the whole race of the toads, and they never get over it. Toads are of a very retiring disposition, and never seem happier than when squatting in a hole. They have a habit, too, of getting inside blocks of granite and going to sleep for two or three hundred years; and when the stone at last is broken, they just crawl out and lug around as usual. I haven’t anything else to say about them. But, mind you this: it doesn’t do to trifle with a toad. He’ll spit in your face, and think nothing of it. Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N. gtntlr nnb the Smohtr.’ Nicotian poetry has not hitherto been of a high order, and the divine Nicotian bard has yet to be born. Of Ernest Leistner’s poems we can, in the main, speak with approbation. Some of them are poor enough, others do not rise above mediocrity; but in most of them there is ingenuity, if not originality, along with flowing verse. Leistner’s humour we cannot very warmly praise; it is often mere coarseness, and his jokes are of the heavy German type. There is a want of taste in other respects. The so-called initials are small vignettes. They are, in the main, clever and suggestive; but one of them is simply revolting. We want to have nothing except pleasant associations with Tobacco. One of the initials, however, represents “A Third Knight of the Smoking Order” on the gibbet. We shall probably more than once enrich our pages with some of Leistner’s productions. Meanwhile, we present our readers with two specimens of his poems—one of the shortest and one of the longest of the “ Raucherlieder: ” APPEARANCE AND REALITY. “Who smoketh, stinketh like a swine; Who snuffeth, looketh like a swine; Who cheweth, eateth like a swine; Whoso nor smokes, nor snuffs, nor chews, Lives like the vilest, foulest swine.” So saith the proverb; therefore choose, My brother, what becomes thee best— A man, and not a swine, to be. DEATH AND THE SMOKER. Not long ago I happy sat In my small, warm, and cosy room; On sofa soft, held quiet chat With one beloved, adored—with whom? 0! never can be from me far My life’s true charm, my sweet cigar! . Vary in tint cigars, and mine Must have a choice, a special hue; The blonde I do not call divine, And the brunette I swift eschew; Neither too blonde nor too brunette Must the cigar be, that I pet. The scent before I smoke I try, And when I smoke I try the scent; For ash of virgin purity I seek in my experiment; And tiny clouds must graceful be, That curl round my cigar and me. And not too big, and not too small. And not too trimly, smoothly rolled; Not loose as dust, not hard as ball, Perfect and beautiful in mould, My favourite must be—how rare, Cigars that such rich glories bear!
	* “Raucherlieder: Humoristiche und ernste Original-Geditche." Von Ernst Leistuer. Mit 20 Iiutialen. Wein, Pest, Leipzig: A. Hartleben’s Verlag. 1877.
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Three sample boxes thus I tried, And found delicious all the three; In very happiness I sighed To think that choice so hard should be. Splendid Havanas were they all— Their taste in rapture I recall. Long, long was it ere I could say Which of the three was worthiest, Say which deserved to win the day, And to my joys add grandest zest; One of the three at last I chose, With pride the smoker only knows. The best cigar, from Box the Best, Ere long was tipped with sacred fire; My breath I drew with fullest breast, And yet with satisfied desire; Like incense in cathedral vast, The perfumed smoke I round me cast. But, hark! a knock is at the door; Angry with the intruder, I Shout “Not at home!” I curse the bore; The bore heeds not my angry cry; He knocks again; the latch he clasps, And terror now my bosom grasps. An icy cold the chamber fills, As from the grim mouth of a tomb; An icy cold me chains and chills ; Trying to hide my fear and gloom, I shriek “ Come in; I do not care If Nick you be, and horns you bear.” With creak and growl the door opes wide; Boldly a stranger stalketh in; Horror of horrors! by my side, Less welcome the great King of Sin, And bis grandmother, could not be, Than what I now was forced to see. With hideous grin he me salutes; “I have the honour you to greet; By Him, the Lord of men and brutes, I have been sent; no smiles I meet, No cordial words, no frank ‘ good-day/ Wherever I a visit pay.” I cower and cower, I glower and glower, Gaze at the monstrous, ghastly thing, Gaunt as a solitary’ tower Amid the desert perishingGaze at the hairless head, the skull, Eyeless and hollow, weird and dull. Death was before me: he was clad In stylish fashion; fine black coat And linen fine he wore; he had Best Paris gloves and boots; it smote My soul as strange, that one so spruce Should have a head so lank and loose. Vanquished by fear, I gazed and gazed, I knew myself this spectre’s slave; Creature most craven and most crazed, I tried my utmost to look brave; Smoke could not, my cigar was dead, And my teeth chattered in my head. Death, seeing my cigar was cold, Takes from his fob a dainty box Of matches; “ May I make so bold? True Swedish lucifers! ” deft knocks The ash away, and then strikes fire; “ Cold smoking none of us desire.” Beholding Death, the dreaded, do As do good fellows all, I took Courage; I cheerful, hopeful grew; My coward limbs no longer shook; I thought it foolish was, to die From abject, crass poltroonery. Friend Death I asked to take a seat, My all I at his service placed; “Joys social could not bo complete,” Said I, “ if with cigars ungraced; The sort I smoked when you, my friend, Kind came, I fervent recommend.” “When on the sternest duty bound, A brute I am not, as men dream,” Cried Death; “I am no surly hound ; I love Tobacco’s glow and gleam; As my domain is dreary, damp, I love the cigarette’s bright lamp.” “Then make yourself at home, old boy!— Forgive my free speech.” Forthwith he, In his exuberance of joy, Took off his cloak; then I could see Two things he bore—alas! alas! A keen scythe, and my life’s hour-glass. “ There still is time,” he kindly spake, “To smoke a good cigar or two; Yea, we have leisure three to take, •Ere you in the next world are due; We may as well have quiet fun, Till your glass has completely run.”	And now we comfortably smoked, With interchange of genial speech; Puffing so cordially, we joked; I marvelled much that men should teach The coward’s creed, should basely dread Friend Death, this gentleman well-bred. Humane was Death’s discourse, and sage On his own business: “Angel I Of God for human doom, yet wage No ruthless war; all peaceably At time appointed come, and man Should never try to thwart my plan. “But when two Christian nations rush Ferocious at each other’s throat, And when where bloody torrents gush The banners of the victors float, And when slain thousands cannot sate The himger of revenge and hate— “ Truly the God above decrees Sublime the fortune of the fight; But curse and woe to those who seize, In the exultancy of might, War’s cruel weapons to decide A quarrel fierce of wicked pride! “ Woe to the ruler, woe, thrice woe, Who from ambition, selfishness, The lust of conquest, seeks a foe, And grasps the sword which should repress Home troubles—valiant guard the land— Murder to spread on foreign strand! “Woe to the monster! Pestilence, Diseases dire, a countless host, Are his true comrades; ages hence Behold Fate’s justice! Will he boast When murdered ones, a long array, Accuse him on the Judgment Day?” Thus spake friend Death. Earnest I gazed, Almost with love, into his eyes— The cavities where should have blazed Bright eyes, I mean; with much surprise I heard Death talk. “Small thieves,” I cried, “Are hanged, big robbers deified.” A connoisseur, Death now surveyed With longing eye the boxes three; Said with a smirk: “You know the trade; You know a good cigar; but me, Suit fellows strong in scent and blaze, Instead of those you warmly praise.” “All right,” said I, in slangy phrase; “All right, if when cigars we choose We do not get into a haze About the best; a box renews Good fellowship or makes it strong; Take this one, friendship to prolong.” Glad, graceful, grateful, Death the box Accepts: “ I thank you, but perceive That I, as stupid as an ox, Did what might give me cause to grieve; Smoking and chatting, I forgot To watch the hour-glass of your lot. “Duty I clearly overlooked In trying your cigars, my friend; A risk I run to be rebuked; But Peter, crony dear, will lend Eager his ear the tale to hear— How fond he is of stories queer! “ Cunning and merciful, he will Sham blindness for your absence now; Of whiffs that I may have my fill, You will a fresh supply, I trow, Lay in of good cigars; once, twice, I come, if you get something nice. “ ‘ One love another love demands, Deserves,’ the proverb says. With joy, With eager and most thankful hands Your hour-glass I renew; annoy Your death would bring; a bard’s decease Would torture. For a time have peace.” And thus as friends we parted. He Gave me his portrait, to remind Me of our pleasant little spree; For, from a fashion not unkind, Our friend had once, when he had quaffed, “After the life” been photographed. This poem may remind our readers of the incomparable “Death and Doctor Hornbook,” by one who, if not the most original, was the most individual of all poets; but in weirdness and in humour it is far inferior to that famous production. In the German poem the word “Heim” frequently occurs. It is a jocular name given to death, just as we call the devil “Old Scratch,” and so on. That the English should have so many nicknames for the devil and none for death, seems odd. Perhaps their fear of death is greater than their fear of the devil. The personifications and the mythical aspects of death deserve a more serious study than they have yet received.
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fgjtian treasures.
HI.
Cookery.
VoT, *8 80me moralists would have us believe, is cookery a rice of our modern civilisation; and no one who has a sound -rind caw dream of returning to the water of the brook, to the honey of the bees, to the fruits of the mountains. The art of preparing food not only renders it more savoury but more digestible and more nutritive; and cookery, in all the perfect011 °^ modern civilisation, is supremely hygienical. A highly finished repast prepared by a pupil of the French school is much more hygienical than a collation of bread and cheese or of milk diluted with water and made brown with burnt sugar, or than a dinner consisting of boiled beef and of ^up seasoned with lard. The science of cooking must, with the resources of art, aim at these three things: to furnish the greatest variety of viands and of savours; to augment the digestibility of viands without diminishing their nutritive power; to educate alike the sense of taste and the sentiment of the beautiful. If your gluttony leads you to the abuse of a good dinner, neither the cook nor the cookery must be blamed, but your own intemperance. We can rise light in body and in mind from a dinner in which twenty different dishes figure, and we may make ourselves liable to indigestion by dining on what is humblest and commonest. It is better to eat a very little of many dishes than much of one; and many sluggish and capricious stomachs digest much better at the table of the rich than at their own scanty daily table.—From the Italian of Mantegazza.
Food of the Turhs.
Like all Orientals, the Turks have a cookery of the simplest kind; and, though they eat their food with eagerness, they are, nevertheless, disinclined to excess. Epicures are rare among them, and those Turks who are devoted to luxurious living have acquired the taste in Western Europe. It deserves to be remarked that the Turks consume more of vegetal than of animal food; and, appertaining to the first, they make use of rice, of fruits, and of bread. Let us next speak of the drinks of the Turks. By the Koran wine is forbidden. In tlie Latin translation of the Koran which wras published by Marraccio (Luigi Marraccio: Alcorani Textus Uinversus: Patavii, 1698), it is said: “Interrogabunt te de vino et alea. Responds: In utroque est peccatum grave, et utilitates hominibus; sed peccatum utriusque majus est, quam utilitas utriusque.” [They will interrogate thee concerning wine and concerning gambling. Reply: In both there is grievous sin, and in both there are utilities to man; but the sin of both is greater than the usefulness of both.} (Aiea was a species of die; it also meant the dice-playing which was forbidden in ancient Rome. In the Latin translation of the Koran it signifies gaming of all sorts.) In his comments on the passage Marraccio observes: “Mahumetus in concessions Veneris liberalissimus, in vini, ludique interdicto rigidissi-mum se ostendit. A vino, ac ludo, virtutis causa, et pne-sertim, ad carnis libidines fraenandas, abstinere, laudabile est. Fecerunt et faciunt hoc plures etiam ex nostris. Hjpc etiam vero, eel quia suapte natura mala sint, vel quia aliquorum malorum, causa aliquando existant, absolute damnare, intolerabilis amentia est.” [Mahomet, excessively liberal in what he grants to the demands of l(»ve, shows himself very strict in the interdiction of wine and gambling. To abstain from wine and gambling for the sake of virtue, and in order to restrain the lusts of the flesh, is laudable. This, among ns, many have done, and do. But absolutely to condemn those same things, either because they are in their nature evil, or because they are sometimes the source of certain evils, is intolerable madness.] Though wine is forbidden by the Koran, a considerable quantity of wine is drunk by the Turks; but this takes place in secret. A master’s most trusted servant brings him the wine in a metal vessel, and makes people believe that the drink is physic. It is chiefly in the evening that such tricks are played. Those w ho, in accordance with the Koran, regard the drinking of wine as sinful, make use of other spirituous drinks, especially brandy, of which there is a large consumption in Mahometan lands, ha his travels in the East, which took place more than a hundred years ago, Russel made the observation that, in Syria principally, Christians and Jews consumed arrack, which they prepared from raisins. Our traveller says: “ They distil from raisins, with which usually anise-seed is mixed, a drink called arrack, which is extensively consumed o? Christians and Jews.” Moreover, arrack is a drink which 18 a great favourite with Orientals in general. The poorer Masses of the Turkish population restrict themselves for the moat part to water, which is much more prodigally employed, held in much greater reverence, in the East than in Europe. The excessive heat of Eastern lands causes an pmnense consumption of cooling drinks and of ice; but the iceisnot a compact mass like that used in Europe; it con-of a mixture of snow or ice and milk, or the juices of
The most important of all the Oriental cooling drinks •re the sorbets, or sherbets—the juices of fruits mixed iced water. A beverage which is generally made by Armenians, and which is much in vogue, is rhaki. It is pre-P«red from the juice of dates, and is alcoholic. One of the
drinks the most frequently and abundantly taken by the Turks is coffee, but differing essentially from the infusion of coffee beans customary among us. It is used without milk and sugar, is unfiltered, and has thus all the grounds; and is often drunk in such quantities as to seem to us fabulous. Many a Turk drinks daily eighty cups of coffee. From the peculiar mode of roasting the coffee beans, and the skilful way of infusion—to insure which special cooks in wealthy Turkish households are appointed, who are called kahwedschi —a liquid is obtained much more concentrated and containing a far richer aroma than the coffee met writh in Western Europe. As regards the kind of food consumed by the Turks, old Rauwolf (whose work appeared at Frankfort in 1582), the first German who mentioned coffee and its extensive use among the Orientals, has given us a copious description thereof; and as belonging to the most recent period Lorenz Rigler must be named, whose account we gladly recognise as the completes!, and to which we earnestly refer our readers. To Rigler’s statements respecting the narcotics we shall have more than once occasion subsequently to allude. It is the flesh of sheep, and m*xt to it that of goats, that the Turks are fondest of. In addition they eat the flesh of fowls, of pigeons, of francolins (Tetrao Frankolinus), of geese. Swine’s flesh they are forbidden by the Koran to touch. Veal is not eaten, nor is beef; though Russel avers the Christians living among the Turks eat it. Finally, the flesh of hares is not held in much esteem by the Ottomans. In regard to meats and drinks the reforming Turks differ much from the conservative Turks, and indulge in many things which seem to the latter sins. Though the Koran forbids the eating of the flesh of animals which have died naturally, or which have been killed and torn by wild beasts, or which have perished from the effect of apoplexy, or which have been put to death in an improper fashion; yet the poorer classes are always eager to obtain the flesh of such animals, especially—as is not seldom the case when they can purchase it for a small sum. Eggs, by themselves, are seldom eaten by the Turks; but they are made use of in cookery. The reforming Turks, from living after tlie European fashion, consume eggs more freely than their conservative brethren. As has already been stated, butter is consumed in large quantities, and is, like cheese, made from the milk of buffaloes, of sheep, and of goats; the milk of these various animals is also an article of food. Besides rice, previously indicated, which is the most important of all their aliments and fruits, the Turks take from the vegetal kingdom maize, the flour of the different kinds of grain, cucumbers, melons, and many spices.—From the Gernuin of lieich.
Tobacco in Spain.
France and Spain were the first countries w’hich, instead of fighting against Tobacco and passing laws prohibiting its use, encouraged its consumption, from foreseeing that Tobacco might greatly contribute to national wealth. The other Governments successively discovered the folly of trying to dry up or dam up an inextinguishable source of riches. Fixing on Tobacco their attention, they were especially solicitous to turn it to various profitable purposes, without falling into the contradiction resulting from the anterior rigorism and the modern excessive benevolence. Assuredly, in our country, severity in regard to Tobacco never prevailed; what really existed was absolute indifferentism. For a long time Tobacco excited no attention, nevertheless the consumption went on increasing. From monasteries and palaces Tobacco travelled to more humble abodes; and in a short time the money sent for Tobacco to the Colonies began to amount to a considerable sum. The oldest information lean find on the subject is contained, not in the archives of the Government offices, where I have in vain sought for it, but in a document drawn up in 1614, from which it appears that great wTas the quantity of Tobacco which was brought from the Colonies to Spain. The supply was so large that the exportation to foreign countries, including France, England, Flanders, Italy, and Barbary amounted, in 1611, to 133,000 pounds; in 1612, to 270,000 pounds; in 1613, to 302,000 pounds; in 1614, to more than 500,000 pounds. It likewise appears from the document that a duty was already levied on this article. The import duty on Tobacco coming from Honduras, Caracas, and Laguna was fifteen per cent.; on that coming from Cuba, seven and a-half per cent.; on that coming from Saint Domingo, two per cent. The export duty varied from three and a-half to five per cent. In each case the Tobacco was valued at four reals, that of Saint Domingo excepted, w’hich was valued at two reals. (A real is equal to about twopence halfpenny—Eng.) Furthermore, it appears that for the internal traffic in this merchandise there was an impost varying from five to ten per cent., according to the class and the quality. When the traffic increased the value of the article increased in the same degree, so that Tobacco of good quality was sold at Seville at from ten to twelve reals the pound; and even when purchased at this price, it brought great gain to speculators, for they could dispose of it in England at the rate of six ducats the pound.—From the Spanish of Juan Garcia de Torres.
Charlemagne’s mode of &ife.
When the affairs of the morning were ended, Charlemagne went to table, at which usually only the members of his family assembled. The repast consisted of four dishes. His
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favourite food, roast game, was brought in on the spit; as dessert, fruit figured. He had a healthy and vigorous appetite, and was not so moderate in eating as in drinking. Excess in drinking he hated, and he never drank more than thirst demanded. During the meal there were, according to his desire, readings or declamations. After eating, he needed rest. He took off his clothes, laid aside his shoes, and slept for some hours. To the occupations of the day bathing belonged. Charlemagne was fond of bathing with companions, and when he plunged into the water he often took his courtiers and guards with him. Through sleeping by day he was made sleepless at night. Frequently he rose from his bed five or six times during the course of the night. For such occasions he had always a book or a writing desk at hand, in order that the time might not be wasted. Twice a day, morning and evening, Charlemagne went to church; he began and he ended the day with pious worship of God. For a noble fashion of celebrating divine service, money he spared hot. The largest part of his treasures he spent in building new churches and in repairing old ones, and in founding charitable institutions. Whenever he built for himself a splendid house, he built a still more magnificent house for God. The most illustrious ecclesiastical edifice he erected was St. Mary’s Church, at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle^. For this building masters and workmen were assembled from every quarter, apd granite columns and marble blocks were brought from Italy. Einhard, who was well acquainted with architecture, speaks with the greatest admiration of this structure, and praises as warmly the taste displayed in the execution as the munificence shown in the ornamentation. To the grandeur of this cathedral corresponded the worship, which, Rome excepted, was nowhere celebrated with so much dignity and gorgeousness as at the Court of the first monarch of Christendom. The ablest ecclesiastics and the best singers were found at the Court, and the church garniture was so complete that even the church servants of the lowest rank were attired in raiment furnished to them for their particular duties.—From the German of Lorentz. Bubens at $ome. After Rubens had resolved to fix his final abode in his fatherland, he looked round for a wife, and found one in Elizabeth Brant, the daughter of a judge in Antwerp. In the November of the year 1609 he celebrated his marriage with her. Having thus cared for his household, he had next to care for his house, which both externally and internally showed that it was the dwelling-place of an artist, and that he had striven as much as possible to make it a compensation for Italy. The house was built according to his own plans, and in the Italian style. Houbrakm states that the cost was sixty thousand guilders. The front Rubens himself painted in fresco, and the apartments he adorned with works of art of every kind. Moreover, between the court and a large garden, in which flowers of the most various sorts grew, he caused a rotunda to be erected, which resembled the Pantheon at Rome, and which admitted the light through an opening in the cupola. Here he placed in tasteful fashion the most valuable statues, busts, pictures, vessels of agate and of other precious stones, carved stones, and an admirable collection of coins, which he had made in Italy, and which afterwards he was continually diligent in augmenting. Everything being thus arranged according to his wish and taste, this was the way in which he passed the day :—Having risen—and he rose early, in summer not later than four—the first thing he did was to hear mass. Thereupon he began his labours, during which he caused some classic to be read to him, his favourites being Livy, Plutarch, Cicero, Seneca, or one of the great poets. Moreover, he received numerous visitors, with whom he conversed in the liveliest way on the most diversified subjects. An hour before eating he devoted to recreation, either by gladdening his glance with his treasures of art, or by surrendering his thoughts to scientific matters, or to politics; the latter of which interested him extremely. The fear of encumbering his imagination, or rendering it sluggish by meat and drink, made him partake of food sparingly. After he had worked anew till toward evening, he was accustomed, if no business stood in the way, to mount an Andalusian horse, and to take a long and vigorous gallop. He loved this exercise much, and he was very fond of horses; and he had always in his stables several horses of distinguished beauty. When he got home he generally found some friends assembled, scholars or artists, with whom at a simple repast, for he was the enemy of all excess, he passed the evening in instructive and cheerful conversation. Only through such a mode of life as this was it possible for Rubens to execute the numerous commissions he received, and only from the union of extraordinary industry with the greatest facility of production can we explain the astonishing number of his works, whose genuineness cannot be doubted.—From the German of Waagen. The Emperor and the Cobblers. Charles V., though prudent and grave, was by no means churlish and gloomy. He liked the joy of a good feast, and tradition has not done him wrong in making him figure in some amusing adventures which find a place in the German story books. One day the Emperor was sauntering incognito through the market of Brussels. He was throwing the glance of an amateur at a capon which seemed worthy of the imperial	kitchen, when a woman belonging to the working class approached the poulterer, bought the capon, and carried it away. Charles followed the woman, and saw that she entered a cobbler’s shop. When the evening closed in he returned and knocked at the door of the house. After some conversation the door was opened to him, and he found two noble sons of Saint Crispin, who were about to sit down to table. To their great surprise the unknown person said that he came in the name of his Majesty, and he invited himself, having resolved in his wisdom to taste the capon. Overcome by his air of assurance the hosts made way for him. Soon a bumper of old wine brought by a lackey proved that the guest intended to pay his scot. The feast ended joyously, and Charles V. wished the company good evening. He left his friends | astonished at his appetite and at his good humour. On the I morrow he sent for the cobbler to the palace, made himself 1 known, and requested his host to ask a favour. The cobbler said: “ Sire, I shall be full of gratitude if your Majesty kindly authorises me to take for sign a Croiened Booty The Emperor granted the favour without hesitation; for it cost him nothing, while it brought much benefit to the shoemaker, seeing that all the courtiers did not fail from that time forth to get at th.e Crowned Boot what they wanted. Charles V. was never happier than when, without being obliged to put his hand in his pocket, he could aid any one on the road to fortune.—From the French of Pichot. Concerning ^lln /irsf C^osf. Very few of my acquaintances are aware of the fact that I am a medium. Till now, I have never made the fact public; I have pursued my nefarious calling in this line for my own profit. I intend here to relate my first introduction to the spiritual world, partly because, my character being well known, I shall be believed, and thus help Spiritualism on in its glorious career, and partly because I then first learned to smoke Tobacco. I had fallen into a poor state of health. I was not absolutely ill, but limp, dejected, hollow, sallow, &c. I sought the seaside, and took apartments at a private house, to avoid the bustle of hotel life. Here I began to improve, till all at once I fell a victim to the toothache. What I suffered no man knows, or ever will know: ordinary agony would have been hilarious delight in comparison. Howling misery sounds pretty strong, but it is far too happy a term for me to use with regard to my feelings then. I tried every remedy I could think of, but I got no ease. The affliction seemed to have taken my jaw on lease, and refused to quit. My landlord was a confirmed spiritualist. He said to me one day: “lam very sorry to see you suffer so; why do you not try the spirits?”	* “ Venerable old sympathiser,” I replied, as I howled round the room, “I have already rubbed in half a bottle of brandy, and am no better.” “You mistake me,” he said; “I was not alluding to spirituous spirits, but to spiritual spirits.” “What! take a ghost?” I cried, in wonderment. “No,” he replied, “not take a ghost, but take the advice of one; I have known many extraordinary cures performed by following the advice received from the spiritual world, when the advice of ordinaiy doctors has failed to effect a cure.” The old gentleman then proceeded to relate some things that astonished me, and that evening I went with him to a stance. No advice could be obtained for me, however, and I returned with my misery and got to bed to try and forget the torture I was in. As the clock struck twelve, I fell into a most hideous sweat of terror. The room was in pitchy darkness, yet I knew that I was not alone. I laid my hand on my face, to find that my eyeballs were standing out an inch beyond their usual places. My hair rose up and shook to and fro as in a fierce wind. ’Twas an awful moment! Then gradually out of nothing I perceived indistinct shapes floating and moving about; strange sounds of low, unpleasant tones greeted my ears. I tried to bury my head beneath the clothes, but found that other hands than mine held them. Sometimes a fear and pain stricken face would seem to look into mine; then, with a ghastly wink, disappear. Then, suddenly, with a noise like the rushing of wings, all these sights and sounds faded out. The next moment there appeared to me a strange apparition. He stood a little way from my bed, and bowed in a pleasant manner. I felt better—save my toothache. The spirit was not sheeted: tastes vary in the place we are going to just as much as they do in the present world. This spirit had dressed himself in a faded old professional suit. I saw at once I had to do with what had been a doctor. His clothes kept me wondering a little time. A stuffed scarecrow in the most poverty-stricken agricultural district wnuld have turned up its nose in disdain at such an utterly shabby, forlorn, and melancholy set of garments. As the appearance seemed waiting for me to speak, I said:— ‘ ‘ Who are you ? What do you want ? Will you take a seat ? ” In a squeaky voice, he replied: “The spirit of a doctor, that’s who I am; to see you cured, that’s what I want; and, with your permission, I will remain standing during our interview.”	'
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••With all my heart,” I rejoined, “provided yon do not lessen the distance between yourself and my bed furniture; I should say from your appearance, that you have been left ont in the damp a good deal, and might possibly leave Rome Mie taint behind ; I do not wish to speak disrespectfully of so estimable a person as you undoubtedly are, or were, but it geems to me you are a little—ahem I a little mouldy, eh ?”
*1 Oh dear no! my dear sir,” said the ghost, chinking a few gnectral coins in his spiritual pockets, “you are altogether mistaken; it is quite an error to suppose that I am an inhabitant of the mouldering tomb. We spirits leave our todies there, because it would be difficult to carry them about with us, but we ourselves are free as air, and the unpleasant appearances you detect in my attire, or think you detect, are due only to the imperfections of your mortal organs of vision, and an incorrect liver; when you are a Rpirit, and liverless, you will see that the radiance of these garments puts the brightest rainbow to shame; but to business. I am the disembodied spirit of a doctor, and hearing that you were in pain, I have come to relieve you.” I thanked the doctor, and out of curiosity asked him to explain the spiritual hurly-burly that had so terrified me previous to hie arrival. “Oh! oh!” he said, with a supernatural chuckle: “ That pother was occasioned by a few of my former patients. They annoy me very much, but they an do me no harm. Doctors are slandered men, and their patients are unreasonable. We cannot cure every one, although we try to; but about this toothache.” I proceeded to detail my symptoms. There was the gimlet twist, when gome fiend seemed boring a hole right into my jawbone with a red-hot gimlet. There was the imps’quadrille, when about a thousand little demons, with stings in their wicked tails, geemed to caper about my grinders, doing their best to drive me mad. I told him all my pains, and the tears rolled down my face as I recited my woes. My ghostly adviser listened with patience and interest to the end, then said “ Do you gmokeTobacco? ” “I do not,” I replied; for at that time I was a stranger to the weed. “Then,” said the spirit, “I shall recommend Tobacco as a remedy. Its soothing influence on the nerves is very great. In the morning obtain a pipe and some Tobacco—a mild sort will do—load and light and smoke, and I have no doubt your pain will fade away as does the cloud you blow, and you will experience ease and comfort.” I shook my head despairingly and moaned, for at that moment a streak of torture flashed through my jaw. as if to remind me of the hold it had got. “ Cheer up, sir,” said the ghost, blowing his nose with a report that brought the soot down the chimney, “You try my remedy after breakfast, and I will stake my reputation that it effects a cure.” I promised the doctor I would follow his advice, and after he had promised to return the following night, ho suddenly vanished.
After breakfast the next morning I tried his remedy; I procured a pipe and some Tobacco, and smoked for the first time in my life. Although I thought the taste unpleasantly bitter, I persevered through a whole pipeful of the weed, at the conclusion of which I found to my joy and astonishment that my pain had ceased; it seemed like a miracle to me. I piled enough blessings on the head of that shabby looking ghost to keep him warm through a dozen winters. I danced for joy, I hugged my old landlord and landlady, and sent word to their niece, a pretty girl, to come and be hugged. But alas! short was my joy, an unknown and terrible feeling stole over me, or rather intome; brain, soul, and stomach felt like blind chaos in deadly misery. The clock reeled, the pictures swam, the bookcase wandered up to the ceiling, the ceiling bowed down to the carpet; I clutched wildly at the chair to sit down, I missed it, and sat on the floor. There was a frantic yell for the steward; enough—no more.
I was very ill all day, and night found me in bed, with cold and weakened limbs, but a head as hot as fire. I felt worse than I had felt with the toothache, and would have changed back cheerfully. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve! I counted the strokes of the clock, and fairly to his time came the spirit. I endeavoured to execute a friendly nod, but was unable to do so; my head refused to rise. The eighty-one ton gun was a feather compared to it. I could only welcome the doctor with a dislocated moan.
“Now, sir,” said he, taking a pinch of invisible snuff; “I trust you are better; “have I> or have I not, cured your toothache?”
“You have, you have,” I groaned; “but your horrible remedy has nearly killed me. My toothache has gone, but the Tobacco has given me a headache that is even worse, besides about ten million other indescribable aches, pains, and weaknesses; my diaphragm has gone for ever, and I am altogether undone.”
“Headache!” said my adviser. “Ah! very sorry. Result °f neglected education; you ought to have learned to smoke before. Your present affliction, though painful, is easily cured; it is, in fact, quite likely to retire in the night. If, however, you still have it in the morning, take some soda water; that is a safe and easy remedy. The weather is warm, you may have it iced. I am truly sorry you suffer so much; but such things are incidental to the flesh. When you are one of us, you will know no more aches.” I could only murmur, hoarsely, that if things went on a little longer as they had teen going on lately, I should soon be one of them. With a “ good night,” the spirit disappeared, and I managed to snatch a little blessed rest.
In the morning I still suffered from a fearful headache, so sent for three bottles of soda water and some ice. I drank one iced, and felt a little relief. Shortly after, I drank the second, also iced, and felt still better; so I poured down the third, also iced, by way of a settler. Dinner time came; my headache had flown to the winds. There was not a more cheerful man in the parish than I was at that meal, although I felt somewhat icebergy inside. Alas! for me. Why, world, wert thou made? Why, life, art thou? Oh! oh! when I think of it! Coming on by slow degrees, there took possession of me such diabolic clutchings and gripings that I fairly howled. ’Twas like an army of fiends attacking the body to steal the soul. Colic was my lot, and spasms my portion for the remainder of that day, and at night I retired to bed and lay face downwards on a warming-pan, as hot as I could bear it.
At midnight the apparition arrived, and seemed surprised at finding me sulky. In fact, I roundly abused him, and I told him I wanted no more Satanic remedies, for this last experience was worst of all. I would gladly have had both my toothache and headache back at the same time to have got rid of what I then felt. The agony came out in spots, and about every three minutes sent me curving and twisting about like a mad eel. Said the spirit, tenderly (and I really thought he felt for me): “ Why not try a little brandy?” Ai that time I never drank spirits, but when the doctor mentioned brandy I recollected that I had about half-a-bottle left; the other half I had rubbed into my gums for the toothache. I crawled out of bed and got the stuff. “Drink a good draught of it,” said the wicked and deceitful spirit. I did so, and in a moment felt relief.
“How is that, sir?”
“Better; much better. Will yon drink?”
“No. Think I’m a cannibal? Drink yourself.”
I drank, and felt better still. “Keep on at it;” said the ghost, grimly, “That’ll cure you. Oh, I’m a rare doctor. Drink again.”
I drank again, and again, and, in fact, till the bottle was empty; and the last thing I remember is chasing that spirit round the room with the warming-pan, because he wouldn’t drink. Of course, he speedily disappeared. I thought he went through the window, and I opened it, and looked into the street. He was not to be seen; so, feeling monstrously happy, I got to bed again.
Whether it was the draught from the unclosed window or the fiery stuff acting on the nerve of the tooth, I do not know, but in the morning, although my spasms were cured, my toothache was back again as wicked as ever.
That was my first experience of a ghost; and I leave my readers to judge if I did right in calling him a humbug. That view of the case is strengthened by the fact that the doctor’s ghost never appeared to me again. 1
D. Goggs.
Sublime Tobacco.
(WITH AN APOLOGY TO THE SHADE OF BYRON.)
There is a pleasure in a quiet pipe, There is a rapture in a prime cigar,	•
There is a plant, with consolation ripe,
Which none but antis would from man debar:
I love them none the less, but fain would mar
Their silly interviews, from which I steal
As unconvinced as my Tobacco jar, To mingle with its golden clouds, and feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Roll on, thou light ethereal vapour—roll!
Ten thousand antis carp at thee in vain!
They’d brand thee with disgrace, but their control Stops with thy blast, of which they all complain. Thou reck’st not of their deeds, nor doth remain A shadow of their ravage, save thine own,
■When, for a moment, like a ghostly train, They cross thy path, with melancholy groan, Without a friend, unpaid, unpitied, and unknown.
Thou glorious plant! thy aromatic fields
Are not a spoil for them! Thou dost arise, And to the revenue thy income yields
A mighty surplus, which they all despise:
Thou waft’st thy incense hourly to the skies, And send’st them shuddering from thy smoke away. And howling to their nobs, where hapless lies Meet ready credence—there, in briar or clay, Thou smokest them again, and wilt alway!
My pipe is out, its fire is quenched, my dream Dissolves itself in smoke; and it is fit
My song should cease on this delightful theme.
My pipe must be replenished and refit, Ere I can sing again; my mother wit Is lost without it! for I am not now
As vigorous as of yore—the antis flit Less palpably before me—and the glow Which in their spirits burnt is flickering, faint, and low.
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Qtn Jonson. vn. Two striking proofs of Ben’s magnanimous generosity must be noted: he fostered all possible rivals in the young and promising talents, who were proud to call him Father, and whom he adopted as his literary sons; he praised all actual rivals in direct proportion to their merits, the most fervid praise to the most formidable rivals, the very men whom, had he really been jealous and envious, he would have most striven to depreciate. One capital and crucial instance suffices on this point, the instance of Him who easily outrivalled all competitors, but who in his own and the next two or three ages was scarcely, in popular estimation, ranked above Jonson or Beaumont and Fletcher. How did Jonson speak of Shakespeare? His verdict in prose I gave in a previous number; his verdict in poetry we have in the two pieces “Underwoods” XI. and XH., “ On the Portrait of Shakespeare,” prefixed to the first folio edition, 1623, and “To the Memory of my beloved Master William Shakespeare, and What He hath Left Us.” Would that we had space here to give this latter at full length, for it is so honourable to both that it can hardly be too often reprinted. I ask where, even now, when the supremacy has long been unchallenged which was then challenged freely, and by many as wise in their great generation as the wisest in ours which is so much smaller,—where even now shall we find a tribute to that supremacy more ample, more magnificent, or rendered with more loyal free will?— “ To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, Am I thus ample to thy book and fame; While I confess thy writings to be such, As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much. ’Tia true, and all men's suffrage. Soul of the age I The applause ! delight! the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further to make thee a room: * Thou art a monument without a tomb, And art alive still while thy book doth live And we have wits to read and praise to give. 	to hear thy buskin tread And shake a stage; or when thy socks were on, Leave thee alone for the comparison Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show, To whom all Scenes of Europe homage owe. He was not of on age, but for all time! And all the Muses still were in their prime, When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm 1 Nature herself was proud of his designs, And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines 1 Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit, As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit. Yet must I not give Nature all; thy Art, My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part. For a good poet’s made, as well as born. And such wert thou! Look how the father’s face Lives in his issue, even so the race Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines In his well torned and true filed lines: In each of which he seems to shake a lance, As brandisht at the eyes of ignorance, t Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were To see thee in our waters yet appear, And make those Hights upon the banks of Thames, That so did take Eliza and our James I But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere Advanced, and made a constellation there! Shine forth, thou Star of Poets	” It has*been justly remarked by Gifford that the two most endearing appellations of our greatest poet, “ Gentle Shakespeare ” and “ Sweet Swan of Avon,” are due to that very rival whom the Shakespearian commentators of the last century persistently accused of envying and maligning him. It may also be observed, as a proof of Jonson’s sound judgment, that the two men whom he, with all his profound classical knowledge and sympathies, put forward as our champions, in prose and verse respectively, against the mightiest of “ insolent Greece or haughty Rome” (he uses the identical terms in both cases) were Bacon and Shakespeare. We now come to the parenthetical charge that “ drink is one of the elements in which he liveth.” That Ben in his forty-seventh year, robust in body and mind, and in full enjoyment of a long holiday, drank enough to astound and terrify Drummond, may be freely admitted ; but was the jolly guest a sot because the host was a prim valetudinarian? They were an ill-assorted couple; and the strong man, as * Alluding, os Whalley noted, to an elegy on Shakespeare by W. Basse, which opens thus:— “ Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh To learned Chaucer; and, rare Beaumont, lie A little nearer Spenser, to make room For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb. To lodge all four in one bed moke a shift, For until doomsday hardly will a fifth, Betwixt this day and that, by fates be slain, For whom your curtains need be drawn again. t Of course, a punning allusion to his name; but a right noble one. So Wordsworth, in his Elegy on Lamb, dwelt with unusual tenderness on the aptness of his name.	usual, was not aware how he overbore the weak; and the weak man, also as usual, pretended to enjoy it, and took a covert revenge. If, in place of the Laird of Hawthornden, the recording host had been such an one as the Ettrick Shepherd celebrates, we should have had something like a true, because sympathetic, character of Westminster’s first Big Ben:— “ Canty war ye o’er your kale. Toddy jugs, an* caups o’ ole; Heart aye kind, an’ leal, an’ hale,— Honest Laird o’ Lamington 1 “ I like a man to tak’ his glass, Toast a friend or bonnie lass; He that winna is an ass— Deil send him ane to gallop on ! I like a man that’s frank an' kind, Meets me when I have a mind, Sings his sang an' drinks me blind, Like the Laird o' Lamington.” He would just have suited our poet, who “ of all styles loved most to be named Honest, and hath of that one hundreth letters so naming him.” Did Drummond, think you, have many so naming him ? In our days the question of stimulants is commonly discussed with so much canting intemperance on the one side (that called, in irony, the Temperance) and so much timid hypocrisy on the other, that we rarely hear or read a straightforward sensible -word on it. About the best I have ever seen, in a short space, is that of Dr. Garth Wilkinson, in his magistral but little known work, “ The Human Body and its Connexion with Man,” chap, hi., “ Assimilation and its Organs;” much of the argument being as good for the sedative Tobacco as for the stimulant Wine. The wise liberal rule in this matter is precisely the contrary of that in politics; it is men not measures, instead of measures not men. The pertinent question is not, How much does So-and-So drink ? but, How does he live and work on his drink, and into what society does it lead him ? It is scarcely needful to state that Jonson emerges triumphant from such a test. As Gifford says on this point: “ The immensity of his literary acquisitions, and the number and extent of his productions, refute the slander, no less than the gravity, dignity, wisdom, and piety of those with whom he passed his life from manhood to extreme old age.” Clarendon, in his Life, speaking of himself in the third person, says: “He owed all the little he knew, and the little good that was in him, to the friendships and conversation he had still been used to, of the most excellent men in their several kinds that lived in that age; by whose learning and information and instruction he formed his studies, and mended his understanding, and by whose gentleness and sweetness of behaviour, and justice and virtue and example, he formed his manners. . . . Whilst he was only a student of the law, and stood at gaze, and irresolute what corner of life to take, his chief acquaintance were Ben Johnson, John Selden, Charles Cotton, John Vaughan, Sir Kenelm Digby, Thomas May, and Thomas Carew, and some others of eminent faculties in their several ways. Ben Johnson’s name can never be forgotten, having by his very good learning, and the severity of his nature and manners, very much reformed the Stage, and indeed the English poetry itself. . . . His (Jonson’s] conversation was very good, and with the men of most note.” One of the first scholars and most laborious writers of the age, conspicuous in the second rank of our poets and the front rank of our dramatists, he was on terms of familiar friendship with the noblest of his contemporaries ; the boon-companions of his prime were the men of the Mermaid, and of his age his Sons at the Apollo. He was convivial, and, as his burly namesake put it, “ a clubbable man ; ” and in his days taverns were the regular social resorts of the most illustrious men, as coffee-houses in the ne^t century, and as no places at all in ours,—for our clubs have expanded far beyond the bounds of sociability. Frank and fearless, he rather exaggerated than sought to hide bis jovial tastes; and the younger men, who exulted in being of his society, did so too. But we know that there was a serious side to his character which he could assert on occasion, as in the Apologetical Dialogue to the “ Poetaster,” already quoted from:— “ I, that spend half my nights, and all my days, Here in a cell, to get a dark pale face, To come forth worth the ivy or the bays. And in this ago can hope no other grace.” Garth Wilkinson says: “ It is at banquets like Plato’s that wine is vindicated. Their guests show the scope of human assimilation. . . . The spirit of play mates with the spirit of wine; the pleasant emotions and the brilliant saws and dreams of society, like wine-lilies naturally rock upon the cup, and dip their spirity roots into the beakers. The imaginative skies are vinous then; Valhalla has its mead, and great Odin never eats, but all sustenance is liquor to Allfather, who drinks only wine. Elysium, too, would be a poor Elysium without nectar and ambrosia.” Try to fancy an Elysium full of Anti-Tobacco Teetotalers ! Who that is sane would not prefer Tartarus ? Now, the banquets at which rare Ben revelled were like Plato’s, and their wine was fully vindicated by the genial genius and wit that flowed more freely than its freest flowing. Hackneyed as they are, I could not but give Beaumont’s verses on the Mermaid, and, though they are equally hackneyed, I must give those of Herrick on other taverns:—
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“ Ah Bks t
Say how, or when. Shall we thy guest# Meet at those lyric feasts, Made at the Sun, The Dog, the Triple Tun ? Where we such clusters had
As made uh nobly wild, not mad;
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.
“My BenI
Or come agen;
Or send to us
Thy wit’s great over-plus:
But teach us yet
Wisely to husband it;
Lest we that talent spend:
And having once brought to an end That precious stock; the store Of such a wit: the world should have no more.”
In Epigram CI., “ Inviting a Friend to Supper,” Jonson enumerates with rich relish the good things this “ grave sir” may look for, but interjects :—
“ Howsoe’er, my man,*
Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus, Livy, or of some better book, to us, Of which we’ll speak our minds, amidst our moat, And I'll profess no verses to repeat.”
In “ Underwoods” LXVI., “ An Epistle, answering to one that asked to be sealed of the Tribe of Ben,” he specifies among those with whom he will have no fellowship :—
“-------those that merely talk, and never think, That live in the wild Anarchy of Drink, Subject to quarrel only.”
And in his “ Leges Convivales,” for the famous Apollo Club, founded by him, we see what sound ideas he had of good fellowship. This Club met in the Apollo Room of the Old Devil Tavern, close to the east of Temple Bar, bought by Messrs. Child, the bankers, in 1787, and soon afterwards pulled down by them for the erection of a new building for their business. The Laics, it is said, were engraved on black marble. Over the door of the room was a bust of our poet, beneath which, in gold letters on a black ground, were the following lines from his pen:—
“ Welcome all who lead or follow, To the Oracle of Apollo— Here he speaks out of hi# pottle, Or the tripos, his tower bottle : All his answers are divine.
Truth itself doth flow in wine.
Hang up all the poor hop-drinkers, Cries old Sim, the king of skiukers; He the half of life abuses, That sits watering with the Muses. Those dull girls no good can mean os; Wine it is the milk of Venus, And the poet’s horse accounted: Ply it, and you all are mounted.
Tis the true Pcebion liquor,
Cheers the brains, makes wit the quicker, Pays all debts, cures all diseases, And at once three senses pleasea.
Welcome all who lead or follow, To the Oracle of Apollo.”
O Rare Ben Jonson 1
These verses, with all their humorous exaggeration of the Rabelaisian revelry, testify to a certain vigour of constitution (conspicuous in the bill of fare of Epigram CI., already mentioned), and make us envy the generations who scarcely knew that they had nerves. As Wilkinson says again: “ The hospitalities of other times enabled the guests to digest hard things, for which their successors have no stomachs; courage and clanship and bold ambition haunted the boars’ heads and smoking beeves, and horns of mead and of wine. The revellers were firmer in friendship, brighter in honour, softer in love, and stronger in battle, for the spirits which descended upon the hall.”
The other charges need not be discussed at length, being partly disposed of in what has been said already. We admit that Ben was passionately kind and angry; but know that such a character is rarely if ever vindictive, and find no trace of vindictiveness in his life or works. Although by no means strait-laced, he seems to have been sincerely religious, and warmly attached to the Church of England, to which he was re-con verted by patient study and reflection. His few devotional pieces are very earnest and solemn, and darkened with hypochondria such as lowered on his namesake of the next century. I know nothing to make us doubt that right through his life he was governed by the principles announced in the passage cited from the dedication to “Volpone” (December, p. 977): “For my particular, I can, and from a most clear conscience, affirm that I have ever trembled to think toward the least profaneness; have loathed the use of such foul and unwashed bawdry, as is now made the food of the scene.” Abhorrence of the “ribaldry, profanation, blasphemy,” then too common on the stage, could not be more forcibly expressed than in his indignant denial “that all are embarked in this bold adventure for hell.”
Drummond’s literary verdict appears as untrustworthy as his moral. “Oppressed with fantasie, which hath ever mastered his reason, a generail disease in many Poets!” A general disease in poets, perhaps, but Jonson was precisely the last poet to be infected with it. As Clarendon justly
Richard Brome, whom he educated. “ Underwoods ” XXVTIT. is “To my faithful servant and (by his continued virtue) my loving BUhard Brome, on his comedy of the “ Northern Lass,” which, Jonson says, has justly gained good applause from the stage.
remarks, in the passage quoted from already: “his natural advantages were judgment to order and govern fancy, rather than excess of fancy, his productions being slow and upon deliberation, yet then abounding with great wit and fancy, and will live accordingly.” He went to the other extreme; his reason or judgment was generally too predominant over his phantasy or imagination, whence that intellectual coldness and hardness detracting from his popularity in our soft-headed sentimental age. Sig vat.
Anatolian ^bbenfurts
n.
In order to do justice to M. Choisy it would be needful to translate his whole book, for every one of his graphic pages is an eloquent revelation of Oriental life. There is no task which it would delight us more to achieve; for we are convinced that an earnest inquirer can form an acquaintance with the East neither from the exaggerated and hasty reports of newspapers nor from the elaborate and pedantic discourses of learned professors, but from the faithful narratives and descriptions of honest and intelligent travellers, such as M. Choisy. Not being able, for obvious reasons, to present in our columns an entire translation of his book, we continue our extracts.
The Odas.
The village where we are to lodge is called Mourad-D6r6. It is constructed entirely of trunks of fir placed on each other, while the roofs are of bark. It has the appearance of a large woodyard. It is on entering it that we form our first acquaintance with odas. Hitherto I had known only the hospitality of the khan (the inn)—a hospitality not disinterested—or receptions purely private. The oda is neither the one nor the other; it is gratuitous, like private hospitality; it is public, like that of the khan. The word Oda signifies a chamber. It is a chamber opened by the pious munificence of some rich Turk to every stranger, without distinction of class or of religion; whether he be Mussulman or Christian, beggar or Pascha, the stranger finds in the oda gratuitously food and lodging. The Turk cannot conceive either study for its own sake or the curiosity of the rambler. For the Turk, every traveller is either a pilgrim or an unfortunate mortal who seeks, far from his native land, the means of existence. Thus all the sympathies of the Turk rush toward the traveller ; and one of the most meritorious labours of Islamism consists in coming to the traveller’s help. Such is the thought of the Mussulman who consecrates, by the foundation of an oda, his Mecca pilgrimage. The oda once created, the family of the founder maintains it from generation to generation; to abandon it would be to excite public contempt. As to us, dating from this day, we have to trust entirely to the odas. There are no more khans on our route, except in towns of the importance of Koutahia or of Konieh. Everywhere else we have to rely on the kindness of the proprietors of the odas, who accept nothing for the men, and only the price of the barley for the horses. It is true that, whatever the master may do, the servants and children accept with a good grace, and that even the master can be brought to take small presents of Tobacco, of coffee, and especially of gunpowder. So that, when everything is taken into account, the gratuitous hospitality of the odas costs much more than the entertainment at the khans. I never find anything so ruinous as that which is gratuitous. The aspect of an oda is, for the most part, unpretending. There is a hall, with naked walls, and a celling formed of unhewn beams of wood. There are no tables, no seats, no beds; mats and carpets are the only furniture, and an array of narghilies the only vaisselle. Many odas lack what is necessary; you find odas without doors, without fireplaces, and especially without glass windows; but nowhere an oda without narghilies and tschibouks. Here in Turkey people live on things superfluous; these console for the absence of things useful. But should we dwell on such discomforts, in the presence of an institution which does so much honour to the hospitable spirit of the Turks? Let us confess that, how humble soever the form in which it may be realised, the creation of an oda is, for a rich Mussulman, a luxury of the right order, a Turquerie oi the right stamp. The details of reception at an oda are eternally the same, from one end of Asia Minor to another. The master of the oda waits on you at the entrance and helps you to descend from the animal on which you are mounted. First of all, there are salutations: “Welcome!” “Well met!” “May Allah grant that the day may be fortunate to you!” “May Allah deign to hear you!” and so on. That serves as our intoduction to the scene. The oda is full of Turks, squatting like tailors and smoking furiously like Swiss. Nobody stirs. Then you squat down too, roll a cigarette, and are silent. Thereupon commences the series of salutations. They take an individual character, and are addressed successively to each person, the right hand being raised to the forehead. At each salutation the words “Welcome!” or “Well met!” are repeated; and, uttered in Turkish, produce a sort of faint murmur which has a curious effect as it comes from one corner of the hall to the other. Then follows a profound silence. Ten minutes pass away, whereupon come questions such as these: “Whence come you?” “Are the roads safe?” Forthwith you in
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46	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[June, 1877.
your turn ask: “Are there any ruins?” The reply is: “Var” (“There are some”), or “Tchok” (“There are many”). The Turk is not at all a talkative fellow. Do not try to obtain from him any details. Not understanding the interest you take in a particular subject, he gives you no precise information about it. On an average, a monosyllable is heard from quarter of an hour to quarter of an hour. And thus the time flows on, with an immense expenditure of Tobacco, but with a very small expenditure of talk, till the hour of repast. The dinner has the grave aspect of a religious ceremony. The master of the oda presides over it in person. As to the rest, he never leaves his guests; his life is passed with the stranger. To him the stranger is his family, his centre, his all. No doubt he has in a separate harem another family, about which, however, he does not care much. Let us return to the dinner. A male domestic, wearing a turban, advances slowly, solemnly, carrying on his head the huge tray on which the repast is placed. He places it on a small table, a sort of stool half a foot high. The chief dish is either a pot of sour milk or what is called pilaf (or pilau), a mountain of rice, prepared with a small quantity of fat or oil. The domestic places round the tray thin cakes, which do duty as loaves. Sometimes there are wooden spoons; but forks?—I do not believe that there is in the Turkish language a word to render this idea. These preparations having come to an end, the master of the oda takes his place, and his guests follow his example. All crouch down round the huge platter, without order, without classification: the effendi by the side of his muleteers, an officer in uniform face to face with a ragged beggar. I have even seen the domestic who brought the tray squat down with the guests. Usually, however, he remains on foot, ready to serve. He hands you water in a porringer—unfortunately the same porringer is handed to all the guests—or he takes new cakes and tosses them to you— the only fashion of offering such things which is known in the East. All this mode of procedure is partriarchal in a supreme degree. Nothing so picturesque as this crowd of eaters, in higgledy-piggledy positions, eagerly diving into the dish with their hands, and stuffing themselves with enormous mouthfuls. One thing only I regret, namely, that I form a part of that crowd. The repast does not last long. All the guests crowd round the fireplace, if there is a fireplace; but, for the most part, there is a substitute in the shape of a firwood fire, which gives heat while giving light to the chamber. The whole population comes to gaze at the Ghiaour (opprobrious name given by the Turks to the Christians). People enter, people go out; there is an eternal movement to and fro. Twice in the course of the evening, by reason of the Ramazan, everybody rushes in, wishing to smoke before prayer and wishing to smoke after it. The oda becomes, for the time, the village club. The master of the oda offers coffee to all, and we, in our turn, do the same. We show our firmans. Everyone gazes intently at the signature of the Sultan thereon, embraces it. places it on his head, almost adores it, and on us the glory of some of that superstitious veneration is reflected. Nikolaki knows the passion of the Turks for long stories, and he has always one ready. What a pity it is that he discourses in a language which I understand so badly! He explains himself in a fashion somewhat tepid and dragging; the positive details are multiplied to excess; the words parah and gorouch return too often; but what a prodigious mass of shrewd observations! And what a strange attitude is that of this turbaned public! The hearers fall into a sort of slumberous condition. Their imagination stravaifj* and floats according to the vicissitudes of the narrative. They allow themselves to be fondled and cradled into bliss, the kie f. And Nikolaki, who is aware of all the happiness he is bestowing upon them, does not cease to tell his tales to an audience dreaming with open eyes in the rapture of ecstasy. I might discourse on the odas for ever; they sum up for me the whole of Oriental life. In the odas Turkish dignity grandly asserts itself, spite of tattered garments. A red resinous light shines on the rags and plays on the picture as on a canvas of Rembrandt. Curiosity, the yearning for the picturesque, all our instincts as occidentals, find food there. But in the end we all grow tired of the most striking or of the most pleasant things. These evenings, so original, appear long to people who are tired. Often, thoroughly vanquished by fatigue, I was compelled to sever myself from the company, and to offer excuses to my hosts, which, fortunately, were always taken in good part. “Yoldyou,” was the reply; that is to say, “Traveller; you are a traveller; that is a sufficient excuse; you are at liberty to do what you like. Sleep at your ease.” I spread a coverlet on the floor, and roll myself in another. With bridles and stirrups Nikolaki makes for me a very elastic pillow. While the dying flash of the resinous fire falls on my eyes, and the veiled murmur of the narghilies glides into my ears, I fall asleep.
The Pascha of Koutahia.
The palace of the Governor, the Konak, is, according to an almost invariable type throughout the Empire, a large wooden house of two stories, a colossal whitewashed barrack, which has nothing to plead in its favour but amplitude of dimensions. The ground floor contains a gigantic staircase and guardhouses. Above an immense public hall occupies the whole centre of the edifice, and the various offices are ranged to the right of this nave like the cells in a monastery. The reception-room of the Pascha is merely a functionary’s cabinet,
unpretending in every respect, and entirely in the European style; there is an arm chair for the Pascha, and there are divans of serge for the public. There is only one detail which is Oriental. The officer has, instead of a table, a small stand, on which are placed an ink stand and a handbell; and the Pascha, to get light to read his dispatches, makes use of a true church taper (a very large taper) which is placed upright in a candelabrum that stands on the ground. After the customary compliments, the Pascha invites us to a seat. We present our firmans and tell him our business. We speak of the degree of security of the roads, then we speak of antiquities, with which he seems to be well acquainted. He warmly recommends to us the ruins of Tchardir-Hissar which he has himself seen, and of which he gives us an enthusiastic picture. The Pascha is not guilty of exaggeration, for Tchardir is merely another name for Aezani. Wliile we are engaged in conversation, about fifty persons, squatting or even stretched out at full length, and smoking as if in the open street, crowd the hall with perhaps but slender chance of obtaining their particular objects, and. wait for their turn of audience. We take our leave of the Pascha. To-morrow we are to traverse the town freely with the cavas whom he gives us as guide and escort.
The Turhish Gamins.
The horses are saddled. Then my Turks remember that they have opened all my packages to get out my clothes, and it is not till the moment of starting that they think of repacking. To keep myself in patience I go and throw a last look at the Bazaar. The gamins are playing. They are terrible rascals, that I must grant. I should like to pull their ears, that I must also grant. But I must confess that their vivacious air contrasts with the somnolent heaviness of the old Turks. We see small faces which sparkle with intelligence. Is there for these races of the East a special law’ of development ? Have climate and education a profound influence? Or are we to trace the difference to brutalising agencies operating between infancy and mature age, such as opium? Certain it is, at least, that the Turkish brat is “a little man.” The expression, Kutchuk Adam, by which a child in the Turkish language is designated, has exactly this meaning, and is perfectly just. To get breakfast I enter one of those Turkish cooking places, the stores whereof are displayed on the street, and remind us of the restaurants of Pompeii. It is a boy of seven years old who waits on us, and he performs his part with irreproachable intelligence, gravity, and calm. Everywhere I have found the Turkish child alike— reasonable much in advance of his age, perverse rather than frolicsome, “ a little man,” in short. The Greek or Armenian children have not nearly so much of this precocious maturity; and just at this very moment an Armenian boy comes across my way as contrast. When I go out he accosts me and says: “Whence come you?” “From Constantinople.” “Have you brought a letter for me from my godfather? ” I do not think that a Turkish child would have asked me a similar question. Yet I was present when an old woman in France inquired of the postman whether her nephew, a soldier, was going to write to her soon.
The Sham Physicians.
Meanwhile the plain extends before us smiling and animated. The peasants are at work. I am wrong, I should have said the peasantette*, for here it is the women on whom the heaviest and hardest of the labours of the field fall. Their face covered with a large white veil, it is they who conduct the plough, almost always under the jealous eye of a husband, who, crouching in a corner of the field, and smoking his tschibouk, watches them. Some of these sluggards stop us and question us respecting the direction and the object of our journey. On this occasion Nikolaki imagines that the best thing is that we should pretend to be physicians. This is fixed on as our profession to the end of our journey; and the assumption of the character is sure to bring us respect, without exciting cupidity through the idea that we are wealthy. Sometimes I really practised medicine, administering to one per.'on bread-crumb, and to another pure water! Who knows ? Perhaps I really performed some cures. My commencements alone were troublesome, on account of the incredulity of the guides. They laughed in my face, the scoundrels, with unbounded recklessness. I proved to them afterwards not merely that their laugh was out of place, but that I could really act as a physician; and they were so completely convinced that I had the honour of counting Ibrahim (an attendant) among my patients. I avenged myself by my way of treating him; but the first day I was really vexed by his extravagant laughter. I was wrong; for we must know the Turks profoundly in order to penetrate their thought, and to discover what in them is simplicity and what insolence. The Turks are like children. Pronounce before them a French word, and they laugh till the tears stream from their eyes, laugh till they are ready to split their sides. I often thought they were laughing at my expense—laughing at a Turkish word badly pronounced, at an unaccustomed phrase. It was the laugh of childhood in persons whose passions were very far from having the innocence of childhood. Unappreciated physicians, we reach the Emits of the plain of which Aezani is the centre; we encounter once more the juniper trees, and we seek a resting-place in the nearest oda.
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Joto, 1877.]	COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT.	47	
NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. Fe cannot return unaccepted MSB, or Sketches, unless they ore accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; and us do not hold ourselves responsible for loss.	SMOKING: WHEN INJURIOUS, WHEN INNOCUOUS, WHEN BENEFICIAL, WITHCOMPBNDnTM OF TUB TEMPERAMENTS, SHOWING HOW THEY ABB INFLUENCED BY TOBJLOCO.
COPE’S ARCTIC CARD. DISCOVERY of the NORTH POLE.	BY J. CARRICK MURRAY, M.D., F.A.L, Nmcastle^ipon- Tyne. Price Is. Free by Post. 1s. 11d. London : Simpkin, Marshall, A Co. Nbwcastlb-on-Tynb : D. H. Wilson.
ARRIVAL OF THE POLE IN ENGLAND. ftiM>m to the “ Tobacco Plant” for 1877 will receive a copy of the Xjrtic Card, carefully peeked upon a roller, by forwarding 6d. to pay carriage. Pri^e to Non-Subecribers, 1/-. Subscription for “ Tobacco Plant ” 2/* per Homo, port free. Subecription for “ Tobacco Plant ” and Abctic Cabd, ^1 publishing Office:—10, Lord Nelson Street, LiverpooL	Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4s. ®^ ^nnitrs1 Register, A JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOR GREAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND THE COLONIES. THE PRINTERS' REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Home and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India. China, Canada, Ac.; and it affords the best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August. 1875. Address—The Editob, St. Bride Street, London, E.C. WORKS on TOBACCO, SNUFF, &c.—Booksellers having Books on Tobacco, Snuff, Ac, or Magazines, Journals, or Newspapers containing articles on the subject, are invited to report such to | the Office of COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
YORK TOBACCO LEAF, Organ of the Tobacco Trade of the United States. Published weekly. Subscription, 20/- per Annum, post free to any part of the United Kingdom. Sole Agents for the United Kingdom— Cope Bros. & Co., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by whom ^grtisements and Subscriptions will be received. Specimen Wpy sent for Id. postage stamp.	
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FOR SHEEPWASH,
ONE SHILLING AND SIXPENCE PER GALLON.
MANUFACTURED IN BOND, FROM THE STRONGEST AMERICAN LEAF TOBACCO.
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FULL PARTICULARS SENT POST FREE ON APPLICATION TO THE
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Twopenny Cigar. The Prairie Brand.
Threepenny Cigar. The Burgomaster Brand.
Fourpenny Cigar. St. George’s Brand.
48	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[June, 1877.
CIGAR MAKERS, SNUFF GRINDERS, TOBACCO CUTTERS,
Ktanufaaturers of Tofeacco for importation)* and Qavendtsb Patentees, LOEE USTELSOTT STREET, LIVEEEOOL.
PRICE LISTS SUPPLIED TO THE TRADE ON APPLICATION.
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New Cigarette—Cope’s Whiffs, in Bundies of ten, lead foil, and neat label. In Cedar Boxes, containing forty Bundles, or 400 Cigarettes.
Bouquet (With Tubes). Peerless (Without Tubes). In Cardboard Boxes, containing four Bundles of 23 Cigaretos. In very handsome Cedar Cases, containing ten Boxes, or 1000 Cigaretos. ,
Delicate in flavour; bum evenly, with a firm white ash; made with great care for a mild morning smoke.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes. In Cardboard Boxes, containing 30. In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1000, with lock and key.
Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made from a peculiar kind of Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking of this Tobacco is said to give relief in vases of Asthma.
These really beautiful Goods are rapidly growing into favour, and invariably make a trade wherever introduced.
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NoJ87VoULi	JULY, 1877?
^t fistnrg anir ^^ilosop^g of Nabatea.
i.
Th* fallowing is a Turkish legend:—Mahomet found once, in the winter, a serpent stiffened by the frost. In the exceeding pity of his heart, he lifted up the serpent and wrapped it in the sleeve of his garment. The warmth of the Prophet's holy body brought, in a short time, the serpent back to life. But scarcely did the child of Iblis feel itself well and strong again, when it stretched forth its head from the sleeve, and said: “0! Prophet of God, I will sting thee.” “Furnish me with a rational cause, 0! serpent, and I will allow thee tq do what thou proposest.” “ There is war between my seed and thy seed.” “But I have done thee good.” “But thou mightest have done me harm.” “Be not ungrateful to thy charitable friend.” “But ungrateful I have resolved to be; I have sworn it by the name of the Most High.” “Well, then, sting me, in the name of God,” said the Prophet; who, in his piety, did not wish the wicked creature to be guilty of perjury. The serpent stung his hand. He shook off the serpent, sucked the poison along with the blood from the wound, and spat them both on the ground. Behold! immediately sprang from the ground a marvellous plant, which in its qualities combines the bitterness of the serpent’s tooth and the mildness of the Prophet’s blood—Tobacco, the comforter and consoler of all true believers.
The unbelieving world gives a different account of the matter. According to that account, Tobacco is a pilgrim from the New World; though undoubtedly in the far east of the Cisatlantic world—that is to say, in China—the leaves of a plant claiming close kindred to Tobacco were, from the remotest period, smoked. In America it was the custom to smoke the leaves of a plant belonging to the family of the nightshades, and consequently having near relationship with the potato on the one hand, and with henbane and thorn-apple on the other. It was called by the Indians, according to the language of the different tribes, Joli, Petun, Piecelt, or Cohiba. Both in North and South America it had gained a ride dominion long before the discovery of this region of the world. For in Transatlantic sepulchres and ruins of cities appertaining to primaeval times, pipe-heads were found. They were of stone, and were in part artistically adorned. Smoking in those days long gone by was, among the Red Skins—what it still is among them—not merely a pleasure, but a diplomatic ceremony, when welcome was offered to guests, or when peace vu concluded; a magic agency, an act of worship, a sacrifice. The natives smoked a pipe in honour of the Great Spirit, when they came to places which were sacred to him. When they had been hunting with singular success, they made an offering to him of Tobacco. To placate him when angry, they strewed Tobacco powder into the air when it was shaken hy storm and thunder. There was much else of the same tort. When, in 1492, Columbus put his foot on the American toil, there came toward him, as his son narrates, savages, who had in their mouths tubes made of Tobacco leaves—tubes which glowed with fire at one end, and the smoke of which they inhaled. And from those aboriginal cigars, which in Haiti were called Tabagos, comes the name Tobacco. The first delineation of this singular custom was given in 1496, by the monk Romano Pane, whom Columbus had left on that ^and. The first accurate description of the Indian smoking plant was furnished in 1515, by Gonzalo Fernandez De Oviedo, st put time Governor of San Domingo. To Europe came the tiring plant about the middle of the sixteenth century, either
through Fernandez De Oviedo or through Andrew Thevet, who brought it from Brazil to Lisbon, and gave the first pictorial representation of it. From Lisbon the Tobacco plant found its way to Paris, by means of Jean Nicot, the French Ambassador at the Portuguese Court, who sent it to Queen Catherine De Medicis as a panacea. From Nicot the plant received its botanical name (Nicotians), and from the queen certain special designations, such as Herbe de la Reine and Herbe M^dic^e. Tobacco was proclaimed a catholicon, pictured as good for all ailments and troubles; as an admirable plaster for wounds and angry eruptions; as a potent alleviation for asthma; as, when in powder, an energetic expeller of gout in the head, and so on. While Nicot was the champion of Tobacco at the French Court, Raleigh pled its cause at the English Court; and Cardinal Prosper Santa Croce made the Italians, and Conrad Gessner the Swiss, acquainted with it.
During the first part of its career Tobacco was simply victorious from its reputation as a healing drug; but gradually it became an enjoyment of the people. From a far world, and over the great waters, soldiers and sailors returning home brought to Western Europe the custom of making the air fragrant with smoke. From Western Europe it travelled round the world, back to the place of its birth; travelled with a rapidity far surpassing that of the raids and ravages of Huns, Saracens, and Mongolians; that of the plague and the cholera; that of the revolutionary ideas of 1789, or of Yankee politics. It is stated that the marvellous spectacle of Tobacco drinking—for so was smoking at first called in the Western world, and so is it still called in the East—was first seen in England on the 27th July, 1586, when those of Britain’s first colony in Virginia, who had been saved from destruction by Drake’s fleet, landed at Plymouth with Ralph Lane, their governor, at their head. They had blazing pipes in their mouths, and they had learned to smoke from their recent neighbours, the Red Skins. But already “in the twentieth year of Queen Elizabeth,” that is to say, in 1577, Tobacco, according to Stow’s “Annals,” came to England, and Taylor, the “Water Poet,” names even the year 1565 as that when Tobacco for smoking was first introduced. Certain it is that the use of the plant in the pipe swiftly gained among the English immense extension, and became with many a passion. Even women smoked, not merely such women as actresses and courtesans, but also women of the higher classes, as may beeecn from the portraits of ladies who lived about the middle of the seventeenth century. In Holland Tobacco was smoked as early as 1580, and five years later the first clay pipes were manufactured in Holland, people having previously contented themselves with inhaling the nicotian vapour through vegetal tubes. One or two decenniums later, in addition to the two countries already named, all Spain and all Portugal smoked. English sailors taught the Swedes, the Russians, and probably also the Turks, the use of the pipe. The Portuguese and the Dutch became missionaries in Eastern Asia of the bliss-giving plant. In Egypt the first tschibouks blazed about 1601; and about the same time Tobacco was introduced into Java. In 1605 the strange guest found entrance into the court of the Great Mogul. The Germans seem to have been the latest in forming an acquaintance with the new luxury. They appear to have gained a taste for it from the British regiments commanded by Lord Grey, which were sent to the help of the King of Bohemia. Soon, moreover, the fascinating, the much-loved plant was cultivated everywhere: first of all, in 1574, in Tuscany; then, in 1615, in Holland; shortly afterwards in England; in 1660 in the Rhenish Palatinate, in Branden-
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burg, in Hungary. In the last half of the seventeenth century, Tobacco had achieved the conquest of the world, had established its right of citizenship everywhere, had everywhere acquired the attribute of a necessity.
Nevertheless, the new custom did not establish its empire without encountering serious resistance. As to so many other reforms, force and persuasion stood hostile to the amelioration of the air; yea, in not a few countries the gospel according to Nicot could boast of its martyrs. Kings and Czars, Popes and Sultans, even worthy Swiss Republics entered on campaigns against it. Members of the Republic of Letters bombarded the smoking and snuffing world with the heavy guns of their eloquence. And when not more than half a century had elapsed since the genius of Tobacco had crossed the ocean, literature could count a whole library of writings which ridiculed and reprobated smoking. But all this was lost labour, lost time. The persecuted, prohibited, and despised plant vanquished all obstacles, gained over all classes: the soldier in the camp, the citizen, the priest, the nobleman. It even contrived fo steal into the families of crowned heads. Miss Pardoe, in her History of the Court of Louis XIV., states that the daughters of the mighty monarch did not deem it beneath their dignity to smoke, though Louis himself was a decided enemy of smoking. When the ladies were tired of the stiff and solemn fashions in the circle of the Court, they were accustomed to retire to their private apartments to celebrate a kind of orgie; and on one occasion, when the Dauphin, at a late hour, had left the gaining table, and, hearing a noise in the apartments of the ladies, entered to see what was the cause, he found the ladies smoking vigorously, and discovered that they had borrowed their pipes from the officers of the Swdss Guard.
Furthermore, among the French middle classes the “Herb of the Queen” rapidly gained numerous devotees, and after a while it was cultivated by speculators. But even in France Tobacco encountered for a time vigorous opposition, which culminated in an edict which condemned all Tobacco as hurtful, and ordered it to be burned. Public opinion, however, so far as it could make itself known, was not in harmony with the measure, and French financiers were not long in discovering that Tobacco might be made to yield important contributions to the public treasury. A less ferocious attitude was, therefore, assumed by the government, which limited itself now to imposing a heavy tax on smokers and snuffers, which consisted in thirty sous for the pound of Tobacco. This tax was such an immense benefit to the public revenue, that it was resolved, in 1644, to declare the cultivation of Tobacco and the trade in Tobacco State monopolies. These monopolies yielded a clear sum of half a million of livres. After the cessation of the monopolies, in 1674, other profitable measures of finance were adopted. In 1719 the taxes were changed into an import duty, and in 1723 the French East India Company obtained the exclusive right to sell Tobacco in France; and for this privilege it had to pay in advance to the king a considerable sum. The privilege of the company was subsequently transferred to the farmers general. In 1780 the consumption of Tobacco had so increased that the government’s share of the profit amounted to twenty-nine millions of livres; and in the following years, from the ever increasing consumption, the public revenue was benefited in proportion.
In Spain and Portugal the incense from the land of the Indians, which took the shape of Tobacco smoke, encountered few or no gainsayers. People in those two countries were too busy with the persecution of other heresies to have leisure and zeal to persecute this particular heresy.
In England Queen Elizabeth showed herself tolerant toward the custom of smoking. On the other hand the clergy raised up their voice to condemn Tobacco as the destruction of the people; and they were not altogether wrong, for persons often rushed into excesses. The enthusiastic devotees of Tobacco were not satisfied merely with harmless snuff-taking during divine service, but they vigorously and ostentatiously smoked in the churches. The lovers of the pipe and the snuff-box replied in verse and prose to their opponents, and glorified Tobacco as the gift of God. Anew the opposite party tried to crush the sinners by violent discharges of denunciations and lampoons, Bible texts, and other missiles of the time. One of these enemies called Tobacco “the stinking herb, much misused to the dishonour of God.” Another designated the smoke of Tobacco as a “ horrible Stygian vapour.” One foe, who was especially a zealot and an alarmist, expressed in all earnestness the fear that through this “barbarous custom” the English might become cannibals. As a contrast, writers and poets of this period were never tired of praising in all directions the virtues of Tobacco, and in hundreds and hundreds of smoking places resounded the chorus of the popular song in which the praises of Tobacco were sung:
Ho, boys, sound it loudly: Earth ne’er did breed Such a jovial weed Whereof to boast so proudly.
Thus heaved the conflict to and fro, but ever inclining more and more to the victory of the friends of Tobacco, when James the First threw himself into the fray. A marvellous kind of saint was this same king, half mystic, half pedant; very fond of scribbling, very fond of controversy. He became the ally of the enemies of Tobacco; and just as he had valiantly contended for the possibility of magic and of
witchcraft, had earnestly inquired into the sense of the Apocalypse, and had written many a pen blunt in defence of the divine and absolute right of kings, and of the passive obedience of their subjects, so he now added to the titles he had acquired through these literary performances another— one perfectly in harmony with them. The literary cannons he discharged at the object of his royal wrath were entitled “A Counterblast to Tobacco,” and “ Misocapnus.”
In the first work, which appeared in 1603, the crowned writer delivered to his smoking subjects a castigatory sermon of a tolerably paternal character. Among other things, he said: “ Verily, smoke is better suited for a scullery than for a dining-room; and yet it often converts into a kitchen the inward parts of men, by polluting and penetrating them with a greasy and oily kind of soot, as was found to be the case with many great smokers when they were opened after death. A custom disgusting to the eye, hurtful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and, with its black stinking smoke, as like as possible to the horrible Stygian vapour of the bottomless abyss.”
Still more fiercely thundered the “Misocapnus,” which appeared in 1619. After hurling at the English the reproach that it is unworthy of them as a moral nation to adopt usages from such barbarians as the savages of America, he endeavoured to prove to them clearly that Tobacco was the vivid image and pattern of hell, because it accustomed men to all the vices which led straight to hell. Thus he spoke: “In the first place it is a smoke, and so are all the vanities of the world. In the second, it ensnares those who devote themselves to it, just as the joys of the world ensnare worldly men. In the third, it makes men drunken and mad in the head, and that the vanities of the world likewise do; men are plunged by them into a kind of intoxication. In the fourth, whosoever smokes Tobacco is unable to renounce the habit, which holds him as if by enchantment. In kindred fashion, the joys of the world render men incapable of forsaking them, so much are men enchanted by them. Furthermore, smoking in its essential nature is hell; for, like hell, it is a stinking and disgusting thing.” His Majesty, in addition, said that if he were to invite the Devil to his table he would present him with three dishes: first of all, a swine; secondly, a stalk of Alexandrian senna and mustard; thirdly, a pipe of Tobacco for digestion. The work concluded with these words: “If, therefore, 0! citizens, there is any sense of shame remaining in you, renounce this godless habit, which, conceived in error, is brought forth in guilt, and spread abroad in folly; through which God’s wrath is kindled, the health of the body destroyed, domestic peace and prosperity overthrown, the people brought low and made ridiculous to all lands.”
His reproofs and warnings had as little effect as—spite the solidity of the arguments—the disputation which was held respecting Tobacco at Oxford, in 1605, on the occasion of a visit of the King, and which pronounced against it;' and at which the monarch, after expressing in vigorous words his approval of the decision pronounced by the majority of the learned gentlemen, was compelled to listen to Dr. Chegwell, who, pipe in hand, proclaimed and praised in the warmest terms the virtues of Tobacco as a curative agent. England persisted in finding the hellish plant very delightful. But James was not merely a writer, he was also a king; he had the means of enforcing his will, and he made use thereof. In an edict which begins with the characteristic words “Forasmuch as we, by reason of our strong dislike to Tobacco,” he raised the import duty, which for a pound of the plant he hated so heartily had only been twopence, to the monstrous sum of six shillings and tenpence, being a forty-fold increase. But even this was not enough—smokers belonging to the lower class were to be flogged; those of a higher class were to be driven barefoot, and with shorn beard, into banishment.
Under the government of Charles I., who was almost as much opposed to smoking as his father, the Tobacco trade became a monopoly of the Government, which compelled those to whom it gave the privilege of selling Tobacco to pay heavy sums. Cromwell paid homage in his own person to Tobacco, and often dictated despatches to his secretary Milton through clouds of Trinadadas vapour; but he agreed with King James in thinking that it was turning the soil of England to a bad purpose to employ it in the cultivation of Tobacco. He sent forth his soldiers, therefore, utterly and everywhere to destroy the young Tobacco crops. It is said that the troops at Cromwell’s splendid funeral smoked, as if thereby they had wished to testify their joy over their regained freedom. Charles II. renewed the laws formerly given for the suppression of the Tobacco-culture in England, and extended the prohibition to Ireland. But smoking itself he was unable to suppress; even children and ecclesiastics now smoked their pipes vigorously. A French traveller, Jovenin De Rochefort, who about the year 1670 visited England, states that the children here, “ when they went to school, took along with them in their satchel a pipe which their mother in the morning had filled for them, and which served them instead of lunch; and that at a particular hour each child laid aside the book to light the pipe, on which occasion the teachers smoked with the children and showed them howto hold the pipe and to inhale the smoke.” Another Frenchman, the ecclesiastic Misson, who was in England in 1697, informs us that nowhere could more passionate smokers be found than among the ecclesiastics there. He adds: “Tobacco produces not only deep-thinking theologians, but also moral philosophers.” William HI. stood
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forth as the patron of the smoking world, and all England smoked in peace. The pipes in the reign of him the Dutchman grew longer, while at the same time the tax on the importation of Tobacco grew heavier. Through the influence of Robert Walpole, the import duty in 1732 was augmented.
Tn recent numbers of the Neue Freie Presse, one of the best of the German newspapers, Moritz Busch discoursed with much animation, intelligence, geniality and impartiality, on “The History and Philosophy of Tobacco.” We have translated his brilliant narrative, believing it to be one of the best, most trustworthy summaries, of the adventures which the Nicotian plant has undergone.
Pipes of ^aier gtars.
n.-NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY—Continued.
Plikh are funny things, but not always the most pleasant of companions- You are lying down, for instance, to have an after-dinner nap, and there happens to be a fly in the room. Well, presently he alights on your nose, singing. “ That nose of yours,” says the fly, “’pon my soul, it always does amuse me.”
You send him off, and try to compose yourself. Bum-m-m, there he is again, on the self-same spot!
“This nose of yours,” he says again, “it does get over me.” Once more you send him off, and close your eyes. Bum-m_m! “A most ridiculous nose; blow me tight if it ain’t! ”
You try to blow him tight, and damage your own proboscis instead—badly. First you think it will bleed, and then you find it don’t; but it is ever so much more painful than if it did. So you spring from the couch raging, rampant, kick the cat out, break your shins over the scuttle, then back to the couch, and, burying your head defiantly in a Daily Telegraph, get off to sleep at last.
Just as I write these lines, in at the open window flies a moth, as big as an oyster. For a while he feathers about on the ceiling, trying to find out whether his head or the plaster ia the harder. Having made up his mind as to this point, he commences singing glory, glory, glory around the candles, not certain which is the brightest, not sure at which shrine he shall immolate himself. Whizz! There! he has gotten too much glory at last, and mercy steps in with the extinguisher, and the place that knew that moth but a moment before, now knows him no more. But, what a caricature on the pomp and pride and vanity of human life! Don’t we all, everyone of ns, sooner or later, immolate ourselves on some shrine ? Aren’t we all, everyone of us, singing glory, glory round some flame—if it isn’t love, it’s ambition; and, if it isn’t either, it’s maybe both? And won’t we singe our wings some day, and sic transit gloria mundi ? And now I’ll light another cigar.
Wasps were frequent visitors at my cottage orn6. I don’t like wasps, and the yellow-rumped rascals seem to have an especial dislike to me. If I am asleep in my arm-chair, and dreaming even of my native hills, the song of a wasp will cause me to spring to my feet, as wide awake as ever I was in my life.
They may be innocent enough for all that, and I know people who don’t mind their crawling over their faces. Granting it is fruit they come in to look after, what more likely than that they should take your nose for a cherry, and, suddenly discovering their mistake, put a sting in it, saying: “There! take one for your nob! ” and then fly away ? I don’t positively hate any of God’s creatures; but just pull the sting out of a wasp, and I’ll make him ten times more welcome. Besides, what right have wasps to come and steal my peaches, and bore holes in my pears, and carry away armsful of them ? Why, instead of stealing fruit, don’t they go and make honey from every opening flower, like good honest bees who don’t mind looking anyone in the face? And so on, and so forth.
But hornets are worse. I don’t think, mind you, that hornets know themselves exactly what they mean to be up to. I don’t think they ever come out with any very definite idea of what they mean to do. They just loaf around, as it were, to pick up whatever they can find. And they won’t brook any interference, and precious little contradiction. When they do get inside a room, and can’t find their way out right through a pane of glass (because glass isn’t a riddle, although in one way it is to hornets), don’t they get riled just? Now is the time to take a towel and catch your hornet, and then you can hold him up and look at him without any fear; and it is quite a new sensation to see his great death-dealing sting forking in and out within an inch of your nose, knowing all the while he can’t hurt you. When you’ve enjoyed yourself to the full, kill him quickly and completely. N.B.—Never put a wounded hornet aside in a corner till he gets well, or you may forget where you’ve laid him, and maybe there will ^ the deuce to pay—and the doctor.
A little anecdote has just come into my head about the Duke of Kent, who was colonel of my grandfather’s regiment. He was in the habit of taking a look around the barracks late of a night, when he couldn’t sleep. Several times during his rambles at midnight, he had observed lights spring up here mid there in the men’s windows, burn for a short time, and then go out again. He was too good a soldier not to require
an explanation. “ The men do be catching fleas, your Grace,” said the sergeant. The real truth was that the men were lighting their pipes. “A flea,” said the Duke, “pray what is a flea? Go fetch me one.”
A flea was easily found, and a little delicate manipulation • quietened, without killing it. Now, no kinder-hearted man than the Duke ever breathed.
With his white little finger he gently turned the flea once or twice on the soldier’s palm.
“Poor little fellow!” he said softly, “I hope you haven’t hurt him. Thank you, sergeant; put him up.”
Fleas are disagreeable gentry in church. There are few real martyrs in these degenerate times; but I have always thought that the man who can stand up and sing “All people that on earth do dwell” with a serious face and pious heart, and a flea dining off his gluteus maximum is deserving of a wooden monument.
Spiders are my delight. Bridget and I used to have no end of rows about these pets of mine. But sometimes spiders of a very questionable shape, and not at all sociable, would pay a flying visit to my cottage orn6. One of this sort came in the other evening by the window, a tremendous great hairy fellow, as big as a lobster—more or less. It didn’t suit him to remain outside during a thunder-shower. He came in on a run, sideways, like a crab.
“Oh! hang it all, you know!” he said; “I can’t stand the like of that, I must have shelter of some kind.”
Now, I couldn’t have my indoor spiders intruded upon in this unceremonious fashion, so I got a basin of water and invited him into that; then sent him on an exploring expedition down the sink.
Bluebottles used to come tumbling in by the window of my* cottage orn6 at all hours of the day. A bluebottle always appears to be in a very great hurry, and makes more row than enough. As soon, however, as one would enter the room, up would spring Theodore Nero, my champion Newfoundland, and give chase at once.
“It is after my grub the beggars are coming,” the dog would say.
But this species of bluebottle hunting isn’t always safe with a dog of Theodore’s inches; for chairs got in the way, and I’ve known the table go down, and jugs and glasses come to grief; and then Bridget would rush in, crying, “Lawk-a-mussy, sir! whatever is the rumpus?”
When the mischief was all done, and the bluebottle still afloat, then the dog would stand in a corner, with his face to the wall, and wait patiently till the enemy sailed round, then—snap!—sudden death, and all was over. N.B.—It is screaming fun to see a Newfoundland hunting a bluebottle all over a bijou drawing-room—when you’re in a strange house, and the dog isn’t yours.
Bluebottles are sometimes called blow-flies. Spiders don’t like them, because they break down their webs, going slick through them, like a bottle-nose whale through a fisherman’s net, and never stop to see what is to pay.
Earwigs. One can’t have everything one would like in this world. You must “tak’ the thick wi’ the thin,” as a Scotch messmate of mine said when serving out the soup; and you can’t have roses yellow and red clustering round the chimneys of your cottage orn6, without likewise being well supplied with the genus earwig.
Earwigs are always turning up where least expected. ' They are addicted to stowing themselves away in out-of-the-way corners, in threes and fours, and generally succeed in getting in under the very article you are looking for. They explore your hair brushes, get into the clothes brush, get inside your slippers before you put them on, and often suddenly appear on the upper edge of the book you are reading, without ever saying “by your leave” or “how do you like it?”
They even walk over your counterpane, at six o’clock of a summer’s morning, and turn their ugly heads and look you innocently in the face, as if they didn’t know well enough they had no business there.
I’ve found them in tea, met them in soup, and even had dealings with them in my drop of post-prandial sherry. I only hope I may never have swallowed any.
Earwigs are of various sizes, and some are/at. Commend me to a fat sole, but heaven preserve me from a fat earwig! Earwigs have an insane predilection for committing suicide in one’s bath. Doctors tell you to get a little warm before entering the matutinal tub. All very well; but if you have first to fish for earwigs for half an hour, in the garb of Adam, it cools your ardour and your cockles considerably. I saw a man once who had an earwig in his lug, and oh! didn’t he grizzle 1 He told me he felt as if he had swallowed a dozen well-chosen thunderstorms, and they’d all flown to his head.
Centipeds are the kings of creepie-creepies. Whatever these diabolical insects want with so many legs I can’t tell. They don’t get along particularly fast after all. I have a centiped in a bottle in my cupboard (“mysterious closet” Bridget) eight inches long, and as broad as your little finger. Caught him out in India. Came into my bungelow one night out of a shower. I placed a box on his head, tied a thread round his middle, and lowered him into a bottle of gin, and he died comfortably drunk.
There is only one thing to be said in favour of centipeds: they can’t fly; and that is a blessing.
Once upon a time, sir smoker, I went down to the seaside
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and took apartments in the little town of Shrimpton-super-Mare. On the very second morning, and about three by the clock of that morning, I was lying in bed reading a book and smoking a pipe, by way of a narcotic, when I felt something tickling my ear. The warm feeling of the bite told me at once I was not alone in bed, and jumping up I beheld squatting on my pillow a large and healthy-looking specimen of the genus B.B. As soon as I looked at him he commenced a hurried retreat. I didn’t mean to let him off so easy however, so as soon as he reached the top of the pillow, and had rounded the corner, I turned it, and he had all his walk to do over again. Two or three games of this kind convinced him of the futility of trying to escape. So what do you think he did? Perhaps he didn’t like the smell of ’baccy—for bugs you know are antis, and vice versa; but as sure as I am a living sinner, he stood up and quite coolly commenced washing his ugly face and legs, just as you see a fly doing. The idea of a B.B., of all things in the world, aspiring to habits of cleanliness was so preposterous that I drowned him on the spot. He was too good to live. Says I to Mrs. F	 as I bade her good-bye that same morning, “ You told me, Mrs. F	, that your rooms were the cleanest in the town. I don’t doubt it, and you’ve trained your animals to perfection too; but when bugs take to washing their faces the place is a blessed sight too good for me, au revoir.” A better fellow than my friend, Admiral L	, does not, in my opinion, need to exist. And such a man to smoke I He has one peculiarity, however, he hates all kinds of creepie-creepies. He prefers having the whole of his bed to himself, and I’m certain would rather fight the Russians any day than encounter a single flea, let alone anything worse. Well, the other day my friend was going down to Prawngate (let us call it) for a month’s bathing. “ Terrible places for abominations those seaside villages,” he informed; me “but,” he continued, “I shall smoke and smoke and smoke, and look here —” Then he showed me all sorts of impossible powders for the destruction of insect life, and in his excitement filled one of my eyes with some confounded dust out of a miniature pair of bellows. “That’s Keating,” said he. “ The deuce take Keating,” said I. Off went the Admiral. Now Prawngate is a quiet place, and it was quite a small hotel where he slept for the first night. All went well till about two bells in the middle watch, when suddenly the whole house was aroused from slumber by the ringing of the Admiral’s bell, and the Admiral’s voice bawling “Murder! fire! thieves! help! help, I’ve caught a— a — a scoundrel. The boots sprang out of bed and armed himself with a shoe tree, the cook sprang out of bed and collared an iron ladle, the landlord lighted a candle and went for his old brown Bess, and every lodger in the house, male or female, rushed out armed somehow; and they all met on the Admiral’s landing in charming d^shabil€. Now no one expected anything less than to find this son of a gun, the Admiral, struggling on the floor with a burglar. Not a bit of it. Here was the old man, sure enough, standing in his long flannel nightgown. His teeth were set, and his brows were lowered. He grappled with no burglar, but he held something sternly and firmly between his forefinger and thumb. “Hush, my good people all,” he said, in a low mysterious voice, “I have him. What a providential thing he didn’t escape! Advance with the light. Gently doesit. So! ho!” And he cautiously opened his finger and thumb, and what do you think it was? Why—a little bit of fluff. Gordon Stables, M.D., B.N. ^mbtr. xn. Between Memel and Dantzic is that grand amber region which has been a source of wealth and of commercial and industrial enterprise for more than three thousand years. But it is eminently the peninsula of Samland, darting out into the Baltic, which has poured forth inexhaustible supplies of the precious gum. We have described in detail what may be called the fishing for amber in the domain sacred to amber for so many centuries. But, for about two hundred years, amber has likewise been obtained in Samland by means of mining. Wilhelm Runge, to whom we heartily acknowledge our great obligations, states that digging for amber is mentioned by Theophrastus, the philosopher and naturalist, who lived about three hundred years before Christ, and by Philemon, a celebrated Greek comic poet, whom he speaks of as having lived not long before Pliny. We are astonished that a man so intelligent and so well informed as Runge should commit such a preposterous blunder; for Philemon was the contemporary of Theophrastus, and Pliny flourished in the first century of the Christian era. It is, however, to Liguria, extending from Nice in one direction to further south than Genoa on the other, that the tidings of the ancients refer. As to Samland, Hartmann, whose important book on amber was published in 1677, that is to say, just two hundred years ago,	states that it was fifteen years before that the amber diggings were first investigated and worked. From the immense empire which geology in recent days has gained, all mining operations have acquired a geological significance and attraction. Professor Zaddach, of Koenigsberg, was the first thoroughly to investigate and accurately to characterise the geology of Samland; and to Zaddach’s researches and their results Wilhelm Runge repeatedly, thankfully, and eulogistically refers in his two works, “Der Bernstein in Ostpreussen” and “Die Bernsteingrabereien im Samlande.” To this prompt, prodigal, and honest recognition of brave service there is a curious contrast in Raufer’s work, recently published, “Die Meerschaum und Bern steinwaaren-Fabrikation,” from which we took an interesting chapter relating to pipe-sticks. Raufer has, without acknowledgment, reproduced, almost textually, Runge’s account of “Bernstein,” and, as a truly conscientious plagiary, Raufer treats us to a repetition of the blunder about Philemon. It is foolish, of course, to be plagiary or anything else by halves. As we all know, every German is a “Rath” of some sort; so that if “ in the multitute of counsellors there is wisdom,” Germany ought to be the wisest of nations. In 1867 Wilhelm Runge was, and, perchance, still is, Royal Oberbergrath (Member of a Chief Mining Office) at Breslau. As such he received from the Prussian Government what he calls the “honourable commission” to acquaint himself, by personal observation, with the mining capabilities of Samland so far as amber was concerned. In the fulfilment of this task he not merely became familiar with the geological features of Samland, but was led to study the subject of amber in all its relations and associations. One chief object of his official presence in Samland was to find whether amber mining there could be conducted on more scientific, and, consequently, more profitable principles. There, and in other places which Runge mentions, amber mining had been pursued in the most slovenly, and, therefore, the most unproductive fashion. The substance of Runge's statements we offer to the ‘‘benevolent reader,” to use a phrase of the old writers, intercalating here and there, as may seem advisable. The steep cliffs of Samland never transcend in height two hundred feet, and are often much less. They and Samland as a whole exhibit three distinct systems of strata, which are manifoldly membered. Lowest of all is encountered a system of sand, which has a greenish-grey tint from the presence of particles of primitive earth (glauconite). On this system rests a brown coal formation with the lighter sands and grey clays thereunto appertaining. Highest of all is seen a deposit of diluvial marl and sand with northern erratic blocks. All the three groups of strata contain amber. In the two upper groups however it only exists sporadically. The lower green sand, on the contrary, furnishes it in abundance, and in quantities that do not vary from spot to spot. In this stratum there is a dark clayish-sandy vein, from four to twenty feet thick, the famous blaue er de or blue earthy which is the chief treasure-chamber of amber, and in which are also imbedded ligneous remains, sea crabs, mussels, sea urchins, the teeth of sharks, the teeth of saurians, and so on. All attempts in earlier centuries to win amber from the strata of Samland, systematically and comprehensively, by means of mining, were limited to the brown coal sands, which are here and there tolerably rich in amber; and which are everywhere approachable, and consequently easily workable, as may be seen by a reference to Runge’s admirable maps. It was not till the beginning of the present century that the blue earth, which extends along the whole strand from Kraxtepellen to Rantau, for the most part under the sea level, became the object of special attention, and an important source of amber production. Only at a single point, namely at Warnicken, had the blue earth for amber purposes been previously stirred from its long slumber. This was about the middle of the seventeenth century, in the time of Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, whom the Germans pompously call the great Elector, and who is regarded by them as the real founder of the Prussian power. When the extent and the rich amber contents of the blue earth had been recognised, considerable capital was contributed for mining operations. Large pits at suitable points were opened in the sides of the cliffs, and gangs of twenty to thirty men were employed to dig for the precious substance, and to convey, By the help of horses and tramways, the rubbish to the beach. As soon as the workman’s spade, which is made sharp with a file, and is pushed slowly so as not to do damage, encounters an obstacle, this as a rule is caused by a piece of amber, which forthwith is carefully dug out. The amount of amber in the blue earth varies from the twentieth to the third of a pound the cubic foot. Runge reckons the average at the twelfth of a pound the cubic foot; and as a pound of pit amber, if it is pretty well sorted, is worth from four to five thalers, the profit yielded by the mining is on the whole high, if proper precautions are taken against purloining on the part of the miners. Often the operations are rendered excessively difficult or completely obstructed by the water which bursts in from above or gushes up from beneath, especially when, as at Warnicken, Hubnicken, and Kraxtepellen, the diggings pierce to forty feet below the level of the sea. To vanquish the water chain pumps are used, but though as many as
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sixteen horses may be for this purpose employed night and day, the labour is often in vain. The water proves victorious, and* the mine of blue earth has to be given up long before it is worked out. To economise time, and to prevent fraud, overseers stand close to the workmen, and into a bag which hangs on the chest, and is fastened round the neck, they put the pieces of amber as soon as they have been taken from the ground; so that dishonesty, to be successful, would need to be very dexterous indeed.
Winter and summer, from six to eight hundred workmen find employment in the Samland amber mines; but it is anticipated that the yield would be much greater, and the industrial movement far more active and extensive, if more perfect mining processes were adopted. Germany’s political agitations and difficulties have probably in this, as in numerous other cases, stood in the way.
The position and the immense extent of the layer of blue earth is accepted by Runge as an explanation of the origin of the loose masses of amber in the Baltic. We have seen that the layer of blue earth is often found considerably below the level of the sea; but the layer is, of course, continued under the sea itself. This subaqueous layer the restless and insatiable sea uselessly assails, and dislodges the amber. A proof is furnished by the particles of glauconite found in the accumulations of amber, which are the manifest results of marine action. That in earlier periods of geological formation the sea has been busy dislodging this blue earth formation, is shown by the amber which is found in the diluvial sand deposits, in companionship with sea tangle, ligneous remains, and with stones, exactly as it is fished up in contact with the corresponding things in the Baltic. Those sand deposits, moreover, demonstrate their northern origin by containing many frag-ments of Scandinavian and Finnish rocks. If human hands vere no longer to gather the amber of the Baltic, the amber deposits would accumulate in the sea sand, exactly as we find them in mountains of Posen, Silesia, and other countries, up even to a height of 1350 feet.
There is in the Baltic a line of blue earth about fifty miles long, which for thousands of years the sea that submerged it has been gnawing and tearing. Every storm achieves its work of destruction and dislodgement; but particular winds are much more formidable than others, and the amber fishers make their calculations and preparations accordingly. From the most carefully compiled statistics it appears that the annual quantity obtainable by the amber fishers has not greatly varied; but a third more than comes under the statistical glance is supposed to be annually purloined. We cannot very severely condemn the amber thieves, considering the hardships they have suffered; and it will always be as difficult to convince an amber thief as to convince an English poacher that he is doing anything wrong in taking what seems to belong to all the world.
From the quantity of amber obtained in the course of a year by what in its various forms we call fishing, it is conjectured that 600,000 cubic feet of blue earth are annually dislodged by the sea. This, with all the cognate facts and calculations, would imply an annual destructive advance of the sea to the extent of a quarter of a foot, which in its turn would imply an encroachment of two hundred and fifty feet in a thousand years.
There is here, unavoidably, an element of the hypothetical. The blue earth may extend further to the west than is usually supposed; the stratum may be thicker or thinner than is commonly assumed; and the quantity of amber in a cubic foot of blue earth may be less or more than is generally conjectured. It is likewise a hypothesis that the sea assails with equal resolution and persistency along the whole line. There may hereanent be considerable diversity. This, however, is made certain by every aspect of the subject, that only a very small strip of the subaqueous blue earth needs annually to be torn away in order to yield the quantity which the amber fishers obtain.
There is no other way of accounting for the amber in the Baltic than that which we have offered. At a considerable distance from the shore the raging of the storm would have no effect. There are men of science who maintain that the movement of the waves does not go deeper than forty feet. The depth, however, to which the tide goes is an unsettled point, and the tide is a powerfully creative as well as a powerfully destructive force. But, even if the surf and the tide are both active, their activity cannot extend very far from the coast In the great depths there may not be absolute calm; yet there cannot be potent action. From our intimate acquaintance with the blue earth, therefore, on the land, we are justified in concluding that the blue earth is likewise the great treasure chamber of amber in the subaqueous domain.
Certain timid inhabitants of Samland have cherished a dread respecting the effect of amber mining in that region. They have thought that the existence of the whole peninsula was endangered through the loosening of the sand along the chore by mining operations. This feat may not be entirely chimerical.
It is a singular fact that, so far as is known, Samland is the only region of the globe in which the blue earth is met with. Thus it may almost be viewed as a geological eccentricity.
Bunge enters into very elaborate details respecting the comparative merits of various modes of mining in Samland. Of course he recommends that which is the least costly, the
most thoroughly in harmony with advanced science. But, except for the inhabitants of Samland or the scientific students of mining, the subject has no interest.
A section of one of Runge’s works is devoted to amber mining in a part of the territory torn from Poland by Prussia the insatiable. To the geologist, the mineralogist, and the scientific miner, this section offers much that is suggestive. Poland’s wealth in amber may be far greater than is usually supposed. It was only some amber diggings on the left bank of the River Brahe that Runge examined. He found the miners sagacious and dexterous, but the instrumentalities employed of a somewhat primitive kind. The veins of sand in which, as observed by Runge, amber was found, exhibited differences at various points, but had uniformly a fine grain, and were only to a slender extent intermingled with clay. The chief mass of the sand is formed of small rounded transparent grains of quartz, mixed with which are feldspath, amber, white glimmer, glauconite, and coal. Sometimes the quartz is clear as water, sometimes yellowish, sometimes coloured red by iron-ochre. A specimen of the sand showed such a potent blending of iron ochre, that when paper was rubbed with the sand, the pieces of ochre having been previously crushed, it was tinged brownish-red. In this specimen there was no glauconite. The feldspath was very moderately distributed; the numerous reddish points, when examined under the microscope, were always found, when crushed, to be fine amber dust. But Runge also discovered unquestionable feldspath grains, white as well as red, which were not crushable, and also red feldspath blended with white quartz. The very numerous black grains which are visible even to the naked eye, but are found to be much more abundant when viewed through the microscope, prove, when crushed, to be partly a beautiful bright green streak-powder, therefore glauconite; partly a brown powder, therefore coal. The particles of glauconite and those of coal are about equal in quantity. The glauconite particles are far inferior in mass to those found in the Samland layers of green sand; but they show under the microscope the round and knotty form peculiar to glauconite, and are much smaller than the fragments of coal. The latter have a more angular and laminated form, and appear to be only in a small degree of a ligneous substance, and to be principally derived from other portions of plants. Professor Cohn, of Breslau, who investigated these coal remains, found, along with doubly-dotted cells of antemundane coniferous wood, parenchymatous tissues, pollen of phanerogamic plants, and long-stretched quadrangular cells— in short, cells not derived from ligneous elements. The fragments of glimmer appear in fine white or yellowish leaflets and lamellae. The left bank of the Brahe attains at the utmost a height of forty feet, and is partly undulating, partly deeply indented; the right bank is flatter and more even, and consists of loam, in which amber is seldom found. The points examined by Runge are about three or four miles from the place called Polnisch Crone. The covering and the substratum of the sandy layers yielding amber on the left bank of the Brahe consist partly of bluish-grey sandy potter’s clay filled with ligneous fragments, partly of clayless sea sand, whose particles of quartz,.however, have not the angular form and the brown colour of the brown coal sand particles, but are yellowish and roundish, partly of clayey sand. At two points the surface consisted of a turf-like, manifestly alluvial, moor formation. Spite of the rarity of the feldspath, Runge regards the diluvial character of the Brahe sand-layers as indubitable. They do not resemble any tertiary sands known to Runge. The amber of these sand layers strikingly differs in some respects from that found in the blue earth of Samland. Almost without exception it is covered by a light pea-yellowish, earthy, untransparent, very soft and friable crust. The thickness thereof amounts to the fifth part of an inch, so that the smaller pieces are sometimes metamorphosed, even to their innermost heart, into a friable, earthy, untransparent mass. Very fine flaws traverse the crust in netlike fashion, and form thereon tolerably regular quadrangular, pentagonal, sexagonal figures of the size of a grain of millet. If we peel off the crust, not seldom come to sight under it, in the undecomposed transparent amber, very beautiful, angular stigmata, such as are frequently met with in the blue earth. Sometimes in the middle of the stigmata there are fine concentric rings, the narrowest of which is crowned by a fine and elevated central point. The stigmata resemble those of Stigmaria Ficoidts, or the prickle-roots on the shell of Cidaris Coronata. Runge never saw the friable crust wearing the same aspects in the blue earth of Samland. When the crust is broken off the amber looks red, dark red, yea sometimes almost black if a portion of the crust still hides the surface. On the complete removal of the crust the amber grows brighter and the colour lighter. Then are beheld within the red colours, often in the very heart, but without sharp limitations, the much valued bright yellow tints, so that the red hue is manifestly not the original hue, but a hue which has usurped the place of the original yellow. The bone-like, untransparent, yellowish-white amber Runge likewise beheld on the bank of the Brahe river. It had the customary crust, but next, immediately under the crust, the red colours which distinguish in this region the transparent amber. Runge concludes from this circumstance that the Brahe amber has been long subjected to chemical influences, and he is inclined to conjecture that the salts dissolved in the sea exercise an essential influence on the colour of the
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amber. No satisfactory experiments bearing on the question have yet been made. The operation of chloric, bromic, iodic reagents on amber has not been sufficiently investigated. The action however of sulphuric acid on amber has been examined; the colour of the amber is changed by the sulphuric acid from yellow to red. Of course in such experiments concentrated solutions have to accomplish in a few years what in nature’s laboratory was the slow work of countless centuries. Runge believes, from examples which have come under his own observation, that amber can be changed in colour from yellow to red by atmospherical as well as chemical influences. According to Runge fossile coniferous wood is found along with amber in the Brahe region. Ligneous fragments, however, are much rarer in the Brahe layers than in the blue earth of Samland. Yet Runge was assured that whole trunks of trees have been found in the Brahe layers. He could not ascertain whether the wood itself contained amber. The distribution of amber over the Brahe region is extensive, and its accumulations have resulted from the same causes that have been, and are still, operative on the Baltic, from which the Brahe region is not very remote; that is to say, they have been produced by a storm, which loosened and swept on before it the masses of amber, along with woody fragments and other vegetal remains; when the wind was hushed, the amber was thrown on the beach. Here, therefore, there must have been an ancient strand line, and the sea must have borne the amber a hundred miles further on than Samland; unless we suppose that deeply hidden under the surface there is a layer of blue earth, from which the treasures of amber were forced up by a more violent process. The Brahe amber mining, at the time of Runge’s report, was worked on co-operative principles. The working miners received the half of the profits ; but they did not seem to be contented with this, as they had to be zealously watched, lest they should pilfer. Disposed of to Dantzic amber merchants, the Brahe amber was somewhat cheaper than the Samland amber. In 1848 a piece of amber weighing nearly seven pounds was found in the Brahe region. It was sold for five nundred thalers. Runge names many places contiguous to the Brahe region from which amber has been obtained, or is obtainable. As so much of Poland is still covered by forests, it is possible that, stretching from the Brahe region, there may be many amber deposits destined to be unveiled when the forests fall before the axe. From an interesting article in the Journal des D^bats we learn that gold mines have been discovered in Persia, and that, in all likelihood, Persia abounds to a hitherto unsuspected degree in mineral wealth. In similar fashion Poland may, after a while, be seen to be, as far as amber is concerned, an extension of Samland. Australia and California, with their gold, teach us to be hopeful respecting the riches still hidden in earth’s deep bosom. ^ Smohtr’s ^rp^an-^ouse. I referred a short time ago, in an article upon “Tobacco in the Grand Duchy of Baden,” to the scrupulous collection of cigar-ends for charitable uses which is now going on in various parts of Germany. In this year’s issue of one of the most widely circulated of the German annuals, the “Historische Kalender des Lahrer Hinkenden Boten," I find an entire article devoted to this subject. The famous “Lame Messenger” of Lahr, like the Wandering Jew, never dies—or, perhaps, we might more correctly say that he shares the astonishing longevity of Zadkiel, Old Moore, and the editors of the old English almanacks. With their common claim to perpetuity of life, however, all likeness between a German “Kalender-mann” and an English almanack-editor ceases. Our almanacks have long been neutral in the battle-field of politics; but the German kalendar, which was the predecessor of the newspaper, still preserves its original character as a political instructor, nearly every almanack being taken in on the ground of its political character as Liberal, or Ultramontane, or Social-democratic. The “Lame Messenger” of Lahr, in Baden, has been notable throughout this century for his advanced Liberalism. He appeared with the nineteenth century. He published his first number in 1800, and his seventy-seventh number is now in circulation. He has become so popular, both as entertainer and instructor, that great piles of his annual issue are despatched, not only to all German provinces, but to every part of the world in which there are any German settlers. We found one the other day in a German barber’s in Woolwich. We are not here concerned, however, with the biography of the popular Kalender-mann of Baden, which has been sufficiently eventful; but rather with his article on cigar-ends. It is headed by the German proverb “ Viele Wenig machen ein Viel,” the fellow to our old English “ Many a little makes a mickle.” The “Lame Messenger” tells his readers that this proverb always sets him thinking of the innumerable cigar-ends which are cut off, or bitten off, and then thrown away. “ A little piece off the end of a cigar seems to be of no value,” says he; “ but if you carry a whole hatful of such ends to the Tobacco-manufacturer, he will give you a pair of little fivers [Fiinferle] for them, for he knows how to turn them into snuff, of the coarse Lotzbeck sort.” In Berlin there are a number of good smokers who call themselves the “ Verein der Sammler von Cigaren-Abschnitten” (the Association of	Collectors of Cigar-ends). On Christmas Day, 1875, thirty orphans were made happy out of the fund realised by the sale of the cigar-ends collected by the members during the year. Each child received a pair of good leather boots, a warm dress, a pair of woollen stockings, a shirt, a pocket-handkerchief, a bag filled with gingerbread-cakes, apples, and nuts, and an invitation to a noble Christmas tree. The Association has been at work for nine years, and during that time it has clothed more than two hundred poor children out of the proceeds of the sale of cigar-ends. A paragraph stating this fact, which he read in a Berlin newspaper, struck the Kalender-mann—who is ever on the look-out for opportunities of fresh hints in the economy and order of domestic life—that little Baden might do well to follow the example of great Prussia. The savings-bank for cigar-ends which I found confronting me on the table of the Speisesaaloi the “ Fortuna ” at Offenburg, was probably a result of his hints. The first person whom he took into his counsel, as he tells us, was his publisher. This gentleman smiled, almost contemptuously, at the suggestion. “ I smoke about two cigars a day,” said he, “seldom more. I always take care to cut off the ends as small as possible; and if I were to contribute my yearly stock of cigar-ends to your bank, it would yield you about 25 pfennige [threepence in English money]. Let me give you a penny a week towards your Christmas charity. That will produce twenty times as much as my wretched little bits ofA;igar.” “ It is often more agreeable,” replied the Kalender-mann, “ to give what is not asked than what is asked. I may take your penny a week, perhaps. Meanwhile, ‘many a little makes a mickle; ’ a thousand persons would sooner give me a heap of cigar-ends every Sunday than they would give me a penny. Meanwhile, try to conceive how many cigar-smokers there are in Germany.” “Some millions, without doubt. Every twelve-year-old lad smokes his two-pfennig cigar behind the hazel-nut bush.” “ Let us say there are ten million cigar-smokers, Mr. Publisher. Suppose each of these would rather contribute one pfennig a week than the collection of his rejected cigar-ends; what sum should we get for the orphans?” “Thunder and lightning, Kalender-mann! Ten million pfennige! We should have 5,200,000 marks. The orphans would become huge capitalists.” “ Well, let us not go fast. We may say without exaggeration that we have some five million cigar-smokers in Germany. If each of these would be so rational and humane as to store up his cigar-cuttings, and each yielded only one quarter of a pfennig weekly, what should we get ? ” “That would bring the orphans no less than 650,000 marks,” said the publisher. “Right. And these 650,000 marks may either be clean thrown away (as they are at this present moment) for mere want of a little unselfish trouble, care, and organisation; or else they may be husbanded at no great cost to any one, and procure warm winter clothing every year for not less than thirteen thousand poor German children. Suppose that each of these five million cigar-smokers at the end of the year merely casts into the collection-chest as much as one penny cigar, what sum will they contribute ? ” “ A matter of five hundred thousand marks.” “ You are a good reckoner of the value of other folks’ cigar-ends. But I have greatly understated the actual yield. For whole cigars are often thrown away impatiently because they will not draw, or are crushed, or have suffered injury from damp or some other cause. These would be of some value if they were dropped into the collection-chest. They do no good when they are hurled out of the carriage window or into the depths of the Rhine.” The publisher had smoked with unusual vigour during this arithmetical conversation, and he took out a fresh cigar. The Kalender-mann noticed that when he had cut off the end, instead of throwing it on the floor, he quietly slipped it into his waiscoat pocket. Not only so, but he stooped and searched about the floor as if he had lost something. “Have you dropped anything Mr. Publisher?” asked his friend. “No, Kalender-mann. I am looking for that first bit. Ah! here it is. It shall go to the collection-chest, and shall not want plenty of companions. But what shall I do with all these cigar-ends when they form a respectable heap?” “I have already told you, Publisher. Their fate is snuff. A son of old Lahr need scarcely ask where he shall take them. You remember what the mad tourist said: ‘So much snuff is made in Lahr, that a man is compelled to begin sneezing violently as soon as he steps out of the railway carriage at Dinglingen.’ Dinglingen is the point of junction on the Great Baden Railway, from which a branch line runs to Lahr.” “ I shall not become a dealer, my friend. I shall leave that part of the business to you, and shall send you my heap on the appointed day. But tell me exactly what scheme have you for the disposition of the money? ” “We shall build an Orphan-house.” “What? An Orphan-house? And with nothing but cigarends?” “ Why not? Every building begins with one brick. We shall have an Orphan-house in time here in Lahr, not only for Lahr, not only for Baden, but for the whole German Empire.”
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“Kalender-mann, that is an original and a magnificent thought. An Orphan-house built, so to speak, out of nothing— out of things which everyone casts away as valueless.”
“We shall begin with a room or two. In time we shall invite prince Bismarck and the General-Postmaster Stephan to the dedication of the great Lahrer Waisenhaus. They are both great smokers, and smoke big cigars, aud many of them. They cut off ends as broad as a fat finger. You will write and ask for these ends. But now, here is a sheet of paper. Shall we not draw up an appeal, and send it to the printer? ”
“There is no need of that, Mr. Publisher, as your own prosperity may assure you. Tlie appeal in our Kalender will reach smokers enough, and will find them inclined to the work and turn them into its advertisers and missionaries.”
The Kalender-mann closes his article, of which I have given a somewhat free and summary rendering, with a fervid appeal to his readers not to allow him to become a false prophet and a laughing-stock; but to take up in all earnestness the easy and simple work which he has sketched out for them. He declares that he has no doubt that in two years’ time the central germ of the Orphan-house will exist as a solid, visible fact in the neighbourhood of Lahr, and that on its front will gleam the inscription, in golden letters, “Deutsches Reichs-Waisen-haus;” while underneath it will stand the motto, “Viele Wenig machen ein Viel” (“Many a little makes a mickle).”
T. H.
^ ^aunteir Spirit.
INTRODUCTION.
It has been long on my mind to give to the world the following extraordinary and terrible narrative. Many times I have gat down to write plainly and without exaggeration the story; but as many times I have risen without doing so. With trembling hand I now put pen to paper to begin the task, scarcely hoping to succeed. Be still, my throbbing heart; beat not so wildly.
I Jo not ask to be believed; I do not expect to be; and yet why should I not? Surrounded, as we are, by the inexplicable, why should we not be liable to the even more so ? Let the unbeliever hesitate ere he denounces me as a man whose pen is filled with the ink of deceit, and whose soul delighteth not in truth. The hard-headed world knows more to-day than it ever did before, and yet how small is its knowledge? What, 0 world, is before life? Mystery! What after? Mystery! What in life? Mysteries! Listen! There are mysteries we know of, and there are mysteries whose mere existence we are, as yet, not conscious of. Life is but a journey from the unknowable to the altogether unexplainable; an unreadable riddle ; an enigma no man can solve. We say of a man who gives no sign, “He is dead!” and we understand, or pretend to understand, what we mean by it. But— how dead is he? much or little? Explain! My brain whirls.
I was a young man at the time of the occurrence. I am an old man now; and yet the hideous hour, the awful place, and the ghostly scene are as plain to me as if the horrible occurrence was even now happening. Science tells us that the picture of everything we gaze upon is photographed upon the eye for a time. I go further, and declare my belief that some scenes are photographed upon the mind’s eye permanently, and will endure till death closes our earthly picture gallery forever. Ask that man who, once in his life, was awakened from peaceful slumber by the ringing cry of “Fire! fire! fire!” and sprang up to find himself amid smoke and flame and the roar of blazing, falling rafters, and all the hideous uproar and outcry of splitting of timbers and hissing of water, and hoarse mob shouting, and darting of fiery tongues—I say ask him if he feels like ever forgetting that moment or that scene.
CHAPTER L—THE HOUSE.
It was on the 25th of August, 1853, that I entered into possession of a small house and shop on Snow Hill, London. It was a dingy place, and sadly required doing up, but I took it as it was, on account of the low rent accepted. I was in the second-hand book trade. Quite recently I had arrived in London, with a very small capital and about a couple of tons of old books. The shop had been closed for five years. Its last occupier, a Tobacconist, a single man, had suddenly disappeared, leaving stock-in-trade and everything else behind him. His effects, of course, were all cleared out long before I took possession. My first work was to purchase a few articles of furniture, to make myself comfortable. Then I arranged my books on the various shelves in the shop, and settled down steadily to my business. I did but little trade; sufficient, however, to encourage me to stay. And so my days passed evenly enough for a time.
CHAPTER H.—THE DISCOVERY.
On Christmas Day, in the same year, I made a curious dis-covery. I had added to my other business the trade of a dealer in waste paper. The various bundles, as they came ^to my possession, I stowed away in the cellar. Christmas Day being a shut-up day, I was pottering about in this cellar, wishing it was both larger and lighter, when I fell over a heap of mould, which threw me nearly down. As it w*8, my head struck what I had previously supposed was a •olid wall. This was not the case, however; for my head, *hen it hit the wall, struck a secret spring, and a door at °noe slid open, revealing nothing but pitchy blackness. For
a moment I stood aghast and frightened, but speedily recovered myself. Lighting a candle, I passed through the opening, and, to my astonishment, found myself in a tolerably well fitted-up room. The walls were papered. There was a deal table in the centre of the floor, a bedstead and bedding stood in the corner, and three deal chairs were in the place. There was a stove, with fender and fire-irons complete, and a cupboard with an opening of about a foot between the top of its doors and the ceiling. The only ornaments on the rough mantel-piece were cigar stumps; I counted 49 of these. In a cigar-box on the table were 51 cigars. There was no window to the place, nor any means of letting in daylight save when the secret door was open; then a faint glimmer came from the outer cellar, which was lit by a grating let into the pavement. An iron candlestick stood in the fender, but no candle was in it. One thing struck me as peculiar; I liked not the look of it at all. There was a large stone in one part of the room, apparently a covering to some underground passage. This I determined to explore some other day. Altogether my discovery gave me more fear than pleasure; and yet the affair slightly smacked of adventure, so that I was not altogether ill-pleased. Marking the spot where the spring was, and pushing the door back in its place, I went upstairs and left the matter for awhile.
CHAPTER HI.—THE FIRST GHOST.
In the evening of Christmas Day I made myself comfortable with my pipe and a glass or two of brandy and water. Fatal brandy! that gave me a fool’s courage: I determined to spend an hour or two in the strange room I had discovered that morning. I went down and lit a fire there, and, having conveyed my brandy and water and Tobacco downstairs, endeavoured to feel at home. I placed my candle on the table, and puffed away at my pipe, with my chair exactly on the great stone I have mentioned. I did this because I thought the stone would be drier than the floor, which was merely earth. I sat there, thinking and smoking, till the clock of St. Sepulchre’s Church struck the midnight hour. As the last stroke died away in infinite vibrations in my brain, a strange horror fell on me. The place seemed fi lied with a cold wind, that chilled me from head to foot and raised the hair on my head. The candle burned dim and blue, and seemed as if about to die out into darkness. There was a small looking-glass hanging on the wall, and I caught sight of my face in it. Never shall I forget its awful expression. White and spectral I looked; my lips were blue, and my mouth drawn as if in agony; my eyes were starting from their sockets, and a cold sweat stood on my forehead. In another moment I should have fainted, had not a strange sound attracted my attention. A low, wailing moan crept through the place, gradually climbing into a pitiful cry, and then finding vent in an agonising scream. Three times did this blood-curdling sound greet my ears, and my pipe dropped from my nerveless fingers, while my terror-stricken heart galloped wildly. The clothes upon the bed were now upheaved, as if some live thing stirred beneath them, and yet they were flat and level, showing that the bed was certainly unoccupied by any human being. I tried to rise: my limbs failed me; I tried to speak: my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. I could only gaze and gaze at the horrifying movement of the counterpane. Presently the clothes were thrown back, and a head appeared! A moment’s glance showed me that it was the head of a spirit! I cannot describe the countenance. On every feature was written misery, in every Une undying despair. Strange to say, I felt a little better now. and found words to speak. In singularly altered tones, I said: “What art thou that comest to disturb me? Speak!” At the sound of my voice, the spirit looked towards me, and then, slowly uncovering itself, stood upon the floor. Gliding across the room, it sat on the chair at the other side of the table. Leaning its head on its hand, it gave vent to a heart-rending groan. No tears flowed from its sunken eyes, but, by the heaving of its white covering, I could plainly see that it was a prey to grief and that sorrow was its portion. “Speak, poor ghost,” I said; “tell me thy story. What is it aileth thee?” Without any formal opening, the spirit began as follows:—
CHAPTER IV.—THE GHOST’S STORY.
“In life I was a Tobacconist—accursed trade! And yet I revelled in my wickedness. I made money by it; I smoked day and night. A single man was I—accursed bachelorhood! A wife might have saved me. I became so infatuated with Tobacco that I thought of nothing else. A man who smoked was my friend, no matter who he was; a man who did not was my enemy, no matter who he was. Had a man done me a bitter wrong, if he came to me smoking a pipe I forgave him, I embraced him, I wept on his shoulder. Had my own brother, my own flesh and blood, declared in favour of not smoking, I would have turned him from my door, and smiled to see him starve. There was one man I particularly hated: he was a lecturer to an Anti-Tobacco Society. Once he ventured to tell me it was wrong to smoke. From that moment I thirsted for his blood. I determined on a double vengeance: I would make him smoke; I would see him die. I had this portion of the cellar converted, as you see, into a bedroom, or, rather, I converted it myself; with my own hands I built the solid wall and fixed the secret door. All was thus made ready. One evening I waited at my shop door till the anti passed. I was not smoking: I was the spider, the anti was the fly. As he approached I gave him “Good evening,” and smiled. I said I wanted to be converted from my evil ways.
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Would he convert me? He said he would, gladly. I led him in, down here; he took a seat. My aspect changed; I yelled like a demon. He cried for help; no use: walls too thick. With one hand I held a pistol to his forehead, with the other I offered him a cigar. He went on his knees to me, he wept like a child. I had no mercy. “ Tobacco or death I ” I yelled. He smoked; he was ill, horribly ill! I flung him on the bed, and left him alone in the darkness, ill, horribly ill I Every day I fed him, every night I made him smoke. He was always ill after it. This annoyed me. I determined to kill him. I loaded a cigar with frightful explosives. He smoked it. A horrible explosion occurred. Fire! smoke! blood! The top half of his head went up to the ceiling; you can see the mark just above you. Dread fell on me; I was a murderer ! For days I was like a madman. Then I dug a grave —there it is just under your chair—and conveyed the mould into the outer cellar. I procured a large stone—the hearthstone from upstairs. I flung him in; he didn't lie right. I got in myself to arrange him, when the stone I had previously placed standing on its end at the head of the grave fell forwards ; it crushed my skull, and killed me instantly. The stone fell into the position I had intended for it, covering at once the murderer and his victim. From that night I have been confined to this place, and unto the spirit of my victim has the power been given to haunt me and torture me as he pleases, while I cannot raise a hand in my defence, but must submit. In a few seconds he will be here. Listen, oh, listen! He comes! he comes!” Here the ghost uttered such an awful cry that I was forced for a moment to place my fingers in my ears. CHAPTER V.—THE SECOND GHOST. Tap! tap! tap! tap! tap! tap! I shrieked aloud. The hollow, ghostly sound was beneath me, on the under side of the stone my chair was resting upon. Suddenly, under the inflence of some unseen power, I sprang up and moved my seat, 'fhen the stone slowly upheaved, and out of the dark, horrible hole the second ghost gradually rose to view. Its countenance was not bad in itself, but on it there dwelt such an awful expression of diabolical malice, that I shrank back alarmed. Seeing me, the spectre made a stiff bow, and then turned towards its victim. As a tiger springs on its prey, so did this second spirit, with the howl of a thousand fiends, spring on the first. I sickened at the horrible sight. In a moment he had plunged his long lean fingers into the other’s trembling breast, and plucked out his quivering heart. Then, with a literal devil’s grin, he forced open his victim’s ghastly jaws, and pushed the heart down his throat into its place again. I felt too ill to interfere. He then seized the pitiful wretch again, and tied his arms and legs in ungainly knots. This done, he flung him against the wall, and up to the ceiling, and kicked him about the floor till the knots came untied. Growing more savage, and growling now like a bloodlapping beast of prey, he seized the weeping and moaning ghost again and thrust his feet into the fire, then his hands, and then his head. Then he laid him down flat and jumped on him, and beat and battered him with his fists, and bit him with his teeth, and tore him with his nails. It was heartrending; and at length I managed to cry “Hold!” The avenger looked up, and at the same moment his victim crawled from his clutches and took refuge behind me, evidently hoping for protection. The second ghost flew at us both. I put up my hand. His cold, clammy fingers were on my throat. I shrieked, and fled to the cupboard, the first ghost clinging to me. I got inside and closed the doors; the second ghost flopped in at the opening at the top, and came down on us both like a living shower-bath. I sprang out, and on to the bed the side next the wall, pulling the clothes over me; the first ghost sprang in after me and over me, and got by the wall, kicking me to the outer edge. The second ghost made a dash at the place he thought his victim was in, seized me in error, and dragged me on to the floor. With just life enough in me to do so, I crawled under the bed, and so escaped further harm. By the dim light of the fire I could see what went on. Having secured his victim, the avenger went over all the old tortures again, and some others as well. Going into the outer ceUar, he got my knife and paste-pot and brush. He cut the first ghost in pieces with the knife, and then stuck the pieces together again with paste. Then he made the poker red-hot, and bored 49 holes in his shrieking prey; in these holes he stuck 49 cigar stumps. Then he fetched an iron rake out of the grave, and, having made it red-hot, combed the hair and whiskers of the first ghost with it. After this he brought some brown paper from the outer cellar, and, having rolled up the Tobacconist’s ghost into the smallest possible compass, enwrapped it in brown paper in the shape of a huge cigar, He then set light to one end, took the other in his mouth, and smoked the homble cigarette right out. At this I swooned. CONCLUSION. I returned to consciousness in the morning. The stone was replaced; I noticed that. Nothing else did I look for. I crawled upstairs, opened the shop door, went down the street, and found a furniture remover. He was at my house in an hour’s time. I put all my stock of books and furniture in the van, closed the secret door for ever, shut my shop door, dropped the key down the area, and sought a new home. For months afterwards I was a broken-spirited invalid, neither daring to speak nor think of the dreadful affair. Even now the writing of it has unmanned me. D. Gogos.	Anatolian ^btnfurts. HI. As the interest in Turkey, already so great, has been intensified by the war, we venture to give a third and concluding series of extracts from the fresh and delicious book of M. Choisy. All travellers, all newspaper correspondents have a kind word for the individual Turk. Lately a correspondent of that admirable Austrian newspaper the Neue Freie Preset described the individual Turk as the best creature he had ever met. It is a pity that the Turks as a people should suffer from the blunders of incapable government, just as it is a pity that, being the bravest of soldiers, they should suffer from the stupidities of incompetent generalship. But surely the Turks in the mass should not be held responsible for the one fatality any more than for the other. One thing must be admitted by all but the grossly prejudiced: that the Mahometan Turks are incomparably superior to the Christian subjects of the Sublime Porte, for whom sympathy in England has been so clamorously demanded, and to whom it has been so generously given, at least in noisy demonstrations. Let us linger for a few instants in European Turkey, and then let us pass once more into Asia. Aspects o! Adrianople. Turkey has some short lines of railway, but perhaps it would have been better if it had paid more attention to common roads. Let this be as it may, I am glad that it has reduced the journey to Adrianople to the proportions of a run from the centre of a town to the outskirts. Adrianople is full of the memories of the first Sultans. The palace, and especially the old mosque with its imposing heaviness, tell us more about them than all the histories in the world. But why has there been an effort to give the palace a look of youth by half renewing it? Why did the church of Saint Sophia, which is entirely in ruins, take away my attention from the things which everybody admires? To study the population the evening alone remains to me. Fortunately it is in the evening that the manners of the Turks can best be observed during the time of Ramazan. The coffee-houses and the approach to the coffee-houses swarm with people, exalted on the seats, on the tables, or crouching on the ground, and smoking. Others go to be spectators of Karagueuz, that comedy of Ombres Chinoises (figures behind transparent curtains) which is, perhaps, derived from the religious rites of the Cabiri, and the cynical jollity of which goes beyond all the audacities of Aristophanes. The Turks crowd to these representations, and from a singular taste, which may, perhaps, be regarded as a characteristic peculiarity of their manners, they take their children to see them. Little boys not yet able to speak plainly; girls still too young to wear the veil. These children laugh with all their heart. Education truly Turkish which cannot fail to have its effect on public morality. An amusement less joyous, peradventure, but also less afflicting, is that of the different kinds of Oriental music. An Armenian company excites my admiration. It has modestly taken a coffee-house for its theatre. Its instruments are a guitar with a grating sound, a sort of violin, and the small Turkish drum. All play from memoiy, and at intervals the song of a musician joins the orchestra. The whole of the composition forms a veritable symphony, in which the various parts are enchained according to a gradation ' resembling that of our classical symphonies. The melody, usually vague and floating, becomes at certain points dramatic, and so passionate that it admits no interpreter but the human voice. As modes of artistic execution these musical displays have nothing in common with ours. The very idea of tonality seems absent. The song ascends and descends by insensible nuances. Then the melody is abruptly interrupted or remains suspended. The effects of these sudden stops it is impossible to describe. The mind, obeying the impulse received, enters infinite perspectives, as if the East in all its immensity opened before it. By degrees we feel carried away from ourselves and plunged into a vague contemplation, entirely foreign to our Occidental natures. It is ecstacy, the so-called Kief, a delicious sensation, and, so to speak, an onrush into a world unknown. But even here our civilisation comes in to spoil everything. Imagine my disenchantment when, in the very glow and gush of this Armenian concert, I recognised the air of one of our most vulgar, most impertinent quadrilles. domestic discipline. The first event which I encountered at Karahissar was the correction given by a gendarme to his wife. The Turk, to put himself more at his ease, had dragged her out of the house by the hair of the head; and he sermonised her in the open street, accompanying his harangue with blows from the flat of his sabre. That a Turk should beat his wife is not an extraordinary event; it is a satisfaction permitted by the Koran to every discontented husband. Had she deserved the lesson? I am willing to believe so; though, in truth, women condemned to the seclusion of the harem are not much to be blamed if they take somewhat bold modes of escaping from imprisonment. Here it was not the actors I admired, but the spectators. The neighbours, roused by the cries, came forth to contemplate the scene. They installed themselves on the threshold of their houses, sat cross-legged, and smoked. They looked at this struggle as they would look at a combat of pehlevans; it amused them. They thought, besides, that
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the example was good: “To-day it is my neighbour’s turn; to-morrow, perchance, it may be mine. Woman has need, from time to time, of a lesson.” I took my part of the spectaele, and went to the khan through the alleys of the bazaar.
£ Turkish habitation*
The habitation of a Turk is here what I have found it in ill the central part of ancient Phrygia. Through a curious circumstance, which assuredly is not fortuitous, the structure of these contemporary houses corresponds in every point with that of the ancient abodes sculptured on the Lycian tombs. The house—almost always provided with a portico of wood, which becomes in summer the dwelling—is composed of two chambers, the most retired of which is reserved for the women. The stable precedes the habitation, and serves as a vestibule. Stable or lodging, everything is constructed in the same fashion; the walls are formed of square bricks or of unhewn stones, and the roof is flat. A roof of this sort seems to me to be admirable in its ingenuity and fitness. There is first a layer of spars, then a layer of stubble, then a layer of elay. Herefrom results a shelter fresh in the summer, hot in thewinter, and perfectly suited to the violent alternations of the seasons. The clay cracks during* the heat. After rainy weather, to remove the cracks, a roller is passed to and fro; md this roller is, in general, merely a fragment of some ancient column. Almost all these houses have chimneys; and, ii innovations are not common in Asia, I am inclined to believe that chimneys are of less recent invention than is renerally supposed. Rarely a garden is annexed to the habitation. The Turkish peasant does not feel the need of that strip of ground of which the Occidentals are so fond. Vegetables enter but little into his alimentation, which'con-liits principally of rice and milk; and the entertainment which gardening would procure him is of too active a kind for an indolent race. Instead of cultivating vegetables and flowers, the Turk smokes.
The Galley of the ©wander.
We enter the Valley of the Maeander, a poor country, cold it this moment (November), and burning in summer. The soil still retains the aspect of a calcined earth, with some scorched tufts of yellow grass. Evermore large plains and low clouds; hills not higher than those of Champagne have yet the pretence of being cloud-capped. The Cadmus, which overwhelms them from afar with its mass, is white with snow to its very base. Toward noon, the white array of clouds rises, to descend anew in the evening. People know the hour by the distance which separates the line of clouds from the summit of the mountains. The villages are no longer arranged in streets; chance alone has presided over the grouping of the houses. The land being of little value, every one takes very wide elbow-room; but even these huge spaces appertaining to the habitations the Turks leave uncultivated. The huts are of clay, with a clay roof and porticoes; they resemble, in a sort of rough way, the habitations we had seen toward the centre of the country; but the racial differences are considerable. Previously the Turk presented unmistakably the Tartar type: high cheek-bones, straight forehead, receding chin, large mouth, enormous jaw. Here we see only oval heads, almost equally broad at the brow and at the chin. The prominence of the cheeks is scarcely perceptible. The profile, tame and insignificantly correct, resembles the segment of a circle, and vaguely reminds us of the aspect of the moon in its first quarter. There are no longer any angular lines, any accentuated contours; everything is feeble, undented. Even the attitude of the men betrays a temperament without vigour, a nature without energy. In a lazy, lumbering, •nd excessively ungraceful way, they sprawl at their full kngth on the ground. Their physiognomy sufficiently reveals their character. For ever we see on their lips a silly smile. Their gaping mouth gives them an idiotic air. By the way, it may be mentioned that, pghtly or wrongly, they are accused of thieving propensities. As to the women, they are, if pos-eible, more stupid still than the men. They scarcely veil themselves; and if you address them, the only reply you get ta a dilatation of the mouth from ear to ear, and a half stolid, naif startled glower. Unquestionably we have before us a race of men very distinct from the ordinary Turk. And the differences are observable even in the smallest things; the tastes are not exactly the same. The ordinary Turk of the centre smokes the narghil6; this variety of Turk prefers the tachibouk This may appear an insignificant detail; but it is a fact which struck me.
Turk and Turk.
Mehemed is a native of Edremidt. He belongs to that ™ed population of the coast which belongs only in name to the Turkish family. He shakes himself up, he jokes in the Presence of a disagreeable situation, just as a French trooper JJMdd do. Ibrahim is from the interior of Turkey. He is
Turk intensified, and I cannot picture him to myself ®*cept with his legs crossed. Ibrahim does not stir more than a log would. He lights his narghilfi and smokes in a corner impassibly. Impatient hands roughly shake him, shouts are hurled at him, the narghilfi is torn from his in a grumbling mood he does what he is told to do.
labour despatched, he returns to his corner, takes up his ParEhil6 again, crouches back into his old position, remains Movable in the presence of reproaches just as he had Jpainfld inert in the presence of danger. Ibrahim is a true Turk.
^n Idyllic glimpse*
At this moment we have before us three women unveiled: the mother, her daughter-in-law, and a daughter fifteen years old. It is a complete picture. The daughter-in-law, crouching on the ground, crushes the coffee in a mortar, which she makes rhythmically to sound; the mother, seated on the ground, holds on her knee her youngest child, which is suffering from fever. The daughter, who never sits down, sometimes respectfully lights the narghile of her old father, sometimes tosses cigarettes, already prepared, to the guests present; sometimes offers dates to this one or to that. All these figures illumined by a red flame of firwood, form at every instant a group of a prodigious richness of colour; and to add to the effect of the scene a wattle wall serves as background.
& Kgsian City.
Pergamus is not merely a name, a site. The old civilisations which have succeeded each other on its soil have all left traces of themselves. Its acropolis, a fortified mountain, still preserves what we may call four strata of ruins, corresponding to four epochs, the Hellenic, the Roman, the Byzantine, and the Turkish. We can examine under enormous mounds vaulted tombs, with which we instinctively associate the name and the memory of the Attali. Nascent Christianity presents itself in its turn. The basilica of Pergamus is a Christian church formed from the reunion of three great halls, which previously to Constantine had served for Pagan usages. But, above all, Pergamus is a Greek city. In its population, as in its traditions and its customs, the Greek element predominates. We might think that we are again in those towns of Macedonia, where Turkey is represented only by the agents of the Sultan, and by a lazy populace. The Greeks have even at Pergamus a syllogos, and are justly proud of the institution. They inrite me to examine in detail the contents of the small museum created by them in their meeting place. They consult me as to the methods of teaching, show me all their books. These establishments are really living communities—committees energetically active. But there is some danger in testifying sympathy for the institution, for the founders will quit you no more. They reconduct you to the khan, where, spite of yourself, you are compelled to consecrate the evening to discourse on Hellenism, and to the smoking of cigars.
Journey to Thyatira.
We commence our march to Thyatira. Along our journey all the villages resemble each other: large villages, almost entirely Greek, and in each of them a khan, which serves as common centre to the exterior life of Turks, of Greeks, and of Europeans. These khans represent a very ingenious idea. There is a court, surrounded by stables. Above the stables there is a succession of small chambers, connected by a passage all round. In the middle of the court there is a fountain, at which the travellers let the animals they mount drink. Close to the fountain is the coffee-room, consisting on three sides entirely of glass. From it, as from a gigantic lantern, may be seen all round the green and transparent foliage of the large plane trees of the court. In the coffeeroom, Turks mingled with Greeks, smoke, shout, and sometimes discuss, Turks though they be. They even drink raki, without any attempt at concealment; and it is a pity, for the Turk, in losing his prejudices, invariably loses his principles.
False Alarms. .
Our march commences well. Without mishap, I reach Mermereh and from that point Sardis announces itself by the artificial mountains of its necropolis. The plain in the distance is covered with enormous tombs; these are “the thousand mounds” (bin tepe), under which sleep the ancestors of Crmsus. But, for an instant, I thought I was not destined to get to them. At a narrow part of the valley, three Turks, in rags, and armed ferociously enough to excite terror, come straight toward us, two on our left, one on our right. No doubt, these are the brigands, an encounter with whom was pictured to us as inevitable. What fools we were to set out without an escort. But we have arms as well as the Turks, and why should we not fight? Meanwhile, we are hemmed in by the three terrible Turks. They stop; they ground arms; they put themselves in a waiting attitude, And what do you think they ask? Tobacco! We share our store with them. They shower on us all the blessings and good wishes to which the Turkish language can give expression, and then continue what they were engaged in—the chase of the jackal. Thus terminate, so far, at least, as my own experience is concerned, all conflicts with brigands.
& Sgrian Scene.
This evening the cold is keen, and we make a trial of that mode of getting heat (fire of fir twigs). What a horrible smoke! and what eyes, without growing blind, could pass a week in such an atmosphere? To be able to breathe we are compelled to lie down on the floor (of the chamber), and everywhere, as long as the cold (of December) continues, we are doomed to suffer this infliction; doomed to be smoked. However, habit is everything. Our hosts do no^ appear to be in the slightest degree incommoded. They are wholly at their ease, and crouch round the fire with biblical dignity. Suppress coffee and the tschibouk (and this is doubtless to suppress a good deal), and you might fancy you had before you
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the contemporaries of Abraham. And, as if to complete the illusion, a scene entirely biblical comes to break the uniformity of these Oriental reunions. A judgment wholly patriarchal is pronounced before me at this moment. The judge is a young, influential officer of the Turkish army; the parties are two Arabs. One of them, an old man with a white beard, entreats the young arbiter to restore to him his wife, who has been taken away from him. He prostrates himself and kisses the officer’s feet. The ravisher is also there, but does not make a single movement. The officer reflects for a moment, and declares, “ The woman must decide the question by taking him of the two she likes best.” Solomon himself could not have delivered a wiser judgment. The sentence having been pronounced, the judge and the contending parties, and everybody else, sit down round the enormous dish of pilaf (or pilau), of which we also take our share. After us come some more guests who consume what we have left. Each guest after having had his fill withdraws. Soon only two guests remain beside the dish, and the dinner ends by a contest between them which can swallow the largest handfuls of rice. It is thus that all the repasts of the Arabs terminate. To-morrow I am to be the guest of a pascha, and the dinner is to end with an eating steeplechase of this description, and the combatants are not to be two peasants, but on the one hand Scheikh Hussein, one of the principal chiefs of the Druses, and on the other the sub-governor of the Hauran. From one extreme to another of the scale, the customs and manners of the Orientals have a striking resemblance.
The Second Seiram Feast.
I enter Jaffa in the morning. The believers are grouped on the threshold of the mosques and salute each other. Each of them gravely places his hands on the shoulders of him whom he approaches, and embraces him on the neck, as the Jews did in the time of Christ. The tombs are everywhere adorned with palm-boughs, and the crowd circulates in the cemeteries. At the tombs the people weep and smoke and eat; the cups of coffee succeed die prayers, and nothing in this blending of things shocks the minds of the Orientals, so different from ours. The women, clad in white cotton and veiled with black stuff, wander like shadows in the midst of the polychromatic costumes of the sailors and soldiers. It is the men alone who display in public gorgeous embroideries and brilliant raiment. . The Mussulman devotees, in a band, go and repeat from tomb to tomb the exercises of the howling dervisches. To what excesses the madness of fanaticism can rush! And how agreeable it must be to God to see these unhappy beings execute to the right and then to the left a convulsive salutation, drawing from the depth of their breast an inarticulate sound of a horrible wildness! On the morrow, from the deck of the vessel as it sails away, I behold the festival continuing under more human aspects. The banners of the mosques defile across the cemetery, and are lowered to cover successively the tombs with their splendid stuffs. That is my last glance at the Mussulman world, the last picture it has stamped on my memory.
dittos of Oto Hooks.
The Early English Text Society.
[CONTINUATION.]
41.	The Minor Poems of William Lauder, Playwright, Poet, and Minister of the Word of God (mainly on the State of Scotland in and about 1568, a.d., that year of Famine and Plague). Edited from the Unique Originals belonging to S. Christie-Miller, Esq., of Britwell, by F. J. Fumivall, M.A., Trin. Hall, Camb.
These are the complaints of an earnest Puritan, who felt it his duty to cry aloud and spare not in his denunciations of the corruptions of the age in which he lived. It was not without cause that his righteous indignation was kindled; though he mixes up inextricably the true and the false, declaiming now against the extortion of landlords and again asserting that—
“ Now mony vsis Sosserie,
Doand the deuylis of Hell coniure, Seikand to knaw how all sulde be:
How lang, Lord, wyll this warld indure ? ”
His vigorous and outspoken reproofs of the follies and vices of the time, both of princes and people, have an air of sober reality not always characteristic of satire, and are occasionally touched with a ray of poetic feeling.
42.	Bernardus de Curarei Famuliaris, with some Early Scotch Prophecies, etc. From a MS., KK 1. 5., in the Cambridge University Library. Edited by J. Pawson Lumby M.A., late Fellow of Magdalen College, Cambridge.
The first piece is a paraphrase in Scottish verse of a letter to a knight, giving advice concerning the management of his household. This epistle is doubtfully attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and is full of those sage commonplaces which writers on the conduct of life, especially of those departments of which they are ignorant, are fond of inflicting upon an impatient world. The second part of the volume is filled with some choice specimens of prophetical nonsense, some of it being matter that has passed under many names, and been attributed to Nixon, Shipton, and others, and modified to suit the exigencies of various localities. Perhaps the most curious of the prophecies are those attributed to Becket, and which show how readily a mass of legend may accumulate around an historical personage of a comparatively modern period.
43.	Ratis Raving, and other Moral and Religious Pieces, in Prose and Verse. Edited from the Cambridge University Library MS. KK 1. 5, by J. Rawson Lumby, M.A., late Fellatv of Magdalen College, Cambridge.
In this we have a number of miscellaneous pieces, some of great interest, and all possessing a certain amount of curiosity. The first is on the Craft of Deying—an art which, though all learn ultimately, does not find many eager students. Then we have a ballad of maxims, a Scottish version of Chaucer’s “ Flee from the Press," a ballad attributed to James I. of Scotland, a Song, and the “ Wisdom of Solomon." “ Ratis Raving ” is a longer poem, extending to 8,600 lines, and purports to be the instructions left by a father for the guidance and improvement of his son. He describes the five senses, exhorts against the vices into which indulgence of them may lead; and, after praising the virtues of Fortitude, Honesty, Temperance, and Prudence, and their sisters, Faith, Hope, and Charity, draws no flattering picture of their opposing vices. After some moral advice on various actions of life, the poem ends with the seven ages of man. The “ Thewis off gudwomen " is a treatise on the necessity of women being chaste and charitable, of young girls being kept close and corrected,
“For youthed ay inclynis to wyoe.”
Lastly comes a short treatise on the “Virtues of the Mass.”
44.	Joseph of Arimathie: otherwise called the Romance of the Seint Graal, or Holy Grail: an alliterative poem, written about a.d. 1350, and now first printed from the unique copy in the Vernon MS. at Oxford. With an appendix, containing “ The Lyfe of Joseph of Armathyf, reprinted from the blackletter copy of Wynkyn de Worde; “De sancto Joseph ab Arimathia,” first printed by Pynson, a.d. 1516; and “The Lyfe of Joseph of Arimathia,” first printed by Pynson, a.d.
1520. Edited, with Notes and Glossarial Indices, by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A.
In this volume we have a most interesting collection of those medieval legends which have inspired some of the finest singers of our modern time. What though criticism is more than dubious about the British wanderings of Joseph ? The legends which have clustered round Glastonbury have in them often poetic beauty, and sometimes a deeper moral significance. The story of the quest of the holy grail, the dish or chalice containing the blood of Christ, is one told with many devious episodes; yet clear in it wo have the picture of the blameless knight, Sir Galahad.
45.	King Alfred's West Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care. With an English translation, the Latin Text, Notes, and an Introduction Edited by Henry Sweet, Esq., of Balliol College, Oxford. Part. I. Part H. (No. 50.)
This, in the opinion of the accomplished editor, is perhaps the moet important of all the unpublished Old English texts, using that term in place of the phrase “Anglo-Saxon," which he regards as “ barbarous and unmeaning." It is the first edition of any of Alfred’s works based on contemporary MSS. Those hitherto used have been from later transcripts, editors having actually dismissed the older and more faithful texts as “ abnormal," and so forth. The interest of this issue centres in its philological value as a monument of our earliest English, and as a memorial of the literary taste and religious feeling of the great Alfred. The Latin text promised on the title has not yet appeared, and Mr. Sweet expresses a doubt as to the probability of its publication.
46.	Legends of the Holy Rood; Symbols of the Passion and Cross-Poems. In Old English of the Eleventh, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries. Edited from MSS. in the British Museum and Bodleian Libraries; with Introduction, Translations, and Glossarial Index. By Richard Morris, LL.D.
In these we have the curious legends that have become grouped around the ’ Cross. The story of the visit of Seth to Paradise, whence he brought the “oil of mercy ” for his aged father, and also three apple kernels, which, placed under the tongue of dead Adam, grew into three wands in Hebron, where he was buried. These rods were found and used by Moses in healing the people. Before his death he planted them beside Mount Tabor, whence they were removed to Jerusalem by David. They grew into one great tree, beneath which the royal bard composed his psalms. It was cut down for the building of the Temple, but as it possessed the power of elongation and contraction, it proved a source not of profit, as in “ Spiritualism,’’ but a sore annoyance to the Jewish carpenters. Ultimately the rood-tree was thrown over a brook to serve as a bridge, where it was discovered by the Queen of Sheba. Round it sprang a deep well, in which, ultimately, the rood was floating when the Jews were seeking for a “tree” on whic£ to hang Christ. After the crucifixion, the Holy Cross was hidden from the eyes of the adherents of the new faith. On the spot where it was buried Adrian built a heathen temple. One story of its recovery by the Empress Helena contains a curious anticipation of the contract between Antonio and Shylock. The Jew, deprived of his right to the pound of flesh by the chicanery of the law, and further condemned to forfeit his goods and lose his tongue, offers to point out the hiding-place of tho true Cross, on condition of being pardoned. These and many other quaint imaginings and moralisations have been brought together by the skilful hand of Dr. Morris.
47.	Sir David Lyndesay's Works. Part V. The Minor Poems of Lyndesay. Edited by J. A. H. Murray, Esq.
48.	The Times' Whistle; or, a Newe Daunce of Seven Satires, and other Poems: Compiled by R. C., Gent. Now first Edited from MS. Y. 8. 3. in the Library of Canterbury Cathedral; with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary, by J.
M. Cowper.	, rOASS]
Bishop Hall’s claim to be the first English satirist does not stand the test of modern investigation. One of his earliest imitators was the unknown R. C., Gent., whose muse was on the wing about 1614-16. The editor suggests that he was Richard Corbet. He wielded a vigorous pen, and his declamations against atheists, Sabbath-breakers, drunkards, lechers, and other evil-doers have a vigour and determination about them which does not allow the chance of amendment to escape for want of plain speaking. There is a long and interesting passage (p. 70) relating to “another kinde of drinke”—that is, “ Tobacco, a rare Indian weed,” against whose patrons and purveyors he is very severe.
49.	An Old English Miscellany, containing a Bestiary, Kentish Sermons, Proverbs of Alfred, Religious Poems of the 13t& century. Edited from the. MSS. by the Rev. R. Morris, LL.D.
The theology, ethics, and science of our forefathers are each represented in this volume. We have first a Bestiary (Arundel MS., 292), translated from the Latin of Theobaldus. In this we may read how the eagle renews his youth, how the elephant can’t lie down, but has to rest propt against a tree, and other notabilia curiota. The old Kentish Sermons of the 13th century are of considerable philological interest, and noteworthy for the evidence they bear of the Norman-French influence. The Proverbs of Alfred are early examples of wisdom, not the less valuable, it may be, on account of their commonplace character. The bulk of the life of even distinguished men is commonplace. What, then, of the “ignoble many?" There is a graphic picture of the XI. Pains of Hell, and a number of religious poems, some of them simply interesting as expressions of theological views, but one or two marked by true lyrical spirit and grace.
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WHEN INJURIOUS, WHEN INNOCUOUS, WHEN BENEFICIAL, WITH COMPENDIUM OF THE TEMPERAMENTS, SHOWING HOW THEY ARE INFLUENCED BY TOBJLOOO.
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®^ ^ishrg anir ^^iksop^g of Kubam.
n.
The revolt of the North American Colonies deprived England for a series of years of the supply of Tobacco from Virginia and Maryland, and smoking and snuffing declined, as chewing also did, which, from Monk’s example, had gained sway among the better classes. In the fashionable world pipe and cigar fell into discredit. But the Tobacco plant, though placed for a season under the ban, continued to have its worshippers in England; and during the two or three last generations the use of Tobacco has completely regained its empire there. Thomas Hobbes was a passionate smoker, as was likewise Isaac Newton. A devoted adorer of the plant was the celebrated Doctor Parr, who often smoked twentv pipes in an evening. At a grand dinner given at Trinity College, he would not allow himself to be disturbed in his favourite enjoyment, even by the presence of the Duke of Gloucester:—“After dinner he lighted his eternal pipe, and by the pungent odour of the smoke made his royal highness sneeze.” Lovers also of smoking have been Charles Lamb, Walter Scott, Thomas Moore, and Lord Byron, likewise the poet Tennyson and Lord Brougham. The Dukes of Sussex and of Devonshire gave smoking an aristocratic consecration, and George IV. lavished on it his protection. Finally, Bulwer urges against the enemies of Tobacco the following arguments: 1 ‘ Whoso smokes not, has either never experienced great sorrow, or denies himself the sweetest solace next to that which comes from heaven. The young reader may ask whether there is anything sweeter than woman. Young reader, woman embitters life in the same degree that she gladdens it. Woman is a solace to us as long as we are young and handsome; but when we are old and ugly she looks at us contemptuously and chides us. On the whole, woman is placed in one scale and Tobacco in the other. Jupiter, hold out the scales and weigh both, and if thou givest the preference to woman, all I can say is: * 0! Jupiter, the next time Juno scolds thee, try a pipe!’”
Similar to the course of affairs in England was it, so far as Tobaccowae concerned, in Italy and Switzerland. Pope Urban VIII. put all under the ban who ventured to bring Tobacco into the churches, for it had come to his ears that ecclesiastics during mass snuffed. His successor, Innocent XII., limited the prohibition to St. Peter’s Church. Benedict XIV. withdrew the prohibition altogether, as he was himself a great lover of snuff. In Tuscany, which in other respects was well governed, those in authority were for a long time disinclined toward Tobacco, and its cultivation was only permitted in certain districts. The Grand Duke Peter Leopold, who with zeal laboured to raise the declining State, and who introduced reforms into all departments of the administration, swept aside the aforesaid limitation. But his son and successor, Ferdinand HL., banished the Tobacco culture to its former restricted territory, and Leopold II. prohibited it in the whole of the Duchy. Nevertheless, punishments and regulations for smokers and snuffers never existed in Tuscany. With more severity some cantons of Switzerland acted in their dislike to the use of Tobacco; but the tribunals contented themselves with pecuniary penalties. This was the case in Appenzell, into which, in 1653, smoking found its way; and in Glarus, where in 1670 it was punished by a fine of a kron thaler (about six francs). In Berne the authorities added to the ten commandments an eleventh: “Thou shalt not smoke.” This commandment got renewed force in 1675; and for the trial and condemnation of those who violated it a special tribunal, the “ Chambre du Tabac,” was created, which
existed till the middle of the last century. Other cantons proceeded more fiercely, and smokers caught in the act were put in the pillory, and keepers of taverns who allowed them to smoke in their houses had to take their place beside them.
In Russia the lovers of Tobacco had to endure a heavy and long persecution. Czar Michael Feodorowitsch, when his attention was called to the passage in Hebrews xii., 15, where it is said: “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled,” forbade the use of Tobacco to his half-barbarous subjects, under the severest penalties. Smokers were subjected to the knout, and were driven into exile; snuffers had their nostrils slit by the executioner. Peter the Great, however, on the receipt of a hundred thousand thalers, allowed English merchants to import Tobacco into Russia, and permitted the Russians to use the plant without further restrictions. And now in an exceedingly short time Tobacco extended its sway over the whole land; yea, under Peter III., who had festive gatherings in Oranienbaum, Tobacco became a favourite, even at court. The Raskolniks, however, who parade an older and stricter orthodoxy than others, and who form more than the third of the Russian population, still despise and hate both pipe and snuff-box, simply because they are the innovations of an age which they regard as that in which Anti-Christ reigneth; just as, for the same reason, they detest the paving of streets.
In Hungary and Transylvania, where the cultivation of Tobacco is now so highly flourishing, that cultivation was in the seventeenth century punished by heavy fines and by the confiscation of the estates of the planters; and the smokers were menaced with fines amounting to not less than three hundred florins. In Austria, so far as we may trust our means of information, such fashions of persecution and prosecution were wholly unknown. Wallenstein was a friend of the pipe; and at the beginning of the seventeenth century Tobacco passed in Vienna for an admirable prophylactic against all maladies, especially the plague. Abraham A Sancta Clara (a famous preacher of the seventeenth century, whose real name was Ulrich Megerle, and who gave his books the oddest names), calls Tobacco, in his “Reim dich oder ich lies dich,” the “Soldier’s customary confection;” and, vaunting its merits, he says: “ So far as can be learned from experience, this plant has a very salutary effect against the pestilence, and Neander remarks that garden rue and Tobacco, steeped for an hour in wine, and given with citron juice to those attacked by the plague, has been of considerable benefit. But especially is Tobacco-smoke useful at present in vanquishing the poisonous foulness of the air. The good soldiers here have been using Tobacco in extraordinary quantities, and it is conjectured that it has been of signal efficiency.” Previously the discovery had been made that Tobacco was good for something else—namely, for the improvement of the finances. Already, in 1670, this discovery found practical application; and, though the profit flowing to the State was not at first considerable, the revenue not amounting to more than two thousand florins annually, yet in the course of time it increased with the increasing demand for the article; and in the years from 1777 to 1784 the sale of Tobacco, when farmed out as a monopoly, brought to the Austrian revenue 1,800,000 florins, a large sum for the period. Unassailed Tobacco and its cultivation remained in Silesia, into which Tobacco was introduced in 1640. The owners of land there obtained the first plants from Poland, where the Jesuits were the protectors of Tobacco, showing their sympathy with it by publishing an “ Anti-misocapnus.” In 1643 a Tobacco factory was erected at Ohlau, in the neighbourhood of which the cultivation of Tobacco already existed.
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Nevertheless, the productions of the Tobacco fields seem to have been consumed only by the wealthy, and by these in a moderate degree, and chiefly at drinking bouts. The Councillor Gregory Biber, in his Diary for 26th March, 1651, says: “Drinkers find Tobacco a good thing for exciting thirst.” Subsequently the Silesian Tobacco culture expanded, and in the Ohlau, Grottkau, and Neumark regions became a highly lucrative branch of industrialism. How in the rest of Germany matters shaped themselves, I reserve for a following section. Here, for the moment, let me glance at the tribulations which in the East smokers and snuffers had to undergo. With great passionateness the Turks gave themselves up to the new enjoyment with which, in the reign of Achmed I., they became acquainted. But Tobacco had more martyrs in Turkey than anywhere else. The Ottoman poets praised Tobacco, opium, coffee, and wine as the four “cushions of enjoyment.” On the other hand, the ecclesiastical interpreters of the Koran pictured them as the four “pillars of the tent of lust,” as the four “viziers of Iblis.” Several Sultans adopted the last of the two views, hurled prohibitions at Tobacco, and punished the violations thereof in the most cruel manner. Anyone found taking a pipe had his nose pierced, and through the opening was thrust the pipe stem. In this deplorable state he was placed on an ass, with his back to the ass's head; and, holding by the tail, he had to ride through the streets of Stamboul. It was pre-eminently Murad IV. who rushed into unbridled fury. But it was not religious motives which impelled the tyrant; neither was he influenced by the danger of fire which menaced a city entirely built of wood, such as that on the Golden Horn, when thousands were lighting and smoking their pipes. The terrible conflagration which laid waste Constantinople in 1633, merely furnished the pretext for the ferocious persecution which soon broke forth on “Tobacco drinkers” and the frequenters of coffee-houses. In truth, the real design was to terrify the discontented, who assembled in the coffee-houses with findjan and tschibuk. The coffee-houses were shut up. Every one who was found with a pipe was doomed to death. Even the soldiers were not excepted from the atrocious law, and hundreds of them were strangled by the executioners of the Padischah, beheaded, or impaled with their own pipe stems. Ibrahim I. also persecuted Tobacco smokers with merciless severity, and doomed a great number of them to death. Under Mohammed IV., however, the prohibition was abolished; and since his time smoking has gained so many disciples and devotees among the Ottomans, that a cherry-wood or jessamine pipe belongs as indispensably and inseparably to our conception of a true Turk, as beard and turban. The same is the case with the Syrian, Arabic, and Indian Moslims. But the Druses of Lebanon, the Wabahites in Yemen, the inhabitants of Bokhara, and the Sikhs abstain from Tobacco in all its ’ forms and enjoyments. ‘ From Constantinople the custom of smoking came, by way of the Armenian mountains, to Persia. The inhabitants of this country became acquainted with Tobacco through a campaign of Abbas the Great against the Turks. This monarch caused the nose and lips of smokers to be cut off; and ordered a merchant, who had smuggled the forbidden ware into the camp, to be burned on a pile of Tobacco. An anecdote of Abbas, more amusing than cleanly, shows that, spite of these punishments, Tobacco had its adorers, grew into grace among his grandees. The Schah having invited the dignitaries of his court to a feast, he caused pipes to be brought, which were filled with horse dung. After the guests had had some pulls at the pipe, their host asked: “How do you like this plant? It is a gift from my vizier in Hamadan, who maintains that it is the best Tobacco in the world.” As a matter of course the guests found it excellent, just as they would have found it disgusting if his Majesty had given a hint in that direction. At last Abbas turned to a general who of all present enjoyed his highest esteem, and said: “ Tell me frankly, my friend, thy real opinion of this Tobacco.” “ Sire, I swear by thy holy head that this Tobacco has the scent of the sweetest flower.” Thereupon the Schah threw a glance of contempt at the company, and exclaimed: “Accursed be the stuff which is not distinguishable from horse dung! ” The successor of Abbas, Schah Safi, who lived in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, was likewise a persecutor of smokers. Nevertheless, the custom made victorious advances, and the Persians are now among the most passionate adorers of Tobacco; and the sort which they cultivate— Tumbeki—and which must be smoked through the waterpipes, is one of the strongest in the East.—From the German of Moritz Butch. ||xps of ^ahr ^tars. vn.—THE LAST MAN. Thu last man, the last inhabitant of my cottage orn6. I had never seen him, and Roddy had never seen him; nevertheless, I have a pretty good notion in my own mind as to what the last man must have been like. I formed this notion gradually, and by more means than one. The last man developed himself in my mind, as it were. Hazy enough at first, but ever and ever growing more and more distinct; until one day I found myself seated at my	table, sketch-book before me, painting the last man in the latest water-colours; and I have that sketch now, framed and glazed, and hanging in a corner of my study. I never knew his name, but I have called him Jones, so I can’t be far wrong. I have painted him Jones, and the picture is yclept Jones, thus:— “JONES-YE LAST MAN.” I gained my first insight into Jones’s character and habits while digging in my garden. I soon found out that Jones smoked. I have painted him smoking. Common clays, too! Don’t judge Jones too rashly, reader; I know of no smoke more delicious than that wooed from the stem of a long clay, provided that you bend a new one every evening. But Pm sorry to say that the last man—that Jones, in a word—smoked his clays into cutties, dirty black dudheens. I had hardly turned over a dozen spadefuls of earth before I had exposed a beastly black cutty, and very soon after I turned up another. When I had unearthed the first old clay I felt a little startled. I wondered what I should come to next, and shouldn’t have been a bit surprised had I turned up a ghastly skull. It seemed only natural, until I remembered that one isn’t usually buried with a pipe in one’s mouth—on this side of the Atlantic. So I went on digging, and very soon came to a specimen of Jones’ china and delf. The last man liked a plain white article, with a red line running round it, and a morsel of flower to show it off withal. Jones’s taste must have been slightly loud. N.B.—I have painted Jones slightly loud in taste, and have given him a flowered waistcoat, a superabundance of watch chain, and a ring on his little finger which I defy you to tell from gold. On the nineteenth day of my digging, and about noon of that day, I made a grand discovery—I discovered that the last man loved a drop of good beer. Remember this, however—Jones used, but did not abuse; for as soon as I made the discovery that Jones laved a drop of beer, I went straight away and examined the key-hole of the door. The brass around it bore not a single scratch. But Jones liked his beer good and clear, and “up to the knocker,” as the vulgar phrase it; for on the nineteenth day of my digging I excavated and bore away in triumph, the mortal remains of the last man’s pewter mug, and it had—or, rather, had had—a crystal bottom. What more conclusive proof could anyone wish ? Ergo, the last man drank neither muddy beer nor murky stout, but the ambery ale of a Burton or a Bass. N.B.—Jones went up several degrees in my estimation after this. I could easily imagine Jones, with his head a point or two on one side, cooking his left eye down into the pewter mug, just to see how the pint was lasting, and to guard against the deglutition of suicidal fiies. I imagined Jones so, and I have painted Jones so. A man of middle age Jones must have been, for I knew by the papers he had left in the lumber-room that he was a thinking man, a man of advanced politics; and what man ever thinks before he is forty? Jones is painted as a thinking man, a man of round, rubicund, somewhat jolly countenance, and rather bald on the pate. The last man was dumpy rather, not to say podgy. Thus: there was a seat of plain deal just under my pear tree, where I’ll be bound the last man used to sit of a summer evening, cutty in mouth, paper in hand, and pewter mug at elbow. Just under a branch was that seat. Broad it was, but not high; nevertheless, I could not sit under that branch, and I’m no giant. So Jones must have been dumpy, and so I have represented him. Jones was partial to a leg of mutton: I could tell that from the bones I dug up in the garden. A spare rib of beef was another of the last man’s weaknesses. An occasional bit of fish formed a delicious change, with now and then a sheep’s head; so frugal was Jones. Jones was particularly fond of a nice, round, floury potato, and must have taken great pains with, as well as pleasure in, their cultivation. In the spring time of the year, we can imagine we see dumpy little Jones, busily preparing the ground for his pet crop, and finally getting the seed in with a dibber. Stooping, to dumpy folks, is not particularly agreeable, and we can fancy Jones frequently pausing to puff. But the work is done at last, and the hoeing season comes on. Weather rather warmer now; Jones is fain to work in his shirt sleeves, and the sun strikes hot on his bald patch as he frequently pauseth “to take a rounder” with that red handkerchief of his. Later on in the year, see Jones in his garden digging, with unbounded satisfaction, his round and snowy favourites. Jones would permit no one to dig them but himself, I’ll go bound. Ah I but picture to yourself, if you can, the beaming face of little Jones as he seats himself to dinner. The black cutty is laid lovingly on the mantelpiece, the pewter mug with the crystal bottom flanks his elbow, before him is the spare-rib, not far off are the mealy darlings he cultivated himself. Help yourself to a generous slice, Jones; spare not the “ spuds ”; and, when thy modest morsel of mity cheese is washed down with the last mouthful of the ale of Burton, then hie thee away and smoke, for art thou not thyself a creation of smoke, 0! Jones, ye last man? Would that the weeds that overrun my garden had been like Jones himself—the baseless fabric of a dream. Like a true British sailor, I declared war at once against those weeds; I declared war, and waged it to the glorious end.
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Dav after day, week after week, in rain or shine, I plucked ind hoed, and buried or burned the slain. Roddy was ever, er by mV ^e> my P’P® was ever» ever in my mouth; and to this syzygy alone do I owe my triumph—a triumph hich I never considered complete until Pelham (poor Pelham) returned from sea, walked up the path one day, with eyes like saucers, and “ My danged old stars! ” says he, you l^ve 8°*a sweet little spot here, my boy.”
•‘There ain’t a doubt of it, Pelham, old tar,” says I, and I him one of my best cigars on the spot. N.B.—Poor p^lhwn had to go to sea again, and keep on going to sea. 2M—I suffered through the last man’s predilection for Dotatoes, and I suffered for his love for a bit of parsley. Where was it, I wonder, those potatoes did not crop up. They towered high and green in the middle of my onion beds, aad eke among my carrots too. All among my strawberries and in my lettuce beds, in the centre of my early peas, they showed their dusky heads. Jones’s parsley, likewise, played me many a prank. It might have looked pretty, curling crisp and green around the edges of the last man’s plate of salmon or cold pig’s cheek, but peeping up through my nicely trimmed box-wood edging, or struggling for existence with my early lettuces was quite another pair of shoes.
Now, there were some weeds in my garden that I could not help having a certain amount of respect for: groundsel, for example. This is just as easy a weed to deal with as any, if you take him in the right way. He (Mr. Groundsel) never gets up for being something or other that he isn’t, and then goes and deceives you. He is a bluff, honest, thoroughly English weed; he makes no pretence. He comes up straightforward and smiling, and positively seems to wonder that he doesn’t meet with a better reception. And there is one thing to be said in his favour, weed though he be: he doesn’t catch t very firm hold in the ground. He is easily dislodged, he bows to his fate like a true-born Briton, and dies in an hour in the sun.
Groundsel flourished for a time in my garden. “ The best way to get rid of them,” said my Gardener’s Guide, “is to let them alone for a time, make them believe they are going to have all the ground to themselves, then—” And so on and so forth; and I obeyed my guide to the letter. I let the groundsel grow/ Up it came, tall and stately, here, there, and everywhere; and I smiled to myself and grinned in my sleeve at the trick I was playing Master Groundsel. I even allowed him to send forth his little preposterously yellow flower, so sure was I of my prey- Alack a-day I The groundsel walked to windward of me, after all; for I was suddenly called from home for a week, and when I came back, bad luck to me if I didn’t find it had been and gone and seeded, and sown its little self all over the garden.
There were some weeds that stole a march upon me in a nasty, sneaking, underhand sort of a way. The nettle, for instance, was one of these. With his little, smooth, round leaf he used to come creeping so innocently-like through the ground, that I didn’t quite know what to make of him—rather admired him, in fact—and thought he was some seedling pet flower of the last man, and so spared him. But, lo and behold 1 in a week or two he would go and develop himself into a nasty, dirty, stingy nettle, and I had to put on my gloves to root him up. N.B.—“Cometh up as a flower” is all very well for a novel, but it’s deuced nasty for a weed.
Tussilago, with its broad, green, downy-backed leaf, was another weed that had fully established itself at the foot of my garden, and flourished for a while like a green bay tree. Perhaps the reader is not aware that this leaf is dried and used as Tobacco by many of the peasantry in Scotland. The sow-thistle is a very shark among weeds. None of your namby-pamby humbugs he. A bold, saucy, audacious rascal, to all appearance a hybrid between a dandelion and a Scotch thistle, having all the bad qualities of both, and none of the good; he grows downwards just as fast as he grows up; and, if you once let him get hold enough of the ground, he’ll break sooner than be pulled up. If you happen to take the cottage orn6 next to mine, don’t please let your sow thistles come to seed. Beautiful as it is to see the feathery seedlings rising from their beds, bidding adieu to the parent stalk, ana soaring away heavenward on the balmy breath of a summer’s gloaming, it isn’t quite so pleasant to behold them blow the gw off and slowly settle down over one’s garden. Sow thistles “e good for rabbits. I was advised to go in for rabbits, but I didn’t, because I took a fool’s advice once, and had my fingers horned. I was advised to buy a pair of ducks to eat my snails, and I did. For the snails had been tasting all my dewberries, to find out which were the sweetest. It wouldn’t have mattered much if they had eaten a few clean up and then gone home to roost, but to keep nibble, nibble—no, I couldn’t stand it, so I bought the ducks. I placed them down among the cabbage as the evening star shone o’er us, and hade them be happy, for it was among the cabbages that the “ails mostly slept.
I don’t know how many snails those ungrateful ducks devoured, but I hadn’t the slightest difficulty in counting the number of strawberries left me next morning. Nor was this the beggars had evidently made a night of it, waddled ^er my beautiful flowers, grubbed up my blue lobelias, kanupled to death my pet petunias, and broke my calceolarias, finally went to sleep in the greenhouse, a-squat on a box precious plants. I had those ducks for dinner next day ^th green peas.
Now I gained all my knowledge of horticulture and weeds by experience, and I haven’t told you half, for I’m quite an old hand at gardening now. I know, for instance, that if you go in for bulbs, such as crocuses or tulips, both of which look very pretty in spring time, it doesn’t do to keep rooting them up every three or four days, to see how they get on.
Secondly. A Dutch hoe is a capital tool, but it must not be used rashly. It is powerful sharp at its lower edge, and needs to be looked sharp after. It is no respecter of persons, and will—especially if there be a fool at one end of it—just as soon root out a young China aster, or go slick through a suckling nusturtium, as it would unearth a morsel of groundsel. So mind your eye.
Thirdly, and lastly to-day. If you have only a small lawn in front of your cottage orn6, you will find a good sharp carving knife about the sovereignest thing out to mow it with. Only, don’t be awkward. Look out for the point of your thumb. I looked out for mine. I looked for it all over the lawn early next morning, but I looked in vain: the starlings had been before me.
N.B.—You never know how momentous a thing a thumb is until you’ve lost the point of it. Thumbs are the connecting link between man and the Darwinian ape, and their importance can hardly be over estimated.
N.B. 2nd.—Points of thumbs always grow on again in from three weeks to a month. Nature supplies mankind with an unlimited number of points of thumbs, but you can’t more’n twice for teeth.
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
^oob anb 6rotot^: a ^apsob#. BY AN INDIVIDUALIST.
The opponents of Tobacco and of other nervose aliments always assume, from their slavery to certain Pharisaic bigotries and Puritanic notions, that education and government should be a kind of police, and that the chief object of both should be to chain, to mutilate, to suppress the individual. Detestable enough the doctrine is in itself; but it is eminently welcome to tyrants, for, by creating a thousand petty despotisms, it emboldens and justifies the most cruel, the most colossal oppression. Now the true, the generous philosophy is, that the individual as a product of Nature should be developed to his utmost capacities of every kind, and should acknowledge no law higher than his own ideal of himself, in harmony with his divinest ideal of the Universe. All other laws should simply be succour and sustenance to these two ideals. When they attempt to be more than this they are radically bad; and they become the worse, and are the more pernicious, the more prevailing theologies give them countenance. The conflict between aggressive adventurous science and obstructive theological creeds does not now concern me. I can with indifference and almost contempt leave the combatants to fight out their puny and ignoble fight. It is manifest, however, that, in reference to the matter before us, science is not wiser than theology; for while theology aims at annihilating the individual, science tries to shatter him into minutest fragments. Between being broken to pieces and annihilated, the individual on the whole is inclined to choose annihilation as the less terrible of two evils. Both science and religion should be unitive agencies, forasmuch as the Universe is a unity and the individual is a unity. But the science of these days, unable to conceive the grander unity, is of course unable to conceive the smaller; and, with a fanaticism of destructiveness, goes on tearing asunder and pulverising. What to science is the Universe? An immense congregation of atoms. And what but a handful of atoms can the individual to the glance and the grasp of science be? To rise from the real to the ideal, and to lift man from the real to the ideal, should be the aspiration alike of science and religion. Instead of this there is a wretched, a wearisome jangling, between spurious spiritualism and spurious materialism, both being remote from catholic truth and rebels against it. To attain catholic truth we must start from the firm and fervent belief in unity of substance. From the constitution of things there can be only one substance; and it is the merest, the maddest caprice, to cleave this substance into spirit and matter. So that the controversy kindled by Professor Tyndall’s Belfast discourse was an ignorant and imbecile babblement about words. The power seen in the Universe is the revelation and the symbol of power unseen; and thus the tangible evermore suggests the intangible. But we exalt not the intangible by calling it the spiritual; we simply reduce it to a nonentity. And we go equally astray when we maintain that the tangible is all and the intangible is nothing, seeing that verily it would be more accurate to say that the intangible is all and that the tangible is nothing; for analysis, however piercing and puissant, can never go beyond points and surfaces. It is reverence for the invisible as the sole and salutary force which should be inculcated; not faith in the spiritual, which is an impossibility, and in the supernatural, which is a dream. There can be no entity higher and deeper than Nature; but Nature is mysterious, sacred, adorable, because whatsoever we touch or behold suggests and leads to something higher and deeper than itself. Hence all genuine science, philosophy, religion, must be mysticism, and every enthusiastic worshipper
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of Nature must be a mystio. He sees and he seizes forms, but he cannot see or seize the essential life. He can, however, blend with it by affinity and sympathy; and this is what makes him god-like. Blending by sympathy and affinity with the essential life, yearning for it more and more, how can he believe that aught in the essential life is essentially evil? Must he not believe, on the contrary, that everything in the essential life is essentially good—essentially good, that is, not in the vulgar ethical, but in the sublimest cosmical sense? It is with reference to a theory of the universe which accepts everything as essentially good that what is called bromatology must be studied. Bromatology is the doctrine of aliments, a doctrine which, though starting from the commonest of human needs, hunger and thirst, is related to the grandest destinies of man. To elevate cookery from its rudest, most rudimentary state to an art is a more important affair than is usually supposed. It is a notable and noble step in civilisation, and not the less noble and notable because the art so often becomes the minister of a debasing and debilitating luxury. Not till our own days has bromatology in its hygienic and therapeutic bearings been systematically regarded. And these are of supreme interest, and cannot be too earnestly contemplated. But far beyond them, and far above them, we have to consider bromatology in its cosmical aspirations and adaptations. I do not believe in the perfectibility of the human race. There is nothing which history more clearly shows than that if the human race goes forward in one age and in one direction, it goes backward in another direction and in another age. After climbing valiantly to the top of the mountain, and feeling as if he could crown himself with stars, man falls headlong into an abyss of abomination and misery, from which he may be hundreds, yea, thousands of years in emerging. The mediaeval period, for instance, was one long trail of sin, one long wail of suffering; and the Crusades, those marvellous episodes of the mediaeval period, were much more a curse than a blessing to mankind. We are still held in bondage to what was most degrading and hateful in the mediaeval period, and even when the world has altogether outgrown medieval influences, it may never attain the perfectness of the Greek, of the Roman civilisation, or the richness of the Oriental civilisation. That is the best civilisation in which instinct most predominates, and true science is valuable no further than it enables men to recover the instinct of which false science has robbed them. For instance, woollen raiment is more healthful than silk, silk than cotton, cotton than linen. Woollen raiment, moreover, is a better preservative against malaria than any other kind of raiment. Now the Romans, when their city was the robustest of realities, wore woollen garments, whereby they defended themselves from the subtle mephitic vapours which are fatal in so many parts of Italy. But their preference for woollen attire was determined by instinct, and not by hygiene or therapeutics. Among all nations, savage, barbarous, or what we call civilised, the same instinctive wisdom is displayed. It was instinct more than science or religion that taught the Egyptians to embalm the dead. What is popularly spoken of as the plague was unknown in Egypt as long as the dead were embalmed. With the propagation of Christianity interment was introduced; and from that hour the plague became the most terrible of destroyers, not only in Egypt itself, but in many other lands. Science may discover and may demonstrate a thousand things indispensable to human welfare, but it cannot supply motive power. This must be furnished by instinct alone. To harden and sharpen the discoveries of science into mechanical rules is all that our modern world is capable of. Hence, though the discoveries of science may be countless, they do not make the community better. Nay, they corrupt it by enfeebhng it. For, relying on the mechanical rules, the community falls into a craven lassitude. It may be said that to vanquish this languor, this cowardice, this reliance on mechanical rules, grand moral truths should be proclaimed, and that the result could not * fail to be an anagogia, a spiritual elevation. No sadder delusion! Grand moral truths, even if there were always earnest prophets ready to proclaim them, are as fruitless by themselves as the mechanical rules in which science so foolishly trusts. The divine doctrines, divine life, divine death of the Stoics were a sublime apocalypse to mankind for all generations. But they had no perceptible effect on the fate of Greece and Rome. And the more exalted the moral teachings at a particular period, the more they are disregarded. If we would achieve anything memorable and lasting, we must kindle the instinctive; or, better still, we must enable the instinctive to kindle itself. Now, through nervose aliments man enters a new domain of instinct, a domain as marvellous as it is new. Besides nerves motory and nerves sensitive, there are nerves trophical, nerves which are themselves the sources or channels of nourishment. But though some nerves may give or convey nutrition, all nerves must receive it. Evermore they have received it by the very necessities of the human constitution, yet down to our own day, in the main, without conscious recognition on the part of the individual. Even the acutest of the ancients knew little of neurology as a science, though Aristotle, with the divination of genius, and Galen with insight enlarged and sharpened by experiment, may have-presented hints and outlines which made such a science possible. From the discoveries, however, of Charles Bell, and others, neurology is one of the most advanced, as it is one of the most suggestive, and interesting.	of sciences. Through neurology the human individual is beheld as a magnet, throbbing to the pulses of that immense and marvellous magnet we call the Universe. Some of the nebulffi are supposed to be a million of billions of miles from the earth, while the journey of their light to the earth must have demanded thousands of years. How elevating, yet how overwhelming, are our thoughts when the nebulas are revealed to us by the telescope as groups or clusters of stars—groups so far off that they seem like jewels shaken from the crown of Deity and forgotten! In all mathematical calculations of distance, what is sublime is as sombre as it is sublime. But by our magnetic sympathies, through our nerves, what is subhme is joyous. The earth is severed by a prodigious space from its satellite the moon; by a space that laughs at arithmetic from kindred planets and from the sun; by a space that kills arithmetic from the fixed stars; by a space that buries arithmetic from the nebulffi; by a space that ignores arithmetic from the infinite beyond. Now our nerves divorce us from arithmetic, that clever but vulgar ready reckoner. Remember, Son of Tartufe or of Mawworm, that I speak not spitefully or enviously, for in my boyhood I was the best arithmetician in the school. But the school and the schools I long ago have left; and, in a more honest way than Molidre, I take my property wherever I find it. A woman called Naubert, born in Germany three years before Schiller, wrote romances, from one of which Schiller, in his “Wallenstein,” borrowed a good deal, even verbally. Now the Germans themselves acknowledge that they have not a national drama, though Schiller desperately attempted to create one. They confess that there has only been a national drama in Greece, England, and Spain. Yea, gentlemen of England, we once had, through Shakespeare and his compeers, the richest and sweetest of the three national dramas; and now we have Tom Taylor, and Dion Boucioault, and the penny gaffs! Was Schiller, in his dramatic appropriations and assimilations, more guiltless than the penny gaff manipulators? I doubt it; though, as he was a lanky creature with bad lungs, I pity him. Unlike Schiller, and unlike all men of his stamp, I am rather too fervid and profuse in my acknowledgments of obhgation. When I omit the acknowledgments, it is from the dread of being deemed a pedant. I am an independent thinker; let others decide whether I am an original thinker. What the decision may be interests me not a jot. Now it is from conviction and inspiration — though, perchance, it may be likewise from reminiscence—that I declare my faith in nerves as entities unfettered by space and time. When one of my nerves leaps into life and salutes the dawn, it darts and thrills to the widest and wildest action of the sensorium of God. I think, I feel, I dream; and, by a rush of affinities aud ecstasies, the whole Universe, without an instant’s pause, dreams, feels, thinks with me. God’s essential life is nervous force, though there is a mystery deeper than the essential life, a mystery to God himself as much as to his creatures. God could not be God if he comprehended mystery; therefore all the jargon of the Germans about Vernunft is unpardonable nonsense. If the nerves are the inlets and outlets of the divinest life, dart by instinct through immensity, are themselves marvels, and are in continual contact with electrical, magnetic, and all other marvels, why from bromatology, or the doctrine of aliments, should they alone be excluded? On the contrary, should they not occupy the highest place in that doctrine? There are coarse, gobbling, and gabbling beasts, who oall themselves Good Templars and other fine names, who gorge their stomachs till neither heart nor conscience is left, and whose nerves are annihilated, but who deem themselves paragons of virtue and the saviours of society because they abstain from the noblest nutriment which Nature offers to man’s noblest part. It is curious that the gluttons and the hucksters, who sell adulterated goods by day and cant the most leprous cant in the evening, should affect to abhor and despise and shun the consumers of nervose aliments as inferior animals, when it is themselves, the insatiable devourers of beef and pudding and hideous hypocritical slang, who are the inferior animals. A sweet scent is a nervose aliment; but how much more delicate are tripe and onions, consecrated by a Moody prayer and a Sankey hymn! Even when taken to vanquish intolerable pain, opium brings us visions of holiest love and beauty, and of richest poetry; but how incomparably more angelic is the roasted flesh of a swine, when smoking on the table as a grand sacrifice to ravenous hunger! A cigar is a godlike delectation, and puts us in a godlike mood; but how sublimer far are a leg of mutton and turnips, enriched with twaddling anecdotes about the fondness of George HI. for this particular dish! Pleasantly a pinch of snuff stimulates the nostrils and refreshes the brain, besides being a social power by introducing genial men to each other; yet who would dream of, speak of snuff, if sausages or oysters were in sight? A bottle of Burgundy exalts us to Olympian heights; but how those heights are mocked by solid and savoury victuals from the field, the forest, and the sun. You may make your belly your chief idol, your chief thought! your chief delight, if you drink, or pretend to drink, nothing but water! And because you are such a gross creature, and as greedy as you are gross, you arrogate the right to be teacher and preacher to mankind, and to compel the government to be the slave and the instrument of your idiotic bigotries and brutalities. It is time, surely, for the Tartufes of Temperance to be kicked out of the way, after being told that nervose
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	—	 aliments 416 n°t mere^ the sources of immense and ineffable tares, but intellectually refine and morally elevate, though ^ of l°w tastes turn them to evil uses. Foolish and cow-™*L jfl it, in reference to nervose aliments, to employ apolo-tic language. Nervose aliments vindicate themselves by gimpl® ^t that man is eminently a nervous being, and ♦tat so far a9 his nerves are not duly nourished, he is an imperfect being. In his march toward perfection and in his battle with the fates, man needs all his strength, but all his strength he cannot possess and put forth unless his whole faculties are fully fed. As each individual, whether lower or loftier, must be fed in his own way, so each faculty, whether lower or loftier, must be fed in its own way. But no life must be starved or stinted for lack of food; and abstinence should never be taught as a duty for the silly reason that there is often excess. ^en Jonson. Vin.—IN RELATION TO TOBACCO. Having sketched the life of rare Ben and spoken generally of his works, it remains to speak of them particularly in connection with the subject wherein the T. P. is most profoundly interested. Books have been regarded, studied, and judged in many relations: as, taking a few instances at random, to history, or the art of making fiction appear solid fact; metaphysics, or the art of “erring with method;” morality, or the art of expanding local habits into universal rules; logic, or the art of transforming words into things; theology, °r the art of dogmatising on matters whereof nobody can know anything whatever; rhetoric, or the art of toying nothings gracefully; politics, or the art of embroiling embroilment; science, or the art of rendering a grain of knowledge more conspicuous than a desert of nescience. But if to these and the like trivial matters, why not to the most important and transcendent of all ? Wherefore I proceed to consider the works of our poet in relation to sublime and divine Tobacco; a thrilling theme! It has been often remarked that the introduction of the Weed (so we lovingly vilipend the sweetest and dearest of flowers) was synchronous with the wonderful outburst of genius irradiating the close of the sixteenth and opening of the seventeenth century; whence it has been plausibly urged that the latter was in large mea-gure due to the former, that those fires of unequalled fervour and splendour were kindled at the altar of Diva Nicotina. Against this theory it has been contended by the profane that if Tobacco at the very beginning wrought such marvellous effects, we ought to be by this time, through continual and ever-increasing Inspiration of Pipe and Cigar (for truly to in-spiration these are ever devoted), a people half-composed of Raleighs 1 and Bacons and Shakespeares. But the objection shows a lack of historical insight, due, it may be, to a lack of historical knowledge. The world is a perpetual flux; the centuries are differently dominated; the heavenly dynasties change even M the dynasties of earth; the god must have successive avatars, nor can he continue in one form, even though it be the most beautiful. Was not the Golden Age the best? yet it had to give way to the Silver, and this again to the Iron (if the poets will graciously permit); and are we not now in the Age of Brass? Even so the Elizabethans represent an Age of Tobacco, the Queen Anne’s men an Age of Coffee, the late George Ill’s, men an Age of Revolutions, the Victorians an Age of Cant. And as among the brazen multitudes we have still a few men of iron, of silver, and even of gold; so among the canting multitudes we have still some men of revolution, of coffee, and even a few men of genius inspired by Tobacco. It has, too, been often remarked that Shakespeare never mentions or alludes to Tobacco, though he may have smoked many a good pipe with Raleigh himself at the Mermaid. It is to be feared that the remark is deplorably well-founded. I myself have carefully scrutinised his works, in the hope of discovering some indication of his knowledge of its existence and use, but have not been able to find a single one that I can consider certain. Of course there are passages which a fumous special pleader might press into the service, but I scorn the ▼resting and racking of texts. Neither in Othello, nor Mac-^th, nor Lear, neither in Anthony and Cleopatra, Julius C®8ari nor even in Coriolanus, can the candid investigator light upon traces of the common custom of smoking. It is not recorded that Hamlet ever took a pipe to soothe his melancholy, or that Timon of Athens offered cigars of a JJPfrior brand at his else sumptuous entertainments. In Troilus and Cressida we have Achilles and Ajax always fuming ▼ithout the aid of even a cigarette. Many of the characters continually taking snuff, but this does not appear to have ®een supplied by the Tobacconist. The pipes are simply P“^ral, and none of the weeds is The Weed. Let the exult and triumph over us: neither in Shakespeare nor 10 the Bible is there sanction for such burning of incense as ours. . It may be pleaded that Shakespeare places all his dramas m times anterior to his own; that he scarcely ever touches on ^temporary matters, save to flatter, courtier-like, his queen .blog, or kick at a puppet-show stealing away his audiences people had not a perfect right to go to see marionettes TOher than Hamlet, if so their tastes led them!): we accept	these apologies in palliation, we cannot in full vindication. Let us frankly admit that the greatest and most universal writers have their faults—of commission, and yet more of omission. Has not Swift pointed out, among other defects (“Tale of a Tub,” sect, v.), that Homer himself “seems to have read but very superficially either Sendivogius, Behmen, or Anthroposophia Theomagica”? And the weeping critic continues: “Having read his writings with the utmost application usual among modern wits, I could never yet discover the least direction about the structure of that useful instrument a save-all. For want of which, if the moderns had not lent their assistance, we might yet have wandered in the dark.” And then, saddest of all: “But I have still behind a fault far more notorious to tax this author with; I mean, his gross ignorance in the common laws of this realm, and in the doctrine, as well as discipline of the Church of England.” And these heavy charges equally apply to Plato and Aristotle and the other wise men of antiquity. Homer nods, and forgets the save-all; Shakespeare also nods, say over a pipe, and forgets the very pipe over which he is nodding. And here I may observe, with profound regret, that it is not only in literature that the greatest men are thus fallible. To take but one capital instance, it has been argued that Socrates himself was but a lazy old loafer who went bumming around at Athens, gossipping about anything and everything with anybody he could get to gossip with him, and pretending that this desultory chit-chat was philosophy; picking up loose young swells like Alcibiades, and sponging on them for dinners, after which he was quite ready to stay drinking all night, as we read in the “Banquet.” As to his guardian genius, about whom or which so much grandiose nonsense has been scribbled, these avvocati del diavolo allege his own description of the influence in that last dying speech and confession, the “Apology”:—“This began with me from childhood, being a kind of voice which, when present, always diverts me from what I am about to do, but never urges me on.” Whence they argue, with cruel exultation, that it must be self-evident to every impartial reader (whose intellects have not been bewildered by the obscure intricacies of the catacombs wherein the mummies of dead languages have lain mouldering for millenniums) that this renowned Agathodaemon was neither more nor less than supreme vagrant Indolence! It has been further argued (I shudder in writing it) that in our days he would have been prosecuted for neglecting his poor wife and children (as he also confesses in the “ Apology”) instead of trying to maintain them in comfort by working honestly at his stone-cutting business; and that he richly deserved all that he ever got from Xanthippe (who, as appears by the “Pinedo,” was really a good, warmhearted creature, devotedly attached to this idle and incorrigible old vagabond), whether it were a deluge of reproaches or a deluge of anything else. And finally, as to his much-vaunted death, it has been argued that nineteen out of twenty of the men ever hanged at Tyburn or Newgate have died just as “game,” without wasting time in talk about matters of which they knew nothing. So urge the dreadful depreciators: for me, who am quite ignorant with regard to all these things, I refrain from expressing or even forming any opinion until Prof. Jowett and his College (who are said to be the only men in England who have learnt any Greek) shall have delivered judgment on the whole case; and, in order to obtain such judgment, I hope the Editor will send them a few copies of this formidable indictment. But all this may be considered rather digressive, and I therefore make a sharp turn from Socrates and his somewhat unwholesome hemlock to our Ben and his good Tobacco. He has indeed strangely omitted all mention of it from “ Sejanus,” “Catiline,” “The Poetaster” (temp. Augustus),and most of the Masques, which are mythological or romantic. Several of his Comedies, however, wherein he depicts the fashions and humours of his time, do exceedingly abound in references to that newest and most extraordinary fashion and humour of smoking. All of these I cannot notice, but select the more prominent. Beginning with the first published play, “Every Man in his Humour,” who is the great smoker therein? Who but Captain Bobadill? the renowned, the valiant, the modest, the veracious, the irresistible swordsman, who with nineteen other blades as good or nearly as good as his own will settle for you an army of forty thousand. We first discover this great captain in his room in the house of Cob the water-bearer, to which mean lodging we might fancy him reduced by that evil fortune which so frequently attends surpassing merit, were he not careful to let us know that he merely hides there because he would not be too popular, and generally visited as some are. Of course Cob is fascinated by his lodger: “0, my guest is a fine man! . . . 0,1 have a guest—he teaches me—he does swear the legiblest of any man christened : By Saint George!. the foot of Pharaoh! the body of me! as I am a gentleman and a soldier! such dainty oaths! and withal he does take this same filthy roguish Tobacco the finest and cleanliest! it would do a man good to see the fume come forth at’s tonnels.” As tonnels is doubtless classic Cobbian for nostrils, or, as Spenser writes it, nosethrills, we learn what was then one fashionable point in smoking. Our veteran goes forth with his visitor, Master Mathew, the Town Gull, to a breakfast whose fine frugality may be partly due to the fact that Mathew has not past a two shillings or so about him. Here is a bill of fare to shame gluttons: “Come; we
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will have a bunch of radish and salt to taste our wine, and a pipe of Tobacco to close the orifice of the stomach.” Only this, and nothing more! as Poe sings, not without tautology. Was it on such a dwt that our hero built up what the angry Downright terms “ taat huge tumbrel-slop,” and “Garagantua breech”?
We now come to Scene 2, Act UI., of which the last part is specially devoted to the glorification of Tobacco. The great BobadiU asks for a light, and exclaims: “Body o’ me! here’s the remainder of seven pound since yesterday was sevennight. ’Tie your right Trinidado: Did you never take any, Master Stephen?”
“ Stkphxn (a Country Gull).—No, truly, air; but I’ll learn to take it now, since you conunend it so.
M Bobadill.—Sir, believe me, upon my relation, for what I tell you the world shall not reprove. I have been in the Indies, where this herb grows, where neither myself, nor a dozen gentlemen more of my knowledge, have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one and twenty weeks, but the fume of this simple only; therefore, it cannot be, but ’tie most divine. Further, take it in the nature, in the true kind: so, it makes an antidote, that had you taken the most deadly poisonous plant in all Italy, it should expel it, and clarify you, with as much ease as I speak. And for your green wound, your Balsamum, and your St. John’s wort are all mere gulleries and trash to it, especially your Trinidado. Tour Nicotian is good too. I could say what I know of the virtue of it, for the expulsion of rheums, raw humours, crudities, obstructions, with a thousand of this kind; but I profess myself no quacksalver. Only this much, by Hercules I do hold it, and will affirm it before any prince in Europe, to be the most sovereign and precious weed that ever the earth tendered to the use of man."
There is a panegyric for you, and coming from such a reticent warrior! and one, moreover, who could declare with not less assurance than that Divine rogue Mercury in the glorious Greek Hymn Shelley bo gloriously translated:—
“-------you know clearly beforehand That all which I shall say to you is sooth;
I am a most veracious person, and Totally unacquainted with untruth.”
Gifford notes that BobadiU had good authority for the epithet divine; and, indeed, for the whole of his panegyric. He quotes the famous passage in the “Faerie Queene,”
“ There, whether it divine Tobacco were, Or panacea, or polygony--”
referring to the “sovereign weed” with which Belphoebe cured the sore wound of Prince Arthur’s gentle Squire Timias (Book HI. canto v., st. 32-3):—
" The soveraine weede betwixt two marbles plaine Shee pownded small, and did in peeces braze; And then atweene her lilly handes twaine Into his wound the juice thereof did scraze;
And round about, as she could well it uze. The flesh therewith she suppled and did steepe, T’ abate all spasme, and soke the swelling braze; And, after having searcht the intuse deepe, She with her scarf did bind the wound from cold to keepe.” , Surely a very pretty piece of feminine doctoring in the heart of the wild wood green.
Gifford further notes that in his “ Cosmography,” Heylin, “no incompetent judge, perhaps, of this matter,” says that the island of Trinidad abounds with the best kind of Tobacco, much celebrated formerly by the name of a Pipe of Trinidado. He knows not what species of Tobacco was meant by Nicotian, this having been originaUy, as now, a generic term. It might mean that grown in the particular district (Florida) from which it was brought to Jean Nicot. He remarks upon the strangeness of the fortune by which the insignificant settlement of Tobago has come to give the name by which the weed is generally known. And he says: “ Many grave treatises were now extant (particularly on the Continent), which celebrated the virtues of this plant in the most extravagant terms. To listen to them, the grand elixir was scarcely more restorative and infallible.” In a quaint book containing much curious information, “ Opium and the Opium Appetite,” by Alonzo Calkins, M.D. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Co., 1871), I find such a passage quoted, and worth requoting, from the “ Message to Humanity ” of one Dr. Cornelius Bontek6, who was not indeed of Jonson’s time, but of that of the Restoration:—“A remarkable fact it is that three things of the greatest moment to mankind were discovered at about the same era; the circumnavigation of the globe, the circulation of the blood, and the smoking of Tobacco. [I answer not for the good doctor’s statements.] This is the very best remedy to be found in the world against that root of all the diseases afflicting mankind, the scurvy. Is one amorous at heart and joyless in his loneliness, is he sick and weak in body, or torpid and stiff in the joints, is there pain in the head, eyes, or teeth, doth colic, or gout, or stone exist, or is there a proneness to crapulency ? Here in this glorious weed is provided an aU-sufficient remedy for his manifold ills.” What does your contributor, Dr. Gordon Stables, say to that ?
Returning to our comedy, we soon find Master Mathew exclaiming “ By this air, the most divine Tobacco that ever I drunk; ’’—drinking Tobacco being then a common phrase for smoking it. One of Gifford’s examples, from the “ Scourge of Folly,” by Davies, may be worth citing here:
“ Fumosus cannot eat a bit, but he Must drink Tobacco, bo to drive it down.”	‘
Just so Lane tells us of the modern Egyptians that the terms they use for “smoking Tobacco” mean “drinking smoke,” or “drinking Tobacco.”
Poor Cob is beaten by BobadiU for vilifying the divine Tobacco, and in a soliloquy of pathetic indignation declares that it would not have grieved him had it not been his guest, one for whom, among other things, his wife Tib had “ sold almost all my platters to buy him Tobacco:”—your right
Trinidado, 0 sumptuous BobadiU! Cob appUes for a warrant to the merry old magistrate, Justice Clement, who at first pretends that instead of granting it he wiU send poor Gob to prison.
“ What! a thread-bare rascal, a beggar, a slave . . . and he to deprave and abuse the virtue of an herb so generally received in the courts of princes, the chambers of nobles, the bowers of sweet ladies, the cabins of soldiers! ” Wherewith we may close the subject so far as concerns “ Every Man in his Humour.
It is noted that “ much of what occurs in Jonson on the subject of Tobacco, was written before the death of Elizabeth, who had no objection, good lady, to this or anything else which promoted the commerce, and assisted the revenues of her kingdom.”
Sigvat.
^t ^rabforb Obatto Smuggling Ost.
On June 19, at the Bradford Borough Court, Charles William Hartley, paper merchant, Little Horton Lane, Bradford, and Henry Hardacre, his clerk, were charged by the Customs authorities, the former with six and the latter with four offences against the Customs Consolidations Act, 1876 (section 186), by dealing in illicit Tobacco. Hartley was fined £1,346 2s. 3d., and Hardacre £1,111 16s. 6d., being treble value of the Tobacco. Both prisoners were remitted in custody, pending payment of the fines.
Virtually there was no defence; but Hartley, addressing the Bench, avowed that Hardacre had simply acted as his servant, and the Bench hoped that this statement would secure some mitigation for Hardacre from the Board of Customs, the magistrates themselves having no power to alter the penalty in such a case.
The following is a summary of the chief facts elicited in evidence:—
About the 20th April Hardacre called upon Mr. Moorehouse, Tobacco manufacturer, Ivegate, and said that he had a lot of Tobacco to bring over handy, without paying duty, and it would come in cheap. Moorehouse, who. says that he had , reason to believe that the trade were underselling him, answered that he would not mind having some if it could be managed safely. About four days afterwards Hartley called, and offered to supply some Tobacco at 2s. 6d. and some leaf at 2s. 9d. per lb., bringing a sample of the leaf next day. Moorehouse, in the meantime, had communicated with the Excise authorities at Bradford, who instructed him how to act. On three occasions he ordered from Hartley, and received in the presence of an Excise officer, Tobacco, chiefly manufactured, amounting to 289 lbs. On a fourth occasion Hartley dropped in just as a package of 242 lbs. was being delivered, and was apprehended about five minutes afterwards. For three weeks after Moorehouse gave the information the Customs authorities kept a keen watch on the movements of Hartley, and then called in the aid of the police. It is noted that for thirteen days continuous watch was maintained from one part of the Town Hall. Both Excise officers and police are said to have shown considerable skill in working out the case, which they succeeded in tracking to the commencement.
It appears that, early in April, Hardacre, under the name of Seymour, rented an empty shop in Kirkstall Road, Leeds, saying that he wanted it as a paper warehouse. About a fortnight afterwards a load of what appeared paper came to the place. This was subsequently all removed, and “Seymour” told the lessor that he need not be uneasy, as the stock would be cleared out every fortnight. Then came another load of “paper.” A person, who had been employed by one or both of the defendants, from time to time brought to the warehouse at Leeds goods like those produced in court—in fact, quantities of Tobacco under the guise of paper—which were afterwards delivered in the town and neighbourhood of Bradford. It was discovered that Hartley had been to Hamburg, and returned to Hull, by the packet “ Fairy,” with a large number of what appeared bundles of paper, really containing a considerable quantity of Tobacco. These goods were watched by an Excise officer, and seen to be moved direct to Leeds. On Hartley, when arrested, was found an invoice of the Tobacco brought over in the “ Fairy.” There was also found in his possession a key, which he said belonged to his (genuine) paper warehouse at Horton; but it would not fit there. It was then tried at several doors at Shipley, where Hartley had been traced, but would fit none. Finally it was tried with success at the Kirkstall Road warehouse, in which were found, of course under the guise of paper, thirty-three parcels of leaf and manufactured Tobacco, containing 600 lbs. of the former and 100 lbs. of the latter, and also 46 lbs. of Cavendish; all of which were brought to the Town Hall, Bradford.
The whole amount of the Tobacco on which Hartley was fined was just under 19 cwts.; that, being part of the same, on which Hardacre also was fined, was just under 16 cwts. But it is stated that the police have seized in all between 60 and 70 cwts. of smuggled Tobacco of various kinds, worth, at the general trade price of 3s. 6d. per lb., from £1,200 to £1,300. It is announced that the Excise authorities, in conjunction with the borough police, intend to prosecute various persons who are known to have bought smuggled'Tobacco from Hartley. One
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. cas* w“ decided on June 25th. Henry Wright, Tobacco-^^r, carrying on business in the Mechanics* tito^ Buildings, Market Street, Bradford, was charged being concerned in “harbouring certain uncustomed .»_—-to wit, 500 lbs. of unmanufactured Tobacco. Hartley ^Apprehended near Wright’s shop, to which he was probgoing at the time. Three packages were found near the ^ ^ ^e cellar a large quantity of Tobacco was “ 8maH paper parcels stored behind some packages, nreste^ ^h ^e defendant to show that duty had been paid I Tobacco found at his shop. The Cavendish, of which re w®1^ 1^9 ^8» did n°t bear the label affixed to all of that on Ica™^ the Custom House. It was pleaded that afondax1* waa imperfectly educated and had been led away gartley- The Bench, believing this, hoped that the Com-oners of Customs would mitigate the penalty, but had Ahoico save to inflict the full fine of £373 Os. 3d., being treble the value of the Tobacco. The fine was at once paid.
S^t Smoker’s ^eberie.
[From the Cincinnati Gazette.]
Ph sitting at dusk ’neath the old beechen tree, With its leaves by the autumn made ripe;
While they cling to the stems like old age unto life,
I dream of the days when I’ll rest from this strife, And in peace smoke my briarwood pipe.
Oh, my briarwood pipe!—of bright fancy the twin, ’ What a medley of forms you create;
Each puff of white smoke seems a vision as fair
Ab the poet’s bright dream, and, like dreams, fades in air, While the dreamer dreams on of his fate.
The fleecy white clouds that now float to the sky, Form the visions I love most to see;
Fairy shapes that I saw in my boyhood’s first dreams Seem to beckon me on, while beyond them there gleams A bright future in waiting for me.
Oh, my briarwood pipe! I ne’er loved thee as now, Ab that fair form and face steal above;
See, she beckons me on to where roses are spread,
And she points to my fancy the bright land ahead, Where the wind whistles nothing but love.
Oh, I answer, my pipe, shall my dream be as fair When it changes to dreams of the past?
When autumn’s chill winds make this leaf look as sere
As the leaves on the beech tree that shelter me here, Will the tree’s heart be chilled by the blast?
While musing has gathered around me a heap Of the leaflets all dying and dead;
And I see in my reverie plainly revealed
The slope of life’s hill in my boyhood concealed By the form that fair fancy hath bred.
While I sit on the banks of the beautiful stream, Plucking roses that bloom by its side,
I know that the shallop will certainly come,
When the roses are withered, to carry me home, And that life will go out with the tide.
Oh, my briarwood pipe! may the heart be as light When memory supplants the bright dream;
When the sun has gone down, may the sunbeam remain. And life’s roses, though dead, all their fragrance retain, Till they catch at eternity’s gleam.
John Doyle.
Wanted a Kliracle.
th* Aberdeen Daily Free Press of July 3 we find the fol-lowing;—“Wanted immediately, an active, sober Young Man, S^^01^ “ a Wb°lesale and Retail Warehouse in Town.
W^° does n°t Smoke will be preferred.” From another I advertisement in the same paper we learn that the said । Rehouse is a “China Emporium,” at which “a complete j outfit of china, glass, and earthenware can be had for sterling.” As this outfit includes tumblers, wine glasses, I ?°d Quart decanters, we infer that the porter-requiring citizen 18 uot teetotal as well as anti-Tobacco in principle; but for ^ own part we cannot admit that such a family outfit is °°mplete when it does not comprise either hubble-bubbles, I ^uelain, clay or meerschaum pipes, or Tobacco jars. What j a®jt could the smoke of a porter do to crates of china, glass, earthenware? Perhaps the worthy tradesman don’t want | r1 Porter to smoke because he will have to puff and fume 5°*® than enough, without help of the herb of grace. Other-it would seem that the Granite City has at least one i ^^eu of what Walt Whitman mildly calls “ the immutable Pudding-heads of the world.” As this man prefers a a d	W®° don’t smoke, Aberdeen smokers will probably prefer
\	w^° n0* ^J smokes himself, but wisely employs
\ People who have the same excellent taste.
®&t Hb™ ^^ a fan^ ®w-
[Western Tobacco Journal, April 14,1877.]
He was heavy and beery and bilious,
He was smoking a three-cent cigar, And his manner was quite supercilious, As he rode on the front of the car.
On blue glass he gave his opinion— ’Twas a humbug the public would find;
And the while unto Satan’s dominions His cigar and himself I consigned.
He gave us some gushing effusions On the Spitz purp, so festive and gay, While I smothered some crushing allusions, Which I longed and yet dared not to say.
He talked about Moody and Sankey, And over their efforts he joked, While I cursed the Connecticut Yankee Who raised the Tobacco he smoked.
Though his weed had an odour quite grievous, His gossip was worse, I declare,
And I gloried at seeing him leave us, And slowly walk down through the square.
& Confession.
Fob many years amongst my friends I counted a man who went by the name of John Still. Whether this was an assumed name or not I never knew, but it was a name that suited him very well. He seldom uttered a word. When we met he greeted me with a gloomy nod. While I chatted on the subjects of the day, he would silently smoke and occasionally nod. At parting there would be a shake of the hands and a nod, and that was mostly all. The man seemed to dislike the sound of his own voice, which was certainly peculiar. I have noticed that sometimes, when, getting a little excited, he gave vent to a word, he would look round as if some one else had spoken, and not himself. Sometimes I have asked him a question that could not be answered by a nod, purposely to make him speak. Even then I did not always succeed; for I have known him write the answer with his stick in the dust, or with a pencil on paper, or spill a little water or beer on a table, and write with his finger.
The man evidently liked me, and many and many a pipe have we smoked together; but in all the ten years I knew him I believe I never heard him speak a hundred words.
I had missed my friend for several weeks, and then was summoned by a note to his lodgings: he was a bachelor. I went, and found him in bed alarmingly ill—in fact dying. With tears in my eyes I called him by name; he feebly nodded, and, drawing forth a sealed packet, handed it to me. On it was written “ To be opened after I am dead.” Next day I received news of his death. The paper he gave me I now lay before the public.
THE MANUSCRIPT.
At length the weary weight of my double life seems falling from me. Thankful am I for the coming repose. Terrible has been my fate, and I dare not go hence without leaving a warning behind me to my fellow-men. Ah! Truth, to what hast thou brought me ?
Fifteen years ago there were not three firmer friends than Amos Wilson, Andrew Grey, and myself. Many a pleasant hour have we spent in each other’s company, enjoying an interchange of ideas, and revelling in flights of fancy. We were about the same age, and mostly fond of the same pursuits. There was only one thing in which we seriously disagreed: my two friends enjoyed Tobacco-smoking, while I was completely averse to the habit. They defended their position, I mine; but it was all done pleasantly, so that, even on that matter, we never quarrelled.
Among other subjects that attracted our attention, naturally enough came Spiritualism. We attended dances and meetings at the Spiritual Free-and-Easy in Southampton Row, but we could never quite make up our minds as to whether what we heard and witnessed was trickery or truth. Feeling, however, that there was some inscrutable mystery, we solemnly promised that the first of the three that died should, if possible, appear to the other two, or communicate in some way, and so set their doubts at rest.
Amos, my well-beloved friend, died suddenly. Andrew and myself followed him to his grave, saw him laid therein, and went away in great sorrow. The days passed by, but no sign came from the land of spirits. Then we concluded that Spiritualism was not true—at all events that spirits of the dead could not appear, as it was pretended they did.
Months passed on, our grief lessened, but we did not forget our dead friend. Often and often, long into the silent night have we sat and spoken of the former days of joy when Amos was with us. Many and many a time, while Andrew’s head was surrounded by the clouds of smoke he created, have I through that smoke seen the tears start into his eyes while I have been speaking of the virtues and innocent joviality of Amos.
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I was invited to a Christmas party, and was asked to bring a friend with me. I went, and Andrew went with me. It was a large party, at a good house. There was all one could desire in .the way of feasting and frolic. About midnight Andrew expressed a desire to smoke. I knew the house well, and at once conducted him to the smoking-room, a small apartment at the back part of the house, quite away from where the merriment was going on.
Andrew lit a cigar, and drawing our chairs up to the fire, we sat a while in silence. I closed the door, for we two were the only occupants of the room, and for a time no sound was heard save the ticking of the small clock over the fireplace.
Our meditations were interrupted by a series of rappings, as if some one were striking with a small stick on the table. Andrew spoke but one word, and that was “ Amos! ” Then we listened. Louder and louder grew the raps, sometimes on the floor, sometimes on the wall, sometimes on the ceiling. I admit that I felt terified, and would have persuaded Andrew to leave the room with me.
“What,” he cried, and a bright light flashed from his eyes, “ when one, a dear friend would speak with us? No! I know it is Amos, I feel it in every thrill of my pulsing heart. See! I sink beneath the influence of one greater than myself; ” and as he spoke his cigar fell from his fingers and his head sank on his shoulder, while a smile of marvellous beauty spread itself over his countenance. He seemed to sleep, and as I watched him eagerly I beheld, at first faint, and then plainer growing, the spirit of our old friend Amos appear. He stood awhile by the side of Andrew, watching him; then, with a cheerful smile, he turned to me and held out his hand. I tremblingly grasped it; ’twas firm as my own.
“Art thou truly the spirit of Amos?” I cried.
“I am he, and none other.”
“ But I thought,” I continued, that spirits were phantoms, visible to the eye, but incapable of being grasped as I grasped your hand a moment ago.”
“I will explain,” said Amos. “As a spirit simply I could be, perhaps, dimly seen by you, and that is all; but now I have taken possession of the magnetism of Andrew here, I am enabled, by saturating myself with so important a part of a living man, to solidify my previous unsubstantial appearance. You observe that Andrew is to all appearance in a deep sleep. He is really in a position between sleep and death. This magnetism, this glorious life force which I have borrowed from him for a time, is really nearly the whole of what is commonly called earthly life. Deprived of this for too long a time, the body would grow cold and die. We spirits lack magnetism, and it is only by borrowing the magnetism of the medium that we can communicate with mortals.”
Arnds then sat down by me, and we held conversation both deep and high. What he told me of spirit land I dare not reveal. All men will know of these things in good time. “ One thing I should like,” said Amos, “ and that is to have a dance. The people here seem all so merry and happy that just for a few moments I should like to join them.”
“But surely,” I said, “they would detect the difference between a man and a spirit.”
“Oh, no,” said Amos. “I am clad, as you see, as in life. Andrew has a dress coat on; I can wear that, and, as he is a stranger here, no one will know but what it is him.”
Over-persuaded at last, I left Andrew apparently in a deep slumber, locked the door and put the key in my pocket, that he might not be discovered. Then I conducted the spirit of Amos to where the dancing was proceeding with great vigour. Tn life he had always been fond of this species of recreation, and now he very speedily found a partner to conduct through a waltz. For two hours Amos danced; and then, observing that I was growing anxious, he came to me, and said: “Let us now seek Andrew.”
We returned to the smoking-room. Alas! that I should have to tell it: Andrew was dead! my dear, dear, faithful friend’s spirit had departed. I flung myself on the floor, and groaned in anguish. Amos, spirit though he was, rocked himself sadly to and fro in a chair, and wept bitterly. So passed an hour: to me the most ghastly hour in my life.
At last, in a broken, hollow voice, Amos said: “’Tis time I returned; but I cannot quit earth loaded with the magnetism of poor Andrew, nor can I pass it into his dead body. Therefore, friend of my soul, I must give it to you.”
I shuddered, and cried out violently that I would not have it; but it was in vain. I saw Amos gradually vanishing, and felt that a new and strange life and a suit of clothes were creeping into and about me. Then fell the horror of this double life on me, which has made me a man accursed.
“Amos, oh, Amos!” I cried, in an agony of fear, “what shall I do, how shall I answer for the life of Andrew?”
“Leave poor Andrew to me,” replied Amos, now only a slight luminous appearance. “Go you out of the room for a minute or two, and, when anyone asks you where your friend is, tell them that he has gone home.”
I quitted the smoking-room for five minutes, closing the door. Then I returned. The body of Andrew was gone— where, I knew not; nor to this day do I know.”
Amazed, and like one drunken, I quitted the festive scene. The disappearance of Andrew from his lodging and usual walks excited some little surprise, but I told all inquirers he had gone home, as truly he had, and by-and-by men ceased to inquire after him.
One peculiar thing happened. I have said before that
Andrew was a smoker. With his magnetism I took his ways, and was forced to smoke. At first my own magnetism rebelled, but, after a while, became contented; and oh, thrice glorious and consoling Tobacco! happier hast thou made me than anything else since that tragic time—not happier, perhaps, but less full of misery.
My dislike to speaking, which men noticed, dated from that night. The fact is, I never knew which voice I should use, Andrew’s or my own, till I heard my words. I could not control these voices: sometimes one would speak, and sometimes the other.
Now all is nearly over. Both these voices will soon cease, ^y pipe» let it be buried with me. I go to join Amos and Andrew. Farewell!
Iggtian tasuns. IV.
The pythoness of ©elphi.
The delirium of the Pythoness of Delphi was by some attributed to Haschisch. This opinion, however, does not rest on solid and invincible arguments derived from history. If it be true that the shepherds, who fed their goats on Mount Parnassus, perceived that from a crevice issued vapours which inebriated the goats, and that when they themselves inhaled the vapours they fell into ecstasy, and seemed to be changed to prophets, it is probable that these vapours consisted merely of carbonic acid. What is certain is that there a temple to Apollo was erected, and that in the temple a priestess was occupied in giving oracles. She sat on a tripod and inhaled the vapours of that spot. The kind of delirium, however, into which this prophetess fell is quite compatible with the action of haschisch or of some other narcotic. She trembled ; she shouted; her eyes flashed; and Plutarch informs us that a priestess, who had, perhaps, taken more than the customary dose of the voluptuous1 drug, was thrown into a fury so dreadful, that she made the devotees and even the priests rush from the temple; and so excessive for some days was the delirium that it seemed as if she must die.—From the Italian of Mantegazza.
The Essenians.
The day was divided among the Essenians between prayer, ablutions, labour, and repasts in common. No unsacred words came from their mouths before the rising of the sun, which they saluted every morning by prayer, according to the ancient usage. Afterwards the superiors sent each to his particular employment. After working till eleven o’clock they bathed in cold water, then assembled to eat. They entered their refectory with a solemn air, as if it were a temple, and sat in the deepest silence. Each received a loaf from the hand of the baker, and the cook brought to each a dish containing a single portion of food. Before and after the repast a priest prayed. Before returning to their labours they took off the garment which they had put on for the repast, and which they considered sacred. In the evening they assembled anew for a second meal.—From the French of Solomon Munk.
& Sucal Seuotee of the ?ipe.
We take what follows from a valuable little publication called “Warren’s Household Almanack,” published at Royston. It must be interesting to nicotians to know that the Duke of Bridgewater was able to console himself with a pipe for the loss of a beautiful woman:—
Francis Egerton, sixth Earl, and third and last Duke of Bridgewater, was born in the year 1736. He was the youngest of five sons, all of whom were of a weak and sickly constitution ; and before Francis had reached the age of eleven his father and three of his brothers had died. His brother John then succeeded to the title, but he lived only a short time; and Francis at the age of twelve became Duke of Bridgewater. His mother, a short time after his father’s death, having married again, the young duke experienced but little of her care and attention. He was, moreover, like his brothers, weak and sickly; but his health improved with his growth. When he had arrived at the age of seventeen his guardians sent him to make the tour of Europe; and it is supposed that the artificial watercourses which he saw in his travels in France and Italy left the impressions which afterwards culminated in undertaking the great works for which his name became so famous, and which caused him to be styled the “ Father of British Inland Navigation.” On his return to England the young duke went through the same career as the fashionable young men of that period. He also kept race horses, and occasionally rode races in person. But the following romantic circumstance is said to have caused him to retire from the world, and to devote himself to canal making. The reigning beauties at court at that period were two daughters of an Trish gentleman named Gunning. The eldest had married Lord Coventry; the younger was the widow of the Duke of Hamilton, and with her the Duke of Bridgewater fell violently in love. He proposed to her, was accepted, and their marrage was arranged to take place. But some detrimental rumours respecting Lady Coventry having
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. ^ the ears of the Duke, and which he believed, he the Dutchess to solemnly pledge herself that she would for ever any intimacy with her sister. This she gfr0 to do, and the match was broken off. Turning his I^03 otj all the fascinations of London life, the Duke now ^mse^ heart and soul to business. Being the owner d®v0 ^^ extensive coalfields at Worsley, about seven miles °^ *° Ranchester, but which lay unproductive and untouched ^^co^mt °f *ke expense of land carriage, he resolved to o® 00 olj.t the project of forming a canal from Worsley to ^^ which had been previously entertained by his father, Sfha^ ^h deterred from continuing the work on account «the ^^ expense. He completed the task; and the effect wa^ *° r®duoe the price of coal in Manchester by one
Jt is not here necessary to enumerate the various fakings which the Duke engaged in, as they are matter ^history* But henceforward he devoted his life, and nded large sums in the improvement and extension of navigation in England, in which he was ably seconded extraordinary mechanical skill of Brindley, the 1 brated self-taught engineer. During the progress of works, the Duke, whose estates although large were mewhat encumbered, was frequently presssd for money; it was the chief business of his agent, John Gilbert, run about the country raising money on the Duke’s Momissory notes; and he would frequently borrow small of farmers in order to eke out the wages for his labourers on Saturday. During this period the Duke denied himself the ordinary requirements of his rank, and restricting himself to the meanest fare, lived on the moderate sum of four hundred pounds a year. Yet still he persevered, and relinquishing the present for the future, struggled manfully on despite the ridicule to which himself and Brindley were exposed. But the Duke lived to see his schemes crowned with success ; and when he died in 1803, at the age of sixty-leven, the income from his canal property alone was estimated at £70.000per annum. When the “ Loyalty Loan ” was opened in London, in 1796, the Duke contributed no less a sum than £100,000. In fifteen hours and twenty minutes the sum of twenty millions was subscribed to this patriotic loan. Whether the affair of the Duchess of Hamilton had left a lasting impression on him, or whether he was too much absorbed in canal making, the Duke was never married, but lived and died a bachelor. With his death the dukedom became extinct, the earldom passing to General Egerton. The Duke’s great wealth was divided among the collateral branches of his family. In his younger days the Duke had been very slim, but in his later years he became extremely stout and unwieldy. His habits were very temperate for those days, but he was greatly addicted to Tobacco; and it was said of him that he smoked more than he talked.
Tea.
The nose is one of the best judges for distinguishing good tea, and how to prepare tea properly art teaches us. To obtain a beverage very aromatic and only in a small degree astringent, you must infuse the tea for half an hour in a very small quantity of cold water, and then add the boiling water, pouring the tea, before it is very brown, into the cup. The cold water saturates the whole texture of the leaves, and produces the same advantage as when we wish to obtain good broth from butcher’s meat; and the boiling water separates the tannin from the caffeine, which is precipitated when the infusion begins to grow cold. In effect, if you take tea in the Russian fashion, in a drinking glass, you will see the tea grow turbid almost as soon as it is poured out. I think it is wise to take only the first infusion, which contains from four to six times as much useful substance as the second. This last has the inconvenience of being only in a very small degree aromatic, and in a high degree astringent. The adddion °I a few drops of lemon juice, or of any other vegetal acid, renders tea more exciting; and this custom prevails among P°or Chinese and many Russians. The addition of an alkali, ou the contrary, makes tea less stimulating, and in some jocasure narcotical. In the East some drugs are put into . *° give it aphrodisiacal qualities. In Chinese Tartary, ® Cashmere, and in other countries of Asia, the leaves of tea ®ro eaten, cooked in various modes with butter, flour, and w“a? and the richness of the leaves in albumine explains their uutritive power. It is said in the travels of Hue, Gabet, A^ohterlony and others, that a good soup of tea is one of the post aliments for those about to undertake fatiguing journeys ® “fry mountains. Tea excites the movements of the heart w than coffee, is less hostile to sleep, and is less fit to sus-intellectual labour; but more than coffee it increases the ohminative activity of the skin and respiration. In many I Pedons tea produces an astringent effect on the intestines a troublesome constipation. The addition of a few drops M generous wine can prevent the wakefulness which tea J*08®8* More than everything, experience availeth to indicate one whether, from the state of his nerves, his brain, ? digestion, he ought to prefer tea or coffee. In every
** seems to be proved that, after dinner, the Chinese °ught to be preferred to the Abyssinian berry. In very countries, and on very cold days—and consequently with P^nie reason in the Arctic zone—tea is the best of drinks, . *~ travellers have demonstrated. Dr. Kane did not hesitate tea tiie ** great panacea of Arctic travel.” The excessive °f tea, especially of green tea, produces obstinate wake-
fulness, nervous tremblings, convulsions, eramps of the stomach, palpitations of the heart, and so on.—From the Italian of Mantegazza.
We avail ourselves of this opportunity to state that Mantegazza takes, as we are ourselves disposed to take, much more comprehensive views of hygiene than Dr. Richardson and other pedantic and pretentious persons, who parade the tritest commonplaces as if they were the most marvellous discoveries, and who contrive to be accepted as oracles by the stupid, ignorant, credulous, and crotchety mortals, who seem to abound more in England than in any other country. For sixteen years Mantegazza has edited “LTgea,” a “popular journal of hygiene and preventive medicine.” He has published in numerous volumes his “ Enciclopedia Igienioa Popolare,” and among the most interesting and instructive of his works is his “Elementi DTgiene.” Besides, all his books abound with admirable hygienical hints and suggestions. But he gives hygiene its widest, divinest significance, and raises it to the dignity of a positive science. He makes it a thing of joy and life, not a thing of asceticism and abstinence. It would be very dreary living in a hygeiopolis of the Richardson kind, a sort of enlarged hydropathic establishment. A community and a man should have so much health as never to be obliged to think about health. That is the true ideal; and we know no author who has shown sowell as Mantegazza how it can be realised. He allots a leading place to nervose aliments. Richardson and his canting crew would banish them altogether, and would produce a state of society half gloomily puritanical, half morbidly hypochondriacal, and wholly hypocritical. They would drive out one devil that seven devils worse than the first might enter in. Away with such teachers.
"^ulb ^ang Sjne."
[Scribnefs Monthly, May, 1877.}
When my work is finished for the day, Or rather for the day and night, And in my room the moonbeams stray (I love to muse in Luna’s light),
I fling my feet upon a chair, And there, for contemplation ripe,
I turn my back on toil and care, And light my pipe.
Then, as with drowsy, half-closed eye, I puff the brown narcotic weed, Back to the past I swiftly fly
On memory’s velocipede.
My native village comes in view—
’Tis now a city famed for trade;
Alas, to think it thrived and grew Without my aid I
I tread the well-remembered grove Where I have sat for hours and hours, And talked with Nell, my youthful love, And wreathed her brow with wildwood flowers.
I wish no greater bliss than that— To have her near was joy enough.
Ho-hum—poor Nell! she grew quite fat, And took to snuff.
Again upon the river’s brink, A freckled urchin, spare but spry, With rod and line, I sit and think I’ll get a nibble by-and-by.	•
The sun goes down—the court-house dome
Grows dimmer in the fading light,
And I at last am driven home To get a bite.
I stand beside my grandma’s knee, While she about her girlhood tells;—
Her accents falter, and I see
Big tears behind her spectacles.
She comes in visions when I sleep, The same kind soul so spry and chipper—
I hear her laugh—I see her weep—
I feel her slipper.
A saucy lad, I tread again,
With shout and gibe, the village pave;
Grim deacons and lean aidermen Look on with countenances grave.
My capers strike these worthies dumb— They look upon me as a fiend;
They wag their heads, and sigh “ He’ll come To some bad eend.”
And they were right. Could they but rise And view me at my work to-day,
They’d rub their dim, old fogy eyes, And to each other grimly say: “He’s writing for the press, ye see!” And as they sadly turned to go,
Methinks they’d sigh, remorsefully, “I told ye so I”
Pabmxhas Mix.
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lottos of ©to faults.
The Early English Text Society.
[continuation.]
51.	The Liflade of St. Juliana, from two Old English Manuscripts of 1230, a.d., with Renderings into Modern English by the Rev. 0. Cockayne and Edmund Brock. Edited by the Rev. Ostcald Cockayne, M.A.
St. Juliana is a pious fraud. The belief in her existence has passed away. She served the purpose of stimulating the morbid piety of the middle ages, and has now disappeared from the possibilities of belief. Her mythical name and example have doubtless often been used to overawe English girls who were protesting against incarceration in nunneries. She is one of the saintly examples of “holy maidenhood, * who preferred martyrdom in varied forms to the charms of domestic life. The odd prejudice of the early Church against the holy estate of matrimony is evidenced by a saying of S. Augustine, quoted by Mr. Cockayne, to the effect that virginity shall be rewarded hundredfold; widowhood, after one marriage, sixtyfold; and marriage only thirtyfold. Juliana is the usual type of the obstinate martyr dear to the mediaeval mind. The lover whom she won’t marry is a judge ; and as he believes her to be a witch, and as she has blasphemously forsaken the gods of her forefathers, he has her cut to pieces on a wheel of knives, but she camo all right again—“as sound as a fish.” He tries to burn her alive, but the fire is quenched. A bath of boiling pitch she seems to enjoy. Finally, thinking the matter had now gone far enough, the prefect caused her to be beheaded. All things must come to an end. Juliana, the problematical, may have been pious, but was certainly not polite. She addresses her opponents in saintly Billingsgate, and was as strong-minded as Banagher, like whom, she beat the devil. The way in which she worries the poor fiend, and makes him tell the story of his career is amusing. He has not even the knife-grinder s excuse, but lias to deliver a round unvarnished tale of his misdeeds, from the temptation of Eve downwards; from which we may gather that Juliana, if nothing else, inherited some of the curiosity of our common mother.
52.	Palladius on Husbandrie. Edited from the unique MS. of about 1420, A.D., in Colchester Castle, by the Rev. Barton Lodge, M.A. Part I.
The Roman who, in the fourth century of the present era, undertook to instruct his countrymen in all that pertained to the rustic life, was probably not more ignorant than compilers of similar works in other ages. By his systematic treatment of the subject, however, and especially by the arrangement of his matter in the order of the calendar, he seems to have gained some hold not only upon his own time, but also through the middle ages. Palladius, as represented by his translator, is a not lively gossiper about mulberry trees, oxen, building, and all the varied interests and incidents of country life.
53.	Old English Homilies of the Twelfth Century. From the unique MS. B. 14. 52, in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. Edited, with Introduction, Translation, and Notes, by the Rev. R. Morris, LL.D. Second Series, with three Thirteenth Century Hymns, from MS. 54d. 4. 14, in Corpus Christie College, Oxford, and a Photolithograph and Transliteration of the Music of two of them.
Dr. Morris considers that many of these are transcripts of much earlier specimens of popular theology, probably from Latin sources. The rhyming “Moral Ode” he thinks may originally have dated from the tenth or eleventh century. There is not much of interest about the material of these homilies. They are plain exhortations to such a conduct of life as commended itself to the priest who desired that his flock should be honest in their dealings with the world, and liberal in their dealings with the Church. There are, however, odd bits of old-world science scattered up and down them. One sort of serpent, we are told, covers her head with her body when harm is offered her, for her life is in her head. Another has a jewel in its head. She escapes the charmer by pressing one ear against a stone, and stopping the other with her tail.
54.	The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman, together with Vita de Dowel, Dobet et Dobest, Secundum Wit et Resoun, by William Langland, (about 1362-1393, a.d.). Edited from numerous MSS., with Prefaces, Notes, and a Glossary, by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A. Part UI. Richard the Redeles, (1399 a.d.), The Crowned King, (1415, A.D.)
This is the “ Whitaker” text, or text c. Mr. Skeat is of opinion that Richard the Redeles is also by William Langland, and adduces some very cogent arguments in favour of that belief.
Facsimile Beprints,
Published by Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, London.
The Pilgrim’s Progress, as originally published by John Bunyan, being a Facsimile Reproduction of the First Edition. 3s. 6d. and £1 Is.
This first edition, as we read on its title page, was printed for Nath. Ponder at the Peacock in the Poultry near Cornhil, 1678. In the preface to this re-production we are told that but one copy of the original is known to exist. It is in the library of R. 8. Holford, Esq., who kindly lent it for the reprint. Though two hundred years old, it looks as fresh as if just issued. The spelling and grammar are often very quaint and inconsistent. The outer margins are broad, containing references to bible texts, and pithy notes, such as “Christian snibbeth his Fellow,” “O brave Talkative.” There is a very irregular use of capitals, a profusion of italics, the side notes are referred to generally by letters, but sometimes by asterisks and daggers. This first edition is in the most robust vernacular of all. Bunyan himself, in the eight editions he lived to revise, modified the grammar and spelling; and we know that in later editions the wording has been frequently softened in tenderness to ears polite. To take but one instance (p. 152), when Christian and Hopeful are making their escape from Doubting Castle, where they have been dungeoned by Giant Despair. Christian, with the key called promise, opens easily the door of the “ Dungion,” and also the door leading into the castle yard; then they came “ to the Iron Gate, for that must be opened too, but that Lock went damnably hard, yet the Kev did open it.” Such is honest John's vigorous vernacular. It is a striking instance of the common misappreciation by writers of the relative values of their own works, that in the clear though homely prefatory rhymes called “ The Author's Apology for his Book," he says deprecatingly :—
“ Neither did I but vacant seasons spend In this my Scribble; nor did I intend But to divert myself in doing this From worser thoughts, which make me do amiss.”
The Temple. Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations by George Herbert, being a Facsimile Reprint of the First Edition; with an Introduction by the Rev. A. B. Gros&rt. 1876. 5b. and £1 Is.
Mr. Grosart, who is well known for his labours on what may be called our
Post-Elizabethan poets, as Herbert, Giles Fletcher, Herrick, tells ns in hie brief Introduction that in 1688, the year of Herbert's death, Nicholas Ferrar, his literary executor, “ appears to have thrown off a few gift copies of the
4	little book ’ for immediate friends. These are without date, and only a single exemplar of these undated copies is at present known. From that, by the kindness of its owner (Henry Huth, Esq.), our facsimile has been made. But, with the slight exception of the imprints on the title-pages, the two editions of 1633—first and second—[printed by the printers to the University of Cambridge] —are identical with the undated copy.” He further informs us that this volume is reproduced in absolute facsimile in every way—in type, paper, binding. Ferrar was a notable man; head of what has been called the Protestant Nunnery at Little Gidding, in Northamptonshire; whence, as De Quincey tells us in his Essay on “ Secret Societies," prayer from some lips was continually ascending day and night. Isaac Walton relates how in his last illness Herbert handed the MS. to good Mr. Edmund Duncon, saying: “Sir, I pray deliver this little book to my dear brother [Ferrar] . . desire him to read it, and then, if he can think it may turn to advantage of any dejected poor soul, let it be made publick; if not, let him burn it, for I and it are less than the least of God's mercies.” Truly it has turned to the advantage of many a dejected poor soul, and of many a soul that shared or shares not Herbert’s theological beliefs. It would be an impertinence to commend Poems so familiar and so justly cherished; bnt Crash aw, the devotee of Santa Teresa, is less known than Herbert, and we cannot refrain from transcribing from the close of the Introduction his beautiful lines “ On Mr. George Herbert’s Booke intituled The Temple of Sacred Poems: Sent to a Gen tie-Woman: ”—
“ Know you, faire, on what you looke ?
Divinest love lyes in this booke: Expecting fier from your faire eyes, To kindle this his sacrifice. When your hands untie these strings, Think yo’ have an angell by the wings; One that gladly would be nigh, To waite upon each morning sigh; To flutter in the balmy air Of your well-perfumed praier; These white plumes of his hee’l lend you, Which every day to Heaven will send you: To take acquaintance of each spheare. And all your smooth-fac’d kindred there. And though Herbert’s name doe owe [own] These devotions; fairest, know While I thus lay them on the shrine Of your white hand, they are mine."
It was probably rather blank ignorance than vicious taste which led Byron to sneer at the verse of Crasbaw, which is often sweet with such subtleties of melody as Byron himself never attained.
Paradise Lost, as originally published. By John Milton. Being a Facsimile Reproduction of the First Edition. With an Introduction by David Masson, M.A., LL.D. 1877. From 10s. 6d. to £2 10b.
The title-page here reproduced bears the words “Licensed and Entred according to Order,” and the date 1667. Although, as is well known, the real publisher was Samuel Symons, or Simmons, printer, “ next door to the Golden Lion in Aldcrsgate Street,” his name does not appear on any titlepage before the fifth, in 1668 (there are, at least, nine different title-pages to copies of the first edition), but, instead, the names of various booksellers to whom he had consigned copies. Prof. Masson's Introduction in purely bibliographical, as befits such a work. He states:—“For the exact look of this original title-page, and for the look of page after page of the ten books of the text in that original edition, down to the minutest details of typography and stationery, the reader is referred to the present facsimile. It is so accurate a reproduction, even to the printer’s errata, that a person having it in his hands may, for that matter, imagine himself one of the first purchasers of the original, in October or November, 1667." There is no numerical paging, but only a running head-line marking the number of each book, and a marginal numbering of the lines by tens. There are no prose Arguments. The spelling is anything but uniform; capitals and italics abound. The first edition of 1300 copies was sold out early in 1669, but the second did not appear until 1674, the last year of Milton’s life. This was in twelve books, instead of ten. As to the claim “ Revised and Augmented," Prof. Masson says:—“Having stopped Book VII. at line 640, and converted the rest of that book into Book VIII., Milton does expand what had formerly been line 641 of Book VIL, into the four lines that now form the opening of Book VIII.; and, similarly, in breaking the former Book X. into Books XI. and XII., he smooths the junction between these two books by throwing in the five lines that now open Book XII.” And he says that, substantially, the second edition is a reprint of the first, in much less handsome form. Reckoning the purchasing power of money then at thiee and a-half times what it is now, Prof. Masson tells us that the whole sum Milton himself received for “Paradise Lost” was equivalent to £35 in our days; and the whole sum he and his family received, £18 then, equal to £63 now. In 1727, when the Tonsons (Jacob had acquired the copyright) were already rolling in wealth, much of it derived from their numerous editions of “Paradise Lost” and the other poems of Milton, his widow (third wife) died in extreme old age, and very straitened circumstances, at Nantwich. His youngest and last surviving daughter (by his first wife) died in mere penury in London.
The Complete Angler; or, Contemplative Man’s Recreation.
By Izaak Walton. Being a Facsimile Reprint of the First Edition, published in 1653. 6b. to £2 10s.
This edition is extremely scarce, and the publisher is indebted for the use of the copy from which this reprint is made to the same gentleman who liberally lent for the like purpose his (probably) unique copy of the original “Pilgrim's Progress,” R.8. Holford, Esq. The Preface tells us: “Some of the types used in printing the first edition are altogether obsolete. To save all risk of departure from the exact form, these, as well as the sharp, vigorous, little cuts of fish, and the very tasteful title-page, have been reproduced by a photographic process which is simply infallible; and the publisher has not neglected any available mechanical means to secure an absolute facsimile of the original book; the paper on which it is printed is of the same shade; and the binding, even to the curious red and blue sprinkling on the edges, is in all respects a counterpart of that of the copy from which this reprint is made."
The old title-page is indeed tasteful. The title is incribod in a lute-shaped shield, based by a shell, from which two dolphins curl up diverging; two others are curled head to head on the top, and from the flower-wreathed fluke of the tail of each depends a jolly bunch of such fish as good Izaak delighted to catch and talk about. Under the title are the words “Being a Discourse of Fish and Fishing, [very large type], not unworthy the perusal of most anglers." Then follows the exceedingly appropriate text, cited surely with a certain humorous chuckle:—“ Simon Peter said, I go a fishing, and they said, We also will go with thee."—John xxi., 8. The printer's and publisher's names are given; but there is no indication of the author except the “ Iz. Wa.” of the epistle dedicatory and the address to the reader, in the angler’s song, chap, xi., (pp. 216-7,) the notes are quaintly diamondheaded; and the bass port on the second page is upside down, for the manifest purpose of treble and bass facing each other in the singing, with the little book level between them.
All sound readers who love good old books in their good old dress, not garishly tricked out and bedizened as if they were mere untried young fops of the day, tall be heartily thankful to Mr. Elliot Stock for these facsimile reproductions of original editions, and heartily hope that he will be encouraged to follow them up with others of sterling old works.
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Avgost, 1877.]	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	71	
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COPE’S ARCTIC CARD. DISCOVERY of the NORTH POLE.	BY J. CARRICK MURRAY, M.D., F.A.I., Newcattle-vpon- Tyne. Price Is. Free by Post. Is. IId. London: Simpkin,Marshall, A Co. Newcastle-on-Tyne: D.H. Wilson.
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HOPWASH. TOBACCO JUICE FOR HOPWASH, ONE SHILLING- AND NINEPENCE PER GALLON. Manufactured in Bond, from The Strongest American Leaf Tobacco. GROUND TOBACCO FOR HOP POWDER. First Quality, 36s. per Cwt. Second do. 35s. do. SPECIAL PREPARATION FROM THE FINEST VIRGINIA LEAF, One Shilling per Pound. TULL PARTICULARS SENT POST FREE ON APPLICATION TO THE BONDED TOBACCO WORKS, PAISLEY STREET, 		LIVE EPOOL.	
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Threepenny Cigar. The Burgomaster Brand. Fourpenny Cigar. St. George’s Brand.	
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72	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[August, 1877.
COPE’S CIGARETOS.
New Cigarette—Cope’s 'Whiffs, in Bundies of ten, lead foil, and neat label. In Cedar Boxes, containing forty Bundles, or 400 Cigarettes.
Bouquet (With Tubes). PeerleSS (Without Tubes). In Cardboard Boxes, containing four Bundles of 25 Cigaretos. In very handsome Cedar Cases, containing ten Boxes, or 1000 Cigaretos.
Dedicate in favour; burn evenly, with a fam white ash; made with great care for a mild morning smoke.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes. In Cardboard Boxes, containing 50. In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1000, with lock and key.
Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made from a peculiar kind of Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking of this Tobacco is said to give relief in cases of Asthma.
These really beautiful Goods are rapidly growing into favour, and invariably make a trade wherever introduced.
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No. 90.—Vol. IL]
SEPTEMBER. 1877.
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She ^ntiquitn of Smoking.*
We translate in full the title of this book:—“Archeological Treatise and Annotations anent the Small Smoking Pipes, with which, as the People here and there believe, the Giants, the Elves, the Fairies, and the Pygmies in Ancient Times Smoked: A Contribution to the History of Pipe-making and Smoking. By Dr. Wes ter hot!, Honorary Member of the Society for the furtherance of the Physical Sciences at Groningen.”
This volume, of moderate dimensions, which we have long intended to review, consists of a discourse given at a meeting of the society of which the author is a member, and of numerous notes. Both the discourse and the notes contain much historical and general information, sufficiently interesting ; but the author has that excessive credulity in one direction, and that excessive incredulity in another, which seem peculiar to all antiquaries. Once these have adopted a crotchet, there is nothing which they are not ready to believe or to disbelieve. And the best satire on their credulous and incredulous suppositions and absurdities is that celebrated scene in Scott’s “Antiquary,” the sarcastic power of which is only transcended by its humour.
The value of antiquities in the study of history is more and more recognised. Sometimes it is only through antiquities that the historian can know aught about the events of a period and the developments of civilisation. When disinterred, how much have Pompeii and Herculaneum revealed to the world! Gen the, who has more than once been eulogistically alluded to in our columns, might almost be said to snatch from tombs his chief materials for his admirable record of Etruscan commerce. Antiquities may even help to revolutionise history. Those who are acquainted with Swedish literature are aware that Geijer is one of Sweden's literary glories. He wrote on political, social, and philosophical subjects; he was a poet; he composed music; but he was pre-eminently regarded as the historian of his country, though he died before completing his great work. At this moment ahistory of Sweden, on an immense scale, is appearing under the title of “ Sveriges Historia fran iilsta till vbra dagar, forfattad af Oskar Montelius, Hans Hildebrand, Oskar Olin, Martin Weibull, Rudolf Tengberg, John Hellstenius.” To each of these six authors is assigned a particular department or a particular period. There is an elaborate review of the book in the Allgemcine Zeitung of 17th July, 1877. In alluding to the portion allotted to Montelius the reviewer says:—“When we compare the book of Montelius with the first volume of Geijer, published more than forty years ago, we can scarcely persuade ourselves that both works refer to the history of the same country, so complete is the trans-fitfurement of which, from the impulse and example of Nilsson and Thomson, the immensely developed archieology of the north has, during the past forty years, been the cause. Where, formerly, dubious dynasties of kings and mythically constructed legends permitted only a supremely unsatisfactory glance at a chaos of vague forms, veiled m sombre night, the stone, the bronze, the iron, the clay, the wooden witnesses of the past shed an unexpectedly bright light.” There are few more striking acts than this. Let us take another illustration from the wtremejy interesting “ Reisestudien aus dem Suddsten,” by
• Karl Braun, which are now appearing in the KMnische
RojlmiSui^^ Wrhandeling En Aautwk ingen Betrckkelijk De Kleine DoorDr.B.WesterLff. Groningen, 1860.
Zeitung. In this case philology and archaeology go hand-in-hand. Speaking of Ithaka, where Saint Odysseus (Ulysses) and Saint Penelope are the patron saints, and figure as good Christians, Braun says:—“Before I went to sleep I revelled in the beauty of the sunset. In the west stood a huge black cloud. Behind this cloud the sun went down, but not without framing its edges in the most glowing gold. This blending of black and gold in the heaven spread itself over land and sea. On the mirror of the waters it changed to blue and orange, which two colours, stripelike, ran in countless shadings and alternations from island to island. Then the blue melted into grey, and the orange into a faint red, and then all vanished in the chaos of an odorous gloaming. The deeper the sun sank, the higher rose the island of Cephalonia, with its majestic “ Monte Nero,” whose beautiful pine forest aloft passed more and more from dark green into black, while from the houses of Samos below flashed forth some cheering lights. On the west side of the island, to which, northward, we were laboriously approaching, no building is visible except the small custom-house on the Aitos, which we strive, but in vain, to reach. The rocky mountains shoot in part abruptly, in part perpendicularly, into the water. In a few steep places the land is covered with brushwood, between which, however, break forth anew rocks of all colours: grey, white, reddish-yellow, varied by, now and then, a ravine, rent into ruggedness by a wild torrent no longer visible. We might almost think the island uninhabited if we did not hear the bells of the goats, which seek their food on the precipitous mountains. Goats play a leading part in the Ionian Islands. No other milk than goat’s milk have I here partaken of; and though in Germany it excited my abhorrence, from its loathsome taste, I drank it here with delight. How can this be explained? As follows, I think: In Germany goats are, for the most part, stall-fed; here, on the contrary, they seek on the wild heath the most odorous plants of the southern mountains. Moreover, there is here a well-tried method of preventing adulteration, without calling in the aid of a sanatory board. Every morning early the herdsmen drive the milch goats into the city, where the herdsmen, each in the place allotted to him, take their stance, and offer for sale the milk which is still in the udders of the goats. It is in this manner that the herdsmen come to Corfu, Argostoli, Lixuri, Batby, and other towns. The townsmen who daily buy, consequently, have the milk always fresh, take it only on the condition that it is milked in their presence from the udders of the goats, whereby the addition of water and the employment of “milk-ameliorating substances” are excluded. For the man or the woman who buys stands by and watches; and experience shows that self-help is always best. Whilst we were exploring the island, whose single colours are evermore absorbed by the lovely, the enchanting violet, which pours itself forth over everything, we were unceasingly reminded by the bells of the goats how notable was the significance allotted to these animals in the mind and existence of the ancient Hellenes. There is, so to speak, a bleating of goats throughout the whole world of the gods. Bacchus is called Aigobolos, the goatslayer. He has good reason for killing these animals, which, with their sharp, greedy teeth gnaw the vine down to the very root. Pan, on the other liand, is a friend of goats; he bears the title Aigokeros, Goathorn, Capricorn. Juno (Greek Here) was called Aigo-phagos, the goateater. Zeus (Jupiter) was fed with goat’s milk, or, rather, was suckled by a goat, and was called Aigiochos, because, when fighting with the Titans, he took as shield the skin of a goat (aigis, vulgarised into icgit). Let us call to mind, moreover, the numerous names of places and
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74	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[Septembbb, 1877.	
rivers in which the goat figures, such as Aigos Potomos (Goat River), where (405 years b.c.) Lysander gained the victory which decided the Peloponnesian war in favour of the Spartans; jEgina, JEginium, JEgilea, JEgi© (possibly, also, Aigaion the JEgean Sea). And, passing over much else, let us remember the Aigis (or JEgis) of Pallas (Minerva). But enough. All things taken together excite in me the suspicion that in ancient Hellas there were more goats than in other lands, and, perhaps, than in existing Greece, which yet swarms with them—a circumstance in itself of the greatest importance; for where goats are numerous, and are allowed to run about freely, trees and vegetation generally terribly suffer, and, as a result, water suffers too. It is a common opinion that ancient Hellas was as rich in wood and in vegetation as the Greece of the present day is poor. Respecting this I have considerable doubts; and, first of all, on account of the excessive abundance of goats already mentioned. Just let us think of the countless goats and swine in the Odyssey ! Secondly, on account of the great enthusiasm and the deep reverence which the ancient Greeks showed for springs and fountains—a proof that they were rare. Thirdly, on account of the frequent declarations of the ancients that the land pined from the lack of vegetation and water. In confirmation of this last point, I refer to H. Hettner’s “Griechische Reiseskizzen,” and to Fr. Unger’s “Reise in Griechenland und in den ionischen Inseln.” Homer calls Argos the “greatly thirsty,” or “waterless.” ' In these two memorable examples, and especially in the second, how suggestive is the amount of matter which is offered to our contemplation! But to make archeology fruitful three things are needed: the knowledge of the scholar, the insight and impartiality of the historian, and the perspicacity of the critic. And Dr. Westerhoff has none of all the three, though he gleans, or, rather, grubs up facts with a certain diligence. How deplorably destitute he is of the critical faculty is shown by a superlative specimen of silliness. His thesis is that smoking in Europe is. much older than the discovery of America, and that the small “fairy” pipes found under walls, in marshes, and elsewhere are of great antiquity. He anticipates for his faith a final triumph from the fact that many things which had at first been strenuously disbelieved or denied were afterwards recognised as true; and he gives, as an instance, aeroliths, or meteoric stones, not merely whose real character, but whose very existence had been questioned. But what possible parallel is there between the meteoric stones and the small fairy pipes? In the one case science can gradually arrive at a definite, a satisfactory conclusion; in the other the improbable, the vague, the conjectural, the fanciful reign supreme. As Tiedemann, the best writer and the most indisputable authority on the history of Tobacco, has shown, Herodotus and, following him, other ancient authors, have alluded to the practice which certain Scythian nations had of seeking stimulation by smoking narcotic plants. And in various parts of the world, apart from America, smoking may have existed as enjoyment, as a hygienical instrumentality, or as a mode of adoring the gods. But what has to be demonstrated is that the smoking of Tobacco was known in any region of the Old World, or that smoking in any of its forms was customary in Europe before the discovery of America. In favour of the assumption not a tittle of evidence can be adduced. It does not matter if millions of pipes, so small and so peculiar as to be called fairy pipes, are found when old walls are pulled down or when the peasant’s spade goes deeper than usual. It is easy to explain the presence of such pipes in the oddest, the most unexpected places, without admitting that they are very ancient. But Westerhoff’s whole hypothesis is disposed of in a very summary and sufficient fashion by the German Professor Hassler in these words:—It is an indubitable fact, that in all the records of antiquity nothing is found on the subject, neither in the productions of historians, properly so called, nor in other works which allude to the culture and customs of nations. There is not the slightest indication of the smoking of Tobacco, or of the smoking of any other plant. At least, as far as my knowledge stands, there is in all the writers of classical antiquity not the faintest hint or suggestion respecting the matter. Moreover, if the custom had existed, and had afterward sceased to exist, there would have been some statement to that effect. But also through the whole of the Middle Ages, when the follies and vices of the time were lashed with unsparing severity, there is not the minutest allusion to the beginning, the continuation, and the cessation of the custom, from Bernard of Clairveaux, Tauler, and Heinrich Suso, down to the author of the “ Narrazonia,” and the censorial preachers of the Reformation period. I know well that our argument may be accused of proving too little by proving too much, for that there were many things which undoubtedly existed whereof no notice was taken by the writers of antiquity and of the Middle Ages. I believe that even in our own day things exist of which, for good reasons, no public notice is taken. But in this particular case we might fairly expect that indication or mention would have been made by the Ancients, and unquestionably we might assume that the stern moralists of the Middle Ages, or of the immediately following time, would have been fierce in their assaults on the habit of smoking. There are diseases to which this argument would equally	apply. It is maintained that in Egypt there is no trace of the plague, properly so called, till the habit of embalmment ceased and that of burial was introduced, and that the plague first was generated from the dislodgement of the putrifying corpses by the waters of the Nile. Likewise it is maintained that smallpox in America and a still more loathsome disease in Europe were wholly unknown before the voyages of Columbus, because previously to that period there is no mark, no monument of their ravages, not to speak of historical records or literary allusions. An overwhelming argument against Westerhoff’s craze is derived from the fact that the smoking of Tobacco, wherever introduced, excited the greatest astonishment. If the Dutch and other nations had long been familiar with smoking, why should they have regarded smoking as a novelty? Of course it is not pretended by Westerhoff and other silly mortals that the smoking of Tobacco was prevalent in Holland and elsewhere, but simply the smoking of some kind of narcotic plants. But these narcotic plants must have had the same irresistible fascination, the same contagious power as Tobacco. Why, then, should Tobacco have kindled such surprise? Or why, when Tobacco became costly, was the use of those narcotic plants not revived? Dr. Petrie, whom Westerhoff calls the Prince of Irish Antiquarians, is accepted by him as an infallible authority on the history of smoking, because he declares, in pedantic and peremptory fashion, that smoking was much older than the introduction of Tobacco into Europe, forasmuch as pipes of bronze and clay are found in Irish tumuli and other Irish monuments of a very early date. But in what circumstances were they found? We know that all over the world the manufacture of antiquities is a flourishing trade, and that antiquarians are easily imposed upon. In any case, we have simply to repeat what we have already said, that history, literature, all monuments, all indications of customs refuse to furnish contemporary evidence. Unless, forsooth, we are to accept as an invincible proof that in the Abbey of Corcumrae, in County Clare, which was founded by his race, there is the tomb of Donogh O’Brien, King of Thomond, who died in 1276, just six hundred years ago, and that the lying image on the tomb has a short pipe, of dihudeen, in its mouth! But why, instead of going to the tomb of Donogh O’Brien, should we not go to the couch of Old Father Noah, respecting whom there is a tradition in the Greek Church that the devil made him drunk with Tobacco? As is well known, Mithras is the name of an ancient Persian divinity. He is supposed to have been a sun-god, or, in a more exalted and general sense, a supreme god of light. In the early days of the Roman Empire the Mithraic worship found eager acceptance, both at Rome proper and in the provinces. Mithras was generally represented with a dagger in his hand, and stabbing an ox. Near him are the morning star and the evening star. There are the remains of Mithraic temples in various parts of Germany. At Hedernhiem, or Heddersheim, a village on the right bank of the Nidda, there was found, about fifty years ago, in the ruins of the Roman Novus Vicus, a Mithneum, or Mithraic temple. On one of the walls there is, among another things, the representation in relief of a head, with something in the mouth very like a cutty pipe. With feverish haste, Westerhoff concludes that this must be the head of a smoking priest—smoking, that is, not for enjoyment, but when taking part in the sun worship! That not the slenderest particle of evidence exists that the Mithraic priests ever smoked as a religious ceremony does not make our author hesitate for a moment. A more learned man than Westerhoff has shown that the supposed cutty pipe must have been a wind instrument! Let us listen a little more to our oracle:—“Nanah, the prophet of the Sikhs, born in 1419, forbade the use of Tobacco to his followers, and thus before the discovery of America. The Hindoos were, consequently, not merely acquainted with Tobacco, but such ardent devotees thereof that the use of it had to be forbidden.” Now, Nanek Nirankar, the founder of the sect of the Sikhs, was born rather more than four hundred years ago, and died not long before the middle of the sixteenth century. He was not much more than twenty years of age when Columbus entered on his first memorable voyage. It was at a much maturer age than twenty that Nanek Nirankar began his prophet’s career; he began it when the Old World was already acquainted with the treasures of the New, including one of the most remarkable, Tobacco. Westerhoff’s facts are all of the same character as this, and turn out to be fictions. He displays, however, sobriety in his judgments compared with some of the dilettante writers who have brought so much confusion into the history of Tobacco, and whose ■blundering and ridiculous assertions are repeated by fatuous persons more ignorant than themselves. Let us give a single example. Of few of her children has France so much reason to be proud as of the great family of the Estiennes, some of whom, however, had a dark and troubled destiny. Charles Estienne, belonging to a race of printers, died in prison for debt in 1564, at the age of sixty. In 1554 appeared his “Praedium Rusticum,” containing his various writings on agriculture, horticulture, viniculture, and so on. He made a French translation of it, which appeared the same year he died, under the editorial care of his son-in-law, the
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hvsician Jean Liebaut, under the title of “ Maison Rustique.” to our own ^y many editions of it, with the annota-vL and augmentations of Liebaut, have been given, and it L served as model for all works of a similar kind. Charles Bienne had a daughter, Olympia Nicole, a gifted and learned oman, who wrote in prose and verse, and whose life, like that her father, was unfortunate. The poet Jean Gr6vin was to have married her, but he died, after celebrating, in a collection f poems entitled “Olympe,’* the merit and the beauty of his Lfcrothed. She then became the wife of Jean Liebaut, who, besides editing the “ Maison Rustique ” of his father-in-law,
numerous works in Latin and in French. Of one of ♦hem “^e Cosmetica, sen Ornatu et Decoratione,” Bayle
There are many details in this work, both in regard ?the characteristics of beauty in every part of the body and in respect to the remedies which can rectify disagreeable accidents.” At the age of sixty-one, Liebaut is said to have died of absolute starvation, sitting on a stone in a street of Paris. Living in poverty, Olympia died in poverty like her husband. Among the writings she left there is one whose wry title is a revelation of despair: “The Miseries of the Married Women, wherein can be seen the pangs and torments she suffers during life; put into stanzas by Madame Liebaut.” If the confessed wretchedness was so great, how terrible must the unconfessed wretchedness have been!
By the “ Medical and Chirurgical Review,” thirty or forty years ago, and afterwards in the “ Notes and Queries,” the “Maison Rustique” was made to declare that Tobacco grows ^ild in the forests of Ardennes. Now, Westerhoff denies that in any of the editions brought out by Liebaut himself is the declaration to be found; though he supposes that it may have crept into subsequent editions or into translations. There seems in the original editions to have been merely an allusion to the medicinal qualities of Tobacco, and to the recent introduction of the plant into France by Jean Nicot. It is on a foundation so slender that all Nicotian fictions have arisen.
We have not done more than comment on a point or two in Dr. WesterhofTs honest, and now and then instructive and sug-gertive, but somewhat pedantic and flimsy book. No one who has failed to read Tiedemann’s masterly, but, of course, by no means perfect work, can have a good starting-point for studying the history of Tobacco. We have ourselves no theory to propound or defend, and we write without prejudice; but, after the most diligent gathering and appreciation of facts, we are more and more strengthened in the conviction that the “ fairy . pipe” hypothesis is the most baseless of delusions.
^ipes of ^ater gears.
vm.—AGREMENS OF COUNTRY LIFE.
Pleasant it used to be, in the sweet September evenings, to loll on the lawn, I in a hammock, Roddy in a chair, with just enough smoke curling over our heads to keep the “ wapses” away. It was then that Roddy told his queerest stories, more than one of which I hope to tell to the reader at no very distant date. But still it must be confessed that at times— though rarely—a bitter drop would find its way into the honey of our fives. Such a drop for example was a boy that whistled. For weeks—nay, even months—he had been the bane of our existence—Roddy’s and mine. Morn, noon, and at eventide, this enfant terrible used to plod past our gate whistling. Now you will say there was surely no great harm in that. Granted. Whistling is not one of the deadly sins. There is no Act of Parliament against it. You can hardly punish a boy for whistling unless he commences in the church, and then you can only show him the door. Whistling is even the correct thing in some situations, notably in that of the ploughboy trudging behind his team. There is even a certain amount of pleasure derivable from hearing a plough-boy whistling, especially if he be round-faced, rosy-cheeked, dimpled, and moderately fat. He whistles because he is happy and contented, and because he loves his labour. He can’t be thinking any ill either, or brewing much mischief while whistling, I feel convinced of that. His thoughts are on his lady-love, Mary the milkmaid, blue-eyed, ruby-lipped, seventeen, and shy.
I like, too, to see the becalmed sailor, as he leans over the taffrail, trying to woo the tardy breezes by whistling; because I know that if he whistles long enough the wind will come.
I love to hear the pawky Scottish shepherd, plaid begirt, and with dog at heel, “ gang whistling doon the glen.” The gloaming star glints over the mountain, there is a good round lump of a moon in the sky, and it is easy to guess whither Sandie’s steps are tending.
Well, and I love to listen to a blackbird whistling in spring time, when the days are warm enough to permit recumbency on a fallen tree down in the bosky copse, where the bonnie yellow primroses grow in bunches; and the pleasure is enhanced a hundred fold when I know—and the bird knows I know—where his nest is, with its five speckled eggs, and mamma blackie on top thereof, looking serious and businesslike, tail sticking over at one side, and golden bill at the other, th M vDeW a m“^en once» ^^ it was positively worth all birds, or mavises either, in the world to hear her li?^' ^ bountiful blonde she was, dashing and fair, and to in the country, being daughter to an “ ould squire;”
but I would have gone twenty miles any evening just to hear the saucy Mattie whistling.
But this boy—this awful boy that whistled. A lad about fourteen years old apparently, and apparently tall for his years.' You could have guessed this easily, because his legs had grown a long way out of his trousers, as some boys will. A long, lean lad, with a pasty face and lantern jaws, this in itself making the whistling all the more objectionable. He had a father, too, who always walked a-head, a forty-year-old first edition of the fac simile, his son, and the father’s arms seemed a mile too long for him, and his boots were boats, and he ever walked as one walks who is a terrible martyr to corns. Only he didn’t whistle. This boy passed my cottage three times a day—went to some trade, I suppose, though he never carried any tools, but kept his dirty hands cheekily in his trousers pockets, and whistled. Would that he had smoked, if but the vilest weeds, or chewed, or done anything else to keep his unwholesome jaws moving, except whistle. We could hear him in the distance long ere he came. “ I believe that’s our boy,” Roddy would say. “I believe,” I would answer grimly, “and like the devils tremble.” And we both heaved a sigh of relief, and re-lighted our pipes, when the cadence died away in the other end of Twintieton.
Now, strange to say, we wouldn’t have minded this lad’s Whistling nearly so much, if he hadn’t been so confoundedly good at it. If he had only made a wrong note occasionally, or bungled a bar, but he didn’t; and he would whistle any air from the hackneyed opera of “Madame Angot” with the most provoking accuracy, in the shrillest of tenors, and with a relish and satisfaction to himself that seemed quite delectable. The worst of him was that he hadn’t the slightest respect of persons, and if you met him on the pavement he would not even take his hands out of his ragged pockets, but turn up his yellow gills, and actually whistle in your face, till your fingers itched again to smack him on the cheek.
“ Roddy,” said I, one afternoon, after we had been puffing away at our post-prandials for some time in silence, “ I’ve had enough of that whistling boy.”
“ Troth, thin,” said Roddy “and for the matter o’ that so have I.” “I mean,” I added, “I mean to do for the little wretch.”
“ Great stars I ” cried Roddy, starting up and throwing away his cigar, “don’t look like that; ye surely wouldn’t be after murdering the bouachal?”
“I’ve been plotting,” I continued.
“Sorra a bit,” said Roddy; “plotting his ruin?”
“No,” I replied, “his advantage,” and I smiled grimly,but said no more.
Next evening I saw that boy’s father, and I treated him to much beer, and gave him to smoke largely, and when lulled and soothed by these gifts, I produced and laid under his loutish nose a flaming poster, which depicted in glowing terms the immeasurable advantages to the youth of this realm, derivable from a service in the royal navy, and I myself painted such a life in colours so bright, that after another pot of beer, and an additional plug, this father with the long arms and perpetuity of bunions, beseeched me, with tears in his eyes, to get his son entered. After a time I complied. After a time that whistling boy betook himself away, and the sound of his whistling was heard no more in Twintieton. Well, he may become an admiral yet; but I rather think he won’t.
There are some things one can’t stomach; there are certain sounds calculated, if continued, to drive a sensitive man mad in a month. I am a sensitive man.
One of my neighbours—old enough he was to have known better—got a concertina, one of the asthmatical, bellowsy businesses built in Germany, and with this instrument he would sit out of doors, and grind and grind thereon for a whole hour of an evening, and this, too, in May, mind you. Oh ! what was song of nightingale or love throb of thrush to such as he. But I know I used to feel terribly wicked, and could have thrown stones at the man by the hour, and I shouldn’t have been a bit sorry had he gone away to the Balkans, and become a Bulgarian atrocity, or even worse.
When the toddling child of one of your neighbours recklessly invests all his worldly riches in a penny whistle, and marches up and down the garden piping, what is the correct thing to do? This is one of the few annoyances which the very best of 'Baccy is powerless to console you for, and you feel strangely tempted to take to drinking, or something even more desperate than that. One of the six brats of an adjoining neighbour of mine fell heir to an instrument of torture of the kind in question, and forthwith must go parading up and down his father’s garden walk piping, with all his little brothers and sisters tailed on to him. Now I dearly love children as a rule, anything natural and within reason, and I used to buy lollipops for my neighbour’s six. For nine pennies of the sterling coin of the realm I bargained with that little boy, and bought his whistle. I felt exultant now. I thought I had never driven a better bargain in my life. I had never driven a worse. For nine pennies of the sterling coin of the realm, that horrible little boy went and bought four other penny whistles and a drum. You would have pitied me then. You see I couldn’t keep on buying penny whistles for ninepence each, so I endured martyrdom for a week; my garden arbour was deserted, my tools lay idly by, my pipe itself almost failed to keep reason on its seat, and there is no saying where matters would have ended, had not Providence stepped mercifully in in the shape of measles,
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and when health again reigned next door, the noisy charms of whistle and drum were eclipsed by editor and whipping top, and I trust I was sufficiently grateful. I now come to a period in this veracious story when I feel inclined to lay down my pen, take up my pipe, and moralise. What is destiny? What is fate? Sometimes it is one thing, sometimes another. Sometimes a coronet, sometimes a crown, sometimes something infinitely worse than either. The head of one of my ancestors was elevated to a proud position on Temple Bar. That was the fate of its owner. A greenwood tree was the fate of another of my ancestors, and a rieving old Highland billie he was; and I think that of all ways of shaking off one’s mortal coil, hanging must be about the worst. How unpleasant must be the sensation to find yourself whirling round and round in an indefinite, distracted kind of a manner, pawing the air with your feet, without finding anything to stand upon, and time so very precious, My fate was a widow. A word upon widows in my next. Widows in general, and the widow in particular, are much too serious subjects to pop in promiscuously at the butt-end of a chapter, but I will merely premise that I consider there is nothing wonderful in the world at a man’s fighting shy of the fair sex for forty years, and having to haul down his bunting to a widow in the long run. Here is how it came about. You see Roddy and I went out one day to shoot. Now I’ve always been especially unlucky in the matter of fingers or thumbs. I’m not a Robinson Crusoe, but I can do a bit of carpentering ship-shape enough; rarely, however, do I drive a nail without the beggar bending, my finger or thumb gets in under, and down comes the hammer viciously on top of both. My connection with fish hooks, on the other hand, has often been of a most trying description, owing to their tendency to run into my digits, and necessitate surgical incision. Well, as I said, Roddy and I went to shoot, and with my usual luck I managed to blow considerably more of my thumb off than I could afford to spare. Now don’t begin to pity me, reader. I know well how tender is the heart of a genuine lover of the weed, but in this instance pity would be misplaced. My only sorrow ever has been that I didn’t shoot my thumb off years before; that is, if the same results had followed the explosion, if it had gained for me but one blink inside that bonnie cottage. N.B.—The cottage nearest to the scene of the accident—one pitying glance from the tear-bedewed blue eyes of its bonnie owner, or one thrilling touch of the fairy-like fingers that deftly bound up the ugly wound. Thumb indeed! Bah! and it was only my left one after all, and I can hold my fiddle as well as ever. My accident, apart from the main, the glorious consequence, had one other result. It brought me Roddy forth in a new and tender light. Roddy as a nurse. Yes, Roddy, the rough, horny-handed old son of the sea, was suddenly transformed into the kindest and most gentle of nurses. From the first thing in the morning until the last thing at night, there was Roddy, moving quietly about my room, or seated, pipe in hand, in the easy chair, never obtrusive, and always cheerful, chatty, and gay. ’Twas worth more than a thumb to witness. Now, country sounds are to me delightful, and poets have written to say so too; at least if they haven’t they ought to have, and it’s just the same. What more sweet, for instance, more narcotically sweet of a night than the periodic baying of a kennel of hounds in the distance, and even cock-crowing is endurable under certain restrictions. But if you happen to be nervous through illness, I think you will agree with me that that alters the case. Now, though Roddy was ever with me by day, by night I was left to myself, or to the tender ministrations of Bridget, if I chose to ring her up, which I never did. So my nights were hardly nights of peace, and Roddy often found me feverish of a morning. “ It is nervous you do be,” Roddy would say, trotting off to look me up the mildest weed he could find. Nervous indeed, and no wonder. First and foremost there was Miss Harriet Gale, who, as bad luck would have it, had taken the cottage orn6 just over the hedge from mine, and who was a singer, or thought she was, and owned a large guitar, and likewise kept a cow. I dearly love a song when sung with taste and feeling, but heaven keep me ever far away from a woman who, instead of singing, screams a song. Miss Harriet Gale screamed, that was it, and she kept on at it. With a strum, strum, and a tinkle, tankle, turn, on her blessed guitar, she began of an evening as soon as Roddy left, and kept it up far into the night. And as soon as she ended the cow commenced. What the mystery was this brute of a bovine lowing for I used to wonder? Did she sigh for companionship, or mourn a lost calf? Goodness knows, but a more mournfully lugubrious note I never heard in the whole course of my life. It began low, swelled in the centre, fell again towards the end, and so in mournful cadence died away. It seemed to me to spell thus, this cow’s note, “MmmOOoo o.” At intervals till early morning this cow kept up her song with a persistency worthy of a better cause; then, after listening attentively for half an hour to a concert of amative cats, my soul would melt away into sweetest dreamless slumber. Happy for me had this continued. But it didn’t. One of my neighbours had a horse whose stable adjoined my garden, just, I used to think, because I had shot my thumb off. And this horse, for the same reason, I daresay, was addicted to giving way periodically to fits of most unseemly and badly-timed merriment. There was a	square hole in the wooden gable of this brute’s stable, and at four o’clock in the morning, when both cow and cats were worn out, and just as dawn began to glimmer in the east, this beast of a horse would pop his head through and laugh. He laughed with a loud and startling “ hee-ha-ha-hmn,” followed immediately by an explosive “ha-ha-hmn,” then a “ha-hmn,” and completed by a “hmn” that would have roused the devil or waked the dead. This he commenced with great regularity, every morning at exactly the same time; he never once varied his notes; he kept it up uZZthe morning, at intervals of fifteen minutes, with a precision that was simply fiendish. This was excessively pleasant for me, seeing that it gave me time, and barely time, to fall comfortably asleep in order to be awakened again by the next explosion. Verily, verily, reader, there is no perfect peace in this life, even in the country. Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N. ^en Jonson. IX.—STILL IN RELATION TO TOBACCO. Though we cannot expect to meet such another magnificent panegyrist of our Sovereign Herb as the renowned and valiant Bobadill, we shall meet many who may be looked upon as subordinates in the company commanded by that great Captain. The next play, “Every Man out of His Humour,” is introduced by what is called The Character of the Pentone, and in this we find smoking marked as a principal trait in three of them. First we have Fastidious Brisk, the neat, spruce, affecting courtier, who has been regarded as a Bobadill at Whitehall, and who, among other courtly accomplishments, “speaks good remnants, notwithstanding the base viol and Tobacco; swears tersely, and with variety.” One can understand how the base viol might hinder his speaking, though even its twanging or droning should sometimes leave gaps for “remnants,” but surely the interwhiffs of Tobacco afford the very best opportunities for venting such; and as to the terse swearing, there can be little doubt that its terseness was in large measure due to the pipe. Then we have Sogliardo, another edition of Stephen the country gull, who “comes up every term to learn to take Tobacco, and see new motions (puppet shows).” Whereon Gifford finely glosses: “ It may seem strange to enumerate taking Tobacco among the accomplishments to be acquired in town; but it was then a matter of serious study, and had its professors, like the rest of the liberal arts.” That this great liberal art hath no longer special professors is doubtless owing to the fact that nearly every one now is both professor and practiser, being able easily to master the art himself. Finally, we have that admirable scamp Shift, the Cavalier Shift, one of whose chief ^exercises is taking Tobacco, this being his sole innocent and laudable employment. Coming to the play itself, we find almost every act odorous with those rich fumes that cheer but not inebriate. But first let me quote the beginning of the fine passage in which the poet, under the name of Asper, announces and vindicates the purpose of his comedy:— “ Who is bo patient of this impions world, That he can check his spirit, or rein his tongue ? Or who hath such a dead unfeeling sense, That heaven’s horrid thunders cannot wake ? To see the earth cracked with the weight of sin, Hell gaping under us, and o’er our heads Black, ravenous ruin, with her sail-stretched wings, Ready to sink us down, and cover us. Who can behold such prodigies as these, And have his lips sealed up ? Not I: my soul Was never ground into such oily colours, To flatter vice, and daub iniquity:	• But, with an armdd and resolved hand, I’ll strip the ragged follies of the time Naked as at their birth	” A strain too fierce and indignant for our light and pleasant theme! This same Asper rough-handles certain types of pretentious critics common in his day among theatrical audiences, just as Sterne dealt right sternly with the varieties of the cant of criticism common in his. (We have no dramatic criticism, or drama, in these days, but mere insipid tolerance or eulogy of stage-pieces without intellect or characters.) Among the rest, he singles out— “ How monstrons and detested is’t to see A fellow, that hath neither art noi* brain, Sit like an Aristarchus, or stark ass, Taking men’s lines, with a Tobacco face, In snuff, still spitting, using his wry’d looks, In nature of a vice, to wrest and turn The good aspect [regard] of those that shall sit near him. From what they do behold 1 ” This passage may best be illustrated by another from the Induction to “Cynthia’s Revels,” performed, it will be remembered, at the Blackfriars, by the children (boys) of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel. “ 3rd Child.—Now, sir, suppose I am one of your genteel auditors, that am come in, having paid my money at the door, with much ado, and herd I take my place and sit down: I have my three sorts of Tobacco in my pocket, my light by me, and thus I begin. [At the break he takes hie Tobacco.] By this light, I wonder that any man is so mad, to come to see these rascally tits play here. They do act like so many wrens or pismires—not the lifth part of a good face amongst them all. And then their music is abominable—able to stretch a man’s ears worse than ten—pillories, and their ditties— [these dashes doubtless represent whiffs] most lamentable things.
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^ows that make them—poets. By this vapour, an ’twere Tobacco—I think—the very stench of ’em would poison me, I should dare to come in at their gates. A man were better to visit fifteen jails— or two °* hospitals—than once adventure to come near them. 4 (in-D—Excellent; give mo my cloak.* «%dChilo-—Stay; you shall see me do another now, but a more sober, Jetter-gathered gallant; that is, as it may be thought, some friend, or 40 th® holwe: “^ here I enter. CHILD-—What, upon the stage too ? atod Child.—Yes; and I step forth like one of the children, and ask you, WnnMvou have a stool, sir ? •^nl'CHiLD.—A stool, boy! Child.—Ay, sir, if you’ll give me sixpence Hl fetch you one. esrd Child.—For what, I pray thee ? what shall I do with it ? «2nd Child. —0 Lord, sir! will you betray your ignorance so much? • throne yourself in state upon the stage, as other gentlemen use, sir.” On which we may quote the comment of Gifford: “ At the theatres in Jonson’s time, spectators were admitted on the gtage. Here they sat on stools, the price of which, as the action was more or less commodious, was sixpence or a -hilling: here, too, their own pages, or the boys of the house, supplied them with pipes and Tobacco. Amidst such confusion and indecency were the dramatic works of Shakspeare and his contemporaries produced.” Much as we admire and love the pipe, we must admit that it was quite out of place on the stage of a theatre while a genuine drama was proceeding; especially as abundant and abominable spitting appears to have been the ordinary custom of the age in smoking. How the actors got through their parts at all is a miracle; the case was even worse than in that paradise of cads, the modern music hall, where at least the stage is free from intrusion. Returning to “Every Man out of His Humour,” Carlo Buffone, the “ public, scurrilous, and prophane jester, that more swift than Circe, with absurd similies will transform anv person into deformity; the good feast-hound or banquetbeagle, that will scent you out a supper some three miles off; whose religion is railing, and his discourse ribaldry; ” this amiable and honourable personage, ridiculing Fastidious Brisk’s affectation of intimacy with lords, says:— “There’s ne'er a one of these but might lie a week on the rack, ere they ooaM bring forth his name; and yet he pours them out as familiarly as if he had seen them stand by the fire in the presence, or ta'en Tobacco with them over the stage, in the lords’ room.” Whereon Gifford, who has left anyone else very little to do in the way of annotation: “The lords’ rooms answered to the present stage-boxes. The price of admission to them appears to have been originally a shilling. Thus Decker: ‘At a new play you take up the twelve-penny room, next the stage, because the lords and you may seem to be hail-fellow, well met.’—‘Gull’s Hornbook, 1609.’” With Act in. we enter the middle aisle of St. Paul’s, the Mediterraneo, as Brisk terms it, then, as is well known, the common resort of persons of all professions, reputable and disreputable, and the scene of all kinds of business transactions. Here Carlo Buffone reads a bill, being one of the various baits for gulls set up by our noble friend the Cavalier Shift, otherwise Apple-John, otherwise Signor Whiffe, who justifies this last name by saying: “I have been taking an ounce of Tobacco hard by here, with a gentleman, and I am come to spit private in St. Paul’s;” and who modestly avows afterwards: “It pleases the world, as I am her excellent Tobacconist, to give me the style of Signor Whiffe.” Thus runs the delectable advertisement:— «H this city, or the suburbs of the same, do afford any young gentleman of the first, second, or third head, more or less, whose friends are but lately lately deceased, and whose lands are but new come into his hands, that, to be as exactly qualified as the best of our ordinary gallants are, is affected to entertain the most gentlemanlike use of Tobacco; as first, to give it the most exquisite perfume; then, to know all the delicate sweet forms for the assumption of it; as also the rare corollary and practice of the Cuban •bolition, euripus, and whiff, which he shall receive, or take in here at London, and evaporate at Uxbridge, or farther, if it please him. If there be any such generous spirit, that is truly enamoured of these good faculties; may it please him, but by a note of his hand to specify the place or ordinary where he uses to eat and lie; and most sweet attendance, with Tobacco and pipes of the best sort, shall be ministered. Stet, queuo, candida Lector" Candid reader, in sooth! Did I not well in calling our Shift admirable? Who in our degenerate days can compose such a Tobacco advertisement as that? It is not surpassed even by that stupendous feat of genius of Madame Rachel, of the wonder-working water from the Fountain of Youth, the Well of Life, brought, lest its celestial virtues should evaporate, by relays of swift dromedaries from the heart of the Libyan Desert 1 It would appear by the text that the whiff was a long retention of the smoke low down somewhere, such as is practised in Spain, maybe a drawing it down into the lungs as is customary in the East: Gifford quotes from Daniel:— “This herb in powder made, and fired, he sucks, Out of a little hollow instrument Of calcinated clay, the smoke thereof: Which either he conveys out of his nose. Or down into his stomach with a whiff.” And again from the “ Gull’s Hornbook ”:— “ Then let him shew his several tricks in taking the whiffe, the ring, Ac., for these are compliments (accomplishments) that gain gentlemen no mean respect; and for which indeed they are more worthily noticed than for any akffl they have in learning.” As for the Cuban abolition or ebullition, we can but guess at its nature from its name; and as for the euripue, we can but conjecture with probability that as the Euripus was the ancient name of the strait between Euboea and the continent, proverbial for its frequent flux and reflux, the term signified mhaling and exhaling smoke in swift succession.	The bait of this keen and bright prospectus soon attracts its fish:— “ Sogliardo.—Nay, good sir, house your head: do you profess these sleights in Tobacco ? “Shift.—I do more than profess, sir, and, if you please to be a practitioner, I will undertake in one fortnight to bring you that you shall take it plausibly in any ordinary, theatre, or the Tilt-yard, if need be, in the most popular assembly that is. “ Punt arvolo [‘a vain-glorious knight, over-englishing his travels’]. But you cannot bring him to the whiffe so soon ? “ Shift.—Yes, as soon, sir; he shall receive the first, second, and third whiffe, if it please him, and, upon the receipt, take his horse, drink his throe cups of Canary, and expose [exhale] one at Hounslow, a second at Stains, and a third at Bagshot.” Fascinated by the which modest and veracious assurances Sogliardo persuades him, nothing loth, to stay and dine, and even presses upon him, nothing loth, a poor French crown for the ordinary, saying: “ If we can agree, we’ll not part in haste.” Doubt not that they agree, when Shift is above all determined not to disagree: will the angler willingly part in haste from his hooked fish? The result is reported in Act IV., Sc. 4 :— “Punt, [to Carlo]—Was your new-created gallant with you there, Sogliardo ? “ Carlo.—0 porpoise! hang him, no: he’s a leiger [permanent resident] at Horn’s ordinary yonder; his villainous Ganymede and he have been droning a Tobacco-pipo there over since yesterday noon. “ Punt.—Who ? Signior Tripartite [meaning Shift of the three appellations] , that would give my dog the whiffe ? “ Carlo.—Ay, he. They have hired a chamber and all, private, to practise in, for tho making of the patoun, the receipt reciprocal, and a number of other mysteries not yet extant [revealed]. I brought some dozen or twenty gallants this morning to view them, os you'd do a piece of perspective, in at a key-hole ; and there we might see Sogliardo sit in a chair, holding his snout up like a how under an apple-tree, while the other opened his nostrils with a poking-stick, to give the smoke a more free delivery. They had spit some three or four score ounces between 'em afore we came away. “ Pant.—HoW 1 spit three or four score ounces ? “ Carlo.—Ay, and preserved it in porrengers, as a barber does his blood when he opens a vein. “ Punt.—Out, pagan! how dost thou open the vein of thy friend ? “ Carlo.—Friend ! is there any such foolish thing in the world, ha ? ’slid, I never relished [tasted] it yet. “ Punt.—Thy humour is the more dangerous.” Truly it is hideous, with the poking-stick for the nostrils and the spittle in porrengers ; but we may hope that the scurrilous and profane jester, whose religion is railing and his discourse ribaldry, is exaggerating if he is not wholly inventing. Droning a Tobacco-pipe occurs again in the “ Silent Woman,” Act VI., Sc. 1: “As he lies on his back droning a Tobacco-pipe.” The phrase seems suggestive of a happy monotony of indolence; the slow, sleepy breathing, as of an insect drone in summer, breathed through a tube like the drone of a bagpipe: it also appears to be a coinage of Ben’s. As to the patoun and the receipt reciprocal, they remain esoteric, and we are left to mere conjecture. Gifford remarks that as patone, in French, are those small pellets of paste with which poultry are crammed, making of the patoun may mean moulding the Tobacco, which was then always cut small, into some fantastic or fashionable shape for the pipe. Petun, we know, was one of the Indian names of Tobacco, and was adopted in France, being commonly used by St. Amant and other jovial French writers about contemporary with Jonson, though I believe it is now obsolete; and patoun may have some connection with petun. With regard to the receipt reciprocal, Gifford suggests that it not improbably meant the passing of the pipe from one to the other; but there would be no mystery in this. He alleges the ring, in the passage already cited from Decker’s “ Gull’s Hornbook,” as meaning the same; but I think it more probably meant puffing out the smoke so as to form rings of which the one should pass through the other, &c., a not uncommon practice in our own day. In conclusion, on these occult matters, I quote the memorandum by Steevens which Whalley transcribed on the margin of his copy: “ Mr. Reed, who may be considered as the high-priest of black letter, declares no book to have been written containing instructions how to take Tobacco [a woeful want!]. You have, therefore, not a single auxiliary on the present subject, except your own sagacity; and must of course be content to rank the patoun, &c., among the ‘mysteries not yet extant.’—Aug. 29, 1781.” Leaving these abstruse and obscure mysteries, we go back to Act HI., Sc. 3—An Apartment at Court: Enter Macilente (who does not concern us), Fastidious, and Cinedo (his page) with Tobacco. For what has our gay Brisk come ? He has come to lay his homage at the feet of Saviolina, “ a court-lady, whose weightiest praise is a light wit, admired by herself, and one more, her servant Brisk.” Now we learn what the author meant when he said of this gallant, he “speaks good remnants notwithstanding the base viol and Tobacco”; for with those two sweet instruments, the pipe and the viol de gambo, our enamoured courtier courts his mistress,—alas in vain, for poetical wooings are rarely successful in this gross world. At ‘ first Euphuism is intermitted for puff, puff; then for hum, hum; then again for puff, puff. Here is a fragment from the close: she has taken the viol to tune it:— “ Fast.—You see the subject of her sweet fingers there—Oh, she tickles it so, that—She makes it laugh most divinely; I’ll tell you a good jest now, and yourself shall say it’s a good one: I have wished myself to be that instrument, I think, a thousand times, and not so few, by heaven .... “ Sav.—Here, servant, if you will play, come. “ Fast.—Instantly, sweet lady.—In good faith, here’s most divine Tobacco 1 “ Sav.—Nay, I cannot stay to dance after your pipe. “ Fast.—Good 1 nay, dear lady, stay; by this sweet smoke, I think your wit be all fire .... “ Sav.—Is your Tobacco perfumed, servant, that you swear by the sweet ■moke? “ Fast.—Still more excellent I Before heaven, and these bright lights, I think—you are made of ingenuity, I—Will your ladyship take any ?
* Whalley notea that the usual mark of the person who spoke the prologue along black velvet cloak.	
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M Sav.—O, peace, I pray you; I love not the breath of a woodcock's head. " Fast.—Meaning my head, lady ?
“ Sav.—Not altogether so, sir; but, as it were fatal to their follies that think to grace themselves with taking Tobacco, when they want better entertainment, you see your pipe bears the true form of a woodcock's head.
“Fast.—O admirable simile!
“Sav.—Tis best leaving of you in admiration, sir. [Exit.]’*
Thus are idols insensible to the sweetest incense burnt to them! Woodcock was a cant term for a fool. Gifford gives a drawing of an ancient pipe, in which he discerns pretty nearly the true form of a woodcock’s head.
Tobacco is mentioned on other occasions in “ Every Man out of His Humour,” but the allusions are scarcely of sufficient importance to be noted here. One remark must be made in closing. The objects of ridicule in this play are not things or customs themselves, but the affectations or exaggerations of them. Courtliness or courtesy, wit, learning, swordmanship, and Tobacco are all good, though the mere pretension to them, or the fantastic abuse of them, is comically contemptible. Sigvat.
w wAN EVENING REVERIE.
How sweet it is to sit and dream, And through my window watch the sky To note how fades the sun’s last gleam: My pipe my only company.
The twilight steals along the land, And yonder peeps a timid star;
The earliest of the watchful band, That cheer this old earth from afar.
The children swing upon the gate, To Heaven in song their voices go: Ah, little ones, strong handed fate Shall one day swing you to and fro.
From many a window shines a light
To welcome weary ones that roam;
How sweet a symbol to the sight:
The light of love in every home.
Above my head a lingering cloud
Of vapour hangeth tenderly;
Care being slain, this forms his shroud, While peace sits by to comfort me.
Go work, wild world, and fret your brain, But little care I for your joys;
Your pomp, your pride, your pleasures vain;
I in my heart breed sweeter joys.
Go clutch your gold and hold it fast, Lest it should fade ere morning gleams;
Away! harsh toil, your hour is past, Leave me unto my kindly dreams.
Dreams of the days for ever gone, Dreams of the years all written dead;
Of ghosts of hopes all white and wan, Ah! pipe, thou mak’st me droop mine head.
Yes, thou dost chasten me at times, Nor can I, scornful, bid thee cease; A voice that speaks from higher climes Cries “ Sorrow rightly borne brings peace.” What though beneath the turf he lies, My comrade true, my dearest friend;
Are there no worlds beyond the skies, Where life is life, and knows no end.
Oft when I dream at this sweet hour, He seems to sit by me again;
So true is love, so strong its power, It lives to see the death of pain.
He cometh as he used to come,
With laugh on lip and glad eyes bright: Alas! that those sweet Ups are dumb, And those glad eyes now closed in night.
But Uke a song of long ago
That sings unbidden in the brain, His weU-known voice full soft and low, Strikes sweetly on my ear again.
And all the olden days troop forth
With garlands hung and loud with song;
Till dieth out from me all wrath
That this old world’s so full of wrong.
And like a holy messenger
To tell of days when pain shall cease, His spirit seems; then goeth fear From out my heart, and enters peace.
So dream I on in painless mood
Of what has been, and what will be;
And thank the giver of all good
For my sweet angel, Memory.
Ah! pipe, thou art to me a charm
To drown the present in the past;
A solace sweet, a soothing balm, To heal the wounds that come so fast.
Now thou art out, and dusky night
O’er hidden nature reigns supreme.
Ended is day, sweet child of light;
And ended is my twilight dream. H. Lloyd.
^Ig in t^t ^lass.
[San Francisco News Letter, July 28,1877.}
Before me my glass and beside me my pipe;
The last is unfilled and the first is untasted, This evening my thoughts are despondent in type, So there stands the glass where the waiter has placed it.
Unusual! yes, but economy pleads,
And if I had thirst to consume the five oceans, That half pint of lager must furnish my needs
Till I have exorcised these demon-like notions.
Why is it, I ask myself, some men are rich,
Not seeming or being the least meritorious,
Who see good and bad and can’t tell which is which,
And think themselves famous because they’re notorious, While I, who—at this point I take my first sip,	.
To brighten my thoughts by the aid of the liquor, And see, as the foam is just cresting my lip
A little black fly nearly drowned in the beaker.
Poor insect! Its light wings are clotted with beer,
And its posture expresses a world of apology, As much as to say, “I am sorry I’m here;
A poor little particle of entomology, Who only could live for a day at the best, And here it is evening, and in my senectitude Instead of preparing to take my last rest,
I’ve err’d and strayed from the pathway of rectitude.**
I gaze on it pitying (helping it out),
My brain is once more in a fog of conjectures—
That fly is most fearfully drunk beyond doubt—
A worthy example for temperance lectures.
Ah! yes, musca mea, spread out that small wing
And stagger and buzz, and bewail ye and groan ye, You’re maudlingly drunk, and there isn’t a thing
That can sober you now; you have gone past ammonia/
You’re an elderly fly—it was six o’clock then
And sunset was burning the west into freckles—
And night is to flies what old age is to men,
And you’re soaked as deeply as Robertson’s Eccles, Yet you to my mind solve this question aright—
A question to me that has long been confusing—
Exactly how rapidly Clarence got tight
Before he expired in the wine of his choosing.
My poor little fly, are you suffering still?
Are you troubled with entomological demons? •
Perhaps ’twould be well to attend to your will
Before you go off in delirium tremens.
The present attack may be fatal quite soon—
I don’t know what life you’ve been leading since morning; Did you drink in your youth?—I mean in the forenoon?—
’Tis only in kindness I offer this warning. ■
I drank up my beer—my small-winged friend’s tomb,
And though his remembrance may pass out of history, His spirit flew off in the gathering gloom
And went, like Voltaire’s, to “resolve a great mystery.*’ His corpse I laid out on the brim of my hat,
I piled round him sugar and bread-crumbs to solace him, And the other flies came, and the coroner sat—
Pve no doubt of the verdict, “ Acute Alcoholism.*’
Ho! garden, another bock ere I set out,
I’ll drink to the health of the spirit departed;
This one you’ll hang up I have never a doubt, If you, like that insect, are liberal-hearted.
So, musca, adieu, I shan’t see you again—
You’ll find such as he was wherever your eye light,
Yon fly has his type in as frivolous men, Who buzz through their lives and die drunk in the twilight.
G. H. Jessop.
S^t Jistorg anb |^us«^g of fobacto.
m.
In the various small states into which Germany in the seventeenth century was severed, the destinies of Tobacco were sometimes more, sometimes less sorrowful. While, on the one hand, after its introduction during the first period of the Thirty Years’ War it became a great favourite, on the other it encountered vehement and vigorous opponents. At first, soldiers only seem to have smoked; by-and-by, students and learned men caught the infection; at last all classes, down to the peasant, surrendered themselves to the glamour of the pipe, and so passionately as to give rise in France to the proverbial saying, “Fumer comme un AUemand” (To smoke like a German). Already, in the second half of the century in which smoking had found entrance into Germany, the burning Tobacco pipe was an essential appurtenance of a braggart student’s garb and gear. Toward the end of the century the smokers were in the habit of singing:—
“ Let Tobacco grandly blaze, Faltera, fallatera;
Loud and long its glories praise, Faltera, fallatera."
As early as this time, as Happel informs us, “ at the drinking
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bouts of the students, he who smoked fifty pipes was created a Master of Arts, he who smoked eighty a Licentiate, he who smoked a hundred a Doctor: of course it is understood that all these titles held good only in relation to the Tobacco science.” Against such excesses in the enjoyment of Tobacco, which meanwhile had been gaining many recruits among the fair sex, the authorities as well as the ecclesiastics in many countries and districts deemed it their duty to employ strenuous measures. Repeatedly, and as late as 1719, the cultivation of Tobacco was forbidden by the Town Council of Strasburg. In Ltineburg, as recently as 1695, the punishment of death was threatened ‘‘for the disgusting habit of Tobacco drinking.” In the Berlin police laws of 1661, which were Ossified according to the Ten Commandments, the prohibition of Tobacco smoking was included—God knows why—in thecommandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” As in Berne, so also in Berlin, arose a special tribunal for the transgressors of that prohibition; and, down to 1675, smokers I caught in the act were condemned to prison and the pillory. In WoHenbiittel went forth, in 1723, an order of the Consistory forbidding ecclesiastics to smoke. Therein it is said: ujthath come to the ears of the Consistory that over sundry clergvn1611’ 68 we^ *n th® country districts as in the towns, the i»ieUse °f Tobacco has gained such terrible sway, that aeVnot merely spend most of their time in their houses, gmokio^ ^om eaffy hi the morning till late in the evening, but als°’ without regard to decency or propriety, they mingle, nine in mouth, with all sorts of people, at public festivities and meetings, a* weddings and baptisms, in public-houses and tavern8’ at ^r8 an^ yeaxly markets. Thereby the reverence for the clergy is diminished; and tlierefore every clergyman who is not willing to renounce smoking, must at one® b® ^sm*Bse^ from ^e office he holds.” This order Is characteristic as a proof how much among the mass of the clergy opinions had changed; for half a century earlier there had been the flash of lightnings and the roar of thunders from all German pulpits, Catholic as well as Protestant, intended to annihilate Tobacco and its friends. Moreover, in various regions accusations were brought before the Consistory against smokers by their confessors; and from 1660 to 1720 a long array of writings appeared assailing the fashionable plant, with the odour of which every leaf of those writings was saturated. The authors were, in general, clergymen. We here present some specimens of the utterances of these clerical Tobacco-haters, which at the same time may serve as illustrations of the tone habitual with our pastors of souls at the period. Tn one of the reports which a clergyman in the Baden district made to his Consistory, it is said: “Christian Leder-mann, of Bahlingen, is a drunkard and a spendthrift, and is besides devoted to Tobacco drinking. When on holy Easter Day he came to the table of the Lord, he stank so abominably that the clergyman was obliged to take flight from the smell (of the Tobacco). Hanns Kopp, in Brachingen keeps a very irregular house, drinks Tobacco, is a brawler, and flogs his wife.” Five years later the same reporter indulges in bitter lamentations about the conduct of the parishioners of Ottoschwanden. He says: “When the peasants sit in the small church in the presence of the clergyman, from their breath comes such a horrible stench that he can scarcely bear it.” In a third report, for the year 1669, we read: “The parish miller of Emmerdingen is on very bad terms with his wife, drinks Tobacco perpetually, and when he is at church, though he cannot drink Tobacco, he has it in his mouth and chews it.” The Pastor Caspar Hoffmann, of Quedlinburg, declared Tobacco to be a soul-destroying thing, and the immediate work of Satan the Infernal. The well-known Scriver, who in 1693 lived in the same city as chief court preacher, says, in one of his castigatory sermons: “Just see and just hear how brings go on in pothouses and taverns on Sundays and on days of special solemnity. There men fill and overfill themselves with this drink (Tobacco), and in order that they may drink the more they convert their throat into a chimney, and burn incense to the Devil.” A preacher in Basle cried from Jhe pulpit: “When I see the mouths that smoke Tobacco, I feel as if I were looking into the very chimneys of hell.” In BhU more vigorous fashion the pious Philander von Sittenwald gives vent to the grief and wrath which the godless doings of the lovers of Tobacco excited in him.^ He says: “ When I ^w certain men drinking Tobacco, the Lord spake thus to his unworthy creature: ‘ Son of Man, dost thou see the abomination of desolation which in hidden way hath seized heart of man, and lets itself be worshipped as a God through the manifoldly damnable Tobacco drinking and snuffing, to which men have accustomed themselves from the craft and flattery of the Devil, blindly honouring and adoring this stinking Tobacco God? 01 would that I could make you see, dear friends, how ye as Tobacco brothers and Tobacco sisters are all deceived by the devil. For behold, just as those who devour all kinds of food give testimony that the belly is their God, so ye also through this weed draw the fire essence into you, and blow the smoke out again, as a sign of your damnation.” The sportively inclined Zeiler is not willing to take such a gloomy view of the matter. He even conjectures that Tobacco must be a heal-all-the-world or heal-all-diseases, forasmuch as it is efficacious against anxiety, weariness, and tribulations of every kind. He says: “We only need to take the pipe into our mouth and to suck away” (to get	rid of our troubles). Grimmelshausen (the author of the work of fiction called “ Simplicissimus ”) expresses his astonishment that people do not stick Tobacco into their ears, and calls smokers “fire-spitters,” and also “grass-devils.” His “Simplicissimus,” when asked his opinion of “Tobacco drinking,” replies: “People learn it from conceit, continue it from habit, and leave it off when they die.” Laurenberg represents a young devil as the inventor of Tobacco. This devilkin, by order of the prince of hell, Pluto, conveys the beautiful art to brother Vulcan on Olympus. Jupiter greatly annoyed by the uncommon and intolerable stench suddenly diffused through the ethereal spaces, makes Mercury knock the pipe out of Vulcan’s mouth, and the pipe thereupon falls into the land of the Moors, and is there adored as a gift of heaven. Perhaps the fiercest, most savage things which in the German language have assailed Tobacco are the oratorical thunderbolts which the Jesuit Jacob Balde hurled at the heads and the backs of his smoking and snuffing contempo-raries. He called the enjoyment of Tobacco and its consequences the “dry drunkenness;” he denounced those who devoted themselves to smoking as “reekstinkers, firedrinkers, sootlickers, smutlickers, smutclaws.” He said: “These dry drinkers are the apes of the wet sots, and try to imitate them in everything. As the sots send the glasses so the smokers send the pipes round in the company. In reeky rivalry they drink, by dozens, healths to each other; but they never drink the health of sweethearts, for smokers have no place in a lady’s chamber, no wish for a lady’s love. Instead thereof they drink to the happy arrival of a Spanish or English ship, which is on its way laden with Tobacco.” The assertion that women would have nothing to do with smokers does not seem to have been universally applicable to the circles with which Balde came into contact; for some of his best trumps are played against the fair sex. Of smoking women he thus discourseth : “Just in the degtee that smoke goes into them modesty goes away of them. They waste the property of their husbands, and, instead of carrying about with them the odours of balm and of the kitchen, they stink of Tobacco.” In wrath, he exclaims: “It used to be said that an old crone, by her mere appearance, darkened a mirror, and by her mere breath poisoned other people; but how much more disgusting must she be when, as now, inhaling and exhaling the stench of Tobacco! ” Furthermore, he laments: “ We meet with masculine i women who not merely, instead of needles and spindles, carry | a snuff-box with them, but also light a pipe, and give thereby \ to their smooth lips and cheeks the aspect of a smutty beard.” ' Balde declares “Master Reekbeard” to be the “stinkingest, smuttiest, loathsomest man, yea, more a beast than a man.” The Tobacco-pipe he calls reek-dumpling, dirty chimney, Tobacco drinking-mug, pipe-organ-work.” Of the snuff-box he says: “From these powder-boxes they load the blunderbusses of their noses, and fire away the whole day with these blunderbusses as if they were firing at a mark.” In another place he asks with respect to the organ of smell: “Why must this hill for ever be manured with dung, for ever be planted with that hellebore?” This rhetorical roysterer, however, revelled fruitlessly in furibond excesses against the new custom. Year after year the people grew fonder of Tobacco. Men of learning and men of rank likewise took a fancy for it; and even among princes the Virginian incense found admiration. It was especially the Brandenburg Court that at an early period was attracted by smoking, and the Elector Frederick HI. established a smoking-club in his castle. How can we think of “Old Fritz” (Frederick the Great) without recalling his tattered and dirty vest pocket, from which he was for ever taking snuff ? And who is not acquainted, at least by name, with the Tabak-Collegium of his father, Friedrich Wilhelm the Bearish ? A lofty chamber in the castle at Berlin or Potsdam; at Wusterhausen a tent on the steps leading to the great fountain : in the chamber or the tent a long table, round which, on deal chairs, sit a dozen or more persons, in whom, through the enveloping smoke, we, besides the king, recognise Grumbkow, Derschau, the old Dessauer (Leopold I., Prince of Anhalt-Dessau), and other military men, “Reinecke Fuchs” Von Seckendorff (Friedrich Heinrich, Count Von Seckendorff, field-marshal), the emperor’s ambassador, and Gundling, court fool and president of the academy—such is the smoking place of his Prussian Majesty. Each of those present has a long Dutch pipe in his mouth, a supply of canaster (Tobacco) close at hand; on the left, according to Dutch custom, a small pan of burning peat; on the right a pitcher with bitter beer. Other nobler drinks can be obtained on application. On side-tables stand cold victuals, such as bread and butter, hams, large pieces of roast meat, all rough, but comfortable and abundant: a supply of provisions, indeed, such as human nature, giving itself up to an unrefined , “feast of reason,” and a still more unrefined “flow of soul,” can use and relish. The regular sharers in the entertainment, in the double sense of this word, can make or can take a rough joke, or can be silent and yet social. Strangers of note, when passing through, get a warm welcome. Hinckel, the Dutch ambassador, gets a cordial reception. The garrulous Pollnitz, who has travelled extensively, has a standing invitation. The Crown Prince (afterwards Frederick the Great) is frequently present—oftener, probably, than, from
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the nature of the conversation and the smoky atmosphere of the chamber, is agreeable to him. Perfect equality is the law of the gatherings. No notice is taken of anyone entering, and when anyone departs the guests do not rise up. Whoso comes in takes a pipe without ceremony. If, like Secken-dorff, he cannot smoke, he must, in order not to war with the customary course of things, simulate smoking operations. The conversation, when affairs of importance do not occupy royal thoughts, is spontaneous and varied. The guests say whatever they are in the mood to say; they banter each other; they flout Gundling; they talk about the news of the day or about the last hunt; they recall the stirring past as it relates to such events as Malplaquet, and such persons as Prince Eugene and Marlborough. If the conversation does not flow freely, newspapers are at hand: meagre Dutch oourants, Rhenish journals, Frankfort sheets, reports, with all of which his Majesty richly provides himself, to learn what is going on in the exalted places of the world or in the heads of the editors. If even the newspapers delight not, Gundling, as buffoon, comes again on the scene. No human being ever had to bear coarser jokes, some of them of a practical kind, than this eternally drunken brute, full of waste erudition.—From the German of Moritz Busch,
^t spirit nf Ob gala.
hr writing these spiritual confessions, I wish to have it clearly understood that I am actuated solely by a desire to exhibit the truth.
I may be rewarded by scoffing only: so let it be; I shall not be the first example of the world against a man. I remember the fate of Galileo; and in the wake of so glorious a comet I can well dispense with the farthing rushlight fame of these degenerate days.
Spiritualism is a fact; it has now a strong existence that cannot be disputed; and if in my humble way I am enabled to impart a little vitality to that existence, I shall be content.
The world’s history contains many genuine cases of spiritual appearances; and I have added recently two or three cases just as genuine, and am now about to add one more. There is neither more or less of truth in this instance than in the others. With my hand on my heart, I assure my readers they are all equally true.
Poor Tod Doler! I remember him as a boy. Many and many a sly smoke have we had together—brown paper, cane, clover, and Tobacco. Of course we sometimes got caught and caned; but what cared we? If I were a schoolmaster, and wanted to cure a boy of smoking, I should invite him into my private room and make him smoke—give him a good strong dose of it; and then, when he was properly undone, let him go without a caning. Between what he suffered internally and what he escaped suffering externaUy, I believe that would cure him. Experience and gratitude would take him between them, and walk him safely through Nicotine’s deadly paths; and he would, I am persuaded, grow up as fierce an anti as ever brought down small thunders of applause in that little back room at Exeter Hall.
Tod, I am sorry to say, was never a credit to the lovers of the weed. He became a fast man—that is to say, in his case, he spent his money rather faster than he earned it. Billiard-rooms and music halls claimed Tod for their own. I missed him for several years, and often wondered if he had finished his career. One evening, being in the neighbourhood of Islington Green, I went into a public-house to see if I could do any good. A thin, seedy individual, with a very red and pimpled face, was leaning on the counter smoking a rank cigar. It was Tod; I did not recognise him, but he did me, and seized my hand with evident delight. We sat down and had a long conversation. I found he was the chairman of a select harmonic meeting held twice a week in a large room at the very house we were then in.
“Diddy, myoid friend,” said he, “to-night is one of our nights, and you must spend an hour with me for old acquaintance sake.” I could not well refuse. I spent the evening with him and his friends, and suffered in my head next day, if not in my conscience. I cannot here describe the select harmonic meeting. A meeting it was—select it was not; harmonic it was not. Tod’s duties were to sit at a table in a long room, made misty and almost unbearable with reeking Tobacco-smoke and steaming grog, keep order, smoke villainous cigars, drink hot, horrible whisky, call on different individuals to sing, and lead the choruses. “Poor Tod!” I thought, “ and this is what you have come to.” No wonder he looked dissipated and unwholesome. He told me he had been at this for two years, and did it as much to escape blue devils as anything else. I went to see him no more at that place, but met him in a purer air, and did my best to persuade him to give over his ruinous chairmanship.
I was at that time looking into some new phases of spiritualism,* and invited him to investigate them with me, so as to give his mind some occupation.
Suffice it to say that I gradually weaned Tod from his intemperance, and within three months from the time I met him at the harmonic meeting he was a confirmed spiritualist. He gave over drinking, and limited his smoking to just one pipe per day, and this he took after he was in bed. “I can manage all day long very well,” he said, “but I can’t go to sleep without the taste of it in my mouth.”
Of course Tod left all his former haunts and habits; and, as a natural result, was often with me. This I did not regret in the least, but rejoiced greatly that I had been the means of his reformation. I could not help seeing with sorrow that constitutionally Tod had ruined himself. Month by month he grew thinner and weaker; he was evidently near the end of his journey.
Under the circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that our thoughts took at times a mournful turn—at least mine did, I know. Tod, I will say, was more cheerful under the circumstances than I could have expected him to be. Spiritualism cheered him up. “It’s a new chance,” he used to say; “All my chances here on earth I have wasted; I must do better there.”
Tod grew worse and worse, weaker and weaker. “I shall come and see you, old friend,” he used to say; “Leam to expect me: I will not frighten you, the best friend I ever had. Diddy, old man, may I come? ”
“Yes,” I replied, “I shall certainly expect you.”
My poor friend got lower and lower: the spirits were consulted, and declared his to be a very bad case. Under these circumstances a skilful physician was called in; and he, although not a spiritualist, cheerfully endorsed the opinion of the spirits. He said the only thing that could be done for Tod was to supply him with plenty of stimulant; that might possibly wake up the feeble spark of the man’s existence into a kindly flame—for a time, at all events.
The stimulant was procured and given, and Tod liked it. He took it, as in the old degenerate days, “ Hot, with sugar.” He took a lot of it, too, without murmuring, and a lot more on the top of that, and continuous lots, so as to make a good high pile of stimulant; but, alas! the higher he piled the lower he sank, and at last the man died and was buried.
My grief at the loss of poor Tod was considerable. His promise, however, to visit me after his decease comforted me, and night after night I waited anxiously in my library, alone, to receive his spirit; but I waited in vain.
I could not understand this; my intimacy with the supernatural world was well established at the time of Tod’s decease. Many interviews with various spirits had completely done away with that foolish fear usually entertained by mortals, and I was as much at home in a company of ghosts as in a company of men and women. I therefore consulted one of my spiritual visitors about the mystery of Tod’s non-appearance, and he promised to look my friend up and remind him of his promise. This he did, as will now be shown.
Two nights after this consultation I sat again in my library. The gas was burning. I may say here that, although spirits are best seen in the dark, on account of a sort of phosphorescent appearance they diffuse, yet a powerful spiritualist like myself can, by practice, distinguish them equally as well in the broad glare of lighted gas. I always found it convenient to have a light, because some of my visitors were not particularly honest, and were not above annexing any small articles of value lying about. This may not be believed; but I entreat my readers to consult any work on spiritualism, and there you will find that the earthly nature clings to the disembodied spirit for a long time—but this is a digression. As the hour of twelve ceased striking, and the long reverberating “boom” died out in the chambers of my brain, I heard a series of scuffling bumps in the hall, that puzzled me.
The next moment the spirit of Tod Doler came in a zig-zag fashion into my room, and advanced towards me. I rose to greet him, but he suddenly doubled up and sank into a sitting position on the hearthrug, where he remained looking at me, with his finger laid along his nose.
I own that I was fairly bewildered, and could imagine no other reason for his eccentric conduct than this: that it was the spirit’s first visit to earth, and the journey was rather tiring.
“Tod,” I said, “it gives me great pleasure to see you here. You have passed the boundary line, and can no doubt, now you are sitting, like the famous old Telegraph Tartar, on a bit of carpet, enlighten me on some of the points I am anxious to have made plain. Where are you situated, my dear friend Tod?”
My strange visitor, after some little hesitation, lifted up his voice and sang:—
“ Down among the coals, Down among the coals, Down in a coal mine, underneath the ground.
Order! gents, order! ”
I was too much surprised to speak for a moment; I could only take this as an intimation that Tod as yet was in a very low sphere. Presently I ventured to ask: “Are you happy, Tod?”
Once again that melancholy and cracked tenor was heard to proceed from the swaying figure on my hearthrug:—
“ Shlap, bang! here we are again, Here we are again, here we are again; Shlap, bang! here we are again, Such jolly dogs are we!
Order! gents, order! Waiter! ’nother shmoke!”
This was very extraordinary. I had never met with such an incoherent spectre before, and I sat for several minutes trying to understand what it could all mean.
I ventured on one more question: “ Tod, have you anything to communicate to me, or any wish to give utterance to?”
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“Yes!” sang Tod’s ghost; “Wish I was a fish with a great big tail, Wish I was a fish with a great big tail! Chorus, please! Now zen, altogerrer! ” Here the spirit suddenly vanished with a hiccup, and I was left in a perfect maze of bewilderment. I went to bed mystified and rose the same, and could scarcely do my usual business for thinking of the extraordinary adventure of the previous night. I determined, however, to have an explanation, and so consulted a spirit I had long known as intelligent and communicative. The explanation I got was as follows, and I give it in the words of my informant:— * •» The late unfortunate owner of this eccentric spirit was in ^ ^t illness supplied with such powerful stimulants, that wfoen he shuffled off his mortal coil he was quite tipsy. The inebriated spirit is now wandering about the land of shadows in a most absurd and annoying fashion. In its spiritual depravity it is carried back to tlie old days when it sang foolish s°nP8, and it is now continually singing snatches of the almost forgotten choruses. Sobriety and repentance will evening' come’ ^u^ 8ome ^me must elapse, for the quantity of spirit the man took was enormous. Every drinker knows th dan£€r°f nixing spirits; and poor Dolor, without meaning t mixed his spirit so completely with the spirits he took, th t it W»s almost a wonder he did not catch alight when he sat so close ^° y°ur $re th® other evening.”	D. Goggs. gl^t ^afe of Jlo^nny talker. AFTER “CATNACH.” “fiFKKESWKLL.—John Walker, a labourer, was brought up on a warrant, . i 4 with three Java’ imprisonment, for smoking in the casual wanU rfui'Holboro Union.’— Daily Telegraph, Avgust 17,1877. Come all you grisiy casuals, give heed unto my song, ’Tisof a hact °^ injustice at Ho’born Union; One Johnny Walker, labourer, a most peaceful young man, Was unto quod conveyed away in a dismal prison van. Three days he’s got to suffer in that most unmoral place— In this here Christian country, 0! ain’t it a disgrace?— Because he blowed his ’Bacca in the ward that’s casual; It’s just the curse of poverty, the same as usual. Now it was all in Clerkenwell they hauled him ’fore the beak; It wasn’t much he said, because he hadn’t much to speak; The jolly old cove the magistrate he looked into his face, And says, “Young man, you must be incarcerated for three days.” We don’t like them ’ere guardians what makes these rules severe; We knows that they has feeds at times, but who pays for the beer? They smokes most proper smokes, they do, but think it is a sin To let poor Johnny Walker smoke to keep out the vermin. Now pigs is better off, d’ye see, than paupers day and night, Because they keeps on feeding ’em till full up to the throat; And when we go to Davy Jones they chucks us in a shell, While pigs in Christian stomachs do get Christian burial. But this here Johnny Walker case will stick in many a breast; Ours is only pauper feelings, but they’re human like the rest; The skilly’s not so wery rich, no more’s the blooming toke; We’ll have to strike; 0! ain’t it hard? three days, for just a smoke!	H. L. glashs ^mnasheb. Some attention has, in these days of shoddy, been evoked by the production of paraffin masks by spirits. As one of these manifestations involved the destruction of one of the best Tobacco pouches which I ever possessed, as well as that of an india-rubber toy belonging to my youngest infant, I would like to tell in detail how the manifestation was produced. A medium, who had the most profound objection to Tobacco poking, once called on me, and expressed his wiUingness to mt for paraffin moulds of spirit hands, feet, or faces. The mode of taking a paraffin cast, known to the initiated, is comparatively easy. Pieces of paraffin, finely chopped, are put into a pail full of hot water, where they melt with rapidity. Your hand is well oiled, and you drop it into the paraffin once or twice, when a glove-like substance is produced, which is an exact cast of your hand. A slit or two at the ball of the thumb will enable you to withdraw your mould from your hand, which will feel a little sore for a few hours afterwards. The hot paraffin has taken away all the minute hairs on the surface of your hand, leaving them all attached inside the mould, whence they can easily be brushed off with a feather brush. What you do with the paraffin mould next is easy. You pour in plaster of Paris, and in a few minutes you have a perfect cast of your hand. It is perfectly plain that the same procedure can be easily managed with feet or faces, with the slight difference that, the face being so much more sensitive than the hand, a far more disagreeable , smarting sensation will be experienced at the roots of the hair, and behind the ears. In fact, 1 do not recommend the neophyte to dip his	face in a hot paraffin pail, unless he is a very well paid medium. It is, no doubt, possible to do as the more intelligent Italian plaster cast makers do, and rub your hands, feet, or face with French chalk, which does not show in the dark; still it requires careful wiping away with a damp sponge, and I only recommend you to use it at dark stances. You now see how a paraffin cast can be taken of any thing. But when you have to play ghost you have to undertake a very difficult piece of acting. Supposing, for example, you want to produce a cast of the spirit’s foot, which shall be a duplication of your own. This is one of the easiest tricks out. Have the room judiciously darkened. The pail of melted paraffin is in the cabinet with you. You can make a great point of the fact that, your feet are constantly in view; by feet, of course, I mean boots. You must have elastic-sided boots for this trick. You can stick out one boot toe to the middle of the instep, so that every one present will be ready to swear that they see the feet of the medium all the while. Nothing is more easy than to slip your foot out of any elastic-sided boot. The trick is then just as easy to put your foot, which has been well French-chalked, into the hot paraffin. This is, of course, when your hands are tied. When they are free, the oil bottle is brought into requisition; which is, of course, easier. But there are sure to be sceptics present, who are willing only to accept those manifestations as genuine which are produced when the medium's hands are tied. For all the purposes of a tied medium, therefore, chalk is better than oil by long chalks. But supposing that you do not wish to produce a mere duplication of your own form, but a spirit cast, which shall be either larger or smaller than your own foot or hand, the problem is very easy. Go to a Tobacconist, and buy some fine india-rubber sheeting, as thin as you can procure it. It is usually sold in the form of Tobacco-pouches, and the quality of the rubber sold at the Tobacconist’s is much finer than that at the india-rubber manufacturer’s. This, when melted or slightly heated, is capable of receiving the impression of a foot exactly. All the delicate papilli and sweat glands of the skin can be seen impressed on the surface of the india-rubber. Every hair leaves its mark, and the most accurate impression of the most minute scar is at once preserved. You have, therefore, a perfect mould of the hand. Now, to produce by this a cast of a spirit hand. There are two modes of doing this: firstly, by taking a rough impress of the hand, and, it being hollow, keeping it outside your own hand, to which it acts as a glove. This procedure is only to be adopted on occasions when you wish to produce larger hands than your own. What is really much more easy is the production of smaller hands, or baby’s hands, which is effected by the cast having been previously taken of a small hand, which, being formed of thin india-rubber, can be easily carried within the mouth of the medium, as, in fact, the space occupied by it is less than one inch by half an inch, and its depth is very slight. If you are a lady, conceal this small object behind the fastening of your garter; if a gentleman, no boot is so tight or no stocking fits so closely that it will not contain it. It is one of the smallest and most unnoticeable objects, thanks to the discovery of the Americas, which placed Europeans at a level with all that is elastic in rubber and conscience. While on the subject of india-rubber manifestations, let me tell you how to be able to show a spirit in a bag. You must first get from a soda-water manufacturer, if possible, a partially used or half done with soda-water bag, made of india-rubber sheeting. If you are a medium, you will demand to have your own hands placed in this bag, so that the “spirit form” may appear inside it, and receive “mesmeric” influence from your body. To attain this desired for, if not desirable, result, you must have your own hands in the bag, which is filled with carbonic acid gas, of the sort used by manufacturers of aerated waters. While your hands are being placed in the bag you can slip from your sleeve three large corks, or rather bungs, of a larger size than those used for the largest pickle-bottles, into the bag. Carbonic acid gas being heavy, and air being light, the small quantity of air which may be accidentally in the bag, which it is impossible to exclude, will be rather an advantage to you than otherwise, for the light corks will naturally go up to the air within the bag. The difference between the specific gravity of the carbonic acid gas and that of the compressed air above it, will lead a number of observers to the conclusion that there is something jumping in the bag; and a credulous observer may see in the images of the three corks the similitude of a human face, or even of grasping fingers. There is nothing so unlikely that it will not find some respectable man, of good social standing, to vouch for it. The spirit form will, therefore, to such minds, be seen in the bag. It will move about, and will always have a tendency to rise to the surface. But turn your bag over rapidly, and, no matter how shallow it may have been made, a few seconds will elapse before the capsized corks will be able again to turn top uppermost. To conceal this momentary deficiency in the arrangement, the only way to help the exhibitor is “ gag.” A minute under spirit control will attract the attention of the spectators far away from the corks, which the devil (whom we do not invoke) can scarcely prevent from turning right side up in time. The fulfilment of this natural law may be considered simple, as the corks are not cut straight, but so as to be applied to imaginary bottle mouths. Like as an iceberg floats with four-fifths, at least, bulk below the water, the more conical apex of the cork will naturally come to the bottom, where, “full fathoms deep” in
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the carbonic acid gas, it may, if bungs have souls, meditate on the credulity of mankind. Alas, poor bung! ‘‘Down, down among the dead men” it will stop for a few seconds. But the spirit address must go on. As the voice is heard in the bag, a thing which a very easy piece of ventriloquism will accomplish, there can be no doubt that we have the creation of a spirit form. Now, with reference to the gag you must employ during this, which you must call an experiment, the first thing you ought to say is to vehemently call attention to the fact that the bag is full (which it isn't) of carbonic acid gas. You must say that carbonic acid gas by itself cannot support life. This is, as all chemists know, only relatively true; but if there is a chemist present you can slur over this argument. But to those who are entirely ignorant of chemistry you can insist very strongly that the bag is full of a fluid which is impossible to support life. Not even a fish could live in it; the proof of which assertion is that there are no fish inside it. But the sources of portraiture have not been sufficiently worked on by spiritualists. True that we are going to have the mask of Glaucus (not the gentleman who swopped his armour for that of Diomedes in the Iliad, and got the value of a new hat by the exchange), but another Glaucus, who comes out in Paris, and speaks excellent French. But everybody should know that there exists a dep6t in London of excellent classical “masks and faces,” which Mr. Charles Reade could scarcely claim the copyright in. You can obtain plenty of good portraits of municipal heroes, of village Hampdens, of Romans who might have been vestrymen in their day, only they look a little too handsome, and you can use these up without fear that anybody will recognise them as portraits. Any tidy old man with a beard will do for a Greek sage; and it comes, in the long run, even much cheaper than feeing the old orange-seller for so many hours* sitting without his favourite pipe. So I advise you to deal in the cheapest market, as the prices of paraffin spirit moulds will, I deliberately assure you, become much cheaper this winter. ^bc Smnh iloom ^abk. A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare. Edited by Horace Howard Furness. Vol, I. Borneo and Juliet; Vol. II. Macbeth. Philadelphia: Lippincott and Co. 1871 and 1873. These elaborate and handsome volumes are creditable alike to the Shakespearian scholarship and the typography of our relatives on the other side of the “ mill-pond.” Mr. Furness, in his Preface to Vol. I., points out that the Third Variorum Edition (that of 1821, in twenty vole., edited by the son of Dr. Johnson’s Boswell) is now left behind by the progress of criticism; and tells us that he “therefore decided to prepare a New Variorum, superseding that of 1821, in so far that it should contain all the notes in the latter, except such as the united judgments of all the editors since that date have decided to be valueless, together with all the original notes of these editors themselves.” He pays due tribute to the great Cambridge edition of Glover, Clark, and Wright, which “created an era in Shakespearian literature ;” but remarks that while it gives the readings of the old editions, it omits to note the adoption or rejection of them by the several subsequent editors. He repairs this omission, so that in disputed passages the reader may see at a glance on which side lies the weight of authority. In preparing’ the “Romeo and Juliet’’ (pp. xxiii. and 480., large 8vo.), Mr. Furness has collated in the Textual Notes forty-four editions, from the first five quartos and four folios to Knight, Singer, Dyce, Collier, Halliwell, and the Cambridge; he has gathered illustrative passages from a large mass of Shakespearian literature, English and foreign; he has quoted the most valuable commentaries of eminent and appreciative early and modern students; Coleridge, Hartley Coleridge, Hazlitt, Philardte Chasles, Francois Victor Hugo, H. Taine, Lessing, Guthe, Tieck,Gervinus,Mommsen, Ulrici, etc., etc.; and added elaborate discussions as to the text, the source of the plot, the date of the play, together with a synopsis of the tragi-comedia on the same story by Shakespeare’s great and marvellously prolific Spanish contemporary, Lope de Vega, in the “Castevlines y Monteses,” as translated and printed for private distribution by F. W. Cosens. For the “ Macbeth ” forty-five editions have been collated; and it is equally rich in illustrative passages and commentaries from the best sources. The Appendix, moreover, contains a reprint of D’Avenant’s version, 1674, and the witch-scenes from Middleton’s “Witch,” discussions on the source of the plot (with long citations from “Holinshed and Wintowni’s Cronykil"’) and date of the play. We find these volumes admirable in spirit, method, and arrangement, admirable for carefulness, patience, industry, and well-balanced intelligence; and we cordially wish the editor goodspeed in his immense undertaking, devoted, as it is, to the supreme genius common to Old and New England. The Works of Robert Burns. Volume First: Poetry. Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1877. Edited by William Scott Douglas. This is the first volume of a noble Library Edition of the entire works of Burns. To quote from the Preface: “ The poems and lyrics are arranged in strictly chronological order; the date of each composition, and the original channel of publication, are prominently recorded; and a very considerable number of the author’s undoubted productions now, for the first time, appear in a collective form, several of these having hitherto been excluded from the public eye. The author’s prose-writings will be similarly arranged; and these, taken in connection with the information supplied in the annotations, will afford to the reader two separate rehearsals of his thrilling life-drama told by himself—the one in poetry and song, and the other in the richest prose.” Mr. Scott Douglas tells us truly that he has served a long apprenticeship to the business on which he now ventures: ho edited the admirable Popular Edition brought out in 1871 by that real Burns enthusiast, M‘Kie, of Kilmarnock, of which a re-issue, “revised and extended,” in two vols.. called the Kilmarnock Edition, came forth last year. The volume under notice brings us down to 1786, st. 28. The glossarial notes are at the foot of each page: a good plan in any case, since people will not take the trouble to keep turning to the end of a book for the meaning of words—a plan almost essential in a work like this, issued volume by volume; though it will be well to give also a complete glossary at the end. Besides illustrations, there is a map of the district of Ayrshire more intimately associated with the Life and Works of the Poet, as at the close of the last century, the parishes distinguished by various colours. There are also some interesting fac-similes of the Poet’s autographs; the most interesting being those (pp. 298-9) of his inscriptions, partly effaced, in the two volumes of the Bible he gave to poor Highland Mary. If this great work be completed as it is here begun, it will be a monument highly honourable to both editor and publisher, because a monument worthy of Scotland’s glorious National Poet; and we hope then to have the opportunity of describing it at some length. In the meantime we cordially commend this Library Edition to those who can afford the luxury, and the revised and extended Kilmarnock, by the same editor, to those whose means are more limited.	Uetos of ©lb ^oohs. The Early English Text Society. [CONTINUATION.] 55.	Generydes, a Romance in Seven-line Stanzas. Edited from the unique paper MS. in Trinity College, Cambridge, (about 1440, a.d.) by W. Aldis Wright, Esq., M.A. Part L 56.	The “Gest Hystoriale" of the Destruction of Troy: an Alliterative Romance translated from Guido de Colonna's Hystoria Troiana ; now first edited from the unique MS. in the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow, with Introduction, Notes, and a Glossary, by the late Rev. George A. Panton and David Donaldson, Esq. Part II. This poem, long supposed to be a version of Joseph of Exeter’s Troy book, turned out on a more accurate examination to be a translation or paraphrase of Guido Colonna, who in turn appears to have based his story upon the great Roman de Troie of Benoit de Ste Maure. The editors believe that the author of this Troy book was a Scotchman, and even attempt to identify him with Huchowne of the Awle Ryale, whom they hold to be identical with the “ Gude Schir Hew of Eglinton.” The poem is of inordinate length, but its weariness is relieved by some passages—especially those descriptive of natural scenery—of genuine poetic beauty. The dialect of the work is West Midland, but with an admixture of more northern forms. There is a memorandum in the MS. (referred to at p. lv.,) which the editors have not correctly understood, but which shows that it formerly belonged to the family of the Chethams of Nuthurst, near Manchester. 57-59. Cursor Mundi (The Cursor of the World). A Northumbrian Poem of the 14th Century, in four versions, two of them Midland. Edited by the Rev. Richard Morris, LL.D. 1874-5. Parts I.—H. The production of the Cursor Mundi is a matter of which the Society may be justly proud. “For more than a hundred years,” as Mr. Furnivall declares, “has this poem been quoted, and its printing desired by scholars; but no man or club would take it up.” The E. E. T. S. has printed four versions, representing three distinct dialects, with a portion in a fourth dialect. This will show the importance of the work from a philological point of view. Of its quaint fancies and queer travesties of history, sacred and profane, we shall have to speak hereafter. 58.	The Blickling Homilies of the Tenth Century. From the Marquis of Lothian's unique MS., a.d., 971. Edited by the Rev. R. Morris, LL.D. Part I. 60.	Meditations on the Supper of our Lord, and the Hours of the Passion, by Cardinal John Bonaventura, the Seraphic Doctor. Drawn into English Verse by Robert Manning, of Brunne (about 1315-1330). Edited from the MSS. in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library, Oxford, with Introduction and Glossary by J. Meadows Cooper, F.R.H.S. Mr. Cooper supplies an interesting note on the dialect in which this translation of a famous book is written. His reasons for assigning the translation to Manning are well put, and as conclusive as the nature of the problem will allow. Bonaventura's work has been “drawn into English” even in our own day, by the Rev. F. Oakley. 61.	The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune, printed from fine MSS., with Illustrations from the Prophetic Literature of the 15th and 15th Centuries. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by James A. H. Murray, LL.D. The story of “ true Thomas ” is one that has charmed many minds. Poetic, heroic, legendary, and prophetic glamour has gathered round the name of Erceldouu. Dr. Murray has made great efforts to unravel the mystery, but his researches leave us still with very scanty facts as to the personality of the Scottish prophet. The name of Thomas Rymor de Erceldoune occurs as witness to an undated deed executed between 1162 and 1189. In 1294 Thomas de Ercildoun, filius et heres Thoma Bymour de Erciidoun, conveyed his lands in the village. Whether Rhymer was a family name or professional title is not clear. In 1286 he is said to have prophesied the dreadful death of Alexander HI. We hear of him in connection with the supposed death of Wallace, at Ayr, in 1296; but the deed already named assumes that Rymer was dead in 1294. His renown as a prophet was early spread abroad. His poetical powers are alluded to by Robert Manning, of Brunne. Scott considered him to be the author of the romance of “ Sir Tristan,” the writer of which speaks of being at Ertheldoun, and hearing the story from Thomas. The older German versions, however, name Thomas von Brittanien, who must have been much earlier. Whoever may have been the original author of the prophecies which go under the name of Thomas, it is very certain that they have undergone many modifications. It is clear from Dr. Murray’s masterly analysis, that they have been patched up from time to time to suit the views of political parties. The object of their framers has clearly been to use them as means of accomplishing the events they profess to foretell. Some portions of this prophetical nonsense have passed under the names of other authors. The most mysterious sentences in which the insight of Shipton and Nixon are shrouded will be found in these earlier vaticinations. The successive changes made in them furnish an instructive contribution to the history of human folly. 62.	Cursor Mundi (The Cursor of the World). A Northumbrian Poem of the 14th Century. Edited by the Rev. Richard Morris, M.A., LL.D. Part HI. This part of the Cursor Mundi is chiefly taken up with the biblical and apocryphal history of Jesus Christ. 63.	The Blickling Homilies of the Tenth Century. From the Marquis of Lothian's unique MS., a.d. 971. Edited by the Rev. R. Morris, LL.D. Part II. This part contains the homilies on the assumption of the Virgin Mary, who “had a soul seven times brighter than snow,” St. John the Baptist, St. Peter, and St. Paul, Dedication of St. Michael's and St. Martin’s Churches, and St. Andrew. 64.	Emblemes and Epigrames. [a.d. 1600, by Francis Thynne, Lancaster Herald, Author of Animadversions on Speght's Edition of Chaucer's Workes, 1598, etc.] Edited by F. J. Fumivall, M.A., Camb. There is no poetry about these Emblems, and very little polish or point about the Epigrams, but they serve to show the temper of the times. There are many groans in them of bad wives, hints of jovial gatherings at the “Rose within Newgate,” assertions of the corruptibility of judges as a matter notorious, and notices of Chaucer, Spenser, Gascoigne, Arthur Golding, Leland, and Camden.
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NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. We cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; and veto not hold ourselves responsible for loss.	SMOKING: WHEN INJURIOUS, WHEN INNOCUOUS, WHEN BENEFICIAL, WITH COMPENDIUM OP THE TEMPERAMENTS, SHOWING HOW THEY ABE INFLUENCED BY TOE JLGGO
COPE’S ARCTIC CARD. DISCOVERY of the NORTH POLE.	BY	’ J. CARRICK MURRAY, M.D., F.A.I., UmeatU^po^TuM. Price Is. Free by Post. Is. Ud. London: Simpkin, Marshall, A Co. Newcastle-on-Tyne: D.H. Wilson.
ARRIVAL OF THE POLE IN ENGLAND. goliteriben to the “Tobacco Plant" for 1877 win receive a copy of the Aj^ge Card, carefully packed upon a roller, by forwarding 6d. to pay carriage, p^ 0 Non-Subscribers, 1/-. Subscription for “ Tobacco Plant ” S/- per BBUnat poet free. Subscription for “ Tobacco Plant ” and Arctic Card, publishing Office:—10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool,	Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4s. ®^t printers’ Register, A. JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOR GREAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND THE COLONIES. THE PRINTERS' REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Home and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India, China, Canada, Ac.; and it affords the best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August, 1875. Address—The Editor, St. Bride Street, London, E.C. WORKS on TOBACCO, SNUFF, Ac.—Booksellers having Books on Tobacco, Snuff, Ac, or Magazines, Journals, or Newspapers containing articles on the subject, are invited to report such to the Office of COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
YORK TOBACCO LEAF, Organ of the Tobacco N Trade of the United States. Published weekly. R hecHp^on, 20/- per Annum, post free to any part of the TTaitod. Kingdom* Sol© Agents for the United Kingdom— pros. A Co., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by whom Srt^ment8 ^^ Subscriptions will be received. Specimen copy a®111 foriO081^^^		
The Richmond Cavendish Company, Limited, BONDED TOBACCO WORKS, ROBERTS STREET, PAISLEY STREET, AND GREENOCK STREET, LIVERPOOL. Manufacturers, IN BOND, of All Descriptions of TOBACCO, for Ship Stores and for Exportation. SPECIAL BRANDS. DARK QUARTERS.	TENS.	CUT CAVENDISH. “NATIONAL EAGLE,”	“WYOMING,”	"SPRING FLOWERS,” “SANCHO PANZA,”	“EXPRESS,”	"MOSS ROSE,” "UNION.”	“ ANCHOR.”	“ N EPTU N E.” 80LEMANUFACTURERSOFTHECELEBRATED “RICHMOND SMOKING MIXTURE.” Always on Hand, a Large Stock of Pressed Tobacco, Bright Cavendish in All Sizes, and a Well-selected Stock of American Manufactured Cavendish. Price Llets on Application.	'	
Twopenny Cigar.	The Prairie Brand.
Threepenny Cigar. The Burgomaster Brand.	
Fourpenny Cigar.	St. George’s Brand.
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84	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[September, 1877.
COPE BROTHERS & CO., Cigar Makers, Snuff Grinders, Tobacco Cutters, i8iwfact(jp@P8 ©f T®ba©e® fw ix^®Haft©n* and) Qav©md)tshi Pat©^©©©, LORD NELSON STREET, LIVERPOOL.
PRICE LISTS SUPPLIED TO THE TRADE ON APPLICATION.
ENGLISH-MADE CIGARS.
ENGLISH-MADE CIGARS have so long been sold under Foreign disguises that it has become an established delusion among Smokers that nothing can be good but what is Havana. Under this error everything with a Spanish title is accepted as the genuine article; while undisguised British goods, whatever the superiority of the quality, are comparatively neglected. Smokers are not to blame for this. They cannot be expected always to bear in mind the fact that three-fourths of the Cigars consumed in these kingdoms are made in England, and from Tobacco as good as that used for the Foreign-made Havanas. The only persons to blame for this pernicious system are the manufacturers who have continued an unworthy custom of sending out their goods branded and labelled with Spanish names, sometimes real, sometimes imaginary—the English Cigar maker often paying more attention to the devices of his labels than to the quality of his Cigars. In this way he relieves himself of responsibility for the reputation of his goods, and is content to leave such points as flavour and excellence of make in abeyance, so long as the Cigars are accepted by the public under their Foreign title. In time, however, Smokers discover that the article they have been buying is not what they supposed; and then the manufacturer simply invents a fresh brand and label, which in turn is superseded by another device; and so brands and labels are multiplied to the hopeless perplexity of the Smoker, who, despairing of getting anything reliable in the way of a Cigar at a moderate price, takes to Cut Tobacco. He knows that in this he has something to guide him to a satisfactory „ choice, for he can obtain an English manufactured article of reputed merit, bearing the real maker’s name and trade mark.
This anomaly—that while in their Cut Tobaccos English manufacturers stand pre-eminent, English-made Cigars are in corresponding disfavour with Smokers—has convinced us, and we believe the conviction will be shared by our customers, that the time has fully arrived for making a change in the system. Cigars at most moderate prices, and quite equal in quality to the general run of Havana-made goods, can be produced in English Factories. It is, therefore, only just, alike to the Smoker and the Manufacturer, that English Cigars should be offered as such, upon their merits. In this Factory, where we have, as our customers know, for many years been producing our favourite English brands, the experiment has succeeded, and we have every reason to desire an extension of it; and with the view of more largely inaugurating the new system, we are now producing Cigars made and matured in our own Factory, and their genuineness as such is vouched for by a small, neat label, bearing our name, round each Cigar.
ALSO IN SHILLING BUNDLES CONTAINING SIX CIGARS, MADE UP INTO PACKETS OF 16 BUNDLES.
ALSO IN CEDAR CASES CONTAINING 96 SHILLING BUNDLES.
ALSO, IN DOUBLE CASES, POLISHED CEDAR, VERY HANDSOME AND USEFUL, WITH LOCK AND KEY,. CONTAINING 200 SHILLING BUNDLES.
COPE BROTHERS & CO.
Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
Printed and Published for the Proprietors at the Office, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by John Frasir, of 1, Spekeland Road, Edge-Hill, Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster.
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INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
?i-^nl	0CTbBER,^877?	ras^
^t lisforg anb IP&Hosop^j of Tobacco.
IV.
The Dutch are said to have been the first who introduced smoking and snuffing into Prussia and Brandenburg. Of Tobacco, as a source of public revenue (in Prussia), men* tion is first niade in the tax records of 1632, according to which, in Berlin, a chest of Tobacco had to pay two groschen. (Agroschenis the twenty-fourth part of a thaler.) When, in 1658, a new scheme of taxation came into operation in Prussia, the duty on Brazilian Tobacco was fixed at four groschen the pound. In the later tax ordinances and records Tobacco figures, but only as an imported article; for the cultivation of the plant in the country itself was not permitted. Gradually, however, the prohibitions were discontinued; and after a brief lapse of time the barren soil of the Mark Brandenburg, like the rich soil of the Palatinate, could boast of being a producer of Tobacco. This home-grown Tobacco was worked by the Leipsic fabricants into various “fine sorts,” which were tolerably dear, but scarcely better than that which thirty years ago was called genuine “ Reitertabak ” or “ Rothstrich, three times round the church for a dreier.’’ (A dreier is the ninety-sixth part of a thaler).
Thus, then, we have seen that, spite of manifold hindrances, Tobacco has extended its dominion over all portions of the earth, and over all classes of men. Smoking and snuffing hold universal sway in Europe. The whole of East and West Asia, from the Bay of Bengal and the Malayan Spice Islands to the Polar Sea, two tolerably large regions excepted, smokes, whether belonging to Islam, to the Brah-minical religion, or to Buddhism—smokes, too, immensely. The same statement is applicable to Africa, where many negroes would rather starve than give up the plant which has become a passion to them, and where the Hottentots offer their wives for Tobacco; and, when Tobacco is wholly lacking, fill the pipe with a surrogate consisting of the dried excrement of the elephant or the rhinoceros. Loathsome custom! Nevertheless “ it burns and gives smoke like noble Tobacco.” Things do not wear a lovelier aspect in Nnbia. Here a sort of smoking material is in signal favour. It is called Tumbak Gureja, or cake Tobacco, is in hard cakes of a greenish colour, and consists of Tobacco, honey, and the ^me and excrement of oxen. In some districts of the Habesch (Africa), Tobacco is abhorred as a Mahometan abomination; and an English traveller was refused entrance into a church “because his people have the habit of drinking coffee and smoking Tobacco.’’ North America and South America are likewise zealously devoted to the pipe and the ®f?ar; and here, as in the East, both sexes, and from the highest class to the lowest, yield gladly to the glamour of Tobacco. Finally, Australia and the Islands of the South 8ea learned long ago to appreciate the raptures of Tobacco. A map printed in colours, and exhibiting the ethnographical facts given above, would present to us only a few small islands from which the clouds of Tobacco do not ascend; and such singular and solitary points are inhabited by human beings who in other respects deserve the names of comical animals and uncultivated mortals.
Verily, among the sons of men who have been converted to the evangel of Tobacco there are, as we have seen, some strange and even repulsive Nicotian practices; and some additional examples, astonishing and almost incredible, may be given of the fact. The Patagonian lights a pipe, throws himself down with his face toward the ground, blows toward
each of the four points of the compass a cloud of smoke, murmurs a prayer, then swallows at last several mouthfuls of smoke. Therefrom arises a kind of intoxication which continues for several minutes, and is accompanied by partial insensibility. When the intoxication has passed away the Patagonian takes a draught of water, and proceeds without intermission with this smoking business or amusement. The Negritos in Luzon (one of the Philippines) scarcely ever stop smoking cigars, and have besides, according to A. B. Meyer, the odd custom of placing the lighted end of the cigar in the mouth. Schlagintweit, when speaking of Upper India, informs us that the mountaineers there, when they want to smoke, make two small hollows in the ground, which they connect with each other about two inches under the ground. In the one hollow is put Tobacco, along with some burning charcoal; on the other they place their mouth, in order to inhale the smoke of the glowing Tobacco. In the snowy regions of the Himalaya these tiny smoking tunnels are made in the frozen snow. Here it is not found a difficult thing, with good charcoal, to keep the Tobacco burning; and Schlagintweit states that smoking in this way was to him very pleasant. Of very simple pipes certain Berber tribes make use—namely, the hollow bones of sheep and of goats. Into one end of the bone the Tobacco is put; the other forms the mouthpiece of the smoker. Among the Bedueens of Albu Arisch, the custom prevails of strewing snuff on the tongue and of then pressing it into the gums with a pencil. The inhabitants of the Cook peninsula, in Australia, are passionate smokers. When not able to procure Tobacco, they smoke the dried leaves of the Eugenia plant. The pipe, a bamboo three feet and a-half long, and four inches in diameter, passes round the company after one of the persons present has filled it with smoke from a tube. Jardin, who mentions the circumstance, says that a man after a single draw falls down and remains for several minutes in a state of complete stupefaction.
Snuffing and chewing, like smoking, extensively prevail, not merely among civilised, but among savage and half savage nations, and often in the most singular forms. The poor man among the Abantus, when unable to obtain the elaborately adorned snuff-box which the rich men of his tribe carry about with them, takes refuge in the odd device of rubbing the snuff into a piece of skin thickly covered with hair, and therefrom he inhales the fine grains into his nose. Among the Moschanas, a weak and enervated tribe of Africa, Mdnch saw the noses often disfigured through the enormous consumption of snuff. The people had crammed the nostrils so full, that the mass had to be dug out again with small iron or ivory spoons. Burton states that the Wadschidschi, dwelling by the banks of the Taganyika Lake, neither chew, nor snuff, nor smoke their Tobacco, and yet they have invented a way of enjoying it. They carry always with them a small earthen pot, a gourd, or an antelope’s horn, filled with Tobacco. From time to time the savage pours water into the vessel, and presses from the Tobacco thus softened the juice; takes of this a handful and draws it up into his nose, and keeps it there for some time by means of wooden pegs.
All South African tribes, especially the Caffres, are passionate snuffers. The Caffres, however, seldom get the snuff as fine and strong as they wish. They, therefore, rub the already prepared mass between stones, and mix it with a kind of pepper and some ashes.
Besides our sailors and the Yankees, up to their senators and their presidents, zealous adorers of the quid are the inhabitants of the Indian Archipelego, the Tschuktschen in East Siberia, the Mogrebin of Barbary and Morocco, and the Nubians. The blacks in Dschesire mix their Tobacco with
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water and natron, bo as to form a kind of pap, which they call bucka. Of this they take from a vessel a quantity into their mouth, and roll it about for a time with their tongue. Invitations are given to regular bucka parties, just as with us friends invite friends to coffee and tea parties. It is an ugly fact, but nevertheless a fact, that in Paraguay it is chiefly the fair sex which is devoted to chewing, and strangers and travellers are seized by a curious emotion when, on entering a house, a lady, dressed in satin and adorned with precious stones, floats toward them, and, before holding out her Ynouth to be kissed—a kiss being here regarded as a token of welcome to a visitor—pulls with the tips of her rosy Angers the beloved Tobacco ball from the cheek pouch.
If Tobacco is, perhaps, chewed by the Yankees only for the purpose of furnishing more abundant material for spitting, and for the exercise of a skill which enables good shots to knock down flies and bumble-bees, there are some children of men who go so far as even to swallow the Tobacco. The transition to these horrors is formed by the so-called “Tobacco dippers,” in the south of the North American Union. These “Tobacco dippers” are women who, abomination of abominations, chew snuff. It is calculated that in Virginia, Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama there are at least a hundred thousand “ Tobacco dippers,” and that they consume more than two thousand pounds of Tobacco. The dippers in general take a small wooden stick, moisten it, dip it into the snuff of their snuff-box, and rub into the gaps between the teeth, the dark brown powder clinging to the stick, and there they let it remain till it has lost its pungency. Others hold the stick covered with Tobacco in their mouth, and suck it as children suck a stalk of barley-sugar. Certain South American tribes literally eat the Tobacco cut into small pieces, and the same thing is stated respecting the Tschuk-tschen. Finally, the climax of abominableness, if Jonbert tells the truth, is attained by certain Esquimaux tribes. That traveller says:—“When a stranger arrives in Greenland he immediately sees himself surrounded by a multitude of natives, who ask his permission to drink that empyreumatic oil which remains in the shank of his pipe. And it is stated that the Greenlanders smoke for no other purpose than to create for themselves the enjoyment of swallowing greedily that nasty oil which is so disgusting to smokers.”
An American newspaper calculates the entire mass of Tobacco which is annually consumed in smoking, in snuffing, and in chewing on the earth at 4000 millions of pounds: manifestly too high an estimate for from twelve to fifteen hundred millions of inhabitants. Let us take the half as the more probable, and let us suppose the Tobacco leaves transformed into roll Tobacco, a Tobacco serpent is created which, with a diameter of two inches, and following the direction of the equator, could wind itself round the earth thirty times. Let us suppose that the Tobacco is formed into tablets similar to the chocolate tablets, and which, indeed, is the shape which the chewing Tobacco of sailors and Yankees takes, and we have a colossal pile worthy of being placed beside the third largest of the Pyramids of Gizeh, that of the Mykerinos, and as massive and as high as that old regal edifice. Let us grind all the Tobacco into snuff, and let us picture to ourselves the sad case that an evil equinoctial wind one fine morning blows the snuff over the ocean and showers it on one of our small German States, we are certain more than one of the Lilliputian States would have much difficulty in recovering its existence by shovelling away the snuff.
Xerxes caused the sea to be scourged because it would not obey his will. James I., in the excess of his absolute and arbitrary temper, flourished the whip against the spirit of Tobacco. To what a degree of wrath would the soul-barometer of this royal Misokapnus rise if he were to start from the dead, and to hear from his Minister of Finance that his England, which in 1622 brought from Virginia sixty thousand pounds of the “Stygian Reek-Plant,” had meanwhile taken such enormous strides in godlessness that it now imported sixty million pounds thereof; consequently a thousand times as much of the plant sacred to the name of Raleigh, whom the king hated, as came in during the reign of the crowned foe of Tobacco! What a sour look the face of James would have if his Minister for Foreign Affairs told him that one of the successors of the monarch, George IV., had spent 8205 pounds sterling on snuff-boxes, which at his coronation were given to foreign ambassadors, and that at all courts it had become a custom to give such snuff-boxes set in brilliants; that these snuff-boxes have almost attained a rank equal to that of an order of knighthood or like order, and that there are even many persons, whom we must suppose to be destitute of morality and piety, who prefer a fine snuff-box to an order three florins in value I And how full of indignation and disquiet would Misokapnus Rex he down again in his grave, after learning that in the whole of wide Europe, so far as the kind sun shines on men, pipes and cigars, snuffs and quids hold happy sway; that, with the exception of the humble and somewhat vulgar quid, they stand near thrones as banishers of pain and sweeteners of time; that as worthy guests they are honoured at nearly every social gathering; and that the noble plant of Havana helps to adorn those delicious little suppers at which cheerful sages enjoy that light which, spite of obscurantists and pedants, throws grander and brighter rays into all domains of human development.—From the German of Moritz Busch.
®^c Nicotian ^o£as-®irfer.
[From the German of Leistner.]
I care not for companions, Who know my nature not;
Who praise me when I’m present— Me absent mock and blot.
I seek not pretty children, Who tender to me cling; But cling not less to blockheads That presents to them fling.
Why should I love the gabble At coffee and at tea?
The talking makes me weary, The drinking poisons me.
Forth march I to the forest, Stroll on where no one goes;
The lonely tavern enter, Which bright on green hills glows.
The host is old and surly, Half deaf and gladly dumb;
To goers and to comers
He equally is glum;
To drink no soul inviteth,
Asks no one to remain;
But at a sign the slightest
The noblest wine we gain.
Enthroned in cosy corner, I drink, and drink, and gaze;
Watch, with a glance of rapture, The Neckar’s silver maze;
Behold above dark pine trees, The birch’s lighter green;
Behold cliffs fierce and awful, Behold the meadow’s sheen.
All is so still and holy, As lay earth in a dream;
My visions and my musings Part of that slumber seem.
Scarce hear I when the sparrows
Come near me shy and sly; Half bold they hop and twitter, Half dread my drowsy eye.
And there I sit, all joyous, No other pastime need Than smoking, drinking, smoking, And thoughts that fancies breed.
Is finished flask the second,
Is flask the third near done; And of cigars, my treasure, Remaineth only one.
Then shoots through my enjoyment
The one sharp drop of gall: The host—the cur, the heathen—
On ’Baccy singeth small.
Not one cigar makes fragrant
His cupboards or his chests;
Then as an idiot curse him, Divine Nicotian breasts I
I gulp the last sweet mouthful,
I light my last cigar;
I ramble home, contented, And laugh at peace and war.
^okucco Smoke unit Spiritualism.
n.—A DARK SEANCE.
I am a spirit medium. My uncle was a celebrated delineator of negro character, and every music hall in England has rung with the triumphant plaudits which attended his songs. I am now by profession a medium. I am writing these letters from a comfortable water-cure establishment, where the surroundings are pleasant, the company agreeable, and the “controls,” from whom I have escaped, absent.
Let me now, while I fill my pipe, explain how I managed to do the folks in London. I had to secure my audience. This was easy: a dozen respectable people are to be found nearly everywhere. Then to commence operations. Sometimes there were disagreeable sceptics present, who would insist on fastening my hands behind my back. To these I always could say that their presence “hindered the manifestations,” which was quite true. When they were got rid of, I was placed in a cabinet and securely tied by some of the ladies and gentlemen present; none of these, I am bound to say, were accomplices in what I did, and all were actuated simply by a desire to “place themselves in communion with the spirit world.” How they did it—or, rather, how I did it for them, and did them too, we shall now see. Raps are easily produced, and I
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gave them up early. They were too genuine and uninteresting for serious investigators. They wanted materialisations, and would have a ghost who was not in the habit of saying “Touch not, handle not.” So, as there was a distinct demand, I thought I would contribute some supply. The difficulty, however, was, not to do the trick in the same way as other mediums do. The poor rascal who used to stand with one foot on a chair, and “levitate” like Cerito, has gone to some place from which he can never return again as a bond fide traveller. The next thing was to get up a form manifestation . or materialisation. To do this, and to do this well, I had not 1 recourse to the same expedient as the impostor who at Liverpool came out of the cabinet with a newspaper wrapped round his leg8, and got testimonialised for his rascality. No, I was not born yesterday, and can do much better; besides, lam worth to spiritualists at least twice as much money as that poor devil, and can charge at least double for any of my seance*. Let me now show you how I do it. “ They all do it.” In my trouser legs is a construction of iron umbrella-rods and whalebone. ItmensUre8’ when folded up, exactly eight inches by three; and & little contrivance will enable me to affix two small lead weights, which I carry in my trousers pockets, and which weigh only a pound each. When this structure is unfolded it make8 a very respectable ghost, if you only put a mask of light point°d rnuslin atop. Such masks had much better be made *^ home; you cannot buy them now, except, perhaps, at sott>e old-fashioned French toy dealer’s. On this mask nut a Dundreary moustache and whiskers, and you have a mamficent ^'ur^ Tou can ^ him go outside the cabinet tea distance of three or four feet, if you only hold the thicker end of the transverse umbrella rod quite straight. My mind is however, sorely exercised about one thing: I can make ^°r so my guides call him) bow easily enough; but he always bows, like Sir Pertinax Macsycophant, from the Joint in the whalebone immediately above the legs. This ia bad anatomy. Do, sir, out of the love you bear to the spirit world, help me to improve my materialisation. I dare not put another joint in the back, below my transverse umbrella-rod, as it would weaken the whole structure, which of itself, if I hft it off the floor, is limp enough. Do you not think that some arrangement might be made by which poor Gabdallah might learn deportment? Where is the spirit of thelateMr. Turveydrop? Then, what has my ghost to do? He has merely to walk about in front of the cabinet. But supposing a sceptic doubts whether poor Gabdallah is a living ghost, nothing can be more easv than to convince his unhappy mind of the blessed truths of Spiritualism. The moment he expresses his doubt, the spirit must retire with rapidity behind the curtain, and, presto! the clothes go on myself. The mask is supported above my head with my left hand, for Gabdallah being a ghost who was laid in the Red Sea, has, consequently, only one arm. You see the logical deduction. If not, you cannot be a true spiritualist. I now, then, come to the front, and appear before the curtain to receive the approbation which is my due. I can toss chairs, jump on and over them, lift any heavy article of furniture, or punch anybody’s head. Supposing that a sceptic wishes to see me transform to another spiritform, nothing is more easy. But this change must be done with the light a little turned down. Fall prone on your face on the floor; it is the proper thing for Turks to do when saying their prayers, and will be quite in character. Cover your face with the end of the drapery, slip down the muslin mask, put it in your mouth if you like (it can’t be used twice in the same day without starching), put a little white skull cap on your head, and come out as the spirit of the clown Sammy. Clowns, at least in the spirit world, always wear skullcaps. Now, what has Sammy to do? Of course, being a clown, he is in tights. To show this you must get rid of the white drapery as soon as you can. So long as it goes dear into the back of the cabinet it does not matter; but never, 0 never, leave an end hanging out from beneath the curtain, especially when “ Sammy” is in front of it doing his business! Let me, therefore, explain some of the dangers to which I am often exposed. There is a little bit of broken hair m each of my eyebrows; of course, Sammy has the same. I not advise Sammy, when you stand Sam at a future time to stop too long in front of the curtain. Please lower the gas (no, “quarter gas,” you prying Yankee!), and let darkness be visible for a few minutes. Then Sammy himself will do the bghting business for us. This is cheap and small. You can ft tin toy bull’s-eye lantern for one and threepence. In “°nt of the lens you must have a plate of glass, covered with Brunswick black. From this you may scrape the letters forming the word “ Sammy;” but I implore you be sure that you spell them correctly. Spelling is not the forte always of mediums, at least unless they are fully “developed.” You must also be very careful always to place the letters level with one another. If, as one of my predecessors did, you manage the front of your lantern with loose stencils, you will surely come to grief. Do not let the lamp be seen too long. Hold it at arm’s length to the faces of all the company, but keep your own drapery, at least your “tights,” well out of the grasp of the hands of the intruding sceptic. You had better do the “Black Warrior” business next. This is very ample. Please obey Lady Macbeth, and “ put out the light” entirely. You can then run about at your leisure, touch anyone you like, and quickly step back. Your face will appear very large, if you suddenly show it in front of any	person, only do not dp it so near as to induce him to notice the defect in your eyebrows. In fact the “ Black Warrior,” in spite of the way in which his face has been rubbed with phosphorus, is like a limited liability company, and will not bear too close inspection. You must, therefore, not prolong this piece of business for too long a time. But the sooner our stance is brought to a conclusion the better. Some gentle raps must be heard (I will tell you at a future time how these are managed); they are about the most genuine things I can do, yet I cannot make out how I do them. The alphabet must be recited very slowly by a member of the circle. If done quickly I shall be discomposed. Raps will at once be heard by everyone at some particular letter of the alphabet. Those I usually selected are P 0, which some sceptics translate “potatoes,” others “pope,” or “porridge,” and some of the more advanced “Peninsular and Oriental.” It is best, however, to stop at P 0, as you will safely find a majority of inquirers who are quite satisfied that P 0 means “ power exhausted.” Please don’t go further than the first two letters, as I cannot yet do “exhausted.” I spell it phonetically, without the h, as I contend on moral and legal grounds the spirit of a departed clown has a perfect right to do. Some folks say this is wrong, some folks do; and I am uncertain myself. In fact, I feel like the man who in an astronomical examination was asked whether the sun went round the earth or the earth went round the sun, and replied that England was a free country; that our martyrs for the cause of constitutional government had won many rights for the people; that any assumption of infallibility in favour of any doctrine for which Hampden had bird on the scaffold and Lord W. Russell on the field, was inopportune in the present half of the nineteenth century; and therefore, with a view to ease the tender consciences of those who demurred to an intolerant or precise definition, he would reply that sometimes the earth went round the sun and sometimes the sun went round the earth, in deference to the opinions of a previously ascertained Parliamentary majority. So please let me have liberty of opinion, and spell exhausted as I choose. And now, kind reader, farewell. I have shown you how to do materialisation. You may profit by my teachings, if you estimate at its true value the advice of Danton, “ L’audace, 1’audace, et toujours 1’audace.” By-and-by I shall reveal to you more, especially on the subject of trance addresses and mediums controlled by 700-year-old Chinamen. But I have made a ghost for you, and you must not expect him all at once to be endowed with the gift of speech. If any unattached or detached single man will please to follow my injunctions, he will be a splendid materialising medium. In fact, if the information which I have now gratuitously given to you is acted on, every man may be his own ghost, and you may have manifestations as you like. But profit by the experience of Mrs. Gamp when Betsey Prig departed abruptly from her presence, and never let the curtain fall till the first act at least of the play is performed. |Jipes of ^ater ^ears. IX.—A LITTLE PINK NOTE. RODDY AS A FIDDLER. RODDY ON WIDOWS. It was the tiniest wee bit of a note, and Roddy was there when it came. It was not a three-cornered note. The pretty fingers that penned it were above sending three-cornered notes. I know that a three-cornered note is the wedge used by some women to force open the hearts of the bachelor brotherhood; but I think, as a rule, three-cornered notes emanate from three-cornered intellects. So I repeat, this was not a three-cornered note. Just a tiny wee note in a tiny wee envelope; pink in complexion, not scented, but breathing of sweetness, as if for some time previous it had been shipmates with something very nice indeed, Now we sailor-men, inasmuch as our duty leads us a-roving at times in localities that are, to say the least, questionable, are in the habit for purse-safety’s sake to instruct our tailors to place pockets in that portion of our waistcoats which medical men would term the precordial. I possessed such a pocket, and it is the funniest thing in the world that that wee pink note, as soon as read, found itself inside that safety valve. Roddy was there, but I don’t think that Roddy saw the action. I’m as bashful on the subject as a big schoolboy, and even until this day I have not liked to ask him. And who was the delicate note from, think you, the caligraphy of which was as light and graceful as if a female fairy had traced the characters? Ah! you guess; then it wa* from the widow—merely a line, or maybe two, to ask how “my poor wounded hand” did, and to beg my acceptance of a pot of white currant jelly. Her maid brought the note and the jam ; and oh! how different her maid was to my Tick—so neat, so tidy, so “ caller ” and clean, with such a saucy little “ cockernonie” stuck right on the top of her back hair. Well, of course, I gave the little rogue a kiss and sixpence; but didn’t I burn to say “there dear, take that home to your mistress.” N.B.—I mean the kiss, not the sixpence. I’ll tell you what we were doing. Roddy and I, when the widow's maid arrived. It war gloaming. Too dark to read, too soon to draw the blinds. The moon was out, and quite ready to go on duty as soon as the god of day chose to withdraw his last battalion of beams
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from beyond the hill. Roddy was by the open window in an easy chair, pipe in mouth, and fiddle in hand, for it was one of our musical evenings, and I was not far from his side. But you will be very far wrong, reader, if you imagine that these musical evenings were in any way premeditated. They grew upon us as it were, something in the air, in the scene, or in the state of our own feelings, rendered music at times a necessity, and Roddy would put out his hand and take up the fiddle as quietly and mechanically as he did his pipe. Now, at the canny hour of e’en, Roddy, fiddle in hand, was simply complete. An accomplished player, did you ask? Perhaps not—certainly no trick player. But the fiddle— 0 I call it not a violin—the fiddle, when in Roddy’s hands, spoke and sang. It was a treat to hear him play some melting Irish melody. A good rider ought to seem part and parcel of the horse he bestrides. Roddy seems part and parcel of the instrument in his grasp. Bending lovingly over it, his white beard floating on its breast, nay, but if you must have the whole truth, 'smoking down on it at the same time; and, inspired the fiddle truly was, either by Roddy’s genius or Roddy’s pipe, or perhaps by both. “ Give me,” said Roddy, 44 the * Lyric Gems of Scotland,’ ” Yes, gems indeed, Roddy, my friend; that little, green, gilt edged, unpretending volume contains the best collection of Scottish song ever chosen, the sweetest of words from the sweetest of poets, wedded to melodies that are beyond all praise. 44 Roddy,” said I, 44 there is a depth of feeling in that song * My Jeanie’s nae mair,’ which I do believe none other the immortal Hume ever composed possesses, and I won’t even except4 Afton Water.’ Play it again, Roddy, and put on the mute.” Roddy’s mute was simply an old tortoiseshell comb; but even this softened the tones, and rendered the music ever so much more dreamy and sweet. “Do you think, Roddy,” I continued, when the last wailing note had ceased, “that the living ever mourn the dead with a sorrow like that expressed in this song—an old man’s lament for his aged wife. But why should I ask, true love never ages; didn’t Horace say of his wife, 4To me thy wrinkles have more charm than smoother face ?’ But who was or is Miss Young, the author of the words? A poetess anyhow, if she never wrote another line than those:— 41 hear na her silvery voice ring thro’ the hallan, Wi* music as sweet as the salt simmer air; Nor hear her licht fitfa’ steal roun’ in the gloamin; And ilk thing looks dreary since Jeanie’s nae mair. The sunbeams shoot o’er the ocean’s dark bosom, Like glints o’ the glory that’s shinin’ up by, An’ the ebb o’ the waves comes like sabs o’ emotion, Betiding the time I maun heave my last sigh.’ ” It was just while i^peating the last line, and feeling altogether in a most pleasantly melancholy frame of mind, that two modest knocks “cam’ to oor ha’ door,” and presently enter Bridget,44 Which I was to give ye this note, sir, and a pot o’ pickles or sommut.” I declare to you, reader, Bridget never looked less interesting nor more vulgar to me than she did at that moment, with her 44 pot o’ pickles or sommut.” You may be sure I did not permit the delicate pink missive to rest long in her hand, 44 And now, Roddy, old man,” I cried, as I returned from dismissing the widow’s maid, and bestowing a ringing slap on my friends shoulder as I spoke, 44 give us something cheery, something lively, you know.” “There’s changeable you are,” said Roddy, rubbing his shoulder with the palm of his hand. 44Never mind, Roddy,” said I; 44play up.” “Bedad, thin,” says Roddy, 44 I’ll give ye a song.” Now, Roddy was my dearest friend, and at nearly all times I positively loved him; but when now, with a merry twinkle in in his two grey eyes, and his fiddle held guitar fashion, he went off into the song of 44 Sly Widow Skinner,” to the ranting old tune of 44 Last May a braw wooer cam’ doon the lang glen,” I felt I didn’t love him half as much. The song describes how the widow cocked her cap, first at the young laird, but failing in her attempts at matrimony in that direction, made love to and married his “faither,” thus making sure of the property by hook or by crook. Never mind, Roddy had no right to place such confounded emphasis on the line “Widows for ever for hookin’ auld fools.” For a moment or two I had serious thoughts of braining him, but I thought better of it, and smoked a pipe of hard instead. After a puff or two the horizon appeared to clear, and presently Roddy didn’t seem half a bad fellow, and by the time I had finished, I could laugh like anything. Now, about once every third or fourth day, and for many days, came little pink notes from the widow, inquiring after the condition of the invalid—that was myself—till I began to look upon the arrival of the pretty maid-servant, who never went away without a kiss and sixpence, as a matter of course. And those little pink notes always found their way to the innermost pocket of my waistcoat. With the arrival of these pink notes, however, I could not help associating a certain inexplicable change in Bridget’s manner. On the days of their arrival, strange and mysterious as it may seem, the 44’ed of my servants’ ’all” didn’t seem quite herself. She was grimmer than usual, her eyebrows appeared blacker, she held her head higher, and was not so careful of the delf as she might have been, and she usually had to tell me that the “coals was done, sir,” or 44Tick had left the beer tap running, drat her imperance, and that she couldn’t lick her into shape nohow.” It is but fair to Bridget to say that she did her very best to attain that happy end.	With these unpleasant drawbacks, the days when Mary, the widow’s maid, arrived, were red-letter days in my existence. Was I falling in love with the interesting widow? Not quite, perhaps, but some new, strange, pleasant kind of feeling was beginning to take root in my soul. The arrival of a pink note seemed to brighten life a bit: foliage seemed greener, flowers gayer, the song of birds sweeter, and, when evening came round, I frequently took it into my head to sit outside quietly smoking, and looking up at the stars. But a day came when I couldn’t deny that my wounded hand was quite healed, and that I never felt stronger all over, nor in better health in my life; and then it suddenly occurred to me that I couldn’t do otherwise than call at Rowan Tree Villa, and thank the widow personally for her kindness and attention.” 44 The very thing I was thinking about meself,” said Roddy; 44 and our duty in that respect couldn’t be plainer.” Rowan Tree Villa stood mid-way up a well-wooded hill, about two and a-half miles from our village of Twintieton. The top of this hill was covered by tall-stemmed pine trees; and from this eminence you could see, stretching far away below all the undulating country, the fertile valley of the Thames, and the river itself, winding for many and many a mile there through a silver thread amidst the green. Roddy and I passed the wide brown gate of the villa, and got well up the hill. For this we had more reasons than one; we could cool ourselves after our somewhat fatiguing olimb; we could sit on a grassy knoll and smoke, and at the same time have a bird’s-eye view of the demesne we had come to visit at. And there it lay, this pretty, many-gabled cottage, with its comfortable kitchen* garden and orchard behind, and its long, wide lawn in front. Now, this lawn had one peculiarity. From the gate, on each side, up to the terrace in front of the house, swept a broad carriage drive, bounded on both its sides, first by a belt of green grass, carefully trimmed, and dotted here and there with patches of bright flowers, and secondly by two rows of rowan trees (the mountain ash), carefully trimmed on wires, forming the prettiest hedge imaginable. How could I help thinking of the Baroness Nairne’s bonnie song:— 44 Thy leaves were aye the first in spring, thy flowers the simmer’s pride* There was na sic a bonnie tree in a’ the country side, And fair thou wort in simmer time, wi’ a’ thy clusters white. And rich and gay thy autumn dress, wi’ berries red and bright, Oh! rowan tree. Inside the rowan hedge was a well-kept lawn, rose-bestudded. And the only inmate of this quiet, quaint old cottage was— nay, not the widow, but the little, ugly old charwoman who had first charred my cottage orn6—the little old woman I had found asleep in my passage, with her little old head on the scrubbing brush, and the empty rum bottle at her feet. And “Oh! if ye please, sir, no, sir, there isn’t nobody at home like, but me.” Did she know Where Mrs. Gray had gone to? “Oh! puffetly well, sir; she be a-gone to the Kuntunut like, she be, and she’s a-took her old father with her, and Tm left to air the house, which it be that lonesome in times, sir.” Did she know when the lady and her father would return? “Oh! puffetly well, sir; maybe in March, sir, or maybe in June.” And nothing more definite could we extract from the old lady, so we were fain to retrace our steps to Twintieton and my cottage orn6. So the winter passed somewhat wearily away. However, when the world does not go with you, I maintain you are quite justified in going with it. That’s what I did: just let things slide, was a little more quiet and contemplative, perhaps, and smoked. Roddy said he never saw such smoking, bedad! in all his born days. We sat in the garden, my friend and I. It was an afternoon in June, a day to make one feel life in every limb, a day when bare existence was a luxury. The roses bent their heads in the drowsy sunshine, for there was not a speck of cloud in himmel’s blue. The sweet, warm breath of the strawberry beds rose around us, the butterflies chased each other among the potato blossoms, and the snails were, as usual, eating the cabbages. But why sits Roddy so quiet and still, and why has his pipe dropped on his knee and gone out? For twenty minutes he has sat thus, and I’ve been nodding and nid-nid-nodding, if not sleeping outright. 44 It’s as true as you’re sitting there,” said Roddy at last, pulling himself together with a jerk, and preparing to refill his pipe, “I’ve been making up my mind, and I find there is nothing else for it. We must do it.” “What must we do?” I inquired. 44 Why, marry the widow, to be sure,” said Roddy. “Ach! thin,” says I, catching a portion of Roddy’s brogue, “Ach! thin, and bedad,” says I, 44is it making a joint stock concern of the widow you’d be? Is it we that’s going to marry her?” “Be quate wid your nonsense,” says Roddy; 44sure you couldn’t marry her without me; and isn’t my interest yours, boy? and, if you grant this, sure isn’t it we that many her? Buch logic as this was irresistible; so I was silent. 44 Now,” continued Roddy, putting his pipe in his mouth and puffing away. “We mane to marry the widow by fair means; and sure isn’t everything fair in love and war? You see, my boy, I can help you considerably in the coortin’.” 44 Well,” I modestly advanced, 441 think I’ve done a leetie bit of that myself in my time.” Roddy withered me with a glance, and smoked more fiercely than before. “I’m not cross wid ye, my boy,” says
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he; “but just let me ask you, did ever ye coort a real livin’ widow in the whole coorse of your life ? ”
I scratched my head, and confessed that my innamorate had lain more among maids than widows.
“I told ye so,” said Roddy. “Now, it’s myself that’s got the rale born experience, for sure wasn’t my mother a widow when my father married her; and, when the poor ould man died, didn’t that make another widow of her? And troth, didn’t I marry two widows myself, and the poor ould cray-turee, sorra take me, if they didn’t both die at the same time.”
“What?” I cried; “my friend Roddy a bigamist!”
“Whisht, you rogue,” says Roddy; it’s at the same time of the year I mane. So it’s me that has the experience, and what’s anything at all without experience. Now, widows uflft maids at all at all. They know what’s what; and if you once put your foot in it in the coortin,’ by seemin’ too aiger at one time, or not aiger enough at the other, faith it’s ‘fine day 40 y°u»’ ^^ ‘ ^e back o’ my hand and the sole o’ my foot,’ and divil a one of them cares if they never claps eyefl on you again, and-”
JRallo! by George! Winking and blinking, and screwing her withered mouth into all sorts of ridiculous shapes, not ten yards from us, stood the little old woman. And most important was the communication the little old woman had to mat0*	Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
^en Jonson.
X.—STILL IN RELATION TO TOBACCO.
“CtktHu’s Revels; or, the Fountain of Self-Love” (1600) 1^8 bat two or three allusions to Tobacco in addition to those cited from ^e Induction in the preceding article. The first uene opens with a dialogue between Cupid and Mercury. To the unequalled virtues and endowments of the precocious son of Maia and Zeus the most frank and liberal tribute is paid in the Homeric Hymn translated by Shelley, from which lh*ve already quo*®d:—
* Nov, when the joy of Jove had its fulfilling,
And Heaven’s tenth moon chronicled her relief, She gave to light a babe all babes excelling,
A schemer subtle beyond all belief, A shepherd of thin dreams, a cow-stealing, A night-watching, and door-waylaying thief, Who ’mongst the Gods was soon about to thieve, And other glorious actions to achieve.
••The babe was born at the first peep of day;
He began playing on the lyre at noon;
And the same eventing did he steal away Apollo’s herds.---•
R will, I think, be some considerable time before our new system of national education and the law of heredity can develop another such infant phenomenon! His lyre this half-day old made himself with the shell of a tortoise, having “bored the life and soul out of the beast;” and when he had made it he sang to its accompaniment, and truly remarkable were the earliest themes of his unpremeditated song:—
“He sung how Jove and May of the bright sandal
Dallied in love not quite legitimate;
And his own birth, still scoffing at the scandal, And naming his own name, did celebrate;
His mother’s cave and servant-maids he planned all In plastic verse, her household stuff and state,
Perennial pot, trippet, and brazen pan :— But singing he conceived another plan?’
“Seized with a sudden fancy for fresh meat,” the enfant terrible went forth and stole fifty of Apollo’s kine; yet, when this little affair had been settled (Hermes getting a half-share in what he finely called “the herds in litigation”), Apollo himself thus praised him:—
“This glory and power thou dost from Jove inherit, To teach all craft upon the earth below;
Thieves love and worship thee—it is thy merit To make all mortal business ebb and flow
By roguery.--------------”
In this last matter we are, perhaps, entitled to felicitate our-■elves on being somewhat ahead of even the old Greeks! In our dramatic “Comical Satire” Cupid, addressing Mercury, i® no less candid than the Hymn. Thus:—
“—my mother Venus . . . but stoop’d to embrace you, and (to ■Peak by metaphor) you borrow’d a girdle of hers, as you did Jove’s sceptre be was laughing) and would have done his thunder too, but that ’twas hot for your itching fingers. ... I heard, you but looked in at ’fwsn’g forge the other day, and entreated a pair of his new tongs along for company: ’tie joy on you i’ faith, that you will keep your hooked “ practice with anything. ’Slight, now you are on earth, we shall hav® you filch spoons and candlesticks rather than fail: pray Jove the perfumed courtiers keep their casting-bottles, pick-tooths and shittle-cocks num you, or our more ordinary gallants their Tobacco-boxes; for I am strangely jealous of your nails.”
From which it appears that the use of Tobacco was already almost universal among gentlemen of the court; the abstainers being principally such perfumed, finical, effeminate, queasy dandies as had been probably turned inside out by their first and last attempt at a pipe.
In Act IL 8c. H., we have the character of Anaides, who is the caricature of Entolmos or good Audacity. Cupid asks, “Is that a courtier too?” and Mercury replies (I perforce condense):—
“Troth no; be has two essential parts of the courtier, pride and ignor-®x»; marry, the rest come somewhat after the ordinary gallant. Tie impudence itself, Anaides; one that speaks all that comes in his cheeks,
and will blush no more than a sackbut. . . He will censure or discourse of any thing, but as absurdly as you would wish. His fashion is not to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. He never drinks [to any] below the salt. He does naturally admire his wit that wears gold lace or tissue. Stabs any man that speaks more contemptibly [contemptuously] of the scholar than he. He is a great proficient in all the illiberal sciences, as cheating, drinking, swaggering, whoring, and such like: never kneels but to pledge healths, nor prays but for a pipe of pudding-Tobacco. The oaths which he vomits at one supper would maintain a town of garrison in good swearing a twelve-month.”
On the pipe of pudding-Tobacco Gifford notes: “ It appears from the Induction [passage quoted in our last] that there were ‘three sorts of Tobacco’ then in vogue; which, from the names scattered over our old plays, seem to be the leaf, pudding, and cane Tobacco. I can give the reader no other information respecting them, than that cane Tobacco appears to have been the most expensive of the whole:—
* The nostrils of his chimnies are still stuffed
With sinoak more chargeable than cane Tobacco.'
* Merry Devil of Edmonton.1”
At the end of the piece the nymphs and gallants who have drunk at the Fountain of Self-Love, and been but apes and counterfeits of truly noble and gentle courtiers, are adjudged to perform penance at Niobe’s stone or Weeping-cross, and then to purge themselves at “the Well of Knowledge, Helicon” (not Hippocrene; and so elsewhere in Jonson, though my Lord Winchelsea, with immense self-sufficiency, denounced a certain Miltonic poem as spurious because it thus made the mount a spring); and leave the stage in pairs singing a Palinode, in the form of a Litany, whereof one verse is:—
“ From stabbing of arms, flap-dragons, healths, whiffs, and all such swaggering humours,
“ Chobur.—Good Mercury defend us.”
Of whiffs we have had enough in “ Every Man out of His Humour”; for the stabbing of arms Gifford brings two apposite quotations:—
“ How many gallants have drank healths to me Out of their daggered arms! ”
Decker^ “ Honett Whore.”
“ By the faith of a soldier, lady, I do reverence the ground that you walk upon. I will fight with him that dares say you are not fair, stab him that will not pledge your health, and with a dagger open a vein to drink a full health to you.’’—Green't44 Tu Quogue.”
In the Apologetical Dialogue added to the “Poetaster” (1601)—see Section H., December, 1876—the author, referring to his assailants, Decker, Marston, and the rest, says:—
“----or I could do worse,
Armed with Archilochus’ fury, write lambics, Should make the desperate lashers hang themselves, Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats *
In drumming tunes. Or, living, I could stamp Their foreheads with those deep and public brands, That the whole company of barber-surgeons Should not take off, with all their art and plasters. And these my prints should last, still to be read In their pale fronts; when what they write ’gainst me Shall, like a figure drawn in water, fleet, And the poor wretched papers be employed To clothe Tobacco, or some cheaper drug: This I could do, and make them infamous.
But to what end ? when their own deeds have mark’d ’em;
And that I know, within his guilty breast
Each slanderer bears a whip that shall torment him Worse than a million of these temporal plagues: Which to pursue were but a feminine humour, And far beneath the dignity of man.”
So Ben in pure scorn refrains from branding them, the while his red-hot irons are hissing in their blood!
In “ Volpone; or, The Fox” (1605), whose scene is Venice, Tobacco, I think, is mentioned but once, Act II, 8c. 1. In order to obtain sight of the beautiful Celia, the chaste spouse of the jealous and imfamous Corvino, that crafty old Fox, Volpone, whose monstrous avarice ministers to more monstrous lusts, diguises himself as a mountebank doctor, and has his stage erected in front of her house in a retired corner of the Piazza of St. Mark. Here he discourses in first-rate quack or cheap-jack style, with that voluble and impressive eloquence which leaves the pulpit, the bar, and the senate quite out of the race, on his unique panacea, “ this blessed unguento, this rare extraction,” surnamed Oglio del Scoto (he appears in the character of Scoto Mantuano), and on his also unique powder—
“ Here is a powder, concealed in this paper, of which, if I should speak to the worth, nine thousand volumes were but as one page, that page as a line, that line as a word; so short is this pilgrimage of man (which some call life) to the expressing of it. Would I reflect on the price ? why, the whole world is but as an empire, that empire as a province, that province as a bank, that bank as a private purse, to the purchase of it. I will only tell you; it is the powder that made Venus a goddess (given her by Apollo), that kept her perpetually young, cleared her wrinkles, firmed her gums, filled her skin, coloured her hair; from her derived to Helen, and at the sack of Troy unfortunately lost: till now, in this our age, it was as happily recovered, by a studious antiquary, out of some ruins of Asia, who sent a moiety of it to the court of France (but much sophisticated), wherewith the ladies now colour their hair. The rest, at this present, remains with me; extracted to a quintessence: so that whatever it but touches, in youth it perpetually preserves, in age restores the complexion—”
When he pauses to take breath in this prodigious flux of oratory, the interval is filled by “ a verse extempore ” in honour of the medicaments by his dwarf Nano, who acts as the buffoon always accompanying such a mountebank. Thus sings Nano to the glory of the oil:—
“ Had old Hippocrates, or Galen, That to their books put med’eines all in, But known this secret, they had never
• “I was never so be-rhimed since Pythagoras’ time, that I was an Irish rat.” “J# You Like It” Let IIL, 8c. 2.
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(Of which they will be gnilty ever) Been murderers of no much paper, Or wasted many a hurtles taper; No Indian thus had e'er been famed. Tobacco, sassafras not named: Ne yet of guacnm one small stick, sir, Nor Raymond Lully's great elixir. Ne had been known the Danish Gonswart, Or Paracelsus with his long sword.” ' Another proof, if proof were needed, of the then high pharmaceutic reputation of Tobacco; a reputation, be it observed, which it long kept, and still maintains to a considerable degree in many lands, and to which (bating the old uncritical extravagances) it has far more serious and solid claims than are generally admitted in our time and country. In “ Epicoene; or, The Silent Woman ” (1609), I have already referred to Act IV., Sc. 1, “ as he lies on his back droning a Tobacco-pipe.” There is another phrase worth mention; not in itself, for it is very trivial and common in the writers of the time, but on account of Gifford’s note:— “He went away in snuff (Act IV., Sc. 2), i.e.^ in anger: alluding, I presume, to the offensive manner in which a candle goes out. The word is frequent in our old writers, and furnishes Shakespeare with many playful opportunities of confounding it with the dust of Tobacco.” Now, in Section VIII. (August, 1877), I wrote: “It has, too, been often remarked that Shakespeare never mentions or alludes to Tobacco, though he may have smoked many a good pipe with Raleigh himself at the Mermaid. It is to be feared that the remark is deplorably well founded. . . . Many of the characters are continually taking snuff, but this does not appear to have been supplied by the Tobacconist.” Gifford was so well-read, painstaking, and accurate, that I withdraw the above and suspend my judgment on this important matter until I am able to investigate it again. In the meanwhile, as affording some presumption in my favour and against Gifford, it may be remarked, on the authority of “the once celebrated Charles Lillie,” perfumer, London, 1740, as stated in a little book called “ Nicotians; or the Smoker’s and and Snuff-Taker’s Companion,” (London: Effingham Wilson, 1832), by Henry James Meller, Esq., that snuff-taking was very rare, and indeed very little known in England, being chiefly a luxurious habit among foreigners residing here, and a few English gentry who had travelled abroad, until 1702, when the expedition sent out under Sir George Rook and the Puke of Ormond, to make a descent on Cadiz, captured among other rich booty several thousand barrels and casks of the finest snuffs of Spanish manufacture, and immense quantities of gross snuff from Havana, in bales, bags, and serows, (untanned hides of buffalos sewn with thongs of the same). The whole quantity taken was estimated at fifty tons weight; and much of this being sold by the captors at a very low price, snuff-taking soon became a popular custom and fashion. Sigvat. ®^t Snwhts of ptnbtnnis. One of the most pleasant and touching traits of that cynical but kindly humour which distinguishes Thackeray from all other masters of fiction is its fondness for Tobacco. Of the men his genius created, those for whom he had the warmest heart were more or less ardent devotees of the Virginian weed. Colonel Newcome, that prince of gentlemen, tolerating the smoke at Evans’s (Wasn’t it Evans’s? At all events it was very like it.); poor wild Rawdon Crawley, with his cloudy life, before that saddest of death-bed scenes that showed the otherworld light breaking through the blackness of a wasted and miserable career; the fat Indian Collector, fortifying himself with the fumes of the fragrant herb against the wiles of Becky Sharpe—are but a few instances of the constancy with which the great novelist’s thoughts hovered about and worshipped “Our dear Tobacco.” His own most devoted admirers are divided into many parties; and not the smallest testimony to his powers and fame is the heat and obstinacy with which these will uphold now this and now that of his great creations as his chief and most mafiterly work. “Esmond,” whose hero is king whereNewcome is prince, has a large and honourable following. “Vanity Fair,” as it was the first of his great successes, is still his brightest monument in the estimation of a considerable multitude of thoughtful students. Aid if I confess a preference for “The History of Pendennis, His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemies,” it is not without some hesitation to exalt even so splendid a product of genius to the first place in a collection of works of art which are as a whole so marvellous and incomparable. I had a friend once who held the writings of Bulwer Lytton in such high esteem that, although his means were small, he bought himself a whole set of those charming productions, from the “ Rhine Legends” to the “ Strange Story,” which had then but recently been given to the world. His method was, as he explained to me, to begin every two years at the lefthand end of the shelf which held these favourite volumes, and read them diligently through, one by one, till, at the - close of twenty-four months, he arrived at the right-hand extremity of the shelf, and the last page of the last novel. How many times he had gone over the ground then I cannot say, but he has had time for six or seven readings since, and I have no doubt has enjoyed them with even greater zest than	before. For, while the practice was an undoubted proof of ‘ his faithfulness to his first love amongst the prose poets, the ’ reason he gave for it was perhaps not quite so unequivocal a testimony to the author’s power. “They are always fresh,” he would say, laying down “The Last Days of Pompeii” or “The Caxtons,” while he re-filled his pipe with his beloved Latakia, “ because, by the time I get through the last I have forgotten the first; and each one as I take it up again is as good as new.” Now, without paying so questionable a compliment to my author, I am open to confess that I never grow weary of re-reading Thackeray, and that I have just gone through the “ History of Pendennis” once more with as much pleasure as, and perhaps more profit than, on any of the former occasions, which are in number greater than I can easily compute. The man of one book is proverbially dangerous ; but if there be any man who has this book by heart— who has absorbed and digested all the wisdom its fulness contains; who has assimilated with the worldly philosophy of the Major the other-worldly loving-kindness of Helen, the honest truthfulness and faithful friendship of Warrington and Laura vrith a tender toleration for the eccentricities of “ honest Jack Costigan, bedad,” and the other Bohemians of his acquaintance; why—I should like that man to be my friend. But I am not going to write a homily on “Pendennis,” only to recall some of those allusions to my cherished weed which seem to me to entitle Thackeray to a place amongst the high priests of Tobacco. “I say, Strong,” one day the baronet said, as the pair were conversing after dinner over the billiard-table, and that great unbosomer of secrets, a cigar; “I say, Strong, I wish to the doose your wife was dead.” But not often does the author of “Pendennis” introduce the divine herb to such shady society as that of the baronet of Clavering. Even when he would condemn its abuse, he does it with a saving clause. For instance:—“Young Frank Clavering stole his father’s Havannahs, and conveyed them to school, or smoked them in the stables, at a surprisingly early period of life, and at ten years old drank his Champagne almost as stoutly as any whiskered cornet of dragoons could do.” And, three years later:—“The good-natured Begum’s house was filled with a constant society of young gentlemen of thirteen, who ate and drank much too copiously of tarts and champagne, who rode races on the lawn, and frightened the fond mother, who smoked and made themselves sick, and the dining-room unbearable to Miss Blanche. She did not like the society of young gentlemen of thirteen.” But young Clavering was predestined to the bad—as a son worthy only of such a father; and the worst thing said about the weed in the whole book is the horror of the old Major—who, as a remnant of the glorious regency, cannot fall in with the freer manners of a later time—at the atrocity of smoking cigars in the Park or Pall Mall. There is something almost beautiful in this sketch of Pen’s smoking experiences, when he made his first visit to his mother’s house, after imbibing the tastes and habits of university life:— “Also Pen brought a large box of cigars branded Colo-rados, Afrancesados, Telescopios, Fudson, Oxford Street, or by some such strange titles, and began to consume these not only about the stables and green-houses, where they were very good for Helen’s plants, but in his own study, of which practice his mother did not at fifst approve. But he was at work upon a prize-poem, he said, and could not compose without his cigar, and quoted the late lamented Lord Byron’s lines in favour of the custom of smoking. As he was smoking to such good purpose, his mother could not of course refuse permission: in fact, the good soul coming into the room one day in the midst of Pen’s labours (he was consulting a novel which had recently appeared, for the cultivation of the light literature of his own country as well as of foreign nations became every student)—Helen, we say, coming into the room and finding Pen on the sofa at this work, rather than disturb him went for a light-box and his cigar-case to his bed-room which was adjacent, and actually put the cigar into his mouth, and lighted the match at which he kindled it. Pen laughed, and kissed his mother’s hand as it hung fondly over the back of the sofa. * Dear old mother,’ he said, * if I were to tell you to burn the house down, I think you would do it.’ And it is very likely that Mr. Pen was right, and that the foolish woman would have done almost as much for him as he said.” Perhaps Pendennis was not the only fortunate egotist who had a mother willing to give up many a well-grounded prejudice, if so she could see, or think she saw, her boy happy, or doing work which should make the world see him with her own loving and flattering eyes. Of course Pen goes to the bad for the time, or he would not be one of Thackeray’s heroes. Thackeray saw the world too clearly to believe in the perfection of priggism; and he understood the human heart too well to give up the luxury of a prodigal sou. When Pen has been most deservedly plucked at Oxbridge, and has wanted to destroy himself—after the manner of genius when it makes an ass of itself—of course home-love wins the day, and we are told: “So th© prodigal came home, and the fatted calf was killed for him, and he was made as happy as two simple women could make him.” Returned prodigals are always great in the art of selfdenial; and we learn of Pen that “He left off drinking wine, and betook himself, but with great moderation, to the
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refreshment of whisky-and-water. He gave up cigar smoking; but it must be confessed that of late years he had liked pipes and Tobacco as well or even better, so that this sacrifice was not a very severe one. Some of my readers may agree with me that Mr. Pendennis had made good progress; and, while condoning the unconscious deceit of his self-punishment, believe that his pipe smoking indicated something better than priggism in his composition.” But Warrington is the premier smoker of the book, as he is the type of the true smoker everywhere. When the fastidious major, resolving to ignore Pen’s failure at Oxbridge, calls upon his nephew and Warrington in Lamb Court, Temple— “An Irish charwoman, with a pail and broom, opened the floor for the major. “ ‘ Is that the beer?’ cried out a great voice: ‘ give us hold of it.’ “The gentleman who was speaking was seated on a table, unshorn and smoking a short pipe; in a farther chair sate pen, with a cig^* and his legs near the fire. A little boy, vho acted as the clerk of these gentlemen, was grinning in the Major’s face, at the idea of his being mistaken for beer. . . «‘pen, my boy, it’s I—it’s your uncle,’ he said, choking with the smoke. But as most young men of fashion used the weed, he pardoned the practice easily enough. •<Mr Warrington got up from the table, and Pen, in a very nerttirbed manner, from his chair. ‘Beg your pardon for {^taking you,’ said Warrington, in a frank, loud voice. ‘WiB I011 lake a cigar, sir? Clear those things off the chair, Pidgeon, and pull it round to the fire.’ 7pen flung his cigar into the grate, and was pleased with the cordiality with which his uncle shook him by the hand;” Land so forth. u^jjd here” says Thackeray, “the expected beer coming in a tankard with a glass bottom, Mr. Warrington, with a said he supposed the Major would not have any, and took » long* deep draught himself, after which he wiped his wnist across his beard with great satisfaction. The young man was perfectly easy and unembarrassed. He was dressed in a ragged old shooting-jacket, and had a bristly blue beard. Be was drinking beer like a coal-heaver, and yet you couldn’t but perceive that he was a gentleman.” And again:—“In Warrington’s room there was scarcely any article of furniture, save a great shower-bath and a heap of books by the bed-side: where he lay upon straw like Margery Daw, and smoked his pipe, and read half through the night his favourite poetry or mathematics.”	. There is much Bohemian smoking in the story; and I don’t find the “Back Kitchen,” which most town men will identify, or “Shepherd’s Inn” off “Old Castle Street,” which some of us may think very like Clement’s Inn, off Wych Street and Newcastle Street, any the worse for the smokes that Hoolan and Doolan and Jack Costigan and the rest had in the former; and the Chevalier Strong and Colonel Altamont and poor, rollicking, true-hearted, vulgar, dirty Huxter of Bartholomew’s enjoyed in the latter. There have been many happy hours for many hapless men in less pretentious clubs than the “Back Kitchen;” and good men and true have worshipped and had cause to be grateful for Tobacco in even dingier chambers than those of Shepherd’s Inn. But, to be just though the heavens should fall, our fictionist does not forget that it was in the back parlour of Mr. Santiago’s cigarshop that little Moss Abrams contrived to inveigle Sir Francis into signing the bits of paper which he had pledged his word and his honour, and called for a bible to swear upon, that he would never traffic in again. It is curious to mark the association between some of the best characters and some of their best deeds in Thackeray’s best books with this custom of smoking. Almost the last kind action noted in the “History of Pendennis” is the warning given by an honest soul to that bete noir, Mr. Altamont, when, “ under pretence of giving a pipe-light to the Granger, she handed him a paper on which she had privily written the words ‘ He knows you. Go. ’ ” And our last fair glimpse of Warrington before the story closes (although some of ua have met him elsewhere since the Pendennis history came to an end) is in similar wise:— “Pen’s domestic announced to him that Warrington was m chanlbers too, and, of course, Arthur ran up to his friend’s ^m straightway, and found it, as of old, perfumed with the Pip*- . . . Warrington smiled and took his pipe out of his mouth, and said, ‘Well, young one!’ . . . ‘Been in Switzerland ? ’ says Pen. ‘ Yes,’ says Warrington. ‘ Couldn’t hnd a bit of Tobacco fit to smoke till we came to Strasburg, ?Jere I got some caporal.’ The man’s mind is full, very “kely, of the great sights which he has seen, of the great emotions with which the vast works of nature have inspired it. But his enthusiasm is too coy to show itself, even to his closest friend, and he veils it with a cloud of Tobacco.” So long as our darling weed is the confidant and friend of such men as George Warrington, we need have no fear of Anti-Tobaccoites; and I, for one, like to think of a certain evening when two great novelists—both of whom have since laid down their pens—met. smoking, in the doorway of a certain famous club, and forgot a feud which, though not of their making, would, but for that casual encounter, have darkened for both the way to the grave. We will not say of “Pendennis,” as Persius of another book, “ Darepondus idonea f**o;” but in the spirit of Horace, whom its author loved— “He strikes out light from smoke, not smoke from light.” J. D.	&n ^as ^ui Coutu. THEIR NAME IS LEGION. The antis have not got me yet— Td like to see them try it! I still enjoy a cigarette, Let those who may deny it. A briar-root's better on the whole, It’s strong, compact, and handy; And saturated to the bowl ’Tis mellower than brandy! A meerschaum’s very toothsome, too, But equally expensive; The dhudeen's black and Stygian hue, Is apt to be offensive. A Burns’s cutty—clay again'.— Is scarcely worth its colour; And opium only drugs the brain, * And leaves its victims duller. My pipes, cigars, and cigarettes, Would puzzle you to count ’em; But ’spite of all the Antis threats I care not to dismount ’em. As long as I can draw a breath I’ll ne’er relinquish smoking; And when, at length, compelled by Death, I’ll take to anti-croaking! S^hc ^° ^oolis^r ^nfis. To the unsophisticated and sentimental admirers of that wrought-iron friendship which breaketh not nor bendeth, this story is addressed. Let me not be misunderstood. Brotherly love is good; but there is a love (if proper attention be paid to the fitness of things) w’hich must come before it— and that is the love of self. Is it not the universal law of created nature, for the animated creature, biped or quadruped, fish, flesh, or fowl, to think most of those most nearly related to it; and is not a man more closely related to himself than to any other person? This being granted, let it be proclaimed that a man’s first duty is to look well after himself. Does not every man know his own wants best; and will not A. and Z. be better off if A. looks after himself and Z. looks after liimself, than if A. looks after Z. and Z. looks after A? This may be called selfishness by the ignorant and unenlightened, but I boldly deny it. It is not selfishness, but the highest and most glorious moral truth. What if it has not hitherto been proclaimed as truth, must not every truth be proclaimed for the first time? Yes, truly; and all honour to the proclaimers, although they mostly get more abuse than honour. The man who fervently follows truth may be more worthy, and is more worthy of admiration than the man who cares not whether truth or falsehood reigns; but it is a question if he is so happy a man. Truth cannot be followed without ever-watchful carefulness, which means fulness of care. To every man whose idol is truth, there are a hundred men whose idols are not only not truth, but idols which, by not containing any of the elements of truth, are permanently at war with it. Here is care. Again: The man who seeks truth all his life is never sure of finding it, and many a man dies without catching a glimpse of its snow-white robes. Here is more care. Again: Often the man who seeks truth and finds it, and knows he has found it, is not believed when he proclaims the fact, but is said to have found a lie, and is treated with scorn and contumely. Here is still further care. Not to shelter myself in any way do I make these remarks concerning truth, but to show my readers that I know the position in which I stand, and am prepared to defend it. Yea, and to illustrate it. What have been foolishly called the heroic days are fast going out of fashion. The common-sense days are coming. They are still a long way off, but they are coming. Standing on the proud pedestal which my position as a moral preacher places under my feet, I can see over the top of the mist of combined ignorance and sentiment, and lo! there is a shimmering of indescribable light in the far distance. Hurry up, 0 sweet, red glow! Over, under, round, and through this dismal intervening fog, launch thy spearlike rays, and show us what we pant to see. My story is simplicity itself; but, as it illustrates the particular truth I am endeavouring to impress on the public mind, I feel justified in relating it. Thomas and James were firm friends, respectable in station, and temperate in their habits. Over each had twenty-five years passed. Few were the glasses of beer they drank. Tobacco they both abhorred; and a game at dominoes, over a cup of coffee, was their most frantic form of dissipation. From the days of their childhood, “ They grew in beauty ride by side,” as the poet says. They walked and talked through their calm, innocent days, and at the age of five-and-twenty it might be said of them that they had made level running. They were very much alike in form and face, and followed the same pursuits, each at peace with and full of love for his companion.
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What each learned he imparted it to the other, bo that there was scarcely the worth of a pin to choose between them.
These*young antis, looking, as it were, with the same eyes at everything, and living in exactly the same moral atmosphere—something like detached Siamese twins—fell fiercely in love at exactly the same time, and, unfortunately, with the same paragon of beauty and excellence. Nor can this be wondered at, if we take a calm look round on their universe of facts.
That men should fall in love is no wonder. The affections are among the mysteries of life. If it were not so, some man would devote his life to their study, and write a book in, say, a hundred volumes, exhaustive and perfect. Then some other man would devote his life to the study of this book, and abridge it to ten volumes; then it would get reduced to a treatise in one vol., 7s. 6d., half calf. Then men would read this; and, having all the very essence of the subject, would be wise, or think they were wise, and would quietly determine to keep out of falling in love; and then would be heard much noise of womanly complaining, grass would grow in the Breach of Promise Court, and lawyers would go clothed in howling and confusion.
This falling in love is a strange thing. When a man falls into a morass or pit, he calls to his companion to help him out—that is, supposing he has sufficient vitality left in him to manufacture a call; but, when a man falls in love, he never cries to be helped out. Either he is deadened to a sense of his peril, or imagines he can get out just when he chooses to; or rather likes it. At all events, no cry disturbs the stillness, but deeper and deeper the victim goes burrowing and sinking in the delicious misery.
This must have been the case with our two friends when they fell into the pit of love: they were both mute, and, as neither knew of the other’s misfortune, no alteration took place in their friendship.
Although dumb as the deadest man to each other, each was quick in declaring his passion to sweet Dorothy Jane; and this fair maiden blushed to Thomas, and duplicately blushed to James.
It must be admitted that the young lady was in rather a difficult position! At the first offer, she felt inclined to say “Yes,” for Thomas was a young man of honour and respectability. She, however, thought it more maidenly to ask for a little time for reflection; and, in the midst of her reflections, James, the other young man of equal honour and respectability, came along, with his offer of “home and heart.” What could she do but ask time for reflection, as in the first instance? Possibly she thought a third man was round the corner. It must be admitted that her position, though enviable, was difficult—Thomas and James were so very much alike.
If they had waited till this young lady fell in love with one of them, there would have been an end of the matter.
It is possible that two men may fall violently in love with the same woman at the same time; but it is not related, to my knowledge, anywhere, that one woman ever fell in love with two men at the same moment. Should such an event ever come to pass, the remains of that large affectioned female would require collecting, for many women of that parish and the surrounding ones would be closely present at her decease, however thinly her funeral might be attended.
While sweet Dorothy Jane was endeavouring to imprint the anxious visage of Thomas on her virgin heart, James appeared on the scene, and with love’s magic lantern converted the picture into a dissolving view; and so for a while we must leave the lady.
Thomas and James, each feeling somewhat relieved by his appeal to the object of his affections, began to feel some pity for each other, and each looked round the circle of his female acquaintance to discover a likely mate, for his goingto-be disconsolate friend.
Also, each began to feel rather ashamed that he had withheld his confidence so long from his companion, and each determined to reveal his secret.
As they had fallen in love at the same time, and gone through precisely the same amount of pleasure and worry over it, the desire to confess came on them at the same moment; so when the lips of Thomas flew open to show his heart, the lower jaw of James dropped to perform the same delicate operation.
Said Thomas, nervously:—“ James! ”
“What, Thomas?”
“ I—am—in—love.”
“ Never!—so am I.”
“ I love Dorothy Jane.”
“ It cannot be : I love Dorothy Jane.”
“ 0, horror I ” cried Thomas, with a shudder.
“ 0, agony;” said James, with a shiver.
“ My friend I”
“ My friend! ”
“ James; I love you.”
“ Thomas ; I love you.”
“For your sake;” sobbed Thomas, “I will break my heart.”
“No;” replied James, sadly; “you must allow me the privilege of breaking mine.”
“ Mine! mine! ” cried Thomas.
“ Mine! mine! ” cried James.
Then, in the intoxication of their grief, they fell on each
other’s bosom and mingled their sorrow, and their tears fell on to the earth, and made a small puddle, in which the patterns of their lower garments were reflected, making a pretty little picture of shepherd’s plaid on the one side, and blue and white stripes on the other.
Dorothy Jane sat thoughtful and silent repairing the family hose. To her, in the midst of her labours, approached Thomas. A good half of the world’s misery was imprinted on his face, and his eyes were red with weeping. He uttered but one word, but in so awful a tone did he utter it, that if he had ventured on two, he must have expired on the spot. “ Farewell.”
Then, he took his burdened self away, at a swift stagger. Dorothy Jane could not speak; in fact she had no time to do so, had her troubled mind been equal to language; a tear appeared in one of her eyes, but she continued her monotonous task. She was a level minded young person.
Presently James appeared on the troubled scene; he had the other half of the world’s misery written on his face, and appeared to be quite as far advanced on the road to absolute grief as his friend Thomas. James behaved in precisely the same incomprehensible fashion as his friend. First he brought up from the deepest cellar of his chest a sepulchral agonised “ Farewell!” and then departed at a swift stagger.
A tear now appeared in Dorothy Jane’s hitherto unoccupied eye, and no wonder.
There is little more to tell. Thomas and James went away from that place : they saw Dorothy Jane no more; they saw each other no more. They settled apart abroad, and eventually died of broken hearts, at the respective ages of seventy-one and seventy-two.
Dorothy Jane remained unwed all her days, with nothing to reflect on but the gushings and sighings and final mysterious “farewells” of these two foolish young antis, who had contrived, by their so-called devotion and self-sacrifice, to render three deserving young people unhappy.
This is where the moral comes in. Had Thomas and James possessed less devoted friendship and more sense, they would have either submitted the affair to arbitration, or tossed up a penny for the first chance, or in some other way decided it. Then a wedding would have happened; after this, the two happy ones would have invited the disconsolate home, and given him weak grog to cheer him up. By-and-by they would have shown him the babies, and so gently alleviating his misery, they would have led him on to matrimony on his own account, and then all three would have been happy.
Is not, then, this self-sacrifice a bad thing.
D. Goggs*
fsjtian ^rea suits.
v.
Bolton Trotters.
The year 1793 was one of unexampled prosperity, particularly to the muslin weavers of Bolton. Four guineas per piece of twenty-four yards, or three shillings and sixpence per yard, was then paid for weaving sixty reed six-quarter wide cambrio muslin, with one hundred and twenty picks to the inch. The trade was that of a gentleman. They (the weavers) brought home their work in top boots and rufflea shirts, carried a cane, and in some instances took a coach. Many weavers at that time used to walk about the streets with a five pound bank of England note spread out under their hatbands. They would smoke none but long “churchwarden” pipes, and objected to the intrusion of any other handicraftsmen into the particular rooms in the public-houses which they frequented. This prosperity did not continue, and few operatives endured greater privations than the handloom weavers of Bolton for the succeeding fifty years. During their days of prosperity the weavers actively participated in the practical jokes for which their townsmen had acquired a not very creditable celebrity, and the cognomen, scarcely yet forgotten, of “ Bolton Trotters.”—French's Life of Samuel Crompton,
The Camphor Tree.
The tree from which camphor is obtained belongs to the family of guttiferous productions. It grows abundantly in the forests of Sumatra and Borneo. It is one of the strongest and loftiest trees of those countries. Its bark is of a brownish hue; its leaves resemble those of the camphor tree of Japan; its leaves and its seeds send forth a powerful smell resembling that of turpentine. The trunk can attain a diameter of from six to seven feet. When the tree has attained the size of a poplar which is seven or eight years old, it yields camphor, but in a small quantity. Before that age it produces only a thick oil which, according to the inhabitants of those countries, is the first state through which the camphor passes. There is no way of exactly recognising the trees which contain the one or the other of those substances. Nevertheless when old trees are pierced camphor is almost invariably found. It is usually met with in hollows very close to the heart, exactly as resin is met with in other trees. These hollows or pockets would seem by the irregularity of their form, by their extent, and by their volume to be rather a diseased affection peculiar to the tree than a natural property; but this is not the case. The manner of procuring this resinous substance consists in
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sounding the trees by means of a deep incision at their base, and going nearly as far in as the heart. If nothing but oil flows out the tree is immediately abandoned, because, as already stated, at the end of seven or eight years it yields camphor. As many as twenty or thirty trees, sometimes more, are thus mutilated before a tree containing the matter sought for is found. Every tree supposed to contain camphor is cut down, then divided into pieces, from one to two inches in length, then transversely cleft into two or four parts to obtain the camphor. The amount yielded by a tree of middle size is from five to six kilogrammes. Most of the camphor which circulates in commerce comes to us from Japan or China. It is procured from the Launu Camphora. It is obtained by cutting the wood into chips, which is then submitted to the action of heat.—From the French.
The great therapeutic power ascribed to camphor by jaspail, famous as chemist, physician, and political martyr, justifies us in giving it a high and honourable place among hygienic agencies, to which, as our readers are aware, we give the widest range and the most catholic interpretation, believing that joy alike in the sublimest and most salutary jouse is wisdom.
The Sultan ^Mul ^ziz.
It was on a hot summer day in the year 1858 that I, in the jjjgh of Tschibuklu, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, lay gtre|ched out on the grass in the shade of a plane tree, and u^rbed by the reading of the classically written historical wrh, Hescht Bihischt, “ The Eight Paradises.” By “ The EizM Paradis©8 ” is meant the eight reigns or periods of the Oxonian sovereign house. I was delighting myself with the gpleiidid images and metaphors of the Persian writer, when a hand from behind shook me, though not roughly, and those word® were addressed to me:—“ Who art thou that devotest thyself to reading in such an improper position, and where thou learned such ill breeding?” Suddenly I turned round, looked at the person disturbing me, but had not the remotest idea that there stood before me a descendant of one of these heroes whose brave deeds, zeal as rulers, and strength of faith I had just been reading about; and yet it was even so. Before me stood, though I knew it not, Abdul Aziz Efendi, the heir-apparent to the throne of Abdul Medschid, and a man out of whose way at that time every body hastened; for to speak to the heir-apparent of the Turkish sovereign might have grievous consequences, and in earlier ages imperilled life. I answered, “ I am a Hungarian, and am called Reaehid Efendi. I am reading, as thou seest, a Tarich (historical work).” An ‘‘Indeed,” drawlingly uttered in the tone of contempt, was the reply. Thereupon the Efendi measured me from head to foot with his glance, turned swiftly round, and went his way, accompanied by a considerable suite, one member of which, as I perceived, wore the imperial livery. Not till afterwards I learned that this man with black eyes, defiant features, brown complexion, undersized but vigorous stature, thick black moustaches (a full beard the heir to the throne does not wear till after he has ascended the throne), was Abdul Aziz Efendi, the present ruler of Turkey. In those days Abdul Aziz was accustomed to go to a country residence not far from the creek, in order to enjoy there a freer existence, unrestrained by the fetters of palace etiquette, unwatched by the argue eyes of spies in the pay of his timorous brother. On the shores of the Bosphorus, in the splendid environments of Dolma Bagdsche the former heir to the throne could not help feeling himself narrowed and nagged-, for between successors to the throne and reigning sovereigns discomfort and feud have always been the order of the day. Abdul Medschid had the ambition to be regarded m the genuine representative of European culture. He was delicately organised, liked delicate ideas, delicate feelings, courteous manners, and had the highest regard for fine taste in the European sense of the word. From mere traditional antagonism his brother rushed into an entirely opposite intellectual direction. It was said of him that he expected much more from the old form of government, and from the “^t, the traditional relations to the West, than from an ^^conditional assimilation of Occidental elements, a servile imitation of Occidental fashions. If conclusions favourable to the intellectual endowments of the former heir to the throne could not thence be drawn, at least it must be said that he held firmly to his convictions. Bodily strength had more weight in his eyes than all mental advantages. Food, clothes, amusements pleased him only when they bore the *t*mp of essential and antique Turkeydom; and while his brother had the symphonies of our great musical composers performed before him by European musical directors, or ©Peras given in the small, luxuriously fitted-out private theatre, the heir to the throne sought his delight at the country residence already mentioned, in the wrestling matches of athletes; yea, he did not disdain to put on sometimes well* oiled breeches, in order to prove his superiority when wrestling with one of his subjects. When ne was tired of wrestling he got up cockfights. Yea, he even found pleasure in seeing Circassian girls combating with each other, or in watching common buffoons caricaturing European customs; and the more grotesque the representations, the more lavish ▼as the applause, the more generous was the recompense, which his Highness the heir-apparent was accustomed to bestow. At this country residence were mirrored the old Turkish moral modes of vanished generations. In Abdul
Medschid, to whom these pursuits were not unknown, the clownish inclinations of his brother inspired indignation and disgust. In order to know his tastes he placed at his disposal for the adornment of his chambers a skilful Italian painter, and was not a little astonished when he found the chambers painted scarlet, for scarlet was the favourite colour of Abdul Aziz. As already mentioned, carefully excluded from what was then the better society of Constantinople, Abdul Aziz surrounded himself with a circle of comrades and friends in consonance with his rough Turkish nature. Newrez Pascha, a notorious profligate of Scutari, whom European newspapers still speak of as alive, though he died two years ago in Vienna from the effects of excessive drinking, was the intimate companion of Abdul Aziz, and along with a certain Reached and with Chosrew, had a great deal to do with making the old Turkish heir-apparent into an old Turkish Sultan. Even at that time Abdul Aziz suffered from occasional lassitudes, from paroxysms of rage, from epilepsy, from enlargement of the stomach, and from the other effects of an irregular life. Under the seal of secrecy marvellous things were told respecting this son of Mahmoud, which showed that in cholericness and in despotic temper he greatly resembled his father, but not in his energy or in his zeal for what he deemed the welfare of his people. With such endowments and dispositions the present Sultan of Turkey mounted,, in 1861, the throne after the death of his brother. According to the aphorism, “Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret; ” or, according to the Turkish proverb, “ The natural humour lies buried under the soul;” that is to say, that you must first know the former if you wish to study the latter, it cannot amaze any one that the Sultan remained identically what the heir-apparent had been, and that his maxims and passions took a bolder scope in the degree of his wider power. If at an earlier period the limited circle of his associates had to submit to his wild waywardness, it was now a whole country, a whole people which was subject thereto. As long as Fuad and Ali lived, as long as these counsellors whom he had received from his brother were near him, the tendencies of the Sultan, so dangerous to the State, were in some measure held in check. Abdul Aziz hated these two dignitaries from the very depth of his soul, and he feared them so much that he pretended to be unwell when they sought an audience; but as he could not get rid of them, the first years of this prince’s life were by no means the most agreeable. The discomfort was increased by the circumstance that among the guests whom Napoleon HI. wished to see at the Paris exhibition was a Sultan. To give a refusal to the great Frankish Emperor would not have been easy. The strange Abdul Aziz appeared, therefore, in Europe, and was, by Fuad Pascha, who played a mediatorial part, presented to the European courts and the European world. How his Turkish Majesty felt when made to figure in such scenes the reader can readily imagine. European cities, European art and industrialism, science and culture he abhorred; yet he had to allow himself to be instructed by Fuad, who was intensely Frankish, how to receive unbelieving deputations, how to salute unbelieving orators, courteously and graciously to smile to them. Need I say how little this prince, or any one kindred to him in nature and sentiment must profit from a journey to the West, from immediate contact with the culture of the West. So far from benefiting the Sultan and his country, this European journey did them both immense damage. Instead of admiration and appreciation, hatred and envy gained fiercer sway in the Sultan’s soul; and as in the Turkish community persons abound disposed to despise and to mock the Christian West when comparing it with Oriental culture, and as such persons found access to the Sultan, the natural result was that the prince, so imbued with orthodoxy in his younger years, was ever the more strengthened in his anti-reformatory sentiments. Meanwhile, the death of Fuad and of Ali freed him from two troublesome counsellors. Reschid Pascha excepted, they were the only men capable of accomplishing the reforms Turkey needed. Abdul Aziz was now autocrat in the strictest sense of the word. Free from the wild control of the Janizaries and Ulemas, whereby his father had been hampered, free from the public opinion of Europe, which had always like a horrific phantom haunted his brother, but which he regarded with profound indifference, free, finally, from all bondage to the counsels offered by the statesmen formerly named, who, as already stated, filled him with the deepest repugnance, and were only tolerated because he did not dare to replace them by less gifted men, Abdul Aziz began to his heart’s desire to manage matters, and entered on that well known political system which brought Turkey in a short time to the brink of destruction, and which attracts from afar those thunder clouds that must sooner or later burst on his empire. From this period Europe was surprised every month, and often every week, by . official changes on the Bosphorus. Governors are appointed and then, when on the way to their province, cashiered; places given to persons who have not the remotest notion or experience of the duties appertaining thereto; favour and disfavour rapidly follow each other without the slightest cause. And all this springs from the ever-changing caprice of a ruler swayed by his mother, his wives, and his minions, a ruler in whose eyes affairs of State appear scarcely more serious and weighty than the jests and pastimes to which, as heir-apparent, he devoted himself at the country residence heretofore named. A ruler with such an idiosyncrasy could make of Turkey nothing
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better than that which it has become: just the opposite of what it had been in the reign of Abdul Medschid. The character of the present sovereign has contributed much to the decay and the degradation of Turkey. In youth fond of bodily exercises and manly sports, he now avoids every bodily movement, and remains for hours on the soft divans of his palace without stirring from the spot. From his defective Oriental education, and from his absolute ignorance of European languages, he seeks, as substitutes for the pleasure of reading, diversions of a very primitive nature, but, above all, the enjoyments of the table. From forty to fifty dishes are placed before him, from each of which the Sultan takes only as much as can be got by one dip of the fingers. In like fashion he proceeds with his coffee and his pipe; of the coffee he takes only one sip, and of the pipe only one draw. Among his amusements figure visits to his poultry yard and to his gallery of grotesque pictures. He likewise finds entertainment in the antics of mountebanks. While Abdul Med-schid, spite of his frequent maladies, was accustomed to spend an hour daily in the ministerial cabinet, the present ruler visits the cabinet very seldom, and puts his signature to official documents in his own rooms. The affairs of government have very little interest for him. His apathy never vanishes but when there is the temptation or the chance to gain money: money to nourish the flame of military ambition which sometimes flashes up in his soul, money to irradiate his regal magnificence by the building of new palaces.—From the German of Vambtry. Soon after this powerful sketch, which has a political and psychological as well as as a hygeian interest, was published, the Sultan Abdul Aziz put an end, in a miserable manner, to his miserable life. How many of the woes of Turkey are traceable to the unnatural habits of its rulers—habits which grievously offend against all the commands and conditions of health! Euarana. It has been our ambition to make known, in the most various, most suggestive fashions, nervose aliments, for their own sake and also for their relations to health, in the vastest, grandest signification of the word. We regret that there seems so little of a disposition to adopt in England some of the nervose aliments which we have namely recommended. If we may judge by a solitary sign, there is on the Continent a better prospect. Turning over the pages of the Neue Freie Presse, a Vienna newspaper, we found, amid a crowd of quack advertisements, some of them loathsome enough, the following:—“Guarana. The beneficial operation of this medicament has procured for it the approval of the AcadGmie de M6decine of Paris. A single powder, dissolved in a glass of sugared water, suffices to remove the most violent headaches, and to vanquish the effects of colic or diarrhoea. This remedy is sold in packets containing twelve powders each. Please to regard the address, Grimault and Co., Paris, as a protection against many imitations?’ Thus, then, in the form of a medicine, guarana, of which we have formerly treated, both carefully and copiously, has established its empire in France. Perchance some of our readers may be tempted to give Grimault and Co’s, guarana powders a trial. Possibly, however, they contain something besides the paullinia torbilis which does not add to their efficacy. Mantegazza says: “I fervently urge all who wish to make use of guarana as aliment, to buy it in pieces just as it comes from Brazil. The powders of paullinia are in some cases excellent, but may be adulterated with starch and with cocoa, and the most accurate examination is not able to discover the fraud.” Three &ntis. Three antis invaded a smoking car, A smoking car that was nearly full; They groaned at each pipe and huge cigar, And the smokers they winked at each fragrant pull. For ’Bacca is good, though antis think The delicious aroma an awful—say smell, And pass through this life a-groaning. Three antis set up their example sweet, As a sort of thing that was seldom seen; And the smokers they shuffled their restless feet, While a cloudy confusion came o’er the scene. And the smokers smoke while the antis weep, For there they lie, a demoralised heap, With a very good reason for groaning. Three antis lay out on the shining track, They were missed from their seats when the guard came round; Two on their stomachs and one on his back, Looking for hats that will never be found. For smokers can stand for a little while, Statistics and facts with a peaceful smile, But it ends with the antis groaning. H. L.	Cbt Smoke Hoorn Sable. The New Republic; or, Culture, Faith, and Philosophy in a* English Country House. Two vols. 3rd Edition. London: Chatto and Windus, 1877. A prefatory note states:—“‘The new Republic’ was originally published in Belgravia, but in an incomplete and somewhat fragmentary condition, which gave it the appearance rather of a series of papers than of a single, connected work. It is now, with complete revision, restored to its original form, which differs materially from that which it liad for a time to assume.” We are rejoiced to see that this excellent book has already reached a third edition. The author, who does not give his name, is a scholar and gentleman in the best sense of these terms: accomplished,refined, thoughtful; his style is remarkably pure and elegant, such easy reacting as is very hard writing; he has the rare gifts of suavity and self-restraint, enabling him to dwil with the most ticklish subjects quite inoffensively while quite frankly; and his dialogue is, for the most part, genuinely dramatic, flexible, spontaneous, well-balanced—not a predominant monologue merely stimulated by questions and objections. He is, indeed, led by the purpose of his work to admit some set speeches and essays, but these also are, in general, distinctively characteristic: thus a rhymeless poem, recited by Mr. Luke (Matthew Arnold), is scarcely unworthy of his prototype; the sermon of Dr. Jenkinson, delivered in such humorous circumstances, though a masterpiece of subdued irony, is only too good for even that great Broad Chnrch divine; an extract from an essay by Mr. Rose is true Swinburne, less his redundance; the essays and verses of that old heathen, the cynical-epicurean uncle, are exquisite ripe and over-ripe fruits of I'ancicn regime; Mr. Herbert discourses beautiful Carlyle-Ruskinese; and Mrs. Sinclair, the fashionable Sappho of Onida-like temperament, whose nature is wonderfully well depicted by a few swift, subtle lines, sings a song which, though wanting in luxurious melody, is a triumph of dramatic audacity, in its sacrilegious modernisation of Dantes Francesca da Rimini, with “the sail, sweet Idyll, * Guinevere,’ ” and the modest refrain, “ Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse ” (poor Mr. Tennyson!). Professor Huxley has strong reason to complain of Mr. Storks, and Mr. Arnold of Mr. Luke; Professor Tyndall less strong of Mr. Stockton; and the Oxonian cub Saunders is surely singular and not typical. But. on the whole, the book is a very fair as well as very brilliant and witty expression of many conspicuous phases and tendencies of contemporary thought. It is seldom that we meet such a delightful new book to recommend to the intelligent smoker for his smoking room table. Hitos of ®Ib H00^3* '	The Early English Text Society. [continuation.] 65. The Domes Daye, De Die Judicii, an Old English Version of the Latin Poem ascribed to Bede. Edited (with other shorter Poems) from the unique MS. in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, by J. Rawson Lumby, B.D. Whether Bede or Alenin, the singer of this lay of doomsday was not without skill in song-craft. The Anglo-Saxon version has not been previously printed in full. The other pieces are Lar, Oratio Poetica, Paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer, and Doxology. EXTRA SERIES. Wb now come to the reprints issued by the Early English Text Society as an Extra Series. For these an additional guinea subscription has to be paid. Many of the works included in this arrangement are “ as good as MS.” 1. The Romance of William of Paleme (otherwise known as “ William and the Werwolf"), translated from the French, at the command of Sir Humphrey de Bohun, about a.d. 1350. To which is added a fragment of the Alliterative Romance of Alisaunder, translated from the Latin about a.d. 1340. The former re-edited; the latter now first edited by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A., 1867. “William and the Werwolf” has previously been printed by Sir F. Madden for the Roxburghe Club. That edition appeared in 1832, and was limited to 53 copies. The MS. is in King's College, Cambridge. There are two ways of regarding such works. They may be judged either from an exclusively literary or an exclusively philological point of view. The two interests are not always identical. A very stupid story may preserve many curious and valuable grammatical forms. The dialect of the “Werwolf” and “Alisaunder” are both West Midland—perhaps Shropshire, but more probably Gloucestershire. The romance is an early love tale, chiefly notable now for the incidents which turn on the ancient and wide-spread belief in the possibility of human beings changing themselves or being turned by others into wolves. The French original opens with a notable verse:— “ Nus ne se doit celer ne taire, sil set chose qui dole plaire, kil ne le desponde en apart; car bien repont sons sens et pert, qui nel despont apertement en la presence de la gent." “No one should be silent or keep to himself anything he knows that will please. He should speak it openly, for he loses and hides his knowledge who docs not opeidy speak it in the presence of people.” This is a nineteenth century sentiment, ante-dated by several centuries. The MS. of the “Alisaunder" is in the Bodleian. The internal evidence is sufficient to point to one person as author of both poems, which resemble each other greatly in dialect and treatment. 2. On Early English Pronunciation, with especial reference to Shakspere and Chaucer, containing an Investigation of the Correspondence of Writing with Speech in England from the Anglo-Saxon Period to the present day, preceded by a Systematic Notation of all Spoken Sounds by means of the ordinary Printing Types. Including a Re-arrangement of Professor F. J. Child's Memoirs on the Language of Chaucer and Gower, and Reprints of the Rare Tracts by [William] . Salisbury on English, 1547, and Welch, 1567, and by Barcley on French, 1521. By Alexander J. Ellis, F.R.S. Part L 1869. This is the first part of a work which, for patient investigation and profound scholarship, will be monumental of its erudite author. The first part contains an introduction explaining his palax>tvpe, or the systematic notation ' of all spoken sounds by means of the ordinary printing types. After a chapter on pronunciation and its changes, there is an enumeration of the authorities relating to English pronunciation during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, and an inquiry into the state of the pronunciation of our language in the 16th, and its gradual change in the 17th. This is followed by a similar treatment of the same problem in the 14th century, as deduced from an examination of the rhymes of Chaucer and Gower. Thia chapter includes the reprint of Professor Child's elaborate memoir.	■
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COPE BROTHERS & CO., Cigar Makers, Snuff Grinders, Tobacco Cutters, Manufacturers of Tojh^© fop Exportation* and ©avendtsfe Patacttaas, LORD NELSON STREET, LIVERPOOL.
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ENGLISH-MADE CIGARS.
ENGLISH-MADE CIGARS have so long been sold under Foreign disguises that it has become an established delusion among Smokers that nothing can be good but what is Havana. Under this error everything with a Spanish title is accepted as the genuine article; while undisguised British goods, whatever the superiority of the quality, are comparatively neglected. Smokers are not to blame for this. They cannot be expected always to bear in mind the fact that three-fourths of the Cigars consumed in these kingdoms are made in England, and from Tobacco as good as that used for the Foreign-made Havanas. The only persons to blame for this pernicious system are the manufacturers who have continued an unworthy custom of sending out their goods branded and labelled with Spanish names, sometimes real, sometimes imaginary—the English Cigar maker often paying more attention to the devices of his labels than to the quality of his Cigars. In this way he relieves himself of responsibility for the reputation of his goods, and is content to leave such points as flavour and excellence of make in abeyance, so long as the Cigars are accepted by the public under their Foreign title. In time, however, Smokers discover that the article they have been buying is not what they supposed; and then the manufacturer simply invents a fresh brand and label, which in turn is superseded by another device; and so brands and labels are multiplied to the hopeless perplexity of the Smoker, who, despairing of getting anything reliable in the way of a Cigar at a moderate price, takes to Cut Tobacco. He knows that in this he has something to guide him to a satisfactory choice, for he can obtain an English manufactured article of reputed merit, bearing the real maker’s name and trade mark.
This anomaly—that while in their Cut Tobaccos English manufacturers stand pre-eminent, English-made Cigars are in corresponding disfavour with Smokers—has convinced us, and we believe the conviction will be shared by our customers, that .the time has fully arrived for making a change in the system. Cigars at most moderate prices, and quite equal in quality to the general run of Havana-made goods, can be produced in English Factories. It is, therefore, only just, alike to the Smoker and the Manufacturer, that English Cigars should be offered as such, upon their merits. In this Factory, where we have, as our customers know, for many years been producing our favourite English brands, the experiment has succeeded, and we have every reason to desire an extension of it; and with the view of more largely inaugurating the new system, we are now producing Cigars made and matured in our own Factory, and their genuineness as such is vouched for by a small, neat label, bearing our name, round each Cigar.
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1 As we have more than once declared, and may again have I occasion to declare, it is less our ambition to write a compact, an artistically finished, a perfect history of amber than to furnish in abundance materials for that history, to glean from every region all well-authenticated facts, and even all ingenious conjectures, which may be as valuable as the facts. Travellers in South America and in Africa have often told us how much they have astonished their savage companions by finding the right way to a particular point through the help of a pocket compass. But the travellers, though not forgetting for an instant the goal of their journey, have not hesitated to dart to the right, one side or the other, or sometimes to retrace their steps, as necessity or the main object of their researches inspired. In the immense jungle of amber literature we find and we use the pocket compass of a leading idea as indispensable; yet we cannot avoid making divagations which may seem capricious, or returning to scenes wherewith we are already familiar. Hereby the reader loses nothing and gains much. The information is enriched and varied; it is more firmly fixed in the reader’s memory, and his critical skill is stimulated by a comparison of authorities.
After clearing the jungle somewhat, by some blows of the are and by burning some brushwood, we find the stage of our journey at which we have now arrived to be the origin of amber, not poetically, as in some of our chapters, but scientifically regarded. Alike the most copious statements thereon, and#he most scientific treatment thereof, are met with in the introductory part of Dr. Berendt’s “Organishe Reste Im Bernstein” a great work, which, however, unfortunately remains a fragment; at least, the book, so far as it is accessible to us, does not go beyond the second volume, published in 1856. It is in the largest folio size, and is illustrated by admirable plates. Meanwhile, half to whet and half to satisfy the reader’s appetite, we, by the aid of Wilhelm Runge, unveil to him “ The Amber Forest.”
The question anent the origin of amber has in all ages excited the deepest interest. In the remotest times, in the narratives of the Phoenicians, and in the myths which the ancient poets did not so much invent as encounter already invented, we see the resinous nature of amber recognised. It IS true that at first it is the black poplar (populus nigry), from which amber is pictured as flowing; but Pliny got so far as to represent the amber tree as belonging to the pine family- Sotakus, Mithridates, Atesius, Pytheus, Timteus, Theopompus, Appollonius, and Aristotle, whom Pliny cites, hold fast to the resinous nature of amber; and Aristotle ven-tured even to speak of petrified poplar gum. Clear, therefore, ' were the sight and the insight of the ancients into this matter; and, though fantastic and marvellous notions arose, held away, and have historical record; though fable dreamed of amber as the petrified semen of elephants, fishes, whales, dolphins, seals, and other animals, or as the hardened urine of the lynx—yet we find, even in Theodoric’s time—that is to say, in the sixth century after Christ—the resinous nature of amber viewed as indubitable by all capable of forming an opinion on the subject. We now behold a chasm in the amber literature yawning before us till the sixteenth century; and though the home of amber and the mode of obtaining the substance were well known, we encounter the greatest confusion and inaccuracy respecting amber itself.
The learned George Agricola, who wrote his celebrated book on mining and minerals in 1546, sneers at those views of the
ancients which came so near the truth. “How can amber,” he says, “be derived from trees, seeing that it is thrown forth from the sea? In the sea no trees grow.” The refutation of views of the ancients costs him little trouble. He remarks that they need no other refutation than the simple statement that they are false. Alluding, also, to the variety of opinions prevailing among the ancients, he exclaims: “All these opinions contradict each other. Fortunately they are all wrong!” Let us now* hear what he himself regards as the truth:—“Amber is fat and burns. It consists, therefore, either of sulphur or of bitumen. The latter supposition we are driven to accept by the following facts:—The springs throw forth bitumen of very various colours, white, yellow, reddish, black, dark-purple-red, dark-azure. By boiling, amber is soon changed into an oil of a peculiar colour or into a black bitumen, which, through rubbing, becomes purple-red, and similar to the bitumen of Judea, so that it is not easy to distinguish it therefrom; or, by the same process, it may be changed into black ashes, or into a fine white matter which has some likeness to salt.”
With the exception of a few gainsayers who clung to the vegetal origin of amber, Agricola was followed as an authority by nearly all writers, especially by the prominent authors in amber literature Aurifaber (1551), Sebastian Munster in his “ Kosmographia” (1554), Hartmann (1677), Sendel (1742). Even in the time of Linnaeus the question was still debated, for Linneus tries to furnish proois of the vegetal origin of amber. Not till toward the end of the last century did all doubt about the resinous nature of amber cease; and now the exploration of the natural and geological relations of amber proceeds with great rapidity.
Bock (1767) and Bidru (1808) distinctly designate amber as a fossil pine resin or fir resin. The latter thought that through streams from the south it had been conveyed to the Baltic, which at that time extended further southward than now. He imagined that there had been the conflagration of forests, and conjectured that the original home of the amberforests had been in the Carpathians, or in the region of Poland and Posen. In the year 1819 appeared the celebrated treatise on amber by Schweigger. From the anatomy of the wood between the layers of which the amber is found, from the bough nodes, and the very visible year rings, Schweigger shows that the amber tree could not have belonged to the family of palms, as had often been supposed, but must be classed with the dicotyledonous growths. He deems it ])robable that amber flowed from various trees, whose species, however, he was unable to determine; forasmuch as the various kinds of wood had not been sufficiently examined. He furthermore maintains, from the animals and plants entombed in amber (though he erroneously took some pieces of copal for pieces of amber), that the climate of the amber period was warmer than the present climate, yet still not a tropical one. He recognises in the flora and the fauna of the amber forest undoubtedly northern forms, strangely intermixed, however, with the southern forms which he found enclosed in the copal he mistook for amber. Thus with Schweigger had closed the cycle of investigation into the nature of amber, which, beginning with Aristotle and Pliny, had extended to two thousand years.
It was Johann Christian Aycke, of Dantzic, who next examined under the microscope the ligneous remains connected with amber, and from the most careful experiments he drew the weightiest conclusions in regard to the formation and the excretion of the amber resin. He found that the amber resin was so abundantly secreted, and so profusely flowed forth, that none of our existing trees can bear com-
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parison therewith. And he believed that the amber tree, through its excessive outflow of resin, must have been in a pathological diseased condition. The resinous sap bursting forth potently tore off large pieces of bark; yea, it sometimes destroyed the whole ligneous substance, and left nothing remaining but the cell forms (the wood changed into amber). Finally, the amber is occasionally filled completely with the remains of the burst and macerated ligneous cells, as with sawdust (the so-called fernitzstein or black varnish). Aycke, in addition, recognised the impress of the ligneous cells on the amber. He distinguished the curved amber laminae, which had lain between the concentric year rings of the tree, from the even laminae, which had been formed in the direction of the medullary radii, and which now showed the year rings transversely. Aycke also called attention to the outward forms, the frequently recurring shapes resembling drops and pins, to the stratified arrangement, and to the different degrees of transparency, clearness, and turbidness. He demonstrated that wholly untransparent white amber and wholly clear, transparent amber were poured forth from the same tree at the same time, and through the same resinous gush; for these varieties are in one and the same piece, either in stratified position with definite limit or without any limit, each passing into each, each bound with each. The outward form of the amber pieces shows, lastly, that the resin broke forth in very different states of fluidity, sometimes viscous, drawing itself out in long threads, sometimes thin-flowing, so that it catches and holds the spider’s web, and so that the insect with outspread wings seems to fly in it. So much for Aycke’s investigations, which were published in 1835.
We see that in the main those investigations relate to the origin and formation of the amber itself, and to the amber tree, not so much to the animals and plants enclosed in the amber, and thereby preserved for our examination. To this department of the subject Dr. Berendt, in Dantzic, devoted his special attention, he having collected, polished, and examined more than two thousand pieces of amber containing animal and vegetal remains. As early as 1830 he had clearly made out many plants, and recognised the graceful forms of the Jungermannia, the heaths, and the Arbores Vita, Tn 1845, Berendt associated with his investigations Goppert, who, as profound student of fossil plants and flora, had by .works relating thereto gained a special reputation.
Goppert gave to the already well-known amber pine the name of Pinus Succinifera or Pinites Succinifer; he analysed in detail the microscopical structure of the wood, and he grouped the plant-holding pieces of amber collected by Berendt into a flora of the amber forest, in which he distinguished, defined, and figured 54 species of plants, which were divided into 19 families and 24 genera. Aided by the much richer collection of vegetal remains in amber made by Menge, Goppert widened the glance he had thrown into the amber forest by his celebrated notice inserted in 1853 in the monthly reports of the Berlin Academy. Not less than 163 species which had already been defined by Menge himself, Goppert distributed into 24 families and 64 genera. It is natural, as Zaddach Bays, that of the plants, those parts have been oftenest preserved which either fell regularly off at fixed periods of the year, or which could easily be torn off by the wind and driven about in the forest—acicular leaves of the conifers, blossomcatkins, wliich after the blooming was over and when the fruit was ripening, fell off with their stalk, small pieces of boughs, single flowers or filaments and anthers, ramenta, and the like. These are the portions of plants from which we have to draw our deductions in regard to the flora of the amber forest; but leaves and blossoms have likewise been preserved. We find, then, according to Goppert, in this flora, a birch, an alder, a hornbeam, a poplar, two beeches, seven oaks, three willows, about 30 firs and pines, 20 cypresses and Thuja, a chestnut tree, an acacia, which Alexander Brann recognised; furthermore, 16 kinds of fungus, an alga, 12 lichens, 11 water-liverworts (Jungermannia), 19 foliaceous mosses, both such as are found on trees and such as grow on the ground in shady places of the forest, a fern, our common bilberries, many heaths, some pyrohe, a Verba*-cum Thapsiforme (has a variety of names in English, High Taper among the rest), our Lonicerea, plants akin to our caprifolium, and other plants in forms not distinguishable from existing forms. The most frequent tree of the amber forest appears to have been a thuja, corresponding to our existing life tree (Thuja Occidentalis). According to Menge, ten sprigs of this thuja were found on a leaf or a blossom of a foliated tree, and five on a portion of acicular wood.
The geographical distribution of plants having made much scientific progress, it now became possible to compare the amber flora with the flor© of the existing world. What Goppert says in reference to the amber forest is substantially contained in these words:—We have here before us a forest flora in which tropical and sub-tropical forms are entirely lacking. (A camphor tree, however, was subsequently found by Menge.) The cell-cryptogams of the amber flora justify us in recognising a great similarity to the existing flora, a similarity which would be much more conspicuous and convincing if the Cupressinea, so rare with us, and the numerous Abietinea and Ericinea, did not give to the amber flora a foreign aspect. The amber flora, in truth, as the specially studied and minutely described Thuja Occidentalis, Sedum Ternatum, Andromeda HypnoIdes, and Ericoidet make mani-
fest, reminds us of the existing flora of the northern part of the United States; for Andromeda Hypnoides does not merely grow in the remote north-western mountains of America, but also in Labrador, Greenland, and Iceland—yea, even in Lapland, Norway, Siberia—makes thus almost the round of the Polar circle. And Andromeda Ericoidet appertains alone to the Alps and to the shores of the Polar Sea in Siberia and Kamschatka. On the other hand, the occurrence of the Libocedrites Salicornioidet is very remarkable, forasmuch as the still living and almost entirely agreeing with it Libocedrut Chilensis has a home on the Andes of the southern part of Chili. This species, however, as well as the Toxodites Europaue, are the only two species which this flora has in common with the tertiary flora of other regions.
In the living flora of those lands in the extreme north we nevertheless do not find the Cuprestinea and the Abietinea so numerously represented as in the amber flora. The northern part of the United States presents to us doubtless about 13 Abietinea, whose analogues we partly encounter in the amber flora, but only five Cupressinea. By far the greater part of the flora, therefore, no longer exists, especially species as rich in resin as the amber trees, wliich in regard to the wealth of resin can only be compared with the New Zealand Dammara Australis, whose branches and boughs are so covered with drops of white resin that they seem to be attired in icicles. Among the Cupressinea we find even two species of Libocedrites, which are successful in meeting with their analogues only in the temperate zone of South America. Goppert has made a comparison of the amber forest with the German flora, in regard to the proportion of single families and species. He finds that the shrub-like and tree-like growths of the amber forest hold to the herb-like growths the proportion of ten to one. The proportion in the German flora is exactly the opposite. Goppert draws the deduction that only a very small part of the amber forest has come to our knowledge. Pursuing his investigations, he encountered New Zealand and Japanese forms kindred to some in the amber flora.
Heer, of Zurich, is not inclined to identify so many vegetal forms of the amber flora as Goppert with the forms of the existing world. According to Heer, one of the most distinguished students of fossil, and especially of tertiary, plants, it is the tertiary flora of Scandinavia that comes before us in the amber flora, which is strikingly distinguished from the tertiary flora elsewhere met with by its northern character. Heer believes that Scandinavia in the tertiary period joined North Germany, but was severed from the regions of South Europe by a broad arm of the sea; that, therefore, its flora is peculiar, and had a different development from that of South Europe and of Germany proper.
Heer accounts for the intermixture of northern and southern forms of mountain plants with plants of the lowlands by the fact, or assumed fact, that the amber shielded the parts of plants enclosed in it from destruction, and thereby made possible an extraordinary, an extensive transport, and the conjunction of very various forms from a very wide domain. But, in agreement with Goppert, Heer indicates, as distinguishing characteristic of the amber flora, so far as it is revealed to us by the fragments of amber containing organic remains, the predominance of the acicular woods, especially of the life trees or Arbores Vita, nearly related to the American kinds.
In the year 1853 Goppert distinguished eight different amber trees—acicular kinds of wood, that is, which furnished amber; but afterwards he reduced the number. In the year 18o8 the amber flora was enriched by Menge with some beautifully preserved plants. Recently materials for an amber flora, but still waiting for thorough study and accurate classification, have been greatly increased.
Air bubbles and drops of water derived from rain or from dew are frequently found enclosed in the fragments of amber. Yea, empty vesicular spaces in the amber show, by the mobile dust left behind in them, that they formerly were filled with water, which has vanished by evaporation.
The amber resin was partly excreted, and assembled at the roots of the amber trees, where the largest masses repose, if we may draw deductions from the analogy of existing resinous trees; partly it fell from the branches, assuming pinlike or droplike forms, which are common. Thus, doubtless, it came into contact with leaves lying on the ground, whose form it has in impress retained. I have seen about 20 such impressed leaves. They belong to the aforementioned lifetrees. Especially interesting are the so-called “petrified pins,” that is to say, amber drops hanging by a long, tough thread; which “pins” were enclosed by a later amber flow, and thus retained in their shape.
The amber forest was animated by creatures (insects, arachnida, myriopods, crustaceans), respecting which Zaddach says that they completely possessed the forms of the existing animated world; but that the animals brought more peculiarly into relation with amber, were as to species, and often as to genus, different from the animals now existing. Sometimes these animals, as is generally the case with the animals of the primeval world, combine the characteristics of various families and orders of animals now living—exhibit, therefore, a form from which, in the later evolution of the animal world, two different orders of forms have been developed. This is the case with a small insect which, by the structure of its feelers, its feet, and its mouth, belongs to the neuroptera,
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whilst by the scaly covering of the fore-wings it has affinity with butterflies. We find in this amber fauna larvae, caterpillars, bees, ants, flies, chafers, earwigs. We find living under moss, or the bark of trees in the forest galley-worms, spiders, myriopods, small crustaceans, small butterflies, land snails, and so on. So numerous have been the specimens of animals found that their scientific examination and clasifica-tion still remain to be made; and the fauna of the amber forest may, therefore, look forward to an extraordinary enrichment.
Hitherto there have been described or mentioned:—
Crustaceans .................. 6	species.	4	genera.
Myriopods................. 33	„	11	„
Arachnida (spiders)	..	205	„	73	„
Insects (flies, ants,
chafers, butterflies)	779	,,	174	„
Landsnails................ 1	it	1	„
Total......1024	„	263	„
The resin, when flowing out, was no doubt light and thin, and so little viscous, that the smaller and weaker insects— midges, water moths, ants, termites, spiders—were entrapped, and worked their way sometimes into the mass with the loss of a foot or a wing, while the larger and stronger insects of every kind escaped. The latter are, therefore, very seldom found, and for the most part are half destroyed, or have on one side a mouldy covering, a proof that they were already dead when the resin flowed round them. From the rarity of the specimens we can draw no conclusions as to the abundance or scarcity of the creatures when alive.
Berendt and Menge in Dantzic, Germar in Halle, Loew in Meseritz, Hagen and Zaddach in Konigsberg, have distinguished themselves by their study of the amber fauna.
As fruits and farinaceous grains were not lacking in the amber forest, this forest must have been peopled by birds, a fact proved by a feather found by Dr. Klinsmann, in Dantzic. and figured by Berendt. Of mammalian remains nothing has hitherto been discovered except a tuft of hair, which is supposed to have been that of a bat. Fishes, also, and amphibia are completely lacking in amber. It is true that frequently fishes and frogs exist in real amber, and have been pictorially represented; but they have been placed in the amber by artificial process, which is accomplished in the following manners—Two pieces of genuine amber, of the same colour and of the same quality, are hollowed out. After the small fishes, the lizards or the frogs have been placed in the hollows, these are filled with mastic, the well-known aromatic resin, and then the two pieces of amber, moistened with caustic potash, are pressed, when warm, against each other. The edges or joinings of such pieces are, as a rule, fastened with tombac, or, when this is not the case, adorned with furrows and lacings to conceal the deception, which, however, immediately becomes manifest if the pieces are placed in boiling water or spirits of wine, whereupon they fall asunder. In the same way must, perhaps, be explained the presence of lizards and vipers in amber, which Pliny and Martial mention. Possibly, however, the statements of these writers relate to copal, which they mistook for amber.
The amber animals are all land animals. A single animal Professor Zaddach has described which, probably, belongs to the sea: a tiny amphipod resembling the small sea-crabs found on the shores of the Baltic, and which hop about on the sand in thousands (Gammaru* and Talitrw). Of this important discovery Zaddach says:—“As at present only few species of the jenns gammarus are inhabitants of the fresh water, and as these never come to the land, there is no reason for believing that the extinct species was like them; it is much more probable that those ancient amphipods, like the'existing amphipods, lived in the sea, and possibly, as the strong structure of the hinder body and hinder feet seems to indicate, sometimes came to the shore to hop on the wet sand. Here the animal may have perished, and, as alight body, along with the small sand mass which clung to it, been blown or thrown into the mass of resin. For the circumstances that it is pressed into the sand, and the body of the animal is broken, show that the animal was dead when it fell into the resin; but that it had not previously been rolled far over the ground is shown by the uninjured and outstretched legs. We are justified in conjecturing that the amber forests did not extend to the immediate proximity of the sea, and the amber earths hidden in the soil of Samland may not be indebted for their precious contents so much to a sudden overthrow of the amber forest as to the ordinary and thousand times repeated inrushes of the sea into the domain of the amber forest.”
The abundance of water in the amber land is indicated, according to Hermann Hagen, by the numerous neuroptera of the amber forest. By far the greater portion of them—three-fourths of the species and four-fifths of the individuals—live in the water in their earlier stages. The rest are all forest insects, and entirely lacking are all those species whose earlier stages demand a sandy habitation.
This is essentially all that we know respectfng the amber forest, which, probably, covered a very extensive territory in the north of the globe. In effect, there are found in the blue earth fragments of rocks which still exist in the islands Bornholm, Oesel, Gottland, and in the Gulf of Finland. Therefore, the amber forest of the blue earth may at one time have flourished there. But these islands were at that period connected with each other, and the mainland extended as far as
the Samland of the present day. In general, the amber of the blue earth could not have been conveyed any great distance through the water; for, though amber often swims in the water, yet, on the other hand, we find a good deal of amber in the blue earth which sinks in the water, and which can only be borne along by water in a state of violent commotion. The strongest rush of the waves and the fiercest surf were, therefore, needed to tear the amber loose from its place of repose and to transport it further. Very far the amber could not have travelled; for the most part, it must have sunk down to the bottom of the sea and there rested, and from the depths it could not easily be stirred by the water of the sea.
But what has become of the amber forest? In all geological systems of stratification we find accumulated in the coal strata the cognate or corresponding vegetation. Should we not be justified, therefore, in expecting to encounter the remains of the amber forests?
In the blue earth of Samland we certainly find often along with amber ligneous remains; but these always consist of chips, splinters, small boughs, and give visible signs that they have been borne on by the water, that they have been rolled along. They are ligneous remains such as lie about in every forest on the ground. A trunk of any size has not hitherto been found in the blue earth. That those ligneous remains are derived from the amber forest is indubitable, for among them are seen the small boughs of the amber tree entirely filled with amber resin. But the mass does not in the remotest degree correspond to the quantity of ligneous matter which the amber forest must have possessed in its trunks in order to produce the enormous amount of resin which it really furnished.
If we reckon back three thousand years, and if we accept as normal a yearly harvest of 40,000 pounds, or 400 hundredweights, then the Baltic in that period must have produced 12 million hundred-weights of amber. If we add hereto the amber which is contained in the blue earth, as far as we can approximatively estimate its extent, these results, supposing the deposits to have had 10 miles in longitudal, and two miles in latitudinal extent, a surface of twenty square miles. (The German mile is equal to five English miles.) A (German) square mile has 576 million cubic feet. The surface of the blue earth may be, therefore, reckoned at about 11,520 million square feet; and its cubic mass from a thickness of 10 feet, at about 115,200 million cubic feet. We thus have, taking the twelfth of a pound as the average contents of a cubic foot of blue earth, about 96 million hundred-weights lying untouched in the blue earth. But hereto we have furthermore to reckon the very considerable quantities of amber which lie scattered in the North German plains, in Siberia, North America, and so on; and lastly the quantities which for thousands of years have beeh thrown forth by the northern Polar Sea and by the North Sea, and those which at the bottom of those seas lie hidden ready to furnish such supplies. Thus there are revealed to our eyes more than 100 million hundred-weights of amber resin, which the amber forests have yielded. If we wish to represent to ourselves these amber masses specially, we obtain, seeing that a cubic foot of amber weighs about 66 pounds, or two-thirds of a hundred-weight, about 150 million cubic feet of amber—that is, a cube each of whose sides is about 531 feet, or 265 paces long. What an immense amount of ligneous material must have been needed to produce such quantities of resin. Botanists can carry the calculation further by a comparison with the resinous production of the existing conifers.
Whither has gone the main mass of this amber forest? Where are the coal strata in which it is deposited? Up to the present day we know not.
It seemed a justifiable step to bring the brown coal formation of Samland into connection with the amber forest, and to seek therein the remains of the latter. But, according to the experiences hitherto obtainable, this hypothesis cannot be accepted. It is the opinion of Zaddach that there is no reason for believing that when the amber was deposited in the blue earth the amber forests perished. On the contrary, this is not probable; for otherwise we should have found this or that trunk in the blue earth. Hitherto, ligneous remains and amber apart, we find no petrifactions but sea animals, the alligator’s tooth excepted, which I was fortunate enough to obtain during my residence in Samland, and to enrich science with; and which, if not carried by a current to the sea, would be referable to the mainland or to the mouth of a river.
The brown coal formation of Samland is a younger formation, and hitherto not the smallest trace of marine animals has been found which would bring the brown coal strata into connection with the sea. Besides, the flora of the Samland brown coal formation is different from that of the amber formation; it indicates a warmer climate. A poplar seems to have been the most frequent tree. Only two forms have the brown coal flora and the amber flora in common. What seems to me decisive for a reply to the question is the circumstance that amber has been found among the brown coals, but not a single piece of wood in connection with amber. If the brown coal formation contained the main mass of the amber forest, the remains and the stems of the amber trees would not be so rare, and they would give invincible witness of their presence by the amber so richly excreted among the amber deposits.
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Thus we know not what has became of the amber forest. It is possible that portions thereof lie concealed in the Baltic, the North Sea, the North Polar Sea; and it is possible that it was entirely destroyed and dispersed, marvellous and striking as this may be. Let us hope that German science may yet shed some light on the subject. The statements respecting the frequent discovery of large trunks of trees in the amber deposits of Poland, and of the Tuchel Heath, have not yet been so thoroughly investigated that we should surrender the expectation of finding ligneous remains of the amber forest in larger quantities than hitherto. Moreover, science has not yet given a final answer to the question whether amber possessed at its formation its present oharacteristics, its aromatic scent, its insolubility in alcohol, or obtained them through fossilisation, through envelopement with vitriolic and carbonic layers, through impenetration with sea water, and so on. If the latter were the case, then we might hope for the transformation into amber of ordinary fir resin, or a similar substance. 	*	 gm Jenson. XL—STILL IN RELATION TO TOBACCO. We are now at the culmination of Jonson's genius, “The Alchemist" (1610; set. 37, about which age so many of the illustrious culminate or perish); and here we meet Abel Drugger, a Tobacco-man, one of the favourite parts of Garrick. This masterpiece of comedy, admirable in all respects, is not least admirable for its construction, a department in which nearly all our really great dramatists and novelists have been so poor (Fielding, particularly in “ Tom Jones," is a shining exception) that they have been driven to beg, borrow, or steal, or fail. In “The Alchemist" we have a thoroughly original plot, full of vigorous and complicated action, involving the most diversified characters, so closely and deftly knit that, without sacrifice of probability, the scene is concentrated in one house and the lane in front of it, and the time is no more than is occupied in the representation. The acrostic Argument indicates the mainspring of the piece very succinctly:— * The sickness hot, a master quit, for fear, His house in town, and left one servant there; Ease him corrupted, and gave means to know “A Cheater and his punk; who now brought low, Leaving their narrow practice were become Cozeners at large; and only wanting some House to set up, with him they here contract, Each for a share, and all begin to act.” The cheater is Subtle, alchemist, fortune-teller, astrologer, dealer in familiar spirits (not of alcohol), passed master gamester, &c., &c. His worthy companion is Pol Common, who plays whatever parts occasion may call for. The servant is Jeremy, the butler, who, as Captain Face, touts for the firm, and also acts as Ulen Spiegel, the Lungs, Puffe, or Assistant of Subtle. “ Much company they draw," continues the Argument: and finely, in sooth, do they draw all the hooked and netted fish and fowl. Dapper, the lawyer's clerk, comes for a fly or familiar, “to rifle with at horses, and win cups;" and then, as his greed grows, for one that shall enable him to win at all games. Tribulation Wholesome and Ananias, a pastor and deacon at Amsterdam, come for the philosopher's stone and the elixir of immortality; for which also comes Sir Epicure Mammon, “a grave sir, a rich, that has no need, a wise sir, too, at other times," whose exuberance of voluptuous anticipation is as inexhaustible as the wealth and health at the command of the lord of the stone and the elixir, though a harvest of such foison has been reaped before in the same fields by the sensual raptures of “ Volpone;" Dame Pliant, the rich and buxom young widow, comes to have her fortune told, and her brother Kastril to learn all the niceties of the quarrel and the duello, which, as we know by Touchstone's exposition, were then subtle exceedingly. Out modest and innocent friend Abel comes likewise; and he, for Tobacco's sake, must be put in scene as he makes his first appearance (Act. L, Sc. 1):— “ Subtle.	What is your name, say you, Abel Drugger? “Drugger. Yes, sir. “ Sub.	A seller of Tobacco ? “Drug.	Yes, sir. “ Sub.	Umph! Free of the grocers [the Grocers' Company] ? “ Drug.	Ay, an’t please you. * Sub.	Well—your business, Abel ? * Drug.	This, an’t please your worship: I am a young beginner, and am building Of a new shop, an’t like your worship, just At corner of a street:—Here is the plot on’t— And I would know by art, sir, of your worship, Which way I should make my door, by necromancy, And whore my shelves; and which should be for boxes, And which for pots. I would be glad to thrive, sir: I was wished to your worship by a gentleman, One Captain Face, that says you know men’s planets, And their good angels, and their bad. “Sub.	Ido, If I do see them. [An angel was also a coin.] Re-enter Face. “Face.	What! my honest Abel? Thon art well met here. “DBUG.	Troth, sir, I was speaking, Just as your worship came here, of your worship: I fray y°u speak for me to master doctor.	“Fact.	He shall do anything. Doctor, do you hear? This is my friend Abel, an honest fellow; He lets me have good Tobacco, and he does not Sophisticate it with sack-lees or oil. Nor washes it in muscadel and grains, Nor buries it in gravel, under ground, Wrapped up in greasy leather, or pissed clouts: But keeps it in fine lily pots, that, opened, Smell like conserve of roses, or French beans, He has his maple block, his silver tongs, Winchester pipes, and fire of juniper: A neat, spruce, honest fellow, and no goldsmith. [in the sense of money-lender, usurer.] “ Sub.	He is a fortunate fellow, that I am sure od. “ Fact.	Already, sir, have you	found it ? Lo thee, Abel! “ Sub.	And in right way toward riches	 “ Face.	Sir 1 “ Sub.	This summer He will be of the clothing of his company, And next spring called to the scarlet; spend what he can. “Fact.	What, and so little beard? “ Sub.	Sir, you must think, He may have a receipt to make hair come: But he’ll be wise, preserve his youth, and fine for’t. His fortune looks for him another way. “ Fact.	'Slid, doctor, how const thou know this so soon ? I am amused [amazed] at that. “ Sub.	By a rule, captain, In metoposcopy, which I do work by; A certain star in the forehead, which you see not. Your chesnut or your olive-coloured face Does never fail: and your long ear doth promise. I knew’t by certain spots, too, in his teeth, And on the nail of his Mercurial finger. “ Face.	Which finger's that ? “ Sub.	His little finger. Look. You were born upon a Wednesday ? “ Drug.	Yes, indeed, sir. “ Sub.	The thumb, in chiromancy, we give Venus; The forefinger to Jove; the midst to Saturn; The ring to Sol; the least to Mercury, Who was the lord, sir, of his horoscope, His''house of life being Libra; which foreshewed He should be a merchant, and should trade with balance. 'M Fact.	Why, thi^ is strange! Is it not, honest Nab ? “ Sub.	There is a ship now coming from Ormus, That shall yield him such a commodity Of drugs—This is the west, and this the south? [Pointing to the plan.] “ Drug.	Yes, sir. “ Sub.	And those	are your two	sides. “ Drug.	Ay, sir. “ Sub.	Make me your door, then, south; your broad side west: And on the east side of your shop, aloft, Write, Mathlai, Tarmiel, and Baraborat; Upon the north part, Rael, Velel, Thiel. They are the names of those Mercurial spirits That do fright flies from boxes. “Drug.	Yes, sir. “Sub.	And Beneath your threshold, bury me a loadstone To draw in gallants that wear spurs: the rest, They’ll seem to follow. “ Fact.	That’s a secret, Nab! “ Sub.	And on your stall, a puppet, with a vice And a court-fucus,* to call city-dames: .	You shall deal much with minerals. “Drug.	Sir, I have At home, already	 “ Sub.	Ay, I know you have arsenic, Vitriol, sal-tartar, argaile, alkali, Cinopcr: I know all.—This fellow, captain, Will come in time to be a groat distiller [chemist], And give a sayt—I will not say directly, But very fair—at the philosopher’s stone. “ Fact.	Why, how now, Abel 1 is this true ? “Drug.	Good captain, What must I give ?	[Aside to Fact. “Fact.	Nay, I’ll not counsel thee. Thou hear’st what wealth (he says, spend what thou const) Thon ’rt like to come to. “Drug.	I would gi’ him a crown. “ Fact.	A crown I and toward such a fortune ? heart, Thou shalt rather gi’ him thy shop. No gold about thee ? “ Drug.	Yes, I have a portague,; I have kept this half-year. “Fact.	Out on thee, Nab! ’Slight, there was such an offer— Shalt keep’t no longer, I’ll give’t him for thee. Doctor, Nab prays your worship to drink this, and swears He will appear more grateful, as your skill Does raise him in the world. “ Drug.	I would entreat	. Another favour of his worship. “Face.	What is’t, Nab? “ Drug.	But to look over, sir, my almanack, And cross out my ill days, that I may neither Bargain, nor trust npon them. “Face.	That he shall, Nab; Leave it; it shall be done ’gainst afternoon. “ Sub.	And a direction for his shelves. “Fact.	Now, Nab, Art thou well pleased, Nab ? “ Drug.	Thank, sir, both your worrhips. “ Face.	Away.	[Exit Drugger.* The above quotation is very long, but the scene is too good to be mangled; and, moreover, only by giving it in full could the exquisite simplicity of Abel and the exquisite roguery of the accomplices be adequately developed for such as do not know the play. It will be observed that Drugger says very little, telling * A doll moved by wires, with face painted or rouged. ,	t Assay, essay; attempt or trial. t A gold coin worth about £3 12s. “ Holinahead mentions the portague as a piece very solemnly kept of divers.”
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his business and answering questions as briefly as possible, and being only profuse in interjections of humble thanks to the sharpers who are plucking him. The attraction of the part for Garrick doubtless consisted in its liberal scope for the eloquent pantomime of gait, attitude, gesture, facial expression, of which he was so consummate a master, alike in tragedy and comedy. Eyes intent on him only must have read the speeches of Subtle and Face with scarcely less precision and far deeper impression than the ears heard them. As a great composer will maintain the identity of a simple air or fugal theme through countless intricate variations, combinations, and transformations, so we can imagine the great mimic preserving the original simple Drugger through a manifold diversity of humorous phases; and the good Partridge would have found him no more an actor in this than in Hamlet, remarking to his patron, Tom Jones, that any one in the circumstances would have looked and done just as Mr. Garrick did.
Referring to Face's recommendation of Abel, Gifford notes:—
“It should be observed that the houses of druggists (Tobacconists) were not merely furnished with Tobacco, but with conveniences for smoking it. Every well-frequented shop was an academy of this ‘noble art,’ where professors regularly attended to initiate the country aspirant. Abel’s shop is very graphically described, and seems to be one of the most fashionable kind. The maple block was for shredding the Tobacco leaf, the silver tongs for holding the coal, and the fire of juniper for the customers to light their pipes. Juniper is not lightly mentioned: ‘whence once kindled,’ Fuller says, ‘it is hardly quenched;’ and Upton observes, from Cardan, that ‘a coal of juniper, if covered with its own ashes, will retain its fire a whole year.’”
Juniper was, moreover, burnt in Jonson’s time to sweeten the air of chambers. Thus, in the character of the persons prefixed to ‘‘Every Man out of His Humour,” Deliro is described as “ a good doting citizen. ... a fellow sincerely besotted on his own wife, and so rapt with a conceit of her perfections, that he simply holds himself unworthy of her. . . . He doth sacrifice twopence in juniper to her every morning before she rises, and wakes her with villainous out-of-tane music, which she, out of her contempt (though not out of her judgment), is sure to dislike.” See also “Cynthia’s Revels,” Act. H., So. 1.
We are horrified to learn from this same speech of Face into what loathsome depths of iniquity the black art of sophisticating pure Tobacco had plunged so soon after its blessed introduction into common use here. But this was chiefly the fault of that sapient fool or fatuous sage, James I., who, by one of the earliest Acts of his reign, in 1604, increased the importation duty from twopence to six shillings and tenpence per lb. (probably equal to 30s. now); an advance at one wild leap of exactly four thousand per cent! A pretty premium upon adulteration and smuggling. “In consequence of this, nearly a stagnation of the trade took place; and Stith informs us that so low was it reduced in 1611 (the year after the production of the ‘Alchemist’], that only 142,085 lbs. weight were imported from Virginia, not amounting to one-sixth of the previous annual supply.” (“ Nicotiana,” pp. 38-39.) Culture at home was then tried, but another Act was passed in 1620 prohibiting this. It was also discovered that “ the wisest fool in Christendom” had only imposed the monstrous duty on Tobacco from Virginia; and recourse was had to the Spanish and Portuguese possessions, whose Tobacco thus came in at the old twopence, to the heavy injury of our own colonists! These naturally complained, and so in 1624 yet another Act lessened the duty on their produce, and prohibited importation of any other. As the trade began to revive under this, James finished his reign as he had begun it, by an attempt to cut down the inveterate weed he could not uproot: he had a law made imposing heavy penalties on any one dealing in Tobacco without royal letters patent. “ A blow so sudden and unexpected occasioned the ruin, we are told, of many thousands, and the trade went rapidly to decay.” (“Nicotiana,” pp. 39-40.) It was by this consistent and enlightened course of conduct that the Most High and Mighty Prince James justified the free and independent gratulations of those who accomplished our Authorised Version of the Bible: “For whereas it was the expectation of many, who wished not well to our Sion, that upon the setting of that bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth, of most happy memory, some thick and palpable clouds of darkness [breathed from myriads of Tobacco-pipes] would so have overshadowed this land. . . . the appearance of your Majesty, as of the Sun in his strength, instantly dispelled those supposed and surmised mists [by the before-mentioned Acts and the ‘Counterblast:’ but how dispel mists which were not in existence, being only supposed and surmised?]” &c., Ac. This is how the modern Solomon dealt with a precious and wholesome luxury, rapidly growing into an almost universal necessary of really civilised life, and the duty on which in 1875, just 250 years after his death, contributed £7,720,558 to the national revenue, being 38} per cent, of all the Customs, 5 per cent, more than spirits, and over twice as much as tea! And, even in his own time, he was so far foiled in his demented war ft outrance against the ‘‘Weed of glorious feature” (Wordsworth!) that, as I read in Dr. Carrick Murray’s little work on Smoking (p. 70): “ From * The Honesty of the Age,’ by Barnaby Rych, published in 1614, two years before
the celebrated * Counterblast,’ we learn there were * upwards of 7C00 houses that doeth live by that trade in London, and near about London.’ ”
And now we must postpone the further consideration of honest Abel Drugger, who, unsophisticated himself, supplied unsophisticated Tobacco, to another number. Sigvat.
^jpts anir ot^er (Eastern Spltnbours.
Oriental magnificence! Is it not true, dear reader, that you are excited, and that you expect something great and extraordinary? Delineators of the East have doubtless stimulated your phantasy; but permit me to abstain from sacrificing the truth to sensational pictures from the desire to be interesting; permit me frankly to say to you that the old dazzling, star-eclipsing ornamentation of the East is now nothing but miserable tinsel and tawdriness. The love of show and pomp certainly exists, and we may have more than one occasion to speak of it; but ornamentation—real ornamentation, fitted to produce astonishment, I mean, to a European eye, is seldom to be found. The abstinent Ottomans have transferred the old love of parade to their women; and the women assuredly are accustomed to overload themselves with thick pearl necklaces and other decorations of the neck, bracelets, clasps, finger rings, and earrings; while the gentlemen only attempt to shine by finger rings enriched by rubies, diamonds and sapphires, by seals, or rather, I should say signets, and by watches. The signet, that stereotyped instrument of the Orientals for giving the authority of their name, that alter ego, is kept in a small silk bag, is carried on the body, and is carefully kept from being seen, even by the members of the family. Consisting of elaborately worked precious stones, set in gold, the signetshave often additional value from their great antiquity. The watches are frequently of old English make, and set with diamonds. Even “ministering spirits” (servants) wear watches worth from five hundred to a thousand francs. The conservative Turks, in accordance with ancient custom, go to immense expense for saddle and harness; the innovating Turks have transferred the expenditure and the display to carriages. On their carriages they often make a ridiculous outlay. The coaches, grandly decked with silver and the finest glass, and made in Paris, are dashed to pieces in a few weeks on the abominable pavements of old Byzantium. For no carriage has yet found its way from the banks of the Seine or of the Danube to the Bosphorus which has been able to hold out for more than three months. If on luxurious carriages prodigious sums are expended, there is another article on which the ostentation of the Turks is stupendously concentrated; and that is the pipe. The large amber mouthpiece is, among the rich, adorned with precious stones, and on certain grand occasions schibooks are brought forth, every part of which has cost several thousand francs. When the present King of Belgium—at that time Duke of Brabant—was travelling in the East, he was the Sultan Abdul Medschid’s guest, who allowed him to smoke with his own schibooks. These pleased the Duke extremely; and the Sultan, to whom he expressed his delight, made use of the customary and courteous Oriental expression: “ Regard them as yours.” This is an Oriental utterance which is never meant to be taken seriously. The Prince, however, who has Coburg blood flowing in his veins, took the matter very seriously indeed, and on the day of his departure ordered the whole of the pipes, worth hundreds of thousands of francs, to be packed for him in a box. The Turks allotted to the temporary service of the heir to the Belgian throne witnessed his conduct with terror and astonishment, and interpreted the words of the Sultan in accordance with the customary forms and fashions of Oriental courtesies. But his Highness refused to accept the interpretation, and replied: “Sultans never jest.” He took the whole treasure of pipes with him to Brussels. As a return present the Duke of Brabant sent an elaborately made vase, with remarkable bas-reliefs and other artistical adornments; but a hundred-fold less in value than the pipes which he had with unscrupulous covetousness seized. In Persia pipes are still more profusely ornamented than in Turkey, and, as a rule, luxury has a greater sway in the one country than in the other, especially in finery of attire and in lavish employment of the precious metals, and, above all, on saddle-gear; for the Persians, in accordance with ancient habit, are still pre-eminently an equitant people. To make house utensils and cooking and eating vessels of the precious metals is now much rarer than of yore; and it is only here and there that high-born families treasure from the good old time basins, water jugs, light-holders, plates of silver, sherbet cups of gold. The only vessel which the Turks on the Bosphorus still adorn is the small saucer of the coffee-cup (zarf); the skill of the natives finishes saucers of this kind with filigrane work, and sometimes sets them with precious stones. As with the growing influence of Western civilisation the old Turkish habits are always driven more and more towards the eastern parts of Asia, the richness and the adornment of arms are only now to be met with in Arabia and Kurdistan, although even there silver and golden scabbards and hilts, long damascened musket barrels, inlaid with gold, silver, and precious stones, valuable handschars and yataghans are reckoned among the rarities, and are in general carried away by the hunters for antiquities.—From the German of Vdmbdry,
L
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COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT.
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dope’s ^irfart.
I don’t know whether Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson smokes. Tobacco is a calm, philosophical sort of weed; Mr. Emerson has an affinity for clouds; and the two may be better acquainted than I wot of. Be that as it may, I find an old saying of the Boston sage applicable just now to an elderly denizen of the Black Country whose peculiar circumstances have been brought to my knowledge. After one of Mr. Emerson’s addresses, a Massachusetts clergyman was asked to bring the meeting to a devotional close; and the reverend gentleman offered up this prayer:—“We beseech thee, O Lord, to deliver us from ever hearing any more such transcendental nonsense as we have just listened to from this sacred desk.” The benediction having been pronounced, Mr. Emerson inquired the name of the divine. Having learnt it, he remarked—“He seemed a very conscientious, plain-spoken man;” and then, as my informant reports, “he went on his peaceful way.” Well, now, a “conscientious, plain-spoken man” is one of the sorts of man I like; and my friend “Robin Goodfellow”—not the original, nor even his genial successor of whom Dr. Charles Mackay had experience; but the pleasant Table-talker of the Birmingham Daily Mail —has introduced me to just such another worthy soul. Thus:—
“ There is now resident in the Black Country a veteran smoker of the ripe ago of 70, who has kept so carefully accurate an account of his consumption of Tobacco that he is enabled to estimate that be has now consumed altogether one ton of the noxious weed. This gives an average of about 1 lb. a week for a period of 45 years, and the smoker is hale and hearty, and has already started on his second ton. Tobacco is said to be a slow poison, and here truly is an instance of its slowness. I commend this anecdote to the consideration of the Anti-Tobacco Society. I can say that the details are most accurate, and the quantum given has been honestly smoked by the one man.”
Nay, Robin, thou canst not. Thou wert ever a winsome and withal a daring sprite; but thou can’st not warrant the story. It is good enough without the warranty, and the calculation bears examination. That hale septuagenarian is a worthy Tobaccoite; and when he dies his monument will be found in Piccadilly. Why in Piccadilly?—do I hear the gentle reader ask? For the same kind of reason the gravedigger gave for sending mad Hamlet to England. The skull that has turned a ton of Tobacco into ashes will find good company in Piccadilly—even a skull that affects the fragrant weed beyond the days of sentient mortality. “Is not the story almost incredible?” cries an Irish scribe. “In a shop window in Piccadilly, belonging to a stuffer of birds and animals, is exposed a human skull, beautifully cleaned and bleached, with holes bored in it to receive cigars and matches to light them, as an ornament for someone’s smoking-room.” The thing, being a fact, should not be incredible. There are baser uses to which a vacant cranium might come than holding good cigars. Have there been no goblets for wine-quaffers made of the same material? And will the time-honoured lesson, “ ashes to ashes,” be any the worse for a new setting?
I think I could suggest to the veteran smoker in the Black Country a more melancholy notion than that of holding cigars in his skull post mortem. Some genial creature in Rockford, Illinois, appreciating my tastes, has sent me the September number of “ The Curiosity Hunter,” published in that city; which contains a tremendous list of the stamps issued by the United States Government, for the collection of the Tobacco duties, since the year 1864. There are hundreds of varieties of these singular sticking-plasters; and they are illustrated by as many and various pictorial devices. Men and women, niggers, and “your even Christian,” smoking farmers, talking sailors, resting hunters, whittling Yankees; portraits of famous soldiers, sailors, orators, and statesmen; counterfeit presentments of Madame Justice (prosaically called in the catalogue “female with scales”) and of fair, sweet Liberty herself—adorn these ironical emblems of American freedom. Why, they take the head of Washington to brand a half-ounce of Virginia Shag! I don’t know that Old Abe Lincoln is a bad figure-head for a packet of sound, full-flavoured roughcut ; but it’s an odd kind of immortality for the saviour of a nation. And if I could ask that well-seasoned old smoker in the Black Country whether he would rather bequeath his antique figure-head as a cigar-stand for the next generation of Tobaccoites, or leave it as a model for the impositions of a skinflint Government, to brand half-ounces of Tobacco with the stamp of slavery, I imagine the old gentleman would elect to go to Piccadilly when he dies.
But, talking of curiosity-hunters, my dear Lord Beaconsfield, “who ever would have thought of seeing you” in that category? Yet you know Lord William, of the ducal House, and Lord William knows everybody, and is almost as intimate with the editor of the Court Journal as he was with the hero of Salamanca and Waterloo and all those places. I don’t say that is how the story got round; but here’s what the Court Journal says:—
“The Premier and his Pipes.—Lord Beaconsfield’s love for pipes is keen, and in well known among his more intimate friends. One of these calling upon him one morning, was surprised to see on the table a long case not unlike a coffin, stuck all over with coloured labels. When Mr. Disraeli entered the room, he, wliile talking, opened the box, and took therefrom a variety of pipes of every possible kind and shape, from handsome hookahs to dwarf dudheens. He handled them with great care and affection, explaining that the case hud followed him from place to place on the Continent, always a day too late, and had been sent to London in the last resort, the carriage costing over £8. The pipes were for the Conservative leader’s unrivalled collection, and were transferred to his house in Whitehall two years ago.”
If it isn’t true, all I can say is that it ought to be. It’s the best version of “Benjamin’s lot” I have yet seen; that is, taken in the lump. As to the details, I confess myself a trifle hesitant. I should like to question “dear Monty Corry” about those “dhudeens,” for example. The prophetic instinct of Vivian Grey may have induced him to store them up, as a counterpoise to the “private visit” which a rival statesman would one day pay to Ireland. But it’s hard to say; and one would like to hear the “modelPrivate Secretary ” upon that point.
There need be no doubt about the hookahs. They are essential to an Oriental genius. I take it that the hookah is the only key to the Eastern Question; and whether that mystery has been solved down Hughenden way all the world knows. There is no limit to the virtues of Tobacco. I have lying before me now an account of an “Oriental Incident,” which brings to mind the truth that tn nicotia, as well as in vino, verita# est. Two officers, one Russian and the other Turkish, dispute as to the discipline of their “respective soldiers,” saith the recorder. The Russian, by way of example, despatches his orderly for a pound of Tobacco— “and come back at once.” “Now,” said the Russian officer, taking out his watch, “my orderly is walking straight to the next corner, where he must turn—now he is turning—now he is opposite the white mosque—now he is crossing the maydan —now he is at Mehemet’s—now he is buying the Tobacco— now he is coming back—now is on the block below us—now he is at the door—now”—and the Russian called out: “Ivan!” “Sir.” “Where’s the Tobacco?” “Here, sir.” Whereupon, the Turk calls “ Muchtar,” his faithful follower, gives him the same order, and follows out the same line— “Muchtar is in the street,” and so forth; till—“Muchtar!” shouted the officer. “Sir!” “Where is my Tobacco?” And Muchtar’s answer is—“I haven’t found my shoes yet.” Only, it is not always well to be in a hurry. When you send your man to fetch—let us say—Plevna, or Constantinople, it may not be so promptly brought as a pound of Tobacco. As to shoes, they do say there are Russians in Bulgaria who would be glad to find theirs—or their feet either. And I have just heard a whisper of lost heads down thereaway.
It remains true that Tobacco is a grand touchstone of character. Is further proof required? It is forthcoming:—
“ There were a dozen men in Michigan Avenne Tobacco store, smoking time away or playing checkers, when a dreary-looking, middle-aged stranger entered and crowded in behind the stove. When he had thawed out a little and wiped a tear from his nose, he looked around and asked:—* Did any of you read about that terrible cyclone in the East ? ’ One or two replied that they had seen an account of it. * Well, gentlemen, there will be the tallest kind of suffering down there this winter, and it is the duty of every man who can spare a dollar to send it to the poor victims. I will now pass round the hat.' He passed it, and when he had completed the circuit it was as empty as when he started. * Gentlemen, I am surprised and saddened,’ he remarked, as he put on his hat; * those people need money, and, though Tm a poor man, I'm going to forward my share. Is there anyone here who will take a fifty dollar bill and send it across the ocean for me?’ ‘I suppose I could send it,’ replied the Tobacconist, shoving a cigar at the stranger. ‘ Yes— ahem—could, eh ?' replied the latter, as he bit the cigar and lighted it. ‘ IH take it!’ called out seven or eight others. ‘That’s good. Do any of you happen to have any fine-cut alwut you ? ’ A full pouch was handed out, and he lifted half the contents in his vest pocket, and went on: ‘ Yes, I want to send them fifty dollars, and I want some of you to take the money, and scoot it across the ocean in regular business style. I will now go and borrow the fifty.’ There was a grand rush for him, but he was twenty-five feet ahead, and gained as he turned into Fifth Street.”
Is there, among the readers of this paper, a soul so blighted by the spirit of doubt as to question whether the beautiful impulses of charity were awakened in the heart of that “dreary-looking, middle-aged stranger” by the benign influence of Tobacco? Let him carry his sceptical queries elsewhere ; he will appeal in vain to me.
In truth, as I have said, there is no limit to the virtue of the nicotian plant. Speaking in the quaint language of the familiar, it may be said that “you never know where to have it.” “ How did cabbages happen to grow in that alley-way? —they could never have been planted there,” remarks a puzzled guest at a Philadelphia hotel. And mark the porter’s reply: “La! no; there’s where the gentlemen throw their Havana cigar stumps.” So that, having ministered to the pleasure of the wealthy, it is converted into the humble aliment of the poor! And again—I have it on the word of a correspondent of the Figaro (the lively Parisian organ of small-talk, so lately and so sadly betrayed into MacMahonite politics)—that he followed a crowd into a wooden booth in a London street, and found that he had paid a shilling to see “a sailor sitting quietly smoking and drinking beer.” I do not pause to dally with the scoffer who may say there are no wooden booths in London streets, and one does not pay shillings te enter wooden booths; I go on to read that over the gallant seaman’s head was this inscription:—“This is the only sailor in the Arctic Expedition who succeeded in perspiring at the North Pole.” That is how I find it in Figaro. If you say it is a little hot—a trifle strong—I will not deny it. It is an allegory, if you must have it so. But let us ponder the moral.
After all, no man can stoop to argue the merits of Tobacco when he has once perceived how exalted a station it holds in the affections of woman. Doubtless there are ladies who affect to reprobate its use. But we—who have seen the world, mind you, and know things—we understand. A woman begins to decry Tobacco just about the same moment as she begins to abuse its patron—man. The weed is “detestable” when he becomes “a wretch.” When the angelic one is travelling the solitary way down the shady side of the hill of life, she no longer loves what she has for ever parted from.
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When we know that the nectar is for “those others” and the vinegar for us, why should we not change their names? It is cheap comfort; and it is the best we can get. But until the sad hour has come, she loves Tobacco. Do you doubt again? Why, only the other day, a lady was found on board a Mexican steamboat, entering the port of Galveston, Texas, with 2,000 cigars neatly sewed up in the seams of her petticoat. It is true the Customs officer misconstrued her. The local newspaper says “he took the hoop-skirt to headquarters, and those cigars will in due time be sold by the Government as confiscated property.” But I don’t understand affection, if it was not illustrated in that hoop-skirt. Then there is the case of that masculine-hearted champion of her sex’s rights, Doctor Mary Walker, according to the Burlington Hawk-Eye—a most veracious and trustworthy authority:—“Dr. Mary Walker, feeling that she still lacked some manly accomplishment, took a chew of Tobacco one day last week, and in twenty minutes thereafter she was so limp that she had to swallow a ramrod before she could sit up in the street car.” One must always allow something for woman’s weakness; but the physical failing utterly fades in the light of the moral force. There are strong men who hold the philosophic axiom that “you must draw the line somewhere,” and draw it, accordingly, at chewing. When the late Queen of Holland pitied the poor soldier who could not light his pipe, giving him money to buy “good Tobacco,” and remarked—“I fear the regulation Tobacco is not good,” and when the grateful Dutchman, placing a pinch of the weed in her Majesty’s hand, said—“Just taste that stuff, ma’am,” it is obvious that the royal lady was compelled to decline; for who could chew Dutch Tobacco? The great point in all these matters is to observe the just limit. There is a “ golden mean ” even in the use of “ Golden Cloud.” And even while we reflect with thankful hearts upon the tender preference which the gentlest, noblest, sweetest of our kind bestow upon our favourite herb, the dictates of prudence must be observed. If an American Solon adjures us in the solemn phrase—“Don’t smoke when you’re dancing with the girls,” he is able to support that adjuration by an appeal to experience: “A spark from the cigar of her partner,” says he, “set fire to the dress of a Jersey City lady, and she was badly burned.” It is not their dresses, but their hearts, we would inflame. “A word to the wise.” The Mixture is mixed. Youb Man-of-All-Work.
®^t ^abj Surbibor.
“A French lady of rank has just died, at the age of 84, who had been accustomed for the last 30 years to smoke a pipe twice a day as a penance. Tn 1845 she married a wealthy sea captain, and obtained from him a promise to abandon smoking, of which he was extremely fond. He kept his word, but died shortly after from regret, so it is alleged. His widow was so over-wbelmned with grief and remorse that, from that time to the day of her death, she smoked a couple of pipes a day, and desired at her death that her pipe should be buried with her.—South London Preu.
I bought a penny paper of a lad, And searched it through with eagerness for news. I something found, and, ere three days had passed, I shaped the something found there into this: Not only we who wear rough beards, for Time To pluck and plaster with the ’Bacca dust Of smoked-out years; not only we who drink Our pints of bitter, smoke the soothing pipe, And joy to see it colouring; but she Heroic overwent and undercame:
The woman with her summers eighty-four. A lusty sea-dog sought her for a wife, A score and half a score of years ago.
He wedded her, which done, she found he had In all his pockets such a smell of smoke That she went clamouring, “ His love he halves I ” So sought him where he wallowed in the weed, In choking den among his pipes, alone;
The smoke a foot before him, and a yard Behind his back, and eighteen inches quite Above his head; while underneath his chair It rolled as if he rode on snowy clouds;
He scarce was seen. She told him of her fears, And prayed him that his love he would not halve; Whereat he swore, expectorating much, As she, in tears, cried, “Love! my heart will break At ways like these.” “But I shall die,” said he, And stormed and swore by the Obadiahs twain, Yea, by the young one and the old one too. Then bit and ground the amber in his teeth, And said, “Dry up! dry up! Alas 1 my pipe, It’s cut me rough, this marrying business;
But I’ll reform.” Then, showing her the door, He flung upon the floor his smoky gods, And danced a frantic hornpipe on his pipes.
Now left alone, the loves he entertained To her and smoke fought like Kilkenny cats, And, fighting, grew more fierce; nor would expire Till dinner came. He sent a menial forth, Bidding him bury all that smelled of smoke.
Oh, hard condition! But he steeled his heart, So that the woman’s love he might not lose.
Thus ordered he the deed, and it was done. No pipe thereafter met his aching sight, No jar, no pouch, for all were quickly hid And buried deep, with growing turf atop.
So Time fled onward, with his measured stride; And, monthly, smaller grew the naval belt That held the wide-based trousers of the man Of whom I sing. But ever at a whiff From passing pipe of wayfarer he paused, And lingered, looking like a hungry swine That spies a turnip in his neighbour’s stye. The man would look, and wag his drooping head, And smite, for very misery, his knee;
Then pull himself together, and in haste Steal on, and, like a weary dog, go home To where he has a buried bone at rest, And sit upon Tobacco’s grave, and sigh. So lived the man, his life all misery. The menials pitied him with pity great, And would have brought him ’Bacca on the sly. From little boys with surreptitious pipes He fled with tears. A ragged smoking wretch Made his eyes gleam. A topper flung away Set mad imagination on the go.
The markets mentioning Tobacco’s price Gave birth to groans that fiercely rent and tore His permanently fractured heart. But he, Borne up awhile by reason of his oath, Saw but himself a martyr to a wish, Felt but a love more curst than any hate.
Then he died out, and, in a suit of oak, Rested at peace within the silent earth. Her fatal error now the lady saw; And, as a penance for the unworthy deed Done to a worthy soul, she vowed a ^.w, And kept it well for thirty mournful years, That she would smoke two pipes of weed per day, To keep his memory green who died for her.
So she that hated smoke before, now smoked, And, “ham-cured” in the summer of her days, Hung like the last tough leaf in autumn time, Till winter flung his snows upon her head; Then, crushed and damaged by a hundred showers, She slowly sank to peaceful, late decease, To meet her mate, and with her took a pipe, To lie entombed with her for all and aye.
Venison.
|i^s rf filter gears.
X.—CLAY AND NAVY. CASTLES IN THE AIR. THE FLIGHT. THE PURSUIT.
Roddy said that as soon as my eye lighted upon the little old charwoman, standing there winking and blinking, and screwing her little mouth, and evidently ready to burst with importance, that I turned red all over from brow top to bearded chin. Said Roddy, “You looked for all the world like a Virginia creeper in October, partly red and a good part green.” But of course I didn’t mind what an old fool like Roddy said. And the little charwoman hadn’t very much to say, after all. “ She be a-come, sir.” She evidently referred to the widow; but was that any legitimate reason, why she should chuckle and grin like a Wanderoo monkey, and leer first at me and then at Roddy, and pucker her old face, and go on like an idiot ? However, I gave her a new five-shilling piece and a pint of beer, and sent her away happy. “ She’s not so very ugly, that old craft, after all,” I told Roddy; “ and it is just possible that in some bygone time, she may have been positively pretty.” Roddy smiled, and gave a kind of a grunt; but he didn’t speak.
That night Roddy and I sat long over our pipes and our grog. “Pipes and grog!” I think I hear some unco’ guid anti exclaim, with eyes turned devoutly heavenwards, so that only the yellows are visible. Yes, pipes and grog ; and the printer may put it in capitals, if so willed. To most men, who have to fight the battle of life in downright earnest, to toil and moil all day at desk or in workshop, eventide brings sweet surcease. This “canny boor o’ e’en” is the season for rest and forgetfulness, in which to dream dreams, if you wish to, and build castles in the air at “yer ain fireside.” How delicious, then, and comforting, are pipes and grog! Oh! one needn’t make a beast of himself on either, Mr. Anti; both are gifts from heaven, and what He has cleansed, call not thou common. It is just like this, in my opinion: Tobacco is a nervine aliment; vinum (translate the word to suit your palate) is a muscular aliment; and when work is done and depression has followed, man needs both to fit him for healthy sleep—that is, if he has really worked during the day, and isn’t a drone. It seems, therefore, to me the cruellest thing in the world for Lawsonites or antis to attempt to rob the temperate majority, because of the minority, who abuse. Again, I can hardly fancy any two men of even average intellect meeting together of an evening for friendly discussion, and sitting down twirling their thumbs, one at one end of the fender and the other at the other, and “nivir a pipe betwixt aither o’
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thim,” as Roddy would say. Oh! don’t talk to me about what men did before the days of St. Raleigh; tempora mutantur, that was a roystering, this an intellectual age; and men of mind can’t do the thumb-twirling business. Idiots can, though, and antis can, but even baboons can’t; they take to pulling each other’s tails ’cause they can’t smoke, a little bit of diversion, which serves to keep alive the phosphorescent spark in their brains.—Selah! I believe I’ve digressed. When I offered Roddy the cedar that night, “No,” says Roddy, pushing it gently away, “no cigars to-night, bedad; let it be clay or nothing. And no sherry aither; let it be Navy.* Clay and Navy, me boy, that, that’s the combination to comfort the cockles! ”
And so there Roddy sat, with his back to the bay window, looking as pretty a picture of happiness and contentment as ever you saw: looking, in fact, as if he meant to marry the widow, and not I. Have ever you been abroad in the still country of a night, when there wasn’t a cloud in all the sky, only just a little haze along the horizon, and when all the stars seemed bright and joyful in consequence; and on such a night have you seen a great, round, red-faced, armful of a moon suddenly struggle over the mist, with a kind of halfsmile on her lips, and eyes twinkling up at the milky way, as if she were saying, “ My stars! here’s a pgltorious night for a ramble?” Have you? Very well, Roddy’s face was that moon; the smoke that wreathed it was the horizon mists; the quiet still earth was his own peaceful, innocent existence; and all the bright little bits of plans he was laying for my future and his own, were the twinkling stars.
We didn’t speak much. That wasn’t our form when anything very important was upon the tapis; but, for all that, our thoughts seemed somehow to plough along in the same groove; we were bound together, in fact, by the blissful medium of Tobacco, so that much talking was unnecessary. N.B.—We did not forget to pass the bottle.
Ding-dong! it was the great bell in the tower of Twintieton’s manor-house, where Coals lived, chiming out the hour of twelve. I started, for I had been dozing and dreaming. There was Roddy still in the arm-chair, sleeping sound and fast.
“ Roddy! Roddy! ” I cried, laying my hand on his shoulder; “it is time for bed, Roddy.”
“Rowan Tree Castle,” murmured Roddy, but he slept on. “Happy slumber!” I thought, “that can change a villa to a castle!” Would I wake him? No! I only wrapped a rug around his legs, and stole quietly off to bed. It was not the first fine summer’s night Roddy had slept in that chair. Why, then, rudely rouse him from his rosy dreams, and basely drag him from a Rowan Tree Castle to a cold world and a cottage orn6?
I let him sleep on, while I slipped off; but here is a funny thing—I awoke next morning with a most unaccountable headache. If I thought for one moment that—but no, it couldn't have been the clay and the Navy.
If you had only seen Roddy at twelve o’clock next day, and observed how his hat and boots shone, how his face and his very beard shone, and how well that long blue coat with the gilt buttons fitted him (said coat, by the way, always smelt of mahogany), you would nave said at once “That man’s going somewhere.” Of course he was. Weren’t we going to see the widow? It would be immodest of me to say anything at all of my own rig-out; but when I said to Roddy “You look beautiful, how do I look?” “Like a new mainsail,” says Roddy, and I was satisfied.
Having previously bribed Tick—on the sly, mind you!— with sixpence, to throw a pair of old shoes after us [N.B., I believe, in my own heart, they were Bridget’s best], under the fire of this chaste salute we left our gate. “ Isn’t it a beautiful morning?” said Roddy, rubbing his hands and laughing. “ Delightful,” I replied, grinning all over. Now, there is nothing remarkable in these scraps of conversation. They are hardly worthy of being recorded in a three-volume novel; but here they are meant to show the exuberance of our spirits and the joyousness of our hearts, and thus pave the way to the reader’s pity for what we had afterwards to suffer.
Some men there are in this world, who cannot bear even the most trifling amount of disappointment. I have observed that men of this kind are seldom or never smokers. They say the chiefs of the American Indians, in war council assembled, listen to the relation of the most stirring of events with the calm demeanour of stoics; but then those chiefs don’t forget to pass the pipe around. When Roddy and I reached Rowan Tree gate, and walked up the beautiful avenue between the white blossoming hedgerows, there seemed a curious stillness all around, that was strangely premonitory of disappointment to come; the very roses, as they swung gently to and fro in the soft June air, seemed to tell us that something was amiss; but when we came to the porch and rung the bell, the shuffling tread that came along the passage to answer the door, told us plainly it was not the widow’s buxom maid, and that the widow herself had gone. And the
* Navv rum is generally admitted to be the oldest and mellowest in the world. It isn’t the price we pay for it, it is the keeping that does it. There is a monster tank down at Portsmouth—ancient, battered, and hooped— that, they say, has not been empty since Admiral Nelson's time, and was never empty then. It takes two men and a little boy a whole day to walk round it. When the authorities want to clean a portion of the inside, they lower a dingy boat down with two total abstainers; and they’ve got to change them about every half-hour, because they get drunk on the fumes.
little charwoman herself confirmed our suspicions; but as to the why, or the wherefore, or the whereto of the widow’s flight, the little old woman “knew nowt.”
“How,” I wondered, as we turned sadly away from the door, “how could I ever have thought that that wrinkled old wretch showed signs of former beauty?"
I was at sea one very stormy night, when, after everything had been done that could be done to save the ship, which, however, seemed doomed to founder, the captain called us around him on the main deck, and said, “Let us pray.” The captain’s face was very solemn and sad as these words fell from his lips. Equally, if not more impressive, was Roddy’s manner, as, pausing a little way below the widow’s gate, he placed one hand upon my shoulder and looked me in the face. “Gordon, me boy,” says he, “Gordon, let us smoke!”
We smoked, sitting on the green bank the while—smoked long and silently; we were trying to smoke dull care away.
“I beg your pardon, gentlemen.” We both looked up, and there, right in front of us, stood a smart-looking groom in his shirt sleeves, leaning on a hay fork. “I beg your pardon,” he said; “but could you oblige me with a light?” “With all the pleasure in the world,” I replied, handing him my fusee-box.
The fellow accepted it gratefully; but, instead of lighting up, stood turning it over in his hand, and looking wistfully, first at the box, and then at Roddy and me.
“Why the dickens don’t you light up?” said I.
“Fact is,” said the groom, “it’s like this: I hain’t e’er a blessed bit o’ ’Baccy to light. Missus have gone away, and there ain’t nobody left to send for some, bar t* ould charwoman, and Lor’ knows when she’d come back.”
“By George!” cried I. “Bedad!” cried Roddy; “and are you the widow’s groom? ” Five minutes afterwards, had you passed that way, you might have seen us all three smoking away like all possessed, and each one looking more cheery than the other. The groom was loud in the praises of his mistress: he'd never had such a mistress before, anyhow, not in all hi$ born days; “’twere a pleasure to serve the loikes o’ her, and now that the old father was dead, she were more gentle like nor ever.” “What!” we asked; “is she, then, an orphan as well as a widow?” “Why, bless you, yes; didn’t you know, t’ ould gentleman be dead for four month, and poor missus is now away to Rothesay, to see after the settlement of some property and to recover her health,” &c. We didn’t wait to hear much more, and so bade the honest groom good morning, leaving him, no doubt, wondering at his luck, and looking wonderingly from the shining contents of one hand to the brown and fragrant cargo in the other.
Now, Roddy was a man of prompt decision and method; for wasn’t he a sailor, and hadn’t he commanded men and ships? He was just as full of energy this evening, as he had been of dreams and castles in the air the evening before. “Would it be Clay and Navy to-night?” I asked him. “Me dear boy, no; ” replied Roddy. “ Clay and Navy for drames aud draming; cigars and coffee for clare-brained thinkin’; cigars and coffee, and we’ll have ’em strong.”
“Now,” said Roddy, when he had emptied one cup and pushed it over to be refilled, “we’ve a duty to perform that’s as plain, be-gorra! as the nose that’s on your face; and that duty is this: we must marry the widow. Look, see,” he continued, “when she had a father, and comfort and happiness all around her, you would have been willing to take her for better for worse, wouldn’t you?”
“Rather,” I said.
“Very well, then; and now she is a widow and an orphan all in one, and sad and lonely, and maybe, sorra knows if there be a single soul to say a kind word to the crathur this blessed night, and away in a haythenish country besides, and the bit o’ property to look after and all—wouldn’t you marry her now? You’d be a rogue if ye didn’t.”
Roddy’s reasoning was as clear to me as the first problem of Euclid. I saw I had a duty to perform, and I’m proud to say I did not shirk it.
Now, it was a strange thing that Roddy had constituted himself captain and commander of my cottage orn6; but so he had, and I was just little more than a baby in hie hands. And so I was not a bit surprised next evening to find myself, at nine o’clock, at King’s Cross Station, taking tickets by the limited mail for the far north.
Gobdon Stables, M.D., R.N.
Spiritualism.
III.—A TRANCE SEANCE.
The anxiety which I felt once more to hold “an hour’s communion with the dead,” or even a moderate percentage of an hour, at a liberal discount for deducted minutes, induced me, some time ago, to consult a celebrated trance-medium, who could see not only round the corner, but into the middle of next week. To do this was rather difficult, as some inquiries I had made had elicited the information that there was no steady-going trance medium in London, at least now, who could be recommended by respectable spiritualists. However, I found a kind Italian, a relative of the Countess Civillari, of whom Boccaccio has spoken, who told me where a trancemedium was *o be found. My Italian bore the title of
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“Signor” in England, not in Italy, and was clearly better known in the Ghetto than on the Corso. He was not a very offensive type of baboon, and might, with sufficient care, have been trained to imitate his relations atop of the organs of those who, in Italy and England at least, occupied a higher social standing than himself. Not that I wish in any way to depreciate Signor Civillari, who would, unaided and without the assistance of a medium, do the “coat trick” well, at least according to his own account. The coat trick is ingenious, and consists in suddenly removing your coat and waistcoat successively and slipping them on somebody else, or hanging them on a nail at some distance. How this is done is a difficult thing to tell. Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke do it very quickly, but require too many supers and assistants. Dr. Lynn does it very well, but with too much "gag” to distract the attention of the audience. The best performer I know is a professional medium of my own acquaintance. Well, Civillari could do the coat trick a hundred miles off; but, as he did not exactly look like the individual whom one would trust inside an Ulster, I used peremptorily to decline. But I was told I had no “ confidence in the spirits.”
I set out, then, for dream-land, daze-land, maze-land, and drift-land, as Dr. Mortimer Granville calls them. I found out very soon my trance-medium. He was a very good-looking man, with dyed hair, moustache, and whiskers, and his teeth stopped with gold. His dress was not at all Kino; on the contrary, it was so elegant and fashionable that I felt ashamed of myself, and especially of my thick-soled boots. But there is a certain comfort in wearing thick-soled boots at a stance. They are useful as counter-irritators if the spirits are too rough; and a judicious compression of ideas and muscles apropos des bottes will often produce a very strong manifestation. When the inquirer has on good boots, he can read his title clear to a comfortable assurance of a safe stance, with the same spirit of devotional confidence that a firm believer in the thirty-nine articles experiences when he commences a game of whist with four aces in hand. However, I visited, at last, my trance-medium, and, all preliminaries being satisfactorily adjusted, the trance address was commenced without hesitation or delay.
The address, which was delivered by the controlling spirit, through the lips of the medium, was of a very mild character. Prosody clearly must undergo some change in the spirit world, for the great object of a control appears to be to pile as many words together as can be kept within the limit of one breathing. The medium, of course, was sufficiently his own master to know that the amount of air pumped out from the lungs during his rapid enunciation of a trance-address must be compensated for by a quick nasal inspiration. So you heard the short puffs into the nose and rapid motion of the aUe nasi, at intervals when the speaker intentionally dropped his voice to conceal the inward puff. I have heard, and I can very easily believe, that this trance-medium was at one time a very bad stammerer. His present mode of elocution, when under what his friends are pleased to call “spirit control,” is stilted and peculiar. It savours as if it had been learnt of some of the old Shakesperian actors, who in the days of the legitimate drama were all the fashion. There may be, for aught I know, an actor still living who used to be the ghost in Hamlet. He was named, if I recollect right, T. Mead (for it was asked whether he was the original “Anglais Timide” as when Hamlet runs after the ghost, having first carefully folded up his cloak and given it to Horatio, the ghost used to turn on him and show fight). It was the orthodox practice in the gallery of the Bicycle, in those days, always to encore the ghost. I have seen a timid Hamlet shrink back with fear when the ghost showed a decided intention of hitting him in the eye. However, with a little catching of the breath and a gentle contraction of the fingers towards the eyebrows, as if the medium wished to “catch the flee” [ting hour], the trance address commenced by an invocation. Here common decency will compel me to be silent as to what I heard. The foulest obscenity was mixed up with a parody on the religious forms which are used in certain Nonconformist sects. My pen refuses to write what the spirit said, or to repeat the invocation, in which we were requested mentally to join; and I will not say one more word upon a subject respecting which to think alone produces a spasmodic action of the stomach.
Off we go at last with a spirit address:—“ 0 celestial glim- * met of unconditioned darkness, deign from thy throne on high in the deepest coal mine to behold those who dwell in the valleys of Mont Blanc, on the craggy steeps of Woolwich marshes. For, as the sun rises in the west at the close of the day, and sinks in the east ere the darkness of night is dispelled by the cheerful voice of the morning nightingale, even so shall our spirits become effloresced into the semblance of upland creation, and launch their proud coursers on the golden ocean of evanescent concatenation.
‘Nataa eat oonsumere vivos,’
as Cicero, in his beautiful Hiad expresses it. ‘ Answer a fool according to his folly,' saith the preacher, lest he be wise in his own conceit. Wisdom is as the small pebbles that float in the midst of the mighty Atlantic, and returns to its home with the affection with which the fly sticks to the fly-paper. Semiramide (I always call her this; it looks better than Semiramis) had a dog. This dog was under spirit control. It wagged its tail every morning before its breakfast. Brethren in the apos-
tolic ranks of Spiritualism, whence the wag? It was the accumulation of countless aeons of reverberating vibrations which, regurgitating on the cataplasms of suffering humanity that ever will be, casued afllatic motion. In fact, the dog’s tail was mediumistic. Such, therefore, will be the reward of your own selves in that vibratory globe of inaqueous water, where the lion will lie down after the lamb is inside him, and the sucking dove shall coo through the immensity of space.”
Here the trance address was interrupted by the touch of a spirit hand, which announced itself as “Lightfingers,” and stated that it was the spirit of a departed Indian. To prove this, he said he would produce a bit of his buffalo robe; which appeared to me like a large seal-skin Tobacco pouch, smelling thoroughly of “ returns,” and to which was attached two small jingling bells. This was fixed at the end of a small piece of whalebone, and sometimes stuck in the mouth, sometimes behind the ear of a certain person in the circle, was laterally moved, sometimes across the face, sometimes across the ears of the persons adjacent to him. Such persons were usually thoroughly satisfied that they had been in communication with someone from another world. They were easily pleased and easily satisfied. But “Lightfingers” returned back from his ghost conditions into his primitive form as a Tobacco pouch very soon; and, it is to be hoped, contained good Tobacco. The harmony of the bells died away as the voice of the medium was again heard, this time in clear accents: “Friends, brothers, and countrymen, why do they wash your wool, after you have had footrot, with Tobacco? If you had spirit feet you need not be washed with anything less ethereal than Tobacco-smoke. But ye who wash (I never do; they never gave me a chance in the house, except the first time, when they did me over with warm water; ever afterwards it came rippling from the pump)-------” Here the voice of the trance speaker was rudely interrupted by another, not the control “ Lighttingers,” but a real physical form. “You [expletive] scoundrel! You have cheated me out of half-a-crown! You promised that I should have half the swag, and that you would give me half of any moneys which should be received at the seances. Half the cabinet is mine —at least, I owe for the whole of it. You have always been scaling me. Listen, then, to the voice of my spirit guide, who speaks through the mouth of one of the authors of the * Rejected Addresses ’:—
* Who blows on pounce Must the SwerKa renounce, Like as a beagle claws a narsp.*
he “went for” the other medium. Rolling over and over on the ground, they each showed more superfluous hands and feet than had ever been shown by either of them separately, even when Peter, Paul, John, Sammy, Sarah, Joey, “et omnium sanctorum” could have helped them. I fled from the scene of conflict, as I always like during the summer weather non-intervention for salad. Some folks call nonintervention “let us alone;” others consider it as a method by which, if yon see a big boy and a little boy fighting in the street, and you are quite sure that the little one has the worst of the fight, you may steal the marbles out of his pocket and sell them to the big boy, at a slightly higher percentage than the marbles would have been worth if he had taken them out of the little boy’s pocket himself. But these are questions of political economy; let them not be allowed even for a moment to interfere with the divine law which prescribes that moneyorders may be cashed in Tophet, without being crossed to a banker, or marked “payable to order.” Let all simple considerations like those of honour, honesty, virtue, vice, be left out from our creed as obsolete medieval ideas, only fit for the monk, or the stay-at-home philosopher. We of the new dispensation require neither creeds nor restrictions.
M The God that others wornhip is not the God for me,
He hath no parts, nor passions, and can neither hear nor see.”
But, above all, let me warn spiritualists against the baneful habit of Tobacco-smoking at stances or elsewhere. Tobaccosmoke is obnoxious to spirits, especially in the case of problematical manifestation of materialisation through a medium who does not smoke. Smoke not, my brethren. The ethereal cloud which ascends from your pipe is quite different from the dim shadowy vapour from which (when I have blown off the iodine gas), you will see the spirit of your ancient dun arising to cast you from your stools. You may be led whilst quietly smoking to arrive at the philosophical conclusion that although Spiritualism, as Burton has pointed out, is an eternal truth, yet that the humbug of our modern materialisers has only disgusted scientific men with the falsity of these phenomena; and that any solution of the great problems which affect Life and Mind is far remoter now than in the days of the good old Stagyrite.
Slate-^Srifing ^draorbinarg.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE “MEASLY MURPHY,” LONDON.
I beg to lay before you the following facts, as I consider that they afford a demonstration of the reality of slate-writing, and the absence of imposture from which there seems no escape.
The sitting was at a public-house in Liverpool, on the 1st April, next year. Two ladies, both male, and three gentlemen
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were present, besides myself and the medium, Dr. Skunk, making nine in all. A candle was in the room unlighted, there being light sufficient to see every object on the table, in any other room than that in which we sat. Another small fragment of candle was placed in an unbaited mouse-trap on the basement story of a semi-detached villa, which I ascertained by the Ordnance Survey was originally within the boundaries of the next parish. The mouse which was not caught in this trap has been sent to the local museum for verification. Four small and very common slates were on the table. One of these was written on, one wasn’t, one might have been, and one was to be. Of these I chose two, the other two vanishing into thin air until the time arrives for them to form book covers for the second edition of my work “ On the Geographical Distribution in Provinces of Pumps in a Straight Line; with Notes on the Law of Curves in Seeing Bound Corners.” I carefully wiped the outsides of both these slates and placed a small fragment of black-lead pencil between them, tying them together with a strong cord, or, as I mean to call it by-and-by, a strong silk watch-guard, lent by one of the company present, while Dr. Skunk was in full view. I passed this cord around the slates lengthways and crosswise, leaving a large loop or bow at the end, the shorter string of which, pulled at, at once liberated the tie. It was clear that slates so fixed could not have moved on each other, unless somebody had moved them. I am an authority on geology, and therefore state positively that the majority of slates do not possess a self-generating force, and that no slate moves of itself. The reason why I have been led to this conclusion will be published by me in a lecture shortly to be delivered before the Royal Geographical Society of Amazons. I then laid them flat on the table, without losing sight of them for an instant. At no time whatever was the slightest curvature or bulging seen by me on the slates. Of course I merely speak of the upper surface, the other three superficies being invisible. I wish to prove this fact, as it corroborates my assertion that they were laid flat on the table, as flat as an address to a Biological Section, ^ parallel in its respective surfaces as a thick ham sandwich with no meat in it. The slates being small, Dr. Skunk placed the fingers of both hands on them, while I and a lady sitting opposite me placed our hands on the corners of the slates. It is thus conclusively shown that the slate had at least twenty-four fingers, if not six thumbs, and four palms on it at the same time. We must all admit that the slate could not possibly have held more. From this position our hands were never moved till I untied them (i.e., the hands) to ascertain the result. After waiting a minute or two, Dr. Skunk asked me to name any short word I wished to be written on the slate. I thought of “ Poikiloplacidontoecthymodeinotheriotrichechographospond-ylometopianapolypchtychosphenogammacanthexepteropleuro-maheoglycyrrhizestomoides,” which is the name I am going to suggest for the new “bogus bug” that is coming to Europe next year to eat up the potato peels the Colorado beetle leaves behind it; but my control suggested that it was not long enough for a slate not twelve inches across, and the watch-guard might break. So I chose a shorter word; I named the word “bosh.” He then asked me to say how I wished it written. I replied, “Lengthways of the slate;” then if I wished it written with a large or small “b,” and I chose a capital “B.” The medium’s hands were convulsively withdrawn, and I then myself untied the cord (which was a strong silk watch-guard, lent by one of the visitors), and on opening the slates, found on the lower one the word I had asked for, written in the manner I had requested, the writing being somewhat faint and laboured, but perfectly legible. The slate, with the writing on it, is now in my possession. The essential features of this experiment are, that I myself and no one else cleaned and tied up the slates, that I kept my hand (for I am now only going to swear to one hand), on them all the time, that they never went out of my sight for a moment, and that I named the word to be written and the manner of writing it, after they were thus secured and held by me. I ask, how are these facts to be explained, and what interpretation is to be placed on them ?
Egbert Bruce Gullcrammer.
Mr. John Smith, of London, was present on this occasion, and certifies that Mr. Gullcrammer’s account of what happened is correct.
Uetos of ©lb ^ooh.
The Early English Text Society.
[continuation.]
EXTRA SERIES.
8.	Caxton's Book of Curtesye, printed at Westminster about 1477-8 a.d., and now reprinted with two MS. copies of the same Treatise from the Oriel MS. 79 and the Balliol MS. 354. Edited by Frederick J. Furnivall, M.A. 1868.
A quaint treatise on the manners of good society in the Middle Ages. The directions are sufficiently varied and minute, and the warnings of what is not to be done are indicative of a very rude condition of social customs.
4.	The Lay of Havelok the Daye: composed in the reign of Edward I., about a.d. 1280. Formerly edited by Sir F. Madden for the Roxburghs Club, and now re-edited from the unique MS. Laud Mise. 108, in the Bodlein Library, Oxford; by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A. 1868.
Tax tradition of the daring deeds of Havelock—a name which in our own
day has become a symbol of high valour and pure life—probably dates from the Anglo-Saxon times, but the earliest literary notice of it is in the French version of the romance. This is avowedly of British origin. The romance was abridged by Geffrei Gaimar, between 1141 and 1161. The good King Atbelwold had one daughter to succeed him. She was committed to the care of Earl Godrich, who was sworn to govern the kingdom until the maiden was of marriageable age, when the “ strongest man ” was to be her husband. As the girl grows up fair and wise, Earl Godrich, in spite of his oath, determines to retain the kingdom for his son. He marries Goldborough to Havelock, then a thrall, but famous for his strength. He is, of course, ignorant of the fact that the supposed scullion is a son of the King of Denmark, who has been dispossessed of his rights by means similar to those used against Goldborough. In the end, of course, they enjoy their own again.
5.	Chaucer's Translation of Boethius's “De Consolations Philosophies.” Edited by Richard Morris. 1868.
The splendid character of Boethius lives yet, and the ornate eloquence with which he comforted his imprisonment and misfortune, have still an interest. In the Middle Ages his was a mighty voice. In troublous times, when the vicissitudes of fortune were far more striking than in the present age, the figure of the accomplished Roman senator, who fell, undeservedly, from the highest point of imperial favour to a traitor’s dungeon and a felon’s death, was one that appealed specially to the imagination and the heart. That his great work, in which he shows the consolation which philosophy can afford, should have been translated by Alfred, Chaucer, and Caxton, is a sufficient proof of the popularity of Boethius in early England.
6.	The Romance of the Chevelere Assigns. Re-edited from the unique MS. in the British Museum, with a Preface, Notes, and Glossarial Index, by Henry H. Gibbs, M.A. i868.
This is one of the many versions of the story of Helyas, who, with his six brothers and sisters, are transformed into swans by magic, and who vindicates the honour of his queenly mother in a knightly oombat. The fable is one that still circulates in Flemish chap-books. There is even an Icelandic saga which represents Helis as the son of Julius Cajsar. It was a mediaeval belief that Godfrey of Boulogne was a descendant of the Knight of the Swan. Robert Copland, in another English version, claims the same honour for Edward, Duke of Buckingham. The dialect of the Chevelere Assigne is East Midland.
7.	Early English Pronunciation. By A. J. Ellis, F.R.S. Part
H. (See No. 2.)
This contains chapter five, which deals with early English pronunciation during the 18th and previous centuries, including also the Teutonic and Scandinavian sources of the language; and chapter six, which contains an historical sketch of the correspondence between writing and speech, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present day.
8.	Queene Elizabethe's Achademy (by Sir Humphrey Gilbert). A Booke of Precedence. The Ordering of a FunrraU, etc. Varying Versions of The Good Wife, The Wise Man, tic. Maxims, Lydgate's Order of Fools, A Poem on Heraldry, Occleve on Lords' Men, &c. Edited by F. J. Fumivall, M.A., Trin. Hall, Camb. With Essays on Early Italian and German Books of Courtesy, by W. M. Rossetti and E. Oswald, Esq. 1869.
Chiefly a supplement to the amusing volume which Mr. Furnivall issued with the title of the Babee's Book. The first tract is, perhaps, the moat noteworthy. It is a project for the education of the young gentlemen who were the Queen’s wards. The reformer is one of the finest figures in the gallant circle that hemmed round Elizabeth’s England with glory. Readers of Froude will recollect his fine sketch of the grand old sea-dog whom the Atlantic swallowed. Sir Humphrey saw the evil of wardship as it was then {>ractised, so that the gentry “ knew nothing but to hallow a hounde or ure a hawke.” He had a keen sense of the value of English in education. Incidentally he observes the “ phisition should also teach surgery. By reason that chirurgie is not now to be learned in any other place then a barber’s shoppe.” He also advocates the learning of languages and the art of defence. Mr. Rossetti contributes an interesting notice on Italian courtesy books, which afford some interesting comparisons with those of our own country. Mr. Oswald contributes a similar account of “Der Welhische Gast of Tom-massio di Circlaria” and some other early German books on manners.
9.	The Fratemitye of Vacabondes, by John Awdeley (licensed in 1560, and imprinted then and in 1565), from the edition of 1575 in the Bodleian Library. A Caueat or Warnening for Commen Cursetors vulgarely called Vagabones by Thomas Harman Esquire, from the 3rd edition of 1567, belonging to Henry Huth, Esq., collated with the 2nd edition of 1567 in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and with the reprint of the 4th edition of 1573. A Sermon in praise of Thieves and Thievery, by Parson Hyben, or Hyberdine. Those parts of the groundworks of Conny-catching (ed. 1592), that differ from Harwar's Caueat. Edited by Edward Viles and F. J. Furnivall. 1869.
These tracts give a graphic picture of the Rascaldom of the good old times. The Abraham men, ruffiers, prigmen, doxies, and all the rest of the wandering rogues who gained a needy living by their shifty wiles. It is odd to notice the permanence of many of the modes by which the public is eased of its more or less superfluous belongings. Mr. Furnivall notes that a few days before writing the preface a “ ring faller" tried his skill in Gower Street. Awdeley"h tract is here shown to be the earliest in date. The work of Hannan is much fuller, and contains many curious anecdotes. Its list of slang words has been frequently drawn upon by subsequent writers.
10.	The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, made by Andrew Borde, of Physycke Doctor. A compendyous regyment of a Dyetary of Helth made in MountpyUier, compiled by Andrews Borde, of Physycke Doctor. Barnes on the Defence of the Berde; a Treatyse made answerynge the Treatyse of Doctor Borde upon Berdes. Edited, with a Life of Andrew Borde, and large Extracts from his Breuyary {of Health, 1542], by F. J. FumivaU, M.A. 1870.
This is another of those quaint volumes in which Mr. Furnivall delights. They help us to understand the daily life of our ancestors in a manner which “dignified” history too often fails to do. Borde seems to have been a ready writer. Besides the several works above, he is the author of an Astronomy, or more a Peregrination of England, an Itinerary of Europe, Sermons, Prognostications, and a treatise on Beards. Some of these are lost. The “Merry Tales of Gotham,” “Soogin’s Jests,” and other works, have been more doubtfully attributed to his pen. His life, as sketched by Mr. Furnivall, is a strange one. He was a Carthusian monk, accused in his youth of familiarity with the sex forbidden by his vow of celibacy. He was appointed, but never acted, as Suffragan Bishop of Chichester; went abroad twice to study medicine; took the oath of supremacy in 1534, but got into thraldom notwithstanding. After his release by Cromwell, he travelled on the Continent. On his return to England we find him in Scotland and Yorkshire. In 1542 he is accused of being drunk at Montpellier. Afterwards he acquired some property at Winchester, where he was accused of keeping three harlots in his house. He died in the Fleet prison.
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NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. We cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; and we do not hold ourselves responsible for loss.	SMOKING: WHEN INJURIOUS, WHEN INNOCUOUS, WHEN BENEFICIAL, WITH COMPENDIUM OF THE TEMPERAMENTS, SHOWING HOW THEY AKE INFLUENCED BY TOBACCO.
COPE’S ARCTIC CARD. DISCOVERY of the NORTH POLE.	BY J. CARRICK MURRAY, M.D., F.A.I., Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Price 1s. Free by Post, 1s. Ud. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. N ewcastle-on-Tyne : D.H. Wilson.
ARRIVAL OF THE POLE IN ENGLAND. Subscribers to the “ Tobacco Plant ’* for 1877 will receive a copy of the Arctic Card, carefully packed upon a roller, by forwarding 6d. to pay carriage. Price to Non-Subscribers, 1/-. Subscription for “ Tobacco Plant ” 2/- per annum, post free. Subscription for “ Tobacco Plant ” and Arctic Card, j^ Publishing Office:—10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool. \TEW YORK TOBACCO LEAF, Organ of the Tobacco Trade of the United States. Published weekly. Subscription, 20/- per Annum, post free to any part of the United Kingdom. Sole Agents for the United Kingdom— Cope Bros. & Co., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by whom Advertisements and Subscriptions will be received. Specimen copy sent for Id. postage stamp.	Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4s. ®^e ^rinhrs’ Register, A JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOR GREAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND THE COLONIES. THE PRINTERS' REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Homo and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India. China, Canada, &c.; and it affords the best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August. Ib75. Address—The Editor, St. Bride Street, London, E.C. WORKS on TOBACCO, SNUFF, &c.—Booksellers having Books on Tobacco, Snuff, Ac, or Magazines, Journals, or Newspapers containing articles on the subject, are invited to report such to the Office of COPE S 1OBACCO PLANT, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool. ^==^=====E======->
The Richmond Cavendish Company, Limited,
BONDED TOBACCO WORKS,
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Manufacturers, IN BOND, of All Descriptions of TOBACCO, for Ship Stores and for Exportation.
SPECIAL BRANDS.
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COPE BROTHERS & CO., Cigar Makers, Snuff Grinders, Tobacco Cutters, MaaufactHrers ©f Tobacc© fep txp®rtetten8 and) QawndJhDii Patentees, LORD NELSON STREET, LIVERPOOL.
PRICE LISTS SUPPLIED TO THE TRADE ON APPLICATION.
ENGLISH-MADE CIGARS.
ENGLISH-MADE CIGARS have so long been sold under Foreign disguises that it has become an established delusion among Smokers that nothing can be good but what is Havana. Under this error everything with a Spanish title is accepted as the genuine article; while undisguised British goods, whatever the superiority of the quality, are comparatively neglected. Smokers are not to blame for this. They cannot be expected always to bear in mind the fact that three-fourths of the Cigars consumed in these kingdoms are made in England, and from Tobacco as good as that used for the Foreign-made Havanas. The only persons to blame for this pernicious system are the manufacturers who have continued an unworthy custom of sending out their goods branded and labelled with Spanish names, sometimes real, sometimes imaginary—the English Cigar maker often paying more attention to the devices of his labels than to the quality of his Cigars. In this way he relieves himself of responsibility for the reputation of his goods, and is content to leave such points as flavour and excellence of make in abeyance, so long as the Cigars are accepted by the public under their Foreign title. In time, however, Smokers discover that the article they have been buying is not what they supposed; and then the manufacturer simply invents a fresh brand and label, which in turn is superseded by another device; and so brands and labels are multiplied to the hopeless perplexity of the Smoker, who, despairing of getting anything reliable in the way of a Cigar at a moderate price, takes to Cut Tobacco. He knows that in this he has something to guide him to a satisfactory choice, for he can obtain an English manufactured article of reputed merit, bearing the real maker’s name and trade mark.
This anomaly—that while in their Cut Tobaccos English manufacturers stand pre-eminent, English-made Cigars are in corresponding disfavour with Smokers—has convinced us, and we believe the conviction will be shared by our customers, that the time has fully arrived for making a change in the system. Cigars at most moderate prices, and quite equal in quality to the general run of Havana-made goods, can be produced in English Factories. It is, therefore, only just, alike to the Smoker and the Manufacturer, that English Cigars should be offered as such, upon their merits. In this Factory, where we have, as our customers know, for many years been producing our favourite English brands, the experiment has succeeded, and we have every reason to desire an extension of it; and with the view of more largely inaugurating the new system, we are now producing Cigars made and matured in our own Factory, and their genuineness as such is vouched for by a small, neat label, bearing our name, round each Cigar.
ALSO IN SHILLING BUNDLES CONTAINING SIX CIGARS, MADE UP INTO PACKETS OF 16 BUNDLES.
ALSO IN CEDAR CASES CONTAINING 96 SHILLING BUNDLES.
ALSO, IN DOUBLE CASES, POLISHED CEDAR, VERY HANDSOME AND USEFUL, WITH LOCK AND KEY, CONTAINING 200 SHILLING BUNDLES.
COPE BROTHERS & CO.
Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
Printed and Published for the Proprietors at the Office, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by John Fbabxb, of 1, Spekeland Road, Edge-Hill, Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster.

ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ HALL.
A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
No. 93.—Vol. IL]	DECEMBER, 1877.	______[Annual Sabscrlptlon—Post Free. 2/
/rtncb Tobacco legislation in the Sebcnfccntb Century.
It was in the year 1559 that Jean Nicot, the French Ambassador to Portugal, introduced the Dew immigrant, Tobacco, to the Grand Prior of France, and through Trim to the powerful Queen-Mother, Catherine de Medicis. It was an important and significant year in French history. In it the great Henry died, and Francis IL, the husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, began his short reign. The English had just ceded their last grip upon French soil by the surrender of Calais; and in the same year the first Huguenot martyr of France, the priest du Bourg, was put to death for heresy. It is pretty widely known that the welcome stranger from the other side of the globe was not at first known in France by its name of “ Tabac,” but by a number of names which connected it with its introducer or with its royal patroness—as “Nicotiane” and “ Herbe a 1’Ambassadeur; ” as “ Herbe au Grand Prieur,” and as “Herbe a la Heine, and “Herbe Medic^e.” The Nicot family, according to Pierre Larouse's •‘Dictionnaire,’’ still flourishes in the south of France, and carries on its escutcheon, in memory of its most notable ancestor’s most notable achievement, “un pied de Tabac.” Jean Nicot, however, was not permitted to enjoy an undisputed claim to the glory of being the introducer of Tobacco into France. Thevet, the legate Nicolas Tourbon, and Cardinal Santa Croce put forward pretensions to that distinction, and each of these diplomatists and ecclesiastics lent his name for a time to the new weed. A troublesome use was made of these alternative names for Tobacco in the end of the seventeenth century, as the reader will find in a later part of this article.
Tobacco had been known about eighty years to Frenchmen, and was daily extending its sway, when the most extraordinary of French statesmen first conceived the notion of bringing it within legislative interference. Smokers were at first frowned upon in France, as in every other Christian nation; but the fascination of the weed proved too strong for the early French anti-Tobacconists, whether civil, religious, medical, or satirical. Statesmen, priests, doctors, scholars, and all sorts and conditions of Frenchmen, began to smoke and to take snuff in ever increasing numbers, and Cardinal Richelieu determined to make the growing use of the new “ article of luxury” profitable to the treasury of His Most Christian Majesty. On the 17th of November, 1629, Marillac being Keeper of the Seals, the Declaration of Paris was issued, in which Tobacco was first included in the list of taxable articles.* At this period all the titles of the weed which pointed back to its early introducers or patrons had passed out of use, and Tobacco was cited in legal documents as “Tabac” or “Petun.” f
The Declaration states, in the King’s name, that advice has been given to his Most Christian Majesty (Louis XIII.) that for some time past quantities of “Petun et Tabac” have been brought from foreign countries and admitted into France, without paying a single sou of “droit d’entree.” This has been done, says the document, under the pretence that the various names for Tobacco are none of them comprised in the ancient tariffs. The King, or his great Minister, by no means wished to get a penny for the royal pocket out of the increasing importation of the weed; but as it was evident that
* Moreau de Saint-Mery. L 28.
+ A snuff-taker was popularly known as a “ preneur de Petun.”
his loyal subjects were determined to smoke and snuff, the royal father of his people was tenderly concerned that the habit should not be prejudicial to their health. “ His Majesty’s subjects,” says the Declaration of 1629, “by taking cheap Tobacco at all hours, have lately received great prejudice and alteration in their bodily health.” Every loyal Frenchman was naively informed that the taxing of his Tobacco was purely a sanitary measure! “For this cause, his Majesty now decrees that all Petun or Tabac brought from foreign countries into his kingdom shall pay 30 sous upon every pound of Petun or Tabac, except that which comes from the islands of St. Christopher, the Barbadoes, and those other western islands which belong to the chartered company formed for the settlement and cultivation of those islands.” While taking care of home health, the King also had an eye for colonial prosperity. In order to encourage this company, and to advance French colonisation, “his Most Christian Majesty has graciously resolved to discharge and exempt them by his Declaration from this impost.” In the year 1632, however, his Majesty’s monetary necessities proved stronger than his gracious disposition to French colonists, and a tax of two sous was imposed upon every pound of French colonial Tobacco.
The next royal interposition in the matter of Tobacco concerned the home use of the weed. On the 30th of March, 1635, Louis XIII. still being king, and Cardinal Richelieu Minister, in an “ Ordonnance du Lieutenant Civil but la police Generate de Paris,” the Procureur du Boi exclaims with much moral indignation, that the wickedness of mankind, particularly of Parisian mankind, is on the increase from day to day, and that the public officers grow slack in the exercise of their restraining duty. “Los Vagabons et gens mal vivans” grow daily bolder and more impudent. The Ordinance contains a number of stringent regulations for the correction of “vagabonds, barbers, garqons, debauched girls and women, tavern-keepers, shopkeepers, and persons who let furnished lodgings.” All such individuals are forbidden, whatever has been hitherto their pretext, to sell beer, any other brewage, or Tobacco: neither are such persons to retain such drinks or Tobacco for use in their houses, under pain of imprisonment. An exemption is made in favour of apothecaries, who are permitted to keep Tobacco in stock as a drug; but they are never to sell it, except to a purchaser who can produce the prescription of a lawful physician. Any apothecary who dares to sell Tobacco to any person who cannot exhibit a special “ordonnance du m^decin” is compelled to pay a fine of “24 livres parisis.”*
This was the last interference of Louis XIII., or, rather, of Richelieu, with the pocket or convenience of the French smoker. In 1642 the great Cardinal died; and in 1643 his royal master followed him, making room for the Grand Monarque, who at his accession was a little lad of five years. In 1674, Louis XIV. made a grasp at the Tobacco trade. By a declaration issued at Versailles, on the 27th of September, the great Colbert being Minister of Finance, and Etienne d’AligrS Chancellor and Keeper of the Seals, the King created a monopoly which secured to the royal Treasury the most gigantic benefit from this increasing and profitable branch of commerce.! The Declaration of 1674 opens by calling the attention of Frenchman to the fact that “the use of Tobacco has become so common and general in all States that it has given occasion to the greater number of neighbouring princes
• Traits de la Police. L, 121. Inambort’s “ Recneil Gdn&al dee Aneiennea Lou Fran^aiMS depuis Fan 420 junqu a la Revolution. Tom. xvi., pp. 426 Ac.
f “ Recneil G4n&aL” Tom. xix., pp. 146,146.
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to make the commerce of Tobacco one of their principal sources of revenue. His most Christian Majesty, after serious deliberation, has determined to assent to the advice of his Ministers, and follow this excellent example. “ We have found the proposition made to us by our counsellors to be all the more reasonable, because Tobacco is not one of those things which are necessary either to the health or to the good conversation of our subjects.1* Patriotic smokers are informed that the new royal taxation upon their beloved luxury will be an indirect benefit to themselves and to the whole nation. “It will put into our hands a means to relieve our people from part of the expenses of the present war, for we expect to derive great assistance from our sale of the privilege of trafficking in this article.11 Louis was then at war against the Emperor, the Dutch, and Spain, and his generals were carrying out that barbarous devastation of the Palatinate of the Rhine which has left so many memorials behind it in ruined castles and injured churches. The King goes on to say: “ We will and decree that all the raw Tobacco of our kingdom, of our French islands in America, and all sorts of Tobacco from Brazil, and from all other foreign lands— whether in leaf, roll, rope, or powder, whether perfumed or not perfumed, or of whatever sort, shape, or manner it may be—shall for the future be vended and debited, both in gross and in detail, by those persons only who shall be appointed by us, and at the prices which we shall fix.” The raw Tobacco of the French kingdom was to pay the King 20 sous on each pound, and the Tobacco of Brazil 40 sous on each pound. Express inhibition was next issued against the selling of Tobacco by any unlicensed person, of any trade or profession, under any pretence, whether in leaf, powder, rope, or otherwise. Three months’ grace was allowed before the Declaration was to come into force. After the expiration of that date, every unlicensed salesman was to pay a penalty of “1000 livres d’amende” for his first offence, and to suffer corporal punishment for his second offence. Public bureaux were established by authority of this royal Declaration, and all dealers in Tobacco, wholesale or retail, were required to present themselves at these bureaux, and render an exact account of the quantity and quality of the Tobacco in their possession. All privileges of earlier grant for the wholesale or retail trade in the weed were revoked. It appears from the catalogue at the close of the Declaration that not only favoured persons, but certain charitable and religious institutions—amongst others the hospitals of Aix, Marseilles, and Toulon—had grants on the sale of Tobacco. The hospitals drew an endowment of five sous a pound. On the 30th November in the same year, letters patent were issued from Saint Germain-en-Laye, containing the leases and adjudications to the highest bidders for the farming of the Tobacco and the pewter; for the latter was also drawn at the same time within the range of the royal monopolies. The title only of this document is given in the great “Recueil G6n6ral des Anciennes Lois Francises,” but the editors did not think it worth while to add the text.* Perhaps the eminent French jurists who assisted Isambert in the compilation were neither smokers nor snuff-takers. Two years later, on the 25th of January, 1676, an Arret du Conseil was issued from Saint Germain-en-Laye, creating a monopoly in the matter of the exportation of Tobacco. It ordains that the raw Tobacco of the French kingdom, and other Tobacco which is destined for export to foreign countries, may only leave the kingdom by certain specified ports. The merchant who attempted to carry Tobacco out of France from any other port was punished by the confiscation of the entire stock of Tobacco and by the payment of “3000 francs d’amende.”! In the “Regulations and Ordinances for the War11 issued by Louis XIV., from Versailles, on the 16th of October, 1688, two months before his reception of our fugitive ex-King James II., all “soldiers, cavaliers, and dragoons” are forbidden to buy Tobacco anywhere except at the licensed places, and are further prohibited from buying more than one ounce at a time.! Some of these soldiers, cavaliers, and dragoons were lent by Louis XIV. to James II., to assist him in his luckless attempt to recover the English crown. It appears from an Ordinance of January the 25th, in the following year, that the interference of the French King’s financiers with the pipes and snuff-boxes of his subjects became the cause of much fraud in the introduction and sale of Tobacco, and of adulteration of the weed itself. § The French also endeavoured to cheat their royal master of his revenue by a singularly naive trick. Conceiving that Tobacco under any other name would smoke as well and snuff as pleasantly as under its customary name, they began to plant it and sell it under the name of “Nicotiane.” An Arret du Conseil, issued from Versailles on the 28th of June, 1689, decrees the confiscation of “all Tobacco which has been sown, or is being offered for sale, under the title of Nicotiane, or any other alias” and condemns every owner of such a crop, and every dealer in such disguised Tobacco, to pay his injured sovereign a penalty of “1000 livres d’amende.”|| The last reference which I find to Tobacco in the French legislation of the seventeenth century occurs in an Ordinance issued from Fontainbleau, on the 17th of October, 1694, in which the King forbids “all French or foreign soldiers coming into France from loading themselves with Tobacco, or with any other prohibited foreign merchandise.”11 It appears that the gigantic armies of Tom xix., p. 150. + Tom. xix., p. 158. 1 Tom., xx., p. 62. $ Tom. xx., p. 71. 1689. || Tom. xx., p. 78. IT Tom. xx., p. 228.	the Grand Monarque did a great deal of smuggling, and the officials were afraid of dealing as summarily with the heroes and veterans to whom the King owed so much glory as with mere ordinary offenders. By this Ordinance the King permitted the free rummaging of the equipage and baggage of every home-coming warrior. ^ngeian ^nasurts. VI. Mate. The Hex Paraguayensis, commonly called Mat6, is an elegant shrub, with oval cuneiform leaves, which are somewhat obtuse and which are finely dentillated on the margins. It bears small reddish pedicellated berries, which are gathered together in axillary bundles. It grows spontaneously in the woods of Paraguay and of the old Jesuitical Missions, in various provinces of the Argentine Confederation (Salta, Jujul, Corrientes), and in Brazil. Its name is taken from the Guarani language, and has been adopted by all the nations of Europe. The Spaniards, however, and the American Creoles bestow the name of Yerba on the prepared leaves of the ilex, as if this vegetal production alone merited the name of herb by excellence, just as the East Indian hemp is called by the Arab name of Haschisch, But they bestow the name of matg on the vessel in which the infusion of the leaves is performed. Synonyms of the word mate are Paraguay tea, Jesuits’ tea, and in Portuguese Herva de Palo and Congonba Verdadeira. In the Tupinican language, which was spoken by the natives on the coasts of Brazil, it was called Caamarim. Ca, or Caa, means herb. M6rat, in his “ Dictionary of Materia Medica,” says that Caa-mena indicates the leaf of the mat6 well developed, and Caa-cuys the bud not yet fully formed. In Spanish America I always heard the word Caacut employed to indicate the small chopped branches which are found in the Yerba, and which in Enterios are hidden in the ashes of the fireplace as a protection from thunder and lightning. The same virtue is attributed there to the horns of oxen. According to Dennesay, in his “Physical, Economical, and Political History of Paraguay,” published at Paris in 1865, the Guarani gave to mate the name of Caa, or plant, while he represents mat6 as a Qui-chuan word, and a corruption of Matt, Gourd, in allusion to the vessel in which the mat6 is taken when hot. Bibra likewise makes use of the word Caa, calling Caa-cuys the mat6 prepared with leaves not wholly developed, Caa-miri that prepared with leaves stripped of their nervature and roasted, and Caa-puaya that made with the common leaves and roasted. Varieties of the ilex are the Ilex Acutifolia, the Ilex Obtusi-folia, or Chomelia Amara of Velloso. False or badly applied names are Cassine Congonba, Cassine Paragua, Psoralea Glandulosa, Erythroxylon Peruvianum. Even in classical books of travels mat6 is called by the name of Psoralea Glandulosa, which, however, is the proper designation of Cult, Coulen, Culen, Cullen, a small shrub of the luguminose kind, which is cultivated in many regions of South America, and which, when the leaves are infused, furnishes an antispasmodic drink, very useful in nervous diseases of the stomach and in enteralgia. The Spaniards gained an acquaintance with mat6 from the Guarani, who drank the infusion very hot, through a stalk of rush or reed. It appears that other tribes made use of it in a different fashion. From the times of the conquest to the present day the use of this drink has gone on extending; and now mats is sucked or drank in Paraguay, in the Argentine Confederation, in the region lying to the east of the Uruguay, and, with less frequency in Brazil, in Chili, in Peru, in Bolivia, and, possibly, in the other republics of the Pacific and of Central America. Many Europeans, having become accustomed to the use of mate during a long sojourn in the Southern hemisphere, on returning to their native land, continue to drink this kind of tea. I have noticed that the Genoese and the Spaniards have a greater sympathy for the infusion of the ilex than the inhabitants of countries more to the north. The importation of this leaf into Europe is almost null, while in America its commerce amounts to several millions. In 1868, in the ports of the Argentine Republic there were imported 149,880 hundredweights of mate, which represents a value of 1,047,243 dollars. According to Magarinos Cervantes, Paraguay alone sells Yerba and Tobacco to the value of five millions of francs, and of this figure the ilex takes assuredly the larger part. The brothers Robertson, when (1839) they wrote their work on Paraguay, declared that the Republic of Dr. Francia sold annually to the neighbouring countries 720,000 dollars’ worth of mat6; and Mulhall, in 1869, calculated that Paraguay exported to the value of a million of dollars in the year. It seems to me, however, that the estimate is very excessive, which makes the consumers of mate amount to ten millions. —From the Italian of Mantegazza. The Eastern Bath. The commands given by the Prophet to his followers anent baths and ablutions are not much behind the stern and strict laws of purification of the Brahminical faith. Whether by the word Tetahbern (purify yourselves) corporeal purity, and not, rather, spiritual purity whs intended, or whether the first was a symbolical allusion to the last, we must leave to
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hair-splitting interpreters of the Koran. So much, at least, is demonstrably certain, that this one word has brought about the result that among all Mahometans of Asia the bath, as an institution, is regarded not only as the most indispensable necessity of life, but as the response to an imperative religious command. However, in these days, in the Islamitish East, by bath is understood more than the fulfilment of a divine command, more than an act of purification; it is, moreover, an enjoyment to which all people passionately abandon themselves. If they return from a fatiguing journey, if they have accomplished an exhausting labour, if they wish to recover from he effects of a fright, of a sorrow, or of sensual excesses, they rush to the bath. Rich and poor, young and old, yield to this passion. What among us is called drink-money, among the Russians brandy-money, among the Chinese teamoney, is called in the East bath-money (fee or gratuity to servants, which has sometimes in England the name of glove-money). If anyone in the East wishes to describe the advantages and attractions of a city, he begins with a picture of its baths. If the contrary is aimed at, the dirt and discomfort of the baths are insisted on. The Orientals strive to immortalise their names by building mosques, caravanserais, and collegial houses; but they attain their object much better by the erection of spacious baths, with an ample supply of water. Let the intention of the Prophet have been ▼hat it may, it is certain that hygienically he has been a benefactor to the believers in his creed, forasmuch as in the generally warm climate of the East the frequent use of the bath is a powerful prophylactic against many maladies.— From the German of Vambery. £n Idyllic Picture. The eighteenth century ended in blood and in bucolics. Some years before the invention of the guillotine, the most beautiful bergeries in the world were invented. It was the time of Boucher, of Watteau, and of Sancre; but shepherdesses in silk petticoats and in powdered perruques were met with elsewhere than on snuff-boxes and the tops of doors. Marie Antoinette had brought with her from Germany rural tastes; and, as a relaxation from the weariness of being a queen, she sometimes dreamed that she was a shepherdess. Trianon seemed to her just the very place to realise her idyllic vision. One day, when she had assembled at her rural home all the royal family and some of her intimate female friends, she plunged with her guests into the groves of Trianon to show them new wonders. By degrees the groves grew denser and developed into a small wood. The sanded alleys of the English garden disappeared, and the guests walked on moss. A brook, which was called a river, and which obeyed a more natural impulse than the gardener’s hand, was seen running through the meadow. Tlie brook was crossed by a bridge, which had been made very narrow to give the illusion of danger. In the fields which now came into view there were some beautiful sheep and beautiful cows. The horns of the cows were not gilt, but the sheep were abundantly adorned with rose-coloured ribbons. Suddenly, at the turning of a road, hidden under hawthorn and sweetbriar, the guests found themselves in a village. A small church rose in the midst of a small open space; the house of the priest was close at hand. Two or three cottages, humble satellites, environed it. Thereupon were revealed to the gaze the house of the bailiff, with a dairy and a stable and a small mill, whose joyous click-clack blended with the bleating of the lambs and the lowing of the cows. The queen could not contain herself with delight when she announced to the company that the king was to be the bailiff of this charming village, that the Count d’Artois (afterwards Charles X.) was to be the miller, and that she herself in the dairy was to look after the making of the cheeses. It scarcely needs to be said that the dairy was of white marble, and that arrayed on stands in it were the busts of celebrated shepherds. At the entrance of the village—no doubt to complete the illusion—a small island had been created, called the Island of Love. In the middle of the island columns of white marble surrounded the altar and the statue of the god. Everything in this country abode showed that the court of France loved simplicity and nature (and instinctively understood hygienic conditions).—From the French of Fontaine. & Braue Snuffer. At the Battle of Merida, the corps of Grenadiers of France, which M. de Saint-Pera commanded, was exposed to the fire of a battery which smote down whole ranks. M. de Saint-Pera, trying to inspire the Grenadiers with courage and patience, as he saw they were rather shaken, rode slowly, snuff-box in hand, in front of the line, and said to them:— “What alarms you, my children? The cannons? They kill, they certainly kill—but that is all.”—From the French. Swimming. In the ordinary kind of swimming the body rests on the front surface, and makes with the arms and the legs symmetrical, rhythmical movements. The movements of the arms are suited to exercise a benignant and expanding influence on the breast. As the breast hereby, especially with its whole fore surface, has to overcome the resistance of the water, and as, moreover, the more robust rush of the blood toward the interior parts of the body, which is the necessary result of the cold bath, produces a more potent movement of the	organs of respiration, swimming for this threefold reason is an admirable gymnastic of the muscles of breathing. For that reason, only with great precautions and limitations, should it be permitted to children with weak chests; at all events, till the individual allowable measure has been found. The other kinds of swimming, such as swimming on the back and perpendicular swimming, or the so-called water-treading, are of less importance, though they are suitable by way of change, and in certain cases may have practical benefit. Swimming on the one side, however, especially for very young swimmers, ought to be discouraged, because alternation with the other side is seldom possible; and thus, like all one-sided movements, it is pernicious. The ordinary duration of the cold bath may, for summer, be somewhat prolonged; but even in full summer heat it should not extend beyond twenty minutes. A prolongation beyond this period has a debilitating instead of an invigorating effect, forasmuch as the suppression of perspiration, and the withdrawal of bodily warmth and of bodily electricity, transcends in such cases the ordinary degree of reactionary force, which consequently cannot be so speedily restored as it ought to be. Furthermore, swimming brings courageous familiarity with a hostile element, and in every respect harmonises with the whole development of youth; so that the young should be allowed to indulge in it at every opportunity which presents itself. It is a pity that, among swimming establishments, so few have been erected for the use of the female sex, for girls and women would derive from swimming immense benefit for their bodily development.—From the German of Schreber. J Stimulating Aliment. The guests of Madame d’Aligre always found the table very scantily and shabbily supplied; but, as a compensation, there was abundance of slander. This induced M. de Lauraquais to say: “By my faith, if along with our bread we did not here eat our neighbour, we should die of hunger.”—From the French. & Patagonian Encampment. We kindled four or five large fires, alike to warm ourselves, to cook our supper, and to keep off the wild beasts with which the thickets abounded. The followers of Ketleki placed themselves not far from us. Our encampment had a very picturesque aspect. The Indians, stretched out at full length, or sitting, smoked their stagai. The doctor herborised; the painter talked, or tried to talk, with the Patagonians. The flames coloured these scenes with warm tones, and gave a fantastical appearance to the different groups. When supper was ready we placed ourselves around the pot of charqui a la valdisiana. The savages and the civilised men alike ate with hearty appetite, but I noticed that none of the Indians could be induced to taste salt pork.—From the French of Louis d* Azzac. & Patagonian Delicacy. A long time after these words of the Cacique, we saw his three brothers arriving by the road which he had indicated. They brought six ostrich eggs and the legs of an ostrich which they had killed in the course of the day. An Indian immediately cooked two of the eggs under the ashes, and broiled one of the legs. Peki came to me, took my pipe from my mouth, and sat down before the fire. Our supper was eaten with a good appetite, though we had to take the handle of a poniard to break the shell of the eggs, and had to masticate with energy to do anything with our broiled meat. The flesh of the ostrich has a pleasant taste, but it is excessively tough. —From the French of Louis ri'Azzac. Turkish Refinement. ‘ I have spoken of the scrupulous delicacy which the Turks show in their relations with the harem. So great is the idea of holiness which they attach to the very word, that to utter it is regarded as a sacrilege. Even at the present day, among the older Osmanlis it is contrary to the rules of good taste and good breeding to ask anyone for news about his harem. In the rare cases in which they are obliged to allude to their wives and daughters, they employ periphrases and metaphorical expressions, and evince an extreme anxiety not to employ the appropriate word. For instance, when a father has to announce the birth of a daughter, he says: “A veiled one, a hidden one has been given me; a (female) stranger, mucafir, has entered under my roof.” We find among the ancient Greeks traces of this refined susceptibility in regard to women. To speak of them, even to praise them, was regarded as a kind of degradation. Thucydides says:— “ The virtuous woman is she of whom neither good nor evil is spoken.” How could it enter the mind of an Osmanli to court a woman not belonging to his harem? He avoids even looking at those women whom he meets in the street. Melling, the architect of the Sultana Hadidge, sister of the Sultan Selim, to whom we owe the beautiful plates of the “Voyage Pittoresque de Constantinople et du Bosphore,” states that he was allowed to enter freely the harem of that princess, and that he conversed with her women face to face, while the officers of the court who accompanied him never addressed a word to them except with downcast eyes, and with their eyes turned away. “To see is to burn,” they were in the habit of saying.—From the French of Ubicini.
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^tn Jonson.
xn.—STILL IN RELATION TO TOBACCO.
The second Act introduces Sir Epicure Mammon, who has been promised by Subtle that the magisterium, the great work, both philosopher’s stone and elixir, will be perfected for him this day. Mammon is accompanied by his unbelieving friend, Pertinax Surly, a gamester, whose incredulity he overwhelms, if he cannot drown it, with torrents of eloquence, swelling into boundless floods of dithyrambic rapture when he catalogues to Face, disguised as Lungs, some of the stupendous luxuries in which he means to revel. It is not within my purpose to quote from these wonderful rhapsodies, nor would fragmentary quotation do them any justice, their effect being strictly cumulative; but I cannot help citing the Note on them of him whom we all love as dearly as he himself loved old plays and Tobacco; the subtle, sympathising critic, whose appreciation of our Elizabethan poetry, and especially dramatic poetry, is all but infallible, and who has the gift of such exquisite and unique expression. Of course I mean Charles Lamb :—
“ The judgment is perfectly overwhelmed by the torrent of images, words, and hook-knowledge with which Mammon confounds and stuns his incredulous hearer. They come pouring out like the successive strokes of Nilus. They ‘ doubly redouble strokes upon the foe.’ Description outstrides proof. We are made to believe effects before we have testimony for their causes: as a lively description of the joys of heaven sometimes passes for an argument to prove the existence of such a place. If there be no one image which rises to the height of the sublime, yet the confluence and assemblage of them all produces an effect equal to the grandest poetry. Xerxes’ army, that drank up whole rivers from their numbers, may stand for single Achilles. Epicure Mammon is the most determined offspring of the author. . . . What a * tow'ring bravery ’ there is in his sensuality! He affects no pleasure under a Sultan. It is as if ‘ Egypt with Assyria strove in luxury? ”— Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, who lived about the time of Shakespeare.
Well may Mr. H. H. Furness, in the preface to his invaluable Variorum Edition of Hamlet, lament the fine genius wasted in the South Sea House, and say that if England had known what a precious gift she had in Elia, she would have endowed him with unvexed leisure for the study and interpretation of our grand old writers.
When Mammon has departed, not without leaving more gold to make sure and perfect the final projection, Ananias, the deacon of Amsterdam, comes in, and is soon packed off, with threats that the work shall be ruined if additional money is not brought within the hour; then re-enter Face in his uniform, followed by Drugger. Subtle affects anger at the interruption, and Face gets another piece of gold out of poor Nab to appease him. Abel wants a lucky and thriving sign for his shop:—
“ Face. What Ray you to his constellation, doctor, The Balance ?
Sub. No, that way is stale and common.
A townsman born in Taurus gives the bull, Or the bull’s head: in Aries the ram, A poor device I No, I will have his name Formed in some mystic character; whose radii, Striking the senses of the passers-by, Shall, by a virtual influence, breed affections, That may result upon the party owns it: As thus—
“Face. Nab!
* Sub.	He shall have a bel, that’s Abel;
Anil by it standing one whose name is Dee, Tn a rug gown, there’s D ; and rug, that’s drug ; And right anenst him a dog snarling er ;
There’s Drup-er; Abel Drugger. That’s his sign. And here now's mystery and hieroglyphic!
“ Face. Abel, thou art made.
“ Drug. Sir, I do thank his worship.
“ Face. Six o’ thy legs more will not do it, Nab.* He has brought you a pipe of Tobacco, doctor.
“Drug. Yes, sir---------.”
The Dee in a rug gown, as Gifford, of course, notes, is levelled at the then notorious Dr. Dee, a great pretender to astrology, alchemy, and magic. Beginning as dupe, he soon developed into cheat; for in this department of natural history the shrewder pigeons, when plucked, are apt to turn hawks; and with the equally notorious Kelley rambled over Europe, ostensibly as conjuror, really as spy. On his return he settled at Mortlake, where, notwithstanding his possession of the philosopher’s stone, he died in extreme poverty, being, as Lilly says, “enforced many times to sell some book or other to buy a dinner.” In the print before one of his books he appears wrapped in a rough, shaggy gown; to this Jonson alludes. Kelley is mentioned, Act IV., Sc. 1, and Gifford has an interesting note on his career.
Abel has another thing he would impart. Hard by him is lodged a rich young widow, Dame Pliant, but nineteen at the most, to whom he now and then gives a fucus, and sometimes physic, in return for which she trusts him with all her mind. She has come up to town to learn the fashion, and she strangely longs to know her fortune. His worship the doctor is, of course, the very one wise man who can tell it; and Face hints that Nab may win her.
“ Drug. No, air, she’ll never marry
Under a knight: her brother has made a vow.
“ Face. What! and dost thou despair, my little Nab, Knowing what the doctor has set down for thee, And seeing so many of the city dubbed ? ..................what’s her brother, a knight ?
* Drugger had “ made a leg,” or reverence, in humbly thanking his very worahipful worship.
“Drug. No, sir, a gentleman newly warm in his land, sir. Scarce cold in his one-and-twenty, that does govern His sister here; and is a man himself
Of some three thousand a year, and is come up To learn to quarrel, and to live by his wits, And will go down again, and die in the country.
“ Face. How I to quarrel ?
“ Drug.	Yes, sir, to carry quarrels,
As gallants do; to manage them by line.
“Face. ’Slid, Nab, the doctor is the only man
In Christendom for him. He has made a table. With mathematical demonstrations, Touching the art of quarrels: be will give him An instrument to quarrel by. Go, bring them both. Him and his sister. And, for thee, with her The doctor happ’ly may persuade. Go to: ’ Shalt give his worship a new damask suit Upon the premisses.
“ Sub. 0, good captain 1
“Face. He shall;
He is the honestest fellow, doctor. Stay not, No offers; bring the damask, and the parties.
' “ Drug.	I’ll try my power, sir.
“ Face.	And thy will, too, Nab.
“ Sub. ’Tie good Tobacco, this I What is’t an ounce ?
“ Face.	He’ll send you a pound, doctor.
“ Sub.	O, no.
“ Face.	He will do’t.
It is the goodest soul I Abel, about it!
Thou shalt know more anon. Away, be gone. [Exit Abel. A miserable rogue, and lives with cheese,
And has the worms. That was the cause, indeed. Why he came now: he dealt with me in private. To get a med’cine for them.
“ Sub. And shall, sir. This works.
“ Face. A wife, a wife for one of us, my dear Subtle! We’ll e’en draw lots. . . .
“ Sub. Faith, best let's see her first, and then determine.
“ Face. Content: but Dol must have no breath on’t.
“Sub. Mum.”
Two things in this admirable part-scene puzzle my ignorance: first, Why does Kastril (Kestril, a worthless, degenerate hawk; hence, a mean, dastardly fellow) the angry boy, Dame Pliant’s brother, want to learn to live by his wits, having some three thousand a year (equal to quite twelve thousand in our days), and meaning to go back to the country? second, Why does Abel, who is druggist as well as Tobacconist and grocer, and who supplies physic, need to consult Face about a medicine for the worms ?
In Act JU., Sc. 2, enter Abel, followed by Kastril:—
“Face.	What, honest Nab t
Hast brought the damask ?
“Drug.	No, sir; here’s Tobacco.
“ Face.	*Tis well done, Nab: thoult bring the damask too ?
“ Drug. Yes; here’s the gentleman, captain, Master Kastril, I have brought to see the doctor.
“ Face.	Where’s the widow ?
“ Drug.	Sir, as he likes, his sister, he says, shall come.
“Face.	0, is it so ? Good time. Is your name Kastril, sir?
“ Kas. Ay, and the best of the Kastrils, I’d be sorry else, By fifteen hundred a year. Where is the doctor ?
My mad Tobacco-boy here tells me of one That can do things: has he any skill ?
“Face. Wherein, sir?
“ Kas. To carry a business, manage a quarrel fairly, Upon fit terms.
“Face. It seems, sir, you are but young
About the town, that can make that a question.
“ Kas. Sir, not so young but I have heard some speech Of the angry boys, and seen them take Tobacco;
And in his shop; and I can take it too.
And I would fain be one of ’em, and go down And practise in the country.”
What on earth, or under the earth, makes Kastril term poor, quiet, simple Abel “my mad Tobacco-boy”? Where is aught wild in him, except the superstitious credulity common to his age? Mad Abel Drugger! mouton enragt, peace-ablest of living creatures gone rabid, as Carlyle glosses with his immense chuckle I The angry boys are called the terrible boys in the “ Silent Woman,” Act I., Sc. 1. tlpton quotes from Wilson’s “Life of King James”: “The king minding his sports, many riotous demeanours crept into the kingdom; divers sects of vicious persons, going under the title of roaring-boys, bravadoes, roysters, &c., commit many insolencies; the streets swarm, night and day, with bloody quarrels, private duels fomented,” &c. Gifford adds: “These pestilent miscreants continued under various names to disturb the peace of the capital down to the accession of the present royal family;” but methinks we have read of beating the watchmen or Charlies, and other such gentlemanlike rowdyisms, as occurring long after the royal Germans, with their kin and followers, kindly came for our goot and our goots. All quiet smokers, who have the leisure and take the trouble to read beyond their Bible and the precious leaves of their Tobacco Plant, must remember how fiercely Milton denounced those sons of Belial, and how Swift tomahawked the Mohawks. How bumptious is Kastril,because he, too, can take Tobacco! In our age he would have smoked when ten years younger. Gifford says:—“It has been already mentioned [see preceding Section] that Abel’s shop was frequented by the adept as well as the tyro in the mystery of ‘ taking Tobacco.’ Here the latter was duly qualified for his appearance at ordinaries, taverns, and other places of fashionable resort. Here he practised the * Cuban ebolitio, the euripus, the whiffe,’ and many other modes of suppressing or emitting smoke with the requisite grace, under Cavalier Shift, and other eminent
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masters whose names have not reached the present times—• carent quia rate sacro.” The dialogue proceeds; Face, as the eminently disinterested friend of truth, extolling the little less than omniscience and omnipotence of the doctor, with such effect that we read:— “Kai.	Pray thee, Tobacco-boy, go fetch my Buster; I’ll see thin learned boy before I go; And bo shall she. “Face.	Sir, he is busy now; But if you have a sinter to fetch hither, Perhaps your own pains may command her sooner; And he by that time may be free. “Kas.	I go.	[Exit. "Fact.	Drugger, she’s thine: the damask! [Exit Abel.] Subtle and I Must wrestle for her. [Aside.] " Surly, disguised as a wealthy Spanish Don ignorant of English, penetrates into the house to expose the cheaters, and has the opportunity of telling Dame Pliant, whom he hopes to win for himself, into what hands she has fallen, ’mongst what a nest of villains. Discovering himself when Subtle enters, he jeers and strikes down that venerable doctor; and when Subtle cries “HelpI Murder!” retorts balefully: “ There’s no such thing intended: a good cart And a clean whip shall ease you of that fear." Face comes at the cry; sees how matters stand, slips out, and returns with Kastril:— "Face.	Why, now’s the time, if ever you will quarrel Well, a* they Hay, and be a true-born child: The doctor and your sister both ore abused. “KAB.	Where is he ? Which is he ? He is a slave, Whate'er he is, and the son of a whore. Are you The man, sir, I would know ? “Sub.	I should be loth, sir. To confess so much. “Kas.	Then you lie in your throat. "Sub.	Howl “Face. [To Kastril] A very errant rogue, sir, and a cheater, Employed here by another conjuror That does not love the doctor, and would cross him If he knew how.	• “ Sub.	Sir, you are abused. “Kab.	You lie: And 'tig no matter. Enter Drugger, with a puce of damask. “Face.	Nay, here’s an honest fellow, too, that knows him. And all his tricks. Make good what I way, Abel, This cheater would have cozened thee o’ the widow. [Aside to Drugger.] He owes this honest Drugger here seven pound. He has had on him in twopenny orths of Tobacco. "Drug.	Yes, sir, And he has dammed himself three terms to pay me. “ Fact.	And what does he owe for lotium ? "Dbug.	Thirty	shillings, sir; And for six syringes. " Suh.	Hydra of villainy 1 "Fact. [To Kastril] Nay sir, you must quarrel him out o’the house, "Kas.	I will: Sir, if yon get not out o* doors, you lie; And you are a pimp. “ Sub.	Why, this is madness, sir, Not valour in you; I must laugh at this. "Kas.	It is my humour: you are a pimp and a trig, And an Amadis de Gaul, or a Don Quixote. "Drug.	Or a knight o’ the curious coxcomb, do you see ? " Drugger himself, we see, grows witty at the expense of his rival; as for his fibbing against him, all is fair in love and war. It will be remarked that Kastril has not yet mastered the nice gradations of the gentlemanly quarrel, and can but blurt out grossly at the very beginning, “ You lie” which should be the climax. It will also be remarked that his munition of invective is neither abundant nor formidable. For the sake of his sister, Surly does not want to quarrel with him, but sees clearly through his vapouring, and tells him that he is valiant in company; for all present—save Dame Pliant, always passively neutral—are dead against the gamester, who for once is playing an honest game. Even Ananias, entering, has his zeal mightily kindled against Surly's Spanish slops:— "Ama.	They are profane. Lewd, superstitious, and idolatrous breeches. " Bub.	New rascals I “Kas.	Will you be gone, sir? Ama.	Avoid, Sathan 1 Thou art not of the light I That ruff of pride About thy ni ck, betrays thee; and is the name With that which the unclean birds, in seventy-seven, Were seen to prank it with on divers coasts: Thou look’at like antichrist in that lewd hat. • Bur.	I must give way.	” The “unclean birds of seventy-seven” may refer to the number of Spanish troops poured about that year, 1577, into the Netherlands under Alva. During the early part of James’s reign Spanish influence and fashions were paramount at Court; but the people remembered the Armada, and loved not Pope or Inquisition, and always welcomed any stage ridicule of their old enemies. The huge Spanish ruffs, with their deep sets or plaits, often came in for mockery; and in the present piece, Act IV., Sc. 1, Subtle exclaims when Surly first enters disguised:— " He looks in that deep ruff like a head in a platter, Served in by a short cloak upon two treaties."	Surly being at length got rid of for the time, Face and Drugger are left on one side, Subtle and Ananias on the other:— "Fact.	Drugger, this rogue prevented us, for thee: Wo had determined that thou nhould'st have come In a Spanish unit, and have carried her so; and he, A brokerly slave 1 goes, puts it on himself. Hast brought the damask ? "Drug.	Yes, sir. “ Face.	Thou must borrow A Spanish suit: hast thou no credit with the players ? “ Drug.	Yes, sir; did you never see me play the Fool? "Fact.	I know not, Nab; thou shalt, if I can help it.	[Aside. Hiernnimo’s old cloak, ruff, and hat will serve; I’ll toll thee more when thou bringest ’em. [Exit Drugger." Old Hieronimo, or Jeronymo, was the title-hero of a popular play by Kyd, and of its sequel, the “Spanish Tragedy,” frequently burlesqued by our poet and his contemporaries; though Jonson himself in his early hack days earned a small sum by writing additions to it. We are now at the close of the fourth Act,and thebeginning of the denouement. Lovewit, the master of the house, suddenly returns, and is descried by Dol, with forty of the neighbours about him talking. Face, the man of action, immediately assumes command in the confederacy:— " Face.	Be silent: not a word, if he call or knock. Hl into mine old shape again and meet him, Of Jeremy, the butler. In the meantime, Do you two pack up all the goods and purchase,* That we can carry in two trunks. I’ll keep him Off for to-day, if I cannot longer: and then At night I ll ship you both away to Ratcliff, Where we will meet to-morrow, and there we’ll share. Let Mammon’s brass and pewter keep the cellar; We’ll have another time for that. But, Dol, Prithee go heat a little water quickly; Subtle must shave mo: all my captain's beard Must off, to make me appear smooth Jeremy.” The neighbours tell Lovewit of the strange persons who have been flocking to his house, day and night, for weeks past, during which Jeremy has not been seen. Jeremy appears, and maintains that the house has been shut up and the keys in his pocket for the last three weeks; and that the neighbours must have had visions or been demented. These worthies waver before his assurance. Then the dupes come up, undeceived and raging; Mammon and Surly, Kastril for his sister (who is awaiting the genuine Spanish Don she has been promised for husband), Ananias and Tribulation Wholesome; Dapper cries out from within, and Subtle shouts to quieten him; Lovewit overhears Face rebuking the latter for his noise; and finally Face, seeing that he is caught, and feeling that “nothing’s more wretched than a guilty conscience” (when the guilt’s found out), offers to confess in private:— " Give me but leave to moke the best of my fortune. And only pardon me the abuse of your house: It’s all I beg. I’ll help you to a widow, In recompense, that you shall give me thanks for, Will make you sewn years younger, and a rich one. Tis but your putting on a Spanish cloak: I have her within.” Drugger returns with Hieronimo’s cloak, hat and ruff; Face tells Subtle to take the suit, and bid him fetch a parson presently; “say he shall marry the widow.” Face goes off with the things to his master; but Subtle thinks that he means to don the Don himself and marry Dame Pliant, and so informs Dol, who exclaims, “’Tis direct against our articles.” Subtle plans with her to get off with the plunder to Brentford instead of Ratcliff, and leave Face in the lurch; Dol beforehand getting what she can from the widow. Nab returns with the parson, and is sent back again to wash himself. Face re-enters, and finds that all the purchase is safely packed up, money and goods, including poor Abel’s damask and Tobacco: " Fact.	Give me the keys. "Dol.	Why you the keys ? "Sub.	No matter, Dol; because We shall uot open them before he comes. "Fact.	‘Tis true, yon shall not open them, indeed; Nor have them forth, do you see ? uot forth, Dol. "Dol.	No! "Fact.	No, my smock-rampant. The right is, my master Knows all, has pardoned me, and he will keep them ; Doctor, ’tis true—you look [astonished]—for all your figures: I sent for him, indeed.! Wherefore, good partners. Both he and she be satisfied; for here Determines the indenture tripartite "Twixt Subtle, Dol, and Face. All I can do Is to help you over the wall, o’ the back-side, Or lend you a sheet to save your velvet gown, Dol. Here will be officers presently, bethink you Of some course sudden to ’scape the dock: For thither you will come else. [Loud knocking.] Hark you, thunder.” They curse him, he mocks; and they have to decamp without bag or baggage. Lovewit in the Spanish dress has been married off-hand to Dame Pliant. Mammon, Surly, Kastril, Ananias, Tribulation, return with officers, and are admitted when Lovewit has cast off his disguise. He lets them know who he is, and explains that his servant, taking advantage of his absence, had let the house to a doctor and a captain, of * Whalley notes: “ A cant term for goods stolen or dishonestly come by: thus Shakespeare, 'Henry V.,’ *	They will steal anything, and call it purchase.’ And this sense seems to be derived from Chaucer, who thus uses it in his Prophecy; *	And robbery is holde purchase.’" f A falsehood, to frighten them.
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whom he knows nothing. He had found only a gentlewoman within, whom he had married, because her Spanish count had neglected her. They search the house in vain. Mammon, who says that he has been cheated of eight score and ten pounds within these five weeks,* besides his first materials, demands at least his brass and pewter vessels, which he had sent to be turned into gold. Lovewit will not give these up unless Mammon can bring certificate that he was gulled of them. Mammon will rather lose them than so expose his folly, and retires with Surly, who bitterly regrets that, in not securing the widow when she was in his power, he must needs cheat himself “with that same foolish vice of honesty.” Ananias and Tribulation come to rescue the same things, which they have bought of Subtle for a hundred marks, as orphans’ goods, and left with him for transmutation: Lovewit threatens to cudgel them out of the house, and they depart with anathema maranatha. Our Drugger comes, and is beaten out again. Kastril enters, dragging in his sister, and rating her in that refined style which was conserved by those staunchest of Conservatives the country gentlemen, even till the time of Fielding and Squire Western. Lovewit confronts the puerile bully:—
“ Love. Come, will you quarrel ? I will ftize [chastise] you, sirrah; Why do you not buckle to your tools ?
“Kas. Od’s light,
This is a hue old boy as e'er I saw!
“ Lovk. Whnt, do you change your copy now ? proceed, Here stands my dove: stoop at her if you dare.
“ Kas. 'Slight, I must love him! I cannot choose, i’ faith, An* I should be hanged for't! Suster, I protest, I honour thee for this match.
“Love. O, do you so, sir?
" Kas. Yes, an’ thou canst take Tobacco and drink, old boy, Til give her five hundred pound more to her marriage, Than her own state.
“Love.	Fill a pipe full, Jeremy.
“ Face. Yes; but go in and take it, sir.
“Love.	We will;	’
I will be ruled by thee in everything, Jeremy.
“Kas. 'Slight, thou art not hide-bound, thou art a jovy boy!
Come, let us in, I pray thee, and take our whiffs.”
Thus Tobacco is vindicted at the close of the comedy, as, like your If, a great peace-maker. Oh, that rich region of comedy! Oh, our poor work-a-day world! How many of us love wit, and can take Tobacco and drink; but who will therefore give us two thousand pounds? Echo answers, ’Ounds!	------ Sigvat.
P.S.—Shakespeare and Snuff.—At the close of Section X., October, 1877,1 promised to return to this subject, anent a note of Gifford. Consulting the “ Complete Concordance to Shakespeare,” New and Revised Edition, by Mrs. Mary Cowden Clarke (London: W. Kent and Co., 1874), I find only the following references to Snuff and Snuffing:— “ Midsummer Night's Dream: ” V., 1, 254.—“ It is already in snuff.” “ Love's Labour Lost: ” V., 2, 22.—“ The light, by taking it in snuff.” “ All's Well that Ends Well: ” I., 2, 59.—“ To be the snuff of younger spirits.” “ 1 Henry IV.: ” I., 8, 41.—“ Took it in snuff; and still he smiled.” “Henry VTII.: ” III., 2, 96.—“ Tis I must snuff it; then out it goes.” “ Cymbeline: ” I., 6, 87.—“ And solace i’ the dungeon by a snuff ? " “King Lear:” HI., 1, 26.—“ In snuffs and packings of the dukes.” “ King Lear: ” IV., 6, 89.—“ My snuff, and loathed part of nature.” “ Hamlet: ” IV., 7,116.—“ A kind of wick, or snuff, that will.” “Love's Labour Lost:” HI., 1,16.—“Snuffed up love by smelling love.” The numbers of the lines I have added from the Globe edition. Now, if the reader interested in this great question will look up the passages referred to, I think he will agree with me that in only a couple of them, the fourth, from “ 1 Henry IV.,” and the last, from “Love’s Labour Lost,” is there any possibility of allusion to the dust of Tobacco. And even in these, I am afeared that a very little pondering will snuff out or puff away this poor possibility. The former is in Hotspur’s account of the dainty lord who pestered him after Holmedon fight:—
“ He was perfumed like a milliner;
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose and took’t away again; Who therewith angry when it next came there, Took it in snuff;-”
A pouncet-box is a box for holding perfume, such as was in use long before the blessed powder of Tobacco was known in our hemisphere. “ Took it in snuff” is indeed a pun; to take in snuff meaning to take offence, as well as to take by snuffing up. In brief, snuff and snuffing [German, schnupfen, to draw into the nose, in die nase ziehen] were familiar in our language of old, and Tobacco-dust and the inhaling thereof were named from them, not vice versa; the general being made specific in honour of the most aromatic, stimulating, brain-clearing and popular of all the triturated titillants of the olfactory nerves: snuff is the snuff, as Tobacco the weed, and, as in the East, the same word means smoke and Tobacco. In French, German, Spanish, and Italian alike, our snuff por excellence is distinguished as powder of Tobacco, the great word Tobacco being, with various spellings, common to all. These remarks dispose of the other passage. I am thus compelled to decide against Gifford, and in favour of myself when I wrote “ Many of the characters (Shakespeare’s) are continually taking snuff, but this does not appear to have been supplied by the Tobacconist.”	Sigvat.
♦ Yet at the opening of Act H. he ravr that they had been at the work ten month*. Bnt if so, how could Subtle and Dol have been brought ho low, Act I., Sc. 1, when Face took them into the house but some weeks before. Act V.,8c. 1?
& /raub.
He was an old impostor;
But I’ve no right to foster
Spite and anger, though he cost a Crown to me;
Being innocent and pure, In my life and looks demure, I was open to a “doer” Such as he.
He’d a pipe for sale or barter (The hour was ten or arter), He suggested I should start a Cloud at once;
But I hesitated greatly, For the truth was, until lately I’d been living as sedately
As a dunce.
Then he took me to a corner, And he told a tale forlorner Than could Niobe, the sqorner Of the gods:
How he’d been himself disgracing With a passion for horse-racing, And his fortune been misplacing On the “ odds.”
How his money went like winking, And his wife had died through drinking, While his daughters took to rinking And the stage.
How his sons gave way to riot And to most expensive diet, Depriving him of quiet In old age.
Then this lamentative croaker
Told me how the heartless broker 1
Seized, right down to the poker, All he had;
And how he swift was going, Nothing paying, plenty owing, Reaping what he had been sowing, To the bad.
“Won’t you help a poor old sinner,” Said he, “to another dinner?
Every day I’m growing thinner And more weak.
What’s the money? But a dollar. On the pipe’s a silver collar, Solid, sir; it isn’t ‘ holler.’
Truth I speak.
“ This meerschaum, my temptation, Led me into dissipation, And to bitter degradation, And to woe.
The only relic this is
Of my late lamented * missis;’ She gave it me with kisses, Years ago.
“Why, sir, it’s worth a guinea; And a man must be a ninny, With a soul half starved and skinny, Not to see.
I never was so cut up,
The pawnshops are all shut up, And I’ve nowhere to put up;
Woe is me!”
At his story agonising, It was not at all surprising That I felt my pity rising To my eyes.
This he saw, and said, “I knew it;
I felt sure that you would do it.
Buy it, sir; you’ll never rue it, ’Tis a prize.”
Then I paid the money weakly. And I took the bargain meekly, Though I thought it did feel treacley To my hand.
And the old man with the rhino
Walked away. The pipe was mine, 0,
With its amber mouthpiece fine, 0, All so grand.	•
Next morn I stormed and stuttered, And the syllables I uttered
Were not sugared, no, nor buttered; Yea, I swored!
For that lachrymose old sinner, Wanting just another dinner, Was a shark, a thief, a skinner, And a fraud!
The collar he had stated
Solid silver, was but plated, And the glass mouthpiece it mated
With the rest.
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While his dismal long narration Was a wicked fabrication, Served with sobbing hesitation From his breast.
The pipe was some vile putty, Not so wholesome as a cutty, With its inside made all smutty, Plain to see.
The colour and the flavour
Had been baked in by the shaver, Who prepared the thing to have a Fool like me.
H. L.
Copt’s ^ifturt.
Says the poet Longfellow, 44 Things are not what they seem; ” and it is wonderful with what appropriateness his aphorism will apply to the land which claims his genius as her own. Now, what sort of picture would arise in the mind of an ordinarily reflective man in connection with the name of “Lincoln, Neb.?” By way of preliminary, it might be well to explain that “Neb.” is not a Christian name. The boy who declared that “Nebuchadnezzar” was “short for Neb.,” threw no light upon the descriptive abbreviation which closes the phrase, “Lincoln, Neb.” The wrt-ular monosyllable in this case does duty for the full-grown cognomen, “ Nebraska.” What image, then, rises before the mental vision of the comparative philosopher when he hears or reads of “Lincoln, Nebraska? ” Will not the first of these partner-words call up the features of that venerable and profoundly respectable city whose grand cathedral pile gives witness to heaven of its worth amongst the corporate communities of men, and the penetrating tones of whose far-famed “Tom” ring out across the watery infinity of the great Fen Country? Yet, I am told that when two men met at the Railroad Hotel in “Lincoln, Neb.,” one of them, who had boasted that Nebraska was or ought to be “ all a good country,” backed up his certificate with the remarkable qualification—“all it lacks is—good society and water.” Now, I wish to preserve what little reputation I may have borne “thus far into the bowels of the land” of human tribulation; and I will not, therefore, fully endorse the emphatic response which this gentleman’s modified eulogy elicited from his companion. “ All it lacks is good society and water?” exclaimed this person—“Why, good Lord! that is all hell lacks.” It would certainly be possible to argue with some show of plausibility that a city without either good society or water would fairly merit the description of “hell upon earth.” The theme is tempting; but I will pursue it no further. It is enough to mark the city of “Lincoln, Neb.,” with the brand of counterfeit. Such a town, whatever abstract merits it may possess, can have no claim to borrow the honoured name of that Lincoln which is capital of the county whose amphibious natives are proverbially born web-footed, and whose clerical Head so stickles for propriety that he forbids an uncanonical “reverend” to appear upon a tombstone, or a Dissenter’s bones to be interred amongst the ashes of the faithful children of the Church. But America is the forcing-house of frauds; and a waterless, good-societylacking “Lincoln” is no worse than those dyed cigars which the Globe has lately dug up again from the peaceful obscurity to which I long since consigned them. It grieves me that my favourite herb should be thus degraded by the arts of the avaricious and dishonest trader; and this none the less that now and then it falls into associations even more humiliating. Have you observed the part Tobacco has been made to play in the nefarious performances of Thomas Draper, “Dark Harry,” William Fisher, and William Mason? While these men were diligently engaged in the art of making bad money pass for good—vulgarly, “smashing”—one day lately, a mysterious “small parcel,” containing diamonds, pearls, and other precious things, passed from hand to hand amongst them, “ by mistake;” and. Mason having asked Draper “for a piece of Tobacco,” Draper “gave him the parcel again instead.” Knowing as I do, that there are men who prefer Tobacco to their regular meals, I grieve that Draper, being asked by his friend for this excellent substitute for bread, should straightway give him pearls and precious stones. The only excuse for such conduct I can find is, that there was no Tobacco amongst the treasures stolen from the strong room of Messrs. Henry S. King and Co., of Cornhill, and that, therefore, Draper was unable to comply literally with his friend’s request. Had the Divine Weed been thus “ mixed” two centuries and a-half ago, we might need no marvellous insight into recondite motives and prompting of the human intelligence in order to understand the following extract from the proceedings of the House of Commons:—
“Wednesday, April 18th, 1621, Sir William Stroud moved that ‘he would have Tobacco banished wholly out of the kingdom, and that it may not bo brought in from any part nor used amongst us; ’ and Sir Grey Palmes said, ‘that if Tobacco be not banished, it will overthrow one hundred thousand men in England; for now it is so common that he hath seen ploughmen take it as they are at plough.’ ”
The conscientious student of the social history of this humble plant—a creature which, amongst vegetables, has no lower claim to be called “ the faithful friend of man ” than has, amongst animals, the dog—is compelled to observe two marvellous instances of sustained vitality. The first is that of the
virtuous charm which Tobacco herself exerts; and the second is the vicious and malicious detraction her merits evoke from the envious. ’Twas but within this last November past that “that mighty Engine of Civilisation, the Press”—[Large capital letters will be here taken for granted, even if tlie printer be too niggardly to use them] —The Press, I say, represented by no less a noble print than the Weekly Dispatch, announced a conquest achieved by fair Nicotia over the hearts of “the Board of Guardians at Bath.” These worthy citizens having been moved to permit the “male paupers” of the Bath Union to smoke Tobacco, “agreed to allow paupers to receive presents of Tobacco”! There comes this cheering message from the land of Washington and Franklin, of Leatherstocking and Knickerbocker:—“A while ago, a party of lynchers down South postponed the hanging five minutes to allow the victim time to finish smoking his cigar.” Well may the veracious chronicler step aside from the strict path of duty for the passing reflection that—“This proves that the use of Tobacco prolongs life.” But I have said that the vitality of the hatred which dogs the wheels of Nicotia’s advancing chariot is as wonderful as the deathlessness of her own victorious power. And the proof is apropos oi the instance last adduced. “A Kansas paper remarks that the anti-Tobaccoites are happy. A man has at last been found dead with a pipe in his mouth, and the inference is that Tobacco killed him”—an inference possible only to that blindest bigotry which would refuse to see “the ruling passion strong in death.” Happily for the interests of truth, the generous reader who has followed me thus far will be prepared for the sequel which demolishes the cruel theory of the anti-Tobaccoites: “although he had a rope round his neck, one end of which was tied to the limb of a tree.”
At Blackwell’s Island—a penitentiary “ober dere”—two hundred convict labourers struck work the other day. You are prepared for the yell of denunciation with which such periodicals as Capital and Labour would receive this newest illustration of the mingled madness and villainy of “the working man;” and for the welcoming shouts of joy with which the organ of Mr. George Totter would recognise this proof that even convict labourers had risen to the glorious height indicated by poetic inspiration in the immortal stanza —“Who would be free, himself must strike the blow.” But a moment’s reflection will remind you how vain are the shouts of the combatant hosts on either side. For, where there is no wage for the labourer, he can neither, like Oliver Twist, “ask for more,” nor, like the bold British collier, be exasperated to frenzy by the request to content himself with less. No: the prisoners on Blackwell’s Island had no wages-grievance. The moving cause of all their grief was—“ a question of plug-Tobacco. The convicts held meetings to discuss their grievances, and resolved to do no more work until they were supplied by the Commissioners of Charities and Correction with their accustomed chew.” Now, what happened? Did the oppressed victims of a harsh tyranny rise in their might, and strew the prison pavements with the brains of the sycophant minions of misguided Authority? Far from it. It is written in the books of the poets that “a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind;” and the historic reporter says the warden “made a conciliatory address to the strikers, and promised to use his influence in support of their demands.” This is the place at which the doves and the olive leaves and symbols of Universal Brotherhood, Co-operation, Arbitration, et hoc genus omne, might be introduced; but for an unfortunate event—one of those failures which, like the spots on the sun and the claim for salvage on Cleopatra’s Needle, limit the perfection of all material enterprises. It appears that “the men were obstinate, and were about taking measures to enforce the regulations of the brotherhood, by breaking the head of every craven who consented to work on less than six quids a day, when the guards marched them inside the prison and locked the door.” If I were an impartial critic in this cause, I should probably say that there was in this result an anti-chmax; but, as my feelings are enlisted, and, moreover, I am upon principle opposed to all “antis,” I content myself by remarking that the incident is “ mixed.”
Not a bit more mixed, by the way, than the sentiments of Mr. James Russell Lowell’s butcher, or those of Mr. Lowell about his butcher, as thus reported by Mr. Lowell himself:—“One morning the man expatiated upon the loveliness of the moonlight of the night before, and, just as the poet was thinking that he had done him an injustice in never having given him credit for refinement of soul, the butcher added: 4 The night was so fine I jest couldn’t sleep, and had to get up and go to killin’.’ ” 44 Mixed,” however, is an adjective of degrees; and if these be instances of the positive, or even of the minor gradations, as “less mixed” or 44 least mixed,” and if, again, this composition of Your Man-of-All-Work may sometimes deserve to be ranked as amongst the advancing comparatives, as 44 more mixed” than the rest of his efforts, yet assuredly the most superlatively mixed of all things complicate is a publication lying before mine eyes at this particular moment. It is entitled 44 The Twentieth Century: An Illustrated Magazine of New Ideas for the Ninteenth, edited by A Comprehensionist.” It bears upon its front the “Motto: The Future is the Present, and the Present is the Future.” It informs me that, of two colours, “ the one was fascinatingly refined, the other was proclivitously inviting; ” and that, by placing two
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numbers on each page, there will he advantage “ in cutting up the work into concentrated successionments,” which would otherwise be “ intricational.” A contributor who admits his “conscious incompetence to attentionate the reader” by new poetry equal to his former productions, maunders in what he supposes to be prose about Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, and whatever else he can try to think about to eke out his subject. He talks of Miss (“Roll-Call”) Thompson as a person “whose pencil catches conception to pourtray impressionment; ” of the artist in Figaro who “ with an outline exhumes the profundity of the unrepresented,” and of another whose subject indicates that “ marks of overstepment are showing themselves in society.” These are some of the more intelligible contents of this “ Mid-Quarterly,” of whose origin the editor vouchsafes this thrilling revelation:—“Owing to a variety of causes, this magazine made its first appearance,” &c., “ and then the idea had to be shaped into the practical, whilst undergoing a spasmodic internal development that strained the execution to comply with the pretentious requirements that super-manded the working decision. This breathless elevationment prevented the survey of our associated relationships, until the intention fixed itself as the lantern in the lighthouse of Conscience to guide the Present to the Future.” And (vide “ Motto”) “ the Future is the Present, and the Present is the Future! ” Whew ! Isn’t it clear ? Will some kind Christian friend pity the poor blind, and guide me back to myself ?
I was on the point of adventuring some remarks upon this latest outcome of the genius of Bedlam, when I read elsewhere these two narratives following:—
“ Mr. J. T. Fields relates of an aged Bostonian a very piquant little story. The venerable gentleman had never read Shakespeare’s plays, and was advised to do so during the winter then approaching. In the spring the giver of the advice casually asked if he had read any of the plays. Yes, he had read them all. ‘ Do you like them ? ’ ventured G., feeling his way anxiously to an opinion. ‘ Like them! ’ replied the old man, with effusive ardour; ‘ that is not the word, sir ! They are glorious, sir, far beyond my expectation! There are not twenty men in Boston, sir, who could have written those plays! ’ ”
“A coloured woman stepped in at Ed. Palmer’s cigar store, in South Illinois Street, the other day, and asked the price of ‘flat Tobacker.’ * Why,’ said Mr. Palmer, * you don’t chew, do you ? * ‘ No, sab 1 I doesn’t chaw. I wants it to send to my husband.’ * Where is your husband ? * * Well, he’s up Norf.’ ‘ Whereabouts up North ? ’ ‘ Why up—well, he’s in.’ ‘ Why,’ said Mr. Palmer ‘ what was the matter ? ’ * 'Well,* said she, ‘ there was some misunderstandin’ about some harness, an’ he couldn’t explain it. I understood it, but he couldn't make de cote understan’ it.’ ”—Indianapolis Herald.
The intelligent reader will perceive from the Boston story that the venerable critic had been hoaxed. Mr. F. Wilson, of Newman Street, or some other patron of the higher Intelligences, had palmed off upon him a copy of the “Twentieth Century,” in place of the Bard. And the impatient reader, who chafes under the problems of an inscrutable creation, petulantly demanding the extinction of Colorado Beetles and Newman Street philosophies, in the absence of possible justifications of their existence, will perceive that there is room in the world even for “A Comprehensionist.” Just as the Beetle succeeds to the superannuated “ Bee in the Bonnet,” so may “ A Comprehensionist” hope to find a mission and a home—“ in,” “ up Norf”—in the “Twentieth Century,” “mid-quarterly.”
Thus have I been drawn insensibly within the charmed circle of literature and the arts. Let me loiter a moment here, and unmix (or, as we used to say, unbend) my strained faculties. I have a picture or two to introduce, and, withal, a welcome to give. My first picture is from the Boston Sunday Times, wherein appears this glimpse of the home-life of an actor once high in the favour of the British play-goer, but now too nearly forgotten:—
“ Fechter is a devotee of Tobacco, and a connoisseur equally of the leaf and of the pipe. He prefers the latter to a cigar, and conspicuous objects in the sitting-room are three well-coloured meerschaums, several briar-woods, a huge-bowled German pipe, and an Oriental hookah, besides some other interesting specimens which I cannot classify. Fechter has for another hobby the collection of antique and rare books. His Quakertown library includes a large number of choice volumes. In it is a very valuable acting edition of Shakespeare, over two hundred years old. He is a veteran player of whist and chess, and can be beaten at these games by few of his many friends.”
The second is a mere thumb-nail outline of Sims Reeves, which shows itself in the World, where I find the popular tenor discoursing of music like the true artist he is—“ As the smoke curls lazily upwards from a magnificent chibouk—the gift of Blumenthal.”
And my welcome ? It is for Mirth: 2 Humorous Magazine, edited by H. J. Byron, and published by Tinsley Brothers. I had thought, dolorously, that the spirit of the old Train was dead. But I was wrong. The Train is dead (like Queen Anne); Robert and William Brough, Bennett, M‘Connell, Frank Smedley, and I care not to say how many more of its guards and drivers and firemen, are long ago passed over to the majority ; and it may be that its spirit can have no abiding home amongst us, revisiting now the “ pale glimpses of the moon.” But here it is, with the new name of Mirth. And with it come Sala, and E. L. Blanchard, and John Hollingshead, and Godfrey Turner, all of the old staff; with such recruits as Blanche, James Albery, Robert Reece, Henry S. Leigh, and W. S. Gilbert, under the leadership of H. J. Byron. The names command a welcome, and the memories they recall must make that welcome cordial. They bring, also, offerings to the shrine of Nicotia, of which I may have more to say anon ; and “ as the blue smoke curls from my old black pipe,” I waft them the heartiest good wishes of
Youb Man-of-All-Wobk.
Tobacco as /ooh.
The work of the late Dr. Edward Smith, on Health, contains a chapter which insinuates that Tobacco is a poisonous substance, sometimes eaten. The chapter, as usual with many of his books, is badly arranged, and commences with an attack on the wicked habit of eating mushrooms when you know them to be poisonous. We shall not follow Dr. Smith through his complaints against the berries of the mountain ash, the wild lettuce, the berries of the potato, and deadly nightshade, but track him at once to his question, “ Tobacco is sometimes ranked with foods, but can it be beneficial under any circumstances ?”
This reminds us, in its logical arrangement, of the story of the Quaker, who was going from Egremont to New Brighton, and was met by a sailor, who asked him “ whether he was not going to Chester?” “Friend,” said the Quaker, “thee mixes the propositions. First, thee tellest a lie, and then thee asketh a question.” But Dr. Smith has exactly given the petitio principii oi the sailor. The assertion that Tobacco is a food was too strong for Dr. Smith’s arguments to disprove; the assertion that it was not a food was mure than he dared imply. He therefore uses two qualificatory expressions, and speaks of Tobacco as being sometimes ranked as a food. Now it was either rightly or wrongly so ranked; and whether it was so ranked always or sometimes matters very little when discussing the question whether it is a food or not. If it was sometimes wrongly ranked as a food, Dr. Smith should have given some sort of logical evidence to show why it should have been excluded. In place of this we have merely words signifying nothing. The next clause of the most extraordinary axiom which we have before us is more singular still. It is argued with a significant but between the clauses of the sentence whether Tobacco “can be beneficial under any circumstances?” Here the but is introduced to make the second clause of the sentence in some way contradictory, or condemnatory, of the first clause. A substance may be excellent food, but may not be beneficial under any circumstances. If you hit a man with a shoulder of mutton, there is no doubt whatever that the effects may be serious to the hittee, though the qualities of the shoulder of mutton as food will be unimpaired. A similar looseness of reasoning distinguishes Dr. E. Smith’s third allegation. “ Many say it can” (i.e. be “beneficial under any circumstances”). Now that is precisely what we have never met with. We do not consider Tobacco to be beneficial “ under any circumstances.” We have heard of packers who have been crushed to death by the weight of the bales of Tobacco. We are deeply aware of the inefficacy of Cavendish as a substitute for butter at breakfast, as a convenient substance from which to manufacture strawberry pottles, or as a remedy for rust in ship’s boilers. Such objects were perhaps not within the functions for which Tobacco was employed, and the use of the weed may be considered injurious by each and all of the persons who apply it to services to which the Tobacco smoker would never think of applying it.
Dr. Smith then proceeds to make the astounding statement that Tobacco lessens the appetite, “which food does not.” Now this is precisely the very thing we always thought that food did do. Oliver Twist would never have asked for more at the end of his meal, according to Dr. Smith’s idea of the functions of food. If, in fact, a charitable world wishes to give pauper inmates of workhouses enough to eat to support their exhausted nature, it is apparently in evidence that enlargement of supply increases the appetite, and whatever sins may be alleged against the nice little family party who diminished the amount of courses supplied lately in the vicinity of the Crystal Palace to Harriet Staunton at dinner, they' would have been acting in a far more philosophical manner if they had given her less food, in order to diminish the excessive desire for it she seems, with a feeling of contrariety towards Dr. Smith’s book, to have experienced. It is difficult to imagine the perversity which could lead a hungry person, who knows that after death her body may be fought for by the medical harpies, who are willing to swear to anything for or against their professional brethren in a court of law, to show so much appetite, which she must have known was the result of overeating herself. We are then told that food does not make the head ache. We thought that we had seen a few examples of the acute congestion of the brain which is occasionally produced when a father of a family looks at an unpaid butcher’s bill. We fancy also that inflammation of the brain is occasionally set up when a farmer finds his oxen dead of rinderpest, or his fields barren of corn; yet bread and beef are surely occasionally foods.
We are then gravely told that food does not weaken the body, for which convenient concession to the prejudices of our common humanity we are grateful. Tobacco, however, weakens the body, and this is said to be because Tobacco smoke is “ retained in the body.” This statement is, to us at least, entirely unintelligible. Tobacco, as we believe, is not a poison at all; like beef and potatoes, it may contain a poison. Dr. Smith then actually uses the sophism that Tobacco contains no nourishment, and is therefore injurious.
The vagueness of this declaration is of itself its own answer. No one has ever asserted that Tobacco does contain a nourishment, i.e. an assimilable substance, but only that, like coca leaves, it prevents waste of the system. We have,
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wever, to deal with the poison of which he speaks. We ot recognise our old friend nicotine, or any of the other ’1*imp8 w^c^ ^e chemist is supposed to produce at will
the products of our Tobacco. We were under the • ression that most smokers blew their Tobacco out into onen air, and that nobody who inhaled the smoke of a 'ar or pip® ever had a desire that the smoke should be ? tained in the body; ” at least not in his body. But when w told that there is a poison so powerful that “ doctors Y® not use it,” those persons who are aware that physicians ? in France especially, used nicotine with deliberation, d published the results of their investigations, have a little tendency to smile. It is, therefore, clear that although medical en may use ^’ doctors of music do not do so habitually, and this is probably what Dr. Smith meant. But if he meant Anything else, then his statement becomes what Carlyle would term a ” hopeless congeries of clotted bosh.”
We are then gravely told, on the authority of an Inspector and Assistant Medical Officer for poor law purposes to the Local Government Board, that Tobacco is disagreeable to many and makes clotliing and furniture smell very offensively. We agree with him, however, when he says that “ bad Tobacco, a foul pipe, and constant smoking, produce disease of the throat.” The reason for this is obvious. When the Tobacco is bad, or the pipe is foul, a tendency to ejaculate forcible expressions at the top of the voice often supervenes in the case of the confirmed Tobacco smoker. This forcible intonation of vowel sounds often produces a relaxation of the muscles of the throat, which eventually culminates in disease.
The usual truistic maunder ensues. The author says, “It mav be true that Tobacco is smoked with impunity, but it is equally true that the whole tendency of its action is towards disease and it is impossible to say how much of good it has prevented. When to this is added the nuisance which it creates to many, the waste of money which might have been profitably employed, and which was perhaps needed for education, or other modes of advancement in life, or for the help of those nearly related, it can be regarded as little less than a sin, and we might regret that the habit was ever acquired.” It does certainly appear a little curious, that a drug which, on the testimony of Dr. Smith, “ lessens the appetite” of the father of a family, should waste money needed for Ue help of those “ nearly related.” Then we are told that those persons who have been “ inveterate smokers” have under a sense of responsibility, broken off the habit. Responsibility to whom? It is difficult here even to imagine that Dr. Smith could have meant physical or legal responsibility, and moral responsibility, we must beg to assure him, cannot attach to what, under his own showing, is something “less than a sin.” Either smoking is a thing morally or physically right or wrong, or it is a thing indifferent. There are only three propositions which can be predicated respecting it Dr. Smith then hints that the mind is not more fitted for work when soothed by Tobacco. The effect of the proposition is virtually identical with that which is contained in the assertion that the mind is not more fitted for work when it is soothed. But when Dr. Smith coolly speaks of Tobacco as he might of any other narcotic, we cannot but be appalled at the advocate who could, by an elliptical form of expression, hint, or at least suggest to his readers, that they should believe that Tobacco was a narcotic in the sense that opium and morphia are narcotics. Such a passage only shows the depth of popular ignorance on which a public caterer for applause, when giving lectures on physiology, can confidently rely. But there must be some old woman, who smokes a pipe occasionally, and who may apply a drop of laudanum to assuage the achings of a raging tooth, who would, from practical experience, be able to discriminate the variety of sensations, and who would be well qualified to read Dr. Edward Smith a concise lesson on the elementary physiology of the subject.
After all this melancholy threnody of drivel, we are gratified to read that the Tobacco plant (not this Journal, dear reader, cela va sans dire), is handsome looking, and “ when seen in great masses, is a very pretty object.” We are glad to have an opinion of this sort, as it shows that Dr. Smith recognises something good in the Tobacco plant. But our curiosity is excited on one respect. Was Dr. Smith himself ever a smoker ? We think we remember, many years ago, a physiologist who also bore the very peculiar name of Smith. He certainly, at least in 1866, smoked heavily, and did good scientific work in England. Whether the smoke of his pipe still ascends with thanksgiving to the Giver of all Light, Heat, and Rest, we know not. But we hope, if he still lives, and we think that one of our eldest readers has heard of a man named Smith, who used to smoke; then the ortho-Smith, le vrai amphitryon, will denounce the conduct of the pseudo-Smith in traducing his memory, and implying, even by covert hints, that he incapacitated his mind for labour by over-smoking himself. And let the officials of that kingdom where are to be found many Smiths, all unite to supply the ortho-Smith and the pseudo-Smith with a good supply of fresh pipelights, or otherwise there will assuredly be as big a fight in that locality as has taken place since the good old days of Quevedo.
Seriously, this work has not added another line of information to the already voluminous and tedious amount of literature we have on the subject. It would not deter even a babe at the breast from smoking, if it thought fit so to do. And we hope most babes are better occupied than by its perusal.
P'rpfs of ^afcr gms.
XI.—DOWN THE CLYDE. AN ADVENTURE ON BOARD.
THE WIDOW’S TALE; OR, A WONDERFUL CURE FOR HYDROPHOBIA.
Have ever you been on the Rhine, reader? If not, don’t let that trouble you; but if you have not yet seen the beauties of the romantic Clyde, then I beseech you to register a vow, ere you are one hour older, that next summer sometime shall find you floating down on its bonnie blue bosom, even if you have to go without Tobacco for a month to save up for the little trip. The writer isn’t born yet, and the pen is not yet fashioned, that can describe the glories of its scenery, and the charm that hangs like the morning mist o’er its braes, green-fringed to the water’s edge with the feathery birch trees. And on board the “whusky” is divine; and the very pipers, redfaced and brawny-legged, that strut up and down the quarterdeck, “biawin’ as loud and fierce as piper’s drones can blaw, man,” seem part and parcel of the scene. I think Roddy and I both felt all this next day, as we sat on the deck of the saucy “ Cygnet ” that was bearing us to Rothesay, churning the water into foam with her paddles, and leaving a trail behind her that could be seen for miles. I know I did; and I know, too, that I bore in my heart of hearts sufficient happiness to fall back upon, when external impressions failed to gladden me. And I know Roddy was jolly, because happiness usually makes a man cheeky and on good terms with himself; and I’ll tell you what Roddy did. Sitting opposite him was a fresh young country lassie of sweet seventeen. She had roguish blue eyes, bonny auburn hair, and a lovely little rosebud of a mouth, that one would have sworn was never meant to be kissed by the soft-looking country bumpkin—evidently a lover —who sat beside her with one arm shyly around her waist, as if to prevent her from falling. Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken so much notice of her myself, if I hadn’t found Roddy’s attention so closely riveted upon her. Perhaps I should, though, all the same.
“Bedad!” cried Roddy at last, “I can’t hold me tongue another moment. My dear,” he added, addressing the girl, who had not, I’m sure, been altogether unconscious of the admiration she was exciting—for, you see, women folks have a power of instinct in addition to reason, and that’s where they’ve got the pull over us poor menkind—“I’ve been sittin* here,” says Roddy, “ if you’ll excuse the liberty a man a few years older than yourself manes to take—I’ve been sittin’ here for the last half-hour, and sorra a bit o’ me can take me eyes off the swate purty face that’s foreninst me, not for the life that’s in me body. Now, I’ll tell ye what PH do. If you’ll only go wid me to Oirland, I’ll give ye a thousand pounds before ye start, and the priest shall be waitin’ on the shore to anoint us in the holy bonds of matrimony, and you shall have the purtiest horses and the purtiest carriages and the purtiest dresses in the county o’ Kildare, wi’ servants to wait upon ye, and flunkies to come at your call, and the best ating and dhrinking in all the land; and sure the winds of heaven I’ll never let blow on ye, nor the sun brown yer bonny face, and---” No wonder the bumpkin got red and white by turns, as my friend rattled on; for, if ever any man in the world kissed the blarney stone, sure that man was Roddy M‘Koy. And how coolly the little minx took it all, too! entering into the joke more merrily than any listener among us. “I’ll be your wife,” she said. “And you’re sure you wouldn’t rather have me son here?” asked Roddy. The “cutty” tossed her head at me. “Nor the bhoy that’s a sittin’ be yer side?” “I’ll have nobody but an old man,” said Blue Eyes. “Then begorra, my beauty,” said Roddy, “ will ye smoke a cigar on the heads of it?”
Now, no one who had watched the look of open-mouthed astonishment on her loutish lover’s face, while the wooing was going on so fast and furious, could have helped smiling; but the climax was put to it when Blue Eyes took both cigar and vesuvian from Roddy, and lighted up as scientifically as if she had been a practised smoker; and when the wee red lips closed firmly over the brown and fragrant weed, and her face was wreathed in reek and smiles, her lover found voice:
“ Ma conscience! Jeannie,” he stammered, with the broad “ Glaiska ” accent, “ I never saw ye do the likes o’ that afore! ”
“Bah!” said Jeannie, carelessly, “there’s music in me, if ye could only bring it out.”
But the words were hardly out of her mouth, ere she started to her feet and dropped the cigar, as though it had burned her. “Gorry me!” says Jeannie, “yonder’s my mistress, on the pier; I hope she didna see me.”
We both followed the direction of Jeannie’s blue eyes as the steamer rasped alongside Rothesay quay, and there, lo and behold! was ths widow herself! More beautiful than ever she seemed to me now, more beautiful in her dress of simple mourning, than I had ever dreamt a woman could be on earth.
The widow, we found, lived for the present in the house of a clergyman, in a beautiful villa, with the sea breaking on the white rocks not a stone’s throw from the door of it; and it is a very singular thing that Roddy and I found comfortable apartments not three hundred yards farther along the road.
I lay long awake in bed that night, thinking about her we had come so far to see. I could hardly look upon Mrs. Gray as a widow; she seemed so young and fragile. Little over “ sweet one and twenty ” at the most, yet with such a beautiful
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although sorrow-stricken face. Then, wave by wave, slumber’s sea closed over me, till I was finally engulphed, and almost immediately afterwards—so it seemed to me—I was walking the deck of the saucy old “ Pen-gun,” and Pelham was with me; the night was dark and wild, while ever and anon the wind carried the cold spray in my face; and what should this be but Roddy himself, the “ ould divil,” standing by my bedside and sprinkling me with water. And behold, it was broad day, with the sunshine dancing and sparkling on every wavelet, and the hills nodding green in the distance. “ Git up,” says Roddy, “and smell the say.”
While smelling “the say” we met Blue Eyes, looking so saucy and bright, that I don’t think the landscape would have been complete without her. She had been out for the milk. She volunteered us the information that Mrs. Gray hadn’t looked so well and happy, “poor thing,” since her husband had fallen dead on the very door-step of the church on the morning of the marriage, three years before that, and that Mr. Gray had been a merchant captain. “No wonder,” I said to Roddy that morning, as we smoked our matutinal whiffs, “ no wonder she has a soft side to a sailor.”
“Ah! true,” replied Roddy, “but a merchant sailor, mind you. None o’ yer Royal Navy Smoke Jacks, but an out-and-out tar. Troth, I’m not so sure I won’t dissolve partnership and marry the widow to meself entoirely.”
Did we call frequently on the widow? Somewhat. And we found old Mr. Graham just your beau ideal of a clergyman of the Scottish church, sine cant or humbug. Instead of an oily smile, he gave a hearty laugh; he never turned his eyes heavenward when he spoke, but looked you straight in the face; he never called you a miserable sinner; and he smoked. What more would you want in a parson? He was the widow’s uncle, but seemed more like a father to her; and I’m sure she loved him, for she lighted his pipe for him with her own fair fingers, and stood behind his chair while he smoked, just like a child, smoothing his brow, as if that would smooth his cares away.
“ Poor Nellie,” he said, one day, as we all sat together in in the cosy, old-fashioned parlour, discussing practically and verbally the virtues of the holy herb, “Poor Nellie, she thinks she has good reason to respect Tobacco.” Thinking this respect was in some way connected with her former husband, Roddy and I remained silent. “ Tell us the story, Nellie, love,” continued Mr. Graham. Nellie told the story, and I give it here in my own words, not in hers, for the simple reason that I did not bring out a note-book and pencil, and imitate a verbatim reporter.
THE WIDOW’S TALE.
Nellie Gray, or Graham, as she was formerly called, and Geordie Forbes (two syllables, please, English reader, For-bes, not Forb*) were cousins. They had been schoolmates and playmates together from an early age, and had no slight affection for one another. If the truth must be told, they were very fond of each other, in a childish, brotherly and sisterly way. Geordie’s father was a farmer, and Nellie’s father’s house—a somewhat pretentious kind of manor—was not very far off, so that Nellie spent much of her time at the old-fashioned farm. Geordie taught her to ride, and laughed at her, boy-like, when she tumbled off. He also taught her to fish, and laughed at her when she caught her own hat in making a cast. Mains o’ Buttock the farm was called, and, in the long forenights of winter, you would have found few more cosy apartments than Mains’s kitchen, with its low fire and ample hearth, its funny old “ saut backet ” with the hole in wall above it, for holding the cutty pipes, and the wee ga’le window, on the broad ledge of which lay the well-thumbed Bible, the Shorter Catechism, and the Life of Wallace. But, humble though it was, Nellie liked it, and always felt sorry when nursie came to lead her home; for, you see, there was always a bright blaze of peats and wood to cast a cheerful glow on the faces round the fire, which made auld grannie in the nook, with her wealth of old-world stories, look almost young. Then there was Geordie, full to the brim of “daffin” and fun; and if old Willie Lawson happened to drop in with his fiddle, there was sure to be a dance, and that itself was something. So the evenings used to pass away happily enough, both to old and young.
Now, when Geordie and Nellie were about sixteen years of age, behold, there arose a great panic in the city of Glasgow, for suddenly a mad dog appeared on the Broomielaw. People were sure he was mad, because, first, he ran directly from the water, and, secondly, because he foamed at the mouth.* One gentleman was bold enough to say the dog had only lost its master. He was laughed to scorn. So away went Collie, and away went the whole of Glasgow at his heels. When Collie grew tired, Collie sat down and looked at his tormentors, and, if eyes can speak, his said plainly enough, “Whatever is up with you all? Tm as sane as any one of you.” Seeing how quiet he looked, two brave Bobbies entered the arena, and attacked him with their cruel truncheons. This was more than canine patience could bear, and so, before he died, Collie succeeded in biting both of them. And serve ’em right, too; but the terror of these two brave men was so great that, before three weeks had come and gone, they both lay stark and stiff, and the verdict upon their cold corpses was hydrophobia. It must be confessed, however, that in the medical
* Both of these are popular fallacies.—G. S.
mind there was just a leetle suspicion of D. T.’s; and as it was known that both men took their whisky without water, and didn’t spare it, the verdict couldn’t have been far wrong (hydrophobia—from hyddr, water, and phobeo, I fear).
Never mind. After this, the magistrates said “Ma conscience!” and the bailies said “Ma conscience!” and every body in Glasgow said “Ma conscience!” Likewise, they swore “grim death to ilka dog i’ the toon.” And so began a canine reign of terror and an age of massacre and blood, until the Glaiska bodies began to see they were making fools of themselves, and doggies once more appeared on the street. But it was just about the time the terror was at its height that Geordie paid a visit to Glasgow, and, tumbling over a “real mad (?) dog” that the mob was chasing, got nipped in the leg.
Now, Geordie was his father’s favourite son, and a favourite with everybody else besides; and so, when he came from Glasgow, looking very much in the dumps, and related what had happened, great was the consternation at the Mains o’ Buttock. The neighbours, too, all round got word of the catastrophe, and came flocking in, and soon filled every room in the house, and everybody seemed to have an infallible remedy in his possession; and the old father, half-distracted, took the advice of all. So, first, Geordie was put to bed; then he was taken up again and put into a warm bath, and “plotted” as if he’d been a pig. His wound was bathed in salt and water, burned with caustic, and finally touched with the red-hot poker, while all sorts of nauseating compounds were thrust down his throat: sulphur by the spoonful, ginger tea, salts and senna, camomile tea, and elecampane. No wonder Geordie felt ill. On the advice of a neighbour, the farmer was just going off to slaughter the old bull, in order to envelop Geordie in him body-bulk, when in came the doctor, and, being a long-headed sort of chap, he very soon cleared the room of supernumeraries, swearing a little as he did so, as doctors are wont to do. Then he granted a free pardon to the old bull, and ordered Geordie perfect rest and quiet.
But what does this foolish old farmer do, as soon as the doctor had gone, but goes and fetches out an old domestic medicine book, sits down at his son’s bedside, and begins to read aloud the symptoms of hydrophobia. Now, Geordie’s nerves had received a severe shock, and, what with the treatment he had received, and thinking about the mad dog, and the excited, pursuing mob, and his wound, which now smarted more than ever, he soon fell into a pitiable plight enough; and when, in the old still house, his father began to read the symptoms of rabies in the human being, and at every sentence to pause and say “Ye dinna feel like that, do ye, ma son,” and then groan and go on again, Geordie, poor lad, began to grow ill indeed, and, when the doctor called again next day, he at once pronounced the case one of real hydrophobia, but said candidly that he thought the rough usage to which the boy had been subjected before his arrival, had hastened the onset of the disease—ah! then there was moaning and groaning at the Mains o’ Buttock.
When it had come to that stage that nobody knew what to do, and, consequently, nobody did anything but weep, the room door opened, and in came Tammie Sievewright. Nobody knew Tammie’s history. Some said he was a “stickit” parson; others swore he was a “warlock;” but all allowed he was skilly and canny. Quite a mite of a mannie was Tammie, with white powdered wig and eyes like a ferret’s, and he wore a little bit of a swallow-tailed coat, with brass buttons, a wideawake hat, and knee breeches.
Tammie took in the situation at once, likewise an enormous pinch of snuff. After that, he took a good look at Geordie, and then took a glance at the doctor. The doctor shook his head gravely.
Tammie said “ Bah! ” so decisively that everybody looked sharply up, and, for a moment, a ray of hope illuminated every breast in the room, and even the poor invalid himself looked appealingly at the curious old man.
“Doctor,” said Tammie, “ye’re an ass.”
“ Sir!” said the doctor.
“I repeat it,” said Tammie; “ye’re an ass, and Dm sorry to say there are owre mony o’ your claith that canna tell a ease o’ spurious hydreephobee frae a true one.”
“But those terrible spasms,” said the doctor. “The deevil,” cried Tammie; “a very little thing will cause a terrible spasm. Put a hair up your nose, and ye sneeze: a sma' cause that, but a terrible convulsion to follow. Now, ‘similia similibus curantur,' ” continued Tammie, “Pm going to cure him.”
“ How? How? ” cried everybody, in a breath.
“ Sternutation,” said Tammie; and out came his old white iron snuff-box. “A good pinch, noo, my laddie,” he said cheerfully, addressing Geordie, and holding the powder to his nose. A rattling sneeze followed, which shook the bed; another and another, and then, to the astonishment of everybody, Geordie sat up in bed, seized the jug of water, and drank.
“I told you so,” said Tammie. “Now, gie him a glass o’ whisky, ye d — d idiots, and gi’ me anither. That’s rieht. Now, when he can eat, let him eat; let him drink when he’s dry, and, every noo and then, let him tak’ another good pinch. There, I’ll leave my snuff-mull wi’ ye; and rd sooner leave my mither. Good morning.”
Gordon Stablis, M.D., R.N.
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PRICE LISTS SUPPLIED TO THE TRADE ON APPLICATION.
ENGLISH-MADE CIGARS.
ENGLISH-MADE CIGARS have so long been sold under Foreign disguises that it has become an established delusion among Smokers that nothing can be good but what is Havana. Under this error everything with a Spanish title is accepted as the genuine article; while undisguised British goods, whatever the superiority of the quality, are comparatively neglected. Smokers are not to blame for this. They cannot be expected always to bear in mind the fact that three-fourths of the Cigars consumed in these kingdoms are made in England, and irom Tobacco as good as that used for the Foreign-made Havanas. The only persons to blame for this pernicious system are the manufacturers who have continued an unworthy custom of sending out their goods branded and labelled with Spanish names, sometimes real, sometimes imaginary—the English Cigar maker often paying more attention to the devices of his labels than to the quality of his Cigars. In this way he relieves himself of responsibility for the reputation of his goods, and is content to leave such points as flavour and excellence of make in abeyance, so long as the Cigars are accepted by the public under their Foreign title. In time, however, Smokers discover that the article they have been buying is not what they supposed; and then the manufacturer simply invents a fresh brand and label, which in turn is superseded by another device; and so brands and labels are multiplied to the hopeless perplexity of the Smoker, who, despairing of getting anything reliable in the way of a Cigar at a moderate price, takes to Cut Tobacco. He knows that in this he has something to guide him to a satisfactory choice, for he can obtain an English manufactured article of reputed merit, bearing the real maker’s name and trade mark.
This anomaly—that while in their Cut Tobaccos English manufacturers stand pre-eminent, English-made Cigars are in corresponding disfavour with Smokers—has convinced us^ and we believe the conviction will be shared by our customers, that the time has fully arrived for making a change in the system. Cigars at most moderate prices, and quite equal in quality to the general run. of Havana-made goods, can be produced in English Factories. It is, therefore, only just, alike to the Smoker and the Manufacturer, that English Cigars should be offered as such, upon their merits. In this Factory, where we have, as our customers know, for many years been producing our favourite English brands, the experiment has succeeded, and we have every reason to desire an extension of it; and with the view of more largely inaugurating the new system, we are now producing Cigars made and matured in our own Factory, and their genuineness as such is vouched for by a small, neat label, bearing our name, round each Cigar.
ALSO IN SHILLING BUNDLES CONTAINING SIX CIGARS, MADE UP INTO PACKETS OF 16 BUNDLES.
ALSO IN CEDAR CASES CONTAINING 96 SHILLING BUNDLES.
ALSO, IN DOUBLE CASES, POLISHED CEDAR, VERY HANDSOME AND USEFUL, WITH LOCK AND KEY, CONTAINING 200 SHILLING BUNDLES.
COPE BROTHERS & CO.
Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
Printed and Published for the Proprietors at the Office, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by John Fbasnb, of 1, Spekeland Road, Edge-Hill, Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster.
ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ HALL.
A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
No. 94.—Vol. IL] JANUARY, 1878.	KgggjEgg*^^
toatt® amir ®ans in 1877.
Thebe appears to be a widespread tendency at the present moment amongst the European nations to copy the English example, and lay the fingers of the State more tightly upon Tobacco. The smoker in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland is looking with no very agreeable glance upon the tax-gatherer. The little Tobacco-cultivating States of Germany are not unlikely to have to pay a hitherto unprecedented price for the undoubted benefit of incorporation into the great German Empire. The new project of Imperial taxation certainly proposes, amongst other suggested schemes, the raising of the taxes and duties upon Tobacco, and the projectors have even suggested the introduction of a Tobacco monopoly. The very suggestion of such measures has already called forth a good deal of irritation and difficulty in the prosperous little Grand Duchy of Baden, where so much of the soil is devoted to Tobacco culture. The estates of the land are holding eager debate upon the matter, and it is being thoroughly ventilated in the Baden newspapers. It is a matter of equal concern to the manufacturing and to the agricultural classes. “None of the new imperial taxes planned at Berlin,” says the New Baditche Landeszeitung^ “would touch our people so nearly as the Tobacco tax. In Baden, a truly important proportion of the population is more or less directly interested in Tobacco. According to the statistical communications of our Ministry of Commerce in 1874, we had then in our land 145 Tobacco manufactories, employing more than 10,000 workpeople.” The article goes on to predict that the increase of the Tobacco tax and customs would quickly operate injuriously upon the flourishing agriculture and industry of Baden; while the introduction of a Tobacco monopoly would infallibly bring to nothing one of its most thriving manufactures, decrease the prosperity of thousands, and finally diminish the yield of taxation. We can give no definite account of the results of the present agitation in Baden against the proposed imperial raid upon the Tobacco fields and Tobacco factories, for the Baden Government has not as yet issued any explanation of its own attitude towards the question.
Italy appeared, until very lately, to be moving in the same direction as Germany. The Government put forward a sort of tentative proposition for the re-acquisition of the Tobacco monopoly by the State. The latest reports, however, assure us that the matter has been placed in such a shape before the authorities that they have come to the conclusion that it might be disastrous economy to fly to this means for filling the national purse, and the question has been shelved for a future scrutiny. Meanwhile many damaging things are being written and said against the unpopular monopoly. It is stated that the Austrians fabricated capital Virginian cigars, and sent them into the Italian market; while the Italian Government, on the contrary, went blunderingly backwards, and the monopoly delivered wretched, faulty, dear, unwholesome, and almost “ unsmokeable ” weeds. It turned deaf ears and a dumb tongue toward all complainers; it wanted plenty of money for itself, and cared little what kind of cigars were smoked by its citizens. Happily, this unprincipled way of doing business soon brought about the deserved discomfiture. The monopoly had not only to contend with the Austrians, but the Italian Swiss in the Canton of Ticino—the same adventurous and pushing folk who provide us in London with cheap caf^s and chocolate and ice-shops—set up Tobacco manufactories just outside the Italian frontier, and turned out millions of dark-hued Italian “Virginias.” In spite of the costly and strenuous watch-posts on the boundary, these contraband weeds were smuggled wholesale into Italy, and the
authorities found out, to their dismay, that voluminous clouds of untaxed Tobacco ascended hourly toward the sky from Italian mouths. The cigars of Brissago cost exactly half as much as the so-called “national cigars,” and were much more sound, agreeable, and wholesome.
As the Tobacco-growing Duchy of Baden is dependent upon the German Empire, so is the Tobacco-growing Republic of Ticino upon the Swiss Confederation. The central authority of the Confederation, the Bundesrath, is troubled at the present moment, like most other States in the world, at the utterly insufficient quantity of money in the public purse. It has been turning its gaze to the right and the left in its eager search for some good plea for getting a deep dip into the national pocket. What new articles can we most prudently tax? On what taxed articles can we lay increased taxes ? These have been the questions which have lately exercised the conscript fathers of the twenty-two Republics, and they have usually received the sage answer:— “Naturally, articles of luxury.” Whether or not it is altogether just to label the Switzer's cigar or Tobacco-pouch “ an article of luxury ” we shall not here debate. There are two sides to that question. But one thing is certain, the Finance Commission of the Swiss Standerath, which is now busy at the reconstruction of the Federal Finances, has urgently recommended, in addition to the existing customs duty upon imported Tobacco and spirituous drinks, the introduction of a tax upon the use of Tobacco, spirit, and brandy. The question has come home to the smoker as well as the trader. The settlement of the question in Switzerland will, from the nature of the constitution, take a very different course to that which is practicable in Germany or Italy. According to the existing Federal Constitution, the Bund has no right to introduce any kind of direct or indirect taxation. It is obliged to pay its own expenses out of the yield of the customs, the post, the telegraph, and other legally defined sources of income; and it has to supplement its deficiencies out of the contingents which are supplied by the Cantons. Each Canton, on the contrary, has a right of direct and indirect taxation within the range of its own local sovereignty. One party in Switzerland is eagerly contending that the pipe and cigar (and the spirit-bottle also, with which we are not concerned) should follow the post and the telegraph, and that the Confederation should be endowed with the right of indirect taxation upon their use. Such a right could only be bestowed in Switzerland by a plebucitum issuing from the whole Swiss population. Every citizen will have to declare, by casting his “ja” or his “nein,” his “oui” or his “non” into the voting-urn, whether he is willing that the central Federal authority should acquire the power of increasing the cost of his cigar, his pipe, and his “ schnaps.” The leading Liberal journals assert that there can be no doubt that the majority of the Swiss people would readily vote in favour of a Federal taxation of Tobacco and brandy. But the real difficulty would lie in the disinclination of the Cantons; for it is scarcely probable that many of these two-and-twenty sovereign Republics would very ungrudgingly cede a slice of their right of indirect taxation in favour of the Confederation. We need not pursue any further a topic which is still under debate, and which is a long way from being settled. We may, however, point out that it will not improbably add an interesting episode to the history of Tobacco. It will be curious if the weed, which has already played no mean part in politics, should become, in that land which is most rich of all lands in political evolution and political lessons, the occasion of a collision between Federalism and “Particularismus.”
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The Meerschaum.
|i|ts of ^ahr gtars.
Scobn not the meerschaum. Housewives, you have croaked In ignorance of its charms. Through this small reed Did Mil ton, now and then, consume the weed;
The poet Tennyson hath oft invoked
The Muse with glowing pipe, and Thackeray joked And wrote and sang in nicotinian mood;
Hawthorn with this hath cheered his solitude;
A thousand times this pipe hath Lowell smoked;
Full oft have Aldrich, Taylor, Stoddard, Cranch, And many more whose verses float about, Puffed the Virginian or Havana leaf;
And when the poet’s or the artist’s branch
Drops no sustaining fruit, how sweet to pout Consolatory whiffs—alas! too brief!
—Harper's Magazine.
SI® SM^r-in-Jato.
[The Tobacco Leaf, October 3, 1877.]
I married a woman of sweetness and truth, And beauty without any flaw,
But over my head hung, like Damocles’s sword, That horror, a mother-in-law!
So upright and downright in person and looks, She embodied the dismal old saw
Of a scolding and pushing and worrying and bothering Old bore of a mother-in-law!
She decided to live with us. Chaos and wreck Would be the result, I foresaw;
So I gave my cigars and my meerschaum, with groans, To a friend with no mother-in-law.
One night, as we sat by a blazing wood fire, When the days had grown chilly and raw, “How cozy and nice you would look with a pipe!
Don’t you smoke?” said my mother-in-law.
Did my ears hear aright? Yes, bless her dear heart!
“Don’t you smoke?” was the first happy straw
To “ show how the wind blew,” and clear up the clouds ’Twixt me and my mother-in-law.
And, oh, she’s the kindest and dearest and best
Old darling that ever I saw!
My mother I love, and my wife I adore, But I worship my mother-in-law!
purging t^t 01b gear.
TO MY LOVE.
My Love, we have lived long together, Affection has never yet failed;
Stormy skies we have had and fair weather From morn till the daystar has paled: And of our acquaintance the issue
Is, each doth the other revere:
So, over this pipe I will wish you— ^ iw ^ i«i The night groweth old: but a quarter Of an hour remains; after that
The New Year will come and will slaughter The Old: do not sorrow thereat.
’Tis time he was dying: he’ll lend you No sweetness or memory dear;
So, over this pipe I will send you—
& ^PfU ^ gear!
Twelve months to look back with regret on: J Twelve months more of sorrow and rage:
One year more our Life’s sun has set on:
One year added on to our age:
Gone has Christmas—oft mis-named the “Merry”— A merriment bitter and drear—
Thoughts of that o’er this pipe we will bury:— ci iw ^ I«r!
Are we any the wiser or better
Since this fast fleeting year had its birth?
Have we cast off one ignorant fetter?
Is there any more Peace upon Earth ?
The only true answer’s a sad one:
But one thought is soothing, we fear;
We may hopefully look for a glad one—
ci I’PPS ^h g®!
So we bury the Dead without sorrow
In the depth of the black, silent night;
And we doubtfully watch for the morrow— May it break forth all beamingly bright!
Come what may, I am happy caressing
My Love who has power to cheer:
So, to sweet Nicotina a blessing, ^nb |j^ ^b gtsr! London, 31st December, 1877. T. W. Littleton Hay.
XH.—STUDIES AT ROTHESAY. WON THROUGH SMOKE. MARRIED. BONNIE BERKS.
Was it ever your misfortune, reader, to find yourself going across country on a lame old jade of a Rosinante, when the wish within your bounding heart was to outstrip the wind in speed, or the fleet Flying Dutchman itself? That’s a kind of my complaint at the present sitting. Naturally, in commencing one’s twelfth and last Pipe, one would like to gush a bit. But there ain’t a bit of gush in the pesky old Pegasus I’ve got astride of to-night; and, whip her as I will, deuce the pace can I get out of her, save a jig-a-ty, jig-a-ty, farmer’s go-to-meeting-house trot. There! I don’t believe it is Pegasus at all, it’s Tennyson’s old mare “Propitty” I’ve got outside of. I must pull up; I must get down and have a smoke.
I’m all alone to-night. Roddy has gone off and Nellie has gone to bed, and the children are both in the arms of the son of Somnus. Fact is, they all took the hint when I said I thought I had “better dash off” my last chapter. After all, what is the good of gush? Fountains gush, and schoolgirls gush, and milkmaids gush in the moonlight; but for a man with his foot upon his native hearth, with a clay like this in his hand, with smoke like that a-curling over his head, to gush—bah! Nellie is mine now, dear smoker—all mine, for even Roddy disclaims all right of partnership, further than the pressure of a little white hand of a morning, and the welcoming glance of a laughing eye. Aye, and we all love Nellie, and every creature and thing about Rowan Tree Cottage loveth Nellie. The gabbling geese love her, and the poultry one and all; the very ducks wash and keep clean to please her; Pussy purrs on her approach, and the dogs come tearing round and soil her white dross, as she tends the roses on a summer morning. Whoa! Propitty, whoa! The old jade begins to feel frisky at the very thoughts of Nellie, summer mornings, and roses growing on trim green lawns. No I Propitty, no! A minute ago there was neither go nor gush in you; it is my turn now to be self-willed. I prefer reverie; I shall smoke.
What a happy time we had of it down in dear old Rothesay! We always call it dear old Rothesay, and ever shall. And didn’t the days seem short, too? Why, Time, the old thief, appeared for the nonce to despise the aid of Shanks’ mare, to sling his old scythe over his shoulder, strap his hour-glass tourist style to his side, and tool along on the newest patent bicycle, india-rubber tires and all complete. Looking backwards now, after the lapse of a few years, I have no hesitation in saying that these few months formed the most truly idyllic portion of my somewhat chequered existence. We rose with the lark, Roddy and I, and half-an-hour’s walk brought us to the sweetest little rock begirt cove that even a mermaid could dream of. Doing dolphin here for a short time supplied us with such an appetite, that our honest, cleanly landlady had often to replenish the breakfast board more than once, with those delicious juicy Bervie baddies, which, with the white curly cakes of oat, and the sweetest of butter, washed down with fragrant coffee, formed a feast fit for a king. Then there was the quiet chat afterwards, and the mild constitutional whiff, and then the stroll along the stony sea shore, to gather blades of “dulse” and meet the saucy Blue Eyes, who never failed to tell us that her mistress was looking better every day, and that she was certain sure there was nothing, after all, like sea air for some complaints. Perhaps Blue Eyes was right. But the afternoon was the happiest period of the twenty-four hours; for then, somehow or other, I always found myself alone with Nelly till nearly or quite the gloaming hour. We used to all walk out together, Nelly, Roddy, Graham, and I. Now, Graham was an enthusiastic student of geology, and—bless his old faithful heart!— I feel quite sure it was entirely on my account, that Roddy himself began to take' such an interest in the testimony of the rocks. So, as soon as we got out of doors of an afternoon, and Roddy got Graham well mounted on his hobby, he would lead him on and on, and then he would lead him off and off, and away round some hill or another, till suddenly Graham would stop short in his discussion of perhaps some antediluvian formation, and “Bless my heart, though,” he would say, “where has my niece got to, and your friend?”
“Och! be aisy,” Roddy would reply, “ it is botany they do be studying; let wi stick to the rocks.”
And a very pleasant study this botany is, when you have as sweet or half as sweet a messmate as Nellie. At all events, we never got tired until the crows flew home to the woods, until shadows fell and filled up hollow and glen, and gloaming rested even on mountain top; but whether we had spent the day wandering through the blooming heather or bobbing about in a boat in the bay, by land or sea Roddy always came to meet us. Came to meet us with a laugh on his lip and a right hand to greet us, and an eye so brimful of mischief and comicality, that our hearts went out at once half way to meet his. And so home to Graham’s; a quiet, happy evening, pipes, and parting.
A dotted line here now, printer, to change the scene. So—
“Fire! fire!” It is a terrible cry, whether heard on shore or on the wide ocean. Both Roddy and I, he in his room and I in mine, sprang from our beds at the first appeal. There were hurrying feet on the road beneath the lawn, a confused,
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half-suppressed murmur, and there was a half lurid, half indistinct light on the window, that shone against the wall beyond, and was strangely confusing, to me, at all events. My first thought was to find a light to dress wherewithal, but nothing seemed to be in its usual place. The door itself had taken French leave; the washstand stood where the mantelpiece ought to have been, and, indeed, everything was uppermost, but nothing at hand. There was a mad laird lived once upon a time, who, when he got up of a morning, held his breeches in front of him between his two hands; then, if he could not vault into them with his two legs at the same time, he used to lie in his bed all day. And he generally did manage to leap correctly. So, after managing to strike a light, I couldn’t for the life of me help wishing I were that mad laird, if only for three minutes, go tedious did the process of dressing seem. It but added to my confusion to hear from the crowd it was Graham’s house, where dear Nellie lived, that was “ all in a blaze.” My recollections of how I got on to Graham’s lawn are very hazy indeed. I but remember that mine speedily formed one of the sea of lit-up faces that gazed on the burning manse. I could see that the flames had full possession of every room below, and shot from the windows like tongues of snakes, that licked the very ivy from the odter walls, and that the white smoke, bearing myriads of sparks, rolled up to the darkness of the heavens. I could see that a ladder was just erected against an upper window, to save someone. I could see that brave men came forward to mount, but seemed beaten back by the heat and the smoke; then I could see a little hand and a shapely white arm wave an appeal from the smoking, crackling ivy. Ah! that was enough for me. Never ran I up ratline at sea as I swarmed along that ladder. There was no more bravery in the act, than there is in that of the needle, that will jump through flame to the magnet beyond. Enough—Nellie was saved; though the ladder snapped in two in my descent, and I remembered no more for a week at least, when I awoke in my own darkened room, and presently found that Nellie was my nurse, and that she and Roddy had been keeping watch and watch through all the long weary hours of my insensibility. And so. reader, you may guess the rest. Only three weeks afterwards Roddy and I sat alone in our snug lodgings. We were smoking a bit o’ ship’s for auld lang syne. It was my last bachelor pipe. Yet I freely confess I had none of those feelings of sadness and foreboding that Alexander Smith describes so well in his poem on “The Night before Marriage.” I looked, as Roddy told me, as calm and serene as the weather-cock in a gale of wind. “And sure,” he added, after he had puffed away for some time in silence, “you seem to be enjoying your ’Bacca immensely, and bad luck to you if you didn’t.” “Why, Roddy?” I asked, dreamily. “Why?” said Roddy, “is it why? Sure, didn’t ye win the widow through smoke?” Additional dots, printer, please! There was no occasion for Roddy’s being astir so excessively soon on my wedding morn. Roddy seemed to see the sense of it. however, if I didn’t. I verily believe he had been down helping the landlady to make the breakfast—a curry on this auspicious occasion—which Roddy assured me would warm my cockles, and give me true courage. There was no occasion at all for Roddy’s helping me to dress, or “buckle,” as he termed it, nor to fidget and worry me as he did; but the result, the one good result of all this hurry and chase, was that we were first at church, and that was something. There was no earthly occasion for Roddy kissing my blooming little bride that morning when he met her; but there was one good result from this too—it caused me to be on the alert after the ceremony, or I do believe Roddy would have snatched the first kiss from the lips of my wedded wife. There was no occasion for Roddy to stuff a quid of Tobacco into my mouth before the ceremony began. It felt awkward, and, while giving the responses, I had to keep turning it with my tongue, and once I’m sure I saw the parson smile. It kept me calm and steady, however, and under its soothing influence the parson looked every moment less and less like a beneficed Jack Ketch. Moreover, while I was being spliced with that quid in my mouth, there was no necessity for Roddy acting like a dancing master, or a drill-sergeant who had lost his voice, and telling me. in somewhat more than an ordinary stage whisper, everything to do; always preceding his order with a “Now thin, me boy,” and giving an occasional word of encouragement, such as “Right ye are; couldn’t have done it better meself.” Even his “It’s narely all over now, me boy” I thought quite uncalled for, cheering as the prospect seemed. But as we left the pier in the boat that was to bear us over to the mainland, amid the cheers of the assembled crowd and the scream of the Highland bagpipes, as I marked the tear in Roddy’s eye as he stood there nervously teasing at a portion of pigtail, I could not help feeling that I had for a time lost a true friend, though I had won a loving wife. Back again once more in bonnie Berks—bonnie even in winter, when the fields are robed in starry snow; bonnie in spring-time when the trees are rolling clouds of tenderest green, when the “briard” is peeping through the brown earth, when primroses cluster beneath the hedgerows, and when	everything is so gay and happy and hopeful that one’s very soul soars heavenwards with the lark. But Berks, I thought, never looked so bonnie as it did on that lovely autumn morning, when I walked slowly down the hill towards Rowan Tree Cottage, with my young bride by my side. It was bright and cool and clear, so we had sent the carriage away, in order to enjoy the walk and the scenery. Tlie hedges alone were a sight; forblackthorn and brambles both had taken leave of their senses in summer-time, and gone trailing here and climbing there, and playing all sorts of little games; and now in autumn they formed the prettiest patches of light and shade imaginable; and though few were the flowers that still peeped through the green moss, as if determined to see the last of the sunshine, who could miss them with those gorgeous tints on thorn and tree? The leaves were still on tlie trees; only, whenever a light gust of wind swept through the tall hedge, with a sound like ocean shells, Nellie and I were quite lost for a time in a shower of scented yellow snow. • •••♦••• “Which I don’t object a morsel, sir, to your bein’ married.” This from Bridget the ’eadof my servants’ ’all, when I went, a few days after our return, to visit my cottage orne. She looked a little grim, however, and a little greasy as she spoke. She stood in my parlour doorway, and was flanked by Tick— Tick in her long canvas apron and her mother’s shoes —Tick with her forefinger in her mouth, and eyes like eggs. “Which I doesn’t object, sir, ’cause I can’t help people a-makin old fools of theirsels. Nor Tick here don’t object. Does ye, Tick?” Tick shook a negative out of her shoulders. “Although,” continued Bridget, “it throws us both upon the wide, wide world again, and I’m only a hor-phan, sir.” “ My good girl,” I hastened to explain, “ and you Tick, there shall be no wide, wide world about the matter, for Mr. Roderick M‘Koy has taken the cottage off my hands. He’ll be your new master, and there won t be a bit of change about the whole place. The bay window will be the same, and the steps leading down to the lawn, and the rustic seat and the pear-tree itself. There, does that satisfy you.” All! then, indeed, Bridget brightened up, and Tick took her finger out of her mouth, and laughed all along both sides of her farce; and when I gave them a fiver each to buy new dresses, and Scotch pebble brooches to adorn their bosoms, then Bridget and Tick were simply the happiest girls in Berkshire, and that isn’t saying little. “ Which you is the out-and-outest kind old master ever I seed, sir,” said Bridget, “ and you beant old neither, sir.” I throw down my pen and extinguish my lamp, for the dawn of a summer’s morning is dimming its light. I throw open my window and descend to the lawn. How fresh and delightful the air is! How beautiful the rowan trees look dressed in their snowy bloom! The birds are already twittering and shaking the dew from their feathers, and presently the sun will rise and the gladsome day will begin. I say, entre nous, now I don’t think I’ve played my cards so badly. I’d rather be here at present than rounding the Horn in the “ Stormy Petrel,” five degrees below zero and a sneezer blowing. Ugh ! Sailors are a little green on shore, are they? Ha! Ha! But remark this, reader—poor Pelham is still at sea. Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N. ^obacto anil &raffu. L Three things much talked of, but up to this hour not much understood, are the currency, taxation, and free trade. Why there has hitherto been so much babblement and so little result is because the mass of men who have common sense are not philosophers, while philosophers, as a rule, have not the common sense appertaining to the mass of men. Thus the ideal and the real, the two halves of the truth, are for ever hunting each other in vain. Those who have read the deep books of German metaphysicians are aware that the writers lose sight of the universe in their eagerness to create a universe of their own. On the other band, English metaphysicians, by gazing intently at the outside of the universe, forget that it is its invisible essence which alone makes the universe interesting. In matters less abstruse than metaphysics we behold severances which, by being severances, become falsehoods. As affected by what precedes, taxation, for the moment, must be passed by; and also free trade, a single observation excepted. It is obvious that we have not that perfect free trade which would make Britain the entrepot of the world, because the practical free traders have only had a dim perception of principles, and because the speculative political economists have turned away in disdain from actualities and necessities, or have been totally ignorant of them. There can be no absolute free trade unless import duties and export duties are entirely abolished. But even if both classes of duties are swept away, free trade is still imperfect if a country is entangled and enfeebled by commercial treaties. The objections to these are presented with great force in an
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able and admirable article, entitled “Pestilent Fallacies,” in the Pall Mall Budget of 3rd November, 1877. Autonomic, as distinguished from heteronomio, is the only true morality. A man should be a law unto himself, and should act according to his warmest impulse and highest conception of duty, without regard to the motives, low or lofty, which other men obey, or the conduct, noble or ignoble, which they pursue. And a country should be valiantly loyal to its ideal self, to its grandest historical traditions, heedless though other countries may descend to hucksterings, chicaneries, and treacheries. Tf animated by this spirit, how magnificent and irresistible would the attitude of England have been in what is called the Eastern Question! But England basely allowed its policy to be swayed by Bethelites, and dunces, and canters, and pedants, and sentimentalists, and humanitarians. Thus, also, to please Cobden and the Cobdenites, England has lost herself in the dismal chaos of commercial treaties, when she should simply have given the example of thorough free trade, whether other countries followed the example or not.
To come to money and the currency, we may frankly say that both have a very simple and intelligible import. All commerce was originally barter, and it has still the character of barter in rude nations. It is odd and comical that there are persons in England, and not a few, who strive to bring commerce back to its savage starting point, and, by the help of periodicals, offer one article for another: a pair of sugar tongs for an autograph of Pope Pius IX., three brass candlesticks for a portrait of Martin Farquhar Tupper, a punch ladle for a copy of Dr. Cumming’s newest book on the Apocalypse, and so on. The first departure from pure barter was in the adoption and recognition of some particular article as a representative of value. In most countries this step in civilisation belongs to the pre-historical period. Man’s earliest wealth consisted of cattle. For the Greeks of Homer’s time, and for the early Romans, cattle represented value; and, as is well known, from the Latin word for cattle, pecus, is derived the Latin word for money, pecunia. Among hunting tribes the symbols, the instruments of value are still the skins of the animals they slay. When the pastoral gradually glided into the agricultural life, the cheaper metals, such as copper and iron, more and more asserted their claim as money; and for two reasons: they were difficult to procure, and their immense importance as weapons of war, and as implements of agriculture, was swiftly and keenly discerned. By-and-by the so-called noble metals gained and kept supremacy—partly, we may suppose, because they were rarer, less easily procurable, and partly because before being used for any other purpose they were converted into ornaments. It was their value as ornaments which determined their progressive value in other directions, and especially as a medium of exchange. They had many other qualities to recommend them, such as their durability. For a time, perhaps for a long time, it was as masses to be weighed that they served the purpose of money; and in the Bible we have traces thereof. A prodigious change, however, and an unspeakable convenience, came when coined money arose. Commerce by itself could not have brought this mighty benefit. We must seek its origin in the despotic assertion of power by the great Oriental Monarchies. The jealous, tyrannical king wished to stamp the image of his authority on everything. It is, however, in the developments and requirements of commerce that we must seek the cause of the next primordial phase, the conventional recognition of things as money having little or no intrinsic worth, so that a piece of paper costing less than a farthing may be in these days the representative of a million pounds sterling. On the downfall of Ancient Rome the Italians were the last to lose civilisation and the first to regain it. That they never really ceased to be civilised it may not be too bold to say. At all events, the Italians preceded other modern nations in carrying on commerce on a grand scale; and it was the commercial ingenuity and activity of the Italian Republics which gave birth to bills of exchange, the heralds of paper money, properly so called. The path once entered on, the progress was as inevitable as it was easy.
The only question is, how far a government should interfere with a natural currency; that is to say, a currency in accordance with the idea of money we have presented. This question we do not intend to discuss, for its discussion would lead us away from our main design. It may be doubted, however, whether a Government should meddle with the currency at all beyond supplying the needful amount of coin for general circulation. Perhaps in a more perfect state of commerce and society even this might be dispensed with. The written acknowledgment by one man that he owes another man money has legal force. That ackowledgment is itself money under a particular form. Under how many kindred forms mi^ht money be multiplied without detriment to credit!
Tobacco, which we endeavour to present under all its aspects, had never such a singular part to play as when in some of the English colonies, particularly Virginia and the Bermudas, it figured as an instrument of traffic and as a medium of exchange. To this phase of Tobacco’s history and mission attention has recently been drawn by an article in the Virginia Law Journal for August, 1877, by W. R. Royall, on “Virginia’s Colonial Money, and Tobacco’s Part Therein”; by a letter in the Richmond Daily Dispatch, suggested by that article; and by “Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas or Somers Islands,” by Major-General Lefroy, a former governor of
those islands. Of course, of the abundant matter supplied to us, especially by Major Lefroy, much is unspeakably dreary. A good deal, on the contrary, has a perennial interest, above all to the believers in Tobacco and the lovers and worshippers thereof. It is the devotees of Tobacco whom we shall keep in view in our extracts and comments.
As an introduction to our comments and extracts, we perhaps cannot offer anything more savoury and suitable than an article which appeared in Punch on the 4th August, 1855, and which was suggested by an event of the period:—“Oddly enough, in the history of the weed, has Tobacco been associated with the Bible. Smitten for reading the Bible, Cecchetti’s wounds are healed by the odorous leaf. In the early days of Virginia, Tobacco was the wages of working Christianity; the parson was paid with bird’s-eye and nigger-head. The minister christened, married, and buried for fees, duly regulated, of Tobacco. Happy couples were, after this fashion, tied together by pig-tail; and the torch of Hymen was all smoke. 4’Tis observed,’ says Beverley, in his ‘History of Virginia,* ‘that those counties where the Presbyterian meetings are, produce very mean Tobacco; and, for that reason, dhn’t get an orthodox minister to stay among them.’ Thus, in Virginia, it might be said, show me your ’Bacco and I’ll tell you your bishop. A good, serviceable parson received for annual maintenance 16,000 lb. of good Tobacco: the difference of remuneration was, of course, in the quality of the weed. For instance, a Virginian Bishop of Oxford—if we may suppose such a costly exotic—would have the very finest and most fragrant Tobacco; whereas a Virginian Exeter might take his salary in good strong returns. For two hundred pounds of the weed, a man and woman might be made matrimonially one; and man or woman buried at precisely double the cost. That Tobacco should lay a man decently in the grave! Ex fumo dare lucem! Thus it will be seen that Tobacco has in its time been a strange working agent in the Church. And now a poor Tuscan Christian, is rewarded in this life by Tobacco. We hear that—at the suggestion of our waggish Charge d'Affaires at Turin—Cecchetti has sent a screw of bird’s-eye to the Duke of Tuscany, with this inscription,—‘ May it please your Ducal Highness, to condescend to put that in your pipe and smoke it!’”
It would add to the interest of this clever sketch if we knew that the witty brain of Douglas Jerrold had conceived, and his vivacious pen had written it. The genius of Jerrold could throw fascination into everything, even into statistics. Pity that there was often so much bitterness along with the fascination!
Royall’s paper is in a very different style; but its aridity should neither astonish nor annoy us. Written by a lawyer for a “Law Journal,” and mainly “ confined to the discussion of the causes which operated to produce the difference between Virginia money and the money of Great Britain,” we should not complain that it has a dry-as-dust character, and throws only a feeble and fitful light on social circumstances.
Certain things and certain persons continually persecuted have been compared to the flying fish, which is incessantly assailed, whether it darts in the air or swims in the water ; or to the whale, which is at the same time thumped by the thrasher on the back and stabbed by the sword-fish in the belly. Among articles of indispensable use to man, Tobacco has been the unfortunate flying fish—the unfortunate whale. With blind fury bigots have attacked it, and with financial stupidity governments have laid their avaricious hands upon it. In England bigots still fling their anger, duly seasoned with cant, at it; and it is still the victim of governmental Gothamism. A good deal both of the bigotry and the stupidity may be traced to the pedantic antipathy of James I. to the divine plant. How crass that antipathy was in itself, and how flagrantly impolitic, must be obvious to every one. It was as serious a hindrance to England’s commercial greatness as to the development of England’s colonial empire. The marvel is how the cultivation of Tobacco and the trade in Tobacco were finally victorious over imposts the most exorbitant and restrictions the most preposterous. The fertility of Virginia did much; perhaps English energy did more. But both in England and in America the consequences of a royal twaddler’s idiocies will long be felt.
In geographical extent Virginia is nearly twice as large as Ireland. It has a great variety of soil, of climate, and of landscape; and its mineral wealth rivals with its agricultural capabilities. These may be considerably increased by the reclamation of the swamps which breed ague and fever. The country received, in honour of Queen Elizabeth, who was anything but a virgin, the name of Virginia from Walter Raleigh, who in 1584 made a first but fruitless attempt to colonise it. A second attempt more than twenty years after, and while Raleigh was a prisoner in the Tower of London, was more successful. Under the word Virginia was originally included a much more extensive territory than the present. Colonised at the outset by gentlemen adventurers, Virginia was during the Civil War eminent for its loyalty; but when in the following century the standard of revolt was raised, Virginia was the foremost of the thirteen States to join it. In the Secession War Virginia took the leading part; and it was by the surrender of its chief city—Richmond —that the conflict was decided which has been called the bloodiest in history, though not with absolute accuracy, for through the Thirty Years War the population of Germany is
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said to have sunk from seventeen millions to five, whereas the Secession contest did not cost the North American States in dead and wounded more than about two millions of men. Moreover, we should not forget the terrible havoc achieved by the Napoleonic Wars. However, the Secession War was bloody enough to satisfy any reasonable appetite. With immense advantages of geographical position, and fitted to excel in every kind of production, Virginia, nevertheless, from its earliest days manifested a fervent sympathy for Tobacco, which began by being, and has continued to be, the leading product, though cotton, corn, and many other things have not been neglected. The advent of the African negro as a bondman was almost contemporaneous with the foundation of Virginia as a colony. When through the cultivation of Tobacco, without regard to the essential conditions of agricultural science, the soil was exhausted, a new source of riches was devised. The importation of slaves from Africa having been prohibited, Virginia became the chief slave-trading State. It supplied the Southern States with slaves. Lucrative this traffic might be, but it was unspeakably, incomparably demoralising; and all the more demoralising that the normal number of blacks was nearly equal to the normal number of whites; whereby, in addition to contempt, an element of suspicion and dread toward an abject race was engendered. We can easily see the reasons why, when the Rebellion broke forth, and during its continuance, Virginia transcended its allied States in passionateness, in resolute, in rabid persistency.
The article we have given from Punch presents in a ludicrous form the characteristics of a strange commercial and social condition. But there was nothing really ludicrous in those characteristics. We should remember that till a recent period the rural clergy of England were paid in kind. This mode of payment had its comicalities, from the number and variety of the articles tithed; but there was nothing comical in payment by means of Tobacco, or rather by means of Tobacco notes; for Tobacco notes, as the representatives of value, was nearly the only paper money circulated almost from the dawn of Virginian history, and continued to circulate even after the emancipation of the thirteen United States was an “accomplished fact.*’ Payments might be made in Tobacco as Tobacco; but they were still oftener made by the help of Tobacco notes, and this deadens the point of Punch's joke; though, to be sure, we must not treat a jest, if it amuses us, too judicially or too judiciously. As Mr. Royall, with remarkable American elegance, puts it: “ Of coin there was always, until quite a time after the revolution, a great scarcity in the colony.” Verily, the Americans have not succeeded in creating the ideal commonwealth of which the world has dreamed from the beginning; but they have grandly succeeded in degrading the English language. Quite a time may mean either an instant or the longest supposable period, besides being a horrible vulgarism. However, Mr. Royall’s statistics are less questionable than his modes of speech. An Act was passed in March, 1657, prohibiting anyone from exporting from Virginia more than “fortie shillings,” upon pain of forfeiting double the value thereof. A statute which came into force about twelve years later recites the great scarcity of coin. The prohibition was renewed in an Act of March, 1661; and in an Act for levying duties upon imported liquors, passed in February, 1745, it was declared, “ for an encouragement to import money into this colony and dominion,” that if anyone would pay his duties in good and lawful money of his own importation, he should have an abatement of fifteen per cent. The coin circulating in the colony consisted mainly of Spanish doUars; and our elderly readers may remember that forty or fifty years ago those dollars had a tolerably extensive circulation in England. Either through capricious enactment of the Legislature, or through the effect of custom or credit, the Spanish dollar in Virginia varied much in nominal value.
When a country during a revolutionary period, or during war, is deluged with paper money, the evil is great; for in that ease the paper money is not the representative of real but of fictitious value—is, in fact, simply a mode of swindling and plundering the people. So was it with the French assignats; so is it with the paper notes, of varying denomination, which the Russian Government lavishly scatters among starving soldiers and starving peasants. But this is no objection to paper money as a commercial instrument in calm times. And such was the conclusion at which the colonists of Virginia seem to have instinctively arrived, though Acts of the Legislature sometimes condemned the substitution of Tobacco, or of its representatives, Tobacco notes, for lawful money of the English realm as a medium of exchange. As if in contradiction to its own enactments, the public levies were laid in Tobacco, and the fees of public officers were payable in Tobacco, being fixed by statute at so many pounds for each service. For instance, as Mr. Royall states, the marshal’s fees were in 1632 fixed as follows: “For an arrest, 10 pounds Tobacco; warning to cort, 2 pounds. Imprisonment: cominge in, 10 pounds; going out, 10 pounds; laying by the heels, 5 pounds; whippinge, pillory, duckinge, 10 pounds each.”
What some of the offences were for which the Tobacco fees were paid may be seen by an amusing example. By Act of 1661 every county court is directed to have a ducking stool erected; and by Act of 1662 it is decreed:—“Whereas, oftentimes many brabling women often slander and scandalise
their neighbors, for which their poore husbands are often brought into chargeable and vexatious suits and cost in great damages: Bee it therefore enacted by the authority of the aforesaid that in actions of slander occasioned by the wife as aforesaid, after judgment passed for the damages the woman shall be punished by ducking; and if the slander be soe enormous as to be adjudged at a greater damage than five hundred pounds of Tobacco, then the woman to suffer a ducking for each five hundred pounds of Tobacco adjudged against the husband if he refuse to pay the Tobacco.”
Differently dealt with are “brabling women” now: they are pounded into a jelly by their loving spouses; and probably most husbands would prefer to let their “brabling” wives get a ducking, to paying five hundred pounds of Tobacco.
Mr. Royall’s substantially excellent paper is so clumsily written, and so encumbered by notes, and by notes upon notes, that it is not always easy to seize a distinct meaning. The following sentences, however, convey its pith and purport: “ This (the Spanish dollar) continued to be the principal coin that circulated in the colony down to the time when American dollars were coined and circulated in their stead. When the practice grew up of issuing Treasury notes of the colony, though the Acts authorising their issue would direct the treasurer to issue notes not to exceed so many thousand pounds, yet they would be issued payable in Spanish milled dollars. But the principal currency of the colony was Tobacco notes and bills of exchange upon England. The first circulated at a value fixed by the common consent of the inhabitants of the colony as one-third less than sterling money, though known by the same nomenclature; the second being credits in England, circulated, it may be supposed, as very nearly so much sterling money. But the Tobacco notes was the principal currency amongst the people. As trade and population increased in the colony it was found necessary to put this medium for exchanges under some sort of public control, in order that those persons receiving their ‘money’ might have some guaranty of its genuineness. The various Acts which were passed upon the subject were finally consolidated, in 1632, into an Act which provided for five warehouses, in which all Tobacco intended to be used as a medium of trade should be stored before the last day of December, to be viewed, tried, and repacked by certain sworn commissioners, who were directed to burn all such as was bad. This Act provided, further, that all payments to be made in Tobacco should be made at one of those warehouses, or stores, as they are called in the Act. Amongst a people whose entire traffic was based upon Tobacco as the medium of exchange, who were compelled by law to have all their Tobacco inspected and deposited in warehouses, and who were prohibited from making payment of a debt due in Tobacco, save in inspector’s notes, which they had a right to demand in any sums and quantities that they pleased, it is easy to perceive that this system would soon introduce a most voluminous paper currency, destined very soon to supersede all other currency. The Tobacco notes passing amongst the people at a rate for their Tobacco agreed upon amongst themselves, which was one-third more than it would net them in London, a pound in value of that Tobacco currency in Virginia was of course worth but two-thirds of a pound in money in England. Hence the habit of considering a pound in Virginia as only two-thirds of a pound in London. The Tobacco in Virginia was rated at what it would bring in London, and the notes circulated according to that rate. But as it cost one-third of its value to convert it into money in London, it followed that the Tobacco note was worth only two-thirds as much as the same amount in name in London. The entire cause of the difference, therefore, was, that all exchanges amongst the people were made with reference to Tobacco as the medium : that Tobacco, for some reason known at the time, was rated at very high prices, and the cost of converting it into money was very heavy.”
May not the fondness of the Americans for a paper currency be traced to the long empire of Tobacco notes in Virginia ?
In Rubibus.
When walking daily to and fro The city, it is meet to blow A cloud at morn and even;
For be it wet, or be it fine, The fragrance of the plant divine All earthly cares can leaven.
And, ah! when all the cares of day Are over, and we haste away
From Mammon’s drear employment, ’Tis then we feel Nicotia’s charms— As greeting us with open arms, She heightens home’s enjoyment!
Then let the antis rave and howl, We’ll smoke them in a pipe as foul
As ever tainted ether;
Pshaw! let the beggars go their ways,
We’ll puff our meerschaums, briars, and clays, In fair or stormy weatherI
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dope’s ^iiiurt.
I like a “safe” man. That is the secret of my admiration for Griffiths. I never knew Griffiths. To this day I am ignorant as to whether Griffiths had any vices I might have imitated, or any virtues I should have done well to shun. All the essentials of his character (if he had a character) are hidden from me—except one: “Griffiths is the Safe Man.” In like manner I have come to that state of mind in which it is possible to admire Professor Blackie. Often enough, a man’s strong point is hidden from himself; and the great Scottish Professor of Greek may resent the imputation of any moral parity between him and Griffiths. But, ’spite of himself, he also is a “safe man.” He said the other day—“that when he saw miserable wretches in first-class carriages smoking cigars, he always thought they would be far better employed in schools, learning songs.” There is sometimes as much virtue in a “when” as in an “if.” For how should “miserable wretches” be seen in what an Irish friend of mine calls “the hoighth of injyment—bedad?” The learned Professor is canny: he may keep his remedies till he discovers the disease: he is not called upon to prescribe for hypothetical “ miserable wretches.” I can, however, recommend him a school where he will learn songs and good Greek and the love of Tobacco all together. If he had been at the “ Annual Frolic” at Yale the other day, he would have found that stories, songs, and jokes abounded, and that, “ as half the audience was smoking, the ‘meeting of the Omega, Lambda, Xi Society’ was held for once in its own ethereal element—among the clouds.” That should give the Professor pause; for “when Greek meets Greek, then is the tug of war.” How would it do to join issue with the cry—“ Yale, Fellow! well met?” Has Professor Blackie surrendered the hope of immortality—Celtic, or other? Has he heard the latest discovery in Biblical criticism, as enunciated upon the authority of Mr. Moncure D. Conway? Said an Oxford Professor—“Why was the grave of Moses so strictly concealed?” The ingenuous youth replies—“Be-because they would t-take him up and st-stuff him.” Posthumous fame is not to be secured by letting one-self be “stuffed” on this side of Nirvana.
Now, as the Hibernian was “blue-moulded for want of a hatin’,” so are we Tobaccoites growing lazy for lack of antagonists. The Montgomery Advocate says that “Being struck by a happy idea,, and then having to wait in mortal anxiety while the ‘daily’ men have six chances at the same thought, is what is wearing away the constitution of the average paragrapher on the ‘weekly’ newspaper.” That’s what comes of being “ a man of one idea.” If my bosom friend says to me—“I have an idea,” I say to my bosom friend—“ Don’t waste it: you may never have another.” If then my Boswell sniggers with delight, and says I have well answered my bosom friend, I say—“My Boswell knows how scarce ideas are: he hath experience.” But our grievance differs from that of the Montgomery Advocate. It is not that the enemy steals our ideas; but that the enemy has so few of his own. Since Trask and Reynolds went over to the majority (“Packs” vobiscum, as was said on the foxhunter’s tombstone the other day), it’s hard to find an antagonist worthy of our steel. For myself, I feel as if I had lent every anti-Tobaccoite amongst them some money; and must cry, like the generous debater of old—“Confound you, sir! either contradict me, or pay me what you owe me! ” The praise of Tobacco loses its charm when everybody says—Amen! I have been hunting about for materials for an indictment, in order that I might have something to contend against. But the flood of favourable testimony rises so full and free that I begin to fear, like the other Irishman, when he saw a ship laden down to the water-line—“By my sowl, if the river were but a trifle higher, the ship would go to the bottom! ” For example—I found our old friend George Augustus Sala discoursing lately on the decadence of the human eye, attributed by Dr. Loring, of New York, to the extra-studious habits of this generation. The author of “ The Conversion of Colonel Quagg” denied the existence of this cause. He didn’t question the effect; and I was conscious of a pleasant tremor of rising excitement when I caught a glance of “a pinch of very strong snuff” in the very next line. Eureka I “ G.A.S.” was going to assail and vilify “my dear Tobacco.” But not a bit of it: he simply remarked that when his faithful literary eye begins to fail him, late at night, he takes a pinch of strong snuff and finds his optical nerve restored. The worst thing he could find to say against the powdered weed was—“ What the effect of the snuff may be on my mucous membrane I dare not conjecture.” When a man takes refuge in a conundrum, there is nothing for it but to give him up.
But perseverance in a good cause is ever rewarded. I have found mine enemy—writing to the Globe. “List—list—oh, list!”—
“ If smokers could keep the malodorous fumes to themselves we should have uo right to protest; but we object to their fumigating us as they do from mom till night, everywhere and at all times. The isle is full of smoke. Streets, lanes, alleys, parks, seaside, mountain tops, and valleys; railway trains, cabs, omnibuses, indoors, out of doors, ever and always the same omnipresent and monotonous pcrf-, I beg pardon, smell! I have this moment landed in the Strand from the inside of a Bayswater omnibus, and coming along the ‘ ’bus ’ was filled with the stale stench from a cohort of short pities on the roof, and our way was refreshed, on both sides of the ’bus, by showers of variegated saliva. What with the noxious weed itself, the sickening vesuvian, the acrid lucifer, and the aforesaid spitting obbligato,
Tobacco, with its uses and concomitants, is as ornamental and refined an article as this refined age could desire. As regards ‘ornament,’ what an addition to the human face divine is the straight line of the cigar—ths# lollipop of manhood—stuck into the mouth! And surely, if there be any latent imbecility in any man's countenance, the ugly little black meerschaum (another straight line), with a squat lump at the end, develops such imbecility to a most humiliating extent. If Tobacco is so necessary to men’s systems, why not have a decoction of it, * two spoonsful three times a day?’ They need then neither destroy their personal appearance, stench themselves or other people with their everlasting fumes, or suppress the fresh air, the health-giving ozone, which should be—but isn't—as free aa the Queen’s highway.”
This writer calls himself “Fresh Air”; and I hope the correspondent who provoked him by complaining that women, children, and non-smoking males will invade smoking carriages and make nasty choked martyrs of themselves, has now got “Fresh Air” enough. But what a grand testimonial it is to the all-pervading popularity of the weed! It is rare that envy drives a man so mad. Can’t you imagine the smile of proud satisfaction with which he penned that clinching query about taking “a decoction of it, ‘two spoonsful three times a day’”? That’s how he takes his beef and potatoes and cheese and beer; his pomatum, his perfumes, his bootvarnish, his newspapers, his opera-tickets, and his hymnbooks. If you object that the greater number of these things, not being intended for the stomach, cannot suitably be taken in spoonfuls, “Fresh Air” will tell you that Tobacco is not intended as food either; but “sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.” As to the “health-giving ozone,” now that he has discovered it on the route of a Bayswater ’bus, he has but to utilise his discovery wisely, and his fortune is made. Wasn’t it “ohone” instead?
When I saw that dreadful story about the unfortunate barndoor fowl who was smoked with Tobacco fumes every night for a month, with the result that all the members of his harem laid rotten eggs or hatched sickly fowls—the story was promulgated by several London papers, not yet recovered from the maddening thirst for fresh “atrocities”—I began to think of sundry happy replies to the anti argument therein conveyed. If any rooster of my acquaintance (and I have many) were to propose enjoying himself in that fashion, I should quote this “elegant extract” from Punch for his behoof:—
“Little Smithkin (debonairly)—Object to smoking? North Briton—Nae in the least, if it does na’ mak' ye sac’ [As Little 8. said, he “ cut the old cad for thereat of the Journey.’]”
Punch and I have shaken hands over this incident. It embodies the whole philosophy of Tobacco-use and Tobaccoabuse. There’s no objection, “if it does na’ mak’ ye sac’.” But it so often does. The Liverpool gentleman I read of in the Globe, who wishes to see the seamen on board riversteamers robbing little boys of their pipes and Tobacco, and awarding them physical chastisement, because those precocious youths make premature use of the smoking cabins, would do well to remind the children that it will “mak’ them sac’;” and, as the Globe says: —
“A great deal might be done in this direction by parents and schoolmasters, if they convince their boys that the use of Tobacco in early years acts prejudicially on physical strength. This is a point that comes home to them at once. Every English lad wishes to be strong, and if it can only be impressed upon him that smoking will make him a stunted weakling, he will be more likely to steer clear of the habit than if high moral considerations were brought forward.”
That some people in France understand how to make Tobacco an instrument of cruelty is undeniable. The Prefect of the Cantal, for example, closes the cigar store and stops the supply of caporal when the electors vote against the Government. The effects are opposite as against the feathered and the breeched biped; for chanticleer will avoid Tobacco by instinct, while man takes to it by instinct. That is a serious argument, if serious arguments be admissible. And if not, why then, I meet this French “atrocity” with an American one—as the Turcophiles wipe out the story of Bulgarian martyrdoms by recitals of Russian cruelties: upon the arithmetical principle that one and one make 0. The American case is
“ That of a young cock, about six months old, which fell suddenly ill. The symptoms soon became alarming: ‘his head turned black, his feathers all ruffled up, and he appeared blind and stupid, and seemed to wish to push his beak along in front of him on the ground.’ The cock gradually fell into a state of complete coma, being unable to recognise surrounding objects, and the worst results were anticipated. As a last resource, he was dozed with a quid of Tobacco, and was laid down, as it happened, but not intentionally, with his head reclining near a water puddle. In about five minutes he began to drink vigorously from the puddle, still lying on his side and apparently quite blind. Ten minutes later he lifted himself on his legs and staggered into the chicken-house, where he remained in retirement for nearly two hours, when he emerged from the shed, strutting about in perfect health in company with other fowls. In due course of time he was killed and eaten, when he proved to be as fat and healthy as any of his mates.”
There is generally a “weight in the other scale,” if you have patience. As the Impudent Boston Globe (nice name, that!) says—“Tweed has no small vices . . . never smoked a cigar or chewed a piece of Tobacco in his life . . . Why don’t somebody hold him up as an example for the youth of the country?” But holding up examples is not always productive of happy results; for, when the American Graphic innocently said—“ He smoked. He drank. He even lived fast. Seldom went to church. Was at times profane. But he is not in State Prison, and his reputation is A 1,” the Courier-Journal replied—“ Are you never to have done talking of yourself?”
I am sorry about the young man who was charged at Bow Street with having stolen “Frederick thej Great’s Pipe.”
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First, because he would have had too much respect for Frederick the Great to pawn that pipe for “a few shillings,” if he had known about Frederick. And, second, because I don’t suppose it was ever Frederick’s pipe; and I don’t think innocent young men should be so cruelly deceived. Tf you think these reasons are not quite consistent with each other, I admit that they are not; but, then, I could not find two that were. I don’t think the refusal of the Tennessee Methodist Conference to admit any clergyman who uses Tobacco consistent with the fact that every Tennesseean who goes up to the White House to see the President declares that everybody in Tennessee smokes the same kind of pipe as that by which he is himself recognised. But both these facts stand good, and the salt of life would depart if all things were consistent. You may say to me, as the President says to the Tennesseean—“Well, we are all now smoking the same kind of pipe—the pipe of peace.” I say to you, as the Tennesseean says to the President—“ I’m glad you said that, for I’ll be darned ef I ain’t with you!” So, “A Happy New Year!” from	Your Man-of-All-Work. gen Jonson. XIH.—STILL IN RELATION TO TOBACCO. In “Bartholomew Fair” (1614), we have a good deal of Tobacco in decidedly queer company. Tom Quarlous, the gamester, declares that, rather than marry a rich old Puritanical widow for the sake of her fortune, he would submit to the most terrible tortures and privations; among others: “I would e’en desire of fate, I might dwell in a drum and take in my sustenance with an old broken Tobacco pipe and a straw.” Humphrey Waspe, telling of the trouble he has had with his young rattle-brained master, Bartholomew Cokes, an esquire of Harrow, who has been but a day and a-half in town, and is fascinated by every novelty he comes across, gives as the climax: “I thought he would have run mad o’ the black boy in Bucklersbury, that takes the scurvy, roguy Tobacco there.” Entering the Fair, we soon meet, among other estimable characters, Ursla the pig-woman, Mooncalf the tapster, and Nightingale the ballad-monger:— “ Urs. Fie upon’t: who would wear out their youth and prime thus, in roasting of pigs, that had any cooler vocation? hell's a kind of cold cellar to’t, a very fine vault o’ my conscience I—What, Mooncalf! *	Moon, [tritkin the booth.] Here, mistress. “Uis. My chair, yon false faucet you; and my morning’s draught, quickly, a bottle of ale, to quench me, rascal. I am all fire and fat, Nightingale, I shall e'en melt away to the first woman, a rib again, I am afraid. . . . Fill again, you unlucky vermin! ... a poor vexed thing I am, I feel myself dropping already as fast as I can; two stone of suet a day is my proportion. I can but hold life and soul together with this (here's to you, Nightingale), and a whiff of Tobacco at most. Where's my pipe now? not filled! thou arrant incubee. “Night. Nay, Ursla, thondt gall between the tongue and the teeth, with fretting now. “Ubs. How can I hope that ever he’ll discharge his place of trust, tapster, a man of reckoning under me, that remembers nothing I say to him? [Exit Night.] but look to’t, sirrah, you were best. Threepence a pipe-full, I will have made, of all my whole half-pound of Tobacco, and a quarter of a pound of colts-fo<>t mixt with it too, to eke it out? • I that have dealt so long in the fire, will not be to seek in smoke now. Then six and twenty shillings a barrel I will advance on my beer, and fifty shillings a hundred on my bottleale ; I have told you the ways how to raise it. Froth your cans well in the filling, at length, rogue, and jog your bottles o' the buttock, sirrah, then skink out the first glass ever, and drink with all companies, though you be sure to be drunk; you’ll misreckon the better, and be less ashamed on’t. But your true trick, rascal, must be, to be ever busy, and mistake away the bottles and cans, in haste, before they be half drunk off, and never hear anybody call (if they should chance to mark you), till you have brought fresh, and be able to forswear them. Give me a drink of ale.” Another drink of ale she surely deserved, after this pregnant exposition of the esoteric principles of (Bartholomew) fair dealing. Now enters Dan Jordan Knockem, a horse-courser and ranger of Turnbull Street, between whom and Ursla some delicate banter is exchanged:— “Knock. What! my little lean Ursla! myshe-bear! art thou alive yet, with thy litter of pigs to grunt out another Bartholomew Fair ? ha I “ Um.	Yes, and to amble a foot, when the Fair is done, to hear you groan out of a cart up the heavy hill. . . . Well, I shall be meet with your mumbling mouth one day. “Knock. What! thoult poison me with a newt in a bottle of ale, wilt thou? or a spider in a Tobacco-pipe, Urse? Come, there’s no malice in these fat folks, I never fear thee, an I can scape thy lean Mooncalf here. Let’s drink it out, good Urse, and no vapours I . . Thou art such another mad, merry Urse, still! troth I do make conscience of vexing thee, now in the dog-days, this hot weather, for fear of foundering thee in the body, and melting down a pillar of the Fair. Pray thee take thy chair again, and keep state; and let’s have a fresh bottle of ale, and a pipe of Tobacco; and no vapours. . . . Look, here’s Ezekiel Edgworth [a pickpocket]; a fine boy of his inches as any in the Fair! has still money in his purse, and will pay all, with a kind heart, and good vapours. “Edo. That I will indeed, willingly, Master Knockem; fetch some ale and Tobacco.” Nightingale returns, and arranges with Ezekiel, whose confederate he is, and Ursla the tactics for this great fieldday. Nightingale will take his stand in the fullest passages, shifting often, and while singing will use his hawk’s eye *	To learn how moderate this price was, mark that threepence then wag equal to at least a shilling now, and that the ordinary pipe-bowls we:e very small. See “Tobacco: Its History and Associations,” by F. W. Fairholt, F.S.A., for records and illustrative diagrams. Tobacco, indeed, was three shillings an ounce to the father of Sir Philip Sidney (p. 70, ed. 1859); but there were twenty-five pipefuls in the ounce temp. Jas. L (p. 161). i	nimbly, and make signs to Ezekiel where the full purses are; after each assemblage Ezekiel will hand the booty over to Nightingale, who will quickly deposit it with Ursla; and at night they will meet and share the lot. “Ubs.	Enough, talk no more on’t: your friendship, masters, is not now to begin. Drink your draught of indenture, your sup of covenant, and away: the Fair fills apace, company begins to come in, and I have ne'er a pig ready yet. “Knock. Well said! fill the cups, and light the Tobacco: let's give fire in the works, and noble vapours.” Knockem’s vapour, like the noble Nym’s humour, or the blooming and awfully of our own days, can be applied in the most various senses or nonsenses: for the rest, the horsecourser chiefly indulges in stable-slang. Win wife, a gentleman, and Quarlous come on the scene:— “Knock. Master Winwife! Master Quarlous! will you take a pipe of Tobacco with us ? Do not discredit me now, Zekiel. [Edgworth gives him a puree: Zekiel being used to pay for Dan, and Dan to roar or bully for Zekiel. “ Winw. Do not see him; he is the roaring horse-courser, pray thee let’s avoid him: turn down this way. “ Quar. ’Slud, IT! see him, and roar with him too, an he roared as loud as Neptune; pray thee go with me. . . . “ Knock. ‘Welcome, Master Quarlous, and Master Win wife; will you taka any froth and smoke with us ? “Quab. Yes, sir; but you’ll pardon us if we knew not of so much familiarity between us afore. “Knock. As what, sir? “ Quab. To be so lightly invited to smoke and froth.” The new comers and Ursla have a sharp set-to with the tongue; Knockem takes her part, and falls to fist-fighting with Quarlous; Ursla, who has hurried off for the hot dripping-pan to baste away her antagonists, stumbles with it and scalds her leg, her leg, her leg, her leg! Adam Overdo, the foolish justice of the peace, who has come to the Fair disguised as “mad Arthur of Bradley, that makes the orations,” in order to take note of all the rogueries there abounding, and has been sipping a bottle of ale to cover his watching, and is bamboozled into taking deep interest in the pickpocket, as a clerkly and innocent young man fallen among debauched company, and worthy of rescue;—this sapient magistrate moralises:— “ Over. These are the fruits of bottle-ole and Tobacco! the foam of the one, and the fumes of the other I Stay, young man, and despise not the wisdom of these few hairs that are grown grey in care of thee. “ Edg.	Nightingale, stay a little. Indeed, Fil hear some of this! ” Enter now Dame Overdo his wife, with Grace Wellborn his ward, young Cokes his brother-in-law, who has this day taken out his license to marry Grace, and Coke’s masterful man Waspe; our blind justice proceeds with his moral exhortation: “ Oveb.	Thirst not after that frothy liquor, ale; for who knows when he openeth the stopple, what may be iu the bottle ? Hath not a snail, a spider, yea, a newt been found there? [Manifest plagiarism from his excellency Dan Jordan Knockem!] thirst not after it, youth; thirst not after it. “Cokes. This is a brave fellow, Numps [Waspe], let’s hear him ... “ Over. Neither do thou lust after that tawney weed Tobacco. “ Cokes. Brave words 1 “ Over. Whose complexion is like the Indian’s that vents it. “Cokes. Are they not brave words, sister? “ Over.	And who can tell, if before the gathering and making up thereof, the AUigarta hath not pissed thereon ?—The creeping venom of which subtle serpent, as some late writers affirm, neither the cutting of the perilous plant, nor the drying of it, nor the lighting or burning, can anyway persway [mitigate] or assuage. “ Cokes. Good, i’ faith! is it not sister ? “Over. Hence it is that the lungs of the Tobacconist [smoker] are rotted, the liver spotted, the brain smoked like the backside of the pig-woman’s booth hero, and the whole body within, black as her pan you saw e'en now without. “ Cokes. A fine similitude that, sir 1 did you see the pan ? “ Edg.	Yes, sir. “ Ovkr. Nay, the hole in the nose here of some Tobacco-takers, or the third nostril, if I may so call it, which makes that they can vent the Tobacco out, like the ace of clubs, or rather the flower-de-lis, is caused from the Tobacco, the mere Tobacco I	 “ Cokes. Who would have missed this, sister ? “ Mbs. 0. Not anybody but Numps. “ Cokes. He does not understand.	, “Edg.	[Picks Coke's pocket of hit purge.] Nor you feel. [Aside. [Gives the purse aside to Night.] In, to Ursla, Nightingale, and carry her comfort: see it told. This fellow [the reverend Justice 1] was sent to us by Fortune, for our first fairing.	[ExU Night. “Oveb. But what speak I of the diseases of the body, children of the Fair? “ Cokes. That’s to us, sister. Brave, i* faith! “Over. Hark, 0 you sons and daughters of Smithfield! and hear what malady it doth the mind: it causeth swearing, it causeth swaggering, it causeth snuffling and snarling, and now and then a hurt [appalling climax 1]. “ Mbs. 0. He hath something of Master Overdo, methinks, brother. “ Cokes. So methought, sister, very much of my brother Overdo: and ’tie when he speaks. “ Over. Look into any angle of the town, the Streights or the Bermudas,* where the quarrelling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the time, but with bottle-ale and Tobacco? The lecturer is o’ one side, and his pupils o’ the other; but the seconds are still bottle-ale and Tobacco, for which the lecturer reads, and the novices pay. Thirty pound a week in bottle-ale! forty in Tobacco! and ten more in ale ♦ “ These Streights consisted of a nest of obscure courts, alleys, and avenues, running between the bottom of St. Martin’s Lane, Half-moon (now Bedford Street), and Chandos Street. In Justice Overdo’s time they were the recepticle of fraudulent debtors, thieves, and prostitutes. ... At a subsequent period this cluster of avenues exchanged the old name of the Bermudas for that of the Caribbee Islands, which the learned professors of the district corrupted, by a happy allusion to the arts cultivated there, into the Cribbee Islands, their present appellation.”—Gifford, in 1816.
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again! Then for a suit to drink in, so much, and, that being slavered, so much for another suit, and then a third suit, and a fourth suit! and still the bottle-ale slavereth, and the Tobacco ■tinkethl
“ Wasps. Heart of a madman I are you rooted here ? will yon never away ? what can any man find out in this bawling fellow, to grow here for? . . .
“ Over.	I will conclude briefly-
“ Wasps. Hold your peace,Fyou roaring rascal, Hl ran my head in your chaps else."
Thus the enraptured auditor of poor Overdo’s oration had his pocket picked of one purse; and before he got out of the Fair the other (for gold, the former being for silver) went too: divine punishment from Diva Nicotina! As for Overdo him* self, “ the wise justice is in a maze of dupery from the first scene to the last; ” naturally enough, with intellects uncleared by Tobacco. As Quarlous says when next he sees our magistrate: “Look, here’s the poor fool again, that was stung by the Waspe erewhile.”
Passing over two or three casual notices of pipes, which merely show that they were among the established favourites of the Fair, we come in this same remarkable and busy scene (being the whole of Act HI.), to that most popular character, on the old stage, the “Banbury man,” that is to say Puritan, Zeal-of-the-land Busy. This worthy is suitor to Dame Pure-craft, a widow, and what may be termed her Stiggins or spiritual director. Her son-in-law, John Little wit, a proctor, thus speaks of him:—
“------an old elder come from Banbury, a suitor that puts in here at meal tide, to praise the painful brethren, or pray that the sweet singers may be restored; says a grace as long as his breath lasts him! Sometime the spirit is so strong with him, it gets quite out of him, and then my mother, or Win [his wife] are fain to fetch it again with malmsey or aqua coelestis.”
Master Littlewit wanted to go to the Fair because it was the fashion, and yet more because there was to be performed a puppet-play of his own making. Mistress Win, or Win-the-fight, Littlewit was equally anxious to go, but feared that her mother would never consent to “such a profane motion.” Then did this unscrupulous husband suggest unto his wife, who was in an interesting condition, that she should suddenly fall into a violent longing for roast pig, one of the standard delicacies of the Fair; and he even went to the enormity of saying: “Win, long to eat of a pig, sweet Win, in the Fair, do you see, in the heart of the Fair, not at Pye-corner ”! With admirable wifely submission, all-unconscious of evil, this sweet Griselda, this long-suffering Win-the-fight, did then and there commence to long so terribly for roast pig, and for pig, too, in the very heart of the Fair, that her pious mother was constrained to consult her confessor whether in such a critical case it would not be lawful to sanction a venture even among the tents of the wicked in the Fair. Littlewit found Zeal-of-tbe-land Busy zealously and busily and profitably employed: “ fast by the teeth in the cold turkey-pie in the cupboard, with a great white loaf on his left hand, and a glass of malmsey on his right.*’ The saint, after arguing with fine subtlety the subtle point of casuistry, graciously sanctioned the expedition, and agreed to take part in it himself. And this is the way in which he came to commune for a time with that sinner Knockem:—
“ Knock.	Sir, I will toko your counsel, and «ut my hair, and leave vapours:
I see that Tobacco, and bottle-ale, and pig, and Whit [a Captain, with a finely forcible appellative in the * Dramatis Persona'], and very Ursla herself, is all vanity.
“Busy. Only pig was not comprehended in my admonition, the rest were: for long hair, it is an ensign of pride, a banner; and the world is full of these banners, very full of banners. And bottleale is a drink of Satan's, a diet-drink of Satan’s, devised to puff as up and make us swell in this latter age of vanity; as the smoke of Tobacco to keep us in mist and error: but the fleshly woman, which you call Ursla, is above all to be avoided, having the marks upon her of the three enemies of man: the world, as being in the Fair; the devil, as being in the fire; and the flesh, as being herself. . . . [Goes forward.
“Knock. An excellent right hypocrite! Now his belly is full, befalls a railing and kicking, the jade. A very good vapour! I’ll in, and joy Ursla, with telling her how her pig works; two and a half he eat to his share [Let us mercifully hope, portions, not pigs I] ; and he has drunk a pail-full. He eats with his eyes, as well as his teeth.”
No comment is needed on this; and certainly none on Busy, of whom it may be simply further reported that when Lan-thorn Leatherhead, the hobby-horse seller or toyman, seeks to tempt the party with a drum, among other things, his pious zeal flameth out full fiercely:—
“It is the broken belly of the beast, and thy bellows there are his lungs, and these pipes are his throat, those feathers are of his tail, and thy rattles the gnashing of his teeth."
Pipes must have been pretty popular with the low as with the high when a Bartholomew Fair toyman, as a matter of course, kept them in stock.
There is one more passage worth quoting anent the customs of the stage already dwelt on in Section IX. Cokes the volatile of course visits the puppet-show, whereof Master Littlewit is the dramatist, and asks:
“ Have you none of your pretty impudent boys now, to bring stools, fill Tobacco, fetch ale, and beg money, as they have at other houses ? ”
And now we must bid farewell to this vigorous and multifarious comedy, abounding in the keenest observation and humour, leaving the ultimate destinies of the principal characters in the day’s proceedings at the Fair to be learnt from the play itself, which ranks only just below
“The ‘Fox,’ the ‘Alchemist,’ and ‘Silent Woman,’ Done by Ben Jonson, and outdone by no man."
Yet one word more, in the interest of our friend Zeal-of the-land. In the epilogue to “Tartuffe,” by Lord Buckhurst, may be read:—
“Many have been the vain attempts of wit
Against the still-prevailing hypocrit: Once, and but once, a poet got the day, And vanquished Busy in a puppet-play! But Busy rallying, filled with holy rage, Possessed the pulpit, and pulled down the stage.
SlGVAT.
^^e Ontersion of /dir 6rofiin to Spiritualism.
The little narration I here venture to introduce is particularly unexciting. The lover of the sensational will find nothing in it to make him happy; but the seeker after the truth in its more intricate ways will, I am persuaded, look upon the story as worthy of storing in the chambers of his memory, for future reference in times of doubt and distrust.
I can with the utmost confidence recommend a perusal of and belief in the incident; for F. Groffin is a man remarkable for his integrity. I will venture to mention one little circumstance as a proof of this. Only three days ago he returned me an umbrella which he had borrowed one rainy day. This simple fact speaks plainly in favour of the downright honesty of the man; and when I state that the article in question was old and shabby, and full of rents, then I contend that the returner’s honesty stands out as almost heroic.
Let me also state this. After I had written the account of my friend’s conversion from his own lips, he offered to affix an affidavit to it, properly sworn to and stamped with a half-crown stamp, and actually borrowed the two shillings and sixpence from me to carry out the proposition.
Here is Groffin’s statement, spoken calmly, and without hesitation, over a friendly pipe and glass:—
“Up till three months ago I was an avowed sceptic, and refused to believe in any communication with the invisible world; and wickedly did I jeer at any one who was bold enough to defend spiritualism in my presence.
“One day a dear friend—a thousand times dearer now— said to me, ‘Felix, do you think you have discovered in your short life all the secrets of heaven and earth?’
“ ‘ No,’ I replied, * I do not.’
“ ‘ Then you admit,’ said he, ‘ that our spirits after death may be in some fashion linked to this world ? ’
“ ‘ I admit nothing of the sort,’ I answered, impatiently. ‘If ever I have a spirit, I shall certainly not allow it to lower itself by flinging furniture about, and rapping like an undertaker of feeble body and undecided mind.’
“‘Let us drop the argument,’ said he, ‘and do me the favour of going with me to a stance.'
“ At first I refused; but afterwards, to please my friend, I said I would go with him, and, to cut the matter short, we went.
“The stance lasted two hours. Tables and chairs were flung across the room in the darkness; raps were heard, and the medium was taken possession of by the spirits of Queen Elizabeth, Mesmer, and others of no particular note.
“At the end of the meeting I remained unconvinced, and looked with great contempt on the believers present.
“When we left the house pay companion observed: ‘Let us go and obtain some refreshment. My anxiety to discover something this evening worth discovering has wearied me, and I feel that I need a little stimulant.’
“ My reply was as follows, and I am particular in recording it, because it exhibits the unconvinced state of my mind, and the readiness with which I treated the sacred subject with ribaldry and almost profanity. I said: ‘ Jeremy 1 ’—for that is my friend’s name—‘ I noticed, before we entered that ghostly house, there was just round here to the left a very cheerfullooking public-house. I think, if we go there, we &all find the spirits superior to, and altogether more satisfactory than, those we have wasted our money on this evening.’
“ At the house mentioned we had some hot whisiy, and stood there arguing on the subject uppermost in our Winds. Jeremy maintained that many recent occurrences we^ not capable of explanation without a belief in comm uniation with the spiritual world, concluding his address by fiercely proposing another glass of the same each.
“I took up the cudgels in my own defence, and mail all manner of game of spiritsand spiritualism; and concluded by asking, if spirits had the power to communicate kith men, what necessity existed for the intervention of hese afflicted and interesting individuals known as mediums'/
“My friend replied that he could not tell, but supposed that it was by reason of spiritualism being as yet ii its infancy.
“‘In its infancy!’ I cried, in such a loud voice thi^the landlady looked at me imploringly, as much as to say/Do not hit him!’ ‘You mean in its old age, in its decay/-that is, supposing that it ever existed. If we can believe history, spirits have actually appeared; but where are there nc w any
related ghostly visitations that will bear even the fa rushlight of select inquiry, let alone the broa< searching glare of truth? Nothing but rap, rap, rap and meaningless sounds, doubtless. Yes,’ I cont
Hiring and silly inned,
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handing over the glasses to be refilled, ‘I defy spiritualists to prove to me that I am wrong and that they are right. Nay, more!—I defy these ghosts and spectres to do me wrong or to work me ill. In fact,’ I cried, growing more wickedly rash, 41 challenge them to work me ill this very night, if they can; to do anything, no matter what, to prove to me by the morrow’s dawn that spiritualism is a truth, and not one of the greatest impositions ever played on to a foolish public! Let the spirits convince me to-night, and I will embrace spiritualism, and fight for it as hard as I have fought against it.’
“The landlord here intimated that closing-time had arrived; so, after a parting glass, in token that our friendship was ever the same, despite our opposite opinions, Jeremy and I parted to seek our respective homes.
“I felt fiercely cheerful at the result of the evening’s inquiry, and got so excited with my train of thought that I discovered myself repeating my challenge in a loud voice to the spirits, calling on them to ‘come on! ’ but none came; so I unlocked my door, lit my candle, and proceeded upstairs to bed.
“On awaking in the morning, I seemed to lie for a while in a species of half trance; similar, doubtless, in its mental conditions, to what a butterfly experiences during the half-hour immediately preceding its taking leave of its shell. Then, as my soul crept further from sleep and nearer to waking, I discovered my right hand wandering strangely about my neck and breast, endeavouring, apparently, to find out what was wrong. As I slowly threw off the supernatural influence, I became aware of the fact that my legs were, as it were, in bonds; and also that I was not in my accustomed nightdress. The shirt I had worn on the previous evening was round my knees, and this it was that appeared to hold my legs enchained; but still stranger was the fact that over my otherwise bare body I found my waistcoat tightly buttoned.
“I gazed around for some little time in a half-dazed condition, and at length, by a severe mental effort, managed to wonder what was the time. I turned my head, and saw that my watch was not on its accustomed hook. This somewhat startled me; so, raising myself on my elbow, I looked round about my chamber.
“I will tell you what I saw. My watch was lying on the strip of carpet by the side of my bed. My coat was deposited on the floor in one place, and my trousers in another. The extinguisher was not on the candle, but the box of matches was smashed violently down on to the wick. One pillow had been removed from the bed and deposited on a chair in a corner of the room. The window was open and the blind drawn up.
“My first thought was of thieves, but on getting out of bed I saw I was mistaken, and became conscious of my overnight folly in challenging the spirits to work me ill; for, however anyone else may take it, I am as certainly convinced as I can be that, while I lay entranced by supernatural power that night, my chamber was filled with indignant spirits, bent upon convincing, and at the same time punishing me for my profanity.
“That deep sleep had not refreshed me. My head ached very much, while my tongue was dry as with extreme terror.
“On dressing I missed my necktie, and after awhile found it under my pillow.
“Having related these things, I am prepared to believe that many persons will say I was intoxicated on the previous night; but I was not. I went safely home, opened my door with its proper key without difficulty, procured and lighted my candle as was my wont, and proceeded to my chamber.
“I recollect doing all these things; and how could I have done them, and recollected doing them, if I had been anything but sober?
“My own belief concerning the extraordinary events of that night is as follows:—I maintain that, according to my usual custom, I closed the window and drew down the blind; laid my clothes and hung up my watch in their proper places; put on my nightdress, extinguished the candle properly, and got into bed; and that all these strange upsets I have before mentioned had their origin in my foolish challenge to the supernatural powers to give me some evidence of their existence.
“Finding myself partially clothed in the absurd manner I have described when I awoke in the morning, was the most convincing proof of all that supernatural powers had been at work.
“Let any man try to take off his shirt without removing his waistcoat. He will find the task puzzle him if he is sober; and how could I, if not sober, have performed so remarkable a feat? No; it was supernatural power that did it, and that drew up the blind, opened the window, floated the pillow on to the distant chair, and flung my watch and clothes about the room. There is no other explanation, and since that night I have been a sincere inquirer into the marvels of spiritualism. As yet I have learned little, but I lay that to my extreme hardness before conversion, so will not be discouraged.”
Such is the narrative of the conversion of my friend Felix Groffin, and I am only too happy to give it the weight of my belief.
D. Googb.
"gun ^obe Tobacco fetter.”
In our contemporary the San Francisco News Letter, ot August 18, 1877, appears a very pathetic little poem with the above title, by Anna Linden, “ Respectfully Dedicated to that Popular Publication of Liverpool, entitled Cope's Tobacco Plant." In this poem the lady tells her lover, one Dick, that she must renounce him because he loves Tobacco also, and, as the jealous beauty insists, loves it even better than her— as if this were possible! That rogue Heine had the impudence to inform one of his sweethearts who discarded him in an elaborate and beautifully-written letter, that this did not discourage him in the least, that one does not write with such finish when one would really sever—
“Man schreibt nicht bo auBfdhrllch Wean man den Abschiod giebt.”*
So we hope in this case (for the verses are very carefully composed, nor is rhyme or rhythm at all distracted) that it is merely a little pet (we speak of the temper, not of the lady; she, of course, is one); and we think it extremely probable, if not, indeed, quite certain, that ere this our reply reaches her City of the Golden Gate, she and her Dick (Tobacco and all) will have passed through the Golden Gate of Marriage, joining rapturously in that sweetest of services, which in our English Church (as the philosophers have not failed to point out) begins with “Dearly beloved” and ends with “amazement.”
In the meanwhile, on behalf of our poor selves, profoundly flattered and delighted by the Dedication, and of our poor innocent brother smokers, including the said Dick, we commanded one of our countless bards (for their name, like that of some not more diabolical pests mentioned in the good book, is Legion) to draw up a most humble Remonstrance to the charming though severe Anna Linden; and this is how the poetical cuss has been and gone and done it, on three or four pipes and a pint of beer:—
To ^nna linden.
0 Anna Linden ! how could you, You dear Pacific beauty, Make war upon us like a shrew, And think such war a duty?
What if your poor Dick smokes and sips. Why should you find it painful, And curl those pretty rosy lips In manner so disdainful?
You say from manhood’s highest type That he must very far be, Because he smokes a tranquil pipe—
Or it may a cigar be.
You own you love with pure desire, But in your love must falter:
And yet the weed yields Love’s own fire, Rich incense on Love’s altar.
How can you fear the dreamy bliss Of any mild Havannah
Would keep him from the balmier kiss Of his devoted Anna?
Or must he only breathe in sighs, And only burn with passion, And only kindle at your eyes ? He's ready for this fashion.
How often has he mused on you While whiffs rose softly wreathing!
And vowed: By yonder starry blue, The dearest maiden breathing!
This incense burnt in all sweet bowers Conserves their sweetest essence;
The myrtles and the orange-flowers Are richer for its presence.
Oh, in the land of wine and song, From Bonn away to Minden, From Rhine to Elbe, has flourished long The happy Lovers’ Linden.
Beneath its friendly shade they meet For kissing and for joking;
Nor is their joy the less complete That he's half-always smoking.
Then sweet green Linden, why with gloom Frown down on ardent lovers?
The very sort of younkers whom Your namesake kindly covers.
* Ab Heine's poem (“ Dichtungen,” B. IL, S. 158) is very abort, we subjoin a rude version of it by the poetical cuss undermentioned:—
“The letter you have written
Don't give me any fright;
You will no longer love me,— But at what length yon write!
44 Twelve pages close and pretty, A manuscript of art!
One does not write bo fully When one would really part."
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130	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[January, 1878.	
You have the bloom without the bark, Altho’ you come assuming A certain ruggedness we mark, In fuming against fuming. This petty petulance, my pet, Renounce, and not your true one, For fear you should that horror get, An anti-smoking new one. Nor dally overlong and scold, But take him as you find him, Lest you should be when growing old The Girl he left behind him. You’re close now by the Golden Gate, I mean the Gate of Marriage; There enter with your Dick elate, And never more disparage The Weed more rich than all rich flowers, The household hearth’s sweet censer, Tlie soother of vexatious hours, The placid peace-dispenser. Thus hold him fast by holding free; Don’t let him feel the fetter; And tho’ he loves Tobacco, ho Won't love Tobacco better. 0, Anna Linden, how could you, You dear Pacific beauty, Make war upon your lover true, And deem such war a duty? For Cope's Tobacco Plants By order, SlGVAT. (tbc Snwhe ^oom SaMe. Smoking: When Injurious, when Innocuous, when Beneficial; with a Compendium of the Temperaments, showing how they are influenced by Tobacco. By J. Carrick Murray, M.D., F.A.I., Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Price Is. Fifth Thousand. London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co. Newcastle: D. H. Wilson. Some years back wc hail tho pleasure of reading and commending tho first edition of this little book, and now that it has reached its fifth thousand wo may well say another word in its favour. Written in an easy, chatty style, it gives the results of much professional knowledge without any professional pedantry, and is informed throughout with a genial and liberal commonsense—which, as we all know, is rather a common ab-sense, especially when tho use of Tobacco is in discussion. The author considers smoking decidedly injurious to boys and hobble-de-hoys; and herein, excepting, perhaps, a few specific cases, we heartily agree with him. To adults he contends that it is usually innocuous, and in many cases distinctly beneficial; and, as a rule, likely to be more and more beneficial tho older they grow. Fortifying himself with the experience of others, and with the authority of many eminent physicians, he makes out a case for Tobacco, in both its hygienic and medicinal aspects, which will surprise even the majority of smokers, who have been content to enjoy the weed without particularly studying why they enjoyed it. Three hundred years of its use have failed to develop any distinct Tobaccoic disease. Sir Robert Christison, an authority upon poisons, says:—“ No well-ascertained ill effects have been shown to result from the habitual practice of smoking.” Even Dr. Lankester is constrained to confess, in his “Popular Lectures on Food”—“But with regard to tho effects of the moderate use of Tobacco, I am sorry to say [note the bios 1] that I have nothing decidedly against it to tell you.” Consumption is rare among Tobacco workmen: and there is testimony, comprising large manufactories, that they enjoyed complete immunity from cholera. Dr. Murray thinks Tobacco may be instrumental in preventing cold, rheumatism, gout, sciatica, tic, ague, infectious diseases, and some forms of indigestion. In relation to the temperaments he says:—“The use of Tobacco tends, I believe, to preserve the nervous man from gravel and paralysis—the bilious from typhus, typhoid fever, and from contemplating suicide—the sanguine from rheumatic fever, inflamatiou, and heart-disease—and the lymphatic from asthma and apoplexy.” And all this apart from the quiet pleasure it bestows, a positive gain in life; for nothing is more useful than the agreeable. But our space is limited. Lot us remark briefly, in conclusion, that here is for smokers a very instructive as well as enjoyable little work; a compact armoury of facts and reasonings which may serve to repel assaulting antis, and even subdue them for their own good if there is any open sense left in the creatures, if they are not completely encrusted in dense prejudice. XMus of ^I& ^oohs. The Early English Text Society* [CONTINUATION.] EXTRA SERIES. 11.	The Bruce; or, the Book of the Most Excellent and Noble Prince, Robert le Broyss, King of Scots. Compiled by Master John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, a.d. 1375. Edited, with a Preface, Notes, and Glossarial Index, by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A. 1870, This contains the first ten books of this record of the heroic doings of one of Scotland’s greatest sons. 12.	England in the Reign of King Henry the Eighth. A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset, Lecturer in Rhetoric at Oxford. By Thomas Starkey, Chaplain to the King. Edited, with Preface, Notes, and Glossary, by J. M. Cowper, and with an Introduction, containing the Life and Letters of Thomae Starkey, by the Rev. J. S. Brewer, M.A., which will form Part I. Part II. 1871. This book is even more instructive in the light it throws upon the condition of England than the “ supplication of the beggars ” to be noticed presently. It shows us the decay of towns and villages, the increase of sheep farms and enclosures, the extent of poverty, the prevalence of crime, the ignorance, lust, and greed of the clergy, the chicanery of the lawyers, and the low estate of learning.	13.	A Supplicacyon for the Beggars. Written about the year 1529, by Simon Fish. Now re-edited by Frederick J. Furnivall. With a Supplycacion to our Moste Sovereigns Lorde Kynge Henry the Eyght (1554 a.d.). The Decays of Englands by the great Multitude of Shepe (1550-3 a.d.). Edited by J. Meadows Cowper. 1871. Fish’s tract is one well known to students of the English Reformation. The clergy of the “old faith” are scourged as with scorpions. They are charged with felonies, rapes, murders and treasons, with pride, hypocrisy, and the lust of power and gold. The extravagance of the wealthy laymen and the misery of the poor folk are also clearly pointed out. The tract on the excessive pasture farming, and its effect on the population, far less effective in style than Fish’s denunciation of the clergy, is not less curious from its contents. If we may trust his calculation, there were 675,000 persons—oneeighth of the population—thrown upon the charity of the country. 14.	Early English Pronunciation. By A. J. Ellis, F.R.S. Part III. In this we have any an explanation of glossic; illustrations of pronunciation in the 14th century, with lengthy extracts and phonetic versions of Chancer and Gower; then similar illustrations of the next century. These include reprints or notices of William Salesbury, John Hart, Alexander Barcley, Palsgreve, Gill, and other phoneticians and spelling reformers. Tho last section deals with the pronunciation of Shakespeare. 15.	The Select Works of Robert Crowley, Printer, Archdeacon of Hereford (1569. 1567), Vicar of St. Lawrence, Jewry, ic., de., namely, his Epigrams, a.d. 1550; Voyce of the Last Trumpet, a.d. 1550; Pleasure and Payne,, a.d. 1551; Way to Wealth, a.d. 1550. An Infomiacion and Peticion. Edited, with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary, by J. M. Cowper. 1872. The combination of preacher and printer, though not inappropriate, is unusual. It is also unusual to find one man discharging the function of author, printer, and publisher. Crowley was a native of Gloucestershire and a graduate of Oxford, but carried on business in Ely Rents. Holborn; where he, first of all printers, gave to the world the “ Vision of William concerning Piers Plowman.” He was a stout Protestant, and got into trouble over surplices. He was a sturdy Puritan, honest to his narrow creed in prison or at large. He died in tho year of the Annada, when he had attained the ripe age of 70. There is no melody, either of thought or metre, about Crowley’s verse; it is scarcely removed from doggerel. His works are valuable for the evidence they give as to the state of Tudor England. The picture is not a pleasant one. The grasping tyranny of landlords and clergy and the misery of the plundered poor are displayed in striking colours. 16.	A Treatise on the Astrolabe, addrrssed to his son Lowys by Geoffrey Chaucer, a.d. 1391. Edited from the earliest MSS., by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A. 1872. The term astrolabe was applied as a general name for any circular instrument used for observation of the stars; but that on a flat surface, or astrolabe planisphere, is that described by Chaucer. It is pleasant to find our great poet disavowing his belief in astrology. His treatise is largely indebted to the writings of Messahalla, an Arabian Jew who lived in the eighth century. 17, 18. The Complaynte of Scotlande, vyth ane Exortatione to the Thre Estaits to be vigilante in the Deffens of their Public veil (1549). With an Appendix of Contemporary English Tracts, viz., The Just Declaration of Henry VIII. (1542); The Exhortacion of James Harry sone, Scottisheman (1547); The Epistle of the Lord Protector Somerset (1548); The Epitome of Nicholas Bodrugan, alias Adams 1548). Re-edited from the Originals, with Introduction and Glossary, by James A. II. Murray. 1872. In the masterly introduction Dr. Murray has sketched the political causes which had led to that evil condition of Scotland so pathetically lamented by the patriotic singer of the Complaynt. Thu perpetual struggle with England had left a legacy of ill feeling, yet many dispossessed barons and discontented border chieftains were ready to side with Henry VIII. The death of the vigorous James V. was a calamity. Around the cradle of his infant daughter—the beautiful and ill-starred Mary Stuart—there arose contentions which rent the kingdom. Thu English claim to supremacy over the crown of Scotland, however baseless, had never been abandoned. After the battle of Pinkie, and when “Somerset’s Iren icon” was published, there appeared also a tract by Nicholas Bodrugan reasserting the right of the English royal family to the sovereignty of the land beyond the Tweed. Scotland was given up to internal misery, to manifold raids of the English; it was distracted by the conspiracies and jealousies of turbulent nobles around a throne that was practically vacant. Under tho pressure of such times the “Complaynt” of Scotland was written to awaken the Nobility, Spirituality, and Commonality to a due sense of tho gravity of the evils under which tho nation groaned. Scotland recovered most of her old ground, and the peace of 1550 gave her breathing-time. 19.	The Myroure of our Ladye, Containing a Devotional Treatise on Divine Service, with a Translation of the Offices used by the Sisters of the Brigittine Monastery of Sion, at Isleworth, during the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Edited from the original Black-Letter Text of 1530 a.d., with Introduction and Notes, by Joint Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A. 1873. The Editor conjectures that tho anonymous compiler of this volume was Dr. Thomas Gascoign, of Merton College, Oxford, who is known to have written a life of St. Bridget. Sion Monastery was the most important of those founded in the period immediately preceding the dissolution. It was for nuns of the order of St. Bridget, and was instituted by Henry V. in 1416. When the storm broke which swept away the monastic establishment, the income of Sion was equal to £20,000, being an average of about £250 for each inmate. When their land had been taken from them they retired to Dermond, in Flanders, and thence to Lisbon in 1594. There they still remain, a distinctively English community. They still retain the keys of their old home; but, us a late Duke of Northumberland, to whom they were shown, wittily observed, “the locks have been altered since they were in use.” The " Mirroure ” is a quaint specimen of theological literature. To frighten the brethren and sisters into distinct articulation and enunciation, they ore told of the “poor devil Titivellus," who had to take each to his infernal master a thousand bags full of “ faylynges and of neglygences in syllables and words.” If he failed in obtaining his quantity, the “ pore dyuel ” was beaten for his pains. If he is still extant, he will get his living easily in the strangers’ gallery of any Town Council. 20.	The History of the Holy Grail, Englisht ab. 1450 a.d., by Henry Lonelich, Skynner, from the French Prose (ab. 1180-1200 a.d.) of Sires Robier de Borron. Re-edited from the unique Paper MS. in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, by Frederick J. Furnivall, M.A. Part I. 1874. It would be interesting to compare the latest English singer of the Holy Grail with the first one, were it not that Lonelich is beyond expression dull and prosaic. As the only one giving the full account of the coming of the Grail to White Britain, this poor rhyme must always have an interest for the students of the Arthurian legend.
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January, 1878.]	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	181	
NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. We cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; and we do not hold ourselves responsible for loss.	SMOKING: WHEN INJURIOUS, WHEN INNOCUOUS, WHEN BENEFICIAL, WITH COMPENDIUM OF THE TEMPERAMENTS, SHOWING HOW THEY ARE INFLUENCED BY TOBACCO. BY J. CARRICK MURRAY, M.D., F.A.I., Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Price Is. Free by Post, Is. 11d. London : Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. Newcastle-on-Tyne : D. H. Wilson. Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4s. ^t printers’ Register, A JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOR GREAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND THE COLONIES. THE PRINTERS’ REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Homo and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India, China, Canada, Ac.; and it affords the best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August, 1H75. Address—The Editor, St. Bride Street, London, E.O. WORKS on TOBACCO, SNUFF, &c.—BookseUers * * having Books on Tobacco, Snuff, Ac, or Magazines, Journals, or Newspapers containing articles on the subject, are invited to report such to the Office of COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
COPE’S 1878 CARD. MODERN PILGRIMS. CHAUCER AND 8T0THARD ADAPTED TO THE TIMES. Subscribers to the “Tobacco Plant” for 1878 will receive a copy of Modern Pilgrims, carefully packed upon a roller, by forwarding 6d. to pay carriage. Price to Non-Subscribers, 1/-. Subscription for “ Tobacco Plant ” 2/- per annum, post free. Subscription for “ Tobacco Plant ” and Modern Pilgrims,2/6. Publishing Office:—10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool VEW YORK TOBACCO LEAF, Organ of the Tobacco PI Trade of the United States. Published weekly. Subscription, 20/- per Annum, post free to any part of the United Kingdom. Sole Agents for the United Kingdom— Cope Bros. & Co., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by whom Advertisements and Subscriptions will be received. Specimen copy sent for Id. postage stamp.	
The Richmond Cavendish Company, Limited, BONDED TOBACCO WORKS, ROBERTS STREET, PAISLEY STREET, AND GREENOCK STREET, LIVERPOOL. Manufacturers, IN BOND, of All Descriptions of TOBACCO, for Ship Stores and for Exportation. SPECIAL BRANDS. DARK QUARTERS.	TENS.	CUT CAVENDISH. "NATIONAL EAGLE,”	“WYOMING,”	“SPRING FLOWERS,” "SANCHO PANZA,”	“EXPRESS,”	“MOSS ROSE,” “UNION.”	"ANCHOR.”	“NEPTUNE.” SOLE MANUFACTURERS OF THE celebrated “RICHMOND SMOKING MIXTURE.” Always on Hand, a Large Stock of Pressed Tobacco, Bright Cavendish in All Sizes, and a Well-selected Stock of American Manufactured Cavendish. Price Lists on Application.	
Twopenny Cigar. The Prairie Brand.	
Threepenny Cigar. The Burgomaster Brand.	
Fourpenny Cigar. St. George’s Brand.	
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182	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[January, 1878.
COPE BROTHERS & CO.,
Cigar Makers, Snuff Grinders, Tobacco Cutters, llliiwfa^Mpeps ©f T©ba©@© W ixpwtati©^ and) Coendtsh) Patentees, LORD NELSON STREET, LIVERPOOL.
PRICE LISTS SUPPLIED TO THE TRADE ON APPLICATION.
ENGLISH-MADE CIGARS.
ENGLISH-MADE CIGARS have so long been sold under Foreign disguises that it has become an established delusion among Smokers that nothing can be good but what is Havana. Under this error everything with a Spanish title is accepted as the genuine article; while undisguised British goods, whatever the superiority of the quality, are comparatively neglected. Smokers are not to blame for this. They cannot be expected always to bear in mind the fact that three-fourths of the Cigars consumed in these kingdoms are made in England, and irom Tobacco as good as that used for the Foreign-made Havanas. The only persons to blame for this pernicious system are the manufacturers who have continued an unworthy custom of sending out their goods branded and labelled with Spanish names, sometimes real, sometimes imaginary—the English Cigar maker often paying more attention to the devices of his labels than to the quality of his Cigars. In this way he relieves himself of responsibility for the reputation of his goods, and is content to leave such points as flavour and excellence of make in abeyance, so long as the Cigars are accepted by the public under their Foreign title. In time, however, Smokers discover that the article they have been buying is not what they supposed; and then the manufacturer simply invents a fresh brand and label, which in turn is superseded by another device; and so brands and labels are multiplied to the hopeless perplexity of the Smoker, who, despairing of getting anything reliable in the way of a Cigar at a moderate price, takes to Cut Tobacco. He knows that in this he has something to guide him to a satisfactory choice, for he can obtain an English manufactured article of reputed merit, bearing the real maker’s name and trade mark.
This anomaly—that while in their Cut Tobaccos English manufacturers stand pre-eminent, English-made Cigars are in corresponding disfavour with Smokers—has convinced us, and we believe the conviction will be shared by our customers, that the time has fully arrived for making a change in the system. Cigars at most moderate prices, and quite equal in quality to the general run of Havana-made goods, can be produced in English Factories. It is, therefore, only just, alike to the Smoker and. the Manufacturer, that English Cigars should be offered as such, upon their merits. In this Factory, where we have, as our customers know, for many years been producing our favourite English brands, the experiment has succeeded, and we have every reason to desire an extension of it; and with the view of more largely inaugurating the new system, we are now producing Cigars made and matured in our own Factory, and their genuineness as such is vouched for by a small, neat label, bearing our name, round each Cigar.
ALSO IN SHILLING BUNDLES CONTAINING SIX CIGARS, MADE UP INTO PACKETS OF 16 BUNDLES.
ALSO IN CEDAR CASES CONTAINING 96 SHILLING BUNDLES.
ALSO, IN DOUBLE CASES, POLISHED CEDAR, VERY HAND-SOME AND USEFUL, WITH LOCK AND KEY, CONTAINING 200 SHILLING BUNDLES.
COPE BROTHERS & CO.
Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
Printed and Published for the Proprietors at the Office, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by John Fbasjer, of 1, Spekeland Road, Edge-Hill, Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster.
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ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ IT AIX.
A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
^ 95.—Vol. IL]	'	FEBRUARY, 1878.	[^^^^^^^
Smollett ^ungs.
Everybody will agree that smoke in the wrong place is highly objectionable. Smoky chimneys are excessively trying, and few things are more repulsive than the fumes of stale Tobacco, or the odour of a foul pipe. The most hardened smoker will turn away from the latter with disgust. Nobody will deny this; but very many will sarcastically inquire when smoke is not in the wrong place, except in the chimney. Yet a very extensive series of observations show that the persons who most strongly object to smoke are just the people who most enjoy it in one of its forms. Ladies who do not smoke, and men who do not smoke, are in the vast majority of cases extremely fond of smoked viands. Smoked bacon, smoked ham, smoked sausages, kippered herrings, haddocks, smoked salmon, and prunes—to say nothing of genuine Irish whisky—are all delicacies which will be found far more generally enjoyed by non-smokers than by smokers.
There are thus a good many places besides the chimney in which smoke is in its right place. It will, however, be objected that taking the solid particles of smoke into the stomach is very different to breathing a vitiated atmosphere, and introducing into the lungs air impregnated with Tobacco smoke. That is quite true. Carbonic acid gas, when taken into the stomach, is highly beneficial; when taken into the lungs it is highly fatal. But that only proves that what is good for the stomach is not necessarily good for the lungs, and vice versa. It may be conceded that an atmosphere impregnated with Tobacco, when smoked by several persons, is very injurious. It may even be said to be alarmingly so. But it would probably be far more alarming if the air thus vitiated by a number of people breathing it over and over again were not to a considerable degree disinfected by the smoke. It is quite true that this smoke, after having done its duty, and become stale, is very disagreeable. So is stale fish. Yet nobody would condemn fresh fish because stale fish is obnoxious.
But, curiously enough, smoke, with its pungent odour, which so many condemn because of its nauseating qualities when stale, is actually employed to prevent fish and flesh from getting into the same repulsive stage of staleness, which, it need hardly be said, is nothing more nor less than incipient decomposition, which would develop rapidly into putrefaction if not arrested. That is the peculiar character of smoke: certain of its constituents arrest decomposition. That is to say, they prevent the development of those germs, vegetable or animal, which arise in an organism when the conditions of that organism’s individual existence are entirely altered by death. These constituents, when applied to the leg of pork, the haddock, or the herring, arrest decomposition completely for a period, which varies with the degree to which they have been impregnated. But if, after a long time, decomposition sets in, it will be always in that part furthest away from the smoked exterior. If it be a sausage, it will be the middle which first changes colour; if a ham, the parts next to the bone; and it will be long before the process of decomposition extends to the more strongly smoked portions. It is the same with prunes. Prunes that have only been dried in the sun, or in kilns, will not last nearly so long as prunes which have come in contact with the smoke.
It may, therefore, be taken as an indubitable fact that smoke, owing to certain of its constituents, arrests decomposition in the dead body.
Now, it is a most important question, if smoke can stay the progress of decomposition in the dead body—that is to
say, when all the conditions are most favourable to decomposition—whether it cannot also stay the progress of decomjw-sition in the living body—that is to say, when the conditions arc least favourable to the process. It is difficult not to reply in the affirmative when we know that decomposition is nothing but the rapid increase and development of foreign growths in the organism, which in their incipient stage cause disease, and enter into the fullest activity the moment death sets in. Surely, if smoke will arrest the more powerful action, it will also arrest the weaker. And as a matter of fact it does. One of its constituents, in the shape of tar (01. ladini), is one of the most efficacious remedies for those peculiar growths—characteristically called lichens by the Germans — which affect the skin in cases of eczema and psoriasis.
If, therefore, smoke, or the antiseptic constituents of smoke, could be brought into direct contact with the germs which produce certain of the changes in the organism, called disease, it would probably arrest their growth and destroy their vitality then as it would destroy the vitality of the organism itself if taken in sufficient quantities. But in one respect there is, so far. a difficulty. If taken into the stomach, smoke, or its constituents, enters at once into combinations with the peculiar acids, Ac., of the stomach, and forms fresh products which no longer retain the properties of the original substances. And besides that, the accompaniments of smoke, such as creosote, nicotine, Ac., are eminently injurious when taken in excess into the stomach. They are poisons to the stomach, even as carbonic acid is to the lungs. The question is, are the conditions of each reversed in reversed cases? Is smoke injurious to the stomach, but beneficial to the lungs?
Having regard to the antiseptic properties of smoke, and bearing in mind that smoke can be brought into direct contact with the germs of disease in the bronchial tubes and lungs without undergoing any such changes as occur in the stomach, the temptation to reply in the affirmative is almost irresistible, especially when it is remembered that the inhalation of various substances, which has always been recommended by natural means, is now largely resorted to artificially. It is an acknowledged fact that certain atmospheres containing certain elements are most beneficial to the lungs and bronchial tubes. Those of Madeira, Egypt, Ac., are renowned. The principle, therefore, of bringing certain elements into direct contact with the germs of pulmonary disease is well established. Now, is smoke—Tobacco smoke— with its Accompaniments of carbon, nicotine, Ac., one of the elements which, if inhaled into the lungs, is calculated to arrest the progress of disease—of incipient decomposition? Is it calculated to stay the formation of that matter—those microscopical organisms which become encysted in the lungs, and block up the air-passages till suffocation takes place?
The evidence that such is the case—that the inhalation of Tobacco smoke not only checks disease but preserves the lungs—is simply overwhelming. This evidence may be divided into positive and negative—the latter by an argument ad absurdum.
There is no race which possesses such power of lungs and such well-developed chests as the Turks, Arabs, and Bedawi, and amongst no races are lung diseases less prevalent. Amongst over 150 men in the hospital at Widdin, there was only one who was suffering from tuberculosis, and then it was in conjunction with another disease. Now, when we find these races continually inhaling Tobacco, and knowing the peculiar properties of Tobacco, the inference is strong that it is this inhalation that preserves them from the disease so
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[February, 1878.
fatal in our climes. Turk, Arab, Copt, Bedawi, all inhale the Tobacco smoke. “ It penetrates deep into the lungs of the smoker, and only a small portion issues from the chest again in the next expiration.” Thus Dr. Klunzinger describes the operation. The objection that it is not the smoke which preserves the lungs of the Oriental, but the dry climate, requires extensive inquiry, and needs much confirmation before it can be allowed; for the climates of the Lower Delta, of Asia Minor, of the countries bordering the Danube, are as subject to sudden changes, and the air is as heavily laden with moisture as in our own climate, yet the chest of the Serb, the Montenegrin, is as capacious, and his lungs are as strong as a racehorse’s. Equally so is it the case with the Spanish Basques in that corner of Europe where all the winds blow rampant, and the rainfall is of the heaviest. Nor is this all. Just the very disease which might be expected to be favoured by an inordinate use of Tobacco is the most prevalent of all— heart disease—though it must be admitted that the mountainous nature of the country also conduces to it, and forwards it. Captain Burnaby made the same observation in his “ Ride to Khiva,” and says that he was told that the natives who indulge much in inhaling strong Tobacco are subject to heart disease, as indeed is but natural. Again, inquiries made at some of the largest continental Tobacco manufactories, notably at the Government manufactory in Fiume, where the workpeople are continually inhaling an atmosphere highly impregnated with Tobacco, show that not only are they singularly free from tuberculosis, pulmonary catarrh, pneumonia, and asthma, but persons suffering from one or the other when they entered the factory rapidly improved, and in some cases quite recovered.
This is strong evidence; and personal experience has shown that a severe attack of congestion of the lungs was completely cured within three or four days by the constant inhalation of Tobacco smoke.
But perhaps no stronger proof of the action of Tobacco smoke on the lungs can be adduced than that furnished by the argument ad absurdum based on the following experiment. The smoke from two equal portions of Tobacco was passed through two tubes, each containing five grains of wool. The smoke passing through the first tube was not inhaled, but simply kept in the mouth till it was all forced through. The wool, having intercepted a considerable portion of the solid and liquid matter passing over with the smoke, and being highly discoloured and offensive to the nose, weighed seven grains instead of five. It had thus taken up two grains of the products of combustion and distillation. The second tube, with its five grains of wool, was used to pass the same quantity of smoke through , that issued from the lungs after it had been deeply inhaled. The wool in this case was somewhat discoloured—had, in fact, a delicate amber colour—and weighed not quite five grains and a-half. Thus, full one grain and a-half of condensed Tobacco smoke remained in the lungs. And as the experimenter inhales in this way on an average about forty times as much smoke a-day, no less than sixty grains of its products remain in his lungs to be used up there. The health of the individual is excellent, and he works on an average sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. The same amount taken into the stomach would probably almost kill him.
The final proof is, however, still more startling and decisive. A test-tube containing cotton-wool was prepared in the same way, and twenty inhalations of Tobacco smoke and air impelled through it after it had passed deep down into the lungs. It was then put aside, and lightly corked. A second test-tube, prepared in the same way, was then used, and twenty expirations of common air from the lungs passed through it, without smoke, lightly corked, and put aside. After the lapse of three weeks, the wool impregnated with the mixture, of breath and smoke presented to the naked eye exactly the same appearance as on the first day. But the wool impregnated by the breath, and its moisture alone, was covered with fungoid growths and mildew!
These are facts worthy of serious investigation; and it is to be hoped that medical men will devote their attention to them. There has been no exaggeration in the above account. In fact, the case has been purposely rather understated than otherwise. The evils that may result, according to different constitutions, have been impartially pointed out, in spite of the opportunity which the admission offers to those who object to the use of Tobacco on principle to fasten upon it to fortify their own position with.
All Tobaccos, however, are not equally adapted for inhalation. Not only are some kinds far richer in nicotine than others, but there are also secrets in the manufacture and manipulation of the plant which more or less unfit it for inhalation. Latakia, for instance, is cured with the smoke arising from the combustion of camel’s dung. It is true this does not injuriously affect the lungs; on the contrary, it rather seems to confer an additional benefit, but still some people might be inclined to “cure” their lungs with a less unaesthetic mixture.
The best rule to go by is an individual one. If the throat is affected to coughing by the passage of the smoke, the Tobacco is either adulterated or is too strong. But, at the same time, it must be remembered that unless the smoke be drawn down by a moderately deep breath, at once, and fully into the lungs, the throat will be greatly irritated. That should not deter the beginner. The irritation arises from the smoke lingering in the throat too long, and acting too
powerfully on the delicate tissues it passes. If, on the other band, there is a tendency to disease of the heart, inhalation should not be practised except under medical advice, and not till the difference of the effect produced by smoke on the stomach and on the lungs has been satisfactorily determined. In some cases inhalation might be imagined as acting beneficially on the heart likewise; for instance, in cases of pericarditis, whilst in such cases in which injections of nicotine are used, as in catarrh™ intest ini and paralysis resica, there can be little doubt but that inhalation would be as efficacious and much more agreeable. In any case, however, inhalation should be practised with cigarettes, or with a narghileh or hubble-bubble, in which case tumbak, or the Persian variety, should be used. If a pipe is insisted on, the bowl should be very shallow and the stem three feet long.
As to the kinds of Tobacco best adapted for inhalation, the best rule, as we have already said, is an individual one. Some people can use a much stronger variety than others. Of the Turkish Tobaccos, the best, beginning with the mildest are Sultan Doux, Persutchan, Basma, and Dubec. Yenidjeh is of course the best if it is really Yenidjeh. Samsun will be found too strong for many people. After the Turkish kinds come Havannah “picadura” and the milder American mixtures. But every smoker will soon discover vhch kind suits him best. If giddiness and headache, or rather a heavy feeling at the back of the head, result, the Tobacco is either too strong or too much is smoked.
Consultation with several medical men on this subject has shown that it will be received in very different lights by various members of the profession. A very eminent authority has stated that the chief objectors will be those medical men whose mission is social as well as medica’. If the lady of the house “hates” Tobacco, her medical man will very likely be of opinion that smoking in any form is highly injurious. But if further experiments and researches show that Tobacco may be used as a powerful antagonist to consumption, the lady of the house will probably be the first to lay in a stock of those dainty cigarettes which most ladies in the East, in Russia, and to a great extent in Spain, already use with great benefit.
The author of the above article is continuing his researches and experiments, and will be very glad to receive evidence for or against his theory, especially from the proprietors of Tobacco manufactories and from medical men. The Editor of the Tobacco Plant has kindly consented to forward any communication on the subject addressed to H. A., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
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For years it has been known that Tobacco ash has been the chief ingredient of nearly all the good dentifrices which have been employed by various races of man. The reason for this is not difficult to see. Dr. Richardson, who cannot for a moment be supposed to be in any way an advocate of the use of Tobacco, points out the action which is produced by the modest consumption of a pipe or two. In the first place, a deposit of tartar is formed on the teeth, which serves to preserve them against the action of any substance which might act on the delicate enamel of the tooth in a mechanical manner. The dentists of the past generation used often forcibly to remove this tartar by a scaling process, which, although painless in the hands of a good dentist, was often in the highest degree irritating and painful when performed by some country practitioner, who could pull his patient twice round the room for a shilling. But a more reasonable generation has permitted the tartar to exist on the teeth, and recognises in Tobacco a potent aid in its formation. It is the opinion of Dr. Richardson that Tobacco smoke has a tendency to preserve rather than to destroy these structures. It certainly leaves upon them a deposit of carbon, which stains the white enamel black. Carbon, as we all know, is a powerful antiseptic agent, and Dr. Richardson considers that this deposit possibly prevents decay. If we try the experiment of placing a little of the cigar or pipe ash on a saucer, and dipping the end of a tooth brush in it, we see at once, after it has been applied to the teeth, that the particles of dirt which have accumulated on the surface of the tooth become absorbed in the powdered carbon, and that they unite together, the finer molecular combination in which the charcoal is for the time rendering its union with the dirt more easy. It is precisely the same contrivance as that which the housemaid adopts when she cleans her spoons with whitening or her knives with Bath brick. The carbon which is left on the teeth may possibly have some antiseptic value. There are many persons who consider that carbon is an antiseptic; and, as they form a majority among physiologists, we are lawfully entitled to cite their opinion in our favour. The short time that this carbon remains on the teeth until it is wiped off may certainly tend towards the destruction of any of the minute germs of life, Bacterice, Torulte, or the like, which appear to be so frequently formed in the debris of animal matter which is constantly found in and between the teeth. It is, therefore, perfectly possible that this carbon may be of great therapeutic value in the preservation of the teeth. But, as we have pointed out, its chief force as a remedial agent lies in its
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minute comminution. The particles of carbon which are contained in each separate wave of cloud that ascends from the lips of the smoker are infinitesimely minute. Insignificant though they are, when considered separately, they form collectively a mass of carbon, which is deposited on the surface of the teeth, and must exercise an appreciable effect. The principle of minute doses (not, of course, in the sense of the homoeopathist, but in that of the ordinary chemist) is now beginning to exercise more than a slight influence on the thoughts of the minds of English scientific men. We see a gradual diminution in the doses given of nearly every drug which is known in the pharmacopoeia. When our ancestors used “heroic” remedies, that would have taken a hero to carry, much less to swallow, the moderns have no such physics before them. To smell the glass in which was once contained an uncertain dilution of a free acid is now enough to produce a very great number of general results, according to testimony (not evidence) which, whether respectable or not, will inevitably be recorded in the medical journals. It, therefore, may be fairly conjectured, not merely that a certain percentage of free ash is deposited on the teeth of the subject of the experiment, but also that a similar, even if not an appreciable percentage is thrown tn vacuo on the air which receives the smoke. Such, therefore, are the conditions which affect the deposit of carbon after incineration in the ordinary Tobacco pipe. That the ash which is received into the mouth is, on the whole, therefore, rather beneficial than otherwise may be confidently assumed. It behoves us, therefore, to turn to those races of man in which a large quantity of the ash is received, to see whether, on the whole, they are more healthy, so far as regards their dental apparatus, than the dwellers in more civilised climes. The negro is naturally the first race that comes within our sphere of vision. In him we see a row of pearly teeth, which do not owe their lustre to the fact that they stand in relief upon a black background. This fact is sufficiently proved by inspection of the skulls, in which the teeth are shown to be free from caries, although the negro is in the habit of often smoking a pipe of which the bowl is of iron, and becomes almost red hot in the hand of the smoker, while the stem is badly perforated, and holds a large amount of nicotine, which is easily accumulated within it by a process of absorption. But, although a large amount of debris may accumulate within the pipe, the combustion on the outside is perfect, and the Tobacco, albeit of a very strong and powerful nature, is easily consumed. The smoke goes up cleanly, and the negro receives around his nose and mouth a large proportion of pure carbon, mingled with the flavour of nicotine. The fire may be hot, undoubtedly, hot enough to get into the eyes of the negro, and cause him to objurgate violently, but still the carbon ash drops, “like a gentle dew from heaven,” into his eyes and over his mucous membrane. An appreciable quantity of the carbon is also taken in a much more rapid way directly into the mouth, into which it is taken along the tube on the essential oil with the nicotine, and also with a certain amount of saliva which has flowed down the pipe. This saliva may possibly often contain substances either originally contained in it or formed by decomposition with the essential oil coming along. Howbeit, the negro teeth are remarkably clean, and on all occasions seem to be entirely free from all sorts of decay, especially in the molar teeth, which in the white races of man are often the first to become decayed. The practice amongst the negroes of the West Coast of Africa, of extirpating one of the front teeth, usually the canine, at the time when the boy is about to enter the period of manhood, is, we think, indissolubly connected with the period of the boy's first pipe. An argument in favour of this initiatory process being an emblem of man's first pipe, is found in the fact that in those Hottentot tribes who appear not to possess the custom of knocking out the front tooth, the infant is trained to smoke almost from the period of weaning. But the lower social character of the Hottentot, as compared with the West African negro, is amply proved by the character of his pipe. This is in size nearly equal to that of the Shemitic races from which Mr. C. S. Wake hints that he may have been descended. Large, globose at the bowl, of enormous length in the stem, it has some relationship with the Turkish chibouque, and, like it, it is carried by a slave or some other person of inferior rank to the person who may be the pipe's owner. It is ornamented on occasions with gold and jewels, or even with lacquered work. If anything would serve to corroborate the views which recent anthropologists have published respecting the genesis and origin of the Hottentot race, it is their pipes, which afford a marked and decisive contrast to those of other nations,who maybe spoken of by geographers alone as brother Africans. The pipe with a Hottentot becomes an article emblematic of social position. With the West African it is functionally and teleologically a ’Baccy pipe, meant for use alone, and without the slightest pretensions to ornament. Again, turn to the Japanese. In what other part of the globe can you find worse teeth? We think that the form of the Japanese pipe may in some way account for this. It is evidently modelled on the plan of the Chinese opium pipe; and it is clear that its primitive designer did not think of smoking Tobacco as the primary requisite for its formation. The stem is absurdly long, and the bowl is ridiculously small, so that only a bead of the delicate Tobacco of Japan can be placed within it. A few whiffs, of course, are only taken, and	could only be taken at a time, and the pipe has no regular mouthpiece, in suchwise that there is no play given for the use of the buccal muscles or the teeth, which die of inanition. Under such circumstances it can scarcely be wondered at that the Japanese should have bad teeth, lost at an early period of their lives. Dentifrice powders of all sorts appear to be used by the Japanese, and their formula are not found appreciably to differ from those in use in Western lands. Cinchona bark, prepared chalk, orris root, powdered galls, pumicestone, cream of tartar are employed alike by the Japanese and those who have made up their pharmacopoeia from English or continental sources. Charcoal, under one form or other, at one time entered largely into the composition of many of the dentifrices. From its well-known antiseptic properties it was regarded as a preventive of caries. Its use, however, has latterly been almost altogether abandoned. It was alleged that it not only did not exert upon the teeth the effect formerly ascribed to it, but that its use was absolutely productive of injury, inasmuch as it was forced between the gums and the necks of the teeth, and in the interdental spaces, and not being soluble in the fluids of the mouth, caused the margins and apices of the gums to assume a blackish appearance. By acting as a mechanical irritant it also caused them to inflame. But these objections merely apply to the imperfectly pulverised powdered charcoal which served as the main ingredient of dentifrices, whether in Japan or other places. If the charcoal is sufficiently pulverised, there is no difficulty whatever in producing what good effects are produced by its antiseptic nature, when aided by its extremely minute comminution. A method is given to us by which the most perfect atomic division of the substance can be obtained, and that method is incineration. The literally impalpable powder in which carbon exists, under the form of lampblack, is stated to have strong antiseptic powers. It certainly has a remarkable action upon putrescible substances; but Stenhouse has shown that this action consists in a rapid process of oxidation dependent upon the power which charcoal, when in a finely divided state, possesses of condensing oxygen. The offensive effluvia from animal matter in an advanced stage of putrefaction disappear when the putrefying substance is covered with a layer of charcoal; it continues to decay, but without emitting any odour, till at length all the carbon is dissipated as carbonic anhydride, the hydrogen as water, and the nitrogen remains as a nitrate. Since adhesion takes place solely between the surface of bodies, it is evident that any circumstance which increases the extent of that surface must materially facilitate the exertion of this force. Charcoal is so finely pulverisable that Mitscherlich has calculated that the cells of which a cubic inch of boxwood is formed expose a surface of not less than 73 square feet. Vegetable charcoal seems to absorb gases more rapidly than animal; and the best, purest, and finest vegetable charcoal we have is the ash of the cigar, which is nearly absolutely free from all chemical or atmospherical impurities. This ash is thrown away by thousands of people, who, in so doing, waste the best dentifrice which exists for the teeth of man, who only needs to keep his teeth clean, (which few civilised men do), in order to rival the dental apparatus of the pipe-smoking negro or American Indian. Hights at ^lotoan ®m Castle. L “ Beatus ille, qui procal negotiis, Ut prisca gens mortal mm, Paterna rura bubus exercet suia, SolutUR omni fenore, Neque excitatur cl uh si co miles truci, Neque horret iratum mare.” Hoback. The poet from whom I quote these lines, is the bard I have loved from boyhood, ae Byron loved the sea. To me he is the sweetest of singers, and I suppose a man has as good a right to choose his poets, as he has to select his cigars, or “wale” his wine. There is something about the quiet, contented life I lead at Rowan Tree Cottage, or, as Roddy will call it, Rowan Tree Castle, that, that gentleman flatteringly tells me, forcibly reminds him of the idyllic life my favourite bard led in his romantic cottage by the banks of the Anio. Be that as it may, in two small matters I have the advantage of Horace, I have a wife and I have a pipe. Would that the glorious old man could have but smoked! How many gem-like lyrics might he not have added to his incomparable books! We certainly then should have read more of 'Baccy and less of Bacchus. Turning on the other hand to Horace's friend and patron Maecenas, it is difficult to read about the man without liking him, but it is still more difficult to ponder on the last sad years of his existence without pitying him. With more than an ordinary love of, and clinging to life, Mtecenas found himself at last dying slowly, piecemeal, one might say, of that terrible disease insomnia (sleeplessness). You see Maecenas had come through no little worry in his time; he had a very beautiful wife, Terentia, who gave him no end of trouble; in fact she wasn’t the real Sir Roger at all at all, she even cocked her cap at King Augustus, and when Maecenas remonstrated with her on her cruelty to him—the husband— who loved her so well, she tossed her head and replied,
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looking as pretty and saucy as possible, “Drat you for a jealous old fool; can I help being admired? ” Now, had Maecenas worn wooden shoes, and danced a hornpipe, Lancashire fashion, on her ladyship, it might have cured her. But he didn’t, he just fretted and worried himself till he couldn’t sleep a bit. Soft music was tried in vain, even wine failed to woo a single dream from the son of Somnus, and the distant sound of falling waters did but soothe him for a time. So he sunk. Ah! Maecenas, poor Maecenas, couldst thou only have smoked! Then how easily couldst thou have given red-eyed care the sack. How much more pleasant than tearing out those grey hairs by the handful it would have been, to have taken thy smoke-wreathed meerschaum from between thy lips, and coolly and smilingly addressed thy fickle wife as follows:— “ Going out this evening, Terie love? Going to see Gussy, eh ? By the way, how does that stupid old buffer and you get on now? Ha! ha!” Old Morpheus wouldn’t have been able to resist that. He would have come down to see you as soon as your wife had gone, and next day you would have gone off to visit Horace, feeling all over as lively as a linnet. Now, reader, the moral of all this is, if you want to be really happy, get a wife, but, in addition to the wife, get a good going pipe. The nearest village to our cottage is not Twintieton; that is miles off in the other direction. We have only to descend along the hill-side through the pine trees, wind someway round the knoll, and there at our feet lies our village—Ferny-dale, to wit. It might just as well be called Sleepy Hollow, such a dreamy little spot it is. Not very far from a great line of rails—just far enough to subdue the roar of the trains, that night and day go whirling past in a drowsy monotone, like the distant sound of falling water. Everything and everybody about our little village looks quiet and drowsy; the little church itself, that nestles among the wealth of foliage, looks the picture of drowsiness, and the very smoke seems as if it preferred lingering in Fernydale to ascending upwards and joining the clouds. We have a mill here—oh! such a drowsy old mill! No one was ever known to be able to pass that mill without nodding. Intoxicated lieges, who have lain down to rest opposite that mill, have been known never to wake again; and if at any time you stop your horse for a moment on the road, while you talk to the miller, the animal soon begins to nod; and he nods, and nods, and nid-nid-nods, and finally goes to sleep entirely, and it takes a . course of vesuvians under the tail to start him off again. Our very birds are drowsy. The larks don’t care to sing a bit more than suffices for conjugal felicity, and the starlings are constantly tumbling down my bedroom chimney, and making such a row that I always think I’m come for. The bees are drowsy; they don’t gather honey with any degree of activity; they don’t seem to care a dump whether they gather it or not. They are often too lazy to fly back to hive, and don’t go home till morning; and if you were to take a walk along our road at early dawn—say 11.45 a.m.—you would often find these bees sitting limp-winged on fragrant thistle-tops, drunk and incapable; and if you poked at them with a stalk of hay, and tried to reason with them, they would just lift one lazy leg and beckon you off, as much as to say, peevishly— “ Oh! what was I born for? Can't you leave a poor devil alone? What do ye come pottering around here at midnight for? ” Such is the hum-drum drowsiness of little Fernydale. But bonnie is our cottage in spring and summer, when the pink-eyed chesnuts are all ablaze at the foot of the lawn, when flowers bloom white on the scented rowans, when the yellow gorse on the knowl beyond glints through the green of the trees, when the merlin sings among the drooping limes, and the croodling pigeons make soft-eyed love on the eaves; and there is beauty about it, too, even in winter, when the world is robed in snow, when the leafless branches point to leaden skies, and the robin, tired of his sweet little song, taps on the panes with his tiny bill, for the crumbs he has never to ask for in vain. It was one winter’s evening in the year eighteen hundred and seventy something, that Roddy M‘Koy stood holding our parlour door in his hand, while he gazed with a pleased smile at the group around the fire. It wasn’t a large group. There was Nellie, knitting; and my humble self sitting, book in hand and pipe in mouth. Then there was the Newfoundland dog on the hearth, and pussy singing on the footstool, singing a duet with the kettle on the hob, which was quite ready to make Roddy’s modest glass of whisky punch. And I must not forget to mention Poll, the parrot. Nobody knew how old Polly was, but with her extreme wisdom you couldn’t help associating age. She didn’t speak much at a time; like many another sage, she went in for being laconic, pithy, and to the point. I think, however, that some day or other Polly will tell us quite a long story, for she often clears her throat and says “ Now," in quite an emphatic manner; then she cocks her head, and says “Are you listening?” “We are all attention, Polly,” we reply. “ Light your pipes,” says Polly. “We are already in full blast,” we hasten to inform her. So Polly begins again with her decided “Now;" but up to this date she has not succeeded in advancing one single sentence farther towards the completion of her story. Well, upon the winter’s evening in question Roddy stood there holding the door and smiling to himself, and anyone could see at a glance that Roddy was pregnant with an idea.	“ I’ve been thinking,” said Roddy. “Dear me!” I cried, pretending to look quite startled; “I hope you won’t take cold or anything after it.” “I’ve been thinking,” repeated Roddy, “that there is nothing wanting, to complete the happiness of these delightful evenings we spend at Rowan Tree Castle, except a storyteller.” “Noone,” said I, “better able to fill the situation than yourself, Roddy.” “Bedad, now,” said Roddy, “for that same piece of arrant flattery I fine you a tale.” “Then,” replied I, “ bedad I’ll inflict you, and, for your further infliction, I’ll begin it in verse. Ahem! JACK REID. Jack Reid was a tar of the old-fashioned school, Not partly dandy and partly damphool, Like the cockneyfied yachtsmen one meets with at Cowes, With a lisp on their lips, and London-bleached brows. Jack’s face was as brown as the back of your fiddle, Jack’s hand was as hard and as broad as the griddle; But Jack’s heart was soft, and from Cornwall to Kent, Jack always made friends wherever he went. But what Jack loved best—pray don’t think it queer— Was his Poll and his pipe and his pint of good beer. Now, Poll in this instance was not a parrot. Poll was the prettiest girl in all Portsmouth. A livelier lass, too, you couldn’t have met anywhere. In fact, there was no need for a livelier, and, bless your innocent soul, there wasn’t a bit of harm in Poll; but the saucy smiles that always seemed dimpling her bonnie cheeks, skylarking round her dark-blue eyes, and lighting up her scarlet lips, made you long to catch her in your arms and make much of her for a moment. And Poll was very fond of Jack, and thought there wasn’t anybody in the world to compare with him. Nor was this any wonder, for, in addition to all his other good qualifications, Jack was a poet, as the following verses, which he wrote in her album, fully testify:— “ Dear love, when I am far away at sea, I smokes my pipe, and thinks of thee. When I comes home I likes my beer, With you to sit beside me, dear; And while you talks and smiles and blushes, Your faithful Jack keeps quiet—and lushes.” Well, Jack was leaving old England once more. His ship was out in the offing, and Poll was seeing him down to the boat. But Jack was none of your sentimental, theatrical kind of sailors, who like to bid their sweethearts good-bye in gleams of blue light and gushes of soft music. These were Jack’s parting words:— “ Keep up your darned old pecker, Poll. There, give us another smack, lass, and when I comes back from the briny we’ll get spliced right off the blooming reel; jiggered, if we don’t.” Then he clapped a great big, big quid in his mouth, jumped into the boat, siezed his oars, and off he went. Just about a year and a day had gone, and Jack found himself back again like a bad penny, and speeding on the wings of love and two sturdy legs towards the cottage where dwelt the charming Poll. There was a light in the window, it being night; so Jack thought he would have a keek before he entered. He had a look accordingly. Then Jack jumped clean off the ground, about a yard into the air. “ My eyes! ” cried he; “why, bless my soul,” he said, “if there ain’t Poll herself in tow with a long white-chafted chap, with Sunday-go-to-meeting close on. And—why—yes—d—n me, if he bean’t a kissing of her.” In ran Jack, and up rose Poll and the parson. “Oh!” said Poll, “I is so glad you’ve come back, Jack. This here gemlem has been a converting of me.” “Oh, I see’d it,” said Jack; “I see’d it with my own eyes. I see’d him a-kissing and a hugging of ye like billy-o.” “I scorn the insinuation,” said the man in black clothes, who, by the way, was a strict teetotaler, a staunch anti-Tobaccoite, and an everything-that’s-good. “I scorn the insinuation,” he said, “I did but greet the child with a holy kiss.” “ But look here,” cried Jack, “ the child happens to be my young woman, and I won’t have you or any other man in black close come slobbering around her with holy kisses, nor no other kind o’ kisses whatsomdever. Darn my whiskers if I does, there! ” and Jack brought his brown fist down on the table with a yowff that made everything in the room rattle again. “But oh! Jack,” said Polly, beginning to be frightened, “ he was telling me such good, good things, and how it was so sinful to smoke, and so sinful to drink beer, and so	” “Ho! ho!” said Jack, “and that’s his beat, is it? Sit down,” he cried, pushing the anti unceremoniously into a chair, “don’t be a-feared. I was a-going to hide ye, but I won’t. Jack Reid ain’t the man to lift his hand again such a sneak in black close as you be. And so you’d rob a poor man of his beer, would ye? You’d steal the pipe and the quid from the poor sailor, would ye? The pipe and the quid, that’s his only consolation when he is, maybe, thousands o’ miles from home and those that love him. Poll bring the rum bottle; I mean to convert this chap.” Poll brought the bottle, and Jack poured out a jorum. “Drink,” he cried, pushing it towards the anti, “and if ye don’t, I won’t hide ye, but I’ll hold your nose, and pour it down your throat.”
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But the anti swallowed the rum with less reluctance than might he imagined. Then Jack pulled out a black cutty clay and lighted up. “Smoke now,” says Jack, “ till I say hold, enough; and if ye doesn’t obey me—” here Jack brought his monstrous fist down once more on the table, with such an expressive thud, that the poor anti seized the pipe, and began pulling away like all possessed. Very soon the little life that the rum had inspired him with began to ooze out at his toes, the sweat appeared in beads on his forehead, he got white and red and green by turns. “ Oh! ” groaned the man in black “ close,” “ I’d do anything to get out of this.” “Would ye, now ? ” said Jack, helping himself to a drop of rum. “ Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll let you off now, but you comes back here to-morrow morning, and splices Poll and me right off of the blooming reel. Dy’e hear? And you does it for nothing, too. Dy’e hear ? ” “ Oh! anything, anything,” cried the man in black “ close,” getting up and staggering towards the door. “ Come now Poll, my girl,” said Jack, as soon as the anti had gone,” “come and greet your lovier with a holy kiss. I ain’t a bad sort, else there’d a been holy kicks as well as kisses a-going.” And sure enough Poll and Jack Reid were married in the morning, and lived happy ever afterwards. Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N. ®h Songs of ^alt.* The Americans, who have the assimilative power of a nation in its youth, have amongst many other customs adopted that of the college singing so common in the German universities. They have, also with the originality of youth, varied considerably from their model, and to the Gaudeamus and Integer vita they have added others which smack more strongly of the American soil. There have been several collections of these Yankee songs, the latest being the “Songs of Yale,” issued in 1876. In some the fun is attained by a grotesque treatment of sacred subjects, as “Gideon’s Band” (p. 84). In others the comic effect is got by the addition of a ridiculous chorus to some classical lyric. The profanest example of this is the following treatment of one of Wordsworth’s poems, most dear to the heart of childhood:— “MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB. “ Mary had a little lamb, Its fleece was white as snow; And everywhere that Mary went, The lamb was sure to go— “ Shouting the battle-cry of freedom! The Union for ever 1 hurrah! boys, hurrah! Down with the traitor and up with the star, And everywhere that Mary went The lamb was sure to go, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom! “It followed her to school one day, Which was against the rale; For it made the children laugh and play To see a lamb at school, “Shouting the battle-cry of freedom! The Union for ever! hurrah! boys, hurrah! Down with the traitor and up with the star, For it made the children laugh and play To see a lamb at school, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom! “ And so the teacher turned him out, But still he lingered near; And waited patiently about Till Mary did appear, “ Shouting the battle-cry of freedom I The Union for ever! hurrah! boys, hurrah! Down with the traitor and up with the star, And waited patiently about Till Mary did appear, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom! “ ‘What makes the lamb love Mary so?’ The children all did cry; ‘ ’Cause Mary loved the lamb, you know,’ The teacher did reply. “ Shouting the battle-cry of freedom! The Union for ever! hurrah! boys, hurrah! Down with the traitor and up with the star, ‘ ’Cause Mary loved the lamb, you know,’ The teacher did reply,	- Shouting the battle-cry of freedom! ” Amongst the pieces which are fresher in their humour is the following quaint ballad, in which there is an exultant burst in the chorus of the victory of right-thinking minds over exhausted and impecunious selfishness. “OH! THAT WILL BE JOYFUL. “ The man who has plenty of good peanuts, And givetfi his neighbour none, He shan't have any of my peanuts When his peanuts are gone.	When his peanuts are gone, When his peanuts are gone; He shan’t have any of my peanuts When his peanuts are gone. Oh! that will be joyful, joyful, joyful, Oh! that will be joyful When his peanuts are gone. “ The man who has plenty of good soft sweet soda crackers, And giveth his neighbour none, He shan’t have any of my good soft sweet soda crackers When his good soft sweet soda crackers are gone. Oh ! that will be joyful, joyful, joyful,	* Oh! that will be joyful When his good soft sweet soda crackers are gone.” The second verse, it will be seen, offers a pleasing exercise of ingenuity for the singer. This song is on the model of some German songs:— “LATHERY. “ Oh! does the freshman smoke? Oh! does the freshman smoke? Oh! does the lathery freshman smoke? 9a, 9a, lathery smoke. Oh! does the freshman smoke? “Ohl no; it makes him sick! Ohl no; it makes him sick 1 Ohl no; it makes him lathery sick 1 9a, 9a, lathery sick. Oh 1 no; it makes him sick 1 What cometh there from the hills ? What cometh there from the hills? What cometh there from the lathery hills? 9a, 9a, lathery hills. What cometh there from the hills?” 2.	“ There cometh a tutor grim,” etc. 3.	“What bringeth he in his hand,” etc. 4.	“He bringeth a condition,” etc. 5.	“He bringeth it not for me,” etc., 6.	“For my stand is over three,” etc. 7.	“He bringeth it for you,” etc., 8.	“For your stand is under two,” etc. The ingenious author of this heart-stirring ballad, in the frenzy of poetical composition, would be a fine theme for an artist of real genius, such as Pipeshank. The fumes of Tobacco are, of course, present in the volume. “ SPARKLING AND BRIGHT. “Floating away like the fountain’s spray, Or the snow-white plume of a maiden, The smoke-wreaths rise to the star-lit skies, With blissful fragrance laden. “	Then smoke away till the golden ray Lights up the dawn of the morrow; For a cheerful cigar like a shield will bar The blows of care and sorrow. “ The leaf burns bright, like the gems of light That flash in the braids of beauty; It nerves each heart for the hero’s part On the battle plain of duty. “	Then smoke away till the golden ray Lights up the dawn of the morrow; For a cheerful cigar like a shield will bar The blows of care and sorrow. “ In the thoughtful gloom of his darkened room Sits the child of song and story; But his heart is light, for his pipe beams bright, And his dreams are all of glory. “	Then smoke away till the golden ray Lights up the dawn of the morrow; For a cheerful cigar like a shield will bar	• The blows of care and sorrow. “ By the blazing fire sits the gray-haired sire, And infant arms surround him; And he smiles on all in that quaint old hall, While the smoke-curls float around him. “	Then smoke away till the golden ray Lights up the dawn of the morrow; For a cheerful cigar like a shield will bar The blows of care and sorrow. “In the forest grand of our native land, When the savage conflict’s ended, The pipe of peace brought a sweet release From toil and terror blended. “	Then smoke away till the golden ray Lights up the dawn of the morrow; For a cheerful cigar like a shield will bar The blows of care and sorrow. “The dark-eyed train of the maids of Spain ’Neath their arbour shades trip lightly, And a gleaming cigar like a new-born star, In the clasp of their lips burns brightly. “Then smoke away till the golden ray Lights up the dawn of the morrow; For a cheerful cigar like a shield will bar The blows of care and sorrow.
• SongH of Yale. A new collection of College Songs, edited by Charles S. Elliott, AJL Revised and enlarged by Elmer P. Howe. 4th edition. New Haven, Cornu, 1876. Triibner and Co^ London.	
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COPE’S TOBACCO PLA^T.
[February, 1878.
“ It warms the soul like the blushing bowl With its rose-red burden streaming , And drowns it in bliss, like the first warm kiss From the lips with love buds teeming.
“Then smoke away till the golden ray Lights up the dawn of the morrow;
For a cheerful cigar like a shield will bar The blows of care and sorrow.”
The pathetic cadence of the next piece will appeal to Bohemian hearts:—
“LAST CIGAR.
“ ’Twas off the blue Canary Isles,
'	A glorious summer day,
I sat upon the quarter deck And whiffed my cares away; And as the volumed smoke arose Like incense in the air, I breath’d a sigh to think, in sooth, It was my last cigar.
It was my last cigar;
It was my last cigar.
I breath’d a sigh to think, in sooth, It was my last cigar.
“ I leaned upon the quarter rail And looked down in the sea, E’en there the purple wreath of smoke Was curling gracefully.
Oh! what had I at such a time To do with wasting care, Alas! the trembling tear proclaimed It was my last cigar.
It was my last cigar, It was my last cigar; I breath’d a sigh to think, in sooth, It was my last cigar.
“ I watched the ashes as it came Fast drawing toward the end, I watched it as a friend would watch Beside a dying friend.
But still the flame crept slowly on, It vanished into the air,
I threw it from me, spare the tale, It was my last cigar.
It was my last cigar, It was my last cigar; I breath’d a sigh to think in sooth It was my last cigar.
“ I’ve seen the land of all I love Fade in the distant dim, I’ve watched above the blighted heart Where once proud hope hath been. But I’ve never known a sorrow That could with that compare, When off the blue Canaries
I smoked my last cigar. It was my last cigar, It was my last cigar;
I breath’d a sigh to think, in sooth, It was my last cigar.”
The bibliography of these college songs wants attention. The preface to the present issue asserts in the first line that the “Yale Songs,” were first issued in 1853, whilst the seventh line states that they first appeared in 1867.
||ens as |tpt-^gttB.
[Puck, New York, March, 1877.2
Evolution has overtaken the Massachusetts hens. On every hand are found support and illustration for the beautiful hypothesis with which the name of Darwin has been linked, and now the Yankee hen has come forward to add her testimony. It is a Pittsfield fowl—the one particularly alluded to—and is owned by one Locke. She has ceased laying eggs of the ordinary ovoid pattern, and has begun to produce eggs with a hollow stem, resembling the short clay pipe of an Irishman that has been used about three years—the pipe we mean. Clipping off one end of this marvellous egg, we have a perfect pipe-bowl, of the usual size, from the bottom of which extends a stem turning at a right angle, about the size of a pipe-stem, and an inch-and-a-half long. Three of these have already been produced, and there are indications of a regular supply, if the feathered architect can be properly encouraged. As Wallace has shown, new varieties tend to become permanent, and even the so-called freaks of nature can be perpetuated by careful protection and interbreeding. If Pittsfield can establish a new breed of Meerschaum Fowls, every member of which can be relied on to turn out a good, strong egg, with a handle to it, it will assume the first importance among our manufacturing towns. Locke can knock off work, run for the Legislature, and “make of life a joyful holiday.” An extra ration of lime every morning would soon
so toughen the shells that they could be smoked for some time without danger of breaking, and the diet could be further modified for the purpose of improving the pattern and texture of the article.
For fancy purposes, the hens could be fed on creosote, yellow ochre, or carmine, so that the pipes would be beautifully coloured and decorated in the very process of manufacture. A pipe, illuminated with fantastic and gorgeous devices, without requiring industrious devotion in back rooms, would immediately command a premium in any market, for many valuable and talented young men, who now spend their evenings in conferring a delicate tinge upon their meerschaums, would be released for the benefit of quilting parties and other social enterprises. It will be observed that all qualities and patterns of pipes can thus be produced by artificially breeding towards the characteristic desired. By interbreeding fowls that produce eggs with the longest stems, stems of any length can ultimately be attained, and it is not improbable that an egg could at last be reached having a lid opening with hinges and perhaps a hook to hang it up by. There is no end to possibilities in this direction. The substitution of other minerals for lime in the feed would be followed by a corresponding change of the egg to glass, porcelain, china, and other precious wares, and even the metals might profitably be introduced. It is not necessary to follow up the hint. The Meerschaum Hen is the hen of the future.
Tub.
(Kopfs ^trtat.
If the Latin philosopher may worthily boast—“Homo sum, et nihil humanum alienum a meputo,” may not I as honourably say—“ I am a Tobaccoite, and esteem nothing that concerns Tobacco alien to me?” The Planter's Gazette informs me that the crops of Tobacco in Bahia are abundant; but that the leaf is prevented from claiming equality with that which comes from Havana by the imperfect preparation it receives at the hands of the poor and ignorant Indian population. I regret that these good people should lack the knowledge which would enable them to do justice to their country’s produce; but my regret—like many other sentiments of mine—is not without alloy. I would rather have them ignorant, and consequently poor, than have them learn the cunning ways of some British manipulators of the weed, whose deeds are chronicled at Somerset House. For it has reached mine incredulous ears that amongst the substances detected of late in adulterated Tobacco, within the United Kingdom, are pieces of string and wood, nails, ground Tobacco-pipe, and many other kinds of unexpected refuse. I am hard of belief; but what can a man do in the face of a Government Return? I should like to have an opinion upon this matter from the gentleman who kindly forwarded (for my “private information”) the other day, this gratifying intelligence:—“I am a rigid teetotaler, and have been a smoker 52 years, and like the weed as much—nay more, than ever.” It gladdens me to hear of yet another Tobaccoite who has proved that the comfort of the pipe and the luxury of the cigar do not necessarily drive a man to drunkenness and destruction—as the antis do vainly protest. But I want to ask my 52-years’ devotee whether he could have preserved his “rigid” probity if he had found his favourite weed adulterated with odds and ends of twine and shavings, and such “unconsidered trifles” as ground baked pipe-clay? While I pause for his reply, I venture mildly to suggest that such “infinite variety” of smoking-mixture is enough to drive a man to matrimony, or make him a “rigid” Bacchanalian.
It is soothing to the mind of a Tobacco-lover, thus perplexed, to know that he is not alone in his bewilderment. As the homely sage has told us, we can always find pleasure in the misfortunes of our friends. Hence, my delight in the condition of soul which drew the following paragraph from the editor of the Cincinnati Breakfast Table:—
“ There are some things about this Tobacco question that would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer. We give a pair of items. 1st. A young man in Wisconsin, aged sixteen, dropped suddenly dead with paralysis, a few days ago, caused by excessive use of Tobacco. 2nd. A case is mentioned in New Jersey of the death of an old pioneer, at the age of one hundred and eight, who had been an habitual user of Tobacco for seventy years. The moral suggested by these eonflicting statements seems to be—that a man must use Tobacco for seventy years if he would live to a ripe old age.” *
Now, Secretary R. W. Thompson, who is immortalised by the New York Tribune, is a fair example of a “well-accustomed” smoker (to borrow a new phrase which pictures a busy tavern, in the columns of the Morning Advertiser). Mr. Thompson has a greater number of excellent qualities than I have space to recount. But at least I must find space for two or three lines which, being true, should win him a pedastal in the statue-gallery of Renown:—
“He smokes incessantly. Indeed, it is hardly possible to catch him awake without a cigar in his mouth, which cigars he has made expressly for himself. When he was studying for his book on the Papacy, he found that a knowledge of Latin, German, and French was necessary. He accordingly learned to read those languages—which was a bit of work particularly noticeable in a man more than 60 years old.”
Verily, in the Nicotian Valhalla Secretary R.’ W. Thompson should be held in everlasting remembrance!
The Cincinnati editor’s difficulty is not, however, the only puzzle the Nicotian student is likely to encounter. The moral aspect of the Tobacco question is a nut as likely to
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crack the philosopher's wisdom-tooth as the sanitary aspect. Why, for instance, should the exemplary inmates of the Sing-Sing State prison be encouraged in the use of chewing Tobacco, but severely punished for smoking? Is it because the authorities have wooden heads, and fear their destruction incase of fire? If any reader of this page can bethink him of a fair response, let the oracle propound. And when the mystery of Sing-Sing has been solved, then we may tackle the Vanderbilt problem. The famous millionaire who is recently dead said one day to the famous millionaire his gon, who has entered upon those millions: “I wish you would give up that smoking habit of yours. I'll give you ten thousand dollars if you do it.” In effect, the son made answer: “Thy wish is law”; and flung away his cigar and his smoking habits on the instant, without waiting for the money. That filial instance is quoted amongst many examples of William H. Vanderbilt’s self-command. For, he has given up late whist, and late hours, and the wine of Champagne—all because he thought they d^d him harm; and, in a millionaire, these be virtues. But when one comes to consider the Tobacco incident, in the light of a Tobaccolover’s gospel, one remembers Dean Swift’s bitter saying— that the Creator has shown his contempt for riches by the character of the men upon whom he has bestowed them. Is it not Sganarelle, in Moliere’s “Festin de Pierre,” who says (applying to the use of the weed Aristotle's pronouncement concerning philosophy)—“It is the passion of honest folk, and he who lives without Tobacco is not worthy to live”? Bead that as a commentary on Vanderbilt’s advice to his son; and, aa a clincher, remember how John Dalton summed up the character of that “agreeable and intelligent young man,” Humphry Davy, with the note of one serious failing—“he did not like Tobacco.”
If Punch (with whom I lately made friends) were within ear-shot, and could be induced to read his own pages, and observe how oft of late those pages have produced and repro-daced the same old jokes and puns, I would advise him, even in his mild senility, not to “ take his Davy” for an example any more.
Rather let him observe the elevating influence of Tobacco upon the fairer half of humanity. “ Lovely woman,” says the Tribune (N.Y.), “has asserted her inalienable right to ride in a smoking car, and enjoy her cigar like a man.” “ Seating herself at her ease by an open window, she drew from a neat little case a cigar, and soon was puffing away with a tranquil expression on her face; ” and when a tipsy loafer presumed upon her novel position and became impertinent, she said—“ I have the same right here that you have, and if you don’t behave yourself I shall speak to the conductor.”
If one may believe the World, “ our dear Tobacco ” has once at least linked barbarism with civilisation, since the days when the companions of Columbus smoked with Caribbean Indians around the council-fire. Frank Buckland had invited to dinner “Tomati Hapiromani Wharinaki, and a number of New Zealand chiefs,” and “the party had adjourned to the monkey-room to smoke the pipe of peace;” when Mr. Buckland unfortunately emptied a box of slow-worms, when—
“Instantaneously the guests were transformed; the garb of civilisation dipped off, and they returned to the wild untutored savage. With one frantic glance at the slow-worms on the floor, they uttered wild yells and straightway fled. Down-stairs, the dining-room was open; through this into the garden, helter-skelter, like hounds breaking cover and filling the air with a tapage d'enfer. Thenoe they spread over the neighbouring gardens, taking the low fences like deer. Two of them seeing another open window, and at it a peaceable old lady at work, headed for it, dashed in, and with their tattoed faces and awful cries nearly were her death. By this time the whole parish was up; a hue and cry organised, recruits joined from the tailings, and the fugitives were run safely to ground. It appeared that they entertained a superstitious horror of the slow-worm; to them it was the ‘Ngarara’—the incarnation of the power of evil.”
We are to presume that the pipes were broken. With Tobacco in the ascendent, men’s nerves are steadier. I have before me a description of Rob Roy’s snuff-mull, with “ R.R. McG., 1720,” cut into the horn; and I bethink me of the nerve that the McGregor developed on his “sneeshin’.” They say of General Grant that “ among his many laurels none is prized by him so much as his laurel-wood pipe ” (let us pardon the pun); and I “ do admire,” as his compatriots say, with what calmness the General confronts the perils of his way. Truth commits itself to this version of an incident in the ex-President's career:—
* General Grant must have strongly impressed a gentleman in Paris with the ‘ calm repose ’ of his manners—to call his conduct by no other name. This gentleman was sent by a committee to ask the General a few questions respecting the management of Agricultural Chambers in America, and other subjects of the country order. Question upon question, politely put, brought forward not a word from the General, who simply turned his cigar round and round in his lips and stared. At lost, when about an hour and a-half had been spent in questions, suppositions, &c., on the one side, and cigars on the other, the General threw his cigar away, slowly sent a cloud of smoke around his head and that of hie companion, and, remarking impressively, * D—d bad cigars,’ turned his back upon the Frenchman.”
Here’s a portrait of another of the world’s veteran campaigners, as he appeared in his youth—before the long struggle with principalities and powers began:—“He wore a grey frock with black cuffs and a collar, a red foraging cap, pantaloons with stripes down the seams, large shirt-collars turned down over his shoulders, with a red cravat flying in the wind; spurs, a flower in his button-hole, and a cigar always in his mouth.” The student of our times will hardly recognise here the figure of “Young Mastai”—better known for a generation past as Pope Pius IX. He has long outlived the vanities of those early days; but his Holiness is even now faithful to his cigar. And he surely smokes good
Tobacco; or he would never have been so benevolent to the moribund Vittorio Emmanuele — that sharpest thorn of which the Head of the Church has felt the thrust in all his wonderful career. But Victor Emmanuel, too, loved his cigar.
In Vanity Fair, the other week, I found a portrait-cartoon professing to be the “counterfeit presentment” of a younger, but already far-famed, campaigner—Archibald Forbes. Two faults I find: Mr. Forbes has not that strange complexion which the “Ape” delights to give to human subjects, but which better befits the decoction of logwood; and he is not fully limned with his cigar. In the letterpress account of the popular War Correspondent I find also two matters of complaint: It was not the Scotsman that he edited and that “collapsed when Forbes went out to the Franco-German War ; ” but the London Scotsman, which was a very different affair. The “ Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled ” (of late) know well that the Scotsman has not yet collapsed, and that if it has suffered since the days of the Russel, who was not a War Correspondent, its wounds have no relation to the Forbes who is. I complain, too, that Vanity Fair leaves out of his history, as well as out of his picture, the Weed he loves; and I pray that the writer may not incur Mr. Forbes’s resentment; for, as that writer has set forth, the great Archibald is “ thorough; a loyal friend, a kind master, but a bitter enemy.” Wherefore, I pity the Russians, and remain Youb Man-of-All-Wobi.
Mobara anb traffic.
n.
In a French periodical, published about twenty years ago, we find what follows:—“There are three well-marked periods in the monetary system of the Chinese. The first comprehends the period which elapsed from the most ancient times to the year 220 of the Christian era; the second the interval of time which separates that epoch from the advent of the Soung dynasty in the year 960 after Christ; the third the period which divides the last epoch from the present year. During the first two periods the Chinese made an excessive use of such paper money as finds its analogy in our bank bills. The bill of exchange, which facilitates in such a high degree commercial relations, had been discovered at the very outset. These two things, so excellent in themselves, having been used in excess, they fell into desuetude and gave place to the present monetary system. In our days two kinds of money circulate in the Celestial Empire: copper money and silver money. The copper money is the only money which is marked; the small round pieces of which it is composed are worth each about a denier. [A denier is the twelfth part of a sou, and a sou is nearly equal to our English halfpenny.’] The silver money consists of small ingots, each of which weighs 37 grammes, and is worth about seven francs and a-half. [A gramme is equivalent to about nineteen English grains; a franc to ninepence-halfpenny.] As these ingots bear no impress, they have to be weighed in a balance and verified by the touchstone. Commerce suffers much from a monetary system so inconvenient, and which substantially is merely an exchange of merchandise.”
Voltaire, that great master of ridicule, often contrived to make himself ridiculous; and very keenly he felt the laughter of his foes. Loud and long were the guffaws when he maintained that a particular geological deposit in a region of France could be accounted for by the large number of scallop shells the palmers had thrown away as they passed through. Here he showed that, if his imagination was lively, his knowledge was scanty. Less deservedly he has been sneered at for his high opinion of Chinese civilisation, and for his intense enthusiastic belief in the antiquity thereof. It is manifest, at least, that many things of whose invention Europe is inclined to boast, existed in China from the remotest ages. Among them paper money must be included; though, as may be seen from our previous article, the Italians seem to have been the first of modern nations to introduce paper money into commerce.
This granted, the Virginians led the way in giving to paper money, by means of Tobacco notes, a new and original character. The novelty, the originality, did not arise from extraordinary inventiveness, but from that which has ever held sway, and still holds sway, with Englishmen in their political and other affairs—the simple pressure of despotic necessity. If Christian in nothing else, Englishmen are assuredly loyal to the declaration that “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” They merely provide, and often in an imperfect way, for immediate, for urgent needs. The old and terribly condemnatory epithet of “ Unready” is still eminently applicable to them.
The Tobacco notes were the offspring of “unreadiness,” not of ingenuity. Stumbling from experiment to experiment, the Virginians took what was handiest. The mother country left them much to their own devices, yet was perpetually interfering —selfishly, and, therefore, unwisely. Avarice, execrated as the most odious of vices, alike by sublime poets like Dante and by earnest reformers like the Apostle James, is as blind as it is insatiable. And, as a rule, governments, by their ignorance, their caprice, their improvidence, their foolish enactments, intensify avarice. It is well known that more than half of the madness
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and misery of Ireland arose from the monstrous endeavours of the British Government, in bad and brutal times, to hinder Irish manufactures from competing with British manufactures. The same detestable and disastrous policy was pursued toward the British Colonies in general, and toward Virginia, for a long time the chief thereof, in particular. And we may justly marvel that the revolt which burst forth a hundred years ago did not take place sooner. Apart from special enactments, the common law of England was in force in Virginia from the foundation of the colony. Very vexatious and oppressive the enactments often were, and continual and merciless were the prosecutions for the violation, the evasion, the wrong construction thereof. Mr. Royall gives an extract, alike striking and interesting, from an Act passed in 1732: “ Whereas the art and mystery of making hats in Great Britain hath arrived to great perfection, and considerable quantities of hats manufactured in this kingdom have heretofore been exported to his Majesty’s plantations or colonies in America, who have been wholly supplied with hats from Great Britain; and whereas great quantities of hats have of late years been made, and the said manufacture is daily increasing, in the British plantations in America, and is from thence exported to foreign markets, which were heretofore supplied from Great Britain, and the hatmakers in the said plantations take many apprentices for very small terms, to the discouragement of the said trade, and debasing the said manufacture; where* fore, for preventing the said ill practices for the future, and for promoting and encouraging the trade of making of hats in Great Britain, Be it enacted by the King’s Most Excellent Majesty: That from and after the 29th day of September, 1732, no hats or felts whatsoever, dyed or undyed, finished or unfinished, shall be shipt, loaden, or put on board any ship or vessel, in any place or parts within any of the British plantations, upon any pretence whatsoever, by any person or persons whatsoever, and also that no hats or felts, either dyed or undyed, finished or unfinished, shall be loaden upon any horse, cart, or other carriage, to the intent or purpose to be exported, transported, shipped off, carried or conveyed out of any of the said British plantations, to any other of the British plantations, or to any other place whatsoever, by any person or persons whatsoever.”
For any offence against this impious, cruel, idiotic enactment heavy penalties were threatened. The Act, spite of murmurs and remonstrances, appears to have been enforced down to the time of the revolt; for it is referred to as a cause of grievance in an indignant letter from a Pennsylvania farmer to the inhabitants of the British Colonies, published in January, 1768, in the Virginia Gazette.
In the evil days of the seventeenth century, and in the scarcely less evil days of the early part of the eighteenth century, the North American Colonies could have been better able to resist the despotic enactments and the covetous encroachments of the mother country if they had offered a united front thereto. But theological antagonisms and commercial rivalries were hostile to unity. Moreover, almost from the commencement we encounter in the colonies, and principally in Virginia, the indications of that spirit of jealousy between the mercantile and the agricultural class which menaces the stability of the Union, and which is probably destined, along with other causes, to break up the Union into individual States or groups of States, to the great gain of the immense continent itself and of the world.
Through the concourse of so many complications, Tobacco and the trade therewith, and the currency as affected thereby, fell into a chaotic condition. The persistency, however, of Tobacco, spite of all fatalities, entanglements, and obstacles, is symbolised by the pertinacity of a Quaker we have somewhere read of. A cab, in which was the said Quaker, entered one end of a lane in London, which was just broad enough for one carriage. Scarcely had it done so when a cab was seen entering the other end. In this second cab was a young fop. It was evident that one of the cabs must beat a retreat; but both, when they drew near to each other, remained obstinately obstructive. The Quaker, being an old man, thought that he merited the preference, and asked the young man to yield, pressing as an argument that the young man’s end of the lane was more convenient for withdrawing. With some grossly insulting words the young man replied. The Quaker, seeing his opponent determined to dispute the passage, and not wishing himself to be vanquished, took a pipe from his pocket and began gravely to smoke. The young man, on observing this, took a newspaper from his pocket and began gravely to read. A quarter of an hour passed away in the profoundest calm. Having smoked his pipe, the imperturbable Quaker broke the silence in these words: “Friend, when thou hast finished the newspaper, be kind enough to lend it to me. In exchange, I offer thee my pipe.” This speech, uttered with the greatest coolness, forced the foe to make a retrograde movement. In like fashion, Tobacco, when brought into straits, has always'been triumphant, and opposition has invariably ended in smoke.
The following passage from Keith’s “History of Virginia,” published in 1738, shows how anarchy held sway, and how, nevertheless, Tobacco, the gallant and the resolute, contrived to hold its own:—“As to the British merchant and the planters’ interests, with respect to their conduct and management in carrying on the Tobacco trade, they have each of them taken great pains to pursue that business in such a mysterious way as it is not easy for those who are not imme-
diately concerned therein to trace; and, in truth, it must be owned that the multiplicity of duties, drawbacks, bonds, and other regulations of the Customs wherewith the trade is perplexed, has in a manner forced the merchants into many contrivances which, in all probability, would otherwise never have been thought on.”
As an example of the heavy burdens to be borne at a comparatively recent period, take this:—“In December, 1776, John Norton and Son, of London, sold, on account of Savage and Norton, of Virginia, twenty hogsheads of Tobacco for £874 14s. 4d. The charges against the sales were: duties, £579 17s. 7d.; charges and commissions, £87 12s. 5d.; amounting to £667 10s.; net proceeds of sale, £207 6s. 4d.
To a trade so anomalous, accompanied by a rate of exchange equally anomalous, an anomalous currency, of which we have already said something, corresponded. But Virginia was not, as regards the currency, exceptionally eccentric. A traveller from Europe, giving an account of his adventures in America in the London Magazine for July, 1746, thus discourseth:— “There certainly can’t be a greater grievance to a traveller from one colony to another than the different values their paper money bears; for if he is not studious to get rid of the money of one place before he arrives at another, he is sure to be a considerable loser. The New England money, for instance, which is excessively bad, and where to pay sixpence or threepence they tear a shilling bill to pieces, is much beneath the New York money in value, and will hardly be got off there without some person is going into the first-named province. New York and Pensilvania often differ about the dignity of their bills, and they fall and rise in the different circulations they take. The Maryland money is in general pretty good, but of low value; and this, again, is not taken on the western shore of Chesapeake where only gold and silver is current. North Carolina is still lower than Maryland, and South Carolina worst of all; for their money there is so low as seven for one sterling, so that it makes a prodigious sound; and not only so, but even private traders there coin money, if I may use the expression, and give out small printed or written circulating notes, from sixpence to a pound and upwards, in which they are, no doubt, considerable gainers, not only by the currency of so much ready money, without much expense in making it, but also by loss, wearing out, or other accidents. In Georgia, again, this money never passes, for all their bills are of sterling value, and will pass all over J inerica as well as bank notes. There are, I find, some considerable gains and stockjobbing in America by their issuing out and calling in their new and old bills.”
A poor French poet of the eighteenth century was asked to make a quatrain, or poem of four lines, on the name of the king. “ But there are five lines in Louis ” he objected. “Well then make a quatrain in five Unes,” was the laughing reply. The poet immediately complied, and this was the fifth line:—
“	Son image est partout, exoepte dans ma poche.”
Thus, also, in those loyal days when symbols of “Great George our King” abounded around, our traveller might have cried—
“	His image is everywhere, except in my pocket."
It will astonish many English readers to learn that in the North American States not merely was there a most diversified currency, but what would now-a-days be called an “inflated” currency.
What the state of the currency and cognate things was in Virginia, about fifty years before the Grand Revolt, we ascertain from a pamphlet entitled, “The Present State of Virginia, by Hugh Jones, A.M., Chaplain of the honourable Assembly, and lately Minister of James Town in Virginia,” published in London, in 1724. Mr. Jones says:—“ In their computations of time, weights and measures, both of length, superficial, and solidity, they strictly adhere to what is legal, not running into precarious customs as they do in England. Thus their quart is the true Winchester, their hundred is 100, not 112, and they survey land by statute measure. Indeed, what English coin is there is advanced in value, so that a shilling passes for 14d., and a guinea passes by sale for 26s. But the current money is the Spanish, which in reality is about £15 per cent, inferior to our English coin, as settled by law; but frequently the value of this varies in respect of sterling bills according to the circumstances of trade currency and sterling, being sometimes at par; but for the generality ten per cent, discount is allowed for sterling bills. The merchants, factors, or storekeepers in Virginia buy up the Tobacco of the planters either for goods or current Spanish money, or with sterling bills payable in England.”
As we aim to entertain as well as to instruct, we say as Mr. Royall, to whom we are so much indebted, says, that the following passage from the pamphlet of Mr. Jones, though not germane to the subject, is so quaint, and at the same time describes the inhabitants of the colony so graphically, that it is quoted, the work not being very common:—“ The habits, life customs, and computations of the Virginians are much the same as about London, which they esteem their home, and for the most part have contemptible notions of England, and wrong sentiments of Bristol and the other outports, which they entertain from seeing and hearing the common dealers, sailors, and servants that come from those towns and the country places in England and Scotland, whose language and manners are strange to them; for the planters and even the native negroes generally talk good English without idiom
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or tone, and can discourse handsomely upon most common subjects, and conversing with persons belonging to trade and navigation from London, for the most part they are much civilised, and wear the best of cloaths according to their station; nay, sometimes too good for their circumstances, being for the generality comely, handsome persons, of good features and fine complexions (if they take care) of good manners and address. The climate makes them bright and of excellent sense and sharp in trade, an idiot or deformed person being almost a miracle. Thus they have good natural notions, and will soon learn arts and sciences, but are generally directed by business or inclination from profound study, and prying into the depths of things; being ripe for the management of their affairs before they have laid so good a foundation of learning, and bad such instructions and acquired such accomplishments as might be instilled into such good natural capacities. Nevertheless, through their quick apprehension, they have a sufficiency of knowledge and fluency of tongue, though their learning for the most par t be but superficial. They are more inclinable to read men by business and conversation than to dive into books, and are for the most part only desirous of hearing what is absolutely necessary in the shortest and best method. The common planters leading easy lives don’t much admire labour or any manly exercise except horse racing, nor diversion except cock-fighting, in which some greatly delight. This easy way of living and the heat of the summer makes some lazy who are thus said to be climate-struck. They are such lovers of riding that almost every ordinary person keeps a horse, and I have known some spend the morning in ranging several miles in the woods to find and catch their horses, only to ride two or three miles to church, to the courthouse, or to a horse race, where they generally appoint to meet upon business, and are more certain of finding those that they want to speak with than at their home. No people can entertain their friends with letter cheer and welcome, and strangers and travellers are here treated in the most free, plentiful, and hospitable manner, so that a few inns or ordinaries on the road are sufficient.”
To illustrate the passion of the Virginians for cock-fighting, Mr. Royall says:—“In the Virginia Gazette for March 17th, 1768. there is a flaming advertisement as follows:—‘On Monday, the 4th April, will be fought at Sussex courthouse a match of cocks between the Brumwich and Sussex gentlemen to show 30 cocks a side for £1 a battle and £50 to the odd. At night there will be a ball for the reception of the ladies and gentlemen.’” Then he adds: “Could there be a more perfect prototype of the young Virginian of this day and generation, who, spending the day in riding at a tournament, sighs mournfully to his companions that the country is going to ruin because the negroes wont work."
Irrepressible is the love of joy, and of amusement as a form of joy, in the human heart; and very desolate would human life be but for the elastic hopefulness which makes human beings rush to pastimes and pleasures the very day, or perchance the very hour, after they have been weeping in sore despair. The Puritanic bigotry which makes war on this spontaneous, this irresistible tendency is as cruel as it is hypocritical. Neither the Virginians of a former day, nor the Virginians of the present day should we too severely blame for seeking in the midst of their real or imaginary troubles frivolous entertainment. Nevertheless cocktighting is ignoble, is brutal, how fond soever gentlemen may be of what they call sport.
Descended from the Cavaliers, the Virginian planters were, and continued down to the Secession War to be, a “ Landed Gentry,” with in excess all the virtues and all the vices of a class which some sophistical writers have laboured hard to praise, but the chief objection to which is that it is a class artificially created, and thereby doomed to waste its time in idleness, without the ennobling pressure of stern duty. Let this be as it may, the Virginian planters must have served the better the higher purposes of a landed gentry when they were mainly the producers of Tobacco, and not mainly the breeders of slaves. Yet, though slave-breeding and slaveselling must have had a horrible effect on the character, the Virginian planters had too much English frankness and manliness to do their bad deeds, like the Spaniards, in the name of orthodoxy, a convenient garb, even in our own time, for the most unbounded and unblushing villany. A hundred years before the colonisation of Virginia, the orthodox Spaniards having wantonly slaughtered, in the New World which they had discovered and conquered, from twelve to twenty million natives, began, inspired by zealous orthodoxy, to import African negroes to people the regions they had made desolate, and to accomplish degrading, exhausting, most killing labours. Spite of the protests and the energetic resistance of the holy and valiant Las Casas, called the apostle and protector of the Indians, this new traffic gained the countenance of the Spanish government, and ultimately Papal sanction. For was it not an eminently orthodox employment? Free from Spanish hypocrisy, the Virginian planters could likewise say that it was not they but the Spaniards who first converted the African into a helpless, hopeless drudge.
The Tobacco notes, which so long circulated in Virginia, may have had influence on the moral estimate that was formed then of the African slave. One argument in favour of a metallic currency is that, compared with a paper currency,
it tends to encourage providence, at the risk, however, of encouraging cupidity. The moonlike silver and the sunlike gold fascinate the miser, and he plunges his fiercely eager hands into the glittering heaps. He likes to hear the clash and clangour of the multitudinous coins. When a metallic currency is exclusive or predominant, men are frugal, are saving even to meanness. On the contrary, men are tempted to be reckless, to be ostentatiously munificent when they see value, however great, represented by a piece of paper. To this cause we may in some measure trace the grand things done for art by the Florentine and other Italian republics at the fulness of their prosperity and glory. The Russians, of all classes and all professions, are the most corrupt people in the world; but they are not so parsimonious as the Germans or the French, because more familiarised with paper money. Now, how it must have intensified the Virginian planter’s natural contempt for the negro, when he could buy or sell a hundred slaves for a Tobacco note, or bundle of Tobacco notes!
Ere we part from Virginia, from its currency, and from the social circumstances affecting or affected by that currency, let us give one more extract from Mr. Royall’s dry but instructive treatise:—“It will, probably, surprise many to know that there never was any such thing as a * pound * in Virginia different from the ‘pound’ in England. It may be doubted if there ever was a piece of metal coined in Virginia. There w’as an Act passed (probably) in November, 1645, reciting that small coins were much needed, and providing for coining a certain amount of copper ‘to be quoined in twopences, threepences, sixpences, and ninepences’; but it is by no means certain that any money was actually coined under it. But if there ever was any money coined in the colony, it was coined according to the English standard, and whatever coins of the denomination of pounds were ever here were pounds according to the English law. In his account of the coins of which there are specimens in the National Mint (see ‘The Mint Manual of All Nations’), Mr. Snowdon makes no mention of any coins struck off in the colony of Virginia. There are some coins, it is true, that were essentially Virginian coins, but they were coined in England for circulation in Virginia, and were coined according to the English standard.”
Mr. Royall completely and satisfactorily explains what had puzzled Thomas Jefferson and many eminent men—namely, why. while there was no real difference between a “ pound” in Virginia and a “pound” in England, they normally differed in exchangeable value to the extent of more than thirty-three per cent. However, the problem and its solution, though they may interest us as statisticians and political economists, interest us not as nicotians, except in so far as the exchangeable value was mainly determined by the commercial hindrances which Tobacco had to overcome. The Tobacco note was the harbinger of the “almighty dollar”; and it seems as if in America the currency were destined to be a more potent revolutionary force than even social anomalies.
gobble, % procrastinator.
It is with feelings of deep regret that I sit down to write a few hasty words concerning the man whose name is written at the head of this sketch.
The regret is caused by the fact that the man is no more. He was an old and valued friend, and I feel that in losing him the world has lost one who, though not a great man, was a good, genial, kind-hearted Englishman.
I wish it to be understood that this is what is called a moral tale or sketch, and that it aims at helping to destroy another of the illusions of our younger days. Modestly, but firmly, I maintain that I have demolished several of these wicked and demoralising proverbial sayings which, eating as they do at the heart of society, damage that heart, filling it full of holes for fresh errors to lay their eggs to be hatched in.
This is no frothy and vain talk. Let any one cast a largely seeing eye around him, and then say what he thinks of mankind in general! What does he find? Rottenness! rottenness! rottenness! Who disputes it? Who, I say, dare dispute it? And what is the cause of it? The old slimy snake, whose name I have cried into your ears many times— HABIT! although sometimes it alters its pattern a little, and assumes the name of Custom.
What makes a wretched mortal, crowned though he be, lead or drive thousands and hundreds of thousands of men, good as himself, to horrible misery and death? It was his father’s custom, and so it shall be his. And what makes them go? It was their fathers’ custom, and so it shall be theirs. What makes men call bloody murder glory, and a mass of false lies and oaths a treaty? Habit I
That is an illustration from the top (a pretty top,is it not?) of society; now let us have one from the bottom. What makes the free-born, high-minded brute of an Englishman jump on his wife, breaking the ribs and battering the head of her he has sworn to love and cherish? Habit again: he learned the trick from his “old man,” and she, the poor creature, learned to submit from her mother. If none of these old iniquitous habits were taught or remembered, when this high and mighty king by the grace of God demanded his subjects to follow him, they’d drown him like a mad dog; and that poor, broken-ribbed, broken-spirited wife, as we now see
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her, would, at the first touch of that hob-nailed boot, put the family carving-fork carefully but with vigour into the male diaphragm right up to the guard; and then retire for a half-quartern while he pulled it out and stopped up the hole with putty. And there would be, at the top and bottom of society, two good deeds well done.
But while habit, or custom, maintains its accursed hold, these things cannot come to pass. Here I will say a careful word. There are a few good habits; I solemnly promise not to demolish these, if I can help it.
Now, I charge a great deal of the tenacity of habit on these old sayings I have alluded to. I have got my string round the leg of another, and if the string don't break the wretch is doomed.
Let me proclaim its name—
“ Procrastination is the thief of time! ”
How full of big wisdom does this line sound! One can fancy the poet, after about a week’s persistent headache, rolling forth this sweet and sounding morsel, sonorous and shapely, and setting it going down the long slope of the ages as a priceless nugget, admirable on account of its truth and its poetry, and not to be scorned because of its small size. It is, of course, intended to teach us that procrastination is bad, and that the man who indulges in it, if not a bad man, will probably make a bad ending.
Let me now tell of one who earned the name of “ Procrastinator,” and earned it well; and let us see how things turned out with him.
Conversing with Mr. Moddle one evening, two or three years ago, he in a few words gave me some particulars of his early years.
“I never hurry,” said that gentleman, “and this is due to a little affair that happened when I was a small lad. I had been down to stay with an uncle in the country, and the day arrived for my return by coach.
“My uncle was a man of remarkable punctuality; the motto of his life was, ‘Be in time.’ We had to travel on foot a mile and a-half to the point where the coach would take me up, and on starting my worthy uncle found, to his horror, that we had only about thirteen minutes to do it in. * Come on, boy!’ he cried, ‘be in time!’ and away we started, sometimes running and sometimes walking. The way was dirty; my uncle was stout and short-winded. Away we went; my hat flew off, and a passing cart crushed it with its wheel. ‘ Never mind,’ cried my uncle, as he clapped the shapeless and foul object on my head, ‘be in time.’ Uncle panted and puffed, and trod heedlessly on the foot of a big dog, who at once seized him by the trousers, tearing out a considerable portion. On we ran, both of us splashed up to the neck with mire. I jerked all the halfpence out of my pockets; uncle jerked his gold watch out, and broke the spring; and, to finish up, I stumbled over a loose stone and sprained my ankle, and uncle fell over me, and finished up the morning’s performance with a slight but alarming fit of apoplexy. We lost the coach, and were both of us laid up for a week. The coach, as it so happened, turned over and broke several of the passengers in various places; so the only good thing we did that day was to lose it, and that we might easily have done had we not have been in such a confounded hurry. The lesson was not lost upon me—it set me thinking; and, partly from a languid mind, natural to me, and partly from never being able to see why everything should be done at once, I became a thorough procrastinator.”
I said: “And how has it answered?”
“ Very well,” replied Moddle. “At school I was the same; always promising and never performing. ‘ To-morrow ’ was my cry, ‘ I will do it to-morrow.’ At last—I believe it was more to tempt me than for any other reason—the master offered a prize, a good prize it was, to the boy who should do the greatest amount of a certain class of work in a month. The excitement in the school was very great; incessant study seemed to be the duty of every boy except myself; day after day I promised to commence, and day after day I put it off till the morrow. What was the consequence? At the end. of the mouth the prize was awarded. The boy who gained it became so vain-glorious and cocky over it that two or three of the others ducked him in a horse-pond and gave him rheumatic fever for a month; while the others, who had studied hard and gained nothing, went about looking as miserable and spiteful as it was possible for them to do. I was the only happy boy with a calm and equal mind in that school. I continued in the same frame of mind, learning but little, and then only when I got tired of doing nothing. My uncle, who was very fond of me, seeing I should never be able to earn a comfortable living, was kind enough to fix me up with a decent annuity; and this, I reckon, came to me through being a procrastinator.”
I inquired of Moddle if he had ever fallen in love.
“No,” he replied, with a smile; “I have had my temptations, but, owing to procrastination, I kept on putting it off, and putting it off, till I got too old for the girls to take any notice of. And I’m glad of it,” he continued; “ for what with lovers’ quarrels, some shooting themselves and some shooting each other, breaches of promise, and the like, I feel convinced that my life has been calmer than if I had fallen in love.”
“Then of course you never married?” “No,” said he; “ I have been told it is my duty many a time, and I think it is the duty of every man to marry once; but it is really such a serious affair, that much time should be given to reflection
concerning it. I consider,” continued Moddle, “ that only a man of ripe experience should contemplate matrimony; and, as ripe experience can only come with age, I intend delaying my consideration of the subject for some time to come. Why hurry? If I ever live to see eighty-five or ninety years of age, I shall then seriously reflect on my duty in the matter.”
The reader having been now introduced to Mr. Moddle, and learned from him his views of procrastination, need scarce be told that he never married, for his age when he died was seventy-two.
Among other things, Moddle was very slow in investing his money. Some time ago he was rather sweet on Turkish and Honduras bonds; but he kept delaying and delaying, till things showed that his delay was wise in the extreme.
Moddle called himself a poet, and often threatened to publish; but here, as in other things, he said “To-morrow, next week, &c., I will see about the matter;” and now he is beyond it all.
Moddle both smoked and drank in moderation, and here I can positively speak of the benefit his procrastination bestowed on him. Many a time in a social gathering, when the wine cup has passed well round and round again, have I seen the beaming eyes of Moddle smilingly raised to the face of the host as he said, feeling he had taken sufficient, “ No more to night, friend; to-morrow will do for me.”
Moddle grew stout, and his friends advised him to leave off smoking and drinking. “ I will,” he said, “ if youthink they harm me, but to-day leave me in peace; I will think the matter over to-morrow.” Possibly he may have thought the matter over, but he never gave up either habit, and why should he ? He lived calmly and at peace with all, enjoying life in a serene fashion, a smile ever on his lip, and contentment ever in his heart.
Now that he has gone, let me briefly point out that he was in the main a success, and that procrastination was his friend.
We have seen how at school it kept him calm, and ended in an annuity.
We have seen how it saved him from all the aching throes of love, sweet at times, and to some; but bitterer than death here and there, and not seldom.
It saved him from matrimony, and what it saved him from there—if good or bad—only heaven and married people know. At all events he never complained of being saved from it.
Procrastination, as we have also seen, saved him from insecure investments, and prevented him from leaving off the harmless glass and pipe which cheered him in his old age, and made him look and feel happy.
It also saved him from publishing his poetry. Here, although it would have made but little difference to that calm man, procrastination saved the world from an infliction of the most terrible kind. We are all insane on one point, and poetry was Moddle’s insane point. He was no more a poet than Aidgate Pump is; but he thought he was, and wrote the most dreadful bosh conceivable.
It was the only wrong thing about Moddle, and, strange to say, he would take more pains with that than with anything else.
However, as a man—leaving out the bard—he was to be admired. Peace to his memory, since he has taught us a useful lesson. May that lesson be laid to heart by all.
D. Goggs.
dittos of 01b gooks.
The Early English Text Society.
[continuation.]
EXTRA SERIES.
21.	The Bruce: or, the Book of the most excellent and noble Prince Robert de Broyss, King of Scots, compiled by Master John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, a.d. 1375. With a Preface, Notes, and Glossarial Index, by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, M.A. Part H. 1874.
22.	Henry Brinklow's Complaynt of Roderpk Mors, somtyme a 9ray fry™* unto the parliament hows if Ingland, his natural country: for the redresse of certain wicked lawes; euel customs, and cruel decreys (about a.d. 1542) and The Lamentacyon of a Christen agaynst the Cytye of London, made by Roderigo Mors (a.d. 1545). Edited from the black-letter originals, by J. Meadows Cotcper, F.R.H.S. 1874.
Brinklow was one of those who, having earnestly desired the purging of the Church from the evil influences which were eating away its vitals, was yet bitterly disappointed by the mode and results of the Reformation. The misappropriation by court favourites of the money left for the endowment of religion, learning, and charity is one of the most stupendous of the many iniquities of history. “ The Reformers preached the benefit of disendow-ment for the benefit and advantage of the poor; and while they preached the rich men listened, and were not slow to see the advantages which might accrue to themselves.” Brinklow indulges in some very plain speaking, and openly accuses Gardner, the author of the enactment which led many of the clergy to put away their wives, of notorious incontinence and immorality. Mr. Cowper, in his introduction, gives a most interesting parallel between the charges and statements contained in the fierce denunciations of Brinklow and the admissions made by Pole, who desired not to uproot but to reform the manifest cankers of the Church.
23.	Earhf'English Pronunciation, by A. J. Ellis, F.R.S. Part IV.
The contents of this part are illustrations of the pronunciation of English in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, notices of the works of Lediard, Bonaparte, Schmeller, and Winkler, and of the received American and Irish pronunciation of English, concluding with a phonological introduction to dialects.
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COPE BROTHERS & CO., Cigar Makers, Snuff Grinders, Tobacco Cutters, Manufacturers ®f Tebace© fop ixpertat^u, and! Cavendish) Patentees, LORD NELSON STREET, LIVERPOOL.
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ENGLISH-MADE CIGARS.
ENGLISH-MADE CIGARS have so long been sold under Foreign disguises that it has become an established delusion among Smokers that nothing can be good but what is Havana. Under this error everything with a Spanish title is accepted as the genuine article; while undisguised British goods, whatever the superiority of the quality, are comparatively neglected. Smokers are not to blame for this. They cannot be expected always to bear in mind the fact that three-fourths of the Cigars consumed in these kingdoms are made in England, and irom Tobacco as good as that used for the Foreign-made Havanas. The only persons to blame for this pernicious system are the manufacturers who have continued an unworthy custom of sending out their goods branded and labelled with Spanish names, sometimes real, sometimes imaginary—the English Cigar maker often paying more attention to the devices of his labels than to the quality of his Cigars. In this way he relieves himself of responsibility for the reputation of his goods, and is content to leave such points as flavour and excellence of make in abeyance, so long as the Cigars are accepted by the public under their Foreign title. In time, however, Smokers discover that the article they have been buying is not what they supposed; and then the manufacturer simply invents a fresh brand and label, which in turn is superseded by another device; and so brands and labels are multiplied to the hopeless perplexity of the Smoker, who, despairing of getting anything reliable in the way of a Cigar at a moderate price, takes to Cut Tobacco. He knows that in this he has something to guide him to a satisfactory choice, for he can obtain an English manufactured article of reputed merit, bearing the real maker’s name and trade mark.
This anomaly—that while in their Cut Tobaccos English manufacturers stand pre-eminent, English-made Cigars are in corresponding disfavour with Smokers—has convinced us, and we believe the conviction will be shared by our customers, that the time has fully arrived for making a change in the system. Cigars at most moderate prices, and quite equal in quality to the general run of Havana-made goods, can be produced in English Factories. It is, therefore, only just, alike to the Smoker and the Manufacturer, that English Cigars should be offered as such, upon their merits. In this Factory, where we have, as our customers know, for many years been producing our favourite English brands, the experiment has succeeded, and we have every reason to desire an extension of it; and with the view of more largely inaugurating the new system, we are now producing a new brand,
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Copt’s Mature.
I an sorely growing fastidious; for, as I contemplate the pile of raw material out of which this “Mixture” is to be manufactured, I hesitate to apply to the compound its usual title. I am aware that we live in an age of “ trade-actions.” I am not altogether ignorant of the law of trade-marks; or of the jealousy with which the legal authorities regard the indiscriminate use of labels. “ Cope's Mixture ” is the label . I have been accustomed to affix to my manufactures for years past; and I am not conscious of any misgivings that have visited me aforetime with regard to the propriety of the course I have thus pursued. I flatter myself I have had warrant for my proceedings in this respect hitherto; I venture to believe I have kept well within the law, on the right side of the legal hedge; and that, from the very beginning of my operations down to the present moment, Messrs. Cope Brothers and Company, if they had desired to deal litigiously with me, would not have had a leg to stand upon. Like the gentleman who defied Somerset House and escaped the penalty for selling cigars without a licence by pleading that there was no Tobacco whatever in those cigars, I have been able to laugh at possible threats of vengeance; because my u Mixture,” redolent of the fragrant weed as it may be, has no more relation to the commingled preparation of nicotian varieties for smoking, out of which Cope Brothers and Co. have made name and fame and wealth galore, than paper cigars may bear to those weeds of Cuba o’er whose tender memory we mourn in vain. But Nemesis, halting oft, is well-nigh upon my heels at last. If any respectable manufacturer of Tobacco will allow his name to be used in voucher for the quality of this my mixture now, the age of honesty is past. There’s not a mixer of Tobaccos in Whitechapel or in Lambeth Marsh who would not repudiate it—with vows and protestations more vigorous, perchance, than polite. I myself repudiate it, beforehand. And yet it is my destiny: this mixture must be mixed, though such a compound ne’er was mixed before. I will take refuge in sophistry: “Mixture” you cannot cavil at; and, as to “Cope’s,” why, though no Cope will acknowledge the substance of which it is compounded, the “ Mixture ” I will make his own. When it is incorporated in his Plants it will be his very own; and—let him fume!
In one Sense, my material is, as Caesar's wife should have been, above suspicion. I import it from a “Return to an Order of the Honourable The House of Commons,” “ Ordered, I by the House of Commons, to be Printed, 11th August, 1877; ” and I opine that returns of that kind, bearing the Government . stamp upon the face of them, shall go duty free. The several leaves and fibres tried hard to go “duty free” before, and 1 failed; but now that they have been collected into a mass, and may be counted amongst Returns unimpeachable, the Inland Revenue department has done its worst, and its machinations are impotent. If anybody suggest that the material is fit only to be impounded, I agree; and add that I hereby impound it accordingly. That is to say, I lay forcible hands upon 643 cases of “ Seizures made” and “Prosecutions for Breach of the Laws relating to Tobacco, between the 5th nay of January, 1864, and the Sth day of January, 1877,” in 1 Great Britain and Ireland; and these shall be the “stock” and staple of my “ Mixture.”
m? ^me * have found much fault with the Anti-Tobaccoites, because of the accusations they have brought I against Tobacco, and the denunciations they have launched gainst those who use it. I am now prepared to withdraw WJ hard thing I may have said about any member of that r--------------------------------------------------------------
fraternity who, in his unregenerate days, has bought and smoked any of the compounds enumerated in this Return [414, 1877,] as having been seized by the Excise authorities and condemned. Bad Tobacco is a sufficient excuse for many atrocities—whether of temper or of speech; and those amongst us who have the good fortune to smoke real Tobacco should deal tenderly with the victims of the adulterating Tobacconist. If there be a smoker who does not perceive that the duty of charity is abundantly laid upon him in this respect, let him spend a month in Holland, in Belgium, in France, in Armenia, or in Central Africa; and I guarantee his conversion to the merciful doctrine I have here formulated—provided always that he shall not have taken with him a stock of English or American manufactured Tobacco ample for the period of his sojourn in those benighted lands. [Entre none, and enpageant, as we say when we air our attenuated knowledge of strange tongues, I have a theory about atrocities in Bulgaria and Roumelia which is not altogether unconnected with bad Tobacco. But—your finger on your lips, good friends!— that theory will keep.]
Here is a description of some choice weed purchased and seized last year from a well-known Tobacconist in Liverpool: —“A mixture of sweetened and unsweetened Tobacco, and contains not less than 1 per cent, liquorice; three seizures are adulterated with liquorice, and contain also small quantities of vegetable matter, not Tobacco, consisting of pieces of straw and charcoal, husks of oats and small seeds.” Here is an account of a sample seized in Goswell Road, London:—“Consists of broken leaf Tobacco, mixed with sand and rubbish; contains 24 per cent, sand; 106 grains of the coarser portion, obtained by sifting 500 grains of the sample, contains 49 grains of small pieces of brick, mortar, stones, glass, coal, and dirt; 8 grains of cotton, hempen, woollen, and cocoa-nut fibres, pieces of straw, wood, and bread; and 49 grains of broken leaf Tobacco. Fine portion examined microscopically appeared to contain as much organic impurity as the coarser portion.” Let me ask any candid man what he would expect to become of any luckless brother whose ill-fate had led him to consume these specimens of smoking-mixture. I am myself of a mild and enduring disposition; but I will not guarantee my continued devotion to the Nicotian cause, should my pouch and pipe be habituated to this sort of thing. I am—let me avow it honestly—of a forbearing turn of mind, having outgrown the fiery and passionate conceits of youth, and accreted such moderate acquaintance with my own frail virtues as inclines me to look gently on the misdeeds of my neighbours; but if any Tobacconist shall palm off these compounds upon me, it shall go hard, but I will “ have the law of him.” The mildest-mannered and the sanest man that ever tapped a snuff-boxlid would lose his reason and give way to Hugh Mason-like delirium of rage, were his nostrils titillated with such snuff as this, which was seized in the Borough Road:—“The powder consists of a mixture of finely-ground Tobacco, sulphur, and asafoetida.” Nor would the knowledge that the vendor was find £50 for thus tampering with the olfactory nerves of his countrymen suffice to restore such an one to his right mind. Reynolds would have a successor, and Trask would be avenged. The mental and social and political aberrations of Irishmen cease to be inexplicable when we know that 188| lbs. of “Tobacco” was seized in one shop in Dublin, “adulturated with lamp-black”; that the “colouring matter” obtained in a Sligo seizure of roll Tobacco consists of lamp-black, oil, and glue; and that a sample taken from 3 cwt. of Tobacco-stalks at Londonderry can be thus described: —“Partly coated with carbonate of lime, and that brushed off
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the stalks gave 1*7 per cent, oxide of lime. Total oxides of calcium and magnesium obtained from stalks was 10*20 per cent. Total oxides found in stalks after adhering lime had been brushed off was 8*50 per cent.” Even the mathematician whose duty it was to give the results of the analysis in decimals was thrown off his balance by this revelation. When the habit of recording percentages as “10*20” and “8*50” is added to the eccentricities of Irishmen, let us, in all charity, remember these oxides of calcium and magnesium. “Call no man happy till he is dead,” said the melancholy sage; and the reflection that while the man still lives he may come across such “Tobacco” as this, gives a fine point to the maxim. I count it amongst the possibilities that the adulterators of Tobacco have thus far escaped Scriptural denunciation by a mere verbal accident. The name by which they were known in Palestine has unfortunately been diverted from its original significance. We know what minatory vehemence the Scribes and Pharisees expended on the “Publicans and Sinners.” The average Good Templar is convinced that the “Publicans” in Judea were beersellers and lords of the gin-palace; and, as for me, I make bold to opine (without conscious obligation to any Biblical Dictionary or Commentary whatsoever) that the “Sinners” were “licensed to sell Tobacco and snuff.”
And this reminds me that I have been unable to decide whether the Scribes and Pharisees were Tobacco-manufacturers or officers of the Excise. The evidence is somewhat conflicting. I will submit it to the impartial judgment of my readers, and abide with composure their sapient verdict. It is written [Pray excuse the omission of chapter and verse; for there be readers who will be profited by the necessity to search for the passages in their proper place] “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites I for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.” And, in another place, “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment,” &c. By process of comparative exegesis, I am inclined to the opinion that these unworthy scions of the house of Israel were mulct in fines for “mint and anise and cummin; ” and, with this poor foot of solid ground to furnish fulcrum for my logical lever, I proceed to identify the Scribes and Pharisees with the poisoners of the Herb divine. For, in the Return before me, under heading “Ireland” and date 1868, I find 21 seizures of cigarettes, taken from as many different establishments in various quantities, and in every case the Tobacco was adulterated with aniseed, in the proportion of from 15 to 79*37 per cent. What need have I to seek for traces of “mint” and “cummin?” Here is “anise” enough for the argument; and these one-and-twenty Dublin Tobacconists paid “tithe” upon it after the manner of the “hypocrites” of old. But if the reader must perversely argue that the Scribes and Pharisees more likely took than paid the tithe, suggesting thus their closer relationship to the officers of Excise than to the convicted adulterators, I will not cavil with him. Only, I cannot follow out the analogy so easily; because it is hard to say that the Inland Revenue Executive omits “the weightier matters of the law.” For example—is not starch a “weightier matter of the law?”— considering the purpose with which it was used in scores of the instances recorded in this record of misdeeds. Here, upon one page, I find seizures amounting to 2589 lbs. of Tobacco, of the value of about £400, condemned, with fines inflicted to the amount of £280, and law expenses incurred beyond exact reckoning, because of percentages of starch in roil Tobacco and Cavendish—the use of starch being simply the attraction it offers to moisture, which moisture increases at once the weight of the Tobacco and the profits of the dealer. On another page, a single seizure made at Bandon brought upon the dealer a loss of £450 in value and £75 in fines, for the same cause; and upon another page a series of Irish seizures, amounting to over 25,000 lbs. of roll Tobacco, may be estimated at a value of £3900, to which must be added fines amounting to £837, and uncomputed law costs;—which is “weightier” matter enough for those who pay, and for those who have smoked and chewed. Sugar, logwood, gum, table-salt, liquorice, lime leaves, ink and oil, sand, ground glass, and baked and powdered pipe-clay may all be passed as of the same category, more or less; and for taking tithe of these, we may wish the Pharisees of the Excise God-speed. Scribes may be forgiven for taking heavy tithe upon Scotch snuff of this sort, which was seized at Edinburgh in 1874:— “ Sample contains oxide of iron. Adulteration, if calculated on the snuff as sold (containing an excess of moisture and alkaline salts), amounts to ^ per cent, of oxide of iron, equivalent to about 1 per cent, of the Venetian red or red ochre, said to have been used. If calculated on the quantity of normal snuff present, adulteration amounts to 1-^ per cent, oxide of iron, equivalent to about 2T% per cent, of Venetian red or red ochre.”
And the number of instances here given—though small—of fine and imprisonment for selling or possessing those vilest of “infernal machines” known as “explosive cigars,” might incline the stingiest smoker to forgive the exactions of the Excise upon the article of Tobacco itself.
Is not my “Mixture” mixed enough? Then let me add this complicated problem:—Why do the governing authorities tax pure Tobacco more heavily than its adulteration? The severest penalty inflicted upon the adulteration falls far short
of the lightest impost levied upon the importer of real Tobacco-leaf. And herein lies the secret of all these frauds— the tax upon Tobacco is so heavy as to .provoke, to enforce, and almost to excuse all these infractions of the law for which Tobacconists are brought to judgment, and exposed in parliamentary returns. Let the sin lie at the right door. Settle as may seem best the proper application of the scathing epithets—“ Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! ”—the whole story of the relation between Tobacco and the Revenue of Great Britain is as “mixed” as the most fiendish lover of paradox could desire. And the conclusion of the whole matter may fairly be that the smoker had best take his Tobacco plain, as does
Youb Man-of-all-Wobk.
®^ "Wwb” in IW
[From the Pall Mall Gazette, Feb. 11, 1878.]
Rome, Feb. 5.
King Humbebt has been unfortunate enough at the beginning of his reign to have to approve two unpopular measures. The first was the amnesty, which let loose many bad characters. The second is an increase in the price of Tobacco. It is true this increase is of no great amount; but it represents some 20 per cent, on the old price; and, in a land where the unit of currency is the tenth of a paper penny, to pay six centimes instead of five for a cigar seems a great hardship. What rubbish those cigars are, too! All sorts of extraneous and unlooked-for substances find their way into them—long hairs, nails, pins, bits of rag, splinters of wood. At various times enterprising individuals have tried to make collections of the worst specimens, but their chamber of horrors has never been large enough to hold them all. Each province has its special fancy in Tobacco. In the north the kinds of cigars most affected are the Cavours—perhaps the best sort made: small, almost black, tight-rolled cigars, not so very bad after they have been kept a good while—and Sellas, which, like the Cavours, are of course called after the Minister who introduced them. Tuscany prefers “Toscane” (long, thin cigars of uncertain shape, but never straight, considerably stronger than Cavours); or “Virginias,” still longer, still more uncertain in shape, with a straw running through them, which is kept plugged by a grass stalk till the cigar is lighted. This class is so well known to require careful treatment that the cigars are never smoked till about an inch of the end has been burned off in a candle to get rid of some of the gas. Rome had, and has in a debased form, its “ scelti,” or picked, and its “forti,” or strong cigars—the former a straw-coloured, inoffensive weed; the latter, tight-rolled at each end, not belying its name, and requiring incessant drawing to keep it alight. Sicily, which only last year came under the general monopoly, smoked very short and strong cigars made of native-grown Tobacco of the coarsest description. Bologna had its special manufacture too; and when Italy became united, the Government found itself in possession of some millions of its cigars, which were eventually sold at a ridiculously low price on condition that they were not to be retailed in the kingdom. They passed from hand to hand, leaving each seller a small profit, and samples were sent all over the world to find out where they could best be sold. But they found favour nowhere till South America was tried. The large Italian colony there, tempted by the low price and the flavour of home about them, bought up the lot. In 1875 Signor Minghetti, when in power, tried to introduce a better class of cigar, something between the wretched sorts already in vogue and the Havannahs, and the result was the “Minghetti” at fifteen centimes. But these cigars did not “take;” they were issued before they had become seasoned, and the Tobacco was of such an utterly rank description that they disgusted people at starting, and it is since proved that keeping scarcely improves them. The new ones to be issued now will no doubt be called Magnanis: they are to be lighter in weight for an unaltered price. Of Tobacco for pipes there are only one or two sorts—the “ trinciato,” or chopped, the light, and the strong. The light reminds one of chopped hay; the strong of chopped hay, with some nasty weeds in it. Then there is the so-called Turkish, which is of better quality, but best in cigarettes, and the commonest sort, composed of chopped-up cigar stumps, which it must require some courage to venture on. Between the legs of men at out-door caf€s, and wherever smokers congregate, small boys dodge about in search of these stumps. Working men passing home through the streets keep a sharp look-out for the wherewithal to provide the evening pipe, and at night men with lanterns at the end of sticks hunt for cigar-ends as much as for anything else. Down in the Ghetto one may see for sale baskets full of them. Perhaps if the Tobacco were better, pipe-smoking would be more common; as it is, none but the working classes venture on a pipe out of doors. I remember a beggar one evening telling another that it was useless to beg of me because I smoked a pipe. But, bad as it is, an enormous quantity is consumed, as the returns tell us. In 1875,16,900 tons of Tobacco were consumed; in 1876, 17,180 tons; and 1877 surpasses that quantity; the money value in 1876 was over 135,000,000 f.
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COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
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^lig^s at ^otoan &m Mastic.
n.
“Now, then,” said I, another evening, when we had all gathered round the fire, “I will tell you a yarn that will make your flesh creep. I call it—
“The Author—a Terrible Tale.”
PART I.—THE JUICE OF THE POPPY.
The author sat dumb, in his low-backed chair, His brow deeply furrowed with the finger of care; While his soul, you could see, was swamped in despair. Book-lined were the walls, book-littered the floor, For books you could scarcely get in at the door, So vast was this author’s granary of lore.
But why sits he dumb, and what makes him stare?
And why are his fingers entwined in his hair ?
I will tell you all about it, reader, very shortly, if you will only permit me to take prose to it. Writing verses is like learning to skate; you must take short flights to begin with, or else you are apt to get mixed among the feet.
Well, then, this poor unhappy wretch of an author had been sitting there all the evening, scribbling—or, to speak more correctly, trying to scribble. He was entirely oblivious to everything around him. For the time being he bad, as Hans Breit-mann says, “ retired mitin himself.” Hours ago his landlady —for he dwelt in a two-pair back—had come in with his supper. It was a prime bloater, and as she placed it on the table, “Now, sir,” she remarked, for she was a good-hearted creature, “try and eat a bit, sir, it’ll do you good; besides, it positively wouldn't keep another day.” The author stared at her, through her, but I’m sure he didn’t see her.
He was straining for an idea.
And there lay the supper before him now, inviting enough, in all conscience—unheeded, nevertheless.
There wasn’t a sound to be heard in all the house. The other lodgers had long gone to bed. The Yankee clock on the mantelpiece had run down at three, the cat had ceased singing, and was fast asleep on the footstool; a mouse was perched on its hind legs in one corner of the room, washing its face, only pausing occasionally to make faces, or “take sights” at the cat. So dreary and still was it, and the fire, too, had gone out, and the white ashes on the partly burned coal looked far from cheerful.
Reams of foolscap lie at the author’s elbow, a broad sheet was spread out before him; but, alas 1 alas 1 no words were there.
At last he sprang up, banged his fist on the table, “I’ve struggled,” he cried, “as long as I’m able.
It’s no blessed use, it’s no blooming go, I can’t get another idea to flow.
My novel is flagging, the interest is dead, I don’t believe there are brains in my head. My critique is unfinished, bo’s my stuff for the * Mag.; ’ And the editor, too, such a deuce of a 1 nag.’
Egad I but I wish now that Marwood would string me, For well do I know what to-morrow will bring me: A host of young devils, all shrieking for copy—
But stop, ha! I have it!
Yes! shade of De Quincey—the juice of the poppy!”
It was a very happy thought, reader, you must confess. The great De Quincey was a rapid writer, and he wrote under the influence of opium. If he could, why couldn’t he?—i.e.t if the great he, De Quincey to wit, could, why couldn’t the little he, our author, do the same? The cupboard door stood handy enough, and a phial was in it, filled with that seductive brown tincture which has slain so many poor wretches, even in England. Only thirty drops from that phial—thirty tiny drops; but what a change it wrought in our author! No lack of ideas now. His pen flew wildly over the paper; hardly could he write fast enough; page after page of MS. fluttered downwards to the floor, but still he wrote on—wrote on till he had finished his critique, and a slasher it was; finished his “Mag.” paper, and written his novel three chapters ahead of the printer’s devil. Then he threw himself on his bed, and dreamt of future greatness and literary glory.
For weeks and months our author lived a most happy life. Whenever he felt dull, or stupid, or ideas wouldn’t come, why, he had only to take a little more of the juice of the poppy. Fact is, though, he was drawing upon Nature, and Nature is very kind; she’ll give you credit, but when the day of reckoning comes she’ll have her pound of flesh, and there is no Daniel that can prevent her. Our author’s day came. His nervous system began to “ peg out,” as he called it. He could hardly get enough work out of his brains to keep body and soul together. Neither was what he did write up to the mark. His poetry waxed pappy, his sentiment maudlin, and his wit wanted point. Then matters grew worse; the opium fiend had him well in hand, and was hurrying him on and on to destruction. At first this fiend had lured him on and on with dreams of beauty, both by night and day; but now came a change. By day he felt cold and cheerless and wretched. This was bad enough; but, soon as he had laid himself down in bed, slumber crept over his senses sure enough, but what terrible slumber it was! He was wandering wearily among rocks and crags, and by gloomy lakes and tarns, or peeping fearfully over the edges of precipices down into gulfs, while slimy monsters crept and crawled, or stretched their alligator arms
towards him and tried to pull him in. And he ever, ever, had some strange task to perform, which he found impossible, or some journey to make, the goal of which he never could reach. Time, too, in those dreams, seemed interminable; and when he awoke in the morning, haggard and worn, and looked back to the night he had spent, he seemed to have been in hell for a thousand years. And the impression of those terrible dreams haunted him all day, and saddened every hour of his waking life. Let us drop the curtain over this portion of the author’s existence.
PART IL—VINOUS STIMULATION.
Scene.—An editor’s room; the venerable editor seated at the table. Our author standing beside it, holding in his hand a roll of MS. Our author looks thinner and whiter than of yore; he looks, moreover, somewhat fishy in the eyes, like a cod that wanted cooking. His greasy black surtout is buttoned close up to the chin. I fear there is no shirt beneath.
The Editor.—“My dear boy, I really cannot assist you. I cannot accept stuff that is unsuitable for the requirements of the magazine.”
The Author.—“’quirementso’themagazine? eh? My stuff used to please ye? eh?”
The Editor.—“Ah! yes; in the halcyon days when you didn’t drink.”
The Author.—“Halcyon days be d—d! I’ll take my stuff to a better market.”
And the author purses up his mouth in a most determined manner, and marches off proudly, but somewhat unsteadily, to take his stuff to a better market. Did he find it ? Not just then, I fear. But what has happened to our author since last we saw him? Only this: the opium fiend had shaken him so frequently over the evil place, that, with the strength and courage of despair, he at last shook himself free and abjured the damning drug for ever. “But,” said he to himself, “I must have a stimulant, I can’t get on without a stimulant;” so he took to drinking, by way of helping his ideas to flow; by degrees, of course—nobody goes down hill all at once. He began in the most approved style, by taking little nips and pegs, by way of keeping himself up to his work. Now, I’m not going to make a teetotal lecture out of our author—far from it. Vinous stimulants were no doubt given to us for a good purpose, and we should use but never abuse. Nothing, in my opinion, can be alleged as a proper excuse for getting drunk. Not even the fact of his having been penned up for forty days in the ark, justified old Noah in making a beast of himself when he got on shore. Had he belonged to the Royal Navy, he would have been tried by court-martial as sure as shot. But doubtless next day found old Noah sober and sorry for it. Let us rather look at our author through the spectacles of the physiologist. Champagne, then, he never drank—he said it wouldn’t run to it. Wine soon palled on his palate—it wasn’t exciting enough to work upon. So he tried a course of sodas and brandies; but, as he got poorer, he had to give up the soda and take the brandy neat. Result, at the end of three months: pimples, red nose, red eyes, white face, and fidgets; and precious little work done. Then he remembered that Byron did “ Don Juan ” on gin. Took to gin. Result, after three months: whiter face, redder nose, eyes turned yellow; does less work than ever. Discovered one day that his liver had evidently been paying a visit to the shoemaker, for it felt to the touch as if it were covered with hob-nails.* Then he remembered the intellectual fire of Burns, and took to whisky. Alas! alas! this about finished him; and he found out, when almost too late, that fusel-oil isn’t the stuff to grease the wheels of life with. The powers of his mind about this time were quite on a par with the feebleness of his body. Example: returning one day from a palace [gin] where a coal-heaver had favoured him with a black eye, he remarked to an inquiring friend: “Oh! I’ve been perushing Ally Shloper, and got Iky Moses on the eye, that’shall.”
One stormy night in winter he returned home to his miserable diggings, because he hadn’t a cent in his pocket to buy another drop of Scotch. He was very cold, too, and his thin coat had been but small protection against the sleet, and there wasn’t enough fire in the grate to have roasted a rat. There was but little food in the house either, and only about a quartern of spirits, which he meant to use before turning in. So he sat himself down, and began to bemoan his hard lot. And this is his moan:—
THE AUTHOR—HIS MOAN.
\N.B.—This must not be spoken; it should be wept.] “Oh! pity me, pity me! what should I drink?
I’m so very weak, I feel ready to sink.
My poor skin is burning, my heart cold as lead, I’ve a terrible pain on the top of my head.
I must drink, tho’ it’s killing me; if I stop it I’m done, For D. T.’s would end me, as sure as a gun.
Even now, I feel so shaky, and as queer as enough, And I keep seeing things, too, though I know it’s all stuff. No, I can’t give it up; good angel, don’t stay,
I must drink, to keep the blue devils away.
And there’s no strength in beer, and that cussed brown stout Makes me so owly, that I can’t get about.
As for whisky, my poor stomach begins to reject it, And latterly—Heigho-hoo!—I’ve had to inject it!
Ah-h-h-h!”
* Cirrhosis, or gin-drinker’s liver.
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It was a wild, unearthly, terrified scream with which the author wound up his lament, for there, in the corner, with its eyes turned upon him, stood a figure in black. The curtain drops on the second situation.
PART HI.—ANTI-ISM.
The author thought the dark figure in the corner was the devil; perhaps so did you, reader; but no, not quite so bad as that—it was only an anti.
“ Young man,” said the anti, in a terribly solemn voice, every second word he spoke ending in a tall die-away whine. “Young ma-an, do not fear me-e, I come from the Lo-ord.”
“Lord who?” quivered the author; “oh! pray wait till I get a fight.”
“ I come to pluck you as a bra-and from the bu-urning.”
“Pray don’t talk of burning!” cried the poor author, shaking all over like the leaves of the linn; “do let me light the candle.”
When the author did at last succeed in lighting the candle, there certainly was very little in the appearance of the stranger to cause alarm. Tall he was, and dressed dissenting-like, and carried an unnecessarily large Bible under one arm, while with the other he pointed heavenward. As he raised his voice, his eyes usually followed suit; his face was white, his lips sensual and wreathed in a soft, oily smile. Such was the anti.
“Look at me-e,” he cried, “behold me well. I drink not, neither do I smoke; yet look at me-e. But I know in whom I have tru-usted. M-m-m! ”
He shook his head as he said “M-m-m!” meaning to imply that the amount of self-satisfaction, and internal peace and joy, he possessed, could not be measured by words. “M-m-m!”
“Young ma-an,” he continued, “will you retu-urn to the paths of virtue ? Will you fly-y with me from the wrath to co-ome?”
“Yes, like a shot,” said the unhappy author; “have you any money?”
“ Talk not of mo-ney, young ma-an; everything is free-e in the land you’re going to.”
Now, seeing the weak state of the author’s nerves, it is little wonder that, after two hours’ preaching from such an anti as this, he was induced to promise anything. Before he left, the anti even pocketed his last poor quartern of spirits. “Remove far from me tempta-ation,” said the anti. “M-m-m!”
What a night of sleepless terror our poor author passed, may the reader never know! The blue-devils were all about him now. His very clothes assumed all kinds of terrible shapes; faces gibbered at him from the wall; snakes rippled swiftly and silently across the carpet, or came on to the bed and hid in the clothes; and myriads of cockroaches swarmed all over him and wouldn’t be kept off, beat them as he would. Once only he closed his eyes, but woke again speedily, shrieking, and wet with perspiration. But at ten next morning he fell into a sweet refreshing sleep, which might have cured him had he been permitted to enjoy it.
“Young ma-an, awake, and sing prai-ise for your deliverance from the bonds of death and si-n.”
The anti succeeded perfectly in driving the author into a fever, from which he recovered, not health, but consciousness, three weeks afterwards.
But it was no part of the anti’s plans to let the author escape scot free. “Young ma-an,” he said, with a heavenly smile, “young ma-an, M-m-m! You are about to depart to happier spheres. Behold, I have already tied up your jaw. [It was only too true; the anti had tied up the author’s jaw with a blue cotton handkerchief, and he certainly did look the picture of death, trussed up in this fashion.] And now, ere you depart, pray lend a trifle, or leave but your clothes, to the po-or but glo-orious Society of Antis, and--”
“Oh!” groaned the author, with all the emphasis he could command; “If I could but rise, wouldn’t I kick you out!”
PART IV.—“REEK” AND REASON.
“I would kick you out, groaned the author.
“Keep your mind easy, my boy, ril do that little job for you.” The voice was as hale and hearty as the sturdy form and manly face it issued from. An old friend of the author’s just returned from sea in the very nick of time. One glance at the poor author did the sailor take; one glance,’ and but one, at the miserable anti. “Come along, old Frozengills! ” said Captain Burn’em, and surely no anti was ever so neatly kicked out of doors before, and no cur ever ever submitted to his punishment so cringingly as this anti did. The Captain seized him with finger and thumb by the collar of the loose coat, which expanded till it almost hid his head, tripped lightly with him to the door, and just lightly touched him behind with the toe of his polished boot—not fair and square, as a navvy would have done, but with the foot turned round edgeways. Yes, it was prettily done. But this was the last that was ever seen of that anti. Then the Captain returned to his friend; and, like a true sailor, he stuck to him, nursed and fed him, gave him money and clothed him, and finally taught him to smoke. “There’s reason in “reek,’ ’’said Burn’em; “ ’Baccy’s my narcotic.”
Six months after this our author stood with his friend on Southampton Pier. He was seeing him off to sea. But what a change in our author! His jaw doesn’t need any tying up now. He is hale and hearty and jolly. He has plenty of work to do, and is respected by every editor who knows him.
“Good-bye, Burn’em!” said the author, pulling his meerschaum from his mouth, and drawing his sleeve rapidly across his eyes as he spoke. “God bless you! my boy,” said Burn’em; “there’s reason in ‘reek,’ ain’t there? Ha, ha, ha! Good-bye! ”
And away went the ship, and away went Burn’em.
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
®^c ^jaunhir &at
As a proof that spiritualism presents something to its devotees beyond raps, the turning of tables, floating of objects in the air, &c., something beyond even spiritual appearances of the dead to the living, I take upon myself to relate the following extraordinary occurrence.
I should like all inquirers into spiritualism to peruse an account of some “Haunted Furniture” in the Spiritualist of September 1st, 1873.
The furniture in question is haunted by the spirits of its former owners, who were very bad people; and in consequence of this the furniture becomes a curse to those who were unfortunate enough to purchase it.
The strongest moral to be found in the narrative is, “Avoid buying second-hand furniture; ” but the account is extremely interesting.
My story is quite unlike the story of the haunted furniture; but, inasmuch as they are both rather outside the experience of the ordinary spiritualist, I have thought fit to bring them slightly into connection with each other.
The story of the Haunted Cat is as follows:—
A friend of mine had the misfortune to lose by death his little son Thomas, a bright and vivacious lad of thirteen years of age. A few days after the sad event I called, accompanied by my own little daughter, to pay a visit of condolence to the sorrowing father, and found him in deep trouble. After an hour’s sympathetic communion, I rose to bid him good-bye. My little daughter had been amusing herself playing on the hearthrug with a sleek black cat; and when I called her she came toddling to me, holding Pussy in her arms.
At sight of the cat the father of the deceased lad broke into a torrent of grief, and sobbed out: “Take it away! take it away! I cannot bear the sight of it; it was poor Tommy’s.”
As my little daughter seemed to like the creature, and the sad father wished to lose sight of it, I accepted the cat as a gift and conveyed it home in a basket, much to the delight of my little one. In a few days the cat got accustomed to its new home, and became a playmate for my children.
Christmas Eve came just about one month after the entrance of the cat into my family, and on that evening several male friends dropped in for an hour or two’s relaxation. Seated amongst these, with cheering grog and pipe, little did I dream of what was to come. We joked and sang, told tales and guessed riddles, made a snap-dragon for the youngsters, and altogether spent a pleasant evening. As soon as twelve o’clock struck, and Christmas Day became a present reality, we sang “Auld Lang Syne” and, with good wishes, separated.
About two o’clock in the morning I was suddenly wakened from my slumbers by what appeared to my startled sense of hearing to be the shrieks of a victim to the murderer’s knife. The dreadful sound came from the lower part of the house, and roused my wife and myself at the same moment.
We lay trembling at the hideous outcry, fearing to hear it again, and yet half-hoping to, so that we might be able, being now well awake, to determine its origin.
Presently it rang out again, and, though terrible in its anguish, we could not fail to recognise the fact that it proceeded from the cat. The second cry was followed by complaining squalls, indignant meows, and an infinity of feline swearing. Then the entertainment was varied by the flight of the animal all over the lower part of the house. We heard pots go, and plates smash; saucepans went bowling over, and fireirons rattled. “Oh! my poor crockery!” sobbed my wife; “ my poor crockery! ”
I could stand it no longer; so, arming myself with a heavy stick and a lighted candle, and clad in the cool and simple attire I wore at night, I descended the stairs to seek our “harmless, necessary cat,” that seemed to have suddenly gone distracted.
By this time all the household had become alarmed; the children were crying, the girl from the garret was tremblingly poking her head over the stair rail, while my terrified wife was giving short notice of hysterics.
As I descended the stairs the clatter suddenly ceased with a final feline curse of extraordinary magnitude, which was extinguished in a sudden and unusual manner.
When I arrived in the kitchen I found it in great disorder, in fact completely demoralised. A lamp that had been left standing on the table now lay on the floor smashed, and I found myself in a foot-bath of oil and broken glass, which, to { say the least of it, was not pleasant. I hastily wiped my feet / and placed them in slippers; then continued my inspection. J Quite a dozen plates lay smashed about the place; saucepans ' were strewed about in disorder; the blind was torn down,, from the window, and the table cover, with five or sixtl tumblers, was on the floor. The whole place, in fact, seemecyl wrecked.
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But where was the cat? I searched all about, and called “Puss! puss! puss!” but with no success. This rather alarmed me; I feared that the cat had really gone mad, and might suddenly spring on me from her hiding-place. I felt inclined to beat a retreat, but decided on looking into the oven, the door of which stood partly open. I stooped down in a hesitant, shivering manner and peered into its dark recesses, when a heavy black body darted out of the kitchen chimney and struck me violently in the stomach. This was the cat, and proved too much for my nerves; for the beast came at me with such an awful screech, and was so soot-laden, that visions of hydrophobia of the fearfullest description rushed into my mind in a moment; so, with a shriek that outdid the cat entirely, I turned and fled. The force with which the animal had struck me upset her under the grate, Bnd I in my terror threw candle and candlestick at her, so that I had a little start. Before, however, I was up three stairs, I found to my dismay that the brute was after me, and she was all among mv legs as I rushed into my own room. I flew on to the bed, followed or accompanied by the cat. I pulled the clothes over my head with a jerk, and commenced kicking like a wild horse, hoping to kick the creature oil; but my horror can be better imagined than described, when I found the palpitating fiend was in bed with me, and actually licking the calf of my leg! I shrieked out to my wife, and we bounded simultaneously from the bed; then I made a dash at the bedclothes, hoping to smother the horrid monster. But, no! she sprang from the bed, and tore out of the room upstairs to the bedroom of the servant. Luckily the girl had opened her window to cry for help, if necessary, and out flew the cat on to some neighbouring tiles, rushed frantically away into the night, and so disappeared for ever. . There was no more sleep for us that night. What with oil and soot, my bed was in a dreadful state. I spent a long time examining myself to discover if I had been bitten, and found to my great joy that I had escaped that calamity. The remainder of the night was occupied in comforting my wife and children; the former constantly threatening me with hysterics and the latter with convulsions. How grateful to me was an occasional pipe of Tobacco through those weary hours, I scarce need to say. As I eould not explain this mysterious affair, I determined to do as I had often done before in difficult matters, viz., seek an explanation from the supernatural world. I may here remark that nearly all occurrences of a mysterious nature might be explained, if the person or persons to whom an explanation is due would condescend to throw aside all stupid prejudices and consult an honest spiritualist. I, being at that time well instructed in the supernatural, consulted a spirit I was on excellent terms with ; and I shall conclude the relation of this strange incident with the explanation given, and shall write the actual words used by the resident medium at the Spiritual Exchange and Psychological Bazaar, Southampton Row. They are as follows:— “The cat which has been the source of so much alarm to yourself and your household, was lately in the possession of a family, one member of which was a lad named Thomas. “Thomas has recently joined us in the land of spirits, and now occupies a position in rather a low sphere. On the earth he was far from being a humane lad; he delighted in pulling the wings from flies and the legs from spiders, &c. He would tie a kettle or cracker to the tail of a dog, and rejoice in the discomfort of the poor animal. The cat you brought away from the bereaved household belonged to this cruel lad, and was by him subjected to every species of indignity. He would harness it to the coal scuttle, and whip it round the kitchen with the toasting fork. He would imprison its feet in walnut shells, and conceal cayenne pepper in bread and butter, so as to torment it inwardly as well as outwardly. “When Thomas departed from earth the cat was very glad, but its gladness was of short duration. Some few of what you call days were occupied on Thomas’s entry into his new life by various matters: his initiation into his new duties, his curiosity as to his new home, &c. Then his old feelings returned to him, and he longed for his cat again. He was puzzled for some little time by its change of residence, but eventually found out its abode. Then, in the dead of night, he entered your kitchen and found the cat. “Curious as it may seem, he had all his old powers of torturing left, without being visible to the animal; so that when he violently seized her ears, or dragged her by the tail, the poor thing had not even the satisfaction of seeing enough of her tormentor to scratch or bite. “ Thomas went to such an extent with his pullings and pinch-ings that the cat grew absolutely frantic, and raced madly about the place pursued by this inhuman spirit. At last she took refuge in the chimney, and Thomas’s spirit let her rest for awhile. He was, of course, invisible to you from his own choice. “Being actuated by mischief, he waited until you were in a favourable position, when he went to the roof, and, as it *ere, poured himself head first down the chimney, and made a fresh attack upon the cat. Of course, the frightened creature bounded forth, and pursued you for safety, and not to hurt or alarm you. “Had you edlowed the cat to remain in bed with you, all had been well, as your good mediumship would have sufficed, aided by your wife’s electricity and your own powerful magnetism, to keep at bay the bad spirit of Thomas.	“The poor cat burst an important blood-vessel in its flight, and is dead. “Thomas’s spirit has been severely reprimanded for its cruelty, and I have no doubt the reprimand will bring forth good fruits.” Such is the incident of the “ Haunted Cat,” related without exaggeration, and told only to add testimony to the already overwhelming proofs of the curious ramifications of the supernatural.	D. Gooos. ^en Jonson. XIV.—STILL IN RELATION TO TOBACCO. [conclusion.] In the renowned Bobadill, the noble Cavalier Shift, Brisk the Fastidious, honest Abel Drugger, and the worthies we have just left in Bartholomew Fair, we have Jonson’s chief Tobacco heroes, and in connection with them is the bulk of what he has to say concerning the “sovereign herb,” so that it now remains for me but to gather up the fragments that are left, omitting the very small crumbs. In “The Devil is an Ass” (1616), Satan, warning the poor imp Pug, who burns to try his mischief on earth, that he will now find men further advanced in vice than himself, instances among many other things: “	Carmen Are got into the yellow starch, and chimney-sweepers To their Tobacco, and strong waters, Hum, Meath, and Obarni.” The former instance is merely absurd, not vicious; as for the latter, if a fact, the poor chimney-sweepers were to be sincerely feheitated. So Barnaby Rich, in his “Honestie of this Age,” published two years earlier (1614), as cited by Fairholt (p. 75, ed. 1859): “There is not so base a groome that comes into an ale-house to call for his pott, but he must have his pipe of Tobacco; for it is a commodity that is nowe as vendible in every taverne, wine, and ale-house, as eyther wine, ale, or beare; and for apothecaries’ shops, grocers’ shops, chandlers’ shops, they are (almost) never without company, that from morning till night are still taking of Tobacco. What a number are there besides, that doe keepe houses, set open shoppes, that have no other trade to live by, but by the selling of Tobacco.” The only other mention in this play goes to confirm the first. Fitz.dottrel is pretending to be bewitched, gnashing, foaming (with soap), and raving, Sir Paul Eitherside, a lawyer and justice, with others, watching him. One asks, “What does he now, sir?”— “ Sib P. E.	Shew The taking of Tobacco, with which the devil Is so delighted. “Frrz.	Hum!	. “ Sib P. E. And calls for hnm. You takers of strong waters and Tobacco, Mark this.” This is the second foolish justice we have had condemning Tobacco. The censure of some people is the best praise they can give; and the weed is truly honoured when denounced by the Devil himself, who is the Father of Lies, and by a lawyer whose name is Eitherside, and who is so poor at that, as our cousins have it, that he is solemnly taken in by a very gull counterfeiting demoniac possession. The Induction to the “Staple of News” (1625, rct. 52) introduces us to the poet in person, “rolling himself up and down like a tun.” There is no allusion to Tobacco worth remarking in this comedy, but one of Gifford’s notes has both a Nicotian and a Jonsonian interest. Several of the characters, including ladies, dine together in the renowned Apollo of the Devil Tavern, “at brave Dick Wadloe’s,” the convivial throne-room or royal banqueting-hall of rare old Ben and his courtly Club, he being perpetual Chairman or President. Gifford observes: “From the manner in which Marmion (an enthusiastic admirer of Jonson) speaks of his entertainment there, it may be safely concluded that an admission to it was a favour of no ordinary kind.” He then quotes the following brave passage from Marmion’s “Fine Companion,” remarking that “the boon Delphic god” was our poet himself:— “Caseless.	I am full Of oracles, I am come from Apollo— “ Emilia.	From Apollo! “ Careless.	From the heaven Of my delight, where the boon Delphic god Drinks sack and keeps his Bacchanalia, And has his incense, and his altars smoking, And speaks in sparkling prophecies ; thence I come, My brain* perfumed with the rich Indian vapour. And heightened with conceits. From tempting beauties, From dainty music, and poetic strains, From bowls of nectar, and umbrosiac dishes, From witty varhts, fine companions, And from a mighty continent of pleasure. Sails thy brave Careless.” Among the extravagant intelligence furnished to the “ Staple of News” there is actually an anticipation of the fish-torpedo! “They write here, one Cornelius-Son, Hath made the Hollanders an invisible cel To swim the haven at Dunkirk, and sink all The shipping there.” It has been more or less facetiously remarked that Shakespeare’s first gravedigger must have had queer notions of economy when he assured Hamlet “ a tanner will last you
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nine year.” In Act V., Sc. 2, of this play there is an exquisite dissertation, overlong to quote now, by a miserly usurer, on on the enormity of wasting sixpence but once a year.
In the “New Inn,” whose absurd plot is redeemed for the reader by some excellent writing, the lady who for long years incredibly counterfeits a drunken Irish nurse, says of one of the guests:
“He tank so desperate and so debausht, So bandy like a courtier and a lord, God bless him, one that tak’th Tobacco.”
' And in the rude revelry of the “ militia below stairs” Jordan the chamberlain is dubbed “Lieutenant of the ordnance, Tobacco and pipes.”
The “Magnetic Lady; or, Humours Reconciled” (1632), has, I believe, but a single mention of Tobacco. At the close of Act III. Damplay, one of the critical Chorus, which Ben was fond of introducing, replies to his companion and contrast, Probee:—
“I care not for marking the play; Hl damn it, talk, and do that I come for. I will not have gentlemen lose their privilege, nor I myself my prerogative, for never an overgrown or superannuated poet of them all. He ahall not give me the law: I will censure and be witty, and take my Tobacco, and enjoy my Magna Chart# of reprehension, as my predecessors have done before me.”
There are several interesting allusions in this play to the poet himself and his earlier works; being then in his sixtieth year he indulged in the retrospection and expansiveness of age. In the Induction, the Boy of the House (Black Friars), who is the third member of the Chorus, says:—
“ The author beginning his studies of this kind with * Every Man in his Humour; ’ and after, ‘ Every Man out of his Humour; ’ and since continuing in all his plays, especially those of the comic thread, whereof the ‘New Inn’ was the last, some recent humours still, or manners of men, that went along with the times; finding himself now near the close, or shutting up, of his circle, hath fancied to himself in idea this ‘ Magnetic Mistress ’ ... to draw thither a diversity of guests, all persons of different humours, to make up his perimeter. And this he hath called * Humours Reconciled.’ ”
No better definition of the leading idea of the greater part of his comedies could be given than is thus furnished by old Ben himself, who always knew as thoroughly what he meant to do as how to do it, composing not by impulse, but with settled purpose and plan.
When the nature of Parson Palate has been expounded by Master Compass in rhyme (as Tennyson, in one of his later poems expounds that of the unctuous hypocrite and swindler who ever slimed his victims ere he gorged), his brother, Captain Ironside, asks, “Who made this Epigram, you?” and Compass replies, “No, a great clerk As any of his bulk, Ben Jonson made it.” (Act I., Sc. 1). In the interlude of the Chorus between Acts I. and H., Probee asks the Boy, who has spoken of “ any velvet lethargy in the house,” a phrase whose import actors will keenly appreciate:—
“ Why do you maintain your poet’s quarrel so with velvet and good clothes, boy ? we have seen him in indifferent good clothes ere now.
“ Bov.—Ay, and may do in better, if it please the king his master to say Amen to it, and allow it, to whom he acknowledgeth all. But his clothes shall never be the best part about him though; he will have somewhat beside either of human letters, or severe honesty, shall speak him a man, though he went naked.”
We remark likewise his old self-assertion, and his disdain for the mob, whether rich or poor, high or low. Thus in the Induction he says of himself, through the mouth of the Boy:
“He will not woo the gentile ignorance so much. But careless of all vulgar censure, as not depending on common approbation, he is confident it ■hall super-please judicious spectators, and to them he leaves it to work with the rest, by example or otherwise.”
But Jonson was never quite so haughty and contemptuous as his friend and fellow “gnomic poet” and dramatist, about fifteen years before him in life, only three in death, George Chapman. Our fiery and dauntless translator of Homer thus ends the dedication of the first of his poems, “The Shadow of Night ” (1594, set. 35-6): “So preferring thy allowance in this poor and strange trifle, to the passport of a whole City of others, I rest as resolute as Seneca, satisfying myself if but a few, if one, or if none like it.” And as a postscript to the “ Gloss ” on the first of its two Hymns he writes: “For the rest of his own invention, figures and similes, touching their aptness and novelty, he hath not laboured to justify them, because he hopes they will be proved enough to justify themselves, and prove sufficiently authentical to such as understand them; for the rest, God help them [for the poet evidently will not, interjects Mr. Swinburne in citing this passage], I cannot do as others, make day seem a lighter woman than she is, by painting her.” Again, in his dedication of "Ovid’s Banquet of Sense” (1595) to the same “truly learned and very worthy Friend ” Master Matthew Roydon, he declares: “ The profane multitude I hate, and only consecrate my strange poems to those searching spirits, whom learning hath made noble, and nobility sacred.” See also the dedications of the tragedies, “ The Revenge of Bussy d’Ambois ” and “ Caesar and Pompey.”*
* I remarked in the second of these papers that Gifford quite loses his head and foams at the mouth when the Monarchy or Church is in question. Jonson’s Puritans in the “Alchemist” and “Bartholomew Fair” made fine targets for virulent invective; but a note to this drama is about as good a brief specimen of his ravings in one of these paroxysms as I remember. Bias, a vi-politic, or sub-secretary, says (Act HI., Sc. 4):—
“ Sir, the corruption of one thing in nature Is held the generation of another— ”
This theory of equivocal generation had passed out of fashion before Gifford’s time (see one of his notes on “Alchemist ” II. 1, vol. II. p. 27), but he could not contain himself. Thus he burst out:—“ There is nothing new under the sun! This is precisely the principle on which that great philosopher Dr. Darwin [really scientific versifier of the ‘Loves of the Plants,’ grandfather of our great author of the ‘ Origin of Species’], and those humane admirers of the French Revolution up to a certain point, Price, Priestley,
“A Tale of a Tub” (1633) should be especially interesting to all North-Londoners, the scene being Finsbury Hundred, and the dramatis persona belonging to Pancras, Totten-Court, Maribone, Kentish-town, Kilborn, Islington, Hamstead, Chal-cot; the which places, together with Canonbury, Tyburn (already a scene of dire suspense), Highgate, Paddington, are spoken of as “all the towns about here.” One of the characters says “to Kentish Town we are got at length”—riding from Totten(ham) Court! St. John’s Wood was so truly a wood that daylight brigandage could be plausibly located in its corner, a mile west through the fields from the town of Pancras; and so with the cross-ways over the country between Kentish Town and Hamstead-heath. The nominal time seems to be early in the reign of Elizabeth, as one says he beheld “King Edward our late liege and sovereign lord” ride forth in State; but the author probably wrote in accordance with his own time and experience. Most of the personages are uneducated; and, strangely enough, these all speak in a sort of west-country dialect, thus—
“ Why, ’tis thirty years, e’en as this day now, Zin Valentine’s Day, of all days kursined, look you; And the zame day o’ the month as this Zin Valentine, Or I am vowly deceived.”
The woman of my Lady Tub, of Totten Hall, speaks of the city ladies and court ladies as if the capital were far remote. Strangely enough, moreover, we read of the new year in January, though for a considerable period after Jonson’s time the old year did not end until Lady-day. Further, Hilts says to the intended bride, referring to the intended bridegroom, poor Clay, the tile-maker, who is sorely diddled:—
“----it’s true, you are a proper woman;
But to be cast away on such a clown-pipe As Clay! ”
which, if an anachronism, appears to imply that in Jonson’s days (the earlier, if not the latter) clay pipes were left to tho lower classes. The comedy, or comedy-farce, is full of genial fun, and I should think would prove popular even now on the stage, if fairly acted. The author himself says of it in the Prologue:—
“ But acts of clowns and constables to-day Stuff out the scenes of our ridiculous play.
We bring you now, to show what different things The cotes of clowns are from the courts of kings.”
It gladdens us to find our big Ben, at threescore, laughing such kindly and jolly laughter.
Lastly, for the comedies, we come to “The Case is Altered,” which, however, ought probably to have been placed second or third, as it appears to have been written in 1599. The style has a freedom and ease which are somewhat deficient in his later dramas; both form and substance come nearer to those of his best contemporaries; romance and passion are not slain outright by the keen, cold intellectual analysis of humours and affectations and charlatanisms. On the whole, I am inclined to regret with Gifford that Jonson “did not rather labour to perfect his early style than to exchange it altogether for that more severe and masculine mode of composition which he subsequently adopted.” The miser, Jaques de Prie, rich with stolen wealth, who acts the beggar for its greater security, is drawn with much power and humour: his doting ecstasies over his hidden hoard of golden crowns, his anxious suspicions that every one coming to his house must have discovered his secret, his transport of agony when he finds that his treasure has been stolen from him in turn, are true to the life in an ante-banknote miser. (But surely Peter Onion and Juniper, the cobbler, must have had some difficulty in walking off impromptu with the bulk and weight of thirty thousand golden crowns!) In Charles Lamb’s note anent this play, in the “Specimens,” he says, with his usual rich appreciation:—
“ The old poets, when they introduce & miser, make him address his gold as his mistress; as something to be seen, felt, and hugged; as capable of satisfying two of the senses at least. The substitution of a thin, unsatisfying medium in the place of the good old tangible metal has made avarice quite a Platonic affection in comparison with the seeing, touching, and handling pleasures of the old Chrysophilites. A banknote can no more satisfy the touch of a true sensualist in this passion than Creusa could return her husband’s embrace in the shades. See the ‘Cave of Mammon,’ in Spenser; Barabas’s contemplation of his wealth, in the * Rich Jew of Malta ’ [Marlowe]; Luke’s raptures in the ‘ City Madam ’ [Massinger]; the idolatry and absolute gold-worship of the miser Jaques in this early comic production of Ben Jonson's. Above all, hear Guzman, in that excellent old translation of the * Spanish Rogue,’ expatiate on the ‘ ruddy cheeks of your golden ruddocks, your Spanish pistolets, your plump and full-faced Portuguese, and your clear-skinned pieces of eight of Castile,’ which he and his fellows the beggars kept secret to themselves, and did privately enjoy in a plentiful manner. * For to have them to pay them away is not to enjoy them; to enjoy them is to have them lying by us, having no other need of them than to use them for the clearing of the eyesight and the comforting of our senses. These we did carry about with us, sewing them in some patches of our doublets near unto the heart, and as close to the skin as we could handsomely quilt them in, holding them to be restorative.’”
Ac., justified their exultation at the wholesale murder of princes and peers by a regenerative cry oi hell-hounds. The corruption of one dead king would produce a thousand worms, whose happiness, taken in the aggregate, would surpass that of the individual, and consequently prove a clear gain on the score of humanity; while the summary extermination of a perverse generation of priests and nobles, though not quite agreeable to the victims themselves, would be more than compensated to the universe in a few centuries by prodigious advances towards perfectibility, in a more tractable and philosophic race of atheists and murderers.”
How long are the pages of Jonson to be defiled by such rabid and venomous slaver? Gifford, the editor and scholast, commands our admiration and gratitude; but the sooner Gifford the High Church and State man (“ high as venison is high”) is ejected from the society of our brave old poet the better: there is surely quite enough of him and his fellows in this kind in his own “Quarterly” for even the most determined followers of Mithridates, who “ fed on poisons till they were become a sort of nutriment.”
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But our most exquisite and genial of critics has nearly made me disremember his “ Plant divine, of rarest virtue,” for whose sake he was ready to do anything but die. It is only once mentioned, Act II., Sc. 3. Aurelia the sprightly rallies her melancholy sister, Phoenixella—
“ Sister, i’ faith you take too much Tobacco, It makes you black within as you are without. What, true-stitch, sister 1 both your sides alike I”
Jonson was then but green in judgment, and, perhaps, had not yet mastered the great art of smoking, so we will excuse him for fancying that The Great Plant tends to moumfulness instead of serenity. We find a certain artlessness of youth— the youth both of the dramatist and the drama at the close of the sixteenth century—in the way in which the catastrophe is hurried and huddled. Paulo Firenze, after a short burst of indignation, pardons off-hand his false friend Angelo, who had abducted Paulo’s true-love, confided to his care. The tablet which identifies Gaspar as Camillo is ready at a moment’s notice, Chamont having carried it about him for years, conserving it secret from his bosom friend Gaspar himself.
Tobacco is mentioned but two or three times in the Masques; most significantly in that of the ‘‘Metamorphosed Gipsies,” thrice presented to King James, 1621, of which the MS. in the author’s own writing is preserved, a good fortune shared by no other of his compositions. It is very clever, graceful, and courtier-like; but we are sorry to say that, to please the counterblasting king, our poet descends to vilify Tobacco. The first mention occurs in the long famous and popular song, “Cocklorel would needs have the devil his guest.” The Tobacco stanzas are the last three, and are not in the MS., so they must have been tacked on specially for “Solomon, the son of David.” Afterwards thePatrico jingles about it in the same strain, using the same metaphor, and giving it the same accompaniments, being those of the well-known story: “Three things to which James had a dislike, and with which, he said, he would treat the devil were he to invite him to a dinner, were a pig, a poll of Ung with mustard, and a pipe of Tobacco for digesture.” I wonder with what the devil has treated him since inviting him to dinner! Well, the indignation of Diva Nicotina confounded Jonson in these acts of servile hypocrisy so alien from his stout, honest character; the first lines are doggrel, and the others mere patter, both destitute alike of wit and humour; and the metaphor with which the Herb of Herbs and its censer are associated is so coarse that I dare not reproduce the verses in these our dainty days. A righteous retribution, 0 Ben 1
In the rich Epigram CI., “Inviting a Friend to Supper,” from which I have already quoted in Section VIL, we have the following lines:—
14 Bat that which moat doth take my Muse and me, Is a pure cup of rich Canary wino, Which is the Mermaid’s now, but shall be mine: Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted, Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted. Tobacco, nectar, or tho Thespian spring, Are all but Luther’s beer, to this I sing.”
Brave old Ben! we know you here again! Everyman has the right to have his own particular idol, and to exalt it in hyperbole by depreciating the most precious things or most noble natures in comparison therewith. Wherefore, we quarrel not with this extreme devotion to Canary, nor with tiie supremacy claimed for it. Rather we welcome our glorious convivialist of the Mermaid Tavern, our boon Delphic god of the Apollo room, seeing how rightly he ranks our rich Indian vapour with nectar and the Thespian spring. Aught more precious he could not find to name with the very darling of his heart. Brave old big Ben!
With these generous lines we must close our excerpts, although we could glean a few others of minor importance. I can scarcely better conclude this long series of papers than with some sentences from Mr. Swinburne’s very fine Introduction to the Works of George Chapman (London: Chatto and Windus, 1875), which has also been reprinted separately:—
“Even the Atlantean shoulders of Jonson, fit to bear the weight of mightiest monarchies, have been hardly tanked to support and transmit to our own day the fame of his great genius, overburdened as it was with the twofold load of his theories on art and his pedantries of practice.* And Chapman, though also a brother of the giant brood, had not the Herculean sinews of his younger friend and fellow-student. The weight that could but bend the back that carried the vast world of invention whose twin hemispheres are 4 Volpone * and the * Alchemist,’ was wellnigh enough to crush the staggering strength of the lesser Titan. . . The learning of Jonson, doubtless far wider and sounder than that of Chapman, never allowed or allured him to exchange for a turbid and tortuous jargon the vigorous purity of his own English spirit and style. . . . But when on a fresh reading we skip over these blocks [the savourlees interludes of buffoonery, too common in •ven our best old plays, whether comedies or tragedies: gross baits for the gross groundlingsj laid as if on purpose in our way through so magnificent a gallery of comic and poetic inventions, the monument of a mind so mighty, the palace of so gigantic a genius as Ben Jonson’s, we are more than content to forget such passing and perishable impediments to our admiration of that sovereign intellect which has transported us across them into the royal presence of its ruling and informing power. . . . Here, again, we find that Jonson and Chapman stand far apart from their fellow-men of genius. The most ambitious and the most laborious poets of their day, conscious of high aims and large capacities, they would be content with no crown that
♦ Per contra: Lamb, for whose critical genius Mr. Swinburne has a most righteous admiration, says of the “ Poetaster ": “ This Roman play seems written to confute those enemies of Ben, in his own day and ours, who have said that he made a pedantical use of his learning. He has here revived the whole Court of Augustus by a learned spell. We are admitted to tho society of the illustrious dead. Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, converse in our own tongue more finely and poetically than they were used to express themselves in their native Latin, Ac.”
might be shared by others; they had each his own severe and haughty scheme of study and invention, and sought for no excellence which lay beyond or outside it; that any could lie above, past the reach of their strong arms and skilful hands, past the scope of their keen and studious eyes, they would probably have been unable to believe or to conceive. And yet there were whole regions of high poetic air, whole worlds of human passion and divine imagination, which might be seen by humbler eyes than theirs and trodden by feebler feet, where their robust lungs were powerless to breathe, and their strenuous song fell silent.”
The reader will do well to study the whole of this Introduction, which is not unworthy in its sphere of the author of “ Atalanta in Calydon,” being the fit reverse of the golden medallion of which that is the noble obverse. Sigvat.
^- ^rop^efiral Crifir.*
If in these days the progress of science is prodigious, it cannot be said that the march of literature is commensurate thereto. Why this should be it may not be easy at a first glance to ascertain. But perhaps one chief cause of literary decfine, or it might even be said of literary eclipse, is that the scholar has been thrust aside to make room for the creature vulgarly called the cad. The great writers of past ages were nearly all scholars in the best sense of the word; they nourished their ideal with whatsoever was high and holy in learning, and the divine memories and monuments of Greece and Rome animated while purifying their aspirations. If hereby was sometimes engendered a spurious classicality; if there was often the bondage to famous names, instead of loyalty to sage, sound, salutary principles; if too frequently cold forms killed the genial life; the evil was seldom more than transient, and Nature in her eternal evolution became a creative, a conquering force once more; the mountain robed in snow was suddenly transformed into a volcano spreading destruction for a season, but grandly and perennially fertilising. Our prosaic, utilitarian, egoistical epoch has no reverence for the scholar or for scholarship; it hungers for the wild excitement of fresh scientific discoveries, turning these as speedily as it can to a practical purpose. Literature it disdains, except in so far as literature can be a means of amusement. The solitary student, inspired by heroic darings and cherishing celestial dreams, is wholly forgotten, or treated as a fool. They who might have been literary artists are content, after vanquishing their repugnance, their disgust, and their self-respect, to become literary artisans, or to be drudges, if they are too proud, too honest, to be hacks. But even the literary artisans are not tolerated, for the cads rush on in hosts and drive them from the scene. Thus it cometh to pass that in literature what is popular, what is marketable, alone is regarded. The cad has boundless impudence; he has a glib tongue and a ready pen. He has no scruples of conscience to deter, no weight of knowledge to make him pause. If he fails as clown or as harlequin to entertain, he is always ready to divert with the hideous monstrosities of the contortionist. And he knows well that, how idiotic and revolting soever his antics or his attitudes, he can never be lower than the taste and the temper of the mob.
Biography has suffered from the general cause or causes of literary corruption and degeneracy, and it has suffered from something besides. An eminent and gifted author, whose character is worthy of his genius, though he is too prone to applaud the strong and to trample on the weak, has preached the worship of heroes as the one supreme Evangel the world urgently needs. In sternest verity, however, it is the heroic, and not the worship of heroes, which requires to be taught in all generations. Impel, instruct men as the Stoics instructed and impelled them, to arm themselves with, to manifest, Promethean vigour and valour, and if the antique virtues do not return, there is at least a sublime endeavour to revive them; men grow autonomic, autobiotic, but the god-like individuality is hindered from becoming self-idolatry by intense, by incessant adoration of the everlasting mysteries. The worship of heroes, however—that is to say, of illustrious men—soon sinks into fetichism, and is as superstitious, as debilitating, as debasing as any other fetichism. At the dawn of civilisation the adoration of heroes was a natural phase in the development of religion, and it was as ennobling as it was natural; for, produced by the universal spirit of heroism, it emboldened evermore to heroic deeds. But at a canting, craven, luxurious period like our own, it has an opposite source and an opposite effect. It is one of many enervating sentimentalisms, one of many imbecile dilettanteisms. Instead of invigorating individuality it annihilates it, and it is fatal to originality. Under pretence of honouring the dead, it is sycophancy to the living, sycophancy to successful charlatans, or to insignificant mortals placed in a high conventional position, and a very abject sycophancy indeed. Beginning in silliest pedantry, it ends in vilest snobbery. Raving about the Labours of Hercules, it sells its birthright of manliness for a mess of pottage.
That Mr. Sime’s work is the production of an able, earnest, genuine scholar, that he thoroughly knows his subject, and is thoroughly able to treat it, unfair would it be to question. But he is so resolved from the outset to magnify Lessing as a hero, that he hinders him from impressing us as a man. And it is with a man we want to deal; it is a man’s heart we long
♦Lessing. By James Sime. London: Triibner and Company. Two Volumes. 1877.
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to press to our own when we read a biography. Mr. Sime has not had the courage to resist the contagion of the bad tendency, the bad example, which in our rapid remarks we have characterised and denounced.
A biography should be, what the name implies, the narra-tive, the picture of a life. But in Mr. Sime’s work far more prominence is given to Lessing’s writings than to Lessing himself. The history of Lessing’s career is so continually interrupted by long dissertations, that we lose sight of Lessing altogether. For instance, to an analysis of “Laokoon,” a book which, according to Mr. Sime’s own statement, had been paraphrased by De Quincey and four times translated into English, Mr. Sime devotes sixty-two pages. Many others of Lessing’s works, either uninteresting in themselves or already well known in England, Mr. Sime analyses with the same prolixity. He is not content with analysing; he treats us to his own theorisings, which, though not exactly commonplace, are little more than the echoes of German philosophical speculations. The heaviness of Mr. Sime’s style, and his fondness for hackneyed metaphors, help to make unattractive what in itself has little charm.
Another objection to Mr. Sime’s meritorious but unsatisfactory record of Lessing’s toils and battles is, that though Mr. Sime has a full, accurate, and sympathetic knowledge of German literature and philosophy, he seems to know only at second-hand and imperfectly the other literatures and philosophies of the Continent. This seriously lessens the worth of his judgments on Lessing’s literary achievements; for, as Lessing was not so much an original thinker as an explorer, an iconoclast, and a propagandist, Mr. Sime might, peradventure, often have discovered that Lessing was indebted to French, Italian, or even Spanish sources and suggestions. Mr. Sime would have been better fitted to write about Lessing if he had possessed Lessing’s beautiful and generous catholicity.
A minor blemish merits only a passing word. Many English writers at present seem to forget that they are writing for English people, who, for the most part, are acquainted with no language but their own. Why should Mr. Sime be so priggish as always to say role for part, and troupe for company ? Kindred to this kind of priggishness is another. Mr. Sime talks of Anakreon instead of Anacreon, of Sokrates instead of Socrates, and so on. Such pedantic innovations are insufferable. If Sokrates, for instance, is to be substituted for Socrates, to which for so many years Enghsh people have been accustomed, why should not Mr. Sime take pains to indicate by some signs of his own invention that the first vowel and the third vowel in the word Sokrates are long? Would it not be an improvement to give Greek names in Greek letters if pedantry is to be triumphant? It is a pity that Grote lent the countenance of his erudition to affectations, fopperies, and vagaries, from which a greater than he, Gibbon, would have turned away with disdain.
The 22d January is illustrious as the birthday of three great men, Francis Bacon, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and George Gordon Byron. Though not of noble blood, Bacon, through his father’s high official position, had relations with the aristocracy from the beginning. Byron, through his mother, was descended from the royal house of Stuart. Lessing could boast neither of aristocratic connections nor of royal descent. Like Goldsmith, he was the son of a poor clergyman, whose only wealth was a large family. He was born at Kamenz, a small town of Upper Lusatia, on the 22d January, 1729. From the school of Meissen he went, at the age of seventeen, to the university of Leipsic, to which, at a still earlier age, Goethe, about twenty years afterwards, likewise went. By his father’s wish Lessing studied theology with a view to the clerical profession. But his instinctive tastes rushed in a very different direction. Two things enchanted him—philosophy and the drama. He frequented the theatre, and sought the society of actors and military officers, and to the last actors and military officers were his favourite companions. Well he loved books, but he loved human beings better, especially those human beings who were less enthralled than their neighbours by conventionalities and cants. Though from his extreme poverty love and wine were little more than myths to him, he wrote anacreontic poems. These and dramatic sketches and prose essays were Lessing’s first attempts at authorship. In 1750 he followed his eccentric and heretical friend Mylius to Berlin, with the intention of living by literature. His sternly orthodox father was dissatisfied with this step, and with his whole course of conduct. To please the grim old Lutheran, Lessing renewed at Wittenberg his theological studies, and took the degree of Master of Arts. Nature, however, was stronger than parental likings and commands, and in 1753 Lessing returned as a literary adventurer to Berlin. In 1755 he composed his “Miss Sara Sampson” which began the series of his dramatic successes, and opened a fresh path for the drama in Germany.
A young man of fortune engaged Lessing as travelling companion; but the journey did not extend further than Holland, and ended in a quarrel.
Resuming his literary labours at Berlin and at Leipsic, Lessing found friendships with Kleist, Gleim, Ramler, Nicolai, Moses Mendelssohn, and others, and aided in establishing various periodicals, to which he contributed.
Lessing could not have achieved so much for the emancipation and elevation of German literature if he had not been a
restless man, hungering evermore to see fresh forms of life and to stimulate or share in fresh movements. Toward the close of 1760 Lessing went to Breslau, to be the secretary of General Tauenzien, Governor of Silesia. As convivial as Burns, but just as little inclined as Burns to drjpk for the sake of drinking—for it is a cruel calumny to represent Burns as a drunkard—Lessing had at Breslau the sort of fellowship he liked the best. With his passion for play, especially for the game of hazard, Puritanic bigots have felt it their duty to be angry. At Breslau he had great temptations to indulge it to a regrettable excess. But neither the wine cup nor the gaming table could drag down his moral dignity or lessen his intellectual eagerness, daringness, and activity. He continued at Breslau to be the manliest of men and the most intrepid of students. The noblest fruit of his Breslau days was his “Minna Von Barnhelm,”'which is regarded by critics as the most perfect of his dramas.
Leaving Breslau in 1765, he made a fourth pilgrimage to Berlin, where everything was shallow but the cynicism, and everything false but the valour of Frederick’s warriors— Berlin, which was a kind of spurious Paris, with every French vice and frivolity exaggerated, but with no compensating French grace and elegance. The more he saw of Berlin the less he loved it. In 1766, when his powers were ripest and richest, but still retaining something of the odour and freshness of youth, Lessing published his masterpiece, “Laokoon,” that famous aesthetics! fragment which had such miraculously fecundating force, though we must remember that the soil was yearning for the seed.
On going to Hamburg, in 1767, Lessing found for the first time what he might regard as a home. The two years he spent at Hamburg were as happy as those he had just passed at Berlin were wretched. And they might have been still happier if Lessing had not engaged in an enterprise requiring a practical talent, and a concentration, a persistency of effort which Lessing lacked; he co-operated with some men of substance and some men of enthusiasm in the attempt to create at Hamburg a national theatre. The scheme failed, but it led to the publication, in a periodical form, of Lessing’s “ Dramaturgic,” which added to his renown as a stalwart critic and an independent thinker.
From pleasant and busy Hamburg, where he joked and gambled and drank the Rhenish wine freely, and threw himself with gaiety of heart into literary and theological conflicts and complications, Lessing was exiled to what we may call his Patmos of purgatorial pain, a Patmos from which he sent forth more than one book of revelation to the world. At Wolfenbiittel, till the middle of the eighteenth century the capital of the Duchy of Brunswick, or, if Mr. Sime likes it better, Braunschweig, for it is best not to be priggish or anything else by halves—a magnificent library had been founded. More than once Mr. Sime, with absurd inaccuracy, uses the word sensuous for sensual, it being well known that sensuous, though it has various meanings, has never an opprobrious meaning. Mr. Sime characterises the Duke of Brunswick as a weak, sensuous, extravagant man, but not destitute of literary taste. The hereditary prince, a nephew of Frederick the Great, had fixed his heart from youth on military renown. He was twenty-one years old when the Seven Years’ War began, and he served with such distinction by his uncle’s side that Frederick addressed to him one of his frigid, unreadable odes, and eulogised him in his history of the war. In 1780, the year before Lessing’s death, the prince succeeded his father. The Duke of Brunswick, in 1792, was appointed to the chief command of the Austrian and Prussian armies. The violent manifesto, drawn up by a Frenchman called Limon, which the duke issued from Coblentz, was deemed a great political blunder, and was unspeakably disastrous to Louis XVI. Trained in the slow school of Frederick II., a school of patience and pertinacity rather than of genius, the duke was overwhelmed by the new tactics of the French generals as much as by the impetuosity of the French troops. In 1794 he resigned his command. The duke, an old man of seventy-one, was in the Jena campaign placed at the head of the host at which Napoleon dealt such swift and decisive blows. At the battle of Auerstadt, fought the same day as the battle of Jena, the duke was severely wounded, and died on the 10th November, 1806. It was this brave though not brilliant man who induced his sensuous father to appoint Lessing librarian at Wolfenbiittel, on honourable and favourable conditions. Lessing was to have two assistants, a manservant, and six hundred thalers a year. This was not a high salary, and it was hard enough for Lessing to be torn from Hamburg and doomed to live in a dismal little town on the low and swampy banks of a river. But, as a compensation, he gained a fixed position and comparative leisure, and a grand literary arsenal for his battle with the powers of darkness.
In the spring of 1770 Lessing entered on his duties as librarian. Hidden literary treasures not a few he brought to light; but his activity during the last eleven years of his life was mainly militant. The controversy he had begun with Klotz, a professor at Halle, and respecting which Mr. Sime furnishes copious details, was continued. Klotz, an able and learned but arrogant man, who aspired to be literary dictator of Germany, died in 1771, at the early age of thirty-three. His labours were immense, and many of them were eminently useful. On some of the debated points Klotz was right and Lessing was wrong; and Lessing, waxing hot while wielding the scourge, forgot to be just; though, having received much
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provocation, he could not be expected to be merciful. More than passing products of the controversy were Lessing’s treatise entitled “How the Ancients Represented Death,” and his “Antiquarian Letters.” Leasing’^ “Emilia Galotti,” one of the works by which he is best known in England, was acted for the first time in 1772. Everything Lessing wrote had a polemical, or ethical, or jesthetical purpose; and “Emilia Galotti” is not an exception. Into the polemical region, properly so called, Lessing was again drawn by the publication of the “Wolfenbiittel Fragments,” which excited a commotion kindred to that we have beheld in our day in the case of Strauss’s “Life of Jesus.” If the author of the “Fragments,” Reimarus, who died in 1765, had given them in his own name, they would not have disturbed much the tranquillity of the priest party. But it was the weight they acquired through the authority of Lessing that inflamed the Obscurantists to madness. Lessing’s principal opponent was the violent and virulent Pastor Goetze, of Hamburg, who was unable to see, just as the Protestant bigots now are unable to see, that to base infallible dogmas on an infallible book, and the infallibility of the book on the infallibility of a Church, and then to reject the infallibility of the Church, on which the other infallibilities rest, is supremely illogical. It must not be supposed, however, that Lessing, in warring with the Obscurantists as he did to the day of his death, was a scoffer of the Voltaire type. He abhorred shallow rationalism as much as theological slavery; but he did not carry his religious explorations far enough to discover that the essence of religion is mystery, and that what pretends to be a rational religion is not a religion at all. Men adore because they are devout, and not because they are reasonable beings. Hence superstition changes its aspect from age to age, but is in itself indestructible. Religion cannot be kept within the limits of reason. As the companion of Prince Leopold, the youngest son of the Duke of Brunswick, Lessing went to Italy in the spring of 1775. Passing through Vienna, he received all due honour from the literary men and from the imperial family. The traveller? spent eight months in Italy. Lessing had dreamed of Italy and yearned for Italy; but, when the vision became a reality, the needful, the noble enthusiasm of youth had long gone by. Towards the close of the year, on his way back to Wolfenbiittel, Lessing visited Kamenz for the last time, spending a few days with his aged mother. On the 8th October, 1776, Lessing married Eva Kbnig, the widow of one of his old Hamburg friends. Lessing’s married life was as brief as it was happy. A son was born on the 3rd January, 1778, and died the same day; the mother survived her babe only seven days. Great was Lessing’s grief. But his nature was elastic, his social instincts were irrepressible, his love of work and of conflict inextinguishable, and he could not be long bowed down. Lessing’s fight with the theologians and the Obscurantists gave a tendentious character to his “ Nathan the Wise,” a drama which was alike the author’s profession of faith and a plea for tolerance. The first play which Lessing completed in verse, “Nathan the Wise” has neither sweetness of rhythm nor poetic lustre to recommend it, let its other merits as a drama be what they may. It is especially in reference to tolerance, and to the combat for tolerance, that the play should be estimated. In this respect, however, the play has not the same significance now which it had a century since. For it is indifference more than intolerance which is the evil at the present day, and it is the greater evil of the two; for intolerance always implies earnestness, whereas the spurious liberalism which now prevails is not merely fatal to moral strength and moral elevation, but to quickness and delicacy of moral discernment. Garing little for right or wrong, and unable and unwilling to make sacrifices for truth and justice, it is satisfied with the utterance of sounding phrases. In 1780 was published Lessing’s last important work, “ The Education of the Human Race,” which is commonly spoken of as containing the germ of Herder’s and other books on the. Philosophy of History. A hundred years before the “ Education of the Human Race,” Bossuet’s “Discourse on Universal History” appeared; and after a while Vico, in his “New Science,” treated the subject of Human Development in an original manner. That, long before Bossuet, Saint Augustine had in his “City of God” given a Philosophy of History cannot well be doubted, though the work had a polemical purpose. But all Philosophies of History are either arbitrary interpretations of facts, or they are the hollowest of figments. And we might as well adopt Hegel’s notion, that the Universe was created that the brutal bureaucratic Prussian monarchy might be established, as Lessing’s theory that there has been an education of the human race by special means. Lessing says that revelation is to the whole human race what education is to the individual. There are only two intelligible senses in which revelation can be accepted—either revelation is the supernatural and miraculous communication of certain Divine truths, or it is the light which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. But if we admit the latter, the former does not seem to be needful; and if needful it ought to be universal and continuous, which, according to its believers, it certainly is not. On the possibility of a supernatural and miraculous revelation, we leave every one to judge for himself. We have no wish to enter the strictly	theological domain. It must, however, be evident to anyone who, without regard to sects and systems, has thought seriously on philosophical subjects, that the instinctive life which we attribute to the conscious principle of immensity is incompatible with the education of the human race such as Lessing pourtrays it. Life exists for the sake of life, and, by being life, is its own justification. But German thinkers dwell so wholly in the intellect that they can conceive no universe but one which has mainly an intellectual, and, in a subordinate degree, a moral intention. The actual universe, however, is wholly unlike that dreamed of by the teleological pedagogues. Just as there is nothing in history to demonstrate evolution when narrowed down to the Darwinian evangel, so there is nothing in history to show that the world marches evermore to perfection. The diviuest elements of human nature do not depend for their display on what is usually understood by civilisation. And even the best civilisations perish, and the world is left in chaos and despair till it gains courage to renew the struggle with destiny. There are ages wholly corrupt and wholly miserable. What becomes of the education of the human race in such ages ? Suppose, however, that there is in a succession of ages real or apparent progress, what is gained in one direction is lost in another. During the last fifty years there have in England been marvellous scientific discoveries, immense industrial enterprises, a wide diffusion of superficial knowledge. But during those fifty years how many virtues have decayed or died! A vague philanthropy has dethroned a noble patriotism, and for public spirit, which was a unitive and valiant force, has been substituted public opinion—that is, the whim of the moment, the jangle and wrangle of ten thousand crotchets. Other ignoble aspects of the age are so conspicuous that we need not indicate or depict them. As an optimist somewhat after the fashion of Leibnitz, the most overrated of all philosophers, Lessing shut his eyes to the awful sum of wretchedness and wrong even in ages the happiest; to the countless existences on which not a single ray of joy falls; to the careers whose record might be written in the three words: entanglement, fatality, ghastliness. Schemes of optimism, by whomsoever propounded, deserve no refutation but ridicule, for they are simply a denial of what everyone sees and feels and knows, and “Candide” may still be read with profit by such as feel inclined to believe in optimism. In accordance with or in completion of his theory of the education of the human race, Lessing professed his faith in the transmigration of souls. This doctrine, when found in grand Oriental religions, does not repel us; but, when we encounter it as an article in the creed of the most critical spirit of the eighteenth century, we smile, half in contempt, half in compassion. If there is a transmigration of souls, Lessing was destined soon to enter into a new phase of being. On the 15th February, 1781, he died at Brunswick, from a stroke of apoplexy. Long had he suffered from asthma, and it was discovered after his death that his arteries were ossified. Poor enough he lived, and poor enough he died; the Duke of Brunswick paid the expenses of his funeral. He was buried in the churchyard of Saint Magnus, about a mile from Brunswick. Honours to his memory, in the shape of statues and so on, have not been lacking. But he has better monuments than those of wood and stone. The Germans usually divide the history of their liberation into seven periods. That period which began about the middle of the last century, and which ended with Goethe’s death, they call the classical period. Mr. Sime says that but for Lessing the classical period would have been impossible. On the contrary, we maintain that a period not unlike the classical period would have come even if Lessing had never been born. A great man is never more than the highest wave on the river or on the ocean. Goethe said of himself, that he had walked along many paths, but never along the path of envy. Even if there was much to dislike or to despise in the character of Goethe, yet we must admit that from envy he was singularly free. Now Goethe declares that the three men who most influenced his mind were Shakespeare, Lin-nseus, and Spinoza. He does not place Lessing along with them, though he highly honoured Lessing. And we do not remember that Schiller ever confessed himself much indebted to the man who died the same year Schiller’s first drama was produced. Winckelmann was seven years older than Klopstock; Klopstock five years older than Lessing; Lessing four years older than Wieland. Those four men, in regard to art and archaeology and literature, were the harbingers of the classical period; and two of them lived long enough to be sharers of its glory and its greatness. All of them except Wieland aimed to be reformers. But Wieland was perhaps more a reformer than any of them; for he was the first to reveal to his countrymen the secret of ease and grace which had been so long hidden from them. As a poet instinctively led to ease and grace, Goethe learned much from Wieland. Though, however we may endeavour to trace the transfiguring empire which Winckelmann and others exercised on their nation, and on certain illustrious individuals of their nation, we must not be blind to the fact that the eighteenth century swarmed with dreams and schemes of reformation, and Rousseau’s voice, even if the most eloquent and resonant, was merely one of many voices. The eighteenth century was the century of putridities, of stagnancies, of horrible political crimes, such as the dismemberment of Poland; the century of adventurers
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and charlatans; the century of impostors such as Cagliostro, and of visionaries such as Swedenborg; and it was fitly closed by the grandest of revolutions. Out of the very abyss of its abominations avenging angels rose. Redemption and regeneration thus could not fail to come to the leading literatures of the world from the confluences and conflicts of so many forces. Men were tired of a spurious classicality, a ponderous and pretentious platitudinarianism, a frigid reflectivism. They hungered and thirsted for movement, for Nature, for forms which were the real, not the conventional expression of ideal beauty. They longed, too, for a God not imprisoned in dogmas and formulas, but dwelling in their very soul. Moreover, they instinctively felt that before construction could be complete destruction must be complete; whereas the craven creed of our own day is that all reforms must be compromises. Now, if we were to call Lessing by the name which suits him best, it would be that of prophetical critic. Hartmann has said of Strauss that he was a critic, not a philosopher. And we may say of certain eminent men among ourselves, such as Tyndall, Huxley, and Darwin, that their province is exclusively science, and that they blunder egregiously whenever they venture into the domain of philosophy. Indeed, just because they are so accomplished in science are they unfitted to treat any subject philosophically. Though not a philosopher in the sublimest import of the word, Lessing had, as a critic, aided by his poetic, and still more by his human instincts, the presentiment of future necessities along with the sentiment of existing needs. Lessing had not opulence enough of nature to be a creative critic such as John Wilson supremely was; but one of the greatest of prophetical critics we may confidently proclaim him, whatever verdict we may pronounce upon him as fabulist, as epigrammatist, as dramatist.
Mr. Sime says that Lessing’s life was not a happy life. But when has the life of a reformer ever been happy? Lessing was fortunate at least in escaping the persecution which not a few of his famous contemporaries, such as Diderot, Voltaire, and above all Rousseau, had to suffer. Weaknesses Lessing had, but he was never petty. Frank and bold, he yet occasionally diplomatised—not, however, in the odious Jesuitical fashion. He was as generous as he was heroic, but we must regard his indiscriminate almsgiving as a very questionable kind of generosity. Some of his biographers speak as if the troubles of controversy had embittered and shortened his days. He was, however, so much a battler born, that he had joy in the conflict. And, as his buoyancy was as remarkable as his bravery, he could turn the cross he had to bear into a mighty weapon of warfare.
Toward the close of his work, Mr. Sime gives the following extract from the diary of Leisenitz, a young dramatic author in whom Lessing took a deep interest. “We again went to Lessing (17th July, 1780), and Langer (Lessing’s successor in the Wolfenbiittel Library) soon afterwards came; we were for some time in the court and before the door-dined in the garden hall. The conversation was very pleasant. A saillie from Lessing, Langer, or me would fetch the others. After dinner coffee was drunk and Tobacco smoked, partly in the garden, partly in the hall.” Thereupon Mr. Sime says: “ It is, perhaps, worth mentioning that the smoking must have been confined to Lessing’s guests. Like Goethe, he intensely disliked Tobacco.”
So much the worse for him! We should have been glad to know that a man so convivial, a companion so jovial, had smoked. But, perchance Lessing and Goethe had made Nicotian experiments and had ignominiously failed. Or, perchance they had a foolish and fastidious notion that smoking was unworthy of a gentleman and scholar. More than all, probably they did not care for Tobacco, because they both indulged in Homeric libations, and did not feel the need of any other stimulant. Goethe drank four or five bottles of Rhenish wine every day, but did not smoke. Carlyle is an enormous smoker, but does not drink. This shows the consummate folly and falsehood of the spurious Puritans of the present day, who always speak of Tobacco and Drinking in the same breath. Every man needs, every man uses a stimulant of some kind. The spurious Puritans take the most unwholesome, the most poisonous of all stimulants—the stimulant of cant. It is a very common stimulant in England, and an execrably bad one. As far as Lessing is concerned, doubtless many of his loneliest and saddest hours would have been brightened by a pipe of Tobacco, by a cigar, or even by a pinch of snuff.
Scoto-Celt.
^t Smoke ^oom ^abh.
The Works of Robert Bums. Volume Second: Poetry. Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1877. (Library Edition, Edited by William Scott Douglas, Editor of the Popular and Kilmarnock Editions.)
We cannot better conunend this volume than by simply stating the fact that it goes on to fulfil the promise of the first, to which we had the pleasure of calling attention last September. It carries us from the close of 1786 to 1791, when the Poet was in his thirty-third year; from “The Brigs of Ayr” and “ Address to Edinburgh ” to “ Tam o’ Shanter ” and “ Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon.” The biographical and illustrative notes are so careful as to be mainly authoritative; and wherever advisable the better or the older airs,
unperverted by what the Editor calls fiddle-stick gymnastics, are subjoined to the songs. For frontispiece we have a portrait of Burns in a landscape showing the River and Brig o’ Doon; facing this is a vignette of Tam o’ Shanter and Kirk Alloway; and there is a view of the Auld Brig o’ Ayr from the original drawing by Captain Grose, who will be borne farther into the future by the Poet's verses than ever he dived into the past. There are also two interesting facsimiles. Paper, type, and get-up are worthy of the contents.
dittos of ©lir ^oohs.
The Towneley MSS. English Jacobite Ballads, Songs and Satires, etc. From the MSS. at Towneley Hall, Lancashire. Edited, with Introduction, Notes and Illustrations, by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart. St. George's, Blackburn, Lancashire. Printed for Private Circulation (one hundred and twenty-jive copies only). 1877.
This is the second volume from the Towneley MSS. which the indefatigable Mr. Grosart has edited, and, we need scarcely say, edited thoroughly well; the first having been the “ Spending of the Money of Robert Nowell.” That the Towneley MSS. should be found rich in Jacobite documents was to be expected. Col. Francis Towneley, who had been several years in the French service, joined the Prince at Manchester with the Lancashire recruits, of whom he was given the command. On the retreat before butcher Cumberland, Towneley with the remains of his Manchester Regiment, and some three hundred Scots under Col. Hamilton, were left in Carlisle, the former occupying the town, the latter the castle: a woeful sacrifice to delay the wolves. Besieged by the Butcher, Towneley would have held out to the last, but Hamilton (alas for the name !) hoisted the white flag. The only terms granted were that the garrison should not be put to the sword, but reserved for the King’s pleasure. As regarded Towneley, and sixteen other prisoners convicted with him of high treason, the King's pleasure, the pleasure of His Most Gracious Majesty, proved to be I—“ Let the several prisoners above-named return to the gaol of the county of Sussex from whence they came and from thence they must be drawn to the place of execution and when they come there they must be severally hanged by the neck but not till they be dead for they must be cut down alive then their bowels must be taken out and burnt before their faces then their heads must be severed from their bodies and their bodies severally divided into four quarters and these must be at the King’s disposal.” This humane sentence was duly carried out; and the bearing of Towneley was heroic to the last. So much did these rebels gain by not being put to instant death by the sword. The head of Towneley was not among those which, as portions of the quarters at the King's disposal, were fixed on Temple Bar: it was graciously handed over to his relative*, and is still preserved in the family.
The interest of this collection is mainly historical, though a few of the pieces (for instance, “ The Time Server,” “ The Independent Poet,” “ The Patriot,” pp. 115-117) are rather general satires or eulogiums than distinctively Jacobite. The invectives against the “ booby Germans,” with their corrupt and venal court, who certainly furnished rich materials for invective, are the most vigorous of the compositions. There is scarcely a real lyric in the whole, for Smollet’s fine “ Tears of Scotland ” cannot be considered as belonging to the MSS., though included among them; there is scarcely any real poetry, though abundance of genuinely fervid passion. About the only real ballad, in the old narrative sense, is that of “ Towneley’s 'Ghost,” pp. 82-8, which appears to Cumberland, denouncing his atrocities and predicting their punishment; and even this ends in fierce satirical irony :—
“ But oh 1 what Pangs are Set apart, In Hell thoull Shortly see
Where e’en the Damn’d themselves will Start To See a Fiend like thee.
“With Speed Affrighted William rose, AH trembling, Wan, and pale
Then to his cruel Sire he goes And tells the dreadfull Tale.
“Chear up, my Dear, My Darling Son,
The bold Usurper said, Repent not Will of what thou’st done
Nor be at all dismay’d.
* If we on Stewart's throne can dwell And reign Securely here,
Thy Grand Sire Satan’s King of Hell And He’ll protect Thee there.”
Mr. Grosart observes in the Introduction: “ The present MSS. show with what very humble weapons—in so far as English poetry is concerned—the ‘cause’ was fought. Placed beside the pseudo-Stuart Poems of Robert Burns earlier, and Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg and Allan Cunningham later, and William Laidlaw, Lady Nairn, and other minor Scottish singers still later, and the finely-touched verse-memorials of William Wordsworth and Lord Macaulay, these the actual utterances look mean and poor. ... All the more do these MSS. bear witness to the profound hold that ‘The Prince’ took of Scotland at least, and of considerable breadths of England. A sentiment must be semi-omnipotent that such humble inspiration sustained and constrained to so magnificent self-sacrifice.”
On this passage we must offer, with deference, a few remarks. First, such a sentiment is by no means sustained and constrained by the inspiration of poetry, but on the contrary sustains and constrains it, filling up its meagreness, strengthening its weakness, kindling its coldness, vivifying its lifelessness, as the words of the prophet and the breath of the prophecy gave life to the dry bones in the valley of vision. It is seldom that a cause marches to battle to such Tyrtcean strains as the “ Marseillaise,” or “ Ein’ feste Burg 1st unser Gott,” which Heine calls the “ Marseillaise ” of the (German) Reformation. “ Dixie’s Land ” and “ We’ll hang Jeff. Davis on a sour apple tree ” were not much of inspiration with which to fight out the tremendous struggle of the great American War. And we have seen the poor Carlists going cheerfully to sacrifice their lives singing a poor hymn pitched to the tune of the Gendarmes’ duet in “Genevieve de Brabant.” Secondly, the poetry usually comes after the struggle, and is proverbially the wail of the lost cause, not the psean of the triumphant: success shouts and revels, but defeat chants dirges. Assuredly Bannockburn and Flodden were fought well, but not to the strains of “ Scots wha hae ” and “ I’ve heard the lilting at our yowo-milking ’’: shall we, then, term these pseudo-Scottish-patriotic songs ? Thirdly, though Scott and Hogg and Cunningham did undoubtedly alter many of the poems and songs they published, they did not invent these, did not give them their lyrical inspiration, but merely made them more shapely according to modern notions more or less wise; the thrilling old songs had thrilled gallant hearts before ever the modern poets attempted to adjust their vibrations. Take but one instance: in the whole treasury of Scottish song there is surely no more noble and tender lyric than
“ It was a’ for our rightful King We left fair Scotland's strand ”—
and Mr. Grosart himself (“ Notes,” p. 189) does not contest its ascription to Captain Ogilvy, one of the hundred gentlemen who volunteered to accompany James IL to France after the Boyne, and who fell in battle on the Rhine.
But we are overrunning our space, and can but remark in conclusion that not the least interesting portions of the book are the Declaration of Prince Charles, given at Holyrood House, 10th October, 1745, and a letter to the Archbishop of York by one Philalethes, proving (easily enough) that the Church of England was bound to passive obedience—but logic does not sway either in mortal or immortal affaire
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^mbtr.
XIV.
Whether or not we should treat in detail the amber fauna and flora, we do not find it easy to determine. On the one hand, a mere summary would be dry and uninteresting; on the other, a copious and complete delineation might occupy more space than can be placed at our disposal. Till we can settle the point, we cannot, perhaps, do better than make the reader acquainted with a work of great importance which appeared in the course of last year in Germany, and which has an intimate connection with our subject, though it embraces a wider range. The work is entitled “ The Commercial Roads of the Greeks and Romans through the Riverine Territory of the Oder, the Vistula, the Dnieper, and the Niemen to the Shores of the Baltic Sea. An Archaeological Study honoured with a Prize by the Academy of Sciences at Cracow. A German Edition, authorised, revised, and improved by the writer, J. N. Von Sadowski. With a Preface and an Introduction by the Translator. From the Polish, by Albin Kohn. With two Maps and three Lithographed Plates.” As the substance and intention of the book are given in the German Translator’s Preface and Introduction, it is these that we shall meanwhile content ourselves with rendering into English. Our translations from Genthe’s admirable treatise have already familiarised the reader with the wide and momentous bearings of the subject.
This is Albin Kohn’s Preface:—
In the present volume I present to the German reader a work which is inaccessible to him, for two reasons. In the first place, the work is written in the Polish language, which only in rare cases German scholars know; and in the second the original was published as a contribution to the “Annals of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Cracow,” and, so far as I am aware, this periodical is not easily procurable, even by those German scholars to whom the Polish language is known. The publication, however, of Sadowski’s work in the German language needs no justification. For long years the most gifted minds of all civilised nations have been endeavouring to discover the paths which civilisation followed to go from the South—cultivated and historically known at a comparatively early period—to the North, seizing a place at a much later epoch in the history of the world. In a word, it is not now for the first time that the pre-history of the North of Europe is opened up and illustrated by the history of the South. In reference to the regions which lie between the Alps and the Polar Sea, between the Atlantic Ocean and the riverine territory of the Oder, Frederick Rougemont, in his “Bronze Period, or the Semites in the West,” has attempted to solve the problem indicated. Without entering into a critical examination of the whole work, I can and must here in all brevity say that the author has not attained his object, indeed, has wholly missed it—and has even disseminated errors, so far as the territory lying east of the Oder is concerned. His ignorance of the Polish language, his lack of minute acquaintance with the localities, so needful for discovering the probable or possible routes in the riverine territory of the Oder, the Vistula, the Dnieper, and the Niemen at remote periods, unfitted Rougemont to gain the needful discernment. As, besides, he did not consult the most important writers—such as Pliny, Ptolemy, Herodotus —nor the records of the doings of the early Polish princes and popular assemblies that occupied themselves exclusively with the restoration of the routes through the different larger or smaller morasses of the land, he unavoidably fell into
errors which have led many other inquirers astray. In the < work now placed before him the reader is enabled to see that Sadowski has succeeded in explaining and elucidating, by means of history, a portion of the pre-history of the country lying between the Oder and the Niemen and Dnieper, between the Carpathian Mountains and the Baltic Sea; and if he has not given a decisive answer to the question respecting the inhabitants of that region in the period which is for the region pre-historical, yet he has by the help of historical facts indicated the ways and the byways along which Greek and Italian civilisation travelled to enter into relations with the ancient inhabitants of the Baltic shores. That which had hitherto been hidden from us in indefinite remoteness of time, he has brought nearer to us, and with almost historical accuracy determined the periods at which successively the Etruscans, the Greeks, the Romans came into the Vistula territory to establish peaceful commercial intercourse with its population. It is remarkable, and I direct special attention to the circumstance, that, contemporaneously and independently of each other, two writers set themselves to study the commerce of the Southerners. Genthe has attempted the task in his excellent work “On the Etruscan Barter-Trade with the North,” and Sadowski has attempted it in the production a translation of which is herewith given. The first leads us with sure and steady step as far as Carnuntum; the second, with step no less steady and sure, conducts us from Carnuntum to the amber coast; and both of them regard the amber trade as the principal motive of the journeys which the industrial Southerner undertook to reach the far and unknown North. The work of Sadowski is so completely its own recommendation, that I do not need to plead its cause further with the reader. As a study it was read before, and warmly praised by, the Archaeological Commission of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Cracow, and this ought to be accepted as sufficient evidence in its favour. My own “Introduction” is justified by discoveries which were made after Sadowski’s “Commercial Roads” appeared in the Polish language. These discoveries serve in confirmation of all the antiquarian routes marked out by the author, and add new etappes to those already given. Here it is only furthermore needful to remark that Herr Sadowski not merely read through and perfected the German manuscript, but applauded my “Introduction,” and gave me some hints respecting it for which I herewith publicly offer him my thanks.
What follows is Albin Kohn’s “Introduction”:—
Rougemont says, in his Introductory Remarks to his work, “The Bronze Period, or the Semites in the West,” that the answer to the question, How in our Europe the period of Bronze immediately followed the period of Stone, without the intervention of a period of Copper as a transition from the one to the other? is one of the most difficult problems we have to solve. I believe, however, that Rougemont himself has contributed much to solve this problem—yea, would perhaps have completely solved it, if he had devoted more attention to the physiographical aspect of the regions through which he tries to follow the Semites, and if, with the ancient authors in his hands, he had striven to ascertain the routes along which the more highly civilised nations of the East could pass to reach the uncivilised tribes of the West, and to penetrate into the interior part of their countries. As far as has hitherto been investigated, the nations that brought the bronze to Europe and spread it abroad there had left the Stone Period far behind them (that is, supposing that we are to continue to speak of a Stone, a Bronze, and an Iron Period distinctly severed from each other). They had perhaps already entered on the Iron Period before, impelled by the
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desire of riches, they went to the West; or, in their endeavours to find riches, had scattered in the West the seeds of a higher culture. That the Bronze Period did not immediately in Asia follow the Stone Period, is demonstrated by the tombs of the Tschudians in the Ural Mountains and in the Minu-sinskian district. I have, in my work composed in conjunction with Dr. Richard Andree, “ Siberia and the Amoor Territory,” shown that in the old long-forsaken Ural Mines, which both the Khirgiz and the Russians call “ Tschudian Mines,” copper implements, and in the Tschudian tombs copper tools, such as knives, awls, and so on, were found. A former exile discovered in a Tschudian tomb a copper instrument consisting of four quadrangular wings, about an inch broad and two inches long, longitudinally connected with each other, and the whole joined to a copper handle. This was probably some domestic article, possibly a twirling stick. Many gold articles were also found, among others a very beautifully made cup. The Tschudian nation perished before reaching the Bronze Period; though it could not have been difficult for the Tschudians to work bronze, forasmuch as they must have met with tin, if not in the Ural and Altai, at least in the Baikal mountains, beyond which, according to tradition, their excursions extended. Other Asiatic nations — whether only Semitic nations I cannot decide — were more fortunate than the Tschudian nation; they survived their Stone and Copper Period, and it was through their influence that in Western and Central, as well as in Northern Europe, the Bronze Period immediately followed the Stone Period, and drove this away. Recent discoveries made in Poland justify the conclusion that between the Oder and the Vistula the Bronze Period did not continue long, but that in a comparatively brief space it was followed by the Iron Period, or, which is still more probable, that the Aryan Race when it came to Europe brought articles of stone, of bronze, and iron, while the preAryan inhabitants of Europe contented themselves with arms and implements of wood, bone, and horn.
What is regarded as a problem by Rougemont is more easily solved if in our researches we are not enslaved by prepossession, or, as the German translator of Rougemont, Parson E. A. Keerl, strive to defend the revelations of Holy Scripture against the results of scientific investigation. For a glance at the so-called pre-historic material which has so far accumulated, makes manifest to us that it was the commerce of the East with the West, and of the South with the North, which brought nations into contact with each other, and enabled them to exchange multifarious industrial products.
It is trade which brings and binds nations together, from the moment they begin to feel needs, however few and small, that the native land could not satisfy. Corresponding to the relations and necessities then prevailing, commerce must already have been considerably developed at the very remote period when the reindeer was a dweller in Perigord; for otherwise the reindeer hunters would not have been able to obtain shells from the Atlantic Ocean, rock crystals, and the horns of the Saiga antelope, which lived only in Poland. Our knowledge respecting these and the like things, which is derived from ancient but genuine and incontrovertible tradition, suffices to show that, even in the Reindeer Period, wares much valued, much desired, and perchance even indispensable, were brought by the aid of commerce from a distance. It does not alter the matter in the smallest degree whether the commerce was simply barter, or trade according to our ideas of the same; since even to the present day, at comparatively no great distance from us, on the Kirghizian Steppes, the chief commerce is barter, for the half-barbarous Nomads prefer to get from the Russians wares rather than money for cattle.
There was at all times one principal article which, with a people or a tribe, was in urgent request. As seen in our own days in South America, the arrow-poison, or curarG, whose preparation is known only to a few hordes, has become one of the most precious objects of commerce among the Indians of the Amazon districts; so that, to procure it, the dwellers on the Napo take in boats a voyage which lasts three months; thus also, in the Reindeer Period, the horns of the Saiga antelope, were in extensive and eager demand. According to Prschewalski (“Travels in Mongolia,” German edition, 1876), the horns of antelopes are still of great importance in Mongolia; for instance, the black horns of the Orongo antelope are sent from North Thibet; they are employed to indicate the spot where the corpse of a worshipper of Buddha is to be thrown to the wild beasts.
When we compare the articles which have been found in P6rigord in the habitations of the Gauls of the Reindeer Period with those met with in the abodes of the much later inhabitants of the Oder and Vistula territory, we are driven irresistibly to the conclusion that neither the perforated seashells, the rock crystals, the horns of the Saiga antelope in favour with the one race, nor the bronze fibulas and the other bronze objects in favour with the second were necessary articles of life. It was exclusively articles of luxury, ornaments, perhaps also articles to which a religious significance was attached, that from the beginning gave animation to commerce; for packages of such articles, comparatively small in volume but considerable in value, could be conveyed to great distances, whereas articles of indispensable necessity to life are always large in volume and represent a comparatively small value. The first circumstance made the transport of
these latter articles on the natural roads of the primaeval world almost impossible; the second m^de them unattractive to the chapman coming from far regions. After articles of luxury come assuredly house gear, such as buckets and similar things, which the uncultured inhabitant of the North, who always took up his abode near rivers, brooks, and lakes, had been in the habit of making for himself with birch bark or with wood. In regard to this point I differ in opinion from Genthe; but I rest my view, as I intend immediately to show, on an analogy revealed to me by my own experience, for something exactly corresponding we find at the present day in North Asia.
The principal merchandise of the dealers from the South of Siberia brought to the Ostjaks, the Samojedes, and others, does not consist in necessaries of life, in indispensable articles of attire, in needful house furniture; but in Tobacco, in cotton goods, in brass implements in the first place, and in axes and other iron tools in the second. The Russian trade with the Buriates on the Steppes furnishes to those tribes cups and saucers, real and false beads, silk stuffs and cotton stuffs in the first place, and in the second Tobacco, tea, and salt. All these articles are exchanged for animals, skins, and, in addition recently, for wheaten meal. And verily it is very natural that man at the lowest or at a very low degree of culture should, before all things and above all things, buy articles of luxury in order to make his life more enjoyable. The forest swarming with game and the water swarming with fishes supply, though not without difficulty and danger, his two most urgent needs — food and clothing. As indisputably civilisation developed itself at a much earlier period in the East than in the West, and gave birth to corresponding industries, we are entitled to conclude—and the conclusion is justified by historical testimonies—that in very remote ages the industrialism of Asia sought among the uncultivated populations of Europe a market for its productions, and, as an equivalent for these, raw materials for new productions. The foundation of colonies, first on the coast of the sea, and afterwards at some distance from them, was a further and necessary result of the commercial expeditions from the East to the West; and in the course of time those colonies rose to be independent commercial emporiums and manufacturing towns, which entered into competition with the mother country, and ultimately drove it from the market. In this fashion we are able to understand how first of all in the South of our part of the world—which by means of comparatively surer and more convenient commercial routes, especially the Mediterranean Sea, was in active communication with Asia and also with Egypt, that at an early period had attained a high degree of culture—trade, handicrafts, industrialism, and with them civilisation and humanisation, flourished and attained a high point of perfection.
From these original Semitic industrial and commercial centres the products of manufacturers gradually spread to the interior of Europe; herefrom new and previously unknown needs were awakened in the hearts of the barbarians of the North, who, moreover, were supplied with articles which satisfied those needs. But in exchange, and as equivalent, the merchants brought from the North raw materials which, in those days, were of the highest value: tin, indispensable to the preparation of good bronze, and brought by water from Britain; and amber, the inestimable, obtained from the Baltic shores.
With increasing culture, salt became more and more a necessary of life. As Dr. Alfred Schmidt has strikingly remarked, in his treatise on “ Salt,” scientific explorations and discoveries were not needed to show to man the immense benefit of salt; for there are, even at the present day, many wild tribes that are not acquainted with the use of salt. As long as man takes his food raw, he takes as a part of it a quantity of salt sufficient for the transformation of substance in the body. It is by cooking that this natural supply of salt is diminished. The cooking of food, however, indicates simply by itself a higher degree of culture, and compels man to seek that which is the chief seasoning of his food. Though on the earth salt may be said to exist universally, yet it is not always easily attainable. Especially must those who were just emerging from barbarism, and who dwelt at some distance from the sea, have found it difficult to procure salt; though inexhaustible beds of salt were lying only a few fathoms beneath their feet. But they had not the means of procuring the precious seasoning; perhaps had no idea of the treasures which lay so near them in the bosom of the earth.
I believe the salt trade to have been the second great phase in the development of commerce; it made the nations of Central and Northern Europe, who were just awakening from barbarism, acquainted with a new need, and took care to supply the need. I must regard the salt trade as the development of a higher commerce, forasmuch as it demanded more potent, more varied means of transport, and imposed on the consumers the necessity of furnishing a greater number of equivalents. .
Everything tends to show that commerce originally was carried on by guilds, that the chapmen and hawkers—for it was such only who could occupy themselves with the despatch and sale of the wares made in their native region—formed guilds that maintained the strictest secrecy in reference to the transport of wares and the sources whence raw materials could be obtained. If, which is unquestionable, commerce in itself is a blessing to mankind which cannot be too highly
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valued; if, as Peschel has strikingly remarked, art-patterns, inventions, information, higher moral elements, customs, and poetical creations were spread abroad, along with and by means of wares, and civilisation followed the merchant's footsteps—yet, on the other hand it must be confessed that the merchant, through the guild secrecy in which he wrapped himself, through the veil behind which he concealed nations and countries, contributed potently to hinder progress and the rapid and general march of civilisation. Assuredly, also, progress and civilisation would have made far more rapid way if, along with the spirit of caste, national selfishness had not striven, with all the means at its command, to exclude other nations from all share in commerce, as is proved by historical traditions. In our days no city and no state would think of rewarding the captain of a merchant vessel for decoying toward fatal reefs the vessel of another nation following him to discover the object and design of his voyage.
Furthermore, I must mention a circumstance which demonstrates that not the first necessaries of life, but articles of luxury, formed the main element of commerce with the barbarians. The South, rich in grain and in fruits, could obtain no necessaries of life from the barbarians, who probably at the commencements of commerce cultivated grain only to the most limited extent; and if the Italian merchants ever really obtained the necessaries of life from the barbarians, they could not have got a worse equivalent for the goods they gave in exchange: they would simply, to use the proverbial expression, have been carrying wood to the forest. The defers coming from the south of Europe, from the west of Asia, and from the north of Africa, found among the barbarous tribes whom they successively, and in the degree that their own geographical knowledge extended, visited, a very primitive household economy. The barbarian made use, for the most part, of knives, axes, saws, and chisels of stone, and was able himself to make these as well as those of bone; but he could not appreciate the higher value of metal implements of this description; yea, as is still the case with uncivilised nations, which reject what is foreign merely because they know not its value, its use, and its mode of preparation, the barbarian was satisfied with his old favourite arms and instruments. On the other hand, he was fascinated by glittering ornaments, fibulae, pins, bracelets, rings, for which he gave with full hands the natural treasures of his own country, whose real value was not known to him. As the northern Asiatic, and even the uncultivated peasant of eastern Europe still do, he rejected what was useful, but held out an eager hand for the brilliant playthings and ornaments which the foreign merchant brought him. This supposition is confirmed by the oldest graves, in which we find articles of bronze and of stone lying side by side. Beside the arms and necessary house instruments of stone are placed ornaments of bronze. Whoso hath seen with what joy and eagerness a Polish or Russian village beauty gazes at and tries a sparkling brass ring, or a string of sham beads or pearls, and how the eyes of a young rural dandy flash when he beholds very splendid buttons, or a new buckle, and so on, while they turn away with indifference or disdain from really useful articles which they can make for themselves, though in a rude form, can readily imagine the delight with which the inhabitants of a village in the olden time rushed round the Phoenician or Etruscan hawker, the wonder with which they looked at the fine things he had brought with him, and the willingness with which they gave in exchange for them a bar of tin weighing a hundred pounds, or a piece of amber as big as the fist, or a heap of marten or beaver skins. Often must the man of that period—for the same thing still happens among the uncivilised nations of Europe—after he had obtained a bronze fibula, or ring, or buckle of bronze in the manner described, have scampered off, from the belief that he had taken the dealer in, and was afraid lest the dealer should repent of and break his bargain.
@n f^t ^rinL
[London, January 19th, 1878.]
The fire wax brink, the weed wan ripe.
The Pleasant Peri of the Pipe
More glad than May, Fondled the swain, and made him bold. His lips were loosed, and thus he trolled
His artless lay.
Pipe of my Soul, the day draws near
When, of dear dreams the dream most dear
Its earthly shape
Assuming, She we both adore, Our Saint will quit her shrine, no more
To ask escape.
The blue-eyed maid, so kind and good, Our own Madonna, mild of mood, Will take her stand
Within our march, till all depart To rest beside us, heart with heart
And hand in hand.
She gave you to me long ago
With gentle words and wiles, and so I cherish you.
And you have been, as doth become A fraction of her love’s sweet sum, To me most true.
O creamy once! 0 pure and pale,
Of virgin sea-foam! Pipes grow stale And men grow old.
From far your odours are discerned, And use your moony tint hath burned To black and gold.
Alas, my Duksy One! The days
Pass, and each one his signet lays On bowl and brow.
And pipes grow rank, and hearts grow wide, And all our plans get modified—
One scarce knows how 1
Completeness comes upon our lives.
Our sweethearts mellow into wives, And with the ring
Wax masterful, till in the end
Our pipe is, like our quondam friend, An odious thing.
My Fetish sweet and strong! and shall Our times be made canonical?
Shall we be fain
To hide ourselves, or take the street, Or cease the commerce bland and sweet We yet maintain?
Who knows?—She is the best of girls,
Her temper’s golden as her curls, And yet—! I doubt
It’s a toss-up. And who shall win, My Houri? Will she keep you in?
Or put you out ?
•	•	•	•	•	•
He ceased. The fire was grey and dull;
There was no 'Baccy in the Scull;
He shook his head,
Then laid his umbered darling down, Turned with a somewhat sleepy frown, And went to bed.
lijjis at Tehran: ^rtt dasflt.
HI.—LUNTIN’ PIPES AND SNEESHIN’ MULLS.
“Do you know, Roddy,” said I, one winter’s evening, “do you know that I have known a few fools in my time who were very fond of either Tobacco or snuff?”
“Bedad, thin,” said Roddy, “and it showed the good sinse that was in thim. Small blame to thim.”
“Right for you, Roddy,” I replied; “but if I had made the same remark to a watery-nebbed anti, wouldn’t his answer have been, ‘I don’t wonder at a fool being fond of snuff’?”
“Faith, thin,” quo’ Roddy, “and I’d be after explaining to that same anti that there must be a dale of virtue in either a pinch or a puff, else, ’pon my honour, I don’t think a fool would find it out.”
“But what could you make of an anti, Roddy, boy? What good would an anti be at sea, for example?”
“At say, is it?” cried my friend. “Indade, now, and you bring back to my mind, just as ye spake, a lad we had on board the saucy ould Rodney, as smart a frigate as ever hoisted the jack, and cock o’ the Mediterranean by the same token. He might have been about sixteen when he joined us, and he mightn’t have been that same. Only, as soon as he came on board that youngster began to grow, and he grew, and he grew, and he grew; and, by the time he was seventeen—and there’s devil a bit of lie in it—he measured six feet eleven inches in his socks, and just as thin he was, too, as a basin o’ gruel without butter, and divil a smile was ever seen on this same boy Barnes’s lantern-face. He was a bit deaf, too, and he always looked like a boaconstrictor taking a constitutional; but, when you spoke to him, and he bent down towards you, cocked his head, and said ‘Sir?’ then, be jabers, he looked more like a boa than ever. Yes, indade, he was a quare sight.
“Now, our first Luff didn’t care much for a sailor who wasn’t like a sailor, and who could neither chew a quid nor toss off his grog. Well, one day boy Barnes was standing with his hands in his breeches pockets, trying, apparently, to measure heads with the maintop. ‘Boy Barnes, come here,’ says the first Luff. Boy Barnes obeyed. Now, the first Luff wasn’t —sorra an inch—over five feet high. ‘Don’t you smoke,’ said the first Luff. ‘Sir to you?’ said Barnes, doubling himself down over the little Luff. * Don’t you smoke I ’ roared the first Luff, looking up.
“ ‘No, sir; mother would flog me unaccountable if I did.’ Then he straightened up again.
“The first Luff kind o’ laughed through his nose, and says he, ‘Don’t you take your grog?’ ‘Sir to you?’ said Barnes, doubling over him again. ‘Can you drink, ye
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lubber?’ bawled the first Luff, getting as red as a beet. ‘ No,’ said Barnes; ‘ mother would flog me unaccountable if I did.’ Then he straightened up again, and appeared to be gazing over the mizentop at the horizon opposite.
‘“Then, what the deuce can you do?’
“‘Sir to you?’ says Barnes, doubling down again. The first Luff made no more to do, but he sticks his hands in his pockets and walks out from under Barnes, and goes and calls the quartermaster.
“ ‘ That bamboo in breeches, yonder,’ says the first Luff, nodding in the direction of Barnes, who had apparently just discovered a new planet. ‘ What the devil does he do, at all ? ’
“‘Looks arter the dogs, sir,’ says the quartermaster. ‘Nuflin else as I knows on.’
“ ‘ Teach him to take his grog, then. That will stop his growing upwards, else he’ll be knocking his brains out against the mainyard some dark night.’
“ ‘ Aye, aye,’ said the quartermaster. ‘ Shall I teach him to smoke, too, sir?’
“‘Egad, no,’ says the first Luff quickly. ‘The Rodney’s a sailing ship; I don’t want her to be taken for a blasted smoke-jack.’
“But, sure enough, sorra another name did Bames get, ever after, but that Bamboo in Breeches. And that was an anti for you.”
“But what yarns d’ye mean to spin to-night?” added Roddy, as soon as he had primed.
“No yarns, Roddy,” said I; “my stories are all strictly true.”
“ Call them sketches from the life,” suggested Nellie.
“Do you know,” said I, “that the Scotch might be called a nation of snuff-takers. You’ve heard of the old Highlander who, when asked what he would wish for if he had three wishes granted him, said, ‘Well, she’ll have a mountain o’ sneeshin.’ ‘What next?’ said his interrogator. ‘Och! just a whole river o’ whuskey.’ When pressed as to his views as to his third wish, Donald could only think of ‘just more sneeshin.’
“I wonder, now, if any statistician could find out for us the average life of an anti. My great-grandfather, Roddy, honest John Robertson, of Beauly, both snuffed and smoked, and lived for 101 years, taking his walks abroad till the very last, and was found one afternoon sitting at the foot of a tree, a smile on his lips, a rose on each cheek, and snuff-box in hand—dead.
“A real Scot was old Peter M‘Farlane, whom I attended in his last illness. Knowing he had only about a day longer to live, he was giving Eppie, his wife, a great deal of good advice, and likewise telling her where the ’taties and the oats should be sown next spring, and one strict injunction to her was:
“‘You’ll aye keep a pickle good snuff, Eppie, in the same auld corner.*
“‘Toots! Donald, dearie,’ said Eppie, ‘what would a dead man be doin’ wi’ snuff ? Ye dinna, surely, think ye’ll rise again?’
“‘I’m no just sayin’ that I do, Eppie; but if I do, I’ll ken where to find the pickle snuff, and no be plaguing onybody.’
“ And now, Roddy, if you’re primed again, I’ll trot out a fool for your edification, only you mustn’t expect to find anything very funny about my fools. They are merely somewhat original, that’s all.’’
FOOL THE FIRST.
Jamie Duncan was his name—a fool that a farmer kept. Found him very handy, too, among the cattle, you know. If he was a fool, he was a faithful fool. Whatever was entrusted to Jamie’s care was as safe as if placed in the Bank of England. Not that they are in the habit of billeting cows in the Bank of England in time of peace, but never mind. A couple of young men met Jamie one night, driving home a cow from a distant market. “Let us see,” said one to the other, “what Jamie will do if we pretend to steal the cow. I think,” he continued, addressing Jamie, “ we better have this cow.” Instantaneous action suggested itself to the fool as the only way out of the difficulty; so, with the cudgel he carried, and without one word of warning, he made such a tremendous onslaught on the two acting thieves that he quietened them both, so effectually that shutters had to be procured to carry them home, and they left not their beds for weeks. “They were goin’ to steal ma coo,” Jamie explained, when be got home, “so I just slew them baith, as Cain slew his brother. Maybe Abel tried to steal Cain’s coo. Whakens?”
Jamie’s love of Tobacco was something quite out of the common. Give him a halfpenny to buy a bit of twist and you made him a friend for ever. For a stick of niggerhead. Jamie would have died for you. The farm where Jamie lived was far away in the uplands of Aberdeenshire, and Jamie’s fee for his services was plenty to eat and drink, and a penny a day; and the whole of his pecuniary earnings Jamie spent in Tobacco. In the hamlet near the farm there were one or two shops, and in one of them Tobacco might be bought; but Jamie dealt not there, and if asked his reason, “I dinna like the wifie,” he would say, “ and I dinna like her ’Bacca, for I ken she damps it to mak it weigh, and Lord only kens what she damps it wi*. I put a bit in mymooth ae day, and Gory! I thocht I was poosbened. It fairly turned my stammach.”
Now the shop to which Jamie carried his custom was no
less than fifteen miles away. An ounce of Tobacco cost Jamie threepence, so once in three days, winter and summer, as certain as sunrise, Jamie went trotting off to that shop after six o’clock in the evening, and was always back home again by midnight as fresh as a daisy. He never failed to impress upon the merchant that he “ cam a’ the way frae Locheen for an ounce o’ Tobacco,” and doubtless he got good value for his money. I’ve often met Jamie of a summer evening, trotting away for his morsel of Tobacco. I think I see him now, tall, somewhat ragged, and ill shod, stubbly as to beard, which he trimmed with a pair of scissors, his bonnet pulled well over his ears, and a young tree in one hand two feet higher than himself.
There was a drunken soutar (shoemaker) lived not far from the village where Jamie bought his Tobacco, a man like Tam o’ Shanter, who, “ frae November till October, ae market day was never sober.” Now about three miles on Jamie’s side of the bridge was a steep rocky ravine, spanned by an old Gothic bridge, and far down beneath was a brown river, which, even in fine weather, was ever in a state of fret and fume with the boulders that tried to bar its progress, but when swollen with the streams from the mountain sides, it tore along with the speed and force of a cataract. Returning as usual from the village one evening of a very rainy stormy day, Jamie found that the river had risen higher than ever it had been known to rise before, and had almost totally destroyed the bridge, having torn down one entire side and neaily the whole of the road, leaving only one parapet standing, and that seemed tottering. This parapet was barely a foot and a half wide, and of course higher in the centre. “ Weel,” said Jamie, eyeing it for a moment, “ hame’s hame, and ower I maun gang.”
“O! Lord, I wish I were hame.” Jamie looked speedily round, and there on a stone sat a queer-looking little figure, with a yellow leathern apron on.
“ Wha the deil are ye ? ” said Jamie.
“ Oh,” groaned the creature, “I’m Tam the soutar, and the brig’s washed awa, and I’ll no get hame the nicht. Oh! me, Oh! me, and when she does catch me, she’ll gie me a most terrible thrashin’, she said she would.”
“ Ye’re drunk, are na ye ?” said Jamin.
“Oh man, aye,” replied the poor soutar, “Tm no only drunk but I’m just fearfully fuddled.”
“ Can ye say truly rural? ” said Jamie.
“ Whisht wi’ ye,” said Tam, “ I wadna even attempt it.” ‘‘Can ye stand on ae leg?” asked Jamie.
The soutar opened his eyes as wide as he could, and stared at Jamie in astonishment. “ Stand upon ae leg! ” he cried. “ Lord! man, I can hardly stand upon the twa o’ them. I’ve been drinkin’ for a haill week.”
“The more fool you,” said Jamie, biting a bit off the end of his ounce of twist.
“ What’ll ye gie me,” added Jamie, “ to carry ye ower on my back.”
“ Losh! man,” said the soutar in some surprise “ wha are ye, at all at all?”
“ I’m daft Jamie Duncan.”
“Oh!” said Tam, settling down again, “I was sure ye were either the deil or a born idiot. Man alive! dy’e think I’d trust mysel on ony body’s shouthers on the top o’ that boilin’, surgin’, foamin’ pot, ye gomril. Gae awa’ wi’ ye.”
“A’ richt than,” said Jamie, “ please yoursel; I’m aff, for it’ll soon be dark.” And Jamie sprang lightly towards the dangerous parapet.
“ Stop,” cried Tam, “ dinna gang and leave me, man. D’ye think ye really could carry me safely to the ither side on your back?”
“ Just as sure as that the sun has gane down o’er the hill yonder,” said Jamie; “ as sure as that it’ll be dark in half an hoor; as sure as that water-kelpie ’ll whip ye doon the burn if I leave ye sittin’ on this stane.”
“ Weel, weel, then,” said the unhappy Tam, “ I’ll just get up, and I maun try and think o’ a bit prayer to say.” As he spoke he mounted the stone somewhat unsteadily, and clambered thence on to Jamie’s shoulders.
“ Noo,” said Jamie, as soon as he got him fairly up, “I’m no goin’ to let you ride cockerty-coosie on my shouthers for naething, ye drunken auld deevil.”
“ Na, na,” said the soutar, “ I’ll pay ye weel; Til gie ye an ounce o’ Tobacco.”
“ That’ll do,” said Jamie; but the soutar didn’t hear him adding “so far."
Next moment Jamie had mounted the parapet, steadied himself a little, then took three or four steps forward on his perilous journey, when he suddenly stopped short.
“For God’s sake gang on,” cried the terrified Tam.
“ I dinna budge anither step,” said daft Jamie, “ under twa ounces.”
“ Twa ounces, be it, then,” quavered the soutar.
“I mean three,” said Jamie.
“ Four if you like. Oh! in mercy gang on.”
And daft Jamie did “gang on,” till he had reached the very centre and highest portion of the parapet. Here he came to a dead halt.
It must be admitted that the situation for both these fools was terribly appalling: it was gloaming even now, almost night above, the maddened, foaming stream beneath, and the narrow foothold that seemed to totter and reel with their weight. But Jamie was firm.
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“Deevil an inch out o’ this do I move, back or fore, till ye promise me a pound o’ the vera best niggerhead that can be gotten for love or money.”
Perhaps the soutar had swooned, for he did not answer immediately.
“D'ye hear me?” cried Jamie, giving him a shake.
“Ah—h!” yelled Tam. ‘‘I’ll gie ye ma whole fortune to gang on.”
“Humph,” grunted Jamie; “that’s cornin’ to the point. Ithocht I’d bring ye to your senses.”
And slowly, slowly on went Jamie, and all the while the poor soutar was praying as he had never prayed before; praying as only the dying can pray.
Safe at last, and Jamie threw his burden most unceremoniously down on the grass.
Hardly had he done so, when, with a noise like thunder, down went the remaining parapet of the bridge, almost burying them in foam and spray.
“Hech!” said Jamie to the prostrate soutar, “ye didna mak’ up your mind a minute ower soon.”
“As sure as I’m aloive,” said Roddy, “I’ll be draming about it all the noight long; and what became of the pair of them at last? Did Tam, as you call him, pay the fine?”
“Jamie would have drowned him if he hadn't,” I replied. But Tam’s repentance didn’t last long; he died a drunkard’s death a year or so after it.
Well, in due time the bridge was repaired, and daft Jamie Jived to make many hundred more journeys to the distant village for his modest ounce of twist.
But, one dark stormy winter’s night, poor Jamie came not home as usual. A search was instituted for him, and next day he was found lying stark and stiff, as dead as the inhospitable rock whose shelter he had courted.
More fools, Roddy, on a future occasion.
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
Oe ^a^r (0r^an |aust
The “Lame Messenger” of Lahr, in the 78th number of his increasingly popular llistorizche Kalender fiir dem Burger und Landmann, returns to the subject of the Orphan House which he proposes to found upon cigar-ends. He gives the general results of a year’s advocacy of his scheme,* and adds some specimens of the character of the wide correspondence in which it has involved him.f His old friend and interviewer, the pub-Usher, has been lately advanced to the dignity of a “ Kanz-leirath,” or chancery counsellor. As he was travelling to Offenburg on business, he made a detour at Dinglingeii, in order to give a new year’s greeting to the Kalender-mann, and to hand over to him an old cigar box, tilled to the brim with contributions in kind, and to add thereto a small offering in money. He found every chair in the Kalender-mann’s study occupied with bundles of kalendars for the new year, and observed a quiet, pale, little girl standing at the window, diligently knitting. The Kalender-mann sent her out of the room to fetch a bottle of Markgrafler wine and two glasses, and cleared a chair for his friend.
“Who is that child?” asked the visitor. He was informed that she was the first orphan who had been taken into residence, the elder sister of “the family” which is to be gathered together as soon as the Orphan House becomes a concrete institution with a building all its own. Until that period arrives, the Kalender-mann intends to use his own modest house as the germ of the great palace which he so sanguinely expects as the final result of his scheme. He then told the true story of the “little Lieschen.” Her father was a poor widowed day labourer, who was employed in felling trees. A few months ago he was crushed by a falling oak, and after a few days of sickness he died, leaving Lizzy, who was his only child, a desolate orphan. The sale of his poor household goods sufficed for little more than the cost of his funeral and the payment of a few debts, and Lizzy was thrown upon the commune for support. She was placed in the service of a rough boor named Michel 0., at a yearly stipend of 20 gulden, and it was her business to look after the swine and goats, and make herself useful in the house of her “foster-parents,” as the law significantly names those persons to whom a commune entrusts or apprentices its pauper orphans. Her mistress gave her a beating for making the luxurious request that she might have some salt with her potatoes. As the educational legislation of Baden compels all children to spend a large proportion of their time in the school, Lizzy had to labour in her spare hours far too heavily for her age and strength; she was badly nourished, and the poor little maiden cried herself to sleep night after night on the straw in the goats’ stall, which was her only bed.
One day there was a christening feast in Michel’s house, and Michel’s cousin and his cousin’s wife, and the schoolmaster from the next village, who were the godparents of Michel’s little son, came to the festivity. Lizzy was allowed a share in the good things; but they were all heaped upon one dish, and she was not allowed to eat at the same table with these great people, but had to carry them to the bench behind the stove, where she heard all the conversation.
♦ Pp. 21-25. fPp. 51-52.
The cousin drew the Kalender for 1877 from his pocket. “Have you read this queer piece of news?” he said to Michel: “The old Timbertoes is going to build a great house at Lahr for orphans, and tells us that he can do it all with the mere savings of cigar-ends.”
“It is one of the old Rogue’s jokes,” replied Michel.
“Pardon me,” interrupted the schoolmaster, “it is no joke. I know the Kalender-mann intimately, and he has explained his whole plan to me. What he says, that he will do—the Orphan House may be reckoned on as a fact.
Michel struck the table with such fierceness that the blow set all the coffee cups jingling. He declared that such an innovation would not be permitted. It would be a plain robbery of many respectable people who had always had the right to hire the small services of the orphans. The communes had always provided for the orphans; it had ever been so, and ever must be so.
The poor little Lizzy listened to this conversation with mingled astonishment and hopefulness. She was an orphan, and as she heard Michel’s cousin confirm the assertion of the schoolmaster, she set down the coffee cup she was just raising to her lips, for she was trembling with excitement.
“Yes,” said he, “it will be exactly as the Herr Lehrer tells us. We shall see a home for orphans, in which the poor children will be comfortably clothed, well fed, educated, and treated with love, and, for my part, I shall be only too glad if the Kalender-mann carries it out.”
The words “treated with love” operated so powerfully on Lizzy’s mind that she rose from her bench, and involuntarily moved close to the table. “What do you want?” growled Michel.
“I—I want to know only—where, then, does this Kalender-mann live?”
“In Lahr, my child,” said the schoolmaster.
Michel turned angrily upon her, and demanded how she dared to interrupt the company. “ Take yourself off at once,” said he; “go into the wood, and bring us a bundle of faggots.”
Lizzy meekly answered “Yes,” and slipped out of the door. Thirty hours later the Kalender-mann of Lahr found her lying in a swoon on the doorstep of his house. She had made this long journey in worn-out shoes, with nothing in in her pocket but two cold potatoes, in order to beg that she might be taken into the Orphan House.
“And the Orphan House,” said the Kanzleirath, “is not yet commenced. I am ashamed, after hearing the story of your first orphan, to confess what a little I have done. But I have conscientiously refrained from wasting the smallest bit of a cigar for these past twelve months. Here are my cigar-ends. There must be just 730, two a day. I am a man of regular habits; I never smoke more, and never smoke fewer. You w ill find that I have cut them uncommonly far down. And here is my promised ten-pfennig piece. All this was my duty, my plain obligation. Now I come to something supererogatory. We have founded a small “Eintracht fur Cigarrenspitzen” in our club. We have put up a box, into which every member who is present is bound to snip off his cigar-end. The annual total has been sold, and has realised this five-mark piece. Now, Kalender-mann, are you satisfied? ”
The reply was preceded by a fresh grasping of hands, and a fresh clinking of glasses. “ Thank you, Kanzleirath. If all smokers were like you, it would soon go nobly with our Orphan House—nobly too, I think, with our fatherland.”
The Kanzleirath then asked what help his friend had received from the other five million—or rather the other 4.999,999—German smokers? This gave occasion to the Kalender-mann to produce some specimens of the heap of letters which have been called forth by his invitation. It appears that in various parts of the German Empire, and even amongst German colonists in the New World, the article in last year’s Kalender provoked some readers to found local societies for the saving, collection, and sale of cigar-ends. The sums forwarded were necessarily not very large in themselves; it could not be expected from such a source; but when they are all added together, they fully bear out the truth of the Orphan House motto—“ Many a little makes a mickle.” Thus a society in Saarlouis sent 15 shillings (marks), and later 31 shillings. - Another at Ruhrot forwarded three boxes of cigar-ends and 5 marks in money; 10 marks were received from a collection in Coblenz; while a society in Maxau sent no less than 100 marks (£5 English money). The Anti-Tobacco crusaders will be grieved to hear that a non-smoker in Karlsruhe presented the sum of 5 marks. A society in Ingelheim sent 10 marks; and another in Santa Fe, New Mexico, despatched 5 dollars across the ocean. Unhappily, when the Kalender-mann added up the total of his receipts in kind and money, he found that the result would only go a little way towards the furthering of his ambitious plan. “I have enough” he writes “to purchase the lightning conductors, the house doors, and a few other necessities of a great Orphan House; but I am a very long way indeed from being justified in laying the foundation-stone of the building.”
He gives us a few curious specimens of the many letters which he has received from sceptics, foes, and satirisers of his scheme. Nearly all those which can be called friendly attempt to explain to him the ridiculous disproportion between the means and the end. Some have sent him packets of the
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burnt ends of cigars, leaving him to pay the postage. In order to move the hearts of those who tell him that it is no use for them to forward their very small contribution of remnants, because he will probably have so many that the want of their petty addition will not be felt, he tells the story of the Biirgermeister of Lumpenheim; or, to turn it into pure English, “ The Mayor of Ragamuffinham.” The parish, which was in a wine-growing district, determined to celebrate its respected president’s twenty-fifth year of office by presenting him with a huge barrel of wine. It was not to be compounded—as I am told some Swiss hotel-keepers occasionally compound the famous Kutscher-wein, that strong drink which delights the heart of the Alpine Jehu—by emptying all the dregs left by their customers in their bottles or glasses into an omnium-gatherum tub. Every citizen of Lumpenheim agreed in common council that he would pour a bottle of the best wine of his own production into a common barrel, which was to be put upon a cart and taken round the parish from door to door. The mayor was delighted at the friendliness of his fellow-citizens, and he was pleased to think that, while the gift of a single bottle of wine would be no great strain upon any one of them, the totality of 299 bottles (for there were 300 full citizens in Lumpenheim, including himself) would constitute a most acceptable present. When the cart had gone on its journey from house to house, and it came back to his own door, the Biirgermeister said to his wife that “ no doubt the wine was much shaken, but he must at once drink just one glass to the health and wealth of the very estimable community.” The wine was broached, and the first glass drawn from it, when, behold, instead of wine mere water streamed out of the barrel! Each thoughtful parishioner had said to himself, “Bah! there will be 298 bottles of good wine in this barrel; one bottle of water will do no mischief in the midst of so much wine. Hence everyone of the admirers of the Biirgermeister had emptied water instead of wine into the barrel. When the fact became known, they all made wry faces, and each one grumbled at the shabbiness of all the others for playing so mean a trick upon the honoured mayor, and upon all his fellow-parishioners.
The Kalender-mann is assured that thousands of persons who sympathise with his plan, although they do not commit a similar error in morality, are committing a similar error in calculation. “ My poor 100 or 1000 cigar-ends,” they say to themselves, “ will never be wanted amongst so many. I shall do no harm if I add none, and no perceptible good if I add a paltry few, where others are sure to send so many.” The projector declares that he will never give up his scheme, but he means to preach it more and more urgently in each net? issue of his popular serial, until he has compelled his readers to make it a brilliant success.
He has had a terra-cotta collection-box made by Messrs. Fischer, Naumann, and Co., of Ilmenau, for exposition in hotels, public-houses, and clubs, and for which he charges 5 marks. It is sold by J. H. Geiger of Lahr, the publisher of the Almanac. The price will be deducted as soon as the contributions of the purchaser reach that amount, and will be sent back to him; or, if he so prefers, will be added to the Orphan House fund. He gives a woodcut of this “ box,” which is really a small statue of the wooden-legged “ Hinkende Bote ” himself, as he has been figured on the cover of the Almanac ever -since the beginning of this century. His cocked hat, which rests on a hollow tree trunk, is the receptacle for money offerings, while the offerings in kind are placed in the trunk. Four appropriate mottoes are placed on different portions of the ornament. Thus, his hat is inscribed, “ Pray give at least one pfennig a year, for the Orphan House in Lahr.” On the tree stands the advice:—
* While beheading the weed, Remember our need, And cut without greed.”
“ Ciparrenapitzen Schneidet ab, Doch nicht zu knapp! ”
In a second and later article, at the end of the Kalender, the projector states that the offerings now flow in from all parts of the German Empire. He declares that if his present helpers remain faithful, and active sympathy increases at its present ratio, he may confidently expect a day when he will be able to raise the laugh against his critics by laying the foundation-stone of the solid Waisenhaus. Amongst other counsels which he gives his assistants, he coolly advises them to use cigar-cases of a soft material, in which the cigars are easily crushed, because spoilt cigars yield even a richer booty than cigar-ends.
^ ©urn-throat.
Exceedingly picturesque is the French name for a very short pipe: bnile-gueule. For the French word gueule there is no exact English equivalent. It is the name of the large ravenous mouth of fishes and of beasts of prey, so that there is a touch of the grotesque, because a touch of the exaggerated, in calling a cutty pipe a bivle-gueule, a burn-throat, or burnjaws, or burn-chops. The Irish dhudeen is the poetical as brvlc-gueule is the graphic name of a cutty pipe, which is thus, both pictorially and poetically, more honoured than pipes of more aristocratic pretensions.
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If, being impatient of the restrictions of the law, and overlustful of profit, I try to sell to my fellow-men a quantity of good Tobacco, without first paying duty to the Excise, I am fined £20; and I ought to be thankful that the administrator of the law, who puts upon me this penalty, has mingled mercy with—shall we say “ j ustice ” ? That is what happened to Albert Lovell, at Cardiff; the “head and front of his offending” being 1| lb. of unstamped Cavendish. I should find it more convenient to poison my fellow-creatures than to shirk my “duties” to the Excise. For, if I expose for sale 300 lbs. of codfish, unfit for human food, as Walter Scott was proved the other day, at Manchester, to have done, I shall be fined £5, as he was; I have the luxurious satisfaction of regarding myself (if I choose) as a martyr to vulgar prejudice. It is decidedly better to poison your customers than to dodge the Custom House. We rejoice to live in an age when the moral principles of an enlightened Christian civilisation are triumphant. But when the Christian state persists in overriding my simple ethics with arguments of this sort, I feel like the poor New England vestryman, who was harassed by the opposition of a “rich and irascible brother.” “ The rich one,” says my informant, “ asked who he was, anyway, that he should presume to interfere. Quick, and hot with righteous wrath, came the answer:—‘I’m a poor, humble Christian, you d------d old hypocrite! ’ ”
Now, with all possible deference to the powers—powers legal, powers political, powers ecclesiastical, and powers social—I make bold to say that we “poor, humble Christians” who use Tobacco are not well treated by the other people. (I will not employ terms to characterise those other people; lest, like the weak brother in the New England vestry, I fall into the use of strong language). Let me adduce pertinent instances. The paymaster of Her Majesty’s ship “ Thunderer,” to wit. That gentleman was on board the troopship “ Serapis,” in Portsmouth harbour, the other day; and, on leaving that vessel for the “ Thunderer,” he took with him a box of cigars. I presume they were a present from some brother-officer; and, at all events, they were for his own smoking, not for sale, and they had not touched dry land. But the outdoor officer of Customs, who was on duty alongside the “ Serapis,” was vigilant. He asked Mr. Williams, the paymaster, whether he had any cigars or Tobacco with him. Mr. Williams produced his box of cigars; and he was straightway summoned for “unlawfully concealing” them. Behold the sequel:—“The magistrates thoroughly acquitted the defendant of any wilful attempt or intention of smuggling; but . . . they had no option but to direct him to pay 21s. 6d., the value, duty, and costs! ” Take another case. I should have supposed Heatheryknowes to be a nice place to live in, if I might have formed a judgment from the name alone. But David Black, farm servant to Alexander Steel, did not find it so. David lived in the farmhouse, and enjoyed what is described as the “ privilege ” of sitting at the kitchen fire after his day’s work; but, as Alexander put up this inscription, “ Smoking strictly prohibited,” David did not find that “privilege” quite equal to his necessities. It was his habit to smoke of evenings; there was no other place to smoke in; he had been allowed to smoke by the kitchen fire in all other farmhouses where he had lived; and he smoked—the prohibition notwithstanding —in the kitchen of Alexander Steel. They quarrelled about the matter; David was turned out of doors; he took this in the light of a dismissal; and he sued, or “pur-sued” Alexander for his half-year’s wages, by reason of wrongful dismissal. Sheriff Balfour, of Airdrie, being of opinion that the farmer had a right to make what rules he liked for his own house, and ignoring the fact that the use of the kitchen as a home was part of the labourer’s wages, which he should (one would think) have a right to spend as he pleased, “absolved defender from the conclusions of the summons; ” or, in the English language, non-suited the plaintiff.
Perhaps, upon the doctrine of averages, and with the proper reverence for the “law of compensation,” we might be submissive to much ill-treatment if we could have assurance of the good quality of our Tobacco. But that satisfaction is denied to us. I think my last attempt at a “Mixture” (Tobacco Plant for March) contained a few indications that we must not crow much on that score. Since then, a few further disturbing facts have crossed my path. From Bremen I hear that much mild, inferior, light coloured Tobacco, which is made into cigars in Germany, is darkened by “ Havannah brown,” “ sap brown,” “ condensed sauce,” and other decoctions of vegetable colouring matter, to give the cigars the appearance of “full-flavoured Havannahs.” For the information (and torture) of smokers, a German paper is kind enough to state that the anxious victim may make sure of the vileness of his cigar by passing lightly over it a piece of white blotting-paper, saturated with sal ammoniac. If the leaf has been “doctored,” the dark matter will stain the paper. But look again: Herr Schlieden, the botanist, says 450 tons of beetroot leaves are annually “ transformed into Tobacco” in Germany; that in some parts of the country the leaves of endive and of the potato plant are made into cigars; the cigars from Vevey have no Tobacco in them, except so much as the cabbage or turnip leaves of which they are made have absorbed when steeped in Tobacco extract. I can’t say I agree with the communicative botanist
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in his proud boast that “in no country in the world are cigars sold at so cheap a rate as in Germany.” My view would be that such cigars are dear—quite irrespective of the price they fetch. At any rate, these revelations do not assist my indignation at the increase of the Tobacco duty in Germany; while they help me greatly to understand why the German Government think it would be a nice thing to have a monopoly of the Tobacco manufacture in that happy land. When Victor Emmanuel’s little grandson asked for a cigar, the King said: “Bah! it is a bad habit.” “Is it?” said the princeling; “well, then, when I grow up, I’ll teach you better than to do it.” I haven’t any doubt that the new alliance between Italy and Germany had been cemented by presents of German cigars. Bismarck ought to have known better, no doubt; but patriotism blinds its votaries. Did not Cowper say: “England! with all thy faults, I love thee still”? And, really, to an impartial mind, it seems as if he would not have been much to blame if he hadn’t.
“Disgruntled” is a sweet word. It is brought into requisition by an American paper to define the mental condition of David Burns, a planter, when before the commissioners for “locating” the city of Washington. David was so much “disgruntled” that he seems in turn to have “disgruntled” the great patriot, George Washington himself. For it is recorded that, “after enduring for a while his opposition, the Father of his Country hastily remarked: ‘Mr. Burns, if the Federal city had not been located here, you would have been a poor Tobacco planter, instead of a rich landowner.* ‘Vera weel, Mr. Washington,’ replied Burns, ‘an’ if ye hadna married the Widow Custis, ye wad ha’ been a poor land surveyor instead of a rich slaveowner.’ ” And now the whole Legislative Body of New York State is “disgruntled” about this Tobacco business. On the 28th of February, during the sitting of the Assembly at Albany, “ Mr. Fish offered a resolution forbidding smoking in the Assembly Chamber. Mr. Brooks suggested ‘And committee-rooms also.’ Mr. Alvord, who was in the chair, said: ‘ Committees must control that matter.* Just then Mr. Grady rose to address the Chair. Mr. Alvord thereupon quickly said: •The Chair would inform the gentleman from New York that this is not an excise question.’ (Laughter.) Mr. Grady has spoken in season and out of season on the excise question. The anti-smokers carried their resolution by a vote of 53 to 20.” As an agreeable contrast to this proceeding, I take an extract from the proceedings of a meeting of Wesleyan Methodist ministers of Halifax and Bradford, held a little while ago:—“Moved by the Rev. E. Salt, supported by the Revs. J. Hammond, H. H. Chettle, J. Brash, R. Harding, and carried unanimously, ‘That the Conference be respectfully requested to direct that the question hitherto proposed to candidates for the ministry and for ordination in reference to smoking be discontinued^ The only people likely to be “disgruntled” by this refreshing symptom of toleration in Methodistical quarters are the Anti-Tobaccoites; and a little “disgruntling” will do those amiable gentleman no harm. They are something after the fashion of the tourist in the White Mountain region, who, being thus addressed by a local resident—“I suppose, my friend, you enjoy this glorious view, that people come so far too look at?” replied: “Why, yes; but if I’d had the sortin’ of these hills, I’d made ’em a little peakeder.” By-the-by, what a gift some people have for reform! A friend of mine suggests that the first great reform movement in human history was that wliich led to the disappearance of our ancestors’ tails. But he’s an anthropologist.
Blessed Tobacco has wrought a revolution in Japan. Sir David Wedderburn says, in the Fortnightly Review, that in that rapidly advancing country “ swaggering warriors of two swords have subsided into peaceable citizens, bearing no weapons more deadly than a fan and Lilliputian Tobacco-pipe.” And there are still fresh evidences of its excellent influence upon the American character. Tobacco, like music, “hath charms to soothe the savage breast.” The Rev. R. W. Dale has been to America; and he thus testifies (in one of those Nineteenth Century articles which nowadays save us the infliction of superfluous books):—“When I was fortunate enough to find a man with a cigar in his mouth standing on the platform of a Pulman car, I could sometimes make him more communicative; and occasionally, under these conditions, 1 learned a great deal about the country.” And again: “ On the lines which have two classes of carriages I often spent half an hour in a smoking car intended for both classes of passengers. There I generally found much more freedom.”
Do you want some illustrations of the personal effects of Tobaccoism and its opposite? Take first, then, this pleasant picture of the late Dr. William Stokes, of Dublin—a man known for his genius and his geniality half the world over:—
“He never hurried himself hi walking or talking, and often in the midst of a summer tempest of rain would stop deliberately, take out his snuff-box, enjoy a large pinch of snuff, and then proceed to the point of his story, while the rain was streaming from our hats; for he never carried an umbrella, and used even to laugh at the genus of the wnbrellifera, as he called them.” And, having contemplated that cheerful figure, turn to the biography (just published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, of New York, and Sampson Low and Co., of London) of Gerrit Smith, tho abolitionist. “ It is painful,” says a friendly critic, “ to read that this man, who would not drink any intoxicating liquor, who hated Tobacco as heartily as King James, and lived on the simplest fare, suffered from as many maladies as the pampered aristocrat who abuses all the good things of life.”
In truth, the list of his ailments, as it appears in the book of his life, is too distressing to be needlessly inflicted on my readers; and I leave it with the simple comment that a little Tobacco would assuredly have soothed some of his pains, without impairing either his usefulness in the world or his hopes of bliss hereafter.
I cannot do better, by way of gentle flavour to my “ Mixture,” than quote a passage from Sala’s biographical sketch of the late George Cruikshank, in the Daily Telegraph, Speaking of the “Table Book,” the writer says:—
The artist’s portrait of himself, meerschaum in mouth, with a little King Charles on his knee, is a charming study, and establishes, besides, the fact that at one period, at least, of his life George was a sedulous smoker. During his last 20 years, however, he was os resolute in his denunciation of the weed as of the maddening wine cup. Only to a few very dearly prized literary friends he would show himself tolerant in the matter of Tobacco. “I want you to give up drinking and smoking,” ho would say, “ and you tell me that if you don’t smoko you can’t write. Now, 111 meet you half way. Give up the drink, and you may smoke—just a little.”
George Cruikshank was nearly right. My own view is stronger:—Give up the drink, and you may smoke as much as you like. Your Man-of-all-Work.
Jfojm Bilson anb t^e Dorits Ambrosian®.*
i.
The “Noctes Ambrosian®” appeared in “Blackwood’* between 1822 and 1835, arousing an excitement and taking by storm a popularity almost unique in their kinds. Many causes, beyond the intrinsic merits and vigour of the dialogues, contributed to these results. When the series began, the capital of Scotland was a real literary cap tai, with the Great Unknown for its half-veiled monarch. Party spirit was high and fierce. The Whigs with the “Edinburgh Review,” started in the second year of the century, carried all before them in periodical literature, until, fifteen years later, “Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine” came into the field. (The “Quarterly,” commenced in 1809, being of the modern Babylon, had but slight influence on the modern Athens.) The “Review,” which had been fractious and turbulent enough in its infancy, had now arrived at years of some discretion and become comparatively decorous; the young “Magazine” rushed into the battle ramp.ng and raging, bellowing and roaring, full of tropical ardour and savagery, neither taking nor giving quarter; and in the dust and confusion of the fray, and the bewilderment of manifold mystifications, unscrupulous impersonations, fantastic disguises, interchanges of armour and arms, it was impossible for the spectators clearly and surely to discern who was the captain of the host and who were the warriors. If their own defiant proclamation could be trusted,! there were some strange wild beasts in this deluge of anthropophagi suddenly let loose upon Whigs, Radicals, Benthamites, Joe-Humists, Cockneys, Heretics, haverers, haverils, gouks, sumphs, e tutti quanti; for this rampageous Apocalyptic menagerie bad constituted themselves the heraldic supporters of the Nobility, the bodyguard of the Throne, the watch-dogs of the quiet sanctities of the Altar—around which they yelped and baiked day and night. In the Ancient Chaldee Manuscript are specified some of the principal champions of “the man in plain apparel, which had his camp in the place of Princes, whose name was as it had been the colour of ebony, and whose number was the number of a maiden, when the days of the years of her virginity have expired.” (Blackwood, 17, Princes Street.) “And the first which came was after the likeness of a beautiful leopard, from the valley of the palm trees, whose going forth was comely as the greyhound, and his eyes like the lightning of fiery flame (Wilson, author of the “Isle of Palms”). . . There came also, from a far country, the scorpion, which delighteth to sting the faces of men (Lockhart). . . Also the great wild boar from the forest of Lebanon, and he roused up his spirit, and I saw him whetting his dreadful tusks for the battle (Hogg; from Ettrick Forest). Also the black eagle of the desert, whose cry is as the sound of an unknown tongue, which flieth over the ruins of the ancient cities, and hath his dwelling among the tombs of the wise men (Sir William Hamilton).” The formidable catalogue included also the lynx, the griffin, the stork, the hyaena; “And the beagle and the slowhound after their kind, and all the beasts of the field, more than could be numbered, they were so many.”
Charged with such powerful explosives as political passion and reckless personalities, a paper or series of papers will indeed go up like a rocket, but is apt to come down like the stick. If, then, when the gunpowder has been long burnt out, and the firework blaze long since swallowed up in oblivious darkness, the “Noctes” still float in the upper air, and still shine with a certain pale or ruddy light, it must be because of some inherent buoyancy and brilliance. It is true that of the original series of seventy-one, Professor J. F. Ferrier, in his
♦ The Comedy of the Noctes Ambrosian®, by Christopher North. Selected and arranged by John Skelton, Advocate (Author of “Tin Imisuichment of Mary Stuart,” Ac.) William Blackwood and Sous, Edinburgh and Loudon. 1876.
t “Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript,” “Blackwood,” October, 1817: quickly suppressed, so that few sets contain it; but republished as Appendix to the “Noctes” in Vol. IV. of the twelve-volume edition of the Works of Professor Wilson, Edited by his Sou-in-Lew, the late Professor J. F. Ferrier. (Blackwood, 1855.)
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twelve-volumed edition of the works of his father-in-law, left about thirty to haunt as wan ghosts the sepulchral limbo of old sets of “Blackwood,” some because they were mainly occupied with matters of merely local and temporary interest, others because Wilson had but small part in them; but the remainder (forty-one by Preface; thirty-nine by Contents), dating from 1825 to 1835, being wholly Wilson’s, various songs excepted, he set forth as a permanent galaxy in the starry heavens of our literature; and who will may study or re-study the same as a systematic whole in the first four volumes of the said works. Ferrier was a subtle thinker, an accomplished scholar, an acute and independent critic; but the father of his wife had thrown a glamour over him, as over so many others, and to his eyes every star in that constellation was of the first magnitude. But we, who never came within the scope of Christopher North’s personal influence, and whose youth was scarce touched by his written spells, cannot but discern that the cluster is far less splendid than reported, and far from well-defined; that no one of its stars is of the first or even of the second degree; that their light is provokingly intermittent, and, at the brightest, rather wavering and diffuse than intense. For his personality, beyond doubt, was exceedingly more potent than his literary genius; and, while fully admitting and admiring the natural fascination which the former exercised on those with whom he came in contact, we must reserve and exercise our right to distinguish and separate this from the legitimate influence of the latter. In order to clearly explain this, it may be necessary to write somewhat about the man, gathering the facts from the Memoir by his daughter, Mrs. Mary Gordon (2 vols., Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1862). John Wilson was born at Paisley on the 18th May, 1785, his father being a wealthy gauze manufacturer; his mother, lineally descended by the female side from the great Marquis of Montrose, a stately lady, of rare intellect, wit, humour, wisdom, and grace, whose remarkable beauty was transmitted to her children. The father died in 1797, and John entered Glasgow University, where he remained until 1803. In the June of this year he entered Magdalen College, Oxford, as a gentleman-commoner, leaving in 1807, after a very brilliant career as a scholar, and one not less brilliant as an athlete, being a splendid all-round man, rider, swimmer, walker, runner, dancer, jumper, angler, boater, wrestler, boxer. In his Essay on Gymnastics (Works, vol. 5), he gives one instance of his own prowess:—“With a run and a leap, on a slightly inclined plane, perhaps an inch to a yard, we have seen twenty-three feet done in great style —and measured to a nicety; but the man who did it (aged twenty-one, height five feet eleven inches, weight eleven stone) was admitted to be (Ireland excepted) the best far-leaperof his day in England.” As to his boxing, we are told by De Quincey, his junior by a year, and contemporary at Oxford, though the two did not get personally acquainted there: “ There was no man who had any talents, real or fancied, for thumping or being thumped, but he had experienced some preeing of his merits from Mr. Wilson. All other pretensions in the gymnastic arts he took a pride in humbling or in honouring; but chiefly his examinations fell upon pugilism; and not a man, who could either ‘give or take,’ but boasted to have punished, or to have been punished by, Wilson of Malien's." On one occasion a surly rough obstructed his way across a bridge. Wilson lost patience, and offered to fight him. The fellow said: “You had better not fight with me; I am such-a-one” (a well-known pugilist). This announcement rather stimulated than daunted young Oxford: “In one minute off went his coat, and he set-to upon his antagonist in splendid style. [Mrs. Gordon has evidently a keen spark of her father’s fire.] The astonished and punished rival, on recovering from the blows and surprise, accosted him thus: ‘You can only be one of the two; you are either Jack Wilson or the Devil.’ This encounter, no doubt, led, for a short time, to fraternity and equality over a pot of porter.” His athletic tastes, love of adventure, and high animal spirits led him into all sorts of queer society, such as affords the only opportunity for the study of unsophisticated human nature. A fellow-collegian records of him: “One of his great amusements used to be to go to the Angel Inn, about midnight, when many of the up and down London coaches met; there he used to preside at the passengers’ supper-table, carving for them, inquiring all about their respective journeys, why and wherefore they were made, who they were, &c.; and, in return, astonishing them with his wit and pleasantry, and sending them off wondering who and what he could be! He frequently went from the Angel to the Fox and Goose, an early ‘purl and gill’ house, where he found the coachmen and guards, &c., preparing for the coaches which had left London late at night; and there he found an audience, and sometimes remained till the college gates were opened, rather (I believe) than rouse the old porter, Peter, from his bed to open for him expressly. It must not be supposed that in these strange meetings he indulged in intemperance; no such thing; he went to such places, lam convinced, to study character, in which they abounded. I never saw him show the slightest appearance even of drink, notwithstanding our wine-drinking, suppers, punch, and smoking in the common room, to very late hours. I never shall forget his figure, sitting with a long earthen pipe, a great tie wig on: those wigs had descended, I fancy,from the days of Addison (who had been a member of our College), and were worn by us all (in order, I presume, to preserve our hair and dress from Tobacco-smoke) when smoking com-	menced after supper; and a strange appearance we made in them I” The same gentleman says: “His pedestrian feats were marvellous. On one occasion, having been absent a day or two, we asked him, on his return to the common room, where he had been. He said, in London. ‘When did you return?’ ‘This morning.’ ‘How did you come?’ ‘On foot.’ As we all expressed surprise, he said: ‘Why, the fact is, I dined yesterday with a friend in Grosvenor (I think it was) Square, and as I quitted the house a fellow who was passing was impertinent and insulted me, upon which I knocked him down; and as I did not choose to have myself called in question for a street row, I at once started as I was, in my dinner dress, and never stopped until I got to the College gate tips morning, as it was being opened.’ Now this was a walk of fifty-eight miles at least, which he must have got over in eight or nine hours at most, supposing him to have left the dinner-party at nine in the evening.” Here is another instance (“Memoir,” I., 191-2), when on a pedestrian tour in the Western Highlands, with his wife, in 1815: “ In Glenorchy his time was much occupied by fishing, and distance was not considered an obstacle. He started one morning at an early hour to fish in a loch which at that time abounded in trout, in the Braes of Glenorchy, called Loch ToiU. Its nearest point was thirteen miles distant from his lodgings at the schoolhouse. On reaching it, and unscrewing the butt-end of his fishing-rod to get the top, he found he had it not. Nothing daunted, he walked back, breakfasted, got his fishing-rod made all complete, and off again to Loch Toila. He could not resist fishing on the river when a pool looked invitingly, but he went always onwards, reached the loch a second time, fished round it, and found that the long summer day had come to an end. He set off for his home again with his fishing-basket full, and confessing somewhat to weariness. Passing near a farmhouse whose inmates he knew (for he had formed acquaintance with all), he went to get some food. They were in bed, for it was eleven o’clock at night, and after rousing them, the hostess hastened to supply him; but he requested her to get him some whisky and milk. She came with a bottle-full and a can of milk, with a tumbler. Instead of a tumbler he requested a bowl, and poured the half of the whisky in, along with half the milk. He drank the mixture at a draught; and, while his kind hostess was looking on with amazement, he poured the remainder of the whisky and milk into the bowl, and drank that also. He then proceeded homeward, performing a journey of not less than seventy miles.” In “Anglimania: Cast Second; Twaddle on Tweedside” (“Works,” VI., 334-5), he tells this story himself, with some slight variations. He says nothing of the Homeric can of milk and bottle of whisky; but avows that on recovering from the stupor at the absence of his rod-pieces, “ we put our pocket-pistol to our head and blew out its brains into our mouth—in the liquid character of Glenlivet.” He makes the distance to the loch fourteen instead of thirteen miles, and thus summarises the day’s proceedings: “At eleven our five flies were on the water. By sunset we had killed twenty dozen—none above a pound, and by far the greater number about a quarter—but the tout-ensemble was imposing, and the weight could not have been short of five stone. We filled both creels (one used for Salmon), bag, and pillow-slip, and all the pockets about our person—and at first peep of evening star went our ways again down the glen towards Dalmally. We reached the school-house ‘ ae wee short hour ayont the twal,’ having been on our legs almost all the twenty-four hours, and for eight up to the waist in water—distance walked, fifty-six miles, trouts killed, twenty dozen and odds, and weight carried ‘ At the close of the day when the hamlet was still, And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness proved,’ certainly seventy pounds for fourteen miles; and if the tale be not true, may May-day miss Maga.” So fatal are “long earthen pipes” and Glenlivet to physical stamina and moral fortitude I	J. T. ^, ^eto Urtofian Region. I. It is not our fault if the readers of the Tobacco Plant do not regard Mantegazza as one of the most brilliant writers of modern days. He has certain obvious faults: hasty generalisation, occasional inaccuracy, a lavish use of pictorial splendours, a tendency to grandiloquence, a greater love of the dazzling and of the ingenious than of the sound and the solid, an exuberance of speech which, though always marvellous, is sometimes tiresome. All this and much more might be said in dispraise. Nevertheless, Mantegazza’s literary gifts are of a very high order, though not of the highest; and his inspirations and aspirations are always noble and generous. His pages glow’ with life; but they likewise glow with frankness, boldness, and the most disinterested, most devoted love of truth, and when not suggestive, as they almost invariably are, they never fail to be stimulating. The large sweep of his speculations contrasts grandly with the puny, pedantic, timid, tentative modes of thought to which English authors accustom us. “Il Dio Ignoto. Di Paolo Mantegazza, Milano. Libreria Editrioe G. Brigolo.” 1876<
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In “II Dio Ignoto” Mantegazza has ventured into a fresh domain. No one would guess that a book with the title of “The Unknown God” is a novel. Yet such is the case. It is a novel, however, with a very serious purpose: it is the history, not of ‘‘Two Gentlemen of Verona,” but of “Two Gentlemen of Milan,” both of whom are “seekers after God,” though not in the sense in which certain canting, clap-trap, declamatory writers use the expression, as if Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, compared with the Scribes, the Saducees, the Pharisees of churches and conventicles, were not tinders of God, possessors of God, dispensers of the divine manna, and not “seekers after God,” in thick and hopeless darkness. The brief preface indicates Mantegazza's design:—“The gross selfishness of some and the mistaken science of others, conspiring, though unwittingly conspiring, have overthrown that azure vault under which our fathers for so many ages prayed and hoped. In these days many, very many, are they who dream of living without heaven, and who vainly seek in the dust, and often in the mire, the object of life. Woe, thrice woe, if men continued long to be thus bowed down to the ground, thus to gaze intently and ignobly to the earth. Heaven is still where it has eternally been, and it is in heaven that we must ever seek the source and reason of our destinies. The priests change their vestments, and the temples change their architecture; but the religion nf the Ideal will live as long as man, and, peradventure, longer. With a conviction and an intention kindled by this thought, I have written my book. If, after reading it, 0 kind reader, you have confirmed your faith in the Ideal, and you are impelled to bless life, I shall be proud and glad that I have composed it. Fare thee well, and look above.”
Two students of Milan, one, Giovanni, a student of medicine, the other, Attilio, a student of law, resolve, after taking their degrees, to have, on the Sasso Melgonaro, a tiny islet on the Lago Maggiore, a final interchange of thought and affection ere the departure of Attilio for South America, where he purposes, as an advocate, to push his fortunes and to find “The Unknown God;” that is to say, the sublimest realisation and transfigurement of his faith as a Pantheistic Idealist. He has the daring, the dash, the vigour which attract and subdue men, and the graces and the glamour which fascinate women. Giovanni is a theist, and his search for “The Unknown God” is not incited either by the doubts of the sceptic or the negations of the unbeliever, but by the desire to love and trust God more than the anomalies and sorrows of the universe seem to permit or to justify. Giovanni and Attilio are entwined heart in heart with that passionate friendship which is seldom possible except in extreme youth, though some men, unfortunately for themselves, throw the most fervent passion into their attachments to the last. Unlike his friend, Giovanni has no impetuosity, no audacity, no immoderate wishes, no unbridled will, seeks happiness and duty within the narrowest circle, proclaims the praises of what he calls microgodia, the science of finding enjoyment in small things, of idealising everything around, however common it may be, and of reducing needs to a minimum.
At parting Giovanni and Attilio agree to meet once more on the Sasso Melgonaro, when they have both solved the awful problem, won the heavenly treasure. The book consists mainly of the letters they send to each other, recording adventures, experiences, contemplations, conclusions. Scattered over its pages are glimpses and touches which bring it into the Tobacco Plant's wide empire, and which would give it a Nicotian attractiveness, even if it had no other.
Having taken a situation as unpaid assistant in the Oxpedale Maggiore at Milan, Giovanni, writing to his friend Attilio, says, among other-things: “Even economy has its delights when we are only twenty-two years old, and do not feel the need either of drinking wine or of smoking Tobacco, and are still sensible to the greater joys of life which God dispenses to all, without being in a great hurry to demand payment for them.” Further on in the same letter, alluding to the strict frugality he is obliged to practise, he states:—“I have agreed with my landlord that when I do not dine at home I am not to pay for my dinner. Yesterday, not being able to resist the temptation of seeing ‘Norma’ at the Scala theatre, I dined on bread and water; and, after having thus hashed the cry of hanger, in a buoyant and lightsome mood I lounged along the Corso, imagining a thousand things that I might have done with that lira which throbbed amorously in the pocket of my vest. To give myself an air of importance I did not need to have a cigar in my mouth, because I did not happen to have a cigar. But with an Olympian smile on my lips I gazed at the grand gentlemen who passed me in their carriages, and I flung at them the defiant words: ‘Who knows whether you are able to practise economy, and whether your balance-sheet is satisfactory? As to me, not merely can I live on my income, but I can save, and here I have a lira that I can do what I like with.* After an hour of indulgence in proud fancies and castles in the air, I went to the great gallery of the Scala, where the exquisite sensibility which my light stomach gave me doubled the rapture of the harmony, while I could not help seeing, iu more than one box, that wearisome yawning and obese bellies were offuscating the delights of the foremost music of the world.”
Sudden is the transition from Bellini’s masterpiece to a real tragedy. The Abb£ Prevost, who wrote more than two hundred volumes, and whose struggling life was ended by a horrible death, produced only a single work that survived him. This is “ Manon Lescaut,” one of those books which,
when read the first time, are felt to be revelations as much of our own soul as of human nature. Mauon Lescaut is the perfect, the proverbial type of the women wiio are false, not from an evil heart, but from fickleness, frivolity, and vanity. Such a woman was Giovanni destined to meet. Giovanni found favour in the eyes, and was admitted to the house, of the doctor who was his chief at the hospital, an unmarried elderly man, uncomely, ponderous, and pedantic, but thoroughly good and honourable. The glory and gladness of the doctor’s otherwise dull house was his ward Elisa, a charming girl, who speedily cast her glamour over Giovanni. By-and-by, however, it was shown that she was a true Manon Lescaut, that with her the nearest was always the dearest, and that Giovanni, while appearing to be her favourite, was simply one of her many dupes. There was something far more terrible behind. Elisa had lived in her guardian's dwelling from her earliest days. The fond and fatherly love he had always shown her changed to a love of a far different kind. In the solemn and apparently impassive man, paternal tenderness kindling into romantic devotedness, he thrust all considerations of prudence aside and asked Elisa to be his wife. Her reply was a loud laugh, and that heartless and scornful laugh was his death-wound. Crucified in his pride, crucified in his affections, the old doctor took poison. In modern fiction we know nothing equal to the picture of his sufferings, as given partly in extracts from his journal, partly in Giovanni’s account. This striking episode is by far the finest part of Mantegazza’s remarkable book.
Let us now follow Attilio across the ocean to Buenos Ayres, where, and in the provinces of which it is the centre, he enters on a life full of romantic adventures. At first his prospects are dark enough; but South America swarms with Italians, and one of Attilio’s countrymen proves his warm and helpful friend. The result let us present in Attilio’s own words:— “ I have decided to enter, as bookkeeper, a house of commerce, if so a saladero may be called where every day from four to five thousand oxen are killed, and, before the setting of the sun, converted into a hecatomb of salted flesh and salted skins. I am to go every day on horseback to the Boca, and return in the same manner in the evening to the city, for I do not wish to breathe at night that sanguineous and empyreumatic and suffocating air which fills my official residence. I am to carry on the correspondence and keep the accounts. At present they give me a hundred lire the month, and promise to increase my stipend according to my merits and the amount of my labour. It is the good-hearted druggist B. who has procured me this post, which keeps me from dying of hunger, but humiliates me in a manner which you cannot imagine. My employer, or principal, as they call him here, is one of the richest gentlemen of the city, and bears an illustrious name; but I have seen him only once, and that hastily, when he was getting out of his carriage to visit the saladero. He is an extremely polite and elegant gentleman, and carries in his countenance that gravity, that dignity which a man of Spanish blood never for a single moment loses. He is about forty-five years of age; his gorgeous halls receive every evening the selectest society of Buenos Ayres, and his daughter, who is called Dolores, is spoken of by all as the most beautiful of the transcendently beautiful Portenas. From everything which has been said to me regarding her, I have a great dread of meeting her, and intend not to do anything to bring that event about. My friend B. assures me that no man hitherto has been able to gaze on little Dolores with impunity, and I feel my position too keenly to have the courage to ask to be presented at one of the tertulias of her father. Among so many deputies, senators, ministers, and generals who pay court to her, how could she deign to throw a glance at a dependente of her father’s saladero ? ”
These sage considerations do not hinder Attilio from falling in love with Dolores, and his airy and audacious visions are enabled to assume a foundation and a form of reality, as may be seen from a communication to his friend:—“Dear Giovanni, the romance commences; this morning, on entering my office, I found a note from Signor Perez, in w'hich he invites me to a tertulia for the evening, the anniversary of his wife’s birthday. The invitation had the form of a circular, and there was not a word more or less than was necessary. It was the sheet of paper the most insipid and commonplace that was ever written or read by a human soul. Nevertheless, I read it and re-read it twenty times, and during the whole day my accounts in double entry have slumbered, and the few that I have been able to get through must be revised, for I have not too much faith in them. My mobile imagination raised on that tiny scrap of paper phantasms and palaces, and I felt in every respect as if I were the equal of Julius Cjesar when he was about to pass the Rubicon. I could go to the tertulia, and, within a few hours, see Dolores, clasp her hand, gaze into her eyes, and discover whether she viewed me with indifference or was likidy to love me. On the other hand, I could write a letter of thanks, and use some pretext for not accepting the invitation. I oscillated between the one thing and the other, and when I weighed all the importance of my decision, that it could exercise its influence on my whole life, I was so overcome by emotion that I felt my heart beat violently, as if I had been seized by palpitations. I bounded from my desk to the window, opened the window, I know not why, gazed forth without fixing my eye on anything. Then I lighted a cigaritto, and smoked anil marched up and down the room without knowing what I was about. Oh, what a horrible thing it is to have the phantasy always
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on fire, and the nerves always highly strung! What an absurdity it is to be agitated, to feel ill, to burn, to freeze, to be tortured in my whole soul for a girl whom I have never seen, and who might not be at all to my taste.”
As a matter of course Attilio goes to the tertulia, and as a matter of course he and Dolores, from the very outset, feel the tenderest interest in each other. But in the description of this love at first sight there is nothing different from the descriptions of love at first sight which may be found in ten millions of novels. Indeed, as a rule, there is nothing so intolerably tiresome as love scenes.
It may here be suggested that much which Mantegazza puts into the mouth of Attilio may be a delineation and confession of his own career, for he passed a considerable part of his life in South America.
After listening to Attilio’s wild outbursts of passion we are glad to return to Giovanni’s calm doings and serene utterances, as found in his next letter to his friend. In this letter Giovanni enlarges chiefly on his epicurean theory of micro-godia; but there is, moreover, a delicious record of a delicious steamboat excursion on the Lago Maggiore. This excursion reminds Giovanni of other excursions by land or water in the Lago Maggiore district. From snatches of narrative, all of them beautiful, and some of them deeply pathetic, we take what follows:—“At Boscolongo I have seized another psychological revelation. How splendidly the place is situated! How precious is the profound and undisturbed solitude we there enjoy! How tranqud is the silence! How tinier the tiny houses look in the midst of Nature’s luxuriant verdure, in the midst of these cyclopean mountains! I have neither seen there a coffee-house, nor a butcher’s shop, nor a baker’s shop; I have neither seen a garden nor an orchard; but there is a store of salt and of Tobacco, and there is a church. Verily, I am tempted to change the definition of man given by Diogenes, and to substitute for it this one: I should say that he is an animal who can dispense when he likes with necessary things, but who finds superfluous things absolutely indispensable. At Boscolongo people probably eat, drink, and labour; but the two most conspicuous edifices are dedicated to the ideal of the senses, the smoke of Tobacco, and to an ideal beyond Nature, religion. And is it not thus everywhere? After that, dear Attilio, can you believe in a human family, atheistical, and with no faith in a life beyond the grave?”
Descriptions, narratives, reflections are all so impressive in this letter of Giovanni, that we wjsh we could give the whole of it. We must, however, content ourselves with one more extract:—
“ On the extreme frontier of the field which I was so reluctant to forsake I was witness of a scene of the human world, simple as a ray of the sun, beautiful as a flower. A poor peasant woman was gathering the cones which had fallen from the firs, and her two children were her companions. One of them was a boy about eight years old, vigorous and alert, with the sharp, intelligent air of the inhabitants of these mountains. He seemed willing enough to assist his mother, but he could not help stopping every moment to switch the lower branches of the pines with a stick, long, elastic, and white, which he had probably prepared for the purpose that morning, and of which he seemed singularly proud. For about half an hour a great storm had been gathering on the naked summits of the Cimone, and the thunders began to roar and the lightnings to flash. This boy, who assuredly could not read, darted to heaven his song, his hymn of ingenuous poesy. Throwing aside for a season both labour and play, and thrusting his tiny hands into the pockets of his ragged trousers, he gazed at the clouds, which were piling themselves into grander and grander masses, and exclaimed: ‘How beautiful the Abetone! How delightfully the bells of heaven sound!’ Then, when he heard in the distance a fainter roll of thunder, he added: ‘Now the smaller bells are ringing.’ Forthwith he rushed into the heart of the forest and vanished from my eyes, which dwelt on him fondly with a sense of sweet contemplation. In his noble utterances he had revealed to me a germ of his infantile thought, a ray of virgin and alpine poetry. When my eyes no longer followed him they fell on a little girl of three years old, whom the mother had placed in a sitting posture on the pleasantest part of the meadow, after putting into the child’s lap a large piece of polenta. Though the mother, busy with the work of gathering cones, went further and further away from the baby, yet she watched her with the eyes of the heart, and addressed to her, from time to time, tender words to cheer her and to keep her from feeling lonely. Often the good woman had entreated her wild rogue of a son to stop his labour and his play to amuse the little sister; but in vain, for he pretended not to hear. Then she cried, ‘ Nina, be quiet; I am coming in a moment; eat, eat, pretty Nina.’ But Nina was weary, and began to whimper. The mother had to gain her daily bread by the toil in which she was now engaged, and to which she was devoting herself with a feverish painfulness that prevented her from consoling her daughter. I watched her intently, and she seemed to me the ghastly and arid image of deepest poverty. Clad in garments which had been washed and patched a thousand times, haggard and dirty, she bore in her countenance the profound traces of the struggle maintained to reach an age of thirty or forty years. It would have been difficult to say whether she was thirty or forty; for, though the hair which struggled from under the handkerchief wound round
her head proclaimed her still young, yet she had on her brow and round her lips those crowding wrinkles which are not seen in richer, more fortunate women until after fifty. She had that dingy skin observable in nearly all members of the peasant class, when by day they are badly fed and at night breathe the infected air of a close and crowded hovel. The eye was dead, and had no eloquence. The daily battles with hunger seemed to have slain on that countenance every ray of intelligence, every light of the ideal world. And I felt as if I had before me a typical example of the human animal that has never been touched in the heart by a single glow of poetry, that has never cherished the need of throwing a glance into that world which liveth beyond the mountains. But I was mistaken. From a simply fretful state the little girl passed into the angry and despairing state, and began to weep furiously with torrents of tears and with violent sobbings. Twice or thrice the mother hurried toward her, and put the polenta in her hands, which, however, the child threw away in indignation. Then she gave her a thimble to play with; but this, too, was found unavailing. In her loudest voice the mother shouted for her son; but the boy remained invisible. Thereupon the poor woman, as if inspired by a sudden instinct, began to gather the most beautiful flowers of the meadow, though her only previous acquaintance with flowers was from mowing them along with the grass when the hay harvest came. And not merely she chose them with true aesthetical taste, but arranged them in such a fashion as to form exquisite harmonies of colours and of forms. After gathering a large quantity, she carried the flowers to the child, and threw them all into her lap, saying: ‘See, Nina, what a number of beautiful flowers ! ’ The baby ceased to weep, and gazed at her mother with a smile which trembled amid the large tears still in the eyes but no longer flowing, and she soon showed that she cared much more for the flowers than the polenta or the thimble, or the consoling words of the good peasant woman. Grateful to the flowers for making the child happy, the mother gazed on them, perhaps for the first time in her life, with affection, scattered them in heaps on the legs of the child, threw them in the air, showered them on the child’s head, and played with her. The sun, which had been covered with clouds that the wind of the Cimone dashed in his face, burst forth at that moment, as if anxious to be present at a scene of the simplest and sublimest poetry, and illumined the smiling countenance of the poor worn and weary peasant woman and the small joyous face of her little daughter. Not bread, not wine, not the coarse needs of animal life gave gladness to these two poor human creatures, brought together on that extreme limit of an Alpine meadow. A smile of the ideal world transfigured these rude natures: a handful of flowers and a ray of sunshine opened to them a glimpse of that ideal world which is the holiest patrimony of men, whether men seek it between earth and sky or between the sky and the infinite. That uncultured peasant woman had satisfied an Eesthetical yearning of her baby, and the response to the yearning had brightened her own rustic nature with a joy which was wholly poetry and wholly beauty. Thus, then, in the Abetone I hail caught an ideal picture; among those firs and those beeches I had learned a lesson of microgodia.11
It is only for a moment that on poverty of the most squalid and sordid kind an idyllic gleam can fall. Misery and crime alike lead to the apathy which is varied only by paroxysms of despair. However, Giovanni’s picture is very beautiful, whether lessons of microgodia or of anything else can be learned from it. Peradventure, the best lesson to be learned from the scene is that we should do our utmost to increase the enjoyments of the poor.
She Smohe §nnm SaMe.
The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. The Text carefully revised, with Notes and a Memoir, by William Michael Rossetti. In three volumes. London: E. Moxon, Son, and Co., 1878.
England is at length beginning to do something like justice to its supreme Poet of this century. Quite recently, besides the cheap popular Editions of the Poems, of which the best we have examined is by Mr. Rossetti, there have been issued the reprint of the original Editions of the complete Works (so far as obtainable) under the care of Mr. R. Herne Shepherd, and the library edition, in four vols., of the Poetical Works by Mr. H. Buxton Forman ; and now Mr. Rossetti has been encouraged to issue, with improvements up to date, a second edition of that which appeared in 1870. Those who, like ourselves, have had occasion to examine minutely the 1870 edition, know in how many and what important cases it rectified and tended to rectify the very inaccurate text of Mrs. Shelley; and both in the Memoir and the text this second issue is a marked improvement on the first. In Mr. Rossetti's own words: “ I can say that the editorial work has been to me a true labour of love, and has been gone through diligently and deliberately. Indeed, the pleasure of having anything to do with Shelley's poems is to myself so great that I should have been my own tormentor had I stinted or slurred work in any particular. I took very great pains with the edition of 1870, and have taken equal or stiU greater pains with this of 1878. I have now cancelled, I suppose, a full third of the notes to the former edition, and have introduced a rather larger bulk of new notes; and the same, in minor proportion, has been done with the Memoir.” This Memoir, we may add, occupies a hundred and fifty pages, and is a full record and discussion of all that has hitherto come to light concerning the career of the Poet. Now that his eldest daughter is dead, we think his family owe, both to his memory and to tbe considerable public for whom it is really sacred, a prompt revelation of tbe documents regarding his separation from his first wife and the causes that impelled her to suicide. We elders, whose love and reverence for the Poet of Poets were nurtured on a text abounding with mistakes, and in a society which mainly regarded him with horror when it regarded him at all, can heartily congratulate the younger generation who have been brought up to appreciate and revere him, and who have such an Edition as the present to assist their study.
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168	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[Aran., 1878.
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No. 98.—Vol. IL]
MAY, 1878.
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Cohere Smuggling in the ^ast 6tnerafion.
i.
Let me introduce the serious reader (if such a being still there be) to a very charming creature dressed in blue, even the “Report from the Select Committee on Tobacco Trade; Together with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix and Index. Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be Printed, 1 August, 1844.” It is rather a light piece of work, numbering but hiv. and 661 pages, and certified “Under 5 lbs.;” but the wonderful specific gravity or ponderosity inherent in Blue Books makes it seem not less heavy than an 11 or 12 lbs. skittle-ball, while a great deal harder to handle. The Committee, which consisted of fifteen members (including Mr. Hume, who was called to the chair, and Mr. Goulburn, then Chancellor of the Exchequer), was nominated on the 14th March, 1844, and finished its labours on the 30th July, having held in the interval 29 meetings, whereat an aggregate of 8939 questions were answered by nearly 50 witnesses. The oral evidence, together with the petitions, memorials, statements, returns, analytic reports, correspondence, displayed at formidable length in the Appendix, having been duly and unduly considered, Dr. (the late Sir John) Bowring moved: “That with a view to the prevention of smuggling and adulteration, the correction of the moral, social, and commercial evils of the existing system, and with a due regard to the public Revenue, the Committee recommend a considerable redaction of the present high Duty on Tobacco.” Whereupon the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed the following amendment: “That no reduction of Duty sufficient to prevent or materially diminish Smuggling and Adulteration, could be effected without a loss of Revenue so large as to involve the most serious financial consequences.” The official trinmphed by six to four, only Mr. C. Villiers, Mr. Ewart, and Mr. Smythe supporting Dr. Bowring; as for those against him, be their names left sepulchred in Blue Book oblivion. An admirable draft Report, occupying 32 pages, was then proposed by the Chairman; a clear, detailed, laborious, and thorough summing-up of ail the significant facts of the case; Mr. Hume’s “tottle of the hull” being given in these conclusive words: “ On full consideration of all the Evidence, Your Committee are of opinion that the most effectual way of putting an end to the illegal proceeding [sic in Blue Book] of Smuggling and Adulteration of Tobacco, would be to reduce the duty on Tobacco to Is. per lb.” Three times three to the memory of stout old Joseph, that genuine Liberal, whom your oligarchy of Tories and Whigs, lavish alike of the poor People’s money, used to sneer at as a stingy old skinflint! Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer and his followers rejected this statesmanlike Report, and adopted a miserable, superficial, scamped affair of 2j pages, drawn up by, or at least in the name of, a Mr. Darby (would the darbies had been drawn up on him when about to scrawl it!); adding thereto the following Resolution, or abject voluntary confession of their own ineptitude and incapacity, fitly proposed by Mr. Chancellor: “That considering the period to which the inquiries of the Committee have necessarily been protracted, and the various important matters which are involved in a decision upon the several points to which the Evidence has been directed, it appears to Your Committee impracticable to present to the House a full Report upon the subject referred to them, and [they] therefore confine themselves to reporting the Minutes of Evidence and their Proceedings to the House.” In other words, the Committee could not do the very thing it was appointed to do—sift, weigh, co-ordinate, and sum up the evidence before
it; found a full Report impracticable, after its clear-headed Chairman had accomplished a first-rate one; and resolved in sheer impotent despair on editing the materials it had gathered, as a cartload of stones is edited in the street (the comparison is Carlyle’s)—by simply tilting up the cart!
Thus much by way of introduction; let us now see what we can find in the Evidence interesting even at this distance of time.
The first witnesses examined were Tobacco Manufacturers of great experience and high standing, who testified to the following among many other facts : —The honest trade was in a deplorable state. The leading article, Shag, they could not manufacture under 3s. 5|d. per lb. (the duty then being 3s. 2d. on unmanufactured, and 9s. 6d. on manufactured Tobacco)’; but were obliged to sell at 3s. 4d. at four months’ credit, through the competition of smuggled and adulterated, and yet found that their customers had numerous offers at Id. and 2d. per lb. less, and sometimes lower still. Smuggled foreign Negro-head ruined the sale of home-made in all the seaports. One had been offered four tons of leaf at 2s. 6d., to be delivered in coal-sacks and covered with coals; with the assurance that he could have from half a ton to five tons regularly per week, without the slightest risk. Mr. Baring’s Act of 1840 repealed the whole system of Excise survey and permits, and gave liberty to use anything in the manufacture except “ leaves, herbs, and plants;” Mr. Goulburn’s Act of 1842 prohibited adulteration, save by water. Under the former, honest manufacturers adulterated chiefly with saccharine matter, of which up to 20 per cent, was found to make the article more agreeable to the taste of the consumer; dishonest added likewise salts, resins, vegetable leaves, fibres and powders, mosses, bran, earthy matters, &c. Under the latter, the honest were in many cases selling at a loss, the dishonest still largely adulterating or dealing with smugglers, or both: as soon as it passed one firm had to raise Shag from 3s. to 3s. 8d. per lb., since forced down to 3s. 4d., at which they were still considerably undersold; they kept on selling thus at a loss for the sake of their general connexion and the sale of other species on which they had a fair profit, and in hopes of better times through improved legislation. It was estimated that eleven-twelfths of the revenue derived from Tobacco was paid by the lower classes: the latest return from the Excise when the trade was under Excise survey (1839) showing that nearly 85 per cent, of the whole weight of Tobacco taken out by permit was Cut and Roll, of which very little was consumed by the higher and middle as distinguished from the working classes, whether agricultural or mechanical; of the remainder, 2 per cent, was in cigars and 13 in Rappee and Scotch snuff. Giving the whole of the cigars, about 500,000 lbs., with an equal weight of Cut and Roll, and another equal weight of Snuff, in all 1,500.000 lbs., to the higher and middle classes, the revenue derived from them would be but one-twelfth of the whole; and this estimate of their consumption was founded on trade experience. The reduction of the duty to Is. per lb. would reduce the retail price from 4s. to 2s., and would mainly benefit the working classes. Considering the expense of the requisite machinery, and that the extent of smuggling depends entirely on the amount of the temptation or the rate of duty, a heavy duty bringing the competition of a great deal of dishonesty, the large manufacturers were decidedly of opinion that the reduction of the duty would not increase the number of petty manufacturers with small capital, but would, on the contrary, lessen their competition: “We see growing up around us manufacturers in all parts of the country, who we have reason to believe have little capital,
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170	COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT.	[May, 1878.	
but who yet, in a comparatively short space of time, are found to be very wealthy persons; which has arisen out of their carrying on an illicit trade, either by smuggling or by adulteration.” With the duty reduced to Is. per lb. the legal consumption of the United Kingdom would probably be very soon trebled; and thus the revenue be increased; for the smuggling would be so decreased that the greater portion of the Coast Guard expenses would be saved, and duty would be paid on nearly the whole quantity consumed. As matters were then, at least half of the Tobacco consumed did not pay duty. As one manufacturer put it, even assuming only one-third smuggled, and only double consumption on the lowering of the duty: “the means of the consumer being the same; at the present duty he buys 3 lbs. for 12s., of which, if only 1 lb. be smuggled, the revenue derived on the 2 lbs. is 6s. At the duty of Is. per lb. he can buy 6 lbs for 12s.; none being smuggled, the revenue derived on those 6 lbs. would be 6s.” With the duty continuing as it was, they were all decidedly of opinion that no mode of Excise survey, or any other alteration of the law, could put an end to Hie current practices. The survey would be quite sufficient with a duty of Is., but no survey, no restriction whatever, could protect the high duty, which meant great temptation. The survey went entirely upon a false principle; it assumed that the Tobacco could be traced from the bonded warehouses into the hands of the consumers. Permits were of no use, the same permit being often used -over and over again; the officer could not and did not detect when the manufacturer had more stock than he ought to have; the Excise survey involved a very complicated system of accounts, which did not show what he ought to have. As for the retail dealers, the number licensed was then upwards of 170,000, and no adequate check to prevent smuggling could be imposed on them, either on their stock or amount of sales; and as they mainly supplied the poorer classes, eleven-twelfths in value, much more than eleven-twelfths in quantity, of the Tobacco consumed might be disposed of without the possibility of adequate check from the Excise; the retail dealer having always a large margin to take in goods without permit, through decreases he had made by small quantities sold. The duty on manufactured Tobacco was very disproportionate to that on cigars; being 9s. and 5 per cent, for both alike, while the value of the latter was much greater than that of the former. If the duty on leaf were Is., that on manufactured should be Is. 6d., and that on cigars at least 4s. 6d., still much less ad valorem than the Others. Large manufacturers from Hull, Leeds, and Liverpool, gave evidence generally confirming the above: they were carrying on business at a loss, smuggling and adulteration were increasing under Mr. Goulburn’s Act, the only effectual remedy would be the reduction <of the duty. The Liverpool man could not estimate the extent of smuggling: “I hear of it, ’ and I see convictions daily. We have 26 manufacturers in Liverpool; we have also 154 Tobacconists, and many hundred dealers, such as grocers; and besides those, many hundreds, I might say thousands, of small public-houses, many of which are little better than dens for smuggling.” He also considered that the consumers would get the full amount of the reduction of the duty; estimated that nine-tenths of the Tobacco was consumed by the working classes, to whom it was a great luxury, and who would certainly take much more were the price reduced one-half; believed the revenue from Tobacco had been standing still for the last 10 or 15 years, despite increase of population and consumption: “In 1811 the consumption per head was 20 ounces [duty paid]; according to the return last year, it is 12^ oz. per head.” The Liverpool and Leeds men concurred in the following account: Taking stripped Tobacco (the leaf minus the stalk or mid-rib), of which Shag Tobacco is made, and which was the basis as to the staple price of Tobacco, the duty on 100 lbs. was £15 16s. 8d.; the common price, at 5d. per lb., £2 Is. 8d.; the cost of manufacture 2|d. per lb., £1 0s. 10d.; total £18 19s. 2d. The 100 lbs. manufactured, with the simple addition of water, would produce 112 lbs., which at 3s^ 4|d. per lb. would bring in £18 18s.; leaving a loss of Is. 2d. per cwt. But it was difficult to realise 3s. 4^d. per lb.; the common price was from 3s. to 3s. 4d.; and it was impossible even for an experienced manufacturer, unaided by chemical analysis, to detect adulteration with saccharine matter up to 10 or even 15 per cent. The Committee having passed a resolution that anyone coming forward to give evidence as to smuggling transactions in which he had been engaged, should be guaranteed from prosecution in respect thereof, and should have his name kept private, various witnesses offered themselves, of whom the first is designated A. B., and the others by the single letters from A. to G.—the gamut of the music of “Will Watch the Bold Smuggler” and many other highly popular songs, imsweet in the ears of the Board of Customs and Chancellors of the Exchequer. A. B. had been in the Tobacco trade ten years; had generally received his Tobacco from a second party, who received it from the sailors in the first instance; usually bought leaf Tobacco at 2s. 8d.perlb., sometimes less from other parties; some he manufactured and retailed himself, some he sold to other manufacturers at 2d. a lb. profit. Had retailed chiefly at 3s. 4d., but at times as low as 3s. 2d. Bought it in 100 lbs., 200 lbs.; had had a hogshead at once: it came from on board ship, not from the warehouses. The receivers, of whom there	were a great many, were the persons to whom the sailors were in the habit of going with their small quantities of Tobacco; they accumulated it, and took it to the manufacturers, each of whom commonly dealt with but one receiver, though he had dealt with more than one. Had been in houses when sailors brought in the Tobacco, and seen it on board ships, chiefly Dantzic ships. Had seen five cwt. landed in a night, and known as much as two tons landed in a week from a vessel. Two custom-house officers were placed on board each Dantzic ship on its coming into harbour, but they did not always do their duty. If the quantity was large, and sufficient for the receiver, as the second party, to bribe the custom-house officer and the police-officer at the gate, he might secure their connivance; if not, the sailor ran his own risk in getting it out. The officer did not know the weight, but from £2 to £5 had been paid fqf permitting, by shutting his eyes, the venture of landing the Tobacco from the vessel. Behoved that this practice did exist to a considerable degree in Liverpool, where other manufacturers, he thought, were still ( carrying it on as largely as he had done; did not think that 1 any of them would refuse the goods at the reduced price, if they could get them quietly. There was no risk of detection by the custom-house officers after the Tobacco had been got clear of the vessel; the officers were then done with it, the sailors were done with it and had got their money, it rested with the receiver; he took it to the manufacturer, who was at no risk, the Excise having no power over it when got into his warehouse. The receiver generally gave the sailors from 2s. or 2s. 2d. to 2s. 4d. per lb., clearing thus full 6d. per lb. True, the Excise could examine the warehouses, but if they did they knew nothing about the Tobacco; it was leaf, and the like had been bought by “us” at Customs and Excise sales; the officer could not interfere, he had no power to seize it. Previous to 1840 had shipped smuggled Tobacco, got from the receiver, and sent it out coastwise to manufacturers, his customers. Shipped it, entering it in a fictitious ship- / ping-note; thus, one cask for So-and-So, from Thomas Jones, of Liverpool; it was not necessary to state contents of any kind, as no inquiry was made respecting them, only whether a parcel, a box, or a cask; going coastwise “ they ” are not to know the contehts. Had not done this to any great extent; had not, indeed, carried on business to any great extent; never had any of the articles detected; had had Tobacco seized, but always got through; it was seized at his house as adulterated, which it was not; not as smuggled, which it was; had never been convicted in a penalty, had never even been prosecuted. Besides the sailors and receivers, there were parties whom he christened speculators residing in Liverpool, who generally sent out Tobacco. It was shipped from the bonded warehouses for the Continent or Africa—a great quantity started for there which never arrived; some person or other gave a bond that it would go out, and of course it did, and it got in again. [Note, once for all, that the Blue Book is much too serious to record smiles or laughter, or any other symptom of emotion, on the part of the Select Committee.] There are various modes of conducting the relanding. For instance, a captain was employed to take a hogshead, 1300 lbs., of Tobacco, getting £10 or £15 for taking it “round the rock,” say £15; the boatmen running it on shore would get about £10; the receiving-house £10; cartage,’ Ac., would be about £110s.; the salesman employed to sell to the manufacturer £10. The speculator took the whole of the risk; he had tried it once, and would swear that he was speaking from his own knowledge. The Tobacco would cost the speculator, who, being generally not a judge of it, paid jd. or Id. more a lb., about 6d. a lb.; the manufacturer would pay about 2s. 4d. for a large quantity: total costs to speculator £79, receipt £151 13s. 4d.; nett profit on the hogshead £72 13s. 4d.; loss to the revenue £201. The hogshead would be as packed in America, but broken up and put in sacks for relanding. Had known bales of Tobacco go out; for instance, five bales from Cuba, that had been bonded in the warehouse and sent out in the same way in whole packages. Did not think that there was any danger of the parties concerned informing one against another; there would be an end of their business if they did, and there was a class who lived entirely by this contraband trade. Had been engaged in sending smuggled Tobacco to Ireland. Large quantities of foreign manufactured Tobacco, Cavendish or Negro-head, were landed in Liverpool and received by “some parties.” There was more convenience for it, and less notice taken of it in Ireland than in England; therefore, if it could be got off quietly, it was sent in packages of from three to five cwt. Had seen such a quantity landed in Dublin from a steamboat; steamboats had tended to facilitate smuggling, both coastwise and inland. The captain of the steamer knew nothing of it: the Tobacco was either sent to “a party” in Dublin, or one of the Liverpool parties went with it; if it was detected this party knew nothing about it, there was no address on it, and he did not know who shipped it; it was put on board as luggage. The general dealers in Dublin took it, knowing it was smuggled; they gave 3s. a lb. for it. The Tobacco he had before spoken of was relanded on the Welsh or Cheshire coast, in Liverpool termed “round the Rock,” in a small boat, at night; the people could manage a hogshead in an hour, taking it in bags in half-a-dozen trips. The coast was flat and sandy, but there were places where vessels could be run up. Had seen a hogshead of Tobacco on board a ship bound to Africa; it was hoisted on deck when the vessel had sailed and was brought to anchor on the coast. Withm the
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May, 1878.]	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	171
last month he had had the offer of 30 hogsheads from a man standing rather high in Liverpool, a cotton broker, at 2s., 2s. 2d., and 2s. 4d. a lb., but he got frightened and would not take it: offers of one, two, or three hogsheads were frequent. As a manufacturer he used to pay duty upon 30,000 lbs. weight a year; and sold that and all he could get besides; kept no accounts. From what he had heard, believed there were still greater facilities for smuggling about Hull “and those places.” The receivers could not supply Tobacco regularly all the year round, only from three to five months in the twelve, beginning in March, when the foreign vessels came in, and going on till August. They never kept it a night longer than they could help, the Excise and Customs having an eye upon them; as soon as they obtained the Tobacco they had it taken to the houses of unsuspected persons, and the next day it was delivered to the manufacturer. Had known one instance, and heard of several others, of connivance on the part of an officer after the Tobacco was landed; in the case where he was present, the officer got only £3. Had come forward at the instance of Mr. Wm. Maury, importer of Tobacco, having done notliing in the article lately, and being anxious to do anything to benefit the trade. (Mr. Maury, of whom more anon, afterwards bore witness that the character of A. B. was good in all respects save that of smuggling, and that his evidence was trustworthy.) Had known a vessel with about two tons of Tobacco in her cleared out in a week, the custom-house officer getting £3; he ran little or no risk, because it was taken out under the men's clothes; didn’t know whether it was the officer’s duty to search them, but those Dutchmen could carry a great quantity of Tobacco with them. The officer did not know the quantity; the crew, about ten men, took it on shore, beginning about nine in the evening; the regular hour for business closing was six, but the docks were open all night; there was a policeman at the dock gate, but the policemen seldom stopped the men going out; the policemen were very easily managed.
Two large London manufacturers of long experience, being examined, one testified that smuggled Negro-head and leaf had been offered him; the former more frequently; a thousand weight of the latter about a year and a-half before, by a customer who explained, “You see, from the quantity of Tobacco I have from you, that I cannot five by it; therefore I do something in this way; ” and who assured him that there was no difficulty in getting it in. It was his firm impression that Negro-head was smuggled to a considerable extent; had frequently to complain of being undersold. The only instance in which the smuggling of stalks had come before them was the seizure in the Minories of some thousands of pounds weight three or four months back. As to the smuggling of cigars: “I judge from what I can see that smuggling in cheroots, particularly of the character of which we can judge more than any others, did take place some time ago; I mean the Chinsura cheroots. So few of these paid duty, that we could not afford to pay the duty on that particular description; and yet, though there had not been duty paid upon a case for many months, or even years, we could see them in the market; we could see them for many years after the time at which there was not a case cleared from either of the docks; and they were sold in the original packages, so that we were perfectly convinced that they were smuggled. This was at the time when we were under the Excise survey.” A person in the trade, and even an Excise officer or an indifferent person could, they thought, very easily distinguish the peculiar character of Chinsura cheroots. At that time the legal packages were large, and those cheroots were packed in small boxes; there were no interior cases, such as were allowed then. Yet they were openly sold in the shops, and very large quantities offered at the warehouse, to be delivered in these boxes, of 250 cheroots each. The other witness, who was a retailer as well, confessed that he had sold Chinsuras across his own counter for a number of years when he knew that none were cleared from the docks. He purchased them from dealers, with a regular permit; he did not smuggle them, but had a guilty knowledge that they must have been smuggled; the practice was very general, in fact it was indispensable for their business that they should have that article; getting a permit, they did all the law required. After the passing of Mr. Baring’s Act, the attention of the Excise having been called to Chin suras by a statement made by him and others to the Chairman of the Board, they became a marked article, and gradually disappeared from the market; they had been supplanted by Manillas, but he could not as confidently declare as to the smuggling of these, because they were continually cleared duty paid. Had heard of a seizure of 12 cwt. of them at Harwich within the last three months. The first witness could not say positively whether he could distinguish a real Havannah cigar from one made in England: “I might express my opinion, but I might be wrong; we make our Havannah cigars so very well, that it is difficult to distinguish the English Havannah cigar from the foreign.” Sold their home-made best cigars at 12s. a pound. Could buy the foreign cigars in bond for from 5s. up to Ils. or 12s.; this with the duty of 9s. 6d. would make their wholesale price range from 14s. 6d. to 21s. 6d. The article sold to compete with the British manufacture was the lower description of foreign cigars. Would not feel inclined to pay duty upon cigars worth in bond less than 4s. 6d. or 5s. Manillas in bond were from 6s. 6d. or 7s. to 7s. 6d.; from 16s. to 17s. duty paid, wholesale. Was told that Manillas were very
frequently sold under that price: “ When I offer my Manillas to retailers, they say that they have bought them lower; then, if I have the means of coming lower, I endeavour to come down to that price; and when I offer them again at that lower price, I find that they are sixpence lower; and instead of making any weight of sale, I make only a small sale at what I consider the cost price, and I find that I am continually undersold in Manillas.” Again: “ About 12 months ago there was a public sale in Fenchurch Street of Manilla cheroots; 50 or 60 cases were sold. The market price at that time was 7s. 6d.; per lb.; I bought some of these at 4s. 6d. and 5s. 6d. in bond, and I considered them remarkably cheap; 50 cases, I think, went for exportation; and when I commenced selling them, though it was at a lower price than usual, I found that I could not effect sales, that I was undersold even at that low price.” The cheroots by which he was undersold were not an inferior article manufactured at home; there was no successful imitation of genuine Manillas; they were foreign, and decidedly preferred to his, which were not of a very tine quality, but at a very low price; when he went to sell he found himself undersold, and by a better article. Some Manillas were imported loose, those that he sold were so imported, but they were preferred in boxes; therefore when going round among the retail trade, he bought up the empty boxes at 6d. and 4d., and put the cheroots he had cleared into them. He could buy these boxes from the retailer, to whom they were useless, for less than he could get a man to make them for. Had never seen a box with English cheroots in it, made to imitate a box of foreign cheroots. Frequently had boxes made to imitate foreign Manilla boxes, not for the purpose of putting British Manillas in, but for the express purpose of putting foreign Manillas in which came over loose. Had never seen a British Manilla sold of such make and shape as would deceive one of the trade, or, indeed, one of the public. There was a peculiarity in the make and finish of a Manilla which the British manufacturer had been less successful in imitating than any other description of cigar. His firm once attempted the imitation, and unfortunately had the whole stock still on their hands. As to smuggling, would suggest that in order to put the honest trade on a fair footing, the existing law should be really carried out, Government should avoid compromises, the penalties should be made personal instead of pecuniary. The pecuniary penalties were looked upon by the trade and the smuggler as a mere matter of profit and loss; they attached no disgrace to those engaged in illicit transactions; a personal penalty would attach disgrace.
Here pause we for a time.
SlGVAT.
Jlio^s at ^lotoan &m Basile. IV.
“Are you going to-favour us with another fool to-night?* asked Roddy, as he stirred his toddy.
Not to-night, my friend, I replied; my fools are much too good to be trotted out every night. I’ll tell you an ower true tale, and I’ll call it—
THE RESURRECTIONISTS; OR, SAVED BY A SNUFF-BOX.
It has become the custom now-a-days—in most parts of England, at all events—to endeavour to make God’s acre resemble a well kept flower-garden, as nearly as possible. Now, beautiful as the idea of planting flowers over the graves of the dear departed undoubtedly is, I must own that the sight of a tomb, showing signs of having once been tended with loving hands, but neglected now, is to me a very sad one indeed. To see the weeds springing up and destroying the flowers, as evil destroys good, and the rose-bushes trailing wide and wild wherever they list, what a sermon it preaches: “Ye shall die, and your very name shall be forgotten.” I hope nobody will trouble to plant flowers over my grave, and make vows—sure to be broken—to keep the ground always tilled, and the roses always trimmed over my head. Rather, in summer, let the soft green grass ripple over me, and let winter robe my grave in a white cocoon; or, if you must have something to grow at my head, for fashion’s sake, plant a tree there, and trim it not, but let it have its own wild, wicked way in the world, as I’ve had mine before it.
“Bravo!” cried Roddy, interrupting the tale. “As for meself, I’d rather make my grave in the rolling say, with a couple of shot at me feet, and niver a tree ner a flower at all at all.”
My wife shook a finger at Roddy, and I continued.
About the beginning of the present century, and, perhaps, not so very long ago as that, people in Scotland never thought of decorating the graves of their friends or relations with flowers. A far more disagreeable and eeriesome task was theirs—viz., to watch, night after night, in the lonely churchyard, lest the tomb should be robbed and the corpses desecrated by the foul fingers of the resurrectionists.
Terrible stories used to receive credence in those days, regarding the unscrupulousness of the surgeons in receiving bodies, without ever asking where they came from, or why wounds or black suspicious marks came to disfigure the corpse. Of course, these tales were often exaggerated, and few medical men, I believe, were ever found to receive a body
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clandestinely for dissection, with the marks of murder on it. I do not believe that, into a house in a court off the Gallow-gate. the house of a procurator for Marischal College, children used to be decoyed and deliberately bled to death, while eating apples, with their little legs in hot water to cause the blood to flow. But I believe the following, because I happen to know from experience that medical students would do almost anything. They are a very respectable body of young men, nevertheless; they are not to be despised, as they stand in the ‘same relation to regular practitioners that the militia do to the regulars: it is from them that the ranks of the profession are filled. However, three students were very hard-up one evening. They had been drinking as hard as they could afford for the last week, and they found themselves come to their last shot; they could barely raise a pipe of Tobacco and glasses round between the three of them. It was a sad state of affairs, but would have been sadder still, if one of the three hadn’t happened to have been a genius. “I have it,” cried the inventive youth. “Let one of us represent a corpse, and the other two carry him round and sell him to Madge Wildfire. When the money is paid, ‘the body’ can easily jump and run.” “Good,” cried the other two. “Bravo, Jackson; let us toss who does corpse.” They tossed, and chance very properly chose Jackson. Now, Madge Wildfire—a nickname, by the way—was the keeper and custodian of the dissecting-house and all its terrible contents. She lived within the College bounds, in a little cottage close to the dead-house. A tall, grim, ungainly woman, somewhere about forty, lanky in looks and a “ trollop ” in dress; she had no more shape or form than a pocket of hops or a badly lashed-up hammock. An old maid by profession, and with all an old maid’s worst qualities, fierce and sour, she had only one redeeming feature—she smoked; but the vilest Tobacco and the filthiest of cutties. Only when the cutty was between her yellow teeth, could she give one a civil answer; at other times, if you said “good morning” ever so prettily, the answer was sure to be, “ Toh-U, ye young devil! I can’t be civil to everybody.” Madge thought no more of seeing a mangled corpse, than if it was so much veal; dismembered heads and limbs she handled as she would mutton; and in her little parlour there was always a pot on boiling, containing skulls, to clean and whiten which was the work—the fancy work—of Madge’s idle moments. Picking bones she was one dark winter’s night, a little before twelve o’clock, when shuffling feet approached the door. She listened, and presently there were three distinct knocks, with a pause of a second between each. Madge knew the signal well. “Humph,” she muttered, holding the lamp high over her head, so that the light might fall on the faces of two young men—and pale enough they were—that bore something between them in a sack. “What hae ye gotten there? ” “A cold one,” replied one of the students; “Only raised an hour ago; buried yesterday.” “A’ richt,” grunted Madge, “here’s a pound on account, and ye’ll hae the rest the morn. Come this gate,” she continued, leading the way with the light to the dissecting-room, and the students followed with their burden. “ Put it down there,” she said, pointing to a slab, more dreadful in appearance than Burns’s “ haly table.” There, however, the body was laid. “ Now, mither,” said the spokesman, “we maun tak back the sack.” “I’ll have your life, ye young devils I ” roared Madge,, her eyes glaring like a fiend’s; and, snatching up a knife, she pursued the students, who cleared the room at a bound. Madge followed them out, then locked the door. “Ye may gang,” she cried; “Ye thocht to rob me, but I hae him safe, ha! ha! ha! and, by the knife in my hand and the Lord in the lift [sky] I’ll mak him a cold one lang before the morning licht. Cuss ye!” This was mighty pleasant for the students, especially for the poor fellow who was left to shiver naked in the company of the dead, while Madge returned quietly to finish cleaning her bones. It was three o’clock ere she had finished, then she returned to the dissecting-room and confronted the poor student, who was half dead with cold and fright. “I dinna mean to stick ye,” she grimly addressed him. “ I said I’d make a cold one o’ ye, and I think I’ve done it. Go, corpse, go, and tak the sack about your hurdies; but if ye dinna bring back my pound in the mornin’, Lord hae mercy on ye, for I’ll hae nane.” It was in the same room where the above little enterprise was planned—Mother Thompson’s, in the Guestrow—that some years afterwards, four medical students sat carousing— that is, smoking and drinking—one evening, late in autumn. “I know,” one of the students was saying, “it can be done as easy as anything. The graveyard is in quite a lonely place, close by the Gadie side, and not a house near it.” “When did she die?” inquired another. “Only been buried two days,” replied the first speaker; “just prime, you know; and a deuced pretty girl she was, too, and I do want a nice new skeleton badly.” “ So do I,” said a third.” “Ah! for the matter o’ that,” said the fourth, “so do we all; but we must toss who’s to have the bones.” “But I say, old fellow,” remarked the second speaker, “won’t there be some watching?” “Never a watch,” was the reply; “oldman’s far too poor	to pay anyone to sit up with him. But, if you beggars are in any funk about the matter, dang it all! I can get plenty more to help me.” “No! no! no!” cried the rest in a breath. “Let us meet to-morrow night like men, then,” said Student No. 1, “and I’ll bring the tools in a sack.” It was universally admitted that there wasn’t a prettier girl in the parish where she dwelt, than Jeannie Bae. Although born in humble life, her’s was a beauty that would have graced any station, and you do meet girls like Jeannie sometimes among the peasantry. Just seventeen she was, at the date of our story, with a charming figure, though somewhat slender, extraordinary regularity of features, and large, lustrous, sweetly shy eyes. I think the young men, as a rule, were half afraid of her lady-like manners and extreme beauty, for they always “Missed” her, and it was little likely she would wed with one of her own degree. While they “ Missed” the lovely daughter, on account of that lovely daughter they “Mistered” her father. I’m sure it was for no other reason, for, although a quiet, industrious, honest man, he was only a jobbing carpenter. • Well, everything that Jeannie put on became her, and although the cottage where she dwelt was humble as humble could be, the garden around it and the flowers, always tended by Jeannie herself, and the convolvulus that trailed around the windows never failed to attract the gaze of the passers-by. Perhaps Jeannie never looked more innocently fascinating than she did at a country ball one evening. Her dress was of simple white, over her shoulders she wore a silken plaid, and on her head a broad blue bonnet, while her bonnie brown hair floated down to her waist. No wonder that Captain Norris started when he saw her, and said, “Egad! what a beautiful child.” There were few in the ballroom that could rival the dashing young captain, and nobody cared to try, so he had it pretty much his own way with poor Jeannie. The captain, I must tell you, was living in the neighbourhood, being on a short spell of half-pay; short spell, yes, but long enough for him to win poor, unsophisticated Jeannie’s heart. He was so different to anyone Jeannie had ever met before: he was like a being from another world to her, and she hung on his words, loved his very lisp, and believed every word he said. And what did he say? Oh! he told her the old, old story, reader; but, to be charitable, perhaps the captain did love the poor child when he asked her to become his “own sweet wife,” and Jeannie consented. Her father loved his daughter very dearly, for she was an only child; and when, after Captain Norris had gone away and joined his regiment, he began to miss the roses that used to bloom in Jeannie’s cheeks, miss the glad light from her eyes, and miss, too, her morning song—for Jeannie used to rise with the lark, and her innocent heart, like the lark’s, overflowed in song; then the old man resolved to make a long journey to the nearest garrison town, where he knew Captain Norris was quartered, see him, and seek an explanation. He found the captain easily enough, standing at the barrack-room door while his orderly led round his horse. He used to be so polite, even respectful in his intercourse with Jeannie’s father. Now it was quite the reverse. He took his cigar very coolly from his lips, put up his eyeglass, and stared intently for fully half-a-minute at poor Mr. Bae; then he simpered and said: “Why, yes, to be sure, so it is. Good morning, Mr. Bae; sowy I can’t stop.” Mr. Bae hastened to explain the purport of his visit, and Captain Norris listened politely. “Weally, now, Mr. Bae, I’m wewy sowy. Nice gurl, too, and all that sort of thing, but I weally couldn’t mawy your daughter. Besides, Mr. Bae,” he added, nodding his head as he mounted his horse, “I’ve got one wife alweady.” Many a father would have tried to conceal the sad tidings from his daughter; but the Scotch are like the ancient Spartans, and luckless Jeannie heard all the tale as soon as Mr. Bae returned. You know that sweet old song, “The Banks of Allan Water” :— “ For the summer grief had brought her, and her soldier false was he; On the Banks of Allan Water, none so sad as she. “ On the Banks of Allan Water, when the winter snow fell fast. Still was seen the miller’s daughter, chilling blew the blast; But the miller’s lovely daughter both from cold and care was free, On the Banks of Allan Water—there a corpse lay she.’’ And a like fate befell poor Jeannie Bae. She* never recovered the blow, but faded and died in a month. On the whole my story would be rather a sad one, except for a somewhat amusing occurrence that happens at the end of it, and by which the foul design of the students to seize Jeannie’s body was completely frustrated. The graveyard where the unhappy Jeannie found a last resting-place is a very lonely one indeed, quite close to the Gadie side, with few houses near it, and consequently one that had frequently been robbed by the resurrectionists, and might at any time be so again. Now, Mr. Bae was not only a poor man, but he was also a very proud man; he had not money enough to pay for a man to sit up with him to watch his daughter’s grave, nor did he own a gun, and he would sooner have died himself than beg a favour from anyone. He meant to watch, however, all the same, and on the night of the funeral he left the little cottage, and made his way to the watchhouse of the graveyard, armed only with a stick.
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n jg a bright moonlit night, without a cloud in the sky, not breath °^ wind is there, and the tall leafless trees point ILctre-hk® *t the starry sky. There isn’t a sound to be ju all the countryside, for the village clock has just Wmed out “ th® wee short hoor ayont the twal,” and the rid so®1118 8unk *n ^e depths of its second sleep. Rae was a sUP^ra^ious man, or he might easily have fancied he 110 spirits crouching among the tombs, or flitting ’neath the among the chequered moonbeams. He felt very lonely u verth^tess, for it is eeriesome work at the best, this standing ^ntin^l over the dead. He had one comfort, and only one— he bad snuff, a modicum of the best Taddy, contained in one f those old-fashioned, oblong white iron “ mulls,” which I daresay niany of my readers may have seen if they have not possessed* Had this poor afflicted soul dared to have lighted ftlamp, h®might have read his Bible, but the resurrectionists, on seeing a light in the watchhouse, have been known to attack, bind, and gag its inmates, and raise their dead friends before’their very eyes.
Hush’, hadn’t some slight noise smote on his ear, or had he been dosing and dreamt it ? No ; for yonder on the wall opposite, between him and the moonlit horizon, is a tall dark figure. ^ seems listening for a moment, then drops down into the gloom; another appears on the wall and does the same, another, and still another—four in all. Then silently forth from the shadows they glide, and a minute after are crowding round poor Jeannie’s grave. Brave as he was, a cold shiver runs through her father’s frame, and he can hear his very heart beating, for what is one man against four. He hesitates for a moment, then grasps his cudgel and prepares for a rush, then he draws back once more, for a very happy thought has struck him. He cautiously opens the little window which creaks audibly on its hinges. The doctors atari and listen, and their hearts are beating too. What do they hear? click, click, then a voice saying hurriedly, “ Fire John, fire man, for the love o’ God, my gun won't go off."
It was only the lid of Mr. Rae’s snuff-box after all, but it would have done your old heart good, Roddy, to have seen how those doctors ran, Roddy.
“The divils,” said Roddy.
“Like turkeys in a thunder-shower, Roddy; and they left property enough behind them to buy Mr. Rae one of the best guns on this side of Benachie.
So you see Roddy, I added, there might be worse things in this world than a white iron snuff-mull.
Gordon Stables, M D., R.N.
6oil^olb Cp^raim fessing.*
As a long and elaborate review of Mr. Sime’s “ Biography of Lessing” has appeared in the Tobacco Plant, it is not needful that we should speak of Helen Zimmern’s work at much length. A few miscellaneous observations must suffice.
The two books were written independently of each other, and it cannot be denied that both authors have a thorough acquaintance with, and a deeply sympathetic interest in, their subject. They are both inclined, as is, perhaps, inevitable, to make rather too much of their hero. Lessing had noble moral qualities and brilliant intellectual gifts; yet he had great and undeniable defects. Helen Zimmern oracularly declares that “from early manhood one struggle and disappointment followed another, yet we cannot say that they came by any fault of his own.” This declaration is wholly untenable. Lessing was rash, reckless, improvident, and, above all, fickle. He lacked the grand element, the indispensable condition of abiding success—persistency. Suppose that we were to overlook his gambling propensities and habits, we cannot overlook his headlong way of entering on enterprises involving the gravest risks. That, when a starving student, he made himself responsible for the debts of actors, is not to be pardoned as a youthful indiscretion; it manifested alike a lack of delicate conscience and of robust common sense. Spontaneous generosity in a young man is very beautiful; but it ought to harmonise with the tenderest feelings of honour, and it ought to be accompanied by heroic self-sacrifice. Now, from first to last, Lessing’s generosity was the weakness of indolent good nature, careless of money and not counting the cost. In most cases, therefore, it was more to be condemned than applauded. There are many of Lessing’s actions for which it would not be easy for the most ardent eulogists to apologise. Such was that by which he incurred the indignation of Voltaire, the permanent displeasure of Frederick the Great, and ruined the position and the prospects of Voltaire's secretary. We are far from thinking that Lessing was capable of anything base, or that he would be intentionally guilty of an unworthy deed; but his sanguine, changeable, impressionable temper led him grievously astray, and was fatal to his career. He rushed into a thousand schemes only to abandon them, undertook a thousand tasks which he did not carry to perfection.
Helen Zimmern finds a strong resemblance between Leibnitz and Lessing. If the resemblance could be proved, Lessing’s reputation would not gain thereby. All through life Leibnitz diplomatised in the most cowardly, cunning,
•“Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: His Life and his Works. By Helen Zimmern.” London: Longmans, Green, and Co.
Jesuitical fashion. Either from following the evil example of Leibnitz, or from calculations of his own, Lessing diplomatised too. He might be free from the ignoble motives of Leibnitz, still he diplomatised, and misled, mystified, and bewildered his readers accordingly. The word Christianity he used in very various meanings. Sometimes it might be thought that he regarded Christianity as only one of innumerable forms of natural religion; sometimes that he considered it a special, or supernatural revelation; sometimes that he deemed it a cloudy something which could not be defined. It might be said that Lessing, as a literary artist, had an absolute right to keep his opinions to himself. But he was much more than a literary artist; he aspired to ben reformer in many directions, and especially a theological reformer. Now, a reformer should not leave us in doubt as to his ideas and intentions, and he should not play with words as if he were performing feats of legerdemain. The reformer’s chief power is derived from our faith in his sincerity.
Helen Zimmern admits that “in one point only he did not free himself from a characteristic defect of his age, and this was his indifference to the beauty and significance of Nature.” Like many hard things that have been said of the eighteenth century, this accusation of indifference to Nature is unjust. Beginning with Thomson, many of the poets of the eighteenth century were descriptive poets. Haller sang the praises of the Alps. Even a conventional bard like Pope celebrated, in sounding verse, Windsor Forest. Rousseau excited an enthusiasm about Nature which has gone on increasing to our own day. The best part of Cowper’s poetry is the descriptive part. In the poetry of Burns, is not intense sympathy with Nature as conspicuous as burning passion? One result of the revolutionary spirit of the eighteenth century was the longing for Nature in all its forms. The probability is, that Lessing’s disdain for the glories of Nature was not the result of a general tendency, but arose from the overwhelming influence which the artistic world, the world of the theatre and of society, had over him. Great natural sights were for him as if they were not, by reason of spectacular, literary, and convivial attractions.
Alluding to Lessing’s connection with and writings on Freemasonry, Helen Zimmern observes:—“ Lessing stood aloof from political affairs; his letters contain few allusions to contemporary events. Even while actively interested in the Seven Years’ War, his correspondence turns on vaster themes. He hated 4 the wretched thing called war.’ At this time, when advanced thinkers hailed the American struggle for independence, Lessing only remarked that whatever cost blood could scarcely be worth blood. He had no confidence in sweeping reforms, and for him the essence of freemasonry consisted in a recognition of the infirmities inevitable to the best of governments, while acting as a wholesome counterpoise to the aggravation of such infirmities.”
Does Helen Zimmern expect us to admire Lessing for all this? We admire him not. Political activity can be indifferent to no man with the heart of a true man in him. To be apathetic toward political activity is to disregard the essential characteristics and conditions of human welfare. What goes under the general name of culture is dependent on political development, on freedom, on public spirit, on patriotism. How barren, how uninteresting would the history of Greece and of Rome be if we shut out the political element! It was through their political vigour, their political conflicts, that Greece and Rome achieved so much for art, for literature, for civilisation. Lessing was the professed adorer of antiquity; yet all the great men of antiquity were ardent politicians. The utterance, furthermore, that whatever cost blood could scarcely be worth blood, is as flippant as it is false. Man is born a fighting animal, and in this simple fact war finds its justification. But, apart from an indisputable and inextinguishable human propensity, is it not manifest that by blood all the noblest triumphs, all the truest treasures have been gained? Compared with the heroic sacrifices which have saved and sanctified the world age after age, how poor and how paltry is the msthetical babblement of ten thousand Lessings or Goethes! Again, why hurl a sweeping denunciation at sweeping reforms ? These are right or wrong, wise or unwise, according to circumstances. A man of strong will may by sweeping reforms give his nation organic unity and persistent vitality. Peter the Great, a bom ruler, though a savage brute, made, by sweeping reforms, Russia what it is. Sophists and sumphs have declaimed against the French Revolution. Yet how, except by a terrible tempest, by sweeping reforms, could the colossal, the accumulated abominations of centuries have been swept away? On the other hand, sweeping reforms may be inopportune, may fail from the unfitness of a people to accept them. Finally, if the political indifference of such men as Goethe and Lessing is real, it is hateful selfishness; and if it is not real, it is contemptible dilettante! sm.
We encounter in this volume only two nicotian scraps, but they may not be unwelcome to the reader.
Of Frederick the Great, who, if not otherwise great, was great as a snuffer, Helen Zimmern says:—“He judged the German genius by Gottsched, whom he had, when at Leipzig, admitted to an interview, wherein he challenged him to defend the roughness of German speech, and vindicate it by translating a French stanza into moderately soft language. The result was that the royal poet shrugged his shoulders
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disdainfully. But, by presenting Gottsched with a golden snuffbox, the king so gratified his inordinate vanity that he did not perceive his ill success. This snuffbox provoked a poem from Lessing. ‘What can it mean?’ he asks in Gottsched’s person, ‘ that the golden snuffbox King Frederick gave me is full of hellebore instead of ducats? ’ It was, therefore, vain to expect aid from such a king, even if Lessing had not offended both Voltaire and the Berlin Academy.”
What follows seems to show that Lessing had not that profound repugnance to smoking which Mr. Sime ascribes to him: “At table he was especially talkative and agreeable. It was a rule with him that the food partaken of should not be criticised, nor passing annoyances form the theme of discourse. Cheerful talk he held the best condiment to a meal, and his jokes and heartiest laughter were reserved for home. The afternoon he commonly devoted to recreation and a short walk. At nine a frugal supper was served, at which again visitors were often present. These were usually more intimate friends, with whom Lessing would afterwards play a game of his favourite chess, sucking an empty pipe, if smokers were present, to appear sociable. He never smoked himself, and had only done so once when in school at Meissen, and then only because it was forbidden. Between ten and eleven he went to bed, enjoying a deep sleep that never forsook him, and which, according to his account, was always dreamless.
It is pleasant to know that so genial a man as Lessing had no real, no fanciful antipathy to smoking.
When reading Helen Zimmern’s book, we marked many passages for comment; for the reason already stated, however, we must abstain from discoursing on the numerous texts which offered themselves.
From her name Helen Zimmern must be German either by birth or by origin. This may account for her clumsy and cumbrous style. In the sesquipedalian chaos we are sometimes at a loss to seize a meaning at all. Then, like most English biographers of the present day, she is fond of imitating Carlyle’s worst peculiarities, and to the German unweildiness are added the Carlylese pretentiousness and lack of relief. We must likewise censure Helen Zimmern, as we blamed Mr. Sime, for analysing or describing at great length works of Lessing well known in England. Nevertheless, Helen Zimmern’s biography of Lessing is a meritorious production; and, as it contains much not to be found in Mr. Sime’s more copious book, it can be read with interest even by those familiar with Mr. Sime’s pages. There is still room, however, for a third and more perfect biography of the famous critic.
dupe's B^w-
Gentlemen Smokers, make your game! It is to you that an anxious country turns expectant eyes. It is upon that country, which depends on you, that the troubled world relies, with eager but misgiving hopes of peace. If England can bar the way of conquest against the advancing and triumphant Muscovite, or, failing to bar the way, can wrestle with and cripple him upon the field, the world believes there may be lasting peace. If the British revenue can be made to yield a fair increase of millions, the British Government believes that England can so bar the way, or so prevail. And if the smokers of Tobacco will but maintain the level average of consumption, paying one halfpenny per ounce beyond the prices heretofore exacted, the Chancellor of the Exchequer sees his way to those swelling money-bags which make “bloated armaments” possible, and constitute Benjamin Disraeli Dictator of the fortunes of the world. Therefore, gentlemen smokers, make your game! Heneforth, let the Anti-Tobaccoite howl as it seemeth him good: the honourable cause is yours. The more Tobacco you consume, the greater the Treasury receipts, the stronger the right arm of Britannia, the more potent the terror to evil-doers, the more desperate the chagrin of Alexander, of Gortschakoff, of Belial, and the other conspirators against humanity, Britain’s glory, and the modern Pitt. The larger your consumption of Tobacco, the greater and more effective your patriotism, and therefore the more eminent and indisputable your virtue.
In truth, the non-smokers, the smokers, the manufacturers and retailers of Tobacco, the consumers of “the weed,” and those who are consumed by hatred of “the weed,” are all alike affected—both severally and collectively—by the spirit which animated the late Deacon Terry. The Deacon was asked by a friend—a friend who may be assumed to have been subject to cutaneous eruptions—“Where’s the best place to have a boil?” and he answered promptly—“On another man’s nose.” And thus it is with the new taxation. The antis think that the best place to have an extra impost of 4d. per pound is on the Tobacco which they don’t use. The importers and manufacturers think the best person to pay the additional 4d. is the retailer. The retailer thinks the best way to pay the 4d. is to add 8d. to the retail price, and get 100 per cent, profit out of the smoker for paying the 4d. The smoker of cut Tobacco thinks the money would have been more justly raised by a 10s. duty on cigars. Consumers in general fancy there would have been no harm in getting the extra money by a licence on retailers. Consumers and retailers alike can suggest a score of better subjects for new
taxation than Tobacco, and marvel at the ingenuity which selected dogs, Tobaccoites, and income-tax payers as the sole contributors to a war fund, rendered necessary by the blatant but premature boast that “we’ve got the money too.” It was necessary to have the boil somewhere; and Deacon Terry but echoed the voice of human nature. It is creditable to the shrewdness of the Tory Government that they placed it on the nose of that most patient, good-humoured and philosophical of creatures—the lover of Tobacco. Shall we wince that they class us with puppies, when we remember that “the dog is the friend of man”? We also are accounted friends of man—and of a warlike Minister; and, marking the exigency of the Minister’s finances, we may reflect with satisfaction that “a friend in need is a friend indeed.” A well-known humorist, who no longer lives to joke, once went about amongst his friends, saying to each of them, in turn— “I congratulate you, my boy: I’m a householder”; and, when the bewildered recipients of the information asked “Well, what’s that to us?” he pleasantly answered—“Good for bail! don’t you see?” In like manner, when we find warlike Tories bent on the slaughter of Russians and the sacrifice of their fellow-Britons in sanguinary strife, it will be for us to pat them on the back and congratulate them, thus: —“Go ahead, dear brethren, and rejoice: we smoke, we chew, we snuff, and pay the Tobacco duty. Be brave, be patriotic, be as mad and as bloodthirsty as you please: it will cost you nothing yet awhile; for we pay the bill.”
I find the New York Daily Tribum virtuously indignant, on account of what it calls “Art Degraded to a Trade.” The provocative cause of the Tribune's ire is the existence of a system of manufacturing cheap paintings on a large scale in New York: paintings which are sold wholesale at prices ranging from 30 to 100 dollars a dozen, including their frames; and are retailed as genuine works of art in the remoter parts of the United States. But is life long enough, and anger cheap enough, to be wasted upon subjects like this ? I might as well get up a scene of indignation because we have “ Statesmanship Degraded to a Trade,” in a country where Party is a mechanism for raising politicians to power, and where all the gravest and highest questions of legislation and government are made questions of Party. And as justly might we complain that Christianity and Patriotism have of late been hawked about and advertised and bragged-of, for the special glory and direct gain of rival schools and cliques of politicians; or that the sacred name of Liberty and the noble cause of England’s Interests, together with the claims of Civilisation, are at this moment being used as instruments for dragging millions of innocent human beings into mortal conflict—for spreading Death, Poverty, Famine, Pestilence, and Degradation over unmeasured spaces of God’s Earth—to serve the ambition of this or that Potentate or Minister, for whom power and glory are but the means and the end of his trade. I don’t quite see why America has been endowed with Tobacco, if these vain repinings at the inevitable are still possible in the Empire City. This is an age of revelations, and I may yet discover that the notion of America’s growing Tobacco at all is a myth. The astronomers declare that the sun is not 95 millions of miles from the earth ; the Globe declares that Neptune and Uranus are minor planets; Professor Virchow warns the world against accepting scientific gospel as proven truth, and Professor Clifford (who was dead the other day, but wrote to the Times to deny it) says “ ditto” to Professor Virchow; and now the Referee—a prophetical and truly awful publication—has discovered that Virginia is in Surrey! “ Miss Virginia Blackwood,” says this astute print, “is about to appear at Astley’s in * Dolly Varden.’ If she proves good Virginia she ought to ‘ draw’ well, notwithstanding the extra ‘joey ’ recently put on the price by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If this looks like a ‘mixture’ of the subject, be kind enough to take a ‘bird’s-eye’ view of it”—and so on. Of course, our geography may need correction; but I protest that, if it be polite to compare Miss Blackwood with “ Old Virginny,” the age of gallantry is past. Yet the Referee is not without claims to a respectful hearing; as when, commenting on the “ Advantages of Joining the Army,” lately placarded for recruiting purposes by Sir Richard Airey, he remarks that, while stress is laid on the soldier’s privilege of buying beer and Tobacco cheaper than civilians can, nothing is said “about the advantages of six inches of bayonet in the stomach,” and “ the pleasures of an explosive bullet in the lungs.” But, after all, you cannot enumerate all the joys of existence in a single paragraph.
By contrast, I am reminded that condensation is a “cultivable” art; and that, with practice, you may attain great skill in the concentrating of Cosmos into Unes and sentences of common language. For example, I read, in a paragraph from the Danbury Newsman, these evidences of “ the terrible inroad Tobacco is making on the human system”:—A young man “began to smoke, against the strong opposition of his friends, and in less than two years he was dead;” “it is rarely a man lives three years after acquiring the habit of smoking, unless he should happen to forget when the three years are up ;” “we have seen a thousand men drop at once, and never breathe again. Their friends felt terribly about it, as they mostly fell on their cigar-pockets, and smashed the contents. Any conductor of a train that includes a smoking car can tell you all about it. He is a good share of the time receiving the last messages of dying men, and trying on their
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boots.” Then I take up that interesting publication, the American Socialist, and find that a correspondent, signing himself “Communist,” condenses into one short letter the old, old story about the Methodist who gave one dollar a year for missions and a hundred dollars for Tobacco, and the other Methodist who gave three dollars for “Bible, tract, and mission purposes” and 300 for Tobacco; the equally familiar calculation that whereas the “ professing Christians of America expend at least 25 million dollars annually for Tobacco” they give only 7 millions to support churches, Sunday-schools, missions, and Bible and tract societies altogether; Charles Reade’s assertion that “Englishmen spend twice as much in the mere tax on Tobacco as they do on all their books and newspapers;” a tremendous outburst of invective against “the weed; ” and this peroration:—“ I hope my great-great-grand-children will find Tobacco used only by the medicine-men and the vermin-killers.” A cruelly disposed friend of mine opines that, since vermin-killers find Tobacco useful in their calling, there is no wonder in the repugnance with which Communists regard it.
But my friend does not know what mild and harmless creatures the Communists of America are. That Paris nightmare of 1871 warped our views of Communes'. I have on the table here Mr. William Alfred Hinds’ book on “American Communities; ” which is an attempt to place before the public, in a more condensed and less detailed form than in the works of Charles Nordhoff and John H. Noyes, the story and the character of the communistic settlements of Harmonists, Separatists, Shakers, Inspirationists, Icarians, Perfectionists, the Brotherhood of the New Life, and others which are found scattered over the face of the North American Continent. A strangely interesting, and as strangely chequered, story of misguided enthusiasm and half-fructified hopes it is; and it may seem but foreign material to find place in this “Mixture.” But I note that, amongst these communities, some of those which have suffered the most fatal decadence are those which have counted the use of Tobacco amongst the deadly sins, and have abjured it most consistently; while some that have succeeded best have honoured my favourite “weed.” Take two instances of the latter kind: The Aurora Community numbers 300 or 400 members, owns nearly 18,000 acres of land, and is solidly prosperous. “Like most Germans, the people of Aurora use Tobacco freely and drink beer, but drunkenness is extremely rare—some say never occurs. They work regularly, but never hard.” “ ‘ Since the foundation of the colony, it has not had a criminal among its members; it has sent no man to jail; it has not had a lawsuit, either among its members or with outside people; it has not had an insane person, nor one blind or deaf or dumb, nor has there been any case of deformity.’” The Community of Inspirationists at Amana “is the largest, and in some respects most prosperous, of existing communities; ” “ Tobacco is used to excess—there is smoking everywhere; ” “ there is entire Communism of property, not only between the members of a single settlement, but between all the settlements”—seven in number; and Mr. Hinds triumphantly asks—“If Communism can be applied with such beneficent results in the case of seven villages, why not over an entire county? Why not over a State? Why not over a nation? ”
Nothing so easy as to ask “Why?” Nothing se painful, sometimes, as the reply. But at least these experiences do not deter us, by their exhibition of the terrors of Tobaccoism, from fulfilling the behest of the British Government, ^nd filling the Exchequer byre-filling our snuff-boxes and pipes. Amongst Americans, no man has a more honourable name than Bayard Taylor, who says “that the secret of his enormous power of work is an unfailing appetite, a capacity for smoking Tobacco interminably, and eight hours’ good sleep every night.” Perhaps that’s more than one “secret”; but the recipe is a good one. The Echo wisely suggests that most people would find the interminable use of Tobacco destructive of all appetite for food. I may modestly add, that if Mr. Bayard Taylor could neither eat nor sleep he would not smoke “interminably.” I would adventure some sage remarks on the cigarettes of dust from the recesses of Cypriote antiquities which certain Americans are bringing to the Paris Exhibition; but you may begin to think that, howe’er I smoke, at least I write “interminably”; wherefore, with retiring grace, I simply subscribe myself
Your Man-of-All-Work.
||ipe tfolimms.
I.—JARVEY’S HAT.
The name of smokers is legion. A man has only to settle preliminaries with his stomach, and arrange that the interests of the liver, lungs, eyes, and tongue are not imperilled, and he becomes a smoker at once. And yet, although so many millions are daily smoking and enjoying the weed, a man who can properly colour a pipe is a rarity. Any man with a mouth, bellows, and Tobacco, can alter the hue of a pipe in time; the same as with a brush and paint he can spoil a canvas by daubing it all over; but the real colourer is to that man as the artist is to the dauber, and nothing else. I have known men who coloured only the stem of the pipe, and left the bowl nearly as when they started; and I have known others who, by some diabolical magic, coloured the top half
of the bowl, and could no more persuade the stem to alter its hue than they could fly; but here and there I have known men who could colour a pipe right handsomely, and Jarvey, the hero of the little adventure about to be related, was one of them.
Jarvey never affected a meerschaum, but he was great on cutties. He was proud of his collection, too. There they were, all nicely arranged in order, every stem and every bowl, to within a little less than half an inch of the top, as black as night.
Jarvey was, I am sorry to say, no credit to smokers. He was by no means a perfect character. Doubts of the toughest description existed in the minds of most of his friends as to whether he ever started on the road to perfection. Certainly, if he ever made the uphill venture, it was done in secret, when no one was about to take observations; and he could have got but a very little way on the road before he tired of its novelty, and turned back to more familiar paths.
Had this young man been as well furnished in the matter of morals as he was in the matter of money, he would have been an ornament to society; but these gifts were not at all equal, and so Jarvey was not at all an ornament.
It may seem strange that I should speak ill of a brother smoker, but it is the duty of the moral teacher to unfurl always the banner of truth, even if angry winds blow to such an extent that the rebellious flapping of the aforesaid banner inflicts much damage on his best hat.
Jarvey’s failing, I may as well say at once, was this—he drank. Drinking is, of course, a natural and pleasant operation, and even strong liquors taken in moderation are, I think, useful; but Jarvey drank deeply. He drank, in fact, till he got merry, and then muddled, and sometimes had to go home on all fours, owing to a mutiny on the part of his legs.
Jarvey’s hat was remarkable for one thing, it had a pocket in it. This was a contrivance on the part of its owner to ensure the safety of his pipe. He always wore one description of hat—soft felt, very wide in the brim, and very tall in the crown. On the inside of his hat a piece of black silk was sewn, which made the pocket. When Jarvey found he was getting muddled, off came his hat, and in went his darling cutty that he was gradually bringing to perfection, a Saji came over the silken pocket, a button was fastened, on went his hat again, and the pipe was secure. Of course it may seem an outlandish thing for a man to do, when an ordinary case would, even in his pockets, have saved the pipe from injury; but, admitting that it was an outlandish thing, what further can be said. Did it ever strike you, honest reader, that if folks never did outlandish things, half the world would be out of work. It is not the “ordinary” but the “extraordinary,” the “out-of-the-way,” the “outlandish” that makes the world interesting. Is it the ordinary hum-drum man who makes wars and rumours of wars, executes chemical forgeries, is shot out of a cannon, dives a hundred feet into a net, keeps M.P.’s wives sitting up all night, claims the largest circulation in the world, fills our prisons, &c.? No! it is not. It is the outlandish, extraordinary man. Where, then, without him would our newspaper men be, our lawyers, our courts and judges, our novelists and playwriters, our parsons and moralists? Where should I be? Eh? This is a digression, but it is solid.
Jarvey, at the time I am now writing of, had fallen deeply in love. Kate was the name of the young lady he loved, and on whom he often cast a favouring eye. She, however, cast no favouring eye on him in return ; in fact, if she ever cast an eye on him at all, it was either by accident, or else for the purpose of observing if he was taking notice of how high it was possible for the human nose to turn up without dislocating its foundations.
It may well be imagined that our hero’s mind was not like a lake in summer time, calm and peaceful. To be desperately in love with a charming girl, and to know that not only was his suit viewed with indifference, but that he was an object of scorn and contempt in her sight, was sufficient at times to make him a prey to melancholy. It must not, however, be imagined that his melancholy was of the long-haired, moongazing description; it was not. Jarvey looked upon depression as an internal disorder, to be got at from the outside; and he poured down his medicine with commendable perseverance, and a certain measure of success.
Jarvey, with his volcanic mind and alcoholic brain mingling and raging with love and liquor, dived at last into every lover’s resource—the ink-pot.
It is my intention some day to write an elaborate treatise on the dangers of the ink-pot. The preachers against the glass, the bowl, and the bottle are many; but where is the man who lifts up his voice against the most (I say it advisedly) seductive and dangerous fluid ever invented. Think for one moment. What jealousies, suicides, murders, complications, libels, misery, ruin, and despair have sprung from the ink-pot. This is another digression, but it is solid as the other.
. First, then, Jarvey wrote an amorous and inflammatory epistle to Kate, dilating, with such wild power as his abilities allowed, on the strength of his devotion and the misery of his torment, concluding by imploring a return of her affection.
Secondly, so utterly gone was he that he launched into poetry.
With his grog by his side and his pipe in his mouth, for two mortal hours did Jarvey agonise over this epistle, and great was his relief when he came to the end of it.
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The enamoured youth decided to direct and post the letter the next day, as he thought that possibly, after his usual evening’s recreation, he might be able to add another verse, or a P.S., or something of the sort, which should prove an absolute clincher.
He, therefore, simply enclosed it in a plain envelope to keep it clean, and, for safety, put it in the pocket inside his hat.
Jarvey then proceeded, with a self-satisfied smile, to “The Grey Horse,” where he made love to the barmaid in a chaffing fashion, consumed many glasses of grog, and busied himself with colouring the particular pipe he at that time had in hand. It need not, therefore, excite wonder when it is stated that he got both fuddled and muddled.
When the hospitable doors of “The Grey Horse” closed, in obedience to the law of the land, Jarvey accepted the offer of a friend and boon companion to ride home in his dogcart, instead of walking.
There was but little difference in the pair as regards sobriety; both being well removed from that, to them, unsatisfactory condition. Had they been astronomically inclined, they would probably have discussed the question of double moons; but the heavens above them troubled them not: they were of the earth, earthy, and of grog, groggy, and they went along in silence.
On the road home the pair of worthies had to pass a hairdressing establishment, over the shop front of which the proprietor, Mr. Jones, had his name painted in letters more remarkable for boldness than beauty. At the side of the door a pole, most artistically painted, and supported by two stout iron rods, was apparently growing out of the brick wall.
Kate occupied the first floor in this very house, where she carried on the business of dressmaker; and at sight of the pole the love-smitten youth started; it was, in fact, to him a magnified Cupid’s dart, which, touching his very soul, made him fling all prudence to the winds:
“’Old ’ard, ole feller; ’old ’ard!”'he exclaimed, excitedly; “I must stop here. Woa, Polly! woa!” And in obedience to his request Polly was stopped, and the vehicle was drawn in close to the kerbstone. The shop was closed, but a bright light in Kate’s room showed that she was still up, if not at work.
Jarvey now stood on the seat of the trap, and held on to the barber’s pole, which projected over the narrow pavement. As soon as this by no means bashful wooer considered himself comfortable, he commenced making a series of peculiar sounds with his lips and tongue. These sounds were supposed to be expressive of affection, and resembled somewhat kisses drawn through a straw. Kate heard the vehicle stop, and wondered who could be coming to see Mr. Jones at so late an hour. The street was very quiet, so that her sense of hearing speedily made her aware of the fact that some person outside the house was acting in a very eccentric manner. Naturally enough, she quitted her seat and drew her curtain slightly aside, to satisfy her curiosity. Much to her surprise, she beheld, by the light of a street lamp, her inebriated admirer standing on the seat of a vehicle, and clinging convulsively to the barber’s pole.
As soon as Jarvey saw the curtain move he began a wild but affectionate speech, and gallantly removeci his hat, by way of showing respect to the object of his adoration. This act of politeness increased his difficulties. He had sufficient sense left to know that his legs were far from steady, and that he required both his hands on the pole to continue his oration without fear of bringing it to an undesirable finish in the gutter. At the same time, he felt it would be a little out of place to put his hat on his head in the middle of a tender declaration; so he made matters right by hanging the hat, all forgetful of its precious contents, on the end of Mr. Jones’s pole, till such time as his amorous speech should terminate.
Kate, although very indignant, could not help smiling at the ridiculous affair. Jarvey’s behaviour was certainly a little quaint.
Suddenly our hero’s friend, mindful of politeness but heedless of position, exclaimed: “I say, old boy, two’s company, and three’s none; I’ll come back for you when you’ve done; don’t go away; wish yer luck.” And straightway, without another word of warning, drove off, leaving his loving companion suspended several feet from the ground.
Poor Jarvey, with all his glowing eloquence and fevered sentiment jerked out of him in a most cruel manner, started crying for help as loudly as he could bawl, still dangling in the air. His friend heard his cries as he drove off; but, being both drowsy and drunken, mistook them for increased demonstrations of affection, and so went home, shaking his head pathetically over the infatuating and dangerous effects of the tender passion.
If Jarvey, instead of making such a bother, had quietly dropped, he would have landed safely enough, though possibly on his back in the gutter; but in the state he was in he did not know if the distance to the earth was four feet or forty; in fact, he hardly knew what was the matter with events generally, though conscious that he was hanging at the end of a shaky pole in sore need of assistance.
1 “Help! help! help!” cried the dangling lover; and, as fate would have it, in about two minutes a policeman came running round the nearest corner, and at once seized the bewildered youth by the legs.
Jarvey, imagining it was his friend come back for him, dropped quietly into the arms of the man in blue, who fiercely insisted on marching him straight to the police-station.
As the officer and his unsteady charge disappeared in the distance, old Mr. Jones, who had been hurrying into his clothes for several minutes, opened his shop door cautiously and peered into the street. Perceiving a man’s hat at the end of his pole, he procured a fishing-rod, which enabled him to take possession of the prize. Then he closed the door of his establishment and went to rest.
“If the gentleman who by accident left his hat on my pole last night will call and identify it, he can have it and its contents.	“J. B. Jones.”
The above announcement appeared in the window of Mr. Jones’s shop the morning sifter Jarvey’s adventure, and attracted considerable attention. Many of the neighbours had been aroused by that young man’s fervid appeals to his loved one, and his yet more fervid appeals for help; and, as he was well known, a good many folks called at Mr. Jones’s to inquire if his pole was at all out of order.
Then a whisper, too, went creeping about concerning the contents of the hat; and it was wonderful how many people wanted shaving, or required just the ends taken off their hair. Men, too, who were not old enough to pretend to shave, or too old and baldheaded to require the services of a hairdresser, turned their attention to fishing-tackle (for Mr. Jones dealt in that too), and went to the shop to purchase lines or hooks.
It was quite an inspiring sight to see the customers come out. Hair cutting and shaving seemed to make them quite cheerful—many of them, in fact, uproariously merry. Then, too, if a man went in to buy just a simple penny fish hook, he came out looking as pleased as if he had caught a big salmon.
The fact was, Jarvey was quite a popular author; his works were read eagerly, though in secret; and afforded much amusement to Mr. Jones and his customers for a long time.
The following is a copy of his letter:—
“TO THE INCOMPARABLE JAILEB OJ MY HEART.
“ Lovely and Adorable One,—I, your lowly and humble admirer, grovelling in the dust at your beautiful feet, offer you my heart. You are my sun, my moon, my star. The dazzling radiance of your glowing presence is my light, your absence is my darkness. Oh! why so apathetic, my sweet charmer? I’m not such a bad catch, after all: my old man left me five hundred a year, and when the old girl turns up her toes I reckon on another clear two hundred. Now you know my income, but you do not know my heart. Even your miraculous imagination cannot fathom the depths of that: a heart that beats only for you, and will beat only for you so long as it has a beat left in it. My house is a proper one: gas laid on in every room, furnished slap up; and it only wants an angel to be Mrs. Jarvey in it. Come, sweet one, and bethat angel, my guardian angel, to look after your own Jarvey. I do want looking after sometimes; I must confess to getting a bit slewed now and then; but what is a fellow to do, madly in love as I am? Be mine, mine, and I will bless the day I call you mine.
“ Like bees within their little hive, We’ll live together all alive; Like pigeons in their little cot, # We’ll settle down just like a shot;
Like wooing, cooing, billing doves, We’ll sit and sing our willing loves. Farewell, sweet one; each night I rest
• With your dear image in my breast.
“An early and affirmative answer will greatly oblige
“ Yours humbly,
“ T. Jarvey.”
Jarvey never went to claim his hat. Shortly after his adventure ■ he found it convenient to remove to another neighbourhood. Old Mr. Jones still keeps the letter, and to this day smokes the coloured cutty he found in Jarvey’s hat
D. Goggs.
^ Htto Nicotian Jtgira.*
n.
In the phantasmagoria of life the more rapidly the scenes shift the more they disappoint us; for, though we are prepared, and, indeed, yearn for surprises, we expect them to obey the law of connexity and affinity; and these they invariably defy. Moreover, our vanity is wounded, because our faith in our infallible sagacity is rudely shaken.
What so natural as to imagine that Attilio, whose course we have anew to watch, should either win Dolores at once, or be by indignant parents rejected. Neither alternative befalls him; or, rather, through his own folly he prevents either alternative from eventuating, if we may use an ugly American word. Let us see his own statement of the affair, as made to his friend Giovanni:—“I received a note for the ball of the Progreso, and for a whole day I trembled at the mere thought of dancing with Dolores. But in the evening, after attiring myself in the most elegant manner possible, and after tossing my hair into fine poetical disorder, I began to undress with
* n Dio Ignoto. Di Paolo Muukgaua, Milano. Libreria Bditrioe G. Brigola. 1876.
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the intention of going straight to bed. I was afraid of falling more deeply in love with Dolores than was wise; I was afraid of making a poor figure among so many gallant and dashing youths; I had the profound bitterness of feeling that I was m harmony neither with the time nor the place. Love and pride, timidity and passion, carried on a fierce war within me, and threw me into a state of frightful irritation and suffering. I ended by going to the ball, but I did not remain more than two hours. Seeing how magnificently every one danced, I could not help having the notion that I myself was sure to dance wretchedly, ridiculously; and I crept like a desolate shadow through halls which intoxicated with per* fumes, and which flashed with brilliant eyes. How beautiful the Portenas are, when floating in the splendours of a ball! Suddenly Dolores saw me, and, leaning on the arm of a gentleman, she drew near to salute me where I was standing, close to a doorway, and she consoled my solitude with a smile, and seemed to embrace my whole being with the flame of her glance. She wore a white veil, variegated by small blue spots, and interwoven with threads of silver. Very beautiful I deemed her—far too beautiful. I murmured some very stupid words, and fled from the ball! With the last echo of the music in my ear, I on reaching home placed myself before the looking-glass, and could not help laughing. I was as pale as death, and my white cravat had wriggled itself into a most absurd shape and position. Doubtless Dolores had seen me thus 1 Three days after I saw her at her home, where she was taking mate in the company of her mother. Scarcely had I clasped the hand of Dolores, when I felt that she had grown very cold toward me. The whole atmosphere of the room was frigid; even the mother was less expansive than usual, and in a sardonic tone she said to me that I was very corto (timid). Dolores clearly showed that my odd demeanour at the ball had displeased her not a little. To see her so beautiful, and then to run away—to run away, too, without inviting her to a single waltz, had seemed to her a real monstrosity. The women of this country feel a strong need of having court paid to them at every instant, so that they are more displeased with him who pauses a moment in his gallant attentions, than with him who, in his desperate efforts to flatter unceasingly, ends by uttering nothing but arrant nonsense. I remained with Dolores the whole evening, but did not pass beyond the bounds of the most commonplace conversation. She, speaking of evenness in character, said that she had a great dislike to persons who were moody and capricious; who were very amiable one day, but exceedingly disagreeable the day after. These words were pronounced so emphatically, that I could not help seeing they were intended for me” Concluding that both Dolores and himself were in a false position, Attilio determines to escape from the peril, the pain, the perplexity, by leaving Buenos Ayres. He, therefore, goes in a steamer to Gualeguaychfi, and his experiences immediately after his arrival he thus records:—“ When I landed at Gualeguaychfi, it was raining heavily. I was received as the guest of Signor Tinelli, a very rich Genoese, who has two or three saladeros in Entrerios. I owe this hospitality to my friendly relations with B. (the Italian apothecary). The first morning passed at Entrerios should have been for me decisive, I having delayed till that day all determination about my future course. To procraminate and to wait is the characteristic of weak people, and I, after leaving Buenos Ayres, had exhausted all my strength, and had become very weak indeed. I took my gun, and at the dawn went foith to explore the country, with the intention of stopping under the shade of the first fine tree I should find, and of meditating deeply there on my coming destiny. But I had not reckoned on the rapture which the new and splendid scenes of nature were to awake in me. At Buenos Ayres I had seen nothing but men; and the willows of Palermo, and European gardens and their productions, could give me no idea of American vegetation. Here, on the contrary, I was in the midst of a terrestrial paradise; and the trees, all new forme, were so beautiful that I was unable to fix on one more beautiful than another to furnish me its hospitable shade. The village was a very very little thing in the heart of the gigantic marvels of nature which surrounded it, and the houses of men looked like the toys of children when compared with the Ombus, the Talas, the Nandubags, the Algarrobos which served as their frame. The herbs, the grasses of the meadow, too, were all different from ours, so that the meadow seemed a grove, and the grove seemed a forest of giants formed for a world grander than the European world. And on the flowers of the grasses and of the herbs fluttered butterflies altogether new to me, and insects glittered never before seen, and on the branches of the trees gleamed birds of every hue; and the humming bird, the true gem of the aerial world, darted from corolla to corolla of the palampalum, from which it sucked with its tongue the most delicious nectar. Before reaching the banks of the river Gualeyan, I had killed .at a single shot three pigeons, and it was the finest shot I ever made in my life. Crossing the river in a canoe, I found myself where the trees were far enough apart to allow me to penetrate easily, and I dashed into the heart of the forest with the feverish haste of curiosity, and forgetting that I might easily lose my way. I had been told that I should find there ostriches and parrots, and I entirely forgot my future lot, and the meditation I was to make thereon under the shadow of the most beautiful tree.	A few minutes after I heard a very strange cry, and on the top of a tree I saw perched a parrot, which was all green with the exception of the head, which was red. It was the first parrot I had seen in the freedom of its native forest, and I felt my heart beating violently in my bosom. At the parrot I gazed with extraordinary delight, took my aim leisurely, because my arm trembled from emotion. Finally, however, the gun went off, and the parrot fell at the feet of a mimosa. I ran to pick up the parrot with the same febrile excitement with which at Pavia I had seized the first redbreast which had been slain by my gun, and I felt so happy at the moment that I thought I must see what o’clock it was. I found that it was half-past seven in the morning. An hour afterwards I had tilled a brasita de fuego, a bird entirely scarlet, a carancho (large falcon), many pigeons, and I know not how many birds of diverse names and forms. I was devoured by thirst, and was perspiring profusely. Weary and hungry I ought to have felt, but on and on I ran, revelling in the joys of a venatorial intoxication which I had never before experienced or imagined, and which sufficed to give me a perfect beatitude. I was so contented with myself, so proud of myself, that I never thought of the jaguars I might meet, never considering whether were good or poisonous the fruits of the cactus I met on my path, and which I sucked voluptuously to quench my thirst. After several hours of a fatiguing but delicious ramble, I chanced upon a cottage before which a Gaucho was taking his mate. Of his own accord he offered me a descanso (place and time to rest) and mate, and after a few minutes we were as intimate as two old friends. I was ready enough to tell him who and what I was, and he showed much curiosity in examining my gun and the contents of my bag. He was ingenuous, ignorant, and of courteous manners. Seeing that I was tired, he offered me a horse, and gave me his grandson as companion as far as Gualeguaychfi. The narpe of my host was Nicanozo Albornoz, and he was an Entrerian of pure race. At home all I did was to show my sportsman’s spoils; and during the whole day I had no temptation, no inclination to meditate on my future career. Greatly fatigued I went to bed with the firm intention to put off the debate in my soul and the decision till the the morrow.” After a pause, Attilio proceeds:—“It is not always true that a gloomy morning portends a gloomy day, for this, the third day of my residence at Gualeguaychfi, began badly and ended well. In the morning I was invited by Signor Tinelli to accompany him to the vast saladero he possesses at two leagues from Gualeguaychfi, and he caused a very beautiful and very spirited horse to be in waiting for me at the orilla del pueblo (the end of the village), whither we went on foot after drinking freely of mate. We found the horses saddled and ready to start. Tinelli entered a pulperia to get a light for his cigarrito, and I entered after him. In this shop I beheld one of the most dazzling and fiery Creole women I had ever seen, fulminant and palpitating beneath my hungry glances. I should have been glad to remain in that place to try to drive away the memories, still too bitter, of Dolores; but, though I was to stop there only for a few minutes, I strove to animate my eyes with such an expression that time should get wings, and my eyes should get fire. Suddenly she perceived my admiration; then she gazed at me many times, then softened her fulgent eyes to tenderness and gratitude. By good luck, the peon, when tightening the girths of our horses broke I know not what, so that we had to return to the pulperia, and wait there more than half-an-hour. My eyes and the Creole woman’s eyes then proclaimed war to the death, and on both sides the combat was so valiant that at parting the beautiful creature gave me a clove-pink, which I placed in the buttonhole of my coat. After saluting her effusively, I proceeded to mount my courser, without knowing that he was one of the cursed mancarrones of these countries, which do not give the horseman time to mount them, and which dash into a gallop almost ere the horseman has got his foot into the stirrup. The fact, at all events, is, that scarcely had I accomplished the first part of the operation when the horse darted off, dragging me along with him, with my foot in the stirrup and the reins in my hand. I, hoping to stop him by pulling the reins and by saying *psss, psssj pronounced these words without knowing that they are employed in America to stimulate the horses to the swiftest gallop. Consequently my courser began to fly, sweeping me along with a frightful rapidity in the midst of the plain. After remaining some instants uncertain what I should do, I suddenly let the reins and the stirrup go and fell horizontally on the ground, gliding along for some feet, as if I had wished to plane the ground with my stomach. I do not think it is possible to touch the ground in a direction exactly parallel to mine at that moment. I rose from the soil with my mouth full of mire and with my trousers torn at both knees. While Signor Tinelli, on hie horse, rushed to catch my fugitive courser, I entered the pulperia of the beautiful Creole, who, pale and agitated, came toward me. She washed me, she brushed me, she tittivated me; and I, mounting my horse again, said to the maiden that her clove-pink, which miraculously had kept its place, had saved me from death. Nevertheless, after half-an-hour’s gallop I tore the flower from my buttonhole, crushed it into a hundred thousand pieces, and dispersed into the air its innocent petals. Suddenly I had seen with my mind’s eye my doctoral dissertation lying on the marble table in the parlour of Dolores, and had felt in my heart a sharp pang
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of the most cruel remorse. If those petals, shivered into minutest fragments by my convulsive hand, had been able to fly on the wings of the wind to Buenos Ayres, how many things they could have uttered to my divine Portena! How many ardours of passions, how many memories, they could have awakened in her bosom! ”
The udivine Portena^ Dolores, whom he had so abruptly left, Attilio was destined to see again much sooner than he expected, and through a curious circumstance thus by himself recorded:—“At the saladero of Tinelli I was fated to find, in the most unlooked for fashion, a true solution of the quadrature of the circle. When we were visiting the cercos, where stood crowded that morning more than four hundred oxen waiting for death, and when we were examining the vessels where were boiled the bones and the flesh, Tinelli spoke to me of the great difficulty of sending to Europe in wooden casks the ox fat which is prepared in the saladeros. This ox fat is a substance much sought after and of great value; but, conveyed as it is in casks wliich have brought to America the Carlon wine, it leaks through the pores of the wood, and not above the half of it reaches Europe. The saladeristi of Buenos Ayres have offered a prize of a hundred thousand lire and a dividend on the profits, to any one discovering the means of rendering impermeable the casks in. which the fat is sent to Europe; but hitherto no one has solved the problem.”
His love for Dolores emboldens and inspires Attilio to solve it. He writes to Signor Perez, communicating his discovery, offering him all the benefit thereof, and asking nothing in return but the permission to be admitted once more as a visitor at his house. Of course Signor Perez is a man too generous, too just, to accept these terms. The result, however, is, that Attilio returns to Buenos Ayres, is admitted as a partner in the business of Signor Perez, now made much more lucrative by Attilio’s discovery, and is accepted as the lover of Dolores, with the glad consent of her parents.
Joy now aboundeth, and along with the happiness of the lover, Attilio has the glory of the great inventor, and the prospect, both as inventor and saladeristo, of illimitable riches. In his letter to Giovanni he crowds picture on picture made enchanting by many things, but in none of which mat6 and cigarritos are lacking. Indeed, mat6 and cigarritos seem in South America to be inseparable companions. Let us, meanwhile, by the aid of Attilio’s vivid delineations form a more intimate acquaintance with his future father-in-law:— “ Signor Perez is an average specimen of the Argentine man, and admirably represents by himself all the virtues and all the defects of this Neolatin people. Sincere, frank, generous, a lover of luxury and of fine women (though there is more white hair than black hair on his head); jealous in spite of this, or rather, perhaps, by reason of this, he speaks evermore of the nobility of blood, of the grandeur of position, of the social hierarchies; he labours because business is a necessity; he talks much, and always with pleasure; he grows warm in a superficial manner about the political affairs of the country, but he never ventures on religious and philosophical discussions. He goes to mass every Sunday with his wife and daughter, but he laughs at bigots. More than once, when driven to say something about his faith, he has smiled and skipped away nimbly from the hands of the questioner. He is sceptical from inertia; and in the gravest questions, as well as in the abstrusest problems, he is prompt to seek the comical and burlesque side; and if he cannot find it he invents it. He is accustomed to say that the comical side of serious things is always the most interesting side; and with the cloud of azure smoke which he darts from his cigarrito he envelopes what he does not understand, and shakes himself free from the importunate, the inquisitive, the fanatical persons of every colour, whom he supremely detests. Incessantly he speaks of money, and this would lead to the belief that he is avaricious; but his only avidity is for luxury, of which he can never find enough. If he enters a conjiteria, he simply eats half-a-dozen tarts, and selects the newest and those which cost most. If he calls at a goldsmith’s shop, or a curiosity shop, his eyes flash with excitement, as if he were both a boy and a woman, and he wants to see everything and to buy everything. In effect he buys many useless things, many monstrously tasteless things, and his wife frequently rebukes him for his prodigality. But he grows not a bit better for the remonstrance and the reproach. One day I went walking with him. He yawned, and yawned, ^and yawned, as if tired of himself and of everything. Suddenly he struck his forehead with his glove, and smiled as if he had made at the moment a magnificent discovery. He cried: * By the way, let us go and see the new magazine of Japanese curiosities; * and in the wildest excitement he dragged me to the Calle del Peru (Peru Street), where in a small shop were crowded hosts of strange and odd things, all alike grotesque, and all bidding defiance to good taste. Nevertheless, he was in ecstasy. ‘How delightful! How precious! How splendid ! ’ In an hour he had spent more than a thousand lire on trumpery, which, putting triumphantly into a cab, he carried home himself. For a week these purchases were the only subjects of discourse in the Perez mansion. But the following week Signor Perez had given away more than the half of the things to his male friends and his female friends, and thenceforth he never made any allusion to the affair. One evening, feeling more expansive and animated than usual from the presence of my Dolores, I had expounded to Signor Perez my theory of that * Unknown God,’ whom every one of us ought to seek in this world. I felt that I was growing
eloquent, and my thought bounded from height to height, reaching at last the most exalted summits of the ideal. Dolores listened to me with delight; but Perez smiled and smiled, smoking one cigarrito after another, and moving to and fro in his rocking chair. Finally he interrupted me, saying: ‘ My dear Attilio, you are a great poet, and you go seeking for the “Unknown God” where you are sure never to find him. As for me, without so much poetry and so much trouble, I found him a long time ago. The “ Unknown God” is money, force of all forces, potency of all potencies. When I have in my pocket a fine bundle of bank notes, I feel that I can do whatsoever I like; I feel that I have all I desire. I have the consciousness of human omnipotence. I am made proud by the knowledge that I have at my command women, horses, and flowers, country seats and landed estates, glory and honours; because I can with money purchase an article proclaiming me, in the leading journal of the Republic, the foremost of Argentine industrialists, and the wisest of administrators. With that which makes my pocket-book so pleasantly heavy I feel that I can become a deputy or a senator, because in our country we can with bank notes knock down a political adversary, a candidate; we can even become ministers; and why not ? Long live gold, the “Unknown God” of every age and of every land!’ After discourse such as this, and rodomontade still more cynical than this, if an unfortunate person makes an appeal to the purse of Perez, he empties it immediately to succour the hapless being; and if any one dared to propose to him a vile or treacherous action for the sake of gain, he would run the risk of being thrown out of the window.”
Mantegazza’s long sojourn in South America gives a weight to some suggestive passages here given, which are applicable, doubtless, not only to the Argentine Republic, but to all the Republics of that vast region:—“The political condition of these lands has changed more in words than in things, and the heroic resolution that despoiled Spain of her finest colonies, has not been able to annihilate either Jesuitical obscurantism, or that fatal ferment which overturns the arrangements in appearance the most secure, or party spirit, or empleomania, or so many other faults and afflictions which still flow in the veins of the freest Argentines. To have broken, however, all the old supports on which the Spanish aristocracy rested, to have torn off all the bonds which benumbed the members of a robust organism, has given an immense liberty of movement to this young community, in which the good greatly exceeds the evil. The power of doing everything has demonstrated, even to the most timid, that agitation is not excessively dangerous when there is the proud knowledge of descent from a great nation, and when there have been as fathers, as founders of the new land of promise, such men as Rivadavia and Sammartin. There is still much corruption here, but it is in individuals not well educated, and fiercely impatient in their desire to succeed, not in the institutions. And the interests are infinitely subdivided, not hieratically monopolised by a caste or family. So that the Republicans of the young Spanish America can, compared with us, boast of being religious, yet not idolatrous; and of having reached the critical period of the political development of their institutions. If there is to be a comparison of defects, I must always prefer those of youth to those of old age. Here, politically and socially speaking, men are young, while witn us they have sunk into decrepitude.”
The exultation and exaltation with which this letter overflows were doomed to have a sudden eclipse. Attilio was about to be married to the loveliest and noblest of women, and his genius had opened for him a wide and easy way to boundless wealth, and to a grand social position. Nothing seemed lacking to his fortune and felicity except that which is lacking to all earthly things—the assurance of stability.
& Blaw o' the Bipe.
[Glasgow Weekly Mail, March 2, 1878.] Ae nicht at the ingle, when coorting the muse, She seemed tae be bashfu’ and fain wad refuse; Sae my cutty I gat till my theme wad grow ripe, And blossom and bloom ower a blaw o’ the pipe. I rummaged my brains, and I rummaged my books, An’ I socht up and doon in a’ corners and neuks, But nocht could I think on wis worthy o* type, Sae again I sat doon for a blaw o’ the pipe. And while I sat puffin’ and e’ein* the reek Float gently along by the snug ingle cheek, A droll kin’ o’ notion my noddle did gripe, To try a bit verse on a blaw o’ the pipe.
Oh! soothing an sweet whan the e’ening comes roun’, In your ain muckle chair to get moor’d safe and soun’, Your joys to embrace or your cares aff to wipe, Ower a heart cheering, brain clearing, blast o’ the pipe. The soul-stirring sermon and side-splitting joke Are afttimes composed ower a heart heezing smoke, And brilliant and deep are the teachings in type, The brain has produced ower a blaw o’ the pipe. Give misers their wishes in silver and gold, Give tipplers their glasses galore, hot or cold, Give gluttons their wame fu’ o’ tatties and tripe; But gie me the weed and a weel fettled pipe.
Bass Kennedy
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May, 1878.]
COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT.
179
NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. We cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; and ve do not hold ourselves responsible for loss. COPE’S 1878 CARD. MODERN PILGRIMS. CHAUCER AND 8T0THARD ADAPTED TO THE TIMES. Subscribers to the “Tobacco Plant” for 1878 will receive a copy of Modern Pilgrims end Key, carefully packed upon a roller, by forwarding 6d. to pay carriage. Price to Non-Subecribers, 1/-. Subecription for M Tobacco Plant,” 2/* per annum, poet free. Subecription for “Tobacco Plant” and Modern Pilgrims, 2/6. Publishing Office:—10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.	SMOKING: WHEN INJURIOUS, WHEN INNOCUOUS, WHEN BENEFICIAL, WITH COMPENDIUM OP THB TEMPERAMENTS, SHOWING HOW THEY ARB INFLUENCED BY TOBJLCCO. BY J. CARRICK MURRAY, M.D., F.A.I., NeweastU*epon-TyiU' Price Is. Free by Post. Is. Ud. London : Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. Newcastle-on-Tyne : D. H. Wilson. Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4s. ®^t printers’ Register, A JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOR GREAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND THE COLONIES. THE PRINTERS’ REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Home and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India, China, Canada, 4c.; and it affords the best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August, 1875. Address—The Editor, St. Bride Street, London, E.C.
YTEW YORK TOBACCO LEAF, Organ of the Tobacco Trade of the United States. Published weekly. Subscription, 20/- per Annum, post free to any part of the United Kingdom. Sole Agents for the United KingdomCope Bros. & Co., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by whom Advertisements and Subscriptions will be received. Specimen copy sent for Id. postage stamp. mHE TOBACCO NEWS and Prices Current. Editor, 1 Alzx’r. Harthill. Published every Saturday Evening, after the close of the Market on that day, by the Tobacco News Company. Office: No. 29, Courier-Journal Building, ( Louisville, Ky. Office in New York: 86, Beaver Street. H. A. Wheeler, Agent, who is authorised to receive Subscriptions and Advertisements. Terms of Subscription (in advance): For Twelve Months (postage paid), 3 dollars 50 cents; for Six Months (postage paid), 2 dollars.	
	®be ^taf. rpHE LEAF is a live, spicy, readable Weekly Paper, devoted JL to the interest of Tobacco Smokers, Snuffers, Chewers, and Dealers. Edited by J. Irving Crabbe. Published every Wednesday. Hoffman A Crabbe, Publishers, 138 and 140, Lake Street, Chicago, Illinois, U.S. British Subscriptions (per Money Order): 15s. per annum. WORKS on TOBACCO, SNUFF, &c.—Booksellers V V having Books on Tobacco, Snuff, 4c, or Magazines, Journals, or Newspapers containing articles on the subject, are invited to report such to the Office of COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
The Richmond Cavendish Company, Limited,
BONDED TOBACCO WORKS,
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Manufacturers, IN BOND, of All Descriptions of TOBACCO, for Ship Stores and for Exportation.
SPECIAL BRANDS.
DARK QUARTERS.	TENS.	CUT CAVENDISH.
"NATIONAL EAGLE,”	"WYOMING,”	"SPRING FLOWERS,"
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“UNION.”	"ANCHOR."	"NEPTUNE.”
8OLE MANUFACTURERS OFTHECELEBRATED “RICHMOND 8MOKING MIXTURE.”
Always on Hand, a Large Stock of Pressed Tobacco, Bright Cavendish in All Sizes, and a Well-selected Stock of American Manufactured Cavendish.
Price Lists on Application.
SOLACE. One Shilling Bundles, containing 4 Cigars.
ENGLAND’S BEST. One Shilling Bundles, containing 6 Cigars.
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180	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[May, 1878.
COPE'S CIGARETOS.
Bouquet (With Tubes).
Peerless (Without Tubes).
In Cardboard Boxes, containing four bundles of 23 Cigaretos.
In very handsome Cedar Cases, containing Ten Boxes, or 1OOO Cigaretos.
.Dedicate in flavour; bum evenly, with a flrm white ash; made with great care flor a mild morning smoke.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes.
In Cardboard Boxes, containing 50.
In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1OOO, with lock and key.
.Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made flrom a peculiar kind ofl Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking ofl this Tobacco is said to give reliefl in cases ofl Asthma.
COPE’S CIGARILLOS.
FAIRY BRAND, in CARDBOARD BOXES, GOLD MOUNTED, with BEAUTIFUL PARISIAN LABEL, CONTAINING TEN Internal PACKETS of TEN CIGARILLOS EACH. ____________________
New Cigarette—Cope’s Whiffs.
In Bundles of ten, lead foil, and neat label. In Cedar Boxes, containing forty bundles, or 400 Cigarettes.
These really beautiful Goods are rapidly growing into favour, and invariably make a trade wherever introduced.
COPE BROTHERS & CO.
TOBACCO WORKS, '	Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
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Printed and Published for the Proprietors at the Office, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by John Frasxb, of 1, Spekeland Road, Edge-Hill, Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster.
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ENTERED AT STATIONERS* HALL.
A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
No. 99—Vol. IL]	JUNE, 1878.	TOS^
^obacro Smuggling in t^t Jasi (Sentrafion’
n.
As to adulteration, our Metropolitan Manufacturers considered the Excise survey of no use in preventing either it or smuggling. The survey was useless prior to 1840, and useless still. Complained of the Excise for not putting into force the existing law, for not making the surveys required for the protection of the honest manufacturer and dealer. Could, had they been so minded, have continued adulterating 20 or 30 per cent, without the Excise having any knowledge of it. The Excise declared that they could detect the most trifling adulteration; did not believe they could:—“ The reason why I hold the opinion that the Excise cannot detect adulteration is this, that we have sent to a very clever chemist in London a variety of samples; samples were to have been sent to the Excise; the trade very candidly came forward and said they would adulterate a certain portion of Tobacco, and would send different samples of Tobacco that had been adulterated 10, 15, and 20 per cent., and also that genuine Tobacco should be sent in; that these samples should be ticketed, and that an analysing of them by the Excise should take place, and that they should say that No. 5, for instance, had a certain quantity of adulteration, and that the matter with which it was adulterated was so-and-so; that No. 2 had a certain quantity of adulteration, and that the article was so-and-so; and that they should tell which was the genuine sample. The Excise declined entering into that proposition. It was made on the introduction of Mr. Goulburn’s Act [1842], by the trade: one in particular was deputed to adulterate Tobacco to a certain extent, and to send in with that the genuine article; upon the Excise declinim? it, the samples were sent in to Mr. A. Garden, in Oxford Street, a very celebrated chemist. I applied three or four times to knew the result; and, after having had them three weeks, his answer was that he had been at work upon them, Mid, though he had told us that he should know if 2 per cent, of adulteration was in, he failed in his object; and his answer was that, in respect to that which was adulterated 15 per cent., there was very little difference. As the Excise declined to enter into the proposal of the trade, our object was to test whether they could detect adulteration or not; if not, the lawful manufacturer is not protected.”
It may here be stated that the Tobacconist who prepared the samples and the chemist (of thirty years’ practice) who analysed them were subsequently examined. The former, who was secretary to the Tobacco manufacturers in the port of London, deposed to the following effect:—I prepared four samples of adulterated Tobacco, with different proportions and different Materials. No. 1 contained 5 per cent., 14 lbs. leaf and J lb. sigar (always loaf); No. 2, 10 per cent., 14 lbs. leaf, 1| lb. sug^r, and 5 oz. salt; No. 4, 15 per cent., 14 lbs. leaf 1| lb. sugat and J lb. of a certain powder manufactured for the use of the trade during the time that Mr. Baring’s Act was in operatiod; No. 6, 15 per cent., 12 lbs. leaf, 1 lb. 10 oz. sugar, and J lb. terra japonica. As the Excise declined the test, the trade determined to employ a chemist ex parte. Their view was that if they found they could detect such adulteration of Tobacco by analysis, they would go more extensively to work and have the Tobacco analysed of those parties who undersold them; but there was so little encouragement from the result of that experiment that it was given up altogether. The chemist had those samples of adulterated Tobacco, and one of genuine marked genuine, the Tobacco being alike in all; he analysed them, and reported on them. The report was put in and read; the following were
its most significant statements:—“The five samples of Tobacco sent to me for examination do not appear to differ very widely from one another. After the removal of all the vegetable matter, they have on an average yielded 14 per cent, of solid substances. . . . The specimens marked 1, 2, and 6, are exceedingly similar; that marked genuine contains about 2 per cent, less than the others; No. 4 is remarkable for having yielded a proportion of oxide of iron, which would almost lead to the supposition that sulphate of iron had been introduced.” The 1, 2, and 6, which the chemist found exceedingly similar, had 5, 10, and 15 per cent, of adulteration respectively. I don’t think that, as a manufacturer, I could detect Tobacco so mixed; I know that the 15 per cent. No. 6, looked so very pretty and so very genuine that I showed it to several manufacturers; I was quite proud of the production, and they declared that nobody would suspect it to contain foreign matter. Am not aware what superior talent the Excise inay possess for determining what proportion of mixture has taken place; if a manufacturer put 40 per cent, of sugar in, and the Excise chemist detected 14 or 15, it would be a clear case of adulteration. Was in business before Mr. Baring’s Act of 1840, when the law prohibited adulteration as now, though not quite so stringently; there was adulteration to a great extent then. The effect of Mr. Baring’s Act was to very much increase the addition of foreign matter in Tobacco; it reduced our prices and increased our trade; Tobacco absorbed as much as from 50 to 60 per cent, of foreign matter, and thus mixed was found decidedly agreeable by our customers; since the passing of Mr. Goulburn’s Act there have been many complaints of the strength of the Tobacco. My trade has decreased since then, because I cannot compete with the North Country manufacturers, who are bringing down the price generally; I never saw the profits so small. They sell as low as 3s. 3|d., and 3s. 3d., and very good Tobacco; it is impossible that they can supply duty-paid Tobacco at that price. I apprehend that I am competed with both by smuggled and adulterated Tobacco. As soon as Mr. Baring’s Act was repealed, we heard of a good deal of smuggling in every quarter; very large seizures have been made, to the extent of some tons in various cases. Were the duty reduced to Is. the manufacturer might mix foreign matter for the purpose of improving the article, in the true sense of the word. I don’t think he would adulterate for the sake of getting weight or increasing his profit; it would not be worth his while, with the duty so low. The adulterating matter costs a considerable sum, though not so much as Tobacco, and there are losses attending adulteration; the quantity of “ offal ” is increased. Shag leaves small Tobacco, worth nearly as much as Tobacco, within 2d. or 3d. per lb.; when you adulterate you have a great increase of that offal, and it is worth very little. Moreover, adulteration to any great extent interferes with the snuff trade: you cannot make good snuff with bad materials. With the present duty, the Excise, in order to suppress adulteration, would need a very different class of officers, very vigilant, and an immense number of them. I suppose there are between 100,000 and 200,000 retailers of Tobacco in the United Kingdom, and the few officers there are now cannot tell what they do. Were an officer on every manufacturer’s premises for the twenty-four hours, or as many hours as work went on, he might, if he were not bribed, effectually stop adulteration there; but he must be present during the whole of the process of manufacture. But after that I have no doubt that many retail dealers adulterate; as, by having a cask of dry Shag from the manufacturer, then sluicing that all through with treacle and water, and then making it hot by means of a plate heated with charcoal, and incorporating
L
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182	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[Junb, 1878.	
treacle and sugar with the Tobacco. That was done at a period when no manufacturer in London ever suspected it. Returning to our London manufacturers, we find them further deposing:—The Excise officers are of no use unless they have a chemist with them. Our only security is in the Excise being able to detect adulteration in the manufactured article; anybody can detect it in the unmanufactured; it needs no analysis; you go in, and here is a parcel of Tobacco, and upon it something which is not Tobacco, and you at once see what is going on, The public taste is decidedly in favour of the adulterated article: “ I travel in the country myself, and have done so for the last 30 years. When we commenced manufacturing the genuine article, having been privileged to use what we pleased, our Tobacco was complained of as being too strong; now the present price is 3s. 4d. in the country, and those Tobaccos which we consider adulterated (though we have no means of proving it) are decidedly prefered to the genuine, and they can get the same price, though they sometimes sell a penny under; and they have brought us down. Under Mr. Baring’s Act I paid £30,000 duty a year; it has gone down to £8000 this year; from the competition, the genuine Tobacco is diminished in demand.’* The operation of the existing penalties makes it for smuggler and adulterator a mere calculation as to their chances, and so forth. If the actual smuggler himself is detected, and is sentenced to pay a fine of £100, which is the customary mode before a magistrate, he (the smuggler) does not pay the fine, but goes to prison; but no sooner has he gone to prison than the party with whom he is implicated, the participator in the affair, pays his fine and he is liberated; consequently it is no sort of check to the smuggler, because he knows that he is not subject to penalty at all. However high in society, a man , does not lose caste for smuggling; he pays his fine, and if he pleases he can go on again. The only effectual check would be personal punishment. I said to a smuggler last week, in reference to this examination, “Read that clause in our petition,” pointing out the clause suggesting the substitution of personal punishment for penalty; and he said, “ Let the Government carry such a clause as that, and you give the greatest blow to smuggling you ever did in your life, because the smuggler now runs no risk at all; the money is paid by the principal, who does not appear.” It is a matter of notoriety in the trade: “So-and-So is taken up, and I suppose So-and-8o [another] pays the piper.” The fact that in this year, up to the 7th of March, 721 persons have been committed and convicted for smuggling Tobacco alone, does not show the extent of smuggling or the efficiency of the Excise, because the parties referred to are poor men, taking a pound of Tobacco from a ship; they all swell the number of the cases, but they are not smugglers who can influence the revenue to any great extent.	* Mr. William Maury, of Liverpool, examined:—Am an importer of Tobacco; have been in the trade on my own account 26 years. About 20 years ago we endeavoured to prevent smuggling, of which a great deal was going on, by organising an association of importers in Liverpool; after about five years we found that we could not do much good by our association, and could not collect sufficient money to pay the expenses, and we induced the American Chamber of Commerce to undertake the work. I appear on behalf of the American Chamber of Commerce in Liverpool. We have made several representations to the Government on the subject of the Tobacco duties. These were handed in and read: from the last, a memorial to Sir Robert Peel, then First Lord of the Treasury, dated 20th December, 1843, I select and condense the following statements:— “ Your memorialists would respectfully call your attention to the remarkable confirmation which has been given to their former representations by the disclosures recently made as to the extensive and systematic course of smuggling pursued in the very heart of the city of London, detected in the warehouse of one of the principal dealers in Tobacco. From the evidence given in that case it appeared that the smuggler could afford to sell at 2s. 3d. per lb., being 9d. less than the duty. “ The cost of Tobacco, including freight and all charges, is from 3d. to 4d. per lb., and the duty is 3s., being 900 [to 1200] per cent, on the value. “ A duty so enormously disproportioned to the cost offers an irresistible premium to the illicit trader, as the expense of smuggling by the cargo, including the first cost, does not exceed 9$d. per lb., and it has been ascertained that the smuggler receives [generally] 6d. per lb. less than the duty, or 2s. 6d. per lb., which yields him a clear profit of Is. 8$d. per lb., to the injury not only of the revenue, but of the fair trader	 “ Cigars afford a remarkable example of the amount of duty being increased by diminishing the rate. Ih 1828, when the duty was 18s. per lb., duty was paid on 8600 lbs., only yielding £7740; in 1830, when the duty was reduced to 9s. per lb., duty was paid on 66,000 lbs., yielding £29,700; and such has been the increase of consumption that in 1841 duty was paid on 213,613 lbs., yielding £100,899. “ In 1798 Ireland, with a population of 4,000,000, consumed 8,000,000 lbs. of [duty-paid] Tobacco; and now, with more than double the population, she consumes about 3,000,000 lbs. less than at the former period. The reason is obvious: in 1798 the duty was 8d.; now it is 3s. In 1798 England and Scotland,	with a population on 10,000,000, consumed 10,000,000 lbs., being only half the relative consumption of Ireland; the duty in England and Scotland being then Is. 7d. against 8d. in Ireland. “ If the duty now paid on Tobacco in the United Kingdom retained the same relative proportion to the population that it held in Ireland in 1798, the duty in 1841 would have been actually levied upon 53,711,856 lbs. instead of 22,094,772 lbs.; and such, in the opinion of your memorialists, is about the . actual amount of consumption, the greater part of the supply being furnished by the illicit trader. “ Assuming the actual consumption at only 54,000,000 lbs., or two lbs. per head, a reduction of duty to Is. would, in the opinion of your memorialists, so effectually destroy the illicit trade that the revenue would gain by the change, not only by bringing upwards of 30,000,000 lbs. under duty which at present escape, but by the increase of the consumption consequent upon the encouragement given to the fair trader [and, it might have been added, by the decrease of the cost of the preventive service].” These memorialists cited the cases of tea and coffee, and especially of the latter, whose statistics were certainly startling, it being njuch more decidedly an article of luxury—that is, much less an article of necessity—to the bulk of the population than Tobacco itself. In 1801, with a population of 16$ millions, and a duty of Is. 7d. per lb. and 12$ per cent., the duty-paid consumption of coffee was only 871,846 lbs.; in 1811, population 18$ millions, duty 8d., consumption 6,895,619 lbs., or eight times as much; in 1821, population 21$ millions, duty Is., duty-paid consumption only 7,593,001 lbs.; in 1831, population 24| millions, duty lowered to 6d., consumption 21,740,627 lbs., or three times as much; in 1841, population nearly 27 millions, duty 6d. and 5 per cent., consumption 28,420,980 lbs. At the first of these dates, Tobacco, bearing then the same duty as coffee, had nearly twenty times the duty-paid consumption, being 16,895,752 lbs. against the 871,846 lbs.; at the last, Tobacco bearing 3s. and 5 per cent, against coffee’s 6d. and 5 percent., the duty-paid consumption of the former was less than three-fourths of that of the latter, or 21,024,772 lbs. against the 28,420,980 lbs. And, to make the discrepancy yet more flagrant, the duty-paid consumption of tea, the great rival of coffee, had during these same forty years, the rates of duty on it but slightly varying, increased from 23,163,969 to 36.396,178 lbs. Returning to Mr. William Maury, I condense what seems most noteworthy in his evidence:—With regard to adulteration, I can mention the case of a manufacturer in a town near Liverpool, one of the few who dealt in pure Tobacco, and who was not a smuggler. In his first year of business, about six years ago, he lost £700, merely by dealing honestly; but, continuing in the same course, the people of the district have become accustomed to his Tobacco, and he can sell as much as he pleases at 3s. 6d. per lb. But one of his largest customers, who pays him the 3s. 6d., boasted to him that he himself could afford to retail the article thus bought at 3s.: only one inference is possible—the retailer adulterated. Another manufacturer, six months ago, had Tobacco seized upon his premises for adulteration, which he denied. He was fined by the Excise, though persisting in his denial. Four months afterwards he was caught in the act, mixing sugar; and he told me that it was to oblige a particular customer who wanted it thus mixed. This man commenced manufacturing 120,000 lbs. a year; his business dwindled down to 30,000 lbs. last year; since this second prosecution. he has given up the business, finding that he could not carry it on without losing his capital or infringing the law. . . . As to smuggling, I can merely give the information I have received from smugglers, or from parties who have been smugglers, of whom I have known several; some are manufacturers, others not, but have smuggled wholesale; they are certainly people upon whose opinions and statements I can rely. I will read what I took down from one of these smugglers; the statement refers to Ireland. I am informed that this smuggler now conducts his operations on rather cheaper terms than he did in 1830, or previously; I allude to 1 the wholesale dealer who brings his Tobacco from Holland and Belgium. Here is a paper containing the details of expenses of an actual smuggling operation of 1000 bales, weighing 60,000 lbs., conducted in the usual manner. The original cost, at 4d. per lb., is £1000; freight, at l$d., £375. Then wages for two months, the average time for such an operation: captain, £25; mate, £10; crew, eight men at £3, £24; in all £59. In case of success, the captain gets £75 in addition, as a douceur; the mate £25, and the crew £80: this is, if they land the goods; if they do not, they only get the ship’s wages. I have estimated that the cost of the vessel fully equipped for the service, of 150 tons, which is the general tonnage, at £8 a ton, is £1200. The interest, at 5 per cent, per annum, for two months, is £10 on the value of the vessel. The depreciation of the vessel, calculating her to last five years, is at the rate of £250 a year; or for 60 days, £42. Rigging, painting, <&c., and other expenses by the voyage, £50. TTiese come to £102. The Tobacco is bought at the rate of 60 lbs. a bale, but sold at the rate of 56 lbs.; so that there is a loss to the smuggler of 4 lbs. a bale, a kind of tare or allowance; this on 1000 bales will be 4000 lbs., which at 4d. a pound comes to £66. In the course of these smuggling operations they frequently leave a certain quantity of Tobacco for the officers to seize, which they call a decoy; the calcula-
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tion for this is 150 bales out of 1000, which is a dead loss to them; that is £150. The proportion of the bribe to the officer, £200.—You are supposing that in this case the officer is to be bribed? Generally, I am told.—Do you mean that the bribe is paid to the Custom-house officer, or to the Excise officer? To the Custom-house officer.—Do you mean the Custom-house or the coastguard? The coastguard.—Do you mean that the 150 bales are allowed to be seized, in addition to the bribe? Yes, in order to show the vigilance of the officer. The proportion of seizure is 1 in 25: that is to say, the calculation is that they would get in as many as 25 cargoes, and that one of them would be seized, which is equal to £40. Then there is the proportion of fine: besides seizing the cargo they would fine the owner; and there is the proportion of that, and gratuities to the men, as ten have to be cleared if discovered. The conductor of the enterprise enters into an arrangement with the men, that in case they are detected he is to pay all fines and release them, which he does; that I estimate at £25. Then there is the interest for irix months on the cost and charges, £53: the operation from thb purchase of the Tobacco to the sale of it [rather, to the payment for it after sale; two months being allowed for the run, and the sales being at four months’ credit], is calculated at six months. That will make the charges come to £1250; which added to the cost of £1000 makes £2250, which is, within a fraction, equal to 8|d. per lb.
This, according to the statement of the above-quoted Memorial, that the smuggler got 2s. 6d. per lb., would leave him a profit Is. 9|d. per lb. Allowing for the 150 bales left for seizure, then the 1 in 25 seized without collusion, and then the 1 in 15 tare, the smuggler seems, out of the 60,000 lbs., to sell 45,696, getting a net profit on the transaction of £4003 12s. The Government, on the other hand, seizes in all 11,040 lbs., worth at 4d. per lb. £184; and loses the duty on the other 48,960 lbs. (not less tare), that pass into consumption, which duty at 3s. 2d. per lb. would have been £7752; and the Government has to pay rewards for seizures.
Mr. Maury continues:—This is a fair average of that description of smuggling. The part which “ this person ” takes in the transaction generally terminates on the delivery of the Tobacco on shore, or to the small coasting craft, which are always found hanging off, on the coast of Ireland in particular, and many also on the coast of Scotland and the east part of England. It is then conveyed to its various destinations, if on land by landsmen, otherwise by coasters which have a top-loading of coal, lime, hoops, bark, salt, or such commodities. When landed, the other charges merely resolve themselves into labour, and I should say do not amount to more than a penny a pound. Here is a letter from a merchant with whom I have had very extensive transactions, a man of credit whom I would trust for £1000 at any time, stating what is doing at present in Ireland. He says (among other things): “ My knowledge of such smuggling is chiefly obtained from my customers, who are Tobacco manufacturers in Ireland. Three years ago, when the duty was 3s., smuggled Tobacco was used extensively by only a few of my euBtomers; but since the duty has been raised to 3s. 2d. smuggling has become so extensive that they are obliged to use it to a proportionate extent, to preserve their own trade and customers. It is not to be supposed but that bribes will be accepted in Ireland, as well as in London and other places; but there is no necessity to offer or give such large bribes as you suppose, to accomplish objects in smuggling, which it is quite useless to oppose. A good deal of the leaf, the cigars, and ffie manufactured Tobacco smuggled into Ireland, is first smuggled into England and Scotland. But the chief part of the leaf smuggled into Ireland is first packed into bales of 60 lbs. in continental ports, and thence sent in cargoes; those cargoes are often discharged, and stored into other craft before landing, in Ireland, under arrangements very difficult of detection. Some of the few seizures in Ireland are bond fide; others may be collusively made. I believe it is known to our collector, and other principals in the revenue department of the port of Liverpool, that it is perfectly feasible to smuggle large quantities of leaf and manufactured Tobacco from the United States into this port, which they may not be able to detect, in hard bales of cotton and in other packages.”
As this witness gave further important evidence, we had better take this opportunity to adjourn.
Sigvat.
Sights at ^otoan Cree Basile.
V.—THE AULD WIFE AYONT THE FIRE.
“ The auld wife ayont the fire, The auld wife ayont the fire. The auld wife ayont the fire, She died for want o’ Bneeshin.”
Old Song.
Nobody had expected that auld Nannie Black would ever have died. When Nanny was only a young thing of ninety or thereabouts, the general idea was, that some day or other she would succumb to the common fate of all; but when Nannie grew older, and older, and older, when she bordered upon a hundred even, and still was seen hirpling along the road by the aid of her staffie, people gave up all expectations of ever seeing the last of her, and looked upon her as a fixture in
the parish. The church steeple might fall; the round tower on the top of the green knoll, concerning which there was so much discussion among musty antiquaries, might disappear some windy night; but Nannie, like Poe’s raven—nevermore.
Woe is me, but Nannie was sorely bent with the rheumatics. Her old body was two-fold, like a half-open jack-knife; if at any time she had fallen on her nose and remained, she would have represented the letter A. Such was Nannie. I mind her “weel;” she was the terror of my childhood’s days—at least, one of the terrors. Nannie lived by herself all alone in a curious little hut, nearly in the cefitre of a wild hobgoblin moor; and, although she used to knit, depended for the most part upon Providence—in the shape of the kind-hearted—for her victuals and drink; for Nannie was a relict of the distant past, and her last real friend had long since gone home.
A very primitive building was this wee cottage of Nannie’s. There was but one room in it, and into this the door opened directly; there was no window in it; a fire of peats burned upon the low hearth, spanned by a wide chimney, which afforded her the only light she could have when the door was closed.
And her Bible, her snuff mull, and her cutty pipie were Nannie’s only comforts. In the former she learned to look forward to another and a better world, far beyond that bit of blue sky she could see at the top of her chimney, where everything would be bright and joyful, where there would be no vexatious rheumatism, no age, “neither cauld nor care.” From the latter she drew sweet forgetfulness of present trouble and happy recollections of bygone years. Sitting there by the hearth, with her pipie in her mouth, her thoughts would run away with her. Once more she is young, once again her hair is a bonnie brown, her form lithe and graceful, roses mantle in her cheeks, and the love-light is in her eye; she is wandering through the yellow tasselled broom, with Johnnie at her side. Johnnie! “Heigho!” she sighs, as she shakes the ashes from her cutty; “Puir Johnnie! it’s lang, lang, lang since he’s gane up bye.” And the sunlight streams down the chimney, and falls upon her skinny hands, falls upon the elfin locks that escape from beneath her cap, falls, too, on the glittering pages of the Book in her lap, falls like a promise of better things to come.
When the summer days were fine you might have seen Nannie sitting outside her door, basking her old limbs in the sun; but still she had the Book. Often and often poor old Nannie had very little indeed to eat, but she somehow never wanted the cutty.
I’m sure I had no reason to be afraid of poor old Nannie; but children take queer notions, and I looked upon her as a being of another world, and not an angel either. My brother Sandy was a chubby-cheeked little urchin, who was sometimes trusted to go out under my questionable custodianship, and to whom I used to play all sorts of unconstitutional tricks, concerning which it would not have done for my mother to have heard. Auld Nannie met me one day leading wee Sandy by the hand. I had just been trying to persuade him to eat a slug; and, when Nannie stopped right in front of us, I verily believed she was Retribution, and that my hour had come. I dreaded to think of what might befall me, but it was Sandy she addressed.
“Fa’s yaught are ye?” • she said.
The Scotch was too broad for Sandy, so I hastened to translate it for him.
“Fa yahs ye, Sandy?” said I.
“My faither,” replied the young fool; but, instead of devouring us both on the spot, the harmless, honest Nannie blessed us both and passed on. But I dreamt of her grey beard all night, nevertheless.
Our parish minister was Mr. A-------, of N----, a good man at heart, I doubt not, but a terror to evildoers, and a terrible man to preach. He ruled his parishioners with a rod of iron. Woe be to anyone who would enter the church after the service had begun. The minister would instantly stop speaking; the poor culprit would not dare to look up, although well he knew his pastor’s eagle eye was devouring him; the congregation would hold their breath, and there wouldn’t be a hush, save the terribly loud tread of the boots of the late unfortunate, who was thus getting roasted.
And woe to him who should dare to snooze during the sermon. The holy man was at all times fond of belabouring the Bible, by way of emphasising his sentences; but, if his eye fell upon a sleeping sinner, first there would be a few seconds* dead pause, the word that followed would be shouted, not spoken, while at the same time the parson’s fist would descend on the book with a “youff” that might easily have awakened the dead.
Creaking boots were his abomination. “I would rather,” I have heard him exclaim, “come into God’s house with bare feet, or on bended knee, than in boots that creaked.”
Coughing used to send this minister mad; and the congregation used to stuff their mouths full of bandana, and hold their noses and breathe through their eyes, sooner than cough.
Now, the minister was in the habit of going on monthly rounds through his parish, to meet the humbler members of his congregation and test the proficiency of their Bible knowledge. These meetings were called “ catacheesins ” (the ch pronounced hard), and were usually held in a barn, the good people sitting on forms all round the walls, and the worthy
♦ “Who owns you?”
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parson catechising them one by one, in regular rotation. Auld Nannie never failed to “hirple” down to the “cata-cheesin,” and I’m sure kind-hearted old Mr. A--------- was always glad to see her. When it came to Nannie’s turn to be examined, she would settle herself for action at once, leaning her two hands on her “staffie,” and one cheek on top of her two hands, so that she could keek comfortably up into the face of her well beloved pastor.
“How are ye, Nannie?” the minister would commence.
“ It is that, sir,” Nannie would answer, “ very cauld indeed.”
“ How are ye, Nannie?” in a much louder key.
“ Ninety years and five,” Nannie would reply with a groan.
“ Sirs, sirs, it’s time I were in the mools.”
“Would you take a pinch o’ snuff, Nannie?” the parson would say then, in quite a low voice, but Nannie heard him nevertheless.
“ Lord bless ye, sir,” Nannie would cry, a heavenly light glinting from every hair in her stubbly beard. Then how eagerly she would clutch the box, and how rapidly dive her bony fingers in to secure a big satisfactory pinch. Nannie was quite another being now, she didn’t care how long the examination lasted, for she stuck to the snuff-mull as long as it went on, and every question entailed another pinch. Aye, but remember, reader, that auld Nannie knew quite as much about her Bible as the parson did, and as soon as the good man had finished his catechising, Nannie began hers: not, of course, with the intention of testing his knowledge, but only by way of asking advice on what were to her very knotty points; but many a poser she gave him for all that.
“ D’ye ken wha Moses’ mither was, sir?” she would ask, or “ What think ye o’ Jacob, sir? I think he micht hae gi’en his puir hungry brither a platefu’ o’ parridge, without chargin’ him siccan a price for it. But I wot, sir, Jacob’s sons were an ill-doin’ lot, exceptin’ puir Joseph; but eh! man, what a limmer that Potiphar’s wife maun hae been, and weel I wot, sir, the world’s nae muckle better yet. But ye ken, sir, that Dauvid himsel’ wasna just the berry, and a bonnie trick he played upon Uriah the Hittite, gi’eing him a captain’s commission in the airmy, and a’ that. I wonder Uriah, the soft sumph, didna see through it. Aye, aye, sir; Dauvid was a wee bit selfish, but we’ve a’ gotten our fauts. Look at Jonah, for example, when the Lord sent him to Nineveh, he maun gang and take the steamer to Tarshish. Hech! and when I’m sittin* i’ the dark in my ain wee hoose at hame, I often think o’ Jonah, stupid fellow tho’ he was. How glad he maun hae been to see daylicht again; and atween you and me, sir, I suppose the whale wasna very sorry to be rid o’ him.”
And so Nannie would rattle on, sticking to the snuff all the while; and when she could keep it no longer, she would take one last mighty pinch, then hand back the box with a groan, and so resume her old position again. Such was Nannie.
That winter of 18— was one of the severest ever remembered in Scotland, and especially the snowstorm that raged on the first week of the new year. The frost was terribly severe, the drifted snow lay in wreaths twelve feet deep across the highways. The wind blew high, sweeping the powdery snow hither and thither in gusts; it was for all the world like going into a shower bath to put your nose over the threshold. The farm nearest to Nannie’s hut on the moorland was the place where the poor old thing used to get her milk and meal. Now, it was strange that nobody seemed to think of Nannie even once during all that stormy week, not until quite the end of it—until one morning it was found the wind had so gone down that there wasn’t even a breath that could lift a starry snow-flake, nor a cloud in all the sky. Only there was the snow, the white snow, over everything, and the great wreaths that you had to look up to, sharp edged as the curling breakers on a sea-beach.
Well might the farmer’s wife exclaim, “ Oh! poor Nannie! and ne’er one of us ever thought of her.”
She would start herself at once with warm food and blankets, and the servants would accompany her. They reached at last the lonely hut in the frozen moor, but no smoke or sign of life was there. The icicles hung long and strong from the eaves, one side of the hut was entirely overblown, and the door in the other looked more like the entrance to some Greenland cave. Bad enough; but ah! in the inside of the poor little house the drifted snow met them as they pushed open the door. It had blown down the wide chimney, drowned out the fire, and formed a wreath on the floor, which had clambered up and o’ercanopied the bed itself.
And underneath lay Nannie.
No, not dead; she breathed, at least.
When the one room which formed the interior of Nannie’s castle had been cleared and swept of snow, when a roaring fire had been built on the hearth, when her limbs had been swathed in warm blankets, and warm brandy poured gently down her throat, she came gradually back again to life, and before very long was able to sit up in bed and look about her.
“Oh! grannie, grannie!” cried the farmer’s wife, with tears streaming down her face; “the Maker’ll never forgie me for forgettin’ ye sae lang.”
“The Mauker no’ forgie ye?” said Nannie, “Woman, woman! ye little ken the goodness o’ the Mauker.”
Poor, innocent old soul! and when they asked her how she managed to subsist at all, through the dreadful storm, “ Oh! ” just upon a wee pickle oatmeal, woman,” said Nannie, “and a wee pickle snaw; but my snuff gaed done, and I couldna licht my pipie, Eh! sirs, that was the sairest trial o’ a’, and
Hl never get o’er it. My snuff and my pipie! Heigho!” And Nannie’s words came true enough; all the kindness they could now give her could not restore her. She sunk and died in a week.
By way of showing how deeply grieved they were at the fate of Nannie, the farmer’s folks determined to sit up with the body every night until she was buried: to wake her, in fact.
Now, some difficulty was experienced in placing Nannie comfortably in her coffin; the bent body could with difficulty be straightened enough to permit of her lying in state to be seen by the neighbours. However, matters were arranged at last: a piece of board was nailed across the knees, and one across the chest, a penny-piece was placed on each eye. and everything was thus straight and snug.
The first night of the wake was a wild one; the wind howled round the little hut, and the snow sifted in through the door and blew down the chimney; but logs were heaped upon the fire, and the pleasant blaze, combined with Tobacco and plenty of whisky, quite sufficed to keep all eerisome thoughts away, for a time, at least. But Scotch people are not like Irish, and on occasions like these they are in the habit of talking low and mysteriously, as they huddle fearfully quite near the fire, and their thoughts and speech always drift on to the supernatural. On the night in question the general talk was of ghosts and goblins, of brownies and spunkies, dead candles and strange sights seen at midnight on the moor. It was long past two o’clock. The whisky was getting low in the jar, the fire burned low on the hearth, the very candles sputtered and burnt but dimly, while at every lull in the conversation there seemed to be voices heard in the wind. They were just in that state that a mouse would have startled them, and not one of them would have looked behind where the coffin lay; no, not for all the world.
Hush! What is that? What can it be? A strange creaking and groaning, coming apparently from auld Nannie herself, then a loud crack, the pennies rattled down to the floor, and Nannie sat bolt upright in her coffin, open-eyed in her winding sheet. It would take a cleverer pen than I shall ever wield to describe the scene that followed. There was a pell-mell huddling together in one corner, there were eyes starting from their sockets with terror, and frightened quavering moans rather than screams, while one of the company having spilt his whisky in the fire, there was a very nice blue light over all to render the tableau complete. And after all it was only the bit of wood that held old Nannie down that had given way. She hadn’t come to life again. Not a bit of it, nobody ever does.
But this is the only true and authentic account of the auld wife ayont the fire, that died for want o’ sneeshin’.
“ I’m glad ye told us that,” said Roddy, preparing to mix his last tumbler. “Is there a moral to it, me boy.”
“Never a moral, Roddy,” I replied; “but you see that Tobacco is a comfort and solace to the poor, even more than to the rich.”
“ Amen,” said the parrot. “ Light your pipes.”
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
^mber.
xv.
It is unquestionable (continues AJbin Kohn) that only in a very gradual manner did man learn the value of arms and implements of bronze, acquire a taste for them, and then seek to get them from the foreign dealer. To this tolerably advanced period belong the smelting furnaces and the matrices which are found where no ore exists, as, for instance, in the Elbe flats; for worn-out and broken implements and vessels had to be recast, and this, for a very long time, had to be done by travelling founders, who, as I intend further on to show in detail, came from the same regions from which the articles which had grown unfit for use were brought; and these travelling founders, possibly, in the course of ages became the instructors of the natives in metallurgy. Only thus is it possible to explain the rise of a local metallic manufacture in general, and of a local bronze manufacture in particular, dependent as the latter is on the geographical distribution of copper and tin. Therefore, assuredly no one will be inclined to subscribe to the opinion of Rougemont and Pahlmann, that the smelting furnaces in Mecklenburg, and between Kottbus and Zossen to the north of Luckau, demonstrate the existence of an independent bronze manufacture, unless this gentleman can show that the inhabitants, whether Germans or Sclavoni-ans, brought what was needful for this manufacture—namely, copper from Sweden, and tin from Britain or Saxony—and themselves prepared bronze therewith. This, however, would suppose such a high degree of development of civilisation, and especially of the true offspring of civilisation, industrialism, that we, if we may trust what well authenticated history tells us respecting the regions in question about the time of Christ or later, cannot possibly believe that the Wends, the Obotrites, and the Germans were the makers of those old emelting furnaces.
Let me here, moreover, indicate a single fact. Professor Kiss, of Buda-Pest, demonstrated, in the year 1859, that all articles of the kind we are speaking of, and belonging to a
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remote antiquity, which have been found, had a numismatic value; that, in the absence of a monetary system, bronze ornaments constituted the wealth of a family, and served as medium of exchange. Kiss collected some thousands of such ornaments, counted their indents and lines, and from the number of these incisions and from the weight of the articles he discovered decimal relations, and showed that the articles took the place of coins and were prepared in reference to fixed principles of coinage. To the inquiries of Kiss we are indebted for important revelations respecting the significance of bronze articles among the earlier inhabitants of Europe in general, and the inhabitants of the riverine territory of the Oder, the Vistula, the Dnieper, and the Niemen in particular. People are accustomed to regard all bronze articles which have been found, and which still are found, as exclusively ornaments, as articles of luxury. The investigations of Professor Kiss prove that they had a much higher, that they had an economical and financial import and value, that they formed the wealth of a family.
The results arrived at by Kiss, so far from contradicting, confirm in an eminent degree my declaration that it was principally ornaments which passed by way of barter from the hands of the civilised merchants of the South to those of the Northern Barbarians; for it belongs to the very nature of things that articles of daily use must not only be cheap, but that their transport must take place in large masses. This, however, the routes in Central Europe, and especially in the riverine territory of the Oder, the Vistula, the Niemen, and the Dnieper, did not permit at the time of the Etruscan and Grecian commercial expeditions. Therefore, in the aforesaid regions, long after bronze had become known there, the natives contented themselves with arrows, knives, and axes of stone, and obtained by barter from the Southern dealers nothing but ornaments of bronze. Moreover, Professor Przyborowski, of Warsaw, by weighing falciform knives of iron, has arrived at the same results as Professor Kiss.
One of tlie chief articles of luxury of the ancient civilised world was amber, which the oldest written documents that have come to us mention as an object in great request. Amber was more highly valued than gold, and the prices paid for it were such as to embolden the merchant to take very distant trading journeys. I leave undecided whether the basin of the Mediterranean Sea once belonged to the regions whence amber was scattered forth to the nations ; I am not prepared to dispute that at a very remote period the coasts of the North Sea produced amber, though no historical testimonies can be brought in confirmation of the notion. I am even willing: to allow that in far distant ages amber could be found at a considerable distance from the Baltic coasts, for I myself once came upon a piece of unwrought amber in the sand which at Bromberg had been brought out of the Brahe by dredging; and later still, in the year 1870, an engineer who was making a trench on the Turwia estate, near Kosten, met with a tolerably large piece of amber. Moreover, in the year 1875, when the Posen and Thorn railway was made, a lump of amber as big as the fist was dug out from a considerable depth when the hill between Posen and the suburb of Sawade was cut through. Nevertheless, there is no historical evidence, so far as historical records extend, that amber was brought from the coasts of the Mediterranean, of the North Sea, or from the Posen region to Italy and Greece. Since, according to the proofs which Nillson has collected demonstrating the presence of the Phoenicians in Scandinavia, it is manifest that this enterprising commercial nation navigated the Baltic, it is very possible that they visited the Southern coasts thereof, and equally possible that they took away with them all the treasures of amber there discovered: those Southern coasts being the coasts of Mecklenburg and Pomerania. For the assumption, however, all historical proofs are lacking to us, and the hypothetical amber trade between Phoenicia and Mecklenburg belongs to the strifctly pre-historical period. In reference to the South of Europe and to amber, we do not enter the historical period till is unveiled to us the Etrusco-Pommerellian, Romano-Kurian, and Greco-Ostroleakian commerce, and this commerce can be regarded as an agency for the spread of higher culture in Northern Europe.
Without accepting the assumptions of Rougemont regarding the routes along which the amber trade travelled—seeing that this writer has constructed an itinerary from phonetic conjectures, and, for instance, with immense self-complacency converts Zydowo (which really means “ Jews’ Place,” and demonstrably was founded in the seventeenth century) into the Ptolemaic Setidawa, and Lissa (derived from the Polish Lesrno—that is Forest Town, from Las, a Forest) into the Ptolemaic Limiosolmum, and places Skurgon where at present Bchlochan (in Polish Czluchowo) is now found—yet I think it right to make the reader acquainted with Rougemont’s theory, and also to give here his “ Chronological Table of the Amber Trade in Antiquity;” for both, spite of their defects and errors, are of weight for proving that the amber trade in the prehistoric times of Northern Europe had a very great importance.
Rougemont says:—Keeping before us what precedes, we find that the amber trade must have travelled along the following routes:—
1.	From Jutland (Abalus, or Basilia) along the Hanoverian and Friesian coasts of the North Sea (Land of the jEstiai, Rauronia), and along the islands of the coast (Glessariw); thence on the Rhine, the Doubs, the Rhone, to the
Mediterranean; or over the Jura, the Romanic Lakes, and the Savoy Alps, through Piedmont, over the Apennines to the Gulf of Genoa (Liguria); or by way of the Po to the Adriatic Sea; on the Weser, by way of Halle, through Bohemia to Carnuntum; thence on the Danube to the Black Sea; or over the Eastern spurs of the Alps to Venetia and the Adriatic Sea; by sea to Biscay.
2.	From the German Baltic coasts (abed) to Lubeck; from Lubeck to the mouth of the Elbe; then to the Lower Rhine, to the Upper Rhine, to Silesia and Carnuntum; (e) from Riigen direct southward to the Brenner, from here to the Adige toward the Adriatic Sea, with a branch road to Switzerland; (/) from Wolgast through Silesia and Moravia to Carnuntum; (g) from Rugenwalde through Poland, over the Carpathian Mountains to Carnuntum.
3.	From East Prussia toward the Black Sea.
The chronological table of Rougemont is as follows:—
From the year 1500 b c. the Philistines go to Adria to obtain the amber of the Baltic, which is brought by the Rhine and Po route to Italy. The Semites of the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea) receive by the Danube route the amber of Jutland. A portion of the amber is conveyed from the Carnuntum district to the Venetians of the Adriatic Sea.
From the year 1300 b.c. to 1100 b.c. the Sidonians of Biscaya open a sea route and go to seek amber in Rauronia.
About the year 1100 b.c. the Tyrians receive in Liguria and at the mouths of the Rhone the amber of Jutland. During the Germanic bronze period the route horn Riigen to the Brenner is opened.
About the year 400 b.c. the Greeks of the Pontus Euxinus come by way of the Dnieper to Prussia, and the Messaliotes receive from Rauronia amber by the old Rhone and Rhine route. » About the year 60 b.c. the Roman merchants come from Carnuntum to the Baltic to seek amber.
About the year 235 of our era the amber trade ceases in consequence of the migrations of the Germans.
Unfortunately Rougemont, relying on the maxim of Bacon, “Citius emergit veritas ex errore quam ex confusione” (Truth sooner emerges from error than from confusion), has attempted no proof—at least he has not succeeded in proving—how amber was brought “from Riigenwalde through Poland to Carnuntum;” above all, he has not shown how those who were the bearers of the amber managed to get through the marshes of the Netze, the Obra, and so on, and over the Carpathians. Further on we have to see in the classical work of Sadowski the routes or paths along which the amber dealers really journeyed; and we must be convinced that they would not deviate, and did not deviate, a single step either to the right or the left therefrom. Here I merely wish to state that every archaeological writer is involuntarily impelled to inquire respecting the influence of the amber trade on the development of civilisation, and to ascertain the routes of the amber trade itself; for in the dim and distant period which we (so far, at least, as Germany and the Polish Plain are concerned) are obliged to designate the pre-historical, amber was the only material which could serve as an equivalent for the productions of Southern industrialism.
That matters went on in the fashion stated, we have confirmation in analogous phenomena of the historical periods, as Peschel has very strikingly shown by some examples. It was in search of gold that the Spaniards entered on their voyages of discovery and colonisation; and, therefore, we find them in America settled at those points where gold could easily be obtained. Among other places they went to was California, but they abandoned it as consisting of “ tierras de ningun provecho,” unprofitable lands, because they did not find immediately those masses of gold which about the year 1840 attracted so many adventurers. The agricultural colonies of the French and the English, which in the sixteenth century were founded on the coast of the United States, literally perished of hunger; and Virginia first became a favourite and frequented region, first flourished, when it began to export Tobacco; or, to express the thing better, was able to furnish an article of luxury as an equivalent for the productions of England. The same observation is applicable to Canada, to Australia, to Siberia, to Aljaska (formerly called Russian America), and to all regions discovered within the historical period; all, as Peschel says, preach aloud the fact “ that the migrations of nations depend on the existence of substantial treasures on or in the earth. It was gold, and ever gold, that allured men toward the Pacific Ocean.”
As in ages not very remote from us, so in remote periods man, as a trader, journeyed to regions which offered him valuable objects for the home productions he had brought with him. The Phoenicians, or their descendants, the Carthaginians, settled in Spain on account of Spain’s rich silver mines. And, in early times, still more than silver it was tin which promoted the spread of culture; for tin was indispensable to the preparation of bronze. Already in the time of Pliny, tin from Galicia, in Spain, was an article of Roman commerce, and England was famous on account of the Cornish tin. In the department of the Lower Loire, in Morbihan, and in Limousin, old, long-forsaken tin mines have been discovered.
What tin was for Spanish Galicia, for Gaul, for Britain, amber was for the lands of the North Sea, and still more for the Baltic coasts. At a very early period amber must have reached the shores of the Mediterranean, though at first it could only have been carried from horde to horde; for, before
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Abel Tasman’s time no voyages of discovery were undertaken at a venture. Seafarers had always a definite object in view, always aimed at the achievement of a special purpose well known to them; and the same thing we may say of the merchant who occupied himself with inland trade. Gain, and the things strange and singular which his own country did not offer to him and his countrymen, were his incitements and allurements.
As the seafarer, before the magnet showed him the direction he had to take to reach foreign regions, and to get back therefrom to his home, steered along the coasts and never lost sight of land well known to him, thus also the merchant who carried on his affairs in the interior of the continent had to direct his journey by familiar points, from which he went forward step by step, so to speak; and assuredly rivers must have been the first waymarks to unknown nations and to new, unknown lands. For, just as man at the present day, when he colonises new lands, aims above all things, at settling by the banks of rivers—because these not only offer him, without much danger or risk, abundant food, but also the water which is indispensable to health—thus also man, in the infancy of his race, preferred settlements by the side of rivers, for he likewise needed not merely food but water, which at that far distant period he was too ignorant to obtain by digging wells. This is a fact which I have found confirmed in the whole of Northern Asia, where the inhabitant, whether Russian or native, dwells close to rivers and lakes, while at a few hundred paces from the settlement the virgin forest begins, in which only wild beasts have their home. In favour of the correctness of this belief the circumstance speaks that hitherto in the whole of Poland no pre-historic burying-places have been found at a great distance from rivers and lakes, or from such tracts as may easily be discerned to have been formerly water courses or water basins.
Further on in the principal portion of Sadowski’s work, we are made to know, almost with mathematical accuracy, the routes which were used to obtain from the Barbarians of the North the most highly valued equivalent—amber; and to convey to them the articles they so highly esteemed—bronze ornaments, salt, perhaps also fine cloths; to give them also, and especially, the rudiments of culture.
Among the numerous writings which we possess on the pre-history of Europe—or, rather, of particular regions of this part of the globe—we possess not one which indicates with clearness and precision the routes which commerce followed to the shores of the Baltic Sea, and whoso knows not the physiographical peculiarities of a particular region is tempted to believe that the old routes and the existing routes are tolerably identical. Even Rougemont—who has occupied himself the most in detail with this question, in order, as it seems, to make historically credible the Mosaic myth of the Creation, of the Flood, and of the Building of the Tower of Babel—does not devote the slightest attention to the possible usableness of this or that route, draws one-sided conclusions from certain ancient writers whose utterances he adapts to his system, and wholly passes by as if he had never existed the chief writer of all—Ptolemy. The cause of researches and results so defective is very intelligible. Almost all German writers lament the lack of sources and authorities leading to satisfactory conclusions respecting the pre-history of the inhabitants of Eastern Europe. This has induced Dr. Friedrich Ratzel in his “ Vorgeschichte des Europaischen Menschen” (Pre-history of the European man), to say “ that if East Europe, compared with England, France, Belgium, and Scandinavia, appears (in reference to antiquities) poor, we may with great assurance believe that the cause is rather to be sought in the lower degree of activity, of self-sacrifice, of insight, of observation bestowed on these things, than in the unfavourable circumstances of East Europe, and in the comparative rarity of antiquities there.” Here it may be observed that in Russia and Poland hundreds of Kurgans have been opened and scientifically examined. (Kurgan is the Russian word for a tumulus or barrow.) The same writer speaks of four barrows having been opened in Posen and Galicia, and thinks that, with regard to such things, the Polish provinces ought to be best known. Nevertheless, everyone who has even nothing more than a superficial acquaintance with antiquarian studies in the north-east of Europe must confess that the Polish and Russian literature is very rich in regard to the subjects in question, and offers prodigious material for clearing up the darkness which rests on the pre-history of the European East. Unfortunately this material is not brought nearer to German inquirers by translations of the works containing it, and the important antiquarian discoveries are seldom made known in Germany, and only through scanty and imperfect notices in periodicals. Consequently, when the ancient commercial roads in the east of Europe are spoken of, the route from the Baltic shore to Carnuntum is swiftly despatched. People say, as Rougemont says: “ From Rugen through Poland to Carnuntum,” and the whole thing is got rid of in half-a-dozen words. The archaeological collections of the Slavic East are as rich as its archaeological literature. Let me make special mention here of the public collections of the Society of Friends of the Sciences at Posen, of the Jagellionic University in Cracow, and of the archaeological museums in Warsaw and Wilno, as well as of the collection of the (Polish) Society of Friends of the Sciences in Thorn and of the Copernicus Society there; besides which considerable private collections of high scientific interest exist.
parson |bra anb bis ^ipt.
Mr. Wilkie Collins, when “ interviewed ” lately by one of our high “society” journals, delivered himself of a numerous progeny of opinions on literature and art. Referring to Goldsmith, he affirmed the “Vicar of Wakefield” to be full of passion and imagination, a real work of art, and hence its wide success. Fielding, on the other hand, although gifted with surprising intelligence,-lacked passion and imagination, and became, therefore, a mere painter of manners; hence his novels slumber on the bookshelves, unless curious scholars disturb their repose. Fortunately Mr. Wilkie Collins is, at least in this case, as wrong in his statements as in his opinions. Divers cheap editions of “Tom Jones,” “Joseph Andrews,” and “Amelia” evidence Fielding’s continued popularity, and the general verdict of competent judges assigns to him the sovereignty of English prose romance. No one can be insensible to the sweet, gracious charm of Goldsmith’s best work; but from him to Fielding is a far cry. In personal character the two men were partially akin: each was brave, generous, gentle, compassionate, truthful, fond of pleasure, and enamoured of the world with its mixture of good and evil, light and shade; but there the parallel ends. In Goldsmith’s face, as in his writings, we see goodness and intelligence attractively combined. But look at Fielding’s face, as drawn by his friend and compeer, Hogarth. Does it not realise the high expectations formed in studying his works? What sagacity! what wisdom! what courage! and, brooding over all, what immense geniality! That eagle vision penetrates to the deepest recesses of the human heart through all disguises of prudence and hypocrisy: nothing escapes his serene, infallible gaze. And he can describe what he sees with equal precision. The high poetical imagination of Shakespeare he certainly lacked, but who, even among the professional poets of his day, possessed much of that divine faculty? Lord Byron, no mean judge of literature, although not the best, designated him “the prose Homer of human nature,” and Gibbon’s splendid eulogium on his genius is no less memorable; perhaps more so, for, as Thackeray said, “ to have your name mentioned by Gibbon is like having it written on the dome of St. Peter’s,” where it is seen and admired by pilgrims from all parts of the world. Charlotte Bronte, in her noble Preface to “Jane Eyre,” does indeed elevate Thackeray to lordship over his great predecessor, but Thackeray himself knew and felt his own inferiority. Fielding, said she, “ could stoop to carrion, but Thackeray never does.” Yet the author of “Pendennis” knew better, and paid Fielding the highest tribute in saying that since the author of “Tom Jones” no English novelist had dared to draw a man.
Fielding, Sterne, and Charles Lamb form one glorious triad of prose humorists; Ben Jonson was a poet, and Swift stands alone, his Titanic and peculiar genius excluding him from all fellowship. Now, a great humorist must have a sympathetic heart as well as a clear head; for, as Carlyle wrote in his Essay on Richter, “the essence of humour is sensibility, warm, tender fellow-feeling with all forms of existence;” true humour being, in fact, “the bloom and perfume, the purest effluence of a deep, fine, and loving nature.” Even antismokers will not dare to dissent from this judgment of our noblest living writer and lover of the Great Plant; and, therefore, they must face the dread fact that the three great humorists aforesaid have all celebrated the virtues of Tobacco. Parson Adams, Uncle Toby, and Elia were all vigorous and inveterate smokers, and cannot be imaged in our minds without their beloved pipes. Let the antis show us a great humorist, or even a moderately good one, who disliked and reprobated smoking (good Tobacco, mind, not the wretched stuff which raised the gorge of Lessing and Goethe), and we will admit that the finest attributes of humanity may exist in one who is not a devotee of the divine weed. We know, of course, that those attributes were possessed by fine fellows before the introduction of Tobacco, but that proves nothing; or, rather, we should presumptively include them with the faithful, as the Catholic Church includes certain heretics within the pale of salvation on the ground of invincible ignorance. They would have smoked lustily, as nearly all fine fellows have since Raleigh’s time, had they known the virtues of Tobacco and where to procure it. The “brother of Bacchus, later born,” lingered on Transatlantic shores, and till he revealed himself they could not worship at his shrine.
Dear old Uncle Toby, with his innocence and his fortifications, and dearer Elia, with his wisdom and his puns, must not be dwelt on here. Mr. Abraham Adams, who takes precedence of them in antiquity, demands our attention: the Reverend Abraham Adams, who shared the adventures of Joseph Andrews and gave them zest, the supreme figure of Fielding’s first and raciest romance; Parson Adams, the simple, abstracted, laughable, loveable clergyman and scholar, who, with his pipe and his ^schylus, serenely ignored all the buffets of fortune, his own poverty, the violence and fraud of his enemies, and even the “matrimonial balsam” which good Mrs. Adams so tenderly administered to his smarting wounds. “Joseph Andrews,” in which this fine character is so finely drawn, is not likely to commend itself to the fashionable devourers of fiction purveyed at Mudie’s; for it is all human nature without a dash of sentimentalism, and concerns
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itself with country parsons and squires, innkeepers, ostlers, and chambermaids, instead of introducing us to the society of lords and ladies and the polite rich with whom these deign to consort. It has also no didactic passages, long and wearying as sermons; does not make the story “subordinate to great social and religious aims;” and inflicts on us none of those metaphysical or psychological disquisitions, in which both reader and author are almost always hopelessly at sea. No, it is a real work of art, true to nature throughout, and as such is prized by cultivated critics as well as by the simple Shandean reader who “will give the reins of his imagination into his author’s hands, be pleased he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.” It was with especial reference to •‘Joseph Andrews” that the exquisite Gray wrote thus to his friend West:—“However the exaltedness of some minds (or, as I shrewdly suspect, their insipidity and want of feeling or observation) makes them insensible to these light things (I mean such as characterise and paint nature), yet surely they are as weighty and much more useful than your grave discourses upon the mind, the passions, and what not.” So much for “Joseph Andrews”; let us revert to Parson Adams.
Fielding evidently loved his creation with paternal tenderness. In his Preface he mentions Adams as an entirely original character, whose chief trait is perfect simplicity; a fine word which, like many similar, modern usage has shamefully degraded. What Lamb said of worthy George Dyer might be said also of Parson Adams—Nature had forgotten to sow in him the seeds of evil. He is brave and generous by inevitable instinct, and quite incapable of conceiving evil designs against his fellows. Nor can he suspect them in others. His guileless heart admits all as honest and deserving until they prove themselves otherwise. Then, indeed, he can chastise them with his tongue, and, if need be, with his fists; for he is a doughty boxer. Yet, if they show signs of repentance, however ill they have used him, he bears no malice. When, after that bloody battle with Mr. Tow-wouse, wherein Mrs. Tow-wouse and the chaste Slipslop participate as auxiliaries, he is urged to take the law of his adversary, who began the encounter, he exclaims, “How, sir, do you take me for a villain, who would prosecute revenge in cold blood?” With all his learning in Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, and even Oriental tongues, he has not the least pride of pedantry, but discourses with his poor illiterate parishioners as cheerfully as with those whose heads are better furnished. His one “enthusiasm” is that a schoolmaster is the greatest character in the world, and himself the greatest of all schoolmasters; neither of which points would he yield to Alexander the Great at the head of his army. His son, under parental tuition, has acquired an infinite stock of learning; but, as he was never at an university, the bishop refuses to ordain him. Such are the positive good qualities of Parson Adams, which have so endeared and recommended him to a bishop, that at the age of fifty he is provided with a handsome income of twenty-three pounds a year, little more than half that of the famous village preacher of Goldsmith; a slender provision for one “ a little encumbered with a wife and six children.” Happily, however, poor Adams has a compensating absent-mindedness, which makes him oblivious to all misfortune; but also, alas! frequently brings him into fresh scrapes. One of Fielding’s early biographers states that a Rev. Mr. Young was the original of Parson Adams, and resembled him in many things, especially in his fits of reverie and his passionate veneration for /Eschylus. When chaplain to a regiment in Flanders, this young innocent, meditating on a passage in his beloved author, walked right into the enemy’s fines. The officer in command, tickled by his amazing simplicity, gave him leave to pursue his classical researches in a walk home again. Parson Adams would have outdone this; ten to one he had repeated his performance the very next fine evening, and risked being shot as a spy. The most amusing instance of his absent-minded simplicity occurs at an inn where he discovers Joseph Andrews in distress. Mr. Adams has left his home on an expedition to London to get nine volumes of sermons published, allured by an advertisement in some gazette. His provision for the journey is nine shillings and threepence-halfpenny, not a quarter enough for the keep of the horse which he has borrowed from his clerk, in sweet forgetfulness of the fact that horses must be fed. Joseph having to be nursed, this sum soon melts away, and the worthy parson is obliged to cast about for means to pay the bill. A bright idea occurs to him. Taking the landlord aside, he begs the loan of three guineas, for which he will give ample security. With a face full of solemnity he offers to deposit one of his nine volumes of manuscript sermons, not doubting that the landlord will have the honesty to return it on his payment of the money, for otherwise he must be a very great loser, seeing that every volume will at least bring him ten pounds; in fact, he has been told he might procure a very large sum (indeed, an immense sum) on them, but he has never dealt in printing himself, and cannot fix the exact value of such things. This proposal dumbfounds the landlord, who cries out “ Coming, sir,” to an imaginary customer, and bolts precipitately downstairs. Poor Adams, extremely dejected at this disappointment, immediately betakes him to his pipe, his constant friend and comfort in his afflictions, and leaning on the rails, devotes himself to meditation, “ assisted by the inspiring fumes of Tobacco.” But the climax of the joke is vet to come. When Joseph and Mr. Adams search the
saddlebags for the precious sermons, lo! they are not to be found, being, indeed, left behind! Although urged by Joseph to pursue his journey, Mr. Adams determines to return home; for, asks he, “ What would it avail me to tarry in the great city without I had my discourses with me?” What, indeed, with or without them, thou dear, matchless innocent?
Already we have observed the good parson’s friendship for his pipe, nay, rather his love for it, passing the love of woman. From his first appearance, drinking a cup of ale in Sir Thomas Booby’s kitchen (his shabby clothes excluded him from the parlour), to his last appearance at the wedding of Joseph and Fanny, where he fills himself with ale and pudding, and gives a loose to unusual facetiousness, his beloved pipe is the companion of his meditations and the solace of his woes. When Adams and Fanny, after he had rescued her from the would-be ravisher, take shelter in an inn from a violent storm of rain, he procures himself a good fire, some ale, and a pipe, and smokes away “with great content, utterly forgetting everything that had happened.” The vaunting squire propitiates him by saying “ let us take a pipe together, there is no better Tobacco in the kingdom.” When Fanny is got to bed, we are told, “he lighted his pipe, and betook himself to meditation; ” and the next night he sits up with a jolly host, who trusts him for the reckoning, over a glass and pipe. Before Mr. Wilson begins his story, Adams replenishes his pipe, at the same time doing justice to a bottle of excellent beer; and when they leave the hospitable house he “refreshes’* himself again with ale and Tobacco. After his sousing in the tub at the vulgar squire’s, he finds comfort in “ applying himself vigorously to smoking.” Only once did the fumes of Tobacco serve him ill, and then the fault was chiefly his. On quitting the chaste Slipslop, after that admirable scene which only Fielding could properly describe, when Adams mistakes in the darkness Fanny’s room for his own, and innocently lays himself beside that beautiful nymph, the fumes of Tobacco playing in his nostrils disable him from smelling “the emanation of sweets which flowed from her breath,” and thereby discovering his error. But although this incident momentarily imperils the good man’s reputation, the offence of Tobacco is purely negative, and outweighs not the least positive pleasure he ever derived from smoking. Tobacco in this instance is not to be blamed, any more than Uncle Toby’s pipe is because accident made it play a part in his loves with Widow Wadman.
Here we must leave Parson Adams and his pipe. The good man, wise with a wisdom that transcends the astucity of worldlings, lives perennially, like all creations of genius, unsubject to the fluctuations and catastrophes of time, and from his lips blows ever the wreathed smoke, serenely indifferent to the clamorous railings of all haters of divine Tobacco, generations of whom pass and perish without perturbing his steadfast peace; or, if for a moment he relaxes his composure, it is but to exchange significant smiles and whispers with Uncle Toby and Elia, and thereafter subside again into the beatitude of dreams.
Bon-Tabac.
dope’s gltriurt.
“I here send you”—wrote Dr. Thomas Sprat, Fellow of the Royal Society and soon to be Lord Bishop of Rochester, in a letter to Dr. Wren, the Oxford Professor of Astronomy, something over a couple of hundred years ago—“I here send you the Account which Mons, de Sorbitre has given of his Voyage into England; and though it be an Insolent Libel on our Nation, yet I doubt not but you will peruse it with Delight.” There is no reason to question the patriotism of Dr. Wren; and I would venture to believe that his admiration of his native land would have gone quite as far as William Cowper’s did at a much later time, when the eccentric poet of Olney wrote—“England, with all thy faults, I love thee still.” Dr. Sprat might have differed from that pretty sentiment ; for he did not seem to see that his country had any faults. But he defined the emotion likely to be aroused in an Englishman’s breast by a perusal of Monsieur Sorbi^re’s “ Voyage into England ” with considerable shrewdness.
I appeal to you, my countrymen and contemporaries: if you had been your own Ancestors—(pray don’t stop me to criticise a Bull)—how would you have relished Monsieur Sorbidre’s description of your manners? Read what follows —and declare:—
•• I know, Sir, you wonld have me give you an Account of the Plays, Walks, Houses of Pleasure, and Feasts I have been at: The English are not very Dainty; and the greatest Lords Tables, who do not keep French Cooks, are covered only with large Dishes of Meat: They are Strangers to Bisks and Pottage: Only once I saw some Milk-Pottage in a large and deep Dish, some of which, as a singular Favour, the Master of the House gave in a China Dish to some of his Guests: Their Pastry is coarse and ill baked; their Stewed Fruits and Confectionery Ware cannot be eat; they scarce ever make use of Forks or Ewers, for they wash their Hands by dipping them into a Bason of Water. It’s common enough for them after Meals to Smoke Tobacco, in the interim of which they converse a long time and freely: People of Quality do not use it so much as others; and there is scarce a day passes but a Tradesman goes to the Alehouse or Tavern to smoke with some of his Friends, and therefore Publick Houses are numerous here, and Business goes on but slowly in the Shops: For a Taylor and a Shoemaker, let his Business be never so urgent, will leave his Work, and go to drink in the Evening; and as he oftentimes comes home late, or half Seas over, he has no great Inclination to go to Work, and opens not his Shop, even in Summertime, till after Seven in the Morning. This makes Manufactures dear, and renders the Natives angry with the French People; for our Tradesmen are usually more Industrious; and as they are more handy at their Work, Folks go
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the willinger to Buy of them, and they can Sell cheaper than the English, who would have oh much for tho little they do os tho others, and the loss of their Time made up to them in that Way. This, together with their voracious and lazy Temper, is tho Reason why the Dutch always undersell the English ; tor ’tis certain that these have always more Hands on Board their Ships, do not live so cheap, and are not satisfied with so little Profit.’* With this elegant lampoon of your forebears fresh in mind, I fancy you will agree with Dr. Sprat:—“When you have beheld how many Errors and Falsehoods he has committed in this small Relation, you cannot but be pleas’d to find, that whoever undertakes to defame your Country, he must at the same time forfeit his Wit, and his Understanding, as well as his good Manners.” Sorbidre ought not to have “departed this Life on the 9th of April, in the Year 1670, after he had been Sick about Three Months of a Dropsie,” as his biographer, Mons. Gaverol, of Nimes, relates. He ought to have emigrated, like other disappointed Frenchmen, to Canada, and lived till now. In that case he would have found congenial company amongst the “ twenty-five lay and clerical gentlemen ” of Montreal, who, “representing the leading evangelical denominations” of that city, “and deeply interested in all that tends to develop and elevate to full Christian manhood ”—(so says the Daily Witness)—lately forwarded the following petition to their municipal rulers:— * To the Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Montreal. “We, the officers of the Anti-Tobacco Association, have heard with pleasure that notice of motion has been given in the Council to prohibit the smoking of Tobacco in any of the rooms of the new City Hall. It is an evil that has been long complained of, and with good reason, as it is not only detrimental to the public service, but is most offensive to ladies and others who are Obliged to visit the City Hall on business. “ Your petitioners are aware that attempts have been made to remedy the evil, but they have not been supported by the Council in consequence (as they have been informed) that many of the aldermen are unwilling to give up the practice of smoking at Committee meetings. “Your petitioners therefore pray that you will give the matter your most serious consideration, not only as a question of Public Policy, but also in courtesy to your fellow-members to whom smoking is offensive. “Hoping vou will support the motion to prohibit it in every Department Of the City Hall. “ And your petitioners will ever pray.” The courteous and the devout agree to banish us. Let us bemean ourselves with the philosophy that becomes the disciples and devotees of St. Nicotine. Sublunary pleasures and popular delights must content us. The company of the poets, the travellers, and the enthusiasts must suffice. I will e’en tell you a story: perchance two. Once upon a time, two poets wandered amongst the granite rocks and sounding caves of England’s far-west corner. One was—or was to be—the wearer of the laurel wherewith Britannia binds the brows of her favourite minstrel. The other was to serve his term of minstrelsy without the recognition of princes and potentates. He revenged his humbler destiny by chronicling in verse the well-remembered episode. Thus :— “LOST ON THE PERRAN SANDS.* * He paced with me the Cornish strand As the night fell, and the white foam Like phosphor fringed the belt of sand, But scarce a star in all Heaven’s dome Could pierce tho sea-mist, and each cave Yawn’d like an empty Ocean grave. *	“ But in one antre deep and vast, Scoop’d from the granite by the Sea, The Arturian's pipe a halo cast Which lent a saintly dignity To his high brow and flowing locks, Like genius gleaming ’mong the rocks. “ Morn came—again we paced the shore, The Atlantic surges reach'd our feet, And did as lions bound and roar, Then back to their green lairs retreat; Flouting us in their high disdain, With tale instead of bristling mane. “Then torches in the cavern flash’d, Kindled by friends, and we beheld The vaulted depths where lately crash’d. The boulders by the waves imped'd; And once again the black dudeen Diffused its fragrance and its sheen. “We sallied forth—the pipe was lost! But how I never yet could learn; They say ’twas like a limpet toss’d, Which some not slow were to discern; And then, to save it, man and maid Did to their knees and higher wade. “ Twas saved—who got it ? One slim girl, Whoso limbs would Thetis’ form have graced, Saw it among the cockles whirl, And, while old Neptune clasp’d her waist, She seized, and with white hand held up The clay as ’twere a diver's cup. “Ocean hath yielded no such gem, But never more the minstrel's soul Inhaled fine thoughts through that short stem, Or comfort quaff'd from that black bowl: Whether the lady tried the effect Only the envious would suspect.” I was going to tell you that story myself, but the poet has taken it out of my hands. All there is left for me to do is to whisper—on the best authority—that “ the story is literally true: the pipe is still preserved as a treasure beyond the value of pearls by the fortunate finder—a Cornish lady.” And I don’t mind adding, in strict confidence, that as soon as I get a fair holiday, I mean to go down to “ Ferran Sands,” write ♦“Restormel: a Legend of Piers Gaveston. The Patriot Priest, and other Verses.” By the Author of “ The Vale of Lanherne,” do. London: Longmans, 1875.	verses, grow my hair and beard long, smoke my pipe in caves, and drop it cleverly where some “ slim girl, whose limbs would Thetis’ form have graced,” may find it. But old Neptune won’t get any chance of clasping her waist; unless mine own right arm have lost its cunning. As to the other story, I would get rid of the duty of telling that, if Mr. P. G. Hamerton had the gift of condensation which belongs to the author of “ Restormel.” Mr. Hamerton, however, writes prose, and very good prose; and it is the way of prose to run to length, even when it is not by any means “prosy.” Mr. Hamerton is an artist, with a taste for describing his experiences (artistic and otherwise) in the form of narrative. He is the author of “ A Painter’s Camp,” “Etching and Etchers,” and other books which I have never seen (or, having seen, have forgotten: which is possible); and I have before me his pleasant composition entitled * ‘ The Unknown River: an Etcher’s Voyage of Discovery.” The stream described is but little known to fame:—“I was in the heart of the Morvan, a highland district in the east of France, almost unknown to tourists. The river to be explored was the Arroux, that passes by the antique Augustodunum, and flows to the historic Loire.” The idea was to sail down from source to mouth, because nobody had ever thought it worth while to do this before. There would be sights for an artist’s eye, subjects for etching, and material for that sort of gossip in which the author finds pleasure. It was well on in the excursion, and quite incidentally, that he met with the little adventure. He was sketching by the river-side at Laboulaye, “and smoking the pipe of consolation,” when he heard a carriage stop, and the barking of his dog announced the arrival of a friend. “It was a fat doctor of my acquaintance” —“sociable,” and “a hater of solitude.” “Headmired the canoe—Would I take a passenger? He would be delighted to go with me to Toulon, if I would give him a berth.—Could he swim?—Swim! not in the least, but he would risk the adventure nevertheless.—Well, but then he would most likely be drowned.—He did not care if he were.” Mr. Hamerton was disposed to “incur a risk for the pleasure of a genial companion.” The carriage was sent forward to Toulon; and the doctor was furnished with “ a waistcoat containing india-rubber air-bags,” for safety. “All being ready, we got into our places very steadily, sitting face to face, and I took the paddle, making my passenger promise to turn neither to the right hand nor to the left. He quietly lit a cigar, and sat as coolly aq if he had been on a safe ship and a deep tranquil sea.” They got into dangerous rapids, and “had very near shaves for it once or twice;” and now the character of the Nicotian began to do itself credit. “The coolness of the doctor all this time was admirable to behold. He smoked his cigar quietly, and sat with perfect equilibrium.” “I praised his self-possession, and he answered that he had perfect confidence in my skill.” “ ‘But if we capsize you may be drowned, in spite of the waistcoat—the current is tremendous.’ ‘ I am not afraid of death,’ he answered, with unfeigned courage.” “ He had hardly spoken the words, when, in attempting to cro«s the rapid, to avoid an ugly piece of polished granite, about the shape and colour of a whitened skull, I found it could not be done without uncommon effort, and broke the paddle in trying. Of course, after that, the upset was inevitable. The doctor did not stir, but smoked tranquilly still, not uttering a single word; the canoe was carried against the granite, broadside on. She rose upon it a foot or two, then slipped to the right a little, the stern dipped, the water clasped me round the waist and filled the well, and she (slowly as it seemed) capsized. Just as she went over, but not before, I saw the doctor throw away his cigar. Once in the water, I found myself hurried along irresistibly, but soon got my head clear, and hoped, by surface swimming, to escape contusions on the knees. In this way I got down the rapid quite safely, and was hurled at last into a deep pool, where, after the first plunge, I felt comparatively at ease. Finding it impossible to land on the rocky side, I allowed myself to float into an eddy, and was quietly carried out of the central current into a sort of tiny haven or bay, where I landed. It then became necessary to think about the doctor. He was not far behind. Like myself, he had been carried down the rapid, and was now bobbing about in the great pool, thanks to the inflated waistcoat. But he had not the slightest notion about directing himself, and had got into a cercle vicieux, in a whirlpool that turned him round and round. Seeing that he would probably be carried out of the pool into some other rapid, I thought it time to set about saving him, and called out that he was not to grasp me, but simply lay hi* hands on my shoulders. When I approached him in the water (rather cautiously at first) he behaved with the same coolness he had displayed in the canoe. He laid a hand on each shoulder so lightly that I hardly felt it, and I towed him easily into port.” They took refuge in a mill, sent a messenger for the carriage, and travelled to Toulon by land. It is probable this story wants something of the romance that was expected. It has nothing in common with the poem that precedes it, except that I perceive the river clasped Mr. Hamerton about the waist, very much as Neptune clasped the young lady with limbs like Thetis. I prefer Neptune’s taste to that of the little Arroux. This idea of clasping is no doubt original with one of these authors. I don’t know which is the plagiarist; but I should prefer Mr. Hamerton’s taking that role. He will not be angry at the suggestion—he may see something artistic in it, which is hidden from me. But should the surface of his mind be ruffled, let him send for the fat doctor of Toulon; who is an admirable example of the kind of philosopher best affected by the “ herb divine.” In the depths of the serenity of that worthy son of Nicotine, and follower of Esculapius, are moral truths, after which the \ reader will do well to make a “ Voyage of Discovery.” The stream of a true smoker’s philosophy is an “ Unknown River” to the multitude; and will repay the cost of exploration. And “God speed ye!” is the parting benediction of Youb Man-of-All-Wobk.
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|ipt Colourtrs.
n.—TRIAL OF AN ULSTER.
Mr. Pike Purdles was a pipe colourer of considerable power. His collection of meerschaums, though not large, was the admiration of all beholders of smoking tendencies. There was not the slightest sign of blur or burn on any one of the pipes: they were simply perfect.
Poor Pike, however, was by no means in as satisfactory a state as his pipes were. He was confined to his house by great weakness. He was in possession of a terrible hacking cou"h. His breath—or, rather, his lack of breath—was distressing in the extreme; and, altogether, Pike Purdies, Esq., age twenty-nine, height five feet seven, fighting weight eleven stone, unmarried, was in a bad way, and looked like a man who had made up his mind to do some undertaker a good turn.
I was thinking of paying him a friendly visit, when one morning a letter arrived from him addressed to myself. The contents of the note ran as follows:—
“Dear Didimus,—I regret to say that I continue very unwell. I have now been confined to the house for a week, and, as a natural consequence of want of exercise ami good fellowship, I am sorely depressed. My spirits are about a million degrees below proof. I have several times thought of blowing out my brains, and should probably have done so, did I not labour under the difficulty of discovering their precise locality. From w’hat both relations and friends have told me, I fear I might perforate my cranium a good many times before my brains experienced any inconvenience; and a man, especially an invalid, cannot go on making holes in his head all day without the operation becoming monotonous. My dislike to toilsome and difficult labour has, therefore, doubtless contributed to keep me above ground a little longer.
“Please do me the favour to come over to-morrow evening; bring a few of the fellows with you. My doctor, who lays all the blame of my trouble to my pipe, and has forbidden me to smoke, always comes in at eight o’clock. I want you and the others to meet him, so as to hear what he has to advance; for I feel the loss of my pipe very greatly. I think that possibly, by a serious talk over matters with my M.D., he may be induced to modify his opinions and allow me to return to the weed, if in ever so small a degree.
“I shall confidently expect you, and am looking forward to the meeting with considerable anticipation of enjoyment.
“ Yours faithfully,
“ Pike Purdles.”
The following evening, at the head of five of the “other fellows,” as poor Pike designated them, I waited on the sick man at his residence.
We found him looking very white and feeling very weak. He was seated in his arm-chair in front of a comfortable fire. He bade us make ourselves at home, after welcoming us very warmly.
A variety of decanters filled with different comforters were on the table, with two jugs of cold water. Bottled ale and stout chuckled on the sideboard, and a kettle of hot water on the hob sang “ Cheer, Boys, Cheer,” right merrily.
I merely mention these things to show that Purdies was not one of those imitations of men, who are possessed of such attenuated ghosts of souls, that when they are down in the dumps, they would fain drag the rest of the world down with them for company's sake.
No; Pike Purdies, besides being a good fellow, was a man of sense, and acted on the good old principle, too often forgotten, that he who lifts another lifts himself.
“Now, you fellows,” said Pike, “ help yourselves to what you like. There’s the corkscrew; there’s the sugar. The glasses are ready, and the water is hot. Light up your pipes, for I want you to give my doctor a good blast when he comes. He is a determined Anti, and if we can do no more, we can make him smell of smoke to such an extent that the wife of his bosom will want to know where he has been. It will afford me, his Tobaccoless victim, considerable satisfaction in reflecting that his good lady will probably accuse him of being a fraudful old humbug, and threaten him with a divorce.”
We were a very little time acting on the advice of our host. Pipes were lighted at once, and I think that smoke was never crowded tighter in any apartment than it was in Pike’s room that evening.
About eight o’clock a loud rat-tat announced the doctor. In a few' more seconds the sound of his knuckles on the room door announced his desire to enter. “ Come in,” cried Pike. The doctor entered, took about three steps into the room, looked amazed, bewildered, aghast; gave a snort, then a sneeze, then a cough; and then, without more ado, rushed from the room in a semi-choked condition. His lung and windpipe gymnastics, as he danced a war dance on the hall door mat, were something to listen to, but not to interfere with.
Out of consideration for the medical gentleman, we now put our pipes out, opened the window for five minutes, and apologised all round.
The doctor in return did us the favour to deliver, for our edification, one of the usual anti lectures, and concluded by lifting up Purdies’ latest pet, in the'way of meerschaums,
from the mantelpiece. Holding it in his hand as if it were a perilous thing, he said “ Do you all see this ? Look well at it.”
“Look at its shape!” cried Perkins, enthusiastically. “ Perfect, is it not? like a racehorse, full-blooded and eager. Oh! ’tis indeed a beauty.”
“Look at its amber!” quoth Morby, “like a winter sunbeam, like nine-carat gold seen in the faint light of stars. Look at its unearthly hue, everlasting in continuance. Fair to the eye, sweet and smooth to the lip, simple as truth, and exquisite as love. Oh my! ”
“ Look at its colour! ” cried Jumley. “ See how the not-to-be-fathomed depth of brown fades away through infinite gradations and variations to a colour the primrose has been trying to get since the day it first bloomed in Eden. The blush of the rose is sickly by the side of it, while the bloom of the peach, untouched by the wasp, is totally out of the hunt.”
“ Endeavour not, my children,” I said solemnly, “ to analyse or dissect so marvellous a piece of man’s workmanship and skill. The pipe is, as you agree, perfect in the bowl, stem, and mouthpiece, size, shape, and colour; and I can only conceive that the venerable and* learned medical gentleman who now holds that priceless pearl in his hand, in order that we may the better note its miraculous beauty, has in his old age been touched by the sight of such a rarity, and desires now Tobacco to fill it, and extract from its humid depths the smoke of consolation.”
“Sir!” said the doctor. “Hold, my friend,” I continued, tendering him my Tobacco pouch. “Do not apologise for being so late in getting on to the right track. We have all prejudices to conquer; but you, at your time of life, have both prejudice and age to conquer. The struggle is, therefore, greater; but the victory more glorious. Smoke, brother, smoke! ”
“Sir,” said the doctor, red with indignation, “you altogether mistake me. I merely exhibit this filthy, poisonous, diabolical pipe, to proclaim it as the cause of Mr. Purdies’ illness, and I am sorry to see that—although he has, in accordance with my advice, desisted from smoking—he still delights in a circle of friends who surround him with a poisoned atmosphere that cannot be otherwise than harmful to him. I shall now, gentlemen, have the pleasure of wishing you ‘Good night;’ and if Mr. Purdies will afford me a few moments in another room, I shall be happy to medically examine and advise him.”
After the doctor had left the house, and Pike had returned to the room, Thomas Poole, who had scarcely spoken all the evening, rose and said: “Gentlemen, you may or may not have noticed that my manner to-night has been distinctly ruminative. The fact is. I have been thinking; and I believe I have discovered the cause of our friend Pike’s disorder.”
“What is it?” inquired Pike, smiling.
“Nothing more or less than your Ulster, sir,” returned Poole solemnly, between the puffs of his pipe. “ Yes,” continued Thomas, warming to his work, “I accuse that coat of being your undoer, and I ask that the criminal may be brought in and placed at the bar, to answer the charge brought against it.”
Pike, laughing very much at the speech of his friend, rang the bell, and, in answer to his commands, the coat was produced.
It was certainly a magnificent garment, gigantic in size, and terrible in weight. It seemed literally covered with buttons, bands, belts, and pockets. Its tails swept the ground, and it had a collar that no man could well wear up without dislodging his hat. There was a hood at the the back big enough to put a baby in, and the two agonising rows of piebald buttons down the front were something to wonder at.
“This coat,” said Pike, “cost me five pounds, and I cannot say that altogether I appreciate it.”
Poole said: “I can fully endorse that remark of Mr. Purdies. My house is, as you know, close to the railway station gates, and I have an opportunity of seeing Pike pass as I sit at breakfast. He catches the 9.2 train to town, and I have watched the progress of this murderous coat with great dissatisfaction.”
“Why, I’ve only worn it three times,” said Purdies.
“Exactly,” replied Poole. And if you’ll allow me to state what I have seen to our friends here, perhaps they will agree with me in my theory.”
“Certainly,” said Pike.
' “The first morning you wore this Ulster,” said Thomas, “was what is vulgarly termed, ‘a caution.’ ’Twas on a Monday. We had hail, rain, snow, sleet, wind, frost, fog, and a few more unpleasant things that have escaped my memory. You came leisurely down to the station, a hftPPy man. Ulsterless men envied you. Every inch of your monster coat was to you a glory, but to them a shame. Every button was brought into use, and glowed with visible satisfaction. Every belt and band seemed to take a delight in protecting you from the savage weather. You looked proud as the warhorse in silver-plated harness: you were defiant as Boyton in his sea-going suit. Is this a true picture?”
“It is,” replied Pike, thoughtfully.
Thomas Poole, after taking a drink of his toast and water, or whatever it was in his glass, went on:—“The second day you wore your Ulster the weather was different. It was much milder; there was no frost, snow, rain, or fog, although there
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190	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[June, 1878.
▼as an abundance of mud. That morning your huge coat was unbuttoned. The giant belly-band was off duty, and dropped its melancholy extremities into the capacious pockets. Slop, slop, slop, you went, ornamenting the tails of your Ulster with great patches of mud. You drooped beneath the burden, and perspiration bathed your manly brow. Is this a true picture?’*
“It is,” sighed Purdies.
“The third morning,” continued Poole, “was absolutely hot. I saw you in the distance, with what appeared to be the body of some person deceased, of larger size than ordinary, on your shoulder. When you came nearer, I saw that it was the corpse of your Ulster you were carrying. You had the monster firmly round the tails, but its great arms hung helplessly down your back. You looked like a man that had stolen a dead but boneless giant, and did.not know what to do with him. Again you were in a tremendous perspiration. Is this a true picture?”
“ It is,” groaned Purdies.
“I saw that coat no more,” said Poole, “till this evening. On the fourth morning, which was really like summer, you came down to the station without an overcoat. You looked a free man; swinging your cane and smoking your pipe, you seemed thoroughly happy. Is this true?”
“ True as truth,” said Pike.
“How you got on that day I don’t know,” said Thomas; “ but I remember it was a terrible night.”
“It was,” said Purdies, “and now I quite begin to see why you accuse my coat of being tlie criminal. As you say, the morning was lovely. When I arose from my slumbers and felt the warm breath of the mom on my cheek, I spake evilly to the Ulster, and smote it wrathfully with my stick as I went forth. But, alas! for me, the day saw a change. The sun retired early. Winds came out from the north and winds came out from the east, and, joining chilly hands, ran a race through the world. When I emerged from my office in the evening these winds smote me to the marrow, so that I had to run to the station to keep me from freezing. Then, when the train arrived at the station, lo! the windows of the sky were open—and apparently fixed open—so that I not only had to put up with the cold, but got wet through before I reached home.”
“I think,” said Jumley, “if we constitute ourselves into a jury, and Goggs will sum up, we may be able to find a verdict in accordance with the evidence.”
“I vote that we sit on the body!” cried Perkins, and straightway the great Ulster was spread over as many chairs as it would cover, and the good meh and true crowded with much solemnity on to its surface.
One or two who could not get themselves on to the main article, pulled the band out, and deposited their intelligent carcases on that.
“ Gentlemen,” I said—looking as nearly like a coroner and judge rolled into one as I could—“Gentlemen,—After the eloquent speech of my learned friend Poole, and the endorsements and admissions of the victim Purdies, there is really very little for me tp say.
“ There is one victim, two accused instruments, and two accusers.
“The victim is here; the two articles accused are here; one of the accusers is here, and the other has been here.
“ The accuser who has been here, and has gone away with difficulties in his windpipe, and maledictions in his larynx, has put forward in evidence things he has read in books, things he has been told, and things out of his own head. Now, gentlemen, there are, as we know, many lies in the world: they meet us in every grade of society, every day of our lives; and I defy you, gentlemen, to produce a lie, a single lie, that we have not got either from a book, or what we have been told, or out of our own head. Therefore, things we read in books, or are told, or get from our own heads, being parents to all lies, are not to be trusted; and I rule that the doctor is not a trustworthy witness, and that we must not in any way believe him.
“ Turn we now to the other accuser. He tells us what he has actually seen. Now, a man in his case may be unworthy of belief, because what he pretends to have seen may be invention, or a Ue out of his own head; but when the principal character in this very serious business bears witness to the truth of what the accuser of the coat says, then I rule that Thomas, the accuser, now in court, is a trustworthy witness, and that we must altogether beheve him.
“ For one brief moment I turn to the accused instruments of Pike’s ill health.
“The victim says the pipe is a friend, and the coat an enemy. In other words, the pipe is innocent and the coat guilty. This is important, but not aU important; because it may be the result of bias, or, at aU events, misplaced sympathy. How far we are to aUow this idea to hold our heads is only to be determined by the state of the victim’s mind.
“If the victim is in full possession of his reasoning faculties; that is, if his conduct is reasonable in every degree, then his opinion is all important.
“ Let us see if Pike Purdies is reasonable in his conduct in every degree.
“He has a cold,'and stays at home. Reasonable. His cold is a very bad one; he sends for his medical man. Reasonable. His medical man says ‘ Don’t smoke.’ He quits smoking; because, having asked a man for his advice, and having to pay for it, he desires to see if it be good. Reasonable.
He finds without Tobacco he is unhappy. Extremely reasonable. He invites us here to meet his doctor. Reasonable. He provides good entertainment for us. Exquisitely reasonable in every degree. Therefore, I pronounce that his opinion is all important.
“ Now, gentlemen of the jury, your verdict on the Pipe?” “Not guilty!”
“ Your verdict on the Ulster?”
“Guilty!”
“ Then, gentlemen,” I concluded, “ I recommend that the pipe be at once restored to favour, and that the victim smokes it now. And I sentence the coat to banishment from this house; the carrying out of which sentence I leave to Mr. Purdies. The court will now adjourn to drink.”
Pike, on the advice of Poole, went in for hot rum, and in three days he was out again, jolly as ever, his beauty between his lips, and clad in a sensible coat that he could wear in comfort, despite the changes of the weather. D. Goggs.
ffig Comforter: ^ Sonnet.
: [fun, May 1, 1878.]
How weary were this world uncheered by thee! Dear solace of my life, my love, my own! To dwell with thee I’d fling away a throne, For, if without thy presence, it would be Nought but a place of doom and misery.
Having known thee, I cannot live alone; And rudest, darkest cave of unhewn stone Were brightest home, if thou wert there with me! The fading glories of Fame’s storied urns Shine not for me! Thou art the archetype
Of earth’s best joy—that flies, but aye returns! Dwelling on thy sweet mouth, so rich and ripe, When lip to lip the rapturous incense burns, I feel thou art my own—my love—my pipe!
®^e Swlu ^flom ®sbk
A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare. Edited by Horace Howard Furness. Vote. III. and IV. Hamlet fpp. xx. and 473; 429). Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Co. London Agent: Sampson Low. 1877.
In our September number we noticed the first two volumes of this great monumental work, published in 1871 and 1873 respectively; and the frank tribute of praise we rendered to those is due in yet larger measure to these, whose production has demanded much more labour, special scholarship and judicial capacity. As the Editor states in the opening of his Preface: “ The plan of the preceding volumes of this edition has been followed in the preparation of the present volumes. It is modified only by the necessity of making the impossible attempt to condense within a certain number of pages a whole literature.” This “ Hamlet ” is fitly dedicated to the German Shakespeare Society of Weimar, of which Mr. Furness is an honorary member; for, as he well remarks elsewhere: “ Verily, given a printing-press on German soil (and the printing-press is indigenous there), and, lo! an essay on " Hamlet:" he might have subjoined, and another on the Gorman “ Hamlet,” “ Faust.” The first of these two volumes contains the text and notes; for which, in addition to the first five quartos, four folios, and four Players’ quartos, no fewer than forty-five editions (counting the various and varying ones of the same editors), have been collated; including all the leading English, and those of Elze, Delius, Tschischwitz (sneeze gently!), and Heussi. Many of the textual notes gathered together here on knotty points compose real disquisitions ; many are not merely verbal, but of high value in dramatic and sesthetical criticism; and the Editor’s occasional modest remarks are always intelligent and to the point. There is a very useful Index to the more important notes; giving word or phrase in the text which constitutes the subject, Act, Scene, and line whose number is the number of the note.
The second of the volumes is all Appendix; a rare and precious concentration of rich and diversified things widely diffused. First we have an elaborate dissertation on the Date and Text. Then a reprint of the First Quarto; which, despite all its faults and defects, the eminent actors, Eduard and Otto Devrient actually found more impressive on the stage than the Second Quarto or Folio, which is the basis of the ordinary acting copies. But two copies of this First Quarto are known. One, found by Sir H. Bunbury in a closet at Barton, 1828, and which he believed had been picked up by his grandfather, Sir William, an ardent collector of old plays, was exchanged for books valued at £180 with Messrs. Payne and Foss, who sold it for £230 to the Duke of Devonshire. The other, lacking the title-page, was bought in 1856 from a student of Trinity College, Dublin, by a Dublin bookdealer, for one shilling, and sold by him for £70; afterwards bought by Mr. Halliwell for £120, and is now in the British Museum. Then “The Historic of Hamblet” (London, 1608), from the French of Belieforest (1570), who himself drew, mediately or immediately, from Saxo Grammaticus. Then an English version of the early German tragedy: “ Der Bestrafte Briidermord (“ The Fratricide Punished”); oder, Prinz Hamlet aus Daenne-mark; ” founded on the First Quarto. To this and the preceding there are very valuable prefatory Notes. Then come two hundred and fifty pages of small-print extracts, well chosen and condensed, from the best English, German, and French critics of the drama. We miss here a passage which we least expected to miss—that treating of Shakespeare’s command over the supernatural, and specially of his evocation of the royal Dane, towards the close of De Quincey’s splendid essay on Shakespeare, first published in the “ Encyclopaedia Britannica,” now in his collected works. The volume ends with a list of collated Editions, and a Bibliography of Hamlet occupying thirty-three pages, including periodicals, and such out-of-the-way tongues as Swedish, Bohemian, Welsh, and Greek. Mr. Furness says that “ the number of books, essays, &c., there recorded, which have not been consulted for this edition, is comparatively small.”
No probable sale can repay the time and toil expanded in such a gigantic undertaking as this: it is a labour of love, which must be its own reward. But a sale reasonably commensurate with the value of the work should at least save the Editor from pecuniary loss. It is a work which no public library, however small, should be without. It is a work which every serious student of Shakespeare will secure if he can; and its production will necessarily extend over so many years, that the purchase of the successive volumes as they appear will not be burdensome to people of moderate means. And, as particularly regards the present volumes, they will probably prove the most valuable of the whole series, “Hamlet” having suggested far more commentary, criticism, and speculation of all sorts than any of the other dramas.
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COPE’S' TOBACCO PLANT.	.	191
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192	. COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[Junk, 1878.
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COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT

A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
No. 100.—Vol. IL]	JULY, 1878.	HEMm
/«ncb Tobacco legislation in t^e ^ig^feentb Century-
i.
Thi earliest reference to Tobacco in the French legislation of the eighteenth century occurs in a Royal Declaration issued by Louis XIV., from Versailles, on the 18th of September, 1703. The Grand Monarque was in the sixty-first year of his long reign, and the sixty-sixth year of his age, and had pressing need of a full exchequer, as he was at war with nearly all the world. Not only were England, Frederick the Great of Prussia, the Emperor, and the original “Grand Alliance” in arms against the arbitrary disturber of European peace; not only had his allies, Portugal and Savoy, gone over to the enemy, but the superstitious old devotee, the revoker of the Edict of Nantes, and the persecutor of the Jansenists, who had done more for the Papal cause than any other modern king, actually found himself this year in confiict with the court of Rome, and fiercely asserted his own regale against the claims of the Pope. His gigantic permanent armies had to be maintained; and Pontchartrain, the Chancellor and Keeper of the Seals, had orders to look more strictly into the increasing violations of the King’s Tobacco laws. The Declaration of 1703 imposed a penalty of 1000 livres d’amende, and total confiscation of the stock and crop, upon the persons who were surreptitiously cultivating various sorts of Tobacco without having obtained the permission of the legalised fermier. This prohibition must have failed to secure its end, for I find that it was repeated again and again, in various forms, every two or three years, until the King’s death in 1715. The very next year, December 13, 1704, his Majesty pathetically complains, in a Declaration issued from Versailles, that his subjects are attempting to defraud him of the money which he needs for his great war (the war of the Spanish succession, which had as its object the establishment of a Bourbon sovereign upon the decadent throne of Spain), by planting herbs which they called “ Sainte Catherine,” “ A la Berne,” and other pseudonymous names, but which his Majesty’s advisers discovered to be Tobacco. On the 13th of June, 1705, a “R6glement sur le Tabac” determines that a mitigation of the penalties established against offenders and fraudulent persons cannot be pronounced by the courts without obtaining the previous consent of the fermier. On the 6th of December, 1707, this was repealed in a regulation “pour la ferme g€n£rale du Tabac.” Three years later, December the 9th, 1710, his most Christian Majesty was again troubled at the singular obtuseness of his subjects to perceive that the alteration of the name of a herb cannot possibly alter its nature. It appears that the Cour des Aides must have shown some sympathy, and perhaps had received good reason for showing it, with the violators of the law; His Majesty charged his lawyers, or historiographers, or some other competent adepts, to draw up a short history of the introduction of Tobacco into France, with a view of setting in an irrefragable light the important truth, which illegal Tobaccoplanters were so slow to acknowledge, that Tobacco, Nicotiane, Herbe an Grand Prieur, and Herbe & la Reine, are but various names for one and the same thing. There is something very naive in the condescending assumption of the old King, speaking by his Council, that the mass of Tobaccoplanting Frenchmen cannot be aware of this simple fact, and that they will immediately and conscientiously cease from defrauding the royal revenue as soon as the truth is plainly set before them. The Arr^t du Conseil, dated from Versailles,
December 9th, 1710, which prohibits the planting of Tobacco in private houses, under any of the names already cited, contains as its appendix an exact historical demonstration of the origin of all these differing names. It is based mainly upon the article “Tabac, ou Petun” in Furtiere’s “Diction-naire,” who himself depends upon “ De Prades, who has made a history of Tobacco.” The Spaniards, says De Prades, as cited by Furtiere, first became acquainted with the herb at Tabaco in the kingdom of Yucatan; and hence Hermandez of Toledo, who first sent parcels of the herb into Spain and Portugal, gave it the name of the place in which he had Lrocured it. The document then goes on to explain how the erb acquired its other names from president Nicot, from the Grand Prior at Lisbon, and from the Queen Catherine de Medicis, “all of whom were ambitious’that a plant of such importance and popularity should bear their own names.” His Majesty closes the document with the explanation that although he has only been pleased to name “ Tabac” in his successive royal ordinances, from July, 1680, until the date of the present Arret du Conseil, his Royal Council has been perfectly instructed that the three other names (Nicotiane, Grand Prieur, and A la Reine) mean nothing more nor less than “ Tabac.” His Council has hitherto thought it unnecessary for his Majesty to use any other name than Tobacco in his ordinances, as this name comprehends all the others; as it is the proper and veritable name; and as the herb was known throughout his Majesty’s dominions by this name long before he determined upon his royal “ Establissement de la ferme.”
This was probably the last decree of the Grand Monarque upon Tobacco. Five years later the old King died, in the seventy-eighth year of his age and the seventy-second of his reign, leaving behind him a debt of upwards of two thousand millions. His successor, his great-grandson, Louis XV., like himself, was little more than a baby at his accession to the French throne. The Grand Monarque, in his will, appointed a Council of Regency, with Philip H., of Orleans, as its president. Louis XV. came to the throne in 1715, and four years afterwards, December 29th, 1719, the Duc d* Orleans, whom the Parliament of Paris recognised as sole Regent, D’Argenson being Keeper of the Seals, issued his first addition to the now ponderous body of the French “R^glements sur le Tabac.” Although the Regent was a man of debauched manners, owing in great part to the influence of his tutor, the infamous Cardinal Dubois, he had fine natural gifts, and had improved these by study and culture. He was popular and accessible, and everyone expected from him a bold attempt to remedy the wretched condition in which Louis XIV. had left the finances of France. He certainly tried to set things right, threw over the hopeless cause of the Stuart Pretenders, allied himself with England and Holland, and introduced various internal reforms. But the utterly irremediable disorder in which he found the French finances inclined him to listen greedily to the monstrous schemes of the Scottish speculator, John Law. The national debt of France amounted to fifteen thousand millions of livres, and was held in such ill repute that it was unsaleable except at 60 to 70 per cent, discount. Law’s private bank, erected in 1716, engaged to pay off the debt. An edict of the Regent, in December, 1718, transformed the private bank into a State bank, Law remaining its director; and in the same year the “Compagnie d’ Occident,” of which Law was also the founder, and which he intended to make the centre of French trade, was united with the old privileged Mississipi Company, under the title of the “Compagnie des Indes,” and the entire farming or State monopoly of Tobacco was transferred to it for a period of nine years.
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194	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[July, 1878.	
The Regent’s Arret du Conseil of the following year (dated Paris, December the 29th, 1719) permitted “all Frenchmen to trade in Tobacco, either by wholesale or retail, and also to manufacture it.” At the same time, it prohibited them from “sowing or cultivating any sort of Tobacco in their fields, their gardens, their orchards, or any other places ”; and it raised the “peine d’ amende,” which the late king had fixed at 1000 livres, to the gigantic sum of 10,000 livres. For the short interval of a little less than two years (1720-1721) that monopoly of the sale of Tobacco in France, wnich had lasted ever since 1674, was broken through, but only to be restored again and continued until the Revolution. A new regulation was issued by the Chancellor D’Aguesseau on the 17th of October, 1720, but the text of it is not given in the collections of Isambert, Decrusy, and Tallandier. A few weeks afterwards the sanguine Scottish financier, who had made a pretence of conversion to Roman Catholicism in order to capacitate himself for receiving the post of Controller-General, saw the gigantic tower of his projects topple over, ruining thousands of wealthy families in its fall. The maddened populace of * Paris tore his chariot to pieces and wounded his coachman, and Law only escaped murder by hiding himself in the palace of the Regent Orleans. He fled to Brussels, leaving his entire property to the State.* Tobacco was quickly deprived of the short liberty which it had enjoyed during the feverish epoch of Law’s ascendancy over French finance. By an ArrSt du Conseil of January the 5th, 1721, the Regent Orleans, in the name of the King, annulled all the leases, retracted all the privileges, and receded from all the bargains which he had granted during that period to the Compagnie d’ Occident or des Indes, under the successive names of Jean Ladmiral and of Armand Pilla-voine, merely leaving them for a short time in possession of the Tobacco cultivation and import.! On the 4th of August, 1721, nine months after the flight of the great projector, a new “General Regulation concerning Tobacco,” containing 37 long articles, was put forth from Paris by the Regent Orleans, under the form of a Royal Declaration. In the preamble, his young Majesty is made to declare that his recent grant of liberty of trade had been the cause of much disorder in his kingdom, and had led to the fraudulent introduction of great quantities of Tobacco which had no right to appear in French ports or markets. In fact, too much had come from English Virginia instead of French Louisiana. Hence his Majesty determined to restore the old condition of things. “The farmer of his royal farm-general” was “henceforward to enjoy, to the exclusion of all others, the sole privilege of importing, manufacturing, and selling Tobacco, in wholesale and retail, in leaf, rope, and powder,” throughout the dominions of the most Christian King, except in certain provinces, afterwards named. The Declaration states that the fermier will immediately establish for these purposes “manufactures, magasins, bureaux, et entrepots.” The exempted provinces were Franche-ComtS, Artois, Hainault, Cambresis, Flanders, and the newly-acquired German province of Elsass. Article IV. determines the French ports into which alone merchants, either native or foreign, may enter with Tobacco. By Article XIX. a most extensive and penetrative right of search is conferred upon the agents of the fermier. All governors, captains, concierges, and other officers of the royal palaces and mansions, and of the chateaux of the nobles, all heads and superiors of religious houses and communities, all persons who have any authority over places which claim a peculiar privilege, are commanded to open their houses and places without reserve at the demand of the officers of the licensed monopolist. All Tobacco, manufactured or raw, which is found in such places, unless stamped with the mark of the fermier, is to be confiscated, and the possessor is to pay a penalty of 1000 livres. By a grant of the 19th of the same month, August, 1721, “la ferme g6n£rale du privilege de 1’ entree, fabrication, et vente exclusive de Tabac en gros et en detail” was leased to Edouard Duverdier for the term of nine years and one month, to begin on the 1st of September following, and end on the 30th of September, 17304 Duverdier was to pay 1,300,000 livres for the remaining three months of the year 1721, 1,800,000 livres for the second year, 2,500,000 for the third year, and 3,000,000 for each of the six last years of his lease. No one will be surprised to learn that, under the amazing statesmanship of the Regent Orleans, Duverdier’s enjoyment of his privilege rested upon a very slippery guarantee. On the 6th of September, 1723, an Arret du Conseil was issued, withdrawing his lease. This was the last act of the dissolute Regent in his series of attempts to subsidise our herb for the assistance of the incurably shattered finances of the French monarchy; and this recall of Duverdier’s privilege was done by him as simple Premier, and no longer as Regent, for in the previous February he had hurried on the coronation of the young King, in spite of his youth, in order that he might be free to lay aside the burden of government. The death of Cardinal Dubois, however, forced him to take the office of Prime Minister. He died on the 2nd of December in the same year, suddenly, and literally worn out by debauchery, although he had only just passed his forty-ninth year. ♦ Michelet. “ Histoire du France.” Tom. xv., pp. 264-300. Michelet characteristically represents the keen Scot as making an excursion to Melnn, promenading for a little while with the Abbe Tencin, and being converted from the errors of Protestantism in a single conversation. f Encyclopedic Methodique; Finances. Paris and Liege, 1787. Tome iii., pp. 601-635. t Encyclop. Method. Finances., in., p. 615.	“Snwht." The following lines are extracted from a volume of Poems by Herbert Martyne. (Glasgow: James Maclehose. London: Macmillan and Co., 1876). The author, a Glasgow man by business, and, perhaps, by birth, appears in this unpretentious book as a kindly, honest, cheerful, and pious soul, with a hearty love for nature, and a genuine sympathy with his brother men and sister women. Many, we think, will welcome him as a companion on the common paths of our common life, with his tender soothing of aflliction, his genial greeting of joy, and his pleasant, homely songs to beguile the way:— I have no taste for “ chewing,” I don’t care a pinch for snuff, But, like other great philosophers, I do enjoy a puff. Not the puff so universal in these enlightened days, That puffs sham wares with genuine lies, altho’ that puffing pays; That proclaims a man a genius, and lots of things as well, To hoist him into public note, and make his volume sell; That presents a purse of sovereigns, or some other piece of pelf, To one whose life-long merit has been to mind—himself, Who thus, without a paradox, the judicious public mind May truthfully consider a benefactor of his kind; That, tho’ your little light may be the smallest of all tapers, Ne’er beneath a bushel puts it out, but puts it in the papers; That promotes a public company with choice viands and wine, (They’re jolly “Insurance Tables” where you can for nothing dine, The “policy’s” another thing that would slyly seek to tone us Through the medium of a well-filled paunch, to insure for such a “ Bonus,”) I’m afraid, in short, from puffing even the pulpit’s not exempt; But for all that sort of puffing I possess supreme contempt. The puff which I incline, I owe the great Sir Walter Raleigh, Who found the Mighty Plant of yore in some Virginian valley, And brought it o’er to this old shore, since which the general nation	- Has risen in letters, arts, and wealth, and all civilisation. Much wiser we, in high degree, than the alchemists of old, They always turned gold into smoke, but we smoke into gold; For, from hut and hall, o’er land o’er sea, from schooner to three-decker, Smoke fills with gold, in streams untold, the National Exchequer. Oh! plant divine, of virtue fine, I feel there’s little need That I extol in flowing verse the glory of the weed, For great and small now own your thrall, by night and eke by day, The true “fount of inspiration” is cigar or pipe of clay. The Sage, puzzled o’er his problem, takes a turn or two about After a thoughtful whiff, or so, “Eureka” (You-Reeky!) its found out. The Poet poring o’er his verse, for fancies sore bestead, Sees images from fragrant wreaths come curling round his head; The Parson in his study lone, while hammering out his sermon, Feels notions flowing on his brain, like dews upon Mount ‘	Hermon; The Merchant, with grim knitted brow, summing up his loss and gains, Takes a quiet pipe to clear his views, and mitigate his pains; The Lawyer o’er his processes, pondering his points and pleas, Troubled with a tender conscience, takes a smoke and feels . at ease; The Artisan, with “common twist,” relieves his daily toil. And at night smiles through the smoke to see his little toddlers smile; The Statesman in his closet, pondering great events near ripe, Throws light upon the subject through the medium of his pipe; And mighty Emperors themselves, rivals in bloody war, Have smoked the calumet of peace, and exchanged a mild cigar. When strolling forth by field or shore, for quiet recreation, How much the social weed improves your “walk and conversation I ” Chewing is nasty, snuffing’s brief, and attended with much dirt, too, But a whiff in moderation is almost a kind of virtue,— It soothes dull care, it brightens hope, and what a fund of joking, Unknown to pipeless heads, can claim its parentage from smoking! It disposes to good fellowship, it disposes of your phlegm,— Who presents you with a fine cheroot, acquires your warm esteem; And, in short, the man, benighted, who has not attained the knack o’ Drawing it mild, has yet to learn the virtues of Tobacco. I know there are reformers, whose first mishap was their birth, Who, if they had their way unchecked, would reform us off the earth; Who, if you don't do as they do, or choose to do as they don’t, Condemn you as most culpable, and an awful fuss is madeon’t. One most ethereal section would derive immense relief Could they but prevail with you and me to abstain from eating beef—
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[July, 1878.	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	195
Proving by logic, lame enough, I might be octogenarian Were I to live on beans and pease, and turn a Vegetarian. Another shows a pot of beer, or cheerful glass of toddy, Are inventions of Beelzebub to ruin soul and body; Altho’, if that “ old gentleman ” had invented such a drink, He'd have made a strenuous effort to keep it all, I rather think;
Another hot enthusiast (they have but one common type), Strains all his lungs and energies to extinguish my poor pipe; ’Tis hard to say, between the fumes his virtue doth evoke And the fumes of my Tobacco pipe, which is the greater smoke. While in eating, drinking, smoking, I alike condemn excess, Man’s joys in this hard world are few, I cannot wish them less;
Think I can judge as well as you of what is safe and wise, Take the mote from yours before you look in.other people's eyes.
The worst weed in the world, by far, alas that it’s no rarity! Is what our moral botanists call the lack of common charity ; Would that that might be consumed in smoke, till the purifying flame
Showed the Fragrant Flower in all men’s hearts, and the place from whence it came!
Wisdom consists not in extremes, but in prudent moderation, And not the least intemperance is intemperate condemnation; Such zealots do more harm than good, howe’er they choose to cloak it—
I beg of them to put this truth into their pipe and smoke it.
lament of i^e bonbon “dingo.”
[From the Arbitrator, April, 1878.]
* Put that in your pipe and smoke it."—Gladstone.
When I went into the Park,
T’other Sunday for a lark, And also jest to smoke a quiet pipe,
I smashed a tidy ’at,
And slung that bloomin’ cat, For any sort o’ mis-
chief I was ripe: But they’ve put an extry tax upon my ’Bacca.
I shouted for the Turk,
Never mind the orful work
That he did among the wimmen and the kids;
I earned an easy bob,
Or two—by that ere job,
And did exactly what my leader bids;
Yet they’ve put an extry tax upon my ’Bacca.
To ’Arley Street I went,
Vithawerrygood intent,
I to smash a lot o* vinders was inclined;
But vun vas lugged to quod, For beginnin’ that ’ere job, And that wasn’t quite azactly to my mind: Still they didn’t ort to go and tax my ’Bacca.
Kinneeley, he’s the man, And he’s got a proper plan, Just to clap a bob on them ere nobs’ shampane;
But that wood touch the rich,
An’ our M.Ps. are sich,
An’ of course you see they knows a better game, So they shoves it on the poor cove’s bit o’ ’Bacca.
Then another arf a bull ‘ They puts on my dog—too full They fills my cup o’ hagony—alas!
When I went into the Park,	'
That Sunday for a lark,
It strikes me that I made myself a hass: An' they think to—or they woodn’t tax my ’Bacca.
[The Arbitrator: Established to promote the Principles of the Workmen’s Peace Association. Published by W. B. Cremer, 9, Buckingham Street, Strand, W.C.]
^tig^fs at ^ufoan ®rn ®asih.
VL—A SHIP FOR A SHILLING: A SMUGGLING YARN.
FOOL NUMBER TWO.
“A ship sold for a shilling, Roddy!” said I. “Nonsense, Roddy; you might tell that story to the marines with some hopes of getting a patient hearing, but not to me, Roddy, not to me; ” and I tried to look as wise and as blowing as I possibly could.
“Perhaps,” said Nelly, in her own quiet way, “our friend Roddy will explain.”
“Sure, thin,” said Roddy, “and there is nothing in the world aisier. It’s a good many years now, maybe before aither a one of us here, barring me ould self, was born or dreamt of. The old ‘Vanguard*—a Queen’s ship, mind you —had just returned from a commission, and was lying at anchor at Portsmouth and about to pay off. Now, this is just the time that aither man or officer tries to seize the opportunity (small blame to them!) to smuggle a bit of ship’s. And the land sharks, faith, they know that well enough, too, and so they keep a lively look-out. Well, the old ‘Vanguard* had been searched and the Tobacco handed over—honestly, to all appearance—and the paying off had commenced, when one night, just as the night Custom-house officer was coming off in his bit of a cobble, to relieve his mate, what should he find, right under the bows, but a shore boat? And ‘Troth,* says he to himself, ‘ I’ll have a keek inside her.’ Now, there wasn’t a soul on board of this boat, but there was Tobacco galore; in troth she was filled with it. Well, as there was nobody in her, there was nobody to blame; so this land shark simply took charge of her. Then he sent on shore for advice and assistance, and the ship was searched once more, but properly this time; and sure enough, not only in the lining of the ship, but in the very pump wells themselves, there were oceans of ’Baccy. *My eyes!’ said the land sharks, ‘ here’s a pretty go! ’ So they seized the ship forthwith, in the name of the Queen, and condemned her to be sold by auction. You see, this was a very pretty bit of red tape that couldn’t be dispensed with. So the ‘Vanguard’ was towed into the dockyard, and basined for the purpose. But, lo and behold! on the day of the sale there wasn’t a single bidder at all, at all, nor a single soul to attend the sale aither, except the Port Admiral himself; for ’deed, indeed, it’s as sure as I tell you, every living soul had been sent out of the dockyard hours before the auction commenced, and the gates were locked. Then the ‘ Vanguard’ was duly put up; and after a wee bit of haggling and ‘going, going, gone-ing,’ she was knocked down to the Port Admiral for the large sum of one shilling; and so the nation got the ‘Vanguard’ back.”
“Well done!” said I; “but they are clever fellows as a rule, those land sharks.”
“Too clever be half,” replied Roddy, “at times, and at times they’re the biggest fools out. Bedad, it was all through their cleverness that I found meself in gaol one foine morning. You see, it was just like this: I was the bold skipper of the saucy ‘Skipjack.’ I had been down the Levant with a cargo of dried fish and sundries, and was returning with a cargo of fruit and sundries; of course this had nothing to do with it, only we had plenty of good ’Baccy on board, and cigars too, for the matter of that. Well, we had fine weather all the way in the Mediterranean, passed Gib. all right, and went staggering away towards Ould England’s chalky cliffs under a rattling ten-knot breeze, and everything went well till we were half-ways across the bay, when the weather thickened a bit, the wind veered round a few points, and by-and-by it came on to blow Armstrongs. I didn’t like the looks of it, and for the three following nights and days sorra an inch of me ever turned in at all; and troth I hardly got below to me meals. Me pipe was me solace then, I can tell you.”
At the very thoughts of it Roddy paused and looked for a moment at the fire, dreamingly, musingly, and I had to take the poker and stir it up, by way of stirring Roddy out of his reverie. Then he filled his clay, the parrot said 11 Now," and Roddy went on again.
“Now,” he continued, “we lost only a bit of bulwark, a bit of canvas, and a stick or two, but we were all tired; the channel was chafing and chopping, and occasionally taking aim at us with a green sea, and behaving generally as if the ould divil himself was under stirring it up with his tail. So you may be sure there were none of us sorry when, one evening, the Needles hove in sight, and the pilot came on board presently and took us in charge.
“Come below for half a second, ould boy,” I says, says I, “ and have a tot of rum; for, bedad, the weather’s both cowld and ugly.”
“ With all the pleasure in life,” says he; and down we went.
“Help yourself,” says I. “’Deed will I,” says he; and he did, just as pilots do, you know, putting his hand well round the tumbler, and filling it up the breadth of his brawny hand.
“Now,” says I, “Tm going to turn in a bit, so just you clap that pilot coat of moine over your own. I’m a bigger man than you, and it’ll hould ye aisy.”
“It’s mindful ye are, cap’n,” says he, putting on my coat. Then he gives a bit of a sniff, for I was sealing up the ’Baccy and cigars, only just leaving a bit on the table for dacency sake.
“Fine flavoured Tobacco,” says he.
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196	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[July, 1878.
“And right welcome ye are,” I says, “to a pound o’ the best of it.”
So the pilot pockets the pound o’ ’Baccy, and stumps on deck, and five minutes after I was a^ sound asleep as ever I was in me loife, bedad. Well, next morning the pilot was off, and away we were in harbour, and the land sharks were on board of us. In an hour, or maybe less, everything was snug, and I was congratulating myself on my safe return, and longing like a bird to get away on shore.
“Your sure,” says one of the sharks, “you haven’t got any more Tobacco but what you have told us of.”
“Sure and sartin,” says I; “sorra the ounce but what you’ve seen.”
“Then,” says the shark, “may this be your coat?”
“’Deed is it?” I says.
“Well,” says he, pulling out the pilot’s pound of Tobacco, which, without maning it a bit, he had left in the pocket of my coat, “you are our prisoner, and we seize the ship in the name of the Queen.”
Now, here was a pretty kettle of fish, and there was no use cutting up rusty about it aither.
“Before the beak you go, cap’n,” says the spokesman shark, “before the beak you goes, if you were Jwenty times cap’n.”
And faith and sure I had always considered meself a respectable member of society until then, but it quite took the concate out o* me, to be taken on shore and popped into a cell with as little ceremony as you would clap a dog into a kennel. Not much comfort in that cell, sure enough—a wooden bed and a timber pillow. But where is it a sailor couldn’t sleep. And next morning, troth, it took the concate still more out o’ me to be marched before the beak in company with the biggest set o’ rogues and blacklegs you could wish to see; and, bedad, there was one very fetching girl among the lot too, only she wasn’t exactly sober, and she called me “ old sly bones,” and she had one of the purtiest black eyes ever you saw in your life. “ Och Roddy,” says I to myself. “ Roddy, you ould rogue, what do ye think o’ yerself now thin?”
“Well,” said I, “and how did you get out of the scrape, Roddy?”
“Troth,” Roddy replied, “not quite so aisy as I got into it; but ye don’t catch me giving ’Baccy to pilots any more, if they wear my coat and all.”
“ Now,” continued he, “ pray favour us with a fool for our edification; you promised, you know.”
“ Very well, Roddy, mix your toddy and I’ll give you” TOOL THE SECOND.
John Fraser wasn’t a fool by any means, but he had a brother Willie who was. John himself was a millwright, and a strict and regular kirk attender. He had never been missed out of his pew, no, not once in twenty years; and this regularity gained for him, at long last, an eldership, just as his hair was turning grey. Now, John had lived up to the age of forty and five, and had never yet thought of taking unto himself a wife. Mark you, up to this date, John was always seen at his work, and always like his work, in shirt sleeves, a little square paper hat, and the auld brown clay cuttie was never once seen out of his mouth. Like Burns’ Newfoundland dog, “ the fient a pride, na pride had he.” But one day, in taking a short cut home through a heather moor, John “ forgathered ” with a lassie herding her cows. Bareheaded was this lassie, barefooted and barelegged as well. John stopped to admire her. Never before, he thought, had he seen such a heather angel; her blue eyes pierced him to the heart, her lips—crimson as the blossom of bilberries wet with dew—he fain would have kissed on the spot, and he even admired her innocent ankles, and couldn’t for the life of him help observing they were beautifully rounded and white as marble. “By George,” said John to himself—and he was never known to swear a heavier oath, “ how well she would look goin’ to the kirk wi’ me on Sunday.” I don’t think John felt the good of his pipe all the way home, though he pulled at it unmercifully. Well, to make a long story short, John married this bonnie herd lassie, and set her at the head of his board to admire, and in every way made much of her. Now the herd lassie, thus suddenly elevated, thought she couldn’t do better, now she was a millwright’s wife, and consequently a real lady, than go in for gentility wholesale. Her idea of wholesale gentility was dress, dress, dress for herself, and dress for John, and a flower garden, and a gig to ride to the kirk in, and bother the cutty pipe. Ah! bother the cutty pipe indeed. Surely a man must love his wife if he gives up his Tobacco to please her. John did. But I don’t think John was happy. He looked woful and ghostly, the paper cap was thrown aside in a corner, and he dared no longer appear at his work unless spruce and tidy. Poor John, gentility sat ill upon him; he got thinner and thinner, never smiled at all, and his surtout coat, that he was married in, hung as loosely from his shoulders as if he’d been a scarecrow. I verily believe John would have died, if something hadn’t occurred that made a man of him again in a month. This was nothing more or less than the birth—nine months after marriage—of a couple of lumping, thumping, fat babies. But, mind you, it wasn’t the twins so much that did the trick, although I don’t doubt he was proud enough of those; but, you see, his wife had her arms full now, and couldn’t look after John, and I declare to you honestly that the twins weren’t two days old till John was back again, at his work in his shirt sleeves, paper hat and all, and the black cutty clay,
all over smiles, and as merry as a mill-wheel. Such 'is life. No, John wasn’t a fool, but his brother Willie was. Not a downright born idiot, you know, but a “hafflin” as they are called. Nor was he bad-looking, but funny-like as I remember him, not unlike an improved edition of Punchy minus the hump. Kind-hearted he was too, and obliging, and so fond of children; would let us ride cockerty-koosie on his shoulders up and down the lea-rigs for hours at a spell, made teetotums for us to play for pins with on the winter’s evenings, and on dark nights used to give us a sack of shavings to make a bonfire withal in the comer of a field; and Willie would dance with us round and round it, as delighted as any of us.
Willie was the most extraordinary snuff-taker ever I met with in my life. The horn-mull was never out of his hand, and he used, to ladle it up his nose—a good sized one—with a bone utensil as big as an ordinary salt spoon.
How many and many an hour have I sat by the burn side with poor Willie, listening entranced to his wealth of old world stories, which lost nothing from Willie’s queer way of relating them.
“Damn’t” was a favourite expression of Willie’s. It seemed to relieve his feelings, poor fellow, but it came out of his mouth with such charming emphasis, that it really didn’t sound like swearing. It is somewhat curious that wild birds, and even beasts, will often attach themselves to the halfwitted, and of all creatures in the world, what should Willie have as a companion but an enormous heron. This heron followed him like a hen; it was like Willie’s shadow, and you never met them apart. I don’t think the heron had improved its position—it seemed always draggled and dilapidated. “Why, Willie,” I said one day, looking at this melancholy bird, who was standing half asleep in the shallow stream despairing of catching fish, “ if I could fly like it, and had such great long legs, I would go away, away to big big rivers, where I would be sure of a trout for breakfast.”
There seemed even to Willie some sense in what I said. He gazed at the forlorn heron for some little time, then took a long pinch of snuff, and “Damn’t, it’s a fool,” said Willie.
To my childish mind, the idea of a fool calling anything else a fool was slightly amusing.
Willie had a tabby kitten. This little puss used to come to our kitchen, fully persuaded it was more comfortable than its own. Willie always came to fetch it home, and the heron waited outside, but wouldn’t come in. Now, we had an old cat who didn’t like her fireside invaded, and she made a practice of thrashing the kitten viciously, but at every blow the wee pussy would only sing the louder. “ Damn ’t,” said Willie, “it’s a fool.”
One day Willie felt very ill, and the doctor was called, but never a spoonful of medicine Willie would take but snuff. “Man!” he told the physician, “I knew a man that took Epsom salts every mornin’ o’ his life, and twice on Sundays, and damn't he died for a’ that.”
And so did Willie, clutching his friendly snuff-mull to the last. Gordon Stables, M.D., B.N.
^obatco Smuggling in i^t ^ast ©cntrafum.
m.
Mr. Maury, of Liverpool, continues his important evidence:— The smuggling operations described are chiefly confined to Ireland, but I am told that the same system is pursued in Scotland. I have had large business transactions with my informants, I know that they are intimately acquainted with the system pursued in Ireland, and I have not the slightest doubt of their veracity. “ How does the smuggling escape the Custom-house cutters on the coast? A party intending to land a cargo, gives notice to the Revenue cutter of his intention, and to some persons on board, sending a bribe; and requests them to keep off the coast for a few days and and nights, after the weather sets in tempestuous.” Generally in such a case there must be collusion between the captain of the cutter and the coastguard; I cannot tell how many men belonging to the cutter and how many of the coastguard must be implicated. When the Tobacco is landed, it is conveyed inland by men, in portable bales. I am told that 400 or 500, or even 1000 men can be brought down when wanted: speaking of a particular part of the North of Ireland, I am informed that such is the influence of the person conducting the smuggling there, that you cannot get a man to give any evidence to criminate him. I would refer to a case in which, three or four months ago, there was a Government prosecution against a Mr. Henderson Black, of Belfast [of whom we shall hear further from subsequent witnesses]. This Mr. Black was a gentleman who had carried on very large transactions. I never suspected him of being concerned in that trade, but it appears that he had been in it for several years. He had gone to very great expense in excavating caves on the Antrim coast for concealing Tobacco. He was found out, concerned in a cargo landed off Torhead; the Tobacco was seized, and the penalties sought by the Crown were £4000. This preyed so much on his mind that the day before the action was to come on in Dublin, he shot himself. However, the Crown failed in their evidence. The penalty was mitigated to £200; and instead of being levied upon the property of Mr. Black,
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it was laid upon two parties of the name of Thompson, on whose premises the Tobacco was found. Now, I inquired last week of a person from Belfast, not engaged in this traffic, whether he knew anything of these Thompsons, who are farmers. He said, “ They are perfectly innocent men; they have no more to do with the transaction than you have; only the Tobacco was found on their premises/* Here we can only trace three persons, Mr. Black and these Thompsons, implicated in this transaction; the presumption is that the vessel got off. I have no idea how many men were really engaged; the inference is that they had not sufficient force, else it would not have been found out. It is very difficult to get evidence in these smuggling cases. The persons conducting them stand well in society, and are very popular. Of one I was told the other day that it would be hardly possible to get anybody to come forward against him; such is their estimation of him in private life, that if there is any dispute in the part of Ireland where he lives, it is fearlessly submitted to his arbitration; he pays the penalties for those he employs who are found out. When the decoy of 150 lbs. out of 1000 lbs. is left, there must be collusion between the officers of the cutter and the smugglers; and the officer gets his bribe of £200 in addition. The person who gives the information for the seizure gets one-half the duty; there are gradations of penalties, but one-half is about the average. Supposing the smuggler himself gave information of Tobacco, which he had bought at 4d., and landed at 8Jd. per lb., would he be paid Is. 6d. by the Government ? The penalty is not paid to the informer, but to the officer who seizes. [We learn from subsequent witnesses that the rule was for the officer to give his informer one-third of the penalty recovered; and that eases of parties preferring to inform against their own Tobacco did occur, though, of course, the reward was withheld if their complicity was discovered.] Some years ago a vessel was purchased in Liverpool. She loaded 900 bales of Tobacco at Walcheren, and then got up the river to Waterford. The captain, instead of returning a civil answer to the officers who asked what his cargo was, refused to give any information. He was followed by a boat and crew; on boarding the vessel they discovered nothing but salt, and left her. As soon as they had returned to their boat, one of the men said, I smell Tobacco. She was re-boarded; the Tobacco was found out; the vessel was seized, and the captain fined £100. Quantities of stalks are brought to Liverpool from Ireland, which have been smuggled into Ireland from the Continent. One of the largest dealers in Ireland tells me that it is notorious that Belfast supplies the greater part of Ireland with stalks for the manufacture of snuff, and yet there are only two manufacturers in Belfast who use leaf Tobacco. Some of these stalks were brought over to Liverpool, and purchased in good faith, as an article of merchandise, by a manufacturer, merely because they were selling at 3s. Id. while he sold his own superfluous stalks at 3s. 3d. The moment he got them into his possession he found that they were smuggled; they were the refuse of Tobacco stemmed in America, which is constantly sent over to Holland, where these stalks can be bought at 2d. a lb. He knew they were smuggled, because in America, where there is no duty on Tobacco,
[“ O dear eheap days, that are no more 1 Of yore, before the Civil War I ” ]
they stem the Tobacco in a very rough kind of way, and a great deal of leaf adheres to the stalk; whereas in this country, when they take the stalk out, they separate the Tobacco carefully, otherwise they would lose the duty on so much leaf. Thus it is much easier to detect smuggled stalks than Tobacco; anybody who knows anything about Tobacco can do it directly. I believe that the smuggling of stalks is earned on to a great extent. In America they only prepare the Tobacco for exportation by taking the stalks out for this market; and they are not careful in doing it, save with about a twentieth part imported here for what we call Boll. When I was in New York, some years ago, I found there was a jointstock company there established for smuggling Tobacco into Ireland. It was a very extensive company, with large capital; had no name \wne soci^U anonyme, in the most literal sense I]; the shares were 400 dollars each. I tried to get acquainted with the proceedings of tnis company, and to induce a person who sold it much Tobacco to inform me when any of its vessels were leaving, in order that I might know when they would be expected off the Irish coast; but I was unable. I know it did send cargoes and had communication with parties in Ireland. When the duty was lowered from 4s. to 8s., it gave up its operations. Here is a letter, dated a month back, from a respectable merchant in Liverpool. It says: “ Captain B----, who was an officer on board the P-when captured off Boston, afterwards took charge of a fast-sailing schooner; and this vessel being also captured by a British cruiser off the north of Ireland, he found his way here on the road home to the United States. He called on me and told me of the loss of his vessel, and also informed me that he was in the act of smuggling a cargo of Tobacco, a great part of which was got on shore, in the island of Rachlin; that every encouragement was given to this illicit trade by all parties residing on and connected with the island, amongst the rest the priest. I recollect his saying that there were caves in the island, made to facilitate such a trade, which it was impossible to discover. The parties who, I understood from him, owned the vessel are long since dead; they were Englishmen.*’ Another party told me himself that several years ago, before
1830, he smuggled a cargo into Ireland from a Continental port; and, in place of being molested by the gentry or magistrates in that part of the country, he received from them every assistance, and was requested on his next voyage to bring them supplies of brandy and wine.—“In what part of England do they think it a crime to smuggle ? The duty on Tobacco is so very high that they always allege that as an excuse; for example, when I have been returning from America, many years ago, when the duty on cigars amounted to a prohibition, and one could not get a decent cigar in England, I always used to smuggle my own supply.’’ The day before we landed there was generally a meeting of the passengers to find how many boxes of cigars we had; then the cigars were equally apportioned amongst the parties who chose to do it; some had none, and would take from those who had. Whenever a box had been used, we could generally manage to pass it at the Custom-house; the others were left in charge of the steward, and you sent a person in your own employment on board to take yours out as well as he could. When the duties were lowered, and I could get a decent cigar in England, I left off smuggling.—I import largely into Liverpool, and export into Ireland. If smuggling were put down, and the quantity of Tobacco paying duty trebled, as we conceive it would be, my business would be increased in alike proportion; so that, instead of selling 1000 hogsheads a year for consumption in Great Britain and Ireland, I should sell 3000 if the duty was reduced to Is.—In sending Tobacco from Liverpool to Ireland, legitimately, I do not pay the duty at Liverpool, but ship in hogsheads under bond. The Customhouse has a return of the vessel arriving safe, and a receipt showing that the Tobacco is safe in bond. In smuggling from Liverpool to Ireland, it would be relanded or transhipped; it could not leave Liverpool without going through the Customs ; bond must be given for landing it in Ireland. Then no smuggling can happen in that way? It has happened; I will give a case in point: A brig called the “Two Sisters” took on board 30 hogsheads of Tobacco and 70 tons of salt. The party gave the usual bond that it should be landed at Elsinore. [But how is this a case in point, when the question is of bond for landing in Ireland?] Six weeks after the vessel sailed, the officer at the Custom-house in charge of the bond department sent to inform the person that his bond was forfeited, the Tobacco having been landed at Newry. It appeared that 29 hogsheads escaped; one, being left as a decoy to the officer, was seized; the vessel with the salt was sunk; and none of the parties have ever been heard of since. This I had from the party who purchased the Tobacco. To show the difficulty of getting at evidence of the smuggling, I may state that a similar operation was reported to me as in contemplation a few years since at Liverpool. I was informed of the parties who were to sign the bond; I informed the Collector, who sent two of his best officers over to the Cheshire coast, where the Tobacco was to be landed; and the man who conducted the enterprise left about a fortnight after we had the information, and it was ascertained that the Tobacco was landed. He changed his plan and his voyage in consequence of being watched, and the 12 hogsheads were transhipped, brought back, and landed at a place called the Herculaneum Dock, above Liverpool. The officers never saw it; in spite of all the vigilance we employed, the thing escaped.—I can give another letter, dated about six months ago, which I received from a first-rate house, with regard to a smuggling transaction which originated in the United States and terminated in Liverpool:—“For your government we beg to mention that by the G--we received a letter from a Mr.---------------------------------------of your city, enclosing bill of lading for 10 barrels of pearl-ashes on board that vessel, which he requested us to receive and forward to the address of Mr.-, Dublin, charging all expenses forward. Upon the barrels being landed it was discovered that, though there were a few pearl-ashes at each end of them, they were filled in the middle with Tobacco stalks, which are altogether prohibited to be imported. We understand a similar shipment was received by the E-------------------------------------, consigned to our neighbours, Messrs. ------------------------------------------------------, and being better packed than the lot by the G , were not detected by the Customs here, and were forwarded as requested to Dublin, where they have also subsequently been seized.” I got information from another house to substantiate that. The ten barrels, I should say, would be about 1500 lbs. These two cases were found out; the letter says nothing as to the frequency of such transactions; I think a good deal is thus imported, and that it has largely increased within the last three or four years. The parties generally employ houses above suspicion.
Lieut. L. C. F. Walker, R.N., Inspector of the River, at Liverpool, under the Board of Customs, examined:—I superintend a force of about 400 officers, employed for the Srevention of smuggling. Directly vessels arrive within the arbour’s mouth, we put tide-waiters on board, to watch the cargoes until duly landed and passed into the hands of other Customs officers. The cost of our establishment last year was over £25,000. As a general rule we do not board coasters, our force is not sufficient, but only vessels with cargoes subject to duty. We have no cognisance of a vessel until she gets into the harbour’s mouth. The Customs’ limits of the Port of Liverpool are considerably outside, but we cannot get out to those limits because of the sands, so we board as soon as the vessels get within the Rock Lighthouse. The officers sleep and remain on board till the whole cargo is discharged.
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Could not persons going on shore carry Tobacco or other articles with them? If the officers had a suspicion, they would be searched; but the law imposes a% penalty of £10 upon any officer who shall search a man wrongfully, therefore the officer would not search unless he had good grounds for suspicion. Smuggling at Liverpool is confined almost exclusively to Tobacco; I have known small quantities of silk smuggled, and very small quantities of spirits. I have been upwards of eleven years in my present position; before, I was nine years in the navy on the coasts of Ireland and Scotland, then five years in the coastguard of Ireland, not the coast blockade. When I was in the navy smuggling was very rife; but the system as it then prevailed, of very large smuggling, has ceased. With the “Tribune” frigate, 1819-20, we were frequently in chase of very large smugglers; a cutter amongst others, said to be the largest in the world, a cutter of 220 tons; she used to carry a cargo, according to report, worth from £30,000 to £40,000 at a time, generally, I believe, shipping her cargo at Guernsey. I have also been in chase of luggers. I believe there was then an organised system of smuggling, large companies with large capital being engaged in it. I should say that the bulk of the smuggling in Tobacco takes place from the United States, from Prussia, and Holland and Belgium. The number of vessels reported inwards at Liverpool from the United States during the last five years was 1043 British and 2647 foreign. Beyond doubt, smuggling in a small way was carried on by the seamen; I believe that in many cases the captains and officers do participate, and am quite sure that when any quantity of Tobacco is brought on board the mates neglect their duty. There is no restriction to the men going on shore; they may go twenty times a day; they generally live on shore, because fires are not allowed on board. Here are a couple of specimens of manufactured Tobacco, Cavendish, such as they usually smuggle; the price in America is from 6d. to 9d. per lb.; the duty here 9s. per lb., but it amounts to prohibition; the duty is never paid.—Where parties are convicted the seizing officers get 2s. 9|d. a lb., of which they are bound to give the informer his full third, neither more nor less. Instead of 2s. 9jd. it would be 3s., but 10 per cent, is deducted for the expenses of the Crown. The officer dare not divulge the informer’s name, nor will he disclose the fact that he has received information; the informers are exposed to great danger, their very lives are sometimes in peril.—I should be sorry to see the law altered which imposes a penalty of £10 upon any officer who searches a man without good ground; it would cause a good deal of trouble. “ Men chosen, as our officers are sometimes, from the lower order of society, would not have sufficient discrimination to know how to use that power; they would search females, and very improperly too.” I have never, that I am aware of, appointed to my force any men who have been informers. I should decidedly say that that class of men were improper for the service.
Three great Manufacturers of London were next examined. They had been in business 32, 47, and 37 years* respectively, and their signatures were first in a list of 91 appended to a Memorial dated February, 1842, representing firms in London, Liverpool, Preston, Kendal, Bolton, Chester, Leeds, Hull, Glasgow, Edinburgh; the gist of this Memorial being in the following words:—“ That upon a careful review of the present state of trade, and the causes of the failure of the various plans devised for its government, they (the Memorialists) are of opinion that no remedy will be effectual unless accompanied by a reduction of the duty to Is. per lb. . . . They firmly believe that the revenue derived from the diminished rate of duty would in a very short time reach, if not exceed, its present amount.” These three felt entitled to declare that in the main they spoke the opinions of all the 91 signatories, with the exception of two who were specified. In selecting from their evidence I, of course, altogether omit much that is simply confirmative of what has been already reproduced.— During Mr. Baring’s Act I never adulterated above 25 per cent., and could not then carry on trade at a profit. The Act allowed us to add saccharine matter, but stringently forbade the introduction of any foreign vegetable matter. The adulteration went on to a very great extent, and it was absolutely necessary to go beyond the saccharine matter, in order to bring down the price. Thousands of acres were cultivated with rhubarb in Yorkshire, expressly for mixing; and not only there, but they came up into Kent, and bought land within four or five miles of London. I could sit in my counting-house and see a hogshead of rhubarb go by my window to be put on board the “Gazelle” packet; and I could see this rhubarb, mixed with Tobacco, brought back again, and go to my customers at, perhaps, 10 or 15 per cent, below my price, with, perhaps, 20 or 25 per cent, profit to the illicit trader. That was done two years before the Excise knew of it, and, indeed, the Act went out before the Excise were able to detect it. The “Gazelle” steam-packet took the rhubarb to Hull, where it was used in the manufacture of Tobacco, which was brought back to the south part of Kent.— Tobacco was extensively adulterated before Mr. Baring’s Act, and it remains extensively adulterated under Mr. Goul-burn’s Act. Whether the law permits or prohibits adulteration, it still goes on, as it has been going on for twenty years; the high duty causes it. We do not think the strictest possible Excise Survey could protect the honest against the illicit trader, with the present high duty. The latter is always looking to a quick return; whether smuggling or
adulterating, his operations are always rapid; he must get his profit quickly or not at all. The Excise debtor and creditor account of stock may operate very well with large manufacturers, or people having any regular stock, but has no effect upon the fraudulent trader, who begins his operations in the morning and finishes them at night, and sends the Tobacco out and pockets the profits; his transaction is all over before the officer knows anything about it; so the account operates on the man who has a regular trade, but not upon the rogue, to whom it is no check whatever.—In Ireland, in 1794, with 6d. duty, the duty-paid consumption was 38 oz. per head; in 1821, duty 4s., consumption 6 oz.; whence we may judge the amount of smuggling. In Great Britain we have remained at 14 oz. per head since 1821; and we believe that the actual consumption is not less than 38 oz.— Our present consumption of snuff in England is about million lbs. I have no doubt in the world that we should export from this country upwards of 4 million lbs. at Is. duty, without the drawback. We care nothing about another manufacturer underselling us Is. a lb.; if a customer tells me that he can buy snuff so much cheaper, which is a very common thing, my answer is, “Why don’t you do it?” He thinks, “When I have bought it I cannot sell it, and therefore I must give you your price.” I do not think that we have many inore than twenty people in this country who understand the art of snuff-making. British snuff has a preference in the market everywhere; for a short time they allowed a drawback on snuff, and having this we sent an immense quantity to America.—Here is a letter from America dated a month back, which says: The production of Tobacco in the United States, from statistics of population and resources prepared by the Government, is 250,000,000 lbs. per annum; the consumption of 18,000,000 of people is a little exceeding 7 lbs. each.” Manufactured Tobacco sells there at 4d. per lb.—The system of permits was ineffectual; they frequently covered smuggled Tobacco; for a man might be very cautious as to smuggling himself, yet think it no sin to sell his permits, and this was frequently done; 6d. a lb. was a common price to sell what was called credit; and this credit was sold to whoever might want it, smugglers or adulterators; and therefore it rather facilitated fraud than otherwise.—I consider that Tobacco is preferred even to food in this country. Its medical properties are extremely desirable to the poor man; it is an anodyne, a stomachic, and a solace to him when he cannot get food; when he is driven absolutely by the pressure of want, he prefers his Tobacco to his food. The poorer classes suffer most from the adulteration; they suffer both by the loss of the genuine medical properties and by the quantity of incombustible and useless matter introduced ; and the shops at which the poor deal are those which sell the most of the adulterated articles.
Here let me intermit for a moment the Blue Book selections, to give a morsel of confirmation to that just quoted, from an unexpected source; “Life in the Cloister, in the Papal Court, and in Exile;” an Autobiography. By Giuseppe M. Campanella. Bentley, 1877. (This is a second volume, dealing with the Exile, the first being “My Life, and What I Learnt in It,” Bentley, 1874.) The author is an ex-priest, a fine singer and good musician, who was chaplain to the patriots during the Siege of Venice in 1848-9. After various wanderings he arrived in London, poor and friendless, in November, 1850. This is his testimonial to Tobacco, in his own honest English: “At this time I myself became reduced, little by little, to the most extreme misery. My daily food was most scanty, since for the few things (the last residue) which I went on selling, I only received a few pence, and with these bought Tobacco rather than food [the italics are ours]. Many times I picked up small bits of cigars, smoking them in a pipe, which I still preserve [the holy censer of consolation!] In this way three weary weeks passed over. ... I felt myself truly and totally lost, and walked through Oxford Street, looking down to find, at least, some pieces of cigars to feed my pipe, when a gentle and courteous lady accosted me, and asked me if I were the Reverend Campanella.” This gentle and courteous lady, whose name and address the grateful Exile gives, insinuated upon him in the most delicate manner an advance of money, wherewith he could feed himself as well as his beloved pipe, and thereto clothe himself becomingly; and she then invited him to her house, and by her introductions procured him several pupils; so that our Oxford Street for once proved not a “stony-hearted stepmother;” and he who looked but for scanty cigar-ends, to assuage the gnawings of hunger, found good friends and an honourable competence. So should modesty ever be rewarded, as our royal Rabelais teaches in that his marvellously-told true history of the poor wood-cutter and his axe; which history, with its moral, let Mr. Gladstone lay to heart, while he layeth his axe to the root of the Minis-tree!
Sigvat.
dope’s ^liftort.
How many of us smoke Tobacco for the same reasons which induced the starving Dervish to blow both his cold fingers and his hot porridge? For myself, I am open to confess that the warmth of the pipe and its fumes give comfort to my physical organism in the coldest day of winter; and yet that, if my friendly reader could spy me on this broiling hot day of
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June, 1878, when the windows and doors are open for the sake of draught and the Venetians are down to shut out the glare and the heat, I have just lit my faithful pipe, that I may be oool enough to mix this “ Mixture ” with a steady nerve. Thus prepared, be pleased to picture to yourself the calm smile of contemptuous amusement with which I peruse this effusion of the Pall Mall Gazette:—
It has been noticed that men born blind never smoke, which would seem to prove that the pleasure of smoking consists less in inhaling Tobacco than in lighting the weed, seeing its fumes curl, and knocking away the ashes. Ooe may go further, and say that with many persons smoking is simply a habit which yields no definable enjoyment, but helps to make the time pass and gives the hands something to do. Certainly, to the man who smokes in moderation, an occasional cigar or pipe is highly pleasurable; but what of the third, fourth, fifth cigar or pipe ? When the palate is cloyed, when the clothes, hair, and mind are all saturated with the fumes of nicotine, when the air in the room is as thick as a river fog, and when the man with the weed has puffed himself into a drowsy state in which he is unfit for work, and can only talk in monosyllables, then the pleasure of smoking is a mere delusion. It is only the pleasure of being idle.**
Isn’t this a pleasant specimen of ignorant and unreflecting dogmatism? “It has been noticed,” forsooth! But has it been proved? Are there not many things “noticed” that are false? And even if men who were born blind never smoke Tobacco, how does that negative fact override and outweigh the positive experience and unhesitating testimony of millions of smokers in all climes and through many centuries? What says Dr. Drysdale or Dr. Richardson to this doctrine that Tobacco is without effect, except so far as it “helps to make the time pass and gives the hands something to do?” In that case, where are the terrible evils—physical, mental, and moral—that are attributed to Tobacco? And how does the Pall Mall reconcile its theory of smoking as an occupation with its theory of smoking as “ only the pleasure of being idle”? To turn this paragraph upon the wiseacre who wrote it, “ when the man with the weed hath puffed himself into a drowsy state in which he is unfit for work, and can only talk monosyllables, then”—he is in a condition of intellectual brightness and activity infinitely superior to that of the jour* nahst who thinks that finding “something to do” is “being idle.”
Here is a card that tempts me to wish I were on the other side of the broad Atlantic and this were the 15th of June:—
“THE NICOTIAN COTERIE. SECOND ANNUAL PIC-NIO AND LAKE EXCURSION, Satubday, June 15th, 1878,
THIS TICKET
WILL Admit thm
Bkarmr ONLY.
TO HIGHLAND PARK.
Under the Superintendence of Professor J. Irvine Crabbs, Editor of Thm Lmat.
( Price SI. ft
Fuho
Dare
Lu-
CEM.
r w
Th* Goodrich Co.’a Steamer Corona will leave her dock, foot of Michigan Ave., at 8 am. precisely.”
Then, on the reverse, I find a President and Vice-Presidents and Committees of Invitation and Amusement and Music and Reception named, with Mr. Crabbe as General Manager; and I feel that I have missed one of the bright days of a possible existence, because I belong not to the “Nicotian Coterie,” and am smoking my peaceful briar here alone, four thousand miles, or thereabouts, away from Highland Park and the steamship Corona.
“Smoking is simply a habit which yields no definable enjoyment,” is it, my good friend of the P. M. G. ? Did you read that description of “A Benedict’s Supper” in Henry Labouchere’s Truth, last month ? If you did, your memory plays odd tricks with you; or you and Mr. Labouchere differ about one of the abstract virtues. For there is a goodly quantity of practical wisdom to be found in the final paragraph of the story of that supper over which M. Edmond About and his charming wife and daughters presided in the Rue de Douay:—“Sarcey, who had addicted himself conscientiously to the good things set before him, got up and observed to the lady of the house that he considered himself and those around him tout-d-fait en famille. She expressed her satisfaction thereat. He thereupon went on to say that the printers of the XIX. Sitcle were waiting for ‘copy,’ and wanted to know how it was to be given if cigars were not to follow the coffee ? The answer that he wanted was returned, and the soiree, which had had so many substantial features, literally ended in smoke.”
So far as I can gather from the address which Professor Struthers, of Aberdeen, delivered at the Cottage Hospital Bazaar, at Keith, a few Wednesdays ago, if there were no good in Tobacco, one’s best way of passing pleasantly through life would be to go to gaol, and stop there. The learned Professor discoursed at large upon the hygienic and sanitary conditions that go to the lengthening of life; and he made, inter alia, these pregnant remarks:—
“It would, perhaps, surprise them when he mentioned that the very healthiest places in the country were the jails—(laughter). There the regulations were so thoroughly carried out. The prisoners were under such complete control—the whisky bottle was entirely put a stop to—oven tho Tobacco pipe was taken away—although he did not see any great harm in
the pipe if they kept within moderation. They were obliged to obey the rules, and although prisoners in jails wanted one element, and a very important one, for health—a good conscience and an easy mind—notwithstanding that, the mortality among prisoners was only about 8 in a thousand. The ordinary death-rate was about 20 in the thousand. In large cities, or in bad parts of cities, it might reach to 40, or even more.”
Add to this the following account of a smoke-dried old salt, which story I quote from the East Kent, Sittingbourne, Faversham, and Sheerness Gazette ot the 18th of May last:— “John Baker, an old salt, died in one of the Faversham Almshouses on Friday, in his 93rd year. He is believed to have been the only man living who witnessed the execution, on board the 4 Sandwich,’ on June 30th, 1797, of Richard Parker, nick-named * Rear-Admiral Parker,' the ringleader in the famous mutiny at the Nore. Baker was an apprentice-lad in the naval service at the time. 4 Anti-Tobaocoites ’ may be interested to know that Baker was an inveterate smoker, and almost up to his death smoked as much as seven ounces of Tobacco per week.”
And then tell me whether there is not some excuse for the smugglers who busy themselves to introduce surreptitious Tobacco in the wild isle of Orkney? I am not concerned to dispute the accuracy of the Northern Ensign, which tells how a boy who went to fetch sand from the beach in the Bay of Ferness, Eday, rooted up a box and a cask that delighted the hearts of the Customs’ officers at Kirkwall, and showed how cleverly a French lugger can outwit the Revenue cruisers when Tobacco and the like expensive luxuries are wanted duty-free amidst the sublime desolation of the fierce North Sea. Methinks I sniff the fragrant perfume of the soothing weed, and, like Othello when he contemplates his dusky vision and Desdemona's imaginary frailty, I soliloquise—“ It is the cause!”
Should any of your friends be induced, in consequence of the remarks I have quoted from Professor Struthers, to qualify themselves for admission to one of Her Majesty’s prisons, I would commend to their attention two infallible modes of “getting into trouble” which have lately come under my observation. One of these methods I commend more particularly to smokers. It is derived from the experiences of two gentlemen of Gomers al, lately detailed in the police-court at Dewsbury. Mr. Bradley sent his daughter to Mr. Buttery’s shop for an ounce of Tobacco, giving her 3d. wherewithal to defray the cost. It would seem that Mr. Bradley has of late been too much occupied by'his affairs to bestow much of his attention upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer ; so that he was not aware of the additional duty on the Divine Weed. It was naturally otherwise with Mr. Buttery ; who knew that, in order to get an honest living, he must have more than 3d. an ounce for his Tobacco. He therefore cut an ounce in halves, gave one to Miss Bradley, returned her Id., and retained 2d. When these facts came to the knowledge of Mr. Bradley, he took prompt action. He armed himself with a large carving knife, proceeded to Mr. Buttery’s shop, and, with much demonstration of eloquence, proposed to “ do something with ” Mr. Buttery’s “ entrails ” —straightway chasing Mr. Buttery into his own back premises with that intent. The magistrates of Dewsbury thought Mr. Bradley entitled to the reward of twenty shiUlings and costs or one month’s imprisonment for this illustration of valorous ire. If the gentle reader desires a longer term of discipline, he must earn it by using the carving knife in a still more effective manner. But Mr. Bradley supplies him, at all events, with a useful hint.
The second illustration addresses itself more directly to snuffers. I derive the facts from the New York Herald. That veracious journal recounts the adventures of Sexton Daniel Shiffelin, of St. Cecilia’s Roman Catholic Church, 2nd Avenue and 105th Street, and Policeman Ross, of the Twenty-Third Precinct, in search of the thief who robbed the poorbox of the sanctuary over which the good sexton keeps watch and guard. These gentlemen planted themselves near the church, and this is what occurred:—
44 Their patience was rewarded toward midnight by a faint glimmer near the belfry, and stealing to the rear of the edifice, a small, hitherto neglected, window was found to be open. The watchers entered by the same passage, noiselessly, as they supposed, but found a deathlike silence overhanging the interior of the church. A thorough search was then made, and though the money-box was found to have been rifled, no other trace of the thief could bo brought to light. Another and more vigorous effort to unearth him followed without avail, and the investigators were moving toward the entrance, firm in the conviction that he had got away, when a suppressed but audible 44 Ah, chu! ” rang throughout the edifice. Following the direction of the sneeze, Officer Ross, with some effort, thrust his hand into a small aperture near the organ, fished out the game, and declared the chase to be at an end. Mr. Shiffelin recognised in the prisoner a young man whom he had occasionally employed to do odd jobs in and about the church. The prisoner, on being questioned, admitted having stolen 1 dol. 19 cents from the poorbox on the night in question, but firmly denied all knowledge of the former thefts. He has been committed for trial.”
It is in considering an example like this that practical difficulties arise. Everybody can’t sneeze at will. It is not always practicable to have a cold at the precise moment when “Ah, chu!” would be convenient and effective. But the snuff-taker can always produce a sneeze, by the judicious use of the tittilating powder of Tobacco. And anybody can become a snuff-taker, by—taking snuff.
The thoughtful perusal of the varied particulars which have thus far engaged my pen will probably facilitate an understanding of the causes which tend to the spread and growth of that literature of Tobacco of which the Plant is proud to consider itself a not unworthy specimen. But the Plant is gratified by the evidence which comes, in the shape of the Leaf, from Chicago, that competitors worthy to be recognised in the same sphere are making good progress; and a “Godspeed ! ” to your .contemporary is the hearty greeting of
Youb Man-of-All-Wobk.
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®^ lateral Uistorg of ^obaxro.
Undeb the title of “A Contribution to the Natural History of a Thing (or Person) much Calumniated,” Gustav Heyer has given an article in a recent number of the well-known popular German periodical, the “ Gartenlaube.” As the article is written with vivacity—that is, German vivacity, which is very different from French—and contains some interesting facts, we present it to the reader in an English garb;—
0 thou happy time when I was first made rich by the use of a forbidden luxury!
A friendly genius carries me back to the days of my boyhood. He shows me a red-cheeked lad in the company of other lads of his own age;—A group of youths who, “far from Madrid,” have succeeded in escaping from the spying eyes of ill-natured men, and especially of curious teachers, and who, after many a struggle and many a combat, have been vanquished in the bitter attempt to grow familiar with cigar smoking. But “Man yields to the strength of the gods;” and I, in truth, once more behold that red-cheeked lad, my former happy self, growing pale, and enriching his experiences by the pangs of his first sickness.
Probably many of us have had similar trials. But perseverance conducts to the object aspired after; and a smith learns to be a smith by hammering at the anvil. Fresh attempts followed the shipwreck of the first Tobacco venture. Virtue finally gained the victory. We accustomed ourselves gradually to the dangerous nature of Tobacco, and behold, in the course of time we arrived at complete mastery. After giving proofs of the perfection we had attained, we could freely and openly show to the astonished world how marvellous was our skill.
Such is the history of Tobacco smoking in the case of an individual; but it has had similar aspects, similar phases on a grand scale in* the development of masses of mankind. All civilised nations do homage to the singular custom. Since the days of Columbus, whose eyes first saw human beings smoking on the Guanahani Island—that is to say, since the fifteenth century—the habit of smoking has, with ceaseless rapidity, spread over the whole cultivated earth; spite of the police prohibitions hurled at it, spite of the charming punishment, formerly in use among Turks and Russians, of piercing the nose, and cutting off the nose; spite of the anathemas flung by the clergy at the “hellish smoke.” Yea, doubtless those interdictions and maledictions have, as in the case of schoolboys, accomplished the very opposite of what they aimed at.
In the boy it is, for the most part, the spirit of imitation, along with the desire to appear manly, which, spite of all discomforts and torments at the beginning, impels him to seek the enjoyments of the ill-famed herb. But what impelled nations, whole nations thereto ?
This question finds its reply in a peculiar disposition of the human race, in the secret longing, a longing which with increasing culture grows ever more powerful and more imperious, for stimulants, for substances which produce a higher activity of the life and of the nerves. Tea, coffee, wine, and other substances belong to this category. Tobacco belongs to the most interesting substances of the kind, and it is, therefore, worth while to chat a little about our old friend and benefactor.
Few of all the substances that serve for nourishment and for enjoyment accompany us through life in so many different forms, under a mask so various. What a difference between the genuine “ brown daughter of Havana” and the coarsest sort of cigars; between the delicious Varina aroma and the horrible mundungus which the peasant has himself grown 1 What infinite diversity, moreover, there is in snuffs I
And yet one and the same principle holds sway in all these metamorphoses, though the effect on the consumers is different, and though the demands and the tastes of the latter vary according to their relations, customs, and social position.
The dissemination and the general use of Tobacco have been extremely facilitated by the circumstance that the plant furnishing the Tobacco, and which has its home in the equatorial zone, adapts itself with the greatest ease to all temperate climates, and that thus the cultivation of the plant encounters no serious difficulties. As, moreover, it is not the fruit which is gathered, but the leaves, the plant does not need to accomplish the full cycle of its development. The best European Tobacco is produced in Turkey, in Bosnia, and in Southern Russia. Furthermore, Tobacco is cultivated in Holland, Belgium, and France, where, as is well known, the manufacture and the sale are government monopolies. In Germany, in relation to Tobacco, it is Alsace, the Rhenish Palatinate, Franconia, Silesia, Saxony, Thuringia, and Westphalia which deserve special mention.
Let us present, in the most general outlines, the cultivation of this remarkable plant.
On account of the smallness of the seeds (a cubic centimetre contains six thousand), Tobacco is sown in richly-manured hot-beds. The plants are then transferred to the fields, and are placed in parallel rows, and at a distance of two feet from each other. According to the fruitfulness of the soil, and according to the amount of production aimed at, from 10,000 to 55,000 plants are placed on a hectare of land. This process takes place in the course of May and June. The Tobacco cultivation of France, regulated by accurate control and central administration, offers the most abundant materials
for comparative observation; and many of the facts we intend to give we owe to the thorough studies of the Director of the Ecole d’Application of the French Government Tobacco manufacture, M. Theodore Schlosing.
After about three months the crop is gathered. During this short period the ground has become poorer per hectare to the extent of from three hundred to five hundred kilogrammes of mineral substances, and from fifty to ninety kilogrammes in nitrogen. It is obvious, therefore, that the manuring must be very abundant and perfect. The careful cultivation of the plants, moreover, includes a thousand matters of minute detail, and on account of its difficulties has a great resemblance to the painstaking treatment of the vine, which has many analogies with the Tobacco plant.
If we transplant a Rheingau vine to California it succeeds admirably; but it gives a drink totally different from the Rhine wine, completely lacking the rich and delicate qualities thereof. So is it with the Tobacco plant. The Havana variety brought to our climate suffers no visible change. Its exterior, the cellular tissue, the veins of the leaves remain the same; even the quantity of nicotine is not affected. But the principal thing, the most precious thing, the aroma, degenerates; and no helps of art, no manuring, no imitation, however careful, of the conditions of climate and soil where the plant originally grew can prevent or make up for the important loss. In Germany, along with coarser sorts, Virginia and Maryland Tobacco are cultivated; in France many varieties.
The strength of the Tobacco depends on the amount of the nicotine. The thicker, the more luxuriant the leaves, so much the greater the quantity of this peculiar substance. In leaves of small parenchymical strength, the nicotine is about three per cent.; in those of thicker cellular tissue it rises to nine or ten per cent. This remarkable fact the rational planter knows how to turn to good account. When on a fixed space he cultivates more plants—consequently more leaves, and thereby, at the cost of the thickness, creates a larger folial surface—he thereby diminishes the amount of nicotine. In like fashion, by gathering the crops earlier he can limit the contents of the leaves, forasmuch as the strength, going hand in hand with the development and age of the plants, continually increases.
In Cuba the fortunate the crop is gathered three times in the year. The young leaves of the first crop furnish valuable, yea, the most valuable Regalia outsides; those of the second and third crop are used as fillers.
Nicotine is the chief characteristic of the plants belonging to the Nicotiana family. In a pure state, and freshly prepared, it is a fluid clear as water, and of a smell so intoxicating that a drop suffices to make the air of a room unbreathable. On account of its strong poisonous qualities, nicotine has procured for our friend Tobacco the evil reputation which it still has, especially with those who do not smoke. Chemically considered, it resembles ammonia, as whose brother in complicated construction it may be considered. Its formula is N. 2, C. 10, H. 14.
But, along with nicotine, men of science have discovered a whole anthology of substances in the Tobacco plant. Besides the mineral substances, which constitute about twenty per cent, of the leaf when dried a hundred degrees, and which are likewise met with in the ashes, consisting for the most part of carbonate of lime, and, moreover, of phosphates, silicates, chlorures, and sulphates, our plant contains aromatioo-ethereal oil, malic acid, citric acid, oxalic acid, acetic acid, pectine, starch, sugar, cellulose, green or yellow resinous matters, finally azotic (nitrogenous') substances of obscure composition. These, in the process of manufacture, there is a most strenuous effort to destroy by fermentation, as their presence causes the horrible stench of those exceedingly coarse cigars which only on high mountains, and when in full possession of a cold in the head, we are able to smoke.
Through the change which they suffer in the process of manufacture, all these substances play a more or less important part. As a matter of course, we do not intend to enter here into any details of the preparation of leaves for smoking Tobacco, for cigars, and for snuff. Suffioeth it to say that to get rid of too great a quantity of nicotine, to decompose the azotic substances already mentioned, and to develop a fine aroma, the leaves are collected in the open air, or in ventilated chambers, and that, after they have been sufficiently moistened with water, and especially with a solution of salt, they are subjected to a kind of fermentation. This and the employment of so-called sauces, of which every factory, small or great, has its own, the secret of which is kept like a a State secret, prepare the leaves for their diversified destinations.
While, in general, the odorous qualities of Tobaoeo and of cigars are first revealed by smoking to the taste of the consumer, the aroma of snuff is not developed in all its completeness till after a preparation continuing for eighteen months, and through a process of oxydation resulting from that preparation. In this fermentation in the manufacture of snuff it is chiefly the acids of the plant, the malic acid and the citric acid and the nicotine, which are partially transformed, while the insoluble substances, the oxalic acid, carbonate, the resin, the cellulose, and so on, are scarcely changed. From the azotic matters ammonia is richly developed, along with black substances of an acid quality, which give the Tobacco a brown colour. Besides come forth,
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as products of fermentation, acetic acid, small quantities of methylio alcohol, and a pleasant aroma, whose perfume, in connection with that of nicotine and ammonia, forms the characteristic fundamental scent of all snuff.
Otherwise is it with cigars and smoking Tobacco. Of what kind is the characteristic element in smoking which procures us enjoyment? The answer is not difficult. Let us light a cigar. Through the manipulation of smoking repeated by us from time to time, the cigar gradually and quietly burns to ashes. The blue smoke, ascending to the sky, sufficiently proves to us that the combustion is incomplete. Before the regions lying nearest to the glow are changed into ashes by the fire, they carbonise while evolving gaseous matters. They undergo a species of distillation. Therefore, it is not properly the Tobacco which, in the process of smoking, bums, but this product of dry distillation, the char continually generating itself. The more, therefore, spite of the incessant expenditure of warmth, it is fitted to maintain the temperature at which it catches fire, so much the better, so much the more persistent is the glow which the cigar possesses. Moreover, this highly necessary requirement has its foundation in the needful porosity of the char. The more incompact this is, so much the more beautiful is the brand of the cigar, taking the word brand in its literal sense. The observation has been made that a Tobacco’s capability of combustion depends on the greater or less quantity of carbonic kalium in the ashes, and that this in its turn originates in the burning of organic acids, in our case in the burning of malic and citric acids. Not the quantity of saltpetre, as is often erroneously believed, but the presence of the aforesaid vegetal salts (malic kalium) is the cause of the phenomenon. These in growing hot swell out, and produce the porosity of the glowing Tobacco, and thereby the capability to retain heat longer.
A cigar which permits smoking pauses of from two to three minutes, belongs, so far as combustion is concerned, to the best of its kind. The signal virtue, on the other hand, of going out every half minute if not attended to, distinguishes certain coarse cigars already mentioned. However, we find in the Tobaccos of all climates badly burning sorts. Even Havana cigars of inferior quality imported during the last ten or twenty years have required a troublesome amount of attention to keep them from going out.
That which the smoker—at least, the accomplished smoker, who holds the cigar between his dry lips without chewing it— enjoys in the course of the smoking process is the smoke alone; that is, the product of the dry distillation of the Tobacco and of the burning of the Tobacco char. By the study of the composition of these blue odoriferous clouds the secret of nicotian enjoyment is robbed of its veil. Of what does the cigar smoke consist?
Now, besides the usual products of every combustion of vegetal substances, besides hydro-carburet, carbon, water, we meet with, probably produced by the destruction of the nicotine, considerable quantities of ammonia, some acids, such as acetic acid and butyric acid, furthermore those empyreumatic aromatic substances of unknown nature which determine the value of the cigar; finally, excessively small and almost imponderable particles of nicotine. A cleanly and accompl i shed smoker has no cause to be afraid of poisoning. Verily he, on the other hand, who bites and chews and sucks is in a far different position. We are always overwhelmed by a sort of horror when we see a cigar bitten and chewed and sucked. But, as is well known, there is no disputing about tastes.
Those empyreumatic aromatic products of distillation, which form the rapture of the true smoker, attain, as is well known, their highest degree in the cigars of Havana. They have the same significance as the admirable, the incomparable bouquet of our best Rhine wines. Just as the Johannisberger or Bauenthaler wine when swallowed produces by its precious aroma a long-enduring impression, leaves behind a perfume in the mouth which passes very slowly away, so the smoke of a real Regalia begets a certain fulness on the tongue. The requirements of the nerves of the tongue and of the nose are satisfied in the fullest manner and degree; while with inferior wine and cigars such a fascinating sensation is sought for in vain, even though enjoyment may abound. There may be an exhilarating, but there is not a satisfying effect.
The fine Havana cigars are the richest in aroma and the poorest in nicotine of all cigars. They contain only two per cent, of nicotine, while Kentucky and Virginia cigars contain six per cent., and Maryland cigars three per cent. The home-grown cigars vary from two to ten per cent.
But many may ask how what has just been said accords with our experience. On account of their strength, we are scarcely able to smoke Havana cigars.
This objection is not lacking in truth. What we in our cigar shops purchase at from thirty to fifty pfennings as a Regalia, is, on account of its considerable quantity of nicotine, too strong. The sellers, as a rule, give as an excuse that there has been a bad crop in Cuba, and, therefore, that they cannot be held responsible for the quality of the cigars. The real cause of the fact, however, is that the good light Regalias are no longer sold in the retail shops. Every smoker who is no longer young can recall from an earlier time the circumstance that for a comparatively small sum he obtained excellent Havana cigars, while aware that these every year deteriorate in quality and rise in price. Moreover, the consumption of such cigars was formerly limited. No extraor-binary pressure was put on production, which went on calmly,
moderately, and regularly. The slightness of demand on the soil kept it from exhaustion. In the present day, however, every one wants to smoke Regalias, and the cultivation of the precious Tobacco has greatly extended. The soil is tormented and impoverished to the utmost, and strenuous efforts are made by manuring to neutralise the evil effects. Furthermore, the former care bestowed on cultivation has keenly suffered through over production, and the result of endeavours to gain the most abundant crop is an infinitely inferior quality of the article. Besides, as has been mentioned, the finer sorts of Havana cigars, on account of their high price, only get into the hands of private persons and princes.
It is undeniable that the cultivation and manufacture of Tobacco in German lands has greatly increased during the last twenty or thirty years. The effort must be to compensate at home for what has been lost abroad. We heartily wish immense success and prosperity to the growth and manufacture of home Tobaccos, already giving employment to many thousands of hands.
Tobacco is no heretic, no criminal, but a true friend, a consoler of mankind; and the pipe, when offered, is a symbol of peace and friendship.
A Thaler is equivalent to about three shillings English. In a Thaler there are thirty Silbergroschen or Neugroschen; and in one of these, according to Prussian reckoning, there are twelve Pfennige, so that an English Penny and a German Pfennig differ much from each other in value.
We have ventured to use the word char to indicate that part of a cigar which is in a state of combustion. The word char, is, of course, not new; but, so far as we are aware, it is new in this application. Its employment would avoid an unsatisfactory circumlocution.
|)ipe Cnlourtrs.
IQ.—PHIL COTTLE’S SUCCESS.
At the first glance, the ancient looking pipe lying before me in its venerable case looks like one of the good old-fashioned horse pistols our forefathers were wont to carry with them in the days of Richard Turpin, Esq. A second glance, however, at once reveals the fact that it is a weapon of peace, and not of war.
Rugged is the case, like the sturdy oak that has battled with wintry blasts, roaring hurricanes, biting sleet and snow, and burning suns for a hundred years. On the rounded pate of it is a deathsome-looking gash, inflicted possibly by some fanatical Anti who happened to catch it alone and undefended. Here and there the leather is rubbed and rough, and here and there, coming away from its frame-work, it curls up into little semblances of “dog-ears.” Right away from stem to stern, through the leather, shows a crack in its anatomy: for the wooden shell of it, by heat and cold, and being dropped and sat upon, has gone wrong. Deformity, however, though combined with a poverty-stricken appearance, cannot excite pity for it so much as love and reverence; for hath not this humble case of leather and wood through long years shielded, and been a house and hiding-place for a marvellous pipe?
Come forth, old pipe. Tenderly must I handle thee, 0 case, for many years of opening and shutting have taken the life and click out of thy catch, and lo! the door of the temple is unfastened. Clutched suddenly by the hand of rudeness, the image of beauty may fall forth and be dashed to pieces on the ground. *Twould be a sad fate, after passing so many years safely between heaven and earth, held and kissed as a fond mother holds and kisses her helpless but smiling first born.
The pipe is nearly a foot long. The bowl holds, of Tobacco not too dry, with much careful thumb and finger coaxing, so much of half an ounce that the remainder would but suffice for one pill for a small lap dog in some affliction of its puppyhood.
Joining the massive plum-coloured stem to a magnificent piece of amber, wherein clouds float but never move, is a broad silver band, marked with what appears to be a display of fireworks, a rushing of mighty waters, or a general frolic of many armorial bearings. Verily, the ways of the cunning artists who engrave the silver bands on repaired pipes are full of primitive mystery or of ingenious artfulness, which delights to hide the beautiful in the obscure.
But to the pipe, from which, as I write, an odour most marvellously indescribable goes forth. The strength of experience is in it, and also the mildness of experience; for does not age, while gathering wisdom, shed the fierceness of youthful days, tempering dignity with sweetness.
The pipe, from the bowl to the mouthpiece, is alive with figures. The hunt is up, Tally-ho! tally-ho! “ Hark forward! Hark forward! Tantivy I This day a stag must die.” There are three horses with gallant huntsmen on their backs. There are six of the rarest-bred dogs, and a couple of the nobly-antlered stags. Hear how the hunted beasts breathe hard, for sorely are they pressed. Now they are at the very edge of the shining stream, well represented by the silver belt on the pipe. Once over that, is the golden land of the amber, but that, alas! they will never reach. Each stag has a bloodthirsty hound, strong as death and cruel as the grave, tugging
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and tearing at his right ear; and, as yet, an ungripping but equally savage dog at his left side. The third hound on the left is a marvel of daring and blood. Bold Squire Witherington, “ who, when his legs were smitten off, he fought upon his stumps,” has met with more than his match in the canine world. This hound has lost his head; and yet, all forgetful of the fact that he has no teeth to grip his prey, stayeth not for a moment. Bight down to collar point has his head gone; and yet, look how superb the arch in his back 1 What vigour in his lusty thighs! while, deep down in his heroic soul, yells his ringing bark.
As a man of feeling I am glad this dog has lost his head, as the stags will have one enemy the less. Architecturally, I bemoan the loss of that important part of the hound’s animal economy, as it interferes with the perfect character of this wonderful carving.
(Bitter are all earthly joys;
Time, that beautifies, destroys."
Alas! for the ravages of time! One of my huntsmen is bald to the nose, and another to the chin. The hurricane-like velocity of the hunt has swept every horse’s ears clean into the irretrievable, and the stags have worn their tails right down to their venison.
This pipe is now mine. Old Phil Cottle recently made me a present of it, to add to my collection. Mr. Cottle is a retired grocer, a man of considerable intelligence, fond of intellectual pursuits, and one of the cheeriest companions it has ever been my lot to meet.
I had often admired the pipe I have attempted to describe; noticing that, although Cottle seldom smoked it, he often regarded it with kindness, and was very careful to see that it sustained no injury.
I was sitting one night with the old gentleman over a friendly glass of grog, in his own house. The rest of his household had retired to bed; we were smoking in silence, when Phil suddenly reached the pipe and its case from the mantel-piece, and said: “Mr. Goggs, I have at last made up my mind to give you this pipe, and to tell you at the same time something about my life at the period when it was a great comfort to me. In fact, about the time I coloured it. Some writers,” continued Cottle, “ are spoken of as ‘ a man of one book,’ (a man of one play,’ * a man of one song.’ I am a man of one pipe; it is the only pipe I have ever coloured, and I certainly am not ashamed of it. I part with it because I feel it will be safer among your treasured specimens than lying about as it does here; a fall would ruin it, and I have no heart to shut it up in a drawer, out from the kindly light of day. To me it would seem an act of cruelty to do so; but, in one of your little glass-fronted cabinets, it would not only look well, but have company in its old age, and if at times you wake its dormant soul with fire, it will do that a little good and you no harm.”
“Well, Mr. Cottle,” I said, “I can only thank you for such a treasure. I will keep it, not only for your sake, but its own.”
“I know you will, my friend,” returned Cottle; “and now, with a fresh glass each and a newly-filled churchwarden, I will commence my story, which I fear you will, perhaps, find very much simpler than you expect. I call it the ‘ Story of my Success.’ At the age of twenty I was a grocer’s assistant, smart, active, and happy; fond of intellectual recreations, and possessed with a desire to distinguish myself somehow. I was an ardent admirer of the poets, and at length ventured to send a copy of verses of my own composition to the editor of a small weekly local newspaper. I then experienced a few days of remarkable agitation. It is strange the power small things have of moving us at times under certain conditions. I dare say there were men then in confinement, waiting their trials on serious charges, that might result in heavy fines or long imprisonment, who experienced during the days of their suspense less agitation of mind than I did. Suffice it to say that my verses were accepted and printed. That little fact settled my doom. Here was the road to fame I had long been seeking. *’Tis but a small start,’ whispered my Fear; * Rivers start from rills, and rills from rain drops,’ whispered Hope; ‘ and the mighty king who rules millions was once a weak infant, that the touch of a feeble finger could have destroyed.’ Goggs, you think I was a fool. So do I now; we agree. Give me your hand; drink.”
“Surely,” said I, “you did not throw up a certain living for such a vain hope as that.”
“Ah!” replied Cottle, with a smile illuming his cheery countenance till his face, amid the Tobacco smoker, looked like the sun breaking through frightened clouds, “the soul of the young man, in a fiercely poetical mood, is not to be bound down by the prosaical leather thongs of common sense. I grew so abstracted, and asked and answered questions in such ridiculous fashion, that my employer said he thought we had better separate. He gave me a pretty broad hint that his opinion was I might succeed in a lunatic asylum as a patient, but I treated him to a melo-dramatic glare that frightened him, and so departed.”
“How did you get on then?” I inquired.
“By this time,” continued old Phil, “I had a goodly pile of manuscript by me: songs, sonnets, poems, and a five-act tragedy; for, between my first venture in the 'Local’ and my exit from the grocery, some ten months had elapsed.”
“Did you continue to honour the ‘Local’ with poems,” I inquired.
“No,” said Cottle, with a huge laugh. “I was such an
intense fool that I reasoned this way: If that editor was so glad to snatch at my first piece, my later pieces must be worth something, and my intention was to astonish the world with a volume, and fill my pockets at the same time.
“ As I had saved, during my career as a grocer, some thirty pounds, I determined to come to London at once, and so I came. I took two rooms in a poorish but respectable locality, for ten shillings per week; one was for a bedroom, the other for a study.”
“ To show you how thorough I was in my character as a fool, the second day I was in London I bought this pipe. I pictured myself as one of the huntsmen after the stags: one was Fame and the other Happiness. The price of the pipe was high, and my heart somewhat misgave me as I threw the ten golden sovereigns down on the counter; but Hope was crying ‘The stags are in view; ride on and capture them.’ The poetic dream was on, and Folly had me by the nose.
“ Within a few days I had found out the chief publishers in London, and began to worry them. I then felt a little like realising what Vulcan’s fall from Heaven was. I felt also that I could slightly enter into the feelings of Ixion.
“ Several publishers would bring out my book in exactly the style I should like to see it, at whatever price I chose to put on it, but this must be at my own expense. The prices given me varied from a hundred to a hundred and fifty poud&s. It took me a couple of months to obtain all this information; I was then in possession of about ten pounds.
tji Jfatt o' ®>m.
T h a terrible tale o’Dunean MThee, Anauld-faahion-ed laird o’the last centurie, Wi’ an awfu’ braid bannet, and a nose like a neep, It took a sma’ fortune, I tell ye, to keep.
He biggit a hoose on the tap o’ a tree;
Fifty feet up on the tap o’ a tree,
No very big, just a butt and a ben, For Duncan MThee warns prood, ye maun ken.
Filled the one room wi’ whuskey and the other wi’ snuff,
“ In this world,” said Duncan, “ folks maun hae enough. Noo, wi’ pipe and good sneeshin’ she’ll sit at her door, She’ll drinkit a much, but she’ll smokit a more, And end her auld days in peace and galore” While he stuck to his word, nane sae happy as he, In his cosy bit bield at the tap o’ the tree;
The winds saftly sang and rocked him to sleep, And the sun’s parting rays glinted red on his neep;
To see him sae blithe, sae jolly and canty, Would have gladdened the heart of a cold-blooded anti But wae is my sang, och! dool on the day!
’Twas the drinkin’ o’ Duncan that saddened my lay.
Ye canna but own, ’tie a sorrowfu’ sicht, To see an auld man—drunk, mornin* and nicht.
’Twas that way wi’ Duncan, he got fearfully fuddled. Ne'er a puff could he smoke, so sair was he muddled; When he lichted a match, though he stared like an owl, Deil a haet could he do, but warm the bowl..
Syne he drappit his snuff-mull, then swore at the flies, Then d—d the auld sun, ’cause it dazzled his eyes.
E’en the craws crooded roon, but they didna respeck him, But glowered as if, for twa straws, they’d peck him.
And the vera bit squirrels, as they perched in the tree, Cockit their tailies, and lauched at M'Phee.
Such a sad state o’ matters couldna lang last, Nae smoking at a’! and drinkin’ sae fast!! One room gettin’ lichter, the house ’gan to reel, But Duncan continued to drink, like the deil. He swigged it in pints, and he swigged it in gallons, Till one windy nicht—Lord! the hoose lost its balance, And down it cam, hurlin’, wi’ a sound like the sea, And lay all in ruins at the foot o’ the tree;
Ah! that was the end o’ poor Duncan MThee. Was it no awfu’ sudden, the fate o’ MThee?
Gordon Stables.
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204	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[July, 1878.
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Obacto Smuggling in tire ^ast (generation.
IV.
Oub next witness is Mr. H. N. Davis, for more than 25 years active partner in the great firm of Tobacco Brokers, G. and H. Davis and Co., of Fenchurch Street, the oldest firm in London, established then 150 years, and paying about 1| out of the 3| millions revenue, including what they sent under bond to their friends. This gentleman, it will be seen, introduces our harmonious gamut of smuggling witnesses, A. to G., to the favourable consideration of the Select Committee. He believed that from 20 to 25 million lbs. escaped duty annnally. Thus he testifies as to smuggling:—There are a great many facts which have come to my knowledge lately, which I cannot prove in evidence; others I can prove. I will first read some statements I have obtained, then relate others which parties shall come forward to confirm; on the under* standing that names mentioned be kept from the public. The first of all may be named, having shot himself (this is oar poor friend Mr. Black, of Belfast.) “ He was in the habit of making one voyage regularly from Holland every two months, and each time he brought about 40,000 lbs. He has done this for the last four years, during which period he only lost three cargoes, seized in consequence of information. The loss to the revenue by this one party per annum was about £65,000, or in all £260,000. These transactions were confined to Ireland and Scotland. For services rendered to this party by a person in the North of England, the boat was occasionally lent to him, and he made many successful runs into Newcastle and Sunderland/’ Here is another letter from a person known well, dated last month; it says: “ Your friend-has made a fortune by smuggling;----------------------of-, who was once convicted, has also made a deal of money; and poor Black, who shot himself [quite unnecessarily, it will be remembered] was largely concerned in it. His last venture was landed at Tor Head, where he got up a country wedding, and had the waterguard invited, and landed all; part of it was seized afterwards on the road to-------------------------------. In short, I do not know one person in the trade in Ireland, except (three named in the letter) and myself, who have not been engaged in it; Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford, Derry, Belfast, and Newry, all alike.” I have another letter from a person in Ireland, who, if he would come forward, could account for as much [smuggled] as the amount of duty-paid Tobacco in Ireland; he has made a large fortune. He doesn’t want his name known, or writing shown; and says: “I am aware that a considerable quantity is introduced, and, while the present high duty is maintained, will continue to be introduced, in spite of all that Government can do to prevent it. In Ireland, the water-guard establishment, although maintained at a great expense to the country, has been found in a great measure ineffectual for prevention; indeed, to my own knowledge, they do not by any means form the greatest obstacle to those endeavouring to introduce the article without the payment of duty, otherwise much more would have been introduced than has been.” (Unfortunately there is no indication of the greatest obstacle or obstacles.) I know a party who pays duty on about 12,000 lbs., or 10
I hogsheads per annum; and he sells more than any other person in the place; and yet his neighbour pays on 70,000 lbs., and he is also supposed to smuggle to a great extent. Here is a London case: “A. called on B. and offered to bring home to his house six cases of Manilla cheroots, weighing each 144 lbs. in bond, on B. paying £200. B. declined this, fearing to lose the cheroots; on which A. proposed that if B. would pay £240, A. would guarantee the safe delivery, and deposit
£300 3 per cent, stock with B. to hold as collateral security for the safe delivery, which was done. Various operations upon this plan, amounting to 30 cases within seven months by one party, London.” Loss to revenue £2090. In these instances the officer on board was bribed from £20 to £50, according to quantity.	. .
Here are some more transactions, all within the last twelvemonth. A. called on B. and offered his services and boat to bring to London any quantity from two to five tons of leaf from any port in Holland or Belgium, for £100, taking all risk upon himself. B. immediately shipped to Holland four hogsheads weighing 46 cwt., and two serons weighing 3 cwt., which A. followed with his boat, and brought back the 49 cwt. in small bales concealed under fish, and the bales were landed in Deptford Creek, and put into a covered or tilted cart, and brought into the City, and delivered quite safe. Loss to the revenue about £800. The next case concerns the same parties. A. on his return from Ostend, on one of his voyages (for £100), was overtaken by a gale of wind, lost a man overboard, and in distress put into Leigh, Essex; in the night, and with the assistance of the fishermen there, landed all his Tobacco, about 60 cwt., which was taken from there to Rochford on the fishermen’s backs, they giving every assistance to the smuggler. At Rochford it was repacked into casks, containing about 3 cwt. each, and brought by the regular carriers to London, and all delivered safe. The carriers were ignorant of the contents. The loss to the revenue was about £1100. After this transaction was concluded, A. fancied that Leigh was a capital place to run a cargo of Tobacco into at any future time, and he did so again and again, say four or five times. Ultimately he lost part of a cargo near there after it was landed, consequently he abandoned that place; the loss to the revenue I, of course, do not know. Of the next case I am informed by B., who will confirm my evidence, and whose word I have every reason to trust. One party of three principals has three boats, one good seaman and two strong boys, hatch-boats, with which three or four voyages are made per month. These principals are very seldom seen in any transactions here; one is generally abroad as buyer or pacaer, and the others are lookers out and storers here. They can go over to Rotterdam and buy 20 tons, all ready packed in bales of 50 lbs., and seldom bring less than 70 cwt. It will not do to bring Tobacco only; they must bring fish or something else to cover it. These boats, when not on a smuggling trip, appear to be regularly engaged in the fish trade off Margate or elsewhere. The names of the boats are constantly changed, and so also are the boats; these always make more sail when they have no Tobacco on board and are near the Customs stations. When they have Tobacco on board they have only the mainsail set to excite less suspicion. This company very often land their Tobacco at Barking and Deptford Creek. They succeeded in running the following quantities last year, 1843:—200 packages a month, of 50 lbs. each; say 10 voyages during the year instead of 12, that makes 2000 packages, 50 lbs. each, 100,000 lbs.; 15,000 lbs. were seized or lost; 85,000 lbs. were saved, delivered, and paid for in London; loss to the revenue about £13,400. B. was told this result by one of the smugglers interested, and has no doubt that even much more was done, as they offered to sell him 5000 lbs. a week; he believes that the 85,000 lbs. was sold to as few as four or five persons. Another party of smugglers adopt the following plan very generally: these are in smacks; a vessel brings a cargo of red herrings in barrels; one half, or 150 barrels, contain herrings, and the other 150 Tobacco, to the extent of 100 lbs. each, which are landed at Billingsgate; a few barrels are opened in the
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206	’	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[August, 1878.	
presence of the salesman, and the agent of the smugglers is the buyer, and then the Tobacco barrels are put into one cart and the herrings into another. One transaction took place on a Saturday afternoon about five o'clock, consisting of 15 tons landed and sold *, loss to the revenue £4500 [£5320 at 8s. 2d. per lb.] at one time; say £3000 a week, which B. reckons is done, that will be £150,000 a year lost to the revenue through that one party. The red herrings appear to be brought from Yarmouth; but the smuggling is done by coasters, which meet other ships at sea. The next is the steamboat smuggling into London: the Tobacco is packed in small square parcels of about 5 lbs. each, covered with bladder, and cemented, to be waterproof; perhaps 60 packages are brought at a time; they are made into one large one, and stitched up in tarpauling; when in the river this is thrown overboard below Gravesend, with a float or cork; when the steamer has passed on (the captain ignorant of the transaction), a boat on the look-out goes and tows the package ashore; then the large bale is undone, and the smaller parcels repacked into a more convenient shape, and brought to London by the carriers (who are generally ignorant of the contents), and taken to the inn where the smuggler is in attendance to receive. B. will confirm all this. 0., the next person I will call, from Guernsey, transhipped off the Nore into a billyboy about 15 or 16 tons of Tobacco in large cakes, or flakes, equal to about 30 or 32 hogsheads, which are always landed at one wharf below Blackwall, taken expressly for that purpose; 15 runs were made during 1843, and in the same proportion in part of 1842. This Tobacco was occasionally taken into London manufactories in original hogsheads, and he believes with a permit, and sometimes it was packed into boxes or cases and conveyed there. This wharf was the depot until the Tobacco was sold. The result was this: 15 times 16 tons, 240 tons or 480 hogsheads of the usual weight, at £150 per hogshead duty (that is the rough amount of duty per hogshead); the loss to the revenue amounts to £72,000. The same party knows a man who, after having sold bales of smuggled Tobacco, goes round with a cart and delivers them. He has seen two tons of stalks at one time in a manufactory in London, which he knew to be smuggled, and in another place 3000 lbs. of cheroots; loss to the revenue about £1950. Cheroots are subject to 9s. duty [pearly 9s. 6d., with the 5 per cent.], but duty is scarcely ever paid upon this description of cheroots. This C. also states that baskets are brought with poultry; the bottom of the baskets made of Tobacco stalks, plaited like wicker, and the coils fastened with twine, and nailed to the stretchers across the bottom of the baskets, which are seven feet long and two feet four inches wide; he knows of 6 to 8 cwt. per week in this way for upwards of 12 months; loss to the revenue, £6000. In the bottom part of the baskets the Tobacco stalks are coiled round and made to resemble wickerwork ; poultry are brought in them. This was last year, and has been going on to some extent for a very long while. The same C. knows of cheroots and cigars to the extent of one ton and upwards per week for more than a year, packed as merchandise, in casks, with knives at the top, to resemble hardware, and sometimes with cheeses; loss to the revenue, at 9fl. duty, £52,000. He also states that between Blackwall and Hungerford Tobacco is introduced packed in large cases, which carried out machinery, and in casks with broken glass at the top. These packages are kept on the ship’s deck till they are landed at the wharf, where they are left till called for. This is all to be confirmed by C.; and I dare say these gentlemen can tell a little more if they feel inclined. Now I will take Hull, on the information of D. A billyboy of Hull left there under pretence of fetching ballast from Spurn Point, but went to Brouwershaven, Holland, and brought back 140 bales of 60 lbs. each, 8000 to 9000 lbs. weight of Tobacco and stalks, and landed them at a wharf in the Humber, and they were stored in a warehouse close to it. The stalks were taken out and packed in sugar hogsheads, and the leaf then packed into smaller casks. A part of the leaf and stalks was sent by a regular trader to	, a part of the leaf to a manufacturer in	, and a part of the stalks came to this D. Most of these cases have occurred within the last twelvemonth.—A fishing vessel belonging to Faver-sham brought from Brouwershaven 140 bales, or 7000 to 8000 lbs. weight of Tobacco and stalks; came into the Humber, and passed the Revenue cutter always stationed there, and transhipped the larger part into the billyboy above referred to, which landed them at the wharf above referred to, in High Street, in open day; the remainder, 3000 lbs., was seized by information. This Tobacco and stalks went to 	by coasters and carriers. Another vessel from Faversham brought from Brouwershaven 130 bales of Tobacco and stalks, 50 and 60 lbs. each, including some Cut; it was landed two miles below Hull, taken in carts, not concealed, to	, and deposited at a carrier’s (now in gaol in York Castle), who brought a part of the Tobacco and stalks to me; two bales were in a sack, and some were in hampers with potatoes at the top: the Cut or Shag was brought to me by a truck-man of 	, packed in hampers: all saved. Another trip by the same vessel: came into the Humber in a snowstorm, with 100 bales Cut and stalks; lay alongside the “Greyhound” or . “Lapwing” Revenue cutter, near Grimsby, for a whole day, and could speak to each other; the Tobacco was not concealed. In the morning landed all at Stone Creek, and put it into premises close by; thence it was carried in bags or sacks by	cart to a certain place, and thence by a truck-man to me [always D.] I kept the Cut and sent [some of] the stalks to a manufacturer at Sheffield, and the rest to a London manufacturer. The same vessel, with another captain, brought 5000 lbs. to the same place, which was sold to the same parties. These five transactions were by one party, and the result was this: 35,000 lbs. run, 5000 lbs. seized, 30,000 lbs. saved; loss to the revenue £4500.—The next is a case of smuggling by another party: on the Holderness coast 25,000 lbs. was landed from one vessel. D. bought 12,000 lbs. of it himself, the rest was sold in Leeds and Huddersfield; loss to the revenue, £3750. I cannot tell whether there was any collusion between the officers of the Revenue cutter and the smuggler.—D. also knows a manufacturer who within the last two years has taken in 120,000 lbs. of smuggled stalks and Tobacco, which is more than as much again as he has paid duty on for that time; total loss to revenue, £18,000, or £9000 per annum. This has been from Flushing. Also another party: a vessel coastwise from London, landed a large quantity in the Old Harbour, High Street [Hull]. The Leaf had been sold when D. was applied to, but he sold for the party the remaining quantity of Cut to a person in Hull for a commission.—Another case with yet another party, which will also be confirmed by D., who says in a letter to me dated a week ago: “A smuggler, now a rich man, living at	>, to whom the Tobacco belonged that was seized on its way to Leeds, packed in returned machinery cases, told me he had run the same quantity a short time before, and had 30,000 lbs. lying at Flushing ready to come, had not the seizure referred to been made. I know that party has received a large quantity since, as I know it passed through the same carrier’s hands, who told me it belonged to him (the smuggler). I have bought of this man. Every foreign vessel brings some Tobacco into the port of Hull. Tobacco is landed, concealed under the ashes and cinders from steamboats.” Again: “A smuggler, from whom I now have a letter offering to sell me Tobacco, informs me he can get any quantity landed. Fishing-boats meet large vessels at sea, both Dutch and English, which have large quantities secreted in their cargoes. There is generally on board from’this country a man, called a ‘ spotsman,’ who knows the coast well, and steers the vessel to a certain point, where the boats are told to expect them, say Flamborough Lighthouse; if it be dark, there is a watchword; in case they miss them, the ship goes to Sunderland or Shields, where a steamer is engaged under pretence of towing her into the harbour; the Tobacco is transhipped into the steam tug, by which it is landed. I know a man who is now gone to Rotterdam to conduct a ship, the ‘ Stirling Hill,’ to the point where the boats are to meet her; she will have 200 bales, or 10,000 lbs. If this goes right, the vessel will make one voyage per month. She was bought for the purpose, and I know the owners; one lives in Newcastle, and the other in Rotterdam.” This vessel passed Scarborough Castle on Sunday week, at seven o’clock. Information was given to the Customs, to the Excise, and to the blockade; she was still sailing on on Sunday week. I will read the letter, dated just a week since, the 19th April: “ I do not know whether the smuggling vessel has been captured or not, but I gave her name in to the Custom-house at Scarborough, and went and told them she passed close to the Castle on Sunday evening last, about seven o’clock; I saw her myself. It appears she could not land the goods at Scarborough, but would attempt to do so at Tynemouth Castle, in a steamboat. The vessel was a Scotch, not a Dutch one; her name is the 1 Stirling Hill,’ and had between three and four tons on board. Another quantity is to follow in three weeks, and to be continued all the summer in case they are not stopped.” I have another letter on the same subject, received yesterday, dated the 24th: “I have no letter yet informing me of the fate of the * Stirling Hill,’ whether she be taken, or the goods yet landed; I no doubt shall soon know, as a person is looking after her, and is sure to send me full particulars. I am of opinion that the coastguard are of very little use, or they might have taken the ‘ Stirling Hill’ with the greatest ease off Scarborough. I gave in writing her name, her size, and her rig, and afterwards went and told the Customs she had just passed Scarborough‘Castle; and yet they did not man a boat and take her, but I believe waited to see what would come on shore during the night.” Mr. H. N. Davis was not examined further about tins “ Stirling Hill,” nor is there any further reference to her in the Index. But, looking through the evidence of D. himself, given just a week later, we find that he was examined in some detail on the same subject, though the name of the vessel and the names of some of the places concerned (as well as those of all the persons) are somewhat stupidly concealed, after the most important have been plainly printed in the preceding evidence, enough are printed in this to enable all interested to identify the others. The following is D.’s evidence on this matter:—I went to	, with the intention of giving information, but I did not know the name of the vessel before I got to — -; and I found there the man who was waiting her coming; and I also informed the Collector of Excise at	, that that was the place where it was going to be landed, and how it was going to be deposited, and who was going to have it. When I got to 	, I could not find my man on the same evening, the Thursday, but on the Friday morning I found him, and he told me she had been in the previous night, in a small bay about two miles north. They
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wanted 4° ^e th® Tobacco out; but the fishing-boat that went ou* *° ta^e “d ^^ *t w©nt too far out, and missed the 	 /•* Stirling Hill”), which was too near the cliff; the very high and black there; the vessel was outside, and they co^ not 866 h®** Consequently, after lying there till twelve o’clock, she went out to sea; the fishing-boat then righted hw, but she was too far off to be overtaken; and after that sir® went * good many miles out to sea, and came in .gain on Friday night, but it was rather rainy, and dark and J^nny, and the fishing-boat did not like to go out. So nothing wa8 done that night, and she went up to Robin Hood 0*y» towards Whitby, and landed the man (the “ spots-jnan”) ^ho had gone to Rotterdam to pilot her back to the appoint^ place. None of the cargo was landed on these two Site. The pilot thought they could not have known the rignal o» shore, otherwise they would have put out; that is why he got landed, and walked to	on the sea coast, a few miles from Robin Hood Bay; and I saw him in the afternoon, he told me that he had promised to take the boat out, with his brother and another man, that night, Saturday, and take the Tobacco on shore at this place. I was with him and gm fishermen that night, and when I left they promised to go; but it appeared to be rather stormy, and they said they durst not venture. On the Sunday morning I went down to see if they had got anything landed, as I expected they would. The vessel was not then in sight, and they had heard nothing other; they thought of taking a boat to look for her, but shortly afterwards she made her appearance, and went down southwards to Filey Bay. But before that I went to Mr. 	, who proved to be not the Collector himself, but his son; however, he said he was in the Custom-house, and would do as well. 1 gave him all information, including the name of the vessel, which I had learnt that Sunday morning, and gave him instructions how to take her. He said he would go to his father, and they would use every possible means to secure her; and J fully expected they would have her some time that day. But when I found that nothing at all was done, I went down to the sand-side, and went into a house, and sat in a window there with a glass; and	, who was sitting there, said, “That is the vessel; she has gone into Filey Bay, and will soon come out, and you will very likely see her taken and brought in here.” I sat there all the afternoon, and saw her come out of the bay, and the two fishermen came in while I was sitting there, and said, “ She is coming very nicely; they have been watching for her from the Castle Hill; she will be at the spot exactly in time.” We waited till after dark, about eight o’clock, and I called upon Mr.	again, and said, “Now, this vessel has just passed the Castle about seven o’clock, and you will have very little difficulty in taking her.” He said he would take every necessary step, and I fully expected that she would be captured and brought in the next morning, and I took no further notice then; but we could not get the men to go out; they thought the Customhouse officers in the harbour were watching them, because one of those men had been away for three weeks or a month, and they had a suspicion that he had been somewhere and had landed those goods, and they durst not go. I stayed there till Tuesday. The vessel has not been taken; she has gone to Scotland. I have had a letter from the captain, in in which he says he has thrown the goods overboard, to his sorrow; he was to have £100 if he landed the goods all right, and he lost that. I proposed no condition to the Customhouse for the information. Whatever reward should come to the informer for the seizure, I stipulated to give 	 [apparently the spotsman, turned traitor], who gave me the name of the vessel; I informed in another name, so that he could have received it. Returning to Mr. Davis, he continues with the letter from D. received the day before: “I understand a large quantity of Tobacco was seized yesterday on board one of the Hamburg steamers; it was packed in bales of wool; sometimes it comes packed in old rags, other times in apples (or apples on the top), besides many ways I can tell you of when I see you. I know all this from the smugglers themselves, and I believe an immense quantity is landed here (Hull) every week in disguise; within the last few days I have been told by some parties they can get almost any quantity, and I have really no doubt whatever of it.” Again D. says: “ One of the parties I now allude to is connected with so many smuggling transactions with which I have had nothing to do, that I cannot speak to facts, but he has assured me he has landed as many as 600 or 700 bales at one time, and that he has run as many as four cargoes in three months, consisting of 300 or 400 bales each, and they were landed in the neighbourhood of Scarborough, and all saved, except a few bales that were scattered on the beach or cliff.” D. also states that two steam packets arrive regularly from Hamburg and Rotterdam, and that by each at least 2000 lbs., packed in bales, inside of casks, covered over with apples, is landed and taken to three manufacturers, and thence the remainder is forwarded to Leeds; the duty is paid upon the apples by an agent. Here is a letter from the Mayor at Hull, stating that on Monday last a spurious Tobacco manufactory was discovered at Hull; do you know anything of that? That is the engine alluded to, and which has been seized. This is an article made from beech leaves, and sold at Is. 6d. to the dealers, for mixing (producing the same); here are some of the dried beech leaves from which it is made (producing); and here it is as pressed before it is cut (producing); and the engine which cuts this	has cut Tobacco also. The seizure took place at Hull of an engine belonging to a party named Wharton, which was employed in cutting beech leaves to imitate Tobacco, and the refuse in imitation of snuff; the seizure was made by the Excise in consequence of information given in my presence. Here is an extract from a letter dated a week ago: “I have seen the young man	several times since they were detected, they do not appear to suspect me at all; one of them has just been over to say there is a new engine making ready, and expects will be working in about three weeks, and he will supply me with as much as I think proper; he says he can make a profit of between £3000 and £4000 a year by it [dried beech leaves at Is. 6d. per lb.!] He also says a person is in Hamburg at present, and sending large quantities of smuggled Tobacco over in a very ingenious way, and which I can tell the Committee if called upon to do so.” Unfortunately it does not appear that the Committee examined D. upon this point, so the very ingenious way is lost to us; nor can I find any further reference to the undaunted Wharton and his new engine. SlOVAT. ®^ ®taal Smohr. There are smokers and smokers, as we all know. Some can smoke almost incessantly, and seem all the better for it; others smoke with exemplary moderation, yet their moderation does not keep them from feeling uncomfortable every time they put the beloved pipe or the beloved cigar to their lips. Here, as in all things, the “individuality of the individual” must hold sway, and be loyally recognised. Paul the Apostle was not a smoker, though, doubtless, Tobacco would have been a great comfort to him in his travels and tribulations. But he gave the philosophy and the justification of smoking when he declared that meats and drinks, and, therefore, all physical enjoyment, must obey no other law than the tastes and requirements of the individual; and that herein one man should not presume to be the judge of another. The Anti-Tobaccoites who pretend to be Christians by excellence, should take Paul the Apostle’s words to heart. Abridging, and afterwards commenting on an interesting article which lately appeared in the Gartenlaube, we introduce our readers to a man of whom most of them, perhaps, have never heard, but who is very famous in Germany. He is notable, as will be seen, in many different departments, and in many different directions; and he is attractive to all valiant Nicotians from the fact that he smokes without ceasing, and that, nevertheless, at the age of nearly seventy-five he has a grand and unexhausted vigour. It would not be easy to find another man who, though occupied with the most earnest scientific investigations, has retained to very advanced years such freshness and fulness of life as Professor Franz Von Kobell, of Munich. True it is that his hair is somewhat white, and that his gait is somewhat slow; yet he may often be seen marching with a stalwart step through the streets. His glance is, perchance, a little more serious than it once was, but the moment we enter into conversation with him, his countenance glows with the most cordial benevolence, the serenest cheerfulness, the keenest relish of jocularity. His humour, which is entirely of the South German type, is so exuberant, so playful, so free from guile and gall, that it makes us forget the deep source from which it flows. Long acquaintance with his poetical productions is needed to discover their hidden ethical intent and substance. Even they whose companionship with Kobell is intimate and incessant, are inclined to ask whether it is possible that the investigator and inventor in the domain of mineralogy and chemistry, famous in the whole scientific world, the popular mineralogical writer, the geologist so rich in phantasy and in poetical splendour, who received Alexander Humboldt’s genuine and generous admiration, is the same person as the sportsman and describer of sports, as the lyrical poet, as the author of the most jovial comedies written for the people, and of songs no less jovial and popular; as the popular epic poet, the popular prose fabulant, the most charming narrator, known far and wide, whether he chooses the hard Upper Bavarian dialect or the ductile Palatine dialect. We have further to consider that Kobell is an indefatigable sportsman, especially in the high mountain ranges, that he has shot not less than two hundred and forty-four chamois, that he is always disposed and ready for social pleasures, that he has an incomparable social talent, that he never fails to bring an abundant supply of jest and jollity to every social gathering; so that the man in the woollen jacket, and with the cigar for ever in his mouth, may be regarded as the completest, most characteristic living representative of the city of Munich. Francis Von Kobell was born at Munich, on the 19th July, 1803. His father, who was likewise called Francis Von Kobell, came from Mannheim, and was Ministerial Secretary; his mother, a native of Munich, was a Fraulein Von Burger. In his twentieth year (1823) the Son Francis received his first appointment as assistant in the Conservatory of the mineralogical collections of the State, and afterwards rose to be Conservator. In his twenty-third year he was appointed extraordinary, and, eight years later, ordinary Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Munich. The Bavarian
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Academy of Sciences elected him, in 1827, an extraordinary, and, in 1842, an ordinary member.
In order to draw nearer to an individuality so excellent, so opulent in life, let us enter Kobell’s abode. If it is true that in Kobell’s case the dress shows the man, the abode shows it still more. How very plain and unpretending is the apartment, which is both sitting-room and study, though richly furnished with gifts and tokens of love and of thankful reverence! The photographs without number, sent by affectionate hands, and of every kind, from the gravest to the gayest, are simply nailed to doors and walls. A prominent place take the sketches, unsurpassed for wit and humour, of Count Francis Pocci, who is not merely Kobell’s intimate friend, but bound to him by many bonds of congeniality. A pair of small landscapes in oil colours have alone succeeded in rising to the dignity of gold frames. Nevertheless, Kobell’s tastes as a sportsman are represented in all their glory. In one corner hangs a magnificent array of guns, and not far therefrom is the only oil picture to be found in the apartment, which brings before us a mighty Nimrod, the grandfather of Kobell. The whole side of one wall is covered with the horns of the animals slain by Kobell; on the other wall stand on two shelves, and solemnly side by side, goblets and bowls of portly dimensions. The best place in the whole chamber, however, both for light and in other respects, is occupied by the massive writing table, on which there are two stands for books. Opposite is a huge case for minerals, books, and manuscripts. Everywhere there is order; but everywhere, also, there is the most unadorned simplicity. From on high above the case looks down upon us the head of a beautiful hunting dog, an example of and a testimony to that invention of Kobell whose incalculable value as an instrument of multiplication in the pictorial art had to yield to a newer invention, photography. We mean galvanography. For comfort there is very slender provision in the chamber. Canebottom chairs, with high, straight backs, are the only seats offered. The sofa remains unused. One luxury only strikes the eye. On the window-sill are pots containing flowers and plants. And now let us enter the neighbouring chamber, the bed-chamber. The simplest bed in the world, with a muslin coverlet; two large clothes’ presses; that is nearly all which the plain chamber offers. The walls are without any ornament whatever. In short, we get the overpowering impression that we are in the abode of a profound and earnest student.
In the adjoining apartments of Kobell’s amiable and accomplished wife Caroline, who has, like him, great freshness and vigour of nature, there is rather more attention to comfort. But even in them is lacking that refined luxury of modern times, which the young generation regards as an indispensable necessity.
Wife and husband, each in a particular fashion, are at the very first glance as simple in their manner, when addressing stranger or friend, as the aspect of their abode is. Not long ago Kobell celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of receiving his doctor’s degree. There was something deeply touching to me in hearing both wife and husband picturing the surprise, and expressing the keenly-felt thankfulness, occasioned by the accumulated proofs of regard, of recognition, and of reverence shown. They were moved, above aU, by the fact that King Louis had invited to the Court table the “simple Professor” along with the highest official dignitaries.
Among numerous congratulations were those from his Alma Mater, Erlangen; from the University of Munich, from the Munich Academy of Sciences, from other learned bodies, and from poets such as Scheffel and Bodenstedt.
Merely to name, without characterising, Kobell’s crystallographies! and crystalloptical treatises and mineralogical productions, would be an arid task. One of the most important is his “History of Mineralogy,” published in 1864. The stauroscope, which he invented in 1855, he has himself described. In honour of Kobell, a mineral has been called Kobellite.
Among Kobell’s poetical productions is a didactic poem on the “Primaeval Earth.” It is praised for combining in a marvellous way poetical fire and richness of scientific illustration.
In 1843 Kobell published, along with his friend Pooci as illustrator, “Old and New Hunting Songs, with Plates and Music.” As a supplement to this may be regarded “ Sketches from the Domain of Sport and from its History.”
What, however, has given Kobell’s renown the widest resonance and the most permanent foundation, is his popular poetry. In it he treats every variety of subject, in every variety of style, and with every variety of merit. It is a pity, perhaps that Kobell, who is regarded as one of the most original poets of the nineteenth century should depend for his fame on poems written in provincial dialects. Everywhere provincial dialects, through the influence of railroads, newspapers, and other things, are dying out. Far fewer Scotsmen read Burns than fifty years ago. And how little educated Englishmen understand Scotch is seen by the horrible jargon which Kingsley puts into the mouth of Sandy Mackaye. The north-east country Scotch met with in the novels of George Macdonald is, to natives of the south-west of Scotland, totally unintelligible. The Rev. Mr. Barnes has some volumes of poems in the Dorset dialect, which are said to display very great talent; but who will take the trouble to study the Dorset
dialect for the sake of those poems? However, Kobell may have been induced to write in provincial dialects from the glow and the flow of geniality as much as from the impulse of genius. There is a heartiness, along with a homeliness, in provincial dialects wholly lacking in languages with pretensions to classical perfection. Hence Kobell, as a spontaneously social man, as a sportsman, as an “ eternal smoker,” may have found in provincial dialects something intensely harmonising with his convivial, his Nimrodian, his Nicotian dispositions and habits. Kobell cannot consume Tobacco at such a colossal rate without having written, jestingly or seriously, in praise of it. But it would cost us more time and study than we can spare to ascertain whether he has celebrated his Nicotian achievements as vigorously and eloquently as his hunting feats.
German snobbery is more abject than all other snobbery. Indeed, taken at his best, the German animal is not a noble animal. He is a coarse feeder, and brutally selfish in all his ways. What is Bismarckism, which is often so foolishly lauded, but selfishness in its most brutal form? Our “eternal smoker” and our “eternal smoker’s” wife do not seem to be free from snobbery, if Kobell’s snobbish historian is to be trusted. If a man, however exalted his social dignity, invites me to his table, he puts me for the time on a footing of equality, and only on that condition should I accept his invitation. If a “simple professor” is so unspeakably flattered by being placed beside high official dignitaries at a king’s table, he had better stay at home, eat a plain dinner with his wife, and then quietly smoke his cigar. Possibly, however, the snobbish historian has misrepresented the “ simple professor,” who, probably, did not regard the invitation to the king’s table as more than a mark of deserved respect. Higher than all kings is he who has genius, valour, knowledge, wisdom, fame; and who, with the'everlasting cigar in his mouth, hunts chamois on the mountains.
|ij^ at lotoan ^rn Castle,
vn.—THE WANDERER’S RETURN. ADVENTURE IN SEARCH OF A QUID.
“Pelham!” roared Roddy.
“Pelham!” cried I. “Pelham, by all that’s peculiar.” And we both rushed down to the gate to meet him.
It was a lovely day in summer, and just about the middle of the day. It was a trifle too hot, however, to go fishing; either that, or my friend and I felt lazy, and felt, too, that we could enjoy existence better, for the time being, lolling in our little tent on the lawn, smoking cigarettes, sipping sherbet, and skimming dreamily over the monthlies.
And there stood this apparition, Pelham, pipe in hand, leaning over the gate; but when, I wonder, did ever apparition look so jolly and rosy as he? and when did ever apparition smile as Pelham smiled? He had some cause to smile, too, for, in some foreign station or other, he had done something that entitled him to his promotion, entitled him to be dubbed Captain Peter Pelham, of her Majesty’s Royal Navy.
Our greetings were joyous as carol of lark, or hunter’s horn.
Pelham, honest fellow, sailor-like, was pleased with all our arrangements, and admired everything we showed him, Nellie and the dogs included.
“ And now,” said I, when we had once .more reached the lawn and got seated under canvas, “let us fill a glass to welcome you home, for, behold, the sun is already over the fore-yard.”
“And ain’t I precious glad, just,” said Pelham, “I found you at home.”
“And ain’t I precious glad,” said Roddy, “we weren’t out.”
“And ain’t I precious glad,” said I, “that that haunch of Welsh mutton is already half done. Thank Providence, Pelham, my boy, you won’t starve; so bear a hand now, and tell us your adventures till dinner-time.”
We were a merry party that day, you may rest assured, and the time sped so quickly that it was sundown before we knew where we were. Then we gathered in the cool verandah to smoke our evening weed, and Pelham told us the following story, which he styled—
AN ADVENTURE IN SEARCH OF A QUID.
It might just as well be called “A Night of Adventures in Search of a Quid,” said Pelham, for, from the very time Dawson and I shoved off in the dingy boat, until we set foot again on Her Majesty’s quarter-deck, with the ’Baccy, it was all adventure together. Our ship was the saucy “ Sea Mew,” only a gunboat, to be sure, but a most bewitching little thing all over; lay like a duck in the water, and on a wind nothing could touch her. Our cruising ground was the east coast of Africa, well north, where the fighting dhows floated in the water, and the savage Somalis on shore speared each other, when they hadn’t any white men to practise on. We never provoked a fight, but when we did show our teeth, and that wasn’t seldom, we peppered away in good earnest I assure you. Now, in such a ship in such a climate, we might have been as happy as the day was long, but we had just one drawback to general jollity. Our- skipper was the devil.
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That’s putting it plain and straight, but I’ve no other English • r tf Be was one of your sea lawyers, and lawed it and lorded it over his officers. No matter whether a thing was done rightly or wrongly, you got growled at all the same. There wasn’t an officer he hadn’t been at loggerheads with, ^j talked to windward of, too; and there wasn’t a man forward he had not punished during the cruise. We had a yjunlar flogging Friday, a most unlucky day for many a poor fellow on hoard the “Sea Mew.” There was, therefore, no love lost between the wardroom and the after cabin, where the BkipPer hved in solitary grandeur; and the men would h&ve given him to the sharks, if chance had thrown him in (heir wsj» an^ H the sharks were hungry. I remember once, at Joha®111’ a happy thought struck the skipper and a few of the petty officers at one and the same time: they thought they would treat themselves to a few fowls, by way of a change from the junk. The latter, therefore, asked permission of the fonner to make the purchase. “ Certainly not,” was the curt reply, “unless you bring them dead on board.” Now dead they wouldn’t keep a day, so they were not bought; but the skipp®1’8 poultry were brought on board the same evening, gud two nicely-filled hen coops they were. Well, about the middle of the morning watch, when the skipper slumbered peacefully in his cot, two figures might have been seen stealthily approaching those hen coops. ‘‘ Softly does it,” said one; “Bignt you are, Bill,” replied the other. Then something dark and square rose slowly over the bulwarks, and dropped with a dull plash into the sea; and this happened t^ice. And next morning, when the skipper arose, happy in the prospect of ’spatch cock for breakfast, behold 1 there wasn't cock nor hen on board to ’spatch. But I should tire you were I to tell a tithe of the dirty tricks the skipper of the “Sea Mew” played his men and officers, so I will content myself with relating the one that bears reference to my story. Once, then, we were in terrible straits for grog and Tobacco; we hadn’t a drop of the one nor a quid of the other on board —at least, not in our mess—and hadn’t had for over a month. Now, nobody liked a glass of rum better than the skipper, though he didn’t smoke; so, as long as his own spirits held out, he didn’t care anything for the dearth in the wardroom. But one day he rejoiced us all by informing us he would run down to Zanzibar and take in stores. Well, anyhow, he took us in nicely; for no sooner had we dropped anchor before the long white town, than he called away his gig and landed on the sands. He was back again in two hours, with the important intelligence, which he had received, that a three-masted slave-ship was then cruising in the neighbourhood of the little island of Chak-Chak. There wasn’t a moment to be lost; it was “ All hands on deck, up anchor, and off.” There wasn’t a moment to be lost; but—mark you this!—that beggarly skipper, who drank but did not smoke, came off with his gig laden to the gunwale with dainties, spirits included, but not a morsel of the ’Baccy our souls were longing to sniff. We never saw the three-masted slave-ship either.
Well, as you doubtless know, there is a town on the east eoast, pretty nigh on the equator, called Lamoo, a half, or, rather, wholly savage kind of place, ruled over by an Arab Sultan. It lies not close to the sea, but about ten miles up a broad-bosomed river. Like all African rivers, it is belted off from the sea by a sandbar, on which the water is shallow, and the green breakers tumble over it houses high. We had been up this river only once before, but the little “ Sea Mew ” got such a terrible bumping on the bar that our skipper had resolved never to try the same experiment again. But, one beautiful, clear-skied, moonlight night, we found ourselves just outside this bar once more, and, rather to our astonishment, the order was given to heave the ship to until morning. Of course we were delighted, thinking that boats might be sent up stream for fruit, and we might get a chance of the coveted quid; but we were doomed to disappointment, for the whole of next day was spent in taking soundings, and in the evening we were told that next morning we would complete the survey, and then cruise away north once more. So the ship was hove to on the second evening. Dawson and I were at that time on the sick list, not that there was anything the matter with us, but the skipper had been bullying us, and this was the method, with the assistance of the friendly surgeon, which we took to avenge ourselves. At this time the Tobacco mania was at its worst. Our assistant paymaster had been heard to mutter that, if the devil tempted him, he would be inclined to sell his soul for a bundle of whiffs, and Dawson had openly asserted that he would give ten years of his life for the sight of a snuff-box. But Dawson looked terribly like a conspirator when he came stealthily into the wardroom, on the evening of the first day’s surveying.
“Bush, messmates, hush!” he whispered mysteriously; and we all crowded round him. “I have it,” he continued. “ Pelham and I are on the list. We cannot be missed.”
“Yes, yes; go on,” we cried in a breath.
. “While he dines—we will take a boat—and steal up the river to Lamoq—and bring down ’Bacca and grogs.”
The skipper didn’t know the meaning of that “Hurra!” that shook the “ Sea Mew ” from stem to stern. No wilder shout ever rang out as we boarded a dhow ’mid smoke and blood.
By seven o’clock the skipper was just mixing his third tumbler. By seven o’clock everything was in readiness: the oars were muffled, and the rudder so shipped that it wouldn’t unship by the under kick of a breaker on the bar. Then, from well-greased blocks the boat was lowered, and silently,
but swiftly, glided shorewards to the dreaded bar. We took with us but two trusty men, and two trusty sacks. Soon the white crests of the breakers were in view, and we could hear their vicious, sullen boom. Not easy work this crossing of bars, as you are aware. Presently we were heading for the only dark gate in this ocean of breakers, I steering, Dawson with one helping hand on each of the oars. Now we have entered the gate. “Steady now, men;” a wave catches us up behind, and hurls our tiny boat, first heavenward, then, with inconceivable speed, onwards, through a swirl of surf, and, a few moments afterwards, we are in smooth water, wet but safe.
“Well done,” said Dawson; “but, if we had been capsized, the sharks would have been dining on us at this present moment.”
“Beggin’ yer pardons, gentlemen,” said one of the rowers, “but I’d rather be three days and three nights in the belly of a shark, like Jonah was, than one whole blessed month athout Tobaccer.”
“ That were a whale, Jim,” said his mate. “I don’t care a dime,” said the first speaker; “I knows I likes my pipe, and I likes a quid; now in a night like this, for instance, what a blessing it would be tb light up, and—and—why, it won’t abear thinkin’ on, danged if it will.”
“ Now lay on your oars, men,” I said; “ I want to see what is inside a little bottle of medical comforts the doctor stowed away under here.”
It was a bottle of sick mess sherry, which we all shared, and pronounced the best ever we had tasted, and the doctor “ a brick.”
Onwards now we sped, as fast as oars could pull us, Dawson and I occasionally relieving the men and taking a spell at the oars. It was moonlight, I said, and until we were fairly in the river this was in favour of us; now, however, it was all against us. None hate the English more thoroughly than does your fighting Arab of slave proclivities. At any moment we might fall in with a slave dhow, and the crew thereof would certainly not miss such a favourable opportunity of paying off old scores. We had lots of arms on board, and so we meant, if attacked, to peg away at the beggars to the bitter end. However, discretion is the better part of valour, so we kept right in the centre of the stream, where we could be least seen. This was slow work, but safe.
It must have been past ten o’clock, and we were well up the river, when, on rounding a point, we came suddenly in sight of a large armed dhow, slowly going down stream. My first intention was to alter our course. “No, no,” said Dawson, who is no end of a clever fellow, “ that will only create suspicion; let me hail her,” and he did so in good Arabic. If suspicion was excited on board the strange dhow, it was, I feel sure, lulled again when Dawson began, in stentorian tones, to sing a well-known Arab boating chant. The song, I feel sure, saved us, and so we kept it up nearly all the way to Lamoo.
About a mile from the town we crept in shore and hid our boat in the bush, leaving one man in her. Now, there is but one or two European merchants in the town, and one of these we knew, but the way to his house we were ignorant of; but we knew where Comoro Jack lived in the outskirts. He had been our guide before, so thither we went, and happily found Jack at home: a tall young savage, arrayed only in a waist belt and an enormous 42nd Highlander’s busby on, and a tall spear in one hand.
“Well, you dam Englishmen, what you want wid Jack?” Such was our greeting. We hastily told him, and the amount, and—
“Comoro Jack will go like a shot,” said the savage. The sandy streets were weU-nigh deserted, and Comoro Jack, as he strode on beside us, thought himself no end of a fine fellow.
“London is one dam good place,” he informed us, “as big as Lamoo, and streets better pave, and girls better dress. You see it was like this: the dam French they take Myotta; poor king he go to London to see de British Queen ob England, and I go too among de body guard. But when de poor king come to de palace, ‘Will you fight for me de dam French?’ he say. ‘Very sorry,’ said the British Queen of England, * but I cannot fight de dam French.’ ”
“And who,” we asked “gave you the bonnet and plumes?” “De British Queen ob England,” said Comoro Jack. “She soon spot me out among de niggers, and she put it on my head. ‘Here, poor chile,’ she say, ‘you not catch cold wid that.’”
The house Comoro Jack led us to was that of a French merchant, and his hospitality was unbounded; but we refused all refreshment until we had first smoked a pipe. Oh I didn’t that pipe make men of us. We spent a very pleasant half-hour with the merchant; then we filled our sacks, and returned to our boat, happier, surely, than Joseph’s brethren could have been coming up, corn-laden, from the land of the Pharaohs. We had one or two little escapades going down stream, caught it wet and nasty on the bar, but got safely and quietly on board the “Sea Mew” one hour before sunrise ; and to witness the joy on our messmates’ faces, when we cracked a bottle of rum and opened a box of Havannas, more than repaid us for all we had come through.
Next morning, to his intense disgust, the skipper found us all smoking, and looking funny and jolly. But he never knew where we found the ’Baccy.
Gordon Stables, M.D., R..N.
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dope’s ^utat.
It is not unseemly to go far north now that the summer has grown too hot for comfort and well nigh too hot for health. Didn’t I hear, the other day, that the good brother Spurgeon had carried his beloved cigar to distant Oban, there to recruit his broken constitution and jaded spirits? Can I not imagine his burly form and genial—withal pain-worn— face on board the handsome, swift, and commodious “Iona,” as she ploughed her way through the salt waters from Clyde’s mouth to the grand highland country? and may not even I, who pine yet in the sultry latter days of a southern summer, envy him his copious draughts of the invigorating, life-giving air of Caledonia’s crags and shores? ’Twas at just such a melting time last June that my roving fancy strayed to the far-off Orkneys, and dallied with the treasure-trove of rare Tobacco buried by French smugglers in the sands of Dooney, yonder at Eday, and in the Bay of Ferness. And the fate that predestines the composition of this “Mixture,” compelling my handiwork with implacable needs-must, will have me stray to Scotia once again, and there remain. A floating straw shows the set of the tide; and the straw is the Northern Ensign, published at Wick, and discoursing of the Thurso people. The Ensign has been holiday-making at Wick when the kindly folk of that remote locality were holding high carnival, and the Thurso people came over and joined in, after the staid and solemn manner of their race. And thus the Ensign relieves his pent-up soul:—
“What struck our good folks here was the extraordinary liking that the Thurso youngsters must have for the (weed.’ From the smallest of them, scarcely out of his pinafores, up to the biggest of boys, smoking appeared to be their craze. Probably because this was a highday and holiday, cigars, chiefly small penny ones, were the rage; although here and there the well-seasoned meerschaum and common clay might be also seen.”
After this comes the “wut,” which is a little too heavy for the “Mixture,” and must be left to flourish in its native soil. Transplantation does not always suit the Scottish humour quite so well as the Scottish humorist. Besides, “here’s metal more attractive.” Instead of Scotch consumers of penny cigars, I am drawn to the contemplation of “A Scotch Manufacturer” of the charmed herb; and, as the worthy gentleman dates from Glasgow, he sets my memory all agog. The manufacturer has written to the Tobacco Trade Review concerning a proposal to hold a Conference in London, “in view of the recent addition to duty and other interests in the Tobacco manufacturing trade throughout the United Kingdom.” The presumption of the proposers is sternly rebuked. Conferences and Congresses are fit playthings for frivolous diplomatists and those antique jokers the great statesmen of Europe; they may be appropriate to the festive and frothy disposition of cosmopolite savants at the World’s Fair in Paris; they may even fall in with the illogical mind of English and Irish and Welsh manufacturers of smoking mixtures and cut Tobaccos; but your genuine Scot knows better than to waste his time and money and temper in tumbling into that kind of trap. The protesting scribe declares “ that the trade in Glasgow and elsewhere in Scotland, as regards the workmen, their manner of working, the material wrought, practices of trading, and almost every feature in the Tobacco manufacturing trade there, is quite different from that in London.”
That is precisely what I am prepared to believe. I found my belief upon various sorts of reasons, general and particular. Let me take the general first. The thing that is Scotch is prima facie sui generis. Grow thistles like Scotch thistles in alien lands? Where, upon the surface of the huge round earth, doth haggis prosper, save on the soil whose sons discovered the secret of that savoury concoction? What foreign clime can furnish such bonnets, and bonnets with such bees in them, as rude Caledonia? Was the like of a Scotch Professor ever seen in Athens the Ancient, in booky Germany, in smart Yankeydom, spotted with “universities” as with a learned leprosy, in slow and polished Oxford, in keen and sceptic Cambridge, or in those mist-hidden seats of philosophy in the East whence have come down through the dreamy ages all the germs of modern thought? And where—in heaven above, or the earth beneath, or the sad regions underneath the earth—shall we match the Scotch Presbyterian Elder? The angels themselves are hardly so sure of eternal bliss. Omniscience—be it reverently said—knows no more of the future state of souls. The Divine oracles do but echo the moral and spiritual dicta of Elder Macpherson; or, where they fail to “say ditto” to that pillar of the kirk and monument of righteousness, they, like “the best laid schemes o* mice an’ men, gang aft agley.” So much for general bases of my faith in “ A Scotch Manufacturer’s ” averment.
Now, as to particulars: We are thinking of Glasgow and Tobacco; and those who know the story of that union will anticipate my reasons, and be eager to cry “Agreed!” But we are not all so versed, so let my historic memory have play for a little while, that Scotland may be justified of her children.
Glasgow and Tobacco!
“Well”—cries the Uninitiated—“and what more, or better, what less, or worse, is to be made of ‘ Glasgow and Tobacco * than of ’Savanna and Tobacco,’ ’Virginia and Tobacco,'
‘Bristol and Tobacco,* ’Holland and Tobacco,* 4Turkey and Tobacco,’ or ‘Liverpool and Tobacco?” And I answer— “Much every way.” The “Scotch Manufacturer” is right: the relations of Glasgow and the Tobacco trade differ widely from those which exist, or ever have existed, between any other place and the Tobacco trade. “If the world has had its ages of iron, silver, and gold”—says Dr. John Strang, in his history of “Glasgow and Its Clubs”—“Glasgow also assuredly had, during even the last century and a half, its peculiar and distinctive mercantile ages. It had, for example, its salmon and herring, its Tobacco, its sugar, its cotton, its iron, and its steamboat building ages in regular progressive succession, one peculiar business or handicraft generally holding for a season its paramount sway, and then calmly yielding the supremacy to another.” And we are told that “perhaps among the changeful peculiarities connected with the commercial chronology of Glasgow, there is none more extraordinary than the rise, progress, and decay of the Tobacco trade, or of the lofty position in the social scale which the limited class of citizens engaged in that lucrative traffic so speedily attained and so soon lost.” It is a story as miraculous in its way as that of Jonah’s gourd; and, if the truth may be spoken, “A Scotch Manufacturer,” loftily as he pitches the tone of dictation towards the rest of the world, represents to-day no more than the ruin of a trade over which was long since inscribed the fatal legend—“Ichabod!”
I have it on the authority of Dr. Chambers’s “Domestic Annals of Scotland,” and confirmed by testimony from other sources, that in “the early days of the trade”—which was during the first twenty years of the eighteenth century— “ when capital was not abundant, the custom was for a very small group of the more considerable merchants to advance two or three hundred pounds each, and ask the lesser men around them to add such shares as they pleased; by these means to make purchase of goods suited for use in Virginia, which were sent out under the care of a supercargo, to be exchanged for a lading of Tobacco.” And Dr. Chambers gives an amusing story from Dugald Bannatyne’s Scrap-book, in the “New Statistical Account of Scotland/’ of an illiterate supercargo who, being asked for a statement of his adventure and its results, threw down a large hoggar, or stocking, stuffed to the top with coin—the surplus proceeds of his outward cargo, after his homeward cargo of Tobacco had been bought —intimating that therein was the only statement he had to make. The shrewd traders opined that if an uneducated supercargo had done so well, an educated one would do better; and, sending out a good arithmetician with their next venture, they had the satisfaction of receiving, upon his return, “ a beautifully made-out statement of his transactions, but no hog gar.” How keen an eye to the main chance these early adventurers had is shown by the fact that, as their transactions increased they contrived to substitute their credit for their money, by inducing others to furnish them with goods to be shipped to America, and wait payment until the completion of the return voyage. In this way the Glasgow merchants laid the foundations of a trade which speedily eclipsed all existing examples of flourishing prosperity— saving the interest of their investments, and making their profits at the expense of their humble and admiring creditors. When the Tobacco came home and was sold, the custom was to call the tradespeople together (generally at a tavern), and pay them out of the proceeds for the goods they had advanced a year or so before. A characteristic anecdote, exemplifying tins canny custom, is thus narrated in “Glasgow, Past and Present” —
“ A gentleman in the City had sold Provost French some trifling articles for shipment, amounting to about £87; and upon the arrival of the ship from Virginia, and after the return cargo had been sold, he received a circular from the Provost, requesting his attendance at the counting-house, on a certain day and at a fixed hour, when payment would be made to him of his account. The gentleman was accordingly punctual at the appointed place and hour, when he was astonished to see about thirty persons in waiting, all sitting on forms in the room where the Provost’s clerks were writing. The Provost himself was in an adjoining room, the door of which was ajar, and the gentleman said that ever and anon he beheld the Provost keckina through an opening to see if the whole of the parties summoned had arrived. At last, after a considerable delay, the Provost (who was an exceedingly pompous and consequential man) threw open the door of his private room, and, after taking a glance of the parties waiting for their accounts (but without deigning to speak to any of them), called out to his clerk, with a loud voice, ’ John, draw for £8000 and pay the accounts.’ His lordship then, with a most dignified strut, re-entered his own apartment. This farce was concocted in order to astonish the natives at the magnitude of the sum drawn from the bank; but, most unfortunately for the Provost, it had quite the contrary effect; for it afterwards became a standing joke among these very sellers, when any one was calling upon them for payment of a small account, to bawl out to the youngsters, ’ John, draw for £3000, and pay this account.'"
Who has not heard of the Grandees who rose out of these small beginnings and ruled Glasgow with a pomp and a glory such as has never been equalled by traders since the palmy days of Venice ? Let Dr. Chambers describe them first:—
“ As the century rolled on, and transactions increased in magnitude, luxury and pride crept in, men leemed to garnish their discourse with strange oaths, and the Wodrow pre-requisite of ‘ righteousness ’ was always less and less heard of. The wealth of the Tobacco Lordt, as the men pre-eminent in the trade were called, reached an amount which made them the wonder of their country. One named Glassford, during the Seven Years’ War, had twenty-five vessels engaged in the business, and was said to trade for half-a-million. They formed a kind of aristocracy in their native city, throwing all tolerably successful industry in other walks into the shade. Old people, not long deceased, used to describe them as seen every day on the Exchange, or a piece of pavement in Argyle Street so-called, walking about in long scarlet cloaks and bushy wigs, objects of awful respect to their fellow-citizens, who, if desirous of speaking to one of them on business, found it necessary to walk on the other side of the street till they should be fortunate enough to catch his eye, and be signalled across.”
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There is a good story—good enough to be repeated here, though I think I have “mixed” it before—illustrative of the ways of these magnificoes, and the impression they, made on the more independently minded of their townsfolk. It first saw the light, as far as I know, in Chambers's Journal nearly thirty years ago; and it runs to this effect:—One of the Tobacco Grandees, who in his early life had been in the army, was accosted one day, as he strutted along the Plane-stanes, by a poor woman. “ He turned round disdainfully to her, saying, ‘Don’t speak to me on the street. I give no charity here.’ ‘ It was na charity, Sir Baillie, I was going to ask, but only to thank you for a great service done by you to my son.’ Somewhat mollified by the expected praise, the scarlet-cloaked, aristocrat stopped and said, ‘ And what did I do for him, my good woman?’ ‘Oh, sir, when you were fechting at the head of your company at the Battle of Dettingen, and ran away, my son, who was next you, ran after you, and so saved his life! ’ ”
The outbreak of the American War put an end to all this glory; and the Tobacco Lords evanished from the scene. “AU we know is,” says Dr. Strang, “that very soon after that event the Tobacco aristocracy ceased to lead, and the scarlet cloaks gradually disappeared from the pavement.” It is pleasant to be told, on the same good authority, that “Supercilious though the possessors of such wealth as a class certainly were towards their less opulent fellow-citizens, they were nevertheless individually a gay and joyous set, on the most familiar and friendly footing with each other, and with those also who, in other walks of life, were justly looked upon as the notables of the City.” They had taste, though of a barbaric sort; and they filled the City of Glasgow with palaces, which the great merchant princes of later times have rarely ventured to imitate. It was not a bad sign of their quality that some amongst them helped to found the Hodge-Podge Club; thus described in the first of a series of merry stanzas by Dr. John Moore, the author of “Zeluco” and father of the famous hero of Corunna:—
“A club of choice fellow#, each fortnight, employ An evening in laughter, good humour, and joy; Like the national council, they often debate. And settle the army, the navy, and state.”
As I read the last of that series of descriptive verses—
* Let a bumper be filled with the health of the crew;
In that flowing bowl let onr sorrows be drown'd, And may jollity, happiness, pleasure go round! ”
—it strikes me that, if I had had the happiness to live in Glasgow a century since or so, those would have been the sentiments of
Youb Man-of-All-Wobk.
^mber.
XVI.
Mattie interesting only to the antiquarian we should never dream of placing before our readers. But it is now seen more and more that without thorough archeological studies history cannot be written. We have professed to attempt, though not in the most methodical fashion, to write the history and the natural history of amber; and we find as we proceed that much of the information we furnish must assume an archaeological character. With this brief preface we continue our translation of Albin Kohn’s Treatise, again urging our readers, as we have before done, to seek the aid of the best maps they can procure, for so only can they appreciate the discoveries of Genthe, Sadowski, and others. After describing in great detail antiquities discovered within the last year or two at Floth, near Czarnickau, at Brzezie in the Pleschnian district, at Wszedzin, in the neighbourhood of Mogilno, and at Kiaczyn, not far from Samter, Albin Kohn proceeds:—The ancient articles found at Wszedzin prove that one of the principal commercial routes of the Etruscans began at Gnesen and passed this point. Wszedzin lies near Mogilno, on the passage indicated by Sadowski between the marshes of the brook Welna and those of the Gonsawka, on the only possible route toward Setidawa, whence the road to the north and to the Baltic Coast led.
Here I must call attention to a circumstance to which the discoveries at Wszedzin seem to give importance—namely, the comparatively large number of articles found. This circumstance leads to the conjecture that we have more here than the night quarters of an Etruscan caravan which arrived in the evening and departed in the morning; that we have here an etappe where a sort of yearly market was held, during which the fishermen and peasants of the district got a supply, perhaps for the whole year, of various fine things which the travellers from the south brought with them. Analogous is the state of things in the north of Asia, where merchants starting from Irkutsk, journey in the summer through the Lena region, arrive at the different villages on fixed days, supply the inhabitants for the whole year with tea, Tobacco, wari-coloured cloths, rings, pipes, and further north with flour and grits also, receiving in exchange furs, mica-schist, and so on. The journey extends as far as the region inhabited by the Jukagirians and the Tschuktschians, and from Ustyansk the merchants, richly laden with precious furs, return home at a particular period, while at regular intervals of time other
merchants start from Irkutsk. The commercial routes of those regions permit no other mode of commercial intercourse; and doubtless such commercial routes resemble those which in pre-historic times led from Italy to the Baltic coasts, just as the Russian merchant from Irkutsk trading with the Jakutians, Jugadirians, and Tschuktschians may be compared with the Italian merchant who came to the tribes dwelling on the north of the Danube.
The articles found at Brzezie are likewise remarkable. Under the stone beneath which the old Italian articles of gold were discovered there was no urn. They lay naked in the earth, and, as Sadowski and Genthe agree in declaring regarding other antiquities similarly found, they were hidden by the distrustful traffickers, and hidden they remained under the erratic blocks, perhaps were wholly forgotten till our own day; and now, when science seeks eagerly for an explanation of the relations in which the different nations of pre-historic times stood to each other, the articles come forth to testify that the original inhabitants of Poland had at a very early period intercourse with the Italians, and that the Italians travelled through their land to bring treasures from the far north.
Recently, that is to say in January of the present year (1877), there were found in the field of Kiaczyn, in the neighbourhood of Samter, urns and articles of bronze, most of which are now in a museum at Posen. The bronze articles consist of a bracelet and a simple fibula. The bracelet is very regularly chased with lines alternately fine and rough, and testifies to a high degree of artistic skill and industrial development. The fibula is evidently the work of a common artisan, who produced what was cheap. A vessel made of bright yellow clay, and painted red, was likewise found. The articles discovered give additional confirmation to Sadowski’s statement that in pre-historic times the river Warthe was everywhere passable below Obornik to the neighbourhood of Zantoch.
Almost contemporaneously appeared Genthe’s work on “The Etruscan Barter Trade,” and (in the Polish language) Sadowski’s “ Commercial Routes of the Greeks and Romans.” This is a fact which deserves our attention, and so much the more, that both authors, unlike Rougemont, have arrived at similar results by solid examination of the writings of the ancients, of the antiquities found in the earth, and of the possible and probable routes. The difference between them is, that Genthe traces the roads and paths along which the productions of Italian industry came from Hatria, in Italy, over the Alps to Switzerland, then the route which they took from Hatria over Verona, Trent, Botzen, to Hallstadt, and finally the route from Hatria over Cilli, Marburg, Gratz to Carnuntum, examines closely and carefully every etappe before leaving it to investigate the following one, and fixes its position ; while Sadowski goes forth from Carnuntum to arrive at the north, traces and establishes with mathematical accuracy every further etappe; winds his way through the narrow passes of the Sudetian and Zobtenian ranges of mountain, till he reaches the Fords (Polish, Brod, Brody), of the Oder, the Vistula, and their affluents, then turns his steps to the footpaths which serpentised through the fathomless morasses that covered the surface of Posen, not merely in pre-historical times, but at a comparatively recent historical period.
Though both inquirers, without knowing anything of each other, arrived at the same results, which speaks well for the substantiality of those results, yet they pursue different methods, and to that difference I now call attention.
It is chiefly the antiquities found that Genthe calls on to testify. He carefully compares every article met with to the north of the Alps with analogous objects brought from graves indubitably Italic, and after he has demonstrated their similarity he concludes that if the article found in Italy has been fashioned by an Etruscan master, this also must be the case with the article found to the north of the Alps. In the unquestionable accuracy of his view the learned investigator is supported by the inscriptions on vessels and arms. Thereupon, Genthe refers to ancient writers, in so far as their statements relate clearly to his object. Then he proceeds to speak of the trade of the Etruscans with the tribes that dwelt to the west of the Oder and the south of the Danube, for though not all, yet the most important finds are known to him which have been made in North Germany as far as the Oder, and in Austria as far as the Danube. Beyond the Danube Genthe ventures only once, and that is where he alludes to the find at Trebnitz. He leaves the remoter East between the Oder and the Niemen and Dnieper to Sadowski, who is here at home, who knows every nook and corner, who has profoundly studied every find, and who, for the illustration of his subject, is in possession of important materials, to which I intend by-and-by to allude.
Sadowski’s method is different from that of Genthe. Above all things, and before all things, he investigates the physio-graphical characteristics of the country between the Oder, the Dnieper, and the Niemen in historical times, and makes deductions thence in reference to pre-historical times. For this purpose he investigates in the archives of the Polish kingdom the decrees of the Diets, as far as they go, studies the movements of the armies which penetrated from the north into Poland, and also those of the Polish armies when resisting the onrushing foe, and makes it possible for the reader to eliminate from the existing network of routes and roads all those which are of modern or of most modern date; so that
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naturally, and in the most unsought manner, only those paths remain which the hawkers from the south must have travelled by, and which we have to regard as the “commercial routes ” of primaeval times. These commercial routes by no means exclude other paths, which to the right and the left serpentised between marshes and swamps and through dense, dark primaeval woods, and which led from one settlement to another, from one hunter’s or fisherman’s hut to another, yet which were known only to the dwellers in the land, and to deviate from which a single step was dangerous. I myself remember similar footpaths in the Schrimm region, which serpentised between morasses, and were known only to the inhabitants of the country. When I one evening was making use of one of these footpaths, to visit an acquaintance and to go hunting with him the following day, I fell up to my knees in a marsh. This was my merited punishment for taking a single step aside from the path, which, nevertheless, was well known to me.
After Sadowski has indicated the only possible commercial routes, he tries to discover along them the etappes, and he employs for this purpose a very peculiar and, in my opinion, very excellent method. After showing that the merchants from the south travelled to the Baltic coast to procure amber, he takes Ptolemy into his hand, and interprets him, without, however, doing any violence to the passages quoted. After Sadowski has reduced Ptolemy’s geographical degrees to our degrees, he conducts the reader from etappe to etappe, and he always demands that finds must demonstrate the existence of an etappe. Whoso is acquainted with Posen, and with the aspects and circumstances thereof, will not wonder that the list of the finds which he regards as justifying him in the formation of his views is not very long. It is well known that the chronicler, Dlugosy, who died in 1489, says of Poland that in the whole country various kinds of pots, entirely formed by Nature, were found in' the ground. These pots, when taken out of the ground, are easily broken, but when hardened by the sun they are fit for every possible purpose. At the time of the chronicler, pots were in use similar to those which were supposed to grow in the ground. Here, by the way, it may be observed that the kitchen pot used in Russia, and by the Russians in Siberia, completely resembles the ordinary urn, while the milk pot (krynka) is formed like the urn, which has a long and narrow neck. Neither the kitchen pots nor the milk pots have any handles. Duke Ernest, of Austria, was not willing to believe what he had heard about the pots in Poland. He, therefore, sent a messenger to King Wladislaus, who was residing at the time in Schrimm; and the king caused excavations to be made in the village of Nochowo, a (German) mile from Schrimm, and in the direction of Dolzig, consequently on the commercial route indicated by Sadowski, and at various spots pots were found.
Since that period, which is now tolerably remote from us, excavations have been made with the design of finding treasures, and broken urns were discovered, either empty or filled with ashes, bones, and sand; and we may take it for granted that thousands of such pots, which were so many proofs of the intercourse of the inhabitants of Poland with the south of Europe, were destroyed before it was seen what a blunder was hereby committed, and that the things dug out of the earth should have been collected and kept for the benefit of science. Recently the Museum of the Friends of Science has been founded at Posen, but into this museum only a comparatively small portion of the finds have found their way. The finds are for the most part in the hands of private persons, or have wandered away to foreign museums. That, however, many antiquarian treasures are still buried in the ground, and are waiting only for some fortunate accident to be dragged forth, and to give testimony regarding a time long past, and revelations respecting races long perished, admits of no doubt. That, moreover, at a distance from the commercial routes finds were made, is proved by the long list in the “ Materials for the Pre-historic Map of the Province of Posen,” of Dr. W. Schwartz.
In regard to the comparison and characterisation of the articles found, Sadowski employs the same method as Genthe, and both inquirers arrive at the same conclusion: that the objects chosen by them as hints for discovering the direction of the pre-historical commercial routes are of Etruscan origin. Sadowski, like Genthe, rejects, with good reason, the classification of the finds into Celtic, Gallo-Romanic, Gallo-Italic, Old Hevletian, Alpine, Germanic, Northern, Scandinavian, Old Sclavonian, Wendian, and so on. Like Genthe, also, he is not led astray by previous opinions prevailing on the subject, but in a tranquil and passionless fashion he estimates the value of the finds from the newest point of view. The result could not fail to be satisfactory. Though the two investigators carried on their researches without regard to each other, yet both in their facts and their interpretation of facts they essentially agree.
They essentially agree in regard to the duration of the Etruscan, as well as to the later Roman traffic with the North, and the causes of its final cessation. They essentially agree in their opinion respecting the finds which are not met with in tombs, the latter being characterised by urns. They regard such finds as wares which were hidden in the ground to be afterwards dug up at the convenience of the owner.
For a long time, and for the most part from national vanity, the glory of manufacturing the large number of bronze articles found in-different parts of Europe was claimed for Celts, or for Helvetians, Germans, Wends, and other tribes that are scarcely known in history by their real names. There was no other proof for this assertion than the assumption that it was impossible to import such masses of wares from the distant South. Though both Genthe and Sadowski admit that many of the bronze articles were not imported, and that they were imitations made by unskilled hands in the country itself; yet they are both alike persuaded that the larger mass of the bronze articles which now excite our astonishment, must, in the course of time, in the lapse of many centuries, have been brought by means of water from Italy to the countries where they are now dug up. It would lead me too far if I were to adduce the many powerful reasons which demonstrate that the articles were not of local fabrication, but were imported from abroad, and especially from Italy. It was certainly no disgrace to the Barbarians of Central, Western, and Northern Europe—for Barbarians we must consider our pre-historical ancestors—that they cherished a taste for imported Etruscan articles, and did their utmost to procure them; for Genthe, taking the testimony of Pherekrates, shows that the Athenians, at the time of Pericles, highly valued Etruscan candelabra and gold-chased cups. Genthe declares it to be a great and abiding merit of Lindenschmit to have shown the harmony between the Trans-Alpine finds of the so-called bronze period and the finds in Etruscan tombs. But Lindenschmit was also the first to indicate that the bronze swords found in Southern Bavaria, especially the extremely sharp chasings of the blade, must have been made by mechanical means, or by a steel instrument. A like service to archaeological science has recently been accomplished by Professor Hartmann, who, in his work “ The Three Ages,” has proved, from the metallurgical point of view, that the bronze articles of the so-called bronze period were not simply cast, but that they have distinct and incontrovertible traces of such operations as could only have been achieved by the help of steel. Many bronze articles are polished, punctuated, chased, grooved, which could not have been done without steel, which in other parts of the process was also indispensable. Hartmann substantiates his declaration by the testimonies of intelligent metallurgists, and especially by the testimony of the greatest metallurgist of our own days, John Percy. If the fact must be accepted as indubitable, then the inhabitants of Central, Western, and Northern Europe, who, at the time of which we are now speaking, possessed no steel, even if they had been in possession of the raw material, could not have manufactured the bronze articles found in their country, but must have obtained them in the way of barter, from abroad; that is from the nations of the civilised and artistical South, where steel then, and probably from a very remote period, had been known.
It can no longer be doubted that the division of the prehistorical time into a stone, a bronze, and an iron period is wholly untenable. Apart from the testimonies of Casar, from which it appears that the Gauls and Germans of his time had long been acquainted with iron—and that, therefore, what is called the stone period they had long left behind— recent finds in Poland and in Russia have demonstrated that in those countries stone and iron utensils must have been used together and contemporaneously, and that here cannot be accepted a separation into a period during which utensils of the one kind were in use while the others were unknown. Tombs have been in those countries opened in which no trace of bronze was found, while many stone utensils and roughly made iron articles were met with. On the other hand, tombs were opened in which were seen stone and bronze articles, or bronze and iron articles. All the iron articles, however, bear such marks of primitivity, that it is impossible to admit that the people could have had greater technical skill in the making of bronze articles, which, for the most part, are very perfect. All the less is this notion to be accepted from the circumstance that in far later, in historical times, smith’s work in those countries was of a very rough and primitive sort. If we ascribe the elegant bronze articles to the artistic skill of the original inhabitants, the questions must be asked which Genthe asks:—“Where, in the times subsequent to Christ, are the proofs of a technical skill so highly developed many centuries before Christ? Whence was a handicraft so seriously injured that it lost its tradition, and was capable only of very rough and simple performances? What were the external and internal causes of so great a deterioration? What brought about such a violent revolution that most of the countries in Central Europe, which, to judge by the finds in graves, cast, forged, enchased brass in a manner so masterly, and made use of ornaments so characteristic and so artistically perfect, were able to work iron only in the simplest and rudest forms?” The great migration of nations in the fifth century cannot account for, cannot explain this decline of a highly developed craft; and only one rational explanation remains, namely:—that the bronze articles manifesting such high technical perfection were imported by means of trade from Southern Europe.
We are sorry that we have been obliged to use as a substantive the word find as the equivalent of the German fund. But we have had no choice, as to avoid using it we should have had to employ a circumlocution.
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|ijt Sutattrs.
m.—PHIL COTTLE’S SUCCESS. [concluded.]	’
11 Mt money from gold dwindled to silver, and I managed, being in fear of starvation, to obtain a poorly paid clerk’s place. My two rooms I could not support, so moved to a poorer neighbourhood, and contented myself with one. Here, after my work was over, I used to sit, occasionally writing, and constantly smoking this pipe. The hue of it in six months changed to a delicious dark brown; but alas I how had the scene changed. I looked upon the hunt with different feelings now. Instead of being one of the gallant hunters, I was one of the hunted stags. Starvation, misery, and death were in full chase. The hungry dogs, sired by despair, were baying and yelling in my rear.
“At length, after about nine months in London, I met with a man just about to start in business on his own account as a publisher. He had been in the trade a good many years, and, having saved some money, felt inclined to try and make more. He made me the magnificent offer to bring out my book at his own expense. The selling price of the volume was to be two shillings, and I was to receive two pence on every copy sold. Had the first publisher I had shown my book to made me that offer, I should have treated him with great disdain; but in my present circumstances I was very, thankful for the opportunity of coming before the public.”
“ Well, sir, my book was eventually brought out in some seven or eight weeks after I delivered the MS. to the publisher. I so neglected my duties at the office I was engaged in, partly through excitement, and partly through popping out every now and then to see if there was any particular stir at my publisher’s shop, that I received notice to quit, and had to go. My whole stock of money as I stood in the world then was just fifty-seven shillings. I made this last me for a month, for I had determined to give my publisher that time before I troubled him. On the afternoon of the last day in the month, I found myself reduced to one single sixpence. Now, said I, for the publisher. He had printed 1000 copies, well advertised it, got it noticed in several papers, and sold about forty copies. My share would be six and eightpence up to that time; but he thought I had better leave it for three months, to see if fortune would befriend the book. I did not ask him for the money, though I should have been glad of it.
“I cannot describe my mood that evening as I sat smoking this pipe. My sixpence I disposed of in bread and cheese, twopence; a pint of porter, twopence; a half-ounce of shag, twopence. I ate, drank, and smoked; I finished the Tobacco and crept into bed.
“ In the morning, when I grew well awake, the dull dreary morn seemed to me to be a reflection of my own murky and miserable life.
“ My first thought was to sell or pawn this pipe; but when I reflected on the many times it had soothed my brain, the while I was smoking it, noting even in my greatest trouble, how delicately it was colouring, I thought the separation would be too painful.
“ I had often passed the shop of a grocer, who was a kindly-looking old fellow. Passing it now, my eye fell on a bill in his window: an assistant wanted! Well, sir, I offered myself, was engaged, and once more started in the grocery business.
“It was rather irksome at first, but calmer than poetry; and after all, the useful prose of Saturday night’s wages is worth a good deal of unappreciated versifying. There was another reason too. My master was a widower with an only daughter. I took my meals in the house, though for some time I did not lodge there; and of course had frequent opportunities of seeing and conversing with Milly, for that was her name. She was a dainty looking little beauty, full of sweet temper and thoughtfulness. Her rosy cheeks and bright eyes made sunshine in the house, and in my heart.
“ There was an old piano in the shop parlour, and sometimes after business Milly would play and sing, to the mutual delight of her father and myself. The old gentleman had taken such a fancy to me that we used to sit after business smoking and chatting, more like friends than master and man. Her father smoked a long churchwarden, while I still went on with the colouring of the pipe now before us. One evening, after playing a few bars, Milly, in a sweet, low voice, sang, to a plaintive air:
“*It may be in the coming years, That you and I no more shall meet;
It may be I shall sink in tears, While smiles shall ripple to your feet. Ah, well, dear one, both tears and smiles Shall finish with Life’s weary wiles.
“‘And when, at last, we reach that land,
Where echo never cries farewell, Then you and I shall reach a hand To grasp a hand, and cry “’Tis well.” The journey caused our souls to sever; The haven found, we’re one for ever.’
At its conclusion, the dear creature looked round smilingly. I sat with my face buried in my hands, the tears streaming down my cheeks. Milly looked alarmed and confused; while her father laid down his pipe, and inquired if I was ill.
“I felt then that I must make a full disclosure. I told them there and then the story of my trying and my trials. The song Milly had sung was one from out my unfortunate book. After my recital I smiled again, and said I was glad it was well over. The old gentleman said he was proud of such a shopman, and mixed a small bowl of punch in my honour. Milly looked agitated for the rest of the evening; and I noticed, when she thought my attention was otherwise engaged, that she folded up the waste paper leaf with my song on it, and placed it in her bosom.
“ From that evening I could but confess to her father how matters stood. The old man, I found to my delight, had no objection, for by great energy I had wonderfully increased his business; and here my story nearly ends. Having now warm love in my heart and my darling at my elbow, I became a complete giant at grocery affairs. The shop grew so crammed and bloated, that at last it grew into the back parlour; and the old piano, with much complaining, had to walk upstairs.
“ Milly and I, in two years, became man and wife; and on her father’s death occurring, the business, with his considerable savings, became ours.
“I kept well to business, and eventually retired, and now you see before you a successful and happy man, although an unsuccessful and unhappy poet; and, as that pipe kept me in the dark days from going headlong down hill to despair, I always look upon it as the key to my success; for success I attained unto, although not in the way I intended, for my book was a complete failure.”
As old Phil handed me the pipe, he finished thus, with a philosophical smile: “ Some men set their minds so hard and fast to succeed in a certain way, that if they cannot succeed in exactly the fashion they desire, they go cross-grained and unhappy all their days. This I have been happily kept from; so, friend Didimus, good night; take care of the pipe, and when I call on you I will have it out for a few minutes to see if its draught and flavour are equal to the old style.”
I have the pipe here; and if the story of my friend is not very exciting, it points, at least, to the excellent moral that there are more ways than one to success. “Where there’s a will there’s a way ” is a very good motto; but if a blind man adopted it, when he took up a telescope to examine the moon, we should say there was a fool among the three, and it would not be the moon, and it would not be the telescope.
D. Goggs.
®^t g is tuberg of Tobacco.
Thebe were three jolly sailors bold, As sailed across the sea;
They braved the storm and stood the gale,
And got to Virgin-nee.
’Twas in the days of good Queen Bess—
Or p’raps a bit before—
And now these here three sailors bold
Went cruising on the shore.
A lurch to starboard, one to port— Now forward, boys, go we;
With a haul, and a ho! and “Hearty, that’s your sort!” To find out Toback-kee.
Says Jack: “This here’s a rummy land.”
Says Tom: “Well, shiver me,
The sun shines out as precious hot As ever I did see.”
Says Dick: “Messmates, since here we be”—	,
And gave his eye a wink—
“ We’ve come to find out Tobac-kee, Which means a drop to drink.”
Says Jack, says he, “The Injuns thinks”—
Says Tom: “I’ll swear as they
Don’t think at all.” Says Dick: “You’re right, It ain’t their natural way;
But I want to find out, my lads, This stuff of which they tell;
For, if as it ain’t meant to drink, Why, it must be to smell.”
Says Tom. says he, “To drink or smell, I don’t think this here’s meant.”
Says Jack, says he, “Blame my old eyes
If I’ll believe it’s scent! ”	'
“Well, then,” says Dick, “if that ain’t square,	i
It must be meant for meat;	‘
So come along, my jovial mates,	)
To find what’s good eat.”	;
They came across a great, green plant,	<
A-growing tall and true,	>
Says Jack, says he, “I’m precious dry,”	]
And picked a leaf to chew;	.
While Tom takes up a sun-dried bit,	,
A-lying by the trees;
He rubs it in his hands to dust, And then begins to sneeze.
Another leaf picks nimble Dick,	:
And dries it in the sun;	■
And rolls it up all neat and tight.	,
“ My lads,” says he, in fun,
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I mean to cook this precious weed.” And then from out his poke, With burning glass he lights the end, And quick blows up the smoke.
Says Jack, says he, “Of Paradise I’ve heard some people tell.”
Says Tom, says he, “ This here will do, Let's have another smell.”
Says Dick, his face all pleasant smiles, A-looking through a cloud— “It strikes me here’s the capen bold, And now we’ll all be rowed.”
Up comes brave Hawkins on the beach, “ Shiver my hull! ” he cries;
“What’s these here games, my merry men?” And then—“ Why, blame my eyes!
Here’s one as chaws and one as snuffs, And t’other of the three
Is smoking like a chimney-pot— They’ve found out Tobac-kee! ”
So if as then you should hear Of Raleigh, and them lies About his sarvant and his pipe, And him as “ fire! ” cries—
You say as ’twas three sailors bold, Who sailed to Virgin-nee,
In brave old Hawkins’ gallant ship, Who found out Tobac-kee.
A lurch to starboard, one to port— Now forward, boys, go we;
With a haul, and a ho! and “Hearty, that’s your sort!” To find out Tobac-kee.
Leslies Budget,
©ur Smoke ^oom ©able.
Idylls and Epigrams, Chiefly from the Greek Anthology, By Bichard Garnett [Author of Io in Egypt, and other Poems; Poems from the German; Editor of Belies of Shelley], London: Macmillan and Co. 1869.
This is a dainty and delightful little book, redolent of suavity and grace, of fine fancy and wit and unvulgar humour, over which that happy being the good smoker may breathe full many a fragrant breath, slow and deep-savoured, commingling the thyme-scented honey of Hymettus with the Honey-dew not lees sweet of Virginia, “ like golden exhalations of the dawn ”! And bees with wings and stings buzz about the honey, as sparks of living fire flit about the Honey-dew. Of the hundred and seventy-one pieces thirty are original, and the best of these are worthy of such choice companionship. It is not easy to select where so many merit citation. We cull here and there for variety, leaving as good unplucked. The first is Mr. Garnett’s own:—
“Hither, dear Muse, I pray, and with thee bear A madrigal for Melite the fair, Evil with good repaying; for’tisshe Who tempts me to oblivion of thee.”
VUL, from Bion, is rather long for our small room, but we really must get it in somehow :—
“ Young was I, when I saw fair Venud stand Before me, leading in her lovely hand Eros, whose drooping eye the herbage sought, And thus, * Dear herdsman, let my child be taught Music by thee,’ therewith she went away. Then did I in all innocence essay To teach, as though he would have learned of me, The sources of sweet-flowing melody:— Pan’s pipe and Pallas’ flute, how Hermes bade The tortoise sing, and how Apollo made The cittern. But, not heeding mine a whit, He sang himself a song, and taught me it. How Venus reigns, and all in heaven above And land and tea is subject unto Love, And I forgot all I to Love did tell, But all he taught me I remember well.”
Lingeringly we pass by “A Vintage” of Agathias, with its splendid opening,
“ Singing elate we rhythmically trod
The heaped-up purples of the vineyard’s God;”
and come to XILL, again Mr. Garnett’s, which the good smoker can easily apply to his jar or bowl and his herb of rich incense:—
“ Both thou and I alike, my Bacchic urn, From clay are sprung, and must to clay return; But happier fate this day is mine and thine, For I am full of life, and thou of wine; Our powers for mutual aid united be, Keep thou me blithe, and flowing I’ll keep thee.” Our next is a charming instance of one mode of the “pathetic fallacy ”; far the thought has its sharp replication, She clings to the ruin—ruined bg her clinging: it is from Antipater of Sidon, “A Dead Plane Overgrown by a Vine":—
“ She whose weak growth I did erewhile sustain, Makes a rich vine of me a withered plane. Wrapped in her mantling leaves profusely strown, I scarce perceive that I have lost my own. From her, O youth, whom early love endears, Expect the solace of declining years.”
This is imitated from “ Our master, Meleager, he who framed The first Anthology and daintiest”:—
“ Friends, when I breathe no more (and ’tis well known That I am principally skin and bone) See that my urn this epitaph presents,
1 Cupid to Pluto, with his compliments.’ ”
Another from Meleager, an exquisite sigh:
“ 0 Love that flew so lightly to my heart, Why are thy wings so feeble to depart?” “The Offering of Lais,” imitated from Plato:—
“ Venus, from Lais, once as fair as thou. Receive this mirror, useless to me now; For what despoiling Time hath made of me I will not, what he marred I cannot, see.”
On which Mr. Garnett notes: “ The ambiguity of the word sawrai# has enabled Voltaire to imitate this famous epigram with a felicity unattainable in English:
‘ Je le donne A Venus, puisqu* elle est toujours belle; H redouble trop mee ennuis.
Je ne saurais me voir, dans ce miroir fiddle, Ni telle que j’dtais, ni telle que je suis.’ ”
What a fierce pride in this from Mnasalcas 1—
“ The crooked bow and arrow-spending case Promachus hangs up in this holy place, Phoebus, to thee. The shafts remain .T“*’ For each is buried in a foeman s heart.”
“A Marble Lion, Carved on Leon’s Tomb,” from Simonides:—
“ Among all living things the palm I claim Of courage. If my nature, and [as ?] my name Had not been his upon whose tomb I sit, Thou hadst not seen me, stranger, guarding it."
This, anonymous, is very beautiful in simplicity and tenderness:—
“ Kind Earth, accord within thy peaceful breast Amyntichus, thy benefactor, rest: The good old man, who bade the olive crown, And vine empurple thee, and corn embrown; And, channelling the conduit, gave thee thence Of herbs and fruits delicious affluence. Light lie upon him, and his grave who made Thee verdant, with thy verdure be repaid.”
Here are a couple from the keen stylus of Lucian:—
“ Priapus, by devout Actemon placed Protector of his garden’s weedy waste, Warns all disposed to search its grounds for pelf That there is naught to steal except himself.*
And “A Field ”:-
“ Cleon’s I was, to Cleitophon was sold; Another’s soon; soon will another hold What each calls his; but the pure truth to say, Fortune’s I am and I shall be alway.”
Ludllius lauds a miser :—
“Great soul! who nobly thus allots his pelf; All to his heir and nothing to himself.
Antipater of Sidon anticipates, in his own way, the irreverence of Swift *j-“Honey and milk are sacrifice for thee, Kind Hermes, inexpensive deity. But Hercules demands a sheep each day For holding—as he says—the wolf at bay. Imports it much, meek browsers of the sod, Whether the beast devour you, or the God ? ”
Let us end with this neat setting of a boa-mot of Simonides, one of those paradoxes wherein the subtle-witted Greeks delighted:—
“ * I hardly ever ope my lips,’ one cries;
1 Simonides, what think you of my rule ?’ * If you’re a fool, I think you’re very wise: If you are wise, I think you are a fooL’”
Uetos of ©Hr ^ooks.
The Early English Text Society.
[CONTINUATION.]
EXTRA SERIES.
It appears that all the middle English narratives of the doughty deeds of Guy of Warwick, that famous hero of the nursery, are from the French. Even the patience of childhood could hardly endure in these degenerate days 12,000 lines of verse about the adventures of Guy and the cruel lady whose love he sought, and at whose altar the dun cow may be said to have been slain.
24.	The History of the Holy Grail, by Henry Lonelich, Be-edited by Frederick J. Furnivall, Part H. 1875.
25,	26. The Bomance of Guy of Warwick, The second, or 15th Century Version, Edited from the paper MS, Ff.2.38in the University Library, Cambridge, by Dr. Julius Zupitsa, 1875-76.
Sir. E. W. ^shbee’s Eeprints.
Mb. E. W. Ashbbb is a lover of old books. He is enamoured of even their slightest peculiarities. No slipshod editorial tinkering finds favour in his eyes. The antiquated spelling, the effete method of punctuation, the odd form of obsolete letters, the dark hue of the paper, all these are faithfully and artistically reproduced in the works issued by him. His tastes are chiefly in the byeways of our literature during the Stuart period, and many curious illustrations of the drama and of social life have been put forth in a form which commands the confidence of students. The chief quality of his work is that it is a fac-simile of the original, and can be relied upon as such. The following list will show the subjects over which Mr. Ashbee's reprints extend. They are sufficiently varied. Notices of the early history of the stage, quaint prophecies, chap-books concerning the “hog-faced gentlewoman” and the “gentle usurer,” early plays such as “Janke Jugelsr” and “Thersytes,” Shakesperean like the old “ Taming of a Shrew,” and many other interesting matters will be found among them. Some part of the work thus done has since been popularised by Mr. Hindley, whilst the Spenser Society have taken the Water-Poet under their protection, and reprinted with luxurious care all that can be found of his manifold and multitudinous writings. 1. Bartholomew Faire or Variety of fancies, where you may find a faire of wares, and aU toplease your mind, London Printed for Richard Harper at the Bible and Harpe in
Smithfield 1641. 4 leaves. .
2.	Archy's Dream, sometimes Tester to his Maiestie, but exiled the Court by Canterburies malice. With a relation for whom an odde chaire stood voide in Heli. Printed in the year© 1641. 4 leaves.
* “ For it hath been objected, that those ancient heroes, famous for their combating so many giants, and dragons, and robbers, were in their own persons a greater nuisance to mankind than any of those monsters they subdued; mad therefore to render their obligations more complete, when all other vermin were destroyed, should in conscience have concluded with tire
same justice upon themselves; as Hercules most generously did, and hath, upon that score, procured to himself more temples and votaries than the best of his fellows.”—** Tale of a Tub: Section HL—A Digression Concerning
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NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.	SMOKING:
We cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; and we do not hold ourselves responsible for loss.	WHEN INJURIOUS, WHEN INNOCUOUS, WHEN BENEFICIAL, WITH COMPENDIUM OF THE TEMPERAMENTS, SHOWING HOW THEY ABB INFLUENCED BY TOBJLOOO.
COPE’S 1878 CARD.	BY J. CARRICK MURRAY, M.D., F.A.I., Newccutle-upon-Tyne.
MODERN PILGRIMS.	Price Is. Free by Post. Is. Iio. London: Simpkin,Marshall, & Co. Newcastle-on-Tyne: D.H. Wilson.
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Subscribers to the “Tobacco Plant” for 1878 will receive a copy of Modes* Pilgrims and Key, carefully packed upon a roller, by forwarding 6d. to pay carriage. Price to Non-Subecribers, 1/-. Subscription for “ Tobacco Plant,” 2/- per annum, poet free. Subscription for “Tobacco Plant” and Modern Pilgrims, 2/6. Publishing Office:—10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.	
	A JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOR GREAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND THE COLONIES. TTTE PRINTERS’ REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Home and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India, China, Canada, Ac.; and it affords the best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in
VIEW YORK TOBACCO LEAF, Organ of the Tobacco Trade of the United States. Published weekly. Subscription, 20/- per Annum, post free to any part of the United Kingdom. Sole Agents for the United Kingdom— Cope Bros. & Co., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by whom Advertisements and Subscriptions will be received. Specimen copy sent for Id. postage stamp.	the number for August, 1875. Address—The Editor, St. Bride Street, London, E.O.
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rpHE VIRGINIA TOBACCO JOURNAL is published every £ Thursday Morning by Jones, Marstin, & Co., No. 724, Main Street, Richmond, Va. Terms of Subscription: Single copies, 10c.; one year, $4; six months, $2. Annual Subscriptions abroad: Great Britain and Canada, $5.04; Bremen, Hamburg, and the Continent, $5.04; Australia, &c., vid England, $5.04; Cuba, $5.04.	BERNARD QUARITCH, 15, Piccadilly, London, W.
	WORKS on TOBACCO, SNUFF, &c.—BookseUers * » having Books on Tobacco, Snuff, Ac, or Magazines, Journals, or Newspapers containing articles on the subject, are invited to report such to the Office of COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
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Manufacturers, IN BOND, of All Descriptions of TOBACCO, for Ship Stores and for Exportation.
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SOLE MANUFACTURERS OF THE CELEBRATED “RICHMOND 8M0KING MIXTURE.”
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Price Lists on Application.
SOLACE. One Shilling Bundles, containing 4 Cigars.
ENGLAND’S BEST. One Shilling Bundles, containing 6 Cigars.
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210	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[August, 1878.
COPE’S CIGARILLOS.
FAIRY BRAND, in CARDBOARD BOXES, GOLD MOUNTED, with BEAUTIFUL PARISIAN LABEL, CONTAINING TEN Internal PACKETS of TEN CIGARILLOS EACH.________________________
New Cigarette—Cope’s Whiffs;
In Bundles of ten, lead foil, and neat label. In Cedar Boxes, containing forty bundles, or 400 Cigarettes.
COPE’S CIGARETOS.
Bouquet (With Tubes).
Peerless (Without Tubes).
In Cardboard Boxes, containing four bundles of 25 Cigaretos.
In very handsome Cedar Cases, containing Ten Boxes, or 1000 Cigaretos.
Delicate in flavour; burn evenly, 'with a flrm white ash; made with great care flor a mild morning smoke.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes.
In Cardboard Boxes, containing 50.
In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1000, with lock and key.
Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made flrom a peculiar kind ofl Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking ofl this Tobacco is said to give reliefl in cases ofl Asthma.
These really beautiful Goods are rapidly growing into favour, and invariably make a trade wherever introduced.
COPE BROTHERS & CO.
TOBACCO WORKS,
Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
PRICE LISTS SUPPLIED TO THE TRADE ON APPLICATION.
Printed and Published for the Proprietors at the Office, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by Johm Fbaskb, of 1, Spekeland Road, Edge-Hill, Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster.
ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ HALL.
COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT
A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
No. 102.—Vol. II.]	SEPTEMBER, 1878.	[ff^S^
Abacar Smuggling in the ^ust generation.
v.
Lit us now finish what concerns us of the very important evidence of Mr. H. N. Davis, the great London Tobaccobroker. And it may be well to remark that I reproduce his testimony rather than that of the smuggling capital letters themselves, partly because he states some facts on which they were not cross-examined, and partly because he is a model witness who condenses admirably to my hand. I may however, space permitting, supplement what I give from him with one or two of the more piquant details furnished orally by them. Thus he continues :—I will take next the Channel Islands, on information from E. Here is one transaction in three vessels; 700 bales, half Tobacco in bales of 120 lbs. and half stalks in bales of 60 lbs., with 10 casks of stalk flour, that is, stalks ground fine, were shipped from Jersey and landed at Newport in Wales ; all saved except 30 bales. (E., examined on this, explains: the 30 bales were taken into a barn; the party it went to thought the Customs would find this out; so he went and informed against himself, got his share of the reward, and saved his credit. He told me this, and laughed at it.) The company that did this buys at Jersey and lands at Swansea, Milford, Carmarthen, and every part of the Welsh coast; it has also landed 280 bales at Gloucester. The Tobacco is first imported into London, sold there, and exported to Jersey without payment of duty. This company has made many successful runs in succession, with a loss of only a small number of bales. The total loss to the revenue £9000 each time, or £36,000 per annum. Another case : “ A gentleman’s yacht had on board in all 400 bales; this yacht or party had carried on the trade for several years, but one voyage lost a mast, and put into Plymouth or Torbay, where she lay two days and two nights, with a smaller craft alongside destined to take part of the Tobacco. At night both were in the mud; the Tobacco was being re-shipped, when it was discovered and seized. The greater part was destined for Ireland. The same party is supposed to still continue the trade. At the lowest calculation two runs were made yearly, therefore the loss per annum to the revenue was £18,000.” The yacht, I believe, was seized; but the same party has a fine new one of 90 tons. E. explains: This gentleman’s yacht belonged to one of the Northern yacht clubs, I think one of the Irish. He used to come over to Jersey now and then, and take bales, sometimes more and sometimes fewer, and take them to a river in Ireland, and tranship them into smaller vessels. I know this, having been on his vessel when the Tobacco was on board. He made a great many trips, carrying on a regular trade; he lost two yachts, that at Plymouth being the second. He was not Exchequered ; the yachts are never in their real owner’s name; they are licensed in another name, so that the real owner cannot be touched. He has built another since then, but I do not know whether he has been with her to the Channel Islands.—Mr. Davis goes on with the communication from E.—“ A vessel cleared at the Custom-house Jersey, in ballast, for Newcastle; but had on board 200 bales of Leaf, each from 150 to 160 lbs., and sailed for Southampton (excuse, if asked, stress of weather), where all was safely landed at the pier. On this one transaction there would be £1500 loss to the revenue. [The duty on 200 bales of 150 lbs., or 30,000 lbs., at 3s. 2d. would be £4750. The ** 150 to 160 lbs.” is probably a slip for “ 50 to 60 lbs.”; and E. has calculated the duty on the minimum of 50 lbs. per bale and 3s. duty, neglecting the extra 5 per cent, or nearly 2d.]
Operations of this nature oftcur almost weekly, and as much is done from Guernsey. Instead of calculating such weekly, say monthly, viz.: £1500 per month for 12 months, the loss to the revenue per annum £18,000. Every vessel that brings stone from Jersey has Tobacco, and many go into the Regent’s Canal, London. All the colliers from Newcastle to Jersey take back 10 or 20 bales of cut Tobacco, cigars, cheroots.” Again, from Jersey: “A schooner (cannot remember her name, but belonging to Lancaster) took 380 bales of Leaf; she anchored in the Mersey, and transhipped into billyboys or flats, and landed all safe at Runcorn: loss to the revenue £9000.” From Jersey still: He knows of and has seen shipped as much as 400 bales, weighing each 500 to 800 lbs., packed to resemble other merchandise, in canvas wrappers, iron hooped, shipped in cutters from Jersey, and transhipped into lighters when near the English coast, and again transhipped into coasters and brought to the sufferance wharfs, London, as the produce or manufacture of the United Kingdom, whence they are delivered by the Customs without fee or duty: these 400 bales were introduced during about 24 months: upon this transaction alone, the loss to the revenue was £40,000.—“ Are not they obliged to have all those things entered in the manifest ? Yes, but that manifest or transire is no protection. If vessels intend to meet foreign ships at sea, they put in the transire so many cases of goods which they receive at sea, and this transire is a protection to it. How is that done ? Supposing a steamer from Ireland goes to Falmouth, she there receives from lighters goods and merchandise; she takes them on board, and makes an entry in her transire that she has received at Falmouth so many goods coastwise: they appear to have come from Falmouth, and then the steamer takes them round to London ; and it is so done with those large packages of 8 cwt.; they are delivered into the custody of the Custom-house officer, and then delivered to anybody that asks for them, without fee or duty; 400 bales were so delivered, weighing 500 to 800 lbs. each.” The owner of the steamboat may be unaware of the smuggling, but I should think the captain knows it. These are only a few of the instances E. knows of ; since he wrote the above, he has learnt of seven tons, or about 250 bales, now coming.
The conclusion of this part of Mr. Davis’ evidence, concerning the smuggler-witnesses introduced by him, is extremely significant:—The information I have given is obtained from five or six individuals, and I think I can account for about a sixth of the revenue from those parties [that is, for duty lost equal to one-sixth of the whole duty received]. If I pould obtain the same sort of information from 30 people more, I could account for the whole of the revenue [that is, for duty lost equal to the whole duty received] ; and that there are 30 more who know as much as these six, I think it fair to infer, because 500 persons were imprisoned for smuggling last year.—“What inducement had the parties to give you this very minute specific information, which would appear to lead to their own detection ? ” “ One party has been carrying on the trade for some time, and has been unfortunate in it, and has in his employment many persons at whose mercy he is, and he wishes to get rid of them, and therefore he comes here to obtain protection, and he will then build another manufactory and send all his old hands away. That is the object one party told me he had in coming forward. I cannot say that the motives of the other five are similar.” “ But if it were not for such a motive, it is clearly contrary to the interest of those parties to give any information ?” “ There is no doubt of it, and that in the reason I have obtained information from so few." If I had had more time I could have
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[September, 1878.
obtained a good deal more information. My informants, those specified, are every one of them parties of credibility; men that I should trust in business; I certainly believe what they say to be true—I have no more cases I can prove by evidence. A manufacturer in London told me last week that for the last ten years one-half of his trade had consisted of contraband Tobacco. He has two cases now pending, one a Customs and one an Excise, and he will not come to give evidence, although his evidence would be very valuable, unless those two cases are settled. [We may pretty safely assume that this refers to the person who came from the Continent to give evidence a month later, and who is designated G.]
It may appear hardly worth while to supplement such weighty facts as Mr. H. N. Davis brought forward with mere opinions, but his experience was so large, and his mind, to judge by his evidence, so acute and sagacious, that his opinions on the main financial question were of quite exceptional value, and therefore claim reproduction here. He states: “ I am of opinion that if the duty were reduced from 3s. to Is., there would be an increase of consumption of at least one-third upon what I consider to be the present actual consumption, which is 40 to 45 million pounds [only double the then duty paid consumption]. I consider that if the duty were reduced to Is. there would be a trade in the exportation of British manufactured snuff; I think also of Tobacco, with a proportionate drawback to that which is now allowed; because the Report from the Secretary to the Treasury of the United States, No. 247, 27th Congress, 3rd Session, shows that the export of manufactured Tobacco from the United States in 1842 was 4,434,214 lbs. One-half of that has been shipped to our colonies, and I consider that if the duty were low here, with a proportionate drawback, we should be able to supply the colonies with British manufactured Tobacco, a market which is now quite lost to us. I think upon that a considerable revenue might be derived, but a still greater one would be derived from the exportation of snuff to every part of the globe; therefore, taking these into consideration, I think it probable that there might be brought for the dutycharge as much as 70.000,000, or perhaps 80,000,000 lbs., which at Is. would produce as much or more revenue than is now collected at 3s. I think a materially increased consumption would arise immediately as far as Tobacco is concerned, because the stock of Tobacco is never large in a manufacturer’s possession, therefore the reduced price would come into operation almost immediately; but with regard to snuff, there is generally a six months* stock, and therefore it would be perhaps six months before the reduced price would come into operation with reference to snuff.”
A., of London, thus testified to the value of false certificates : When I was in Belfast Mr. Black told me he had to sell 40 hogsheads of stalks; they were all right, and he asked me whether I would take them into my stock, and said he would give me a good commission; I said, “ No; I should not like to chance anything;” he said, “ I will write a certificate in my place, and get it nailed on to the casks in Scotland, and then you can send for them to the wharf in Lower East Smithfield; ” and I accordingly sent a waggon there and got them ; they came from Scotland with the certificates on them; if an Excise or Government officer saw them he could not touch them. These stalks had been smuggled from Flushing into Scotland, into a house not licensed ; the thing was to get them from there into the manufacturer's stock in London ; a man in Ireland writes a certificate that they come out of his stock, and that is enough to enable me to take them into my stock. They were landed in Scotland in bales, and put into sugar hogsheads afterwards; they came to London by sea. Stalks cannot be imported as stalks from Holland, but they may be transhipped coastwise from Scotland to England, or from England to Scotland, on a manufacturer’s certificate from one stock to another. The Excise officer came in while I was taking them from the waggon, and he asked me where I got them, and said, “ It is rather a curious package to have stalks in;” and I said, “No; it is all right, I have the certificate; if you will look in at the proper time you will find them entered in my book; I am too busy just now.” He went away, and came back about three hours afterwards; I had then entered them in my book, and I gave him the certificate, and he was perfectly satisfied. Four hogsheads I sent on to Taddy’s, who knew nothing at all about their being smuggled, but supposed it was in the regular way of business.
B. explained about the six cases of Manilla cheroots mentioned by Mr. H. N. Davis:—Each case contained 20,000 (20 times 7| lbs.), the value of the six duty paid was £690, the duty being £420. The cheroots were mine, part of about twenty chests lying in bond at the London Docks. For the £240 my man guaranteed me against the loss of the cheroots, depositing £300 stock as collateral security; I not to pay until the goods were safe on my premises. If I would have risked the loss of my cheroots he would have done it for £200. I gave him the warrants in exchange for the stock, and four or five days afterwards he called and said, “ I have those cheroots all right; will you have them brought in the chests just as they are?” I said, “ Oh yes; of course;” and ten minutes afterwards he drove up a cart to the door with the six cases, which had never been broken open from the time they left the dock. He never told me exactly how it was done, but he told me enough to let me understand the mode.
He shipped those goods for exportation ; I believe the first parcel was shipped for Honduras; some boxes similar to the chests that contained the cheroots, what they call dummies, were made up, and put on board the ship; the goods were carried in a lighter from the London dock to the ship lying in the river; during the transit the changes were rung, and the dummies were put on board instead of the cheroots, and these were landed. The way it is done is this: there are two lighters ; as soon as the goods go out of the dock there is another lighter waiting with the dummies; the two go alongside, and immediately the officer who is in charge of the cheroots is transferred from one boat to the other; and the dummies go on board the ship, and the cheroots to {the nearest wharf. No permit or certificate is required after the re-landing. The officer is bribed to go from one lighter to the other; the dummies are regularly shipped, and after that no man whatever can take them. My man brought the cheroots from the wharf in a cart of his own ; they came as regularly as if I had sent them to the Custom-house; with the difference that the London Dock Company allow only licensed carts on their premises, and this cart was not licensed. It bore a fictitious name; a fresh name is easily put on the cart; they have slides, and the moment the goods are taken out of the cart a fresh name is put in by a slide. True, they are obliged to have their names painted a certain size on the carts in London ; it is done upon a board or tin plate; this man had twenty names; they will put any name you like on. In all I cleared thirty cases of cheroots and cigars through that man. I am very well known at the Custom-house; they have never said anything to me about exporting my cigars. Neither my broker nor myself had [ostensibly] to do with these things; my name does not appear. I get my warrants from the dock, and I give them up to the party; a warrant is just as transferable as a Bank of England note. Thus I sold a chest of cigars about six weeks ago to a man who was persuaded to sell it again to a swindler, introduced to him as a respectable man of business. I sold the chest, worth £120, at two months’ credit, but he said, “ I shall probably not see you at the time ; I will give you a bill; ” the bill was drawn and accepted. The swindler was taken at a gambling-house; I went to see whether I could get the cigars back again; but I found that this chest had been transferred no less than six times; on the face of the warrant no name but my own appeared, but the books showed that it had gone through six different parties. If I take a warrant to the dock, endorsed by the party by whom it was first taken out, it is transferred to me on payment of a penny, and the warrant bears no mark of the transfer.
This B. had been Exchequered once on an information; it came about thus. After the accident at Leigh he sent no more Tobacco to Holland to be smuggled back, but bought Leaf in London from the same men who before smuggled for him. In the first four months of 1843 he bought thus parcels of about 3000 lbs. a month; the loss to the revenue on each between £400 and £500. Mr. B. goes on to relate:— In May the man employed had about 3000 lbs. in his waggon for my factory. A man going by appeared to find out what there was in the waggon; he said he smelt it; he got upon the waggon and said, “ Oh, my boy, you have something to do here, you will want my assistance;” the man gave him a shilling, and he said, “ I am not going away with that; I am going to assist with these goods; I know what these goods are; ” and the fellow picks a hole in one of the bales, and gets a piece of Tobacco; and immediately the goods were warehoused, he went to the carman and said, “I must have of you a sovereign for my assistance.” The carman said, 41 What for? ” u Oh,” said the man, “you have been getting some smuggled Tobacco in there; I know all about it; I have been in that trade before myself.” The man, I believe, gave him a sovereign, but I had nothing to do with that; he was a drunken fellow, and went and spent a shilling or two in brandy and water, then came back and said to the man, “If you do not give me £5, I will go and split upon you; ” this was about half-past nine in the morning. The man said, “ I shall not give you £5; I have given you a sovereign, and that is more than you are worth.” “ Then,” he said, “if you do not, I will make it worse for you.” What does he do, but he goes to the Excise Office [B’s moral indignation at this scoundrel’s proceedings is not less noble than pathetic], and at ten in the morning three Custom-house officers came to my place; I believe the informer met with some Custom-house officers before he met with any of the Excise. They searched the place, especially the cellar, where they found only some sacks of potatoes ; came to the conclusion that the information was wrong, were sorry for having given me so much trouble, bade me good morning, and departed. They had scarcely been gone five minutes, when three Excisemen came upon the same errand; they searched the warehouses, went into the attics, and looked under the beds; they could find nothing suspicious, were very sorry for the trouble given, and went away. About noon came the Collector, a superior officer, with the same tale of the information. He said, “ I must weigh your stock.” That I did not know that the Collector or anybody else had power to do. He added, “ I suppose you have no objection?” I said, “Not the slightest; you can weigh anything you like in the place. Where will you begin?” “Here is a hogshead of Tobacco, we will weigh that.” “ And here is the permit,” I said. He put the weight down, and it exactly corresponded with the permit
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He weighed all that was in the place, and then said, “ I must see the books to see the quantity you have had in.” From the books it was found that there were upwards of 30,000 lbs. brought in by permit, and he thought that 3000 or 4000 lbs. in stock was not too much for that quantity; but he said, “ I do not know what to do, for my orders are from the Board of Excise to seize the goods upon your premises, but I do not see any ground for it; but you must let these things remain exactly as they are till to-morrow morning.” I sent to Mr. Davis in the first instance, because I thought the man had no business to weigh the stock, but I had no objection to it. Mr. Davis came, and said “I will swear to that Tobacco having paid duty; ” however, they went away, and I left the things as they were. The next morning they came with a couple of waggons and carried all away. They took a little over 3000 lbs.; they then served me with an Exchequer writ; and sooner than go to trial, after finding that this man (the drunken fellow) had laid his information so clearly, in addition to which the carman had been to the Excise-office, and I supposed that he mi^ht have told them all about it, more particularly when I heard that some officers had been down to the place where those goods were brought from, and seized there a further quantity—sooner than go to trial I would have given £1000 to get out of the affair; as it was I lost £800 by it. The Excise agreed to take £300 penalty, and I forfeited the goods. There were only about 400 lbs. of them smuggled; the rest were two hogsheads, 2600 lbs., which had paid duty the day before. Mr. Davis said he could swear to them. But the informer said he could swear to 3000 lbs.; I never knew what the exact information was, or what quantity it stated; I was thoroughly frightened. [The Committee, strangely enough, did not question B. as to how he had got rid of the bulk of the smuggled Tobacco, in so short a time.] The most extraordinary thing of all was that the Exchequer writ charged me with adulterating as well as smuggling; I never adulterated. It seems pretty clear that if B. had been more daring, and had fought out his case, he would have beaten the Excise. But he was not a bold smuggler—not a born smuggler—and the same may be said of most of the others who came forward to give evidence; they were rather timid men, “of a nervous temper,” as one of them mildly put it, driven into smuggling by fear of bankruptcy, and scared out of it by fear of the Excise; weak and, therefore, miserable; tossed between two terrors; scapegoats of the guilt of a most iniquitous system of taxation or extortion. The bolder spirits, the smugglers by nature, continued the game in defiance of Government, and joined not in the Miserere of confession. Hear poor B. further:—I discontinued smuggling since I was Exchequered (as he discontinued sending out Tobacco on his own account, and smuggling back, with much larger profit, after the Leigh accident). I have known the offence repeated after detection. I was not before being Exchequered in as favourable circumstances for smuggling as anyone could be at present, nor were my premises well placed for it. I could find, if I felt disposed, more eligible premises than those in which I was engaged; but the fact was that I always hated smuggling from the beginning; when I did it I was always in fear; from the beginning I only did it in self-defence—I was a smuggler in self-defence—and at that time I made a little money, and since that I have done nothing but lose. Before I began smuggling I could not make a living; I was gaining the three years I was at it; since then I have been losing, and am losing now, but I will give up the business rather than smuggle again. I keep on in the hope of better times. A man, when he is engaged in business, and has got fixed as he supposes for life, cannot give it up at a moment’s notice. I attribute my losses to the competition of the unfair' trader. I am certain that a great many manufacturers are smuggling now as I used. I see the men I was engaged with, and talk to them as I did before, and they offer to supply me with any quantity. Then there is adulteration. Only yesterday I had a sample of Tobacco sent to me from Norwich, from a man who is in the habit of buying a large quantity from me, along with this was a printed areolar saying, “We guarantee that this Tobacco is perfectly genuine,” and the name and the weight of the cask. The man who sent it to me said, “ This is the Tobacco that I am buying at 3s. 3d.” Now the duty is 3s. 2d., and when I came to examine that Tobacco, I could see a quantity of adulteration in it. Detection depends upon the article used; many things I can detect; several it is impossible to detect except by analysis; I think I could detect if adulterated up to 30 or 40 per cent. As stated before, I have never adulterated. I paid £23,000 duty this last year. Can you name any man who has made £10,000 by smuggling? I see a man that I know, who began with very little business indeed, spending £10,000 a year. Having pondered this very encouraging fact, we proceed to C., residing in the East of London, in the Tobacco business for about 24 years, who adds some interesting details to what Mr. Davis adduced on his report:—In 1841 I had some business in Rotterdam, for which I had to take a warehouse expressly; it was for the cigar trade; I manufacture cigars. After I had been there a year or so, I found that they were smuggling cheroots from Holland into England; and I also found that they were not smuggling cigars, because there is greater risk of damaging them ; and I did, with two others, smuggle about six tons of Havannah cigars (duty at 9s. and	five per cent., £6350 8s.) from 1841 to 1843. They were shipped for me under bond from London to Rotterdam, by a regular broker, to an address I had given, not my own. A small duty was paid at Rotterdam (the duty for the douce Dutchmen, at that time, is stated as two per cent, ad valorem on Leaves and Stems, and about 2d. per lb. on Cigars); they were packed as merchandise, knives or anything, it did not matter, and sent back to London by steamer. They were consigned to somebody, but without address, to be left till called for, with marks on the packages; the bill of lading being simply so-and-so to order. They were landed at a sufferance wharf, and then I had them sent to my place in London. The Custom-house broker has the bill of lading, and knows the particulars as to the cases, represented as knives or forks or anything, and he passes them to my house, without my having anything more to do with the affair. What I pay for this depends upon circumstances, upon how much he knows, because it has sometimes been done with the broker supposing the thing to be as described, for they do not always turn the things out of the cases, even at the sufferance wharf, if they have no suspicion. They are cleared as merchandise ; I have paid from £20 to £30 on a lot. I must make an observation that the sufferance wharfs, by which I mean the legal quays from London Bridge to the Tower, and the other side as well, are the very best places in England to smuggle at, better than the docks or anywhere else. It has just come to my memory'I had a case of this parcel, a very large case too, of cigars, in 1842. There is one case measures perhaps 8 feet long, 3 wide, and 4 deep; now I will take another case, with the same mark as there is on that, and this case shall measure perhaps 18 by 18 (inches, we may presume); and the small case is looked to by anybody on the wharf, and the large one is taken away, and the small one is left: of course this is done by collusion.—In 1842-3 I have myself sold sometimes 7, 8, 5 tons of smuggled Leaf a week; for 13 or 14 months, I think I have sold 12 tons a month (loss to the revenue over £4200 a month). It was done without the agency of a broker : I bought from the smuggler by sample at 2s. 4d. to 2s. 6d., according as it was damp or dry; I sold by sample to manufacturers, who knew it was smuggled, at 2s. 9d.; it never entered my premises, I had it carted from the wharf to the buyer, in the open day. Had no trouble at all in disposing of it. Generally sent it in casks, but it has been sent in various packages; sometimes in the shape of pianoforte cases; that was found to answer very well for a good many times. All this Tobacco came from Jersey, and was brought wholly and solely, I may say, by a billyboy; such a thing was hardly ever known before, and that is the reason she was so successful. No seizure has ever been made on my premises, and I have never lost any Tobacco, though I have been suspected. The rest of C’s. disclosures we must reserve till next month. SlGVAT. Hights at ^ofoan ®rtt (Jasth. Vin.—A COMFORTABLE EVENING. THE STRANGE STORY OF OLD LADY GRIMSBY. “ Draw round your chair,” said I to Roddy, “ and now for a comfortable, quiet evening.” Roddy and I had been away all the afternoon, on one of our long rambles. Very pleasantly shone the morning sun, that had wooed us away; the ground was frozen hard as iron, there wasn’t a cloud in himmel’s blue, nor a breath of wind from one direction or another. But towards evening a change had come suddenly over the spirit of the day’s dream, which found my friend and I still a goodly two hours’ stride from home. Heavy grey clouds had come trooping up from the north-east, borne along on the fierce fleet wings of a ten-knot breeze; then the snow had come on, such snow as seldom falls in “bonnie Berks;” and soon we were surrounded by one of the wildest wintry nights ever I remember. Well for us then we had our pipes, for talking was impossible; we could but clutch our sticks and boldly hurry onwards, while the wind sighed and roared through the telegraph wires, and the snow sifted angrily through the leafless hedgerows. It was a night that none save a genuine smoker could have faced. It would have frozen the lymphy blood of an anti in his very heart-pipes. Ah! but didn’t the light from the cosy, red-curtained window, streaming over our own snow-silvered lawn, amply reward us at last; while the jolly dinner, served as only Nellie could serve it, quite put the climax on our happiness. “Now for your yarn,” said Roddy. “Now for my yarn,” I replied; “I will call it THE ONLY SECRET OF HER LIFE. Old Lady Grimsby—she was not old, however, by any means; although, as she was always styled thus, and nothing . else, I must continue to call her so. Perhaps a year or two on the shady side of forty, by no means very charming of countenance, very stern and exacting with her many servants, . and haughty with every one around her. But Lady Grimsby had not been all her life the proud and stately Scottish dame, we find her at the opening of my story. Twenty years before she was the gayest of the gay; she was tall, and, they
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say, almost beautiful then, although a dark shade of downy hairs, even in those days, gave indication of the stubbly moustache of after years, that nothing save the scissors could keep within bounds. In the old days—that is, in her young days—no party or ball of any consequence took place, at which she was not an invited guest. And every Sunday, too, she was seen in her pew by her father’s side, Sir Charles Grimsby. Sir Charles had been in the army in his younger days, and retained ever after a soldierly bearing. He, too, was proud and hasty, as you soon shall hear. When Griselda, as her ladyship was then called, was in the hey-day of her youth and happiness, there came to reside for a period, at Sir Charles’s mansion house, a naval officer of exceedingly pleasant manners and address. Griselda and he were first seen in church together, using the same prayer-book; and after service the gossips on their road home were loud in the praises of the young couple. “ What a pair they would make! I wouldna wonder a bit if they were married in a month. An’ what a blessin’ it would be for the pairrish an* the poor folks!” You will guess from the language that the scene of my story is laid in the far north. There seemed, indeed, soon to be considerable probability that the words of the gossips would come true; for the young officer and Griselda were continually in each other’s company, and had really neither eyes nor ears for anybody else, no matter how crowded was the Hall lawn on a summer’s evening, or how numerous the cavalcade that rode through Beltrie woods. Time went on, and now begins the mystery—part of my yarn which you must unravel for yourself, if you can. But great was the excitement in the village and in all the country side, when the rumour went forth—told first in the best parlour of Eppie Lindsay’s public, by no less a personage than Sandie M‘Kay, the drunken gardener that worked odd jobs for Sir Charles—that there was going to be great doings at the Hall, that Griselda and Captain Smythe were to be married in a month, and “cried” in the kirk on Sunday. The Kirk o’ Beltrie, then, on the following Sabbath, had never been so crowded before. Griselda and her lover were, of course, not there; and during the time the precentor was “ hereby intimating a purpose of marriage,” the silence was positively trying to the nerves; you could easily hear the proverbial church mouse at work on the wainscot, and when the precentor finished it was the greatest relief in the world to listen to the old men taking long-drawn pinches of snuff, to hear the auld wives groaning—God knows why they groan on such occasions—and the young lasses tittering and talking, happy in the thoughts that they might one day get married themselves. Time still sped on: everything was ready for the wedding. Everybody did but wait and long for the blissful day. But— there is many a slip ’twixt the lip and that cup of bliss, be it what it may, we are all so eager to seize and drain to the dregs. There came a day, and with it sad sorrow to the proud house of Grimsby. On the evening of that day there arrived in a chase, at the little inn of Beltrie, a lady dressed in black and deeply veiled, who craved a room for herself, and permission to stay for the night. When some time afterwards Eppie herself entered the apartment, with a kindly cup of tea (nothing had the strange lady ordered), she noticed that her guest was both young and pretty, and that she wore on her finger a wedding ring. Pretty, but with a look of sadness in her face, that made Eppie sorry for her. “ Ech ’oman,” said Eppie in describing the interview afterwards, “ she looked wae, wae, ma very heart grew cauld at the sicht. And naething would she tak, and naething would she do but greet (weep), greet, and ask the road to Grimsby Ha’.” Next day was one of those lovely days in early summer, that makes one feel a boy again, and oh! how often does it not happen that it is just in such joyous times that crashing sorrows come. Breakfast was just over at the hall, and Captain Smythe stood at the window looking forth on the beautiful park, and leaning on his arm was Griselda—radiant. Then, slowly up the path comes fate—the poor lady in black. As soon as the eyes of Smythe rested on that pale face he started as if he had been shot. The anxiety of Griselda for her lover, his apparent illness, and his attempts to appear calm and indifferent, are things that a novelist might make much of. I do but relate an “ower true tale,” and so I pass them by; but twenty minutes after the strange lady’s first appearance the library bell was violently ruqg, and Captain Smythe was summoned to an immediate interview with Sir Charles. What passed in the library we never shall know, nor may the mystery of the lady in black be told; suffice it to say, that next morning the corpse of Captain Smythe was found in a wood by the lake side, and in his hand was grasped the pistol with which he had no doubt done the terrible deed. Sir Charles went to Italy after that, with his daughter, and the great house was closed, and he never returned alive; only his body came back to lie in the cold family vault of Grimsby Hall; and the lonely mistress of the mansion continued now ' to reside near the scene of her sorrows.	. For many months after her return Lady Grimsby was never seen beyond her own gate; then she began to appear at the	kirk, and everybody noticed how altered she was—how saddened, how old. But her attendance at kirk grew less and less frequent, and finally fell off entirely; and then the parson was called upon to visit her at the hall; and it soon got rumoured about that she was ill, that she was almost entirely confined to her chair by day, and her bed by night; never left her own apartments—the suite she occupied when quite a girl —and saw scarcely anyone save her own servants. For a time her peculiar state was the talk of the countryside, and it was currently believed the “poor lady” was dying of a broken heart; but when months, nay, but years flew by, and there wasn’t the slightest change in her ladyship’s condition— when it was stated by her own servants that she ate and drank well, if not heartily, and never seemed to ail, save in her incapacity of motion—then common people put her illness down to “daftness,” due to grief, and the medical faculty named her disease “ hysterical affection of the nerve tubes of the spinal cord,” a term which, being very vague, was considered very learned. Old Lady Grimsby occupied the left wing of the ancient hall. From the back part of this wing stretched a lawn and flower garden, walled in, and communicating at the bottom by a private door with a footpath that led outwards through the woods to the main or country road. One old gardener, Sandy M‘Kay aforesaid, occasionally kept the place trim, but nobody else was allowed to enter it. Such were her ladyship’s orders. This garden had a French window, and steps leading down to it from her principal apartment—never used now, of course. There were two rooms that could only be entered from Lady Grimsby’s bedroom, but they were locked, and no one ever ventured near them; and people openly averred that, almost every night, lights were seen flitting about in these dreary rooms, and sometimes a strange figure in white; and who could this be but the cold ghost of the self-murdered Captain Smythe? Another strange symptom of old Lady Grimsby’s “ malady” was this: except when called by voice or bell, no servant must enter her room, on pain of instant dismissal from her service. The first medical man that came was a very big wig from the nearest city; drove up in his carriage and pair, goldheaded cane of glittering black, gold spectacles, white hair, distinguished air, and, in a word, everything a real physician ought to have. He at once formed his conclusions, but said the case was curious, and said he should like to call again with a colleague, pocketed his fee, ten guineas, and drove off. Now, when he came again, his colleague looked a bit serious, not a little interested, but said he could see it at once. Dr. Big Wig was right: it was a decided case, and a well-marked case of “hysterical disorder of the nerve tubes of the spinal cord;” and then they both drove away, rattling their ten guinea fee in their trousers pockets. And I couldn’t tell you how many medical men came, one after another, to see this “curious case,” but I’m sure of one thing: every one of them was ten guineas richer for his visit.	( Now, there was still another and stranger mystery about old Lady Grimsby. Terrible to say, she possessed a double— what the Germans, I think, call a doppelganger, It is a fearful affair, reader, when one’s spirit takes to roaming about the woods at night before one is dead. But such was the case with Lady Grimsby. Lady Grimsby had a doppel-gdnger. Was it often seen, do you ask? Not often in the course of one year, perhaps, but often in the course of many years, and always at the hour of midnight, coming straight up through the woodland path, arrayed in a long grey cloak, and with a lantern in her—its—hand, towards the gate of the private garden that abutted from the wing of the old hall, where—Providence keep us!—the bed-ridden lady lay asleep! Now, in course of time there came to practice in the district of Beltrie a smart, young, newly-fledged doctor. Not long had he been there ere he heard all about the curious case, including the mysterious rooms, the ghost of Captain Smythe, and her ladyship’s doppelgdnger itself; and one night he was sitting smoking, and gazing wistfully into the low fire of peats, and wondering if ever ever he would get a patient that would pay him in coin, and not in pecks of potatoes or bushels of peas, when the door-bell was smartly rung. It was an order to repair at once to the hall, and extract one of her ladyship’s teeth. “Hurrah!” he thought; “I’ll pull the offending molar, and I’ll take jolly good care to loosen two more, and have another job in a week.” “Hurrah!” he thought, as he returned. “Ten guineas!! Bill, you’re in luck, and another job, maybe, in a week.” But this young doctor hadn’t forgotten one thing: while extracting the tooth and religiously loosening two others, old Lady Grimsby had sprang from her chair in her agony. And this was the first muscu.ar motion Lady Grimsby had made in fifteen years, But wonders will never cease; it was reserved for this clever young doctor to see with his own eyes the doppelganger of old Lady Grimsby. The nearest adjacent town' to Beltrie was A	, distant eight miles. Here, in a Tobacconist’s back shop one evening, shortly after his visit to the Hall, sat the physician, spending a portion of his ten guineas in the best cigars, and trifling a bit with the affections of the female attendant; when in at the front door marched, lantern in hand, the redoubtable doppelgiinger of old Lady Grimsby,
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and ordered ten pounds of cut Cavendish, which she carefully concealed under her cloak, and so silently made her exit. “Well I’m jiggered!” said the doctor; “now, ghosts don’t smoke, ’cause they generally get too much of it in the other world. Ever see that lady before, my love ? ” “No,” was the reply of the maiden fair. “Ha! goes to a different shop every time. Sly Lady Grimsby. Good night, Jeannie, my pet.” Then he hurried off. Just a fortnight after, the young doctor was summoned back again to the Hall; but this time more passed between them than simple teeth extraction, for the doctor assured her ladyship that the only thing that ever would cure the nervetubes of her spinal cord, was learning to smoke. The lady protested; it was ridiculous; she would be the talk of the whole town. A lady of title smoking! Ha, ha! it was too absurd. But the doctor was firm; he swore no one ever should know how the cure was effected. He would be her friend, and bring her everything. Then she gave in, and took a weed. A week afterwards old Lady Grimsby was walking in her garden, leaning on the doctor’s arm; for she had no reason now to pretend to be bedridden for sake of a pipe, and to have empty rooms and a doppelganger ; and, a fortnight after, she went to church. Need I say that this wonderful cure got noised abroad, or tell how famous the doctor grew? Or was it a bit astonishing that ten years after, when her ladyship died, she left the doctor all her monied fortune, every bit? or how, as foolish fairy-books say, the doctor lived happy ever after ? Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N. &fl a ^ijarb in ^mber. [In the interesting cabinet of Mrs. S. H. Smith, of Jersey City, is a five-jeggbd lizard pctniied in amber.] 0, bright-eyed swimmer from Silurian seas, Thou little cousin of the megalosaurus— What mocking sylph, beneath the cypress trees, Discarding flies and fleas and bugs and bees, Embalmed thee for us? When thou wert darting through a fiery path, Millions of years ago, with a sinuous motion, Old Earth lay boiling in a Turkish bath And all things wallowed in a sea of wrath— A sulphurous ocean. Dwelt thou with man primeval in his lair On hills Carpathian or desert Lybian? Or didst thou with the gods Olympus share, ’Mid such high state living unnoticed there, Thou small amphibian? Wert with young Jason sailing from the sun, Into the North, with Argonauts imperial, When he imported wool to win a throne? And was this the first tariff laid upon The raw material? Say! Didst thou rest on Agamemnon’s grave, When Troy’s renowned unpleasantness was over? Or did glad Neptune fling thee from his cave, When sweet Calypso kissed beside the wave Her Spartan lover? How different from the death thou livest here Amid the gay and sombre, wise and witty, With dulcet music melting on the ear, And phonograph discoursing quaint and queer, In Jersey City! Thy lucent coffin had a splendid nook; Above, with saucer eyes and claws retractile, An owl sits gazing with an anxious look; Around are gems; beneath, that limestone spook, The pterodactyl. Who pinioned thy grotesque and uncouth frame Within the sunshine of this golden chamber? Is this the fountain whence the nectar came? Or is it star-born—this undying flame Which men call amber? Or is this jewel formed of sweet tears shed By fair Heliades—Apollo’s daughters— When their rash brother down the welkin sped, Lashing his father’s sun-team, and fell dead In Euxine waters? Splay-footed sprawler from Silurian seas; 0, tawny cousin of the megalosaurus— What sportive sister of Hesperides, In the ambrosia of celestial trees, Embalmed thee for us! W. A. Crojtut, tn New York Graphic.	^arhty literature. Not long ago a German traveller stated that all the young women of a tribe in Southern Africa came to him one morning and passionately entreated him to give them the dung of his oxen! This was the highest favour they could ask! How admirably fitted these black ladies would have been to figure as contributors to the dozen London periodicals which by frivolous or filthy gossip minister to the degraded taste of an imbecile and prurient community! The literature of England, which should entertain and instruct and elevate, has fallen into the hands of flunkies, who unscrupulously reveal what should not be revealed or is not worth revealing. It is less astonishing that flunkies should be the editors of periodicals, the writers for them, than that the periodicals themselves, whose obscenity is transcended by their idiocy, should be eagerly read by thousands of persons who make some pretensions to culture and refinement. The lackey is not a very noble animal at the best; but he becomes a singularly ignoble animal when he betrays his master, or bribes other lackeys to disclose important secrets. In every respect base, the scrib-bhng lackeys are especially base from their odious treachery. It has been said, that if no man is a hero to his valet, it is because the valet must look at all things from the low level of his valet’s nature. But hitherto the valet, whether he regarded his master as a hero or not, was expected to be loyal to him. Like thieves, valets had their code of honour. What valet might confide to valet was too sacred to be divulged to all the world. Even also, if the valet did not adore his master as a hero, he in general proclaimed him with pride to his brother valets a good and generous gentleman. It is, however, no longer to valets that the valet now addresses himself; and of his master he is no longer proud. The valet is now earth’s chief prophet, earth’s consummate literary artist; and, in order to be so, he is a spy on all his master’s doings. No one can be a spy without being a liar at the same time. He who earns his wages by spying strives to double them by lying. Consequently lackey literature, even if it were not otherwise execrable, is a putrid mass of slanderous mendacities. To make the mendacities the more piquant and credible, the vile wretches, in livery or out of livery, who scribble in the lackey journals, always represent themselves as the equals, as the intimate companions, of those whose deeds they record and whose characters they calumniate. They talk, with an impudence only to be found in flunkeys and monkeys, of their ’ friend the Emperor, their friend the Prince, their friend the Prime Minister. If we believe the lackeys, it is they themselves who are the leading agents in social and political affairs. But for plush, and shoulder-knots, and hair powder, the globe’s diurnal and annual course would cease, and something far more terrible than chaos might result. It is they who, by giving pregnant hints to the rulers of kingdoms, save the kingdoms from ruin. Their genius, their knowledge, are as universal as their wisdom is profound. They bear, like Atlas, the whole heavens on their shoulders, and with the arms of Briareus they embrace Immensity; but they have the eyes of Argus for the most minute circumstances, the most trifling events. The last time they dined at the Ship Tavern, Greenwich, with the Prince of Wales, his Royal Highness was pleased to be witty at the expense of the old girl, meaning his mother. They laughed, as in duty and politeness bound; but they turned the conversation in the direction of State concerns, and offered his Royal Highness some solid suggestions, of incomparable value to him as the future ruler of England. Neither grave matters nor gay, however, prevented them from observing how often the Prince blew his nose, and how many cigars he smoked. When the Prince got on board the steamer to return home, two old men and three old women who stood on the pier, were thoroughly convinced that his Royal Highness had neither been smoking too much nor drinking too much. One of the old men, after giving his quid a vigorous squeeze, and then expectorating profusely, shouted, with a defiant air, that his Royal Highness was a very fine fellow; and one of the old women, after taking a huge pinch, either of Morton’s mixture or Gillespie, snorted fiercely, as if calling the skies to witness, and as if treating the powers of darkness with scorn, that his Royal Highness was a jewel. His Royal Highness pretended not to be paying any attention, but a keen glance, that is to say, the keen glance of a lackey journalist might see that his Royal Highness was delighted with these proofs of attachment and admiration. For a time, as the steamer glided slowly up the river, his Royal Highness was silent. By-and-by, however, he stretched out his arms, yawned, and said that though he had been smoking pretty freely, another weed could do him no harm. The cigar case of his Royal Highness was purchased at Vienna, and was presented to him by one of his brothers, who has the reputation of being fonder of taking than of giving. Even the meanest men, however, have occasional impulses of generosity. After gazing at the mudlarks for two, or, it might be, three minutes, his Royal Highness protested, with an energetic wink, that the mudlarks were the most amusing birds he had ever seen. Forgetting the august presence in which he stood, the man at the wheel was ready to explode with laughter; but, so far from being offended, his Royal Highness seemed gratified that his joke had been appreciated by an uncultivated mind, even if in boisterous fashion. His Royal
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Highness threw to the mudlarks the end of his weed to be scrambled for. All the guests thought that a copper would have been more tempting, besides being more worthy of his Royal Highness. Nevertheless they were silent, and, imitating his Royal Highness, they threw the ends of their weeds to the mudlarks, who, putting their fingers to their noses, called those on board mean coves and shabby blokes. On leaving the steamer, his Royal Highness lighted another weed, the last in the case, and winking still more energetically than before, maintained with a mild oath that weeds, though not good for the land, were good for the landing. The guests guffawed; but they guffawed still more when his Royal Highness said that he must take off his kids, that is his gloves, to shake hands with his kids, as, in his funny and familiar manner, he called those who had been dining with him at Greenwich. Though his Royal Highness paid his share of the Greenwich bill, he forgot to give anything to the waiters, one of whom cursed him for a measly German. If great in their native England, the lackey journalists are much greater when they go abroad. All palaces are thrown open to them, all sanctuaries which jealously repel the rest of mankind invite them to enter; they steal into every cabinet, and take their place by the side of minister and monarch. Furthermore, they have a cyclopaedic acquaintance with the arts, the sciences, with industrial developments, with a nation’s monuments and memories, with the whole inward and outward life of a people. Their gift of tongues is miraculous ; they are all Mezzofantis, but Mezzofantis by instinct, and without the need or the help of study. Whithersoever they go they speak the language better than the natives, whereat, of course, the natives are exceedingly amazed. The subtlest, sharpest, most insinuating of diplomatists, the lackey journalists first dazzle foreign statesmen and potentates by linguistical feats, then throw them off their guard by elaborate dissertations on wines, and by a delicate offer of cigars just at the right moment. Even a Bismarck is no match for them. They soon penetrate his designs, without betraying their own. Storming him with sagacious sayings, in a hundred different languages, on things in general, and with critical observations on a hundred different wines, they bring forth from mysterious pockets a hundred cigar cases, each with its own special treasure of contents. Sinking the politician in the good and jolly fellow, Bismarck rings the bell, and orders a servant to bring in a tubful of his favourite beverage, consisting of champage, porter, soap-suds, and saw-• dust, in equal quantities. Pewter pots are placed all round the tub. Taking one of the pots, Bismarck fills it with the dismal drink, takes a hearty draught, and smacks his lips in ecstasy. The visitors would not be the shrewdest of diplomatists if they did not enthusiastically avow that the mixture is more exquisite than any wine they ever tasted. Bismarck tries each of the hundred kinds of cigars, and throws the ends of the cigars into the mixture, declaring that thereby the flavour is considerably improved. He swills and swills, and compels the visitors to swill till the mixture is finished, and concludes the performance by eating all the cigar fragments lying at the bottom of the tub. 'By this time he is completely at the mercy of his visitors, who get him to say and do whatever they like. He calls the Emperor of Germany a muff, the Emperor of Russia a spooney, the Emperor of Austria a duffer; says he cannot blame Dizzy, as he is now dizzy himself; thinks Gladstone not the first of statesmen, but the last of the schoolmen; would advise him, instead of meddling with the Eastern Question, which he does not understand, to solve all the problems Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and the rest left unsolved, and to write postal cards to the Man in the Moon to obtain illumination on difficult points. Bismarck talks and talks till he falls asleep, and the visitors take advantage of Bismarck’s repose to turn his pockets inside out, to glance at the documents in every drawer, to read a letter he had been writing to his wife, and the draft of his newest political scheme. Some bottles of rum, which they find in a cupboard, they drink; they know that Bismarck, when he awakes, will be much amused by finding that they are rummy customers, for he is very fond of practical jokes. This is history as written by the lackey journalists, who think that the flunkey is the human being by excellence, that all human beings are imperfect or transfigured flunkeys, having insatiable curiosity, insatiable appetites, no sense of shame, no sense of truth, no eye for aught but what is external, accidental, conventional, and varying the lowest guile with the lowest buffoonery. To exclude gossip from history would be to destroy both the interest and the value of history. What but gossip do we find in the lives of the Caesars by Suetonius, or in the Memoirs of Saint-Simon? Strictly, a nation cannot be said to have a history; for what is called the history of a nation is simply the arbitrary conjunction of isolated events by literary art. History, to be worth anything, must be broken into biographies; and the biographies, to be worth anything, must be mainly of an anecdotical character. As Moliere said of his colossal plagiarisms, the historian and the biographer must take their property wherever they find it; and they very often find their property in very dirty spots. The details, for instance, of the relations of Philip V. of Spain to the Princess Orsini, are repulsive enough; but those details help us to understand Philip’s nature, if, indeed, a creature so low as Philip deserves, except as the ruler of a people once great, any study at all. But the peculiarity of the lackey journalists	is that they seek dirt for the dirt’s sake ; or, rather, for the money they get as a price for the dirt. They worship the great god Stercutius from affinity and sympathy; but the money they earn by the performance of bestial rites gives prodigious impulse and zest to the adoration. All periodicals are simply commercial ventures, and the Daily Telegraph can be an intensley Christian newspaper, and yet be owned by Jews. It is natural for John Thomas to turn a penny by the sale of dirt; but John Thomas could not sell his dirt unless in fashionable clubs there were men with dirty souls, and in grand mansions women with still dirtier souls, eager to buy the dirt. For one kick and curse you give to John Thomas, give a hundred to those men and those women. An Old University Man. dope’s ^irfirn. It may pain you to know that I don’t quite fall in with the views of Mr. John Donaghy. I regret it, for a twofold reason: first, because it would be pleasanter (from the love of humanity point of departure) to agree with Mr. Donaghy than to differ with him; and, second, because it pains me to pain you. Nevertheless, Donaghy’s views are not my views; and they are not the views which I should like Donaghy to entertain. You will observe that this gentleman was busily occupied in throwing a quantity of large bags of Tobacco out of a store into the street, during the dark hours of the morning of the 20th of June last, in the city of Derry, when he was interrupted by the police; and that he consequently got into some little trouble. Being called upon by the magistrates of the Maiden City to account for these proceedings, he made sundry inconsistent statements. Originally his declaration was— “Why I was throwing them out is a mystery to myself;” but subsequently he said—“I found a woman had given information about the bags, and I threw them on the street to save John Doherty;” and then he amended the statement thus— “I threw them out for John Doherty’s protection and my own, and to keep a name from my own house.” So much with regard to flinging into the street the bales of Tobacco he had just been carrying across the street, from a tarpaulin-covered cart in M‘Crossan’s yard, for safer storage; for which labour John Doherty had agreed to give him £2. Mr. Hanrahan, the barrister who appeared for Doherty’s defence, cast imputations which grieved the soul of Donaghy; and I confess that I cannot altogether approve the candour and lucidity of Donaghy’s responses. “I am no informer,” said he. “lam clearing myself from being a smuggler.” “I want to get clear of gaol, and get my release. I do not care whether I get clear or not.” “I think this—that I do not want to be called a smuggler.” “If I was to get my head cut off I am no informer.” “I gave the information before I went to gaol. Not before I was arrested. I was out on bail when I gave the information. I wrote it. I do not know when I wrote it. I wrote it to the Collector of Customs, the Custom-house. That was before I was tried. I wanted to clear myself.” “I certainly gave information to clear myself and get out of gaol. I studied the interests of my wife.” It will not be difficult to comprehend the points upon which I disagree with the witness. I naturally disapprove of the flinging of good Tobacco into the street, in bales or otherwise, whether to save Doherty, to protect Donaghy, or to “keep a name from” Donaghy’s house; and, when for that improvident proceeding these inconclusive reasons are advanced, I dissent from the morality of the allegation that “why” he was throwing them out was “ a mystery to” himself. But the more serious points of difference remain behind. When Mr. Donaghy protests that he is no smuggler, it appears to me that his clearness of intellect in regard to the definition of terms is doubtful. According to his own account, he was paid £2 to remove a quantity of large packages of Tobacco surreptitiously, and under cover of the darkness, into an unlicensed store; and tried to rid himself of all complicity in the transaction by throwing the property away as soon as he thought it likely it would be found in his possession. He says he is no smuggler. Well—“Brutus is an honourable man”—it is a question of definitions. And then he says he is “no informer.” There I will not dispute with him. He is a person who, being charged with the commission of an offence in common with other persons, volunteers information which tends to convict those other persons, in order that he may himself “get clear of gaol.” We will not draw nice distinctions; and Mr. Donaghy shall have what comfort he can derive from his own emphatic protestations that he is “no informer.” And so shall the Commissioners of her Majesty’s Customs, on whose behalf Mr. Donaghy was employed to give evidence. It will be highly gratifying to the British taxpayer to learn that the costly service of the department over which the Commissioners preside is dependent for an occasional success in the detection of smuggling upon the aid of such worthy citizens as this. But for the services of John Donaghy, his friend and patron John Doherty would not have been convicted of smuggling and ordered to pay a fine of £735 17s. 6d., or in default of such payment to be imprisoned for the term of nine calendar months. The position is this:—Here was Mr. Doherty in possession of 1015 lbs. of unmanufactured
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Tobacco, contained in 22 bales, none of which had paid duty to the Queen; these he had succeeded into conveying into M*Crossan’s yard, upon a cart, covered with tarpaulin; and they were being carried thence, at dead of night, into Donaghy’s warehouse or store in Oakum Alley by Donaghy and his friend Meehan; and only because the clumsiness of the operatives attracted the attention of the police did the authorities become aware of what was going on. Now, one would like to know whence the Tobacco was brought to M‘Crossan’s yard, whether it had been landed from shipboard at Derry or brought overland from some other port, how it came to pass that so large a quantity of contraband material could be landed anywhere without the knowledge of the Customs officers, or whether, indeed, this transaction is only an accidental exposure of a considerable illicit import of Tobacco which is in progress in certain parts of the country. No information upon any of these interesting points is forthcoming; for, so far as can be ascertained, the Customs authorities know nothing more about the affair than Mr. John Donaghy was pleased to divulge, when he “ studied the interests of his wife.”
That the case in question was not altogether isolated is proved by the fact that, at the same time and place, the Crown was prosecuting seven men upon the charge of smuggling a quantity of Tobacco into the port of Derry in a ship called the “Minnehaha;” and that some of the authorities are of opinion that these were but examples of a prevalent system is indicated by the appeal of the learned counsel for the prosecution to the magistrates, to “ stamp out this illicit practice, which, it was believed, was increasing in Derry.” It seems to me that the facts of the “Minnehaha” case are of such a nature as may serve to throw some little light upon the problem; and, as I am sincerely desirous to assist her Majesty’s Commissioners to discharge their functions with efficiency and credit, I will take upon myself the liberty of setting forth those circumstances as briefly as may fairly be. The “Minnehaha,” then, was being towed up towards Derry on her return from Baltimore, on the 10th of June last, when she was boarded by James M‘Cormick, of the coastguard, who remained on board till the arrival of the Customs officers, on the following day. Those officers, Kennedy, Gallagher, and Bell, were fetched on board by Captain M‘Gonigle, the master of the “Minnehaha,” on the evening of the 11th of June. Kennedy remained on board till the 14th or later, when he was joined by Gallagher, who continued on board till the 6th of July, with one other officer, who took watch and watch about with him during that time. On the 2nd of July, Samuel Mackwood, examining officer of Customs (whose duties at Deny had begun on the previous day), went on board, having been warned on the 1st that the “ Minnehaha” “ was a suspected ship.” A day or two later, Mr. Mackwood’s nose apprised him of the presence of Tobacco in the region of the sailroom; and on the 6th of July he found 25 undersized bales of the leaf stowed away under the sailroom, the boards of the flooring being nailed down over them. Captain M‘Gonigle had, on the 14th of June, made a report of his cargo as consisting of Indian corn and flour; and, after a full investigation before the magistrates, he and five members of his crew were fined each £696 14s. 6d. (to be imprisoned nine months in default), and another member of the crew was fined £100 (Io be imprisoned until he paid the money). The points which require elucidation in this case are—why no discovery of Tobacco was made by the Customs officers who were on board from the 11th of June to the 6th of July; what chance of any discovery there would have been if a “new broom,” in the shape of Examining-Officer Mackwood, had not arrived at Derry on the 1st of July, and been “informed” of the suspicious character of the “ Minnehaha ”; and what proportion the 961 lbs., in 25 small bales, seized by Mackwood, bore to the total quantity of Tobacco brought by this vessel from Baltimore, and conveyed ashore without paying toll to her Majesty. The officers who failed in five-and-twenty days and nights to discover the 961 lbs. of Tobacco stowed away under their very noses, may, without unfairness, be supposed to have been unaware of the passage of any bulk of Tobacco to the shore, whatever that bulk might be. At any rate, though it is improbable that Captain M‘Gonigle conveyed to his employers in this illicit business enough of the fragrant leaf to make them indifferent to the fines (£4280 7s.) inflicted upon their agents, yet we may be allowed to believe that the perilous venture—if perilous they supposed it to be, knowing the temper of the Derry officials —was not undertaken for the sake of these 25 small packages alone. It is to be observed that the imports for which Mr. John Doherty suffered are not likely to have arrived per “Minnehaha,” because they were fuil-sized bales, whereas those found on board Captain M‘Gonigle’s vessel were all considerably below the legal size.
There are, as you will be ready to grant, two sides to the picture which is dimly outlined in these facts. There is the side which would be likely to present itself to the view of the Lords Commissioners of her Majesty’s Treasury, when they become aware of the next annual report of the Commissioners of Customs. Their lordships are of a practical turn of mind on most occasions; and their recent financial experiences are calculated to make them take a more than usually serious estimate of the system of inspection and search which furnishes these brilliant examples of “Smuggling made Easy.” But this aspect of the matter I may safely leave to Sir Stafford Northcote and his colleagues, or successors, at the Treasury Board.
Let me speak of the view that is more congenial to myself. What becomes of the Romance of Smuggling under these degenerate circumstances? What need have we of our gallant mariners, of smugglers’ caves, of rocky hiding places on the wild seashore, of midnight expeditions across deserted tracks of country, of armed escorts and mystery—now that the Custom-house officers can live in a suspected ship a whole month without finding what Tobacco there is on board? What poet of the future will care to sing the exploits of the bold M‘Gonigle and the daring Donaghy? Where are the G. P. R. Jameses and the W. G. Reynoldses and the Harrison Ainsworths and the Bulwer Lyttons of the next generation to find inspiration? I turn to the latest Report of the Commissioners, and anxiously search for such light as they can throw on the subject. I find that they have seized 180 lbs. of Tobacco at Horsleydown, “where it had been harboured by two women;” and that the women might have “harboured” it till now, if the police had not given to the Customs officers that “information” which is so congenial to their taste. Time was, when the police were more accustomed to “receive” than to afford “information;” but they are becoming Christianised, and realise now that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” The Commissioners pride themselves upon that Bradford case, in which (as you informed the world a year ago) large quantities of Tobacco were found embedded in cavities cunningly excavated in the hearts of bales of brown paper, imported for the purpose; but they don’t say for how many years that kind of import had gone on before trade jealously “informed” them of its existence. They are gratified to be able to state that they know of a man at Portsmouth who “ has been connected with smuggling transactions for many years,” but that they have not got evidence enough to convict him. If I were that man at Portsmouth, I should show my sense of the Commissioners’ kindness by taking care that they should not be embarrassed by such information after this considerate and generous warning. But the gem of the Report is the Dover case, in which, on board a Belgian mail-boat, “the officers discovered a quantity of Tobacco, weighing about 8| lbs., ingeniously secreted in a tin oil-can. The Tobacco was packed in an internal and closely-fitting cylinder, capable of being drawn out from the bottom of the can. The owner of the Tobacco could not be found.” That is a pity; because, if found, he might have been made an example of. “ It is a sin to steal a pin,” or to smuggle 8| lbs. of Tobacco; and those who don’t know how to “transact” a foreign loan or a Credit Foncier, or to bring whole cargoes of Tobacco ashore at once under the eyes of the Customs officers, and without detection, deserve to suffer. The little sinners always get the worst of it, when the officers of justice cultivate a microscopic vision. They ought to remember the fate of the “young damsel so lovely and fair” in crinoline, whose woes were sung by Robert Brough, in the touching poem of “The Female Smuggler”:—
“At Calais she landed, this maiden so fair,
And she walked her abroad and she breathed the fresh air, When some wicked designers did tempt her to wrong, Which you’ll know all about when you've heard thia here song.
“ Oh! she came back to London’s great city ao fine, 1 And they stopped at the Docks of the famed Catharine;
She was tripping ashore with a hinnocent smile, When a stern landing-waiter her steps did beguile.
“Oh! rudely he stopped this misguided young lass;
Says he. ‘ With them what’s-o-names. Miss, you can’t pass.* Says she, *It's tho fashion, from France lately come.’ Says he, ‘ Werry like—but it may conceal rum.’
“He marched her away (think of this, pretty dears!) And handed her over—not minding her tears— To the hard-hearted searchers, who stripped in a crack The pretty flounced petticoats off of her back.
44 Oh, sad to relate I the inside one they found With the choicest Regalia cigars stitched all round. 8o they dragged her, in spite of prayer, sobbing, and shriek, To the court of stern Yardley, the Thames police beak.
“ So this beak (who’s the terror of all jovial tars) Did find her so guilty of smuggling cigars, That he felt it his duty this maiden divine The sum of one hundred gold sov'reigns to fine.”
With which appropriate quotation I beg to subscribe myself
Your Man-of-All-Work.
Pipe (Mourns.
IV.—HOW SLOTTEB WENT TO BED HAPPY AND SATISFIED.
I am not going to claim for Benjamin Slotter a place among my pipe colourers. It is the other man who, as the heading of this little story suggests, out of the benevolence of his nature made Slotter happy, that is the pipe colourer. He will come on the scene in good time.
Ben Slotter was, without a doubt, the biggest man in our village. He had the biggest head, feet, and fists. Physically his head was nearer heaven than any of the other heads; morally it was certainly not. He was the greatest eater, the greatest drinker, and, according to his own account, the best fighter all round about. Concerning his superiority as an eater and diinker, many folks could bear witness; but no one could speak positively with regard to his abilities as a pugilist.
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Occasionally in a brawl some unlucky rustic found Slotter’s fist in some part of his face, or on some portion of his head, where there was no proper accommodation for it; but as the unfortunate receiver, always being a much smaller and weaker man, never questioned Slotter’s right to strike him, and seldom attempted to return the compliment, his experience could only be taken concerning Slotter’s hitting power and nothing else. Without an actual contest there cannot be a conqueror.
One night Ben Slotter, in company with about a dozen others, sat in the taproom at “The Blue Pigeon.” Most of the company were taking a quiet pipe and pint, now that the day’s work was done; and, save that many of the voices were loud and uncultivated, it was an extremely peaceful scene. Some insignificant matter, however, started an argument, which very soon led to jangling, in which personal abuse took some part. Men of the sort gathered in the room I have mentioned can manage beer to a considerable extent, but they can seldom manage beer and argument mixed. The intellectual complacency and patient unravelling of knotty skeins, necessary in argumentative warfare, hath not their dwelling-places at the bottoms of pewter quarts. A taproomer getting fierce in an argument, clutches the handle of his pewter, and, when he is at fault for a word, drinks; so that we arrive at this definite statement: the more a man of that sort argues the more he drinks, and the more he drinks the more he argues; for, if he fails to find the right word or thought in the pot, he finds some other, which he uses to save his reputation as an orator. This still further increases the confusion, and, consequently, the suction.
On this particular evening the beer went down and the tempers got up, so at last, Slotter, who didn’t exactly know which side he was on, and was filled with beer, roared out that he would fight any man there, and he stood up and began to tuck up his dirty cuffs as if he meant fighting someone, anyone, or everyone, if they were agreeable or not.
Among the company was a little lame man, who cut hair, patched boots, sold papers, run errands, and in all sorts of other odd ways got his living. He was the only man in the place who dared take liberties in addressing Slotter. When the bully threw out his challenge, the little man taking his pipe out of his mouth, observed in a quiet tone: “It’s all very well.*’
“ What’s all very well ? ” roared Slotter.
“ Why, its all very well for you to talk; ” returned the little man, with some show of spirit.
“ Talk!” angrily cried the boaster, doubling up his great fists, and holding them out for general inspection. “ Talk is it ? Show me the man as can do half as much as me in a fight, and then talk about talking; I means what I says, Til fight the best man in the place, and if he licks me I’ll eat him! ”
This on the face of it was not a tempting offer. Had Slotter been a man of calm judgment, or high philosophy, he would not have made his terms so very absurd. There was no encouragement to his antagonist. In the first place Ben was nearly certain to gain the victory; but, if by any chance he got worsted, he was bound by his word as an honourable man to devour to the uttermost fragment, body and head, his victorious opponent, and those who had the greatest knowledge of his miraculous digestive abilities, his wonderful jaw power, and grand flow of gastric juice, felt well assured that he could finish any ordinary man under a fortnight.
The little lame man had not done with Slotter, however. He broke out again with “Yes, yes. That’s all very well here. We’re all afraid of you; we know .it, and you know it. But why don’t you go down to old Sam and challenge him; he’d soon alter your cry.”
“What?” said Slotter; “old Sam, the blacksmith!”
“Ay,” replied the little man; “old Sam, the blacksmith; he’s your man. I’ll lay two pots of four-half to one, that he’d knock you into about Tuesday week under the hour.”
“ I ain’t afraid of old Sam.”
“Afraid!” pursued the little man, with a short laugh. “Afraid! He! he! Who said you was? I didn’t. I merely observed that it was my opinion old Sam could beat you in a fair fight, and I say so still, and stick to it.”
“Oh!” growled Slotter, and there the matter dropped.
All the next day he was very gloomy and sullen. When he paid his usual evening visit to “ The Blue Pigeon,” the little man was there in his accustomed style, smoking his pipe, sipping his ale, and chirping as cheerfully as a cricket.
“ Evening, Mister Slotter,” said the little imp, with what seemed to be quite an unaware wink at the general company. “That little affair come off yet?”
“No! ” thundered Benjamin, in such a fierce tone that his tormentor thought it prudent to put pugilism by for the evening and start on politics.
The little man never said another word before Slotter concerning old Sam; but Ben knew well enough that the pigmy’s tongue went at a rare rate behind his back. He felt that he could endure this state of affairs no longer, and determined, without saying anything to anyone else, to see old Sam and offer to fight him the next day.
About ten o’clock he made up his mind to go to bed. He unlaced his heavy boots and took them off, and was proceeding with the process of disrobing when he heard the little man go past his cottage, laughing tremendously. Of course Benjamin did not know the cause of this merriment. The
laughter may have been caused by some recent joke, or by too much ale; but Slotter at once put it down that he was the cause of this excessive mirth, and left off admiring his biceps, to shake his fist in the direction of the passer-by.
This little incident caused a change in the operations going on in Slotter’s bedroom.
He deliberately set to work to put on the things he had just taken off. When fully dressed, he sallied forth with fierce determination on his face.
The blacksmith was an elderly man, a widower, with one little girl at home about twelve years of age. He never made the alehouse his haunt, although he liked a glass of beer. Next to his daughter, in his affection, came his pipe. During the day he took no Tobacco; but about nine in the evening he sat down for a steady two hours’ smoke. He had a number of meerschaum and clay pipes, all coloured to perfection. Of these he would select two when he began, and, while smoking one, fill the other. Such was his custom. He did not care to read, or even talk, while smoking. Sitting in an old easy chair, with his pipe in his mouth and a quart measure of good ale by his side, the worthy old fellow let the two last hours of his day go by in musing on what was best known to himself. Physically he was not so big or heavy as Slotter; but, for all that, he was a very powerful man, with a hand that could grip like a vice. He had been in his younger days a clever boxer and wrestler, but those sports he left now for younger men.
About half-past ten on the night referred to, old Sam was aroused from his pleasant occupations by a knock at the door.
His little daughter at once went and opened the door. There stood the great bear, Slotter.
“Is your father at home?” he inquired, with very little ceremony.
“Yes, sir.”
“ Tell him I’ve come to fight him,” said Ben; who, now that he had made up his mind for action, was anxious to lose no time.
The child had no need to carry the message, for Sam could hear the roaring of thb bear at his threshold. Concluding that the valiant challenger was intoxicated, he called out, without rising from his seat,
“Go away, Slotter; go away home, and get to bed.”
“No I don’t,” growled Ben; “I’ve come to fight you, and fight you I will. They say you’re the best man of the two, and I can’t get no rest till I find out which of us is; so you’d better come out, if you don’t want me in.”
Sam did not want him in; so he came to the door, smoking his pipe.
“Now, look here, Slotter,” said he, “don’t you be a fool; I don’t want to fight you, and I don’t want you to fight me. You’re the best man, I dare say; will that satisfy you?”
“No, it won’t!” replied Slotter, doggedly. “I don’t mean to go to bed to-night till I’ve given you a hiding, or you’ve given me one. I don’t bear no malice, and I don’t owe no grudge—leastways, not to you; but I couldn’t sleep last night, nor the night afere, nor the night afore that, and you’ve no right to spoil my rest—it ain’t Christian-like. I can’t rest, and I can’t work, and I ain’t happy.”
Old Sam couldn’t help smiling at the pathetic earnestness of the unhappy being now before him, but still tried in every way to get rid of him.
His efforts, however, were in vain; and becoming at last annoyed by the obstinacy of the brute, made up his mind to gratify him.
He gave his pipe to his little daughter, telling her to stay indoors and not be frightened; and then, pulling the door to, he stepped out into the road.
Slotter began operations by skipping round old Sam, with about as much agility as a cow would exhibit during her first lesson in dancing.
“ Come along,” he cried; “come along; come on.”
“ I’m here; ” said Sam, coolly. “ If you’ve got anything for me you’ll have to bring it, and if you want anything yourself you’ll have to come for it, my dancing days are over.”
It slowly dawned on Slotter that he was getting tired to no purpose, so he carefully came a little nearer, and then a little nearer still, and then just near enough to receive the blacksmith’s hard fist between his eyes. He felt so astonished at this, that he sat down suddenly. Whether this attitude was assumed in consequence of the astonishment or the blow is hardly certain. Possibly it was the result of a combination of the two.
“What are you sitting down for?” said old Sam, with a smile; “ That’s not fighting.”
“ All right,” returned Ben, rising from his seat, “ That’s one to you.”
“I think it was one to you,” said Sam, “and I’ve some more made on the same principle, at the same terms.”
Slotter came up to his work with greater caution than at first, and selected a small area on the blacksmith’s broad nose. The blacksmith selected a similar spot on Ben’s rugged feature; the only difference being, that whereas, Slotter selected his particular place on Sam’s nose with his eye, Sam picked out his selected spot on Slotter’s nose with his fist, and did it so cleverly that Benjamin returned to his reflections on the hardness of the road.
“ Have you had enough ? ” inquired old Sam.
“ Well, so far as that goes; ” replied Slotter, sopping away with a rag of a handkerchief at what seemed to him to be a large, tender, fungus growth in the place of his nose; “ I have
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had enough, and now I think its your turn to take a little,” and he once more rose on his feet.
“Now, look here, Slotter,” said his opponent, sternly; “ you had better go home; up to the present time I’ve only pushed you down ; but if you still persist in this foolery, all I can say is, the next time I shall hit you.”
The damaged bully shook his head surlily, and once more squared up to the blacksmith, who felt he was getting warmed to his work.
Slotter was now evidently timid, and old Sam had to advance a little; he did so carefully, and with rather a grim look on his face; for about a minute there was some little dodging and feinting, and then that old, hard fist, belonging to Sam, went out straight. Slotter never could tell exactly how it happened, but he got hit, and while he was in the act of making a demoralised heap of himself in the road, he got hit again.
Old Sam’s blows must have been wonderfully quick, for Slotter was hurrying down as fast as ever he could on receipt of the first; but he had the second before he could get down.
The first was somewhere about the head, and the next somewhere among the ribs. Then he became simply a heap.
Ben lay groaning, but did not offer to rise. As groaning seemed to please his illiterate mind, Sam allowed him to indulge in that cheap and harmless recreation for some little time; then, seeing clearly there was no fight left in him, he helped the damaged man indoors and gave him some beer.
“You know, Slotter,” said old Sam, “you made me fight you; and then, when I cautioned you, you made me go on till I hurt you.”
“Yes, I know I did,” groaned Slotter; “I know I did; but I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t rest. I shall be able to rest peaceful, now I know who’s best man; I feel a good deal happier. Oh! my poor ribs I ”
The blacksmith let his late foe rest awhile, till he felt able to walk home.
Before he went he insisted on shaking hands with old Sam, and giving him “best.” When he went home to bed, he rested there, and felt so peaceful and happy and satisfied that he stayed in bed for about three days, and had the doctor in to tell him how nice it was to have a contented mind.
The fight, however did him good eventually, for he became a quieter man, and, consequently, a better citizen.
D. Gooos.
Smoking nt Sfongburst.
We have recently visited Stonyhurst College, and we have, still more recently, read the account of that institution published by Mr. A. Hewitson, of Preston. Some notable men have come from the ranks of the “philosophers” who are taught by the erewhile poor gentlemen of Liege. It may seem odd that “philosophers” should go to theologians for their education, but then it is always the unexpected which happens now-a-days. A Stonyhurst philosopher, has, however, very little resemblance to the ancient sages to whom we usually apply the name. Instead of a long-robed, white-bearded, venerable old man, full of wise saws about the wicked world and the mysteries of its beginning, continuance, and future, we have, generally speaking, a smart young man, who has been sent from an opulent home to receive a liberal education, uncontaminated by the slightest soupron of heresy. These philosophers in the past have included Richard Lalor Sheil, the Hon. Charles Langdale, Percy Fitzgerald, Alfred Austin, Meagher of the Sword, and other notable men.
One of the best passages in Mr. Hewitson’s book is that in which he thus describes the room wherein the philosophers indulge in fumigatory symposia:—
“Ever since the properties of Tobacco were discovered, there has been a recondite connection between Smoking and Philosophy; we could name numerous men touched with the philosophic spirit who have sought a solace in inhaling Tobacco-smoke, or in watching it ascend in spiral clouds: for example, Locke, Milton, Isaac Walton, Hobbes, Addison, Ac., down to Thackeray and Carlyle in our own times. The young gentlemen of the philosophic order at Stonyhurst have a bias in the same direction; and as it is better to openly permit the moderate use of Tobacco than to put a relentless embargo upon it, and thus encourage ‘ stolen smoking’ in all sorts of by-paths and out-of-the-way holes and corners, the authorities of tho College have wisely provided special quarters in which Philosophers may temperately indulge in the * calumet of peace.’ The smoking-room adjoins the refectory. We reach it through a door in an oddly narrow corner, and at first suspect we are going to land in a very circumscribed, odorously-opaque region; but when the inner door is fairly open we are confronted by a smart-looking, admirably finished room, oblong, lofty, and with a handsomely decorated ceiling. Stencil-painting, from original designs, ornaments the wall; well-filled bookcases are fixed against them, containing between one and two thousand volumes of travels, light literature, Ac-; the furniture—chairs, tables, and reclining seats—is ample; and here Philosophers caring for Tobacco in combination with cheerful chat, a cosy read, or a loll while someone is discoursing eloquent music on the piano, can enjoy themselves thoroughly. At the far end of tho room, occupying a prominent position on the wall, there is a good-looking clock dial, of tho electric kind, connected with the chief clock of the College, and helping to give notice of the approaching end of recreation times; the final summons to duty being announced here, and in all the Philosophers’ quarters, by electric bells, the use of which through this portion of the College secures a degree of precision which must materially support order and good management.”
One, at least, of the Stonyhurst boys developed an uncompromising hatred of the weed in which the philosophers appear to delight. Fine old Charles Waterton, who at 83 was hale and clear-headed, and could then say, “ I do not even know the taste of wine, nor of any spirituous liquor, and sixty-seven years have now passed over my head since I drank a glass of beer, and I have passed twenty-seven off and
on in the pestilential swamps of the tropics.” Mr. Hewitson says of Waterton that “probably of all human beings he was the one who carried his antipathy against smoking to the greatest lengths. He seemed, indeed, to think that the root of the Tobacco plant was the root of all evil.”
^ Hlgstmuus personage.
There are various mysteries which seem destined to remain mysteries for ever. Who was Junius? Who was the Man with the Iron Mask? Was Darnley murdered at the instigation of Mary Stuart? Was it by Catherine’s command, or with her connivance, that her husband, Peter III., was assassinated? Was the Dauphin, the son of Louis XVI., slowly put to death by neglect and bad treatment, or did he survive, and was Naundorff or some other pretender really the Dauphin? These questions must for ever be a puzzle and a perplexity, alike for mere commonplace curiosity and for profound criticism. Other mysteries, after being for a time complete mysteries, are partially unveiled, but still retain a portion of the enigmatical.
An enigma to his contemporaries was the Chevalier D’Eon, and he is still to some extent an enigma to us. Charles Genevieve Louis Auguste Andr6 Timothee D’Eon De Beaumont was born at Tonnerre, in Burgundy, on the 5th October, 1728. No wonder that a man with so many names deemed himself destined to do extraordinary things. His father was a lawyer, and by his wish the son followed his own profession. Charles studied law at Paris, and became an advocate. By some political writings he attracted the notice of the Prince De Conti, who recommended him to the King. Douglas, a Scottish exile, was sent in 1757 on a secret mission to St. Peters burgh, to bring about a better understanding between Russia and France. Charles D’Eon accompanied Douglas as secretary. These two men succeeded in winning the confidence of the Vice-Chancellor Woronzoff, whereupon a friendly correspondence began between the Empress Elizabeth and King Louis XV. When, on the 5th November, 1757, the Empress entered the Alliance Austro-Franco-Swedish, which was so disastrous to Frederick the Great, and which, but for the death of Elizabeth, would have crushed him, D’Eon brought the news to Versailles. He received as reward a splendid snuffbox, containing an order on the Treasury for a large sum, and a commission as lieutenant of dragoons. He returned to St. Petersburgh, where the Marquis D’Hopital was now French Ambassador. The marquis and his secretary D’Eon contributed to the overthrow of the Russian Chancellor Bestucheff, and to the elevation in his place of Woronzoff. Among Bestucheff’s papers, in a list of suspected persons, the names of Douglas and D’Eon were found. In 1758 D’Eon went back to France. As captain of dragoons, and as adjutant of Marshal Broglie, he took part in the campaign of 1761. At Ultrop he was wounded in the head and in the leg; at Oster-wich he attacked a Prussian battalion so vigorously that it was compelled to surrender.
Before peace came he went to London as secretary of the Duke De Nivernais. It was by the Duke that the conditions of peace had at London been negotiated. D’Eon was a favourite of the Duke; to such a degree, indeed, that Horace Walpole speaks of the Duke’s attachment to him as ridiculous. But Walpole must have spoken spitefully, as he often spoke; for the talents of the Duke De Nivernais—whom Chesterfield, in his “ Letters to His Son,” praises as the model of a perfect gentleman—were held in as high esteem as his character. Walpole, however, recognised D’Eon’s talents, merits, and literary culture. When D’Eon took to Paris the treaty of peace for ratification, he received the Cross of St. Louis. On the retirement of the Duke De Nivernais from the post of Ambassador, D’Eon was appointed Minister Resident, and then Minister Plenipotentiary. When the Count De Guerchy arrived as French Ambassador in London, D’Eon had to take once more the humbler position of secretary. There were continual squabbles between him and Guerchy, the blame of which Guerchy must mainly bear. By a court cabal at Versailles D’Eon’s ruin was determined and in a great measure accomplished; but he continued to carry on a secret correspondence with Louis XV. till the death of the latter. In 1767, after the death of Guerchy, the King conferred on D’Eon a pension of twelve thousand francs. D’Eon obtained permission in 1777 to return to France, where he was treated by Louis XVI. with unaccountable caprice. To England he went back in 1784. A true patriot, he demanded permission at the outbreak of the French Revolution to serve in the French army; but his request was rejected, and—sadder still for a man more than sixty years of age—his pension was suppressed. He had to sell his books, and, for a livelihood, to give lessons in fencing. Very various are the conjectures regarding the circumstances which induced him during so long a period of his life to wear female attire. That, in the first instance, some State secret was involved in the affair, cannot be doubted. The Chevalier D’Eon died at London on the 21st May, 1810. A medical examination proved that this strange being was indubitably a man. De Quincey states that D’Eon, when fencing, grunted in a very peculiar way. Among D’Eon’s works, which were collected in thirteen volumes, is a “Dissertation on Tobacco.” It would be interesting to know what became of the snuff-box given him by his friend Louis XV. If it could be found, it would figure prominently among the historical snuff-boxes.
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COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
[September, 1878.
|tgtall gag ®nralisings.
Pegwell Bay, thy charms to me Many are by land and sea ; Far below lies ocean’s breast, Here an hostelrie for rest: Food for body and for mind, Some in front, and some behind. Danger lurketh at that “bar,” I had better wander far;
Better in a little boat, Lonely on the salt sea float. Thus I moralise, yet stay, And smoke my pipe at Pegwell Bay.
Pretty damsels come and go, Some unto the rink below; Some, with meditative eyes, Gaze upon the sea and skies; Some upon the grass recline, Hurting sore this heart of mine. Lovely woman is a snare, Youth and age had best beware. See, of me they’re making fun, Yet I love them, every one. Thus I moralise all day, Smoking pipes at Pegwell Bay.
I the shrimps assimilate, While I pity their sad fate; In the sea they sported free, Till caught in a net for me. Then their little lives were done: Sad it was to spoil their fun. Yea, it was a boiling shame, Yet I eat them still the same. Thirst-provoking little imps, “Beautiful in death” are shrimps. Thus I moralise all day, Smoking in sweet Pegwell Bay.
At a word, the waiter here Brings to me another “beer;” Slyly at him do I wink, Ask him if he’d like a drink: “Yes,” says he; I cry “Enough! Touch not thou the poison stuff; I’ll not tempt thee; get thee gone, Leave me with my curse alone.” For a curse it is, alas!
Yet I’ll have another glass. Thus I moralise all day, Smoking pipes at Pegwell Bay.
Now the fumes of nicotine Fling a haze o’er all the scene; Palpitation slowly comes, Beats my heart like warlike drums. Ah, this clay grows bitter now, I can’t smoke it, anyhow; I’ll discard the hurtful pipe, Lest for folly I grow ripe.
Thus I hurl it in the sea; “Waiter!—a cigar for me.” Thus I moralise all day, Smoking in sweet Pegwell Bay. When the bill to me is brought, More’s to pay than I had thought. Largely swells my anxious heart, That for pleasure I must part With the cash that grows so slow; Yet I part with it, and go, Thinking what a transient thing Cash is when you’re on the wing. Beason crieth, “ Do not roam; Go and smoke your pipe at home.” Yet I’ll have another day With my pipe at Pegwell Bay.
H. L.
dittos of ©lir ^oohs.
Br. E. W. ^shbee's Reprints.
[CONTINUATION.]
3.	The Stage-Players Complaint, in a pleasant Dialogue between Cane of the Fortune, and Peed of the Friers. Deploring their sad and solitary conditions for want of Imployment. London, printed for Tho. Bates, and are to be sold at his shop in the Old Bailey. 1641. 4 leaves.
4.	The Actors Remonstrance, or Complaint: for the silencing of their profession, and banishment from their severaU Playhouses. In which is fully set downe their grievances, for their restraint; especially since Stage-playes, only of all publike recreations are prohibited; the exercise at the Scares Coiledge, and the motions of Puppets being still in force and vigour. London, Printed for Edw. Nickson, lanuar. 24,1643. 4 leaves.
5.	Here begynneth a lytel treatyse called the wyse chylde of thre yere olde. The enfant sage beynge of thre yeres of age demaunded by Adryan Emperoure. The whiche hym answered unto every thynge he asked. (Imprinted in london in Fletestrete at the sygne of the Sonne by wynkyn de worde.) 1520? 6 leaves.
6.	The Prophesie of Mother Shipton, in the Raigne of King Henry the Eighth. Fortelling the death of Cardinal! Wolsey, the Lord Percy and others, as also what should happen in insuing times. London, printed for Bichard Lownds, at his Shop adjoyning to Ludgate 1641. 4 leaves.
7.	Here begynneth the Boke named the Assyse of breads, what it ought to weye after the pryce of a quarter of Wheete, And also the Assyse of Ale, with all maner of wood and Cole, Lath, Bourde, and tymbre, and the weyght of Butter, and Chese. Imprynted by me Bobert Wyer. (circa 1540.) with cuts. 16 leaves.
8.	Taylor (John, the Water Poet.) John Taylor's Wandering, to see the Wonders of the West. How he travelled neere 600. Miles, from London to the Mount in Cornwall, and beyond the Mount, to the Lands end, and Home againe. Dedicated to all his loving Friends, and free minded Benefactors. Printed in the Yeere 1649. 12 leaves.
9.	An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in ' Parliament, For, The utter suppression and abolishing of all Stage-Playes and Interludes. With the Penalties to be inflicted upon the Actors and Spectators, herein exprest. Die Veneris II Februarii. 1647. Imprinted at London for John Wright at the King’s Head in the Old Bayley. 1647. 4 leaves.
10.	The Rare and most wonderfull things which Edw. Webbe, an Englishman bome, hath scene and passed in his troublesome trauails, in the Cities of Jerusalem, Damaske, Bethlehem and Galely: and in the landes of Jewrie, Egypt, Grecia, Russia, and Prester John. Wherein is set forth his extreame slavery sustained meny yeeres together in the Gallies and warres of the great Turke against the landes of Persia, Tartaria, Spaine, and Portugale, with the maner of his releasement and camming into England in May last. London Printed for William Wright. 1590. (Black Letter, with cuts.) 16 leaves.
11.	Taylor (John, the Water Poet.) The Carriers' Cosmo-graphie, or A Briefe Relation, of The Innes, Ordinaries, Hosieries, and other lodgings in, and neere London, where the Carriers, Waggons, Foote-posts and Higglers doe usually come, from any parts, townes, shires and countries, of the Kingdomes of England, Principality of Wales, as also from the Kingdomes of Scotland and Ireland. With nomination of what daies of the weeke they doe come to London, and on what daies they retume, whereby all sorts of people may finde direction how to receive, or send, goods or letters, unto such places as their occasions may require. As also, Where the Ships, Hoighs, Barkes, Tiltboats, Barges and wherries, do usually attend to Carry Passengers, and Goods to the coast Townes of England, Scotland, Ireland, or the Netherlands; and where the Barges and Boats are ordinarily to bee had that go up the River of Thames westward from London. By lohn Taylor. London Printed by A. G. 1637. 12 leaves.
12.	The debate and stryfe betwene Somer and wynter with the estate present of Man. (Imprynted by me laurens andrew. These bookes be for to sell at the signe of seynt John Euangelyst / in saynt Martyns parysshe besyde Charynge crosse. 4 leaves.
13.	The Merry conceited Humors of Bottom the Weaver. As it hath been often publikely Acted by some of his Majesties Comedians, and lately, privately, presented, by several Apprentices for their harmless recreation, with Great Applause. London. Printed, for F. Kirkman and H. Marsh, at the Io. Fletchers Head, on the backside of St. Clements, and the Princes Arms in Chanceiy Lane nere Fleetstreet. 166L 14 leaves.
14.	Here begynneth a treatyse of this Galaunt with the mary-age of the bosse of Byllyngesgate unto London Stone. 6 leaves.
15.	A new play Called Canterburie His Change of Diot. Which sheweth variety of wit and mirth: privately acted neare the Palace-yard at Westminster. In the 1 Act, the Bishop of Canterbury having variety of dainties, is not satisfied till he be fed with tippets of mens cares. 2 Act, he hath his nose held to the Grinde-stone. 3 Act, he is put into a bird Cage with the Confessor. 4 Act, The Jester tells the King the Story. Printed Anno Domini, 1641. 4 leaves.
16.	A certain Relation of the Hog-faced Gentlewoman called Mistris Tannakin Skinker, who was bome at Wirkham a Neuter Towne betweene the Emperour and the Hollander, scituate on the river Rhyne. Who was bewitched in her mothers wombe in the yeare 1618. and hath lived ever since unknowne in this kind to any, but her Parents and a few other neighbours. And can never recover her true shape, tell she be married, de. Also relating the cause, as it is since conceived, how her mother came so bewitched. London. Printed by J. O. and are to be sold by F. Grove, at his shop on Snow-hil near St. Sepulchers Church. 1640. 8 leaves.
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COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
227
NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.	SMOKING:
We cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; and we do not hold ourselves responsible for loss.	WHEN INJURIOUS, WHEN INNOCUOUS, WHEN BENEFICIAL, WITH COMPENDIUM OF THE TEMPERAMENTS, SHOWING HOW THKT ABB INFLUENCED BY TOBACCO.
COPE’S 1878 CARD.	BY J. CARRICK MURRAY, M.D., F.A.I., JTeweastle^ipon- Tyne.
MODERN PILGRIMS.	Price 1s. Free by Post. Is. 1b. London : Simpkin, Marshall, A Co. Newcastle-on-Tyne : D. H. Wilson.
CHAUCER AND STOTHARD ADAPTED TO THE TIMES.	Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4s. ^^t printers’ Agister, A JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOR GREAT BRITAIN, INDU, AND THE COLONIES. THE PRINTERS' REGISTER contains much Interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Home and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India, China, Canada, Ac.; and it affords the best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August, 1875. Address—Thi Editor, St. Bride Street, London, E.C.
Subecriberv to the “Tobacco Plamt” for 1878 will receive a copy of Modux Pilgrims and Key, carefully packed upon a roller, by forwarding 6d. to pay carriage. Price to Non-Subecribers, 1/-. Subscription for “ Tobacco Platt,” 2/- per annum, poet free. Subscription for “Tobacco Plant” and Modern Pilgrims, 2/6. Publishing Office:—10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.	
VEW YORK TOBACCO LEAF, Organ of the Tobacco Trade of the United States. Published weekly. Subscription, 20/* per Annum, post free to any part of the United Kingdom. Sole Agents for the United Kingdom— Cope Bros. & Co., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by whom Advertisements and Subscriptions will be received. Specimen copy sent for Id. postage stamp.	
	u. s. TOBACCO JOURNAL, 184, MAIDEN LANE, CORNER OF WATER STREET,
mHE VIRGINIA TOBACCO JOURNAL is published every 1 Thursday Morning by Jones, Marstin, & Co., No. 724, Main Street, Richmond, Va. Terms of Subscription: Single copies, 10c.; one year, $4; six months, $2. Annual Subscriptions abroad: Great Britain and Canada, $5.04; Bremen, Hamburg, and the Continent, $5.04; Australia, &c., via England, $5.04; Cuba, $5.04.	NEW YORK. Oscar Hammerstein, Editor. Subscription: $3.00 per annum.
	WORKS on TOBACCO, SNUFF, &c.—Booksellers YY having Books on Tobacco, Snuff, Ao, or Magazines, Journals, or Newspapers containing articles on the subject, are invited to report such to the Office of COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
The Richmond Cavendish Company, Limited,
BONDED TOBACCO WORKS,
ROBERTS STREET, PAISLEY STREET, AND GREENOCK STREET, LIVERPOOL.
Manufacturers, IN BOND, of All Descriptions of TOBACCO, for Ship Stores and for Exportation.
SPECIAL BRANDS.
DARK QUARTERS.	TENS.	CUT CAVENDISH.
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“UNION.” ’	“ANCHOR”	“NEPTUNE.”
SOLE MANUFACTURERS OFTHECELEBRATED “RICHMOND SMOKING MIXTURE.”
Always on Hand, a Large Stock of Pressed Tobacco, Bright Cavendish in All Sizes, and a Well-selected Stock of American Manufactured Cavendish.
Price Lists on Application.
SOLACE. One Shilling Bundles, containing 4 Cigars.
ENGLAND’S BEST. One Shilling Bundles, containing 6 Cigars.
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228	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[September, 1878.
These really beautiful Goods are rapidly growing into favour, and invariably make a trade wherever introduced.
COPE’S CIGARILLOS.
FAIRY BRAND, in CARDBOARD BOXES, GOLD MOUNTED, with BEAUTIFUL PARISIAN LABEL, CONTAINING TEN Internal PACKETS of TEN CIGARILLOS EACH.
New Cigarette—Cope’s Whiffs.
In Bundles of ten, lead foil, and neat label. In Cedar Boxes, containing forty bundles, or 400 Cigarettes.
COPE’S CIGARETOS.
Bouquet (With Tubes).
Peerless (Without Tubes).
In Cardboard Boxes, containing four bundles of 25 Cigaretos.
In very handsome Cedar Cases, containing Ten Boxes, or 1OOO Cigaretos.
Delicate in flavour; burn evenly, with a flrm white ash; made with great care flor a mild morning smoke.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes.
In Cardboard Boxes, containing 50.
In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1000, with lock and key.
Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made flrom a peculiar kind ofl Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking ofl this Tobacco is said to give relief in cases ofl Asthma.
COPE BROTHERS & CO.
TOBACCO WORKS, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
PRICE LISTS SUPPLIED TO THE TRADE ON APPLICATION.
Printed and Published for the Proprietors at the Office, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by Johm Funs, of
1, Spekeland Road, Edge-Hill, Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster.
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COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT
f^‘
A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
nTiOS.—Vol. IL]	OCTOBER, 1878.	tf&2^^
tobacco Smuggling in the Tast Generation.
VI.
C. further enlightens the Committee:—Those baskets mentioned by Mr. Davis are made in Holland; the frame is 6 or 7 feet by 3 broad; the bottoms are made of Tobacco-stalks; Mich bottom will weigh 75 lbs., and there are two bottoms to each basket. They were cleared as-------(poultry, Mr. Davis has informed us). They were never detected; I have one now, with the bottoms out, hanging in my cellar. The stalks cost about l|d. a pound in Rotterdam, that is about l|d< here. The (poultry) I sent to market, to------, in my own name. I cannot tell from my own experience of any other modes of smuggling; that I have had plenty of other smuggled Tobacco is the fact, but I have not smuggled it, nor do I know how it has been smuggled. I have purchased plenty of Negro-head that has been sent from the country, in the shape of cheese and twelfth cake, weighing about 30 lbs., with brown paper about it, and delivered by the errand cart: it is very dry, and not discovered by the smell. It is foreign; I have never bought any Negro-head manufactured in England. I have frequently offers now. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer will give you a commission to send five tons of smuggled Tobacco to the Treasury in the course of a few days, would you do it? Yes; I was going to make an observation on the Negro-head; I had 800 lbs. of it about eight or nine months ago. There was something very particular about that, for I had at the same time 350 lbs. of foreign snuff, Rappee, and it was followed by two Custom-house officers. The man I bought it of walked in with one parcel in his hand weighing about 20 lbs., and the Custom-house officer followed him. I was going out of the house to the warehouse, and I saw this man but did not know him to be an officer. He was a respectable-looking man [this reads hard on the Customhouse officers in general I] with an umbrella in his hand. I asked what was his pleasure; he said, “I thought it was a thoroughfare.” The man I bought of was satisfied, and continued sending the snuff and Tobacco in. It had not been in a quarter of an hour before this officer, with a brother officer, and a Lambeth Street non-commissioned officer, a man who had been in the service, and whom they knew, I suppose, and with them a policeman, came in and asked for me. I saw them; they said, “We want to search your private house.” I said, “Very well.” They went in and searched the private house, which is adjoining the warehouse, and came out again. The first man said, “ It is very strange; I know it came here; it came in a cab.” I said, “ I think you must have made a mistake.” He said, ** No; I have not.” I said, “ Will you walk into the warehouse, and have a look there?” He said, “It is like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, to look there for it.” I said, “Will you smoke a cigar, gentlemen?” [adding insult to injury!] He said, “No; rather not.” However, they were very pleasant and gentlemanly, and walked out, and they spoke to the policeman; and if they stood there a minute I should suppose they stood there about ten minutes conversing: it appeared like ten hours to me, for they stood within two feet of the whole lot of Tobacco and snuff; and in that place where the Tobacco was there was a large fire, and two men were at work taking the lead off and throwing it into the fire; the Tobacco was in lead, and after the lead was off it would be some trouble for them to prove that it was smuggled snuff; they would not venture to swear it was foreign, I think. As for the stalks, beyond the seven farthings, I had to pay persons twisting in Rotterdam so much a week; the cost of bringing over was a mere trifle; it might have cost me 6d. (per lb.)
altogether, certainly not more, rather about id. The importation of stalks is entirely prohibited; there is a large demand for them. Some gentlemen of property are engaged in the smuggling; I have known large fortunes made by it; I look upon it as gambling. I pay myself £8000 to £10,000 duty a year; all that I manufacture has paid duty; the smuggled I do not take home; the stalks I do, and sell them as a manufacturer, the quantity I sold astonished no one, as I am allowed to purchase any quantity of stalks from other manufacturers, and sell them again with my own. The trade I carry on under my own roof is legitimate. The vessel that went to Jersey cleared out from a wharf near London Bridge, with machinery, and proper papers for Leeds (sic., query, Leith?) All she had to do was to watch the cutters, which are the principal obstacle. Instead of running straight for Leeds, she runs across to Jersey; there packages are ready for her, exactly like those of the machinery she has on board; the machinery is landed, the Tobacco is put into those cases; then she has to run to Leeds, and she delivers there; the Tobacco is then brought by land carriage to London.
D., from whom a good piece has already been quoted, lived in the north of England, and had been a Tobacco manufacturer 25 years; he was then under prosecution, had been so three or four times; had been fined on compromise; hoped for some favour from the Excise for informing; but also informed in self-defence, as he could not get a living without smuggling himself if the smuggling of others were not put down; had informed repeatedly during some years past. Here is a little more of his evidence:—About nine years ago a person bought for £400 an old brig to carry coals from Newcastle to Rotterdam; I advanced £100, and another now in business the same, the rest he paid himself. Two or three voyages she came back in ballast, getting no return cargo; then she got a cargo of oak bark, and took in at Rotterdam about 5000 lbs. of Tobacco in bales of about 60 lbs. each, concealed in the cargo, covered over with the bark. She came to Stockton-on-Tees, and I believe some one had seen the Tobacco go on board, for information came against her to Stockton, and immediately on her arrival three officers boarded her. That same night all the Tobacco was got out, with the three officers on board. I was told this by the captain and another on board, who were the owners; the vessel was in their own names. They had, I think, one officer on deck, and the other two below; at least, one went down at a time; and during the fore part of the night plenty of brandy was put before the first down, and after a glass or two I understand they filled it up with gin instead of water, which very soon made him drunk. They put him tq bed, and then another went down, and they did the same with him. The one on deck they bribed with five sovereigns and a watch, but he returned the watch in the morning. The Tobacco was landed by a lighter in waiting alongside the vessel, was taken up to Yarm, and landed in the churchyard; was received there by a carrier, who took it all the way to Sheffield; it was met there by other carts and taken to Chesterfield. This I know as a fact, because a friend of mine bought it for another person. None was seized, but a few pounds of Shag the mate had were seized the next day. I have no doubt that smuggling is often done by billyboys running across to Holland; the man who brought us 7000 lbs. last August, under pretence of going to Spurn for ballast or gravel, has offered to go again whenever wanted. It is not the rule to put a Customhouse officer on board a billyboy when she comes in; it has been found very easy to get Tobacco landed at Hull. The captain has a couple of men ; he will take all risks in a trip for £100; the biUyboy could be bought for £50 or £60; old,
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COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
[Octobeb, 1878.
worn-out fishing vessels, or something of that sort, are employed, which cost very little. One such vessel, which made several trips with about 5000 lbs. each, all landed safely, on one occasion lay alongside the revenue cutter all day, in a snowstorm, and was not visited. Steamers coming from Hamburgh sometimes bring a ton and a-half or two tons concealed, principally leaf; if seized, nobody owns it. Tidewaiters are put on board these vessels when they come into the Humber; but the smuggled goods escape the Custom-house officers with the greatest ease. Thus, the Tobacco is concealed in casks of apples, or any other thing they import, in almost any kind of package. The dockmen, or whoever they may be, know how these particular casks are marked; and when the Custom-house officers order them to get a cask or two in order to be opened, they are sure to bring a cask with apples, and not a cask with the Tobacco. There are frequently little seizures, but none of any consequence. I do not know whether there is any understanding with the officers, but there is with the dockmen or labourers; I believe a very small bribe does for one of them, perhaps a sovereign or two.
E. resided in one of the Channel Islands; knew all of them; had been connected with the trade between London and Jersey for eight or ten years. He has a little more to tell us by word of mouth:—A large Tobacco trade is carried on in the Channel Islands. They don’t import from America; Antwerp, Hamburgh, and France are the principal places; a great deal of the Tobacco rejected by the French Government is taken in. As a merchant I have bought Tobacco there and sold it out in England. The Welsh business is regularly carried on, chiefly unmanufactured and stalks, packed very tight into bales of from 80 to 150 lbs., according to the capacity of the vessel for storing them. Several vessels are regularly employed, but generally chance vessels are used. Everybody knows it is commonly done; any package of shag under 450 lbs. is illegal, and all these packages are under that weight. There is a great deal more smuggling from the Channel Islands into France, where Tobacco is a Government monopoly, than into England; it is only 15 miles across, and is done in small boats of from 2 to 4 tons ; if they can only get it in, it is certain profit, because the small people would rather buy of the smuggler than at the shops appointed by the Government. The smuggling is carried on to the Welsh and Irish coasts, and to England; they are not particular as to what part, they send it by any captain that will take a cargo; it is generally done in this way: the captain says, I have room for a certain quantity of goods; and, instead of money payment for freight, he perhaps takes half a ton on his own account; then, if he loses that, it is not a very great loss; if he gets it free the parties on the other side take it of him. They take it just wherever they are bound; if a captain is going to Scotland or England with potatoes, he will take Tobacco; so with cider and apples. I have known cigars smuggled in apple casks. I have seen the large pieces of wicker in poultry baskets hollowed out, and Tobacco and snuff put in; the false bottoms of Tobacco I have heard of, but never seen. Steamers from St. Malo call at Jersey and Guernsey for poultry, &c., and go on to England; they smuggle like all other vessels. Last year a ship with granite took 12 tons of Tobacco, and landed all safely in the Regent’s Canal. I have heard from parties concerned of its being landed at the legal quays and sufferance wharfs. I have seen packages made up like Irish linens, with iron hoops round them, weighing 400 or 500 lbs. There is no restriction whatever to putting anything on board in the Channel Islands. There is a Custom-house there; the officers do not examine a vessel arriving, nor when it is loading at the quay, but board it when ready for sailing to search for contraband goods shipped to England. There are four tide-waiters for each island; they examine the papers. The parties go and make an entry at the Custom-house, much more simple than we have here; and if it is Jersey produce, suppose I sell a man 20 tons of apples, I go before the jurat (local magistrature) and declare that those are the produce of my farm, and that affidavit comes to England with the papers, and the goods are never examined either in Jersey or in England. When the vessel arrives in England the cargo is discharged; if there be 10 casks of vinegar, they will knock the bung out to see that it is vinegar, but there may be an internal package; I do not call that an examination. If I ship 20 quarters of corn from my farm, it is just the same; I make affidavit before the jurat that it is the produce of my farm, and it passes free from duty. The only goods that pay any duty on being landed in the Channel Islands are wines and spirits. The reason why there is no smuggling from the Isle of Man is that the duty there is Is. 6d. on Tobacco, and the difference of duty (Is. 6d.) would not pay the smuggler. [Lieut. Walker, of Liverpool, testified that there was no smuggling to any extent from the Isle of Man; and the Collector of the Customs there proved that, under the peculiar licensing system there established, there was a right to import 60,000 lbs. annually, but only about 50,000 lbs. were actually imported, leaving a margin of 10,000 lbs. which might have been taken for smuggling to England, had it been thought worth while.] Our price per pound for manufactured Negro-head is Is.; Cavendish, Is. 6d.; Shag, from 4d. to 7d.; Cigars from Is. 3d. per 100 to 10s. and 12s., very fine. [In 1861-2, with the American Civil War on, Cavendish in cakes was only about Is.; and splendid Virginian Honey Dew, uncut, only 2s., and even Is. 8d., currency, equal to Is. lOd. and Is. 6jd.] I have known many
other smuggling transactions within the last twelve months; smuggling is done openly there, no secret is made of it. The penalty for having Tobacco aboard illegally, not in bond, for England, is simply the loss of the boat, and the boats are not worth much; the men are not touched. They allow yon to clear any quantity of Tobacco for France; they give you a paper, but you are not obliged to deliver this to a French Custom-house. I know this from people who have been over there; have started in the evening, landed their cargoes on the coast, and come back the next morning. I have known vessels clear out for France with Tobacco, but come to the English coast with it, and meet other vessels which bring it to any part of England.
F., of the South of London, had been five years in the trade. There was nothing in any of his transactions peculiar enough to merit reproduction here. Between August, 1842, and February, 1843, he had smuggled altogether, in largish quantities from abroad and small quantities from the sailors’ receivers at home, 12,431 lbs., without being, so far as he knew, at all suspected. Being asked what made him leave off when things went on so smoothly, he replied: From our street having a party in it who became so notorious that I did not like the appearance of it.
The woes of one poor innocent demand a few words, though we have but scant space left. To this effect deposed Robert Lundy, of Hull (not to be confounded with Lundy, Foot, and Co., of Dublin, whose Foot was examined later), not then under prosecution, but having been so twice:—I have been concerned in some little smuggling, but I was more a dupe than anything else. The revenue laws are in such a state that they encourage smuggling at present: this individual I got in company with beguiled me with his tongue, telling me what wonders might be done: he knew that by my industry I had accumulated a little money. I was to put down £100 and he £20; he put down as much as would enable him to know the business, and then gave information to the Customhouse. I tried him seven times in this way, and lost every time, more than £700 in all. He used to go abroad and buy goods, and take my money, and pay for them, as I expect, although I do not know: he kept all the accounts. They made application to me for money afterwards, but that I had no business with; my money was spent, and I did not buy the goods ; and on that ground I had no business to pay for the Tobacco. It was put into various vessels, and the vessels and all were taken. I had only one venture not taken, about a ton. I think the last transaction I had was 25 or 26 lbs., and I paid £25 fine for it; that was seven years ago. I have done nothing to speak of since; may have smuggled a hundred cigars, or something of that sort. I do not know anybody that smuggles now; I believe there is great exaggeration about it, more talk than anything else. I believe that where one has made money 20 have lost. I believe, although I do not know, that informers must have a great stimulus given them by having so much money for the information. That man I speak of would never have led me into the act of advancing so much money if he had not had a stimulus (I!). This man put in only £20 to your £100, and therefore you must have been five times as bad as he was ? As regards the bulk of the goods; but he did it with a special object, as a villain. On the seventh time you found him out? Not exactly then; not till he informed me. I cannot tell what reward he got; but he kept appearing better and better, and I got worse and worse; and he had no other means of livelihood : I am an ironmonger. None have tried harder than I have for smuggling, and been more unsuccessful; I liked it, for I persevered seven times.
So far our rara avis, the merle blanc, or candid blackbird; the Yorkshireman guileless and beguiled, the very Abel Drug-ger of real life, giving a scene of rich comedy to the Blue Book. The intelligent reader will probably opine that the wicked partner indeed employed the joint capital very advantageously in smuggling for his own sole profit; that most of the reported losses were but cunning and opportune fictions; and that if he did inform against the guileless one in the two cases in which the latter was prosecuted, and afterwards told him of the cruel information, it was because these two were failures, and in order to frighten him out of his small wits, lest, scanty as they were, they should prompt him to seek to get back some of his entrusted money.
In conclusion, let me try to gather here and there a fragment of unexhausted interest from the mass of the remaining evidence.
C. has presented us with Negro-head in the shape of cheese and twelfth cake, weighing about 30 lbs. We have something in the former shape from Mr. John Hodgson, 16 years a manufacturer, now four years a broker in the firm of Alexander and William Grant, the first or second in London, “ I should say the first” (pace Mr. H. N. Davis):—I knew 20,000 lbs. of Dutch snuff passed through the Custom-house last year in the shape of cheeses; the whole escaped. It was made up with a crust of cheese about half an inch thick, in 40 and 60 lb. cheeses, though I never knew Dutch cheese so heavy. It paid duty as cheese, and was delivered as cheese. The same party (a highly respectable manufacturer) told me that he bought last year 20,000 lbs. weight of Chinsurah cheroots of one man, and the greater part was passed through the Customs without paying the duty. I don’t know how they passed, but I know the man he purchased them from, and I know that he passed from 18,000 to 20,000 lbs. of Manilla cheroots
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without paying the duty. I know how a great many were passed at one time: information was given to the landing surveyor in St. Katherine’s Docks with respect to some goods sent under bond to Bristol or Liverpool; the party weighed the cigars, and the bond was given, and an order was given for the delivery in the docks, and they were delivered to a cart without the superintendence of the officer, and the cart might have delivered them in Westminster or Oxford Streets or anywhere else; and the bond not being returnable in less than three months, of course the parties had the whole of that period to get possession of an immense quantity of cigars and cheroots from the warehouse, and during this time notice was given. The bond was given by the agent; an inquiry has taken place respecting the parties who usually gave bond; the Customs are now more particular, and it could not be done now; any names were taken formerly, now the parties must be known, their residence and respectability. I wish to make a recommendation to the Committee with respect to East Indian cheroots, of which a great quantity are brought in, that a great benefit would be derived to the revenue by an alteration in the duty. I think it very inexpedient that an article sold at 7d. to Is. the pound should pay 9s. 6d. duty, the same as Havannah cigars worth in bond from 12s. to 16s. You may buy Chinsurah cheroots at any shop in London to almost any extent; and I know of my own knowledge that not more than two cases have paid duty during the last twelve months. I have known large quantities, tons at a time, of these smuggled goods sold, not publicly, but known to the trade. We have sold to smugglers for the purpose of bringing in again. I can mention some instances of cheroots and snuffs passed through the Custom-house previously to the discovery of the frauds that went on there, in the regular way of business, as goods in different shapes, not Tobacco. They were examined publicly by the officers and passed; by collusion, I believe, in some cases.
Lieut. D. H. Watson, R.N., searcher and landing-waiter in the Customs, with a small force under him. and the range of the whole river from Richmond to Gravesend, the shore as well as the water at discretion, gave some “wrinkles” as to the petty smuggling on the Thames, not petty in the aggregate:—My own impression is, that though there may be a few vessels now from Flushing and Nieuport engaged in the Tobacco trade, there are but few as running cargoes. Smuggling is now carried on by steamers and coasters in the port of London. We have nine steamers weekly from what may be termed Tobacco ports in Belgium and Holland; my own impression is that not one of them brings less than 1 cwt. per week [an excessively moderate estimate, this!]; from one 8 cwt. has been taken, from another 4, and 2, and 1, and so on, from others. I seized lately a schooner from Hamburgh, just off the Custom-house, with 120 lbs. compressed Shag. She had just arrived; it was concealed where the men lived, in the forecastle. I discovered the Tobacco by in formation; it could be discovered only from in formation. In fact, having the information, it was with difficulty I could detect the place of concealment. In steamers it is very generally placed among the coals, where it is almost impossible to detect it, without turning over a quantity of coals. Of course you can only turn over a certain quantity in the confined place where the steamer’s coals are. On a vessel arriving at Gravesend, tide-waiters are placed on her, generally four to a steamboat and two to a foreign vessel; sometimes, when there is a great press, vessels come up without any tide-waiter. The tide-waiter has no power to open locks, only the tide-surveyor, after the vessel has reached her moorings. Here Mr. C. A. Davis, a tide-waiter, before the Committee at the same time, interposed that he had often broken locks open, though against orders, when he had strong suspicion. He had thus seized about 279 lbs. of cheroots:—I saw the steward go to the back part of the vessel, and immediately on seeing me, he rushed in and closed the door, and locked it; I asked him to open, and he would not; I broke it open, and found him with a case of Tobacco, just ready to sling out of the cabin window. He stood like a man petrified. He was not punished; we could not get a prosecution against him; I gave it to the inspector and the seizure was condemned; but neither the ship nor the man was fined. There was a difference between the Customs officers on the subject; some will not act as I do [i.e., without authority, against orders]. That was in 1839; there are fresh orders now, under which persons are liable to be apprehended for having Tobacco on board ship.
Lieut. Watson continued:—The tide-waiters are to keep on deck during their watch. Many of the vessels, particularly steamers, have port-holes by which they can let out anything to boats with the greatest facility; the steamers deliver it from the engine-room down to the paddles, and their broad decks give great facility for boats coming underneath unper-eeived, and taking the Tobacco. I have no doubt that a very good, intelligent officer may be walking the deck, and be most anxious to prevent anything going from the vessel, and still they can drop it gently abaft the paddle; and with the tide running, particularly if, as is the common practice now, it is in oil-skin packages, there is nothing to prevent them doing so at any time of the voyage up the river. The tide-waiters relieve each other at stated periods; if there is only one on board he must have a time for rest, he cannot be on deck day and night. No increase in the number of officers, with the utmost vigilance on their part, could make the check quite
efficient; so long as the duties are what they are, it will never be quite efficient; there are so many opportunities for smuggling, and so many persons aid in it. I have known Tobacco seized after the first or second rummage; in many instances it is impossible to detect without information. Many of the regular informers have been employed in steamboats or in working for them; we are frequently deceived, I should say not one information in four is correct. We have to pay them if we think them deserving, even when the information produces nothing; this makes it a hard case upon the officer. There are receiving-houses innumerable on both sides of the river, and the smuggling is carried on in a continual small stream, five or six pounds at a time, by the watermen, lightermen, men employed about ships, and by sailors; most of the sailors of the steam companies are bred and born smugglers, coming from Folkestone and all round there. If any are caught and imprisoned, they return to smuggling when released; I have known their families supported during their term. One whom I asked for information said, “When I can get better paid for coming out than I do now I stay in, then I will come out, and you shall know all.” He is just free, and no doubt will soon be at the old business, for he cannot live without., Such men entrusted with Tobacco very seldom act dishonestly, for that would be their last job, and they live by it, and it would be fatal altogether if they robbed the party who employs them, although they do not mind robbing the revenue. (The tide-waiter Davis chiefly answers here.) Women are frequently employed in smuggling; I have taken four. One woman of the name of Gregson is very clever, and gets a living by it; she is a receiver, in Barking Creek. We reckon her, on an average, to have about 150 lbs. a week. She has been often fined £100, mitigated to £10 and £25, and has been once in prison for six months, but that has not at all stopped her. She keeps a little chandler’s shop, licensed for Tobacco. She covers an immense quantity of Tobacco on her premises by bills of parcels from respectable Tobacconists; they will swear, when we have her up, that they have sold her the Tobacco, and produce their bills, when they have never done so. There are frequent cases of children; that is the way they are working now, by boys under 16. They carry about one or two lbs. at a time, never more; they hang about the vessels, pick up the Tobacco, and row away to shore; they have the boats of their fathers, who know what they are about; I know a gang of about a dozen boys who live by it, and their fathers are supported by it too. This is Mrs. Gregson’s gang chiefly; there are others to other receiving-houses on both sides of the river. This is a new mode of smuggling, and the number of boys employed is increasing. I suppose I know on the river about 120 children and men and women who live by smuggling only; but I cannot form any idea of the whole number.. The boys get the profits; some do not give their fathers the money, but spend it themselves; you will see them in taprooms after they have run a crop on shore. These young ones get from smuggling to thieving, and, in fact, become vagabonds more than anything else. Mrs. Gregson pays regularly for the bringing on shore 2d. every half-pound; sometimes the man who employs them to run it pays them; when they have run it safe they bring a little note with a mark on it, and go away with another crop. One lad told me (I do not know whether it was bravado or not, but he was an audacious rascal) that he had run 60 lbs. in one day, from a steamer lying opposite the Custom-house; he had his father’s boat, and went backwards and forwards ; the officer on board would have no suspicion of him going and coming so frequently, as he ran about to clean the vessel and go errands; she was only about three boat lengths from the shore, and he might be to and fro a hundred times in the course of the day.
Here is an interesting reminiscence of an extinct species, contributed by Captain 8. Sparshott, R.N., of the Coastguard Service. A dozen years ago (1832) there was a system of batsmen; we have had many fights with them. They were men who went out with the smugglers, armed with bludgeons about six feet long [the bats for the balls of the coastguards’ heads, we may conjecture], and they could inflict a blow upon the coastguardsman before he could get at them with his sword; so we gave every man a musket, and had three or four very severe fights; some of the smugglers were killed, and some of the coastguard. They used to pay the batsmen 10s. a night.
Captain P. Hornby, R.N., Comptroller-General of the Coastguard, returned the expense of that establishment for 1843 at £512,167 15s. 5Jd., the exactitude of the ha’penny being a great comfort to the careful taxpayer. This was in addition to £741,968 for the other departments of the Customs. Modest total a million and a quarter!
Mr. James Fogg, who had been in the Customs, 27 years in the potice, and inspector of the police of the River Thames, had some very unpleasant information for the Committee, which must here be inexorably compressed:—I have had large seizures below Gravesend, even out of Indiamen, of foreign cigars; they are landed out of Indiamen in large quantities. First I and another seized a cart at Grays, with about 400 boxes ; then the owner of the cart said, you have not got half, and on his information we seized about 4 cwt. at East Tilbury, under a corn rick. A man at Poplar, who was fined and paid £100, told me he made £1000 in one year by smuggling. I should say I know sixty well, all in that neighbourhood, who get their living by nothing else, and who
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spend more money than respectable tradesmen. The man I have mentioned gave, I think, £1600 for a public-house in Tottenham Court Road; he kept a little bit of a butcher’s shop when I took his first cart; I seized two of his carts. I believe there are a good many men who have thus made money by smuggling; men who have been stewards of steamboats for a few years have taken public-houses worth many hundred pounds each; their earnings as stewards would not enable them to do that. I should say that there is not one respectable [i.e. non-smuggling] Tobacconist along shore on either side of the river. I have had about 30 seizures in one year, large and small, some very large; I should say there is not one in a hundred taken. From the conversation of smugglers I have no doubt that a good deal comes up by railway as well as by shipping; a bale of 50 lbs. was seized from a porter on the Eastern Counties Railway. In the East of London many men called crimps, who keep lodging-houses for sailors, live a good deal by smuggling; they have very large boats, and generally go below Gravesend; and when a foreign ship arrives they can get 2 or 3 cwt. out of her before the officers get on board ; and most of them have carts and horses, and very good ones too. Last July I seized 2 tons that came over in a sailing-boat, from which it was put into a barge in the Swin, and landed up the river; I seized it on information from one of the parties, who thought the others were cheating him of his share. I believe that all vessels whatsoever from abroad bring Tobacco; it is impossible to detect the parties; they watch their opportunity, and can slip it out of the stern windows or port holes, by arrangement with watermen; 3 or 4 cwt. may be slipped out in a moment while the officer is on deck. A man as soon as he takes a little Tobacconist’s shop defeats all the officers; he takes out a licence, and it is no use entering his house.
So much for British smuggling. Evidence was given to show that in other countries where good Tobacco was about as dear as in England, smuggling was carried on to a proportionate extent; in such States as France, where a R^gie, or strict Royal Monopoly, existed, or as Spain, where the monopoly was farmed out to persons or companies. Thus we have already heard of the smuggling from the Channel Islands into France; and a London broker, Mr. Wm. Scholey, who knew the French frontiers well, believed that about 7000 hogsheads were smuggled annually into France from Belgium, as well as a great deal from Switzerland. Although the French had a triple cordon of officers on the frontier, nearly all the Belgian village shops had Tobacco ready for smuggling, chiefly in packages of from 5 to 10 lbs. Dogs were largely employed; the French Custom-house gave a reward of three francs per head for the destruction of these; and a Parliamentary return showed that during the preceding ten years no fewer than 4000 Tobacco-smuggling dogs had been killed and paid for per annum. As for Spain, immense quantities were smuggled into it through Gibraltar and the Basque Provinces. Sigvat.
Pj^b at ^ofoan ta Castle.
IX.—THE GREATEST BLESSING. LIFE SAVED BY A MORSEL OF TOBACCO. OUR MAD DOCTOR.
“Roddy,” said I, “what do you consider the greatest blessing, that God has given to man in this fair earth of ours?”
“ Tobacco! ” said Roddy, laconically.
“Tush! Roddy,” I replied; “I’m in earnest, man.”
•‘ Snuff, perhaps,” said Roddy.
“Now, Roddy,” I cried, “what would be the use of snuff to a man if he had no nose; or if, possessing that useful, and in some cases ornamental facial appendage, it happened to be a non-discriminating kind of a nose, a nose that didn’t know good from evil. A short time ago Nellie there, who now sits knitting in the nook as mim as a little mouse, was bending over her harp, singing sadly, sweetly, as only Nellie can, ‘Auld Robin Gray,’ and I saw tears in your old gray eyes, Roddy, my boy. Nay, but tears like those no man need be ashamed of; they showed you have a heart and an ear. Would a cow, think you, have listened entranced as you did, to Nellie’s sweet notes?”
“Bedad!” said Roddy, lifting the stopper out of the Tobacco jar, cocking one eye, and looking into it; “Bedad! I don’t know at all, at all. Surely it’s yourself that remembers the piper that had a cow, and hadn’t a taste av food to put into the stomach av her, and troth didn’t he take his bagpipes and play her a tune, and tell her to consider, and didn’t the cow consider, and give the piper a penny to play the same tune o’er again, and sure enough the tune was ‘ Corn Rigs are Bonnie.’ ”
“Ah! Roddy,” said I, “there’s no such thing as getting you to be serious.”
“Well, thin,” replied Roddy, “tell me, thin, what were you drivin’ at—the greatest blessing, and so on?—is it ‘to woo a bonnie lassie when the kye comes hame?’ ”
“ According to the Ettrick Shepherd, yes. But what use to us would be all the delightful sights and sounds in this beautiful world, if we had not the power to enjoy them ? The lower animals have eyes and ears as well as you, Roddy; but they are not en rapport with a soul like yours. A cow in a rose garden, Roday, is a pitiable object; she is not to be envied.”
“No, bedad!” said Roddy, “not if the gardener’s mate comes across her hawse.”
“Some say,” I continued, not heeding the interruption, “ that poets ate not men to be envied; that their nerves are too finely strung, that they must suffer so. At times they do, and acutely, although there is a pleasure to them even in melancholy; but, behold how they can enjoy the book of Nature ever open to them, and to them only, beauty stirring their souls like summer winds sighing through an JEolian harp. A contented mind a continual feast—ah! but what a sordid one!”
Here the rain rattled against the window panes with redoubled fury, and the wind seemed to shake the house to its very foundation.
“Even this sort of. a night,” said Roddy, “is enjoyable inside.”
“ Oh! ” I said, “ so you, too, have the power of enjoying Nature in all her moods ? ”
“Are ye done?” said Roddy.
“ I’m done,” I replied.
“ Very well, then, since you’ve been spaking I’ve felt that cowld and melancholy, that I’ve had to eke my grog three times; so if you don’t spin a yarn to enliven my owld sowl, ’deed in troth I’ll get drunk entoirely.”
“Did ever I disobey you once, Roddy? Here goes, then, but my story is more curious than amusing. I shall call it—
OUB MAD DOCTOR.
I don’t usually, Roddy, begin a story by either preaching or moralising; but, as my present yarn ought to prove somewhat interesting in a physiological point of view, I will, on this occasion, break through my usual rule, and do both. During a good many years’ practice at sea, if not on shore, I have met with not a few cases of illness, which seemed to be connected, directly or indirectly, with the use of Tobacco; and, moreover, there is hardly any smoker living who has not at some time of his existence, feeling somewhat weakened in his nerves, at once planted the blame upon his pipe, and made a firm resolve to leave off smoking. Now, let me observe, that in learning to smoke you are making a bargain with Nature. “Smoke by all means,” she says; “ this life is a wearisome one at the best; there are many long hours of care and anxiety, even to the happiest of men; and these hours the holy plant will soothe and beguile. And care is a canker that eate th the heart; it is just as well banished, therefore. Smoke, too, for another reason, because Tobacco keeps at bay many an ill your flesh is heir to. I need only instance two: consumption (common colds at least, and they often begin this dire disease,) and neuralgia. But,” continues Nature, “ three stipulations I do make with thee. First, you must smoke the purest leaf; secondly, you must not abuse, you must take food as well as smoke; and, thirdly, you must subject me to no rude shock by suddenly abandoning the gentle habit, when once fairly established.”
Nature is right, Roddy; and if ever cases of disease can be traced to Tobacco smoking, it may at the same time be proved that the ’Baccy used hasn’t been the real Sir Roger. It has been said that good Tobacco is a food. Well, for one thing, it is ranked among the nervine aliments; but it has often done good to poor, starving wretches, by easing the pangs of hunger, and in this way: there is continually going on in our systems a process of waste, and the food we eat supplies this waste. Now, this state of action is governed by the nervous system; if, then, the nerves are stilled, either by deep sleep, as in the dormouse, or by Tobacco smoking, as in man, the body remains for a time in statu quo, and hunger isn’t felt.
I’ll give you an instance in which two precious lives were saved, positively saved, by a finger length of twist. It was during the raging of the Napoleonic wars that some soldiers embarked in a schooner, to take passage to Glasgow. This was easier said than done, however; for, a storm arising, they were driven round the Mull of Cantyre, and away up north, goodness knows how far; but the storm lasted for a week, and their vessel was finally shattered to pieces on a barren island, and only an officer and one poor private crept alive from among the breakers. They had nothing to eat, and only brackish water to quench their thirst; so it was no wonder that in a few days they were totally exhausted, and lay down under the lee of a rock to die. Now, an anti would sneer if told that a morsel of old dry twist, which the private found in a comer of his pocket, and generously shared with his officer, saved both their lives. They got a little sleep after chewing a portion, and one was awakened by the other faintly exclaiming that a boat was in sight. But, except for the help of that nervine aliment, they never could have been able to crawl to the top of the rock, and make the signal that insured their relief. And now, Roddy, for our “ mad doctor.” Fred Wiseman he was called—Assistant Surgeon Wiseman, which, it must be confessed, is a strange name for a madman. But, although he was pronounced mad by more people than one, during what I may term his illness, poor Fred was just as sane as those who sent him to hospital; however, he was afflicted with one of the strangest nervous diseases I ever remember seeing. I myself was then one “ surgeon’s mate,” as the men somewhat irreverently termed me, of the frigate “Narwhal;” and Fred, who had been loafing around Cape Town, doing a two months’ spell of leave, was the other. It wasn't leave quite, however; the truth is, Fred had been sent out as supernumerary in the old “ Valorous,” to join us; we being cruising
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ip the ’Bique, Fred thought he couldn’t do better than enjoy himself till we came. Now, at the beet of times, a sailor’s idea of enjoyment on shore, does not form the best tonic for his constitution; and Fred, instead of roaming about among the beautiful mountains and defying the snakes, or going out into the bush, gun in hand, spent too much of his time at hotels and “hops;” and the Cape lassies can dance, too. By Jingo I they do take it out of you I Fred told me, long after he was better, that he hadn’t been a month at the Cape until he felt his nerves going; so, being always a moderate smoker, be now became a furious one. As a rule, Cape Town Tobacco is harsh and vile, but if he had stuck to the ’Baccy alone it wouldn’t have been so bad; but, being a little weakened with his gentle dissipation, and consequently going up the steep streets making him pant, the doctor took it into his head he was asthmatical, and so took to mixing his smoking mixture with stramonium. The effect of this was to make him worse.
“And, by gum, Gordon,” he said, describing his state to me, “I was so confoundedly nervous I didn’t know what to do, and I couldn’t keep quiet; I was like a fly among treacle, the more I kicked the deeper I sank. And sometimes I would give up smoking for a whole day, then I felt so peevish and cross I wanted to quarrel with everybody, break lamps, and pitch stones through the church windows. No wonder my beautiful Malay girl told me I was ‘jus like one dam great racoon.’”
Fred was a little fellow, with a somewhat comical face; and when in health would keep the table in roars for hours at a spell.
Well, one day my friend got word that his ship had arrived at Symon’8 bay, so there was nothing for it but mount the waggon one fine morning, and be off to join her.
Fred’s illness, let met tell you, was a species of St Vitus’s dance; he had no power, when excited, over the motions of his muscles.
His reporting himself to the commander was rather funny; he shuffled up to him, gave a scrape with one leg, and touched his hat, but it was for all the world like “taking a sight.”* “Co-co-come on board, sir,” said Fred; “Thank you,” said the commander, looking rather stern, and, turning on his heel, he walked away. Now, our commander was very ugly, and knew it, and he had one eye that turned in towards his nose. No sooner had he turned his back, than poor Fred struck an involuntary attitude, and, when the commander wheeled again, there was Fred taking a sight at him, making monkey mouths, and with both his eyes turned in towards his nose, while the officers all around were choking with the laugh they daren’t indulge in.
Our commander wasn’t the best tempered man in the world, but had he been so he could hardly have been expected to stand an insult like this, on her Majesty’s quarter-deck, and before all the officers.
“Hell’s thunder! ” he roared, confronting the little doctor, “What do you mean, sir? ”
“I really co-oo-couldn’t help it, sir,” said Fred, looking ridiculously solemn all at once.”
“Go instantly down below under arrest, sir.”
“Ay! Ay! sir,” said Fred; but as he hurried off, and just as he was disappearing down the companion ladder, he took another sight, and pulled another face, that seemed almost to send the soul out of the ugly commander.
In the wardroom Fred met the surgeon, a fussy wee Irishman, five feet two, with a frock coat a mile too long in the waist for him, pug nosed and pock-marked, but terribly proud for his inches. Not having heard the row on deck, he stepped briskly forward and held out his hand to welcome the new assistant. I suppose Fred meant to salute, and would have completed this act of courtesy, had his fingers not spread themselves out just as his thumb was opposite his nose, and this made it look so confoundedly like taking a sight, you know. “Drunk, bigod!” said the surgeon, wheeling in wrath, and walking away. When he turned again, lo! and behold! the unfortunate Fred apparently holding up his nose with one finger to make it a snub, bobbing his head up and down as if taking stock of the wee man’s height, and seemingly bursting with merriment.
The poor little doctor couldn’t speak with passion; he could but seize his cap, and rush on deck to report the insolent and insubordinate conduct of his junior.
Hardly had the doctor done talking with the commander, than up rushes the marine officer, and gave the salute; “ he had been twenty years in the service, and had never been so insulted before, &o., <tc.”
Dash him!” cried the commander, “he’s insulting all hands.”
“He’s drunk,” said the doctor.
“He’s a fool,” said the marine officer.
“He’smad, mad, mad,” roared the commander; “and I’ll be damned if I sail with a madman. I’ll clap the fellow in irons at once, hanged if I don’t.”
And that was how poor Fred reallv spent his first and only night on board the frigate “Narwhal.” Next day he was brought before the captain, a tall, good-looking, gentlemanly jn&n, between whom and the commander there was but little love lost.
And now, when first brought up, though looking pale and nervous, Fred seemed perfectly sane.
.vZi^11* * right.” Sailor lingo for that action in which yon place the of the thumb to the point of the noee and spread out the fingers.—G.S.
“Do you drink?” said the captain mildly.
“No, sir,” said Fred, “I smoke when I can ge-ge-get the chit-chit-chit-chance.”
It was all right with Fred as long as he addressed the captain ; but no sooner did his eyes rest on the commander, than in went his optics towards his nose, and he became convulsed in a moment; and when he turned and saw the wee doctor, he seemed to go off in quite a fit of suppressed merriment, and I really think that on the whole the captain thought it good fun.
“I’d send him to hospital,” said the captain quietly.
“I’d send him to the devil!” muttered the commander savagely.
But Fred didn’t go to the devil just then; and, though he is dead, I don’t think he is there now. He went to the hospital, however, and soon got well; but the last thing the commander saw, as he peeped over the bulwarks as the boat shoved off, was little Fred sitting in the stern-sheets, with both his eyes turned in towards his nose, making monkey mouths and taking vicious sights at him.
“Bedad! ” said Roddy, “and serve him roight, too. What business had he to stare after the poor fellow at all, at all, for? ”
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
^ prisoner of Konigstein.
At first it might seem as if the literature of Tobacco must be exceedingly limited. But the indirect relations, apart from the direct influence of the plant divine, give to the literature of Tobacco a boundless, an ever extending range. If we could do the work of a hundred men, we should devote a book or a series of articles to “Historical Snuff-boxes.” Meanwhile, we recommend the subject to some one who has abundance of leisure, and who is not distracted by anxieties and by a multiplicity of exhausting occupations.
An adventure in which snuff-boxes figure is worthy of a brief record.
Many famous prisoners have been confined in the Konigstein fortress. One of the most notable was Colonel Agdolo, called likewise the Marquis D’ Agdolo, respecting whom some fabulous details were given in the work on the Russian Monarchy, of which Mirabeau was the reputed, but of which Mauvillon is said to have been the real author. Without regard to these fables, the fact remains that, by order of Frederick Augustus I., Elector and then King of Saxony, Agdolo was arrested in September, 1776, under mysterious circumstances, on which no light whatever has ever been thrown, was first confined at Konigstein, then at Pirna, then once more at Konigstein, where he remained till he died, on the 27th August, 1800.
Augustus H., called the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, died in 1733. His son, Augustus HI., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, died on the 5th October, 1763, and was succeeded as Elector of Saxony by his son, Frederick Christian, who did not, however, reign much more than two months, dying on the 17th December, 1763. His son and successor, Frederick Augustus, was scarcely thirteen years old, having been born on the 23rd December, 1750. From his mother’s extravagant habits, Frederick Augustus did not live on good terms with her. He was so good a man, and so righteous a ruler, that he was called the Just, though on the downfall of Napoleon he was shamefully treated, and by insatiable Prussian rapacity he was robbed of a large part of his dominions. In one of the arrangements for the payment of her debts, the Dowager Electress agreed to surrender to her son her diamonds, which were of great value. She was so well pleased with the settlement of the affair that she gave to her son’s two chief Ministers, Count Sacken and Baron Ende, gold snuff-boxes, set in diamonds, and to Ferber, an active but less conspicuous politician, a gold snuff-box filled with gold coins. The diamonds of the Electress had been several times pledged at Genoa and elsewhere ; and when commissioners were sent by the Elector to his mother to take possession of them, they could not be found. With their disappearance Colonel Agdolo is supposed in some way to have been connected, and his long captivity is conjectured to have been the penalty for his breach of trust. Count Sacken, Baron Ende, and Herr Ferber were aH very proud of their snuff-boxes; but when Sacken and Ende fell into disgrace, and when Agdolo was sent to Konigstein, Sacken wanted to return his snuff-box. He, therefore, commissioned his wife to negotiate for this purpose with Frau Von Rollingen, who was at the head of the household of the Electress. Frau Von Rollingen refused to receive the snuffbox, and after repeated applications, advised the Countess to put the snuff-box, meanwhile, into some sealed receptacle. She promised to speak to the Electress on the subject. As might have been expected, the Electress said that she never took back what she had once given. The Count Sacken had, therefore, to keep his snuff-box, and probably he was not unwilling to do so.
Though Colonel Agdolo never recovered hie liberty, he was not treated harshly, and he thanked Frederick Augustus for being so lenient toward him. Possibly secrecy, absolute secrecy, was the price paid by Colonel Agdolo for his sovereign’s clemency.
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Smoke.
[The London Figaro, September 18,1878.]
If it is true that Prince Bismark is realising the fact that the glory of the world—the glory won by smart diplomacy and the shedding of a river of human blood—is smoke, we ought not, perhaps, to be much surprised at the raid against Tobacco smoke, though the Prince, according to the Franco-Prussian Paris correspondent of the Times, burns Tobacco. The Imperial Chancellor has consistently acted upon the doctrine that what he likes is right, though it may be awfully wicked for any other person to indulge in the said liking.
The police of Coblentz, Saarlouis, and Treves will take into custody lads under sixteen who smoke in the street, and the offenders are to be fined or imprisoned. About thirty years ago, interference with smoking in public was one of the causes that led to scenes in Berlin, and to the then King of Prussia quaking for his crown and his skin. Boys being reckless, are troublesome; and, moreover, adult smokers may sympathise with the juvenile smokers.
The Times has an article on the subject which ought to delight the gentlemen who constitute the Anti-Tobacco Society. Smokers, we are informed, “monopolise far more than their share of our railway accommodation.” Also, that “Tobacco is a powerful drug administered through the respiratory organs, that is, through the atmosphere; and as we breathe one another's atmosphere, as it were, in common stock, the smoker administers his drug to all about him, whether they wish it or not.” After much denunciation of smoking and smokers, we come to the following exquisite passage:—
“ It cannot, however, be denied that Tobacco does affect the brain, the heart, the circulation, and the temperature. By the effect produced in these quarters it gives the desired relief—a certain soothing of the jaded or irritated nerves. It substitutes a dreamy mood for one of flagging vitality. But these fits of suspended animation are dearly purchased. They are the first step of a terrible process. The poet who described sleep as the cousin of death might hate found nearer relations and more direct approaches in the sudden abatements of sensation, memory, power, and consciousness we procure by drugs and other like agencies. They all give us the first stage of that euthanasia which some have told us is within our right, and others tell us is a revolt against Nature and heaven. But to practise day by day the way to death, even in its first smooth and easy stage, must facilitate the whole process, and render it easier to die, by a sort of acquired proclivity, when other things incline that way.”
Now, what are the facts about Tobacco? Excess, no doubt, is injurious, but excess in the use of Tobacco is far less injurious than any other excess. Gluttony, drunkenness, and other excesses are rapidly destructive to life and detrimental to morality; but excessive smoking is not demoralising, and its effect on the health is not rapid. Great smokers live to great ages, and some of them are the hardest working men of the age. No home is impoverished or made unhappy because the father is a great smoker. No mother’s heart is broken because her son is a great smoker. A great smoker is never a drunkard. A great smoker seldom becomes the slave of degrading vices. Tobacco is a cheap enjoyment that checks the perilous craving for excitement. Wonderful are the virtues of Tobacco. In case of over-eating, it is a remedy for the repletion; yet it mitigates the pangs of hunger. It comforts the depressed, yet it keeps exhilaration within bounds. It is the one luxury enjoyed both by rich and poor; and to the poorest of the poor, to those who have to live in crowded hovels, it is a preservative of health. It makes more tolerable the forced inactivity of long railway journeys, and yet it soothes when a man is suffering from physical fatigue.
How often it calms the temper! If now and then we are disposed to find fault with our wives for being cross and irritable, let us remember that they are not allowed to smoke, and consider how cross and irritable we should be if deprived of Tobacco. Alas for the wives of non-smoking husbands!
What really annoys non-smokers is the manifest comfort and enjoyment of smokers. No doubt, in a railway carriage we have to breathe one another’s atmosphere, and as that atmosphere is impure, sometimes foul, and sometimes infected with disease, it is more agreeable and safer for the health to have the said atmosphere perfumed and disinfected by Tobacco smoke.
We hope that the Times is not under the direction of nonsmokers. Such a calamity would be fatal to the prosperity of any newspaper.
^arb ^amstj.
In 1816 appeared a volume of poems by a then resident in Macclesfield. Although there were above five hundred subscribers, the book is now seldom met with, and a brief notice of it may not be without interest. The title-page reads: “ Poems on Various Subjects. By Richard Ramsey. Self-taught I sing—Homer. Macclesfield: Printed by J. Wilson, at the Courier Office, and sold by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Browne; and Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, Paternoster Row, London, 1816. 12mo., pp. viii., 215.” The frontispiece of the volume is a very good silhouette of the author who, in reply to the expected charge of vanity, observes: “ Among the subscribers to these poems (whose number exceeds five hundred) no doubt there may be some admirers of the celebrated Lavater, who, perhaps, will devote a leisure hour to the pleasing
task of comparing the outlines of Physiognomy with those of Intellect, and of judging with scientific precision whether Nature has or has not departed from her old custom of making the face an Index to the Mind—such Readers will exculpate the Author from the charge of vanity.” The biographical indicia are not numerous. Ramsey was a native of Ireland, and thus expresses his views:—“ And as to the principle of the Author—whose little volume embraces many subjects— he can assure the Reader that he is a lover of his Country and King, whom he hath had the honour to serve by sea and land (as a volunteer)—but he is no zealot, either in Religion or Politics—(save that he denies the supremacy of the Pope and the legendary tales of his miracle-working Apostles)—all he wishes is Truth from the Pulpit, Justice from the Bench, and Constitutional Liberty from the Throne.” To which admirable platitude we may all say, Amen.
The Macclesfield poet cannot claim to have drunk very deep of the Pierian spring, and yet there are several of his pieces that are worth naming. There is an epigram on the “Fall of Eve” (p. 14):—
“The Rev. Dr. Adam Clarke asserts It could not be a serpent tempted Eve, But a gay Monkey! whose fine mimic arts And fopp’ries were more likely to deceive I Dogmatic Commentators still hold out A Serpent, not a Monkey, tempted Madam;
And which shall we believe ? Without a doubt, None knew so well what tempted Eve as Adam.”
Another is a humorous address to the Prince Regent on “Fat and Lean Subjects,” in which, as a means of reforming “each class that’s prone to riot,” he advises the Government to send supplies of food, so that
z	“ their well-nourished Frames,
In time becoming Fat, shall so chain down Their factious spirits, that the Luddite host Will grow submissive, loyal, meek, and mild, As e’en the sleekest Bishop in the land.”
There is an anecdote of “Broadbrim and the Wag,” which shows that “Simpson” was not unknown fifty years ago. The ingenious, if not ingenuous, dealer thus explains:—
“ ‘ Nay, friend,’ said Broadbrim, * folks I never bilk, Tho’ I outwit them—thou mistak’st the matter;
I never do put water in the milk— I only—put the milk into the water.’ ”
Amongst the reminiscences of Ramsey’s sailor-life may be the tale of a sailor who had a pearl on his eye, which prevented him from closing “the visual orb.” Sailor Tom was left to protect the rum on shore from the Indians at Cuba. He was soon drunk and asleep; but when the felonious Indian approached he was frightened at the appearance of “the strange white-man,” thus explaining the cause of his fright:—
“But when I in his face did peep, I found he had—one eye to sleep. And one to watch the kegs I ”
There is an odd story of “ a lazy porter” at Manchester (p. 62). It appears that a Mr. Grundy had been preaching against the existence of the Devil. Since then, he says:—
“ Our modern gownmen, to secure their bread. And guard against decay of trade, Use all their skill to preach the Devil np I ”
There is a poem on the death of that strange fanatic Joanna Southcott; another is addressed to Mrs. Jane Davies, of Macclesfield, on reading her “Letters from a Mother to her Son on his going to Sea;” whilst a third, entitled “The Dumb Cottagers,” is on a couple of deaf-mutes who lived near Nantwich.
One of the most interesting of his pieces is one in blank verse referring to the Indian weed, and one of the many controversies it has excited. With this we conclude:—
“TOBACCO.
“ To sage experience we owe The Indian weed unknown to ancient times, Nature’s kind Gift, whose acrimonious fume Extracts superfluous juices, and refines The Blood distemper’d from its noxious salts; Friend to the spirits, which with vapours bland It gently mitigates; Companion fit Of pleasantry and wine; nor to the bards Unfriendly, when they to the vocal shell Warble melodious their well labour’d songs.”
’	Phillips.
“ The poor man struggles with an ill whose sting Is felt, alas I full oft on sea and land, Privation of a fascinating plant Yclept Tobacco—total want of which, In one who us’d it for a length of time, Will sour the sweetest temper, whether he Take snuff, or chew, or smoke the reeking tube. Happy the man who, free from want and pain, In sealskin pouch, or shining box contains A quid of fresh Tobacco I he nor rolls In vain the restless tongue thro’ tastelees mouth Nor substitutes weak liquorice, spungy root, Nor wooden pegs that bound Tobacco roll; But when old men and wives the empty box Indignant view, and shatter on hearth stone Their useless pipes, at rates and taxes rail, And curse good Governments, he in his cheek With heart uplift the lusty quid doth cram, And feast hie palate on the savoury juice. Or if transform’d to sherroot or segar, (That us’d in India, in Columbia this) Or minc’d in milk-white tube, by fire he sits And smokes, pleas’d with the taste and fragrant smell, And ev’ry whiff wafts odorous clouds on high; While ever and anon the flowing can Of English stingo, and the jocund tale Of other days goes round the festive board.
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Last, tho* not least, the snuff-box, richly set With costly diamonds (such as Castlereagh, From public purse, on foreign courts late shower’d In vast profusion, and at vast expence), Opes on the golden hinge, and the huge pinch To nostril, wide expanded, close apply'd, Infusing wisdom, clears the muddy brain Of deep-wig’d Judge, or mitred Prelate grave, Dispensing law and Gospel to mankind.
To thee, O Raleigh! Europe’s sons, who use The Indian Weed, can never half repay Their debt of gratitude. Of daring suul, He plough’d thro’ unknown seas, scann’d distant realms, And on his safe return first introduced This soother of our woes—this pasture sweet. That heightens friendship and the social hour, Tho' James* condemned Tobacco—and a Bard, More learn’d and popular, with him took part— The famous Cowper; though in latter days Clarkef join’d their standard, and dull Cambrot strove To hobble in the rear; yet greater he Tn sense and song who sung its deathless praise— Immortal Phillips—‘splendid* son of fame.
Such and so strong the force of habit is, That Cambro's lectures, tho’ in various tongues Wide spread, can never make real proselytes Of those who use Tobacco. Cambro says, ‘A needle dipp’d in its strong juice will kill An animal ’; but may not arrows slay And needles kill whose points were never daub'd With *Bacco juice or poison? but, again, ‘ It can’t guard off contagion,’ it hath been The second mean; due honor to the first. In Philadelphia, when the raging plague Dealt Death around; The Negroes, and the French, Still us’d Tobacco, and remained in Town, Yet died not I but a vain misguided race, Who thought that smoking was quite ungenteel, And would not stain their breath, nor singe their beards With pipe, or roll’d Segar, in Hundreds fell, And cloak'd up doors and Halls, and strew’d the streets! But mark how well this Cambro can describe The ways men use this bless’d Virginian weed, Which helps to crush rebellion in the State And feuds in families—when mildly Tax’d.
First, as a ‘ sternutatory,’—now who	•
Could think this sounding phrase implied—to sneeze ? Next—‘ Goes in form of vapour to the Lungs ’— What form has vapour, vapour here means Smoke I Then as a ‘ Masticatory ’—in this Dark phrase we dimly recognize the—quid!
Clarke calls this precious weed a ‘ God,’ our ‘ hope ’ In ‘ sorrow,’ and in ‘ trouble ’ our ‘ support; ’ Ador’d as ‘ pipe,’ as ‘ snuff-box,’ or as ‘ twist I ’ But Clarke and Cambro both may chew the cud Of Disappointment; their fanatic zeal Shall make few proselytes. Heaven for tho good Of man bestow’d this plant, and why not use With moderation what it freely gave ?
All things were made for use of man or beast;
Beasts touch it not! Hence Clarke and Cambro keep Your Ideal ‘ Gods ’ and ‘ potions ’ to yourselves, And leave us to enjoy—snuff, pipe, and quid.
^ipe Colourtrs.
V.—SOME OF BASTER’S OPINIONS.
Archibald Bastek’s favourite pipes were long clays, broken about the middle. These he obtained from the public-house he usually honoured with his presence after his day’s work was done. He always reckoned on having two pipes a week, one on the Saturday evening and one on the Wednesday evening; and yet Baster was never known to discard one till it was coloured. He always smoked a dark Tobacco, and never smoked quite to the bottom of the bowl, and, as the elay of the pipe was mostly thin, there was no great difficulty in his task of changing the hue of two each week.
Baster was a working man, a hard working man, as a glance at his hands would testify. I confess I never saw such hands before or since; I have seen hands as coarse and as dirty, hardly as clumsy, perhaps; but this man appeared to go in very heavily for damaged hands: they were cut and bruised and rasped all over. Possibly furniture moving, which he occasionally practised, had something to with the matter. Then the tops of two, if not three, of his fingers were missing, and the amputations had apparently been performed with an old-fashioned pair of snuffers, so particularly ugly were the stumps.
I wanted to get into conversation with Baster, and started by inquiring whether he was fond of music.
“Yes, sir, I’m fond of music, and I like plays; but I never go to no plays, and I never go to concerts. That’s my form.”
I concluded that want of means kept him from such places, and ventured to suggest that there were many capital things to be seen and heard for the small sum of one shilling, which, even if he strained a point to afford, would repay him in the shape of genuine pleasure.
* Our James L wrote a treatise expressly against the use of this exotie weed. He says that were he to invite the devil to a dinner, he should have three dishes: first, a pig; second, a poll of ling and mustard; and third, a pipe of Tobacco for digesture. Of a different opinion was Dr. Johnson, who once remarked that, since the disuse of smoking among the better sort of people, suicide has been more frequent in this country than it was before.
t “ When many of the Tobacco consumers get into trouble or under any cross or affliction, instead of looking to God for support, the pipe, the snuffbox, or the twist is applied to with quadruple earnestness; so that four times (I might say in some cases ten times) the usual quantity is consumed on such occasions. What a comfort is this weed in time of sorrow! What a support in time of trouble! In a word, what a God 1 ”
X A medical gentleman of Llanrwst, in Wales, whose real name is Roberta. He was well known in the columns of the Chester Herald in 1811, where he was pitted with Erinns on the subject of Tobacco.
With an illumination, that told of great superiority, on his homely face, Baster quickly undeceived me.
“You see,” said he, “I play the fiddle, and so I get my music for nothing; and I read Shakespeare, and so I get my plays for nothing. Then I can hear music in the streets, and see what’s going on around me; and ain’t that as good as any play? Why, people that have been tell me it’s only what you can see every day as you go along, if you keep a good look-out; and I don’t care to pay for seeing what I can see for nothing.”
I ventured, with great humility, to remark that there were scenes put upon the stage that he would scarcely meet in an ordinary road or street; but Archibald smiled a pitying smile at my intense ignorance, and said: “Why, now look at an Irish row. Who’d pay money to see that? And ain’t that as good as anything they put on the stage? Ah, there’s real life there, real fighting, real sticks, real hollering, real blood! You can’t get that on the stage; and yet you wouldn’t pay to see that, or be among it, would you?”
“I might pay to get out of it,” I replied, “but certainly not to be in it, or to see it.”
“And yet that’s real, exact life, and you won’t pay to see it, but you’ll go and pay to see what’s only an imitation; so you can if you like, but I won’t.”
After some little further conversation, I managed to extract a confession from Baster that he had at one time felt half a desire to go and hear the Christy (though he called them the Crystal) Minstrels, “Where,” said he, “they sit in a row all round, like, and play on stringed instruments.” But, on pressing him further, I found that he had smothered this half-desire as unworthy of a man whose concert-room and stage was before him in every street and road. “Why, lor, sir,” he resumed, “anybody, if they’ve only got eyes, can be amused; same as anybody, if they like, can learn to play their own music.”
“There I have you, my friend,” I said; “for my organ of tune”-----
“I didn’t say an organ, but a fiddle!” he interrupted me with.
“No, no!” said I, “you misunderstand me; my power to conquer any musical instrument is so small, that if I tried to learn to play the fiddle for a hundred years, I should never succeed.”
Archibald gave me another of his pitying smiles, and caught me up with:
“Perhaps not, sir, perhaps not—if you tried to learn it your way; but if you followed my advice, you could do it in three months.”
“Now, I’ve always had a yearning to be able to play the violin, and so eagerly entreated Archibald to proceed.
“This is what you have to do,” said he, “always have your fiddle handy, and when you think of a tune as you want to play, start at it and go on till you manage it; but you must do it at the exact time when the tune’s in your head, and then it’ll come quite natural. It’s the only way, sir; never mind if it’s in the middle of the night; say you’re lying awake, can’t sleep; all of a sudden a tune comes into your head; perhaps you heard it three weeks ago outside a public-house. Well, off goes the clothes, out you get in your shirt, strike a light, get your fiddle and play it; it’s as easy as possible. That’s the way I learnt.”
“But how about your wife?” I said; “didn’t she object?” “ Oh! she had to put up with it; she got used to it in time. Besides, what’s your wife to your fiddle?”
Baster had rather a singular way of jumping from one subject to another. Having quite finished me concerning violin playing, he looked steadily in front of him for a moment, then said: “ Now I’ll show you something simple, but good.”
I expressed my willingness to still sit at the feet of my Gamaliel for a little time.
“What travels quicker than light?” quoth Baster, with his head a little on one side.
As I could see that he wanted a certain answer, I replied: “Nothing travels faster than light.”
“Well, now,” said he, removing his pipe from his lips, “let us see. Lend me your walking-stick.”
I wondered if he was going to show me that he could travel faster than light, assisted by my stick; but he simply laid it on the table, and said: “Do you see that?”
“Yes,” I replied, “of course I do.”
Then he touched one end of it with his finger, and pushing the stick a little way along the table, said: “ There—what do you think of that? That’s simple, ain’t it?”
As to what I thought of it, my first impression was to say, “Not much;” because, viewed either as a feat of skill or strength—and I knew not how else to view it—it was really simplicity run to foolishness.
My friend, however, quickly showed me that more was in this little trick than met the eye; in fact, I was face to face with one of his scientific experiments —with an experiment which he considered quite upset the theory that light was the fastest traveller on record.
“Now, ain’t that exact?” said he, pushing the stick again. I nodded; Iwas still in the dark. “Ain’t that exact?” he continued, renewing the pushing; “When I touch one end, don’t the other move? At the same time, mind you, at the same moment; in fact, it is exact, and light ain’t, because it takes so long a time to travel a given distance. If this stick reached to the sun, touch one end of it and you move the
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other. The light ain't exact; this stick is exact, so this stick beats light, and goes quicker than light, because it’s exact— See?” I thought the best way for me to get out of this was to suggest that he should have his glass replenished. His reply was exact: “Gin—twopenn’orth—cold.” Over this particular glass Archibald informed me that he was a great reader and admirer of Captain Cook’s travels. “Captain Cook was one of the greatest men that ever lived,” said Archibald. “Didn’t he,go round the world and find out all about it for us? ” “I suppose you consider the world is round,” I inquired, and not merely a large plain?” “Oh, no, sir; round, round’s what it is, bar a difference of thirteen miles.” I am sorry to say that my memory does not serve me concerning this difference of thirteen miles. Baster explained it all to me, and told me why the world was not exact; but he mixed up his north and south poles so, and flourished his equator so alarmingly, that I subsided into my “ bitter,” and nodded at regular intervals. “It’s a wonderful thing, sir, how they can draw the world, ain’t it?” inquired Baster, presently. I answered, rather absently: “Draw it where?” “On paper I mean, in maps,” replied my companion. “And, what’s more wonderful, how they can draw it oorrect; exact, I may say.” “Ah, but how do we know that it is drawn oorrectly?” I ventured to remark. Again that pitying smile illumined Baster’s rugged face as he emphatically exclaimed: “I know it’s done right, and Til tell you how I know it. I’ve got a book at home full of maps—Scotland, Africa, Austraha, Essex, and all manner of places. Then I’ve got two globes at home as well; they’re rather old, and some bits are knocked off, and one of ’ern’s a good deal burnt, through being in a fire. I begged ’em one day of a gentleman whose goods I was moving. Well, when I wants to see if a place is drawn correct, I looks in my book, and then when I finds it I looks on my globes, and there it is, both alike, map and globe. Ain’t that simple, now? But it’s good, because it’s true; and that’s how I know the places are drawn correct—See?” In order to say something, I remarked that the art of drawing was very useful, as it enabled us, not only in maps but in pictures, to see places of interest throughout the world. At mention of the word drawing Archibald smiled; and, when I had finished, said: “I can draw. If you give me a piece of chalk, I can draw an oak leaf, ah, just like life, on the floor here. I can, really Mid truly.” “Sir,” said Archibald, with a mysterious air, “here’s another simple thing, but good: Can any dead thing be alive?” “How about old cheese?” I inquired. “That ain’t the answer,” said Baster, promptly; “and I must have the right answer, else how can I go on; it’s no good a-starting wrong, is it? But I’ll put it it another way: What is that which is always dying and never grows less, and always growing and never gets bigger?” . This was certainly putting it another way, a good deal another way; but then the man was not an ordinary man. I ventured to ask him to repeat the inquiry. He did. I was very anxious to give him the right answer, because, as he said, incorrect rephes only delayed matters and did no good. However, while I was thinking the matter over, he said: “ The earth; that’s the answer. It’s always dying and never gets less, and always a-growing and yet never gets bigger.” “How do you prove it?” I inquired. “I don’t want to prove it,” he replied. “It is as big as it always was and no bigger, and as little as it always was and no littler. Look at your travellers; they can’t find no new places.”	. “But Stanley found a lot of new places in Africa,” I suggested. “No, he didn’t,” replied Archibald. “They were new to him, that was all; they were old enough. I tell you, sir, they can’t find no new places, places only just made; that’s my meaning. They’re all old, jolly old, but all as old as one another. The world don’t lose, and the world don’t gain; if you dig a hole, don’t it fill up, in time, of course?” “But suppose,” said I, “you dig a hole, you mean to say that the sides of it and the bottom of it will, in time, grow and fill up the space you made.” “Certainly, sir.” “Then,” I said, “you say the world grows. Is that hole you made a part of the world or not?” “ Certainly it is, sir.” “Then,” I continued, “why shouldn’t the hole grow?” “Well, replied Baster, after,a little study, “there’s something in that; but that ain’t answering my question as to whether dead things have life in ’em, is it?” I was obliged to confess it was not; and, as my time was up, I bade my worthy friend good-bye. “Good night, sir,” said he, “and don’t forget that little trick I showed you with the walking-stick. That was exact, wasn’t it?” **Itwas,” I replied; “and good night again. See if you can get out of that hole.” D. Gogos.	^mbtr. xvn. In this section we conclude our translation of Albin Kohn’s sketch:— Another question is, whether all the bronze articles found in the countries in which they were certainly not produced, came in the way of direct trade with the producers or their agents, or in an indirect fashion, being in the latter case conveyed from province to province, from settlement to settlement, from tribe to tribe. For the latter supposition speaks the circumstance that the Italian, accustomed to all the comforts of life which a high civilisation furnishes, and who in his native land had a complete system of transport and excellent routes, would scarcely have ventured to enter wildernesses where the use of vehicles was not to be thought of, where frequently not even a beast of burden could be employed, where his wares and the articles to be obtained in exchange for his wares had to be dragged on painfully on his own back, or on the backs of his slaves. If to these considerations we add that the Southerner was not familiar with the languages of the Northern Barbarians, and, therefore, could not make himself understood by these, we have before us the sum of the difficulties which the Southerner had to vanquish in direct commerce with the Barbarian, and which testify in favour of indirect commerce. Nevertheless, there are circumstances which demonstrate that a direct commerce, though not exclusively, was carried on between the Italians and the Northern nations. Let it suffice for me to indicate that the descriptions of the different lands which PHny, Ptolemy, and others have left us could have been obtained only from persons who had seen those regions with their own eyes; that, furthermore, the tradition of the direct commerce with the North had not yet died out at the time of Nero, in consequence of which a Roman knight was sent to the Baltic shores to join together again the broken links. In addition, I must insist upon the Finds, which invincibly show that Etruscans sleep in the graves of the far North. All so-called Facial Urns, as well as the so-called House Urns, furnished with a sort of door frame, contain unquestionably Etruscan ashes. Even the comparative rarity of such urns proves that the natives did not make use of them to hold the ashes of the dead. The kind reader must pardon me for endeavouring to weaken, by an example drawn from modern times, the objection that the Italians could not have ventured among the Barbarians of the North, for fear of being robbed, plundered, and murdered; for it is permissible to draw from certain regions of the world in these days parallels with the primeval periods of Europe. Excluding the Southerners, we can, without doing it injustice, compare pre-Christian Europe with the Northern Asia of to-day, which, perchance, differs from pre-Christian Europe only in being intersected by a well-kept commercial route, the Moscow-Chinese route, which extends from the Ural Mountains to Kiachta, but along which very few towns are met with. To the villages, by no means numerous, which lie at some distance from this main commercial route between Europe and Asia, lead, not roads, properly so called, but simply the indications of whefe roads should be. These villages generally he close to a river, and in winter the frozen river furnishes to the traveller a route; in summer the traveller or trafficker reaches the villages by means of fords, or of narrow, dry paths winding in the midst of swamps. Inns there are none in the villages which he away from the high road, and there are almost none in the villages which he along the main route itself. The wayfarer enters the first peasant’s hut that presents itself to him, is warmly welcomed, and he is thought to show sufficiently his gratitude for the hospitality received by giving a few copecks to purchase a wax candle of the thickness and length of an ordinary lead pencil, to be devoted to the household gods, that is to say, the images of the saints, which stand on a board in the so-called chief corner of the chamber, and by presenting the children with small gifts, such as comfits and pieces of gingerbread. Like many of my companions, who, in a state of destitution, were banished to Siberia, I had to procure the means of subsistence by labour, and as I found myself physically unfit for the work in a dye-house and a fulling mill, in which I was for some months occupied, but had contrived to save about thirty roubles, I resolved to follow the example of others, and to commence the business of a hawker. Speedily I carried out this resolution, and journeyed from village to village in the region of Great Jelan; exchanged my wares for flour, oats, peas, raw Tobacco, took these articles to Irkutsk, where I sold them for good prices, and with the proceeds purchased fresh wares, salt fish, omul (a sort of salmon, salmo atrtumnalin,) tallow-candles, soap, thread, brick tea, sugar, thimbles, needles, brass and tin rings, glass beads, ribands, and so on. Notwithstanding that at this time I was not completely master of the Russian language, I made myself well understood by my customers; gestures and signs, which are universally inteUigible, came to my aid. Exactly in the same way I carried on my affairs among the Buriates in Archirejsk, who stand scarcely at a higher point of civilisation than the primaeval inhabitants of Central and Northern Europe at the time of the Etruscan amber
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trade. I went from village to village. Ab soon as I was out of one village I abandoned myself to the instinct of my horse to find the next. This confidence in my horse's sense of smelling never deceived me during my career as a chapman fa Siberia. The horse always brought me in good condition, and without misadventure, to the nearest goal of my pedlar’s pilgrimage.
Nor have I any complaint to make about the rudeness and rapacity of the Barbarians, both of which have been employed as arguments against the direct trade between the civilised nations of the South and the uncivilised tribes of the North. As I did not presuppose or seek among them any drawing-room manners, did not come among them for amusement, took them just as they were, and not as I wished them to be, I was not struck by their rough, uncouth fashions; or, at least, was not annoyed thereby. I must certainly confess that in our commercial dealings they often sought to overreach me; but, of course, it was my affair to guard myself against their designs. Of stealing or robbing none of these Barbarians ever dreamed. During the tolerably long period that I conducted my hawker’s business, I arrived at the conviction, not at all flattering to the civilised nations of Europe, that property and life are much less secure among those nations than among the Barbarians of Northern Asia. This conviction was likewise gained by the other exiles, who carried on commercial transactions on the great Buriatia steppe, in the Balagansk region, and in Oajotzk with the Buriates, in Wjercholensk, Ustjkutta, and Kirensk with the Tungusians, and in the Minusinsk region with the Ujgurian Tartars. None of the trading exiles accused these people of being lacking in a hospitable and honourable spirit.
I have thought it right to give this episode in my life, not, perhaps, to refute, but to weaken one of the arguments insisted on against the direct commerce of the Italians with the amber coast.
Moreover, I must call attention to a circumstance which has been hitherto overlooked, but which ought to be taken into consideration when the difficulties are discussed opposed to direct commercial intercourse between the North and the South. I allude to the permission given by the Northern Barbarians for the celebration of funereal rites according to the Etruscan mode. The facial urns which on the Northern routes have been found, and which are still found, seven of them having been discovered as late as the summer of 1876, some at Goscieradz, near Bromberg, on the road leading from the ancient Oschia to the Lobsonka; the Roman mask met with in a grave near Czarnickau, and whose import has by Sadowski been thoroughly discussed; the sacrificial chariots and the sacrificial knives which have been brought forth from the earth in the lands inhabited in those olden times by the Barbarians; all these things not merely prove distinctly that foreigners from the South journeyed to the Baltic coasts, but that they were not hindered from living according to their religious faith, or from performing their funereal rites according to the religious customs and the religious worship of the fatherland. The Barbarians were tolerant in this respect; and though the stranger who died among them worshipped other gods than they themselves worshipped, they did not refuse him a place of repose in the midst of their own tombs, were not unwilling that he should be buried according to his own religious customs. But, where the stranger can live in accordance with his own faith, and where after his death he obtains a spot for eternal rest in the consecrated ground of those whose faith is different from his own, his property and his life are invariably safe. Hospitality was and is a characteristic of the Barbarians of the temperate zones of Europe and Asia.
It is not, however, merely certain that travelling merchants went from the South to the North to exchange their wares for valuable productions, but also that wandering journeymen followed the same route to gain their bread by repairing or refounding bronze articles which had been damaged. Sacken, in his “Guide to the Knowledge of Heathen Antiquities,” published at Vienna, in 1865, has already alluded to this circumstance. To these travelling journeymen are unquestionably to be ascribed works of art such as the two bronze steers in the museum of the Society of the Friends of the Sciences at Posen, and other similar artistic labours, which some investigators have been inclined to regard as productions of native bronze industry. Only in this limited sense can we agree with those who, like C. F. Wieberg, in his “Influence of Classical Nations on the North,” are of opinion that “not in its whole extent” was the bronze culture imported into a land, or that bronzes found in a land are not all of Etruscan origin. Doubtless the bronze was originally imported; but when the bronze articles purchased by the inhabitants of the Northern regions of Europe were broken, the wandering journeyman, who assuredly was no artist, came and recast the things which had been injured or shattered. In the articles met with we have not, therefore, to seek for signs distinguishing them from genuine Etruscan productions, in order in this way to discover a special local industry; rather must it be our aim to discover in them that which has the Etruscan character. We see this very clearly in the steers in the Posen museum, already several times spoken of by me. It is plain that the mould for them was not made by an artist: they are too clumsy to permit this supposition. Nevertheless, they must have been cast, and the mould for them must have been made by a Southerner; this is proved by
the broad frontal yoke between the horns. No North European race of cattle had a frontal yoke so broad; it is found only in the cattle of Italy, as Riitimeyer, in his “ Fauna of the Paludic Constructions” has shown.
Specially to show the Etruscan origin of the bronze articles which are found in the riverine territory of the Oder, Vistula, Dnieper, and Niemen, I would adduce what follows:—Not long ago the Superintendent of the Breslau museum caused a table to be prepared of all the bronze articles found in Silesia, which is adjoined to the twenty-seventh report of the Society for the Preservation of Silesian Antiquities, published under the title of “Silesia’s Primaeval Time in Image and in Writing,” in 1875. To Herr Hellbig, the Secretary of the Germanic Archeological Institute at Rome, who took an active share in the excavations of the old Etruscan graves at Capena, near Amelia, at Corbeto, Tivoli, and so on, the table was sent, with the request that if he found in the Etruscan graves any articles, he was to acquire them on behalf of the Silesian Society, in order that they might be compared with similar bronze articles of Etruscan workmanship already in the possession of the society. The things previously transmitted by Herr Hellbig to Herr Diek, and those which he subsequently sent to the society, formed such a rich collection that all the articles found in Silesia had their corresponding representatives.
Thus always more and more is confirmed the idea propounded by Lindenschmit, that many bronze articles discovered in Central Europe came from Italy, an idea which the celebrated investigator gave to the world years ago.
Here I desire to call the attention of inquirers to a particular circumstance. In the province of Posen, in the neighbourhood of Nadziejewo, bronze cylinders, wound spirally, are often found. An important find, which the deceased archteo-logist, Podczaszynski, of Warsaw, made at Poniewiez, in Lithuania, explains to us the intention of this twisted wire, which had previously been so puzzling. Podczaszynski found in a pre-historic Lithuanian grave an article of attire, which, in all probability, had served as a shirt of mail. This singular article of attire furnishes the proof that those bronze cylinders served to connect a bronze trimming consisting of small discs; that by means of them it was fastened to the shirt of mail. According to the recent investigations of Angelo Angellucci, it is demonstrated that those cylinders of bronze wire are of Italian origin, and thus they serve to perfect the archeological proof of the existence of the trade between the nations of Italy and the nations of the North.
In conclusion, let me make some remarks on the cessation of the amber trade; or, rather, of the Italo-Baltic trade. Space does not permit me to treat the subject thoroughly and exhaustively. Wliat I here offer is meant to stimulate other inquirers to a deeper study of the matter.
Commonly the migration of the nations is regarded as the cause of the decline and of the complete cessation of the amber trade. I do not mean to dispute that the migration of the nations had as result an interruption of the amber trade, and of the peaceful intercourse of the population of Italy with that of Northern Europe, especially with the inhabitants of the amber coasts; as the sole cause of the entire cessation of the amber trade I cannot regard it. Here I leave unanswered the question whether the migration of the nations was a complete exodus of whole tribes with kith and ’ kin, with household goods, and with cattle, as has hitherto been supposed, or not, rather, an onrush of adventurers hungry for booty, and under a warlike chief, and who, if fortune favoured them, invited kinsfolk and friends who had remained in the native land to follow after, and to found in the conquered country a new home. If the race of the Azteks in Mexico had not perished, if the Red Skins of North America had written the history of their own home, we should probably have read in their works tidings of a migration of nations from the Far West, which began in the fifteenth century and continued to the nineteenth century; though, nevertheless, Europe in this long series of years, in these four centuries, was not depopulated, and the nationalities of Europe were not essentially changed. If other causes, weightier and more incisive causes, had not put an end to the amber trade, the Lombards, as the heirs of the ancient Venetians, would have adopted and developed the trade, just as the Venetians did as the heirs of the Etruscans.
With the progress of culture trade had taken another direction, and it had to satisfy other needs. It was, above all other things, omnipotent fashion which, if it did not give the amber trade its death-blow, yet seriously injured it, and drove it away from Italy.
Pliny the Elder, in the thirty-seventh Book of his Natural History, says: “The Transpadan peasant women have a necklace of amber, as ornament, no doubt, but also for supposed medicinal qualities.” The classical territory was thus, at the time of this writer, so inundated with amber that the Transpadan peasant women wore large necklaces of amber beads instead of bronze necklaces. And Celto-Etruscan graves of the first and second centuries after Christ testify thereto. According to Paul Breccone, there were found in the seventeenth century, near Ancona, stone coffins containing skeletons, on whose necks and breasts were amber beads of the size of a hen’s egg. They were met with in such quantities “that a bushel could have been filled with them.” Large quantities were likewise discovered in the graves at Hallstadt, in which assuredly not patricians and their wives,
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but miners, repose. This circumstance, which in my opinion is so important, has hitherto in the consideration of the subject been entirely overlooked, though it had an important influence on the amber trade. If, for the sake of analogy, we ask what must become of the diamond trade if the diamond fields in Africa were to furnish so many diamonds that our village beauties could adorn themselves with diamond necklaces and diamond rings, instead of with glass beads, or with genuine coral beads. The diamonds would in that case fall in price, would lose their attractiveness for covetous explorers, forasmuch as they could offer no sufficient equivalent for the dangers and fatigues with which exploration is accompanied. It is certain, besides, that these precious stones would in such a case cease to fill the caskets of the rich; and this of itself would suffice to expel them from the catalogue of articles of commerce which are much sought after and which yield abundant gain. Paradoxical as it may sound, it is luxury which is the principal impulse of commerce, the principal stimulus to the merchant and to the treasure-digger, who risks his life in the bowels of the earth only in order to become suddenly rich. It was luxury which attracted the Phoenician toward the tin-islands, the Etruscan toward the amber coasts; which attracts the European toward California, toward the gold mines of Australia, toward the diamond mines of Brazil, toward the diamond fields of Africa.
Further damage the amber trade encountered from its transformation into direct traffic after having long been barter. At first the bright Roman coin with the image of the Emperor may have been gladly accepted by the Northern Barbarian, perhaps even eagerly made use of as an amulet against the influence of evil spirits. At a later period, however, when the Roman coins were multiplied, and when, perhaps, they could not be turned to any useful purpose in the interior of the countries where barter still continued for centuries to hold sway; where, in addition, the crafty traders with treacherous design ascribed to the coins a higher degree of value than they really had at home, the amber trade more and more inevitably declined, especially as amber had ceased to be a fashionable article. On the one hand, the coins given for the amber were to the Barbarian no adequate equivalent, seeing that he could not find any proper use for them in his native land; on the other, the amber trade did not yield to the merchant enough of gain to reward him for the fatigues and the toils of his journey. Gradually and inevitably the amber finder grew indifferent toward the amber trader, and the trader grew indifferent toward an article of commerce which was no longer in request with people of wealth and rank. Thus the amber trade, more and more neglected, finally ceased. Thenceforth the Baltic coasts offered to the inhabitant of Italy no temptation, no recompense, no gain; for furs to protect himself from the cold he did not need. Doubtless, also, the frequent change of rulers at Rome, and the frequent change of the images and inscriptions on the coins thence arising, made the Barbarians distrustful toward the coins. The Barbarians could not read; and how could they believe that two coins, one of which bore the image of the Tiber and the other the bust of Trajan, were of equal value?
Before Rome became omnipotent, and the mistress of the whole of civilised Europe, we find a powerfully developed commerce of the Greeks, and their Colonies on the Pontus Euxinus or Black Sea, toward North-western Europe, toward the Baltic Sea, and even beyond it. Scarcely, however, had Rome gained the empire of the world, and with it dominion over Greece, when every trace of this Greco-Northern traffic vanished, the routes which it had employed fell into forgetfulness, yea, even the tradition thereof disappeared. The universal commerce became a Roman, or, more strictly, an Italian commerce. A further change of commercial relations began, and favoured the European East, when the Roman Potentates took Byzantium as the seat of their dominion. In the East Roman kingdom from that time forth the Greek element attained supremacy, and the Italian element was compelled to be content with a subordinate rank. This change was mirrored anew in the altered direction of commerce, which once more sought the Northern shores of the Pontus Euxinus. Novgorod, founded by the Sclavonians, owes to this changed direction of the commercial routes the germ of its later prosperity. The traditions of Russia, moreover, inform us of very ancient relations, partly warlike, partly peaceful, to the East Roman Empire, whose efforts finally succeeded in introducing the Greek rite into Russia, and in establishing its authority there.
With the altered direction of commerce, and the total transformation in the world’s affairs, fresh articles were furnished for commercial interchange. Amber, deserted by fashion, fell into the background; its place was taken by furs; it was also taken by honey and wax, which were in extensive demand by the Catholic Church in general, and especially by the Greco-Catholic Church in the exercise of its devotions, and which in the impenetrable forests of Russia, Lithuania, and Poland, were produced in prodigious quantities by swarms of wild bees. To this circumstance is, perhaps, to be ascribed, the lengendary glory of beefarming, and of the production of honey and mead (piast) in Poland, which continued to recent historical times, and from which the State derived considerable revenues in export duties.
Meanwhile bronze had ceased to play a notable part, and to serve as a legal tender. Gold and silver coins, and, perhaps, also gold and silver ingots, had slowly but steadily gained empire in the Far North, and commerce by degrees took the forms which it has retained till modern times. With the progress of culture in Southern Russia and in Poland articles of export multiplied; the corn trade toward the South began to be developed, and perhaps it is by the transfer of the seat of Empire from Rome to Byzantium that the East of Europe is indebted for the more rapid march of its civilisation.
In conclusion, I once more refer to what Rougemont has stated on the commerce in North-eastern Europe in his work on the “Bronze Age; or, the Semites in the East,” a work which, along with many false or antiquated views, contains many true ideas and a multitude of facts.
We here take our leave for a time of the geography of the subject of which, by the help of Genthe, Sadowski and Kohn, we have presented far fuller, more accurate, and more suggestive details than have ever been before accessible to the English reader.
^tos of ©lb gooks.
Hr. E. W. ^shbee’s Eeprints.
[continuation.]
17.	Taylor (John, The Water Poet.) Drinke and welcome: or the famous historic of the most part of Drinks, in use now in the King domes of Great Brittaine and Ireland; with an especiall declaration of the potency, vertue, and operation of our English Ale. With a description of all sorts of Waters, from the Ocean sea, to the teares of a Woman. As also, The causes of all sorts of weather, faire or foule, Sleet, Raine, Haile, Frost, Snow, Fogges, Mists, Vapours, Clouds, Stormes, Windes, Thunder and Lightning. Compiled first in the high Dutch tongue, by the painefull and industrious Hold-ricke Van Speagle, a Grammaticall Brewer of Lubeck, and now most Learnedly enlarged, amplified, and Translated into English Prose and Verse. By John Taylor. London, Printed by Anne Griffin, 1637. 13 leaves.
18.	Strange and Wonderfull Prophesies by The Lady Eleanor Audeley; who is yet alive, and lodgeth in White-Hall. Which She Prophesied sixteen yeeres agoe, and had them Printed in Holland, and there presented the said Prophesies to the Prince Elector; For which she was imprisoned seven yeers here in England, by the late King and his Majesties Councell: First, she was put into the Gate-house then into Bedlam, and afterwards into the Tower of London. With Notes upon the said Prophesies, how faire they are fulfilled, and what part remains yet unfulfilled, concerning the late King, and Kingly Government, and the Armies and people of England. And particularly White-Hall, and her wonderful Predictions. Imprimatur Theodore Jennings August 25. 1649. London Printed for Robert Ibbitson in Smithfield near the Queen’s head Tavern, 1649. 4 leaves.
19.	The generous Vsvrer Mr Nevell in Thames-street, who allowed his maid usually a blaek pudding to dinner. Who once bought a Pullet for his wife when she was sicke; but he would goe to Market himselfe, because he would not be cosened by the Messenger; and brought the feathers home in his hat when it was pulled; because he would not loose them; and how he was troubled therewith when the Lord Major seeing him called to speak with him. And how he made lamentable moane to his Neighbours, that his maid had robd him; because shee gave her Sweet-hart a piece of bread and cheese. London Printed for Salomon Johnson, 1641. 4 leaves.
20.	The Primrose of London with her valiant aduenture on the Spanish coast, being of the burthen of 150. Tunne. Declaring the maner how 97. Spanyards came aboord the same ship, the course of the skirmish, and how by their valiancie they discomfited them. Whereunteo is added the copie of the Kynges commission for the imbarment of all English Ships. Truely published by Humphrey Mote. IF Imprinted at London for Thomas Nelson, 1585. (Black Letter.) 4to. 4 leaves.
21.	Taylor (John, The Water Poet.) Mad Fashions, od Fashions, All out of Fashions, or, The Emblems of these Distracted times. By John Taylor. London, Printed by John Hammond, for Thomas Banks, 1642. 4 leaves.
22.	The Poet's Blind mans bough, or Have among you my blind Harpers: being A pretty medicine to cure the Dimme, Double, Envious, Partiall, and Diabolicall eyesight and Judgement of Those Dogmaticall, SchismaticaU, Aenigma-ticall, and non Gramaticall Authors who Lycentiously, without eyther Name, Lycense, Wit or Charity, have rayb ingly, falsely, and foolishly written a numerous rable of pesteferous Pamphelets in this present (and the precedent yeare) justly observed and charitably censured, By Martine Parker. Printed at London by F. Leach, for Henry Marsh, and are to bee sold at his shop over against the golden Lyon Taverne in Princes street. 1641. 4to. 8 leaves.
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NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. We cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; and we do not hold ourselves responsible for loss. COPE’S 1878 CARD. MODERN PILGRIMS. CHAUCER AND 8T0THARD ADAPTED TO THE TIMES. Subscribers to the “Tobacco Plant" for 1878 will receive a copy of Moderm Pilgrims and Key, carefully packed upon a roller, by forwarding 6d. to pay carriage. Price to Non-Subscribers, 1/-. Subecription for “ Tobacco Plant," 2/- per annum, poet free. Subecription for “Tobacco Plamt” and Modern Pilgrims, 2/6. Publishing Office:—10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool	SMOKING: WHEN INJURIOUS, WHEN INNOCUOUS, WHEN BENEFICIAL, WITH COMPENDIUM OF THS TEMPERAMENTS, SHOWING HOW THEY ABE INFLUENCED BY TOBA.OCO. BY J. CARRICK MURRAY, M.D., F.A.I., Newecutle^spon-Tyne. Price Is. Free by Post. Is. Ud. London: Simpkin, Marshall, A Co. Newcastle-on-Tyne: D.H. Wilson. Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4*. ®^ ^rintus’ ^egisfer, A JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOR GREAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND THE COLONIES. THE PRINTERS' REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Home and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India, China, Canada, Ac.; and it affords the best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August, 1875. Address—The Editor, St. Bride Street, London, E.C.
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240	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[Octobeb, 1878.
These really beautiful Goods are rapidly growing into favour, and invariably make a trade wherever introduced.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes.
In Cardboard Boxes, containing 50.
In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1OOO, with lock and key.
Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made from a peculiar kind of Oriental Tobacco, zu hick we ourselves import. The smoking of this Tobacco is said to give relief in cases of A sthma.
COPE’S CIGARILLOS.
FAIRY BRAND, in CARDBOARD BOXES, GOLD MOUNTED, with BEAUTIFUL PARISIAN LABEL, CONTAINING TEN Internal PACKETS of TEN CIGARILLOS EACH.
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Delicate in favour; burn evenly, with a firm white ash; made with great care for a mild morning smoke.
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TOBACCO WORKS,
Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
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A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
No.104.-Vol.IL1	NOVEMBER, 1878.	KbSS
Tobacco Smuggling in fire ^ust Generation.
vn.—CONCLUSION.
Thus far we have been mainly occupied with smuggling, though frequent mention of adulteration was unavoidable, the two being as closely related, while as opposite in their characters, as Tom Jones and Blifil, or Charles and Joseph Surface. In the present supplementary article let me try to sum up fairly the results of the wide and endless warfare between detection and adulteration, as revealed in the Blue Book: time, 1844; scene, Great Britain; department, Tobacco. The purely scientific questions involved do not concern us here, except in their practical legal bearings; nor is it probable that the science, whether in adulteration or detection, of a past generation could be of much value in these far more knowing times. As I myself may be thought prejudiced, I shall cite the authoritative judgments of Mr. Joseph Hume, as given in his most judicial Reports; much too judicial for the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his following, but fortunately preserved in the Blue Book, deepening by contrast the shame of that adopted under party and official influence.
Thus states the Report, the honoured by official rejection :— “It appears that any foreign matter mixed with Tobacco, to the extent of 5 parts in the 100, will enable the manufacturer of such mixed Tobacco to sell it at 2d. per lb. below the price at which the manufacturer of pure Tobacco can afford to sell it with a profit; and 20 per cent., or one-fifth, of sugar or other matter mixed with Tobacco, will enable the adulterator to undersell the honest dealer to the extent of lOd. per lb. . . . It is by such acts as these that those who desire to act in conformity to the laws lose their customers, and become unable to continue the trade. Your Committee are of opinion that the Legislature is bound to protect the honest traders against these illicit dealings. . . . The trade was in that very distressed condition at the beginning of this year, when the Board of Excise, believing that they had the power by chemical analysis [aided by the microscope] of detecting adulteration, caused their officers to be very active in visiting the stocks of manufacturers and dealers, and in saying what Tobacco they suspected to be adulterated. Many seizures have been made, and many convictions have followed. Some of the manufacturers have submitted, without opposition, to the seizure of their goods—to their confiscation, and to such penalties as the Board of Excise awarded against the [supposed] adulterators. Some have gone into court denying the illicit transaction; but, on the evidence of Mr. George Phillips,Mr. Richard Phillips, and Professor Graham (chemists employed by the Excise), they have been convicted.”
Here we see the important practical question: Was the science of these official chemists so sure that they could always detect adulteration, and thus protect the honest dealer; or so unsure that they might not detect it where it really was, and might assert it where it really was not; thus not only leaving the honest dealer unprotected, but occasionally convicting him in penalties, while the dishonest escaped? Mr. Hume goes on to tell briefly what I told at some length in Section II., June, how the trade challenged the Excise to make good its boast that it could detect the most trifling adulteration; how the Excise ignominiously shrank from the test; how the trade thereupon employed a very celebrated chemist, and how the results of his analyses were not at all such as to increase the confidence, or, rather, decrease the mistrust of the trade in the vaunts of the Excise. Mr. Hume thus sums up this part of the case:—“That proposal appears to have been fair and well meant, but the offer was declined
by the Board of Excise. . . . Mr. Gardau, chemist, to whom such samples of adulterated Tobacco were submitted, has stated to the Committee that he found it very difficult to analyse them; and further, that he considered it a doubtful test on which to convict any man; and that at the best it is extremely uncertain and very difficult to detect, unless a very large percentage of adulteration has been used. Under the authority of that evidence, your Committee resolved to prepare 12 samples of Tobacco, to be mixed with different matters in the course of the manufacture, and then submitted to the Board of Excise to be examined and reported upon. The chairman, under instructions from the Committee, requested two chemists, Mr. Heathfield and Mr. Edward Solly, jun., each to prepare six samples in the presence of two members of the Committee. That was done, and the samples were sent to the Excise Board; and during 10 or 12 days were carefully analysed by the three chemists employed by the Board to detect adulteration.” The correspondence and details on this subject are fully set out in Appendix No. 14. Three parcels or more of each sample were prepared; one for the Excise, one to be kept by the Committee; the third for analysis by a chemist appointed by the chairman. We are told of the second six samples that the various adulterations were dissolved in water, and the solution sprinkled over the Tobacco, which was left in press till the next day, then cut, dried, weighed out, and sealed up in presence of the two committee-men.
Here is the account of the several samples, with the Report thereon of the three Excise chemists above named, who all thoroughly concurred in it:—
No. 1, marked X. 9 lbs. 8 oz. Tobacco with 1 lb. 8 oz. garden rhubarb leaves: 15{| per cent, added, or 13^ per cent, of whole. [I give the first four percentages subject to any schoolboy’s correction, as there seems to me mistakes of some moment in their reckoning in the Blue Book: thus this is made only 12| per cent, of whole.] —Adulterated with the leaves of garden rhubarb; amount estimated at 3*3 per cent.
No. 2, K. 9 lbs. 6 oz., with 1 lb. foxglove leaves: 104 per cent, added, or 9|| per cent, of whole.—Adulterated by a green leaf not Tobacco, but which appears to belong to a plant of the same natural family, possibly the potato; amount estimated at 3*9 per cent.
No. 3, N. 11 lbs. 11 oz., with 8 oz. brown paper soaked in decoction of sarsaparilla; and 10A oz. syrup of sugar, containing 8 oz. solid sugar, 1 oz. saltpetre and £ oz. alum; in all 18$ oz.: 9^a per cent, added, or 9t|t Pe.r cent of whole.— —Adulterated with brown paper or millboard, also with sugar; former estimated at 6 per cent., latter 1*5 or 2 per cent.
No. 4, F. 11 lbs. 14 oz., mixed with chicory root dried and powdered, Irish moss glutenised, carbonate of potash, sulphate of potash, carbonate of magnesia, and carbonate of lime, about 9 oz.: 4|| per cent, added, or 4|^ per cent, of whole.—Adulterated with a vegetable matter, not Tobacco, the nature of which we are not agreed upon. Amount estimated at 1*2 per cent. There is reason to suspect the addition of both sand and sugar, in small quantity.
No. 5, O. 13 lbs. 9 oz , with 12 oz. ground Tobacco stalks. —Adulterated with sand and sugar; the first estimated 2, the second at 3 per cent.
No. 6, R. 11 lbs. 4 oz., no admixture.—Genuine, but with a proportion of sand unusually high.
No. 7, C. Adulterated 8 per cent.; sugar of milk, 5; terra japonica, nitrate of potash, alum, each 1.—Adulterated with sugar; estimated at 1 per cent.
No. 8, L. 6 per cent.; refined sugar, 3; terra japonica,
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carbonate of potash, common salt, each 1.—Adulterated with sugar; estimated at 3 per cent.
No. 9, Q. 9 per cent.; refined sugar 2, crude nitrate of ammonia 4, common salt and alum each 1, muriate and nitrate of potash each *5.—Adulterated with sugar; estimated at 2 per cent.
No. 10, P. 10 per cent.; sugar of milk 5, refined sugar 3, common salt 1, carbonate of potash 1.—Adulterated with sugar; estimated at 4 per cent.
No. 11, B. Not adulterated at all.—Genuine; grains of cane sugar were, however, found in it, and picked out; but the quantity so small that we allow their introduction to be accidental.
No. 12, M. Not adulterated at all.—Adulterated with loaf bread, which has been cut up in the same manner as the Tobacco; amount not estimated, but small; sample contains also a little sugar.
Clearly it was monstrously unjust to prosecute and convict on the strength of such chemistry and microscopy. Thus Nos. 7 and 9, with 8 and 9 per cent, adulteration, would probably have escaped prosecution, only 1 and 2 per cent, being estimated; Nos. 6 and 11, genuine, would have been suspected for their imaginary sand and cane sugar; No. 12, genuine, might have been prosecuted for its loaf bread and sugar; No. 5, with nothing but leaf and stalks, would certainly have been prosecuted and condemned for the 2 per cent, sand and 3 per cent, sugar.
Joseph Hume remarks drily: “Your Committee were not satisfied with the Report of that analysis, which is chiefly of a negative character.” He continues, alluding to the oral explanations and assertions of the official and other chemists: “ How far the test of the quantity of soluble and of insoluble matter in Tobacco may be sufficient to warrant a declaration of adulteration, or how far the obtaining alcohol from the samples as a proof of sugar and saccharine matter in the [alleged] mixture may be a satisfactory test, your Committee will not offer an opinion, as the opinions of Mr. Solly, Mr. Heathfield, and Dr. Reid on those are at variance with those of Messrs. G. and R. Phillips and Professor Graham. It appears to be admitted by the chemists of the Excise, that unless they can procure a portion of the pure Tobacco of the parcel that has been adulterated, great difficulty would exist in detecting adulteration when made only to a small extent. The Committee, amidst these contending opinions, adopted the course of submitting 7 out of the 12 samples that had been sent to the Excise to Dr. Andrew Ure, to be examined and analysed by him; and his evidence on examination, after near 20 days employed on the analysis, is not satisfactory to your Committee [i.e., does not satisfy them that the detective power exists which the Excise chemists claim].
“ As Mr. George Phillips placed great reliance in his examination of the Tobacco samples by microscope, and stated that he could distinguish the leaf and fibres of Tobacco, even in the manufactured state, from all other leaves or vegetable matters, your Committee examined Dr. Lindley, the distinguished botanist, in that part of the inquiry, and his evidence is clear and distinct. He states the characteristic of the Tobacco leaf and stalk, and that almost in any state he can distinguish the Tobacco from plants in general: but yet there are some plants so nearly resembling the Tobacco, that he would have difficulty in distinguishing them when mixed with Tobacco.
“Your Committee, after the report of Dr. Ure, so long employed in analysis of substances, and with the variety of opinions expressed by the other chemists, are not prepared to offer any opinion on the subject.
“Whether [That?] an invariable test exists, in the power and direction of the Board of Excise, to detect adulteration, and to make such detections and proceedings the ground for criminal proceedings against any manufacturers or dealers, remains to be proved. The honest trader ought, however, to be protected, and by concurring testimony, the best and the simplest remedy would be a reduction of the duty to Is. per pound.”
So Mr. Hume, in his dry Scotch manner, cautious but caustic. It may be as well to quote here some of his dry statements of facts and inferences on the general question:—
“ By returns laid before the Committee, it appears that in the five years 1839 to 1843, the quantity of Tobacco seized by the coastguard was only 89,691 lbs., and 4908 lbs. of cigars. There were in the year 1843, in 29 principal seizures, 50,811 lbs. of Tobacco, and 1136 lbs. of cigars, seized by the coastguard : but the total quantity seized and condemned in the United Kingdom, by the Customs and coastguard, in that year, was 145,471 lbs. of all kinds of Tobacco; the number of seizures was 1882; making, after the deduction of the 29 large seizures, the average quantity seized at one time very small [just over 50 lbs.].
“ The Excise department appear to have seized and condemned, in the United Ki? gdom, in the year 1843, only 15,453 lbs. of Tobacco, and 14,812 lbs. of imitation Tobacco and snuff. . . .
“ Of the efficacy of the coastguard to prevent smuggling no proofs have been given, except by the officers of that establishment, who consider it efficient for its purpose. To reconcile that with the amount of smuggling and with the state of the trade is difficult.*
♦ “ Q. 8194—With regard to your belief that smuggling does not exist to the extent supposed, are you not aware that until lately the whole Customhouse Board declared, down to the last moment, that no fraud or smuggling
“In the annual Finance Accounts, ending the 5th January, 1844, the charges of the collection of the Customs of the United Kingdom for 1843 amounted to £1,254,136. ... If from that charge the sum of £512,168, for the Preventive Coastguard, is deducted, £741,968 remains for the other departments of the Customs. . . . We have elsewhere stated the details of the coastguard establishment, and, therefore, only refer to the aggregate charge of £512,168 incurred for that force, mainly for the protection of the revenue on Tobacco. . . . It is for Parliament to ascertain what proportion of the charge of £741,968 for the Customs establishment is expended to prevent smuggling, as that amount added to the above £512,168 would give the total charge to the country, by the Customs department alone, for prevention of smuggling.
“The charge for collection of the Revenue of the Excise for the United Kingdom amounts to the large sum of £984,029. . . . It is for Parliament also to ascertain the portion of that expenditure that is paid to protect the revenue on Tobacco, before the aggregate charge for prevention of smuggling [and adulteration] can be ascertained.”
And he concludes this part of his proposed Report with the following sentence in the spirit of true statesmanship:—“The expense to the country by loss of trade in Tobacco, for law proceedings against offenders, and for their confinement in prisons, may be estimated; but for the loss of the industry of the numerous parties engaged in smuggling, for the demoralising effects on all persons engaged in these transactions, it will be difficult to make any estimate; and your Committee must leave these serious injuries and losses caused to the community to be estimated by further inquiries.” And be it remembered that the loss of the industry and the demoralising effects apply not less to those engaged in support of the law than to those against it, the former mainly relying on infamous delators.
Contrast this with the spirit of callous, unjust, merely selfish and purblind expediency in the lowest sense, such expediency as always overreaches itself in attempting to overreach all but itself, which characterises the opening of the Report adopted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his tail (though only by 6 to 5, out of 15, counting Mr. Hume, who as chairman did not vote, with the minority):—“ In proceeding to consider the subject referred to them, your Committee think it proper, in the first place, to observe that the import of Tobacco into this country has been, from an early period, regulated upon different principles from those applied to other imported commodities. That the duty imposed on it has had no other object than that of raising the greatest possible revenue; and with that view the duty has not only been far beyond that imposed on any other article, and beyond that to which on commercial principles alone it might have been right to subject it, but has been accompanied by a total prohibition of the growth of it in the United Kingdom, lest such growth should in any way interfere with the amount of importation, and the duty derived therefrom.” Perchance you think that the Report only recites these unprincipled principles of utmost possible extortion, these principles of Eastern despotism, regardless of the interests of manufacturers, dealers, and consumers alike, in order to reprobate them and suggest better and less barbarous rules for the guidance of future legislation? Not at all; it recitesthem thus in their shameless, naked injustice, in order to acknowledge them as controlling all the inquiries and conclusions of the Committee. A judge may often have to administer a law while contemning its unfairness and unwisdom; a Select Committee is appointed solely for equity, and is bound to test with the utmost severity the justice of existing laws and principles in the matters referred to it, and referred to it precisely because they are in a very bad state. This Committee, by its official majority, stultifies itself in the very beginning of its wretchedly inadequate Report, avowing its subservience to the mischievous principles of “ an early period,” carrying out, as far as the changed circumstances would allow, the malignant and mischievous policy of James I. of Counterblasted memory. We must remember that in 1844 the great Country Party of Protectionists was still supreme, the Corn Laws still prevailed; and the acred wiseacres had no special interest in the importation and manufacture of Tobacco.
Returning to the case Detection v. Adulteration, some important practical points, whereof but the briefest hints can here be given, were brought out in the examination of the Excise and other experts. These Excise chemists occupied full 12 days in examining the 12 samples, a much longer time than they could have spared in the ordinary course of business, because they thought it likely that substances very hard to detect had been used; yet, as we have seen, they failed and blundered grossly in several instances, and in no case had even a suspicion of the mineral adulterations, though they attributed 2 per cent, sand to No. 5, which had none.
They complained that they were not furnished with portions of the original leaf from which the samples were manufactured, “an advantage which, in seizures for the Revenue, went on, and yet it was found that they went on to an enormous amount, and everybody knew it but the Commissioners ? There is no doubt of that. I stated that I admitted there was extensive smuggling; but we have nothing but guesses as to the result.” (Examination of the Chairman and the Surveyor-General Examiner of the Board of Excise, John Wood and James Steel, Esqrs). The Excise could clearly see the blindness of the Customs as to smuggling; but thought itself had the means of putting down adulteration, at least in a very considerable degree. Perhaps the Customs, in turn, could see the blindness of the Excise as to adulteration.
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can generally be obtained,” although they had four genuine samples out of the 12; admitting that though the constituents of Tobacco are constant, their proportions vary too greatly with age, soil, and climate to afford any but the vaguest general standard; that, in fact, they had no average standard to go by. They admitted that the Board of Excise could not lay down rules by which ordinary officers would be able to test such samples; although G. Phillips cherished the romantic scheme of a couple of head chemists (probably himself and his namesake) travelling about the country, and converting the surveyors-general or first-class officers into efficient analysts. They modified their Report thus:—“ These estimates, however, are to be taken with some latitude, as the amount of adulteration often differs sensibly in different portions of the same sample, from the unequal diffusion of the adulterating material through the Tobacco.” Yet, on the one hand, the sampled Tobacco, pure and sprinkled, had been heavily pressed for 24 hours; and, on the other, they seem to have treated very minute quantities, 100 and even 50 grains, to ascertain the proportions soluble and insoluble by water, quantities not likely to furnish a fair average if the adulteration was unequally distributed. Mr. George Phillips, the analyst mainly relied upon by the Excise, about two years Examiner in that department, and a “self-educated chemist,” made the following assertions and admissions in the course of his long examination:—I use a microscope of about 60,000 power. I can very readily distinguish the fibre of Tobacco from that of any other plant, even of the same family, however finely stemmed and minutely cut up; have never seen any other resembling it. Without the original leaf for standard, I should disregard 2 or 3 per cent, of powder, unless I could make out that it was not Tobacco. If I have not the leaf to judge by, Tobacco may most decidedly be adulterated to 4 per cent, with soluble salts, without my chemical examination detecting it. Not many Excise officers could detect 5 per cent. “Generally the adulterations do not require chemical knowledge to enable them to detect them. If a manufacturer is suspected in adulterating, we generally take such means as to ensure a conviction; for instance, we endeavour to find in what way it is introduced, and then to adopt means to detect him in mixing; or, if he introduces it in the leaf, we ascertain the particular periods at which he lays down his leaf, and know when to go in and detect him.” [So our vaunted scientific detection “generally” resolves into pre-scientific information and espial!] The Excise has no power to demand samples of manufactured Tobacco, but our officers frequently get them and send them up to me. My analysis depends upon having the pure leaf for standard; the average of soluble matter ranges from 45 to 55 per cent.; above 55 I am sure of adulteration. It would be impossible to try for the various salts that might be put in Tobacco; you might be experimenting for years on one sample. I have most decidedly never obtained sugar from pure Tobacco; and I believe that alcohol cannot be produced except from sugar. If you put 10 per cent, of sugar into strong Tobacco, and subject that to considerable fermentation, and let it lie by for two or three weeks, no vinous fermentation will ever take place, the presence of the sugar cannot be determined. The sugar is converted into a sort of gum. Rich Tobaccos destroy the fermenting power of yeast nearly one-third; if you put 10 per cent, of sugar into a sample of Tobacco, the whole amount of it would never be shown by fermentation.—The manner of adulteration is constantly changing; I have no doubt the manufacturers will go off sugar: they first laughed with reference to our detecting sugar, because they thought it could not be done, but when , they find it can be done they will go off to something else; and as they change we shall have to follow them; and as fast as we make the discovery, we shall have to educate those who have to go and make detections. I need hardly say that Mr. G. Phillips could give no satisfactory explanation of the 2 per cent, sand and 3 per cent, sugar in O, and the loaf bread in M, both pure Tobacco; he could only maintain that they must have been there: as to the latter, it may be suggested that, with the minute portions analysed, one or two stray crumbs, imperceptible to the naked eye, from some old office-lunch, would be quite enough to give an appreciable percentage. Let us now compare or contrast some of the assertions of Mr. G. Phillips with those of independent experts. Mr. Edward Solly, F.R.S., Lecturer on Chemistry at the Royal Institution, with Mr. Brande and Mr. W. E. Heathfield, the chemists who prepared the test samples, on further examination:—My analysis of Kentucky Tobacco gave ash 19’20; being alkaline salt 3 24, earthy salts 13’80, silica or sand 2-16. Contrast that with Mr. G. Phillips’s: 19’50 ash; being 9’7 of alkaline matter, 7’3 earthy salts, 1-4 sand. No doubt both were correct. This shows very great variation in the amount of potash and soda salts, lime and sand in even the same growth of Tobacco.—I certainly do not consider the percentage of soluble matter yielded by any vegetable a test of its purity.—I am not sure about a manufacturer, but I believe that a chemist might adulterate to 10 per cent, with alkaline matters so that another chemist could not detect.—Certainly, alcohol can be obtained by fermentation from vegetables where no sugar has been put in; I have made the experiment myself; many forms of starch in vegetables may be converted into alcohol by fermentation; they pass first into sugar, then into	spirit; the fact is known to all chemists [except, it would seem, Mr. G. Phillips].—I cannot well understand some of the results of the Excise analysis. P. with its 10 per cent, returned as 4 per cent, sugar, is certainly not a correct analysis; so with others. As to the grains of cane sugar found in B, which was pure, I imagine that that arises from the exceedingly small quantity they submitted to examination, which I think Mr. G. Phillips states was generally only 50 grains. There might be a grain of cane sugar [or some other cane?] attached to the paper, or it may have accidentally fallen into the sample, and so have led to the mistake. I should wish the quantity examined to be considerable, perhaps 500 grains. As to the bread in M., pure, I mean that if they had examined ten such series [quantities?] I think it probable that in nine out of the ten they would not have found the bread, and that it was by accident; that the quantity they experimented upon was, in fact, too small. In X. they found only 3 per cent, of rhubarb leaves; I should think the whole might have been discovered if a fair average sample had been taken from the bulk, or two or three samples from different parts of it.—Generally speaking, if adulteration were skilfully performed, I should think it very hard to detect; I should say 5 per cent, could be put in with great ease. It is generally stated that insoluble matter added to Tobacco may either be detected by the microscope, or because it will shake out as a powder. Now, it is possible to add to Tobacco, or any vegetable substance, a quantity of solid insoluble matter that shall increase the weight of fibre as well as the Tobacco, as well as to add soluble matter that shall only increase the weight of the soluble substances; and both shall be such as are found in Tobacco, and in about the average proportions of its soluble and insoluble constituents. Dr. D. Boswell Reid, Professor of Chemistry, with upwards of 20 years’ experience theoretical and practical, who had analysed many mixtures for the Excise at Edinburgh :—Am of opinion that when materials are added of a similar quality to those in the Tobacco it is impossible to say from chemical evidence whether adulteration has been effected or not within certain ranges, especially as there is no standard of comparison professionally recognised as determining the proportion of the different ingredients in real Tobacco. My attention has been chiefly directed to common salt, occasionally present in a very large proportion. I believe cases have occurred where, by repeated moistening of Tobacco with salt water, with no intention whatever to adulterate, from the successive evaporations when the Tobacco has not been quickly disposed of, the saline matter has accumulated to 12 or 15 per cent. “ Might not the perpetual use of water produce decomposition of the weed, so that the action of the atmosphere itself would alter the component parts? Undoubtedly; I have the most perfect conviction that fermentation does take place from that cause.” I do not consider the presence of alcohol after the fermentation of the solution of Tobacco a substantial proof that sugar was put in, because other matters might pass into sugar and develop the alcohol. The advance of chemical science greatly increases the facilities for adulteration: the facilities of discovery increase likewise; but the combinations are so endless that it is quite clear the mixer has a great advantage over the analyst. I certainly believe that I could put in proportions of soluble and insoluble matter up to 5 or 10 per cent, so as to defy detection. Dr. Andrew Ure, of the famous Dictionary of Arts and Industries, to whom, as we have seen, seven of the samples were sent, was examined twice, and gave the most elaborate scientific evidence, chemical and microscopic, whose conclusions only can be noted here. The following is from his first day’s evidence:—Many years back, when Professor at Glasgow, I was employed by the Excise in Scotland to analyse Tobacco very extensively, and since I came to London I have been similarly employed by the Excise here; I am also frequently employed by the Customs. I have been very constantly occupied on the seven samples these last three weeks daily, and many hours each day; it was impossible to do the work in less time. (To this add that his experiments were still not quite complete, that when re-examined four days later they were only finished “sufficiently for the purpose of the Committee, I think,” and that six days later yet he sent in a written Report, Appendix No. 14, G, supplementary to his oral evidence; thus altogether he was occupied a long calendar month: clearly the Excise chemists, called on to deal with multitudinous urgent cases, had not the time, even if they had the skill, to make any such thorough examinations in the ordinary course of business.)—I have followed three lines of chemical research in addition to careful scrutiny with the microscope: first, infusing a certain weight of the samples in water, whether cold or hot, and examining the soluble and insoluble matter; secondly, igniting each sample and calcining it in a platina crucible, and determining the amount and nature of the ashes; and thirdly, treating the samples with alcohol, and examining the alcoholic solution, and the parts insoluble in alcohol. No one of these processes would be efficient without the others; with a subject so complex as Tobacco the three processes are necessary for a satisfactory analysis; they throw light upon each other. With the adulteration slovenly done I might very likely come upon it at one hit, but that is a chance. From my experiments I am not able, and I do not think it is possible, to arrange the samples so as to distinguish the genuine from the adulterated, and to state the percentage of adulteration. (Dr. Ure,
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poor man, lacked the lofty self-confidence of Mr. G. Phillips, the “self-educated chemist.”)—I employed the best microscopic power for the purpose, from 90 to 100 lineal (8000 to 10,000 magnifying power). The structure of the filaments in the samples is not dissimilar to that of several other plants, the digitalis, for example, whose filaments are hairy in the same way and quite similar. If the ribs of the digitalis and such plants are kept out it is impossible, in my opinion, to distinguish by the microscope between those plants and Tobacco. Tobacco is of the class Solane®. Of this class there is a list of plants which have all a similar structure in the microscope; many are coated with hairs in the same way, and the stalks are the same. This class includes the common potato, Solanum tuberosom, the love-apple (tomato, I presume), mandragove, belladonna, etc.; then there is the genus datura, the Datura stramonium, etc.; then Nicotiana (Virginian) and Nicotiana latissima (Maryland). I am decidedly of opinion that the physiological structure of Tobacco is not so different from that of the other plants of the same family as to enable it to be distinguished by microscopic observation when the leaves are chopped fine. The conclusion to which I am led is this, that when the Tobacco is in the Shag state it is next to impossible, by chemical means, in most cases, or by physiological means, to determine the adulteration; the only case in which it can be detected, in my opinion, is when sugar is mixed; but I should dtate that there are many other kinds of sweet juices, e.g., the juice of liquorice, which I am told by Tobacconists is actually used, which will not ferment into alcohol. I will undertake to mix various vegetable matters with saline or alkaline matter in such proportions as will give exactly the proportion obtained by analysis from genuine Tobacco of alkaline matter and earthy residuum, so that it will be quite impossible by any chemical or mechanical means to detect that adulteration, though it should be to a considerable amount. “ If sugar is withheld, and recourse had to other ingredients in the way in which chemists mix ingredients, do you consider that the Excise will be without any real test of adulteration? Undoubtedly; and I would say even if' we had pure leaf of the same sort.—Is it your opinion that the progress of chemical science will give additional facilities to the adulteration of Tobacco ? It will.—Do you think that the power of detection will advance in the same degree? No, I do not; because we can now mix certain plants and certain saline matters which will render the problem perfectly insoluble. I will pledge my chemical character to make such specimens as the Excise cannot detect.—Then to continue the system of alleged detection by analysis might subject individuals to punishment unjustly ? Most unjustly y Dr. Ure here gave a signal specimen of such injustice with respect to another article. About a year before the Excise seized a quantity of ground white pepper on the premises of Messrs. Mayor and Dove, the large spice merchants. After many months’ disputation the owners obtained a sample of the seized pepper, which they submitted to Mr. Warrington, chemical operator at Apothecaries’ Hall. He certified it genuine, but the Excise disregarded his certificate, its own two chemists, G. Phillips and Graham, being sure it was adulterated. After six months’ more disputation the case was brought to trial before the Court of Excise, and Dr. Ure, who had also analysed a sample for the owners, together with undoubtedly genuine white pepper-corns ground by himself, attended to prove it unadulterated. Graham and Phillips swore it contained from 10 to 12 per cent, of sago. The court was so far shaken by Ure’s evidence that it allowed judgment to go for the owners; who thus merely suffered the ignominy and ill-repute of a seizure, the loss of their property for twelvemonths, anxiety and distraction from business during the same period, and the expenses of a lawsuit and analyses. Ure going home, examined a sample of sago with the microscope, and found its structure very peculiar and beautiful, “ like a ball of snow studded round with brilliant spangles of diamonds; but when the particles of ground pepper, such as were exhibited by Mr. Phillips, are put under the microscope they have the appearance of amorphous particles of brown clay, as different as it is possible to be imagined.” He at once wrote to the Excise that he had proved beyond a doubt that there was not a particle of sago in the seized pepper, and offered to wait upon the Commissioners and demonstrate this. Their high mightinesses coldly declined (as they did the challenge of the Tobacco trade), saying that the case was settled: clearly they did not care to learn anything for their future guidance, probably they were sulky at their failure, and wanted to forget the whole fiasco as soon as possible. So much for the infallible G. Phillips (who had used the microscope too) and the magnanimous Board of Excise. Dr. Ure, less sublimely self-confident then the “self-educated,” could affirm “for the last 12 years I have been constantly employed more or less by the Customs, and I think in every case they have abided by my result, and in no case been put in the wrong.” But then he had not the genius to discover sago in pure white ground pepper, or sand and sugar in genuine Tobacco. “From the advance of chemical science, supposing the Excise to have your assistance, or the assistance of other experienced chemists, do you think that, with all that assistance, they could detect an adulteration that might, with perfect facility, be introduced by chemists ? I would say, that adulteration may be made upon Tobacco which may	defy all the chemists in Europe to find out.—And not only chemists, but physiologists ? Yes, and botanists.” John Lindley, Esq., Professor of Botany in the University College:—Are there not in the family of Solane® a variety of plants similar to Tobacco? Yes.—Is the structure of those plants, such as the bitter-sweet, the night-shade, the loveapple, and several others, nearly the same as that of Tobacco? There are differences between some of those and Tobacco, though they are very similar; e.g., you have in the centre of the leaf-stalk of the Tobacco what I believe is commonly called the horse-shoe mark, which is not [however] absolutely confined to the Tobacco leaf, because it exists in the leaves of other plants allied to it; at the same time there are marks in the Tobacco which would, I conceive, separate it certainly from some plants of the same family, and, perhaps, from all. Stramonium is a genus of the same Solane® family; it would be difficult to distinguish its main stalk from that of Tobacco unless they were complete, if they were bruised. Belladonna resembles Tobacco much more than does stramonium; the love-apple and dulcamara very probably resemble it. I cannot tell whether I could distinguish by a microscope the finer fibres and network of Tobacco from those of stramonium and belladonna; it would require a good deal of examination. The attention of vegetable anatomists is not very often directed to this kind of matters; it is quite a special subject, and requires special investigation.—On the whole, Professor Lindley was inclined to think that the microscope in the hands of specialists would distinguish Tobacco, while he himself was not sure of doing so. He was even sanguine enough to state: “I do not think that the ordinary Excise oflicers who are employed to hunt about the country could detect adulteration; but persons with some talent, some of the persons about the Excise could.” Yet when asked whether he was aware that Mr. G. Phillips had specially devoted his time to the subject, he answered with the most cruel curtness: “I have seen Mr. G. Phillips; but he has published nothing.” And when asked, “You are not able to say whether there may not be other vegetable substances, the fibres of which may resemble Tobacco?” he replied, “ I cannot say that there are not; I dare say there are.” He had examined Tobacco for the Excise; but there was no difficulty at all; they had seized a quantity of rhubarb leaves, and he had only to swear that these were rhubarb leaves, which, even after the manufacturing process, are very easily distinguishable from Tobacco, the hairs being totally different.—Whence we learn that the Excise experts had a very simple problem set them in sample No. 1, though they only found 3-3 per cent, of the rhubarb out of 13*6. Dr. Ure, in his second examination, gave some interesting technical details and results; but, unfortuately, I cannot find to which of the 12 samples his seven, lettered differently, correspond, nor did he think fit to reveal a test of remarkable efficacy he had just applied for the first time to Tobacco samples. He stated particularly, with regard to searching for sugar by fermentation (one of Mr. G. Phillips’s main points), that it might be rendered altogether nugatory by adding to the Tobacco substances, of which a great many were well known to chemists, which prevent fermentation in sugar; e.g., chlorine, iodine, bromine, empyreumatic oils, creosote, a strong decoction of coffee, a little of any mineral acid, a little oil of turpentine, oxahc and prussic acids, corrosive sublimate; in fact, an immense number of bodies, and any of them in such minute quantities that it would not produce any deleterious effect on the mixture. He also repeated emphatically that, despite his new test, he could adulterate to 7 or 8 per cent, with cheap things, vegetable juices, quite foreign to Tobacco, so as to elude every chemical and microscopical examination. ’ For instance, he could easily add liquefied juice of liquorice so as to leave 10 per cent, of it nearly dry in the Tobacco. The plaintain and potato leaf have precisely the same shape and hairs as the Tobacco; mixed with Tobacco and cut as Shag, it would be exceedingly difficult to distinguish the potato leaf, and probably impossible to distinguish the plantain, provided the ribs were kept out. I have thus summarised as well as I could in the space what appear to me the most significant points in the Blue Book. The facts speak for themselves without any elaborate commentary. On the one side a Government, whose leading financial policy was protection of the landed interest at the expense of all the other interests of the country, callously avowing that its sole object was to extort as much out of Tobacco as possible, regardless of the well-fare or ill-fare of importers, manufacturers, distributors, and consumers, the great bulk of the last being of the poorer classes to whom it was (as it is) a real necessary of life; a costly coastguard and Customs and Excise whose vaunted vigilance and detective science were proved altogether untrustworthy, and which mainly relied upon the infamy of delation; restrictions very harassing and injurious to the honest trader, quite inoperative against the contrabandist: on the other side, a vast trade, giving millions to the revenue, in which legal dealing meant ruin, and good men were driven into smuggling and adulteration against their will; the poor forced to forego their best and most harmless solace, or have it vilely debased when not illegally introduced; the revenue suffering incalculable loss through the abominable and preposterous rapacity of the duties. Add the far-reaching demoralisation of bribable revenue officers, base informers, smugglers, receivers, adulterators, in permanent revolt against the law; and a popula-
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tion heartily sympathising with the bold law-breakers against the oligarchy of law-makers, and their evil laws and its minions.
Kindly Charles Lamb, writing from Hastings (The Old Margate Hoy ; first in London Magazine, July, 1823), says : “I could abide to dwell with Maschek, to assort with fisher-gwains and smugglers. There are, or I dream there are, many of this latter occupation here. Their faces become the place. I like a smuggler. He is the only honest thief. He robs nothing but the Revenue—an abstraction I never greatly cared about. I could go out with them in their mackerel boats, or about their less ostensible business, with some satisfaction.”—Last Essays of Elia. And the mass of the people liked a smuggler, the only honest thief; and they regarded the revenue not with indifference as an abstraction, but felt it as an intolerable oppression; and that law is condemned beyond rational defence, which sets the sympathy of the bulk of the people on the side of those who break it. As for the other and mean mode of cheating the consumer as well as the Revenue, it has been suggested by a certain righteous philosopher that as the middle and lower middle classes, who chiefly practise it, comprise nearly all the godly church and chapel goers in the land, and as the old seventh commandment is now pretty well virtually repealed- by the other classes, highest nd lowest, and may be considered obsolete, the said commandment do henceforth read: “Thou shalt not commit adulteration.” Mr. Spurgeon (in whose diocese, yea, close around whose Tabernacle, false weights and measures and merchandise are said to exceedingly abound), and all other bishops and pastors, of whatever denomination, are respectfully requested to take note of this proposed amendment. Sigvat.
B^ts at ^Lotoan Sm Castle.
X.—THE HOISTING OF THE FLAGSTAFF. RODDY IN HIS GLORY. THE MEN YOU MEET IN THE NAVY.
It had been a whole month’s work to Roddy, and, I may add, to myself too, for wherever he went he insisted on my accompanying him. There was considerable difficulty in getting a bit of timber to please the ancient mariner; and, when he was at last successful, there was the making of the mast, the fitting of halyards, blocks, the gaff and its fixings, and the gilded truck over all, not to mention the vane itself, and the letters N. S. E. and W. Then there was the stepping of the mast in our lawn, at Rowan Tree Castle. This latter occupied one live-long day, for Roddy would have things ship-shape. As for me, I was nowhere, only in the way, in fact; so I was glad, for peace sake, to lounge in my hammock of grass, smoke, and look on. Roddy had five men to assist him. There were all sorts of poles stuck in impossible places on the lawn, and many a squint my friend took from one to the other. They had something to do, no doubt, with the lunars and sights of all sorts, which Roddy had been taking every night for a fortnight back. Why, I don’t believe there was a star in the heavens that he hadn’t called in, to aid him in finding the true and magnetic north. It was amusing, too, to hear him giving directions to the men, with his “ Easy, now, my lads,” “up she goes,” “cheerily does it,” “luff a little,” “steady, men, steady.” Whether they understood a single word of all this didn’t seem to matter a dime to Roddy.
At last the mast was stepped; up runs the bunting-wisp, one pull of the halyard, and out on the breast of the evening breeze spreads the white flag we both had served beneath, and under which I, more than once, had bled (my unhappy patients) for my country.
“St. George for Merrie England! ” cried Roddy. “Hurrah!” cried we all.
“ And three times three,” shouted Roddy, “for
4 The flag that braved a thousand yean The battle and the breeze.’ ”
That cheer awakened the echoes of the woods, I can tell you. Nellie ran smiling down the lawn; every dog on the place barked; and the two rival cocks improved the occasion, and did instant battle at the garden gate.
It was a beautiful summer’s evening, and we dined in the tent at the top of the lawn; but exactly at eight o’clock Roddy rushed out with my old fowling-piece, and bang, bang, fired both barrels in the air. Then down came the flag, and, presently, back came Roddy.
“Now, me boy,” said he, as he filled his long clay, and carefully mixed his grog, “ we’re all attention; and whatever you tell us to-night must be about the Royal Navy, and divil another thing at all.”
THE MEN YOU MEET IN THE NAVY.
The old typical commander, Roddy, of the days of Roderick Random, with battered cocked hat, and spy-glass, long sword, and hoarse voice, is not to be found in the service now-a-days. The sea and the grave have swallowed most of them, and the rest have retired. The homes of the latter you cannot have failed to see in your summer rambles in Devon or Cornwall. As a rule, they try to live not far from a naval port, they cling so to old associations. Dear old Captain M. is a good specimen of the class. He lives not many miles from P——th, in a fine old country house of unpretending style, surrounded by a well-kept garden and lawn, and shaded by trees; and the old gen-
tieman dearly loves, of a night, to hear the wind sighing and moaning among the branches. The sound, hd says, woos him to sleep, as did the dash of the billows in bygone times. Captain M. is exceedingly hospitable, and gives an excellent dinner to his few friends, with rare wine, and capital tales of long ago.
He is, too, a model family man, and his heart seems bound up in his wife and two beautiful daughters. His first question every morning, as sure as shaving water, is: “ How’s the wind?” and any servant of his who couldn’t box the compass, would assuredly have his ears boxed. He is, of course, au fait in all matters relating to the service. The “ Queen’s Regulations” finds a place on the handiest corner of his book shelf, side by side with the last Navy List, while every morning brings the Standard, and every week the service papers. And thus, happy and cheerful, does he spend the gloaming of life, and enjoy that rest so welcome to one, who has borne the burden and heat of life’s short day.
And our navy captains and commanders of the present day are, as a rule, good men and true. The captain of my last ship—the “ Dockemshort ”—is a good example. Comparatively a young man, he seemed born to command; strict, though not severe, knowing his duty and doing it, brave and chivalrous, without one particle of pride of place; in truth, a very gentleman—i.e., a gentle man. He is now post-captain of the T----, one of the largest ironclads afloat, and before many years I hope to shake hands with him as Admiral W---.
Now, Mr. Bothersham was his first luff, and a capital specimen of the naval bully—the man deeply impressed with a sense of the responsibility and majesty of his position. These little-great men are never content with anything short of a separate command; and if through great exertions and interest they succeed in getting charge of some pigmy gunboat, saints! don’t they swagger on their own quarter-deck, and oh 1 isn’t everything ship-shape, and aren’t the decks white as the snow-drift? Dirt in abundance may lie in out-of-the-way corners, but in sight— horror! Then, if a man’s collar be not regulation size or shape on a Sunday morning—“Where is the quarter-master?” If B.’s cap has not the cock-orthodox, he is summarily dealt with—blown up on the spot. C.’s neckerchief is all adrift— he is “ a lazy, lubberly lout,” and “ don’t let me see the same thing occur another Sunday.” D. has a squint in a mitigated form. “Damme! sir, what are you looking at?” “Nothing in particular, sir. You see, sir, I-” “Silence, sir, when you talk to me I Get your hair cut.” E. drops his quid on the deck. The lieutenant-in-command stares speechless. Then, “What—is—the sa’vice coming to?” he gasps. “ Bring that man before me to-morrow morning!”
But, the boys—ah! the boys! How they tremble at his look! How they shake and how they shiver, with their young limbs all a-quiver, when they are brought to book! while blows as thick as rain, from the quarter-master’s cane, on their out-stretched palms are falling; in vain for mercy calling, for none dare heed their squalling, or their noise.
To sum him up in a few words, Lieutenant Bothersham ’ always looked so spruce, so taut, and so trim, that you would have sworn he had come on board packed in cotton wool, and had only been just taken out. He affected a knowledge of the best society, and attended levees, had a decided opinion on everything, mouthed his English distressingly, and always changed his r’s to w’s.
Of Navigating Officers (of old called “masters”) there are two distinct species in the service. Among the first—now nearly all staff-commanders—you will find many fine old sailors. Our worthy Captain Sinbad was one. Eindhearted to every one, a fond husband and a doating father, there was, nevertheless, a something slightly artificial about him—an in-dwelling fear, as it were, that other officers did not treat him with all the respect his three-striped sleeve demanded. Perhaps in his younger days he had hardly felt on a footing of perfect equality with the other branches, and this now rendered him pompous and somewhat bluff in language, continually en garde, as it were, to defend the dignity of his position. Just a little jealous, too, of some service matters; didn’t, for instance, like the class distinction which gave the rudder ribbons of the boat to an officer junior to him, who wasn't in the “ Navigating ” branch. Or of salutes from soldiers or sailors—Sinbad brought them up with a round turn, if they so far forgot what was due to an officer as to be guilty of want of respect. Yes, have I not seen thee, my dear old friend, whose little eccentricities I can now but remember as dreams of yesterday—have I not heard thee address a trembling sentry'thus: “What the deuce d’ye mean, sir?” (this in the indignant tones in which, when you stare at him, a game cock exclaims “Cock-kuk-kay-ko-kuk?”) “What d’ye mean by shouldering arms to me? If you salute at all, though I don’t want your salute” (fie! Sinbad!) “do it properly, sir!” For Captain Sinbad was entitled to a “present arms."
Nor shall I ever forget the day when honest Sinbad, just finishing luncheon, suddenly discovered that there was a flea at his spinal column likewise having luncheon.
“That brute of a dog!” grunted Sinbad, endeavouring in vain to dislodge the blood-thirsty Siphonapterite.
Now, the dog happened to be mine—a gigantic Newfoundland, the noblest of his race—so I bridled up.
“Look here, Sinbad,” I said, “ don’t you blame the dog— that’s mean, m give you sixpence for every flea you can find on Theodore Nero—there 1 ”
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The indignity embodied in my proposition did not at once strike him: it did presently, though. The bare idea of an assistant-surgeon offering employment to a staff-commander, to catch fleas on his dog. at sixpence a head!
Sinbad got so suddenly purple in the face, that I thought a raddish had gone the wrong way, and began to run over in my mind the tissues to divide and the arteries to tie, preparatory to cutting his throat, when he spluttered forth: “Like your infernal cheek! The service is going to the devil. Go and catch your blasted fleas yourself.”
But oh! meo caro tympano I only give an old staff commander of this kind the chance to carry on the duty on deck, doesn't he rant and doesn’t he roar, and don’t he swagger and swear a bit. A bo’sen’s mate talks like a speaking-trumpet that has been lined with sand-paper; but he isn’t to be heard alongside our gallant staff.
To the junior class of navigating officers some of the jolliest, cleverest, and most witty fellows I ever met belonged. Shall I ever forget thee, Gulliver. I never met with anyone before or since so highly gifted with the gab as thou wert, and, probably, art. Thy smile alone was mirth-provoking, but thy “Ahem!” preparatory to spinning a yarn was irresistible. At that interjection all hands stood by, every eye twinkled, and every ear was cocked in fond anticipation.
Gulliver, my boy, I forgive you freely for all the chaff wherewith you chaffed me, and all your practical joking, even your devilish cantrips played me through the medium of the boy Green—the unhappy loblolly, who made my oatmeal poultices, duly salted, and finally burned them; and, Gulliver, I’ll back you to spin a yarn against the great Baron Munchausen himself. Your mighty namesake, who made the horses laugh, would in your company float far to leeward; while for telling good round “whoppers,” the immortal Waghorn (a Scotch deity and god of fibs) himself could not come near you.
And now, here is a portrait of a navy parson or two. Very good fellows, as a rule, they are; though some of them come quite up to the standard of Mr. Hamilton in Holy Willie’s prayer:—
“Lord, mind Ga win Hamilton’s deserts;
He drinks, and swears, and plays at cairts.”
They don’t wear uniform, and are often very free and easy as to dress. Here is one, walking solemnly up and down the main deck, in a long flowing dressing-gown, ornamental slippers, and a tall beaver hat; probably nothing under the gown save a nightshirt. Another parson I knew wore a white pipe hat and a green coat, and, when on shore, long boots and a whip. One parson thinks a Glengarry suits his style of features; another goes in for a brigand’s hat, with peacock feather; while my friend, the Rev. Dugald MacTilt, who entered the service for the “bawbee,” wears a full clerical costume, minus the headdress; for Dugald persists in topping his rig, with a Tam o’ Shanter bonnet with a tartan rim and red top-knot, and breadth of beam sufficient to defend him from a thunder shower, while
“ In his hands he holds a stick, No vcra lang, but unco thick.”
Just two more examples of these burning and shining lights. The Rev. Frederick Floraloris was a genius in his way, and had all a genius’s disregard for personal appearance, and might have been found at any hour of the day stepping about the decks, arrayed as follows: a wardroom servant’s cap, greasy; a black tie, ragged and old; a shirt collar, grimy and smudged; trousers and vest anyhow; and a well-worn cut-away coat, of the shape and fashion affected by the sportsman Winkle, vide Pickwick.
But the Rev. Jeremiah Jabberjaws had a soul above his sartorii muscles—a soul, sir—and so he trucked his figurehead with a military forage-cap, and bedecked his clerical suit with rows of gilt navy buttons, and thus arrayed looked with disdain the most supreme on a more humble-minded brother officer, who was content with black bone service buttons on a rather seedy suit, and who wore a navy cap and badge. This latter guy’s lower man was encased in a pair of grey O-no-we-never-mention-ems, the black mohair stripes on which seemed to hint at former service in the volunteers. And these wonderful garments kept proudly aloof from the pair of purser’s shoes beneath, thus leaving exposed more inches of stocking than one cared to see, brightly blue and ribbed though they were.
There is one species of individual not unfrequently met with in the service—and the more is the pity—who aims at climbing the ladder of promotion by, figuratively speaking, licking the boots of his superior officers. I refer to the toady. Although not necessarily a bad messmate, he will never allow friendship to stand in the way of his career, even if he should have to stoop occasionally to a little meanness and deception. There is generally a good deal of the old wife or Paul Pry about him, and he will mostly be found interesting himself more in his neighbours’ affairs than he has any right to do. So far, then, he is stalk-eyed like the lobster, and long-nosed, like the snipe; but it is the oiliness of his mouth that stands his best friend. It is this peculiar oleaginosity of oral apparatus that enables him successfully to get round the admiral, and be hail-fellow-well-met with his captain. His knowledge of human nature is the result of long study, and he knows to a nicety the exact length to which flattery
may be carried, in the case of each superior officer, and how much butter each can individually swallow with comfort.
He will often copy or mimic any little peculiarity of dress or manner of an admiral, a being whom he seems almost to deify—not, mind you, out of any real respect for him personally, but because he hopes that one day he himself will bend the broad gold stripes, and wear the laurel-wreathed button; so that he is but worshiping in prospective, a future Admiral Toady.
After such a specimen of naval humanity, Roddy, it is quite refreshing to remember that the navy is, for the most part, officered by men who, like the immortal Rion, are both good and gallant; men who need no stimulus to do their duty and maintain Britannia mistress of the seas, save the love they bear to the land that gave them birth.
And now, then, Roddy, fill your glass and your pipe, and we’ll drink to the flag we have this day hoisted on our bonnie green lawn: the flag, Roddy, that foeman ne’er saw furled, the flag that, when shattered with shot, is nailed to the mast.
“ The Queen and the Navy I ”
Gordon Stablks, M.D., R.N.
©be to ®S ftp.
[Odds and Ends from an Old Drawer, by Andrew Wynter. London: George Routledge & Co. Ib53.]
Oh, blessed pipe, That now I clutch within my gripe, What joy is in thy smooth round bowl, As black as coal!
So sweetly wed, To thy blanched gradual thread, Like Desdemona to the Moor, Thou pleasure’s core.
What woman’s lip Could ever give, like thy red tip, Such unremitting store of bliss, Or such a kiss!
Oh, let me toy	(
(Ixion-like with cloudy joy),
* Thy stem with a most gentle slant,
I eye askant ?
Unseen, unheard, Thy dreamy nectar is transferred, The while serenity astride Thy neck doth ride.
A burly cloud
Doth now thy outward beauties shroud; And now a film doth upwards creep, Cuddling the cheek.
And now a ring, A mimic silver quoit, takes wing; Another, and another, mount on high, Then spread and die.
They say in story, That good men have a crown of glory; Oh, beautiful and good, behold Thy crowns unfold!
How did they live ?
What pleasure could the old world give, That ancient, miserable lot, When thou wert not ?
Oh. woe betide, My oldest, dearest friend hath died I Died in my hand quite unaware— Oh, Baccy rare!
^n ©lb |ipt.
Old ruined pipe, that all would cast aside, Nor give thy fate a single transient thought, To me with tender memories thou art fraught, Recalling those brief days of happy pride When my sweet Lady wandered by my side Through life’s strange ways, and always unbesought Came rapturous joys no wealth had ever bought, And I each day by love was deified.
For once, I mind it well, in playful vein.
She filled thee with the fragrant honeyed weed And lit it for me with such witching grace I could not choose withhold the lovesome meed. And now thou bringest to my sight her face As then she thrilled beneath my kiss’s strain.
Bon-Tabac.
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Copt’s UJidun.
When a man—and I presume that a man is a man, even though he be a Man-of-Axl-Work. It is not so clear that his claim to be permitted to call himself a man will go unchallenged, when he is known to smoke Tobacco; but by gracious permission (or otherwise) of my esteemed friends and mentors, Drs. Drysdale, Richardson, and Co., I will venture to cling to the distinctive title, notwithstanding my partiality to Bird’s-eye. Well, as I was about to remark—when a man gets so deep into the smuggling business as you are aware I did last September, it is not surprising that he should disappear from the gaze of those whom the admired Unsworth used to designate as “Friends and Fellow-Reprobates.” Considering the avidity with which the officials of a Paternal Government seek out and bring to light the misdeeds of persons who yield to a natural passion for more Tobacco than is good for them, and considering also that, if anybody ever had (since King Jamie’s days) more than enough of Tobacco, Your Man-of-All-Work might reasonably be supposed to be that person, you cannot have been at a loss last month to explain why the place that had known me so long should know me no more—for a season. Mark me! I don’t actually allege that I have been under the personal charge of any gaol-warder, or that I have been upon terms of greater intimacy than usual with the police, or even the Excise. I may have been in Central Asia, assisting at the exploration of Hissar (scientifically), or at the seizure (in a military, not an Inland Revenue sense) of Kizil-Arvat, or at the reception of General Stoletoff by Sheer Ali. En passant, I observe that the distinguished potentate who affects to rule Afghanistan is to be treated as a species of good Tobacco by the Indian army, and smoked out; but I will not positively affirm that I made the journey to Cabul or Peshawur, or Simla, or Quettah, or the Khyber Pass, in order to arrive at that discovery. No; I was not brought to such a Pass as that. If I had, it might have been well for my country; for I cannot believe that the representative of the Tobacco Plant would have been refused a free Pass, if he had been substituted for Sir Neville Chamberlain as a deputation to the gloomy successor of Dost Muhammad. If, like other observers of what Valentine Baker calls “Clouds in the East,” you have been studying the literature of Indian politics, you may be aware that the late Mr. Wylie, in his notable sketch of the policy of “Masterly Inactivity,” employs these words:—“From the glittering waves of the Persian Gulf we must now take flight to the bare steppes and snowcapped mountains of Central Asia.” I may have taken that flight (for you know I am of a flighty disposition), or I may not. But your readers don’t look to the columns of “Cope’s Mixture” for information, surely; or experience is wasted upon them.
No, I will not beguile you: I have not smoked the peacepipe with Kaufmann—it is an implement little suited to the taste of that grim warrior of Muscovy. I have neither paced the wastes of Karakum nor waded the fords of Jihoon. The sandy expanse of Kizil, the romantic valleys of the Chitral, the monster earthworks of Herat, the blood-stained gorge of the Khoord Cabul—all are innocent of my footsteps. If you ask me, then, where I have been, “I will answer, I will tell you” (tide “Hiawatha”), in the words of a sweet little hymn of our innocent days—“Not there, not there, my child.”
I may have been at Hull. I need not remind you of the thrilling events which occurred during September, not altogether unconnected with the noble pursuit of smuggling, at the interesting port which lends importance to that useful but turbid stream, the Humber. The story of the misfortunes of Charles Rogerson has reached (I doubt not) your sympathising ear, and touched your generous heart. I will not say, with the gentleman who started a subscription and went round with the missionary-box—“I feel 5s. for the benighted heathen—how much do you feel?” But, to be fined £1757 15s., on account of having too much Tobacco on hand, was a serious matter for Rogerson. When the alternative was six months’ imprisonment, and he “was removed in custody,” Charles must have felt that the seriousness of his position hardly needed further demonstration. The most disputatious mind would, at such a moment, have admitted that the proposition was obvious—self-evident. You are aware, of course, that Rogerson was a Victim. He said (and the lawyer who defended him endorsed the statement: wherefore—Away with doubtful questionings!—Suspicion, avaunt!) that “a man” “asked him if he would be good enough to take in a bit of Tobacco for him; ” that he agreed, and was to have £2 or £3 for his kindness; that he went to the warehouse of his employers at night, to receive it; that two men brought the Tobacco in a boat, and it was placed “just inside the warehouse and left there for the night;” that at six o’clock in the morning “his friend” (meaning “a man” aforesaid) called, “having suspicion that the Customs authorities were on the alert,” and said, “ Let’s cover it up; ” that he (Rogerson) went away while it was secreted; and that he heard no more about it till he was charged with the offence. You don’t quite see why £1757 15s., I suppose? Well, thus: The “bit of Tobacco” was 2216 lbs., besides 42.| lbs. of cigars; and the indignant magistrate, whose noblest sentiments as a man and a patriot were wounded, and whose loftiest sense of virtue was up in arms, said that “ to talk about ’taking in a bit of Tobacco* in a case like this was
simply disgusting”—Rogerson “was foreman of a warehouse, entrusted with its safe custody; and having that control, he simply lent it for the purpose of breaking the law. And he knew that he was doing wrong in the foulest manner.” As for Charles himself, “ he appeared to be very contrite, and said that he had simply obliged a friend, Sam Edmondson.”
“A man”—“a friend”—“Sam Edmondson.” You perceive the mystery. The Customs (as you will assume) could not unravel it; or “ Sam Edmondson” would have shared the fate of Charles Rogerson. Not that their mystification proves the non-existence of Sam Edmondson, as a man and a friend; because there was smuggling, and the Customs knew nothing about it till, “in consequence of information received,” they went to the warehouse; and instead of their watching the smugglers, the smugglers were watching them. Well, I hate hypocrisy, and I won’t pretend to be sorry that they didn’t catch Sam. Don’t misunderstand me: I would no more disguise myself as “Sam Edmondson” than Sam would disguise himself as Your Man-of-All-Work. Is thy servant a Vambcry, that he should make himself ridiculous as a dancing Dervish? Or is he a Russian, to be taking Steppes towards his own destruction? Let the Customs discover Sam. As for me, I simply reiterate that I may have been at Hull.
But, wherever I may have been—whether with George Augustus, hunting “The Ghost of the Grisette”; or with Edison, inventing improved daylight; or with the Shah of Persia, lying awake and chewing Tobacco o’ nights in bed, because of the polygamic institution (Burlington Hawkeye says Nassr-ed-Din has 90 wives—whicn accounts); or with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, trying to induce 2 and 2 to make 5—at all events, I’ve come back to business now. Yes, to business—to the mixing of “Mixture;” and I feel like the youth described so graphically in the Cincinnati Breakfast Table. “When a young man,” says that model paper, “has learned to consume cigarettes in an artistic manner, by ejecting the smoke through his nostrils, life is no longer a barren ideality, but as real as a bar of soap.” Life can't help being “real,’’ and “earnest” (as Professor Longfellow bears witness) when there are so many Paternal Governments and Anti-Tobaccoites dodging around. I rather admire the Paternal Institution—in the abstract. It may appear to you somewhat unaccountable—many people don’t feel proud of their immediate progenitors, I am aware; but I have always had a sort of liking for my Paternal Relative—in the abstract, let us say, to save appearances. The confession puts me in the minority, I know; but it does a man good, in the hour of adversity, to remember that the majority must include the imbeciles and lunatics. Be that as it may, one does not quite see where one would be, but for the Paternal Institution: even an average idiot might have been worse if he hadn’t had a father. But when the Paternal Institution takes the form of a Paternal Government, my admiration ceases—and my toleration does not begin. Did I not say I detested shams? (To “speak by the card,” what I said was, “I hate hypocrisy.” Modern morality does not always realise that the two forms of expression are synonymous; but they are.) Well, a Paternal Government carries “ Sham ” writ large upon its face. Take one instance out of ten thousand: What father, deserving the name, would seek to make a profit out of a son’s vices ? Yet the German Government, which is “paternal” enough in all conscience, having just pronounced smoking a vice by forbidding the practice to boys, under penalty of fine or imprisonment, is collecting information with the view of inducing the Reichstag to give it the monopoly of the Tobacco manufacture and trade throughout the empire. I heard, the other day, that the unhappy Minister whose business it is to find “ways and means” for the Russian Empire had a similar scheme in view. Now, I am on the verge of a desperate resolution. I won’t make a vow at this moment, because I am smoking my pet pipe and the Tobacco is remarkably pleasant, and, therefore, I am not most favourably situated for any deed of unusual rashness; but I confide to you in serious earnestness the fearful oath from which I have narrowly escaped. I was on the brink of a solemn resolve to abandon the use (and abuse) of Tobacco! I will try to hold out a little longer; but, really, if Holy Czars and Imperial Majesties and “blood-andiron” Chancellors and Paternal Governments generally are going into the Tobacco trade, I cannot conscientiously support it any longer. In spite of the dear fellow who wrote that clever article in the Morning Post on the 30th September—(he made mince-meat of the antis; and I felt better after reading that article than I have done since I used to get a farthing from my schoolmaster for saying the ABC without putting W before D—somewhere about the time when the Dutch took Holland, I opine)—I shall begin to believe in Drysdale and Co. There are no evils to suffering humanity (from Ignorance to Bulgarian Atrocities—from punning to “Peace with Honour” —from Egyptian Bonds to Glasgow Banks and Gas Shares) that I shall not be prepared to attribute to Tobacco, if it gets into the hands of “the honest Broker” Von Bismarck and the Three Emperors.
At present, however, my worthy friend who supplies me with bird’s-eye and fusees at ruinous prices, and who tries to lure me on to bankruptcy by imploring me to buy cigars, is safe. I may have to order a collar-box from Libby, of New York, so that I may hide my Tobacco safely where my necklinen ought to be, while my friends are beguiled by the ink-bottle and pen rack which Libby (cunning fellow), puts on the collar-box lid; I may try to warn my friends—
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and keep them from borrowing too many of my cigars —with the story of the “man of family” at New Haven (U.S.) who “ has gone through with a property, made his family homeless, and is now in the State insane asylum, all through an excessive indulgence in smoking; ” I may even make an effort to admire Mr. Alfred Stephenson, who made this exhibition of himself the other day in the Weekly Review:—“Since joining the Anti-Tobacco Society I have given up the sale of Tobacco, notwithstanding that mine is the largest family grocery store in the town, and although we turn hundreds of Tobacco customers away, yet I cannot tell that my returns have suffered, but rather otherwise.” (How could his “ Returns” have suffered, if he didn’t sell any? I should suppose the “ returns ” of the Tobacconists improved when the grocer gave up meddling with a business he had no more right to than Kings, Emperors, and Budget-Makers have.) I say that I may do these things; but, so long as my beloved Weed is kept out of evil company, and is not used to promote war and despotic rule, I shan’t join the Anti-Tobacco Society. You know what the sailor said to the captain who reproached him upon his return from a long and unlicensed cruise on shore. “You’re drunk, sir!” said the captain. “I know Tm drunk,” said Jack; “but I shall get over that. As for you, you’re a d 4 fool, and you’ll never get over that!” When Drysdale and Co. pitch into me for my Tobaccoism, I say—“I know!— I shall survive; but you’ll never get over your ailment.”— Belong I
Youb Man-of-All-Wobk.
®^ (Steal (Snwbtrrg ^auntfrblast.
[The London Figaro, October 2nd, 1878.}
Happily for the freedom and prosperity of nations, kings are almost always stupid persons, and James I. was assuredly not an exception to the rule. He was a third-rate pedagogue in intellect, and, like most feeble-brained people, obstinate as a mule. For some reason or other he hated Tobacco almost as much as he feared gunpowder, and he resolved to put it down. He raised the duty from 2d. to 6s. lOd. per pound, and we may be sure that most of the Tobacco consumed at that time was smuggled. Also he published his “ Counterblast to Tobacco,” in which he declares that smoking is loathsome to the eye, hurtful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, “and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.” But there was some excuse for the foolishness of James I. Tobacco had not been long in use, and it is usual for a new thing to be condemned. Also, his Majesty was not the only anti-Tobacco fanatic. In Russia the penalty for smoking was cutting off the nose. Sultan Amurath ordered smokers to be executed. Pope Urban VIH. issued a bull excommunicating persons who took snuff in church.
But what are we to say of the present counterblast? Dr. Drysdale asserts that the consumption of Tobacco is “ a real vice” which has “ invaded the whole of civilisation.”. Does it not occur to Dr. Drysdale that when it is a case of himself and a few other counterblasters v. the whole of civilisation, that probably he and the counterblasters are wrong?
The Doctor says that smokers are subject to palpitation of the heart, to hoarseness, to blackening of the teeth, to swelling of the gums, to weakness of sight going on to blindness, and to various forms of dyspepsia with or without diarrhoea. There are, perhaps, some persons with whom Tobacco does not agree, just as there are some persons with whom tea and coffee disagree; but the universal experience is that Tobacco is not injurious. Here are a few facts for Dr. Drysdale. Women, who do not smoke, suffer more from palpitation of the heart than men. Women as often suffer from weakness of sight and from bad teeth—indeed, smoking preserves the teeth. Very few dyspeptics smoke, and are none the better for giving up the soothing weed. We will not venture to comment on the statement that babies are poisoned by the nicotine that gets into the milk of their mothers who inhale the smoke of Tobacco. We know a few mothers who have healthy children, though their husbands smoke in their presence. Another fact for Dr. Drysdale. Infant mortality has decreased in Tobacco-consuming countries.
Dr. Drysdale is a very clever physician, and his counterblast is due to prejudice. He says that the use of Tobacco “destroys social life.” What does he mean? Surely there never was more social life than in our day.
A Mr. Ritchie is of opinion that the use of Tobacco accounts for “that indolence, carelessness, and callousness which unfortunately now prevail in all ranks of life.” We submit that the age in which we live is not notable for indolence, but for hard work, and a reference to the lists of subscriptions for sufferers will show that society is not altogether callous. There are unamiable smokers, and there may be amiable non-smokers, but in our experience most men who do not smoke are sour-tempered, selfish, narrowminded, and fussy. Alas for the wives of non-smokers!
^ipe ^Tolourers.
VI.—BOOTEB’S SPOILED MEEBSOHAUM.
Thebe is no rule, without an exception; but, as a rule, it is the man of an even frame of mind that makes the best pipe colourer.
The fits and starts of a man who is of an excitable and uneasy nature will, in some mysterious manner, be communicated to his pipe, and the result will be uneven lines, blotches, and spots, instead of a deep, regular hue.
I met with a remarkable instance of this lately, and venture to lay it before my readers. I do so, in order that the folly of one man may become the wisdom of many.
We speak with gratitude of what we owe to our wise men. We forget what we owe to our foolish ones. This is wrong.
Watch the progress of a fool. See him floundering amid a thousand mishaps; ever wrong, and never right.
To a man gifted with common sense, the actions of a fool are as instructive as the exhortations of a sage. Therefore, let us be grateful to our unwise ones.
Booter was not a fool; but, in the matter of his spoiled meerschaum, he was foolish.
I was looking over his pipes one day, and admiring them. Amongst ten or a dozen handsome-shaped and finely-coloured meerschaums, I came across one that made me wonder. Fine as to shape, good as to quality, the colouring had completely spoiled it.
I sought an explanation, and obtained it from Booter himself.
John Booter I always looked upon as one of the most even-minded men living. His frame of mind I often envied, and would gladly have imitated if I could.
However, to the story. Booter was a man who interfered very little in domestic affairs; so that when his wife informed him that she intended to present him with another baby, he thought it best to take things quietly, and raise no objections. Mrs. B. was a woman of a strong will, and, when she made up her mind to anything, matters generally ended in accordance with her desires. So, having ascertained that June was set down as the gift month, he made a simple memorandum in his note-book: “June.—No. 3 to come”; that he might not forget it; and there the matter ended for a time.
As a single man, John never set a limit to his expenditure in the matter of pipes. As a married man he was compelled to. He must, of course, have a fresh pipe now and then, and concluded, on the whole, it would not be a bad idea to have a new one with each fresh addition to his family. There is a human touch about this arrangement that I like very much.
On the 3rd of June, Booter saw a pipe that pleased him, and purchased it, anticipating many enjoyable smokes. Here let me say that, although anticipation is not a sin, its nonrealisation causes almost as much pain as repentance.
John smoked his pipe very carefully for a few evenings (for a great deal depends on how you start a pipe), till the evening of the 9th arrived. As he was midway in a pipe, Mrs. B. said quietly: “John, I don’t wish to alarm you, but I wish you would take a cab, and fetch nurse; I should like her in the house.” Booter, like a good husband as he was, sallied forth, with his pipe in his mouth and the case in his pocket, and, procuring a cab, proceeded to the abode of the nurse, Mrs. Boile. The information he got there was not satisfactory. She was fulfilling an engagement in a place called Perch Street, at a baker’s shop; number of street and name of baker both unknown.
Perch Street, however, was soon found. The baker’s shop was found. The nurse was found. Booter, being somewhat disturbed, had re-loaded his pipe when he started for Perch Street, and had smoked vigorously, and with less care than he should have shown.
Mrs. Boile was very sorry, but she had accepted another engagement, and was even then packing up to go off the next morning. Nice for Booter, was it not? He stood aghast with indignation; but that did not help him. Honourable or not, Mrs. Boile had made up her mind, and there was an end of the matter.
Out again came that unfortunate pipe, as John issued from the baker’s shop, and by the time my friend had arrived home, that cab was fumigated thoroughly.
Mrs. B. looked very solemn when her husband told her how he had been served; but, as it was between ten and eleven o’clock, nothing further could be done that night.
The next day was Sunday. John, armed with the address of another nurse, started off. The distance was five miles. He sat and smoked his pipe on the top of an omnibus, feeling tolerably calm, and sincerely hoped that the person he was now seeking would be disengaged. He found the oorrect street, and proceeded to look for the number given, which was “81.” John’s pipe had a narrow escape, for it nearly dropped out of his mouth when he found “No. 81” was a large pawnbroker’s, shut up as tight as shops of that description are on the Sabbath. He felt at once that he had been misdirected. A slight hope took possession of him that there might be another “ 81 ” in the street; but alas! there was not. He considered, looking at the house during his considerations. It certainly seemed a most unlikely place to find what he wanted. Besides, as he observed when relating the affair, “ Who ever heard of anyone getting any-
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thing out of a pawnbroker’s on Sunday?” He decided, however, to inquire. There was neither knocker nor bell, so he kicked at the door. A voice came up to him from below, through a small grating: “Now, then, what do you want?”
“Oh, I beg pardon; have you got a nurse here?”
“An ’earse! No; we don’t keep ’em. You’ll get one at the undertaker’s, No. 93, lower down.”
“I didn’t say a hearse; it’s a nurse I want.”
“I should think you want a keeper more than a nurse. However, we don’t lend anything on that article here.”
“You don’t understand me. Is there a person named Mrs. Widgers, a monthly nurse, living on these premises?”
“No, sir, there is not. We’ve got neither monthly nurses nor weekly lodgers. There’s only ‘Brown and Co’ here. I’m Brown, and my wife’s Co.”
“ Good morning, thank you,” said Booter.
“Morning,” replied the other.
Five miles, partly walking and partly riding, did that brute of a Booter puff and blow furiously at his unfortunate pipe. He slept the sleep of the cross and disgusted after dinner, and in the evening obtained some fresh addresses from the doctor. Then commenced a walk round.
Mrs. A. was found sitting with her bonnet on, and her umbrella within easy reach, expecting to be sent for every minute.
The pipe again to work.
Mrs. B. was out, fulfilling an engagement, but would be at liberty in September, if that would do.
Again the pipe.
Mrs. C. was at home; hardly knew if she was engaged, but her fee was just twice the ordinary fee, and she did not care to go out without there was a special servant to wait on her. Booter wished her a safe and speedy journey to heaven, with half-a-dozen angels to wait on her, and fled home, with a trail of smoke behind him.
His head was in a whirl, for all the nurses seemed to have entered into a conspiracy against him.
On Monday morning Booter felt a bit better, especially as Mrs. B. seemed in wonderful good spirits herself. He got through his day’s labour, and came home as usual to tea.
Afterwards, armed with several addresses, he started once more on his mournful quest.
Seven doors did he knock at, and interview whoever he could get hold of. From each of those he turned away with a groan. It was absolute wickedness, the way he smoked that pipe. He was not a man to use bad language, but he felt almost bad enough that night to write curses in chalk on the pavement.
The eighth house he went to he got a little hope. He found a live nurse at home. Here is what she said:—“ I go to a lady’s to-morrow, and shall be disengaged come three weeks next Friday; but if Mrs. V., my husband’s brother’s aunt, wants me, I can leave where I am going to as early as the Saturday before. If she requires a nurse before that day I am not to go at all to her, as she has made other arrangements ; but, if I do go to her, I shall be at liberty a fortnight after the day I do go to her; so that it will be about five weeks, or perhaps four, or even three, or a little over two if I do not go to my husband’s brother’s aunt.” Booter smiled a ghastly smile at this good lady, and sallied forth.
With his addresses, his Tobacco, and his pluck completely exhausted, Booter arrived home dead beat.
What was to be done? There was just one faint gleam of hope. Mrs. Bt had heard of a nurse in Barton Square, but did not know the number of the house. The nurse’s name was Mrs. Riggles. Nothing, however, could be done, as it was eleven o’clock; so John and his wife retired.
At exactly half-past one o’clock Mr. Booter heard this: “John, you must get me either a nurse or a doctor.”
John, desperately grinding his teeth, dressed hurriedly and went forth. “Barton Square,” he grimly muttered; “if there’s a nurse there I’ll have her, if I forcibly abduct her! ” He hailed a passing cab, and within five minutes found himself in Barton Square. The cab halted. The square was small, containing about thirty or forty houses. What was to be done? His first thought was to knock at each door in succession; but it would take too long. A wild idea seized him. Mounting on the box beside the driver, he called out, at first timidly, and then vociferously: “Mrs. Riggles! Mrs. Riggles! Mrs. Rig-g-gles I ” The cabby, becoming interested, joined in; and, as his voice was hoarse from exposure and gin, and Booter’s was treble with excitement, it was a very pretty duet for a quiet square at two o’clock in the morning.
After about five minutes signs of excitement became visible; candles were lighted and various windows opened, and an animated shower of compliments was dropped on to Booter’s head. He was told to put his head under a pump; he was threatened with incarceration; he was declared to be drunk, mad, a fool, Ac. His simple reply to all was a prolonged “Mrs. Rig-g-g-gles! ”
At last a voice cried out: “If you want Mrs. Riggles, why don’t you knock at her door? ”
“What number? ” shouted John eagerly.
“ No. 17,” returned the voice.
“Thank you!” cried John, and at once sought the magic number. Joy! she was at home. More joy! she was willing to accompany our hero. Booter could have embraced her. He got her into the cab, and soon the pair arrived home. After Mrs. Riggles had seen Mrs. B., John had to go at once
for the doctor. This he did not mind; his trouble was nearly over, but not quite.
As he reached the doctor’s door two other men came up; all three were breathless with haste and excitement, came from a street opposite the doctor’s door, and the other came up facing Booter. A moment’s explanation showed that all three were on the same sort of errand. They could not fight for priority; they had no time to quarrel about it. Their claims were equal; so under the doctor’s lamp the mysterious game of “ Tommy Dodd” was played, and Booter had the happiness of obtaining the doctor first.
Booter’s baby camo all right, but Booter’s meerschaum never got right. The bad treatment it had experienced during those uneasy days and nights gave it a wrong turn, from which it never recovered.
This affair happened some years ago, and Booter has had other children since. He always buys a new pipe to celebrate the event; but he never buys it, now, till after the arrival of the baby.	D. Googs.
/ai^er glucjw.
To Blucher, as a distinguished smoker as well as a distinguished soldier, we have more than once alluded. But a few characteristic anecdotes, either new in themselves or presented in a fresh form, may not be unwelcome.
It has already been said that Frederick the Great dismissed Blucher in a very summary and savage way from the Prussian service. But the circumstances which led to the dismissal are so interesting that we give them in detail. When the Seven Years* War came to a close, and when peace was made between Prussia and Austria, Blucher, then a Prussian ofiicer, was not well pleased; for he was fond of the excitement of war, and he was fond of gambling, and in peaceful times he could not get money to gamble with. He was, therefore, glad when the troubles in Poland called the Prussian army again into the field. General Von Lossow was the commander-in-chief, and the regiment in which Blucher, then a young man of about thirty, was an ofiicer, formed part of the host. The Poles, fighting a desperate fight for their country, did not care much for the usages and obligations of regular warfare, but, as was natural, assailed their foes very much after the fashion of American Indians; murdered, assassinated, tortured, mutilated. The solitary field-posts were stealthily overpowered, cruelly put to death, and the corpses were shamefully handled. All this provoked Blucher, who called his men together, and said that it was the priests who stirred on the people to the horrible deeds. He declared his determination to make an example. A priest whom he deemed more than usually guilty he seized and condemned to death. The priest was led to the place of execution, and a grave was dug for him, After his eyes were bound, the soldiers were commanded to fire. But Blucher knew that he had no right to execute the priest, and, in truth, he had only wanted to frighten and to warn him; the muskets were loaded with powder only. The priest, however, was so terrified by the discharge that he fell down as if he had been shot; the agony of fever brought on a fatal illness. The General was greatly displeased, and the promotion which Blucher had a right to expect he did not obtain. Thereupon Blucher wrote to the King:—“Jugersfeld, who has no other merit than that of being the son of the Margrave of Schwedt, has been preferred to me. I apply for my discharge.” After Blucher had been placed under arrest, and again applied for his discharge, it was granted to him in the most contemptuous terms. It was thus that a man was dismissed from the Prussian army who was finally destined to save the Prussian monarchy.
During the Napoleonic wars Blucher had a swift, simple way of doing all things. Once an announcement was made to him after he had gone to bed that Napoleon was about to make, in the darkness, a formidable attack. Blucher cried: “Then he is sure to get a good thrashing”; gave the needful commands, then went to sleep. The night before the battle of Waterloo Blucher was roused from his slumbers by a courier from Wellington. Blucher wrote under the note:— “I shall be there at the right time,” and fell immediately into the repose which had been for an instant troubled. When the battle of Leipsic was expected, the officers of the staff discussed the plan of operations. Blucher sat in an adjoining chamber, smoking his pipe. Finally he was summoned by the officers to give his opinion. The debate was renewed. Blucher, taking the pipe from his mouth, cried:— “That may all be very well; I am willing to believe it; but I can make no use of the counsel given. When I come with my brave fellows, I can see what is to be done.”
Blucher had extreme pleasure in doing justice to everyone, especially to the chief of his staff, Gneisenan. When the University of Oxford made Blucher a Doctor of Laws, he said:—“That is well enough in its own way; but, if you make me a Doctor, you must give me Gneisenan as Apothecary, for it is he who manufactures the pills which I give to people.” Once, at a pleasant evening party, where Blucher was more than usually joyous, he rose and declared that he proposed kissing his own hand. Then he kissed General Gneisenan with exceeding beniteness. On another occasion the guests were lavishing on Blucher the most extravagant
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laudations. Blucher uttered a vigorous protest:—“Halt! halt! gentlemen! It was all very different from what you maintain. I showed nothing but audacity; it was Gneis-man’s skill and God’s mercy which did the rest.”
In the year 1819 it was obvious that the old hero’s life was coming to a close. As he grew weaker and weaker, he said: —“For death no healing plant grows.” He called us doctor, and would take no medicine, declaring, “I have beccome useless, and die willingly.” To his adjutant, Count Nostitz, who had saved his life at the battle of Ligny, his words were:— “ You have learned many things of me; now see with what peace I can die.” And in peace this great man of war took his journey to the invisible world.
> Boyal Jobe.
As a rule, kings are neither very witty nor very wise. Assuredly neither one of the wittiest nor one of the wisest of kings was Frederick William I. of Prussia; though it cannot be denied that along with rough, or we might even call it brutal energy, he had a sort of shrewdness which enabled him to discern what was best for Prussia’s prosperity. It is Tabackscollegium has made him interesting to smokers. At the meetings of the Collegium coarse fun seems to have been more in favour than brilliant wit. Of Frederick William’s jests, either in or out of the Collegium, few are recorded; and we are not sure whether the following is worth snatching from oblivion. There was a famous medical practitioner at Berlin, called Glockengiesser. The King appointed him physician of a regiment of which he was himself the colonel, and which was in quarters at Potsdam. Shortly after the appointment many of the finest men in the regiment died. When the King asked for the cause of death, he invariably got the same answer, namely, that the men had been cut off by a polypus. The name struck the King as rather odd, and as he thought that he had more than one reason to be dissatisfied with Glockengiesser, he recalled him. Glockengiesser was not sorry to return to Berlin, where his family resided, and where he had an extensive practice. One day the King was walking through one of the streets. He saw the doctor’s carriage before the door of a house, and entered into conversation with the coachman. The doctor was visiting a patient, and caught sight of the King through the window. Knowing the King to be prejudiced against him, he felt somewhat uneasy. Old, and of the shabby genteel order, was the doctor’s carriage. As soon as the King was out of sight, the doctor asked the coachman what the King had said. The coachman answered: “The King sends you his respects, and begs to inform you that your carriage has a polypus.” If the doctor laughed heartily, as he is reported to have done, it must have been more from a sense of relief than from enthusiastic admiration of the King’s jest. Frederick William’s jokes may not have been of a very exalted order, but they were certainly better than his son’s poetry. Indeed, it is marvellous how a man so unpoetical as Frederick the Great should ever have attempted poetiy at all.
^n Unwholesome Bule for an Unwholesome flace.
44 The Managers of the London Stock Exchange have rescinded the rule which allows smoking in the House after three o’clock."
Put out their pipes? An ill-timed innovation!
The place stands sore in need of fumigation!—Punch.
|ttos of ©lb ^oohs.
®r. E. W. ^shbee’s Beprints.
[continuation.]
23.	A Three fold Discourse betweene three Neighbours, Algate, Bishopgate, and John Heyden the late Cobler of Houns-ditch, a professed Brownist. Whereunto is added a true Relation (by way of Dittie) of a lamentable fire which happened at Oxford two nights before Christ-tide last, in a religious brothers shop, known by the name of John of Alltrades. London, Printed for F. Cowles, T. Bates, and J. Wright. M.DCXLII. 4 leaves.
24.	Taylor (John, The Water Poet.) Heads of all Fashions, Being, A Plaine Desection or Definition of diverse, and sundry sorts of heads, Butting, Jetting, or pointing at vulgar opinion. And Allegorically shewing the Diversities of Religion in these distempered times. Now very lately written, since Calves-Heads came in Season. London Printed for lohn Morgan, to be sold in the Old-baily. 1642. 4 leaves.
25.	The English Mountebank: Or, a Physical dispensatory9 Wherein is prescribed, Many strange and excellent Receits of Mr Harriot, the great Eater of Grays-Inn: With the manner how he makes his Cordiall Broaths, Pills, Purgations, Julips, and Vomits, to keep his Body in temper and free from surfeits. With sundry Directions, 1 How to make his Cordiall Broath. 2 His Pills to appease Hunger. 3 His strange Purgation; never before practised by any Docter
in England. 4 The manner and reason why he swallows Bullets and Stones. 5 How he orders his bak'd meat, or rare Dish on Sundays. 6 How to make his new fashion Fish-broath. 7 How to make his Sallet, for cooling the blood. 8 How to make his new Dish, called a Frigazee: the operation whereof, expells all sadness and melancholy. By J. Harriot, of Grays-Inn, Gent. London, Printed for George Horton, 1652. 4 leaves.
26.	To day a man, To morrow none: Or, Sir Walter Rawleighs Farewell to his Lady, The night before he was beheaded: Together with his advice concerning her and her sonne. London. Printed for R. H. 1644. 4to. 4 leaves.
27.	The Sea-Mans Triumph. Declaring the honorable actions of such gentlemen Captaines and Sailers, as were al the takings of the great Carrick, lately brought to Dartmouth, with her burthen and commodities, with the maner of their fight, and names of men of accompt. With the burning of an other Carrick at the Hand of Flowers, of the burthen of 900. Tunnes and vpward, written for trueth to a gentleman of great worship in London. London Printed by R. B. for William Barley and are to be solde at his shop in Gratious street. 1592. 4to. (Black letter.)
28.	The Last Will and Testament of Charing Crosse, Very use full for the Wits of the Time. Printed in the yeare 1646. 4to.
29.	Crete Wonders foretold by Her crete Prophet of Wales, which shall certainly happen this present year 1647. by strange fires, and crete waters, by spirits and Tivills, appearing in many places of tis Kingdome, especially in and about te Cities of London and Westminster, and the effects that will follow thereupon. Also her Kings coming home to her Crete Counsell. Printed with her free consent and leave, to be published and sold to her teere Pretren of England, with all her plood and heart. 1647. 4to.
30.	Historia Histrionica: an Historical Account of the English Stage, shewing the ancient Use, Improvement, and Perfection, of Dramatick Representations, in this Nation in a Dialogue of Plays and Players. London Printed by G. Croom, for William Haws at the Rose in Ludgate-street. 1699. 4to.
A Pleasant Conceited Historic, called The taming of a Shrew. As it was sundry times acted by the Right honorable the Earle of Pembrook his seruants. Printed at London by Peter Short and are to be sold by Cuthert Burbie, at his shop at the Royall Exchange. 1594. 4to.
A new Enterlued for Chyldren to playe, named Jacke Jugeler, both wytte, and very playsent. (Imprynted at London in Lothbury by me Wyllyam Copland.) 4to.
A new Enterlude called Thersytes. 11 Imprinted at London by John Tisdale and are to be solde at hys shop in the vpper ende of Lombard strete, in Alhallowes churche yarde neare vntoo grace church. 4to.
Kemps nine daies wonder. Performed in a daunce from London to Norwich. Containing the pleasure, paines, and kinde entertainment of William Kemp betweene London and that Citty in his late Morrice. Wherein is somewhat set downs worth note; to reprooue the slaunders spred of him: many things merry, nothing hurtfull. Written by himself to satisjie his friends. London. Printed by E. A. for Nicholas Ling, and are to be solde at his shop at the west doore of Saint Paules Church. 1600. 4to.
Tarlton's Jests, drawne into these three parts:
1.	His Court—witty lests.
2.	His Sound City lests.
3.	His Countrey-pretty lests.
Full of Delight, Wit, and Honest Mirth. London, printed byl.H. 1638. 4to.
The Romance of Kynge ApoUyn of Thyre. From the Unique Original, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 1510, in the Library of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, K.G. Limited to Twenty-one copies.
^incase.
BY A “’BACCa” LAUREATE.
[Puck, October 16,1878.]
Though day by day I travel nigh
Tobacco stores, I never buy
The “filthy weed”—oh, no, for I Know better.
My game is this—I do intend,
As often as I meet a friend, To ask him unto me to lend His “Solace,”
Or “Golden Cloud,” or “Rifle Cake,” or whatsoever he may have. I’m not Particular, so that he has got
Tobacco.
I take a pipeful, when it’s gone
I “skirmish” for another one;
Though, I confess, it seems not sweet
To know that some call me a “beat.”
Yet I care not, for in this way
I get enough to smoke each day.	W. M. L.
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THE VIRGINIA TOBACCO JOURNAL is published every Thursday Morning by Jones, Marstin, & Co., No. 724, Main Street, Richmond, Va. Terms of Subscription: Single copies, 10c.; one year, $4; six months, $2. Annual Subscriptions abroad: Great Britain and Canada, $5.04; Bremen, Hamburg, and the Continent, $5.04; Australia, &c., vid England, $5.04; Cuba, $5.04.
SMOKING:
WHEN INJURIOUS, WHEN INNOCUOUS, WHEN BENEFICIAL, WITHOOMPBNDIUM OF THE TEMPERAMENTS, SHOWING HOW THEY ABB INFLUENCED BY
TOBJLOOO.
BY
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Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4s.
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A JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOR GREAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND THE COLONIES.
THE PRINTERS’ REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Home and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India, China, Canada, Ac.; and it affords the best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August, 1875.
Address—The Editob, St. Bride Street, London, E.C.
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SOLACE. One Shilling Bundles, containing 4 Cigars.
ENGLAND’S BEST. One Shilling Bundles, containing 6 Cigars.
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BONDED TOBACCO WORKS,
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252	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[Novembeb, 1878.
These really beautiful Goods are rapidly growing into favour, and invariably make a trade wherever introduced.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes.
In Cardboard Boxes, containing SO.
In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1OOO, with lock and key.
Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made from a peculiar kind of Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking of this Tobacco is said to give relief in cases of Asthma.
COPE’S CIGARILLOS.
FAIRY BRAND, in CARDBOARD BOXES, GOLD MOUNTED, with BEAUTIFUL PARISIAN LABEL, CONTAINING TEN Internal PACKETS of TEN CIGARILLOS EACH._________________________
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In Bundles of ten, lead foil, and neat label. In Cedar Boxes, containing forty bundles, or 400 Cigarettes.
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Bouquet (With Tubes).
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Delicate in favour; burn evenly, with a firm white ash; made with great care for a mild morning smoke.
COPE BROTHERS & CO.
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Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
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In our series of articles on “ Tobacco Smuggling in the Last Generation” (May to November, 1878), founded on the Report of the Select Committee appointed by the House of Commons in 1844, it was clearly shown (1) That the honest trade was then in a ruinous condition; (2) That this was owing to the enormous prevalence of Smuggling and Adulteration, which moreover seriously defrauded the bulk of the consumers as well as the Revenue, and gravely demoralised large classes of the community; (3) That this in its turn was owing to the enormous inequity (which means iniquity) of the duties; (4) That the vast mass of the evidence from all sides converged to indicate, as the one efficient remedy for a state of things so disastrous and demoralising, such a large reduction and readjustment of the duties as would transform their iniquity into equity. We have seen that, despite the truly statesmanlike efforts of its Liberal members, headed by the Chairman, Mr. Joseph Hume (certainly not given to wanton waste of the National Revenue), the Select Committee, under the influence of that by no means eminent Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Goulburn, refused (though only by 6 to 5 out of 15) to be governed by the autnoritative evidence itself had invoked, and to recommend such equitable reduction and readjustment of duties; that, on the contrary, by its voting majority, with an effrontery of cynicism as portentous as its cunning unwisdom, it calmly avowed itself ruled by the unprincipled principles which from an early period (even the period of that learned ass, James I.) had regulated (i.e., disturbed, disordered, and viciously impeded) the import of Tobacco—“principles different from those applied to other imported commodities; ” proclaiming as its absolute law and precedent, to be enforced and perpetuated to the uttermost, what will well bear quoting again:—“ That the duty imposed on it [Tobacco] has had no other object than that of raising th^ greatest possible revenue; and with that view the duty has not only been far beyond that imposed on any other article, and beyond that to which on commercial principles alone it might have been right to subject it, but has been accompanied by a total prohibition of the growth of it in the United Kingdom, lest such growth should in any way interfere with the amount of importation and the duty derived therefrom.” Smokers should ever bear in mind, with profound love and gratitude, this glorious Golden Rule of our enlightened and beneficent Legislature in all its dealings with Tobacco. Put briefly, for better remembrance, it runs: Utmost possible extortion; without any regard to justice, to sound commercial principles, or to the interests of native vendor and purchaser. Nothing can be more simple; except the perverse simplicity of pseudo-statesmen who have thus treated a vast home trade responsive to a vast home want, and the stupid simplicity of the Trade and public who have endured such extortion so long.
However, the Weed has proved itself marvellously tough, inveterate and prolific; not to be blasted by any royal Counterblast, or weeded out by all the rakes of Parliament: wherever it once gets root, it infallibly grows and flourishes and spreads in all directions, though the heathen Antis rage, though the Kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against it. So the long-suffering Trade struggled on as it best could under unjust, impolitic and unnecessary restrictions; and that much-enduring army of martyrs the Smokers and Snuffers and Chewers kept on adding to its numbers and almost year by year increasing its tribute to the insatiable Exchequer. The Smokers &c., are such a good patient paying race! From 4d. to 6d. for a
pound of their comforting herb; nearly ten times as much for the duty on it: so superlative is the solace, that they can bear and forbear as serenely stoical as Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius. What Paul-Louis Courier said of his French people applies yet more forcibly to us, the mild-eyed innocents of Golden-Cloud-Land:—“ The people pays, is an axiom of all times, all countries, all governments. But the French [read, the Tobacco] people is distinguished among all on this point, and piques itself on paying largely, on supporting magnificently those who take charge of its affairs; whatever their nation, condition, merit or quality; wherefore it never lacks such . . . it is so good-natured; people charming, light, volatile, mobile, variable, mutable, [how all these epithets apply to Smoke!] but always paying [how this epithet applies to Smokers !] Who has said it ? I know not; Bonaparte or some other: the people exists in order to pay.” (Lettre VII. Au R^dacteur du Censeur.) And who can deny that we poor smokers fulfil, and more than fulfil this chief end of our existence ?—according to the very first answer in the Shorter Catechism of all ministers of finance.
By Act 26 Viet., cap. 7, the following Alterations in the Customs Tariff on Tobacco came into force on the 27th March, 1863. (Eighth Report of The Commissioners of her Majesty's Customs; 1864. Appendix D.)
(1)	Unmanufactured, containing less than 10 lbs. of moisture in every 100 lbs. weight thereof; Duty raised from 3s. l^d. to 3s. 6d. per lb. (Doubtless to check the not-enough-harassed home manufacture, and abate the insolence of the pampered poor who consumed the bulk thereof.)
The unmanufactured containing 10 or more than 10 per cent, moisture was left at 3s. l^d.; and was naturally thenceforward the main article imported.
(2)	Manufactured: Segars; Duty lowered from 9s. 5^d. to 5s. per lb. (To generously encourage the Foreigner at the expense of the Native; to lighten the burdens of the unfortunate rich; to nearly double the already monstrous disproportion ad valorem between the Segars of the noble upper classes and the ’Bacca of the ignoble lower classes.)
(3)	Snuff, containing more than 13 lbs. of moisture in every 100 lbs. thereof; Duty lowered from 6s. 3 Ad. to 3s. 9d. per lb. (More disinterested encouragement of the Foreign Manufacturer at the expense of the Native.)
(4)	Snuff, not containing more than 13 lbs. &c.; Duty lowered from 6s. 3^d. to 4s. 6d. per lb. (Ditto, ditto.)
(5)	Cavendish or Negro-head; Duty lowered from 9s. 5^d. to 4s. 6d. per lb. (Fair enough in relation to unmanufactured, but both grossly unfair in themselves, and in relation to Foreign Cigars.)
(6)	Manufactured in Bond. Prohibited before; hereby allowed; Duty 4s. per lb.
(7)	Other manufactured Tobacco; Duty lowered from 9s. 5 Ad. to 4s. per lb. (So that the poor rich should pay 6d. less duty on their Turkey, Latakia, and the like costly growths, than the bloated poor on their cheap Cavendish or Negro-head.)
As the people who have once learned to love Tobacco will have it (so truly is it become a necessary of life), even if to get it they must stint their food, probably scanty enough at the best, the importation continued to increase in spite of all harassing restrictions and the prodigious Duties. A Trade Circular, dated June 1878, remarks: “ During the last 20 years (before the additional Duties of this year) the fair trade had settled down into tolerable working order; Tobacco planters, manufacturers, and retailers co-operating to produce the articles required by the bulk of English consumers at prices adapted to the subdivisions of our currency and standard weights. In
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this they have been materially assisted by the introduction of new growths of Tobacco.”
But better than any general statement, the following Table (from the Annual Reports of the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Customs; Appendix F in each), will make manifest the progress of the Trade, before the gross imposition of the new duties.
Account shewing the Net Annual Receipt (after deduction of Drawbacks and Repayments) of Customs Duties in the United Kingdom on Tobacco and Snuff for the Ten Years ending 31st December, 1877; and shewing also Increase or Decrease each year as compared with the year preceding.*
1868 .... 6,530,228	Increase......... 34,518
1869 .... 6,585,733	............. 55,505
1870 .... 6,584,211	Decrease ........... 1,522
1871	....	6,760,388 Increase............ 176,177
1872	....	6,962,000	„	 201,611f
1873 .... 7,249,472	............. 287,472
1874	....	7,434,488	„	  185,018;
1875	....	7,632,003	„	........ 197,515
1876	....	7,749,970	„	........ 117,967
1877	....	7,991,289	„	  241,321§
We have thus an aggregate increase in the ten years of £1,497,104 against an isolated decrease of only £1522.
The return of Imperial Revenue of the United Kingdom, already mentioned, brings us a quarter further, being for the financial year ending 31st March, 1878. It does not give us the drawbacks and repayments on Tobacco separately, nor, consequently, the net receipt, giving these only on the Customs Duties in gross; but it does give the gross receipt on each class of Tobacco; and the reader's attention is particularly called to the fact that of the aggregate gross receipt on Tobacco (including Segars, Snuff, and Foreign Manufactured ), being £8,100,153, no less than £7,767,193, or very nearly 96 per cent, was paid on the unmanufactured, containing 10 or more than 10 per cent, of moisture, and subject therefore to the old duty of 3s. 1/od. per lb.
Such was the state of things when the pitiable Budget of 1878 was introduced. The Earl of Beaconsfield having resolved that his remarkable career, like any other pantomime, should end in a grand transformation scene lurid with red and blue fire and blazing Bengal lights, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was, of course, called upon to provide the funds for this brilliant entertainment. Generally, astute Hebrews furnish the money to reckless young Christians determined to cut a dash; and, as the interest is enormous and the security unquestionable, the sons of Jacob make a very good business of it. But in this case, a poor, simple Christian, a mild, well-meaning, molluscous, invertebrate young man—once of some promise as a pupil of Mr. Gladstone, and w’ho should never have been allowed to emerge from pupilage, had to find the cash for the reckless extravagance of an Imperial Premier. This unfortunate pupil who ought never have been set free from pupilage had long since muddled away the large surplus left him by his late master, and was very sorely puzzled how to make both ends meet, and was wandering and pondering in deep dejection when he happened to come across a poor working man out of work, with a short clay pipe in his mouth and a sorry cur at his heels. Then did this much-harassed Chancellor of the Exchequer lift up his hands and eyes in fervent thankfulness to heaven, and exclaim: ‘‘I have struck a bright! That bloated and pampered working man out of work pays only 5s. a year on that magnificent mongrel; he shall pay 7s. 6d., and the same shall be paid on every foxhound, greyhound, staghound, however costly it may have been to the poor, dear, rich master. And that same bloated and pampered working man out of work pays only about 5d. for duty against Id. for ’Baccy out of every 6d. he wastes on his vile smoking; he gets a whole half-ounce for ljd., while if he were a Dutchman in Holland he would only get about a quarter-pound for the same money!—he shall pay another 4^d. per lb., nearly another 100 per cent. ad valorem on his weed, and the poor, dear, persecuted, rich man must also pay another 4;^. per lb. on his precious cigars. Eureka! I have found it; the Budget is made. Yes; because Tobacco has always been burdened with duties monstrously disproportionate in excess, and because, in spite of this, it persists in yielding more and more to the Revenue, we will put an extra heavy load upon it, and see whether we cannot exhaust the obstinate critter.”||
So said, so done: the Cur-and-Cutty Budget, reinforced by
•Tn the year 1825 the Duties on nil imported articles except tea and in 1834 the Duty on tea also (which Duties had before been partly collected by the Excise), were placed wholly under the Customs. (First Annual Customs Import, 1857; Appendix H. Note.) But in addition to the Customs Duties, Tobacco yields revenue to the Excise in Duties on the Home Manufacture and Licences to the Retailers. Thus, in the Financial Year ending 31st March, 1878, the Inland Revenue, Excise, received £7,817 5s. from 600 Manufacturers; and .£80,836 11k. 5|d. from 802,129 Dealers in Tobacco. (Imperial Revenue: Return to an Order of the House of Commons, Sth July, 1878.) How much it yields further to the Inland Revenue under the head of Stamps, &c., we have no means of calculating.
| Discrepancy of £1 in Receipt of 1871, between Reports 1872 and 1873.
J Ditto £2 in 1873, Reports 1874 and ’75.
§ Ditto £2 in 1876, Reports 1877 and ’78.
H “At all events that is the proposal of the Government, and they have selected the article of Tobacco for the subject of additional taxation because it is one the produce of which has been steadily rising year by year, and in the present year it has produced a very considerable amount more than was anticipated.”—Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget Speech.
that unfailing solace for financial imbecility, an additional Income Tax, was passed, and remains for the admiration of posterity. True, a notorious Radical, one Sir Charles Dilke, moved a resolution condemning the proposed increase in the Tobacco duty on the (frivolous and sort of Socialist) grounds *4 that it will stimulate smuggling, and will aggravate the disproportion between the rates charged on the Tobacco of the rich and the poor, at present ranging from 5 to 500 per cent.” Need it be stated that the gallant Tories, who have always been so nobly generous in disposing of the People’s money, mustered in force against the Radical agitator with his odious comparison of rich and poor? His resolution was negatived by 164 to 31; not a “mechanical majority,” as they are so often falsely and malignantly termed, for there is not a single mechanic among them; they are all gentlemen, most of them rich, many of them belonging to noble families. Why, a base “ mechanical majority,” or majority of mechanics, used to paying 3d. or 4d. an ounce for their ’Baccy, might have been brutal enough to kick out the Ministry, so that we should never have won the blessing of “Peace with Honour ” at all!
Before offering a few humble comments on this beneficent Budget of wisdom, in so far as it deals with Tobacco, let us see what the Monthly Board of Trade Accounts relating to Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom have to tell of the Imports of Tobacco and quantities remaining in bond from January, 1877, to March, 1878, before the additional Duty was imposed (it came into force on 5th April, 1878), and from April to October, 1878, after such imposition,—a damnable imposition indeed.
BEFORE THE NEW DUTY.
H^me Con-
1877.	Imports: lbs.		sumption: lbs.	In Bond: lbs.
Jany.	Unmanufactur’d Manfd. & Snuff	2,649,760 415,645	4,472,805 130,000	92,331.893 3,056,334
Feby.	Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. & Snuff	2,024,449 335,664	3,774,691 111,370	89,213,813 3,163,561
Mar.	Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. & Snuff	2,067,702 411,543	4,055,736 104,241	86,071,820 3,268,559
April	Un manufactur’d Manf’d .& Snuff	1,695,605 379,029	4,013,122 112,845	83,645,665 3,302,750
May	Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. & Snuff	2,413,122 337,532	4,256,635 106,960	80,746,033 3,321,567
June	Unmnnufactur’d Manf’d. & Snuff	3,215,421 272,590	3,805,019 98,222	78,520,906 3,185,335
July	Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. & Snuff	12,401,754 231,393	4,100,551 105,241	85,778,945 3,147,629
Aug.	Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. & Snuff	17,414,426 210,209	4,215,771 100,966	97.365,337 3,075,126
Sept.	Unmanufactur’d Manfd. & Snuff	12,267,608 369,922	3,909,203 97,538	105,048,843 3,098.766
Oct.	Un manufactur’d Manfd. A Snuff	12,581,692 330,914	4,560,114 128,272	111,960.877 3,085,502
Nov.	Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. & Snuff	5,103,105 256,615	4,243,202 138,636	112,008,713 3,035,375
Dec. 1878.	Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. & Snuff	2,115,087 303,334	3,893,209 111,971	108,813,523 3,092,136
Jany.	Unmanufactur’d Manfd. & Snuff	2,122,454 346,143	4,545,593 130,742	105,213,082 3,111,811
Feby.	Unmanufactur’d Manfd. & Snuff	1,696,461 328,044	3,796,643 116,832	101,997,392 3,166,275
March	Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. Ar Snuff	1,624.829 173,377	4,073,102 114,643	96,021,422 3,040,388
AFTER THE NEW DUTY: FROM 5th APRIL, 1878.
	Home Con-	In Bond: lbs.
	Imports :	sumption:	
	lbs.	lbs.	
April Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. & Snuff	4,082,063 4,832,235 467,325	168,047	93,014,219 3,116,902
May Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. & Snuff	2,869,057 4,527,564 446,452	118,942	89,725,003 3,234,752
June Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. & Snuff	3,892,709 2,709,519 248.554	87,922	88,503,415 3,155,640
July Unmanufactur’d Manfd. & Snuff	16,326,658 3,773,168 685,840	122,731	100,029,783 3,517,800
Aug. Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. & Snuff	18,853,826 3,787,166 272,984	105,756	114,439,891 3,547,346
Sept. Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. <t Snuff	18,494,294 3,803,635 261,163	99,468	128,211,340 3.232,867
Oct. Unmanufactur’d Manf’d. & Snuff	10,046,445 4,167,664 352,271	121,369	133,381,067 3,288,892
FOR THREE MONTHS, ENDING MARCH 31st. Home Con-Imports:	sumption:	In Bond: 1878.	lbs.	lbs.	lbs.		
1876. Unmanufactur’d Manfd. & Snuff	6,632,524 12,085,777 904,078	374,182	71,718.650 2,798,849
1877. Unmanufactur’d Manf’d.-& Snuff	6,741,911 12,303,232 1,162,852	345,611	85,818.231* 3,129,031
1878. Unmanufactur’d Manfd. & Snuff	5,433,774 12,415,338 847,564	362,217	96,021,422 3,040,388
• Corrected in Return for March, 1878, from that for March, 1877; according to the latest Returns of Receipts and Deliveries.
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FOR FOUR MONTHS, ENDING APRIL 30th.
Home Con-
Imports:	sumption:	In Bond:
lbs.	lbs.	lbs.
1876. Unmanufactur’d 8,734,956 15,802,449 69.382,891 Manfd. & Snuff	1,388,261	477,671	2,950,508
1877.	Unmanufactur’d	8,437,516	16,316,354	82,762,598*
Mauf’d. & Snuff	1,541,881	458,456	3,197,936
1878.	Unmanufactur’d	9,515,807	17,217,573	93,014,219
Manf’d. & Snuff	1,314,889	530,264	3,116,902
FOR SIX MONTHS, ENDING OCTOBER 31st.
Home Con-
Imports:	sumption:	In Bond:
lbs.	lbs.	lbs.
1876.	Unmanufactur’d	59,307,042	23,883,748	97,649,009
Manfd. & Snuff	1,738,865	682,469	2,826,664
1877.	Unmanufactur’d	60,294,023	24,847,293	111,960,877
Manfd. & Snuff	1,690,560	637,199	3,085,502
1878.	Unmanufactur’d	70,482,989	22,768,716	133,381,067
Manfd. & Snuff	1,916,664	656,188	3,288,892
By the three last Tables we see that the home consumption of unmanufactured Tobacco, which, as the figures show, is the main consumption, being between thirty and forty times that of the manufactured of all kinds, including segars and muff and on which, as already shown, the new Tax bears with nearly its whole weight, being immensely more ad valorem on it than on the Foreign manufactured, Segars and Snuff;—we see that this home consumption, which rose so steadily up to the imposition of the new Tax, fell in the six months after its imposition more than One Million lbs. below that of the corresponding period in 1876, more than Two Million lbs. below that of the corresponding period in 1877.
Translating the Home Consumption of the Unmanufactured in the last Table into Amount of Duty paid (having no data for reckoning that of the Manufactured, which varies with the various proportions of Segars, Cavendish, and other Foreign Manufactured), and neglecting the petty quantity of Unmanufactured paying 3s. (»d. in 1876 and 1877,—it paid only £216 gross in Year Ending March 31, 1878, we have the following result:—
FOR SIX MONTHS ENDING OCTOBER 31st.
Home Con-	Amount Duty,
Year	Duty per lb.	sumption: lbs.	£	s.	d.
1876.	3s.	Ud.	23,883,748	3,761.690	6	2^
1877.	„	24,847,293	3,913,448 12 11T^
1878.	3s.	6d.	22,768,716	3,984,525	6	0
A wretched increase in 1878 compared with 1877 of £71,077. Add to this the extra d^d. per lb. on the 656,188 lbs. Home Consumption of Foreign Manufactured of all kinds, £11,483; and we have £82,560 as the whole Half-Year’s Increase produced by an extra and extra-iniquitous duty, which that dolefullest of optimists the Chancellor of the Exchequer reckoned to produce £859,000 in the year! f For here be it remarked, for the benefit of the general reader (the unfortunate trade know it only too thoroughly), that the vast and unprecedented increase during the four months ending 31st October, 1878, of the quantity of Tobacco left in Bond, means simply a vast and unprecedented hesitation or inability to clear out by paying Duty, or, in other words, heavy trade difficulties and extensive financial embarrassments among Manufacturers and Retailers, and possibly Brokers.
When those interested and experienced in the Tobacco trade had recovered from their first stunned astonishment at the monstrosity of a new imposition (even by a Government of Imposition and Impositions) on what had so long been the worst-used article in the Budget, they found certain huge dismal facts staring them blankly in the face. Let us in turn stare at some of these facts.
(1)	As we have already seen, the Return of Imperial Revenue of the United Kingdom for the Financial Year, ending 31st March, 1878, shows that £7,767,193 out of the £8,100,153 gross duties paid on Tobacco, or nearly 96 per cent., was paid on the Unmanufactured at the old rate of 3s. l*8d., the Unmanufactured at 3s. 6d. paying only £216; Foreign Segars, £310,207 ; Foreign Cavendish or Negro-head, £2,856; Manufactured in Bond, £8196; other Foreign Manufactured, £11,458; Foreign Snuff of both classes, £27. Whence it was clear that almost the whole weight of the new tax must bear upon the Home Manufacturer, not upon the Foreign; upon the lower middle and poorer classes, not upon the rich.
(2)	The great bulk of the Tobacco consumed by the great mass of the people is purchased from day to day as required, in half-ounces, or at most ounces. How with our coinage distribute 4'2d. fairly among 32 half, or even 16 whole ounces ? The Manufacturers’ profits cannot bear the reduction of this tax, nor the struggling Retailer’s; the poor man must pay double extra duty, Jd. on his half-ounce, or have his Tobacco
* Corrected in Monthly Return for April, 1878, from that for April, 1877. According to the latest Returns of Receipts and Deliveries.
f * The present duty upon Tobacco is one according to scale, but the great bulk of Tobacco unmanufactured containing 10 per cent, of moisture is now charged 3s 2d., or as nearly as possible. I think the exact amount is 3s. Ifd., and we propose to raise it to 3s. 6d., and that it is estimated, will raise the receipts from Tobacco to £8,728,000. The gross revenue in 1876-7 was £7^64/XX), and the probable gross increase is estimated at £859,000.”
—Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget Speech.
debased—say, watered like the stock of a roaring Joint-Stock Company seeking whom it may devour.
(3)	The immense majority of the Home-made Cigars are purchased, not in boxes, but singly; and on these, when loss and waste in manufacture are taken into account, the new tax grows from 4 2d. to about 6}d. per lb. Again, how will our currency divide 6}d. equally among 100 Cigars ? Purchasers of Cigars in ones or twoes or threes must pay several times the extra duty (from |d. to ^d. on each, instead of about a quarterfarthing) or put up with a deteriorated article.
(4)	Hence, inevitably, serious injury and even disorganisation of the whole honest trade. Retailers distracted between goods dear and pleasant that may loose them custom, and bads cheap and nasty (commerce needs the word bads certainly not less than goods in these days) that may disgust customers; manufacturers in like distraction; consumers always dissatisfied and indignant, either at highness of price or lowness of quality.
(5)	Hence, also inevitably, another invasion of Smuggling and Adulteration, more formidable than ever before, by the vast increase of navigation and the subtle secrets of science; to the great detriment of the Revenue, the havoc if not ruin of the honest trade, the serious injury of the mass of the consumers, and the demoralisation of large classes of the community.
Some of the increased adulteration will come to light when Officialdom, by science, luck, or (more probably) the help of venal and vile informers, is enabled to detect it. As for the increased smuggling, some little of it has already come to light, as at Hull, Bristol, dtc.; and this may give us hints as to the quantity that has been successfully concealed. Take Bristol. On Friday, November 22, 1878 (as reported in the Bristol Mercury of the next day), three cases were submitted to the police court. A baker on board a steamer was convicted of concealing two tins of Tobacco, 6} lbs., in the paint room; penalty inflicted treble value (with duty), £5 13s. 9d. and costs. A captain of a steamship was convicted of concealing 53 lbs. Tobacco and 2 lbs. cigars in a false bulkhead hidden with putty, behind a chest of drawers in his stateroom; penalty inflicted £100. A fireman of a steamer was convicted of concealing 50 lbs. After rummaging the vessel fruitlessly, the officers seeing persons on board well known to be engaged in smuggling, and also noticing an incautious light moving among the coals, boarded again, and after removing some tons of coals in the bunkers, found the Tobacco in black canvas bags, so compressed and shaped that they could scarcely be distinguished from blocks of coal. Penalty inflicted £100 ; in default imprisonment, not over six months.
Mr. Pagden, Collector of Customs, who prosecuted in these cases, pressed for the full penalty in each, and thus stated his reasons for so doing:—The smuggling carried on at Bristol is so great that it interferes with legitimate trade. Only since August last the quantity of detected Tobacco dealt with by the Customs officers in Bristol reached from a quarter to half a ton, and the total fines inflicted amounted to between £700 and £800. I have the very best information that this wholesale smuggling in Bristol has caused a very serious interference with legitimate trade. In this port and district merchants pay very nearly £400,000 a year in duties. They also pay immense sums in Liverpool and London; and I think that where any trade is so taxed, every effort should be made to prevent the illicit trader carrying on his operations.—Very good, Mr. Collector Pagden; but, unfortunately, all experience proves that no possible efforts can prevent illicit and fraudulent trading, when an article is so enormously overtaxed that smugglers and adulterators have the prospect of enormous profits. We come back to the solid conclusion of our old and sagacious friend of the last generation, Mr. Joseph Hume: “The honest trader ought, however, to be protected; and by concurring testimony, the best and the simplest remedy would be a reduction of the duty to Is. per pounds Assuredly we are not likely to obtain this reduction, or any part of it, under the present Imperial dispensation; but, fortunately, our Ministry is not only Tory, but transitory. In the meantime, to prepare the way for such reduction from iniquity to equity, to convince the public conscience and mind of the justice and wisdom thereof, our summons to the trade, the 600 manufacturers and 300,000 odd retailers, is “ Union or the Union;” our summons to the millions of oppressed, over-patient smokers, “ Fume, fume, furiously fume.”
Sigvat.
BWS a* ^o^an ®m Basile.
XI.—DIDN’T YOU KNOW? OR, WHY VON KELDER TOOK TO SMOKING.
“There’s a hope for every woe, And a balm for every pain.”
Jolly old Von Kelder used often to drop in to see us at Rowan Tree Castle. Jolly Von we always called him, either behind his back or before his face; and jolly Von he was, too. Why, he was so fat and so rotund, and so ruddy, that it made you laugh even to look at him. Jolly Von always sat in our very easiest arm-chair, whether indoors in winter, or out of doors on the lawn, under canvas, in summer time. A merry
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twinkling eye had Von, and a beard be-tinged with grey, and hair cropped so closely to his big round head, that he might just have come out of gaol, for anything a stranger could have told to the contrary.
We liked best to see Jolly Von on summer evenings, with a quart pewter of ale at his elbow—a pint measure would have seemed quite out of place in Von’s hands—and supporting, with loving left hand, the bowl of that huge meerschaum of his; while clouds of pearly smoke wreathed his brows, and rolled lazily up to the top of the tent. Jolly Von found it most convenient on these occasions to sit with his legs stretched out in front of him, and reclining thus, looked the very picture of contented amiability.
There is no saying what all Jolly Von Kelder had been, and done, since his boyhood. A filibuster and a free lance, he candidly confessed he had been; and it did occasionally ooze out—late of an evening, you know—that Jolly Von had landed many a bale of ’Baccy, and many a tun of French brandy, and had quite forgotten to call at the Custom-house; and that, moreover, Jolly Von—but, tell it not in Bath, publish it not in the streets of Enniskillen—had more than once run a cargo of slaves across from African waters. Yet all in a kindly way, I’ll go bound; for Von wouldn’t have done harm to a mouse, so kindly was the heart within him.
Von’s English was not the most elegant, but, on the whole, we rather liked to hear him speak; he was always interesting, and at times very amusing, so you may be sure we were never sorry, when we succeeded in drawing him into a bit of a yarn of an evening.
“What you say,” said Von one night, “is one very serious miss-take, I sware to you it is; all Dutchmans are not born with a pipe between their lips. Indeed, there among them many who leeve and leeve all der lives, and nee ver, nee ver smoke one leetle puff.”
“But you were born with that meerschaum in your hand, weren’t you, Von?”
“You will par-don me,” replied Von, “but I was not so, I sware to you I was not. And I deed not know the blessing of a pipe, until I was so old as forty year.”
“ Stay,” he continued, and I winked to Roddy, knowing we were about to hoar a story, for Von shook the ashes from his pipe, reloaded the bowl and fired, then took three or four enormous pulls at the amber, the very first of which was succeeded by his immediate disappearance from our view. Being now in full blast, an arm emerged from the fragrant cloud, the newly-filled quart pot was seized and presently returned empty; and about the same time, the atmosphere getting clearer, Jolly Von was seen once more, in all the vigour and beauty of his own philosophical self.
“Look,” said Von, “look on this wasted form. [N.B., this Jolly Von didn’t weigh less than twenty-two stone, if he weighed an ounce.] Nay, it ees not a thing to make you smile. I once did scale thirty stones and more. That was what poets call, in de beautiful days of de past, about de time I first fall a victim to lofe. Neever, neever before have I feel de tender passion, until dat never-to-be-forgotten Friday when I betake myself for a leetle pleasure unto de gardens of Gray Morn. Den it was I first beheld de lofely Sally Tims. I could not tell you, I could not tell anyone, because I not know myself, how mooch I lofe her at first sight. She was not mooch bigger dan one leg of mine, but oh! she was charming. Den we dance togedder, de lofely Sal and I. Oh! by all dings! how we did dance! until I get so tire and hot, I doompled on de ground, and de lofely Sally she doompie too. Den we walk, and we talk, and all de while, de head of leetle Sal lie on my arm, like de bowl of dis beautiful pipe.
“ Was it any vonder I go home dat night wit’out my heart? Was it any vonder I go again anoder day to Gray Morn, and anoder, and anoder day? And den dere come one night, when we are quite alone by our two selves in one grove. Den I can not refrain from putting my arm round Sal’s meedle. I can not refrain from keesing Sal like every dings, and I say: * Sal, Sal, Sal, I lofe you as my life; will you, will you, be unto me a leetle wife? Do you lofe me, Sal, as I lofe you?’
“And—oh! bleesful emotion!—Sal she creep close unto me, she blush like one apricot; she look up to me wit’ her beautiful white and blue eyes, and she say: ‘Yes, yes, Von Kelder,’ she say, ‘I do lofe you dearly, ever since ve go virling through the valse, ever since we have doompled on de ground togedder, I have lofe you.’ Den she pause, and she open much more wide her beautiful white and blue eyes, and she say, wit’ sweet surprise in her voice: ‘Deedn’t you know?’
“‘Deedn’t you know!’ Ah! how dese tender words trill through de heart of Von Kelder! Dere and den I catch her in my two arms, and I squeeze her till she squeak. And all dat night in my dreams, one sweet angel did hover around my pillow, and it neever, neever said nodings, but ‘ Deedn’t you know?’”
Here the Jolly Von paused, and sighed at the sweet recollection, disappearing as he did so from our view, behind the fragrant clouds. Then he loomed out again, and proceeded:
“For six short weeks we court, de lofely Sal and I, and I make her much fine present—dresses of seelk, and chains of gold, and fine fedders for her hat, and reebons for her beautiful neck, and we dance much togedder at de Gray Morn garden; we go to de opera togedder, and to de play, and I take her here, dere, and everywheres, down de reever, and up into the whispering gallery, where I kees her much; but when I ask her why she will not name de day of blees, she make
reply to me: ‘Oh! Von Kelder, it is because I lofe to linger along de fiowery paths of courtship. Dat ees de reason— deedn’t you know?’
“Veil, one day I say to my Sal: * Sal, my lofe, to-morrow I cannot see you; I go to make money beeziness wit’ a friend.’
“So I go. But, ven our beeziness was ofer, my friend propose we shall go to Greenwich, and dine togedder. De deenner was goot; de wine was goot. But, as we sit out in de cool verandah, 0! my Got, what do I see but de lofely Sal, my Sal, come slowly down de road, valking on de arm of anoder fellow, and she look up to him wit* her beautiful blue and white eyes; and by-and-by he stoop and kees her. I want to roosh out, but my friend restrain me by de coat tail, and seat me down again. Den Sal and de oder fellow go up de hill, and den dey take each Oder’s hand, and run down, and at de foot dey doompie on de ground. My Got! do my eyes tell me de truth: my lofely Sal doompling wit’ anoder fellow? And now I will not be restrained. I jump up and run vildly forth, but I can not see Sal. Sal have disappear wit’ de oder fellow.
“Dat night I no can sleep. Next day seem very long, but de evening come at last, and I go to de Gray Morn to meet my Sal, wit’ de white and blue eyes; and I at once say to her: ‘ Sal,’ I say, ‘you can not deny vat I now say. Last night I see you at Greenwich, doompling on de ground wit’ anoder fellow.’
“But Sal did only laugh, and laugh, and laugh, till de tears come, and she hold her sides and say: ‘Oh! Von, Von, you silly old Von Kelder, you’ll kill me some day. De oder fellow was my broder. Deedn’t you know?’
“ Den we both laugh, and I kees Sal three time, and go virling round again in de mazy dance.
“ And often times after dis we meet de broder, and I stand de broder plenty treat. And Sal lofe de broder very mooch, and kees him plenty when dey meet and part. Meanwhile I, Von Kelder, look calmly on. It was only her broder. Ha! I know mooch better now.
“Well, one night I go to see my lofely Sal at de house of her moder; and I am, much to my surprise, introduce to thirteen of Sal’s sisters, two of her moders, and ten more broders. De sisters are all fery jolly, and do broders all fery funny, and de moders fery fat and fery frisky. It was Sal’s birthday, so I have to make present to eevery member of her family, de two moders and all. Den we have music, and we dance and dance, and drink and drink, till at de last I am overcome wit’ happiness, and all de rest is one dream, and next morning I am in bed. No money can I find, though, and I miss my watch of gold.
‘“Oh,” said the lofely Sal, ven she meet me next evening at Gray Morn, ‘you dear old Von Kelder,* she say, ‘you naughty old Von Kelder, to go and get tight last evening. My sisters and broders are so cross wit* you.’
“ ‘ And vere,’ I asked, ‘ oh, vere is my vatch of gold, and vere is my purse of sovereign mooneys?’
“Den Sal playfully shake one pretty finger in my face. ‘Yes,’ she say; ‘you are a vicked, bad boy, for you would insist upon giving the vatch to one Boliceman, and to the oder Boliceman you give de purse.’
“ ‘ Vot Boliceman you mean, Sal?’ I make reply, ‘ for I feel all de same as one dam fool.’
“ ‘ Vy,’ said Sal, ‘de Bolicemen vot carry you home, to be sure—deedn’t you know?’
“But my lovely Sal, one evening I meet her at de Gray Morn, and she seem sad, and she say: ‘Come to de grove, my own Von Kelder.’ And ven ve come to de grove, she put up her leetle arms around my neck; she come close, close to my stomach, and she make sob, sob, sob, and veep upon my vatch-chain.
“‘Sal, Sal!’ I say, ‘my lofely, lofely Sal, what ees de matter?*
“‘Oh! my poor broder!’ she sob, ‘my favourite broder! they have take and put in preeson for debt, and to-night I must throw myself from de Bridge of Waterloo. Goot-bye, dear Von Kelder, goot-bye,’ she say.
“But I hold her close to my stomach, and I say: ‘No Sal, my lofely Sal, you shall not do de Vaterloo business; your Von will pay your broder’s debts.*
“‘Oh! dear, goot, generous Von!* she cry, pulling me down by de beard, to kees me; ‘ ’Tis but a flea-bite; £200 will clear my broder’s feet.’
“ I think dis is de bite of one great big flea, but I can not speak, she kees me so.
“ * Beloved Von! ’ she murmur, ‘ and vat a pleasure it will give my poor broder to repay you ven he comes into his landed estates I ’
“‘His estates?’ I ask, and I feel more happy now.
“ ‘ Yes,* Sal reply, ‘ my darling broder is heir to the Marquis of Wastings—deedn*t you know?’ **
For the third time during his tale Von Kelder disappeared from our view behind his “azure cloud;” and this time we heard him groan.
“Good people all,” he resumed, “I now shall feenish my story. I pay de broder’s debts, and den I vant to take a house and vurnish him proper, and take my lofely Sal to my stomach for eever and for eever.
“But Sal say: ‘You darling, stoopid old Von Kelder, your Sal vill take de house, and vurnish him, and do all dings proper, wit’ de pleasure of lofe.’
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“ • Vat, Sal ? ’ I cry, wit’ ecstasy in my voice, ‘ den you are useful as well as lofely—you are able to do the beeziness?’
“ ‘ Bless it’s heart! ’ Sal say, looking lofely up in my face wit* her white and blue eyes. Den'she kees de lower button ot my vestcoat, and ‘ Vy,’ she say, * I have been brought up to do de beeziness—deedn’t you know? ’ ”
Here Jolly Von Kelder found it necessary to retire from our view for the fourth time, and to groan even more loudly than before. Then, dashing the smoke aside with both his hands, with something like despair in his manner, he continued:—
“Is it any vonder, my friends, that I am vasted and thin, any vonder I have dwindle down to twenty stones? I give my lofely Sal all my mooney. By Got! my friends, I do not keep for myself one blessed stiver, so much I trust her. I miss my Sal after dis, though, and in grief I go night after night to the Gray Morn, but Sal neever, neever come. Den one day I meet her on de street; she is dressed in de beautiful gilk and de droopin’ fedders vich my money have pay for, and she is leaning on the arm of a large man wit’ a brown beard and a gold eye-glass—a broder, I suppose.
“I roosh towards my Sal, I seize her hand, I beseech her to name de day of blees. Vat does my Sal do? Vy, she make one, two, three little skip backvards, and she seem ready to split wit’ laughing. ‘He! he! he I ’ she laugh, and de large man wit’ de brown beard and de gold eye-glass, he light one cigar, and say: ‘Blow me tight, if it ain’t as good as a farce!’
“‘Vy, old porpy,’ she cry, ‘I wouldn’t mind marrying you or any other podgy old fool, but ’—and here she give one dig in the stomach wit’ her barasol, dat quite double me up— Tm spliced already, porpy—deedn’t you know?’
“I sink down on de pave; I heed not de leetle boys. My lofely Sal vanishes like one dream.
“‘Good-bye, Porpy!’ she say, and avay she valks wit’ de man in brown viskers. and—I neever see her more.
“ But—blessed be Got in himmel! ”—continued the Jolly Von Kelder, “I have learn to smoke: Vat ees womans to me now? Vat ees grief ? Vat ees lofe ? Nodings!—Bah! ”
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
| Ueto Uicofian: ^tjion.*
ni.
After a grievous disenchantment and an awful tragedy, Giovanni thinks that he is armed for ever against the charms of women; but he is mistaken, as men are always sure to be mistaken in similar circumstances. He is introduced into the house of the advocate Francesco Salviati, as he had formerly been introduced into the house of the unfortunate chief physician of the hospital. Salviati has a very beautiful daughter, Maria; and she and Giovanni enter into friendly relations, which for a long time have more of an intellectual than a moral, more of a moral than an emotional character. Giovanni makes profound microscopical researches, in which and in the microscope Maria is led to take a lively and intelligent interest. The two friends pass from the infinitely small to the infinitely great, and discourse on the Unknown God, Giovanni varying the converse with speculations on his favourite theme Microgodia. All this part of the book, though it has its value, cannot, by analysis or abstract, be made attractive to our readers, whom it is our aim to entertain and our ambition to instruct.
Giovanni’s microscopical pursuits, his ethical and metaphysical ponderings, and his calm commune with Maria Salviati got a rude shock. He receives a letter from Attilio’s friend the apothecary, Emilio Bettelotti. Some fragments thereof suffice to present a fresh and sombre phase in Attilio’s history:—“It was only a month to the celebration of the marriage, and last Sunday we sallied forth to go on horses as far as Palermo. The party consisted of the two betrothed, of me, and of the father of Dolores. The weather was magnificent, and never had Dolores looked so beautiful. But, whether because she wore that afternoon a black silk dress, or because she was slightly indisposed, she seemed to us paler than usual. Scarcely had we left the city when Dolores dashed into a gallop, and we immediately followed her example. She was between me and Attilio. Lightly inciting her favourite bay with the point of her switch, and still more with a shout which sounded like a song, she seemed the creature the healthiest and happiest in the Universe. Suddenly I heard a piercing cry, a shriek so awful that I cannot describe it; then I saw Dolores, after pulling the reins violently to stop the horse, immediately drop them on the horse’s neck. I and Attilio reined up our horses close to that of Dolores. Poor Dolores put her left hand on her heart, and, pale as snow, she threw herself on the breast of Attilio. In this action was expressed the last thought, the last desire of the hapless girl; they could not be expressed in any other way, for she was unable to speak. In this action she had manifested the last need of her heart—that of leaning on him who should have been for her whole life her stay and her faithful companion. At first it was thought that Dolores was merely fainting; and the poor father, cherishing this delusion
* n Dio Ignoto. Di Paolo M&ntegazza, Milano. Libreria Editrice 0. Brigola. 1877.
after we had renounced it, went on exclaiming: ‘It is nothing serious! it is nothing serious! A carriage! a carriage!’ What was wanted was soon obtained: an empty volante was returning from Palermo, and, without delay, Dolores was placed in it. Dear Signor Giovanni, after an hour I could entertain no hope; but not till midnight did Attilio and the parents relinquish hope for despair. They called the state into which Dolores had fallen by all other names rather than death. Alas! alas! Dolores was dead! We feared for the reason of Attilio. For three days and three nights he did not open his mouth; and I believe that, even if he had wished it, he could not have been able either to eat, or drink, or speak, his jaws being convulsively immovable. Scarcely had he recovered speech when he expressed a wish to see me, though for long hours during those days and nights I had been present to give him what aid I could. He had not, however, been conscious of my presence. He seemed now desirous of making a long discourse to me; but all he could do was to throw his arms round my neck, and to utter, for a hundred and a hundred times, and evermore with a fresh outburst of sorrow, the name of Dolores. At last he could weep, and, after an abundant outpouring of tears, he was able to sleep. I thought that he was now recovering health of body and mind. But, when he awoke, he seemed to fall into delirium, and spoke of nothing but the pampa, whither he wished to go to civilise the Indians. At first I listened to his words as if they had been those of a madman. The physician, however, suggested the desirableness of encouraging the scheme, in order to divert the mind of Attilio from being plunged for ever in grief. The suggestion was not neglected, and the result was favourable; so that, a week ago, Attilio, after visiting the tomb of Dolores in my company, after kneeling on that very earth, which still bore marks of the gravedigger’s spade, departed from Buenos Ayres, with ten thousand lire given him by Signor Perez. He had with him at starting, a horse, two pistols, and a pair of alforjas, containing clothes and linen for a month. Close to his heart he bore a lock of the hair of Dolores and a little earth taken from her tomb. He would not tell us the exact point whither he intended to go, but he promised to write to us soon. He is accompanied by an old gaucho, who was prisoner for many years with the Indians, who latterly was peon in the saladero of Perez, who knows the pampa as well as the palm of his hand, and who is sure to be a very useful travelling companion to Attilio. The last words Attilio said to me were these:—‘Go often and visit the tomb of Dolores in my name, and write to my Giovanni my last tragedy, which has overwhelmed my whole felicity. I cannot now write myself. Farewell.’ Behold then, how I, without knowing you before, have had to accomplish this painful duty.”
Two years are now supposed to have elapsed, and it is anew Giovanni’s career that arrests us. The friendship of Giovanni and Maria insensibly assumes the depth, the tenderness, the warmth of love; though they are not at first conscious of the change. Through extravagance and mismanagement the affairs of Salviati fall into a bad state, and he seizes a desperate expedient to retrieve them. Once, when having gambled on the Stock Exchange as he was in the habit of doing, and having lost, he came home at midnight; but, instead of going to bed, he knocked at the door of Maria’s chamber. She was sitting up reading a new book of George Sand, which enchanted her. The light of a small lamp fell on her face, which glowed with the purest joy; that joy which the satisfactions of the intellect alone furnish.
“ Father, what fine novelty is this?”
She gazed at her father as if ugly novelty would have expressed her meaning better, for his countenance was very pale, and seemed no longer the same.
“ Nothing, my daughter; but I do not feel sleepy and wished to say good-night to you.”
“ Very well, dear father.”
“Will you allow me, Maria, to smoke a cigar?”
“But why all these compliments? You know very well that I do not smoke, but I am glad when others smoke.”
Signor Salviati took a cigar from his elegant case of Russian leather, put it into his mouth the wrong way, and completely forgot to smoke it.
“What nice book are you reading?”
“ A new volume of Sand.”
“By the way, guess whom I saw this evening, at the Casino of the Merchants ? ”
“Who could that be?”
“One who is desperately in love with you.” “There are so many in that predicament!”
“Ah! you proud creature! But it is one who loves you more than all the others put together; though you, according to your usual practice, gave him a summary dismissal.”
“ Is he young or old ? ” “Old.”
“Now I can easily guess. It is the Marchese De Lauri.” “Exactly.”
Maria did not laugh, for the accent with which her father had spoken was unusual and strange, and frightened her. She contented herself with answering: “And what did the Signor Marchese say about me?”
“ He said, among other things, that he was sorry he was only a marchese and had only two millions as a fortune; that he wished to be a duke or a prince, and to have a million a year, to lay the whole at your feet. * I am old,’ he said, ‘ but
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allow me to love and adore her for a few years; surviving me, she will be still young.’ ” “What horror!” These words burst irresistibly from Maria’s lips. The tone of the conversation grew more and more angry. Maria’s eyes grew red, and she was ready to weep. She fixed a very earnest glance on her father, to discover how far his talk was serious; and Signor Salviati, perceiving now for the first time that he had the cigar in his hand but did not smoke it, tried to light it; then all at once he cried, with increasing bitterness, “Do you know whom you should many, Maria? ” “Whom?” “Doctor Giovanni.” Maria grew very pale, and rose from her seat as if hurled from it by a hidden force. For a man who had a profounder knowledge of the human heart, and, above all, who had been placed in better moral conditions than Signor Salviati, it would have been easy to discover that Maria had finally been driven from her serene calm, that she had been wounded in a very sensitive point of her heart, and that, perchance, there had been revealed to herself at that moment a true passion, which had so far been concealed in the most hidden recesses of her soul. Signor Salviati perceived nothing of all this; was, in truth, not in the mood to perceive anything. He was preoccupied and in the worst humour. Keenly piqued, and not in the smallest degree moved by the tears of his daughter, he furiously lighted his cigar, inundating the chaste and virgin chamber of Maria with dense clouds of smoke. He took his hat and went away, grumbling between his teeth: “Good God! You are, Maria, a great fool. But a literary lady, a heroine of romance, ought surely to have felt for me.” Spite of her first irrepressible repugnance, Maida resolves to sacrifice herself to save her father from utter ruin, and she is called a martyr for so doing. But no woman, how divine soever the motive, should be compelled to marry, or should deem herself justified in marrying a man whom she loves not, and in forsaking a man whom she loves. Instead of being lauded as martyrdom, such a deed should be reprobated as a horrible crime; just as it is a crime, though a smaller one, to shoot beautiful birds in mere wantonness and call it sport, as Mantegazza’s hero, Attilio, was from boyhood in the habit of doing. Ere being raised to the ignoble dignity of Marchesa De Lauri, Maria has a long and tender interview one evening in a church with Giovanni, who now knows how much he is loved by a woman whom, perchance, he might never see more. Artistically considered, the picture of this pathetic scene has the highest merits. . But Attilio’s adventures are more exciting than Giovanni’s sufferings. Accompanied by his faithful peon, Attilio galloped on, galloped on, for days and days, through the infinite and monotonous wilderness of the pampa, never stopping except to sleep for a few hours on the bare ground or in some poor hut. After ten days of this ceaseless rush, Attilio learns that he is near the encampment of Colonel Mansilla, a real personage, as a note by the author states:—“I beg Colonel Mansilla’s pardon for venturing to present him to the readers of my book as an imaginary personage, seeing that he is as a real man alive, and is writing excellently on the Ranqueles, whom he has observed and studied with much interest.” Colonel Mansilla had been despatched by the Government at Buenos Ayres to form a covenant with the Ranqueles Indians. He gives Attilio a frank and fervent welcome, and appoints him his secretary. Let Attilio be again, as before, his own historian:—“For some days I have been living a camp life, and pass nearly my whole time under the tent of the Colonel, who has become attached to me with a rapidity altogether unknown in our European society, which is so distrustful and so reserved. His adjutants are gauchos, who know nothing but how to smoke, drink, and play at cards; consequently Mansilla, who is a cultivated man with a sharp intellect, is glad to have found a companion who can discourse on something besides cards and horses. Mansilla is a very handsome man, of about thirty-five years of age, with flowing locks and large and very black eyes. His moustaches blend with a beard black and glistening like silk, and which descends to his breast. He is very proud of his beauty, and wears a fantastical uniform, half Indian half European, and which seems made entirely to set off the elegance and the agility of his Apollinean frame. Round his neck he has a scarlet foulard; and he wears a white poncho, which does not hide but shows the sleeves of a uniform of red cloth. His breeches are of skin, and on his brilliant grenadier boots there are two large silver spurs. He is always smoking cigarrito*, and always taking matt; he is busy with both at every hour of the day and of the night; he never quits them but when he is sleeping or eating. I have seen him taking mat6 and smoking even at military reviews. We are now at the fort of Sarmiento, and we are making preparations for departure. These, how’ever, are not of a formidable kind. In the wilderness of the pampa the only thing essential is to be well mounted, and a good horse is the chief wealth, the chief defence, the instrument of everything. Everywhere are found ostriches, gamas, guanacos hares, gatos monteses, peludos, mulita*, mataco*, and other animals to hunt and to make a joyous banquet with. The Colonel, however, pays great attention to two mules, which are to bear the gifts to be offered to the Indians, namely, charque (dried flesh), sugar, salt, yerba, and coffee. We have here with us the	Indian Achanentrff, a diplomatist sent by the Ranqueles, and who is very happy when eating fat flesh and when making himself drunk every day with brandy. This morning Mansilla made a review of his soldiers, and gave intimation of the approaching departure, stating that toward the south, by the Camino Del Cuero, we should go to Lenbucd. Chiefly he wanted to know whether the horses of all were in good condition, the saddles in good order, and if every one had his ci fie well filled with water. Turning to me, as if with paternal solicitude, he told me to carry twice as much water as the others, forasmuch as I was not accustomed to bear thirst. I may mention that on one occasion, without being inclined to murmur, I went for seventy-two hours without food; but I could not resist the cravings of thirst for more than thirty-two hours. At the moment of starting, Achanentni came forth from the ranks of the horsemen, and approaching Mansilla with an air of mystery, tried to dissuade him from venturing further. ‘You have waited till now to give your counsel,’ said the Colonel. ‘I did not dare to contradict the Signor Colonel; but, now that I see him about to start for the settlement of the Ranqueles, I feel it my duty to warn him of the dangers which he is sure to encounter. My countrymen are treacherous, and, when they are drunk, they are capable of anything.’ Losing patience, Mansilla paid no attention to the observations of the Indian, who went on muttering some words, and who seemed in a lachrymose mood. A touch of the spur set the horses in movement, and soon the pampa resounded under the confused and tumultuous gallop of our soldiers. There were in all two battalions: the 12th of the line, mounted on very beautiful mules, and the 7th of cavalry, mounted on excellent horses. Tropilla* of horses followed us at some distance, and the mules carrying the gifts intended for the Ranqueles.” Whatever novelty or diversity there might be in Attilio’s new life, there was one thing w’hich varied not: the perpetual drinking of mate and the perpetual smoking of cigars. We have evermore records such as these: “ Scarcely had I awoke toward the daw n, when I found that the Colonel was already up, and was walking before the tent with the eternal cigarrito in his mouth. Drinking mat6 freely during the encampment at Coli-mula, the adjutants of Mansilla spoke at great length and with great warmth of the dangers of the enterprise, not concealing from themselves that, from the mysterious and unconnected words of AchanentrA, there was cause to dread every moment some treachery on the part of the Indians.” Knowing, however, the Indians thoroughly, Mansilla was more than a match for them; had an exquisite tact and a long training, which taught him when to employ force and threats, when dissimulation, artifice, cajolery, w’hen diplomatic subtlety, when ceremonious politeness. It was not male but female Indians the expedition first came into contact with: “At the dawn, after a longer rest than usual, we mounted our horses once more, and marched on for two or three hours. The horsemen riding in front caught sight of some tolderia*, and soon after, riding on miserable animals, more lean and bony than the immortal charger of Don Quixote, came galloping toward us these china*, arrayed in their picturesque costume, and seated on their coursers after the fashion of men. Having swept on till within a few hundred feet of us, they stopped with that strange distrust which we Europeans never see except among animals of the forest and the field, such as hares and wild goats. We had to go toward the ladies. Behind each of them was borne on the horse’s back a large sandia (watermelon). They offered us the water-melons, saying that the water of the neighbouring lagoon was poisonous. Mausilla accepted the gifts, for which, as is customary when dealing with Indians, he had to pay ten times their value. He gave to the women twelve reales, some sugar, some yerba, some Tobacco, and some paper. ‘Where are your husbands?’ asked Mansilla. ‘They have been away from the tolderia many days, hunting ostriches.* Woe to the European who trusts any assertion made by an Indian of the pampa! The Colonel affected to believe the women’s statement; but he sent an adjutant to visit the toldos, which were found, in effect, to be empty.” By-and-by an Indian on horseback, and armed with a lance, was perceived, but he speedily vanished:—“After a few moments, behind a barranco two other Indians, likewise armed with lances, were seen. ‘Good day!’ cried Mansilla to them. ‘Good day!’ they replied, in a nasal and guttural voice, which it is impossible to reproduce with the letters of our alphabet. Through the lenguare* (interpreter), Mansilla called their attention to the circumstance that they had their lances in rest, while he and his adjutants were not in fighting attitude. Their very long lances, which were adorned with a tuft of red feathers, the Indians thereupon placed in a more peaceful position, and intimated their desire to shake hands with the Colonel. Swiftly Mansilla spurred his horse toward them, and shook them both vigorously by the hand. He gave them cigars, and they seemed well pleased with having met us. They said that the principal Cacique, Mariano Rosas, and other Cacique* and Capitanejo*, were plunged in the deepest drunkenness, forasmuch as the Padre Burela had arrived the day before, and had brought an abundance of liquor. A few instants after we continued our journey, while the two Indians went off in the direction of the tolderias of Ramon. I was much amazed at the importance given to a single man, and then to two men, seen in the wilderness and armed with
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a lance of wood, when I heard around me from various quarters the cry, Indians! Indiana! Indians!' In effect, from various quarters, from the right, from the left, from before, from behind, surrounded us at every point, and as if they had burst from the ground, bands of Indians fully armed. They were all mounted on excellent horses, and all clothed in the strangest and most diverse fashion in the world. One, for instance, was almost naked, with the exception of a piece of ragged cloth round the loins; one had a ribbon wound round the brow, and fastening behind the thick, black, coarse hair; one wore a poncho, another a European hat. They had, most of them, the face painted red. In an excited manner they cried 'Vinca! vinca!' and poured forth some of the most ferocious blasphemies in the Spanish language. The Colonel was immediately surrounded by hosts trying to gratify their curiosity; they touched him with the horses and also with their hands. He, smiling, gave them cigars, and made them drink from a cijle of aquardiente. Soon tho relations between the Indians and the Argentines were of the most intimate kind; but some Christian prisoners or fugitives evinced a very great desire to resort to violence and to s ize by force what we spontaneously distributed to all. The Colonel paid these few freebooters in their own coin, found the Indians very ready to act as allies, and, in a few minutes, he compelled the rioters to be submissive. Indians and Argentines marched on together confusedly. On arriving at Aillancd they dismounted and threw themselves on the grass. They had scarcely done so when clouds of dust proclaimed the arrival of thirty other Indians, led by a man who was taller and swarthier than the rest, and who had a ferocious aspect. He approached Mansilla, and shouted, in a half haughty, half-awkward fashion:—*1 am Caninpun, capitanetto of Mariano Rosas; I am a valiant Indian.* His companions, as if joining in a chorus, cried: ‘ Vinca, Vinca,' and bellowed boundless blasphemies. The Colonel, strong in the sincere friendship shown by the other natives, did not reply a word to Caninpun, but gazed at him with an eye so angry that it would have vanquished the glance of a lion. These two men evidently wished by bold looks to make each other quail, and to ascertain the extent of their own moral force and their own courage. The savage made his long lance pirouette in the air, and flung horrible blasphemies in the face of the Christian; the man of civilisation made his moral vigour felt by his simple intellectual superiority and by the mere lightning of his eyes. ‘ Caninpun wants to speak to you,’ said the interpreter. ‘ Let him speak: let him say what he likes.’ ”
Sept’s ^lirfurt.
It will, perhaps, be expected that I shall agree with the sentiment expressed by Sir Walter C. Trevelyan, Bart., M.A., in his recent letter to the “English Anti-Tobacco Society and Anti-Narcotic League.” And when a person of amiable disposition—I speak for myself—finds himself expected to agree with another person of amiable disposition—I may say as much for Sir W. C. Trevelyan—his natural impulse is to respond in some such formula as “Most happy, I’m sure.” I wish I could thus pleasantly dispose of the present opportunity. It would be in the highest degree agreeable; more particularly as I perceive that the honourable baronet is one of the items characterised by a correspondent of the Times in September last as “myself and several other gentlemen.” These are they who send out from Corporation Street, Manchester, those “ unfanatical ” tracts which are to enlighten a purblind generation, and liberate the human race from the degrading slavery of Tobacco in especial, and other narcotics in general. I observe that they are a twofold entity: when they go forth to war against Tobacco by itself, they are a Society; but when they do battle against Narcotics as a class, they are a League. They are leagued together against narcotics; and they are associated against Tobacco. I am charmed by these nice distinctions. Perhaps I do not perfectly apprehend their significance; but then I presume that the gentlemen who make them understand them, and it is pleasant to me to know that there are people of such subtle and delicate abilities. Harold Skimpole felt, in relation to the benevolence of John Jarndyce and the unselfishness of Miss Hester Summerson, very much as I feel with regard to the refined intellectual powers of analysis exhibited in the arrangement by which the community in Corporation Street becomes transmuted, as it were, from a Society to a League, and from a League to a Society, with the facility of a chameleon. I remember hearing the comic corner-man of a negro minstrel troupe declare that he had seen the leopard change his spots: the animal was in a cage in a menagerie, and he moved about from one spot to another. The operation was as effective, for practical purposes, as the translation of the “English Anti-Tobacco Society” into the “Anti-Narcotic League.”
But, with regard to that portion of the Society, or League, which is called Sir Walter C. Trevelyan, Bart., M.A. ? I had not forgotten him—the part is included in the whole. Sir Walter was unable to be present at the annual conference on the 21st of October, as were also nearly half the persons mentioned in the official report of the proceedings—including “ Miss Young, the General Superintendent of the Juvenile
Temples.” At first sight of the Society’s (League’s) “Monthly Letter,” from which I derive my information, I reproached myself with my own absence; but when I read these names I congratulated myself upon the fact that I had stayed away in such excellent company. Who wouldn’t stay away from anything, or anywhere, with “ the General Superintendent of the Juvenile Temples”—especially when the General Superintendent is a lady, and that lady is young? (Of course I suppose that the title means something better than that its possessor generally looks after little boys’ -heads, and I am not to imagine that Temple is the surname of the family in which Miss Young employes her talents as a governess.) Well—for we must not be too digressive—Sir Walter sent a letter of apology for non-attendance, precisely as if he had been his own little boy playing truant, and the Society (or the League, for I can’t tell “ tother from which ”) records with pride that the apologetic baronet seized the occasion to condemn as “unwise, not to say nefarious,” the practice of a Government in raising “ their revenue in great part from their encouraging by Royal Licence, and other too often unscrupulous means, the sale and consumption of those two poisons, alcohol and Tobacco, which are working such evils— physical, moral, economical, and commercial—amongst our people.” Dear me ! I hadn’t any idea that the Government was so bad as that. Who would have supposed that the Royal Licence was a “ too often unscrupulous means?” I give you my word of honour I thought it was one of the most scrupulously correct things going. I hope Sir Walter C. Trevelyan has abandoned his crest, for it is only by the “ too often unscrupulous means ” of Royal Licence that he can be permitted to bear it.
Not that this is the source of any difficulty I may experience in assenting to the doctrine of the distinguished nobleman who adorns his baronetcy with a Mastership of Arts, and corresponds with the Anti-Tobacco and Narcotic Society League (or is it the Anti-Narcotic and Tobacco League Society?). No—Fiatjustitia, mat calum, say I. (The other distinguished nobleman who used to languish on Dartmoor, and now cherishes his grievances in Portsmouth prison, would probably render that passage—“Fight for justice, and rue it in Heaven.”) My real obstacle lies in the “nefarious” view which Sir Walter takes of the Government traffic in vice and immorality. I am prepared to admit that if Sir Walter, or any other Anti-Tobaccoite, being an owner of house property, were to let a shop to a Tobacconist, or take rent from any grocer or general dealer making profit under a licence for the sale of Tobacco, or from any chemist or druggist who sells pennyworths of laudanum, or opium, or Godfrey’s cordial, it would be possible to characterise his proceedings in relationship to the pocketing of such rent as “nefarious”—morally speaking. It might not be the most appropriate epithet within my reach, but it would be as fair to apply it in such an instance as in that of a Sir Wilfrid Lawson who should hold shares in a brewery, or a Quaker taking royalties upon the manufacture of a patent torpedo. If Sir Walter would ask Sir Talbot Constable, Bart., for an illustration of “ nefarious ” conduct, his fellow baronet would pro-ably give him the case of John Earnshaw, son of the high bailiff of the Goole county court, who was contacted the other day of having stolen Sir Talbot’s pipe, when he called at the hall to talk about buying a horse. If Earnshaw had not yielded to vanity, and wanted his initials engraved on the pipe, nobody would have known he had stolen it; and the epithet “nefarious” might never have occurred in relation to him.
If I have not made my meaning plan, I think I can furnish another illustration of the “nefarious” in human affairs. Here is a cutting from a recent number of The Danbury Newsman:—
“ A Kentucky girl says that when she dies she desires to have Tobacco planted upon her grave, that the weed nourished by her dust may be smoked by her bereaved lovers for solace.”
Now, if you were not well read in the fugitive literature of Tobacco, you might think that a pretty and original fancy of The Danbury Newsman; but if you have by you a copy of “ The Smoker’s Guide ”—a cleverly compiled little book, which was published by Messrs. Hardwicke and Bogue in 1876—and will turn to page 144, you will find the following :—
“ Among the pretty sayings of that too much developed and too thoroughly refined portion of womanhood which is American, none can surpass in beauty of sentiment the following ‘Maiden Wish,’ as reported in a New York paper:—‘ A thoughtful girl says that when she dies she desires to have Tobacco planted over her grave, that the weed nourished by her dust, may be chewed by her bereaved lovers.’ In anticipation of such a pleasing and truly poetic event, we propose the following lines for the fair one's epitaph: —
“ Lay no cold marble o’er my body rise— But only earth above and sunny skies. Thus would I lowly lie in peaceful rest, Nursing the Herb Divine from out my breast. Green lot it grow above this clay of mine, Deriving strength from strength that I resign. So in the days to come, when I’m beyond This fickle life, will come my lovers fond, And, gazing on the Plant, their grief restrain In whispering, ‘ Lo I dear Anna blooms again !’”
That is still prettier, is it not ? You begin to feel a warm admiration for the “ Veteran of Smokedom,” the author of the “Smoker’s Guide,”, who could “propose” this neat poetical enlargement of the New York paper’s whimsical conceit; and you are indignant against The Danbury Newsman. But—wait awhile. When a copy of the “Smoker’s Guide” was forwarded to the Editor of Cope’s Tobacco Plant, he
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wrote to ask the publishers whether they could give any clue to the authorship of these lines. He might have saved himself the trouble; but I fear he is a bit of a wag, and does not mind trouble. At all events, if he had turned to his own Tobacco Plant for May, 1876 (page 894) he would have found the following composition:—
“THE MAIDEN’S WISH.
“ A thoughtful girl says that when she dies Rhe desirefl to have Tobacco planted over her grave, that the weed nourished by her dust may be chewed by her bereaved lovers. There ia poetry in the idea.”—New York Tobacco Leaf.	----
w Let no cold marble o’er my body rise. With sculptured angels on and hackneyed lies; Fain would I lie and sleep in peaceful rest, Kind mother Earth alone above my breast.
“ In no obscure church aisle let me be laid, To moulder in the damp and gloomy shade; I love the sunlight and the wild black storm; Let them, then, have their way above my form.
“ Out, where the free blue sky o’erhangeth all;
Out, where the song-birds echo call for call; Out, where the forest trees bow do .vn and sigh, Lay me in peace, and in peace let me lie.
“ Plant over me the green and gracious weed, Whereon Philosophy and Thought do feed; Green let it grow above this clay of mine, Extracting strength from strength that I resign.
** So in tho days to come, when I’m beyond This fickle life, will come my lovers fond; And, gazing on the Plant, their grief restrain, In whispering ‘ Lo I dear Anna blooms again I ’
“ And each shall pluck, for love, a leaf or two, And take them home, to have a quiet chew; Musing meanwhile, ‘ Godd job I didn’t git her! I used to think her sweet, but find she’s bitter!
H. L.”
I don’t say anything about “A Veteran of Smokedom.” Requiescat in pace; for he has gone, they tell me, from a world that was not over kind to him; and of the dead we will speak no evil, if we can help it. Nor will I heedlessly apply strong language to The Danbury Newsman: let The New York Tobacco Leaf trounce him! For myself, and my worthy colleague “H. L.,” I simply ask you whether you now understand the significance of the adjective “nefarious.”
Sir Walter Trevelyan, “I thank thee for that word.” Inasmuch as the Queen’s Government has not yet joined the English Anti-Tobacco Society and Anti-Narcotic League, I cannot endorse your emphatic condemnation of the collection of licence tax and Customs dues upon Tobacco. But, let me hasten to make my peace with you. A word in your ear, good sir: If you and your fellow antis will get up a petition against these enormities, praying Parliament to direct that henceforth the business of the country shall be carried on without the imposts on the importation, exportation, manufacture, and sale of Tobacco, every dealer in Tobacco throughout the land will assist in obtaining subscriptions, and a few millions of honest smokers, chewers, and snuffers will join in the good work of signing names. The Customs receipts from Tobacco in the year ending March, 1877, were only £7,775,575, not to mention licences; so, of course, the Chancellor of the Exchequer won’t object. At any rate, Sir Walter, we might try. “Nothing venture, nothing have.” Suppose you ask “the General Superintendent of the Juvenile Temples.” She might get an idea out of some of ’em.
It wa8—if my memory plays me not false—Mr. John Torr, a Liverpuddley-un of celebrity (pardon the orthographical liberty!), who based his admiration of Mr. Disraeli upon that right honourable gentleman’s ability in the utterance of “ terse remarks.” I also admire “ terse remarks,” though I am not sure that I should make that the exclusive ground of my esteem for the Earl of Beaconsfield. But, for terseness, I think it would be hard to beat this ^sentence, in which the Saturday Review passes judgment on Mr. Henry Barton Baker’s book, “ Our Old Actors: ”—“ Mr. Baker has taken for his volumes a subject of great interest, on which he has brought to bear a certain amount of industry and a vast amount of ignorance.” That is even better than the Athenaum's notion about “ Ethics and Esthetics of Modern Poetry ”—that there is very little of ethics, and nothing at all of aesthetics, in the book. I wonder whether there was anything so singular in the case of Mr. Baker as to make it worth the while of the Saturday Review to indicate its points so tersely. Don’t we all bring to bear upon most things “ a vast amount of ignorance?” and is not that the source of most of the charm of existence ? For example, what a blind groping and stumbling there has been, on the part of the enlightened and indignant journals, about M. Gambetta’s encounter with M. Fourtou. The Times could hardly find words to express its amazement that “the most valuable life in France” should have been recklessly placed at the mercy of a pistol-shot. Nobody hints at the cause, except the Paris correspondent of the Weekly Despatch; and he makes no sort of guess that it is the cause. This is what he says:—
“ I do not know what to think of the matrimonial negotiationo between Gambetta and Madame Arnaud (De 1’Aridge). Some Ray there is a hitch about the settlements, and others that her son is against tho marriage. Whatever the truth may be, Gambetta pays more attention than is his wont to his personal appearance. Bis clothes are now cut out by an English tailor, and diminish his embonpoint; and he tries to limit himself to six Londres cigars a day.”
You perceive now why the ex-Dictator of France permits himself to be put out of temper and shot at in a duel. He has been starving himself in the article of Tobacco. I don’t
know how many cigars he usually smokes in a day. Nobody knows, and that is of small consequence. The important matter is that he has reduced the quantity; hence, loss of self-control, diminution of self-respect, the reckless abandonment of despair—he goes out to be shot at, like a condemned Communist I
Some people contrive to get their Tobacco and drinks cheap out in India. Professor Monier Williams, who has written one of the pleasantest of books on the subject of “ Modem India,” says that in certain southern districts all evils are “ attributed to devils, who require propitiation. The propitiating process is generally a simple one. It is usually performed by offerings of food or other articles supposed to be peculiarly acceptable to disembodied beings. For example, when a certain European, who was a terror to the district in which he lived, died in the south of India, the natives were in the constant habit of depositing brandy and cigars on his tomb to propitiate his spirit, supposed to roam about the neighbourhood in a restless manner, and with evil proclivities. The very same was done to secure the good offices of the philanthropic spirit of a great European sportsman, who, when he was alive, delivered his district from the ravages of tigers.” Any superior being, in the form of a hard-smoking and hard-drinking Sahib, may find himself in clover if his nerves will allow him to pay nightly visits to these tombstones. I doubt whether the superstitious natives err very seriously when they suppose that the “ devils ” enjoy their brandy and Cigars. It would seem to be a safer sort of smuggling than that in which so many persons of a seafaring persuasion get themselves into troble into this country.
Bristol, I observe, is humbly emulating the example of Derry, Portsmouth, and Hull. A fireman has been before the magistrates in the Western City lately, on the charge of concealing Tobacco amongst the fuel in the coal-bunkers of a steamship. It was ingenious to put hydraulically compressed Tobacco into black bags, resembling blocks of coal; and it was not wonderful that the Customs officers had “rummaged” the vessel on several previous occasions in vain. Fifty pounds of Tobacco was a large consignment to be undertaken by Bunter, the fireman, who claimed it after the ship and the crew had been arrested, and the owners had had to deposit £500 to free the vessel. I incline to agree with the prosecution, that Bunter was making himself a scapegoat for greater sinners; and, as he was fined £100, and has had to go to prison in default of payment, the “consideration” for his self-sacrifice should be large. But I perceive, with admiration, that the examining officer said in evidence, “ he saw on the deck several parties he knew were connected with smuggling transactions.” If I knew as much about smugglers as some of these revenue officers say they know, I think I should have more success in the detection of smuggled goods. They know the smugglers, the ships used for smuggling, the times and places when and where the smuggling is carried on, and—they rarely stumble on a “find.” When they do, it is seldom their own fault. Generally, some busybody has told them something, and for their own sake they are obliged to make a seizure or an arrest. If the meddling outsiders go on at this rate, the smuggling trade will be spoiled; and I should like to know how the Customs’ officers are to get a living then. But I must avoid the subject, for my “ Mixture” is mixed enough, and smuggling is a vast and entrancing theme. To plunge into it now would be to involve myself in speculations as to how that grand “ puff ” of Swiss Tobacco got into the Times on the 7thof November; how the Berlin correspondent of the same journal got the report of General Kaufmann’s speech on the 22nd; how W. H. Smith got into the Admiralty; or Tom Taylor into Punch's editorial chair—or the fly into the amber. Enough is as good as a feast.
Your Man-of-All-Wobk.
|ipt ^olourtrs.
vn.—THE SUBSCRIPTION DONKEY.
I tbust my readers will not be at all offended by the introduction of a costermonger into the select circle of pipe colourers. I frankly confess at the outset that I never knew him to smoke but one pipe, that he certainly had coloured; it was a short clay pipe, about three inches long, but as black as anything in this world. There are different degrees of blackness, but this pipe was beyond reckoning by such insufficient things as degrees. It was as black as any two of the blackest things a man can name.
At the time I am writing of there was in existence a little benevolent society, in connection with a Dissenting chapel, in the parish where Joe the costermonger resided.
This society was conducted on exceedingly charitable principles. The help it could give was not great, but it was given to those who needed it, irrespective of creed or anything else.
Mr. Amos Cokum was an anti; and, as this little incident greatly concerns him, I take an early opportunity of introducing him, in order that he may not come too suddenly on the scene further on. I dislike giving a good healthy reader a shock; and so, as he reads his Plant and smokes his pipe, I put it to him quietly: “There’s an anti coming in presently,” and a shock is avoided.
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To return to Joe. He, poor fellow, had been in misfortune, and had been compelled to part with his donkey through poverty. This, of course, was a sad loss to him; in fact, he knew not what to do. Mr. Amos Cokum (here he is again) was essentially a business man, and yet he seemed to have no actual and proper business. He was a sort of little public person, belonging to all sorts of “bodies.” He attended meetings, got himself put on to committees, and occasionally took a chair. He was able to say a few words on any subject that he thought would be likely to benefit humanity, whether it was the reformation of criminals, the building of schools, or the establishment of soup kitchens. He was a teetotaler, too, and orated much at temperance meetings. He delighted, in fact, in showing everybody what was their duty. He went on in this way for many years, but there came a day when he was upset; metaphorically, he fell over a donkey. Mr. Cokum, well on his feet at present, is relating the costermonger's case at one of the weekly meetings of the charitable society I have already alluded to. “As I was saying,” Mr. Cokum went on, “this poor fellow, Joseph Weaver, has a large family of young children and a sickly wife. Owing to hard times, he has been compelled to part with his donkey; consequently, his barrow, which should be laden with fruit or fish, stands idle, or has to be drawn by himself, which is very hard work indeed. When, my dear friends, I look round this room, and see you all well fed and well clothed, I cannot help asking you to reflect for a moment on the deplorable case of our poorer brother, and to see if you cannot find it in your Christian hearts to help him. I have already spoken to one or two members of this society, and they asked me to come here this evening, and to bring Weaver with me. I will now call him in.” Mr. Cokum then retired for two or three minutes, and returned with Joe. He, poor fellow, seemed rather abashed; but, on being asked kindly to state his case, took heart and did so. “Yer see,” said he, “this here kind gen’lman knows as how Tm wery badly off. I’ve been ill, and the kids has been ill, and the missis has been ill, tho’ that don’t make no odds, cos she’s allers ill, but that aint her fault, nor my fault, nor nobody's fault—it’s herryditerry, the doctor says, and so it’s no good grumbling. Anyhow, I’ve had to sell my donkey. He were a good beast and a clever one; I’ve known him trot agin a good cab horse and lick him holler; but that's when times was better; he didn’t trot lately. He allers seemed hanging his head down to look out for a stray cabbage stump, or summat to eat, cos he was on sich wery short commons at home. Now, I couldn’t stand that. Some o’ the likes o’ you, begging pardon for being personal, thinks a costermonger ain’t got no heart, when you see him a-wolloping his moke and singing out ‘kim up!’ but he has got a heart, and especially for his donkey. Mokes don’t mind wolloping; at least, mine didn’t—not as I ever laid it on so very stiff as some on ’em does, though, mind you, it’s obligatory to give it ’em a bit stiff sometimes, cos the moke is a wery obstinate beast when he likes. Mine wasn't. It was one of the kindest Neddys on the road; but I couldn’t bear to see it going hungry, and getting its framework outside of it plainer every day, so I sold it, and, bless your hearts, blowed if I didn’t cry, and the kids cried, and the missis cried, tho’ that don’t make no odds, cos she’s allers crying—herrydittery again, I suppose, wotever that is; it’s a wery awkward complaint in a poor man’s house, and I wish she hadn’t got it, but she has bad; and we’ve had no donkey ever since, and precious little of anything else. That’s my story, and this kind gen’lman knows it’s true, and has promised to see if he can get me a new moke, and all I can say is God bless him; for, what with the perlice and the shopkeepers, the coster aint got many friends when he’s well up; add when he isn’t well up, then he’s jest got none at all, and that’s where I’ve been lately. And here’s my respects to you; and if you don’t think it worth while to help me, there’s no harm done, and no ill-feeling, and I’m thankful you’ve listened to me so kindly; -and, as I think p’raps some of you might not like to speak out for fear of hurting my feelings if I stay here, I shall be much obliged if you’ll let me get along home to the old woman.” The meeting, feeling there was a certain delicacy in Joe’s position, expressed its sympathy with him and allowed him to depart. As soon as Joe had gone, Mr. Amos begged to be allowed to state that he had made every possible inquiry, and had ascertained that the man was honest and industrious, and kind to his wife and family, and he also begged to suggest that if anything was done for him, it should be done at once. It was quickly decided by the meeting that Joe should have a donkey, and the first question to be settled was, What would a donkey cost? Various sums were named, from sixteen shillings to nine pounds; but it was decided that about three pounds ten shillings ought to be able to purchase a decent animal. As this sum was rather a large one to be paid out of a small treasury, the members of the society were asked to make special appeals to their friends for help; and the next meeting night it was hoped would show the three pounds ten in hand, without seriously distressing their own funds. Thanks to the exertions of the members, the next meeting night saw the money, and of the seventy shillings only seven-	teen had to be drawn from their own little store, which was highly satisfactory. The money was handed to our dear friend and brother, Mr. Cokum, and he promised at once to get the whole affair settled. It may seem strange that Amos did not at once seek out the costermonger and proceed with him to some place where a strong useful ass might be obtained; but he did not. He so liked, in the benevolence of his anti heart, to save people trouble and perform labours of love for nothing, that he decided to go and look for that donkey all by himself. There is no doubt that be started out next morning to obtain the “moke;” but concerning the actual work he went through, there is only the record of one adventure to be obtained. This was at a horse repository. Entering the yard, he found a man in a loose shirt and tight trousers, talking to another man in a loose shirt and tight trousers. One of these men held a pail in his right hand, and the other man was leaning on a broom. Mr. Cokum, approaching the two worthies, put the question: “Can you tell me if you have a donkey for sale here? ” A sort of grin tried to come to the surface of those two yardmen’s faces, but they strangled it in its birth, and the man with the broom said: “A donkey, sir?” “Yes,” replied Amos, “a donkey.” “ Wot, you mean a reg’lar moke ? ” said the man with the pail. “ I think I have heard that name applied to the animal I am in search of,” returned Mr. Cokum. “ Well, I hardly know,” said the broom man, scratching his head, and giving a peculiar look at his comrade. “How about that one over the beans, Jack—ay?” “Wot one over the beans?” inquired Jack. “Oh! you forget,” returned the other, with a look of contempt at his comrade’s slowness of apprehension; “You step this way, sir”—this was to Amos—“and Jack had better come too, to freshen his memory.” Mr. Cokum followed his conductor meekly, and there, as he had said, just over the beans was— “ Just you look in there, sir,” said the man. Mr. Cokum advanced to look through what he supposed was a small window; but judge of his disgust and indignation when he found himself confronted by a small looking-glass, wherein Cokum, feeling excessively savage, beheld Cokum looking as he felt. He turned round in a passion, and asked the grinning fellows what they meant. “Why, yer see, sir,” replied the one with the broom, “we’re a ’orse repository, we are, and when we gets a donkey on the premises we makes haste to sell him as soon as we can; and as it’s a wery warm day, sir, and me and Jack’s wery thirsty, p’raps your honour won’t mind standing a drain.” “ Get out! ” cried Cokum, and off he went in a towering rage. At the next meeting night of the benevolent society Joe the costermonger appeared. The society, thinking he had come to return thanks for his donkey, felt surprised when he said: “I beg pardon for being rude; but as I ain’t seed anything of Mr. Cokum, I thought I’d take the liberty of turning up to ax if you had thought any more about the matter. I hope I don’t offend; I know I’m rough, but I comes of a rough sort; I don’t mean to offend.” “My dear friend,” replied the chairman, “we came here this evening, expecting to hear all about your new donkey from Mr. Cokum. Is it possible you are not in possession of one yet ? ” “No, sir, I ain’t—honour bright,” was Joe’s answer. It was at once agreed to despatch a deputation to Mr. Cokum. The deputation found our friend Amos very bad with the toothache, but warmly insisted upon his accompanying them back to the meeting. He wanted to put off the explanation till the next week; but, as they would not hear of it, with them he went. At the meeting Amos met many a frown, but came up smiling, although he looked rather red. “My dear friends,” said he, “I feel it to be my duty to explain this matter. The explanation may possibly surprise you; but, knowing me as you do, I trust you will aceept it. I went away last week with three pounds ten, to purchase a donkey for my worthy friend here. Wishing to not take him from his business, I concluded to make the purchase myself. I first went to a hor^e repository, where I must say I was grievously insulted; but there I obtained no animal. Knowing the value of time to this poor fellow, I did not hesitate to take a cab to go to another place, where I was equally unsuccessful. East, west, north and south, three whole days did I seek a donkey, and at the end of the third day found to my great sorrow that my expenses had been so heavy that I had only the small sum of two shillings and threepence left, which I now beg to return to the society.” At this, a great noise of indignation arose in the meeting, and cries of “Shame! shame!” were heard. Mr. Amos still smiled, and said: “Hear me, my dear friends. I propose that we should again start a subscription, and that the money should at once be handed over to honest Joseph here; it was a mistake on my part to think of purchasing the animal myself, and bitterly have I paid for it.” “But with other people’s money, sir!” said one indignant member, warmly. “I assure you, my friends,” cried Mr. Cokum, “I have spent the money in the business, and you cannot expect me to pay for a whole donkey out of my own pocket.”
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[December, 1878.
“Well, I’m blest!” ejaculated the costermonger, looking very rueful; and then, not knowing how to follow up the exclamation to any great advantage, said: “Well, I’m blowed!” Then he dropped his hands into his trousers pockets, and seemed to be feeling about for those bright sovereigns that were once so nearly his.
Mr. Cokum, finding his explanation so ill-received, became exceedingly indignant and departed from the meeting. As soon as the door closed, the chairman rose in sorrow and in anger; he couldn’t help it, and nobody could blame him. “This is a bad business,” he said, “and I am afraid we have had amongst us a wolf—a wolf that I may say, in a figurative sense, has devoured this poor fellow’s donkey. We must keep this matter quiet, but I ask you solemnly—Can we allow Mr. Cokum to remain in this society?” The chairman then sat down.
It was unanimously resolved that Mr. Cokum’s name be erased, and a note was sent to him to that effect.
It was also resolved that another three pounds ten should be collected; this was done and honest Joe was eventually put into possession of a good, hard-working donkey.
D. Goggs.
bibliography ^ $^»Hk.
The Bibliography of Ruskin: a Bibliographical List, arranged in Chronological Order, of the Published Writings, in Prose and Verse, of John Ruskin, M.A., from 1835 to the present time (September, 1878). 8vo, pp. 40.
The Bibliography of Ruskin: a Bibliographical List, arranged in Chronological Order, of the Published Writings, in Prose and Verse, of John Ruskin, M.A., from 1834 to the present time (October, 1878), 8vo, pp. 48.
The two titles we have transcribed indicate one work—another yet the same. In the month of October we heard of the appearance of a list of the writings of one who is not only a master of the English language, but, perhaps, the noblest spirit of our age. nobler even in his failures than the so-called success ul men at the height of their prosperity. We learned that it was compiled by Mr. R. H. Shepherd, with the sanction and approval of the author, and that although “ printed for private circulation,” Mr. George Allen, Sunnyside Orpington, Kent, would “ supply copies to anyone applying for them, post free, at a uniform price of five shillings a copy, without abatement on number, and for cash only.”
In less than one month Mr. Shepherd sends forth another Ruskin bibliography, commencing one year earlier and ending one month later. It is not marked 44 second edition,” nor is any explanation given of the hot haste with which it has been issued. Surely tins is a case in which the compiler might ha e taken for his motto Festina lente. Granted that the first edition was not perfect, the additions made to it have not yet rendered it complete. Mr. Ruskin has loving admirers in every part of the world, who will have treasured up even his casual utterances. Notes of these will, we hope, flow in pponMr. Shepherd; but even the most determined and reverential admirer of Ruskin will demur to the appearance of a new edition of this bibliography once every three weeks or so. Amongst the additions to the second issue is a notice that the work is 44 Entered at Stationers* Hall. All Rights reserved. The Compiler of this Bibliography will institute legal proceedings against any person infringing his copyright.” We are not going to infringe Mr. Shepherd’s copyright, at least we hope we are not; but if we happen to transcribe the title of any book of Mr. Ruskin’s in which he has a vested interest, we give him full permission to take in return one or two trifles which have not yet found a home in his list. The first is
The Unity of Art, By John Ruskin, Esq., M.A. Delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Manchester School of Art, February 22, 1859. Manchester: Printed by Thomas Sowler and Sons, St. Ann’s Square, 1859. 8vo, pp. 38.
This pamphlet is a verbatim report of Mr. Ruskin’s address, and the swift hand that caught the winged words as they camo forth from the mouth of the teacher was that of Mr. Henry Pitman. Mr. J. A. Hammersley, who was then Head Master of the Manchester School, wrote an introduction, and the Manchester public, we hope, bought and profited by it. In acknowledging the customary vote of thanks, Mr. Ruskin said a few words which we will venture to reproduce:—
441	hardly know how to express my thanks for your kindness in listening to me for so long, while saying that which is becoming familiar to all tho students of our schools, by the discussions of various writers and thinkers upon art. I am quite sure that the general principles which have been brought forward by Mr. Hammersley in this school are now becoming known and understood, so that any effort to advocate them will be more or less received with indulgence and intelligence at once. In thanking you for the attention you have given me this evening, I may say that, as far as any of you feel that you would like to do a kindness to me, if you think I have in any way done a kindness to you, that kindness may always be given by looking at the master from whom I have learned all I know in art, looking at him when you can no longer be kind to him, but when you can only advance your own knowledge and the knowledge of others, as you will always by every careful, thoughtful, and humble hour of study you give to tho works of Turner. I name him to you especially and separately now, b cause I fear, from the very number of his works that he has left to tho nation, that there is a disposition now rising to look upon his vast bequest to the nation with some contempt. There seems a want of public interest; that collection first has been for a long time placed where it could not be seen; and then coming to change its place, I believe it is going to be put in safety; but I am not sure of that even, and certainly it is likely to be shown by evening light, to be shown perhaps by gaslight, and in various ways to be exposed in a manner that pictures comparatively fr sbly painted ought never to be exposed, and, above all, Turner’s. I only beg of you, as for as you are interested in art, to believe me in this, that you cannot further the art of England in any way more distinctly than you can by giving attention to the preservation of every fragment that has been left by that man. Tho time will come when his full power, and influence, and place will be acknowledged; it will not come for a long time yet, but be assured that, as far as you ore inclined to give the least faith to anything I may say to you, be assured that you can act for the good of England, as far as that is concerned, in no better way than by using whatever influence any of you have, in whatever direction, for the preservation—not, observe, for immediate exhibition, for we are not altogether ripe for the exhibition of his works; they are a little too far above us and the public generally; they unite, as I was telling you, too many qualities for us yet to feel fully their range and their influence—but let us only try to presene them, let us keep them safe, and day by day they will dawn upon us more and more, and be the root of a landscape school in England; and we shall depend more and more upon landscape as these great towns of ours, increasing in political and social power, gain more and more upon the green fields. I was rather horror-struck to-day, as I came into Manchester from the hills of Derbyshire, to see how the chimneys gain upon
them in every direction, how many a beautiful glade is now defiled by darkness, and apparently defiled by some forms of human distress also; at all events we shall owe more and more to our landscape painters as we have loss and less of landscape within our reach; and be assured that you cannot better show your love for art than by keeping safely the works of Turner."
The lecture was reprinted in the “Two Paths,” but the changes arc so considerable as to give the small Manchester pamphlet a distinct value of its own. A portion of the speech in returning thanks has been incorporated, but not the sad foreboding of the disappearance of English landscape. On the other hand, some of the words that would go right to the hearts of the students have been omitted.
Mr. Shepherd makes no reference to the following:—
Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the present position of the Royal Academy in relation to the Fine Arts; together with the Minutes of Evidence, London: 1863.
Mr. Ruskin, who gave evidence before the Commission, Sth June, 1M8, replied to sixty-three questions, chiefly addressed to him by the chairman, Earl Stanhope. Here is a bit of pungent criticism upon the Philistine attitude of English society toward the artist:—“You teach a young man to manage his chalk and his brush—not always that; but, having done that, you suppose you have made a painter of him; whereas to educate a painter is the same thing as to educate a clergyman or a physician: you must give him a liberal education primarily, and that must be connected with the kind of learning peculiarly fit for his profession. That error is partly owing to the over excessively vulgar and excessively shallow English idea that the artists’ profession is not, and cannot be, a liberal one. We respect a physician, and call him a gentleman, because he can give us a purge and clean out our stomachs; but we do not call an artist a gentleman, whom we expect to invent for us the face of Christ. When we have mode that primary mistake, all other mistakes in education are trivial in comparison. The very notion of an art academy should be a body of teachers of the youth who are to be the guides of the nation through its senses; and that is a very important means of guiding it. We have done a good deal through dinner*, but we may aome day do a good deal more through pictures.” (Question 5093.) Here, again, is a golden rule for hanging committees:—“ If you let a picture into the room at all, it should not be hung so high as that either the feelings of the artist or the neck of the public should be hurt.” (5106.)
Amongst minor omissions there is no reference to the Manchester reprint of Mr. Ruskin s letter on John Leech, nor to the fact that the Rev. R. St. John Tyrwhitt. M.A., published a few years ago a charming little book called 44 Our Sketching Club,” which included an 44 authorised reproduction of the Lessons and Woodcuts in Professor Ruskin’B Elements of Drawing."
Amongst Ruskiniana we should be inclined to include this:—
Poems inspired by certain Pictures at the Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester, by Tennsyon Longfellow Smith, of Cripplegate Within, Edited by his friend the Author of
44	Thorns and Thistles.” Illustrated by the Hon. Bolibol Bareacres, and Dedicated with profound admiration and awe to that greatest of modern Poets, Philosophers, Artists, Art-Critics and Authors, the Immortal Buskin. Manchester, 1857.
The fun of the thing is very poor, though it came from the erudite and hilarious pen of J. B. Waring. The squib ends with a lengthy pre-Raphoefite chorus, concluding thus:—
44 In that place they all have got, let us hope, a fiery lot.
For the dark artistic crimes which they committed here on earth. Whilst we shout with might and main, till the heavens vibrate again. That High Art in Britain has at length been brought to birth.
44 And Buskin swears that now, if your knee you do not bow, And humbly, to the genius of this Infant so divine,
He will give you such a slashing, such a mashing, crashing, thrashing. As befits a set of donkeys, or a herd of filthy swine.
44 So you seo we must be right; and having put you in a fright,
Go burn your stupid ancient daubs, and come to us to school;
Then perhaps you may, some day, find out the proper way
To look on Art and Nature, and cease to be a foot”
Still more curious is the absence of anything about Mr. Ruskin’s famous refusal to accept the royal medal decerned to him by the Royal Institute of British Architects. Great was the dismay of that body, which is nothing if not respectable, when the great art critic scornfully refused their Pecksniffian homage. 44 It is no time for us to play adjudging medals to each other.” The efforts made to induce him to give way were all vain, even the con-oonsideration 44 of the apparent disregard which his refusal seemed to involve for the honour graciously offered by tho Sovereign ” did not move him. The Royal Institute of British Architects had beheld with indifference, if it had not encouraged, the havoc made of ancient monuments and buildings. They took no notice twenty years earlier when he lifted up his voice like a trumpet, and then, when at last they wanted to show their sympathy for his teachings, there was no very practical result to be pointed out as the subject for congratulation ; but, on the contrary, it had to be admitted by Sir George Gilbert Scott “that the ancient monuments of every country in Europe, and our own no less than others, show at all points the marks of the desolating hand of pseudo-restoration or of open rapine.” The matter occupied a conspicuous portion of the Presidential Address delivered November 9, 1874. This will, no doubt, be given in full in the Transactions of the Institute. We have not that ponderous and somewhat pretentious periodical at hand, but lovers of Ruskin will find a sufficiently full report of it in the Builder, No. 1658, November 14,1874.
We do not care to dwell upon other omissions, for the list is a welcome one, and will enable those who have it, and especially the possessors of the second issue, to find many rich fragments that have from time to time fallen from the well-furnished table of the Master of St. George’s Guild. Mr. Ruskin was writing about the strata of Mont Blanc in 1834, when he was sixteen. It is noteworthy that Loudon in whose Magazine of Natural History the article on this subject appeared, referred it and another of Mr. Ruskin’s papers to the Rev. W. B. Clarke, A.M., F.G.S., &c., who obligingly adds some rather patronising remarks, including this: “J. R.’s sketches (figs. 70, 71) are illustrative; and are, therefore, though not novel, worth preserving." The criticism also is worth preserving.
The value of such a bibliography is the help it gives 5n understanding the gradual progress of the author whose work it records. We can see not only tho broad current of his literary life, but also the green nooks and quiet bays into which its silver stream has at times been diverted. In the case of Ruskin there is ample room for a much profounder study than Mr. Shepherd has attempted. An examination of the differences in the successive issues of Mr. Ruskin’s works would reveal a good deal to a sympathetic inquirer. This is, of course, the critical use of such bibliographical essays. There are also collectors to be considered. We do not mean the mere bibliomaniacs, though even they have their uses, but those who systematically store up material for present or future use of themselves or others. Their great difliculty is to know what has been written. When we know what we want there is some chance of obtaining it. Tho passion of the collector is sometimes directed to somewhat ignoble uses. It is, like all enthusiasm, liable to degenerate into fanaticism. What can be better than to have it directed into channels that will bring the collector into contact with noble minds ? The man who devotes himself to gathering together with pious care all that has been written by Jolin Ruskin will, ns a reward, be brought into communion with a man having not only an intellect of singular strength and subtle power, but a heart filled with healthy scorn of cant and humbug, a man strong for endurance, and yet full of a sublime pity for the pain and sorrow that mars the beauty of the world, and for the poverty and misery that makes a mockery of our boasted wealth and civilisation.
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french Tobacco legislation in the 6ij^«nf^ ^cnturn.
n.
So far as concerns any reference to Tobacco, there is a gap of I nearly half a century in the great “Recueil G6n6ral” of the I French laws from the year 420 to the Revolution, collected and edited by Isambert, Decrusy, and Taillandier. From 1733 to 1775 the weed seems to drop out of sight. The last I attempt of Louis XV., or, rather, of his Minister, Cardinal Fleury, to regulate the nicotian difficulties of the Most Chris-I tian King took the form of an ArrOt du Conseil, which was issued from Fontainebleau on the 20th of October, 1733. Money was wanted for the War of the Polish Succession, I which the Court party compelled the vigorous old Cardinal, I who was nearly eighty years of age, to begin in the same year against Charles VI. and the German Empire. The war I failed to gain its pretended object, the settlement of Stanislaus Leczinski, the father-in-law of Louis XV., upon the Polish throne; but it ended in the acquisition of Lothringen, or Lorraine, by France, so that its results lasted nearly a century and a-half, and were not reversed until eight years ago, when the Battle of Sedan restored the pro-I vince to Germany. The Royal Council complained that great frauds and abuses were being committed upon the frontiers of the privileged provinces—Franche-Comt/*, Hainault, | Flanders, Alsace, and Cambresis—particularly by “ the sale of Tobacco at a diminution of price.’*
This is the last glimpse which we obtain of the attempt of I Cardinal Fleury to see that his master, and his monstrously extravagant Court, suffered no loss of revenue from the disloyal eagerness of his subjects to get their Tobacco as cheaply as possible. We meet no other entry bearing upon our subject until the year 1775. During the whole of this long interval of nearly half a century, Louis XV. had remained ' upon the French throne, coldly observing, when the unparalleled misery of the French people and the inevitable dissolution of the existing State form were pointed out to him: “ The monarchy will hold together as long as we live.” His grandson, Louis XVI., inherited the terrible harvest which Louis XV. and his Ministers and mistresses had sown. When the amiable youth heard of his grandfather’s death, he cried out: “0 my God, what a misery for me I ” He was crowned at Rheims, on June the 11th, 1775, and as early as August the 29th in the same year he began to look into his Tobacco revenue. The corrupt servants of the corrupt State system could not be trusted: they took bribes, winked at the smugglers, and secretly helped the contrabandists to cheat the revenue. The new King issued Letters Patent from Versailles, establishing a commission in Paris, composed of the Lieutenant of Police and five councillors of the Cour des Aides, who were charged to make strict scrutiny into “la contrabande du Tabac” and “les prevarications des employes.” * No account has come to our hand of the issue of this scrutiny, but it may be traced in the vigorous financial activity of Necker.
In the next entry, which occurs only two years later, we suddenly discover that we are passing into an altogether new age. A preliminary breeze from the coming hurricane of the Revolution is traceable in its very wording. It contains certain innovations in the official regal language which would have astounded the immediate predecessors of the King—the imperious and superb Louis XIV. and the dissipated and pleasure-hunting Louis XV. Louis XVI. begins to
* Tom. xxiii., p. 285.
talk of Frenchmen not merely as subjects, but as “citizens.” It is true that the old phrase “our subjects” is still used, which shows that the new state of things political has not yet come; but the apparition of the word “citizens” in the same document shows that it is on the road. The King also brings forward “ the benefit of humanity," instead of the undefined necessities of the royal purse, as a sufficient argument and motive for a Royal Declaration. On the 13th of June, 1777, he issued a Declaration from Versailles, in which he prohibited the retail wine merchants from covering their counters with lead, milk dealers from using leaden pails, and sellers of Tobacco and of salt from weighing those articles in leaden scales. In the following September the same prohibition was re-issued as a regulation of the Parliaments of Paris and of Corsica, and in November as a regulation of the Parliament of Lorraine. Any dealer in wine, milk, Tobacco, or salt who offends in future against this law is to be punished by a fine of “300 livres d* amende.” His Most Christian Majesty, with the advice of his Council, and the support of eminent medical opinion (“ du sieur Lientard, notre premier m6decin, du sieur Macquard, m^decin de la faculty de Paris," and several chemists and professors), enters into an explanation of the grounds on which he has put forward his Royal Declaration. Experience has shown, he states, that the solution of lead, taken internally, produces most disastrous effects upon the health. It has been reported to him that the wine, milk, Tobacco, and salt, drunk, smoked, snuffed, or eaten by Frenchmen, contract and distribute these disastrous effects through their contact with the lead which is so largely used by their salesmen. He fears that quantities of “ vert-de-gris” find a lodgment in the physical system of his beloved subjects.* Prudence will exclude the usage of this dangerous metal in private houses. But “ the poorest class of citizens are in the habit of buying" what they eat, drink, and smoke “ in very small measures,” and what they buy goes straight from the leaden counter, leaden scales, or leaden pots and pans, into their stomachs or their pipes. It must be remembered that in France, up to this time, smoking was a distinctively vulgar habit, indulged in by the common people, soldiers, and sailors. Every exquisite and aristocrat probably had his snuff-box: comparatively few ventured to use the pipe. “ The good of humanity, and the interests of our subjects,” says the King, “demapd that the general and public use" of leaden counters, scales, pails, and the like “shall be suppressed.”
From this period to the year 1781, while “ Necker, Atlaslike,” as Mr. Carlyle puts it, “was sustaining the burden of the finances," the references to Tobacco in the “Recueil General are exclusively economic, dealing principally with the persistent organised swindling of the feme ggntrale, with the attempts of illicit planters here and there to raise Tobacco crops for themselves, or the adjudication concerning the Tobacco taken at sea, chiefly from the English ships. With regard to the first, we may quote Voltaire’s remark on the financial condition of France, disguised under the name Persepolis. “Persepolis,” he says, “has thirty kings of finance, who draw millions from the people, and give a little to the King.” Michelet, after referring to this passage, notices that out of the Gabelle, which brought in one hundred and twenty millions, the feme gtntrale kept back sixty
* This is especially the ease, says Louis XVI., with the wine bought by the poorest class of citizens. “Le Tin qui y adjourne (on the lead-faced counters) plus on moins, suivant 1’inegalite de leur surface, et qui en dissout toujours une partie, etant recueille avec soin, vendu et distribue an peuple, il en rAsulte des maladies d’autant plus fAcheuses qu’on en ignore presqne toujours la irate cause.” T. xxv., p. 40.
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millions, and deigned to leave some fifty or sixty to the King.* Tax-gathering was an organised warfare: “an army of two hundred thousand drones,” observes the same writer, “oppressed the land, locusts who devoured and wasted everything.” The employes of the farmers-general were authorised to use arms, and when they murdered a man, they were judged by the special tribunals of the feme gtn£-rale. On September the 16th, 1777, Louis XVI. issued an Arr&t du Conseil from Versailles, followed by Letters Patent, relative to the planting of the weed, which was then being attempted in the forests.f This prohibition was re-issued in the following year by the Lorraine Chambre des Comptes. In that year, 1778, on the 6th of February, Louis XVI. was persuaded into going to war with England, in defence of the revolted colonies in America. The frequent collisions between the English and French ships, in both hemispheres, led to a series of regulations on the adjudication of the Tobacco taken in prizes, which were duly codified in a volume by Lebeau, of the French Ministry of Marine. J They present no feature of special interest. During the war, “Tobacco for smoking” (Tabac ft fumer, not for snuffing or chewing) was ordered to be furnished to the soldiers at a sum considerably below the price current. The King kept an account of this diminution of price with the farmers-general, as with the similar reduction upon salt. A financial writer stated in the year 1780, in the midst of the war, that “ this sacrifice amounted annually to seven hundred thousand livres.” § After 1780 the distribution of Tobacco was diminished, and that of salt augmented. In September, 1782, peace was concluded between Great Britain, France, Spain, and the United States of America, and the thirteen colonies were admitted to be “ free, sovereign, and independent States.” The peace was signed at Versailles, and a year later, from the same place, Louis XVI. attached his signature to his last recorded stroke of Tobacco legislation, an Arret du Conseil concerning “la vente et le d6bit du Tabac.” The Recueil G6n6ral merely gives its title: the contents are wanting. || “The whole kingdom of France,” says a writer in 1784, “is subjected to the Impfit du Tabac, except the provinces of Flanders, Artois, Hainault, Cambresis, Franche-Comt6 and Alsace, the Pays du Gex, the city and territory of Bayonne, and certain places in the Generality of Metz.” Imagine the confusion of public finance in Great Britain, if a quarter of our counties had their own varying Customs legislation, and an act which was legal in Essex had to be treated as smuggling in Surrey. The fact is, the provinces which composed the French monarchy under the absolute Bourbons were not completely unified into the French nation until the levelling blast of the Revolution had passed across the land. The National Assembly, in the year 1791, made a first attempt at the unification of French Tobacco legislation—not, however, by extending the “Imp6t du Tabac” to the whole of France, but by abolishing it. On the 24th February in that year, when the King had been reduced to a mere shadowy “first magistrate,” the National Assembly decreed that it should thenceforward be lawful for any French citizen, in any part of the nation, to cultivate, manufacture, or sell Tobacco. 51 On the 6th of March following, the detested function of the farmers-general was abolished throughout France. The inhabitants of the several French provinces in which the cultivation of Tobacco had formerly been legal were only permitted to sell their own home-grown Tobacco to the farmers-general, and at a very low price. Nevertheless, the profit was enormous, “ and the money proceeding from it,” says an anonymous writer in 1791, “remained in the kingdom.” “Now, however,” he complains, “this cultivation is no longer permitted, and the immense quantities of Tobacco which are prepared in France for French use have to be procured mainly from the English and the Dutch.” This, probably, was one of the reasons which moved the political experimentalists and innovators in this same year to declare the cultivation universally free. The void which was made in the coffers of the National Treasury by the sudden suppression of the old Impdt du Tabac, and the enfranchisement of the cultivation, must have been truly enormous. In order to compensate the public purse for ( this gigantic loss of revenue, the National Assembly thought it would be sufficient to lay its finger upon foreign Tobacco. All importation of foreign manufactured Tobacco was rigidly prohibited; foreign leaf Tobacco might be imported, but it was charged with a toll of “ 25 livres par quintal ” at its entry upon the French frontier. ** The liberty of cultivation only lasted for twenty years. It was abrogated, along with many other liberties, at the Bona-partist transformation of the Republic into an Empire. In In the year 1811, Napoleon established the famous R^gi/: he predicted that this branch of the revenue would produce no less than eighty millions, and his prediction has been more than realised. In 1841 the “produit brut” of the R^gie, says M. Charles Renier, was returned as 97,948,984 francs, and the “produit net” as 72,000,000 francs. After the Imperial establishment of the Tobacco monopoly, the liberty of Tobacco cultivation was withdrawn, or at least it was only authorised in six specified Departments of the Empire. But this belongs to the story of Tobacco legislation in France in the nineteenth century. * M Histoire de la Revolution Francaise.” Introduction, II., §. viii. t “ Recueil General,” &c. T. xxv., p. 181. t “ Nouveau Code des Prises.” 8vo. Paris, 1799. 5 “ Encyclopedic Methodique des Finances.” III., p. 685. H T. xrvii., p. 480.	51 “ Encyclop. dee Gens du Monde,” T. xxi., p. 689. ♦ ♦ M. Charlee Renier. “ Encyol. Moderns,” T. xxviM p. 110.	^ £rm ®nas Snafu Storg. [From Every Week, No. 487.] “ Sbnob Casbiano, as you are an old Texan, I suppose you know all about mustang catching?” And the speaker looked inquiringly at the man addressed. “Well, a little, I admit; and, by the way, I can tell you a good story about the mustangers, as I call the men that follow the business of catching horses. It is a number of years since it happened, but I knew the parties interested, and can vouch for its truth, although it is a snake story. “First, let me tell you how these men operated. They landed together in parties of six or eight, and carried on a partnership business. For the sake of order, they recognised the oldest man among them as their captain. In some convenient place they built a strong corral, or pen, of heavy logs and brush, high enough to prevent the horses from leaping out. At one side an opening was left wide enough to admit two or three horses abreast. From this gateway they led strong fences or wings that extended to either side like outstretched arms. The object of this was to inveigle the unsuspicious horses into the space enclosed by these anus, and then, with a rush, force them through the opening into the corral. “ The party started out in the morning, and, arriving at a certain place, faced the corral and forced themselves into a wide semi-circle, driving all the horses they found before them, gradually narrowing as they drew close to the wings of the corral, until finally the horses were in the funnel-like arrangement and into the pen before they were aware of it. Some of them rushed in with such violence that they broke their necks against the opposite wall. When they were all in, a man stationed for the purpose shut the gate, if there happened to be one; if not, he held a blanket before the door— which answered the same purpose, as they would not attempt to break through anything which they could not see through —until the opening was closed. Once inside, it was an easy matter to lasso and secure them separately. “ Texas is being so rapidly settled that this business has nearly died out. The men engaged in it sometimes lived in the woods so long that they became like Indians. Why, I was talking to one man that had not visited his family for five years, and numbers of them had not been inside of a town for three and four years. They said that they had a disagreeable feeling of restraint in the settlements, and preferred the freedom of the woods. Now for the story I was speaking of:— “I knew a band of mustangers that used to practise their calling on the Rio Grande, south-west of San Antonio. They had for their captain an old man named Bacon. He was well enough in his way, but had one trait of character that caused the dislike of the party. He was very close and stingy, and to men who cared little or nothing for gain this was a glaring fault. ‘‘ It often happened that when they were far away from the store the whole company ran out of Tobacco. Smoking is about the only luxury these men had, and to be deprived of Tobacco was worse than being on short rations. The impossibility of obtaining the weed only added to their desire. “Old Man Bacon, as he was called, was never out of Tobacco. He either had the faculty of saving in a greater degree than the younger men, or else prudence to lay by a larger supply. At any rate, he smoked regularly every day in the presence of the men, and, though he seemed to have plenty, never offered to share with the Tobacco-hungry crowd, or appeared to notice their frequent wistful glances at his pipe. They did not ask him for any, for he was the very man to refuse, and they knew it. The fact that they did not discover where he kept his supply aggravated them still more. They searched his saddle-bags and blankets, and even his pocket when he was asleep, without success, until two of them hit upon an ingenious plan of unearthing the mystery. “ Persons whose daily life compels them to reside in the woods, and in localities where snakes are common, have a wholesome dread of these deadly reptiles. These men were no exception to the rule, and the cry, *A snake!’ was sufficient to electrify the whole company. The two men before mentioned, keeping their intention a secret, succeeded in killing a good-sized rattlesnake one day, which they secured and hid until night. When night arrived, and all had lain down to rest on their blankets, the two men, first assuring themselves that Old Man Bacon was asleep, produced the snake, and, after coiling it in a natural position and tying the coils with thread, placed it carefully on hie breast, inserting its head between his shirt-front and his bosom, and then lay down close by to await the result. “The weight of the snake on the old man’s chest gave him a sense of oppression, and soon awakened him. Discovering that there was something there, with the characteristic caution of a backwoodsman he did not attempt to place his hands upon it, but silently raised his head and looked. He was horrified to find a snake, and a venomous rattlesnake at that, as he saw at a glance, coiled on his breast, with its cold, clammy head on his bosom, and to all appearances fast asleep. He knew that he could not succeed in knocking it away with sufficient quickness to prevent its biting him, for the rattlesnake is like lightning. He did the best he could do under the circumstances, and began to beckon wildly and to try to awaken his companions. He was afraid to speak loudly, and
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yet appreciated the necessity of being expeditious about the matter, so he kept whispering, ‘Partners, partners! Waken! waken! or I’m a dead man! ’
“The two who were the principals of the plot lay on either gide, and they never seemed to sleep so soundly before. They determined to give the old man a fright that he would not soon forget. After being called for a long time, they pretended to return to consciousness; and, being informed by their victim of the state of affairs, managed, with great apparent difficulty, to comprehend the situation.
“They no sooner did so than they began to manifest the utmost concern, and to rush about aimlessly, picking up articles and letting them drop again, prolonging the agony of the old man until he began to plead with them to do something for him, and not rush about in that idiotic manner. They asked him what they should do—as he was their captain, he had the command.
*“0h, I don’t know, I don’t know! Think of something, and, for mercy’s sake, think quickly I ’
“The conspirators immediately held a consultation, like like doctors, as to the best treatment. One proposed to pluck the snake quickly out by the tail, but the idea was rejected on account of the risk. The other said if they had only had a violin or a flute, they might charm the ‘varmint.’
“Finally, one of them said: ‘I have a remedy. If we only had some Tobacco to make a cigarette, we could blow some of the smoke upon the snake’s head. He would become so drunk and stupefied that he could not live; but, alas! I have no Tobacco, and’—turning to his companions, who were curiously watching the affair--‘I know you have none; yet I believe it is the only way of saving the captain.’
“The old man, willing to save his life, told them to look under the skirts of his saddle, and they would find some there. This was all they wanted; and, going to the saddle, they discovered a quantity of leaf Tobacco concealed beneath the leather skirts. They took good care to fill their pockets, and. returning to the old man, made a cigarette, and, after much ostentation and show, lit it and puffed the smoke about the region of the snake’s head. After a time, the operator declared that the snake had succumbed to the smoke, and, giving it a quick jerk, landed it on the ground, saying, as he stamped upon it, separating the coils and breaking the thread: ‘We are even with you now; you will never bite anyone again;’ and immediately flung it away, to prevent any future investigation.
“The old man was very much relieved to find that he was saved, and thanked his deliverers with emotion, never once suspecting that the whole thing was a hoax. For the remainder of the trip the company had plenty of Tobacco, and although the old man knew from whence it came, he said nothing.”
"Social Hotts” on Tobacco.
Mb. 8. C. Hall’s somewhat Pecksniffian “Social Notes” for October 12th contained an article and a letter on Tobacco. The letter, reprinted from the Times, was that from our old friend Dr. C. R. Drysdale, which was dealt with by the London Figaro under the title of “The Great Gooseberry Counterblast,” republished in our issue for November. The article was based on,that in the Times, which was also dealt with by the Figaro under the title of “Smoke,” republished in our issue for October. Let us glance at “Social Notes” on the subject.
The writer is T. Campbell Foster, Q.C., doubtless a very eminent barrister, though, even if not to know him argues myself unknown. I must confess to having never heard of him before. He begins by telling us that “ The Times of the 13th inst. [an ordinary editor would have corrected to ult., in printing] with its usual characteristic ability, has an article ” upon the paragraph announcing that at Coblentz, Saarlouis, and Treves boys under sixteen are to be punished for public smoking. (Be it said in passing, that nearly all mature smokers disapprove as decidedly as the antis themselves of boys smoking, save in exceptional cases.) We already see that we have to do with a superior person; for common people would only discern the ability, if any, in the article itself, while he can discover it in the mere fact of having the article.
He continues: “The Times says . . . that in Germany, ‘where every German smokes from his very boyhood and non-smokers are the exception,’ that ‘ the public authorities are invading the long-enduring liberty of smokers.’” Sq we already see that we have to do with a couple of very superior persons, both as writers and logicians; for, whereas common people would foolishly think that if every German smokes there can be no non-smokers to constitute an exception, this sapient man of the Times “ with its usual and characteristic ability ” has discovered that such there can be and are, and this his astonishing discovery is verified by his admiring quoter the Q.C. May we remark, in humble imitation, that every writer on the Times staff is clever, and thoroughly stupid writers are the exception? or, otherwise, that every Q.C. has some reasoning power, and utter incapables are the exception? Common people, moreover, would never have had the brilliant thought of terming the liberty of smokers “long-enduring”—a phrase which rather suggests patient
sufferance of the privation of liberty; nor would common people have had the noble courage to use the double “that” when entitled only to a single. These may seem trifling matters to the frivolous, but they indicate the intellectud lucidity of the gentlemen whose works we are about to study, the vacation Times man, and the Q.C. whose vacation may he perpetual; prepare us to look not only for elegant writing but for accurate reasoning, and to be ready and willing to bow to judgments informed with an insight so keen.
As a Nicotian brother I am sorry for Messrs. Cope, but I see no help for them: they must close their factory and give up their evil business at once; for T. Campbell Foster, Q.C., approving and even improving the vacation man whose stupendous article the Times published “with its usual and characteristic ability,” condemns smoking altogether, with scarcely any exception. And if the T. P. wishes to live, it must come out from this time forth as Cope's Anti-Tobacco Plant. For not only has Foster, Q.C., fulminated anathema, but S. C. Hall, F.S.A. (who somehow strangely reminds me of the magnanimous and philanthropic Pecksniff, who also designed a most artistic pump, so that I could even bow down and worship him at a Pinch), has thus consecrated the letter of the manly C. R. Drysdale, of whom I have heard the wicked profanely say that he is a teetotaler because he cannot drink, an anti because he cannot smoke, and a Malthusian because he hath no olive branches round his table :—
“This letter ought to circulate wherever it is possible that its influence may do work; we, therefore, offer no apology for reprinting it from the Times. It will go a long way to remove an evil that is becoming a positive curse.” May I reverently suggest that it is possible that its influence may do work (unless it be uncommonly lazy) in the moon, in the sun, in the planets and all the stars, in which case it will indeed go a long way to remove the evil which is becoming a positive curse—say a curse as positive as “Damn all stupidity, humbug, and cant! ”
Let me try to note (I ought, probably, say “ try and note,” after the example of the learned Q.C., but I have not yet mastered his new system of grammar) the heads of the very positive curse which Mr. T. Campbell Foster hath hurled against Tobacco, or, rather (maugre his title), specifically against the smoking thereof. (1) “Lads begin, to try and smoke rtry what, as well as smoke?] because they are imitators—they think it is manly and clever.” True, in many cases, 0 Daniel come to judgment. (2) It is not necessary, “for everybody is better without it.” Witness our learned Q.C. and our esthetic F.S.A. (3) It is expensive.—Confound the monstrous duties! (4) It is bad for the health; infallibly injures the coats of the stomach, produces confirmed dyspepsia, injures the eyesight, paralyses the nerve which gives the sense of taste to the tongue and the palate, makes the eye hazy and dim, the hand unsteady, the face pale and cadaverous, stunts body and mind, and does other dreadful things. —Could diagnosis be more profoundly accurate? Every smoker must have experienced all these horrid symptoms in himself, and remarked them in all his smoking acquaintances. (5) It is not a clever thing to do.—Not like writing a vacation Times leader or A Social Note on Tobacco: these are clever things, stupendously clever. (6) It is not gentlemanlike; for tailors, coalheavers, navvies, costermongers, apprentices, and shop-lads smoke, as well as gentlemen.—True again, O Daniel; and, furthermore, all these low fellows eat, drink, sleep, wear clothes, and do countless other things that gentlemen do; and it is a great and sore grievance to gentlemen that so it should be; and it were well could a law be made and enforced debarring all such low fellows from doing anything in common with gentlemen. (7) It is not a nice practice.—Not like the practice of our learned Q.C. at the bar he so brilliantly adorns. (8) It is injurious to a man’s success in life.—Thus, What smoker hath ever succeeded in life in the measure of the success of S. C. Hall, Esq., F.S.A., the triumphant editor of “Social Notes”? (9) I have reserved until the end the terrible impeachment which dominates throughout this luminous Note. Smoking has for “ordinary results [not result, mark you] stupefied fuddledom—the ‘fool’s paradise.’
Nor is a man stupefied and half-fuddled [what would the wretch be if whole-fuddled!] by Tobacco so intellectually fit for any occupation [say, writing a Social Note on Tobacco] as the man of sound health, fresh and alert, and with all his faculties and sensibilities keen and susceptible, and observant of every passing circumstance [What a picture does our Q.C. give us of himself!] . . . What leader at the bar who, having claims upon him for the present use of all his intellect and quickness and memory, could afford to halffuddle and stupefy himself with Tobacco before he began his work? [Another noble portrait of self!]”—And so the awful changes are rung throughout: stupefy, half-fuddle; halffuddle, stupefy. Now, here again the experience and knowledge of every smoker must confirm the tremendous accusation of our severely judicial Q.C. From Raleigh to Carlyle, through Hobbes, Milton, Newton, Byron, the half-fuddled stupefaction is conspicuous and unmistakable in the works of all smokers. It is no less obvious and terrible in the “History of the French Revolution” than in the “History of the World,” in the “Principia” than in the “Leviathan,” in the “Vision of Judgment” than in “Paradise Lost”! Why, if the miserable men I have named had not been smokers of Tobacco, they might have obseived and reasoned and written almost or even quite as well as Dr. C. R. Drysdale!
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[Januaby, 1879.
as the vacation Times man!! as S. C. Hall, F.S.A.!!! yea, as T. Campbell Foster, Q.C., himself!!!! But alas (in the noble style of the Times), they were one and all fuadled, every mother’s son of them, and the non-fuddled were the exception.
Sigvat.
^t Smokes no ®nrt.
[From Georgeton (Col.) Miner.]
To smoke or not to smoke, that is the question; Whether it is wiser in the mind of man To bear the taunts of weed-consuming comrades Or seize the contents of the proffered pouch And stop their importunity? To use the weed No more; and thus by smoking feel we end The gibes of unregenerate wights who swear— Profanely swear—that men who never lie, Or smoke, or drink the tangling draught, Will steal without exception; ’tis an aim Devoutly to be wished. To dissipate— Perchance to nauseate; ay, there’s the rub; The fierce emetic lurking in the fumes That lightly upward to the ceiling curl Must give us pause; there’s the disgust That makes calamity of unwholesome viands: For who would bear the uncongenial jeers That greet us on the corners of the streets, The oft-repeated question, “Don’t you smoke?” The deep, impassioned insolence of those Who know we never taste the baneful plant, The calm, deliberate offering of such As deem us friendly to a cigarette. The pangs we feel when some accomplished fraud Notes how our frame is racked with raging thirst, Then simulates an interest in our good And offers us a fifteen-cent segar, Well knowing ’tis the thing we most abhor. Who would these trials bear but that we feel The dread of an inverted appetite— That indescribable condition when The dinner bell is torture and the hue Of blushing spring gleams sadly over all. The fear of that event staggers the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than perpetrate an act which might destroy The virtue of a fifty-cent repast.
Thus nausea doth make cowards of us all, And that segar, which was the gift of one We deem our friend, still lies upon our desk.
Iggtian fossutts. VII.
FERIAL DAYS.
If we consider the numerous ferial days of the Oriental world, and especially of the Oriental Christians, we might suppose that among the Moslims ferial days were almost unknown. Assuredly the follower of the Prophet has ferial days, but no days of absolute rest. With the exception of, at the most, three days in the year, he thinks he has done enough in the way of ritual celebration if he is present on Friday at the Dschuma Namazi (Friday’s Prayer), listens there to the praises of the Prophet, of the Prophet’s four companions, and of the reigning prince, and after the number of Rikaas (bendings of the knee) prescribed by the law, devoutly responds to the Amen. When all this has been done he can go about his daily occupations. And this is what many do in all regions of Islam, and even in lands famous for their religious zeal; and if here and there this or that shop or factory is shut, the simple conclusion to be drawn therefrom is that the excessively or pretentiously devout owner is fulfilling those duties which are designated in the law as nafi!6 (surplus), such as the recitation of certain kassides, or the reading of pious books. Small in number, not very conspicuous for special externalities, the ferial days of Islam are distinguished from those of the Christians by a greater intensity of prayer, and by a more profound apprehension of the meaning of Islam (absolute resignation to God). This must chiefly be ascribed to the deeper roots which the faith has everywhere struck in the East. Very vivid in my memory are the preparations which year after year I beheld at the commencement of the month Ramasan, the well-known fasting month, which closes with the Idi-Fitr-Beiram. In the wide range of the Moslim world I found those preparations the most brilliant on the banks of the Bosphorus. If the season of the year permits, the houses, both within and without, are painted and repaired. Carpets and articles of furniture are cleaned; new coffee pots, coffee cups, eating and drinking vessels are bought, victuals in extraordinary quantity and quality procured, and all for a thirty days’ fast, a thirty days’ mortification of the body. How singular soever these arrangements may appear, they are well adapted to a special purpose, for the month’s fasting includes a month’s
revelry. The good God, from a clear knowledge of spiritual circumstances and conditions, has commanded the chastisement of the body; but as He did not accurately fix the time of the twenty-four hours’ solstice, the good God is circumvented ; that is to say, people fast by day in order to run riot at night; they sleep by day in order to be the more lively at night. Consequently the day is changed into night, and everything is turned upside down. Topsy-turvy, scimble-scamble, hurly-burly, reign supreme in existence, all very much to the taste of the good Orientals, to whom, as is well known, time is not one of the most precious jewels, labour not one of the most valued customs. Even at this hour my head grows giddy when I think of the noonday beams of a summer Ramasan (in consequence of the lunar year, the special ferial days make in the course of thirty-three years a cycle of the seasons) that followed a night which had been passed in jollity. Weeks were needed to accustom the body to such an extraordinary mode of life. A wild rush of ecstatic emotions reigns during the whole month in the Mahometan world, and the State does well to let its affairs rest while the festivities continue. Two or three hours before sunset, we see gliding round, in weariness and apathy, the shadows of orthodox men alike in Stamboul and in Teheran, alike in Bokhara and in Fez and Morocco, yea, even in the interior of China. To spend the hot day of a summer Ramasan without a drop of water—the very name of this fluid is forbidden—or, what is far worse, to renounce even a single draw from the passionately loved pipe, is certainly one of the most horrible torments that a Mahometan can suffer. In vain to recreate the senses do the believers ramble about in the bazaars and in the mosques, in vain do they gaze at the tricks of jugglers and at theatrical entertainments; the stomach growls, the throat is parched, the senses are exhausted and listless, all except the ear, which vigorously continues its functions, listening for the cannon-shot which is to announce the going down of the sun. At last the thunder of the shot resounds, which puts thousands of souls —or, to speak more accurately, thousands of stomachs—into the most joyous state of excitation. The first rush is to the pipes, the second to the water, the third to the richly-laden table. Of what is then consumed Europeans can have only a very feeble idea. The food is not eaten, it is thrown with headlong haste into the stomach. And wise was the forethought of the Prophet who commanded the true believers to utter the Terawi prayer after such a colossal evening meal. This prayer consists of twenty nikats, each of which has to be accompanied by eight different positions of the body. Eight times twenty make a hundred and sixty, and the most gluttonous Mahometan has no cause to fear indigestion when he has subjected his body to these hundred and sixty movements. No rose without thorns, no joy without pain, no Ramasan repast without Terawis. In this fashion the Ramasan glides on at Constantinople. Here the evening festivities and solemnities are heightened by the illumination of the lofty and gracefully slender minarets, and by the texts of the Koran hanging as transparencies from the double towers. On the whole, the Moslim capital on the Bosphorus makes, more than any other place, the fasting month attractive and gorgeous. In this month figures the “Night of Destiny” (Kadr Gedshesi), when the Sultan in splendidly illuminated boats goes to the extreme point of the Seraglio, and thence to the Mosque, and for this act of piety is rewarded with a beautiful female slave, paid for out of the national exchequer. This night of destiny has great significance for the Mahometans, for on this night the good God closes each man’s sin register, and begins a new book for the coming year. Interpreters of the Koran pretend to know the form and the colour of this celestial ledger. We must not be surprised that the true believer bows down on this night in deepest contrition before the divine bookkeeper. At last the fasting month closes.—From the German of Vdmb6ry.
Tea.
The cultivation of tea is exceedingly simple. Even very poor and stony soils suit it well enough; but care has to be taken to place the plants in a sheltered position at the foot of hills, for the east wind is fatal to them. The seeds are sown in the ground exactly as peas are sown. Three or four seeds are placed in each hole, and the holes are three or four feet from each other. It is not till the second or third month that the germination takes place. When the plant springs from the ground it grows with great rapidity. The plants are hoed exactly as potatoes are hoed, and without more precaution: that is to say, the earth is simply gathered round the root of the plant. If all the seeds have germinated, the weaker plants are removed. There is never either manuring or watering. The plant attains a height of two or three feet, never a height of five feet. The foliage is thick, and rounded like the head of our dwarf cherry trees. To these the tea plant has a considerable resemblance. The green of the foliage varies according to the age of the plant. Like our fruit trees, the tea tree is liable to be killed by a worm, which ascends spirally from the root to the top of the stem, leaving the trace of its passage. The average duration of the tree is from twenty-five to thirty years. When the tree is three years old, the leaves are for the first time gathered. Each tree yields four crops a year, three ounces of dry tea being the result. Five kilogrammes of green leaves furnish only one kilogramme of dry leaves. Black tea is not, as some
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— people imagine, a particular species; it depends on the age of the leaf and the manner of preparing it. Neither is green tea a particular species. The property wherewith it is reproached, of acting powerfully and perniciously on the nervous svstem, comes from the gummy or resinous glaze with which the young leaves are covered when they are gathered toprepare this kind of tea. The teas which are exported to France and England are all more or less adulterated by the Chinese themselves, and contain in notable quantity dry leaves of the camellia oleifera and fragments of the olea frngrans. which are, however, harmless for the consumers. The Boukliarian caravans, traversing Mongolia and the steppes of Central Asia, introduced for the first time into Russia, in 1653, the tea which they had taken in China in exchange for furs. Forty years afterwards the Russian Government regulated this commerce by a treaty made direct with the Chinese Government. This treaty was renewed by Peter the Great, and the modifications made in it permitted the Siberians to establish a service of caravans direct between the Chinese frontiers and Makarieff on the Volga. For seventy years or more tea has become a thing of prime neces-gity, even for the lowest classes. The arrival of tea in Russia depends on the thaw of the rivers of Siberia. Sledges are made use of to convey the tea from Kiakhta, a small Russian town established as entrepot on the frontier of China, near Lake Baikal, to Tomsk, where it has sometimes to wait three or four weeks for the suitable time to be placed on board rachives (large decked barques). It descends the Obi, remounts the Irtisch, is disembarked anew, and carried in carts to Perm, where it resumes and continues its navigation on the Kama and the Volga to Nijni-Novgorod. (Ural means in the Turgo-Kirghisian language Girdle. Nijni-Novgorod means in Russian Lower New Town.) The caravans of sledges, manv hundreds in number, leave Kiakhta in the month of February. They traverse Siberia from one end to the other, accompanied only by a few Tartars, who guide and take care of the horses. There are no resting-places on the main roads but the few villages which are met with at immense distances from each other. The caravan continues its march all the day. At night it stops at some open spot in the midst of the forests. The horses are unyoked, and are allowed to graze at liberty, the wolves generally keeping at a distance. The rachives on which the tea arrives at Nijni-Novgorod carry from eighty to a hundred thousand kilogrammes, and the cargo of each is valued at about a million and a half of francs. (A kilogramme is rather more than two pounds English.) The costs of transport amount to ten per cent; credit for a year is given, and a half per cent, of discount is allowed. The tea is carefully packed in sheets of lead, then placed in a box of thin wood, which is covered with a skin, bo that it cannot contract the odour of the environing bodies. The teas which the Russians transport by land from Kiakhta to Moscow have a great superiority over the Dutch, English, and French teas, which in the sea passage are never isolated, and undergo the influence of the saline exhalations of the ocean, and of those equally nauseous and harsh of the hold of the vessel. Teas are distinguished by the names of the proprietors and sometimes by those of the makers. In commerce more than two hundred Chinese families are noted whose teas have a certain vogue. The case is exactly the same with us in reference to Champagne wines. There are so-called family teas and so-called flower teas. The superfine qualities are sold in varnished chests, weighing from twenty-five to thirty pounds, and at the rate of from five hundred to five hundred and sixty francs. The purchase of teas at Kiakhta is made by exchange. For the teas are given cloth, valuable furs, copper vessels; but coined money, the exportation of which is forbidden in both empires, is not employed. So-ealled brick tea is sold for a very low price, and is only bought by the Kalmucks, the Mongols, the Kirghises, and other nomadic tribes, who infuse it in milk or in mare’s whey, with a slight addition of maize flour or of millet.— From the French of Germain. Keeping Cool. The first time M. De Corbiere was admitted by Louis XVIII. to an official audience, this Minister, who was very unceremonious, put himself at once at his ease, and, among other freedoms, placed successively and familiarly on the royal bureau, His spectacle case. His snuff-box, His handkerchief, His agenda. The king watched him earnestly, and said to him in a somewhat offended tone, “ M. De Corbiere, you are emptying your pockets! ” The Minister, without being disconcerted, replied: “Would your Majesty be better pleased if I were to fill them?”—From the French. Intellectual Professions. The labours of thought generate in very various measure, and with very various fortune, cerebral fatigues, so that health in various modes is protected or menaced thereby. When speaking of intellectual hygiene we have, without intending it, sketched the laws which must regulate the healthfulness of the intellectual professions, so that we have little to add thereto. The most healthful are those which demand the alternation of muscular exercise with cerebral force; and this	remark applies to physicians, engineers, travellers, naturalists, and so on. Unfortunately the existence of physicians is as brief as it is sad, although they alternate in just measure the exercise of the legs with that of the brain. But this must be ascribed to the bitterness of their life, which is steeped in the profound griefs of their wounded self-respect, and to the infected air and the subtle poisons which form their ordinary atmosphere. The abuse of the intelligence can kill through exhaustion, as Pascal, Bichat, and Byron suffice to prove; or it can kill through apoplexy, and from apoplexy died Petrarch, Copernicus, Malpighi, Richardson, Linnaeus, Marmontel, Daubenton, Monge, Cabanis, Corvisart, Walter Scott, Gioberti, Belli, Eugene Sue. The sedentary life of the studious disposes them, moreover, to urinary calculus, from which suffered and died Amyot, Erasmus, Harvey, Calvin, Bacon, Leibnitz, Bossuet, Linnaeus, Newton, Buffon, D’Alembert, Voltaire, Semper, and so on. We can labour with the brain with impunity, and yet live a long time. It seems as if an elevated and active intelligence brought with it an organisation fit for resisting physical disasters. In twelve hundred celebrated men there was an average life of sixty-nine years eight months; that is to say, nine years and nine months more than the average life of ordinary men, which, according to Casper, is fifty-nine years and eleven months.—From the Italian of Mantegazza. Bice. Rice, the Oryza Satira of Linna?us, serves as food to a larger portion of the human race than wheat or the other cereals. The inhabitants of Hindostan, of China, of Persia, of Japan, of the peninsula beyond the Ganges, of almost all Asiatic and African countries situated between the Tropics, and of a large portion of the two American continents, use as aliment rice instead of bread. The farinaceous substance of rice is wholesome, light, of easy digestion, and gives tone to the stomach and the intestines. But chemical analysis has shown that in equal volume rice contains less alimentary substance than wheat. There are many different species of rice. Bengal sends to Europe a large quantity of a somewhat indifferent quality. That which comes to us from Madagascar and Java is still worse. That of Egypt, of China, and of Manilla is preferable. But the rices of the United States and particularly that of Carolina, are very highly esteemed, and they are sold in European ports at double the price of those which come from Hindostan. This difference doubtless arises from the superiority of the method of culture of the Americans over that of Eastern countries. But recently there has been an improvement in the quality of the rice of the Indies, by importing it, not in the naked grain, as was formerly the case, but in grain covered with the pellicles, which guarantee it from the ordinary deterioration produced by fermentation during a long voyage. Rice appears to be indigenous to Malaya. All the tribes of the Malayan countries from Madagascar to Borneo speak of rice under the name of padi or brae. The inhabitants of the Philippines call it palay. The general designation for everything concerning the culture of this plant is sarvah. Rice is the principal aliment of the civilised races of this part of the world that inhabit the countries situated between the tropics and the adjacent islands. Everything seems to indicate that it has not thus a foreign origin. The Javans make a considerable exportation of rice to Sumatra, to Malacca, to Borneo, to Celebes, to the Moluccas, to Ceylon, to the Cape of Good Hope, and even to the Mauritius and to the Island of Bourbon, when these two last islands cannot obtain it from Madagascar. They supply to these islands from six to eight thousand tons of rice, and receive in payment about five millions of Sica rupees, or twelve millions five hundred thousand francs. This species of rice is likewise cultivated on the mountains and in the marshes. But the Javans sell the second in the interior, though it is less substantial and of a less agreeable taste than the first or dry rice. Rumphius makes us acquainted with a third variety of rice (Oryza Glutinosa) which is never used except as a dainty. The Malays give it the name of Poulont, the Javans that of Kettimg. It is rare for rice to be ripe everywhere in the same field at the same time, consequently the harvest sometimes continues for as long as ten days in the same tract. The crop is carried to the village, where it is dried in the sun. Then it is made into sheaves, which are placed in the barns. The peasants make use neither of the flail nor of cattle to separate the rice from the straw; they tread it under foot. But usually the rice is carried to the market before undergoing this operation. In the whole of Malaya and principally in the Philippines, at Java and at Timor, women separate the rice by means of mortars and wooden pestles. When the rice has undergone this operation it can easily be kept for several years. The virgin soils in which rice is cultivated yield from 25 to 30 per cent.; those of the mountains 15; those of the marshes 25, but only 15 or 16 if there are two harvests in the year. At Mutaran an English acre yields in two harvests 570 pounds, and 641 pounds in a single harvest. The wages of the women who reap are paid in kind. They receive the eighth, the sixth, and sometimes even the fifth or fourth of the crop.—From the French of Rienzi. Offerings of Bread. A usage which remounted to the remotest times of Poland, and which continued to the end of the reign of Stanislaus Augustus, was that of offering to the Sovereign the first loaf
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made from the wheat of the new harvest. This custom figured well the patriarchal simplicity and the gratitude of the people. What homage more modest, and at the same time more flattering t How faithfully it rendered the sentiments and the wishes of those who offered it! Every year, towards midsummer, as soon as the corn of the region most exposed to the rays of the sun was ripe and suitable for being converted into flour, it was cut, and therefrom a noble loaf was made. Thereupon the Mayor of Cracow, at the head of the counsellors and of the whole commune, carried it to court on a silver plate. At a later period, when the royal residence was transferred from Cracow to Warsaw, the mayor of the ancient national city went to the new capital in order to carry the homage of the people to the king, who received it always with benevolence, and expressed his deep affection for the old national city.—From the French of Charles Forster.
FOR THE MONTH ENDING NOVEMBER 30th.
	Imports: lbs.	Home Consumption : lbs.	In Bond: lbs.
1876. Unmanufactur’d	5.452,319	4,218,001	97,911,583
Manf’d. & Snuff	308,529’	125,867	2,834,773
1877. Unmanufactur’d	5,103,105-	4,243,202	112,008,713
Manf’d. & Snuff	256,615	138,636	3,035,375
1878. Unmanufactur’d	4,771,120	4,133,970	133,114,281
Manf’d. & Snuff	228,060	117,693	3,190,077
The mere Imports of isolated months give no sure indication; but the Quantities left in Bond are significant; and that most trustworthy index, the Home Consumption, points in the same direction as the figures given in the article —steady increase before the extra duty, steady decrease since.
Sigvat.
®^t ^ohncco Julies.
Copt’s Airfare.
The London Figaro for December 14, 1878, has a very fair and courteous notice of our last month’s article on the Tobacco Duties. After citing our statistics, drawn from official Returns, showing that the amount of duties for the half-year ending 31st October, 1878, was only £82,560 more than that for the corresponding period in 1877, whereas the Chancellor of the Exchequer anticipated an increase of £859,000 in the year; and also citing our observation on the vast and unprecedented increase during the four months ending 31st October, 1878, of the quantity of Tobacco left in Bond; Figaro remarks: “Of course, it may be fairly assumed that Copers Tobacco Plant is just a leetle biassed in favour of the particular industry with which it is identified, but, at the same time, it shows quite clearly that the increased Tobacco duty is a failure, in a financial point of view; and this fact being established, it follows, as a matter of course, that a large and influential industry has been harassed and worried and taxed without any beneficial result to the community at large. That the duties on Tobacco will have to be modified there can be little doubt.” We are sanguine that all intelligent and disinterested persons who investigate the matter will come to the same opinion as the Figaro.
While on this subject, we may as well add a supplementary note by the writer of the article in question:—Wishing to give, in a single article, for ready reference and use, a compendium of the whole case of the Tobacco Duties, I was compelled by lack of room to omit certain inferences from the figures which all readers may not have time to draw themselves, and which are well worthy of attention. For example:—
(1)	By the last two Tables it was shown that, for the Six Months ending October 31, the Home Consumption of Unmanufactured fell in 1878 more than One Million lbs. below that of the same period in 1876, more than Two Million lbs. below that of the same period in 1877. It was further shown that the Increase in Duty for the same period, with the additional 4*2d. per lb., was only £71,077 in 1878 compared with 1877; whereas, it might have been added, what may be termed the natural Increase, the increase by consumption without additional duty, was more than double this in 1877 compared with 1876, being £151,758. Thus, so far as these figures can indicate, and they furnish the best indication we have, the extra duty, instead of swelling the natural amount of Increase, actually diminished it by more than one-half. Without the extra duty we should have been justified in looking for an Increase of more than £151,758 in these Six Months of 1878; with the extra duty the actual Increase was only £71,077.
(2)	It was shown by the last two Tables that the whole Increase in amount of duty on Home Consumption, Manufactured and Unmanufactured, for the six months ending 31st October, was only £82,560 in 1878 compared with samo period in 1877. Doubling this, we have £165,120 probable increase for the whole year, or less than one-fifth of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's estimate. Moreover, the first Table shows that in each of the eight years since 1870, i.e., from 1871 to 1877, both included, with the single exception of 1876, the natural increase by consumption, without extra duty, was considerably in excess of this £165,120. Here are the figures of Yearly Increase again: 1871, £176,177; 1872, £201,611; 1873, £287,472: 1874, £185,018; 1875, £197,515; 1876, £117,967; 1877, £241,321. In other words, without the extra duty we should have been justified in looking for an Increase of about £250,000, in the current financial year; with the extra duty we are only justified in expecting about £165,120. That is to say, the gain to the Revenue for the current year by the extra duty is likely to be a loss of about £100,000 (such a practical bull as the extra duty requires a verbal bull to express it): this is the magnificent result for which a great industry has been harassed and distressed, and some millions of quiet, peaceable smokers, have been set damning the Government every time they buy Tobacco!
The Board of Trade Return for November, 1878, being now to hand, permit me to add its evidence to the wondrous tale:
The Morning Advertiser is a journal which I should expect to find doing justice to “our dear Tobacco.” The gallant Captain who fills the editorial chair, in succession to the Millennial Grant, appreciates the merit of a good cigar, and is not indifferent to the worth of an humbler friend, in the shape of a well-seasoned pipe. A weak-kneed Cockney punster of my acquaintance, whose good intentions have run away with his wit, says the Editor-Captain would command the admiration of Charles Reade—that doughty advocate of lefthandedness—because he is Hamber-dextrous. To this quality is to be attributed the downrightness of the Advertiser's opinions under Captain Hamber’s direction; from which downrightness Your Man-of-All-Work derives much solace in an age when journalism too generally emulates the steadfastness of the weathercock. Discussing the questions lately raised by the German interdict against youthful smokers, the Advertiser thus deftly summed up the argument:—
“	We may not know a parallel to the case of that remarkable ancient mariner mentioned by Dr. Arnott, who at the age of sixty-four, and ignorant of even an hour's sickness, had been a Tobacco chewer and smoker for fifty years, and not only a chewer and smoker, but also an eater of the plant, his allowance for over a quarter of a century being every five days a quarterpound of the strongest Negrohead, every particle of which he swallowed. This wonderful veteran died at seventy; and if it be argued that he would have lived longer had he not used so much Tobacco, it may be retorted that he would not have died so early had he used more of it. At all events, in spite of the dreadful examples of death from over-smoking of which we hear in the dull season, the world has not been damaged by Tobacco. Indeed, we are not so sure that the world was not also a smoker in its youth. For all we can tell, Noah discovered the weed before he discovered the vine. Noah lived before Sir Walter Raleigh, but there are no conclusive grounds for believing that this romantic adventurer was the first who introduced Tobacco into England. Bomare and Camden give the credit to Sir Francis Drake; and if Sir Walter brought smoking into fashion, Ralph Lane taught him to smoke. If we are uncertain concerning the history of Tobacco, we are equally so about its effects. Every individual is his own best judge on this point. Most sure it is that Nicotina counts great intellects among her votaries. Queen Elizabeth smoked, and made her ladies follow the fashion. The first Napoleon was an enormous smokerand snuff-taker. He encouraged the custom in his army, and we have stories of the beneficent effects of Tobacco on his exhausted or dispirited soldiers. Bacon, Hobbes, Newton, Locke, Swift, and Pope smoked like so many small limekilns, yet it is doubtful if a group of superior intellects could be found in British literature. Sir Isaac once, in a fit of absence, used a lady's finger for a Tobacco-stopper. Spenser, Ben Jonson, Fielding, Smollett, Byron, Shelley smoked. To cull a few later names haphazard, we have Carlyle, Tennyson, Bismarck, Grant, Gortschakoff, Osman Pacha, slaves of the pipe or cigar. Thackeray and Dickens loved their cigar. In fine, it is pretty well beyond question that Tobacco will not hurt the mature man, but may be a benefit as well as an enjoyment, provided he uses and does not abuse it. It is not so clearly established, but there is every' reason to believe that its premature use, in however moderate quantity, is highly pernicious; and, therefore, many who despair of the efficacy of the steps taken by the German Government will earnestly desire its success."
Now, to this brilliant galaxy of great names I should like to add two others. If Carlyle, Tennyson, Thackeray and Dickens may be quoted amongst the great men of letters, who in our day have been devoted to the weed, why may not I mention Edmund Yates, who controls the World, and Henry Labouchere, who inspires Truth I When the editor of Truth went bail for the editor of the World the other day, by way of surety that the editor of Touchstone should not be horsewhipped or cudgelled, there were wiseacres who prided themselves on the discovery that the contempt and abuse and sarcastic bitterness with which “Truthful Tommy” and the author of “Black Sheep” assail each other in print were not quite genuine. Society—by whose favour such gentlemen live—had been slow to perceive that, whereas their fortunes might have been shipwrecked if adventured in the same boat, and thus exposed to the adverse breezes which blow upon Henry as well as to those which buffet Edmund, the division of their interests might secure that the winds inimical to Henry should blow propitious for Edmund, and the gales that threaten Edmund with destruction might favour Henry’s barque. If Society pants to see both editors well abused in print, why should they not agree to abuse each other—lest some third editor step in and reap the profit of abusing the two ? It is a spectacle pleasing to our better feelings, when these rival satirists join hands against a common foe—the interloper who would lampoon them both, even as they lampoon each other and the rest of the brethren. And when these worthy gentlemen do agree, “ their unanimity is wonderful.” Let me congratulate you upon the fact that their latest alliance is in admiration of Cope’s Pictorial Cards. A word is sufficient for the wise. In the collection
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of doubtful portraits contained in the coloured sheet named “ At the Play,” which adorns the World's “ Christmas Number,” and in the sketches illustrating the distant parody of Dante which constitute the “ Christmas Number ” of Truth, my fellow-labourer and trusty comrade Pipeshank will recognise that “ sincerest form of flattery ”—Imitation. If, therefore, I may not presume to add Messrs. Yates and Labouchere to the Advertiser's list of Smoking Worthies, I may count them amongst the admirers of Cope's Christmas Cards.
Still thinking of those Worthies, and despairing to catalogue them all, I am reminded of the Vatican. I do not recall, at the moment, any proof that the late Pio Nono’s successor emulates him in his love of Tobacco; but I am cheered by the facts which the Court Journal embalms in the following paragraph:—
“Cardinal Nina, the Secretary of State to Leo XIII., is a great smoker. In his study। near a bronze crucifix, is a pipe rack, well filled with old pipes, for the most part of the cheapest kind. The Cardinal smokes the ordinary coarse Tobacco of the regie, and does not disdain the inferior kind used by the soldier.'*
If it should seem strange that those who administer ghostly comfort to mankind confess themselves indebted for physical comfort to divine Tobacco, be it remembered that the use of this herb is potent in enabling men to forego much other indulgence of the carnal kind—as gluttony, drunkenness, and sloth. I have met, in the course of the desultory reading of the month, with a striking illustration of this truth, imprinted by a contemporary publication thus:—
“A Liverpool paper records that, on a man being charged before tho magistrates with an assault, and committed to prison for four months, he treated the matter with laughing indifference, and was jauntily leaving tho dock, when his demeanour suddenly altered, and he whispered hurriedly to the officer in charge. The answer he received induced him to turn with consternation on his countenance to the magistrate. ‘ Is it true, your honour, that I shan’t be allow ed no ’Bacca ? ’ exclaimed tho impenitent and ungrammatical one. * It is quite true that you will be deprived of it,’ the magistrate replied. ‘ Good Lord! you don’t mean that,’ returned the man in affright; ‘why, it’s been witties and drink ever since I was so high,’ laying his hand on the ledge of the dock, ‘and I couldn’t live without it. Make it six months instead of four, and let’s have my chaw, good luck to you.'”
I don’t know Frederick Talbot, and I have. not read his novel “Closed at Dusk”; but I think I may append his testimony to that which comes from the Vatican and the Liverpool Police Court, in support of the virtues of my favourite narcotic. In his novel, Mr. Talbot makes two of his characters talk in this wise:—“‘Come, shall we set to work?’—‘With all my heart,’ said Lexington, lighting a fresh cigar, and offering one to his friend, who drew himself up with a certain pompousness. ‘I never smoke over business papers.’—‘Ah, there you are wrong,’ said Lexington.” And then the author, speakbig in his own proper person, says—
“And certainly he was wrong. For is there any lightener of labour, after ill, equal to a good cigar, through whose delightful fumes tho dryest job assumes a kind of roseate aspect ? Your pipe is an exacting instrument, resenting neglect and absorption, scattering abroad dirt and blackness, or else shedding fierce incendiary atoms. But your cigar is like some sweet attendant houri—dark, graceful, and alluring, always ready to the lips, and yet not erigeant, will burn its own sweet incense alone and forgotten of its master, and haring spent life in his service, gracefully retire to make room for another.”
It is time to turn to the darker side of the picture. There is still much to be said against Tobacco. Not long since I recapitulated the evils Dr. Drysdale attributes to its use. The list was portentous and awful; but the Norristown Herald improves upon it. Reciting it, that admirable paper says:— “This is bad enough, but if the English doctor had examined a little more closely into the effect the habit of smoking had upon the constitution, he would have discovered that it also leads to bank defalcations, ossification of the heart, a disposition to run for Congress, body-snatching, hay fever, highway robbery, strabismus, bunions, and croquet.” In my own experience, I have known Tobacco-smoking lead to other fearful kinds of mischief, which some day, when the Antis grow weary and need more help, I may enumerate for their benefit. At present, I fall back upon Mayfair, a journal which promotes the cause of the Coming Man—the soon-to-be-immortal Davis, who is the Granville Hotel and Marina at Bamsgate, the town of Westgate-on-Sea and its Electric Light, the last new journal, and the last selected Parliamentary candidate of the County of Kent, and the purveyor of champagne luncheons and grand junketings to the London reporters. Dear Lucy, who edits Davis, says—
“I was waiting for a train at Victoria Station some few days ago, when I was accosted by a man wearing the garb of a seaman. After a few mysterious dumb signs he pulled out from a bag the usual samples of cigars of the finest Havannah brand, that he had that afternoon smuggled through the docks from his ship. Finding my taste and his cigars did not agree, the usual diamond rings and meerschaum pipes followed. He tried hard to drive a bargain, but failing, was about to turn away, when a clerical gentleman stepped up and my nautical friend tried a bargain with him. Some doubt being thrown upon the genuineness of the stones, the sailor, nothing daunted, was about to test tho purity upon a convenient carriage window, but at a suggestion from me that the price was 40s. or a month he hesitated; whereupon the clerical-looking gentleman suggested he had a more convenient window at his office in Scotland Yard. For once tho mariner had been too bold."
That clerical gentleman should go down to Bristol. He should travel to Londonderry. He should visit Hull and Leeds. He should return to sojourn at Botherhythe. He should frequent the Thames Police Court, pervade the London docks, and cultivate the acquaintance of the officers of Customs. Your readers, who favour me by patronising and consuming this “ Mixture,” will understand these allusions. They will remember my devotion to the cause of the smugglers in all these localities. In that Bristol case of which I
said something last month, the prosecuting solicitor said “the authorities were determined to do all they could to stop illicit trading, and when they secured the people who indulged in that illicit trading they must ask the bench to back them up.” The clerical gentleman at Victoria Station and Scotland Yard would be usefully employed in looking after those persons. He would “ secure the people; ” and one wonders what people. Would he “secure” Her Majesty’s Government ? Puzzles and conundrums are in demand this Christmas time, and this is my contribution to the store. Its solution would help to make “A Merry Christmas” and to promote that “Happy New Year” which, for you and all your readers, is the ardent desire of
Youb Man-of-All-Work.
She feman ®obra ^[onopolg.
L
1	.—“ Material zu dem Entwurfe eines Tabaksteuergesetzes fiir das Deutsche Reich. Von Oekonomierath Classen. Ausbach, 1878.”
2	.—“Tabacksmonopol. Lauschen Von Karl Eichwald. Bremen, 1878.”
3	.—“ Zur Geschichte des Taback’s und seiner Besteuerung. Von Dr. Gustav Eberty. Berlin, 1878.”
4	.—“ Tabackmonopol und Fabrikat-steuer. Von L. Fuchs. Hanover, 1878.”
5	.—“ Referat abgestattet dem XVIH. volkswirthschaftlichen Congresse zu Posen am 3 September, 1878. Von Syndicus Dr. Barth. Bremen, 1878.”
6	.—“Das Deutsche Reich und das Tabakmonopol. Stuttgart, 1878.”
7	.—“Zur Tabaksteuer-Frage. Von F. Felser. Leipzig, 1878.”
8	.—“Der Tabak und seine Besteuerung in Bezug auf Gesundheit und Sitte. Ein Mahnruf an den Reichstag. Von Sanitats-Rath Dr. Carl Pfeiffer. Demmin, 1878.”
9	.—“Ueber die Besteuerung des Tabaks nach Deutschen Finanzgrundsatzen. Von 0. Freiherr Von Aufsetz. Leipzig, 1878.”
10	.—“Ob Tabakfabrikatsteuer, ob Tabakmonopol? Bremen, 1878.”
11	.—“Das Tabakmonopol und Seine Gemeinshadlichkeit. Lahr, 1878.”
12	.—“Das Tabaksmonopol. Eine Freiheits-und Verfassungs-frage. Magdeburg, 1878.”
13	.—“Monopol und Verarmung. Offeuer Brief Eines Cigarrenfabrikanten an alle Deutschen Tabacksinteressenten. Bremen, 1878.”
14	.—“Nur Kein Tabacksmonopol! Ein ernstes Wort der Mahnung an alle Mit-Interessenten des Tabacks-Branche, inbesondere an die berufenen Leiter der Interessen Aller im Deutschen Reiche. Bremen, 1878.”
15	.—“Denkschrift fiir eine Reichs-Tabak-R^gie. Von Moriz Mohl. Stuttgart, 1878.”
In its time, Tobacco has played many parts. No one ever expected it to be a great revolutionary force. A great revolutionary force Prince Bismarck, the chief enemy of revolutions, seems determined to make it. To give here in detail our estimate of Bismarck is not needful. The foundation of Prussian power was laid by a renegade knight of the Teutonic order; and Prussian policy has always been worthy of this ignoble origin: it has been selfish, greedy, and unscrupulous. In the famous Frederick there was not a little of the huckster and the sharper. And hucksters and sharpers have his successors been. Thoroughly in consonance with the dismemberment of Poland was the dismemberment of Saxony on the downfall of Napoleon I. More recently, what could be alike more cowardly and more base than the onslaught of the big, covetous bully Prussia on gallant Denmark—a State which it was both the duty and interest of England and France to defend? Cunning, audacious, pertinacious, brutal, frank, despising diplomatic tricks, undeterred by the slightest sense of moral obligation, Bismarck has been faithful to Prussia’s traditional policy. And he has succeeded less through his own boldness and craft than through the weakness, vacillation, and blunders of his enemies at home and abroad. Except, perhaps, Thiers, there was no statesman capable of entering into rivalry with him. However, he has achieved memorable results, and the world, after its abject fashion, falls down and worships.
But difficulties most formidable, and dangers not a few, are in store for him. Prussia is still, like England, a half feudal country. The German Empire is far from forming a homogeneous whole, and lacks cohesion and consolidation; the ecclesiastical conditions and relations of the complex monarchy are anarchic and troublesome; and that strange, insane, and amorphous thing, Socialism, brings into the general commotion elements of discord and despair with which the German Chancellor is inadequate to deal, because he is incapable of understanding them. These and other perils he might set at defiance if he were an accomplished financier as well as a vigorous statesman. But of finance he knows absolutely nothing; and, like all men of his peculiar type, he disdains the knowledge which he does not possess. What
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could show more completely his financial incapacity than his proposal to create a Tobacco monopoly in the German Empire, after the fashion of the Tobacco monopolies in France and other countries ? No wonder that the proposal has excited in Germany both anger and dismay. It has been debated in public meetings, discussed in periodicals and in pamphlets. The pamphlets are written with German ponderousness and prolixity, but are, like most German productions, exhaustive, and contain much valuable information and many valuable suggestions. Those pamphlets, whose titles we have given, we shall notice with as much fulness as our space permits.
Tobacco legislation has been a chaos of absurdities. But the time has surely come when the tyranny and the stupidity should cease. There are two reasons why the Science of Taxation, both in its theories and applications, is so unprogressive. The first is, that all Governments are improvident, and take the easiest, the readiest means of raising a revenue, without looking to the future. The second is, that there are always classes, and often large classes, interested in the imposition or abolition of particular taxes. Our House of Commons, which is currently spoken of as representing the People, really represents Classes—the Landlord Class, the Brewing Class, the Shipping Class, and so on; so that the marvel is that anything like justice is ever done to the People at all. In these days, too, Cants are not without their influence on taxation. They are almost as bad as the delusions which led to sumptuary laws. For instance, the cant about temperance has given to tea a pre-eminence which it is far from deserving; for even the most moderate use of tea is deleterious, and nervous diseases, which are now as common as at one time they were rare, are traceable to the drinking of tea in excess. When Queen Elizabeth and the ladies around her drank “jolly good ale and old,” they did not complain that their nerves were out of order. But there have been successive and large reductions of the duty on tea, that blockheads at temperance meetings, when they have nothing else to say, may chatter about the “cup which cheers but not inebriates.” We have long been convinced that, whether our Government or any other Government determines to raise a large revenue from Tobacco, neither the producer nor the manufacturer of the plant should be taxed. Indeed, all agricultural productions, either in their raw or manufactured state, should enjoy immunity from taxation. Lately a Member of Parliament proposed the revival of the hop duty. Members of Parliament can talk with impunity a considerable amount of nonsense; but this gentleman stretched his tether of twaddle till it snapped. Agricultural productions should not be taxed in their raw state, because the soil of a country should be allowed to produce whatever it is fitted to produce, and because the freer the land the greater is the number of persons employed in its cultivation; it should not be taxed in its manufactured state, because a tax deadens enterprise and limits employment. Besides, Government supervision is vexatious; Government officers can be bribed; the cultivator or the manufacturer regards Government control as his enemy, and naturally determines to defeat it by evasion, by fraud, by adulteration, by the thousand expedients of ingenious roguery which the folly of legislation makes more than half justifiable.
Formoral, still more than for economical, reasons, a Government should not step in as a tax-exactor till an article takes its final form for sale in the market. Here if the Government is wronged, it must be from its neglect of the most ordinary rules of fair play and common sense.
In reference to Tobacco, there is no cause why it alone should form an exception to the general principle. And if in the United Kingdom the general principle were applied to Tobacco, an immense impulse would be given to the reclamation of waste lands and to the fructification of “estuarine deposits.” Through the extensive cultivation of Tobacco in Ireland, this unfortunate part of the British Empire might not merely be for the first time prosperous, but for the first time peaceful and contented. As we look at Southampton Water and other rivers busy with alluvial creation, we marvel why tracts which now generate nothing but fever are not converted into rich Tobacco fields. What would not Dutch industry have done with the treasures of Nature which Englishmen neglect ?
While everything points to the emancipation of Tobacco from its long thraldom, Bismarck is resolved to load Tobacco so completely with chains that it cannot move. For a prob-lematical advantage to the Revenue, he, with his usual reckless obstinacy, cares not if the German cultivation of Tobacco and the German trade in Tobacco are wholly and for ever ruined.
Of the pamphlets written on the Tobacco monopoly which he insanely desires to establish, some are manifestly from the pen of Government hirelings. Others reveal clearly enough that they have been inspired by class interests. The fewest are they which have sprung from a noble patriotism, and are enriched with what is wisest in an enlightened political economy.
Number One on our list is almost entirely statistical. It advocates the free cultivation and the free manufacture of Tobacco. It states that, of the forty-two millions forming the population of the German Empire, ten millions are devotees of the Divine Plant. But this is probably too low an estimate.
Bremen is the grand centre of the German Tobacco trade;
and if Bismark’s scheme were carried out, Bremen would not simply be ruined, it would be annihilated. At the end of March, 1878, two articles appeared in Financial Opinion on “ Bremen and the Tobacco Monopoly.” Those who are not acquainted with the German language will find the articles interesting and instructive, though they are inelegant in style and sometimes inaccurate in statement. Dilettante must strike Italian scholars as odd when employed as a plural. To say that the Hanse Towns, of which Bremen is one of the chief, have been “at all times loyal to the Emperors, who have always respected their liberties up to the present day,” is imbecile. The writer does not seem to be aware that for more than sixty years there was no Germanic Empire. On the 6th August, 1806, Francis II. abdicated the Crown and the Government of the Germanic Empire, and was thenceforth known as Francis I. of Austria. As is well known to everybody but this writer, the Germanic Empire was revived, in the person of the King of Prussia, after the Franco-German war. However, the writer’s blunders, and his defects of style, diminish not the value of his statistics, and these demonstrate the enormous extent of Bremen’s Tobacco transactions. That the inhabitants of Bremen should fight desperately against Bismarck’s despotic crotchet is most natural; it is no less natural that they should bring into the contest weapons of every kind. Number Two contains two short jocular poems in the Bremen provincial dialect:—“Watt Borgermeister Smidt seggt” (What Burgomaster Smidt says), and “Watt de olle Fritz seggt ’’(What old Fritz says). Whether Bismarck will care much for the ridicule and the anathemas of Burgomaster Smidt and of old Fritz is questionable; but the poems show the popular character of the resistance to the mad and mischievous scheme.
Very admirable is Number Three. After a brief but vivid history of Tobacco, the author presents a summary of Tobacco legislation in the different countries of the world. The chronicle is not edifying; the picture is not charming or cheering. Evermore, when we behold such witless doings, we recall the saying of the grand old Swedish statesman, Oxen-stiernor:—“ My-son, see with what little wisdom the world is governed! ”
Occasionally Dr. Eberty’s statements are not perfectly accurate; but his Summary of Tobacco Legislation is so comprehensive and complete that we reproduce it, abridging here and omitting there as seems needful:—
As Commerce has for object the exchange of the means for the satisfaction of human needs, to the universality of a need corresponds the extent of the commerce designed for its satisfaction. Tobacco, consequently, soon after Europeans were acquainted with its use in America, became one of the most considerable articles of trade between the Old and the New World. It takes in this respect the fourth rank, after cotton, coffee, and sugar. Soon after learning its value, the English imported Tobacco from Cuba, Trinidad, and other Spanish settlements; the Dutch chiefly from Venezuela, Guayana, and Virginia. Not only, however, for commerce, but also for agriculture, is Tobacco important. The greater part of the Tobacco consumed in Europe is produced in Europe itself, and is a source of prosperity for many regions, though not in the same degree as in America, where in 1875 Tobacco to the value of 120,000,000 dollars was produced.
On the 27th September, 1674, in the reign of Louis XIV., the Tobacco monopoly was introduced into France. As the English prohibited the cultivation of Tobacco in their own country in order to promote the expansion of the colonies, so the Bourbons created the monopoly in order that the citizens of their own State might profit thereby. In 1715 the monopoly was leased to the Ferme G^n^raU for 4,000,000 livres; but in 1789 the sum paid by the Farmers-General had risen to 32,000,000 livres. A partial prohibition of cultivation was connected with the monopoly. The Tobacco could only be cultivated in particular Departments. These were severed by a well-organised line of custom-houses from the rest of France. Strict internal supervision and a severe penal code were the agencies employed by the Farmers-General to make the monopoly lucrative.
The storming of the Bastille annihilated all provincial and internal taxation. In February, 1791, the National Assembly decreed the abolition of the monopoly. Those having a pecuniary interest in the Ferme GGntrale were classed with the emigrants, and their goods were confiscated. Many, the illustrious chemical discoverer Lavoisier included, had to mount the scaffold to glut the fury of the people; none escaped poverty. Fortunate they who survived in prison the Reign of Terror. The abolition of the monopoly was followed by twenty years of tentatives to convert Tobacco into a large source of revenue, and yet to retain the freedom of cultivation and of commerce. These tentatives, the history whereof forms a true book of instruction for the taxation of Tobacco, led gradually to such an accumulation of taxing and supervising agencies that Napoleon I., on.the 26th December, 1810, only needed to make a single small step in order to decree for the beginning of 1811 the restoration of the monopoly under the form of the R^gie. But he made the inland cultivation the basis of the monopoly. The Bourbons, at the Restoration, eagerly availed themselves of this source of revenue. In spite of the repeated assaults of the Opposition in 1819,1824,1829, the institution proved victorious. Nevertheless, it was always regarded as temporary. At last, by the law of the 21st December, 1872, its existence was extended to
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the close of the year 1882. The monopoly embraces the importation, the manufacture, the purchase, all the detailed traffic. Only in certain Departments of France is the cultivation of Tobacco permitted.
Every year, in October, the Minister makes known the requirements of the Regie for the next year in each of the departments where Tobacco grows. Thereupon the Prefect fixes not merely the number of acres to be employed for the satisfaction of those requirements by each planter, but also the price he is to receive for the product. The mode of cultivation is narrowly watched by the Government; the form of the fields is prescribed, the plants, the very leaves of the plants, are numbered. Twice a year, at different phases of development of the plants, an inventory takes place. After the harvest the Tobacco is investigated, tested to see whether it has received the proper treatment; it is valued; its transport to the magazines is superintended; arrangements are made for weighing. These supervisions and check-accounts reduce the export to a minimum. All the leaves and stalks the planter has to deliver. The raw Tobacco is conveyed to the Bureau, and the price so fixed that it is more profitable for the planter to grow Tobacco than to grow wheat. The purchased Tobacco is prepared in the factories of the State by 20,000, for the most part, female, workers. The gain to the Government from the monopoly is, on an average, 450 per cent, on the value of the purchased Tobacco.
From the keepers of the wholesale depots the retailers, of whom there are 33,300, obtain their supply. Every evening they have to book the amount of sales for the day. It is, likewise, their duty to see that infractions of the Tobacco laws are not committed. The permission to retail is given by the Prefect to certain individuals, for services rendered. The applications are prodigiously numerous. The greater part of the documents addressed to the Minister of Finance refers to such applications. The appointments are made for electioneering purposes. Those appointed could not be called jestingly, or with any propriety, “ shame-faced poor.” They are named g^ranU. The retail prices are fixed by the Administration. The gain of the retailers, in proportion to the wholesale prices, is from 10 to 12 per cent. To compete with the smuggling trade, cheap sorts of Tobacco are sold in the north and east frontier districts; they are called Tabacs de Cantine. The guardianship of the trade in this favoured and tempted region is entrusted to Government officers. Soldiers and Bailors have the privilege of getting Tobacco at a lower rate than others.
Tn 1875 the revenue yielded by the monopoly was 251,120,718 marks.
The monopoly was introduced into Austria in 1670. At first, as in France, individual adventurers farmed the importation and the manufacture of Tobacco. But from 1763 to 1784 a General Farming was established, while at the same time the inland cultivation was, as in England, prohibited. In 1783 the State entered on the monopoly as a Regie. In consequence of the events of 1848, the line of custom-houses between Austria and Hungary was abolished; but on the 1st March, 1857, the monopoly was extended to Hungary. In Austria, as in Hungary, the State reserves to itself the exclusive control alike over the raw and the manufactured Tobacco. Moreover, the cultivation of Tobacco is limited in Austria to particular districts; but the limitations are, on the whole, less strict than in France, and the prices are lower.
These comparative disburdens have, however, not been conspicuously beneficial. Though the variety of sorts is richer, though the production and the consumption are far greater, than in France the revenue derived from Tobacco did not amount to more, in 1875, than 137,935,886 marks.
Of the 26,000 workers in the Austrian Tobacco factories, 22,000 are women.
In Italy prevails the system of co-operative Regie which previously to 1783 existed in France, under the name of Ri git Interest. The monopoly is farmed. According to the newest convention of 14th December, 1877, the management of the Tobacco monopoly is entrusted to the Balduino Company for the years extending from 1879 to 1883. The rent to be paid for the use of the monopoly is fixed at 93,600,000 lire. (A Lira, from the Latin Libra, Pound, is equivalent to the French franc.) For this period the tariff is to be fixed between the President of the Administrative Council of the Company and the Minister of Finance.
For each of the years to which the agreement extends a statement is made of the probable net gain:—
For	1878 ..................... 96,300,000	lire.
„	1879.................... 102,000,000	„
„	1880.................... 105,000,000	„
„	1881.................... 107,700,000	„
„	1882.................... 110,700,000	„
„	1883.................... 113,700,000	„
So far as the real income corresponds to the probable or ideal income, the half of the amount exceeding the rent goes to the State, the other half to the company. So far as, from a change in the tariff or from some other cause, the real income goes beyond the probable or ideal income, the State gels 66 per cent, of the surplus, and the remainder of the surplus is divided between the State and the company according to certain recognised modifications. For Sicily the same considerations existed as for the rest of the kingdom. For its definitive validity, the Convention requires the assent of the legislative bodies.
pipe Ofonrera.
YUL—A PRIVATE RACK.
Mb. Thomas Ray’s collection of pipes is large, but not valuable. Meerschaum, wood, and clay, I should say there are not less than fifty in all. Tom is a bachelor, living in lodgings, and his pipes are all over the place; you find them in his pockets, among his books, in his clothes drawers, stuck about on his mantelpieces, on his dressing table, and under his bed—in fact, everywhere. He can colour a meerschaum or clay with any man, but he does not pride himself on the matter. I came across a pipe of his one day, that interested me. It was a very thick, heavy, clay pipe, weighing quite two ounces, bearing a stamp on the bowl of “The United Trades Association, Dublin,” with one hand grasping another for a trade-mark. This pipe was perfectly black, with the exception of about an inch that went into the mouth of the smoker.
I asked Tom how he came to so perfectly colour such a clumsy, heavy pipe, and he promised to tell me when he had leisure, merely remarking at the time that it was coloured under very peculiar circumstances.
A few evenings afterwards he told me; and as he can tell a story every bit as well, if not better than I can, I shall simply give it in his own words.
Said Tom: “I am, as you know, a lodger, a single lodger, a furnished lodger. My impression is, that I was born to be a lodger. I have a contented consciousness that, in being a lodger, I am carrying out one of the chief designs of my existence. It seems strange, but as a child I never cared to play at being a horse or a soldier; I preferred to play at being a lodger, and used to order imaginary landladies and servants about in a most tyrannical fashion. Possibly I have suffered for this, but no matter.
“ Only once in my life did I try the experiment of what is called ‘furnishing myself.’ This came about from a sudden descent of wealth into my coffers. Then I experienced the solemn truth that riches lead men astray from content. An old aunt left me ten pounds, and I grew vain-hearted and said! ‘ I will find me a place that is empty, and get me furniture, and live, and be lord and owner of goods and chattels.’
“I spent my ten pounds; and, amongst other things, I bought a bedstead. Before this I had been used to an ordinary one-horse bedstead; but I wanted something novel and useful, so I bought a Private Rack.
“It was called a chair bedstead, and I must say I think the wicked inventor of it has been born after his time; that is to say, he has come too late in the world’s history. He is not wanted in these days of dogs’ homes and other benevolences. In the dark days of masked inquisitors and thumb-screwers, he would have been a shining light. If I could have my way with him, I’d double him up in his atrocious machinery and exhibit him to the derision of the general public.
“I saw the thing first in a shop, where its uses were explained to me. As a chair, you could sit upon it in ordinary fashion; as a couch you could recline on it at your ease, and as a bedstead you could sleep upon it. By an arrangement of rods and catches you could put it into any of the three shapes I have mentioned.
“Three cushions were supplied with it, of equal size; at night these cushions, laid end to end, made a mattress.
“ When the machine was brought home, I could not but confess that there was a lack of honest beauty about it. It had a gaunt, hungry, stomachless appearance, reminding one of a decrepit giant, badly provisioned, on the look-out for a victim. There was an unsatisfactory look, too, about its legs; they were so very meagre, with a depressing accompaniment of starved cross bars and insufficient rivets with maimed heads.
“When I sat in its capacious lap I felt small, and in its presence I kept daily feeling smaller; till, before I had done with it, I felt I could change places with a decimal fraction, and gain by the bargain.
“For three reasons I had determined to simply wrap myself in a blanket while sleeping on my chair bedstead. One reason was, the nights were warm; another was that I thought it more in keeping with the machine: I expected somehow to feel like a warrior taking his rest, with his martial cloak around him. The third reason was that my legacy was all gone in other things, and I had none to spare for complete bed furnishing.
“For about three weeks my bedstead acted pretty fairly, but it certainly did not improve in appearance. I have mentioned the cushions; they were about thirty inches square. By day two of them were made into a seat for the chair, while the third stood up as a pad for the back. At the end of the time I have mentioned, these cushions began to exhibit signs of distress. They looked of consumptive tendencies when they first came home, but now they appeared to be absolutely in the last stage of starvation. Flat, limp, and utterly dejected, shaking them did little good; in fact, it only served to bring to light that they seemed to have swallowed some utterly indigestible substances in large lumps. The back cushion was a piteous spectacle. Its corners seemed to be always on the point of becoming dog’s-eared; it put me in mind of a drivelling inebriate, on a beerhouse bench, with his head disappearing into his shoulders. I had sometimes to pull it up sternly, and stick its ears, or corners, in between the top bars of the chair back, to make it do duty at all.
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“One evening a friend called to see me. He had just returned from Ireland, and he brought that particular pipe you asked me about, as a present for me. I thanked him for it, and presently asked him his opinion of my arm-chair.
“‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know; I’ve seen them before. They’re what I call frauds. All nonsense talking about a chair by day, and bedstead by night: you can’t expect a servant, dead or alive, flesh and blood, or iron and stuffing, to work all round the clock and work well. Any spring in it, eh?’
“I yelled out, ‘Don’t, Jack; don’t!’ But it was too late. My friend was a very heavy and very hearty man, and he carried this heaviness and heartiness into every action; consequently, he sat down according to his nature, with an extra twenty-eight pounds of heartiness, to try the spring.
“I heard something go, and I think Jack did, for he looked like a man who had heard something go, and was unwilling to confess as much. However, nothing was said by either of us; and we went out and spent the evening at the theatre, where I forgot all about having heard something go.
“I converted my chair into a bedstead when I got home, and then, rolling my weary form in a blanket, sought repose. As I got on to my bedstead as carefully as if I were housebreaking, nothing went wrong, and I fell asleep.
“That night I dreamed I saw an immense loaf of sugar; it must have been fifty feet in height. By some means, I climbed to the top, and sat down; there was just accommodation for one. Here a great horror seized me, for I began to disappear; you can guess in what sort of fashion: head and feet out, since the aperture was not sufficient to swallow me entirely. Pains tremendous took hold of me, for I found that my neck and legs were being stretched yards long. Then I woke to find I was gradually disappearing in precisely the same fashion as I had dreamed, through the middle of my bedstead. Awhile I lay helpless, with a ferocious, backbreaking pain. When I did struggle out, I felt as if I had originally been made in two pieces, and the joint was now coming undone.
“Pulling my blanket over my shoulders, I reflected. The thought that I had heard something go when Jack sat on my chair occurred to me. I proceeded to light a candle and examine the damaged rack. I caught sight of my new Irish pipe, and loaded it; then, lighting it, I commenced operations at the wreck. I found my heavy friend had started two or three of the rivets. These had held on as long as possible, but my habit of plunging and kicking in my slumbers had been too much for them ; hence the calamity.
“That night, after smoking a pipe and considering, I stacked some books under the machine, and slept undisturbed till the morning.
“ Bad as this adventure was, it was only the beginning of the tortures I suffered on my diabolical rack.
“The next day I bound some cord round the centre of the machine, and this answered all right for two nights; but the sharp iron edges cut the cord, and again did I find myself converted into two sides of a triangle, finishing another rivet that had been on half-pay since Jack sat on that chair of mine.
“That unfortunate sit down had demoralised the whole structure. From that time it got a crooked twist in its joints, shape, and morals. It looked like a poor wretch that had given over trying to be good. Scorning to use its castors, it dug its sharp ankles spitefully into my carpet, distorting the pattern and ventilating the material. I invested the machine with a personality; sometimes it seemed to me to groan, sometimes to swear.
“I used to make it into a chair each morning, but I never felt easy sitting in it.
“ Things went on cheerfully for a few weeks; the damages increased, and my sufferings kept pace with them. At the end of a month from that fatal sit down, as a bedstead in undress the machine now showed itself encircled with four bandages of thick rope, and looked like an iron Davenport Brother, unable to extricate itself.
“ Night after night I might have been seen sitting by the side of this dreadful invention, smoking this pipe, and considering. I was turned out at all times, and in the most heartless manner. By this time I quite looked upon my purchase as a horrible living brute, endowed with exquisite powers of torture. I felt that I must conquer it or die. I did neither.
“One night I unhooked some of the bars to tighten my ropes. I forgot to re-fasten them, and, after getting into bed with about as much caution as I should get into a box of eggs with a suit of armour on, I fell asleep. After a short time one set of legs doubled completely under the bedstead, and I was shot out with my legs in the air, while my head simply stopped at the wall with a tremendous blow, because it was not hard enough to knock a way through into the next room.
“When the monster found out this new method of torture, it never would stand correctly afterwards. One night it tried to do the splits. This resulted in a dislocation of one of its hip joints. That side of the bedstead gradually sank down about three inches lower than the other. This caused me to tuck my blanket tightly under the cushions, till one night I rolled out, in my frantic and waking clutches seized the machine, and pulled it right on to the top of myself, with its legs in the air.
“Each of these affairs, as I have said, resulted in a pipe; and the savage energy with which I consumed large quantities of Tobacco speedily brought this clay to the hue it now is.
“After this I took to packing the machine up with books and cigar boxes, but my nights were full of misery: the books would sometimes mutiny, or the boxes would smash, and down would go the rack in one of the old ways or a new one.
“Every night I spent half-an-hour in processes of tightening, balancing, and examining.
“Talk about a murderer pursued by the ghost of one he has slain. I was in a worse case; for I was pursued by horrible apparitions of a monster that wanted to slay me. The iron bedstead had entered my soul. Peace had departed. External circumstances associated themselves with my bedstead in the most astounding fashion. One night, during a storm, a large chimney was blown down, a few doors from where I lodged. I heard the crash, and thought it was my bedstead going off in some new fashion, and sprang out with a cry of alarm. I believe I had bedelirium tremens Imagination suggested an awful collapse, I couldn’t tell how; but I pictured myself with my head and heels on the floor, and my back broken across a pile of books and cigar boxes.
“Indigestion assailed me; my face grew pale and my eyes and hair wild. I felt there were but two things before me: suicide or some other sleeping apparatus. I never liked suicide, and I had none of my legacy left; so I sold off my few goods, and went into furnished lodgings again.
“Before I left, however, I, in a species of insane revenge, borrowed the heaviest hammer I could get, and, in my landlady’s back garden, I spent half-a-day in smashing up my private rack.”
Here endeth the narrative of Mr. Thomas Ray.
D. Goggs.
^bc Tast pipe of ’5cbcntn-6igbt.
“ ’Tis sweet to see the Year out: watch it die away Like filmy rings of smoke, which, circling soaringly, Enlarge until they melt into obscurity.”
—Langley Hurst.
Another twelve months have passed o’er us:
Another year almost has flown;
Our sighing has ended; the chorus Of laughter has sunk to a groan.
We begin a new leaf and turn over
The record of hope and of fear:
But whether in briars or clover, I wish you a $hypn Reto JJear!
There are yet a few moments remaining
In which to look back on the past:
Though the year we would not be detaining, We say good-bye sadly at last.
Come: light up a pipe! It is fitting
That the New in a cloud should appear;
And, while the time quickly is flitting, I wish you a Mhppu Jlchj gear!
King Death has been busy among us Since we welcomed the Old at its birth;
Clever heads that have merry songs sung us, Clever wits that have made us much mirth:
Old faces have gone, and the new ones Do not come as the old disappear, But to all now remaining—the true ones—
I wish you a ^appg Jkfn gear!
Old friends, too, have vanished to corners Of earth, far from famed British cad, To seek Fortune’s smile—time has shorn hers
Of all the attraction it had,
Since from me it has long been averted:
Yet I’ll shed no superfluous tear:—
Whom the Fickle Dame has not deserted, I wish you a Chippy jlcto gear!
But our pleasure stopped short; for the Noblest And Best-loved of Ladies has gone
To join the majority: so blest With love universal were none.
Yet the saddest words prove unavailing To revive the cold form on that bier:
She has left human error and failing: May she wake to a Sappg JVto gear!
Old ’Seventy-Eight is departing:
His last breaths come thickly and fast;
His face, which was bright at the starting, Is withered: his beauty is past.
’Tis Midnight! He goes with step stealthy:
Open doors, his successor is here:
Hail! ’Seventy-Nine young and healthy!
May you turn out a ^appg Jlcto gear!
T. W. Littleton-Hay.
London, 31st December, 1878.
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notice to correspondents. fPe cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they oh accompanied fry a stamped and directed envelope; and veto not hold owruelves responsible for loss, COPE’S 1879 CARD. THE PURSUIT OF DIVA NICOTINA. WITH APOLOGIES TO THE PAINTER OF “THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE.” Subscribers to the “Tobacco Plamt” for 1879 will receive a copy of Pubsuit of Diva Nicotina and Key, carefully packed upon a roller, by forwarding 6d. to pay oarriage. Price to Non-Subscribers, 1/-. Subscription far “ Tobacco Plant,” 2/- per annum, poet free. Subscription for “ Tobacco Piaxr ” and Pursuit of Diva Nicotina, 2/6. Publishing Office:—10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.	SMOKING: WHEN INJURIOUS, WHEN INNOCUOUS, WHEN BENEFICIAL, WITH COMPENDIUM OF THE TEMPERAMENTS, SHOWING HOW THXY ABB INFLUENCED BY TOEA.OCO. BY J. CARRICK MURRAY, M.D., F.A.I., Newcasfa-vpoiirTijne. Price Is. Free by Post. Is. 11d. London: Simpkin,Marshall, A Co. Nbwcabtlb-on-Tynb: D.H. Wilson. Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4s. £^e printers’ Register, A JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOB GBEAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND THE COLONIES. THE PRINTERS’ REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Home and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India, China, Canada, Ac.; and it affords the best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August, 1875. Address—The Editor, St. Bride Street, London, E.C.
VEW YORK TOBACCO LEAF, Organ of the Tobacco Pl Trade of the United States. Published weekly. Subscription, 20/- per Annum, post free to any part of the United Kingdom. Sole Agents for the United Kingdom— Cope Bros. & Co., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by whom Advertisements and Subscriptions will be received. Specimen copy sent for Id. postage stamp. mHE VIRGINIA TOBACCO JOURNAL is published every 1 Thursday Morning by Jones, Marstin, & Co., No. 724, Main Street, Richmond, Va. Terms of Subscription: Single copies, 10c.; one year, $4; six months, $2. Annual Subscriptions abroad: Great Britain and Canada, $5.04; Bremen, Hamburg, and the Continent, $5.04; Australia, Ac., vid England, $5.04; Cuba, $5.04.	
	u. s. TOBACCO JOURNAL, 184, MAIDEN LANE (CORNER OF WATER STREET), NEW YORK. Oscar Hammerstein, Editor. Subscription: $3.00 per annum. WORKS on TOBACCO, SNUFF, &c.—Booksellers V V having Books on Tobacco, Snuff, Ac., or Magazines, Journals, or Newspapers containing articles on the subject, are invited to report such to the Office of COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
SOLACE. One Shilling Bundles, containing 4 Cigars.
ENGLAND’S BEST. One Shilling Bundles, containing 6 Cigars.
The Richmond Cavendish Company, Limited,
BONDED TOBACCO WORKS,
ROBERTS STREET, PAISLEY STREET, AND GREENOCK STREET,
LIVERPOOL
Manufacturers, IN BOND, of All Descriptions of TOBACCO, for Ship Stores and for Exportation.
SPECIAL BRANDS.
DARK QUARTERS.	TENS.	CUT CAVENDISH.
"NATIONAL EAGLE,”	“WYOMING,”	“SPRING FLOWERS,
"SANCHO PANZA,”	“EXPRESS,”	“MOSS ROSE,”
“UNION.”	“ANCHOR.”	“NEPTUNE”
SOLE MANUFACTURERS OFTHECELEBRATED “RICHMOND SMOKING MIXTURE.”
Always on Hand, a Large Stock of Pressed Tobacco, Bright Cavendish in All Sizes, and a Well-selected Stock of American Manufactured Cavendish.
Price Lists on Application.
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276	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[Januabt, 1879.
These really beautiful Goods are rapidly growing into favour, and invariably make a trade wherever introduced.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes.
In Cardboard Boxes, containing 50.
In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1000, with lock and key.
Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made from a peculiar kind of Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking of this Tobacco is said to give relief in cases of Asthma.
COPE’S CIGARILLOS.
FAIRY BRAND, in CARDBOARD BOXES, GOLD MOUNTED, with BEAUTIFUL PARISIAN LABEL, CONTAINING TEN Internal PACKETS of TEN CIGARILLOS EACH.	___________
New Cigarette—Cope’s Whiffs.
In Bundles of ten, lead foil, and neat label. In Cedar Boxes, containing forty bundles, or 400 Cigarettes.
COPE’S CIGARETOS.
Bouquet (With Tubes).
Peerless (Without Tubes).
In Cardboard Boxes, containing four bundles of 25 Cigaretos.
In very handsome Cedar Cases, containing Ten Boxes, or 1000 Cigaretos.
Delicate in favour; burn evenly, with a firm white ash; made with great care for a mild morning smoke.
COPE BROTHERS & CO.
TOBACCO WORKS, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
PRICE LISTS SUPPLIED TO THE TRADE ON APPLICATION.
Printed and Published for the Proprietors at the Office, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by Jobs Fbaskb, of 1, Spekeland Road, Edge-Hill, Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster.
"COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT” SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT, JANUARY 29, 1879.
Memorial to the Right Hon. Sir STAFFORD HENRY NORTHCOTE, Bart., Chancellor of Her Majesty’s Exchequer, presented by a Deputation of Manufacturers and others, on January 29, 1879: Setting forth the present and recent condition of the Tobacco Trade of the United Kingdom; and praying for the abolition of the Extra Duty .imposed in the Budget of 1878, or for the appointment of a Select Committee of the House of Commons to investigate the whole case.
Published at the Office of the “TOBACCO PLANT,”
IO, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
[PRICE SIXPENCE.!
ENTERED AT STATION ERST HALL.
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S’CrZF’ZF’ZLZEJ^LZEZN'T
TO
COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
No. 106.—Vol. II.]	JANUARY 29, 1879.	[Pbice Sixpence.
O Art ^W lionaitrabk Sir Stafforb ^cnrir Jarf^cuft, ^artM
^^anctHnr of ^cr ^lajcstg’s fec^qm.
[Presented January 29, 1879.]
Sir,
The undersigned, Manufacturers and Others concerned in the Tobacco Trade in the United Kingdom, respectfully and earnestly solicit your attention to the following facts regarding the present and recent condition of that Trade:—
I.—In the year 1844 (to go no further back) the House of Commons, moved by weighty Memorials and general complaints, appointed a Select Committee of fifteen members (including Mr. Goulburn, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Joseph Hume, who was called to the Chair) on the Tobacco Trade; whose Report, together with the Minutes of Evidence, an Appendix of petitions, memorials, statements, returns, analytic reports, correspondence, and an excellent Index, was ordered by the House to be printed in the same year. In this Blue Book it is clearly shown: (1) That the legitimate Trade was then in a deplorable and almost ruinous condition; (2) That this was owing to the enormous prevalence of Smuggling and Adulteration, which, moreover, seriously defrauded the bulk of the consumers as well as the Revenue; (3) That this in turn was owing to the enormity of the Duties, which on Unmanufactured, the main article imported, ranged from 900 to 1200 per cent, ad valorem, being then 3s. l^d. per lb. On consideration of the whole of the Evidence before the Committee, Dr. (the late Sir John) Bowring moved: “ That, “ with a view to the prevention of Smuggling and Adulteration, the correction of “ the moral, social, and commercial evils of the existing system, and with a due regard “ to the public Revenue, the Committee recommend a considerable reduction of the “present high Duty on Tobacco.” Mr.Goulburn himselfthenmoved the following amendment : “ That no reduction of Duty sufficient to prevent or materially diminish Smuggling “ and Adulteration could be effected without a loss of Revenue so large as to involve “ the most serious financial consequences.” This amendment was carried by only six to four out of fifteen, the Chairman not voting. A very elaborate Report, lucidly
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[Januaby 29, 1879.
summing up all the most significant facts of the case, was then proposed by the Chairman, Mr. Hume’s main conclusion being given in these words: “ On full considera-“ tion of all the Evidence, Your Corhmittee are of opinion that the most effectual way “ of putting an end to the illegal proceeding of Smuggling and Adulteration of “ Tobacco, would be to reduce the Duty on Tobacco to Is. per lb." Anj again: “The honest trader ought, however, to be protected, and by concurring “ testimony, the best and the simplest remedy would be a reduction to Is. per lb." The following sentence may also be quoted as showing the truly statesmanlike spirit which animated and guided Mr. Hume in drawing up this Report: “The expense to “ the country by the loss of trade in Tobacco, for law proceedings against offenders, “ and for their confinement in prisons, may be estimated; but for the loss of the “industry of the numerous parties engaged in Smuggling, for the demoralising “ effects on all persons engaged in these transactions, it will be difficult to make any “ estimate; and your Committee must leave these serious injuries and losses caused “ to the community to be estimated by further inquiries.” The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s majority (the votes being identical throughout) rejected this thorough Report, and adopted a very brief one by Mr. Darby, which avoided close grappling with the facts of the case; adding the following Resolution, which was in effect an avowal of the Committee’s incompetence to do the very things it was appointed to do, and the very things the Chairman’s Report did do—sift, weigh, co-ordinate, and sum up the mass of the evidence before it, and which, moreover, specifically invalidated the very amendment it had adopted at the instance of Mr. Goulburn: “That, considering the “period to which the inquiries of the Committee have necessarily been protracted, “ and the various important matters which are involved in a decision upon the “ several points to which the Evidence has been directed, it appears to your “ Committee impracticable to present to the House a full Report upon the subject “ referred to them, and [they] therefore confine themselves to reporting the Minutes of “ Evidence and their proceedings to the House.” While thus voluntarily abdicating its proper functions, the Committee, by its official majority, frankly confessed in the opening of the avowedly inept Report adopted, by what principle it was guided in rejecting Dr. Bowring’s Resolution and the Chairman’s Report, and accepting Mr. Goulburn’s Amendment: “ In proceeding to consider the subject referred to them, your Committee think “ it proper, in the first place, to observe that the import of Tobacco into this country “ has been, from an early period, regulated upon different principles from those applied “ to other imported commodities. That the duty imposed on it has had no other “object than that of raising the greatest possible revenue; and with that view the “ duty has not only been far beyond that imposed on any other article, and beyond “ that to which on commercial principles alone it might have been right to subject it, “ but has been accompanied by a total prohibition of the growth of it in the United “ Kingdom, lest such growth should in any way interfere with the amount of importa-“ tion, and the duty derived therefrom."
Your Memorialists respectfully submit that the “principles ” thus cited, not for reprobation but adoption, are thoroughly unprincipled, unstatesmanlike, and obsolete as applied to an article which was then, and is still more emphatically now, not merely a harmless luxury, but a decided necessary of life to perhaps the greater part of the adult male population.
II	.—After the printing of the Report of this Select Committee, the Duties on Tobacco remained unaltered for Nineteen Years, although large reductions and
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Januaby 29, 1879.] SUPPLEMENT TO COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT.	279
abolitions of Duty were effected on articles far less heavily taxed and less necessary to the well-being of so large a part of the community; and such reductions and abolitions, it should be observed, were effected without decreasing the Revenue. Thus it is stated in the First Annual Report of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Customs, 1857, which is largely retrospective; pp. 37-8 : “ Between the years 1831 “ and 1834 the first very extensive steps were taken in the removal of prohibitions “ and the reduction and remission of Customs Duties. These were followed, in 1842 “ and 1844, by still bolder advances in the same direction, and every successive year “ has seen further progress, culminating in the vastly reduced and simplified Tariff “ of 1853. The net aggregate of these reductions amounts to above ten millions. “ (Note: As nearly as can be estimated, to not less than £10,613,610.) Yet, “notwithstanding, the Customs Revenue has scarcely varied for the last twenty “years, ranging steadily from twenty-two to twenty-three millions...... Under “ a continuance of the same wise system, we may hope for a continuance of the same “satisfactory results. By a further reduction of duties on all articles of general “consumption, as the condition of the finances may suggest and permit, and by “ extending to commerce the utmost possible facilities compatible with the security “of the Revenue, we may hope to ensure a progress in future as signal and as rapid as “ that of the recent past.”
Meanwhile the legal Tobacco Trade, to which by a most inequitable distinction the application of this “wise system” was never attempted by the Legislature, had to struggle on as it best could under such' tremendous burdens as weighed down ho other industry of the Kingdom, supported only by the unquenchable and ever-increasing demand; and after several years of severest distress and disaster, it managed to accommodate itself in a fashion to its oppressive conditions, and gradually settled down into not quite intolerable working order; Tobacco planters, manufacturers, and retailers co-operating to produce the articles required by the bulk of British consumers at prices adapted to the subdivisions of our currency and standard weights, being materially assisted in this by the introduction of new growths of Tobacco. The Duty-paid Consumption was, indeed, small to what it must have been unchecked by enormous Duties, which held out enormous premiums to fraud, whether by Smuggling or Adulteration; but was still large enough to yield a large and steadily increasing Revenue despite all unwise restrictions and consequent frauds.
III	.—At length, by Act 26 Viet., cap. 7, certain Alterations in the Customs Tariff on Tobacco came into force on the 27th March, 1863 (Eighth Report of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Customs, 1864; Appendix D):—
The Duty on Unmanufactured containing less than 10 per cent, of moisture was raised from 3s. l*8d. to 3s. 6d. per lb. But as the Unmanufactured containing 10 per cent, and upwards of moisture was left at 3s. l‘8d., and was naturally thenceforward the class of Unmanufactured almost exclusively imported, this particular clause was practically of no effect. Thus in the financial year ending 31st March, 1878, out of the gross Duties paid on Tobacco of all kinds, including Segars—being £8,100,153—no less than £7,767,193, or very nearly 96 per cent, of the whole, was paid upon the Unmanufactured at the old rate of 3s. l’8d.; the Unmanufactured at 3s. 6d. paying only £216. (Imperial Revenue: Return to an Order of the House of Commons, 8th July, 1878.)
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The Duties on Manufactured were all lowered; thus increasing the already enormous disproportion ad valorem between the costly Foreign Segars and Tobaccos of the wealthier and the cheap Home-made Segars and Tobaccos of the poorer classes, and generally encouraging the Foreign Manufacture while not encouraging the Native: Segars from 9s. 5’4d. to 5s. per lb.; Cavendish or Negrohead from same to 4s. 6d.; Other Manufactured from same to 4s.; Snuff from 6s. 36d. to 3s. 9d. and 4s. 6d., according as it did or did not contain more than 13 per cent, moisture.
Your Memorialists, while not contesting the policy of diminishing the imposts on the Foreign Manufacture, contend that the Home Manufacture had claims at least as valid to at least an equal alleviation of its yet heavier burdens.
IV	.—The immediate effects of these reductions, confirming with regard to Tobacco in particular the general observations of the Commissioners of Customs above cited, maybe read in the Annual Customs Report, 1864; which, relating to the year ending 31st December, 1863, includes the results of only Nine Months' working of the new Tariff:—“ Imports. There is also a rise in the Manufactured “Article [Tobacco] of more than 1,500,000 lbs., no doubt imported in the “ expectation of a greatly enhanced demand in consequence of the reduction of the “ duty. (p. 14.) . . . Home Consumption. Increase. Of Tobacco 5 per cent. “ This is the more satisfactory as the increase is not in the consumption of Manufactured Tobacco only, which has risen from 334,150 lbs. to 582,379 lbs. [or 74 3 “ per cent.], and may be accounted for in the same manner as the tea—viz., by the “ reduction of duty that took place in March, 1863; but the consumption of Leaf “ Tobacco also (taking the stemmed and unstemmed together) has in the same time “ risen, in spite of high prices and distress in the manufacturing districts and in “ Ireland, to the largest amount it has ever yet attained—viz., from 35,280,837 lbs. to “ 37,033,861 lbs., a difference of 1,753,024 lbs., or 5 per cent., in the year, and double “ the rise we reported for 1862 as compared with 1861. (p.17).”
Thus the Home Consumption of Unmanufactured, with the Duty stationary, increased nearly 5 per cent, in the year; that of Manufactured, with lower Duties operating only three-fourths of the year, increased 74’3 per cent., or nearly fifteen times as much.
The financial result is shown in Appendices E and F of the same Report: Duties on Tobacco in 1863 compared with 1862; Increase Gross Receipts, £272,003; Increase Net Receipts (after deduction of Drawbacks and Repayments) £260,003; “ the largest increase we have ever known." (p. 20.)
Another striking instance of the immediate great increase in consumption, rapidly followed by great benefit to the Revenue, caused by reduction of Duty on Tobacco, may be cited from a Memorial to Sir Robert Peel, then First Lord of the Treasury, dated 20th December, 1843, and given in the Blue Book already referred to:—“ Cigars afford a remarkable example of the amount of Duty being “increased by diminishing the rate. In 1828, when the duty was 18s. per lb., “ duty was paid on 8600 lbs., only yielding £7740; in 1830, when the duty was
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“reduced to 9s. per lb., duty was paid on 66,000 lbs., yielding ^29,700; and such “ has been the increase of consumption that in 1841 duty was paid on 213,613 lbs., “yielding .£100,899.” To which we may add that in the last financial year, 1877-8, when the duty was only 5s. per lb., duty was paid on 1,240,982 lbs., yielding £310,207.
The same Memorial adduced for comparison the cases of tea and coffee, and especially of the latter; and the statistics were certainly astonishing, coffee being much more decidedly an article of luxury, that is, much less an article of necessity, than Tobacco. In 1801, with a population of 16J millions, and a duty of Is. 7d. per lb. and 12} per cent., the duty-paid consumption of Coffee was only 871,846 lbs.; in 1811, population 18} millions, duty lowered to 8d., consumption 6,895,619 lbs., or nearly eight times as much; in 1821, population 21J millions, duty raised to Is., duty-paid consumption only 7,593,001 lbs.; in 1831, population 24} millions, duty lowered to 6d., consumption 21,740,627 lbs., or nearly three times as much ; in 1841, population nearly 27 millions, duty 6d. and 5 per cent., consumption 28,420,980 lbs. At the first of these dates, Tobacco, bearing then in Great Britain the same duty as Coffee, Is. 7d. and 12} per cent., and in Ireland only 10}d., the duty-paid consumption of the United Kingdom was 16,895,752 lbs., or nearly twenty times that of Coffee; in 1811, duty in Great Britain 2s. 6}d., and in Ireland lid., consumption 21,376,278 lbs.; in 1821, duty raised to 4s. in all the Three Kingdoms, duty-paid consumption only 15,823,365 lbs.; in 1831, duty reduced to 3s., consumption 19,418,941 lbs.; in 1841, duty 3s. and 5 per cent., duty-paid consumption 22,024,772 lbs.,or only about three-fourths of that of Coffee. And to malje the disparity yet more flagrant, the duty-paid consumption of Tea, the great rival of Coffee, the duty on it but slightly varying from 95 to 100 per cent., had increased during these same forty years from 23,163,969 to 36,396,178 lbs.
It should be remarked, however, that while the duty-paid consumption of Tobacco in 1841 was only 22,024,772 lbs., the mass of the evidence of those best qualified to judge tended to estimate the actual consumption at considerably more than twice that quantity; it being calculated that the Revenue was defrauded by the Smuggling of about 30,000,000 lbs., as well as by immense Adulteration, owing to the irresistible temptation of the excessive duties.
We may add that last year, 1877-8, the estimated population being 33} millions, the duty-paid consumption of Coffee, Chicory, Cocoa, and Chocolate, with duties ranging from Id. to 2d. per lb., was 55,853,842 lbs.; while that of Tea, with duty reduced to 6d. per lb., rose to 160,221,038 lbs.; that of Tobacco of all kinds, with its disproportionately heavy duties, being 50,568,455 lbs.
Your Memorialists do not contest the policy which has so materially diminished the Duties on Coffee and Tea, but they contend that Tobacco also, by far the worst-treated article in the Budget, should have shared in the benefits of the same “wise system.”
V	.—From the year of the Select Committee, 1844, until the end of the Financial Year 1877-8, the Average Annual Duty-paid Consumption of Tobacco, unaffected, by legislation save that of 1863, which lowered the duties on Foreign
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Manufactured, including Segars, rose steadily with but few and unimportant exceptions—being 0’89 lbs. per head of the Total Population of the United Kingdom in 1844, and l-49 lbs. in 1877, an increase of 67'4 per cent. Had the reduction of Duty to Is. per lb., proposed by Mr- Hume, been carried out in 1844, there can be little or no reasonable doubt that the legitimate consumption would have almost immediately risen to 3 lbs. per head, that Smuggling and Adulteration would have been virtually extinguished, and that the Revenue as well as the Community would in a very short time have benefited by the change.
Taking the last Fifteen Financial Years under the Tariff of 1863, the Amount of Customs Income on Tobacco, the. Increase or Decrease each year compared with the preceding, and the Average Annual Duty-paid Consumption per head of the Total Population of the United Kingdom, were as follow:—
Year ending 31st March. 1864			Revenue from Duties. £ 	 5,984,009			Increase or Decrease. £ 260,003 Increase. (Only 9 months New ' 96,175 Increase. 194,114	„ 180,713	„ 87,240	„ 45,739 Decrease. 112,204 Increase. 4,952	„ 183,350	„ 249,912	„ 258,117	„ 116,268	„ 413,894	. „ 28,904	„ 236,041	„ the last Fifteen 1	Consumption per head. (Ordinary Years.) lbs. 	 1-29
1865				 6,080,184				Cariff.)
1866				 6,274,298					 1-35}
1867				 6,455,011				
1868	.’			 6,542,251					 1-35!
1869				 6,496,512				
1870				 6,608,716				1-34}
1871				 6,613,668					 1-36
1872				 6,797,018					 1-37
1873				*	7,046,930							 1-41
1874				 7,305,047					 1-44
1875				 7,421,315					 1*46
1876				 7,835,209					 1-47
1877				 7,864,113					 1*49
1878				 8,100,154				
Showing	an Aggregate Increase in		financial Years c
.£2,421,887, against an isolated Decrease of .£45,739 ; or a Net Aggregate Increase in the last Fifteen Years of .£2,376,148: being an Average Annual Increase in the last Fifteen Years of £158,140 ; in the last Ten, of £155,790 (the Solitary Decrease weighing more heavily on this period); in the last Five, of £210,645 ; in the last Three, of £226,279; while the Increase in the last Year was £236,041. So that tke Increase itself, through all inevitable fluctuations, was decidedly progressive.
It may be mentioned that Tobacco also paid in the last year £10,073 on Deliveries from Bond; and, in addition to the Customs, paid £88,653 16s. 5 Jd. to the Excise for Licenses; 600 Manufacturers £7817 5s., and 302,129 Dealers £80,836 11s. 5|d. .
VI.—Such being the continual and progressive growth of the Tobacco Trade, despite the excessive Duties, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Budget of 1878, finding new taxation required by the exigencies of the public service, fixed upon Tobacco for an extra imposition of 420d. per lb. on all kinds alike; weighing, of course, very excessively as to value on Unmanufactured, already taxed from 400 to 800 and even 1000 per cent, ad valorem; on which, likewise, it mainly weighs by quantity, this paying, as already mentioned, very nearly 96 per cent, of the whole Amount of Duty in the preceding year.
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In proposing this new Imposition on Tobacco, the Chancellor of the Exchequer very frankly stated that his reasons for so doing were simply and wholly financial; unaffected by any considerations of equity or sound commercial principles, or by any regard for the interests of the 600 Home Manufacturers, the 302,000 Retailers, the millions of Consumers. These are the words of the Right Hon. Gentleman, as given in the public reports of the Budget speech: “ At all events, “ that is the proposal of the Government, and they have selected the article of u Tobacco for the subject of additional taxation because it is one the produce of “which has been steadily rising year by year, and in the present year it has produced “a, very considerable amount more than ivas anticipated." Keeping strictly to this purely financial view, the Right Hon. Gentleman further stated: “The present duty “upon Tobacco is one according to scale, but the great bulk of Tobacco unmanu-“factured containing 10 per cent, of moisture is now charged 3s. 2d., or as nearly as “possible. I think the exact amount is 3s. ljd. [3s. l*d.; the difference amounting “ to £10,274 on the 49,315,181 lbs. of 1877-8], and we propose to raise it to 3s. 6d., “ and that, it is estimated, ivill raise the receipts from Tobacco to £8,723,000. The 11 gross revenue in 1876-7 [in year 1877] was £7,864,000, and the probable gross 11 increase is estimated at £859,000.”
VH.—Your Memorialists scarcely need state that Tobacco, of all articles subject to Duty, was considered the most safe from further exaction, as being already victimised to the utmost, and far beyond any other article in the Customs. Thus, in the preceding year (an average example), while the Duties on Coffee for Home Consumption were only 15 per cent, of the value, on Cocoa 10’6 per cent., on Tea 40 per cent., on Wine 25'4 per cent., on Spirits 295’6 per cent., on Tobacco they ivere 40A8 per cent.; considerably more than this on Unmanufactured, much less on Manufactured (including Segars), which, though little over 2| per cent, of the quantity consumed, was about 17*4 per cent, of the value. As it has been often put familiarly: “ The Spirit duty makes the price of a nominal “ shilling’s worth of Spirits 4s. ll^d.; the Tobacco duty (before the extra duty) raised “the price of one shilling's worth to 6s. 8|<Z.; supposing both to be genuine and duty-“paid, i.e., unadulterated and unsmuggled; whilst that on Wine takes only the frac-“ tion of a farthing more than threepence from the shilling. As to Tobacco, it may be “interesting to smokers of the common sort to know that of the 3d. paid for an ounce, “tyd. is for the Government, and a ha'penny only for the Tobacco."
Assuredly this was not an article on which additional taxation was to be expected! Ever since 1844 (to go no further back) all interested in the Trade had, indeed, been looking for a change in the Customs Tariff on Tobacco, but that change was a reduction in some degree proportionate to what the mass of the evidence given to the Select Committee indicated, in some degree approaching equity. Year after year, from 1844 to 1877, brought large reductions and abolitions of duty on articles subject to much less exaction than Tobacco (the Net Reductions from 1840 to 1877 amounted to £26,272,430), but no relief came to it, except what was vouchsafed in 1863, and that was relief only to the Foreign Manufacturer and the few richer consumers, none at all to the Home Manufacturer and the millions of poorer consumers. And when at length a change did come in the Customs Tariff on Unmanufactured Tobacco, it proved to be not a material reduction, as equity demanded, but an increase of 11 per
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cent, in the Duty, or from 40 to 80 per cent, on the value of the goods! The unfortunate Manufacturers and Dealers only recovered from stunned astonishment to be smitten with dismay.
There was, indeed, in the period 1844-1877 one short time in which certain duties were considerably increased instead of diminished; but the increase was for a real and extraordinary emergency, the Crimean War, and reduction commenced as soon as that emergency was past. Pressed for Revenue to meet the War expenses, the Government did not attempt to exact more out of Tobacco ; the articles chosen were Coffee, Sugar, Tea, and Spirits, although in 1854 the first three bore much heavier duties than in 1877: Coffee bearing 3d. instead of l|d. per lb.; Sugar from Ils. to 14s. 6d. per cwt., instead of nothing; Tea Is. 6d. instead of 6d. per lb. The extent and results of these special temporary War Duties may be read in the First Annual Customs Report, 1857, Appendix 0 ; and are thus summarised on pp. 49-50 of the same Report: “It was deemed advisable in 1854 and 1855 to increase “ the Customs duties on four of the principal imported articles of consumption, with “ a view of providing means towards defraying the expenses of the war. The taxes “on tea, coffee, sugar, and on rum imported into Scotland and Ireland were severally “ augmented to an extent of which the details are given in the Appendix (0). No “more striking illustration can be adduced of the continued prosperity and vast “ consuming power of the country, than the very trifling degree in which this augmen-“ tation in the tax affected the use of the articles in question. The duty on coffee “ was raised 33 per cent.; the utmost diminution of consumption was only 6 per “ cent. The duty on tea was raised 17 per cent.; the falling-off in consumption was “ not a quarter per cent. The duty on sugar was raised on the average about 25 “ per cent., and the price of the article in bond rose also upwards of 30 per cent. “ between 1854 and 1856; yet the entire difference of consumption in these two years “ was short of 10 per cent. In all three articles it must be remembered the duty “forms a very large proportion of the entire cost to the consumer.”
Whence it appears that these extra-ordinary duties were completely justified from the financial point of view by their very satisfactory financial results.
VIII.—But can such justification be alleged for the new extraordinary tax on Tobacco ? Waiving for the present all commercial and equitable considerations, making no account of the rightful interests of the Manufacturers, Retailers, and Consumers, and following the Chancellor of the Exchequer in strictly confining themselves to the mere financial results to the Imperial Revenue of the United Kingdom, Your Memorialists respectfully submit that the Official Returns of Home Consumption and Amount of Duty since and before the imposition of the New Duty prove that this imposition was founded on erroneous estimates; that Unmanufactured Tobacco was already taxed to the utmost paying-point; that the Extra Duty (which weighs mainly on it) has so seriously checked genuine duty-paid Consumption as to make the probable Increase of Revenue from Tobacco for the current financial year not only very much less than the £859,000 officially anticipated, but actually very little more than it would in all likelihood have been under the Old Duties.
The Board of Trade Monthly Accounts Relating to Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom furnish the following figures respecting Tobacco:—	I
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BEFORE THE OPERATION OF THE EXTRA DUTY.
(1.) For Three Months, Ending March 31st.
Year.	Imports: lbs.	Home Consumption: lbs. In Bond: lbs.
1876. Unmanufactured................. 6,632,524	  12,085,777	   71,718,650
Manufactured and Snuff... 904,078 ............ 374,182	  2,798,849
1877. Unmanufactured................. 6,741,911	  12,303,232	  85,818,231
Manufactured and Snuff... 1,162,852 .......... 845,611	  8,129,031
1878. Unmanufactured................. 5,438,774	  12,415,838	  96,021,422
Manufactured and Snuff... 847,564 ............ 862,217	  8,040,888
Showing a steady Increase of Consumption.
Although, the New Duties came into force on the 5th April, 1878, that month properly comes under the Old Duties; as immediately before the New Duties came into force, Importers hastened to clear out of Bond whatever quantities were likely to be required, Retailers being equally anxious to secure stock which could be sold with fair profit at the old standards of price and quality.
(2.) For Four Months, Ending April 30th.
Year.	Imports: lbs. Home Consumption: lbs. In Bond: lbs.
1876. Unmanufactured................. 8,784,956	  15,802,449	  69,382,891
Manufactured and	Snuff.. 1,388,261 .......... 477,671	  2,950,508
1877. Unmanufactured................. 8,487,516	  16,816,854	  82,762,598
Manufactured and	Snuff.. 1,541,881 .......... 458,456	  8,197,936
1878. Unmanufactured................. 9,515,807	  17,247,578	  98,014,219
Manufactured and	Snuff... 1,814,889 .......... 580,264	  8,116,902
Showing a yet larger Increase of Consumption.
UNDER THE OPERATION OF THE EXTRA DUTY.
(3.) For Nine Months, Ending Dec. 31st.
Year.	Imports, lbs. Home Consumption, lbs. In Bond, lbs.
1876 Unmanufactured................. 70,182,103	  85,596,150	  95,243,903
Manufactured and Snuff.... 2,914,830 ........ 1,016,960	  2,863,499
1877 Unmanufactured................. 67,620,407	  36,996,826	 106,573,208
Manufactured and Snuff... 2,629,538 ........ 1,000,651	  8,065,090
1878 Unmanufactured................. 82,111,067	  85,553,924	 181,116,235
Manufactured and Snuff.... 2,991,051 ........ 1,042,488	  3,822,770
Showing again the steady Increase of Consumption before the Extra Duty; and showing the heavy Decrease under its operation, amounting in the Nine Months of 1878 to 1,401,115 lbs. compared with the same period in 1877, against an Increase of nearly the same quantity in 1877 compared with 1876.
It scarcely need be said that the Amounts of Imports, depending as they do on the state of the Foreign markets, are only significant in this comparison as proving by their large Increase in 1878 that Tobacco was then considerably cheaper in Bond than before, a condition favourable to consumption under the New Duties.
286	SUPPLEMENT TO COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT. [Januaby 29, 1879.
The vast and unprecedented Increase of the Quantities left in Bond, so much larger than the Increase in the Imports, means simply a vast and unprecedented hesitation or inability to clear out by paying Duty ; or, in other words, heavy trade difficulties and extensive financial embarrassments among Manufacturers and Retailers and possibly Importers. In the words of the Times, whose view of our general condition and prospects just now is notoriously rather rose-coloured than jaundiced: “ Tobacco has been adversely affected by the increased duty” (Review of Annual Trade Returns; Friday, January 10th, 1879.)
IX.—Translating the Home Consumption of Unmanufactured in the last Table (3) into Amount of Duty paid (having no data for reckoning precisely the Amount of Duty on the Manufactured, which varies with the various proportions of Segars, Cavendish, and other Foreign Manufactured); and neglecting the insignificant quantities of Unmanufactured paying 3s. 6d. in 1876 and 1877,—only £216 gross was thus paid in Year ending March 31st, 1878,—we have the following results:—
f4.) For Nine Months, Ending Dec. 31st.
Home
Duty	Consumption,	Amount
Year.	per lb.	Unmanufactured.	Duty.
b. d.	lbs.	£ s. d.
1876 .............................. 8	1T^ ............ 85,596,150 .............. 5,606,398	12	6
1877 ................................. „	............ 36,996,826 .............. 5,827,000	1 10^
1878 .............................. 3	6	............ 85,553,924 .............. 6,221,936	14	0
Showing an apparent Increase Revenue on Unmanufactured in Nine Months 1878 compared with 1877 of £394,936, against Increase 1877 compared with 1876 of £220,607.
(a.) Confining comparison to Unmanufactured, the Manufactured being little affected by Extra Duty:—
But we must deduct from this Increase in 1878 the Extra Duty of 4’od. per lb. on the 4,832,235 lbs. Consumption Unmanufactured April, 1878 (most of which, we believe, paid only the Old Duty), being £84,564 2s. 3d.; leaving Increase on Unmanufactured in 1878 of £310,372, against Increase in 1877 of £220,607.
This Nine Months’ Increase on Unmanufactured in 1878 is at the rate in Twelve Months of £413,829, against Increase in 1877 of £294,143; an excess of only £119,686.
(6.) Including Manufactured as well as Unmanufactured in the comparison:—
But we must add to the Increase in 1878 the Extra Duty of 4’od. per lb. on the 1,042,438 lbs. Consumption Manufactured, and deduct from it 4i*d. per lb. on the 5,000,282 lbs. Consumption April, 1878 (most of which, we believe, paid only the Old Duty), or deduct from it 4^. per lb. on 3,957,844 lbs., being £69,262 5s. 4yd., leaving Increase 1878 of £325,674.
Again, we must add to the Increase in 1878 the Amount of Duty at the old rates on the 41,787 lbs. Increase Consumption Manufactured, mainly Segars at 5s. per lb., about £10,000 ; and deduct from the Increase in 1877 the like duties on the 16,309 lbs. Decrease Consumption Manufactured, about £4000.
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We have thus approximate natural Increase of Revenue, by Increase of unchecked Consumption, in Nine Months of 1877 compared with 1876 of <£216,607 ; and Increase of Revenue by Extra Duty and consequent checked Consumption in Nine Months of 1878 compared with 1877 of £335,674.
This Nine Months’ Total Increase in 1878 compared with 1877 is at the rate in Twelve Mowths of £447,565, against Increase 1877 compared ivith 1876 of £288,809 ; being an excess of only £158,756.
This approximate Twelve Months’ Increase 1878-9 of £447,565, is £411,435 less than the £859,000 officially estimated, or little more than one-half It is only £100,000 more than the Increase reckoned for Twelve Months (£260,000 for Nine Months) effected under the reduced Customs Tariff in 1863-4, when Consumption was so much less and the American Civil War at its height.
X.—Your Memorialists respectfully submit that such a result cannot be deemed a financial success ; that the Extra Duty on Tobacco stands condemned by its unfruitfulness to the Revenue, apart from any other considerations whatever. But there are other considerations of very grave importance to the whole Tobacco Trade, to the 600 Manufacturers and 300,000 Retailers, and likewise to the vast mass of the Consumers, which merit the serious attention of the Legislature.
And here it should be remarked that these considerations involve a reply to the possible objection that the enormous deficiency of the actual compared with the estimated Revenue from Tobacco for the current financial year may be accounted for by the general commercial depression and the distress prevalent among large bodies of the working classes; a reply not perhaps quite complete, as some of the deficiency may be thus accounted for, but valid and effectual, because much the greater part, if not all, of it is clearly traceable to the operation of the Extra Duty.
It is calculated that about seven-eighths of the Tobacco used in the United Kingdom is consumed by the poorer or working classes, and purchased from day to day as required, the bulk of it in half-ounces; the standard price for many years past having been at the rate of threepence per ounce. With our currency it is impossible to divide the extra d^d. equally among 32 half-ounces or even 16 whole ounces. The profits of the Manufacturer and Retailer, which have both long been restricted on this article to the very lowest possible trading limit, cannot bear the further reduction of this tax; consequently the poorer purchasers, who are the vast majority, must pay nearly double extra duty, {d. per half-ounce equal to 8d. per lb., or put up with a deteriorated article.
Similarly, the immense majority of Home-made Segars are purchased, not in boxes, but singly, or at most in twos and threes; and on these articles, when loss and waste in manufacture are taken into account, the Extra Duty grows from d^d. to about 6|d. per lb. With our currency it is again impossible to divide 6|d. equally among about one hundred Segars. Therefore the great bulk of the purchasers of these Segars (which, as is well known in the Trade, are at least three-fourths of all consumed in the United Kingdom, under whatever fantastic names they may be disguised) must pay several times the extra duty, from |d. to |d. on each instead of about one-quarter farthing, or put up with a deteriorated article.
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Now, however strange it may appear to the rich, it is true, and has been repeatedly proved by the undiminished and even increased consumption of Tobacco in years of great general privation, that the regular Smoker of the labouring classes will in case of need rather stint himself in food and other so-called “ necessaries” of life, than in the so-'called “ luxury ” Tobacco; but it is equally true that he has an almost insuperable objection to pay more for the Tobacco than the standard price to which he has been accustomed sb many years, in the great majority of cases, indeed, ever since he can remember. Nor is this objection wonderful, considering that he has long been frequently reminded and thoroughly well aware of the simple fact whose statement we have already quoted from the “Financial Reform Almanack" (which mainly supplies the materials for a very large proportion of the financial articles in the daily and weekly press throughout the year), “ that of the 3d. paid for “ an ounce, 2\d. is for the Government, and a ha’penny only for the Tobacco;” and, likewise, thoroughly well aware that no other article of general consumption has been so prodigiously over-taxed, and no other article of equal necessity, save only Tea, taxed to even one-tenth of the proportion to value. To pay 2^d. duty on a poor ha’p’orth of Tobacco about every other day of his life, has naturally seemed to him quite enough; and he very decidedly resents the summons of the Extra Duty to pay 3d. taxon every ha’p’orth.
Consequently the extraordinary Decrease In the Consumption of Duty-paid Tobacco by no means implies an equal or even a large Decrease in Smoking; but implies a very large Increase in the Consumption of what is not Tobacco, though sold ivith and as Tobacco. It must be remembered that the introduction of even 10 per cent, of foreign matter, such as water, into an article which last year paid £7,767,193 Duty (the Unmanufactured alone), would reduce the Duty on the same nominal quantity retailed by no less than .£776,719, just counterbalancing the gain to the Revenue by the Extra Duty, which is exactly 10 per cent, of the 3s. 6d. per lb. now imposed.
The violent changes so unexpectedly necessitated by the imposition of the Extra Duty have already seriously injured and deteriorated and even disorganised the whole Tobacco Trade; a Trade which had only got settled down into not intolerable working order after passing through a long period of severest distress and disaster under the burden of the enormity of the Old Duties. The whole vast business is rife with complaints and criminations and recriminations; Manufacturers and Retailers about equally distracted between cheapness with nastiness on the one hand and goodness with dearness on the other, either threatening loss of custom, and the former loss of reputation likewise; the innumerable Customers dissatisfied and indignant either at highness of price where the price is raised, or at lowness of quality where the price is not raised: all agreeing in but one thing, irritation against the Government which has brought about this evil state of affairs, and brought it about, as the Official Returns have proved, without the compensation of any considerable benefit to the Imperial Revenue.
Nor is the very large Increase of Adulteration, which was immediately, by the Trade, foreseen to be inevitable, the only evil against which the legitimate Trade has to struggle in consequence of the extra imposition on Tobacco. There is also a very large Increase of Smuggling, which was likewise, by the Trade, foreseen to
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be inevitable. Many instances of detection have recently occurred, as at Hull, Leeds, Londonderry, Portsmouth, Rotherhithe, Bristol; but as these detections have been mainly the results of mere lucky chance or information, and as the Smuggling is so great as to seriously embarrass the honest trader in some districts, it is certain that now, as at the date of the Select Committee and formerly, the cases of detection are quite insignificant in number and importance compared with those undetected. Thus, Mr. Pagden, Collector of Customs at Bristol, prosecuting in three cases there, involving about 1 cwt., in one day (Nov. 22, 1878), and pressing for the full penalty in each, bore witness to the following effect:—“ Only since August last “the quantity of detected Tobacco dealt with by the Customs Officers in Bristol “reached from a quarter to half a ton, and the total fines inflicted amounted to “between .£700 and £800. I have the very best information that this wholesale "Smuggling in Bristol has caused a very serious interference with legitimate trade. “In this port and district merchants pay very nearly £400,000 a year in Duties. “ They also pay immense sums in Liverpool and London; and I think that where “ any trade is so taxed, every effort should be made to prevent the illicit trader “carrying on his operations.” Beyond doubt: but, unfortunately, all experience proves that no possible efforts can prevent illicit and fraudulent trading, when an article is so enormously over-taxed that Smugglers have the prospect of enormous profits.
XI.—Your Memorialists cannot think that these evil consequences, at any rate in all their magnitude, working already to the great detriment of the Revenue, to the distress and havoc of the legitimate Trade, to the serious injury of the mass of the Consumers, and to the demoralisation of large classes of the Community, can have been officially foreseen when the Extra Duty on Tobacco, the last article in the Customs for an increase and the first for a decrease of taxation, was included in the Budget of 1878. Even were this Extra Duty yielding the large increase to the Eevenue which was officially anticipated, it might well be a subject for serious discussion to responsible Statesmen whether that increase was not too dearly purchased at the cost of the evils we have indicated; but when, instead of such a large increase, it is actually yielding very little more Revenue than would in all probability have been yielded under the former Duties, your Memoriahsts respectfully submit that its immediate abohtion is urgently demanded.
Wherefore your Memorialists respectfully pray that the said Extra Duty of ^d. per lb. on Tobacco, imposed in the Budget of 1878, be abolished in the next Budget; or, failing such abolition, that a Select Committee of the House of Commons be forthwith appointed to investigate and report upon the whole subject of the condition and alleged grievances of the Tobacco Trade of the United Kingdom.
Wednesday, January 15, 1879.
PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF “COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT,” 10, LORD NELSON STREET, LIVERPOOL.
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& Qaamtij people.
id Races there have been plenty. Why should there not oe a Doomed People? Emerson has, in a sentence, pre* served from oblivion “The Races: a Fragment. By Robert Knox. London: 1850”; and says of it—“An ingenious anatomist has written a book to prove that races are imperishable, but nations are pliant political constructions, easily changed or destroyed.” If Mr. Robert Knox was right, then the old proverb, “Threatened men live long,” may be adapted with new force to doomed races; or we are in want of a definition—as so often happens. How many races of men there are is a question too vexed to be attractive. Some say five; some, three; some, eleven; some would have it that the races are legion; and some contend that “ The Human Race” is one. Possibly, there may be people who will deny the existence of any such race at all, till they find it in the “sporting fixtures,” and can get the odds upon it at Tatter* 'Ji’s. Bat, in whatever way the doctrine of race may be ocided (and for that no “settling day” has yet been fixed), i cannot much concern the subjects of the British Crown, ven those of them who are inhabitants of the British Isles mnot be set down as a race. Consequently, though the fat of extinction has gone out against them, they cannot "a properly described as a “ doomed race.” The author of Robinson Crusoe” was of opinion that this nation was imposed of the “mud”—presumably the slime—“of all races.” The proposition is not to be strictly criticised: take it liberally, for the sake of the oozy deposit of truth there is in it. The English nation is very much mixed; and when the Scotch, the Irish, the Welsh, and all the other elements that combine to make up the British Nation, are taken into account we may confess we are a composite people. And this People is Doomed. Its Doom was pronounced full fifty years ago—by William Cobbett; and William Cobbett, if he could return to life in this particular corner of the universe now, would be very much surprised, and probably very much more disgusted, to observe that the British Nation has had the bad taste to go on existing, increasing and multiplying, strengthening its stakes and enlarging its borders, for half a century after he foretold its dishonoured end. The salvation of Prophets is their death.
But William Cobbett, being restored to life and confronted with the fact of the survival of this People, would account for the phenomenon upon the theory that it had abandoned Hie use of tea. He would argue thus:—A new political era has brought about the destruction of the old and bad fiscal system: taxes upon the necessities of life have been abolished or reduced: malt has been freed from the oppressive duty that “robbed a poor man of his beer”; wherefore the poor man (and every other man who is wise) brews and drinks good, sound ale; wherefore also tea has been banished the realm; and therefore Britain remains, and her Doom is averted. William Cobbett was fond of hard facts in his lifetime. Let us suppose him now brought face to face with such facts as these:—That the value of the tea imported into Great Britain in 1874 was £11,532,896; in 1875, £13,766,961; m 1876, £12,697,204; and that the Customs receipts upon tea imported during the two years 1875-76 respectively were £3,636,460 and £3,728,311;—making a total expenditure for tea in three years (estimating, say, £3,500,000 for the duty m 1874) of something like Forty-Nine Millions Sterling. Then, having faced him with the facts, let us recall his gruesome warnings, now three generations old. It is worth while to reproduce the passage in his advertising sheet of 1828, in
which he summarised the ten or eleven pages of “ Cottage Economy” devoted to the “unspeakable” demerits of tea:—
“	I was, at the time I wrote it, and still am, of the opinion, that infinite mischief has arisen to the community from the general ate of tea and meh like elope ; and from the nee of potatoes at a eubetitute for bread. . . . It seems etteer to say; it seems to be an odd notion; but, it is my fixed ’ opinion, that the use of tea and other slops, accompanied by that of the abominable potatoes; that the general use of these things have tended greatly to lower the people of England in the scale of humanity, or human existence; and, I do verily believe, that, if we could have Parliamentary Reform ; if we could haveeven the repeal of the malt, hop, and toap and candle tax complete, and if the people still continued the use of the tea slops, all these changes would be of little avail. It is hardly to be supposed that a repeal of the malt and hop tax, which would enable a man to have a quart of good fresh and hearty beer for a penny: it is hardly possible to believe, that he would still persevere in suffering his wife to make eeven hundred and thirty free in a year, tor the cooking of the tea-kettle, * or devil’s head,’ besides putting him to the enormous expense of tea and sugar and tea tackle, and washing up of tea things seven hundred and thirty times in the year; and the breakage of those tea things, and the running to the shop after the stuff; it is hardly possible to believe that this could continue, while tl^e labouring man might set that same wife to brew about twelve times in the year, and to make for herself as well as for him and his children, a quart of excellent good beer for a penny: it is hardly possible to believe this; but, if such a thing could be, and each a thing were, I have no scruple to say, that we might then regard it as impossible that the labourers of this country would ever again see the days that their fathers saw only seventy years ago; the heavy taxes it was that stripped the labourers of their beer barrels and brewing utensils; that stripped them of the means of buying malt and hops; that drove them to the chandler’s shop and the tea-kettle; that sent warm water down their throats instead of cold beer. In the accursed habit they have continued, and continue they must until the canoe be removed; but, when that cause shall be removed, my hope is that they will return to their former habits.**
That is milder than the indictment in the body of the treatise; where all sorts of foul demoralisation is set down to the same cause as the physical degeneracy of the tea-drinker. Somebody the other day attributed all the misfortunes that have befallen the world since 1870 to the heinous guilt of this nation in establishing unsectarian School Board schools. And this is what I find in dear Dr. Kenealy’s Englishman:—
“THE CURSE OF GOD.
“	There seems no end to the misfortunes that befall us since the Tich* bornk Trial, and the annihilation of Dr. Kknkalt with his family have both drawn down the JUST VENGEANCE OF HEAVEN upon the land. Starvation is on the increase; Trade is bad; Wages are at famine point; War is near; and with War, Taxation, perhaps National Bankruptcy. See what has happened since Parliament broke up, without its giving any sign of redress for those fearful and blasphemous wrongs. Seven hundred and forty people perish in a moment in the THAMES, within a few feet of the shore. Two hundred colliers die a dreadful death in ABERCARNE, in an instant of time. The GLASGOW BANK fails, and involves thousands of persons in utter ruin and hopeless poverty. And last Friday night nearly Forty persons in Liverpool were suffocated, or trampled to death—enduring dread agonies. No such calamities befall other countries, for no such Crimes as the above-named have been committed there.**
And I wonder whether Cobbett, Kenealy, et hoc genus omne, swallow their own specifics. Do you remember genial Matthew Browne, who used to chatter and tattle for our entertainment in the magazine called Saint Pauls (without the apostrophe to mark the possessive case—for its grammar and punctuation were nearly equal to Cobbett’s)? Matthew wrote an essay on “ Tea considered as a Cause of National I Demoralisation.” He quoted some terrible authorities in support of his case; and for himself he said:—
“You never find people sing‘Auld Lang Syne’over their tea, nor do they fight over it. All is calm and peaceful on the surface. But underneath I I never drink tea without feeling as if I should like to overreach somebody	I
directly. I feel as if it would do me good to go in for a competitive exami-	I
nation on the spot. I invent wooden nutmegs and dummy ship-bolts. I I think of abstruse conundrums. I long to start bubble companies and forge I trade-marks. In a short time I experience a general relaxation of fibre. I	I
find I have no physical courage, no patriotism, no love of man as man, no	I
motto but Caveat emptor, or, the devil take the hindmost.”	I
He advocates an Act of Parliament to put down the use of I tea, which “acts through the nervous system on the con- I science, and turns us into a nation of sneaks.” And he adds— I
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“All the favour I ask is that as soon as ever any Parliar mentary rival of Sir Wilfrid Lawson has made up his mind to bring in a Bill to carry out these objects, he will oblige me with a private intimation, so that I may take care of myself (I am fond of tea) by laying in a stock that will last out my natural life, or (since tea deteriorates by keeping) that I may have time to import and cultivate the tea-plant itself.”
And now that we have been degraded beyond the dreams of Cobbett, and carried half-way (at least) to final extinction, by the persistent drinking of tea, the completion of our doom is to be wrought by Tobacco. It is not enough that the late Dr. Trotter, of Bath, could say that tea was “ one great reason for the increased and increasing proportion of nervous, bilious, spasmodic, and stomach complaints appearing among the lower ranks of life,” and that it “paves the way to habitual dram-drinking.” It is not enough that Cobbett could declare that “ tea-drinking fills the public-house, makes the frequenting of it habitual, corrupts boys as soon as they are able to move from home, and does little less for the girls, to whom the gossip of the tea-table is no bad preparatory school for the brothel;” adding that “the girl that has been brought up merely to mind the tea-kettle, and to assist in the gossip inseparable from the practice, is a mere consumer of food, a pest to her employer, and a curse to her husband, if any man be so unfortunate as to fix his affections upon her.” Nor is the cup of our misery yet full, though Matthew Browne has said—“England, considered as a mart, is one vast gambling hell. From the rotten banks and rotten insurance companies, down to rotten ships, it is all the same story. . . . . Some secret, subtle, unheeded, but most potent relaxing influence has been at work for half a century, weakening the moral fibre of the nation. And what is it? To change the metaphor, let us ask: Where is English honesty? And I answer—Drowned in the teapot. Tea has done it.” All this, I repeat, is not enough. ’Spite of the mischief that has been wrought upon us, individually and as a nation, by tea drinking, the English people yet survives. A jealous Fate marks the untoward fact, aud, relentless in fiendish malignity, adds to our curses—Tobacco. Whereupon, Cassandra gives tongue once again.
The legal machinery set in motion by the German Government against juvenile smokers has already been noted in the Tobacco Plant by Youb Man-of-All-Work. The subject afforded an admirable opportunity for a burst of lachrymose eloquence in the columns of the Timex. The Times weeps in sympathy with the non-smokers; and, incidentally, reveals the depravity of those who smoke. “There is a reason,” says the Jupiter-Tonans (more recently reviled as the Sheet-Lightner) of Printing-house Square, “against public smoking —perhaps, in effect, against all smoking—which has scarcely received sufficient recognition. It is the absolute indifference to the comfort and convenience of society at large that it is certain to produce.” There are people who don’t like smoke, or the smell of it; or to be obliged to look for another compartment in a railway train when they have blundered into a “smoking carriage” in defiance of the fact that it is labelled so. Nor is this the worst; for—
“ Tobacco is a powerful drug administered through the respiratory organs, that is, through the atmosphere; and, as wo breathe one another’s atmosphere, as it were, in common stock, the smoker administers his drug to all about him, whether they wish it or not. The indifference, or apathy, as regards the comfort of others, is one of the most remarkable effects of Tobacco. No other drug will produce anything like it. Neither opium nor intoxicating drink produces such an insensibility. . . . It is true there is no malice in it. The Tobacco smoker does not wish you harm when ho puffs a cloud of nicotine into your face, or expels you from the only available seat in a train just starting. He is in the happy state of the immortal gods described by the Epicurean poet: he does not care whether you are happy or miserable.''
And then, whether the German doctors and the German Government be right or wrong—whether the mischievous physical effects which they charge against the nicotian herb be truly effects of Tobacco or of the chips and shavings that Germany prefers to smoke—
“It cannot, however, be denied that Tobacco does affect the brain, the heart, the circulation, and the temperature. By the effect produced in these quarters it gives the desired relief—a certain soothing of the jaded or irritated nerves. It substitutes a dreamy mood for one of flagging vitality. But these fits of suspended animation are dearly purchased. They are the first step of a terrible process. The poet who described sleep as the cousin of death might have found nearer relations and more direct approaches in the sudden abatements of sensation, memory, power, and consciousness we procure by drugs and other like agencies. They all give us the first stage of that euthanasia which some have told us is within our right, and others tell us is a revolt against Nature and Heaven. But’to practise day by day the way to death, even in its first smooth and easy stage, must facilitate the whole process, and render it easier to die, by a sort of acquired proclivity, when other things incline that way."
That is an indictment on moral grounds which has not often been surpassed in the history of the Tobacco question. I do not stop to inquire into its merits now. I pass on to notice that the secondary effect of the Times article was to evoke an outburst of criminatory correspondence. One “ William Tai lank ” wrote to say a medical agent of the Belgian Government told him that “the too general and excessive use of Tobacco” was the main cause of “colourblindness”—“an ocular affection which, he said, is occasioning increasing anxiety, not merely in his own country, but especially in Germany.” And then, inevitably, Dr. Drysdale rushed into the breach, with his long catalogue of evils— palpitations of the heart, hoarseness, black teeth, swollen gums, blindness, dyspepsia, diarrhoea, cancer, abortion, milkpoisoning, brain disease, convulsions—as results of the use of Tobacco. Mr. Ritchie, of Leek, a factory-surgeon,
“said ditto” to the doctor, and added—“Universal smoking among any people will infallibly result in a degenerate and physically inferior race. Selfishness and indifference to the comfort of others are most marked among smokers, and the paralysis induced by the use of Tobacco will, I think, satisfactorily account for much of that indolence, carelessness, and callousness which, unfortunately, now prevail in all walks of life.”
Alas, my country! Thy teapot and thy Tobacco-pipe-all too fondly cherished—have brought upon thee the concentrated vengeance of the skies. Physically degenerate, morally debased, spiritually emasculated, what remains—but that thou bend thy head to thy doom, and pass away? It were well to be gone, “lest a worse thing come upon thee”. Already there are threatening portents of that yet more awful experience; for—closing up the train of volunteer scribblers to the Times—“Fair Play” has written to say that “myself and other gentlemen” have subscribed between us a few thousand pounds to diffuse high-class medical information upon the subject,” and that “our publications may be had gratis by all and sundry who will apply for them to 4, Lord’s Chambers, Corporation Street, Manchester.” He concludes—“I enclose a few specimens of our unfanatical prints,” and I pity the editor of the Times; for I also have bad “a few specimens” enclosed to me, and I prefer “euthanasia,” or “ The Washerwoman of Finchley Common.” J. D.
gwbtr-yanb Otters.
I.—SMOKING CARRIAGES.
The Cbusoes are an old family, well-known in the days of Defoe. Now, as Dr. Darwin has explained all about the transmission and perpetuity of species, it will surprise no one to find that the race is still extant. They always continue to inhabit desert islands, which are much more numerous than is commonly supposed. Anyone with a strong dash of individuality of view, soon finds himself upon one. New opinion is speedily isolated. People keep clear of it as from the unknown. This brings many advantages to those who like to look at things from a point of their own. They look on the battle of life without being in it, and only descend into it of their own choice, where others are involved whether they will or no. Thus the Crusoes are in society without being of it. They dwell even then on its Border-land, which constitutes a free observatory for discerning things going on in the world. If it suits you, therefore, I will tell you from time to time what I see from my outlying station. To one who ventures inland, railway companies are objects of considerable curiosity.
Now and then railway companies show unexpected attention to the comfort of travellers—we may say “unexpected,” because the public are not much accustomed to receive personal consideration from these august bodies. It first occurred to the Midland Railway, which has really distinguished itself by voluntary consideration of the convenience of passengers, to arrange to issue tickets long before the time of starting the trains, if passengers choose to apply for them. Tliis struck everybody as an act of courtesy which nobody looked for, or looked for in this world. Indeed, at some of their stations, tickets could be bought by the dozen, and used when the passenger pleased; indeed, if he never used them, it was all the better for the company, as they received the money and did nothing for it. The custom of railways is to keep the passengers hanging about the station, and refuse to issue tickets till the train is about to start; which is about as wise as it would be in the Postmaster-General should be refuse to sell stamps until those requiring them had written their letters, or until the mail was made up to carry them. The railway clerk is instructed to open the hole in his box for thd sale of tickets at intervals of two or three hours at some stations where trains are infrequent, which is about as sensible a business proceeding as it would be in a tradesman to close his shop for indefinite hours every day. Several jubilant paragraphs have lately appeared in the papers, on it being made known that the manager of the London and Brighton Railway had provided glasses of water to be sold at the carriage doors to thirsty passengers. This, at least, is a hopeful sign; and, if the subject was suggested to directors, they might think it right to invent some decent arrangement in their smoking carriages for those who beguile the weary hours of travel by the peaceful and patient pastime of smoking.
In first-class smoking carriages a pervious carpet or woven mat is supplied on the floor, which keeps the carriage dry and clean under foot. The second-class carriages have but rarely this mark of consideration for occupants. The third-class have no provision for pleasant occupation. On the Midland lines alone smoking carriages are agreeable to the eye, and are built like a studio with a lantern roof. Since so large a number of railway customers require smoking convenience, regard to that fact is due to them on all lines. Even on the Underground lines in London the company have been compelled to set apart smoking carriages. Thousands of persons whose days are passed in shops and warehouses, where smoking is impossible, had no opportunity of a pipe when, as messengers or porters, or travellers to dinner, they
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passed some time in underground carriages. Railway companies are but tradesmen, dealing in transits; and there is no reason why they should be insolent to their customers, and subject them to deprivation of personal enjoyment, or subject them to conditions of discomfort and humiliation, if they seek it. * If I buy a coat, my tailor does not dictate where I shall have my pockets, or what I shall put into them. If I buy a passage of a railway company, why should they prevent me smoking, or put me under offensive conditions if I do? Why should the floor of the smoking carriage, if I choose to ride third-class—or, for economy, am compelled to do so—be unprovided with a spittoon floor, if I need one? Why should the floor be left so wet and uninhabitable that no workman of any taste can enter it? Why should it be always damp and disagreeable to the eye? If smoking cannot be prohibited, it should be recognised; and, when recognised, as it is obliged to be, why should it not be treated with respect? Is it necessary that smokers should apply by petition or remonstrance to railway companies for ordinary civility, as though the “Counterblast” King was at the head of the directors? At Paris and other Exhibitions of international ingenuities, railway engines and carriages are shown. No case has been mentioned in which an improved smoking carriage has been exhibited. A device is wanted for a movable floor for the carriage, whereby it could always be clean and dry, and removable for rinsing at the end of each journey. Surely this is not beyond the resources of carriage builders, and would be very welcome to a large body of passengers. In these days, when Imperial policy is so costly, and Sir Stafford Northcote is at his wits’ end to get money to line the Khyber Pass with, and all good patriots are called upon to smoke up the Revenue, something ought to be done by railway directors to make smoking at least pleasant. Besides, have not railways themselves introduced a new element of impetuousness into daily life? Trains start at a moment’s notice; people have to hurry to be punctual. A whole town is kept in excitement every hour to reach the station. Trains rush along as though the world was mad. The devil would be out of breath in trying to overtake anyone who had sold himself to him, and had escaped by “express.” Only the telegraph can keep pace with the hurrying engine. The stoutest nerves are unstrung, the excitement is conveyed to the mind, and repose, as our fathers knew it, is known no more. Tobacco, which calms and soothes, and gives golden, saving hours of equanimity, alone seems capable of preserving the sanity of mankind. In a railway train it is a nervous necessity; and pleasant convenience for its use is a duty of railway directors. Smoking brings the grand repose of a desert island into the midst of a confused, tumultuous, and flying society. It is oft a blessed anodyne to one of the meditative, hurry-hating race of Crusoe. Kobaxto at t^e Optra. “Act I., Scene 1.—A Square in Seville. On the right the gate of the Tobacco factory. ... On the left a guard-house. . . At the rising of the curtain, some fifteen soldiers (dragoons of Almanza) are ground before the guard-house, smoking and looking at the people in the square, who come and go on all sides. The scene is full of animation.” Soldiers’ chorus of the pleasure of chatting and smoking and observing this lively scene. Micaeld, a pretty peasant-girl, appears, dubious, and asks the brigadier Morales whether he knows the brigadier Don Josd, whom she is seeking. To whom is Don Josd not known? responds Morales in the Italian; but in the English version, which is fully as felicitous as such versions of libretti in general, Don Josd is not to us known. But he is not in their company or troop; he will be in the guard about to relieve them. Morales and his soldiers, with operatic gallantry and discipline, press her to wait in the guard-room; but she, with more than operatic discretion, sings back No, no, no, no! and runs off. The guards change, with trumpetings and chorus; Morales tells Josd that a charming girl, with blue petticoat and flowing tresses has been inquiring for him, and Josd shrewdly opines, It must be Micaela. Scene 3. Josd and his officer are left alone. Officer: It is into that large house, then, that they go to make the cigars? Jose: Yes, there, my captain, and you may assure yourself that there are no girls more flighty. Officer: You can at least say whether they are pretty? Jos^ (the doomed wretch!): In truth I know nothing about them, and care little indeed for such toys. Officer: I will tell you, friend, what you seek. A blonde girl, named MicaelA; tresses of gold, blue skirt—What say you to this? Jos^: I answer that it is true, I answer that I love her.—Wliether these girls have or not such beauty —there they are, we can judge. (The factory bell rings.) Scene 4. The square fills with young fellows awaiting the coming of the cigar girls. The soldiers issue from the guardroom. Jose seated, indifferent to all, trifles with a little chain (he will soon feel a heavy one, not to be trifled with). Chorus: The bell has rung, and we come forth to see our pretty neighbours; and weTl follow you, brown cigar girls, to say we love you and with real love. At this moment the cigar girls arrive, smoking cigarettes. Do the ladies of	Messrs. Cope’s factory come to work in this style, I wonder? and do the young gallants of the neighbourhood so assemble to greet their coming? These of (operatic) Seville swing along saucily and leisurely, linked arm in arm, and more than all the colours of the rainbow are in their brief skirts and bodices. No wonder the inflammable soldiers chant: What think you? Saucy in gait, true coquettes! Who keep on smoking their cigarettes. Cigar girls chorus: The eye in the air follows you, buoyant smoke, heavenward soaring in clouds of perfume. The eye in the air follows you, buoyant smoke, buoyant smoke, buoyant smoke, buoyant smoke. Rise still, subtle, subtle, to the brain; and there, so gracious, give the soul holiday. The eye in the air follows you, buoyant smoke. Talk of love is only smoke; vows of lovers vanish in smoke. The eye in the air follows you, buoyant smoke.—The soldiers cry to these fair and saucy young cynics, But is not la Car-mencita Among you? and straightway Carmen, the gipsy cigar girl, appears—dress and bearing as in the novelette of Prosper i Merimee (first published, Rev tie dee Deux Mondes, October, 1845). She has an acacia flower at her lips, and a bouquet of the same flowers in her bodice. Young fellows gather round her; she flirts familiarly with all. Jose alone remains aloof indifferent, after a careless glance at her. To the besieging gallants she sings the song of Love, the mysterious bird which none can tame, with its menacing refrain, If you love not me, well, I love you; if I love you, lo, fear for yourself. Then, darting from the circle, as if piqued by his scornful indifference, she flings her bouquet at Jos^ with imperious audacity; he leaps up amid a general burst of laughter; the bell rings a second time; the girls with Carmen enter the factory, the young fellows disperse, and Jos£ is left to soliloquise: What an eye-flash, what an insolent air! The perfume is subtle, the flower charming! and she, if there are still witches, seems to me one. In truth he is fascinated in the full meaning of the term, bewitched, ensorceled, infatuated, doomed. The modest and tender Mieaeld returns, and gives him a letter of pardon and love from his mother, with money and a maternal kiss, and he sings with her a sentimental song of home, and he is full of the finest resolutions; but we know too well from the first that the poor innocent must fail and the reckless enchantress triumph, as hawk over dove, leopard over fawn. Josd is ordered to convey Carmen to prison for wounding one of her companions in a squabble (operatic military law); with assured witchery she compels him to connive at her escape. In Act II. we find her with other gipsies revelling in an hostelry without the walls, singing and dancing, officers smoking and paying easy court. She hears carelessly that Jos^ is only that day released from prison for allowing her to escape. Escamillo, the toreador, victor in the circus of Granada, enters with acclamation; she fills his glass for him, he makes advances to her. When all have retired save herself and two other gipsy girls, and the house is closed, two smugglers, with whom they seem familiar, come to ask their help in an enterprise. She refuses to go with them, for she awaits Jos^. Let her bring him to join them, he will make a capital smuggler; she will try. He comes, and would go when he hears the recall sounded; she is bewitching him to remain, he will not incur the infamy of desertion; but his officer comes back for Carmen, orders him insultingly to barracks, and strikes him on refusal. Josd draws his sword, the smugglers and gipsies return, the officer is kept prisoner for a time, and Jose goes off a deserter with Carmen and the rest. In Act III. we are in the haunt of the smugglers, a wild rocky region. Josd is remorseful, but still infatuated, Carmen tired of her too easy conquest. All depart on their enterprise except him; Escamillo enters in search of Carmen; the two discover their rivalry, and begin a duel of knives and cloaks; Carmen with smugglers returns in time to save Escamillo from a wound; he invites them all to the bull-fight at Seville, where he hopes to shine, and declares that he will be at Josh’s service another time. MicaelA appears, imploring Josd to come home with her; Carmen contemptuously counsels him to go; he refuses until Micaeld tells him that his mother is dying, when, after threatening Carmen, not for the first time, for he sees too clearly that she prefers that Spanish hero the popular bull-fighter, and he is jealous with the frenzied jealousy of Spain, he reluctantly departs with Micaela. Act IV.—A square in Seville. At the back the walls of the old arena. The entrance to the circus curtained. It is the day of the bull-fight. Very animated scene, with vendors of water, oranges, fans, wine, cigars, who chant their wares. Elaborate ballet with chorus. The procession of officials; banderilleros, picadors, toreadors; Escamillo, the hero of the day, with Carmen, magnificently dressed. Her gipsy friends warn her that Josd is in the crowd; she is aware of it, and is not so vile as to fear him; she will await him. All else enter the circus, then Josd appears. He will not threaten, he implores, he would save her (from his own fury); she is inexorable, dauntless, superb; she knows well that the hour is come (the hour of the doom foretold her by the cards in Act HI.; the grave, first to her, then to him, the grave); she will not yield to whom she loves not; free she was born, free she will die. From the circus sounds the chorus of victory for Escamillo, she gives a cry of joy and moves toward the veiled entrance; Josd bars her way: a rapid dialogue; he writhing with love and jealousy, she haughtily indomitable; he stabs her, she falls dead as the veil opens and the crowd issues from the circus. Josd: You may arrest me, it is I who
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stabbed her. Escamillo appears on the steps of the circus. Jos6 flings himself on the body of Carmen: Oh! mia Carmen, mia Carmen adorata! Such is the libretto of the success of the year 1878 in London; picturesque, dramatic, vigorous in construction— one looks not for style in the mere language of a libretto. We might say melo-dramatic instead of dramatic, were it not for the intense reality of the passion and despair of the sorcery-smitten hero, the superb dauntlessness and savage freedom of the heroine. These commanding features we owe to M6rim6e; the music, which, vocal and orchestral, is worthy or more than worthy of its theme and themes, is by the late Georges Bizet, whose early death was a severe loss to the French school. Opera may be generally deemed, as Lamb deemed comedy, out of the domain of ordinary conscience, a charming faerie land undominated by a strict decalogue, but, in compassion for the Antis, we deduce a minatory moral from this Opera of Tobacco:—A fascinating girl, who makes cigars in Seville, and who is, moreover, a gipsy, and altogether too intimate with smugglers, and who, yet further, has more than a gipsy’s share of devilry in her by nature, might prove troublesome in a pious tea-meeting, and is, in fact, a rather dangerous character; and no good young man should fall in love with her, if he can help it.	J. T. Smoking. Fumator’s my name, And Tobacco I claim As a constant, immutable friend; Other friends I may make May one day forsake, But Tobacco’s a friend to the end. Sweet expeller of grief, Thou oft bringest relief To those who are troubled and sad; A friend in one’s need Is a true friend indeed, And such is in thee to be had. When troubled and vexed, And sorely perplexed, In thee I found comfort and peace; For in vain troubles try My pipe to defy, Till at length to annoy me they cease. Some folks think they’re wise: My pipe they despise, And pronounce upon me a sad doom; Let them rave and revile, I’ll smoke the meanwhile; Yes, I’ll smoke them all out of the room. J. C. Timothy. £h (Strman Cabacco ^fonopolg. n. So far as taxation, commerce, and national prosperity are concerned, the grand idea and ideal which should inspire English statesmanship is, to make England the entrepot oi the world. We have repeatedly maintained that a country should be more agricultural than commercial, more commercial than industrial. This order France, by a wise instinct, follows; this order England, by a flagrant violation of Nature, and in direct contradiction of that common-sense of which Englishmen are for ever boasting, reverses. Many changes are needed to get the order established in Great Britain, one of the most important being the removal of the insensate and iniquitous feudal restrictions which make the soil the monopoly of a few. Without reference, however, to those restrictions, England might be made the entrepot of the world by the absolute abolition of import duties. As long as these exist it is ridiculous to talk of Free Trade. In any case, England and other countries must in these days choose between a Protectionism amounting to Prohibitionism and unconditional Free Trade; and the sooner England makes the choice the better. From all accounts and appearances, the tide in Germany has strongly turned in the direction of Protectionism. Neither to the present nor to the future advantage of Germany can this be. Certain prominent English politicians this fact will, no doubt, greatly distress—those politicians, we mean, who think that Englishmen should chiefly concern themselves with the interests of other countries. Englishmen, however, of a more patriotic, though less pretendedly humanitarian type, must see in the Protectionism of Germany, and its probable effects, simply an inducement to develop the principles of Free Trade to the uttermost. Lord Derby, the son of a chief champion of Protectionism, had the courage and common sense to denounce, not long ago, the silly stuff about Reciprocity. But it almost seems as if there were Englishmen who deem even mathematical truths questionable. Englishmen of this stamp cannot be expected to read with clear eyes and an honest heart such works as Bastiat's “Sophismes	Economiques.” In regard to Tobacco, for instance, let us look the Protectionism of Germany straight in the face. If by Bismarck’s despotic and desperate means the Tobacco culture and the Tobacco trade of Germany are ruined, as they are sure to be, England could, if wise, prodigiously profit from the disaster, becoming more and more the entrepot of the world in Tobacco as in other things. As, however, we do not wish to discuss the matter elaborately, but merely to give hints and suggestions, we proceed now to give the remaining portion of Dr. Eberty’s pamphlet:— In Spain the net gain from the monopoly is calculated at 60,000,000 marks. The monopoly exists likewise in Portugal and in Roumania. England apart, 116,000,000 human beings, or 43T’n per cent, of the population of Europe, live under the monopoly, which, with the exception of Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and Scandinavia, embraces the whole of Europe. In the system of monopoly every part is conditioned by and connected with every other part. The supervision is compressed into a few points, in order to be more strict and effective. In Russia the free cultivation of Tobacco is permitted. But there is, in addition to an import duty, a tax on the manufacture of the article. The revenue amounted in 1875 to 34,229,274 marks. It was decided that from the 1st January, 1878, the taxation should be by weight and not by • value. In the countries where the monopoly reigns it is not easy to ascertain the yearly value of the Tobacco produced; for, as may readily be supposed, the increase in national wealth is in such countries in inverse proportion to the amount derived from the taxation of Tobacco. The affair takes another shape in the United States of North America. The yearly gain which Tobacco brings there is 120,000,000 dollars, equivalent to about 480,000,000 marks. In America the cultivation of Tobacco is free; but the commerce in and the manufacture of Tobacco are taxed. The planter can make use for himself of the Tobacco which he cultivates. But from the moment he proceeds to the sale of his Tobacco the supervision of the Government begins. He must note in a book all the Tobacco he sells, and the inspection of this book, which must strictly correspond with the stock of the planter, is always open to the Government officials, so that the Board of Taxation is always able to see how much Tobacco has been sold to merchants, to manufacturers, and to exporters. The sale of raw Tobacco by retail is taxed to the amount of 500 dollars; but for this tax the retailer is only permitted to sell goods worth 1000 dollars; for every additional dollar’s worth of Tobacco sold he has to pay 50 cents to the State. The retail trade is hindered as much as possible in order to make the complete supervision the easier. From the dealer in raw Tobacco the article comes into the hands of the manufacturer. Before establishing his factory, the manufacturer must acquaint the Board of Taxation with the intended extent of his business, with the kind of goods he purposes making, and must accurately describe the modes and instrumentalities of manufacture. The fashions of packing the manufactured Tobacco are very strictly prescribed. On every package, before it leaves the factory, a stamped ticket must be fastened in such a way that it is destroyed when the package is opened. Every violation of the law is punishable by a fine of from 100 to 5000 dollars, and by imprisonment of from one to five years. That nothing may hinder the payment of the fines, the maufacturers of chewing Tobacco, of smoking Tobacco, and of snuff have to give security to the amount of from 2000 to 20,000 dollars; the manufacturers of cigars have to give security not only to the extent of 500 dollars for the factory, but of 100 dollars for every workman. It is true that the workmen in a cigar factory are themselves not taxed, but their names must be placed on the register, otherwise the manufacturer who employs them has to pay a fine of two dollars a day. And the security of 100 dollars is designed to meet this contingency. The tax the manufacturer has to pay is one mark for every pound of smoking and chewing Tobacco, one mark and the third of a mark for every pound of snuff, twenty-five marks for 1000 cigars, seven marks for 1000 cigarettes. Besides these taxes, the manufacturer has to pay an annual tax of ten dollars, wholesale. The tax for the dealers in manufactured Tobacco or cigars is five dollars; the tax for the retail dealer from ten to fifty dollars. The Board of Taxation records in its own books the commercial statements of the manufacturers and the dealers. The stamping processes of each factory are, besides, controlled by the Board. The tax on the article is a tax by weight. The manufacturer calculates the greater part of the tax on the dearer sorts; so that the pressure of the tax on the inferior sorts is thereby equalised. Home labour is not excluded or forbidden, inasmuch as the home labourer, by the payment of a small tax, can get himself registered as a manufacturer. Nevertheless, the system is undoubtedly hostile to the retail trade; and, though very despotic and minute in supervision, is not sufficient to prevent fraud. The tax paid by the manufacturers in 1875-76 amounted to 40,000,000 dollars, equal to 160,000,000 marks, in 1876-77 to 41,000,000 dollars,
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equal to 164,000,000 marks. In 1875 the import duties in America yielded 174,333,000 marks. Tobacco stems pay 15 cents, Tobacco leaves 35 cents, manufactured Tobacco 50 cents, as import duty. These duties do not prevent the exportation of Tobacco from Germany to America. Indeed, that exportation is very considerable, and Germany is well able to continue it.
As in America, so in Germany, the Tobacco culture has chiefly established itself on the banks of the great streams, the Rhine, the Danube, and their affluents. It prospers b ^t in broad riverine valleys, in warm plains, in a light, genial, loamy soil, in a sunny position protected from cold winds; it demands moderate moisture and abundant sunshine. The various requisites it chiefly finds in such regions. It needs the most careful treatment of the soil, the best manuring— consisting, if possible, of vegetal and not of animal elements —complete cleansing of the soil from weeds, and incessant attention. Manual labour can alone be employed, and the aid of machinery cannot be accepted. It is, therefore, the favourite plant of the small cultivators where there is considerable division of the land. A hothouse plant it is not, but the healthful breast which nourishes thousands of diligent and indefatigable toilers. But, by reason of the peculiarities of the plant, its cultivation is exposed to numerous vicissitudes, and tbe prices of the product are very fluctuating. As the cultivation is not, even at the best, extremely lucrative, the balance of profit and loss may often be in the highest degree unsatisfactory.
In harmony with the nature of the soil, the historically developed vital conditions, and the character of the inhabitants, the cultivation of Tobacco, after having found its way to South Germany, extended to the Mark Brandenburg, whither it was brought by inhabitants of the Palatinate expelled from their homes by Louis XIV. Beginning with the south-west, we meet with the Tobacco cultivation in the fruitful plain which extends from the Kaiserstuhl between the Rhine and the hilly ranges of the Black Forest and the Odenwald, along the valley of the Neckar and the neighbouring valleys from Heidelberg to Mannheim and to the vicinity of Darmstadt, then into the not less fruitful plains of the Bavarian Palatinate, between the Lautergebirge and the Hardtgebirge; onward it marches, moreover, on the Lower Rhine into Gilderland and Cleves, finds a domain for itself in Central Franconia as far as Erlangen, then, following the Werra valley, goes through Hesse to the southern part of Hanover, between the Weser and the Elbe and along the Middle Elbe to the Jerichow District. On the Oder it extends from Breslau to Stettin. Also on the right bank of the Vistula it is active below Marienwerder as far as Grandenz. In addition to the connected regions already mentioned, the cultivation of Tobacco is carried on in all parts of the Prussian Monarchy.
In Germany, in 1871, the land devoted to the cultivation of Tobacco amounted to 88,235 morgens. (Morgen is the German word for morning. As a measure of land, it is as much as can be ploughed with one team in a morning: an acre.) From the years 1871 to 1875 the annual consumption of raw Tobacco amounted, on an average, to 886,151 hundredweights of German Tobacco, and 811,439 hundredweights of foreign Tobacco. Total, 1,697,590 hundredweights.
This consumption is much higher than in any of the other Jands where Tobacco is cultivated. The tax, however, is comparatively small. According to the official statement for 1878 and 1879, it amounts only to 941,500 marks, while the following are the sums yielded by certain other articles or taxes:—
Beetroot sugar .....................  47,366,720	marks.
Salt................................. 23,880,180	„
Duties in general................... 106,550,470	,,
Brandy .............................. 40,801,400	„
Brewing tax ......................... 15,945,560	„
Stamp duty............................ 6,653,100	„
The comparatively small amount yielded by Tobacco has for a long period characterised the Prussian finances. No wonder, then, that, a considerable time since, the question was debated whether Tobacco could not be made to furnish much more to the revenue. The example of the abundant harvest yielded by Tobacco monopolies had for Prussia an immense fascination.
Taking to heart the needs and sufferings of his country after the Seven Years’ War, Frederick the Great established, in 1763, the Tobacco monopoly, which existed for twenty-three years, that is, till his death, in 1786. Trade was confined to the towns, and the introduction of wares into these was subjected to the strictest control. Custom-house lines existed between the different provinces. The whole land was covered with a network of Excise boards and an army of Excise officers, who hunted the articles of numerous mono-pohes into the kitchen of the very smallest household. Without such aids and instruments, the maintenance of the Tobacco monopoly would have been impossible.
One of the first things which Frederick William II., successor of Frederick the Great, did was to put an end to the Tobacco monopoly. The downfall of the Tobacco monopoly was hailed by the jubilations of the people.
But ever anew the Tobacco monopoly had for the Prussian and other German Governments a seductive charm. In December,
1855, a proposal for the introduction of the Tobacco monopoly was made in the Prussian House of Representatives, but it was withdrawn before coming on for discussion. In 1857 the monopoly figured in the debate on the Budget. According to report, various German Governments had long been coquetting with tbe monopoly previous to the restoration of the the German Empire. When that event took place the desire to realise the dream increased. But for the monopoly was substituted attempts to augment the Tobacco tax. Schemes, in forms more or less complete, were propounded. One of them was founded on the proposal made on the 3rd June, 1872, in tbe Reichstag, for the abolition of the duty on salt. On the 26th February and 22nd March, 1873, a Commission drew up a report, which was presented to the Reichstag. The Commission, as surrogates for the salt tax, proposed, among other things, a considerable increase of the inland duties and of the Tobacco tax, and, at the same time, presented the draft of a law on the subject. This draft held a place in the proposal made by the Government, on tbe 7th February, 1878. In the schemes and laws relating to the revenue of the empire for 1878 and 1879 it was stated that there was a real deficit of 16,993,751 marks, and a prospective deficit of 11,466,096 marks, making a total of 28,459,847 marks. To fill the gap, the sources of revenue had to be multiplied. A supplementary Budget was j>romised, if the project for the augmentation of the Tobacco tax and of the stamp duty were adopted, in which case certain special burdens, falling on the various States for imperial purposes, were to be lightened. The proposal of 7th February 1878, having one main object in view, did not include the abolition of the salt tax. As a justification of the proposal, it was declared that Germany might fairly and honestly seek as great a benefit from Tobacco as Austria, England, America, France, Italy, derived therefrom.
To follow the example of England, and forbid the inland cultivation of Tobacco, appeared impossible, from the considerablecompass which the cultivation had taken in Germany. To the introduction of the Tobacco monopoly there were formidable difficulties, to vanquish which extensive preparations were needed; so that, meanwhile, nothing is possible but an augmentation of the Tobacco tax.
The law of the 26th May, 1868, relating to Tobacco, passed by and for the Zollverein, imposed a tax on the surface or the soil. Instead, thereof, a tax on weight was to be introduced; for an acre and an inch are in commensurable quantities. The aim was to bring tbe import duty into right relations with the tax on Tobacco production, which, therefore, was to be calculated not by acre but by weight. To make this tax by weight operative and productive, an oppressive and vexatious machinery would have to be created, the transcript of the French regulations for tbe protection of the monopoly. There would be a very strict and burdensome control, and very severe punishments. To give an example of the proposed legislation (that is to say, the scheme antecedent to Bismarck’s monopoly scheme), it may be stated that the leaves, not in all the rows of plants, but in certain rows, are to be counted; tbe distance of row from row and of plant from plant is to be fixed. The planters are to be responsible, not only for fraud committed by the members of their family, but for fraud of which their household servants and their day labourers are guilty. The gathering in of a second bravest, the aftergrowth, is to be forbidden.
The increase of import duty by hundredweight is to be: for
1.	Tobacco, unmanufactured.......from 12 to 42 marks.
2.	Tobacco, manufactured:—
(a.) Cigars and Cigarettes.. „ 60 „ 90 „ fb.j In other forms........ ,, 33 „ 60 „
The inland tax is to be raised from 6 thalers the acre to 24 marks the hundredweight, an augmentation of 22 marks. The anticipated increase of revenue would be: —
Tobacco............................ 29,900,000	marks.
Stamp duties for bonds............ 5,500,000	„
„	„ Lottery tickets.. 6,000,000	„
„	„ Playing cards.. 2,000,000	„
Total................... 43,400,000	„
Costs of collection........................ 350,000	„
Remainder .......................... 43,050,000	„
This would cover the deficit. But, besides, there is a special proposal of a Government loan, to the ampunt of 77,000,000 marks.
Now, it is fair to ask the question whether an increase of the Tobacco tax would have the expected result. The experiences of France testify to the contrary. In that country existed, as already stated, the monopoly from 1672 to 1790. It could not resist the great and general upheaval of the national soul in 1790. From 1790 to 1810 high taxes were substituted for the monopoly. While the monopoly administered by the Ferme G€n€rateyiMed 32,000,000 livres annually, the revenue derived from Tobacco sank in those twenty years down to 2 or 3 millions; so that, to escape from the financial complications, Napoleon soon saw himself obliged, on the 20th December, 1810, to introduce the system of the R6gie.
The Tobacco R^gie is a complete organisation of labour. It
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solves a problem by instituting a scale of production for agriculture. As has been stated, 20,000 workers, 13,000 of whom are women, are employed by the State, and the State is responsible for their welfare. In England the prohibition of the cultivation of Tobacco was pretendedly made to promote the interests of the colonies; but it was really made in order to render the colonies available for the interests of England. In France the luxury of the Court, whose requirements had to be satisfied, and the ambition of Louis XIV. and Napoleon the Great, led to the monopoly.
The good humour, the kindly disposition, the cheerfulness of the German population would receive a serious shock from the augmentation of the Tobacco tax. But, moreover, from hosts of working men a means of livelihood, demanding almost no capital, would be withdrawn. A little salt water, a knife, a bench, a brush, some paste: such is the whole apparatus of the cigar-maker.
Spite of these and other objections, the increase of the Tobacco tax cannot, in the remotest degree, produce the results obtainable from the monopoly.
To the monopoly the Romanic nations of Europe have accustomed themselves. Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Scandinavia have, so far, kept clear of it; and neither England nor North America recognises the principle thereof.
In conclusion, let us look at the objections which can be brought alike against monopoly and the increase of the Tobacco tax.
It is not merely two different systems of taxation: it is two different modes of social and political existence which are here brought face to face. For the Romanic world, the strong externalities of the State, an imposing political attitude, are the all in all. In the Teutonic world, and especially in Germany, the individual asserts the rights of his individuality: here the culture of the individual has to be regarded, his welfare to be furthered, his comfort to be promoted. The 1,175,000 men whose existence is bound up with Tobacco concern the State in an intimate manner and an eminent degree. '
That the cultivation of Tobacco in Germany can bear neither an increase of the tax nor the monopoly the Baden deputies demonstrated both in the Reichstag and the Provincial Diet; and the Conservative Wedell-Malchow, as representative of the Ukermark (a district of the Mark Brandenburg), agreed with them. On the other hand, the representatives of Alsace-Lorraine admitted the disastrous consequences of the increase of the Tobacco tax, but declared in favour of the monopoly. The province had grown habituated to the evil, and had adapted itself thereto.
One of the greatest admirers of the French Tobacco R^gie says, however:—“ The possibility of the success of the Tobacco Regie rests manifestly on the simple circumstance that the Tobacco R6gie is contemporaneous with the birth of the Tobacco industry, and can thus be created and regulated in youthful elasticity. This is what the sanguine champions of the monopoly in Germany forget. In the heat of their zeal they have overlooked the fact that the example is not pertinent.”
Financially, therefore, the increase of the Tobacco tax looks most unpromising; but, if it is to prepare the way for the monopoly, it is certain that the monopoly would endanger, not merely the Tobacco cultivation, but the Tobacco trade. The quantity of raw Tobacco of which the Bremen Tobacco trade alone disposes is calculated at 1,100,000 hundredweights. The export into the domain of the German Zollverein amounted in 1877 to 724,228 hundredweights, worth 39,523,135 marks; to foreign countries 460,574 hundredweights, worth 27,132,135 marks; making a total of 66,635,270 marks. This whole Bremen trade would, by the introduction of the Tobacco monopoly, be annihilated. The capital employed in various ways in the Bremen Tobacco trade amounts to from 80,000,000 to 90,000,000 marks. All this capital the monopoly would render unproductive. The Tobacco. trade of Hamburg, amounting to 500,000 hundredweights, would likewise perish. The relations of Hamburg with Amsterdam and London, so far as they are dependent on Tobacco, would also be broken.
But not only of the Tobacco trade would Germany be robbed—the commerce of Germany by sea would be grievously affected; for those vessels which have Tobacco as part of their cargo, promote the purchase of other races beyond the ocean, and cherish and strengthen the relations of German elements settled there.
In the place of the great emporiums Bremen and Hamburg, the R^gie would be enthroned. The R^gie would have its own ships, make its own purchases, have its own administration. The loss which the national property and prosperity suffered through the destruction of the trade at sea, the State would neither compensate nor replace.
Thus, then, the introduction of the monoply would, according to the belief of those well fitted to judge, and whose objections are here reproduced, be equivalent to the ruin of the Tobacco cultivation, of the Tobacco trade, and of the maritime commerce of Germany.
The project of law, of 8th April, 1878, referring to the statistics of Tobacco cultivation and the Tobacco trade, announces as ultimate object “to lay before the Reichstag next session a plan which, according as facts might control and justify, should herald the introduction of the monopoly, or such an increase in the Tobacco tax as might yield a revenue nearly equal to that probably derivable from the monopoly.”
The Reichstag by an overwhelming majority, however,
declared against the scheme—against either the introduction of the monopoly or the increase of the Tobacco tax, though pronouncing in favour of an unprejudiced and all-sided discussion of the whole question. The Reichstag granted 200,000 marks for statistical and other investigations into the state of the Tobacco cultivation, and the Tobacco trade, in Germany. The other parts of the project of law it rejected.
Such is the present state of the German Tobacco question.
So far Eberty. Since his pamphlet and other pamphlets on the subject were published, a Parliamentary Committee met to debate the subject and pronounce thereon. The Committee was expected to bow to Bismarck’s omnipotence. This, however, it did not. By a considerable majority it condemned the newest manifestation of Bismarckian despotism. In truth, it would seem as if Germany, patient and submissive drudge though it be, is beginning to get tired of Bismarck’s insolent, and, in domestic affairs, impolitic, administration. It has been stated frequently that nearly the whole of the South Sea trade is in the hands of the Germans; and it is evidently the ambition of this plodding race to build up a vast maritime power. This desire would be thwarted, this design would be baffled, if Bismarck is allowed essentially and extensively to modify the Tobacco cultivation and the Tobacco trade in Germanv. If Bismarck possessed a tithe of that shrewdness for which he gets credit, he might, in reference to Tobacco, perform a master-stroke of statecraft. As so sm ill a revenue is derived from Tobacco, he might give complete freedom to the Tobacco cultivation, the Tobacco manufacture, and the Tobacco trade. Hereby German commerce would immensely gain, and German agriculture might profit to the same extent; for, as has been seen, the Tobacco cultivation is eminently fitted for the small farm system, which is likely to be more and more popular in Germany.
I“S^ S^immin.
When Hugh Shimmin died, the world was the poorer by one man of purpose; and Liverpool lost a great moral force. It may be true that those who knew only what he was and what he did within the last few years saw but little either of dogged resolution or of moral power in the man or his life; and that Porcupine, the engine he contrived and built and worked, had ceased to be a terror to evil-doers before its master-spirit passed away; but the measure of Hugh Shimmin’s purpose and power will be found in what Porcupine was and Porcupine did between 1860 and 1870. Both the little journal and its editor had become “respectable” in the later years; and had suffered in proportion. In the days when Pharisaic hands and eyes were lifted in horror at the mention of the man and his paper; when “the heads of the town” were turned aside at Shimmin’s approach, and the local authorities, temporal and spiritual alike, thought Porcupine, as Thackeray’s friend the Cambridge Don thought Punch—“& ribald publication; ” when he waged war against abuses and shams in fair Ishmaelitish fashion—his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him; when he startled Liverpool’s slumbrous conscience with his bold and merciless pictures of the sanitary and moral abominations that were festering and breeding beneath the rich and ample folds of her prosperity, and hypocrites lay awake by night for fear of him;—in those days, Hugh Shimmin proved what manner of man he was, and honestly earned both fame and honour.
Much irrelevant stuff has been written and published about him during the last few weeks. Friends and foes, the men he despised as much as the men he loved, have vied with each other in praising or excusing him. If, like Henry Brougham, Hugh Shimmin could have survived to read his own obituary notices, he would have made some of his biographers wince. There has been marvellous unanimity amongst them upon one point: that he was not a man of “ culture.” If culture means habits of gentility, refinement of manners, dilettanteism, the affectation of learning, and the fashions of schools, Hugh Shimmin had none to spare; and it was well for Liverpool, as for himself. If by culture is meant the quality that comes of wealth and leisure and privileged education, the charge—for those who pretend to excuse only accuse in this instance—is impertinent. He had to work for his living almost before he could read; and he worked for his living till he died. Coming from journalists, the charge is worse than impertinent: it is absurd. For Liverpool journalism and culture (in this sense) have yet to make acquaintance; and culture has done little for English journalism, at any stage of its growth. Culture means kid gloves; and the work that Hugh Shimmin found to do, and did, needed rough and sinewy hands. While local journalists are talking of culture, it is well to remember that Shimmin was not even a journalist. He was better, for the work he had to do—he was an amateur. Journalism is a profession, or a trade; and the essential of its existence is that it must pay. But Shimmin’s real work never paid—in money. Like Paul making tents, he worked at binding books; and he preached down mischief through Porcupine, with jokes and sneers and caricature and invective.
But there was the culture about him which those who babble of culture ignore, and cannot apprehend. With scant
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Assistance from professors and schools, he had cultivated his own natural powers, by unwearying diligence and with unflagging resolution, and had garnered stores of knowledge from nearly every field where knowledge grows. He taught himself not only to know his own strength, but to recognise in others the gifts and faculties that were fit to help on his work. He gathered around him, at one time and another, an army of colleagues and helpers; and had the wisdom both to direct and guide the fledglings and to leave unshackled those who had proved their skill. It has been claimed—sirfce he died—that nearly everybody who is anybody in Liverpool contributed to the pages of Porcupine. Most of them helped —in the style of the Canadian settler who took refuge in the rafters while ids wife killed the bear, and then, dancing round the carcase, exclaimed in gleeful triumph, “ We've finished him, Betsy!” There were some nobodies who helped to sharpen Porcupine's spines, and to prick a few boastful bladders ; but it was not Shimmin’s system to label his articles with the authors’ names. Hardly three people knew whether he did or did not write the libel for which he went to prison, and received that subsequent testimonial which was but a sorry sort of salve for his wound. But if it be the sign of a good man that good works live after him, Hugh Shimmin has not lived in vain. It stands in Liverpool’s Town Improvement Acts and the lessened rates of mortality; for he cheated Disease and Death of many a victim before his own turn came to succumb. It abides in those works of practical charity—the Children’s Infirmary and the Seaman’s Orphanage—in which he found vent for that fatherly affection that lacked children to cherish on his own hearth. And his monument endures alike in the bereaved affection that mourns him in his silent home, and in the saddened memory of those who laboured and fought with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, and haply quarrelled with him all too soon. May he rest in peace. J. D.
Copt’s Ulidurt.
“I schwore off! ” like Joe Jefferson’s Pip Van Winkle. I hereby solemnly renounce the Weed and all its abominations. “That’s not fair,” you say: “it’s a breach of contract—the Weed is the essential—the tine qua non” ; and I cannot be allowed to abandon my weaknesses in that respect. Well, now, you just wait a while, and you’ll see. Cope shall have his “Mixture”—you’ll allow that’s fair. But he don’t get any vile Tobacco from me! If the Lord Mayor of London can’t see his way to ordering the destruction of wheat-fl our made of plaster of Paris, as being unfit for human food, I expect you wont find it easy to condemn my “ Mixture ” because it doesn’t contain Tobacco. You don’t suppose I’ve been studying the adulteration trade all these years for nothing, eh ? Anyhow, “ I schwore off! ”
I've held out as long as I can against the Antis ; and now I’ve got to give in. They don’t need to be in any hurry to shout, because it isn’t any argument of their providing that has brought me up short in my wild career. I think I cleared all their five-barred-gates and double fences. Drysdale and Co. know all about that. Even the new regulations of the German Government didn’t stop me. All the rising youth of that military Empire might have gone stone-blind from early smoking, before I would have confessed to a doubt of my dear Tobacco. In good sooth, I was contemplating a demonstration of the virtues of the Weed, to be founded upon the latest and strongest arguments of the Anti school. The skeleton of that argument takes this form :—Tobacco destroys the sight of German youth: therefore, the German youth is incapacitated for military service: therefore, the German military power must decline: wherefore—Tobacco is a blessing to mankind. You will easily imagine what I could have made of that. For the Antis, it would have been simply—Annihilation. But it is futile to speculate as to what might have been ; for that “final word” in this portentous controversy will not be spoken. The stars in their courses fight against you—I withdraw from the conflict, and abandon the Weed to its fate. The whole German race might have gone as sightless as Bartimeus, or Professor Fawcett, or Homer, or Mil ton, or the British Workman—the total generation of civilised youth now rising to “ push us from our stools ” might have been converted into bats and moles; and I would have stood my ground, stuck to my text, and died (if need had been) in the last ditch. Posterity should have added one grand figure the more to the gallery of heroes wherein already stand Ajax Defying Lightning and Henry Irving crying “ Lay on, Macduff!” But when Argun himself goes blind, I throw up the sponge. You can continue this tight as long as you please, but Achilles retires to his tent.
Of course, when I speak of Argus, I don’t intend to make any libellous reflections upon the old man. The original Argus, “according to information which I have received,” was a remarkably clear-sighted person. Tobacco smoking don’t seem to have done him any harm. And I don’t refer to his eldest son, who is a sober, steady-going fellow at Melbourne, and seems, from all accounts, to keep a very good eye for the main chance. No: my allusion is to the youngest scion of that noble house, who has lately set up for himself in the literary line at Liverpool. He was a promising, bright-eyed youth, giving all sorts of hopeful ocular demonstrations. And now
the poor boy has gone clean blind. Nobody knew it till just after Christmas. He’s been coming out amongst his friends regularly every week for a longish time past, reminding them of his noble descent in the familiar words which William Shakespeare fondly applied to his venerable sire—“An Argus with his hundred eyes; ” and wo all thought the youth was going to prove worthy of his dear old dad. But on the 28th of December he brought out some verses called “ The Penance of Thekla: A Ballad.” It was rather a touching sort of thing, about the soul of a girl that lay in Purgatory, calling out the name of her lover, till
“ The angels of purification Listened with many a sigh,"
and holy Peter asked her the cause of her trouble. Then she pleads the anguish of her lover on earth, and begs that she may go back for a season to console him:—
“For added years a hundred
I will miffer the fiery pain If for once, O, holy Peter, I may look on my Paul again."
Then Peter grants her prayer, and the poor soul speeds upwards till she comes to her lover’s cottage; when—
“ There was a sound of laughter, There was a noise of glee;
She looked through the little window, What did poor Thekla see ?
“ Paul's right hand lifted a wino-cup, His left hand played with a curl That strayed o'er the gleaming shoulder Of Gretchen, that fair-haired girl.
“ In his eyes was a look of {Mission, In hers was a look of bliss;
The lips came close together
And met hi a long, long kiss.
“Thon turned from the little window
Poor Thekla, and slowly came
To her hundred years of penance
In the midst of the cleansing flame.
“But the holy Peter met her;
In his eyes was a gleam of tears:—
4 Thon art free: thou hast known in one moment The pain of a hundred years.'”
When I read this ballad, I didn’t know whether to be sorry most for poor, heart-broken Thekla, or for poor, blind Argus. For, there on the shelf was the volume of Col. John Hay’s “Pike County Ballads” (Boston: Osgood and Co., 1871); and at page 65 his well-known poem—“ A Woman’s Love.” You remember the lines:—
“A sentinel angel sitting high in glory
H. ard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory:
* Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story 1
“ ‘ I loved,—and. blind with passionate love. I fell.
Love brought me down to death, and death to Hell.
For God is just, and death for sin is well.
“‘I do not rage against his high decree, Nor for myself do ask that grace shall be; But for my love on earth who mourns for me.
“ ‘ Great Spirit I Let me see my love again And comfort him one hour, and I were fain To pay a thousand years of fire and pain, “ Then said the pitying angel, * Nay, repent That wild vow! Look, the dial-finger's bent Down to the last hour of thy punishment I ”
“ But still sho wailed, ‘I pray thee, let mo go!
I cannot rise to peace and leave him so.
O, let me soothe him in his bitter woe!’
“The brazen gates ground sullenly ajar, And upward, joyous, like a rising star, She rose and vanished in the ether far.
“But soon ndown the dying sunset sailing, And like a wounded bird her pinions trailing, She fluttered back, with broken-hearted wailing.
“ She sobbed, * I found him by the summer sea Reclined, his head upon a maiden's knee,— She curled his hair and kissed him. Woe is me,’ “ She wept, ‘ Now let my punishment begin!
I have teen fond and foolish. Let me in
To expiate my sorrow and my sin.’
“The angel answered, * Nay, sad soul, go higher!
To be deceived in your true heart's desire
Was bitterer than a thousand years of lire.'"
Plagiarism ? Perish the thought! As well charge Professor Bell with plagiarism, because the Chinese say they had the telephone eight hundred years B.C. What said the gentleman who was detected passing-off a line from Shakespeare as his own?—“ How can I help it, if the fellow thought the same thing as I did? ” But, all the same, when I am asked to look upon “ The Penance of Thekla” as an original ballad, I sigh— “ Argun, dear friend, thou art blind ! ”
My lord of Derby never commits himself to anything which the majority has not endorsed; and the Majority is the Moral Lawgiver. But, talking to the working-men of Rochdale the other day, Lord Derby said—“ The fact remains, that if the quantity of liquor and Tobacco consumed in the British Isles were reduced by one-half, besides all other incidental advantages, you would have effected a reduction in taxation, mainly for the benefit of the working classes, to the amount of twenty millions sterling. The figures are public and well known. I take them as given last year. You pay £40,500,000 of taxes in Customs and Excise for those articles alone.” Now, the power of strong drink to blind a man will be admitted. Heaven forbid that I should say the author of that statement was “blind-drunk.” I merely adduce the incident to show how blind an ordinary man may be rendered by the intemperate use of “ liquor and Tobacco.” Is it true—or nearly true—that this reduction of the
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Customs and Excise receipts for liquor and Tobacco would save the working classes twenty millions of taxes per annum ? The question is best answered by putting one or two other questions :—Do the working classes consume all the liquor and all the Tobacco ? If the Customs and Excise receipts were reduced by £2 0,0 60,000 a year, would the national expenditure be reduced by an equal sum, to balance accounts? If not, how would the missing £20,000,000 be raised ? By a new land tax ? by a new tax on incomes over £300 a year * or by imposts on the necessaries of life ? If I am to believe Mr. Charles Seidler, of New York, who appeared before the Finance Committee of the American Senate last month. Tobacco has fairly blinded the Government of the United States. The Tribune report says:—“He maintained that it is absolutely necessary for the interests of commerce that the Tobacco Tax should be reduced; if it is not done, the Tobacco trade in the United States will be virtually legislated out of existence.” Is it blindness to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? Take another case: the Bev. Joseph Parker writes to the Time* to say; “The inquiry which forces itself upon me is this: Can there really be so much distress in a country which drinks more and smokes more to-day than it ever did?” Well, Mr. Parker (who is a shrewd man in business matters, as the Fountain bears witness) will admit that the country supports more Dissenting Ministers and pays them higher salaries than it ever did in former times; and I should like to find him asserting that there is any great lack of pauperism (not to speak of what ho would call “spiritual destitution”) for all that. “A country which drinks more and smokes more to-day than it ever did,” ought, as I understand Mr. Parker, to be, therefore, more prosperous than it ever was. Well,—perhaps. I forget whether Mr. Parker and Neal Dow are friends; but I should think it likely. Neal Dow has been “sketching”—or, rather, daubing—Mr. Spurgeon, in the New York Witness. He says Mr. Spurgeon drinks a quart of strong beer at dinner, and a “stiff glass of brandy after,” with “a couple of cigars”; that, as a guest in a teetotaler’s house, he consumed at three meals, or between them, “four quart bottles of strong beer, a pint of brandy, and a pint of sherry; ” that, after offering family prayer, “without rising from his knees, he reached forward to the grate, struck a match, and lighted his cigar ; ” that “ he’s exceedingly fat; his face is big and flabby, with as much expression as if it were a mass of dough or putty; ” that “ he’s sick with plethora and gout half the year ; ” that “ he defends drinking and smoking in his pulpit, and the people bear it.” Neal Dow can’t see any relieving feature in the habits, character, or life of the most remarkable and successful Gospel-preacher and charity-organiser of this generation. Tobacco has got into his eyes. You remind me that I said:—“I schwore off!” and that Pve been indulging in Tobacco ever since. “Well, as it is de fust time I seen ye”—you know how Rip would put it. I really can’t let it alone. The Boston Post says:—“The Lord High Chancellors of England have suffered a reduction in pay. Now they only get 50,000 dollars, hardly enough to keep ’em in chewing Tobacco.” I don’t think £10,000 a year would pay for all the Tobacco I use. But then, this is such a rare “ Mixture.” The Englishman tells about a man being followed everywhere by a seedy person, who dogged him day and night till, in a lonely comer of Hyde Park, the persecuted one turned and threatened to brain him unless he made a full confession of his motives and designs. The seedy one said the object of his pursuit was the stump of the cigar his victim was smoking. The victim had some magnificent Hav-annas (a present from a Cuban friend), smoked a dozen or so a day, and threw them away half-consumed; and the seedy person made four shillings a day by picking up the stumps and converting them into “ choice intractos.” There’s a very fine flavour about those cigars ; and when I can get a stock of that particular brand, I shall cease to be Youb Man-of-All-Work. P’tpt (Mourns. IX.—SCAMBLE’S COLD BATH. The man who perseveres in virtuous practices is always entitled to our sympathy, and the world is so far right that he mostly gets it. Even when he fails to obtain it from those whose damaged morals convert them into simple “cock-eyed gunners,” whenever they attempt to take an accurate intellectual view of what is true and beautiful, he can always fall back from the world, and listen to an approving conscience clapping its hands, and slapping him on the back as it cries “Go on; go on.” When, however, a man of the class I have mentioned mistakenly perseveres in what he considers a noble enterprise, he exposes himself not only to the moke-like “haw, haw!” of the openly cynical, but he also becomes the recipient of the unmistakable chuckle of the decorous and severe. This is annoying, but the mau must put up with it. The fact is, he is in a false position. He is unwittingly opposed to actual truth, which is something he may fight, but can never conquer. , There is another step. It is even more annoying when the martyr is obliged to confess that he never would have taken that road at all if he had not taken it in error. It is a great	pity that wisdom and virtue fell out so early in the world’s history, and have never made it up again. It behoves us, then, brethren, to not only choose a path that we consider to be good, but to make sure that we are properly directed before we start. These remarks may appear vague, but they will be found to bear on the case of Samuel Scamble, my pipe colourer, who got on to a wrong path, and persevered in it simply through a misunderstanding. In the summer of 1876, Scamble was fortunate enough to get a whole month’s holiday at the seaside. On his return, he missed the bathing so much that he purchased a large hip bath and sponge, and started a cold bath regularly in his own bedroom as soon as he arose from his slumbers. By the time, however, that he got to the end of September, he found the water was getting pretty cold, and he began to question the propriety of continuing his bath through the colder months of the year. He consulted different people, and, of course, got different opinions. One said: “Oh! it’s a fine thing, cold bathing in the winter. I used to do it myself, and should now, only I’ve no convenience.” Another said: “ Well, I don’t know how it would suit you. I fought through half a winter with it once, and had to crawl through the other half with rheumatics.” Another said: “The man, sir, in my opinion, who gets out of a warm bed like a hot roll out of an oven, and goes wallowing in a cold bath, is a born fool.” Another said: “Practically, I know nothing about it. Theoretically, it is good. The body, fortified by its gathered heat, is able not only to defy the cold water, but become tempered and strengthened by it, ps hot iron is tempered and turned into steel by a sudden immersion in cold water.” - Another said: “A man I knew killed himself at it.” Another said: “Fine thing! splendid; always do it. Have done it for the last ten years. Wakes you up all at once, instead of a bit at a time. Out you get, in you go. Whew! wirra! splish! splash! over head, under foot. Out in two jiffys; rough towels, horse-hair gloves, back and sides, legs and breast, rub-a-dub, one in a tub. good for health, and bad for the grub. It makes a man of you. Try it.” Scamble hardly knew how to decide, so bethought himself of his friend Jackies. Jackies had an uncle a doctor in good practice. So Scamble, through Jackies, managed to get medical advice on the subject gratis. What the medical opinion was will be seen presently; the effect was to make Scamble persevere with his bath. There was one difference, however, in his plan of operations. Before getting into bed at night, he loaded his pipe, a nearly new meerschaum, and laid it on his mantelpiece, with his pipe-lights by the side of it. On getting out of his bath in the morning, he seized a towel, and, after partially drying himself, he lit his pipe and smoked it regularly during the somewhat lengthy task of drying, rubbing, and dressing. By the end of October the water was really cold, and it sometimes required very great resolution on the part of Scamble to get out of bed and get into his bath. He, however, persevered with much shivering and little enjoyment; and was obliged to confess at times that he thought, on the whole, it was not doing him much good. Getting well into November, Scamble would not have made a bad picture, if he could only have kept still enough to have had his portrait taken. He shivered like a jelly man, and his pipe bobbed up and down so that it was a wonder he could keep it between his teeth. Perseverance was his motto, however, and lo! the man got whiter and his pipe got browner under the magic influence of the medical advice, whatever it was, of Jackies’ uncle. By the middle of December Scamble was a man to be pitied. It seemed as if his iron will would really carry his much-enduring body to another land. Our hero’s hour to arise was seven; and there were not many men, if we leave out condemned criminals, who could crowd more mental agony into ten minutes than he could during that number of minutes immediately preceding his uprising. By the aid of a candle he observed his watch. The girl used to knock at his door at a quarter to seven: then he felt pretty comfortable, knowing that he had some little time of bliss between the sheets. By ten minutes to seven he was intensely awake to what was coming, and began to feel the other way as he noticed how quickly the moments passed. Then he went on something like this:— Nine minutes to seven.—Slight suspicion of an involuntary shiver down his back—a sort of a vertebraical crawl. Eight minutes to seven.—Elongation of the crawl, by way of the femur and tibia, to the feet of Scamble, ending in convulsive squirming of the great toes and tucking-in of the little ones. Seven minutes to seven.—Free distribution of erratic shakes and minor creeps from all points of interest on the grand trunk; crawl round his shoulders, ribs, hips, Ac. Six minutes to seven.—A groan. Five minutes to seven.—A momentary determination and partial attempt to arise and go in with a burst, before he got worse. A failure. Four minutes to seven.—Scamble completely hidden under the bedclothes. Sinuous movements of crawl, visible only by effects on the counterpane.
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Three minutes to seven.—Sudden determination of Scamble to go without his bath. Two minutes to seven.—Scamble, appalled at his cowardice, determines to have his bath, if he dies in it. One minute io seven.—Death-like attitude of Scamble’s live corpse. Still-life tableau, not open to the public. Will, casting out the crawl and muffling the groan. Seven o’clock.—Out with one mad dash, in with another; and then in a few minutes it was all over for the day. It was the duty of the maid-of-all-work to bring up to Scamble’s door a huge bucket of cold water when she waked him at a quarter to seven; and he never knew how weak his belief in his bath was till the morning of the 13th December. Then there came the usual knock at his door, followed by “Sir!” “All right, Susan ! ” said Scamble, “ all right! ” “Oh, if you please, sir,” said Susan, “it ain’t all right. You can’t have no water, sir, ’cos it’s froze.” “Froze!” ejaculated Scamble. “Froze! All right, Susan; thank you. Then followed a scene, equal in pathos to anything in King Lear. “Froze,” chuckled the youth under the counterpane, with almost childish glee; “froze, froze, oh, froze.” Then he rubbed his hands, and laughed a lot of little secret laughs, in ever so many different keys. After this he got out of bed, and lit his candle. Then he got back again, and settled down for a few more blissful minutes. The look on his face was good to see. It wore an expression of contentment sufficient to make a cynic weep. He lay watching the ceihng, softly smiling, and presently began to gently whistle “ Spring’s delights are now returning.” Scamble lay in bed that morning till five minutes past seven, as his bath time was saved. As he lay there he could not help seeing that, taking things altogether, life seemed to him a little sweeter in consequence of the water being froze. It is very likely that he would have stayed in bed another minute or two, but at five minutes past seven he heard the girl knock again, and cry “ Sir.” “What is it, Susan? ” “Oh, if you please, sir. I'm a-thoring the pipe; it’s beginning to trickle. I think I shall be able to get you some water presently.” Scamble felt as if it was trickling down his back. His ver-tebraical crawl came down on him with such power that it made his voice quiver as he cried out: “Oh—oh—no, Susan, never mind this morning; I haven’t time to wait;” and he bounded out of bed, and was into his clothes in a twinkle, as if he feared Susan would be up with a bucket of ice and water, and give him his bath whether he liked it or not. Scamble could not help confessing that not only did he feel no worse that day from going without his bath/but that he really felt better. Still he did not like to be beaten, and during the day he determined to make it his business to call on Jackies’ uncle, and see if he could obtain a little further information concerning the habit of taking a cold bath on getting out of bed in the morning. The doctor was at home, and, finding his visitor was a friend of his nephew, received him kindly, and asked him to take a chair. Scamble then at once told the doctor the purpose of his visit. “Ah, I recollect,” said the doctor, who was a stout, elderly man, with a nice red face and white hair. “I recollect my nephew did consult me some time ago on the subject. He told me he had a friend who was anxious to get some information concerning the habit. You are the gentleman, it seems. I forget what I told him now; but, whatever it was, it was well considered. Of that I am sure.” “Well, sir,” said Scamble “you told him, if what he told me was correct, you told him that the cold bath would do a man no harm; but, on the contrary, good, if he smoked after it. Now, I have done so; in fact, I have coloured a meerschaum pipe since the beginning of October; and yet I feel uncertain as to whether my bath has, on the whole, done me any good.” Mr. Scamble looked and felt alarmed, when the doctor suddenly doubled up as if he had been hit hard in his digestive organs with a clothes-prop. The cold water man thought at first, considering the medical gentleman's age, stoutness, and ruddy face that it was possibly a fit; but he was quickly undeceived, for in another moment the doctor was absolutely roaring with laughter. “Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha!” he cried, “this is too good! Ho! ho! ho! Oh, my!” Mr. Scamble from feeling alarmed got to feeling indignant, and without more words would have straight departed. This brought the merriment of the doctor to a close; and as soon as he could get his breath, he said: “ Pardon me, sir, for my apparent rudeness ; I could not help laughing at your mistake. You are, or have been, the victim of a misapprehension; my nephew did not go into particulars as I did, or you would not have been deceived. I now recollect perfectly what I said to him. It was this : If a man on using the cold bath smokes— that is to say, if his body emits steam, smoke, or vapour, call it what you will, he may be sure that he can resist the lowering action of the water, and that a reaction will ensue to his benefit. That is what I told my nephew.” “ I see now,” said Scamble, “ how I have gone wrong. I asked Mr. Jackies to consult you. After he had done so I waited on him to learn the result. He happened to be rather busy at the time, and all I got from him was: ‘It’s all right,	Scamble; uncle says the cold bath won’t hurt you, if you smoke’; and so I’ve always smoked Tobacco the moment I got out of it.” There is nothing further to tell, save that Scamble did not resume his cold bath during the winter. D. Gogos. Hights at ^lotoan ®r« Castle. xn. TWO BEETLE DROPS. “ There was a little wifiekie, Coming true the fair, Had gotten a little drapiekie, That bred her muckle care.” —Milton (or tomebody eUe). “Now,” says I, “Roddy, I tell you what it is, it entirely depends upon circumstances.” “ Entoirely,” Roddy replied. It was very good of Roddy to coincide with me even so far; but the truth is, my friend had thoughtlessly hazarded a remark which on second consideration he was sorry for. He had said, “ Bedad! Gordon, me boy, I don’t loike to see a female smoking.” “Don’t lots of your countrywomen, for instance?” I added to my former remark, “ and small blame to them either.” “Be quate wid you!” answered Roddy, filling his pipe and gazing dreamily into the fire. “Faith! don’t I think I see my ould grandmother yet! That pipe was maybe a trifle black and a bit too short to have plased the quality, but wonderful was the comfort the dear ould lady drew out of it for all that. Not much of a cottage was it at all, at all. Long, low-built, and thatched, two windows, one door, and a ‘butt and a ben.* On the stone settle by the door grandmother used to sit in summer, basking her aged limbs, knitting and smoking. But cosy she looked in winter, too, in front of the fire of turf. And troth, when the dudheen was lit and in full blow, it was a rale treat for me to sit at her feet and listen to her legends. Bitter was her hatred for the poor-oppressing Saxon, and many and wild the stories she had to tell of troublous time, of the dreaded red coat, of famine, and what not. But tell me this—what would the ould girl have been without her pipe? ” “What, indeed, Roddy?” was my reply; “and, indeed, the only wonder to me is, that smoking is not more fashionable among the fair sex than it is. I myself have an idea that there is always quite a deal of the darling about a woman who suggests to a man the propriety of lighting up, and just a trifle of the devil about the woman who won’t. I like a young lady who doesn’t dislike the smell of genuine Tobacco, and who would just as soon enter a smoking carriage as not. I have known more than one girl, in my time, who learned to smoke for the fun of the thing, and afterwards took regularly to the weed, finding it too innocent and delicious a habit to abjure. But—and here is where the laugh comes in, and the pity forbye—these poor little girls had to smoke on the sly. Now, what I want to know, Ro Idy, is this—why should anyone be ashamed to smoke, whether male or female, when there is no sin in so doing, and no Act of Parliament against it either? “You’re right,” said Roddy, drawing more closely to the fire and mixing himself another tumbler, for the night was • cold and a bit stormy; but the rain and the rattling windowsashes only made us feel more snug and at home within. “ Tell us about your TWO LEETLE DROPS” That will I, with pleasure, I replied; but bear in mind it is a temperance tale, and a very sad one too, being the true story concerning two old ladies, who didn't smoke, and who came to grief in consequence. And the name of the one little “wifiekie” was Polly Peterkin, and the name of the other was Sally Gordon. They both lived, each in her own cottage, in the ancient town of Peterhead, celebrate I from time immemorial for whale oil and good herrings. Polly’s husband had been dead for years. Polly was a relict, and not a very interesting one either. Never mind. Sally Gordon’s good man, at the time my tale begins, was alive and well; and, for aught I know, may be so still. A harder working or honester man than John Gordon, spectioneer to the good ship “ Xanthus,” never breathed. He had lived to the age of five-and-thirty and never bethought himself of a wife. Every year since he was a boy he had betaken himself to Greenland North, to the seal fishings, and had had the usual luck of all seal fishers--sometimes a long purse, and sometimes an empty ship. But the year Eighteen Hundred and Sixty Something was a most unlucky one, and nearly all the ships came home about as clean as they went out. What was John to do? John counted all his available cash, and found he had only five pounds sterling, besides “ four white shillings and a saxpence,” in the world. But John wasn’t a man to be very much cast down about anything. He spent the saxpence in snuff, and a very sensible thing too; as. being a good brand, it comforted his heart and put ideas into his head. At the fourth or fifth pinch John had a happy thought, and, “Dang
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my wig!” said John to himself, “I’ll go and take a wife.” N.B.—“Dang my wig!” was the nearest approach to an oath that John was ever heard to utter—so good was John. Now, the next question John asked himself was—whose wife should he take? He ransacked his brain for a bit, then cleared it with one energetic pinch of snuff, then— “Dang my wig,” says John, “she’ll do. She’ll suit me all to pieces. Sally is her name, and Scotland is her nation. She’s the wife for me. Her old man doesn’t want her any more. He’s been in heaven these fifteen years or somewhere else. To be sure,” he added, “she is old enough to be my mother, and has hairs on her chin long enough to hang hawks; but a croft, and a cow, and a comfortable cottage. Ha! John, think of that. That’s the way to begin life. Yes, Sally’s the girl for me.” Now, John’s courtship was none of your conventional ones. He didn’t go mooning and spooning round old Sally for any length of time. He went straight to her cottage, and admitted himself; then he took a chair close to hers, and “Look here,” said he, talking in a loudish key, for he knew that one of the old lady’s deficiencies was a lack of hearing power. “Look here, I want to ask you a particular favour.” “Eh, man,” replied Sally, “I’ve got so awfully deaf of late I canna hear a word you say.” But John remembered the lines of the old song:— “ ‘ Bonnie wifie, braw wifie, will you go a-sbearing ? ’ ‘ Speak out a little louder, sir, I'm vera dull at hearing.’ ‘Bonnie wifie, braw wifie, I’m going to kits you.’ ‘ I hear a little better, sir, and a' the world bless you.’ ” •So John came to the point at once, like a sailor as he was, though he didn’t raise his voice a bit higher. “I want a wife,” said he; “will you have me?” “Losh!” cried Sally, with a start. “What? marry an auld body like me! ” “It’s an auld body like you that I want to look after me,” replied John Gordon; for I told you he was honest. Sally smirked to herself, she smacked her old gums, rolled a lock of iron-grey hair over her finger, and stuck it under her cap, straightened her back, and tried in every way to look like a sweet young thing of twenty summers. “ Weel, weel, then,” she said, resignedly, “ and so a bargain be it. Give me a kiss, my bonnie lad.” Honest John submitted to the chaste salute with all the grace he could command. “But then,” thought he, “I’ve won the croft, and the cottage, and the cow; so here goes, old girl.” And they mingled moustachios. Now comes the finale. Back again next summer, as true as the needle to the pole, went John to pay his respects to his old friends the seals and whales, and poor Sally was left lamenting. What a comfort to her now, had she been but able to enjoy the solace of a pipe. But she wasn’t. She had her friend, Polly Peterkin, however—all the worse for her, as the sequence will show. Polly’s home wasn’t very far from' that of Sally’s, and they invariably spent the summer evenings together, warming their skin-tight shins before the low peat fire. A fire in summer? Yes; but don’t forget the pair were old. It would have done the hearts of those wash-leather faced folks, the Anti-Tobaccoites, good, to have heard those two ancient crones railing against the use of ’Baccy and snuff; that is if antis had hearts aud not gizzards. But Polly and Sally were both loud in the praise of a “drappie” of whisky. In justice to Sally, however, it should be said that it was Polly who first initiated her into the mysteries and pleasures of dram-drinking. For, on the very evening of the departure of John for the far north, Polly had toddled down to Sally’s cottage, holding something under her apron, wherewithal to comfort her. And Sally had sipped the forbidden waters, and felt soothed, and no longer wept. This was John's wife's first leetle drop. No wonder she confessed, about two months after, that she “ did like a drappie of good whisky, and didn’t care who knew it.” But, as a rule, these fast friends did not stop with one glass; they had several. The first glass warmed them, the second made them frisky, with the third youth returned. They would sing little, old-fashioned songs, with quivering voice, perhaps,but they sung them; little schoolboys, peeping impudently in at the gable window, averred they had seen them footing the floor, tripping it on the light fantastic toe, and doing it gaily too. But with the fourth glass they gathered round the fire and grew sentimental. Sally wept for her absent lover, and Polly squeezed out tears for the dear departed. They themselves never remembered having any more glasses; but, strange enough, they always found themselves in bed in the morning, in each others arms. To many men John’s first home-coming, after marriage, might seem a sad one; but John was a philosopher, and he told his messmates that, “ as he had taken Sally for better or for worse, to Sally he would stick.” It happened thus. One bright summer’s evening the “ Xanthus ” was reported in sight, and, as several hours must elapse before John could reach home, off went Sally to get Polly to come and meet him. Alas, that fatal drappie! In their joy, poor things, they both took so much that Polly was fain to lie down on the floor. Then off went Sally; but woe is me, ere she reached half way she fell asleep by the wayside; and, ah! those wicked boys, with	cruel knives they shortened Sally’s dress. And when John found her thus, arrayed somewhat like a Scottish Highlander, “My eyes!” says John, “yonder is my Sal, and dang my wig if she ain’t tail up.”* Half-an-hour afterwards John might have been seen marching through the streets of Peterhead, with Sally on his arm. “It ain’t very pleasant, I know,” thought John; “but then, there’s the cow and the croft.” Yes, John was a philosopher. Months flew by. Our mariner was once again on the rolling sea, and, sorry I am to recount it, Sally and Polly once more took to the drappie. Still time flew by, and once more John’s ship was safe in harbour, and John hurrying homewards to his Sally. And what was Sally doing, just as John hove in sight of his cottage? Why, like a dutiful wife, trying to light the fire to get him a comfortable cup of tea. It was early morning, and, though Sally had been told of John’s coming hours ago, this was all the length she had attained in her preparation to meet him. She was not drunk, though, but her head felt funny. The fire lighted but slowly. “I’ll make it burn,” thought Sally. “ Just a leetle drop of paraffin. Just a leetle, very leetle drop.” Yes, Sally, quite right; but, bother it all, you shouldn’t have poured it directly from a whole gallonful. “ I wonder, now,” John was saying to himself, if Sal will have the tea ready.” Just at that moment, with a loud report, open flew the roof of the cottage, and out flew the furniture and things. “Why, yonder is the kettle,” cried John, in amazement, “and there goes a chair, and, dang my wig, yonder’s Sal herself, tail up, as usual. Poor John, he watched his wife sailing due east, and finally falling into the sea. Then he sighed. “Heigho,” he said; “that’s the last of Sal. Nevermind. Pve still got the cow, and the croft, and—and—a bit of the cottage.” And the moral is this: All old ladies should smoke. Here endeth the last lesson of the second series of moral and instructive yarns by Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N. .—_	4.	 ^^t ^irst ^ip of ’^tbeniB-^liitt. Another twelve months have passed o’er us, Another New Year has begun; Our sighing must end, and the chorus Of welcome has now to be done. We begin a new page, and turn over The records of war and distress; For Fortune—it sure doth behove her, We hope, to give smile and redress. Come on, then, New Year, and unfold us Your treasures of peace and brisk trade; No longer let nations behold us Each man of his fellow afraid. The curling smoke rolls away slowly, Its fragrance yet lingers awhile; So vanish, vain dreams of war’s glory; So linger, oh! Peace, thy fair smile. We hail thee, then, New Year, with gladness. As a guest with a pleasanter mien; With the past we shake hands with all sadness. And look now to thee for a paean. Empty hearts there are plenty among us, Empty pockets and broken-up homes; The cruel Old Year has so wrung us, There’s sorrow wherever one roams. Come on, then, New Year, for we want thee, Impatient for spring-time and fruit; Starvation’s grim ghost doth still haunt me, Oh! come, waning strength to recruit. Labour, honest and cheerful and hearty, Return and bring food to the old; Let die the dissensions of party, While little ones hunger with cold. There is earnest work waits for the doing, New Year, so fresh, healthy, and young; There is trade to reclaim, gone a-wooing The gay western peoples among. Dark gaps where have fallen the mighty, Need filling by brave men and true; The good man now strains for the light he Would see bre.ak o’er fife’s gloomy view. So mused I in solitude, smoking My First Pipe of ’Seventy-Nine; The Future’s good fortune invoking, In humble and faltering line. ’Seventy-Eight’s sorry troubles have saddened, Tho’ gone, like that cloud of blue smoke; ’Seventy-Nine comes—oh! let us be gladdened, For it promises fair, without joke. London, 1st January, 1879.	Sam. J. Pipkin.
	* “Tail up” is an expression used by sealers of a seal that has been shot.
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notice to correspondents. We cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they are accompanied try a stamped and directed envelope; and we do not hold ourselves responsible for loss, COPE’S 1879 CARD. THE PURSUIT OF DIVA NICOTINA. WITH APOLOGIES TO THE PAINTER OF “THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE." Bubecribers to the “Tobacco Plant” for 1879 will receive a copy of Ptbsuit of Diva Nicotina and Key, carefully packed upon a roller, by forwarding 6d. to pay carriage. Price to Non-Subscribers, 1/-. Subscription for “ Tobacco Plant,” 2/- per annum, poet free. Subscription for “ Tobacco Plant ” and Pubsuit of Diva Nicotina, 2/6. Publishing Office:—10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.	SMOKING: WHEN INJURIOUS, WHEN INNOCUOUS, WHEN BENEFICIAL, WITH COMPENDIUM OF THE TEMPERAMENTS, SHOWING HOW THEY ABB INFLUENCED BY TOBJLCOO. BY J. CARRICK MURRAY, M.D., F.A.I., Neweastle-npon- Tyne. Price Is. Free by Post. 1s. 1io. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. Newcabtle-on-Tyne: D.H. Wilson. Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4*. £bc printers' Agister, A JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOR GREAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND THE COLONIES. THE PRINTERS' REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Home and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India, China, Canada, Ao.; and it affords the beat medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August, 1875. Address—The Editor, St. Bride Street, London, E.C.
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NoJ08.-VoL.7ir	MARCH, 1879.	SEM^^^
Sobatco legislation in the (Three ginghams.
i.
“In proceeding to consider the subject referred to them, Your Committee think it proper, in the first place, to observe that the import of Tobacco into this country has been, from an early period, regulated upon different principles from those applied to other imported commodities. That the duty imposed on it has had no other object than that of raising the greatest possible revenue; and with that view the duty has not only been far beyond that imposed on any other article, and beyond that to which on commercialprinciples alone it might have been right to subject it, hut hits been accompanied by a total prohibition of the growth of it in the United Kingdom, lest such growth should in any way interfere with tho amount of importation, and the duty deri veil therefrom.”—Official Report off Select Committee on Tobacco Trade, 1844.
Mr. Edward Arber (whose name be blessed!) in his Notes on the Introduction and Early Use of Tobacco in England, accompanying the Reprint (1869) of the first and anonymous edition of “A Counterblasts to Tobacco” (1604), observes: “And here we may express some astonishment that no one, among the countless myriads of Smokers, has ever written a History of the Tobacco Literature and of the Progress of Smoking through civilised and uncivilised communities, even onto this last age, wherein the Whahabees of Arabia punish it, under the name of Drinking the Shameful, with death. Of sketches there are several.” To which we may here add the expression of our astonishment that no one (so far as we can discover), among the countless myriads of Smokers and Snuffers and Chewers, has ever written a History, or even a Sketch of the History, of Tobacco Legislation in these famous and fumous Three Kingdoms, now United, of England and Scotland and Ireland. In the which wonderful and shameful dearth of duteous enterprise among those well-fitted to achieve an undertaking so useful and honourable, we, all unworthy, are impelled to endeavour at least such an Outline of the said History as may incite some worthy of adequate knowledge and skill to complete therefrom a perfect Picture, adding whatsoever may be wanting to the full design, together with all judicious details and accessories, all impressive lights and shadows, particularly shadows (for the subject is profoundly tenebrous and terrible, dark Rembrandtesque; the Legislation essentially cadaverous as that other unburied corpse in the “ School of Anatomy ”),
“ With hue like that when some great painter dips His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse ” I
I U»6 is a noble brief for some aspiring briefless barrister, a teeming theme for some juvenile prose Juvenal I
It appears now to be pretty well settled, as set forth by Mr. Arber in the Notes already cited :—
(1)	That specimens of Tobacco were first brought to England from Florida in 1565, by Sir John Hawkins, on his return from his second voyage.
(2)	That the earliest known detailed account of Tobacco in our language is “‘Joyfull newes oute of the newe founde world’. . . . Englished by John Frampton Marchant;” London, 1577: being from the Second Part of “De las Cosas que traen de nuestras Indias Occidentals que sirven en medicines, by Nicholas Monardes ; Seville, 1571: with an additional treatise, containing Jean Nicot’s account of the introduction of Tobacco into France, 1559-61, translated from the 1570 Edition by Dr. John Liebant, of “ L'Agriculture, et Maison Rustique,” of Charles Estienne.
(3)	That Tobacco in the first considerable quantity, together with the habit of smoking it, was brought to England by the colony under Master Ralph Lane, which was sent to Virginia
by Raleigh in 1585 (the expedition commanded by Sir Richard Grenville, of the marvellous Rerenge tight), remained there from 17th August, 1585, to 18th June, 1586, and was carried home by Sir Francis Drake, returning from his victorious raid in the West Indies; of which colony was the celebrated mathematician Thomas Hariot, who in his “ ‘Briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia’ : Ac. . . Imprinted at London, 1588,” describes the use by the natives of Tobacco, under the name of Uppowoc, and states:—“ We our selues during the time we were there vsed to suck it after their maner, as also since our returne, and haue found manie rare and wonderful experiments of the vertues thereof; of which the relation would require a volume by it selfe: the vse of it by so manie of late, men and women of great calling as else, and some learned Phisitions also, is sufficient witnes.”
(4)	That “ while Sir Walter Raleigh introduced neither the Herb nor the manner of smoking it, there is a general consent that he principally brought the habit of Tobacco-smoking, or, as it was at first called, Tobacco-drinking, into fashion. His name, and his almost exclusively, became identified with the new National Habit.”
But as regards (3) we find the following note on p. 13 of Dr. Wilson Cleland’s privately printed “ ‘ Essay on the History and Properties, Chemical, and Medical, of Tobacco ’; Glasgow: July, 1840; ” a work which Mr. Arber tells us he has not had the advantage of consulting*: “Hakluyt, in his remembrances for 1582, says that ‘the seed of Tobacco hath been brought hither out of the West Indies, that it groweth here; and with the herb many have been eased of the rewmes.’—‘ Miller’s Gardener’s and Botanist’s Dictionary,’ Vol. II.” And on the same page, in the text; after the quotation from Stowe’s “Annals,” or Howes’ continuation, “Apricocks, Mellycatons, Musk-Millions and Tobacco, came into England about the 20 yeare of Queene Elizabeth [1577];” which is also quoted, but the date considered too early by about ten years, by Arber; we read: “Again, in the ‘Nova Stirpium adversaria’ of Lobelius, published at Antwerp, 1576, he relates, as a triumph over the detractors from, and a victory to the practitioners of Herbarie, that ‘ within these few years, the Tobacco of the West Indies has become an inmate (inquilina} of England ; ’ an assertion, if any weight can be put on it, which must far antecede the date assigned by Camden [1586], and almost every subsequent writer.” And which makes the date given in the “Annals” a few years too late instead of too early; and suggests that the specimens of the Tobacco plant brought home by Hawkins were more numerous and more widely propagated than has been usually supposed.
We have thus the introduction of Tobacco and the habit of Smoking into England connected with four of the most renowned Sirs in our history—Sirs before the Counterblaster made knighthood mercenary and unhonourable—Sir John Hawkins, Sir Richard Grenville, Sir Francis Drake, and Sir Walter Raleigh; three of them among the world’s greatest paladins of the sea; the fourth, among the world’s greatest universal geniuses, whose name is a talisman of fascination.
Whatever the exact date of the introduction of the herb, there can be no doubt that the fashion and habit of smoking spread with wonderful rapidity. In Ben Jonson’s “Every Man in his Humour,” 1596, we have the heroic panegyric of the glorious Bobadill,f the ignorant denunciation of poor Cob
• Mr. Arber states that this book gives a list of 150 works on Tobacco; the list, Bibliography, really contains 125 works, and is preceded by a list of 48 Synonymes of Tobacco.
+ This, among other assertions of the valiant and veracious Captain, has been by the weak-minded thought rather stronger than the strongest Cavendish in the shortest and blackest of brUle-gueulee: “ I have been in the Indies, where this herb grows, where neither myself, nor a dozen gentlemen
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the water-bearer, and the testimony of the merry Justice Clement: “What! a thread-bare rascal, a beggar, a slave . . . and he to deprave and abuse the virtue of an herb so generally received in the courts of princes, the chambers of nobles, the bowers of sweet ladies, the cabins of soldiers! ” So Bishop Joseph Hall, in his “ Satires” (Book IV., Satire 4), 1597, says that a gallant " Quaffs a whole tunnell of Tobacco smoke.** So (Cleland and Arber) Paul Hentzner, in his Latin “Itine-rarium; or, Journey to England,” in 1598 (edited by Walpole, 1757), says: “At bull-baiting, bear-whipping, and everywhere else, the English are constantly smoking the Nicotian weed, which in America is called Tobaca.” And lastly, for our present purpose, (Cleland, p. 17): “It appears from a note in the * Criminal Trials’, Vol. I., p. 361, that in 1600, the French Ambassador, in his despatches, represented the peers, on the trial of Essex and Southampton, as smoking Tobacco copiously when they deliberated on their verdict.”— Penny Magazine, No. 18. We are thus brought to the earliest legislative note connected with our subject we have yet come across (Cleland, p. 19): “1 Why if idle courses had been pursued, we should have gone forsooth to the Queen with a petition to have repealed a patent of monopoly of Tabaco Pipes (which Mr. Wingfield’s note had), and I know not how many conceits? (Speech of Mr. Secretary Cecil, Nov., 1601.)—‘D’Ewes’ Journal of the Parliaments of Queen Elizabeth? p. 65.” (Should be 651.)+ The “ Counterblaste,” as already mentioned, was first printed (anonymously) in 1604, the year after James’s asces-sion to the throne of Great Britain; not in 1616, as commonly stated. Mr. Arber, who reprints title-page and tract from a copy of the original edition in the Bodleian, remarks: “ How early its royal authorship was avowed, I know not: but it was generally known long before its insertion in the collected edition of the King’s [Prose] ‘Workes? published in 1616”; collected and edited by James Montagu, Bishop of Winchester; who, in 1619, published them translated into Latin, the “Counterblaste” appearing as “Misocapnus siue De Abusu Tobacci Lusus Regius,” and “Misocapnus, seu lusus Regius de Abusu Tobacci.” There is no need to give an analysis of the “ Counterblaste” here: Mr. Arber’s reprint of it and “ The Essayes of a Prentise, in the Divine Arte of Poesie,” together with his excellent notes on the “ Introduction and Early Use of Tobacco in England,” can be obtained for one shilling. But one or two things in it are to our purpose. In the prefatory “ To the Reader,” having recited certain great and important reforms which it behoves the King himself to undertake, the then anonymous pamphleteer “Imprinted at London by R. B.” continues:—“so are there some sorts of abuses in Common-weal ths, that though they be of so base and contemptible a condition, as they are too low for the Law to looke on, and too meane for a King to interpone his authoritie, or bend his eye upon: yet are they	corruptions, as well as the greatest of them. . . • But for these base sorts of corruption in Common-wealths, not onely the King, or any inferior Magistrate, but Quilibet I populo may serue to be a Physician, by discouering and impugning the error, and by perswading reformation thereof. “ And surely in my opinion, there cannot be a more base, and yet hurtfull, corruption to a Countrey, then is the vile vse (or other abuse) of taking Tobacco in this Kingdome, which hath mooued me, shortly to discouer the abuses thereof in this following little Pamphlet. “ If any thinke it a light Argument, so is it but a toy that is bestowed vpon it. And since the Subject is but of Smoke, I thinke the fume of an idle braine, may serue for a sufficient battery against so fumous and feeble an enemy. If my grounds be found true, it is all I looke for; but if they cary the force of perswasion with them, it is all I can wishe, and more then I can expect. My onely care is, that you, my deare Countrey-men, may rightly conceiue euen by this smallest trifle, of the sinceritie of my meaning in greater matters, neuer to spare any paine, that may tend to the procuring of your weale and prosperitie.” It will be observed that in this closing sentence the King allows himself to be discerned behind the mask of the pamphleteer. So far all seems fair and candid, though not quite consistent. A citizen dislikes Tobacco, and thinks the prevalent habit of smoking a corruption in the Commonwealth; but he considers the abuse too contemptible to be dealt with by the Law or by the King’s authority; the fume of an idle brain may serve for a sufficient battery against so fumous and feeble an enemy; all he can wish is that his arguments carry the force of persuasion with them, but this (and here is the inconsistency) is more than he can expect, although his battery is sufficient against so feeble an enemy. Let the two fumes fight it out on a fair field and with no favour: the blast of the Tobacco furnaces and the counterblast of the pamphlet. —A fair field and no favour ? Not at all. The so feeble enemy is immeasurably stronger than the force of persuasion which is to be a sufficient battery against it; the Law shall be brought to bear on what is “ too low for the Law to looke on,” the long and strong arm of the King shall smite what is “ too meane for a King to interpone his authoritie, or bend his eye vpon”; it is ill arguing with the master of many legions; the foiled controversialist, being a monarch, can most thoroughly counterblast his opponents’ logical premises with fines and forfeits and corporal punishments. In that same year of grace, or disgrace—1604—in which the anonymous pamphleteer blew the “ Counterblaste,” the Most High and Mighty Prince James, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c., did issue a “ Commissio pro Tabacco,” of his own mere authority, without Parliamentary sanction; so that, we believe, this first prodigious extortion from Tobacco was not only monstrously stupid and unjust and tyrannical, but manded his attendance yesterday afternoon ; told him to thank them heartily for their hasty and free Snbsidy; “ She said, that partly by intimation of her Council, and partly by divers Petitions that have been delivered unto her both going to the Chapel and also to walk abroad, she understood that diven Patents, which she had granted, were grievous to her Subjects; and that the Subst tutes of the Patentees had used great Oppressions;” she would take present Order of Reformation; had given commandment before, but the late troubles (meaning the Earl of Essex’s matters) had intervened; "some [Monopolies] should be presently repealed, some suspended, and none put in Execution, but such as should first have a Tryal according to the Law for the good of the People. Against the abuses her wrath was so incensed, that she said, that she neither could nor would suffer such to escape with impunity.” Mr. Secretary Cecill rose to confirm, his insolence much humbled, his bullying turned to uneasy jocosity as he runs through the article! heretofore monopolised, his rating turned to apology for that comparison of the House to a Grammar-School: " There is no Patent if it be Malum in s*, but the Queen was ill-apprized in her Grant. But all to the generality be unacceptable. I take it, there is no Patent whereof the Execution hath not been injurious. Would that they had never been granted. I hope there shall never be more (All the House said Amen.) ’’ And in the same speech: I have heard my self, being in my Coach, these words spoken aloud, [God prosper those that further the overthrow of these Monopolies. God send the Prerogative touch not our Liberty.]” They were doubtless "spoken aloud” precisely in order that he should hear them. Mr. Wingfield (who had noted the Tobacco Pipe Monopoly) spoke among others after hearing this Royal Message: “If a Sentence of Everlasting happiness had been pronounced unto me, it could not have made me shew more outward joy than now I do, which I cannot refrain to express (and here as I think he wept).” The Queen would not accept their thanks until she had put her resolution into practice, having already given Order for a Draught of a Proclamation to this end; and in the afternoon of Monday, the 80th November, at her invitation, the Speaker, with some seven score of the House, presented themselves in the Council Chamber in Whitehall, she sitting under the Cloth of State at the upper end. The Speaker, after a duly fulsome speech of thanks to our Sacred Sovereign (such as might even satisfy the Oriental obsequiousness of our Grand Vizier the D’lsraelite indeed in whom is no guile), kneeled down with the rest, and her Majesty began to answer. After talking awhile, she graciously commanded them to stand up, as she yet meant to trouble them with longer speech. The Speech is a right royal one, whatever be the exact measure of its sincerity; and coming after the Proclamation annulling the evil Monopolies, must have been exceedingly impressive and spirit-stirring. She values their Love more than any Treasure or Riches; " Yea. mine own properties I count yours to be expended for your good”; she thanks those who have stirred this question in the House, "for had I not received a knowledge from yon, I might have fallen into the Lap of an Error, only for lack of true Information ”; she had never put Pen to any Grant but upon pretext and semblance that it was beneficial to her Subjects in general, though a private profit to some antient Servants who had deserved well,” &c., Ac.; concluding, "And I pray you Mr. Comptroller, Mr. Secretary, and you of my Council, that before these Gentlemen depart into their Countries you bring them all to Kiss my Hand.”—See "D’Ewes' Journal of the House of Commons”; portions indicated in the Table under " Monopolies.”—Elizabeth, by thus anticipating the action of the House, avoided the unpopularity of a struggle to maintain grievous abuses, and converted a humiliating surrender into a splendid triumph. But she was a born ruler; with all the instincts, genius* sagacity, promptitude, courage, and imposing bearing of that Kingcraft in which her successor was so miserably deficient practically, while writing about it like the pedant he was; and his perverse schooling in which brought his son to a well-deserved scaffold. .
more of my knowledge, have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one and twenty weeks, but the fume of this simple only.** Perhaps it is rather full-flavoured; but Mr. Arber cites from Hakluyt, in the "Account of Hawkin’s Second Voyage” (1564-5), by John Sparke the Younger: " The Floridians, when they trauell ... do sucke thorow the eane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they live foure or flue dayes without meat or drinke.” Now, if the smoke satisfied hunger for four or five days, why not for one and twenty weeks ? Let anyone incredulous make the trial; and we venture to assure him that success in the former period will bo followed by success in the latter. In a case like this, as in that of St. Denis taking a long walk with his head off and under his arm as if it were a gallant’s hat, Ce n'est que le premier pas gist coute. J Cecill (so in D’Ewes) chooses to name this contemptuously as a very small matter; but we are rather surprised that the manufacture of Tobacco Pipes was already extensive enough to be swooped upon as fit prey for the monopolist. The sentence occurs in the course of the great debates on the enormities of Patents of Privilege and Monopolies; in which many members spoke out with a passionate boldness very rare in those times when the Royal Prerogative was in question, though, of course, with the most abject protestations of loyalty. Mr. Wingfield had stirred the question in the Parliament of 1597, and in this of 1601 reminded the House that her Majesty had promised ‘‘that she would take care of these Monopolies, and our griefs should be redressed; if not, she would give us free liberty to proceed in making a Law the next Parliament. The grief, Mr. Speaker, is still bleeding, and we green under the sore, and are still without remedy.” Mr. Francis Moore said: "There is no Act of hers that hath been or is more derogatory to her own Majesty, more odious to the Subject, more dangerous to the Common-Wealth, than the granting of these Monopolies.” Mr. Martin: *‘I do speak for a Town that grieves and pines, for a Countrey [county] that groaneth and languisheth under the burthen of monstrous and unconscionable Substitutes [Deputies] to the Monopolitana of Starch, Tinn, Fish, Cloth, Oyl, Vinegar, Salt, and I know not what, nay what not ? The principallest commodities both of my Town and Country are ingrossed into the hand of those blood-suckers of the Common-Wealth. When Sir Robert Wroth had read a list of Patents [Monopolies] granted since the last Parliament (Tobacco pipes not among them; so they were monopolised, it seems, before 1597), " Mr. Hackwell, of Lincoln’s-Inn, stood up " and asked thus: Is not Bread there ? Bread, quoth one, Bread quoth another; this Voice seems strange quoth another; this Voice seems strange quoth a third (sic): No quoth Mr. Hackwell, if Order be not taken for these, Bread will be there before the next Parliament.” Mr. Francis Bacon spoke with much insolence and complete subservience for Prerogative: ‘* The Bill is very injurious and ridiculous,” and so forth. Sir Walter Raleigh, as Lord Warden of the Stannary, spoke regarding Tinn, that it had ever belonged to the Dukes of Cornwall, and that, whereas before his Patent, whatever the current price, the Poor Workmen never had above two shillings the week, finding themselves, since "whosoever will work, may; and buy Tinn at what price soever, they have four shillings a week truly paid. . . . Notwithstanding, if all others may be repealed, I will give my consent as freely to the cancelling of this, as any Member of this House.” Mr. Secretary Cecill, with considerable bullying insolence, rated Mr. Speaker for receiving a Bill of this nature [against Monopolies], and rated the House for conduct "more fit for a Grammar-School than a Court of Parliament,” for "Speeches upon Speeches, without either Order or Discretion.” But he soon had to change his note. Two days after, on Wednesday,, the 25th November: "Mr. Speaker, after a silence, and every man marvelling why the Speaker stood up) spake to this effect ”:—The Queen com-	
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absolutely unconstitutional and invalid. Mr. Arber cites it from Rymer, “Fcedera,” at the date; and we must cite the greater part of it, not certainly for its intrinsic value, but as first laying down the unprincipled principles on which, avowed or unavowed, Tobacco has been oppressed and plundered by Monarchs and Legislatures even unto the present day:—
‘‘James, by the grace of God &c. to our right Trustie and right Wei beloued Cousen and Counsellor, Thomas Earle of Dorset our High Treasourer of Englande, Greetinge.
“ Whereas Tabacco, being a Drugge of late Yeres found out, and by Merchants, as well Denizens as Strangers, brought from forreign Partes in small quantitie into this Realm of England and other our Dominions, was used and taken by the better sort both then and nowe onelye as Phisicke to preserve Healthe, and is now at this Day, through evell Custome and the Toileration thereof, excessivelie taken by a nomber of ryotous and disordered Persons of meane and base Condition, whoe. contrarie to the use which Persons of good Callinge and Qualitye make thereof, doe spend most of there tyme in that idle Vanitie, to the evill example and corrupting of others, and also do consume that Wages whiche manye of them gett by theire Labour, and wherewith there Families should be releived, not caring at what Price they buye that Drugge, but rather devisinge how to add to it other Mixture, therebye to make it the more delightfull to their Taste, though so much the more costly to there Purse; by which great and imoderate takinge of Tabacco the Health of a great nomber of our People is impayred, and theire Bodies weakened and made unfit for Labor, the Estates of many mean Persons soe decayed and consumed as they are therebye dry ven to unthriftie Shifts onelie to mayntayne their gluttonous exercise thereof, besides that also a great part of the Treasure of our Lande is spent and exhausted by this onely Drugge so licentiously abused by the meaner sorte, all which enormous Inconveniences ensuinge thereuppon We doe well perceave to proceed principally from the great quantitie of Tabacco daily brought into this our Realm of England and Dominions of Wales from the Partes beyond the Seas by Merchauntes and others, which Excesse We conceave might in great part be restrayned by some good Imposition to be laid uppon it, whereby it is likelie that a lesse Quantitie of Tabacco will hereafter be broughte into this our Realm of England, Dominion of Wales and Town of Barwick then in former tymes, and yet sufficient store to serve for their necessarie use who are of the better sort, and have and will use the same with Moderation to preserve their Healthe:
“ We do therefore will and command you our Treasurer of Englande, and hereby also warrant and authorise you to give order to all Customers Comptrollers Searchers Surveyors, and other Officers of our Portes, that, from and after the Sixe and twentith Day of October next comynge, they shall demaunde and take to our use of all Merchauntes, as well Englishe as Strangers, and of all others whoe shall bringe in anye Tabacco into this Realme, within any Porte Haven or Creek belonging to any theire severall Charges, the Somme of Six Shillinges and Eighte Pence uppon everye Pound Waight thereof, over and above the Custome of Twoo Pence uppon the Pounde Waighte usuallye paide heretofore;
“And for the better execution hereof .... uppon Payne that if anye Merchaunte Englishe or Straunger, or other whatsoever, shall presume to bringe in anye of the saide Tobacco, before suche Paymente and Satisfactione first made, That then he shall not onelie forfeite the saide Tabacco, but alsoe shall undergoe suche furthers Penalties and corporall Punishments as the Qualitie of suche so highe a Contempte against our Royall and express Commandemente in this mannere published shall deserve.
“ Wytnes our self at Westminster the Seaventeenth Day of October. [1604]. Per ipuim Regem”
A leap at the mere word of the King from 2d. to 6s. lOd. (equal to at least three times as much in our own day); an increase of 4000 per cent.! While James is at one with all his successors in the barbarous principle of the utmost possible extortion from Tobacco, his object is evidently just the contrary of theirs: he really hates the plant, and hopes to crush and bury it under an enormous imposition, even at the expense of the Cubtoms Revenue from it; they are quite indifferent to it, save as a helpless subject from which the uttermost farthing is to be wrung, and so would be sorry indeed if it died under the torture: his hatred and their indifference being equally merciless, short-sighted, unstatesmanlike, and regardless of equity. Inasmuch as he is inflamed with a genuine passion, though of abhorrence, and they are only actuated by the most coldblooded avarice, his conduct is far more excusable than theirs: far more excusable than that of the official majority of the Select Committee of 1844, who, utterly unenlightened by the experience and teachings of two hundred and forty years, shamelessly announce their guiding principle and precedent in the passage which introduces this essay; incomparably more excusable than that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for whom the pregnant experience of yet another generation has been altogether barren, who in 1878 tells us with a marvellous cynical imbecility that he means to extort more from Tobacco, precisely because so exceedingly much is extorted from it already.
How “the Custome of Twoo Pence uppon the Pounde Waighte usuallye paide heretofore ” came to be fixed, we have not yet been able to find out. The above “ Commissio” is the
first document specially concerning Tobacco in the “ Fcedera,” according to the Indices at the end of Vol. XVII., to a.d. 1625.
In the “ First Report of the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Customs, 1857” (Appendix A. “Historical Notices of Customs Duties”), it is stated that in 1548 (1 Edward VI., c. 13) were granted in continuation to the King for life a subsidy called tonnage on wines, another subsidy of wool and leather, and also “ one other subsidie called ‘ pondage,’ that is to saye, of all goods and merchandises of every merchant, denizen or alien, whatsoever he be, carried and to be carried out of the realm, or brought or to be brought into the same, by way of merchandize, of the value of every 20s. of the same goodes and merchandizes, 12d., and so after the rate.” It is further stated that “ the same duties were granted in like terms by her ‘ poore Commons ’ [it’s always the poor Commons who humbly give, and the rich Sovereigns who graciously receive] to Queen Mary in the first year of her reign, chapter 18; also, without alteration to Elizabeth (an. 1, chapter 19); and, apparently with alterations in amount, to James I. (1 James I., c. 33).” And again, that in order to guard against fraud in the assessment of this poundage, which had long been 5 per cent, ad valorem (12d. in the 20s.), rates or values were placed on the most generally known articles of importation or commerce by authority, and published as “Books of Rates” for the guidance of the officers in charging the duties. One of these was imprinted in 1515; another was issued by Mary in 1554 or 1555; another, dated 1588 (30 Eliz.), is said to be extant. In a warrant given under the sign manual, the 26th Nov., 1604, James sets forth how this subsidy was granted to him in the first year of his reign; how his late dear Sister Queen Mary did issue a Book of Rates for the said subsidy, in accordance with which it was paid to her and to his late dear Sister Queen Elizabeth; how the said Book of Rates is now obsolete, overvaluing some goods, undervaluing others, and not including many more, both imports and exports; wherefore, he now issues a new Book of Rates, “particularly entered and expressed in this present booke, containing in leaves written on both sides thirtie and seven, to the intent we may be justly answered of the said subsidies or poundage, according to the tenor of the Act of Parliament afore mentioned.” In this Book (according to the said Customs Report) Tobacco was valued at 6s. 8d. per lb., making the poundage 4d., in addition to the 6s. lOd. Custom he had just imposed in his “ Commissio.” Monstrous as was the increase in the Custom, 4000 per cent., the assessment of value for poundage appears low, if we can trust the following, cited by Mr. Arber from “Tobacco tortured; or, the filthie fume of Tobacco refined,” by John Deacon, 1616, dedicated to James:—“ First therefore for the exceeding high rate that this Tobacco hath euer bene at aince the very just arriuall thereof into England, thou thy selfe, and all our Tobacconists [Smokers], are able to say this of your owne proper knowledge: namely, that the same hath vsually bene sold by the pound for twentie nobles [£6 13s. 4d.], fiue, foure, or three pounds: yea and when it came to the lowest price it could not bee had vnder foure markes [£2 13s. 4d.] or fortie shillings, which amounteth to three shillings four pence an ounce at the least.”
Sigvat.
Salts ®olb on f^e S^a of ^a<
I.—THE VOYAGE OUT. SERVING OUT ’BACCY.
TEDDY MULLIGAN’S LITTLE STORY.
Our craft a brig. Our crew ninety men all told. Lat. 62 N. Long. 1 E. Leaving the sea-beaten rocks of Shetland—black and beetling cliffs as ever frowned over a stormy ocean—on our lee. Far away on the horizon the isle of Brassy rears its snowy peak skywards. The short winter’s day fast deepening into night. White-winged sea-mews flying around our stern, as if bidding us adieu; lively kitty wakes screaming around our jibboom, as if trying to dissuade us from braving the perils of the Northern seas.
Hours pass away. Night has closed around us. The wind seems increasing momentarily. Our sails are few and close-reefed, and the sound of the wind, as it rushes through rigging and shroud, is like the roar of Boreas in leafless wintry woods.
I cannot repress a feeling of melancholy as I gaze out upon the dark upheaving waters, just dimly descried. The time since yestereve, when I formed one of a happy group that chattered and laughed, in the cosy room of my friend Magnus Bolt, seemed very long indeed.
“It is ever so much more snug and comfortable below, sir,” said the steward at my elbow.
Well, the red light streaming from the skylight alone might have told me that; so I followed him down. A roomy cabin, octagon shaped, a large square stove with a roaring fire of sea coal; the table laid, and the steward making haste to get ready the evening meal; and last, but not least, my beautiful Newfoundland, quietly esconced in the snuggest corner, with a Spratt cake, end on between his paws, and evidently bent on making the most of his luck.
And now, down comes the captain, followed by the doctor —I am but an adventurer, in search of sport—and the mate, and the second mate completes the complement. And what a jolly meal that was! What though the ship kicked a wee.
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Hadn’t we all been to sea before? Ay, and I’ll tell you this, reader, it is to sea you must go, if you would learn the true meaning of the word “ appetite.” Simple enough our fare this evening; yet, how delicious the aroma from the coffee! how delicate the flavour of the ham and the eggs! the butter itself—but to gaze upon it—would have melted the heart of Epicurus. Ships that sail away to the far north are peculiarly happy in being well found, and the provisions never come to to grief. Frozen hard as adamant, in the rigging hangs many a side of the primest of beef. The butter turns not rancid, the eggs wax not stale, as they do in the sufiny south. The cold may be considered a disadvantage, but it can be guarded against; heat can not; while, up in the North Atlantic, there is an entire immunity from weevils, tarantulas, scorpions, centipedes, cockroaches, and all the other creepie-oreepies that infest a ship in the regions called torrid. There, true enough, you have sunnier seas and greener shores, with “ the blue above and the blue below”; so that, if not up north, one might be excused for wishing himself down south. As Proctor sings—
“I never was on the doll, tame shore, But I loved the great sea more and more.”
Wonder, by-the-by, if ever Proctor was in blue water in his life.
Supper barely ended. Pleasant laughing faces still lingering round the board, when footsteps were heard descending towards us; and we saw first a pair of long, ghttering, wet legs, then a long mackintosh, then a long but honest-looking face, surmounted by a dripping sou’-wester, and enter our bold speotioneer, putting a question to the captain which would have convinced a landsman, had such been present, that we had a lady on board: “ Shall I make her snug for the night, sir?”
“Certainly, Stevenson, by aU means,” was the reply; and then the spectioneer disappeared head foremost—not down, up, you know. And presently there was a bit of a row on deck, plenty of shouting of orders, plenty of stamping of feet, and plenty of “ ay, ay, sir’s ”; after which there was silence and a lull. You might have imagined that both wind and sea had gone down, which was not the case, but she—the ship— was snug for the night.
And now, with the exception of the mate, who went on deck to reUeve the watch, we fill gathered round the stove, not as you do on shore. The captain alone sat on a camp-stool, which had a nasty trick of edging out from under him, and landing him on the deck; the rest of us spread our rugs and lay down, so that we could gaze into the fire while we chatted and smoked, for there wasn’t one among us who did not dearly love his nicotine. Cigars, clays, and briar-roots were tiie order of the day; only the captain mounted a meerschaum, and I may as well tell you the fate of this pipe at once. The captain dearly loved it, and no wonder. Had it not been a parting gift from his lady-love, on the very eve before we sailed? And I don’t think he ever placed it between his lips without his mind fondly reverting to the girl he left behind him; for often, when smoking, his eyes had a far-away look in them, and you had to speak to him twice before you got any answer. How anxiously he used to watch the day-after-day colouring process of that pipe! how tenderly polish it! Then he would hand it round among us, with an air of pride that spoke pages. Well, one day this meerschaum was missing. He had left it on the companion-hatch before going aloft; when he came down it was gone. I never saw the captain in such a rage before. He raved and he stamped, and he cursed and he swore worse than the British army in Flanders. Then he ordered every man Jack on deck, steward included; and a search party, of officers only, went the round of the ship, and examined every bag and every box, but all in vain. And nevermore by mortal eyes shall that pretty pipe be seen; for long, long afterwards, the steward confessed that he had dropped it overboard, when skylarking with one of the hands. Perhaps even now some mermaid, in her coral cave, is enjoying a whiff from that fragrant meerschaum.
Now, this gathering round the fire, in true sea-of-ioe fashion, is very jolly indeed. Throughout the voyage it was our favourite position; so, pray, always when spinning our yarns on board, imagine us lolling thus, and fidways imagine the captain sitting at one end of the circle on ins fickle stool, pipe in hand. Whenever he placed his pipe in the rack, it was only to dive into his capacious pocket, and drag from the depths thereof a piece of dried skate. This was the signal for the Newfoundland to appear and make one of the group; and so tough was that dried skate, that there were pieces which even the captain’s teeth couldn’t do justice to. These savoury morsels fell to the dog’s share, and the bits of skate the dog failed on, the devil himself couldn’t have eaten. Did we do anything else except smoke and tell pleasant stories around the stove? Yes; we sipped our coffee. We had a copper urn, of unusual dimensions, that stood above the stove; and this the steward kept filled with fragrant Mocha, the berries being roasted and ground twice a day. In this cold and desolate region we couldn’t have kept up the circulation on alcohol, had we tried ever so much. The exhilaration the latter firflords soon dies away, and you feel the cold all the more, and want another “peg,” and then another, and still another, and then comes lethargy, and then —the deuce; and you feel, when you awake, that the only thing likely to be a comfort to you, would be Marwood and a six-foot drop. No; coffee is the thing to warm your bosom in the sea of ice, and to wreathe your lips in smiles, when the
thermoscope is down under zero, when the wind from the north blows guns, and “ the barber”* is abroad, and Dr. Frost every now and then making a grab at your nose—coffee, coffee and a pipe.
But not only in the cabin of a Greenlander is Tobacco duly appreciated, but in steerage and fo’c’sle and around the galley fire; and there are, methinks, few sights a painter of the old Dutch school 'would delight more in transferring to canvas, than that of the serving-out of Tobacco in one of these vessels. The order is usually given for the hands to attend in the cabin, on a day when there is little else doing—an order which is obeyed with alacrity, you may well be sure. Paint me this picture, then, best of painters, as the Greek Bobbie Burns would say. It is daylight but dark, so paint the lamp alit overhead in the cabin. Paint the ship lefiming well over: I mean, give the bulk-heads a list to leeward. Paint me on the table an enormous brick of niggerhead, from which the mate at one side is digging off the black cakes with a chisel, while at the other sits the young surgeon taking tally—doing clerk for once. Between these two paint me the captain, with his ruddy face, merry eye, and smile, which the moustache hardly suffices to conceal, as he sits on the bunker and gazes amusedly at his men, who crowd the other end of the table. Paint them eager eyed all, swarthy but honest, warmly but roughly clad, and one or more seemingly laughing outright as they clutch their half-pound of—why, only niggerhead. Aye, reader, only niggerhead, but, in the sea of ice, oh! how precious! Don’t forget the lamp-light on their faces and the Rembrandtine shadows, and you’ll be hung next year for a dead certainty—in the Royal Academy.
It is surprising how soon travellers and men of the world get to know each other, and even to love and respect each other. Hardly a week had elapsed since our ship had left Peterhead; it was now our first night on really blue water; but as our ship ploughed her silent way through the darkness, that lay like a pall over the broad North Atlantic, while nothing could be heard on deck but the steady tramp of the officer or the hissing of the waters, as the waves broke into “combers” and hurried away astern,—we below felt happy and at home; the laugh and the joke went round, and we listened with attention and respect, each to the other’s anecdote or yarn.
Sworn brothers of the weed were we; our hearts were as light cm the eider’s down; and if a cloud hung over us, what then? it was ’Baccy reek; and may ne’er a heavier hang o’er thee, dear smoker.
* Lulls in the conversation there were none this night any more than there were in the wind. Only one little pause, during which our doctor, who was of a sentimental turn of mind, and who had joined the expedition because his sweetheart had proved unkind, took the cigar from his lips and held up a forefinger.
“ Hush!” he cried, “list to the voice of the waves.”
We listed.
“What a happy name,” he continued, “the Greeks give the ocean—OaXatr^tU^ (Thalassais). Is it not euphonious? I never stand by the beach, on a clear frosty moonlit night, without hearing the word whispered by every breaker that ripples up to my feet----”
“ Come, come, doctor,” said the captain, “ sentimentality won’t do in this ship. Light another weed, my lad, and hang <mre; and you, Teddy Mulligan, tell us that big lie again you gave us last night in Mr. Bolt’s—about the monkey, you know.”
“Be gorra! thin,” said Teddy—who was our merry little second mate—“be gorra! thin, there is divil an ounce of a lie in it. Sure, you wouldn’t have me doubt the word of a gintieman born. Well, then, my friend, the gintieman, was walking down Clerkenwell way. ‘ There’s no ladies here,’ he says to himself, ‘ so I’ll e’en have a smoke ’; and in he marches as bould as you plaze to a ’baccanist’s right foreninst him. 1 An ounce of your very best bird’s-eye,’ says he, ‘ and look sharp about it,’ and with that he throws down half-a-crown on the counther, giving it a good ring to show it was the rale M‘Kay. Now, there sat in a corner behind the desk the ugliest little ould man that ever was seen, making believe to smoke wid an empty dudheen, for divil a bit of reek came out of his mug at edl. He wore specs and a Kilmarnock night-cap, and, indade, was dressed as well as the Lord Lufftenant himself. And what does the crature do but jumps up and picks up my friend’s half-crown, and he looks at it and looks at it; thin he bites the edge of it, thin he rings it.
“ * Ye idjit av the world,’ says my friend, getting red in the face, * d’ye take me for a rogue, or what?’
“ A nod was all the answer as the crature popped the halfcrown into a drawer and sat quietly down again.
“ * Come now,’ says my friend, ‘ I like a joke fits well as anyone, but plaze to give me my ’Baccy and my change, ’cause it’s in a hurry I am.’
“ Another nod from the little ugly ould man.
“ ‘ D’ye take me for a fool, thin, you mane spalpeen?’ cried my friend, losing hoult av his patience.
“ A nod from the ould man was all the answer.
“1 Now, the saints have a care av me this blissed morning/ roared my friend, bringing his fist to the counther wid a
• “Tile barber” is a name given by northern sailors to a blackguardly -white fog, warranted to cut the ears off a bronse admiral.
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bang; 'the blissed saints have a care av me, but, you little ould nodding divil ye, if ye don't be after sarving me this mortal minute, I’ll lape over the table that’s atwixt us, and, be jabers, I won’t lave a whole bone in the body of ye.’
‘“Hallo! hallo!’ cried a young man, rushing in from a back room, ‘ what’s all the strush about ?’
“ * It’s the ugly ould divil av a father o’ ye,’ says my friend; ‘he’s chated me out av a good half-crown.'
“1 My father, is it,” cried the young man, thrusting both hands into his breeches pockets as far as they’d go, and laughing till he was doubled in two; then he straightened himself up, took one glance at his father, and forthwith laughed himself double again.
“ ‘ Tell me,’ says my friend, appaling to an ould woman who had just entered, * tell me, and I’ll give you a pound av snuff. By the holy apostles, tell me, woman, is this a madhouse, or is it only draining I am?’
“But, 'deed, indeed,” added Teddy Mulligan, “when my friend was tould that the little ugly ould man was only a monkey dressed up loike, faith he could afford to laugh with the best av thim. So the young man guffawed, my friend laughed, the ould lady cackled and mumbled, the monkey gibbered, and the divil such a shopful was ever seen at all, at all. And that is just as true as we are all lying around this stove; for, sure, haven’t I my friend’s word for it.”
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
£^c Tobacco goths.
The Board of Trade Return for January, 1879, is now to hand, and these are its figures regarding Tobacco:— FOR THE MONTH ENDING JANUARY 31st.
Home Con-
Imports:	sumption:	In Bond:
lbs.	lbs.	lbs.
1877.	Unmanufactur’d	2,649,760	4,472,805	92,384,268
Manfd. & Snuff	415,645	130,000	3,007,263
1878.	Unmanufactur’d	2,112,454	4,545,593	103,002,869
Manf’d. & Snuff	346,143	130,742	3,108,778
1879.	Unmanufactur’d	2,167,141	4,291,267	128,645,799
Manfd. A Snuff	320,511	110,401	3,404,501
Showing, as usual, steady Increase of Consumption before the Extra Duty, 73,530 lbs. in the month; and heavy Decrease under it, 274,677 lbs. in the month.
In the Memorial presented to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 29th January last, and printed and published as a Special Supplement to the Tobacco Plant, Tables of comparison (3) and (4) of the three last years for the Nine Months ending December 31st are given. Before adding the January statistics to these, it may be well to point out an error affecting the revenue comparisons drawn from those Tables. The error is, indeed, very slight in amount as regards those particular comparisons, but it is of importance as regards the principle on which the Scale of Tobacco Duties is graduated, and it involves an understatement of the case against the disproportionately high duty on Unmanufactured, or, in other words, against the disproportionately heavy taxation of the Home Manufacture as compared with the Foreign.
That error consists in the assumption that the Extra Duty of 1878 is 4^. per lb. on all kinds alike; whereas it is this on the Unmanufactured containing 10 per cent, and upwards of moisture alone, in order to do away with the fraction of a penny previously affecting it (3s. 1 Ad. per lb.); on all the other kinds it is only the even 4d., their duties feeing integral before. Thus the Extra Duty is, not only relatively (ad valorem) but absolutely, more on the cheap Tobacco for Home Manufacture than on the costly Foreign Manufactured and Segars.
This Extra Duty was enforced from the Sth April, 1878, but the Act imposing it (Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1878; 41 Viet., chap. 15) is dated the 27th May. Mr. Ritchie gave notice that on the 6th May he would move as follows: “ That this Bill be recommitted for the purpose of amending it, so as to establish a difference of two shillings per lb. (instead of the actual Is. 10d.] between the duty on Unmanufactured Tobacco and Cigars.” In his printed “ Statement in support of this Amendment,” he put so clearly and succinctly the injustice of the Extra Duty on Unmanufactured as compared with Segars (I say nothing here of its absolute injustice), that I cannot do better than quote from him:—
“ In order to place Cigars under the conditions of free trade, the duty was reduced in 1863 from about 9s. 6d. to 5s. per lb. This sum was computed as the equivalent of the Tobacco duty in its incidence on the manufactured article.
“Certain items were taken into account in fixing the differential duty, with a view to place English makers on a par with those of the Continent. These were a loss of weight on duty-paid Tobacco by reason of its original moisture, by offal and waste, and also loss of interest for a short period on the Capital involved in duty. In this way a certain ratio was established in the duties on the raw material and the
various manufactured forms.
“The same considerations that afforded the ground for a differential duty apply equally to the additional duty of 4|d. now imposed on Tobacco as they do to the former rate of 8s.l*d.
“ If, therefore, the Cigar duty is to sustain an increase of only 4d. concurrently with an addition of 4 Jd. on raw Tobacco, it would evidently place English Cigar makers at a further disadvantage of 2d. per lb. They would virtually pay that much more duty than their Foreign competitors, whose interests alone appear to have been consulted in this arrangement.”
This Statement, confirmed by calculations on the same examples as were given by Mr. Gladstone in graduating the duties in 1863, and which Sir Stafford Northcote professed to have made the basis of his calculations in 1878, was, of course, unanswerable, except by the famous “mechanical majority” without the suspicion of a mechanic among them—all gentlemen, accustomed to choice Cigars, not vulgar Tobaccos. The great Conservative party, which so long clung to Protection, have become such ardent Free-traders—at least, with respect to Tobacco—that they have actually rushed to the other extreme (we all know that extremes meet), and now enact Protection of the Foreign against the Home Manufacturer!
Now for the ten months’ comparisons corresponding to those of nine months in the Memorial Supplement. (Sections viii. and ix., pp. 285-7.)
UNDER THE OPERATION OF THE EXTRA DUTY.
(5)	FOR TEN MONTHS, ENDING JANUARY 31st. Home Con-
Imports:	sumption:	In Bond:
lbs.	lbs.	lbs.
1877.	Unmanufactur’d	72,831,863	40,068,955	92,384,268
Manfd. & Snuff	3,330,475	1,146,960	8,007,263
1878.	Unmanufactur’d	69,732,861	41,542,419	103,002,869
Manf’d. & Snuff	2,975,681	1,131,393	3,108,773
1879.	Unmanufactur’d	84,278,208	39,845,191	128,645,799
Manf’d. & Snuff	3,311,562	1,152,839	3,404,501
Showing again the steady Increase of Consumption before the Extra Duty; and showing the heavy Decrease under its operation, amounting in the Ten Months of 1878-9 to 1,675,782 lbs. compared with the same period in 1877-8, against an Increase of 1,457,897 lbs. in 1877-8 compared with 1876-7.
It scarcely need be said that the Amounts of Imports, depending as they do on the state of the Foreign markets, are only significant in this comparison as proving by their large Increase in 1878-9 that Tobacco was then considerably cheaper in Bond than before, a condition favourable to consumption under the New Duties.
The vast and unprecedented Increase of the Quantities left in Bond, so much larger than the Increase in the Imports, means simply a vast and unprecedented hesitation or inability to clear out by paying Duty; or, in other words, heavy trade difficulties and extensive financial embarrassments among Manufacturers and Retailers, and possibly Importers. In the words of the “ Times,” whose view of our general condition and prospects just now is notoriously rather rose-coloured than jaundiced: “ Tobacco has been adversely affected by the increased duty." (Review of “Annual Trade Returns,” Friday, January 10th, 1879.)
Translating the Home Consumption of Unmanufactured in the last Table (5) into Amount of Duty paid (having no data for reckoning precisely the Amount of Duty on the Manufactured, which varies with the various proportions of Segars, Cavendish, and other Foreign Manufactured), and neglecting the insignificant quantities of Unmanufactured paying 3s. 6d. ' in 1876-7 and 1877-8—only £216 gross was thus paid in Year ending March 31st, 1878—we have the following results:—
(6)	FOR TEN MONTHS, ENDING Home Consumpt. Unmanufactured.
Year. Duty per lb.	lbs.
1877.	. 3s.	lAd.	..	40,068,955	..
1878.	.	„	..	41,542,419	..
1879.	. 8s.	6d.	..	89,845,191	..
JANUARY 31st.
Amount Duty. £ s. d.
6,310,860 8 8
6,542,930 19 10A
6,972,908 8 6
Showing an apparent Increase of Revenue on Unmanufactured in Ten Months 1878-9 of £429,978, against Increase 1877-8 compared with 1876-7 of £232,070.
(a.) Confining comparison to Unmanufactured, the Manufactured being little affected by the Extra Duty:—
But we must deduct from this Increase in 1878-9 the Extra Duty of 4-^d. per lb. on the 4,832,235 lbs. Consumption Unmanufactured, April, 1878 (most of which, we believe, paid only the Old Duty), being £84,564 2s. 3d.; leaving Increase on Unmanufactured in 1878-9 of £345,414, against Increase in 1877-8 of £232,070.
This Ten Months’ Increase on Unmanufactured in 1878-9 is at the rate in Twelve Months of £414,496, against Increase in 1877-8 of £278,484; an excess of only £13 6,012.
(b.) Including Manufactured as well as Unmanufactured in the comparison:—
But we must add to the Increase in 1878-9 the Extra Duty of 4d. per lb. on the 1,152,839 lbs. Consumption Manufactured, less the 168,047 lbs. Consumption Manufactured in April, 1878(most of which, we believe, paid only the Old Duty); or add to it 4d. per lb. on 984,792 lbs., being £16,413 4s. Od., making Increase Ten Months 1878-9 of £361,827.
Again, we must add to the Increase in 1878-9 the Amount of Duty at the old rates on the 21,446 lbs. Increase Consumption Manufactured, mainly Segars at 5s. per lb., about £5250; and deduct from the Increase in 1877-8 the like duties on the 15,567 lbs. Decrease Consumption Manufactured, about £3750.
We have thus approximate natural Increase of Revenue, by Increase of unchecked Consumption, in Ten Months of 1877-8
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compared with 1876-7 of £228,320;' and Increase of Revenue by Extra Duty and consequent checked Consumption in Ten Months of 1878-9 compared with 1877-8 of £367,077.
This Ten Months' Total Increase in 1878-9 compared with 1877-8 is at the rate in Twelve Months of £440,492, against Increase 1877-8 compared with 1876-7 of £273,984; being an excess of only £l$$,50&. .
This approximate Twelve Months' Increase 1878-9 of £440,492, is £418,508 less than the £859,000, officially estimated, or very little more than one-half. It is not quite £100,000 more than the Increase reckoned for Twelve Months (£260,000 for Nine Months) effected under the Reduced Customs Tariff in 1863-4, when Consumption was so much less and the American Civil War at its height.
After which I cannot do better than quote the comment of the Memorial; only, be it Understood that I, not being a Memorialist, do not “ respectfully submit,” but quite disrespectfully contend, having no respect for a financier who has made such a mull of his business:—"Your Memorialists respectfully submit that such a result cannot be deemed a financial success; that the Extra Duty on Tobacco stands condemned by its unfruitfulness to the Revenue, apart from any other considerations whatever. But there are other considerations of very grave importance to the whole Tobacco Trade, to the 600 Manufacturers and 300,000 Retailers, and likewise to the vast mass of the Consumers, which merit the serious attention of the Legislature.” And which the interested but unacquainted reader may study as set forth in the said Memorial. Sigvat.
Copt’s Pttat.
" As one by one our friends depart,” sings the hymnologist, in a strain of melancholy singularly appropriate to the sentimental condition of Your Man-of-all Work, as he peruses “ The Monthly Letter of the English Anti-Tobacco Society and Anti-Narcotic League.” Am I to lose all my old friends ? The idols of my youth—must they all be shattered ? Here, for example, is William Howitt. Once upon a time, the names of William and Mary Howitt were, in my youthful and un-sophiscated apprehension, synonyms for literature, and literature of the most delightful sort. But here is Mr. Howitt writing from the Via Sistina at Rome, and giving this measure of his notions of literature:—"I beg to thank you for sending me so valuable a collection of Anti-Tobacco Pamphlets. I was not aware that the protest against the mischievous habit had produced so rich a literature since King James’s celebrated ‘ Counterblast ’.” I can’t make any comments upon this sample of William Howitt’s faculty for literary criticism, as it is here exhibited; but it would be an act of kindness to send him a collection of those charming fly-sheets which are to be found on the counters of druggists* shops, mainly devoted to the praise of Holloway’s Ointment, Parr’s Life Pills, and Dr. Collis Browne’s Chlorodyne. “ So rich a literature” would be a rich joke, if the man who could write the phrase were not so sad an example of the evil results of keeping bad company. I can account for the state of his mind only upon the supposition that he has fraternised so long with Roman ruins that his mental state has become assimilated to the relics of a glorious and magnificent past. William Howitt is manifestly sympathetic, and susceptible to the latest influence ; for the “ literature” of the Anti-Tobacco Society has moved him to strive, by an original contribution of his own, to increase its richness. I shall quote him; and when you have read the extract you will possibly conclude that in William Howitt’s pen the Antis have found (as Samuel Johnson said of the boilers and vats of Thrale’s brewery), “ the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.” Please read ; and when you come to the end you will know why I mourn for the idol of my childhood:—
“I think one of the terrible demonstrations of the evils of Tobaccosmoking is contained in Carlyle's ‘History of Frederick the Great,* Carlyle himself being one of the most inveterate smokers, or nsed to be.
“The father of Frederick, naturally a very able and right-minded man, devoted his evenings to what he called his * Tabagie, or Tobacco Parliament.' There his chief and constant companions were his Minister of State, Grum-kow, secretly in the pay of Austria, and the Austrian Ambassador, Count Seckendurf. These two artful and unprincipled wretches, amid the fumes of Tobacco and strong beer, led him by degree s to such a pitch of infatuation that he became utterly blinded to his own truest and most palpable interests, utterly given up to the schemes of his enemies; became a most unnatural tyrant to his family, who would have him go an utterly different way; Dl-treated his wife; brutally cudgelled, imprisoned, and actually tried for his life his son and heir to the throne; broke off the brilliant alliances of both son and daughter with England, and forced them into very inferior ones, and was more like a ferocious savage than anything else. So completely did these two men lead him by the nose, that he ruined all the happiest prospects of his family, made himself the most miserable of creatures, ruined utterly his health, and did not discover what an idiot they had made of him till it was too late, when he said the discovery was like the turning of a dagger about in his heart.
“It must have been impossible, except under the benumbing and bruti-fying influences of Tobacco and beer, for these tools of Austria to have so thoroughly bamboozled such a man; causing him so wilfully to ruin all his noblest prospects; to keep him in this stupefied state for so many years in spite of all the opposite evidences around him—a man whose former and subsequent life were so different. To me it is one of the maddest and most instructive episodes in history.”
Under the stimulating influence of “ so rich a literature,” it is not surprising to find our friend Mr. Hugh Mason launching into oceans of wisdom. That good man is afflicted
by the prevalent distress, and he says—“ If those who were in the habit of smoking would only exercise a little self, denial, in the matter of wages and the prosperity of trade, we should quickly see a great change in this country.” Do not my brother smokers feel guilty ? Is it not manifest that if those who spend fourpence a week on Tobacco would refrain from such extravagance there would be no distress in the land ? I was about to set my faithful pipe in front of me upon the mantel-shelf, and apostrophise it, after the fashion of the forgotten poet who sings of a cause that "brought death into the world, and all our woe,” when a friend of mine, who had read Hugh Mason’s pathetic appeal, fell into the humour of G. A. S. in the Illustrated London News, and sent me the following "Nuts to crack: ”—" Suppose the manufacturers, who pay enormous rents for shooting moors, and thus artificially heighten the price of land without making it productive, and who pay thousands of pounds for a daub by some popular A. R. A., to the degradation of true art, were to live on lentils and oatmeal for a year or two, and live in jerry-built houses at six-and-sixpence a week, this would be self-denial. It might be self-denial in a poor man to give up his pipe, but would the result be either so healthy for himself or so productive of prosperity for a country that would have to find the missing twenty millions of Tobacco duties in new taxes ? If all the Trades-Unionists in Glasgow were to go on strike for a year, would commerce suffer one-tenth part of the injury caused by the failure of the Glasgow City Bank?” Well, if my friend asks me, I trow not; but these posers are for the Anti-Tobacco people, and Mr. Hugh Mason will please oblige with the correct solution.
A wide allowance must be made for the Antis at present Their better nature has been grievously tried. Their hopes, in relation to more than one public man, have been cruelly shattered; and the leading organs of public opinion are not so kind to them as they were led to expect a little while ago, when the Times did seriously incline to German measures for the repression of smoking. The Bishop of Manchester almost "said ditto” to the Times; but Mr. Hugh Mason sadly declared that—" He was disappointed with the bishop’s letter. It was not up to the mark. There was not that true ring about it which he would have expected from a man of the bishop’s responsibility in this crowded community.” The society consoled itself by carrying resolutions. One of these has had an effect upon the Pall Mall Gazette, such as Mr. Hugh Mason and his friends hardly expected. That journal inquires—" What are we to think of the subsequent resolution in favour of sending a ‘ petition to Parliament embodying the views of the meeting, and urging the desirability of appointing a Royal Commission to inquire into the effects of juvenile smoking?’ We had thought that the ‘ spelling reform’ agitation had been the means of sounding the lowest depth of adult silliness when it led to the demand for a Royal Commission for the relief of the early difficulties of ‘little Hodge.’ But a yet lower depth of fatuous fussiness is revealed by the proposal, which is to be seriously urged in a memorial to the Home Secretary, that Parliament should appoint a Royal Commission to consider a matter which might form an appropriate subject of discussion at a ‘ mothers’ meeting.’” Nor is the lukewarmness of the Bishop of Manchester, or the agitated scorn of the Pall Mall Gazette, the wettest blanket that has chilled the bones of these enthusiasts of late. I read in the papers of the 20th of February that that archreformer, Mr. John Bright, wrote this unfeeling reply to a Birmingham Anti, who wanted him to support an Act of Parliament to put down juvenile smoking:—"I do not think such a law as you recommend would receive support in the House of Commons. We have rather too many laws already, and I prefer to leave such evils as you refer to to parental supervision and to public opinion, and to the effects of a better education among the working classes.”
There are some small crumbs of comfort for those who hate the Weed; and, as I see no signs of their having any extensive acquaintance with the facts of existence, I may be acting charitably in collecting a few of them here. If the Pall Mall Gazette is unkind, other publications are favourable. For instance, I find this epigrammatic expression of a profound truth in one newspaper:—" When usefulness is considered, the man who smokes cigarettes dwindles into insignificance by the side of the individual who smokes hams.” Again, it is announced that " the oldest inhabitant of Broglie, aged one hundred years and three months, has just died while smoking his pipe.” There is a moral in the fate of that aged Frenchman, which the " merest tyro” in the " so rich a literature ” as that of the Antis will be able to discover. It is true that another centenarian has died at Toulouse, while not smoking his pipe; but it is probable that somebody else at Toulouse may have been smoking a pipe about the same time; and a logician like Mr. Hugh Mason will be at no loss to connect the two circumstances. If he should be unable to weld the chain of evidence single-handed, Dr. Hardwicke, the Middlesex Coroner, will be happy to assist him. That gentleman held an inquest in Maiylebone the other day on the body of a retired merchant of seventy years. The brother of the retired merchant said the deceased had suffered from asthma nearly all his life, and would have died long ago but that he had taken the advice of a German physician who recommended him to smoke. Deceased ate very little,—" in fact, he lived upon smoke,” and " considered that smoke had prolonged his life.” The medical man who had been called in
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said “he was told that deceased had been suffering from asthma for over twenty years. He attributed death to failure of the heart’s action while suffering from pulmonary disease.’’ Dr. Hardwicke clearly saw that twenty years of asthma could not account for the death of a man of seventy; for we are told by the Marylebone Mercury that—“ Deceased’s brother again reiterated his opinion that smoking had prolonged his life, which the Coroner very much doubted; admitting, however, that Tobacco sometimes acted as a sedative, and deceased might have laboured under the idea that it did him good.” Yes, Dr. Hardwicke, it is possible that more sufferers than the studious retired merchant, John Edward Dowell, have “laboured under” that idea; and that their case is even less melancholy than that of a Coroner who labours under the idea that Tobacco-smoking was the cause of John Edward Dowell’s untimely decease. Still, it must be matter of regret to the Anti community that the Coroner’s jury were benighted enough to say that Mr. Dowell’s death resulted from “natural causes.” Perhaps a better acquaintance with “so rich a literature” as the tracts of the Anti-Tobacco Society might have changed their views.
“ Ten pipes a day for seventy-two years,” is the estimate formed by an eminent historian of his own share in the consumption of the divine herb. Well, the computation is easy:—365 x 72 x 10 — 262,800. Say that his pipe has a capacious bowl, and make the worst of it—suppose 10 pipes mean two ounces. Then, 365 x 72 x 2 = 52,560 oz., or 3285 lbs., or 1 ton, 9 cwt., and 37 lbs. It seems to me that the Anti-Tobacco Society ought to try the effect of their literature on that gentleman. William Howitt can tell them his name ; and if the veteran be not hardened, the smoker of 1| tons of Tobacco would be a convert to crow over. Otherwise, they will still have an up-hill fight to wage. The “ Men of Mark ” are not helping them much. Here is a new President of the French Republic whose favourite pastime (according to the Daily News) is “ to play billiards, and to smoke cigars while making his cannons.” “ He smokes much,” says the author of his descriptive sketch in “ Round About France ; ” who explains—“ Part of a large Tobacco plantation used to belong to him until Government bought it; and this may
account for his fondness for the weed.” I am sorry to find it added that—“ Few men more carefully weigh their thoughts before putting them into words.” “ He never loses his temper ; but he never hesitates either to speak out his mind with full frankness, and, if the occasion needs it, with considerable warmth. If the Reactionists flatter themselves that France has got in him a weak-handed ruler, they are mistaken. M. Grevy is no feebler than an iron bar.” Of course, this is not at all as it should be. Tobacco ought to have made him effeminate. Has it not emasculated Thomas Carlyle and General Grant and Prince Bismarck ? Probably, M. Gravy’s time is to come. Another melancholy example is found in the life of the late Mr. Bayard Taylor. Impromptu biographers have exhausted the vocabulary of eulogy in their efforts to do justice to the virtues, the graces, the accomplishments, and the powers of the author of “ Poems of the Orient,” “ The Masque of the Gods,” and “ Prince Deuka-lion; ” and we shall not soon grow weary of the theme. Yet, Mr. Stoddard, who gives some “ Reminiscences” in the last Atlantic Monthly, says of Bayard Taylor—“ He had cigars, however, and he tempted me into the use of the Indian weed.” Sic transit gloria!—the Antis are welcome to the consolation the incident affords. I have a gentle hint for them in closing. It is an old conviction of mine that the adulterators will do more than the tract writers to check the consumption of Tobacco. You cannot have your pipe filled with Tobacco if it be full of dried lettuce. You are not destroying yourself with Nicotine if you smoke only cabbage-leaf. Here, then, is an opening for reforming energy. I read in a recently issued periodical the following paragraph:—
“In connection with Prince Bismarck’s Tobacco monopoly, a German botanist, Herr Schleiden, has lately published some statistics regarding the sale and manufacture of cigars in Germany. It appears from these that in Thuringia alone 429 tons of beet-root leaves are annually turned into cigars. In Magdeburg and the Palatinate cigar makers not only employ large quantities of the beet-root leaves, but also of the leaves of the endive and of the potato plant."
Let the antis “go and do likewise.” Their superfluous enthusiasm will find a practical vent; and they will no longer, by “so rich a literature” vex the soul of
Your Man-of-All-Work.
Boices in the flight.
^irst Voice:
“ I am a Whistling devil-may-care, Nocturnally I go;
I paint me * Harmonies ’ here and there, And hang them in a row.
Tol lol, tol lol, tol iddle, tol lol, I’d serve all the critics so.”
Seomb Voice:
“I am a fiercely critical cuss, Despotic as Persian Shah;
And I used to kick up a bit of a fuss In my Fors Clavigera.
Tol lol, tol lol, tol iddle, tol lol, What coxcombs these painters are 1 ”
ehirb Voire:
“I am the half of a halfpenny, Born in a melting pot;
And small as I be, you see. you see, A wonderful power I’ve got.
Tol lol, tol lol, tol iddle, tol lol, For I settled the blooming lot.”
^ipc €o tourers.
X.—AN ADVENTURE WITH A NUTMEG.
Mr. Wilton Baker has several nicely coloured pipes, but the gem of his collection is unmistakable. It is a meerschaum carved into the form of an acorn; the pipe is handsome, the carving is extremely natural, and the colouring is perfect. He is very fond of hearing his pipes praised, and is himself eloquent in pointing out their beauties. I was admiring his acorn pipe one evening when he said, “ Did you never hear how I became possessed of it?” I answered in the negative; so he proposed, as we were very comfortably seated at the moment, that he should tell me. I said, “ Certainly” ; and at it he went. He is of a ruminative disposition, and frequently pauses in a story, so that it took a long time in the telling; but I will try and condense it.
“ You know, Goggs,” said he, “it is not always the heaviest tragedy that carries the weightiest lessons. Little things sometimes contain a deal of experience, which may be extracted by the most ordinary person, if he only goes conscientiously to work to extract it. Quartern loaves are large things, and I have eaten many of them, but they linger not in my memory; nutmegs are small things, and I never ate but one; but that one is firmly fixed in my recollection, and will be while life shall last.”
Here Baker closed his eyes, blew a great volume of smoke out of his mouth, and said gently: “ There is no doubt that
scalping is a painful operation, but I would rather submit to it than eat another. In the month of March, some seven years ago,” continued Baker, “ I was put down, as a member of a Dramatic Club, to take the part of a hero in a forthcoming performance. About ten days before the entertainment, a small but savage-looking pimple made its appearance on my cheek. ‘Bad blood,’ said one; ‘Blood too rich,’ said another. Heroism working out, thought I. In about two days this disagreeable pimple developed into an unmistakable boil. My father, I recollect, rather admired it; he said it was a good, healthy specimen, and should not be interfered with.”
“Your father was, doubtless, in the right, Wilton,” I interrupted.
Baker gazed at me dreamily, and replied: “Looking at things calmly now, Goggs, through the haze of years, I have no doubt it was as good as anyone else’s boil; but that did not puff me up with foolish pride. I did not want the boil: it was an unasked gift of Nature, who too often withholds from us what we really desire, and gives us what we do not want.”
My friend here lapsed into such a deep study that I had to jog his memory.
“Ah!” he said, “about the boil. My father said there was something a little wrong in the blood, and it would come out. Very good; why must it choose the very time when I was anxious to come out? Folks who paid half-a-crown for a ticket did not want a hero with a boil on his cheek. Our
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eoirte would probably be reported, and it would have read very nicely, would it not? thus, among the list of company present:—1 Mr. Brown and his lady, Mr. Jones and two Misses Jones, Mr. Baker and his Boil,1 Ac. In my dismay I consulted a friend I always call John Robert John.”
“ That is peculiar,” I remarked.
“Yes,” said Wilton, taking a drink; “he was registered John Robert, and christened Robert John. Down in his native place he's known as young Robert, and up here in town he’s known either as John or Old Jack; that’s how it is. However, Til simply call him John for the present. I was aware that he knew a great deal about horses, and thought he might know something about boils.”
“Why? ” I inquired.
“I don’t know why,” replied Wilton, “I simply thought so. At all events, John said he could tell me of a cure. Said he, * eat a nutmeg; that’ll settle it. My uncle had a large collection of boils on his arm; he ate a nutmeg, and they all disappeared.’ I thanked my friend, and procured a nutmeg for a penny. I devoured it about eight o’clock in the evening. The eating of it took me about one minute; then I ate a small apple, to take the taste out of my mouth. After this I lit my pipe and took a walk for an hour or two, rehearsing my heroics in quiet places, till at length I sought my home and bed.”
“Feeling nothing of the nutmeg, I suppose?” I ventured to inquire.
“ Nothing whatever,” said Baker; “ I felt pleased at the prospect of getting rid of my boil. I spent about ten minutes at dumbbell exercise, to expand my chest to the size necessary for a hero, then went to bed and fell asleep. In the pitchy darkness of the night,” continued Wilton, dropping his voice a little, “I became aware that some person who had his head on my pillow woke up from slumber. It could not be the hero, I felt certain of that; for I had put him to bed two or three hours before in good health, whereas the individual who had just awakened was ill and sick and in dire extremity. I pinched all the legs I could find between the sheets, and the hero felt every pinch; my suspicions were aroused. Then I tried to groan, but the hero couldn’t; my suspicions fell again. I was convinced the invalid was some other person than myself, because I had never experienced any difficulty in groaning, when I had a desire to relieve my mind in that way. At last I thought of the boil; and, to my sorrow, found it on the cheek of the unhappy wretch who felt so bad.
“ I could disguise my identity no longer; with great difficulty I got the hero out of bed and propped him up in a chair, while he struck a match. I then lit a candle, and looked in the glass; to say that I was simply white would bring me under the condemnation of all liars: I was the very ghost of white, and my hair hung lank and damp over my care-lined brow, while that fiendish boil looked healthier than ever. I drew attention to the state of the hero’s mouth. Someone rOust have come into my chamber while I was sleeping and carefully varnished the inside of my mouth and my tongue, and waited till they dried. Then he must have given them a second coat, and waited till that dried. Then he must have given them a third coat and gone away. By the time I woke up, the third coat was dry.”
Wilton here paused to drink; the recollection of what he had once gone through, I suppose, made him feel thirsty. With a peaceful look on his truthful countenance he resumed: “I contend that my mouth that night was the driest ever known, save the mouth belonging to a baked sheep’s head. It was dry and hard. If a marble had been thrown into it, that marble would have bounced out again. And, then, it was so hot. I poured some cold water into it. Fancy may have played me false, but I believe I heard a slight hiss. I had to keep water in my mouth, and worry it round with the muscles of my cheeks a long time before I could persuade my tongue to become at all limp.
“ I crawled into bed again, and eat there a little time ruefully enough. I felt as weak and ill as if I had been given up by all the doctors. I felt as if my friends had all been in to say * good-bye* and gone away crying, and the undertaker’s man was in the next room, peeping through the key-hole, waiting for me to lie down, so that he might come in and measure me for my coffin. If there was one man in our street that night about two thousand per cent, deeper in tribulation than all the rest, it was the unhappy hero.
“ At first I put my feelings down to the boil, thinking it had possibly developed into a fever; but, by one of those sudden jerks of thought peculiar to the human mind, the nutmeg suddenly jumped into my recollection, and I remembered all in a second how I had read somewhere that a powerful medicinal oil is extracted from that little article. I shuddered and groaned to myself, Tve been and extracted it.’ This was actually the case.
“I lay down in bed. I moaned gently: *1 shall be more comfortable thus, and die straight.’ I would not rouse anyone in the house. * No,’ said the hero; * let them sleep and snore, while the victim to soirees and boils and nutmegs goeth out like a candle.’ I lay quite helpless. I felt no more power of locomotion in my limbs than a stuffed dog does. My thirst was very great. My body cold and damp, and my cheek exceedingly painful. In fact, all the vitality in my body seemed to be congregated round that diabolical boil. My thoughts were not pleasant ones. ’There’ll be an inquest in the house,’ I murmured; ‘verdict, “Died from the effects of eating a penny
nutmeg.” What a ridiculous finish for a hero! I must try and get over it for father’s sake; I know he dislikes a bother.’ This thought nerved me, and I managed to survive till daylight, with dejection and misery for my bedfellows. It was a runaway knock at death’s door, and nothing else.”
“ How did you get on the next day? ” I inquired.
Baker shook his head dolefully, and replied: “I was not much better all day. What I took to eat and drink made me sick. I stayed in bed till tea time, and then got up and sat by the fire a bit; but I was glad to get to bed again. The next day I felt pretty right, but very weak, and attended at the office, pondering thoughts of vengeance against my cruel friend John; for I felt sure he had hoaxed me.
“ In the evening of the third day I went to see him. He wanted to know what made me look so pale and savage. ‘John Robert John,’ I said severely, ‘you are a traitor. You have sacrificed the friendship of years for the sake of playing a foolish and hurtful jest.’
“ * Perhaps you’ll explain,* said my friend; ‘ Is this a new character for the soiree ? How is your boil ? *
“ I felt a little puzzled at John's innocence; ‘About that nutmeg?’ I inquired.
“ ‘ Well, what about it?’ said he.
“ ‘ What made you tell me to eat it? ’ I inquired, angrily.
“‘Because nutmeg cures boils,’ he replied; ‘at least, it cured my uncle, and I supposed it would cure you.*
“‘It has nearly killed me,* I said, and then I told him all my story.
“‘Do you mean to say,* inquired John, ‘that you were reckless enough to consume a whole nutmeg all at once?*
“ ‘ All at once,* I replied, ‘ in less time than a minute. You simply said, “Eat it,” and I ate it.*
“ ‘ Well,' said John, with a whistle, ‘ be thankful you are here to tell the tale. My uncle took twenty-four hours to nibble his, and then it made him feel very queer.’
“ So it appeared that I had done a very foolish thing; but I am happy to say that my boil disappeared in time to allow me to go to the soiree and personate the hero.”
“ Well now, my friend,” I said, “you were going to tell me about the acorn pipe; you seem to have forgotten it.”
“Well, so I had,” replied Baker, smiling, “ but that can be soon remedied. My friend John was very sorry for the pain I had suffered, and he made me a present of this pipe to show his sympathy was genuine; that is all.” D. Goggs.
^ B«to ^kriian ^pon.*
IV.
Aram the fierce Caaiupan, the Cacique Bamon, with a hundred and fifty Indians, comes into view. Attilio at first thought that they had a bloody purpose; but they simply joined the body of their countrymen who had preceded them, and, all being now peace and goodwill, Mansilla had to shake hands with two hundred and fifty Indians. Each of them, when undergoing this ceremony, hurled to heaven a horrible hurrah, and all his companions responded in chorus, and, in doing so, opened their mouth to its utmost width and struck it with the palm of the hand. The further evolution of affairs let Attilio, in animated fashion, depict:—“ The ranks being broken, the Indians and Argentines gave themselves up to play and pastime, as if they had been children; the horses were blended in groups like the men, and the gifts of civilisation and those of the wilderness were interchanged. Our sympathetic Colonel was busy winning the heart of the Cacique, for whom, in politeness, he had himself to prepare cigarros. He had also to drink the mat6 and the brandy first, in order to remove from the chiefs mind all distrust In the evening Mansilla told me that it is unavoidable to get drunk with these savages, because they are reckless in their drinking, and supremely distrust anyone who wishes to remain sober, thinking that he does so in order to kill them when they are intoxicated. However, the Cacique Bamon may be regarded as a connecting link between the civilised and the savage races. The son of an Indian father and of a Christian mother, he is tall and well made, has grey eyes, hair nearly blonde, a lofty brow, and a dignified demeanour. He dresses like an Argentine gaucho, is fond of the Christians, is by profession a goldsmith, sows grain, and governs his tribe with a hand of iron. While the two head men were exchanging maU, brandy, and courtesies, our Colonel had caused a fat mare to be slain, which the hungry and impatient Indians were in a mood too ravenous to cook. In a few instants the Indians had cut the mare’s throat, had torn the animal to pieces, and had devoured every morsel of the flesh, not leaving anything on the ground but the stomach and the intestines. Dear Giovanni, if you had been present at this scene, how great would your horror have been! While the poor animal was yet alive, the Indians, one after another, drank the blood from the severed veins of the neck, and the last who came received the blood into the hollow of their hands and sucked it with voluptuousness, and, if some drops remained, they annotated their face and their hair therewith, exhibiting all the signs of ferocious intaxioo-
II Dio Ignoto. Di Paolo Maniegaaza, Milano. Lfinaria SditriN G. Brigola. 1877.
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tion. I mv same of them throw themselves on the ground to lick the blood, which in falling had made stains and pools. In the evening, astounded by this scene in a world altogether new to me, I went from watch-fire to watch-fire, gazing, half with curiosity, half with honor, at these men, who seemed to me so different from me, and for whom I felt no sympathy. When my wandering phantasy vividly seized these grotesque and ferocious figures and brought them into strong contrast with my Dolores; when I thought that at the distance of a few days from the gilt and gorgeous halls of Buenos Ayres there were men whose supreme delight it was to drink the hot and gushing blood of mares and to get intoxicated, I half doubted my own existence and believed that I was dreaming. Whilst I was sitting on the prostrate trunk of an algarrobo, in a a corner of the encampment, the Colonel invited me to sup with him, and said that I might expect to be diverted by hearing the stories of an Indio, who spoke Spanish tolerably well, and who was a famous cantastorie in the tribe of the Cacique Ramon. The storyteller was rather drunk, and appeared proud of the attention shown him. He seemed to believe the monstrous fables he narrated. He said that he had a relative who had lived without a head; that there was a race of Indians, dwelling in a distant territory, whose only food was the fumes of the puchero; that there were also Indians who ran faster than ostriches, and who had the calves of their legs in front. Heaven knows how many other absurdities he went on pouring forth till a late hour in the night. Colonel Mansilla and the Cacique Ramon were much amused. I, on the contrary, was tired, and my thoughts rambled far, far away. After shifting our camp, we, followed by our new friends, continued our march to the Laguna di Caloumuleu (Lagoon of the Witches), where Caniupan, who persisted in pretending that he was the ambassador of the great Cacique Mariano, said that we must stop and await the arrival of the mighty prince of the desert. Fresh watch-fires had to be kindled, and there had again to be the slaughter of a mare. I beheld the same Indians, evermore coming and going, seldom, however, descending from horseback. The whole thing had for me the aspect of a wild witch dance, a dance of demons, the meaning of which I could not seize, and which merely astounded me. On the other hand, the Colonel seemed to swim in his element; he smoked and laughed, and said that his mission had now every promise of success, and that, without shedding a drop of blood, he was certain of gaining the alliance of the whole Ranqueline tribe. We are now at a short distance from the great Cacique Mariano; but he does not make himself manifest. I, who have not an intimate acquaintance with these men of the colour of dried beans, am unable to understand their tortuous, distrustful, infantile policy. To-day I was stretched on a bed sufficiently soft, of the whitest sand, when, in less than two hours, came to us four or five of Mariano’s messengers. They were all on horseback, and when talking did not dismount. One of them said to Mansilla: ‘The General sends me to inquire how you are?’ ‘Tell him that I am stretched at my ease on the ground,’ replied tbe Colonel. Another came, and uttered nearly the same words: ‘The General wants to know how you are?’ ‘Tell him to seek for one of the witches that live in the neighbouring lagoon, who can inform him in what state he is likely to be who, having nothing else to eat, is devouring the mules that he has need of to return to his country.’ A third repeated the same inquiry as the first two; and Mansilla replied with a big oath, the biggest, coarsest, fiercest oath in the Spanish dictionary. Then he added: ‘Tell the General that he is a barbarian; that he distrusts a brave man who, unarmed, confided in him, while on other occasions the General is ready to put faith in any rogue or vagabond who thinks it worth while to humbug him.’ (In Spanish he made use of a word much more energetic, much less parliamentary.) Mansilla’s replies surprised me more and more; but he laughed at my astonishment, and, darting toward heaven a dense azure cloud of smoke, he exclaimed: ‘In dealing with savages, it is always better to pass for a brute than a fool.’”
The etiquette for a reception at the Court of Mariano Rosas had more than even Chinese minuteness, tediousness, and strictness. There were still, after what has been described, four or five successive embassies. Then the Brujac, or professional or official witches, had to be consulted regarding the advisableness of hospitably entertaining Colonel Mansilla, and of entering into alliance with him and with those whom he represented. The prognostics of the Brujas were unfavourable. This result thwarted Mariano’s policy and plans. Superstition can always be made the slave and the flatterer of tyranny. Mariano gave command that the signs should be anew and more carefully examined. These were the course of the sun, the flight of birds, and the smoke of tbe burning excrement of cows. The vaticinations were now altogether different. The witches said that they had been mistaken, and the advent of Mansilla was declared to be the luckiest thing in the world. What next occurred let Us hear:—“ It was now only that we obtained permission to dismount. As long as a friend or an enemy is on horseback he is regarded (by the Indians) as a stranger, and no earnest or affectionate relation can be established with him. When we had dismounted, the last, the most terrible, salutation came. Mariano Rosas approached Mansilla, and stretching forth his right hand, he clasped the right hand of the Colonel, who thereupon responded in like fashion. Then the Cacique
gave Mansilla a vigorous thump on the arm, and Mansilla paid back the same coin by a vigorous thump on the Cacique's arm. Then Rosas embraced Mansilla, first throwing his arm round Manailia’s left shoulder; then he embraced him throwing his arm round Mansilla’s right shoulder. Then ha raised Mansilla from the ground and held him on high, hurling at the same time into space a stentorian cry. Then Mansilla raised Mariano Rosas from the ground and held him on high, uttering, in his turn, a colossal and very prolonged A-a-a-a-h! Figure to yourself, dear Giovanni, that poor Mansilla had to salute, to shake hands with, to embrace, and to raise from the ground, one after another, all the smaller Caciques, all the Capitanejos, all the followers of Mariano Rosas. I and others in the camp had not to do more than simply shake hands with the Indians. Tired to death and covered with perspiration, Mansilla did not lose patience, but looked at me with a smile. Assuredly our Colonel is a great philosopher.”
Victor Hugo never drew a more magnificent, a more terrible picture than that which Attilio now offers us of a wild Indian drinking bout. We must pass this by, however, and Attilio’s account of love-making among the Ranqueles, and of the first attempt at a despatch of business between Mansilla and Mariano Rosas. As we hasten on, these passages arrest us: “ The Ranqueles have their Ideal World, their God, Cucha* uentru (Great Man), or Chachao, the Father of all; and their Devil, Gualicho; both of them are invisible. They have a dread of old women; in them they think is personified the genius of evil, and woe to the old women if, when they are near, any misfortune happens. They are then secretly immolated without pity, in order that with them may perish the genius of evil. The Ranqueles believe in the immortality of the soul and in metempsychosis. They revere the dead, and bury them with all manner of honours; they place in the grave along with them the favourite horses and the most valuable articles of silver. The most universal passion (among the Ranqueles) is that for Tobacco. They smoke desperately, and it would oe difficult to say whether their preference is greater for brandy or for Tobacco. They smoke cigars, cigarillos, and pipes. There is not an Indian that has not his Cachimbito (small pipe), which he makes himself, and which is very simple, being formed of white, soft wood. They smoke stretched out at full length; they use very strong Tobacco, and after a few draws they are convulsed and fall into a profound lethargy.”
However exciting the new scenes might be to Attilio, it was not for pleasure that Colonel Mansilla was travelling in the wilderness, but for the despatch of a very definite and important affair, in reference to which Attilio says:—“The covenant with the Ranqueles took yesterday a great step forward ; indeed, I might almost say that it is an accomplished fact. Mariano Rosas had invited all the Caciques, all the Capitanejos Ranquelinos dependent on him. After partaking very freely of maU and brandy, they were all seated in a circle, Mariano and Mansilla being placed in the middle. Now, for the first time, the chief Cacique Mariano discoursed. At very great length he spoke, modulating his voice from the one pole to the other, so that one moment he talked in whispers which could scarcely be heard, the next roared even as the thunder roars. One moment he cast down his eyes to the ground; the next he raised them, like an inspired person, to heaven. Several times I saw him shake his head and make his body tremble as if he had been	possessed by a	*
spirit. Those gathered round sometimes	expressed their	i
approval, sometimes their disapproval. In the first case the ! orator lowered his voice, in the second he	raised it to its	;
highest key. As last he ceased speaking,	and there was a	i
brief interval of rest. My neighbour explained to me that ; Mariano had spoken of the probity of the Indians and of the ' treacheries of the Christians, and had ended by inviting the 1 Colonel to read all the articles of the covenant which was ] proposed to him; adding that he desired that every one of his dependents should know the articles well, for he wished	’
nothing but what they also wished. Mansilla spoke in	’
Spanish, trying to imitate the Ranqueline rhetoric, and discoursing of God, of the Devil, of heaven, of earth, of the	I
stars, of the probity of the Christians, the treachery of the	[
Indians, and so on. Thereupon he proceeded to read the	J
articles of the treaty of peace proposed by the Argentine Government to the tribe of the Ranqueles, and according to f which they were, in exchange for a part of their territory, to receive every quarter a generous gift of horses, of cows, of j sheep, of yerba, oi sugar, and of Tobacco. Those present J interrupted the reading of every article by shouting ‘It is ’ far too little, far too little, far too little.’ Mariano delivered ' a second very long discourse, to prove to us that his Indians were really poor, and that what was offered was, in truth, i too little.”
After what threatened to be interminable arglebargIcings, the terms of the covenant were settled, to the apparent, if not ( to the real, satisfaction of both parties. The next phase in the.	•
development of his own destiny Attilio thus depicts:—“ This morning Mariano Rosas sent for the Colonel, saying that he wished to see him in the company of his secretary. It was not	J
easy to divine the motive of this unaccustomed invitation;	/
yet we went to the toldo of the Cacique without the slightest	‘
mistrust. Lying on his bed of sheepskins, he was smoking.	.
With one of his hands he was caressing his favourite daughter,	'
Katriel, fourteen, or, at the most, fifteen years old. We had	1
scarcely entered when that dark and wild gazelle threw at me
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a burning glance. I had not observed her gazing at me in this way before. Having flung the flash of her eyes at me, she darted away like a fawn pursued by the hunter. Mariano slightly changed colour, looked embarrassed, and invited us to sit down beside him. Then he said: ‘I love you very much, Colonel.* ‘And I love you,too, General Mariano.’ ‘I love you more than a brother, and I wish to give you a solemn proof thereof.’ ‘ I do not need any proof; you have signed the treaty of alliance I proposed to you; I know that you will maintain it faithfully, and that is enough for me.’ ‘No; I wish to give you my poncho, the one which was woven for me by my favourite wife.’ * No; I cannot accept it. I know how much value this poncho has among the Indians; it is for them what is for us the nuptial ring; it is the holiest article in the house; it is like a domestic idol.’ ‘ It is precisely for that reason that I wish to give my poncho to you. Thus it is that my Indians can be persuaded how warm my regard is for you. And if some day the peace is broken, and we stand face to face with each other on the field of battle, by this poncho we can all recognise you and all show our respect for you.’ ‘ Thanks, Mariano. You astonish me by this new and unexpected courtesy.’ From the tone, however, of Mansilla’s words it might clearly be seen that he was more annoyed than gratified by this gift, more distrustful than deeply moved, and that he sought in vain to discover the sudden cause of this courtesy. Meanwhile the Cacique had taken off the valuable poncho, and placed it on the shoulders of the Colonel. There was a long silence, interrupted only by the offer of cigars and by talk about fine weather and bad weather. But Mariano had not yet uttered the important thing which was deepest in his mind, and which made his speech hampered and hesitated. To force Mariano to speak, Mansilla moved toward the entrance of the toldo. Thereupon the Cacique, making a great effort, began to shower upon our chief the titles the most honorific and the adjectives the most affectionate: ‘Dearest comrade, my brother, my friend.* Then Mariano stopped. ‘But,’ cried Mansilla, ‘you want to say something to me, and yet you keep silence regarding it. Do you distrust me? Have I not given you proof of the greatest possible frankness?’ ‘Signor Colonel, my Indians always distrust you; but I	’ ‘And what can I do to persuade them of my honesty, of my good faith?’ ‘They want a hostage,’ exclaimed Mariano at last, in an explosive voice, as if these words had stuck in his throat and had not till that moment been able to burst forth. ‘A hostage?’ cried Mansilla, in accents of surprise. ‘ Yes, one of your friends, to remain with us for one or two years, till some of the quarterly payments for the surrendered territory are made by the Government of Buenos Ayres.’ ‘But which of my friends can you wish? On whom could I impose it? And with what right ? ’ * I swear to you that your friend shall be treated as my son. I myself will take care of him, and will lodge him in my own toldo, in which you now yourself dwell.’ Mansilla was silent, frowned, and seemed to be in a very bad humour. Then he said: *1 am to leave you a hostage, because my spoken and written word is not sufficient for you; while I do not demand from you any guarantee.’ A fierce Spanish oath concluded the period. ‘Do not be angry, Colonel. I am not distrustful; it is my Indians who are distrustful. You others can in some fashion take possession suddenly of the territory we have ceded to you, while we	* ‘While we, while we—in short, whom do you wish me to leave in your wilderness?’ Mariano looked at me very fixedly; then, in slow and broken accents, said: ‘ Your secretary, for instance.’ Wildly Mansilla started to hie feet, swearing like a gaucho, and exhibiting the most extraordinary figure I ever beheld. As for me, I, plunged in astonishment, remained where I was. My eye was fastened on a point of the wall of the toldo where for some time I thought I had seen an eye, a very dark eye, sending its flashes into the apartment where we were. At the outburst of the Colonel’s oaths the eye had vanished, but soon after it reappeared. The interval between stake and stake of the earamada was sufficiently large for me to see, during that movement, the profile of a nose, and to recognise in the hidden person so full of curiosity the daughter of Mariano, Katriel. In the excess of his annoyance at Mariano’s proposal, Mansilla exclaimed: ‘But Attilio does not depend on me; he became my secretary for his own pleasure, and I pay him nothing. He lives on his own means, and, besides, makes splendid gifts to my assistants and to all who serve him. But what has put it into your head to propose Attilio as hostage? He is not even an Argentine.’ Mariano was much troubled by his own proposal, and by the hurricane of wrath which it had excited, and excused himself by saying that many of his friends had mentioned the name of the secretary. I meanwhile, the victim designated to serve as guarantee for the Ranqueline treaty, was the least disquieted of the three, and continued to gaze at that dark and gleaming eye, which seemed to fascinate me by a species of persistent and invincible magnetism. In accents the sweetest he could employ, in accents almost tearful, Mariano, addressing me, said: ‘Don Attilio, you have used expressions of great kindness to me, discoursing of our customs and of the pleasures of the chase.’ He looked at me as if imploring me to give the right kind of answer. With the greatest imaginable calm, I replied: ‘If there is no other difficulty than my assent, I readily give it to you. I am willing to be an Indian for two or three years.* ‘ Indeed 1* exclaimed Mansilla, who seemed to fall from the clouds.	‘Yes, Colonel. I need to forget all my past existence, to re-make for myself a new life, to learn to know and to expend my being afresh. This independent and hard life, all movement and daring and agility, is sure to renovate my body, my nerves, my thoughts. If I could fly to Europe, without re-passing through Buenos Ayres, I might, perchance, return to my native land; but the mere idea of seeing again the streets of the Argentine capital troubles me profoundly, makes me mad.’ I had no sooner spoken than Mariano seemed intoxicated with joy. He rushed toward me to embrace me, to kiss me, to clasp my hand, and to pour forth upon me a world of courtesies and flatteries. I continued to gaze at that black eye, and built with its glances a marvellous fabric of romance.” Katriel’s passionate love of Attilio had made the young Indian girl a skilful diplomatist. We see the result. Attilio’s resolution to remain gladdened, however, the hearts of all the Banqueles. When the hour for parting from the gallant and generous Mansilla arrived, Attilio’s courage for a moment broke down; but it was too late to recede. Some of the closing words of Attilio’s letter to Giovanni are impressive:— “The Ranqueles are descendants of the Araucanians, with whom they have in common customs, language, and many anatomical characteristics. They have a narrow forehead, salient cheek bones, short, flat nose, a large mouth, protru-berant lips, eyes depressed at the external angle, the hair of the head abundant and coarse, very little hair on the face, copper colour, middle height, broad shoulders, vigorous limbs. As to the future of their race, it seems to me to be foreshadowed in a cynical dialogue which one day took place between Mariano Rosas and Mansilla, and which so deeply interested me that I still retain the exact words. Colonel Mansilla said: 'Brother, the Christians have hitherto done all they could for the Indians; and they are certain to do henceforth all they can for them.’ With visible irony, Mariano replied: ‘Brother, whenever able, the Christians have massacred us; and, if they were able, they would massacre us all to-morrow. They have taught us to use fine ponchos, to take mat6, to smoke, to eat sugar, to drink wine, to wear good boots. But they have not taught us to work, or to know their God. What gratitude, therefore, do we owe them?’ Poor Mariano was right; and, with much bitterness, pronounced the severest condemnation on what the Spaniards, the Portuguese, and even the English have done, when, as conquerors, they have come into contact with inferior races.” Be ^f (From “Puck,” February 19th, 1879.) With heavy heart, and spirits low, And dark a face, and stern a brow As any friar, I seek my room, my easy chair, My slippers, (ah! no fancy pair Of wool-work, wrought by fingers fair,) My humble briar. I cannot find my pipe, and—well, I mutter words one mustn’t spell— It’s too bad, this is. Ah! found at last—a light, a whiff, And that has saved me from a tiff With Miss or Missis. I watch the fleecy cloud, and soon Am off to Spain, or in the moon, Ah! reader, what age Are you ? Young ? Then I’ll confess My dream is one of happiness, And in a cottage! A rustic cot, embowered ’mid elms, And bright with flowers as are the realms Of fairy story; A summer runlet trickles by, We wander there, the One and I, And watch the grand old painter die In crimson glory. She murmers, “You must make a Name.'* I seek the Bar, and rise to Fame, Become Chief Justice! I feel the coming man has come; I think how true the axiom, “ What must be, must,” is. I wake my lyre to noblest themes, I weave a poet’s perfect dreams, The nations listen; I sing of Love, and Sorrow dies, Of Grief, and many a pair of eyes With tear-drops glisten. Among the elected few with pride I sit: the leader of a side Attacks me, and is glad to hide His head diminished; I—ah! my dreams dissolve in air, And I am back to facts and care— My pipe is finished!	Abthub Hostage.
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Mabch, 1879.]	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	813
NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. Fie cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; and us do not hold ourselves responsible for loss.	SMOKING: WHEN INJURIOUS, WHEN INNOCUOUS, WHEN BENEFICIAL, WITH COMPENDIUM OF THE TEMPERAMENTS, SHOWING HOW THEY ABB INFLUENCED BY TOBJLCOO. BT J. CARRICK MURRAY, M.D., F.A.I., Ne*catlU,,pon~Tyne. Price Is. Free by Post. Is. Ud. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. Newcastle-on-Tyne: D.H. Wilson. Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4b. &|n printers’ Register, A JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOR GREAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND THE COLONIES. THE PRINTERS’ REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Home and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India, China, Canada, Ac.; and it affords the best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August, 1875. Address—The Editor, St. Bride Street, London, E.O.
COPE’S 1879 CARD. THE PURSUIT OF DIVA NICOTINA. WITH APOLOGIES TO THE PAINTER OF “THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE.” Subscribers to the “Tobacco Plant” for 1879 will receive a copy of Pubsuit of Diva Nicotina and Key, carefully packed upon a roller, by forwarding Cd. to pay carriage. Price to Non-Subscribers, 1/-. Subscription tar “ Tobacco Plant,” 2/* per annum, poet free. Subscription for “ Tobacco Plant ” and Pursuit or Diva Nicotina, 2/6. Publishing Office:—10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.	
VEW YORK TOBACCO LEAF, Organ of the Tobacco . Trade of the United States. Published weekly. Subscription, 20/- per Annum, post free to any part of the United Kingdom. Sole Agents for the United Kingdom— Cope Bros. & Co., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by whom Advertisements and Subscriptions will be received. Specimen copy sent for Id. postage stamp. THE VIRGINIA TOBACCO JOURNAL is published every 1 Thursday Morning by Jones, Marstin, & Co., No. 724, Main Street, Richmond, Va. Terms of Subscription: Single copies, 10c.; one year, H; six months, $2. Annual Subscriptions abroad: Great Britain and Canada, $5.04; Bremen, Hamburg, and the Continent, $5.04; Australia, <fcc., vid England, $5.04; Cuba, $5.04.	
	u. s. TOBACCO JOURNAL, 184, MAIDEN LANE (CORNER OF WATER STREET), NEW YORK. Oscar Hammerstein, Editor. Subscription: $3.00 per annum. WORKS on TOBACCO, SNUFF, &c.—Booksellers H having Books on Tobacco, Snuff, Ac., or Magazines, Journals, or Newspapers containing articles on the subject, ore invited to report such to the Office of COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
SOLACE. One Shilling Bundles, containing 4 Cigars.
ENGLAND’S BEST. One Shilling Bundles, containing 6 Cigars.
The Richmond Cavendish Company, Limited,
BONDED TOBACCO WORKS,
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"UNION”	“ANCHOR.”	“NEPTUNE”
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Always on Hand, a Large Stock of Pressed Tobacco, Bright Cavendish in All Sizes, and a Well-selected Stock of American Manufactured Cavendish.
Prlee Lists on Application.
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314	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[March,-left/
These really beautiful Goods are rapidly growing into favour, and invariably make a trade wherever introduced.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes.
In Cardboard Boxes, containing 50.
In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1000, with lock and key.
Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made from a peculiar kind of Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking of this Tobacco is said to give relief in cases of Asthma.	’
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FAIRY BRAND, in CARDBOARD BOXES, GOLD MOUNTED, with BEAUTIFUL PARISIAN LABEL, CONTAINING TEN Internal PACKETS of TEN CIGARILLOS EACH._________________________
New Cigarette—Cope’s Whiffs.
In Bundles of ten, lead foil, and neat label. In Cedar Boxes, containing forty bundles, or 400 Cigarettes.
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Bouquet (With Tubes).
Peerless (Without Tubes).
In Cardboard Boxes, containing four bundles of 25 Cigaretos.
In very handsome Cedar Cases, containing Ten Boxes, or 1000 Cigaretos.
Delicate in flavour; burn evenly, with a firm white ash; made with great care for a mild morning smoke. *
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INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
No. 109.—Vol. II.]	APRIL
Matta legislation in the Sbrcc liingboms.
II.
From the same “First Annual Customs’ Report,’’ pp. 62-3, we learn that by Letters Patent 28th July, 1608, on the plea of “argent and important occasions,” “and now particularly for the service of Ireland, where we have sent good numbers of horse and foot for suppressing a late rebellion,” and with the excuse that if the subsidy of poundage had been truly paid no further tax would be necessary, James ordained a new Imposition of “just so much” as the said subsidy; annexing a schedule of merchandises valued, some more and some less, for the Imposition than in his Book of Rates for the Subsidy. Need it be said that Tobacco was of those valued more? In the Book of Rates, as already mentioned, it was valued at 6s. 8d. per lb.; in the Schedule at 20s.: so that the Imposition on it (an imposition indeed) instead of being 4d., or “just so much” as the Poundage, was really Is., or just three times so much. We have thus Tobacco burdened with 6s. 10d. Customs, 4d. Poundage or Subsidy, and Is. Imposition, in all 8s. 2d. per lb., equal to about 25s. in our days; but enormous as this tax appears, and was, it was really very much less ad valorem than the 3s. 6d. extorted from Unmanufactured by our present enlightened Government. It may be noted that this Imposition, like that of the “ Commissio,” being unsanctioned by Parliament, was thoroughly unconstitutional; as were also the arbitrary assessments in the Book of Rates, and their arbitrary increase in the Schedule. We shall find James’s worthy pupil and successor in his noble art of kingcraft reaping, in due time, the proper ripe harvest of such theories ami practice ; or will the harvest, by a strange inversion, reap him ?
, ^^’ AP1^ 7th.—In Rymer, “Foedera,” under date, we find “ Commissio Specialis Concernens le Garbling Herb® Nicotian®,” issued by James, “Per Breve de Privato Sigillo.” It recites that divers provisions have been made for the well Garblinge of Spices and Druggs [Garble (It. garbellare) ; to sift, to part, to separate the good from the bad : “ Johnson’s Dictionary,” 1757; citing Dryden and Locke]; “And that the Druggs (called Tobacco) being of late Years grown frequent in this our Realme and other our Dominions was daylie sould ungarbled, whereby more inconvenience groweth and ariseth to our laving Subjects then by any other Druggs whatsoever. * And being also informed that [by] the many and sundry Abuses practized and committed by Marchantes, Masters of Ships and others, in concealing and uttering the said Tobacco without paying any Ympost or Custome for the same, greate Losse and Damage accreweth to Us notwithstandinge any Lawes Statutes or other Course heretofore! taken ; that for preventing thereof Wee did by our Letters Patent under our Great Seal of England, bearing date the 25th day of May last [wot in Rymer'}, forbid the Sale, in England, Wales, Barwicke, or Ireland, of any Tobacco of what sorte kinde or groweth whatsoever, before the Custome and Ymposte therefore due were paide, and the same Tobacco were viewed distinguished and sealed by the Officer or Officers of Us in that behalf to be constituted and appointed ; and that, to the intent our Will and Pleasure in the Premisses might be the better knowne to all our lovinge Subjects, Wee did confirm the said Letters Patent by our Proclamation bearing Date the lOtA November last past [also not in Rymer}: Wherefore Wee,
For the horrible adulteration, sophistication, or garbling in the modern (which has come to be commonly just about the contrary of the old, Min other cases; e.g., let, nothing Ism, prevent, ingenious), already then prevalent.
1Qr7G FPRICE TWOPENCE.
1O( [Annual Subscription —Post Free,2/
continewing our former Resolution and Purpose to provide for the Health and Welfare of our loving Subjects, appoint and name you Commissioners, one Knight, one Doctor of Phisicke, two Citizens and Grocers, two Merchaunts, and two Citizens and Apothecaryes, of London, with full Power and Authoritie unto you, or any five or more of you (whereof one of you to be a Phisition, one other a Merchant, one a Grocer and one an Apothecarie), to conceive make ordayn treat digest and set down such and soe many good and tit Ordinances Orders and Directions in Writing for the manner of garbling and distinguishing of the aforesaid Drug called Tobacco, whereby the Goodness or Badness of the said Tobacco may discerned, and the Deceipte and Abuse of our Subjects may be prevented, and yet the Sale and Utterance of that which is wholsome and fit for use maye not be hindred or impayred to the Hurte or Prejudice of the Marchants or Retailors of the same Tobacco ; and Wee do hereby will and require you to make returne of your whole Proceedings, together with this our Commission, into our Court of Chauncerie, at the furthest before the two and twentieth Day of Aprill now next cominge; and Wee hereby requyer and command that the said Commission and Ordinances shall be forthwith inrolled in the said Court, to the end the same may be the better put in execution.”
1620; June 29th.—In Rymer, “Fcedera,” under date, we have “ Proclamatio super abusu Herbie Nicotian®” (“A Proclamation for Restraint of the disordered Trading of Tobacco.’’) The preamble is pathetic: “Whereas We, Out of the dislike we had of the use of Tobacco, tending to a generall and new Corruption both of Mens Bodies and Manners, and yet nevertheles houlding it of the two more tollerable that the same should be ymported amongest many other Vanities and Superfluities which came from beyond the Seas, then permitted to be planted here within this Realm, thereby to abuse and misimploy the Soile of this fruitfull Kingdome;
“Did, by our Proclamation, dated the thirtieth Day of December nowe last past [also not in Rymer} straightly charg and comaund all and everie Person and Persons, of what Degree or Condition soever, that they or any of them, by themselves their Servantes, Workemen or Laborers, should not, from and after the Second Day of February then next following, presume to sowe set or planted (sic) within this our Realme of England and the Dominion of Wales, any sort or kinde of Tobacco whatsoever, and that they or any of them shold not maintaine or conteynue any old Stockes or Plantes of Tobacco formerly Sowen or planted, but shold forthwith utterly destroy and roote up the same:
“ And whereas we have taken into our Roiall Consideration, as well the great Waste and Consumption of the Wealth of our Kingdomes, as the endangering and impairing of the Health of our Subjectes by the inordinate Liberty and Abuse of Tobacco, being a Weed of no necessarie Use, and but of late Yeares brought into our Dominions, and being credibly informed that divers Tobacconists and other mean Persons [a cmel cut!}, taking upon them to trade and adventure into the partes beyond the Seas of Tobacco, to the intent to forestall and ingross the Said Comodity upon unmerchantlike Conditions, doe transport much Gould, Bullion and Coyne out of our Kingdomes, and do barter and vent the staple Como-dities of our Realme at under Values [the poor innocents!} to the intent to buy Tobacco, to the Discreditt of our native Merchandizes, and extream enhansing of the Rates and Prizes of Tobacco [tender consideration! after raising the Custom just 4000 per cent, and imposing unconstitutional subsidy] , and the great Disturbance and Decay of the Trade of the orderly and good Merchants;
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816	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[April, 1879.	
“ We, taking the Premisses into our Princely Consideration, and being desirous to put a Remedy to the said Inconveniences, which we have long endeavoured, though with less effect than we expected [as usual in your Majesty's dealings with Tobacco], have resolved to make some further redress by restraining the disordered Traffique in that Comodity, and reduceing it into the Handes of able Persons that may manage the same with* out inconvenience, whereby the generail Abuse may be taken away, and the necessarie Use, if any be, [wise reservation /] may be preserved; “Wee doe therefore, not only by these Presents, straitly charg and command that our said Proclamation restraineing the Planting of Tobacco be in everie respect observed and performed, according to the tenor thereof, upon the Penalties therein contained, but also that no Person or Persons whatsoever, Englishmen, Denizens or Strangers, other then such as shal be authorized and appointed thereunto by Letters Patents under our Great Beal of England [so that, it appears. We mean to prevent commercial forestalling and ingrossing' by strict enforcement of most uncommercial and unconstitutional Monopolies granted to our egregious favourites, our minions or privati!], doe import or cause to be imported into this our Realme of England or Domynion of Wales, or any part of them or either of them, any Tobacco of what nature kinde or sort soever after the Tenth Day of July next ensuing the Date hereof, from any the Partes beyond the Seas upon paine of Forfeiture to Us of all such Tobacco . . . and upon such further Paines and Penalties as by the Lawes and Statutes of this Realme [N.B.—We don't find Tobacco in the Statutes before the Ever-Blessed Restoration; it is only in arbitrary and unconstitutional Proclamations like the present.] or by the Severity or Censure of our Court of Starrchamber [ominous name/] may be inflicted upon the Offenders for Contempt of this our Royall Comaunde ”:— To the Intent that no Tobacco be brought in, contrarie to our Pleasure before expressed, under Pretence of former Store, we do straitly charge and comaund that all and everie Person and Persons having within or nere the Cities of London or Westminster, before the Said 10th July next, Tobacco amounting to tenn Poundes Weight or above, shall before the said day bring the same unto the House commonly called the Hawke and Feasant scituate in Cornehill in the said City of London, to be sealed and marked, as shall be by Us appoynted, without any Fee or Allowance. And to the Intent that the Tobacco to be hereafter imported, by Warrant and Authority under our great Seal, maie be distinguished from such as shall be brought in by Stealth, we do comaund that all the former shall be sealed and marked with the same Seal and Mark as that already in Store, and do prohibit any Person to buy utter sell or vent within the said Kingdome and Dominion any Roll or other gross Quan-titie of Tobacco, before the same be so marked or sealed, upon Pain of Forfeiture unto Us of all such Tobacco, and upon such further Penalties as by our Lawes, or by the Censure of our Court of Starchamber may be inflicted. The remaining Clauses command all Customers, Comptrollers, and other Officers to search all Ships for contraband Tobacco; give power to such as shall be authorized to import [apparently, Monopolists] or their Deputies with a lawfull Officer to enter and search any suspected places for the same; requires all Majors, Sherriffes, Justices of Peace, Customs Officers, etc., etc., to be diligent in the execution hereof, and in ading the authorized Importer or Importers or Deputies; and lastly commands the Attorney Generali to inform in our Court of Starchamber from tyme to tyme against such Persons whose Disobedience herein shall meritt the Censure of the said Court [and we know what the Censure of this Court meant in this and the following reign]. 1624; September 29th.—In Rymer, “Foedera,” under date, is a long “Proclamation concerning Tobacco,” “Given at our Honour of Hampton Court, Per ipsum Regem," of which the preamble seems worth quoting at length here:— “Whereas our Commons assembled in our last Sessions of Parliament became humble Petitioners unto Us, that for many weighty Reasons much concerning the Welfare of our Kingdom and the Trade thereof, we would by our Royal Power utterly prohibite the Use of all Foreyne Tobacco, which is not of the Growth of our own Domynions: “And whereas we have upon all occasions made known our Dislike we have ever had of the Use of Tobacco in generall [certainly your Majesty has!] * as tending to the Corruption * His Majesty keeps announcing to his people this his great Dislike. Let ns think for a moment of his Likes. Most of our readers must be familiar ■with Macaulay’s sketch (“Essay on Memorials of Hampden”) of the sovereign who most resembled Claudius Cresar; but a few of its lines may find place here:—“ The ignominious fondness of the King for his minions, the perjuries, the sorceries, the poisonings which his chief favourites had planned within the walls of his palace, the pardon which, in direct violation of his duty and of his word, he had granted to the mysterious threats of a murderer [Carr] made him an object of loathing to many of his subjects. . . . England was no place, the seventeenth century no time, for Sporus and Locusta. . . . The most ridiculous weaknesses seemed to meet in the wretched Solomon of Whitehall, pedantry, buffoonery, garrulity, low curiosity, the most contemptible personal cowardice. Nature and education had done their best to produce a finished specimen of all that a king ought not to be.” Is Macaulay, as usual, over emphatic in this case ? Compare the more judicial Mr. John Hill Burton, in his contrast of Mary and James (“History of Scotland,” Vol. VL, pp. 160 ft seq.):—“Queen Mary had learning and accomplishments, but they lay stored aside for important use. . . . AU the world knows what a bragging pedant the son was, and how he held his learning ever on his tongue, as one who had been fed with meats too strong for his digestion. So it was in the case of duplicity. . . . The son, on other hand, was ever playing tricks, by way of exercising himself	of both the Health and Manners of our People, and to that purpose have, at several Tymes heretofore, prohibited the planting of Tobacco both in England and Wales as utterly unfyt in respect of the Clymate to cherishe the same for any Medicinall Use, which is the only Good to be approved in yt; and at other tymes have also prohibited the disorderly Trading for Tobacco into the Partes beyond the Seas; as by our several Proclamations [always arbitrary Proclamations, not legal Statutes] published to that purpose yt may appeare: “Nevertheless, because we have been earnestly and often ymportuned by many of our loving Subjects, Planters and Adventurers in Virginia and the Sommer Islandes, and lately our Commissioners for Virginia, that we would be pleased to take into our Royal Care that part of our Dominions by our Royal authority, and by the Industrys of our Loyal Subjects added to the rest of our Empyre, for the Propagation of Christian Religion, and the Ease and Benefyt of this populous Realme; and to consider that the Colonies and Plantations are yet but in their Infancy, and cannot be brought to Maturity and Perfection unles we will to be pleased for a tyme to tollerate unto them the planting and venting of the Tobacco, which is and shall be of the Growth of those Colonies and Plantations; Wee, taking into our Princely Consideration theise and many other ymportant Reasons of State, have been graciously pleased to condescend to the Desires and humble Petitions of our loving Subjects in this behalfe.” Therefore we straightly charge and command that no Person whatsoever doe at any tyme hereafter ymporte or cause to be ymported from any parte beyond the Seas, or out of our Kingdome of Scotlande, into England or Wales or Ireland, any Tobacco not of the proper Growth of the Plantation of Virginia and the Sommer Islandes, or one of them, upon Payne of Forfeiture unto Us of all such Tobacco, and upon such further Pains and Penalties as by the Lawes and Statutes of theise our Realmes or by our Courte of Starchamber may be inflicted. “And we further will and command, upon the Penalties aforesaid, that from henceforth no Person or Persons whatsoever presume to sowe sett or plante, or cause or permit or suffer to be sowed sett or planted in any of his or their Groundes any Tobacco whatsoever within theise our Realmes of England or Ireland or Domynion of Wales, or any Isles or Places belonging thereto; or permit or suffer any ould Stock Plant or Roote of Tobacco, formerly sett sowed or planted there, to contynue not plucked upp and utterly destroyed, contrarie to the Tenor and true Meaning of a former Proclamation made and published by Us to that purpose, bearing Date the thirtieth Day of December in the seaventeenth Yere of our Raigne of England (1619).” And because we understand that some, who intende their owne private more than the publique [the miscreants! under such a King of such Proclamations, ever cherishing the public good by means of some Ramsau, Hay, Herbert, Carr, or Villiers!] have lately ymported by Stealth great Quantities of Forrayne Tobacco, for which they have payed no Subsidye or other Dutye unto Us; We further will and commando under the Payns and Penalties aforesaid, that noe Person from and after the 25th March next presume to sell any such Tobacco formerly ymported; nor that any person knowingly take or use any such Tobacco from and after the 1st May next; yet because the said Forreyne Tobacco may not lye on the Handes of the Owners thereof, wee are graciously pleased that at any tyme within Fourteen Dayes after the said 25th March next such Forrayne Tobacco may be freely exported by any Person, without paying any Subsidye or other Dutye for the same. . in that chronic system of mendacity and deception which he chose to nourish as kingcraft. . . . Her son, on the other hand, wallowed in filth, moral and physical His Court was the crew of Momus without the seductive cup of Circe, that was employed to sink better natures to the level of its degradation. To whoever approached it, the eye and nostrils told of the abomination before he entered [disinfecting fumigation, say of Tobacco, very desirable I], and he made his election in full consciousness of what it was. The meanness of those about him, his [James's] loathsome familiarities with them, his diseased curiosity about the things that rightly-tempered minds only approach at the bidding of necessity and duty, his propensity to touch and stir whatever was rank and offensive, afforded to his malignant enemies the range over the whole scale of sensual vices u their armoury. And yet there is reason to believe that he was not an unfaithful husband, and that his only personal vice was in the bottle. Mr. Burton goes on to quote the famous “Character” or personal description of James, “from the stinging pen of Sir Anthony Weldon. It may be doubted if there is in the English language a more thoroughly finished picture of a shambling lout.” And again, of his Court, influenced by his example, thus soith an eye-witness:—“Men who had been shy of good liquor before now wallowed in beastly delights: ladies abandoned their sobriety, and were seen to roll about in intoxication.” (Sir John Harrington, in “Nugie Antiquw”; cited in “Pictorial History of England,” nL,XM.) Yet again (1614):—“He was excessively addicted to hunting and drinking, not ordinary French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines; and though he would divide his hunting from drinking these wines, yet he would compound his hunting with drinking; and to that purpose he was attended with a special officer who was, as much as could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in his hunting, when he called for it. .1 . . Whether it were drinking these wines, or from some other cause, the King became so lazy and unwieldy that he was trussed on horseback, and, as he was set, so would he ride, without otherwise poising himself on his saddle; nay, when his hat was set on his head he would not take the pains to alter it, but it sate as it was put on.” (“Roger Coke”; cited in same, p. 54). A noble Nimrod 1 “ 0 lean-hearted member of the Anti-Snuff and Tobacco Club!” (so I find you apostrophised) such was the monarch of your adoration, the right royal Anti of Antis, a shining contrast to our poor first of smokers, whom he kept in prison for a dozen years (“ No other King but my father would mew such a bird in such a cage,” the misguided Prince Henry was wont to say), released for greed of gain, and finally murdered in abject propitiation of the Spaniard 1
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COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
817
And because noe Man shall pretend Ignorance to excuse his Offence in any of the Premisses, wee doe further commande that everie Person, Merchaunte or other, whoe useth to sell or hath any purpose to sell Tobacco, whoe has in his Handes any Tobacco heretofore ymported, or planted within this Beahne; shall before the 20th October next bring the same into our Custome-house in London, or into the Townhouse or other fyt Place appointed by Us in the nearest Cittye or Corporate Town; and shall before the l«t December next cause the same to be marked and sealed, without any Fee; and any such Tobacco not so marked or sealed shall be forfeited unto Us for Default or Contempte.
“ And for the avoyding of all Deceipt and Abuse in disguising of Forreyne Tobacco, or mingling the same with the Tobacco of Virginia or the Sommer Island*, therebye to defraude the true Intente of these Presents; we further straightly charge and commaunde under the Paynes and Penalties aforesaid, That noe Person whoe ys or shall be a Seller of Tobacco shall have or keepe ready cut above the Quantity of one Pounde of Tobacco at once, nor shall myngle any Foreyne Tobacco with any Tobacco of the Growth of the Sommer Dlande* or Virginia.
“And wee straightly charge and commaunde, that all the Planters of Tobacco in the Collonies aforesaid or any parte thereof, shall make the same good and merchantable, and shall not presume to send over into this Realme of England any Tobacco which shall not be good and merchantable and well made up in Roll without Stalkes or other bad or corrupt Stuff, upon Payne of Confiscation thereof, or soe much thereof as, uppon due Tryall made, shall be found to be otherwise, to the intent that such of our Subjects as shall desire to use the same may not be abused or deceived therewith to the ympayring of theire Health.”
And to the Intente that the Tobacco of the Colonies and Plantations aforesaid thus tollerated by Us, may be distinguished from such as shall be brought in by Stealth, it shall be all brought and landed, upon the Paynes and Penalties aforesaid, at the Key of our Custome House in our Citty of London, and not elsewhere in any of our Realmes or Domynions [but Scotland is clearly excepted by all that precedent, and shall be there registred and shall not be removed until tryed sealed and marked without Fee [but of course with, Duty, Subsidy, and Imposition].
Owners of Ships are to be careful to employ such Masters from whom they will take good Caution not to offend in the importation of Tobacco; Masters of Ships are to make diligent Search over the Marriners and Passengers that none may so offend; Customs Officers shall examine upon Oath every Master whether there is any Tobacco on board; and the aforesaid Paynes and Penalties shall be visited upon every offence.
“And whereas Wee are informed that some Traders in Tobacco douse to ymporte Tobacco in forrayne Bottoms, Wee straightly chardge and command that noe Person whatsoever, either Stranger Denizen or naturall borne Subjecte, presume to ymporte any Tobacco whatsoever in any forraine Bottom at any time hereafter, upon Pain of Confiscation not only of the said Tobacco but also of the Ship or Vessell wherein the same is so ymported and upon the other Paynes and Penalties aforesaid.”
®ales Colb on f^t Sea of ^u.
IL—STILL OUTWARD BOUND. THE GRAVE OF AN ANTI. SUBMARINE MONSTERS. MUTINY.
MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS.
Thi third day of our voyage to the Sea of Ice w as remarkable for the occurrence of two events thereon. Just at two by the clock, or four bells in the afternoon watch, when the southwest wind had nearly failed us, leaving us in the midst of a disagreeable chopping sea, that caused the best seamen amongst us to cling to the icy rigging or cordage in their passage along the deck; while light streaky clouds in serried ranks began to arrange themselves on the northern horizon, and occasionally an omious flapping of the sails seemed to bode us no good; while the glass was going down, down, down—behold, there flew on board a little wanderer from the far-off land, which we had now left a good two hundred miles astern of us. Only a common house-top sparrow; but as it alighted, panting and frightened-looking, on the top of the binnacle, it at once became the centre of attraction to half-a-dozen, at the very least, great bearded men. There are few people more superstitious than the Scotch, and the seafaring portion of the population is even more inclined to believe in the supernatural. This little bird, that had flown so far to board us, was at once put down as the incarnation of good luck. It was the sweet little cherub that was to sit up aloft to look after the life of poor Jack; only, it was caught in hand and kindly caged, despite a plaintive appeal from the doctor to be allowed to “press one kiss on its little bosom, and send it away, and away, and away, with a message to his love.”
“ Your grandmother! ” was the captain's somewhat unsentimental reply; so the sparrow was forthwith installed as a member of the cabin mess.
“All hands on deck!” It was the coming of the second event. “All hands on deck!” repeated at every hatchway, accompanied by the three heavy knocks on the deck with the boot, which does duty for the bo’s’n’s pipe on board a Green-
land-man. “All hands in sail!” And none too soon; an hour afterwards we were scudding under bare poles.
Morning broke dull and hazy, but the storm had spent its fury; our bulwarks were rent, our foremast had gone by the board, and one boat we would never see again. But the sparrow began to chirp and pick; and, with cigar in mouth, we (the doctor and I) walked the deck like grim stoics, and took quite an interest in seeing the men work like slaves to mend ship and repair the rigging.
Blue sky again. The horizon everywhere clear around us, the frost intense, and the great green waves, foam-tipped, as they hurried past us, emitted sounds like the noise of halfspent bullets in a battle-field. For days and days our ship sailed on—though, jury rigged for'ard, how could we make very much progress? And still a strong breeze blowing, and still a white and angry sea, and the cold seeming to increase with every knot. And now we are ploughing through a field of floating snow. Ten miles in breadth is this slushy stream, mayhap twenty. But how it has changed the aspect of the scene! Yonder, behind us, we have left the stormy ocean, “chafing in its foam,” a long white line on the horizon. Here, though the wind blows, it cannot raise so much as a ripple on the great round waves, that pass us with a strange hissing sound, as if they were whispering their secrets to us. One longs, in a sea like this, to get overboard and walk up one side of the waves and down the other. Northward, ever northward. The sparrow feels at home, and has even attempted a little song. And the farther north we sail, the more we smoke—least, I think it is so. And the steward is ever, ever replenishing the coffee urn, and our first mate is ever grumble-grumbling, because on the night of the gale his pet spit-kid was washed overboard. He is a Yankee, funny and free, and always chews on deck; and I do believe he would sooner all the boats that ever hung from davits, were blown away than that same copper-hooped spit-kid. And the farther north we sail, the more that dog eats. He has the run of his own biscuit locker, and is never seen without a Spratt cake. He never takes his solemn walk round the decks without a biscuit in his mouth; he never lies down to sleep without a biscuit under his chin. These are physiological facts.
And here is another. Our steward in this voyage was a particularly good cook, and this caused him, for our delectation, to spend much of his time forward at the galley. A young man was, therefore, raised from the ranks, and deputed to do pantry work, to carry aft the dinner, and attend generally upon us in the absence of the steward. We called him our butler. He evidently hadn’t been badly brought up, for he was genteel in appearance, affected dress to a certain extent, and was civil in speech. I think I see him now, as he stands in the cabin door of an evening, gazing in at us all a-squat around the stove, and steadying himself with one arm, on which he leans his head. Slight brown whiskers, rather pale face, large blue eyes, and a gentle, pacific kind of a smile on his Ups. We allow him to stand there and listen, because we like the lad; we are not offended if he joins in the laughter, as someone spins a yarn. But our butler, as he stands there, sometimes coughs, and after he laughs a bit, he coughs all the more; and why? Consumptive? Not a bit of it. I'he young man is an anti. It’s the smoke, you see.
I mustn’t mention names; but just let us call our butler by his Christian tally—Robert. Now, without exception, I think Robert bad the sweetest tenor voice ever I heard, out of a regular concert room. Ah! many is the song he sung us. It seemed to be his chief delight to please us. And his lays were all of Scotland, and all tinged with a certain air of melancholy. But as we listened, we seemed to see all he sung, as it were; the pictures presented to our mind and imaginations appeared to lack nothing of reality. One of his best efforts was “The Broom o’ Cowdenknowes.” His rendering of this song was complete; and while he sang, pitch the ship ever so much, ice were no longer on board of her. We were back once more in green Caledonia. It was the gloaming hour, the “canny boor at e’en ”; we wandered o’er hills clad with the odoriferous gorse and the long-tasselled broom, stars were beginning to appear in the west, the gentle breeze was perfume-laden; our hearts were filled with anxious joy, for were we not going to keep tryst with--- Stay, the song is ended; we are back once more on the Sea of Ice, and the sudden shock necessitates more coffee and additional cigars. Our butler, poor fellow, couldn’t smoke, and he didn’t care for coffee, and probably we made too much of him. However, he invented a drink, and gave thereto tlie name of Persian punch. This Persian punch was simply boiled arrowroot, sweetened with sugar, flavoured with cinnamon, and fortified with ship’s rum. Not bad tackle, it must be allowed, if taken at the right time and with due moderation. But woe is me for Robert; he was at it all day long. You see, he didn’t smoke; and I believe he took a jorum to his hammock with him at night. He lost control over his sea-legs. The veriest landlubber could have steered himself better in a sea-way. And one day, lo! the ship gave a lurch, and that bowl of Persian punch he had partaken of but five minutes before was Robert’s last. He was thrown down the hold, and picked up all but lifeless. A bed was made for him on the cabin floor. We were all kind to him, you may be sure, and on the third morning he seemed to rally a Httle, and was evidently very hopeful.
“I’ll soon be singing to you again, gentlemen,” be said, with a wan smile. “I’ll never touch Persian punch again; and look, see, gentlemen, I’ll learn to smoke.”
He certainly kept his promise as regards the Persian punch,
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but, if he learned to smoke, it was in the other world; for that same evening his face was paler than ever, and his dark hair darker from the contrast. Robert was dead. It is a very romantic way of having your body disposed of, to be buried at sea. Maybe, to bask beneath the Indian ocean, amid the gorgeous waving foliage of a submarine garden, to lie where pearls lie deep, perhaps to have long-haired mer-maidens wring their hands and shed briny tears over the silent stranger, and rainbow hued fishes of fantastic forms glide o’er your face, and through your hair ; this is as jolly a way of taking the long rest as any. But don’t bury me in Greenland, please. Don’t sink me into the blackness and darkness of that shark-haunted sea. Yes, I shudder when I think of Robert’s grave. An Anti he was, I grant. Anything is good enough for an Anti? Granted again. But we loved Robert, and I cannot think of his dark grave without a cold shudder. For, under the ice on that gloomy ocean the sun’s rays never penetrate ; the sea, too, seems almost bottomless ; and what imagination can depict the slimy, sightless monsters that mayhap dwell therein. There is many a weird story told of the denizens of the submarine caves around the lonely island of Jan Mayen, and of men carried off in their clutches, before the very eyes of their messmates, who were too paralysed with fear to render assistance. I myself— think not, pray, that I am drawing on my imagination—have seen creatures suddenly appear in the midst of those pools of black* water—you frequently find in the midst of the Sea of Ice, creatures whose like I had never seen before, nor even read of, and that to think of even now makes me shudder. I am writing of what I saw after a lapse of fifteen years, so my description must lack accuracy of detail; but that which seems to stick closest to my memory is the frightful grotesqueness of the heads of these monsters ; their possession of eyes, and of limbs, not black and scaly, but slimy looking, and of a yellowish flesh colour. One adventure which I had —if adventure it may be called where I had, I believe, all the advantage—I will never forget. We were frozen in, about one hundred miles to the north of Iceland, and some degrees west of that solitary isle of the ocean. About five hundred yards astern of us was a lake in the ice—a small portion of the sea uncovered, in fact—probably two or three acres in extent; just large enough, at all events, to ripple well when the wind blew. My servant knew I was fond of sport, and one night, a little before twelve, he having been on watch, awoke me with the information that some large, dark, living thing was “rolling” (I use his own words) “ on the bit of open water astern.” Tn five minutes or less I was dressed, armed, and over the side, and making my way as fast as the roughness of the ice would permit to the edge of the water. It was a bright, clear, moonlight night, and about the centre of the lake there lay something large, shapeless, and dark; anon it disappeared with a sullen plash, to reappear again in a few seconds; and then I commenced firing. Ten or twelve rounds I spent in all. Several must have missed, but others went home I know, for the creature lashed the water around it into foam. Now, I grant you it might have been only an enormous narwhal; but I do not think so, for hardly had the last bullet left my rifle when a shriek arose in the centre of that dark pool, that seemed to freeze the very blood in my veins. I shall vainly attempt to describe it; it was at first loud, prolonged, and mournful in the extreme, and it ended in a series of broken-hearted quaverings, somewhat like the cry of the moorsnipe of our own land. Then it ceased, and a few moments afterwards the moon revealed nothing on the surface of the lake, and I turned back to my ship; but that terrible scream rang in my ears for days and weeks together, neither was I on good terms with myself; for, strange to say, I felt sorry I had slain the beast. ..... Long though our voyage was to the Sea of Ice, owing to our awkward rig, like men we made the best of it, both fore and aft. The only disagreement that occurred during the whole time of our sojourn in the regions of the Pole happened about a week before the arrival of our ship at the ice fields. It was nothing less than mutiny; but our captain was quite equal to the occasion. You see, as caterer for our mess, he had taken out with him a quantity of Shanghai fowls, chiefly cocks, all alive 0! and a few pigs. The latter poor things, for warmth, hid among the coals, and when the ship began to roll they were killed, and so intimately mixed up with the fuel that we were burning bits of pork all the voyage. But the cocks were the cause of the mutiny, for at four bells every morning they commenced to crow; and those men whose turn in it was, instead of sleeping, could only lie still and swear, or amuse themselves by shieing sea-boots at the Shanghais. At length a round-robin was presented to the captain, demanding the instant execution of the feathered malefactors. Had it been a request, he would have complied; but a demand! No; and the fragments of the round-robin fluttered to leeward. Down went all hands to hiss and groan. Forward marched the captain, pistol in hand, looking as grim as the death he meant to deal to the first man who refused to go on deck to do duty. No one needed killing; but all day they worked with little will, and there were nods and smiles interchanged between them, and the half-audible oaths and muttered curses told us the real storm was still to burst. And burst it did, at midnight that very night. The men, armed to the * Although not really so, the water near the ice appears black from the contrast.	teeth, rushed onwards en masse and attacked—what? The officers’ cabins? Nay, but the Shanghai’s coops; and, five minutes afterwards, there wasn’t a bird left to disturb the morning stillness with his cock a-leerie-o. And what did the captain do next day? Why, he called his men aft, and made them a little speech. He wasn’t angry, he said; they went to work in a manly way at last, but hang those cowardly round-robins. However, by way of a little salutary discipline, he would merely stop their 'Baccy for a month. And the poor fellows were marching forward again, with bowed-down heads and sorrowful faces, when the captain’s voice recalled them. “Here, boys,” he cried from the poop; “you shall have your ’Baccy. I have found a way to punish you even more severely.” Every eye was turned towards him now. “Til forgive you” he added quietly. Then such ringing cheers as greeted those gallant words I have seldom heard before or since; and at every cheer the air was darkened with the caps of the men, thrown upwards in real Scottish style. And throughout all the voyage there never was another murmur, for the men would have died to have served their captain. Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N. ^^ree poling glen’s genius. BY WALT WHITMAN. [Camden, New Jersey, U.S. America; Dec., 1878.—Somehow I got thinking to-day of young men’s deaths—not at all sadly or sentimentally, but gravely, realistically, perhaps a little artistically. Let me give the following three cases from budgets of personal memoranda which I have been turning over, alone in my room, this rainy afternoon. Who is there to whom the theme does not come home? Then I don’t know how it may be to others, but to me not only is there nothing gloomy or depressing in such cases—on the contrary, as reminiscences, I find them soothing, bracing, tonic. W. W.] ERASTUS HASKELL. [I just transcribe verbatim from a letter written by myself in one of the Army Hospitals, 16 years ago, during our American Secession War.] Washington, July 28, 1863.—Dear M.,—I am writing this in the hospital, sitting by the side of a soldier, I do not expect to last many hours. His fate has been a hard one —he seems to be only about 19 or 20—Erastus Haskell, co: K, 141st N.Y.—has been out about a year, and sick or half-sick more than half that time—has been down on the peninsula—was detailed to go in the band as fifer-boy. Wliile sick, the surgeon told him to keep up with the rest (probably worked and marched too long). He is a shy, and seems to me a very sensible boy—has fine manners—never complains—was sick in hospital down on the peninsula in an old storehouse—typhoid fever; the first week this July was brought up here,—journey very bad, no accommodations, no nourishment, nothing but hard jolting, and exposure enough to make a well man sick, (these fearful journeys do the job for many)—arrived here July 11th — a silent dark-skinned Spanish looking youth, with large very dark blue eyes, peculiar looking. Doctor F. here made light of his sickness—said he would recover soon Ac.; but I thought very different, and told F. so repeatedly, (I come near quarreling with him about it from the first)—but he laughed, and would not listen to me. About four days ago, I told the Doctor he would in my opinion lose the boy without doubt—but F. again laughed at me. The next day he changed his opinion—I brought the head surgeon of the post—he said the boy would probably die, but they would make a hard fight for him. The last two days he has been lying panting for breath—a pitiful sight. I have been with him some every day or night since he arrived. He suffers a great deal with the heat—says little or nothing—is flighty the last three days, at times—knows me always, how’ever—calls me Walter (sometimes calls the name over and over and over again, musingly, abstractedly, to himself). His father fives at Breesport, Chemung co: N.Y., is a mechanic with large family,—is a steady, religious man; his mother too is living. I have written to them, and shall write again to-day—Erastus has not received a word from home for months. As I sit here writing to you, M., I wish you could see the whole scene. This young man lies within reach of me, flat on his back, his hands clasped across his breast, his thick black hair cut close; he is dozing, breathing hard, every breath a spasm—it looks so cruel—he is a noble youngster, very dark—I consider him past all hope. Often there is no one with him for a long while. I am here as much as possible. WILLIAM ALCOTT, FIREMAN. Camden, Nov., 1874.—Last Monday afternoon his widow, mother, relatives, mates of the Fire Department, and his other friends, (I was one, only lately it is true, but our love grew fast and close, the days and nights of those eight weeks by the chair of rapid decline, and the bed of death,) gathered to the funeral of this young man, who had grown up, and was well-known here. With nothing special, perhaps, to record, I would give a word or two to his memory. He seemed to me not an inappropriate specimen in character and elements, of that bulk of the average good American race that ebbs and flows perennially beneath this scum of eructations on the
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surface. Always very quiet in manner, neat in person and dress, good temper—punctual and industrious at his work, till he could work no longer—he just lived his steady square, unobtrusive hfe, in its own humble sphere, doubtless unconscious of itself. (Though I think there were currents of emotion and intellect undeveloped beneath, far deeper than his acquaintances ever suspected—or than he himself ever did.) Be was no talker. His troubles, when he had any, he kept to himself. As there was nothing querulous about him in life, he made no complaints during his last sickness. He wag one of those persons that while his associates never thought of attributing any particular talent or grace to him, yet all insensibly, really, liked B.lly Alcott.
I, too. loved him. At last, after being with him quite a good deal—after hours and days of panting for breath, much of the time unconscious, (for though the consumption that had been lurking in his system, once thoroughly started, made rapid progress, there was still great vitality in him, and indeed for four or five days he lay dying, before the close,) late on Wednesday night, Nov. 4th, where we surrounded his bed in silence, there came a lull—a longer drawn breath, a pause, a faint sigh—another—a weaker breath, another sigh —a pause again and just a tremble—and the face of the poor wasted young man (he was just 26,) fell gently over, in death, on my band, on the pillow.
CHARLES CASWELL.
[I extract the following, verbatim, from a letter to me dated Sept. 29, 1878, from my friend John Burroughs, at Esopus-on-Hudson, New Y’ork State.]
S. was away when your picture came, attending his sick brother, Charles—who has since died—an event that has saddened me much. Charlie was younger than S., and a most attractive young fellow. He worked at my father’s, and had done so for two years. He was about the best specimen of a young country farm-hand I ever knew. You would have loved him. He was like one of your poems. With his great strength, his blond hair, his cheerfulness and contentment, his universal good will, and his silent manly ways, he was a youth hard to match. He was murdered by an old doctor. He had typhoid fever, and the old fool bled him twice. He lived to wear out the fever, but had not strength to rally. He was out of his head nearly all the time. In the morning, as he died in the afternoon, S. was standing over him, when Charlie put up his arms around S.’s neck, and pulled his face down and kissed him. S. said he knew then the end was near. (S. stuck to him day and night to the last.) When I was home in August, Charlie was cradling on the nill, and it was a picture to see him walk through the grain. All work seemed play to him. He had no vices, any more than Nature has, and was beloved by all who knew him.
I have written thus to you about him, for such young men belong to you; he was of your kind. I wish you could have known him. He had the sweetness of a child, and the strength and courage and readiness of a young Viking. His mother and father are poor; they have a rough, hard farm. His mother works in the field with her husband when the work presses. She has had twelve children.
^orber-^anb Jeffers.
II.—ON SELF-CONTAINMENT.
You have permitted me to make clear to your readers my wayward, out-of-the way, meditative, speculative, deliberative way of life and thought. For a period of eight years I lived with a shrewd knight. Whenever Sir Codnor needed my opinion on a matter at issue, he always prefaced his request by the remark, “ Take time.” I always did: and I have no doubt he observed it, and meant me to understand by his injunction that he approved it. It was my island-born way to look all over a thing before I entered upon it, partly to see, as Lord Melbourne used to put it, whether I could not “let it alone.” Many years ago, when first I was a sojourner in Scotland, I was interested by hearing a house described as “self-contained.” It occurred to me what a good thing it would be if persons, as well as houses, were “ self-contained.” Many men contain nothing; many are contained by someone fke; and many have their ideas so scattered about that they cannot collect them when wanted. One of the first merits which I observed in the Times, as a feature of its mastery in journalism, was that each number was “ self-contained.” For instance, when Palmer, the Rugeley poisoner, was tried, pages of that paper were filled daily with the reports of the evidence given. When all was completed, a leading article gave a summary of the whole. Every’ salient feature was there in a portable form. Five days the public had been reading every-™g. Every detail was fresh in its mind, one would think. Every reader had had enough of the subject, one would think. The f imes did not make that mistake. It would be to assume that business men had time to read from six to ten columns daily of small print. It would be to assume that those who read it for five days remeinbered it all on the sixth day. would be to assume that all who read the salient points them when they saw them: so the editor wisely made a summary of them, that occupied men might see, in a small compass, all about the affair. This is the way self-contained journalism is conducted. An instance of the other kind of thing occurred in a recent number of the Academy. Mr. Thomas ^8. a writer who had often given proofs of vigour and
clearness, was reviewing Smith’s new “Life of Cobbett,” when the reviewer said “ the best estimate of Cobbett’s work which has ever come from one of those classes who for thirty-five years looked on him as their most dangerous enemy” is expressed as follows:—	•
0 I know him well, on every Hide
Walled round with wilful prejudice; A self-taught peasant rough in speech, Self-taught, and confident to touch, In blame not over-wise.
“ What matter, if an honest thought Sometimes a homely phrase require ? Let those who fear the bracing air Look for a milder sky elsewhere, Or stay beside the lire.
“ There are worse things in this bad world Than bitter speech and bearing free— I hail thee, genuine English burn— Not yet the lineage is outworn That owns a man like thee.”
The lines are generous, but the logic of the lesson is a little absurd. The point is not whether there are not “ worse things ” than “ bitter speech ”—but whether “ bitter speech” is not in itself an evil. Even “ the Zulu,” as Lord Chelmsford, in his “ Regulations for Field Forces in South Africa,” wisely discerns—“ has a contempt for passionate speech.” But who is the author of those lines Mr. Hughes quotes ? We have to think over “all the classes” who looked on Cobbett as “ their enemy.” Then to find out “ all those classes ” who looked upon him as their “ most dangerous ” enemy. Then to single out “all those classes” who looked upon him “as their most dangerous enemy” for “ thirty-five years.” The poor reader who discovers ail this must have a good memory, and a good deal of spare time on his hands. He must read all the newspapers, books, speeches, reports of trials, and other methods of expressing dislike which obtained, during “ thirty-five years,” and keep one clue always in view. When he has done this diligently, and without error, and fixed upon “ those classes,” all that he learns is, that it is some one of those classes who has written the above lines. This is not “self-contained” writing. I am for repose. I smoke because I love repose ; so I have not undertaken this task the reviewer sets me ; and I promise to try and not impose upon your readers a search of this duration in order to arrive at any meaning of mine.
To one who inherits the instinct of island calm, what a wild chaos of excitement modern life presents on the other side of the border. If there be compensations in nature, as the Sage of Concord holds, surely it was provided when Tobacco came to accord peaceful hours to the combatants of civilisation. Raleigh was but the precursor and counterpoise to Watt and Stephenson. Watt gave us steam and Stephenson the locomotive, and the hasting, unresting age set in. Had not Raleigh brought the Great Weed of Repose, the world would have been mad by this time. Society had broken its own neck by its impetuosity. Even divinity, which was wont to be calm, soothing, meditative, has learned to rave. Heaven is assaulted and stormed by impatient devotees. The “narrow” path does not admit of racing, and is in danger of being choked by impetuous believers, racing to be saved. Conversion itself is a match against time. Excited faith is the scandal of modern religion. A saint, with an aromatic cigar in his mouth, taking piety quietly and decorously. is most likely to win a contemplative and sober salvation. Cultivated ministers of religion no longer conceal their convictions upon this question. The Dublin University Magazine lately gave expression to this opinion in remarkable lines. The poet, with his pipe, offering up his evening orisons on the hill, and almost upset by a hurrying saint, thus describes him:—
“The sunlight’s joy his face besours, His foot a flower is crushing;
No frank look links his soul with onrs: ‘Friend, whither art thou rushing?’
“ * By the strait gate and narrow way— And few there bo that lind it— To heaven I mount, and cannot stay;
Mock'st thou ? I do not mind it! ’
“ ‘ Nay, nay; and if thon’st found thy way , In some celestial “Murray,” On our account make no delay— We will forgive thy hurry.
“ ‘ So keep, then, to thy narrow groove, Uncharitably holy! .	.	.
But that thou hast some pity prove— For heaven’s soke go more slowly! ’”
When impetuosity gets into the bones of piety, the disease is far gone. It can only be arrested by quiet smoking, which induces repose of spirit; and repose of spirit is the seed time of reflection, and reflection ends in common-sense and religious peace—for peace is a religion of itself. Those who eat from a nervous appetite cannot be regulated by precept. Only Canova’s rule, that of weighing out the prescribed meal, can remedy the habit of excess. The cure is a mechanical quantity, and the only cure of irrepressible excitement comes from the Herb of Rest. Thus may come the great grace of hfe—the grace of self-containment.
Lately, there came to my Border-land home the singular Supplement of the Tobacco Plant, addressed to Stafford Henry Northcote, Baronet, and Chancellor of the Exchequer of Her Majesty. My next letter shall relate the communication which I propose to address to that Right Honourable Keeper of the National Purse, upon the want of delicacy and want of judgment he will display in filling it, if he give not heed to the appeal made to him in the exhaustive document referred to, that he should reduce the Tobacco tax. Crusoe.
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COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT.
[April, 1879.
State prohibitions of Smoking.
That bold elector of Birmingham who lately suggested to the Right Hon. John Bright that he should crown his political activity either by introducing, or by supporting, a Bill for the prohibition of juvenile smoking, must be a man worth knowing. The Pall Mall Gazette expressed a longing to see his photograph. It is certainly refreshing, in this artificial age, to know that we have amongst us at least one person of such primaeval simplicity, innocence, and ingenuousness; and one, moreover, who has so faithfully preserved the most archaic traditions concerning the proper object for which a Government exists. It is only a pity that such a man should be doomed to five under the sceptre of Victoria; James I. was exactly the kind of sovereign for this extraordinary political economist. If he is acquainted with the Anti-Nicotian diatribes of the first Stuart King of England, he must profoundly regret that his own birth was not ante-dated by about two hundred and fifty years.
There is certainly no civilised State in the world, at the present epoch of increased and increasing taxation, which would not regard with horror the triumph of the Anti-Tobacco crusade. Modern States would be too glad to see a great increase of the habit of smoking. During the first century after the introduction of Tobacco into Europe, the legal prohibitions issued against its use by different States and princes were of two kinds. In most cases its use was restricted merely, being prohibited in certain places where smoking was likely to be very dangerous. Only in a few cases was the prohibition total and complete—smoking itself being declared to be an illegal action, prohibited to all persons, always, and everywhere. The natural terror of great conflagrations, which was the cause of so many and such stringent policeordinances concerning the use of fire—especially in towns and villages, where the houses were largely built of wood, and where the means for extinguishing fire were wretchedly inadequate—lay at the ground of by far the greater number of the early prohibitions of smoking. A police-ordinance for all the towns and lands of Electoral Saxony, issued in the year 1653, prohibited the smoking of Tobacco in any place where damage might arise from the use of fire. The criminal who offended against this ordinance was to be punished by a fine of 30 thalers. A “Mandate,” issued in 1700, and repeated in 1709, prohibited smoking in all places in which wood was collected or worked—wharves, saw-pits, joiners’ shops, and the like. A “ General Ordinance ” of the year 1719 specified barns, stables, chambers (Kam-mern), and upper floors, and also yards, fore-courts, and even narrow lanes, as places in which the Saxon was not to be allowed to smoke his pipe. The “Post Ordinance” of the same Electoral State decreed, in its 33rd section, that smoking could no longer be permitted during the journeys of the Government mail coaches, either by the passengers or by the postillions: “Auf Posten sollen weder Passagiers noch die Postilions Tabackrauchen.” We can imagine the eagerness with which the devotees of the weed, shut up for hours in the lumbering post-waggon of the eighteenth century, longed for the sight of the inn at which the horses were to be changed, and where travellers and postillions paused as long as ever they could, in order that they might enjoy a few brief whiffs. The “Landes-Ordnung” of the “High Prince of Saxe-Gotha” (Part II., cap. 3, tit. 3), as cited by Zedler (who, however, gives no date), is one of the few legislative enactments which aimed expressly at regulating the assumed “ utterly immoderate smoking of Tobacco.” The ordinance was evidently grounded on the Prince’s paternal assumption that smoking (which it calls after the early nomenclature, “ Tobacco-drinking”—a proof of its early date), was a luxury and an indulgence as tolerable as any other luxury, provided that its indulgence was confined to proper places and fit times. The man who wishes to smoke ought not to do so at all seasons, or when engaged in his daily calling, but to reserve the pleasure to Ruch times as work was over, and he could sit down quietly in an inn or amongst his friends. “ The unreasonable and immoderate drinking of Tobacco,” as this “High Princely Ordinance” observes, “is bringing great injuries upon many improvident and incautious people.” The Prince forbids, as a great source of evil, “the lending out of Tobacco on credit.” “Thereby,” he observes, “many house-fathers are made idle, and leave their wives and children without sufficient nourishment, as other drunkards do.” The lender of Tobacco upon credit was not only declared by his princely highness of Saxe-Gotha to be incapable of recovering his debt, but was actually “ to be punished for so doing, in all earnest” (ernstlich darum gestraffet werden).*
In 1723 a Royal Prussian edict was issued against the careless and dangerous smoking of Tobacco in Berlin.! As this decree was put forward by King Friedrich Wilhelm I., the father of Mr. Carlyle’s hero, and the royal president of the famous “ Tabackscollegium,” it cannot have proceeded from any enmity against the habit of smoking; and it was, in fact, a mere police regulation for the protection of the city from the risk of conflagration. Dr. Ludwig Hahn says of the old Fritz:—“ The King loved the most unrestrained recreation,
♦ J. H. Zedku-V‘Crosses VoUstandiges Universal Lexicon.” Band XU., pp. 1263-1264; art. “ Tabakraucheu.” Leipzig, 1744.
f Bretlauer Naturgachichten, Anno, 1723. April number, p. 488.
especially in the evening, when he was tired with the labours of the day. At about five or six o’clock he entered his regular evening society, the renowned Tobacco College. To this he used to invite daily a number of generals, staff officers, and ministers of State, and even foreign ambassadors and other favoured persons. He himself smoked Tobacco with great delight, and he was much pleased when he saw all those around him doing the same. The Prince Leopold von Dessau, who was not able to smoke, invariably took up one of the clay pipes which lay upon the table, and placed it in his mouth, as all the other guests did. In a little basket upon the table stood some Dutch Tobacco, and close by it some glowing peat, at which everyone kindled his pipe. A pot of fresh butter, bread, cold roast meat, and ham were placed upon a side table, from which each guest helped himself at pleasure. Everyone also had a jug of beer placed before him. All guests had to help themselves, as the King did not like servants in the room, holding that it spoiled good conversation.” Whilst the King suffered no contradiction outside the Tobacco College, says Dr. Hahn, he allowed every man to give free vent to his tongue within that guild, “ and the more openly a guest expressed his opinions, the more that man gained the King’s confidence.” * Tobacco-smoking, as we have before pointed out in this journal, was first introduced into Germany by the English soldiers who went to the assistance of the Winter King, Friedrich of Bohemia and of the Palatinate. Snuff-taking was introduced later by the French Protestant emigrants, who fled into Germany after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Friedrich Wilhelm II. (“Frederick the Great”) son of the royal smoker, was the first to utilise the habits of smoking and snuffing for the increase of the State’s revenue. He instituted a Government monopoly of Tobacco-fabrication, and appointed a “ General-Tabake-administration.”f The relations of the two great Prussian Kings (who between them held the throne from 1713 to 1786), to the weed— one enjoying it with the passion of a devotee, and the other subsidising it for the enrichment of the monarchy—are proof enough that the Prussian legislative prohibitions of this century did not aim at the decrease of the use of Tobacco.
The prohibitions of smoking were usually confined to places of human habitation—as towns and villages, or, at least, of human occupation—as the post-waggons. It was reserved for that eager sportsman, Hans Friedrich von Flemming, the author of “ The Complete German Huntsman,” to ask for the extension of such prohibitions to woods, chases, heaths, and game-preserves. “ The glowing ashes of Tobacco,” he observed, “when falling from a pipe, or knocked out of it, especially in a dry summer season, frequently set whole heaths and forests in a blaze.” Nor was this the only reason why Herr von Flemming thought that a new limitation was required upon the habit, or at least upon the place and time, of smoking. He asserted that both small and great game, birds and four-footed creatures, have a peculiar shyness of coming within the range of the fumes of Tobacco. “Many a time, when they are attracted towards the nets or snares, they suddenly sniff the smoke of Tobacco ”—presumably from the pipes of the keepers and foresters, which Herr von Flemming wished the State to put out—“and they have such a horror of Tobacco-smoke, that they refuse to come nearer.’’! We have not been able to learn whether Herr von Flemming’s urgent representations had any effect upon the law-makers, though we imagine that the majority of German sportsmen would almost as soon have given up their guns as their pipes.
The most complete, unrelenting, and utterly savage of all the legal prohibitions of Tobacco-smoking—applying to all persons, places, and times—characteristically enough, are those issued by the mighty Moslem Shah Abbas the Great, and by the Russian Czar Michael Feodorovitch. Both were contemporaries with our royal British Tobacco-hater, James I.; but they were not, like James, content with expressing their detestation of the weed in words, but confirmed the doctrine of the modern Anti-Tobacco societies with corresponding deeds. When the powerful Shah learned that a Tobaccoseller had dared to venture into his camp, and tempted his soldiery to buy the plant, he gave orders for the man to be burned, and all his nefarious merchandise to be consumed in the same fire. His contemporary Russian royal foe of Tobacco, Michael Feodorovitch Romanoff, was only a boy when he came to the throne. He published a prohibition against any use whatever of Tobacco, in Moscow or any of his cities, either by native or foreigner. That this edict was no mere safeguard against fire, like the German prohibitions, is evident from its terms. Forfeiture of life was declared to be the penalty of “ drinking Tobacco,” and of wholesale trading in it. Retail sellers and buyers were to be arrested and sent off to the New Quarter, there to undergo a heavy punishment almost equal to death. Their houses and goods were to be sold, and the money paid into the Emperor’s Treasury. His son and successor, Alexis Michaelovitch, in 1645 confirmed the barbarous Tobacco-legislation of his father, and called social attention to it in the orders issued to the Boyars. §
♦ “ Geschichte des Preussischcn Vatcrlandca,” HL Auflage, 269-270.
+ Ibid., 858.
J “ Der Vollkommcne Deutsche Jager.” 122.
5 “Zedler,”p. 1264.
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dope’s ^lirfurt.
“Wrn at the City Temple” suggests a quality in Dr. Parker’s sermons for which his old friends at Banbury and Manchester, and the readers of the Fountain, must have been wholly unprepared. But most miracles are susceptible of explanation ; and your mind will be at ease when I explain that the Witt was of foreign origin. Mr. Witt is a Swede; and when his calling as a Christian missionary and his recent exi>e-riences at the ill-fated station of Rorke’s Drift are taken into in-count, it is difficult to explain his jocular state of mind. Beading the following extract from a report of his address at l>r. Porker's Temple, you will probably agree with me that Witt was joking:—“Snuff-taking was a matter of high importance with the Zulus, and if you offered them the whole world they would not take their snuff standing. A hole made in the ear was the Zulu’s pocket; there he could carry everything not of a heavy nature, especially his snuff-box.” Some of my readers may think this “traveller’s tale” is “of a heavy nature.” A friend of mine, when he heard that this Swede had been instructing Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, opined that the Home Secretary's “lying spirit” had come home “from abroad” and gone to the Colonial Department.
But universal scepticism is as perilous as universal credulity. James Bruce was scouted when he said the Abys-einians cut steaks off living bullocks for dinner, then turned down the bleeding hide on the lacerated flesh and drove on again; but when Lord Napier invaded Abyssinia, about eleven years ago, on your behalf and mine, gentle reader, he found that James Bruce had spoken the simple truth. Let me give you a passage or two from a venerable “ old, ancient, antique” account of the manners and customs of the Island of Formosa, and before you cry “Munchausen!” please wait for the vindication of my authority:—
“All who can live without working, eat their Breakfasts about seven of the Qcd in the Morning: first they smoak a Pipe of Tobacco, then they drink Ikiea. Green or Sage Tea; afterwards they cut off the head of a Viper, ud kwk the Blood out of the Body; this, in lay humble Opinion, is the a.« win.legume Breakfast a Mau can xn.ike. Our Dinners are composed of tk Fuel mention’d in the last Chapter’’ (including ° humane Flesh”). “Wr sap cite tiy upon Fruits and preserv'd Spices; every Man drinks what bepkisith; but Tobacco in al ways used after Meals, being look'd upon as da of the most necessary things for preserving our Lives.”
“We hare different ways of Smoaking: A good Snioaki r has a short Pipe rith a Uigt Bowl that will hold about a quarter of a Pound of Tobacco; Uxse that are not so gnat Smoakers have less Pipes; and those who do not Ion die oily Heat of Tobacco snioak thro'Canes two or three Yards k«^: others use no Pipes, but roll a Leaf of Tobacco haul, light it at ono end. un i suck at the other.
“Here 1 must not omit to describe the admirable way of smoaking a toe able Pipe: Suppose ten or fifteen Friends sat round a Table, in the nnibi vf it is a thing like the Boal of a Pipe that holds no more than four cr Lu? pun ls of Tobacco; there are holes stop'd round the bottom of this Bod; tian comes a Servant with a burning hot piece of Copper, and a buohrof small Cams; he lights the Tobacco with the Copper, and every cue takes a Cane, unstops a hole, and fixeth his Cane into it; and thus tlxy 'im/ik a #ociaMe Pipe. Our single smoaking is call'd Abiaur: But this sociable way is call’d Abiaozaor, t.e., sm<» iking tog, ther. And this is Sica a Durk of Friendship, that if you ask a Man whether he be intimately aefiiinnd w.th another, he will answer, We have smuak d together, uaing th* »\rl Abiaozaor.
"Hu: oKu let me observe, that as Philosophers say, there are four Ekuiencs without which the World cannot subsist; so we say, there are four tloL^< absolutely necessary for Man's Life, viz. Eating, Drinking, Smoaking, tcrl sl.i ping; and for this reason, People of all Ag- s an t Conditions snr ak in Etia au ; even Children us soon as ever they can hold a Pipe, are taught to sm<ak by their Mothers.”
Die author of this statement was George Psalmanaazaar, ‘‘aNative of the said Island, now in London”; and I quote it from his book, dedicated in flowery fulsomeness “to the Right Honourable and Bight Reverend Father in God, Henry, by Divine Providence, Ld. Bishop of London, and one of Her Majesty Queen Anne/s most Honourable Privy Council;” which volume was published in London in the year 1705. I claiin the Biblically named barbarian, Mr. Psalmanaazaar, as a witness on behalf of the excellent virtues of Tobacco; which const needs surpass the feeble reach of humble prose panegyric when they can enable a man to survive a succession of breakfasts off the blood of vipers, and of dinners furnished with “humane Flesh.”
If you are more concerned with the ways of our fellow-countrymen than with those of the man-eaters and the vipersackers of Formosa in the beginning of the eighteenth century, let me offer you an interesting quotation from Monsieur Misson's “Memoirs and Observations in his Travels over England,” translated from the French, and published in London in 1719. The book is “dispos’d in Alphabetical Order”; and under the heading which most attracts me I find ^ follows:—
“Tobacco] is very much used in England. The very Women take it in wnnduice, particularly in the Western Counties. But why the very WvihHi? What occasion is there for that very ! We wonder that in cer-kuu Pb-vs a should be common for Women to take Tobacco; and why JOenM ut wonder at it ? The Women of Devonshire and Comical'wonder th; the Women of Middlesex do not take Tobacco: And why should they tender at it ? In truth, our Wonderments are very pleasant Things! W’o ^wvkrothers have not the same Customs that we have; and ethers wonder not the same Customs that they have: And, I pray, which has tho Ground far their Wondering? Wo London Folks are pleasant Fellows ^ Er deluding the Women of Exeter from feeding upon hmouk as well as wuvhxs, x would fain know by what Philosophy, Moral or Natural, Wuc;-o should be allow'd the Men, and forbidden tho Women. Mere Luiciw! Lh not this perpetual Use of Tabaceo what makes the Generality y Enghg/j Men so taciturn, so thoughtful, and so melancholy ? Perhaps it »w; but then again, it makes profound Theologists, for no Men in the ’♦wld will snioak a Pipe better than an English Priest; and ask all the
World, if you are not a Judge your self, and they will tell you, that the English Theology is the most profound Theology of all. What^Profunditioa in the profound Theology of the profound Theologists of England! Ahl what a charming thing is a profound Theology! Yes, this word profound is the most admirable Word that can be thought of, when join’d to that of Theologist: Not but that for a saving Theology, the most simple, the most concise, the most easy, the most adapted to vulgar capacities, is infinitely the safest and the best; but this is fit only for those mean Souls that arc for no more Theology than will just carry them to Heaven; it has none of the Beauties of Profundity. For the rest, Tobacco not only brea ds profound Theologists, but also begets Moral Philosophers; witness the following Sonnet:—
“ Sweet-smoaking Pipe, bright-glowing Stove, Companion still of my Retreat, That dost my gloomy thoughts remove, And purge my Bruin with gentle Heat.
“ Tabaceo, Charmer of my Mind,	'
When like the Meteor’s transient Gleam, Thy Substance gone to Air I find, I think, alas! my Life’s the same.
* What else but lighted Dust am I ?
Thou show’st me what my Fate will be: And when thy sinking Ashes die, I learn that I must end like thee.”
Turn now for a moment to the further West, and to the time that is present, and observe what potent influence this wondrous Weed exerts over the American of to-day. I have given you the Formosan’s account of his own people and their Tobacco rites, and the Frenchman’s description of Tobacco-love in England nearly two centuries ago, to compare with the Swede’s description of Tobacco-usages in Zululand in our own day; and now, passing to the fourth continent, we return to the Year of Grace, 1879, and take a portrait of the modern American, painted by himself. I find it stated that “an old-fashioned citizen of Detroit” called the other week on a dealer in wire-goods and said—“ My wife has been teasing me for a whole week past to call and look at what she calls a spark-arrester for our new fire-place. What is the durned thing; and what good is it?” He was shown what we should call a fire-guard ; and its uses being explained to him, he passed judgment, thus :—“ Don’t want one—wouldn’t take it as a gift!” “Why, what’s the matter?” asked the dealer. “Matter enough,” said the old-fashioned citizen. “ If I’m sitting on the lounge, and want to throw a quid of Tobacco into the fire-place, I’ve got to get up and move that blamed thing away, or else let down a window from the top. Spark-arresting be hanged! I put that fireplace in for solid comfort.” Thus do the unsophisticated children of nature pour contempt upon the new-fangled “ conveniences ” of fashion. The corrupting and demoralising influences of civilisation are arrested and counteracted by man's love of Tobacco. Is that “old-fashioned citizen of Detroit” less simple in his Weed-worship than the wild Indian hunter of the prairie, who followed the buffalo where Detroit now stands when Psalmanaazaar astonished the Bishop of London in the early years of Queen Anne, and M. Misson studied the Women Smoakers of Cornwal and Devonshire, before Cetywayo’s ancestor led the Zulu tribe out of primeval darkness to the pleasant land that bordered on Dutch settlements in Africa?
There is, however, one broad distinction between the Tobacco Worship of the early days—whether of Red-skin in the Far West, or of dark Formosan man-eater in the Far East, or of Cornish women in the Historic Land of Tin a hundred and sixty and odd years ago—and that of the passing moment, whether in the Old World or the New: our smoking and chewing and snuffing costs us vastly more money than Tobacco cost our fore-runners. More than once I have gloated in these pages over the enormous figures of Tobacco-cost at home; and now I find material as congenial to my taste in the statistics of the voluntary Tobacco expenditure of our “ kin beyond the sea.” How many cigars do you imagine Brother Jonathan smoked last year? The official returns say 1,905,003,000. His “ weeds” average a price of ten cents a-pieco, which will give us a pretty little cigar bill of £38,101,260. Add £3,300,000 for the 25,312,433 lbs. of smoking Tobacco, and you have a neat total of over forty millions sterling as the cost of Tobacco Worship in the United States in a single year. It is right to say, by way of protest against the contention of the fanatics that “ smoking and drinking go together,” that while Tobacco costs the American people rather less than £1 per head in a year, the cost of strong drink in the same country and period runs to £2 13s. per head, for 317,465,600 gallons, whose total value is given as £119,200,000. For the neophyte, who cannot face such ponderous results as these, but “has put his whole mind on to the colouring of a meerschaum,” a Transatlantic journal supplies the following information :—“ The bowl of a meerschaum may be coloured in five minutes by first tinting it with a solution of nitrate of silver in ether and alcohol, to which essence of roses and camphor are added. Figures of any pattern are produced by the heat of the Tobacco.
If anything were needed to explain the universality of a passion which defies the lapse of centuries and laughs to scorn the distinctions of race and clime, we should find it in the constancy of Tobacco as the soother of worried and wearied humanity; and if this “ Mixture,” as now mixed, proves one thing more conclusively than that important fact, that one thing is that the hand of the mixer is the hand of
Youa Man-of-All-Work.
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®^ (Strman Nabatea ^anopolg.
m.
In treating of the German Tobacco monopoly, we wish not merely, alike in the most compendious and most suggestive form, to furnish all the information possible, but, as directly or indirectly bearing on the English Tobacco trade, to lead the reader toward the soundest principles in taxation and finance. Protectionist writers, such as the Germans Adam Muller and Frederick List, whilst declaiming against Cosmopolitanism and denouncing the theories of Adam Smith, seem to forget that if all countries were enslaved by Protectionism international commerce would speedily come to an end. The substance of List’s system may be thus formulated:—“A nation is the richer and more powerful the more it exports manufactures, the more it imports raw materials, and the more it consumes the productions of the Torrid Zone.” Therefore, artificial, yea, almost violent stimulation is to be given to manufactures! But, at the very moment you are manufacturing at a feverish rate and in enormous quantities, you find all the havens, all the markets of the world shut against you by that very Protectionism of which you are the fanatical prophets. France is a signal demonstration of the fact that a country can be really wealthy only through its own natural resources, and through the frugality, the industry, the energy of its inhabitants. And, instead of being richer, France is poorer to the exact extent of its monopolies and its Protectionism. Indeed, monopoly and Protectionism are ingenious devices by which you very successfully impoverish yourself in order to prevent the growth of your neighbour’s opulence. Now, Germany, though it has a plodding population, has not much natural wealth; and no amount of hocus-pocus on the part of Bismarck, or any other conjurer, can give it what Nature has denied. It is evidently, however, the belief of Bismarck and his adherents that by a Tobacco monopoly not only would the imperial revenue but the national riches be augmented.
With these remarks we introduce to our readers the fourth pamphlet in our list, the author of which, L. Fuchs, describes himself as a “ merchant in Hanover.” We conclude that he is interested in the Tobacco trade. In any case, he is the strenuous opponent of the Tobacco monopoly. With amusing simplicity he lauds Bismarck while, in this instance, fighting against him, and says that, though monopolies may be tolerated in absolutist States, they are wholly unsuited to Free Germany! In the face of Bismarck’s despotic doings and gagging bills, to talk of Free Germany has a comical sound. Nevertheless, in his assault on the proposed Tobacco monopoly, the words of Herr Fuchs are words of weight. Let our readers judge:—“ For reasons of State, of finance, of economy, monopolies, whether they concern sugar, or beer, or spirits, or Tobacco, are inevitably ruinous. They resemble a cancer, which, by devouring one member of the body, so enfeebles and endangers the whole body that all medical help is unavailing. I have only to refer to neighbouring lands, where exhaustion and tragedy prevail, with the exception of exceptionally productive France, into which, however, assuredly in these days no monopoly would be introduced if it were not already in existence. In Germany the salt monopoly was swept away, because it was hostile to human rights, and warred with sound economical conditions. And yet a Tobacco monopoly is to be introduced which, without even a decent pretext, would rob hundreds of thousands of families of a livelihood. Surely the Reichstag is not capable of doing such violence to what is eternally just? We have in the German Empire from five to six thousand Tobacco manufacturers, who, for the most part, have risked a large amount of capital in the various departments of their business, and many of whom have two, three, five, ten, or even as many as fifteen branch establishments. If, through the monopoly, all the factories were rendered useless, how colossal would be the mischief and the misery! If we think of the enormous sums needed to establish the factories, and to carry them on, we must immediately see how immense and how irreparable, through a monopoly, the waste of capital would be. Besides the five or six thousand manufacturers already mentioned, we have from four to five thousand cigar makers, who, besides being, along with their families, themselves employed, give employment to one or two workmen. Into abject poverty, you by your monopoly throw these cigar makers, their families, and the families of their workpeople. The manufacture of Tobacco and cigars has in Germany—from the moderate price of the goods sold, through the diligence bestowed, through the pecuniary sacrifices made—gained such a width and might, that it can take a foremost place among the great industries of the empire; especially as it is, by comparison, signally remunerative. In the German Empire the Tobacco manufacture gives occupation to more hands than in France, Italy, and Austria together. If we reckon the large number of manufacturers, great and small, the prodigious multitude of retail dealers, the numerous traffickers in raw Tobacco, the importers, the persons in their employment, we have a solid mass of more than half a million of individuals whom the monopoly would condemn to idleness. If such experiments are allowable, or are attempted, whence is the ability to pay taxes to come? It may be said that, if the monopoly were established, the workers now in
various ways engaged would find employment in the Government factories. That is impossible; that I decidedly deny; and my denial must be confirmed and justified by every one acquainted with the circumstances. As a rule, the manufacturers have their places of business in their places of abode. But, besides, they have branch establishments within a range of three to four (German) miles, or further, and chiefly in the rural districts; partly in order not to concentrate masses of workmen in one spot, partly because the inhabitants of those districts toil more willingly, partly because the most of them have a less encumbered and anxious existence, having a piece of land or a house of their own, or being farm tenants and keeping cattle. The time they devote to Tobacco is simply a variety in their ever rural associations. That such men are bound to the soil, and thus have a certain element of fixity, is very attractive to the Tobacco manufacturers, and has greatly contributed to the dissemination of the Tobacco industry. Into the factories created by the monopoly very few of the peasant workers would enter, and only such as were unmarried; while thousands and thousands of workers chained to the soil by domestic and economical relations would be flung into the depths of distress. The German Government may think that it has a clear idea of a Tobacco monopoly; but of one aspect of the affair it assuredly has a very dim perception—the cost of the factories created and maintained by the monopoly. The factories have to be erected on a gigantic scale in the provinces, and involve a vast expenditure. I refer, as an example, to the Strasburg factory. I do not think that I make the estimate too high if I reckon the cost of establishing factories in the German Empire at 150 millions of marks. Even at the lowest rate, the compensation given to the various persons and classes engaged at present in the German Tobacco trade could not be reckoned at less than 1000 millions of marks. The annual interest on the two sums would be fifty-seven and a-half millions of marks—a burden with which no State should, for no solid reason, but in mere caprice, hamper itself. Furthermore, if the Government of the German Empire considers, as I have already said, that the Tobacco and cigar industry has extended its sway to the smallest towns, villages, and hamlets, that the factories of the monopoly would require an entirely new class of workmen, seeing that (for the reasons already stated) the provincial toilers are bound to the soil and cannot forsake their homes; that thus, while pauperism was spread in the provinces, a fresh proletarian mass, perilous to the community, would be drawn together and concentrated in certain districts, then must the Government be persuaded that no Reichstag would be bold enough or unwise enough to give its voice for the establishment of the Tobacco monopoly.”
There seem to be Bethelites and Gothamites in Germany, as well as in England ; that is to say, creatures who try by vilest cant to delude, and animals who are by sophistical twaddle deluded. One of the German Gothamites proposed that part of the revenue to be derived from the Tobacco monopoly should be devoted to lessening the burden of the Communal rates. Herr Fuchs shows the absurdity of the proposal; proves that the rehef would be very slight, and would be far more than countervailed by the immensely increased price of Tobacco. What now costs sixpence, or less than sixpence, in Germany, costs three shillings and fourpence in France. The monopoly once established in Germany, Tobacco would rise to the French price, or go even beyond it.
Herr Fuchs displays the true German servility and abjectness in the language he addresses to the Imperial Government and to the Reichstag. Great is his delight that the Reichstag has proclaimed its intention to promote financial reform by the help of indirect taxation. We, on the contrary, think that indirect taxation is every way objectionable, that direct taxation is simpler, more honest, more productive, while it is the only eflicient check on extravagant expenditure, and that all taxation ought to be direct!
Though a Hanoverian, Herr Fuchs is thoroughly Prussian in his sympathies, or, rather, in his antipathies; and he greatly weakens Ins argument against the Tobacco monopoly by such silly talk as this :—“ Money the Government must have, that every thoughtful citizen sees; and money can be obtained in the manner I have proposed. For the many new institutions of the kingdom, for the army, for the navy, money is required. Saving to any important extent cannot be thought of. The military power must be carefully guarded, must not be touched. Our geographical position is such that, in the face of our hereditary foe, we must be armed to the teeth. Our marine must take grander and grander developments—this is required by the interests of German commerce, by the interests of every German citizen. It is obviously better to pay higher taxes to the State, and thereby to gain the certainty that in the evening we can lay down our head in peace, than to have the thought that what we have gained by industry and economy may at any moment be torn from us by our hereditary foe. In reference to the pecuniary demands of the State we should be great-hearted, and insist on nothing but justice and rational institutions.”
This bellicose babblement is as imbecile as it is impolitic. We have deep faith in the grand old Greek saying that “ War is the father of all things.” The great warring nations, such as Rome, have been the great civilising nations. But war as a sacred necessity, and militarism as the vilest instrument of the vilest ambition, are two very different things. Now, what country more than Germany, what statesman more than
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Bismarck, has helped to give to militarism such perillous eminence’and influence? Just when militarism in France is Hving way to a wiser and more patriotic spirit, it is in Germany intensified by Bismarck to madness. And all for what? That Bismarck may continue to reign as the indispensable statesman. It is now well known that for the Franco-German war not Louis Napoleon but Bismarck was responsible. Louis Napoleon was entrapped into the war by Bismarck’s cunning. And the conditions of peace, while humiliating France, were so contrived as to give Germany an excuse for taking at any future period an aggressive attitude toward France. As long as industrious German citizens con use such foolish language as that of Herr Fuchs, Bismarck will deem himself justified in making the most outrageous, the most ruinous financial experiments.
Herr Fuchs fights against monopoly, fights against Protectionism, and yet he is himself a kind of Protectionist, as, indeed, every man who believes in or pleads for import duties must be; for import duties are always of a Protectionist character. On the German Tobacco manufacturer Herr Fuchs would not have any tax imposed. The burden would fall on the home cultivator and the importer. While the home cultivator paid at the rate of eighteen marks, the importer would have to pay at the rate of forty-two marks; because the foreign cultivator is placed, by climate, by soil, and so on, in more favourable conditions than the home cultivator. What is this but Protectionism—a Protectionism having its origin in the belief that by a juggle and a jargon a country can be made richer than it naturally is? A home cultivator cannot have any better protection than that derived from the cost and the risk of transit which foreign articles have to bear. If, shielded by that cost and that risk, Germany cannot protitablv grow Tobacco, it should simply cease to grow it. But Herr Fuchs has himself told us that the Tobacco crop is one of the most lucrative crops of the small cultivator. Havana cigars Herr Fuchs would come down heavily upon; because all who smoke Havana cigars are luxurious mortals who can very well afford to pay for their sublime indulgence! But there are sumphs who say that smoking altogether is a luxury, and who would punish severely, through his purse, every smoker, without exception. Pocket handkerchiefs were unknown to the Ancients ; and, therefore, some son of nature should denounce them as luxurious! One man’s need is another man’s luxury’, just as, according to the old saying, one man's meat is another man's poison. Certain it is, at lead, that genuine Havana cigars will always be dear enough without any taxation.
On sugar, beer, wine, spirits, coffee, and, above all, on imported iron, Herr Fuchs would lay a heavy load for the benefit of “ puir auld Germany.” He seems, however, to have a peculiar spite at petroleum, maintaining that the price of petroleum in Germany is ridiculously low. Five million barrels of petroleum, equal to ten million hundredweight, are annually imported into Germany. To satisfy his own conscience, as well as to give a large mouthful to Bismarck’s insatiable treasury, Herr Fuchs would put a tax of three marks the hundred weight on petroleum. Perchance Herr Fuchs dreads petroleum as a revolutionary* instrument.
As the opponent of the Tobacco monopoly Herr Fuchs is intdli-ent, patriotic, and praiseworthy; as a writer on -Germany's financial needs, and the best mode of satisfying these he does not rise above the customary German level; and from the lack of political education, and of free discussion, that level is so low that Bismarck, even if unable to establish the Tobacco monopoly, may unhindered work incalculable financial mischief in many other fashions.
^tpt Colourtrs.
XI.—CHARLEY’S BOBIN.
Ox a quaint old cabinet in the little smoking-room attached to the house in which resides my friend Charles Heathfield, stands a glass case. In this case there is a stuffed robin, mounted on a twig, frosted to represent snow. Peacefully reusing on the bottom of the case is a small meerschaum, almost black with smoking. This little case has a short history.
Three years ago Charley w*as rather a melancholy bachelor; always inclined to quietness and study, he bad let many opportunities of bettering his position go by unheeded. His chief enjoyment, beyond his books, was the companionship of a few fellow-smokers. One after another of these, however, pot married, so that at the age of thirty-two, Charley found himself a comparatively lonely man.
My young friend lived in very comfortable furnished apartments in the south of London. Behind the house was a long garden, and at the bottom of the garden was rather a smart, wll filled greenhouse, with a stove and pipes, to save the plants from perishing in the cold days of winter. Old Mr. Chub, Charley’s landlord, took great pride in his garden, and our hero, whose knowledge of flowers and plants was considerable, took much pleasure in assisting him in all gardening operations. In fact, he considered the garden and greenhouse as much under his care as the care of Mr. Chub.
One winter’s evening, just after dusk deepened into darkness, Charley, with his pipe in his mouth and a lighted lantern
in his hand, proceeded to the bottom of the garden to see if the fire in the greenhouse required attending to. As he opened the door he heard the flutter of a light wing past his shoulder. He held up the lantern to find out what it was, and saw that a saucy-looking robin had entered with him, and was now perched on a flower-pot on one of the shelves. “I suppose,” said Charley, “you have been here before, and like the warmth; well, at all events, it shows your good judgment, and I shall not disturb you.” Then, after seeing that all was right, Charley said “Good night” to his little friend, took a few turns round the garden, enjoying the bracing air, and then returned to the house.
In the morning, when the door was opened, the robin flew out, and went in search of his living.
Another evening, an evening to be long remembered by him, Charley lit his pipe, took his lantern in hand, and proceeded as usual to the greenhouse. He found, to his disappointment, that his little lodger was not waiting according to custom at the door. Ho went and sat down in the greenhouse a little time, smoking, with the door just a small bit open for the bird to enter by, but no bird came. He felt puzzled. He was unwilling to shut the door and lock the robin out for the night; at the same time he knew that to leave the door open for any length of time would expose the plants to some danger.
After consideration he was on the point of locking up when he heard a slight sound on the other side of the wall in the next garden. Thinking it was possibly a cat who had caught, and was even then devouring his friend, he advanced to the wall and looked over. He then tried to retreat, but could not before he was discovered by a young lady who uttered a slight cry of alarm, thinking it possible that she was now confronted by a bold burglar or garrotter who was on the point of demanding her money or her life.
“I beg your pardon, miss,” said Charley, hastily; “I beg your pardon for frightening you, but I was looking for my robin.”
“Oh,” said the girl, with a laugh; “I am not frightened now, you certaintly gave me a start, but that is over; what do you say you are looking for?”
“A robin,” replied Charley.
“A robin,” she said with some surprise.
Charley thought an explanation was due, and at once told the story of his little lodger, nor did he make the story quite so short as he might have done.
The pretty face lit with a smile of pleasure as Charley told about the bird. It was evident there was little affectation about this charming neighbour, for, she said, “You must be a very kind man to take so much trouble about a poor little bird.”
“Well, you see,” said this slightly melancholy bachelor, “ my affections are not very heavily taxed, for I am without brothers, sisters, or parents, so when I found this poor little beggar—I beg pardon, bird I meant—put bis trust in me, I felt almost as if I had made a contract to supply him with board and lodging, till he found the weather warm enough to sleep in the open.”
Formal introductions are doubtless necessary in civilised life ; but there are few more delightful things than falling into pleasant society without an introduction. Formality in such cases does not need to be painfully worn out, because it never existed. Two people without an introduction will sometimes become better acquainted with each other in half an hour, than they would in a whole day after a most satisfactory introduction.
In a very short time Charley discovered that his neighbour bad been next door to him only a w*eek ; that her father was an old sea captain, retired ; that her mother was dead ; and that she was an only child. Also that her father, now settled on shore, had bought the house they were then living in, and had determined, after examining his neighbour’s greenhouse, to have one built like it. It was this which had brought her into the garden; for she and her father disagreeing as to the height of Mr. Chub’s greenhouse from the wall, she bad come out with a stick to measure it.
“ But look ! ” said the girl, clapping her hands, “ there is the robin.” And, sure enough, there he was. Charley opened the door and let him into the warm house, half sorry he had arrived at such an early stage in the conversation. However, there was now no pretext for lingering, so Clara, for that was the name of the young lady, took the measurement she required, and these two gossipers said, “ Good night.”
In the evening, according to custom, down the garden went the man with bis pipe and lantern. He looked a little disgusted when he found the robin waiting for him. No one was in the next garden, so Charley said to his lodger: “You couldn’t take a small trot round the neighbourhood, I suppose, for half-an-bour, could you ? or perhaps you would not mind dodging me about among the bushes. Do, now, see if you can’t give me a little trouble to get you in ; exercise will increase the flow of your blood and the brightness of your waistcoat.” All this eloquence was wasted. The robin wanted to get in where it was warm, so Charley opened the door and allowed him to do so. I certainly think my friend busied himself a little longer than usual that evening in the greenhouse; in fact, I know he did, for whereas one pipe full of Tobacco was generally sufficient to see him through his labours, he on this occasion fit a second. He was rewarded for this, for just as he closed
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the door he heard a voice say, “ Now, pa, don’t you swear, or you will frighten the robin.”
Charley spoke up like a man. “ Good evening, miss; good evening, sir.” “ Good evening,” said the daughter in reply, and “ Good evening,” said the old sailor. “ Have you got your passenger into his berth?” “Yes,” replied Charley. “He kept better time after the lecture I gave him this morning.”
The new greenhouse now formed the subject of conversation. Charley’s advice in the matter was useful and welcome, and in a very few minutes my bachelor friend, with his pipe and lantern, was in his neighbour's garden, measuring, explaining, &c., &c. All these three folks were on the best of terms.
One evening, when Clara went down the garden alone, the lantern was standing on the wall, and Charley was close by it looking very grave. By the side of the lantern on the wall lay the robin, dead. Tears came into the bright eyes of Clara, as she said: “I am sorry; how did it happen?” Charley could not tell. He found the bird drowned in a small tank that was in the greenhouse. Both Charley and Clara were dull that evening. The-kind hearted girl was thinking of poor robin, drowning in the darkness, with its wild little heart bursting in despair, and Charley was thinking that the death of his pet would do away with the excuse for a chat over the wall. However, he knew he was always welcome next door, in fact he always spent two or three evenings a week there, so he forgave his lodger for drowning himself, and asked Clara if she would like to have him stuffed. She said “Yes”; and when Charley presented him to her a few days later, in a cosy little case, with a twig or two frosted to represent snow, and bright beads for eyes, looking quite a jolly little fellow, she was delighted. By the time that winter had gone and spring had arrived, Charley found that whereas he had, a short time back, considered the world a dull place altogether, he now considered the same world a dull place when Clara was away from him, but a bright place when she was by. Clara also found that whereas she had, a short time back, considered the world a bright place altogether, she now considered the same world a very much brighter place when Mr. Charles Heathfield was nigh unto her.
So matters were arranged, Charley and Clara married and settled down with the old man, and the three of them now are very happy and comfortable. Charley who had well coloured his meerschaum, after a conference with his wife, popped it into the glass case, along with the robin, to preserve it as a reminder of the happy evening he first met with the one who now is dearer to him than all the world beside.
D. Goggs.
(Dnr Smoke ^oom ®able.
George Cruihshanh.
The life of George Cruikshank has not yet been written. It would be alike impossible and impolitic to tell with exact justice the story of a career which, extending over the greater part of a century, has only just been rounded by a sleep. His figure is conspicuous in politics, in literature, in social reform, and in art. In politics, for there can be no doubt that his clever caricatures helped to intensify the dislike of the nation for the unpopular Governments of the earlier part of the century. In literature, for although George wrote little, he claimed to have invented a great deal; and, in a manner he did not desire, the claim was allowed. But, leaving aside the knotty and unpleasant question of the precise creative relationship in which he stood to “Old St. Paul’s” and “Oliver Twist,’’ there is, in all his book-illustrations, a closer connection between artist and author than is usual. The distinct individual impression left on the mind by many characters is due at least ns much to the genius of Cruikshank as to that of Dickens. We know Fagin and the Artfnl One in their bodily presentiment as they were imagined by George Cruikshank. As a social reformer he was one of the few really great men who have taken up the cause of “total abstinence.” There have been water-drinkers ever since the world began, but the temperance movement, as an organised effort against the national sin and shame of drunkenness, has not succeeded in attracting the highest intellect of the country. This may be deplored, but cannot be denied. Probably something of the failure may be due to the fact that the teetotal movement sprang up amongst the poor and lowly, men who were logical but not learned, enthusiastic but not educated, and who failed to preach their new gospel in such a way as to command the sympathies of the cultured few who do most of the thinking for the uncultivated and thoughtless many. The accession of Cruikshank to the cause of temperance was a gain to social reform, but there are not wanting those who affirm that it was a loss to art. Art, they say, in effect, has nothing to do with religion or morality. L'Art pour VArt. It may bo doubted, after all, whether a moral purpose in a picture will impair either drawing or perspective. No one objects to the way in which Leech taught the minor morals of decent behaviour in his Punch sketches. The real failure of pictures and novels devoted specifically to the advocacy of some particular reform is, that the sympathies of the artist have become unduly narrowed. He has sacrificed all for his particular crotchet, sect, or creed. He is like Burke, who,
. . . “ born for the universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.’
In art Cruikshonk was a conspicuous figure from the early part of the century. He outlived the generation that laughed over his earlier humorous efforts, and in his old age saw collectors eagerly picking up the unconsidered trifles that he had thrown off in the careless plenitude of youthful genius. He had almost outlived his own fame, and may have heard the people talk of him as they would of Hogarth or any other great artist who had gone over to the immortals, and belonged to the dim region of history and not to tho glare of the present day.
Until the time comes when the story of Cruikshank’s life can be justly told bv a biographer who will “nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice,” we must be content with monographs more or less sketchy and inn* rfect in their nature. Of this class, the beet that has yet appeared is a book by Mr. William Bates, of Birmingham.*
* George Cruikshank, the Artist, the Humourist, and the Man, with some Account of his brother Robert. A Critico-Biogrnphical Essay. By William Bates, B.A., M.R.C.S.E., Ac. Illustrated chiefly from Original Drawings by
Mr. Bates brings to his task a wide and accurate knowledge of Cruikshank’s productions, and an enthusiastic and yet discreetly tempered admiration of nis genius. He has wisely restricted himself to giving an outline of the artist's life, and to the indication of the more notable points of his artistic progress, without much more than incidental criticism, and without attempting to determine the position of Cruikshank in the hierarchy of art. The result is a readable booklet, which will be in the first place a considerable help to the collectors of Cruikshankiana, and secondly, as it contains fair fac-similes of the famous Banknote etching, of the “Knacker’s Yard,” the arrest in the lodging-house, and other characteristic specimens, will serve to give the general reader an idea of the scope of the artist's powers, though not of his unbounded fertility. One of the illustrations—a reproduction of George’s Tobacco Leaves—entitles the book to a place in Nicotian literature. The curious in such matters will notice that the young lady at the left hand bottom corner, smoking a cheroot and listening to the ad dresses of her “ dearest Charles,” appears to have wandered out of the domain of another artist. The girl’s father must have been Hablot K. Browne (“ Phiz "), and George is only her father-in-law I We should at once say, however, that this is the only echo we ever noticed in the thousands of George Cruikshank’s mature works which it his been our pleasure to see.
Mr. Bates names as the four great English pictorial satirists Hogarth, Rowlandson, Gilray, and Cruikshank. We need not stay to discriminate their respective positions, except to say that the first and the last were undoubtedly the greatest. Cruikshank surpassed them all in the exuberance of his creative power. Following Mr. Bates’ classification, we have first to think of our artist as a political caricaturist. In his earlier years he was somewhat of a free lance; like a barrister, he would plead for the just or unjust, and was willing to poke fun at either Radicals or Tories. Ria own sympathies were on the popular side, and some of his finest work was that done for the pungent pamphlets with which William Hone pelted the unpopular ministries and their regal governors. One of these lias never been surpassed. It represents the royal profligate, his handsome form and features bloated by self-indulgence, leaning back in half-drunken slumber, the very image of intemperance, glutted and sated with indulgence. In tbe background ore dimly seen the forms and beckoning shadows dire of the victims of the royal folly and vice. Another of these squibs is given ly Bates (p. 18). It represents the Adonis of Sixty, the fat Prince Regent, chained to a gridiron, beneath which is a brisk fire, industriously fanned by two active imps whose faces testify that the labour we delight in phy-ici pain. It was a good thing for Cruikshank that he escaped from the nanuw and cramped region of political satire. His sketches of social life will always remain not only an artistic delight, but trustworthy memoranda of the appearance of persons and places that have long since disappeared. In the act of reproving the follies, the eccentricities, the quackeries, and the hypocrisies of the day, Cruikshank has embalmed them. One of those shallows cast by coming events is the fact that the artist withdrew from the task of illustrating the notorious “Life in London” of Pierce Egan, when it appeared that in it vice was not painted so as to be detestable. Amongst other things, the artist imagined ho had a commission to overthrow phrenology, and he bumped against it with characteristic‘vigour and ardour. The purpose of tho artist was also evident in the Bank note etching, and in the picture of the “ Fiends’ Frying Pan,” which was directed against the the vice and vulgarity into which the annual celebration of Bartholomew Fair had degenerated. The friendship with Dickens and Ainsworth led to the production of the illustrations to “Oliver Twist,” “Jack Sheppard," and “Windsor Castle.” The sharp, clear-cut outlines of the etchings to Ainsworth’s glorification of that contemptible thief Jack Sheppard are simply marvellous in their simplicity and power. The wonderful portrait of Fagin in the condemned cell has often and justly been praised.
From immortalising the career of a ruffianly housebreaker, w*» pass to ths denunciation of the vice of intemperance. After the publication of “The Bottle,” Cruikshank came to be regarded less as an artist than as a moralist; and the most considerable effort of his later years, “ The Worship of Bacchus," has, no doubt, deepened that impression. The success of “The Bottle” was immense. One hundred thousand copies are said to have been sold in a few days. It was everywhere. Eight London theatres were simultaneously playing pieces derived from the artist's plates. There can be no doubt that “ The Bottle ” helped to rouse society out of its attitude of indifference in regard to the evils wrought by drunkenness. These were but the first of many designed by Cruikshank with the same motive. It is said that the logic of his own narrative of the effects of indulgence in “The Bottle” forced him into total abstinence. One of his latest contributions to the same cause was a powerful drawing of “The Last Half-Hour,” in Mr. S. C. Hall's “OH Story/’
Amongst the hundreds and thousands of delightful drawings of our artist we can only now refer, in conclusion, to those dealing with the supernatural. In these we have a remarkable combination of idealism and reality. Look, for instance, at the crowd of eerie figures which throng his “ Fairy Ring.” The delight in grotesque diablerie is also shown in tho illustrations to ChamLso’s “ Peter Schlemehl,” and to the German “ Household Tales of the Brothers Grimm.” Fairyland was his, whether in the grotesque region pourtraytd in the “ Temptation of St. Anthony,” or in the more graceful dreamland of the “ Fairy Library.’’
Whether political caricaturist or social reformer, Cruikshank is, above all, a humourist, and, whilst possessing (as all the greatest humourists have done) the gift of laughter and of tears, he revels in the oddities and incongruities with which life is filled, and crowds bis pictures with fun and frolic that give rise to inextinguishable laughter. How many weary hours has he filled with his pleasant fancies, penetrating like sunshine into dark places I In our thankfulness we are only too glad to forget all his human failings, and think of him only as one who tried to make the life of his countrymen brighter and better than he found it.
History of Co-operation in England, by George Jacob
Holyoake. Vol. H., 1845 to 1878. London: Triibner and Co.
Mr. Gf.oroe Jacob Holyoakf. has completed his “ History of Co-operation in England.” The second and concluding volume of the work is now before ns, and is full of picturesque writing and pleasant reading. It has a sure sign of literary excellence—it is worth reading, apart from its subject. The most inveterate champion of the shopkeeping middleman might find something of amusement ami of admiration in the record. There are many odd incidents narrated, and many persons pourtrayed who have at least tbe flavour of eccentricity about them. Persons less likely to abandon the individuality of the individual than those who have pioneered and built up this gnat trading system, probably never existed. Mr. Holyoake is too keen-sighted not to see the dangers that lie in the path of the co-operators, and too honest not to reprove them for their shortcomings. Apart from its economic aspect, co-operation has been no inconsiderable factor in the education of the people. It has been self-education; and, os in most cases of self-education, there has been loss and retardation through want of qualified direction. Even these mistakes, however, are as full of instruction for the future as the greatest successes. Viewed in this light, Mr. Holyoke’s book becomes more than a chronicle. It is a map of industrial effort on the part of the people, and shows the quicksands and whirlpools that threaten destruction, os well us the promised land which the good ship hopes to reach. We have not space at present for a lengthy notice, but commend the book to the friendly perusal of our readers.
G. Cruikshank, in the possession of the Author. Birmingham: Hammond and Houghton, 1878. Large paper 4to. We are glad to find that the public reception of this volume has been a hearty one. The first edition having been exhausted, Mr. Bates has revised his work, and added on interesting annotated list of books, pamphlets, magazine articles, and letters in newspapers, about or by George Cruikshank. This bibliography, if not complete, is extensive. Some additional plates have also betn added to this second edition.
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Job Wilson anb the Mottes ^mbrosianx.
H.—CONCLUSION.
In our desire to illustrate the character of Wilson in youth —a character preserved throughout his prime, for his nature was not one of those which have startling late developments or aberrations—we have reserved but scant space for recording the rest of his career. Luckily, the “Memoir” by his daughter is a very accessible as well as very readable । book, aud io it we refer the reader who wants full details.
On leaving Oxford, in 1807, he went to live at Elleray, near Windermere, a charming estate with a charming rustic cottage, which he had purchased some little time before. Here were his headquarters until 1815. He soon became friendly with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Charles Lloyd, Bishop Watson, and other notables of the district, and especially with his age-fellow, Thomas De Quincey, about fourteen years afterwards to be famous as the English Opium Eater. Of Winder-mere he constituted himself the admiral (Canning made him Lord High Admiral of the Lakes), maintaining a little fleet of seven sailing vessels as well as a fine ten-oared Oxford gig. His time was fully employed, all the days and many of the nights, with rambling, boating, wrestling, riding, bullhunting (see De Quincey’s account of this, “Memoir,” I., 138-40), and cock-fighting. In the “Memoir,” I., 145-7, is a good story of one of his boating and swimming freaks, extracted from “Rambles in the Lake Country,” by Edwin Waugh. For softer delights, he had poetry, dancing, and love-making. The Misses Penny, daughters of a Liverpool merchant, lived at Ambleside; and Miss Jane and he, being both young and lish, were not long in dancing into each other’s hearts. “A spectator at a ball given in Liverpool in those days, relates that when Mr. Wilson entered the room with Miss Penny on his arm, the dancers stopped and cheered, in mere admiration of their appearance.” They were married in May, 1811; she bringing some fortune, and he having not cut very deeply into the unencumbered £50,000 left him by his father. “The circumstances which occurred to make it absolutely necessary to leave EUeray were of a most painful nature, inasmuch as they not only deprived Wilson of his entire fortune, but in that blow revealed the dishonesty of one closely allied to him in relationship, and in whom years of unshaken trust had been reposed. An uncle had acted the part of ‘unjust steward,’ and, by his treachery, overwhelmed his nephew in irretrievable loss. A sudden fall from affluence to poverty is not a trial easily borne, especially when it comes through the fault of others; but Wilson’s nature was too strong and noble to bow beneath the blow. On the contrary, with a virtue rarely exemplified, he silently submitted to the calamity, and generously assisted in contributing to the support of his relative, who, in the ruin of others, had also ruined himself. Here was a practical illustration of moral philosophy, more eloquent, I think, than even the Professor’s own lectures, when he came to teach what he had practised.”
So, in 1815, he removed to Edinburgh with his young wife and babes, and was received into the house, 53, Queen Street, of his mother, “a lady whose skill in domestic management was the admiration and wonder of all zealous housekeepers. Under one roof she accommodated three distinct families; and, besides the generosity exercised towards her own, she was hospitable to all, while her charities and goodness to the poor were unceasing. . . . She belonged to that old school of Scottish ladies whose refinement and intellect never
interfered with duties the most humble.” If that fine old school is really now closed, the sooner it opens again the better! This same year he was called to the bar, along with his friend Patrick (afterwards Lord) Robertson, of legal, and yet more convivial and humorous renown; Scorpio Lockhart joining them the next year. Wilson professionally promenaded the Hall of Lost Steps (Salle des Pas Perdus, as our neighbours say) for but a brief while, not wholly briefless: he got a few cases, but owned afterwards that when he found them on his table, “I did not know what the devil to do with them! ” Of such stuff are not lawyers made. In the “Memoir,” I., 228, is a capital sketch of Wilson and Robertson in a punt: the former in the stern, standing and pointing with bare extended arm; the latter, almost supine with the oars, a long pull if not a strong pull, puffing big clouds from his cigar.
We now come to the starting, in 1817, of “Blackwood,” of which Wilson (Lockhart, in 1825, going to London to assume the editorship of the “Quarterly”) ere long made himself the leading spirit, though the man whose “name was as it had been the colour of ebony” always held firmly the real editorship in his own hands. An interesting chapter of the “Memoir” (I., 233-295) is devoted to this subject. Towards the end of 1819, Wilson, having then five young children, removed with his family from his mother’s house to 20, Ann Street, then quite out of town in the suburb of Stockbridge. In April, 1820, the chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh became vacant by the death of Dr. Thomas Brown. The two chief competitors for the post were Wilson and Sir William Hamilton, afterwards Professor of Logic and Metaphysics. The contest was exceedingly furious, being fought out by their partisans on purely political grounds; Government influence and Tories for Wilson, Whigs (the Whigs, now effete, were very much alive then) for Hamilton; but the intimate personal friendship of the two rivals was not broken or interrupted. “The patronage lay with the Town Council, whose members had to be canvassed personally, like the voters in a rotten borough.” Wilson was elected, by twenty-one votes out of thirty; and immediately was hard at work reading-up and preparing his first course of lectures, and asking counsel from competent friends. In his first lecture he triumphed over all ill-will; and thenceforward to his death rejoiced in the title of “The Professor,” actually filling the chair for thirty years, and only resigning when quite worn out and broken down. And as he grew more and more prominently the Professor, one of the best known men in Edinburgh, he grew also more and more prominently Christopher North, one of the best known writers in Britain. At the University he was the idol of his class, wielding an enormous influence over many successive student-generations, all in their plastic youth. John Hill Burton, the historian of Scotland and delightful Book Hunter, who sat under him in 1830, says:— “Much as I had heard of his appearance, it exceeded expectation, and I said to myself that, in the tokens of physical health and strength, intellect, high spirit, and all the elements of masculine beauty, I had not seen his equal.” The Rev. William Smith, of North Leith Church, writes of a lecture in the winter session of 1837:—“I have heard some of the greatest orators of the day—Lords Derby, Brougham, Lyndhurst; Peel, O’Connell, Sheil, Follett, Chalmers, Caird, Guthrie, M‘Neile; I have heard some of these in their very best styles make some of their most celebrated appearances; but for popular eloquence, for resistless force, for the seeming inspiration that swayed the soul, and the glowing sympathy that entranced the hearts of his entire audience, that lecture
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by Professor Wilson far exceeded the loftiest efforts of the best of these I ever listened to.” And again:—“ It was something, moreover, not without value or good effect, to be enabled to contemplate, from day to day throughout a session, the mere outward aspect of one so evidently every inch a man, nay, a king of men, in whom manly vigour and beauty of person were in such close keeping with all the great qualities of his soul; the sight at once carried back the youthful student’s imagination to the age of ancient heroes and demigods, when higher spirits walked with men on earth, and made an, impression on the opening mind of the most genial and ennobling tendency.” In an account of Wilson’s last year of professional work (session 1850-51), Mr. Alexander Taylor Innes, the gold medallist of that year, writes:—“ The first thing that everyone remarked on entering his class, was how thoroughly he did his proper work as a Professor of Moral Philosophy. This is not generally known now, and was not even at the time. There was a notion that he was there Christopher North, and nothing else; that you could get scraps of poetry, bits of sentiment, flights of fancy, flashes of genius, and anything but Moral Philosophy. Nothing was further from the truth in that year 1850. In the very first lecture he cut into the core of the subject, raised the question that has always in this country been held to be the deepest and hardest in the science (the origin of the Moral Faculty), and hammered at it through the great part of the session. Even those who were fresh from Sir William Hamilton’s class, and had a morbid appetite for swallowing hard and angular masses of logic, found that the work here was quite stiff enough for any of us. . . . His appearance in his classroom it is far easier to remember than to forget. He strode into it with the professor’s gown hanging loosely on his arms, took a comprehensive look over the mob of young faces, laid down his watch so as to be out of the reach of his sledge-hammer fist, glanced at the notes of his lecture (generally written on the most wonderful scraps of paper), and then, to the bewilderment of those who had never heard him before, looked long and earnestly out of the north window, towards the spire of the old Tron Kirk; until, having at last got his idea, he faced round and uttered it with eye and hand, and voice, and soul, and spirit, and bore the class along with him.” And finally, Mr. John Skelton bears witness, in his Introduction to the volume which has occasioned the present article: “ Jolm Wilson had the eagle-beak, the lion-like mane of the Napiers. Mrs. Barrett Browning has said of Homer:— ‘Homer, with the broad suspense Of thund’rous brows, and lips intense Of garrulous god-innocence*— and whenever I read the lines, the mighty presence of Christopher North rises before me ... He was such a magnificent man I No other literary man of our time has had such muscles and sinews, such an ample chest, such perfect lungs, such a stalwart frame, such an expansive and Jove-like brow. Had he lived in the classic ages they would have made a god of him,—not because he wrote good verses, or possessed the divine gift of eloquence, but because his presence was god-like. There was a ruddy glow of health about him, too, such as the people of no nation have possessed as a nation since the culture of the body, as an art of the national life, has been neglected. The critic, therefore, who never saw Wilson, cannot rightly estimate the sources of his influence. . . The picture of the old man eloquent in his college classroom—the old man who had breasted the flooded Awe, and cast his fly across the bleakest tarns of Lochaber—-pacing restlessly to and fro like a lion in his confined cage, his grand face working with emotion while he turns to the window, through which are obscurely visible the spires and gables of the ancient city, his dilated nostril yet ‘full of youth,’ his small grey eye [Mr. Innes terms it “bright blue;” and probably both are correct.] alight with visionary fire, as he discourses (somewhat discursively, it must be owned) of truth and beauty and goodness, is not one to be forgotten. Had he talked the merest twaddle, the effect would have been very nearly the same; he was a living poem where the austere grandeur of the old drama was united with the humour and tenderness of modern story-tellers; and some such feeling it was that attracted and fascinated his hearers.” So much for Wilson as the Professor: what he did as Christopher North may be judged by a list, appended to the “Memoir,” of his contributions to “ Blackwood,” from 1826, it being impossible now to fix the authorship of various articles before that date. In one month we find five articles, making sixty-eight pages, from his pen; in another, double number, five articles, sixty-five pages; in another six, sixty-nine; in another, double number, seven, one hundred and sixteen; in another, double, four, one hundred and forty-seven; in another, double, seven, one hundred and thirty-one. In one year, 1830, he wrote thirty articles, making twelve hundred columns; in the two years, 1833-4, fifty-four, making two thousand four hundred columes. All this in addition to his university work. “ The amazing rapidity with which he wrote caused him too often to delay his work to the very last moment, so that he almost always wrote under compulsion, and every second of time was of consequence. Under such a mode of labour there was no hour left for relaxation. When regularly in for an article for ‘ Blackwood,’ his whole strength was put forth, and it may be said that he struck into life what he had to do at a blow. He at these times began to write immediately after breakfast. . . . He then shut himself into his study,	with an express command that no one was to disturb him, and he never stirred from his writing table until perhaps the greater part of a ‘ Noctes’ was written.” After a frugal dinner at nine, (boiled fowl, potatoes, and glass of water), he wrote on again till midnight; and so for the next day or two when necessary. “ I do not exaggerate his power of speed, when I say he wrote more in a few hours than most able writers do in a few days; examples of it I have often seen in the very manuscript before him, which, disposed on the table, was soon transferred to the more roomy space on the floor at his feet, where it lay ‘ thick as autumnal leaves in Vallombrosa,’ only to be piled up again quickly as before.” In 1837, after twenty-six years of most happy marriage, he lost his wife. Their five children were all grown up. The three daughters afterwards married: Margaret, the eldest, her cousin, Professor J. F. Ferrier; Mary, Mr. J. T. Gordon, sheriff of Midlothian; Jane Emily, Professor Aytoun—of whose bashful wooing, and Wilson’s presentation of the ladylove “with the author’s compliments” (pinned to her back), her sister in the “Memoir” tells us not. In 1840 he was attacked by paralysis of the right hand, which disabled him for nearly a year. He took a zealous part in the Burns festival at Ayr, 6th August, 1844; having written the essay for the “Land of Burns,” brought out by Messrs. Blackie, of Glasgow. When the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution was established, 1847, he was elected the first president; and was annually re-elected during his life. In the winter of 1850, in his sixty-sixth year, his health was evidently breaking, and he could scarcely manage to get through the session. Mr. Taylor Innes says: “ The old lion sat in his armchair, yellow-maned and toothless, prelecting with the old volubility and eloquence, and with occasionally the former flash of his bright blue eye, soon fading into dulness again. I still remember his tremulous ‘ God bless you! ’ as the door closed for the last time. How different from that fresh and vigorous old age in which he had moved among us so royally the year before! ” In 1851 he was forced to resign his professorship, after thirty years’ service; and Lord John Russell, the old Whig, hastened to secure a pension of £300 a year for the stout old Tory. In the summer of 1852, although very infirm, he had himself driven to Edinburgh from Woodburn, near Dalkeith, where he was staying with his brother Robert: “ His mysterious mission to Edinburgh was to give his vote for Thomas Babington Macaulay. When he entered the committee-room in St. Vincent Street, supported by his servant, a loud and long cheer was given.” Macaulay heartily responded to this magnanimity. As Wilson wrote on another occasion, “ The animosities are mortal, but the humanities live for ever.” In his later years, he and Patrick Robertson had many a pleasant evening with Jeffrey, Cockburn, and Rutherfurd. On the 1st of April, 1854, he was stricken with paralysis of one side; and as the clock sounded midnight on the 3rd he breathed his last. He was buried in the Dean Cemetery, “ where now repose a goodly company of men whose names will not soon die—Jeffrey, Cockburn, Rutherfurd, Thomas Thomson, Edward Forbes, David Scott, John Wilson, and his well-loved brother James.” It was soon resolved in public meeting to raise a memorial to him; and John Steell was commissioned to execute a bronze statue, ten feet in height, with a suitable pedestal, to be placed at the northwest corner of East Prince’s Street Gardens. In the year following his death, that other monument to his memory, the edition of his works, was begun by Professor Ferrier. Comprehensive as it is, including Noctes, essays, critiques, tales, poems, some important series of articles are omitted, as those on Spenser and “ Specimens of the British Critics.” Of the latter Mrs. Gordon says: “Those papers, along with too many of equal power and greater interest, have found jealous protection within the ceinture of “Blackwood’s” pages, and seem destined to a fate which ought only belong to the meagre works of mediocrity.” It is natural that a loving and revering daughter should wish as much as possible of her father’s writing collected in a permanent form; but we may safely assume that Messrs. Blackwood were and are very willing to re-publish anything in demand, and we are sure that Ferrier was not the man to leave out anything of enduring interest. So we take it that our busy world in general is quite satisfied, if not over satisfied, with the dozen rather closly printed volumes; and we venture to remind Mrs. Gordon that permanent form by no means secures permanent perusal. Ferrier, indeed, as we have already remarked, was fascinated and overpowered by the personal magnetism of his father-in-law into a stupor of admiration, which, with all our hearty respect for both, we cannot help feeling is very comical. Thus, writing of the principal personages of the “Noctes,” he calmly assures us: “ In wisdom the Shepherd equals the Socrates of Plato; in humour he surpasses the Falstaff of Shakespeare. Clear and prompt, he might have stood up against Dr. Johnson in close and peremptory argument; fertile and copious, he might have rivalled Burke in amplitude of declamation.” Mr. Skelton, although, as we have seen, he, too, has been mightily influenced by the same personal ascendancy, writes far more judicially of the writer: “ John Wilson was an immense man, physically and mentally, and yet his nature was essentially incomplete. He needed concentration. Had the tree been thoroughly pruned, the fruit would have been larger and richer. As it was, he seldom contrived to sustain the inspiration unimpaired for any time; it ran away into shallows,
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and spread fruitlessly over the land. In many respects one of the truest, soundest, honestest men who ever lived, he used to grow merely declamatory at times. Amazingly humorous as the Shepherd of the ‘ Nodes’ is (there are scenes, such as the opening of the haggis, the swimming match with Tickler while the London packet comes up the Forth, which manifest the humour of conception as well as tho humour of character *n a measure that has seldom been surpassed by the greatest masters), his fun is often awkward, and his enthusi »sm is apt to tire. . . . And if the Shepherd at his best could be taken out of the * Noctes ’ and compressed into a comport duodecimo volume, we should have an original piece of ima^iu^bi76 humour, which might fitly stand for all time by the side of the portly Knight [Falstaff.]” In his “Comedy of the Nodes,” Mr. Skelton has attempted the compression thus indicated, and we think that he has very fairly succeeded in his attempt; for we certainly find in this case that the third is better than the whole—that now, by the lapse of time, his one volume is more interesting and effective than Ferrier’s four. He “ suspects that the lacuna are sometimes visible to the naked eye,” and they certainly are, and here and there a few words in parenthesis might well have been inserted to bridge the gaps; but it is also true that in the complete dialogues the transitions were often very abrupt. Ferrier’s glossary has been retained; and Ferrier’s own words thereanent are too good for omission here (Preface to “Noctes,” XIX.):—“As the last specimen, then, on a large scale, of the national language of Scotland which the world is ever likely to see, I have preserved with scrupulous care the original orthography of these compositions. Glossarial interpretations, however, have been generally subjoined, for the sake of those readers who labour under the disadvantage of having been born on the south side of the Tweeds The glossary is very good as far as it goes, but, like most glossaries we have ever come across, omits some words which the average general reader cannot understand, while including others with whose meaning he is quite familiar. Thus we find braird, ycllo r.yite, fluster in, clegs, loop the floor or ripe the ribs, of each a Thurm, bate the girdle, partail, stance, rumbledethumps in the text, unexplained by foot-note or glossary; yet surely most of those who labour under the disadvantage of having been born on the south side of the Tweed, would bo far more puzzled by them than by such glossary terms as a', aboon, ae, aim, alane, aneath, auld; would indeed be as “ catawamptuously chawed up” by them as was the Opium Eater, who had been claiming mastery of the Scottish dialects, by the Shepherd’s “What’s a goicpen of glaurf" and the lucid interpretation, “It’s just twa neif fu's o' ciarts" [two fistfuls of mud]. It would have been well, also, had Mr. Skelton, like Ferrier, noted the dates at which the several dialogues appeared; and we think he had better have given, as did Ferrier, some of the best of the 'eongs, with the airs, even although not by Wilson, merely naming the author. For the rest, we have nothing but praise for the manner in which he has accomplished the task he set himself.
In several recent literary biographies we have remarked that a letter from Carlyle, or anything concerning him personally, is about the most interesting piece in the work. In the “Memoir of Wilson,” IL, 140-151, Carlyle appears but once, in a letter, not important but characteristic, from Craigenput-tock, December, 1829, reminding the Professor of his promise of a Christmas visit: “Come, then, if you would do us a high/avow, that warm hearts may welcome in th-e cold New-Year, and the voice of poetry and philosophy, numeris lege solutis, may for once be heard in these deserts, where, since Noah’s deluge, little but the whirring of heath-cocks and the lowing of oxen has broken the stillness. You shall have a warm fire, and a warm welcome; and we will talk in all dialects, concerning all things, climb to hill tops, and see certain of the kingdoms of this world, and at night gather round a clear hearth, and forget that winter and the devil are so busy in our planet. There are seasons when one seems as if emancipated from the ‘prison called life,’ as if its bolts were broken, and the Russian ice-palace were changed into an open sunny Tempe, and man might love his brother without fraud or fear 1 A few such hours are scattered over our existence, otherwise it were too hard, and would make us too hard.” Further on he says: “ My wife sends you her kindest regards, and still hopes against hope that she shall wear her Goethe brooch this Christmas, a thing only done when there is a man of genius in the company.” So much for the lonely scholar nourishing his mighty heart in solitude, and already brooding over “Sartor Resartus” and the “History of the French Revolution.” The letter ends with a few words touching Wilson: “I must break off, for there is an Oxonian gigman coming to visit me in an hour, and I have many things to do. 1 heard him say the other night that in literary Scotland there was not one such other man as----------!—a thing
in which, if------would do himself any justice, I cordially agree.” We cannot but think that Carlyle was then mistaken in his estimate of Wilson, who, in our opinion, did himself full justice—that is, all the justice of which his nature was capable. There are men forced by circumstances to hurry their work, or to labour on uncongenial subjects, who could undoubtedly write much better if they had ample time and subjects of their own choice. But the case of Wilson was not as theirs. He always wrote on whatever subjects he preferred, and be had plenty of leisure for writing, re-writing,
correcting, condensing; but he was lacking in the artistic impulse and instinct to elaborate and study and perfect. His poems and tales, to which he gave more care, are not stronger but weaker than his headlong “ Noctes.” His nature and genius were not profound and intense, but exuberant and expansive. His pathos and humour alike, though natural and genuine, are not deep; are easily stirred and much too frothy. A hearty laugh is echoed and re-echoed again and again, till it becomes a wearisome hollow monotony; page after page is pickled in the diluted brine of a single not very salt tear. The humour, in especial, is composed of the simplest and commonest ingredients—boisterous animal spirits and boundless exaggeration. Turn over the leaves of his works, and you see at a glance, by the mere multitude of the dashes, that you have to do with a prolix and slap-dash rhapsodist, not with a writer working studiously under laws of austere self-restraint. In his precipitant outpourings, the dregs, the foam, and the good liquor gush together in turbid redundance. Yet when criticism and hypercriticism have said their worst, we feel that this condensed “ Comedy of the Noctes” is and will long continue a right wholesome as well as enjoyable book, particularly for the young. Robust animal spirits are catching and inspiring in this weary, moiling world, and we willingly ignore the defaults of their joyous and joygiving possessors. The book is manly throughout; full of sympathy with Nature and human nature; contemptuous of all cant and priggishness, reverent to enthusiasm in the presence of lofty genius and virtue; inciting to activity, boldness and endurance, to the freest bodily as well as mental and moral culture. The Gargantuan eating and drinking (not all unaccompanied by smoking) are most jolly, for there is a hearty natural poetry in much of the fervid festal expatiation; and omnivorous eucrasy is infinitely to be preferred to the sentimental languishment of dyspeptic queasiness. FinaUy, the rich and racy Doric of the Shepherd adds wonderfully to the effectiveness of the whole; and really, as Ferrier urged, gives it a monumental significance. Nor do we think the less of Wilson because his life was superior to his writings; we who have been pained and disappointed in learning how many very considerable authors were very inconsiderable men.
J. T.
faults ®olb on i^e Sea of ^ct.
HI.—THE LAST OF THE SHANGHAIS. THE AURORA.
“A FALL! A FALL!” THE BAPTISM OF BLOOD.
Last month, in my graphic and vivid description of the mutiny on board our saucy brig, bound for the Sea of Ice, there was one statement made by me—by mistake, of course —which was not quite in accordance with fact; and the consequence, as far as I am concerned, has been that I have been fidgetty ever since; my easy chair has seemed to be stuffed with hedgehogs, and my consumption of cigars and ’Baccy has been enormous. Now, I’m a great stickler for facts; my readers all know this, and they know, too, that I never drew the long bow, or threw the hatchet, as long as they have known me. Facts are of various kinds. There are, for instance, ordinary facts, to which, while admitting at one side of your head, it is best to afford an easy exit at the other. Then there are extraordinary facts; these need the addition of salt to ensure their digestion; and there are Yankee facts. These, in their passage over the herriug-pond, I suppose, get so hard and so junkyfied, that only a jackass who has been fed most of his life on scupper-nails can stomach them at all. But all my facts are true facts, and easily swallowed—slide as easily down the throats of the million , as a gooseberry tart down the gullet of a loblolly-boy.
I said in my last that, on the night of the dreadful mutiny and massacre of the innocents, all the Shanghai cocks had been slain. This was not the case; because, now that I remember, one rooster escaped and fled, and went and hid himself in the bottom of a blubber tank. And by-and-by some one of the crew, never dreaming that there could be aught alive down in .the blackness and darkness of that unsavoury dungeon, popped on the lid. So I feel sorry for that cock even now, when I think of him. To be sure, his feelings at first, on escaping the terrible fate of his feathered brethren, could only have been those of relief. But think of his lonely, cold, and miserable Iffe in that dark iron tank; nothing to drink, nothing to eat—except a pick or two of last year’s blubber—and maybe his poor toes frozen to the metal. And this for a whole month! But one day somebody caught a seal, and the animal was skinned, and the skin and fat thrown into the cockie’s tank.
“Ho, ho!” thinks the Shanghai, “this is nice. Somebody is mindful of me after all. And they’ve left the lid of the tank off, too. Fresh meat and daylight! Won’t I go in a buster, just! ”
And he went in a buster, and never felt more happy in his life. Then he went to sleep for an hour on top of the warm skin; and when he awoke he felt like a giant refreshed, and so he flew upwards and right away out of the tank. “I’ll go back again presently, he said to himself, “ and have another tuck-in.”
Now, it was then just about two o’clock in the morning, although, of course, the poor Shanghai wasn’t to know that.
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The tramp of the watch was heard on deck, as they marched rapidly up and down to keep themselves warm. Down in the half-deck, or petty officers’ steerage, where Tuckie now found himself, all was “ peas”; the occupants of the various bunks snored and sweetly slumbered, dreaming, perhaps, of the green hills of bonnie Scotland, and of their wives and little ones now so far away; breeches lay about the half-deck here and there in graceful confusion, and the remains of the evening’s meal still stood on the deal table. Tuckie helped himself liberally to some sea-pie, and then stationed himself at the foot of the ladder, where he might receive the fullest benefit of the morning sun. He hadn’t been here many minutes, when, says Tuckie to himself, “Why,” he says, “I feel double the individual now. I feel,—I feel,—I feel like this:
“ Cock-a-leeric—O-ho-O! ”
Unhappy Tuckie! Unfortunate Shanghai! Hardly had the last notes died away, when a rushing of feet approached the companion from above and eager faces peered downwards, while at the same time there was a simultaneous gathering of the clans below. From every bunk two naked legs appeared, speedily followed in each case by a scantily-attired body; and then a grand rush was made to catch and slay the poor Shanghai. They tumbled pell-mell over each other in their hurry to clutch him. Up the ladder sprang Tuckie, followed by the naked mob; up the ladder and round and round the snowy decks went the chase, Tuckie well ahead, and the wind playing all sorts of fantastic tricks with the garments of his pursuers.
“ Ye don’t put salt on my tail this journey, boys, I’ll lay—an egg.” That was Tuckie’s remark as he jumped upon the bowsprit and hurried out to the very extreme end of the jibboom. Here he looked defiantly down on his cruel pursuers; here he shook his beak at them; here he clapped his wings, and—
“ Cock-a-lee-------”
Alas! poor Tuckie! The “cock-a-lee” found vent, but never the “ leerie-O,” for a sea-boot (one of fifteen) struck him flat on the chest, and hurled him into the sea; and a hammer-headed shark came up out of a wave, and first he swallowed all the sea-boots and then he swallowed Tuckie. And those bold mariners speedily retired and dived below; and, inasmuch as they were desirous of thawing their frozen persons, they sat for the remainder of the watch drinking red-hot rum and smoking pipes of peace.
And the ship sailed on.
We had now been many, many days at sea—weeks, in fact —and still we seemed as far from the Sea of Ice as ever. Plenty of fields and streams of slush and snow, but as yet never an iceberg. The wind, however, was fair, and in strength what merchant sailors down south would call a ten-knot breeze. Hardly five knots did we make out of our brig, so covered in ice were her bows; ice that the men were employed all day with iron crow-bars trying to dislodge, and still it gathered and gathered; for every time she dipped her jibboom seawards a new coating was formed. Had we been the best clipper yacht that ever sailed, weather like this would soon transform us into a Dutch-built lugger. Well, if we did not sail the seas like a thing of life, we did like a thing of beauty. I don’t think our Yankee mate was very much given to sentiment, but he must have had a little soul in him; for one night, when all—bar he—were smoking around the stove, the skylight above us was thrown open, and the mate’s good-natured, but rather elongated, phiz shone down upon us. He admitted rather a strong gust of cold air at the same time; but, after quietly spitting his quid into his left hand,
“Here’s a sight for sore eyes up here,” he said, “if you medicos are not too lazy to come up and have a peep.”
Hastily donning fur cap, gloves, and mittens, the doctor and I lighted fresh cigars, and trotted up. The mate stood quietly with his back to the binnacle. Near him on the deck was his bran-new spit-kid, into which he was quietly expectorating about once in thirty seconds. “Just stand here, boys, and have a look around,” he drawled; “I guess ye don’t see the likes o’ this in your country.”
Southward, as we turned our eyes, a round moon, in a clear, starry sky, cast its light upon the waters. Nothing wonderful in that; but, gaze we northwards, and—reader, my pen is one of Gillott’s best fine-pointed, and yet I feel I shall fail to describe the vision that now presented itself to our view. The background was the sky, radiant with the myriad lights of the aurora. It formed one broad, beautiful bow of coloured lights, stretching from the eastern to the western horizon, only allowing one little bit of blue sky to appear in the extreme north, in which gleamed strange stars. No rainbow ever seen could compare in magnificence with this gorgeous bow, with its ever-changing, ever-flashing transverse spears of crimson, green, and l)lue. We stood spell-bound, unable to utter a word. In the foreground of ocean was our own silent ship, draped in dazzling white from deck to truck. The sails were sheets of snow, edged and framed in precious stones; our masts were masts of marble; every rope and stay, rigging and sheet, shone with a silvery sheen that dazzled the eye to look upon; and the long icicles that fringed the capstan, and drooped in rows from the bulwarks, borrowed the rays of the aurora and helped to brighten this scene of enchantment. It would have been a sin to have broken the deep, solemn stillness by a single word; so, after lingering on deck for fully half-an-hour, we silently pressed the mate’s hand, and went slowly down below.
Turning into our bunks and turning out again were two quite different things—at least, the bunk we turned out of in the morning wasn’t a bit like the bunk we had gone to bed in the night before. Bunks in Greenlandmen, I should tell you, are simply roomy coffins, arranged alongside the bulkheads of the stateroom; each coffin has a bung-hole in the side, and in through this you must worm yourself, and then get in under the bedclothes and your paper blanket as speedily as possible. That’s what I used to do, and Nero used quickly to follow and lay himself alongside. The first half-hour in bed was spent in shivering agony and covered head. Gradually then heat came; and this was the time to light the long clay, and defy the world, the frost, and the devil. Then came balmy sleep. But, on awakening in the morning, lo! I was no longer in bed, but in a small ice cave. My breath had frozen everywhere into starry hoar-frost. The coverlet and roof and every side of the bunk were lined with it; and, funniest of all, I had gone to bed with a great black dog, and here close by me lay a pure white one.
It was just three bells, one bright sunny morning, and most of us were walking the quarter-deck as usual, enjoying the forenoon cigar, and trying to keep heat in our veins. Teddy Mulligan’s tongue was rattling on, as it always did when he had a weed in his mouth; the Yankee mate was ever throwing in some dry, humorous remark, trying, as it were, to put a stopper on Paddy’s tongue, but knowing all the time he was only throwing oil on the fire; and the doctor and I were laughing as usual, when suddenly from the crow’s nest on the main truck came the startling cry—
“A Fall I A Fall!”
“Where away ?” from the stentorian lungs of our captain. “ Three miles about, sir, straight on the tangent from our lee bow.”
Now, I have in my time seen one or two scenes of bustle and excitement; I have stood on the deck of a Greenlandman when seals were first sighted on the ice, and the order was given, “ All hands over the side; ” I have heard the drum beat to quarters, on board a man-of-war, at midnight, and seen every man Jack at his station under three minutes ; I have seen boats ordered away, and gone with them, to cut out fighting dhows ; twice have I stood on the deck of a burning ship.* I was in the terrible gales of wind that swamped the London, our ship f all but sinking, and no time for prayers, with the green seas pouring down the hatchways, sails in ribbons, and the huge shot dancing a mad medley on the fighting deck; Pve been stranded on many a coral reef in the Indian Ocean, and I happened to be on board the iron P------ when the ice crunched through her, and there was but ten minutes for the men to get their bags ere the ship was engulphed in the cold black waters of the Arctic Ocean; and don’t I remember poor old Duncan W--------------------------. Are you dead, Duncan, old man ? How speedily you ran below, Duncan. How quickly you emptied your bag on the deck. How deftly you popped your young son in there, and, “ Damn the rags,” you said, as you leapt on to the ice, “ I’ll save my son.”
Yes, I’ve seen queer scenes; but this “ man and lower boats” to go in pursuit of the Leviathan, caps them all. “A Fall ! A Fall ! ” The cry resounded fore and aft, “ A Fall! A Fall!” How the men pour up the ladders, and make for the boats, which always hang ready for action! “ A Fall! A Fall! ” the cry is in every mouth; the watch that had been below hurry on deck naked as they are, pulling on their garments as they hold on for a second or two, till their companions who are dressed get into the boats.
The sea is calm, its surface barely rippled; the foreyard is hauled a-back, the boats are lowered, the splash, splash, splash, as each boat touches the water, being the only sound now heard—the silence being in strange contrast to the previous scene of excitement. Now we are off; the captain is already in the crow’s nest, armed with the long-stalked, blackball fan, to guide us to the scene of action. No men ever pulled faster for dear life than our brave fellows do now; for glory and reward await the boat’s crew that first strike the fish. “ Hurra lads, hurra lads, hurra,” the steersman keeps constantly saying, and our boat seems to fly over the water.
And now we are near that monster whale. The mate is standing in the bows, one hand aloft to guide the steersman, the other poising the deadly harpoon. How noble that bold Yankee face looks now; how dark, how determined ! Near, and near, and nearer the doomed Leviathan, who seems asleep on the surface. The mate’s left fingers move, we lie on our oars ; the mate’s right arm quivers for a moment, his body is bent backwards, his brows are knit, his eyes flash fire. Look ! look! the bolt has left his hand, the fish is struck. She is struck, she is fast, aye and away. And surely line never sped over tafirail with such celerity as does ours now. Where are the other boats ? Pulling round with all speed to intercept her, and strike again. But, see, our line will soon be all paid out. “ Put way on the boat, lads,” roars the mate, “ I do not mean to lose her.” For long minates we are dragged through the sea, the water rising from our bows in two green sheets, feet high. Then the boat slows, stops; the fish has dived, and we speedily round in the slack. Five, ten, fifteen minutes elapse—ah! there she rips, there she rises, right in the midst of the other boats. Harpoon after harpoon is thrown into her; she struggles, twists the lines around her, struggles, seemingly for hours, then lies still.
* H.M. Gunboat 44 Penguin,’4 1864, on the African coast. f HJL8.
44 Magician.”
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jjow, mate! now, brave Yankee! Get your spear. Steadily does i^»men—b®^ and near, and nearer—and now that deadly olung^ and ^e blood-stream drenching us from head to heel. Then # shout, almost a scream, “Back water!” Aye, men, poll vrith a will, pull for the lives ye love, pull for the wives gnd little ones you left in green Caledonia, strain every Dervel-P“«. fvixl
j^d none too soon. See the monster tail that is towering black above us! Listen to its thunders as it lashes the encrux3s°ned water again and again, with blows audible miles and irxiles away—
Then ceases, and all is still!
for a moment only. Then cheer after cheer rings out and over tlie dark water, and we can see the captain in the crow’s oest, weaving aloft his black-ball fan, as we crowd around the jaad leviathan.
And we light the pipes the blood put out.
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
^mbtr.
xvm.
Next to the Geography, it is the Botany and the Zoology of our interesting subject which should occupy us; but we are perplexed how to approach it. Not till about forty or fifty years ago was any attempt made to study the zoology and botany of amber scientifically. In 1830 Dr. George Charles Berendt, a physician practising at Dantzic, and who attained distinction as a student of Nature, published a small volume on the “Insects in Amber.” Fifteen years after, under the title of “Organic Remains in Amber,” he began the publication, at Berlin, of one of those works which the Germans clumsily, but expressively, call “epochmaking.” Unfortunately, the work was not completed at his death, which took place about a quarter of a century ago; and, though portions appeared after his death, we believe that the work is still unfinished, for the latest part which has come into our hands was published in 1856. One of Berendt’s most eflicient co-operators was Professor Goeppert, a distinguished botanist. To Goeppert was entrusted the botanical part of the scheme. Goeppert, moreover, enriched, in 1853, a Breslau scientific journal with a treatise on the amber flora. It is impossible for us to give in detail the exhaustive and elaborate treatises on the zoology and the botany of amber for which we are indebted to Goeppert, Berendt, and their coadjutors. Often the literal rendering of the description of a plant, or of an insect, would occupy the whole of one of our columns, so that we might expect our task to end by the time the cathedral of Cologne is finished, the Eastern Question settled, and the whole population of the British Islands converted to teeto-talism by Sir Wilfrid Lawson’s fatuous buffoonery. The detailed descriptions of the amber insects and the amber plants would doubtless interest both the general and the scientific reader. But the limits of our space warn us to exercise self-denial, and to show some regard for proportion. Perhaps it is well that, before we depict, as completely as we can, the botany and the zoology of amber, we should present a comprehensive delineation of the geology of amber, not more than incidentally glanced at in our previous articles. This we are enabled to do by translating Berendt’s dissertation on the “Amber Land,” omitting and compressing now and then:—
The geographical configuration and the physical character of that part of Prussia in which amber is most abundantly found offer nothing striking, nothing distinguishing it from the neighbouring provinces. The coast is for the most part level and flat, is rough and precipitous only where the waves dash over sandy slopes against heights, in the Nehrungen forms, in exceedingly monotonous fashion, a chain of downs, which has accumulated there from the loose sand at the bottom of the sea. We behold in the declivities which stretch from the north of the Carpathian Mountains down to the Baltic simply a hilly region formed of deposits; and through that region stretches in soft elevations the Uralo-Carpathian range southward, and in the neighbourhood of the Baltic coast the Uralo-Baltic range northward. The Uralo-Carpathian range originates at the south end of the Ural, girdles the Slavic plain and the northern foot of the Carpathians, attains at Tarnowitz its highest point (1070) feet), forms the Treb-nitzian Heights (960 feet), the Griineberg and Sorau Hills (718 feet), and gradually diminishes toward the Liineberg Heath (330 feet). The Uralo-Baltic range stretches from the valley of the Kuma through the Slavic Plain, environs the German Lowlands in the north, and ends in the Jutland Peninsula. The height of its plateaux and of its separate peaks is very various. The sea-plateau of East Prussia has a height of 420 feet; the Schlossberg at Wildenhop attains 700 feet; the heights at Trunz are 590 feet; the isolated group of the Samland heights with the Gaitgarb is 360 feet; the Thurm-berg with the Pomerellian Highlands at Schoneberg is 1022 feet; the sea-flats of Hinder Pomerania with the Gollemberg are 458 feet, and so on.
The Pomerellian Highland, to which I shall have more than once occasion to recur, lies to the west of the outflow of the Vistula, breaking with many arms through the Uralo-Baltic range. It has in its steep sea-strand at Redlau a height of
203 feet, sweeps, gradually falling toward the coast, by Zoppot, Oliva, and Langfuhr, forms a part of Dantzic’s outer fortifications; thereupon, gaining in compass and in height, stretches deeper into the land, is traversed by many windings of the Radaune river, which has its source in it, attains in the Thurmberg at Schoneberg the maximum of its height, and blends further westward with the lower Pomeranian Heights. This plateau, as well as all the other mountain ranges and groups, consists of marine deposits. Some of the heights are formed entirely of sea sand; they are downs which the sea flung forth thousands of years ago as its frontiers and barriers. When such heights are stripped of their scanty vegetation, the sand is anew revealed; and, to the ruin of the land, storms sweep the sand to the neighbouring fields. In greater extent this deplorable spectacle is witnessed on the bare and much more recently formed Nehrung Downs, where the flying sand, the “plaything of the winds,” as Bock calls it, laid fields waste, and choked up houses and villages. For many a year the sand in the Dantzic Nehrung has been menacing to block up the arm of the Vistula which flows by. Those who wish to get fuller information respecting the soil and configuration of East and West Prussia, the various groups of heights, and the mineralogical and geognostical characteristics of this province, may find it, though only in fragmentary fashion, in the works of Seetzer, Wrede, Wutzke, Keferstein, Bergbaus, Wolff, and Aycke. The contents are very copious, but the works themselves no longer correspond to scientific requirements.
The chief constituents of the Prussian soil are sand and loam, found sometimes in distinct strata, sometimes blended with each other. The interior of the country abounds in forest, in moor, and in water, is very fruitful in the flats ; for example, in the delta of the Vistula, where the mould scarcely requires any manure. It is, in general, very productive where loam predominates, very sterile where sand and gravel have the mastery, and in some places it is so filled and bestrewn with granite blocks and with rubble that cultivation becomes difficult, and even impossible. On the surface of the more recent formations—for instance, of the Nehrungen (Belts of Sand) of the tongue of land, Hela, in the delta of the Vistula— those erratic blocks borne into the interior of the land are, for obvious and intelligible reasons, completely lacking.
Our historical knowledge of the amber land does not reach beyond six centuries. I must for pre-historic times go beyond the domain of myth. Where positive knowledge is lacking, probabilities must suffice.
It is well known that the physical effluences of the planetary-telluric force were once mightier than they are now. Mountain masses, in our North at the least, no longer emerge from the deep before our eyes. Countries no longer sink suddenly into the waves, and inrushes of the ocean no longer destroy the mainland to such an immense extent as in earlier times. But the same force still works incessantly, though invisibly, at one part in the gradual elevation, at another in the gradual depression of the soil. Proofs abound on every side. From the Baltic lands I offer a few. Lines and dates which a hundred, or even only fifty or forty years ago, were inscribed on the rocks of Sweden on a level with the surface of the sea, attest the change which has meanwhile taken place. Andrew Celsius (born 1701, died 1744) proved by important observations that the surface of the water on the coast of Sweden grew lower yearly to the extent of half an inch. Leopold Von Buch, Lyell, Keilhau and Nilsson confirm this, but with the difference that it is not a depression of the water but the elevation of the land which takes place, and in various regions in various degrees. Reimers, Nordenskiold, and Forchhammer have stated the same fact regarding the banks of the large inland lakes of Sweden and the coasts of Finland and Denmark. According to Forchhammer, Denmark and the Island of Bornholm have not gained an elevation of more than ten feet in the last thousand years; but many circumstances induced him to believe that from 2500 to 4000 years must have ela])sed since Bornholm sprang into being. In his “History of Norway,” published in 1753, Pontoppidan mentions that the skeleton of a whale had been found near Frederickshall ata height of forty fathoms; and Lyell in 1841 stated that, at the digging of the canal between the Miilar Lake and the Baltic, there was discovered, under deposits occupying altogether a depth of sixty feet, a fisherman’s hut, on the hearth of which coals were still lying; both cases exemplifying elevation and depression. Alexander Brongniart found in Sweden, several hundred feet above the level of the Baltic, all the species of shell-fish which still live in that sea. When the new sluices of Trolhiitta were made, vast beds of shells were seen, corresponding to those still met with in the Cattegat. Keilhau saw in Norway marine deposits at a height of six hundred feet above the sea. In the Danish diluvium Durocher came upon seventy species of shell-fish, exactly like those which exist in the Baltic. In Schleswig and Holstein the samp thing has been perceived. The Prussian coasts, from the nature and mode of deposit, are not so well adapted for the like observations. Changes of sea level and elevation of the land are not so easily demonstrable on those coasts as on Sweden’s rocky coasts. But the frequent occurrence of Baltic shell formations and of the remains of marine animals generally on the Prussian cliffs, the formations we meet with which are unquestionably submarine, furthermore the configuration of the coast, its abrupt hills and walls, its strata of sand, loam, gravel, and
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marl lying over each other, not horizontally or in parallels, but in undulations and in angles, sufficiently testify that in our Fatherland (North-Eastern Prussia) general and partial elevations have repeatedly taken place, through which have been laid bare marine deposits whose organic remains appertain to the existing creation, and whereby also the direction and the bend of the aforementioned strata have been repeatedly changed.
With the chalk epoch closes, as is well known, the evolution of secondary rocks; after it the tertiary formations begin. According to Steffens, chalk is the basis of the soil of Holstein and Mecklenburg. A considerable bed of oolithic limestone, and the oldest natural monument of Pomerania, attracts the attention at Fritzow, not far from Cammin. Nothing similar has been witnessed in the South Baltic Coast, for Rappolt’s Oolithes Regiomontanus was found in absolute isolation. Chalk forms great masses on the Rugen Island, lies two fathoms in thickness on the northern declivity of the Lebbin Mountain, exists in the islands of Usedam and W’ollin, as well as in many places of the Pomeranian Strand; then disappears, and comes into sight again at isolated spots on the Vistula between Thorn and Wroclawek, and on the Warta. The whole of Poland is covered with diluvial masses and with alluvions. Under a soil formed of plastic clay, of brown coal, of sand, of the rubble of primitive i;ocks, the chalk extends its march and its empire, breaking forth here and there in isolated fashion. It probably forms the basis of Prussia’s superposed strata; a conjecture strongly supported by the frequent though scattered occurrence of the flints which characterise the chalk formation. That in our own coast land chalk is not naturally deposited, that it never occurs as writing chalk, and very seldom as calcareous marl, is explained by the mass of diluvial fragments, and of alluvions found in the neighbourhood of the sea. All attempts made by boring and digging in West Prussia, and, so far as I know, in East Prussia and in East Pomerania, have failed to find pure chalk, though they have gone down to what was formerly the bottom of the sea. With the occurrence of chalk in the chief part of Poland, of the North Carpathian Mountain lands, and of South Prussia, corresponds the opinion frequently expressed by travellers, both old and new, that the territory—consisting for the most part of flat country and of boundless steppes—between the Baltic, the Black, the Caspian, and the White Seas, was at one per od a vast ocean, and that the present basins of the Black and the Caspian Seas are only feeble remains thereof. In the grey foretime Europe was probably separated from Asia by an ocean. Fragments of ships have been found on the tops of the Carpathians.
The Vistula and smaller rivers carried down during thousands of years enormous quantities of rock rubble, of mud, and especially of sand, into the flat country which is now called Poland, cleft the Jurassic limestone, the chalk, and the immense diluvial loam formation, and, allied with the material already existing, fashioned out of all these substances alluvions and banks, changed almost yearly a part of their own beds and of their loose strands, just as we see all rivers that are not restrained by dikes or dams doing in flat lands, formed at their outlets huger and huger accumulations, and gradually pushed the coast further and* further to the north. Changes in the beds of streams are noticeable in most of the Prussian riverine valleys, and in some rivers—for instance, the Pregel—are demonstrable. The Rhine flows partly in a different bed from that which it had at the time of the Romans. It was in the fashion just spoken of that the area of the land extended, and the sea driven back, left behind as principal stations, so to speak, of its gradual surrender and retreat, the two ranges of heights which from the Ural in a western direction traverse the North European Lowlands. The masses brought down from the mountain summits, and swept along the flat land by countless inundations of the rivers, were mingled with the various constituents of the native soil, and, through the heaps of sand and other matters coming to the strand from the sea, were changed to an ever higher and higher coast. The process of destruction in the Diluvial Period, and the subsequent inundations of rivers and the alluvions, strangely and variously blended what was old and what was new, what was foreign and what was native. Thus our soil, slowly growing toward the north, gained its present surface first in Poland, then in Southern Prussia, then in the Baltic amber-yielding provinces, which were of later formation.
The oldest myth respecting the origin of amber alludes to a Northern Ocean, and all traditions of the Greeks and Romans regarding amber have references to islands and sea coasts. Legends, indeed, do not communicate or confirm facts, but they treasure memories. Natalis Games said long ago that “all fables have some part of history as a foundation.” The agreement of the fabulous pictures between themselves awakes confidence, and the remembrance of an event not very remote from a particular period lends a high degree of historical probability to the common object treated of. In such circumstances the myth ceases to be the dreamy, cloudy image of the phantasy. The Electrida of the Greeks, the Glossaries of the Romans belong to the domain of mythical geography. They never occur as proper names, but only as the cognominations of those islands in the Northern Ocean where amber, Elektron, gbssum, sue cinum, was found. There were allusions to the islands in many writers. Pytheas, a citizen of the old Gallo-Greek town Massilia, who, 330 years b.c., made, in the
age of Alexander the Great, a voyage to Britain, mentions Mentonomon, a tract of coast, made rugged in many places by the inrush of the sea, and the Amber Island Abalus, a day’s journey therefrom. Pytheas was mathematician, astronomer, and naturalist. He knew how to reckon the geographical latitude; he confirmed the oblique direction of the ecliptic; he was the first to observe the influence of the moon on the ebb and flow of the tides. Respecting his voyage Barth’s “Primaeval History of Germany” furnishes details. Barth’s conjecture that the search for amber was the probable object of the voyage we should not hesitate to accept, when we consider that enterprising Phoenicians had circumnavigated Africa three hundred years before. Mentonomon is, according to Pliny, the coast land of the Baltic, from the Cimbrian Peninsula (the Denmark of to-day) to the mouth of the Vistula, and Abalus was probably what is now called Samland. Among all guesses or interpretations this is the most trustworthy. Timaecus designates the Amber Island with the names Banno-mana, Baunona, and also Raunona. After careful examination and comparison of all the passages in Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Pliny, we must conclude that by Baltia, the Basileia of Diodorus Siculus, Sweden must have been intended. Ptolemy says that Scandia consists of four island^, a large island and three smaller islands. Adam Von Bremen speaks of three Baltic Islands, one of which he calls Sconia Insula (Schonen Island, Skaney), and the third Samland. Celsius mentions that two thousand years before his time, there was passage by ships from the Gulf of Bothnia to the White Sea. Botanically and geogn^stically it is proved that salt plants exist in the wide plain of Central Sweden, and that sea shells to the depth of a yard pave the bottom of the Swedish lakes, whereby it is demonstrated that at a not very remote period the Swedish Plain was covered by the sea, and that the Malar, the Wener, and the Wetter Lakes were formerly bays of the sea. As the European North two thousand years ago was much richer in water than it is now, and as through the natural obstructions that have risen to the natural flow of stream and sea, and through the general and the many partial elevations of the land, the outlines of the coast, and the plastic formations of the soil must have totally changed, we should in these days seek in vain the Electride of the Ancients, even if Pytheas had been able to determine their precise geographical position, and to describe it with mathematical exactness. And what an immense trans flgurement awaits the profile of the Northern Coast during the next two thousand years, seeing that the sand banks in the North Sea occupy about a third of its whole extent. Historically demonstrated are many changes on the North German Litoral. Holland and Germany were in the year 340 b.c. overwhelmed by the Cimbrian Flood. The number of Islands from the Texel to the mouth of the Weser has changed to the amount of a third since Pliny’s time. In 1277 arose the huge Dollart, whereby fifty towns and villages were devoured by the sea. But why seek chips abroad when home offers such abundance!
®^t ^asi digmtft.
[From the San Francisco News Letter, February 22,1879.] I light the night’s last cigarette, To thee I give its peace;
To thee I give the trance that brings « The tired brain’s release.
The sullen hours limp slowly, And through the casement comes The far infrequent echo Of day’s retreating drums.
In soft succeeding billows, The fleecy fragrance rolls, From which one face smiles ever, Crowned with bright aureoles.
And on the veering vapour The hands of Hope begin To paint the only paradise My eager soul would win.
Raise no unquiet spectres Within your ^eecy shroud, But show me the fateful future, O, mystical white cloud.
Show me the end of longing, The heart of her I love;
Fade not, but on yon zephyr Be thou my carrier-dove.
Puff!—’tis the last, the Lethe Is drained to its latest sip. Are these Dead Sea Fruit ashes That linger upon my lip!
And she but a phantom only, That cheats my soul with bliss That cometh in visions lonely, But to end in smoke like this!
Frank H. Gassaway.
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Then by “pubs” in Ratcliffe Highway, Wherein sailors sit and stand;
Past, too, many a filthy byway, Blotches sore upon the land.
Now and then my pilot rouses, What his thoughts are, who can tell? Peeps into the public-houses, Nominates me, “Noble swell.”
In I go, by him attended;
Fluently the tar doth curse, And I have to treat him splendid, Lest his language should grow worse. Pots of “mild and bitter” treacly, “Goes” of rum and whisky neat, Oh! I )?ay for it so meekly, For it’s down a shady street.
Every moment he grows dearer,
I begin to see the stars;
And his voice is none the clearer
As he winks and says “ Cigars! Oh! but they’re Havannahs truly, Soon unto them we shall come;
‘ Curly ’ will not treat you Jewly, If I do, why, strike me dumb!” Then my heart rejoices greatly At the much expected treat;
Out my pilot staggers stately, I behind him in the street.
Soon a hovel, not majestic, Worse than all we saw before,
^ Jfraub by "Orlg.
AFTER TENNYSON.
\/ l/A^ ^ my ear k0 whispered gaily, b fl I II ^^ “I have some cigars to sell,
Captain, I make bold to hail ye; Don’t you never go and tell.”
I replied, “ Oh! no, I ain’t a-Going to split on one like thee;” Winked I then, and winked he quainter, For a smuggler bold was he.
Nasally he placed his finger, After him I pad the hoof;
Little time we dared to linger, Seeking for his secret roof.
“I’ve cigars and ’Bacca pleasant, Little I require of pelf;
Cheap, sir, cheap! almost a present, For I smuggled them myself.”
Where he hits a blow with his stick. On the blurred and battered door.
Then inside I hear a murmur, Words of bitterness and gall;
He infirm, and I infirmer, Not prepared for any maul.
Bound he turns to me, half-blindly, Crowded with the rum and stout;
Says to me, in tones quite kindly, “ Come in where I do hang out.
Here I lives, and offers bargains, Swells like you come near and far;
Smokes more proper than the Shah gains;
Tell me—* have you seen the Shah?’ ” Out my purse at once it flashes, And I paid him what he bid;
While his smuggling teeth he gnashes Quickly on a bran new quid.
Then his countenance all over
Flushed into a sudden grin,
And he said, “Are you a lover Of some prime old Hollands gin?” Not to show a woman’s weakness, Down my throat the spirit sank;
Though I watered it to meekness, From a small unfiltered tank.
Then a goodly bundle made he, Whispered hoarsely “ Don’t you blab!”
Led me out by byways shady, Till he popped me in a cab.
But a trouble weigh’d like thunder, With the very first cigar;
And I frowning said, “ I wonder, Wonder what the deuce they are.” Faint I grew, and sick, and sicker, Till I murmured, “ Oh that I
Had not taken so much liquor, Cabby, stop! or I shall die.” Then I stood and wept before him, As to cheer me up he tried;
Three good pounds, I did assure him, I had paid for what’s inside.
Winking with expression surly, “ Sir,” says he, “ you have been had, By that faker, burly ‘ Curly ’;
He’s the baddest of the bad.” And he laughed till he did shiver, When my three pound prize he saw; “Chuck ’em,” said he, “ in the river, They are stuffed with hay and straw.” So I quickly pitched them thither, ’Twas the plan I deemed the best;
Sad to bed I gat me, with a Three pound nightmare on my chest.
H. L.
dope’s ^lidurt.
I saw in a tailor’s shop window yesterday this striking legend:—“Determined to keep the Lead.—Tweeds.—Full Suit, 40/-.” That tailor is on his mettle. So am I. Mr. W. E. Waller has written me a letter, which fact explains. The tailor fives in Bloomsbury; Mr. Waller lives in Barns-bwy; and I, who live in these columns, am stimulated from Barnsbury to emulate Bloomsbury, and “keep the lead.” Mr. Waller says—“I am a subscriber to the Tobacco Plants and as you always endeavour to make your articles as interesting as possible,” <fcc. Now, that is a delicate compliment. Mr. Waller hits off the situation admirably. I do so “endeavour”; and when a silent and unappreciative public leaves my brows unbound with bays, I stifle my sighs with the original and pathetic reflection that “ ’Tie not in mortals to command success: the best can but deserve it.” I believe there is a proverb about angels being unable to do any better; . but, as my acquaintance with angels is limited, I say no more on that point. Nor will I spoil the fine effect of my correspondent’s dainty flattery by reciting the proposal it was J designed to introduce. I may agree with him about Tobacco । licences; I may be of opinion that the fiscal change he suggests would help this moribund Government to pay its ▼ay; but I don’t know that that is a reason for discussing it. Everybody is ordered or implored to help the Government out of its difficulties. Didn’t the Times order Mr. Gladstone the other day to forget Party, be patriotic, and tell the Government what to do, in the matter of getting out of debt? That is the line, no doubt; but, when I am asked questions of this sort, I remember Mr. Boythorn’s passionate inquiry, “Is
there no such thing as principle, Mr. Harold Skimpole?” and the gay and airy Harold’s reply—“Upon my life, I have not the least idea! I don’t know what it is you call by that name, or where it is, or who possesses it. If you possess it, and find it comfortable, I am quite delighted, and congratulate you heartily. But I know nothing about it, I assure you; for I am a mere child, and I lay no claim to it, and I don’t want it.” I wish, as this gentleman says, just to go on my way, and “always endeavour to make my articles as interesting as possible”—avoiding pitfalls, and Tory finance above all.
They say at the city of Concord, in the United States, that Mrs. Emerson awoke one night, and, hearing Ralph Waldo groping about the room in the dark, cried out—“ My dear, are yon unwell?” to which tender inquiry her husband replied— “No, my love, only an idea.” He was trying to find a light, that he might put that idea on paper, and preserve it for future use. It seems to me I have heard that story, or its twin-brother, before; and about somebody else who filled note-books with stray potions, caught flying. But it matters little who may have been the original hero, when the story is a good one. I am not of the number of those who think it important to prove that Cinderella’s glass slipper was made of felt, or fur; for I have learnt that lesson of long life that it is not of much consequence that “your marble mantelpiece turns out of slate if you’re a scrubber, sir, and pavingstones are made of wood, or else of india-rubber, sir.” A man who has read Bishop Berkeley can hear with philosophic equanimity that “everything is anything but what it seems”; so that, if this tale about Emerson is really a tale about somebody else, I don’t know that I mind. They may adulterate what they like, so long as they leave my Tobacco unso-
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phisticated. I think it is a very good thing to jot down a good idea when you think you have one; hut I am aware that the supply of ink, paper, and lead-pencil at present in the world would not suffice to record all the good things some people think they think. Emerson's ideas are worthy of note-books; so are mine—the only difficulty being to find note-books worthy of them; but I’ve been dipping into Notes and Queries for the 22nd of March last, and I am not sure that everything that is written deserves to be treated on Cap’n Cuttle’s plan. For example, here is a composition, which a contributor calls “the following lines” and of which he says (on the model of the boy who wanted something “about tne size of apiece of chalk”) that they “were written about the same time as those on Nina’s tomb”:—
“THE TRUE LEUCOTHOE.
V Let others praise the Rod of wine, Or Venus, love, and beauty’s smile;
I choose a theme not less divine, The plant that grows in Cuba’s Isle. “ The old Greeks err’d who bound with bays ▲polio’s brow; the verdant crown He wore, when measuring their days, Grew in the west where he went down.
“ An idle tale they also told: They said he gave them frankincense, Borne bv some tree he lov’d of .old;
If so, he gave a mere pretence.
“ For the true offspring of his love-Tobacco—grew far o’er the sea, Where Leucothoe from above Led him as honey leads the bee.
“ Till on that plant he paus’d to gaze
Some moments ere he held his way, ▲nd cheer her with his warmest rays, Heedless of time or length of day.
“ Then, with a sigh, his brows he wreath’d With leaves that care and toil beguile, ▲nd bless’d, as their perfume he breath’d, The plant that grows in Cuba’s Isle.”
I have always been disposed to admit that the charms of Tobacco were of far more ancient recognition than is supposed by people who stop short at Walter Raleigh. The stone pipes of the American Indians have carried my speculations on the subject to ages of most venerable antiquity ; and there is not a pipe in Mr. Bragge’s remarkable museum which fully satisfies a fancy fed on the romances of Prescott and the legend of Hiawatha. But, as Sam Weller’s barber said to the chimneysweep whom he declined to shave, “ You must draw the line somewhere.” I think I must draw the line short of Apollo. If the musical god had discovered the Plant, I cannot suppose the Greeks would have ignored it in their symposia; yet amongst the pleasures immortalised by Plutarch, by Plato, and the rest of the faithful chroniclers, there is no trace of the Divine Herb. Plutarch, I believe, recounts all the contributions which a “ clubable man,” of the time of Lycurgus was expected to make to the general stock. He was to furnish every month so much flour, so many measures of wine, so many pounds of cheese and figs, and so much money to buy meat and fish ; but there is no mention of the Weed.
Having thus repudiated Apollo, I am bound to clear myself of the suspicion that I am a mere modern, or that I might doubt historical fact because of the imperfection of testimony. Archbishop Whateley’s ingenious argument against the credibility of the theory that there was once a Napoleon Bonaparte amuses me, but does not lead my judgment captive. I regard it as a matter of thankfulness that, in an age which has produced a Bishop Colenso and a M. Renan, I am still able to retain my faith in one or two matters which are beyond the reach of logic. It was my good fortune to discover pretty early in life that, logically, I could as easily disprove as prove my own existence. Wherefore, I believe in fairies, the kingdom of Laputa, the genius of the lamp, Jack the Giant Killer, the “ Water Babies,” the Barons at Runny-mead, the British Constitution, the Rights of Man (and Woman), and the superior virtues of John Bull, the good intentions of the present Government, the ultimate perfection of Humanity, and a few more relics of faith. Why, then, may I not credit the author of the “poem” I have just quoted, when he says—“ For my own part I have smoked for fifty-five years, and have always had good health, so that, as De Fontenelle said of coffee, I hold that Tobacco is a very slow poison ? ” I do believe him ; although I am aware that, for the credit of Dr. Richardson, and sundry other persons of authority, he ought to be very dead indeed. Well, that carries me back more than half a century. Then, I take up Mr. Fleet’s “ Glimpses of our Sussex Ancestors,” and find a clerical gentleman, who lived somewhere between the middle of the 17th and the middle of the 18th century, making this entry in his diary:—“ Tobacco for my wyfe, 3d.” Thus, I am wafted on the wings of my faith to a period at least a century and a half ago. But that is not the limit of my belief; for I have before me an ancient, time-worn volume, in which three successive owners have inscribed their names, at the respective dates of 1760, 1777, and 1793. It was a very old volume when it came into the hands of the first of these, for the imprint on the title-page is 1635. It is that quaint and curious book—“ Speculum Mundi; or a Glasse Representing the Face of the World; shewing both that it did begin, and must also end : the manner How, and time When, being largely examined.” At pages 264-6 I find a dissertation on my favourite vegetable, which is of so fine a flavour that I need not apologise for incorporating it in this “ Mixture.”
Behold, then, how “ our dear Tobacco” was esteemed within fifty years of the time when Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have brought it from its Western fatherland to this chill and misty isle:—
“Of Tabaco. or (as it is commonly called) Tobacco, there be principally two kindes, saith Mr Gerard: one greater, the other less©. The neater was first found in those provinces of America which we call the West Indies. The lesser comes from Trinidada, an island neare unto the continent of the said India. To which some have added a third sort. And since the first discovery, there have been plantations made in other places.”
“ The people of America call it Petum: Others, Sacra herba, tout* herba, and Sana sancta Indorum. The reason being (as I take it) tecum when the Moores and Indians have fainted, either for want of food or rest, this hath been a present remed ie unto them to supply the one, and help them to the other. And some have called it Hyoseyamus Peruvianas, at Henbane of Peru ; which also Mr Gerard assenteth unto, verily thinking that it is a Species Hyoscyami, (for there be more kindes of Henbane then one) chiefly in regard of the qualitie; because it bringeth drowsinesse, troubk th the senses, and maketh a man, as it were, drunk, by taking of the fume onely. Of some it is named Nicotiana exotica: and by Nicholas Monardis it is named Tabaco. Which said Monardis witnesseth that it u hot and drie in the second degree.”
“ The Physical! & chirurgicall uses of it, are not a few; and being tatai in a pipe it helpe th aches in any part of the bodie; being good also for the kidneys by expelling winde. But beware of cold after it; neither take it wantonly, nor immoderately. And know that some commend the syrape before the smoke: yet the smoke (say they) physically taken is to be tolerated, and may do some good for rheums, and the forenamed maladies: which, whilest some might cure, they make them worse. For we see that the use is too frequently turned into an abuse, and the remedie is proved a disease; and all through a wanton and immoderate use. For Omne amtwa vertiter in vitium.”
“ To quaffe, roar, swear, and drink Tobacco well. Is Jit for such as pledge sick healths in hell: Where wanting wine, and ale, and beer to drink. Their cups are JUl’d with smoke, fire, fume, and stink.9
“ I remember an excellent salve which I am taught to make of green Tobacco: the receipt whereof is thus. Take the leaves of Tobacco two pounds, hogges grease one pound: stamp the herb small in a stone mortar, putting thereto a small cup full of red or claret wine: stirre them weO together, cover the mortar from filth, and so let it rest untill the morning: then put it to the fire and let it boil gently, continually stirring it untill the wine be consumed; then strain it and set it to the fire again, putting thereto one pound of the juice of the herb, A of Venice turpentine 4 ounces; boil them all together to the consumption of the juice: then adds thereto two ounces of round Aristochia, or Birthwort, in most fine powder, with wax sufficient to give it a bodie: and so thou hast made an accurate salve for wounds, or for old filthie ulcers of the legs, Ac.”
“ The women of America (as Gerard mentions in his Herbal!) do not use to take Tobacco, because they perewade themselves it is too strong for the constitution of their bodies: and yet some women of England use it often, as well as men. And, questionlesse, those natives amongst whom it groweth, may take more at once then any one of us. It is said that 8ir JVaaeia Drakes mariners brought the first of this herb into England in the years 1585, winch was in the 28 yeare of Q. Elisabeth, and 8 yeares before Tilburie camp.”
Have I indicated my faith? If not, I despair; and I fall back upon that which lays less strain upon the credulous function. There died, the other day, at a good old age, an officer—Colonel Edward L’Estrange—who had served 52 years in the British army before he was endowed by a grateful and generous country with a pension of 10s. a day; and of this antique gentleman an old friend tells that “He smoked perpetually ; from the time he got out of bed until he put out his candle, about two A.M., he puffed away leisurely at his weed; nicotine was food to him.” In the face of that instance, I can hardly warn my friends who read this column against smoking; but to clear my conscience and balance accounts, I will recite to them an American yarn which bears on the perils of chewing, Says the New York Tribune:—
“ The interconvortibility of greenbacks and chewing Tobacco has teen illustrated in Western Massachusetts. A fanner, who invariably carries tte weed in his waistcoat pocket, went to Bpringfield to sell a load of apples. When he found a purchaser he took the money, and, rolling it into a little wad, stuffed it into his pocket. Not long afterward he emptied his mouth, and, thrusting his hand into his pocket for a fresh supply of Tobacco, bit off a fair-sized section, and ground at it a while with unwonted zeal and relish. When he discovered that he was chewing greenbacks and that what remained of the wad was worth barely 80 cents on the dollar, he smiled sweetly and murmured ‘I vum,* after the manner of the sturdy yeomen of the noble old commonwealth.”
And with this potent warning, I remain,
Your Man-of-All-Worx.
^n ©lb fjefo gonh.*
When one finds a novel begin thus, he knows that he has to do with a thinker:—
“ Some years ago a book was published under the title of * The Pilgrim's Scrip.’ It consisted of a selection of original aphorisms by an anonymous gentleman, who in this bashful manner gave a bruised heart to the world.
“ He made no prete nsion to novelty. * Our new thoughts have thrilled dead bosoms.’ he wrote; by which avowal it may be seen that youth had manifestly gone from him, since he had ceased to be jealous of the ancients. There was a half-sigh floating through his pages for those days of intellectual coxcombry, whr n ideas come to us affecting the embraces of virgins, and swear to us they are ours alone, and no one else have they ever visited: and we believe them.
“ For an example of his ideas of the sex, he said: ‘I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilised by Man.’ ”
The Pilgrim of the Scrip is the Father, Sir Austin Feverel, Bart., of Raynham Abbey, in a certain western county folding Thames. He had a wife and a friend: the wife a poor beauty, too far beneath her husband in mental and moral stature; the friend a dangling parasite, a sort of poet of sentiment and satire: after five years of marriage, and twelve of friendship, Sir Austin was left to his loneliness, with nothing to ease his heart of love upon save a little baby boy in a
♦ The Ordeal of Richard Feverel: A History of Father and Son. By George Meredith. London: C. Kegan Paul and Co., 1878. One vol.
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cradle. The baby is Richard, the subject of the Ordeal, which is the system of education elaborated by the father so incurably wounded in friendship and love: “Richard was neither to go to school nor to college. Sir Austin considered that the schools were corrupt, and maintained that young lads might by parental vigilance be kept pretty secure from the Serpent until Eve sided with him: a period that might be deferred, he said.” Again: “ Sir Austin wished to be Providence to his son. If immeasurable love were perfect wisdom, one human being might almost impersonate Providence to another. Alas! love, divine as it is, can do no more than lighten the house it inhabits—must take its shape, sometimes intensify its narrowness—can spiritualise, but not expel, the old life-long lodgers above-stairs and below.” Whence we apprehend that the infallible System may fail; that in being the Ordeal of young Richard, it is passing through a fiery ordeal itself, from which it can scarcely emerge scatheless,—from which it may not emerge at all, being utterly consumed. As for the faithless wife and friend, we have but the briefest glimpses of either; one glimpse of both together is very truly sad: “Further behind the scenes we observe Rizzio and Mary grown older, much disenchanted: she discrowned, dishevelled—he with gouty fingers on a greasy guitar. The Diaper Sandoe of promise lends his pen for small hires. His fame has sunk; his bodily girth has sensibly increased. What he can do, and will do, is still his theme; meantime the juice of the juniper is in requisition, and it seems those small hires cannot be performed without it.” Rizzio, if you like, Mr. Meredith, though surely a very mean one; but wherefore this poor-spirited, weak-minded, soft-headed creature, Mary? Mary, one of those few supreme women like Helen and Cleopatra, each to the common of her sex ‘as a royal Bengal tigress to a household cat;’ most beautiful, most terrible, haughty and splendid and indomitable, fatal and fated; transcending all our petty moral codes, triumphing disastrously in life and death, compelling reluctant History to bow down and adore.
Let us see how our author delineates a character, before setting it to act for itself : here is Richard’s cousin and tutor :
“ The principal characteristic of Adrian Harley was his sagacity. He was essentially the wine youth, both in counsel and in action. * In action,’ the ‘Pilgrim’s Scrip’ observes, ‘ Wisdom goes by majorities.’ • Adrian had an instinct for the majorities, and as the world invariably found him enlisted in its ranks, his appellation of wise youth was acquiesced in without irony.
“ The wise youth, then, had the world with him, but no friends. Nor did he wish for those troublesome appendages of success. Ho caused himself to be required by people who oould serve him; feared by such as could injure. Not that he went out of the way to secure his end, or risked .he expense of a plot. He did the work as easily as he ate his daily bread. Adnan was an epicurean : one whom Epicurus would have scourged out of his garden, certainly: an epicurean of our modern notions. To satisfy his apatites without rashly staking his character, was the wise youth s problem for life. Ho had no intimates except Gibbon and Horace, and the society of these fine aristocrats of literature helped him to accept humanity as it had been, and was; a supreme ironic procession, with laughter of gods in the background. Why not laughter of mortals also ? Adrian had his laugh in his comfortable corner. He possessed peculiar attributes of a heathen god. He was a disposer of men : he was polished, luxurious, and happy—at their coat He lived in eminent self-content, as one lying on soft cloud, lapt in an Tishina. Nor Jove, nor Apollo, cast eye upon the maids of earth with cooler fire of selection, or pursued them in the covert with more sacred impunity. And he enjoyed his reputation for virtue as something additional. Stolen fruits are said to be sweet; undeserved rewards are exquisite.
“The best of it was, that Adrian made no pretences. Hu did not solicit the favourable judgment of the world. Nature and he attempte d no other concealment than the ordinary mask men wear. And yet the world would proclaim him moral, as well as wise.
“ In a word, Adrian Harley had mastered his philosophy at the early age of one-and-twenty. Many would be glad to say the same at that age twice told: they carry in their breasts a burden with which Adrian's was not loaded. A singular mishap (at his birth, possibly, or before it) had unseated his heart, and shaken it down to his stomach, where it was a much lighter, nay, an inspiring weight, and encouraged him merrily onward. Throned there it looked on little that did not arrive to gratify it. Already that region was a trifle prominent in the person of the wise youth, and carried, as it were, the flag of his philosophical tenets in front of him. He was charming after dinner, with men or with women; delightfully sarcastic; perhaps a little unscrupulous in his moral tone, but that his moral reputation belied him, and it must be set down to generosity of disposition.”
This from Chap. I., let us move on to H. and HI. “ October shone royally on Richard’s fourteenth birthday. The brown beech-woods and golden birches glowed to a brilliant sun. Banks of moveless cloud hung about the horizon, mounded to the west, where slept the wind. Promise of a great day for Raynham, as it proved to be, though not in the manner marked out.” For the hero of the festival had been requested by his father to submit to medical examination, like a boor enlisting for a soldier, and with a reluctant friend of his own age was flying as though he would have flown from the shameful thought of what had been asked of him. His friend said his sentiments were those of a girl; for which offensive remark friend was called a fool when he fired badly, they having borrowed a couple of guns at the bailiff’s farm. Hence a fight, in which poor friend’s nose was damaged; then reconciliation, Richard, having the better of it, withdrawing the “fool.” Unconsciously they got poaching on the demesne of the notorious free-trade Farmer Blaize, who loved not Feverels; and, after threats and defiance, soundly horsewhipped the youngsters. Richard goes on in a fever; with a horrible sense of shame, self-loathing, universal hatred, impotent vengeance, as if his
* Campax* Liopabdi, “Pensieri,” V.—“In things occult the minority always sees better; in plain things, the majority. It is absurd to adduce what is called the consensus of the multitude [Reid's “ Common Sense ”] in metaphysical questions: of which consensus no account is takon in physical natters,subject to the senses; as, for example, in the question of the motion of ths earth, and in a thousand others. And, on the contrary, it is rash, dangerous, and in the long run useless, to oppose the opinion of the majority in civil affaire.”
spirit were steeped in abysmal blackness; meditating a thousand schemes of sweeping and consummate revenge. Something terrible must be done to wipe out the indignity; he would kill the farmer’s cattle, he would kill the farmer; would make him tight with powder and ball, and shoot the brawny coward dead.—Truly, the System seems in a rather bad way already.
The boys went on and on across country; the friend, less heroic, becoming more and more intensely conscious of weariness and famine. “ They were a long way down the valley, in a country of sour pools, yellow brooks, rank pasturage, desolate heath. Solitary cows were seen; the smoke of a mud-cottage; a cart filled with peat; a donkey grazing at leisure, oblivious of an unkind world; geese by a horse-pond, gabbling as in the first loneliness of creation; uncooked things that a famishing boy cannot possibly care for, and must despise.” At length, when friend in despair cried, “Tell us where you’re going to stop,” Richard said “There!” and dropped down on a withered bank; and the poor friend, crushed as by remorseless fate, had to sink beside him. Thus are we brought to the grand duet to the glory of Divine Tobacco, chanted by the Travelling Tinker and the Ploughman out of work, which, with its accompaniment, must be here set out in full:—
“ Now the chance that works for certain purposes sent a smart shower from the sinking sun, and the wet sent two strangers for shelter in the lane behind the hedge where the boys reclined. One was a travelling tinker, who lit a pipe and spread a tawny umbrella. The other was a burly young countryman, pipeless and tentless. They saluted with a nod, and began recounting for each other's benelit the day-long doings of the weather, as it had affected their individual experience, and followed their prophecies. Both had anticipated and foretold a bit of rain before night, and therefore both welcomed the rain with satisfaction. A monotonous between whiles kind of talk they kept droning, in harmony with the still hum of the air. From the weather theme they fell upon [i.e., rose to] the blessings of Tobacco; how it was the poor man's friend, his company, his consolation, his comfort, his refuge at night, his first thought in the morning.
“ ‘ Better than a wife J' chuckled the tinker. * No curtain-lecturin’ with a pipe. Your pipe a’n't a shrew.’
“ * That be it 1 ’ thu other chimed in. * Your pipe doan’t mak’ ye out wi’ all the cash Saturday evenin’.’
“ ‘ Take one,’ said the tinker in the enthusiasm of the moment, handing a grimy short clay. Speed-the-Plough tilled from the tinker's pouch, and continued his praises.
“ * Penny a day, and there y’aro, primed 1 Better than a wife ? Ha, ha! * “ ‘ And you can gut rid of it, if ye wants for to, and when ye wants,’ added the tinker.
“‘So ye can 1’ Bpeed-the-plough took him up, ‘So ye can I And ye doan’t want for to. Leastways, t’other case. I means pipe.’
“‘And,’ continued thu tinker, comprehending him perfectly, ‘it don’t bring repentance after it.’
“ ‘ Not no how, master, it doan’t! And ’-Speed-the-Plough cocked his eye—‘ it doan’t eat up half the victuals, your pipe doan’t.’
Here the honest yeoman gesticulut d his keen sense of a clincher, which the tinker acknowledged ; aud having, so to speak, sealed up the subject by saying the best thing that could be said, the two smoked for some time in silence to the drip and patter of the shower.
Ripton [Richard's friend] solaced his wretchedness by watching them through the briar hedge. He saw the tinker stroking a white cat, and appealing to her, every now and then, as his missus, for an opinion or a confirmation ; and he thought that a curious sight. Speed-the-Plough wm stretched at full length, with his boots in the rain, and his head amidst the tinker’s pots, smoking profoundly contemplative. The minutes seemed to be taken up alternately by the grey puffs from their mouths.
It was the tinker who renewed the colloquy. Said he, ‘ Times is bad 1 *
His companion assented, ‘ Sure-ly 1 ’
“‘But it somehow comes round right,’resumed the tinker. ‘ Why, look here. Where’s the good o’ moping ? I sees it all come round right and tight. Now, I travels about. I’ve got my beat. ’Casion calls me t other day to Newcastle 1—Eh '? '
“ * Coals 1 ’ ejaculated Speed-the-Plough, sonorously.
“ * Coals 1 ’ echoed the tinker. ‘ You ask what I goes there for, mayhap ? Never you mind. One sees a mort o’ life in my trade. Not for coals it isn’t. And I don't carry ’em there, neither. Anyhow, I comes back. London's my mark. Says I, I'll see a bit o' the sea, and steps aboard a collier. We were as nigh wrecked as the prophet Paul.'
“ • A—who’s him ? ’ the other wished to know.
“‘Read your Bible,’ said the tinker. ‘ We pitched and tossed—’taint that game at sea, ’tin on land, I can tell ye 1 I thinks, down we're going—-Say your prayers. Bob Tiles 1 That was a night, to be sure I But God's above the devil, and here I am, ye see.’
“ Speed-the-Plough lurched round on his elbow and regarded him indifferently. * D’ ye call that doctrin’? He bean't ofays, or I shoo'n’t be scrapin’ my heels wi' notliin’ to do, aud what’s worse, nothin’ to eat. \\ hy, look here. Luck's luck, and bad luck’s the con-trary. Varmer Bollop, t’ other day, lias’s rick burnt down. Next night his gran’ry’s burnt. What do ho tak’ and go and do ? He takes and goes aud hangs unsel’, and turns us out of his employ. God warn’t above the devil then, I thinks, or I can’t make out the reckouin’.’
“ The tinker cleared his throat, and said it was a bad case.
“‘And a darn'd bad case. I’ll tak’ my oath on’t I’ cried Speed-the-Plough. * Well, look heer. Here's another darn’d bad case. I threshed for Varmer Blaize—Blaize o’ Bcltharpe—afore I goes to Varmer Bollop. Varmer Blaize misses pilkins. He swears our chaps steals pilkins. ’Twarn't me steals em. What do he tak’ and go and do ? He takes and turns us off, me and another, neck and crop, to scuffle about and starve, for all he koers. God warn’t above the devil theu, I thinks. Not nohow, oh I can see! ’
The tinker shook his head, and said, that was a bad case also.
“‘And yon can’t mend it,* added Speed-the-Plough. * It's bad, and there it be. But I’ll tell ye what, master. Bad wants payin’ for.’ He nodded and winked mysteriouslv. ‘Bud has its wages as well as honest work, I’m thinkin’. Varmer Bollop I don’t owe no grudge to; Varmer Blaize I do. And I shud like to stick a Lucifer in his rick some dry windy night.’ Speed-the-Plough screwed up an eye villanously. * He wants hittin’ in the wind,— jest where the pocket is, master, do Varmer Blaize, and he'll cry out O Lor’t Varmer Blaize will. You won’t get the better o’ Varmer Blaize by no means, as I makes out, if you doan’t hit into him jest there.’
“ The tinker sent a rapid succession of white clouds from his mouth, and said that would be taking the devil’s side of a bad case. Speed-the-Plough observed energetically that, if Farmer Blaize was on the other, he should be on that side.
“ There was a young gentleman close by who thought with him.”
After this, readers will scarcely be surprised to learn that that very night Farmer Blaize’s rick and stable went to blazes, and that the hero and his friend as well as the honest rustic were concerned in the arson. What came of it and what befell the hero afterwards, voyaging the wild Sea of Life in the ironclad “System”; and how the poor “System” itself fared, buffeted by the winds and waves of human nature
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and worldly circumstance; all this I commend the good and thoughtful smoker to read and ponder for himself in the book itself, one of the most brilliant and daring of our generation. I may just hint that George Meredith appears to have about as much esteem for the “System” as Carlyle for Logic-spectacles and paper Constitutions. For he, too, is a spiritual Idealist who tights resolutely for the veracious Ileal; he affirms himself as emphatically as Fielding, no mere fiction-monger, but an authentic historian of genuine Nature, infinitely more noble and beautiful in her honest plainness than when tricked out and disguised in the most dazzling gauds of sentimental and other artificialities. And the purport of this “History of Father and Son” may be concisely stated in a sentence I have read somewhere: “ A Creed or System is a strait-waistcoat for Nature; and if you will persist in forcing it upon her, you will soon experience that the great Titaness not only flings it off with wrathful disdain, but makes yourself fit for a strait-waistcoat in recompense for your trouble.”
One of the unfair and inferior sex has this to give him evil courage in writing for the Tobacco Plant, that he will be mainly read by mere men like himself. But should any of the fair and superior sex deign a casual glance at the foregoing excerpts, and protest against the male arrogance of that “Woman will be the last thing civilised by Man”; and against the characteristic selfishness and injustice of that preference, wherein Tinker and Ploughman so cordially agree, of a cheap pipe to a dear wife: allow me, by way of propitiation, to inform these “Fair Ladies in Revolt” (of whom our poet has written an exquisitely subtle and chivalrous ballad), that a certain little Lucy, most divinely human, glows glorious in the book; that between her and Richard there is some of the most beautiful, simple, warm, frank love-making ever met with in drama or romance; and that there is a great deal of the remarkable sayings and doings of a certain Mrs. Berry, their humble friend, one of the delightfullest bunches of black satin that ever rustled through printed pages.
Having thus, I hope, made peace for my author and myself with the ladies, I fall back upon my own sex; for George Meredith is distinctly rather a man’s than a woman’s writer. He has the broad jolly humour, full-blooded with beef and beer, of great Fielding, as well as his swift keen insight; he has the quaint phantastic ironical humour of the poet and scholar and thinker—freakish touches of Sterne and Jean Paul and Carlyle and his own father-in-law (Peacock, of “Nightmare Abbey,” “Gryll Grange,” “Headlong Hall,” and other enjoyable sojourning places, who had Shelley for a friend). In brief, he is humoristic and ironical; and women in general care for no humour save of the nursery, distrust and dislike all irony except in talking with and about one another. But men will savour in that dialogue of Tinker and Ploughman the fine open-air wayside relish in which our robust old plays and novels are so rich, in which most of our modern are so poor. George Borrow, George Eliot, George Meredith, can reproduce for us this pithy vulgar talk, succulent with honest nature and bookless mother wit; but how many else can furnish it unadulterated? I have named our most popular, and justly popular, great novelist along with him who is one of the least popular; and to my mind he is throned not less emi'ent than she; and if certain jewels in her crown are lacking in his, he has others not less precious that are wanting in hers.
As his works are still so little known, while so worthy of being known to all competent readers, it may be well to take the opportunity of just mentioning them here. “ Men of the Time” tells us that he was born in Hampshire about 1828, was educated parJy in Germany, began with the law but abandoned it for literature. In 1851 he published a slim volume of poems, chiefly lyrical, some of them very fine, dedicated to his father-in-law. In 1855, the “ Shaving of Shagpat, an Arabian Entertainment;” humorous, sententious, vividly picturesque. In 1857, “Farina, a Legend of Cologne,” a slighter piece of phantastic-poetic pleasantry. In 1859, this “ Richard Feverel” in 3 vols.; for the work is really twenty years old, though the new edition gives no notice of the preceding, just as its title-page mentions no other works by the same author. In 1801, “Evan Harrington,” which first appeared in “ Once a Week.” In 1862, “Modern Love and Poems of the English Roadside, with Poems and Ballads,” affectionately inscribed to Captain Maxse, R.N.; whereof little will soon die. “Modern Love” is as a series of Rembrandt etchings, for sombre intensity and concision, summed up in the closing quatrain:—
“ In tragic hints here see what evermore Mows dark as yonder midnight ocean’s force, Thundering like ramping ho*ts of warrior horse, To throw that faint thin line upon the shore I ”
The Roadside Philosophers—“ Juggling Jerry,” the “ Old Chartist,” the “Beggar” soliloquising, and the “Patriotic Engineer,” with “ Grandfather Bridgeman”—are as genial as harvest sunshine. “ Cassandra,” “ Margaret’s Bridal Eve,” “ The Head of Bran,” “ By Morning Twilight,” “ Shemsel-nihar,” and the “ Ode to the Spirit of Earth in Autumn,” are full of noble power and passion. In 1864 and 18GG, his masterpieces, “Emilia in England,” and its sequel “Vittoria,” the latter from the Fortnightly Review; both, despite defects of construction in “ Vittoria,” which celebrates the struggle of northern Italy against Austria, not to be successful until many years later, challenging comparison with the very greatest achievements in their kind. Between these, in 1865, “ Rhoda
Fleming.” In 1871, “Adventures of Harry Richmond,’’ first in Cornhill. In 1876, from the Fortnightly, “ Beauchamp’s Career,” to 'which attention was called in our “ Smoke Boom Table.” Add a couple of novelettes in the New Quarterly Magazine, and some poems, not yet collected, in the Fort-nightly, Ac., with a few critiques, and we have a pretty complete list of the manifest results of about thirty years’ high, minded and miserably appreciated labour.
He may be termed, accurately enough for a brief indication the Robert Browning of our novelists; and his day is bound to come, as Browning’s at length has come. The flaccid and feeble folk, who want literature and art that can be inhaled as idly as the perfume of a flower, must naturally shrink from two such earnestly strenuous spirits, swifter than eagles, stronger than lions, in whom, to use the magnificent and true language of Coleridge concerning Shakspeare, “ The intellectual power and the creitive energy wrestle as in a warembrace.” But men who have lived and observed and pondered, who love intellect and genius and genuine passion, who have eyes and ears ever open to the mysterious miracles of nature and art, who flinch not from keenest insight into the world and life, who are wont to probe and analyse with patient subtlety the intricate social and personal problems of our complex quasi-civilisation, who look not to mere plot as the be-all and end-all of a novel reflecting human character and life, who willingly dispense with the childish sugar-plums of so-called poetical justice which they never find dispensed in the grown-up work-o’-day world, who can respond with thought to thought, and passion to passion, and imagination to imagination ; and, lastly, who can appreciate a style vital and plastic as the ever-evolving living world it depicts, equal to all emergencies, which can revel with clowns and fence with fine ladies and gentlemen, yet rise to all grandeurs of Nature and Destiny and the human soul in fieriest passion and action: such men, who cannot abound anywhere, but who should be less rare among meditative smokers than in the rest of the community, will find a royal treasure-house of delight and instruction and suggestion in the works of George Meredith.
Sigvat.
®itr Smoke £loom Sable.
Bibliography of Rushin, from 1834 to 1879,
Mr. Ruskin.—The Bibliography of Ruskin. A Bibliographical List of the Published Writings, in Prose and Verse, of John Ruskin, M.A., from 1834 to 1879. The Third Edition, revised, with 46 Additional Items, is note ready for delivery to Subscribers. To be had only on application^ by post, io the Compiler, Richard Herne Shepherd, 5, Hereford Square, S.W.
Since our previous notice, Mr. Shepherd has issued a third edition of his interesting record of the literary work executed by Mr. Ruskin. In this ths list of Ruskiniana is omitted, but there ore many additions to the titles of the great critic's own writings. Many of the o are letters to newspapers and other fragmentary utterances. It is sometimes in such asides that we hear most clearly the voice of the inner soul. Although Mr. Shepherds bibliography, recording 158 books, editions, or articles in periodicals must be of great service to students and collectors, it is not yet quite complete. Mr. Ruskin in early life wrote not only on geology, but on meteorology, m may be scon by a reference to his paper on “ The Present State of Meteorological Science,’’ or the Transactions of the Meteorological Society fur 1839.
The present edition of the Bibliography is a very substantial advance upon the first one, issued in September lost year.
English Men of Letters. Edited by John Morley. London: Macmillan aud Co. 1878-9.
Stimulated, we may presume, by the success of Messrs. Blackwood’s Series of half-crown volumes on Ancient Classics, now being followed by that on Foreign Classics, Messrs. Macmillan have begun a similar Series on English Men of Letters, likely to be fur the most popular of the three. The Prospertus (which is purely literary, not mercantile) tells us “These Short Books are addressed to the general public with a view l>oth to stirring and satisfying an interest in literature and its groat topics in the minds of those who have to run as they read.” But nearly all the subjects as yet announced are among those of our Men of Letters who are already the most familiar, both iu their lives and works, to the general public; the interest in them has been long since stirred and established, and has required and received fur its satisfaction, in cheap editions of the lives and works, a good deal mo e than such volumes as these can supply. Thus, it can scarcely be supposed that Bunyan, Johnson. Goldsmith, Burns, Scott, Byron (and Hawthorne!), really need any introduction to those who read at all, however scanty their leisure; and one cannot help smiling at such a commendation as is quoted from the Examiner: “We could not wish for a more suggestive introduction to Scott and his poems and novels ”; and still less can it be supposed that any of these booklets on these great writers would really satisfy, if it stirred, tha interest of an unacquainted reader. Wherefore, we do not expect that tha Series as a whole will prove of any considerable literary value; dealing, as it promises to do, mainly with the most popular and well-known authors, of settled reputation, on whose lives and characters and geniuslittle at once new and true and significant remains to be said. But as the general public nevtr tires of reading in and about its old familiar favourites; and as the idle or hasty readers who compose the bulk of that public are particularly fond of handy summaries of facts and attendant opinions, giving easily portable substance and shape to their vague miscellaneous memories and notions; we fully expect that the Series as a whole will prove of very considerable commercial value. To one important class, moreover, some, at least, of its volumes will probably do real intellectual service; to the young commencing their literary studies, who wont trustworthy guidance and wholesome stimulus.
The publishers are fortunate in their editor, Mr. John Morley; not only on account of his proved ability as a critic and expositor in this department of literature, but also because his position as the avowed conductor of one of our leading and most Liberal Reviews has brought him into close relations with many of those best fitted to aid in such a work, and has given him the influence to secure their collaboration.
With these few general remarks by way of preface, we proceed to notice the volumes in the order in which we happen to read them; suggesting to the publishers that, as the Series promises to be pretty numerous, it would be convenient to number its volumes in the order of their issue.
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If Ferdinand Lassalle, as the father of German Social Democracy, has earned for himself an abiding niche in the historical gallery of our century, it is equally certain that the Countess Hatzfeldt is not without some claim to have her own medallion carved upon the pedestal of Lassalle’s statue. One of her many biographers and critics, in an admirable sketch of her strange life, presents her story to his readers in five little chapters, each of which contains the description of an imaginary photograph of the Countess at a different period of her changeful experience.* His set of portraits follow in chronological order, and he writes under them the characteristic titles (1) The Forsaken Ariadne, (2) The Amazon, (3) The Matron, (4) Niobe, (5) The Female Agitator. The selection of titles most fitly describes the marked alteration of this lady’s physiognomy, both physical and moral, from tenderness to severity, and from the quietest type of modest girlhood to a portentous type of “emancipated” and very masculine womanhood. The remarkable changes of physiognomy, from - gay to grave, delineated in five stages by A. R., were the products of her exceptionally strange fate in life. Indeed, she has been compared to the beautiful Margaret of Anjou, the wife of the gentle Henry VI. of England, whom the course of the War of the Roses changed into the “ she-wolf ” of the House of Lancaster.
In August, 1822, when she was married to Graf Edmund von Hatzfeldt-Weisweiler, at the early age of seventeen, it seemed as if the beautiful, aristocratic, and highly cultivated girl was destined to enjoy a brilliant future. It is at this early period of her career that her biographer sees in her a modern Ariadne in Chaleos. Almost immediately after the marriage, her husband began to neglect her. His amours with Frau von Hompesch and others were matters of scandal at every “ Damen-Kaffee”— the German equivalent for the English five o’clock Tea—in and around Dusseldorf. It was soon known throughout the Rhineland, in every nobleman’s castle and rich citizen’s house, that the famous beauty and her husband lived together like cat and dog. Stories got abroad of the humiliating insults, and even brutal mis-handling, which the Countess had to endure from her savage lord, and she became the object of universal commiseration. She was not only the neglected Ariadne of her husband; but her own proud and powerful family, out of a fear that a legal separation of the ill-matched pair would be a blot upon their hitherto stainless escutcheon, turned deaf ears to her appeals. “Princes’ crowns and earls’ coronets,” said her great defender before the courts of justice, “decked the heads of her brothers; but neither of them would stretch out a hand in order to protect his sister.” The utmost they did for her consisted in a weak attempt to compel the Count to abstain from further ill-treatment of his wife: several meetings were held and treaties signed to this effect, but he invariably broke faith. The eldest brother once appealed to the King of Prussia. But the Count was too resolute and stiff-necked for such feeble opponents. “They drew back into their own Egoism,” as Lassalle put it, “and left the Countess to her wretched fate; they sacrificed their living sister to the glory of the family name.” In 1842 the hapless Countess, under the advice of some sympathetic strangers— young men who had taken up her cause with unselfish chivalry— made her first attempt to obtain a legal separation from her terrible spouse. She had three children at this
• u Die Gate Grafin,” von A. R. Deutches Montagsblatt, Oct. 21,1878.
time, and was devoting herself with anxious zeal to the education of the youngest, Paul, the present Ambassador of the German Empire at Constantinople.
In his second photograph the artist has represented the Countess during this period, and describes her as die Amazone. She was about thirty-seven years old, but neither anxiety nor pain had been able to efface the wonderful charm of her personal appearance. Discouraged by lawyer after lawyer, and robbed of all means of existence, she confided the leading of her case to the two young advocates, Mendelsohn and Oppenheim. It would, however, have fared disastrously, had not the persecuted woman attracted a mighty confederate to her side, in the person of Ferdinand Lassalle, the young father of German Social Democracy, that Alcibiades of Berlin, of whose exceptional genius Prince Bismarck spoke in such glowing language last year, in the Reichstag, at the time of his attack upon Lassalle’s troublesome disciples. Lassalle made up for his lack of those material means which were at the command of Count Hatzfeldt, by his acuteness, method, and resistless energy. Such a battle was probably never fought over a divorce. The suit was carried before no less than thirty-six different courts in the Rhineland, before each of which it had to be fought through. The battle lasted nine years, until the adversary was wearied out. After all, it was never legally settled, but was ended by a truce. A glimpse of the determined character of this long war may be gathered from the fact that throughout it the Count kept up, at great expense, an organised system of espionage upon the Countess; her own servants were bribed; once he fired a pistol-shot at the carriage in which she was riding. The strife which of the pair should get or keep the youngest son, Paul, was a main feature of this long feud. The boy was the unceasing object of a sort of bandit-conflict. Each party kept him fast until the other, by craft or force, could get him away. The King at last interfered, and ordered the youth to be placed in a military academy. When the holidays came, there was a new battle over Paul’s body. Once, when the mother had obtained him, she refused to let him go back to the school, and the King himself commanded him to be fetched by an adjutant. The Countess held her boy with her left hand, and with her right hand presented a pistol at the head of the soldier. When the King heard of it, he is said to have called “the good Countess” by one of the ugliest epithets ever applied to a woman. Sho heard that her husband had settled a life-income of 7000 thalers upon his mistress, a Baroness Meyendorf; and in order to make up this sum, having wasted his own splendid estates by his riotous living, he laid hands on the allodial property of his wife, and damaged for ever the prospects of her younger children. Two of her agents stole from a hotel a casket belonging to the Count’s mistress, hoping to find in it the cruel document, but it was not there.
By this time the much-tried lady had undoubtedly justified her right to the title which her biographer had inscribed beneath her third portrait—die Emancipirte. She had fully become, in the sense which the Germans give to that quality, an “ emancipated ” woman. The phrase must be restricted to her manners, and not extended to her morals, as it might be in America. It was widely supposed that she was mistress of Lassalle, but there was not an atom of truth in the suspicious calumny; the great difference of age between them, to say nothing of the revelations which have been published within the last few weeks by Helen von Ddnniges, would argue against the probability of any amatory relationship between the Countess and her champion. The spies whom her husband unremittingly employed about her person for a decade of years never traced the least sign of infidelity to her marriage
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vow. He even tampered with Lassalle’s man-servant, but got no evidence. Her social eccentricities, which became the subject of conversation in high circles, and which deprived her of every remnant of sympathy from her former aristocratic and courtly equals, naturally induced the suspicion amongst such persons that she must also have gone morally astray. It is too often the habit of the class to confound respectability with righteousness. The opinion gained the more ready credence from the fact that she was known to be absolutely penniless, and to derive her means of subsistence and the money for her law suits from the purse of her advocate. In the year 1851 the divorce was at last proclaimed. She was then in her forty-sixth year, and had aged considerably in appearance. At this period her biographer has sketched her in the character of die Matrone. The Countess herself, who now settled in Berlin, can scarcely be said to have adopted the matronly character; it was not easily reconcileable with her antecedents. She had for some time ostentatiously adopted the habit of smoking, and seems never to have been quite at home anywhere without her cigar. She had no personal friends; the nobles and the citizens of the Prussian capital alike refused to receive her; Lassalle’s friends were adopted as her own, and the exercise of a motherly care for the chivalrous Social Democrat was the chief business of her life. A portrait of the Countess at the age of 57, eleven years after her settlement in Berlin, shows that her tall figure had broadened, while deep furrows were stamped upon her countenance. Her daily toilette was simple; but on social occasions she appeared in elegant and close-fitting robes, which were scarcely in keeping with her years. The company at Lassalle’s house was composed in great part of potential or actual revolutionists, some of whom have since departed from their wild ways and reconciled themselves with modern society. After spending the day over his enormous correspondence with Kossuth, with Mazzini, with Garibaldi, with Karl Marx, with Herwegh, and with other exiles or leaders of the revolution^ ary propaganda, he held a reception in the evening. The Countess was an unfailing visitor every evening. “She usually came shortly before twilight,” says R. S., “took her seat, put on her spectacles, drew out a stocking which was in process of knitting, and whose destination was evidently for the host’s foot, laid her enormous cigar-case beside her on the table, and took the most lively part in the discussion.* The author of “ The History of the Social-Democratic Party in Germany since the Death of F. Lassalle” prints a letter from Bernhard Becker (who claimed to be the testamentary successor of Lassalle), which describes her somewhat unflat-teringly. “The Lady Countess Hatzfeldt,” he writes, “is no ordinary woman. She is rich in geist, has acquired a mass of knowledge, and possesses a wide experience of life. Albeit, a very small amount of womanliness (weiblichkeit) dwells within her.” He spoke of her as having become beautifully-coloured (schonfarbig), like a meerschaum cigartube, by the smoke of cigars, and complained that in her professed character as a so-called “Emancipirte” she mixed herself up far too readily in such business as ought to be left to men. He observed that her isolation from her own sex had robbed her of much of her earlier amiability, and made her somewhat autocratic and imperious, f This eccentric lady is next presented to us by her biographer as a “Niobe, all Tears.” On September 1st, 1865, Lassalle died in Switzerland, from a wound which he had received in a duel with a Wallachian nobleman, Yanko von Racovitza. The father of Helene von Donniges, to whom Lassalle had betrothed himself, insisted upon her breaking the engagement with the great agitator, and forming a new one with the young noble. This lady, as the cause of the ' death of Lassalle, was long said to be regarded amongst the workmen’s associations of Germany and the sorrowing disciples of the agitator as the most detestable person in the whole world. She left Europe for America, and is now the wife of an eminent journalist. She has published at great length, during the last few weeks, in successive numbers of the Silesian Presse, her own recollections of her last exciting and passionate interviews with Lassalle on the Rigi. She told her lover that she feared the Countess Hatzfeldt would object to their marriage, and confessed that she had regarded the emancipated dame with terror, as a sort of “female Orsini, who had poisons, daggers, and other horrors ready to hand.” He assured her, however, that the “ good Countess” would never oppose his happiness. Becker thinks that Lassalle ought to have chosen “a daughter of the working class” for a wife. The modern Alcibiades, as he observes, owed his death to the strange inner contradiction that he held “a democratic confession” and yet cultivated “aristocratic tastes and manners.” But for this contradiction between his credo and his mores, his dogma and his practice, the great agitator would probably be alive at this hour.} He had always protested against duelling as a survival of savagery. On the afternoon of Lassalle’s death his mother and sister came to Geneva, having heard from the Countess Hatzfeldt that he had been wounded in a duel. His family was Jewish, and the mother resolved that his body should be	carried to Breslau and be laid in the ancestral burial-place. The Countess, on the contrary, insisted that the burial must be at Berlin, as it had always been the centre of Lassalle’s public activity. She resolved to devote the wealth which had unexpectedly fallen to her since her divorce to the glorification of her “ spiritual son” and the furtherance of the purposes of his life. She undertook to bear all charges, and Lassalle’s mother yielded. The Countess deliberately chose a route which would enable her to use Lassalle’s corpse for purposes of agitation, selecting a line of towns in which she knew a number of “ Lassalleschen Gemeinden” (Social Democratic congregations! would be found. She accompanied the coffin through Frankfort, Mainz, and Koln, towards Dusseldorf, and from each place she telegraphed forward requiring and hoping that when she arrived with the corpse no cost would be spared for the desired demonstration, since she would pay back every groschen that was laid out. At Mainz a great procession, announced beforehand by placards on the street corners, accompanied the coffin from the railway to the Netherlandish Company’s steamboat. On board the Rhine steamer the Countess used to throw herself upon the coffin, wailing out in the tones of the old Hetairai, “Twelve others could not make up to me for the loss of him 1 ” Lassalle’s mother, however, again became unhappy at the thought of her son’s burial in Berlin. She insisted upon her natural rights as his mother. “ Mother! ” exclaimed the Countess; “yes, a goose which has hatched an eagle 1 ” The goose, however, showed the eagle’s pluck. When the steamer arrived at Koln, her son-in-law, a Herr Friedland, of Vienna, a commercial man, claimed the corpse in the mother’s name. At his requisition, the police seized Lassalle’s dead body, and, in spite of the violent protests of Countess Hatzfeldt, took charge of it as far as Dusseldorf, from whence it was conveyed under police surveillance direct to Breslau, and buried without demonstration in the presence of several police-officers. The Countess, seeing that further agitatory exhibitions with the corpse were impracticable, remained behind at Dusseldorf. She intended to have had the funeral celebrated in Berlin, “nach Israelitischen Ritus.” Lassalle asked his beloved Helene on the Rigi Kulm if she knew that he was a Jew, or would wish him to change his religion. When the Countess found that she had lost the corpse, she made a last despairing effort to checkmate his Jewish mother, by declaring that the chieftain of the Social Democrats had died a Catholic! After the death of her protector, champion, and foster-son, she devoted herself wholly to the function of Agitatrix. She elected herself as the heiress of Lassalle’s mission, as the ful-filler of his spiritual testament, and as the unseen head of the widely-ramified German Working Men’s Associations founded by him. Becker reports that she tried to reduce him to a mere “apron-president,” and aimed at extending a “slippergovernment ” over the Socialist working men. “ She thought to have ruled the entire Verein through me,” he asserts. He brings two charges against her: “ She wished to balance the Marx clique against me, and she misused the memory of , Lassalle to serve her own lust for rule.”* A. R. gives a curious idyllic picture of the sorrowing and energetic woman at this period. “ She sat daily in her salon at the Hotel Windsor, incessantly smoking cigars and swiftly driving her pen. In the neighbouring apartment sat the President of the Arbeiter-Verein, smoking his long Tobacco-pipe, and copying out the decrees which she was issuing to the proletarian world.” T. H. garber-^anb Jettas. HL—“CRUSOE” TO THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. From my eyrie on the pleasant margin of civilisation I meditate, as is my wont, in my hereditary, desultory way, upon the ways of Ministers and men. Oft I hear it said: “What an aimless pastime is smoking! Inhaling and exhaling narcotic fumes, what is there in that?” What is breathing but the same kind of thing? Life is spent in inspiring and respiring oxygen, and life can be conducted in no other way. At least, no better way has been as yet proposed. The air we breathe is exhaled through a million pores. The volumes of ozone which enter the lungs are mainly returned by the same organ, but nurtured life is left behind. So when the odours of Tobacco are wisely inspired, repose remains which else is unknown. The very Government under which we now live (that is, those who are not killed in Imperial experiments) came in as a Tobacco Government. It professed itself the Government of Repose. We were to rest and be thankful, and if we were not thankful, we were to insouciance. There was to be no more wrong or harrassment. The Cabinet were to be the great narghile of the nation, through which all parties were to draw the dainty essence of rest. Ministers were to light the pipe of peace, and political perturbations were to cease under the splendid incense. The prospect induced me to mingle again among mankind, when I found everybody disturbed by a new disquiet. The enchanting weed, which alone stills tumultuous passions, was placed under a new impost, producing business and social disorder. * “ Die Geechichte de S. D. Partei.” UB^ pp. 88-89.
* “ Lassalle und seine Gesellschaft.’* Erinnerungen, von B. 8. D. M. 89. 1878. t “ Die Geschichte der Sozial-DemokratiRchen Partei in Deutschland seit dem Tode Ferdinand Lassalle's.” 2nd Edit. Berlin, 1865. p. 88. t “ EnthiUlungen fiber das tragische Lebensende Ferdinand Lassalle's," von Bernhard Becker. 2nd Edition. Schleiz. 1868. p. 125.	
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The originator of this unexpected unrest being none other than the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and, not being unknown to that eminent functionary, I have ventured to address to him a memorial, which is, in fact, a remonstrance. Knowing the urbanity of the Chief of Financiers, who in becoming a Minister has not ceased to be a gentleman, I have presented what Bishop Milner would call the “Case Stated,” in a form less formal than is usual with memorials. When the reader should one day meet with it in the archives of the Exchequer, he will find it expressed as follows:—
Dear Sir Stafford,—If I venture to prefix the friendly adjective “dear” to your name, it is not to suggest that you are a costly keeper of the national purse—though many do think that you have the honour or the distinction of being the most expensive Chancellor of the Exchequer the nation has known. I use the term “dear” merely as one of civility and confidence. I am one of those who think that vice itself is diminished by being divested of grossness, that polished iniquity is more tolerable than ruflianly sin, and is easier of extinction. Therefore, to me, the unreasoning exactions of revenue, accompanied as they are in your case by an amiable persistence, are pleasanter to bear and less difficult to abridge than imposts justified in an imperial spirit, which is always imperious.
My claims to memorialise you, sir, are capable of definite statement. They consist in my being a systematic contributor to the Budget. In these exigent days—when all the genius of the Cabinet is expended in “rectifying our frontier,” and every man with a talent that way is required to go to the front—I elect to stay at home. If every man died for his country, plainly no Budget could prosper. Since the financial opulence of England depends so largely upon the revenue derived from Tobacco, it is clear that a patriot who smokes for bis country serves it more effectively, as well as more pleasantly, than he who dies for his country. Thus arises my claim to memorialise you, and the possibility of my doing it.
Some time ago a remarkable document was presented to you on behalf of the great Tobacco Manufacturers of the country. It was there that you read that a well-known predecessor of yours at the Exchequer, Mr. Goulbourn, held the principle that though high Tobacco duties kept up smuggling and adulterations, the conditions of those two murderous pursuits must be maintained. But no Chancellor of the Exchequer could maintain this wild principle now. How could he stand up in Parliament and speak in favour of the “ obligations of law and order,” while he himself maintained the conditions and temptations of smuggling ? How could he be the President of a Social Science Association, as you once were, which is devoted to the promotion of purity of food, among other things, if he kept up a tax which continued adulteration ? Yet the document lately put into your hands, represented that a moderate reduction in the Tobacco tax, as now levied, would tend to the increase of the amount of revenue which would legitimately arise. That point was certainly demonstrated. It was shown, also, that by not making the required improvement in the incidence of this impost, smuggling and adulteration are kept up, and rendered profitable to those engaged in these nefarious undertakings. This amounts to a social crime. No fewer than 600 manufacturers and 300,000 retailers are thus fettered in their business, or exposed to the temptations of adulterationists. The document sent to you, Sir Stafford, testified that there is no “goodness” of Tobacco except on conditions of needless “dearness!” and no “cheapness ” unless unaccompanied by “nastiness.” No other trade in the country is subjected by the State to this disreputable alternative. Consider, Sir Stafford, what this means? The millions of working men whose sole harmless solace is the pipe, and who are too poor to pay a dear price for Tobacco, are condemned to put “nastiness” daily into their mouths, which you, by a little energy and a little merciful forethought of arrangement, could prevent. There is no street which you pass, no cottage, no lodging, no workshop, no cabin, no smoking-room in a poor man’s club, which does not reek with odours which are vile because of the ill-adjustment of this tax. The odious odour of this mismanagement fills the land. Is this paternal government ? Is this consideration for the working class ? Is this care for the poor man’s purity ? What becomes of his good taste, his refinement in pleasure, or his health under this system ? If your colleagues may, at the price of good English blood, and good hard-earned treasures, “ rectify frontiers ” of barbaric nations, may not the Chancellor of the Exchequer have some independence of action, some originality in finance, and rectify the frontier of taxation at home, and save millions of honest working men from distastefulness, deterioration, and disease ? Statistics, finances, Parliamentary Committees, the experience obtained by the operation of other taxes, all prove that a change in the assessment of the Tobacco tax would bring no loss to the revenue. Why, then, should the change not be made? Why should we look for courage at the Horse Guards if cowardice is to reign at the Exchequer ? If it be not cowardice—why the delay ? If there were trouble, if there were difficulty, they should not deter. There can be no greatness where there is no capacity for taking pains, no skill in fiscal device. If you were called upon to change the incidence of a tax, and put it upon another class, there would be just ground of hesitancy. But where this exigence is not involved
—where the evil to be corrected is that of stopping smuggling, which is a defiance of law—of stopping adulteration, which is a social crime—where the object is to prevent impurity being daily forced into the mouths of poor men—a Chancellor of the Exchequer, of common honour, should put an end to it at once. Boldness of administration, genius of statement, would carry the House of Commons with you, and place every workman in the land under lasting obligation to you. To incur peril for the public welfare every Englishman is always ready. There is nobility of impulse in that; but to be destined to smoko “ nastiness ” is not, and ought not to be, a necessity of English patriotism.
Questions affecting the interests of trade are no part of my argument. They are in other and abler hands. The political aspects of finance are equally beside this plea, and foreign to it. As a smoker, and as representing that large and profitable class of your clients, alone do I address. My protest is against a fiscal policy which promotes “ nastiness,” and makes it a universal commodity among the people.
Put an end to this, Sir Stafford. Then all concerned will “ever pray,” so soon as “nastiness” no longer depraves the breath of their orisons; and when sweet-mouthed benizons are possible in the land, none will join in them with more discrimination than
Crusoe.
Saks &olh on f^t Sta of ^ct.
IV.—THE FIRST ICE. WE MAKE THE COUNTRY. PADDY MULLIGAN IN THE BELLY OF A WHALE.
M Let’s stir the fire and close the cabin door. Lay down onr rugs, and light the friendly weed, And while the bubbling coffee-urn Throws up its fragrant steam, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, Thus let us welcome peaceful evening in.”
—Cowper (slightly altered).
I suppose I was all my life a thin-skinned, sensitive sort of a son of a gun. When a very tiny chap, I remember—before ever I had found out that there was comfort and beauty in ’Baccy—I remember that I was, to speak figuratively, continually trying to see through milestones, and continually crying because I couldn’t. There was a small summer-house in a distant corner of my father’s garden, and there I invariably went to do a private “weep,” and was always very much benefited thereby. The end of the world was one of my milestones. I thought (with some older fools) that the world was flat, and that if I could only get to the edge of it, and peep over, I would be certain to see some wonderful sight; and I was one day on the eve of setting out to try the experiment, when my father told me there was no “end” to the world, and that I might go on, on, on for ever, and never come to the end of it and peep over. Then I retired to weep. I heard my mother once make the remark that the days were getting shorter and shorter. I went out, and, like Peter, wept bitterly—wept for the long bright days of summer, gone for ever and aye, as I thought, and wept to think that in a few more months it would be all one eternal, sunless night. I wept myself asleep on this occasion. Now, I had never seen the sea as yet; but my youthful imagination pictured it as one almighty mill-dam, that you couldn’t see the other side of, and with green banks close up to its edge, and no tide, of course. I had heard speak, too, of the “tumbling waves of the ocean.” This was a phrase over which I spent many and many a briny tear, until at last the mystery was solved to my entire satisfaction : tumbling waves meant tumbhng wives, without a doubt; and so I always after this believed tbe sea to be filled with myriads of grey-bearded hags, all rolling about in the water in the most satisfactory way imaginable; and very much disgusted I was, too, when, yielding to my repeated entreaties, my father took me to see the sea. “Why, no, papa,” I said, “that isn’t the sea at all; there are no old wives tumbhng in it! ”
Now, just as my youthful ideas regarding father ocean received rude dispersion when I first beheld him, so may some of yours now, reader, concerning the Sea of Ice, be dispelled. Before I ever sailed away to the frozen ocean, I had in my mind’s eye a very vivid picture of its terribly inhospitable shores; but I must confess it was drawn from scenes that I had gazed upon in pantomimes and in Christmas numbers. I thought that ships, after steering the correct distance northwards, came all at once upon lofty icebergs, broad and wide, whose blue icy sides, o’ertopped with numberless glittering spires, towered high over the topmasts of the probably doomed ship. That there are such icebergs I do not deny, and I have more than once sailed past bergs from twenty to thirty miles in circumference—floating isles of ice. But the sailor, on his journey due north, doesn’t have his breath taken away all at once by sights like these. So, when our Yankee mate one morning opened the sky-light, and called me on deck to see the first iceberg, you may be sure I didn’t hesitate to obey.
“Why,” said I, in disgust, “d’ye mean to call that an iceberg? Tve rolled hundreds bigger on my father’s lawn!”
It was simply a lump of snow-clad ice, about ten feet
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square, with a seal asleep on top of it; and I had pitched one of the best cigars ever I smoked into the fire, in my eagerness to rush on deck to see it.
Ah! but they began to come thick and fast, those miniature bergs, after that. We passed through many “streams” of them every day. The first of these at some distance looked like immense flocks of swans, not being much larger; but once fairly amongst them, we could see they were of every possible shape: not an article of furniture, not an implement of warfare or husbandry, not an animal that ever breathed, but was represented somewhere in those wonderful ice-streams. And gradually they got larger and larger, and even more fantastically shaped than before. One day the captain beckoned me up aloft. It was terribly cold in that crow’s nest; and with the main-truck, above which we stood, describing the arc of a quarter-circle, it was far from a pleasant motion. The captain was pulling away at his meerschaum as if his , life depended on it; and perhaps it did, for his eyes ran water, his nose was red, his cheeks were blue, and his eyebrows, moustache, and beard so completely encrusted with ice, that he would have done excellently well to represent King Christmas in any ordinary theatre.
“Take a keek through that long glass,” he said, “and tell me what you see on the horizon, a long way to the south’ard and east’ard.
“A big sugar-loaf,” I said, after a while.
“Yes,” said the captain, “and that giant sugar-loaf is the island of Jan Mayen. This is an exceptional year; we should have made the ice long ago. Now, look ahead: far away yonder on the horizon, although the sky is now overcast, you can perceive a long white line.” “Yes?” “Well, that isn’t the ‘main pack,’ but is the cloudless sky above it.”
And next day we “ made the ice,” as the captain phrased it. No steepled icebergs nodding to the moon were here only; a long line of snow-clad coast, washed by an ocean of ink.
Made fast by ice-anchors to a heaving berg, with sails clewed up, we were snugger that evening than we’d been for weeks, and we certainly were jollier. The captain had ordered the steward to serve out an extra glass of grog—to splice the main-brace, I mean—so there were sounds of laughter and merriment in the half-deck, and songs and yarns around the galley-fire, and a fragrant azure cloud hung over all, both fore and aft. We in the cabin were just as jolly, if in a quieter way. The very sparrow—our sweet little cherub— seemed to know there was something more than usual in the wind, and felt constrained to take part in the conversation. And the great Newfoundland helped himself to an additional Spratt cake—he had already eaten half-a-gallon of sea-pie— and then sat himself down by the captain to assist at the orgie of dried skate. Indeed, the remark was made, and unanimously assented to, that the only thing that dog wanted to make him a Christian was a pipe in his mouth.
“And Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly av a whale,” said Teddy, taking his pipe from his lips, and gazing abstractedly into the fire.
“Whatever is the man driving at?” laughed the captain.
“Out with it,” cried we all; “heave round, Teddy”; for we all felt sure the merry wee mate had a tale to tell, and, with our pipes all in full blast, we were just in that stage of dreamy comfort that we would rather hear a story than talk.
“It was the morsel av dead pig in the fire, sure enough, that put me in mind av it,” said Teddy. “It’s many a long year now since I sailed on the ould * Stedfast,’ as purty a little craft as ever sail or eye was clapped upon, and her figure-head was the picture of the captain’s wife—bless her soul, for she’s dead and gone. We made the countbry all right and straight, just as we’ve done to-day. Now, it was just loike my luck, for the divil a hundred seals we came across all the saison, and I dipindingon the vhoyage to marry the swatest girl in all Oirland.
“Bad cess to it,’ says I to meself, one day; ‘sure if we can’t get seals we’ll have a bear or two.’ So I sets about collecting all the ham bones I could find, and one night I sets ’em a-frizzling in the galley fire. It was frozen in we were at the time; and och! the delicate perfume that went up the vent, and out av the chimley, and spread itself all over the ice! Sure the bears could scent it fifty miles away, as aisy as sinning; audit’s divil a bit av a lie I’m tellin’ ye, for next morning, sure enough, there they were, and not far off aither, mor’n a score on ’em, some a-snifiing av the air and shakin’ their heads, and some sitting on one end, like dacint Christians, rubbing their noses wid their paws. And thin, me bhoys, it was rare sport we were having for days together; and the more we killed the faster they came.
“Now, on board the ould ‘Stedfast’ was Duster, the cleverest whaler, for an Indian, that ever threw harpoon.
“Well, me bhoys, all av ye know the ugly mists that creep down over the counthry in June; but, when the captain sent us off one day to get a seal or two that were a-basking themselves on a point end av ice, the sun was shining as swate and clear as it will to-morrow. After a good drag, we launched her in the open say, and away we pulled right merrily, and we weren’t long aither bagging a skin or two. But, faith, we found there were more point ends than one, and seals on them too; so on we went, and maybe went farther than we should have done, for first one big gun and thin another was fired to recall us, and, when we turned to look back, sorra a ship could we see at all, only a great wall av grey fog rollin’ slowly down towards us.
“‘Oh, golly, golly! look!’ cried Duster, starting up and pointing forward. Next moment we had forgotten entoirely the ‘Stedfast,’ the deadly mist, and ivirything else butt whale, as big as the hill av Howth, that lay on the water, not a quarter av a mile ahead av us.
“‘Golly for good!’ exclaims Duster, with his grimmest smile, ‘I means to catchee for quick, dat debel directly.’
“‘Och, sure,’ says I, ‘Duster, me bhoy, is it takin’ lave av your sivinteen sinses ye are? Who iver heard tell av takin’ a fish wid one boat? Who's to spear ’im? and, troth, won’t he pull us under the ice entoirely?’ But Duster only replied more determinedly than iver, ‘ I means to catchee he ’ And what does the crayture do but made us make fast the end av the whale-line to a bit av a berg that lay foreninst us. And thin, me bhoys, all the ganious av the deed came up before me mind’s eye as dare as the day. Then we pulled to the fish, and struck him too; for when did iver Duster miss? Away went the great fish, as fast as forked lightning; but, be jabers, lads, when the line was all paid out and our boat free, it wasn't so quick that the divil could thravel wid that bit av ice in tow; and, sure enough, had the ice been a bit heavier, the line would have gone like a fiddle-string.
“‘By golly,’ said Duster, when the speared and dead monster laid alongside the pack, ‘I tell you I catchee he directly.’
“Now, it was the duty of this choild, Teddy Mulligan, to stand by that dead whale till the boat returned from the ship with assistance. I’d plenty av prog, sure, and ’Baccy and a pipe; but, for all that, I couldn’t, for the dear loife av me, help feeling a bit lonely and frightened-loike, when left all alone by meself alongside a dead whale, the mist curling round me, and maybe no end av bears within easy hail.
“Well, I don’t think I’d been three hours on duty, pacing up and down the broad flat berg, by way of keeping meself warm, when out from the mist that I couldn’t peer into at all, at all, came one wild roar, and then maybe twinty. and, as sure as I tell ye, the say and the ice seemed to shake right under me, and the pipe well nigh dropped out of me mouth.
“ ‘Oh-h! woa—woe!’ came the cry again, more like a thousand bulls than anything else in the earth or the oceau. It was the bears for sartain, after the dead whale, and maybe, thinks I, they’ve a bit of a score to settle with poor Ttddy himself anent the ham bones. ‘ Oh-h! woa—woe!! ’—nearer now, and presently a monster bull-bear looms out av the fog, and divilish well I knew all his relations were coming to the wake as well.
“‘Bedad, thin,’ says I, ‘if that’s yer game, here’s the back av me hand and the sole av me foot to the lot av ye.’ And by this and by that, me bhoys, I makes no more ado but just jumps off the ice on to the shovel lip av the great fish, and, faith, as I did so, I thought the greasy baste gave a bit of a wink wid his saucy wee eye, as much as to say, ‘You get inside, Teddy, me bhoy; but, as soon as the bears eat the outside av me, they'll come to the stuffin'.' ‘ It’ 11 take thim some time, Mr. Fish,’ snys I, and in I pops, aisy enough, too, for the big divil’s mouth was about half open, and the whalebone had’nt had time to stiffen. ‘Now, mercy on the sowl av ye,’ Teddy,’ says I, ‘for this is a quare sitivation, twinty hungry bears a-tearing at the outside av your shielin’, and maybe twinty sharks pulling away at the floor av it.’ For, tbroth, I could feel the fish shaking ivery minute, and hear the bears a-roaring outside av her.
“But worse was to come; for, what wid the tickling o’ the sharks and the scratching av the bears—och! my hair feels moving even yet, when I think of it. But, bedad, the whale began to revive. The great mouth av him opened, and slowly closed again; a current av cold air rushed past me like a whirlwind; thin I could hear, ay, and feel the thundering av the tail av the mighty baste on the whater.
“‘Oh, the blessed saints protect me!’ I roared, tril be in the bottom av the say in a jiffey, and ne’er more see Katie on the banks av the Liffey.’ And ‘Oh! Mr. Whale,’ I cries, ‘do take it aisy. Sure you invited poor Teddy inside the mouth av ye, and is it a dacint whale Eke yourself that would kill a poor bhoy intoirely?’
“ Well, my lads, whether it were the saints that a-done it or the blarney, I niver could tell, but the moighty fish was as quite as a herring evermore. Sol lights my dudheen, and, in less than an hour, what with the smoking and the what-not, I was soon as sound asleep as a babe in a cradle, and draining, swately draming, of ould Oirland and Katie.”
Here Teddy took the pipe from his mouth and heaved a sigh; perhaps he was ruminating now on the long bright days of the past. But we didn’t allow any sighing in our mess, so we brought Teddy up with a round turn. “ Brace uy, Teddy! ” we cried, and Teddy was all alive again in a moment.
“Och! bejabers!” he laughed, “you niver saw such fan in your born days as came in at the finish, for 1 uster and five boats’ crews came back, but the sorra a Teddy Vas there at all; the bears had eaten him, boots and all. So vid many a sigh they set to work to ‘flensh’ the whale. And n)w, sure enough, the divil or the black drop must have beet in me intoirely, to go and froighten me messmates, and hem all talking so koindly av me, too. But, begorra! I wuldn’t help it. ‘ Git off av me back, ye divils! ’ I roared, * wd your picks aud your spades, or I’ll sink wid the blissed lot >v ye!’ Bhoys, ye should have heard the silence that follower wd it wasn’t long av getting down they were, aither. Bia next minute they were helping me up as koindly as ye pla A and
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then they rowled me in the snow for the thrick I’d been af ther playing on them.”
“And thank you, said our Yankee mate, when Teddy had finished; “why Nineveh ain’t a suckamstance to that ’ere yarn. It licks Jonah into jitsS
3	Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
^e (German Tobacco ^anopolg.
IV.
There are signs not a few that the Englishman is the superlative idiot, the idiot by excellence. The other day a pamphlet came into our hands, entitled “The English Nation Identified with the Lost House of Israel. By Edward Hine. Seventy-fourth Thousand. 1871.” How many thousands of the pamphlet have been sold since 1871 we have no means of knowing; but Mr. Hine still finds crowds ready to swallow his monstrous imbecilities. And there are countless other crazes to keep Mr. Hine’s preposterous crotchet in countenance. Through the cloud of so many hallucinations, how is it possible for a ray of reason to pierce, on any subject whatever? Take taxation, for instance: who in England understands or takes any pains to understand it? We all know what incomparable intelligence the British military officer displays in peace and in war, and how admirably the Br tish troops were led when they had a Duke of Cumberland or a Duke of York as commander. Let us not marvel, then, that in a debate on the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Budget a colonel, making a mighty plunge into the lowest depths of stupidity, proposed that the duty on Tobacco should be doubled! This colonel ehould forthwith be appointed to the command of the army in South Africa. It is not, however, always stupid persons who. in reference to taxation and kindred things, indulge in stupid talk. Once, in speaking of his “Frederick the Great,” Thomas Carlyle called it “ that wretched book.” A “ wretched book” it certainly is not; on the contrary, there are few books more interesting and suggestive, and parts of it—for instance, the narrative of Frederick Will am H.’s death—are supremely pathetic and beautiful. But very valid objections may be brought against its general spirit, against its estimates of men and events, against its perpetual and indiscriminate prodigality of magniloquences in great circumstances and in small; and errors of detail are more frequent than might have been expected in an author who is so severe on the blunders of other writers. But what we have more particularly to notice is this gifted man’s sneers at Free Trade, and at what Carlyle, with doubtful humour, names the “dismal science”—namely, political economy. Freder ck William II. and Frederick II., called the Great, were absolute autocrats; and it cannot be denied that as such they did far more good than if they had been hampered by the restrictions, the complications, the delays of the clumsy and pedantic constitutional system. But it does not follow that political—or, as the Germans choose to call it. national—economy is a mass of barren or misleading sophistries, because the two kings were men of immense sagacity and energy, with the disposition to make thrift the foundation of higher virtues. The two kings would have been all the wiser for knowing a little of even the rudiments of political economy. What could be more foolish in itself, or more hurtful to a nation, than the system of Excise which Frederick the Great established? Free Trade and political economy are not infallibilities to which men are everywhere to bow down; they are adjuncts of other agencies; they must yield to human necessities; nevertheless, they may be admirable in their own way and in their own domain.
8o tbinketh the “ Syndicus,” Dr. Barth, in his address on Tobacco taxation and the Tobacco monopoly, delivered before the Eighteenth Politico-Economical Congress, held at Posen on the 3rd September, 1878. Dr. Barth is the strenuous opponent of the Tobacco monopoly, while admitting that Tobacco might be more heavily taxed than at present, without any injustice and without injurious effects. He says, however, that every attempt at an augmentation or modification of the tax on Tobacco encounters fierce opposition from one quarter or another, from the importers, the manufacturers, or the home cultivators, and that Tobacco, like the frog in the fable for which two ducks fought a fierce fight, escapes, indeed, undevoured, but bears the marks of the conflict. At the outset he says, very shrewdly:—“The Tobacco R^gie has two problems to solve, which ought well to be distinguished from each other; it carries on a branch of industrialism, and it strives to make as lucrative as possible a source of revenue. The gross products of the two functions are thrown t>gnther trickily and fallaciously, and then look like a portion of the national income and wealth. How misleading this is must be in a moment evident. Let us imagine a German Tobacco Regie achieving what private enterprise now achieves and producing as cheap goods, the whole gain which private enterprise now makes would be made by the State without altering the situation, viewed from the standpoint of political economy; for from this standpoint it is a matter of subordinate importance whether the gain goes into the pockets of the State or into the pockets of particular citizens. Not till the results attained by the State have more economical value, not till the final product is procured at a smaller expense, can the superiority over private enterprise be
recognised, can the economical advantages of State control and activity be admitted. Is that superiority undeniable? Nay, certainly not. Even in the purchase of the raw production private enterprise is superior to the RGgie. As respects the home growths, it is well known that' the prices are considerably higher in France than in Germany. According to the average of the last six years, home-grown Tobacco in Germany cost twenty-four marks, while in France the Regie had to pay a quarter more. Even though the qualities might not be the same, it is undoubted that, as a rule, the Regie pays higher prices than the private dealer; and we cannot have a better proof thereof than that the inhabitants of Alsace long for the return of the high French prices, and chiefly for this reason are the ardent advocates of the monopoly. It is easy to see why, from the nature of the case, the Regie must purchase at a signal disadvantage. The monopoly demands, as one of its essential conditions, a burdensome and costly supervision. For the vexations, the impediments, and the complexities the planter must seek compensation in a higher price. This higher price the private dealer does not pay; and this is unquestionably one of the reasons why the French Regie planter cannot compete on the free foreign market, and why the export of French raw Tobacco is continually declining. In 1809 it amounted to 9000 hundredweights. Since the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine it has fallen much lower; while the export of German raw Tobacco, which was 170,925 hundredweights in 1870, rose to 188,733 hundredweights in 1874. A diminished export trade is consequently one of the evils which the Tobacco monopoly would inflict on Germany. Moreover, a Regie purchases not merely home-grown Tobacco, but also foreign Tobacco, under more unfavourable conditions than the private dealer. From the cumbrousness of its organisation and the slowness of its movements, the Regie is unable to avail itself of the best chances of the market, and is forced to buy at certain times large quantities, and only from the chief merchants. On the other hand, the private buyer is able to provide himself at the right time with the raw commodity; and, among a crowd of competing sellers, he can always promptly and easily make his choice. In short, from a variety of causes, the existing Regies are heavily weighted and seriously hampered as purchasers, when compared with the private dealer. While injuring itself, the Regie at the same time completely ruins the foreign Tobacco trade. It is a fact that this trade scarcely exists in the Regie lands. The Regies are invariably compelled to apply to foreign sellers., Furthermore, it is well known that the foreign Tobacco trade has an extraordinary extent and significance in Germany; and it may be accepted as incontrovertible that Germany’s foreign Tobacco trade would, by the establishment of the monopoly, be completely annihilated.”
At the moment we write it seems as if Bismarck might be invincibly successful in establishing Protectionism of the most stringent, despotic, irrational, and pernicious kind. But his chances of organising a Regie, a Tobacco monopoly, are evidently far feebler. Why, then, it may be asked, should the subject be pursued further? For two reasons. Dr. Barth and others supply us with valuable statistics; and by the debate on the R6gie, on the Tobacco monopoly, they enable us to discuss and to fix the principles of a right and wise Tobacco legislation.
Dr. Barth informs us that the most strenuous opponents of the monopoly are the German dealers in foreign raw Tobacco; and they have good cause for being so. Hamburg and Bremen are, for Tobacco, two of the foremost markets of the world. The yearly export of foreign raw Tobacco from Bremen amounts to between sixty and seventy milhons of marks in value—that is to say, to between three and three millions and a-half sterling; part of the export being to Germany itself, and the rest to other parts of the earth. Dr. Barth shows that by legislation of the brutal Bismarck sort three-fifths of the trade now so flourishing would perish; that the two remaining fifths would be so crippled as to be doomed sooner or later to a like destruction; that Holland and England would grandly profit from Germany’s disaster; and that Germany’s marine commerce would seriously suffer from the overthrow of the German Tobacco trade.
Our present Government, which may be called the Brag and Bungle Government, and which, if great in nothing else, is very great in surrenders and retreats, as the Berlin Treaty triumphantly demonstrated, is, like all weak and blustering Governments, obstinate in the wrong direction. It rejoices to be kicked and bamboozled by Russia; but then, how valiant it is in its resistance to the reasonable demands of all concerned in the Tobacco trade! Wherever and whenever it can, it shrinks from responsibility, manifests the most abject cowardice; but in its endeavours to “put out the pipe” of vast multitudes it is courageous and indefatigable. If, however, it had any patriotism, bravery, or wisdom to appeal to, we might urge it to uvail itself of a hint given in one of our preceding articles, and which it is opportune here to reproduce. It is seen that Dr. Barth expects the Tobacco trade of Holland and England to be benefited in the exact degree that that of Germany suffers. Now, why, as we have already said, should not England be the centre of the Tobacco trade, as of every other trade? We—that is to say, the present writer—have a very simple scheme of Tobacco legislation and taxation. We should allow free importation, and we should tax neither the home grower nor the home manu-
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facturer; but we should compel every retail dealer to pay for a license ten guineas annually. Hereby Tobacco would only be taxed in its due proportion; an immense extension would be given to England’s Tobacco trade; manufacturers would have no rivalry but that of producing the best article; a new source of agricultural prosperity would be opened; and through the high sum paid for the license to sell, the retail trade would be far more honest and respectable than it is now. Dr. Barth next shows that the monopoly, the R^gie, would in Germany involve the most extravagant outlay: that not less than four hundred millions of marks would have to bo paid as compensation; that three-fourths of this vast sum would be sheer loss; that the R6gie, both as manufacturer and as seller, would have countless hindrances, from which private enterprise is free; and that the countervailing advantages claimed by and for the Regie are wholly imaginary. In Germany the fabrication of smoking Tobacco and of snuff is in the hands of the great industrialists, who have machines, steam-power, capital in sufficient measure. The price of labour, therefore, is here regulated by customary conditions. But the making of cigars is simply a manual employment, dispensing with machinery, and able, upon occasion, to dispense with capital. As has been stated in a previous article, the making of cigars in Germany is the occupation of peasant proprietors, who devote to it their odd hours, their fragments of time, and who, therefore, neither expect nor get more than the most moderate remuneration. TheR^gie, on the other hand, would have to establish large cigar factories in cities in conjunction with its smoking Tobacco and its snuff factories. It would require a wholly new class of cigar makers, whose wages would be twice or thrice or even four times as much as those of the present cigar makers. This consideration is strenuously insisted on by other opponents of the daring and detestable scheme of him whom Dr. Barth in mockery calls the “ great Idealist,” Prince Bismarck. In favour of a R^gie the sophistical pleaders for a monopoly contend that a R^gie is a guarantee, solid and invincible, against adulteration. Dr. Barth does not attach much importance to this argument. But he says very cogently that, admitting the plea to be irrefragable, the benefit is far more than counterbalanced by the unfitness and unwillingness of the R^gie to meet the tastes and requirements of consumers. This is a formidable objection to the R6gie, and it cannot be too vigorously pressed. For convenience, and from strict prosaic necessity, the R^gie has to Emit itself to a few sorts of goods, none of which are supremely excellent, even if none of them are extremely bad. But the private manufacturer has delight in multiplying kinds and qualities, and finds his profit in the beautiful diversity. Deserved and unbounded scorn Dr. Barth pours on the hypocrites who advocate the monopoly in the interest of the poor. The R^gie is to be created that the labouring man may have cheap Tobacco! This sort of cant can deceive no one. Cobbett said that in England nothing was national but the National Debt. But the bishops of a certain Church— bishops who have ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand pounds a year—maintain not merely that the Church is the Church of the nation, but that it is pre-eminently the poor man’s Church. We are afraid that the poor man does not show ardent, abounding gratitude for the intense sympathy of the bishops. As regards the poor man, the labouring man, the nicotian does not differ much from the theological monopoly. The R^gie in France draws ninety per cent, of its income from the most ordinary kinds of Tobacco and snuff, and from cigars sold at five centimes or a sou each. But the tax is high just in the degree that the price is low. On ordinary snuff it amounts to 858 per cent, of the cost of production. Dr. Barth has some pithy and pregnant words on the industries dependent on the Tobacco manufacture, industries whose productions are cigar boxes, silk ribands, labels, and so on. There are in Germany from thirty to forty wholesale makers of cigar boxes. As raw material they require annually 20,000 cubic feet of the wood of cedar, fir, or alder. The trade represents a capital of more than five millions of marks, and has considerable foreign relations. With the introduction of the Regie the manufacture of cigar boxes would cease; for “that manufacture essentially belongs to the domain of luxury, and can flourish only in free industrial conditions. Under the R6gie the smoker gets what he wants from hand to mouth, and the luxurious accompaniments are almost wholly absent.” Though not an absolute advocate for the English system of Tobacco taxation, accompanied, as it is, with total prohibition of home culture, Dr. Barth thinks it might have, as compared with the Regie, a certain attractiveness, if Tobacco did not hold such a prominent and persistent place in German agriculture. The value of the German Tobacco crop seems to vary a good deal from year to year. In 1870 it was twenty millions of marks; in 1877, thirteen millions of marks. Dr. Barth’s examination of a modified form of the Regie, the limitation of the Tobacco culture to its present extent, and its subjection to Government supervision, it is unnecessary to consider. On the American system of Tobacco taxation, which is essentially also the Russian system, Dr. Barth has some shrewd and sound remarks. Two chief advantages of the system he deems to be: that the consumption of the article follows very swiftly the payment of the tax; and that the	temptation to adulterate is minimised, forasmuch as bad articles and good are both subjected to the same duty. Bat it has signal disadvantages. The control is burdensome, vexatious, and costly, and the inducements to commit fraud are not small. If it were desirable or possible to introduce it into Germany, Dr. Barth believes that it would have to undergo many and great modifications.	• A scheme for taxing German home-grown Tobacco by weight, and for making a distinction in doing so between wet and dry, fermented and unfermented, Tobacco, which has lately been propounded in Germany, Dr. Barth analyses very minutely. But the scheme and its discussion have an interest for none but Germans engaged in the Tobacco trade. Confessing that he does not see why Tobacco should be taxed at a higher rate than sugar, brandy, and beer, which no more than Tobacco are absolute necessaries—though what is an absolute necessary, and what is not, it would often be difficult to decide—nevertheless, deserting, or seeming to desert his principles, Dr. Barth thinks that Tobacco might make an annual addition to the German Imperial Revenue of fifty or sixty millions of marks; foreign Tobacco paying an import duty of fifty marks, and home-grown Tobacco a tax of twelve marks the hundredweight. In the spirit of this idea he proposed four resolutions to the “Politico-Economical Congress; ” and we suppose that the resolutions were accepted. Free Trade was to animate all the proceedings of the Congress ; resistance was to be offered to Protectionism, to the monopoly, to the R^gie, to Bismarck the Bold’s insane, shameless, ruthless, ruinous designs; yet the “end of the song” is not merely a compromise, but a surrender. Free Trade is at one pole, the R^gie at the opposite pole; but the moment Free Trade leaves its own pole all the intermediate zones are given up to the Regie, to the monopoly, to Protectionism. A duty of more than four times as much on foreign Tobacco as on home-grown Tobacco would be a prohibitory duty, and would logically lead to, would triumphantly justify, everything monstrous, extravagant, tyrannical in the Regie. Carlyle has often discoursed eloquently on the. inevitable death of a lie. But lies live as long as truths, and often longer. In any case, if human falsehood endures only for a season, human folly and human stupidity do not. It seems as if, as long as men smoke, the “ Counterblast ” of the fatuous James I. were to dash against their faces. As a burglarious Statesman, the brutal Bismarck takes as models certain brutal Prussian kings; but as regards Tobacco he imitates the dreary driveller “ Jamie; ” and even if the German people do not “love to have it so,” they are too cowardly to resist. ®« »!_W- Sublime Tobacco I which, from East to West, Cheers the tar's labours, or the Turkman’s rest." Btboh.* My sober Muse! the fragrant cloud that flies In circling volume from my old chibouque, Seems, as its airy forms do heav’nward rise, To waft thee hence: and where the green hills look On Eastern vales with “ weed divine ” abounding, Far o’er the deep blue ocean’s waves surrounding. To thee she sings, and to thy residue Nicotiana: end of all that broke With the world’s dawn to life: the final hue Of Kingdoms, Cities, Kings, and Empires—smoke! Our lovely orb (at least, philosophers say so) Will one day smoke, too, like a hot potato. Hail! soothing opiate of the lonely hour! A double boon is given unto thee: Time rolls more brightly oh beneath thy pow’r, And man at least can dream that he is free. Seen through t^e medium of thine own exciting, Life wears an aspect that’s less uninviting. Sweeter and more delicious is the air On which thy sweet breath floateth, far to me, Than the ten thousand perfumes it may bear Forth from the balmy groves of Araby; Where the soft night in dew-wept scents reposes, And day bursts, blushing, on a land of roses. Child of my idler hours! for thou to me Hast, in invisible intelligence, A fair companion and society When Nature whispers me to fly from hence; To her unmingled solitudes retreating, Nor man nor man’s control disturbs our meeting. Beneath thy potent charm I seem to walk Thro’ ages long since sepulchred: to see And have a close communion with, and talk To day-clad spirits that have ceased to be. The mind’s dark caverns feel thy fascination, And yield their dead up at thy invocation. Impelled by thee, as craft upon the deep Drift on and onward thro’ eternal change, Thought’s swifter barks, all helmless, ever sweep Through a wild, rich, illimitable range. From the still’d soul, while calmly contemplating, Fresh worlds rise up, and all of thy creating.
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It may be fancy’s airy forms defined
Tn a substantial shape: or it may be A silent, sweet soliloquy of mind—
Bright, beautiful, but still illusory.
No matter—there’s a secret bliss in seeing In it a sort of half material being.
And, though it hath no voice, I yet can feel
A mystic power it hath to fashion thought, And weave it into visions: nor conceal
The unremembered images thus brought Like an enchanter’s work before the mind’s eye, From the forgotten, silent realms of memory. To thee, my weed, then! whether the cigar ' Or amber-pointed bowl, or yet a link Of nameless clay-built hosts that ever are, And ever will exist—to thee I drink !
“I love thee still,” with all thy sweet pollution, Though the vile cabbage mar thy constitution.
George E. Newtok.
dope’s glifturt.
It dawned upon me, some time ago, that the reason why the gilded youth of England had betaken himself with so much devotion to the chewing of tooth-picks was that his enfeebled constitution would no longer permit him to indulge in cigars. There is much in habit; and precisely as the old smoker of Cavendish and Virginia, falling into debility, consoles himself with the fumes of fragrant Turkish, so the elegant habitut of the Mall and the Row, when he can no longer stand up against the powerful Havana, finds refuge and occupation in the dainty mastication of goose quill. The adventurous supposition was supported—as was also the Adonis of St. James’s and of Belgravia himself—by the crutch. The flower of Britain’s aristocracy has been propped up for months by the contrivance which in all former ages was the peculiar appanage of the cripple, or the sign of a veteran lagging superfluous on the stage of life; while this premature example of second childhood recalled in memory the lollipops of his first infancy by the aid of the companion tooth-pick. It has been a melancholy picture, and I rejoice to find it is passing away. I congratulate the youthful Croesus and the rising sprigs of our old Nobility upon the evidence which begins to apprise my visual sense that the epidemic of aggravated feebleness is being got under. If my testimony be not credible, I appeal to Sketch, an illustrated journal just distinguishable in the crowd of new-born pictorial sheets, well versed in the affairs of that Society which is such tremendous Society that you never saw such Society—really, you know! Sketch is one of those quite too awfully clever things that are to be relied upon—don’t you know?—and that sort of thing; and Sketch prints a quite too delightfully wicked representation of the what-you-may-call cure—don’t you know?—of Crutch and Tooth-pick. 1 don’t know the artist, but I think he ought to be engaged at once on the Tobacco Plant, as a sort of first-class reserve, in case George Pipeshank should retire from business, or anything of that kind, you know—like poor dear Lord Chelmsford and that altogether too charmingly wilful Sir Bartie Frere, out in what-the-mischiefs-the-name-of-the-place—don’t you see? I felt ready to hug the darling fellow at once—almost as if he had been Burne Jones or Whistler, or any of those people that one is obliged to go into paroxysms of admiration about without in the least knowing why, don’t you know?—when I saw that he had represented dear Charley restored to his cigar and his light cane, and his naturally elegant figure, and his quite too awfully nice energetic ways; and lifting his eyebrows in the dear, delightful, old supercilious way at the Cad whom he met with a crutch and a tooth-pick. For it really is high time (don’t you think so, now?) that the superb young men of the West End should abandon the habits that have come into common use in Whitechapel, and those other distant regions where Low People live. The worst of it is that, in the picture, the Cad had a cigar too. But I don’t suppose that is of much consequence; because, in the process of social evolution, it will take quite as many generations to engraft the “nice conduct of a clouded” Weed upon the manners of ’Arry and his Brethren as (according to William Makepeace Thackeray) it does to make a Gentleman.
The allusion to the Commander-in-Chief in South Africa, into which I have just been betrayed, reminds me of a statement that did my smoke-dried old heart good the other day, when I came across it in a letter to the Manchester Guardian, from a Special Correspondent in those warlike regions in the north of Natal. I don’t believe all I hear from the great S. C. And I don’t want to believe all I read from the pen of that specialest of all Correspondents, Mr. Archibald Forbes, who seems to regard Britannia as a sort of old Mrs. Wardle, and, like another fat boy in “ Pickwick ”—“ likes to make her flesh creep.” But I am eagerly ready to accept the gospel of the Manchester Guardian's Correspondent, when he tells how certain philanthropic Briton’s made the hearts of the Zulu prisoners to sing with joy, by making them presents of Tobacco pipes. Ha, ha! Dr. Drysdale, what thunk you of that, for a missionary effort? “By the waters of Babylon,
there we sat down—yea, we wept, when wo remembered Zion,” sang the Hebrew poet, in memory of the days of captivity and exile. May not the black warriors held in durance in British camps weep tears of bitterness when they remember the festive delights of the royal kraal, where they made merry under the sombre shadow of that unconquered man of war, Cetewayo? What solace have ye, Richardson and Co., for the griefs of a Kaffir prisoner, like that of the Tobacco pipe? Peerless among drugs, the Plant flings out the challenge to every nostrum and medicament in your various museums of substitutes:—“Cans’t thou not minister to a mind diseased?” And if that Standard Special who paid a visit to Colonel Wood’s distinguished captive, Oham, prince among Zulus, in the Transvaal country, the other day, may be trusted, the fumes of our favourite herb may have sanitary as well as narcotic virtues, when Dr. Richardson goes to establish his City of Hygeia, somewhere between the Tugela and the Pongolo. A better South African missionary than any one of the 25,000 Christian pioneers we have sent to chastise the Zulus, discovered a state of things in Cheshire just lately that might well suggest to Mr. Hugh Mason and the Anti-Tobaccoites of Manchester a disturbing question. This is what I read of it in a London daily, and I commend it to my tract-distributing friends of that ilk :—
” Dr. Moffatt made an extraordinary statement at a meeting held at Hawarden yesterday, presided over by the Rev. S. E. Gladstone, to advocate Sunday closing. Dr. Moffattsaid no one would be more pleased than himself to see the evils of drinking put down, but they must bear in mind that there were greater evils than beer drinking. He referred to the increase in the consumption of laudanum and opium since public-houses were closed earlier. Even in that parish he asked a druggist if he had found any increase in tho sale of laudanum since public-houses were closed at ten o’clock, and the chemist informed him that in one village alone he weekly sold two cjuarts of laudanum. Since then he knew a family which spent 10s. weekly in opium alone. If a man did not get sufficient beer to send him to sleep his wife was obliged to give him a dose of laudanum. He knew one instance where the husband thrashed his wife because she had not procured him his usual dose of opium. Resolutions were passed approving of Sunday closing.”
Is that the sort of thing you want, good friends? If so, and you persevere, there will soon be need for extending the business of Messrs. Johnny Chang and Johnstone, in Ratcliffe Highway—I beg the Highway’s pardon!—St. George’s Street, E. If you do not recognise these albeit familiar names, or find the reflection of their significance in the gloomy recesses of your mental organism, it will be well to give you this little graphic description from that new and excellent little compendium of curious knowledge, Mr. Charles Dickens, Junior’s, “ Dictionary of London”:—
“At the bottom of the Rlongh of grimy Despond is tho little breathless garret where Johnny the Chinaman swelters night and day curled up on his gruesome couch, carefully toasting in the dim flame of a smoky lamp tho tiny lumps of delight which shall transport the opium-smoker for awhile into his paradise. If you are only a casual visitor you will not care for much of Johnny’s company, and will speedily find your way down the filthy creaking stairs into the reeking outer air, which appears almost fresh by contrast. Then Johnny, whose head and stomach are Masoned by the unceasing opium pipes of forty years, shuts the grimy window down with a shudder as unaffected as that with which you just now opened it, and toasts another little dab of the thick brown drug in readiness for the next comer. But if you visit Johnny as a customer, you pay your shilling, and curl yourself up on another grisly couch, which almost fills the remainder of the apartment. Johnny hands you an instrument like a broken-down flageolet, and the long supple brown fingers cram into its microscopic bowl the little modicum of magic, and you suck hard through it at the smoky little flame, and—if your stomach be educated and strong—pass duly off into elysium. Then, when your blissful dream is over, you go your way, a wiser if not a sadder man.”
Well, I have consumed my share of drugs and chemicals ; and, if I could now lay my hands upon them, should have little need of doctors’ shops for the rest of my time under the moon. I have imbibed prussic acid, and have digested strychnine, and am at this moment encouraging my flagging forces with doses of henbane. There are few poisons in the Pharmacopoeia that have not wrought their will upon me to some extent; and the dreamy sisterhood have played pranks with my brain. But none of them have done me so little harm (or, I verily believe, so much good) as this Herb of the Western Ind. I never knew any good to come of Opium (to speak of), unless perhaps De Quincey’s “Confessions” ; and I would as soon recommend the Lotus on the strength of Tennyson’s “ Song.” Yet—believe me in this, good Antis— if you rob us of “ our dear Tobacco,” we shall every one be transmuted into the similitude of “ that Heathen Chinee,” with “face that was child-like and bland.”
And here I would reason a little with these good souls, the Anti-Tobaccoites. It grieves me to note with what pains they afflict themselves. I would have them call to mind a few aphorisms of truth, and acquire from their contemplation some gleanings of philosophy. The world is sad and hard enough, even while we solace our souls with those twin and matchless luxuries—little sins and little sorrows. The amount of enjoyment to be got out of a microscopic wickedness—that kind of depravity which is invisible to our neighbours, and known only to ourselves by means of a long-continued and penetrative introspection, in the nature of spiritual analysis, under the lens of morbid egotism—is not to be despised. There are some honest souls to whom existence would no longer be tolerable, if they could not plume themselves upon their own innate vileness. But when a man has passed his conscience through the crucible to such a degree of refinement that it reflects “ damnable error ” out of Tobacco smoke, it is not possible that he should any longer delude himself with the notion that he is wicked at all. He must inevitably arrive at the discovery that he is too good for this world; and I don’t know anything more melancholy than that. Then, again, as to the miseries. Half the delight of life con-
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sista in its wretchedness. Sir G. C. Lewis said: “ Life would be very tolerable but for its pleasures,” or something to that effect. The acuter theologians, when they show off their cleverness in making apologies for Providence, argue that pain is a blessing, inasmuch as it stimulates the virtues of pity and benevolence. And mortals of inferior mould find much consolation from the great troubles of existence by brooding over and luxuriating in the little and unsubstantial griefs that have root in our shallow fancies. Let us cull an example from an unsuspected source. Notwithstanding the fact—the tremendous fact—that your true Anti is totally divested of all sense of humour, I should be disposed to think that the most perfect organ of the Anti-Tobaccoites would be Funny Folks. From Funny Folks, then, let me take these illustrative verses:—
MISERY.
M The nightingale with sweetest thrill Was warbling in the grove
, Th« song that poets always say Must be the song of love.
The river, rippling slowly on. Its placid music made;
And yet I hurried swiftly on, Unheeding, silent, sad.
“ Above, the stars shone clearly out. The moon, fair queen of night, Shed down her gentle silver beam, Her soft enchanting light.
The night was warm, the sky was clear, The forest trees reposed ;
And yet within my breast I held A maddening grief enclosed.
“ It was not unrequited love— No; I hud never loved. It was not that a trusted friend In need had faithless proved.
It was not that a bank hud “ gone,” And well-nigh ruined me;
’Twas worse—my pipe was loaded full. But I had no fusee I ”
The simple moral I desire to draw from these touching lines is, that if a person does not smoke he can never enjoy the luxury of such a grief as this. Verbum sap.
M No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf s bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine ; Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily, And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
M But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven, like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning ”-------------
Pipe—pad, John Keats! That version will suit the needs of the day, better than thy morning roses and rainbows of the sad sea wave.
It was my earnest desire to mingle Mr. Alfred Thompson’s clever Mask with my “Mixture” this month. It hath many excellent qualities, and much humour to boot. But the blight of Anti-Nicotism is upon it. I have searched the two first numbers from end to end, and find no whiff of the weed. The thing is impossible—and therefore true. Wherefore, I’ll drop the Mask, and abide
Your Man-of-All-Work.
^ipe ®uhums.
XIL—WHY MR. POTTLE DID NOT ENCOURAGE
CHILDREN.
Before presenting Mr. Pottle’s statement to the public, I feel it to be my duty to say just a word or two. explaining what manner of man Pottle is. He is an individual of cousiderable imagination, and I always receive his anecdotes and adventures cautiously. I should not like to accuse him of wilfully telling lies; but I think, if he were to bevel his narratives a little, as a shoemaker does a clump sole, his hearers would have a better chance of arriving at the exact truth of the matter. He would certainly never affirm that black was white; but I believe there are moments in his existence when he would swallow Blue Point oysters with his eyes shut, and call them “natives.”
Mr. Pottle was not the most successful of pipe colourers; two meerschaums and three clay pipes constituted his collection. These five, however, were “as black as some people’s ten,” as he used to say, and he was very proud of them. “When I start on a pipe, I never leave it till it is black; I either colour the pipe, or the pipe colours me.” This was Pottle’s boast.
There was only one of Mr. Pottle’s pipes thoroughly sound; all the rest had been broken and repaired, some more than once, as the various silver bands testified.
One of his clay pipes had three silver bands on. He was sitting smoking it at my fireside, one evening, when I remarked that it must have cost him a good deal more for repairs than the original cost of the pipe. “Very true,” returned Pottle. “ The pipe cost me twopence, and I paid
four shillings to have it mended.” Here he suddenly paused, gazed abstractedly into the fire, and gave vent to the exclamation “Ah!” I asked him how he managed to break it. Pottle looked at me, took a good drink of ale, and spoke thus:—
“You may have heard, Didimus, that I am not fond of children. Do you think that is the truth?”
“Well,” I replied, “from what I have seen of you, I should think you are not fond of children.”
Pottle, with a chuckle, said: “I dare say there are some of my friends who half believe that I have out an infantile throat or two, but they are wrong. I don’t mind telling you that I am fond of children, but I do not wish them to be fond of me. Nothing pleases me better than the sight of one of the dear little cherubs with his attention fixed on someone else. I think it the prettiest picture in the world, and my heart warms to the little one, but I am compelled to dissemble. At one time it was different. I used to encourage children to love me; I coaxed them till they did. I put up with many inconveniences; I parted with all my odd halfpence, ruined my pockets with sweetstuff and gingerbread, and put more than one stationer into a little fortune by my large orders for children’s books. The youngsters climbed on to my knees, greased my clothes, tore my pockets, pulled my whiskers, plastered my hair, nestled on to my shirt front to hear my watch tick, wore my hats, and played horses with my umbrellas; in fact, made a martyr of me. But I bore patiently with all, because, although a bachelor, I had a fondness for children, and because I believe I was beloved by all these little ones.
“There is a proverb,” continued Pottle, “which says something about a worm turning. Sometimes an incident happens to a man which changes his whole after career. An incident of an alarming nature occurred to me, which once and for ever wrought a complete change in my ways with children. Perhaps it ought not to have changed my ways, but it did. In fact, I have never got over the shock.
“ Some six or seven years ago,” Pottle went on, “I lived a few miles from town. It was a considerable distance from the railway station to my home, but it was a pleasant country walk, so I did not mind it. I frequently noticed, on my morning journey, a bright-eyed little fellow, about six years of age, playing at the door of a good-sized cottage. Sometimes he was in the road, sometimes in the garden. My natural love of children gave me a desire to make friends with this pleasing juvenile; so one morning I ventured to say to him, ‘Hallo! old fellow, how are you?’ At this he took to his heels and ran indoors. Two or three mornings after this I saw him again, and smilingly said, ‘How is my little friend to-day?’ This time he did not run away, but contented himself with making a grimace at me, and went on whipping his top. This sort of thing went on for about a a week, and then we began to get quite friendly. In a day or two more he began to trot a little way after me, acting as a sort of rear guard, and in a few days more he got trotting by the side of me, holding my hand. Matters improved, as I foolishly thought, for he began to come a little way to mee me, and would not be content to leave me till I arrived at the station. One morning I was so pleased with his brightness and intelligence, that at parting I gave him a halfpenny, and told him to be a good boy.
“ The next morning he was waiting forme quite a long way from his own home. The moment he saw me he showed me three halfpence. ‘When I get another penny,’ said he, ‘I shall buy a cricket ball.’ I am afraid the child is inclined to be greedy, I thought, but I will not encourage him. ‘I should like a cricket ball,’ said he presently, as we jogged along; ‘ I shall buy one when I get another penny.’ To take his attention off the subject, I inquired: ‘Do you Jo to school?’ * Yes,’ he replied; ‘but this afternoon is a holiday, and I shall play at cricket, if I can get a ball; I only want another penny. I frowned, and said, ‘ Can you play cricket?* for I hardly knew what to say, the youngster was so full of his cricket ball. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘when I get a ball I can.’ I rather thoughtlessly walked fast, and could hear, amidst his infantile pantings: ‘ Three halfpence—penny—cricket ball,’ &c. I did not mean to do it, but my heart was soft, and I gave him the looked-for penny when we parted.
“The next morning I was somewhat surprised to see that my small friend had a little girl with him. I did not feel very greatly pleased at this. The girl, who was a couple of years or so older than my original friend, turned out to be his sister; and, when I took hold of his one hand, she took hold of his other, and three in a row we went to the station. At parting, the little girl said ‘ Good morning, sir,’ so nicely that I was compelled to give her a copper, and, as the boy dropped his lip, I couldn’t help giving him one as well.
“ The next morning these youngsters were waiting for me with a third, a boy, a year or two older than the little girl; I suppose he was about nine or ten y&ars of age. This was another brother, and, as if they were born to it, they clasped hands, my first found friend maintaining his original position. I scarcely knew what to do. I felt like a man kidnapping some other man’s family. In fact, I got so painfully nervous that I halted some distance from the station, and gave each of my companions a copper to get rid of them.
“I looked eagerly ahead next morning, and saw, to my dismay, the three children and rather a shaky adult coming slowly along the road to meet me. The adult turned out to be
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June, 1879.]	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	847
grandfather. The old style was reproduced, the only difference being that there was now a man at each end of the little line. The clasping of hands was strictly observed, as on former occasions. I felt very much like a fool. The old man said, ‘Good mornin’, sir’ an’ so you’re the kind gen’l’man as gives the young uns coppers. Bless ’ee, sir, thee beest one in a many.* I could not retort crossly to this, but walked a bit slower to oblige the old gentleman. On the road he took occasion to say, as he glanced at the pipe I was smoking: ‘Beautiful thing, ’Bacca, sir, aint it?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied; ‘its soothing power is very remarkable.’ ‘That’s true as true, sir,’ said the old fellow, shaking his head solemnly; ‘the greatest comfort I’ve got now, now I’m old, and weak, and poor, and broke up, and broke down, is a bit o’ ’Bacca. I can’t alius get it, cos times is ’ard; but when I do get it, it’s real ’joyment, that it is.’ I always sympathise with a lover of the weed, being fond of it myself; so, at parting, although I was very much annoyed, I felt compelled to give the old fellow twopence to get a little Tobacco. The children simply held out their hands for a copper each, as if they had done their work and were entitled to their wages.
“I came to town that day feeling hot, awkward, and extremely ill-tempered. What to do I scarcely knew. There was only one other road I could take to the station, and that was quite a mile out of my way. The affair weighed on my mind terribly.
“The next morning (oh, how I had been wishing it would rain in torrents) I started out in a very disagreeable mood. I felt that I could quarrel with almost anyone, and yet I felt that I could not be mean enough to quarrel with helpless infancy or helpless age. I was obliged to confess that it was my own fault in making so free with the first of my now dreaded companions; and I made a vow, which I have kept, that I would never encourage children again.
“My intense horror may be imagined when I saw a second adult, making a cheerful party of five, waiting for me. This was an old lady, and turned out to be grandmother. They gave me ‘good morning,’ and faced rightabout, like volunteers; then off we went. Six-year-old clasped my hand, eight-year-old clasped six-year-old’s other hand. Ten-year-old took the disengaged hand of eight-year-old, and grandfather and grandmother gripped on at the end. I had not gone far before grandmother regretted she had no snuff to offer me. As the old lady was extremely feeble, I conducted my menagerie a very little way before I hauled out twopence for snuff, twopence for Tobacco, and a halfpenny each for the youngsters. Then I made off. I was nearly mad. Come well or ill, I determined to go the long way roiuid the next morning.
“It happened, however, that I was very late in getting up on the following morning, and so was compelled to go the usual way. I assure you I nearly fell down when I saw a third adult with the party, another female.
“‘Good morning, sir,’ said the six in chorus; and then the grandfather continued: ‘This is Aunt Stevens, sir; not exactly an aunt by blood, but a sort of half-aunt by marriage. You’ll like her, sir, when you know her better.’
“Now or never, thought I, for my blood was up. ‘Hold!* I shouted. ‘I can stand this no longer. While you confined yourselves to your own blood, I bore it; but I cannot stand a sort of half-aunt by marriage. I must draw the line somewhere, or I shall have you advertising for all your dead and forgotten relations, and dragging them or their ghosts down this lane to meet me.’ '
“Saying this, I took to my heels, the three youngsters after me, crying out for their halfpence. I, of course, beat them in the race; but, turning my head to see if they had given over running, I managed to jerk this pipe out of my mouth; it dropped on to the ground, and broke into four pieces. I never said a wicked word in my life but once, and it was when I picked up the fragments of this pipe, for it was beautifully coloured and exceedingly sweet to smoke. It cost me, as I told you, four shillings to have it mended.
“Well,” concluded Pottle, “for three months I went to the railway station by the longest route, and I have never seen anything more of my tormentors from the day I showed my heels to them to this, and I trust I never shall.”
D. Goggs.
^obacro ^mong t^e ^ulus.
Ketchway’s warriors have taken very efficient measures to prevent our regarding them with contempt. They have awakened Lord Chelmsford’s countrymen somewhat rudely from the dream of a holiday march to Ulundi; and if John Bull’s boasted liking for a good stand-up fight be not already satisfied, there is reason to believe he will yet be content in that regard before the Zulu war is over. Even Sir Garnet Wolseley’s luck—and this sceptical age little dreams how much there is in luck—will not suffice to reduce the Zulu Kaffir to nonentity as a factor in the fortunes of Britain. If any chord of sympathy could be hopefully struck between the victors of Isandlana and the nation whose sons defended Borke’s Drift and won fame at Ginghelovo, we might hope to find it in a strand of Tobacco. And even now—inasmuch as the black-skinned wielders of the assegai have taught us to
respect them—it must count for something in the esteem of a race of Tobacco-lovers that the Zulu loves Tobacco. His devotion to the fragrant Weed is as true and strong as that of the white brother with whom of late he has been so often locked in the death-grip. He worships Nicotine, not with the philosophic calmness of the Red-Skin, or of the blue-eyed Teuton, but with a passionate abandonment that carries him to the brink of insanity.
With him, the Pipe—with its huge bullock’s horn and reed for tube, and its capacious bowl of baked clay—is a joint-stock institution ; and a smoke is the symposium of a whole community. He sits with his fellow-warriors in the centre of the kraal, squatting on the ground in front of their huts, and the pipe passes round from hand to hand, each member of the company inhaling the intoxicating fumes in turn. But there are no half measures of inhalation here. When the white man “ inhales,” he rarely allows the smoke to pass beyond his mouth and nostrils ; but the Zulu Kaffir fixes his lips over the broad mouth of the bullock’s horn, closes his nostrils with his hands, and draws in the reek of the burning weed till his lungs are tilled. Then, handing the pipe to his neighbour, he lays hold of a small tambooty reed, and slowly blows the smoke through it, until his lungs are empty. Thus unconsciously do they illustrate the lyrical conceit of the time when Tobacco was young in England—they fairly “ drink Tobacco.” There is no haste or wildness in the earlier stages of such a festival; for, sententiously talking together as the pipe goes slowly round, and waiting their turn in order, they blow out the spittle from their several reeds, and trace in figures on the ground the plans and pictures that give body to their talk. But one such powerful inhalation of the weed is not enough for a seasoned smoker amongst the men of Zululand. Again and again does each warrior fill his lungs to repletion, and blow forth the dense cloud through his tambooty reed, until the powerful narcotic either lays them prostrate on mother-earth or drives them into paroxysms of madness. “ I have seen them so excited by smoking,” says one who knows them well, “ that they have jumped to their feet and run away—running till they were out of sight; and on one occasion I remember a fellow running at full speed, under the influence of this excitement, till he dropped down dead.” It is clear enough, from this example, that the Zulu knows nothing of the Pipe of Peace; and that he should be a hopeful subject for the philanthropic efforts of the Anti-Tobacco Society.
The experienced trader, or traveller, in the country north of the Tugela, generally conceals, as much as possible, the fact that he has Tobacco amongst his stores. The Kaffir is always on the look-out for the white man’s “dacca,” as he calls it; and will beg for it with all but irresistible importunity. Indeed, he will take no denial; and the white man is obliged to part with some of his treasure, if he would have peace. The women are as fond of Tobacco as the men; and, although they are too much under subjection to venture to ask for it in the presence of their husbands or masters, no sooner are the latter out of sight than they will come forward and exert every feminine grace and fascination to induce the white man to part with his Weed. They grow Tobacco on their little plantations for their own use ; but, although very tolerable Tobacco is produced in the Transvaal, the neighbouring state, Zulu Tobacco is of a very inferior quality. The cultivation of the plant falls to the women’s care, and they attend it most assiduously, watering it every day at sundown; and when it appears above the ground, they cover it over with bushes to keep the birds away. When the plant is fully grown it is usually about three feet high ; and then they strip off the leaves and lay them in the sun, and a few hours’ exposure suffices to dry them sufficiently for making into snuff, or for smoking. Snuff-taking is the- most popular of the two forms of enjoying the leaf; and as soon as it is dry they pound or rub it between two stones. A large pebble, hollowed in the centre, is used for the nether stone ; and with a small round one the leaf is crushed. They then mix it with the white ash of burnt wood ; and this is the preparation in common use amongst them. But they appreciate highly the superior fragrance of a real bit of “ Virginny,” or “ Rappee,” when they are lucky enough to get it. All the Zulu chiefs, and many headsmen as well, carry snuff-boxes stuck through the slit in one ear, and a comb, with a snuff-spoon in the handle, through the slit in the other. The slit is the distinguishing mark of the Zulu nation ; and no other Kaffirs bear it. The snuff-boxes most in vogue are made from a small gourd or pumpkin, but the better ones are made out of small bamboo reeds, and are ornamented with beads of three colours— the umslopbes, or white beads; the umgar8ext or red beads; and the unmeamt, or black beads. Panda, the late king, and his son, Ketchway, both bad boxes of this latter kind when my informant was in their company, which happened on more than one occasion. At one time he and his fellow-traders took up into the country a lot of wooden snuff-boxes, with little pieces of looking-glass let into the backs, thinking they might exchange them with advantage; but, though the Zulus were greatly delighted with these trinkets, they altogether refused to take them—as they took blankets, picks, and such useful goods—in exchange for cattle; and only bartered mealeys (maize) or “amas” (curdled milk) for them. Though childish in many things, the Zulu has a very good notion of a bargain, and, as in this case, is not to be induced to part with his cattle for things which serve for ornament or amusement only. As a trading commodity these snuff-boxes were
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COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
[June, 1879.
useless, and the traders soon gave up taking them. Still, their small size rendering the carriage easy, they were found useful on an elephant hunting expedition; and food was readily obtained for them whenever the hunters came to a kraal. The Zulus take snuff, or “ egwi,” as they call it, in large quantities; so recklessly, indeed, that they are not satisfied until the tears are running from their eyes. They are very liberal to one another in this respect; and when one Zulu has any snuff, and the friend he meets has none, he will share his stock with his less fortunate brother. In such a case, they will generally sit down, and keep on taking snuff until there is none left. But the Zulu never does anything by halves.
“ Speaking of the women, and their passion for Tobacco,” says my informant, “I remember how a Kaffir woman once sacrificed her life to her determination to get some of mine. It was up above the Umvelosi river. Tom Rogers and I were returning from a trading expedition with about thirty head of cattle. Coming one night to a kraal, just about where the lower road to St. Lucia now runs, but where there was then only a Kaffir track, we made the headsman, or chief of the kraal, a present; and so got leave to put our cattle within the enclosure for the night. Near the kraal there was a ravine, through which ran a small mountain stream of good water; and we formed our little camp upon the opposite side. When we had finished our supper, Tom pulled out his pipe, and I mine, to have the last smoke of the day. We had already been pretty well bled of Tobacco by the headsman, and we thought—what with the ravine between us and the darkness around—we were surely safe from any more attacks. In Zululandt unless the country is unusually open and the moon particularly bright, it is very unsafe to be abroad after dark; for the bush and the river banks are alive with leopards, hyenas, jackals, tiger cats, and wolves. The fire was burning brightly, and we had no fear of an intrusion from any of these enemies, and were quietly talking over the results of our trip. Suddenly we heard a light footstep in the grass, and, peering through the darkness, we saw a Kaffir woman coming towards us. She came timidly forward, and, stopping a little way off, said—‘ Saboorn! ’ (‘ Good day I ’) I asked her what she wanted, and she then said—‘ Chayella egwi ’mgarn encose.’ (‘Give me Tobacco, chief.’) ‘What does she say?’ said Tom; for he could not speak Zulu. ‘ Oh! she wants Tobacco.’ ‘Does she?’ growled Tom; ‘then she won’t get it. Tell her to go away.’ I ‘ chaffed ’ her for a while, and then tried to get rid of her by saying, ‘We have none.’ * Wenna rooka! ’ (‘ You are smoking it! ’) she replied, smiling most charmingly. So, seeing she was anxious to get back, I gave her a little bit, and she ran away into the darkness. Scarcely had we resumed our talk, when a piercing shriek broke the silence. Another and another followed, and we were on our feet, and on the way down the ravine, in an instant. The Kaffirs in the kraal, too, came running down the opposite bank, brandishing fire-sticks. Tom and I were at the bottom first; and close by the stream we saw, by the starlight, the unfortunate Kaffir woman in the clutches of a leopard. She was senseless and silent by this time, and the beast’s claws were deep in her breast, the blood streaming down from every claw. As I rushed towards him and presented my rifle, he nearly wrenched the poor creature’s head from her body; and then turned his blood-steeped teeth on me. One shot was enough, however, and he rolled over dead. We picked up the body of the woman, but we were too late. She was quite dead! I tell you the incident as it happened, not because a fatality of that kind is at all uncommon in that wild country, but because of its association with the passion for Tobacco of which we were talking. An hour later, I dare say, we were all as fast asleep as if nothing had happened.”
Tragedy apart, may not the philosophic European smoker draw from these facts a moral ? The barbarous Zulu has at least one taste in common with the white man: May not one link suffice to draw him to civilisation ?
©ur Sntokt |loom ®aHe.
English Men of Letters. Edited by John Morley. London: Macmillan and Co. 1878-9.
I—HUME, BY PROFESSOR HUXLEY.
Oy all the volumes hitherto announced, we think that this will prove decidedly the most valuable to the genuine student; by its subject, by its author, and by the manner in which he has chosen to deal with his subject. Its value, indeed, to the student, as distinguished from the idle reader, consists mainly in the fact that, strictly speaking, it has no right to be in the Series. Hume was ass redly a very eminent man of letters—British, if not English— an exquisite literary artist, whoso ruling passion (as he tells us at the close of “ My Own Life ”) was love of literary fiune, and who (as the Professor fails not to remark with regret), in the maturity of his powers, turned from those philosophical inquiries wherein he had b en so successful, to engage more and more in purely literary work. But the Professor, insisting, as we think, quite justly, that Hume’s supreme fame and significance rest on his philosophy, not on his history and literature, treats these very cursorily in th • sketch of the life, and devotes more than three-fourths of the book to a careful and thorough critical exposition of the philosophy. Herein consists the substantial importance of trie volume. The life has been sketched by Hume himself, and written at large by Mr. John Hill Burton, the historian of Scotland; the Professor can but draw rapid outlines from these originals. A very much smaller man than Huxley would by this time be fairly competent to introduce the general public to Hume merely as a man of letters, to his history and his moral and political essays. But very few men, indeed, could have brought the like strength and subtlety of intellect, the like amplitude ot relevant knowledge, the like perspicacity and perspicuity, the like dauntless
sincerity, and the like informing and inspiring sympathy, to the work of expounding, correcting, and developing the principles attained by the marvellous and prescient Scottish analyst one hundred and forty years ago. The phrase is of a type sorely hackneyed by frivolous and unworthy periodical usage, but we apply it with deliberate seriousness when we venture to affirm that no student of Hume, and no student of mental and moral philosophy, can afford to neglect this lucid manuaL
IL-GIBBON, BY JAMES COTTER MORISON, M.A., Lincoln College, Oxford.
This volume, by its subject and its author, will probably rank among the best in the Series. The general public decidedly needs an introduction to Gibbon; for very few, even of the educated, master, or attempt to master, hit great work, though many may occasionally refer to it; and his owu Memoirs and Letters, in Lord Sheffield's edition of the Miscellaneous Works, am scarcely so generally accessible and familiar as Mr. Morion appears to think. Mr. Morison himself we know as the author of various historical essays in the Fortnightly Review and elsewhere, and especially of the “Life and Times of St. Bernard,” a book which imp res bed us as a very instructive and admirable example of what may be termed historical biography—a Ixwk, in fact, not unworthy of its dedication to Thoma# Carlyle. We find the present study equally excelhnt, in the ratio of it# much smaller scope. It depicts clearly and fairly the leading events of the life an<i the leading traits of the character. It discusses and appraise# thoughtfully and respectfully the great History of the Decline and Fall, m an earnest scholar should discuss a stupendous masterpiece in his own sphere of w<»rk: with learned and grateful recognition of its noble merits, with candid admission of its defects; the fonner duly increased, and the latter duly diminished, by the consideration that the merits were special to the master and the defects general to his time, that the defects are discovered from the vantage-ground of an added century of prodigious historical experience and researches and consequent philosophy. Thus much we may hazard in praise of this solid yet very readable little book, as mere member# of the general public, laics not clerics in this department of literature.
It may not bo out of place to note two or three minute errors, mad# evident by the book itself, which can easily be corrected in subsequent issues. “He was exactly fifteen years and one month old," p. 17 (when received into the Roman Church), should be sixteen ; p. 174, “ He wanted just eighty-three days of fifty-seven years of age” (when he died, 16th January, 1794). should bo one hundred and twelve; p. 92, “his mother, Mrs. Gibbon,” should be his step-mother; and three lines below, “the latter” should bo the last. There is a lapse more important on pp. 47-49, speaking of Gibbon's sojourn in Paris in the spring of 1763, and of his blindness to the portents of tho great Revolution: “No one of his contemporaries saw deeper in this direction than he did. . . . One does not wonder that they did not see ahead of them—men never do. One does rather wonder that they did not see what was before their eyes. But wonder is useless and a mistake. People who have never seen a volcano cannot be expected to fear the burning lava, or even to see that a volcano differs from any other mountain.” Such sweeping generalisations are always rash, and charae-teristic of the uninformed and hasty journalist, not of the deliberate scholar; and in this case Mr. Morison must have quite forgotten, for the moment at least, one remarkable exception with which he must be quite familiar; an exception emphasised by Carlyle in his “French Revolution” (besides that other of Mirabeau's father, the old Marquis, foreseeing the inevitable eulbute generate), and even cited by young Shelley, in his “Notes on Queen Mab”; we mean Lord Chesterfield, in his famous prophetic letters, the first written eleven years earlier than this sojurn of Gibbon in Paris, and and thirty-seven years before the great An. 1 of the Full of the Baatile:— “ I do not know what the Lord’s anointed . . . will either think or do, upon these symptoms of reason and good sense, which seem to be breaking out all over France; but this I foresee, that before the end of this century, the trade of both king and priest will not be half so good a one as it has been.” (Letter, April 18, O.S. 1752.) And again: “In short, all the symptoms which I have ever met with in history, previous to great changes and revolutions in government, now exist, and daily increase, in France." (Letter, December 25, 1758.) Shelley’s quotation we are unable at present to verify in the “ Letters ; ” perhaps some reader can give us the reference and date; here is the passage:—“ Lord Chesterfield was never yet taken for a prophet, even by a bishop, yet he uttered this remarkable prediction:—* The despotic government of France is screwed up to the highest pitch; a revolution is fast approaching; that revolution, I am convinced, will be radical and sanguinary.’ This appeared in the letters of the proplut long before the accomplishment of this wonderful prediction.” We have dwelt upon this point in mere justice to the political insight and foresight of a man who is v< ry much underrated in England; so that the shallow and underbred Cockney Dickens could, with consummate self-complacency and sense of superiority, daub the vilest caricature of him, assured that the stupid public would welcome it as a first-rate likeness.
IIL—SAMUEL JOHNSON, BY LESLIE STEPHEN.
This is one of the Series as to which wo cannot help asking, Is it really wanted ? Whom can it inform or enlighten ? What intellectual reason can it plead for its existence ? To the first question the publishers reply, by advertisement, It is already in its sixth thousand; so that a good many people wanted it, or at any rate fancied they did. To the last, we ourselves can only reply with the old Je ne vois pas la necessity. For the facts, sketches were already abundant, and “ Boswell ” is now nearly as cheap as this booklet; and Mr. Stephen, in common with the other contributors, so far as we hare noticed, does not pretend to that “ satisfying ” the reader’s interest io his subject which the Prospectus holds forth. Thus when he comes, Chap. TV^ to “Johnson as a Literary Dictator,’’ he frankly and fairly says: “ The last twenty years are those which are really familiar to us; and little remains but to give some brief selection of Boswell's anecdotes. The task, however, is a difficult one. It is easy enough to make a selection of the gems of Boswell’s narrative; but it is also inevitable that, taken from their setting, they should lose the greatest port of their brilliance.” Wherefore, go to “ Boswell,” 01 general public, if you have not already gone, seeing that it is one of the most readable and most road books in the language. It may be alleged that the present volume justifies its existence by its account ot Johnson's Works. But those which are still generally readable are cheap and common enough; and the others are unreadable, save as a matter at duty, simply through gradual and immedicable decay of vitality. As to criticism, portraiture, and estimate, we had already essays beyond comparison more brilliant than Mr. Stephen’s; Macaulay, seeing all that a very keen unvisionary eye could see in Johnson, and his unique biographer, Carlyle, seeing all this and very much beyond this, not less real and far more essentially significant.
However, tins volume being before ns, needed or not, we are happy to say that in our poor opinion the writer has performed his task in a careful, workmanlike, creditable manner. There are here and there touches ot somewhat supercilious criticism and complacent second-hand rejection; but, on the whole, Johnson and his friends and his works and his talk axe very well sketched. With Carlyle, Macaulay, and others of less note to inform and control his judgment, with the invaluable Boswell and others to furnish an unequalled supply of characteristics, and with the twofold advantage that the genius of his subject was neither very great, nor very subtle, nor very deep, and that he is at a long century's remove from it. Mr. Leslie Stephen has been secured from such a lamentably failure to appreciate as that in which he has exposed himself in hazoraing the portraiture of rare contemporary genius, as De Quincey, or Landor, or Balzac, or Shelley (since I wrote). But as hi« mind is very receptive and docile, it would doubtless have been saturated with right notions regarding these also, could it but have hod the advantage of living a century or so after them. It may be added, that merely to sketch Johnson and the group around him, with the guidance of so many excellent authorities, by no means demands the learning, the insight, the judgment, the comprehensive and regulative original genius, demanded by on adequate first History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, a work yet to be achieved!
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June, 1879.]	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	849	
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850	COPE'S TOBACCO PLANT.	[Jurat, 1879,
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| |ipt toit^ the £ttto ^talaniwrs.
It is curious how readily an aboriginal race, as soon as it shall be brought into contact with a more civilised one, will take to certain of the usages of the latter, while remaining indifferent to many others. Particular indulgences, such as the use of stimulants, tea, and Tobacco, quickly become looked upon as necessary requirements by the wild races. But of all these new luxuries none ever takes so deep and lasting a hold upon them as the use of Tobacco. This is peculiarly manifest to anyone inclined to take notice of such things among the Maoris of New Zealand. It is but yesterday, so to speak, since they were brought under the influences of the white men, and induced to lay aside the more obnoxious of their primitive customs—such as constant fighting and cannibalism—and to take to some, at least, of our modes of living. One habit introduced by us has, at any rate, become indispensable to them, and that, of course, is smoking. It is probable that if a Nicotian census could be taken of all the Maori tribes, men and women alike, that not ten in a thousand would come out antis, and these would most likely be so only from necessity, not from choice. I never met, nor have lever heard of a Maori Anti-Tobaccoite, and I seriously doubt if any such exists.
It is barely a century since the first discovery of New Zealand, and it is little more than half that time since intercourse between Europeans and the natives became pretty general. Missionaries and a few traders settled here and there on the coasts and rivers, and among such tribes of the Maoris as seemed most disposed to be friendly, from the commencement of this century; but it was much later before any considerable influx of “Pakeha,” or strangers, took place. The Maori race, as a whole, became early alive to the advantages of commerce, and rapidly developed trade with the whites. At first they had little in the way of produce to set off against the guns and groceries, blankets and cutlery, Ac., which were introduced to them. The “native flax” (so-called), timber, possibly pigs—the multitudinous progeny of a few originally imported by Captain Cook—curiosities, notably the famous “smoked heads,” were probably for long all they had to offer in return for European commodities. But, as time went on, and more colonists arrived, land became marketable, and other resources were made known; and so the trade originally established with the Maoris by the Sydney merchants throve apace, and intercourse progressed, until at length New Zealand became a British colony, and the aborigines the subjects of her Majesty Queen Victoria.
History fails to relate how, when, and where the first Maori smoked his first pipe. There is little doubt, however, I think, that the first Nicotian baptism took place very soon after the Maori “ chummed ” with his new Pakeha friend; and there is good reason for thinking so when we find Tobacco among the earliest importations most sought after by the natives. I asked a very old “ rangatira,” or native gentleman, one day, when he had first learnt to smoke. After appearing to reflect deeply on the subject, he replied in his own language, and with the usual expressiveness of gesture, that the time when he had first experienced the pleasures of a pipe was “ plenty, plenty dead ”—too long ago to be recalled to mind. From the earliest days of the colony, and as soon as these heretofore cannibals thoroughly understood the pleasure to be derived from the use of Tobacco, they became its most ardent votaries, and made pipe and plug their inseparable companions. It was not long before some new comers to the islands brought with them the seeds of Nicotiana Tabacum,
and raised plants therefrom. The Maoris took to the cultivation of their own Tobacco with great good will, and the seeds and plants were rapidly distributed over the country among the various tribes. The methods adopted, both then as now, by these Maori Tobacco planters for the utilisation of the plant, are excessively rough and ready, as may be supposed. A Maori who manufactures his own plug from leaf of his own growing, seems to be guided chiefly by some design evolved from his own inner consciousness. Sometimes he dries his leaf, sometimes he does not; sometimes he hangs it up to dry in the smoke of his fire; then, perhaps, he will throw a heap of half-dried leaves into a corner for a few days, and then tie up tight “ figs” of these, which he may cut from the end as required. Generally speaking, when it seems good to our tattooed fellow-subject to “ go in” for a more elaborate preparation, he submits his raw leaf to various nasty and unspeakable processes, and, after considerable kneading and pounding, ties it up into “ figs” or “ plugs,” mixed up with all sorts of dirt and abomination; which rank and beastly mess is considered by him a most desirable compound of the best (Maori) brand, no doubt.
So widely spread and so universal was the native cultivation of Tobacco formerly, that it may not unfrequently now be met with in a wild state in many parts of the bush or forests, in spots probably once the site of native habitation. The Maoris were in the habit of moving their kainga, or villages, every few years, and making fresh clearings in another place. The sites of these long-deserted villages are often met with in the bush, usually near the shores of some estuary or tidal river, so placed for the convenience of obtaining fish and shellfish, which, being very abundant, were always staple articles of the Maori commissariat. In coming upon one of these places, which are now generally covered with a dense jungle of “ second-growth scrub”—a tangled thicket of young trees, often extending over many acres—one frequently finds growing degenerated specimens of the Tobacco plant, as also of carrots, cabbages, spinach, Ao., and sometimes clumps of peach and almond trees, or other importations from the old countries. One seems to feel a kind of sentiment akin to that of unexpectedly meeting with an old friend, when journeying through a forest of new and strange vegetation one suddenly sees the large bright leaf and purple flower of the “ divine herb” appear before one; at any rate, I remember a sensation of the sort when, new to the country, I first experienced this. At the present time the Maoris would seem to grow much less Tobacco than was formerly the case; indeed, the “ loyal Ngapuhi ” and other tribes inhabiting the northern and more settled parts of the North Island appear to have discontinued doing so almost entirely. The facility with which they can obtain “prime Virginia” at the numerous settlements and “ bush stores,” and its evident superiority to their own manufactured article, is the cause of this. Some, however, they do grow, and offer dried leaf for sale wherever it will find a market; this is chiefly carried on by the Waikato and Taranaki natives. Various efforts have been made by settlers to make the cultivation of Tobacco an established and profitable industry of the colony, but no attempts in this direction have as yet been attended with any very marked success. Enough has been done to show proof that the growth and manufacture of Tobacco is a speculation for the future very promising of success. The Colonial Government—which endeavours, as far as it can, to foster and promote every new industry, the introduction of which into the colony may seem desirable, and that strives to effect this by means of protective duties, and by granting substantial help to individual undertakings, in the shape of money grants and loans to their originators—
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852	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[July, 1879.	
has, it may well be supposed, not overlooked the claims of Tobacco-growing to rank as a probably remunerative industry. One person in the province of Auckland has for some years past been engaged in cultivating and manufacturing Tobacco. It is said that he has received considerable assistance from the provincial authorities, and it has been stated that he has been enabled to carry on his undertaking to a successful issue. There can be no question that the climate and soils in many spots throughout the North Island are singularly well adapted to the culture of the Nicotiana Tabacum, and, doubtless, hereafter it will be largely resorted to by capitalists. Just at present the great scarcity and high price of labour is the most prominent obstacle to be overcome. This has prevented settlers from producing many valuable commodities besides Tobacco, which require, if intended to be turned out in large quantities, the employment of many hands at one time. It is not surprising that such should be the case, when it is known that a field labourer’s wages are 5s. and 6s. per day of eight hours, and that it is by no means always possible to obtain a supply even at that price. New Zealand, with an area as large as Great Britain, has yet a population—European and native—somewhat less than that of either Liverpool, Manchester, or Birmingham. Proposals have been made to adopt the system of importing Chinese and Kanaka coolies into the colony, but this plan has always been opposed by the colonial executive. Although there is much to be said both for and against the subject, it is scarcely likely that it will ever be carried into effect in New Zealand. The quality of such of the New Zealand Tobacco as I have seen—though, of course, very variable—is on the whole, from a smoker’s point of view, fairly good. Much of it may be favourably compared with that exported io the colony from Virginia. It is generally of a full flavour, and possesses a very agreeable aroma; and, doubtless, experienced hands might produce very fine and delicate varieties of it. Some of that I obtained in Auckland was of unusual strength, but I found one drawback attach to it, that the plugs were apt to become offensively mouldy if kept long. Probably this defect was owing to some fault in manufacture easily remediable. Certainly Maori manners at the present day, even in the matter of smoking, present some very curious features to unaccustomed onlookers. Here is an instance I remember. One Sunday I had attended divine service in the pretty little mission church at Waimate, Bay of Islands, and, on coming out, was much taken up with admiring a young Maori maiden who was sweeping jauntily along just in front of me. She was attired well, even richly, in the latest Paris fashion which had reached the colony. Bonnet, chignon, train, brodequins, all complete; and, though a “nut-brown maid,” pure and simple as mahogany, was ravishing to all beholders, with her really handsome face and figure enhanced by such tasteful and unexpected “upholstery.” As it chanced, the young lady, whose manners I naturally concluded would be as civilised as her dress, took the road I had to go, and so, following a short distance behind, I was a witness of her meeting with two or three other native women. But here was a contrast striking enough, I thought; for these women presented in their attire, or rather in their want of it, all the primitive carelessness of the uttermost bush. Instead of the Parisian bonnet and neatly ordered hair, were tangled mops, looking like a flattened out busby—weather-beaten and ill-treated ; mops of hair that were innocent of comb and brush or “ any sich notions;” huge, shapeless masses, that were matted with the accumulated residuum of years, and were instinct with nameless life. Instead of the well-fitting, fresh, and bright-coloured millinery—the result of the modiste's skill—were blankets, ragged, frowsy, thick with unutterable filth; redolent of the odours which are the veritable antitheses of patchouli or jockey club. These uninviting garments—their only ones—were hung on the shoulders of three as repulsive looking objects as could well be conceived of in human form; and their tattered fragments were secured below the tattooed and wrinkled chins by the simple device of a wooden skewer. Here was a contrast indeed, young Maori and old Maori, the first the type of beauty adorned and augmented by all the refined accessories of civilisation, the last the personification of exaggerated and disgusting ugliness. But just one ’touch of natural habit quickly showed the kinship between these opposites. As I approached the group, they all squatted down on their hams together, my belle and her hideous compatriots side by side, out came the well-used cutty-pipes and Tobacco, and at it tho whole party went, blowing a cloud over rags and ribbons, dirt and delicacy, nastiness and nicety, alike. This is no isolated instance of similar blending of extremes in manners artless and artificial. A Maori chief in the neighbourhood of Tauranga sold a block of land arid realised thereby a very considerable sum of money. Pursuant to the customs of his people, he immediately set about spending it in as speedy a manner as possible. Among other eccentric methods of disposing of his capital, the following is one which came under my notice:—A fine large European carriage was bought, with showy harness for six horses, and various other etcetera. Clothes of the most brilliant colours and most glaringly effective appearance were distributed among the tribe and family of the chief. Picture, if you can, this carriage filled with the chief and his wives, all dressed in the most extravagant and fantastic costumes procurable, the coachbox and	footboard crowded with wild-looking Maoris attired in military uniforms and liveries of the grandest kind; the six horses harnessed and attached, and each bestridden by a gaily caparisoned rider, and the whole company, from the favourite “wahine ” down to the smallest jockey, smoking the inevitable short black pipe. Imagine this equipage driven furiously round the town, surrounded by a cohort of mounted Maoris, galloping, yelling, indulging in the most fantastic capers; pulling up at every hotel for a copious and general “ liquor-up,” and then a wilder and more uproarious return of the whole excited cavalcade. Many such grotesque exhibitions are in the memory of old colonists. Seldom, under any circumstances, does the Maori forego the delights of smoking, if it seems to him good to do so. It has even been found difficult to induce him to refrain from using his pipe during service in the mission churches, so habitual and continuous has its use become to him. Throughout the colony I have always found, when travelling in the bush and back districts, that a plug of Tobacco was of more use than a visiting-card, and served all the purposes of an introductory letter. Two persons journeying in opposite directions meet casually on their road. They hesitatingly exchange salutations, and then stand eyeing each other after the wonted manner of Britons, wondering what to say next. Presently a hand slips into a pocket and another into another, and pipe, plug, and knife make their appearance. Then little courtesies in the matter of lights follow naturally, and in less time than it takes to write it, two pipes are in full blast, and their owners are sitting side by side freely interchanging confidences of past and present biography. See what a potent spell of genial kindliness the goddess Nicotina exercises! Without her aid, a passing “good-day” is the beginning and the end; but by her sorcery what friendships have been formed! What brotherhoods cemented! I once met a Maori in the bush, before I had mastered any smattering of their language; he knew no English, so conversation was impossible, but a plug of Tobacco bridged the gulf between us, and under its benign influence we “ chummed” and camped together, and when next day we parted it was with mutual regret—nay, with an outpouring of affection. To anyone who has occasion to take advantage of Maori hospitality, I would say, before leaving the whare or house in the morning, present your host or hostess with a plug of Tobacco. It will always prove a welcome gift—it will never be taken amiss—and it will probably produce for you at parting a real Maori benison, in the shape of li Kapai ia koe, e hoa Pakeha! ” which may be freely translated to mean; “ Bully for you, stranger, you’re the right sorter cuss I” W. D. Hay. Scales ®oh an fire Sts nt ^ct, V.—BESET IN THE ICE. SHRIMPTON-ON-SEA; OR, WON BY A WEED. Beset in the ice, in latitude 80° north. Surrounded by ice on all sides. The dark blue sea not discernible from the topmast head. How did this befall us? Not difficult to account for. The year was exceptionally mild—for Greenland, —and consequently the seals took to the ice to bring forth their young much higher north than usual. But our brave captain had no intention of being bested, at least without a struggle, and so our vessel was rove in through the pack as far as sho would go. And, as ill-luck would have it, our evil stars for once were in the ascendant; for in one night the seals—who by the the way, have a wonderful power of prognosticating the weather, and can scent hard frost long before it comes—shifted their ground, going goodness knows whither, and leaving us alone in our desolation. And lol and behold, next morning found us immovably fixed; for King Winter blew upon us with his icy breath, and those great bergs which only the evening before floated free around us were now welded together by ever-thickening “ bay ice.” Our distance from the open water could not have been far at first, probably only a few miles; but mighty streams of bergs, day after day, joined themselves to the main pack; and so, day after day, the sea seemed to retire—and with it hope; till by midsummer a barrier of ice nearly two hundred miles in extent divided us therefrom. A dreary time for us? I should think it was. Nothing to be seen save the same steel blue sky above us, with never a cloud in it all. Nothing to be seen only the sun—a sun that seemed shorn of his beams—a sun you could gaze upon and hardly be dazzled, and the very spots in which you could count with the naked eye; that sun, like a disc of molten silver, going ever, ever round us, but never even touching the horizon. And day by day the same vast circular plain of snow, of which we were the centre; with not one breath of wind enough to lift a feathery flakelet, and a silence deep, everlasting, indescribable. “ It is the dullest place ever I sojourned in,” said I, one evening, after shifting my rug to make it more comfortable, and lighting another weed. It was an excellent cigar that, for after I had smoked about an inch of it, and gazed for a moment, first at the roaring fire, then at the beaming faces of m£ messmates, I was compelled to add, “The dullest place bar one.”
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July, 1879.]
COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
858
“Ho, ho! ” cried the captain, “ where was that ? ” “ Aye,” cried my comrades, “ out with it.”
“Well,” said I, “if I must spin you a yarn, here goes, and PU call it”—
SHRIMPTON-ON-SEA; OR, WON BY A WEED.
8hrimpton-on-Sea lies just at the foot of the Medway, and not a hundred miles from the buoy at the Note itself. Shrimpton-on-Sea, by the officers of the garrison and those of the flag-ship, is unanimously admitted to be the dullest place in existence—it is even said that the capital town of Kamchatka in mid-winter, is a little heaven to it. The aborigines, who are up to their eyes in business all the summer, flaying Jack and skinning Joey, as soon as the cold weather comes in, devote their little lives to mild dissipation, m the shape of amateur concerts, where native talent shines out strongly, and is duly appreciated, apparently upon the scratch-my-back-and-ril-scratch-yours principle, thus: the violoncello vehemently applauds the solos of the first fiddle, and the first fiddle claps his hands and encores the performances of the violoncello, while both together make a jovful noise when the last notes of the piccoli die away in the Hall of Harmony. Then in spring time again, when the concert season has passed away, the people all take the ague and shake; the shaking helps to pass away the time. In summer the officers, out of the kindness of their hearts, give croquet parties and claret cup in the afternoons, and the natives show how well they appreciate these, by not only coming themselves, but by bringing all their little girls and boys to devour the biscuits, buns, and such. And in autumn the flag-ship comes out strong and gives dancing parties in the Hall__called by the Shrimptonians “hops”—with any amount of flirtation and fizz. The officers who attend these “hops” are next morning remarkable chiefly for ferretty eyes, fat heads, and a general muddiness of aspect, attributed to marsh miasmata, and attempted to be dispelled by unusually large doses of Henessey and Schnapps, partaken of long before the sun glints over the foreyard.
The only other source of amusement in Shrimpton-on-Sea may be summed up in two words—Oysters and Stout.
At the time my yarn begins to leave the reel, the old “Pembroke” was flag-ship at this interesting station, and with the exception of two presently to be mentioned, and whose spirits nothing could lower, the officers were the dullest of the dull. Poor devils, their pulses never beat above sixty, and that, too, with a most provoking regularity of rhythm. So humdrum, indeed, was their existence, that their very hearts used to beat “hum—drum, hum—drum” all daylong.
The slightest excitement whatever was hailed by them as a godsend. Thus, they rejoiced one morning when the ship took fire in the cock-pit, and, although there was a trifle over thirty tons of gunpowder in the hold, they felt positive disappointment because the fire was quenched so soon. And once upon a midnight dreary, when the startling cry arose that the ship had broken from her moorings, they sprang from their beds and actually rubbed their hands with glee. But the “ Pembroke” merely floated quietly up the river and grounded on a mud bank. This, it was generally agreed, was most disgusting conduct of the old tub. She ought to have gone the other way, and taken them out to sea. This would have been glorious fun, because there were no sails bent; and, though steam might have been got up, there was no screw, that useful propeller having dropped off years before, without ever saying by your leave to anyone. So, on this occasion, the officers had to be content with taking a fiendish pleasure in firing big guns and burning blue lights, and bringing the whole of startled Shrimpton down to the beach with its nightshirt on.
On days when wind and tide prevented shore-going, these jolly dogs, smoked, played cards, and soda-ed and brandied it on board all day; or lay looking out of the ports and laughing—as the devil might laugh—to see their own boats struggling in vain to prevent being blown out to sea, or merchant ships dragging their anchors and drifting on shore.
Now, the admiral whose flag floated over this ancient tub lived on shore snugly enough; but on specially fine days he would sometimes come off, and he seldom failed to bring friends with him, and often a bevy of ladies. And these last would be accommodated with chairs—shade of Nelson! and on the quarter-deck too I But don’t the dear creatures, bless their hearts, turn everything tapsalteerie wherever they go? Why, I once knew the case of the wife of a captain of a flag-ship abroad taking the command from him for a time entirely. She happened to live with her daughters on board, and one day she ordered her lord—I was going to say master, but I can’t—down below, then in one hour’s time a clothes line was drawn across the quarter deck, and therefrom might have been seen dangling, in defiance of all discipline, lady s linen, and baby’s linen, and many a little oddment and end-ment, that I could not even give a name to.
One particularly bright and beautiful day, the admiral came off quite surrounded with a galaxy of female loveliness; very much to the delight of two officers at least—namely, the young surgeon and the lieutenant of marines. These two were bosom friends, and held each other’s secrets in common. The marine, Lieut. Beardsworth, was as gay and dashing a soldier as ever you could wish to behold. Well did he look in his clothes of gold and scarlet, and well, perhaps, he knew it.
The two cronies generally had a farewell chat together every evening, after the others had retired. Well, on the evening of this particular day this young soldier seemed unusually quiet.
“What’s up, Sammy?” said the surgeon. “Is it your debts again that are troubling you, boy ? ”
“ No, not this time,” said the soldier, smiling, or trying to smile; “ it’s in love I am, downright deep, too. Did you see that fairy wee thing with the blue eyes, that sat near the capstan?”
“Yes, Sammy,” said the surgeon, “I saw you bending over her chair, I even saw you squeeze her hand. But you shouldn’t have looked so insinuating, Sammy.”
Sammy lighted a cigar, smoked, and eyed the beams above for some little time, in a kind of delightful reverie.
“ And what’s more,” said the surgeon, “I saw her aged and hirsute papa twigging both your looks and hers.”
“ Oh! ” cried the lieutenant, with what might be termed the ferocity of eagerness, “ he’s an old buffer—a downright old buffer, doctor. He’s as rich as royalty, and as cross and sour as Old Nick. But that darling is his only chick and child. Now, look here, my friend, this is how the land lies: I’m in debt a thou or two; old Milikins has a daughter, and old Milikins has money, and I mean to marry old Milikins’s daughter, and pay off my debts with old Milikins’s money.”
“ Bravo I ” said the doctor, “ it looks as simple as six penn’orth of copper. But how is it to be done ? ”
But Beardsworth heard him not; his handsome face was turned once more towards the beams above; they were beams of hope. And his eyes spoke volumes; volumes also issued from his mouth—volumes of smoke.
Now, it had been remarked of Beardsworth, by all who knew him, that if he had any pretext at all for stopping on board of a Sunday, he generally did so. But from the very day he first met with Milikins and his daughter he turned a constant church attender. It was remarked by everybody, too, that, instead of going straight down to his boat after service, he used to loiter at the gate of the churchyard until Milikins came out, and, of course, his daughter. And, in spite of all that Milikins could do in the way of grunting and snubbing him, this daring young soldier used to walk side by side all the way to Milikins’s door with the pair of them. And, if dear blue eyes ever could tell tales, Miss Milikins was far from objecting to her adorer’s company.
Thus things went on for a month or two, and it was noticed that the postman often brought Beardsworth pretty little notes, written in a pretty female hand, which seemed to greatly exhilarate Beardsworth; and which, having read himself, he invariably pushed across the table to the young doctor.
But during a fortnight in which old Milikins was laid up with a cold, Beardsworth’s wooing seemed to have made wonderful progress, for at the end of that time he told his friend the surgeon—
“She loves me,” and his eyes sparkled as he spoke, “loves me, and me only, though old Milikins wants to marry her to some stock-broking son of a sea-cook, old enough to be her father. And to-morrow I mean to meet old Milikins face to face, to beard the beggar in his den, and, if he won’t consent to our union, I’ll run away with her; that’s the only alternative.
Beardsworth’s mission to Milikins was not a success, so Beardsworth meditated extreme measures against Milikins. With the following result.
One bright moonlit night a gig might have been seen, pulling rapidly away from the Admiral’s pier, and putting out to sea. In the stern sheets sat the surgeon, and beside him were Beardsworth and his intended bride—the latter all a-quiver with fear and joy.
On the same evening, and not an hour afterwards, might have been seen another boat, rowing rapidly away from the same pier, and being steered in the self-same direction. “ Now, pull men, pull,” croaked an old man in the stern sheets, “pull as if for life; it’s a twenty pound note to each of you if my daughter really is in the other boat, and we overtake her. Pull, I say, pull.”
The chase soon became exciting, but it was soon evident to everyone that the pursuing boat was fast gaining on the other, and would eventually overtake it.
The only one in the boat who was really cool and collected was the doctor. He had not, like his friend, deemed pursuit improbable, and so he had come prepared for an emergency.
“ Now, look here, Beardsworth,” he said, “ from this moment I shall take charge of this boat, and if you do exactly what I bid you, all will be right. Pick up and unfold that little parcel at your feet.”
Beardsworth did so. A midshipman’s jacket and cap and vest.
“Now,” continued the doctor, “I’m sure Miss Milikins won’t object to become a mite of a middy for once in a way.” And with her long hair hidden in the jacket, the cap cocked jauntily on the back of her head, a little touch of burned cork on the upper lip, Miss Milikins’s disguise was complete.
No, not complete, for the moonlight made it as bright as day. She must smoke.
Good heavens ! Though cigars were plentiful, there was but one solitary match in the boat. Would it light ? The men lay on their oars, the officers held their breath. But fortune favoured them. The cigar was lighted, and several more, and when Beardsworth’s bonnie bride smilingly took
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her weed and began to smoke, she looked the express picture of the provokingest little mite of a middy ever you saw in your life. At the time of my story the Fenians were threatening Shrimpton-on-Sea, and the shipping all around it, with quite a conglomeration of devilry, to prevent which armed guardboats rowed round the coast every night; and this fact the doctor determined to make the most of. The advancing boat was now hailed, challenged, and finally ordered to come alongside. “We are the Fenian guard-boat,” said the doctor to old Milikins, “and our orders are imperative. Your motions are suspicious ; we, therefore, make you prisoner. Two of our men must accompany you to the dockyard.” The ruse was completely successful. Old Milikins’s splut-terings were all in vain. No daughter of his could he see on board, and from the middy’s mouth rose smoke in clouds. Two men were put on board the suspicious craft, then the other boat with its precious freight held on its course rejoicing, and never drew oar until safe in Margate. Beards-worth married Milikins’s daughter, and Milikins’s money paid Beardsworth’s debts ; for the best of the fun is this : Milikins couldn’t live without his daughter, and so forgave both her and her daring husband. This is a true tale: Mrs. Beardsworth herself lives to confirm it. And she is one of those dear, sensible creatures who never object to smoking, for sure enough wasn’t she Won by a Weed. Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N. ^ Ueto Uicofian Uqpon.* V. In all which precedes our readers may think that there is little or nothing corresponding to the title of the book. They are, however, mistaken. Like all able artists, Mantegazza makes the smallest incidents and details concur toward the final result. In England we are accustomed to have the divinest things stated in the most dogmatic fashion. But in ideal races, such as the Italians, there is a disposition to avoid the dogmatic statement of the divinest things, a repugnance to imprison them in definitions. We should not forget, also, that the training which the Roman Catholic nations receive cherishes their affinity and sympathy for rites and symbols, and disinclines them toward the aridity of prosaic propositions. The Marchese and Marchesa De Lami, on returning to Milan after their bridal tour, lived in grand patrician style. It is thus that the author records Giovanni’s introduction to their mansion:—“Above everything else Maria liked earnest conversation with one or two intelligent and cultivated friends, from whom she could learn something, and with whom she could discuss the most curious problems of the heart and the mind. On becoming the mistress of the De Lami household, she felt a very great need of that confidential talk which should recall to her the long, the serene discoursings with the Doctor. But the Doctor had completely vanished from her vision; she suffered therefrom, without, however, daring to ask for him. She hoped to meet him in the street or at the theatre; her desire was not gratified. One evening she was alone with the Marchese, embroidering a pair of slippers for him, while he, reposing on the softest of easy chairs, smoked a cigar and gazed with tenderness at the saintly woman before him. Maria interrupted a silence which had continued a considerable time, with these words: •You are not perhaps aware, Rinaldo, that I have not presented to you one of the dearest friends of my brother and of my family.’ ‘And why has he not been presented? Who is he?’ ‘He is Dr. Giovanni Bianco.’ ‘I do not know him. Is he young?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Is he handsome?’ ‘Neither handsome nor ugly.’ ‘But why not present him to me?’ ‘If you permit me, I am willing to present him to you. He is a timid, self-absorbed philosopher, studies the microscope very diligently, and is of an extremely serious character.’ ‘Well, then, let us get a sight of this your philosopher. I imagine he is a Catholic, like you.’ ‘No, he is a Deist.* ‘Neither fish nor flesh; one of those who are in a state of suspense.’ The Marchese was about to indulge in one of those (Voltairean) jests of which he was fond; but his eyes met the eyes of Maria, and he was silent at once. Maria had a way of looking, a way of moving her eyes at certain moments, that, without uttering a word, she could reduce to silence a whole army of insolent persons.” Maria sent a brief letter of invitation to Dr. Giovanni, who had resigned himself to find in abnegation and in resolute study, and in Microgodia, the Dio Ignoto. By artifice, he had obtained from Maria’s brother her portrait, which he worshipped in secret, as if it had been an image of the Virgin. Maria’s letter disturbed, yea, overthrew all his philosophy. At first he thought of refusing the invitation, but he had not the courage to do so. He, therefore, appeared in the De Lami mansion on one of the Marchesa’s reception evenings. What then occurred our readers can easily imagine. In a letter to Attilio, Giovanni describes the relations which now arose between himself and Maria—relations of the most inte- ♦ D Dio Ignotj. Di Paolo Mantegazza. Milano. Libreria Editrice G. Brigola. 1W7.	resting, but most innocent kind. Two human beings of a pure and noble character strove their utmost to aid each other in the march to moral beauty and intellectual perfection. They discoursed of the Dio Ignoto and other exalted themes. At the close of the letter Giovanni informs Attilio that the Marchese and Marchesa are about to reside for a time at Oggobio, where the Marchese has estates. The situation of district doctor at Oggobio is vacant. Maria counsels Giovanni to apply for it, and assures him that he is certain, through the Marchese’s interest, to obtain it. In signal contrast to the chapter which has this prosaic termination is the next, in which Attilio, with words of winged flame, is the historian of his own adventures in the wilderness. Between the one chapter and the other five years intervene. This great gap is accounted for by the supposition that all Attilio’s letters to Giovanni during that period have been lost. Attilio’s dream was to induce all the Indian tribes to live at amity, whereby should be formed a vast Confederation of the Pampa, independent of the Argentine Government, yet treating it as a friend. To realise his dream, as well as to forget his sorrows, Attilio became in audacity, in agility, in plenitude and promptitude of resources, more Indian than the Indians themselves. He spent almost all his time on horseback, and could handle the lazo, the bolas, and the lanza as skilfully as the youngest, most valiant of the Ranqueles. The only thing in which he took the liberty of differing from the Indians was in his love of fresh water and clean shirts. Attilio transcended all the Indians in the management of horses, and his veterinarian skill was equal to his equestrian daring. His passionate devotedness to, and his consummate mastery over, the noblest of animals, the horse, immensely increased his popularity. The love and admiration of the Indians for Attilio was also augmented by the splendid gifts he incessantly bestowed on them. It was through the munificence of Signor Perez that he was enabled to be munificent in his turn. Sacks of yerba, barrels of brandy, horses, arms, ornaments, Tobacco, and all things likely to be agreeable to the Indians were without stint supplied. But an event occurred which carried their esteem and gratitude to enthusiasm. That event is thus, by Attilio, chronicled :—“ Not altogether ten months had I been with them, when a fortuitous incident raised me to a still higher point in the regard of the Ranqueles, and induced them to elect me by a unanimous vote Hojiorary Cacique, with rights equal to those of the Cacique Mariano. For some time Yaguars had been appearing in the neighbourhood, driven, perhaps, southward by the Araucanian incursions. They made terrible havoc, killing the horses bound to the maneas, and even assailing the Indians in their toldos. I urged that we must destroy these new enemies; but our (professional) witches said that one of the tigers had the devil in his body, and that the first person who touched him-was sure to die in a moment. I laughed at this nonsense, invented for I know not what purpose, and invited all who deemed themselves brave to accompany me by moonlight to make an assault on the yaguars. Only two Indians accepted the invitation, two of the most notorious drunkards the tribe had. The company of such rascals did not please me much, but in lack of better I was obliged to accept it. The witches, and even Mariano himself, entreated me, but in vain, not to set out. Scarcely had the evening come on, and the moon , ascended the sky, when I mounted my best horse, attached to the saddle the lazo and the bolas, placed behind the chiripb a long and powerful dagger, and started with Baigorrita and Tupultu6 who, to give themselves courage, had imbibed so much brandy that they were completely tipsy. Knowing that the yaguars remained concealed during the day in a deep thicket which was near the lagoon, at a gentle trot I rode in that direction, while my two companions, swinging to and fro on their horses, flourished the lazo round their heads, and shouted in braggart fashion, ‘Where is the Devil? Where is the Devil ?’ A chorus of oaths in Spanish and Araucanian followed—oaths which I am unable to repeat. Fruitlessly I commanded them to be silent, they yelled so much the more, thus rendering unavailing our searchings and precautions. They grasped their lances, and they had need thereof at every moment, as without them they would have fallen to the ground. After we had been riding for some time there was heard from afar a terrible roar; and this, more than any requests or commands of mine, helped to bring my two companions to their senses, and their drunkenness was vanquished by fear. ‘ Don Attilio,’ said, in a low voice, Baigorrita, ‘ that is the tiger.’ ‘Yes, friend, and now listen to my orders. We must each of us guard one of the three sides of the cardal, so as to drive him forth by the remaining side. The first who sees him must throw the lazo at him, put the horse to the gallop, and try to strangle the yaguar. If one of you makes a successful throw I run to his help, and discharge my revolver at the tiger. If, on the contrary, I make the fortunate throw with the lazo, you must rush forward and transfix the yaguar with your lance. Let us ride at a walking pace, and in absolute silence, toward the spot whence came the roar. As soon as one of us has thrown the lazo round the neck of the yaguar, let him vigorously shout “Friend, help!” and the others must rush to his aid.’ The horses raised their ears to the wind, and trembled; the moon threw a veil of dark bronze on the deep lagoon, and still the tiger was silent. I had told my companions to march softly, but not to stop. Instead of this, they placed themselves behind me, in the
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frankest attitude of fear. The alcohol having evaporated, they turned cowards. I pointed my revolver at them, and cried, ‘Forward, or I kill you? Sulkily and sluggishly they obeyed, and mutely and slowly the three horses in three different directions approached the car dal. A few minutes after I had no need to cry ‘Friend, help! ’ for a tremendous growl informed Baigorrita and Tupultufi that I the first had met the yaguar, and had thrown my lazo round his neck. I had often enlazado horses and guanacos, but never a yaguar, and I could not have imagined that two things so similar in appearance could be so different in reality. When I saw the tiger, a huge black mass, rising on his hind legs, the better to observe and to attack me, I did not feel at all afraid; and, rising the utmost despatch, threw round his neck the fatal mnning knot of my lazo. But when, with all the force of my epurs in the flanks of my horse, I incited him to gallop, that my enemy might be strangled, I felt that it was not now a poor guanaco which was attached to my saddle; I encountered a new, a resolute resistance. It seemed as if a mountain were bound to the saddle, and the fierce roarings of the wild beast so frightened my horse that it was almost impossible for me to control him. At that instant, which seemed to me an age, I expected to see rushing to my defence the two Indians, who with their lances could have killed the tiger and delivered me from certain death; but they were not visible. I called them, and again called them, in the anguish of death; while the yaguar, resting with his fore feet on the lazo, converted it into a ladder to approach me. The horse, instead of running, reared, trembled, and stood still. Already I saw the eyes of the yaguar gleaming like two live coals; already I saw his breath condensed by the cool air of the night. I put my hand to my revolver and fired two or three shots, which did not touch him at all, or wounded him but slightly. With a single bound he was on the horse’s crupper, and the horse fell down under that immense weight. I felt myself deluged by the hot and humid breath of the brute. Then it was that, without any reflection, but with the supreme instinct of the love of life, I flung away my pistol and plunged my dagger into the neck of the tiger. I heard two roars, one more formidable than the other: that of the tiger breathing his last breath in a sea of blood bursting from the cut carotid artery, and the wild neigh of my horse, as he felt the last receding clutch of the wild beast’s claws penetrating his flanks.”
As soon as the danger ^as over, Attilio’s two rascally companions came running up, and, with a valour worthy of Sir John Falstaff, plunged their lances into the now harmless yaguar. Tupultu6 immediately galloped off to the to Ide ria to invite all to share the triumph, and to carry the prey home. Tupultufi told the Indians that he it was who, aided by Baigorrita, had killed the yaguar, and that Attilio had behaved with signal cowardice. The Indians either believed, or, from envy, affected to believe this monstrous lie. The result Attilio, in animated style, tells:—“I felt my heart bitten by a hundred venomous serpents; I was beside myself; I was furious. From the hands of an Indian I tore a lance, and cried with the most vehement pith of my lungs: ‘Ahorse! a horse! I want to see whether Tupultufi has the courage to fight me. If he conquers me, it is a proof that he tells the truth; but regard him as a shameless liar when you see him stretched dead on the ground.’ ‘Yes, yes. To horse, Tupultufi! To horse, Attilio! To the trial of battle! Toros, Toros, Toros' (‘Brave ones, brave ones, brave ones’). Tupultufi was not allowed time to mount his horse; he was thrust upon it by twenty furibond arms, and a large circle was made round him. The spectators seemed happy to be present at a scene of blood—a scene involving, as they thought, the honour of the whole tribe. Our lances met, clashed, clanged; but in a few minutes I had to draw back the point of mine, because it had reached Tupultufi’s heart, and I could have pierced him through and through. ‘ You are conquered, Tupultufi, you are conquered, lower your lance,’ cried a hundred voices. The enthusiasm began to pass over to my side, especially when it was seen in what a chivalrous fashion I had spared the life of my adversary. He, however, degraded creature, poured forth curses in his fury, and said that he wanted to continue the struggle, because I was a liar, and deserved and was doomed to feel in my breast the fatal point of his lance. He withdrew a few steps, and then, as if the conflict had given him new life, he, with his lance in rest, rushed at me wildly and at full gallop. Rapidly I darted to one side, and, but for the miraculous mastery which all the Ranqueles have in this kind of exercise, Tupultu6 would have fallen to the ground. I, however, after the slight side movement which had saved my life, threw myself in my turn with unbounded impetuosity on the Indian, and, with a fierce thrust of my lance, transfixed him. The poor wretch dropped the bridle, grew pale, and fell down to the ground. The cry now was, * Toro, Toro, Toro, Toro. Attilio is right. Long live Attilio!’ The scene had changed in an instant. Mariano was the first to come and clasp my hand, while I, my anger having evaporated, was terrified by the thought of having killed a man. Descending from my horse, I tried to succour my victim. Nothing could be done for him. The lance,had passed through his heart, and he had died in a moment. Promptly torches of a primitive kind, consisting of the fibres of the visnaga, were lighted, and I was borne in triumph to the tolderia, while eight or ten lazos fixed round the yaguar dragged him along the grass as the trophy of a great victory.”
Of course, Attilio’s influence was enormously increased by an incident which threatened at first to destroy it altogether.
Attilio, however, had made one implacable foe. This was Baigorrita, who, after the death of his companion, Tupultufi, had become the sport of the tribe for his cowardice and boastfulness. One night Katriel, Mariano’s noble and beautiful daughter, who had become more and more attached to Attilio, came to warn the Italian that Baigorrita purposed slaying him treacherously. Attilio despised the danger, but agreed at last to accept Chelechuel, Katriel’s favourite dog, as the nocturnal guardian of his tent.
Mariano would have been delighted to see his daughter married to Attilio ; but, besides other objections, Dolores was still too sweet, too sacred, too powerful a memory to allow him to be fascinated by any other woman. Finally, however, a voluptuous glamour vanquished Attilio; Katriel became his wife. The marriage was celebrated by eight days of dances, of bonfires, and of drunkenness. Katriel had been for a time Attilio’s mistress, and retaining all a mistress’s passion, she continued to manifest all a wife’s fidelity. The worth of that fidelity is demonstrated by the fact that the Indians, in their orgies, often exchanged wives, as they would have exchanged horses or pipes.
Some stirring incidents are now recorded. Attilio pursued with success his grand scheme of an Indian Confederation, having an independent and prosperous existence, and living at peace with the civilised and settled governments. He had first to gain the adhesion of Colliqueo, the powerful leader of the Araucanians. A far more formidable task was now before him: this was to win over to the Confederation CalfucurA, the most ferocious of the Caciques of the desert, and who commanded all the various tribes comprehended under the general name of the Pampas, from the regions they inhabited. CalfucurA was so fierce, so remorseless, so unscrupulous, so cruel, that he was called The Tiger of the Desert. For a season all attempts were unavailing. But Calfucura gradually yielded, or seemed to yield. This monster, when not busy with his favourite occupation, murder, “ squatted for long hours before the fire, not speaking, but drinking mat^ and smoking Tobacco.” The magnificent gifts which Attilio, aided by the Government at Buenos Ayres, was enabled to bestow upon him, and the prospect of countless and colossal bepefits, induced Calfucura to enter into the alliance. But he could not resist his old habits and ferocious temper. He attacked a company of English and Argentine travellers, proceeding from Bahia Blanca toward the south. The men he killed, the women he took prisoners. That CalfucurA could so soon violate an oath he had solemnly taken angered Attilio still more than it astonished him. Attilio resolved on vengeance. There was a wild fight between those of the Pampas who, from fear, not attachment, supported CalfucurA and the followers of Attilio. This is the vivid picture of the tragic end of the affair:—“ My poor Katriel, who, always by my side, insisted also on accompanying me on this occasion, mounted on horseback as soon as the camp was in movement, and shouted to me—‘ Atillio, fly ; for all the Pampas wish to slay thee.’ ‘ I, on the contrary, thought that these Indians, weary of the cruel yoke of their chieftain, would profit from the occasion to achieve their deliverance. Mounting likewise on horseback, and holding the lance in my hand, I saw myself surrounded by a number of Pampas, who, led on by CalfucurA, pressed on me and yelled their Hurrah of Death. The faithful Katriel, lance in.hand, kept close to me, and many of my devoted men shielded me with their bodies. I fired off my revolver, struck hard with my lance, but my followers feU one by one, overpowered by numbers. I shouted, but in vain, to Katriel to withdraw ; she persisted in protecting me with her body. Twice or thrice I had cut the thongs of the bolas which were thrown round her horse and round herself. All at once, as it appears (for this part of the battle was narrated to me by others), a lance pierced my breast, while at the same time a bola, better aimed than the rest, twined round my neck, made me lose consciousness, drop the reins, and fall from the horse. Then it was that the brother of Calfucurd., seeing me wounded, with all the force of his horse and of his lance threw himself on me, to finish me. Katriel, darting between me and him, received in her heart the blow which was intended for me. She grew pale, and fell without uttering a word. My followers meanwhile, having heard of my perilous position, all rushed toward me, killed the assassin of poor Katriel, and putting the enemy to flight, saved me from certain death. With a few who had remained faithful, Cal-fucurA fled, no one knew whither. Those of his troops that had previously forsaken him encamped along with our men, with whom, cursing CalfucurA and the assassins of Katriel, they entered into the most affectionate relations. I hovered between life and death for more than ten days, until from the estancia of Watson, a very rich Englishman, who has estates in every one of the fourteen Argentine provinces, a physician was despatched to me, who bound up my wound and had me carried in a litter to the estancia. It was only then that I could learn the final aspects and results of the combat; it was only then that I was able bitterly to weep the loss of that poor girl, who had loved me so much, and who had died for me. My Katriel, my poor Katriel, my angelic Katriel! Many women have loved me, and perchance many women may yet love me; but none can ever love me as thou hast loved me. As soon as I have risen from my bed of pain I shall go in search of thy bones, and place them in the cemetery of La
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Recoleta at Buenos Ayres, beside those of Dolores; and I shall raise over them a monument to tell to posterity how noble, how good thou wast: a monument to teach men how, without culture, how, brought up in the desert, among tribes of drunken and sanguinary Indians, thou didst keep uncontaminated and ardent thy heart as a daughter of Eve, didst climb to the loftiest pinnacle of heroism, saving the life of the man thou lovedst by the sacrifice of thine own!-----Dear Giovanni, here I close my letter, which gives thee a fugitive image of the five years of my life passed in the desert. Shed a tear to the memory of my poor Katriel. Make her known to the men of civilised Europe; and say to the brutal and cowardly despisers of woman, that she is always the guardian angel who saves us and inspires us; how she alone, by the virtue of the heart, by the nobility of sacrifice, by the sublime delicacy of sentiment, scatters some flowers on that miry and gory region which is called life.”
So far hath Attilio hath got on his way to the Unknown God.
Rapt's S^rinw.
“ ‘What a heavenly day on shore! * says Spooner to me, as we paced the deck, smoking our after-dinner cigars, and ever and anon staggering to leeward when our grasp misses the stay that should have steadied us.”—I am quoting Whyte Melville, in the character of Digby Grand—“‘What a day in some quiet retreat in beautiful England, Grand, with a person —I mean with a lady, that is,’ stammered the sentimental ensign—‘ with a woman one really loved? . . . But I am interrupting Spooner’s confidences with my reflections. As they came out between the puffs of his cigar, I confess I was startled at the length of absurdity to which a youth of eighteen may be carried, under the influence of a dreamy imagination.”
Whyte Melville, prophet and martyr of manly sport, understood Tobacco; and understood it, therefore, in more aspects than one. Will you bear with me while I recall one or two pictures he drew of its charms in the wild solitudes of those Canadian backwoods where the budding Guardsman hunted the moose-deer in snow-shoes, under an Indian chief ?—
“ Oh! the hush of those primaeval forests, where silence reigns supreme and unbroken, till the very noiselessness seems to smite upon the ear.. . A merry, jovial party were we, as we burrowed in the snow, at our anticipated hunting-ground, a hundred miles and more from the outlying log-house of the very last ‘ habitant.’ . . . Hunger is the best sauce, and we enjoyed our simple repast with a zest unknown to aidermen and common-council dignitaries. Then the delight of a sedative pipe, and the quiet drowsy conversation that preceded an early turn-in, good night, and a roll in our blankets, were the substitutes for wine-and-water, wax candles, and dressingrooms ; and deep was the repose that followed, unbroken, save by an occasional shiver when the fire got low, and the cold forced some awakened sleeper unwillingly to rise and throw fresh logs upon the flame. Such was often my case, and as I gazed upwards at the branches of the forest twining above my head, and standing out in the glare of the firelight, and through them at the open sky beyond, glittering with its myriad of stars, I rejoiced in the wild freedom of a hunter’s life. . . . Cleared of boucane, as the Canadian calls it, and embellished with sundry little fittings-up from the creative axe of the Indian, our hunting cabane was a perfect palace by comparison ” (with the smoky den that made Horace sing—“ Lacrimoeo non tine fumo”); *• and as we smoked our pipes around the enormous fire on the first night of our arrival, we laid our plans for the morrow, with all that anticipative delight which gives their greatest zest to the sports of the field.”
I pat these reminiscences side by side with a telegram I have just received from the Golos, to the effect that scholars in the St. Petersburg district have been officially enjoined to “salute the Emperor, any member of the Imperial family, the Minister of Public Instruction, and other authorities,” and that “ Tobacco is forbidden to the students! ” Do you wonder now at the ubiquity and the power of Nihilism? “ Will you ha’ the truth on’t ? ” as my old gossip, the gravedigger in “ Hamlet,” says. And will you have it in choice and brand-new Latin? I will offer the conspirators a motto and the Russian despots a warning, in a phrase—“Nihil est sine Tobacco.” I never knew till now how narrow is the boundary-line that separates me from the dark and secret fraternity. But, of course, I ought to have known that Tobacco is the Social-ist of all bonds of brotherhood. And I’ll back it for long life against the dynasty of the Romanoffs—aye, even against the Muscovite Empire! But I beg you to note the natural associations of the Prime Consoler, as depicted by the novelist, and the madness of the rulers who scent sedition in the aroma of the weed. If it were not for my deadly fear of Mr. Furnivall, the Cowden-Clarkes, and all the other Shakepearean purists, I would paraphrase The Bard, with apt association, thus:—
The man that hath no 'Baccy in his pipe, Nor is not sooth’d with Nicotinian herb, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted 1
especially when martial law is the law of the land, and Kauffman has come home from the regions of the Upper Ozus and the coveted slopes of the Tian Shan.
Reading in “The Contributor’s Club” of the “Atlantic Monthly,” the other day, I came upon this pathetic wail:— “One of your readers, at least, is thoroughly tired of young men who smoke. She finds little relief in reading “ The Atlantic,” since even its heroes are continually appearing on each scene with cigars in one state or another of enjoyment or completion. Cannot a kindly contributor write something, anything—for the sake of influence—though it be fiction, about a young man who does not smoke? ” Let me endeavour
to suggest a subject, and a Contributor. The Russian student is the subject—for the future, he will be the “young man who does not smoke ”; for the smoke of gunpowder does not count. And as to the Contributor who should write about him—who could do it better than Ivan Tourguenoff, who was made a D.C.L. at Oxford on this last anniversary of Waterloo? There has been some mystery about the cause of Ivan the Romantic’s banishment from his native land. Can it be that he also loves Tobacco? If that be the head and front of his offending, I comprehend how the boulevards of Paris fell in more agreeably with his genius than the city of Peter the Shipwright. Eighteen years ago, the St. Petersburg University had to be shut up, because of the unruly behaviour of the students. Will they be more peaceful, now that their pipes are put out?
After all, when I come to consider all I have heard about “ them Rooshans,” from my youth up, I can’t say that this last enormity is more than was to be expected of them. It’s different when you come to your own friends, and find them stinting the British soldier of his ’Baccy on active service. Here is Mr. Archibald Forbes, writing from Natal to the Daily News, and, in the course of a long narrative embodying the reminiscences of an old soldier who served in the Kaffir war of nearly thirty years ago under Sir Harry Smith, contrasting old and new commissariat ways, very much to the credit of the former time. “Curiously enough,” says he, “although the contrast between then and now in matters of rations and comforts is marked, Sir Harry Smith’s men got copious Tobacco gratis. Now, the soldier has to pay for his Nicotian weed.” Please be careful about the spelling here—and the pronunciation: it was “copious Tobacco,” not “Copeses Tobacco,” that they got “gratis.” Now, however, they have to pay for it, all the same as if it were “Copeses.” H that fire-eating warrior, Sir Harry Smith, had been given over to the like parsimonious ways, I doubt whether there would have been towns with such names as “Harrismith” and “ Ladysmith” in South Africa, as there are now. I don’t expect to find a Chelm’s Ford in the future topography of Zululand; or a Freretown founded by grateful and civilised Negroes, when generations yet unborn are called to acknowledge that Bartie had power to soothe the savage breast. But I remember, with a sigh, that this is not the only matter in which we have departed from the methods of Sir Harry Smith. When one calls to mind the pledges that were given and have been broken, perhaps it is best to draw the veil and lapse into silence.
I was on the point of assuring myself that this stoppage of Tobacco, first amongst Russian students and then amongst English soldiers, was part of a gigantic and universal revolution; for I had almost got through a literary tour of the Continent—erstwhile a very Pandemonium of Tobaccosmoke, in the esteem of all good Antis—without encountering a single whiff. I was personally conducted (as Mr. Cook would put the case) by an old friend of ours, whose programme runs thus: “A Continental Tour of Eight Days for Forty-Four Shillings. By a Journey-Man.” I would not be understood to say that I spent forty-four shillings on the excursion. That extravagance was perpetrated by the “Journey-Man.” My share of the cost would be one shilling, expended on the pleasant little book in which he describes his performance, as published by Sampson Low and Co.; but, as the book was forwarded to me by “ a mutual friend,” even that small sum is twelve pence more than my contribution to the expenses. I fancy I may describe this author as one who was originally a Printing Man, then a Reading Man, and who is now a Writing Man. Time was when his catalogue of rare books was a curiosity; and I took him to task for the waywardness of his humour, as one who “cried * Stinking Fish!’” when he had only sweet fish to sell. He is in a saner condition now, and takes for his motto—
“ Qu and on n’a oe qu’on aims, Fant aimer ce qu’on a.”
Let me assure him that, with his little “Continental Tour” in my hand, I have what I like, and find no difficulty in liking what I have. That was not precisely my feeling so long as I missed my favourite weed; but now that I have that also I am content to journey with him, and see him squander his forty-four shillings in eight days—like the reckless dog he is. Behold him at the little town of Dixmude, finding lodgings for the night; and mark his humour:—
“At last I had found a resting-place. I went back to the Homme Sauvage for my pack, Ac., which they had kindly allowed me to leave behind. The lady of the house then said that she could have accommodated ne at fint, but there was going to be dancing, and she was afraid the noise would prevent sleep. I said I did not mind, being resolved not to budge if I could help it. Secretly I was delighted, and would have chosen the place on account of the dancing. Although too old to join, to me the sight of
‘ Many twinkling feet ’
(Byron, Ac.)
is one of the prettiest in the world. I thought I would ask what was going to be charged. (Oh, we shan’t want much.) However, I said I might M well know overnight as in the morning. (Two francs=la. 8d. for bed, supper, and breakfast.) And most kindly and pleasantly was I attended to. A beautiful omelette, nicely set out on a little table in the kitchen, with what the Germans funnily call hinreichendcm Brod, Ac., formed the supper. Two glasses of beer added 2d. to the stated sum. There was no toile d manger. Beer, petite verres, Ac., all cost me about 2s. 2d. that night and morning—all parties pleased. The kitchen, immediately behind the ettaminet, was cleared for dancing, the various apparatus going into th# back-kitchen, where the cooking was carried on. The yard adjoining entertained fowls and horses. About nine o’clock two barrel-organs with their human machines were imported into the kitchen, not twenty feet square, and after feeding the men “ business ” commenced. Dancing and grinding was kept up till a quarter past two. The elders sat in the esfoatnet.
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gossiping and drinking beer, while the younger ones agitated the “ light fantastic toe’’within. Cigars and pipes are ignited in these localities by means of cinerary urns, or vases filled with ashes in a smouldering state; i the vessels, big as a good-sized flower-pot, having handles that give the aspect of wings, to lay hold of. I reclined on a deal form, much enjoying the din and the whirl, especially as a change from flat scenery. No brawling or sign of drunkenness was there; perfect manners. The landlord scoured about in his Sunday suit, French silk cap en tapageur on one side of his bead—the only waiter. It was amusing to see him next morning without cap, coat, or waistcoat, in taboti, up to his eyes among the animals in the cow-yard. Quantum mutatue ab illo Hectare ! ”
The book is a miniature treasury oi practical economy, shrewd wit, and apt quotation from foreign tongues—dead and alive. You will observe that his Tobacco was smoked for him vicariously, and you may, therefore, doubt whether a smoker could get through the tour on the same small means. That was my fear, until I got to the summary of expenses and profits at the end of the book; when I found he would have spent only forty-two shillings, but for “a little brandy and some sandwiches,” “bought at starting.” Take the two shillings for Tobacco, good brother, and there you are!—an ounce a-day, and enough for your health. For myself, I should starve on the quantity; but my own practice and my preaching to you are different things.
There are more costly amusements than the smoking of good Tobacco. Mr. Edward Wilkinson, of Suffolk Street, Birmingham, who is of a thrifty turn, fell into one of them. He has a licence for the sale of Tobacco; but, having lately taken to mixing four parts of camomile flowers, logwood, and liquorice with one part of Tobacco, was required by the magistrates to pay £50, and may think himself lucky in escaping the full penalty of £200, to which he had rendered himself liable. He won’t escape the anathemas of Messrs. Baker, Ward, Smith, and Knight, who were fined £50 a-piece for selling the “mixture” they had bought of Mr. Wilkinson. For smoking such mixture as that, I recommend pipes made according to the following recipe, which— like ladies’ costumes, “ original ” dramas, and popular novels—is “ from the French”:—
M Take a potato, and having peeled it, place it in water acidulated with sulphuric acid in the proportion of eight parts acid to 100 parts of water. Let the tuber remain in this liquid for thirty-six hours to blacken, then dry it with blotting paper. It can then be submitted to a certain pressure, when a material is presented which can be readily carved to any design. It is claimed that the counterfeit is marvellously perfect. By the same process very good imitation of horn can be obtained, sufficiently hard to make billiard balls and the like. A striking resemblance to coral is obtained by treating carrots in the same way.”
You are aware that science has long been regarded by good people as the enemy of proper opinions. A sad illustration of the correctness of good people’s views has just come under my observation. The delight with which Anti-Tobaccoites have hitherto attended upon the development of electricity has received a check. Electricity has come over to our side. My informant states that—
* A savant took two Tobacco plants, each weiglring the same and being in an equally healthy condition, planted them in boxes containing mould of identical quality, and placed them side by side in a locality favourable to their growth. One was supplied with an electric conductor and the other was left in its normal state. In four months the plant under the influence of electricity attained a height of three feet five inches, and weighed about 44,000 grains; the other measured two feet four inches, and about 22,000 grains, about one-half.”
Thus, out of electric light comes a cloud of smoke. Classical quotations are topsy-turvy.
Your Man-of-All-Work.
^ ^dic of the ^Hst
A short hour since I came by chance, as I turned some trifles o’er,
On this old pipe, and it bore me back at once to the days of yore:
The misty mould lay on it thick, but it made strange memories flow,
For it is the pipe I used to smoke full forty years ago.
And all in a single beat of my heart the present died away, While the dead past sprang to life again, all clad in its old array;
I forgot that my hair was thin and white, I forgot that my eyes were dim,
And I felt new life leap up and dance in heart and brain and limb.
Yet hand in hand with the pleasure came to my heart a tingling pain,
As the crowding thoughts surged fiercely in to my bewildered brain;
And the salt tears trickled down my cheeks, as my vivid fancies grew;
While my soul, like a bird that homes to its nest, through memory wildly flew.
Oh! the tears are of sweet and gracious sort that fill the eyes of age,
As the plodding ancient gazes back at his earlier pilgrimage;
For the mist that has grown behind his steps all cold and dark and dense,
Is washed away by the tearful rain that quickens his torpid sense.
In a moment tender memories rise with which his heart is filled,
Like music heard in the hush of night, when the groans of the world are stilled;
So earth to heaven grew closer when my sad old heart was stirred,
And from it sprang a song like the song of a blithesome singing bird.
Yet still fast flowed my easy tears, for I felt that a single heart
Of all the good things given of God can take but a little part.
Desire is fierce to embrace the whole, and to know, and ne’er be done;
But alas! we are all too weak and small, and our strength is soon outrun!
Oh! if we could but choose the best, and discard the things that are vain,
Or if what we plucked were sweet as they seemed, and brought no after pain,—
Then, then, should we glide from youth to age on a bright and placid stream,
Till friendly Death came smiling by, and we passed away in a dream.
Ah! well do I know when I bought this pipe, I built me castles high,
And thought the foundations massive and deep, while the banners kissed the sky:
O! ’twas in the air and ’twas of the air I begot my castles tall, And there was not one I had built so bold, but had to fade and fall.
Then Youth and Hope took hold of my heart, and bore it proudly on,
And ruddy red were these cheeks of mine, that now are withered and wan;
With music and mirth I felt I could fight and conquer the world alone;
But mirth grew frozen with chill of years, and music died with a moan.
I have lit thee, pipe, and I sit alone, with the smoke about my head;
Thou givest me power to live again in the years that long have fled;
I live two fives, I am young and old, and I can but feebly moan,
As I behold the world as it seemed, and the world I since have known.
I see how I looked with a yearning heart to try to pierce the veil
Of future years, to be sweet with bliss, and naught in them flat or stale;
And I behold, as I smoke thee, pipe, what things Time brought to light;—
Alas! how oft, when I sought for flowers, I came on a gravestone white!
Stand by, pale spectres of my woes! once more let the old sun shine
As it brightly shone, in a cloudless sky, when I bought this pipe of mine;
Avaunt! ye chilly and whining ghosts, and let me feast my brain!
On the lavish bliss of the former years I fain would gaze again.
The blood in my veins now swifter flows, and my heart beats strong and loud,
And, like the birds that come in the Spring, my fancies come in a crowd;
The strength of my early life returns, and my soul is filled with mirth;
My age drops off as d worn-out robe, and I tread it down to the earth.
Oh! sweet as the sound of silvery bells to the seaman nearing home,
As he hears the wild, sweet notes he knows ring over the surging foam,
Is the sound to me of those echoes dim that set my tears aflow,
As I gaze once more on each face and form I loved so long ago.
Ye cannot be phantoms that round me sit, for I hear you speak and sing,
And I see the magic smoke ascend to the roof in a fairy ring;
Ye cannot be phantoms, I clutch your hands and hear the glasses clink:
How merry and bright ye are to-night I drink, comrades, sing and drink!
Shall age advise us? who cares for age, in its sad and solemn form?
Let age come join our merry-go-round, with wine we will make him warm,
Till he forgets his shoulders bowed, and his days of trouble and pain,
And drains the goblet, and sings aloud the songs of his youth again.
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For song is the tongue the whole world knows, all men and times and climes,
And all the blue shall fade from heaven ere the bard forgets his rhymes;
The heart of the world doth worship song, with its burden of smiles and sighs;
It is old as life and sweet as love, and, like love, never dies.
Now, now we sing of beautiful maids, with eyes of entrancing blue,
With graceful forms, and witching smiles, and hearts all loyal and true;
And now we sing of loud-tongued Fame, and how we will tame the jade
To trump for us in the days to come, as we rally the world to aid.
Oh! whdt is so strong as the heart of a man when warm with youth and wine?
Then every flower and every star is to him a heavenly sign ;
And what is so weak as the heart of a man when wine and youth are gone,
And down the hill, ’mid prickles and thorns, he is left to totter alone ?
Ah! down the hill I am creeping now, and silently on I go;
But, patient and calm, I smoke my pipe, content with the truth I know,
That Earth, my mother, will open her robe, to take me to her breast;
And, pain and weeping all over and done, I shall lie in sweet peace and rest.
A spell, a spell hast thou wrought, old pipe, to lighten my lonely gloom,
For thou hast turned old age to youth, and broken the bonds of the tomb.
Though grass grows green o’er my dead loves this many and many a year,
Time, tears, and death alike forgot, their spirits have been with me here!
Henby Lloyd.
Iggeisn tasms.
vm.
§n ^rab Coffee-house.
In Africa I assiduously frequented the Moorish coffee-houses, where the Arabs assemble to play at various games, to smoke, to drink, to sleep, to shave each other, to treat of affairs; for one of these establishments is alike a coffee-house, a hostelry, a theatre, a barber’s shop, and a court of justice.
During the annual fast of the Ramasan, the Moorish coffee-houses are transformed into real places of amusement, places made gay by the songs and the dances of wandering companies of performers. On the market days the Caids and the Cadis, seated on carpets, are seen in front of the Moorish coffee-houses, signing documents, listening to witnesses, and pronouncing judgment in the disputes which arise among their fellow-believers.
Our coffee-houses in France can give no idea of the interior of the Moorish coffee-houses. The reader must imagine a large hall on the ground floor. The wall is plastered with stucco, and all round it runs a seat covered with carpets. In one corner of the hall boils an enormous coffee-pot before a fire for ever burning. On a board above the furnace rests a large number of oroid cups. For ten centimes (about a penny) these cups, full of coffee and of grounds, are presented to the customers; for the Arabs do not drink their coffee, they eat it. Even if you only take a single cup, you have the right to pass the whole day in a Moorish coffee-house, and, if needful, the whole night too.
Nothing can be more picturesque than the groups of Arab customers. Some, seated on palm-tree mats on the floor, lend an eager ear to the words of a narrator, who, armed with an olive rod, is picturing the marvellous exploits of some chieftain of the desert; others content themselves with consuming their coffee and smoking their tschibouk. Some rise at the approach of a Scheik of their donar, and respectfully embrace the hem of his burnous; others play at draughts (damah), or at strand (chess). Another class consists of those who are busy shaving each other’s heads ; this they do with the knife which they carry in a sheath attached to their girdle. They take care to leave on the top of the skull a tuft of hair, called Mahomet, by which, at their death, the angels are to take hold of them, and carry them to the paradise of the Prophet.
When I was at Maskara, the city of Abd-el-Kader, who was born at two leagues from that town, I went every day to the Moorish coffee-house at the Oran gate. The moment I entered, the coffee-house keeper brought me my cup of coffee and my pipe, with its long laurel-rose tube. I had become perfect in the art of smoking the tschibouk, and of drinking coffee, to the great scandal of the Arabs, who were annoyed at seeing a Roumi (Christian) profaning their houf by his presence. I was long an object of suspicion to these ingenuous natives; they kept aloof from me, their black eyes flashed disdain and dislike, and they whispered in each other's ears some angry words respecting me. But a fortunate circumstance dissipated their prejudices, and gained me their esteem.
A Caid, whom I had several times occasion to salute, proposed to me one day a game at chess. I never saw men more astonished than the Arabs. A Caid play with a Roumi, accord him this distinguished favour I Nevertheless they gathered round us, and interested themselves in our game.
The mode of playing chess is the same with the Arabs m with us ; it is only the chessboard that differs. The squares are curved, and instead of kings, castles, knights, there are minarets, marabouts, sultans. I carried on a vigorous contest with the Caid; but, in order to escape the doom of him who was in the habit of playing chess with Voltaire at Ferney, and who when he had gained a game had prudently by swift flight to avoid the wrath of the illustrious author of “ Candide,” I yielded the victory to my adversary. All the natives applauded the success of their chief. My end was attained. From that day the Arabs considered me one of themselves. The Caid had rehabilitated me.—From the French of Benjamin Gastineau.
Abnormal Voracity.
The appetite for food which manifests itself as canine hunger, wolfish hunger, polyphagy, and so on, seeks other than the ordinary aliments; seeks, besides aliments which are not usually eaten, such as are not merely disgusting, but abominable. Casper mentions the case of a glutton living at Paris, called Jacques Simon. He was sixty years old, and devoured mice, sparrows, and other small animals alive, swallowed cards rolled up, and the like things, besides whole raw eggs ; and all this frequently in the course of the day. Though such articles passed through the body undigested, and though Simon devoured large masses of ordinary food, yet he was always in good health. At the beginning of the present century died, in France, a glutton called Tarran, who, besides nails and stones, ate dogs, cats, and snakes alive, blood, and the flesh of human corpses. Once, when seventeen years old, he swallowed a hundred pounds of beef in the course of twenty-four hours. His death was the result of consumption, and his great corpulence is made manifest to us by the statement that during his illness his skin could be folded twice round his body. Instead of medicine, a woman took lamel of slate, and to the amount altogether of forty-five hundredweight. People are mentioned who from their fierce appetite for human flesh became murderers. Other persons are mentioned who swallowed wood, glass, balls, resin, and so on. Many Indians eat clay, partly to still hunger, partly to create inward comfort, partly to season their food, as we learn from the Travels of Spix and Martina. The latter says:—“ The gluttony of these tribes, and above all the lack of carefully prepared food for the children of tender years, cannot fail to produce an enlargement, relaxation, and atony of the stomach, whereby the sensation of unsatisfied hunger is aroused. Moreover, it is probable that the hot climate, and the consequent rush of the blood to ths peripheric tissues, begets a sensation of emptiness, to vanquish which the native of the wild instinctively seeks indigestible food. A third cause we may perhaps find in the terrible frequency with which the Indians are tormented by worms, a plague to which the travellers on the Amazon are also exposed in a frightful degree, probably by reason of the inferior water they drink.” In many regions of Africa clay or loam is devoured, simply as an article of food, as Mungo Park, when speaking of the African negroes, states : the consumption of it, however, in Egypt is regarded as a symptom of Grophagia Ancemica. In Tripoli the women eat an ash-grey earth called malun, as Rauwolf informs us. In the time of famine the most various substances are eaten. During the Thirty Years’ War, fossil dust was consumed in Pomerania. Dessau, and other places. Travellers in the Polar Regions have often cooked and eaten the soles of their shoes. In Java, China, Siam, Bengal, clay is generally eaten; even vessels of clay are eaten. Clay, as article of food, is sold in the markets of China, Bengal, and so on. Ehrenberg, who about ten years ago wrote on the earth-eating of the Chinese, found infusoria in the kinds of clay sold in the Chinese markets. C. F. Heusinger, profiting from all the investigations on the subject, and from the most intimate acquaintance with the noso-geographical circumstances of every land, says that the eating of clay is caused neither by hunger nor by the need of food generally, but that it occurs among men of all classes, even in lands where food is in abundance. He regards grophagy, in persons seemingly healthy, as a form of Malaria-Chlorosis, which prevails in all those lands where clay is eaten. He declares the eating of clay to be a result of the operation of the malaria poison on the ganglionic nervous system.—From the German of Reich.
Effects of Tobacco.
The effects of Tobacco on the organism are very generally recognised, and there is scarcely any narcotic employed as a luxury whose consequences are so well known to its customary devotees. Long ago, for instance, the Indian tribes that smoked knew that one effect of Tobacco was to make long abstinence from food easy. We say exactly the same thing when we declare that Tobacco retards the transformation of substance in the body.
No less thoroughly and generally are the tranquilising characteristics of Tobacco, and especially of smoking, known.
As is doubtless the case with all narcotic luxuries, the instinct which led the first smokers to Tobacco, soon attained
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gelf-consciousness. If we contemplate the effects which opium produces on man, we perceive first of all a considerable stimulation, and, along with great pleasure, a great excitement. But very soon the evil results are made manifest; and these impel to a renewal of the enjoyment derived from opium, for through that enjoyment there is a transient relief to a wretched condition. The opium-eater or opiumsmoker has to suffer intensest pangs when at the accustomed period he has to renounce the accustomed pleasure. Therefore he rushes back to opium with an eagerness he cannot master, in order to revel in bliss for a season. This is doubtless the chief cause of the frightful empire which opium has gained.
With Tobacco nothing of like kind occurs. While nearly all other narcotics, in the widely extended sense which we have given to the word in the present work, produce at the outset an agreeable impression, the contrary is the case with Tobacco. Almost every one feels uncomfortable who smokes for the first time. He suffers from giddiness, from nausea, from a general sense of discomfort; he vomits, and, if he persists in smoking, the consequences are still more distressing and alarming. As soon as the smoker has laid the pipe aside be feels more at his ease—indeed, he feels well— and none of the motives exist, tempting him to renew his acquaintance with the pipe, which are so potent to urge the opium-eater to hasten back to his favourite pleasure. Nevertheless, he seizes the pipe afresh, not assuredly to put an end for the moment to an uncomfortable state, but to renew the discomforts he has formerly encountered. In the immense majority of cases it is unquestionably instinct which forces him to do so. I believe that the love of imitation has only a very small share in the repetition of the attempt; for there are countless tribes which accept nothing from Europeans but Tobacco. It is instinct, I say, which operates first; but soon the consciousness of benefit follows, for there is no similar substance which is less misused, though, taken in excess, it may be hurtful.
The explanation is, perhaps, to be found in the fact that Tobacco does not produce violent excitement, gives more than a momentary delight; and hereby it does not tempt to excessive indulgence.
But the hunter who passes days in the forest, and who, when his provisions are exhausted, knows that when he has smoked his pipe he feels hunger less keenly; the man whom gloomy thoughts trouble, and who seizes his pipe because experience has taught him that Tobacco can lighten his burden of woe; the scholar who in his quiet study cosily envelops himself in blue clouds, and is aware that he can work longer and better and with greater ease when he smokes; all these have, after full reflection, sought intimate fellowship with Tobacco, not for the sake of a fugitive intoxication of the senses, which, indeed, Tobacco does not give, but because they have become familiar with certain results, because they know that Tobacco, like Coca, deadens the painful yearning for food; that, like noble wine, it drives away care; that, like coffee, it gladdens the soul and stimulates it to activity.
In truth, there is scarcely anything else which combines in itself all these advantages; there is nothing which with longcontinued use is less pernicious; while, on the other band, it produces at the outset in most individuals, truly pathological effects.
The reader needs scarcely to be reminded how comfortably, and with how much impunity, vigorous old gentlemen smoke a considerable number of pipes. Every one can reckon among his friends such veterans of the noble Nicotiana; and in the case of most of them it will be found that, while in the use of other luxuries—for instance, coffee and spirits—there is a gradual modification, a gradual diminution, they in regard to Tobacco allow no limitation to enter, and smoke the same quantity, and with the same delight, as in younger years.
This does not, indeed, prove that Tobacco lengthens life; but it proves that it is not hurtful to health, with the exception, of course, of certain individuals.
Persons with a very excitable nervous system, or who suffer from chronic affections of the throat, or who have weak digestive organs, should not smoke at all, or smoke very little. But, for the most part, such persons are not inclined to smoke, forasmuch as Tobacco gives them not agreeable but disagreeable sensations, and maladies of the stomach seem of themselves to revolt against it.
It is a notable circumstance that Tobacco does not harmonise with certain drinks, or, at least, that long practice is needed to make them harmonise therewith; for instance, white wines, with the exception of champagne. With red *ine, and with drinks mixed with arrack, smoking agrees better. To coffee and to tea it is almost indispensable. In reference to the first, the Turks call coffee the salt of food.
That there are physiologico-chemical reasons which are the conditions of these phenomena is indubitable; but I do not think that they have been sufficiently explored and expounded.
The chewing of Tobacco, which I have already named a surrogate of smoking, produces, so far as I have observed, the Jame effects as smoking, though in a less degree. Smoking, however, is more agreeable in its aspects and associations; which, perhaps, is chiefly caused by the circumstance that only such persons chew as do not find it convenient to smoke. Even in those parts of North America where chewing is most frequent, this very frequency seems to arise from the fixed idea that smoking in public is an offence against decency and
In conflict with the observation that the chewing of Tobacco produces the same effect on the organism as smoking, stands the circumstance that the American Indians, who are accomplished smokers, have nevertheless to learn chewing before they can bear it, just in the way that most persons have at first to learn smoking. When I took ship at Bremen to go to Chili, about seventy men, mostly in the vigour of youth, were my fellow voyagers. The idea took hold of them all that no one could be a good sailor who had not learned to chew a quid. Therefore they all essayed an apprenticeship to the quid on land. But sorry was the result. All jestingly or silently laid the quid aside. Afterwards, when we came on board, and sea-sickness began to rage, none of the passengers but myself chewed; and even I, after a while, threw my chewing Tobacco to the waves, or made a present of it to the mariners, though I continued to smoke in all imaginable places, and even when lying in my berth.
But I was never made ill by smoking in my life, though I began to smoke vigorously in my earliest youth; just as little did I ever feel any evil effect from chewing, and never was I sea-sick, even in the roughest weather.
The effects of snuff, if it is not taken to excess, are most harmless. At least, they never seem to be hurtful, except in highly nervous individuals, or in cases where there has previously been a diseased state of the body, making the body Hable to further malady.
Any one not accustomed to snuff, who takes a large pinch, is sure to sneeze. The sneezing is not caused by an irritation of the brain, or of the olfactory nerves, but by a reflex affection of the medulla oblongata, and is occasioned by the accessory nerves of the nose, which make the olfactory mem* brane sensitive to other excitations than scents.
This has been proved by post-mortem examinations in the case of men who had no olfactory nerves, who during life never perceived a scent, and who yet sneezed.
Pressot found in a man both the olfactory nerves lacking. During the whole of his life he was perfectly insensible to scents, yet he sneezed violently when he was tickled by a feather or when he took a pinch of snuff.
Moderate snuffing seems, like smoking, to produce a pleasant excitement, an enlivening effect, and there are men to whom, especially when they are occupied with intellectual labours, a pinch of snuff is a necessity. Certain it is, in any case, that the total operation of snuffing is feebler than that of smoking ; and, as has already been stated, the evil results of snuff are observable only in highly sensitive persons, or when snuff is taken to excess.
That poisonings have occurred from Tobacco is possible. In the first place, because there are poisonous elements in Tobacco ; and in the second, because almost every substance contains Tobacco.—From the German of Bibra.
gr. ^obn /irriar’s ®Iegg on pinaster.
Amongst those born or adopted sons of the cotton metropolis who have shed lustre upon Manchester, and redeemed it from the guilt of an utter Philistine pursuit of gold, we may give an honourable place to Dr. John Ferriar. He was born at Chester in 1764, and died at Manchester in 1815, annus mira-bilis. When we add that he was for many years physician to the Manchester Infirmary, the biographical details remaining to us of his busy career are almost exhausted. The real life of our author must be sought for, and will be found in his books. From these we may picture him to have been a man of well-balanced mind, with a keen practical intellect, and a memory well stored with learning, much of which was of a recondite nature.
He was the author of a drama published or printed about 1788. This we have never seen; but, as it was merely an adaptation of “ Oronooko,” it cannot have had any very great importance.
His “ Theory of Apparitions ” appeared in 1813, and is a sensible essay on a subject which, by its obscurity, has been an El Dorado to designing individuals who have traded upon the credulity of mankind. The illusions of “prophets,” visionaries, and seers “of calling shapes, and beck’ning shadows dire,” are intelligently and intelligibly explained.
His “Essay on Foxglove” (Manchester, 1799) has only a medical interest. His “Medical Histories” (1792-1798, 3 vols.) were of course chiefly intended for the members of his own profession, but incidentally they are valuable as showing the commencements of sanitary science. The epidemic fevers arising from the wretched manner in which the poor were housed at a time when cellar dwellings were the refuge of improvidence and impecuniosity, and when factories were managed with little or no attention to the physical well-being of those employed in them. The kind-hearted doctor saw and deplored the evils around him, and some of his suggestions have since been advantageously carried out. His essay on the treatment of the dying (vol. iii.,' p. 191) may well be epitomised in the words he has selected as its motto: “ Disturb him not—let him pass peaceably.” Like Montaigne, he doubts the terrors of death, and thinks that with many dissolution is preluded by a wish for absolute rest.
° Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, Ease after war, death after life doth greatly please.**
There is an odd opinion of the vulgar that it is necessary for the happy despatch of a lingering patient “to drag the bed
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away and to place him on the mattrass.” The “Medical Histories” were reprinted in 1810.
Ferriar courted the muse, and is one of the first amongst the poets of the Bibliomania. The epistle which he addressed to Richard Heber, the famous collector, will long retain a warm corner in the hearts of collectors. Of the quality of his verse, on a theme so dear to bookish men, may be judged from the following Unes:—
•* Ye towers of Julius, ye alone remain Of all the piles that saw our nation’s stain, When Harry’s sway opprest the groaning realm. And Lust and Rapine seiz’d the wav’ring helm. Then ruffian-hands defaced the sacred fanes. Their saintly statues and their storied panes. Then from the chest, with ancient art embost, The Penman’s pious scrolls were rudely tost; Then richest manuscripts, profusely spread, The brawny churl’s devouring oven fed: And thence collectors date the heavenly ire, That wrapt Augusta’s domes in sheets of fire.” *
The book by which he is best known is the “ Illustrations of Sterne,” which originated in a series of papers read before the Literary and Philosophical Society, t These were expanded, and form agreeable reading, even for those who are not speciaUy interested in tracking the thefts of Sterne and restoring to their rightful owners the gems and the indecencies he appropriated with so liberal a hand. They were printed in 1798, and again in 1812. We have used here the earher edition.
The essays which follow the illustrations to Sterne illustrate the depth and variety of the author’s acquirements. They unite the knowledge of the pedant to the ease of the man of the world. The paper on “Certain Varieties of Men” relates to the stories of pigmies, monsters, and tailed men, which have been the property of the Munchausens alike of ancient and modern times. The Church having affirmed or implied the existence of these human horrors, it may be thought wrong to doubt. The learned Bishop Majolus determines the important question An monstra salutis aterruz capacia 1 in the affirmative, on the strength of an assertion of St. Augustine, that he had “preached to a nation without heads, and with eyes in their breasts.” This reference to the Acephali, Dr. Ferriar says, has been retrenched in the modern editions of the great Latin father. On Monboddo’s tail theory he has some sensible remarks, and keenly asks: “Do we not want good observers rather than new facts?” His menippean essay on the English historians, and his short disquisition on genius, show the same measure of acuteness and learning. The volume closes with two poems, one of which claims a place in the literature of Tobacco. It is an elegy on Knaster, and is thus introduced:
The following elegy was originally written to rally a particular friend on his attachment to German Tobacco and German literature. It is well known to the learned that the Tobacco chiefly smoked by philosophers in Germany is denominated Knaster; but it may be necessary to apprise the reader that when this poem was composed the fragrant weed was sold in covers, marked as low-priced tea, for the purpose of evading the excise laws. The subject did not appear considerable enough to excite the sympathy of the public, till I found that Professor Kotzebue had founded the distress of a serious comedy on a similar incident. In his “Indians in England”} he represents an amiable baronet overwhelmed with affliction, from the want of a pot of porter and a pipe of Tobacco. Convinced of my error by the approbation with which his work has been received, I have ventured to draw my elegy from the heap of my papers, and to produce it, with some slight alterations, and with the suppression of all personal allusions.
“ Deep in a den, conceal’d from Phoebus’ beams, Where neighb’ring Irwell leads his sable streams,-Where misty dye-rooms fragrant scents bestow, And fires more fierce than love for ever glow, Da mantas sate; his drooping head opprest By heavy core, hung sullen on his breast: His idle pipe was thrown neglected by, His books were tumbled, and his curls awry. Beneath, the furnace sighed in thicker smoke, Each loom return'd his groans with double stroke; Tn mournful heaps around his fossils lay, And each sad crystal shot a wafry ray.
•	Ah, what,’ ho cry’d * avails an honoured place, Or what the praise of learning’s hectic race. In vain, to boast my well-instructed eyes, I dip in buckets, or in baskets rise;
Now plung’d, like Hob, to sprawl in dirty wells, Now bent, with demon forms, in murky cells, Or where columnar salts enchant the soul, Or starry roofs enrich the northern pole. Not me th’ adjacent furnace can delight, That cheers, with chemic gleam, the languid night; In vain my crystals boast their angles true, In vain my port presents the genuine hue;
Nor spars nor wine my spirits can restore, My Knaster’s out, and pleasure is no more. To Gennan books for refuge shall I fly ? Without my Knaster these no bliss supply. Here in light tomes grave Meinirs, prone to pore, Like thin bank-notes, confines a weighty store; Here Biirgher's muse, with ghostly terrors pale. Runs “ hurry-skurry " thro’ her nursery tale; Here Huon loves, while wizard thunders roll, Here Gorgon-Schiller petrifies the soul.
Crell's Rooty chemists here their lights impart;
Here Pallas, skilled in every barbarous art. In vain to me each shining page is spread, Without Tobacco ne’er composed, nor read;
♦ The Bibliomania. An Epistle to Richard Heber, Esq. London, 1810. (to, t Several interesting papers of his, relating to Science and Archeology, are printed in the early volumes of the Memoirs of that Society.
; See the “ German Miscellany,’’ by Mr. Thompson.
Who Knaster loves not, be he doomed to feed With Caff res foul, or suck Virginia's weed. At morn I love segars, at noon admire The British compound, pearly from the fire; But Knaster, always Knaster, is my song, In studious gloom, or 'mid th' assembly's throng. Let pompons Bruce describe in boastful style, The wondrous springs of fertilising Nile. Fool I for so many restless years to roam. To drink such water as we find at home, And know, to end his long, romantic dreams, That Nile arises—much like other streams. Far other streams let me discover here, Of yellow grog, or briskly-sparkling beer I But more my glory, more my pride, to see My Knaster cas’d, with pious fraud, like tea; Glad soars the muse, and crowing claps her wings, At my discovery, hid, like his, from kings. Some chase the fair, some dirty grubs employ, And some the ball and some the race enjoy. Cooper the courting sciences denies, And from their envied love to bleaching flies. Let serious fiddling nobler minds engage, Or dark black-letter charm the studious sage; I’d envy none their rattles, could I sit To feast on Knaster and Teutonic wit.* Lo, while I speak the furnace red decays, And coy by fits the modest moonbeam plays, Which thro’ yond’ threat’ning clouds that bode a shower, Just tips with tender light the old church tower.
•Now wheels the doubtful bat in blund’ring rings, Now * half-past ten ’ the doleful watchman sings. To-morrow Bower supplies my fav'rite store— My Knaster’s out, and I can watch no more.”
Farewell, good doctor! If we may not admire him as a great poet, we can at least reverence him as one who did the duty nearest hand, and was earnest in his endeavour to take from the life of the poor man some of its dreariness and danger.
©ur Stroke' grout ^uMe.
English Men of Letters. Edited by John Morley, London: Macmillan and Co. 1878-9.
IV.—GOLDSMITH, BY WILLIAM BLACK.
This makes the fourth of the contemporary subjects, who all figure in Boswell: ” Hume blindly abhorred and Gibbon unrelished by the great
Literary Dictator (who also with supereminent sagacity brought down Fielding and Swift from their high places); Goldsmith patronised and snubbed by him. In this case also we must ask, Did the work really want doing? We had already Forster’s “Life arid Times,” with countless sketches; and Goldsmith's writings are so pellucid, so attractive, and bo cheap. We are sorry to be obliged to say that this subject, being much the easiest of the four (since there are strange depths and perplexities in Johnson’s character, if not in his intellect), is decidedly the worst treated. There is of course a fairly clever summary of the life and works, such as a practised literary man could not fail to give; but the tone of general comment and reflection throughout is discordant with the theme, and jars upon our sense; it is pitched to the shrillness of an article in a weekly or even a daily paper, which must be clamorous and exaggerative to command attention in the world’s hurrying tumult, instead of the calm tenor befitting a purely artistic book, even when only a booklet; it is dissonant by journalistic superfluous controversy, by journalistic over-emphasis and off-hand generalisations and pert pretentious levity. We have space for but a few instances. In the Introduction, in Chap. TV., and again at the dose (possibly to eke out the sheet, the volume being the slenderest of the six hitherto published), there is a polemic of quite unnecessary vehemence and length against the thesis of Mr. Forster (to whom Mr. Black is indebted for all or nearly all the substance of his biography) that the world is unfavourable to genius in general, and was so to Goldsmith in particular. What Mr. Black has to urge on the other side of this question might well have been put in half-a-dozen quiet sentences, without lugging in the quite impertinent and unhumorous “ Japanese friend,” who is, however, lugged in again just as ineffectively forty pages further on; and has all been urged much better by Thackeray and others, and with much better taste; for Mr. Black's tone here has a nasty twang of the self-sufficient chuckle of success. —P. 45, the friendship of Goldsmith and Johnson “ is perhaps the most interesting literary friendship on record.”—P. 78, “ It is enough to make the angelsweep, to find” a good couplet “murdered” by a stupid misprint.— P. 84, it is the writer's “ honest belief ” that Milton’s translation of Horace's * Ode to Pyrrha ” “ is the very worst translation that was ever made of anything.”—P. 87, opening Chap. XI. Mr. Black condescends to smile at the childish simplicity of the “ Vicar of Wakefield ” and the Book of Job; and we may admit that neither of them, if first brought out in our times, would have probably been a success at Mudie’s.—P. 88, “ Surely human nature mutt be very much the tame when this simple description of a quiet English home went straight to the heart of nations in both hemispheres: ” a seemingly comprehensive but decidedly puzzling reflection.—P. 92, “ Certainly, if our supply of food and clothing depended on such accidents as happened to make the Vicar’s family happy all at once, there would be a good deal of shivering and starvation in the world." There is not, then ?—P. 122, Having given what Goldsmith is reported to have said to Lord Lisburn at one of the Academy dinners: “ I cannot afford to court the draggle-tail muses, my lord; they would let me starve; but by my other labours I can make shift to eat, and drink, and have good clothes,” Mr. Black comments: “And there is little use in our regretting now that Goldsmith was not cast in a more heroic mould.” This is exquisite, indeed, as coming from one of the facile favourites of the circulating libraries.—P. 146, after citing Horace Walpole’s superfine condemnation of “ She Stoops to Conquer,” Mr. Black thinks it worth while to remark: “ Surely, if the old gods have any laughter left, and if they take any notice of what is done in the literary world here below, there must have rumbled through the courts of Olympus a guffaw of sardonic laughter when that solemn criticism was put down on paper.” This in a book, not in an article for the D. T.; to which and the penny serial romances, by-the-bye, we thought the abuse of sardonic in the sense here implied was abandoned by this time.
These samples may bo enough to enable our readers to decide between Mr. Black and ourselves. We are distinctly of opinion that if Mr. Morley'# editorial authority extends beyond the selection and allotment of subjects, he ought not to have let such things pass; things not only unworthy of the theme, but also, as we think, of the writer. Perhaps the facile confectioner# of light and popular literary sweetmeats for those fashionable purveyor# Mudie and Smith, had better refrain from off-hand experiments in the cookery of more substantial fare. We can guess what real scholars think of Mr. Anthony Trollope’s “Cicero,” and what fairly cultivated people think of his raid on the English Novelists ; we know what some genuine students deem of Mrs. Oliphant's “ Dante; ” we remember our own impressions of Dickens on Thackeray; and now we have Mr. Black on Goldsmith. When truly great novelists of either catholic or intense genius speak at length or casually on any great men or women of letters, it is quite another matter: Fielding on Pope; Scott on Swift and Dryden; Thackeray on the English Humourists; Charlotte Bronte on Scott and Thackeray; George Eliot on Thomas A Kempis, Macchiavel, Montaigne, Fielding and Scott, and any other of the high-renowned;—to these we listen, assenting or dissenting, with the most cordial respect.
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No. 118.—Vol. IL]	AUGUST, 1879.	fflfflS^
gx. Sgntar as a Smoker.
It may be fairly assumed, without any serious impeachment of their lack of information, that many of our readers do not know who William Coombe was, and are, consequently, not acquainted with even the leading incidents in his chequered career. Nevertheless, it is a fact that he was one of the most voluminous and prolific English writers of the end of the last and beginning of the present century. He was a Bohemian of the Bohemians, and had more ups and downs in the course of the eighty-two jears of his natural life than fall to the lot of most people. His birth was somewhat irregular, to begin with. That is to say, he was illegitimate, and never knew who was his father, rumour giving him at one time to Aiderman Alexander, of Bristol, and at another to a merchant in that city who bore the same name as that by which he was called. The fact that the worthy aiderman referred to left him a handsome legacy may have been supposed to favour the former notion as to his parentage.
Coombe was born at Bristol, in 1741, and died at South Lambeth, in 1823. He was educated at Eton and Oxford University, but he left his alma mater somewhat abruptly, for some cause which has never been clearly ascertained. When he was twenty-four years of age he received his legacy, and at once plunged into a career of extravagance by which it was speedily dissipated. Thereupon he betook himself to literature for a livelihood, and for upwards of forty years he wrote on all sorts of subjects for newspapers and magazines, doing work also as a publisher’s hack, and issuing volumes innumerable. He himself claims to have given to the world one hundred books, contributed to a score of journals, and furnished matter for two thousand columns in the newspapers and magazines of his day. His manners were polished, and his conversation animated and attractive; but there is too much reason to believe that he led, on the whole, a profligate life. It was said that he was untrustworthy, and, at all events, he was always in debt, often in prison from that cause, and spent his last years within the sanctuary afforded by the rules of the King’s Bench.
It would require more space than we can afford to give a list of even his principal works. They include “ The Military Adventures of Johnny Newcome,” “The English Dance of Death,” “The Dance of Life,” “All the Talents,” “The Devil upon Two Sticks in London,” “The First of April,” “History of the River Thames,” magnificently illustrated, “Lord Lyttleton’s Letters,” and “The History and Life of Johnny Qua Genus, the Little Foundling.” He wrote the text for Ackermann’s illustrated histories of the Universities and public schools, and the descriptions for Turner’s ° Southern Coast.” Coombe also wrote tours to the Rhine, the English lakes, the Ganges, the Jumna, and the Thames, with many more of the same kind, as well as “ The History of Madeira,” “ The Antiquities of York,” and a host of miscellaneous books. Few, if any, of the foregoing are now known to the general reader; but Coombe was the author of at least one work which is likely to live and to hand down his name to posterity. We allude to the “Three Tours of Dr. Syntax in search of the Picturesque, ot Consolation, and of a Wife,” though probably its first success was as much due to Rowlandson’s clever illustrations as to the author’s humorous text. A new edition, with the original designs, was published in 1868, and “Dr. Syntax” was recently included by Messrs. Frederick Warne and Co. in the Chandos classics. As it is with the doctor, and not the author, we have now to do, we shall say no more of Coombe.
The work, which is Hudibrastic in style, though modern in language, is quaint and readable. The good doctor, with no hope or prospect of Church preferment, has settled down to the trying task of keeping a school and drudging in a curacy, with eight long miles to walk to the scene of his duty every Sunday, while all his gains are only thirty pounds a year. With this he has difficulty in making the ends meet, so to speak; but one evening, when ruminating over the hardness of his lot, a luminous idea strikes him, by which his woe-worn phiz is at once lighted up with a smile. His project is to make a tour and then to write it; and his somewhat shrewish better-half approving of the idea, he at once makes preparations for carrying it out during his month’s well-earned holiday. Like Don Quixote, he starts on a sorry grey steed named “ Grizzle,” but without a follower of the Sancho Panza type. His adventures, if less fantastic than those of his Spanish prototype, are at least as amusing, and there is an air of simple whimsicality about them which makes a perusal of the “ Tours ” thoroughly enjoyable. Not only is the text graphic, but the characters encountered are well-drawn, and we may still find their counterparts in society. It is, however, about Syntax as a user of Tobacco that it is our present purpose to write.
In his very first day’s progress the doctor loses his purse, and his mare her ears and tail. It was a trying beginning, and called for solace; so, having seen to the wants of poor “ Grizzle,
*	• Syntax, to ease his aching head. Smok’d out hie pipe, and went to bed.**
Here is a hint for the faculty. The proper prescription for headache must be nicotine. This would appear to have been the opinion of a veterinarian Galen in the shape of a blacksmith, from whom, on the following day, our hero asked for some relief for the mare’s wounds, as she had been sorely bothered by the flies. While promising to dress them skilfully and carefully, the sooty farrier says to Syntax:
“	You in that arbour may regale With a cool pipe and jug of ale.**
At Oxford, where the doctor had been educated, he calls upon an old friend, Provost Dickey Bend, and then we find that
“	They eat, they drank, they smok'd, they talk'd, And round the college-garden walk’d.’*
Proceeding on his journey, and moralising upon various things as he goes, our tourist alights at eve upon a friendly cot,
“	Whose sign, high dangling in the air, Invites the trav’ller to repair, Where he in comfort may regale, With coaling pipe and foaming ale.”
Of this invitation the doctor avails himself, after partaking of a substantial meal. “Then to his pipe he kindly took,” but, being of a social turn of mind, he got the curate of the district to take a pipe with him and share his beer, his invitation being—
“	Come, take a pipe, and taste the liquor, Tis good enough for any vicar.”
When detained for a day by a thunderstorm in the course of his tour, our traveller takes the opportunity of writing a letter to his wife, reserving an account of his adventures till his return, when, says he,
“	I will in all domestic glory, Smoke out my pipe, and tell my story.”
During his further progress he encounters a farmer, who, in the parlance of the present day, chaffs him about the condition of his nag, and bets him a pound that at a fair towards which they are travelling she will not fetch twenty shillings if exposed for sale.
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“Thus they rode on and reach’d the town:— The pipe and bowl the ev’ning crown." It is right to add that Syntax won his het. By-and-by he arrives at Liverpool; and it may interest our local readers to see the description of the town given by the author towards the end of the eighteenth century:— “ Bnt the next morn another acene, The vast expanse of liquid green, The ocean’s self—broke on his eye, In inexpressive majesty. There, as he look'd, full many a sail Gave its white canvas to the gale, And many a freighted vessel bore . Its treasure to the British shore. When, as he trac’d the winding coast, In praise and admiration lost, Up-rising in the distant view, Half-seen through the ethereal blue, A city’s stately form appear'd; Upon the shore the mass was rear'd. With glistening spires, while below Masts like a forest seemed to grow. 'Twas Liverpool, that splendid mart, Imperial London's counterpart, Where wand'ring Mersey’s rapid streams Rival the honours of the Thunes, And bear on each returning tide, Whate’er by commerce is supplied; Whate'er the winds can hurry o'er From ev’ry clime and distant shore." In Liverpool the worthy parson soon found the comforts off an inn, and then “ He eat, he drank, his pipe he smok'd, And with the landlord quaintly jok’d." It seems, in point of fact, to have been our hero’s invariable habit to take his ease at his inn like Falstaff, and his chief enjoyment in such cases would appear always to have been the Indian weed. Thus, on arriving at an hostelry called the “Dun Cow,” “ Syntax now felt a strong desire, To smoke his pipe by kitchen fire.” We need hardly add that he gratified the desire, and was soon enveloped in the fumes of Tobacco, emitted by himself and the country people whom he joined. After preaching in a church on his way, the doctor, we find, spends the Sabbath evening in smoking, and even falls asleep reclining on his elbow, while trying to finish another pipe. At another time, following an interview with a peer, he smokes while thinking, and, later in the day, he speeds to his chamber in the same lord’s house, “ Where, with his pipe, and o'er his bottle, He chew’d the cud of Aristotle.’’ Dr. Syntax duly wrote an account of his tour, and, by means of the influence of his noble friend, sold it well to a London publisher. He, however, returned to his dame with a long face: “He sat him down his pipe to smoke, Look’d sad, and not a word he spoke." His good lady, as we have hinted, belongs to the Zantippe class of females, and, in her disappointment, she scolds him heartily, and even threatens him with a flogging, indignantly calling upon him to “puff away.” Of course, when she discovers the true state of the case, she is all smiles and blandishments, and goes to prepare a dainty supper. In the meantime Syntax smokes, with half-shut eyes, and at last breaks out into speech and gives utterance to “A Smoking Soliloquy ”:— “When the whiffs pass'd, he silence broke, And thus he thought, and puff’d, and spoke." The soliloquy is too long for quotation, and fills about three octavo pages of closely printed double columns, but some of the passages show the favour in which the sage held the Virginian leaf. For example, he tells us that when troubles haunted his abode, “ I did to my allotment bow, And smok’d my pipe as I do now." Then, apostrophising his calumet, he adds;— 1	“Hail social tube! thou foe to care! Companion of my easy chair! Form’d not, with cold and Stoic art, To harden, but to soothe the heart 1 For Bacon, a much wiser man Than any of the Stoic clan, Declares thy power to control Each fretful impulse of the soul; And Swift has said, (a splendid name, On the large sphere of mortal fame,) That he who daily smokes two pipes The tooth-ache never has—nor gripes. Calm contemplation comes with thee, And the mild maid,—Philosophy! Lost in the thoughts which you suggest To the full counsel of my breast. My books all shunb’ring on the shelf, I thus can commune with myself; Thus to myself my thoughts repeat; Thus moralise on what is great, And, ev’ry selfish wish subdu’d, Cherish the sense of what is good. While I thy grateful breath inhale, I see the cheering cup of ale; Benignant juice; Lethean stream t That aids the fond oblivious dream; Which fits the freshen'd mind to bear The burden of returning care.	How oft I’ve felt, in adverse hour, The oomforte of thy soothing power! Nor will I now forget my friend. When my foul fortune seems to mend: Yes, I would smoke as I do now, Though a proud mitre deck’d my brow. Hail, social tube I thou foe to cars I Companion of my easy chair! While, as the curling fumes arise, They seem th’ ascending sacrifice That’s offered by my gratitude * To the great Father of the good.” The foregoing extracts are from Dr. Syntax’s first “Tour,” which was “ in search of the picturesque.” Through it he obtained preferment to a snug vicarage in the district of the Cumberland lakes. There, as during his previous lifetime, “ Or 'mid the pipe’s surrounding smoke, He never fail'd with pleasant joke." There, however, he soon lost his spouse Dolly, whom he lamented as deeply as if she had not lorded it over him while she was still in the flesh. In fact, he was so affected by her demise that he went forth upon his second “ Tour,” which was “in search of consolation.” In this expedition his better circumstances permitted him to be accompanied by a squire, in the person of Patrick, an Irish paviour. A gipsy encampment was one of the first scenes they lighted on: “ And as the aged crones sat smoking, The young were laughing, singing, joking." In this, as in his first excursion, the doctor usually sojourned at the inns on his route, always devoting his evenings to his favourite solace. Night after night, “ The pipe was on the table laid, Where Maro’s Georgies were display’d, So thus he smok’d and thus he read. Till nature bode him seek his bed.’’ These scenes are so frequently repeated that we need not keep multiplying quotations. Occasionally he joins a country ’squire or a rustic curate over a social pipe and a flowing bowl, and, altogether, appears to find as much consolation in Tobacco as in the tour. Returned once more, our hero does not relish his domestic solitude, and so sets out on a third journey, this time “in search of a wife,” with what result it is not our present province to tell. He has not gone far till he learns from a farmer that men of his class gain informa- ' tion of the domestic affairs of their betters while handling pipe and pot together after business hours on market days. Ere long he encounters a model wife. Most married ladies object to smoking in their best rooms or even in back parlours, on the alleged ground that it destroys the curtains or some other flummery. For our own part, when inclined to inhale the fumes of our favourite mixture, we have to take refuge in a study, described by our better half to her feminine acquaintances as “the bear’s den.” Nevermind. We have therein a desk, some books, and curiosities, and a set of cards framed. In these we obtain mystic glances at contemporary history, and they encourage us to blow a cloud. To return, however, to the amiable helpmate referred to. The husband, a country gentleman, speaking of his good lady, says:— “ Whate’er I wish or do prefer. Becomes an instant law to her. By Jove I swear, it is no joke, To please me she has learn’d to smoke, And after dinner you will see A smoking trio we shall be Beneath a spreading beechen-tree." The promise is duly fulfilled. When the meal mentioned is over, and thanks duly returned, “ The smoking trio soon was seen Beneath the tree upon the green. Ned Easy and the doctor sat With pipe in hand in usual state; Thoughtless one look’d, the other wise, With sleepy or with twinkling eyes, While Ma’am the Aromatics blended. To gain the scent which she intended, As she would not her taste disturb With plain Virginia’s common herb: She thought it would be vulgar joking, To stinkify herself by smoking. —An iv’ry pipe with silver tip She took within her rosy lip, And, as she whiff’d, her sweet lips moving Set the exhaling vapour roving; While o'er her brow it seem’d to wander In a slow, curling, calm meander, And ’mid the branches of the tree, Display'd a misty canopy." Verily a wife in a thousand. Would that ours would follow such an excellent example. She should have Latakia for her pains. When a widow who is being courted by Syntax plays a trick on him, he takes refuge in a “clean pipe” and “high-dried weed.” We pass over his smoking interviews with Vellum, the publisher, and the favour shown him in the presentation of a pipe by Miss Pallet, an artist who had discovered his liking for Tobacco from his servant Pat. We may add that Syntax at last married a lady introduced to him by Mrs. Dickey Bend, but that he did not long survive that which was a happy alliance. He was a keen devotee at the shrine of St. Nicotine and so we have chronicled some of his smoking performances without caring to conceal the fact that, as in the words of Burns, “freedom and whisky gang thegether,” so with Dr. Syntax beer generally accompanied the Tobacco.
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&ahs Olb on the Sea of ^ce. VI.—COMING EVENTS THROW THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE. WILL THE ’BACCY LAST? OUR YANKEE MATE SPINS A YARN. I can’t swore to it, but “ calculate,” as our mate would have have said, that had we been all antis, instead of ardent lovers of the herb divine, we wouldn’t have formed half so jolly a little party as we did, each evening, around our cabin stove. I reckon we would have taken to drinking, just by way of drowning care, and next, by way of change, to quarrelling and cutting each other’s throats. But at the present moment, looking back as I do now—while seated, weed in hand, in my easy arm chair—I cannot but believe that through all the weary, dreary days we spent imprisoned in that interminable “ pack,” Tobacco, and Tobacco alone, kept hope in our hearts, and many times and oft brought smiles to our lips and eyes that else had not been there. And still we really—it seemed then—had but little to live for, because it appeared almost a certainty that, as soon as our provisions went down, we should one by one find our graves on the Sea of Ice. “How does the ’Baccy last, cap’n?” asked our Yankee mate one evening. (N.B.—Although the sun never went down now, I like to call it evening, for, at a certain hour after supper a tarpaulin was thrown over the skylights, and the great swing lamp was lighted, giving an air of cosiness to our snug cabin it would otherwise have lacked.) There was a slight shade of anxiety about honest Jonathan’s face as he made the inquiry. It was speedily dispelled. “Look here, Jonathan, lad,” said the captain, “we are likely to be a year in this pack at the least; but if we were five, praise be to Goodness, we’ll have plenty to smoke and gome to take home.” “Well, now, that’s summat to look forward to, anyhow,” said Jonathan, with a sigh of relief; “and I tell you what it is, cap’n, you’re a brick, and nothing else; I reckon there are divilish few cap’ns would have thought of making a pile like what you’ve done yander.” What the mate referred to was this. For weeks back the captain, well knowing that a time, a dreary time, would come when the Sea of Ice would be a sunless sea, lighted only by the moon and the aurora, when the thermometer would sink far below zero, and when neither bird, nor bear, nor seal would visit us in our desolation—the captain, I say, bad given orders that the body of every bird we shot, and the “crang” (carcase) of every bear and seal we killed, aye, and every shark, should be dragged “home” and placed in a bing on the northern quarter of our “poor devoted bark.” The oil and blubber procured from shark and seal were stored for fuel; the flesh, by-and-by, we’d have to eat. From the livers, Ac., of forty sharks, caught in one day, we obtained nearly a ton of oil. A small portion of bay ice on the bows of the ship we kept broken, in order to fish for these hideous monsters. They were not often to be found, but, when they did come, they came in immense shoals, and at times so ravenous were they that they could be caught with a blubber-baited boathook ; yet, when one of our men fell into the water one day, right on their very noses, they fled in all directions, so cowardly are these ocean fiends. The most curious trait in the character of Greenland seals is the extreme amount of inquisitiveness they possess. We turned this to good account; for, if at any time a man stationed near to the bit of water we kept open to tempt these gentry into daylight, whistled or screamed, then, if a seal were within hail—and the hearing of these animals is wonderfully acute—up would pop his head and crack would go the rifle. Thus, one way or another, we managed to lay in a store of frozen provisions that, with ordinary economy, would last us nearly a year. And, as the mate remarked, on the evening he had inquired so eagerly about the ’Baccy, “A bear steak, boys, ain’t half bad tackle. Now, when I first went out to ’Frisco	” “Hurrah!” cried the captain; “the mate’s yarn, Jonathan’s story.” “You’re in for it,” we all assured him; and Jonathan slowly loaded his pipe, smoked for at least two minutes, and then began. “I guess it can’t be much under twenty years, gentlemen, since I first cast anchor off old ’Frisco. It kinder makes an oldish man of me to say so; but speak the truth and shame the devil, as my paternal relative was wont to observe. ’Frisco warn’t much of a place then, like it be now. There warn’t none o’ yer printing offices on a monster scale, and there war a tarnation sight more mud huts than palaces. I warthen second mate o’ the ship “Duncan,” which warn’t so dickie for a lad o’ twenty-four. We were laden with rum, ’Baccy, gunpowder, and blankets, and sich little articles as miners spend their dollars on. A rough lot these blooming miners were, too, but a sorter o’ tender-hearted with all their hoss-play. Why, I recklect that fust night I went to the whisky stores seein’ a fellow down his man, and gouge his eye out in the twinkling of a turnip leaf; and, by gum, gentlemen, he walks up to his one-eyed friend next morning, just as cool and collected-like as a barrel of Greendyke oysters. ‘Mebbee,’ says he, ‘yer won’t believe me, ole man, but I do feel sorter sorry I started that eye o’ yourn.’ ‘ Bah! ’ answers his chum, ‘what matters one eye back or fore; here, old pard, give us yer hand. Neow, what’ll yer drink? ’	“ Well, the more I went on shore the more I wanted to go, so it ain’t much of a wonder that in less than three weeks I war down with the yellow fever, and the “ Duncan ” had sailed without me. Now, if you’re thinking of yellow Jack and black vomit, I guess you’re a bit out. It was nothing of the sort, I tell ye, the only similitood of my fever to yellow Jack was thirst, not for water or wine either, you bet, but for gold. That was about the natur of my complaint just , then. “ Well, my friends, in those days there warn’t the same convanience for travelling in them parts there is now. Railways warn’t dreamt of. Bullock waggons were a treat that very few could pay for; so, ye see, most of us had to rough it. But, bless you, I didn’t mind that then, and I guess I wouldn’t mind it yet. “ I jined a party that war going farther north and east than anybody had been yet. There were six of us, and we were to be pardners in everything. We were well armed, and just carried about everything with us that miners had any use for. “ We started fair, and in less than a week we were clear away from civilisation, and all alone in mountain and forest. No, not quite all alone, for there were many an ugly grizzly to encounter, and many a tarnation red-skin, which we soon got to hate worse nor spotted snakes. But one skunk that we caught one night a-creeping around our camp, we were just a-going to kill and scalp; not that we cared a pin about his dangdable dirty wig, but scalping is the custom, and kinder strikes terror into the hearts o’ the Injuns. We were about to do for this un, when Rodgers, one of our pards, says, says he: “‘Why,’ he says, ‘look here, boys, may I never smoke another pipe, if this derned red-skin ain’t a-wearing a necklace of nuggets.’ “ And I tell you, gentlemen, our precious eyes did sparkle a trifle when we hauled the dusky divil to the light and saw it; every one war as big as your thumb, there were twenty-one in all, and about as many bears* teeth between them. Wall, I reckon we robbed that wretch precious quickly; but we didn’t scalp him. No; we fed him well and gave him rum, and, what with signs and what with a smattering o’ Injun, we let him understand he war to lead us to the gold-fields. And the very next morning this skunk begs for more rum, then signs us to follow him. No, we wern’t a bit afeard. Rodgers knew them chaps well, and he kept patting the rum bottle all day and signing to the redskin to get along, and now and then he would give him a smell of it, or maybe a taste. “We sort of blazed our way along for several days, for we found it easier to tire the bush than scramble through naterel-like. On the fourth day we came to a gulch, and a stream ran through the valley; and I could tell at once, by the excited eyes of my pardners, that we’d got to the land o* gold at last. And it warn’t long, either, till Mr. Red-skin was down on his knees, scraping away among the broken quartz like iverything, and by-and-by he comes in with a nugget, and gits a ’llowance o’ rum. “‘Hurrah, boys!’ cries Rodgers. ‘This here is our camping ground. Here’s where we’ve got to make our fortunes in six months’ time.’ “Fear of the red-skin? No. If we hadn’t had plenty o* rum he might have run off, and brought his whole yelling tribe to scalp us; but I niver saw the Injun yet would run far away from a rum bottle. “Wall, we were in roaring luck for once, and at the end of one month we had made a considerable pile, and the claims we worked still held out. “ But, gentlemen, wherever you find carrion you will find corbies, and if they ain’t there jus then, they won’t be long o’ coming. So one day strangers began to arrive, Yanks and Irish Mexicans by the score. We couldn’t keep ’em back. O’ course not; but it did feel vexing. There seemed plenty of gold, however, to last all comers till doomsday; and jus in three months there were quite a village all around us and several stores, where you could buy most anything, from a blanket to a bottle of rum.” Here the mate paused for a minute and more. I never saw him so long filling his pipe before nor since, and I’m sure everyone could hear the great sigh he emitted when he resumed his yarn. “Gentlemen,” he continued, “it war at one o’ them stores I lost my heart. A few young girls had found their way to the Red Gulch with their parents, but there warn’t nary a one a’ them fit to hold the candle to my Katie M‘Guire. I can see her now, the darling, as I first saw her serving out rum— her hair was just the colour of it—to a parson, and smiling so tarnation sweetly that my heart, eviry ounce of it, went straight away to her on the spot. She war the landlord’s daughter, jus new come to the gulch. Tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, a bit freckled about the nose, but a warmer-hearted wench there warn’t a blooming bit o’ use for. She war a good armful, I tell ye, too; and no one dared make too free wi’ Katie, or, as cartain as sunrise, they got a wanner straight from the shoulder. Queer kind o’ a parson that one war, too, I tell ye. A regular down-south lookin’ chap, long chafted, watery-eyed, thin, and buttoned-up like, and all the blood in his body were stationed in his nose. And warn’t he spooney on my Katie, you bet? Now, the funniest thing about this critter war this. Soon’s he took to drinkin’ rum he guv up ’Baccy slap-bang, all at once jest. Should guess
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his ’llowance o’ liquor war about a bottle a day, bitters in the morning, and a dose to go to sleep upon at night.
Wall, this cuss, soon’s he guv up the pipe, or maybe two or three weeks arter, took the queerest disease of the eyes iver I beam of. Why, our doctor himself ’llowed he’d be teetotally derned, if ever he’d seen anything like it. Bar that his eyes war a bit boiled-like as to the blue part, and bar that the whites looked like curried onions, and bar that them blessed optics o’ his always ran water when he looked at Katie, there seemed nothing wrong with him. Sometimes he war a sorter right enough, at others everything far away seemed close at handy and vice versa. This war a sorter awkward for his reverence, to say the least of it, and he jest behaved as like a madman as ever you seed in your born days. He never went abroad without a Derringer; but, as somebody had always drawn the charge, it considerably reduced the danger. Well, I’ve beam o’ many complaints that the giving up of ’Baccy brings about, but this illness o’ the parson chap’s was the old-firedest out. Why, dear me, mates, but he’d let drive at a fly not five yards ahead of him, and think he war a-shooting an eagle a mile off; and if be did spot an eagle half a mile off, he’d take it for a wasp, and wave his hands around his head like a sixpenny model of a windmill. Ole Twist’s donkey he always took for a hare, and it gave him rare sport, I can tell ye. The only sensible thing about the chap was his falling in love with my Katie, but he always thought she war quite a long distance away from him. * Thou art so near and yet so far,’ he would say, muzzling over the bar at her.
“Wall, he told every soul in the gulch it war the love o’ Katie as war making him so thin. Every soul knew it war the brandy and the want of ’Baccy.
“I married Kitty, and we took a store in the dear old gulch, and maybe the best customer we had war this mad parson. Try to cure him? I should think we did; and we offered him weeds that would have lured the larks from the sky. The cuss wouldn’t have them.
“Wall, mates, the poor wretch got thinner and thinner, and skinnier and skinnier every day, till there war nothing left but the hide to hold the bones in position. Then he took to his bed. And there warn’t a soul in the gulch that didn’t do all they could for him. He lived in a bit of a hut about half a mile from Katie’s-and-my store; and nobody was a bit surprised when, one windy, wet night, the doctor looked in to have a drop of summit hot, and told us that he had just left the parson, sinking fast, and that he couldn’t live two hours. That war true, mates; but he didn’t die in bed; for the doctor hadn’t quite done talking when the door opens, and in walks his patient.
“I ain’t much of a hand, boys, at describing death, but it were imprinted on every inch of that poor mad parson. His high cheek-bones, his glittering eye, his wet clothes hanging loose about his shrinking frame, his thin, bony hands more like birds’ claws, and his deathly, quavering voice. ’Twar a sight I’ll never forget. He sank into a chair by the fire, and Katie hastened to make him brandy hot, and the dear girl held it to his lips, for he couldn’t. But he sucked it down. ‘I see straight now, Katie,’ be said, ‘You are near me now. But I couldn’t die in bed, all by myself— you know—Bless you, Katie—Give me a cigar—Light it, light it—Bless you.’
“He clutched the weed, and lifted it towards, not to his mouth. ’Twar too late. The arms fell, jaw and head dropped chestwards, and there war no more of that poor parson chap.”
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
^mber.
We continue our translation of Berendt’s treatise on the ** Amber Land.”
The dark veil which covers the most ancient history of the Amber Land is first lifted a little through the advent, in the thirteenth century, of the Order of Teutonic Knights in Prussia, which was at that time a heathen country. Tbe records of the oldest Prussian chronicler, Peter Von Dusburg, begin with the year 1226. The waves of the Baltic dashed, at that time, as far as the neighbourhood of cities still existing, Mewe and Culm; and, according to Hartknoch, vessels, up to the middle of the thirteenth century, went as far as Thorn. The present delta of the Vistula was a shallow marsh, covered with wood; and from the marsh, here and there a low flat island emerged, and an island it remained, till the beneficent hand of man, toward the end of the thirteenth century, by forming dams on the Vistula, raised up barriers to the ever returning floods of the stream, and converted gloomy morasses into smiling fields. If, according to Waissel and Henneberger, toward the end of the twelfth century, after a continuance of northern storms for twelve years, the Frische Nehrung (fresh or new sand belt) rose—a name which makes a fresh or recent origin not improbable, forasmuch as loose sand fills the southern basin of the Baltic, forms the basis of the Nehrung and in various places of the Pomerellian plateau, and of the whole Uralo-Baltic chain of heights, left behind enduring monuments of its former empire—no further confirmation is
needed of tbe changes which the profile of the coast has since undergone. But proofs accumulate down to our own days. When on the maps of the present day the Frische Nehrung stretches in the form of a long sword, it is remarkable that we behold on Hennerberger’s map three islands standing. One of the oldest maps, which confirms tbe belief that the Baltic had formerly a larger extent than at present, was found in a monastery at Venice, and was said to have been executed by a monk called Mauro, the best geographer of his time, for King Alfonso of Portugal, consequently in the second half of the fifteenth century. It, as well as the map of Heinrich Zell, in 1550, and of Andreas Sylvius, in 1551, is known to me only by citations. In 1455 the sea broke through the Nehrung and formed the so-called Balga Water ; from a similar breach arose the Konigsberg Water in 1497; and the Pillau Water in 1520. So it is according to certain statements; but, from a record found in Old Pillau Church, Hagen maintains that in the year 1311 the water then existing below Lochstadt was filled up by a violent storm; and that in the Nehrung opposite Balga a new water broke through, and continued open till 1479. In this year, on the day of the Three Holy Kings, a northern storm, which lasted four days, burst through the Nehrung, and created tbe Pillau Water; but which did not till 1510 get tbe navigable depth which it now possesses. Simon Grunau names another year. The date varies, but the fact is unquestionable. Loose sea sand choked up anew the Balga Water and the Konigsberg Water; and, by fresh accumulations, renewed the chain of dams which had been torn asunder. In February, 1840, a breach eighteen hundred feet wide was made by the drifting ice of the Vistula, whereby the fortification, Weichselmiinde (Vistula-Mouth) is now severed from the Nehrung.
Samland, the great amber region, has undergone similar destinies, and is now only a fragment of what it once was. At the time of the Teutonic Order the province Witland sank, and the Frisches Haff rolled over it. The mouth of the Pregel was once further to the west, and formed a basin called Lippe. What is now tbe bottom of the sea was formerly covered with impenetrable forests of pines and firs; and where great ships once lay at anchor, we now see sandhills towering up. The traditions respecting the city Veneta or Winetha, that sank at the mouth of the Oder, that has a place on the old Homanic maps and whose streets the Pomeranian chronicler Kantzow pretended to have seen under the water, men employed to dive contradicted; and when the harbour was formed at Sweinemiinde the whole thing was shown to be a fable. Prussia’s first Christian Church at Saint Adalbert, in Samland, is said to have been a (German) mile from the shore in whose immediate proximity it now stands.
The surface of the interior land has likewise, during the historical period, demonstrably changed. At the present day the twelfth part of East Prussia, and the fortieth part of West Prussia, are covered with water. Formerly,when immense forests covered Prussian Poland and Lithuania, and in their shadows kept the earthy ground humid, and when cultivation had not been applied to the marshy soil, the proportion was different. Five hundred years ago there are said to have been in Prussia 2037 larger and smaller inland lakes. The Spirding lake is now only a small part of what it once was; and at the building of Elbing, in 1237, the Drausen rolled its waves up to the walls of the city, from which it is now a mile distant (five English miles). When, about sixty years ago, an attempt was made to drain the Goplo lake, whereby its surface sank about three feet, the furrows of ploughed fields became visible; and on its west side, opposite the town of Kruswicz, portions of streets and other ruins were discovered, proving how much more extensive the city had formerly been. The outworks Lichmanowo and Kwiezczizewo, which figure in the local episcopal records, have vanished, and probably repose below the water. When the well demonstrated statement of the writer is taken into consideration, this fact indicates the local sinking of the soil at a date not very remote.
I have not deemed it superfluous to enter into these his-torico-geographical details, forasmuch as I wished to show that the gradual, scarcely perceptible, small geological evolutions of recent centuries—in themselves the pastimes of pigmies compared with the Titanic labours of long-vanished ages—sufficed to change the profile and the projection of our coast land in a considerable degree. So far as the eye of history can trace it back, the course of nature remains persistent and the same; no sudden and vast metamorphoses, but a tranquil evolution according to the same fundamental law. Always new accretion of land, especially at the mouth of rivers, always the slow upheaval of the new soil; such are, during the thousands of years which have just elapsed, the calm and silent but continuous operations in the physical geography of the South Baltic littoral. An exception to this general rule is formed by only a few points of the coast, where the sea, through the incessant and impetuous onrush of the waves, saps the steep cliffs and penetrates gradually into the land. Not till after the amber formation has the series of vast commotions and transformations of the soil closed in our region of the world; not till after that formation did the more peaceful order of things, the slower evolution of the present period, begin. Lyell’s notion that the earth has suffered no revolutions, but has received its present aspect
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insensibly and through natural laws still existing, is, perhaps, only applicable to the duration of the historical period. The traces of great catastrophes at earlier periods lie unmistakably before us.
With pictorial skill, and in a very fascinating manner, Lyell has shown how on the coasts of Sweden the banks got covered with gravel, rubble, sand, and shells, and emerged from the deep as small islands, at first only the resting-places of the sea-mew when devouring its prey. A few lichens, a few plants of the pine species, a few blades of grass show that the sandbank was transformed into dry land. In the course of time the bottom of the sea between the small islands became likewise dry land, assumed the aspect of a meadow, while the hills around attired themselves in a robe of pines and firs. A striking picture—a picture which enables us to imagine how in like fashion, many thousands of years ago, the Amber Islands rose from the waves, and slowly increased in size. As historical alluvions, analogous phenomena occur at the mouths of many rivers, the Rhine, the Oder, the Vistula, and so on, and are exemplified in the islands Usedom and Wallin. Westerplatte, lying opposite the fortress Weichselmunde, though for the most part a formation of the last century, has already extensive shady walks.
Tn order to march henceforward on the firmest ground possible, I return once more for a few instants to an analogous phenomenon appertaining to the tertiary deposits of the earlier epochs, the origin of the stone-coal formation. (Stone-coal equivalent to pit-coal, or to coal in the usual sense.) As is well known, three periods are distinguished in the world of fossil plants; that of stone-coal, that of brown coal, and that of submarine forests. The great European stone-coal deposit stretches from Britain toward France; from France, in a south-western direction, through the Rhine provinces and Westphalia; through Bohemia, Silesia, Galicia, Hungary, to Turkey. It is generally admitted that the formation received its material from an excessively opulent and luxuriant vegetation, that it was originally islands on which this superabundance of plants and of trees flourished, that these islands often emerged from the waves, covered themselves with a rich garment of vegetation, then sank again into the sea. Only in this way can the remarkable alternation of, stone-coal strata with strata of submarine formation be explained. At that time—reckoned by Bischoff at a million of years, though Noggerath, while approving the method of calculation, finds the sum total too small—there prevailed over the whole earth an equable, and at the same time, higher temperature. Hence the same primitive plants of that period are met with in the stone-coal seams of North America and Silesia, of Melville Island and England. To the north-east of the chain of countries mentioned above, and still covered with the ocean, which embraced a space of 100,000 (German) square miles, lay at the time what is now the Cis-Uralian Plain. The general temperature of the earth’s surface had, during the long continuance of the antecedent epoch, sunk to a lower degree. From this sea rose up islands and covered themselves with a flora, which, in accordance with the changed conditions and relations, was very different from the earlier flora. What is now the North European Lowland became, when rising from the waves, the domain of the brown coal formation, in whose bosom an organic creation rests, which is much more nearly related to the present creation than to that of the stone-coal period; but which is, nevertheless, an extinct creation, and as such belongs, like older creations, to the primaeval world. Like the other periods, too, this period is of immeasurable length, and consists of many acts or ages, which we can imagine to ourselves as separated from each other in time and space by the frequent recurrence of northern diluvial floods. The formation of amber appertains to one of the intermediate ages of the brown coal formation. The exposition and investigation of amber’s organic remains are, therefore, of essential importance for this particular period of earth’s history. Finally, the sunken submarine forests, several of which are found in Northern Europe—for instance, on the coasts of Brittanyand Lincolnshire, near the Isle of Man, near Schleswig, and so on—are younger than the brown coal, form the transition to the existing flora, show few deviations therefrom, and in some places manifest complete agreement with the trees still growing in the neighbouring coast districts. We encounter the characteristics of the existing world still more distinctly marked in the trees and forests found in turfy bogs, especially in England, but also in Flanders, East Friesland, Mecklenburg, and not seldom in our province of Prussia. Studer says:—“If we attempt to calculate the space of time which every one of the younger periods claims for itself done, and if, at the same time, we consider that in the last two thousand years the change in the shape and aspect of our soil, compared with earlier transfigurements, is almost invisible, we arrive at the conviction that our so-called historical period is, contrasted with the diluvial period, prodigiously brief.” According to Bischoff, nine millions of years have passed away since the temperature in Germany sank from eighty-two to fifty degrees Fahrenheit.
Out of the ocean mentioned above emerged, in the region of the existing Samland, an island, or a group of islands, or a mass of continental land; grew in extent, and covered itself, favoured by the mild sea climate, with vegetation and forest. This forest was the birthplace of amber. In the forest certain trees exuded their amber in such enormous masses that the sunken treasure chamber, the former soil
of the forest, seems to be, even now, so filled therewith, as if through the floods of the sea which at a later time broke in, and through the countless storms stirring up the ocean for thousands of years, only a comparatively inconsiderable quantity had fallen as a spoil to man. The north-western limit of this former island, or group of islands, stretched further up than the present north-western point of Samland. Near it and above it lay, according to my idea, the geographical middle point of that primaeval forest, which now gives evidence of itself in the production of Amber. I place this central point in the south-eastern part of the present Baltic basin, and in latitude 55°, and longtitude 37° to 38°, and for the following reasons: because, of all the Baltic coasts, those lying nearest to this region, consequently Samland’s west strand, and next thereto the north coast of the Frische Neh-rung have ever furnished, and continue to furnish, the most amber; because storms in this region—for Samland from west and west-north-west, and for the Frische Nelirnng from north-east—bring the amber in greatest abundance; and because lines drawn from the chief treasure chambers of both coasts, and lengthened seawards in the direction of the most favourable storms, meet there ; because the amber thrown on both coasts exhibits a small, indeed, but persistent deviation in its external characteristics; and, finally, because the ray-like diffusion of amber in the further southern hemisphere, decisively points to the region in question as amber’s central source.
To what extent the island group is now covered by the Baltic, or how far it stretched below Samland, or, perchance, even below a portion of the south-eastern littoral, can neither be determined nor investigated. It suffices for us to be convinced that it once existed, and that it was clothed with forests. Possibly Samland’s west coast was at one time connected with the Pomerellian plateau and the Pomeranian chain of hills. The similarity of the strata in the steep, abrupt cliffs of the coast there, and in those here—as, for instance, at Redlau, Orhoft, and so on—speaks in favour of this conjecture. The lacking part in the chain of hills must either, therefore, have been swept away by the force of the diluvial flood, rushing temptestuously from the north, thus giving rise to the Dantzic Bay, or the chain of hills was formed by the partial emergence of masses of matter from the sea, while the intermediate space was covered by the waves of the Baltic. The first hypothesis seems to me the more probable of the two.
What an enormous period of repose was needed to accumulate such immense treasures, that these since their inundation, that is to say, during many thousands of years, have been only to a small extent dislodged, and promise to future dwellers on the coasts a booty similar to the booty now gathered, is more easily explicable if we do not apply to the evolutions of the primaeval world the puny standard of existing phenomena. Let us consider, for instance, that the mass of fossil ivory in Siberia is by so means exhausted; that the huge accumulations, defying all calculation, of British coal seams, and of Galician salt beds, have for centuries shown no sign of exhaustion, spite of an enormous daily consumption. So far, likewise, as authentic records enable us to judge, the treasures of amber thrown on this coast have not notably diminished, though it cannot be denied that the former tracts of coast land, frequently increasing toward the north, must have received larger quantities than the kindred tracts at present. The average, reckoned every fifty years, from 1661 to 1811, that is, for a hundred and fifty years, showed no important difference in the yield of Samland amber.
The Galician salt formation, which as a colossal continuous mass traverses Poland and Galicia to Transylvania and Hungary, was, by Count Steinberg for botanical reasons, by Bou6, Koperstein and others for geognostic reasons, classified with the younger stratified rocks, whereby in the succession of the later tertiary formations only one of the latest places remains for the amber formation. I agree with this opinion, if the origin of amber is not brought too near to the present time, or assigned to the period of the post-pliocenic formations. According to the opinion of the Neptunists, only from tranquil crystal clear water could the masses of Galician salt be precipitated with such chemical purity as we now behold them in the vast strata. Violent storms did not rouse and trouble the sea at their formation. Even after the deposition of the salt had ended, after the salt lay dry above the surface of the sea, the strata, as the examination of them proves, was no longer broken through by the floods of water, was not once seriously assailed and injured by them. They were not touched by the diluvial floods which destroyed the amber forest, because, perhaps, the Uralo-Carpathian chain of heights lay as a bulwark between. They must, consequently, be older than the inundations which devoured amber. That the long period of rest which favoured the growth of both formations was the same in both cases is scarcely to be accepted, forasmuch as what is Prussia now lay for the most part under water when Poland, especially the southern part thereof, had already emerged as mainland. The organic remains sometimes occurring in the strata of Wielizka seem to testify against the theory of the modern geologists that rock salt arose through sublimation, and was raised by Plutonic forces from the depths of the earth. In any case, a comparison of the organic remains belonging to the two formations seems very desirable.
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dope’s glisten.
“Circumstances alter cases.” I do not claim originality for that proposition, but simply reiterate it, as a truth—upon the principle of handing on the sacred fire. Wide Classical Dictionary.) Perhaps I could hardly furnish you with a more striking illustration of the variableness of human opinions than you would find in my mental attitude from time to time during the last two years with regard to Mr. Mallock’s conundrum—“Is Life worth Living?” The condition of my liver has sometimes inclined me towards a negative reply to that remarkable poser. I doubt whether, during the period I have named, I have met with any Tobacco good enough to compel me to return an affirmative without hesitation. But life is not altogether without its compensations; and since I heard about the shipment of smuggled Tobacco to the troops in Zululand I have been more than ever perplexed by the difficulty of accounting for Mr. Mallock’s motive. Why did the man raise the question at all ? Suppose it isn’t; what then? If I conclude that a cranium so defectively shaped as mine, or a mind so shallow, is not worth having, how much the better am I for the discovery ? Is not the shape of my skull all fours with my cubits of stature and the leopard’s quantum of spots? In case a man quarrel with the nose on his face, then (to quote the late Lord Lytton) “What Will He Do with It?”
I need not remind you that I have made it my business, ever since there was a “Cope’s Mixture” to mix, and even before that “ Happy Thought ” eclipsed Mr. Burnand, to hold up to scorn the institution known to the initiated as “The Queen’s Pipe.” That is, I verily believe, the only pipe I can bring myself to slight. My devotion to the pipe, as an idea, makes me tolerant towards the exploded superstition of the Shepherd’s Pipe, prevents my pouring contempt on a Pipe of Wine, and accounts for my cherishing a Piping Bullfinch as a mitigatorof the hours of solitude. But “The Queen’s Pipe” I cannot away with. It has always seemed to me an invention worthy of the most unreasoning pipe-clay routine of the Horse Guards; and productive of no more salutary result than a general piping of eyes amongst all true smokers. That tons upon tons of good Tobacco should be destroyed by burning in that abominable furnace year after year, for no better reason than that it had been smuggled first and confiscated afterwards—pheugh I One might as well argue about the aesthetic beauties of the fumes of Tophet. Well, then, you remember my wise remarks of last month about the stinginess of the Government which refused to supply Tobacco to the soldiers on active service in South Africa, except so far as the brave boys could pay for it. Bearing these matters in your mind, pray try to imagine my exalted contentment since I read in the daily papers that—1st, “ The Treasury have directed the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Customs to allow all seized Tobacco that may be in the possession of the Commissioners at this moment to be sent to Natal, for the use of ‘ the soldiers, marines, and sailors engaged in the Zulu war’”; and, 2nd, “The Tobacco confiscated by the Custom House authorities has been sent out as a free present to the soldiers at the Cape.” Ah! Mr. Mallock, in my place you would no longer need to ask your vexed question, nor care what answer Echo sent you on the waves of air. The poetic Telegraph made a frantic effort to show that this gift of confiscated weed to the troops bore out the bard’s reflection—“The evil that men do fives after them; the good is often interred with their bones.” So be it: when Your Man-of-All-Work lays his work aside, and you gather up his manes to lay them in the earth, let there be “interred with his bones” this little record of success. Is it not true that the man who makes two pipes to smoke where only one has smoked before is a benefactor of his species?
The poetic philosophy of the Telegraph recalls the lucubrations of Dr. Maurice Davies on Orthodox and Nonorthodox London. Dr. Davies reminds me of the Kensington News, which that wandering divine is reputed to edit. And the Kensington News has taken my breath away by the following incursion into the weedy paths of verse:—
“THE SMOKER’S TROUBLE.
“Music by Offen-bachy.
041 amber witched,’ the youth he spoke, 4 Oh! Honey Dew come wed me;
My vows they will not end in smoke; Affection true has led me.’ -
44 The maid replied, 41 won’t be tied. Though your love it is returns;
I give the man a length so wide Who all day ’Bacca burns.
44 4 But do not be Intimidad ; Bad habits will latakia ;
’Fusee the way to stop the 44 fad,” Why then I will not sack ye.’
44 In her objection to his smoke, Mucheeroot he could not trace;
He kissed her mouthpiece ; as he spoke, She colored in the face.
44 Tobacco arguments, she wept enough To make a good manilla:
4 Weep not for me, I’ll give it up, And try to pouch the 4 siller.’ ”
44 To make herappee was his pride; And he, somehow, had his whiff;
With two Infantas by their side. Their first Jar was but a tiff.
“Berrybub Sprouts.”
I don’t underrate the theological charity of Dr. Maurice Davies. It is considerable; but, compared with the effort of sublime toleration demanded by this tremendous effusion, it may be ranked as the narrowest bigotry. The man who could forgive Mr. “Berrybub Sprouts,” or his editor, would merit the character once awarded in error to the American millionaire, Vanderbilt:—
44 He was travelling on a railroad train in a car with two young men, one of whom had been imbibing freely, and was talking in a strain at boisterous profanity. Struck after a time by the white cravat and reverend aspect of the Commodore, whom he mistook for a clergyman, he thus accosted him: ‘I suppose, old man, you think Pm going to hell sure?’ 4 Well, I don’t know,’ was the reply, * you seem to be a good deal of a fellow, and I guess you’ll come out all right.’ Astonished almost into sobriety, the youth gazed at him a moment, and exclaimed: * Uni venalist, by thunder I’”
But let me return, for a moment, to my friends the Commissioners of Customs. If the Lords of the Treasury have emptied the “Queen’s Pipe,” the Customs authorities are resolved to re-fill it without delay. They brought nine engineers and firemen of the steamship Constance before two magistrates at Bristol the other day, and had them convicted of smuggling. I should like to speak respectfully of all dignitaries, and to stand in awe of the Powers that Be, and all their ordinances. I am glad I am not a Town Councillor of Falmouth, and have no temptation to refuse to pay the Rector’s rate, and so become a martyr to principle for fifteen days in the local gaol. I hope I have lived hitherto in the spirit of Mr. Thackeray’s beautiful lines—
44 Ob, let us love our occupations,
Bless the squire and his relations, Live upon our daily rations, And learn to keep our proper stations.”
I have crossed the English Channel several times, and I can aver, without the smallest twinge of conscience, that I never yet smuggled 128 lbs. of Tobacco. Wherefore, I trust I may be acquitted of any sneaking sympathy with the men whom Mr. G. Wills (ominous name, when the Weed is rife) and Mr. H. Thomas, the Bristol justices, convicted of that offence. But I hope it is not very wicked to call attention to the suggested probability that the information upon which the Customs officers acted was given to them by a set of men who were discharged from the same ship for smuggling six months before. The defence was that these discharged firemen had threatened to “ do something” if they could not get back to the ship; and that, when they found they could not get back, they gave information which led to the discovery of the concealed Tobacco. I am aware that the statement was contradicted ; but the inference that the informers had placed the Tobacco where it was found was not disproved.	, '
Oh, Tobacco! what horrible atrocities are perpetrated in thy name! I have no sooner put aside the Bristol case than I read in the New York Sun, of June 7th, that—
44	Yesterday the Hon. Jacob Seebacher mopped his brows and waddled into an open Grand Street car. He was puffing a fragrant cigar. He had hardly taken his seat and paid his fare before he heard a hallo, and, on turning about, saw a well dressed young man at the intersection of Cannon Street beckoning to him. * Do you want to see me ? ’ Jacob shouted. 4 Yea, very particularly,’ the youth replied. Thereupon Jacob stopped the car, remopped his brows, and waddled out to the sidewalk. 4 Give me a light, please,’ said the stranger. Jacob accommodated him. 4 What do you want to see me about?’ asked the Assemblyman. ‘Nothing more,’ was the reply. At this Jacob swelled with indignation. 4 Do you mean that you made me lose a car to ask me for a light?’ ‘That’s it,’ the youth ’ answered. 4 But don't get excited. There’ll be another car along in two minutes.’”
For the honour of human nature I have felt it necessary to find some ground of justification—or, at least, of excuse—for this young man. It was not easily found. No Tobacco with which I am personally acquainted is good enough to warrant the liberty taken with the obese Assemblyman, who labours under the afflicting name of Seebacher. If this were a natural consequence of devotion to the weed, I should hardly care to Seebacher any more. But, an unexpected fight has broken upon me. I have received from a friendly hand across the Atlantic a description of a new brand—a cigar known as “El Aquila de Oro,” which, in my ignorant humility, I should like to translate as “ The Golden Eagle.” I am given to understand that—
44	The Tobacco from which these cigars are made is grown entirely in conservatories, and the cigar is manufactured on mahogany tables, by thorough-bred Cubans, in claw-hammer coats and white kids. When a man smokes one of these cigars he walks on air, and dreams that he has a diamond scarf-pin, and a sixty-five dollar suit of clothes, and has just married rich. It makes the breath sweet and keeps the teeth white, and and will force a moustache on the smoothest lip in five weeks. It improves and beautifies the complexion, eradicates freckles, tan, and dandruff, and imparts to the oldest countenance the rosy freshness of youth. It permeates the house, the window curtains, closets, and clothes with the delicate odours and exquisite fragrance of heliotrope, frangi-pani, jockey club, and white rose. It will fasten the front gate every night, carry in the paper in the morning, chase the hens off the garden, and blister the boy with a rubber gun. People who smoke this cigar will live longer, make more money, wear better clothes, drive faster horses, pay bigger pew rent, go to church more regularly, and marry prettier wives than any other class of men. It burns with an ash so white that chalk would make a black mark upon it, and it wouldn’t break off and fall inside your vest, not if you were to strike it with an earthquake.”
It may be that you will tell me everybody can’t get El Aquila de Oro to smoke. Perchance—no. Nevertheless, there is consolation for us. When cigars are beyond our reach, it is still possible to compass the humble cigarette; even as, when the expensive Nineteenth Century is too high for our purse, the Daily News is at our service for a “ copper.” The Daily News reads the half-crown monthlies for us, and gives us the spirit of their wisdom for an unpretentious
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penny. Sir Henry Thompson has discoursed full learnedly of “Food and Feeding”; and, commenting upon some of the conclusions at which the great Medicus has arrived, the yVw# inquires—“What will the Anti-Tobacco Society think when Sir Henry Thompson calmly pronounces Tobacco to be •an ally of temperance’? The Dean of Carlisle and the member for that city will both join in a duet of horror when Sir Henry describes as the ‘indispensable finish’ to a good dinner a cigarette and a cup of coffee, adding that the latter may be, if it should not be as a matter of course, ‘ laced ’ with a glass of cognac.” Well, I won’t undertake to dogmatise; but I know the value of a whiff or two of the weed after dinner. Coffee I do not despise; the cognac is left to my discretion, even by Sir Henry Thompson; and the cigarette is justified of her smokers. Since I last mixed for you, I have been on another arm-chair “tour on the Continent.” This time Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson has had me with him on his “Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes.” I was not the Donkey, “ though by your smiling you should seem to say so.” But the “travels” (which you may go over for yourself by ordering the book from Kegan Paul and Co.) are uncommonly refreshing and lively; and the humour is none the worse for the frequent fragrance of a cigarette. The first day with Modestine (the donkey) was a little tiresome, and the traveller records—“I tried to charm my foreboding spirit with Tobacco.” A little later, when Modestitie was excessively aggravating, he says—“I came very near crying; but 1 did a wiser thing than that, and sat squarely down by the roadside to consider my situation under the cheerful influence of Tobacco and a nip of brandy.” Mr. Stevenson had made his arrangements for dispensing with hotel accommodation ; and he gives romantic pictures of nights in the woods, when the winds, singing amongst the yielding boughs, sang him to sleep, or he lay dreaming under the stars. He ties up his donkey, and gives her a supper of black bread; then creeps into his sleeping bag, and refreshes himself with Bologna sausage, a cake of chocolate, and neat brandy, which he abhors ; and goes on to tell us—“ But I was rare and hungry; ate well; and smoked one of the best cigarettes in my experience. Then I put a stone in my straw hat, pulled the flap of my fur cap over my neck and eyes, put my revolver ready to my hand, and snuggled well down among the sheepskins.” In the morning—“It was wild weather, and famishing cold. I ate some chocolate, swallowed a mouthful of brandy, and smoked a cigarette before the cold should have time to disable my fingers.” On another morning he says: “When that hour” (the “one stirring hour, unknown to those who dwell in houses, when a wakeful influence goes abroad,” “and houseless men, who have lain down with the fowls, open their dim eyes, and behold the beauty of the night”) “came to me among the pines, I awakened thirsty. My tin was standing by me half full of water. I emptied it at a draught; and feeling broad awake after this internal cold aspersion, sat upright to make a cigarette.” “ I lay smoking and studying the colour of the sky. . . . As if to be more like a pedlar, I wear a silver ring. This could I see faintly shining as I raised or lowered the cigarette; and, at each whiff, the inside of my hand was illuminated, and became for a second the highest light in the landscape. .	.	. buckled into my sack, and smoking alone in the pine woods between four and five thousand feet towards the stars.” It is not possible to transfer to this page more than the faintest trace of the quiet charm that fills the book ; but these whiffs of Tobacco are enough for my purpose here. One thing, in the interest of smokers, I should like Mr. Stevenson to explain. Was it the strength of his Tobacco that made him begin and go through one day after he had gone through and finished the same day already? How to wake up in the open air on “Wednesday, October 2nd,” and have adventures enough to fill twenty-pages of a book; and then to wake up in an inn on the morning of the same 2nd of October, to spend that day in other scenes and adventures, is a secret worth knowing, and much desired by* Your Man-of-All-Work. lames Hogg, fbe ®ffrich S^ep^erb.* I. Our brief notice of Wilson and the “Noctes” may be fitly followed by some account of the original of the leading character in those exuberant dialogues. Christopher North himself intended and engaged to write a Memoir of his dear Shepherd, who owed much to him and to whom he also owed much, and this Memoir was even announced as accompanying acertain edition of Hogg’s Poems, but it never got written. The Rev. Thomas Thomson tells us that his Life of the Ettrick Shepherd has been composed “partly from communications with his family, partly from oral intimations of * “ The Works of the Ettrick Shepherd. A New Edition; with a Memoir ” j n^®^1®’ by the Rev. Thomas Thomson [and Hogg's Autobiography Keminiaceneee and Illustrative Engravings].” Two vols. Blackie Son; London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. 1865-8. Jacobite Relics of Scotland; being the Songs, Airs, and Legends of Adherents to the House of Stuart.” Collected and Illustrated by James ~°€8- Reprinted from the Original Edition. First and Second Series. Two vote. Paisley: Alex. Gardner. 1874.	the few friends who still survive, and partly from his own reminiscences which he appended to several of his publications, and which are now given in their collected form at the end of this volume, as his Autobiography. They had better have come immediately after or before the Life, and the last partly should be mainly, Mr. Thomson having little to add save by way of disquisition and amplification. Fortunately the real Shepherd is pretty fully pictured to us in his own reminiscences and other writings, whose self-portraiture agrees very well with the various casual sketches by his contemporaries, for he was genuine and simple to the core, and delightfully outspoken; and by help of these we can discern that there is a good deal of the actual man in the stagepresentation of the “Noctes.” Thus he prefaces his fragmentary Autobiography:—“I like to write about myself; in fact, there are few things which I like better; it is so delightful to call up old reminiscences. Often have I been laughed at for what an Edinburgh editor styles my good-natured egotism, which is sometimes anything but that; and I am aware that I shall be laughed at again. But I care not. ... I shall relate with the same frankness as formerly; and in all, relating either to others or myself, speak fearlessly and unreservedly out.” And he keeps his word. He tells us that he was the second of four sons by the same father and mother, Robert Hogg and Margaret Laidlaw, and was born the 25th January, 1772. The parish register, however, records his baptism on the 9th December, 1770, and his birth may have taken place some considerable time before. He himself was decided as to the day and month, it being the anniversary of the birth of Burns; and not less decided as to the year, if we may trust a charmingly characteristic passage in his reminiscences of Scott, who, as we know, was born August 15, 1771:—“There are not above five people in the world who, I think, know Sir Walter better, or understand his character better than I do; and if I outlive him, which is likely, as I am Jive months and ten days younger, I shall draw a mental portrait of him, the likeness of which to the original shall not be disputed.” He did outlive Scott, just three years and two months (let us be as precise as himself), dying November 21, 1835 (in his sixty-fourth year, says Mr. Thomson, after correcting Hogg’s birth-date I); and in 1834 he published the “ Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir Walter Scott,” wherein he exclaims, with honest and reverent enthusiasm: “Is it not a proud boast for an old shepherd, that for thirty years he could call this man ‘friend,’ and associate with him every day and hour that he chose? Yes, it is my proudest boast. Sir Walter sought me out in the wilderness, and attached himself to me before I had ever seen him, and although I took cross fits with him, his interest in me never subsided for one day or one moment.” As we shall find when we get farther on. He was born in a lowly cottage at Ettrickhall, near the church and school, his father being a shepherd. No Southron swinish associations defiled the family name, which was rather exceedingly appropriate, hog, or hogg, in their vernacular meaning a year-old sheep; and they were indeed of right good Border descent, claiming from Haug of Norway, a valiant viking and reiver, whose successors were the Hoggs of Faulds-hope, a farm about five miles from Selkirk, who held in fee from Scott’s ancestors, the Knights of Harden and Oakwood, until their own extravagance and the pacification of the Borders reduced them to the occupation of shepherds. Tn “The Fray of Elibank,” Hogg celebrates his redoubted ancestor the Wild Boar of Fauldshope, chief champion of that Harden who was eldest son of Mary Scott, the famous Flower of Yarrow; and records, not without pride, that several of the wives of Fauldshope were accounted rant witches, the most notable being Lucky Hogg, who turned Michael Scott himself into a hare, and baited all his own dogs upon him, so that he escaped with difficulty; but he took therefor a terrible revenge, as told by Hogg in a Note to “The Queen’s Wake,” in accordance with the popular tradition and correction of Sir Walter Scott. In the “ Pilgrims of the Sun” he bedevils viking Haug into Hugo of Norroway, a pious and peaceful minstrel, who marries Mary Lee of Carelha’, and is an utterly impossible milksop— “ For he loved not the field of foray and Reathe, Nor the bow, nor the shield, nor the sword of death; But he tuned his harp in the wild unseen, And he reared his flocks on the mountain green.” For which damnable namby-pamby defamation of old Norse and Border character, and that in an ancestor of his own, it has doubtless fared full hard with the poor shepherd’s wraith if ever it forgathered with that of grim Haug or the Wild Boar of Fauldshope. His mother was of the Laidlaws of Phaup and Craik, a woman of strong natural talents and humour, and remarkable for her knowledge of Border lore, in ballads, songs, and traditions, so that her cottage was a favourite resort of the shepherds of Ettrick and Yarrow. Tn the “ Shepherd’s Calendar,” he celebrates one of her ancestors, Will o’ Phaup, “ one of the genuine Laidlaws of Craik,” a famous runner, fighter, and good fellow, and the last man of that wild region who was on intimate terms with the fairies. The father, about the time of his marriage, having saved a considerable sum of money, took a lease of the farms of Ettrick House and Ettrick Hall, and commenced dealing in sheep. A sudden fall in the price of these, and the absconding of his principal debtor, ruined him when our Hogg was in his sixth year; everything was sold by auction, and the family was turned out of doors without a farthing in the
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world. A good man, Brydon of Crosslee, had compassion, took a short lease of the Ettrick House, made the father his shepherd there, and was kind to them all till the day of his death. Hogg had attended school a short time; had the honour of heading a class that read the shorter catechism and the Proverbs of Solomon. But he had now to help earn his living, and at Whitsuntide, when he was seven, was hired by a neighbouring farmer to herd a few cows; his wages for the half-year being a ewe lamb and a pair of new shoes. He records: “ Even at that early age my fancy seems to have been a hard neighbour for both judgment and memory. I was wont to strip off my clothes, and run races against time, or rather against myself; and, in the course of these exploits, which I accomplished much to my own admiration, I first lost my plaid, then my bonnet, then my coat, and finally my hosen, for, as for shoes, I had none. In that naked state did I herd for several days, till a shepherd and maid-servant were sent to the hills to look for them, and found them all.” The winter quarter he was sent to school again; got into the class that read the Bible, and tried at writing copy lines of text in inch-long letters. This finished his schooling, of which he had about half-a-year in all. His real education, apart from mechanical reading and writing, was due to his mother’s Border lore and his pastoral life; and these served him well in the future, far better, indeed, than what is called a good commercial or even classical training in a town would probably have done. He went back in spring to herding cows, the lowest of rural occupations, and was engaged in it several years under sundry masters, till he attained the honour of keeping sheep. Here is one little bit of childish romance in his own words: “It will scarcely be believed that at so early an age I should have been an admirer of the other sex. It is nevertheless strictly true. Indeed I have liked the women a great deal better than the men ever since I remember. But that summer, when only eight years of age, I was sent out to a height called Broad-heads with a rosy-cheeked maiden to herd a flock of new-weaned lambs, and I had my mischievous cows to herd besides. But, as she had no dog and I had an excellent one, I was ordered to keep close by her. Never was a master’s orders better obeyed. Day after day I herded the cows and the lambs both, and Betty had nothing to do but sit and sew. Then we dined together every day at a well near to the Shiel-sike head, and after dinner I laid my head down on her lap, covered her bare feet with my plaid, and pretended to fall sound asleep. One day I heard her say to herself, ‘Poor little laddie! he’s just tired to death,’ and then I wept till I was afraid she would feel the warm tears trickling on her knee. I wished my master, who was a handsome young man, would fall in love with her and marry her, wondering how he could be so blind and stupid as not to do it. But I thought if I were he, I would know well what to do.”
He thinks that he changed masters so often because he was yearly growing stronger, and so fit for harder tasks and higher wage; he was always recommended from one to the other, especially for his inoffensive behaviour. “This character, which I some way or other got at my very first outset, has in some degree attended me ever since, and has certainly been of utility to me; yet, though Solomon avers that ‘a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches,’ I declare that I have never been so much benefited by mine, but that I would have chosen the latter by many degrees.” He had sometimes very hard usage, and was nearly exhausted by hunger and fatigue. Every small pittance of wage he took to his parents, who in return clothed him as they could. His only book was the Bible; the metrical version of the Psalms at the end he nearly learned by heart, and always liked. When fourteen he managed to save five shillings and buy a fiddle, which occupied all his leisure hours, and was his favourite amusement ever after. Sleeping always in stables or cowhouses, his sawing at night usually disturbed nobody but himself and the quadrupeds, “whom I believed to be greatly delighted with my strains. At all events, they never complained, which the biped part of my neighbours did frequently, to my pity and utter indignation.” At length, having passed the stage of farm drudge of all work, he arrived at the dignity of shepherd to Laidlaw of Willenslee, and here, in his eighteenth year, got his first perusal of Allan Ramsay’s “Gentle Shepherd” and Blind Harry’s “Life and Adventures of Sir William Wallace,” as modernised by Hamilton of Gilbertfield; both, until recently, almost as common in the cottages of the Scottish peasantry as the Bible itself. He was immoderately fond of them, but regretted deeply that they were not in prose, so as to be more intelligible, or even in the metre of the Psalms. In fact, he had nearly lost what little power of reading he had acquired; the Scottish dialect quite confounded him; so that before he got to the end of a line he had generally lost the rhyme of the preceding; “ and if I came to a triplet, a thing of which I had no conception, I commonly read to the foot of the page without perceiving that I had lost the rhyme altogether. I thought the author had been straitened for rhymes, and had just made a part of it do as well as he could without them. Thus, after I got through both works, I found myself much in the same predicament with the man of Eskdalemuir, who had borrowed Bailey’s Dictionary from his neighbour. On returning it, the lender asked him what he thought of it. *1 dinna ken, man,’ replied he; ‘I have read it all through, but canna say that I understand it; it is the most confused book that ever I saw
in my life! ’ . . . Mrs. Laidlaw also gave me sometimes the newspapers, which I pored on with great earnestness-beginning at the date, and reading straight on, through advertisements of houses and lands, balm of Gilead, and everything; and, after all, was often no wiser than when I began. . . . I was about this time [1789] obliged to write a letter to my elder brother, and, having never drawn a pen for such a number of years, I had actually forgotten how to make sundry letters of the alphabet; these I had either to print, or to patch up the words in the best way I could without them.”
At Whitsuntide, 1790, he hired himself to Laidlaw of Black House, on the Douglas Burn in Yarrow, with whom he served as shepherd for ten years, and who treated him rather like a son than a servant, and whom he only left to go and keep home with his parents at Ettrick House, when the eldest brother, William, having married, went to live elsewhere. Here he had the use of a pretty good library, containing Milton, Pope, Thomson, Young, the Spectator, several volumes of history and travel, and, of course, a considerable store of theological works. Nor were opportunities wanting for reading, meditation, and writing. The shepherd has at all seasons considerable snatches of leisure; and from the middle of July to the middle of September, when “summering the lambs,” has but to move them from pasture to pasture, the dog doing nearly all the work. His chief associates here were his elder brother, Alexander Laidlaw, then a shepherd, afterwards farmer of Bowerbank, on the border of St. Mary’s Lake; and young William Laidlaw, the son of his employer, the author of “Lucy’s Flitting,” afterwards the steward, amanuensis, and friend of Scott, and for many years the only believer in Hogg’s literary abilities, and his warm friend to the last. He thus describes our poet, not yet a poet in verse, on their first acquaintance:—“About nineteen years of age, Hogg was rather above the middle height, of faultless symmetry of form; he was of almost unequalled agility and swiftness. His face was then round and full, and of a ruddy complexion, with light-blue eyes that beamed with gaiety, glee, and good-humour, the effect of the most exuberant animal spirits. His head was covered with a singular profusion of light-brown hair, which he was obliged to wear coiled up under his hat. On entering church on a Sunday, where he was all his Hfe a regular at tender, he used, on lifting his hat, to raise his right hand to assist a graceful shake of his head in laying back his long hair, which rolled down his back and fell below his loins. And every female eye was upon him, as, with light step, he ascended the stair to the gallery, where he sat.” Among the foremost in all active and athletic exercises, well-stocked with songs and ballads even before he set about composing himself, playing the violin with heart and soul, handsome and good humoured, he was always welcome company among the lads and lassies. In his old age he sang, with humour not unpathetic, of himself when young, and that fire-streaming Norse mane of his, in “ The Cutting o’ My Hair”:—
“Mysell for speed had not my marrow Thro’ Teviot, EUrick, Tweed, and Yarrow; Strang, straight, and swift like winged arrow At market, tryst, or fair.
But now I’m turn’d a hirplin carle, My back it’s ta'en the cobbler’s swirl. And deil a bodle I need birl
For cuttin* o’ my hair.
“ On Boswell’s green was nane like me; My hough was firm, my foot was free; The locks that clustered o’er my bree Cost many a Lizzie sair.
The days are come I’m no sae crouse— An ingle-cheek—a cogie douce. An' fash nae shears about the house
Wi' cuttin’ o’ my hair.
“It was an awfu’ head, I trow,
It waur’d baith young and old to cow,
An’ burnin’ red as heather-lowe.
Gat’d neeboors start and stare.
The mair ye cut the mair it grew, An’ aye the fiercer flamed its hue— I in my time hae paid enew
Fur cuttin’ o’ my hair.”
He first began to write verses in the spring of 1796; and for several years composed only songs and ballads for the lasses to sing in chorus, and proud he was to hear them sung, and himself saluted as “Jamie the poeter.”—“I had no more difficulty in composing songs then than I have at present, and I was equally well pleased with them. But then the writing of them—that was a job! I had no method of learning to write, save by following the Italian alphabet; and, though I always stripped myself of coat and vest when I began to pen a song, yet my wrist took a cramp, so that I could rarely make above five or six lines at a sitting. Having very little time to spare from my flock, which was unruly enough, I folded and stitched a few sheets of paper, which I carried in my pocket. I had no inkhorn, but, in place of it, I borrowed a small phial, which I fixed in a hole in the breast of my waistcoat, and, having a cork fastened by a piece of twine, it answered the purpose fully as well. Whenever a leisure minute or two offered, I sat down and wrote out my thoughts as I found them. This is my invariable practice in writing prose. I cannot make out one sentence by study, without the pen in my hand to catch the ideas as they arise, and I never write two copies of the same thing. My manner of composing poetry is very different. Let the piece be of what length it will, I compose and correct it wholly in my mind,
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or on a slate, or ever I put pen to paper; and then I write it down as fast as the A.B.C.”
“The first time I ever heard of Burns was in 1797, the year after he died. One day during that summer a half-daft man, named John Scott, came to me on the hill, and, to amuse me, repeated * Tam O’Shan ter.’ I was delighted! I was far more than delighted—I was ravished! Before Jock Scott left me I could recite the poem from beginning to end, and it has remained my favourite ever since. He told me it was made by one Robert Burns, the sweetest poet that ever was born; but that he was now dead, and that his place would never be supplied. . . . This formed a new epoch in my life. Every day I pondered on the genius and fate of Burns. I wept, and always thought with myself—what is to hinder me from succeeding Burns ? I, too, was born on the 25th of January, and I have much more time to read and compose than any ploughman could have, and can sing more old songs than ever ploughman could in the world. But then I wept again, because I could not write. However, I resolved to be a poet, and to follow in the steps of Burns.”
J. T.
pipe ^clour ers.
XHL—SPODGER’S FRAGMENT.
The true historian finds it necessary to introduce unpleasant persons to his readers at times. Such persons are useful to “point a moral,” although they cannot be expected to “ adorn a tale.” It is with great reluctance that I introduce imperfect characters ambng my “Pipe Colourers.” I should like to leave such persons out in the cold, but my old war cry of “ Truth ” comes bubbling to my lips, and my paltry likes and dislikes shrink abashed into darkness.
I often think, brethren, if my predilection had been for falsehood, instead of truth, what an enthusiastic liar I should now be.
Spodger, I am happy to say, was never a personal friend of mine, although I knew him very well. He was a man I should not like to be seen much about with. His nose was an illumination, and would have occasioned folks to remark, if I had been seen with him: “ Now we know where Didimus spends his money.”
Spodger was once told by a friend of his, who, at the time of uttering the remark, might have been able to see through a ladder if the openings had been pointed out to him, that he, Spodger, was a “ sistent bibe of colics.” A few of us took a good deal of trouble to find out what he actually meant, it was this: “a consistent imbiber of alcoholics,” and it was certainly as good a description of Spodger as could be put into a few words. In fact, Spodger was scarcely ever known to go home at night sober.
As apipe colourer, Spodger's hobby was simply the unpretentious common clay. He took considerable pride in changing a pipe from snowy white to jet black. If any particular pipe was a non-success, he simply smashed it. Pipes which coloured well, he preserved, His old housekeeper (Spodger was a widower of about sixty, without any family) once told an intimate friend of mine, that her master had over a hundred of these black clays, which he kept in three large paper bags.
Mr. Spodger, every evening at eight o’clock, used to wend his way to the “ Blue Blanket.” Here, in the parlour, he had a regular seat, and in that chair he would sit and drink and smoke till it was time to close the house, then he would go home.
One evening a goodly number were met together in the aforementioned parlour. About nine o’clock the conversation took a turn on drinking and the various scrapes folks got into through getting intoxicated. One gentleman told how, when he had had a glass too much, he had an unconquerable habit of drifting to the left, and how one night, when a little bit overtaken, he had to round a pond to get home. The pond was on the left of him, and his peculiar style of locomotion drew him to the water’s edge. Three times did he beat a retreat, and three times did he return, till at last, in desperation, finding it impossible to round the corner, he waded through and so cut it off.
“ I never get drunk,” said a thin man, “ and I never see anybody home that is drunk; I did once, but never again.”
“ How was that Joe ? ”
“Well, it was Simmons; none of you knew him. I wasn’t so well off then as I am now, and some of my pals were rather a rough sort. I picked Simmons up pretty near dead and took him home. When I got to his house, as I
„^» I shook him a bit, and said, ‘ Here you are.’ ” “Right,” said he, and gave a big bang at the knocker, went a window; “ who’s there ? ” screamed a woman;
“I’ve brought the old man home,” said I; “All right,” she and came to the door. She immediately seized hold of Simmons and gave him such a shaking that his teeth seemed »rattle in his head; “Who are you shaking of?” says he; ‘goodness gracious,” cried the woman, “that’s not my husband’s voice.” I struck a match, and she found she’d been snaking the wrong man. “ There,” said the woman furiously, “I’ve been sitting up here expecting my husband home drunk, ^ now I’ve wasted all my strength on a stranger.” “ Don’t
he live here?” said I. “No,” said the woman, “he don’t.” “What made you knock?” said I to Simmons. “Knock,” said he; “you told me to.” “I thought you lived here,” said I. “ Glad I don’t,” said he. I suppose he was thinking of the shaking he’d had. At last I found where he did live, and got him home. Mrs. Simmons was sitting up for him. As soon as ever we knocked, out she came. “ Oh!” says she, “ You’re the wretch, as makes my poor husband drunk, are you?” and she caught me a slap across the face. I’ve never seen a drunken man home since.
Many other little anecdotes were related, and at last Spodger spoke. “For the last eight years,” said he; “I can safely say I have never been at a loss to find my house. Now there are thirty-one houses in Johnson Terrace where I reside, and my house is number twenty-two. All these houses have railings and gates alike, and long gardens, with many bushes growing in, in the front. When I first went to live there I was very much puzzled indeed. If I wasn’t particularly muddled, I used to count the gates, but I could never depend on that plan ; for, either through the monotony of the task, or atmospheric pressure, by the time I got to about seventeen, I used to begin to wonder if I had not made a mistake, and then my figures would desert me entirely. It was a great nuisance, for I used to get into wrong gardens, and damage other people’s flower-pots and shrubs very considerably. The matter worried me so that at last I determined to leave the house, and I called on a friend of mine, a builder and house agent, to see if I could get a house that, from its position, would enable me to find it whenever I wanted to. My friend wanted to know why I was thinking of leaving. I told him. He laughed, and said: “You needn’t leave forthat; I dare say I can find you a fragment that will settle all that bother.” So he hunted among his lumber, and found me the head and shoulders of a small statue. “Now,” said he, “just plant that in your front garden where you can see it from the road.” I took his advice, planted my fragment in a large flower-pot, with moss round it to hide the fractured part; popped it in my front garden, about four feet from the railings; and I’ve never made a mistake in my house since.”
This little account of Spodger’s was received with much satisfaction by the company about nine o’clock, when they were all sober and good; but, as most of them stayed for a long time afterwards, drinking and singing, much of their goodness began to wane. I hardly like to say that virtue gave place to vice, but the staid solemnity and dignity of the earlier part of the evening became slightly afflicted with variations. Thus, one gentleman fell asleep, and his neighbour, splitting a splint part of the way up, affixed it to the sleeper’s nose. He then set the other end aflame. When the tire was within an inch of his nose, the illuminated gentleman sprung to his feet with a cry of terror on his lips, trying at the same time to beat the danger off, but as he struck wildly at the air about a foot in front of his face, he did not succeed in dislodging the fiery rider without calling in foreign aid.
There was another gentleman, too, who was relating what was doubtless an extremely interesting story to the bell rope. He kept his eyes well shut all the time, and grasped, and occasionally shook with great fervour, the large tassel on the bell rope ; evidently labouring under the delusion that it was the hand of one of his dearest friends,
At 10.30 three of the “jolly companions every one,” rose to go.
One of them, as soon as they were outside, clutched his two comrades by their wrists, drew their heads together, and whispered something hoarsely in their ears. This only occupied about ten seconds, and then the three waddled away chuckling like a trio of comic fiends. •
Soon after eleven o’clock Spodger, well filled, started for home. He arrived at Johnson Terrace, and went cautiously along, peering into each garden. “ Here we are, at last,” he muttered, as he caught sight of his “fragment.” Then, with some little difficulty he opened his gate and got into the garden. Then he found his latch key, and with some little patience, he also found the keyhole ; it took him a few seconds to get the focus of the lock, but he arrived at it eventually, turned the key, opened the door, went into the hall, and closed the door behind him.
Spodger’s candle and matches were always placed on a small table in the “ hall,” as it was termed. He felt about in the dark, but could find neither table, candle, nor matches. This puzzled him a bit, but he thought he could manage to get to bed in the dark, so proceeded to hang up his hat in its usual place. He hung it up, certainly; but he must have missed the peg, for his hat came down with a bang. “ I must look for it in the morning,” said he, sedately; for he didn’t care about stooping too much, as he felt rather giddy. Upstairs in the dark Spodger now proceeded with great caution, and sought his bedroom door. He turned the handle, but the door refused to open; in fact, it was locked. Mr. Spodger began to consider. He felt the handle; it was a door, certainly, and his own, but it refused to open. His housekeeper must have locked it in error. He sought her room door, and rapped. The old lady, who was near seventy, was very deaf, so he rapped hard; no answer, So he kicked the door; still no answer. The man was getting into a passion. He seized the handle, but, yet another mystery: her door was locked. Something was wrong; if not wrong, certainly unsatisfactory.
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His housekeeper must have gone out, after locking the doors for safety, and been delayed; doubtless she would presently return. Meanwhile he would have a nap on the sofa in the ante-room. Unhappy Spodger; that door was also shut and locked. Thoroughly puzzled, he groped his way down to the front ground floor to recline his weary limbs on the sofa in his parlour. That room door was locked, and so was the door of the back parlour. He almost fell over what he thought was a cat. He spitefully kicked at it, missed it and his footing, and sat on it. It was his hat. After he'd said what was necessary, but which I will leave out, he thought of his comfortable arm-chair in the kitchen. Joy! the door was open; but, to his horror, the place had been stripped. It was not by any means a dark night; the moon occasionally showed herself, and by the gleams poor Spodger could see how he had been robbed. His arm-chair was gone. Everything off the dresser was gone. Fender, fire-irons, the pictures off the walls, and the carpet were all missing. A dreadful suspicion took possession of Spodger’s mind ; it was a case of robbers certainly, but were they not also murderers. The thought of his poor old housekeeper lying upstairs, locked in her room, with her throat cut, affected him greatly. He could not remain longer in the horrible place. In some fear lest the villains might still be on the premises, he removed his boots, and taking them in his hand, stepped out of the kitchen up one, two, three stairs, and almost came a cropper, as his right foot sought a fourth, and failed to find it. “ Well,” he muttered to himself, “ this beats all;” and at much peril to his balance, he stooped down to make sure that there were only three steps. “ Gracious!” he continued, “ its awful; they’ve stolen not only my (hie) furniture, but one of my kitchen stairs.” Spodger was correct so far. There should have been four steps, and there were only three. Another horrible thought struck Spodger. Perhaps the wretches, after murdering the poor old lady, had concealed her body beneath these very stairs, and in putting the place together again, had somehow knocked four steps into three. This idea started a cold sweat on Spodger’s high coloured brow, and without delaying another moment, with a shivering sensation all over him, he crept to the street door, opened it, and stepped out into the front garden. As he pulled the front door after him to close it before seeking a policeman, he turned round and faced it; the moon was now shining in good form, and, to Spodger’s consternation, it shone on the the brass number fixed to the door, and made it “26.” Here was greater mystery. Then in a moment the truth flashed upon him. Somebody had moved his “fragment.” This was true. The three gentlemen who left the parlour of the “ Blue Blanket” at 10.30 had performed this operation, and, as luck would have it, they happened to place it in the garden of a house where no one was residing; but in all the rooms of which, save the kitchen, a considerable quantity of furniture was placed, awaiting the coming of a newly married couple, who at the time of Spodger’s adventure were honeymooning. The houses were built all much alike, though the kitchen stairs happened to differ, and the locks and keys being bought by the dozen, of course all fitted. Spodger got home with some little difficulty. Next morning he fetched his hat and his “fragment;” and in the course of that day he had a hole drilled through his bit of statuary, and chained it to a tree in his front garden, to prevent its removal, and a further repetition of his rather disagreeable adventure.	D. Goggs. ®ur Smoke ^oom OHt. English Men of Letters. Edited by John Morley. London: Macmillan# and Co. 1878-9. V.—DANIEL DEFOE, BY WILLIAM MINTO. This very onerous work was well worth doinsr, and Mr. Minto has done it exceedingly well within the limits prescribed by his plan and the limits of the space at his disposal. People in general think of Defoe merely as the author of “ Robinson Crusoe; ’ or at the utmost beyond this os the writer of some brave pamphlets in defence of civil and religious liberty, in support of the principles of the Revolution of 1688 and the Protestant Succession; for one or other of which pamphlets he was pilloried and imprisoned. But, as Mr. Minto remarks in opening: “ He was a man of action as well as a man of letters. The writing of the books which have given him immortality was little more than an accident in his career, a comparatively trifling and casual item in the total expenditure of his many-sided energy. He was nearly sixty when he wrote ‘ Robinson Crusoe.’ Before that event he had been a rebel [in Monmouth’s rising against James n.], a merchant, a manufacturer, a writer of popular satires in verse, a bankrupt; had acted as secretary to a public commission, been employed in secret services by five successive Administrations, written innumerable pamphlets, and edited more than one newspaper. He had led, in fact, os adventurous a life as any of his own heroes, and had met quickly succeeding difficulties with equally ready and fertile ingenuity.” In his own words, “ No man hath tasted differing fortunes more. For thirteen times have I been rich and poor.” The marvellous intricacies of his career and character were not only unknown but unsuspected, until Mr. William Lee’s indefatigable researches were rewarded, in 1864, by the discovery in the State Paper Offices of six autograph letters addressed by Defoe, in 1718, to the Secretary of State. In that same year Defoe announced that since 1715 he had retired from all political controversy. These letters made it clear that he was still writing vigorously as a secret agent of the Government, as he had been writing and working since 1704; and they, moreover, put Mr. Lee on the track which led to the discovery of a large mass of Letters, Essays, and Pamphlets, which had lain buried in oblivion for a century and a half, and which constituted a great part of the literary work of the last sixteen years of Defoe’s life. These enabled Mr. Lee to publish in three elaborate volumes “ The Life and Recently-Discovered Writings of Daniel Defoe ” (London: John Camden Hotten, now Chatto and Windus, 1869); VoL I. containing a new Memoir, with a catalogue of no fewer than 254 ascertained works, great and small, acknowledged, anonymous, and pseudonymous, of Defoe; Yola. IL and ILL	containing a selection of 850 Essays and Letters, before unknown or unattributed, on a wonderful variety of subjects—political, commercial social, moral, religious, humorous, “ sensational,” and what we must sum up as miscellaneous. This great result of many years of devoted labour must continue the standard work on the subject, the work from which all succeeding Sketches and Memoirs must be mainly drawn; but its bulk and its price put it beyond the sphere of the general reader, who will welcome such a clear and careful handbook as the present. Mr. Minto tells us that, “ taking Mr. Lee’s elaborate work as my chronological guide, I have read such of Defoe’s undoubted writings as are accessible in the Library of the British Museum—there is no complete collection, I believe, in existence—and endeavoured to connect them and him with the history of the time." He has thus wrought at his subject in the hardest and most useful way, trying to track the pamphleteer and journalist through all his obscure winding#, instead of indulging in easy and superfluous expatiations on “Crusoe" and the “ History of the Plague.” His illustrative selections are good and to the point. The six letters discovered by Mr. Lee, while occasioning other discoveries which largely increased the estimate of Defoe’s energy and adroitness and fertility, shocked many of his admirers by revealing to what depths he descended in the secret service of the Whig Government which came into power with George L He got connected with several Tory papers, from which he took out the sting by stopping articles really formidable, by admitting others weak and silly, and in short, as he says himself, he kept them to pass as Tory papers, “ and yet bo disabled and enervated, so u to do no mischief or give any offence to the Government.” He waa thus, in plain words, a hired spy and traitor in the camp of the enemy; and be played the ignoble part with such astuteness and dexterity that he kept pour Mist the publisher, who was his chief unconscious tool, in a continual vay dense mist for eight years. When the secret of the treachery oozed out, Mist made a murderous attack upon him; but Defoe disarmed him,gave him his life, and sent for a surgeon to dress his wounds. Mr. Loe's robust hero-worship seems scarcely affected by this unsavoury part of Defoe's career—not careering this, but underground burrowing; he manages to stomach it even as Carlyle has managed miraculously to stomach not only Frederick the Great (Robber) but also his amiable father. Mr. Minto, on the other hand, appears to us too harsh in the severity of his condemnation expressed and implied throughout the narrative, though he relents to what we think a fair summing up in concluding the book. Thus he quotes with approval from a contemporary, “ His knowledge of men, especially those in high life (with whom he was formerly very conversant), had weakened his attachment to any political party; but, in the main, he was in the interest of civil and religious liberty, in behalf of which he appeared on several remarkable occasions.” He goes on to point out that political morality wm probably at its lowest ebb during Defoe’s lifetime (1661-1731). He had been behind the scenes: beheld Jacobites take office under William while intriguing with James; under Anne saw Whig turn Tory and Tory turn Whig as the tide of favour turned, and saw statesmen of the highest rank hold out one hand to Hanover and the other to St. Germains. “The most single-minded man ho had met had been King William himself, and of hi# memory he [Defoe] always spoke with the most affectionate honour." Partly by secret intrigue, partly through the public press, he did as much m any one man to achieve the Union of England and Scotland and the Protestant Succession. He was a powerful advocate in favour of almost evtry practicable scheme of social improvement that came to the front (and. we may add, the originator of many a one that did not come to the front till long afterwards). “ Defoe cannot be held up as an exemplar of moral conduct, yet if he is judged by the measures that he laboured for, and not by the means that he employed, few Englishmen have lived more deserving than he of their country's gratitude.” This seems to us just. His faults were mainly the faults of his age, his virtues mainly his own. He swerved from the open straight path into tortuous and miry ways, but he never really changed his goal. Mr. Minto, emerging from the labyrinth of intrigue, finds himself near the limits of his space, and has to compress the fictions and other works into a chapter, though they would furnish ample materials for another volume like the present; but it would certainly be a ticklish work in this age of “prurient prudery.” “Crusoe” and the “Journal of the Plague" are pretty generally known; not so the other works, which make up seven volt in Bohn's Library (Sir W. Scott’s edition); while, of course, there are many not included therein. Of “ Moll Flanders ” Mr. Minto says that it “is only a string of diverting incidents, the lowest type of book organism.” But what else is “ Gil Blas ” or “ Roderick Random ? ” The true relish of that wonderful book is to be found in the “Lavengro” of inimitable George Borrow, where he tells us of the old apple-woman on London Bridge who wm always poring on a book much older than herself, which she would not let out of her sight; which she would not sell for one silver crown, nor for two silver crowns, “ no, nor for the golden one in the King's tower down there: ’ but which sho would let him come when ho liked and read at her stall (as he did, sitting beside her on the stone bench of the mid-parapet recess); nhe adding, “ and, as you are so flush of your money, though you say you are poor, you may give me a tanner to buy a little ’Baccy with; I love ’Baccy, dear, more by token that it comes from the plantations to which the blK*d woman was sent.” The blessed woman was the heroine of the old book, bound with greasy black leather, its leaves yellow and dog’s-eared, even “ blessed Mary Flanders.” The rest of this unique story; how evil boys tried to run away with her book; how she got “ convictions ” and wa# willing to change it for a Bible, how Borrow tried to effect the barter with decorous and pious firms, how he found that his pocket had been picked of it and felt free to bay her a Bible, how when about to leave London ha sent her a piece of gold which she would not take, saying “ the poor thin lad wants it more than I;” how at Greenwich Fair the pickpocket, then a thimble-rigger, told Borrow that he got five guineas for the book; are not all these and countless other wonderful and admirable things to be found in the said history of “ Lavengro ’’ ? of the which history no good rea ier can taste a morsel and then abstain from devouring the whole. Thera are other critical estimates with which we cannot agree: thus p. 12, the depreciation of Cobbett; p. 85, where ho ranks Defoe’s art in the “ Shortest Way with the Dissenters ” as “ incomparably more effective as an engine of controversy ” than Swift’s ironical pieces, while admitting that it has none of their “ subtle strokes of wit.” But we have not room here to argue such pointe. We have noticed a few slight errors, easy to correct: p. 12, line 4, eighteen should be eight; p. 16, “ without the least fear of being able," should be doubt, ar else fear of not being able; p. 17, “ mistrusted of respect,” if not absolutely ungrammatical, is a very awkward phrase; p. 19, we have du-oouragad; p. 109, “the Court of Queen’s Bench, before whom, should be which, and one of them ” should be one of its members or judges; p. line 4, effects should be efforts; p. 169, “ The standard of political morality was probably never so low in England as during his lifetime” [1661-1131b should be never before or after, never at any other time, or, less awkwardly, “was probably at its lowest,” for beyond doubt it was precisely as low during the said lifetime. We may also observe that many of the year-dates are not marked so clearly as they ought to be. In such a biographic manual each chapter should be headed with the years included, and no confusion or obscurity should be left in the text as to the year of any important event. On the whole we can commend this little book as the first sketch we have come across at onoe true, complete, and popular, of Defoe’s strange career, not less strange in its kind than that of his Crusoe. Even students of will find it valuable for checking some of his estimates. Borrow was first aroused to interest in books by an illustrated “ Robinson Crasoe. Let us conclude with his only too rapturous apostrophe, inspired by the glamour of early memories: “ Hail to thee, Spirit of De Foe 1 What not my poor self owe to thee? England has better bards than either Greece or Rome, yet I could spare them easier far than De Foe, * unabashed De Foe,’ as the hunchbacked rhymer called him.” “ Earless on high stood unabashed De Foe,” “ Dunciad,” Book IL, v. 147; but Defoe’s ears were cropped, and he had no cause to be abashed, for the crowd around tbs pillory, instead of jeering, heartily applauded him, and pelted him flowers instead of garbage; so that the ignominy was transformed into a popular triumph.
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No. 114.—Von. IL]  SEPTEMBER, 1879.	 J&*S
tobacco-Calcs.—Cahcn on Crabcl.
80x1 time ago I was one of a company imprisoned by remorseless and continuous bad weather in a high Alpine tillage. The chief part of the time was spent by us prisoners in the smoking-room, and we amused ourselves by relating anecdotes, or culling them from the piles of newspapers, old and new, belonging to the inn or to the guests; and all our anecdotes bore upon the weed with which we were solacing ourselves. The results of this Nicotian symposium were communicated at the time to the Tobacco Plant. During the present year, in travelling from the German Ocean to the Alps, I have found that Tobacco (thanks chiefly to Prince Bismarck and the monetary necessities of the German Empire) is everywhere the topic of talk and writing. In the railway carriage and in the newspaper, in the caff and at the table d'hote, we have had smoke in our eyes, smoke in our nostrils, and smoke in our ears. Every Government in Europe is debating whether it cannot get an increase of revenue out of the citizen’s pipe or cigar. Every little peasant farmer in Belgium, in the Rhenish Palatinate, in Baden, and in Switzerland, who has hitherto devoted more or less of his small patch of land to Tobacco-cultivation, feels that the question is one which comes home to his business and his bosom. Hence all sorts of little local journals, of which the great world knows nothing, are printing articles upon the Tobacco question; and local meetings are being held by the politicians of all sorts of small communities, in order to debate the bearing of the approaching universal increase of the Tobacco-tax upon local interests. I am quite bewildered as I glance at the thick heap of ephemeral literature which I have collected upon this exciting topic during my progress from the North to the South. I cannot venture just now upon the organisation and comparison of my pile of newspapers—in French, Flemish, Dutch, and German. The subject has its amusing as well as its serious side, however; and if I cannot undertake at present to give a judicial summary of the politico-social aspects of the projected encroachments of the various States upon the Tobacco-field and the Tobacco-pouch, I can relate a few of the Tobacco-tales which I have collected upon my route.
I came upon the first of these in Bonn, on the Rhine, a city in which I have had pleasant and instructive chat with *n intelligent Tobacco dealer. A man went into a little shop in one of the narrow lanes leading down from the market place to the river, asked for his usual little packet of Tobacco, and laid down upon the counter the sum he had always hitherto paid for it—20 Reichspfennige, a little more than 2d. in English money. “Excuse me, sir,” said the shopkeeper, “ that Tobacco now costs 24 Reichspfennige.” “Why? ” said the smoker. “ Because of the intended increase of the Tobacco-tax,” replied the salesman. “ What,” exclaimed the other, “do you mean to say that this Tobacco has already been subject to the impost?” “Certainly,” said the shopkeeper, “it is an entirely fresh import; it only arrived yesterday.” “ So,” replied the smoker, “I cannot endure fresh Tobacco; ” and taking up his 20 pfennige he went to another &hop, where he obtained his little packet at the old price.
Amongst the Swabians I heard a tale of the much travelling General Grant, the American ex-President, who became a great favourite with the Germans during his journeyings amongst them a year ago. The teller of the story happened to be at Hamburg last year during the races, and found the American warrior and statesman staying in that city. He *as received with all the honours due to a distinguished guest who had made his mark in contemporary history. A
reserved place on the principal balcony was placed at his disposal. The ex-President is notoriously a passionate smoker, and he asked as a favour that he might be allowed to light a cigar. Consent was freely given by the Race Committee. The General made himself thoroughly comfortable, and was evidently enjoying himself, when an officious martinet, a rich merchant of Altona, ignorant of the arrangement made between the Statesman and the Race Committee, called one of the servants and ordered him to “Go to that Englishman, and tell him at once that he must put out his cigar.” The General politely complied; but at the same moment he rose up, called his carriage, and drove away to his hotel before the Race Committee was aware of the peremptory insolence of the man of Altona. The latter bit his lip with vexation when he learned the distinguished character of the man whom he had supposed to be an ordinary “Cook’s Tourist;” and he will probably never be allowed by his neighbours to forget his tactless trick.
The scene of my next little story is laid in Switzerland, and I owe it to a chance number of the Neue Ziircher Zeitung. In a village in the Canton of Solothurn, a peasant went into the communal forest in order to make “Wedelen.” The little man was a great smoker, or, as the local historian puts it, “a great Tubakler before the Lord.” When he arrived in the depths of the wood he discovered, to his anguish, that he was only provided with one solitary match. Here was a perplexity indeed! With this one single pipe-lighter how could he manage to smoke, according to his wont, all the daylong? “Noth macht erfinderlich” says a German proverb—the cousin to our own “Necessity is the mother of invention.” He devoted his first energies to the heaping up of a bonfire of sticks, lighted it with his one precious match; and although the sun burnt fiercely in the clearing, and the sweat ran down his brow, he returned to his bonfire at intervals and kept heaping fresh material upon the fire, in order to preserve a pipe-tight for himself from early morning till sunset. The little man was thus enabled to Tubaken (as the Solothurner dialect calls the act of smoking) without break all day long. This zealous little Solothurner peasant ought to have his portrait taken, in order to serve as an adornment for a box of pipe-lights.
The annals of Tobacco are particularly rich in smuggling episodes. Most of the stories in this category present their heroes in the light of ingenious shufflers who manage to escape the charge of smuggling, and cheat the officials into the belief that they are honest. Here, however, is the story of a man who was eagerly desirous to be suspected of smuggling. He was a rich farmer in Bohemia, hard upon the Prussian frontier, a district in which Tobacco smuggling has long flourished, in spite of the vigilance of the police. He had a quantity of corn last harvest which needed immediate threshing; his huge “Korn-boden” lay thickly crowded; he could get no labourers, as all had gone off to take situations for the winter. His corn began to “sweat,” and threatened, unless it was immediately turned over and over, to 'become utterly spoiled. One day the police office of the district received an anonymous notification, stating that the wealthy farmer G. was a protector of smugglers, if not a pirticeps criminis, and that Tobacco in large quantity lay secreted at that moment in his threshing-floors. Here was a splendid catch for the oft-cheated police. Six vigilant and lynx-eyed officers were despatched to Farmer G.’s early in the morning. They ransacked every corner of his granaries, and, in the sweat of their countenance, turned over and over the whole mass of his corn. It was midday before their work was done, and they found that they had been misinformed or hoaxed. They told the farmer under what a cruel suspicion he lay, and waxed indig-
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nant against the informer, who had attempted to stab bo honest a man in the dark. Farmer G. accepted their apologies, and consoled them with a very capital dinner; but he took care not to let out the secret that he was the author of the communication which had brought them down post-haste upon his farm, and that they had been doing his private work while they fancied that they were doing the work of the State. In spite of the discomfiture and detection of the organisers of the miraculous apparition of the Virgin Mary at Marpingen, there are still devotee peasants here and there who profess to be favoured with such manifestations. The latest of these took place in the pious Ermland, and it is of some interest to us on account of its accidental relation to the supernatural, or, rather, the infra-natural use of Tobacco. The person favoured with the latest miraculous appearance was a bricklayer, who lives at Schonbriick. near Allenstein. A few Sundays ago he was putting new tiles to a stove, when suddenly, just as the mass was being commenced in the parish church, the man perceived in the flames of the stove a most beautiful woman, with a child in her arms. He turned round for an instant, and saw standing behind him “a black-bearded ugly churl, with a cigar between his teeth.” The man threw some fresh wood into the stove; whereupon the bells rung at the church, and just as the priest was breaking the Host, the child in the flames divided into two portions, and his mother disappeared. The black rogue, who was undoubtedly Satan, disappeared also, with so horrible a yell that the poor bricklayer almost swooned away with fright. It appears from this revelation that the devil is also a smoker. There is a kind of Veltliner red wine which goes by the name of “ Inferno ” on account of its fiery strength. What can be the flavour of that infernal species of Havannah in which the devil takes delight ? T. H. Tobacco ^gishfinn in the ®^m ^ingboms. in. [Close of Proclamation, 29th September, 1626.] Customs Officers are to search all ships for contraband Tobacco, and the same being found to seize and take to our Use; and also to apprehend the Bringers in and Buyers of the Same, to the end they may receive condign Punishment for their Offences; every such Officer found negligent or corrupt therein shall loose his Place and Entertaynemente, and undergo such Paynes and Penalties as the Laws or Starchamber may inflict. And Wee do ordeyne that it shall be lawfull for such Person or Persons as we shall authorise or appoint [presumably him or them to whom we shall give or sell the Monopoly] or his or » their Deputie or Deputies, with, a lawfull Officer, to search any Ship and to enter into any Shoppe House Sellar Warehouse or other suspected Places at lawfull and convenient tymes, to search and discover any Tobacco imported, sould or to be sould, not marked or sealed as aforesaid, and all such Tobacco to seize and take away and dispose of [see Jinal paragraph] , and to informe of the Holders thereof, to the end they may receive Punyshment according to our Pleasure before herein declared. And all Mayors Sheriffs etc. etc. shall be diligent in the Execution of this our Proclamation, and in ayding such • Person and Persons and his and their Deputies and Assignee. And the Attorney General shall from time to time inform against Offenders herein in our Court of Starchamber, and prosecute everie such Information speedily and effectually until the same shall be brought to Sentence. Finally, “ And our Pleasure and Command ys, that all the Tobacco which, uppon any Seizure shall become forfeyted, shall be brought to our Custom House next adjoyning to the Port or Place where the same shall be seized, where the seizor thereof shall deliver the same to our use, and the same shall be forthwith burnt consumed and destroyed, but the Offender before he be discharged shall pay to the Party who seized the said Tobacco the one halfe of the true Value thereof; and that such Person or Persons whom Wee shall appointe specially by our Privy Seale, to take Care and Charge to the Execution of our Pleasure in the Premisses, shall have the one halfe of all the Fynes to be imposed upon everie Offendor against this our Proclamation for their Encouragement to be diligent and faithfull in and aboute the Performance of that Seryvce we shall so commit unto them.” After which “Wee” may surely chuckle satisfied that we have settled that pestilent Tobacco for a while, and give our whole mind to the Proclamation, dated eight days later, “ De Pardonatione special! pro Roberto Karr nuper Comiti Somerset,” our discarded but sorely dreaded minion, at whose trial (in 1616), for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, we were in such abject trepidation lest he should carry out his threat of revealing some horrible secret of our intimacy; but, God’s wounds! our most subtle pandar Bacon (since tried and disgraced) did so work upon him by assurances of our pardon and continued favours, and did so manage the trial, that he refrained from declaring the infamy; though, indeed, our	good Lieutenant of the Tower had placed two servants, one on either side of him, each with a cloak on his arm, “ giving them a peremptory order, if that Somerset did any way fly out on the King, they should instantly hoodwink him with that cloak, take him violently from the bar, and carry him away; for which he would secure them from any danger, and they should not want also a bountiful reward.” (“ Sir Anthony Weldon;” cited in “ Pictorial History of England,” HI., 62.)* 1624; November 9th.—In Rymer, “Foedera,” under date, we have, “Per Breve de Privato Sigillo,” “De Concessione Demiss.” “ Edwardo Dichfeild and aliis,” for giving effect to the preceding Proclamation: Appointing Edward Dichfeild, Salter; Reuben Bourne, Richard Morrer, George Bromley, Grocers; William Perkyns, Marchant Taylor; and Edward Bennet, Marchant; all of London; “our Officer and Officers for Us and in our behalfe, by themselves or theire Deputyes, to be nomynated by them under theire Handee and Seales, or under the Handes and Seales of the greater nomber of them; to take Chardge and Care of the Execution of our Royali Pleasure in our Said Proclamation expressed and declared within our Said Citty of London, and in all other Cittyes Townes and Places in this our Realme of England and Dominion of Wales and in our Realm of Ireland: To have houlde exercise and enjoy the Said Office and Employment for the tearme of Seaven Yeares now next coming, and from thenceforth untill the Feaste of the Annunciation of the Virgyn Marye nexte ensuing after the Said Seaven Yeares are expired.” For the more speedy and certain Execution of their Office, they or their deputies shall and may be resident in our Custom House of London and in all other Cities Towns and Places in England Ireland and Wales, to search for and seize contraband Tobacco, and to register try mark and seal all Tobacco imported into our Port of London [the only legal Port for Tobacco, by the Proclamation]. For their better Incouragement to be diligent and faithful] they are to have (as the Proclamation specified) the one halfe or Moiety of all such Fynes as shall be imposed upon Offen-dors: but (final paragraph) in all Cases where the Offendor shall not be discovered, or shall be unable to pay a Recom-pence for the Satisfaction of his Offence answerable to the Value of the one Moietye of the Tobacco forfeited and seazed, the said Tobacco shall not be burnt and consumed (as commanded in the Proclamation), but the one Moiety thereof shall belonge of Righte to the Party soe seizing the same; “ that is to saye, that such as shall be Agents for us shall either have the same of them, at and for such reasonable Price as they can agree uppon, or else that the Party Seizing the same shall have free Libertye to export the same into any Parts beyond the Seas, uppon good Security given to our Agents that the same Tobacco shall not be returned or broughte back into any of our owne Kingdomes and Domynions.” “ And for the present Wee doe herebye appointe and directs that every Roll of Tobacco shall be sealed with one Seale engraven with the Scuchion of our owne Armes of England Scotland and Ireland at the one end of the Roll, and with another Seale engraven with a Lyon crowned on the other end of the Roll, and those Seales to be used untill we shall otherwise declare our Pleasure to the contrary.” SlGVAT. • The whole story of the fall of Carr, the rise of Villiers, and the contemptible self-seeking servility of Bacon, is told very well for general reader* in the “ Pictorial History,” with references to the contemporary authorities. I select one or two more traits of the noble character of the King. He went to hunt at Royston, and took Somerset with him. There, as he seemed rather in his rising than setting, he was attached by the warrant of tin Lord Chief-Justice Coke, who, however, had refused to proceed until James had joined several others in commission with him. “ The King had a loathsome way of lolling his arms about his favourites’ necks, and kissing them; and in this posture Coke’s messenger found the King with Somerset, saying, ‘When shall I see thee again?—When shall I see thee again?’* When Somerset got the warrant in the royal presence, he exclaimed that never had such an affront been offered to a peer of England. “Nay, man," said the King wheedlingly, “ if Coke sends for me, I must go;” and as soon as Somerset was gone, he added, “Now the devil go with thee, for I will never see thy face more 1” This was at ton o’clock in the morning. About three in the afternoon tho Lord Chief Justice arrived at Royston, and to him James complained that Somerset and his wife had made him a go-between in their adultery and murder. He commanded him, with all the scrutiny possible, to search into the bottom of the foul conspiracy, and to spare no man how great soever. And in conclusion, he said to Coke, “ God’s curse be upon you and yours, if you spare any of them; and God’s curse be upon me and mine, if I pardon any one of them!” (ILL, 58; from “Rushworth.”)—Heonly pardoned the two principals, Somerset and his wife, allowing Somerset a hush-money pension of £4000 a year, and snatched away from the bar by force Sir Thomas Monson, his chief falconer, who was implicated, but who, he feared, would “ play an unwelcome card on his trial." On the day the Countess was tried and condemned, Somerset, who ought to have been tried with her, was warned by Sir George More, the Lieutenant of the Tower, that he must stand his trial on the morrow. The Earl, who had before desired this, absolutely refused to go, telling the lieutenant that he should carry him by force in hi* bed; that the King had assured him he should never come to any trial, and that the King durst not bring him to trial. This language made More quiver and shake; . . “ yet away goes More to Greenwich, as late as it was, being twelve at night, and liounces up the back-stairs as if mad.” The King, who was in bed, on hearing what the lieutenant had to say, fell into a passion of tears, and said, “ On my soul, More. I wot not what to do! Thou art a wise man; help me in this great strait, and thou shalt find thou dost it for a thankful master.” “ Returning to the Tower, the lieutenant told his prisoner that bs had been with the King, and found him a most affectionate master unto him, and full of grace in his intentions towards him; * but,’ said he, ‘ to satisfy justice, you must appear, although you return instantly again, without any further proceeding, only you shall know your enemies and their malice, though they shall have no power over you.’ With this trick ot wit ho allayed his fury, and got him quietly to the hall; yet feared his former bold language might revert again, and, being brought by this trick into ths toil, might have more enraged him to fly out into some strange discovery," and so placed the servants with the hood-winking cloaks on either side of him. (III.. 61-2; from “Weldon,” confirmed by Letters from More himself published in the “ Archjeologia,” Vol XVIIL
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®^ ^I^wr’s |ipt BY G. EDWARDS. [San Francisco News Letter, July 26,1679.] Ho! Keeper of the boxes’ keys, just list to me to-night; Come, pop me in where I may smoke, and quickly bring a kght; And mind that you conceal me well from managerial view; Here’s guerdon for thy trouble, slave—I’ll pay for what you do. Thus spoke I to a harpy on the outlook for his fees; Theatrical attendants, if you pay them, strive to please; The rules and regulations they’ll permit you to defy, And knowing this, I thought to have a whiff upon the sly. He took the bribe, be popped me in, but ’ere I struck a spark He asked a special favour—“Would I please to keep it dark?” The rules, he said, were very strict—infringement might upset His manager, who never smoked, and put him in a pet. Thus cautioning, he went away. The play at once began, But as it started, in there came to me a shrivel’d man; His face was lean and wither’d, and his dress was black and tight. What was it made me shudder so? what filled me with affright? “It’s very cold,” I muttered, as my blood quite chilly ran. “D’ye think so?” was the answer bland of that same shrivel’d man; “I don’t feel cold”—and as he spoke a glow lit up his face— “Come, if you’re not unwilling, sir, I’ll gladly take your place.'1 We shifted seats, and then again I keenly scanned him o’er; I saw that he was not so aged and wrinkled as before. His cheeks were round and ruddy, and his hair had changed its hue, And as I looked I felt quite sure ’twas some one that I knew. Instinctively I pressed two hands on what I thought my brow, And then I saw—oh! horrid sight, methinks I see it now— That they were withered, shrunk, and lean—forget it ne’er I can— That he was me, that I was he—I was the shrivel'd man! To shout I tried, but found my voice was harsh, and cracked, and thin; “You thief, give me my body!”—all he gave me was a grin. “Call louder, if you like,” he said; “I neither care nor fear, For ’mid this din that voice so thin no mortal well can hoar.” “Nice body this of yours,” he said; “it fits me to a T; The arms a trifle short, it’s true, but that don’t trouble me; A front tooth loose—perhaps you find that spoils a pleasant chat— Now, when you get your body back, pray don’t say I did that.” “Talking of arms, just let me ask you’ll not throw mine about So wildly, they are fragile, and perchance you’ll wear them out. Talking of teeth, just let me beg that mine you will not grind; We have no dentists down below—in surgery we’re behind. “And now, perhaps, you’d like to know what ’twas that brought me here; Well, give me close attention and you very soon shall hear: A smoker all my life, I loved Tobacco or cigar— Virginia, Bird’s-Eye, Golden-Leaf, beat all the joys there are. “ ’Ere I was ten I used to smoke—at school I learnt the trick— Sometimes it castigation brought, sometimes it made me sick; Yet toffee, apples, sugar-plums, nor jam had charms for me Like those of surreptitious pipe—I weary you, I see. “No? Shall I, then, recount its joys? Would you through life have pax! Would you avoid half human ills? Forget your income tax? Of toothache be oblivious? or grim poverty despise? Find quick relief for any grief? Try ’Bacca—you’ll be wise. “Ten pipes a day on earth I smoked; now, by a hated law. For twice five years I have not had a single blessed draw! Down there to smoke is not allowed, unless the smoker first Puts on a body—curse the rule, I’d break it if I durst I “Quite recently we have resolved that smoking ghosts, who get Permission from their owners, may—now, pray don’t fume or fret— Put on their bodies for a time—of course, they’re only lent ”— “You fiend!” I cried, “you know right well you ne’er had my consent.” “It’s vulgar to call names, my friend,” the smoker quick replied; “ If I, like you, were angry, I should tell you that you lied I You must remember, surely—I’ll not overstate the case— You gave consent most willingly for me to take your place.19 And as the fiend thus rambled on, my anger higher rose; I clenched his fist, I felt inclined to strike him on the nose. Proverbial wisdom stayed my hand—discretion, we define The better part of valour, and I knew that nose was mine !	Just then, in tones familiar, came the words “ Good-bye; best ; thanks; For you I would do, if I could, as much. Excuse my pranks! ” I was alone. The ghost had gone through roof, or floor, or ‘ crack;	i I cared not how; ’twas joy to know I’d got my body back.	; Next morn a summons I received; was brought before the ; beak,	। Who heard my story, smiled, and said that my defence was I weak; And then remarked that if I would with ghostly folk hob-nob, I might expect to come to grief—he fined me forty bob. ®alts Oltr on f^t Sea of ^a. vn.—LIFE IN THE PACK. A JOURNEY ON THE ICE PROPOSED. THE CAPTAIN “ SPEAKS A PIECE.” Still beset in that dismal pack. How very slowly the time flies on. Time ! why it must now be long past midsummer. We can tell that without much reckoning, for the sun at noon is not so high above us as it used to be, and at the noon of night it creeps nearer to the horizon. What we suffered most from was the want of employment, and we tried all sorts of games, both on the snow and on board; we had cricket matches and shooting matches and cards, and, just by way of giving zest to each of these, we invariably played for some little stake. This at all events gave us an appetite for dinner, the hour of which we had now changed to half-past six, so that it became quite the event of the day ; and, there being plenty of rum on board, exactly at the same time, a glass of ship’s was served out to every man on board, with orders that they were to mix it with their coffee. This arrangement made jollity pretty general, both fore and aft, and nightly around the galley fire pipes were smoked, and songs were sung, and Jack came out of his box and told his queerest stories, his messmates’ laugh being ready chorus. Friday was Banyan day, but Friday was also sea-pie night. The sea pie was partaken of on the quarter-deck, after which the main brace was spliced, fiddles were tuned, reels were played, and for two whole hours, and sometimes three, all hands kept it up, and danced as you’ve got to go to Greenland to learn how to. On ordinary nights we in the cabin lingered long over our dinner, then came post-prandial weeds, and post-prandial yarns and small talk. It was now months since we had been visited in our desolation by any living thing ; even seals and sharks had deserted us, and nor bird nor bear ever came near us. But the sky was still blue and windless, and the silence was as the silence of the grave. One evening, after we had been smoking for quite an unusually long time without speaking, the captain took his pipe from his mouth and placed it lovingly on tbe table, then he drew his ’Baccy box close under his chin, and began to tease a portion of the contents in a contemplative, speculative kind of way, as men often do when they are in deep thought. “ I’ve been thinking, messmates,” he said at last, earnestly continuing his occupation, as if his life depended on it. “ I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve got just a leetle bit too far north this journey. Well, there is no getting out of this eternal pack this year, that is pretty evident. Now, men, we are very idle, what say you to a little ‘explore ’? We can’t be much worse off than we are. We have plenty of provisions, and plenty of coffee and ’Baccy. We are none of us cowards, we are used to the cold, healthy, and as hard as nails. Well, what I propose is this : to take our latitude and longitude as correctly as possible—for I don’t think the pack is changing ground at present, nor will it for six months to come—to prepare sledges, well load them with everything good, and take a journey due north. There’s nothing like activity, in my opinion; and if we don’t come to a sea of open water around the pole, then, boys, I’m wrong, that’s all.” Our answer was an English cheer, that went ringing from stern to stem, and was re-echoed from half-deck and galley, for the men must have known there was something good in the wind. Even the big dog dropped his Spratt cake and joined in the cheer. Then up sprang Paddy Mulligan, and disappeared up the ladder. He was back again in five minutes, looking roguish and radiant. “Bedad,” he cried, “I’ve been telling the boys of the sport we are going to have, and there’s divil a mother’s son of them but wants to volunteer.” “Ah! but Paddy,” said the captain, smiling, “every mother’s son of them mustn’t. The party must be numerically small, the spectioneer must take charge in our absence, and we will set out on the expedition accompanied only by a trustworthy twenty.” “That’s it,” we all cried; “a trustworthy twenty; that’ll do.” “And now,” said the captain, “who’s going to spin us a yarn to-night? What! no reply? Then, jigger me, & I don’t pu|l you one myself.” “Bravo!” captain. “Now, boys, just wait until I get into full blast.” Then
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the clouds went rolling up to the cabin roof; and he cleared his throat, and began DAUVID DRINKWATER.* Dauvid Drinkwater—that was the name of my hero. You may as well know it at once. And I should also tell you that my story hasn’t got any conclusion, as yet, anyhow; though I live in hopes that some day or other the seeming mystery will be cleared up. Well, boys, Dauvid lived in a very ancient city indeed, and the name thereof was Glaiska. He hadn’t lived here all his life; no, honest Dauvid had been a weaver at Paisley. A Paisley body? So you may call him, if you are so minded; but you wouldn’t have quite disparaged him had you seen him. He was tall, very tall; lanky, very lanky, with a terribly lang, auld-farrant Scotch face, high-cheek bones, melancholy psalmsinging eyes, a yellow, close-shaven face, with a mouth that drooped at the flews. Such was Dauvid; and on his back he wore a long, grey-green surtout, in his hand an umbrella of portly appearance, and on his head a broad, old-fashioned Tam-o’-Shanter bonnet. Now, in the city where Dauvid Drinkwater lived there was a society of the ancient order of antis (A.O.A.), and Dauvid was its president; and a very proper person, everyone allowed, to fill that important office. And, in the city where Dauvid dwelt, there was much ▼ice and sin, much drinking of strong drinks, and much smoking of the vile weed called by the ungodly Tobacco. Yet, in the midst of all this sin and iniquity, Dauvid and his followers led pure and blameless lives. They smoked not, neither did they drink; they were burning and shining lights among a stiff-necked and careless generation. And yet if the inhabitants of this second Sodom, as Dauvid called it, held on in sin and smoking, it was no fault of his. It wasn’t as if they weren’t told of their ill, vile, and evil courses. For they were. Yes; Dauvid, in many a long and saintly discourse, pointed out to them the errors of their ways, expatiated to them on the hundred ills that pipes produce, and threatened them with the just indignation of injured Nature, if they cast not aside the sordid clay. The second Sodomites listened very patiently to all that Dauvid had to tell them; and, when he was done, they quietly lighted their pipes, and strolled leisurely home. “My friends,” said Dauvid, one day after dinner—he had been dining with a select assortment of choice spirits—“ My friends,” he said, holding up a glass of green ginger wine between him and the light, and shutting one eye the better to enjoy its sparkling colour, “how long are we to dwell in this city of sin? How long are we to remain under the shadow of the devil’s wings? Let us leave this second Sodom, lest some evil thing befall us. Up, then, I say, let us flee into a far country. Let us make of ourselves a peculiar people, a colony of the devoted, a colony of Antis. Let us seek us a land where the fumes of the vile weed shall never be felt, where the voice of the reveller shall never fall upon the ear. Up, up, I say again; let us take our wives, and our children, and our children’s wives, and flee into the wilderness. Peradventure we will be provided for.” As Dauvid Drinkwater finished speaking he likewise finished his glass; then he twirled his thumbs, shook his head in a melancholy, pensive kind of a way, and groaned; for Dauvid was meditating on the wickedness of his day and generation. And he groaned as Cant has always a way of groaning, and turned his eyes upwards like a jaundiced Brahma cock. And it must be frankly confessed that Dauvid’s eyes did have a devilish curried look about them, and—what is it that people will not say?—why, in this second Sodom there were not wanting men—or, rather, fiends in the shape of men—who openly and publicly averred that nobody in the world liked a stiff night-cap better than this saintly Anti, or took more kindly to a tumblerful of rum and milk of a morning. Now, whatever Dauvid did, the same was attempted by his disciples, and David’s word was at all times a law unto them; so on this occasion, as soon as he had emptied his glass they all filled and drank off theirs, then lifted up their eyes, and groaned aloud; so there was a good deal of groaning around this festive board. After which, “Go,” they cried, almost all in one breath, “seekus a land where we can live in quiet and comfort; we will follow you to the uttermost regions of the earth!” The unanimous decision thus arrived at by the faithful followers of Dauvid Drinkwater, fully accounts for a strange and motley procession that one cold, wet morning might have been seen shaking the mud from its feet, and leaving the city of the second Sodom for ever and a day. Yet, to the credit of the Antis, be it told that everything in this solemn exodotic procession spoke of the humility of its component parts. Here were no gay banners flaunting in the morning air, no fluttering flags floating in the matutinal breeze; nor drum nor fife was heard, nor the trumpet’s shrill clarion, nor anything that breathed of aught save peace and lowliness. First came Dauvid himself; he rode upon a meek-miened donkey, he grasped the umbrella, and he wore his Sunday’s hat—this was a beaver of broadest brim—and streaming from that umbrella’s top, and held aloof from Dauvid’s own * A true and faithful likeness of Dauvid is given in this year's Allegorical Picture. It is the tall figure floating in the clouds.—G. 8.	saintly hand, was a table napkin, on which could be seen a strange device, and on which could be read these mythical words— “STRIDOR, VENTUB, AQUA.” Behind him came Dauvid’s eldest son leading along, by a string tied to its leg, the family sow. A string of woeful looking, rain-bedraggled men and women came next, then followed numerous carts laden with household gods, in the shape of ricketty furniture of the plainest deal — for these antis were in habits the simplest, and coveted none of the vanities or gaieties which were everywhere displayed around them in this sinful city of the second Sodom. On top of* these carts, cornered here and there wherever there was space, between the legs of upturned tables, or seated cross-legged on beds of chaff or straw mattresses, were dozens of over-grown looking, long-necked, cotton-dressed children. Close by the carts walked the mothers of these, bearing unpleasant looking infants on their backs, unsavoury brats who were nevertheless expected in time to grow up into strapping manhood, and be, like their fathers before them, the salt of the earth. By no means cheery looking females were the mothers of these hopeful young olive branches, partaking more of the bony than the beautiful, tall and lank as a rule, blue and meagre, vixenish and vinegaf-visaged. If the truth must be told, not one of them relished this exodus, and it is sad to think that, unlike their husbands they did not adore Dauvid, thought him cracked brained, in fact, and a bit of a humbug; they would, accordingly, have much preferred stopping at home, and really didn’t see much harm in the clay-pipes, and twopenny smokes so much relished by the sons and daughters of Sodom the second. Behind these undutiful wives walked a few halter-led horses, hollow-eyed, hanging lipped, and screwy looking. Nor had the cows been forgotten, for they brought up the rear, scraggy unhappy cattle, whose hocks, as they shambled along, seemed to be trying to form the figure of eight, whose udders flapped from side to side with every movement, and whose gaze, half foolish, half wistful, was one to see but once, and to remember evermore. There was one cow in particular who had a double duty to perform—a little Alderney she was—and on each side of her was strapped, to a saddle of old sacking, a round churn, and in each churn was stuck a twin. There was nothing of these twins visible except the heads, but that they were the saintly Dauvid’s very youngest anyone could have told at a glance. This, then, was the procession of Antis. They were known, the captain assured us, to take the direction of Greenock. They were even seen to enter the smoky suburbs of that Scottish Cardiff, but thenceforward their movements were wrapt in obscurity. We lighted our last cigar as the captain finished talking, silently wondering whither this mysterious band of Antis had wended their way. But little did we think just then that we should so soon stumble across them in the Lone Lorn Land of their adoption. Gordon Stables, M.D., BN. ®^af ^nluchg ^ipe. “ That’s been the cause of it all, my boy—that and nothing else in the world; ” and Bob held up to my view a short clay pipe, as black as a nigger, and just as shiny. I was not by any means prepared to be told that a pipe—a simple jolly little cutty—was capable of producing the havoc in a man’s life that was implied in my friend’s declaration. “Yes, Jack,—that’s done it all,” he continued, emphatically ; as he gazed at the little clay with a solemn frown, and heaved a sigh. Yet I noticed that he took out his handkerchief and with great tenderness rubbed its ebon surface, as a fine-art collector might dust his most costly and precious possessions. “ This blessed pipe,” Bob resumed, “the best that ever was smoked—see, it’s as black as your boot, and as sweet as a nut—has come in my way times out of number, always turning up at the wrong moment and in the wrong places; and has stopped my brightest chances and spoiled my fondest hopes. No witch could have done it more effectually; no sorcerer could have worked such spells of evil and carried them to so successful a termination as this unlucky little beggar has done.” Bob paused, and hia face became cloudier than ever; and still he gently rubbed his enemy. Then he left off polishing, and slowly and carefully filled his cutty from his Tobacco pouch; and, having lighted up, went on:— “ Well, about the time I last saw you, or shortly afterwards, I got this cutty. He was only a rough-looking little customer at first; but I rubbed him down with sandpaper to make him a little respectable, and before I had had him a week he showed unmistakable signs of his good breed, and began to colour famously. It might have been well for me if I had broken him the first day I had him; but you shall hear. Before that week was over I heard of a good vacancy in the city; and, having an introduction to the merchant, went one morning to make my application. As ill-luck would have it, the ‘Boss’ was out; and I was requested to leave my letter and call again at two o’clock. Well, you know, Jack, things weren’t too rosy just then (they’re not much better now, I am
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sorry to say); and, as I didn’t happen to know then, any more than I do now, any * pub ’ where the weary may be at rest without paying for it, I wandered up Eastcheap, and, turning down St. Mary-at-Hill, found my way on to the quay in front of the Custom House. I dare say you know the place—where you might knock the pigeons over with a walking-stick by dozens; and where many an office-boy and junior clerk takes his luncheon alfresco, and learns navigation free of expense. I had a morning paper; and the spot striking me as particularly well suited for the study of politics, combined with a short indulgence in the soothing weed, I selected a comfortable stone to sit upon, lighted up this blessed pipe, and prepared to wile away the two intervening hours. I had not been sitting there long, before I heard—loud above the roar of the traffic in Thomas Street—a piercing shriek, which brought me to my feet in an instant; and, as people were running off the end of the quay, I followed to see what was the matter. A poor woman, carrying a bundle on her head, had been knocked down and run over, and, of course, a large crowd had collected. I elbowed my way through the crowd, and rammed past an old gentleman. Just as I got by him, he began coughing violently, and shouted—‘ Confound your vile pipe, sir, and your beastly Tobacco!’ I turned, and found I had nearly choked the old boy—a very elaborately got-up old swell of about sixty; and, as the crowd moved away a little, and he and I were left almost alone,
“ ‘I am sure I beg your pardon,’ I said.
“ * Oh, of course!—oh yes, no doubt!—it’s easy to beg pardon; but you’ve poisoned me with your filthy smoke. It’s a pity—a great pity—that you’ve no better occupation, sir, than to smoke vile pipes at this time of the day—confound you! ’
“Tins was rather too much. I merely replaced my pipe in my mouth, and said—* Well, old boy, you’d better wear a glass ease when next you go abroad. Good morning ! ’
I re-entered the gates, and left the old fellow swelling with rage. I managed to get through the time somehow, and retraced my steps to Gracechurch-street exactly by two o’clock; and was ushered into the sanctum of the merchant. I pulled myself together, as I entered the room, and then I stopped dead: there—sitting in a large chair before a monstrous table, in all the pomp and glory of commercial prosperity—sat, looking straight at me, the identical old gentleman whom I had nearly suffocated in Thames-street! There was a most awful pause, during which the old gentleman’s face underwent severe changes. First, blank and pale with astonishment; next, the blood began to rise ; then a purple tint spread over every feature; and, finally, swelling out of his chair, he grasped each arm of it and, glaring at me ferociously, he shrieked—* You scoundrel!—you villain !— you—you imposter!—How dare you ?—Confound your impudence ! ’ and, seizing his bell and then the poker, he advanced upon me as fast as his rage and shaken legs would let him. I turned, just as half-a-dozen clerks came rushing from the outer office; rammed my hat on to my head, and fled; but before I reached the street the poker came banging down the stairs after me, and a voice shouted from above—‘I’ll teach you about glass cases, you rascal! I’ll—I’ll .’ I heard no more, I bolted out into the great busy thoroughfare, sought refuge in the crowd, and made my way home a disappointed man.”
It was difficult to keep a serious face when Bob concluded, but I saw that to him the story presented no ludicrous aspect; and so, puffing hard at my pipe, I merely said: “ Too bad! ”
“Too bad? yes; but that’s only once,” he replied. “After that I got a corresponding clerkship with Writtem and Suem, the lawyers, in Bedford Bow; and things went on pretty well until one night, when, there being a great pressure of work, two of us stopped late; and, all the other fellows having gone, and the office being closed, I lighted up—the little beggar was about half-coloured then. Jones (that was the other fellow) didn’t smoke. When we had been at it some time the outer door opened, and some one entered; but, thinking it was only the housekeeper coming in to clean, we took no notice, and I puffed away. The now comer stopped at our room door; then there came two long and deliberate sniffs, which made us look up; and, before we had time to speak, in walked the great Suem himself. Now Suem was admitted by everybody to be a beast—a sneaking, spiteful, unforgiving little beast. He was, and no mistake; and we all hated him accordingly. He was a little skinny chap, pale and smoothfaced ; always dressed in black; never lost his temper; when he smiled your blood seemed inclined to run cold; and (what’s more) he never did smile unless he meant mischief. He was a humbug. He used to say, whenever he was down on us, *1 like all my clerks to be gentlemen—in fact, I like to think all my clerks are gentlemen.’ Well, in he came, and found me—pen in one hand, and pipe in the other. * Ah! Blake,’ aaid he, ‘smoking, eh?’ ‘Yes, sir; I was just having a whiff—I thought there could be no harm after office hours.’ ‘Oh! no, Blake—no harm, no harm; only—I don’t permit smoking in my office. That’s all.’ ‘I’m sorry, sir; but I knew of no rule applying to smoking after office hours.’ ‘ My rules, Blake, apply equally to all hours, you see;’ and then his cold eye fell on this unlucky little chap. I had tried to hide it under my pad, but Suem’s eye saw everything; and, raising his umbrella (black and sleek, like himself) he poked it under the pad until he had brought the pipe right into the light, and said—‘ Dear me, Mr. Blake! ’ (when mischief was
brewing he always said ‘ Mr.’) what a shockingly dirty pipe! how very dirty, and what an offensive odour!—phew!—really, Mr. Blake, I should have thought no one but a coalheaver, or some such common person, would have put such an extremely dirty thing in his mouth. I am surprised, Mr. Blake.’ And then the reptile smiled, and walked away to his own room in sham horror. Says Jones: ‘You’ve done it! your goose is cooked, and no mistake.’ And Jones was quite right. Suem said no more about it; he made the place so uncomfortably warm that my life became a misery to me. Whenever I went into his room he would say: ‘Blake, kindly open the window—just a little. I fancy there’s an unpleasant odour. Thank you, Blake.’ Oh! howl used to boil! And at last the fellows got at me; and one night I lost my temper when a fellow named Potts put his head into my room and said: ‘What an unpleasant odour about here, Mr. Blake!’ I jumped up and shied my ruler at him, hitting him on his cranium, and fetching the blood. The sneak yelled, and brought Suem from his room; and, of course, there was the deuce to pay. Suem says, ‘Your conduct, Mr. Blake, is very improper—most revengeful—ungentlemanly in the extreme. I am really shocked, Mr. Blake. I cannot permit such violence in my office.’ ‘Well, then, sir,’ said I, fairly goaded, ‘ perhaps I had better resign my situation.’ Suem looked at me, and then smiled his cold smile, and said, ‘As you like, Mr. Blake—perhaps you better had. You know best, Mr. Blake.’ I did so. Suem never said ‘stop;’ and that was the second time this unlucky pipe lost me a situation.”
“Well, Bob, that was hard, upon my word; but you don’t mean to say the pipe was fatal again.”
“Again?” echoed Bob, “again? Yes—again and again. I tell you he’s been my curse in everything and everywhere, in every conceivable form. Why, you recollect the Jorams, of Tavistock Square?”
“Yes, well,” said I.
“ Hang the pipe! It’s when I think of Bessie Joram that I feel it most. That was the worst business of the whole lot.”
“Why, what on earth had the pipe to do with Miss Joram? ” “Well, now, just listen; and tell me if it wasn’t enough to make a saint swear. I always had an idea that Bessie liked me a little bit, years ago, when we used to spend the summer evenings in the old square garden, just before my father failed; and, though I hadn’t seen her for a couple of years or more, I often and often wished those evenings might come again. However, it’s no good crying over spilt milk, I suppose; but there are some things, Jack, which a fellow never can get over.” And, as Bob said this, he looked at the little pipe so ferociously that I thought its hours were numbered at last. But I was wrong. After a short pause, he stuck it fiercely between his teeth, and continued:—“One day I was coming through Regent Circus, and ran right up against Bessie and her mother (stuck-up old girl, her mother—^deuced proud); and, somewhat to my surprise, they were very jolly. Bessie said, ‘ I think you have been very unkind, Mr. Blake, in never having given us a call all thus time.’ Bless her little heart! little she knew what an up-and-down time I had since last I saw her. What would she have thought if I’d turned up at Tavistock Square in the togs that bad to do duty for twelve months, right off the reel? Methinks she would have stared! But just then Iwas rather a swell!—this lot was new.” (Bob looked at his shiny coat regretfully.) “I apologised as best I could; and got off on promising to look them up within a week. As Besie shook hands, I fancied she did so a little more heartily than a simple acquaintance would demand; and afterwards I had reason to think it was not fancy only. However, I called at Tavistock Square several times after that; and Bessie’s manner was so encouraging that I assure you—to make a long story short—I had formed the boldest schemes as to her future. For a long time all went well; and Mrs. Joram was wonderfully amiable. Her icy reserve thawed astonishingly; and I felt things were coming to a crisis. But the crisis to which they came was a very different one from that my ever hopeful mind had pictured to itself—the contemplation of which deprived this youth of much of his lawful sleep, and had alarmingly reduced his usually voracious appetite. Well, well! it happened thus:—I had been there to supper one night; and, after I had put on my overcoat, Mrs. J. called me back to the room to request me to call at Mudie’s for her in the morning for a book; and, as I was standing at the door, Bessie said, ‘Why, you haven’t put your scarf on.’ ‘Oh, no,’ said I, ‘it’s not cold enough to-night.’ ‘Yes, it is,’ she said, ‘quite cold enough for a scarf, I’m sure. Where is it?’ I put my hand into my pocket and pulled it out. I shall never forget it, Jack; for, as I dragged it forth, something fell. We couldn’t see what it was; but we all three heard it, and began a search. *1 see something,' said the great Mrs. J. She stooped, and raised it to the light—and oh! horror of horrors! the light fell on this ill-fated pipe! She gave a shriek, dropped the wretched thing and said—‘Oh, dear! What a nasty, horrid pipe! You never mean to say that dreadful thing is yours, Mr. Blake?’ It was useless to deny it—I turned scarlet. Even little Bessie looked shocked. Mrs. Joram passed me majestically, drawing her skirts together as she went; and, without another word, stalked into the room. Bessie said ‘ Good night! ’ as kindly as she could, but followed her mother and left me stupified. Mechanically I picked up my little curse, and left the house. Oh! Jack, if you knew
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QOPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
[September, 1879.
what I felt that night, as I walked home! I cursed the pipe and the day I was born, alternately. No sleep could I get for hours; and when, near daybreak, I dozed, it was only to dream of this blessed pipe baulking me at every turn. In a thousand shapes it tormented me; and at last, in the form of a fiend, it bore off my dear little Bessie, enveloped in red fire, across a blazing gulf; and in my agony I awoke, to find that I had upset my candle and set fire to the bedclothes. You may laugh, Jack; but I never was so miserable in my life. Well, next day I got the book and went up to Tavistock Square; and, for the first time, Mrs. and Miss Joram were ‘ not at home? ”
“Why, Bob,” said I, “you don’t mean to say you never called again?”
“Never, Jack, never; and I never will.”
I saw he meant it, and I urged him no more. Although the story was comical, I could see that my old friend felt his bad luck sadly; and so I said:
“If I were you, Bob, I’d smash the beggar and have done with him.”
“ Many and many a time I meant to,” said Bob; “ but the mischiefs done now, and (looking aside at it) he’s a real beauty, and ’twould be a sin to break him.”
There was a pause, during which we both puffed away. I was thinking how I could do Bob a good turn, when suddenly he broke the silence with—
“ Why, he got me locked up once.”
“ Nonsense! ”
“Fact! and lost me another berth at the same time; or, at any rate, the chance of getting it.”
“ Now, really, Bob! ”-----
“ I tell you, what you’ve heard is only a bit of what this little pipe has done for me; but you must go now, or you’ll miss your last train.”
My time was really up, and I wished Bob good-night and turned out into the street.
A week or two after our meeting, I secured an appointment for Bob in China, with some first-rate people I know out there; and afterwards I went to see him off in a P. and 0. steamer for the far East. As I watched her steam away, Bob stood by the gangway, waving his hat; and at length his face was lost to view behind a cloud of smoke, puffed from “That unlucky pipe.”	W. D.
dope’s gjidurr
Across the wilderness of ice-bound northern lands and frozen seas, I extend the hand of friendship to the Tschuktschers, and hail them as my brothers! Last discovered of the tribes of men, they come to us with the emblem of common humanity and of common devotion to our dear Tobacco. The tidings that thus gladden my nicotinian heart reach me from the prisoners of ice who have lain through the long Siberian winter on board the good Swedish ship “Vega,” beyond Cape Onman and Koljutschin Bay, and nigh unto Behring’s Straits on the Asiatic side. They come to me in the authentic correspondence of that rare sea-dog, Professor Nordenskjold, worthy successor of the antique Norsemen; whose fingers traced them on the 25th of November, 1878, in a temperature of 26° Celsius; which I take to be nearly 50 degrees below freezing, measured by Fahrenheit. The observant Professor finds a strong family likeness between his new friends and the Greenlanders. The Tschuktschers, like the Esquimaux, enjoy as a delicacy the pluck from the stomach of the reindeer; and the arms and household utensils of the two kindred races are alike, down to the minutest detail. But, unlike the Esquimaux, the Tschuktschers had never till a year ago seen a ship. They are a hardy people, even compared with the Esquimaux, whose acclimatisation to fabulous oold was one of the chief delights of my youth; when, over the fire on bleak winter nights, I read the adventures of Parry and of Basil Hall, while all England was longing for news of Sir John Franklin, not yet daring to believe that the “Erebus” and “Terror” would sail into port no more. “Children were there in large numbers,” says Professor Nordenskjold; “they were treated very kindly, and looked extremely healthy. They were often carried about on the shoulders of both men and women, and were then clothed so warmly that they looked like balls of fur. On the other hand, the little ones when inside the tents are quite naked, and I have even seen them come out and run about in this condition when the temperature was below zero.”
But now let me give you the proof that the Tschuktschers —notwithstanding the total unpronounoeability of their tribal designation—are in sooth and verity our brothers. Says the excellent Swedish chronicler, in continuation of his story:—
“ Tobacco is in general use here. All the men (and women, too, when they have opportunity) smoke most extraordinary pipes, which they cany about with them, with lights and Tobacco-pouch. The pipes are extremely small. Both real Tobac o and surrogates are smoked. The lighting materials consist of a steel, agate, and touchstone, such as are used in Sweden. Tobacco and surrogates are also chewed, then placed behind the ear to get dry, and finally smoked. Salt is not used, but every one seems fond of sugar. Coffee is not cared for unless well sugared. Tea is in great request.’' In what do they differ, then, from me—civilised, Christianised, philosophical dweller in a temperate zone? Do not I smoke most extraordinary pipes, which I carry about with me, with
lights and Tobacco-pouch ? Did I not buy but yesterday, in England’s chief city, lighting materials which consist of a steel, agate, and tinder? These Tschuktsch gentlemen are a trifle more economical than I; for I do not dry my chewed plug behind my ear, and smoke it afterwards. That may be, however, mainly because I do not chew, and therefore have no plug to dry. Am I not just as fond of sugar as they? Do I care for my coffee without sugar ? And, after Tobacco, is not tea in greater request in my domestic retreat than any other product of my Mother Earth? In two points of the enumeration we differ—I use the salt which they do not need; and I refrain from all competition with them in the consumption of Tobacco’s “ surrogates.” But so, doubtless, would these estimable-Tschuktschers, if they could get (as I can) an unlimited supply of Tobacco.
Settled thus upon the ancient highway, along which (as the learned surmise) original man slowly journeyed frop the cradle of his race to the two western continents, these people are even to-day many thousand years nearer to the Youth of the World than I am. The centuries in long procession have passed them by, and left but feeble traces; for here, alongside the mounds of the dwellers in primeval ice-caves, where lie the bone and flint implements of their antique progenitors, these native Icemen of the nineteenth century still make and use implements of the same materials and on the same unchanging models. So, were I free to fly from this weather-distracted island, and leave this sultry, sullen autumn behind, I might see with these eyes, upon the inclement shores of the Arctic Ocean, how the fathers of my own people lived and wrought and died, in the ages before Nature revealed her secrets of copper and coal and iron—in the lost cycles of time ere history began to be, and before humanity had dreamed of the birth of tradition. But there, as in the newly found graves of those primeval men that have come to light on the American continent, I should find the Pipe which proves how long the man has found his comforter in the narcotic herb, Tobacco.
Well, it is “ a long cry ” from Behring’s Straits to Aberdeenshire; and a longer from Tschuktschers and their savage wives to the Marquis and Marchioness of Huntly. But many a whaler from Peterhead has made great part of the distance; and see how the aborigines of the Arctic Circle are linked by a common devotion with the proud aristocracy, whose most ancient lineage compares with that of the Icemen but as this morning’s shadow compares with the mountain it shades! The Scottish marquis, who is known as Baron Meldrum in the House of Peers, was present at the summer gathering of the Royal Northern Agricultural Society at the end of July; and I find him reported thus:—
“He was asked by a friend, who saw in the papers that he was going to open the Horticultural Show, what in the world he knew about it—laughter —and he was obliged to confess that the only plant that really interested him was one that was sometimes known as ‘the noxious weed’—Tobacco. He did not know if there were any specimens of it in the show; perhaps it would not thrive in the cool braes of Aberdeen; but for all that it was, as Kingsley said, the cordial of the poor man, and the friend of every person that indulged in it. (Laughter and applause.) Whether or not that society oould 8remote in Aberdeenshire the growth of Tobacco, he was certain that in its
S years’ work in the locality it had done a very great deal of good.”
The Marquis, you perceive, is modest, as becomes the young and noble. There was really no occasion for the very low estimate he offered of his own interest in plants; for I hear quite different accounts of his accomplishments from less interested quarters. He is not to be measured, I am told, by the figure he has cut in Parliament this year; and if you would do justice to his intelligence and statesmanlike industry, you may read with advantage Mr. James Howard’s remarkable pamphlet on the Land Question, just issued as the first of a series on “ Practical Politics.” It is not for me, at any rate, to depreciate the intelligence and authority of a nobleman who gives the Tobacco plant the chief place amongst ths products of the earth. Long may he live to enjoy the flavour and the consolation of the Weed.
Is it wonderful if—inspired by those widely diverse examples, which are so closely akin—I fall to musing on the virtues of a leaf that can soften the severity of life on the margin of eternal winter, yet heighten the joys of existence amongst the luxurious fulness of British wealth and honour? While I am thinking, there comes to me this legend, reminding me that Tobacco has its part in artistic as well as in social life:—
“The story of Regnault’s celebrated picture of Salome is an interested one. It was first simply an untitled head painted from a Roman model One day Fortuny entered Regnault’s studio when he was painting, and stood smoking and looking first at the picture and then at the model Then silently he walked across the room, took down from the wall a great brass dish and a Turkish dagger, put them in the model's lap, arranged the drapoy, and said, ‘Piece your canvas, paint her that way, and call her Saloma.’ Regnault followed the great Spaniard’s advice, and Salome made a success.” ’Tis a story of ten thousand. Every studio could match it, with more or less fidelity of detail. And not the studios only; for wherever man has need that his fancy or his reason should have free play, relieved of the burden of pain and care and worry of nerve, Tobacco comes to his aid. In literature —aye, in the literature of the pulpit and the laboratory, as well as of the poet and the romancist—and not alone in art, grand thoughts have sprung to life under the fostering influence of nicotian fumes. “ The world is still a little off the track as to what is really useful,” says the author of “Pusley,’’ in his “Back-Log Studies”; and he proves it, so far as himself is concerned, by getting through an entire summer in his garden, and an entire winter by his log-fire,
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without (to the best of my recollection) the slightest allusion to Tobacco. It is the absence of the Weed from his cosy gatherings of friends and neighbours round the winter hearth that most clearly proves their unreality.
If you want to know anything authentic about the manners and customs of the Devil, I venture to believe you could not do better than apply to the Daily Telegraph. The editor of that publication is proud of his knowledge of practical demonology. Here is his latest effusion upon his most congenial subject:—
"Wonders will never cease. A supernatural appearance is reported from Enuland which must have been more astonishing than the most inexplicable of the mysteries laid be ore uh by our most dexterous conjurers. On i recent Sunday morning, an impious brickmaker of Schonbriick, near AlknsUin, was feeding his kiln with fuel. Just at the hour of holy mass he happened to look in at the open furnace door; and in the very middle of the flames he perceived a beautiful maiden with a child in her arms. Turning ronnd, in obedience to an irresistible impulse, he saw, standing close bvhiud him, a strange black-bearded fellow, leering hideously, and bidding lightly between his teeth an incandescent cigar. With singular presence of mind the perplexed brickmaker reverted to the kiln-door, and cast more fuel into the furnace. Upon this the radiant maiden vanished, and the infant gplit into two halves. At that moment the bells of the neighbouring church ning out in notification that the elevation of the host was then taking place within the sacred edifice. Immediately the evil-looking individual, in whom the brickmaker had instinctively recognised the Father of Lies, disappeared with in angry growl, and the over-wrought brickmaker fell down in a swoon, from which he only recovered to forswear brickrnaking on the Sabbath for evermore. It is especially interesting to notice among the details of this spiritual manifestation that Satan has ho far kept pace with the habits of comparatively modern times as to have taken to nmoking. We presume tint bis favourite brand is labelled ‘ Infernaks,’ and is distinguished from mere mortal weeds by an uncommonly full flavour.”
I feel no inward call to dispute the credibility of this narrative, or to traverse the accuracy of the Telegraph's conjectures. I make no pretence of acquaintance with the particular brand of cigars which your experienced contemporary considers— and doubtless with excellent judgment—suitable to the taste of his Infernal Majesty. It is well to know, not only what to use, but what to avoid, in Tobacco as in food and drink. I desire to be preserved from “ Infernales.” That brand has cost the authorities of Peterborough Court severely; and they do well to keep it for the patron. And it pleases me to find them writing in a style so elevated and so pure, of a Dignitary with whom they are popularly supposed to be so familiar. American journalists are not so dignified ; nor do they so carefully spare the susceptibilities. The Galveston Sews, for example, is well informed of the circumstances under which the alliance between the Telegraph and the monarch of Hades was effected. It’s language, however, is not choice; and the expedient of disguising the dramatit persona under the figure of “two newsboys” is clumsy and transparent. But I give you the story as Galveston prints it:—
“Oxly a Stockholder.—Two newsboys weie standing in front of a eiga$store, when one of them asked the other: ‘ Have you got three cents ? ’ ‘Tei’ ‘Well, I’ve got two cents; give me your throe cents, and Ill buy a five-cent Havana cigar.’ 4 All right,’ says No. 2, handing out the money. He enters the cigar store, procures the cigar (on credit, possibly), lights it,and puffs with a great deal of satisfaction. ‘Come, now, give us a pull,’ says No. 2. ‘ I furnished more than half the money.’ * I know it,’ said the smoker, ‘but then I’m President, and you are only a stockholder; you can spit.”*
It cannot be denied that No. 2 has fulfilled his part of the bargain: he spits.
Your Man-of-All-Work.
Inuits Hogg, f^t (Ettrick Skep^trb.
n.
A ltttlx more must be given, and as much of it as possible in his own characteristic language, concerning the youth of Hogg; not only because it is biographically the most interesting part of his life, but because it illustrates the general life and character of that noble peasantry of which he is but a type; a brilliant type in literature, no doubt, especially when account is taken of bis uncommon lack of early schooling, but scarcely a brilliant type—perhaps, indeed, rather below than above the average—in sound sense, clear intellect, sterling strength and depth of nature. Few contrasts appear more startling than that between the South Scottish (not to speak of the Highlanders) and South English peasantry, until the recent re-awakening of these, hailed with astonishment by their most sanguine friends, so profoundly hopeless seemed the long torpor, the stolid degradation. The former were perchance quite as poor as the latter; but their poverty was free from intellectual and moral squalidness, nor was the farmservant socially separated from the farmer, so as to be looked down upon as a serf while not looked after as a serf, whose strength and well-being are of not less value to the master than those of his horse and his ox. The spirit of the former was nourished and sustained by lofty memories, patriotic •nd religious, the heart and the imagination were fed with chivalrous and romantic traditions, with ballads and songs of rich geniality, beauty, and humour; the latter were yet more brutally starved in mind and spirit than in body, with • poaching exploit for their highest romance of daring. The contrast came out conspicuously in their merry-meetings: those of the former merry indeed, with sweet song and swift dance; those of the latter a heavy, beery muddlement, whose dance was an uncouth lurching shuffle, whose song was the dreariest of long-drawn tuneless doggerel. Poor “ ill-used race
of men that till the soil ”! well might one of them declare at their Conference recently, “ Mr. Arch has taught us more in five years than the parsons did in five hundred.”
Hogg, with his brother, the two Laidlaws, and a few others, “ formed themselves into a sort of literary society, which met periodically, at one or other of the houses of its members, where each read an essay on a subject previously given out; and after that, every essay was minutely investigated and criticised.” In his interesting paper on “ Storms,” full-charged with personal experience, he tells us that one of these meetings was fixed for Friday, the 23rd January, 1794, and to be held at Entertrony, a wild and remote shieling at the very source of the Ettrick. “ I had the honour of being named as preses—so, leaving the charge of my flock with my master, off I set from Blackhouse, on Thursday, a very ill day, with a flaming bombastical essay in my pocket, and my tongue trained to many wise and profound remarks, to attend this extraordinary meeting, though the place lay at the distance of twenty miles, over the wildest hills in the kingdom. I remained that night with my parents at Ettrick House, and the next day again set out on my journey.” However, he had to turn back, with a heavy heart; the terrible snowstorm was brewing which burst between one and two the next morning, and whose effects he so vividly describes; the snow-storm in which seventeen shepherds perished and upwards of tliirty others were carried home insensible, while the number of sheep lost far outwent any possibility of calculation. On the Beds of Esk alone, and the adjacent shores of the Solway Firth, there were found, when the flood after the storm subsided, 1840 sheep, nine black cattle, three horses, two men, one woman, forty-five dogs, and one hundred and eighty hares, besides a number of meaner animals; and whole flocks were buried deep in the snow, which lay a week. “The storm was universally regarded as a judgment sent by God for some heinous sin: but whose, and what? Despite the weather, the meeting was held at Entertrony, and this shieling was in the very vortex of the storm, the very centre of the devastation; and soon the rumour spread through the country-side that these poor young fellows of the mutual improvement society had been engaged in unholy rites, had raised the deil among them like a great rough dog at the very time the tempest began, and were glad to draw cuts, and gie him ane o’ their number to get quit o’ him again. How* every hair of my head, and inch of my frame, crept at hearing this! for I had a dearly-beloved brother who was of the number, several full cousins and intimate acquaintances; indeed, I looked upon the whole fraternity as my brethren, and considered myself involved in all their transactions. I could say no more in defence of the society's proceedings; for, to tell the truth, though I am ashamed to acknowledge it, I suspected that the allegation might be too true.” There was a real ferment in the district for a time, and it is said that legal proceedings were meditated and attempted against the unhallowed evocators, the cause of such stupendous disasters.
It may be mentioned here that in 1793 he had a bit of travel which considerably influenced him, having gone with a flock of his master’s sheep to Strathfillan, in Perthshire, and viewed the wild grandeur of the mountains and glens of the west Highlands.
Here is another bit of peasant life worth recording; as Mr. Thomson says, “ It was the third Eclogue of Virgil starting into life among the braes of Ettrick—it was Menalcas, Dameetus, and Pahemon preparing to pipe over again, with the stake of a kid against a bicker of beech-wood! ” It had better be given in Hogg’s own words:—“In the spring of 1798 [Mr. Thomson makes it 1796], as Alexander Laidlaw, my brother William, and myself were resting on the side of a hill above Ettrick Church, I happened to drop some hints of my superior talents in poetry. William said that as to putting words into rhyme it was a thing he never could do to any sense; but that if I liked to enter the lists with him in blank verse, he would take me up for any bet I pleased. Laidlaw declared he would venture likewise. This being settled, and the judges named, I accepted the challenge; but a dispute arising respecting the subject, we were obliged to resort to the following mode of decision: Ten subjects having been named, the lots were cast, and that which fell to be elucidated by our matchless pens was the stars I—things which we knew little more about than merely that they were burning and twinkling over us, and to be seen every night when the clouds were away. I began with high hopes and great warmth, and in a week declared my theme ready for the comparison; Laidlaw announced his next week; but my brother made us wait a full half-year, and then, on being urged, presented his unfinished. The arbiters were then dispersed, and the cause was never properly judged; but those to whom they were shown rather gave the preference to my brother’s. This is certain, that it was far superior to either of the other two in the sublimity of the ideas; but, besides being in bad measure, it was often bombastical. The title of it was ‘Urania’s Tour’; that of Laidlaw’s ‘Astronomical Thoughts’; and that of mine ‘Reflections on a View of the Nocturnal Heavens.’” The magniloquent titles of these peasant lads are delicious.
“In 1801 [when he was 39 according to his own account, or 41 according to Mr. Thomson], believing I was then become a grand poet, I sapiently determined on publishing a pamphlet, and appealing to the world at once. This noble resolution was no sooner taken than executed; a proceeding
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much of a piece with many of my subsequent transactions. Having attended the Edinburgh market one Monday with a number of sheep for sale, and being unable to dispose of them all, I put the remainder into a park until the market on Wednesday. Not knowing how to pass the interim, it came into my head that I would write a poem or two from my memory and get them printed. The thought had no sooner struck me than it was put in practice; and I was obliged to select, not the best poems, but those that I remembered best. I wrote several of these during my short stay, and gave them all to a person to print at my expense; and having sold off my sheep on Wednesday morning, I returned to the Forest. I saw no more of my poems until I received word that there were 1000 copies thrown off. I knew no more about publishing than the man of the moon; and the only motive that influenced me was the gratification of my vanity by seeing my works in print. But no sooner did the first copy come to hand than my eyes were open to the folly of my conduct; for, on comparing it with the MS. which I had at home, I found many of the stanzas omitted, others misplaced, and typographical errors abounding in every page.’* Having thus launched him on the still-vext sea of literature, let me note as briefly as possible the principal events of the remainder of his after-life, interspersing and adding a few characteristic anecdotes and sketches of and by some of his well-known contemporaries. In the autumn of 1802 [Hogg says summer of 1801], he first met Walter Scott, who, as the “Shirrah” of Selkirkshire, was a little king in the Forest, and who was then making a “raid” in the wilds of Yarrow to collect old songs and ballads for the third volume of the “ Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.” Hogg records graphically his daredevil riding and boating (leistering kippers in Tweed), and instances of his marvellous memory. Hogg’s mother delighted him by chanting the ballad of “Old Maitlan’,” and when he asked her whether she thought it had ever been printed, the outspoken dame replied: “Oo, na, na, sir, it was never printed i* the world. . . . But mair nor that, except ‘George Warton’ and ‘James Steward,’ there was never ane o’ my sangs prentit till ye prentit them yoursell, an’ ye hae spoilt them a’thegither. They war made for singing, an’ no for reading; an’ they’re nouther right spelled nor right setten down.” “ Heh-heh-heh! Take ye that, Mr. Scott,” said Laidlaw; and Scott laughed heartily. After two or three journeys to the Highlands and Hebrides, Hogg with another took a sheep farm in the island of Harris; but the tacksman’s right to it was disputed, and our shepherd lost by the affair the £200 he had saved during his ten years* service at Blackhouse. Fortunately he was of a most buoyant nature. He went and sojourned among the lakes of Cumberland ; then cheerfully hired himself, in 1804, as shepherd to Mr. Harkness, of Mitchel-Slack, in Nithsdale, herding on the great solitary hill of Queensberry, again in a ragged coat and barefooted. Hither came Allan Cunningham, then apprentice to a stone-mason, with a much older brother, on a pilgrimage of hero-worship, just as Allan once walked all the way to Edinburgh merely to catch a glimpse of Scott in the street. Hogg saw the two approaching, and wondered who they could be; and when the elder, James Cunningham, asked whether he was himself, “I answered cautiously in the affirmative, for I was afraid they were come to look after me with an accusation regarding some of the lasses. The younger stood at a respectful distance, as if I had been the Duke of Queensberry, instead of a ragged servant lad [age about 34] herding sheep. The other seized my hand and said, ‘ WeU, then, sir, I am glad to see you. There is not a man in Scotland whose hand I am prouder to hold.’ ... he continued: ‘this is my brother Allan, the greatest admirer that you have on earth, and himself a young aspiring poet of some promise. You will be so kind as to excuse this intrusion of ours on your solitude, for, in truth, I could get no peace either night or day with Allan till I consented to. come and see you.’ ” Whence we may see that the intense hero-worship of Carlyle is not a distinctive personal passion, but rather indigenous to his native soil. Allan was then “ a dark ungainly youth of about eighteen, with a boardly frame for his age, and strongly marked, manly features—the very model of Bums, and exactly such a man. Had they been of the same age, it would not have been easy to distinguish the one from the other.” Here, without detracting Cunningham, I venture to differ from Hogg, opining that the living physiognomy of Bums was as unique in its fiery splendour as his genius. Hogg went down to Allan; they had a firm hand-grip, and from that moment were friends, being both enthusiasts for the same things. Hogg goes on: “I had a small bothy upon the hill, in which I took my breakfast and dinner on wet days, and rested myself. It was so small that we had to walk in on all-fours; and when we were in we could not get up our heads any way but in a sitting posture. It was exactly my own length, and on the one side I had a bed of mshes, which served likewise as a seat; on this we all three sat down, and there we spent the whole afternoon, and I am sure a happier group of three never met on the hill of Queensberry. Allan brightened up prodigiously after he got into the dark bothy, repeating all his early pieces of poetry, and part of his brother’s [Thomas Mouncey Cunningham] to me. The two partook heartily, and without reserve, of my scrip and bottle of sweet milk; and the elder had a strong bottle with him—I have forgot whether it was brandy or rum, but I remember it	was excessively good, and helped to keep up our spirits to a late hour.” Hogg after this often visited them at Dahwinton, and he and Allan were firm friends to the last. When, in 1810, Cromek brought out the “Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song,” Hogg at once declared that Allan Cunningham was the author of all that was beautiful in the work, and found Scott decidedly of the same opinion; “and he wished to God we had that valuable and original young man [thep about 25; born 1785] fairly out of Cromek’s hands again.” Meanwhile, excited by the “Minstrelsy,” Hogg had been gathering old Border traditions and turning many of them into new-old ballads. These Scott warmly praised, and the next time Hogg went to Edinburgh with sheep he waited on Scott to ask his influence toward their publication. Scott invited him and Laidlaw to dinner in Castle Street. The good shepherd was quite aware that his manners were rustical and not urbane, but thought he could never do wrong to copy the lady of the house; so finding Mrs. Scott, then in delicate health, reclining on a sofa in the drawing-room, he made his best bow and stretched himself at full length on another sofa opposite hers. Lockhart, who tells the story in his “ Life of Scott,” goes on: “As his dress at this period was precisely that in which any ordinary herdsman attends cattle to the market, and as his hands, moreover, bore most legible marks of a recent sheep-smearing, the lady of the house did not observe with perfect equanimity the novel usage to which her chintz was exposed. The shepherd, however, remarked nothing of all this—dined heartily and drank freely, and by jest, anecdote, and song afforded plentiful merriment to the more civilised part of the company. As the liquor operated, his familiarity increased and strengthened; from ‘Mr. Scott* he advanced to ‘ Sherra,’ and thence to ‘ Scott,* ‘ Walter,’ and ‘Wattie’—until, at supper, he fairly convulsed the whole party by addressing Mrs. Scott as ‘ Charlotte.’ ” Here be it noted once for all, though the remark scarcely applies to the preceding quotation, save to the word “civilised,” where “polished” would have been not only kindlier, but moreacen-rate, that Lockhart throughout speaks of Hogg in a carping, depreciatory style, which does far more discredit to the writer than to his subject. Large-natured, genial men of genius, like Scott and Wilson, could easily condone the shepherd’s rough oddities and all the petulances of his most frank vanity: but Lockhart was neither a genius nor large-natured; he was merely very clever, narrow, and bitter, “ the Scorpion that stings the faces of men,” as he is termed by himself or his associates in the “Chaldee Manuscript,” for he not only wrote but drew keen caricatures.* Moreover, he had a real love and reverence for at least one man, his father-in-law, Scott, and in his last mention of Hogg in the “Life” he affirms “he did not follow highest benefactor until he had insulted his dust.” For myself, I have met with nothing to sustain this charge, which probably refers to Hogg’s “Domestic Manners and Private Life of 8ir Walter Scott,” published in 1834; a subject which, as Mr. Thomson suggests, Lockhart, as Scott’s literary executor, seems to have regarded as exclusively his own; however, it is not hard to conceive how Lockhart’s natural acerbity must have been increased by the insult, real or imaginary, to the one idol of his mind not given to worship. Perhaps the two brothers Chambers will be accepted as pretty shrewd businesslike judges of character; and thus they speak, after the death of Hogg (“ Memoir of Robert Chambers, with Autobiographic Reminiscences of William”)—William: “I saw him first at my brother’s house in 1830 [Hogg then 60; William 30; Robert 28], and was much amused with his blunt simplicity of character and good nature. It did not seem as if he had the slightest veneration for any one more than another whom he addressed, no matter what was their rank-and position.” Which lack of reverence for rank and position—not, mark, of real reverence for genius and worth—I find far more singular than deplorable. Robert: “While thus recalling, for the amusement of an idle hour, some of the whimsical scenes in which we have met James Hogg [of which something hereafter] let it not be supposed that we think of him only with a regard to the homely manners, the social good-nature, and the unimportant foibles by which he was characterised. The world amidst which he moved was but too apt, especially of late years, to regard him in these lights alpne, forgetting that beneath his rustic plaid there beat one of the kindest and most unperverted of hearts, while his bonnet covered the head from which had sprung ‘Kilmeny’ and ‘Donald Macdonald.’ ” At the close of 1803 Hogg writes to Scott, apologising for getting half-seas over that night at Castle Street, “for I cannot, for my life, recollect what passed when it was late;** expressing his gratitude for what he did recollect, “ the filial * Whether or not his own sponsor, he was rather proud of ths name. Thus in a letter from London to Wilson (March, ’44), he writes, disgusted with the bishops:—“ I forget if [the sharp Quarterly editor should haw written whether] it is Swift or Scorpio who sang— ‘ Powers Episcopal we know, Must from some Apostle flow; „ But I'll never be so rude as Ask how many draw from Judas.'" Lockhart to Swift is indeed as a scorpion to a fiery dragon, but the epifna might have been thrown off by the great master, although it may be objected that Judas, though a disciple, was not in the ordinary sense an apostle; but epigrams and Macaulay antitheses are chartered libertines as to fact and truth.
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^e shepherd doubtless means paternal injunction you gave at parting, cautioning me against being ensnared by the loose women in town/’ and “ the utter abhorrence I inherit at those seminaries of lewdness: ” speaking of his proposed publication of the “Mountain Bard,’’ which he dedicated to Scott; asking whether his own graven image on the first leaf would be any recommendation; and, a rich joke strangely worded, asking also “if we might front the songs with a letter to you, giving an impartial account of my manner of life and education, and which if you pleased to transcribe, putting He for L” Scott of course could not go quite so far as this, but did all he could with the publishers and to procure influential subscribers, of whom above 500 were secured, Constable (who brought out the work) giving Hogg a halfguinea copy for each, in addition to a small sum of money; he likewise gave him £86 for “ that celebrated work, * Hogg on Sheep.’ and I was now richer than ever I was before.” His mode of dealing with his subscribers was characteristic: “ I had no regular plan of delivering those copies that were subscribed for, but sent them simply to the people, intending to take their money in return; but, though some paid me double, triple, and even ten times the price, about one-third of my subscribers thought proper to take the copies for nothing, never paying for them to this day.” J. T.
flngtian foasutts.
11 .
JV Diplomatic Beuice.
Ferdinand VI., King of Spain, though by nature kindly and tolerant, was very severe on those who made use of prohibited snuff. One day. in his presence, a grandee of Spain drew from his pocket a box filled with the proscribed powder. The King darted at him a menacing glance. The Ambassador of France, noticing the unlucky circumstance, went up to the Spaniard, and said to him : “ Oh ! I see that you have there my snuff-box, which your lordship, by w ay of a joke, took from me.” This clever expedient freed the culprit from his perplexity, and disarmed the anger of the monarch. It is unnecessary to say that the members of the Diplomatic Body were not subject to the prohibitory law.—From the Italian of Melchiore Gioja.
Lentils.
Familiar as a food to the Ancients, lentils were often described by them. Their original home is Central Asia, from which they were brought to Europe. They are still used as food. As Levi has shown, potash and phosphoric acid figure among the chief elements of lentils. It is a well-known fact that lentils, when taken in broth unbruised and unshelled, pass for the most part through the body unchanged, and this is so much the more the case the more rapidly the food is swallowed. In order, therefore, that lentils may furnish abundant nourishment, they should be shelled and bruised, and changed into a pap. One of the most colossal impostures is that preparation of lentils which, under the names of Ervalenta and Revalenta Arabica, has been brought into the world. Pretending to restore strength to the weak, to heal all possible diseases, to make people young again, and, sublime in its humbug, to perform other miracles no less astounding, the lentil quackeries have been bought by thousands and thousands of persons, to their own serious injury, and to the benefit and enrichment of the knavish flour-chandlers. Ervalenta consists of the flour of German lentils and maize, while the component parts of Revalenta are barley meal and the flour of Arabian lentils. Winckler, Fricklinger, Reblinz, and others analysed these lentil preparations, and Fricklinger had an interesting controversy with the flour-chandler Du Barry. (Revalenta Arabica des Du Barry, ein grossartiger Betrug. Nordlingen, 1854.) From a regard to the public health, the sale of Ervalenta, of Revalenta, and of other fraudulent kinds of food should in all countries be sternly forbidden. There was lately a very remarkable lawsuit at Paris, in which a Revalenta preparation laying claim to secrecy was concerned. In the course of the suit Payen (a celebrated chemist) gave the following professional opinion:—“ If we call to mind that the designations Ervalenta, Revalenta, Revalesci^re, have for a long time been made use of in England, and afterwards in Prance, to disguise flour of lentils, to which all kinds of healing powers were attributed, we cannot be astonished that bean meal and lentil flour should now come forward under a new mask, that for the preparations the same miraculous qualities are claimed as for Revalesci^re, or whatever the tiling may be called, and that the preparations are extravagantly lauded in advertisements swarming with mendacious testimonials and recommendations. The manufacturer of the stuff more immediately in question gave to it a slightly altered outward appearance, considerably raised the price in consequence, charging for it four francs the pound—that is to say, about ten times as much as the ordinary food sold under the name of lentil flour or bean meal can be obtained ter. Yet the said stuff, according to the printed testimonials, pretends to make every other kind of food superfluous, and to heal all diseases, so that no ether medicine is needful. It appears, therefore, unquestionable that the specimens of the
article seized, and by careful analysis examined, bring before us a product designed to yield iniquitous gain to the manufacturer and the sellers. For it is a gross deception when in the sale of these wares medicinal virtues are attributed to them, and it is not a less monstrous fraud when in the printed puffs the miraculous qualities of lentil flour thus prepared are prai sed. Consequently I, as the representative and reporter of the Medical College, am of opinion that there are substantial grounds for prohibiting the sale of the said flour under any other designation than that of bean meal or lentil flour, and for confiscating the printed announcements in which the miraculous medicinal or other virtues of the flour are spoken of. Finally, the Courts of Justice should be empowered and urged to punish this scandalous fraud, under the double aspect of the falsification or false designation of an article of food, and of the sale of a secret product forbidden by the law.” It was found that the preparation in question, consisting of lentil flour and of barley meal, got from cochineal its red colour.—From the German of Reich.
The Death of Sahjamuni.
It is thus that Koeppen, in his admirable work, “ Die Religion Des Buddha,” recounts the death of Sakjamuni, or Gautama, the founder of one of the three great religions of the world: “ After he had in his eightieth year visited once more Radschagriha, Nalanda, and other places of Magadha, and there taught, Mara (the god of love, of sin, and death) reminded him that the time had arrived when he must vanish from the visible world. Thereupon he announced to the assembled disciples that in three months he must enter Nirvana—that is to say, must die—consoled them when they burst into lamentations, incited them to redoubled zeal, told them to collect his precepts, and to preach them to all the world. For the last time he gazed down on the beautiful Vaicali, then, accompanied by Ananda and Aniruddha, he started forth to go to the Land of the Mallas. Here, in the city of Para, he is said to have brought on himself an illness by eating swine’s flesh, which the goldsmith Tschunda placed before him, so that he was only able to continue his journey very slowly. Often he had to stop from pain and fatigue, till at last, completely exhausted, he reached the neighbourhood of Kusinagara, where, on the banks of the River Hiran-jarati, in the grove called the Grove of the Sola Trees (Schorea Robusta), Ananda prepared a couch for him. Here he consecrated the last of his disciples, took leave of all his disciples, and died, saying: ‘All is transitory and illusory.* Signs and wonders accompanied his death. The earth trembled, meteors gleamed, the sun and moon lost their splendour, celestial music was heard.” In contrast with the tragical grandeur of the Crucifixion, Sakjamuni’s death from the effects of indigestion is commonplace and almost comical. Some Buddhists say that a spinal disease, to which he had been subject from his youth, was the real cause of his death; and this statement is more acceptable than the ignoble ‘swine’s flesh’ story. The Buddhists, and especially the Lamaistic Buddhists, who live in monasteries, have many prescriptions in reference to diet; but the natural Jesuitism of the human heart is ingenious in evading these. Dietetic rules, founded on a religious basis and aimed with a religious authority, are not wholly valueless; they teach temperance and self-restraint, and they gradually lead to habitual abstinence from pernicious kinds of food. The spurious Puritanism of our days has a different object altogether. Men are to abstain from beef, beer, Tobacco, because certain idiotic or ferocious bigots do not like to see their neighbours happy! Nay, brethren, let us eat, drink, smoke, and be merry!
Characteristics of the Celts*
The Celt was magnificently endowed by Nature. His faculties, however, were not deep. To his fight blood corresponded a moral sense equally light. He was not fond of any persistent meditation on one subject, never went beneath the mere surface. His mobility, his excitability, bis instability were excessive. As he was dependent on sensual impressions, sociality and a full and free enjoyment of life were to him imperious necessities, which he contrived to satisfy even in the most secluded circumstances. Hence his love of strong drink was a passion to which he, unfortunately, recklessly yielded. This fatal propensity the Massoliots (inhabitants of the ancient Marseille) turned eagerly and most profitably to account. Immense supplies of wine were despatched, partly in boats, partly on beasts of burden, to Belgium, and from all sides the natives rushed to give with wanton thoughtlessness for the beloved beverage, metals won with great labour, skins, and corn. So insanely did they revel in the enjoymefit of intoxicating drinks, that, when the stock of wine was drawing to an end, they readily gave a slave for a small draught of the liquor. Drinking so unbounded bore its natural consequences. Quarrels among the carousers were inevitable. And as, when revelling, they did not lay aside their weapons of war, the conflict having once begun, peace was seldom restored through words and reproaches, but much more frequently through combat and wounds. Having no depth of soul, the Celt was generally in disharmony with himself; and this disharmony passed into his outward relations, of which his family life furnished a striking proof. Another exemplification was given by his contempt for agriculture, spite of the fertility of the soil. The unavoidable results characterise the whole of Celtic history. For, as
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despisers of enduring relations and of a fixed order bound by laws, and preferring wild adventurous marauding expeditions to a settled existence, the Celts never founded great States, never created a culture up to which patriotism and the national consciousness could rise, and draw therefrom nourishment and strength and courage. Herein they formed a contrast to other nations that were drawn by nothing but necessity and force from their native soil, and that were the more tenderly intertwined with it the longer it had nourished them. Where homes, abidingness, fixed abodes are contemned and rejected, the family life loses one of its most potent stays. Consequently the trustingness, the cordiality, the intimacy which reigned in the dwellings of the Germans, could not gladden those of the Celts.—From the German of Contzen. ©mt Smoke ^oom ®abh. English Men of Letters. Edited by John Morley. London: Macmillan and Co. 1878-9. VL—ROBERT BURNS, BY PRINCIPAL SHAIRP, Proves sob or Poetry in the University of Oxford. The author of thia little book has published many other works, aa we learn from a catalogue, not having had the fortune to read any of them. Beginning with an Oxford Prize “ Poem,” so far back as 1842, we find, among the rest, an “Essay on the Author of the Christian Year,” “Culture and Religion in some of their Relations,” “ Kilmahoc, a Highland Pastoral, and other Poems,” “ Studies in Poetry and Philosophy,” “ On the Poetic Interpretation of Nature." His studies and works have brought him high honours; he has been Principal of a Scotch University, he is Professor of Poetry at Oxford—a dignity Ruskin sought in vain. He has now crowned all his splendid achievements by one of the worst essays on Burns that we have ever come across. A Scot, he has no national fervour; an old student of poetry and at least a would-be poet, he has no poetic sympathy; a successor of Matthew Arnold, he has no sweetness and very little light. Of course we speak of him as he shows himself in this, the one book of his we have read; and having read, are little likely to read another. This Oxford graduate and professor has none of tho liberal grace and urbanity of culture, but writes with the stark dogmatic narrowness of some remote provincial Calvinist. He might be one of those Auld Light ministers whom Burns scarified; he seems to resent the Address to the Unco Guid or Rigidly Righteous as aimed by anticipation at himself; he is continually sermonising on the greathearted poet as a Sunday-school teacher might lecture his class on a life which was an awful warning. He is Cauld Kail in Aberdeen (or should we say St. Andrews?) preaching against hot haggis: the coldest of cold water prelecting on the ardours of whisky. His voice is pitched to the pious twang of that Pharisee who thanked God that ho was not as this Publican. He is a raven croaking immensely self-satisfied over a dead thrush. His blood is of the fishy temperature, and he swims serene in a sea of moral platitudes. His body may bo in a great University, but his mind is in a little conventicle. He is frigid as the book of Euclid, writing on the most passionate of poets; he is bitter as the dogma of eternal damnation, discoursing on the Bweet-souled singer; he is dull as ditch-water for quenching this fiery genius. Burns could cordially sympathise with a wee field-mouse and a mountain daisy: this man has no sympathy even with a Burns. The style and construction of the booklet are worthy of the spirit, that is to say, the want of spirit, in which it is conceived. The style is dull and common-place, not always even grammatical; not one sentence, of his own, makes itself remembered—save against himself. The const motion is out of all proportion: scarcely any space is given to the pregnant period of development, of e<lucation and self-education, though tho long letter of Burns to Dr. Moore, with his brother Gilbert's supplement, gives us such precious information thereon. There is actually no allusion to the significant passage: “In my infant and boyish days, too, I owed much to an old woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. Sho had, I suppose, the largest collection in tho country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spnnkics, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. '1 his cultivated the latent seeds of poetry”—Principal Shairp writes,” not only the traditional life of Wallace and other popular books of that sort, but tho Spectator, odd plays of Shakespeare, Pope (his Homer included), Locke on the Human Understanding, Boyle's Le tares,” Ac., were among the early reading of Bums. Mark the contempt with which the man of no insight mentions casually the life of Wallace “and other popular books of that sort;” as if the inspiration of the poet w is derived from the Spectatoi and tho rot, which, in truth, were mainly responsible for th ambitious and often inflated English of his letters, he being fully himself in all his pith and raciness only in his native Doric. But see what Burns himself says, writing in his 29th year:—“The story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the floodgates of life shut in eternal rest.” We have here one of the sources of “ Scots wha hoe,” “ The Vision,” “ On My Early Days." Again, there is no allusion to the striking sentence: “ I had felt early some stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings of Homer’s Cyclops round the walls of his cave.” Nor are the mutual improvement clubs at Tarbolton and Mauchline, in which he took the leading part, mentioned in the account of his youth; but there is a most absurd mention of them in the account of the Edinburgh jovialities, p. 58: “ The scenes which Burns there took part in far exceeded any revelries he had seen in the clubs of Tarbolton and Mauchline.” Would the unacquainted reader believe that these “ revelries ” cost each of the members, who were mere country lads, the enormous sum of threepence at each monthly meeting ? In the words of Dr. Currie, who gives the rules of the Tarbolton Club: “Tho sum expended by each was not to exceed threepence; and with the humble potation (Shairp’s revelry!] that this could procure they were to toast their mistresses, and to cultivate friendship with each other. . . . The regulations of the club at Mauchline were nearly the same as those of the club at Tarbolton; but one laudable alteration was mode. The fines for non-attendance had at Tarbolton been spent in enlarging their scanty potations: at Mauchline it was fixed that the money so arising should be set apart for the purch. se of books." Oh, the devilry of such revelry I As for the style, it is, as we have said, dull and lifeless throughout. We can spare space for but two or three examples of its absolute incorrectness. Of two young ladies we are told, p. 80, that Burns addressed songs of affection “ now to one, now to another.” On p. 196, “ none of his poems that does such justice" to his better nature as “ The Cotter's Saturday Night;" meaning no other, tor it clearly does precisely such justice. On p. 114 we read “ He was suffering from nervous derangement, and this, as usual with him, made him despondent.” The abnormal being, whom nervous derangement usually made despondent 1 But this is Dot ungrammatical, it is only thoroughly stupid. On pp. 44-5, we are told that “ the greatest name, that of r avid Hume, had disappeared about ten years before Burns arrived in the capital.” For meanness of expression take p. 69, “ tho knowing Lockhart," i.e., the Lockhart who knew, or was well acquainted with, not knowing in the slang sense; p. 143, “ The French Revolution was in full swing” Thou successor of Matthew Arnold! As for the criticism, p. 20 says of “The Twa Herds," “Holy Willie’s Prayer.” “The Ordination," “The Holy Fair,” “I cannot but think that those who have loved most what is best in Burns’ poetry must have regretted that these poems were ever written." Of “The Jolly Beggars,” p. 126 says, “unpleasant as from its grussness it is;" and p. 201, more emphatically,	“ the materials are so coarse, and the sentiment so gross, as to nuke it, for all its dramatic power, decidedly offensive.” This is the piece of which the lascivious Carlyle writes in his Essay on Burns: “ the most strictly poetical of all his ‘ poems ’ is . . ‘ The Jolly Beggars.’ The subject truly h among the lowest in nature; but it only the more shows our poet’s gift in raising it into the domain of Art. To our minds, this piece seems thoroughly compacted; melted together, refined; and poured forth in one flood of true liquid harmony.” Coarse Carlyle 1 Saintly Shairp! Concerning * Scots Wha Hae,” Carlyle is indeed quoted to the effect that it should be sung with the throat of the whirlwind, that it is the best war-ode ever written; but the scrupulous Professor is careful to add that Wordsworth and Mrs. Hernans (!) agreed that it “ was not much more than a common-place piece of school-boy rhodomontade about liberty." Peace to tho good Mrs. Hemau, whose “warrior tamed his heart of fire,” presumably by pouring Shairp. cold water into it. Peace, likewise, to the prosaic-poetic Sunday School pedagogue, Wordsworth; the placidly ferocious, for whom “ Carnage Is God a daughter”; whose Solitary in the “Excursion” (Second Book) became “ Chaplain to a military troop Cheered by the Highland bagpipe, as they marched In plaided vest,—his fellow-countrymen.” There’s martial fire for yon 1 the rapture of battle I the rushing pomp and glory of war! no “school-boy rhodomontade”! Burns and Carlyle, with their mere Bannockburn and Taking of the Bastile, could never have written that! Why, Burns actually sees, and Carlyle actually admires his vision, Scottish warriors plunging through the battle ^red-vat shod” How revolting,in contrast with that picturesque “plaided vest”! Scott writes to his friend Geo. Ellis, toward the close of 1805, “ I will not castrate John Dryden. I would as soon castrate my own father, as I believe Jupiter did of yore." Scott would not, bnt Shairp would with the greatest pleasure. He would favour us with a Burns minus “ The Holy Fair, ’ “Holy Willies Prayer,” “ The Jolly Beggars,” and a few other pieces; and so with all our poets and dramatists and novelists; and we should rejoice in a literature moral as Dr. Watts, fascinating as Mr. Tupper’s “ Proverbial Philosophy,” sexless as Origen or Abelard. As for the Principal’s perpetual sermonising on the moral character of Burns, let us quote a sentence or two from others. Burns himself writes, “ My passions, when once lighted up, raged like so many devils till they got vent in rhyme.” His brother Gilbert, a quiet, deliberate man it seems: “ The symptoms of his passion were often such as nearly to rival those of the celebrated Sappho. I never, indeed, knew that he fainted, sunk, and died away ; but the agitation of his mind and body exceeded anything of the kind I ever knew in real life.” Carlyle, in 1828: “We are far from regarding him as guilty before the world, as guiltier than the average; nay, from doubting that he is less guilty than one of ten thousand. . . Granted, the ship comes into harbour with shrouds and tackle damaged, and the pilot is therefore blameworthy, for he has not been all-wise and all-powerful; but to know how blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been round the Globe, or only to Ramsgate and the Isle of Dogs.” And now we bid a glad farewell to pious Principal Shairp, with the expression of a hope and a wish. We hope that young Oxford enjoys it# Professor of Poetry by laughing at him even unto a smascellamento; for if it takes him seriously, young Oxford is likely to mature into an insufferable Sanctimonious prig. We wish it were possible for the publishers to suppress this book (which, unfortunately, will be kept in circulation by the Sirius to which it belongs and the position of the writer); so that the subject Beans could be entrusted to a man with some insight, some discernment of character, some poetic sympathy, and, above all, some human nature. VII.—SIR WALTER SCOTT, BY RICHARD H. HUTTON. Scott naturally comes next after Burns among our Men of Letters, for he fanned into a broad blaze that spirit of patriotic nationality which the poet of “ Scots wha hae ” rekindled in his country’s literature. We are always glad to remember that they once met. It was during Burns' first Edinburgh visit, in the winter 1786-7. when he was twenty-eight and Scott some months past fifteen. Forty years later Scott told Lockhart how Burns rewarded him with a word und a look, which gave him “ very great pleasure,’’ for remembering the name of tho author of certain lines; and thus the younger d scribed the older minstrel: “ His person was strong and robust; his manner rustic, not clownish; a sort of diguified plainness and simplicity. His countenance was more massive than it looks iu any of the portraits. I would have taken the poet, had I not known who he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch school—the donee gudeman who held his own plough. There was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments ; the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distiagui lied men of my time* The present little book is tho Examiner s exceedingly “ suggestive introduction to Scott and his poems and novels.” Our own introduction, at an early age, consiste I of the combat between Roderick Dhu and Fitzjamcs and the buttle of Flodden Field in some book or books of s lections ; together with “Ivanhoe ” from a circulating library (paid for by an heroic sacrifice of fruit or sweeties), which we pored over breathless in play-hours, and took into school up our jacket, getting many a furtive peep into the magic page# when opportunity offered, under shelter of the boy in front of us. We found this introduction sufficiently suggestive; whether the younger generation will find the present volume more so we cannot say. However, it is an easy task, very fairly performed. The biographical facts, of course, are mainly, almost wholly, from Lockhart; of whose elaborate “Life,” by the way, Mr. Hutton appears to know only the edition in ten vols. and the abridgement; but, in 1845, Cadell, of Edinburgh, published a complete edition in one vol., though whether this is still on sale we are not a ware. The criticisms and appreciations of character are fair and sympathetic. The chief fault, not a very serious one, is a little superfluous exposition here and there. Thus, pp. 74 having cited from Lockhart the story of Scott’s father and mother and the infamous Murray of Broughton (Prince Charles’ secretory, who, to save hi# life, turned informer), he adds: “ This anecdote brings before the mind very vividly the character of Sir Walter’s parents. The eager cariosity of th# active-minded woman,” and so on. Mr. Hutton should be aware that precisely because the anecdote does bring very vividly before the mind, there is no need for him to expound it. A schoolboy s drawing may require the legend “ This is the horse and this is the sheep ”; but it is uot required for a Landseer. See also p. 49, the quite unnecessary “interpretation” of the pellucid passage describing the Last Minstrel's introduction to th® Duchess. Here is an anecdote not from Lockhart: “I have heard of two old men—complete strangers—passing each other on a dark London night, when one of them happened to be repeating to himself, just as Campbell did to the hackney coachmen on the North Bridge of Edinburgh [Glasgow?],’ the last lines of the account of Flodden Field in ‘ Marmion,’ • Caarge, Chater, charge,’ when suddenly a reply came out of the darkness, ‘ On. Stanley, an,’ whereupon they finished tho death of Marmion between them, [t getter?] took off their hats to each other [in the darkness], and parted, laughing.” Scott needs no eulogies, but it may be worth while to quote breve Walt Whitman's tribute, he being decidedly opposed to the spirit of feudalism, which Scott did so much to cherish: “ I cannot dismiss English or British imaginative literature without the cheerful name of Walter Scott. In my opinionh® stands next to Shakespeare. Both are, in their best and absolute quality, continental, not British—both teeming, luxuriant, true to their lands and origin, namely, feudality, yet ascending into universalism. Then, I should say, both deserve to be finally considered and construed as shining suns, whom it were ungracious to pick spots upon.”—“ Democratic Vistas, ’ p. 82. We may mention that there are two or throe little slips, easy to correct. Thus, p. 91, we have “ Of course ” and “ of course,” and “ popularity with the public.” ♦ Campbell writes to Scott: “I have repeated them so often [certain stanzas of “ Cadyow Castle ”] on the North Bridge, that the whole fraternity of coachmen know me by tongue as I pass.”
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A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
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No. 115.—Vol. II.]
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®Iorb-^hunting from future.
“Sometimes the linnet piped his song: Sometimes the throstle whittled strong: Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along, Hushed all the groves from fear of wrong: By grassy capes with fuller sound In curves the yellowing river ran, And drooping chestnut-buds began To spread into the perfect fan, Above the teeming ground."
—Tennyson.
* Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm, And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands; Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf In cluster; then a moulder'd church; and higher A long street climbs to one tall-tower’d mill; And high in heaven behind it a gray down With Danish barrows; and a hazelwood, By autumn nutters haunted, nourishes Green in a cuplike hollow of the down."
—Tennyson.
“ Knowledge this man prizes best Seems fantastic to the rest: Pondering shadows, colours, clouds. Grass-buds and caterpillar shrouds, Boughs on which the wild bees settle. Tints that spot the violet’s petal.
Many haps fall in the field Seldom seen by wishful eyes, But all her shows did Nature yield To please and win this pilgrim wise. He saw the partridge drum in the woods; He heard the woodcock’s evening hymn; He found the tawny thrush’s broods; And the shy hawk did wait for him; What others did at distance hear, And guessed within the thicket's gloom. Was showed to this philosopher, And at his bidding seemed to come."
—Emerson.
•	I heard the distant waters dash,
I saw the current whirl and flash,— And richly, by the blue lake’s silver beach, The woods were bending with a silent reach. Then o’er the vale, with gentle swell, The music of the village bell Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills;
And the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills, Was ringing to the merry shout, That faint and far the glen sent out, Where, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke, Through thick-leaved branches, from the dingle broke.”
—Longtellow.
“ Thou paints auld Nature to the nines.
Nee gowden stream through myrtles twines Where Philomel, While mighty breezes sweep the vines, Her griefs will tell!
“In gowany glens thy burnie strays Where bonnie lasses bleach their class: Or trots by hazelly shows and brays, Wi’ hawthorns gray, Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays At close o’ day.
"Thy rural loves are Nature's sei’;
Nae bombast spates o’ nonsense swell: Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell O’ witchin' love, That charm that can the strongest quell, The sternest move.”
—Burns.
"The heather was blooming, the meadows were mawn, Our lads gaed a-hunting ae day at the dawn, O’er moors and o’er mosses, and mony a glen, At length they discovered a bonnie moor-hen.
“ Sweet brushing the dew from the brown heather-bells. Her colours betrayed her on yon mossy fells, Her plumage out-lustred the pride o’ the spring, And oh I as she wantoned gay on the wing,
“ Auld Phoebus himsel’ as he peeped o’er the hill, In spite at her plumage he tried his skill; He levelled his rays where she basked on the brae— His rays were outshone, and but marked where she lay.
“ They hunted the valley, they hunted the hill, The best of our lads, wi’ the best o’ their skill, But still as the fairest she sat in their sight— Then, whirr I she was over, a mile at a flight.
“ I rede you beware at the hunting, young men; I rede you beware at the hunting, young men; Tok’ some on the wing, and some as they spring, But cannily steal on a bonny moor-hen.”
—Burns.
“Not Love, not War, nor the tumultuous swell Of civil conflict, nor the wrecks of change, Nor Duty struggling with afflictions strange— Not these alone inspire the tuneful shell; But where untroubled peace and concord dwell, There also is the Muse not loth to range, Watching the twilight smoke of cot or grange, Skyward ascending from a woody dell."
—Wordsworth.
I think it was William Shenstone, the poet, who proposed to divide the world into four classes: —people that read, people that write, people that think, and foxhunters. The classification would not apply so strictly now; for English society has undergone a metamorphosis or two during the hundred and odd years since William Shenstone died; and, as it would be possible to find foxhunters in these days who read and write, and other foxhunters who think—men, for example, like Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. Newdegate, and the late Major Whyte-Melville—so I think I have found, in the author of “ The Gamekeeper at Home” and “ Wild Life in a Southern County,”* a sportsman who has read much and thought much, and can write exceedingly well. I have not been in haste to record my opinion of these books; because, although I may confess to have read them, in the main, in the fragmentary form of their original appearance in the Pall Mall Gazette, yet my natural modesty chimes in with the advice which Fielding, the novelist, gave a century and a quarter ago, not only to young readers, but also to “all fathers, mothers, and guardians ”—“ That they would cautiously avoid the perusal of any modern book till it hath first had the sanction of some wise and learned man.” Perhaps I have not always been so prudent; but it is well to follow good counsel, especially when it falls in with your disposition for the time being; and when I recollect that Henry Fielding was liberal enough to admit that Shakespeare and Moliere had the “ talents ” of wit and humour in some degree, I cannot doubt that the author of “Tom Jones” and “Amelia” is a sufficiently sage adviser. Well, many journals and heb-domadals of repute and standing, which struggle amongst themselves for the honour of speaking first in such matters, have long since published their criticisms upon these books; and amongst the “wise and learnedJ’ men who write for those periodicals there has been a marvellous concensus of praise of the author and admiration of his work. Were I to give way to the splenetic humour which is proper to the character of the literary critic, I might yield to the tempting suggestion, that this wonderful agreement to applaud all round may be explained by the universal ignorance which prevails amongst critics upon the subject-matter of these productions. I refrain from the ill-natured comment, principally because I am conscious that the censure it implies would inevitably recoil upon myself, who am about to say
* The Gamekeeper at Home: Sketches of Natural History and Rural Life. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1878.
Wild Life in a Southern County. By the Author of “ The Gamekeeper at Home.” London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1878.
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“ditto” to the favourable scribes who have preceded me. When we do agree, it will be perceived, our unanimity is vastly surprising.
I desire, however, at the outset, to clear myself from all suspicion of having been won over to my present attitude by any flattering treatment of my favourite theme by the author of “ The Gamekeeper at Home ” and its companion volume. One or two references to his pages will suffice to show that he has no overweening tenderness for Tobacco, or for the art and practice of Tobacco-smoking. This picture of a casual poacher is not flattering:—“ Neither is it of any use to search a man whose tools, to a moral certainty, are concealed in some hedge. With his hands in his pockets, and a short pipe in his mouth, he can saunter along the side of a preserve if only a path, as is often the case, follows the edge; and by-and-by it grows dusk, and the keeper or keepers cannot be everywhere at once. There is nothing to prevent such fellows as these from sneaking over an estate with a lurcher dog at their heels. . . . Presently, if the poacher but lifts his finger, away dashes the dog, and will miss nothing he comes across. The lurcher has always borne an evil repute, which, of course, is the due, not of the dog, but of his master.” Nor am I naturally pleased by the suggestion in this portrait of the wrong sort of gamekeeper:—“Another class of keeper is rather passively than actively bad. This is the idle man, whose pipe is ever in his mouth, and whose hands are always in his pockets. He is often what is called a good-natured fellow—soft-spoken, respectful, and willing; liked by everybody, a capital comrade in his own class, and, in fact, with too many friends of a certain set. ... By degrees he easily falls into bad habits, takes too much liquor, finds his hands unsteady, becomes too lazy to repress poaching, . . . and finally is corrupted, and shares the proceeds of bolder rascals.” I don’t know that I ever read a passage which would have given greater pleasure than that would to the late Mr. Reynolds, arch-priest of Anti-Tobaccoism in these realms. Turning to the other book, the kindliest allusion to the Tobacco Leaf and its uses I find in all the six hundred pages of this writer’s work is in the following sketch of a farm-auction:—
“Scarcely any ale is to be seen: it is there if asked for; but the great majority now drink sherry. The way in which this wine has supplanted the old-fashioned October ale is remarkable, and a noticeable sign of the times. At home the farmer may still have his foaming jug, but whenever farmers congregate together on occasions like this, sherry is the favourite. When calling at the inns in the towns on market-days—much business is transacted at the inns—spirits are usually taken, so that ale is no longer the characteristic country liquor. With the sherry cigars are handed round —another change. It is true the elderly men stick to their long clay pipes, and it is observable that some of the younger after a while go back to the yard of clay; but on the whole the cigar is the proper thing. Then follow a couple of toasts, the stockowner’s and auctioneer s—usually short—and an adjournment takes place—if it be stock, to the yards; if corn, the cloth is cleared of all but the wine, and the sale proceeds there and then. In either case the sherry and the cigars go round—persons being employed to press them freely upon all; and altogether a very jovial afternoon is spent.”
Thus the writer seems to associate the appetite for Tobacco only with loafing poachers, dissipated keepers, extravagant farmers, and scheming salesmen who befuddle the buyers’ brains before a sale. He fails to point the moral of his story about sherry and cigars, that have taken the place of honest October ale and the homely yard of clay. I might, perchance, point it for him, with a conclusion that would throw an edifying light on the problem of the present depression of agricultural interests in this country; but the deduction would hardly adorn the tale. We may leave it to the Boyal Commission; and bet a hundred to one they never come within a mile of it. At least, then, if I admire this author’s writings, let me be free from the imputation of Tobaccoite freemasonry.
The publishers have hit upon a happy and comprehensive general title for these two books—“Rural England”; and there are good reasons why they should be classed as twin volumes of a common work. I throw out the hint, that the writer may have the benefit of it, when he thinks it well to emerge from his needless obscurity, and give the world the benefit of his name. When that is done, the world of writers, as well as that of readers, will be eager to add to the laurels he has won incognito. In the meantime, I perceive with some little amusement that the critics of the dailies and weeklies— not to mention those publications of greater dignity which appear at intervals of a month or a quarter—have but one standard of comparison, and harp strangely on a single string. “ The library of good books on the country is not so large,” says the Edinburgh Review, “but that any additions are exceedingly welcome; and since White wrote his ‘ Natural History of Selborne’ we have had nothing more delightful,” &c. Then speaks the Athenaum:—“A volume which is worthy of a place beside White’s ‘ Selborne.’ In closeness of observation, in power of giving a picture far beyond the power of the mere word-painter, he is the equal of the Selborne rector—perhaps his superior.” That last, of course, is nonsense; because a man who paints his picture in words does nothing “ beyond the power of the mere word-painter.” There was some idea, doubtless, in the reviewer’s mind; but he was not word-painter enough to limn it in ink or black-lead. I do not quarrel with the estimate; but had the author of “Wild Life in a Southern County” no great prototype except the Rector of Selborne ? It is not without purpose that I have prefixed to this article a handful of gleanings from a few of the more modern English-writing poets. When word-painting of Nature’s features and habits, of natural
scenery, the phases of rural life, the ways of animals and plants, and their relations with man, is the theme, shall we give no thought to Virgil and his Georgies? Shall we forget Chaucer?—of whom one recent critic says:—“While at study, and when he was making songs and ditties, ‘ nothing else that God had made ’ had any interest for him. There was but one thing that roused him then, and that, too, he liked to enjoy alone. It was the beauty of the morning and the fields, the woods, and streams, and flowers, and the singing of the little birds. This made his heart full of revel and solace, and when spring came after winter he rose with the lark, and cried, ‘Farewell, my book and my devotion.’ He was the first who made the love of nature a distinct element in our poetry. He was the first who, in spending the whole day gazing alone on the daisy, set going that lovely delight in natural scenery which is so special a mark of our later poets.” May we not remember Spencer, and the “Shepheardes Calendar”? Perdita, too, talks somewhat of Nature:—
“O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that frighted thou let’st fall From Dis’s waggon I daffodilly, That oome before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes. Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength—a malady Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds, The flower-de-luce being one 1 ”
Says Lorenzo:—
“ For do but note a wild and wanton herd, Or race of youthful and unhaudled colts, Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud. Which is the hot condition of their blood, If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, Or any air of music touch their ears, You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, Their savage eyes turn’d to a modest gaze By the sweet power of music.”
Yet, when we talk of Nature-painting, shall we have no memory of Shakespeare ? Had Wither and Andrew Marvell none of this quality? Did Milton never sing of “A May Morning” or “ To the Nightingale”? and shall we delight no more in “L’Allegro” or “Il Penseroso”? I seem to have meet with some portraiture of Nature in Gray, and Collins, and Thomson, and Dyer, and Beattie; and there yet lingers in my mind some recollection of Goldsmith’s “ Deserted Village.” . Surely Allan Ramsay is not out of court with his “ Gentle Shepherd ”; and what shall be done with Cowper and Burns and Crabbe? Do Wordsworth and Scott and Byron and Shelley count for nothing as word-painters of Nature ? May Keats have no niche in the gallery ? And are there no living writers to dispute the palm with the author of “ The Gamekeeper at Home ” ? If it be objected that all these are poets, and out of the comparison, I first demur to the doctrine implied; for it is not the form we speak of; and, while much metre is prosaic, much descriptive prose is full of poetry—of which truth let Dickens and George Eliot suffice to bear witness. Next, I traverse the objection; for Scott did much Nature-painting in the prose of his romances; and Goldsmith’s cunning in the craft is not altogether absent from his “ Animated Nature.” Even if I must, after all, be confined for illustrations to one particular school, is Izaak Walton to have no mention ? Have not the Rev. F. 0. Morris, the Rev. J. G. Wood, Sir John Lubbock, Mr. Francis George Heath, and, though last, not least, Mr. Darwin, had something to say—and said that something well—about birds, and beasts, and insects, and trees, and the sentient forms of vegetable life; even since White wrote the “ Natural History of Selborne,” and ere “ Wild Life in a Southern County ” appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette I There were strong men before Agamemnon, and men have not all been weaklings since that hero died. If the author should feel aggrieved by this enumeration, himself having set up no claim to competition with the giants, I would remind him that his complaint is rather against the too laudatory and extravagant friends, who for his sake ignored so long a line of worthies, than against me. I would willingly do him justice; but am loth to blot out so many glorious pages of literary history for the sake of paying him a courtly compliment.
My quarrel, then, is with the inconsiderate critics; and I do not measure too jealously my admiration for the two books before me. I find in “The Gamekeeper at Home” a remarkable, and, as I believe, unequalled fund of facts, illustrating the character, occupations, and peculiar knowledge of the English gamekeeper; the preserving and the habits of game; and a multitude of subjects more or less intimately connected with these. The faithful portraits of the keeper, his wife, and his son, are not the most interesting parts of the volume, although their merit is considerable; but here, as in “ Wild Life in a Southern County,” it is the author’s knowledge of the beasts and birds and fishes, whether preserved for sport or not, which provides the principal charm of his writings. The sportsman could scarcely have a better or a more agreeable guide; and the reader who has no knowledge of sport will not on that account find the book less attractive, provided that he have that sympathy with Nature which is its animating spirit. His knowledge goes far beyond legitimate sport; and, so far as one of the uninitiated may judge in such a matter, he seems to have laid bare the whole art and mystery of poaching, in all its
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varieties, and down to its lowest range of cunning and trickery. In one place he tells how a pointer taught herself to catch fish, and to land them—roach, tench, perch, and even a small jack—without doing them the slightest harm; and this again and again, after the fishes had had time (supposing they had had the wit) to learn the dog's method. Then he describes, not Without humour, the spaniel that takes to poaching on its own account, and the tricks by which she tries to avoid detection. “ Wild Life in a Southern County” abounds in descriptive passages and stories that will delight the heart of an angler. On one page we have an account of the way in which crows prey upon mussels when the season is so dry as to leave the bivalves exposed—times when the mussels leave their tracks in the bottom of the mere, as they drag their way to deeper water. On the next we have a picture of the life of that terror of the waters, the jack, which may move to envy such historians of the rod and line as our old friend the Red-Spinner:—
“Now and then, at long intervals, an exceptionally dry Reason no lowers Um level of the mere that all the shallower parts become land, and are even passable on foot, though in places quicksands and deep fine mud must be carefully avoided. The fish that previously could enjoy a swim of some three-quarters of a mile are then forced to retire to one deep hole only a few acres in extent. Now commences a reign of terror, of which it is difficult to convey an adequate idea. These waters have not b^n netted for years, and consequently both pike and perch have increased to an extraordinary degree, and many of them have attained huge proportions. Pike of six pounds are commonly caught; eight, ten, twelve, and fourteen pound fish have often been landed. Then; was a tradition of a pike that weighed a quarter of a hundredweight, but one day the tradition was put into the shade by the capture of a pike that scaled a little over thirty pounds. There are supposed to be several more such monsters of the deep, since every now and then some labourer, passing by on a sunny day, when jack approach the shore and bask near the surface, declares that he has seen one as big as a man’s leg. But about the vast number of ordinary-sized jack there can be no doubt at all; since anyone may see them who will stroll by the water's edge on a bright warm day, taking care to walk slowly and not to jar the ground or let his shadow fall on the water before he can glance round the willows and bushes. Jack may then be seen basking by the weeds. When an exceptionally long continuance of dry weather forces all the fish to retire to the few acres of water that remain, then these voracious brutes do as they please w ith the other fish, and the roach especially suffer. Every two or three minutes the fry may be seen leaping in the air in the effort to escape, twenty or thirty at a time, and falling with a splash. The rush of hundreds and hundreds of roach causes a wave upon the surface which shows the course they take. This wave never ceases: as soon as it sinks here it rises yonder, and so on through the twenty-four hours, day and night. The miserable fish, dying for their lives, speed toward the shallow water, and often, unable to stop themselves, are carried by their impetus out on the mini and lie there on the laud for a few seconds till they leap back again. Even the jack will sometimes run himself aground in the eagerness of his pursuit. Looking over the pool, the splash of the falling fish as they descend after the leap into the air may be heard in several directions at once, and the glint of their silvery sides in the sunshine is at the same time visible. At night it is clear the same thing is going forward, for the splashing continues, though the waves raised by the panic-stricken crowds cannot be distinguished in the darkness.”
What the pike is amongst fishes, the crow is amongst small birds—with all the instincts of the bird of prey, and less of honour than the hawk or the jay. In the “ Gamekeeper at Home ” the author tells us:—
“ But upon the crow the full vials of the keeper’s wrath are poured, and not without reason. The crow among birds is like the local professional among human poachers: he haunts the place and clears everything—it would be hard to Bay what cornea amiss to him. He is the im|Krsonntion of murder. His long, stout, pointed beak is a weapon of deadly power, wielded with surprising force by the Rinewy neck. From a tiny callow fedgling, fallen out of the thrush's nest, to the partridge or a toothsome young rabbit, it is all one to him. Even the swift leveret is said sometimes to fall a prey, being so buffeted by the sooty wings of the assassin, and so blinded by the sharp beak striking at his eyes as to be presently overcome. For the crow has a terrible penchant for the morsel afforded by another’s eyes. I have seen the skull of a miserable thrush, from which a crow rose and slowly sailed away, literally split as if by a chisel—doubtless by the blow that destroyed its sight.”
It is not, however, in describing the character and habits of the living creatures, which chiefly employ his graphic powers, that this writer is alone successful. His picture of a village, in chapters IV. and V. of his second book, is full of clearly-drawn and truthful portraiture, as well of the personality as of the institutions of rural life. It would be difficult to overpraise his sketch of the old church-tower and belfry—jackdaw haunted, and “choked with the cobwebs and the dust of years ”; and there is a biographical account of a waggon which might without exaggeration be classed amongst the epics of prose writing. In the analogy drawn between the life of a ship and the history of a farmer’s waggon, there is a touch of humour which approaches closely to genius. I can quote only the closing passage:—
M How many a man’s life has centred about the waggon I Ab a child he sides in it aa a treat to the hay-field with his father; as a lad he walks beside the leader, and gets his first ideas of the great world when they visit the market town. As a man, he takes command and pilots the ship for many a long, long year. When he marries, the waggon, lent for his own use, brings home his furniture. After a while his own children go for a ride in it, and play in it when stationary in the shed. In the painful ending the waggon carries the weak-kneed old man in pity to and from the old town for his weekly store of goods, or mayhap for his weekly dole of that staff of life his aged teeth can hardly grind. And many a plain coffin has the old waggon carried to the distant churchyard on the side of the bill. It is a cold spot—as life, too, was cold and hard; yet in the spring the daisies will come, and the thrushes will sing on the bough.”
I hope I have done something to brush aside the unjustly fulsome and exaggerated flattery with which some inconsiderate critics have beclouded the true merits of these books; but I hope I have done something, also, to show what those merits are. The writer who can bring into literature the real life of the country—the poetry, the hard reality, the light and shade of that side of our national existence which is foreign to the town, does good service both to society and to letters, in an age when both tend too much to absorption in the ways of cities. “ God made the country and man made
the town *’; and just as the jaded physical frame of the citizen is refreshed and invigorated by the sights and the air of the country-side, so is the jaded mind of the student, worn with the city-air of our prevailing literature, revived and brought back to unison with Nature by books that breathe the air of the downs and reflect the light that shines on mere and copse, on cornfield and stream. These are the grounds of the welcome that is claimed by “The Gamekeeper at Home’* and “ Wild Life in a Southern County.”
J. D.
Salts Saib mi f^t Sea of ^ce.
VHI.—PREPARING FOR THE EXPEDITION TO THE UNKNOWN LAND. OUR LAST NIGHT ON
BOARD—GENERAL JOLLITY. *
Preparing for that journey to the Pole instilled new life into every soul on board who possessed a soul. Even our sparrow —our sweet little cherub—chirruped and cheered us, and the great Newfoundland himself took the greatest interest in all that went on, and brought his biscuits on deck, in order that he might kill two birds with one stone—eat his Spratt and watch us.
There was much to be done in the way of equipment, but the very doing of it was such a change from our former inactive life, that our hearts felt as light as if we were homeward bound. So the laugh and the joke and the song might have been heard all day long; and so busy were we, that we seldom had time to look either at the clock or the sun. We ate when hungry, slept when sleepy, drank when dry, and smoked “evermore,” as a Highlander would say. Before, however, the slightest preparation for our long and perilous journey was commenced, we set ourselves to see after the safety of the ship; for, although very far from the sea, we dared not forget that our keel lay upon the breast of ocean, and that a distant storm from east or south would raise a commotion in that now quiet and placid pack that the bravest heart on board might quail to think of.
There lay close beside us an immense flat berg of ice. Still and gentle as he looked now, we well knew it was but the calm of a sleeping lion; and, did but the waves beneath arouse him to action, he would crunch us to pieces as easily as fist of male could break a box of chip. We determined to take shelter in him, and, therefore, with our ice saws and implements we dug in his side a dock, and hove our ship therein. Having accomplished this, our vessel was safe for ten thousand years, or until the great berg shifted ground to the south, and got softened and melted away.
One good sledge was all we deemed necessary; but the captain and his mates were old campaigners, and you may be perfectly sure they did not forget the salt. Although, too, we thought it but little likely we should meet with game in these far northern latitudes, we were quite prepared for possible eventualities, and ready to give a warm reception to whatever crossed our path in an unfriendly way. The sledge itself was a boat, built of the very lightest materials, lined and covered with skins, very elastic in itself, and mounted on two iron-clad keels, and, altogether, easily capable of being dragged along by ten men.
Although two months would, we hoped, see us safely back once more on board our vessel, still we wisely provisioned for four—that is, remember, four months of economy; a too large outfit, no matter where one is travelling, is both cumbersome and useless. Plenty of coffee, however, we had not forgotten, nor a modicum of rum, nor limejuice, nor lights, nor Tobacco galore.
Our clothes were warm, but not heavy, and consisted chiefly of suits made of the best English blankets.
Our daily fare was to be meagre enough, yet withal sufficient. Meat we had in plenty already roasted, relieved of all bone and superfluous fat—although fat seldom is superfluous in the realms of the Ice King—packed in tins, and subsequently frozen. Our supplies of potatoes were boiled, carefully mashed and mixed with butter, and placed in square tins. Even our eggs we boiled, and our bread, of course, was biscuit; and be sure we did not forget the dog’s favourite tackle, for this brown-eyed, watchful old rascal seemed determined to accompany us.
Our object in previously cooking our food was the economy of space and fuel. This latter consisted entirely of a vast spirit cooking range, and a great comfort it proved, serving as it did not only to heat our food, but to give us warmth and comfort at night. In this cooking apparatus the captain took great pride; he frankly confessed that he had brought it from England in the hopes that it might be useful in making a journey over the ice. He even had it fitted with crimson panes of glass, instead of white.
“Just think,” he said, “ how jolly it will look inside our tent of a night, as, wrapped in rugs and skins, we recline around it on our couches of snow.”
And so, indeed, it turned out.
To complete our equipment took us well-nigh three weeks, and how very quickly the time did fly, to be sure! When all was ready we took a trial trip, and found that everything answered to our entire satisfaction.
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[October, 1879.'
One thing that made our sledge—which, with a bottle of ' 1 the best rum, and a three-times-three cheer, we baptised ' “Queen of the Ice”—lighter to drag, was the fact that we ' required to carry no water. Tliere was plenty of lumps of . fresh water ice on the pack, or, even if that failed us, there ; was the snow itself to fall back upon. It was fully a month j ' past midsummer ere we started; but with ordinary luck ’ , we hoped to be back ere the sun set for the long, long, । night of winter. Then the last evening came, and this the ' ; captain proposed we should spend, with our chosen followers, ’ around the galley fire. And so we did. A tarpaulin was I thrown over the grating, lamps were lit and suspended from j the beams, although before such a roaring fire their light | was hardly needed.
। Then, to each of us jolly mariners, the cook served out . such a dish of sea-pie as surely never before had steamed ■ under the nostrils of hungry humanity.
; No one was more loved and respected in the ship than our J captain, and his condescension in coming forward to spend | the last evening with his men around the galley fire was duly i appreciated, and I don’t think ever forgotten. At first the | men were just a little shy, but when pipes were handed round, ' ; and the first—for we meant to have two—jorums of punch ■ discussed, the ice was broken; the laugh and the chaff and j the jest became general. The skipper’s punch was a curious I mixture; he went upon the principle that stimulants in certain quantities do good rather than harm, if mixed with a
‘ certain quantity. His “ brew,” therefore, was a punch made » with tea, preserved milk, preserved eggs, rum, and brandy, ! in proportions which at present slip my memory. There j certainly wasn’t, as the captain averred, a headache in a i hundred gallons of it.
There is in nearly all ships a what might be called king o’ the foc’s’le—generally a big gun in his own way, and very . much respected and bowed to by all his messmates. It is , not at all necessary that such an one should be possessed of much learning or erudition. The great thing is to be able to make good use of that he does possess; to have a long tongue and a face of brass, and a capability of sticking to any statement to which he has once given vent. Our Timothy Thompson was an individual of this type. A little round' headed man; very red in the beard, very red as to com, plexion, and eke to shade of hair. The favourite seat on the forecastle was always allotted to him; it seemed his, indeed, ■ as if by birthright; and from the elevated corner Timothy was in the habit of laying down the law or spinning yarns. He was always referred to in case of any dispute. Little twinkling ferritty eyes he had, and very great was the power he thought they possessed. Did anyone dare to express an opinion, Timothy would take his little black pipe from his . mouth, and fix him with his ferritty eye. He gazed on the : offender while you could have counted twenty very easily, and slowly too. As all eyes took the same direction as Timothy’s, it was a decided case of roast for the poor devil ; of a dissenter, and his punishment was complete when ; Timothy wound up with a most sarcastic sneer, and tho , words—
'	“ What do you know about it ? ”
1 The emphasis on the “ do11 was withering in the extreme. Never mind; that Timothy possessed a fair share of common
. sense, will be seen from the speech he made on this particular i evening.	•
. We had just drained our glasses when Timothy rose. ' “Officers and gentlemen,” he said, “and sailors all, fill.
Fill, I say, fill a bumper for the toast of the evening. Are • ye all filled? Well, gentlemen, I was going to say that I have sailed in many ships, east and west, north and south, but I ■ never clapped foot on a jollier ship than this. Here we are, j beset amidst a boundless world of ice, and maybe with little । hopes of getting clear for a year to come. And what have : we ? Happiness and jollity, and brotherly love and camaradie. : And why? Why, because, in addition to the best skipper' ■ that ever sailed—(‘ hear, hear,1 and cheers)—we have all the ; good things in this life, and grog and Tobacco to the bargain. , And, what’s more, we know how to use and not abuse them.
■ ('J'hat's the style.1)
j . “Now, a neighbour of mine in bonnie Scotland is making , money as fast as you could shovel it into a barrow. But, my ; friends, he is a miserable, watery-nebbed, yellow-bellied anti.
Offering him a cigar one day, I asked him at the same time j if he had seen ‘ The Bells.’ He blew his wretched nose, and ; wiped his miserable eyes, and says he—	’
j “‘I’ve never smoked a pipe or cigar, I’ve never tasted , spirits, and I’ve never been inside a theatre in my life.’ ‘ ; “And still he didn’t look happy. On questioning this j curiosity farther, I found that he was possessed of the notion ' that complete abstemiousness was conducive to longevity, i Now, my friends, I deprecate excess of all kinds, but to be ’ able to afford them, and yet to deny himself the temperate ; enjoyment of the good things in this life, proves, I think, that this money-making son of a gun of an anti must have a tile' loose somewhere. ('Hear, hear,1 and * Hang the antis.1)
“There isn’t a soul I see here this evening around me,”' continued Timothy, “ who doesn’t possess brains. I know this' because I see a pipe in every mouth. Well, I ask you one question. Suppose you were travelling by train, wouldn’t you enjoy the scenery through which you were passing better if you had a well-flavoured cigar between your lips. Certainly you would. Granted that your anti, sucking an orange;
enjoyed the most comfortable seat, would you throw away your weed to change seats with him? I trow not. It is a well-known fact, my friends, that people who worry through life never live long. Hence, worry kills. But ’Baccy kills worry, makes time that would otherwise feel spent on a nettle bed seem short and jolly; ergo, Tobacco conduces to long life, Quod erat demonstrandum. Sorollary smoke. (Cries of 'Bravo, Timothy,1 and ^ Thompson for ever.1) I said I didn’t hold with excess; and there are times when a man shouldn’t smoke: for instance, when he is making love, taking a nap, or having his dinner. But ah! when ennui and weariness drag and pull at the heart-strings, through the medium of the nervous system, then what a blessed solace a pipe becomes. ('That's so.1 ' You1 re right again, Tim.1) It is to the great forethought of our gallant captain that we owe, on this memorable voyage, an additional and plentiful supply of the herb divine. I’ll detain you no longer, lest your bumpers catch cold, but Til ask you to drink success to the expedition that starts to-morrow, and long life and health to its noble commander. No heel-taps, lads. Three times three, and Highland honours.”
After Timothy’s speech, and a three-times-three to the captain and expedition, and “he’s a jolly good fellow,” a sort of general jollity settled down on. all hands. Songs were proposed. The doctor was asked to favour us. The doctor began “ Shades of Evening.” We stood one verse, then voted the man a nuisance. “ Merry does it, doctor,” cried the captain, “merry or nothing.”
The ship’s fiddler, on being asked for a solo, commenced “Auld Robin Gray.” The fiddle was drowned with cries of “put him out;” “pitch him overboard;” “to the sharks with him; ” “ to the devil with him,” &c. The musician took the hint, and went off into one of the maddest, merriest Scotch strathspeys that surely ever was played.
Then hey! for the floor; and hey! for a dance; and “ You’ll be my lass, Jock,” and “I’ll be your partner, Peter, Hooch.” The dancing was rapid, fast, and furious; the fiddler himself—and a better never drew a bow—seemed to take leave of his senses, and fiddled as he had never fiddled before. Even the great dog couldn’t help joining. He hid his ham bone in a corner, then took up the key-note, and kept it up too. Piper’s drones were nothing to it.
Then “Hooch,” cries our wee Irish mate, “it’s meself that can’t stand it another minute longer. Come along, doctor, ye devil, ye.”
The captain joined the doctor, and up jumped I, and such laughing and dafling and dancing and fun, I trow you never saw in all your born days; till it finally ended in one wild cheer that might have been heard for miles from the ship, if there had been anybody there to hear it.
And then we all turned in, and slept the sleep of the good and the virtuous. And yet we’d only had two tumblers or so each.
Two tumblers and temperance are synonymous. There’s nothing like temperance.
Temperance and Tobacco.
Gobdon Stables. MD., R.N.
^.mhr.
Berendt’s description of the “Amber Land,” continued:— Through the occurrence, not uncommon, of scattered fragments of amber in other formations and rocks which belong to different ages of the Tertiary Period, a second suggestion is gained for determining the comparative antiquity of its period of formation. Before I name some of them, I must sharply sever from each other two successive events—the production of amber and the diffusion of amber. The production begins with the emergence of the Island Group, and embraces the whole period from the origin of the amber forest to its destruction. The diffusion begins with the death of the forest creation, contains the period of its submergence, and still continues, though in a diminished degree. The origin of the strata containing amber belongs to the period of the submergence of amber; those strata are, therefore, more recent than the amber itself. Hereto appertain sandstone, schistous bituminous clay, and carbonated sandstone (for instance, above the Galician salt stratum), the plastic clay at Noyers, the Cerithian chalk at Passy, the Transition chalk, the bituminous schistous clay strata of Sicily, the Luneburg and Holstein boracite gypsum, and so on. But amber appears oftenest in fellowship with brown coal. In all those inland secondary strata in which amber occurs it has brown coal as a companion; but also in the districts in which there are large primary brown coal strata—ad, for instance, at Grunberg, in Silesia—traces of amber are discovered. Its time of formation appears to belong more to the older brown coal than to the younger.
As we learn from Sefstroem, Bdhtlingk, and others, the Scandinavian North—Norway, Sweden, Lapland, Finland— is marked in its stratified formations by furrows, seams, and tracks which more or less travel from north to south. In a Tike direction run the long extended valleys, morasses, and inland lakes of Russia, Sweden, and Finland. The South
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Baltic countries/ likewise—especially East Prussia—are traversed by inland lakes, most of which go from north to south. The Zarnowitz lake, and the Radaune Lakes in West Prussia, ■ the Goplo to the south of Bromberg, and more than a dozen of inland lakes, comparatively narrow, but miles (German) long, and with a parallel extent from north to south, in the region of Sensburg, can serve as examples. I believe that the furrows and seams in the Scandinavian strata, the Asar in Sweden, the morasses of Finland, the transformed inland lake basins, the numerous long tracts of sand and flint rubble, -and the masses of granite blocks in Prussia stretching in the the same direction—for in all these cases the same parallelism dominates—are to be regarded as of like origin, and as mechanical results of like catastrophes. Wild rushings of the Polar Sea, carrying with them dislodged masses of stone, have in Sweden furrowed the range of country, formed with the rocky fragments the Asar (ridges or chains of hills), and in Finland and the Prussian province cloven the softer soil. Where the sweep of the stream the most abundantly bore the blocks—which, in fact, rested on islands of ice—where in a warmer latitude the masses of ice driving southward gradually melted, or where in soft places they stranded with two-thirds of their surface under the water, there the huge and multitudinous heaps found soonest and surest a resting-place, and the fierce beat of the waves for many thousands of years gradually rounded their angles, as we easily see by examination. Thus it cometh to pass that in the Malo-Baltic range many ridges are seen, which in the far past were sand-banks, reefs, and islands, scattered over the water, and scarcely rising above its surface; and in many districts of Russia, Poland, Prussia, and Mecklenburg, this was how many deposits were created. In East Prussia a line of rocky fragments goes from Steinbeck, passes Arnau to the west, travels by way of Trutenau to Miilsen, and prolongs its course to the Bothnian Gulf. At Briisterort a reef, consisting chiefly of granite boulders, of syenite, of gneiss, runs far into the sea, and at Kuhren the steep bank is girt and crowned with such masses as if with a wall. The number of Scandinavian blocks is astonishing. Without perceptible diminution, they have lor five hundred years been employed for the foundations of buildings, for all large constructions; in addition they are now frequently used in the formation of high roads; at Swinemiinde and Neufahrwasser they furnished the materials for the moles. The eastern harbour mole, just finished at the mouth of the Vistula, contains two milhon cubic feet. When the sea is calm, there is an intense and peculiar enjoyment in marching along this prodigious mass, which extends for a thousand paces into the sea. We have before us in Cyclopean mosaic the most magnificent, the most varied specimens of freshly-wrought granite. From the southward streaming above spoken of have arisen most of the granites existing in Russia, and of which Durocher reckons fourteen. Those in Russia have come from Lapland and Finland, those in the Prussian Province, in Poland, have come intermingled from Finland, from the Province of Viborg, and from Sweden; those to the west of the Vistula have come from Viborg and Sweden. Almost the whole of North America, from Newfoundland to the Upper Mississippi, is in like fashion bestrewn with Northern fragments of rock. The transport of the blocks on islands of ice has long been placed beyond all doubt. Scores by found in the Northern Polar Sea icebergs a third of a German mile in circumference, and laden with stones whose weight was reckoned to vary from fifty tons to a hundred thousand tons; and Dumont D’Urville saw similar icebergs in the Antarctic Ocean, and even at no considerable distance from the Cape of Good ' Hope. In the western half of the globe, on the coasts of Canada, between the forty-eighth and fiftieth degree of northern latitude, thus further south than Prussia, similar masses are seen drifting; and in the summer of 1842 the English vessel “Emma,” on its voyage from America to Europe, between the forty-first and forty-third degrees of north latitude, met with icebergs from a hundred to a hundred and eighty feet high. Instructive in reference to the mode of geological formation is a spectacle which the Gulf * of Finland offers us, though the blocks are isolated and the ■ scale is comparatively small. In the shallow Prussian inland seas, and in such swamps as are covered with ice during the winter, we behold the movement of the so-called wandering stones. In winter the blocks are frozen in; when their vesture of ice is loosened they are borne by it in the direction of the prevailing wind. The northern blocks belong to the younger diluvial clay and to the sand. Their journey to their present resting-place falls decidedly into the post-tertiary time. This is why we find them for the most part on the surface. So placed we meet with them between Petersburg and Archangel, along a line extending to fifty German (250 English) miles. They rest on deposits of shells, such as are still seen in the Polar Sea. In the masses of sand and rubble near Stockholm, in which the blocks are embedded, are sea conchylia kindred to existing kinds. With some variety, the case is nearly the same in Denmark. In the South Baltic provinces we come upon the blocks in all the strata of the younger diluvium. The blocks lie higher than the amber, and came into our country after the amber forests had been overwhelmed and inundated. Still more recent arrivals, and, therefore, of still more recent origin, are the limestone blocks which are scattered abundantly along our coast. They are derived, according to	Pusch, from the younger limestone boulders of Oeland, ; Gothland, and the coast of Schonen. In Poland there is no trace of them, perhaps because at that time the water had ( ceased to cover the face of the country; perhaps, also, because the ice bearing the blocks was weaker, thus melted faster, and allowed them to sink down in our own latitude.	; In many places of the South Baltic coast, most frequently in Samland, between Palmnicken and Dirschkeim, but also along the shore at Redlau and further westward in Pomerania, , occur on the precipitous banks, about five feet above the level of the sea, or at the foot of the cliffs, ochre-brown blocks from two to four feet thick, which consist of a conglomerate of .coarse rubble sand and clay, which contain many organic ; remains, and sometimes pieces of amber (iron ochre dust is yellow-brown; brown coal dust is’black-brown). They form ' in Samland horizontal tracks, larger and smaller banks, the so-called iron banks. Wrede ascribes their origin to the numerous vitriol springs in the cliffs, whose hydratic oxyde of iron acts as an agglutinant for the percolated masses of sand and rubble. The agglutinant varies much in tenacity. Sometimes it is so hard that the essential substance springs asunder sooner than the cement. As a rule, however, the mass is tolerably brittle. The heat of the mass soon breaks it to pieces; indeed. I have sometimes seen the mass so frail as to be friable. Three years ago, a block containing from thirty to forty cubic feet towered on the steep bank at Redlau, six feet above the level of the sea. A second lay on the sloping strand where, whenever there was a strong wind, every wave could dash over it. The following summer I found the higher block overthrown, the lower crumbling > away; in the year 1843 both blocks were completely destroyed, were nearly invisible, and the fragments were covered with sand. Professor A. Erman has made the observation that in many parts of the earth, far severed from each other, the brown coal formation containing amber is in part covered with layers saturated with iron, similar to the strata just spoken of. Fragments from the neighbourhood of Redlau which I sent to Professor Erman, thoroughly agree, as I learn from a communication received from him, in their mineralogical characteristics, not merely with those of Kuhren , in Samland. but also with those of the west coast of Kamt-schatka, with those of the Lower Rhine, near Dusseldorf, and so on. Spite of the distance from each other from which the fragments were taken, Erman found in the petrified marine animals which the fragments contained striking resemblances, and he gives it as his opinion that these ferruginous strata of all the places arose at the bottom of the sea. I cannot concur with this opinion in reference to the Prussian “Iron Banks,” . because the acid generated by the humus, the springs and the spring-sediments which is never lacking in the strandhills, in which springs and swamps abound, always produces - ochre whenever in the hill-strata it comes into contact with substances containing hydrotic oxide of iron; because that ochre-mass forms the agglutinant already mentioned; because in all the blocks I have seen not the smallest trace is observable of tranquil deposits of crustaceous animals, but, on the contrary, of the perfectly sporadic occurrence of such animals as in the hill-strata themselves ; and, finally, because in this . conglomerate, along with inhabitants of the sea of earlier and later date, are found Belemnites, Ostrere, Naticre, Scutellae, Spatangi, and so on; likewise the wing sheaths of land-chafers, kindred to those still living. In any case, this formation is one of the most recent superposed on amber. In my opinion the origin of amber belongs to the Molassian period. A serial formation is not demonstrable specially and actually, forasmuch as the South Baltic littoral exhibits nothing but alluvions and younger diluvial strata. If ' excluding those amber-enriched substances and formations not • belonging to our own region of the world, we wished to shape a schema, it would be something like the following:—Strata of soils formerly bearing fruit; Alluvium; Younger Diluvium; Northern Boulders; Younger Sandstone; Slate-clay; Ceri-thian Limestone; Boracite Gypsum; Plastic-Clay; Brown Coal and Amber-formation; Galitian Salt-formation; Chalk. In all probability the annihilation of the amber forest did not take place at once, or at a single blow, but through successive commotions. Not merely the onrush of mighty waters—storms also may have frequently brought partial overthrows and struck down innumerable trees. Sometimes, also, a portion of the forest wilderness may have been reduced ‘ to ashes by the blaze of the lightning; but with the repose which always follows geological and immense atmospheric catastrophes there would evermore be renewal and restitution. The theory of a subterranean fire like that which devoured Sodom and Gomorrah, or of a forest conflagration melting the amber, deserves not a serious refutation. The partial destruction, however, and then the renovation of the amber ’ forest, may have often recurred, and the torn away masses of amber be swiftly replaced under the shelter of a mild tern- 1 perature, or go on unhindered accumulating, till through ; floods, breaking from the north, vast in sweep or irresistible in force, the last remains of the aboriginal forest were overwhelmed, inundated, rent asunder, organic life annihilated, and the whole buried, either under the accumulated waters or under sand or other substances torn from the bottom of the sea. Afterwards, when, probably by humid action, the : transformation of the large masses of wood to brown coal had ' resulted, the easily recognisable local elevations of the soil in all the Baltic lands arrived.
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As, to the complete annihilation of the amber forest, which I picture to myself as very gradual, a very long time must have elapsed, we are justified in deducing that the oldest resiniferous deposits, being the first inundated, were to be sought for in the deeper diluvial strata. And experience confirms this deduction. On the rugged Samland coast the undermost of these strata of clay unveils the richest amber treasures. When productive diggings are carried very deep, the most precious fragments of amber are always found lowest down. Their greater weight by no means furnishes a sufficient explanation of this. In like fashion the brown coal in one of the Samland upper strand-strata is met with in a very crumbled state. On the contrary, in a deeper stratum, which is separated by a layer of sand twelve feet thick from the other, the brown coal is in large pieces. The thicker crust which characterises all fragments of amber found at any considerable depth, indicates not only a more powerful sway of elemental forces, but also the greater age of the deeper formation. As the circles in the water caused by a falling body, the further away from the centre they are the more indistinct they become, till they gradually die, thus amber as marine “ upcast ” decreases along the coast of its origin, the region between Palmnichen and Gross-Hubenicken. It scarcely needs to be mentioned that on the assumption of northern diluvial floods only an inundation in the southern region can be accepted. The coast of Sweden is almost destitute of amber, because streamings from North to South cannot be found to exist, and sea storms are not of themselves sufficient to drag along considerable masses. If we pass round the point by Briisterort we see that Samland’s northern strand receives very little amber; and that the Kurische Nehrung receives still less. In Kurland the amber, on account of its sparse occurrence, can be gathered by any one who chooses, and the more to the North the poorer is the strand in amber. If we turn from that richly gifted point (near Brusterort) in the South-Western direction, we find amber anew, abundantly on the coast of the Frische Nehrung, visibly declining beyond Dantzic, still scarcer in Pomerania, and even rarer and rarer, till at last beyond Rugen, on Denmark’s acclivious North coast the trace of amber is gradually lost. But even England’s East coast could boast of amber. I have seen pieces of amber as large as the fist which had been found in the Thames thither seaborne when as yet Denmark lay under the waves. The long transport of these pieces on the sandy bottom of the sea had completely rounded the corners and given the surface the appearance of polished glass. The southern semicircle of the strand in the amber domain has become, through the progressive increase of the land, always smaller and smaller, has grown narrower in the East, but has taken some extension to the West. Inland, likewise, the quantitative relation declines with the increasing distance from the central point. The volume, also, of the erratic blocks augments the nearer we approach the centre of radiation. Nevertheless, Prussia’s Southern provinces, and even the contiguous countries, are not destitute of amber, and rich finds occur, though more rarely, even in remoter regions. According to Bock, in East and West Prussia there is scarcely a village in whose fields amber is not found. Aycke, on the contrary, declares that even in the neighbourhood of the coast there are considerable tracts in which there is no trace of amber. We find amber in the East and in the Northern part of West Prussia in all strata of the younger diluvium and of the alluvium, alike in the ridges of hills and in low grounds and in meadows. In the rich Samland strata (I speak here of huge quantities lying together, and not of isolated pieces) amber is sometimes found on a level with the surface of the sea, sometimes 30 feet above it, sometimes from 70 to 140 below the surface of the soil. In the Pomerellian plateau amber is sometimes from 200 to 300 feet above the level of the sea, or even more, sometimes only two feet, sometimes 50 under the soil. In the young forest soil at Weichselmiinde amber is either on a level with the sea or from five to ten feet deeper. In the Tuchel Heath it is, as a rule, only two feet under the surface of the soil. At Kowall, a (German) mile from Dantzic, the high-road, a few years ago, was planted with trees. At the digging for the plantation of one of these a rich amber deposit was discovered two feet under the surface. Favourable signs led to further explorations, and at the distance of about a hundred paces, and at the depth of 30 feet, the owner of the field was enabled from the spoil won to pay off the debt on his property. Similar godsends are not rare in that region, on which account, in the fields of many adjacent villages, diggings every year are undertaken which are more or less successful. According to Hartmann, single pieces of amber, and sometimes more than one piece, were accidentally-drawn in nets, not merely from the sea, but from inland lakes, rivers, ponds, and wells 80 feet deep! Occasionally the pieces of amber were more numerous than the fishes caught. Raised by the agitated water, the amber floats up in springs, and when the ice breaks it is borne back in rivers to the sea from which it had originally come. There was once a famous amber-yielding spring at Bartenstein. When flowing by many windings through the Pomerellian plateau, which is rich in amber, the Radaune—especially in spring time, the rapidity of the rush being then increased—lets loose and bears along masses of amber. The greater part of the Radaune water travels in a canal from Praust to Dantzic.	On account of being choked with sand, this canal has to be cleaned every year, for which purpose the stream is allowed to flow for some time along its former bed. Along with the sand, which is shovelled out, many pieces of amber are thrown on the beach, though they are seldom of a large size. As soon as the canal, on being cleansed, receives back the stream, crowds of children hunt for spoil in the old channel of the river. From the examples given are demonstrated the abundance of amber, its wide diffusion in our own region, and the uncertainty which prevails regarding its mode of being deposited. Berendt’s “Description of the Amber Land” has great and abiding value. But, for the sake of variety, we adjoin to this portion of it two small pieces in which amber figures. The first is Christopher Marlowe’s poem, “ The Passionate Shepheard to his Love ”:— “ Come live with me and be my Love, And we will all the pleasures prove That vallies, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steeple mountains yields. “And we will sit upon the rockes, Seeing the Shepheards feed their flockes, By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. “And I will make thee beds of roses, And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers and a kirtle, Imbroydered all with leaves of mirtle. “ A gown made of the finest wool, Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold. “ A belt of straw and ivie buds, With corall clasps and amber studs; And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love. “ The Shepheard swains shall dance and sing For thy delights each May morning; If these delights thy mind may move,	* Then live with me and be my love.” The second is an extract from “A True Gentlewoman’s Delight,” a book published in the seventeenth century. It is a recipe “To Make A Sack-Possit.”—Take Two Quarts of pure good Cream, and a Quarter of a Pound of the best Almonds. Stump them in the Cream and boyl, with Amber and Musk therein. Then take a Pint of Sack in a basin, and set it on a Chafing Dish, till it be blood warm; then take the Yolks of Twelve Eggs with Four of their Whites, and beat them well together; and so put the eggs into the Sack. Then stir all together over the Coals, till it is all as thick as you would have it. If you now take some Amber and Musk and grind the same quite small with sugar, and strew this on the top of your Possit, I promise you that it shall have a most delicate and pleasant taste. As Sack, from the French Sec, was simply Dry Sherry, any Nicotian can make the experiment. Copt’s gjidurt. If anything would frighten me out of my devotion to Tobacco, it would be the Globed gleanings from the Parisian papers. Only a little while ago, I read, in the form of a “ Note of the Day,” an account of a fowl that had become so completely impregnated with nicotine, as to poison the unlucky thief who stole and ate it; and now I learn, from the same quarter, that a young Frenchman has all but lost his life in consequence of cleaning his pipe. It might occur to an ordinary moralist that the lesson taught by the first of these incidents bears on the advisability of letting other people’s hen-roosts alone; and that the moral to be deduced from the second is—smoke only dirty pipes. But it is not thus that I am invited by the Globe to enjoy French “ sensation smokes ”; and, as the London journalist takes the anecdotes of his Paris compeers au sirieux, even so must I. The remarkable chicken in question was the property of a gentleman who wished to proTe, by experiment, his theory that “ the inhalation of Tobaccosmoke by fowls caused their flesh to assume a wonderfully white colour, and to become very tender.” So he shut up the bird in a compartment with a quantity of burning caporal; and the chicken, willing to oblige, not only breathed the fumes but ate the Tobacco. Hence, M. Carrouge, who stole and cooked and dined upon the fowl, was brought to death’s door by nicotine poisoning. Medical science saved his life; and the melancholy sequel was his trial for robbing the henroost. There was also some question of prosecuting the owner of the bird for cruelty to animals. What I do not clearly make out is, which animal the gentleman was cruel to; but, as the bird seemed to have enjoyed itself pretty well until M. Carrouge interfered, and twisted its neck, I presume the cruelty consisted in spoiling that excellent person’s meal. But, in that case, the cannibal tribe which may some day discuss the quality of my white and
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tender flesh, will have good ground of action against my Tobacconist. It may even become a question for the casuists whether I, who impregnate my substance with nicotine, so fir as that process is possible by the consumption of Tobacco, am not guilty, by anticipation, of cruelty to the worms whose destiny it is to feed upon this vile body by and by.
In the other example mentioned by the Globe, the victim kept a knitting-needle for the purpose of clearing the stem and mouthpiece of his pipe; he never cleaned the needle; and one day, after running it through the pipe, he ran it into his finger. The wound was neglected: swellings and abscesses formed on the hand and wrist; and, eventually, he became a case for amputation, with a chance of losing his life. The writer in the Globe adds these comments to the story:—
“The ease may ba added to others which have already shown that even the imalleat injection of nicotine is capable of producing the gravest injury. Smokers are hardly as fully aware of this fact as they should be, nor aa careful in avoiding the contact of the nicotinous deposit always to be found in pipes. Although the particular species of accident that has just occurred in Paris is hardly likely to repeat itself often, it might very easily happen to a man to have cracked or chapped lips, upon which the moisture that exudes from a foul pipe might ran and communicate a poison calculated to cause the worst results.”
Can this writer, or his French authority, produce another case, or—suspending judgment for the moment upon the one in question—any case, whatever, in which the “injection of nicotine ” has produced abscesses ? There have been experiments of the kind; but I do not remember such results. Supposing any case of the sort to be producible, how does it tally with the instance here recorded ? Surely, it is only by the loosest employment of terms that the case of bloodpoisoning, by means of a foul knitting-needle, can be called a case of “ injection of nicotine.” First, prove your nicotine; and then you must account for the total absence of all the well-known symptoms of nocotine poisoning; for none of these are mentioned in the story. And then, again, would not all the symptoms which are here given have followed if the young man had stabbed himself with a rusty nail, or with a needle covered with verdigris ? At present, it seems to me, that the latest instance of “ Death in the Pipe,” must be classed with those remarkable cases of cancer in the mouth of which Dr. Drysdale has recited so many, for his own and my amusement, and the beguiling of the confiding Anti-Tobaccoites. To such poisoning here is the antidote:—
“Mis. Margaret Robertson, or Duncan, believed to be the oldest woman in Scotland, died yesterday morning at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. M'Qoeen, Campbell Street, Coupar-Angus. On the 2nd February last she was 107 years of age. She married, shortly after the beginning of the present cen-tmy, John Dunean, a stocking weaver in Coupar-Angus, but it is more than fifty rears since he died. Her maiden name was Margaret Robertson, and she was bora at Dalrulzion, Glenshee, in the year 1773. She went to Coupar-Angus ueariy eighty years ago, and continued to reside there till her death. Until about six or eight years ago Mrs. Duncan was in possession of all her faculties, but about that time she became blind, and for a year or more she was confined to bed. For a great number of years she was assiduously waited on by Mrs. M'Queen, her daughter, in whose house she lived and died. The old woman, who was very intelligent, liked much to talk of her long age and the experiences she had gone through. She pooh-poohed the idea of people living to the age of 80 or 90, and used to remark of such that that ‘ was Dae age ava.' Mrs. Duncan was very fond of a smoke, and up to the last enjoyed her clay pipe with the greatest zest. When spoken to of the inju-riooa effects of Tobacco, her invariable answer was—* I've blasted a’ my days; it’s ha'en plenty time to dae me ill, and it’s never socht.’ ”
Upon the assumption that Mrs. Robertson and the bulk of mankind have been deluded mortals, and that Tobacco is, after all, the enemy of the human race, it is very kind in the British Government to take care to let its subjects have as little as possible of the dangerous weed. I should add to this the further reflection that it is humane and considerate to make us pay as highly as possible for what little we do get; but for the uncomfortable fact that the Tobacco taxes enable the Executive to indulge in much extravagant expenditure, which would have to be avoided if the consumption of the weed were seriously checked. I read in the Daily Telegraph— “ There is reason to believe that for some years past smuggling on an extensive scale has been carried on by seamen of the Royal Navy and Marines at Plymouth. It is the practice for a large number of them to bring ashore Tobacco served out amongst the ship’s allowance, and sell it to the shopkeepers. Recently 343 lbs. of the Tobacco stalks, belonging to Henry Hanger, general dealer, of Chapel Street, Stonehouse, were seized, and he was,” on the 22nd of August, “brought before the magistrates and fined £100 and costs.” The paragraph aroused my curiosity; and I therefore obtained and read the full reports of this prosecution, which were printed in the local journals, the Western Daily Mercury and the Western Morning News. The consequence was a serious disappointment. Able advocates were employed, and officers of the Dockyard police force and of the Inland Revenue were called as witnesses; but nothing was said about the smuggling operations of the marines or the seamen of the Royal Navy, or to connect Mr. Hanger’s bags of stalk with Her Majesty’s forces by land or sea. One matter of interest, however, was brought out. The witness who had acted as Hanger’s confederate, and had tried to escape from the police with the contraband Tobacco, by driving off “towards Devil’s Point” with the cart which contained it, admitted in effect that he had been warned beforehand by letter that his house was about to be searched. After such an intimation, these smugglers must be admitted to be clumsy hands at their trade, and to have deserved catching; but it would be satisfactory if the official authorities would explain how it happened that “ a man named Warren ” was able to give warning of
the intended raid, and what it is proposed to do with “ a man named Warren.” If the game were worth the candle, I fancy it would be easy to show that the case was not proved against Hanger, who was convicted; and that there was at least the customary suggestion of informers, together with a strong suspicion of official connivance. But, if all the libel against the seamen and marines be granted, and if we are to suppose that the enormous quantity of Tobacco leaf which would yield 343 lbs. of stalk was smuggled ashore from the ships of the fleet in small parcels, does not the admission place the Revenue system in a tolerably ridiculous light? The story enforces once more all that has ever been urged about the evil of creating offences by needless and unjust laws.
I have spent some time and thought of late over this wonder* ful Revenue system. Its mode of development is fairly uniform wherever it is found in force. During the present year I have had occasion to observe its results in various parts of the United Kingdom—in Leeds, in Bradford, in Hull, in Bristol, in Londonderry, and elsewhere. Those results are-great prevalence of smuggling and illicit dealing in Tobacco; perfect acquaintance on the part of the authorities with the facts of such prevalence, and with the names and proceedings of the offenders; general immunity of the law-breakers, varied by occasional convictions of selected victims; monotonous declarations of the officials to the effect that they know more than they choose to tell, that there are many persons whom they could prosecute and convict if they were so disposed, and that—in brief—“they could, an’ if they would.” Now, bearing these facts in mind, I come to the conclusion that licence to smuggle and to deal illegally with Tobacco within Her Majesty’s dominions is granted to favoured individuals upon the same principles as those which regulate the granting of law certificates in the remote west of the United States. What those principles are may be gathered from the following sketch, which comes to me from the Western Law Journal:—
“Examiner—Do you smoke, air? Candidate—I do, air. Examiner— hare you a spare cigar? Candidate—Yes, sir (extending a short six). Examiner—Now, sir, what is the first duty of a lawyer? Candidate—To collect fees. Examiner—Right; what is the second ? Candidate—To increase the number of his clients. Examiner—When does your position towards your client change ? Candidate—When making a bill of costs. Examiner —Explain. Candidate—Then wo occupy the antagonist’s position. I assume the character of plaintiff, and he becomes defendant Examiner—A suit decided, how can you stand with the lawyer conducting the other bill ? Candidate—Cheek by jowl! Examiner—Enough, sir; you promise to bean ornament to your profession, and I wish you success. Now are you aware of the duty you owe me? Candidate—Perfectly. Examiner—Describe the duty. Candidate—It is to invite you to drink. Examiner—But suppose I decline? Candidate (scratching his head)—There is no instance of the kind on the books. I cannot answer the question. Examiner—You are right, and the confidence with which you have made the assertion shows you have read the law attentively; let’s take the drink, and I will sign your certificate.”
“ My husband is a great smoker; . . . he is at perfect liberty to smoke in any room in the house. ... I cannot understand why women will run the risk of losing their husbands’ society and love, merely for the sake of gratifying an over-fastidious taste. If they do not like Tobacco, did they object to his using it during the days of courtship? If they did object then and failed, why did they marry? If men will not give up such habits at the solicitation of their sweethearts, it is not likely that they will be persuaded out of them by their wives; therefore, I think it unwise for a woman to risk her happiness by quarrelling with her husband over a venal fault, the existence and extent of which she knew and perfectly understood before she took upon herself the duties of a wife.” These are the words of an American lady; and I do not know that I can improve them. Much abuse, long continued, has brought me to a humble frame of mind; and I am thankful to have my habit of smoking let off with the gentle rebuke which is veiled in the phrase “a venal fault.” If that good woman’s husband is not careful to smoke the very best and least offensive Tobacco, and to make her presents of the very choicest and most delicate of cigarettes, he is A BRUTE. Let the lady send her address to the office of this paper, and those cigarettes which A. B. aforesaid fails to provide shall be forwarded without delay.
Youb Man-of-Aix-Wobk.
|ipt ®olo«rtrs.
XIV.—WEIGHT'S NEBVES.
I have known Humphrey Wright for the last six years. During the whole of that time I have never known him smoke other than wooden pipes. He buys a new briar-root about twice in the year, as he finds a pipe after about six months’ use too much for his nerves. I was rather surprised one evening, when the subject of pipe colouring was introduced, to hear Wright break out into a long and exhaustive explanation of the best way of colouring a meerschaum. “Why,” said I, “you can know little about it; I never saw you smoke other than a wooden pipe.” Wright laughed, and said in return: “Would it surprise you to hear that I have coloured, in a superb manner, at the very least, six large meerschaum pipes?” “It would surprise me,” I replied; “ but it surprises me more to think that you never smoke them now, and that after your successes you allow your talents in that direction to be idle. How is it?”
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■ Wright shook his head, and gravely uttered one word: “Nerves!” Then, seeing I was still desirous of further information, continued: “I will tell you. I began to smoke when I was young, too young, in fact; as a lad of seventeen I was a regular and considerable smoker. By the time I had arrived at four-and-twenty I thought I should like to colour a good pipe. I’d coloured several small and cheap meerschaums in an indifferent manner, but this time I meant to have a good one. I gave thirty shillings for a very handsome pipe, and, by carefully smoking and watching it, in twelve months’ time it was pronounced by all who saw it to be a success. I bought another, and served it the same; then another, and another, till I could show five of the finest specimens of coloured meerschaum ever seen. It was extraordinary how the passion for pipe colouring had hold on me. My enjoyment of simple smoking for its own sake suffered, for it now became a means of pipe colouring. This you ' might think a good thing, as I might possibly be content with less Tobacco. Not at all; because, whereas with this wooden pipe I can take it or leave it just as my humour suits me, with those other pipes the pipe itself had to be consulted before me. “Mind you,” continued Wright, “I doubtless made a great fool of myself; but I invented certain theories concerning colouring, and it was in the carrying out of these theories that I behaved unwisely. Nothing would ever tempt me to have half a pipe in one of these noble smoking machines; no! even if smoking on an empty stomach, or when feeling unfit for the exercise at all. Right from the top down to the plug, with the heroism of a warrior and the constancy of a martyr, I must needs do my duty. “To get on,” Wright pursued, “when I bought my sixth meerschaum I was not in a very good state of health. Added to this, I foolishly made a wager to perfectly colour the pipe in six months. In addition to this, I had been reading a medical work on the evil effects of ‘ beer,* and was even then . going without it to try the effects of abstinence for a year or so.” “In addition to this,” I interrupted, “you had made your will, said good-bye to your friends, picked out your particular hit of freehold in the cemetery, composed your epitaph, designed your gravestone, ordered your coffin, and is there anything else?” Wright laughed, and then buried his nose in his tankard. When he emerged he went on with his story. “ That Pipe the Sixth,” said he, “ proved a tough one. Not wanting to lose my wager, I smoked a stronger Tobacco than usual, and more of it. I had been going on like this for about two months, when I seemed to go altogether wrong, but I refused to believe it was anything serious, and declined to seek any advice. I said to myself, ‘ I shall be all right again presently.* One thing I determined on—I made up my mind to try change of air for two or three months, and live out of town. This I did; I took lodgings about ten miles from London. The place was quiet, pretty, and respectable, and I chose a position about a mile and a-half from a railway station, in order that I might be compelled to take some walking exercise. For a week or two all went well; if I got no better, I seemed to get no worse; the fresh air I hoped would pull me round alto- ! gether, but there came a change. Our busy season came on, so that instead of getting home about six or seven, I did not reach home till ten or eleven, and sometimes twelve o’clock. This was a complete knock down for me. The way from the station, which I enjoyed so much at about seven in the evening, became a horrible place to me at the late hours I have mentioned. The lane itself was about a mile long, or say three-quarters, very little frequented at any time, and late at night almost empty. There was a lamp placed near each end of it, but none between. The lane had rather a dip in it, and a bit of a bend, and just at the bend there were some very fine trees, and behind them a private lunatic asylum. From where the feeble glimmer of the first lamp died out, to the point where the light of the other became visible in the distance, occupied me at a fast walk some seven or eight minutes, and it was this pitchy dark half-mile that grew so terrifying to me. I’m not a coward, as you know; but I assure you that I used to be all of a quiver sometimes, when I arrived at the second lamp.” “ It was your nerves, then, I suppose?” I put in here. “Exactly so,” replied Wright. “I seemed completely unstrung, undone, and broken down. I did not seem to possess the slightest portion of anything that in the remotest degree resembled pluck. I’ve got over it, of course, now; but the last night I went down the lane under those circumstances dwells strongly in my memory. I will endeavour to describe it to you. It is simply interesting as showing how the loss of my good health seemed to quicken the imaginative power of my mind. The night in question was extremely dark, owing to the absence of both moon and stars, but at the same time there was a ghostly kind of misty light, which just served to show me all the horrors of the way. At least, what were horrors to my feverish brain. I passed the first lamp, and went down towards the pitchy blackness shuddering. It was almost like going into a cave, through the sudden change to the eyes from the brightness of the single gas lamp. The light behind cast my long phantom-like shadow ahead of me, and it seemed like a twenty foot long black fiend dancing and capering at my feet, with its head lost in the blackness ■ before me. Then the light of the lamp died right out as I	passed into the curve, and, under the influence of great fear of I knew not what, I went on my dark journey. There was a little btream, or, rather, ditch, on my right, and the water was gurgling along unseen, and it seemed to me like blood spouting and hissing from the cut throat of some unhappy victim to the murderer’s knife. The trees and hedges closed in on me till I felt like a shrinking soul hemmed in and surrounded by stealthy and silent enemies seeking to do me hurt. Many of the trees on my left were very old and bore but little foliage, and some of them seemed like lanky skeletons reaching up bony arms to the sky, and clutching frantically at the air, while the wind moaned in and out their bare ribs like the escaped souls seeking for a habitation in their former places. Some of the trees were of a dwarfish stature, and covered with creepers and ivy, and this stuff swung about and rustled like the garments of midnight hags and witches. Many of these trees had grotesque limbs and quaint shapes, and these now assumed appearances as if they had died in horrible and convulsive agonies, and so stiffened. The wind, too, on that night, assisted to terrify me, for it would rise and roar and shriek, and shake these fearful trees, and bend them over my head threateningly; then it would cease, or go growling behind the hedges for awhile, then suddenly roar and bellow like a maddened bull. When the welcome light of the second lamp dawned on me I heaved a sigh of relief, and mentally vowed that I would see a doctor next day.” “Of what were you afraid?” I inquired of my friend Humphrey. “ Thieves ? ” “No.” “ Ghosts ? ’*	। “No.” “ Cattle ? ” “No.” “ Dogs ? ” “ No; I went in no fear of any of the things you have mentioned. I do not know that I was afraid of anything; it was, as I have said, simply a case of 1 nerves.* However, to get on with my story. I went to see the doctor next day. He was a clever but roughish old fellow, I had known for a good many years. “ ‘ Well! ’ said he, * what do you want ? * I sat down and told him my experiences, as I have related them to you. He suggested D.T. I was of course indignant, as I had drank nothing alcoholic for several weeks. Then he said, ‘Let’s see what your good habits are. Do you go to bed early? ’ ‘ No.’ * Do you rise early ? ’ * No.* ‘ Do you use the shower or sponge bath daily ? ’ ‘ No.* * Do you take a great deal of pedestrian exercise ? * ‘ No.’ The doctor then said, ‘ As you don’t appear to have any good habits, let’s see what your bad habits are. ‘Do you get drunk?’ ‘No.’ ‘Do you visit plenty of theatres, casinos, music halls, <tc.? ‘No.’ ‘Do you worship your belly, and indulge in great quantities of food, with sauces, pastry, nicknacks, &c. ? * ‘No.’ * My friend,’ said the doctor, ‘ you appear to be as free from good habits as bad ones. Will you kindly tell me something you do, so that I may make a start somewhere ? * I said: ‘ I smoke, doctor.’ ‘ Well, that’s a relief,’ said he, * to find you do something; and now about your drinking habits. You drink something, of course.* * Nothing intoxicating, doctor.* ‘ Well, then,’ said he, ‘you must drink malt liquors; don’t drink spirits, they’ll do neither you nor anyone else any good, only on emergencies.’ I ventured to say, ‘ You do not approve of teetotalism, then, doctor ? ’ ‘ I do not,* he replied, sternly. ‘ Teetotalers are no good. I was doctor to a teetotal club once, and every man Jack of them died except the secretary, and he hung himself.* I stared at this, but the doctor assured me it was correct. “After some further conversation,” continued Wright, , “ the doctor said, ‘ I shall not give you any physic; be moderate in the use of Tobacco—I suspect you have been indulging too largely in that—and drink a couple of pints of “ Cooper ” daily. With respect to your journey down the lane, I suppose you will have to go that way home to-night?* ‘Yes,’ I replied. ’ ‘ Is there a public-house between the railway station and the first lamp in the lane ? ’ ‘ There is the “ Angel,”* I said; ‘ I have never been in it, but it looks a decent house.* * Then,* said the doctor, * go in there and call for a pint of “Cooper”— see that they give you a fair proportion of stout. Give yourself a matter of ten minutes to drink it, and then go home.' I thanked my medical adviser, paid him a small fee (he didn't want to take it, but I compelled him to do so), and that night I walked into the * Angel * and had a pint of ‘ Cooper.’ Whether it gave me Dutch courage, or whether it really acted instantaneously on the nerves, I know not; but the difference in my feelings that night, in comparison with the previous night, was remarkable. I strolled along that dark lane quite comfortable in my mind; all my fears were fled, and by a constant adherence to my nightly pint, in addition to a pint at dinner, I banished the horrors entirely. I certainly did lessen my consumption of Tobacco, and adopted weed of a milder description. This made me lose my wager, but my recovered health made up for that. I eventually coloured my pipe, and then I left off colouring pipes altogether, so as not to be so much of a slave to smoking as I had been.” Here ended Wright concerning his nerves. Who would have thought teetotalism such a deadly thing? D. Gowa,
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James ^ogg, the (Ettrick Sbqjberb.
in.—CONCLUSION.
“Master of nearly £300, I went perfectly mad.” He took a pasture farm for a great deal more than it was worth, and added to it another, the two needing about ten times his capital. Here he blundered and struggled on for three years, then let his creditors take all, without getting from them any settlement. “None of these mattershad the least effect in depressing my spirits—I was generally rather most cheerful when most unfortunate.” He would go back to herding; but all Ettrick looked upon him askance as a ne’er-do-weel, reckless, and unstable, and none even of his old employers would take him back. So in February, 1810, he went to Edinburgh, in utter desperation, determined to push his fortune as a literary man. Constable, reluctant but friendly, published his “Forest Minstrel,” which had small success; and all that Hogg got by it was a hundred guineas from Harriet, Countess of Dalkeith, afterwards Duchess of Buccleuch, of whom and her husband, Charles, the fourth duke, we learn so much in the “Life of Scott.” Our daunted rustic thereupon resolved to educate the benighted society of the capital in the Julies lettres, morals, and criticism! In September, 1810, he began, and actually continued for a year, the Spy, a weekly journal with this modest intent, with some casual assistance from others, but the greater part written by himself; and, stranger still, the paper paid its expenses, until certain indecorums set all the literary ladies against it and shocked off many subscribers. During this time he was supported by an old Ettrick friend, then a thriving hat manufacturer; “aman of cultivated mind and generous disposition,” says Lockhart; “a friend of my father’s, a man of good judgment, and refined and elegant pursuits,” says Wilson’s daughter in the “Memoir”; Mr. John Grieve, who had firm faith in the genius of Hogg as well as great delight in his company, who kept him in his own house the first six months, and whose partner, a Mr. Scott, became as firmly attached as himself to the simple poet. “They suffered me to want for nothing, either in money or clothes; I did not even need to ask these. Mr. Grieve was always the first to notice my wants, and prevent them. In short, they would not suffer me to be obliged to anyone but themselves for the value of a farthing; and without this support I could never have fought my way in Edinbro’. I was fairly starved into it, and if it had not been for Messrs. Grieve and Scott, would, in a very short time, have been starved out of it again.” And we may be sure that their practical business common-sense controlled and extinguished many a wild impracticable scheme of his.
Early in 1813 he published the “ Queen’s Wake,” which includes “ Kilmeny ” and others of his best and most popular pieces. No one had seen it in MS., and the day after it came out Hogg walked about the streets, read its title in the booksellers’ windows; and was like a man between death and life, waiting for the verdict of the jury. In the High Street an Ettrick man, rough but sagacious, William Dunlop, crossed over to him, and thus cheered him up:—“Ye useless poetical deevil that ye’re! what hae ye been doing a’ this time?” “What doing, Willie! what do you mean?” “Ye hae been pestering us wi’ fourpenny papers and daft shilly-shally sangs, an’ bletherin’ an’ speakin’ i’ the Forum [a debating society], an’ yet had stuff in ye to produce a thing like this! ” “Ay, Willie, have you seen my new beuk!” “Ay, faith, that I have, man; and it has cheated me out o’ a night’s sleep. Ye hae hit the right nail on the head now. Yon’s the very thing, sir.” “I’m very glad to hear you say sae, Willie; but what do ye ken about poems ?” “Never ye mind bow I ken; I gie ye my word for it, yon’s the thing that will do. If ye hadna made a fool o’ yoursel’ afore, man, you wad hao sold better than ever a book sold. ’Od! wha wad hae thought there was as muckle in that sheep’s-head o* yours?” And Willie went away, laughing and miscalling Hogg over his shoulder. Two editions went off quickly, and a third was prepared, when his publisher, a young man with little capital and less influence, went bankrupt; and the poor shepherd lost all the profits on which he had relied for subsistence and the payment of some old farming debts. This failure introduced him to Blackwood, who was one of the trustees of the bankrupt’s estate, and who helped to secure for Hogg about half of the third edition (the other half, he says, had been got rid of somehow in a week), and sold it for him on commission, and ultimately paid him more than double of what he was to have received from the first publisher.
About this time he made the acquaintance of Wilson, whose “Isle of Palms” he had extolled in the Scottish Review, and whom he was exceedingly anxious to meet. “ All I could learn of him was, that he was a man from the mountains in Wales, or the West of England, with hair like eagles’ feathers and nails like birds’ claws, a red beard, and an uncommon degree of wildness in his looks.” Hogg at length wrote inviting him to dine, Wilson came, and the two with Grieve had a jolly evening together. As Hogg modestly puts it: “I found him so much a man according to my own hearty that for many years we were seldom twenty-four hours asunder when in town.” Hogg went and spent a month with him at EUeray; and on his way thither made the personal, acquaintance qf Southey. Hogg, putting up for the night at an.inn in Keswick, sent a note to Greta Hall; Southey came;
to him, and made him spend two days at the Hall. Let Hogg himself speak: “Before we had been ten minutes together my heart was knit to Southey, and every hour thereafter my esteem for him increased. . . . But I was a grieved as well as an astonished man, when I found that he refused all participation in my beverage of rum punch. For a poet to refuse his glass was to me a phenomenon; and I confess I doubted in my own mind, and doubt to this day, if perfect sobriety and transcendent poetical genius can exist together. In Scotland I am sure tliey cannot. With regard to the English, I shall leave them to settle that among themselves, as they have little that is worth drinking.” There’s a noble Scottish note for us! And the justice of Hogg’s literary opinion is sustained by the fact that all Southey’s great epics are dead as coffin-nails. As to his bibulous judgment, it concerns “ those who labour under the disadvantage of having been born on the south side of the Tweed” to controvert it if they can; let them but send liberal samples of their best in every kind to the present writer, and he will give an impartial verdict.
In these years Hogg generally had a summer tour in the Highlands, tours which well served him in his authorship. He went on thenceforth writing poems, tales, and sketches, which need not be here particularised, as they are easily accessible in the edition noted at the beginning of these articles. In the spring of 1814, having no home wherein to shelter his parents, each over 84 years of age, he wrote to his generous patroness, Harriet, Duchess of Buccleuch, indirectly asking for a farm; she kept his want in mind, but died in August; the good Duke then said to Scott: “ My friend, I must now consider this poor man’s case as her legacy;” and presented him with the small farm of Altrive Lake, in th© wilds of Yarrow. The Duke’s letter said: “The rent shall be nominal;” in fact no rent was ever mentioned or paid. Hogg had now a “ cosie bield,” and, with a little more prudence and a little less simple good-nature, might have had a comfortable livelihood for the rest of his days. Having married an excellent wife in 1820, a young family grew around him, and he extended his farming operations by leasing Mount-Benger for nine years, losing more than £2000 on it before he got free. Then his literary engagements and undertakings, though they brought him very considerable sums of money (he reckons £750 in a certain two years, besides small sums in cash), probably cost him much, by distracting his attention from his farms and carrying him frequently to Edinburgh. Last, and worst of all, those profitless pests the idle notoriety-hunters were devastators not only of his time but also of his substance; for, there being no inn in the neighbourhood, they made his poor cottage, which he had to enlarge, their inn—an inn without charges, abusing his hospitality most damnably, after the manner of their kind. A friend once going to dine with the family, no one else to be present, counted fourteen others feeding there before the day was done. The Shepherd, accompanying a friend one evening, looked back on his home, buzzing with company, and said: “My bit house is e’en now just like a bee-skep, fu* o’ happy leevin’ creatures—and nae doubt, like a bee-skep, it will hae to cast some day, when it can baud its inhabitants nae langer.” To the question of Allan Cunningham, “ What is your pen about now, Mr. Hogg?” he answered, “Pen! it might as well be in th© goose’s wing; I cannot get writing any for the visits of my friends: I’m never a day without some.” And if be could not get writing any we may be sure be could not get farming much, through these same admirable “ friends,” the devouring locusts borne on the winds of vanity.
But I anticipate. While waiting to take over Altrive, h© devised how to get capital for working it, and his devise was to obtain pieces from the most popular poets of the day, and publish them in a volume. He doubtless would have cheerfully given a piece to help any brother bard in similar case. Some gave, others promised but did not give; and in the end he wrote all the “ Poetic Mirror” himself, under the names of th© various poets. Scott, who bad an aversion to joint-stock authorship, and one of whose favourite proverbs was “Every herring should bang by its own head,” firmly refused to take part in the first scheme; Hogg in a furious fit of childish rage wrote to him, beginning “ Damned Sir," and ending “Believe me, Sir, yours with disgust, &c.” Th© great-hearted took no notice; but Hogg, with that candour which redeems all his faults, tells us how when he lay dangerously ill with an inflammatory fever (the result of five or six weeks of the Bacchanalian “Right and Wrong Club ”), Scott called every day on returning from the Parliament House to inquire after him, and enjoined Mr. Grieve to let no pecuniary consideration whatever prevent his having th© best medical advice, “for I shall see it paid;" and further enjoined that Hogg should not be told of this. “ I would fain have called, but I knew not how I would be received;” “ and this, too," says Hogg, “ after I had renounced his friendship, and told him that I held both it and his literary talents in contempt! ” Hogg learnt all this some time after by accident, and, vehement in penitence as in wrath, wrote to his outraged patron and friend:—“I desire not a renewal of our former intimacy, for haply, after what I have written, your family would not suffer it; but I wish it to be understood that, when we meet by chance, w© might shake hands and speak to one another as old acquaintances, and likewise that we may exchange a letter occasionally, for I find there
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are many things which I yearn to communicate to you, and the tears rush to my eyes when I consider that I may not.** Scott’s answer was a brief note telling him to think no more of the affair, and to come to breakfast the next morning. Hogg went, and more than once tried to come to a full explanation, but Scott always parried and evaded and baffled him, and was his best friend to the last. Hogg tells us further:— “ Mr. Wilson once drove me also into an ungovernable rage by turning a long and elaborate poem of mine on * Field of Waterloo ’ into ridicule, on learning which I sent him a letter which I thought was a tickler. There was scarcely an abusive epithet in our language that I did not call him by. My letter, however, had not the desired effect; the opprobrious names proved only a source of amusement to Wilson, and he sent me a letter of explanation and apology, which knit my heart closer to him than ever.”
Hogg claimed “the honour of being the beginner, and almost sole instigator of Blackwood's Magazine;" admitting that when he first mentioned the plan to Old Ebony, that enterprising publisher said that he had been for some time revolving a similar scheme. Hogg undoubtedly originated the “ Chaldee Manuscript,” of which, as it appeared, Ferrier gives him about forty verses (though he sent many more), the rest being mainly due to Wilson and Lockhart. Hogg had many a tiff with Blackwood and his associates, who put the Shepherd’s name to all sorts of things he never wrote; and who, Lockhart especially, were continually mystifying him; and he had another quarrel with Wilson, i.e,, a quarrel all on his own side, about the way in which he was exhibited in the “Noctes,” though these, by the notoriety they gave him, must have immensely increased his literary earnings. The “Chaldee MS.” Hogg always looked upon as an innocent joke, and could never understand why people got in a rage about it.
In 1832 Hogg visited London to arrange for a complete edition of his works, and stayed there three months. He was of course lionised more than enough; and among other things entertained at a public dinner, at which some two hundred noble and distinguished persons did him honour; but was most pleased because the day was the anniversary of Burns’ birth, and two sons of Burns sat on the left of the president (Sir John Malcolm), and after dinner he brewed punch in the punch-bowl of Burns, brought from Paisley for the occasion. The projected edition, to be illustrated by George Cruickshanks (so I find it spelt), came to grief with the first volume, through the failure of the publisher, who failed a second time with another series entrusted to him by the kind-hearted, indiscreet Shepherd. On his return he was welcomed with a public dinner at Peebles, his good friend John Wilson in the chair. His vigorous constitution was now breaking up; and at length, after a severe illness of four weeks, he died on the 21st of November, 1835. He was buried in the churchyard of Ettrick, near to which he was born; a plain stone, with name and dates and harp, shows his grave. He left a widow with one son and four daughters, the children all young, and very little for their subsistance. What private beneficence may have done for the poor family, who by their husband and father had such strong claims on the national gratitude, I know not; but eighteen years elapsed before a royal pension was granted to Mrs. Hogg—giving her and her young ones ample time to perish of starvation I In 1860 a monument was erected to him midway between the loch of the Lowas and St. Mary’s Loch. “ There upon a square pedestal, about ten feet in height, and adorned with characteristic emblems and inscriptions, sits the figure of the poet upon an oak-root, his head slightly depressed towards St. Mary’s Loch, which he loved so well, and on the banks of which he was so often visited with his best inspiration, while his [favourite dog Hector is couched lovingly at his feet.” Even Lockhart, embittered beyond his usual bitterness, terms him “perhaps the most remarkable man that ever wore the maud of a shepherd; ” and says of him when Scott first met him in 1801: “ As yet his naturally kind and simple character had not been exposed to any of the dangerous flatteries of the world; his heart was pure—his enthusiasm buoyant as that of a happy child; and well as Scott knew that reflection, sagacity, wit, and wisdom, were scattered abundantly among the humblest rangers of these pastoral solitudes, there was here a depth and a brightness that filled him with wonder, combined with a quaintness of humour, and a thousand little touches of absurdity, which afforded him more entertainment, as I have heard him say, than the best comedy that ever set the pit in a roar.” The national monument came somewhat earlier than Christopher North, in 1824, predicted: “ My beloved shepherd, some half-century hence your effigy will be seen on some bonny green knowe in the forest, with its honest face looking across St. Mary’s Loch, and up towards the Grey Mare’s Tail, while by moonlight all your own fairies will weave a dance round its pedestal.”
In the “Memoir of Robert Chambers,” already cited, an article is reprinted from Chambers' Journal (started in 1832), entitled “ The Candlemaker Row Festival, written by him soon after the death of the Shepherd, and giving some pleasant particulars concerning him when about 60 years old. I select and condense from this the following:—Hogg in his latter days visited Edinburgh for a week or two once or twice a year; nominally staying at Watson’s Selkirk and Peebles Inn, in Candlemaker Row, really dining, supping, and breakfasting with his many friends. These were of all stations, from Scott
and the Blackwood men to humble shopkeepers, poor clerks, and poorer poets; and amongst all the Shepherd was the same plain, good-humoured, unsophisticated man as he had been thirty years when tending his flocks among his native hills. (This agrees not with Lockhart’s implication; and I would here rather take the word of the printer than of his offended high mightiness of the Quarterly,) Feeling uneasy that his residence at Watson’s was thus reduced to a mere affair of lodging, he made up for it by gathering on the last night of his stay a very multitude to sup with him, of all ranks and ages and coats, of course for the good of the house at the expense of himself. In the forenoon, making his farewell calls, he would mention incidentally that two or three were to meet him at night, at nine, and that the friend to whom he was speaking, with any of his friends, would be welcome. All the warning Watson got was a hint from Hogg as he went out that twae-three lads had been speaking of supping there that night. Watson knew of old what twae-three meant, and laid out his largest room with a double range of tables, enough for sixty or seventy guests. Hogg stood in the corner of one of the largest bedrooms to receive his company; each friend as he brought in his train trying to introduce each separately, parried by Hogg with a “Ou ay, we’ll be a’ weel sequent by and by. Having filled chairs, bed and standing space, another and yet another bedroom had to be thrown open for the reception. About ten, when nearly the whole house seemed “ panged,” supper was announced, and a grand rush ensued. The local officials took the places of honour; the Commissioner of Police for the ward—a very great man—in the chair, the Bailie and the Moderator of the Society of High Constables (what swelling titles the bodies have!) croupiers. The rest seat themselves as they can, and many are left seatless till a new table is rigged up along the side of the room. A mixed company! Meal-dealers from the Grassmarket, genteel young men from the Parliament House, printers from the Cowgate, booksellers from the New Town; advocates, grocers, bakers, shop-lads from the Lucken-booths; a young probationer, doubting whether he ought to be there, and dreading a late sitting; young swells with eyeglasses, and among them a rough tyre of a horse-dealer, shouting out full-bodied jokes to a crony about thirteen men off on the same side; Selkirkshire store-farmers, Mr. Watson himself, and nearly all the people staying in his house at the time. Supper over, the Chairman gave, with all the honours, the approved toasts, King, Royal Family, Army, Navy; then the toast of the evening, with a genuine bumper, and such eloquent eulogy as this: “Mr. Hogg is an old acquaintance of mine [let us hope only at such merry meetings], and I have read his works. He has had the merit of raising himself from a humble station to a high place amongst the literary men of his country. When I look around me, gentlemen, at the respectable company here assembled—when I see so many met to do honour [at his expense] to one who was once but a shepherd on a lonely hill—I cannot but feel, gentlemen, that much has been done by Mr. Hogg, and that it is something fine to be a poet. (Great applause.)” The toast drunk enthusiastically, the Shepherd made his usual acknowledgment: “ Gentlemen, I was ever proud to be called a poet, but I never was so proud as I am this nicht,” &c. There is now for two hours no more of Hogg; the municipal bodies have the ball among them, and no one else can get a kick at it. The Chairman gives the Magistrates of Edinburgh; the Bailie answers for them, and gives the Commissioners of Police; the Chairman answers for them, and gives some other officials; every public body in the city, from the University to the Pottterow Friendly Society, is toasted and responded for by one and another. Then come individuals: a Croupier proposes the Chairman, the Chairman proposes the Croupiers; the other Croupier proposes the ex-resident commissioner of police for the next ward. Amidst the storm of civic toasts a little thickish man, with a faded velvet waistcoat and strongale nose, rises solemnly and reminds the company of a remarkable omission: “Some, perhaps, are not aware of an incident of a very interesting nature which has taken place in the family of one of our worthy croupiers this morning [him of the swelling title, Moderator of the Society of High Constables]. It has not yet been announced in the papers: I need only say, * Mrs. Gray, of a daughter.’ (Cheering from all parts of the house.) On such an occasion, gentlemen, you will not think me unreasonable if I ask you io get up, and drink, with all the honours, a bumper to Mrs. Gray and her sweet and interesting charge.” (Drunk with wild joy by all present.)
Hitherto the literary and professional frends of Hogg have been overwhelmed and stuffed *by the roaring, ramping deluge of shopkeeping Bumbledom. About two, after the second reckoning has been called and paid by general contribution, Heaven be praised! the Chairman retires, and a young advocate takes his place; then the croupiers and other citizenly men glide off; the mirth increases, the thinned company gathers in a serried cluster of intense fun and good-fellowism around the chair. Hogg now for the first time shines out in all his lustre; tells stories, sings, and makes all life and glee. “ Laird o* Laming ton,” the “Women Folk,” and “ Paddy O’Rafferty,” he gives with irresistible force and fire. About this time, however, the reporters (i.e. B. C.) withdrew, so that it is not in our power to state any further particulars of the Candlemaker Row Festival.
And so farewell to the sweet-voiced, guileless, warm-hearted Shepherd. J. T.
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NOTICE TO OOBBESPONDENTS. We cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; and we do not hold ourselves responsible for loss.	u. s. TOBACCO JOURNAL, 184, MAIDEN LANE (CORNER OF WATEB STREET), NEW YORK. Oscar Hammerstein, Editor. Subscription: $3.00 per annum.
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No. 116.—Vol. IL] ‘	NOVEMBER, 1879.
®obaccn (Srafoing in ^ollnnir.*
A posthumous production, this pamphlet contains a good deal of interesting matter respecting the cultivation of Tobacco in the Netherlands. The author was an extensive grower of Tobacco at Zandbergen, in the province of Utrecht, and therefore his words have the authoritative weight of experience. In his preface he quotes German testimony, to the effect that the ** cultivation of Tobacco in Holland is irreproachable, and even approaches perfection,” a result attributed to “Dutch patience and exactitude, as well as to the rich alluvial soil of the country.”
We shall take from M. De La Court's treatise the details likeliest to interest the “benevolent” reader.
The cultivation of Tobacco began in 1615, in the neighbourhood of Amersfoort, province of Utrecht. About twenty years after it travelled northward to the provinces of Gelder-land, Oberyssel, and Friesland. In the district called Gaas-terland, in the last of these provinces, French refugees became Tobacco growers. The Amersfoort district, about a hundred yean ago, produced three million pounds of dry Tobacco. Every acre yielded fotir thousand pounds of Tobacco, and required to be manured with two thousand six hundred pounds of sheep dung, so that the weight in manure was nearly equivalent to the weight in Tobacco. The Tobacco was sent to France, to Sweden, and to Norway. The cultivation continued to extend, and to give satisfactory results, till the commencement of the present century, when political complications contributed to its decay, and forced the planters to narrow the range of their operations. It did not recover from the depression till about five-and-twenty years ago. The old plantations were renewed, and fresh plantations were formed on elevated and sandy ground, which previously had not been deemed suitable for Tobacco. Better cultivation has been promoted by more enlightened, views of agriculture generally, and by the progress of chemistry; it has been retarded by the reluctance of the planters to renew the seed and to vary the manure. The more intelligent planters, faithful to tiie fundamental principle of all agriculture, have employed stable dung, largely mixed with columbine, and varied the seed. '
Every ton of Tobacco perfectly dry contains from four to five hundred pounds of ashes, so that a crop of 5000 pounds of Tobacco the acre takes from the soil 1400 pounds of inorganic matter. Such facts, and the study of Liebig’s theory of agricultural chemistry, led M. De La Court to the employment of manures more complicated and scientific than those in general use. He says:—“There is an observation to be made which is not without importance in relation to manures. The merchants who buy the Tobacco of our cultivators are strongly desirous that the leaves when dried, especially those of the third crop, (Bestgoed), should be flexible, fat, and oily. To ascertain this they stretch the leaf on the thumb. When subjected to this experiment the leaf must not break, and the oily liquor must flow forth abundantly, to the extent of rendering the finger glutinous. This characteristic is derived from the quantity of organic substances which all Tobaccos contain: a volatile oil, an empyreumatic oil, and an organic volatile alkali, nicotine. It is to these substances, and particularly to the last, that Tobacco owes its great narcotic power. Nicotine contains about 17 per cent, of azote (nitrogen). Our strongest European Tobaccos are, in general,
• “ Apercu de la Culture du Tabae Dans le Royaume des Pays Bas.” Par
KM. De La Court. Arnhem, P. Gouda Quint. (Is. An. Nijhoff et Fils.) 1877.
much more largely charged with nicotine than the Tobaccos of Havanna, which, from their more delicate aroma, are more esteemed as smoking Tobaccos. Thus, I believe that if a cultivator wishes to produce Tobacco for cigars, he must feed his ground with a mineral manure not highly nitrogenous; that if, on the contrary, he finds it to his advantage, as is the ease in this country, to produce Tobacco thick and fatly oily for the manufacture of snuff, he must furnish to the plant as much nitrogen as possible. It has been declared that through the great profusion of ammonia offered to the plant, the formation of albuminoidal substances is excited, and that thence it is probable that the prevalence of the albumen occasions the disagreeable odour of the smoke of our indigenous Tobaccos.”
Following the principles of agricultural chemistry propounded Jby Liebig, and so far very imperfectly and very grudgingly adopted in England, M. De La Court, as a scientific cultivator, made use, with great success, of a manure thus compounded: wood or turf ashes soaked in horse urine; liquid human manure mixed with sulphate of lime; stable dung; columbine (pigeon dung); soot. This composition might be found of use in England for other growths than Tobacco, which, however, must ultimately in the three kingdoms be freely cultivated.
A Tobacco field in Holland includes three things: the hangar, or long shed, in which the Tobacco is hung to dry; the seed beds in front of it; and in front of the seed beds the ground where the transplanted Tobacco grows. It is on the southern side of the hangar that the seed beds are placed, and they are sheltered to the east and the west by hedges. The seed beds are formed of horse dung steeped in urine, and coated with vegetable mould. Each seed bed is enclosed by an oblong wooden frame, which is roofed, not with glass, but with well-oiled paper to protect the young plant from the rays of the sun. The sowing takes place broadcast about the middle of March or the beginning of April. To prevent the sowing from being too thick, the seed is mixed with sand or with wood ashes. The beds require the greatest care. To protect them from frost, hail, and gusts of wind, layers of straw are placed on the frame coverings; to shield thorn from fatal influences of another kind, the frames are opened at the hottest part Of the day for the admission of the air. Toward the middld of May the transplantation takes place. It is only because the climate of Holland is so inclement and variable that the seed beds have to be so carefully protected. Without the precautions employed the plant would not attain its due development, which it does in the space of two months and a-half or three months after the time of transplantation.
To M. De La Court’s excellent pamphlet are appended three beautiful engravings, which give a vivid idea of a Dutch Tobacco field, and of all its appurtenances and instrumentalities.
The beds of the transplanted Tobacco would seem to have a considerable resemblance to celery beds, and to be prepared somewhat in the same way. The surface is divided into large oblong squares, separated from each other at right angles. Each square is about forty metres in length and sixteen in breadth. (A French metre is equivalent to rather more than thirty-nine English inches.) The whole field is protected either by a natural hedge or by a brise-vent made with the wood of the alder or the oak. Close to the hedge, or brise-vent, haricot beans or other vegetables are sown, in order to soften as much as possible the bitter breath of the prevailing winds. Each square is divided into parallel beds about a metre in breadth, the trench severing bed from bed included. When the bed has been raised to the necessary
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height, and the manure has been spread thereon, the plants are inserted in the ridge, which, after the insertion, is slightly flattened, the whole bed gradually narrowing from the base to the top. The method generally adopted is to give to the plants a deep root, to preserve them from too much humidity, to facilitate the circulation of air and the freedom of approach, and to diminish the danger of injuring or breaking the leaves during the different labours of the ingathering. The plants are placed on the summit of the beds in two parallel lines, the space between plant and plant being about a foot. In their new abode the plants are buried up to the leaves. The plantation of a few hectares of land occupies about three weeks. (A hectare is nearly two and a half English acres.) For a hectare the plants of ten or twelve seed beds are required. Though there is copious watering at the time of transplantation, the plant during drought may languish and not give signs of life for two or three weeks. It should be mentioned that, to hinder the exhaustion of the soil, the ridge is transformed into the trench, and the trench into the ridge, each successive year. The plants, which, unhindered by accidents, grow with incredible rapidity, are exposed to a serious calamity, the ravages of the tipula oleracea. From eggs laid in autumn come large worms, the colour of the ground, and with a black head; they chrysalide, to become in September perfect insects. The worms often destroy in a single day whole beds. To replant is the only remedy, and it may be too late. As soon as the transplantation is finished, weeding with the hand or with the weeding hook has to begin; for, as if by magic, the tops and sides of the beds are soon covered with darnel and chickweed. The best time for weeding is dry weather, which of itself is hostile to the weeds. These, when plucked, are thrown into the trench, in order that the soil may not be impoverished. This slovenly mode of dealing with weeds is common enough in England, but we should have expected better things of Dutchmen. All weeds should be burned the moment they are torn from the ground. The plant is allowed to grow for two months before being topped. This operation is to prevent the plant from running to seed. Of course the plants intended for seeding are allowed to have free growth. It is thought desirable that a plant should not have more than fourteen leaves. Toward the end of July the harvest commences. It takes place at three different periods. The first gathering embraces the four or five lowest leaves, those which often touch the soil, and to which the sand attaches itself by preference. Hence the name of Zandgoed, or Sandgood, This is the crop which has the least value. During and after the gathering of the Zandgoed the shoots called Dieven, or Thieves, which appear at the axil of the leaves, are removed, in order that the Dieven may not, to the detriment of the principal leaves, rob the stalk of the nourishing saps. The second gathering follows at short interval, and consists in plucking the four or five middle leaves. The crop is called Aardgoed, or Earthgood, from its comparative proximity to the ground. War is anew made on the Dieven, and for a like purpose. By-and-by comes the third gathering, that of the top leaves. These are the longest, the broadest, and the most beautiful. Hence they have the name of Bestgoed, or Bestgood. Some of the leaves are more than half a metre long, and the third of a metre broad. Toward the end of September nothing remains but the stripped stalk. Some cultivators, instead of removing the stalks immediately, and throwing them into the trench as manure for the following year, allow them to remain to produce a fourth crop, two-thirds of which belong to the labourers, and one to the cultivators. This is called Suikeren (to sugar), probably because the benefit is supposed to sweeten the hardships of labour. M. De La Court condemns the custom, and with justice, as injurious to the second and third crops, and-as tempting to dishonesty. The Aardgoed serves in general as a covering for cigars, and the Bestgoed for the fabrication of snuff. The Tobacco-gatherers place the leaves carefully in wide, oval, four-handled baskets, to convey them to the hangar. Then women and children fasten the leaves in rows on rods, a metre and a half long, two centimetres thick, and pointed at one end. Alder wood is generally employed for the rods, which cause a considerable outlay. They are sold for sixteen francs the thousand, and thirty thousand are required for an acre. The women or children, seated on small low chairs, place a certain number of Tobacco leaves, twenty, for instance, on their left knee. With the forefinger and thumb of the left hand they take a leaf at the origin of the median nervure. With a small knife they make an incision herein, following the direction of the nervure, so as to deviate neither to the right nor to the left, and to preserve the leaf intact on the two sides of the median. Then they place the leaf on the right knee, each successive leaf being laid in the same manner and the same direction, the upper surface on the under surface. Other workfolks carefully string the leaves on the rods. The incision and the stringing are accomplished with prodigious dexterity. From twenty to thirty leaves of Zandgoed are strung on one rod, from twenty-five to thirty of Aardgoed on a second, from ten to fifteen of Bestgoed on a third. As soon as the leaves are strung the rods are placed on spars, which, transversal and parallel, occupy the whole of the hangar, and which are sufficiently near the roof to permit the unimpeded movement of the	workmen below them. The leaves and the rods are so arranged and arrayed that the circulation of the air may hasten the drying. In placing or in changing the place of the rods the workmen make use of steps. The hangars are of wood and very simple, but very solid in their construction. For three hectares of land the proportions must be about forty metres in length, twelve in breadth ; the height from the soil to the summit eleven metres. The roofs are tiled. The boards which form the shutters on the sides of the building are each a quarter of a metre broad. For a third of their dimension they are placed horizontally above the soil; for two-thirds vertically up to the roof. Of three vertical shutters, one can be opened in all its length by means of hinges. The horizontal openings have the breadth of two planks two metres long, and, following each other, occupy the whole extent of both facades. When the plantations are considerable a small house is erected between the facades of two hangars for the planter, who in this fashion can more scrupulously survey the drying, on which almost entirely depends the value of the Tobacco. The movable boards serve a double purpose. When the weather is fine they are opened to admit the air, so that the drying may be accelerated; when the weather is bad they are shut so as to exclude the rain, the mist, and the violent winds. This double process demands much experience, and skilfully conducted it gives the leaves a good colour, pliantness, and elasticity, and hinders them from hardening or growing mouldy. Sometimes, for drying, an expedient very dangerous and forbidden by the police is resorted to. On the floor of the hangar fires of wood or of turf are kindled. As the hangars are of wood, the slightest accident may cause a terrible conflagration. As soon as one crop is dry it is taken from the hangar to make room for the following crop. To economise the rods the dry leaves of three rods are strung on a single rod; then the Tobacco, in an oblong square, is piled on the ground to the height of a man. Branches and straw are put under the Tobacco to keep it from the damp. The stalks, fastened to the rods, are placed outside, the leaves inside; and in the middle of the square there is a space empty and accessible to the air. This process is needful to preserve the suppleness of the leaf, and to keep off fermentation. Each crop is put into bundles by itself. When the leaves are taken from the rods the inferior leaves are put aside as refuse. The good leaves are then placed together with the utmost symmetry, and strongly compressed. The bundles are tied with cords formed of the twisted leaves of the refuse. The bundles of the first crop (Zandgoed) weigh a kilogramme each; those of the second (Aardgoed) a kilogramme and a half; those of the third (Bestgoed) from six to eight kilogrammes. (The kilogramme is rather more than two English pounds). At this point the task of the cultivator may be deemed at an end. The Tobacco in bundles makes its first entrance into commerce. The cultivator sells his Tobacco to the merchant, who stocks it in his warehouse to ferment, in masses of from twenty-five to thirty thousands kilogrammes each. The fermentation, which lasts at least three months, having ended, the Tobacco is sold by the merchant to the manufacturer. When the cultivator sells his Tobacco to the merchant, a deduction of 7 per cent, is made on the weight for the nervures of the leaves. The refuse is taken at half price. One per cent, is allowed for ready money. The year that M. De La Court wrote his pamphlet he had from each hectare of land:— Zandgoed 	 952	pounds. Aardgoed 	 1204	„ Bestgoed 	 4648	„ Uitschot (refuse) 	 770	„ 7574	„ He says, “With present prices, the hectare can produce from two to three thousand francs. Let us not, however, forget that these magnificent results are powerfully counterbalanced by caprices of temperature. The storms of summer, especially if they are accompanied by hail, can destroy the most beautiful hopes. It is true that the insurance societies present a means of defence against these calamities, which often involve a loss of several thousands of florins. But, alas! the cultivator is a good deal of a fatalist; and I must confess that the estimate of damage done is subject to many difficulties and controversies.” The following is the average outlay for the cultivation of a hectare, or two acres, devoted to Tobacco:—The erection of a hangar of fir wood for three hectares costs about 4000 francs. Interest of this sum (a hectare) at ten per cent 	 133	francs. Labour	 400	„ Manure	 640	„ Interest on the field, and so on	 127	„ 1300 francs. The average profit on a hectare of Tobacco is five hundred francs. At the time when M. De La Court wrote, the cultivation of Tobacco occupied, in the province of Gelder, 1367 hectares; in the province of Utrecht 399 hectares. The other provinces only cultivate Tobacco exceptionally. The cultivation of Tobacco in Holland would seem to represent a capital of about twenty millions of francs.
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If so small a portion of the Dutch soil devoted to Tobacco represents so large a capital, what increase of Irish prosperity, what intensification of Irish power might we not expect from the consecration to the same production of large tracts of the Irish soil? We have no sympathy with the outcry about Irish grievances or with Irish disaffection and anarchy. Instead of being worse, Ireland is better treated than the rest of the empire. But Ireland may justly complain that its natural resources are not made the most of. And would that Tobacco were extensively cultivated in Ireland, especially if Dutchmen were the cultivators!
®alt« ^flUi on ibt Sea of ^ct.
E.-A STRANGE MEETING. DUNSKIN THE INDIAN. DUNSKIN’S SONG. WHERE HAS DUNSKIN GONE? AND WHERE HAS ALL THE ’BACCY GONE?
You have seen a wide, bleak moorland in the dead of winter, clad in virgin snow, with never a track or footpath on it to guide the wanderer’s footsteps. If you can recall such a scene to mind, then it will give you some idea of the desolate ice-pack on which we began our long journey towards the Pole. Don’t, however, imagine it perfectly level. There is many a lofty hummock thereon, and every now and then we pass tall, square edifices, built by no mortal hand, composed of immense slabs of bay ice, piled one over the other like a pack of cards. But even these, like all the plain around us, is covered with crisply frozen snow. And over this we trudge along right cheerily, crowned and enwreathed by a fragrant cloud, to which not a soul amongst us but contributes his quota.
The good ship’s hull goes down behind us; gradually, too, her tapering spars disappear, and finally even the crow’s nest is out of sight; and then, and not till then, do we consider our expedition quite begun.
We were alone on the Sea of Ice.
Twenty miles a day was our allotted task, twenty miles a day and four meals, the last one only partaken of under canvas. Our tent was the most primitive imaginable. One side of it was formed by the sledge, the walls were built of enow, and the large tarpaulin, pole-supported, thrown over it. Tn the centre burned the captain’s stove-lamp, and with our feet to this, well wrapped in rugs, we nightly went to sleep, each with his pipe in his mouth. Bad practice this smoking in bed, I grant you; but then we hadn’t the slightest fear of setting the house on fire.
Stimulated by the keen, bright air, we could have done even more than twenty miles daily, and I’m not sure we couldn’t have done with five instead of four meals a day, only, whenever we felt hungry before the time, we just stuck the closer to our pipes. When resting we talked, while walking and dragging we sang, and seemed never to tire singing. Only the man whose turn it was to walk on ahead, compass in hand, as leader, took no part in the singing.
Thus bore we boldly on. Every day was a fac-simile of the one preceding it. This might have made the time seem as long as the pack was monotonous, had not our hearts been borne up with the thoughts that, after a week or two, or three at the farthest, the scene would change. There was no saying, we thought, what kind of a country we would eventually arrive at, for the captain had imbued the minds of all of us with the idea that, if ever we stood on that much-dreamed-of spot, the Pole, where there would be neither east nor west, nor north, but south, south, south, whichever way we chose to point, we would find ourselves in a far different country from the snowy waste we were now traversing.
Eighteen days since we saw the ship sink below the southern horizon; eighteen days, and still but little signs of the promised land. But this eighteenth day proved a very eventful one notwithstanding; for, just as we emerged from our tent, the first thing that greeted our gaze was a cloud. Only a tiny white speck afloat on the blue of the northern horizon. And never did Israelites of old welcome their guiding pillar by day, with more rapture than did we this aerial stranger. The captain felt convinced now that his theory was right. “That cloud hangs over water,’’ he cried, rubbing his hands with glee; it is the open sea around the Pole.”
We set out on our journey that day with lighter hearts than ever.
The ice for some time back had been waxing heavier, the hummocks were becoming hills, the hills almost mountains, which we found it more convenient to skirt than climb over. Not so our brave Newfoundland, however; full of life and bounding vigour, he went feathering here and there and everywhere, but generally a long way ahead, either to the right hand or to the left. We were seldom surprised at anything this animal did. He would climb the highest hummocks, apparently to have a look around, give just one bark, which sounded loud and strange in the universal stillness, then come rolling down to the foot as quickly as a keg of rum would. But on this same eighteenth day, and well on in the afternoon of that day, the attitude and behaviour of our canine friend attracted the attention of every one of us, and, for the time being, held us spell-bound. He stood on the top of a neighbouring eminence of
snow, facing northwards, fiercely growling, and with head and hair erect. There was more than one of us rushed quickly to his side. Something dark on the dazzling snow ahead of us— something dark, tall, and erect, that moves, that advances towards us—something that we soon perceive to be a human being, skin-clad.
It would be difficult to say which feeling was uppermost in our minds, elation or surprise, mingled with somewhat of superstitious dread. Who could this mysterious stranger be? One of the inhabitants of the captain’s promised land, or a being of another and certainly not a brighter world; for an angel he did not look like. He has not seen us yet, but comes onwards unheedingly, yet tottering in his gait, and helping his feeble footsteps foward by leaning on his spear. He is in want, then, and ill; so we hurry on to meet him. He sees us now, and his first impulse is to brandish his spear; then he drops it, staggers, and falls on the snow, holding up his attenuated hands, as if pleading for mercy. We soon convince the poor Indian we are friends. One of our number is sent back to the sledge for food and brandy in warm coffee. These he speedily puts out of sight, then rubs his grim face in his cuff and smiles, while we stand round looking down at the creature and smoking. The dog advances and makes friends, and the Indian places his two arms around his neck, his cheek to his head, and caresses him. As yet no one has spoken. Presently, taking the meerschaum from his lips,
“This is all very pretty, my friend,” says the captan; “but the question comes to be, who the deuce are you, and where the dickens do you come from?”
It was now the Indian’s turn to look surprised. He started from his seat on the snow.
“ What,” he cried, “ are you Engleesh ? ”
“ Rather,” we replied, laughing, “ and why not?”
“ Because you smoke. I never see one Engleeshman smoke before, nor touch the fire-water you putin my mouth.”
“ Come,” said the captain, “ we would like to hear more about how we meet you all alone on this wilderness of ice, or how we hear you speak of Englishmen, and in their language. You appear, too, to have a funny notion of their manners and customs; and yet you seemed to like the drop of firewater we put in your mouth amazingly.”
“Ay,” replied our Indian friend, “it have restore me plenty quick; it have pluck me from the jaws of deaf, and peradventure from the gates of hell.”
“ Come, come, old chap, not so fast,” said the captain.
“ Have a whiff, my beauty,” said the doctor, offering him a cigar.
“ Be jabers,” cried Teddy, “ th’ ould divil is an ating of it.”
“He’s a tarnation good sort,” said the mate, spitting on the snow; “he knows how to chew. Now, we’ll try him with a clay, if only to make him a kinder communicative.”
If the Indian was an adept at chewing, he soon proved himself no bad hand at blowing a cloud.
“Ah!” cried the half-famishing wretch; “it was for this, it was for the ’Bacco I have trabel many weary mile, ober the mountain and ober the snow. The Danish peoples first bring it to our nation far away in Obolee. They teach us to smoke. We sell them fish for ’Bacco. We teach them to hunt the bear, to catch the walrus, much fine thing, all for the ’Bacco. By’m-bye they leave us; then clouds of sorrow fall on my nation. We cast lots who shall go seek the country of the Danish peoples, and the lot fell on this chile. Many many day I wander. Mooch mooch I endure. Then I come to one Engleesh colony. I forget my sorrow. I laugh, I rejoice. I beg for ’Bacco. They tell me no; they do not smoke, they do not touch the fire-water. It is, they tell me, the abomination of the Geentiles. Then mooch my heart go down; I sicken, I think I will die. For six long months I linger, unable to trabel, and one plenty long man make bobbery over me and pray. When I get well he make me to work. But I say I must journey on to look for the Danish peoples, and buy ’Bacco for my nation. * Nay, nay,’ cry the plenty long man, holding up his hands and his eye-whites; ‘nay, nay, abide with us in this the land of our adoption, tarry and sojourn among us, lest, peradventure, some evil thing befal thee.’”
At this moment the captain felt it incumbent upon him to clap his hand on his knee, lifting his knee half-way to meet the emphatic slap.
“ Well,” he cried, “may I be eternally jiggered if that isn’t the identical Dauvid himself. What fun now if the saintly scoundrel of an anti has stolen a march upon us, and discovered the North Pole before us.” “And so,” he continued, addressing the Indian, “ you came along here.”
“I come ’long here,” said the Indian, puffing away like one who had been a stranger to the weed divine for many a long day. “ But go not you thither, I tell you,” he added; “ it is a terrible land, it is one land of gloom. Come back with me, and help me seek the Danish peoples, that I may find ’Bacco for my nation.”
“Dang the Danish peoples,” said the captain; “backyou must come with us, Mister Dunskin, and guide us to this lone lorne land of the antis.
The poor Indian pleaded hard to be allowed to continue his own journey, but the captain was obdurate: there was Tobacco in store for him if he came, if he didn’t he might go to the deuce, but he would go without as much as a chew.
The arguments fetched the Indian, and he became henceforth a member of the expedition; for, having learned the
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virtues of the plant divine, what is it that even a savage will not do for Tobacco. We spliced the main brace that night, a most unusual piece of extravagance with us; but we were to be excused, for were we not, so to speak, on the borders of the promised land.
To say that Dunskin, as we called him, was a little peculiar in some of his ways, would not be to take away the creature’s character. He seemed to enjoy the splicing of the main brace immensely, and held out his horn mug for another supply as naturally as a Christian would have done. Having finished his grog, he set about making himself comfortable for the evening. All the rest of us were content to loll around the spirit stove. Not so Dunskin. He collected a quantity of snow, and built with it a square seat at one end of the tent, about three feet high. On the top of this he squatted Eastern fashion, and there he loomed through the nicotian gloom until bedtime, looking like the evil genius in a wizard’s cave, the quintessence of diabolical contentment. If he stopped smoking for an instant, it was only to refill and go on again. He didn’t even come down from his throne when the sentry looked in to say “It is snowing, gentlemen.”
Snowing? Why this was a change. The captain’s eyes brightened when he heard the news. A change was coming over the spirit of the scene; we were nearing the promised land. If it snowed here, many miles farther north it might rain. Then should we see hills and dales and valleys green. The thought was enchanting.
An hour afterwards it was reported: “ Sky clear and bright again; not a cloud”; about three inches of snow had fallen.
' “You’re very quiet up there Dunskin.” said the captain.
“What else I do, then? I think about my nation, I think about my little wife, my thirty children, and the Danish peoples.”
“Oh, hang those everlasting Danish peoples,” cried the captain. “Can’t you dance, or sing, or something?”
“Sing? yes,” said Dunskin. “I sing to you in the language of my nation.”
Now, I beg the reader to understand that the captain, not I, is accountable for the following translation of this weird creature’s song. I know the chorus is right. I never shall forget that, nor the way the Indian sang it, raising both arms and voice with the “Ah! hce! 0! hoe!” till it ended in a shrill and prolonged” Eeee” that was savagely appalling.
Dunskin sings:—
“ 0 ’Baccy, she be plenty good for Engleeehman and all, Ah! hoe!
For de body ob de white man, and de black man’s soul, Ah! hoe! 01 hoe!
For de wretches at de ’quator, and the gemlams round de Pole, Yah! we dearly love an ole clay, and we lights him with a coal.
Ah! hoe! 01 hoel Eeee!!
* My leetle dear ole yeller wife, she thinks she goin’ to die, Ahi hoe!
Her body feel so berry stiff, her skin so hot and dry.
Ah! hoe! 0! hoe!
She cannot eat her blubber much, but on de ground she lie. Till I give her just one leetle smoke, yah! den to see her fly.
Ah! hoe! 0! hce! Eeee!!
M One Oder time she taken ill, and feelin’ berry bad, Ah! hoe! (dolefully.) No ’Baccy in de hut dis time, and dat was berry sad.
Ah! hoel 01 hoe! (mournfully.)
One peench of snuff I give her, though, which make her sneeze like mad, Till pop comes three more yeller kids, to call this nigger dad.
Ah! hoe! 0! hce! Eeee!!
(Chortu, gentationally.)—Ah! hoe! 0! hce! Eeee111”
“Well, I’m blowed! ” cried our captain.
“Remarkably curious!” the doctor was heard to mutter, and he was presently after descried making a memo in his note-book.
Next day, at breakfast time, each one of us looked at the other in silent consternation. Dunskin was gone! Spirited away—unless, indeed, he were the devil himself. We surely were coming into a strange region of the globe. We almost shuddered to think what would happen next. Dunskin couldn’t have walked away. The sentries swore they hadn’t napped. No more snow had fallen, and there wasn’t a footprint anywhere around the camp. But a worse discovery followed. Nearly all our Tobacco was missing!!
“Then it was the devil. He has flown away with it to discourage us. Men, I will go on, in spite of all the devils out of—ahem! ”
The sledge was loaded, and we had made a start, when, on looking back, who should we see still squatting on the tent ground but that great honest Newfoundland, and laughing all over him. Back we all ran, and the dog began to scratch. Heavens! how he made the snow fly, till first a dusky head appeared, then skin-clad shoulders, and then out crept the nigger, looking very foolish indeed, with our Tobacco on his back. You should have seen us then. First we gave three cheers, then we joined hands and danced around Dunskin, singing “Ah! hce! O! hoe! Eeee!” and the dog barking in unison. But every night after we took the precaution to tie Master Nero and Dunskin together. Nero watched him.
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
The Circlet Cigars.
[From the German of Leistner.]
A Bagman, crafty, glib, and bold, Bremen cigars to sell roamed round; Great skill to trick he could unfold Wherever silly dupes he found.
Along with honest goods, he bore
Of warehouse trash a large supply;
And tried to swell his money’s store
By tempting simple folks to buy.
But, both in hamlets and in towns, His dodges were well known at last; He saw, from sneers and angry frowns, He could not snare as in the past.
The traders wanted Bremen wares, Tobacco, honest, strong, and cheap;
Where grew the wares who knows, who cares?
In Bremen’s marks the faith is deep.
The bagman to a trader came;
Finding him cold, like all the rest, Fine circlets from a cigar’s flame He blew, and thus relieved his breast.
Circlets divine the bagman blew, And each with each was intertwined;
Such art the trader never knew:
Desire and rapture filled his mind.
He cried, “lam not in the mood
To buy, but if you have a lot Of these cigars I bargain would;
Such trifles smokers oft besot;
Of what is new and odd and queer, Young fops are very fond indeed;
And if the sort is not too dear, No irksome chaffering we need.”
The bagman said: “By all means, take
My whole remaining stock; the true Circlet cigars cost much to make, Are scarce; but these I give to you
Under the market price, because
Old customers I like to keep.”
The bagman laughed and rubbed his paws: Was proud to catch a stupid sheep.
When next the bagman passed that way
The trader’s eyes with fury flashed;
Who could so swindle and betray, He said, should be most soundly thrashed.
For many the cigars had tried, But all had found the smoking vain; In clouds the reek wild skyward hied: The art of curling none could gain.
The bagman spake: “ My worthy friend,
Circlet cigars I call them still;
But neither you nor I can lend To bungling fools the curling skill;
The same cigars, just see me smoke;
Behold the lovely circlets rise!
If smokers are as dull’s a moke, Should they the good cigars despise?”
Scoto-Cket.
Watw ftjislsfian in % ®^m ^inghoms.
IV.
Having thus accompanied the estimable Rymer (who, maogre his ominous name, dealeth not in fiction but in fact) unto the end of the reign of “ the wisest fool in Christendom,” it may be as well before proceeding with him to let him rest a little, the while we turn aside and go backward, and gather what orts of information we can from such other more or less communicative travellers through the same space of time as we may have the good luck to meet. It were hard to arrange such fragments in strict chronological order: each wayfarer in his turn must tell what he has to tell, after the manner of the witnesses in a law-case; only we shall not follow the procedure of the reporters for the press, who note down the narrative of particular events over and over again when the witnesses thereto are many and the trial is “sensational.”
Dr. Cleland (Note p. 15) and H. T. Buckle (“ Posthumous Works,” H., p. 332, art. 728), the latter giving the more precise reference, “Stow’s London,” H., 334, Edn. Strype, folio, 1755, inform us that Tobacco pipe makers were incorporated by James I. in 1621 [should be 1619, 17 James L The British Museum Strype’s “ Stowe” is dated 1720—work first written 1598—and the passage stands Vol. H., 247, Book V.; an engraving is given of flowering Tobacco plant, their device on all public occasions]. Cleland goes on to inform us (still
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from Strype’s “Stowe”) that their charter was confirmed by Charles I., and again, in 1663* by Charles II. “ Their privileges extended ‘through the cities of London and Westminster, the kingdom of England and the dominion of Wales;’ and their heraldic insignia are given as follows in Allen’s ‘History of London: ’ Anus—Ar. on a mount in base tert, three plants of Tobacco, growing and flowering, all proper. [Of course! how could such plants be other than proper’] Crest—Adami: Moor; in his dexter hand a Tobacco pipe, in the sinister a roll of Tobacco, all proper [Right again !] Supporters—Two young Moors, proper [Yet again!] wreathed about the loins with Tobacco leaves, vert. Motto—‘Let brotherly love continue.’” Truly these be noble arms, with a most pious, peaceful, cordial motto.
It is to be observed that none of the prohibitions and impositions in the proclamations hitherto cited apply to Scotland, which is only once mentioned (in that of September 29th, 1624), and then as on the same level as the parts beyond the sea, from which no Tobacco not grown in Virginia or the Somer Islands is to be imported into England, Wales, or Ireland.
Turning now to the elaborate series of the “ Calendar of State Papers,” published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, we find no mention of Tobacco in the Scottish Series; which, by-the-by, is very meagre, as compared not only with the English, but also with the Irish. Buckle (“Post. Works,” II., 127, art. 299; on the authority of “Letters from a Friend in the North of Scotland,” I., 212, Ed. 1815) states that smoking was rare in Scotland a hundred years ago. As the dates are not given when Buckle made the multitudinous notes in his Commonplace Books (which fill the second and third of the 3 vols. of his “Mise, and Post. Works”), we do not know what date is meant by “ a hundred yearsago;” we may, however, venture to surmise that the rarity of smoking in the North of Scotland could be no proof of its rarity in the South, knowing as we do that prior to the American War of Independence Glasgow was a great emporium of the trade.
In the Irish Series we find (Vol. 1611-14, p. 530, document 942): “The Lord Chichester [Lord-Deputy, or, as you now say, Lord-Lieutenant, of Ireland] to any of His Majesty’s Learned Counsel:—Warrant upon surrender to be made by Sir Henry Pollard, Knt., farmer of the Taxes on Tobacco and Tobacco Pipes, of a fiant of grant* to be made unto Thomas Dowrish, of Heath Barton, Co. Devon, Esq., to be farmer of of the said taxes.—Dublin, 4th Deer., 1614.” Our readers doubtless know what is implied in the system of farming the taxes: pitiless extortion from the taxpayer, immense ill-gotten wealth to the Farmer, very poor returns to the Government; as conspicuously exemplified by France under Vancien regime and Turkey under the modern.
In the Calendar of the Carew MSS., preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, there are a few notices of Tobacco in connexion with Ireland. These papers were collected and preserved by Sir George Carew, afterwards Earl of Totness, whose family, besides large estates in England, had yet larger in Munster. He went to Ireland about 1575; in 1588, the Armada year, he was appointed Master of the Ordnance in Ireland; in 1590, admitted one of the Privy Council in Ireland; in 1600, made Lord President of Munster; in 1603 he obtained his recall to England, only visiting Ireland again (at least, on public business) in 1611, as bead of the Commission for the Settlement of Ulster. (The late J. 8. Brewer’s “Introduction,” Vol. 1515-74). In 1600, December 15, his firm friend, Sir Robert Cecil (who signs always Ro. Cecyll) writes, among many other tilings, “I have sent you Tobacco, as good as I could procure any.” In 1601, January 26, Sir John Stanhope: “I send you now no Tabacca, because Mr. Secretary [Cecil], Sir Walter [Raleigh, still on friendly terms with Cecil], and your other friends, as they say, have stored you of late; neither have I any proportion of it [that] is good, but am only rich in Aidermans [He in MS.] Watses promises of plenty [so in Calendar; plants in Introduction cited above, p. xxxvi.], wherewith you shall be acquainted, God willing.” These extracts seem to show that Tobacco was then either scarce or poor in Ireland. Buckle H., p. 112, art. 274(always “Mise, and Post. Works”), on the authority of the “Harleian Miscellany”, Park’s Edition, 4to, 1808, Vol. II„ p. 556, notes that “the Irish are spoken of as being singular in using it [Tobacco] as snuff.” Unfortunately he does not give the precise date to which this refers; the article is headed “Tobacco generally used in England before the middle of the 17th century;” he might have said “about the beginning” instead of “before the middle.”
Returning to the Carew MSS., we find, under date 1611, September (Vol. 1603-24, p. 96, MS. 70), an elaborate State
• I have hunted in vain for this plural form, fant, in dictionarics,encyclo-pedias, and law books; but, from its manner of use here and elsewhere, it seems equivalent to the singular form, fiat, and therefore vo a deed or warrant, or attestation; thus in the next three documents we have, respectively, a fiant of pardon, a fiant of a grant of £ 1200, and a fiant for the pardon. In Spenser's deep-witted “Mother Hubberd’s Tale” (1591); where the Ape, at the suggestion of the Fox, has stolen the Lion’s crown and mace and skin, and become absolute pseudo-monarch mongrel of the beasts, with an army of foreign mercenaries to support him—mongrel-monsters, “us griffons, minotaures, Crocodiles, dragons, beavers, and centaures,” and, the Fox as Grand Vizier, or rather Mayor of the Palace, tho* the Ape was no Hoi faineant; we read of the Right Hon. “Reynold”:
“ Nought suffered he the Ape to give or graunt, But through his hand alone must passe the flaunt.” And in the Glossary we have “ Flaunt, commission or warrant.”
paper, signed by Arthur Chichester [the Lord-Deputy; then Sir Arthur, subsequently Lord Chichester] and four members of the Irish Privy Council, including Carew. It is headed “ Proposition for the Increase of his Majesty’s Revenue in Ireland, with the Attorney-General’s Opinion how the same may be put in Execution.” It is a Proposition of many Propositions, each backed up by the most obliging legal opinion; and seems admirably calculated for shaving the Irish close. We are specially concerned here only with (5), p. 100:—
Proposition—“ By licenses to sell Tobacco, and recognizances taken for selling of ale, &c.
“ The imposition of 18d. upon the pound of Tobacco is now farmed at 201. st. by the year. [The revenue at the rate of only 266^ lbs.!]
“ Selling of ale to be let to farm.”
Opinion—“License for selling of Tobacco may be added to the former”— [the rest concerns Only ale.]
There is indeed one other Proposition (2), with attendant opinion, which relates to Tobacco in common with other merchandise: I quote only the Proposition:—“By customs, subsidies, and impositions upon merchants.” As proposition 1 is for subsidies, tenths, and fifteenths, as in England, we may presume that the object of these two propositions was to make poor Ireland (then poor indeed, after over four centuries of scarcely intermitted convulsion) pay taxes in the same ratio as rich England on all lands, goods, and merchandise.
In the Colonial Series, America and the West Indies, 1574-1660, Tobacco is, of course, very frequently mentioned; so frequently, indeed, and under so many heads and subdivisions in the Index, that I must follow the references section by section, without attempting to arrange my excerpts in chronological order. Although I must be liberal in reception of these abstracts, because they are of unique interest as concerning the infancy of the Trade and the first Colonies which have now arrived at such gigantic proportions, those inserted are few compared with those omitted as scarcely relevant to the Legislation, though many of them are very interesting in themselves.
The first heading under Tobacco is “ monopoly and contracts for,” with nine page-references.—1624, March 20: Reasons offered to the Privy Council against Sir Edwin Sandy’s contract and joint stock for the Virginia and Somers Islands Tobacco, and against the monopoly of Tobacco. (To spare many marks of quotation, I may remark at once that I throughout use as much as possible the very words of the abstracts in the Calendar.) 1624, April: Page 60 of the Calendar is full of Petitions to Parliament from Virginia against monopoly and “ indirect dealing,” and countercharges by the monopolists. The Commons appointed a day to consider the subject, but the King sent a message desiring them “ not to trouble themselves with the petition, as it would renew the factions of the Company which were in settlement by his Majesty and the Privy Council.” 1624, May and June: Page 62, occupied with the same criminations and recriminations. The business appearing very foul, many, at first unwilling, were now content to have it ripped up. Next day the King forbade the House to proceed any further; the matter having been specially recommended to his Council. . . This was assented to by a general silence, but not without soft muttering that any other business might in the same way be taken out of the hands of Parliament. (It took just eighteen years more of the consummate Kingcraft in which James and his son delighted, to swell this “soft muttering” into that great tempest of Civil War whose thunderbolts shattered the throne and slew the monarch.) 1624, June (?), page 63: Henry Earl of Southampton and certain other Lords of the Council appointed a Council for Virginia. July(?): Request [to the Privy Council?] that as the King is concluding a contract with divers persons for all Tobacco from the English colonies for his own use, orders may be given to the Governor of Virginia not to suffer any trade with the Hollanders who are now freighting ships for that purpose, their provisions not being required in that plantation. July 2: The King to Solicitor-General Heath. The Commons have petitioned against the import of foreign Tobacco, and the planters and adventurers* in Virginia and the Somers Islands have also petitioned for consideration of the languishing state of those colonies, which can only subsist at present by the sale of their Tobacco at reasonable prices. Although [the King is] well assured that these plantations cannot prosper, if they rely upon Tobacco only and neglect other things of greater consequence, yet he [Solicitor-General] is required, with the advice of Secretary Conway and Sir Richard Weston, to draw up a contract with the planters and adventurers of these colonies for all their Tobacco to be delivered for the King’s use, on which his Majesty will declare his pleasure concerning that of other countries. July (?) Statement [by Solicitor--General Heath] that the House of Commons having petitioned against the importation of foreign Tobacco, not of the growth of the King's dominions, his Majesty, conceiving it may further trade and bring money into this realm, is willing to contract with the Governor and Company of Virginia and
* Be it remembered that this word had then none of the depreciatory significance now attached to it; an adventurer was one who with the royal permission and commission, and at his own cost and risk, alone or in conjunction with others, sent or went to discover, explore, and if expedient plant or colonise, regions in the New World not already under the standard of any other Christian sovereign. The aborigines, of course, had no right to their own land, any more than have Afghans or Zulus now.
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the Bermudas [Somers Islands] * for the import of a sufficient quantity for England and Ireland. The King will prohibit the import of foreign Tobacco as requested, and the planting of any considerable quantity in England, and will take of those colonies 400,000 weight (sic: lbs. ?) yearly, of two sorts, the better at £15 the cwt., the worser at £10 the cwt. 'The companies to be allowed to export to foreign countries all imported above that quantity.
At the close of the first of these articles (T. P., Mar., ’79,) I quoted, following Mr. Arber, from one John Deacon, whose work was issued in 1616, that Tobacco, as all smokers were aware, had been at an exceedingly high rate in England ever since its first arrival; “namely, that the same hath vsually bene sold by the pound for twentie nobles [£6 13s. 4d.], fine, foure, or three pounds: yea and when it came to the lowest price it could not bee had vnder foure markes [£2 13s. 4d. ] or fortie shillings, which amounteth to 3 shillings four pence an ounce at the least.” Either Deacon is wrong despite his bold appeal to smokers, or the price must have come down enormously between 1616 and 1624, or the trade must have been marvellously profitable to some concerned, notwithstanding the heavy duty and imposition, or James was forcing the colonists to sell at a disgracefully inadequate price. As against Deacon, and so far in exculpation of James (who has enough and to spare on his head already), I may quote from Buckle, II., 332, art. 728, who gives as his authority “Rowland’s More Knaves Yet?” p. 108, Percy Society, Vol. IX., “ At all events in 1610 a man could have his pockets [«tc] filled with it for 2d.” In Ben Jonson’s “Works” (Gifford’s Edn. IV., 153,) we have mention of 2d. packets.
Still 1624, July, p. 64, Lord President Mandeville to Secretary Conway. Sends, for the King’s information, a brief of the proceedings of the Commissioners for Virginia. All will be at a stand until a proclam11- go forth to stay the importation of foreign Tobacco; which if it be not prevented will throw back the progress of the Colony two or three years. It is in contemplation to make restitution to the King for any loss there may be in his customs, by raising it out of the plantation Tobacco. . . . The Commissioners conceive that there is absolute necessity for the present (!), for maintaining the plantation by their Tobacco, and that the importation of foreign Tobacco should be restrained.
Still July (?) pp. 68-9. Reasons alleged on behalf of the King’s Farmers of the custom and impost upon Tobacco. Arguments in favour of a reduction of the duties. Captain Downton’s Tobacco was 6000 weight [again we may presume lbs.], the impost and custom more than £2000, the composition £500, which he is not provided to pay. Pray that duties may be imposed proportionable to the value and quality of that drug, and for redress of several grievances. . . Brief answer to the propos™- touching Tobacco lately delivered by the King’s Farmers of Customs, showing a profit of £93,350 to the Crown on the import11- of 300,000 lbs. of Tobacco from Virginia, 100,000 lbs. from the Somers Islands, and 50,000 lbs. from Spain or elsewhere. Deer. 13:—The Commissioners of Virginia to the King. Reasons against granting the petition of divers who call themselves merchants trading for Spain, but are really retailers of Tobacco, praying
♦ In the Calendar, 1612, Feb. 12, p. 12, we read: “ An under company erecting for the Bermudas, which has (sic) twice changed name, being first christened Virginiola, but now resolved to be called Somers Island (tic), because of the continual temperate air [can these be Shakespeare’s “still vext Bermoothes ” ?] and in remembrance of Sir George Somers, who died there.” He died 9th November, 1611 (p. 10). 1606, April 10, p. 5: Grant to Sir George Somers and others (including Sir Thomas Gates, Rich. Hakluyt, Prebendary of Westminster, and Raleigh Gilbert) of Virginia, between 34 degrees and 45 degrees N. lat., to be divided into two severad colonies. 1610, June 15, p. 9, Sir Geo. Somers to Salisbury. How on their voyage to Virginia they were taken by a great storm, about 100 leagues from Bermuda, which sundered all the fleet. His ship sprung a leak, and for six days 100 men were kept working at two pumps, night and day. They reached Bermuda without loss of life, built two small barks there between July 28, 1609, and May 10, 1610; sailed with 140 men and women to Virginia: found famine at James Town, every living thing had been eaten, and some had fed upon snakes and adders. Is going to Bermuda for fish and hogs; it is the most plentiful place he ever went to for such provisions, as well as fowls. 1610, July (?) page 10: Thos. Lord De La Warr (Lord Governor of Virginia) to Salisbury: Dispatched Sir Geo. Somers back to Bermuda for store of hogs, flesh, and fish, to serve the whole colony for the winter; “the good old gentlemen, out of his love and zeal, not motioning, but most cheerfully and resolutely undertaking to perform so dangerous a voyage.” Another of the many “ forgotten worthies ” of the glorious Elizabethan days.
It may not be amiss to add that from 1612 onwards there are papers showing how the Spaniards, taking advantage of the notorious pusillanimity of Junes (he called it love of peace), haughtily protested against the English colonies in Virginia and the Somers Islands, demanded their removal, and threatened to destroy them; asserting that these lands “ of right belonged to the King of Spain, whose title was indisputable by the conquest of Castile, and by the Pope’s Bull of Donation.” Fancy the Spaniard urging such claims and uttering such threats in Elizabeth’s time I I rather think her reply would have been entrusted to Drake, Hawkins, Grenville, Raleigh, Howard, the Carews and Gilberts, and the like, not to a peaco-at-any-price diplomacy. The Spaniards would have probably attempted force, had they not believed that our colonies would soon perish of themselves, their infancy being very rickety for want of home nourishment. But one reason for their refraining from the Somers Islands must be given here, as contradicting the extract which begins this note, and confirming Shakespeare's “still vext Bermoothes”:—1612, Aug. 2 (?) p. 14: Henry Earl of Northampton to the King: The Bermudas Company advertised of the safe arrival of their ships. The Spaniards, dismayed at the frequency of hurricanes, durst not adventure there, but coll it Damoniorum insulam. The English merchants have sent home some amber [? amberffrit; we read later, p. 15, of a piece of ambergris found there “ as big as the bodj of a giant, the head and one arm wanting, but so foolishly handled that it broke in pieces. Tho largest piece brought home was not above 68 oz., which sells for 12 or 15 shillings an oz. more than smaller pieces.” Or does ambergris mean amber? as would appear from the breaking in pieces and the disproportionately large price for large pieces] and seed pearls, “ which the devils of the Bermudas love not better to retain than the angels of Castile do to recover.” (Quotation marks in Calendar, as being the very words of the MS.)
for the import11- of Spanish Tobacco. The King’s late proclamn- against the import11- of foreign Tobacco has put a new life into the plant118- of Virginia and the Somers Islands.
1617,	March; p. 18. Under the head of Amazon we are referred to the following, which I insert for its interest:— Geo. Lord Carew. Extracts from journal sent to Sir Thomas Roe. Some four or five “ of your men ” richly returned from the Amazon in a Holland ship. It is said that they brought home Tobacco which has been sold for £2300, and some ingots of gold.
1623,	April 28, Whitehall; p. 45. We are now come to the references under the head of Impositions (given twice, with variations, in the Index, as also is Importation; for what reason, if reason there be, I cannot divine).—Order of the Privy Council upon a petition of planters from the Somers Islands, praying that certain Tobacco brought by them to England, and seized by the Company for payment of an imposition of 4d. per lb., may be restored to them. The prayer of the petitioners is granted, and the Commissioners appointed to examine into the state of the Virginia and Somers Islands plant118- are directed to take into consid11- the impos118- fit to be levied upon Tobacco until the debt of the Compy> be fully discharged. [By which it would appear that not only did the King take upon himself to levy whatever impositions he pleased upon Tobacco, by proclamations without legal sanction, but that the Company of Adventurers, being in debt, arrogated to itself the same prerogative.]
Same date, p. 45. Order of the Privy Council. The letters of the Virginia and Somers Islands Companies to the plantations are disallowed, because they omitted to ceitify the King’s grace and favour to those plantations; and the contract is dissolved, whereby the King was to receive one third part of all the Tobacco coming from thence, and 6d. per lb. upon the other two parts. An abatement is directed from twelvepence to ninepence per lb. upon Tobacco for all charges belonging to the King, and the companies are granted the sole import11- into the King’s dominions.
1623,	Deer. 8, Whitehall; p. 55. Order of the Privy Council upon a petition of the Company of Adventurers to the Somers Islands, concerning the differences between the Governor and Compy- and the adventurers and planters of those islands. The debts of the Compy- amounting to £1400, it was ordered that £400 should be borne by an imposition upon all Tobacco that came this year from thence, the residue to be paid equally by the adventurers according to each man’s share; impos08-were likewise layed upon the Tobacco of the planters towards the public charges. The above orders are confirmed, and it is declared that those who refuse to pay such assessments shall be proceeded against and compelled to do so.
1624,	Feb. 28, James City; p. 58. Gov. Sir Fras. Wyatt, the Council and Assembly of Virginia, to the Privy Council Have received divers letters from their Lordships, with copy of their orders from the Compy-, and return thanks to the King for remitting 3d. in the shilling customs on Tobacco, and for granting to the colony the sole import11- [so in original; of course means exportation from the colony]. Nothing will give more life, or a steadier advancement to the plant11- The charges of the war have so reduced the people that they are unable to set up staple commodities. The fruits of their labour are barely sufficient to clothe and feed them. Intreat the Privy Council to take into considerat11- that heavy burden in paying for customs above a third of their labours, which they pray may be reduced to five in the hundred.
Sigvat.
font's gliiiurt.
The San Francisco Merchant is an energetic publication, which has the intelligence and the wisdom to treat Tobacco with consideration and respect. Under the general heading of “ Tobacco Scraps,” the Merchant gave, in one recent issue, no less than sixteen paragraphs—enough, upon that topic, to serve an ordinary English daily paper for half-a-year. In glancing down this interesting column, I observe that fact, fiction, and humour are all brought into the service of the common cause. I am charmed to learn that the acreage of Tobacco culture in Pennsylvania has been increased, that the estimated crop is from sixty to eighty thousand cases; and that the yield is five cases to the acre this year, as compared with three-and-a-half cases last year. When the Merchant adds that Boston exported three times as much Tobacco in the first week of September (or nearly one million pounds weight) as in the previous week, I feel that, if it were not for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I could rejoice. The exactions of her Majesty’s Treasury preclude any personal joy; but I will rejoice on behalf of humanity—as far as I may be able. Humane considerations affect me also when I read this paragraph:- “ How everything changes! Tobacco used to destroy the teeth: now it preserves them.” I am not carping at the Merchant^ or I would point out that it is not Tobacco, but the extent of our knowledge, which changes. If I were disposed to be disputatious, I might contend that teeth have destroyed more Tobacco than Tobacco ever destroyed teeth; but (if I may be allowed to indulge in an ungrammatical pun instead of an argument)—I don’t chews. Your delightful contemporary further informs me that—
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A person who has tried it says that a handful of Tobacco stems placed In the box in which the dog sleeps will entirely rid him of fleas; and that a leaf or two of the same weed put in a sitting hen’s nest keeps vermin at a respectful distance. These are two more things Tobacco is gixxl for.
Persevering in this line, he will succeed in piling up a solid volume of facts; but I will not flatter him by describing them as novelties. It is an ancient demonstration (I exhume it merely for his benefit) that the liberal consumption of Tobacco will preserve a man against the onslaughts of blood-sucking and flesh-eating animals of all kinds—cannibals included.
As one good turn deserves another, I should like to direct the Merchant's attention to pipes, regarded in the same benevolent light. I observe that pipes, in their strictly commercial aspect, have already come within his purview; for he prints this account of the extent of the pipe manufacture in Germany, to which the sole objection I raise is that the value is rated far too low:—
Among the results of interest brought out in connection with the official inquiry into the extent of the Tobacco trade of Germany, are some figures relating to the manufacture of Tobacco pipes in that country. The chief centre of this branch of industry is Ruhla, in Thuringia. In that town and the neighbouring villages the annual production for the past few years has averaged 540,000 genuine meerschaum bowls or heads, and 5.400,000 artificial or imitation meerschaum bowls. The number polished, lacquered, and variously mounted wooden pipe heads annually produced was 4,800,000. Of the common porcelain bowls, the favourite pipes of the German peasantry, there were manufactured every year 9,600,000, and of the fine clay or lava bowls 2,700,000. Further, there has been an average production of 15,000,000 pipestems or tubes of various sizes and materials, 1,600,000 dozen of miscellaneous adjuncts, such as flexible tubes, chains, tops, tufts, etc., 12.000 dozens of meerchaum pipe cases, 800,000 dozen mouthpieces and cigar holders of amber or horn, and meerschaum, wood, or cocoanut shell, and, finally, 15,000.000 complete pipes, composed of various materials. Tho value of the whole is estimated at about £1,000,000 sterling.
I desire, however, to divert the San Francisco journal for a moment to the less material aspect of the subject. In his paragraph about dogs, hens, and their tormenters, he observed —“These are two more things Tobacco is good for.” Now, what does he think—in the same large and elevated sense— Tobacco pipes are “ good for” ? Would he expect them to be efficacious in rescuing worthy but impecunious humanity from ruin?—in averting bankruptcy, and putting a sheriff’s officer to flight? If not, he has something yet to learn; and he shall learn it from the simple story of the Globe's vivacious correspondent in Paris:—
*M.	and Mdme. Flouest are in business, but trade has been very dull, and they have been unable to completely satisfy the demands of that implacable creditor the landlord, to whom they owed about £350. . . The landlord, M. Leroux, applied for a writ of ejectment, on the ground that the furniture and effect* were insufficient in value to guarantee him against loss. Maitro Dublin, a hwiMtcr, was appointed arbitrator, and proceeded to take an inventory. There was not much worth speaking about in the shop and house, but M. Flouest astonished his inquisitive visitor by introducing him to his collection of over seven hundred pipes, dating from the reign of Louis XIV. down to the present time. Each pipe was carefully ticketed with its date and origin, representing the improvements made in the appliances for the consumption of Tobacco since the seventeenth century. There were the roughly made ‘churchwardens ’ and ‘ dhudeens ’ more clumsy than those which have been exhumed from the bed of the Thames as relics of the plague of London, and only just calculated to respond to that ‘novel and artificial want,’ as Voltaire characterised smoking. There was the old Flemish pfeiffe, such as it is depicted In the home scenes of the Dutch masters, and shown as a rare article in the Cluny Museum. Every ancient pipe was represented, in clay, china, box-wood, briar-root, and the more modern narghile, with the elegant amber-tipped meerschaum in every stage of colouring, and the democratic short cutty ‘Paddy’ would have been proud to wear twisted in his hatband. There were historical pipes, the authenticity of which was vouched for by documents, and among them the handsomely painted bowl which held the Tobacco the famous Jean Bart consumed when sweeping his enemies off the seas, ready in case of defeat to apply the ‘ doddle,’ with its glowing embers, to the magazine, blowing his vessel to pieces rather than her planks should be trodden by the conqueror. There were pipes made under the Revolution in all manner of fanciful forms by the Gambiers of the period, resembling the cap of liberty, the guillotine, and the insignia of the lictora and centurions. By the side of them were the brule-gueulet of the Sansculottes, and the b&uffardes of the Grande Armee, with the Imperial eagle and crown. Among the clays was to be found a long, delicate straw with the letters in pencil *L. G., i864,’ said to have been coloured by M. Gambetta at the Cafe Procape, and yet another, once the pride of M. Lepere and the admiration of the habitat of the Cafe Beige. M. Dublin, unable to fix any value on such a rich and rare collection, has simply decided that any risk the landlord might incur was more than covered, consequently M. and Mdme. Flouest have been saved from hunting for a new shop by their pipes."
8i non vero e ben trovato—is not that the proverb ? Should trade fail to revive, and the excellent Flouest and his wife be obliged to sell, I commend them to the attention of Mr. Bragge, of Birmingham, who, if anybody will give them value for their treasures.
Of the novelty of pipes and the variety of their interest, however, there is no end. The oldest historical pipe in M. Flouest’s collection was once the “newest style;” and the most modern contrivance in the window of the Tobacconist to-day may be an antiquarian’s treasure when the hand that made it and the head that smoked it have turned to dust. Into this vein I was thrown the other day by the Evening Standard, a journal not much given to Nicotian ways, but for once redolent of the fragrant fume. Discoursing of a famous modeller of pipe bowls in Paris, the writer produced the following statement of figures and fancies:—
Adolphe Thiers, of whose effigy in clay there have been sold this year 67,600; next in demand has been the President of tho Republic or Grevy pipe, which has found 28,800 purchasers, rather more than half the number who have patronised the Thiers pipe. The great tenor Capoul (were it admissible to accept this ingenious fabricant's theory touching pipes and Popularity as correct) is nearly as high in public fancy as M. Gri vy, since 26420 Capoul pipes have been disposed of. A necessarily apocryphal likeness of the Captive monarch Cetywayo has been purchased by 25,730 admirers of the savage warrior; whilst lovers of the realistic school, personified by M. Zola, have bought 22,000 and 21,000 of the Gervaise and Mes Bottos pipes respectively. The sole female pipe of this year (if the term may be used) is the Judie pipe, which figures last on the list, but 20,000 effigies of that lady having been sold."
Should these lines meet the eye of that ingenious and artistic pipe modeller, it may be worth bis while to know that there is a head—barbaric and historic in high degree —which well deserves the attention of his muse, but has never yet been figured on a pipe bowl. Let him seek out the counterfeit presentment of the lineaments of that grand figure in Asiatic politics, famous in the history of India and Afghanistan, the greatest of the Mogul rulers, the Emperor Akbar. For, chancing upon a notice of “The Turks in India,” by George Henry Keene, Judge of Agra, lately published by Messrs. Allen, I find it recorded that our favourite weed made its first appearance in the far East in the days of that mighty and all but invincible monarch. One might doubt the toleration of the interloper under the sway of the Mahometan conqueror, but that independent history has convinced the world that Akbar was not the most faithful or the most orthodox of his creed. I think it is Marshman who says the great Emperor’s own version of that creed ran, “ There is no God but God, and Akbar is his prophet.” Be that as it may, Judge Keene tells us that the Europeans, Firmilian and Aquaviva, who were travelling in those regions in the sixteenth century, introduced the knowledge of Tobacco and the practice of smoking; and that Akbar, having no very strict scruples to overcome, not only insisted that the weed should have a fair trial, but took a pipe and learnt to smoke. Thereafter history is dumb. But at least, if it be hopeless to recover the pipe that Akbar smoked, we might perpetuate the features of the smoking Mahometan Prince upon pipes of our own. It is, I believe, one amongst the painful facts of the universe that Tobacco is tabooed by the stricter sects of Mahometans, as well as amongst the more rigid orders of Christians. There are, it appears, Turks who are Anti-Tobaccoites, as well as Tobaccoites who are Anti-Turks. I trust matters are thus equalised. But whatever creeds may say, the virtues of the Weed find full recognition when human suffering is in the ascendant. Vanity Fair produced lately one or two most interesting extracts from the Report of the Stafford House Committee:—
“Dr. Pinkerton says:—‘Nothing was more acceptable to ns in our work among the wounded than the large supplies wc received of Tobacco. I really do not know what we would have done without it. As Mr. Longmore most truly and appreciatively says, “ No one can doubt its soothing effects on men Buffering from the pain of wonnds, or that it allays nervous excitement, and provinces a state of calm which helps to secure the rest which is so beneficial to them in every way. The contentment it affords to the patient helps the surgeon in his work, and enables a man to submit cheerfully to many deprivations unavoidable from the circumstances of his position, the absence of which, without it, would fret and worry him." I have seen tho aspect of a whole ward of wounded men changed, as by a miracle, from a silent, sombre wretchedness to one of light and glad contentment by the opportune distribution of a few packets of Tobacco and cigarette papers. To have seen such a sight was, in itself, enough to make one forever thankful that there is such a plant as Tobacco, the nse of which is capable of affording so much comfort in distress, alike mitigating tho tortures of a pain-racked body, and soothing the misery of a troubled mind. There are no two opinions regarding its usefulness and almost necessity as part of army hospital stores.’”.
Now, for a change, let us have something less satisfactory. Here is the Lancet, which has stumbled somehow upon the notion-—a venerable notion, but not quite so trustworthy as its age might be supposed to warrant—that a man who is smoking a pipe, if he be in the dark, cannot tell whether he is smoking or not. The question, if it should trouble any reader of mine, may be easily and speedily solved by two or three energetic whiffs. If the roof of his mouth does not say “ Yes,” he may safely answer “ No.” But the Lancet, in the absence of experimental knowledge, plunges into wild speculation, after this fashion:—
Meanwhile the experiment, if such it can be called, is well calculated to draw attention to the economic question how far the pleasure of smoking is generally imaginary. If it be, a suitable substitute for the expensive cigar and wasteful pipe might be found in some permanent material, of proper consistency, moulded into the approved shape. It has long been a mystery to some smokers how other smokers could systematically smoke bad cigars; the mystery may be dispelled if it should turn out that the fumes of the Tobacco consumed are not even inhaled.
“Not even inhaled” is a phrase as perplexing to me, in this connection, as the problem itself is to your medical contemporary. By “inhaled” I should understand “drawn into the lungs,” or at least “drawn in with the breath,” or “ inbreathed.” If that is what the Lancet means, the whole passage becomes amusing. I count amongst my acquaintances an elderly gentleman, who, desiring to acquire the art of smoking for the solace he had been told it was calculated to afford, procured and lit a large cigar, and proceeded to “inhale” the smoke. The “experiment”—as the Lancet would call it—did not last many seconds; but I never saw a more remarkable case of asphyxiation than my friend presented. He was a very determined man; and would assuredly have choked himself outright, if I had not rushed at him and taken that cigar away. If the writer in the Lancet should try to perform such an experiment upon himself, my advice would be—“ let him alone.” I shall be glad to hear of the result; and while I wait, I will break the monotony of prose with a couple of verses from Dr. W. C. Bennett’s “ Songs for Sailors”:—
“ There's nothing like a smoke, To that I'll firmly stick;
Give me a pipe for comfort Whether, lads, Pm well or sick.
Take anything away you like
But that, ’twill be a joke;
But leave me still my blessed pipe— O, there's nothing like a smoke! ”
Your Man-of-All-Work.
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|ipt ^olourtrs.
XV. —STILER’S NEW MUSCLE.
Mb. Joshua Stiler—or, as he was commonly termed, Josh Stiler—was, and is still, a specimen of an enthusiast of a tolerably common description. The class alluded to may be termed spurting enthusiasts. Your true enthusiasts are those who start in their particular wisdom or folly, whichever it may be, about as soon as they can think, and never leave it while life lasts. These men are mostly honest, sometimes clever, and generally respected; although it must be admitted that they have had in their ranks some of the sublimest idiots that ever the sun shone on. The spurting enthusiast, however, seldom commands respect; one subject, or hobby, after another he picks up and hugs to his bosom till his passion cools, and then he may be seen looking out for a quiet corner to drop it in unobserved. Before he has had a thing long enough to know what its colour is, or how it’s made, he is howling out its praises to the moon, and almost before the sweat from his frantic exertions has dried upon his brow, he has flung aside his toy and is on the look-out for another.
I do not wish anyone to think that Josh was quite such a spasmodic animal as I have attempted to describe, but he belonged to the class, and it is concerning one of his departures from the calm and philosophic state that all smokers should exist in that I now write.
My friend was not what I call a regular smoker at all times: One day he would smoke, perhaps, a couple of pipes of Tobacco, and the next day a dozen; but when he had a pipe in process of colouring he was as regular as clockwork. It mattered not to him whether the pipe was clay or meerschaum, if he took a fancy to colour it, he would order in his enthusiasm and keep it on hand till the pipe wks done; then for a time he would drop into his old irregular habits till the fit came on again. Vanity, I know, helped him not only to colour pipes, but to do most of the things he did; therefore, he was a man to be always viewed with a certain amount of suspicion. A thing may, perhaps, be done as well for vanity’s sake as for the sake of honour, love, or money; but it is not so satisfactory to the world in general. This, I believe, I could prove in two or three volumes; but, as I cannot afford to do it for love or honour, and as I know my editor would not pay me for it, I should be compelled, if I did it at all, to do it out of pure vanity.
A few months back Josh suddenly disappeared from our little smoking community. This we regretted, as he was a man of a cheerful disposition, although at times apt to think a little too much of his own opinions.
We often spoke of him, and wondered why he came not amongst us. We knew he was not ill, because he had been seen about his business as usual. After about a couple of months we determined to send a deputation to wait on him, and ascertain the cause of his prolonged absence. Mr. Winter and myself were appointed as the deputation, and we went. Winter was a good fellow, but rather deaf.
We found Josh at home, and he seemed very pleased to receive us into his abode. A jug of foaming ale was brought in, and we soon made ourselves comfortable. Mrs. Stiler, a homely-looking little woman, stirred the fire, and placed a jar of Tobacco at our disposal. Josh, however, made no pretence of lighting a pipe, but sat looking rather thoughtfully at the fire. I saw it was no use leaving it to Winter; so, after a little preliminary conversation, put it boldly this way:—
“Mr. Stiler,” said I, “we (you know who I mean) have missed you, and we, that is, Winter and I, have come to find out from your own lips why you have absented yourself for so long a time from your disconsolate cronies.”
“ Well,” replied Josh, “ you see, the fact is I’ve gone in a little for athletics. Not so very long ago I attended an athletic display: boxing, singlestick, horizontal bar, feats of strength, &c., and I was moved to admiration at sight of the magnificent make of most of the performers. What pleased me as much as anything was some play with the Indian clubs, and in the performer I recognised an old friend, one that I had lost sight of, however, for some few years. Judge of my astonishment when I gazed upon him. Why, I used to be inches bigger round the chest than he was, while his arms were very much smaller than mine in the old days; but now his make was as a giant, a Samson, a Hercules, compared to mine. As he twisted a huge club of more than thirty pounds weight over and under and round about, with great ease, I was saying to myself, ‘Clubs for ever! hurrah for clubs!’ and I mentally resolved to purchase a pair on the morrow. At the end of the performance I sought my friend, and we had a long chat together.
“He promised to give me a few lessons. He has done so, and I flatter myself I am getting along famously. My friend, however, assures me that smoking softens the muscles, so I have given it up. Oh! they are grand things, sir—expand the chest, widen the shoulders, increase the circulation, add elegance to the gait, and dignity to the individual. Another thing, my friend has on the front of his wrist a very considerable muscle. I had not the slightest vestige of one when I commenced club work, and even now I cannot discover it; but I live in hopes, sir. In fact, I am fully determined to have that muscle or die in the attempt. It is a glorious exercise. I can discover already a considerable increase in my biceps, my deltoides, and my gemellus.”
“ Jim who ? ” inquired Winter.
“ Gemellus, sir.”
“ Oh! Jim Ellis—don’t know him.”
I explained matters to Winter; and while Josh was taking a rest after his speech, Mrs. Josh gave her opinion. She said:
“ Mr. Goggs, I really am afraid my poor Josh is going silly sometimes; these clubs are the dread of my life. I feel sure he’ll do himself a mischief with them. I’d ten times sooner see him smoke his pipe like a sane man than have him go on as he does.”
Josh only grinned and felt his biceps.
“It was only three nights ago,” continued Mrs. Stiler, “ Josh was out all day on business, and came home very late; so late, in fact, that I had retired, and was fast asleep. I suppose he was hankering after his exercise.”
“ Well, I had not had a twist all day long,” put in Josh, trying to excuse himself.
“ Don’t you interrupt me,” said Mrs. Stiler, “ or else I shall forget. He crept in quietly, I suppose, not to wake me, and I was roused up in a fright by a fearful noise and clatter, rm sure I thought it was an earthquake; I called out in terror, and very nearly fainted.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose; now did I?” inquired Josh. “ Fact is, I was going downstairs to get into the garden for a little exercise, and just at the top of the stairs one club slipped out of my hand. Trying to clutch it, I caught the other between my legs, and that went after the first.”
“I know it spoilt my night’s rest,” said Mrs. Stiler. “It woke me, and the children, and a pretty row there was; and all the time there was that Josh swinging those dreadful things round and round in the back garden. I know he'll come to grief with them; I expect to have one through the kitchen window every time he performs.”
“ Now, my dear,” said Josh, “what harm have I done?”
“ Didn’t you sprain your wrist, and could scarcely use it for three or four days?”
“ Well, yes; but that was my awkwardness at first.”
“ Didn’t you knock yourself down by a blow right on your ancle?”
“So I did,” said Josh; “so I did; but Eve never done it since.”
“ Didn’t you hit my best clothes-prop, and break it right in halves.”
“ Yes; but that was a foggy night.”
“ Didn't you drop one of the clubs on your head, and nearly stun yourself?”
“ I did certainly do that; I was trying a new trick.”
“ Haven’t you torn your indoors coat all to pieces with the nasty ugly brutes of things?”
“What’s an old coat to a new muscle?” murmured Josh, with a seraphic smile.
“ The most horrible thing of all, Mr. Goggs,” continued Mrs. Stiler, turning to me, “is this—and Josh may feel thankful he’s not in a condemned cell—I had given Josh the baby to hold for a few minutes; I went upstairs to fetch her, and I thought I should have dropped: there was he, the father of the child, with the little darling on his left arm, while with his right hand he was swinging round and round one of his dreadful clubs; now in front of him, and now behind him, went the club, and the poor little baby was bobbed backwards and forwards in a way terrible to behold; I shuddered and shrieked.”
“My dear,” said Josh, calmly, “I proved it to you, I may say mathematically and anatomically, that the baby was in no danger. The balance of the body threw the baby in front when the club was behind, and threw the baby behind when the club was in front.”
As I could see that Mrs. Stiler was getting excited, I proposed that Josh should give us a few exercises for our delight and instruction. He agreed on the instant, for he was proud of his new toy; and as it was raining, Winter and I provided ourselves with our umbrellas. Bain, however, was nothing to an athlete, especially to one in full pursuit of a new muscle.
I must own that our little gathering, five minutes later, although rather comical, was not without a touch of the picturesque. The gas being lit in the kitchen, threw out fight on to the figures in the garden. Of two of them, little could be seen but umbrellas, from under which smoke poured out. These figures were prosaic in the extreme. The other figure, a lean man in a ragged coat and an old skull cap, was more artistic, for the light from the kitchen fell on his set, stern face, and the wet, glistening clubs as they whirled round and round, making quite a picture. Unfortunately, Winter got a little too near, to witness some of the wrist exercises, and when Josh began again on the long circles, Winter forgot to move. At the very first swing of the left-hand club it came down on to Winter’s umbrella. The owner thought he was killed; he gave what he probably considered was his last shriek, and hopped heavily on to my toe. It was my turn for lung and larynx exercise now, and so the performance ended.
Exactly two months after this, Josh Stiler dropped in amongst us just as in the old days, with a rare pipe in hit mouth.
Without a word of greeting, he bared his right wrist, and passed round from man to man. He, by clenching his hand fast and bending it back, managed to produce a slight eleva-vation, that wanted, as one of the company put it, “feeling to see.”
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Then Josh said: “Gentlemen, my new muscle.”
It appeared that he had tired of his clubs, but not before he had managed to raise this small but remarkable bump on his wrist. He felt very proud of it, but rather dejected, because he could not find out what its name was.
There happened to be an old gentleman amongst us who had studied the muscles a bit; and his opinion, given solemnly, was as follows:—
“Young man, when you talk of new muscles, you talk foolishly. Why not talk of new worlds, new seasons, new universes? What you seem to me to have done is this : You appear to have thickened the tendons of the palmaris and the perforatus, and all you have to show for it is a bump that a wasp could beat easily in two minutes, or a good deal less.”
So ended Stiler’s craze in this matter of Indian clubs and new muscles. D. Googs.
Wapfs "& ^ts^it^ft te Babaks.”
While staying in Luzern, in the August of the present year, at the pleasant “ Hotel du Lac,” with whose genial landlord I have been acquainted for some seasons past, I turned into the adjoining cafe, in order to look at the newspapers and refresh myself with a cigar. Every travelling smoker has discovered, in the course of his continental tours, that there is a very marked difference, at least for the brotherhood of smokers, between a German and a Swiss hotel. In the former, as soon as breakfast or dinner is over, no one is obliged to hurry away from his coffee or his wine in order that he may be free to light a cigar. Every room in the house is a smoking-room. No sooner, however, has the nicotian traveller put his foot across the German frontier, and entered either of the large public rooms of a Swiss hotel, than he learns that the Swiss hotelkeepers stand in far greater terror of Philistines, of “ antis,” of schoolmistresses on the tour, and of precisian English families, than their German colleagues do. He is confronted by a polite or prohibitory tablet, fixed to the wall in some conspicuous place, which peremptorily orders him not to smoke, or courteously entreats him to abstain from smoking in that room. In an ironmonger’s shop at Samaden, in the Engadin, if I remember rightly, I found that I could purchase any number of the more or less ornamentally-treated inscription, “ On at prit de ne pas fumer ici.” There is a tale, not improbably apocryphal, that an American student, who had taken a run from Heidelberg to Basel, seated himself at breakfast immediately underneath one of these inscriptions, and in an hotel which is mainly frequented by English tourists. As soon as his breakfast was over, after his daily wont, he began to light his pipe. A horrified English mother, who was sitting opposite to him, rose from the table, and, ordering her three daughters to follow her, swept out of the room. The stern husband and father of the ladies called the head waiter, and demanded that he should instantly put a stop to the enormous crime which was being so coolly committed. The Oberkellner requested the young offender to turn round and read the notice upon the wall. The American glanced up for a moment at the tablet, gave an assenting nod of the head, and placidly continued to puff. “Perhaps, sir,” observed the polyglotic waiter, “you do not understand French?” “Well, I just read a little,” replied the smoker. “Yonder label says that On is begged not to smoke here; but you are quite mistaken if you think my name is On. I’m neither On nor Off, but Achilles Washington P. Carey. But, as the old lady and the gals don’t seem to like smoke, I’ll go on the balcony.”
In the cafe belonging to the Hotel du Lac I turned first, as my custom is, to the local newspapers. The city of Luzern, which numbers a little more than 18,000 inhabitants, pos-seses two daily newspapers, the Liberal Tagblatt and the Ultramontane Vaterland, and an excellent paper named the Eidgenosse, also Liberal, which appears three times in the week. In the current number of the latter I found an article, evidently one of a series, headed “ Zur Geschichte des Tabaks.” I found the article to contain so much that was new to me, and which could only be known to a local student of culturehistory, that I applied at the printing office of the Eidgenosse in the hope of finding in the back numbers a mine of fresh matter on the history of Tobacco in Switzerland. The preceding articles, which were only two in number, were mainly taken up with generalising remarks, with nicotiana which may be found in all the German cyclopaedias, and with local gossip which could only be fully comprehended by a native Luzerner. Since my return to England, however, the writer of the articles, Herr A. Wapf, has kindly sent me the whole series, which he has printed separately, and made up into the form of a pamphlet.
Herr Wapf is a pronounced Conservative in Nicotian affairs. He regrets the almost universal disappearance of the pipe in Switzerland, and the substitution of the cigar. He tells us that in his boyish days the possession of a pipe of tremendous size was regarded as the outward symbol of the attainment of manhood. As soon as a youth was emancipated from the schoolmaster’s rod, or set up for himself, his earliest care was to purchase a very long pipe, with a very large bowl, as handsomely painted as his means would command. Armed
with this certain proof of ripeness of years, he would exhibit himself in public to the maidens and to his late boyish companions who were still retained in the bonds of juvenescence.' “ Ah! ” he exclaims, “ that was indeed a happy time, when the young son of a peasant, like the young son of a gentleman, placed his highest earthly glory in the ownership of the most magnificent of Tobacco-pipes. I recollect well, during my school days at Hitzkirch, being taken into the Gasthaus zum Engel, and seeing the fifty-two handsome pipes belonging to the landlord of the ‘ Angel ’ hanging in their places upon the wall, like old weapons in an armoury.” The landlord was a great collector. He had a fine library of old books, guns, pistols, paintings, and a cabinet of antiquities and rarities. “But nothing fascinated us boys so much as his wonderful assemblage of pipes: I believe that we all dreamed about them. When one passed from schoolboyhood into studentship, the selection of an appropriate pipe was the most interesting of all our new duties.” Nowadays, as Herr Wapf complains, “if anyone prefers to smoke a pipe rather than a cigar, he puts a thing between his lips wliich does not deserve to be called by the once august name of ‘ a pipe.’ The dirty little Liilli has usurped the place of the splendid Bermpitz: the nobly scented old weed known as ‘Varinas’ no longer has the same appetising receptacle; the beautiful painted porcelain and carved meerschaum pipes have disappeared as articles of daily use, and I believe that the highest enjoyment of the smoker has utterly disappeared with them. A man sticks a glimmering coil of dried leaves (Einen Glimmstengel) under his nose, which has cost him 50 centimes, which he calls 1 an * Havanna,’ and which has possibly been rolled round by the dirty hands of a dirty negress on her dirty thigh. Faugh! the smoking of the present day is no longer the genial enjoyment of the days of old, it is a passion paid for with heavy gold. ‘ Out with the pipes! ’ let us cry, as we used to do, and let us fill them up with genuine Tobacco; then will smoking again become a veritable delight, and we shall have fewer bad mouths and sore lips than is now the case. Let us return to sound reason in our smoking, and we shall not only enjoy our weed so much the more, but we shall save hundreds of francs in the course of the year.”
We might observe to Herr Wapf that, if there has been some loss, there has also been some gain in the substitution of the cigar for the pipe, both in regard to health and decency. If anyone will compare the floor of a Swiss or German railway carriage with the floor of a third-class English railway carriage, he will perceive in a moment what we mean. As to decency, when we step into the latter, we scarcely know where to plant our feet in a dry place, on account of the flood of unseemly moisture. As for health, it is something terrible to think that all this saliva, so precious and important in its proper place, has been turned from a purpose of indispensable usefulness into an object of very dispensable disgust. The young beginner in England too often teaches himself to smoke in accordance with the following disastrous formula: first, Draw; secondly, Spit; thirdly, Draw; fourthly, Spit, and so on, until his pipe is empty, or, pale in face, and wondering how his elders can ever call such pain a pleasure, he secretly knocks out the ashes. Of course, much stress may be laid upon the fact that the mild and hay-like Tobacco with which the old Teuton filled his huge pipe-bowl was not so provocative of spitting as is the fiery and biting material with which the English freshman practises his first lessons.
Herr Wapf thinks—or, if we may say so, affects to think— that the present generation of his countrymen has cast away the pipe in favour of the cigar out of pure laziness. “ They call it convenience,” he observes. That is to say, if a man is a cigar-smoker, he has nothing harder to do than to put his hands into a box and draw one out. “But the pipes,” as he remembers, “ had to be kept always clean and in order, which gave men a good deal of work.” He protests, too, against the custom of beginning to smoke too early in life, which is the result of the increasing ambition of our modern youth to antedate their arrival at the stage of full manhood. In his boyhood, he tells, a youth was allowed to become a man earlier in some of the Swiss cantons than he would have been in others, the proprietorship and public use of a pipe being the unchallenged symbol of his title to claim adult age. Thus, when the writer crossed over the frontier of the cantons of Aargau and Luzern, he was surprised to meet in the street of the little frontier village of Burg a small fellow of thirteen years of age, strutting along with a monstrous pipe, at which he was sucking furiously. “What, Biibli” (small boy), said one lad to the other, “ dost thou smoke already?” “Aye,” replied the other, “every man that is any good smokes in our country.”
Herr Wapf, as the reader has probably suspected, is himself a collector and connoisseur of pipes. He tells us that the first pipe of the ideal German form, with the fat mouthpiece and the so-called water-sack at the bottom, was the invention of an Austrian physician, Dr. Franz Vicarius, in 1689. “In the flourishing period of smoking,” as he observes, “ the German students emulated one another in the splendour, ornamentation, cost, length, and size of their pipes.” The estimate of the supreme importance of the pipe, which was acquired in student days, was retained by the same men when they became grey and sober professors or reverend pastors. Pipes were diligently preserved by old scholars as the most characteristic memorials of their student years. The author is in the possession of various pipes which owed their preservation
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to the fact that they had been used in youth, and which bear inscriptions recording their former use in one or other of the German universities. Thus he has one exceedingly fine porcelain pipe, ornamented with painted views of Jena, and bearing the inscription, “ Olim meminisse juvabit, Jena, Dr. Karl Herzog to his old friend, Dr. Stauffer,” and the date “ 1821.” This pipe was bequeathed by Dr. Herzog to Dr. Stauffer in his will, together with the testamentary obligation that it should be preserved in a visible place as a memorial of “the important smoking periods” (wichtige Rauchperiode ) which they experienced together.
It appears from the historical notes in Herr Wapf’s articles, which are not put together in a due chronological order, but are poured out in a gossipy and inartificial manner, that smoking commenced in the German cantons of Switzerland, as it did in Germany, with the fighting classes. It passed from them to the students, next to the learned professions, whose members naturally kept up a habit which they had acquired at the Universities, and last of all to the peasantry. It spread so rapidly and so universally that the French had a saying “Fumer comme un Allemand”—to smoke like a German. A pretended “ Tabakwissenschaft ” or Faculty of Tobacco was instituted amongst the academical youth, which claimed the power of conferring degrees in the science. Thus, any student who could smoke out 50 pipes (!) was advanced to the degree of a “ Master of Tobacco,” while a smoker of 80 pipes (!!) was advanced to a “Licentiate,” and the smoker of 100 pipes (!!!) was elevated to the highest degree of a “ Doctor.” From the middle of the seventeenth century to the second decade of the eighteenth, the clerical consistories still struggled, with unceasing feebleness, first to extirpate, and afterwards merely to moderate, the use of Tobacco by the clergy and by their flocks. Herr Wapf quotes one of the reports which a parochial clergyman in Baden sent up to his consistory in the year 1662. “ Christian Ledermann of Bahlingen,” he wrote, “ is a sot and a spendthrift, and devoted to Tobacco smoking. When at the holy festival of Easter Day he came up to the Lord’s Table to receive the sacrament, he stunk so abominably that the Pfarrer was obliged to draw back from him, for he could not endure the foul smell.” A second criminal, “ Hans Kopp of Brachingen keeps a disorderly house, smokes Tobacco (‘Thapak’), and beats his wife.” Five yearslater the same Pfarrer complained of the congregation of the parish of Ottosch. “When the peasants come into the little church,” he wrote, “and sit down in front of the clergyman, they breathe forth so dreadful a stench that the said clergyman feels as if he must depart from the church.” In another consistorial report, dated 1669, the Pfarrer wrote, “ A man named Herrenmiiller lives on bad terms with his wife, and is continually smoking Tobacco; because he is not allowed to smoke whilst in church, he keeps a portion of it in his mouth during divine service.”
T. H.
^ggtian Armures.
x.
Cannibalism.
In man the love of destruction has its source in a host of causes; but among certain tribes it springs from a habit connected with the mode of alimentation—I mean anthropophagy. The Ancients make mention of certain barbarous peoples, such as the Issidonians, who ate human flesh. It is incontestable, in effect, that this horrible custom existed among populations that were plunged in the completest savagery; but the study of the tribes of America and Polynesia, among whom cannibalism has been observed, shows us that it has its source more in religious prejudices and singular ideas than in the necessity of obtaining an animal alimentation which otherwise would be lacking. Many of the tribes of Polynesia imagine that a man in devouring his enemy takes into his own nature the martial virtues which his victim possessed. As Alexander Humboldt has remarked, the usage of human sacrifices is very closely connected with anthropophagy. In the first instance the victim was devoured in a religious repast. Even at the present day, certain tribes living on the Amazon River, after the funeral of a member of the tribe, disinter the corpse, put it into a large boiler, and completely carbonise it. They then reduce the carbonised mass to a powder, which they put into a liquor. This liquor they swallow, believing that they thereby absorb and assimilate the virtues of the dead. Among the inhabitants of Australia, anthropophagy is only employed in certain magical ceremonies. Among other peoples—for example, the Indians of Guyana—anthropophagy is simply the effect of the vengeance of the conqueror. The victory over a hostile horde is celebrated by a repast, in which some parts of the corpse of a prisoner are devoured. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that if anthropophagy has not been the result of the scarcity of animal food, in certain cases it has been maintained and even developed by that cause. In the islands of Polynesia, where mammiferous animals were very rare, the desire to eat flesh readily led to the devouring of an enemy’s corpse. In the Fidji Islands a chief
showed the bones of eight hundred and seventy-two unfortunate beings his father had devoured in the course of his life. Such a large consumption of human flesh can only be explained by the real need of animal nutriment. Among the Cobeus of the Uaupes mania considered a veritable article of food; and these savages are seen declaring war against neighbouring tribes solely for the purpose of obtaining human flesh. When they obtain a larger supply than they can immediately consume, they smoke the remainder and they keep it as provision. This custom must not be confounded with that of conserving, after drying them, the heads of enemies as trophies, a custom which has existed among the Dyaks of Borneo. Some Europeans, when driven to mad extremities by hunger, have had recourse to that horrible aliment, human flesh. The crew of the whaler “Essex,” which foundered in 1820, lived on human flesh for several days. After eating those who died from exhaustion, they killed and devoured the cabin boy. Other shipwrecks have been accompanied by similar horrors. In Australia, after famines, cannibalism has been seen taking the most frightful proportions. Even now this hideous custom prevails in a great part of Polynesia and Papuasia. Though it has been met with in America, it did not assume among the Caribs, and among the Indians of South America, the terrible extension which it still has in the whole of Oceania. In the Solomon Islands cannibalism reigned with fury, and in the Marquese Islands it was carried to that degree that not only were prisoners devoured, but in time of famine the native# were seen eating their parents, their children, and even their wives.—From the French of Alfred Maury.
drinking.
The first draught belongs to thirst; the second to pleasure; the third to joy; the fourth to drunkenness; the fifth to anger and war; the sixth to disease. To drink beyond satisfaction is, among care-laden men, as old as the drinking of the noble care-dispelling juice of the grape. The Patriarch Noah, to whom the invention of wine-drinking is ascribed, was also the first to “make a beast of himself” thereat, and to such an extent that his sons could only approach him backward to throw a covering over him. His daughters do not seem to have been so particular. The wise Greeks who brought such charming offerings to the Graces, did not ascribe the admirable invention of wine to a patriarch, but to a divinity blooming in eternal youth and beauty, who went in triumph round the earth to make all mortals happy, to teach men laboriously ploughing the ground to cultivate the vine, and to give them, through inspiring drink, the rapture# of the gods. They did not count the number of the cups; they consecrated them. Each draught swallowed was in praise of a blessed divinity, or in glorification of the Beautiful and the Good, or in celebration of the charms of a beloved woman. The multitude of the cups so religiously emptied, often brought the gifted, the delicately organised Greek, under the table. While the wise Socrates, who was invincible in drinking, only laughed at such mishaps, the wise Theognis (Greek poet, who lived about five hundred years before Christ), who could not drink much, denounced the eternal drinking of healths. He says:—“ This health you drink for the sake of good fellowship; a second by way of rivalry; a third in honour of the gods; a fourth because you have no decent excuse for refusing; he might well be called unconquerable who, defying drink, retained mastery over his own speech.” Thus, the more any one drank in honour of the gods and for the happiness of men, so much more abundant wa# the laudation given him. The Germans likewise, from the remotest period, have regarded drinking after the satisfaction of thirst as a very important and delightful thing, and have shown themselves not only very inventive in the preparation of the very best intoxicating drinks, but also in the discovery of good reasons for taking enough, and more than enough, of the precious gifts of God. To the Germans belong# the invention of the huge “Dice Glass,” the foot of which contained two movable dice. Each carouser had to shake the glass, so that the dice were likewise shaken. He had to empty as many well-filled glasses as the dice showed points. Another principal drinking glass was that called “Welcome.” It had no foot, and had to remain in the hand of the guest till he had completely emptied it. If the Germans regarded drinking as an honourable thing, it may easily be supposed that they did not consider drunkenness dishonourable. When there is no drinking at a meal, the Dane says that it is a “horse’s meal.” The Frenchman calls it “ a dog’s dinner.” The Italian tells us to be on our guard against a man who eats without drinking. The German never dreams of doing anything of the kind, for with him drinking is the principal thing. He drinks everything, drinks evermore, drinks above all on an exceptionally important occasion. At a baptismal banquet he drinks, and drinks, and drinks, in order that the child may be healthy and happy; at a funeral feast he drinks, and drinks, and drinks, that the soul of the dead may journey blessedly to the abodes of the blest. No wonder then that, according to the proverb, a German needs three tapsters for every cook. Another proverb says that it is not needful that he who is destined to be drowned should sink; for a German can always be drowned in his glass.—From the Germa* of Koerte.
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No. 117.—Vol. II.]	DECEMBER, 1879.	CESUS^
Obarro legislation in t^e ®^rte ^ingboms.
v.
Still keeping to the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, and the volume “America and the West Indies,” 1574-1660, let us see what we can find under the head of “Virginia,” the first and greatest of the Tobacco plantations, the colony originated by our Raleigh, the queenly State of States; ever connected with brave and noble memories, alike in triumph and disaster; whether with Sir Walter Raleigh or Captain John Smith, whether with George Washington or Robert Edward Lee. The infancy of this Sovereign State, this splendid Old Dominion, this prolific virgin mother of our Nicotina Goddess of Consolation, is so interesting a subject, that one may well be pardoned for including a few items not directly bearing upon Tobacco legislation. As usual, I condense ad much as the strictly condensed Calendar will permit, but throughout adhere as closely as possible to its very words.
1585, August 12; p. 2. Ralph Lane (Governor of Raleigh’s colony), from Fort Ferdinando, Virginia, to Secretary Walsingham. The return of the General (Raleigh’s cousin, Sir Richard Grenville, commander of the little fleet of transport) to England cuts him off from reporting upon the peculiarities of the country. Although they arrived there late in the year, they have discovered so many rare and singular commodities in the Queen’s new Kingdom of Virginia, as by the universal opinion of all the apothecaries and merchants there, no State in Christendom doth yield better or more plentiful. They have not yet found one itinking weed growing in the land. [I italicise, lest the Antis should overlook this signal for bitter weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.] Describes the vast and huge territory, its natural fortifications, and the climate very healthy. The best port, discovered by Simon Ferdinando, the master and pilot-major of the fleet, after whom it is named, if fortified by a sconce, could not be entered by the whole force of Spain. Has undertaken with a good company to remain there, resolute rather to lose their lives “than to defer possession” of so noble a kingdom to the Queen, their country, and their noble patron Sir Walter Raleigh, through whose and his Honour’s (Walsingham’s) most worthy endeavour and infinite charge an honourable entry is made to the conquest thereof. Is assured they will, by this means, be relieved from the tyranny of Spain; and their enemies the Papists will not be suffered by God to triumph at the overthrow either of this most Christian action or of His poor servants in their thorough famine or other wants. God will command even the ravens to feed them.
Same date; p. 3. Ralph Lane to Sir Philip Sydney. Will not omit writing to him, although in the midst of infinite business, having the charge of savages as well as wild men of his own nation, whose unruliness prevents him leaving them. [Pioneer settlers might “ come it rather rough ” at pious teameetings : on the other hand, the exemplary young men of pious tea-meetings might make deucedly bad pioneers; Red Indians and grizzlies and sich might quite discompose their delicate nerves.] Refers him to his letter to Mr. Secretary for an account of the singularities of Virginia. Has discovered the infinite riches of St. John and Hispaniola by dwelling upon ^he islands five weeks. Thinks if the Queen should find herself burdened with the King of Spain, that to attempt them would be most honourable, feasible, and profitable. Exhorts him not to refuse the good opportunity of rendering so great a service to the Church of Christ, he only being fit for the
chief command of such an expedition. The strength of Spain doth altogether grow from the mines of her treasure.—I have cited this abstract because it brings another of those great starry paladins, and one of the purest splendour, into the glorious constellation that shone upon the birth of our Virginia Consolatrix.
The editor of the volume with which we are at present concerned, Mr. W. Noel Sainsbury, remarks in his Preface, p. xi. :—
“ It will be seen that daring the first thirty years here calendared, or down to the accession of James L, there are bat ten papers. The reason is obvious; with but one exception, it can scarcely be said that England planted any colony during Elizabeth's reign, though, as everyone knows, many voyages were undertaken at that early period for purposes of colonization, and a copy of the well-known patent of incorporation to the Marquis of Winchester and others, merchant adventurers of England, for ’discovery of lands unknown and not before frequented,’ of which Sebastian Cabot was to be the first Governor, is to be found in the collection of State Papers.
“ This, however, as well as many other papers, containing accounts of the voyages of discovery of Frobisher and Hawkins, of Gylberte [step-brother of Rai hh] and of Drake, to Africa. America, and the West Indies, will not be found in this volume. They belong to and are placed in the Domestic Series [of which more anon]; yet the perusal of such papers would not be an inapt introduction to the history contained in this Calendar.’’
1606-1640; p. 5. Notes by Sir Jos. Williamson relating to Virginia. They refer more particularly to the appointment of Governors and their powers, the Tobacco trade, and the revocation of the first patent. In 1613 Captain Argoll took prisoner the dear daughter [the famous Pocohontas] of Powhatan, the King of the Indians. In 1628 the number of [white] persons in Virginia was 3000.
1606-1652: p. 5. Notes in the hands of one of Williamson’s clerks relating to Virginia. They are of a similar character to the preceding.
1607; p. 6. “Relation of the discovery of our river from James Fort into the Main; made by Captain Christopher Newport,” &c. In form of a journal commencing 21st May, Annexed are (1) Description of the now discovered river and country of Virginia; with the likelihood of ensuing riches by England’s aid and industry. (2) Brief description of the people: noting among other things that they sacrifice Tobacco to the sun.
1608; p. 7. Map of Virginia, discovered and described by Captain John Smith, graven by William Hole. In the left top corner is an engraving with this inscription: “Powhatan held this state and fashion when Captain Smith was delivered to him prisoner.” (A beautifully preserved copy of the original map, similar to that inserted in Smith’s Virginia and Purchas.*)
Passing over several interesting items as to the early difficulties of the colonists, among themselves, with the Indians, through the 'jealousies and threats of the Spaniards and the failure of adequate home support; and others as to replenishing the colony with “all offenders out of the common gaols condemned to die; so do the Spaniards people the Indies,” boys and girls starving in the streets, and young maidens—the germs of the infamous white slavery of the plantations; we come to
1621, Oct. 24; p. 26. Order of the Privy Council, directing that Tobacco and all other commodities from Virginia shall be first landed in England, and the King’s customs paid,
♦ For something about Smith, see Bancroft’s History of the United States, VoL L, Chap. TV.; for more, the authorities cited in his Notes. Pocohontas, who saved his life when a prisoner, and was herself taken in 1618, married one Rolfe, an Englishman, was brought to England in 1616, graciously treated by King and Queen, and died in March, 1617, at Gravesend, as she was returning home. Smith, “the father of Virginia,” a man of the noblest character and genius, came home in 1609, and was buried in St. Sepulchre’s, Newgate, London, where a tomb with a truthful inscription is honoured by his memory.
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before being taken to any foreign country. The execution of this order to be respited four months.
1622 (?); p. 35. Petition of . . ancient planters and adventurers in Virginia, on behalf of themselves and the rest of the poor distressed planters there, to the King. Have for many years past found the country useful for commodities with which England is now supplied from foreign kingdoms, but through the benefit of planting Tobacco their time has been misspent. Now, after the freight, customs, and duties on Tobacco are discharged, it is of no value, and they are like to perish unless protected. Pray that the King will make Tobacco his own commodity and settle the price and quantity to be yearly taken from the colony, so that they may in future plant some real commodity.
1623,	Jany. (?); p. 36. Brief motives to maintain the King’s right to the River Amazon, and the Coast of Guiana. . . . A note is added in another hand to point out the great prejudice to the plantation should the King make an agreement with the Virginia and Bermudas Companies for Tobacco from those places only.
1623,	Feb. 2; p. 37. Order of the Privy Council. A contract between the Lord Treasurer on behalf of the King and the Virginia Company, touching the importation of Tobacco is allowed.
1623,	Feb.; pp. 38-40. Long and very interesting abstract: The Governor, Council, and Assembly of Virginia to the King— Represent Captain Nathaniel Butler’s information, entitled “ The Unmasking of Virginia,” to be full of slanders and notorious untruths, proceeding from the malice of his corrupted heart. States among other things: Until the massacre [some 400, by the Indians] and succeeding mortality, vines and mulberry trees were being planted throughout the country. Iron and glass works were in great forwardness, but are now interrupted, and the people are forced to follow that contemptible weed, Tobacco [Oh! you gentlemen of the F.F.V.! how could you, even to gain favour with the well-befitting King of the Antis?] to enable them to sustain their continual wars with the Indians, and to support themselves .... Butler’s spleen proceeded from not being admitted one of the Council. [Typical private source of how much noble public indignation!] Six, not ten, thousand persons have been transported to Virginia, who for the most part were wasted by the more than Egyptian slavery and Scythian cruelty exercised upon them by laws written in blood during Sir Thomas Smythe’s government. [He governed 12 years, confound him; but confound him not with Captain John Smith, the hero.] Inclose a true and tragical relation of all sorts of tyranny exercised in his time. Signed by Sir Francis Wyatt, Fr. West, Sir Geo. Yeardley, Geo. Sandys, Roger Smyth, Ralph Hamor, Isaac Maddison, John Pott, Sam. Mathews, Jno. Utie, Wil. Peirce, and 23 others.—Annexed are (1) the said Captain Butler’s “unmasking” pamphlet, and (2) the General Assembly’s Answer to the Declaration of the state of the Colony in the twelve years of Sir T. Smythe’s government, being the true and tragical relation above referred to. [See likewise, 1622, April 12; pp. 28-32. Petition, Ac., of John Bargrave to the Privy Council.] The relation is not only tragical, but horrible almost beyond belief. Thus: “ The allowance of food in those times for a man was loathsome and not fit for beasts; many fled for relief to the savages, but were taken again, and hung, shot, or broken upon the wheel: one man for stealing meal had a bodkin thrust through his tongue, and was chained to a tree until he starved. Many dug holes in the earth, and hid themselves till they famished. So great was the scarcity, that they were constrained to eat dogs, cats, rats, snakes, &c.; and one man killed his wife and powdered her up to eat, for which he was burned. Many fed on corpses. Some wished Sir Thos. Smythe on the back of a mare which the Indians had killed and were boiling. Many born of ancient houses perished by famine; those who survived were constrained to serve the colony seven or eight years for their freedom . . . the Assembly declare that rather than live under the like government, they would desire the King to send Commissioners to hang them.”—This paper is “ affirmed to be true,” and signed by Sir F. Wyatt, Governor, and 15 others; also by Captain F. West, Sir Geo. Yeardley, and 13 others “eye witnesses or resident in the country when every particular within written was effected.” This is dated 1623, Feb. 20. So Tobacco, like other great causes, has had its martyrs. Smythe, who as Bargrave states (pp. 29 and 30), made a monopoly of the plantation, debarring the planters from free trade, and did less for the colony with £80,000 in 13 years, than has been done in three years since with £10,000 or £12,000, was surely a Governor quite worthy of the royal Anti his master.
1623,	Mar. 4; p. 40. Order of the Privy Council. The order of 24th October, 1621, is renewed against carrying the products of Virginia or the Somers Islands to foreign countries until they have been first landed in England and the King’s customs paid.
1623,	April 8; p. 42. A letter says: The Company’s tenants are planted on the most barren places in the country; no crop of Tobacco this year, and hardly a grain of corn to sustain them. Another, April 14, p. 43. Cannot yet pay Mr. Bland his 30 lb. of Tobacco, because I have not yet received so much from my five tenants, all that are alive, nor one grain of corn to help them.
1624,	Jan. 30; pp. 56-7. The Governor and Council to the
Virginia Company. The whole Colony thanks the King for restraining [sic] the sole importation of Tobacco and for his favour, which enables them to attend to the strength and beauty of the colony, “for what can be expected from poverty?” Feb. 28, p. 58. The same to the Privy Council: Return thanks to the King for remitting 3d. in the shilling customs on Tobacco, and for granting to the colony the sole importation [sic; but perhaps colony should read company]. Nothing will give more life, or a steadier advancement to the plantation. . . . Intreat the Privy Council to take into consideration that heavy burden in paying for customs above a third of their labours, which they desire may be reduced to five in the hundred.
This is the last to our purpose in the reign of James L Turning now to the Domestic Series, I take first the volume of Addenda; 1580-1625.
1607,	April 17; p. 496. Lord Treasurer Dorset and the Earl of Salisbury from Whitehall to Sir Thomas Lake at the Court, Newmarket.—The book which we now send you contains the lease of the customers [meaning here, we may presume, not simply the collectors but the farmers of the customs] yesterday returned from the Lord Chief Justice. Such are the payments which depend upon this establishment, and so many days will yet be required for the writing and passing it under the seal, that we beg you will offer it to his Majesty to sign, and inform him of two particulars: first, that point of Tobacco^ which the Lord Chief Justice mentions in his certificate, is a perplexed question [always I], somewhat being urged upon them which they plead to be very unequal; and yet, that we may suffer nothing to go to his Majesty’s dis-profit before all particulars be well examined, we take bond of them to stand to our order and the two Chief Justices’, having the law in our own hands [always, again!], considering the payments which they have made already of £6000, and the payments to be made, for which we daily endure clamour [always, yet again!].
1622(?); p. 647. Sir Thomas Fanshaw to [Mr. Hales]. By Sir Robert Pye’s direction, you are to pay £100 on Lord Leicester’s order, and the residue, £1500, by taUies on the licences of Tobacco. (Tallies, Fr. tailler, to cut, were sticks notched and split down the middle, by which customs’ and and other accounts were recorded and checked.)
In the Domestic Series proper there are numerous references to Tobacco in the six volumes extending from 1598 to 1625, the end of the reign of James I.; by far the most numerous being in the volume 1619-23. I go through these volumes in their order, selecting only what is apposite to our present subject, save when the interest of an item appears sufficient to excuse irrelevancy.
Vol. 1598-1601. Two brief notices may come under the latter head. 1598, Oct. 20; p. 110. John Chamberlain from London to Dudley Carleton at Ostend (one of the old-fashioned newsletters when as yet newspapers were not): Some mad knaves took Tobacco all the way, as they went to be hanged at Tyburn. 1601, Jan. 6; p. 536. E. Reynoldes to his brother Oyen: If you have got any good Tobacco yet amongst your friends, remember me; but if you buy any, I will not take it. -—This may mean that he must not go to expense for it; but it may mean that the Tobacco of the shops was already sophisticated, as described so terribly nine years later by Face in the “Alchemist.”
Vol. 1601-3. Only one reference, curious. 1601, Dec. 29; p. 136. In a very long newsletter from Dudley Carleton, then in London, to John Chamberlain, then at Knebworth: One Jackson, who frequented Little Britain Street, has died suddenly, and being opened, it was judged by the surgeons that it was from the smoke of Tobacco, which he took unsatiably. This brings us to the end of the reign of Elizabeth.
James L—Von. 1603-10.
[1604	, Oct. 19; p. 159. Demise to Tho. Lane and Ph. Bold of the new impost of 6s. 8d. and the old custom of 2d. per pound on Tobacco. [DocqueQ .
1606,	Dec.(?); p. 339. Complaint of the Farmers of the Customs that by their new lease [granted Dec. 24, 1606] they are not allowed defalcation for the duties on Tobacco, according to the new rates imposed two years previously. [Book of Bates passed Nov. 29, 1604.]
1607; p. 393, document 143. Statement addressed to the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, of the cause between the Farmers of Tobacco and John Eldred, who refuses to pay the imposts on Tobacco which he has imported.—One would like to see this statement, which may be very interesting. Was John Eldred simply contending on points under the law (of proclamations), or was he the forgotten John Hampden of a cause far more important than ship-money? History, which babbles so much about trifles, leaves so much truly remarkable untold!
1610,	Feb. 7; p. 586. Warrant to pay to Richard Hall, merchant, in consideration of his great losses, £160 Ils. as abatement of his impost on Tobacco, from moneys paid by the Farmers of that impost.—So they had some bowels of compassion even under King Anti: they have none now.
Vol. 1611-18.—Several References to Tobacco.
1613,	Dec. (?); p. 214. Project for increase of the King’s revenue by his resuming into his own hands the grant of sole importation of Tobacco, and re-granting it to an agent, who will yield him half the profits, estimated at £15,000; with reasons why he may resume the grant.
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1615, Mar. 29; p. 280. Grant to Edmund Peshall and Edward White, of London, of the late imposition [another!] of 2s. per lb. on Tobacco imported for ten years, paying to the King £3500 the first year, and £7000 per annum afterwards, with sole power to import Tobacco and to name persons for selling the same. With a proviso of determination at six months’ notice, if found prejudicial to the State. [L'Etat, c'est moi.] 1615, July 30; p. 299. Grant to the Earl of Montgomery of £3000 for twenty-one years, on surrender of his patent for the impost on Tobacco. [Such are the vested rights paid for divested wrongs.] On page 514, in a very long newsletter or gazette—in fact, tn annual register for 1617, arranged in monthly paragraphs— sent by George Lord Carew to Sir Thomas Roe, then Ambassador to the Great Mogul at the East India Company’s expense, we read under March: Five Englishmen returned from Amazons, richly laden with gold and Tobacco. 1618, April 17; p. 535. Grant to Abraham and John Jacob of the office of collecting impositions on Tobacco, for life. (intxUu Israel!) 1618, July 24; p. 557. Licence to Philip Foote to sell clay for making Tobacco-pipes, for twenty-one years. 1618,	Aug. 20; p. 566. Chamberlain to Carleton: Patents granted for a tax on sea coals, a tonnage on shipping for lighthouses, as is pretended; also for licensing pedlars; and Archy has one for the making of Tobacco-pipes. [Archy, we may presume, was the caustic wise man who played the King's fool; he of the “Great Praise to God and little Laud to the Peril,” under Charles I. One relishes his monopoly of Tobacco-pipes.] 1618 (?); p. 606. Grant to William Foote, of London, of the sole privilege of selling Tobacco-pipe clay, the former patentee being dead, and bad clay sold by others.—So Master Philip Foote did not enjoy much of his twenty-one years’ monopoly. Vol. 1619-23. The references, as I have said, very numerous; no fewer than 36 under various headings, and but two given twice. 1619,	March 22; p. 27. Grant to Abraham Jacobs of all increase of subsidies of Tobacco, for five years. [It will be observed that the Hebrew Jew has become plural with his pluralities.] 1619,	May 25; p. 47. Grant to Fras. Nichols and others of the office of garbling Tobacco, for thirty years, for the rent of £100. 1619,	June 5; p. 51. Chamberlain to Carleton: The King . , . has granted Id. per ton on all exports and imports, to maintain forts on the coast and at Land’s End ; also taxes on coals and Tobacco, [more yet!] on pretence of their being better garbled. 1619,	July 30; p. 67. Grant to the Tobacco-pipe Makers of Westminster, of Incorporation. Imperfect. Aug. 21; p. 71: Licence to William Budd and others to import Tobacco, for one year. 1619,	Nov. 10 ; Theobalds; p. 92. Proclamation enforcing the viewing and sealing of all Tobacco imported, and reciting the terms of the patent of viewing and sealing thereof, granted May 25, 1619, to Fras. Nichols, Jasper Leake, and Phil. Eden. Printed. [“ Proc. Coll.,” No. 72.] — [This is one of the Proclamations not given by Rymer, as stated in the second of these articles, T. P. for April; although referred to in other Proclamations which he does give.] 1619,	Dec. (?); p. 107. Certificate by the College of Physicians, that Tobacco grown in England and Ireland is much more unwholesome than that imported from countries where it grows naturally. 1619,	Dec. 30; Westminster; p. 107. Proclamation forbidding the planting of Tobacco in England and Wales, as being more unwholesome than that imported, and as causing the use Of it to spread into the country parts of the kingdom. Printed. [“ Proc. Coll.,” No. 74.] —[This also, as stated in the April article, is not given though referred to in Rymer.] * 1620, March 13 ; p. 130. We have note from Sir Henry Mainwaring, Dover Castle: Virginia Tobacco seized because landed by night. And on April 3, p. 136, he writes further (to Lord Zoucb), that he will send up the Tobacco when adjudged forfeited, and his lordship can either keep it or bestow it on Mr. Porter. 1620,	April 17; p. 138. Commission to Sir William Paddy, Dr. Matt. Gwynn, and others, to set down in writing directionsas to garbling and distinguishing Tobacco. [“ Grant Book,” p. 293.] —This must be the Commission cited in our April number from Rymer, where it is dated April 7 instead of 17. Rymer is probably correct, as his date is worded, not figured. 1620, May 27; Theobalds; p. 148. Proclamation that those who violate the Charter granted to the Tobacco-pipe Makers, ty manufacturing pipes when not of the society, and then violently resisting apprehension, or by countenancing and purchasing from such unlawful makers, shall be imprisoned a"d sued against in the Star Chamber. Printed. [“ Proc. Coll.,” No. 81.] SlOVAT. • It may be worth while to note that the editors of the Calendars very icnsibly ignore the old style of ending the year with the 25th March, simply d*^8 according to present usage. It would have not only increased “how, but would have been a continual eyesore, had they printed all such m the present in this fashion—Mar. 18,1619/20.	Scales ®olb on t^e Sta of ^«. X.—THE STORY OF THE MARCHIONESS. Next day, and the next, and the next, found us still steering steadily northwards, with pipes alight and hearts aglow with hope. Our new-found friend, Mr. Dunskin, would, however, have liked to have borne a little more to the west. The compass he did not believe in, and looked upon it with superstitious dread. It possessed, he said, a devil, that would by-and-by lead us into terrible peril. I don’t believe Dun-skin was right, as regards the devil. The needle, in my opinion, was guided by a far higher power, but, as regards the peril, the Indian was about correct. Twenty-four hours more, and our trials and hardships seemed suddenly to begin in earnest. Such terrible ice as we now came amongst we never could have dreamt existed. It was towards camping hour of the twenty-second day of our journeying from our now far-off ship, that we reached the foot of a perfect Sierra Nevada of ice hills, higher than any we had yet seen. Here we determined to camp for the night; and, after partaking of some slight refreshment, the captain, the mate, and myself set out to scale the highest of the mountains, whose jagged summit seemed to say to us, “Thus far mayest thou come, but no further.” It was a toilsome ascent, a wearisome venture. We began it walking erect; we accomplished our task on our hands and knees, helped upwards and onwards by hatchet and hook. But at long last we reached the peak top, and gazed, awestricken, into the Unknown Beyond. St. Mary! what a scene was there! Down beneath us the gradient of the hill was so steep we could have shot down it with arrowy speed, down until we reached the shores of what at first sight appeared a storm-tossed ocean, which extended on every side as far as eye could reach. Ocean, I say, it seemed, and yet not an ocean in the usual acceptation of the term; for the billows, mountainous as any that ever rolled around the Cape, were billows of ice; the wreathed and broken water on their sides and crests was feathery snow. Imagine, if you can, the Bay of Biscay in one of its angri st m »ods, its foam-tipped waves lashed into fury by a wild west wind. Imagine yourself standing on a hill-top on the coast of France, and looking down upon this seething sea, its surging waters leaping high over the iron rocks at your feet; then imagine that in a moment, as if the magic hands of some mighty genii were waved across the face of the ocean, everything was stilled and motionless: ceased the wild wind’s roar, hushed the boom of breakers, the waves turned into solid ice, their crests turned into snow. Imagine this, and you will even then have but a faint idea of the glorious but wierd-like scene spread out before us. The shadows of the billows were of a greenish blue, in their snowy tops gleamed starry diamonds, crimson and blue; for the sun was well to the north and low on the horizon, a glittering disc of molten silver that we could look at and count the spots therein, and, as usual, in all that cold blue sky was never a cloud and never a breath or sigh of wind; and the silence, too, was, as usual, deep, indescribable, indefinable. We could hear each other’s hearts beat as we leant our breasts against the ridge of snow, and though long miles intervened between us and the camp, we could distinctly hear the murmur of conversation. For many minutes we gazed witti bated breath and straining eye at the myster ous scene before us, and I, for one, felt relieved when the captain at length found voice and broke the spell. “You see it, then,” he said, “you see the only object visible on the distant horizon—a giant mountain cone towering up white into the blue?” We did see it. “ Then I mean to reach it,” he continued; “ ‘ whatever men dare, they can do.’ We have dared too much already not to dare more, and from that distant mountain top we can look down upon regions never yet trodden by men from a southern clime. And now let us fire a feu-de-joie, and rouse the camp; they will know we have discovered something at last.” The smoke of our rifles lifted slowly skywards, and we could then see our gallant fellows troop out from the tent. We could see them waving our flag aloft, and just forty seconds thereafter came up to us the sound of their gladsome cheer. Thrice it was repeated; then we returned it. But surely never before was the National Anthem sung in such a region, and amid scenery so weird and wild. We sang it, though, with a will, and had the satisfaction presently of hearing it repeated from the plains below. “ Now, gentlemen,” said the captain, “ granting that the situation is highly dramatic, it is nevertheless piercingly cold, and I’m hungry if you ain’t. Let us light up, and then alight down.” And never was pull at pipe more bravely earned. And when we reached the camp again, we were greeted by cheers from the men, caresses from the dog, and last, but not least, smoking basins of soup from the cook. “Well,” said the doctor, after dinner was done and everything snug for the night, “ I think the occasion calls aloud for a judicious splicing of the main brace, and, by George! boys, I’ll tell you a story myself.” Wrapped in our rugs, a mighty horn of rum punch by the side of each, in the mouth of each a pipe, the ruddy rays
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414	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[December, 1879.	
from the monster spirit stove falling on our weather-beaten, bearded faces, a picturesque group we must have looked as we listened attentively to the doctor’s story. THE STORY OF THE MARCHIONESS. I feel quite convinced that Lumpley had been drinking on the evening previous to the day on which he made the following remark:— “ I do believe, after all, that what the Marchioness says is true. Smoking is a pernicious habit, and it’s bound to shake the nerves sooner or later—most likely sooner.” As he spoke, he laid his pipe down upon the edge of a chair—Lumpley’s studio couldn’t boast of the possession of a table—laid it down and looked at it. It was a splendid affair in meerschaum, with a bowl as big as a baby’s head, and an old devil in profile thereon, with a hook nose and a long pointed beard. This old demon seemed to leer at him as he spoke. “ Aye, leer away, you ugly old devil,” said Lumpley, “ but I mean to cut you all the same. Why, I feel this morning that I can barely hold the brush; and as to seeing straight, it is quite out of the question.” And who was the Marchioness, and who was Lumpley? I’ll answer the last question first. Lumpley was a rising artist. He had been born in this country, and afterwards emigrated to America. He became a naturalised Yankee, and fought in the wars with the proud Southerner; but when the war was finished, and the fun all over, America wasn’t big enough to hold my friend; so, like a wise man, he came to London and rented a studio. A tallish, spare man was Lumpley, pleasant- in face and pleasant in manner, with a beard worn a la mode de Yankee, a warm heart, and a fist that knew how to welcome a friend or fell a foe. And the Marchioness? Well, high-sounding though the title by which she was always addressed, both by Lumpley himself and the numerous male friends who gathered in his studio of an afternoon, to smoke his twist and drink his stout, she nevertheless condescended to dust our artist’s humble apartments, to make his bed, go out for his beer and his midday snack, and fight all his battles with his aged laundress. Strange to say, the Marchioness herself, who had just reached the mature age of fourteen, was by no means so clean and tidy in her apparel as might have been expected, in a lady of her high birth and mental acquirements. Her boots, which she preferred wearing down at the heels, had probably cost her sixpence each, perhaps less. In the heel of each of her stockings—the wrinkled condition of which proved she despised such things as garters—she wore a hole for the purpose of ventilation, there being a corresponding aperture in each boot-toe. Tall for her years was the Marchioness, bony and thin. Miss Braddon would say she had a willowy waist, and, as she wore few if any petticoats under her light cotton gown, her fragile form was beautifully displayed. She had a wealth of auburn hair, usually mixed with fluff, which she wore in a black but somewhat greasy net, from which a tress or two would be constantly escaping. With deft and lissom fingers the Marchioness used to return the truant tress, giving her head a sly but wicked scratch as she did so. Her face was prepossessing or the reverse, as you chose to think it, but it wasn’t over clean, though she washed it every week, in the water which Lumpley had just done with. She had a habit of flipping her retrousse nose, when cleaning the boots, that had left an indelible impression on that organ. She had grey eyes, that looked both mild and motherly when they gazed upon Lumpley, but terribly “ wicious ” when she threatened the lady who lived in the second pair back with “ a dig in the eye.” Externally, the Marchioness’s little “buzom” had not as yet acquired the budding rotundity of womanhood; but internally her little heart beat soft and warm—when she gazed on Lumpley. How had Lumpley acquired possession of this pert and pretty—(ahem!)—paragon? lean tell you that, too. Ata certain exhibition in London Lumpley fell in love—of course, I mean in a purely Pickwickian and artistic point of view— with a charming little black girl. This child of the desert was holding aloft a cat which she had just “caught in the act” of stealing the canary. “My eye!” thought Lumpley, “ what a picture ’twould make! ” And all that night Lumpley couldn’t sleep for thinking of it, so he got up and smoked instead; and before morning he had got through a power of cigars, and quite lowered the pride of a bottle of Scotch that had only been uncorked on the previous evening. Never mind; before noon he had engaged the Impi maiden with the white rolling eyes and the alabaster teeth as his living model. “ And now,” thought Lumpley, “ to find a cat.” Anything else in the world be would have known where to purchase; but where to buy a living cat puzzled him. People who had cats, generally greengrocers and such, wouldn’t part—said “they’d see him blowed first.” He tried to bribe a Scotch policeman to run one down. “Ech, mon!” said the bobby, “keep your siller—gang and try the cat’s-meat man.” He tried the cat’s-meat man. “ Steal a cat! ” cried that worthy, “ steal a customer ! ” he roared, “ Confound yer impertinence! I’ll— I’ll”	 but Lumpley was out of hearing in a brace of shakes. Our artist was next seen to venture modestly into a mutton pie office; but, as he was observed to emerge again speedily with disordered garments, with a boot at his back,	it is believed his search was not a successful one. Ah! yes; but when did ever a Yankee give in ? Lumpley meant to have a cat, and he did get a cat. With pipe in his disconsolate jaws, he was strolling slowly homewards up Wych Street, when he almost fell over two ragamuffin children, street Arabs, male and female, and one was playing with a dead kitten. “Ho! ho!” thought Lumpley, “now for it. My little dears,” he said aloud, addressing the Marchioness, for it was she, and her brother. The latter young gentleman didn’t strike you as belonging to the upper ten. He was bare-legged and hatless—wore nothing, in fact, except a ragged cotton shirt without sleeves, a pair of ribbony bags and a pair of greasy suspenders, and a coat of dirt, for he looked grimy enough to have just crept out of a sewer. “ My httle dears,” said Lumpley; “ahem!” “ Look ’ere,” said the Marchioness, “ if yer think ye can come round I wi’ yer blarney, yer out; dy’e see? I’m a decent young female, and my mother keeps a mangle. Git along. Yah!” “Git ’long. Yah!” echoed the brother; “ I’ll bite yer in the leg.” It occurred to Lumpley that he’d better come at once to business. “ I want to buy a cat,” he said, quickly, “ and I’ll give you two and a tizzy.” “Two and a tizzy!” cried the Marchioness. “Two and a tizzy!” cried the brother. “Hurra! Come on, old bloke, come on to Petticoat Lane.” And away trotted the Marchioness, and after her trotted Lumpley, and the dirty little boy brought up the rear. Petticoat Lane didn’t seem to be a fashionable locality, nor a very savoury; but Lumpley didn’t mind: he stuck to his pipe and philosophised, and the end of it was that in two hours he was back at his studio with the Marchioness and the cat. And Lumpley confessed that, from the very first, the Marchioness exerted a strange influence over him, and Lumpley, you must know, was a man who believed in “affinities.” The business capacity of the Marchioness was of a very high order. On the very first morning that she came to Lumpley—hired herself on him, so to speak—the artist had a specimen of her worldly wisdom that he never forgot. He was surprised, while sitting at breakfast, at hearing a confused din in the street below, and, on opening the window and looking out, lo! a perfect sea of ragged wretches, and each ragged wretch waving aloft a half-starved cat. And cries ascended from this motley mob, and shouts of “ Mine’s the sort, old bloke,” “ Mine for a tanner,” “ Tip us a tizzy.” “ I’ll tip you something else,” cried Lumpley, and he went away for the watering-can. But the Marchioness, in her wisdom, restrained him. “The water companies can persecute yer,” she said, “for wastering their property. No, throw the dirty water. That’s yer own; nobody can persecute ye for a-throwing o’ that. Ye’ve plenty of it, too; yer don’t seem to have been emptied for a week, ’cause ye’ve had no servant. Let me sluice ’em.” And the Marchioness sluiced ’em, and sluiced ’em well, till they had to beat a retreat, cats and all. After this Lumpley took the Marchioness’s advice on all matters of business, and she soon became his head man, as it were, and quite a mother to him. So it was no wonder that, when this affinity of his advised him to give up smoking, he took it into serious consideration, and finally abandoned the filthy habit for ever and aye. Then the Marchioness became kinder and kinder to him, for she could see that his nerves were sorely shaken, and she stuffed him all day with Chester-cakes and whisky. “ Chesters and Scotch,” she said; “ that’ll pull yer together faster nor fast.” So Lumpley drank and didn’t smoke, and coloured his nose instead of his meerschaum. The name of the Marchioness does not occur in Debrett’s peerage. Never mind. Granting, for accuracy’s sake, that she had only one mother, it would seem she had five fathers; and fancy that. For the babe’s mother, who kept a chesnut stove at the street corner, and likewise mangled for her family, took it first to the green-grocer, then to the bobby on the beat, then to the barrel-organ man, then to a terrible old man who kept a nick-nack shop and mended pistols, and, last of all, to the sweep who swept all the chimnies in Petticoat Lane. But these five fearful fathers had only one answer for the Marchioness’s ma: “ Tell yer I’ll have nowt to do wi’ th’ kid.” Nor had the Marchioness’s ma’s plaintive and insinuating speech beginning “But don’t you remember	” any better effect: the green-grocer threw a cabbage at her, the terrible old man snapped an old flint-lock in her face, and the organ-grinder kicked his coat-tail with his heel, and played “Home, Sweet Home” in jig-time. So the Marchioness’s ma mangled for the Marchioness until the Marchioness got married. “ Married!” you cry. “ Ay, married!” is my reply. And just listen, all ye who meditate giving up the most innocent of all enjoyments—the friendly weed. Lumpley’s intellect went fast, his customers followed; he spent his days drivelling over Chesters and Scotch, and slobbering over his affinity. And, woe is me! for the end of this rising artist; for, last of all, Lumpley went mad and married the Marchioness I Gordon Stables, M.D., B.N.
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COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
415
Tobacco 6rofoing in Sumatra.
Tobacco is an annual herbaceous plant, rising with strong erect stems to the height of from six to nine feet, its foliage being fine and handsome. When full grown, the stalk, near to the root, frequently attains a size greater than an inch in diameter; it is surrounded by a hairy, clammy substance of a greenish yellow colour. The leaves, which are of a light green, grow alternately at intervals of two or three inches on the stalk; they are oblong and spear shaped; those lowest on the stalk are about 20 inches long, and they decrease in size as they ascend, the top leaves being only ten inches long and five broad. The young leaves, when about 6 inches long, are of a deep green colour, and rather smooth; but as they approach maturity they assume a yellowish tint, and have a rougher surface. The flowers grow in clusters from the extremities of tho stalks; they are yellow externally, and of a delicate red within; the edges, when they are full blown, rather inclining to purple. These flowers are succeeded by kidney-shaped capsules of a brown colour, each one of which contains about 1000 seeds, so that the whole produce of a plant has been sometimes estimated at 350,000 seeds.
Perhaps no plant of European introduction is in such great request as this throughout India. Its consumption is almost universal among the inhabitants of the Indian islands, who grow all they require for their own use, while some produce a surplus quantity for exportation. The introduction of Tobacco into that quarter is ascribed to the Portuguese settlers, numerous communities of whom were established in the Indian seas at the time when the plant first became known in Europe.
The flavour of the Indian leaf is considered weaker than that of the American growth, which circumstance is attributed to want of skill on the part of the curers, rather than to anything unfavourable in soil or climate.
The forest has first to be felled preparatory to planting Tobacco, which is generally done by Malays and Battuks, at the Dutch settlement of Deli, on the north-east coast of the large island of Sumatra. Deli (sometimes spelt Dellei) is the principal Tobacco cultivating place the Dutch possess in that large and rich island. The land is then divided among the Chinamen, who turn off and clear it. It is then twice chang-kolled, or dug and pulverised. A changkol is a spade with a very long handle, which the Chinese universally use, and long enough to allow the user to dig in an upright position. The seed is always sown in nursery beds, or patches, as they are called, and which are invariably made in lands of tho best possible soil in a dry spot, but so circumstanced that attention may be conveniently given to water the patches from time to time, according to the state of the weather. In about a month from the time of sowing the seeds the sprouts will be ready for transplanting. When the fourth leaf has sprouted, and the fifth is just appearing—at which stage the sprouts will be about four or five inches out of the ground—they are known to be sufficiently forward for this operation. The planter chooses his time when the ground has been well softened by rain, so that the sprouts may be withdrawn from the patch without risk of injury to their tender roots. This done, they are conveyed without delay in a basket to the field previously prepared for their reception.
So necessary an agent is moisture towards the successful performance of this operation, that planters wait for a shower of rain, and prefer to complete the transplanting during the very time that the rain is falling. In the course of a few days most of the sprouts will, under these circumstances, give signs of theii having taken hold of the ground; some few will appear, however, upon inspection, to have failed; the favourable opportunity of a shower must again be waited for, in order to supply their places, and attention must be given to this point until all deficiencies are filled up and tho plants are proceeding satisfactorily throughout the field.
Tobacco husbandry calls for continual labour in weeding and earthing up the plants, and in constantly stirring the soil about the roots; and these labours must be persisted in through the whole growth of the crop, to insure its receiving a proper degree of nourishment. Any dead leaves that may be found from time to time attached to the stalks must also be carefully removed.
After transplanting, and being kept clean and free from insects, in two or three months the plants are ready for cutting, care being taken that they do not put forth flowers. Tobacco is liable to injury, at various periods of its growth, from the ravages of grubs, some of which attack the roots, and others the leaves. One species of these insects, the large green Tobacco worm, is particularly mischievous. Whenever these enemies appear they must be destroyed by any means within the power of the cultivator, the most efficacious of which is to remove them individually from the plants and crush them under foot—an unpleasant and laborious operation. The ground worm, which attacks the plant under the ground, must be sought for and destroyed. Tobacco also encounters another injury, which appears under the form of blight, and is occasioned by the long continuance of either dry or wet weather.
When it appears the leaves perish partially in spots, and thus diminish the weight of the crop.
It is hardly possible to describe the particular appearances of the plants which determine the fact of their being in a fit
condition for being cut and gathered in; experience alone will enable the cultivator to seize upon the best time for harvesting. When fully ripe, the leaves change their colour to a yellowish green—they put on what may be called a mellow appearance; the web of the leaf (owing, probably, to the contraction of its fibres) appears more prominent, and sometimes thickened in its substance. The requisite amount of experience upon this point is, indeed, soon gained by the observant cultivator. As all plants in the same field do not arrive together at their full maturity, the charge of cutting them is assigned to clever and experienced hands. Each of these is furnished with a strong, sharp knife, and, proceeding regularly along the rows of plants, selects and cuts only such as appear to be ripe, leaving the rest for future and successive operations. If Tobacco be cut before it is fully ripe, it will not assume a good colour in the curing, and will, besides, be liable to rot when afterwards packed.
The cutting takes place near the ground. Such plants as have stalks sufficiently thick are then cut down the middle, so as nearly to divide them, and this is done that the air may be admitted more freely to every part of the leaves during the after process of curing. By this means, too, the plant is more readily freed from a part of its natural moisture, and is thus rendered less liable to undergo fermentation, whereby the quality of the Tobacco would be injured. The building appropriated to the reception and curing of Tobacco is a kind of barn, its size being made according to the extent of ground under cultivation. The most usual size given to these buildings is from 40 to 60 feet in length by a proportionate width, and their height to the eaves of the roof is 12 feet. The sides are left partially open, to allow a free circulation of air, and the internal area of the building, including the roof, is occupied by horizontal poles, stretching arose the shed or barn in a parallel direction, and four feet apart from each other. These poles are connected together, when the house is occupied, by cross pieces, which are called Tobacco sticks, and upon these the leaves are hung in order to be cured. Of course, the roof of the shed must alwavs form a perfect protection against the weather, and it will be necessary so to contrive the poles and sticks that they may be removed and replaced without difficulty. The plants must be removed into the Tobacco house as soon as they become sufficiently pliable to bear handling. If taken from the field at the moment when they have been cut, such is the rigidity and brittleness of the leaves th it they would be much broken and damaged. The removal is effected by manual labour, and that quantity of leaves which can conveniently be carried by one person is called a turn.
The operation of hanging is then performed by suspending the plants upon the sticks with the points of the leaves downwards, resting them either by the stalk of the lowest leaf, or by the slit which has been made in the stem of the larger plants, as before described. The whole are made to hang four or five inches apart from each other upon the sticks, the exact distance being proportioned according to their size.
The sticks thus occupied are then, by means of ladders, conveyed to the places it is intended they should occupy between the poles. The agency of the atmosphere is principally relied on for the curing of Tobacco.
From the drying shed the leaves are taken to the fermenting house, where they undergo the process of sweating. The leaves, before being brought here, are taken down from the sticks in the drying shed, are stripped of their stalks, and made into little bundles. These bundles are thrown together in heaps on a wooden platform, and undergo the above mentioned process of sweating or fermentation.
The valuation of the Tobacco plant is made in the drying shed. In hanging it up the cultivator separates the different qualities as far as he is able, and when it is ready to ferment, the planter visits the shed, inspects, values, and arranges the price, and carries it off to the fermenting house, a permanent, well-built shed like the drying shed; and it is here that the leaf requires the most particular treatment and care, in order that it may attain the required virtue necessary to place it at the top of the market. Here it is the Tobacco plant is assorted, as regards size, colour, and general appearance and condition, previous to being tied up into the bundles of fifty each. These bundles being thrown on the wooden platform in the fermenting shed in heaps, are tied up into one large square heap, in which they undergo fermentation and become heated. The heat of the interior of this heap is ascertained by means of a stick passing through a bamboo in the middle of the stack; so that, by withdrawing the stick occasionally, the internal heat becomes sensible to the hand in feeling the extremity of the stick. When the temperature is getting too high, the stack is broken down and the leaves examined and assorted, and again made up into bundles, and this process is continued until the required colour and flavour is attained. If the heat were allowed to become too great, the Tobacco would be spoilt. The last stage of the process is to press the bundles into bales, and pack for shipping.
Most of the buildings are temporary, as the fields are shifted every year; the soil requiring four years’ rest before Tobacco is again planted upon it. Most of the Tobacco planters follow up this cultivation by the nutmeg tree. No one in Deli cultivates more than 300 bauws at a time of Tobacco. (A bauw is a Dutch acre.) As soon as the crop is finished they plant young nutmeg trees, with plantain trees
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COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
[Decembeb, 1879.
to shade them from the sun until they become sufficiently strong. In Sumatra the nutmeg has been cultivated with success. We learn from Sir T. Raffles, that in 1820 there was a plantation at Bencoolen, on the south-west of the island, of 100,000 nutmeg trees, one fourth of which were in full bearing. On the north-east coast of Sumatra, where the Dutch Tobacco-growing settlement of Deli is situated, is an immense alluvial plain, extending from the sea until it reaches the foot of a very lofty range of volcanic mountains, which pass lengthways through the whole island. The soil is of the richest description, and everything grows upon it in the greatest luxuriance. It is considered by old West India planters fully equal to that of Cuba and Haiti, which rank among the best in the world. At present it is almost covered with thick jungle. The River Deli is situated about forty miles beyond the River Bedaggi. In the space between the rivers Deli and Bedaggi there are twelve others; quite a network of small streams seem to intersect the country. The position taken up by the company I was serving under lay between the rivers Journai and Balahar, two of these small streams. At Deli concessions of land were to be got from the Dutch Government, for Tobacco cultivation, on very easy terms; and the expense of obtaining it was a penny per acre. Only 500 bauws can be granted to any one person. On the completion of the clearing of one-half of the concession, the Dutch Government is bound by the agreement to double the grant, free of any charge.
One Tobacco planter netted in 1874, from 250 acres, 32,000 dols. The plant costs in Penang 8^ cents, per lb., and sold at 1 dol. in Amsterdam.
In Tobacco growing no machinery is required (a press excepted), and the cultivation is very easy, as the labourer is always a partner, as it were, in the concern.
The difficulty of obtaining labour experienced by the Deli planters was very great, as at first they did not treat the labourers well (they are nearly all Chinamen). The men are paid according to the number of heads of Tobacco plants that they deliver into the fermenting house, so that they are interested in keeping the plant in order, free from insects, &c. The price varies from 8 dols. to 1 dol. per 1000 plants. The labourers require constant advances on engagement, which are debited to each man’s account, together with 1 dol. for house and 1 dol. for cooking, and about 7$ cents per day for feeding; even the charge of clearing off the land is charged to each man, being from 20 dols. to 30 dols. per 100 fathoms square (about 8 acres). A cheap Tobacco, called Java Grass, is very much smoked by the Malays, which they put in a dried leaf called a Roc-co, and they roll the Tobacco up in it like a cigarette. The Malays in Province Wellesley keep the Tobacco of their own cultivation for a long time in pieces of bamboo; but it is badly prepared, and never exported.
The extraordinary fecundity of the valleys of the neighbouring island of Java enables the inhabitants to draw two annual crops, one of rice and one of Tobacco.
The fertility of the soil over nearly the whole surface of the large islands of Java and Sumatra is such that, if the industry and agricultural knowledge of the inhabitants were at all commensurate with it, no two islands on the known globe of equal extent would exceed, or, perhaps, even equal them in the variety, the quantity, or the value of their vegetable productions. For the most part, however, the land is either wholly neglected or subjected to very insufficient modes of husbandry, which is owing in a great measure to the indolence of the inhabitants.
At Deli, in Sumatra, the Deli Maatschappij is the principal Tobacco company, which was established in Amsterdam in 1869. They own about eight Tobacco estates there.
The assistant managers on the estates in Deli get a nominal salary with their board the first year, and 70 dols. to 100 dols. the second. After the first crop, if deserving, these assistants are generally made managers, and are set to open out estates in new localities, with commission on sale price of crop of 5 to 10 per cent. .
Estimate of Cost of Tobacco Cultivation of 250 Aches fob 15 Months:
Buildings.
DOLS. DOLS.
For Superintendent......................... 200
„	Labourers.............................. 200
„	Eight Sheds, 150	feet by 60 feet ..... 1600
„	Fermenting House....................... 400
---- 2400.00
Labour.
100 Chinese.
40 Klings. (Natives of the south of India.)
40 Boyans. (These people are natives of the island of Bawian, off the coast of Java.)
180 at 6 dols. per month for 15 months......	16200.00
Superintendent,	15	months	at 100 dols......	1500.00
Director ......................................... 600.00
7 Head Men or Tindals, 15 months at 70 dols. per month........................................ 1050*00
Tobacco Pricer.................................... 600.00
Sundries, Boat, Medicine, &c..................... 1250.00
Total, first 15 months.........................  23,600.00
In 4^lemoriam.
John Dunning, whose initials must have been familiar to readers of the Tobacco Plant, and who wrote in it much unsigned with his initials, died at Brooke, Isle of Wight, on the last day of October, at the age of forty-one, in consequence of the rupture of a bloodvessel, and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery on November 5th. He was well-known as an able journalist in Liverpool, London, and elsewhere, and very widely as an accomplished litterateur.
Extensively read, possessed of high scholarly attainments with great experience of men, his genial and intellectual society endeared him to a large circle of friends. By those more immediately connected with this periodical bis loss is very keenly felt.
An earnest and profound student in Nicotian lore, he ever, since the Tobacco Plant first raised its flag, acquitted himself as a stout and wise champion of the “ Divine Herb; ” and, as he was one of the earliest recruits and foremost in our ranks, so he has been the first to fall before the all-conqueror, Death.
glag Se 5f^ in ^ta«!
Copt’s ^trfm.
Let us begin our mixing far away. I read in a review of “A Few Months in New Guinea,” by Octavius C. Stone, F.R.G.S. (London: Sampson Low and Co., 1880 [ai<), “In New Guinea man has two desires, and woman shares them— Tobacco and the accumulation of wealth. Yet the savage, though an indefatigable beggar and fond of a bargain, is not ungenerous, and frequently gives away the larger portion of any presents he receives. Gold he neither knows [4c] nor covets, and, when offered twenty sovereigns for a nose-ring, a chief declined to deal, but closed eagerly when temptel with a thimbleful of red beads.” The review (it is the ever-genial Saturday) also tells us, “English missionaries have visited the island (and introduced measles);” so that, “ When Mr. Stone, with his friends, reached Port Moresby, the natives did not welcome them with much spirit, supposing that they were more missionaries with more measles ”; and further, “ It is a pity that the members of so intelligent a race cannot refrain from whispering koi-koi, ‘lies, lies,’ when the good missionary preaches to them on a Sunday afternoon.” See the Mixture oi May, 1876, for extract from letter from this same good missionary, Mr. Lawes, concerning the native devotion to Tobacco.
M. Jules Claretie in “ Le TroisiemeDessous,’’(Paris: Dentu, 1879,) introduces us to various prominent members of the new “independent” school of art. Thus we have Baloche the painter of impressions: “The ‘impression” is all one catches in passing, whether on foot, in a fiacre, or in a train. The impression is the telegram, something useful, instead of the elaborate letter, worthless babblement. It is the truth, the reality of things, a certitude taking the place of a falsehood, the absolute superseding the conventional. . . Baloche only understood his age. The pictures of Baloche gave at least the impression of a steam-engine disappearing in the fog—an engine small as a withered pea with enormous intersections of rails large as tree-trunks in the foreground.” Are we in Paris or in London? Does Baloche ever begin with IV and end with r ? But hush; be warned by the Fate of the Farthing, and proceed:—“Another painter of this school, Lemenil by name, delighted to be known as the painter of smoke. ‘ It is the age of smoke,’ he said, * and it is odd that until now no one has thought of painting this smoke. A life-like portrait of a man now-a-days ought to be enveloped with the smoke of a cigar, or the nimbus from a pipe. Every Parisian landscape—a railway station, for instance—is full of smoke! It is I who seize, catch, and fix this smoke. It is my destiny, my speciality. I am the inventor of smoke !’ The sculptor asks him whether he has seen the smoke painted by Ingres, in the Amphitheatre of the Beaux-Arts. Lemenil shrugged his shoulders. ‘ Le pere Ingres I Une moule ; un homme en bois.' They spoke no more of him.” The fervent young realists in art and literature have clearly made up their minds to go a long way. For my part, I admire this fumous Lemenil. We all know how much artists are indebted to Tobacco, which furnishes them with the best inspirations ; in fact, we never think of one sketching or painting without a pipe in his mouth. I have, indeed, the honour of the acquaintance of one distinguished artist who, having smoked, smokes no more; but I believe his renunciation of the plant was as reluctant as Charles Lamb’s—that he mentally wears widower’s weeds for the loss of the weed. And then, mark what he does in atonement for his involuntary apostacy; he keeps a
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bountiful supply of capital cigars and cigarettes for his visiting friends. Truly a right worthy citizen, a painter who more than merits his reputation. Well, artists, owing so much to Tobacco, should do more than those of the modern schools have generally done in part payment of their debt. Of course, we have some noble tributes of grateful homage. No one who has seen can forget the pipe in the elder Leslie’s favourite subject, “Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman,’’ or in Watson Nicol’s “ When a man’s single, he lives at his ease,” of which such an excellent etching has been published. But about the best Nicotian subject in all history or romance has fallen to the lot of Mr. Boughton, in a picture which I have not seen, and which I fear me is out of our country. Here is a description thereof, which I have piously preserved, from the Academy of July 28, 1877 :—
“Mr. Boughton is far athauced with a picture on which ho has been en^^l for Koine time past, and which is designed for th* Corcoran Museum. The subject has been b« lected from the early history of New York, au episode of the rule of a well-known Dutch Governor, William the Testy. One of the first acts of his reign was to aibitrarily prohibit smoking. The orderly Ncw-Nctln Handera did not, however, tear down the placards by which Governor William made his pleasure known, but they took advantage of a fine summer evening to assemble in solemn session round his door-steps. There they sat, for they brought out their chairs and benches and ranged them row nft« r row in front of the house; all the grave men of the city, pipe in mouth, puffed in council, while the lads and women gathered behind them in sober enjoyment of the scene. Ont rushes William from his open door, violently expostu ating, and followed by his wife; but he is greeted by clouds cf Tobacco-stroke, and sees that the whole population, even the very guardians of the peace, are arrayed against him. Not only merchants and townsfolk, but even the ciders of the Church, solemn in oflicial black and bauds; nay, fronting him, in the midst, is the very trumpeter who had proclaimed the edict and on whose stalwart strength he had relied for the execution of its provisions. The scene is put before us with a background of quaint seventeenth-century houses, and the treatment of the figures, which are very carrfullv studied, shows not only that delicacy of colour and feeling which always distinguishes Mr. Boughton, but considerable thoroughness of characterisation, and much quiet humour.”
It is an easy step from painting to engraving, as easy as from life to death ; the Academy of Nov. 1, 1879, thus concludes its obituary notice of Mr. Jeens :—
“In his private life few could resist tho charm of his manner, or fail to ■ympatliise with his intense love of his art. Those who have spent an evening with him in his studio will not easily forget his wonderful knowledge, not only of the practical side of his art, but of its history ; nor how ho would sit and talk—sm< king meanwhile a pipe almost indecent in its brevity and blackm 8S—and illu-trate his discourse by means of his large and well-chosen eoll< ction of prints. Eren to within the last few weeks of his life he was ever pleased to sec and talk with his more intimate friends, altnough the pipe was ?nt bv and he bad no longer strength to sit in his studio. lie was buried on
uesdayat Highgate Cem Lory, and was followed to his last resting-place by a large number cf his relations and friends.”
I need scarcely say that I protest with all the might that is in me against that dashed parenthesis “ smoking meanwhile a pipe almost indecent in its brevity and blackness.” Concerning the brevity, as it is the soul of wit, so is it of the essence of a right nose-warmer, or bnil&gueule, as any blue-jacket or red-jacket will assure you beyond contradiction ; concerning the blackness, it can never be indecent in a pipe, though to the eyes of a metropolitan Lord Mayor it may be in a Zulu. Why, the blackness of a pipe is as the polish of mahogany, the varnish completing a beautiful picture, the rich ripe bloom of a peach, the dark moustache and beard which are evidence that green youth has passed into manly maturity. You might as well term a noble printed song or sonnet indecent because of its brevity and blackness, as so term a veteran pipe. O most unacademical Academician! had your divine first master but had the good fortune to know Tobacco, he would assuredly have warned from his groves of Academe, not those ignorant of geometry (a most frigid and rigid science), but those unskilled in smoking (a most philosophical and inspiring art). And how old Socrates would have enjoyed a dozen or two pipes or cigars at that Symposium, when he not only wouldn’t go home till morning, but. morning arrived, wouldn’t go home till evening.
But the fascination of art and artistry has seduced me home from Paris before I have finished my business there; and, as all the world knows, business there means pleasure. You have doubtless made the acquaintance of some of the multitude of gay and naughty little fifty-centime almanacks with which Mr. Congreve’s “noble and holy city,” Victor Hugo’s “Mecca of civilisation,” Dean Stanley’s “luminous eye of Europe” (how could you, Dean Stanley, when Convocation sits at Westminster!), Bcranger’s “Paradise of the Devil,” Balzac’s “ succursale de Venfer"—say, suburb of the Inferno, etc., etc., etc., for its titles are many, heralds le Jour de VAn. Among them, but scarcely of them—for it is very decorous and solid, with a keen eye to business, being in great part devoted to calling attention to works published by its publishers, to a patent medicine, and to a special fowling-piece of a certain armurier, or gunsmith—is the Almanack Parisien. Among its contents are some brief articles of information, and among these one which concerns us, being on “ The Industry of the Ends of Cigars.”
“We know that nothing Ir lost, that everything is collected, bnt who would tbiuk that the exploitation of the ends of cigars alone represents, for those engag?d in it, a net profit of 250,000 frs. [say £10,000 per annum].
“Even thiR estimate is under the mark. To arrive at it we calculate upon the average work of those who have adopted the profession of gathering the ends cf cigars. [I don’t profess to reconcile these two sentences.]
“The collectors of cigar ends rise with the dawn, and search all Paris, particularly the Champs-Elysees and the boulevards. Some of them buy from the cafe waiters the cigar ends thrown down by the customers.
“Toward six or seven in the morning, according to the season, their round is finished; th<\v then repair to one of the banka of the Seine, empty their pockets, and examine their merchandise.
“The lundres, the ha'pennies, &c., are grouped together, each sort constituting a different quality of T. bacco, and priced accordingly.
“The hunter of cigars then pulls his tools from his pocket, being a little square of wood on which he cuts the Tobacco, and a knife for cutting it.
“ The Tobacco, thus prepared, is Hold at 2 fr. 15c. (say, Is. 10d.) the livre, to the smokers of the city and the suburbs.*'
I like this business for the cheap simplicity of its tools and the early hour at which it appears to be finished; but I distinctly dislike it for that necessity of getting up with the dawn. The £10,000 a year is seductive at first sight; but between how many is it divided ? If only a hundred pursue this noble profession, they earn on the average £100 per annum each; not so bad for an employment whose most laborious part is over by six or seven in the morning: but suppose 500 or 1000 engaged in it ? Anyhow, here is an honest and not nnremunerative profession for our city arabs as yet unattached. I have spoken of the publishers of this Almanack Parisien, but forgot to mention the name of the firm. It is Pion and Cie., a good name in a certain, or, rather, very uncertain contingency ; for by merely extending its title to Pion, Pion, and Cie., it would become the proper Imperial publishing firm when Prince Jerome is Napoleon V. I write V. because we have already had number IV., so anointed and proclaimed by the exquisite snobbery of the Stereoscopic Company, as I have beheld with mine own eyes in Regent Street, London, before that young Hopeful was assegai’d by indecent Zulus, in barbarous contravention of his bargain that he was to shoot and sabre a lot of them, just for pure fun and impure glory.
But away from the Cape of Bad Hope. The writing of Dean Stanley’s name reminded me that I was sacrilegiously neglecting two live Bishops. The first is Dr. Moorhouse, the Bishop of Melbourne, who appears to “enjoy an extraordinary popularity among the laymen of his diocese;” extraordinary, perhaps, for a bishop, but not extraordinary for so genial a bishop as this, as our readers will promptly allow. “ His lordship [so graciously created by the omnipotent D. T., to which I am here indebted for once: or are there really peers spiritual in Australia?]—so the South Australian Register affirms, is a confirmed smoker, and scorns to cloak or hide his partiality for the fragrant weed before the face of anybody whomsoever [queer secret hiding that, before somebody’s face]. A writer in the above-named entertaining periodical breaks out into a very rapture of laudation [as well he may] as he describes the bold Doctor ‘puffing a short black clay ’ [not indecent, O prudish Academician!.] ‘The Bishop,’ he writes, ‘good luck to him [Amen!] likes his pipe, and knows full well that by stepping off an artificial pedestal and taking his manly stand shoulder to shoulder with his fellows, he has achieved a sympathetic influence far beyond that of any [other] priest or prelate in the colony. Who would not like to smoke a pipe with this pleasant and worthy gentleman?”’ Who, indeed? The aristocratic D. T. thinks it worth while to add, “It would be interesting to learn who are a bishops fellows from a colonial point of view; ” and proceeds to assume that they are “the great official personages of Australia.” O you most Christian D. T.; on Good Friday, at Easter, and at Christmas, in your gushing piety ardently unctuous as bubbling rancid oil, or the frying horse-fat of a fish shop; how could you doubt who are the good bishop’s fellows, when be steps off “the artificial pedestal” of the pulpit or the chancel dais? They are simply his fellow men (including the women and children), poor as well as rich; such as were the fellows of those first vulgar, unexclusive fisher and publican apostles of whom be is one of the worthy successors; such as would be the fellows of the great Levite himself, if he could only step down from “ the artificial pedestal” of the largest circulation (of d. t.) in the world, and cordially embrace his worst enemy, Truth.
Peterborough Court naturally suggests our other bishop, the Right Rev. Magee, whom Dizzy translated to Peterborough, and who could not better prove his gratitu le (and earn ours) than by translating Dizzy to his ancestral Jericho, along with Fourpence-an-ounce Northcote: on their way thither they might fall among fit co-mates and brothers in exile. This eloquent Irish English successor of the Apostles has been delivering a charge to his clergy, which I profoundly regret not having come across, for I am never tired of pondering Episcopal charges, especially those to the tune of several thousands a year. As it is, I know only of this charge from a leader in the Weekly Dispatch of November 9; whose language is so abominably irreverent, unless we charitably construe it as too deeply ironical, that I shudder in copying it out (the Editor cannot but remark the staggering infirmity of my MS. at this point):—“ The Bishop of Peterborough, indeed, in addressing the black gang which earns its theological bread in his diocese [if the old proprietor of the IF. D. was the comparative Harmer, one suspects that the present must be the superlative Harmest], recently showed himself alive to the existence of these peculiar people (the Dissenters). ‘ I know,’ he told his understrappers, ‘of one instance in which a clergyman and a Dissenting minister found out that each smoked. They have been sworn brothers from that moment.’ ” Oh, the divine conciliating efficacy of our Holy Healing Herb! healing not only dire ailments of the body, but direr maladies of the heart and mind and spirit. I read in the T. P. for last month that the motto of the Company of Tobacco-pipe makers is or was, “ Let brotherly love continue”; a motto of pure sweetness and light. But this pearl fished from the blessed see of Peterborough proves that the motto of the innumerable company of pipe-smokers is. yet sweeter and more splendid: “ Let brotherly love begin and
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418	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[December, 1879.	
continue”; love, by aid of The Plant, supplanting old dislike, distrust, and jealousy. Let but Convocation meet in concert with the Synods and annual Assemblies of the representatives of all the other sects, and let all smoke together the Pipe of Peace (only here and there a Stiggins and a Dean Close would have to be turned out), and how soon would all schisms be healed, all heart-burnings and dissensions be extinguished, so that in our then happy Christian world there should be no “ solution of continuity” from the Archbishop of Canterbury right away to Mr. Spurgeon and Mr. Dale. So prophesies Youb Man-of-All-Work. ^ip ^olounrs. XVI.—THE FATE OF “SAUCY BESS.” Ever on the hunt for information, both useful and ornamental, I called in, a few days ago, at our new Coffee Palace. It is not at the present time a gigantic success. Personally, I do not believe these places ever will become what I call nationally successful till they sell a tea and coffee that will not only cheer but inebriate as well. Then there will be a rush, if they keep to present prices. I may be called an immoral cynic for speaking or writing in this strain, but that I cannot help, and, what is more, for that I do not care. Truth is my motto; but there, see back numbers. I do not want to be considered a bore. At the “bar” of the Coffee Palace I saw a notice, which informed me that if I wished to smoke I had better hide myself in a room set aside for the purpose. I proceeded to do so, and in that room I found an old friend, John Pellet by name. We shook hands cordially, and then had what Poet Close elects to call a “glorious crack.” Our conversation, which lasted for a couple of hours, put me in possession of a little knowledge, which, as it concerns a pipe and a pipe colourer, shall be made public. “John,” I said, as we sat sipping our “penny a cup,” “what has become of the ‘Saucy Bess’? I think that was the name you gave your old pipe.” John looked gloomily at me as he answered: “Did you never hear?” I replied “No”; and then he set to work to inform me. “ You know,” said he, “I love smoking?” “Ido.” “ You know I hate stinking cheese?” “ I do.” “You know coffee was not my usual drink at one time?” “At the time you allude to,” I replied, “ I think whisky, as a rule, you considered more to your taste than coffee.” “ You are correct, Goggs, you are correct; and between the things I did like and the things I did not like, ‘ Saucy Bess’ came to grief. However, I will tell you. I lived, as you know, at Richmond. A few of us used to meet in the evening to smoke a pipe over a friendly glass. So far, good. “ There was one fellow, who used to come amongst us, that I never cared much for. There was nothing much about him to dislike; but, somehow, we nearly always took opposite sides of every question that happened to spring up, and as we were both very hot tempered, at times we almost quarrelled. He was a good-natured fellow enough in his way, and he was very well liked by the majority, because he was always willing to execute little commissions in London for them. He had to come up to town to business every day, and he had a ticket for some stores or another, so that he sometimes managed to save these other fellows a shilling or two, and you know that goes a good way to give a man a sort of reputation. This fellow’s’ name, I may as well tell you, was Reeks—Robert Reeks —and he was very nearly an Anti; not so much because he objected to smoking, but it did not agree with him. “To get on. One day I had to come to town on business, and when that was concluded, I sought the railway station to catch the 4.30 express. As I had been smoking a good deal, I took my seat in a non-smoking compartment, intending to let my pipe have a rest on the homeward journey. There was no one in the compartment when I got in; but just as the train was starting the door was opened, and first a small hamper flew in, then two or three parcels, and then the owner. This turned out to be the fellow I mentioned, M^. Reeks, and we very civilly said * Good afternoon ’ to each other. “ After two or three minutes’ travelling I noticed a peculiar odour seemed to be creeping into the carriage from somewhere, and I put it down to some factory or works that we might be passing—you know the neighbourhood is not one of the sweetest—and presently wo stopped at Vauxhall. After a minute or so here, we started again, but the unpleasant odour seemed to continue—in fact, every moment it grew worse, till there was no name for it but a filthy and abominable stink; excuse the word, Goggs, but I want you to understand my position. The train would not stop for quite another half-hour, and I felt myself being rapidly poisoned— there! I feel sick at the thoughts of it now. A month-old, dead dog would have been a nosegay to it. “Reeks, who is an extremely blunt man in his speech, noticing me sniffing about and making wry grimaces, said, with a grin that spoke too much of exultation to be palatable to me, ‘ Smell it ? ’	“ ‘I don’t know what you call “it,”’ I replied, ‘but you’ve got some horrible dead body or something in that confounded hamper of yours, that has a perfume attached to it sufficient to breed a plague.’ “ ‘ That’s a lie, sir.’ “ * What! ’ I cried, starting; * What do you mean, sir? ’ “ Oh 1 no offence—sit down; be calm. You say it’s in the hamper; that is not true, consequently it is a lie: I ought, perhaps, to have said a mistake. What you smell is in this brown paper parcel, and is simply cheese. One of our fellows bought it, and then did not care to take it home, so I purchased it of him cheap. It’s only cheese.’ “ ‘ Cheese or not,’ I said excitedly, ‘ it is to me a most horrible nuisance ; and to save myself from an attack of sickness, I will, with your permission, indulge in a pipe.’ “ ‘ Not with my permission, sir,’ said Reeks, warmly; ‘ that is to say, in this compartment. This compartment is for non-smokers, and on principle, sir, I object to your using Tobacco here.’ “ ‘ But surely,’ I returned, soothingly, 4 you do not wish me to be ill ? ’ “4 You can do as you please about that,’ replied Reeks, sneeringly. 4 There is no by-law against a traveller being ill, so far as I know; but there is a by-law against smoking here, and I mean to see that you do not break it.’ “My back was up now; so, telling him to go to Paradise with bis rotten cheese, I pulled 4 Saucy Bess ’ out of her case, and was soon in a cloud of smoke. Reeks was getting into a towering passion, but I did not care. I was under the influence of the soothing herb. The ethereal mantle of Saint Nicotine was about my shoulders, her fond arms were round my neck, and if there had been twenty Reekses with forty parcels of cheese, I should have laughed them all to scorn. ‘You like cheese,’ I said, ‘revel on it; I like smoke, and I intend to have it.’ “Iwill say,” continued Pellet, “that I did little or nothing to soothe Reeks. When he frowned, I smiled; when he almost swore, I quite chuckled. This went on for some few minutes. He grew worse and worse, and I grew more irritating, till at last, in a fit of fury, he sent his cheese flying over into my corner; it slightly hurt my nose, but, alas! for my pipe—my pretty meerschaum, coloured with so much loving care—it was utterly ruined: 4 Saucy Bess’ was shipwrecked on a cheesy reef, and my grief was great. If Reeks had not taken refuge behind his hamper, he would have had more of that cheap cheese than he wanted all at once: three or four times I took a desperate aim at his head, but he kept popping the hamper up for protection; so I determined to seek my revenge in a lawful and legal manner. I half made up my mind to throw the cheese out of the window, but it struck me that it would be a most important witness in a court of justice; so I simply kept my foot on it, till we arrived at Richmond, and then, holding it at arm’s length, I carried it home. 44 Of course our quarrel was a good deal talked about. I gave my version, and Reeks gave his; and a good many regrets were expressed that Reeks should have so far forgotten himself. This did not satisfy me for the damage to my nose and the loss of my pipe; so I took out a summons against Reeks for an assault, and in the course of a few days we had to attend the court. 44 The day came. I had the fragments of the pipe and the cheese in a little black bag, and away I started so as to be in good time. About half-a-dozen doors from my own house I met Bilster, one of our crew. ‘Ah, Pellet,’ said he, ‘good morning. Going up about your case, I suppose.’ ‘Yes,’ I replied; ‘I’m going up to have my turn now.’ “‘Just a toothful,’ said Bilster, ‘to wish you luck’; and thereupon we dropped into the private bar of the inn where we usually met of an evening. “‘Here’s luck,’ said Bilster, as our glasses chinked; I hope they’ll give the vagabond three months. I haven’t heard the exact particulars of the case from your own lips; but, from what I have heard from those you have related it to, I should call it a most cowardly and cruel assault. Hallo I here’s Potter. Now, I never knew he drank in the morning.’ “‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ said the worthy Potter. ‘ It’s quite out of my line to call in here so early, but I heard you’d found your way here, so I thought there would be no harm if I did the same; just, of course, to wish our friend Pellet here success. I never did care much for that Reeks; I don’t Uke his eye. Did you ever notice his eye, Mr. Bilster?’ “ ‘ No,’ replied Bilster, ‘ I never paid much attention to his eye, but I’ve closely watched his extremities. 1 believe there is more expression in the extremities than in the eye—at all events, with some people. Now, Reeks’s extremities when he gets excited are all of a work, all of a go, so to speak; he seems to want to catch hold of something, or kick somebody. You notice his extremities when we go up presently. I shall go up; I suppose you will?’ “ ‘ Oh I yes, I shall go up, but you must have this little drink first, and don’t you forget to notice his eye,’ said Potter. “ I ventured to remind my friends that time was getting on, and that I must be doing the same; however, the drinks must be got rid of first. This second glass put me into quite a good temper with myself; and, in reply to a question from Bilster as to whether I had the cheese and the pipe, I produced them from the bag and exhibited them to the gaze of my friends.
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“ We were going out at the door, when we were met full butt by three more of our cronies. They laughed at the idea of my being late, and assured me that the case would not come on for some two or three hours, as there were a number to precede it. Back wo went, and Hammond, one of the three, was loud in his denunciations of Reeks. ‘I am told,’ said he, * that not only is he a most ferocious temper at home, but that when he lived at Hammersmith he was fined on two or three occasions for different assaults. Old Terby promised to lend me a newspaper with the account of one in it; but I suppose he can't find it. I’ll just run over and see if he is likely to be able to; it would be an invaluable bit for you; look how it would show up the character of the man. I wou’t be above two or three minutes; don’t go till I come back.’
“By this time we had been in the house, I should say, a couple of hours, and then it suddenly occurred to me that all these men had treated me. and I had paid for nothing. This would never do; so, after some little persuasion, they agreed to have a drink at my expense, and then we would start. The drinks were ordered and paid for; and then, quite naturally it seemed, cigars w’ere lighted, and from the particular case of assault in which I was concerned, we got on to assaults in general, and then on to other cases that were not assaults, and had nothing to do with assaults. But what mattered? weren’t we in the right? who cared? who so happy as we? Just one little merry-go-round with the harmless halfpenny, to let the Fates decide who has to pay.
“How Packer, the horsey man, came in, I’m sure I do not know; but there he was, sure enough, standing champagne and cigars, and singing odd snatches of song to make everybody feel good-tempered and jolly.”
“But how about your assault case?” I asked wonderingly.
“That’s just where it was, or is, or anything you like,” replied Pellet, with a grim look. “We did start at last, and a rare start it was. All idea of time had long gone from my head, and I fully believe it had from every head there. It was somewhere about three o’clock when we reached the court, and then it was closed. Of course the summons against Reeks was dismissed, because there was no prosecutor in attendance. It was all a planned job. These traitors, seeing I was determined to punish Reeks, the man who executed their little commissions for them, Ac., made up their minds to get him off by getting me ‘on,’ as the vulgar world has it. They wanted me to treat it as a joke afterwards, but I wouldn’t. I turned my back on the lot of them, and on whisky as well, and soon afterwards moved into this neighbourhood. And now, you know the end of ‘Saucy Bess.’ ”
I assured Pellet of my sympathy, and tried to persuade him to have a glass of something comforting; but he would not. “No,” he said; “I must get three more cups of tea down, and then I shall do; I’m bound to have a certain amount of some sort of moisture with my pipe. Beer is too heavy, and spirits I’ve sworn off; so you must excuse me; good-bye, old fellow.”
“Good night,” said I; and away I went.
D. Goggs.
^mbtr.
XXI.
Berendt’s description of the “Amber Land,” continued;—
When found in concentrated masses, amber (geologically considered) is never characterised by that complete irregularity which distinguishes it in other circumstances. If on a map of Prussia (Proper) we draw lines from the remotest places where amber abounds to the original geographical central point, those lines traverse many spots remarkable for their richness in amber, a convincing proof that the inundation radiated from a particular region. On the vast tract between the point of egression, and the most distant amber beds, considerable quantities of the submerged mass remained on the isolated ridges, reefs, banks, and so on, and were covered by the sand of the sea; but certain districts may have received and retained their treasure of amber at a later period, when the coast was already formed, was already connected with the inland, and when deposits could be buried under sand and rubble; thus, through accidental circumstances, deposits of amber could be made before each other and above each other. The amber beds would have been much richer, and their discovery now would have been much more remunerative, if the resin had not been scattered and disseminated by frequent storms. Furthermore, we have to consider that the strand toward the north grew very irregular, and that many a bay of the sea, even to a comparatively late period, shot far into the land. One of the lines mentioned above extends, in Poland, from Ostroleka to Mysczenice, traverses in the Ortelsburg circle the Puppenschian and Sorquittian forest, Friedrichsfelde, Friedrichshof ; then Schwanfeld, Bartenstein, and, lastly, Patersorth-on-the-Sea. A second line, marking a radiating rush from a more westerly direction, stretches from the Gumbinnian region by way of Schlopackan, Wehlau, the Pregel Island Anker, Quednau, Wargen, and Hubenicken. A third line proceeds from the banks of the Goplo, through Thorn, Lessen, Drausen, the
Hockerland, and Kerbswalde near Elbing, where seven hundred pounds of amber were once found in a few days. Finally, a fourth line travels from the Tuchel Heath, where even to the present day digging for amber almost ceaselessly goes on, arrives south-westerly at the distant Muskau, and attains north-easterly in the Pomerellian highlands the productive Stargardt circle. In reference to these amber radiations no linear demonstration can with mathematical accuracy be given. Small deviations to the right and the left are very natural and intelligible. Moreover, in comparing the various maps, we find trilling differences in the relative positions of the places. The lines prolonged through the centre northwards indicate the directions in which the groups of islands were assailed by many successive streamings. But where radii meet must there not be a central point? The already mentioned tract in the Pomerellian plateau is, in many places, more than a (German) mile broad, and in length from six tn eight (German) miles; and for more than a hundred years has been prodigal of its amber treasures. It passes from the Sturgardt and Hirschau circle into the Dantzic circle, runs here through the hills, fields, and meadows of the villages Gischkan, Belkau, Ldblau, Bankau, Kowall, Wonneberg, Nenkau, Schiiddelhau, Karczemhen, Kokosen, Leesen, Czappeln, Mattern, Bissau, Pempau, and gradually vanishes behind Bernadowo. I regard this circle as the richest in amber which the inland offers. The latitude of this circle is east-north-east in direction. On the other hand, on the Samland coast, near Kraxtepellen, a rich stratum, seven hundred feet long, has a westerly direction. This seeming contrast is explained, and by explanation vanishes, if we consider that the primeval forest lay northward, beyond and between these former coast districts.
Extending our range, we find, as already remarked, that amber is much more sparsely distributed in Lithuania, Poland, Silesia, Lusatia, Saxony, The Mark, Mecklenburg, and Holstein, than in East and West Prussia. But in all those lands there have in recent times been very rich finds—forinstance, at Ostroleka and Mysczeniec, in Poland, at some points of Lusatia, at Uhlenhoff, near Neustadt Eberswalde, the Zoological Garden at Berlin, Brandenburg on the Havel, at Gross-Schdnebeck, not far from Zehdenick. Silesia could not boast of more than insignificant fragments of amber, found in about twenty places, and among sandy hills. But last year, between Brieg and Lowen, and likewise at Schweid-nitz, valuable rounded pieces were found at a considerable depth, giving promise of rich deposits. South Germany, France, Spain, and Upper Italy, are not quite destitute of amber. Not long ago it was discovered in a coal mine at Ischl; and, as is well known, Sicily has long produced quantities of amber. It is a striking fact that in Sicily, as in England, amber is met with only on the eastern coast. The Giaretta, or St. Paul’s River, bears the amber along, and the amber is found at its mouth. Here, according to Brydone, the amber is gathered in considerable abundance, and is worked at Catania. Involuntarily, when pondering on this amber domain, we think of a possible connection with that ocean which, we are led to conjecture, once separated Europe from Asia. Whether on the eastern coasts of Greece and of European Turkey, or on the northern slope of the Caucasus, similar traces of former inundations are discoverable, I know not. Even in other parts of the globe, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, in the Indian realms, as Pliny stated, in Siberia, Kamtschatka, and China; furthermore, in North America, and even in Madagascar, isolated pieces of amber, and, according to some statements, beds of amber, have been found. But the narratives in which amber is mentioned are not altogether trustworthy, even when written by travellers who have had a scientific culture; for some fossil and non-fossil resins are so strikingly, so delusively like amber, that both the polished and the unpolished pieces have led many an estimable naturalist into deplorable errors.
The hypothesis that amber originated in those places where it is now found is apparently supported by the treasures of amber which here and there are dug out of the earth. How, it may be asked, could such quantities of amber, granting that they had been swept away by a flood from the central point of their original home, be united, be heaped together at a distance of ten, of thirty, yea, seventy German miles, as we now see? Is it not more natural to assume that single, or even numerous amber trees, had sprung up and grown, and had poured forth their resin in the spots where accident now reveals it to us? I grant that every inundation toward a region, whither no streaming in a straight line from the centre can be imagined—as, for instance, to the east coast of Sicily—is liable to serious doubts; but I think I have already indicated, and I intend further and more fully to demonstrate, that there is nothing improbable in supposing that by stream and by storm the amber masses could be dragged on to, and heaped up at, points moderately distant. I further grant that, forasmuch as like conditions produce like phenomena, the species of tree which in the primeval forest secreted amber, could flourish in places equally favourable to its development, perhaps on islands greater or smaller of the same ocean; that, consequently, those islands could become sources of similar productions, and could leave behind similar monuments of their existence, admitting that the laws of amber stratification were in accordance with this view. But, so far as my experience goes, such is never the case. No amber find-place is known to me of which I could, from con-
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viction, say that it was a primitive amber bed. Amber is much older than the strata in which it reposes. Prussia (the Province) offers overwhelming proofs of comparatively recent upheaval out of the sea. Some almost completely flat regions —for instance, the districts of Johannisburg, Willenberg, Neidenburg, and Ortelsburg—did not assuredly tear themselves from the dominion of the waters till other regions were already covered with forest and inhabited, or, at least, visited by men. The amber beds created by inundation are products of the still existing order of things. On one of the more modern soils the amber tree certainly did not grow. It was long extinct when they arose. But trees of a later creative process, which were also themselves transitory, might flourish on the mutable surface, and strike sometimes their roots down to those older strata in which, long before, amber had been deposited by the waves of the sea. The clumps found by Aycke, at a depth of from fifty to sixty feet, and consisting of sand and of greatly weatherworn amber fragments, and traversed and intertwined by slender roots, and, when dried, only kept from breaking by the root fibres, prove, in my opinion, nothing more than that the trees living at a later period than the amber tree shot their roots down to where the stranded amber already lay, that they entwined some pieces thereof with their fine fibres, darted some rootlets into the moist clefts and rents of the amber, the result being partly further disruption and partly further cohesion. That amber at such a depth could be exuded from roots must a priori be denied, forasmuch as root-ends are not secreting but absorbing organs, and in the present case can all the less be accepted, that the microscopical investigations which I requested my learned friend and fellow-labourer, Professor Goeppert, to undertake, decidedly show that those roots, though fossil, belonged not to coniferous trees, but to oaks. (Berendt gives here some references to figures in the plates illustrating the work.)
The amber tree hath vanished. If it existed anywhere in the living world, it would long ago have been discovered; but as search for it in the neighbourhood of its former chief home has been vain, it has likewise been vain in every spot where traces of the amber resin are seen. Is its undoubted disappearance to be explained by the shattering of the soil which bore it, or by a fatal change in the climate? Only the acceptance of both these destructive forces offers a satisfactory answer—the one without the other does not solve the problem. If, supported by the authority of estimable travellers, we concede to the amber tree a contemporaneous existence everywhere, and thus the like conditions of life, as well in the Prussia of to-day as in Siberia (Von Baer), in Kamtschatka (A. Erman), Birmali (Captain Hannay), Ava (Swinton), we must account by the same causes for the disappearance of the amber tree from all those regions. Captain Hannay saw amber diggings in the Hakong valley, Bir-mah. He says (“Journal of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta,” 1837): “The whole country presents a succession of small hills, the soil whereof consists of reddish or yellowish clay. The freshly dug earth has a very agreeable scent (?). The diggings are from six to fifteen feet deep. Amber is found, in large quantities. The deeper the digging the better the amber. The variety most esteemed, which is of brilliant pale yellow, can only be found, it is stated, at a depth of forty feet. As in the Prussian diggings, the amber is only found in small veins, which do not extend far, or in irregular scattered clumps.” We may ask whether Captain Hannay was acquainted with the Prussian amber diggings. Ruprecht and Sawelief found bituminous wood and yellow amber on the northern shoies of the Kanin island, as well as on the shores of the Polar sea generally. The Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, is said to have pieces of amber which came from beyond Turuchansk. I could introduce many brief notices of kindred import, but they are not satisfactory, and copious information of a more trustworthy kind I have been unable to obtain.
Upheavals of the soil through inrushing floods are only partially imaginable, as contributing to the annihilation of the amber tree. Through partial influences, the complete annihilation of the amber tree could only be brought about if the primitive forest was of moderate extent. If it was of vast extent, and if the tree flourished sporadically or otherwise from here to Kamtschatka, the amber tree could easily have escaped destructive local forces. We must, therefore, suppose either that a frequent inrush of fierce ocean streams pressed one uniform stamp of destruction on the whole of the Northern Hemisphere (and Northern America and Northern Asia bear concordant traces of the overwhelming sweep of Northern floods), or that a universal deluge covered at once the whole higher part of the globe, and annihilated all organic life existing thereon. In truth, the amber tree was not merely banished, flooded away from its birthplace— though this was the case with a great portion of its race— but at the same time the further capability of life was torn from the amber tree and its surroundings. It is not credible that an inrush of the ocean could by itself have worked so extensively. Could floods of water have been able to extinguish the germinal force of every grain of seed they inundated ? On the vast surface of the Northern Hemisphere could no locality have existed favourable to the development of the inundated germs ? Could the animating sun-ray have been impotent to waken the latent life to fresh growth on some new coast emerging from the waters ? Nowhere could
any of these contingencies have become realities. Nothing remains, therefore, but either to admit with Agassiz the sudden advent of an Ice Period, which, as “by a sword stroke,” annihilated all organisms, or to seek for some other agent armed with an energy as immense. I know no sach force. I cannot accept the glacier theory, for the notion of Agassiz is in contradiction with every Northern Diluvial Flood, the reality of which seems to me to be sufficiently demonstrated by the above-mentioned parallelism in the Scandinavian rock-seams, the Prussian ioland lakes, the sporadically deposited Northern blocks, as well as by the fanlike diffusion of amber in the Southern Hemisphere. I regard the change of climate not as the accompaniment of an Ice Period, which to me is wholly problematical, but as the wholly natural and unavoidable result of the mechanical metamorphosis which the crust of the earth in the North underwent through the Diluvial Floods. We see, even in our own day, the climate of a country grow harsher and colder, through comparatively small transformations of the soil, through the destruction of large forests, the draining of extensive regions, and so on. In regard to the actual change of climate since the epoch spoken of there is no difference of opinion. That this epoch had a more uniform character and a higher temperature is shown in the case before us, supposing that all the statements of travellers are to be accepted; is shown mainly by the vast extension of ambtr-and, consequently, of the amber tree—from the Baltic to Kamtschatka and Birmah, a space in which now a very different flora and a very different fauna exist; and it is still more convincingly shown by the circumstance that many growths and insects belonged to the amber world whose present representatives are limited to the warmer zones. Just as little is the absolute lethal force of a sudden change of temperature to be called in question; but, which is an important circumstance, it leads to the conclusion that through its influence a more tranquil fashion of dying was given to all vegetation, a decay whereby under the turfy surface all remained unchanged. In the sod where the amber tree lived there ought to be recognisable the characteristic indications of a primitive forest ground, or of individual trees. But this is by no means the case. No traveller, so far as I am aware, has communicated confirmatory observations of the kind. In the soil of Siberia, hardened by the cold at a comparatively later period, on the west coast of Kamtschatka, and in Birmah, the conditions and characteristics of stratification are identical. In the more recent diluvial strata there, amber is scattered as sporadically as in Prussia, Poland, and Silesia, and eo on. Only, therefore, from the united operation of mechanical and dynamical forces can we obtain a satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon in question. A juxtaposition and an accurate comparison of Prussian, Siberian, and Indian amber would, in reference to identity of substance, the relative age of the amber, and the resemblance or difference of its organic contents, be for every geologist of high interest. The needful materials for this purpose I do not possess; I can merely certify that in the Prussian, Polish, and Mark-Brandenburg amber the incltisa known to me are identical. Some fragments containing insects, and pretendedly brought from the Caspian Sea, which were shown to me, were not amber, but copal; and among cheap specimens offered for sale similar frauds continually occur. How, then, can I resist the natural doubt, whether all coming from foreign lands, and claiming to be amber, is really amber?
®^t Smoker’s ^ilflsupbg.
[Poems and Songs. By J. A. Colwyn. London: privately printed. 1873. 8vo. p. 107.]
Oh, tie very pleasant, thus to sit and smoke; Makes a peer of peasant, of sad life a joke. What are cares and troubles, what are hopes and fears? Scarce so many bubbles—in a hundred years.
What your weight or worth then, who the deuce will care? What you did on earth then, who on earth you were? Who the dickens nursed you? who for you shed tears? Who shed none, but cursed you—in a hundred years?
How time will ease one! Gladstone will have then No more power to teaze one, or be teazed by Ben. Even John Bright’s set, worms, and sweeps, and peers, Will be hail fellows, well met -in a hundred years. Whigs with old Tories, Radicals (M.A.), Will dream no more of glories, and (perhaps) make decent clay; Whilst of all who most disgust, or who raise our hopes or fears. Will remain a pinch of dust—in a hundred years. Whether Bismark spurred you on his bloody way, Or your back demurred to “L’Empire e’est la paix,” Driver you or driven, sad or causing tears, Forgive, you’ll be forgiven—in a hundred years.
’Twill be all the same, lad, if with drum and fife You’ve enjoyed a game, lad, or a quiet life, Used a spade or sabre, fed your friends or steers, You ’ll have ceased from labour—in a hundred years. Still there will be flowers, lad, some fruit will be ripe; True, ’twill not be ours, lad: smoke another pipe, Then off ourselves to bed, take; pretty little dears, I warrant we’ve no headache—in a hundred years.
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NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. We cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; and we do not hold ourselves responsible for loss.	. COPE’S 1879 CARD. THE PURSUIT OF DIVA NICOTINA. WITH APOLOGIES TO THE PAINTER OF “THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE.” Subscribers to the “Tobacco Piaui” for 1879 will receive a copy of Prasurr or Diva Nicotina and Key, carefully packed upon a roller, by fonrarding 6d. to pay carriage. Price to Non-Subecribers, 1/-. Subscription for “ Tobacco Plamt,” 2/- P« annum, poet free. Subscription for “ Tobacco Pun ” and Pursuit or Diva Nicotina, 2/6. Publishing Office:—10, Lord Nebai Street, Liverpool.	NOW READY, Fourth Edition, enlarged to 63 pages, and containing 176 entries. Printed on fine paper, cloth, lettered; sent post free to Subscribers on receipt of P.O. order for 5s. S^e gibliograpbn of Ruskin, A Bibliographical List arranged in Chronological Order of the Published Writings in Prose and Verse of JOHN RUSKIN, M.A., from 1834 to 1879. “ I am very deeply grateful to you, as I am in all duty bound, for this very curious record of myself.”—From a Letter of Mr. Rutkin't to the Compiler, dated ** Brantwood, Conitton, Oct. 24,1878.” “ I have looked with much interest through your Bibliography of Ruskin.* —Sir W. C. Trevelyan. “ It is a marvel of painstaking."—H. 8. Marlct, ILA. To be obtained only direct from the Editor, R. H. Shepherd, 223, Fulham Road, Brompton, S.W. #\ P.O. Orders payable at Charing Cross.
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SJobafcu legislation in f^t S^rtt ^ingboms.
VI.
I continue extracting from the Volume 1619-23 of the Domestic Series, Calendar of State Papers, in the State Paper Department of the Public Record Office.
•1620, June 29; Greenwich; p. 158. Proclamation prohibiting the growth of Tobacco in England, or its future import by any but patentees [monopolists] appointed by the King. All Tobacco now in store to be sealed by them before July 10. Printed. [“Proc. Coll,” No. 82.]—Cited at considerable length from Rymer in our April number.
1620,	July 30, Bromham; p. 169. Licence to Fras. Hardman and Wm. Budd, of London, of the sole importation of Tobacco for one year.
Same date, p. 170. Commission to the Commissioners for the Treasury, to conclude with Sir Thos. Roe, Abraham Jacob, and their partners, and with Fras. Hurdman and Wm. Budd, the agreements for rents and conditions for the importation of Tobacco.
1620,	Aug. 30; p. 17 5. Grant to Abm. Jacob of £1250, out of his rent for imposts on Tobacco, and confirmation to him and his son of £150 per ann., according to their former patent, for collection of the increase of subsidy and impost on Tobacco, on account of loss sustained by him in the new farm pease] of Tobacco, and the restraint of impost [tic: import?] by proclamation. [Docquet.']
Same date and page. Declaration by the King, with reference to a late Proclamation respecting Tobacco-pipe makers, that it is lawful to break into their houses to apprehend them, if they resist authority. [Docquet.]
1620,	Sept. 22; p. 17 9. Grant to Abm. Jacob of £3000, and to Abm. and John Jacob of the office of collecting impositions on Tobacco for life.!
1620,	Octr. 28; p. 186. In News-letter from Chamberlain to Carleton: A Parliament is spoken of, but will avail little, for while the prerogative is grown a “noli me tang ere” impositions and patents are so grievous that they must be complained of; amongst them are those for Tobacco, which will stifle the Virginia plantation; for saltpetre; for scouring armour; for taxes on hay, on all paper printed only on one side.—The writer, we note, puts Tobacco first, as well he might.
For the sake of an illustrious name specially dear to all smokers, we insert the following:—
1620 (?); p. 206. Petition of Don Diego Castro to the King. His Majesty [tn an unpitiable funk] having promised compensation to all persons injured by Sir Walter Raleigh on the River Orinoco, begs a commission under the Great Seal to appoint four judges to consider his claim, and speedy despatch of his cause, on which he has already been six months in England. Annexing,
• The following item appears curious enough for a note, now that competent women are very properly struggling for medical diplomas against the close and jealous Trades Unions of the men doctors:—1620, May (?); p. 149. Petition of Thos. Biggs, Surgeon, to the Council: His profession not afford* ing him maintenance, because of late times it is so much practised in the country by ladies and other gentlewomen, he planted an acre of Tobacco, in ignorance of the late Proclamation (1619, Dee. 80); but, finding himself liable to danger, has come up from Nottinghamshire to sue for pardon.
f 1620, Oct. 14,1620; p. 184. In summary of a news-letter from Chamberlain to Carleton we have the significant sentence, leading to the next extract: Speech of the Lord Chancellor [Bacon] exalting the King’s prerogative as the perfection of law,—a doctrine meant to prepare the way for subsidies without Parliament—.fresh subsidies, I presume; for he seems to have already imposed plenty by his mere will and pleasure.
Petition of Diego de Castro Cortasar to the Council. Has come from Spain to request payment of £40,000 [multiply by about three for present general purchasing power], the value of Tobacco and other goods taken from Fras. Davila, at St. Thomas’s, Guiana, by Sir Walter Raleigh, the King having promised satisfaction from Raleigh’s forfeited goods, or from his sureties, for all damages done by him to the subjects of the King of Spain. [Though the English, under brave Captain Keymis, alleged that the Spaniards treacherously attacked them first: a credible allegation, the Spaniards, as already stated, pretending exclusive right, by Papal bull, to all those regions, and being able to assert their pretensions as arrogantly as they liked with dastard King Anti on the English throne.]
1621,	Mar. 19; p. 236. Warrant to allow to the Farmers of the Customs certain defalcations from their rent of 1618, for salt, Virginian Tobacco, &c., imported duty free, and for beer,* cloth, lead, &c., for Virginia, and elsewhere, exported duty free; total allowance, £1774 16s. 10 Jd.
1621,	Mar. 26; p. 239. Warrant for allowance of defalcations from the rent of the Farmers of Customs for 1619, for Salt and Virginian Tobacco imported, and for tin and beer exported, duty free; total sum, £180 17s. 3jd.—How punctilious as to the ha’pence are all public offices that consume our millions!
1621,	Mar. (?); p. 243. Note [by Sir Robt. Heath] of the King’s willingness to grant a certain petition, if the Lord Treasurer, after consulting the Farmers of the Customs, finds that it will not be a hindrance to the Customs on Tobacco, nor to the orders established for retailing it.
1621,	July 10, Whitehall; p. 274. Proclamation of the ‘ King’s pleasure for suspension, during interim of Parliament,! of certain grievances therein complained of, viz., disturbances
* As to beer, we make a present, in pure benevolence, to our Teetotal friends of the following; from the vol. Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1574-1660, which we have already used so largely, and shall use more largely yet :—
1628, Apr>l 8, James City, Virginia; p. 4L Governor and Council of V. to E. of Southampton and rest of [London] Council for V.: Hupper’s beer had been the death of a great number.—April 18; p. 43. Geo. Sandys to John Ferrer: The country will be pleased to hear that revenge has been taken of Dupper for his stinking beer, whieh has been the death of 200 persons.—We are pleased to hear it even now, at the distance of two centuries and a half: would that ample revenge could always be taken on all sellers of “ stinking,’’ or vile and adulterated beer I They should be handed over to the tender mercies of Sir Wilfrid Lawson and the Good Templars.
+ June 2; p. 260. Chamberlain to Carleton: The King sent messages to the Houses to expedite matters, as he intended to dissolve Parliament in a week; they were discontented and would have petitioned, but his Majesty said he was resolute to prorogue them till after Michaelmas, though it should be only an adjournment. Surmises as to the ground of the adjournment ; that the attack on Irish grievances would have involved somebody too much, Ac., Ac.—Storm brewing. He had got his subsidies out of them and wanted them no more. Same to same, Mar. 28; p. 240. Parliament has finished nothing yet, except passing the subsidies, and the censure of Sir Giles Mompesson in the House of Lords. April 28; p. 249; Thomas Locke to same. The King made a speech to both Houses at Whitehall, and said he thanked them less for the subsidy than for their manner of giving it [smud “crammer” of royal and testimonial receivers] which made foreign countries ring with the love his subjects bear him; that he would henceforth speak to them, not “ out of art,” but “ from his heart [os if King Anti had one 1] which they had and should have.” Half the subsidy being gone already, he urged the wants of his daughter and her family, confessing too great profuseness at his first coming.—He having come 18 years before. The daughter was the unfortunate Princess Elisabeth of the Palatinate and Bohemia, mother of the Princes Rupert and Maurice, in aid of whose cause large contributions had already been made by the nobility and others. The old familiar couplet ran (“Forster’s Life of Sir John Eliot,” in Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopedia; p. 24):
“ Many faults complained of, few things mended, A subsidy granted, the Parliament ended.”
Mr. Forster adds: M With the exception of the subsidy bill of 1621, no bill had been allowed to pass for thirteen years. Legislation was now at last resumed.” (In Parliament of 1623-4.)
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by informers, exorbitant fees in Chancery . • • making Tobacco-pipes and playing cards, and many others. [“ Proc. Coll.,” No. 94.] — [Not in Rymer.] 1621, [July 30]; p. 280. Order in Council, authorising the Lord Treasurer to take means for suppression of the impost on foreign Tobacco by any others than the undertakers [farmers of the Customs thereon], as being contrary to Proclamation. 1621,	Sept. 15; p. 289. Capt. Roger North to Sir Albert Morton. Being ordered to certify to Council the amount of Custom upon his Tobacco, finds it is 7000 lbs., which at 9d. per lb., will be £262 10s. There will also be expenses of houseroom, porterage, &c. 1621,	October 19, Whitehall; p. 300. The Council to the Farmers of Customs and of the impost upon Tobacco. Remonstrance against their non-fulfilment of a previous order to deliver to Capt. Roger North, free of Custom, 7000 lbs. of Tobacco, by him imported, and require immediate compliance, the patent granted to his Company, though recalled, securing free imports for a year.—This belongs to the class of “defalcations” for which we have just seen allowance made to the Farmers of the Customs for the years 1618 and 1619. But if free import, why 9d. in the lb. custom, as stated in the extract immediately preceding? We have, indeed, as given in our Sect. IV., from the Colonial Series, p. 45, the Order of the Privy Council for an abatement from 12d. to 9d. per lb. upon Tobacco from Virginia and Somers Islands for all charges belonging to the King; but this reduction is eighteen months later, 1623, April 28; and, moreover, pretty surely means not 3d. from one shilling, but 25 per cent., or 3d. in the shilling, as it is put in another of our extracts from the same vol.; 1624, Feb. 28; p. 58: The Governor and Council of Virginia return thanks to the King for remitting 3d. in the shilling Customs on Tobacco. Further, Capt. R. North’s name does not appear in the Index of the said vol.; so there is nothing'to show that he had any connection with Virginia or the Somers Islands.* Similar puzzles and apparent discrepancies, due to the lack of full memorials, are not unfrequent in these Calendars and elsewhere: we must make what we can of what has been fortunately preserved and published. Undated, 1621 (?); p. 328. Petition of John Deanes to the Council, for release from the Gatehouse, where he has been committed for selling Tobacco. 1622,	July 11; p. 422. Letter to the Treasurer, Deputy, and others of the Virginia Company, recommending them to breed silkworms for establishing the manufacture of silk, in preference to the cultivation of Tobacco. [Docquet.] Undated, 1622 (?), document 55; p. 477. Treatise by Edw. Bennett on the inconveniences of importing Tobacco from Spain; showing that it is the chief cause of the scarcity of corn [coin?] and bullion in England, £60,000 being spent yearly in its purchase, and English goods fallen 20 per cent, in the Spanish markets. Suggests the prohibition of Spanish Tobacco, and the import of it only from Virginia and the Summer Islands, which would greatly tend to improve our colonies there. Printed. Documents 56-8. Treatise by the same, similar to the preceding, and partially a copy; also containing a vindication of the East India Company from the charge of causing the diminution of gold and silver by importing more goods than they export. Three copies.f—There is no other reference to this Edward Bennett.	Domestic Seriks: Volume 1623-1625. 1624, May 20 [Greenwich]; p. 250. [Sec. Conway] to Sec. Calvert and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The King has consented to continue Parliament a few days longer, on con-dition of their spending the time in perfecting subsidies, and other good bills. [Is not thin “subsidies and other good bill?” exquisite?] . . He fears that the Lower House [ihe impious knaves I] * may enter on questions of impositions [Let us hope our Lower House will soon do the same f], privileges, or something that may intrench on his prerogative, and wishes them [his privy councillors] to be watchful to repress any such movement, and give him immediate notice thereof. Same date and page. Sol.-Gen. Heath to Sir Robt. Harley: Requests him tp take opinions on a Bill to be proposed in Parliament, for prohibiting import of Spanish Tobacco, by which £100,000 a year is lost to the kingdom. It can be done without breach of treaty; the King has promised it to the Virginia Company, and it will increase the revenue £50,000 per annum.—As shown in Section H. (April, 1878), this was carried out, not by Act of Parliament, but by Royal Proclamation dated 29th September, 1624. 1624,	May 24; p. 254. In a long News-letter from Sir Fras. Nethersole, London, to Carleton: A report on the trade of Spain states that, instead of silver formerly imported thence, Tobacco has become the chief import; and a petition is ordered, requesting the King to prohibit all importation of Tobacco, except such as is grown in his own dominions. 1624 [May 25]; p. 255. Statute of 21 Jac. L, cap. 3, against monopolies; revoking those granted contrary to former laws; submitting all monopolies, licences, proclamations, &c., to the test of common law; and granting freedom from all suits for transgression of monopolies, &c., and compensation (treble damages, with double costs] for seizure of goods, &c., thereon.—This Act is given in its place in the collection of “ Statutes of the Realm,” printed by command of George IH., 1819. How, and indeed whether, it affected Tobacco, which is not, however, specified in any of the provisos of exception, I cannot say. It begins by reciting how his most excellent Majesty in his Royall Judgment and Blessed Disposition did in a.d. 1610 publish in Print to the whole Realme and to all Posteritie, that all Graunts of [Monapoyles, and of the benefitt of any penall Lawes or of power to dispence with the La we, or to compound for the Forfeiture [most fruitful fields in high places for the cultivation of bribes and jobbery], are contrary to his Majesties Lawes, which his Majesties Declaracon is truly consonant and agreeable to the auncient and fundamental! Lawes of this his Realme: “ And whereas your Majestie was further graciously pleased expresly to comaund that noe Suter should p’sume to move your Majestie for matters of that nature; yet nevertheles uppon Misinformacons and untrue p’tences of publique good, many such Graunts have been unduly obteyned and unlawfullie putt in execucon to the greate Greevance and Inconvenience of your Majesties Subjects, contrary to the Lawes of this your Realme, and contrary to your Majesties royall and blessed Intencon so published as aforesaid: For avoyding whereof and p’ventinge of the like in tyme to come,” &c. I cannot find the Proclamation of 1610 against Monopolies either in Rymer or in the Calendar. In vol. 1603-10, we have under date 1603, May; p. 7: Memorial “ of things grievous and offensive to the Commonwealth,” which may be reformed by the King or by Parliament; abuses in Church and State, monopolies, plurality of offices, &c. Draft of a Proclamation against the monopolies granted by the late Queen. [Imperfect.] And May7; Theobalds: Proclamation inhibit-iting the use of any charter or grant made by Queen Elizabeth of any kind of monopolies, &c. [“Proc. Bk.,” p. 12.] In same vol., 1610, [July 7]; p. 622: Petition of the House of Commons to the King for redress of grievances, viz., multiplicity of proclamations; . . . impositions upon merchandise and sea coal, &c., &c. Also, List of heads of grievances comprised in the above. [July 23]; p. 625. The King’s answer to the memorial of grievances delivered by the House of Commons. Imperfect. Extract from the above, concerning proclamations. Sept. 24; Honor of Hampton Court; p. 634. Proclamation signifying his Majesty’s pleasure for the revocation of certain former proclamations, and for a review of the statute laws. Printed. [“Proc. Coll.,” No. 15] — Unfortunately not in Rymer. Then, Dec. 31, Westminster; p. 655. Proclamation for dissolving Parliament. Printed. [“Proc. Bk.,” p. 238.] In the next vol., 1611-18, there are no proclamations calendared up to Mar. 25, 1611, which was the end of 1610 O.S. Yet at p. 185, we have Vol LXX1H. (of the State Papers): “ ‘A Book of Proclamations, published since the beginning of his Majestie’s most happy reigne over England, &o., untill this present moneth of Feb. 3, Anno Dom. 1609. Imprinted at London, by Robert Barker, printer to the King’s most excellent Majestie.’ Continued to Feb. 5, 1613. These proclamations are calendared under their respective dates.” Is it unfair to suggest that James, having repeatedly and grossly broken his word, had very cogent bad reasons for suppressing the record of this -	♦ I write thus not without first-rate authority; in the preceding volume, 1622, July 17, p. 427, is the following abstract: Transactions at a meeting of t‘ e Senate of the University of Cambridge. Sundry propositions, relative to the kingly power being subject to none save God, and the impioutness of resistance thereto, were carried unanimously, and the books of Dr. Parens [and ?] Bucanus condemned to eternal infamyt and forbidden to b • read. Latin.—The books of these worthies, or unworthies, are in the British Museum; but condemned for most of us to eternal oblivion, for fate, conspiring with the Cambridge Senate, has forbidden them to be read.
♦ There are some previous, no subsequent, notices of him and his Company of adventurers in the vol. of the Domestic Series with which we are at present concerned:— 1620, May 15; Greenwich; p. 145. Proclamation of the King's disavowal [usual abject propitiation of the Spaniard] of the proceedings of Captain Roger North and bis fellow adventurers, who, contrary to command, have secretly embarked for the intended plantation [colony] near the River Amazons [“nere and about the River of Amazones”], commanding their immediate return [as soon as they get notice of this Proclamation], or their seizure by any vessels that may meet with them. Printed. [“ Proc. Col).,” No. 80.]—This is in Rymer’s •* Feeders” at date,.under title “ Proclamatio super Commercio in America juxta Flumen Amazonum." 1620,	Dec. 27; p. 208. Capt. North has returned, having heard nothing of the Proclamation against him. 1621,	Jan. 8; p. 212. Capt. North, who returnel from the Amazon River well fraught, is committed to the Tower. Jan. 13; p. 214. Capt. North is in the Tower, though he has great partners in his adventures, and declares he has done nothing to offend the Spaniards. 1621, July 21; p. 277. Capt. North Uberated. 1621, Aug. 25: p. 285. Capt. North has obtained restoration of his goods, sequestered by the Spanish Ambassador's means. King Anti, as confessed in his own Proclamation, had at first authorised this plantation, and, as the entry states, granted the Company a patent or charter; he then resolved “ to suspend and restrains it for a tyme,” which doubtless meant for ever, and was doubtless done under the insistance of Gondamar, the Spanish Ambassador, who was always the bete noire beneath whom the unroyal coward cowered, to the intense disgust of the English people. North and his Company having gone to the expense, with the King's permission and approval, of fitting out an expedition, and having hearts in their bosoms, slipped away in spite of him when his fears revoked their patent, and thus got something for their money. James was just now trying to arrange the detested Spanish Match, and therefore even more obsequious than usual to the Spaniard—a dastardly obsequiousness which cost Raleigh his head. + As further illustrating the notions of the time regarding the balance of trade, Ac., two other entries on the same page may be noted:— 52. Principles laid down for the Committee for management of trade, vis., the importance of encouraging the home manufacture of wool by permitting free trade, and lowering the customs; the necessity of increasing the money witbin the realm by giving a fair price for its import, and preventing its export by compelling merchant strangers to export goods to the full value of their imports, and by establishing an exchange. 58. Abstract of, and observations on, thirty articles recommended by the Committee of Trade for its advancement, relating to the manufacture and sale of wool and woollen goods, increase of coin, improvement of the navy, restrictions on the East India Company, and regulation for wearing cloth at home. There are numerous documents on such subjects in the Calendar.	
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Proclamation against Monopolies, just as the Parliament had very cogent good reasons for reminding him of it ?
1624 [May 28]; p. 258. Address of the House of Commons to the King, presenting the Grievances of which they request redress, viz., etc. Among these are Grievances which relate to Trade, but only three in this Section are preserved. That Tobacco was among the items now wanting, we can infer from the next abstract.
1624 [May 29]; p. 259. Report [by Sol.-Gen. Heath] of the King’s answer assenting to the petition for redress of the general grievances, excepting those ... he grants redress for the grievances relating to the . . . import of foreign Tobacco. . - .
On this and the two following pages we have long and very interesting abstracts of the Speech of the Speaker of the Commons and the Reply and Address of the King on the prorogation of Parliament; from May 29 to Nov. 2. Here is the upshot, as related in News-letter from Edw. to John Nicholas : The House broke up, not liking his Majesty’s speech, and especially objecting to his last words, which were that the preamble of the Subsidy Bill [giving him three subsidies and three fifteenths ; the money, unlike the preamble, graciously accepted with thanks], being made without his advice and contrary to his interests, he must alter it by marginal notes : the remark was received with such murmurings and signs that both his Majesty and the Lords saw how much it was disliked, as being beyond all precedent or order. The hopes raised by the beginning of Parliament were much lessened; it appeared that the King was bent on ruling in his own way, by proclamations, patents [of monopoly, Ac.], Ac. . . . Lastly, he forbade any meddling with offences of his servants or of the clergy, as belonging to his sole jurisdiction; and so concluded a Parliament, in which he protested beforehand what he would do for religion, the commonwealth, the Palatinate, and for redress of all abuses, which he referred wholly and solely to the Parliament. One other clause is worth quoting: the King slighted the subsidy gift, as not tending to his own benefit, and hoped to be remembered next Session: his keeping back some bills shows that he wishes them to be bought then.—Such was the royal Anti’s huckster’s kingcraft, seen through and derided by his people. The writer of this News-letter is referred to in the next item, a very important one for the historian.
Same date; p. 261. Journal of the Proceedings of the Parliament 21-22 Jac. I., taken in shorthand, and giving abstracts of the debates rby Ediv. Nicholas, Member for Win-chelsea, afterwards Secretary of State. Dom. Corresp., Vol. CLXV.]
1624, July 2, Oatlands; p. 290. The King to Sol.-Gen. Heath. The Commons have petitioned against the import of foreign Tobacco, and the planters of Virginia have implored consideration for their languishing colony. Though sure that the colony cannot prosper, if it relies only on this, and neglects other things, yet requests him, with the advice of Sec. Conway and Sir Rich. Weston [Chancellor and UnderTreasurer of the Exchequer], to draw up a contract with the Virginia planters for import of all their Tobacco, on which he will declare his pleasure concerning that of other countries.
1624,	July (?); p. 290. Statement [by Sol.-Gen. Heath], that the House of Commons having petitioned against the importation of foreign Tobacco, except from his own dominions, the King is willing to grant the sole import thereof to the Governor and Company of Virginia and the Bermudas, under certain specified conditions.
Also, same dubious date and same page. Request [to Council] that as the King is concluding a contract with certain parties for sole importation of all the Tobacco grown in Virginia and the English colonies, orders may be given to the Governor of Virginia not to permit the sale of any Tobacco to the Hollanders, who are now freighting ships for that trade.
1624, July 3; p. 292. Sir Fras. Nethersole to [Carleton]. A Commission of Privy Councillors and others is appointed to advise on a new patent for the Virginia Company, the old one being revoked; they are now to be a Company for trade, but the government of the country to be in the hands of the Commissioners and the Council, the popular nature of the Government having displeased the King ; 100 soldiers are to be sent over to protect the inhabitants from the Indians. A suspicious commencement, this!
Same date and page; Chamberlain to Carleton. Great efforts are made to rate the subsidies high. The Lord Keeper said that for any man to disguise his wealth was to sin against the Holy Ghost, like Ananias and Sapphira; yet the general decay will cause the rates to be less than before. (Noteworthy anticipation of our present Imperium et Libertas, borrowed, it appears, from a noble .No-man.)
1624, July 19, Royston; p. 305. Sec. Conway to Lord Pres. Mandeville. The King approves the proceedings in the Virginia business. The restraint of import of Tobacco is to be considered; propounds some difficulties therein.
1624, Aug. 2; p. 320. Sol.-Gen. Heath to Buckingham. Requests his assistance for settling the contract for Virginia Tobacco, which, if well managed, will be both honourable and profitable. [Profitable, doubtless; but to whom?] Sends the instructions on it by Sir Geo. Goring, who will act therein with his Grace, if required.
1624, Oct. 18, Royston; p. 356. Warrant to Sol.-Gen. Heath to prepare a bill for Edw. Dichfield and five others,
on recommendation of the Virginia Commissioners, appointing them officers for searching and sealing Tobacco; with a grant to them of the moiety of all fines for Tobacco unlawfully imported, or, if the party cannot pay, a moiety of the Tobacco itself.—See Warrant of Appointment, from Rymer; 1624, Nov. 9; cited in Section HI., Sept. 1878.
1624, Oct. 27, Royston; p. 363. Sec. Conway to Sol.-Gen. Heath. To prepare a bill for a pension of £300 a year to Mr. [Chas.] Maynard, out of the Tobacco moneys.
N.B.—In addition to the volume of Addenda to the Domestic Series, 1580-1625, cited in our December number, the present volume, from p. 529 to p. 602, consists of ‘‘Addenda to the Calendar of State Papers of the Reign of James I.,” ranging over the whole of it, from 1603 to 1625. They include but two Tobacco items, and these do not concern us here.
In the Calendar of Treasury Papers, Vol. I., 1556-7 to 1696, there are very few papers before the Revolution of 1688, thirty-two pages sufficing to calendar the hundred and thirty years. The causes of this scarcity are given by the Editor (Mr. Joseph Redington) in his Preface, pp. xvii-xx. I cite two or three sentences: “ As regards the history of these papers, it may be gathered from what follows that they have been in a chronic state of confusion, and the wonder is that for the most part they are in a good state of preservation. There are, however, many of them which have suffered from damp. . . . Many of the papers have no doubt been lost. . . . The abstraction or destruction of the earlier papers must have been great, for in the reign of James H. there are only about fifty or sixty remaining. . . . The principal part of the papers included in this calendar were removed from a back kitchen in the Treasury Chambers in June, 1856.”
There is but one document of the reign of James I.; of which I quote the abstract as supplementary to what was cited at the end of Sect. I. and beginning of Sect. H. (March and April, 1879) from the “ First Report of the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Customs, 1857.”
1616, Jan. 17; p. 3. Copy of the King’s grant of 5 per cent, (which had been reserved on the Customs payable at London) to the merchants of London; to the end that they should pay to Lionel Cranfield, the Surveyor-General of Customs, such fees as were thereunder mentioned. Dated 17 Jan., 1615 (O.8.)
Headed—‘‘ A Table of Fees in the 12th year of King James the First, for the port of London.”
There is, however, no table of fees; but one was ordered to be set up in the Custom House.
4 pages.
And so we bid a joyful adieu (au diable, bien entendu) to most unkingly King Anti and Antic; who has had far more of our space than he deserved; because, unfortunately, the infancy of our American Plantations and the first development of our Tobacco Trade fell in his reign; and because, like the learned Ass he was, ne kept for ever meddling and muddling with our most noble Plant. However, as related in our Sect. III., he invoked God’s curse upon himself and his: and the invocation was terribly fulfilled. Sigvat.
|ijt dokurtrs.
xvn.—LESTER FOOTE’S TELESCOPE.
“Telescope Cottage, Lurdon Lane,
“ Surrey, 15th September, 1879.
“Dear Didimus,—The sight of your bland old ‘mug’ would do me a world of good. Annie and myself are both well and very happy, but almost as lonely as Adam and Eve in the good old days of yore. Our crib is about two miles from anything like a town. As soon as you have an afternoon to spare, let us see you. Get out at 8-station, and take the road immediately opposite the station gate. Keep right on till you find ‘ Telescope Cottage,’ on the left. You can’t miss it, as it is on a hill.
“ Yours faithfully,
“ Lester.
“ N.B.—If I should be out, take the first to the right past my place, and go to * The Wood Pigeon.’
“P.8.—Don’t ask at ‘Telescope Cottage’ for ‘The Wood Pigeon,’ but find it out yourself—all shall be explained.
“ PP.SS.—Bring your pipe.”
To tell the truth, this note of Lester’s had rather worried me. The ‘‘all shall be explained” pointed to a mystery, while the “ bring your pipe ” was a foolish waste of ink ; for through all things, whether weal or woe, shine or shadow, war or peace, has it ever befallen me to forget to bring my Pipe.
I plead guilty to having done many strange things in my life, leaving out such mild forms of eccentricity as going to bed in my boots and with an open umbrella; but I laugh to scorn the man who cautions me to not forget my pipe.
Having made up my mind to see Mr. Poote, I soon was on the iron track; and, after a few miles’ riding, I found myself at the station named. Opposite the station gate I found the
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lane, and a very pleasant lane it was. The day was one of those still bright days we are sometimes blessed with in autumn, so full of kindness and exhilaration that the mind of the traveller forgets to note the traces of decay which are seen around him.
At the end of about one half hour’s gentle walk, I espied Telescope Cottage, and speedily presented myself at its door. Mrs. Poote greeted me cordially, and expressed her sorrow that Lester was out. “ He has not been out more than six or seven minutes, but come in and wait. He scarcely ever remains out any great length of time. He does a good deal of sketching, as you know, and is fond of hunting up little nooks to make pictures of.”
I (remembering “ The Wood Pigeon ”) said I should like to look round the neighbourhood for an hour or so, and promised to be back in time for tea. Then I sought the first turning to the right.
Directly I turned the corner I started in some fear, for a little way off was a man, and he seemed (my sight is not so good as it was) to be pointing a blunderbuss at me. I wish it to be understood that it was a lonely place, otherwise my reputation as a brave man may suffer. In a short time, however, I was undeceived, for, to my great delight, in the man I recognised my friend, while the deadly blunderbuss changed into a harmless telescope.
After a hearty shake of the hand and a good laugh, Lester said: “ Now for ‘ The Wood Pigeon.’ ”
“ Why not go home ? ” I observed.
“ ‘ All shall be explained,’ ” replied Mr. Poote, quoting from his letter to me. Then he looked at his telescope affectionately and laughed, as I thought, a little idiotically. However, to “ The Wood Pigeon ” we went.
This turned out to be an insignificant place, half cottage, half beerhouse ; but a barrel of capital ale was on draught, and a large mug of this w’as handed over to Lester, who proceeded with it, followed by his ever faithful Goggs, to the garden in the rear of the house.
This was a jolly old garden, and on a rough seat under a twisted old tree, we, without further ado, fetched out our pipes and Tobacco, and drank the nut-brown ale.
“ Now, Lester,” said I, “ ‘ All shall be explained.’ Go on.”
“ Right,” returned Mr. Poote; “ ‘ All shall be explained.’ I had better begin at the beginning.”
“ Nobly resolved and heroically put,” I murmured in reply.
“ Six years ago,” said Lester, “ I was struggling to earn an honest living by drawing and painting. I worked hard, but with very little success for some time, and at length took a situation in the Strand as designer. The pay was not over grand; it was a cheap sort of place, where all manner of little designs were constantly wanted. There were several printers employed on the premises, and one of them was a man so frightfully open to imposition, that the tricks played on him were numberless. He was such a simple, honest fellow, that he could never bring his mind to believe that he was surrounded by rascals. He was commonly known as ‘ Buster,’ from the prodigious number of halfpenny loaves he consumed. His right name was Button.”
“ A buster is a playful term-------” I interrupted.
“For a small loaf,” replied my friend. “Well, Buster, be it known, had determined on having a week’s holiday at some watering place. He did not conceal his intention; in fact, he often spoke of it with delight, for, as yet, the ocean and he were entire strangers. His companions seriously praised him for his resolve, and, having ascertained that he had saved up something like four pounds for his holiday, set to work. Buster came in one day with a new meerschaum. * Look here, chaps,’ said he; ‘ this is what I’m going to smoke when I get there.’ He always spoke of the seaside as * There.*
“That’s all very well, Buster,” remarked one of his fellowworkmen, winking at two or three of the others; “but there’s something else. A pipe’s all very well, and you’ll make an impression with that pipe; but what you really must have is a telescope. Nobody goes to the seaside without a telescope; that is, not if they wants to enjoy theirselves.”
“Certainly not,” put in another of his mates. “Everybody wears ’em. You might as well stop at home as go to the seaside without a telescope.”
“Right you are,” chimed in another. “I went to the seaside without a telescope once, and didn’t enjoy myself a bit. I got quite melancholy, and came home in two or three days reg’lar savage.”
“There’s no doubt about it,” said another. “When I was at Ramsgate there was two fellers hauled up afore the beak for something or another. Well, one on ’em had a telescope, and one on ’em hadn’t. The one as had one got off, and the one as hadn’t got a month.”
This was conclusive; and, after a few more doses, Buster bought a telescope.
“What did you give for it?” asked the ringleader, rather contemptuously.
“Fifteen shillings,” replied Buster.
“ ’Taint good enough; the outside’s all right, and it looks very pretty, but it aint got no focus.”
“Can’t expect a focus for fifteen bob,” said one of the listeners; “ and a telescope without a focus is like an empty bottle, no good.”
Buster was persuaded to change his telescope for a better one. This cost twenty-six shillings. Higgins, his tormentor, said it was a good deal better, but remarked that the focus was crooked.
The next telescope cost thirty-two shillings and sixpence. That was pronounced nearly good enough, but not quite; and so Buster got sent back again and back again to the shop, till as last everybody agreed that he had got the right one. This was satisfactory, and he rejoiced, till it flashed on his recollection that over his pipe and his telescope he had spent some tliree pounds, and now, as Higgins put it, “Where’s his seaside?”
Poor Buster was in despair. Then he took me into his confidence and told me all. I liked the man, and felt vexed to think how he had been fooled, and the upshot of it was that I gave him two pounds for his pipe and telescope. I also lent him a sovereign, and he went to the seaside, and had, as he told me, a regular jolly time of it. That is how I became possessed of this telescope and the pipe I am now smoking, which, you must admit, is coloured to perfection.”
“I admit it,” I replied; “ it is a pipe to be proud of (and so it was), but I am still in the dark as to the mystery dimly hinted at in your letter.”
“ Oh, I’m coming to that presently,” said Lester, wiping his lips. “But there’s one passage of my life to go through first; don’t forget, we must stay here, or roam about the fields for two hours.”
“ Why,” I inquired.
“ All shall be------”
“ Oh, bother !” said I. “Go on with your story.”
“ The room in which I executed my designs,” said Lester, was at the top of the house. There was a trap-door in the ceiling through which I used to get on to the roof. The roof was flat and spacious, and there, far above the hurrying thousands below me, I smoked many and many a peaceful pipe. The time allowed me for dinner I mostly passed up there in contented solitude, besides an occasional half-hour now and then when there was little for me to do.
“After I became the possessor of this telescope, I made it my constant companion up in mid air; distant buildings, church spires, and places afar off, became familiar friends to me; and I tell you, old friend, I spent many and many a pleasant hour among the chimney pots, with my pipe and my telescope. One day I saw on a roof at some little distance a very pretty girl. She was doing some needlework. My telescope showed me she had bright eyes, red cheeks, and no small share of girlish beauty; I gazed in admiration. I saw her again and again, only on fine days of course. Sometimes she was reading and sometimes at the needlework. One day she happened to catch me staring at her through the telescope. I was afraid she would be offended at my rudeness, but to my delight she exhibited only symptons of great merriment. Then I took courage, and bowed to her. She laughingly made a mock curtsey. I was delighted, and diving down my trap-door, dragged up a large board and a piece of chalk. In great letters I wrote out, i How are you ? ’ She could evidently read my inquiry, but was at a loss how to reply. So I wrote underneath, ‘ Have you a slate and a piece of chalk?' She nodded, ‘Yes,’ and disappeared ; then, presently, she returned with a slate and chalk. I saw her write something, and then she held the slate up for me to read. I levelled my telescope at the message, and found it was ‘Pretty well, thank you.’ We corresponded day after day in this fashion, till it led to courtship, and finally matrimony; and, as we are both very happy, neither of us would part with poor old Buster’s telescope on any account.”
“ Still,” said I, “ AU is not explained.”
“ It soon will be,” replied Poote, taking the now emptied jug to be refilled.
When he made his appearance again he said, “Did you notice an elderly gentleman about a quarter of a mile behind you on the road to-day ? ”
“ I did not,” was my reply,
“ Well,” said Lester, “while I was courting Annie she was keeping house for her uncle, and it was on his roof that I first spied her. He makes a practice of coming down to see us once a week.
“At first when he came I always tried my hardest to be in to receive him ; but two things altered this habit. In the first place, he hates Tobacco with a wonderful and fearful hatred, and never loses an opportunity to rate me about my favourite vice; and, in the next place, he seldom came without giving me a broad hint that he thought I ought to be out at work sketching, instead of loafing about indoors. Now, I don’t like to be abused, and I don’t want to get out of temper with the old fellow; so I’ve hit on a plan. We only have about three trains that uncle can use to come down here, so that I know when to expect him.
“ My attic window, where I work indoors—when I do work-commands the road for quite a mile, There, with my telescope, I go on the look-out, and as soon as the figure of uncle comes into sight I put on my hat and go out to draw —if it is only to draw at this old pipe of mine. Now, have I explained all?”
“ Goggs is content,” was my reply, “ let us drink to telescopes.”
“ I saw you coming,” said Lester, “ and uncle was behind you. I knew you would do as I told you, so waited round the corner for you.”
“ But how do you know when uncle has gone?” I inquired.
“ Telescope again,” replied Poote. “ It’s about his time, he never stays more than two hours. Come this way.”
Proceeding to the bottom of the garden, we got over a low fence. Then we climbed a hill.
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“ There,” said Lester, “ look through the telescope—yonder is my house; there winds the road, and I do believe there is uncle on his way back to the station.”
“Short?” said I; “round shouldered—black clothes—big umbrella ? ”
“ Right,” said Lester, and took the telescope to make sure.
It turned out to be uncle, and so we left the “Wood Pigeon” in peace, and directed our steps to “Telescope Cottage,” where we passed a very pleasant evening.
D. Goggs.
£ln ^Ib Sime anh the Reto :
Exit 1879.
“Ehen, fugaces. PoKturne, Postnme, “Labuntur auni.”—Hokat. Cam. II., II.
When the Earth was all dark, and the sun light
As yet had not brightened her face:
While Ignorance reigned, and the one light
Of Learning shone not on the race;
Man lived in a state unbecoming—
In hopelessness, ignorance, fear,— Ncr wished, with each annual incoming, His fellow “^ Suppn Reto year.'’
The ages rolled on; and the lightning
Of Knowledge flashed over mankind: Experience, long-bought, came bright’ning
The faith that is born in each mind : Then the hopes of a Future grew stronger,— Of a Life not hedged in by the bier,— That from Death, which than sleep were no longer, We should wake to a ijappn JIrto year.
Superstition then reigned: but the sceptics Soon rose, and the images fled
Defeated. As often dyspeptics
Rejoice when their demons are dead: So Man, the false gods being routed, Left hopes and despondencies drear, And with Faith, that was sure and undoubted, Looked forth to a ^appn Rein gear.
But one thing was yet dormant lying.
Art, Learning. Laws, Commerce all grew:— Nicotina, neglected, was sighing;
No general worship she knew.
Only savages paid her devotion:
Though her moment of triumph,
When the civilised world, with emotion, Wished the Goddess “ A ihppn Reto year!”
So, while the old order has vanished—
The old gods made place for the new: Superstitions and myths have been banished, And the Daylight of Truth bursts in view:— We in reason -not slavishly—honour
Nicotina—the Maid without peer;
And the Dying Year’s last breath pours on her A wish for a $nppn Reto year.
T. W. Littleton Hay. London, 31st December, 1879.
She German (Tobacco ggonopofg.
v.
Our readers are possibly tired of debate about the German Tobacco Monopoly. They cannot be more weary thereof than we ourselves are. If we return to the subject, it is not from love of it, but because we embrace every opportunity of setting before our readers the true principles of taxation, especially in reference to Tobacco, that eternally unfortunate victim of financial experiment—that is, of financial greed and stupidity; and because many of the German pamphlets on the proposed Tobacco Monopoly for the German Empire contain valuable suggestions and statistics. Our creed, frequently and fervently enounced, is, that all import duties are absurd and mischievous, and, moreover, that the rulers of a country should never tax any of its natural products in their raw state. The simplest mode, as we have shown, of making Tobacco contribute to the revenue, is by selling licences to the wholesale and retail dealers. We repeat our protest against the exorbitant, the iniquitous taxation to which, in this and other countries, Tobacco has been subjected, and which had its origin in the monstrous prejudice excited by bigots or blockheads against one of the divinest blessings which Nature has offered to mankind, to intensify their joys and alleviate their miseries.
Bismarck, the bold and the brutal, has succeeded, not in getting a Tobacco monopoly established in the German Empire, but in augmenting the Tobacco taxes, as a prepara-
tion for the establishment of the monopoly. He has the pertinacity of all strong natures ; and, if he lives long enough and retains power, we may expect to see, through his indomitable influence, the Tobacco monopoly an accomplished fact.
The pamphlet entitled “ Das Deutsche Reich und das Tabakmonopol,” is one of the most powerful pleadings for a bad cause we ever read. It consists of five so-called “ Studies,” which appeared in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung from October to December, 1877. The first part of this new “ Augsburg Confession ” is devoted to direct and indirect taxation in general; the second to the aims and aspirations of financial reform in the German Empire, and to the proof, or supposed proof, that a comprehensive financial reform is only possible through a far heavier pressure than hitherto on Tobacco; the third to the different forms of Tobacco taxation, with the exception of the monopoly; the fourth to a picture of the financial and politico-economical advantages of the monopoly, and to a refutation of the political objections thereto; the fifth to a delineation of the Technik of the monopoly, and of its introduction into the German Empire.
The author has a thorough knowledge of the subject, is an able reasoner, and displays great expository talent. He is profoundly calm, abstains from declamation and denunciation, affects a chivalrous firmness, is supremely plausible. A Behal in the garb and attitude of a Rhadamanthus, he makes his sophistries the more seductive by giving them the apparent basis of sound sense and patriotic devotedness. To call him a hireling would be unjust, for he may not be a sharer of tiiat “ Reptile Fund ” of which Bismarck makes so free a use. But to call him a Sophist is not unjust, for almost every one of his hundred and seventy pages is more or less sophistical. To refute him would be a waste of time and a waste of space; and if the task is worth undertaking at all, it is incumbent on the German opponents of the monopoly, not on us. We shall deal with his pamphlet only so far as it has an English, not a specially German interest—that is to say, only so far as it furnishes us with fruitful hints and solid statistical information.
Germany is still a mediteval chaos, and it presents the curious spectacle of a country which is more advanced in learning and science than the rest of the world, but which has neither the strength nor the courage to break its mediaeval chains. This shows how foolish those are who believe that mere intellectual illumination can make a people manly and free. In addition to the mediaeval mummeries and mummifications, Germany suffers from the half-mediaeval constitution of the new Germanic Empire. The hegemony of selfish, sordid, crafty, unscrupulous Prussia, changes to a farce and a figment the autonomy of the other German States. That, for instance, each State should have a system of taxation for its own particular needs, and besides be burdened with taxes for imperial purposes—that is, for Prussian greed and ambition—presses as a hardship and entangles as a complication. It is almost as severe a hardship, almost as labyrinthine a complication, to read about the whole dismal business, as we have been compelled to do.'
Of the “ dainty dish set” by our author “ before the King” (of Prussia), one of the most appetising, in a statistical sense, is an account of the most recent Tobacco legislation ill Russia. Let our readers judge:—“According to the Law of 16th June, 1871, the cultivation of Tobacco in Russia is free, with the exception of Poland, where, in reference to Tobacco, there is a special law. Apart from the licence presently to be mentioned, and paid by manufacturers and by merchants, the revenue from Tobacco is raised in the following fashion: Factories for the making of smoking Tobacco and of snuff, as well as cigars and cigarettes, are erected in towns only, and never except with the special permission of the Department of Indirect Taxes. The manufacture of raw Tobacco, except in the factories, is wholly forbidden. To the Tobacco planters, however, permission is given to work Tobacco leaves in their own dwellings and for family consumption, but only with a common hand-knife. The sale of Tobacco so prepared is strictly prohibited. For every individual factory the Department of Indirect Tayes appoints a special Controller, who has to look after the purchase and the preparation of the raw Tobacco, as well as after the sale of the manufactured Tobacco. Smoking Tobacco and snuff, as well as cigars and cigarettes, can only leave the factory and enter into commerce in firmly closed and distinctly labelled boxes and bundles. On the label the weight of the Tobacco, or the number of the cigars or cigarettes, must be indicated, as well as the amount of the tax in the particular case. Till the law of the 18th June, 1877, was passed, which came into force on the 1st January, 1878, the tax corresponded progressingly to the goodness, and consequently the price, of the Tobacco. But as in the course of years experience taught that this system essentially facilitated fraud, forasmuch as the better qualities of Tobacco were sold under labels which had been intended for inferior kinds, and as this species of fraud had become very prevalent, it was decreed by the new law that from the 1st January, 1878, without regard to the quality, the same quantity of Tobacco, cigars, or cigarettes, should pay the same tax. The gradation of the labels according to the worth of the wares is set aside. The law apportions the tax in the following fashion;—24 kopeks for a pound of smoking Tobacco or of snuff; 60 kopeks for 100 cigars; 15 kopeks for 100 cigarettes. (A rouble is rather more than three shillings English,
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and a kopek is the hundredth part of a rouble.) One kind of Tobacco, however, is shielded from the force of the decree— namely, the lowest kind, which is smoked and snuffed only by the poorest classes of the population, and which comes into commerce under the name of Machorka, and in Poland of Schwicent. (This word is a corruption of the English Sweet Scent, but probably the Tobacco is by no means distinguished by the sweetness of its odour.) Moreover, the Machorka Tobacco is only sold in leaves and stems, or ground to powder as snuff; and in this form it only pays a tax of two kopeks the pound. The law besides determines that, tax included, the price of this kind of Tobacco is not to exceed twenty kopeks the pound. The preparation of the Machorka Tobacco goes on only in special factories, or in special divisions of the other factories, with which, and with the Tobaccos prepared in which, it is to have no direct relations. Every Tobacco factory is obliged to purchase annually a fixed minimal number of labels from the State. This minimum is, for factories in Petersburg, Moscow, Riga, Odessa, and the Kingdom of Poland, 10,000 roubles; and for factories in all the other cities of the Empire, 6,000 roubles. Besides this label tax, the manufacturers of Tobacco and the dealers in it have to pay a licence. The licence varies according to the situation of the factory, the place of sale, and the kind of Tobacco sold. The factories in Petersburg, Moscow, Riga, Odessa, and the Polish States, must each pay for the annual licence 300 roubles; in all the other cities of the Empire 150 roubles. In regard to the sale of Tobacco, all places are divided into three categories. To the first category belong Petersburg, Moscow, Riga, Odessa, Warsaw, with Praga; to the second all the other Government cities and some specially mentioned harbours and county towns; to the third, all other places. The following are the licences, according to these three categories :—Wholesale traffic in leaf Tobacco of inland production—First category, 100 roubles ; second, 65 roubles ; third, 30 roubles. The same in Tobacco of all kinds, and in either a raw or a prepared state—First, 150 roubles; second, 100 roubles; third, 50 roubles. Retail traffic in Tobacco and other shops, in leaf Tobacco of inland production, and in prepared Tobacco, both inland and foreign—First, 50 roubles; second, 3$ roubles; third, 25 roubles; only in inland leaf Tobacco and inland prepared Tobacco—First, 20 roubles; second, 15 roubles; third, 10 roubles; only in inland prepared Tobacco—First, 15 roubles; second, 10 roubles; third, 5 roubles. Retail traffic in wine-stores, hotels, pastry-shops, coffee-houses, beershops, and so on; Tobacco in open jars, or cigars piecemeal—First, 60 and 30 roubles; second, 30 and and 15 roubles; third, 15 and 10 roubles; Tobacco in closed boxes and bundles—First, 20 and 10 roubles; second, 10 and 5 roubles; third, 5 and 3 roubles. Besides, there is a licence of 15, 5, and 3 roubles for the sale of Tobacco at refreshment-rooms. Hawkers also have to pay in the same proportion. Its completion the Russian system of Tobacco legislation finds in the import duty, which for the pound of leaf Tobacco is 35 kopeks; of smoking Tobacco and snuff, 66 kopeks; of cigars, 2 roubles 20 kopeks.
Such is the mode in which Holy Russia, the land of corruption, rapacity, hypocrisy, and anarchy, deals with Tobacco. Perhaps that great financial genius, Sir Stafford Northcote, might derive a few hints from it, for further worrying the Tobacco trade—the only thing in which he has been eminently successful.
There is one curious feature of the Russian system which illustrates the strong communistic tendency of all despotisms in these days, and which even the stalwart and stubborn Bismarck, while fiercely warring with Socialism, has been unable to resist. There is a pretended regard shown by the pious, righteous, and compassionate Russian Government for the necessities of the poor, who—good souls—are to have their Tobacco at less than a halfpenny an ounce! Verily, despotisms do mad and bad things; but they have always to reckon with the Pretorians and the Proletarians.
The author displays so much talent, so abounds in suggestions that tempt to elaborate discussion, is, except when misled by his childish delusion—or, rather, by his execrable heresy—so sagacious, that with reluctance we part from “ Das Deutsche Reich und das Tabakmonopol.” We could fill not a few columns with his statistics, or with financial axioms, or applications, deducible from his statistics. If we could believe that the author was speaking as a disinterested patriot or as a calm philosopher, we should be unable to repress our astonishment at the windiness and worthlessness of the fallacies he has so freely employed. It is not enough to say that a Tobacco monopoly is in angriest dissonance with economical science; it is worthy only of the most barbarous ages, when economical science was not known at all. There is nothing to justify a Tobacco monopoly which would not equally justify such a system of government as that carried on by Francia in Paraguay: a government tyrannically fashioning the whole life of a people, and diversified by confiscation, the dungeon, and the headsman’s axe.
To the remaining pamphlets on our list we shall devote a brief article. We could, without travelling over the same ground, write as many papers on the German Tobacco Monopoly as we have already written. But Raspail says that a dish unless highly seasoned is as unwholesome as it is insipid; and it is impossible highly to season statistical matter.
O Ba “€W"
“Will you play upon this pipe?”—Hamlet.
Pipe black but comely, like the maid
An amorous Eastern sun has kissed,
Come, bring your cunning to my aid,
And raise for me a magic mist
Through which your progress I may trace,
And how you waxed so rich and ripe,
Aspiring from a lowly place
To keep such state, my Cutty Pipe.
You wear a crown of silver bright,
Your waist displays a silver zone, With amber shoon you are bedight— At least one shoe: you need but one.
What time you take deserved rest
You nestle in a lordly bed, And crimson velvet rare is pressed By the sleek ebon of your head.
Such state is yours: yet time has been, My Pipe, when you’d a humbler lot— Though pipes and men are apt, I ween, To wish such memories forgot.
E’en you, the sweetest of the sweet,
Have sometimes a rebellious mood,
When we forget our concord meet, Nor pull together as we should.
And then Pm forced to vex your soul
With cruel probe, as well you know,
Deprive you of your “ flowing bowl,”
And pierce your proud heart through and through.
To put a stopper on that pride,
A backward look, my friend, let’s cast
Across the gulf of time and tide
That parts your present from your past.
A careless yachtsman, young and free,
I first on you my eyes let fall.—
Ah, me! what odours of the sea—
What memories of calm and squall—
What sunny glints of hill and tarn—
What sighs for many a broken link—
What snatches of quaint song and yarn
Mix with your fragrance as I think!
One of a crowd, in vulgar mart,
All pale and humble there you lay;
The haughty meerschaums, housed apart, Ignored your mould of common clay.
Yet even meerschaums may be blind;
And now ’twould raise their “ well-born ” gall
To see your “common clay” behind
No foreign fopling of them all!
Some happy instinct bade me choose,
And guard you tenderly and well, Till, day by day, your ripening hues
A noble future ’gan foretell.
I trained you still with jealous care;
And lo! for all the world to see, Your stately trappings well you wear— A princely Pipe of high degree!
And I—how has it fared with me
Since that old day when first we met ?
There is no Garter at my knee—
My brow sustains no coronet;
No listening Senate I command—
I’ve missed my chance of power and pelf—
Fame tells not of me through the land—
And, ’faith, I’ve few friends but yourself.
But cheerily! We’ll not repine,
Old Pipe, while we have, at our need,
For me a modest flask of wine,
For you full rations of the weed.
We’ll dream our dreams, our thoughts we’ll think.
And crack our confidential jokes, As through a balmy cloud we blink At yonder rout of restless folks.
Remember, though, that clay is clay—
That men have fallen, pipes may break.
I’d not forestall the evil day,
But still the good I’d gravely take.*
Let’s mind that maxim, you and I—
For clay is of us both the type— And, for the rest, we’ll say with Sly, “ Let the world slide! ” my Cutty Pipe.
Gordon Gvn.
* “ JEquam memento rebus in arduis Servare mentem, non secus in bonis
Ab insoleuti temperatam
Laetitia, moriture--1”
Hot. Cam, IL, 8.
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We confess to a kindly feeling for Mr. James Mortimer, of the London Figaro; having found his paper piquant without scurrility, and always “sound on the goose”—we mean on the Anti. But kindly feeling apart, we do think that he has been treated much too severely for an error of judgment, not his own but his assistant-editor’s; though we may not go quite so far as the Weekly Dispatch, which fancies “ that he is rather being punished for the sin of not employing a barrister to defend him than for more serious reasons.” He was convicted of publishing a libel on Mr. Weldon and Sir Henry de Bathe, in an article entitled “ Our Lunacy Laws: the Story of Mrs. Weldon, Written by Herself;” and signed by her. In mitigation of punishment he filed affidavits to the eSect that he had not seen the article before it appeared, that if he had he would not have let it appear, that it was inserted on the responsibility of his then sub-editor, that he stop]>ed the further publication when the rule for a criminal information was applied for (being the first against him during his ten years’ proprietorsnip of the Figaro), that it could not be a malicious publication on his part. The sub-editor could not be produced at the trial, having gone to America on his own private affairs. Mr. Mortimer was sentenced to be imprisoned for three months as a first-class misdemeanant, and to pay a fine of £103 to the Queen. Surely the fine without the imprisonment would have punished him quite heavily enough for what appears to have been rather his misfortune than his fault. We feel nothing but antipathy and contempt for papers which chiefly exist by scandal, but one respectably conducted for ten years should not be classed with these. A petition at the Figaro office for Mr. Mortimer’s release was soon signed by a large number of gentlemen in London connected with journalism and literature. If he be still incarcerated when these Unes appear, we hope our readers will join in this petition. Any information required would doubtless be gladly furnished from the office of the Figaro.
Copt’s Bton.
Let us commence, indignantly, with an atrocious example of vulgar hostility to genius and enterprise:—
George Steed, described as a lawyer’s clerk, surprised the worshippers at evening service in Hereford Cathedral, on Sunday, by entering with a red cap on his head, going straight to the altar, and declaring himself John the Baptist. He had been to the North Pole, he said, had smoked a pipe there, and returned to tell the people of Hereford what he had seen in Heaven. He has been lodged in a lunatic asylum.
I can fancy my reader rubbing bewildered eyes and ejaculating with Truthful James: “‘Do I sleep? Do I dream? Do I wonder and doubt? Are things what they seem? Or is visions about?’—Have I read this in some prenatal existence? or of old in Rollin's Ancient History? or in some more recent translation from Egyptian obelisk, or the Moabite stone, or the Chaldean clay-tablets?” Good reader, it is antique; it is taken from a journal, or, rather, a nocturnal, of Tuesday, October 7. The uncharitable are free to think that I mislaid or overlooked it; the more charitable and intelligent will readily conceive that I carefully abstained from calling the whole world’s attention to it until I had warned my beloved colleagues, Pipeshank and Didimus Goggs and Dr. Gordon Stables (who is even now travelling, through these pages, toward Dauvid and the Pole), to “ perambulate their calcareous strata” and put themselves promptly into secure hidingplaces; and until I had, further, received assurances from them that they were all and severally as safe from discovery as the authentic source of a D. T. foreign telegram or the Libertas in Dizzy’s Imperium. For no doubt they, with their eye-witness pictures and veracious histories, sent this enthusiast to the North Pole, and incited him to smoke a pipe there, and so, indirectly, brought him to the asylum; and if they could be apprehended, I am sorely afeared that they would be committed to the like martyrdom of over-daring genius, and I should be left like the last rose of summer (I may modestly say, very like the last rose of summer) on the bereaved Plant, all my lovely companions faded and gone—a Man-of-All-Work in saddest sooth. I have sometimes wondered whether that poor victim of an unappreciative world was one with the unfortunate Anti so pathetically depicted by Master Pipeshank, the Anti whom the great explorer Goggs left nailed by the coat-tails to the stump of the Pole; who may have managed to wrench himself free, have found pipe and ’Bacco and lights left there by some of the jubilantly careless excursion party, have smoked fiercely in his first delirious excitement; and have then come home, unlike the sheep, leaving his tails behind him, with the message delivered at the altar of Hereford Cathedral.
I turn for solace to the contemplation of a genius perhaps even more sublime, certainly more fortunate. The British Constitution is not, as a rule, favourable to poets and poetry; though rather favourable just now. Thus, the author of the Revolutionary Epic is Prime Minister; but he long since, in his own brave words, “cast his lyre (mind the spelling) to Limbo.” Likewise that noble bard, Lord John Manners, is Postmaster-General; but though laws and learning, arts and
commerce die—especially the laws and the commerce—he no longer sings, as of yore, “Let them.” Likewise, that other noble bard, Lord Lytton, having shown such a daring genius in the “ conveyance ” and devastation of others’ domains on Parnassus (let Heine, for one, bear witness), has been very properly sent to “convey” and devastate Afghanistan, the Indian Famine Fund, the Liberty of the Press, and the Lord (B.) only knows what else. Solomonian Tupper, too, has a pension on the Civil List; but that of the even more worthy Poet Close has been pitilessly burked. However, the Dispatch has magnanimously come to the aid of the needy sons of Apollo, giving weekly (again mind the spelling), for the best composition on a set theme, a prize of Two Guineas; being considerably more in a single week than 9990 of our upper 10,000 of poets are likely to earn elsewhere by poetry in their whole unnatural lives. How splendidly this munificence is vindicated by the results, what glorious poetic genius has been lying latent awaiting this plenipotent evocation, the following, from the issue of December 14, abundantly and superabundantly proves:—
“ The Prize of Two Guineas for the best collection of Three Mottoes for Christmas Crackers has been awarded to Mr. Percy R. Freer, 10, Clermont Terrace, Preston, Brighton, for the following:—
“False symbol of love is this, for here we plainly see
By pulling well together sep’ration there must be;
But when we both are launched, love, on this life’s storm-tossed sea, By pulling well together, united we shall be.
“Think’st thou, dear one, the crack we heard did issue from this toy? ’Twas the bursting of his bowstring which Cupid, that arch boy, Had strained as ne'er before he'd done, determined in his mind Thia heart should feel his keenest blow, firmer our loves to bind.
“If the girl that I love will love me in return, to please her Hl give up my ’Baewr;
And I swear, by my soul, that to her Hl be true, nor tell her a cracker, nor whack her;
But if ever she's false to the oath that she takes, as a hermit I’ll wear a coarse sack,*
And when wheedling around me some day she doth come, why, I swear that I’ll not take her back.
♦ Crackers are also known as cosaques."
We enshrine the bard’s name with his stanzas inour imperishable columns, as at once earnest and fulfilment of immortality. Two guineas for twelve lines, 3s. 6d. per line; certainly pretty good, as things now go; but then such lines! they are dog, or, rather, doggrel cheap at the money. Let Browning and Tennyson and Rossetti and Meredith and Morris and Swinburne, and any half-dozen more, all lay their heads together, and I defy them to lay such a dozen lines as these. Yet I am profoundly grieved by the crowning third of these mottoes. Ardently wishing so inspired a poet success in his love, so that there shall be no “ sep’ration;” fervently hoping that he will be true and guiltless of wife-beating (which, I take it, is meant by “w/tack her”), and never, like a hermit, wear a coarse sack—he whose only sack should be the rich old butt of the laureate; I yet quail at the tremendous sacrifice vowed for all this, “I’ll give up my ’Baccer.” O Percy Freer, don’t! for you will thus give up also this backer, who knows that your sweet piping would cease with your smoking; that your inspiration would no more breathe; that your genius would fade away with the morning and evening cloud, all fade away with the lager beer, away in die Ewigkeit—that very Eternity in which, instead of fading away, such a genius should triumphantly shine!
Pass we to another leaf-dealer; not in the leaves of the bitter laurel sacred from the lightning, but the leaves of the sweet Tobacco, yet more sacred to it. Thus reports the Tobacco Reporter:—
“ Mr. Reppke, a dealer in leaf Tobacco', had fallen asleep, and beginning to dream, spoke aloud of certain qualities of his Tobacco. His wife overheard his broken sentences, and imagining them to refer to a lady, upbraided Mr. Reppke next morning in the following manner :—
“ Now, Mr. Reppke, let me tell you that you are found out; let me say to yon that you are a libertine, and that you have wilfully broken your marriage vows, and that I will and shall procure a divorce. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Mr. Reppke, for deceiving me in that manner,—oh, none of your excuses,—I know all. What have you done ? I’ll tell you what you’ve done. Answer me, Mr. Reppke: Who is that person you spoke of in your dream last night? Who is that person you spoke of as having ‘ a line body’? Who is that jade you dared to call ‘tender ’ ? Who is that wretch with the * beautiful colour,’ and whom do you mean by ‘ old stock you want to get rid of,’ eh? Oh,you villain 1 whom did you think of when you said: ‘The old is too tough, but the new I pay all attention to ’ ? Don’t say a word, Mr. Reppke, or I may forget that I am a woman. That is the kind of a man you are, eh? The ‘old is green, and not worth looking at,’you said too. Very good. Mr. Reppke; I am not so old, and not so green as you think, and others, perhaps, will consider me worth looking at when I get rid of you, you grey-headed reprobate. And may I ask you how much ‘ more money there is in the new than in the old,’ and why you are going to ‘bring out the new before September’? Oh, you are sly, Mr. Reppke; you are deep ; first get rid of me, and then make the ‘new match public’; that’s your game, Mr. Reppke! And ‘nice to handle,’ and as ‘fine as silk,’ and ‘no white veins,’ she has, and your love ‘ burns glorious,’ and sho is a ‘ pleasure to look at and touch,’ and—and—and ‘finely developed’ you said she was, too. Oh,—oh,—. [Mrs. Reppke faints.] ”
That leaf-dealer had more poetry in his soul than many a dealer in book-leaves. So has the gentleman who, advertising a new Tobacco, or at least a Tobacco with a new name, in a New York journal, briefly but sufficiently describes it thus:—“ It is like your first love—fresh, genial, and rapturous. Like that, it fills up all the cravings of your soul.” Being so exquisite, to what extent should it be taken ? Perhaps one could not do better than apply the rules, so far as they go, laid down on another subject by “the genial and ingenious” author of “ A Yachtsman’s Holiday; ” who, according to the Bailie of Glasgow, gives the following judicious directions for the use of that “valuable therapeutic agent,” whisky. “It is difficult,” he says, “ to lay down absolute rules ”; but, he
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continues, the “agent” may be taken with advantage “about noon,” “before dinner,” “during dinner,” “after dinner,” “between meals,” “at the evening chat,” and as a “nightcap.” These directions are moderate and practical, and will very well suit that yet more valuable therapeutic agent, the Weed; except that we might remit the “during dinner” in favour of an “ after breakfast.” But, like the Yachtsman, I would lay down no absolute rule beyond that first and great commandment, Do as you please, of our noble master Rabelais, in whose name and to whose glory a club has just been started in London for the cultivation of Pantagruelism.
This was the first and last rule of Friar John’s Paradisiac Abbey of Theleme, afterwards adopted by the gentle Jamie Thomson for his Castle of Indolence; and the Abbey reminds us of another, and of one of the earliest frescos of Maclise, whereof we read in the London Figaro of December 14:—
“ He called it * Chivalry,’ and it was purchased by Mr. Birch, and formed a portion of his famous collection at Metchley Abbey. Harbome. The figures in the fresco were life-size; and it was placed on the ground, at the one end of the dining-room, facing the sideboard, over which was hung Constable’s large canvas of the opening of London Bridge. We remember dining at Metcliley Abbey soon after the fresco was placet! there; and when Darid Cox, who was one of the party, was offered his customary long clay pipe for a smoke after dinner, the Water-colour King demurred to ‘blow a cloud,’ for fear he should injure the fresco. His host considered that it might improve the tone of the fresco: so, after some persuasion, old David Cox enjoyed his pipe.”
Last month, in rebuking a disrespectful Academician, I said that the blackness of a pipe is as the varnish completing a beautiful picture; and now you see that a famous collector thought the smoke of a pipe might improve the tone, not simply of the smoker’s stomach and temper, but likewise of a chivalrous fresco: he was an excellent Birch for flogging an Anti. But speaking of pictures, what do you say of these two, exhibited by a New York journal?—
“ 1. Miss Blanche Murray is • very proper young lady. Last week she caught her little brother smoking. ‘ You terrible thing’I she hissed. ‘This is only corn-silk,’ murmured the boy, penitently. * I don’t care what it is. I am going to tell on you, and see that you don’t get into that beastly, horrid, degrading habit. I wouldn’t have anything to do with smokers.’—2. It is evening. Miss Murray is sitting on the front step with Algernon. It is moonlight, and the redolent spirits of the honey-snckle and syringa are wafting bliss to their already intoxicated souls. ‘Would little bird object to me smoking a cigarette’? ‘Not at all,” replied Miss Murray. ‘I like cigarettes; they are so fragrant and romantic. I think they are just too delicious for anything.’ * Then I’ll light one.’ ‘ Do, and blow some of the smoke in my face; it is so soothing and dreamingly paradisaic.’ Then he lights a cigarette, and they talk about the weather for two hours and a half.” If in this “soothing and dreamingly paradisaic” condition this young lady shut her eyes, was she still conscious of the fragrance of the still fuming cigarette? I think very few, or none, of my readers will answer otherwise than, Of course she was. Yet the question, already noticed in these columns (November, 1879), which has run the gauntlet of discussion through so many American and English papers, including our learned friend the Lancet, Why cannot the smoker himself, if in the dark, taste his smoke? is still regarded as an open one even by some smokers. Your Man-of-All-Work has hinted his humble opinion that it is as effectually closed by experiment as was that other famous question with which Charles II. is said to have long puzzled the infantine Royal Society: How is it that a bowl (not full) of water with a fish in it weighs no more than with the fish out of it? Thus an intelligent smoking correspondent, “G.S.,” writes us:—
“ In more than one of the papers it was stated as a fact that blind men never smoke. Now, my observation, in at least two instances, disproves that assertion. A blind Scripture reader, who, with fearful and wonderful nasal twang, bellows forth the ‘ sacred story ’ on City Road Bridge, London, invariably indulges in a pipe when his day’s work is over; and many a time have I met him on his homeward journey, puffing away with an air of intense philosophical enjoyment.
“ The other case is that of a blind fiddler, a very clever musician. Possibly his sense of taste is not very keen, as I have frequently noticed him insert his finger in the bowl of his pipe to ascertain if the Tobacco were alight.
“Beyond doubt, smoking bi the dark is a roor thing. When passing through a tunnel in a carriage without a lamp, I have frequently been quite at a loss to know whether my pipe or cigar had ‘ gone out,’ and could only ascertain by observing the glow of the burning weed. The presence or absence of smoke in the mouth made no appreciable difference.”
Now, we can accept our correspondent’s observation and experience without necessarily accepting his inferences. It is by no means certain that the blind fiddler puts his finger into the bowl to feel whether his pipe is alight; many who are not blind have the pame habit, feeling really whether the ash and Tobacco are properly settled in the bowl, being thoroughly aware that the Tobacco is alight: this habit has given rise to the invention of Tobacco-stoppers. Then, as to G. S.’s own experience, there are more remarks in modification to be made than I have room for here. 1: His taste may be, as he supposes the musician’s, not very keen. 2 : When he arrives in the dark tunnel his tasting and smelling nerves are already impregnated with the Tobacco-incense, and the mere continuance gives no new sensation : Let him begin his pipe or cigar with his eyes shut, and keep them shut for a time, and prove whether he does not clearly know then whether it is burning or not. 3: Though, being habituated to smoke with the accompaniment of sight, he may for a short time be doubtful in the dark whether his pipe alight is alight, I do not think he could thus doubt if used to smoking in the dark, as is the case with the blind men; and even as he is, without such use, I think that he would very quickly be sure it was out when it was out. So little, by stress of space, i.e., of lack of space, must at present suffice on this important subject from
Your Man-of-All-Work.
6eorgt ^erebit^’s fieri ®lorh.*
When the Tobacco Plant ventured to assert and prophesy of George Meredith (May, 1879 ; article, “ An Old New Book ’’): “ He may be termed, accurately enough for a brief indication, the Robert Browning of our novelists ; and his day is bound to come, as Browning’s at length has come; ” the writer little thought that day would come so soon. He knew that his author bad been labouring nobly for about thirty years amidst general neglect, producing magnificent works immediately consigned to “that oblivion of oblivion which has never had any remembrance ; ” and he had read in a paper calling itself Literary a review of that same Old New Book. “The Ordeal of Richard Feverel,” treating it as quite a new book, condemning it to the pillory, and pelting it there with such rotten eggs as these: “It would even be unjust to compare such writings (aic) with the scavengers and dust collectors of ordinary life. The latter are necessary to the cleanliness and health of the community, while the literary refus? and rubbish, &c...............a long series of paltry
dialogue, of a surprisingly fervent nature. . . . When the author moralises, he does not halt for words, but chucks them in anyhow, dragging along with him a string of vapid nonsense.’’
With the appearance of “The Egoist” has come the dawning of Mr. Meredith’s day, after a night so long and dreary and dense; during which, while working on undaunted, he must have had sore need of Schopenhauer’s consolation: “ The number of the years that elapse between the appearance of a book and its acknowledgment gives the measure of time that the author is in advance of his age. The entire neglect which my work has experienced proves that either I was unworthy of my age, or my age of me.” The first clear light that I saw was reflected from the Athenwiim (Nov. 1, 1879), in almost the first critique I had seen evincing the critic’s familiarity (a familiarity breeding the very opposite of contempt) with all the writer’s works. Here are a few rays : “ He has considered sex—the great subject, the leaven of imaginative art—with notable audacity and insight. Tn his best work he ranks with the world’s novelists. He is a companion for Balzac and Richardson, an intimate for Fielding and Cervantes. ... In the world of man’s creation his people are citizens to match the noblest; they are of the aristocracy of the imagination . . . there is no question but “ The Egoist ” is a piece of imaginative work as solid and rich as any that the century has seen [I would except a very few others, among them two or three of Meredith’s own, which are greater simply because their main theme is greater], and that it is not only one of its author’s masterpieces, but one of the strongest and most individual performances of modern literature.” This was cheering for a most devout admirer who had been watching through a quarter of a century for the dayspring, confounded by its prodigious delay. Other hills and hillocks caught the new radiance, kindling rapidly as the beacon-fires that announced the fall of Troy, or those others that signalled the approach of the Armada. Thus the Pall Mall: “ One of the most striking works of our time. . . Of extraordinary merit. . . The work is so complete and elaborate as to be indescribable in the compass of a newspaper article.” Similarly, the Spectator, Examiner, Daily News, and I know not how many more. The last-named reflects: “It will be extremely interesting to see how the English public will take Mr. George Meredith’s last publication. The critics Mr. Meredith has had always with him. But critics cannot make a public, and hence the uncertainty and amusement of watching the honest English mind over this last highly seasoned dish which Mr. Meredith has placed before it. Will the plain palates relish the exquisite savours of so delicate a wit? Will they appreciate the subtle essences he has cunningly distilled into the dish ? ” I have italicised the words from which I dissent. Firstly, if by critics the writer means public critics, as surely every reader must understand him to mean, I ask in amaze, When and where have they shown their appreciation of Mr. Meredith ? I know of but one high class or popular review or magazine which has called attention to his works as a whole—the British Quarterly, and that not until last April. And where in the high class and literary weeklies are to be found anything like adequate appreciations of his previous books ? Where, in the whole range of our periodical literature throughout the last twenty years, can one discover the tributes justly due to the magnificent genius and insight and energy, the wit and humour and passion of the 1859 “Richard Feverel,” the “ Modern Love, and other Poems,” the “Emilia in England,” the “Vittoria,” the “Harry Richmond,” the “Beauchamp’s Career? ” Why, even of this last, issued in three volumes in 1876, when the author had been twenty-five years before the public, I can find no notice in the “ Contemporary Literature” department of the Westminster Review, though I finds whole separate article on Ouida’s novels; in the Athenaum it is only noticed as one of a batch of six “ Novels of the Week;” in the Academy also as one of a batch of six “New Novels,” the critic, no less a man than Dr. Littledale, expressing himself thus: “ Though written with much pains, considerable
•The Egoist: A Comedy in Narrative. By George Meredith. In three vole. London: C. began Paul and Co. 1879.
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cleverness, and occasional sparkle, it exhibits too much effort. . . . we rise from perusal with the conviction that it is not as a novelist that Mr. Meredith can look for a permanent name in literature. As critic or essayist there is probably a career open to him.” Against these I am happy to cite Cope's Tobacco Plant (which had not put forth its precious leafage when the earlier books appealed to the dear deaf stupid public), uttering wisdom at its “ Smoke Room Table ” (June, 1876,) in this wise: “We have the story of Nevil Beauchamp’s love and love-perplexities told as none but George Meredith could tell it, with marvellous subtleties of insight and expression, and framed in scenes such as only he can suggest in a few swift words, instinct with spirit and luminous with beauty.” And again: “We can cordially commend it and all his works to the meditative smoker, who grudgeth not several slow whiffs over a knotty point when the knot is really worth untying for the sake of that which it involves.” Those knots, which neither the clumsy public nor the practised critics could untie, Cope, smoking, unravelled right deftly; and Nicotina, who is Wisdom,is justified of her children. Truly, if the critics have always been devoted to Mr. Meredith, it has been with a most secret devotion, never exposed to the vulgar eye; a devotion wonderfully like that of Balzac’s discreet Napoleonists after Waterloo and the Restoration, proved unostentatiously by the capital Ns and golden bees embroidered on their braces! (lu “ La Femme de Trente Ans,” if I remember rightly.) Secondly, the critics can make a public, and always do make a public if they set themselves to the work; and they do it with the greater ease because the English mind is not honest, any more than it is intelligent. The English mind follows the fashion; purchases what is cried up, irrespective of its real value; applauds what is applauded, without knowing the reason why; puts Shakespeare and Milton conspicuous on its bookshelves, disposes the most pious gilt-edged volumes on its drawingroom table, while really only enjoying its paper or its novel of the day. Thus the critics can make a public—that is, a demand—for any book, to the profit of the author; and, if the book be good, to the profit of the community also ; for some of the volumes bought for mere fashion’s sake must meet eyes that will read them for true love’s sake.
Turning now to “ The Egoist,” it may, I think, be safely affirmed that Mr. Meredith’s genius has never shown itself more keen and alert and brilliant, more thoroughly master of all the materials requisite for the work in hand; and that his style has never been more swift and flexible and subtle for piercing to the inmost heart of his personages, through the triple armour of conventionality and deception and selfdeception. As the work is a Comedy, it abounds in dialogue; and I have long deemed Mr. Meredith’s dialogue not only the best of our age, but unsurpassed, if equalled, in our whole literature: it is so spontaneous, unexpected, involuntary, diversified by the moods, the blood, the nerves, the evervarying circumstances and relations of the interlocutors; differing thus in kind from the dialogue of ordinary novels and plays just as the actual interview between any two or more persons differs from the suppositious interviews which each has mapped out beforehand.
Even were there room here, I should not attempt a summary of the plot: and as for extracts, the whole book is a precious extract, “ distilled thought in distilled words; ” the studious reader has in Meredith, as in Browning, the delight—so rare in this age of infinite empty scribbling and interminable chronicling of the smallest of small beer—to find every sentence full-charged, “every rift loaded with ore,” and with ore rich in metal. I must confine myself to merely indicating the chief characters, and giving one or two flying glimpses of quality. The central personage, Sir Willoughby Patterne, the Egoist, who with characteristic unconsciousness furnishes his own title, is, I presume, one of the most thoroughly studied and exhibited types in the whole range of literature. We get him by heart in all his stages and phases, from the highest to the lowest, from the surface to the centre; from liis lordly magnificence and despotic bountifulness as the idol of his little world, to his most abject crouching and slinking through the sloughs of falsehood in evasion of the scorn or mockery of that very world he detests and despises. For there are tragic situations and passions here as in most great comedy; as the author well remarks at one point: “ Jealousy had invaded him [Sir W.]. He had boasted himself above the humiliating visitation. If that had been the case, we should not have needed to trouble ourselves much about him. A run or two with the pack of imps [the invisible hounds of the hunting Comic Muse] would have satisfied us.” Then there is Letitia Dale, “with a romantic tale on her eyelashes ; ” poetical, thoughtful, from girlhood the too humble adorer of the Egoist, who graciously permits her unsoliciting worship. After many years of hope deferred and patient suffering, she is an old woman of thirty, with her eyes at length sorely opening or opened; “ she is coming three parts out of her shell, and wearing it as a hood for convenience.” There is Clara Middleton, “dainty rogue in porcelain,” the second betrothed of the Egoist, whose first betrothed, “the racing cutter,” ran away and married another just before the appointed day. Clara is 19 to Sir WJs 33, and her desperate struggles to get free from the engagement occupy a large portion of the book. There is Vernon Whitford, “the lean long-walker and scholar, Phoebus Apollo turned fasting friar;” who, drenched in a
storm, “looked lean as a fork with the wind whistling through the prongs.” He is Sir W.’s poor cousin and secretary; high-minded, austere, reticent; young, but with a sad past somewhat like that of George Warrington in “ Pendennis.” But in the end he burns out gloriously transfigured. He says of Clara, “She gives you an idea of the Mountain Echo.” There is Horace de Craye, colonel in the Guards, handsome, ready-witted, Norman-Irishman, who says and does most excellent things, and plays an active part in the intrigue. There is Dr. Corney, also Irish, and a little more so, who drives Vernon demented by his eulogy of Clara: “I’ll not call her perfection, for that’s a post, afraid to move. But she’s a dancing sprig of the tree next it. Poetry’s wanted to speak of her. I’m Irish and inflammable, I suppose, but I never looked on a girl to make a man comprehend the entire holy meaning of the word rapturous, like that one. . . But you’re a Grecian, friend Vernon. Now, couldn’t you think her just the whiff of an idea of a daughter of a peccadillo goddess?” (Compare the delicate gradations of the Irishry, in part intentional, in diction and thought of the aristocratic guardsman and the jolly doctor, with the Cork brogue broad enough to hang your hat on of Mrs. Chump in “ Emilia in England.”) There is Crossjay, with whom Vernon charges himself, son of a very poor relative of Sir W., Capt. Patterne of the Marines; ‘ a rosy-cheeked, round-bodied rogue of a boy of twelve, with the sprights of twelve boys in him, who felt upon meats and puddings, and defeated them, with a captivating simplicity in his confession that he had never had enough to eat in his life. . . . Subsequently he told his host and hostess that he had two sisters above his own age, and three brothers and two sisters younger than he: ‘All hungry!’ said the boy. His pathos was most comical.” Crossjay is “real grit,’’ and is of first-rate importance in the plot. There is Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, the rich widow, kindly, but with a prompt, keen tongue, responsible for the character-definitions above quoted: “Her word sprang out of her. She looked at you, and forth it came; and it stuck to you, as nothing laboured or literary could have done.” While grand phrases are mouthing round about Sir W. on the festival of his majority, she says, “ You see he has a leg.” There are two maiden aunts, mere amiable echoes and shadows of their idol the Egoist; and two titled ladies of the county, representatives of the inquisitive and tattling world. Lastly, there is the Rev. Dr. Middleton, the widowed father of Clara, a scholar with an independent fortune, whose strength and weakness is love of good living. He is of the family of Drs. Folliott and Oppimian, with whom you may have excellent converse in the “Crotchet Castle” and “Gryll Grange” of the humorous and caustic T. L. Peacock; but he develops robust individual characteristics. He pronounces upon another: “ He is a tine scholar, but crotchety, like all men who cannot take their Port.” He can take his Port; and Port can take him (not overtake him, mind), as Sir W. discovers, and uses it with splendid effect on the doctor, with terrible recoil upon poor Clara. The richest chapter for jolly humour (I speak not of the subtle and recondite humour) in the whole work is the second of Vol. H., “Au Aged and a Great Wine”: the gradual mellowing, within the limits of clerical decorum, of the doctor under the influence of this, administered by the astute and patient designing Egoist, is unsurpassable. I must quote a little, to gain for this scanty notice the benediction, “All’s well that ends well”:—
Sir W.—“ I am going down to my inner cellar.” Dr. M.—“ An inner cellar!” “Sacred from the butler . . . My cellars are worth a visit.” “Cellars are not catacombs. They are, if rightly constructed, cloisters, where the bottle meditates on joys to bestow, not on dust misused ! Have you anything great?” “A wine aged ninety.” “Is it associated with your pedigree, that you pronounce the age with such assurance?” “My grandfather inherited it.” “Your grandfather, Sir W., had meritorious offspring, not to speak of generous progenitors. What would have happened had it fallen into the female line 1 I shall be glad to accompany you. Port ? Hermitage? ” “ Port.” “ All! We are in England! ”
There was a chirrup in the Rev. doctor's tone: “ Hocks, too, have compassed age. I have tasted senior Hocks. Their flavour* are us a brook of many voices; they have depth also. Senatorial Port! we suy. We cannot say that of any other wine. Port is deep-sea deep. It is in its flavour deep; mark the difference. It is like a classic tragedy, organic in conception. An ancient Hermitage has the light of the antique; the merit that it can grow to an extreme old age; a merit. Neither of Hermitage nor of Hock can you say that it is the blood of those long years retaining the strength of youth with the wisdom of age. To Port for that I Port is our noblest legacy 1 Observe, I do not compare the wines; I distinguish the qualities. Let them live together for our enrichment; they are not rivals like the Idwan Three. Were they rivals, a fourth would challenge them. Burgundy has great genius. It does wonders within its period; it does all except to keep up in the race; it is short-lived. An aged Burgundy runs with a beardless Port. I cherish the fancy that Port speaks the sentences of wisdom, Burgundy sings the inspired Ode. Or put it, tliat Port is! the Homeric hexameter, Burgundy the Pindaric dithyramb. What do you say ?” “The comparison is exccll nt, sir.” “ The distinction, you would remark. Pindar astounds. But his elder brings us the more sustaining cup. One is a fountain of prodigious ascent. One is the unsounded purple sea of marching billows.” “A very fine distinction." “I conceive you now to be commending the similes. They pertain to the time of the first critics of those poets. Touch the Greeks, and you can nothing new: all has been said: ‘ Graiis, , . . prater laudem, nullius avaris ’ Genius dedicated to Fame is immortal. We, sir, dedicate geuius to the cloacaliue floods. We do not address the unforgettiug gods, but the popular stomach.” . . “Your opinion of the wine is favourable, sir?” “I will say this :—shallow souls run to rhapsody:—I will say, that I am consoled for not having lived ninety years back, or at any period but the present, by this one glass of your ancestral wine.” . . A fresh decanter was placed before the doctor. He said: “ I have but a girl to give! ” He was melted.
Wherewith I commend the good reader to a book which he will find as well worth sipping slowly, in long-lingering relish of its consummate fragrance and flavour and cordial potency, as the Rev. doctor found that noble nonagenarian Port; Senatorial Port! deep-sea deep 1 Sigvat.
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Our Snwlu ^oont ®abh. English Men of Letters. Edited by John Morley. London: Macmillan and Co. 1878-9. vm.—SPENSER, BY R. W. CHURCH, Dean of St. Paul's, Honorary Fellow of Oriel College. (1879.) In his Essay on Bunyan, Macaulay writes: “ Even Spenser, though assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting. One unpardonable fault, the fault of tedionsness, pervades the whole of the ‘Fairy Queen.’ ... Of the persons who read the first canto, not one in ten reaches the end of the first book, and not one in a hundred perseveres to the end of the poem. [How arrive at such statistics? Could they be proved or disproved, we dare venture yet stronger figures cou-cerniug the “ Paradise Lost ” and “ Paradise Regained.”] Very few and very weary are those who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast.” Very few indeed, being exactly none; for the simple reason that there is no death of tho Blatant Beast in the poem. In the last canto of the last book we have complete, Sir Calidore or Courtesio (say Philip Sidney) overcomes and muzzles and leads captive with an iron chain the monster; but it afterward escapes, and is left raging around; the wise poet, being too well aware that, so long as men and women exist with venomous tongues and greedy ears, slander, defamation, calumny cannot die. We are surprised that Macaulay, the omnivorous and insatiable book-dcvourer, with a genuine literary taste, found the “Faerie Queene” uninteresting and tedious throughout: and we regret that, according to his wont, he proclaimed his personal opinion with such exaggerated emphasis and assumed it to be the opinion of readers in general; we regret it, because the oracular deliverance was not called for, as there was not the slightest peril of Spenser becoming too popular; and because the absolute sentences we have quoted, preserved in volumes that are too popular, have in all likelihood scared many young students from attempting to read a poem in which they would have found noble instructioh and exquisite delight. If any such are among our readers, let us inform or remind them that the great work, so uninteresting and tedious to Macaulay, proved supremely interesting and stimulating to Sidney, Raleigh, Essex, Shakespeare himself (if we can trust the attribution of “The Passionate Pilgrim.” 1599; the year of Spenser’s death); to “ Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother,” Lady Carey, Lady Strange; in brief, to all the most noble and illustrious men and women his contemporaries, those glories of the sunset of the sixteenth and sunrise of the seventeenth century, named the Elizabethans, worthy of some far grander name; and, beyond these, to Browne of the Pastorals, Cowley, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Thomson, T. Wharton, Gibbon, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Ruskin; so that he has been most properly acclaimed “ the poet of poets,” by suffrages that rather outweigh even the adverse vote of Macaulay, qualified or nullified as this fortunately is by tho “ assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived.” For our poor selves, we avow without shame that, though prevented by circumstances beyond our control from being “ in at the death of the Blatant Beast,” we are of the “ not one in a hundred ” who have persevered to the end of the poem, if perseverance can be where is no trouble but only enjoyment; and further, that we have thus persevered quite unweary to the end not simply once but about thrice, without reckoning countless short wanderings in various specially favourite regions of “ this delightful Land of Faerie.” So much we could not but say, opportunity offering, in vindication of the noble master-work of one of England’s noblest half-forgotten worthies. We must now say our say on the Dean's book. On the whole, it seems to us a good one for its knowledge, its appreciation, and its criticism. Dean Church is manifestly an old student of Spenser; and has been enabled, as he tells us, to add to the ordinary information as to the life and works, the circumstances and times of the poet, by two recent series of publications' “ Oue is the Series of the Calendar of State Papers, especially the State Papers on Ireland and the Carew MSS. at Lambeth, with the prefaces of Mr. Haus Claude Hamilton and the late Professor Brewer. The other is Mr. E. Arber's series of reprints of old English books, and his Transcript of the Stationers’Registers, a work, I suppose, without parallel in its information about the early literature of a country, and edited by him with admirable care and public spirit.” We canuot quite agree with the Dean’s estimates of the characters and conduct of Spenser and some of the illustrious persons with whom he was more or less closely connected; we think that although he here and there makes formal allowance for the spirit and circumstances of the time, he often forgets to make this allowance in the course of his narrative and judicial summaries; and we think that the like remark is applicable to his estimates and criticisms of the poems, and especially of the “Faerie Queene.” In his elaborate remarks on this masterpiece, he does not show such appreciation of its profound and subtle moral wisdom as we have the right to demand in a monograph on Spenser after those splendid fragments of allegorical and symbolical hermeneutics which Ruskin has given for an example in the “ Stones of Venice” and “Modern Painters,” as applied to passages in the “ Faerie Queene.” Would that Ruskin had the health and the leisure for a volume on this subject I However, we gladly admit that the Dean’s judgments, whether we concur with them or not, appear to be well-considered, intelligent, and dictated by the spirit of candour. Unfortunately it is our duty to add that this little book is marred almost throughout by one of the worst of purely literary defects, tautology, so indiscriminate as to be nearly incredible in a thoughful scholar and practised writer, were he not also a clergyman, or a professional lecturer, or both. For the pulpit and the platform, whence speakers look down upon audiences perforce passive, helplessly at their mercy, mere buckets to be poured into, as Carlyle figures it, are undoubtedly most prolific of pleonasm; and in a long list of Dean Church’s publications we notice that the great majority are sermons and lectures. Evil omen, disastrously fulfilled! Before he had preached so many sermons and delivered so many lectures the Dean was not thus redundant, if we may judge by the one other volume of his into which we have looked (having seen it highly praised in a good critique), his “Essay on Dante,” reprinted in 1878, but first published in 1850. In this essay both style and thought are more terse and vigorous than in this “ Spenser.” Oh, the emasculating results of thirty years’ sermonising and lecturing 1 The good Dean's tautology is the more abnormal and irritating in that he seems to affect the curt, rapid, percussive (or repercussive) style of Macaulay; but the utmost rapidity at “mark time, gaining ground” advances at a very slow rate. We are reminded of Dickens’ pony (pardon the irreverence!) which made such imposing demonstrations of fiery speed, much prancing with little progress. We think it was Voltaire who termed the adjective the natural enemy of the noun; we have seldom seen, though we have pretty often heard, the hostility so desperate as in the Dean’s style. Two or three robust adjectives make a dead set upon a single poor noun, when any one of them would have been quite sufficient to do for it. The three are generally synonymous, or so nearly synonymous that one includes the other two. One clause or short sentence with quite superfluous kindness repeats in other words what a predecessor has said; or now and then, by failure of memory, in trying to repeat repeats with a difference. The booklet is substantially not a bad one; but it needs thorough revision in order to concision. Having felt bound to make this sweeping charge, we feel equally bound to support it; and therefore cite a few out of the legion of instances we have marked, without marking all. We dispense with quotation marks, and usually with italics; the first to save trouble, the second because our readers are too intelligent to need them. Pages: 2, facility and ease; 8, clumsy and awkward, indispensably necessary; 16, warmest and heartiest praise, scandals and abuses of government, stern austerities, fierce and eager scholasticism ; 30. quarrels and animosities; 31, most unforeseen and most unexpected ; 32, new and untried, there was order and peace, there was danger and uncertainty; 38, It appealed to the reader’s feelings, or sympathy, or passion, measure and rhythm; ideas were floating, loose and ill-defined; works of tame and artificial (1) learning without Sidney’s fire; 84, fantastic Absurdity, affectation and bad taste, force and passion and powerful thoughts;	35. new and original forms, harbinger and announcing sign; 36, customary and commonplace and unromantic; 40, a world peopled by flocks and sheep-cotes; 41, embarrassment and awkwardness; 44, manifold and varied, a system which with all its injustice found but too much justification; unreal, forced and unnatural; language and style; 46, the ungainly, the uncouth, or the grotesque; 53, to the peculiar conditions of his life may be ascribed the circumstances under which his work was carried out; 54, Lord Grey now took Spenser to Ireland as his Secretary; 57, It can hardly be doubted that S. must have come over with him (Lord Grey): 55, But one man (But no right there; there is no disjunction); 61, a wild and turbulent savagery; 73, fearless, unshrinking; (76 and 79, contradictory dates; March, 1588-9, probably in 1586; the latter being after the former, as appears by context;) 89, the realities of the Irish wars, Ac., gave a real subject; 90 Its prevailing anarchy and violence, its normal absence of order and law—’ as he had continually and customarily before him in Ireland; 91, But also he incurred,—(the But also worse than redundant); 93, the centre of ill power, the seat of all that swayed; 94, In this record containing . . personal recollections, we have the picture of his recollections; 102 and 138, in the former Shakespeare celebrates Spenser in “The Passionate Pilgrim ” (1599) if we may trust Shakespeare’s Editors, in the latter he had Shakespeare’s praise; 109, impostors, charlatans, and bullying swindlers; it should have been safe (for it wot} to write and publish so freely, and so cleverly [where was the cleverness in the publishing?] 119, It cannot forerun the limitations of its day, nor anticipate the conquests, Ac., of the future; 125, In the first two books, the allegorical story proceeds from point to point with fair coherence and consecutiveness. . . In the first two books the allegory is transparent and the story connected; 126, Truth, the object of passionate homage, real with many, professed with all, which after the impostures and scandals of the preceding age, had now become chane-teristic of that of Elizabeth. (What the D—ean does all this mean ?) 128, Mary Queen of Scots is the fierce Amazonian queen Radegund; 131 aha probably is: 130, a vein of, Ac., breaks across the moral drift of his allegory, with an apparently distinct yet obscured meaning: it often »eemt devised to throw curious readers off the scent; it wae purposely baffling and hazy: 131, confuse and perplex, natural and genuine; 134, On his own authority ha (plays tricks with language] for each one of which precedents may no doubt be found [The Dean in this same passage gives us rime thrice; not for hoarfrost but for rhyme, as special and general noun and as verb.] 136, diffuse-ness, prolixity; unresisted proneness to exaggeration produced the extravagance of the Drama; to represent at once the most sacred and holiest , forms, and also scenes, &c.; 140, human life and history, its real vicissitudes, its catastrophes, its tragedies, its revolutions, ite sins; the base, the faithless, the wicked, the traitors; 144, they harmonise, Ac., like the gargoyles harmonise, Ac.; 145, S.’s perception of beauty was singularly and characteristically quick and sympathetic; heady and uncontrolled excess; 146, each one separately; 147, which Milton sung; 148, its severity, its hardness, its unconsidering and cruel harshness, its contemptuous indifference to suffering and misery [what a string!]; imaginative and creative power; forced, or unnatural, or extravagant; condense and concentrate; 149, perfection and fulness of beauty; music and melody of verse; the length and magnitude of tho poem; 150, failure and defeat; 151, the man-lincss which is at the foundation of all that is good in them is a universal quality common to them all; 152, trouble, uncertainty, doubt, curiosity; self-satisfied levity, clever and ingenious trifling; the nature which shrinks from difficulty, which is appalled at effort, which has no thought of making an impression on things around it, which is content with passively receiving influences, which feels no call to exert itself. [Oh! the multitudinous iterations of the pulpit!]; its pride, its fierce self-will, its arrogant claims of superiority; 153-4, Love will ever play a great part in human life to the end of time. It will be an immense element in its happiness, perhaps a still greater one in its sorrows, its disasters, its tragedies. It u still an immense power in shaping and colouring it, both in fiction and in reality; in tho family, in the romance, in the fatalities and the prosaic ruin of vulgar fact. But the place given to it by Spenser, Ac. [among the many noteworthy things in this wonderful passage, note specially the masterly use of the it and the its (there are four of each), in the finest style of what Cobbett used to call real King's English]; the Courts of Love’, whom; 155, mere toying pastime and frivolous love of pleasure; 158, peace, refinement, order, and law; 162, mean, unmanly; 163, baited by malice, falsehood, and calumny; 169, the six books are half the projected work; 125, only a quarter; 172, an English home in Ireland stood where the lava had passed, and upon not distant fires [an even more remarkable feat than that of Sir Boyle Roche’s bird, when it was in two places at once]; 173, piteous misery and suffering; 175, inveterate treachery now incurable; outwitting, cajoling, amusing with false expectations; 181 [thank Heaven! the last], No words could be more appropriate to be the last words. . . . They are fit closing words to mark his tragic and pathetic disappearance, etc.; And they record, too, the yearning hope of rest not extinguished by terrible and fatal disaster. [And verily, these be words appropriate to be the last words and the fit closing words of the Dean’s tragic and pathetic disappearance from the scene of his murder and mutilation of Lindley Murray; and they mark, too, our yearning hope of rest not extinguished by our terrible weariness and sleepiness after collecting all these diaconal flowers of speech.] Now, we put it to the gentlest of readers whether such writing is not too bad, even for a clergyman, even for a dignitary of the Anglican Church. Whatever can have misled him into making this “tragic and pathetic* appearance, into publicly exposing himself in such “terrible and fatal* slipshod? We could scarcely be more astonied and dismayed were we to behold him, him the diaconal dignitary of the consummate cathedral of our mighty metropolis, going to Convocation or to preach at St. Paul’s in his shirtsleeves, hatless, with his shoes unbuckled, “Loose in his gaiters, looser in his gait.” Let us turn away our eyes and weep; let us, with averted faces, cover the shame of our very reverend father. But we have other questions to ask, which ought to be answered. How was it that Mr. John Morley, the editor of this series (we condescend not to the publisher’s reader), allowed our revered Dean to come abroad in this most mdecorota deshabille J Does he merely lend his name to the enterprise, as peers and M.P.’s, and other distinguished persons, have lent their names to companies, for a consideration, with the tacit understanding that the duties of the directorship are to be altogether nominal, beyond the acceptance of shares and fees? We had to hint this question in our notice of Mr. Black’s “ Goldsmith ”; in the present case the neglect is so monstrous that we have to put the question as plainly as possible. Or does Mr. Morley really edit ths series in general, supervising, and, if necessary, emendating its volumes? and did he purposely, to vent his well-known spite against our exceedingly dear Established Church, let the present volume appear in all its “looped and windowed raggedness,” in order that our venerable metropolitan Dean should be the laughing-stock of all the profane ? If so, none but the Dean can adequately denounce the malicious spirit of the trick; “ its severity, it* hardness, its unconsidering and cruel harshness, its contemptuous indifference to suffering and misery; ” (p-148). Perpend!—if the volume be not speedily withdrawn fromthe market, and a thoroughly revised and emendated edition issued in its stead, the schoolmasters of those dreadful undenominational Board Schools, which our clergy so piously abhor, will be getting hold of it, and using its sentences as frightful warnings in their grammar lessons. It was this horrible prospect of a live Dean being torn to pieces by wild school children which nerved us to the hyper-heroic labour of noting such a multitude of passages for correction. As we have thus performed so great a part of the duty which the editor (whether purposely or not) neglected, and in so doing have rendered such invaluable aid to the author in Um unavoidable task of emendation, we modestly submit that Mr. Morley is in equity bound to send us a proportionate share of his editorial fee on this volume, and that Dean Church is equally bound in gratitude to send us a liberal honorarium. If these gentlemen “come down” handsomely, as gentlemen should, we may even undertake to thoroughly redact the book for them, which means to voluntarily undergo several weeks’ imprisonment with the hardest of hard labour; if they don’t, why we have discreetly reserved a rich stock of errata, which we shall keep to ourselves as a just punishment of their meanness.
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No. 119.—Vol. n.]	FEBRUARY, 1880.
fija&t inquisitorial Baraliij.*
To one merit, if to no other, this volume can lay claim. The book is, what so few books in these days are, thoroughly unpretending. Praise warmer than this it scarcely deserves. It is written with a polemical intention, and a History of Drink written with a polemical intention cannot be regarded ss a history at all; for a history aims, or should aim, at strictest impartiality. A history it cannot be called, for mother reason: so far as it presents us with any facts, it is simply a compilation manufactured from more ponderous compilations. To condemn it for displaying neither original research nor copious and colossal erudition, would be unfair, for information of an incomplete kind is all which it assumes to offer. But it is liable to a far more serious charge. The author is obviously a worthy, well-meaning man, and no one can question the purity of his motives, his disinterestedness. Be, however, radically, deplorably misconceives national greatness, human excellence. The genuineness of his philanthropy does not hinder him from being the ally of the fools and the fanatics who would govern the world with the pedantic, the puny prescriptions of a negative, a puritanic, a Pharisaic morality—the wretched Lawson and Richardson gang, of whose cant and cackle, of whose nostrums and noodledom, we are all so weary. For some years England has made itself hateful by its political cowardice and vacillation, and now it is doing its utmost to earn the contempt of mankind by its petty, puerile, imbecile schemes of social redemption. It is often said that nations perish through corruption; but the proud and boastful Britons seem striving hard to show that a nation can sometimes perish through stupidity—can seek as euthanasia the luxury of being drowned in a deluge of twaddle. A nation as an organic entity should have the armour, the attire, the adornment of positive virtues. The club of Hercules is not a toothpick, and Hercules himself is not a dealer in tapioca, a manufacturer of lemonade. Hercules goes forth to achieve mighty labours, not to show how much cold water he can swallow with impunity. If you value whole bones and a whole skin, do not ask Hercules, when you meet him, to take shares in a coffee tavern, or to be a distributor of tracts. Henceforth the British nation is to consist, not of men of Herculean mould, but of impotent idiots, crammed and cramped at a Board School, and trained to babble evermore about Peace, Longevity, and Abstinence 1 The rabid rachitic rhapsodists whom just now Britain accepts as its prophets and teachers, have a sublime idea of human duty and destiny. There are to be no more wars, no more smoking and drinking, and, nourished by the leaves of cyclopaedias chopped up small, and by the dust of museums, men are to live a hundred and twenty years! That there is something incomparably higher than happiness, something unspeakably diviner than life, is the creed of all noble and heroic souls. It was the creed of the ancient Greeks and Romans, the creed of which, even in their degeneracy, they were the eloquent proclaimers, the valiant champions. But lofty maxims are only interesting as the utterances of godlike deeds. If we are capable of applying sage and salutary axioms to our conduct, we do not need the axioms. The grand sayings of the Greek dramatists and of the Greek philosophers are in themselves inspiring; but they are valuable, moreover, as showing the moral height
•The History of Drink: A Beriev, Social, Scientific, and Political. By James Samuelson, of the Middle Temple, Baxristsrat-Law. London: TriftoerandCo. 1878.
to which the Hellenic race habitually ascended, the moral atmosphere which it habitually breathed. It was not long life, it was divine life, which was desired; it was declared that whom Heaven loved died young. In the admirable Discourse on Consolation, addressed to his friend Apollonius, Plutarch relates the beautiful story of the Argive youths, Cleobis and Biton. These young men, whose mother was the priestess of Hera (Junok when the time was come for the ascent to the temple, and tne mules which were to draw the chariot were too late, and time was pressing, harnessed themselves to the car and drew their mother in it to the sacred place. The woman, being exceedingly pleased with the affection of her sons, entreated the goddess to bestow on them the best of human things, whereupon they fell asleep and never again awoke, the Deity granting them this death as the recompense of their love and duty. Is not this story worth a million homilies 7 Cleobis and Biton went to share the bliss of the gods after doing what was worthy of the gods. They died with the lustre of the most pathetic piety on their brow, died ere they could be tempted to do anything contrasting with their sweet devotedness. It was for the fatherland, for friendship, for everything exalted, that the Ancients toiled and combated; and they were too busy toiling and combating to think of reward. Has not a like spirit impelled and guided the brave in every country and in every age ? But, according to Mr. Samuelson and the other apostles of the most craven and fatuous Evangel that ever was preached, the British citizen is anxiously to study his health, to fill his brain with useless rubbish, to skulk away when there is any chance of a hard blow, to put his neighbour’s pipe out, to knock the pot of beer out of his neighbour’s hand. A dull intellectual machine, bowing down in idolatry to comfort, and making jolly dogs uncomfortable — that is the ideal Man of the Future!
Is not drunkenness loathsome, and is not war terrible, and is not the science of health one of the noblest sciences? Tea, verily; but that is no reason why human nature should be nagged, and worried, and compressed, and mutilated, and defaced. A man is a spontaneous force thrown forth from the bosom of the great Mother, herself a spontaneous force. Only so long as a community continues to be a harmonious development of spontaneous forces can it be comely and powerful. If it sinks into a half-lifeless mass, for pathologists to examine, and pedants to vex, and policemen to chastise, the sooner it is swept into the abyss the better. Often men who are admirably organised, who live wholesomely and regularly, and who have never been guilty of any excess, are tormented by hypochondriasis. It is an inherited affliction; they have to bear it as courageously as they can. And their constitution is essentially healthy, spite of the gloom that gathers over them. But a community cannot, without immense peril, fall into a hypochondriacal condition. A deep and dangerous hypochondriasis has seized the English community; and such books as this of Mr. Samuelson are simply hypochondriacal wails. The English community wants to be bandaged, and blistered, and candied, and coddled, when it should be imperiously urged by its truest, most stalwart sons, to rise up and walk, to plant evermore fresh colonies, to take the foremost place as a conqueror in the world, to battle unceasingly, as the Romans battled, if thereby only can empire be gained and retained. Hypochondriasis is poltroonery, and against poltroonery medicine is unavailing: the sole remedy is action. The patience with which an English audience listens to milksops and prigs discoursing on cookery, and on the value of air, light, and soap, is as marvellous as it is ridiculous. Nothing that is new have the
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milksops and the prigs to reveal: they say only what has been said, and better said, thousands of times for thousands of years. Why is the English audience so patient, so eager to hear, so enthusiastic about the dreariest drivel ? Because its hypochondriasis is for a moment soothed and flattered, just as there are hosts of mortals who think that if they go regularly to church or chapel, they atone for the most heinous of offences, for the most grievous neglect of duty. There are hosts no less numerous who believe that, by giving an attentive ear to sapless and silly preachments about the horrors of * war, the abominations of drunkenness, and the advantages of perfect hygienic arrangements, they are fulfilling all the obligations incumbent on them as citizens. Social cowardice, lack of patriotism, abject worship of fashion, insatiable covetousness, shameless frauds in trade, how venial these and the like things become in your eyes when you have signed a petition against war, or in favour of shutting the publichouses on Sundays! You are first poltroons, and then you are execrable hypocrites, dreaming that by vicarious sacrifices and vicarious virtues you can win immortal bliss. You protest against war, and then you deem yourselves at liberty to make peace a lie, a leprosy, and a stench! Drunkenness you denounce, and then you consider yourselves justified in using your sobriety as an instrument of the basest falsehood and the most villanous guile! To criticise in detail Mr. Samuelson’s book would be a waste of words. It swarms with those fallacies with which the spurious Puritanism and the spurious Liberalism of our day have made us so familiar, though, in fairness, it must be admitted that Mr. Samuelson is not consciously a Sophist. All those fallacies rest on two principal assumptions: that government should be transformed into a species of Inquisition, and that through something, which it is a flagrant misuse of words to call education, Eden is to come back—the golden age is to return. For generations in England all have been allowed to enjoy as much personal Uberty as was compatible with the general safety and welfare. If this had its drawbacks and disadvantages, they were counterbalanced by self-reliance, by the spirit of independence, by the boldness of enterprise. But the spurious Liberals, in conjunction with the spurious Puritans, have issued a ukase that henceforth there is to be no personal liberty, that whatsoever thereof a despotic government leaves, a parochial mob—ignorant, bigoted, superstitious, brutal—may take away; may. after decreeing that we are not to have any drink or any Tobacco, furthermore decree that we are not to have any victuals or any clothes, or aught that Nature has given us a right to possess. At various periods witch-burning and other forms of persecution have prevailed in Protestant countries, and the most ardent, the most cruel persecutors were always clergymen. In the West of Scotland it was not an uncommon thing, two hundred years ago, for an announcement to be made in a church that there was to be no service on Sunday, as the minister was going to a witch-burning. The state of affairs at the same epoch in New England has been strikingly depicted in some of Hawthorne’s works. Now, what reason have we for believing that if certain ferocious dolts have their way in regard to drink, Tobacco, and kindred and equally harmless means of social enjoyment, they may not proceed to excesses of barbarity compared with which the worst tyrannies of the Scottish Presbyterians and of the New England Puritans were merciful? The wild beast in man is always ready to burst forth and rend and devour; and it is never so ravenous for blood as when it shatters those superficialities of civilisation which have been its real or apparent restraints. Of education, in its highest, broadest, deepest, divinest import, and of that which is so often distinguished from education—instruction—no wise, no good man can be the foe. But what is thrust, and is further to be thrust on wretched children, is neither education nor instruction. The memory is loaded with lumber till it breaks down, and the tongue chatters and yelps till it is tired. The individual is not developed in consonance with his individuality, and his finest faculties slumber. His imagination gets no food, his moral being no impulse, no discipline. Yet Mr. Samuelson and his friends are convinced that from an agency so imperfect, and in some of its aspects so pernicious, so detestable, a moral reformation must arise; by which, of course, Mr. Samuelson understands abstinence from beer, wine, whisky, and other pleasant beverages. In the United States of North America there is abundance of such education as Mr. Samuelson applauds. Yet where is political and general morality lower, or a crass credulity more triumphant? Spite, also, of Good Templarism and other quackeries, it is not exactly for temperance that the United States are conspicuous. Let us go from the United States, with their impudicities, their impieties, their impostures, to Spain, which Mr. Samuelson would deplore or denounce as supremely uneducated. More in Spain than in any other Christian land religion is a moral power, and more in Spain than in any other Christian land true Temperance reigns. It is odd that, while expecting so much for the overthrow, for the annihilation of drunkenness in th0 United Kingdom from certain educational instrumentalities, the more reasonable teetotalers should demand, as strenuously as the most intolerant abstainers, prohibitory enactments. They are like all doctrinaires: the dogma they uphold, whatever may become of common sense and human feeling. But, at least, they should be honest enough not to persist in representing the	United Kingdom as pre-eminently the drunkard’s realm. There are many regions—for instance, Russia—that revel far more bestially in intoxicants than Britain. Even, however, if the United Kingdom were pre-eminently the drunkard’s realm, the measures of repression advocated by the teetotalers would not be the less reprehensible, as insulting to human dignity and fatal to human freedom. Let England resume the heroic attitude which she has forsaken, and the true virtues, the grand positive virtues, must afresh be her pride and glory, and after a while the negative virtues such as temperance must arise. But assuredly never by temperance, never by the negative virtues, can the true virtues, the grand positive virtues, be engendered. Mr. Samuelson says:—“Smoking, too, in which some teetotalers indulge to such excess, is another stimulus to drinking.” It is delightful to learn that teetotalers do anything to excess except talk nonsense. It is a pity, however, that a writer so fair, and a man so honourable and intelligent as Mr. Samuelson, should repeat the calumny a thousand times refuted, that one of the temptations to drinking is smoking. With many—and a great living writer who has smoked for threescore and ten years might be given as an example-smoking is a substitute for drinking; with many others it lessens instead of increasing the liking for intoxicating drinks. And Mr. Samuelson would find it difficult to produce an instance of a man who had been led to drinking through indulgence in Tobacco. Scoto-Cklt. ^^t Origin of Smoking. We offer to the readers of the Tobacco Plant a translation, faithful, but unavoidably paraphrastic, of a Dutch poem contained in a curious volume published at Amsterdam, in 1627, under the title of “Friesche Lust-hof,” that is “Friesian Pleasure-ground; ” or, if we prefer a more poetical equivalent, “ Friesian Court of Delight.” Who the author, Ian Starter, was, we have in vain endeavoured to ascertain; but from the title of his book, and from the enthusiasm With which he treats of Friesian matters, we conclude that he was a native of that part of the Netherlands called Friesland. Most of the poems are erotic: some of them are patriotic, and the praises of that truly great man, Maurice of Nassau, are duly sung. The grand fight with despotic Spain deeply stirred Ian Starter’s heart. It is, however, on epithalamiums, or, if you prefer it, epithalamia, that Starter chiefly expended his poetic fire. Down to our own day the epithalamium seems to find much favour with Flemish and Dutch poets. Though not remarkable for genius—though on the whole prosaic, like the general contents of the volume—the epithalamiums of Starter display considerable ingenuity. He makes use of that mythological machinery which is now discarded, and whether he writes a “ Bruydt-Lofs-Gedicht, Ter Eeren Hans Abbas ende Tiedtje Rhala” (“ Epithalamium, in honour of Hans Abbas and Tiedtje Rhala”), or celebrates the nuptial bliss of some other fortunate mortals, it is always Cupid who is the principal figure. Whether songs are given by themselves, or as portions of the epithalamiums, they are almost always accompanied by music, and many of the airs are English. As singular in themselves, and as illustrating the costumes and customs of the period, the engravings must irresistibly attract the student of human nature and human history. The most humorous of them all is that which accompanies the most humorous poem in the book, that on “ The Origin of Smoking.” Vulcan is made a truly comic personage; but it should not be forgotten that Vulcan was always represented by the ancients as the Buffoon of the gods. The poem has an historical interest, for it shows that two hundred and fifty years ago the Englishman was regarded as the king of smokers. The German is not even alluded to. Starter’s poem is entitled “Den Oorsprang van Taback-drincken” (“ The Origin of Tobacco-Drinking”). For a long time Tobacco-drinking was more spoken of than Tobaccosmoking. But, as Tobacco-drinking would not now be intel-ligible, we have ignored it in the translation. Hereby a certain point of the poem is lost, for Vulcan says that though he does not care for beer or wine, he willingly drinkt “noble smoke and fire.” Ian Starter was, doubtless, a popular author in his day. Two commendatory poems, one in Latin and signed “P. Winsemius,” and another in Dutch and anonymous, serve as introductions to the volume, and they show us the esteem and admiration in which Starter was held. In a prefatory poetical address by Starter himself, to the young ladies of Friesland, Starter puts after his signature what seems to have been his motto: “ Gonst baert Nijdt ” (“ Favour begets Envy”). This would imply that Starter was so famous and prosperous as to be envied. The fame and the prosperity have not hindered him from falling into the oblivion from which we have tried for a moment to snatch him. His messenger, winged Mercury, Great Jupiter once sent To tell the children of the sky To come and feast. He went So fast that soon the company Was gathered in Jove’s tent: The tent was airy, lofty, vast; Around were starry glories cast.
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At the request of Mars the stout, Ceres had brewed some beer;
Diviner beer was ne'er poured out Divinest hearts to cheei.
Breda’s ale tempts the thirsty snout, So rich it is aud clear:
Fine Breda ale had Ceres made, None better knew the brewer’s trade.
The guests in gladness radiant sat;
Their throats they o]>ened wide;
Huge beakers from the mighty vat The waiters fast supplied.
The guests grew noisy in their chat;
On flowed the luscious tide
Of potent beer: each head divine Grew giddy with the Breda wine.
More joyous feast there could not be, Till Vulcan deemed it fit
To show how boundless was his glee, If rather small his wit.
With blacksmith's manners, rough and free, He swore to smoke a bit:
He gave his mouth an apron wipe, Pulled out his spleuchan and his pipe.
The gods looked on with wonder great, When puff came after puff;
They marvelled where their sooty mate Had got this noisome stuff.
Amazement soon was changed to hate: They longed to kick and cuff
Tlie vulgar wretch, the nasty beast, Who with his smoke had spoiled their feast.
Heedless was he of wrathful scowl, Heedless of scornful lips;
He smoked till with the vapour foul, All sky was in eclipse.
The moon looked like au old blind owl, The stars like farthing dips:
Tarnished was each immortal’s crown;
Ah! well might god and goddess frown.
Coughing and sneezing, all looked grim;
At last poor Venus wheezed;
She soon was in the mood to trim The lout she oft had teased.
With fury wild she gazed on him, And coughed and wheezed and sneezed:
Her sneezing, wheezing, coughing o’er, She smote with words the smoking bore:
‘You filthy brute! Oh, what a smell!
Is’t not enough that you
Are ugly as an imp of hell, And put me in a stew, When, after yon have hammered well, All moist with sooty dew,
You limp home, unwashed eat your bread, And go, what’s worse, unwashed to bed ?
“Your sooty hands, your sweaty face
I, as your wife, must touch, My lips on smoking lips to place— Ah! monster, that’s too much.
Less horror ’ twould be, less disgrace
To bear a satyr’s clutch:
If you smoke still, you hideous bore,
I swear I never kiss you more.	%
“You are too daring. See you not
The gods are all in ire?
Do you not see that Jove is hot, And grasps his bolts of fire?
Vulcan, how terrible your lot, If you make mad your sire!
And Juno, too, your mother proud, Fierce gazes at the smoky cloud.
“Wise is Minerva, yet she fears The smoke may dry her brain;
Poor Saturn old, fast wiping tears, Puffs, pants, and grunts in pain.
No more Apollo bright appears, Men think the Sun-god slain:
Ceres declares in grief and scorn, The smoke bath withered all her corn.
“ Dying or dead are Flora’s blooms, Your smoke the fatal blight;
Hound brave Mars gather blackest glooms; Dimmed is his armour bright.
No longer joy his face illumes, He puts me in a fright:
Poor fellow! how he coughs and groans, As if all strength had left his bones!
“ The Wine-god’s eyes are always red;
How redder are they now!
I think he’d like to go to bed, And rest his aching brow.
But tell me, Vulcan, lump of lead—
Tell me, you booby, how,
And when, and where you learned to puff, Filling your throat with filthy stuff ? ”
Ere answering he Hung a whiff, That blacker veiled the sky;
The gods began to snort and sniff, As if about to die.
He saw his wife was in a tiff,
Then, like a blacksmith sly,
Pretending to guffaw, he spoke, As if the thing were all a joke:—
“ Not long since, when, my labour o’er,
I had my anvil left,
There met me at the smithy door
A devil, small and deft.
Straight from hell’s dark and dismal shore, Through space his way he'd cleft;
‘Pluto.’ he said, ‘this herb had sent, Wishing a friend to compliment.’
“We both have much with fire to do,
And so, by help of flame, He wants to prove he still is true
To his old crony lame;
And is not fickle, false, like you,
Venus, my saucy dame:
When you upbraid me, I must show That something of your tricks I know.
“ Wine charms me not, beer tempts not me;
But noble fire and reek
I swallow gladly, as you see— Them, only them, I seek.
Why should I not, like Pluto, be
Allowed to have a freak?
For am I not a god of fire,
Like him? I marvel at your ire.”
Much pleased with bis own eloquence,
A bigger cloud he blew,
Whereat Jove flamed in wrath immense, Taunts, threats at Vulcan threw.
“ Fine talk is thine, thou dullard dense!
Join the Infernal crew:
Your fittest place is down below, If you your smoking can’t forego.
“ The sky’s the sky, and hell is hell;
What devils love, gods hate;
If you enthralls Tobacco's spell, Pray take your journey straight
To gloomy realms where smokers dwell;
But I shall break your pate
And pipe with thunderbolts, if you
Don’t stop your pulling!” Vulcan knew
That Jupiter ne’er spoke in vain;
No more the smoke-clouds curled.
To smoke not, pain was—keener pain
From heaven to be hurled;
He bad been maimed and almost slain
When from the upper world
He had been flung, not once, but twice: He dreaded much to tumble thrice.
Silent, be put his pipe away,
But with a heavy heart;
The nimble Mercury, in play,
Proud of bis thieving art, Pipes and Tobacco seized as prey.
Far as his eyes could dart, He saw of blackamoors a host; He threw upon their torrid coast Poor Vulcan’s treasures. Forthwith they
Grabbed, nabbed, swore, scrambled, scratched: Sly Mercury, the hunt, the fray,
With valiant laughter watched.
The tribes proclaimed by Yea and Nay
A miracle unmatched:
For ignorance, when stirred by greed, Likes much on miracles to feed.
Fiercely to smoke they all began,
And from each mouth, each nose, The reek as from a chimney ran.
Lest they should come to blows,
The Moors debated plan on plan,
This healing for all woes
By their own hands to multiply When ended the divine supply. Eager they threw the precious seed
Into the fecund earth ;
Ere long the plant adorned the mead, Earth’s newest, noblest, birth.
The plant taught men a better creed,
The creed of creeds called mirth:
A god in jest had been more kind Than gods are when of earnest mind. And now all mortals boundless smoke
Tobacco’s boundless store, The Spaniard mounted on his moke,
Puffs, puffs, and puffs galore.
The Dutchman thinks it but a joke
To smoke of pipes a score:
Yet true king of the smoking clan, Is the big burly Englishman.
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^ ^tto Nicotian; ^legion. VI. In these days, when scepticism and credulity, negationism and superstition run to excess, it is well that the whole question of religion should be frankly looked in the face. Hence the chief value of the next section of “ Il Dio Ignoto,” which consists of a letter from Giovanni, and which, as the Germans would say, has more of a subjective than an objective interest. Giovanni obtains the situation of district doctor at Oggobio, where his professional duties are not very heavy. He takes up his abode in a cottage in which a pious aud benevolent parish priest had long resided. Within and without this dwelling-place there are suggestive memories of the good clergyman. Above the entrance door is the inscription “Parra Doman, Magna Quiet" (‘Small House, Great Quiet”). The devoted priest had been fond of flowers, aud flowers still grew round. But, in addition, he had, before there was a district doctor, been physician to the body as well as to the soul of his flock. Therefore he had, carefully and in abundance, cultivated medicinal plants; aud medicinal plants continued to be found as the companions of the flowers. On the banks of the lake, at a considerable distance from the cottage, was the mansion of the Marchese aud Marchesa De Lami. It was, however, within sight, and Giovanni could delight himself by gazing at it. At the mansion Giovanni was welcome as a visitor. But, besides, he could always meet the Marchesa in fine weather at many charming intermediate points. One of these was a small chapel dedicated to Mater Dolorosa. After wralks in the woods Giovanni and Maria had long discoursings together, generally on the most serious subjects. Once, when Giovanni entered this tiny rural temple alone, he cut with a penknife on the wall in front of the altar the initials of Maria’s name and of his own. Above there was the representation of a crown of laurel; beneath, the inscription “Now and Evermore.” This commonplace, childish, and, as she deemed it, sacrilegious mode of showing attachment, Maria, when she discovered it, energetically rebuked, and the result was what is vulgarly called a tiff. The following is part of the conversation between them the next time they met:— Maria.—We are always to be friends, and always in the same manner, are we not? Giovanni.—Yea, yea. Friends who divide together the bitter bread of sacrifice. Maria.—And of faith and of virtue. Giovanni.—Maria, human virtue is a very frail thing. Maria.—Human virtue is omnipotent when it rests on faith. Giovanni.—Do you remember the last ball? Maria.—Why do you evoke those memories which had gone to sleep ? That is a real wickedness. Yes, I remember the last ball; but I also remember that we had nothing to be ashamed of. Giovanni.—Who knows? Maria.—Are you, perchance, a casuist ? Giovanni.—I know not what meaning or application that word in this particular instance has. This alone I know, that God is unjust. Maria.—Blaspheme not. Giovanni.—Why, then, if God exists—and I, as you know, believe in God—has he given you into the arms of an old man who cannot love you? Why has he sacrificed your noble and splendid youth to insolent decrepitude? Maria.—It is not God who has made me Marchesa De Lami, but my own will, and in acting as I have acted I have done my duty. But why do we indulge in discourses such as the present? Because you always try to throw ridicule on my faith, which is the dearest and holiest thing I have in my heart. Giovanni.—I should like to see you less enslaved by idolatry. Maria.—Peradventure you are herein not altogether wrong; but I do not feel justified in changing the rites of a religion which was that of my mother, and which satisfied Dante and Michael Angelo, which satisfied Newton and satisfied Manzoni. In my long meditations and in my fervid prayers I have imagined that the Catholic religion needs some radical reform; but has a poor weak and ignorant woman the strength and the knowledge necessary to propose this revolution in the ordinances of religion? Besides, if every individual who prays were to pray in his own fashion, and if every one were to propose some modification in the public worship, what would the result be? What would become of that unisonious harmony which gathers together under the vault of the same temple so many of the faithful, different in age, in individuality, and in instruction? What would the end be of the grand religious community? Giovanni.—But, my dear Maria, man changes with time, and with him change his laws, his arts, his sciences; his religion cannot and ought not to escape the general transformation. Maria.—Well, then, if it is written in the decrees of Destiny, it is incumbent on you men to effect it, if so it seemeth ♦ Il Dio Ignoto. Di Paolo Mantegazza, Milano. Libreria Editrioe G. Brigola. 1877.	good unto you, and if you deem it needful to the civil and moral progress of the human family; but allow to us women the honour of being the loyal guardians of the ancient faith, and of persisting resolutely in our guardianship to the very last hour. Giovanni.—If, Maria, we are to be brothers and sisters in every other field of thought, why should we not be so in the domain of faith ? If you descend to me, I ascend to you; I am Deist, you are Catholic; let us meet half-way, and become Christians both. The figure of Christ has always profoundly moved me, even though I do not admit Christ’s divinity. Maria.—Silence, 0! wicked heretic! Giovanni.—Be tolerant, Maria, and allow me to finish. Even though I do not admit the divinity of Christ, yet Christ is a historical figure which has omnipotent elevation, and all the fascination of a myth. Maria.—You can address such harangues to me because you have not a religion, and your God is a word and a metaphysical mist. I believe firmly, ardently; I am a sincere and convinced Catholic. Why should I turn Lutheran cr Calvinist, when I have my heart full of the sublime poetry of Catholicism; when this religion, which was for so many ages the loftiest inspiration of the most cultivated nations of the earth, adapts itself to all the needs of my mind and of my soul? Why should I abjure a faith which has raised on high those prodigies of art, St. Peter’s-Church at Rome, and the Cathedral of Milan—which inspired Raphael and Murillo to paint their sublime virgins—which breathed the grandest enthusiasms into the hymns of Manzoni, and into the poems of Klopstock? For me the Catholic religion is so rich in magnificent poetry, that I would not renounce it for all the gold in the world. No, my excellent Giovanni, I do not understand our scheme of conversion in this fashion. I possess the truth; you do not possess it; I have the true religion, and you ought to adopt it. You are the heretic whom I must convert. Giovanni.—Dear Maria, abandon all idea of making me a a Catholic. The Papacy, with its crimes and its abominations, the Inquisition, with its blood, St. Ignatius, with his immense troop of ravens, have tnrown such horror into my soul, that I am compelled to tell you that I would rather be Atheist than Catholic. And if God can only be adored through indulgences and exorcisms, I should deny the existence of God, of whom, nevertheless, I feel intensely and fervently the need. No, Maria, I cannot surrender my soul to a religion which has become in the family the instrument of discord, in government the instrument of tyranny; which strives in vain to retard the immortal course of progress, and which must speedily fall, overwhelmed by the weight of its own errors and intolerances	 Maria.—Do you feel, then, that you have courage enough to deny the faith which was sufficient for Michael Angelo, for Newton, aud which still satisfies many of the loftiest ; intellects?	. Giovanni.—Michael Angelo aud Newton lived in times very * remote and very different from ours, and if they lived now 1 there would be a great change in their religious opinions. I | do not deem myself superior to any human soul; but I believe the liberty of thought and of convictions to have claims superior to the reverence due to the very highest intellects. Look, also, at the nations at this hour: those which embraced the Reformation are the most advanced in Europe, while the Catholics linger far behind. In Ireland you have only to enter a village or a city to discover whether the population is Catholic or Protestant. If in Ireland you see people dirty, haggard, and ragged, dragging on a wretched existence in squalor and in filth, you may be sure that they are Catholics; if you see people well-dressed, active, polished and elegant, you may be sure that they are Protestants. In England faith is still warm and young, because the English were wise enough to cut away from the tree the parasites of superstition and of idolatry. We, on the contrary, scramble along dismally and disgracefully, between the feti chism of the masses, the rationalism of the few, and the indifference of all. Let us save the faith of our fathers, by re-baptising it in the limpid and flowing wave of modern progress. Let us strip our temples of their tinsel and their false jewels, to adore our God under the vault of forests in bloom, and in the severe silence of iconoclastic temples. Maria.—No, Giovanni, do not speak thus; you give me too much pain. You have not that strong conviction of which you make a parade; you are still agitated by many doubts, and I hope to be able to dissipate them. Allow me still to indulge the hope of being able to convert you to my religion. Evermore you say that you esteem and love me much. Why are you not willing to pray the same prayer with me? Know you not that if simple literary and philosophical conversation procures us so much delight, we should climb to the highest pinnacle of felicity if we prayed together, kneeling under the vault of the same temple, invoking from the Omnipotent grace to keep us virtuous to our last breath. Giovanni, make me the happiest of the daughters of Eve; become the neophyte of my apostleship; give me the glory of converting to the true and the good one of the loftiest and noblest characters I have ever known. Another striking and suggestive dialogue between Giovanni and Maria on topics the loftiest we present to the reader:— Maria.—To-day I feel more than ever the need of seeing
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and conversing with you again. I feel within me a plenitude of life which inundates me, and but for your succour I know not how or on what to pour it forth.
Giovanni.—You seem to me radiant with felicity.
Maria.—Happy I cannot be, because I have too many desires in my heart which I cannot satisfy; but I feel myself serene, tender, expansive. I feel the need of doing good, of seeing some one before me who smiles for my sake, who is indebted to me for something. The grandniece of the parish priest is too happy; she is always joyous; she does not feel the need of being consoled.
Giovanni.—Console me.
Maria.—Dear Giovanni, I have given you all that I can give you. We stand so near to each other that if we were to cross a single line we should turn friendship into a very different affection. You, besides, are happy. I should like to have tears to dry, some great misfortune to relieve. I should like to know, in order to transform the most miserable human being into the gladdest creature on the earth.
Giovanni.—Listening to your words, we might suppose that wretched people should be manufactured intentionally in order that you might console them.
Maria.—This necessity does not exist. The unfortunate are many; they are, in truth, a mighty multitude, and the pity of the fortunate would not suffice for them all.
Giovanni.—Civilisation, however, ought so to act as to render charity useless. Charity I regard as a bitter medicine. and it would be best to have neither sick folk nor medicines. Almsgiving is an instrument used with art too diabolical by the clergy for me to be able to give it my sympathies. It has not merely maintained, it has centuplicated pauperism, besides encouraging idleness and demoralising the poorer classes of our communities.
Maria.—Almsgiving is only one of the means of succouring him who suffers, and, perchance, it is one of the easiest, most commonplace means. When I speak of charity I do not mean almsgiving chiefly; I mean the gift of our individuality io others, or, at least, the pouring the excess of our joy, of our riches, of our youth into the soul of him who is afflicted. To succour, to console, to counsel, to protect, but always without humiliating; to become the companion, the friend of him who sorrows, to sojourn, to weep with him— that is charity. It is charity to feel that the better part of ourselves detaches itself from us and goes to heal the broken heart of another; charity to feel tears running down our cheeks, and not to know whether they flow from onr own eyes or from the eyes of the unhappy one whom we wish to make happy.
Giovanni.—Dear Maria, what an angelic being you are! But in Oggobio there must be unfortunate people, and the new priest should have pointed them out to you.
Maria.—Already I have sought for some information respecting the matter, and the priest has given me the list of five or six cases of extreme poverty. Au old blind woman, who has neither children nor kinsfolk; a poor palsied man, who is a burden to a family of fishermen; a peasant who suffers from epilepsy and cannot work; and so on. These are all poor persons whom my money suffices to comfort, and whom I often visit. I have no merit in bestow’ing alms on such unfortunates. My husband has made me mistress of all his fortune, and, as we are only two, we have too much money—far too much. Without sacrifice it does not seem to me that charity has any value. I feel with delight the clasp of the hand which thanks me ; I see with joy the smile of the unfortunate being by me comforted ; but I leave with a livelier yearning to love, to do good. I anxiously and ardently seek some grand misfortune which may occupy all the energies of my heart, which may make me weep with utmost plenitude of grief.
Giovanni.—Dearest Maria, I see with much pleasure that religion is not sufficient to satisfy your heart. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that a life spent wholly in religious adoration is the hyperbole of selfishness. But you, my dear friend, cannot be selfish.
Maria.—But my religion teaches charity, and enforces it as one of the first of duties. The Gospel itself is nothing more than a grand teaching of charity.
Giovanni.—All Catholics do not think so. I have often seen the most insatiable selfishness in alliance with the most furious bigotry. Two smallest coins given when they are leaving church on Sunday many bigots deem a substitute for every good work, for every sacrifice, for every virtue of abnegation. You ascribe to religion many merits which are exclusively your own. I have the intense conviction that if you had been born a Turkish, a Hebrew, or a Protestant woman you must have been the same angelic creature you are now. *
Maria.—Do not flatter me, Giovanni; teach me rather to do some good work which may fill my heart and inspire me with some esteem for myself. I feel myself almost useless in this world! To win Paradise by such a small sacrifice seems to me unworthy of any one who is conscious of the vigour and the virtue to combat and to conquer.
Giovannf .—Verily, Maria, do you make no sacrifice in this world? If it is true do not repeat the statement, for such words give me pain.
Maria.—No, Giovanni, do not take my words in an evil sense. I f^el every day that I am accomplishing a difficult sacrifice. ZBut to bear it along with you comforts me, and
renders it almost sweet from habit. In every fashion the mere abstinence from evil is nothing more than a negative virtue, and I wish, absolutely wish, to do good. I wish to be good according to a vague ideal which I have formed in my soul. I wish to draw' near to the absolute good. I long to sacrifice pleasure, the beautiful, perchance even the true, that I may touch with the points of my fingers the ideal of goodness.
Giovanni.—I, on the contrary, Maria, feel impelled toward the true. The good seems to me an indescribably dull, apathetic, weak, and colourless thing. How many people are good because they have not the courage to be bad. They do not steal, thov do not murder, because, perchance, they do not desire the property of others. To women they do not pay court, because they do not care for them; and they do not play cards, because they are afraid of losing. They speak well of all, because they do not wish to be pestered by annoyances and contradictions: they never flame up into auger, because they have no bile in their liver, no nerves in their heart. These are all good people: do you wish to be classed with them, Maria?
Maria.—No, dear Giovanni, this is not goodness, it is weakness or indolent good nature. The goodness I dream of is the overthrow of selfishness, and the triumph of all the benevolent sentiments of our heart; it is the absolute destruction in us of envy, malice, hatred, under all their forms. The goodness I dream of is the incarnation of Providence in a single individual, whereby from the first smile with which we salute the housemaid who wakens us, to the last caress with which we close our day, our every act, our every desire, our every thought, our every word are directed toward the good of others, and especially of those who are nearest us. Goodness is never to cause to any human creature, any. even the smallest, pain; to live evermore surrounded by the benedictions and the affections of all; to feel that we are necessary to many, useful to all. Such is my ideal.
Giovanni.—Let me in my turn say, dearest Maria, that all this is not goodness. This is heroism, this is sublime abnegation, this is to be God on earth.
Maru.—Well, then, I should like to be a Christ-like woman. Does not my boldness seem excessive ? Does not my ambition appear to you very exalted ?
Giovanni.—But Christ was crucified.
Maria.—And I should not refuse the cup of Gethsemane if I knew that my sacrifice took away pain from the face of the earth.
Giovanni.—Yet it is your God who has created pain, and who has made thereof the sad mystery of all creation.
Maria.—He himself came down to earth to drink the cup of all sorrows and to die of pain.
Giovanni.—Goodness such as you dream it, such as you are capable of attaining, is an ideal so high that I cannot understand it. In every fashion it appears to me a god more feminine than masculine. Love the Beautiful, Maria, which exacts much less sacrifice, and which you yourself represent in a manner so sublime.
Maria.—I confess that the Beautiful likewise fascinates me; but, as I cannot reproduce it, how should I be able to adore it? Religion without worship I can neither understand nor imagine. I draw very badly, and my musical attainments are slender. How, then, could I propose to myself the Beautiful as the ideal of my life ? The Beautiful is the god of artists.
Giovanni.—And does not the True attract you?
Maria.—Still less than the Beautiful. I should need to be a devotee of science to adore the True. I should need to have intellectual forces which I do not possess. I should need to feel myself capable of great discoveries, of brilliant inventions.
Giovanni.—Nevertheless, there is something divine in the conquest of Truth. To discern Truth, to follow it across the clouds of ignorance, the jungle of prejudices; to vanquish vanity, fanaticisms, errors of the senses, hallucinations of thought; to march through so many obstacles to a promised land which no one before us has touched, to plant our banner there, and say: “God has given it me; woe to him who touches it!”—all this is divine.
Maria.—Yes; all this is beautiful and grand, and I understand it. The True, however, is too virile for us poor women, and I leave the religion thereof to you.
Giovanni.—My adoration is a pious desire, and my relations with the True are very sterile. As you already know, there is in my heaven only one divinity—yourself—living personification of everything beautiful, everything true, and everything good. If you wish me to have an Olympus, I shall be your disciple, your neophyte, your catechumen, or whatever title you may bestow upon me, in the religion of goodness. I shall aid you to discover afflictions which you can console, and you, if you have need of a helper, can summon me to the holy alliance.
Maria.—Let us shake hands, dear Giovanni. As you do not want to enter my Paradise in heaven, let us at least here on earth adore the Good together; let us seek to define better that sublime element of the ideal world; let us strive to draw near to each other by all possible paths.
After such dialogues as these, high in aim and high in import, we turn somewhat unwillingly to what is more in accordance with an Italian than with an English taste. The singular freedom allowed to married women in Italy leads to results as singular. One of Maria’s friends, a married woman,
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was deserted by her lover and was in deep affliction. Maria had longed for a great misfortune to which sho could be the divine minister. She hastes to Milan to console her friend, and on her return to Oggobio she sends her long letters, from which copious extracts are given. The lady’s trouble is not one with which English readers can keenly sympathise, and still less can they sympathise with Maria’s attempts to lead her friend to repentance, to religion, and thence to peace and joy. It is a degradation of religion to suppose that it is only a mode, or rather the chief mode, of narcotising the soul after the soul has grievously sinned. However, the episode gives Giovanni and Maria occasion to renew their talk about their own sad and yet sweet relations. Not to go further into the matter, it savours, peradventure, of dilet-tanteism to make 44 II Dio Ignoto” approachable by amorous adventures and by rhetorical confabulation regarding them. However, if this is a defect, it also constitutes part of the originality of the book, and does not conflict with its main intention.
®be 6t^ics of Smoke.
[Judy, Dec. 10, 1879.^
The curtains are drawn, there’s a fragrant perfume of Tobacco pervading my snug little room.
My guests have departed, but I’ll not retire; The evening is cold, so I’ll bask by the fire! There’s lots of Tobacco and something to drink, I’ll light a fresh pipe and I’ll sit down and think. The coals burn right redly, I’ll give them a poke, And silently muse o’er the Ethics of Smoke!
That smoking is sottish and vulgar and low, Some folks still aver—but that’s nothing, you know; For they know not the charm—how could they, indeed?— That governs the students in School of the Weed. As Ruskin has writ on the Ethics of Dust, Pray, ladies, look not on my lay with disgust, Nor treat what I say in the light of a joke— Find food for reflection in Ethics of Smoke!
I’ll tell you of something I witnessed to-day. A stout, burly man who was driving a dray, Stopped exquisite Swellsley, and asked him outright, To kindly oblige him by giving a light!
The lordly cubana, plebeian dhudheen (How smoke levels all may be easily seen I), At once were united the moment he spoke In tender respect for the Ethics of Smoke!
Fast friendships, I know—you may smile if you please— Oft date from the loan of a box of fusees;
While the deepest of quarrels and sorest of scars Have quickly been healed ’neath the fume of cigars! The Amateur Casual has told us how Kay Passed round to his comrades the stumpy black clay: E’en outcasts who scramble for 44 skilly” and 44 toke,” Forgot not, in hunger, the Ethics of Smoke I
We’ve heard how Sir Isaac, a long time ago, Used his lady-love’s finger—’twas not comme il faut— To stopper his pipe, thus it seems pretty plain The Ethics of Smoke had no place in his brain!
And Raleigh, while smoking in earlier days, Whose servant, alarmed, thought his master ablaze! So, seizing a bucket. Sir Walter did soak, With little regard for the Ethics of Smoke!
Comes back to me now, through the filmy blue cloud, Bright faces, gay scenes, with true hearts quite a crowd! Soft singing, light laughter—I listen in vain— I never shall hear those sweet voices again!
A dear smiling face, eyes so loving and bright, A white little hand that once gave me a light! Ah! me------it is time that I sported my oak, And gave over thinking of Ethics of Smoke!
Copt’s M&fure.
In the Lancet of January 3 appears the following letter from the late Professor Parkes—author of the 44 Manual of Practical Hygiene,” and one of the greatest authorities on that important subject—to Dr. Wm. Pratt, of Newtown, Montgomeryshire, who communicates it to our medical contemporary :—
44	My dear Mr. Pratt,—I think nay state of mind as regards Tobacco is very much what yours seems to be. I have honestly tried to collect evidence from moderate smokers, both medical men and others, and when tolerance has been established, I have never been able to make out any symptoms which implied injury. In the case of many medical men whom I have asked to study their own condition, the answer has always been the same—viz., they could see no harm or disturbance of any function. Even in sqme cases of enormous smokers—1>., men who rarely were without a pipe or cigar—I could learn of no injury.
41	On the other hand, I have seen, like all of us, men complaining of dyspepsia, nervousness, palpitation, &c., and who were much better for leaving off smoking; in fact, in these cases there could be no doubt of an injurious effect.
“ In boys of fourteen or fifteen who begin to smoke, I think I have observed that tolerance is slowly attained; that appetite is less, and I presume diges-
tion and nutrition less good, and that the complexion becomes pasty and less florid and clear. There was a striking case of this kind in the son of a medical friend, who watched his son naturally very carefully, and who told me that the effect of the Tobacco (a good deal was smoked) was quite unmistakable. I persuaded the son to lessen his Tabacco one-half, and his health certainly improved, but he was then a yoing man. That some • injury, therefore, is sometimes produced, and especially on young people, seems to me quite clear; but it is curious, in other cases, how difficult it is to find ill effects, oven in the young, when tha quantity is not excessive.
“ As to the effect on the young even, it Is curious in Burmah to see children smoking in their mothers’ arms; and yet when I was serving in Burmah, many years ago, I often saw a woman walking along smoking her cigar of Tobacco rolled up in a plantain-leaf, and carrying on her hip her child of two or three years old, who also hud his or her little cigar, which was smoked with the greatest gravity. On talking to the Burmese (who smoke constantly), they would never allow that even young children were in the least damaged. When I was in Turkey I trici to make inquiries of some of the intelligent Turkish gentlemen; oi^e or two of them said they thought the Turks had learnt to smoke from the Europeans, and had ban growing apathetic and dull ever since. But others laughed at this, agd the rural Turk, who smokes a good dial, is a fine, active, energetic fellow.
“	I have talked to many Germans, who all stand out manfully for Tobacco.
4	4 In conclusion, I confess myself quite uncertain. I can find nothing like good evidence in books; too often a foregone conclusion, without any evidence to back it, is given.
“	I think we must decidedly admit injury from excess; from moderate use I can see no harm, except it may be in youth.
“	My opinions are, you will sec, very indefinite, and I would gladly Me some really good evidence collected. If at any time you can send me any facts, I shall be very grateful.
44 Believe me. very sincerely yours, “Bitterne, Southampton, Jan. 28,1876.	E. A. Parkes.*
I have quoted this letter at length, not only because of the eminence of 44 the great and good^man who wrote it,” but also because of its thoroughly rational and truly scientific spirit, in luminous contrast to that which he so justly condemns in the summing-up ; 441 can find nothing like good evidence in books; too often a foregone conclusion, without any evidence to back it, is given.'1 A correspondent, in calling our attention to this letter, remarks, 441 have been a very heavy smoker for more than forty years, a£d feel none the worse for it; on the contrary, I firmly believe that it has been of great benefit to a 4 gouty habit * which I inherit from my late father.” The Standard, of January 5th, observes in a sensible article suggested by the letter—an article in which we of course meet our old familiars, James I., Urban VIII., Innocent IX., Amurath IV., Burton, Charles Lamb, and Carlyle: 44 The moral prejudice against smoking has, perhaps, nearly died out, and it is no longer supposed that there is any necessary connection between low or vicious society and the enjoyment of Tobacco. The truth is that the habit has become so general that to cherish this antiquated superstition to-day would be to attempt that which Burke said he knew not how to do—‘to draw an indictment against a whole nation.’ ... If a census of smokers were taken, it would probably be found to include the majority of Englishmen above the age of sixteen.” These be sad words for 44 The Smoke Nuisance—the Anti-Tobaccoite; ” so defined and interpreted in the Glasgow Bailie : but as for that drawing an indictment against a whole nation, Burke himself, unfortunately for his own fame and our welfare, afterwards did it in the case of the French ; and your real Anti-everything-pleasant, like your real Calvinist of Original Sin, Eternal Damnation, and hopelessly disordered fiver, is always ready at a moment’s notice, or without any notice at all, to indict not merely a whole nation, but the whole of humankind, with the insignificant and utterly contemptible exception of himself and a very few more fanatics congenially unsavoury.
Let us to something wholesome and pleasant. We have been favoured with a copy of a neat little pamphlet, unpublished, 44 The Pipes of all Peoples.” Not the pastoral pipes and organ pipes, the water pipes and gas pipes; only and supremely the Tobacco Pipes. The first half, by “Eate,” reprinted from the Birmingham Daily Post of December 16, 1870, is a rapid survey of 44 the magnificent collection of pipes of all nations, collected during many years by Mr. Wm. Bragge, F.S.A., the Master Cutler of Sheffield, and most kindly lent to the most important institute of his native town.” The collection includes, in addition to pipes, specimens of pretty nearly all the articles ever used as instrumental to the taking of Tobacco; pouches, cigar-cases, jars, stoppers; snuff mills, rasps, spoons, boxes, bottles; fire strikers; with opium pipes, chunam and betel boxes, betel cutters. The second half of the pamphlet is a Brief List of the Tobacco Collection of Mr. Bragge, drawn out by himself, dated January, 1880, and thus prefaced:—
44	The foregoing article refers to the collection as it was in 1870 [when already it contained more than six thousand specimens]. Since then it has grown largely in numbers and completeness, scarcely a typical kind of pipe known being now absent from the collection. The ethnological and artistic interest of the collection as a whole is, therefore, far greater now than when it was exhibited in Birmingham, at the Midland Institute, in 1870, or at South Kensington, in the International Exhibition, in 1873.”
Very many of our readers must have enjoyed an inspection d)f the articles rich and rare; now for Mr. Bragge’s concluding paragraphs, which will delight all Nicotian bibliophiles:—
“	The Library of Books about Tobacco, forming part of the same collection, consists of about 400 volumes, ranging in date from 1547 to the present time. In the early literature of the subject the collection is very rich: 30 works bearing dates earlier than 1600 ; 4 7 from 1600 to 1650; and 86 from 1650 to 1750. The Library contains a noble Folio, written and illustrated by George Catlin, expressly for Mr. Bragge, describing the smoking appliances and customs of the North American Indians.
44	There Ore also some rare collections of early Tobacco Papers; the original Guild Books and Documents, in five folio Volumes, of the Pipe Makers’ Guild of Gouda—from the earliest times the seat of the pipe-making industry in Holland—together with a complete set of drawings of the Marks granted by that Guild; and a very large collection of curious cuttings and prints relating to Tobacco, in twenty folio volumes; and many specially illustrated works.
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“A second edition of this 'Bibliotheca Nicotiana* is now ready for the pros, and will shortly be published.”
May this precious harvest of many years’ gathering never share the fate of Mr. Bragge’s noble Cervantes collection in the Birmingham Free Library, apropos of whose destruction “G. A. S.” wrote in the Illustrated London News about a year since: “ I think that I met Mr. Bragge during my first journey in Spain in 1866. ... I remember an aphorism of his: * The best part of a Spanish dinner is the Havanna cigar which you have yourself brought from England.’ ” In like manner, one may remark that the best thing you can get out of a “religious” paper is very often your righteous indignation at the cant and stupidity and uncharitableness found in it. In a religious paper of a very different sort; I mean the regular Church Service of the adult male Londoner, the Referee (January 11), our friend “Dagonet” calls attention to one such:—
“Someone has favoured mo with a copy of the Christian, a blasphemous production, from which I cull the following. The readers are requested to offer praise ‘ that ft husband of a large family, who was killing himself by smoking, has reduced his consumption of the obnoxious weed to [»ir| two-thirds per week—i/., two [«/c] ounces instead of six. Pray now that he may give this up. and see himself a sinner.' It is almost revolting that there should be fools in the world who drug our beautiful religion down to such a level as this. Fancy the idea of the Almighty which must exist in the minds of people who think it requires 20,000 people to pray the husband ‘of » large family’ out of his ounce of ’Baccy. I fancy there is as much knavery os foolery at the bottom of some of these ultra-unctuous Stigging and Chadband rags.”
In fact the “ Prayers are Requested ” department of some of these rags, as plain-speaking “ Dagonet ” very properly terms them, is simply a School for Scandal sacrilegiously kept open in the Temple; and the rag itself, with all its pious pretensions, but another Paddy Kelley's Budget; not a lion’s mouth but a wolfs or a serpent’s mouth, wherein cowardly anonymous hypocritical, certainly malicious and probably false, denunciations may be dropped, perhaps to the cureless injury of the victims, for the initials and other particulars are frequently quite precise enough to mark the persons thus hbellously prayed for to their little world. There is about as much genuine religion in this class of “religious” papers as of genuine Tobacco in the cigars of the following paragraph taken from Anti-Levitical Truth oi December 28 :—
“An amusing ease recently occupied the attention of the Retford maris-trate. A man was charged with selling Tobacco in the form of cigars without the customary licence. The defence set up was os novel as irresistible, it being affirmed that the cigars contained no Tobacco at all, but were composed entirely of cabbage-leaves and hay I This was a case for which the licencing regulations had made no provision, and the prisoner had to be dismissed. Still, os the Revenue officer, dissatisfied with the result, has given notice of an appeal, it is quite likely nje shall hear more of this very remarkable cigar manufacture.”
We have heard of this sort of thing before; and think the pedlar’s morality quite on a par with that of the Customs and Excise Laws which call his trade into existence and then prosecute it. Anyhow, he was probably just as much a seafaring as the hero of our next extract was a see-fair-ing man:—
“ A cmss-eyed man cast a gloom over a street car Inst Wednesday by asking one of the seven men, and strangers, on the opposite seat ‘If he had any chewing Tobacco handy ? ’ First the seven strangers looked at each other. Then the seven hands went pocket ward; and, upon observing this motion, each of the seven supposed his neighbour the one spoken to, and the seven hands returned empty. The cross-eyed man cast a richochet glance of indignation along the line, and with the remark, ‘ A sweet-scented lot of generous roosters,’ took a chew of his own Tobacco.”
Tn the “ Mixture ” of October last the Antis were kindly presented with the frightful warning of a poor woman prematurely killed by Tobacco when only about 107 years of age; having “blasted a’ her days "—i.e., blown a cloud, not cursed and sworn. Another case almost as bad might have been bestowed upon them in the same “ Mixture; ” for I read in the Tinies oi September 26:—
“ The last ‘old, old, very old’ woman who has become known to fame is a widow Macpherson, whose ‘grandson, writing to the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, points out that she was bom in the same year in which Dr. Johnson and his friend Boswell visited the‘savage clans and roving barbarians, of the Scottish Highlands. Mrs. Peter Macpherson’s case is one of centenarianism under difficulties, for, as her grandson tells us, during the 105 years and eight months of her protracted span she has lived in ft hovel neither smoke nor water proof. Like the tinker who had found whisky a very slow poison, having drunk it freely for a century, it may be added, for the information of the Anti-Tobacco Society, that the"widow Macpherson has been a devotee of the * Cutty ’ for pretty nearly os long, thereby, perhaps, preventing the fret and worry which experts tell us is a potent shortenex of life.”
“Ah me, what perils do environ the man that meddles with cold iron!” But if this Iron has entered the soul of the sweet Anti, here is something to solace him. On the very last day of last year Captain Cornelius Hock, of the barque “Regina Maria,” was fined £25, and costs £2 6s. 6d., at Falmouth, for concealing 51 lbs. of Cavendish Tobacco. The Customs officers found it covered with dirty clothes in a drawer under his bed. It would have been rather a mockery the next morning to drink that poor skipper “ A Happy New Year!” in a bottle of his namesake. No doubt he wished he could have washed his dirty clothes at home. And here is another case yet more comforting to our Anti. On that very same last day of last year, at the Leeds Police Court, a corn-miller’s assistant, named Richard Gawkrodger (how Mr. Shandy would have descanted on the inevitable fatality of such a name!), was committed for trial for causing the death of his wife by thrusting the stem of a Tobacco-pipe up her nostril. It fractured the skull and brought on infiammation of the brain, the latter the immediate cause of death. The deductions are self-evident: No smoking, no pipes; no pipes, no pipe-stem to thrust up the nostril; therefore, my dear brethren and dearer sisters, the accursed
habit of smoking Tobacco was the sole, real, genuine, original, ultimate, indubitable cause of that poor innocent woman’s cruel and heartless and violent death. If there had been no pipes, he might have used a knitting needle, or a knife, or the poker. But there are pipes in existence ; and I tell you that the devil, cunningly and properly, chose this his favourite, instrument: the instrument on which he always loves to play, the pipe with which he allures and seduces souls to do the dreadful deed. It was doubtless the pipe that alone made the wretched man capable of doing it, so it was the pipe that must complete the horrible and abominable and terrible and detestable work of his depravation and her destruction. And who can deny that our Anti, in preaching thus, has a far better case than certain northern ministers, and southron papers “improving” the Tay Bridge catastrophe? Here is one more trifle, just thrown in for his surplusage of contentment. At Exeter, on the 14th January, John Phillips, assistant-warder, was sentenced to a fine of £10, or three months’ hard labour (unfortunately the cash was forthcoming), for conveying to a convict two ounces of Tobacco, some note paper, envelopes, pencils, and two newspapers. The convict turned Queen’s evidence. He shall never, if I know it, get a pipeful, or even a light, from
Your Man-of-All-Work.
&ales Mb on tlje Sea of |cl
XI.—A TEMPERANCE LECTURE. THE SEA OF ENCHANTMENT. THE LAND AROUND THE POLE. BURIED ALIVE. AN AWFUL
APPARITION.
I’ve lived long enough in this world to fully appreciate the blessings of temperance—not, believe me, the temperance of the noodle-headed, cold-skinned total abstainer, nor that of the mawkish Anti; lor the very abstemiousness of such men is but a hobby to which they often cling with an obstinate pertinacity, that really constitutes the worst form of intemperance. And such men, too, you nearly always find are far from temperate in the pursuit of other pleasures, that ruin their constitutions just as effectually and quickly, as over indulgence in wine or Tobacco would. What more common, for example, than to find a total abstainer who at table eats like a glutton and talks like an old wife, or a miserable Anti, the doings of whose private life would not stand measuring by even an india-rubber scale of morality? But the temperance I uphold is the temperantia in omne, not in eating and drinking alone, but in talking, in thinking, in working, waking and sleeping, and in your pleasures as well. This I imagine to be true temperance, and the only thing of the sort that is likely to conduce to long life. I have been led to make these sage remarks from the remembrance of the morn following the day, which found us encamped on the margin of that mysterious sea which we had made up our minds to cross in our search for the land around the pole. It was the doctor who had proposed splicing the main brace. Now, there was no harm in that, had we stopped at that. I am sorry to say we didn’t, nor at twice that; so it is no wonder that, when next day we resumed our toilsome march, we were all as quiet and moody as so many moles. The only merry one amongst us was tire big Newfoundland, and he was bright because he had spliced the main brace on an additional Spratt cake.
It was the first time, and, Dm happy to say, the only time, we began the morning with heavy hearts. Though he did not say so, I believe it was by way of doing a little penance that the captain gave the order that until after the midday meal there should be no smoking. So we didn’t feel very jolly, I can tell you, and wouldn’t have minded a bit just then had the order been to “bear up” and return to the ship. But what will the purity of the air of that far-northern climate not accomplish; and this, combined with the effects of our midday meal, the smoking soup, the modest modicum of rum, and, above all, the post-prandial pipe, made us once more as happy and jolly as the traditional sand-boy. Hard and dangerous work we knew was before us, but we did not fear it. We were encamped on the very shores of the strangest, wildest, wierdest sea it had ever been the lot of mortal man to gaze upon, and yet we felt neither daunted nor dismayed; and, as soon as we were rested, and feeling like giants refreshed, the order was given for the march, and the sledge was hauled down and launched, so to speak, among the breakers of that silent Ocean of Ice.
Our way lay through the troughs, or hollows, between the waves, and a toilsome one it was to trace; no longer straight, but zig-zag, up and down, round and over the green frozen water; now over-topped by a gigantic glittering wall crowned with feathery foam-like snow, that seemed about to break downwards and engulph us, now high up on a rough but slippery billow, from which we could gaze for miles around us, and it needed but the image of a ship somewhere leaning well over, as if battling with the elements, to complete the delusion, and cause us to believe we had indeed embarked on an enchanted ocean. And no wonder was it that we were all heartily tired, although we had journeyed but a few miles ere it was time to up-tent and turn in for the night, jfcWhen
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morning came—or what would be morning in other lands— we were up, breakfasted, and at it again. And on we toiled all that day, not uncheered, however, by the herb divine, and not only by that, but, ridiculous though it may seem, by the happy looks on the gaucy face of that great Newfoundland. He was always a little distance ahead, and always looking round all smiles and teeth and monstrous waving tail, saying, with eyes of hazel brown—
“ Come on, brave boys; we’re sure to get to something at last.”
On the night of the third day, while stretched on our rugs on the green, green ice that formed the trough of the sea, we had hardly gone to sleep ere we were aroused by a strange sound, that came apparently from beneath our very heads. We all heard it distinctly enough: a peculiarly mournful, mourning, cooing sound, rising and falling, not unlike that made by the sighing of a wintry wind among telegraph wires. Yes, down there beneath the ice it undoubtedly was; for, when we drew aside the canvas and looked out, all was silent as ever around, the sky still unclouded, the sun still shiningin his blue domain, and we heard the strange noise no longer, until our heads reclined once more on our pallets. We heard it, too, every night afterwards, till we got clear away out from among the frozen billows; it was at times varied for a short time by a kind of rushing or hissing sound. But what it proceeded from, or what was its natural cause, we could not even guess. »We were, indeed, in a strange, mysterious place. But stranger things were to befall us.
The waves of this veritable Sea of Ice got perceptibly smaller as we got farther and farther north, but they still had the same lay, the crests and broken snowy upper portions being directed towards the south; and so one day we were not surprised to find ourselves safe and sound on the other shore. Once more the roughly “hummocked” ice, snowclad, which we had been used to on the first days of our journey; but the hummocks were less square, nor were there anywhere visible upheavals of pack ice. Towards camping time we came in view of a distant range of rounded hills, on sighting which the captain broke silence for the first time in a whole hour.
“Men,” he said, and we all crowded round him, even Dunskin looking serious; “take pickaxe and shovel, and dig here on the side of this hummock.”
We did as he told us. Down, down, down we went, working in relays, working and wondering that we threw up naught save snow. At last we could go no further: the pickaxes rang on something hard.
Quartz and frozen earth!
“ I thought so,” cried the captain; “ this is the land abound the pole. The object of our strange journey is well nigh accomplished.”
That night the bull-like bellowing of prowling Polar bears was heard near the camp, and we could not resist the temptation, tired though we were, of following some of them up. Several of an almost incredible size fell before our rifles. They were very far from shy. Some young ones, also, that we shot made a valuable addition to our larder.
Next day we crossed the range of hills, and found ourselves by the margin of a vast expanse of level ice, as smooth as glass, seemingly the frozen w’aters of some mighty inland lake; for we could see the tip's of jagged mountains surrounding it on almost every side, while above one of these, spread out along the horizon, was something we had not seen for many a long day—a cloud.
“ Yonder,” cried the captain, exultingly, and pointing towards it; “ yonder, boys, is the promised land.”
And here, by the banks of this frozen lake, we determined to rest for a couple of days—days which were spent by the captain and mate in taking sights by the sun, and making mysterious calculations which none of the rest of us could make head or tail of. But little we recked. We had the smooth ice to disport ourselves on. Had we had skates, we could have travelled for miles; as we had’nt, we could only “ keep the pot a-boiling,” like as many overgrown but joyous schoolboys, looking, in our caps and dresses of fur, just like as many brown bears on end—only brown bears couldn’t have blown' the clouds we did.
The captain and mate, from the way they rubbed their brown hands and chuckled over their bowls of bouilli, must have made their calculations with a nicety that pleased themselves, at all events. The night before we started to cross the frozen lake was one of the most intense cold ever I have known. So bitter w’as it that we got up from off our rugs by three in the morning, had breakfast and hot coffee, launched our sleigh and started. We ma<le twenty miles that day. The distant mountains rose higher and higher, the cloud on their tops grew’ broader, and at midnight the sun dipped behind it, but did not disappear, only his beams looked lurid and red. It was a strange cloud. Next day a new surprise: more clouds banking up in the north, and a high wind blowing in our faces—a cutting, cutting wind, cold enough to have blistered the cheeks of a marble statue. But we stuck to our clays, and braved it like men. At midday we camped to leeward of the sledge. Fed, coffeed, rummed, and smoked. Broke a hole in the clear ice, after much ado—it was three feet thick—to prove the water was fresh. Behold, there was none there, either salt or fresh! One of the tent poles w’as lowered into the hole, and, to our great suprise, when some ten feet down it struck against another layer of solid ice, a “lower deck,” as Paddy termed jt.
Colder and colder and more cutting grew the wind; we shook and shivered in the deadly blast, as we struggled against it. We had almost made up our minds to put about and run before it, but about ten more miles would take us to the shelter of the “gomerils of snow” on the other side. But, stay, can this be magic? Are we, indeed, enchanted? See, wTe come suddenly to a long wide rent in the ice—a straightly cut chasm stretching away on each side of us as far as eye could reach, and some twenty feet wide. To proceed farther that day was impossible, but we determined to lower the sledge to the bottom of the crevice, and seek shelter for the night. This was safely performed; we drew her in under the northern side, the upper ice forming a roof above our heads, under which, had we cared to, we could have walked for ever so many miles. We only drew in, however, sufliciently far to secure shelter, and then began to prepare our bivouac. Never was haven of rest more welcome to weary mariner than was this interminable cave of ice to us. It seemed positively warm “between decks,” as Paddy would call our locality. •
The day passed without an adventure, save one: the doctor and I, taking our rifles and the dog, set out to explore. We wandered fully a mile from the sledge, our eyes soon getting used to the dim light that glimmered through the ice-roof. There was everywhere the same even surface to tread, varied only here and there by roughened blocks of ice that seemed to support the roof. We soon found, however, it was more easy to wander away from than to join our companions again, and but for the guidance of our honest four-footed friend, we might have perished and left our bones for the bears to pick. More than one of these gentry offered to join us at dinner that day, and received a noisy reception.
Tired and weary with past fatigues, and lulled by the sealike roar of the sweeping storm above us, we slept heavily. Tired and weary—worse luck—our sentry slumbered too, or we might have known our danger in time to save ourselves. It was pitch dark all around when we awoke. A snowstorm —and only those who have been out in Greenland know how quickly the snow falls in those regions, and how large are the flakes—had succeeded the fierce east wind, and we were caught like rats in a trap. And such a trap! Days and weeks might elapse ere we could dig ourselves out, if, indeed, it should not be our fate that our bodies should lie unburied in the cave till the last trump should rend the ice and set us free.
Though hopeless our task, we commenced; but, working almost in the dark, days and days elapsed, and still we made but little progress. But one weary night—it was all night now as it once had all been day—we were suddenly startled by hearing a splashing of water—the sound a great fish makes in the quietness of a calm sea.
“Hark! men, hark!” cried the captain; “quick, quick, let us draw the sleigh towards the sound.”
Men never worked faster than we did then. The sound was continued at uncertain intervals, and at length we reached the brink of an ink-dark stream—ink-dark, yet alive with phosphorescent life. We could see strange-shaped, snakelike fish, small and great, some hideous in their monstrosity, but each having the appearance of fishes of fire in the midst of the blackness around them. It was a stream —a running stream—and we resolved to follow its course: it was apparently our only hope, and we looked upon ourselves as but little better than dead men at the best. We acted on our resolve in a moment. We worked and walked in silence, heavy of heart—men entombed. A dull bluish glare hovered along the surface of the water which rendered other light unnecessary.
Suddenly we paused, and with bated breath gazed in wonder and awe adown the stream. “ Great God!” we murmured. What figure stands yonder in that black boat, tall, lanky, and terrible, with a head like a hammer shark?
“ Hush,” whispered the doctor. “ It is Charon. Heaven help us!”
“ And who is Charon ?” hissed Paddy.
“Charon,” answered the doctor, “why, the fiend who ferries you over the Styx to the evil place.”
“ Och! mother’s son on me,” cried poor Paddy, “ and sure we’ll be all come for. Just look, look at the cratur; he has hooked a fiery fish, and it’ll be ateing it, blazes and all, he’ll be doing.”
“Charon or not Charon,” said the skipper, boldly, “I’ll hail him ; any place is better than this.”
“ Och I don’t, captain darlint; is it the ugly black divil himself you’d be after riding with. Don’t, sur, don’t.”
“Boat ahoy!” roared the captain. “Bow, wow,” barked the Newfoundland, and the voices came thundering back to us in a thousand echoes, w’hile the figure in the boat almost sprang out of it. He had seized the oars next moment, nevertheless, and commenced to make off.
“ Pull in,” roared the captain, ‘‘ pull in here, I say, man or devil, and guide us out of these infernal regions, or TH riddle your dark skin with my revolver. D’ye hear ?”
He fired the pistol once over his head as he spoke. The flash revealed the features, the long lantern jaws, the solemn face, and the awfu’ braid bannet—of wha? of wha but our auld freen’, Dauvid Drinkwater.
“ Golly, golly,” cried Dunskin; “ that is hee, that’s hee, hee, the Englishman that is not like de Danish peoples.”
“Pull in, Dauvid man, we are all friends; we won’t touch a hair in your old head.”
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Next moment we were all going down the stream merrily together—part in the boat, part on the brink with the sleigh. And we had all lit up our pipes again. It grew lighter and lighter, till we once more stood out in the glad though cold sunlight.
“ Hurra! boys,” cried the captain. 44 Hurra! three cheers for
THE LONE LORN LAND OF THE ANTIS.
Of which land more anon.
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
ppt ^oburtrs.
xvm.—BUCKLE’S SHIP.
Amono my heroes I feel that I must include Buckle. Poor old Buckle! I greatly wonder where he is now. If he still lives, I trust he is well and hearty—I am perfectly sure he is thirsty; and if he is dead, I trust they have buried him in a nice damp place, for his ghost would never rest in a dry soil. He was a tailor by trade, and two things he was especially noted for—a continual thirst, and a total inability to resist what looked like a bargain. ’Twas in Deal, not far from the pier, where he cut up his cloth, and many a pleasant ramble with Buckle and a few other choice spirits have I had along the beach by the sounding sea, or on the top of the cliffs that keep the sea at bay. There were six of us agreed one day to do no work, but to go forth, like free-born Britons, and enjoy ourselves. 1
About dinner-time we entered Sandwich, one of the sleepiest places in the world. Bear witness to this, ye blades of grass that flourish so jubilantly in many of its streets. As good luck would have it, we found ourselves in time for the salmon at a commercial ordinary; and when that was done, we imported roast beef; and then, knowing that the salmon as a fish delighted in swimming, we gave it something to swim in; and after this, who dared to say that life was gloomy? Not one, for all hearts were merry.
Our track now lay over the sandhills, some few miles to Deal, but the hot sunshine wearied us; and as we found a little nook, grass-grown and shady, we sat down, and, lighting pipes, said but little and thought less. First one and then another fell gently back on the grass, and in short time the birds of the air flew over six sleeping beauties.
After this refreshing nap we made a fresh start, but it was very slow work, something like three miles every two hours; for there were frequent halts to enjoy the sight and sniff of the ocean, and little wagers as to who would make the best “ducks and drakes,” or jerk pebbles a greater distance than his fellows.
After we had been out of Sandwich some two hours, attention was drawn to Buckle’s face. On it there was an expression of intense suffering. “Buckle, old fellow,” said I, “what is wrong?” “Nothing!” he replied hoarsely, and with some little asperity. 44All right,” I said, “don’t be offended; I was merely going to offer to take to your wife any little last dying speech you might wish to make, and to inquire whether you’d like to be buried about here, or whether we should take your body home.”
“Don’t be a fool, Goggs!” he growled.
“He’s got it! ” put in Wilson, the bootmaker, at the same time getting well out of Buckle’s reach.
44 Got what? you jackass! ” cried Buckle.
“ Hydrophobia! ” replied Wilson ; 44 Look at his teeth curling and his eyes glaring. Don’t bite!—if you bite me, I’ll knock your head off.”
Buckle sat down, looking very savage; it was evident our fooling did not please him. Buxton, the butcher, suggested bleeding. Thornton suggested bumping, to increase circulation. “Put a lot of wet sand down his back,” said little Tyler.
Buckle called us a gang of idiots. “ I’m thirsty,” said he. “There’s nothing else the matter with me; and here we are, in the middle of a sandy desert, with nothing to drink; ” and poor Buckle mournfully shut his pipe-case on his great black meerschaum, and dropped it into his pocket.
“ Well, I could do with a glass of ale,” said Tyler, smacking his lips; 44 it would be nice, wouldn’t it, Buckle ? ”
44 Or some soda and brandy,” said Thornton.
44 Or some lemonade and claret,” suggested Buxton.
“Or iced champagne,” said Wilson; “Which shall it be, Buckle—ay?”
Buckle only groaned. 44 Put half a brick in your mouth.” I whispered, soothingly. “ Roll it well round and round; it causes the saliva to flow into the mouth, and so relieves thirst.” I just escaped a smashed hat, for Buckle rose in wrath and let go at my head-piece with his stick. Then he marched gloomily on.
Shortly afterwards we chanced upon a house. It looked something like a fisherman's cottage, and something like a coastguardman’s lair; anyhow, it looked like getting something to drink, if only water; so we made bold to rap at the door. The pirate, or whatever he was, happened to be at home, and to him we made known the state of our tongues and throats.
44 All right,” said he, 441 can give you some water; or, if you like to wait a bit, I can make you some tea; or ”—and
he paused, as if uncertain whether to proceed—“I think I can find a matter of two or three bottles of ale. Captain [he did not say who, but how we blessed that captain!j calls in sometimes, and he keeps a few bottles here to refresh himself; it won’t matter if you have two or three, I can easy get fresh ones.”
We could have hugged that hairy pirate for very gratitude when he produced three bottles; never was a finer brand known. Oh! how it went down our thirsty throats, singing, gurgling, and hissing on its way; and then, when it had fulfilled its mission, who so happy as Buckle: we were all happy, but he absolutely beamed with contentment.
After settling for the ale and giving our entertainer something for himself, we took a walk round the premises. Between the house and the sea there lay on the grass a very large boat; it looked something like a man-of-war’s boat, big enough to accommodate a dozen oarsmen.
“ Why, here’s a ship aground,” said Buckle—he always called anything that would float a ship—“What’s the meaning of this, admiral ?” This was to our entertainer.
“Well, sir,” said the man, “that belongs to me and my mate; about three months ago it came ashore, and we found it. We’ve made all sorts of inquiries, and nobody owns it; so I suppose it escaped from some ship at sea. Will you buy it, guv’nor?”
“What do you want for it?” inquired Buckle.
“Five pounds, sir,” replied the man.
44 Worth double the money,” whispered Buxton to Buckle.
44 Give you half,” said Buckle.
44 It’s a bargain, sir,” replied the sailor, “ I’ll take fifty bob. The boat’s only getting spoilt here.”
I believe Buckle would have been glad to back out of his bargain this time, but we held him to it for the fun of the thing, and as he was a spirited sort of fellow, not liking to be thought mean, he was as good as his word; and in this way he became the owner of a “ship.”
Buckle’s ship came home in about three days’ time; the men brought it round to Deal by sea, and then, with much ye-ho-ing, it was dragged up the beach, got on to a cart, and brought round to Buckle’s shop.
What Mrs. Buckle said no man but her husband knows to this day; but it is generally believed that she said a good deal, and it is a well-known fact that in public, if he happened to offend her, she just up-raised her “ tip-tilted,” and addressed him severely as 44 Captain Buckle.”
Buckle certainly looked, if he did not feel, like a fool in the presence of his vessel, which appeared, when on the cart, about as big as a juvenile whale; but he put a good face on the matter, and hired a disused bowling alley of mine host of
44 The Falcon ” to bring his ship safely to an anchorage. The rent at first was a little annoying, but very shortly mine host agreed to give harbour to the ship for nothing, for it brought him much custom. The bowling alley was in good condition, airy and dry, with plenty of gaslight in it, so that it was not a bad room for a jolly meeting when the day’s work was done. The ship was supported on each side by logs of wood to make it firm, and then, seated in it, there was ample room for a dozen or more to converse, or sing, as they were so minded. Buckle was captain, of course. I was bo’sun, Wilson was steward, Buxton was pilot, Tyler was cabin boy, and Thornton was the crew. Anyone else who came aboard was a passenger, or a 44 bale of goods,” or “ ballast,” &c. The ship itself we solemnly christened “ The Eight Tailors,” having in view the old saying that a captain should be part of his ship.
Many were the jolly meetings—or voyages, as we used to term them—that came to pass on board 44 The Eight Tailors;” nautical lingo, or as near as we could get it, being considered the correct thing. The “log” of the previous voyage was always read, and, if pronounced to be correct by the company, was signed by the captain. Here is one entry, as well as I can recollect it:—“Thursday, September 11th. — Sea smooth; atmosphere cloudy; ship going about six pots an hour. Pleasant and aromatic zephyrs from W.W. (whisky warm). At 9 p.m. boat alongside with fresh cargo of pewter, glass, and liquors. Skipper ordered them to be taken aboard. 9-30, crew slightly mutinous, passing uncomplimentary observations on the hue of the skipper’s nose; crew fined. 9-45. 4 Bale of wool ’ slipped from its position and fell into bottom of ship, hurting the pilot’s coms. Pilot spoke with unlawful emphasis ; pilot fined. 10 o’clock. Boat alongside, with landlord of 4 The Falcon.’ He came aboard to smoke a pipe, and sang 4 Rule, Britannia.’ Cabin boy fined for not taking his hat off. 10-30. Landlord, in the act of leaving the ship, fell into the sea; but being a Bung, swam like a cork. Anchor cast at 10-40.”
I would not have anyone think that a great deal of drink was consumed on these occasions. A good deal, of course, came in; but then it often happened that as many as sixteen or eighteen persons were on the ship. Most of them were regular, but not deep drinkers.
The “ Ton of Coals ” was rather a pompous individual; he looked upon himself as a pattern to all the rest of us in the matter of both smoking and drinking. His refreshments on the voyage never varied. He began with a pint tankard of stout, and when that was finished he followed it up very slowly and deliberately with a couple of glasses of brandy, cold and very weak. He also smoked three pipes of Tobacco, no more and no less.
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“ Captain,” said he one night, solemnly, as his nose came into sight from the interior of his tankard; “It is my impression that you do not drink with discrimination.”
“Never mind discrimi—whatshisname,” retorted the captain, with a chuckle; “ If I don’t drink with him, it’s because I don’t like his cognomen. I shall be very happy to drink with you, sir, shiver my timbers if I shouldn’t.”
“ Ton of Coals ” couldn’t very well get out of this, so his little caution cost him a glass of ale.
There was no doubt about Buckle’s capability in the matter of absorption. He did not, however, pretend to hide his partiality for the barrel, but always excused himself on the score of thirst. “ I was born,” he used to say thoughtfully, “at the hottest time of the year, and I have always been thirsty.” He used, as a rule, just before we cast anchor, to favour us with a little song. He boasted that it was his own composition—at all events, it fitted him very well. I will set it down, as I have the words by me. Before beginning, he would always raise his glass and say, “ Messmates and Passengers,—I drink, and why do I drink? To live. I drink a lot, and why do I drink a lot ? Because—
“IT TAKES SUCH A LOT JUST TO KEEP ME ALIVE.
“ There are Romo drink for pleasure, some drink to their pain;
If they get what they drink for, no one need complain ;
I’ve a solider reason—I drink to survive, For it takes such a lot just to keep me alive. “ There arc some who delight in libations of ale For the sake of the song, or the joke, or the tale; Such excuses as these I need never contrive, For it takes such a lot just to keep me alive.
M If the weather be hot, or the weather be cold, If the day it be young, or the day it be old,— From this sweet simple fact I much comfort derive— That it takes such a lot just to keep me alive.
“ I was born with a spark in roy throat they declare, And, despite all my drinking, the spark is still there; I must drink till I die, and when Death doth arrive, All unable to drink, nought will keep me alive.”
But, alas! for the noble skipper! he took a passenger aboard whose name was Gout. It was almost a case of half-mast high with “ The Eight Tailors.” Doctors came and doctors went to and from the tailoring establishment, and the captain had to leave his liquor alone; and so it came to pass that a shipwright called on Buckle and offered him three pounds ten shillings for his ship. His eye brightened; ’twas a bargain ; ’twas a clear twenty shillings gain on what it cost him, and he let “ The Eight Tailers ” go. On our last voyage the cabin boy broke down in the middle of a comic song, and cried. We were all affected, and when, at the end of “Auld Lang Syne,” the “Ton of Coals” fell overboard, we lifted up his prostrate form, and bore him home silently and in sorrow. Thus endeth the history of “ Buckle’s Ship.”	D. Goggs.
©ur Smoke ^oom Stable.
English Men of Letters. Edited by John Morley. London: Macmillan and Co. 1878-9.
IX.—SHELLEY, BY JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS. (1878.)
We have departed from the order in which we at first intended to notice, these books; having held back Scott that he might follow Burns, and Shelley that he might follow Spenser. The author of the “Prometheus Unbound,” like the author of the “ Faiirie Queene," has been acclaimed the Poet of Poets. Spenser was immediately accepted and rated at his true worth by all the noblest of his time, whose memories live amongst the noblest of till time; Shelley was despised and rejected by his own generation and even by that which followed it, but his cyclic day was bound to come, and rapid and splendid has been its development since the first faint flush of its dawning. Men and women who in their youth, thirty, or perhaps even twenty years post, cherished a lonely enthusiasm for him—lonely so far os converse and reading could make them aware, though, doubtless, there are always seven thousand in Israel who have never bowed the knee to tho dominant Baal—discover, not without astonishment, that he whom they worshipped in secret is no longer execrated or contemned by their people, but is actually advanced to a lofty place in the national Pantheon, that it is no longer a distinction good or bad to bum incense at his shrine.
The simple facts that he has been chosen as one of the earliest subjects In a Series whose avowed chief end is popularity, and that already, as we write, the Monograph on him is advertised as in its sixth thousand, prove how enormously he has risen in public interest and estimation during this second half of our century. We have ample corroboration of this in the two critical editions of his Poems, with elaborate Memoir, by Mr. W. M. Rossetti, in that of Mr. H. B. Forman, in the cheap reprint of Poems and Proso Works by Mr. R. H. Shepherd, in the various recent popular editions and selections of his Poems; in the numerous articles on him, biographical and critical, among which we may specify those by Mr. R. Garnett, the late T. L. Peacock (to whom so many of Shelley’s best letters from Italy were addressed), Miss Mathilde Blind, Prof. T. Spencer Bayne, and Mr. Swinburne; and in such works as Trelawny’s “Records” (the new enlarged edition of tho “Recollections"), Robert Browning’s Introduction to the Pseudo-Letters (and his superb “Memorabilia” in “Men and Women"), Mr. Garnett's “Relics,” Lady Shelley’s “Memorials,”’ and the late Mr. D. F. M‘Carthy’s “ Early Life."
Yet, notwithstanding all the Shelley literature thus glanced at, a clear place was left, and a distinct need existed, for such a popular booklet os tho present, treating comprehensively, though succinctly, the life and work of the poet. Rossetti’s “ Memoir," as yet the richest collection of biographical materials from all sources, is bound up with his critical edition of the poems; Hogg’s “Life” is but a fragment, and, unfortunately, far less trustworthy than brilliant, if not in the general impression, at anyrate in many of the details it gives of Shelley at Oxford, and after his expulsion; Medwin's “Life” (1847) is sketchy and inaccurate, and not easily accessible; Lady Shelley's “Memorials” are distinctly ancillary; M'Curthy’s “Early Life ’’ is mainly concerned with the Dublin episode; the articles by Peacock and Garnett only discuss particular points of interest; and brave Trelawny's graphic “Recollections” relate to no more than the last half-year of Shelley’s life; while the poems are rarely accompanied bv the prose works, including the magnificent “Defence, of Poetry,” the translations, and the letters from Italy to Peacock, of which lust Mr. Symonds says: “Taken
altogether, they are the most perfect specimens of descriptive prose in the English language,” with which verdict we shall scarcely disagree, remembering that they are real letters, and not elaborate compositions like those whereby Ruskin has added glory to our glorious mother-tongue.
Matters being in this state, it is evident that a cheap and handy volume, drawing from aU these dispersed and fragmentary and comparatively dfar contributions a clear and truthful outline of the whole life and work of Shelley, was really much wanted; and we, therefore, give hearty welcome to the present volume, which undertakes, and, in our opinion, very successfully, to satisfy this want. Mr. Symonds is well known os an accomplished scholar and writer, of liberal sympathies with all that is beautiful in nature and art; and he reveals himself os an old lover of Shelley in noting that when he was a Harrow boy he picked up two uncut copies of “Laon and Cythna” (unperverted original of the “Revolt of Islam") at a Bristol bookshop. As for the spirit in which Mr. Symonds writes of Shelley, we can scarcely better praise it than by saying that it is as nearly as possible directly opposed to the spirit in which Professor Shairp writes of Burns.
In the limits of our space we could not, even were it desirable, accompany Mr. S. through his narrative and criticisms. We may, however, say a very few words on a very few of tho still-vexed questions concerning Shelley, And here it must be remarked that while, in discussing such questions. Mr. 8. usually starts with a deferential, though by no means very ardent, support of authority or tho world’s opinion, his natural clear-sightedness and rectitude and love of liberty generally constrain him before he is done into a virtual though unavowed vindication of Shelley.
1.	The expulsion from Oxford for the (then improved) authorship of the twn-paged tract, “ The Necessity of Atheism; ” Shelley then in his nineteenth year. Mr. 8. begins by defending the authorities against the charges of unfair dealing in this matter. But what does he say for and of them in the course of his palliation? he himself being not only an ttnexpelled University man, like many others who have argued this business against Shelley, but an Oxford man and the author of a prize poem. Read, pp. 36-7: “But it must bo remembered that he despised the Oxford dons with all his heart; and they were probably aware of this. He wan a dexterous impassioned reasoner, whom they little cared to encounter tn argument on such a topic. . . . Nor was it to be expected that the champion and apostle of Atheism should be unmolested in his propaganda by the aspirants to fat livings and ecclesiastical dignities. ... At the beginning of this century tho learning and the manners of the Oxford dons were at a low ebb; and the Fellows of University College acted harshly but not altogether unjustly, ignorantly, but after their kind, in this matter of Shelley’s expulsion. Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e pasta.'' “ They are not worth speaking about; look at them and pass on; ” the most contemptuous line in all Dante; for the rniscrables in limbo who have never really lived, the neutrals rejected by Hell as by Heaven, who envy even the positive tortures of the deeper-damned, who arc hateful to God and to the enemies of God I Call vou that backing of your friends? A plague on such backing: they might well exclaim. We are not concerned here with Shelley’s opinions: but as mere outsiders who have no Alma Mater to look back upon either with gratitude or contempt, we may remark that a University which has no other discipline at command for sceptical or heretical pupils than expulsion, proclaim.-, its own utter incapacity for the duties it undertakes to fulfil in the guidance and education of youth. Try to fancy one of the old teachers, Six rates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno, or any other, driving away a pupil who propounded doubts and difficulties, instead of attempting to clear up and and solve them! Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e pasta!
2.	The relations between Shelley and his father. Mr. S. writes, p. 44: “I agree with Shelley’s last and best biographer, Mr. W. M. Rossetti, in his condemnation of the poet’s behaviour as a son.” But read some of hU other sentences bearing on this subject: “ We only know that in his early boyhood Shelley loved his father so much as to have shown unusual emotion during his illness on one occasion, but that, while at Eton, he [Shelley। had already become possessed by a dark suspicion concerning him [his father]. This is proved by the episode of Dr. Lind’s visit during his fever. Then and afterwards he expected monstrous treatment at his [father's] hands, although the elder gentleman was nothing worse than a muddle-headed squire.” In fact, Shelley believed that his father intended to put him in & madhouse (p. 17). Again, p. 5 : “ Mr. Timothy Shelley was in no sense of the word a bad mon; but he was everything which the poet’s father ought not to have been. . . . His morality in like manner was pnrelv conventional, us may be gathered from his telling his eldest son [Shelley] that he would never pardon a mesalliance, but that he would provide for as many illegitimate children as ho chose to have.” Yet young Oxford accounts Mr. Timothy in no sense of tho word a bad mon; but Shelley must have felt as outraged and disgusted as was Marius in “Les Miserables” at a similar hint from his well-to-do relative of I'ancien regime. After the expulsion from Oxford, the father forbade his return home and cut off supplies, and after the mesalliance with Harriet Westbrook (a sort of compromise haring been patched up in the meantime) he did the same. Afterwards (p. 53), “ Mr. Timothy Shelley was anxious to bind his erratic son down to a settlement of the estates, which, on his own death, would pass into the pud's absolute control .... he proposed to make him an immediate allowance of £2000 [per annum] if Shelley would but consent to entail the land on his heirs mole. This offer was indignantly refused. Shelley recognised the truth that property is a trust far more than a possession, and would do nothing to tie up so much command over labour, such incalculable potentialities of social good or evil, for an unborn being of whose opinions he knew nothing.” Finally, we learn from Lady Shelley’s “ Memorials," that Sir Timothy proposed to relieve Shelley’s widow from her poverty if she would resign her infant son, the heir to the title and estates, tho present Sir Percy Florence Shelley, into his absolute charge; which offer also was indignantly refused, she preferring to earn a hard livelihood with her pen.
3.	The separation from Harrriet his first wife. Mr. S. says, p. 81: “ That Shelley must bear tho responsibility of this separation seems to me quite clear.” Yet in the Note, previous page, he states: “ Leigh Heigh, * Autob.,’ p. 236, and Medwin, however, both assert that it was by mutual assent.’’ And on this same p. 81: “ It must be added that the Shelley family in their memorials of the poet, and through their friend, Mr. Richard Garnett, inform us, without casting any slur on Harriet, that documents are extant which will completely vindicate the poet's conduct in this matter. It is, therefore, but just to await their publication before pronouncing a decided judgment.” To which we may add that we are at a loss to divine why their publication is delayed so long after the death of Harriet's daughter.
We wished to say something on two or three other points; as on the judgment of Lord Eldon depriving Shelley of the custody of his children by Harriet after her suicide (pp. 93-4); and on the assumption (pp. 182-3) that his practical career was a failure, an assumption, as we understand it, which we certainly cannot concede; but space fails us. In conclusion, we hare but to state that, in our judgment, Mr. Symonds’ book fairly reaches the high-water mark of cultivated and liberal appreciation of Shelley, as poet and as man, in the present time. The ultimate appreciation cannot be yet: for Shelley’s fame and influence are still crescent, his cyclic day is still far from its noon; the Poet of the distant Future must culminate in the epoch to which he properly belongs. His own lofty words in the “ Defence of Poetry ” are decidedly applicable to himself, if not to all his illustrious predecessors and contemporaries: “Even in modern times, no living poet ever arrived nt the fulness of his fame; the jury which sits in judgment upon a poet, belonging as he does to all tune, must be composed of his peers; it must be impounded by Time from the selectest of the wise of many generations.’’
We may note, by way of postscript, that there are a few slight dips of tho pen, which Mr. Symonds might as well correct on revision. Thus, in some of the sentences quoted our readers will have marked the ambiguities of hr, his, and him. On p. 77, there is confusion in the comparison of inner circle, centre, and middle; p. 83, “ the language used by Lady Shelley and Mr. Garnett justify us,” should, of course, be justifies; 95, two spots are named ms the birthplace of the “Prometheus Unbound;" 148. u So criticisms upon Shelley’s works are half so good as his own," should be No other.
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^ast IJtfos of t^e ^a^r ©rp^an House.
Wi have given some account in fonner years of the “ Orphan House built upon Cigar-ends,” which the indefatigable editor of the popular Neue Historische Kalender des Lahr er Hin-S kenden Boten proposes to erect in his native town, Lahr, in the Grand Duchy of Baden. The “Lame Messenger” of Lahr, like the Grand Duke of Baden and other sovereign princes, never dies. He is now in his eightieth editorial year, for his first “ Annual for the Citizen and the Countryman ” was published in 1801, or, rather, for 1801 in the closing weeks of 1800. According to his portrait on the cover, he still wears the cocked hat and knee-breeches of that period; though in other pictures of himself, scattered throughout the book, he looks more like a Badener of our own generation. We learn from a lively and original article on “ Vivisection,” on page 35. that the little orphan maiden, Lieschen, whose history he gave in his seventy-eighth Kalender, is still living with him, and also that he has totally given up smoking pipes, as he feels that pipe-smoking is a bad example to be set by a man who has proclaimed to the world his intention of building an orphan house from the proceeds of cigar-ends. His Orphan House, as we need perhaps scarcely say, after so disastrous a year as 1879, has not been commenced. He tells us a story of a somewhat like-minded collector, a fellow-citizen of his beloved little fatherland, who lived at No. 22 in the Langengasse, in Baden-Baden. This man applied to Germans all over the world to send him by post all their empty match-boxes of Swedish manufacture, which he engaged to fill with cobblers’-wax, and then to sell for a benevolent and patriotic object. What this object was, the good Hinkende Bote does not say; but he seems to imply that all his readers will be familiar with it. The eccentric collector died during the past year. “The people say,” adds the Hinkende Bote, “that he died from a stroke brought on by the sight of the immeasurable heap of empty match-boxes which he received by post, and which he knew he was utterly incapable of filling with cobblers’-wax, even if he had been the largest manufacturer of that article in the whole world.” As the German Postmaster-General, Herr Stephan, has no postal connection with the world of the blessed, it is impossible to return these boxes to their senders; and the Hinkende Bote is sorely distressed that he cannot find any patriotic manufacturer of cobblers’-wax who will honour the memory of the departed by taking up his uncompleted work of charity. He is also sorry to tell his contributors of cigar-ends that one of the local snuff-fabricators, who has hitherto taken them for the purpose of conversion into snuff, has refused to take any more.
In his seventy-ninth Kalender, which was ready for the press in July, 1878, the editor said that he had received up to that date, as the result of the sale of his peculiar offertories, a sum of 1894 marks 76 pfennige, or about £94 English reckoning. He expressed a hope in his last Kalender that by the end of the year 1878 he would be enabled to boast that he had raised a sum of 2500 marks. His present issue for 1880 was complete in type by the end of June, 1879; and he tells us that on December 31st, 1878, he had received in all 2428 marks 48 pfennige, only a few shillings short of his prophetic.expectations; whilst during the first six months of 1879 he had been so generously assisted that he was able on June the 30th, 1879, to enter no less than 4078 marks 77 pfennige—nearly £204 of our money—to the account of the projected “ Reichswaisenhaus.” It is a wonderful thing, if one comes to think of it, that so great a sum could be
raised in so short a time, with so small expense, and out of atoms each of which in itself is next to valueless. Whilst travelling by railway last September from Basel to Bingen, a lively little man on the opposite seat of the carriage, having pulled out his cigar-case, drew from it not only a cigar, but a curious little brass tube with an orifice near the top. Having thrust the end of his cigar into this orifice, and pressed the lid, I heard a sharp click, and saw the cigar come forth clipped of its end and ready for the mouth. I took the hberty of charging him with collecting for the future “ Imperial Orphan House” of Lahr. “No,” said he, opening his little tubular case, and showing me about a dozen clean cigar ends reposing at the bottom; “No, not for Lahr; but they are all going to a charity, along with a heap of others which I have at home.”
The Kalender-mann, in his detailed report for the twelve months from July, 1878, to June, 1879, gives us a few pleasing details. It is surprising, he says, what a whiff of the old German Heimweh, the home-sickness of the Teutons, (especially in North and South America), for their fatherland, comes with some of the letters which accompany packets of cigar-ends from the further sides of the globe. “ No force undoes the purse-strings of the German American,” he observes, “so quickly and surely as this home-sickness.” His richest contributions appear to have come from the New World. The German emigrants have reproduced their popular institution, the local Kalender, in the other hemisphere; and the Hinkende Bote tells us that Ernst Nolte, the editor of “the brave Deutsch-Argentinische Kalender,^ has warmly commended the Orphan House project in the pages of his annual, and has collected and forwarded 185 marks to Lahr. The Deutsche-Memphis Journal, he adds, has also reprinted his articles from the Kalender, and begged the Germans in America to support his scheme by saving their cigar-ends and posting them to Europe. He complains, on the other hand, that the German home newspapers have never devoted more than two or three lines to the Lahr experiment. Almost all his contributions have been small in quantity, and the poor have distinguished themselves much more than the rich as co-operators in his undertaking. The poor, naturally enough, have a keener appreciation of the value of each of the “ littles ” which go toward the making of the “mickle.” It is “quite a marvel,” observes the “Lame Messenger,” “ when a hundred thousand gulden man sends me something; a millionaire has never yet sent me anything.” He regrets that he cannot spare room in the pages of the Kalender to print the list of his contributors, and the amounts yielded by their gifts; but adds that they are all duly catalogued in the Lahrer Zeitung, the newspaper of the busy town. The largest sum obtained during the twelve months, 25 marks, was produced by the sale of the contents of the “ Sammelbiichse Number 230,” which was filled by the energetic members of the Turnverein, or Athletic Club, of Naumburg. The publisher of the Kalender, J. H. Geiger, of Lahr, gives the collection-boxes gratuitously to all persons who will promise to fill them and return them. Every box is numbered, but a great many of them are never returned to Lahr; and the editor declares that in his Kalender ioi 1881 he intends to print a catalogue of the unreturned boxes, with their numbers, and the names of the persons to whom they have been confided. Many a box returns loaded wholly or in part with mischievous or malicious substitutes for cigarends—shreds of paper and rag, bones, bits of glass, buttons, and other odds-and-ends. The Hinkende Bote asserts, however, that he gets more out of these apparently worthless articles than their impudent senders purposed: they go in
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the lump to the “ Lumpenmann ”—the counterpart of our old-rag-and-bone dealer; and during the past six months he has obtained the magnificent sums of 3d. and 6d., English reckoning, for two sales of the total offertory of rubbish and impudence. One of his best collections has come from the Collecting-box No. 242, belonging to the Fencing-School in Mannheim; and he informs us that the fair and friendly little Mary, who serves out beer to the fencers, takes care to direct their attention to the collecting-box for the Orphan House in Lahr. Naturally enough, more valuable contributions than cigar-ends find their way into the boxes, usually very small coins, such as a single pfennig—about the value of an English farthing. The Hinkende Bote is no such Nicotian purist as to declare that he will accept nothing except the weed in kind; and he now declares that he is quite ready to receive any small coin, or any saleable object which can be put into a cigar-box. Herr Leers, the landlord of the large and popular Hotel Germania, in Karlsruhe, the capital of the Grand Duchy—a house well known to many an English tourist—has engaged to collect in cigar-boxes the broken capsules of all the bottles of effervescing wines and mineral-waters which are uncorked in his hotel. The Hinkende Bote, in acknowledging this offer from Herr Leers, observes that he has never been to Karlsruhe without drinking a small bottle of wine in the Hotel Germania; but that when he next goes to Karlsruhe he shall order two bottles, to show his gratitude. He urges other landlords to do likewise, and he extends the same advice to the tens of thousands of invalids who drink the hundred-and-one capsuled mineral waters of Germany. His old friend the Kanzleirath has been at the pains to draw up a sum total of the probable number of leaden capsules thrown away during a single year in Germany, and of their probable value if they were all thrown into cigar-boxes and despatched to the “ Lame Messenger ” in Lahr. The learned councillor, upon putting a metallic capsule into his letter-weighing scale, found that it weighed 5 grammes. Five millions of such capsules, he observed, would weigh 25,000 kilogrammes; and a dealer has told him that each kilogramme is worth at least 40 pfennigs. Hence, according to his reckoning, something more than ten thousand marks’ (five hundred pounds) worth of capsules are thrown on the ground, trampled in the dust, or swept into rubbish heaps in one single year in Germany. For no one can believe, he adds, that the Germans drink anything less than a million of capsuled bottles of wine and mineral water in the course of a twelvemonth. T. H.
gr. Horman Hl^k^ *
The memoir of Norman Macleod put forth four years ago cannot be said to have been issued with any hot haste. It would be welcome to all who loved and admired the singlehearted man whose words of warning and reproof were addressed equally to princes and people. The minister who held stated services from which the “ respectable ” were zealously excluded, was also the man who disregarded the princely hint as to the holiness of short sermons. The honesty and courage of Macleod were equally appreciated by the roughs of the Barony Parish and by the courtiers of Balmoral. The secret of his success, so far as it can be analysed and appraised, seems to have been due to his earnestness of purpose, and to his wide and genuine sympathy with the trials and troubles of those with whom he had to deal. He was not the man to feed starving people with tracts. Nor was he one of those “ otherworldly ” men who in saintly abstraction lose all appreciation of the temptations and sorrows of the actual world with which the majority of mankind have to deal. His desire for their advancement in the next world did not prevent him from wishing to see them enjoy some degree of comfort in this. It is cruel work preaching to empty stomachs. The glories of the Heavenly Kingdom, with its golden streets and jasper towers, may, indeed, attract by force of contrast some poor hearts bowed down with the sordid poverty and squalid misery of their present day existence; but in most cases the hard struggle for life crushes out the imaginative faculty. They become unable to project themselves beyond the narrow circle of daily toil and trouble, and the glorious but nebulous vision of the land beyond the river, with its asphodel valleys haunted by the shades of the good of all ages, has small charm in their eyes. To the disturbing speculations by which the faith of the more highly educated is so often shipwrecked, he was equally charitable. The complete man is of necessity able to sympathise with all that tends towards righteousness, however heterodox or unconventional the form in which it presents itself. That conflicting and contradictory forces may yet have an equal place in a wider sphere of harmony, is a truth that few fanatics are able to understand. Their own small facet of the everlasting truth is all they care to behold, and they quite ignore the fact that from every other side of that bright jewel the light is flashing beauty into the eyes of a wondering world. The catholic spirit of Dr. Macleod shows all the brighter by contrast with the narrow Scotch theology of those by whom he was surrounded.
• Memoir of Norman Macleod, DJ). By his Brother, the Rev. Donald Macleod, BA. London: Daldy labister, and Co. 1876. 2 vote.
The influences by which his character was formed are shown clearly in these volumes. We see the boy full of roUicking fun, and yet with a deep well of that earnestness which marks the Scotch character, the vague and mystic feeling which their souls imbibe from the blue lochs and from the grey haze of their mountains whose heads pierce the clouds. Alike beside the sea and amid the highlands, he had the chance of seeing the varied shades of national character. This knowledge of the humour and pathos, the glory and the grotesque of modern life, was acquired before the change had come over his mind which directed his thoughts to that career wherein he afterwards found scope for his energies. After college life, he came into Yorkshire as tutor of a squire of the best type. With him he journeyed to Weimar. The little town to Herr Philister is but small and insignificant; and yet, ho^ many memories crowd around its gables! Here lived our great Goethe—he who, like the “cloud-compelling Jove,” stands alone on our modern Olympus—the great thinker, the noble poet—he who held the master-keys which opened so many of the golden locks of Nature’s treasuries. The grand old man could unbar at will those doors which were impenetrably closed to others. To how many minds has he brought visions of beauty which will never vanish until Death shall drop the curtain upon the stage I The master to whom we owe so much lived here in honour if not happiness—for the gods, with their gifts of intellectual power, do not always, alas! mix in the golden chalice the peace which comes from an equable and contented life—and his shadow had scarcely departed from the quaint old town when the young and earnest Scotchman came to dwell therein for a season. Not only was the memory of Goethe still fragrant and green in Weimar town, but there were also clustering round it memories of Schiller, of Wieland, and of Herder. It was the most intellectual and the most speculative place in all Europe. For Macleod what a change from the quiet stream of earnest, if conventional, thought to this atmosphere of intellectual daring, where every conviction was questioned and debated! Yet this never appears to have really affected the deeper thoughts of Macleod. For a time, indeed, a keen observer like Dr. Weissenhorn, the kind-hearted but sharp-eyed friend of the English residents in that fascinating but dangerous place, was afraid that the atmosphere would unfit him for the work before him. The good old doctor was rejoiced to find that “German rationalism” had not made him a whit less inclined to dispense the blessings of religion to his future parishioners under those forms most suited to their circumstances, or most likely to produce the best practical results. It was after this Weimar excursion that he completed his theological studies. His entry upon the business of his life was at Loudoun, where the young minister had to manage a population which presented a puzzling combination of sceptics and Covenanters. But neither the “unoo guidness ” of the one class nor the philosophical acuteness of the other appears to have saved the place from profanity and immorality. What can be finer than the picture of Macleod'i visit to the “auld wife” who was a great light among the Covenanters. Seated amidst a group of her fellow-sectaries, she received the young minister, and he had to “gang ower the fundamentals” before she would acknowledge him. As the poor old pauper body was exceedingly deaf, the stream of Presbyterian theology, pure and undefiled, had to be poured down her ear-trumpet. In this position he foreshadowed the greater usefulness which was to attend him in his Barony parish. The Disruption controversy, the journey to North America, the tour in Prussian Poland and Silesia, his brave disregard of the ultra Sabbatarianism of the Scotch Kirk, his experiences within the charmed circle of Balmoral, his journey to India, are all chronicled; and in all he is the same man, changing not, resolute of spirit, earnest of purpose, yet full of kindly humour, with a genuine love of fan, which peeps out in the most irrepressible and irresistible manner. Humour, not Melancholy, had marked him for her own, and would not relax her grasp, though the uniform of the “black dragoons” is not generally thought favourable to
“ Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides."
Macleod hated cant. It was the absence of this element from his character that gave him his power for good. The intolerance of some theologians, who value religion only when it looks ugly and feels uncomfortable, found no echo in his breast. Nor did he share their distrust and dislike of art and literature. The uncomfortable theologians make one think of Bob Acres. When they see the faces of their fellow-men rippling into pleasant laughter, they instantly suppose themselves and their creed the butt of ridicule. “ I know they are talking about me,” asserts valiant Bob, “they faugh so con-sumedly” This narrow suspicion does harm. Rowland Hill has been credited with the shrewd remark that “ the devil should not be allowed to appropriate all the best tunes.” Dr. Macleod would have sympathised with the motif of that quaint saying. Like Arnold, he wished to see literature, the ephemeral literature of the day, helping on the work of reclaiming people from the heathenism, more or less frank, in which so many live. The outcome of this desire was the establishment of Good Words. It may, perhaps, be objected to this periodical that it assumes a parti pris, and that its contributors must write up to certain preconceived notions. Doubtless there is something in this. We need not go to it
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for much valuable original work in • what may some day be the science of theology, but it certainly presents to the “religious world” more of cultured thought than they could be induced to take from a journal that frankly avowed its concern to be with this world. A narrow and vulgar attack on modern novels, at an Exeter Hall meeting, not only led him “to stick up for Jack the Giant Killer,” but provoked this significant entry in his journal: “I think I shall never enter Exeter Hall again on such occasions. The atmosphere is too muftiy for my lungs.” Whether he learned to smoke among the rough fishermen of Campbeltown, or from the polished citizens of Weimar, does not appear, but Dr. Macleod had certainly no conscientious objections to the use of Tobacco. It is to the student days we owe the capital caricature portrait of ‘‘Professor Boss, who fell into the crater of Mount Hecla,” and who is represented in plenitude of locksand pipes. In the “grand days” of the Evangelical Alliance at London, in 1846, he writes to his mother:— “My mind and heart are almost wearied with the excitement of this time. Meetings every day—conversing, smoking with Germans, French, Americans, Ac.—all in love and harmony. Tholuck, Rheinthaler, Barth, Cramer, from Germany; Monod, Fisch, Vernet, from France; Cox, Kirk, Skinner, Paton, Emery, De Witt, Baird, from America.” He gives an amusing picture of a Geman sailor whom he met during his hurried visit to Tubingen to visit the death-bed of John Mackintosh, “the earnest student.” “I had a long talk with an old sailor on board, quite a character. I opened his heart with cigars, and he was very communicative. He spoke in broken sentences, each delivered in an undervoice very confidentially to me, while he always turned up his eyes to heaven, kept his elbows by his side, and wriggled his wrists as if a thousand mysteries lay far beyond his brief communications. ‘ An old cloister like that,—hate the priests—ceremonies (many wriggles)—the best cloister is the heart (great confidence). Stop her! (to the engineer.) Democrats! (fearful wriggles)—the Jesuits did the whole. Tn old times they forgave the sins of thieves and murderers,’ and he ran off, looking over his shoulders, winking hard, and his two hands in perpetual motion. Soon I felt a tap on my back—‘ The Protestant ministers not much better—too learned—don’t care for the people—they give words,—words, but what do they? (wrists, eyes all going, and immense confidence.) The people are best. Ach, Herr, we must make the heart our church—minister—all—and love God and man.’ He darted off to take soundings. I left him, but we are yet to smoke together. Oh, this great heart of humanity! How grand it ever is when it is real! What a magnificent study is man! and how elevating at all times to realise one’s brotherhood to rise like a hill above the earth’s surface, and to feel that both are rooted in the common earth, and are beneath the same sun, and are refreshed with the same dew!” In one of his humorous letters to Strahan, the publisher, he announces his intention of becoming a brother of the monastery of the great St. Bernard. He leaves his children —3| to Strahan and 3 j to Isbister. “Farewell, the world and all its vanities’—I was interrupted at this point by a procession of monks, who came to strip me of my worldly garments and to prescribe the vows. Before changing garments I inquired about the vows. Judge of my amazement at finding I must renounce cigars for ever! I pause—” Of course, he finds the cold is great, the dogs are mangy, and as the monks won’t withdraw their Nicotian prohibition, he repents. In sending a letter on an unpleasant subject to a personal friend, he writes at the head of it a notable “N.B.—This letter will keep cold until you are at peace with all the world, with a pipe well filled and drawing well. Read it then, or a bit each day for a month.” Dr. Macleod was not a teetotaler. The abstainers, with much that is noble in their physical Puritanism, have sometimes shown a deplorable absence of sweetness and light. The statements as to the moral condition of Glasgow, directed as they were exclusively against the working classes, roused his indignation. He found the poor pretty much the same as all other classes, and was not prepared to lay a burden upon them from which others were exempt. “ When I find any of them drink to excess, I try to make them resolve to be teetotal; but I put it in this form: * Christ desires temperance, and if you can’t be temperate without being teetotal, then you must be teetotal.’ In the same way some people: in order to save the working man from extravagance, say, ‘Oh! this is dreadful; you have only from sixteen to seventeen shillings a week, and yet I have more than once found you with a pipe in your mouth.’ Now, why should he not smoke his pipe? Do you imagine we are to have the confidence of the working classes if we speak to them in that fashion ? I would rather say to him, ‘ I’ll give you Tobacco to keep your pipe lighted. I like one myself.’ In order also to have working men to keep the Sabbath, some are in the habit of speaking to them against walking on the Sabbath, as if they were terrified to give them that liberty. But why should we be less liberal than God, who made us and knows our frame? Let us be fair and honest with the working man, and you will find him display no tendency to pervert your teaching if you deal with him in a spirit of liberality and in accordance with the laws of God, properly	interpreted. But when you are less liberal than God, and draw the bow too much in one direction, it will rebound all the more on the other.”—(Vol. H., pp. 92-93.) To the same purport he writes to a distinguished advocate of teetotalism who had attacked his views on the temperance question:—“It is still my belief that we must apply (and in this you will agree with me) the same principles in seeking to Christianise the habits of the rich and poor; for, to use a vulgar but expressive simile, ‘what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.’ Since I do not, therefore, feel myself justified, in the General Assembly or out of it, in condemning the rich man for drinking his glass of wine after dinner, or even for smoking his cigar (to the horror of the excellent Dean of Carlisle) after breakfast, neither can I, without hypocrisy and impertinence, condemn the working man, who has fewer sources of physical gratification, for taking his glass of beer, or smoking his pipe, if so disposed, at his humble fireside. It is not my special province to recommend either; yet neither am I called upon as a Christian minister to condemn either. But I am not ashamed to confess that I would recommend the working man who was disposed to take his beer, to do so at his own fireside; if I thereby helped to keep him from whisky, above all from the terrible temptations of the public-house.—(Vol. II., p. 105-106.) In this there is much good sense, although the real kernel of the controversy is not touched. Much more in these volumes is deserving of notice. The book stands apart from the ordinary ruck of “religious biographies.” In place of the morbid self-consciousness, we have a life of action devoted to the good of others. Dr. Macleod was a man not so ethereal as to be unconscious of the daily temptations of poor human nature, and yet felt that in the soul of the most degraded there is a small flame, burning however dimly, which may become a clear fire of righteousness. It was thia faith in humanity which made Macleod dissatisfied with the ordinary conception of the functions of religion as interpreted by the churches. The notion that the only work of Christian teachers was “to teach and preach the gospel” was repugnant to him. He wanted the influence of religion to be brought upon the body as well as the soul, and to gild with beauty the Cottage as well as the Church. ®ahs ^ol& on tyt Sea of ^«. XU—THE LONE LORN LAND OF THE ANTIS. PADDY’S “APPALE.” RAISING A CAIRN AND PLANTING A CROSS. Than Honest John, my brother, whom I have once before mentioned in the Plant, and who derived his soubriquet from a penchant he possessed, while yet a youngster, of putting his hand in the sugar basin, and appropriating jams, jellies, sweets, and everything toothsome he could lay a finger on— than Honest John, I say, the wide, wide world does not contain a more devoted worshipper at the shrine of our sovereign lady, the goddess Nicotina. To him Tobacco is indeed the balm of Gilead, more sweet to his nostril is the odour thereof than rose of Sharon, more fragrant than lily of the valley. I’ve laughed sometimes to see the care and affection he lavishes on his pipes. In his little cosy sanctum he has, handy to his easy chair, a well-filled rack, and not a pipe in it all—not a brown briar nor well-coloured meerschaum, not a cutty, not a clay—but has its history; and the history of each pipe is, of course, blended and associated with the events of his own life: each pipe bridges over some span in his existence. Honest John never kept a diary—not he, for that pipe rack of his is a library in itself; he has only to stretch out his hand and take down any one of his old favourites, and read it like a book. I write these very lines in John’s sanctum, and he is reading an old, old pipe even now—all unconscious, dear boy! that I am observing him. I wonder what that bonnie bowl, that he is quietly polishing with his silken bandana, is telling him. Ah! it is whispering something very sweet in his ear, I feel sure, bringing back to his memory some sunny scenes in the days of long ago. For he smiles, and anon he breaks into song— (Air “ Ye Banks and Braes.”) “ The lily of the vale is sweet, And sweeter far the opening rose; More dear to me Tobacco is, Than any blooming flower that blows.” Now, I grant you that the adjective “ blooming,” when pronounced somewhat emphatically, partakes almost of the nature of an oath; but Honest John is far too good to swear. Yet I’ve seen him a “kinder” riled; but on any such occasion there is one policy that I always pursue. I clap a meerschaum in his hand, and present him with my silver fizzuvian-case. Then I have him. The cloud that had settled on his manly brow, goes curling ceilingwards in a wreath of blue; wreaths of smiles dimple cheeks and chin, and play at hide-and-seek around his blue eyes; while, with legs be-cradled on an extra chair, and head thrown backwards, he will listen to my moral yarns by hours at a stretch. I like him for this. One can forgive a good listener many things; and at times like these I can forgive Honest John all the ill ever he did me, and all the tricks ever he played
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me in our boyhood’s days, even to the hiding I once received solely on his account. It had its origin—the hiding, I mean —in a case of carrot-stealing. Early in the morning I had had a row with John, and, as usual, had had the worst of it; so I determined to serve him out, first chance. I thought the chance had come in the evening, when I found him stealing carrots in the back kitchen garden. “Ho! ho! Honest John!” I cried; “Now I’ve got ye; now you’ll catchit; wait till I go and tell father!” John dropped the carrots, and swung off. “ Do as you please,” he said. Taking the bunch of succulent roots in my hand, I prepared to go at ■ once to head-quarters and lay the information, but a bright beetle crossed my path, and I must needs stay to examine it; so John stole a march upon me, and was the first to find audience of our mutual male parent. He told him I was as busy as a Taffy among the carrots, and if father cared, he might go and see for himself. And so father did. I was caught flagrante delicto, red-handed, hoist with my own petard, and received the sweetest bit of “fum-fum,” as the niggers call it, ever I had in my life; the while Honest John added insult to injury by taking sights at me round the corner.
There are times, however, I confess, when even this brother of mine feels inclined to think my stories are “ ower ” true. An instance occurred only the other evening.
“Oysters growing on trees?” he cried; “Grandmothers growing on trees ! Bah! I don’t believe it.” And he commenced teasing a bit of bird’s-eye so viciously that I saw he was in earnest, and so held my peace for a little space. “ Why, Gordon,” he said presently, as he crammed his clay, “ you are the biggest 1--”
Goodness knows what he mightn’t have added, if I hadn’t interrupted him by explaining that, out on the East African coast, the mangrove trees grow far down on the beach; that the waves wash up through their roots at high tide, and that thereto the oysters cling.
“ Humph! ” he said, “ I see now.”
“ Supposing,” I continued, somewhat mischievously, “ supposing, dear and Honest John, that I began a moral yarn in the following fashion:—
“ No two friends could have been more fond of each other’s society than Bill Bowline and old Jack Junk. In order to enjoy a quiet confab and a social pipe, they were in the habit of getting over the ship’s side while en voyage, and walking arm in arm on the sea for miles. They were thus engaged one bright and lovely night in the rosy month of June. The month was June, the time was midnight, while above them shone the sun in a sky of azure blue. ‘ Oh! * cried Jack Junk, suddenly pausing on the top of a huge wave, ' what a bore, to be sure ! Pipes, and ’Baccy, and never a light—what shall we do? Go back to the ship ? ’ ‘ Not a bit of it,’ replied Bill, ‘ let’s light our pipes with a lump of ice. Here’s a piece I brought in my pocket o’ puppose.’
“4 Bless you, old Bill! ’ said old Jack, * you’re always mindful.’
44 So the two cronies lit their pipes with that morsel of ice, and continued their journey over the sea.”	.
“What would you say, Honest John, to such a beginning as that ? ”
44 Say ? ” said my brother, without even removing his pipe from his mouth, or condescending to look at aught save the flies on the ceiling; 44 Say, simply, that genius is akin to madness, and that you’d crossed the border.”
But I’ve got the advantage of Honest John in some matters; and John himself confessed as much when I explained that my two tars were simply walking on the ice on a midsummer’s night in Greenland, and that from a piece of clear ice a lens may be formed, with focus strong enough to ignite Tobacco.
You see then, reader, that truth is stranger than fiction, and that there are many more things in heaven and earth, than simple stay-on-shore folks dream of in their philosophy.
How Dauvid Drinkwater, who many years before had disappeared and been seen no more in broad Scotland, should have turned up in the mysterious regions of the Pole is a matter that at first seems inexplicable. How there should be an inhabitable country at all in the very centre of the Arctic circle itself, seems passing strange; but there it is, or was, beyond a doubt. These eyes of mine, and other eyes than mine, have seen it; and we called it the Lone Lorn Land of the Antis, because to Dauvid Drinkwater must be ascribed the honour of its discovery.
Sick, Dauvid told us, of the folly and the sins of the City of the Second Sodom, he and his friends determined to seek out for themselves a land where, peradventure, they might find peace—a land where the smoke of the vile weed might never be felt, nor odour of rum, and where the chant of the midnight reveller might no more disturb their slumbers. So they had set sail from the ancient port of Greenock; and, having rounded the stormy Mull, they steered away for the north, hoping that somewhere among the Western Isles they might find a home and shelter. But, lo! and behold, a mighty tempest arose, and they were driven before it, away and away, they knew not whither; only the days grew colder and colder, and shorter and shorter, till at last only night was left. But worse was before them, for in an evil hour their little bark stuck fast in the bight of an iceberg, and began to fall to pieces before their eyes; and for many days after she had gone down, the saintly Dauvid and his motley but virtuous crew, surrounded by their goods and chattels, sat on the
berg like woe-begone pelicans, and shivered like seals. But surely Providence watched over and protected those pioneers of civilisation; for, after many days, they found they had drifted alongside the main pack. Then steadily northwards went Dauvid, deviating neither to right nor left, but going straight ahead by the light of the moon and the aurora— straight ahead, like a beetle with a buttered nose, until he found himself in the strange country where ever since he and his people have sojourned.
It must not be supposed, however, that the saintly Dauvid was very communicative at first, or that he was at all pleased to see us.
44 Men of Belial,” he said, as we neared the hut he called his home, 44 put out those pipes; pollute not with the hateful smell of Tobacco the home of our adoption.”
It would have been both impolite and impolitic not to have humoured the old fellow; for here in this land of his, Dauvid, as we soon found out, ruled both king and priest; so we pocketed our pipes.
“Never mind,” said the Yankee mate, putting a bit of twist into his mouth; 44 if I can’t do as I choose, I’ll chew as I does.”
We all looked at him, but no one even smiled at this melancholy attempt at wit. The truth is, a cloud seemed to overshadow the heart of each of us—a gloom that there was no getting out of. Why, the very Newfoundland dog seemed to have no life in him, and came dragging along behind us with his tail between his legs.
Dauvid’s reception of us at his own diggings, as the mate called his house, wasn’t a very cheering one. He doffed his broad bonnet, and entered before us. 44 Come in,” he said,
44 0 ! men of Belial. Ye shall eat of my bread and drink of my water; and, doubtless, when ye have seen the nakedness of the land, ye will return to your own country and leave us in peace.”
The whole of Dauvid’s colony numbered probably five hundred souls—if, indeed, Antis have souls, and not merely gizzards; for, as Dauvid told us, they had increased and multiplied, and before long would be as the sands of the seaside in number. Well, no one could blame them for increasing and multiplying, for in this dismal land of theirs there was precious little else to do. Both males and females, they were all much of the same type as their high priest. They were all of them ruled over by King Cant; and so much, indeed, was Dauvid respected, so much did every one hang on the words of wisdom that fell from his capacious mouth, that we noticed even the very children bore, in many instances, a more striking resemblance to him than they did to their own fathers.
We weren’t sorry when the meagre repast set before us by our solemn host was finished, so that we might go and, as Dauvid phrased it, 44 spy out the land.” We did; we climbed a hill, and had a jolly good look around us. The prospect was by no means a cheerful one, although the scenery was romantic enough. Stretching right round the horizon was a lofty chain of mountains, so that the country itself, although a rolling one, was in reality a valley, and the trees that grew in it seemed stunted in growth; there was but little foliage on them, either, and what did exist was of a pale and sickly green. The grass had the same hue, and the shrubs, and the heath that grew on the hill-sides. It was a land of blight and gloom, a land with neither life nor joy in it. Even the few specimens of live stock of which the inhabitants could boast partook of the general depression. The cows were lean kine; they shambled in their gait, they plaited their hocks, and their skinny, half-empty udders flapped as they walked, while their tails were like eel-skins stuffed with buttons, and hadn’t pith enough to scare away the sickly flies. The horses were worse—Bosinantes all. The fowls were mournful and ragged in the extreme, and the pigs were all of the greyhound type. And yet in this Lone Lorn Land we determined to stay for a week at least, for there were many things connected with it which, clever as our captain was, he could not understand; and we were but little likely to glean much information from Dauvid. That we were unbidden and unwelcome guests, he gave us plainly to understand; he even hinted, in pretty strong language, that our room was infinitely more desirable than our company. “ Hasten your departure, 0 ! men of Belial,” he told us one day, “ lest my wrath be kindled against you, lest I gather my people together; for, if I do, then woe unto you! for we will shoot at you, we will smite you with the edge of the sword, and you shall perish utterly.” On hearing which terrible denunciation the mate lit his pipe, and said 44Humph!” Paddy, said: “Faith! the crayture’s mad entirely;” the captain went on quietly taking sights; the dog appeared, and Dauvid fled.
But it was to the Indian Dunskin, after all, that we were indebted for a clue to some of the mysterious phenomena of this strange country. It happened on the night of the seventh day after our arrival—a night few of us are ever likely to forget. About eleven o’clock, when we turned in, the sky was clear, a round moon was shining, the broad belt of the aurora was shimmering with unusual brilliancy, and the peaceful stars looking down on us like eyes of angels. On the mountain tops all day an unusual accumulation of clouds had rested, and now and then there were sounds like the discharge of distant artillery; but it was midnight ere we found out that these were but the warnings of the fearful storm
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that now burst over us. When it was at its worst we seemed completely enveloped in the thunder-cloud; the lightning played around us in sheets, and streams, and bursting balls of fire; our tent was torn to pieces with the hail, or, rather, ice, that fell, so that we were fain to crouch for shelter among the rocks, which we expected every minute to rend and envelope us in their ruin. Not only was the thunder fearfully loud and appalling, but successive shocks of earthquake caused the ground to heave like the deck of a storm-tossed ship. It was twenty-four hours at least ere the storm cleared off and the clouds were borne away by the wind, and all this time we had nothing to solace us but our pipes and Tobacco, coupled with the comforting thought that the Autis hadn’t that same. When we crept out at last from our cave and stood in the open, a sight met our eyes that no words of mine can express; for the cones of every mountain and hill that stretched like a rugged belt around the horizon were belching forth flames and smoke and debris, while adown the hill-sides ran streams of molten lava, like fiery serpents, crimson, blue, or green, or changing coloured.
The only one who was not astonished was Dunskin. He had seen the like before, and now, in his broken English, he tried to explain it.
“Dis is one dam funny place,” he told us. “ In my own country, and in de land of de Danish peoples, one time we have winter, next time we have summer, den winter again. Here, no; summer come in winter, and de winter come in de summer. When de big mountains round yonder make plenty bobbery, and plenty blaze and spit, den we have summer; de trees, and de grass, and flowers grow perhaps for two, tree month. Den de fires in de hills go out; no matter how much de sun shine, it come all de same cold, and de grass and de leaves fall away, and de snow come. It is winter den until again de mountains spit out fire and de ground gets warm. Yes, it is one dam funny place. Ugh! ” .
“So, ho!” said the mate, “ that accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nut.”
“This was my impression all along,” said the captain. “We stand, here at the North Pole, in the very centre of a huge volcano; and summer or winter, as Dunskin says, depends on its eruption or inactivity.”
“ Och! and och ! ” cried poor Paddy; “ Och! and och I captain, let me make an appale to you; take us out av this, for God’s sake. Sure it’s the ill place we’ve got to, and nowhere else at all, at all. And, bedad, it’s the devil himself that Dauvid is, and nobody other. I knew it in the cave, when I saw the spalpeen catching fiery fishes. Och ! let us be off, I say, if it ain’t too late. There’s devil a taste av fife or heart left in the lot of us, and sure the very Tobacco itself tastes of fire and brimstone.”
“ And indeed, men,” said the captain, “ I don’t think we can better Paddy’s advice. If Dauvid isn’t the devil, he is an Anti, and that isn’t much better. But, first and foremost, let us raise a cairn of stones, and plant a cross, to mark the site of the true North Pole.”
The work seemed to revive our spirits: the poor dog, even, looked on with satisfaction, and Paddy grew himself again. And under the cairn we buried a box of the Weed divine, and over it we broke a bottle of choicest rum. Then, “Now, lads,” cried the captain, unfurling our flag, “three cheers for the Queen! Then, hey! for home and merry England, and farewell to the Lone Lorn Land of the Antis!” Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
^ip« Colourtrs.
XIX.—WOLLER’S LOOKING-GLASS.
When a man says that an article is faulty, he generally exhibits some slight symptom of contempt while making the statement. This is due, of course, to the natural love of perfection which every member of the human family possesses. Doubtless there are many men who do not believe that a love of the perfect is to be found in the heart or brain of every average man. To such I say, persevere if you can, in your miserable belief, or, rather, unbelief; I feel confident that my theory is perfectly correct. I’ll put it like a play:— Unbeliever.—Goggs, you’re wrong. Much as I respect your labours in the cause of humanity, greatly as you deserve a statue, in this matter, I say, you are wrong.
Gogos.—I am not wrong, I am right; go on, demolish me if you can.
Unbeliever.—I will, and that very quickly. I take the case of old Potter, the bricklayer. You know him well. Night after night does that man go wandering from publichouse to public-house, drinking a glass here and a glass there, and all the time his home and family are neglected. Where, then, can be his longing after perfection?
Goggs.—I am glad you mentioned Potter. Potter is a very good example for me. I have remonstrated with Potter on this very thing, and I will tell you what Potter said in excuse. Said Potter: “ Mr. Goggs, you accuse me wrongfully; I will tell you why I go, as you say, from house to house. What I do like is a glass of real good beer, and I may tell you that it is very difficult to find. At one house I get it flat, the next thick, the next sour; and I assure you that sometimes I come home quite disgusted, having laid out my money on
so many unpleasant tastes. If,” continued Potter, “ I could find a house where the article was genuine, an 1 always in first-rate condition, I should be content to have a pint < r so, and get home at once.” Now, Unbeliever, wbat do you say to that? Potter, I maintain, is aiming at perfection, although it is only in the matter of beer.
Having got rid of the unbeliever, I must now return to my starting-point. While rejoicing in the belief concerning the longing of all men for perfection, I do not care to believe that it is right to show signs of contempt for articles in which we detect faults. Am I bound to defend this position? lam not bound to do so according to my contract with the editor who runs this noble and philosophical Plant, but I will do sot out of pure generosity. Here, then, is my defence. “Faults have their uses.” Is it Tupper who says—
“Look atihe tone of the nose, the inebriate’s awful proboscis;
Cuntaineth it not, rny brothers, the hues of a glorious sunset ? *
The quotation is scarcely useful to me, as it deals with the purely ornamental; but I should like it to appear because of its extreme beauty.
I trust this wandering of mine will be excused for once in a way; I will endeavour to start presently. I do not seem to have my usual control over my brain. I can only put it down to one thing. I had my hair cut by a foreign professor last night. He cut it very short, and I suppose my ideas are escaping through the pores of my skin.
I repeat: “Faults have their uses.” Even further will I go, maintaining that in many instances a faulty article is superior to a perfect one : superior by reason of its adaptability to other purposes than those for which it was originally intended. I know a silver fork. Its only fault—and a fault it is, not only with forks, but with men—is its great age. Now that fork is worn so thin that you can use the handle end of it for a knife on an emergency. “ Faults have their uses.”
I know a man. His temper is not a good one. In addition to this, he is wonderfully quick in taking offence. A look is almost sufficient to raise his ire. He is also an awful stammerer, particularly when excited. This last-mentioned fault is positively beneficial to him and to the rest of the world. A very few days ago I saw an instance of it. I was walking with my stammering friend, and as we came to a corner, a stranger came hurriedly face to face with us. His shoulder accidentally struck the shoulder of my friend, so violently that it turned him half-round. I saw the blood mount into his face, and anticipated an explosion. He turned red, and then purple, and then almost black with rage, his lips working convulsively all the time. Then he spoke: “ Where the d—evil are you coming to ? ” So far, good ; but the other man, the stranger, was at least two hundred yards away by the time my friend spoke, so that all danger of a fight was averted. Faults, I repeat, have their uses. And now for a start.
Some two years ago I was walking in the neighbourhood of Croydon, when the name of “Woller” on a signboard attracted my attention. “ Can it be my old friend? ” I mentally inquired; and, as I was really thirsty, I went in to see. The house was smart in appearance, with a snug private bar, into which I entered. I was going to ask for a glass of ale, when I was rather alarmed at the dreadful pallor of my face, as I saw it reflected in a looking-glass opposite to me. I then remembered that I had felt rather jaded during a part of my journey. I had walked some ten miles; so, instead of ordering ale, I indulged in a glass of brandy and water, thinking the stronger stimulant would prove more beneficial to me than the weaker one.
While drinking this, I inquired of the young lady behind the counter if Mr. Woller was at home. She said he was not, although he would be in shortly. I gathered, however, from her description of the landlord, that he was doubtless my old friend, and so concluded to await his return. My fair informant went on with her bar work, and I returned to a study of my own countenance. As one glass of brandy and water did not seem to fetch any colour into my cheeks, I had another. To tell you the truth, I felt rather dejected. A walk across the hulls I always looked upon as a splendid thing. It generally did me, considering my age, a great deal of good, sending the blood tingling through my old limbs, and fetching the colour into my wrinkled face; but now,— and I sighed as I felt my pulse; that seemed in pretty good order, seventy to the minute; I placed my hand on my heart, I could find nothing wrong with its beating; but the deadly pallor of my countenance alarmed me. I tried to assume the careless: “What matters,” I muttered; “old age has claimed me. I have kept bravely up shoulder to shoulder with the years, but now,—what have I come to?”
u The lean and slipper'd pantaloon;
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well darned, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice Turning again”——
“ Oh, hang it! ” I said. “ Here, miss, kindly fill my glass again.” I was trying to light the fire of my cheeks again with the fourth threepennyworth, when Woller himself entered the bar. I hailed him. He recognised me at once. “Well, my jovial old Didimus,” he exclaimed; “this is a pleasure. Come inside. Dear me; well, I am delighted. Why, it’s five years since we met. Oh, and ain’t I pleased to see you looking so well.” He rambling on like this, I followed him into the bar parlour. Rather pleased at his compli-
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menting me on my goodly appearance, I inwardly blessed his brandy and water, and took a sly peep into the looking-glass over the bar parlour fireplace. There I simply stood petrified, with my eyes as wide open as ever they were in my life, and my mouth, I think, wider open than ever I remember to have found it.
“ Sit down, old friend,” said Woller, but I heeded him not.
“Mercy!” he cried, in some fear, seizing me by the arm and gazing literally down my throat. “Not lockjaw, I trust.” I lifted my lower jaw into its right place, and said, “ No; I’m all right; only a little astonished.” Then I pointed at my reflection in the glass, and said, “Describe what you see.” • “Certainly,” said Woller. “I see the face of my old friend Goggs. The hair is white, the eyes might be a little clearer; the complexion—well, the complexion might be just a little more delicate, if you don’t mind me putting it that way, for, to speak seriously, I never saw you with such a Silenus-like tone on your cheeks and brow before. It’s a positive conflagration.”
“Woller,” I said, “don’t put it down to habitual drink. Spirits I seldom touch. In your house I have had two or three small glasses of brandy and water, which I took solely for the purpose of benefiting my health. An hour ago, when I entered your establishment, I was as white as death, and now look at me.”
Up to this moment Woller had been listening very seriously, but, as if he had been suddenly smitten with lunacy, he now roared out, “Ha! ha! ha! Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! Ho! ho! ho! He! he! he! Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!” He literally doubled up with mirth. He almost choked with merriment. The tears ran out of his eyes, and hi8 sides shook till I feared he would do himself some injury. After some little time he recovered himself.
“Oh, Didimus!” said he, panting, “pray forgive me. I’m sorry to seem so forgetful; but the joke is so good. Ho! ho! ho! I’ll tell you presently—ha! ha! ha!—when I get breath. Here, come here. That will tell you.”
I followed him into the bar. He led me to the looking-glass I first gazed at, and in it I beheld, not myself only, but the pair of us, possessing, I should think, the reddest faces in the neighbourhood, looking like a couple of whitewashed ghosts.
“There,” said Woller, “you might have swallowed all the brandy in this house, and still your face would have retained its ghastly hue in that glass. It is peculiar, is it not? However, let us go back to the parlour, and have a chat and a pipe as we used to do.” Woller and I had a very pleasant hour together. I indulged in a long clay, while he smoked his pet pipe. It was a meerschaum, perfectly carved into the form of the head and face of a negress, and black as a coal with smoking. We chatted on many subjects, and presently drifted back to his curious looking-glass.
“Why do you keep such an abominable thing on your premises?” I inquired. “It is suflicient to frighten your customers away.”
A pleasant smile stole over the face of my friend. It began at the corners of his mouth, crept up his cheeks, and terminated in a most expressive wink. Then he said, “I wouldn’t part with that glass for ten pounds. Look at it; did you . ever see one like it before? ”
“No,” I replied; “and I trust I may never meet with another like it.”
“That glass,” said Woller, “is worth a lot of money to me.”
“Is it?” I inquired. “Pray explain yourself.”
Woller half-closed his eyes, and spoke slowly, as one who has to think and speak at the same time. This is how he put it:—
“ Every man carries in his own mind a something which is, more or less, his master. This something is known by the name or title of Imagination. We all, as I have already said, pay tribute to it. We all bow our necks to its voice of authority. We speak of Fear, of Hope, of Love, of Rage. Without Imagination, none of these would exist. A superstitious traveller, overtaken by the darkness in a lonely place, sees a flutter of something white. Imagination conjures up a spectre, and fear then takes possession of his heart. A pretty girl smiles on an amorous youth. Imagination pictures her as his own beloved one, and the man is tilled with blissful hope; and so I might go on, but I have said sufficient in that direction.
“Imagination must, of course, be started by some object or circumstance; and it is such a prancing, capering, quicksilver kind of an institution, that the least thing sets it off; but it takes a lot to stop it in its wild career.
“ Now, your own experience this morning will tell you what I am aiming at. This house lies at a very little distance from a railway station. It lies also on one of the best roads leading from Croydon into the very prettiest part of the country round about here; consequently, in fine weather the passers-by are numerous, and many of them are thirsty. I can assure you that not only one now and then, but scores and scores of customers, strangers to the house, come into that bar and call for a glass of ale. Directly, however, they catch sight of their faces in the glass, they say: ‘ Oh! no, please— I’ll take a little drop of brandy.’ A white face makes them imagine they are ill, and so Imagination sells my spirits.”
“ My own experience! ” I exclaimed.
“Just so,” said Woller; “and you are, as a rule, pretty ’cute. That glass is worth pounds and pounds to me. Of
course the regular customers get to know it, and they enjoy the joke. I occasionally use it for another purpose, too. One day last week I did so. There was a fellow came into the public bar, and asked for some drink. I declined to serve him, for he was what I call honestly drunk when he came in. Well, he began to kick up a rare bother; so, after a tittle while, I said to him quietly: ‘ If you knew, my friend, the condition you are in, and how near you are to dying, you wouldn’t want any more beer.’ He looked a little alarmed at this. I then said : 1 Go round to the other bar, and look in the glass. See what a state your heart must be in, to make you look like that.’ He went into the other bar. It was a treat to see his face. He never said a word. He just gave one deep groan, and out he went.”
I laughed at this, but Woller assured me it was perfectly true; and there our conversation ended concerning the glass. After dinner we took our walking-sticks and had a jolly ramble, Woller seeing me part of my journey home. Having now proved that “Faults have their uses,” I will retire.
D. Goggs.
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xxn.
Berendt’s description of the “ Amber Land,” concluded:— . Amber is found in isolated pieces, in detached masses, and in veins. I have to view in detail these various forms.
The occurrence of the isolated pieces is not a proof of the earlier existence of the amber tree at the places where we find them. The earth crust of our fatherland is rich in objects appertaining to all periods of creation. During some years I received from the neighbourhood of Dantzic large pieces of petrified wood, which is much older than brown coal. For more than a hundred years the reapers have made use of thia petrified wood to sharpen their scythes, a proof of its frequent occurrence. I have also received ammonites, bel mnites, and gryphites, whose occurrence closes with the chalk formation, madrepores, and many tertiary petrifactions, amber, and also jet, interesting specimens of many Northern erratic blocks, the skull of a beaver, an animal which no longer exists in Prussia, petrified sand, sea and fresh-water con-chylia of the most recent epochs ; yea, even objects of art— for instance, dirhems of the time of Harun-Al-Raschid and of Huctefi-Billah, Greek and Roman gold and silver coins; and all this within the compass of a few square miles, and for the most part from the furrows of freshly-worked ground. Amber—which was so precious in the eyes of the Greeks and Romans that, as Pliny states, images of men in amber were sold at a higher rate than men themselves, and that, as Voigt remarks, almost exclusively through amber the South was brought into relation with the North—converted the Baltic coast into a perpetual mine of Roman, Greek, and Arabic coins. In the bay not far from Horst, in Pomerania, such coins are almost invariably picked up on the sand, when the wind has been blowing for a time from the east, and then blows for a few days from an opposite quarter. Moreover, the region from Dantzic to Elbing has been found rich in such antiquities, as well as the Island of Bornholm, which Adam of Bremen speaks of as a naval station of the barbarous nations carrying on commerce with Greece (that is, Russia). It deserves to be observed also, that most of the old coins found in this region, as well as in the remotest New Russian Steppes, belong to the age of the Antonines. Who, having regard to their original home, would ever dream of basing conclusions on the find-place of so many heterogeneous articles? Each fragment of amber lying by itself in the upper strata is, like the ammonites and the belemnites, only by accident in a particular place, into which it was thrown by an inundation, and which a torrent of rain may change on the morrow. Every connection with the past is here cut off. In deeper strata the isolated pieces of amber have similar characteristics. A steep hilly mass near Tem-pelburg, a quarter of a (German) mile from Dantzic, which in its strata, consisting of coarse and fine sand, of loam and marl, and of erratic blocks here and there, offers an abundant material for building, much sought after, revealed about thirty feet under the surface, in a loam stratum, an amber clump about the size of the fist, and formed of decayed and weatherworn pieces. In the superincumbent strata, one of which was about half-a-foot thick, and consisted of coarse flint rubble and of granite fragments three or four inches in diameter, there was no sign of a cleft or hollow through which at a later period the piece of amber could have fallen. It had been tossed in as accidentally as an orthoceratite found in its immediate neighbourhood. Moreover, from the circumstance that rivers bear on with them pieces of amber, we must not conclude that their stream has been in contact with a primitive bed. The stream bears along all fragments which, especially in the spring, through the force of ice-blocks, it loosens from the shallows, raises up, or tears from the banks when it bursts over them. Sometimes, also, it may encounter amber veins and detached amber masses, and gradually dislodge them ; but here it merely bears back to the sea what the land had formerly received from the sea. The find-place of the isolated pieces of amber has, conesquently, no geological significance.
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The amber nests (detached masses of amber) and the amber veins must, in reference to their origin, be viewed together. Whoso strolls along the South Baltic coast after a northern storm, when the waves are again calm, beholds, as far as the strand and his eyes reach, a marine scum which, unbroken, and in the form of a black-brown girdle, runs along the tract swept by the wash, and seems to indicate the boundary between the land and the sea. Every inland sea, after a storm, shows in diminished proportions the same thing. By the waves the ejections of the sea are driven toward the land, and, on the somewhat steep coast, are impelled as high as the rush of the crests of the billows can hurl them. Furthermore, we often behold in the sea, close to the shore, a long bank of such ejections, and the sea water coloured almost black by minute fragments of brown coal. When the wind has ceased, the waves lack force to roll to the coast the black mass tossed hither and thither. According to the direction and the strength of the wind, and the form of the strand, some places receive more, some less, of the floating mass. This mass, often two feet thick, consists of various sea-growths, some of them extinct, principally sea-grass and sea-weed, of branches and roots, of abundant brown coal, brushwood, reeds, and sb on—all chaotically mingled together. Intermingled with the chaotic heap are larger and smaller pieces of amber, and sometimes other resinous clumps and shells, in some places in such numbers that the foot treads on nothing else. Winds from another direction either cover the vast line of ejections with flying sand, or scatter the heaps, which, through drying, are easily swept away; so that in a short time the accumulation has vanished. Somewhat heavy pieces of amber are then laid bare on the sand, and certainly for centuries have seldom been covered by it; for manifestly busy hands were always ready to gather the amber after every favourable storm. I imagine that the process was the same on the strand when the inundation of the amber began. What the sea streams coming from the north dislodged from the inundated amber stratum, they swept southwards to the emerging mainland, and placed stratum after stratum of the vegetal ejections, which primaeval forest and the sea profusely furnished, mixed with amber exactly in the same fashion, which is revealed to us in smaller proportion at present. An accumulation of the resin did not, probably, as yet take place. The amber remained lying at the spot whither the wave threw it. Billows which from another direction soon thereafter lashed the coast, tore the girdle in many places, dislodged and swept on its mass, took it completely away from one region to enrich another therewith—whereby those pieces of amber which in accidental hollows of the strand, in the bottoms of whirlpools, in angles and bays of the coast found a sheltering place, remained in these cavities—placed at many points two or more such lines of ejections before each other, or separated by strata of sand over each other: in short, fashioned the full group of those phenomena which in our own days the amber diggings in the veins and the nests present. The veins are nothing more than the former coast borders of the sea, or, rather, portions thereof; the nests nothing more than those cavities of the ancient strand in which accident heaped considerable quantities of amber. With the progressive emersion of the coast, and in the course of many thousands of years, the retreating sea in numerous places left similar accumulations, whose material contents varied according as the sea-streamings stirred the primitive forest not far off, and now submarine; and later storms doubled here and scattered asunder there the treasures torn from the bottom of the sea. At first, on the fresh rending of the forest soil, the shattered trunks and the larger amber clumps lying near them were swept forth. Therefore, as already remarked, the most valuable pieces lie mostly in the deeper strata, and the singularly large pieces are found in general nearer to the place of their birth. Every amber vein must be regarded as the monument of a former storm rushing from the island region. On the gradual rising of the continent, the waves no longer reached the strand they had themselves formed; but in the secondary deposition of the amber the inland waters must have accomplished many a transfigurement, till the sand and the clay, heaped up irregularly and unequally, towered higher and higher, and was covered with vegetation and with forest. The air being cut off, and perhaps the water having again burst in—for sinkings and elevations of the soil during so long a period are not improbable—the transformation of all woody fragments and of all vegetal substances in the shattered deposits, with the exception of the unchangeable resin, into brown coal, and through gradual decay into bituminous earth, necessarily followed. Both substances are to the amber digger joyful signs, and form the path which often leads to a rich vein.
In its Surturbrand (a species of peaty, bituminous coal), Iceland offers a counterpart to the formation of the amber veins. The beds of surturbrand are found in the northwestern part of the island, where Neptunian creation is dominant. According to Garlieb, rounded forms occur there frequently. As long as Iceland was uninhabited, the accumulated drift wood on the north-west coast formed vast strata, which, changed into brown coal, now repose in the interior of the island. Similar masses of floating wood are driven at the present day against the north-western strand, which is now further advanced; but the need of fuel by the inhabitants does not permit those masses to accumulate.
As on the coast of Iceland no new surturbrand arises, so on our own coast no new amber veins are formed.
The amber vein is a coast formation, and thus not a primitive deposit. If we hold fast to this view, many enigmatical phenomena easily and spontaneously are solved:—
1	.—The identity of the organic Inclwa in the sea and the earth amber. As they arose in one place, there can be no essential distinction between them.
2	.—The increasing frequency of veins and nests toward the central point, and, as a rule, the augmenting richness in the degree of the proximity.
3	.—In a comparatively small domain the frequent occurrence of amber nests which have no connection with each other, but which betray a similar origin, by the similarity of their form, and by their contents. Undulating, and therefore corresponding to parallel hollows, they are found on the strand; they always contain a mixture of brown coal, bituminous ligneous earth, coarse sand, and pieces of amber. Everything brittle and loose on the wash-strand surface between the nests was swept away, and fine sand tills up the intervals. If the nests had been sporadic stand-points of single trees, a vertical trunk would sometimes be found in them; but of such I have never heard. Through simple decay, it was impossible for trunks of trees to vanish without leaving any trace. The narrative of a trunk dug up sixty years ago, at Stolpe, I regard as illusory. On the other hand, it is remarkable that when in the years 1813 and 1814, by order of the Prussian Government, examination was made of the amber beds discovered in the Orielsburg Circle, traces of sea-tangle were found in them which the sea had thrown forth along with the tangle. Moreover, according to Porchhammer, in the vast sand strata of Northern Jutland, amber of ten lies between decayed Zontera Marina.
4	.—The complete irregularity in the direction of the veins, in their rising and falling, their sudden interruption and disappearance, their capricious positions, their doublings behind and over each other, their unequal thickness and their thinness in particular places; phenomena which were all brought forth by the figuration of the coast at the time, and by the force of storms. A forest soil would have retained a far different impress. Pierced through perpendicularly, it would in general have been more massive, more uniform in its course, more easy to follow where diggings were attempted. The well-known bend of the veins, moreover, from the east to the west cannot be regarded as uniform, for the line of ejections was, even at the very outset, rent by already existing bays, tongues of land, islands, banks, breakers, and was in manifold fashion displaced.
5	.—The similarity, sometimes increasing to identity, between the stratum covering the vein and the stratum bearing it, for both strata were formerly wash-strand. Even where the vein goes in a horizontal direction—a circumstance which must sometimes occur in a forest soil—nowhere do root-stocks standing upright project, and neither perpendicularly nor umbellarly do, as in the case of conifers, tree roots pierce into a deeper bed. The surfaces of the veins, and also of the Samland strata, are for the most part sharply marked. Sometimes, however, a portion of the brown coal dust appears to have been interfused by the percolating water.
6	.—The absence of stones, as well in the veins as in the nests, an absence which would not characterise a forest soil.
7	.—The often observed juxtaposition of amber with many things of a later time, with fossil nuts and coniferous fruits of comparatively recent date, with roughly worked beads, and with iron nails. Traces of the imperfect use of iron meet us, even from the heathen times of the country. In many parts of Pomerania are found so-called Schlackenhalden, from which the ironworkers of modern days have taken many thousand bushels of a slag containing as much as from 30 to 40 per cent, of iron. At Brandenburg on the Havel, under the amber-yielding stratum were found copal and a small bell, a proof in favour of the conjecture offered above, that some districts of our present country were visited by men when others, probably, were still lying under water.
8	.—That in the diggings large pieces of amber were met with lying from two to ten feet from each other, whose broken surfaces nevertheless corresponded. The pieces had been shattered when the breakers dashed them on the strand, or they burst through freezing, and their halves were separated by the further dash of the waves, and then covered with earth.
9	.—The remarkable circumstance that most of the wood found in the veins does not belong to the amber tree. Even at the present time, most of the stranded amber rests in a congregated vegetal blending which seldom has any affinity to the amber tree.
10	.—The shattered state of the contents of the vein, and the almost permanently occurring rounded woods in the veins—striking proofs that the veins are secondary strata and of Neptunian origin.
The rounding of these fragments of wood, reminding us of the forms of flint-rubble, is manifestly no result of weatherwear, but rather of an abrasion brought about by the beat of the waves, and by the rolling hither and thither on the sandy bottom of the sea. In a primitive forest soil abraded pieces could not be met with. Everywhere, however, in the amber land, either singly or in heaps, and even apart from the veins, they occur, are as a rule more oval than globular, and always more or less flat. We encounter similar results
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of pressure in the tree-stems embedded in turf-moors. The smaller pieces have the form of almonds, crow’s eyes (Nuces Vomica), or dried figs; the larger the form of the eggs of hens or of geese. Pieces are discovered several feet long, but always with rounded ends and corners. From Brandenburg, besides such pieces, I got some flat-ribbed smaller pieces of another kind. They consisted of a turf-like texture of small root fibres, and probably more in proximity to the present find-place fell into the flow of the stream; for, from their loose and specifically light mass, they would doubtless have been destroyed if they had rolled or been swept on further.
The number of rounded woody pieces, however, appears to be small, compared with the mass of brown coal and of bituminous wood which, scattered and overwhelmed, lies in East and West Prussia. All Baltic lands are rich in brown coal, and a glance at the refuse left along the coast after seastorms speaks in favour of Nilsson’s conjecture that extensive coal seams, from Schonen southward, run along the bottom of the sea. No one, however, can believe that our amber treasures have been washed by the floods of the sea from Schonen’s brown coal strata and carried into the neighbourhood of Konigsberg. In the narrow coast-slope near Redlau, where, when the sea is stormy, the waves dash against the steep cliffs, I had for several years fixed my attention on a spot about thirty feet long, which consisted of earthy brown coal, but without any mixture of amber. It was the lodgement of a small coal bank into the sandy sea bottom, but of a more recent period, and countless such may be found in the sea basin and in the inland. Its extent could not be made out, for landwards it was covered by the precipitous bank, and seawards by the water. It appears to have arisen through the hardening of a vegetal mass, mixed with sand—a mass consisting less of wood than of leaves and of turf-mud—for it forms a uniform continuance of earthy fracture, in which there is no trace of woody fibres or of year rings. Two years ago sprang from its surface (which had been loosened by the waves) two root-stocks, in whose fragments Goeppert recognised the Pinus species. The beat of the waves had either shattered and swept away the bark and the stems, or so covered them with sand that search for them was fruitless. Inland, and two (German) miles westward, occurs, near Czechoczin, a similar, somewhat purer, brown coal mass. Its origin remains doubtful, as no plant-structure is recognisable. It came, I think, from the Pinus species, and not from the amber tree; for small fragments heated on a china plate till they were converted into ashes, developed no amber scent.
In the South Baltic littoral the brown coal is found for the most part in pieces ‘ half decayed and withered, seldomer in the form of clumps and stems. Of connected strata, or of a brown coal system — as, for instance, in Denmark—there can in our region be no question. Anew is hereby demonstrated that inland waters, even at a comparatively late period, achieved many a dislocation both of the amber and of the brown coal. Strata from four to six and a-half feet thick, as in the Bockufer Mountains of Mecklenburg, or even a hundred and fifty feet thick, as in Lusatia, have not hitherto been discovered in the Baltic provinces; and here technical skill and the usual mining methods are neglected, because from such scarce and scattered quantities there is the promise of only very small gain. At a greater distance—for instance, in the Netz district—there are real strata, and not long ago, at a (German) mile from Fordon, strata have been revealed which there is the intention of working in true mining fashion. In the specimens brought from Fordon the woody fibre is most distinctly recognisable. Goeppert found in the specimens put before him the Pinus species, but not the amber tree. The same thing holds good of the famous Samland stems. What specially relates to their stratification, and to the succession and the geognostical attributes of the layers covering them, has been so accurately and distinctly given by Wrede, and then by Schweigger, that J abstain from copying what has already been repeated by so many. But this stratum does not seem to me a primitive stand-place of accumulated trees, seeing that every sign of a former forest-soil is lacking, which, however, could not fail to be found in almost perpendicularly precipitated mountain walls. I think that the amber forest lay in proximity to this secondary deposit, that the stems, torn loose and carried on by streamings in scattered fashion, here found a resting place. Similar trees are found in the whole of Prussia and Poland. Near Lomza and in the Bialoblicer Forest strata thereof, from north to south, are said to exist. The finding of the Samland stems is very difficult, because they are hidden under the strand hills. Only by fierce western storms are some of them occasionally torn loose from the cliff walls. If they were oftener met with, the gigantic size which is ascribed to them would soon sink to the domain of myth. I accompanied Wrede in the journey along the shore which he has described, and can declare that at Gross-Hubernicken we saw pieces of fossil wood, but no stems. Some years after I received from Wrede undoubted fragments of the wood, but they did not belong to the amber tree. Wood of the amber tree, compared with the amber itself, is very seldom found. Without minute microscopical examination, we must regard only such fragments as belonging to the amber tree in which wood and resin are still in combination, and where the resin is adhering to the rind
or between the year rings of the wood. In any case, it is remarkable that only small scattered fragments of the wood are met with, but seldom or never stems. Was the greater age of the tree the cause of its more rapid decay, whereby also it eludes observation? Or did the extinction of its life, perhaps the partial extinction, take place at a season of the year when there was no resinous sap in the resinous vessels? And may thus a portion of the fossil pine wood so often found have belonged to it, though on being reduced to ashes it betrays no amber odour?
According to my belief, most of the fossil woods, roots, and fruits, belong to the younger period of creation. The numerous pine cones scattered in the Samland strand hills, above the third clay stratum, indicate by their very find-place a later period of the brown coal creation; and a piece of wood in Aycke’s collection, brought from Ostroleka, as well as many leaf-impresses in the brown coal clay of Rauschen belong to the species Taxus, of whose existence in the amber forest no proof has been discovered. We must draw a strict and sharp frontier line for the amber flora, which by every fruit found in it, every blossom—yea, I might say every leaf-manifests itself as peculiar, and recognise only those growths as belonging to it—that is, as inhabitants of the ancient amber forest—whose undoubted fragments the amber shows as Inclusa. Already Bock conjectured that the stems found, according to the ancient chronicles, often in the earth in East and West Prussia, belonged to a younger creation, seeing that people were able to make use of them as fuel. In the old narratives these stems are spoken of as belonging to oaks, beeches, and walnuts. Whether this was so I cannot decide. In any case, it is remarkable that of these three kinds of trees, the oak did grow in the amber forest. Ten years ago I discovered oak blossoms in amber, and described them. Pastor Franck, in his “ Monuments of the Bygone,” has said many interesting things about the geognostic characteristics of Riigen, and speaks of oak stems occurring in turf-moors there. For the contemporaneous existence of beeches and walnut trees with oaks, there is not the same weight of testimony. According to Alexander Braun, Jug-landine® flourished in Central Europe during the younger tertiary period. Walnuts, though of other kinds, are not very rare in amber, and occur in the Piedmont Molasse, as is well known. A nut resembling the Juglans Alba (Juglani Salinarum) was discovered in the salt strata of Galicia; and, thirty fathoms down, similar nuts were met with in the salt mines of Fronche-Comte. Hereby the early existence of the Juglandinem is proved, their presence in the amber forest made probable, aud the formation-time of amber is brought into closer contact with that of mineral salt and molasse. In this region the climate ceased to be favourable to the various kinds of Jug Ians, which died out and were replaced by the Juglang Regia. But even this species has only a meagre and stunted existence in East and also in West Prussia, which is a little more to the south. It grows, like the still rarer Castanea vesca, only in sheltered places, and can scarcely, therefore, be regarded as belonging to the indigenous flora. Similar examples of vanished species, which probably were killed by climatic changes, occur individually in the amber flora, which by comparison may be called poor; but in the very rich amber fauna they occur by hundreds.
The bituminous wood, which is likewise abundant, seems to belong to the youngest period of creation ; and, supposing the air to be excluded, needs, perhaps, only to be covered with water in order to undergo the second degree of transformation, and to be converted into brown coal. It belongs, as its well-preserved woody fibres show, to different kinds of trees, but principally conifers, and resembles in its characteristics the wood of species of trees still existing. Among others, appertain hereto the trees found at Siilz, in Mecklenburg, in which Lisch recognised the Pinus Sylvestris.
teatru legislation in th ^bree ^ingboms.
vn.
Le Roi est mort! Vive le Roi! Solomon is dead! Long live Rehoboam! James is gone and Charles is king—with Cromwell for his Jeroboam. So Jeroboam and all Israel came and spake to Rehoboam, saying, Thy father made our yoke grievous: now therefore ease thou somewhat the grievous servitude of thy father, and his heavy yoke that he put upon us, and we will serve thee. . . . And King Rehoboam forsook the counsel of the old men, And answered them after the advice of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke: my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. ... So when all Israel saw that the king would not hearken unto them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, 0 Israel: now see to thine own house, David. So Israel departed unto their tents.
Or, as it is put by the continuator of Thomas Bymer, the good Robert Sanderson, who excels exceedingly in dedications, humbly presuming to lay at the feet of His Sacred Majesty
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George the Second the Twentieth Volume of the “ Feeders ” (1636-1654): “ It contains the last Twelve Years of the Reign of King Charles the First, and the First Six Years of the Reign of King Charles the Second, Your Royal Progenitors; a very small Number of Years indeed, but fill’d with innumerable Instances of Rage, Distraction, Madness, Confusion, unreasonable Dissensions, and Unchristian Quarrels. . . . but a serious Reflection upon them, naturally leads me to express my Joy for falling into Times, under Your Sacred Majesty’s auspicious Reign, wherein we are sufficiently guarded from all Fears and Apprehensions of such dreadful Vicissitudes. May Your Majesty Live long to preserve to us those Blessings, which by Your consummate Wisdom and unwearied Pains and Labour You have procured for us. May the true Sense of such inestimable Blessings inspire every honest Heart, with an active becoming Zeal, for the sole Service and Interests of the excellent Autlior of them; For it is to You (Great Kina) we truly owe the full Enjoyment of them. May Just Heaven (whose Care You are) ever Protect and Guard Your Majesty, Your Royal Consort, and all Your Royal Family, for the Glory and Support of all Y'our Subjects in Particular, and for the General Good and Benefit of Mankind.” What loyal heart will not thrill harmonious response to this rich and full-toned devotion ?—will not join with pious fervour in the fervent strophes of the dedication to His Sacred Majesty Georye the First, in the penultimate year of His glorious and blissful Reign, of the Eighteenth Tome of the same Work ?—“ From which hath been derived unto us the choicest Blessing that Heaven could bestow upon a loyal People, the greatest King and best of Men [Amen!] who hath made us greater by Your excellent Power, and better by Y’our Royal Example. Y’our Majesty will please to indulge me here the Liberty of making the most dutiful Profession of an unalterable Zeal and Affection to both Y’our Majesty’s Person and Your Government: and these, I think, I can’t declare in a better, I am certain in a more agreeable Manner to Y’our Majesty’s eminent Piety [Amen!], than by my constant Wishes and ardent Prayers for Y’our Sacred Majesty’s long, very long and prosperous Reign over a contented People; and that there may never want a Person, issuing from Y’our sacred Loyns, to sway the Sceptres of these Your Kingdoms, so long as the Sun and Moon endure. [Jnd lonyer yet if it be possible!] ”
King Anti, of ignoble and unblessed memory, died on “Sunday the seaven and twentith Day of this Moneth of March,” 1625 ; and already on this “ Nynth Day of Aprill ” we have, “ Feeders” at date, Proclamatio de Herba Nicotiana, beginning: “"Whereas our most deere Father, of blessed Memorie, deceased, for manie weighty and important Reasons of State, and at the humble Suite of his Commons in Parliament. did lately publish two severall Proclamations, the one dated the 29th September nowe last past, and the other the 2nd March followinge, for the utter prohibitinge the Ympor-tation and Use of all Tobacco which is not of the proper Growth of the Colonyes of Viryinia and the Sommer Islands, or one of them, with such Cautions, and under such Paynes and Penalties, as are in those Proclamations at large expressed.”
The Proclamation of September 29, 1624, was cited at considerable length in Sections II. and III. (April and September, 1879), that of Mar. 2, 1625, is in the “Foedera” at date (vol. 17; pp. 668-672), but not referred to in the Index, so that I passed it over. It is entitled: A Proclamation for the utter Prohibiting the Importation and Use of all Tobacco which is not of the proper Growth of the Collonyes of Virginia and the Sommer Islands or one of them ; and is little else than a detailed and emphatic confirmation of the Proclamations already cited of September 29 and November 9, 1624, though it speaks generally of certain Alterations. It complains that the former of these Proclamations had been wilfully disobeyed; that some have unmarchantlike seacretlye and cunningly stoln in greate Parcells of Tobacco; and declares, We would have those Persons, and all others by theire Example, knowe that they must expecte the Severity of that Censure which our Courte of Starchamber shall thincke fitte to inflicte upon them, and that we are resolved not to relent or remitte theire deserved Punishments, but to cause them and all others that dare to offend heerein to be prosecuted and punished in such measure as such theire high Contempt doth deserve. It goes on to speak of the Officers appointed by our Letters Patent of November 9 to give effect to the preceding Proclamation; adding, And Wee have also contracted with them to be our Agents for Us, and for our use to receive the Tobacco of those Collonyes and for such Prices as wee have agreed to give for the same; and besides those Prices to be given to the Planters and Owners of the said Tobacco, our Said Agents have further contracted with Us, to give and pay unto Us and to our use such Sommes of Money more as may give Us reasonable Satisfaction for that Losse which otherwise wee should sustayn in our Customs and other Duties, and may inable us to bear that charge which we have undertaken yerely to disburse for the generall Defence and Support of those Plantations. And wee doe further, by this our Proclamation, publishe and declare that we will constantlye and inviolablye observe and performe our said Contracte and on our Parts will allow and disburse out of our Revenue those Sommes of Money for the Safety of those Plantations and for the Ease of the Planters and Inhabitants there, which by the said Contracte hath been on
our Parts undertaken; whereof we would have as well our said Agents as the Planters and Adventurers in those Collonyes, and all other whom it may concerne, to rest confidently assured. It denounces those who, Wee are given to understand, stealthily land Tobacco at private Wharfes Staires or other Places, and sende or conveye the same unto the Houses Cellers Warehouses or other Places of or belonging to others who are less suspected then themselves; and those who still doe secretly and underhand steal into our Kingdoms the said prohibited Tobacco, and doe soe privily hyde and conceale the same, that they cannot be easily discovered nor found out, and doe either by themselves or others carrye the same by smalle Quantityes to the Houses or Shoppes of our Subjects, and doe sell or proffef the same to be soulde, or else doe secretlye and covertlye offer to contract for the Sale of such prohibited Tobacco. And our further Will and Commaunde is, that all the Tobacco of the Grouth of our Collonies aforesaide, shall be brought to the Customehouse Keye of our Porte of London, and there be delivered to our Agents or their Assignees to our use, according to our Contract aforesaide, or to be kepte in our said Customhouse to be transported out of our Domynions, and whatsoever Tobacco, of the Grouth of those Plantations or either of them, shall not be brought to that Key and be delivered as aforesaid, or for which there shall not be good Security given to our Agents within fourteene Daies after the Landing thereof to export the same as aforesaide, the same shall be forfeited and seized to our use by our Agents or their Deputies as other prohibited Tobacco, and this to be duly observed under the Pains and Penalties aforesaide. . . . And forasmuch as heretofore great Quantities of Tobacco have been imported into this Realme, under the Name or Names of Sondry poor Marriners and others which are not able to pay the Value thereof, nor give Satisfaction for the same, our Will and Pleasure is, the better to avoyde such Frauds and Deceipts in tyme to come, That in whatsoever Shippe or other Vessell any such Tobacco in greater or lesser Quantityes shall be founde or discovered to have been or to be soe imported, and to be shifted away, that Seizure thereof cannot or shall not be made, That then such Marriners and others who shall so import or cullor the said Tobaccoes, shall not only be punished as aforesaid, but that every Maister of such Shippe or Vessel wherein such Tobacco shall be so imported or shifted away as aforesaid, shall forfeit to Us the Value of the said Tobacco, aud that such Shippe or Shippes shall be arrested and staied by the Officers of every Porte, or any of our Agents their Deputyes or Assignes respectively, until the said Forfeiture be dulye answered and paide to the Handes of our said Agent or Agentes to Our Use, or such others as they shall appoint in that behalf.
Thus the end of the reign of King Anti corresponded thoroughly to the beginning: he began by imposing a monstrous duty, he ended by denouncing and punishing the smuggling this enormous imposition naturally engendered. But King Anti, unlike our bland and cheerful muddler Northcote, had not the advantage of being able to study such a work as J. R. M*Culloch’s “ Dictionary of Commerce,” whose article on Smuggling commences : “ This crime, which occupies so prominent a place in the criminal legislation of all modern States, is wholly the result of vicious commercial and financial legislation. It is the fruit either of prohibitions of importation, or of oppressively high duties. It does not originate in any depravity inherent in man ; but in the folly and ignorance of legislators. ... To create by means of high duties an overwhelming temptation to indulge in crime, and then to punish men for indulging in it, is a proceeding completely subversive of every principle of justice. ... A punishment which is not proportioned to the offence, and which does not carry the sanction of public opinion along with it, can never be productive of any good effect. The true way to put down smuggling is to render it unprofitable; to diminish the temptation to engage in it; and this is not to be done by surrounding the coasts with cordons of troops, by the multiplication of oaths and penalties, and making the country the theatre of ferocious and bloody contests in the field, and of perjury and chicanery in the courts of law; but by repealing prohibitions, and reducing duties, so that their collection may be enforced with a moderate degree of vigilance; and that the forfeiture of the article may be a sufficient penalty upon the smuggler. It is in this, and in this only, that we must seek for an effectual check to illicit trafficking. Whenever the profits of the fair trader become nearly equal to those of the smuggler, the latter is forced to abandon his hazardous profession. But so long as prohibitions or oppressively high duties are kept up, or, which is in fact the very same thing, so long as high bounties are held out to encourage the adventurous, the needy, and the profligate to enter on this career, we may be assured that armies of excise and customs officers, backed by the utmost severity of the revenue laws, will be insufficient to hinder them.—It would bo useless to enter in this place into any lengthened details to prove the truth of these statements. Unluckily the entire financial and commercial history of this country and others abounds with instances in point, many of which must be familiar to every reader.”—Just so; and especially to every reader who has even a slight knowledge of our Tobacco trade and legislation. The truths thus forcibly expressed by one of the first of recent authorities on the subject, may indeed appear to the common intelligence of our days not only elementary but almost axiomatic; yet when can we fairly hope they will penetrate
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the thick nnintelligence of country squires amiably muddling our mercantile finance? *
As the end of James was quite worthy of his beginning, so was the beginning of Charles quite worthy of his end. In this Proclamation of April 9, 1625, Wee confirm those of our most deere Father cited in the preamble, for the present touching the Premisses, untill upon more mature Deliberation Wee shall see Cause to alter or add unto the same in any Parte; And our further Will and Commaund is, That all the Forrayne Tobacco of what Sortes soever, which is not of the proper Growth of those Plantations or one of them, shall before the fowerth Daye of May nowe next ensuing be Transported out of our Realmes and Domynions, as by the said former Proclamations it was directed and commaunded, uppon Payne of Forfeiture thereof, and uppon the other Paynes and Penalties aforesaid to be inflicted uppon the Offenders ; And our Pleasure is that all such Foreigne Tobacco may be freely exported by any Person whatsoever, without paying to us or to Our Use anie Subsidie or other Dutie for the same.
1625, May 13 (always “ Foedera” at date) I A Proclamation for Settlinge the Plantation of Virginia. Whereas the Collo-nie hath not hetherto prospered soe happiely as was hoped and desired, a greate Occasion whereof his late Majestie conceived to bee, for that the Government was comytted to the Companie of Virginia, incorporated of a Multitude of Persons of severall Dispositions, amongst whome the Affaires of greatest Moment were and must be ruled by the greater Number of Votes and Voyces [A most abominably rational way, indeed !] and therefore his late Majestie, out of his great Wisdome and depth of Judgment, did desire to resume (to himself] that Popular Government, and accordingly the Letters Patentee of that Incorporation were, by his Highnes Direction, in a legal Course questioned, and thereuppon judicially repealed and adjudged to be voyd; And whereas Wee upon deliberate Advise and Consideration are of the same Judgment that Our said Father was of in this matter; Wee therefore publish and declare to all Our lovinge Subjectes. and to the whole World, that wee hould those Territories of Virginia and the Summer Islandes, as alsoe that of Newe England, to be a parte of Our Royall Empire discended uppon Us, and undoubtedlie belonginge unto Us; And that our full Resolution is, that there maie be one uni forme Course of Government in and through Our whole Monarchic; That the Government of the Collonie of Virginia shall ymediately depend uppon Our Selfe, and not be commytted to anie Companie or Corporation, to whom itt maie be proper to trust Matters of Trade and Commerce, but cannot bee fitt or safe to communicate the ordering of State Affaires be they of never soe meane Consequence [Decidedly not, your most absolute Majesty]; And Wee have determyned that Our Commissioners for those Affaires shall proceede accordinge to the Tenor of Our Commission untill Wee shall declare Our further Pleasure therein; Nevertheless Wee are resolved, with as much convenyent Expedition as Our Affaires of greater Importance will give leave, to establish a Counsell con-sistinge of a fewe Persons of Understand!nge and Qualitie, to whome Wee will give Trust for the ymediate Care of the Affaires of that Collonie, and whoe shall be answerable to Us for their Proceedings, and in Matters of greater Moment shall be subordinate and attendant unto our Privie Counsell here; And that Wee will also establish an other Counsell to be resident in Virginia, whoe shal be subordinate to Our Counsell here for that Collonie;
And lastly, whereas it is agreed on all Sides that the Tobacco oi Virginia and the Summer Islandes (which is the only present Meanes of their Subsistinge), cannot be mannaged for the Good of the Plantations unless itt be brought into one Hand, whereby the Forraigne Tobacco may be carefullie kept out, and the Tobacco of those Plantations may yealde a certayne and ready Price to the Owners thereof, Wee doe hereby declare, That, to avoyde all Differencies and Contra-rietie of Opinions, which will hardly be reconcyled betweene the Planters and Adventurers themselves, Wee are resolved to take the same into Our owne Hands, and by Our Servants or Agents for Us to give such Prices to the Planters and Adventurers for the same as may give them reasonable Satisfaction and Incouragement, but of the Manner thereof we will deter-myne hereafter at better Leisure; and in the meane tyme, because the Importation and Use of forraigne Tobacco, which is not of the growth of those Plantations or one of them, will visably and assuredly undermyne and destroy those Plantations, by taking away the Meanes of their Subsistencie; Wee doe hereby strictly charge and commaunde that our late Proclamation of the 9th Aprill shall in all Poynts and Parts be duely and strictely observed upon Payne of Our high Displeasure, and such further Penaltyes and Punishments as by the saide Proclamation are to be inflicted uppon the Offenders.
♦ In the brief Biographical Notice prefixed to the 1869 Edition of the “Dictionary" by M‘CulIwh’B son-in-law and secretary, Hugh G. Reid, we have “ an anecdote told lately at a public meeting by a friend of his, now a learned lord and a Scotch judge;’’ being Lord Neaves, of Let im all be unhappy on Sunday fame: “He asked me once, Do you ever quote my “Commercial Dictionary” in Court? I said, with some emphasis, Never; we never quote, and we never mention it. Sometimes a set of papers come in upon us at night upon a mercantile question that we know nothing about, and we go up to our shelves and take down the “Commercial Dictionary,” and find all we want there ; and next morning we come out, to the astonishment of our clients, with better information upon the subject than they have themselves: but we never mention M'Culloch’s “ Dictionary.”
| Sgm^ong in Smoht.
[From Judy, January 14, 1880.]
A pretty, piquant, pouting pet, Who likes to muse and take her ease;
She loves to smoke a cigarette.
To dream in silken hammockette, And sing and swing beneath the trees—
A pretty, piquant, pouting pet I
Her Christian name is Violet, Her eyes are blue as summer seas. She loves to smoke a cigarette!
As calm as babe in bassinette, She swingeth in the summer breeze, A pretty, piquant, pouting pet.
She ponders o’er a novelette— Her parasol is Japanese— She loves to smoke a cigarette.
She loves a fume without a fret—
Her frills are white, her frock cerise— A pretty, pouting, piquant pet.
, She almost goes to sleep, and yet, Half lulled by booming honey-bees, She loves to smoke a cigarette!
A winsome, clever, cool coquette— Who flouts all Grundian decrees—
A pretty, pouting, piquant pet, Who loves to smoke a cigarette!
Jay Cigarette.
[From the Harvard College Crimson.]
My cigarette! The amulet
That charms afar unrest and sorrow;
The magic wand that, far beyond
To-day, can conjure up to-morrow—
Like love’s desire, thy crown of fire
So softly with the twilight blending, And, ah I meseems, a poet’s dreams Are in thy wreaths of smoke ascending.
My cigarette! Can I forget
How Kate and I, in sunny weather,
Sat in the shade the elm trees made, And rolled the fragrant weed together ?
I, at her side, beatified
To hold and guide her fingers willing;
She, rolling slow the paper’s snow, Putting my heart in with the filling! •
My cigarette! I see her yet—
The white smoke from her red lips curling,
Her dreaming eyes, her soft replies,
Her gentle sighs, and laughter purling!
Ah! dainty roll, whose parting soul
Ebbs out in many a snowy billow, I, too, would burn, if I might earn
Upon her lips so sweet a pillow.
Ah, cigarette! The gay coquette
Has long forgot the flames she lighted, And you and I unthinking by
Alike are thrown, alike are slighted. The darkness gathers fast without, A raindrop on my window plashes;
My cigarette and heart are out,
And naught is left me but their ashes!
Those ^shes.
[From the U.S. Tobacco Journal, January 31, 1880.]
Up to the frescoed ceiling The smoke of my cigarette, In a sinuous spray is reeling, Forming flower and minaret.
What delicious landscape, floating On perfumed wings, I see;
Pale swans I am idly noting, And queens robed in filagree.
I see such delicious faces As ne’er man saw before, And my fancy fondly chases Sweet maids on a fairy shore.
Now to bits my air castle crashes, And those pictures I see no more;
My grandmother yells: “ Them ashes— Don’t drop them on the floor! ”
B. K. Mukhttbich.
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^t ^tbliagrap^g of ^trshin,
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• I am very deeply grateful to you, as I am in all duty bound, for this very curious record of myself.’*—From a Letter of Mr. Ruskin's to the Compiler, dated “ Brantwood, Coniston, Oct. 24,1878."
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In Sixpenny Boxes, containing twelve Paper Cigarettes. In Cardboard Cases, containing three dozen Sixpenny Boxes.
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In Sixpenny Boxes, containing twelve Paper Cigarettes, In Cardboard Cases, containing three dozen Sixpenny Boxes.
Cope’s Whiffs. In Fourpenny Bundles of ten. In Cedar Boxes, containing forty Bundles, or 400 Cigarettes.
The Figaro. Extra Mild. In Sixpenny Boxes, containing twelve leaf-covered Cigarettes. In Packets, containing two dozen Sixpenny Boxes.
Fairy Brand. In Cardboard Boxes, gold mounted, with beautiful Parisian label, containing ten internal Packets of ten Cigarillos each.
Bouquet (With Tubes), PeerleSS (Without Tubes). In Cardboard Boxes, containing four Bundles of 25 Cigaretos. In very handsome Cedar Cases, containing ten Boxes, or 1000 Cigaretos.
Delicate tn flavour; burn evenly, with a Arm white ash; made with great care for a mild morning, smohe.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes. In Cardboard Boxes, containing 50. In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1000, with lock and key.
Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made from a peculiar kind of Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking of this Tobacco is said to give relief in cases of Asthma.
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Okw ^ishtum in tire £bm ^injboms.
vin.
Fcedera., Tom. XVIII., 1625-1628. (Concluded.)
1626,	Mar. 4. Commission confirming appointment of Sir George Yardeley, Knight, as Governor; with thirteen others, named, as his Councell; and one of them, William Clay-borne, as Secretary of State; of and for’the Collony and Plantation of Virginia: Commission to contynue in Force UEtill such tyme as Wee, by some other Writing under Signett Privie Seale or Great Seale of England, shall signifie Our Pleasure to the oontrarie.
1626,	April 14. A Warrant to the Lord Keeper, Sir Thos. Coventrie, for passing, and causing Our Great Seale to be put thereunto, a Ferme [Farm, or Lease] of some of Our Customes and Subsidies to Sir-John Wolstenholme and Sir Morris Abbott Knights, and Henry Garwaie and Abraham Jacob Esquiers.—The last we have already met with twice, in 1618 and 1619 (Sect. V., Deer.).
1626,	July 26; Westminster. Commission to Our Lord Tresurer and Commissioners of Our Treasury, Our Chancellor and Undertresurer of Our Exchequer, Our Chief Baron and other Barons of our Exchequer, Customers, Comptrollers, Searchers, &c.; Declaring Our Will and Pleasure to be that all those Duties upon Goods and Merchandizes, called by the Severall Names of Customes, Subsidies and Imposts, exported and imported out of and into this Our Realms of England and Domynion of Wales, and Porte and Towne of Berwick, shall be leavyed and collected as at the time of the Decease of Our Father, and upon Such Accompts and Fermes as now the same are collected; all which Our Will and Pleasure is, shall contynue untill such tyme as by Parliament, as in former tymes, it maie receave an absolute Setling; with powers to commit to Prison everie Person refusing or neglecting to obey this Our Order to paie the said Duties, &c. unto Us, Our Farmors, Collectors, &c.:—All this, in the want of a Parliamentary Course to settle the Payment of those Duties; seeing that, though such Course hath beene thought upon in the twoe last Parliaments, it could not there be settled by Authoritie of Parliament, as from time to time by manie Ages and discents past it hath beene, by Reason of the Dissolution of those Parliaments before those Things which were there treated of could be perfected.—The second Parliament was hurriedly dissolved on the 15th June, 1626. On the 9th Charles, to protect Buckingham, impeached in both Houses, sent a message to the Commons “ that we do expect that they do forthwith bring in their bill of subsidy, to be passed without delay or condition, so as it may fully pass the House by the end of next week at farthest; which, if they do not, it will force us to take other resolutions.” The Commons, thoroughly determined that reform of abuses and dismissal of Sejanus-Buckinghain (so Sir John Eliot, closing the indictment, transfixed him again and again with barbed arrows from Tacitus) should precede any bill of subsidy, drew up in reply a declaration or remonstrance which they meant to present to the King in a body. He anticipated them by the sudden dissolution; they published their remonstrance as an appeal to the nation ; he published a counter-declaration, “ containing many equivocations and some falsehoods ” (as a matter of course, from Charles the Martyr), ordered the paper of the Commons to be burnt, and forthwith set himself with his minion to raising money by illegal means, such as the above-cited proclamation.
1627,	Jan. 31; Westminster. Commission to Sir John
Wolstenholme and others, some already mentioned in Commission April 14, 1626, and some (Edward Dishfield, &c.) in that of Nov. 9, 1624 •:—“ Whereas often Complaynts have been made, both in tyme of Our late deare Father of ever blessed Memorie, and since Our Accesse to the Croune, that the buying and taking of Spanish Tobacco and other Foreign Tobacco hath bene a verie unusefull and unprofitable Mar-chandize, and the over frequent Use thereof, and the planting of Tobacco in England, Ireland, and the Isles thereunto belonging, have bene already the greate Discouragement, and are like to be the utter Destruction of Our English Plantations abroade, if the same be not carefully and tymely prevented ; those Plantations in their Infancy, having as yet little else of moment whereout to raise a Benefitt to supplye them with Necessaries for their Subsistence:
“And whereas, at the Instance of Our loving Subjects, divers Proclamations have bene made and published, both by Our said Father and by Us, to regulate the Error of theis tymes in this Case, but the Success hath not hitherto answered Our Hopes, nor the Desires of Our loving Subjects:
“	And whereas the Commissioners for Our Revenue have humbly advised Us that theis Things will hardly be ordered in anie convenyent manner, unless wee shall take the managing thereof into Our Hands, Our Plantations abroade being in apparent Danger of Ruyne otherwise, and Wee loosinge those just Profits upon Tobacco imported, which belong to Us; and they have moved and perswaded us to make choice of some fitt and able Persons, whom Wee might trust with the managing and ordering all Tobacco within theis Our Realmes and Dominions, as our Commissioners or Agents for Us, and for Our owne Protitt onlye, and to be accomptable to us for the same: ”
Wee, therefore, nominate and appoynte you (one Knighte, five Esquires; with two Marchants, one Salter and two Grocers, of London) to be our Commissioners or Agents; graunting unto you, or your appoynted Agents, absolute Authoritie to seize all Tobacco hereafter imported, vented, uttered or Sold in England, Ireland, or Wales, or any of the Isles thereunto belonging [Scotland still excepted] contrarie to anie Proclamation heretofore published by Us or Our Father; And give you full power to appoynt and paye soe many Persons as you think fitt for the Employments incident to the said Service;
And Wee doe alsoe give unto you Authoritie to buy and importe into England [nothing of Wales, Ireland, or the Isles here] such a Quantitie or Proportion of Spanish or other Forreigne Tobacco for Our Une as shalbe thought fitt by you, soe that it doe not exceed Fiftye thousande [pounds. Weights in any one Yeare;
And Wee alsoe authorize you for Our Use and on Our behalfe to buy and contract for all such Tobacco as shall growe, be made, or vented in Virginia and the Sommer Islands, as also all other sortes of Tobacco being of the Giowth of any Englishe Plantation [Colony] of what kinde soever, the same being good and merchantable, and alsoe for such Tobacco as shalbe at any tyme seized or forfeited by any Person or Persons whatsoever, at such Prices and for such Quantitye as you can agree or contracte for, allowing the Seizer or Seizers of soe much thereof as shalbe forfeited,
♦ One of them, PhiUip Burlamachi, seems to be the foreign Speculator ▼ho confessed to the House in Committee of the next Parliament (1628; the Parliament of the Petition of Right) that he had received a Warrant under the Privy Seal and £80,000, for hiring and bringing over troops of German horse.* “The intent of bringing over these German horse,” exclaimed one of the members, “ is to cut our throats, or else to keep us at their obedience.”—“ Pict. Hist.,” III., 133; citing “ Parly. Hist.”
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for his and their Service herein, such proportionable Rate in Money as you shall think fitt, or as by our Proclamation is or shalbe appoynted, and the same to sell again for Our best Profitt and Advantage, upon a juste and true Accompte thereof to be made Yearely to Our Treasurer and Chauncellor of Our Exchequer, and Barons of Our Exchequer; And to the Intente Wee be not defrauded herein, Wee doe further give you Power to cause to be framed or engraven one or more Stampes or Seales, wherewith you or any of you or any by you appoynted to make Seizure of Tobacco as aforesaid shall scale and marke all manner of Tobacco, to be imported, or to be boughte, uttered or sold, by Vertue of these Presents: “ And to the End Our Said Commissioners maye receive some Satisfaction for their Labour Travaile and Paynes, in and about the Execution of this our Service, Our Will and Pleasure is, that our Said Commissioners or Agents shall have from tyme to tyme such Recompense and Allowance as Our Treasurer of England, or Chauncellor of Our Exchequer, for the tyme being, shall think fitt to give and allowe unto them; The same to be from tyme to tyme disbursed and payed by the Said Collector or Collectors, Receiver or Receivers of the Moneys, to be raised by the Sale of Tobacco, hereafter to be nominated and appoynted by us as aforesaid, out of the same Moneys: ” Concluding with usual strict chardge and commaund to all Officials and Officers concerned to render their utmost ayde and assistance in giving full effect to this Proclamation. 1627, Feb. 17; Whitehall. A Proclamation touching Tobacco. Cites the Proclamations 29 Sept., 1624, and2 Mar., 1625, already herein cited, prohibiting importation of Tobacco not of the proper growth of Virginia or the Somers Islands; cites also the Proclamation of 30 Dec., 1619 (not in “ Foedera,” but confirmed in that of 20 June, 1620, herein cited; Sect. II., April, 1879,) prohibiting the planting of Tobacco in England or Wales; cites also our renewal and confirmation of the said Prohibitions since our Accesse to Our Crowne (Proclamation 9 April, 1625, already cited): “ Nevertheless, because the ymoderate Desire of taking of Tobacco hath so far prevailed in theis Our Kingdomes, that it cannot on a suddainebe utterly suppressed [Not quite, may it please (or displease) your Majesty !], and the Difference, or at least the Opinion of Difference [a really fine'distinct ion}, betweene Spanish or forraigne 1'obacco, and Tobacco of the Plantations of Virginia and of our own Domynions is such, that Our Subjects can hardly be induced totally to forsake the Spanish Tobacco, whereby it cometh to passe that where Wee were willing to have suffered Loss in our Customs soe as the said forraigne Tobacco might have beene kept out [ Wee, with Our Parliament dissolved in a rage not free from terror, being so well off that, not to mention minor devices, we have not only, last July, issued an illegal Warrant for levying Customs and Subsidies on our own sole authority, but just twelve days since an equally unconstitutional Commission for a Forced Loan on a grand scale] the same is secreately and by Stealth brought in, in greate Quantities, and many greate Quantities of Tobacco are set and sowen within this our ' Realm of England and Domynion of Wales, and soe the Mischief intended to be redressed is not avoyded, and yet Our Revenue in Our Customes is much diminished.” Wee therefore have thought fitt [as stated in Proclamation immediately preceding] “by the Advise of Our Commissioners for Our Revenue, as Our first Part of proceeding concerning Tobacco, to restraine wholly the Planting of Tobacco within these Our Realmes or any of the Isles thereto belonging, and to forbidd the Importation of forraigne Tobacco; and yet to give Waie to the Infirmitie of Our Subjects for the present [most gracious Majesty /] by the allowing the Importation of some small Quantitie of Spanish or forraigne Tobacco not exceeding the Quantitie of Fiftie Thousand Weight in any one Yeare, to be brought in by Our owne Commissioners onely, and to Our Own particular Use onely and not otherwise.” All Tobacco, whencesoever imported is to be brought into Our Porte of London onely. There shall be Three several Seales kept by Our Commissioners in some convenient Place under three Lockes, whereof three of Our Commissioners shall keepe three several Keyes, wherewith all the Tobacco imported shall be sealed. That is to saie, for that of Virginia and the Somer Islands a Seale engraven with Our Armes, and for that of the other English Plantations, a Seale with a Lyon and a Crowne, And for the other forraigne Tobacco a Seale with a Broade Arrows and a Portcullice: Nothing to be paid for the Sealing but onely what the Parties themselves shall think fitt to allowe for the Sealers Paynes Wax and Thread. Denunciation, in usual style, of punishments against all who shall offend against this Proclamation, by counterfeiting the Seales, importing foreign Tobacco, or planting in England, Ireland, or Wales. Informers to have one Moytie of the Fynes ymposed, in addition to repayment of whatever expenses they may have incurred; informers of counterfeiting any of the Seales, to have an hundred Crounes in addition out of Our Part of the Fyne. 1627, Mar. 30; Whitehall. De Proclamatione de Signa-tione de Tobacco. For better carrying out of the last preceding all Tobacco alreadie imported shalbee Sealed as well as what shalbee hereafter imported: Any Plantation Tobacco not sealed within one Month from this Date shalbee taken and	reputed for forreigne or the growth of these Realmes, and as such seized. . 1627, August 9; Courte att Windsore. De Proclamatione pro Ordinatione de Tobacco. Refers to the previous Prods-mations of James and Charles concerning Tobacco; “And finding that the inordinate desire of taking Tobacco, and the immoderate Thirste of Gaine by the planting and selling of Tobacco cannot otherwise be allayed or moderated, [the King’s most Excellente Majestie] hath att the lasts, by the Advice of his Privie Counsell, determyned upon this finall Resolution touching all Sorts of Tobacco in Manner following: ” Firsts, noe Person whatsoever shall hereafter plante anye Tobacco in England, Ireland, Wales, or the Isles; and if anye be nowe planted, it shall bee presently plucked upp and utterly destroyed by the Owners, Planters, Tenders or Dressers thereof; and leaste they should adventure to neglecte the Performance hereof, all Constables and other Officers within theire severall Lymitts and Jurisdictions shall effec- 1 tually see the same executed: And all Justices of Peace, Maiors, Sheriffs, and other principal Officers, upon Com-plainte to them made, shall cause the same to bee duely performed without Partialitie, as they and everie of them will answeare theire Contempts in that Behalfe att theire uttermost Perills: And that the Tobacco of his Majesties owne Collonyes may not bee planted and ymported without Lymitation, or under Collour thereof Tobacco the Growth of Spaine and other forreine Parts may not be broughte into theise his Realmes, noe Person whatsoever shall hereafter ymporte anye Tobacco of the Growth of Spaine and other forreine Parts out of his own Domynions, nor sell, nor offer to sell, nor keepe with Intente to sell any such Tobacco, “without his Majesties speciall Commission in that Behalfe, upon Paine of Confiscation and Forfeiture thereof, in whose Hands soever the same shalbee found, and upon such further Paines and Penalties as by the Lawes of theise his Realmes, or by his Prerogative Royal, which in this case hee will not admit to be disputed. [Mark this, and tremble /j may be inflicted upon the Offendors ”: And because such forreine Tobacco may not be received and uttered under the Pretence of [being] the Growth of Virginia, the Sommer Islands, and other Collonies; nor the Planters, Owners or Adventurers of and in these Plantations give themselves over to the planting of Tobacco onely to make a presente Retorne of Profitt, and neglecte to applye themselves to solid Commodities, fitt for the establishinge of Collonies, which will utterly destroy these and all other Plantations [zfs we see it has done 1]; henceforth noe Tobacco of the Growth of anie of Our Collonies shall bee ymported into theise Realmes without his Majesties especiall Lycence under the Greate Seale of England; and upon the Ymporta-tion thereof it shall bee delivered into the Hands of such Commissioners for his Majesties owne ymmediate Use, as H.M. under his Greate Seale shall appointe, at and for such Prices and Rates as shall bee reasonably agreed upon betweene the Owners or Factors for the same and the King’s Commissioners; or if they shall not agree thereon, it shall bee transported againe and soulde elsewhere upon Paine of Forfeiture, and such further Paines and Penalties as by the Lawe, or H.M.’s Prerogative Royall, may be inflicted: [So that the home-market was to be open to the poor Planters, and the market open to the home-dealers, only on the King’s own terms. As for the Lawe, it may be repeated again that hitherto there was no Law on the subject; nothing but illegal arbitrary Proclamations.] And further noe Person whatsoever shall presume to buye anye Sorte of Tobacco within theise Realmes or Domynions, of anye other Persons then [than] of H.M.’s Commissioners, onely to bee authorised under the Greate Seale as aforesaid, and after the same shalbee sealed with a Seale to that Purpose, and that they upon the buying thereof shall expresse the true Tyme when the same was bought, the Quantitie and Qualitie thereof, by a Note in Writing, indented betweene the Buyer and Seller, upon the Paines and Penalties aforesaid: And if during these Tymes of Hostilitie [With Spain, through Charles and Buckingham, consequent on the breaking of the Spanish match, a business wherein both lied unscrupulously; with France, forced on by Buckingham, piqued by the repulse of his insolent advances to Amie of Austria, wife of Louis XIH.: wars conspicuous severally for our disgraceful disasters, strictly due to Buckingham and his royal minion, of the Isla de Leon, Cadiz, and the Isle de Rh6, Rochelle.] any Tobacco shalbe ymported by anye of H.M.’s owne Shipps, or by the Shipps of anye of his Subjects, by Waye of Prize or Letters of Marque, it shalbe delivered unto H.M.’s Commissioners att and for reasonable Prices, to bee accomptable therefore to H.M.’s Use: All which, as expressing Our “ finall Resolution,” we may hope will settle the business of this pestilent Herb for some time to come. It is true that four days later, 13th Aug., 1627, Charles, writing to felicitate Buckingham upon his taking of Rh6 (which, in fact, nearly took him, and did cost half his army and bring about the speedy ruin of Rochelle and the Huguenots), said at the end of the letter (“ Hardwicks State Papers,” cited “Pict. Hist.,” HL, 128): “I have set three main projects a-foot (besides many small), mint* increasing of the Customs by imposing on the book of rates
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[our dear Father’s deep device; see Sects. I. and II.], and raising of a bank; the two first I shall certainly go speedily through withal; the last is most difficult, but I have good hopes of it.” It is true, also, that only three days after this, 16th Aug., 1627, we have in “Fcedera,” De Declaratione pro incremento Subsidiorum in Regno Hibemie; for raising a higher and greater Ymposition or Increase of Subsidye upon the Goodes (exported from Ireland) herein particularly sett downe, “whereby the Price of the Same will of Necessity be much ymproved and advanced.1* [!!] * But neither Customs, nor Subsidies, nor Books of Rates, nor Impositions di now concern Tobacco either in England or Ireland; for the King by his own mere Will and Pleasure, in direct defiance of the Law and Constitution, hath crushed it under all possible Impositions rolled into one, making it his absolute Royal Monopoly, to be bought and sold for his own profit at whatever prices he vouchsafes to give and demand.—And the 30th January, 1649, is still more than twenty years distant.
1628* Mar. 26; Westminster. De Concessione Commis-sionis specialist pro Concilio in Virginia. Refers to and confirms similar Commission, already cited, of 4th (nere by error 14th) Mar., 1626. Sir George Yardley being lately deceased, John Harvey, Esq., is confirmed as his successor in the Governorship, William Clayborne continued as Secretary, and the Council is the same as before, less Harvey thus advanced.
1628; p. 1010; (the only month and day mentioned being the date of the opening of this, Charles’s third Parliament, Mar. 17), we have De Petitions Recti concern per Dominant begem Subditis sui*; with the old Norman formula of Royal assent, “ Soit droit fait come est desire,1' Be right done as is desired. But how Charles shuttled and quibbled and equivocated, it being, as that eminent poet Dr. Isaac Watts sings, his nature toe, ere this formal assent was wrung from him on the 7th June by his desperate want of the five subsidies promised on redress of grievances; how he was engaged about violating it even when he granted it; how, having got his five subsidies on the 12th June, he persisted in this violation and prorogued Parliament before it could present a remonstrance; and how, as that learned patriot Mr. Selden reported to the House at its next session in January, 1629, Charles suppressed the proper legal assent in the document printed for the satisfaction of the people, circulating instead of the document ordered at his own suggestion to be printed, a copy of this Petition of Right with his first informal answer to it which the Parliament had rejected: is it not all written in the books of our Chronicles of the Kings and the People of England? Such was the chivalrous honour of the ever-to-be-lamented Royal Martyr, consecrated with a peculiar consecration in the Church Service of our very dear National Church. It is impossible, especially in these days of a bastard and contemptible Imperialism, to turn over the leaves of the chronicles of those times, all glowing and blazing, like the leaves of the crests of a noble forest in the far-flowing waves of a crimson sunrise, with the fiery struggles of Law and Liberty against a genuine and formidable Imperialism, without catching some of the inextinguishable old fervour and flame: nor even in our strictly enclosed Plantation of Tobacco can we refrain from anxious outlooks at the tremendous warfare waging, or avoid being involved in its issues; for the billows of the wide-wtltaring battle surge in upon our Garden of Peace, the would-be-absolute Monarch overwhelms and devastates it with his Proclamations of ruthless Impositions and insatiable Royal Monopoly, and only in the eventual triumph of Law can we nourish any hope of gathering the fruit of what we have planted and tended in our own modest fields. And yet to us Law itself shall prove a most harsh Redeemer, scarcely less extortionate than the invading tyranny it has displaced and dispossessed. Sigvat.
♦ The preamble reads exquisitely even now: “ Whereas Our Kingdoms of Ireland, by reason of the Peace and Plenty it heretofore hath enjoyed and nowe doeth enjoy, is b« stored and replenished with divers good and profittuble Commodities and Merchandizes, that Our People and Subjected inhabit ein g there have not onely sufficient to supply theire owne Wantea and Necessities, but alsoe in Some Measure to furnish divers other Countries and Nations: And whereas the Goods, etc., exporte t out of Our Said Km. of Ireland are such as are usually, or for thi most Parte couveied iuto the Countrii g and Domynions of divers Kinges, Princes and States not in League with Us. for the Supplye of theire Wantea and Necessities, which although Wee cannot but dislike, Yet Wee for the Good of our saide Kingdoms and for the better flourishing and prosperous Estate thereof, are already and must hereafter of Necessitie be forc?d to give some Way unto, which, yf Wee should totally prohibite, might tend to the infinite Losse and Prejudice, if not to the Ruyne and Overthrown of Our saide Realme of Ireland, they having noe other Meanes to vento the same, being the cheiiest Commodities of Gayne which that Kme. affordeth; Wee therefore, for the Increase and Supportation of Oar Revenue to bee annexed to Our vmperiall Crowne for ever, and the better to enable Us to defend and maintains that Kme., the Prosptritie whereof Wee much desire, have thought fytt to raise a higher and greater Ymposition or Increase of Subsidye upon the Goodes, Merchandizes and Commoditycs herein particularly sett downe according to the particular rates hereafter expressed, whereby the Price of the same will of Necessity be much ymproved and advanced, and thereupon it will consequently followe tliat Our Enemyes or those whoe are not in League with Us and stand in need of those Commodities, yf they shall by Our Permi-sion have the same transported unto them, must pay greater and higher Rates for the same than heretofore they have done.”—But what of Our Friends and those who are in League with Us, your most gracious and sapient Majesty? and what of the Prosperity of Ireland wuich We so much desire, if Our Enemies and those who are not in League with Us, in consequence of these higher rates, find cheaper markets of supply elsewhere ? Wentworth was not yet Lord Deputy, not till 1633; indeed, he was still a patriot, unbought, and had just been or still was suffering imprisoumout for refusing, in common with Eliot and Hampden, to pay the forced Loan; and was fiery at first in next year's Parliament, in vindication of “ our ancient, legal, vital liberties.” Then came the great apostacy, which fitly ended on Tower HilL
pipe hokums.
XX.—CALIBAN.
I feel that I should be doing wrong if Lieft out Caliban from my little gallery of Pipe Colourers. In order, therefore, that I may travel along with a clean and easy conscience, I shall take the liberty of popping him in by trotting him out. I have no particular story to relate concerning him, no incident or adventure of any importance, nor do I see how it could well be otherwise ; for during the whole of the ten or a dozen years I knew him I never saw him but in one position, and that was sitting at his work as a “cobbler.” I leave it to my readers to judge if a man always sitting on a stool at work could have adventures or incidents of any importance happen to him.
He had a little den of a shop in a dirty street in the south of London. I was taken to see him by a friend who had discovered him, and for many years I let him have my heavy boots to repair. He was not a shoemaker, but a simple cobbler, with plenty of work, however ; for, in addition to his being an oddity, his workmanship was always uncommonly good.
Under his shop was a cellar, and at the back of his shop was a bit of a room that served him for sleeping in. His shop itself he used as his sitting-room, dining-room, study, drawing-room, and library; for he had a score or two of battered old books that looked as if they’d been through shipwrecks, fires, earthquakes, and many other disturbing and dreadful arrangements.
I ought to have mentioned that he also used the shop as a smoking-room, for go at what time you liked, and on any day you chose, you would be nearly sure to find Caliban smoking: One black clay in his mouth, two or three indifferent parts of the shop, and, possibly, one sticking out of his waistcoat pocket. These clays were very short, very black, and very dirty. They were not nice pipes to look at, but to see the old chap sucking at one you might well deem it a celestial sugarstick. He was a fierce smoker, too; and many a customer who has gone in with a rush, being in a hurry, has come out again with another rush, and barked like a dog in the street, having not filled his belly with the east wind, but taken in about a bucket of smoke before he could get his mouth shut.
The name painted in yell )w letters on a black ground over the cobbler’s shop door was “ Jodson,” but, by common consent, he was christened “ Caliban,” on account of his extraordinary ugliness. He was a little man. His head was a great deal too big for his body. His mouth was a great deal too big for his head, and his teeth were many sizes too large for his mouth. These items are not bad for a start; but come to add the facts that he was blind of one eye and had a miraculous cast in the other, and that the ridge of his nose was like a short flight of stairs, the tip of it turned well up to heaven and the base of it on each particular side trying to crawl round to his ears, I think it must be palpable to all that the man was no beauty.
I hold as one of my beliefs that no person is absolutely devoid of vanity. Caliban might well have been excused if he had been an exception; but he was not. I remember he was quite disturbed in Lis mind once because he found a pimple growing on his nose. I did not like to tell him I thought it an improvement; but it really was, for it partly filled up the unsightly dent between the tip of the nose and the first stair. He was not disturbed because he imagined he was good looking—he made quite as many jokes about his personal appearance as anyone--but, as he said, “It was an alteration and enlargement of his premises that he did not require and did not approve of.” I tried to console him by saying, “ It cannot matter to a face like yours; who would notice the presence or absence of a pimple while contemplating the marvels of Creation visible on your interesting and unique countenance.”
“ But it does matter,” said Caliban, warmly; “I know what my looks are like without any of your chaff, and I’ve grown to be contented with them. If this sort of thing goes on, where will it end? Pimples, boils, carbuncles, there you have the Positive, Comparative, and Superlative. On a face like yours a pimple would not matter, because you have a tolerable set of features to counteract its appearance; but I have nothing. I know I am ugly ; but there is, I flatter myself, something slightly approaching the sublime in the absolute departure of every feature from proportion and beauty. But if you come to introduce pimples, then must I fall from my high estate, and, in addition to being hideous, become loathsome.” Whack!
This last was the sudden descent of his hammer on to the sole of a boot, and when brought down, as it was then, suddenly, singly, and with emphasis, indicated that Caliban had said all he meant to say on the particular subject then under consideration.
Caliban was a bachelor, but not a cross-grained one. His heart was one of the kindest that ever beat; and, as he had no womenfolk or children to spend his affection on, he was never without some dumb creature or creatures to pet. I remember an unfortunate hedgehog he bought of a countryman once. It never took very kindly to his petting; and as it by some manner of means happened to get into his bed one night, much to his dissatisfaction and discomfort, he gave
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that away. He had a tortoise, too, for some time; but that went. I recollect the circumstance, as related by him. I think he used to romance a little at times. “ The fact of it is,” said he, “my tortoise has run away.” “Run away!” I exclaimed, incredulously; ‘‘who ever heard of a tortoise running at all ? ” “ When I use the word ‘ run,’ replied the cobbler, “ I use it in a different sense to what you take it. A thing to run need not go fast.” “ I beg your pardon,” I broke in. “ Granted,” said Caliban; “ but allow me to illustrate. We will suppose you have a nine-gallon cask of ale in. Good. Now we will suppose that you have a week’s holiday. Good again. Just before you start you treat yourself to a glass of this ale, and perhaps you treat the good wife. Then you turn the tap, put your wife and children into a cab, with the slavey and baby on the roof; then you close the street door, lock the garden gate, get into the cab, and go away for a week. Unfortunately you did not turn the tap quite off, so that there is just a gentle drip, drip, drip, for many days. Your week’s holiday over, you return; you are thirsty; you go to the cellar ; what do you say ? ‘Oh I Matilda! Matilda! here’s all the ale run away! ’ Am I right ? ” I confessed he was, and then he went on:—“ My tortoise did not go at any great speed, I feel sure; but he has vacated these premises in a spirit of just and righteous indignation, and this is how it happened. I hurt my hand, and for some few days I had to get in an assistant. One day he got staying over at ‘ The Red if ox ’ too long, so I went to rouse him out. He came over here to work, and I stayed to have a pipe and glass with the landlord. Old Crooks (that was my assistant) was so stupidly drunk that, when I came back in an hour, I found he’d been using my tortoise for a lapstone. If that was not enough to make the poor beast seek another home, I don’t know anything about natural history.” Whack! Caliban’s bantams were worth seeing. The hen was tolerably respectable in appearance, although labouring under the disadvantage of a rather dejected and melancholy expression of countenance. An early and unhappy union was probably the cause of her woeful and sad-eyed demeanour, for never yet was lady cursed with a more disreputable vagabond of a husband than was this poor httle bantam hen. If ever a cock was honest in appearance, it was this male bantam owned by Caliban. He had a saucy and malicious eye—only one, for the other was destroyed in a fierce conflict. His comb had a dissipated look and was of a disreputable hue, his body feathers were always rumpled and dirty, while his tail consisted of three feathers, all odd, damaged, and ragged. Was this not being honest in appearance? for it was allowed by all who knew him that his morals and general behaviour were in accordance with his looks. He used, on emerging from Caliban’s cellar in the morning, to desert his wife, and leave her to get her living as best she could. Where he got to all day no one knew. Now and then he would be discovered : sometimes he would be found in fierce fight with another cock, or even with a dog; occasionally he would be kicked out of a baker’s, or greengrocer’s, or a public-house; but for the best part of the day he would be missing. At sunset he used to come swaggering up the street, brutal, overbearing, cross, and untidy. His poor wife, on the look-out for him, would meekly receive his lordship, and together they would seek their home; she, no doubt, to weep over the miserable life she was now leading, and to think with torment of happier days, and he to forget in brutal slumber the adventures and excesses of the day. The members of the fair sex were no great favourites of Caliban. He never treated them with discourtesy; but if a woman brought boots to be repaired, he always seemed anxious to get her out of the shop as quickly as possible. I ventured to ask him about this once. He gave utterance to one of his peculiar chuckles, then said: “ To tell you the truth, I do not care for the society of women. My mother died when I was a year old, so I do not remember her; as I grew older my sisters called me an ugly little brute, and girls at the time I went to school fled from me. I must certainly confess that I did have one sweetheart when a young man; but, as she was informed by her kind friends that married folks always grow hke each other, she broke off the engagement. ‘ George,’ she said, ‘ you’ve a kind heart and a loving one. I don’t mind your looks, but I cannot endure the thought that I shall grow to be like you; therefore we had better part.* ‘ But,’ I replied, ‘ if married folks do grow to be alike, I have a right to expect to grow like you in appearance, and surely you would not object to that? ’ She sadly smiled, and said: * George, it is more likely that my nose, mouth, and head, being smaller than yours, will grow to the size of yours, than that your nose, mouth, and head, being larger than mine, will shrink to the size of mine. No, we must part; ’ and we had to part. If,” continued Caliban, “ I had been vicious, idle, or cruel, and good-looking, I should have had little difficulty in finding a partner. So much for the common sense of women. Then afterwards,” the cobbler continued, “in lodgings, my landladies all thought they were at liberty to treat me as they liked, on account of my looks. Beds not made, shirts not aired, food not properly cooked. In vain I grumbled; ‘ Why, there’s nobody else would take you in! ’ they used to exclaim. No; women have universally insulted and scouted me, and therefore let them keep their distance.”	The old man, having concluded, opened a little brass locket he kept in his iron ’Bacca-box, and showed me a little lock of brown hair. “There,” said he, “I shall always keep that. It came from her head, and although she treated me as she did, I know that she had at one time some affection for me; and that thought does me no harm, if it does me no good.” Whack! The last time I saw Caliban, some few weeks back, I started in surprise—he had actually a pair of new boots on. I said: “Things are looking up, old fellow.” He grimly glared at me, and asked “ Why ? ” “ New boots,” I replied, looking at those he had on. “ Oh! ” said he, “ there you are mistaken. These are the first boots I’ve had for quite a dozen years, and I can assure you I should not have had these if I had not been compelled to.” I said nothing, but waited for him to go on. He continued: “ You see, I’m one of the old-fashioned snobs, or, rather, I have been ; a man used to come and bring his boots to have them soled and heeled: ‘ How long will they be ? ’ * Oh, call in a fortnight.’ ‘Right!’ Consequently I had always a goodly number of boots by me; and as I possess a small foot, I could always manage to find a pair that fitted me tolerably. Now all this is altered—you can go into establishments where they will actually mend your boots while you wait for them, so that my customers are dissatisfied, and now the cry is: ‘ Caliban, old cock, I must have these to-night; or, ‘I must have these to-morrow.’ I’m obliged to get them done, to keep my customers; so now, in future, I shall have to supply myself with boots.” Whack!	D. Gogos. Salts ®olb on i^ Sts of &t. XHI.—ROLLING HOME, ROLLING HOME. THE DOCTOR’S STORY. THE CAPTAIN’S SONG. Every man Jack, fore and aft, ’low and aloft, has unbent his foul-weather toggery —or, in ’long-shore parlance, has cast aside his winter clothing. Furs and skins, mittens and . gloves are stowed away in locker and sea-chest. Even the useful sou’-wester, with its broad flap aft, has given place to the jaunty hat or the saucy glengarry, and white ducks and jackets of blue are all the rage; for we have left far behind us the Sea of Ice, the sea of mystery and adventure, and a fair wind has speeded us into a warmer and more genial clime. Rippling waves are all around us, sparkling brightly in a summer’s sun, the decks are as white as the snows we have left, and the good ship is clad in canvas from deck to truck, and looks as gay as a maiden on her marriage morning. And she swings along, dipping and coquetting and toying with the billows, as if keeping time to the song of yonder group of merry sailors, that sit in the lea of the fox’le, discussing in comfort their forenoon grog, with a *	“ Hey! my lads, and a Ho1 my men, For we are homeward bo-o-ound, For a-we-e-e are homeward bound," dipping to leeward with the “Hey!” swinging to starboard with Mie “Ho!” and raising her bows with the “bo-o-ound,” till her jib points right to the zenith. Don’t tell me that a ship isn’t a thing of life, because I’d never believe you. The great Newfoundland is basking in the sunshine, with his red ribbon of a tongue lolling over his teeth. He sniffs the land, and land it is, and not far off either, the beetling green-topped cliffs of Ultima Thule. I wonder what that dog is thinking of, as he eyes with superstitious suspicion the „well-battered telescope that the skipper hugs under his arm, as he passes and repasses him. The poor animal hates that glass now more than a sixty-pounder Armstrong. The truth is, we induced him to take a keek through it this morning at the land. Good heavens! he saw a cow switching her tail, and real green grass under her, and a real cottage not far off, and real ragged children making garlands of seaweed in front thereof; besides a girl with a creel of peats, and an old devil smoking a pipe, and all as large as life, and all in that little bit of a tube! The dog made one wild spring backwards, left the doctor and I sprawling on the deck, and stood afar and barked at us. Were we wizards, he wanted to know; fiends, wizards, or what ? Such conduct beat cock-fighting; it beat anything he had seen on the Lone Lorne Land. And so on and so forth, and I’ll give odds the poor dog remembered that spy-glass to his dying day. And so the day wanes away, and comes still evening dh. We are altogether once more in the little cabin we love so well. It is our last night at sea. It is something more, it is Saturday night. Saturday night. Sweethearts and wives. Wives and sweethearts I Bless their dear souls, how shall we find them? There will be joy to many of us, but grief for some, for fifteen months have come and gone since we looked our last on Scotland’s dear hills. But that’s nothing to us to-night. We’ve met to be merry, our pipes all a-gog, and bumpers of grog. And it’s, “Doctor, a story,” and “Captain, a song.” And so be it reader, and with the doctor’s story and the captain’s song the curtain drops on the fourth series of my moral and instructive yarns. I make my bow, and retire behind the scenes, and Dauvid Drinkwater, The Sea of Ice, and The Lone Lome Land of the Antis are but as dreams of yesterday.
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THE DOCTOR’S STORY.
He confessed to being sixty. That in itself was good proof of his honesty; for had he said to you, “I’m not a day oyer fifty, lad,” and had you looked into that calm, clear eye of his, had you marked tho rose tints of health that mantled over cheeks and brow, and winced under the grij> of his steel hard hand, you would have returned the pressure of tho latter to the best of your ability, and promptly made answer thus: “I believe you, my boy; I believe you.”
Not a tall man was the tar of our tale, Captain Benjamin Crisp to wit, yet he gave you the idea of such, for his was a powerful frame. Talk about limbs! see Ben’s—see the lower masts of an old seventy-four. A chest? Ben’s was tough and hard as the winch you heave the anchor with ; and Ben’s biceps—ayej that was a biceps and no mistake about it; had you felt it, you would at once have said: “ Biceps be hanged! that ain’t a biceps; Ben, my boy, you don’t gammon me. It’s one of tho ship’s blocks you’ve got stowed up your sleeve. There!
And Ben would have smiled and looked pleased, and probably proceeded forthwith to light his short clay. His smile, indeed, was one of the pleasantest ever you saw. It lit up his whole face, as the sun lights up the morning clouds. You were constrained to smile with him, or even to laugh, for you felt on good terms with yourself at once. There was altogether a breezy manner about Ben, born, one would think, of the fresh free air he had breathed so long; born of the ozonic ocean itself, for Ben was redolent of the sea. Dressed? Why, as most master-mariners dress on shore—broad-cloth coat, broad-cloth everything, and the everlasting upright hat; but if Ben thought to impose upon anyone by this rig of his, and to pass himself off as a genuine landsman, he was very much mistaken indeed. For in your imagination, wherever you had met him thus encased, you couldn't have helped divesting him on the spot of every stitch he wore. Nay, but avast! for a moment, we will not have the good Ben stripped to the skin and left to shiver; for, I say, while with one flash of the imagination you would have deprived him of all his shore-going toggery, with the next you would have topped him with a brave sou’-wester, rigged him out in P.-jacket and C.-boots, and supposed him far away on the broad bosom of the Atlantic, steadily tramping up and down on the weather side of his own well-caulked quarter-deck.
Such was Ben at his best. Such was Ben as I remember meeting him one afternoon on the Paddington platform. He had just returned from the far-off Indies, and looked the quintessence of blooming health and jollity. I had no business even to have asked how he was, and might have expected the answer that came straight at my head like a fifty-six pound shot.
“How am I?” said bold Ben; “how am I? how do Hook?”
Ben had a clear, manly, ringing voice, one that could be heard, ay, and had been heard high over the raging wind on many a stormy night at sea. But it wasn’t an unpleasant voice, nor a grating voice. He did not speak as though his gullet were lined with emery paper and his bead in a bucket of water, as some old sailors do. Perhaps the cigars he smoked had something to do with the matter. Ah ! they were rare bits o’ ’Baccy I can tell ye. Wherever the dickens he got them I can’t make out, but there they were, as thick as the neck of a quart bottle, as smooth and brown as a horse chesnut or polished cedar, pearly in ash and pleasant in perfume, not a day too old, not a day too new. Let you be ever so cynical or ever so churlish, you couldn’t have smoked one of Ben’s cigars for a half a minute without feeling at peace with the whole world, and content with your lot; so content indeed, that were Beaconsfield to ask you to change places with the Prince of Wales, you could only reply—“ Well I’ll think over it, Beakie, and let you know.”
Yes, it was when behind one of his choice weeds that Ben was at his best, and would that I could say he had lived for his love and never gone over to the Antis. But I musn’t anticipate.
Ben was athorough sailor. Alas ! there are few like him left, I am sorry to say, in this age of iron and steam. He knew exactly how to handle a ship in all weathers and on all emergencies. But woe is me, in an evil hour Ben accepted the charge of a steamer, or smoke-jack as he somewhat derisively termed her. “ I must keep up with the times you see,” said Ben, when quizzed about it. “ I don’t like the blessed old tin kettle a bit, but what's a poor devil to do.”
So away went my gallant friend a-floating down the Mersey, over whose waters he had guided so many a brave sailing ship. No doubt Ben was fully impressed with the novelty of his situation as he walked backwards and forwards between the paddle boxes, pausing every now and then to shout his orders through the speaking tube to the engineer in charge. So busy was he kept, indeed, that he hadn’t time to go down for a cup of coffee, and it was long past midnight ere, resigning the charge of the vessel to his second in command, he went below and turned in. And since he left the wharf he hadn’t had so much as one single whiff of pipe or cigar, and he was too tired now to think of anything but sleep. No wonder that, with the most unusual noise under his head and all about him, Ben’s dreams were somewhat mixed. One dream he told me of long after.
“I’ll never forget it,” said Ben. “ I thought, you know, that I had fallen over a precipice and was killed, and then flown right away with to the infernal regions. Dante’s
Inferno was nothing to it. I entered the door with fear and trembling, and found myself in a little, close, stifling room, fiwfully like a stoke-hole, with a big fire in one corner roaring under a boiler. Presently down the iron ladder came the Devil himself, carrying a bucket of coals; a thick-set, eivil-spoken Scotchman he was, in a corduroy jacket. ‘ Sit in aboot to the fire,’ he said; ‘ye’ll be can Id after risin’ frae the dead.’ ‘ No, thank you,’ I replied; for the name of fire made me shudder. ‘You’ll excuse me, then,’ said the Devil, ‘for a wee till I mak your bed. I’ll no be lang.’ ‘Oh,’ I cried, ‘pray don’t hurry on my account.’ But all too soon the Devil returned, and beckoned me away. Before he opened the terrible gates he pointed to the inscription above them:—
'Jlo Smoking ullotoeb on the premises.”*
Ben awoke with a shriek after that, and speedily went on deck. “Hurrah!” he cried; “a spanking breeze from the nor’ard. Out with the fires. Get the paddles out o’ gear. All hands make sail. And I’ll sail the tin kettle right into the trades. Damn me, if I don’t.”
Ben was in his glory now just for a little, only he found the tin kettle a confoundedly unmanageable kind of a craft from the outset; and the wind increased, too, all that day and all next night till they were fairly in the Bay, and the green seas pouring down the broken hatches. Ten knots dead before the wind, under a close-reefed fore topsail no bigger than a baby’s blanket, everything else taken in, or blown to rattling ribbons. Ten knots dead before the wind, and tires banked and paddles out of gear, and flying round the opposite way with a speed that rendered all attempts to ship them in abortive. Ten knots crack—crack—crack—crack—crack I Is it platoon-firing? No—only Ben’s last sail ripped into fiddle-strings!
Fall, fall, oh! shades of evening, and cover that dismal wreck from view. ’Tis Ben’s tin kettle ashore on the coast of France. Ben and his bold crew were saved, and sent safely home. Then Ben had to meet his owners ! I saw him returning from the interview; hands deep in pockets, and whistling. That was Ben about his worst.
“I’m ruined,” he roared, “ruined, be Jove, and all through a damned tin kettle.” And away he rushed.
Ben’s nerves went fast after that. And when his doctor, a weazen-faced, dried up little devil of an Anti, stopped his ’Baccy, his reason followed. All the pills and potions that were crammed into him couldn’t stop it; and it ended in his throwing the weazen-faced doctor through the window, and getting popped into Hanwell in consequence, and a few months afterwards he returned to his own village quiet and harmless, but a perfect wreck of his former self. Aye, quiet and harmless ; but my heart bled for him. I used to meet him coming steadily along the street, with a crowd of boys about him. You see, he imagined himself a steamboat, and carried a pair of open umbrellas, one at each side of him, to represent the paddles, and these be kept slowly revolving.
When you talked to him now, Ben spoke very fast, and ran all his words into one, in a manner.
“ Have-you-heard-the-news?” he said to me one day.
“ No, indeed, Ben,” I replied.
“ God-bless-my-heart,” he cried, “ how-strange. They’re-going-to-make-man-in-a-new-style. Not-after-God’s-image-at-all. Great-improvemeut-I-can-assure-ye. Come-all-to-pieces,-ye-know,-like-a-steamboat. Devilish-handy,-Ican-tell-yd. If- ye-want-a-pair-o’-new-boots.-off-with-your-leg,-and-send-it-to-town. If-you-can’t-see,-pull-out-your-eyes;-send-them-off-to-be-scraped. If - ye - want - your-hair-cut,-off-with-your - head, - and - send - it - to - the - barber. Devilish-handy. Devilish.”
After this I determined to do something for Ben. A friend of mine meant running his yacht down round Teneriffe way, and I begged a passage for Ben and myself. We couldn’t get Ben to smoke at first, but as the yacht’s saloon was only a small one, and my friend and 1 smoked enough for ten, Ben got it second-hand, and sometimes I had the hatches put down on purpose, and we pulled away till we couldn’t see the table before us. One evening we had been at this sort of game, and when we couldn’t live a moment longer, we had the companions thrown up; and when the smoke cleared away, blessed if there wasn’t Ben in the corner pulling away like grim death at one of his own big old brown weeds. Ay, and enjoying it too. I needn’t tell you that from that very day he dated his recovery. He is once more as hale and hearty as ever, and many a good ship he sails.
But no more tin kettles for Ben.
And no more Antis.
“ Doctor,” says Ben, “Antis is pizen. Ugh! Damn ’em.”
MY LUNTIN’* PIPE.
My pipe, my pipe, my guid clay pipe, What though you’re short and black?
Thy soothing fumes can sorrow kill, And gladness bring me back.
For I am auld, my bluid rins cauld, My days are wearin’ through, Nae joy is left me now in life,
My luntin’ pipe, but you.
But mem’ry, in those clouds o’ blue, Can former times restore,
My mither’s cot, the rowan tree That grew beside the door,
• reeking.
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[April, 1880.
The heather bloom, the gowden broom That blossomed on the lea,
And wild wood green, and rippling stream, Ilk’ scene comes back to me.
See yonder stands the wee bit kirk, Wi* steeple white and high, That points the way, like angel hand, To realms beyond the sky;
My Mary, though you’ve left me here, Thy sweet face still I see :
It’s painted in the wreathin’ smoke, My luntin’ pipe, by thee.
Dear solace o’ my early years And life in every stage, Thy fragrant breath a halo throws Around the brow of age.
Though fickle fortune on me frown Till death has closed my ee, The fate I’ll bliss that leaves me this. My luntin’ pipe, wi’ thee.
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
Cost’s ^itiutt.
In our February “Mixture” we had an assistant warder fined £10, or three months with hard labour, for conveying to a convict two ounces of Tobacco and other articles as innocent, if not as delicious. That case was tried at Exeter, presumably from Dartmoor. Here is something more in the same line:—
“ It has transpired that tho traffic with prisoners at Portsea Prison attained very largo proportions during tho last illness of tho lato governor, Captain Cookworthy. Tho warders’ ordinary commission on money surreptitiously sent to prisoners was 20 per cent., and the charge on goods which they purchased for prisoners was equally exorbitant, amounting, in tho case of Tobacco, to 5s. per ounce. About 9 cwt. of Tobacco has been discovered where the convicts were at work.”
I have read somewhere that the Spaniard is unable to conceive any crime whatever so atrocious that its perpetrator, even as a convict, should be deprived of bis Tobacco ; and, as a general rule, I quite agree with the Spaniard. In these days, when prison chaplains and priests so liberally bestow tho eternal joys of heaven on all the most cold-blooded murderers awaiting execution, I think inferior criminals should be allowed a moderate smoke or chew. But a warder who charges a poor devil of a convict 5s. an ounce for his weed!—him I would by no means permit the luxury when I had got him fast; and yet, ’tis 100 to 1 the wretch would not suffer through the privation, for 100 to 1 he’s an Anti.
Those were good sentences your contributor Sigvat quoted last month from J. B. M‘Culloch on smuggling:—“ This crime, which occupies so prominent a place in the criminal legislation of all modern States, is wholly the result o f vicious commercial and financial legislation. It is the fruit either of prohibitions of importation, or of oppressively high duties. It does not originate in any depravity inherent in man ; but in the folly and ignorance of legislators.” Here are two more specimens of the fruit from the Liverpbol Weekly Post of Saturday, February 21, the first rather large for our space, but too good to be pared—and not easily to be paired:—
“ A‘ the First Police Court, on Thursday, before Mr. Raffles, Lawrence Laurenson, quartermaster on board the ship * RaHns,' was charged with an offence v nd er the 179th section of ‘The Customs Consolidation Act, 1876,’ which provides that any person found on board a vessel in which there is concealed contraband goods is liable to a penalty. Mr. Tyndall prosecuted, and Dr. Commins defended the prisoner.
“ Mr. Tyndall stated that the prisoner was charged under the 179th section of the above Act with being found on board the vessel mentioned on the 11th inst. Tho Customs authorities never enforced tho powers of that section if they could possibly avoid it; but in this case the prisoner was the quartermaster on board the steamer Rallus, which had just arrived from Antwerp. He had an extraordinary duty given to him on board that vessel, and it was this—that in loading or discharging the cargo he was bound to be present to see that nothing went into the hold or out of the hold of the ship that ought not, and he was paid an extra 5s. a week for that purpose. The officers of the Custom House, on the arrival of the shipin the. port, proceeded on board to rummage, and as one of them went into the hold he noticed what appeared to be something extraordinary about the way in which the cargo was stowed. A portion of the mainmast looked as if it had been washed over with lime water: it was dry, and when touched rubbed off. On rubbing tho stuff away the officer found that there was a plat ■ which would cornu out in the iron mast. Three or four screws, or nut s, held this plate on to the mast; and on unscrewing these nuts off camo the plate, and inside there was a little shelf of wood upon which were numerous packages containing about two pounds weight of Tobacco in each packet, the total quantity being 2241bs. On the discovery being made, the crew were all mustered, and it was put individually to them whether they knew anything about the Tobacco, but they ail denied any knowledge whatever of it. The captain, however, said that if anyone knew about the Tobacco it was the quartermaster (the prisoner), and it could not have been put there without his knowledge. On being questioned, the prisoner said the Tobacco roust have been there for many voyages before he joined the ship. The Customs officer, however, noticed that the Tobacco was not very damp, although tho inside of the mast was what was called “ sweatty rust." so that the Tobacco could not have been there for any length of time. Several witnesses having deposed to the above facts,
“Dr. Commins asked if there was the shadow of a case.
“ Mr. Riffles.—I think there is. Yon have no defence at all.
“Dr. Hommins said that if that was the law, every man on board tho vessel was liable. He asked why one man was singled out, and all the rest of the crew allowed to go ?
“ Mr. Raffles.—There is very strong evidence that the prisoner was the person who hal to do with it. All I have gH to do is to fine him. He will be fined £100 and cods, or four months’ imprisonment.
“ Dr. Commins.—It is as well that the world should know that such laws exist—laws ro outrageous that they arc onlv fit for China. There is no case proved agiinst the prisoner, or any complicity whatever.
“ Mr. Tyndall.—I think, sir. you have power to mitigate the fine.
“ Dr. Commins.—I don't ask it to be mitigated.
“ Mr. Raffles.—I shall be very glad to mitigate it if I have the power.
“ After looking at several legal books,
“ Mr. Raffles said he did not think he had any p^wer to mitigate the fine; but he would reduce the term of imprisonment to three months.
“ James Sweeney, storekeeper on board tho screw steamer Baltic, wm fined £25 and costs, or three months' imprisonment, for an offence under the same section of the Act, the Tobacco found being 221bs.”
I have not at hand the Act cited at the beginning of the above report; but idiotic and unprincipled as Tobacco legislation has been and is, I cannot think that even under Northcote it has got quite so deep in imbecility as the abstract of that 179th section asserts. If a powder-monkey (supposing there be still powder-monkeys in these days of transformation) had tried to smuggle Tobacco, audit was detected, on board the vessel in which our gallant First Lord of the Admiralty Smith and his colleague returned from their Cyprus pleasure-trip, would those two eminent Cabinet Ministers have been liable to a penalty? And Dizzy and Salisbury coming back across Channel from Berlin?
Talking of imbecile legislation, look at this from Jersey: Jersey, where in the good old times one got the best golden Virginian Honey Dew in cakes at 2s., and even Is. 8d. per lb. currency, being Is. lOd. and Is. 6Jd. British!—
“ In tho Jersey States Assembly a Bill has been introduced for imposing a licence of £1 per annum on vendors of Tobacco, which has hitherto been exempt from a licence. Tho Bill also provides for the prohibition of tho sale of Tobacco on Sundays.”
Closing public-houses on Sundays is nothing to that. How would the Illustrious Personage like it, to whom “ Dagonet” introduces us in the Referee, writing of the opening of Parliament:—
“ The ceremony, which I hod tho pleasure of witnessing, was certainly entertaining. But the grouping was bad—nothing like th*- grouping at the Alhambra. The Queen looked strong and hearty, and smiled once at something Princess Beatrice whispered to her. I expect it wa* one of those waggish remarks for which the young lady is famous. The Prince of Wales sat on the right of the Queen, nursing his helmet. Not the least amusing incident of the ceremony was due to a royal celebrity, who just before the Queen arrived pulled his pipe out with his handkerchief. It ft 11 on the floor in tho sight of the vast assembly, but his Royal Highness, with admirable presence of mind, mode a violent grab at it, and secured it before the r fficials who had rushed to the rescue could seize it. It was a British sailor's wellcoloured cutty, and if it had been handed up by the Gold Stick io Waiting on a velvet cushion, the incident would have acquired an historical importance which it was as well to avoid.”
And what would a late personage, almost ns illustrious in his way, have thought of it?—I mean Henry Thomas Buckle, author of the “ History of Civilisation,” on whose Life and Writings what appears to be a very valuable work in two volumes has just been published by Alfred Henry Huth, whose family name has the slight disadvantage that no stranger can be sure how to pronounce it (Sampson Low and Co). I read in the Athenaum review thereof, Feb. 28:—
“ Surely no other writer, or only one here and there, in this busy, scamping generation, has spent fifteen or sixteen years so laboriously in preparing to write a book 1 But then it is not every one with literary tastes who has £1500 a year, and no inclination to spend either money or time, except as relaxation, on anything but literary studies. ‘There are two things,’ he said, • for which I never grudge money—books and cigars.’ On books ho spent about £800 a year, mostly at the second-hand bookstalls. Cigars cannot have cost him very much, os he limited himself to three or four a day, though this moderate allowance at tho regular times became so necessary to him that he never accepted an invitation to a house in which he might not smoke. In his * Commonplace Book ’ he spoke of * the soothing influence of Tobacco over an irritated brain.’ In his diet as well as his smoking he got into bachelor habits, through his desire to make everything tend to his body as well as his mind being in the best state for intelligent work.”
It is cruel on the Antis to call three or four cigars a day, equal in narcotic power to two, or perhaps three, times as many pipes of good bird’s-eye, a moderate allowance. He wouldn’t visit Antis, doubtless fearing they would perceive the well-known deterioration of memory and intellect wrought by smoking; and I opine that Antis won’t visit his books, knowing beforehand that the works of such a smoker mint be poor in information and deplorably weak in reasoning. See to what the Plant reduced him quite early in life:—
“By 1850 (when nnt yet 80, being born 24th Nov., 1821] he knew eighteen languages besides his own, and buying no books that he did not read, and generally cpitrmise to far at their contents were in the line of hit work, hie library included tome 22,000 volumes.”
Is it not really awful, such debilitation of mind by Tobacco? And then the low moral tone, the utter want of nerve and energy, it induced, as testified by such an avowal as this: “I would rather be first as a shoeblack than second in anything else.” It is true that Julius Ca?sar is reported as saying the same thing in different words, and it is not likely that he ever made the acquaintance of the demoralising weed; but he probably poisoned himself with the nearest approach to it he could find, and Brutus and Cassius were high-minded Antis who saved him from lower degradation.
Towards the end of February paragraphs to the following effect went the round of the papers :—
“ The Chancellor of the Exchequer is being urged by the Tobacco trade to return to the old duty, and the argument addressed to the right bon. gentleman is that before the alteration in the duty, and in spite of bod yean and strikes, the consumption regularly increased, whereas from the time of the alteration the use of Tobacco had considerably and regularly decreased.” The Tobacco trade was as sanguine as Mr. Pecksniff considered England when she expected every man to do his duty, if it really hoped for reduction of taxation from a Chancellor of the Exchequer helpless in the coils of a knot of Jews ; who in his Budget had to own up to a deficit of £3,340.090, though the financial year was not ended, and he naturally took a hopeful view of the remainder; who had further to confess to a floating debt of £30,855,000 ; and who, not daring to impose on the eve of a General Election the fresh taxes honestly demanded, spread the payment of £6,000,000 over five years, whereby we shall pay £7,000,000, “ immolating his own offspring,” the new Sinking Fund, to the tune of £600,000 to
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make up the annual payment. He remit taxes or duties ! You might as well ask the Davie of our next extract for a cheque in aid of a charity.
“‘Can ye gie*B a pipe, Johnny ?’ John—‘ Ou aye.’ (Hands him one •'most empty.) Davie—‘ II ae ye on y Tobacco ?’ John—‘Yes, yes, lad; I can gie that toe.’ (Hands him a ‘fill.’) Davie (after tilling)—• Hae ye a watch, Jonn ?’ John (to third person standing by)—* Guidness, he has nae-thing but the jaws.’ ”
Poor Davie had nothing but the jaws, as poor Northcote has nothing but the jaw ; yet the Tobacco of the following was about as poor as either;—
“ Tobacco, like those who smoke it, is credited with many sins of which it is guiltless. The ‘ loss of health ’ so often laid at its door is probably duo in many instances not to Tobacco itself, but to some villanous compound bearing its name. A story told by the principal of the laboratory of the Inland Revenue Department in his report tor the past year shows how easily this may happen. The supervisor at Birmingham, observing that an article was being sold at a very cheap rate in packets, under the name of ‘ smoking mixture.’ sent a sample to the Inland Revenue laboratory for examination, and it being found to contain a large proportion of vegetable matter resembling the broken-up heads of camomile flowers, further inquiry led to the discovery of the manufactory. The process et manufacture consisted in exhausting the bitter principle of camomile flower-heads with water, and then dyeing and sweetening them with a solution of logwood and liquorice, which brought them, when dried, somewhat to the colour of Tobacco. The heads, when broken up, were then mixed with from 20 to 80 per cent, of cut Tobacco, according to the price at which the mixture was to bo sold. The mixture was supplied to retailers in packets labelled ‘ The New Smoking Mixture, Analysed and Approved,' and as agencies had already been established in several towns, an extensive trade would no doubt soon have arisen hod the manufactory not been suppressed at an early stage of its existence.” I have a deep suspicion that such very mixed mixtures are invented and compounded by Antis with the evil design of deluding or disgusting honest Tobacco smokers. If any such unscrupulous Anti, not married, wants an Amazonian helpmate in carrying on a militant propaganda, let me commend to him Miss Ferguson, of New York, the heroine of the following valiant assault of arms and hands :—
44 The Third Avenue Surface Railway Company furnishes occasional cars for gentlemen addicted to the bad habit of smoking. A lady got into one of these, of course by mistake, and instead of get ting out again at once, as a sensible woman would have done, she demanded the instant extinguishment of every cigar. Her request not being complied with, as it should have been, she committed assault and battery upon one of the smokers, for which she was locked up and bound over for trial.”
The Chicago Tribune comments on the case thus:—
“Among tho best-established of tho rights pertaining to masculine humanity is tho right to smoke. It is recognised in all civilised and uncivilised countries where the weed is known. It is so generally conceded by the ladies nowadays, that it is not usually stipulated in the marriage contracts, and never admitted as a cause for separation. The right bus become so universal, indeed, that the ladies of certain countries affect cigarets themselves, though their male companions usually resent this as an infringement of their peculiar privilege. It is much more common, however, for ladies to profess that they enjoy nothing so much as to have the gentlemen smoke good cigars (as though a woman knew a good from a bad cigar), and this approval is always graciously accepted by the male smokers as a special testimonial to the quality of the brand of cigars which they use. Indies!, the more amiable of the fair sex, in the intimacy of their own homes, tolerate a pipe, and some instances have been known where dutiful wives, sisters seeking a favour, and sweethearts who desire to please, have actually filled these receptacles for the weed, applied the match, and taken one or two whiffs just to give the pipe a sweet flavour.
“In view of these well-regulated conditions of society, it is rather startling to read of the New York lady who deliberately took a place in a street car reserved for smokers, insiste d that nil the cigars should be extinguished or be thrown away, and finally slapped the face of a man who insisted upon his rights. With due regard to the consideration and gallantry which every male American owes to every woman under all circumstances, Mi*s Ferguson must be regarded as having exceeded all limits, and the subsequent fine and threat of indictment was a mild punishment for her trespass. When even a soulless corporation like a street car company respects the rights of smokers, and sets aside part of an open car or certain cars entire for the use of smokers, then it is not excusable even in a woman (to whom usually all points of etiquette are to be deferred) to invade the sacred reservation.” This is common sense; only I must maintain that women, having delicate olfactory nerves, do most distinctly discern good cigars and Tobacco from bad. But no real smoker smokes the bad. A street car gives but small scope for the aggressive valour of such an Antie (fem. oi Anti) as Miss Ferguson. She should go into the lager beer saloons crowded with Germans, or attend such meetings as this:—
“ A writer in tho Paris Figaro gives an amusing description of a Democratic meeting held in the Salle d’Arras, and presided over by the veteran Blanqai:—Four hundred persons are present, but invisible, so dense is tho smoke. Throe hundred and ninety-nine pipes puff thick elnuds of vapour, the four hundredth, who did not smoke, being tho writer. M. Blanqui rises and declares that the Elysee has been the theatre of an immense conspiracy against the Republic ever since M. Grovy was installed there. As a compliment to the Chamber he remarked that the Left was as bad as the Right, which is obvious, since M. Blanqui is not a Deputy. Why was the amnesty refused? For the simple reason that the Reactionaries wished to destroy Paris, and, consequently, hod a motive in keeping the saviours of the capital at a distance. He condemned as insolent the classification which placed that which is good and beautiful in Franco—namely, the Proletariat— lowest in the social scale. Everybody hero coughed ; some even wept. But perhaps the smoke acted upon the lachrymal glands. Citizen Gautier thereupon rose and cried, ‘ Down with the pipes,’ to which everyone responded * Bravo.’ Citizen Gautier insisted that insurrection was a duty, especially when people were hungry, and now they had ‘ long teeth.’ But so much tho better for devouring the rich. Then ho spoke of Thiers, ‘ le inassacreur.* whom a debased Parisian population had honoured with a magnificent funeral; and, all the while, Trinquot, the honorary chairman of the solemnity, was a convict. After him spoke Adolphe Gerard, the poet of the ‘ Apostolat Moderne,* who edified the company by a recitation of his verses.”
It is amusing enough, certainly; the business of the Figaro is to be amusing; but do you believe that any one man, even if a seasoned smoker, could sit out a meeting without smoking himself, amidst 399 pipes all in full blast? And if he were a non-smoker, a quarter of an hour of it in a crowded hall would either asphyxiate him or turn him inside out. The Paris Figaro seriously, as Charles Lamb humorously, regards truth as much too precious for every-day use, and is true only to the unprincipled principles of its founder, who was called by the irreverent “ old pantaloon,” but called himself Villemessant, being just as much Villemessant as is
Your Man-of-All-Work.
domestic (grttiinj.
[From Boston Transcript.'] As homeward comes the married man, He’s met by wife at door, With fond embrace and loving kiss And—“ Baby’s throat is sore!
41 And did you think to stop at Brown’s And get that marabout
I ordered yesterday?—and, dear, Fred’s boots are all worn out 1
44 I’m glad you are so early, John, So much I miss you, dear— I’ve a letter from mamma:
She’s coming to live here.
44 How very glad you look, dear John, I knew that you would be—
The flour’s out, the butter, and You must send home some tea.
44 That plumber has been here again;
If you don’t pay, he’ll sue;
And Mr. Pendergast called To say your rent was due.
44 Fred’s trousers are half cotton, John, You thought they were all wool— Oh ! that reminds me that your son Was whipped to-day at school.
44 The roof has leaked, and spoiled the rugs Upon the upper hall;
And Jane must go, the careless thing! She let the mirror fall
44 To-day, as she was moving it (The largest one, dear John), Of course it broke; it also broke The lamp it fell upon.
44 What makes you look so grave, my love? Take off your things, and wipe
Your feet—and, only think, to-day Jane broke your meerschaum pipe.
44 Oh, John! that horrid! horrid word I You do not love me, dear;
I wish that I—boo-hoo—were dead— You’re cross as any bear.”
Life and a Cigar.
[From Puck, February 25, 1880.]
44 Sir, I know that life’s a failure.”
44 Early yet to say that, Frank;
You are young, and not bad-looking, Thumping balance in your bank.
Learning, honour, friendship, fortune,
Love above you like a star,
Sunny skies and dainty dishes, When you like, a good cigar.”
44Pshaw! I’ve been all through the programme, Know the thing from first to last;
All our very brightest pleasures Are with shadows overcast.
I have had some mournful moments, But I think the saddest far
Was when I found life and loving Scarcely worth a good cigar.”
Sighed the young and splendid cynic;
While his friend said scornfully:
44 There’s a sadder moment, youngster, Yet perchance to come to thee!
When life, love and hope are valued
At a good cigar—’tis sad;
But how comfortless the trouble, If that good cigar was bad I ”
Antony to Cleopatra.
[From the U.S. Tobacco Journal, February 21, 1880.]
441 am dying Egypt, dying,” Softly fell upon her ear; And she then commenced a-sighing— Gemmed her cheek a crystal tear.
441 am dying, Egypt, dying—” And she listened, grief-opprest, While his flaxen curls were lying Pillowed on her heaving breast.
441 am dying, Egypt, dying,”— From her dream of grief she woke, When he whispered he was dying, Simply dying for—a smoke!
R. K. Munkittrick.
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As compendiously as possible we intend to present to our readers an account of tbe Inclusa, or organic remains, in amber, deriving our materials chiefly from Berendt’s great and, unfortunately, uncompleted work, and from some treatises of the distinguished botanist Goeppert. We should be glad to give as full as minute descriptions of the amber flora and fauna as Berendt, Goeppert, and others have given; but this is impossible for two reasons. In the first place, our space does not permit such fulness, such minuteness ; in the second place, the descriptions, if copious and complete, would often be unintelligible without beautiful illustrative engravings like those which accompany Berendt’s magnificent book. It would be interesting, before entering on a comparatively arid domain, to indulge in suggestive speculations on the origin and growth of the Universe kindred to such as abound in the works of Novahs (Frederick Hardenberg), one of the subtlest, profoundest, and, at the same time, most poetical, most religious of modern thinkers. We should like to view the Universe as he and the ancients viewed it, by some diviner light than that which science genuine or spurious furnishes. Darwinism may be true, and the ghastly axioms of Herbert Spencer may be incontrovertible. But the plasmatic spontaneousness which is the primordial characteristic of the universal life is wholly lacking in the mechanical systems of science which are now so popular. Novalis says:—“The more shallow, narrow, and stupid a system is, the more favour it finds with men of worldly wisdom. Thus, the system of the Materialists, the doctrine of Helvetius and of Locke, this class has had great delight in. Thus, also, Kant continues to have more followers than Fichte.” Assuredly, the more shallow, narrow, and stupid a system is, the more ready acceptances it finds in England, chiefly because the English have always neglected ontology and the deeper metaphysics. The other day we heard a preacher declare that Butler's Analogy is the greatest of all philosophical productions. Ludicrous as this declaration is, it suffices to show how limited the range is to which the English confine their philosophical ponderings and explorations. Would that the English would strip off their straight Spencerian jacket and put on the larger and richer raiment which Fichte, Schelling, and other sons of the gods offer them. On this theme we are tempted to enlarge, but must go back to our proper task after a brief metaphysical “stravaig.” (Scottish words are marvellously expressive, and should always be employed where no suitable English words can be found. We rejoiced to meet the other day in the Pall Mall Gazette with the Scottish word stramash).
As some pillars of the Propylaum to our main subject, two fragments by Goeppert are pregnant with suggestiveness. They were written about a quarter of a century since ; but we are not aware that any new discoveries have lessened their freshness and authority.
1	.—On the Stigmaria Ficoides, the principal plant of the bituminous coal period :—
From the time when men began to busy themselves with the investigation into the nature of fossil fuel, to the present day, the theory has been put forth that bituminous coal is an entirely structureless mass; yea, that it is, perchance, the primitive carbon, which dates from the first Creation, consequently is not derived from plants which lived at any period of Earth’s history. Those who did not share this opinion, yet believed that in this fossil every organic structural relation had vanished. Long ago, however, I discovered that by examining the ashes of bituminous coal we found the proof of former vegetal conjunction, forasmuch as the cellular tissue formed of silicious earth remains, and thus the organic origin is demonstrated. In silicious earth the plants belonging to the bituminous coal period abounded. Afterwards I discovered, and first of all in Upper Silesia, in the coals of the Nikolaian district, that in almost all coal beds it was possible to see with the naked eye traces of the plants which had been transformed into coal; and as, keeping this in view, I had occasion to investigate all the coal beds of the Prussian provinces, I succeeded in determining what plants, through immense predominance, had the chief share in the coal foundation. The place of honour is occupied by the Stigmaria, then follow the sigillari® and lepidodendre®, ferns, calaihites, asterophyllites, and other families of less extent. The first, the Stigmaria, a ramous bipartite plant, with round stigmata and with excrescences on the leaves, reminding us of many kinds of cactus, is met with in every coal bed, fills the slate-clay and the sandstone which accompany the coal, and there is scarcely a single piece of coal from which it is absent. In the*coal of Lower Silesia it is much more frequent than in that of Upper Silesia, in which the sigillari® predominate. On account of the frequent occurrence of the Stigmaria, this plant early attracted great attention, so that the first known engravings of fossil plants, which belong to the beginning of the last century, are devoted to it. Nevertheless, its distinctive nature and its affinity to the vegetal forms of the existing world were com-pletely unknown. But Steinhauer, an American ecclesiastic, discovered in 1819 that from the trunk of a Stigmaria. which was three or four feet in diameter, the branches, dividing
in furoate fashion, often extended twenty feet in a horizontal direction, and ended in obtuse points; that the leaves were round, not flat, and, like the stems, were furnished with a central axis. He concluded, therefore, that the Stigmaria had been an enormous marsh or water plant. Subsequently, along with my friend Beinert, I found many such tuberculations, but, unfortunately, incomplete, and not in conjunction with the branches. The miners know them very well, and call them coffins, for they often suddenly tear themselves loose from the slate-clay and cause accidents, through their immense weight, as they are commonly filled with bisulphuret of iron. Meanwhile, and especially in Eng-land, no progress was made toward a more intimate acquaintance with a formation differing so much from that of existing plants, and it was thought that there was probably here nothing but the root stock of the group of sigillariffl, occur-ing so often in coal beds, an opinion which seemed to receive countenance from the fact that Brongniart and I found great similarity of structure with that of the sigillari®. In order to come to clearer and completer knowledge of the subject, I printed in 1846 a small treatise, which was circulated by the mining director, Herr Von Dechen, in all the mining districts of Prussia and of many neighbouring States, in which I called attention to all the circumstances to be regarded to keep intact specimens of the Stigmaria, if any should happen to be found; but no result was thereby obtained. However, about three years ago, I found in a coal mine near Bochum boughs or branches of the plant in question, in which no part seemed to be missing; these were tuberculated formations with prolongations into small boughs. It was obvious that there were here specimens belonging to a younger growth. In effect we must wonder that such specimens had not long before been recognised ; for, through the fossilation of a plant so widely spread, there must be specimens belonging to every stage of development. During my stay I could not, spite of all my efforts, achieve any wider result. But I was successful in inducing the mining superintendent, Herold, a most intelligent functionary, to take a deep interest in the subject. He, through his indefatigable researches, was successful in discovering still completer specimens in all stages of development, which he forwarded to me. These specimens are of different sizes. There is one half-a-foot, another one foot, a third four feet, a fourth seven feet long, the torsions or sinuosities included ; all the parts are present. In a fifth specimen something is lacking at the point, and in such fashion that we might believe that here the dichotomous division peculiar to the Stigmaria had begun. A sixth, eight feet long, is likewise defective at the point. In all it is manifest that from a tuberculated basis the growth extended in two directions, but horizontally. Probably, the tubercular basis grew gradually to that great central bulb such as Steinhauer described, and such as I find in the specimens submitted to me for examination. Universally these specimens of the Stigmaria are covered with equal round stigmata, whereby is implied a perfectly equal development of the leaves on all sides. According to the plasmatic laws of similar formations in the existing world, such a plant, so far as with my present knowledge I am able to judge, must have been a swimming plant, which vegetated in the shallow creeks of fresh water lakes. As regards outward form, but not anatomical structure, the Stigmaria could find its nearest counterpart among existing plants in one of the colossal lymphteacea. By means of their large branches, stretching on all sides and more than thirty feet long—for of that length they can still be seen in a quarry at Landsbut— the Stigmaria plants could sweep into their embrace all the numerous plants growing on the banks and in the swamps, plants which, under well-known changed relations, were destined, like the Stigmaria plant, to be transformed into bituminous coal. Hereby the theory of Steinhauer, mentioned above, receives confirmation. Nevertheless, there are still many problems to be solved. For instance, we have to ask where the organs of reproduction are to be sought? They could not have proceeded from the boughs, for here everything evinces uniformity in the organs of vegetation. Perhaps, however, they were in the central stock, the place where the stigmata peculiar to such formations are encountered.
2	.—On our present knowledge of the tertiary flora.
While the character of the bituminous coal period is indicated by the predominance of vasculiferous cryptogams, the flora of the whole tertiary period is distinguished by the preponderance of the dicotyledonous ligneous plants. According to the prevalence of particular families of plants, we distinguish as members of the tertiary flora the successive periods of the eocenes, miocenes, and pliocenes. Hereto is linked the very imperfectly known diluvial flora which, treasured in the tufaceous limestone in turf beds and in submarine forests of the most recent pre-historic age, forms the transition to the flora of the existing world. The dissemination and limitation of these different floral domains extended to the whole earth. Since last I treated the subject in Broun’s “History of the Creation,’’ 1845, tho number of plants ascertained as belonging to tho tertiary period has augmented from 754 to 2015 kinds, which were found in 140 different places, and of which 808 were of the eocene, 916 of the miocene, and 291 of the pliocene period. It is, certain, however, that only a very small portion of the tertiary plants is known. The herbaceous growths are wholly lacking. I
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was able to discover in amber only 60 cryptogams (13 microscopical alg®, 15 fungi, 29 feather-mosses and waterliverworts), and 102 phanerogams; while the probably very analogous flora of existing Germany embraces 3454 phanerogams, and 6802 cryptogams. The shrubs and trees are to the herbs as one to ten, while in amber they are as ten to one. The plants of the eocene period bear the character of a tropical or sub-tropical vegetation. Palms, bananas, prote®, malpighi®, myrtles, laurels, breadfruit trees, brasil-wood trees, Peruvian bark trees, wool trees predominate. Here and there, however, are found, as in the mountains of the tropics, isolated northern forms. The same character which the eocene flora bears in the most different parts of the earth, Austria, Higher Italy, round London and Paris, in Mexico and Java, proves that there was a uniform temperature in the whole globe. In the miocene period, also, there was a much warmer climate than at present, and plants flourished side by side which now only grow in far separated zones. Already, however, the tropical forms, such as palms, soapberry trees, wool trees, and life trees, were yielding to the empire of coniferous trees, of willows, of oaks, of maples, of nut trees, of varnish trees. The preserved remains grew for the most part in swampy forests which were girdled by hills. However, all which we comprehend under the general name of eocene or miocene flora did not exist contemporaneously. A gradual transition from the tropical flora to the vegetation of a milder climate is demonstrable. The pliocene period has become more accurately known through the exceedingly rich stratum at Schossnitz, near Canth, which in a space of twenty square feet has so far furnished 136 species, as well as through the study of the amber collection of Herr Menge. This flora combines Mexican taxodi®, North American oaks, maples, elms, cypresses and firs, Oriental plane trees with northern birches, willows, heath herbs, butterworts, and wool herbs. On the other hand, all tropical and oceanic forms are lacking. A great part of the pliocene species exists at the present day, especially the cellular plants. One species, libocedrites talicomiodes, identical, probably, with the libocedrus of Chili, appears to have prolonged its existence through all catastrophes down to our own day. Pliocene, miocene, and eocene have two plants in common, miocene and pliocene four, miocene and eocene eighty-eight. All these deductions, however, are valid only for the character of the tertiary flora in our northern temperate zone. Within the tropics vegetation had its tropical character already in the eocene period, and doubtless, also, retained it in the miocene and pliocene periods.
These two fragments may seem to have no necessary connection, at least in their bearing on our immediate subject. But if, as some geologists have conjectured, water and fire are merely different forms of the same force, and in any case are allied forces, it is pleasant and profitable to view the generation of coal as the necessary prelude to the generation of amber. He who pesters himself and others with teleologies and theodicy as, with previsions and provisions, in his study of the Universe, can never arrive at the truth. Each thing, however small, the insect, however microscopical, the leaf, however minute, exists on its own account, and not on account of something else. This is the true secret of Creation. Man, in his vanity, is unwilling to recognise it, because he is inclined to regard all things as fashioned and intended for his benefit and happiness. But, though man's vanity is here absurd, one thing by eternal destiny instinctively and inevitably flows from another thing, just as by an innate and irresistible pith crystallisation is miraculously spontaneous and instantaneous.
If coal and the diamond are essentially the same, and as the diamond is so much more valuable than amber, it may be said that the greater in this case preceded the less. Hartmann has shown how fallacious in many points is the doctrine of evolution—a doctrine which, when closely examined, proves to be either a paradox or a platitude. It seems to us to obscure or obliterate two things—radiation and affinity—in its capricious and pedantic applications of a mechanical morphology. It fixes its eye only on outward change, on gradual transformation, overlooking the incessant and irrepressible streamings from centres, and those kinships which link all lives to each other and to the Universal life. What if, by metempsychosis as well as by metamorphosis, amber is merely degenerate diamond ? What if, the soul which animated the one long before animated the other ? Fire the divinest begot water the less divine; and water begot earth, a grosser element; and is amber, so regarded, an earthly production ?
0!^ Airman ^obattn ^anupolg.
VI.
We must briefly characterise rather than criticise the remaining pamphlets whose titles we have given. Indeed, from the despotic power which Bismarck has acquired, and is more and more acquiring, elaborate criticism would be wasted., •In “Number Seven” Herr Felser displays much controversial ability. He is an opponent of the monopoly, and refutes the sophistries of one of its most powerful advocates, Dr. Mayr, the author of “ Number Six,” already reviewed. Though he is a vigorous logician, it is only to German readers that his
pamphlet can have interest and importance, and we find in it nothing to comment upon or to extract.
The author of “Number Eight.” Dr. Carl Pfeiffer, “Sanitate Rath,” is a consummate twaddler, a superlative German dunce. There is no pedant so ponderous, so pretentious, so insufferable as a German pedant; and this particular specimen of the tribe has all the pedantry of his official position and his own pedantry in addition. A German would be a dull, as he is certainly a selfish and servile, animal in any circumstances; but when he is transformed into a Rath, or’Councillor, his affinity for lead and lumber is incalculably augmented. Dr. Richardson and his silly crew should translate Dr. Pfeiffer’s pamphlet. It is a fit companion to their own rubbish.
For a Government official, Freiherr Von Aufsetz, Superintendent of Taxes at Strasburg, writes with great moderation in his pamphlet “ On the Taxation of Tobacco, according to German Principles of Finance,” which stands as “Number Nine” in our list. He admits, or deems himself as a superintendent of taxes obliged to admit, that a larger revenue should and could be derived from Tobacco; but he is the resolute as he is tbe intelligent and well-informed opponent of the monopoly, some of the advocates of which have gone so far as to maintain that the monopoly, well organised and well worked, might annually fill the Imperial Exchequer to the extent of nearly thirty millions sterling! One of the points on which Aufsetz most strenuously insists—and it is a very notable point—is, that to create a Tobacco monopoly and to carry on one where it exists, and for a long time has existed, are two very different things. The creation of a Tobacco monopoly, even if colossal advantages from the monopoly were invincibly demonstrable, could not fail to be accompanied by immense industrial disturbance. The French Tobacco monopoly, which, however objectionable in many respects, is unquestionably productive, has, with brief breaks, reigned for more than two hundred years, just as for a still longer period a particular principle of Tobacco legislation has been rigidly applied in England. But to introduce the monopoly into Germany, where the cultivation, the manufacture, the sale, the importation, the exportation of Tobacco are freer than dn any other country, would be tantamount to a financial revolution. At this we must not wonder, for all C®sarism is in essence and in effect revolutionary—revolutionary, too, in a Socialistic direction. For that, however, the desperate political gambler Bismarck does not care. His omnipotent will is the ready instrument of his wildest whims. With swift and strong blows Aufsetz demolishes the fallacies and the falsehoods of Mayr, Mohl, and other sophists and hirelings.
The author of “Number Ten,” a tiny pamphlet of eight pages, is a Tobacco merchant at Bremen, who writes earnestly, but with neither vivacity nor novelty. His slight production, however, is of value as showing one of the energetic and resolute forces certain to be arrayed against any attempt to establish the Tobacco monopoly in Germany. If the poor Tobacco cultivators tamely submit, the Bremen and Hamburgh manufacturers and merchants are not made of such pliable materials.
When Mohl, one of the most prominent pleaders for the monopoly, declares that it may be made to yield to the German Empire 533 marks, it may be supposed that his arguments and the arguments of the other sophists can be promptly and crushingly overwhelmed. As an opponent of the monopoly, the author of “Number Eleven” shows himself a consummate logician; but he relieves his logic by genuine wit and humour, by the lancet touches of the most delicate irony. His name is not given; but we see no reason to doubt that his motives are pure and patriotic, though it is mainly the interests of the Duchy of Baden which he keeps in view. He offers us much sohd and suggestive mattter. Of only a very small portion can we avail ourselves. The cultivation of Tobacco is almost entirely confined to South Germany. Of the 634,033 hundredweights of Tobacco produced in 1876 by Germany, 190,427 were furnished by Baden, a considerably larger quantity than that which grew in the kingdom of Prussia. More than the fifth of the German Tobacco grows in Bavaria. With that diabolical cunning which is always more than equal to his diabolical audacity, Bismarck may wish, among other things, to ruin two of the chief industries of Baden and Bavaria, in order to paralyse the political activity of the Duchy and the kingdom. Every-were in these days the land question meets us; and between the fierce resistance of feudalists and the extravagant demand of anarchists it is difficult to discover how it is to be settled. Every half-dozen years or so Spain has a revolution; but the revolutions have no effect on the nation as a whole, and especially on the agricultural population, for the soil of Spain continues to belong, for the most part, to absentee landlords. There is a somewhat wholesomer state of things in Germany. The Spanish peasants work as hard as the German peasants, but the German peasants are favoured by better economic conditions, and also, from the configuration of their country as compared with that of Spain, have more facility and freedom of intercourse with commercial and agricultural centres. Moreover, the German peasants can vary cultivation in a greater degree. According to this author, of the 400,000 persons occupied in Tobacco planting, 140,000 are found in Baden alone; though in the case of many of them the attention given to the Tobacco field is only ancillary to other employments. With what annihilating force the
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monopoly would fall on a class which is able to flourish by the help of the Tobacco field alone! The German mark is equivalent to the English shilling, and the pfennig is to the mark what the centime is to the French franc. In Germany Tobacco, by head of the population, yields to the revenue 35 pfennigs; in the United States 4 marks 50 pfennigs; in England 4 marks 69 pfennigs; in the Austrian Empire 4 marks 85 pfennigs; in France 6 marks 96 pfennigs. In this crescendo we go from the third of a shilling, or rather more, which the German pays, to the seven shilings, or nearly so, which the Frenchman pays. But in both cases the tax falls on the mass of the population—on artisans and the poor. Lafontaine had the courage to say, even at the most brilliant period of Louis XIV.’s reign, that the “People are nothing but a mere moutonnaille” But, besides being like sheep, driven like sheep, thumped like sheep, fleeced like sheep, and slain like sheep, the people, from time to time, are subjected to moxibustion, generally under the pretence that the state of their constitution requires what are called heroic remedies. However, if the French toilers and the German toilers alike belong to the moutonnaille, the German toilers have the pleasure of knowing that while, so far as Tobacco is concerned, they are a good deal more mercifully dealt with than their French brethren, Tobacco is a source of income to many of their own class and in their own country. One of the gladnesses and glories of the Regie is thus depicted by our author:—“That the workmen placed under the officers and overseers of the State are freer than those in the employment of private persons no one can have the courage to maintain. Of this we have an illustration in the Strasburg Tobacco manufacture. Under the French Government the workpeople, in order to be kept from pilfering the goods, had to undergo an inspection violating, shocking every feeling of honour. On leaving the factory they were, one by one, carefully and keenly searched from top to toe—the men by a man, the women by a woman. The German Imperial Government discontinued this practice as hostile to morality and insulting to decency, but afterwards deemed itself obliged to renew it. If the monopoly were established, the German Government would inflict the same degrading treatment on thousands of German industrious workmen. The private manufacturer cau devise far more honourable ways of checking the tendency to pilfer.” The author asks why the Government should not have a beer monopoly as well as a Tobacco monopoly; why it should not do all the tanning, all the baking, all the shoemaking, and so on, and thus realise the boldest dream of a social democracy. The author says wittily that for its advocates the monopoly is an Archimedean screw, a screw without an end; for their vision of its possibilities is so fanatical and fantastical, that they are capable of picturing it as fitted to cover the whole expenditure of the State, how enormous soever. The really brilliant writer sums up the whole case in these words:—“ The Tobacco monopoly would seriously injure and diminish the cultivation of Tobacco, would completely annihilate the present Tobacco trade and Tobacco manufacture, would thereby rob many thousands of their present means of living, would load the middle and lower classes with a heavy tax, wholly out of proportion to the other taxes and to the burden laid on the more opulent classes.” If nations were governed by reason and reasonings, this pamphlet ought to produce an immense, a momentous effect. But probably it will be fruitless; probably Bismarck will light his pipe with it, and laugh a Mephistophelean laugh.
If the author of “Number Twelve” is a Government hireling, and has filled his purse from the “ Reptile Fund,” he is extremely ingenious in concealing the fact. His long pamphlet, consisting of articles reprinted from a Magdeburg newspaper, is one of the ablest and fairest on the side of the monopoly. He seems to think that reasons of State justify anything, and talks, as so many German writers are so fond of talking, of the “ glorious army.” The sort of windy chatter in which at one time the French were so fond of indulging about “ glory ” is now far more freely and foolishly indulged in by the Germans, while the French have learned from adversity either to be silent or to discourse more wisely. “Reasons of State” is a convenient phrase to mask and colour the most iniquitous taxation. Are the true interests of Germany and the ambitious schemes of Bismarck identical? It is the desire and the design of Bismarck to make Germany the one great military monarchy of the Continent. But from remotest times have not all great military monarchies broken down? Must they not inevitably break down from the necessity of things? To pass over other examples, thrice has France been a great military monarchy, and thrice has France had to drink the bitterest cup of anguish and humiliation. What should be a warning to Germany acts as a temptation. Everything fatal to France is in Germany to be imitated. As France conquered, Germany must conquer; as France has had a most productive R6gie, Germany must have a most productive Regie too; and, as in France, chiefly for military purposes. Bismarck’s audacity has a potent co-operator in his countrymen’s ravenous greed—a greed insane and insatiable, and stimulated to fiercest excesses by long ages of poverty. Whoso overlooks the traditional German rapacity which is so shameless cannot see the true source, the perennial sustenance of Bismarck’s sway, a rapacity as instinctive as the cruelty of the Spaniard. Rapacity, rapacity, rapacity is the inspi-
ration of this pamphlet. The author thinks that he has triumphantly vindicated the monopoly when he has shown with amazing skill the flagrant defects of the American system of taxation. As, however, in nearly all the pamphlets, there are in the one before us some interesting statistical items. For instance, it is instructive to know that the proportion of taxes on income and property to those on consumption is in Germany 44 marks 22 pfennigs to 55m. 22p., in Austria 36m. 06p. to 63m. 94p., in France 25m. 17p. to 74m. 83p., in Great Britain and Ireland 11m. 0!) p. to 87m. OOp. These figures, full of meaning to statesmen and financiers, give above all to the landlord class in England, that incomparably favoured class, something to ponder on. The more indirect a tax the more it falls on the bulk of the people, and as nearly 90 per cent, of the taxes in England are indirect taxes, then by an incontrovertible axiom it is on the bulk of the people that they press as a burden. Is, then, the English landlord class wise in clamouring about the vexation and the hardship of certain direct taxes? May not the lamentations of the English landlord class provoke at last the stolid and patient English nation to look the whole subject of taxation fairly in the face? In regard to the Regie, even the student of history, who is tolerably familiar with the events of the French Revolution, may learn for the first time the following curious circumstances :—On the 29th January, 1791, when the question of the Tobacco monopoly came on for public debate, Mirabeau delivered a brilliant oration in its favour, though he was theoretically a free trader. The author translates a long extract from this oration. Statesmanlike insight can as little be denied to Mirabeau as brilliant eloquence. In two months more the majestic voice was to be hushed for ever. Mirabeau’s pleadings were fruitless, the monopoly was swept away for a time; but he knew his countrymen well, and he prophesied the final triumph of the monopoly. The arguments, however, which might be valid in a country which had long been familiar with the monopoly, the arguments which might be irresistible in a terrible crisis of the nation’s destiny, might be perfectly worthless in other circumstances. The French Revolution had many moral causes; but its chief material cause was financial embarrassment. How France was to be extricated from its desperate financial condition demanded as urgent decision as how it was to achieve its political redemption or to defend itself from the foreign foes but for whose impudent interference the French Revolution would not have been drowned in blood. Mirabeau might deem the time inopportune for financial experiments which, how generous soever in intention, tended seriously to diminish a revenue too much entangled and insufficient already. But in a calmer and more prosperous season probably no one would so resolutely have assailed the monopoly as Mirabeau. In any case, in our consideration of this matter we must not allow ourselves to be influenced by colossal names, by primordial authorities. In social and political affairs the opinion of a man, sublimely gifted though he may be, is just a man’s opinion and no more; the tyranny of tradition to which the world in religion and in other things so tamely submits, is the most absurd of all tyrannies. An amusing part of the pamphlet is that containing the flagrantly contradictory accounts respecting Tobacco frauds and Tobacco smuggling in the United States of America. While the revenue officers declare that the fraud and the smuggling are so small as almost to be imperceptible, intelligent and trustworthy German gentlemen who have lived long in America maintain that the fraud and the smuggling are enormous. One of them states that during a residence of many years in America he smoked nothing but Havana cigars, none of which had paid duty. The same contradictory assertions are made regarding the drinking habits of the Americans, who are represented on the one hand as extremely temperate, and on the other as disgracefully intemperate. The Yankee conscience is not a tender conscience; corruption iu America is rife: from the extent of territory and from other causes, the facilities for cheating the revenue abound. Therefore we may conclude that German travellers are more to be believed than American functionaries as to the mode and the extent of cheating the revenue when clandestine worship is offered to the Tobacco goddess.
“Numbers Thirteen and Fourteen” are earnest little pamphlets written by practical men, and containing energetic arguments supported by an array of eloquent facts. They both assail the monopoly. In one of them it is stated that in Germany are yearly made five million thousand cigars; that the earnings of a workman for a thousand cigars are on an average ten marks, and that consequently fifty millions of marks would be lost through the monopoly to the cigar makers. Besides, what one of the authors well calls a decentralised occupation would perish; decentralised trades being those which are wholesomest for the community, those which the State should be readiest to encourage.
In “ Number Fifteen,” a ponderous pamphlet of a hundred and sixty-eight pages, Moritz Mohl, already known to us, is the half-blundering half-braggart Bobadil of a bad cause. The French Regie is to him the divinest of institutions, only to be transcended by the Regie which is to arise from the creative ‘breath of Bismarck.
Farewell to the German Tobacco monopoly for the present! If anything could kill irrepressible Tobacco it would be not persecution, not taxation, but cartloads of heavy German pamphlets.
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SSalt Oatman.
i.
Upwards of four years ago (see the Tobacco Plant, December, 1875) the eccentric “Poet of the Sierras” Joaquin Miller, lecturing at Washington, told his countrymen: “Here in America, here in this high capital, there was once a colossal mind; an old and honourable man, with a soul as grand as Homer’s—the Milton of America. He walked these streets for years, a plain brave old man, who was kind even to your dogs. He had done great service, in a humble way, in the army; he had written great books, which had been translated in all tongues and read in all lands save our own. In consideration thereof he was given a little place under the Government, where he could barely earn bread enough for himself and his old mother. ... At last, stricken with palsy, he left the place, leaning upon his staff, to go away and die. I saw him but the other day, dying destitute. Grand old Walt Whitman! Even now he looks like a Titan god!” These statements caused a considerable stir, and called forth others with very various comments, both in America and England, of which I shall have to say something in the sequel. But first, merely premising that by the latest reports Whitman is not yet dead, it will be well to give some account of him in his previous life, including his “great service, in a humble way, in the army.” Some consideration of the “great books” he has written will fitly close this slight essay.
For biographical facts I am mainly indebted to the little book by Dr. John Burroughs, “Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and Person” (2nd edition, New York, 1871), often using its very words without marks of quotation. Whitman was born in the farm village of West Hills, on Long Island, New York, about thirty miles from New York city, on May 31, 1819; and is thus not so old in years as Joaquin Miller’s words suggest, though indeed prematurely aged by enormous expenditure of vitality and continual self-exposure to hospital malaria in his prime. The father, of good English stock, an excellent citizen, parent, and neighbour, was first a farmer on his own land, with a dozen or fifteen slaves, then a house-builder and carpenter. The mother, a Van Velsor, of good old Dutch and seafaring English stock, was a healthy, cheerful, sagacious, and generous woman, the fit rearer of a large family of sons and daughters. “I have more than once heard Walt Whitman say that his views of humanity, and of the female sex, could never have been what they are if he had not had the practical proof of his mother and other noble women always before him.” She lived with Walt when he was grown up. In the final Author’s Edition of his works in two volumes, Camden, New Jersey, 1876, in the Preface to the second volume, which serves for both, he interjects in a Note, p. 7:—
M [Ab I write these lines, May 81, 1875, it is again early summer—again my birthday—now my fifty-sixth. Amid the outside beauty and freshness, the sunlight and verdure of the delightful season, 0 how different the moral atmosphere amid which I now revise this Volume, from the jocund influences surrounding the growth and advent of Leaves of Grass [His main literary work]. I occupy myself, arranging these pages for publication, still envelopt in thoughts of the death two years since of my dear Mother, the most perfect and magnetic character, the rarest combination of practical, moral, and spiritual, and the least selfish of all and any I have over known —and by me 0 so much the most deeply loved . . . and also under the physical affliction of a tedious attack of paralysis, obstinately lingering and keeping its hold upon me, and quite suspending all bodily activity and comfort. ... I see now, much clearer than ever—perhaps these experiences were needed to show—how much my former poems, the bulk of them, are indeed the expression of health and strength, and sanest, joyfullest life.] ” I have thought it better to complete the parenthesis, though cited principally for his words about his mother. In his
early childhood the family moved to Brooklyn, then a charming rural town, now related to New York much as the London of Surrey to the London of Middlesex, or as Birkenhead to Liverpool. Here he attended a national school for some years. In 1825, Lafayette—hero of the American and French Revolutions, and yet to figure in the Three Days of July—during his visit to the country where he won his earliest fame, rode through Brooklyn in state, and consented to lay the corner-stone of a free public library. The schools were out to greet him, and gentlemen helped up the smaller children to good places for witnessing the ceremony. Among the rest Lafayette, also helping the little ones, took up Walt, and pressing the child a moment to his breast, and giving him a kiss, set him on a favourable spot. This was an early chivalrous consecration of the poet whose love is almost filial for France.
When thirteen he went into a printing office and learned to set type. When about sixteen and seventeen he spent his summers in the country and along the seaside of the island, teaching and “ boarding round ” among the families of his pupils; a good simple arrangement common to sparse-settled civilised regions. A short sketch or story sent by him to the Democratic Review, then the leading literary periodical of New York, having made “ a hit,” he followed it with others, and soon followed it himself, becoming a Bohemian of the press in the Empire City. He was then a Democrat (say, Old Whig or Tory); the Fugitive Slave Law afterwards made him a Republican (Liberal or Radical). Dr. Burroughs, a most enthusiastic and very intelligent disciple, says: “ Once in a while he appears at the political mass meetings as a speaker. He is on the Democratic side, at the time going for Van Buren for President, and, in due course, for Polk. He speaks in New York, and down on Long Island, where he is made much of.” And then, with a very broad suggestiveness, perhaps too broad: “ Through this period—from 1837 to 1848— without entering into particulars, it is enough to to say that he sounded all experiences of life, with all their passions, pleasures, and abandonments. He was young, in perfect bodily condition, and had the city of New York and its ample opportunities around him. I trace this period in some of the poems in the 1 Children of Adam,’ and occasionally in other parts of his book, including1 Calamus.’ Those who have met the poet of late years, and think of him only as the composed and grey-bearded man of the present, must not forget in reading the * Leaves ’ those previous and more ardent stages of his career. Though of Walt Whitman it may be said that he is always young.” A writer very bitterly contemptuous and unconsciously comical, to whose article I shall have to recur, states, in the highly respectable Appleton's Joumalt of New York :—
“ When the celebrated hard-cider and coon-skin political campaign ^Ala» for its celebrity I What were the momentous issues at stake ?] stirred up the community in 1848, Whitman was drawn into it, and spouted Democracy from the stump, as it is very common for young men to do in the country. Waxing ambitious, and wishing to escape Democratic labour in the country, he came to New York to get a living by his wits. [But this was long before 1848; as appears not only from Dr. Burroughs’s narrative, but from this article itself farther on.] Well introduced by political acquaintance, he took to the business of writing for newspapers and magazines. He wrote stories, essays, articles of all sorts that he could sell. . . . His contributions to the Democratic Review from 1840 to 1850, signed Walter Whitman, appeared among those of Whittier, Poe, Brownson, Hawthorne, Tuckerman, Curtis, Godwin, and Taylor. They are decorous, jejune, and commonplace, contrasting strongly with the general quality of the magazine, and, deserving no attention, they attracted none. ... He was, moreover, a pleasant gentleman, of agreeable address, and went into society as well attired as his precarious resources would allow. In short, he was an entirely respectable person, with nothing marked about him, and meeting with a dubious success due to moderate ability, qualified by excessive indc>lenoe. Buch was Whitman’s ‘foreground.’ He had a dozen or
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fifteen years’ experience of practical literature and miscellaneous journalism in the metropolis, with every opportunity to win a position and make himself known if ho had been capable of it. But Whitman had an ambition, born of egregious vanity, and he was not content with the obscurity from which he had been unable to escape in the open competitions of literature. ... If he could not win fame, he would have notoriety ; if the critics would not recognise him, he must find people that would. . . Donning a tarpaulin, blouse, and red-flannel shirt, conspicuously open, he snubbed conventionalities, clambered on the outside of the omnibus, cultivated the driver, and soon became a hero among the roughs. Sauntering leisurely along the thoroughfares, and lingering at show windows in his jaunty uncouth costume, with a quiet air of defying the world, he soon attracted attention, and began to be talked of and inquired about. He thus got recognition as 'Walt Whitman,’ patron and pride of the ruder elements of society."
We note, in passing, that this anonymous writer does not conceive it possible that Whitman could have any natural affinity for “the ruder elements of society;” any natural weariness, growing to distaste or even disgust, of “ entirely respectable persons: ” no, he revolted from these and consorted with those because, as the critic clearly discerns with infallible insight, he “ had an ambition, born of egregious vanity,” and “ if he could not win fame, he would have notoriety.” In brief, he is another illustration of the old story, so happily expounded by our subtle Dr. Goldsmith,
“ The dog to serve his private ends Went mad, and bit the man: "
in his case, of course, peculiarly the respectable man. Yet a poet of some culture, not generally ranked with the rowdies (though perhaps for what follows and much else he ought to be), one Goethe, in the prime of life, wrote No. 76 of the Epigrams, dated Venice, 1790 :—
“ Hast du nioht gute Gesellschaft gesehn ? Es zoigt uns dein Biichlein Fast nur Gaukler und Volk, ja was noch neidrigvr ist.
Guto Gesellschaft hab’ ich gesehn, man nennt sie die gute, Wenn sie zum kleinsten Gedicht keine Gclegenheit giebt."
“ Have you not seen good society, then ? Your booklet scarce shows us Aught but mob and buffoon, and what is even more base.
Good society, yes, I have seen, as good it is noted,
When to the smallest of poems never occasion it gives."
And how his most notorious pupil, whom many yet revere as a lofty poet and sage, the sans-calotte Carlyle, revels in mordant mockery of respectability that keeps its gig, is only too well known by our shuddering respectable world.
Dr. Burroughs, lacking the victorious insight of Mr. Anon., writes very simply:—
“ At all times ho has liked well the society of the class called ‘ common people.’ He has gone much with such persons, for instance, as tho New York bay pilots, the fishermen down Long Island, certain country farmers and city mechanics, and especially the Broadway stage-drivers. The latter class for years have adopted him as a special favourite and chum. He has ridden on top of the stages with them, gone of an afternoon along Broadway, or from Fulton Ferry, or Bowling Green up to Twenty-third-street; so noting and absorbing the life and objects of his endeared ‘ Mannohatta.’ He has often and often visited in and around the island all such places os the shipyards, the foundries, &c.; is fond of the public shows, and delights in those extra gala days or distinguished receptions when ‘ million-footed Manhattan descends to her pavements.' ’’
From both accounts alike it seems clear that he has persistently cultivated a low taste (natural or acquired) for low life and company; to what deplorable and shameful results we shall see farther on. There would be equal folly in trying to defend him for this very vulgar behaviour, or in pretending to pity him for its very frightful consequences. A man is known by the company he keeps: if with the sick, he is sick—unless, indeed, a physician; if with the poor, he is poor—unless, indeed, a philanthropist; if with the ignorant, he is ignorant—unless, indeed, a teacher; if with the great, he is great—unless, indeed, a lackey. We all know the righteous judgment passed by those eminently respectable persons the Pharisees on a poor man who was the friend of publicans and sinners, that he was gluttonous and a winebibber; and when he cast out devils, it was naturally through the prince of devils. So wisdom is justified of her children.
Dr.B. gives one little set-off against the general vulgarity: “ The artistic pleasure he has always most cared for is the Italian opera, or some good band or concert. Many passages of his poetry were composed in the gallery [vulgarity or poverty even here!] of the New York Academy during the opera performances.” Then, resuming the narrative: “ In 1849 he began travelling. Passing down through Pennsylvania and Maryland, he crossed the Alleghanies, went aboard a small trading steamer at Wheeling, and by slow stages, and with many and long stoppages and detours, journeyed along and down the Ohio river. In the same manner, well pleased with western steamboat life and its scenes, he descended by degrees the Mississippi. In New Orleans he edited a newspaper, and lived there a year, when he again ascended the Mississippi to St. Louis; moved through that region, explored the Illinois river, and the towns along its bank, and lingered some while in Wisconsin, and among the great lakes; stopt north of the straits of Mackinaw, also at Niagara and in Canada. He saw western and north-western nature and character in all their phases, and probably took there and then the decided inspiration of his future poetry. After some two years, returning to Brooklyn, I trace him again trying his hand at a printer’s occupation. He started a newspaper, first as weekly and then as daily. He sold out and went into business as carpenter and builder (his father’s trade), worked with his own hands at the rougher work, and built and sold moderate-priced houses.
“ It is at this period (1853 and the seasons immediately following) that I come on the first inkling of ‘Leaves of Grass.’ Walt Whitman is now thirty-four years old, and in the full fruition of health and physique. There is a lull or Interval in his house-building business, so that he has no
cares from that quarter. In 1855, then, after many manuscript doings and undoings, and much matter destroyed, and two or three complete re-writings, the essential foundation of * Leaves of Grass ’ was laid, and the superstructure raised, in the piece called ‘Walt Whitman,’ and some nine or ten smaller pieces, forming the thin quarto or first edition.”
It was poorly printed, set up by Whitman himself, with no author’s name; but with a portrait for frontispiece, reproduced in Mr. W. M. Rossetti’s Selection of the Poems (London, 1868), containing nearly half of what was then published, each selected piece entire; in which is also included the very valuable prose Preface to that first edition, omitted from subsequent ones, much of it being worked up in the body of the Poems, but decidedly worthy of perpetuation in its first integrity. The book had no publisher; some threescore copies were put for sale in a book store in Brooklyn, and as many in another store in New York. Weeks elapsed, and not a copy was sold. Although Whitman at that time “had never read the Essays or Poems of Mr. Emerson at all,” a copy of the “ Leaves ” was naturally sent to the Sage of Concord; for, as Hawthorne had noted several years earlier: “ People that had lighted on a new thought, or a thought they fancied new, came to Emerson, as the finder of a glittering gem hastens to a lapidary, to ascertain its quality and value.” The book elicited the following acknowledgement :—
“ Concord, Mass., July 21,1855.
“ Dear Sir,—I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of ‘ Leaves of Grass.’ I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile and stingy Nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were making our Western wits fat and mean.
“ I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire.
“ I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits; namely, of fortifying and encouraging.
“ I did not know, until I last night saw the book advertised in a newspaper, that I could trust the name as real and available for a post office. I wish to see my benefactor, and have felt much like striking my tasks and visiting New York to pay you my respects.
“ Wait Whitman. R. W. Emerson.”
It must be borne in mind that when Emerson wrote thus he was not a raw youth easily swept off his feet by a sudden surge of enthusiasm: he was fifty-two years of age, had long been generally acknowledged the foremost living thinker of America, and so long ago as 1841 had been introduced to the British public by Carlyle, with praise as cordial and generous as this with which he now welcomed the work of his unknown countryman.
Let us now see how our “ anonymuncule” of Appleton^ Journal, with his irresistible insight, goes on to relate and expound this matter in his astonishing article “ The Genesis of Walt Whitman ” :—
“Coincident with this external transformation there was an internal change equally marked. He made a strike in literature from his new stand point. He had been scribbling away for years to no purpose [sate, perhaps of earning a sort of a livelihood !], and at last he charged his old carbine with smut to the very muzzle, let drive, and [hurst it ? no] brought down the first of American thinkers at the first shot [icith a ten or twenty fold charge of smut!!] More literally, he issued a ‘pome,’ so-called in his new vernacular [the refined critic is apparently sarcastic, and means ths vernacular of the roughs with whom W. consorted ; for W. writes 'poem* like any ordinary man] entitled * Leaves of Grass.’ Mr. Whitman had never been celebrated ; he had found no one to celebrate him, and so the first words of his new book were, ‘ I celebrate myself.’ It was a performance of unparalleled audacity. In total contrast with all he bad ever done before, it was an outrage upon decency, and not fit to be seen in any respectable house. Impudent and ridiculous as the book was, it would not have been easy to get it before the public, but accident and the authors cunning favoured him. He sent a copy to Mr. Emerson, who returned a very flattering, but probably hasty, private note, not dreaming that any public use would be made of it. Walt printed it at once, and the weight of Emerson’s name sent tho book straightway into circulation. Then people made pilgrimages to see the extraordinary man with the curions aspect that had made such an astonishing book [the aspect had ?], and of whom nobody had ever heard before; and the notion was spread that he was the original genius of Nature itself, unwarped by culture, unspoiled by society, careless of conventions, because dwelling far above them in the realm of his own sublime individuality. The external evidence coincides with Mr. Bayne's analysis of Whitman’s writings [of which, perchance, more anon: it appeared in the Contemporary of Dec. 1875], in showing that they are but an affectation and a pretence. Those may believe who will that when he entered upon the role [sic], dressed up accordingly, vulgarised his name, and wrote a book filled with drivel and indecency, Mr. Whitman suddenly became the inspired poet of democracy, and, as Swinburne says, * the greatest of American voices ’, but against such a view common sense protests.”
I quote this at length, and am about to make some remarks on it in addition to the irrepressible interjaculations while transcribing, not assuredly for its intrinsic worth, which is very much worse than merely worthless, but because it is an exquisitely typical example of the style in which the anony-muncules of “respectable” journalism are wont to write of any original, powerful, sincere, daring genius or character for a full generation or two (sometimes even for centuries instead of generations) after its bewildering advent. For any approach
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to iustaut and instinctive recognition of such a prodigy, look a thousand times rather to the robust native sense of the most illiterate toiling men and women than to the pert, dapper, conceited “ cleveralities ” of the press, or the smug, self-satisfied, “educated” dunces of “good society”; the mountebanks of fine phrases and jugglers of catchwords with their coats of many colours, or the prigs of prim decorums and approved chevaliers of polite poltrooneries. John Wesley found that he could preach deep to the nether million of rude rustics and artizans, but only shallow to the upper ten thousand of fine ladies and gentlemen; and that other “Knight of the Holy Ghost,” Heinrich Heine, carols with ringing laughter, “ Doch <lie Castraten klogten Ais ich meine Stimui’ erhob; Sie klogten, and sic sagten: Ich siiuge vid zu grub.” “ Ever the eunuchs whimpered When I sang out with foice; They whimpered, mid they simpered: My singing was much too coarse.” (1.) Mark how the criticaster, in his anxiety to abase ' Whitman, abases “ the first of American thinkers,” and, therefore, yet more all other American thinkers very far below him; the first of American thinkers, their lofty and pure Transcendentalist, is brought down by the first shot from an old carbine charged with smut to the very muzzle! finds a book filled with drivel and indecency, “ the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed” ! (2.) It is well known that writers or speakers assuming the championship of religion, or morality, or decency, are perfectly free to violate them all in denunciation of their assumed violators; and the criticaster avails himself to the utmost of this evil privilege in the gross calumny or wholesale reckless and malignant falsehood of his “charged with smut to the very muzzle,” “an outrage upon decency, and not fit to be seen in any respectable house,” “ a book filled with drivel and indecency.” The book is not charged with smut, unless Biblical plainness and freedom and sincerity of language be smut; is not filled with indecency (let us leave the “ drivel” at present to the drivelling anony-muncule), unless rejoicing glorification of the strength and beauty, the faculties and functions of the body, in harmony with those of the soul, be indecency. The author of the First Epistle to the Corinthians writes (vi., 19-20): “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Theology apart, as not concerning us in this place, is this indecency? An ascetic of the thirteenth century writes (Early English Text Society, “ Mirror of St. Edmund,” quoted in a good article on Whitman, Westminster Review, July, 1871):—“As to thy body, thou art muck. Thou wast gotten of so vile matter, of so great filth, that it is shame for to speak and abomination for to think. Thou shalt be delivered to toads and adders to eat.” Theology still apart, is this decency ? In the words of the Westminster reviewer “ Whitman’s most naked physical descriptions and enumerations are those of a robust, vigorous, clean man, enamoured of living, unashamed of body as he is unashamed of soul, absolutely free from pruriency of imagination, absolutely inexperienced in the artificial excitements and enhancements of jaded lusts.” (3.) The first words of his new book, the poem entitled “ Walt Whitman,” were, “ I celebrate myself;” but they are not the full sentence, there was only a comma, and now is only a semi-colon, not a full stop, after them ; and these clauses complete the period. “And what I assume you shall assume; For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.” So the criticaster, by a dodge common to his kind, scores a very small point by a very large suppression of truth; falsifying the great celebration of the poet as a type of all mankind into the narrow celebration of his vain sole self. (4.) Where was “the author’s cunning” in sending a copy to Emerson? where the “accident” in Emerson answering as he did? Are we to understand that, a new book being sent to this “first of American thinkers,” it is a mere toss-up whether he shall write back that it is one of the best and greatest or one of the worst and meanest he has ever read? (5.) By what does the criticaster judge that Emerson’s note was “probably hasty”? how does he know that it was “private,” and that E. did not dream “that any public use would be made of it ”? I ask every reader of sense whether it bears throughout the impress of haste or of deUberation; whether such words as these are not conspicuously opposed to the theory of haste: “I am very happy in reading it. . . I have great joy in it. . . I rubbed my eyes a little, &c.; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. . . I did not know, until I last night saw the book advertised, that I could trust the name as real and available for a post office.” I appeal to every honourable man and woman whether such a letter from Emerson to an unknown writer could be considered private, and not the • public manifesto or award of the acknowledged literary arbiter of his country; and whether it is not an insulting impeachment of Emerson’s sense and sincerity (instead of a compliment to Whitman’s cunning) to assume that he did not dream of any public use being made of it, that he spontaneously delivered such a judgment in private as he was surprised and ashamed to see published. (6.) Con-	sider the infinite absurdity, the truly Bedlamite unreason, of the self-complacent criticaster’s theory of “ The Genesis of Walt Whitman.” An entirely respectable man, of moderate ability but immoderate vanity, after a dozen or fifteen years’ experience in journalism, suddenly throws off respectability, consorts with loafers, becomes a hero among the roughs, writes in pure affectation and pretence a book or “ pome ” filled with drivel and indecency, which is hailed by the first of his country’s thinkers as the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet produced, and is acclaimed with equal, or almost equal, enthusiasm by some of the best poets and most accomplished critics in England! Here is a short and easy cut to fame for the many hundreds of obscure journalists of moderate ability, immoderate vanity, and no definable scrupulosity beyond what may be implied in That won't pay! Why have none of them, not even our smug criticaster, essayed it ? So much for the purely literary aspect of the theory: when we come to apply it to the general life of Whitman we shall find it yet more ludicrously and lunatically amazing. In the meantime think how admirably it will fit and explain the career of any one in history who has abandoned the common pathways of life, in obedience to a “ call,” or in consequence of a “ new birth” of whatever kind. George Fox was an entirely respectable shoemaker’s apprentice, till in mere affectation and pretence he clothed himself in leather, withdrew from respectable society, and founded the sect of the Quakers. John Bunyan was a very decent tinker, till in mere affectation and pretence he set up as a Baptist preacher, got shut up in jail for a dozen years, and wrote such “ pomes” as the “ Holy War” and the “ Pilgrim’s Progress.” Oliver Cromwell was an eminently respectable farmer and grazier, till in mere affectation and pretence he took to Puritanism, organised the Ironsides, fought Marston Moor and Dunbar and Worcester, beheaded Charles Stuart, and made himself Lord Protector. Eureka! we have found the master-key to unlock the inmost secret of every exceptional or extra-ordinary career! And how happy are we who have hundreds or thousands of adroit anonymuncules ready and anxious to apply it in scores or hundreds of “ respectable” periodicals to all who have any pretensions to powerful originality ; thus saving us from an immense waste of admiration and even reverence ! Yet poor Dr. Burroughs takes this lesson rather bitterly, actually quoting from Carlyle’s “Frederick,’’Book xiv.,concerning “ that Anarchic Republic called of Letters,” the acrid sentence: “ When your lowest blockhead and scoundrel (usually one entity) shall have perfect freedom to spit in the face of your highest sage and hero, what a remarkably free world we shall be! ” We are ! * J. T. ^ ^nshrioits glcbixal ^eministmt. Travelling the other day ’twixt Swindon and town, by that truly English institution, the “Flying Dutchman,” I happened to be shipmate with a parson and his wife. It was a first-class carriage, of course, dear smoker; for no writer on the staff of the Plant would think of travelling second or third. I was not acquainted with this priest, though I should have liked to have been, for three reasons; first and foremost, because he seemed a genuinely good fellow; secondly, because he was reading Cope's Tobacco Plant; and lastly, but not leastly, because he had a deuced pretty little daisy of a wife. Priests like him you see in pictures; Scott delighted to delineate them; stalwart in form, broad in face, not strictly handsome, pleasant withal, and far from bad looking, and with an eye that required but little tickling to make it twinkle, and that right merrily. I watched his reverence as he read, watched the smile that ever and anon broadened and rippled over his features—a smile that I suppose for politeness* sake he tried to repress, but at last it seemed to me he couldn’t stand it two ticks longer; he felt conquered, and like a true Englishman didn’t attempt any longer to conceal it. He threw himself, so to speak, right slap-bang into the arms of a loud guffaw. So, I tell you, have I seen a priest in a picture laughing; the mouth which he opened, as his head fell back over his shoulders, was big enough to have swallowed a steeple, and the teeth he exhibited—why, he seemed teeth all down to the toes. And the laugh itself shook—I was going to say, shook the Flying Dutchman from stem to stern, but I will not jeopardise my well-earned character as a lover of truth by any such expression—but it did shake all hands in that first-class compartment. “ Willie I Willie! ” said the tiny partner of his joys and sorrows. “Well, well, my dear,” said the priest, “I dare say some apology is due for making such an uproar; but I declare there is more originality, whimsicality, and fun in that little monthly than in all the comic weeklies put together.” ♦ Since writing the above I learn that the “ old carbine charged with smut to the very muzzle ” not only “ brought down the first of American thinkers at the first shot,” but has survived that terrific explosion a quarter of a century to bring down one whose spirit is of the most pure and pious as his genius is of the most splendid in all England. I read in the Athenaum, March 20, 1880, that Ruskin has sent to Walt Whitman for five complete sets of his works (the Author’s Edition, 1876, mentioned above), saying in a letter that these books excite such hostile criticism because “They are deadly true—in the sense of rifles—against all our deadliest sins.”—The same old carbine, note; but now rifled I
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Whether it was you, my good Goggs, who amused him, or you, my genial Sigvat, or that poor slave of a Man-of-AU-Work, or myself, or some other fool, I know not—“ the knowledge is not on me,” as the Highlander hath it; but there it is—a fact! Now, I happen to know that this priest or parson, call him what you may, is only a specimen of thousands of jolly readers whose eyes will scan these pages. And all these readers are smokers, or use Tobacco in some shape or form. Why, even the ladies—bless their bright eyes!—like to see a pipe in their husbands’ lips, and get Tobacco secondhand. But good though it be to laugh and be glad, it becometh not even a fool to be always frisky; so, for once in a way, I mean to spin you a serious yarn. Oh ! it shall be none the less moral for that. Referring back, then, in the log of my recollections, I find many prominent figures, many curious beings, the stories of whose brief lives are not without some degree of interest. One of them is, or, rather, was, my late and lamented friend Reginald Makepeace. That was not his name. His relations are still alive; so I mean, if possible, to give the reader no clue either to his true name or to the locality of his lordly abode. And a lordly abode it was, although but a ruin; and it is now, and for many and many a day it will remain, the admiration of thousands and thousands of visitors, especially those who have an eye to the romantic and beautiful. A broad river, with high green banks, sweeps round two sides of this ancient castle; the other is, of course, fortified by rampart and ditch, and rampart and ditch again. Had an enemy, in the brave days of old, succeeded in crossing these, there would still have been the gates of the castle itself to force; and looking at the strength of these, and the massive boldness of the walls themselves, it would be plain to any beholder that, although guns could now-a-days subdue such a place, in the past siege alone, and that probably a long one, could compel the beleaguered defenders to lay down their arms and open their gates. The castle itself, grand in its old age, was all that poet, romancist, or antiquarian’s heart could desire. There were gigantic towers, ivy bedraped, and so tall that when you looked up at their summits they positively seemed to nod down on you. Up through those towers there led wonderful stone stairs, that, as you climbed them, seemed to promise every moment to land you on the roof, but never did, until you were so tired you could hardly stand. Flocks of pigeons darted angrily away from the embrasures, as you wound your weary way aloft; roundfaced owls blinked uneasily at you from the darkening ivy, cursing you deeply if not loud, and when you couldn’t climb any higher, but stood and gazed around you, with the sky above your head, “ St. Mary, what a scene was there! ” The wild grandeur of that mountain land, pen of mine could ne’er describe. One could only gaze around and marvel; and, when tilled of the enchanting scene, your eyes sought rest by looking below. There you saw the lower turrets and strange fantastic embattlements, the green walls, the green lawns, and flocks of wheeling rooks on lofty trees that looked like shrubs. It was, indeed, a lordly ruin. Could it ever, in any of the many visits I paid to it, have told but a tittle of its strange, eventful history, of the scenes it had witnessed in and around its walls—scenes of joy, scenes of mirth, aye, and murder as well, and war and bloodshed, through many a long century—what a tale I’d have to tell! My first visit to it was in the spring time of ’69. I had been out on a long cruise in African waters, in a pigmy gunboat— a fact in itself sufficient to account for the rather limp condition I then found myself in. It was in the days when slaving was rife, when the trade still flourished in Zanzibar, and along all the coast from Delagoa Bay in the south to Brava and Bareda in the north. Our crew, all told, was ninety; our guns were five, our hearts were oak. John the Baptist in the wilderness fed upon locusts and wild honey. Our fare was weevils and ghee, a bit of junk, a few peas, and a soup composed principally of cockroaches, washed down with a modicum of rum; but, blessed be our stars, we seldom or never lacked Tobacco. We were in the chase every day; then we smoked; when not in the chase we smoked; when we had cutlass and revolver in hand to board a rascally northern dhow, we fell back upon a quid and forward on tbe foe; so we made good use of our time. “No wonder.” I think I hear an anti chirp; “no wonder you get sick.” Ah! but it wasn’t the ’Baccy, anti; that was the life of the child. But four years under an African sun is sadly trying to the gizzard, especially when one-fourth of that time is spent in open boat or in the deadly jungle, and your quinine falls short, as ours did. No matter. I got leave on my return home, and went to reside for four months at the wee romantic village of R	, not a gunshot from the castle I have tried to describe to you. Makepeace was extremely obliging. He showed me all over the place quietly, did not drive me or hurry me as most guides do; passed objects quickly which he noticed I did not care to see, and lingered with me in places where I wished to linger, and answered all my questions in such a gentlemanly way that I was delighted with the man. “I am very glad, sir,” he said, as I took my departure, positively blushing to hand him half-a-sovereign, “to have made your acquaintance. Put that away, sir,” he continued;	“ I’ve myself been in the service, and I’d rather have your friendship than your money. Come another day, and see the little den where I live.” Then, noticing he smoked, I handed him my case, and we talked for many minutes longer. Makepeace was a man of remarkable appearance, and I may as well tell you his history at once, and be done with it. He was descended from one of the best English families, and in his earlier youth had been an officer in the Queen’s	. But a home regiment was far too quiet for young and handsome Makepeace. He joined a regiment going to the Cape. This suited him better; but even fighting with Caffres and bushmen wasn’t fast enough for him. He sold out, and from that day until his return to England, many years after, he had been a free-lance, many said a free-booter; but what boots it what “the many” (ot woXXo*) say. Poor Makepeace came back a ruined man, beggared as to purse, and bad as to health. Spain had been his last port. He told me had lived long and been married there, that he had dearly loved his wife, and had nothing now to live for except his little daughter, Mattidna, whose piquant beauty, shapely form, and melting eyes of darkest hazel, alone would have proclaimed her a true daughter of fair EspAna. But it was not likely that the great friends of Makepeace would receive him, the runaway, or his “gipsy” daughter either, into their set; so they got him an annuity, and made him keeper of Castle R	* It was probably my mentioning having been in Spain, and having learned a little of the language, that procured me an introduction to his daughter. However, never an afternoon passed during my residence in the village without my finding my way to the castle, and I soon came to love both father and daughter (I mean Platonically). Though grizzled and grey with years, what a tall, handsome man he was, to be sure. Never surely was facial skin stretched over lineaments more bold or faultless; his gaze, too, was as firm and unflinching as the eagle that looks at the sun. Tall he was and powerful, with a step as light and easy as an Arab king’s. In such a frame one would have expected a manly mind and soul, and you would not have been disappointed. But for his restless, roving disposition, and his love of change, Makepeace might have been a man to rule men and sway destinies. No matter upon what subject you talked to him, he seemed to grasp it in an instant, and work it with far more ease and fluency than you yourself could have done. In many things he thought not as other men, and, strange as it may appear, he did not seem to dream as other people do. He has often told me that he never dreamt an incongruous dream in-his life. In the quietness and seclusion of his castle home, thoughts of his wild and reckless life must oftentimes have occurred to him both by day and night. He banished those as well as he could by hard application to his pet studies, mathematics and astronomy, and often in his sleep worked out problems that had puzzled him by day. No, twice two were never five in his dreams, as in yours or mine, reader. Had he dreamt he was flying, he would have said, “No, that won’t do,” and awakened at once. I but mention this to prove to you that he was a clear-minded man, and the aberration of intellect which ended in the dreadful tragedy I am about to recount must have been brought about by some suddenly exciting cause, without the predisposition to insanity. At least, that is how I account for it. And this was the presiding genius of Castle R	; its presiding spirit was the gentle Matty herself. A kinder father I have never known, and never known a more loving daughter. She was like a sunbeam in and about the old ruin. Surely ghosts never came near the castle while she was there; but they do, I fear, now, for both Matty and her father sleep together in the green churchyard. “I’m going to give up smoking,” he said to me one day, quite abruptly; “ There—that is my last weed,” and he cast it on the ground. I looked incredulous. “ I’m not mad,” he said, smiling quietly; “ I gave up drinking just the same; I’ll never smoke again.” Nor did he. Just ten days after this I took my departure to join my ship. I had noticed nothing further the matter with Makepeace for a week before than that he was quieter than usual, but not morose by any means. And, mark this, on the very morning I left them—poor Matty bade me goodbye in tears—he was more lively than usual, shook hands most warmly, and said he should look forward with the greatest of pleasure to the day of my return. This in itself shows he had not the slightest inkling of what was to follow. For that same evening—in a sudden fit of frenzy, it would seem—he slew poor Matty in a way too shocking to relate, and afterwards killed himself. It was somewhat strange that Matty’s guitar, to which she used to sing so sweetly, was torn to pieces, and her music to shreds, while her pet books had been dashed about with the wildest fury. Reader, the ink is long dry on the pages of the note-book in which I have recorded this case, but with both day and date; anyone can see it who chooses to look me up in my Berkshire home. I make no comment on it. I think it needs none ; and I could prove in a hundred different ways that the sudden giving up of such a harmless habit as that of smoking is very far indeed from safe. Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
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Tobacco in Stoi^erlanir.*
Is the statistical articles we have presented to our readers we have aimed at two things: to furnish the fullest, most accurate, most suggestive, most instructive information; to nropuguate the true principles of taxation, so little known, so Hl understood, so imperfectly applied. The jargon about Reciprocity in which certain babblers at public meetings have for party purposes lately indulged, shows how tardy the dull English brain is in seizing certain essential facts and truths. One principle of taxation on which we (that is, the present writer) strongly and pertinaciously insist, is that import duties are crassly stupid and supremely barbarous ; that they are costly and cumbrous; that they tempt to gross dishonesty, to scandalous fraud; that they depress the energy of a nation and obstruct its natural development — are, in short, as debilitating as they are demoralising. Surely we should offer the warmest hospitality to the productions of all countries, should rejoice that all countries, at a thousand risks, send us of their abundance across mountains and oceans. Import duties, while seriously hampering commerce, never bring any real benefit to the national revenue. They exist at the expense of the people, for the advantage of particular classes. And a nation can never march stalwartly till import duties are absolutely and for ever abolished.
Spite of what is so obvious, so convincing, it is to an increase, possibly a large increase, of import duties that many governments look for complete and effectual deliverance from their financial troubles, as if national wealth, and consequently the national revenue, could be augmented by diminishing commerce and by doubling or trebling to the consumer the price of articles brought from abroad! If men in the mass are fools, surely they are transcended in folly by their rulers, their legislators.
Switzerland is, perhaps, the happiest, the best governed country in Europe, or in the world: not because it is republican, not because it is the mountain citadel of freedom, but because its inhabitants are energetic, industrious, and frugal, and make their institutions what so few institutions are made—and what those of the United States of America are certainly not made—moral realities. But wisdom in affairs of taxing is slow of growth in Switzerland as elsewhere. Here we find Constant Bodenheimer, a leading Swiss politician, proposing a scheme for augmenting the revenue of the Swiss which does not differ much from those blind brutalities in the domain of finance whose transient success means their ultimate condemnation.
It is spirits and Tobacco that Herr Bodenheimer would more heavily tax. Of course, wherever financial legerdemain is going on, our own old friend Tobacco, the financial pariah, is sure to be a heavy sufferer.
The Swiss must be allowed to manage their political and financial affairs in their own way; but if they were disposed to accept counsel from us, that counsel would be that they should abolish all import duties, in which case each canton could vote an annual sum for Federal purposes.
Herr Bodenheimer is not a powerful logician, but he is a fair writer, and he has reaped with much diligence in the statistical field. To show our gratitude, we shall borrow freely from his statistical stores.
The sumptuary laws of the middle ages seem to us so monstrous, that we are never tired of decrying them. Yet there is a disposition in some countries, and especially in England, to revive them in the most cruel, most objectionable form. The aim of certain fatuous English fanatics is to change society into a kind of penitentiary, in which the most innocent indulgences are to be treated as crimes, and in which the ideal of holiness is to be realised by absolute abstinence from wine, beer, whisky, and cigars, and by immeasurable revelry in tw’addle, tapioca, and tea, with a seasoning of bad jokes stolen from Joe Miller and spoiled in the stealing.
Gunpowder smoke and Tobacco smoke have formed a strange fellowship in these days, and a fable might be made on the calumet of peace as the slave of the tomahawk. It is chiefly for military purposes that, during these past years, Switzerland has been spending more than it has been getting; not that Switzerland has any warlike ambitions, but it is surrounded by military monarchies, and, in spite of its mountain walls which tower to Heaven, it has to be ever armed and ready for defence. From 1849 to 1874 the Federal Constitution of Switzerland underwent a series of trans-figurements. Though the institutions remained essentially the same, there was a progressive increase of expenditure, that increase being more marked in the War years, 1859,1866, and 1870-71. From the fashionable malady of deficits Switzerland is suffering. How to cure the malady is the problem which Constant Bodenheimer puts before himself and his readers. He would heal a sore that grows wider and deeper by the patent bandage of import duties, and the balm of direct and indirect taxes ; but the balm would work more effectually without the patent bandage. Favourable to freedom in everything, Switzerland is in practice favourable to free trade; and it is not as a protectionist, but as a free trader, that
* Zar Frage Einer Eidgenofisischen Steuer Auf Tabak und Branntwein: Von Constant Bodenheimer, Midglied des Schweizerischen Biinderathes in Bern. Bern: Verlag Von E. Magron. 1878.
Bodenheimer would augment the import duties; though, as cannot too often and too energetically be shown, import duties and perfectly free trade are incompatibilities. During the six years preceding the publication of Bodenheimer’s pamphlet, the import duties of Switzerland had produced annually about fifteen million francs. The aim of the Financial Reformers is to raise this sum to twenty-five million francs, or about a million sterling. But if this vision is to be realised, our beloved Tobacco must stretch a hand to the rope, and pull like a giant. Hitherto it must be confessed that not a very heavy strain has been put on our beloved Tobacco. In 1876 the total of the import duty on the plant, in its raw and manufactured forms, was 578,381 francs. The Financial Reformers would wish to double or treble the amount. Tears burst from Bodenheimer’s eyes when he thinks that the import duty on Tobacco is no higher than that on old furniture, on preserves, on biscuits, on coarse floorcloths; that it is less than that on ink, on new furniture, on umbrellas, on slippers, on fine eatables, on writing paper, on hosiery, on strawplait, on body linen, on hats, and so on; that the import duty on sugar is four times that on grain, meal, and podware, twice as productive as the import duty on Tobacco. Verily, we cannot weep as Bodenheimer weeps. But if Swiss legislators determine to retain, or to extend import duties, there can be no hardship or harm in making that on Tobacco more lucrative. If they wish to screw the import duty up to the point that makes smuggling and adulteration active, they had better consult that unrivalled financial genius, Sir Stafford Northcote.
The greater part of the Tobacco consumed in Switzerland comes from abroad, either in a raw or a manufactured state. For the successful cultivation of Tobacco four things are required: a genial climate, a congenial soil, copious manuring, a low price of labour. There are few spots in Switzerland which offer these combined conditions. The mountain ranges occupy so vast a space that not a great deal of soil is left for the cultivation of anything. And where in quantity and quality the soil is favourable, the vine claims pre-eminence. Unless, then, the parasites, which in various lands root out the vine, made irremediable havoc in Switzerland, Tobacco as a plant to be cultivated must occupy a very subordinate position. The twenty thousand hundredweights of Tobacco grown in Switzerland are a trifle in comparison of Germany’s nicotian fecundity. In the canton of Vaud, which is a principal producer of wine, the Tobacco plantations occupy not more than 252 hectares. In 1870 the Tobacco manufacture in Switzerland furnished employment to 1437 men and 1566 women, and Bodenheimer represents it as one of the few Swiss industries which deserve to be called flourishing. If flourishing it is, it cannot be from its extent. In the canton of Berne, with which Bodenheimer is more specially connected, there are, as nearly as he is able to ascertain, 58 Tobacco manufacturers, 14 Tobacco dealers, 1540 grocers and others to whom Tobacco, in its various forms, is simply one of many commodities. From a pamphlet of Professor Miihrlen, Constant Bodenheimer gives the following extract: —“Withdrawn from private industry and subjected to a State monopoly is Tobacco in France, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Roumania, England, with 144 millions of inhabitants. More or less limited by the State, more or less taxed are the cultivation, the manufacture, the sale of Tobacco in Germany, Russia, and in the North American Union with 118 millions of inhabitants. The cultivation, the manufacture, the sale of Tobacco are tax free, and otherwise free, in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Mecklenburg, Belgium, Holland, the Grand Duchy of Hesse, Baden, Wiirtemburg, Bavaria, Greece, and Turkey, with 42 millions of inhabitants.” This statement, which was made in 1868, would require to be somewhat modified now. Smokers, snuffers, and chewers must envy the inhabitants of those countries, Switzerland included, where the plant divine flourishes with “none to make it afraid,” and where the covetous clutch of the taxgatherer is not placed on its sacred leaves. The luxury of smoking, snuffing, and chewing must be greatest in the lands where the Tobacco plant has the wild liberty which it had in its original home.
In the year 1855, Herr Hubacher proposed, in the Grand Council of Berne, that all young people under the age of sixteen found smoking should be punished; that every smoker of cigars should pay a yearly tax of ten francs ; that every smoker of ordinary Tobacco should pay a yearly tax of five francs. These and other proposals were applauded, but we cannot marvel that they did not take the shape of laws.
For the monopoly Bodenheimer would fain plead; but he sees how impossible it would be to establish it in Switzerland, where there is such reluctance to increase either the cantonal or the Federal taxation, and where the monopoly would conflict with the general spirit of the Swiss institutions. He therefore, apart from the increase of the import duties, contents himself with contending for what is both reasonable and realisable; namely, that the retail dealers in Tobacco should pay for licences. But if this reform could be accomplished, why should not the import duty be abolished? To make taxation productive we should always simplify it. No article should contribute to the revenue in more than one form. In France, however, some articles are taxed in at least half-a-dozen different fashions. The objections to a practice so complicated and so teasing are so obvious that they need not be insisted on. From a moral point of view,
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one of the chief objections is that the practice largely increases that official class which every wise government should reduce to a numerical minimum, because it is always unpatriotic, is always corrupt and a source of corruption. A large official class has been a revolutionary agency in France, is a revolutionary agency in Russia. We therefore urge Constant Bodenheimer, as a staunch and sturdy patriot, to consider whether, for the sake of Switzerland’s social and political purity, and for higher than financial reasons, he ought not to strive his utmost to simplify the taxation of his country.
The most valuable part of Bodenheimer’s pamphlet is that relating to the taxation of spirits, which certainly in Switzerland admits of vast improvement. Pedantic twaddlers of the Richardson type, to whom the English dunce lends an eager ear, sputter their choicest rubbish when alcohol is in question. Let the English dunce, however, duly ponder these words, which we translate from the German of Vocke, in his “History of Taxation in the British Kingdom”:— “The principle of limiting the consumption of spirits by means of high taxation is subject to serious doubts. Is it not confessed that spirits for men working hard in cold mountainous regions, or near the sea, are not less an imperious need than wine and beer for the rest of the population? What right has the State to make exorbitantly dear, for that class of men, a beverage so indispensable? If it is declared that it is only the abuse, the excess, which there is a desire to fight against, the declaration may at once be met by the objection that there is no meat or drink which serves to the enjoyment of man which is not liable to be degraded, and often degraded by abuse and excess, and that in the case of spirits the victims are more frequent because the consumers are more numerous; that the effects of excess are in the case of spirits the more repulsive, and excite the more public abhorrence, because the spirit drinkers belong to the poorer classes; that nevertheless, from a moral point of view, the sot who, with a glass of port or champagne in his trembling hand, falls dead drunk under the mahogany table or on the sofa, does not differ from the spirit tippler who tumbles down dead drunk in the street. And even granting that it is right and proper to limit the consumption of spirits, the limitation through a prohibitive high tax, from which everyone can at once free himself by the help of money, is not exactly the best mode of promoting morality. If there is a determination to treat the people as children are treated—which, however, does not harmonise with the English ideas of personal freedom—school compulsion, as indirect means of working against the misuse of spirits by the dissemination of culture, is better than a tax. Furthermore, it is well known that there is no more formidable opponent of spirits than beer. The less the enjoyment of beer is made difficult or impossible to the working classes by a high tax, the more must beer thrust spirits aside. Hereby is indicated to English legislation the right way on which, with unquestionable success, and in complete consonance with all the requirements of morality and of a sound policy, it can carry on its combat against the excess in the consumption of spirits. That, nevertheless, as long as there are taxes on articles of consumption, spirits are eminently fitted to be taxed; and that, this being granted, the tax on spirits should be as high as to furnish the utmost addition to the revenue, and as is necessary to prevent spirits from entering into competition with beer, cannot be questioned.”
These solid sagacious words the Lawson lackbrains and Richardson ravers should lay to heart. But we are forgetting that creatures like these have no heart, and think that the whole duty of men consists in making the community uncomfortable.
If the puny, but not the less pestiferous, pharisees who abound in England, had expended as much energy in the endeavour to obtain wholesome drinks for toe people, good beer and good wine, as in a fatuous and fruitless, a rancorous and cantankerous agitation, both the health and the morality of the people would have been immensely promoted, and true temperance would have gained unspeakably. Heine has said that this is the most dismal of all ages. Why is it so? Because men have lost the faculty, the feeling of spontaneous enjoyment; they exalt abstinence into the highest of duties, and put gloom in the place of religion, and from time to time they rush from the monotony of the abstinence and the burden of the gloom into wildest excitement; and it is as the wildest promoter of the wildest excitements that alcohol is so fiercely sought.
Russia is the country which profits most from the unnatural, as distinguished from the natural love of alcohol; from alcohol as an instrument of madness and degradation, and not from alcohol as aliment and exhilaration. Byron has spoken jestingly of “ rum and true religion.” As the representative of true religion, Russia attacks and is always ready to devour Mahometan Turkey; and it asks the aid of vodka to accomplish its holy mission. From the sale of vodka to a superstitious and swinish population Russia derives about a third of its revenue. The Russian Government is the only government in the world which gives direct encouragement to drinking; and in the able and interesting work published a year or two since, entitled “ The Russians of To-day,” it is shown that not merely are the Russian priests the most bestial drunkards, but the Government’s most energetic agents for promoting drunkenness. From a table
with which Constant Bodenheimer supplies us, we learn that Russia derives from taxes on spirits more than 803 millions of francs, England more than 410 millions, France more than 364 millions, the United States of North America more than 260 millions, the Deutsche Zollverein more than 71 millions, Austro-Hungary 37 millions, Belgium more than 23 millions, Sweden more than 18 millions, Holland more than 17 millions, Wiirtemburg more than 8 millions, Denmark more than 5 millions. Assisted by these colossal figures, we mav reckon the aggregate taxation of spirits throughout the world at not less than a hundred and fifty millions sterling, for India, Australia, Canada, and other regions in the four quarters of the globe are also taxed for their drinks, though the statistician may find them inaccessible to his researches. If we multiply the tax by ten, we may suppose the annual value of the taxed and untaxed drinks consumed by “drouthy” mortals to be about fifteen hundred millions sterling. Both the eyes and the mouth of Constant Bodenheimer become watery when he ponders that alcohol, like Tobacco, is a mine from which riches more gorgeous, and assuredly more genuine, than those of fairyland may be derived. Alcohol in Switzerland is subject to an import duty; but there are also cantonal taxes, in regard to which, of course, each canton follows its own plans and proclivities. The whole taxes on spirits yield in Switzerland about a half a million sterling. If the example of England were followed, they would yield about a million and a half sterling; while more than a million sterling would be the fruit of following the example of France. A serious evil in Switzerland, and especially in Berne as it used to be, and to some extent still is in Sweden, is the enormous number # of small distilleries. In Sweden, about forty years ago, there were more than 170,000 distilleries, that is to say, one distillery for every 26 of the population. These distilleries corresponded somewhat to the “small stills” which formerly swarmed in the Highlands of Scotland, and which produced the “ Peat Reek Whisky” the lovers of usquebaugh deemed so delicious. To put in the place of numerous diminutive distilleries a few large ones is one of Constant Bodenheimer’s schemes of reform, with some of which we cordially sympathise, just as, while detesting the spurious Puritans, we should applaud any plan whereby in England beer shops and gin palaces could be swept away and inns alone be permitted to supply thirsty souls with drink. Not long ago, Mr. F. J. Deacon, the chairman of the Licensed Victuallers’ Protection Society, a man of enlightened views, gave his brethren admirable advice, when urging them to be in reality what they are in name, Licensed Victuallers. It is as food that drink should be regarded, and only in a subordinate degree as a stimulant; and this all legislation on drink should never forget.
With one solitary fact we conclude our notice of Constant Bodenheimer’s excellent pamphlet. The fabrication of spirits in France has during the last twenty years trebled, so that France now produces about a million hectolitres of alcohol. Should not this single statement prove to Good Templars and other busybodies that they declaim in vain against alcohol, and that they take the wrong way to promote temperance?
Long live beer, wine, and other pleasant beverages! Long live Tobacco, the mildest of stimulants and the sweetest of narcotics! But let every man be priest, prophet, and king to himself in the use of meats and drinks. Let us not think how we may most effectually, most tyrannically abridge our neighbour’s liberty, but how we can best and noblest use our own. The example of a freedom wisely and worthily used surely transcends a bondage grudgingly borne; and even apart from example, every man should be allowed to live as seems to him fittest his individual life.
dope’s BEIhim.
In the Memorial of the Tobacco Trade to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented on January 29, 1879, and issued as a special Supplement with the following number of the Tobacco Plant, I read, Sect. X.:—
“Now, however strange it may appear to the rich, it is true, and has been repeatedly proved by the undiminished and even increased consumption of Tobacco in years of great general privation, that the regular Smoker of the labouring classes will in case of need rather stint himself in food and other so-called ‘ necessaries ’ of life, than in the so-called ‘luxury’ Tobacco; but it is equally true that he has au almost insuperable objection to pay more for the Tobacco than the standard price to which be has been accustomed so many years, in the great majority of cases, indeed, ever since he can remember. ... To pay 2|d. duty on a poor ha'p'orth of Tobacco about every other day of his life, Ims naturally seemed to him quite enouyh; and he very decidedly resents the summons of the Extra Duty to pay 3d. tax on every ha'p'orth.
“ Consequently the extraordinary Decrease in the Consumption of Duty-paid Tobacco by no means implies an equal or even a large Decrease in Smoking; but implies a very large Increase in the Consumption of what is not Tobacco, though sold with and as Tobacco. It must be remembered that the introduction of even 10 per cent, of foreign matter, such as water, into an article which last year paid £7,767,193 Duty
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(the Unmanufactured alone), would reduce the Duty on the same nominal quantity retailed by no less than £776,719, just counterbalancing the gain to the Revenue by the Extra Duty, which is exactly 10 per cent, of the 3s. 6d. per lb. now imposed.”
But the Memorialists were not disinterested in this matter. They were not; they were, unfortunately, only too deeply interested in it: but take a quite disinterested authority, with the advantage of another year’s experience of the working of the Extra Duty, take the Economist of Saturday, March 20, 1880:
“The reasons which have caused the increase of duty to be unremunera-tive are (the Economist thinks) worth examining. They start from the fact that when a rate of duty has been charge I on an article without any change for a considerable time, the duty becomes, as it were, incorporated in the selling price. Threepence an ounce having become, so to say, a natural price for much of the Tobacco in ordinary use, the purchasers resented paying more, while, if they paid the same, the increased duty would have rendered it impossible for the retail dealer to make the ordinary rate of trade profit, if he could have made any profit at all. The dealer, therefore, required the manufacturer to supply him with an article as near as possible to that which he had been in the habit of retailing, as close as might be to the former price. There was only one way of doing this—to employ more of an inferior and cheap class of Tobacco, possessing great power of absorbing moisture. Some Tobacco will, it is said, absorb fully 60 per cent, of moisture. More Tobacco of this class was therefore used, and other cheap descriptions were employed to bring the colour and appearance back as much as possible to what the purchasers were accustomed to. It is even alleged that the purchases of those chemicals which are isod with the water added to the mixture, to prevent the manufactured article from becoming mouldy, have been on a far larger scale than previously. The sale of what is called ‘packet Tobacco,’ that is. Tobacco made up into packets and not sold by weight, has likewise been encouraged. It is possible that as many, or even more, ounces of these mixtures have been sold across the retailers’ counters, but they have contained more moisture than before and less Tobacco. The revenue has thus suffered, and the probability is that the consumption may continue to shrink from this cause........Hence	since profits have
suffered, the income-tax has likewise shared in the loss, and probably also the excise duties in other ways.”
The modest Memorialists put the case of only 10 per cent, water; the impassible Economist speaks calmly of some Tobacco which will, it is said, absorb fully 60 per cent, of moisture! It is too terrible to think of : Cross himself did not try to drench and drown the London ratepayers as his colleague of the Exchequer (whose career has been singularly unchequered, consistently and persistently unfortunate) has drenched and drowned our precious Plant.
Adulteration and Smuggling are inseparable half-brothers, with the same sire, Excessive Duty, but different dams (spell as you please), Cunning and Desperation. Here is something about the bolder brother, from the Daily News of March 31:-r-
“The German Government seem to be reaping the fruits of the increase in their protective tariff in a serious increase in smuggling. The article which enterprising traders have been endeavouring to import free of duty is Tobacco. Prince Bismarck could have devised no better way of bringing home to the Tobacco-loving German a keen sense of the burden of militarism than taxing his favourite luxury, and we may bo sure that many ingenious devices have been resorted to to evade the Custom-house officer and procure an untaxcd pipe or an untaxed cigar. A good deal of private smuggling in these articles is always going on, but it would appear that the high duties imposed last year have created a smuggling industry on a larger scale, and not altogether in the interest of the consumer. Affrays between revenue officers and gangs of Tobacco smugglers have been frequent of late on the frontiers between Germany and Holland, in which country, as English travellers know, Tobacco possesses the attraction at least of cheapness. It would not appear that the encounters have been as a rule of a desperate character. . . But an affray which recently took place at Hinsbeck shows that the profits of Tobacco smuggling into Germany are now larg) enough to tempt gangs of desperate men to try and [to] carry through their booty by force when stratagem fails. The excitement that news of the seizure of untaxed consignments of Tobacco must produce in Germany is well worth the attention of the authorities. Who knows what terrible scheme may not be hatched against Prince Bismarck if the wild German youths are obliged to stint themselves in Tobacco?”
Bismarck will be proud on learning (he, of course, regularly reads his Tobacco Plant) that Your Man-of-All- Work liked him long before he was idolised and beprinced; but not even this old familiar fondness can absolve me from the duty of disclosing the sad secret that for some years past he has lost both his head and his nerve, or, as the classic poets phrase it, gone off his chump. He was the most genial and sagacious and enterprising of frank dealers in blood and iron; but I saw that he was going to the bad when he “plunged” into that Socialist business, and I foresaw with anguish that he would ruin himself past redemption when he began meddling and muddling in a pig-headed way with the burning question of Tobacco. Why the deuce couldn’t he remain contented with smoking it?—merely taking good care not to use any of the improper growth of his own country. What a jolly fellow he was in the old times, when merely Count Otto! As when he wrote to his sister in 1844; not yet dreaming, though nearly thirty, of political nonsense and empire-building: “ I spend my days entirely with my father, engaged like him in reading, smoking, and promenading, taking part also, now and then, in a little bit of comedy, which he is pleased to call fox-hunting.” And again, in 1853, when experience of the Germanic Diet had utterly disgusted him with the charlatanism and empty pomposity of diplomacy, and he thought of retiring from the sterile squabbles of public life, and, perhaps, settling in the placid Netherlands, and wrote to his wife from Amsterdam: As I sit here, listening to the sound of distant chimes, and looking at the evening sunlight, through the smoke curling up from a gigantic clay pipe, over the forests of masts in the canal, and the phantastically antique houses and churches in the background, there arise in my memory all the dear old stories of my childhood, the wonderful adventures of Dolf Heylinger, of Rip Van Winkle, and of the Flying Dutchman. ... I am delighted to have seen Holland; it is a good-sized flat, but beautiful meadow, full of bushes and full of cattle, among which stand many quaint old cities, neatly cut out of ancient picture-books.”
This is surely much better than blood and iron, and infinitely better than gagging laws and monopoly of that universal blessing, Tobacco. In the sacred words of our beautiful national anthem, “Confound their politics!” We have recently been told how our Count Otto took possession of his bride with characteristic direct masterfulness, the parents being averse, by putting his arm round her waist and declaring in public, “Whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder.” That’s the way to annex, whether girls or provinces! Fortunately, his bride was not like the headstrong young lady of our next extract, else he would scarcely have written to her of “the smoke curling up from a gigantic clay pipe” giving so rich a tone to the quaint old picture of quietude.
“ A newly married pair were on the Erie Railway cars, one night last week, when the husband to A from his pocket a roll of brown paper, which the bride snatched and threw out of the window, remarking: ‘You said you'd quit chewing Tobacco when I married you.’ As gently as he could under the circumstances, the husband remarked that the brown paper contained, not Tobacco, but 100 dols. in bills.”
I guess that unbridled bride felt as eerie as the Railway on which they were travelling, after that marital exposition of her hasty feat. Here’s the proper laureate for her, with “A Spring Impromptu, Sprung by an Anti-Tobacconist.”
“ Sweet-scented spring, fair spring, is come!
A million bird-throat-* pipe her praise;
From out a million hardened throats
A million pipes their stenches raise. The leaves on countless budding trees
Begin their verdant lives anew;
Tobacco leaves, a c mntless horde, Their daily stiflings all renew.
“ Up in the tender spring’s soft evening sky
Gleam glittering myriads of golden stars;
Upon the perfumed spring's soft evening air Smell myriads of meerschaums and cigars.
The spring's young moon in silvern car glides on, And softens sea, vale, meadow, wood, and crag;
The balmy night is poisoned with the fumes Of rank, coarse, venomous, remorseless shag!
“At spring’s reviving breath the rivers laugh,
Glad are the streamlet-, sing the ‘ wimpling burns’; The air might fragrant be with spring’s pure breath,
Yet faints, assailed, oppressed, with vile returns.
Ozone and Oxygen, two happy, healthy sprites, About the earth, the sea, the air are blown;
In vain they play upon their freshening pipes, Man, ever-smoking man, prefers his own.
“From morn till noon, from noon till dewy eve, The seasons all the acrid vapours vex;
The Monarch Weed his famous subjects claims— Perpetual reigus supreme Tobacco Rex I
On river, sea, lake, forest, park, heath, street, Before its foe spring’s odours swift take wing;
If, then, instead of vernal airs one breathes but smoke, I fain would ask, ‘ Pray what’s the use of spring ? ’ ”
“ Carados ” gives this precious effusion in the Referee, telling us that the writer, whom he facetiously calls “ the poet,” is dramatic author, singer, journalist, writer of oratorios, and has lately taken to gymnastics; adding “ Now, what’s the Arthur’s—I mean the author’s—name ? ” Whereto I reply with the utmost promptitude, “ Not knowing, can’t tell; not being interested, don’t care a horse’s mother.” You see, the verses, while far from good enough for a regular Smoker, are not outrageously bad enough for a regular Anti. Yet there are plenty of Anti-Tobacconist and Anti-Poetic touches in them; e.g., the singularity of metre in the first stanza, the odd economy of rhymes limited to the even lines, the odder superfluity of feet in “ Ozone and Oxygen, two happy, healthy sprites,” and “ If, then, instead of vernal airs one breathes but smoke,” the illicit coupling of “anew” and “renew.” However, let the poor piece pass unscourged to oblivion, for the sake of its truthful though awkward line, “Perpetual reigns supreme Tobacco Rex ! ”—but save us from the writer’s oratorios. If he was at that banquet which the Lord Mayor gave to men of literature and art in March, he couldn’t have enjoyed the innovation of the worshipful host in allowing the Egyptian Hall to be incensed and the guests delighted with Tobacco. Thus Truth meditated and moralised and prophesied on the auspicious event:—
“ The Lord Mayor deserves a testimonial from all smokers. Ninety-nine mon out of every hundred feel an imperious desire to smoke after dinner. At such a time speeches, whatever may be their excellence, are listened to with impatience unless they reach the brain accompanied by the fumes of Tobacco. In that hall much eloquence has been expended. But if eloquence be to please, no speech was ever delivered there so eloquent as the simple announcement, * You may smoke.’ Lord Mayor Truscott is, I believe, in politics a Conservative, but he is a social reformer, and if he has established the * you may smoke ’ as a necessary sequence to civic dinners, he will have done more to augment the sum of human happiness than any of his predecessors since Whittington. . . .
“ I shall not live to see it, but fifty years will not elapse before smoking is permitted everywhere. Smoking carriages will be no more needed on railroads than reading carriages. A person, whether in church, or in a law court, or in a drawing-room, will no more ask permission to smoke than to breathe. No one accustomed to the smell of Tobacco objects to it, for it bee unes imperceptible. Everyone, consequently, should bring up their children in an atmosphere of Tobacco smoko, so os to accustom them to it from their earliest childhood. If I were blessed with daughters, I should seek out an Irish nurse for them, and insist upon her smoking every day in the nursery a certain amount of the strongest Tobacco from a short clay pipe. In after years, my daughters would not render themselves objectionable to the mole sex in general, and their father in particular, by declaring that they could not enduro the odour of a cigar or a cigarette.”
Let us cross the Channel. I read in that well-edited and well-got-up Franco-American paper, the Parisian:—
“ Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt has attained the heights of fame and notoriety. She now has her name on boxes of Mexican cigars. These cigars are long, thin, and queerly turned, and, in a word, they remind us of the great comedienne from whom they take their name.”
The heights (mind the plural) of fame and notoriety: the
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height of notoriety for sculpturing, painting, balloonacy, and so forth; the height of fame in connection with the stage (when she is a good girl) and cigars: the distinction is eminently just. That “queerly turned,” though, is queerly turned against society’s spoilt child; yet not quite so queerly turned as the following, which I cull from the same paper:—
44	A German traveller in Africa characterises a people he came across os 4 intensely black, dolichocephalic and plutyrhiue, prognathous, dichotomatic and dolichodactylic.’ We have seen a man knocked down for less than that”
And serve him well right. Any fellow who can understand it will, perhaps, kindly solve the following problem for us, which I find in an American paper:—
44	Science has its triumphs, bnt we believe it has never yet satisfactorily accounted for thf existe nce, of the middle-aged woman who attends all the donation parties with a present of a Ihinnel pen-wiper and eats four dollars worth of food at supper, and subsequently leans up against the wall with her eyes shut end sings ‘ Nearer, my God, to Thee.’”
For if he cannot do so, especially after a course of Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises, neither can
Your Man-of-all-Work.
pipt Colourtrs.
XXI.—MURKER’S EXTRA COUNTERPANE.
Murker coloured one of his pipes under peculiar circumstances. He is of rather a dreamy nature, but not in the habit of romancing, so that I entertain no doubt as to the truth of his narrative, which I shall give in his own words. Said he :
“I have coloured a good many pipes, but I can only call to mind one to which anything like a story is attached, and that I will tell you about. I have the pipe at home now, for I often smoke it. I keep it as a memento of a strange experience, and I keep it also as a curiosity; for, to tell you the truth, I coloured it in a single night, as you shall hear.
“ About six years ago, in the month of September, I determined to have a week's holiday at the sea-side. I fixed my choice on Margate, for economical reasons. A month or two before I had become acquainted with a Mr. Bidder, a tradesman from Margate, a very jolly old fellow. We used to smoke our pipes together, and one day he said to me: ‘ If ever you come to Margate, stay with me. I do a little in lodging and feeding visitors, and I shall be happy to see you. I shan’t charge you as a stranger, I shall just charge you about what it costs me, and I can promise you first-class food and good company.’ To Margate, therefore, I determined to go, and dropped a note to Mr. Bidder, stating my intention. He replied that he should be most happy to see me, and would do his best to make me comfortable. I took advantage of a late train, as I had a day’s work to do before I started; and so, with a small portmanteau, an overcoat, an umbrella, one pipe (my old meerschaum) in my mouth, and one (a new cutty) in my pocket, I found myself, in the gloom of a September evening, a stranger and a wanderer in Margate. Now for a moment I must break my narrative.
“ The subject of death at one time exercised a strange fascination over me. I bought death’s-head pipes, and pipes in the form of skeletons. It was no morbid horror of death that caused it to exercise so much power over me, it was rather a foolish fancied defiance of it. I got me a skull which I ornamented my mantel-piece with, sometimes sticking a cigar or pipe between the teeth of the poor relic of mortality. Songs and poems wherein death was treated more lightly than so sorrowful a subject should be treated, I read with infinite pleasure, and accounts of strange and peculiar deaths of individuals, in both ancient and modern times, were to me extremely interesting. But there came a change.
“ I was brought very low by a long and serious illness, and it was for some time a matter of uncertainty as to whether I should quietly slip down into the dust, or again be permitted to walk about in sweet air and sunshine. Death at that time drew very close to me. I saw the spectre as I had never seen him before, and cowered in his stern presence, made even more dreadful to me by reason of the lightness with which I had treated him to whom all men are slaves. When I grew better I thankfully resolved to abandon my former foolish ways, and did so. My death’s-head pipes I put away out of sight, and the skull I had so often treated lightly received reverent burial at my hands.
“I tell you this much about what I had been, in order that you may fully understand the whole of my story.
441 wandered up the High Street till I came to No. 79, and found Mr. Bidder’s shop. To tell you the truth, I liked it none the better when I discovered it to be an undertaker’s. However, that had to be put up with. The shop was closed, bo I rang the bell. The door was opened by Bidder himself, who welcomed me warmly. I followed him through his shop, slightly shuddering as I brushed by a coffin that stood on trestles. We spent, on the whole, a very pleasant evening. Bidder was a jolly old soul, Mrs. B. was second only to him; and the young Bidders were all cheerful and happy.
44 There was a cousin, too, of Mr. Bidder’s present, with his wife and daughter, a merry girl of eighteen, so that altogether the evening, with conversation and music, passed off very happily. We had a snug little supper at ten o’clock, which I enjoyed vastly. Signs of weariness began to arrive
about 11-30, and then Mr. Bidder said to me: 4 Oh I I say, Mr. Murker, I hope I shan’t inconvenience you; you see, I’ve got my house full of company, so I shall have to put you next door.’
44 He then explained to me that he was enlarging his business, and that he had taken the next house and shop. The house was being renovated, but there was one room fitted up as a bedroom, which he hoped I should find comfortable. Of course I could not object to this arrangement; so the worthy Bidder, acting as guide, conducted me out through his little back-yard, then through a doorway in the wall, across his other back-yard into the empty house, and upstairs to my chamber.
“ As he went downstairs after bidding me good-night, he called out: 4 Oh! I say, if you don’t feel warm enough, you'll find an extra counterpane in the top drawer.’ 4 All right, and thank you,’ I replied, and away went the worthy undertaker. As I was undressing I became aware of a peculiar tapping at the window—nothing t^ alarm me, but something, for all that, to be explained. I drew aside the blind, and found the the noise proceeded from two or three rather scraggy evergreens in pots on the window-ledge. The wind kept swaying them hither and thither, and tap, tap, tap they went, as if anxious to come in.
44 Quite at ease on this matter, I finished undressing, blew out my light, and turned into bed. I soon came to the conclusion that I could do with the other counterpane mentioned by Mr. Bidder. The chest of drawers being close to one side of my bedstead, I popped out in the dark, and in a moment gained the object of my search. The counterpane was large and heavy, and I inwardly rejoiced that my host had made known its existence and whereabouts to me. The night was rather cold, so I spread my new quilt over the bed, and, pulling it well up, just allowed the tip of my nose to stay out in the cold. I then began to think myself off to sleep. I thought of my journey, of Bidder, Mrs. Bidder, the visitors, the supper, Ac., when I became suddenly interested in the peculiar ‘feel’ of the counterpane against my cheek. It seemed different to cotton, or wool, or patchwork; it was surely velvet. I must have got hold of the wrong article, and yet I could not have done so, as it was the only one in the drawer. I turned out of bed, discovered the matches, struck a light, and found, to my horror and consternation, that my supplementary counterpane was a pall! A cold shudder ran through me, and a strange feeling of sickness took possession of me. I tried, however, to pull myself together, and laughed at my fears ; but I was obliged to confess that the laugh was a dismal failure. I decided to get into bed again, and try to sleep, and in another moment I had extinguished my candle and was between the sheets. Sleep, however, declined to visit me—in fact I felt horribly wakeful, with my mind full of morbid thoughts and imaginations. I began to wonder how many dead persons had reposed underneath my counterpane, and what they were like. I saw in my fancy old men with shrunken limbs and skinny, wrinkled faces ; strong men with limbs of giants, and the young with never a wrinkle on cheek or brow. They passed before me, but all with closed eyesand dead faces; some beautiful as if in simple sleep, and others dreadful as if in pain.
44 Then from this I got to thinking of myself lying alive under the pall, and then picturing myself dead under it, and trying to understand how I looked. It was not a cheerful species of recreation, but I was powerless to banish these dreadful things.
“ A new horror presently seized me, for I began speculating as to the various complaints and diseases that had introduced these others, my predecessors, to my counterpane, and I found little comfort in reflecting on such things as fevers, smallpox, Ac., and the possibility of my falling a victim to contagion in some dreadful form or another. My imagination being now thoroughly roused, endeavoured to persuade me that the melancholy odour of the vault was quite perceptible, and although I dare say I was mistaken, I felt sure at the time that a damp and charnel-house perfume was pervading my apartment.
“ I suppose I should not have been so miserable under the infliction of this pall if it had not been for the humours I at one time indulged in with regard to the sad subject of death. It was doubtless my conscience which made so arrant a coward of me. The things that I had with repentance put from me as too grave to be lightly handled, now, as it were, in revenge for my former misdoings, forced themselves upon me and seemed to permeate my very being. Every Outward circumstance instantly and easily fell into the strong main stream of thought that ran rioting through my mind. As I tumbled about, the old wooden bedstead I was lying on creaked, and it seemed to me like the jolting of a hearse;,the mouldy evergreens tapping at the window beat time in a wild and inebriated fashion to 4 Rattle his bones, over the stones’; while the wind, now hoarse and now shrill, became to me a company of mourners wandering in the darkness and lamenting for those who had fallen victims to death.
44 Then my mind wandered to poems and verses and odd lines concerning death, familiar to me in the past, and I found that I was repeating, ‘King Death was a rare old fellow. He sat where no sun could shine.’ This gave my thoughts a fresh start, and I, all unable to prevent it, invested death with a personality, and the grim spectre himself glided
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to my bedside all in his naked bones, and pointing at my coverlet with his horrid forefinger, sternly demanded of me the reason why I had robbed him of his garment. I tried hard to shake off this train of thought, and steadily set myself to picture again the supper table downstairs and those who had partaken of the meal; but my imagination would not quit its morbid ruminations, for in a moment that supper table became surrounded by those who had been under my counterpane before me. It was a dismal banquet. I was elected to preside. The tablecloth became a shroud, while corpse candles shed a fitful light on the dismal scene. The seats were coffins, and—there—I could stand it no longer; I sat up to consider what was best to do.
“In the first place I got out of bed, lit the candle, and dressed myself with the exception of putting my boots on. Then I folded up the pall and put it back in the drawer. That did not seem to quite suit me. The presence of it in my chamber was an annoyance, so I took it from the drawer, and opening the door of my bedroom stepped out and dropped my ghostly counterpane over the banisters. I heard it drop, and then I returned to my chamber with a much lighter heart.
“Having thus got rid of the pall I lit my pipe, and with my hat on and my coat buttoned tightly up, I sat in bed and smoked, leaving the candle burning to make things more cheerful. I can tell you I very speedily sent the charnel house odour up the chimney or somewhere else, for no trace of it was visible after I had my pipe alight a couple of minutes. 0 how I revelled in that delicious first pipe! You must not think, however, that I put to flight my dread fancies all at once. As soon as I got rid of the pall and began to smoke I felt easier, but it was some time before I could put them utterly from me. As the smoke rolled over and over it assumed quaint forms and shapes, but all suggestive to my mind of horror and death. I was amusing, or trying to amuse myself by forming rings of smoke; at one time I was rather clever at that. No sooner, however, on that night did I succeed in forming several than they were transformed into dreadful eyes that looked steadily at me till they faded into nothingness. Then the clouds of smoke assumed various forms, skulls, or faces of dead people, or phantom, ill-defined forms, that moved wavy arms and limbs about erethey vanished. To cut my story short, I smoked nearly the whole of the night, and consumed quite an ounce of Tobacco.
“About four in the morning I finished all my weed. My pipe, that was perfectly clean when I started, was fairly coloured; the end of my tongue was pretty nearly burnt off, my head was aching fit to split, and I was almost stupefied by the vast amount of smoke in my bedchamber. After opening the window for a few minutes to clear the smoke away, I crept into bed in my clothes, and fell dead asleep for five hours.
“Matters were explained next day. It transpired that by some accident the wrong chest of drawers had been placed in my room. Bidder was extremely sorry that I had suffered inconvenience, and for the remainder of the time I stayed with him I was provided with a different sort of extra counterpane.’’
Here endeth Murker’s story. D. Goggs.
Tobacco ^tgislafion in fbe Cbrec ginghams.
IX.
F(edera, Tom. XIX., 1628-1635.
We shall have no more special Commissions to Our Right Trustie and Right Welbeloved Cosen [confound his cozenage1.] and [evil] Counsellor, George Duke of Buckingham Our High Admirall of England, &c., <tc., &c.; nor need there anymore be stuck upon a post in Coleman Street or elsewhere the too true pasquinade: “Who rules the kingdom? —The king. Who rules the king?—The duke. Who rules the duke?—The devil.’’ For, as we have all read, on Saturday, August 23, 1628, Buckingham being at Portsmouth, preparing to set out again for Rochelle, with secret instructions to betray the Hugenots and make peace with Richelieu, was stabbed to the heart by the patriot and Puritan, exlieutenant John Felton, who prayed, stabbing, “God have mercy on thy soul! ” and who might easily have escaped, but calmly gave himself up:—“I killed him for the cause of God and my country.” And on a suggestion that the duke might recover:—“It is impossible; I had the power of forty men, assisted by Him who guided my hand.” On his way to London he was greeted with prayers and blessings by the common people. The gentle Martyr wanted to use the rack, but the judges, in awe of Parliament, declared it illegal; Dorset threatened it, and Felton replied; “I am ready: yet I must tell you, that I will then accuse you, my Lord of Dorset, and no one but yourself”; remembering, perhaps, how Zeno of Elea denounced as his accomplices in conspiracy all the tyrant’s chief courtiers. Felton stated that his one confederate and setter-on was the Remonstrance of the Parliament; the Remonstrance which Charles had so cleverly parried by the prorogation; but he could not parry Felton’s sure blow, though he had just assured “George” against his enemies: “Care not for them. We will both perish together, if thou doest.” Carlyle, in his “Cromwell,” seems rather too positive in stating “It is known he [Felton] repented ”: other contemporary accounts than those he* refers to give the sorrow with a very ambiguous if, suggestive of grim irony. (See “Pict. Hist.” and authorities there referred to.)
1628, Dec. 15. But before Buckingham’s violent end, Sir
Thomas Wentworth had made his peace with minion and king, and sold himself body and soul to the court; not, as I conceive, impelled by mere greed for wealth and titles; though, we are told, even his friends could discover no purer motive; but yet more by innate intense lust for despotic sway; the “ great, bad, bold man,” whom we may hate but cannot despise as we despise his false and cowardly king. Here, however, are among the first fruits of the great apostacy; with above date: De Commissions pro Thoma Vicecomit^ Wentworth, Presidente Concilii in partibus Borealibus et aliis (in Latin); followed by no fewer than fifteen folio pages (in English) of “Instructions to our right trustie and right welbeloved Cosen Tliomas Viscount Wentworth, President of our Councell in the North partes,” &c., &c.
1629.	The prorogued third Parliament met on the 20th January. The King wanted tonnage and poundage, or Customs duties, voted him for life; the Commons would not vote them even for a year unless there were redress of such grievances as illegal taxation, violations of the Petition of Right, cruel and arbitrary proceedings of the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission impelled by the King’s absolutism and desperate want of money and by Laud’s ruthless Arminianism or Popery (on which last subject Mr. Oliver Cromwell, then thirty years old and member for Huntingdon, on February 11 delivered his maiden speech, ending: “If these are the steps to Church-preferment, what are we to expect! ”—Surely not yet a Civil War, the execution of Charles Stuart, and a Commonwealth ruled by the poor sectaries under my Protectorate!). So as Liberty and Tyranny could not come to terms, the Commons on the 2nd March had to lock the doors of the House, locking out the usher with his message, hold their cowardly weeping Speaker down in his chair (Sir John Finch, a courtier, afterwards Lord Keeper), hastily draw up and pass by acclamation a Protest of three emphatic Resolutions against Popery or Arminianism and unparliamentary tonnage and poundage, and finally adjourn till the 10th, and disperse ere the King’s guards could arrive to force the door. On the 10th, without formally summoning the Commons, the King went down to the Lords with his proclamation (dated the 2nd, as it stands in the “Foedera),” dissolving the Parliament, because “it hath soe happened by the disobedient and seditious carriage of those said ill affected persons of the House of Commons, That Wee and our Regall Authority and Commandement have been so highly contempned as our Kingly Office cannot bear, nor anie former Age can parrallel.” Eliot, Selden, and others of the ill affected persons of malevolent Dispositions were committed to the Tower; Eliot to be kept there, writing his noble “ Monarchic of Man ” (see Forster’s “ Life ”), corresponding with Hampden, and wasting away with disease till he died, November 27, 1632, to the great joy of Wentworth and Charles, and in some obscure corner of the Tower church was buried, for the magnanimous monarch wrote at the foot of a petition for the body of his murdered victim to be interred in native Cornwall: “Lett Sir John Eliot be buried in the Church of that parishe where he dyed.”
And now for eleven full years, until April 13, 1640, there is no Parliament, but government or desperate tyranny by absolute Royal Prerogative; nay, on March 27, 1629, we have 4 Proclamation for suppressing of false Rumors touching Parliaments, declaring : “ Wee shall account it Presumption for anie to prescribe anie tyme unto Us for Parliaments, the calling, contynuing, and dissolving of which is alwaies in Our owne power.” England, Scotland, and Ireland had to fare as they could, committed to the tender mercies of that most undivine trinity, Charles, Wentworth, and Laud, with its terrible “two-handed engine” of the Star Chamber and High Commission; the doomed trinity of decapitation. As to our special subject, here are a few sentences from the pregnant abstract of the arbitrary proceedings throughout those evil eleven years in Forster’s “Life of Pym” (Eminent British Statesmen; Lardner’s Cyclopedia), p. 64: “ But the grievance which outheroded all the rest was the revival of monopolies. This was carried to an extent which was truly appalling. . . . Upon every thing, no matter how insignificant, the fetters of monopoly were fixed. Salt, starch, coals, iron, wine, pens, cards and dice, beavers, felts, bone-lace, meat dressed in taverns, Tobacco [of course!], wine casks, brewing and distillation, lamprons, weighing of hay and straw in London and Westminster, gauging of red herrings, butter casks, kelp and sea-weed, linen cloth, rags, hops, buttons, hats, gutstring, spectacles, combs, Tobacco-pipes [also of course: but if Archie Armstrong still has it we do not so sorely grudge; see S. V. 1618, Jw;. 20], saltpetre, gunpowder, down to the sole privilege of gathering of rags,— were all subjected to monopolies, and consequently heavily taxed! ” Did I not well to speak of the ghoul-haunted realm of government by Proclamations ? Again, pp. 65, 68, citing from the Rev. Mr. Garrard’s newsletters to Wentworth in the “Strafford Papers”: “He e are two commissions afloat, which are attended diligently, which will bring, as it is conceived, a great sum of money to his Majesty. The first, concerning the licensing of those who shall have a lease for life to sell Tobacco in and about London, and so in all the boroughs and villages in England; fifteen pounds five, and as much rent by the year. . . . Here are abundance of new projects on foot, upon sea-coal, salt, malt, marking of iron, cutting of rivers, setting up a new corporation in the suburbs of London, much opposed by the Londoners, and many others. Where profit may come to the King, let them
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pass; but to enrich private men, they have not my wishes. Discontinuance of Parliaments brings up this kind of grain, which commonly is blasted when they come.”
Whereon Mr. Forster well remarks: “ And all these fearful outrages were committed upon the people while there was probably not a single family in England, with the smallest share of education or intelligence, in whose house a copy of the famous Petition of Right might not be found! But this consideration it was, beyond every other, that still sustained with the strongest hope, during the terrible twelve years’ continuance of such outrages, such men as Pym and Hampden. . . . The breath of God was not to be monopolised; neither was the petition of rights to be recalled.” The “ Pict. Hist, of England says of the same period, HL, 161: “ Charles continued to issue proclamations without number, on an infinite variety of subjects, from fixing the religion that people were to profess, down to fixing the price of poultry—from a prohibition of heresy [up] to a prohibition of the abuses growing out of the retailing of Tobacco.” And now back to our “Fcedera.”
1629; p. 134, under Ojjicia Anno quinto Caroli (1629-30). The King, the Fourth day of July, Grants to John Jacob and George Wylmer the Office of Collectors of the Impositions sett upon Tobacco during theire lyves.
The King the eight day of September, Grants to Henry Knollis the Office of Surveyor Generali of Customes great and small Subsidies of Tonnage and Poundage, and other Dutyes whatsoever during his lyfe.
1631,	Jan. 6: A Proclamation concerning Tobacco. Another pathetic preamble. Refers generally to the several Proclamations of Our most deere Father and Ourself: “ Yet notwithstanding all the Care and Providence which hath hitherto been used, Wee find the unlymited desire of Gain, and the inordinate Appetite of taking Tobacco, hath so far prevayled, That Tobacco hath been contynued to be planted in greate quantities in several Parts of this our Realme, and a vast proportion of unserviceable Tobacco made and brought from our Colonies of Virginia, Somer Islands and other our forraigne Plantations, besides an incredible quantity of Brasil and Spanish I'obacco imported hither and secreatly conveyed on Land ; and it is now come to passe, that those our forraigne Plantations, that might become useful to this Kingdom, lingring onely upon Tobacco, are in apparent danger to be utterly ruyned, unless Wee speedily provide for their Subsistance, the Bodies and Manners of our people are also in danger to be corrupted, and the Wealth of this Kingdom exhausted by soe useless a Weed as Tobacco is, [How true has all this proved to be by the experience of 250 years !] which being represented unto Us, by the humble Petition of our loving Subjects the Planters and Adventurers in Virginia, as also by the like humble Petition of the Retaylers and Sellers of Tobacco [burdened with Our exorbitant monopoly] in and about our Citties of London and Westminster. Wee have thought it worthy of our princely Care, as a matter not onely fit for our profit and the profit of our People, but much coucerning Us in our Honour and Governement, so to regulate the same and compell due Obedience thereto, that our forraigne Plantations and Collonies may be supported and incouraged, and they made usefull to this Kingdom by applying themselves to more solid Commodities, that the Healthes of our Subjects may be preserved, the Wealth of this Kingdom be enlarged, and the Manners of our People soe ordered and governed, that the World may not justly taxe Us that these are at once indangered onely by the lycencious use of Tobacco.” [Certainly not, Y’our Majesty: they are indangered by countless other lycencious uses or abuses.]
Wherefore Wee publish the commaunds following concerning Tobacco, to be in all things observed, upon pain of our highest Displeasure, and of such Paines, Penalties, and Punishments as by our Court of Exchequer, and Court of Star-chamber, and by any other Courts and Ministers of Justice, or by our Prerogative Royall, can be inflicted upon the Offenders. [And the last can inflict whatever it pleases —while the people continue to submit.]
No Tobacco shall be planted in England, Ireland, Wales, Jersey, Guernesey [Scotland still left out]; any already planted shall be destroyed.
No Tobacco shall be imported from any places beyond the seas belonging to any forreigne Prince or State, but such and soe much as Wee shall specially allow, ‘‘untill it shall be fully settled betweene those forraigne Princes and Us, according to those Treaties which are betweene Us, that our Subjects may not untbriftely vent the solid Commodities of our owne Kingdoms, and return the proceed thereof in Smoak.” [Quite a James touch, this]. „
No Tobacco of the Growth of our English Plantations, in Virginia, the Somer Islands, Caribee Islands, or any other Islands or Places in America or the Coasts thereof, shall be imported into England, Ireland or Wales, at any other Port than London onely, and the same duely entered in our Customhouses there; nor any greater quantity be imported there than Wee, by the advise of our Privie Counsell, shall hould fit, and under our Privie Seale shall declare to be competent for the Expence of theis our Kingdoms: “ Wee not thinking it fit to admit of an unmeasurable Expence of soe vain and needless a Commoditie, which ought to be used as a Drugg onely, and not soe vainely and wantonly as an evil habit of late tymes hath brought it unto” [What say our Chancellors of the Exchequer to this ?]; and these sorts of Tobacco from our owne Colonies, Wee will take present Order shall be well ordered and made up, and soe certified under the Hand of
the Governor of that Place, and when brought hither shall be again searched, tryed and sealed that our Subjects be not abused by corrupt Tobacco [for once we cry Hear ! Hear! approvingly: but what if the monopolised Tobacco, like the monopolised soap as to which there is so much ado in these years, prove ten times worse and more cormpt than the unmonopolised!]; And our express commaund is, That whatsoever Tobacco shall be taken, which shall be imported contrary to this our Proclamation, the same shall be forfeited and confiscate, and by the Officers of that Port or Place where it shall be taken, shall be immediately burnt.
And for the ordering and governing of the Expence [apparently used throughout in the sense of expenditure or quantity for consumption] and Use of Tobacco when it shall be imported, Wee, by the advise of our Privie Counsell, shall speedilie direct such a course as Wee shall hould fit, which Wee expect shall be also in all things observed.
Sigvat.
^itbmonii ^Urh.
On turf reposing, ancient pipe in mouth, Sweet idleness, my darling, with me here; The smoke clouds sailing softly to the south, Bird songs o’erhead, and near me browsing deer.
Am I not blest! the city far away
Is dead to me, with all its smoke and din;
Fair is this place, and glad to me to-day As Eden’s glades ere sorrow followed sin.
0 sweet is idleness when hearts are calm, And beat unvexed by sad regrets or wrongs;
Then scenes like this fling o’er the soul a charm That more to Heaven than to the earth belongs.
Here will I rest, forgetting toil and greed;
Forgetting all things troublous, harsh, and cold;
And here, in quietness, I’ll smoke the weed That sweetens life far more than wine or gold.
Here will I dream, and let the moments pass;
For though to many they bring irksome care, They bring fair peace to my sweet bed of grass, And soft content on every breath of air.
There is in every smile on nature’s face, A something wliich nought else in life can give;
A glad swift joy that takes its silent place Within the heart, and makes it bliss to live.
Too little seek we of this higher light, Too little of this resting by the way;
Therefore we go with foreheads like the night, Instead of faces bright as joyous day.
As one who wanders from his friends apart, And findeth never peace in any place, When home returning feels his aching heart Leap up with joy to greet his mother’s face.
So come ye weary longers for good rest, With drooping heads, and eyes downcast and sad;
Here is thine own sweet mother’s open breast : Come, seek her kindly bosom and be glad.
Here sing the birds, and, singing, seem to say:— “ Abide with us, and let thy troubles cease;
With busy crowds care dwelleth night and day: In this sweet solitude reigns smiling peace.
“Abide with us, and we will sing to thee
The songs the zephyrs teach us when they sigh;
About the old green world, so full of glee
To hearts that love the earth and sea and sky— “ The old green world, that giveth food to man, And bears him bravely as the glad years run;
That worketh for him since his life began, And kindly hides him when his days are done. “ The winds know songs which unto us they sing, The streams tell tales as old as are the skies, Of joy and love; so to the heavens we fling
The songs the birds first learned in Paradise.”
Slow sinks the sun, as loth to leave the place, His glorious beauty made more beauteous still;
His cloudy robes he gathers o’er bis face, And flings a shower of gold on every hill.
’Twixt the dark branches of the solemn trees, His loving beams their joyous radiance dart;
So the bright rays of warmer memories Bring love and beauty to an old man’s heart.
What hour more soothing to the weary eye, Than when the day meets night in stars arrayed?
The smile of day still cheers the rosy sky, While “ night’s dark mantle” wraps the earth in shade.
So in the twilight of life’s cloudy days,
When neither joy nor sorrow reigns supreme, May we still find some things to love and praise, And treasure, while it lasts, joy’s faintest beam.
The anxious moon now seeks the waiting skies, And, climbing slow, the breast of heaven adorns;
While in the cold embrace of night, earth lies, In dewy tears for the loved sun she mourns. H. Lloyd.
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COPE’S WORLD-FAIR, 1880, WITH EXPLANATORY KEY, IS NOW READY, AND BEING ISSUED TO SUBSCRIBERS. Subscribers to the “TOBACCO PLANT” will receive a copy of the above, with Key, carefully packed upon a roller, by forwarding 6d. to pay carriage. Price to Non-Subscribers, 1/-. Subscription for “TOBACCO PLANT” and COPE’S WORLD-FAIR, 2/6. Publishing Office—10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.	
Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4s. £^t printers’ Register, A JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOR GREAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND THE COLONIES. THE PRINTERS’ REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable Information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Home and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India, China, Canada, Ac.; and it affords the best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August, 1875. Address—Thx Editor, St. Bride Street, London, E.C.	U. S. TOBACCO JOURNAL, 184, MAIDEN LANE (CORNER OF WATER STREET), NEW YORK. Oscab Hammerstein, Editor. Subscription: $3.00 per annum. VIEW YORK TOBACCO LEAF, Organ of the Tobacco Trade of the United States. Published weekly. Subscription, 20/- per Annum, post free to any part of the United Kingdom. Sole Agents for the United Kingdom— Cope Bros. & Co., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by whom Advertisements and Subscriptions will be received. Specimen copy sent for Id. postage stamp.
SOLACE. One Shilling Bundles, containing 4 Cigars. ENGLAND’S BEST. One Shilling Bundles, containing 6 Cigars.	
The Richmond Cavendish Company, Limited, BONDED TOBACCO WORKS, ROBERTS STREET, PAISLEY STREET, AND GREENOCK STREET, LIVERPOOL. Manufacturers, IN BOND, of All Descriptions of TOBACCO, for Ship Stores and for Exportation. SPECIAL BRANDS. DARK QUARTERS.	TENS.	CUT CAVENDISH. "NATIONAL EAGLE,”	"WYOMING,”	“SPRING FLOWERS,” "SANCHO PANZA,”	“EXPRESS,”	“MOSS ROSE,” "UNION.”	“ANCHOR”	"NEPTUNE.” 80LE MANUFACTURERS ofthecelebrated/'WCHMOND SMOKING MIXTURE." Always on Hand, a Large Stock of Pressed Tobacco, Bright Cavendish in All Sizes, and a Well-selected Stock of American Manufactured Cavendish. Price Liats on Application.	
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COPE’S CIGARETTES.
PRICE LISTS SUPPLIED TO THE TRADE ON APPLICATION.
GOLDEN CLOUD BRAND.
WITHOUT MOUTHPIECE.
In Sixpenny Boxes, containing twelve Paper Cigarettes, In Cardboard Cases, containing three dozen Sixpenny Boxes.
WITH MOUTHPIECE.
In Sixpenny Boxes, containing twelve Paper Cigarettes, In Cardboard Cases, containing three dozen Sixpenny Boxes.
Cope’S Whiffs. In Fourpenny Bundles of ten. In Cedar Boxes, containing forty Bundles, or 400 Cigarettes.
The Figaro. Extra Mild. In Sixpenny Boxes, containing twelve leaf-covered Cigarettes. In Packets, con-	
taining	two dozen Sixpenny Boxes.
Fairy Brand. In Cardboard Boxes, gold mounted, with beautiful Parisian label, containing ten internal	
Packets of ten Cigarillos each.	
Boiiqiiet (With Tubes). FeerleSS (Without Tubes). In Cardboard Boxes, containing four Bundles of 2B Cigaretos. In very handsome Cedar Cases, containing ten Boxes, or 1000 Cigaretos.
Delicate in flavour; bum evenly, with a firm white ash; made with great care for a mild morning smoke.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes. In Cardboard Boxes, containing 50. In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1000, with lock and key.
Bouquet Alb. 2 Cigaretos are made from a peculiar kind of Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking of this Tobacco is said to give relief in cases of Asthma.
COPE BROTHERS & CO.
TOBACCO WORKS, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool
i’rinted and Published for the Proprietors at the Office, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by Jom Fbasxb, of 1, Spekeland Road, Edge-Hill, Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster.
1ENTEMD AT STATIONBIBS’ HALL.
A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
No.123.-Vol. II.i	 ^
Walt O^ifman.
n.
Emerson’s letter, published in the newspapers, soon sold off the first edition, about a thousand, of “Leaves of Grass.” In 1856, or early in 1857, a second edition came out (Emerson’s letter and a long reply from Whitman, not in after editions, appended), with some new pieces, notably “ A Woman Waits for Me” in the “Children of Adam” Series. “A storm had been muttering before, but at the publication of this piece it burst forth in fullest fury. . . . The publishers were frightened. They had stereotyped the work, and printed and bound a thousand copies. These they soon sold, remunerating expenses, and then quietly asked to be excused from continuing the book any further.”
About this time Mr. Moncure D. Conway paid him a visit, recorded in the Fortnightly Review, October, 1866, from which I select and condense. Whitman, then about thirty-seven, was living with his mother, a fine old lady, in a two-storey wooden building, the last house from town (New York). Mr. Conway found him on the central hillock, without tree or shelter, of an open common, lying on his back and gazing at the blazing midsummer mid-day sun, which was not at all too fierce for him; though the thermometer stood at nearly 100 degrees (presumably in the shade). He lay thus supine, not very distinguishable from the soil, in grey clething, blue-grey shirt, with iron-grey hair, swart sun-burnt face and bare throat, on the brown and white grass. His school education was of the common English sort; the books he chiefly read were the Bible, Homer, and Shakespeare; and these he probably had in his pockets. His favourite reading-places [or studying-places ?] were the top of a ’bus and Coney Island, a small sand-heap, then quite uninhabited; his favourite place for meditation and composition was the bare hillock on the lonely common. Though so free as to himself in writing, he was inclined to be taciturn on the subject in talk. He said that he had learned all he knew from stage-drivers, pilots of ferry-boats, fishermen, boatmen, men and women of the markets and wharves. He told how he had spoken with Henry Ward Beecher, whom he liked; but Beecher having acknowledged, when questioned, that he was shocked by the oaths of the streets, Walt concluded that he would stick to his rough swearing friends, who had no Shibboleths of respectability. In his youth he had listened to the great Quaker iconoclast, Elias Hicks; his maternal grandmother was a Quakeress; and the impress of the Friends is here and.there traceable in his writings. He spoke of his farm work, how he had taught school, been a carpenter, a builder of frame-houses, a printer, having himself set up his first book. He confessed that he had no talent for industry, that his forte lay in loafing and writing poems. He was very poor, but had discovered that he could, on the whole, live magnificently on bread and water. They spent the rest of the day in loafing on Staten Island, where they had shade, and many miles of a beautiful beach. “While we bathed I was impressed by a certain grandeur about the man, and remembered the picture of Bacchus on the wall of his room. I then perceived that the sun had put a red mask on his face and neck, and that his body was a ruddy blonde, pure and noble, his form being at the same time remarkable for fine curves and for that grace of movement which is the flower of shapely and well-knit bones. His head was oviform in every way,; Ids hair, which was strongly mixed with grey,
was out close to his head, and, with his beard, was a strange contrast to the almost infantine fulness and serenity of his face. This serenity, however, came from the quiet light blue eyes [others, including himself, term them grey; “Behold this swarthy face—these grey eyes”; “Calamus,” p. 135], and above these there were three or four deep horizontal furrows, which life had ploughed. The first glow of any kind that I saw about him was when he entered the water, which he fairly hugged with a lover’s enthusiasm. But when he was talking about that which deeply interested him, his voice, always gentle and clear, became slow, and his eyelids had a tendency to decline over his eyes. It was impossible not to feel at every moment the reality [evident “ affectation and pretence”/] of every word and movement of the man, and also the surprising delicacy [obvious “indecency" and “smut ” /] of one who was even freer with his pen than honest Montaigne.” Strolling in New York, he was continually met by lower-class acquaintaces, who grasped his hands with enthusiasm, and laughed and chatted. He laughed not, nor even smiled. A workman in corduroys, privately interrogated, said, Nobody knows Walt but likes him; nearly everybody knows him-, and—loves him. None of these people knew anything about his authorship; it was simply the man himself they idolised. Visiting the Tombs prison, the prisoners ran to teH him their grievances. Concerning one case he confronted the Governor, and said with deliberate emphasis, In my opinion it is a damned shame; and, after a duel of eye-shots, the official quailed. Mr. Conway deems that emphatic oath one of the most pious utterances he has ever heard. Whitman’s room was almost bare, with one window, which overlooked the barren solitudes of the island; there were two prints, a Bacchus and a Silenus, but no books. As soon as he had attained clear conception of his mission, to be the poet of modern democracy, the first truly national singer of America, “the teeming nation of nations,” he wrote on a piece of paper in large letters, “ make the work,” and fixed it above his table where he could always see it when writing. Mr. Conway bears witness in his own case to a supreme characteristic of Whitman, to which we have elsewhere abundance of testimony; his marvellous personal influence, his intense and enormous magnetism: “ He had so magnetised me, so charged me with something indefinable, that for the time the only wise course of life seemed to be, to put on blue shirt and blouse, and loaf about Manahatta and Paumonak [New York and Long Island].”
In 1856 Whitman was visited by that remarkable original, the poetic naturalist (in a very intimate sense) and Orientalist, Henry Thoreau, a man of real genius but very little marketable talent; whom Emerson celebrated in the first part of his “Wood Notes ” and elsewhere, Hawthorne in the Introduction to “Mosses from an Old Manse,” and who in his life and writings has been recently introduced to the British public by a little book whose author, Mr. A. H. Fapp, adopts the pseudonym H. A. Page. Thoreau writes: “That Walt Whitman is the most interesting fact to me at present. Wonderfully like the Orientals, too. He is apparently the greatest Democrat the world has seen.” And again, “ He is Democracy.” And yet again, “After all he suggests something a little more than human.”
In the spring and early summer of 1860 Whitman was at Boston reading the proofs for a third and handsome edition of his poems, with many additional pieces; an edition of which some four to five thousand copies were eventually sold. Dr. Burroughs has heard Whitman speak of this sojourn as one of the pleasantest reminiscences of his life. But he is of New York, not Boston; having altogether too much rude
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human nature to be at one with the elect of the hub of the universe. I think it is Dr. 0. W. Holmes, one of the cleverest, and far from the least modest, of the Bostonians (whose children, it is averred, are weaned on fish and light themselves up to bed with their own aureoles of brain-phosphorescence), who defines Whitman as half Bowery boy (say, Whitechapel rough) and half Emersonian Greek. Whitman, in the General Notes to his “Democratic Vistas/* 1870, writes deliberately, p. 79:—
* I have myself little or no hope from what is technically called * Society* in onr American cities. New York, of which place I have spoken so sharply [pp. 18-14], still promises something, in time, out of its tremendous and varied materials, with a certain superiority of intuitions, and the advantage of constant agitation, and ever new and rapid dealings of the cards. Of Boston with its circles of social mummies, swathed in cerements harder than brass—its bloodless religion (Unitarianism), its complacent vanity of scientism and literature, lots of grammatical correctness, mere knowledge (always wearisome, in itself)—its zealous abstractions, ghosts of reforms—I should say (ever admitting its business powers, its sharp, almost demoniac intellect, and no lark, in its own way, of courage and generosity)—there Is, at present, little of cheering, satisfying sign. In the West, California, Ac., * society * is yet unformed, puerile, seemingly unconscious of anything above a driving business, or to liberally spend the money made by it in the usual rounds and shows.”
So that Boston and New York are to Whitman much as Blackwood and Fraser were to Carlyle in 1833, as reported by Emerson in the “English Traits”: the former, as hoper lessly sterile, the sand magazine; the latter, as suggesting some possibilities of life, the mud magazine: if New York “society” is mud, Boston is arid sand. .
And now came the supreme test of Whitman, as of so many millions of other Americans, North, Southland West; the Great Civil War. We are not here concerned with political issues, but with personal character in its essential self-consistency. We know how the New England Abolitionists, who had often threatened secession from slavery, denounced as fratricide and matricide, sacrilege and horrible high treason, the secession of the Slave States from them. We know how the humanitarian Lowell before the Civil War wrote, “ Ez fer war, I call it murder,” “Ef you take a sword an* dror it; ** and, of North and South,
* Ef Td my way I had ruther We should go to work an* part— They take one way, we take t’other,— Guess it wouldn’t break my heart.
Men hed oug' to put assunder Them thet God has noways jined;
An’ I shouldn’t gretly wonder Ef there’s thousands o’ my mind.**
But during the war he wrote, with much else in the same strain:—
•* There’s critters yit thet talk an* act Fer wut they call Conciliation;
They’d hand a bnfTlo-drove a tract When they wuz madder than all Bashan.
M Old Hick’ry wouldn’t ha’ stood see-saw ’Bout doin’ things till they wuz done with,— He’d smashed the tables o’ the Law
In time o’ need to load his gun with:
“He couldn’t see but jest one side,— Ef his, *t wuz God’s and thet wuz plenty;
. An’ so his * Forrards I ’ multiplied * An army’s fightin’ weight by twenty.**
We know how the severe Transcendentalist Emerson, in 1848, as recorded by himself in the “ Traits,” when asked by Carlyle and another whether there was any American idea or theory of the right future of that country, bethought himself neither of caucuses nor congress, but only of the simplest 'and purest minds, and answered “ Certainly yes . . the only true. . .. So I opened the dogma of no-government and nonresistance. . . I can easily see the bankruptcy of the vulgar musket-worship,—though great men be musket-worshippers; and ’tis certain, as God liveth, the gun that does not need another gun, the law of love and justice alone,,can effect a clean revolution.” So saintly was he that “ C. refused to go out before me,—*he was altogether too wicked/*’ But on the murder of Lincoln, Mr. Emerson, addressing a public meeting, as reported in the journals of the time, pointed out a certain providential compensation for his loss: with the gentle Lincoln alive, there would have been danger of the vanquished South being let off too cheaply; but now the exasperated North would inflict condign punishment on the “ Rebels.” (I have not preserved the exact words, but I remember well their main purport: the real character and principles of “Andy Johnson” were as yet thoroughly misunderstood.) That is how these very superior gentlemen emerged from the great ordeal; turned inside out and upside down, their Quaker drab Red Indian war-paint, for universal peace and love breathing fire and slaughter and revenge, all their superfine philosophy of the study shrivelled up and consumed away in the flames of the vulgarest brutal savagery. I, for one, had had enough of your Boston Transcendentalists after such sorry exhibitions: the Ideal had foundered too ignominiously in the stormy Real; Concord was all discord. Let us now see how our hero of the roughs, the uncultivated half Bowery boy, all affectation and pretence, drivel and indecency, stood the same searching trial. To him the Union was much more “fetish” than to the fanatical Abolitionists (though he was no less decidedly against slavery); but precisely because it was so, because he could not conceive the possibility of its disruption, and because his heart was too large to be filled with a fanatacism, he continued to regard the Southerners no less than the Northerners as his fellow-countrymen and
brothers through all the sad and fatal strife. He also wrote poems on the war, many poems, immeasurably greater and deeper and nobler than anything I have seen by Lowell or Emerson, or any other American, on the same subject. But scarcely ever does a word of bitterness escape him save on Lincoln’s death, and then it is not Emerson’s bitterness gloating on the prostrate foe; and the main spirit of his “Drum-Taps” swells to its full height at the close in the solemn and tender and magnanimous “Reconciliation”:—
“ Word over all, beautiful as the sky!
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil’d world:
. . . For my enemy is dead—a man divine as myself is dead;
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I draw near;
I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.”
And in his Notes (written 1875) to the “ Memoranda During the War,” pp. 63-8, he stoutly maintains the following among other important positions (I condense as well as select):—
“ The Northern States were really just as responsible for that War (in its precedents, foundations, instigations) as the South. For twenty-five years previous to the outbreak, the controlling ‘ Democratic ’ nominating Conventions were getting to represent, and to be composed of, more and more putrid and dangerous materials. One of these Conventions exhibited a spectacle such as could never be seen except in our own age and These States. The members who composed it were, seven-eighths of them, officeholders office-seekers, pimps, malignants, conspirators, murderers, fancymen, custom-house clerks, contractors, kept-editors, spaniels well-trained to carry and fetch, jobbers, infidels, disunionists, terrorists, mail-rifiers, glarecatchers, pushers of slavery, creatures of the President, creatures of woold-be Presidents, spies, blowers, electioneered, bawlers, bribers, compromisers, lobbyers. sponges, ruined sports, expell’d gamblers, policy-backers, montedealers, duellists, carriers of conceal’d weapons, deaf men. pimpled men, scarr’d inside with vile disease, gaudy outside with gold chains made from the people’s money and harlots’ money twisted together; crawling, serpentine men, the lousy combings and born freedom-sellers of the earth. And whence came they? From back-yards and bar-rooms; from out of the custom-houses, marshals’ offices, post-offices, and gambling-hells; from the President’s house, the jail, the station-house; from unnamed by-places where devilish disunion was hatched at midnight; from political hearses, and from the coffins inside, and from the shrouds inside of the coffins; from the tumors and abscesses of tho land; from the skeletons and skulls in the vaults of the federal alms-houses; and from the running sores of the great cities. . . . Such, I say, form’d the entire personnel of our municipal, State, and National Politics; while the great masses of the people, farmers, mechanics, and traders, were helpless in their gripe. These conditions were mostly prevalent in the North and West, and especially in New York and Philadelphia cities; and the Southern leaders (bad enough, but of a ter higher order,) struck hands and affiliated with, and used them. . . .
UI say that the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth terms of ths American Presidency have shown that the villainy and shallowness of rulere (back’d by the machinery of great parties) are just as eligible to These States as to any foreign despotism, kingdom, or empire—there is not a bit of difference. . . . (The Slavery contest is settled—and the War is over —-yet do not these putrid conditions, too many of them, still exist ? still result in diseases, fevers, wounds—not of War and Army Hospitals—but ths wounds and diseases of Peace?)
“ Out of these generic influences, mainly in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Ac., arose the attempt at disunion. To philosophic examination, Um malignant fever of this war shows its embryonic sources, and the original nourishment of its life and growth, in the North. I sav Secession, below the surface, originated and was brought to maturity in the Free States. I allude to the score of years preceding 1860. The events of ’61 amazed everybody North and South, and burst all prophecies and calculations like bubbles. But even then, and during the whole war, the stern fact remains that the Secession cause had numerically just as many sympathisers in ths Free as in the Rebel States.	•
“ As to slavery, abstractly and practically, it is too common, I sav. to identify it exclusively with the South. In fact, down to the opening of the War, the whole country had about an equal hand in it. The North bad at least been just as guilty, if not more guilty; and the East and West had. The former Presidents and Congresses had been guilty—the Governors and Legislatures of every Northern State had been guilty, and the mayors of New York and other northern cities had all been guilty—their hands were *11 stain’d. . . .
“ That our National-Democratic experiment, principle, and machinery, could triumphantly sustain such a shock, and that the Constitution could weather it, like a ship in a storm, and come out of it as sound and whole as before, is by far the most signal proof yet of the stability of that experiment, Democracy, and of those principles, and that Constitution. ... Out of that War not only has the Nationality of The States escaped from being strangled, but more than any of the rest, and, in my opinion, more than ths North itself, the vital heart and breath of the South have escaped as from the pressure of a general nightmare, and are now to enter on a life, development, and active freedom, whose realities are certain in the future, notwithstanding all the Southern vexations and humiliations of the hour—a development which could not possibly have been achiev’d on any less terms, or by any other means than that War, or something equivalent to it And I predict that the South is yet to outstrip the North. . . .
“The present condition of things (1875) in South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and other parts of the former Slave States—the utter change and overthrow of their whole social, and the greatest coloring feature of their political institutions—a horror and dismay, as of limitless sea of fire, sweeping over them, and substituting the confusion, chaos, and measureless degradation and insult of the present—the blade domination, but little above the beasts—viewed as a temporary, deserv’d punishment for their Slavery and Secession sins, may perhaps be admissible; but as a permanency of course it is not to be consider’d for a moment. (Did the vast mass of the blacks, in Slavery in the United States, present a terrible and deeply complicated Sroblem through the just ending century [of United States independence]?
ut how if the mass of the blacks in freedom in the United States all through the ensuing century, should present a yet more terrible and yet more deeply complicated problem ?) . . .
” Extricating one’s-self from the temporary gaucheries of the hour, can there be anything more certain than the rehabilitated prosperity of tbs Southern States, all and several, if their growing generations, refusing to be dismay’d by present embarrassments and darkness, accept their position in the Union as an immutable fact, and, like the Middle and Western States, •fly the flag of practical industry and business, and adopting the great ideas of America with faith and courage, developing their resources, providing for education, abandoning old fictions, leave the Secession War and its bygones behind, and resolutely draw a curtain over the past ’ ?
“ I want to see the Southern States, in a better sense than ever, and under the new dispensation, again take a leading part in what is emphatically their Nationality as much as anybody’s. Boon, soon, it will begin to ba realized that out of the War, after all, they have gained a more substantial victory than anybody.”
I have quoted at such length because these judgments of a
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rude son of the soil appear to me not only more generous but more just, more wise and statesmanlike, more national, more human, than any that I have met with from the self-complacent high-flyers of the Boston school, with their Puritanic bitterness, their professional pedantries, their thin philosophies, whom we in England are overmuch given to regard as the leaders and representatives of American thought. Their prose (which includes a large part of their “poetry”) may be more compact and scholarly than his; but their sectarian and local narrowness makes a very poor figure in contrast with his continental breadth and freedom. These extracts also prove, what is proved even more forcibly by the “ Democratic Vistas,” that Whitman, the fervid Abolitionist, Unionist, and Republican, does not blench from seeing and proclaiming with rare insight, veracity, and courage, the immense faults of the triumphant Free States, the enormous corruptions which pervade American Democracy in the present, the enormous difficulties and dangers it has to encounter in the future. His firm faith, right or wrong, in the ultimate universal triumph of Democracy, is at least faith of that noblest kind which is founded not on the exclusion but on the inclusion of all considerations of doubt and even of despair.
J. T.
Tobacco legislation in the Since hingboins.
x.
Fcedera, Tom. XIX., 1628-1635 (Concluded).
1631, June 27. A special Commission to Edward Earle of Dorsett and others for the better plantation of the Colony of Virginia.—No special mention of Tobacco; but the Commissioners are to consider, among other things, “what Commodities have beene there from tyme to tyme advanced and raised, since the first Plantinge [colonisation] thereof untill this tyme; and how the Estate thereof standeth at this present; And Wee doe alsoe give unto you, or anyFower or more of you, full power and authority from tyme to tyme to treate upon and consider, what Commodities may from tyme to tyme be advaunced and raised in those parts, which may be more profitable and advantagious for the said Colonye and Plantation.”
1632,	Feb. 20. A Proclamation for enabling all his Majesties Subjects to trade within his several Dominions without being further charged with Customes or other Duties than they of that Kingdome wherein they trade ought to pay.—His Majestie states that be is of the same mind as his dearest Father, who by severall Warrants and Letters Patents declared that his Subjects of his several Kingdomes might at equall charge trade the one in the others: Wherefore He doth declare his royall Will and Pleasure that his Officers or Subjects of England or Ireland shall not exact or demand of any Scottish-man, and similarly that his Officers or Subjects of Scotland shall not demand of any Englishman or Irishman, in respect of any Merchandizes or Commodities whatsoever imported into and exported from their respective countries, any greater or other Customes, Subsidies, Butlerage, Prisage, Tonnage, Poundage, Impositions, Duties, Payments or Sommes of Money, Fees for Entries, or other Fees or Rewards whatsoever, than such and the same which are and lawfully ought to be taken and required of the naturall borne Subjects of the several Kingdoms in the like Cases and for the like Respects; and any former Lawe, Custome, Ordinance, Usage, Provision, or other Matter or Thing whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding.
1632, Mar. 10. A Declaration for the imposition of divers Subsidies, upon divers Merchandises to be brought into, and carried out of the Realm of Ireland.—Extends and amends (of course by increase) the Book of Rates, i.e., of assessments of value of goods imported or exported, for the purpose of levying the duties, 21 James I. (1624), itself the extension of another, 11 James I. Tobacco is not specified in the Declaration; it was probably assessed in ths Book of Rates, as King Anti was not likely to forget it of all things. Indeed, as stated in our first Section, March, 1879, he assessed it at 6s. 8d. per lb. in his first Book of Rates, 1604 (perhaps applicable, like the Commissio of the same year, to England and Wales only); and in the Schedule of values for the arbitrary Imposition of 1608 (Sect. II., April, 1879) he arbitrarily increased tliis assessment to 20s. per lb. As it is expressly stated in the Declaration that all these three Books of Rates for Ireland were imprinted; the first two that all Men might take Notice of that our said Father's Pleasure, the third (this of 1632) that all Men may take notice of this our Pleasure; it is very likely some copies are yet extant.
1632,	April 19. The King’s Declaration that no greater Customes or Fees shall be taken by the Officers of the Custome-house of Scotishmen, than of Englishmen.—Simply confirms the Proclamation of Feb. 20 cited above, so far as regards Scotishmen trading into or out of England or Ireland.
1633,	Oct. 13. A Proclamation for preventing of the Abuses growing by the unordered retailing of Tobacco. Another pathetic preamble: surely enough royal tears have been shed over this wicked Weed to “cure” tons of it—if the tears had any salt in them. The spelling seems to have been partially modernised.
“ Whereas the Plant or Drug called Tobacco scarce known to this Nation in former times, was in this age first usually brought into this Realm in small quantity, as Medicine, but in process of time, to satisfy the inordinate appetite of a great number of Men and Women [Note thin], it hath been brought in, in great quantity, and taken for wantonness and excess, provoking them to drinking * and other inconveniences [equal Fr. inconvenances, improprieties], to the great impairing of their healths and depraving of their manners, so that the care which his Majesty hath of his people, hath inforced him to think of some means for the preventing of the evill consequence of this immoderate use therof; And albeit his Majesties dearest Father of blessed memory [Very much blessed now !] had given directions therein, as well by Proclamation as otherwise, yet those waies took not so good effect as was desired, for that therein was no restraint of the number of those that should sell Tobacco by retaile, nor care taken of the quality of those that should make such sale, but Victuallers, Taverners, Alehouse Keepers, Tapsters, Chamberlains [servants charged with care of the chambers], Hostlers, and others of the meanest condition, have promiscuously used to regrate the same, as allurements to other Naughtiness [Here's ace of trumps for the Antis!], keeping therein no Assize [rating, measure] to the prejudice of the rest of his Majesties loving subjects.”
For repressing therefore of all such excesses, Our Soveraign Lord the King by the advice of his Privy Counsell hath resolved to reduce the selling of Tobacco into some good order, and that none but men of sufficiency and such as shall bring certificate of their meetness shall hereafter sell any Tobacco by retaile, and to that purpose hath lately caused Letters from the said Counsell to be directed unto the Justices of the Peace of the severall Counties of this Kingdom and Dominion of Wales, and unto the Maiors, Bailiffs and other chief Officers of divers Citties and Towns Corporate, commanding them to certifie in what Towns and Places it may be fit to suffer selling and retailing of Tobacco, and how many in each place were fit to be licensed to use that Trade; In answer of [to] which Letters, Certificates have made from divers Justices, Maiors, and others Magistrates, acknowledging the abuses that daily arise by the ungovernable selling and retailing of Tobacco: Whereupon his Majesty, by like advice of his Counsell, hath caused other Letters to be directed to the Justices and Conservators of the Peace in severall Counties, declaring in what Towns and Places Tobacco shall be permitted to be sold by retail, and commanding the said Justices to cause the names of those Towns and Places to be written and affixed in pub-lique Places, where the Assizes and Sessions of the Peace shall be kept in those Counties, to the end that all his people may take notice, that other Places are not allowed for uttering of Tobacco by retaile; and by Letters to the said Maiors and other head Officers of Citties and Towns, his Majesty hath given notice to them of the names of those that are permitted there to sell Tobacco in that manner, and commanded them to give publique notice of the names of those so admitted to sell or deliver it.
“ Now our said Soveraign Lord the King doth straightly [straitly, strictly] prohibite all his people, that after the Feast of Candlemas next coming after the date of these presents, none of them out of the said Citties or Towns so appointed, or within the said Citties or Towns, no others, but those named as aforesaid, and such as from time to time shall be permitted in like manner, do sell or deliver any Tobacco by retaile, and that none of them that are permitted in this behalf, keep any Tavern, Alehouse or Victualling, or otherwise sell any distilled or hot Waters, Wine, Ale, Beer or Cider in their Houses, so long as they shall be permitted to sell Tobacco by retaile. . . . All which his pleasure is, shall be observed untill he shall by his Proclamation or Letters of his Privy Counsell make other publique signification of his pleasure herein.”—So he was probably meditating some further mischief to the Tobacco trade.
1634,	Mar. 13. A Proclamation restraining the abusive venting of Tobacco. Refers to the main points of the last cited, and continues:—Sithence which a great number of his Majesties loving Subjects have repaired to some Lords and others of his Privy Counsell, being his Commissioners appointed to treat with them, and have humbly desired Letters Patents of Licence to sell Tobacco by retaile, where-unto the said Commissioners have consented, “ but because it is both convenient and necessary, that the number of those that be licensed to sell Tobacco by retaile, and also their names be known, that in time convenient notice may be taken from them, how much Tobacco in each year they retail and vent, that upon knowledge thereof, his Majesty for preventing of the issuing out of the Realm too great a proportion of the stock of this Kingdome, may give order for the quantity of Tobacco that shall be yearly brought in [Such being Our Divine Right notion for regulating the Balance of Trade, and adjusting Supply to Demand]; And being resolved that any who from henceforth shall presume to utter or sell Tobacco, not being Licensed, shall severely be proceeded against for these and for other causes [Sic; read “against: For these,” &c. The “other causes” is doubtless a pretty
* This favourite modern calumny is considerably older than the Monument, which “ Like a tall bully lifts its head and lies,” or at least lied in Pope’s time and long afterwards: the calumny lies on still and will doubtless continue lying for many a long year yet.
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phrase for the fees accruing from the Licenses], The King straightly commandeth, that neither such as by pretext of being formerly nominated, as meet Men to retaile Tobacco, nor any other from henceforth, presume to sell or utter Tobacco by retaile, untill they shall have obtained his Majes-ties Licence in that behalfe; Any Permission or Toleration that may be pretended by the said Proclamation, or any other signification, notwithstanding.”—Starchamber for Contemners of His Majesties Commands publiquely proclaimed; “ a part of the Fines ” inflicted, but what part not stated, to Informers.
1634, May 19. Given at our Court at Greenwich. A Proclamation concerning the Landing of Tobacco, and also forbidding the Planting thereof in the King’s Dominions.— The reader must have remarked that there is “ damnable iteration” in these Proclamations: the sense and appetite of the people were dead against them, Our loving Subjects loved their Smoke much better than they loved our Royal unconstitutional commands; which, lacking the sanction of public opinion, were in great measure inoperative, and had to be renewed and confirmed again and again and again, with such slight alterations as the force of circumstances compelled in even a stubborn-minded Stuart determined on absolutism, one who, like his wife’s family, the Bourbons of later times, learnt nothing and forgot nothing.
The present, after referring to sundry previous Proclamations to the same effect, goes on: “ And for that they have not been put in due execution, divers Frauds and Abuses have been of late invented and put in execution, by mixing of Tobacco not only with other Tobacco of worse condition, but also with other Materialls falsifying and corrupting the same, to the great hurt and damage of our People both in their Estates and Persons, [Face in Ben Jonson's "Alchemist" exposed these "late invented" frauds two dozen years ago] which growing Evil may in some measure be prevented, if the Tobacco brought into this our Realm, shall be layed or landed only in one Port and Place: For remedy whereof in that behalf, and to the end that we may be the more truly answered of the Custom, Impost and other Duties due unto Us, for Tobacco brought into this Realm by way of Merchandize, whereof we have been sundry times defrauded by landing the same, at the pleasures of the Owners.”
I cannot understand this of Custom and other Duties on Tobacco imported as Merchandize: the King had made it a Royal Monopoly (against express law), had appointed a Commission to buy for himself from the Planters and sell for himself to home dealers; and I And no hint of any revocation or modification of this arbitrary system up to the present date.
“ Wee do hereby publish and declare our royall Will and Pleasure, that no Tobacco be hereafter landed or imported to be landed at any other Port then [than] in our Port of London, and at no other Place of the said Port, then at the Key and Wharf commonly called the Custom-house Key, situate in our Ci tty of London; and other Port or Place for landing of Tobacco Wee do not admit or allow, but them inhibit.”—Rather savagely, to judge by the wording,
The second part commences: “ And whereas notwithstanding former Proclamations published to the contrary, yet we are informed that Tobacco is still planted and sown in divers Parts of our Realms of England and Ireland, in contempt of Us and our royall Commands, Wee do therefore again hereby absolutely prohibit the planting thereof in our said Kingdoms, as also the bringing into the same of any Seed for the increase thereof from the Parts beyond the Seas; the Tobacco growing in the Northern and moist Climates being not only unwholsom for Mans Body, but the same maketh fertile Grounds become for a long space less fruitfull, that might otherwise produce Corn, Herbs and Roots for the sustenance of our' Subjects.”
1634, June 19, Westminster; Per Breve de Privato Sigilo. De Commissions Willielmo Russell Militi and aids: being a Commission to twenty persons enumerated; Sir William Russell Knight and Baronet; seven Knights, including our old acquaintances Sir John Wolstenholme with a ditto the younger, and Sir John Jacob; two Aiderman; two Esquires; three position unspecified; three London Merchants, one of them Edward Dichfield again, another that Philip Burlamachy who got the £30,000 to import that very unwholesome merchandise German Horse “for cutting our throats” if refractory; two London Grocers.—Begins by referring to our several recent Proclamations concerning Tobacco, and goes on:
“ Which said Proclamations being duly executed, will no doubt much advantage the benefit of the said foreign Plantations [our English Colonies in America] as also a better conformity [diction queer, but meaning clear] in the orderly payment of our Customs and Imports usually paid Us for the same [again the puzzle how there could be Duties with the absolute royal monopoly in force]; yet, having of late received credible Information, that many of the said poor Planters, residing upon the said Colonies, have [suffered] and are still likely to suffer under the burden of many Oppressions occasioned by the secret and indirect Trade of particular Merchants and Shopkeepers, who make a prey of them and their Labours, by supplying their Necessities with Commodities at such unreasonable Rates, that they are usually forced to pay fifty or sixty pounds [italics in original] weight of Tobacco for a pair of Shoes, with such like unconscionable advantaged in Beverall other Merchandizes, that the poor Planters have had
scarce necessaries for their Bodies, but have ingaged the most part of their Crops before-hand to their said Merchants and Shopkeepers, insomuch that they only labour and live to inrich those, that thus work upon their Necessities, without any ability either to satisfy Us our ordinary Duties, or to apply themselves to more noble and staple Commodities, whereby they may become of consequence to our Crown of England; which unjust and unconscionable course of the said Merchants and Shopkeepers (as Wee are likewise informed) have some years past been so grievous unto the said Planters, that they have contrary to expectation been forced, not only to petition for abatement of our ordinary Customs and Imposts, but have in extream Necessity begged their Bread from Door to Door, without any help or relief from the said Merchants and Shopkeepers ; by which means, and out of the woffull experience of their Miseries, they have been of late years compelled to offer their Tobacco to divers of the Merchants of London, tendring unto them a Contract for some term of years, [but, again, What of our Proclamation of ^th August, 1627, cited in its place, and still apparently unrevoked, by which all Tobacco imported was to be delivered to H.M.'s Commissioners, at such price as they vouchsafed to pay for H.M.'s owne ymediate Use, to be by them sold here at such price as they pleased to demand?] which being refused, they have since been forced to send most part of their Tobacco for foreign Parts, without any payment of our ordinary Duties [I Warrant me this shoe pinches the King much more than he is pinched by those shoes of the poor Planters at 50 or 60 lbs. of Tobacco a pair] any regulation either in quality or quantity of Tobacco, or any respect to Us or our Dominions, from whence they have their annuall support of Men, Munition, and Provisions, [abundant Provisions, by what has preceded; Provisions that have driven them to the extream Necessity of begging their Bread from Door to Door !] and this contrary to our royall commands in our Beverall Proclamations, and severall Orders of our Councell in that behalf; [but our Proclamation of $th August, 1627, commands that if Owners or Factors importing refuse the price our Commissioners are pleased to offer, the Tobacco shall "bee transported againe and soulde elsewhere upon Paine of Confiscation and Forfeiture"] by all of which, and other indirect and disorderly proceedings in the said Plantations, Wee apparently [clearly] see the danger of their utter ruin, besides the loss of those just Profits that do belong unto Us, and being lately sollicited by diversjof that Body [who do sensibly groan under the Burden] to take all these Grievances into our royall Considerations, and finding that in their Infancies, as yet the chiefest Commodity that must support and enable them to more staple Commodities, is this of Tobacco; for which, if they fail of an indifferent [impartial, equitable] and reasonable Rate, the said Planters must wholly be disabled and impoverished; having advised with our Lords and others of our Privy Councell, Wee are resolved, and our Will and Pleasure is, to have hereafter the sole preemption of the said Tobacco growing upon our said Plantations,* and that at such Rates and Prices, as shall be found fit [having respect to the Support of the said Colonies]; and being moved to make choice of some fit and able persons, who have experience of the value and quality of the said severall sorts of Tobacco, as also of the condition of the present state [Sic] of the said Plantations, and have observed the great Necessities and Miseries they have endured by the irregular planting and ordering thereof, and unconscionable practices put upon them in the sale thereof.”
[Unfortunately the same benevolent ends had been paraded for the already mentioned monopoly of soap, a both burning and blistering question of the times: the monopolised article was much dearer and far worse.]
Know ye, therefore, that Wee constitute and appoint you the twenty persons named, to be our Commissioners, by these Presents giving unto you, and to any seven or more of you (whereof one of four specified Knights must be one) full power and authority to call before you any such persons as have any interest in the Plantations of Virginia, Bermudas, the Caribee Islands, or any “other of our English Colonies;” and, acquainting them with our royall Will and Pleasure, to require them to declare unto you their severall Interests and to demand and know what quantities of Tobacco they have upon their severall Plantations? What they expect upon their Returns ? And when they shall have the same? And in our Name to treat and contract with them, either in part or Company [severally or conjointly] for their severall quantities, that their severall parcels being taken of [sic.] at reasonable Rates and in different days of payment, they may bring no interruption in our intended Contract with the Planters themselves upon the said Plantations; and because many of them, upon some private end [the selfish and disloyal scoundrels!] may seem unwilling to make this Contract, alledging that the Planters inhabiting in the said
♦ This is a most important extension of the Royal Monopoly: the Proclamation, 9th Aug., 1627, arrogated to the King the sole preemption only of the Tobacco brought to England; this arrogates to him the sole preemption of all the Tobacco grown in the Colonies, so that he can dispose of it at home or abroad at his pleasure, and the poor planters, with all competing buyers excluded, are absolutely at his mercy, and must sell to him on his own terms. We have here the very Alpha and Omega of genuine Oriental fiscal despotism: thus Hebrew Joseph bought up all the com in Egypt for Pharaoh, and reduced the people to serfs of the soil before he would let them have enough of it back for bare subsistence and neceesaty seed; so the modem Khedive dealt with his miserable fellaheen.
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Colonies, are the chief Owners and Ingrossers of the said Tobacco, and that there is little belonging to them, but for satisfaction of several parcells of Goods and Wares, which they have served into those Colonies, for which they have no payment but by Tobacco.
“ These are to require and authorise you, and any such seven or more of you, to assure on our behalf the said Planters and Owners, that Wee are now sending our Commission into every of the said Plantations to treat and conclude the Contract there, and that Wee hold it fitting first to begin at home, that the said Planters may see Wee have omitted nothing that shall conduce to this Service, or that may take away any Obstacle there, upon pretences of Debts or otherwise, and if any of the said Debts shall appear to be of so great value, you are likewise to enquire of the condition of them, find whereupon they grow, that if it shall be found just and fitting, Wee may give order to examine the same there also, and to regulate such profit to the Merchants and Shopkeepers here, as shall be reasonable for their gain, and not now oppressive and burthensome to the said poor Planters. [The monopoly of whose oppression Wee are resolved to reserve to our royal self.]
u And because the Season calls upon a dispatch in this business, and that Wee may be the better informed of all difficulties that may arise in the same, our Will and Pleasure is, that you forthwith give us an account of your proceedings and conclusions herein; and if any opposition be made, as in all business of this'nature, the beginnings are full of doubts and interruptions [as doubtless were those of Grand Vizier Joseph's business with the starving Egyptians, though the chronicle in Genesis is too succinct for their record] our Will and Pleausure is, that you certify unto Us the names of such that are Refractory to this our Command, and if they shall demand greater Rates, than you on our behalf shall think fit to be given, or shall make any other pretences why they should not submit themselves to this our royall Pleasure, wherein our aim is not so much for our private profit [Oh dear, no, your Majesty!] as for the support of our said Colonies and preservation of our Subjects, who live and reside there; our Will and Command is also that you, or any such seven or more of you, certify together with such their refusall, the Reasons they offer for the same, to the end that we may perceive what can be objected against this our royall Intention ; and because our desire is, to have all expedition in this Contract, and to proceed abroad upon the said Plantations with the same expedition we go at home, our Will is, and Wee do hereby require you to give such attendance upon this our Service, that Wee may have this our Commission returned unto Us before the fourteenth day of July next [in less than a month], and herein to consider of all such Occurrences, that as well here, as upon the said Plantations, may fall out for the advancement of this our Service, together with the Prices you shall think requisite to be given, the days of payment you shall agree for, with the quantities and qualities of each Plantation to be yearly allowed, and for what term of years the said Contract shall continue, and by what means it may be best effected, and the said Tobacco orderly be brought into our said Port of London, from whence all domestick and foreign parts are to be supplied [Note this, and supplied solely for our royal profit], with such incident considerations, as this our Service shall require, that accordingly Wee may immediately dispatch our said Commission to the said Plantations, and make a Settlement of this Business for the more speedy relief of our said poor Subjects [such a kind King /}, and the full performance of this our pleasure and command.”
Why did good King Charles desire to have all expedition in this contract ? as he facetiously terms a business in which the royall buyer and seller could absolutely impose and enforce his own terms upon the subject sellers and buyers ? We have but to turn for answer to the inevitable seamy side of all flashy “ imperial ” policy: he was so ignominiously and desperately hard up, that in four months’ time, Oct. 20,1634, he issued the Writ of Ship-Money to the City of London (not in “Feeders”), and in the following year, (“ Feeders,” Aug. 18, 1635) extended the imposition to the sea-board, and even to the inland counties,—including Bucks, where Mr. John Hampden was assessed the pittance of only twenty shillings, which, wealthy as he was, he actually refused to pay. Carlyle’s note on this in Introduction to his Cromwell, under date 1634, is too good to be omitted:—
“In the end of this the third year of Oliver’s abode at St. Ives, came out the celebrated Writ of Ship-money. It was the last feat of Attorney-General Noy: a morose, amorphous, cynical Law-Pedant, and invincible living heap of learned rubbish; once a Patriot in Parliament, till they made him Attorney-General, and enlightened his eyes: who had fished up from the dust-abysses this and the other old shadows of 1 precedents,’ promising to be of great use in the present distressed state of the Finance Department. Parliament being in abeyance, how to raise money was now the grand problem. Noy himself was dead before the writ came out [Finch the crying Speaker, then Lord Keeper, became foster-father to the posthumous imp]; a very mixed renown following him. The Vintners, says Wood (Athena), illuminated at his death, made bonfires, and ‘ drank lusty carouses ’: to them, as to every man, he had been a sore affliction. His heart, on dissection, adds old Anthony, was found ‘ all shrivelled up like
a leather penny purse ’; which gave rise to comments among the Puritans. His brain, said the pasquinades of the day, was found reduced to a mass of dust, his heart was a bundle of old sheep-skin writs, and his belly consisted of a barrel of soap. Some indistinct memory of him still survives, as of a grisly Law Pluto, and dark Law Monster, kind of Infernal King, Chief Enchanter in the Domdaniel of Attorneys; one of those frightful men who, as his contemporaries passion* ately said and repeated, dare to ‘decree injustice by a law.'” ,
But how was the King so poor, in spite of all his monstrous and monstrously unconstitutional extortions from the people? Because, as in all imperial tyrannies, the bulk of the money extorted never reached the Exchequer; there were too many middle-men with insatiable hands to intercept it. Take one sample, given by Forster in his Life of Pym, on the authority of the old Pari. Hist.: “For the monopoly of wine, for instance, the King received only £38,000 per annum; but then the vintners paid 40s. per tun to the patentees [monopolists] , which, upon 45,000 tuns, raised the tax to £90,000. The vintners, again, imposed 2d. per quart [extra for the monopoly tax], which raised it to £8 per tun, or £360,000; nearly twelve [ten] times as much as went into the exchequer.’-—That’s the way the money goes I
One more extract concludes this Tom. XIX. of the “Foedera,” for our present purpose. • It is on p. 605, under heading Officia de Anno decimo Caroli primi (1634-5):—The King, the 1st day of December, granted to William Carne and Edward Carne the Office of Receiver for all Fines, Rents and Sommes of Money, reserved and payable for Licenses and Grants, to sell Tobacco by retaile during life.
SlGVAT.
^t Sforg nf Maru.
Very often has the Story of Tobacco been told, sometimes not very accurately, for the compiler, like Moliere, is always inclined to take, without scruple and without research, his property wherever he finds it; and the Sciolist, affecting to be erudite and ingenious, or even profound, blunders and misleads still more than the compiler. In the case of Tobacco let us pass the errors of compiler and of Sciolist by, and let us come to the essential facts. From the testimony of Herodotus and other ancient writers, it is plain that from the remotest ages, and in the remotest countries, the intoxicating effect of vapours was recognised. Are not vapours disturbing forces in the human constitution? Did not Hippocrates regard them as the chief cause of all disease? Are not vapours explosive forces in Nature? And when they burst into flame are they not the most explosive of all forces? In the sublime myth of Prometheus, this Titan appears as a benefactor of mankind by teaching them the use of fire; but fire and vapour are brother and sister, so that, by an allowable freak of phantasy, we might say that Prometheus invented smoking. The vapours from certain plants, when burned, were found to have an exhilarating or narcotic power; and naturally the plants were sought which seemed to possess most of this power. What was at first a delight was, after a while, viewed as a medicinal agency, and then it rose to the dignity of a religious instrument, at a time when all things were religious. Nevertheless, smoking, properly so called, and Tobacco are unquestionably of American origin. The 12th October ought to be a sacred day to all smokers; for on the 12th October, 1492, Christopher Columbus and his companions saw, at Guanahani, one of the Bahama Islands, smoke streaming from the mouth and nose of the natives. Columbus and his comrades were destined to behold many strange things in America, but assuredly none stranger than this. Speedily, however, the marvel and the mystery disappeared. The natives formed a dried herb into a cylindrical roll, and wrapped the roll in a maize leaf; in short, they made what we should now call a cigar; and they smoked the roll exactly as a cigar is smoked. They had another and a very peculiar mode of smoking. The forked ends of a cane they inserted in their nostrils; the other end of the cane was applied to the burning leaves of the dried herb. By means of the cane they inhaled and exhaled the smoke. Tabaco, which we have converted into Tobacco, was the name alike of the forked cane and of the cylindrical roll. The plant itself had the designation of Cohoba, Cohobba, or Gioia. The first European who wrote about Tobacco was Romano Pane, a Spanish monk who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage, in 1496, and who published a work on the “Customs of the Islanders ” in 1497; but the earliest author who gave a detailed account of Tobacco was Hernandez De Oviedo, about thirty years after the appearance of Romano Pane’s book. The reckless cruelty of the Spaniards, the most zealous and orthodox of Christians, swiftly depopulated those magnificent islands which, in a general way, we call the West Indies. In 1508, under the solemn sanction of the Pope, the importation of negro slaves began at Cuba, and gradually extended to the other islands. The Africans grew as fond of Tobacco as the natives had been; and hereby, and from the greater capacity of the negroes for work, a fresh stimulus was given to the cultivation of Tobacco. When, in 1518, the Spaniards came
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COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
[Junk, 1880.
into contact with the natives of Yucatan, they found them to be smokers, as at an earlier period the natives of Florida; and in 1519, when Cortez conquered Mexico, he saw smoking in its most refined and most diversified forms prevailing. The Mexican pipes were often of the most fantastic and elaborate shape. Along with Tobacco the Mexicans smoked spices, gums, and aromatic plants; and they chewed and snuffed as well as smoked. Tobacco they called Pycietl or Jetl; the pipes Tabacos. There is reason to believe that previously to the Spanish and Portuguese conquests the use of Tobacco was limited to the West Indies and North America; it soon, however, extended to the whole of the Southern continent; and, about the middle of the sixteenth century, we find it cultivated in Brazil, and called Petun or Petum. It has been said that Hernandez De Oviedo was the first to introduce the seeds of Tobacco into Spain; it has, however, on the contrary, been asserted that Cortez had already sent Tobacco seeds to the Emperor Charles V. The French Ambassador in Portugal, Jean Nicot, was, in 1560, so successful in setting forth the medicinal qualities of Tobacco, and in promoting the cultivation of the plant in his native land, that the plant received in honour of him the name of Herba Nicotina. Other notable men did for Germany and Italy what Nicot had done for France. It is more than three centuries since the botanical properties of Tobacco began to be studied. Lobel, a French botanist, when treating of Tobacco, in 1576, describes smoking as one of the habits which sailors had brought from the New World. This shows that it was neither the influence of Sir Walter Raleigh nor of any other individual that gained for Tobacco empire in Europe. It is undeniable, however, that English sailors, soldiers, and merchants were the great propagators of Tobacco. The propagandism found eager converts in Holland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden. The English auxiliary troops who took part in the earlier campaigns of the Thirty Years’ War were active missionaries in spreading the Nicotian worship. Hungarian soldiers were its preachers in Hungary, and Swiss soldiers in Switzerland. In these and other countries the clergy declaimed against Tobacco, and the municipal authorities made war on it with fines and the like punishments, but without effect. In England the pedant James I. wrote against Tobacco, and did what he could to crush the trade in it by exorbitant imposts.
' But Tobacco was stronger than royal bigotry and fiscal folly. After a while the English Government learned that the best thing to do with Tobacco was to derive as large a revenue from it as possible; but herein it has pursued a halting, a hesitating, never a sagacious course. It was while Louis XIH. was reigning that Tobacco began also to reign in France; in 1674 Louis XIV.’s great minister, Colbert, made Tobacco a Government monopoly. At the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, the German Protestant ministers, the successors of the men whose sweetest occupation had been burning witches, raged their wildest and their worst against Tobacco; but, without attending thereto, their stolid countrymen went on smoking. Neither in Spain nor in France had Tobacco to vanquish any fanatical opposition. When by inevitable destiny Tobacco stole into Russia, Turkey, and Persia, in the first half of the seventeenth century, the most cruel punishments were employed, chiefly for political reasons, to hinder its use, and employed in vain. By and by the whole of Africa and the whole of Asia were subdued by the gentle and genial influence of Tobacco; and to how many tribes, and members of tribes, must Tobacco have been a comforter! When the Dutch took permanent possession of the Cape of Good Hope, they, besides teaching the tribes of Southern Africa to smoke, introduced the cultivation of Tobacco. The cultivation of Tobacco in Persia and in the Asiatic provinces of Turkey commenced about two hundred years ago. As is well known, a favourite Tobacco is produced at Latakia, the ancient Laodicea. The Arabs learned to smoke by following the example of the Turks; but it is haschish, not Tobacco, which the poorer Arabs smoke. Like the Sikhs in India, the sect of the Wahabees in Arabia abhors Tobacco. From India, where Tobacco has had a home for two hundred and fifty years, it travelled to the east of Asia, and thence, or by commercial intercourse, to most of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, many of which became the producers of Tobacco. In some of them, however, Tobacco was unknown at the time of Captain Cook’s voyages. On colonising the Philippine Islands, the Spaniards brought Tobacco seeds from Mexico. The seeds found a congenial soil, and the cigars manufactured at Manilla have long been illustrious. It is not easy to ascertain the quantity of Tobacco annually smoked, or chewed, or converted into snuff all over the globe. That two millions of tons are annually smoked has been stated; but, I like similar statements, it has no sound statistical basis.
Spite of the denunciation of bigots and the twaddle of dunces, Tobacco has been one of the greatest blessings to the human race; but it might be made still more a blessing if Governments did not take a half-hostile, half-imbecile attitude toward it. The rubbish that has been talked about Tobacco, just like the rubbish which has been talked about alcoholic drinks, is not worth refuting. Every gift of Nature is good, and we should accept all the gifts of Nature with gratitude and joy. Governments, however, should see to it that we receive the gifts, Tobacco included, in the utmost excellence and purity.
^!g lanbhbg’s Hose.
[From the Poems of Alexander Wilson. Paisley, 1876.] O’er the evils of life ’tie a folly to fret, Despondence and grief never lessen’d them yet; Then a fig for the world let it come as it goes, I’ll sing to the praise of my landlady’s nose.
My landlady’s nose is in noble condition, For longitude, latitude, shape, and position; ’Tis as round as a horn, and as red as a rose, Success to the hulk of my landlady’s nose.
To jewellers’ shops let your ladies repair, For trinkets and nick-nacks to give them an air; Here living curbuncles, a score of them glows On the big massy sides of my landlady’s nose. Old Patrick M‘Dougherty when on the fuddle, Pulls out a segar, and looks up to her noddle; For Dougherty swears, when he swigs a good dose, By Marjory’s firebrand, my landlady’s nose.
Ye wishy-wash butter-milk drinkers so cold, Come here, and the virtues of brandy behold; Here’s red burning JEtna; a mountain of snows, Would roll down in streams from my landlady’s nose. Each cavern profound of this snuff-loving snout, Is furnish’d within, sir, as well as without;
O’er the brown upper lip such a cordial flows— 0, the cordial brown drops of my landlady’s nose.
But, gods! when this trunk with an uplifted arm, She grasps in the dish-clout to blow an alarm, Horns, trumpets, conches are but screaming crows, To the loud thund’ring twang of my landlady’s nose.
My landlady’s nose unto me is a treasure, A care-killing nostrum, a fountain of pleasure; If I want for a laugh to discard all my woes, I only look up to my landlady’s nose.
linage ©birities; or, fbe ^n« of the |ollg ^apsttrs.
L—A VILLAGE ABSURDITY.
Where stands my village ? Away down in the green and tree-clad bosom of the shire of Blank. “ Blank ? ” you cry, and you look blank; “ why, there is no such shire.” But there is such a word, and a handy one it is, especially in print; you can blank your own eyes, and call your neighbour a blank of blanks, and it won’t be actionable either way. Let us see what the dictionary says of the word. I turn me to my “Maunder.” “ Blank ”; yes, here it is—“ Blank, a void” and void means empty ; that is what the landlord of the “Jolly Tapsters’” barrels never were of good beer, nor his cosy bar-room, of a winter’s evening, of good company. Again, “ Blank, white” ; that does certainly not refer to the faces of the happy folk that, night after night, surround the Tapster’s roaring fire, nor to the houses in the sweet wee village itself; they were hoary with years, they had the quaintness of a bygone age; they looked as if they had stood for a thousand years, and had quite made up their minds to put in another thou.; no, white won’t do. Once more, “ Blank, dull.” Lord bless your soul, sir, no ; that is worse and worse ; quiet we may be, sometimes, while drawing nectar from our pipes and listening to a song or an interesting story, but dull ? never; I scorn the impeachment, and, as the last meaning “ Maunder” gives —namely, “ confused,” hints at drinks for drunk, instead of drinks for dry, I pitch the old gentleman to the dev--, ahem! for, however blank the shire might have been, there was nothing blank about the dear little village of Twintieton. It lay before many a coming stranger in
“A sweet, green coombe, thro’ which fresh brooklets run, And the groat Hostel sleeping in the sun.”
The great Hostel was the “Jolly Tapsters,” and wasn’t it great ? Didn’t it lie a bit back from the main road on the top of a high, green bank, shaded in summer by two giantspreading oaks, with benches beneath; hadn’t it queer, old-fashioned windows, queer, tall chimneys, and queer everything, and a bowling-green to boot, away behind, and gardens besides ? Strangers often came to the village, and we never were known to “ ’eave ’arf a brick ” at the head of any one of them. They were always welcome to a snug corner of the bar, a pipe, and a pull at a pot. That’s the sort of people we were. The landlord was just the kind of man you would have expected to see in such a place. A burly, but genial, old fellow, big enough to fill any armchair that ever was built, so the neighbours called him Big Bartow, with the emphasis on the last syllable. A bit fond of laying down the law was Big Barlow at times, and maybe a trifle self-opinionated; but then he was certainly old enough to have an opinion of his own. Barlow had two pretty daughters, of whom more anon, consequently he could afford to smoke his pipe and drink his pot in the bar, while they brought in the needful, and attended to the wants of the customers. This was all as it should be, good old-fashioned style.
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While telling you the story, dear reader, of the “Jolly Tapsters,” I shall introduce many queer characters we have met there, who are either dead and gone, or still alive and happy, or gone away, God knows whither; mayhap to the uttermost regions of the earth. You shall not have my yarns this time all cut and dry, and dove-tailed into the text; they must blend with it, they must not be like the raisins in the pudding, they must rather resemble the eggs in the paste.
I don’t think I had been three weeks residing at Twintieton ere I became acquainted with Billy Webster. He was, indeed, an oddity. The landlord was referring to him in his talk, one winter’s evening, as I entered the bar-parlour of the “ Jolly Tapsters,” stopping for a moment on the threshold to shake the thick, dry flakes of snow from off my plaid.
“ Bring the doctor a broom, Kitty,” cried Big Barlow. “ Isn’t it snowing, sir, just ? ” We be going to have a heavy fall, I knows.” Then the charming Kitty hastened to obey, and, having made my feet comfortable, I joined the group and lit my pipe, and the landlord quietly resumed the conversation.
“ There is no denying it, neighbours, Billy Webster is a thin man,” and Big Barlow took the pipe from his mouth—a nice, long, cool churchwarden—and smiled up at the ceiling as he made the remark ; “ ay, neighbours, Billy be ree-mark-ably thin ; there aint no getting out o’ that.”
And the neighbours smiled, too, without removing their clays ; smiled and nodded through the reek, and the landlord laughed and went on :—
“ He be thin, and the worst of it is, he aint no shape, either; just look how them clothes o’ his ’ang around him. There aint no tailor as ever lived that could fit Billy. And look at him behind, again. Behind be blowed ; why, neighbours, he aint got any. He puts ye in mind o’ the bottomless pit, as they parson chaps spout about. Billy’s bottomless.”
” But, neighbours ”—and here the honest landlord grew serious all at once, and looked around him almost savagely, as if defying contradiction—“Billy’s like the bad place; Billy’s bottomless, but there the likeness ends; Billy aint like the bad place in any other way whatsomedever. I dares anyone o’ ye to say he is.”
Whether or not there was anyone in that room bold enough to give the lie to the landlord’s assertion, I cannot say; I think it highly improbable, for Big Barlow was a bit of an authority in his own good bar of the “Jolly Tapsters.” However, the conversation was here cut short by the entrance of no less a personage than Billy Webster himself. He didn’t come in; he burst in, he fussed in, with a “Here we goes again, good folks,” and “Aint it jolly cold just, my eye! aint it wintry though? ” And Billy rubbed his hands, and rubbed liis thighs, and, in fact, he had a kind of a general rub all over. Everybody made room for Billy at once, and Kitty ran off to draw him with her own fair fingers his modest pint of “’arf-and-’arf ” ’gainst he might order it. But Billy was in no hurry to settle, that was evident; in those days this little man was about the most nervous cuss you can well imagine. A blue-bottle fly wasn't a patch upon him; he buzzed round the room and round the room, laughing at God knows what, and asking a dozen questions without waiting to get an answer to any single one of them, till first one of the neighbours laughed, probably because Big Barlow did the same; then another joined, and another, till at last it became a general chorus; platoon firing was nothing to it; a rookery in nesting season was nothing to it; nothing was nothing to it; and when he couldn’t stand it any longer without the danger of disintegration, the landlord got out of his chair and fairly pulled Billy Webster by the tails of his coat into an empty seat; then Kitty brought his pint, and peace was restored.
This little scene only gives the reader an idea of Billy’s usual form.
In those days a pipe or cigar was never seen within the lips of my friend and neighbour, Billy Webster. But bide a wee—tempora mutantur; and Billy changed with them.
The landlord was right about Billy’s outfit. His tailor had certainly failed to fit him. There was a sad, an almost solemn laxity about his nether garments, for example, that suggested stick legs, and brought scarecrows to the mind of the beholder. His coat, too, was a study in drapery worthy of a Whistler. A little swallow-tailed blue one it was, with two rows of gilt buttons in front and two single ones behind, and didn’t those buttons shine too! In the manufacture of this coat the tailor was so far to blame in that he had made the waist of it a mile too long; and when Billy went a-fussing and a-bobbing around, and those little coat tails of his went a-dancing and a-wiggle-waggling about, you would have laughed at Billy even had you been just about to make your last will and testament. And there was nothing to fill out Billy’s anatomy, nor to swell his little coat tails.
The best natured little man in the world notwithstanding; couldn’t have put him out had you tried ever so hard. To a certain extent Billy was always merry; when he endeavoured to look solemn everybody laughed at him. Sage remarks didn’t seem to roll easily over Billy’s tongue. On the other hand, he had never been really in a rage, except once in his life; “ And then,” said Billy, “everybody laughed at me, and I never saw the fun of getting angry again.”
Nobody knew how old BiUy was, and nobody seemed to care to ask; he might have been forty, fifty, or a hundred, or over. He lived all by himself in a morsel of a cottage in the
comer of a field, and there was a morsel of a garden attached thereto as well, and both the cottage and garden belonged to Billy. He owned no landlord, and yet the village of Twintieton never troubled its head to wonder where on earth Billy had made the money to pay for these luxuries; for look here, in Twintieton, so long as you call for your pint or your pot, and pay for it like a man, Twintieton doesn’t care a crooked sixpence where you were raised, or who was your grandfather. That’s what Twintieton is like.
Now, in these days there lived in our dear wee village one who rejoiced in the somewhat euphonic name of Sally Bunny. A widow was Sally, and she lived in the alms-houses. Sally’s husband had been a “ brute,” I have her own words for that, and the greatest favour he had ever done Sally was to let his jaw droop, and allow himself to be quietly put under the sod. A very little and very old dumpling of a woman was Sally; she didn’t walk, she waddled, so fat and round she was. Her face was exceedingly wrinkled and gathered into many puckers, after the fashion and shape of a Malaga raisin; her mouth might have been made, nr say drilled, with the end of a kitchen poker, and her eyes blinked bead-like at you over her faded cheeks. She could laugh, could Sally, and that, too, right heartily; and she could weep, too, at a moment’s notice. Like an April morning, she was all sunshine and showers. Although this interesting little widow lived in the alms-house, it wasn’t living altogether in clover; the bare necessaries of life were allowed her, for its luxuries Sally had to toil, and that right hard. “ I do like a pinch of snuff,” she would tell you, “ and I works well to earn it, too.” The scene of Sally’s labours was the great highway betwixt Bath and London, her tools were a barrow, a broom, and a shovel, her stock in trade the horse-dung, which she sold for her neighbours’ gardens. Wet day or dry day, Sally was out; but, industrious as she was, if you met her returning in the gloaming towards her home, and gave her kindly “ good evening,” she was always glad to stop and gossip. She would always tell you about her “daughter in Amerikay,” about her son in Twintieton who was never well out of one scrape till he was into another—here she would weep—and about the fifty little school imps who had that day chased her, singing “ Sally Bunny, Sally Bunny, Sally Bunny,” till her poor old head ached again, and then she would gasp and look plaintive as she wound up by telling you—“My back, sir, my poor back, sir, do ache, for I’ve been a dunging all day, sir, and it be hard work for an old creature like I.” Sally referred to her arduous profession of manure collector.
Now, Twintieton is naturally a quiet place, but when one morning news came that Sally’s “daughter in Amerikay” had died and left her mother a hundred pounds a year, then Twintieton for the time being simply took leave of its senses. Sally was a lady now; she left the alms-house, she left off “ dunging,” she had a complete new outfit, and went to church holding up her head with the best of us. And now, too, a change came suddenly o’er the spirit of Billy Webster’s dream. He still frequented the bar-room of the “ Jolly Tapsters,” but, to the astonishment of everybody, he changed his tipple to hot Scotch, and he lost much of his former brusqueness of manner. Murder will out, and when one evening Billy told the neighbours that he was in love, and that his flame was no other than the youthful Sally, great indeed was the rejoicing, and the joy was general. There was such a rattling of pewter mugs as had never before been heard in Twintieton, and a regular chorus of “ go in and win Billy, go in and win. Hurra! for Billy Webster.”
Billy thought he would lose no time about it. After such encouragement failure seemed impossible; the word wasn’t in Billy’s lexicon at all. So the very next evening, as fate would have it, Billy met Sally—accidentally, of course—coming waddling home from Wargrave.
“ What! ” cried Sally, on hearing her lover’s proposal, “ what! marry thee ? he ! he ! he ! not if I knows it, he ! he ! you’re far to thin a young man for I. Why, they do call thee bottomless Billy.”
As Sally spoke she caught poor Billy by the coat lapel, and spun him round and round as you might a top, and she eyed him up and she eyed him down, and she scanned him fore and she scanned him aft, and she laughed poor Billy to scorn.
This was hard upon my hero, but Billy was none of your chicken-hearted chaps that one blow knocks down never to get up again. Billy made a resolve, a firm resolve. “ I’ll get fat,” says Billy, “ and Sally will have me; I’ll get fat, or die in the attempt, so help me Moses.”
Then Billy sent to town, and he bought the book by Banting, and Billy studied that book by night and by day, and acted upon its precepts, upside down, as it were; for all things that fat folks might not eat, Billy ate, and the things that fat folks were to avoid, these did Billy do, and he lived like a fighting-cock. But, woe is me, Billy seemed to get thinner than ever, so that the neighbours oftentimes shook their heads and murmured, “ Billy’s booked.”
Now, I’ve already said that Billy never smoked, but when one evening the landlord of the “Jolly Tapsters” said, “Why doan’t ’ee try a churchwarden, Billy?” “ I’m damned if I don’t,” cried Billy emphatically. And he did, too. Night after night you might have seen Billy quietly sitting behind his long clay. The effect was wonderful, it was astonishing, it was stupendous. The kindly narcotic soothed his overwrought nervous system ; Billy no longer pricked about like a parched pea in a frying-pan, and he soon began to lay on
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flesh and alter in shape in a remarkable manner; even his coat tails tilled out, and his breeches were no longer baggy.
Sally herself noted the change, and her heart yearned towards him. “ La! she said, one day, “ you be getting a fine fellow, Mr. Webster.”
With lively recollections of his first attempt at wooing, I believe Billy Webster would now have held proudly aloof; but there was that hundred a year of Sally Bunny’s in the balance. Billy couldn’t forget that; so one beautiful summer evening two fat little old figures were seen waddling home from Wargrave arm-in-arm, and everyone knew that Sally Bunny and Billy Webster would soon be made one flesh. And so they were. And the village of Twintieton rejoiced exceedingly.
0! praise be unto the weed divine, for Billy still lives with his Sally in peace and joy, a jolly little, fat little farmer. And everything around him is fat and jolly. His pigs are fat, his geese are simply butter, and his Brahma fowls—those big beggars, you know, with breeches on—why, their legs are like composite candles, three to a pound. And children are rising up around Billy and calling him blessed and fat—why, fat isn’t the word to describe the startling amount of adiposity that everywhere surrounds the bairns of Billy Webster.
It’s a queer world.
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
^ipt ^ulourtrs.
XXH.—MB. POWKEB’S MEASLE.
The hero of the following little story is one Mr. Jonas Powker. He was not a pipe colourer of the first water, but for all that he was a colourer of pipes; and therefore he shall come in. Powker was a short, fat man, round head, round body—in fact, round and pudgy all over. His countenance was rubicund, but not merry. I don’t mean to say that his face was particularly grave, or even thoughtful. It was not. It was a face that seemed always struggling to get some expression into it, and could not quite manage it. Powker considered himself rather knowing, but was, in fact, extremely simple. For many years he had been in trade in a small way, saving enough out of his business to retire, about the age of sixty, to a small but comfortable cottage a few miles from London, and he seemed tolerably contented in his retirement. In the daytime he used to waddle about in the sunshine, if there was any, or read his newspaper and smoke his pipe in his garden, or by his fireside, according to the weather and his own choice. In the evening he always spent an hour or two in the parlour of “ The Rocking Horse,” where he used to drink his grog, smoke his pipe, and chat with his neighbours.
These neighbours were mostly a homely lot; hard-working, uneducated, with no pride, and not much money. There were other customers used to drop in at times, when the weather was fine, and amongst them was one who was always called “ The Doctor.” He had rather a professional look, and wore spectacles. Whether these facts gave him the name in the first instance I cannot say, but certain it is that he was known as “The Doctor,” while it was quite as certain that he was not a doctor. As I lived within about a mile of the village where Mr. Powker dwelt, I used sometimes, of a fine evening, to stroll through the intervening lanes and call in for a refreshing glass at “The Rocking Horse,” so that I knew most of the folks who dropped in there of an evening. The place was quiet and well conducted, the ale was good, and where need a man look for any excuses further?
One October evening I concluded to pay a visit to this place, and on my arrival found Mr. Powker smoking his pipe, in company with several of his neighbours. Scarcely had I taken a seat when The Doctor entered, and a general conversation ensued on various topics.
On the gas being lit, I noticed that Mr. Powker had arrived at an expression: that is to say, there was a something on his face which indicated the workings of the mind within. I w as pleased at this, because it seemed to show that the intellectual part of the man was in better working order than it usually was. I was not, however, pleased at the expression, as an expression. His look was sod. In addition to this, his nose looked unduly red.
“You are not looking yourself, Mr. Powker,” I observed, sympathetically.
“ No; I aint werry well,” replied Powker, rather dolefully.
“What is it?” inquired The Doctor, turning briskly to Powker; “ What do you complain of? where do you feel it? what are the symptoms ? ”
“I feel heavy and sleepy,” said Powker, “and hot and thirsty, and then there’s this peculiar spot on the tip of my nose; ” and he directed The Doctor’s attention to that feature by placing a short, fat finger on it.
The Doctor looked at the spot for a moment or two through his spectacles, and then pronounced the one word “ Measles!”
“ Measles! it can’t be! ” said Powker, with his eyes wide open; “ It can’t be measles—there’s only one on ’em! ”
“Quite right,” said The Doctor, “quite right; it’s a measle.”
“I never yeard of anybody having one measle,” said Mr. Cooper, one of the company; “It’s always measles.”
“ Yes, mostly so,” said The Doctor; “We say ‘measles’ because, as a rule, people have a good many of them when they have the complaint at all; but in this instance you cannot very well say * measles,’ because, as you see, there is but one spot at present. That spot is a measle.”
Powker, trying to realise his peculiar affliction, said nothing, but sat deep in thought.
A slow, heavy man, named Turner, said: “ I never yeard of a measle on a nose afore.” This he said with the air of one who, believing nothing but what he knew, felt defiantly sure that the case before him was wrong somehow.
“ Measles comes where they like, and not where you like,” said another of the company; an’ if they chooses noses, why they comes on noses. I consider it a wery providental thing that that there measle come on Mr. Powker’s nose. He never takes no notice of nothing; if it had a-come anywhere else on him, he’d never have knowed it.”
Mr. Powker, uncertain as to whether to take the last speech as complimentary or not, observed: “ Well, it’s the first time I ever heard of a single measle.”
“Possibly,” said The Doctor; “I admit they are usually found in great numbers. The position of this one may have something to do with the matter. You see, there is really only room for one on the extreme tip of your nose. How many more there are behind it, no one can say. If they are in the system, they must come out.”
“ If they only come out one at a time, shant I be a jolly long while getting rid of them! ” quoth Powker, dolefully.
“Ain’t he greedy?” said Budd, the gardener. “He’s got one, and now he wants a lot more; anybody would think they was customers at the shop he used to keep; ” and the man of the spade and rake grinned, as if he had said something very good.
“You’re jolly clever, Mr. Budd, aint you?” said Powker, with some little heat. I dare say, if the truth was known, you’re crowded inside with measles and worse, only your skin is so precious thick that they can’t come out.”
A diversion in the line of conversation was caused by Powker asking The Doctor how measles should be treated.
The gardener, who was still smarting under the imputation of being in possession of a hide of unnatural thickness, said sneeringly: “I shouldn’t treat that measle at all, Mr. Powker; treating’s out of your line.”
This was an accusation that was not unfelt by Powker, who was rather close; but he paid no heed to it.
“Warmth,” said The Doctor, “ warmth is what they require; plenty of comforting warmth.”
“ I should think that poor measle is warm enough,” said a thin man, a carpenter, with a chuckle, alluding to the general hue of Powker’s nose.
“And I should think,” said Powker, looking steadily at his reviler, “that if I took lodgings for my measle in your house, it would be pretty warm, eh, wouldn’t it ? ”
The carpenter was mute, for he knew, and he knew that all the company knew, that his better half kept his house so warm for him that it was a common joke in the village that he never bought any coals.
“ If I were you,” said The Doctor, “ I should stay indoors for a few days; keep warm and quiet, and when the others come out send for your regular medical man—he’ll put you through all right.”
Powker went home shortly after this, and I noticed that he, as soon as he passed into the outer air, clapped his handkerchief on to his measle to keep it warm. He took The Doctor’s advice, and confined himself to his house for several days, paying a good deal of attention to things comforting, and to his looking-glass. He smoked his pipe before his fire in his arm-chair to absorb warmth from the outside, and he mixed himself an occasional glass of something comforting to receive warmth from inside, believing that there was nothing like a judicious balance of caloric. So he went on treating his measle, and his measle seemed to appreciate the treatment, and to take kindly to it. It wouldn’t go away, and it wouldn’t allow any others to come; it was a greedy measle, wanting all the treatment to itself, and it was wonderful how it throve on it. However, as the treatment got warmer, and the measle grew healthier, poor Mr. Powker grew worse in mind and body. One day an old lady called in and shocked him very much by an account of someone she had heard of who died through “ expressed ” measles. She meant “ suppressed,” and Mr. Powker knew what she meant, and felt no happier for her story. He grew alarmed, and pictured a pile of measles under his skin that wouldn’t come out, and wouldn’t go away; so he determined to see a regular doctor, although he groaned at the thought of having to pay his bill.
I would not have it thought that Powker felt quite assured that he was in possession of a real measle. The Doctor had spoken with such an air of confident knowledge, that Powker was half convinced. He could not, however, understand why the others did not come, and half believed that The Doctor had made a mistake. Day by day he hoped to find his unwelcome blemish disappear; but, as we know, that event did not come about. Several times daily, too, did Powksr analyse his symptoms; and many, if not all of these, agreed with how a man ought to feel under an attack of measles. He was hoarse, and his eyes were rather inflamed and watery. He had a cough, and his head ached. He felt hot and cold by fits and starts; and, in fact, felt ill all over.
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When Dr. Markham arrived, in answer to the summons of Mr. Powker, he found that unhappy individual all of a heap in his arm-chair, with a blanket over his shoulders. His pipe, unfilled, was at his elbow; an empty tumbler was on the table; and, altogether, the man with the measle looked a picture of unhappiness, ill health, and discontent.
“Well, sir,” inquired the doctor, eyeing the glass suspiciously, and taking the gentlest little sniff in the world; “And what can I do for you? Out of sorts, eh? ”
Mr. Powker rose from his seat, and having given good morning to the doctor, turned to the light, so that his measle might be seen, and said “Look there.”
The doctor examined Powker’s nose for some little time through his spectacles, and observed: “ That’s rum.”
“It is rum, aint it,” returned Powker, thinking the doctor meant that it was odd for a man to have a single measle.
Something in Powker’s child-like and ready agreement with his own expressed opinion convinced the doctor that, although they had both used the same word, they did not mean the same thing. So he said, rather shortly, “ Kindly give me your definition of rum; that is to say, what do you mean by the word ‘ Rum ? ’ ”
“ Well,” said Powker, mentally searching for other words to express what he meant, “by saying its ‘Rum,* I mean it’s peculiar, strange, funny, &c.”
“Ah,” said the doctor, with a smile, “ I thought you did not quite comprehend me; when I say ‘Rum,’ I mean Jamaica; sixpence, or thereabouts, per quartern.”
“Doctor,” said Powker sturdily, “you are wrong, Rum is a spirit I never touch.”
“Well,” replied the doctor, “I may be mistaken in the name of the spirit that has so finely ornamented your nose ; it may be whisky, or gin, or brandy, but it is drink of some kind, I am quite sure. I admit that rum was said at a venture, because I thought I detected the odour of that particular spirit when I entered the room. What do you drink as a rule ? ”
“Whisky,” replied Powker; “and sometimes gin; brandy I usually take as a nightcap, but never as a regular drink. I am no drunkard, I assure you.”
“ I should not wish for one moment to insinuate that you are a drunkard, Mr. Powker,” said the doctor; “but, as an honest medical practitioner, it is my duty to tell you that you are now suffering, in appearance, at all events, from the effects of drink. Do you drink much ? ”
“ Only one glass at a time, doctor,” replied Mr. Powker, essaying a feeble joke.
“I should suppose so,” said the doctor. “But you do not make the intervals long enough between these single glasses. The fact is, you have a cold, a bad cold, attended with some fever, and you are also suffering from indigestion; your liver and stomach are out of order, and these things, coupled with the fact that you are rather partial to these single glasses, account for the blotch on your nose.”
“ Oh,” said Powker, greatly relieved one way. “ Then it’s not a measle ? ”
“Not a what?” inquired the amazed doctor.
“Not a measle;” and then Powker told Dr. Markham what his other adviser, “ The Doctor,” had told him in the first instance.
Dr. Markham fell to and had such a laugh that Powker laughed to see and hear him, and this established so good a feeling that a bottle and glass came out, and the doctor had a drop; excusing himself on the grounds that there would be the less left for Mr. Powker’s measle. D. Gooos.
Okawa in % ^Wti^l.
Ths Schweizeruche Bauernzeitung, the principal farming organ of the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland, says that the cry for the introduction of Tobacco culture on a larger scale is resounding on all sides.* Meetings are being held, lectures given, estimates compiled, pamphlets written, seeds and plants exhibited, and all the usual signs of a very elaborate and zealous agitation are being displayed. A similar enthusiasm, the Bauerrtzeitung obseives, was stirred up in the east of Switzerland amongst the farmers about twenty years ago, and many a field was made to produce a very fine crop of most excellent Tobacco. The result, however, was as disappointing as the result of a similar movement which was got up in favour of hop-growing. None of the traders would buy the Swiss Tobacco or the Swiss hops at the prices at which the growers were pleased (or were obliged) to offer them. They said: “ The foreign is better.” Nevertheless, the Bauemzeitung does not wholly discourage a new attempt, times being so much changed, and their Tobacco-growing neighbours in Elsass, Baden, the Rhine Palatinate, and other parts of Germany, having fallen in such anxiety of late years through their anticipation of the threatened Bismarckian monopoly. It remarks, however, that there are certain conditions which must be made as secure as possible before the Swiss farmers substitute Tobacco for any of their present crops:—(1) a powerful, deep, and thoroughly dry soil; (2) rich manure, as Tobacco
•April, 1880.
stands in need of an unusual amount of artificial assistance; (3J sunny and mild climate, and a situation free from strong winds; (4) workmen who know the nature and wants of the herb they are dealing with; (5) good work, and work at the right moment; (6) appropriate rooms for drying the crop, and (7) merchants who will buy it I
A year ago, when the writer of this article was in Swizerland, he noticed that quite a literature, mostly in pamphlet form, was growing up around the central subject of Tobacco. Nearly all the writers on this topic, it must be observed, are characteristically business-like: they aim at the farmer rather than the politician or ratepayer; they trouble themselves little about the smoker or the collector of “ Nicotiana.” I may specify as instances “ Der Tabakbau in der Schweiz,” by Professor Anderegg, of Graubunden—an introduction to the mystery of cultivating and managing Tobacco, addressed exclusively to Swiss agriculturists—and an illustrated book with exactly the same title and the same purpose, only just issued, by Herr J. Leuenberger, who describes himself as “ Oekonom in Payerne ” • The latter deserves some attention, as it is the work of an expert who is living in the midst of a Swiss Tobacco country, in which there is no need to urge upon the agriculturist the great value of the Tobacco crop. Payerne is a busy commune in the Valley of the Broye or Broyethal, in the Canton of Vaud, a district in which Tobacco has been sedulously cultivated for the last two hundred years. M. Frossard-Rapin published two years ago an interesting report upon the culture of our plant in the Vaud.f It has become at the present day one of the principal elements of Vaudois agriculture, and a substantial source of income to the prosperous inhabitants of the towns and villages along the banks of the Broye.
The Pays de Vaud, or Kanton Waadt, as it is called respectively by the French and Germans, is one of the largest cantons of Switzerland, and its Tobacco-growing district was a seat of Roman civilisation as late as the fifth century. The Tobacco fields of the little Protestant towns of Payerne and Avenches have felt the tread of the Roman legions. The latter was formerly the magnificent and extensive Aventicum Helvetiorwn, the principal Roman city in Switzerland, and capital of Helvetia, and stood at its highest prosperity under the Emperors Vespasian and Titus. At the beginning of the Christian era it was more than tenfold its present size, as may be gathered from the ruins of antique buildings and walls which are still to be seen here and there outside the present town, the mosaic pavements which have been unearthed in its fields, and its splendid amphitheatre, still perfectly traceable under its present form as a thickly-planted orchard. The local museum is rich in Roman inscriptions, though many of the choicest specimens yielded by this most wealthy of all the fields of Roman antiquarian research in Switzerland have been forwarded to the more imposing institutions in Lausanne, the capital of the Canton Vaud, and in Bern, the capital of the Federation. Hordes of Teutonic AUemanns first burst into the civilised Aventicum in the reign of Gallienus, about 260 a.d., and burned down the Roman capital. £ It is probably to these and other Teuton invaders, kinsfolk of our own, that the canton owes its present name of the Waadt, Waat, which is equivalent to our Wales. The invaders called the foreign Romans and the Romanised Helvetian Gauls alike Walen, and their country Walenland or Welschland. In the ninth century the present Vaudois country was described in mediaeval Latin as the Pagus Valdensis, which corresponds with the French Pays de Vaud and the German Waatland. § In the sixteenth century the Protestant Republic of Bern conquered the Pays de Vaud from the Duke of Savoy, and held it as a subject-land until the time of the French Revolution. In the year 1798, with the aid of the French invaders, the Vaudois people asserted their independence of Bern, and set up the shortlived Republic of the Leman. The chief seats of the Tobacco culture of the Broye valley, Avenches and Payerne, were selected as their respective head-quarters by the commanders of the opposed armies of the great Republic of France and the little Republic of Bern. The French General Brune encamped in the fertile Tobacco fields of Payerne, while the successive leaders of the Berner troops, Weiss and Erlach von Hindelbank, fixed their head-quarters at Avenches.
The Zuricher J. G. Ebel, at the beginning of our century, noticed the extraordinary fertility of the country around Payerne (or Peterlingen, as the German-speaking Swiss then called and still call it), and the great quantity of Tobacco which was at that time grown there, and which was then prepared in the town, “ chiefly,” as he says, “ for the use of persons of the lower classes.” The sight of such a crop was not a little startling in a district which had so recently been in subjection to the rigid Canton of Bern. “For in that canton,” he observes, “ during the last moiety of the seventeenth century, the use of the pipe was put into the same category as drunkenness, debauchery, and adultery, and was punished by heavy fines and with the iron collar.” || It would
* Both may bo had of Lang and Co., Born.
+ “Journal de la Socidt^ Vaudoiso d’utilit^ publiquo.” 1878.
t Meyer Ochsner’s “ Geschichte der XL and XXL Legion,” and Momm-gon's “ Lie Schweiz in romischer Zeit,” in the volumes of the Mittheilungen der Antiquarisohen Gesellschaft in Zurich for 1853 and 1854. VII., p. 138;
5 Ebel “Manuel.” IV., 460. 1811.
g “Manuel.” Zurich Ed., 1811. VoL IV., pp. 6-7. j
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seem as if the Tobacco of the Broye district were at that time, as much of it still is, somewhat coarse and of a dark brown hue, indeed, almost black. We learn from M. Frossard-Kapin, however,that the main quantity which is now grown in Payerne, Avenches, Granges, Corcelles, and other communes of the Broye, is no longer made up for home use, but it is bought by the great manufacturers of the German cantons, while the remainder goes to Geneva, Vevey, and Lausanne, in order to be made up into the long thin cigars of Western Switzerland, which are usually known in England by the name of the charming Vaudois health-resort on the eastern shore of the Lake Leman, Vevey or Vivis, the Vibiscus of the Romans. Two years ago, the annual yield of the Tobacco crop in the valley of the Broye was estimated at about 22,000 hundredweight (zentner), which, at the average price of 37 francs, brought a sum of more than eight hundred thousand francs into the pockets of the local growers.* Last year, however, as we learned from a report of the Tobacco harvest in the Broyethal in the leading Swiss journal, the quality of the Tobacco was extraordinarily good: in Corcelles it fetched 40 francs per zentner; in Payerne it was somewhat cheaper, ranging from 35 to 38 francs, but throughout the whole valley the average price was from 38 to 40 francs per zentner. f According to the estimate drawn up by M. Frossard-Rapin, Tobacco culture yields the Vaudois farmer 444 francs where corn growing, exclusive of the straw, barely yields 200 francs. At the same time, the cost of culture is considerably larger for Tobacco than for corn, and demands more assiduous and continuous work. The Broyethal cultivator ploughs over his ground three times before planting his Tobacco, and during the next, three months while the plant is in the soil, it demands ceaseless hoeing and weeding. Nevertheless, the wheat fields are the better for spending a season as Tobacco fields. The latter need scarcely less stringent a purification than the vineyard, and hence Tobacco culture brings with it the incidental advantage of leaving behind it a soil thoroughly purged from all parasitical plants, so that the very finest wheat grown in the Vaud, according to an authority already quoted, is that which follows a crop of Tobacco. J
It is not only the landowners of the Broye district, the heirs of the old aristocracy, but also the so-called Klein-bauern, or small farmers, who occupy themselves with this species of agriculture. In most cases the landed proprietors give to these small farmers, who possess no estate of their own, portions of land to be planted with Tobacco. The land is made over to them already manured and ready for plantation. The peasant-farmer contracts to plant the Tobacco, to work the soil throughout the whole season, to harvest the crop, and to dry the Tobacco leaves. At the time of delivery, which occurs mostly in January, the yield is divided equally, share and share alike, between the proprietor and the planter—the capitalist and the labourer. The latter earns by his part in the contract, even in the worst Tobacco seasons, according to M. Rapin, some hundreds of francs, whereas at any other agricultural work he would probably get nothing more than a sum equal to a poor daily wage. M. Rapin’s figures have been circulated in the eastern and German-speaking cantons, in order to encourage the agriculturists of those parts to follow the example of their fellow-citizens in the old Burgundian country where “the good Queen Bertha” has left so many legends behind her. We had a report from Schaffhausen, as late as last February, of a large meeting of agriculturists of that canton, who were specially called together to debate upon the advisability of adopting Tobacco culture as a promising future industry. The meeting closed with the formation of a special committee of farmers, cantonal politicians, economists, and experts in Tobacco growing. A tentative experiment was to be made during this year under their direction, but we have not as yet received any information about their progress. T. H.
©ur .Smoke §oum ®able.
English Men of Letters, Edited by John Morley, London: Macmillan and Co. 1878-9.
X.—BURKE, BY JOHN MORLEY. (1879.)
If we have had to complain of Mr. Morley’s editorship, or, rather, neglect of editorship, with regard to certain volumes of this Series, we have little but praise for this his first contribution to it. The subject is excellent, and one that distinctly required popular treatment, as comparatively few in these days, beyond professional politicians and historical students, read the speeches and writings of Burke. We humbly range ourselves in this respect with the general public. It is now about a quarter of a century since we studied the “ Reflections on the French Revolution,” the “ Letter to the Noble Lord,” and the great speeches; among which last, we remember, the farewell address to the electors of Bristol impressed us most, by its grandeur of lofty and massive moral eloquence, lit up by a noble indignation. After this frank avowal of too common ignorance, our readers will be able to take our judgment for just what it is worth when we say that we find the treatment excellent as the subject; the booklet a genuine study, thorough in its strait limits, full of sound knowledge permeated with clear thought and candid criticism faithfully reflected in a clear style. Like Huxley s “ Hume,” it is all the better for transgressing the limits of the g“neral title of the series; Hume being studied mainly as a philosopher, urke as a practical politician and theoretical statesman, instead of the two
being dealt with simply as men of letters.
This is not the place for discussing the merits and demerits of Burke as a politician. The various members of our staff have no doubt their various opinions on politics, cock-lighting, thimble-rigging, theology, aerostation pugilism, and so forth; but here, in the serene enclosure of the Plant, we’ all sink such merely minor differences, to unite on the broad “ platform ’ of Tobacco; here we have but one Queen and Goddess, of whom we are til the most loyal subjects and most devout worshippers, even Diva Regina Nicotina; here our motto is that of the old Pipe-Makers, “ Let brotherly love continue; ” from this standpoint we all alike discern clearly that the Chancellor of the Exchequer who treats Tobacco well is wise, and he who does not is otherwise; that the former is good, and the latter good for nothing; and gazing placidly on the raging and roaring free tight* of Tories, Whigs, and Radicals, of High Church, Broad Church, Low Church (or Attitude, Latitude, Platitude, as some profane one ha.* christened them), Calvinist, and Agnostic, we all sing harmoniously with Buras;— '
“ Sae, ye observe that a’ this clatter ' Is naething but a * moonshine matter’;
But tho’ dull prose-folk Latin splatter In logic tulzie,
I hope we bardies [smokers] ken some better Than mind sic brulzie.”
However, as this book challenges the verdict, we must say that, in our poor opinion, Mr. Morley very much overrates Burke, both as a practical and a literary or philosophical statesman. With all our admiration for hi* great powers and lofty character, with glad recognition of his noble conduct in regard to the American War of Independence and the government of India under Hastings, we are yet constrained to the judgment that it would have been far better for Britain and for Europe had he not been born, Hering that the evil he wrought in the blind and furious and blood-thirsty madness to which he was excited by the Great Revolution, immensely outweighs all the good he ever accomplished and bequeathed. Take Mr. Morley's own friendly testimony (pp. 186-7): “ By the eud of 1791, when he mote the * Thoughts on French Affairs ’ . . He was thus launched on the full tide of his policy. The French Revolution must be hemmed in by a cordon of tire. Those who sympathised with it in England must be gagged, and if gagging did not suffice, they must be taught respect for the Constitution in dungeons, and on the gallows. His cry for war abroad and arbitrary (fie) tyranny at home waxed louder every day.” Again, in 1793, after the execution of Louis XVI., brought on by his frustrated flight, and more directly by the invasion of France by the German powers marching to the tune of Brunswick’s infamous and infatuated manifesto, a combination of Geuserk and Bombastes Furioso: “ It would be a great mistake to say that Pitt ever lost his head, but he lost his feet. . . . Burke had become the greatest power in the country (p. 192).” On the same page we read of the mis- ruble melodramatic dagger-scene, December, 1792, when Burke, speaking, “ b^an to fumble in his bosom, suddenly drew out a dagger, and with an extravagant gesture threw it on the floor of the House, crying that this was whit they had to expect from their alliance with France.” He had become the greatest power in the country, and he used all his power with insane passion and pertinacity to hurl England into the unholy crusade of all the despotisms of Europe against republican France; that crusade which cost us five or six hundreds of millions of money,* and countless myriads of lives, and gave ns a government of Castlereagh, Eldon, and Sidmouth; which inflamed France into the Reign of Terror, then flung it exultantly abject and exhausted under the yoke of a military absolution; and which was consummated iu those orgies of the imperial two-headed vultureeagles, double-faced for duplicity, double-beaked for carrion-prey; the Congress of Vienna, the Holy Alliance. Wherefore, testing Burke by the capital crucial test of his conduct in relation to the greatest events of his time, we cannot condemn him too severely as a practical statesman, wan ting alike in clear vision and prevision, in solidity and temperance, in wisdom and commonsense. We could never discover the appropriateness of one epithet in Carlyle’s definition of him as a 11 resplendent and far-teeing rhetorician, rather than a deep and subtle thinker.” Rhetorician, assuredly; but can a rhetorician be far-sighted ? To our minds, and we think in the common usage of our language, mere rhetoric involves those degrading qualities and associations which Pluto defines iu the “ Gorgias,” when he insists that it is but a part of flattery, one of the four shams or similations flattery puts forth for the genuine arts; that it bears the same low relation to the mind as cookery to the body; that as cookery to medicine, so is rhetoric to justice. But, apart from any question of mere words, how can we coll a man /ar-seeing, who foresaw only some of the first inevitable effects of the mighty convulsion, and none of iU grand eventual issues ? who saw in it only the sanguinary revel of reckless and ruthless adventurers; and nothing of the sublime resurrection of a people from the ghastly death-in-life in which it had been frostbound for centuries, under horrible oppressions of multitudinous tyrannies and extortions, starved and tortured to extremity in body and mind and soul ? whose shallow chivalrous compassion and real tears effused for the fallen queenly “ morning star, full of life and splendour and joy;” not for the millions of human earth-worms beneath it, full of death and degradation and misery ? As Paine rightly retorted, he wept over the plumage, and forgot the dying bird.
We have praised Mr. Morley’s style for its clearness, and it is also energetic ; but there are some inaccuracies and awkward expressions here and there which require revision. We cannot specify them; Dean Church's book has sickened us of such labour: we will merely mention one analogy of which Mr. Morley seems very fond. On p. 8, we read of Burke “ diffusing a strong light over the awful tides of human circumstance;” on p. 206 that with Burke’s death “a life went out, which, notwithstanding some grave aberrations, had made great tides in human destiny very lumnouV The assertion we have already disputed in fact; here we arc concerned only with the image, and this we respectfully suggest, so far from being worthy of twofold utterance as a final summing-up of the merits of a gnat man, is scarcely worthy of a single casual expression. For a fight upon dark tides has no real natural analogy. We know how tides set without sun or moon to show us; and these only make the surface luminous, they do not reveal the depths. Eccentricities and aberrations suggest a comet or a meteor; but who ever saw one of these making dark tides very luminous ? and surely Mr. Morley does not mean that Burke's career was that of a comet or meteor. Dark tides in Nature are indeed made very luminous—by the phosphorescence of millions of millions of marine ani-malculee; but we never heard that this phosphorescence is of any use beyond furnishing a splendid show of fireworks gratis; and, at any rate, Mr. Morley cannot want us to think of his hero in connection with innumerable swarms of the infinitely little. Dark tides are also made luminous by torchlight for the practice of the noble art of leistering salmon; perhaps Mr. M. means that Burke was the torch by whose aid that mighty big fish ths French Revolution was speared and secured. If he doesn't mean this, we don't know what he does mean, and modestly “ give it np.”
* Reign Geo. in. National Debt: 1760, £102,014,018; 1820, £834,900.960. Annual Charge for National Debt: 1792, £9,471,675; 1816, £82,457,14L Interest, &c., of Debt from Jan. 5, 1801, to Mar. 31, 1878, £2,144,917,708, (“ Financial Reform Almanack ” for 1879; pp. 152-8): and a very large put of two thousand millions of this has been our modest acknowledgment of the genius and eloquence of Edmund Burke.
NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.
♦ Bader NachricUen, Oct. 10,1878.
+ Der Bund (Bern), Oct. 18,1879.
1 Bader Nachrichten. U.S.
We cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; and we do not hold ourselves responsible for loss.
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Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4b. 8!^ printers’ Register, A JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING TRADE FOR GREAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND THE COLONIES. THE PRINTERS* REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Home and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India, China, Canada, Ac.; and it affords the best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August, 1875. Address—Tbk Editor, St. Bride Street, London, E.C.	u. s. TOBACCO JOURNAL, 184, MAIDEN LANE (CORNER OF WATER STREET), NEW YORK. Oscar Hammerstein, Editor. Subscription: $3.00 per annum. VIEW YORK TOBACCO LEAF, Organ of the Tobacco IN Trade of the United States. Published weekly. Subscription, 20/- per Annum, post free to any part of the United Kingdom. Sole Agents for the United Kingdom— Cope Bros. & Co., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by whom Advertisements and Subscriptions will be received. Specimen copy sent for Id. postage stamp.
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Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made from a peculiar kind of Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking of this Tobacco is said to give relief in cases of Asthma.
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NoTiaLvoUL]	julyTisso^	i^smX‘LL7
gUnsc^auin.
The German word for Seafoam is Meerschaum, and the word Meerschaum was applied to what is now a famous substance, from the belief that this substance was a product of the sea— was a kind of hardened foam. The belief, which soon proved to be a myth, had a charm just like that other myth which represented Venus as springing from the foam of the sea, an origin that procured for her the name of Anadyomene. Yet in regard to meerschaum much still remains mythical. Rash statements are made; conflicting and confusing statistics perplex us; and we have to seize the truth, and often dubious truth, from the grudging depths of a chaos of possibilities. In sober verity, some one needs to do for meerschaum what Tiedemann did for the History of Tobacco. During the year 1878 a history of meerschaum was published by Alexander Ziegler, a voluminous writer, who had already treated the subject. But though Ziegler resides at Ruhla, which is one of the chief centres of meerschaum manufacture, his book, valuable in some respects, is much less trustworthy than we had reasonably expected it to be. What can we think of an author who is so careless, or so ignorant, as to convert Romano Paul, so well known to every one familiar with the early records of Tobacco, into Roman Paul, and to commit other blunders of the like stamp ? Certain solid facts, however, respecting meerschaum—or, as it would be more proper to call it, magnesite—are easily ascertainable. Meerschaum, or magnesite, is a mineral found in various parts of the world, but chiefly, as concerns both quantity and quality, at Eskischehr, which occupies the site of the ancient Dorykeum, a city of Asia Minor, lying on the Thymbris, now called Pursak, an affluent of the Sangarius, now called Sakaria, which, to the east of Constantinople, flows into the Black Sea. Eskischehr means Old Town, and is applied to several places in Asia Minor. This particular Eskischehr, which may be viewed as the meerschaum capital, is described as a wretched heap of two thousand mud huts. By means of steam, Eskischehr is much more accessible than it was a few years ago; and between it and Constantinople there is now telegraphic communication. To the south of Eskischehr is Kutahia, the ancient Cotyseum, which Xenophon speaks of as Ceramea Agora, a Pottery Market. This statement is interesting, for it suggests that possibly magnesite, or something kindred to magnesite, was employed in the manufacture of pottery ware. In any case, we are at liberty to conjecture that from a remote period magnesite, which, among other attributes, is said to have detergent power, was not unknown. Indeed, from that spontaneous and gradual development which characterises the world and human affairs, we may suppose that magnesite had one by one served those uses which at last suggested its conversion into pipe heads, just as the Red man of America was drawn by instinct toward that Red earth which he found most suitable to be moulded into a smoking instrument. No kind of history is so apocryphal, so swarms with fictions, as anecdotical history. It is too often either puerile gossip or gross exaggeration. There is a story that early in the last century a cobbler at Pesth was the accidental inventor of meerschaum pipes, or, at least, of that peculiar mode of colouring them which has such fascination for many smokers. But a moment’s consideration must show that the story is wholly absurd, wholly lacks historical credibility.. In consonance with Oriental glories and splendours, it was in the East that pipes were first articles of luxury; and meerschaum pipes must naturally have come as the companions of still more gorgeous Oriental pipes. By the contagion of example
and the charm of novelty, the meerschaum pipes must gradually have found their way westward from Turkey. Kill-Keffi, the name given in Anatolia to the magnesite which, after many manipulations and peregrinations, finds its way to the smoker’s eager and enchanted lips, is most appropriate, and is equivalent to the German Schausnthon and the English Foam Clay, as picturing a certain effervescing attribute. Passing by the magnesite which is met with (or said to be met with) in Greece, in France, in Spain, in Portugal in Canada, and in other places, let us fix our attention, as alone of commercial and general importance, on that which is found to the south of Eskischehr. Foam clay, or 'magnesite, belongs io a family of minerals called in German Speckstein, Seifenstein, or Steatit; in English, soapstone or steatite. It is described as a hydrated silicate of magnesia, or a compound of magnesia, flint, and water, in varying proportions; the yellow or brown tinge it sometimes has is derived from the silicate of iron. In a rough way, and without the exactest accuracy of a chemical formula, it may be stated that silicate forms nearly two-thirds of Turkish magnesite, magnesia nearly a third, water nearly a tenth. There are, besides, insignificant fractions of calcareous earth and other ingredients. The French author Magnier states that the magnesite is embedded in serpentine, a sort of green rock which, like magnesite, is formed of silicate of magnesia combined with the hydrate of magnesia. The deposits of magnesite exist at a depth of from thirty to forty feet, and are of inconsiderable thickness. They are worked by means of shafts and of stalls or galleries. So narrow are the shafts that the Russian Tchiohatcheff, who, from 1847 to 1858, traversed Asia Minor in all directions, and who had unexampled opportunities of surveying and studying the Eskischehr region, shrank from making what he regarded as the perilous descent. An Englishman would have been bolder. The mining is of the most primitive, most improvident kind, and thus the miner’s life is often lost along with the treasures he was seeking. The pieces of magnesite, the “meerschaum stones,’* are milkwhite when taken fresh from the ground; they are very irregular in form, and very various in size, some being not larger than a nut, and some forming a solid mass of more than a cubic foot. The largest stones are, for obvious reasons, most in request. At the outset the mineral is so soft that it can be cut with a knife as easily as cheese. The stones have first to be cleared from the red fat earth, a finger thick, which covers them. Then they are dried for five or six days in the sun, or for eight or ten days in hot rooms; then they are cleaned anew; then they are polished with wax; then they are sorted; then they are packed with cotton wool in chests for exportation, each chest containing only a single quality. A chest weighs from sixty to eighty pounds, and contains from thirty to forty of the largest stones, from eighty to a hundred of the middle-sized, from two to three hundred of the smaller, from six hundred to twelve hundred of the smallest. The miners seem to form small guilds, each consisting of from forty to fifty members, the individual member getting his fair share of the profits. These must be small and precarious. The Turkish Government demands twelve and a half per cent, at the place of excavation, and another tax of twelve and a half per cent, when the mineral is ready for exportation. So that the miner is heavily burdened. His occupation, moreover, is supremely unhealthy, which we can readily conceive from the confined air, and from the moist character of the strata through which he has to work his way. The transport of the prepared magnesite to the coast is by means of caravans, in which, besides horses and mules, camels are employed. After the chests have arrived
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496	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[July, 1880.	
at the Gulf of Nicomedia (Karamursal), they are conveyed, the export duty having first been paid, in steamers or in sailing vessels to Constantinople or Trieste. The trade seems to have greatly increased; for while only 3000 chests were exported in 1855, 11,000 were exported in 1867, 11,500 in 1869, and 10,000 in 1871. These three last figures, however, show that the trade, like other trades, is subject to fluctuations. It looks as if the commerce in magnesite or meerschaum would fall more and more into the hands of foreigners: for meerschaum merchants, chiefly Germans, have established themselves at Eskischehr and Broussa. In the grand upheaval and transfigurement to which Asia Minor may now look forward, the meerschaum traffic may be expected enormously to increase, the modes of mining immensely to improve. Fresh deposits of great richness may also be discovered. From the depths of the earth, where it had slumbered for countless ages, the magnesite has come forth to the light of the sun, to be transformed, by gifted artists, into an object of beauty and joy and almost of adoration. In the hands of the artists, chemical treatment precedes or accompanies mechanical treatment. Both are elaborate and prolonged. The fullest and most trustworthy account of them is contained in the admirable article on meerschaum by Altmiitter, in Prechtl’s “ Technologische Encyclopedic,” the only thorough and masterly treatise on meerschaum that we have met. The chemical treatment serves two purposes: to prepare the material for being carved, turned, or otherwise manipulated, and to adapt it for colouring, in which the enthusiastic and skilful smoker himself becomes the chief and mighty artist. The most beautiful meerschaum pipes are made at Vienna; but Paris, and even New York, have entered into rivalry with the Austrian capital. Inferior pipes in vast numbers are manufactured at Lemgo, and especially at Buhla. It is not merely from whole meerschaum stones that the pipe heads are shaped, but from the chips or other waste, after being reduced to a pulp and then hardened. All attempts to imitate the so-called meerschaum pipes with other materials than magnesite have failed. In its sublime simplicity, therefore, or adorned with precious jewels or the precious metals, the magnesite pipe is sure to maintain its proud sovereignty. | Ueto UicoHan ^tjion.* VIL The ambitious and benevolent scheme of Attilio had been brought to nought. Perchance, even if realised, its success could only have been temporary; for, if other circumstances had been favourable, there remained a terrible, an invincible fatality, the unchangeable character of the Indians. Wounds, disappointments, sorrow’s—it might even be said despairs— hindered for a long time Attilio from recovering health either of body or of mind. A change, however, of residence and of climate produced marvellous results. Senor Perez had come to the ettancia where Attilio was lying ill, and had fervently urged him to return to Buenos Ayres; but to this proposal Attilio had the strongest repugnance. To another plan Attilio gave much more eager heed. Though his friend Watson had estancias in so many provinces, yet the fixed and favourite residence of the family, the Quinta Del Jasmin, was in the province of Tucuman, and not very far from the city of Tucuman. What an estancia in the South American sense is, most readers know. It may be described as a large bovine or ovine establishment, an immense farm for the rearing of cattle or sheep, both of which are generally “killed on the premises.” A quinta is a country residence where, though business is not wholly forgotten, pleasure is chiefly sought. The Quinta Del Jasmin—that is to say, the Jessamine Quinta—was a South American Eden. This Eden was occupied by the Englishman James Watson, who had come to South America thirty years before, and had gradually created for himself a colossal fortune; by his wife, Sarah; , by his daughter, Eva, seventeen years old; and by his four sons, boys varying in age from six to twelve. Watson was a natural optimist. He had not extraordinary talent; but his activity was immense, and his temper was very sweet and joyous. He said that, if men took the tenth part of the trouble to be happy which they employed to be unhappy, the world would be a Paradise. Of three things he declared that he could boast: that he had never passed a day without an excellent appetite; that he had never doubted the truth of his own religion (the Anglican); and that he had never met any human being, however stupid or bad, who had not some good and luminous points. Oi course, we are reproducing these statements from Attilio’s last South American letter to his friend Giovanni. The chief interest of the letter is the influence which Eva insensibly gains over Attilio, alike by her emotional opulence and by her moral and intellectual superiority. Nature, the best of physicians, brought back to Attilio his health of body; Eva was a diviner physician than Nature: she brought back to him his health of soul—and health of soul is only another name for happiness in the best and highest sense. As Maria was a worshipper of the Good, Giovanni a worshipper of the True, Eva was a ♦11 Dio Ignoto. Di Paolo Mantegazza, Milano. Libreria Editrice G. Bri&ola. 1877.	worshipper of the Beautiful. She admired, she adored Creation, as an immense artistic panorama or picture; her tastes, her tendencies were wholly artistic, though she had far more earnestness than artists in general display. In all artistic accomplishments she excelled; but supremely in drawing. In signal contrast to Eva is William Simpson, an English inmate of the Quinta Del Jasmin. Belonging to a rich London family, he had come in his youth to South America for the sake of his health. Fascinated by the Argentine climate, and still more by a beautiful lady, a native of Buenos Ayres, he had established himself in the Argentine Republic, and married with great precipitation the object of his attachment. But, enamoured of the sciences of literature and of art, he converted his house into a library and museum, and welcomed with lavish hospitality the most distinguished strangers, and all the literary and political notabilities of Buenos Ayres. More and more slovenly in his attire, and always with a book in his hand, Simpson was not long in exciting the aversion of his wife, who would have liked to sw’im in luxury and to revel evermore in festivities and in tertulias. After a few months this disparity of tastes led to reproaches and to ugly domestic scenes, and the Senora Simpson took no pains to conceal her contempt for books and for elderly scholars, whose company her husband preferred to every other. Two years this domestic war continued, and unfortunately no child came to be a peacemaker to these unhappy beings. Who knows how long the wife had been severed in body and in soul from William’ Simpson ? Who knows how long she had, in her own fashion, been seeking revenge ? Certain, at least, it is, that one night, being driven from bed by the excessive, the intolerable summer heat, Simpson went into the patio (court), which was shaded by orange trees, and observed a ladder leaning against the wall dividing his house from that of his neighbour, a handsome but stupid young man of Buenos Ayres, whom he scarcely knew by sight. He stood there, marvelling at the because and the wherefrom ot this ladder, when he heard on the other side of the wall a rapid explosion of obstreperous kisses. Concealing himself behind an orange tree, he saw his wife, who, wrapped by a shawl, after coming down the ladder, went with hasty steps toward the house. William said not a word; but the day after the whole city of Buenos Ayres knew that he had separated from his wife, giving her the half of his property. Abandoning himself to wine, to gambling, and to libertinage, he had in less than two years squandered the other half. Thereupon he left Buenos Ayres and sojourned at Cordova, where he found employment, first as a shopman, and then as a schoolmaster. It was at Cordova that James Watson had become acquainted with him. He offered him the hospitality of the Quinta Del Jasmin, proposing, to spare Simpson’s pride, that Simpson should teach Watson’s children English. But to do duty as a teacher Simpson never for an instant attempted. He simply lived at his ease and according to his own strange ideas, as if he had been a son of the house. His sceptical and cynical theories had at first come into violent conflict with the religious sentiments of the Senora Sarah and her daughter, and they had spoken on the subject with much bitterness to Watson. But he, with his usual tendency to indulgence and mercy, had replied that poor Simpson had his soul lacerated by misfortune, and that he needed to be healed and comforted by the sweet atmosphere of a happy family. Thenceforth no one made any objection to William as a member of the family; for he, with his lurid shadow, made more brilliant and glad the rosy tints of the perfect felicity which in the Quinta Del Jasmin abounded. Simpson was about forty years of age, but looked much older. His face was long. His hair was always in disorder, and always covered with a torn cap. He was shortsighted, and wore spectacles. His chesnut-coloured beard was uncombed. His trousers were in tatters. Winter and summer he wore a blue cloak, which covered a multitude of rags, a dirty shirt, and a hairy breast. He smoked all the day, drank mate all the day, discoursed eternally about Doubt, according to him the only serious thing to which the thoughts of man can be directed. When alone, Simpson read, read, and insatiably read whatever, written or printed, fell into his hands. Attilio confesses that it keenly pained him io see such a noble intelligence killed by scepticism. Eva had many discussions with this Diogenes of Despair; but they were of a good-natured kind, and chiefly remarkable for badinage, after her father had taught her to tolerate him. She could not wiu him to her worship of the Beautiful, and of God as the source and symbol of Ideal Beauty. Assuredly, however, she helped to deaden somewhat his bitter memories of the Past. Heine said to the unfortunate author, Freidrich Hebbel, who, from his long fight with starvation, to which he at last succumbed, has been called the Poet of Hunger:—“ Our death is the result of the life we have led.” Under the guise of a commonplace this is a profound truth, though its application is modified by accidents and by constitutional tendencies. But in tbe existence of an individual man there are many different kinds of death, and none of them is so awful as that which comes to him through disenchantments. The Ideal Self di£s along with the Ideal World in which it had dwelt and exalted. So that it may be said that there is never any real misanthropy in the sense of dislike to mankind as they are. It was a phantom that Timon loved, and it was a phantom that he hated. The Timonism of William Simpson was the product of dis-
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enchantment; and, therefore, we may say that, like all Timonism, it manifested profound ignorance of Human Nature; for Human Nature may often provoke contempt, but never deserves to be exalted to the dignity of hatred.
In all literary art there is, consciously or unconsciously, reminiscence The great poet, for instance, is himself, but he is still more the thousand great poets who have gone before him. Indeed, as in the case of Goethe, the greatness of a poet may often consist in the force and the extent of his assimilative faculty. The Muses are the daughters of Memory; and sympathetic, assimilative, procreative reminiscence might be accepted as a definition of Genius, if, indeed, Genius can be defined. But reminiscenoe may be almost exclusively reminiscence; and we cannot recall any English writer of works of fiction since Scott in whom reminiscence has not been overwhelmingly predominant.
Doubtless Mantegazza is considerably superior to our ordinary novelists. In the characters, however, he presents to us in this book there is too much reminiscence; and in nothing is reminiscence so obvious as in the delineation of William Simpson, in which there are traces of Byron chiefly, and, in a subordinate degree, of Balzac, Eugene Sue, Victor Hugo, and others.
But it is principally Eva with whom we have now to do—Eva, the priestess, the prophetess, the queen of the Beautiful. From Art, but above all from Nature, she gives Attilio a thousand lessons in the Beautiful, which he is the more prompt, the more glad to learn and to apply that she is herself so lovely and so charming. Some exquisite scenes, which take us into the exuberant glory of South American forests, which no one has described so well as Mantegazza, we should rejoice to reproduce, if the limits of space did not warn us to pass them by, as we have often already passed by so much that is fascinating, suggestive, sublime.
By “elective affinity,” and by the worship of the Beautiful, Attilio and Eva made, as they could not fail to make, the discovery that they could best serve and adore “Il Diolgnoto” if existence were intertwined with existence, if Attilio and Eva became man and wife. Without abridgment, we give the concluding pages of the book:—“From the day in which Giovanni and Attilio met on the Sasso Melgonaro ten years have elapsed, and we, taking as guide the letters and the journals of the two men, have accompanied them, now following them from hour to hour and from minute to minute, now leaping over months and years. The kind reader can by his imagination fill up these gaps, which the loss of many letters has inevitably left in the narrative. We have simply to tell you what has happened to Giovanni and to Attilio since we left them, the one at Oggobio, the other at Tucuman. Attilio had married Eva, but, by a secret covenant, they had sworn not to regard each other as husband and spouse till they arrived in Italy, where, in Florence, the cradle and the home of the Beautiful, they purposed giving each other the first kiss, consecrating thus their love with their aesthetics! religion. From Florence he had written to Giovanni, fixing the meeting on the Sasso Melgonaro the first day of October, a day chosen by him because it was the birthday of Eva. He had parted, with great sorrow, from Senor Perez, with whom he had regulated his affairs in a manner honourable to both. Eva, who knew how he had loved Dolores and Katriel, had wished to visit, at La Recoleta, the tombs of the two unfortunate girls, and, together with Attilio, had wept long and abundantly there. She was not one of those women who love more from pride than from the heart, are as jealous of the Past as of the Present, and like men who have never loved and never been loved. With infinite trouble, Attilio had succeeded in obtaining from Mariano the bones of the young Indian girl, and had placed them in the cemetery of Buenos Ayres beside those of poor Dolores. One of the most renowned Italian sculptors had, commissioned by Attilio, erected a touching monument to Katriel, in which she was represented in the act of receiving a blow of the lance in the heart while defending her friend, her husband. The wild expression of this Ranquelina girl was idealised by Art, and no one could behold the monument without being deeply moved. At Oggobio, also, great and strange things had come to pass. One fine day, the Marchese De Lami, after dinner, while enjoying the ecstasies of a good digestion, had been overwhelmed by a stroke of apoplexy, without being able to utter a single word. Doctor Giovanni had not been summoned, and did not know what had happened till the following morning, when he received a note from Maria, containing these words:—‘The Marchese De Lami died yesterday suddenly. Do not try to see me. Go to Milan at once, and find someone to occupy your post at Oggobbio. I feel the need of living a long while alone. Farewell, my Giovanni.’ The doctor started for Milan, and passed a whole year without seeing Maria, because to his ardent and despairing letters she made no other reply than these words: ‘Wait a little longer.’ These arid and curt replies were, however, always welcomed with ineffable hope and infinite joy by Giovanni; because in the first months they were signed Maria, then in the later months Your Maria. The year for him was a long, depressing, restless year. He had plunged anew into his microscopical studies, and had obtained from the Oepedale Maggiore permission to give a special course of Micrography for the use of physicians. When a year had elapsed from the death of the Marchese, the doctor received from Oggobio a letter, which he could not open at
once, could not open at all, without a profound trembling of his whole frame. Long had he waited for this hour, for this letter; because he had imagined, indeed he was persuaded that this hour, this letter, would change his whole relations to the Marchesa, though she had made no explicit declaration on the subject. He was not mistaken, for the letter contained these words:—‘My Giovanni,—Come.	Your Maria.’ He
did not run, no, he flew to Oggobio; and when these two angels met they threw themselves into each other’s arms, they kissed each other. It was the first kiss they had given each other mouth to mouth since they had met in this world; and, when lip joined lip, these two beings seized all the voluptuousness, all the joys, all the ardours of which the sons and the daughters of Adam are capable. Well had Giovanni and Maria merited this profound, this infinite felicity. They had dreamed of it, they had had a foretaste of it for years and years. But when they felt it burning on their lips they thought that they must die, for it was far higher than aU fancy of expectation and all capacity of human nerves. Hand joined in hand, they sat on the sofa, pale and trembling, as if they had committed the greatest of crimes, or as if they had tasted a paradise of ages in an instant, and for an hour they could not speak. They gazed at each other and smiled; they gazed at each other and wept. Virtue alone could produce such raptures. When Giovanni received the invitation of Attilio he replied:—‘/also am ready. On the first October I shall be on the lake. And verily on the first October the wild and lonely Sasso Melgonaro beheld, a little before sunset, on its rugged rocks, four children of Adam who had succeeded in attaining felicity on this earth, who had been fortunate enough to idealise life. The two friends had brought their companions with them; and while Giovanni and Attilio in a long and warm embrace told each other how happy they were at meeting once more after ten years, and after so many mischances and vicissitudes, Eva and Maria, two different types of feminine beauty, looked at each other as smilingly, and clasped each other’s hands as warmly, as if they had been old friends. And in truth, though they had never before met, they knew each other and loved each other. They were the flesh and blood and soul of Attilio and of Giovanni, and knew each other’s history, and they gazed at each other and again gazed with a tender and affectionate curiosity. The sun went down, and from the height of Mott Morsciven, which dominates Carmero, darting obliquely his showers of rays, scattered shadows more or less dense on the vines which had already taken a yellow or russet hue, and on the beech trees which had already a fulvous tint. The mountains in the late autumn seem like enormous wild animals covered with rough and many-coloured furs, and when the sun rains his rays obliquely on the vast picture, there are few glories of Nature equal thereto. Maria clung closely to her Giovanni, who had thrown his arms round her neck; and Attilio had drawn Eva’s head near and nearer to his own, and these two lovers were likewise locked in a glad embrace. All four watched the loveliest of sunsets; all four, deeply moved, remained in the deepest silence. This silence Eva, more expansive than the rest, was the first to break:— ‘Why can we not arrest the sun in his downward march?’ ‘But,’ suggested Maria, ‘the sun returns on the morrow to illuminate our heaven.’ ‘ Yes,’ said Giovanni, ‘ thus it is with the Ideal: it sets every day of the life of man; it sets in every age, and in every grand historical epoch; but it rises more hot and bright than ever to warm and illuminate new hours and new epochs of human existence. The Ideal is our God ; it is the Unknown God." ‘ And we have found this God,’ cried Attilio, ‘ Thou adorest Him under the form of the Good, I under that of the Beautiful; others adore him under the guise and the garb of the True; but no man who is higher than a ruminating animal can Eve without religion. No; the coarse needs of the animal, even though aggrandised and flattered by gold and pride, cannot suffice for a living soul, and I feel myself this day as religious as thy Maria who has remained Catholic, as thou thyself who art Deist, as my Eva who professes the Anglican faith. Above the gods is God; above religions is religion. The language is one, the dialects are many; but all who adore the Ideal are brothers, are bound together by one covenant, ought to give each other the right hand of fellowship, ought never to frown at each other, ought to respect each other.* ‘ And above all ought to love each other!’ exclaimed Maria; ‘ and who of us has the right to claim the monopoly of all truths ? And who is proud enough to deem himself infallible? Let us love each much, let us love each always; let us love each other all. Let no tear be shed on this earth through our fault; let many smiles be the offspring of our thought and of our labours. Grief is a crime if it arises through anything we have done.’ ‘And grief is also a stupidity,’ said Eva; ‘ the Beautiful is for me the Good likewise ; and when a thing is beautiful as well as good, how can it fail to be true?’ ‘Yes, yes,’ cried Attilio and Giovanni, as if in chorus, and as if in rivalry; ‘ the Beautiful and the Good are always the True, and life is not a dream, not a bitterness; it is a beautiful, and good, and true thing, and we must bless it, and with our last breath we must leave it to our children lovelier and sweeter than we received it from our fathers.’ ‘But of the other life you say nothing?’ observed Maria, interrogatively. ‘ The other life! the other life,’ said Attilio, with a sigh, ‘ is the mystery of hope.’ The sun had set; the clouds scattered over the sky arrayed them-
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selves in purple and in gold, and the waves, curled by the first breeze of the evening, caressed with their ripples the rocks of the Sasso Melgonaro. 0! kind reader, when you visit that solitary mass of rock, remember that it was the witness of great loves and of profound meditations. It is a stone blessed by affection and by thought, the two chief joys of life.”
We have called our series of papers “A New Nicotian Region,” but perhaps we might more appropriately have calledit “A New Nervose Region;” for, though there is all through the book a Nicotian flavour, it is pre-eminently distinguished likewise for its nervose suggestions. Mat6 plays a part as important as Tobacco. South America is, more than any other region of the world, steeped in the Nicotian and the Nervose; and it is South America which is the scene of the most important events. It is our profound conviction that without the Nervose, the Good, the True, and the Beautiful cannot be adequately worshipped. A catholic faith and a catholic sympathy are the logical necessities of each other. With that faith, with that sympathy, war the puritanic sumphs with whom England swarms, who would sacrifice the Good and the Beautiful to their narrow and nagging conception of the True. They start with the indubitable proposition that temperance is an admirable virtue. Thereupon they maintain that spontaneous temperance and enforced and painful abstinence are identical. Hence they are of necessity the greatest enemies of temperance. The most temperate people in the world, and likewise the most religious—the Spaniards—have no puritanic tendency. Possibly the extreme temperance of the Spaniards is of Saracenic origin; and the temperance of the Arab may have its origin in the privations to which the desert accustoms and trains him. As the Roman Catholic are more temperate than the Protestant nations, we might be tempted to believe that rites and symbols tend to promote sobriety, if we did not remember that the Russians are as famous for their intemperance as for their ruffianism and rapacity, and that the Greek Catholic abounds as much in rites and symbols as the Roman Catholic religion. In any case, the perfect man is, by the very fact of his perfection, the temperate man; but his temperance includes a hearty relish of all the gifts of Nature, and pre-eminently of Nervose Aliments, as being the most precious, the most delicious of those gifts. That the perfect man should embrace in his adoration of the God both Known and Unknown, the GooJ, the True, and the Beautiful, is undeniable; but all men, whether perfect or imperfect, are as naturally idolaters as they are naturally religious beings; and their instincts compel them to shun the Vague and the Abstract.
Slang.
Under the name of Slang are included all those words, or combinations of words, which deviate from regular, recognised, and classical speech. They may arise either from the exuberance, the degeneracy, or the eccentricity of a nation’s life; or they may arise from professional whim, professional convenience, professional necessity, professional secrecy, professional exclusiveness. For the most part they spring from sheer vulgarity, and perish as speedily as they come. Sometimes they fight their way to a classical position. The French word Cui has several meanings, none of them noble; from Cui, however, and from the old verb buter, to strike, or overthrow, comes culbuter, which claims admission into the best society, but which was, nevertheless, begotten and nurtured in the slang region. Humbug, originally appertaining to the domain of slang, expresses so well the grand characteristic of the English community—and, in a lesser degree, of other communities—that it has long ago conquered its right of citizenship, and has even been admitted as an honoured guest, into the German language. With slang, provincialisms have nothing in common. Indeed, a dialect is more jealous of its dignity, and is more conscious and proud of its resources, than a language, so called by way of distinction. One of the richest, purest, sweetest, and ten-derest of dialects—the Scottish dialect—never admitted a word or a combination of words related to slang, however remotely. Burns, who had the gleggest of intellects, along with an imagination incomparably vivid and a heart incomparably passionate, was always loyal, when writing in the Scottish dialect, to the sovereign classicality of the dialect. To speak or to write slangfully would have seemed to him as monstrous and as degrading as to do an unmanly or unworthy thing. Professor Blackie, a genial and gifted, but vain and vapoury mortal, has made a prodigious fuss about the Celtic language and literature. Now I, the writer of this, am by name and nature much more of a Celt than Professor Blackie, who, if his negrohead (or, rather, negrotail) name is to be accepted as evidence, is a kind of mongrel Saxon. But, though I am an intense Celt, I feel, notwithstanding, that a professorship of the Scottish Language, Literature, and History should have gone before aught Celtic whatsoever. Indeed, the one is the indispensable introduction to the other. The Celts were a divine r-ce, perchance the divinest of all races. They perished^ however, from their very nobleness, and coarser races—chiefly the Germanic—took their place. There
are no pure races in the world, and the normal Frenchman is only a dwindled Roman. The Highlanders of Scotland alone represent the Celtic family. According to the reluctant confession of their enemies, the Germans, the Celts were tall and beautiful. Now, the Welsh are short and not beautiful; and the Irish of the prevailing type are in general by no means handsome, and have nothing but their lofty stature to plead in their favour. It is plain that both in Wales and in Ireland the Celts conquered tribes very different from themselves, and that these tribes assimilated the Celtic tongue along with other Celtic vitalities. Is it not manifest that we cannot judge the Celt by dubious mutilated corrupt remains of his language? The Goths, as we all know, played a great part in the drama of human evolution. Yet we should know nothing of the Gothic language, unless one of the Gothic bishops, Ulphilas, had translated into that language the whole of the Bible. Only fragments of his version survive, and to all students of the linguistical science, and especially to Scotsmen, those fragments are supremely interesting and suggestive. Yret they have not much more than a linguistical value, for they reveal nothing of the Gothic character, with which the chroniclers of Gothic deeds alone acquaint us. In like fashion, the Celtic language of the Scottish Highlanders has no historical significance; whereas the Scottish dialect is interwoven with what is most momentous in Scottish history. Dialects are always homely, and, like all homely things, are sufficient unto themselves and to those who employ them. Hence dialects offer no room for either caricature or caprice. It is languages in their starched aspect and academical attitude which provoke to revolt and to ridicule. Germany is saved from slang because there is a notable multiplicity of dialects in Germany; Italy, because the classical element appertains to the very blood of the Italians as a people; Spain, because the Spaniard, the only Christian believer still remaining, has the same reverence for the Spanish language as for the Catholic Church, and revels too spontaneously and exultingly in proverbs to let slang gain the slightest sway over him. The three countries in which slang rules with a wild and wayward force are England, France, and the United States of America. In France slang, apart from all other agencies and manifestations, is a protest against the pedantry and the spurious classicality which sever literature from the national fife. But in England and the United States slang is a proclamation of war against the social despotism and social imposture which make England and the United States execrable and contemptible to the whole world, and even, possibly, to the inhabitants of the moon.
Into the Nicotian domain slang has entered, influenced neither by very deep reasons nor by very frivolous causes, but more by that genial playfulness, that sympathetic irony, that disdain for Mother Grundy and Grandmother Richardson and Greatgrandmother Drysdale which every true smoker, every fervent adorer of Tobacco, instinctively and irresistibly cherishes.
Through Grose, Hotten, and others, and through our own labours, English Nicotian Slang is familiar to our readers. We shall, therefore, now give a glance at French Nicotian Slang, by way of variety.
Recently M. Lucien Rigaud has published a “ Dictionnaire Du Jargon Parisien.” In a very lively and ingenious preface, M. Rigaud traces not merely the origin of Argot, the French word for Slang, but of the thing itself, and he generously refers to Francisque Michel and others who have treated the subject before him. The “ Dictionary of the Parisian Jargon,” of the “Old Argot” and the “Modern Argot,” is, on the whole, a painful book, because it reveals so much of the licentiousness, the turpitude of a great capital, and desperate attempts to be witty where the only result is silliness or obscenity. The Nicotian Slang is neither better no worse than the other parts of the book. We shall give as many specimens of it as our space permits. Some twelve phrases are untranslateable, and some may lose their pith or pungency in the process of translation.
1.	To make our absinth when speaking.—Dr. Limel has given the name of absinthisme to the chronic malady resulting from drinking absinth (Latin, absinthium) to excess. Absinthisme brings its victims to hysteria, then to epilepsy, then to idiocy, and then to death. When a dirty smoker, spitting right and left, contrives to spit even into his own glass of absinth before he has poured in the water, he is said “to make his own absinth while speaking.”
2.	Aristo.—Slang for an aristocrat. For the workman the aristo is the fop who has very fine gloves; for the voyou (the gamin of Paris) the workman who smokes a penny cigar; for the pegriot (thief of a low type) the voyou who has just picked up a half-smoked cigar.
3.	Beige (Belgium).—A clay pipe made in Belgium.
4.	Blague.—This word means “ Tobacco pouch ”; but it also has the sense of “boastfulness.” M. Rigaud says:— “M. F. Michel derives blague from the German balg, a Tobacco bladder, with the transposition of two of the letters. M. Misard maintains that the word comes from bragart braguar, which served to designate either a person richly attired or an object of luxury. As to M. Lettr6, he seeks a Gaelic origin for the word. According to him, blague descends from blagh, to blow, to brag. Let this be as it may, the word was employed first of all and propagated by soldiers at the beginning of this century, in the sense of gasconnade, raillery, lying. Blagues a Tabac, “Tobacco pouches,” *re
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those female bosoms called which, according to the expression of one of our most voluminous actresses, could pass through a curtain ring.”
5.	Blanchisseuse de tuyaux de pipes.—This expression is harmless enough in itself, but it has an obscene meaning when applied to a woman of the most depraved type.
6.	Petit Bordeaux.—“Small Bordeaux.” Cigar made at Bordeaux or Toulouse, and the smallest of all the cigars sold for a sou. •'n? 8CW
7.	Bouffarde.—A pipe. In the work entitled “Paris Fumeur” it is stated:—“A painter is fond of saying ‘My bouffarde,’ when speaking of his pipe.
8.	Bouffarder.— To smoke a pipe.
9.	Bout coup#.—Cut end. Cigar of a sou, cut at both ends.
10.	Bnile-gueule.— Burn-throat. A “cutty,” blackened by use.
11.	Camelot.—A sluggard, who has a dash of the thief. In the neighbourhood of theatres, in the evening, he has a variety of occupations, which all serve to disguise and facilitate his intention to plunder. Picking up the ends of cigars, or opening obligingly the doors of carriages, he steals handkerchiefs or watches if he has the chance.
12.	Caporal.—Corporal; Tobacco for smoking. Thus designated by the soldiers to distinguish it from the canteen Tobacco. Caporal is for the soldier superior Tobacco, Tobacco that, like the corporal, has been promoted.
13.	Carotte.—Carrot. A He, invented with the design of getting money. It was soldiers who first made use of the expression, which contains an allusion to the carottes of Tobacco. When soldiers ask money, it is almost always under the pretence of buying chewing Tobacco, known as carotte. A carotte of Tobacco is about a foot in length.
14.	Chien.- -Dog. The name given in Parisian jargon to a miser. Rigaud gives from A. Tauzen a Nicotian illustration:—“I can tell you, that fellow of yours, my dear sister, is very chien (shabby). He takes one of my cigars and a light, and never gives me more than two ronds (sous).”
15.	Chiffande; Chiffoniere.—Female rag picker. A pipe, the tube whereof is broken close to the pipe head.
16.	“It is not worth a chique” that is, “it is worth nothing.”—Charles Nisard says:—“In the fourteenth century chique was the name given in Dauphine to a piece of money which was the smallest and least valuable of all.” Rigaud, on the contrary, declares:—“We must rather seek the etymology in the chique (“chaw” or “quid”) of Tobacco, which is assuredly not of very notable value.” Chique is the name of a kind of louse.
17.	Cinq centimados; Cinq centimadorZs.—A pompous name given to a cigar of five centimes—that is, a one sou cigar. A voyou follows a gommeux, the name now in fashion in Paris for a dandy. The pommeux throws away the fragment of a cigar; the voyou picks it up, then cries indignantly: “A five centimados! A fine reward for following him for half-an-hour. Go, you humbug, go. Yet that creature calls himself a gentleman! ”
18.	The vigorous, but by no means elegant expression: “That cuts your throat at fifteen paces,” is applied to a strong and disagreeable smeU.—Rigaud says :—“ If someone who speaks to you has eaten garlic, Gruyere cheese, swallowed some glasses of wine, and smoked one or two pipes in addition, all this cuts your throat at fifteen paces.”
19.	Cramer une seche.—Smoke a cigarette. “In the jargon of the rhetoricians, who ought, however, rather to say ertmer; word for word: operate the cremation of a cigar.”
20.	Crapulos; Crapuladores.—Ci^ of a sou; a cigar appertaining to the crapulous domain. Crapuladores is the parody of caztdorbs, one of the best brands of Havana cigars. The one is the Alpha, the other the Omega oi smoking Tobacco.
21.	Culottage.—The action of colouring a pipe. Culotter: To colour a pipe according to the rules of the smoker’s art. Pipe CulotUe: Pipe coloured by the use of Tobacco. Nez adott^: The nose of a drunkard which has tints as hot as those of a culotted pipe. Culotteur de pipes: A man who continually haunts taverns. The word culotter means to breech, to put in breeches; so that there is something fanciful and amusing in its appheation to pipes.
22.	Debourrer sa Pipe.—This expression belongs to the jargon of workmen, and has a coarse sense.
23.	Effete de Poche.—Pocket effects. An expression to indicate and condemn the ostentatious showing of money; for instance, a gommeux takes out of his pocket two hundred francs in gold when he wants to buy a sou cigar!
24.	Emplatre.—Plaster. A word employed by fraudulent gamblers to indicate the placing of a series of cards in a determinate order. Those gamblers hide the emplatre in a snuff-box with a double bottom, which they conceal under their arm, and which by a dexterous movement is put on the table at a propitious moment.
25.	Fabricant de Tabati^res.—A maker of snuff-boxes. Has a coarse meaning, into the details of which we need not enter.
26.	Factionnaires.—Sentinels. Here, by a kind of forced wit, there is an allusion to snuff-boxes; but the meaning is as coarse as in the preceding case.
27.	Fanfe; Fonfit re .-Snuff-box. Fanfounier: To take snuff. Fanfouineur: A man who takes snuff. Fanfouineuse: A woman who takes snuff. AU words of capricious formation.
28.	Feuille de chou.—Cabbage leaf. Feuille de platane: Platane leaf, a bad cigar, a cigar sold for a sou.
29.	Flambarde.—According to the “ Paris Fumeur,” quoted by Rigaud, the Flambarde is the boatman’s pipe.
30.	Ftie he.—An arrow. A sou in the jargon of the workmen. Deux Jleches de Saint-Pbre: Two sous’ worth of Tobacco.
31.	Vn qui fume et qui ne crache pas.—Very coarse, and not at all witty, is this expression. Avoir fumA une pipe neuve: To have smoked a new pipe; to be ill in consequence of drunkenness. Fumer sans Tabac: To smoke without Tobacco; to be angry or to lose patience. Fumer a froid: To smoke cold; to go through the form of smoking a pipe in which there is no Tobacco.
32.	Gendarme.—A sou cigar with a cut end.
33.	Gicler, Gigler, Giscler.—Words intended to indicate the fashion of spitting peculiar to those who chew Tobacco.
34.	En griller une.—To broil or grill one (pipe); to smoke a pipe. Griller une seche : To smoke a cigarette.
35.	Infectados.—A sou cigar.
36.	Fumer comme une Locomotive.—To smoke like a locomotive; to smoke very much and very fast.
37.	Languette de Tregie.—A longuette of clover; Tobacco for chewing.
38.	Marseillaise.—Clay pipe made at Marseille. The “Paris Fumeur” says:—The pipe called a Marseillaise had for a long time the exclusive sympathies of all sincere and convinced smokers. Rigaud adds:—“The Marseillaise is Bome-what forsaken nowadays. It seems that the fumaillons find that it does not culotte fast enough. Albert Flocon, member of the Provisional Government of 1848, smoked nothing but Marseillaises, and he greatly contributed to make them fashionable in the clubs.
39.	Mego.—Fragment of a cigar; fragment of a cigarette.
40-	Orphelin.—Orphan.	“End of a cigar; end of a
cigarette reduced to its last expression.”
41.	Partagas.—“Superior Havana cigar, from the name of the maker; as dear as the Petit Bordeaux is cheap, and sometimes quite as bad.”
42.	Perlot; Perlo.—Smoking Tobacco, in the jargon of the Chiffonniers, or Rag gatherers.
43.	Petit.—The end of a cigar still smokable, in the jargon of the voyous. According to the length of the fragment, it is a Mego, an Orphelin, or a Petit.
44.	Casser sa Pipe.—To break one’s pipe; to die. The dead no longer smoke anything but—the earth.
45.	C'est bon dans la pipe.—It is good in the pipe—that augments our comfort; that is good for our pocket; in the jargon of troopers. It is the military equivalent of “ That puts butter in the spinage.”
46.	Piper.—To smoke a pipe, a cigar, or a cigarette. Piper comme un Ture: To smoke like a Turk; to smoke excessively.
47.	Poser sa chique et faire le mort.—To put aside our “ chaw ” and sham death. Not to utter a word, and not to stir.
48.	Pot-a-Tabac.—A Tobacco-jar; a person short and fat.
49.	Poussier de Mottes.—Clod-duster; snuff.
50.	Pruneau; Prune.—The Chique; the Quid; the Chaw. A small roll of Tobacco which soldiers, sailors, and many workmen are continually moving about from the one cheek to the other. The chique has the colour of the Pruneau, or Prune; hence this name. One man says to another: “Give me your pruneau; I have swallowed mine; or, “ take out the pruneau.”
51.	Ramastiqueur d'orphelins.—He who picks up and disposes of ends of cigars, or cigarettes.
52.	S'en refiler sous la tube.—This odd expression means to take snuff. The slang word refiler signifies to seek.
53.	Riffaudant, Riffondant.—Cigar. Riffaudante: Pipe, in the jargon of thieves.
54.	Sabler.—To kill, or at least to render insensible, by means of an eel’s skin filled with sand; a murderous mode, which goes back to the time of Vidocq. At present messieurs the thieves sometimes blind their victims with snuff before robbing them. But what seems to be a recent practice among French thieves was a very old practice among English thieves.
55.	Saint Dome.—Smoking Tobacco, in the jargon of workmen. It is an abbreviation of St. Domingo, one of the original homes of Tobacco.
56.	Saint-Pere; Semper.—Smoking Tobacco, in the jargon of the workmen. We are here face to face with two modes of spelling, which supply us with two etymologies: Saint-P^re because Tobacco reigns over the world of smokers, where it is in odour of sanctity as the Saint-P^re (Holy Father) of the Vatican reigns over the Catholic world. Semper because this word was thrown into circulation by a Latinist in trouble, who, every time that Tobacco was offered to him, replied Semper, always.
57.	Sapeur.—A cigar almost entire; in the jargon of the people.
58.	SZche; feminine of Sec, Dry.—A cigarette.
59.	Fumer une Souche.—To smoke a stump; to be interred. This is very ghastly.
60.	Souffler des Pois.—To blow peas. To puff in such a way during sleep as to produce a series of sounds like Peuh, Peuh. The variation is Fumer sa Pipe; to smoke one’s pipe.
61.	Donner du Tabac.—To give Tobacco. Coller du Tabac; Coller has the slang sense of To give; and “To give Tobacco ” signifies to thrash or reprimand vigorously.
62.	Manufacture de Tabac.—Tobacco factory ; Barrack, in the slang of troopers.
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63.	Ouvrir la Tabati^re.—This expression is not without wit. but it is more coarse than witty.
64.	Terreau.—Rotten dung; snuff.
65.	Trfyle; Clover. Tr^fouin.—A slang word. Both words signify smoking Tobacco.
66.	Trijfonntre.—A word of fanciful formation: Snuff-box.
67.	Tuber,—To tube; to smoke a pipe.
Such, then, are some swatches, to use a good Scottish word, of French Nicotian Slang. They are interestingas curiosities, yet, even as curiosities, they are not very striking.
^^t ^an of fat^.
[The following sketch is taken from the Atlantic Monthly, the leading magazine of the United States, edited by W. D. HoweU, and including among its contributors nearly all the best known writers of the country, with Emerson and Longfellow to head the list. For a long while past each number has concluded with a miscellany entitled “ The Contributors’ Club.” This is not in the shape of dialogue, nor is it done by a single writer, after the fashion of the “Noctes Ambrosianffi”; nor is it, like the symposium of the Nineteenth Century, a series of essays on the same theme by various writers. In the “ Club ” each contributor discourses on whatever he likes without the least reference to the subject of any of his colleagues. It would be well were the transition from one to the other marked by a “ rule,” or by dots or by a space between the lines; at present it is merely marked by an initial dash, which, as there are, of course, many dashes in the text, is scarcely noticeable, so that the reader may have gone some way with a new writer before he becomes aware that he has left the old.
Our sketch The Man of Truth leads off the Contributors’ Club in the number of the Atlantic Monthly for January, 1880,]
I was sitting, one winter’s morning, in the office of the Blankenburg Salt Works, of which corporation I was then secretary. The Blankenburg salt business did not occupy me more than two or three hours every day, and I had checked the entries in my bank-book, had balanced my cash, and was sitting before the fire smoking a pipe, with my feet on the desk?lid near me, debating whether I should wait and see the “ boss ” of the mine where the Blankenburg Salt Works gets its supply of coal, and who usually dropped in about that hour of the morning, or whether I should get into my buggy and take myself off to another office where I should find another fire, another pipe, another bank-book, and another cash-book awaiting me.
While I was dividing the swift mind, the outer door of the office opened, presently a smart tap was heard on the inner door, and to me there entered a man who had the indelible impress of a vagabond. He was of middle age and of middle size, and was dressed in a very seedy and ill-fitting suit of clothes, which, though without a rent or a smear, looked as if they had been slept in for a long time. His face, raw with a recent application of the razor, was sodden, and his eyes were bleary and red. He leaned against the open door, and began in a high-pitched and monotonous voice:—
“ Sir, I am a cigar-maker by profession. I have sought for work in this and the adjoining town, but without success. There appears to be a plethora of cigar-makers in this vicinity. I have seen better days. I formerly lived at No. 12, South Gaty Street, Baltimore, and was a man of wealth. I was possessed of the sum of 80,000 dollars, 60,000 of which I received from my father, and 20,000 from my wife. I am a man of the world. I have travelled in Europe, Asia Minor, and Egypt. Yes, sir, I have ascended the Nile to the second cataract. ‘ I have been,’ as the great poet says, ‘ where bells have knolled to church, and have sat at good men’s feasts; * now, through my own careless and improvident habits, and, indeed, by actual dissipation, I am reduced to the menial occupation of making cheap cigars. Ay, sir, of wrapping and twisting leaves of native Tobacco, and saturating them with an essence of most leprous distillment, and calling them Havanas. And further, sir, I am compelled by stern poverty to ask of you the loan of half a dollar to pay for a night’s lodging.” Having glibly made this harangue, he humbly cast his eyes upon the floor and awaited the result.
Being idly inclined for the moment, and perceiving a chance of some amusement, I told him to be seated. “Is it possible,” said I, “that from the possession of wealth and position you are reduced to your present unfortunate plight?”
“ It is, sir, a sad and solemn fact.”
“ Then you admit that dissipation was the cause of your ruin?”
“I do, sir, frankly. Hark ye, sir! I am so peculiarly constituted that I cannot lie; I must tell the truth. I claim no praise for it. It is no virtue in me. There are times when it would afford me great satisfaction to lie. But there is no such pleasure for me. Nature so formed me that it is impossible for me knowingly to tell a lie. Be kind enough to look carefully at my head. Peruse these lineaments, mark these features. If you are anything of a physiognomist you will at once perceive that truth is written there. It has been, perchance, a disadvantage to me all my life that I could not dissemble. I must tell the truth. It will come out. I cannot restrain it.”
By this time I began to be very much interested, and proceeded to question the Man of Truth quite closely. He did not attempt to make any excuses for himself. He freely admitted that he had been extravagant, dissipated, worthless, an annoyance to his friends and a disgrace to his relatives, His wife was dead long ago, and they never had any children. I asked him what his plans were. He said he intended making his way on foot to Parkersburg, the nearest railroad station, where he hoped to beg or steal a ride to Baltimore. Once there, he should throw himself on the kindness of his relatives, turn over a new leaf, and be a man again.
“My friend,” said I, “your story is a good one,—rather too well told, perhaps; but put yourself in my place. Suppose, for instance, that you were still in possession of your fortune, and were sitting in the parlour of No. 12, South Gaty Street, Baltimore, and I should enter the room looking as if I had an intimate acquaintance with haystacks and bar room benches, and rather the worse, too, for drink, and should ask you for the loan of the price of a night’s lodging; would you give it to me ? ”
“ Sir,” said he, “ I would not give you one d d cent.” He smiled faintly. “ You see, sir, I cannot tell a lie. I must tell the truth.”
I was beginning by this time to think that I had had a half dollar’s worth of amusement, but yet I hesitated.
“You say that you are trying to get to Baltimore, where you expect to reform, ‘leave sack and live cleanly’ ? ”
His eye twinkled at the quotation. “You are right, sir.” “Now I will give you half a dollar, on one condition.” “Name it.”
“ It is that when you reach Baltimore you will write me a line to let me know that my contribution was of use to you. I don’t ask you to return the money, but your writing will have the effect of somewhat re-establishing my faith in human nature, and the next man who asks aid from me will meet with a warmer reception.”
“A capital idea, sir, a capital idea! Not only benefit myself, but pass the benefit along to some other poor wretch, or, as Longfellow touchingly expresses it, ‘ some forlorn and shipwrecked brother.’ Your address, sir, if you please.”
He took my address and departed. A few minutes after, finding it was near lunch time and too late to expect the “ mine boss,” I locked my office, jumped into my buggy, and was quickly trotting over the stretch of road that lies between the Blankenburg Salt Works and the village. I soon saw the Man of Truth plodding ahead of me. There was a lion in the path, and I anxiously watched to see what he did. He has reached it, he has passed it! No, he has flung himself into its jaws! I whipped up my horses, and looking over the red curtain of a grocery window I saw the Man of Truth draining the last drops of a glass of whisky.
My half-dollar was gone, swallowed up; it would pay for no night’s lodging, for that night the Man of Truth’s lodging would be on the cold, cold ground, under the lee of some sheltering haystack.
About two years afterwards I had occasion to go to my private office, which was near my house, quite early one morning, before breakfast. I was busy writing, when some one opened the door and came in. I merely glanced in his direction, and rather impatiently said, “Well, say on!”
“ I am a cigar-maker by profession. I have tried to find work in this and the adjoining town, but without success. There appears to be a plethora of cigar-makers in this vicinity. I am making my way to Parkersburg, and have called to ask the loan of half a dollar to pay for a night’s lodging. I have seen better days. I”—
“ What! ” said I, as I recognised the Man of Truth, dingier, seedier, and more red-eyed than before. His story, however, was the same, fresh with perennial bloom. * He was rather taken aback at my exclamation, but began his sing-song again, thinking, perhaps, that I had not heard him.
“I am a cigar-maker by profession. I have”—
“ Where is that half-dollar I lent you ? ” I thundered out.
He changed colour slightly. “ I don’t understand you, sir.” “ Where is that half-dollar I lent you two years ago to pay for a night’s lodging on the road to Parkersburg! ”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir. I never saw you before. I was never in this town before.”
“What!” said I, “the man that couldn't lie! that naist tell the truth, even to his own disadvantage,—the man that had truth written upon every feature 1 ”
I burst out laughing as I recalled his words of two years before, so completely belied to-day. I laughed loud and long, but there was no answering smile on the face of the Man of of Truth. Detected and abashed he stood, with a hopeless look in his eyes.
He turned to go, and muttered, “I suppose it is a good joke, sir, but there is no fun in it for me.”
Here his lip quivered slightly. I laughed no more. I saw in his face the hopeless, baffled, despairing look of a degraded soul. “ You poor devil,” said I, “ tell the truth for once I Your coppers are hot from last night’s spree, and you want a a drink.”
“ That’s what’s the matter! ” he said, with an eager look that there was no mistaking.
“ Take this quarter and get it, then, but don’t try to spin that yarn to me again.” He joyfully took the coin, with a nod and a wink, and he went on his way, and I saw him no more.
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^ipe dubunrs.
XXIII.—THE LOST PLUG.
Mr. Barker Warts, the owner of the “Plug” mentioned above, was, and is still, a reporter for the public press. At the time the incident I am about to relate happened, he was struggling along as well as he could. He earned sufficient to live upon fairly, but was obliged to study economy in many things to enable him to live at all. His residence consisted of one room, in the house of an old widow lady named Mrs. Bussle. I pray you, do not despise him for living in one room. He paid his rent when it was due, and made himself tolerably comfortable, despite his limited accommodation.
Sometimes Mr. Warts’s business kept him out late, and sometimes it allowed him to get home pretty early. On one of these early nights he, being kept within the house by a severe storm, set to work to put his pipes into better working order. He possessed some half-dozen pipes, among them being a large meerschaum carved into the form of a monk’s head. This pipe was supplied with a special plug of meerschaum, with a silver top, made to order some years ago.
Having with some difficulty removed the plugs, including the one from his big meerschaum, he proceeded to clean out his pipes with a little brush and some hot water. This being done, he replaced all the plugs except the silver-topped one, which he intended to have well soaked before replacing.
Warts, after concluding his task, made himself a glass of his particular “ Local Option,” drank it, and went to bed.
In the morning he gave the servant his silver-topped plug to put into soak. He said to her: “Be careful, Susan, and, whatever you do, don’t lose it.” The small servant’s response was: “AU right, sir; oh, lor’! don’t it stink?”
Susan, remembering the injunction of Mr. Warts, found a white mug in her mistress’s kitchen, and having placed the plug in it, and poured over that a small quantity of boiling water, put the mug on the highest shelf she could reach on the kitchen dresser. She then went on with her daily work.
At eight o’clock that same evening, Dick, the potman from “ The Silver Bells,” came round with the beer.
Mrs. Bussle, the old lady who kept the house where Mr. Warts and one or two other lodgers lived, heard Dick’s cheery cry. She very speedily opened the door and handed him a mug to put her usual pint of porter in. I have said that it was eight o’clock. It was as nearly as possible dark, but Mrs. Bussle bad no gas alight, so that the jug was fetched, the door was opened, and the liqour was poured from the can into the jug almost in darkness. It is, therefore, quite easy to understand that the jug the porter was poured into contained the silver-topped plug and the water which Susan had poured over it, which by this time was, of course, rather strong. Mrs. Bussle, therefore, stood a very good chance of having a powerful beer for supper.
Something, however, moved her to say to Dick, “Was that my porter you put in the mug, or someone else’s ale? It’s rather dark out here, but I fancy it looked more like ale than porter as it was being poured into the jug.”
Dick studied the cans and the various fingers they were on, and then said: “You’re right; I’ve made a mistake; Pve given you Mr. Bunder’s ale, but I can soon alter that; ” and he took the jug and poured its contents back into the empty can, and then poured Mrs. Bussle’s porter into the white jug.
Mr. Punder, who was a lodger in the same house, but on no terms of intimacy with Mr. Warts, now came down stairs to get his bitter. He was very thirsty, so concluded to have a drink there and then. He took the can from Dick, and, opening his mouth, started to assuage his thirst.
Punder made a frightful noise, a gasp and snort, mingled with a yell, and shot all the beer out of his mouth that he could shoot. Some had gone too far. Then he flung all the rest over Dick, and, hurling the can to the earth, jumped on it in a great and violent rage, uttering at the same time inarticulate but horrible sounds of mingled fear and wrath. In his violent gymnastics he knocked Mrs. Bussle’s jug of porter out of her hands, smashing the vessel into many pieces. The old lady, retreating suddenly and in fear, backed into Susan’s arms, and caused that unlucky damsel to bang her head violently against the wall. She naturally now assisted in the outcry.
Dick, on the receipt of the best part of the pint of bitter, seemed for a moment at a loss; but it was for a moment only. Setting down his cans a yard or two off, he landed Mr. Punder one on the nose with considerable force, and the small front garden at once became the scene of a pugilistic encounter.
At this moment Mr. Warts arrived home. Mrs. Bussle was sobbing, Susan was screaming, and Dick and Punder were fighting like a couple of bull terriers.
True to his profession, Mr. Warts pulled out his note-book and jotted down: “ Desperate Assault by a Potman ”; when Mrs. Bussle, with sobs, entreated him to interfere, or murder would come of it. Mr. Warts’s better nature had a struggle with his business tactics. Said the latter: “ The longer they struggle, the longer your paragraph, and if it arrives at the dignity of a murder, or even manslaughter, it ought to bring in something considerable.” However, my friend allowed his better feelings to conquer, and seizing hold of the potman, he dragged him out into the street.
“You villain!” gasped Mr. Punder, shaking his fist at Dick; “ You murderous, poisonous scoundrel, I’ll make you pay for this I ”
“Pay for what?” gasped Dick in return; “I think it’s you as ’ll have to pay, not me.”
“What is the cause of this outrage on decency? ” inquired Mr. Warts.
“ Why, that villain ”-----began Punder.
“ He slung all the ale over me,” interrupted Dick, “ so I dropped him a hot *un on the nose.”
“Mr. Punder! oh, Mr. Punder!” exclaimed Mrs. Bussle, “ do compose your mind.”
“He’s poisoned me! ” roared Punder, “I can feel it working. What was it you gave me to drink, you scoundrel ? ”
“ As good a drop of bitter as was ever brewed,” replied Dick, looking very much astonished at Mr. Punder’s accusation ; “ and I’ll thank you for the fourpence. You’ll have to settle with the guv’nor about the can.”
Just at this moment, in obedience to her mistress’s orders, Susan lit the gas. Her eyes then fell on the fragments of the jug dropped by Mrs. Bussle, and something told her that she had been the cause of all the mischief.
“ Please sir,” she said tremblingly to Mr. Punder, “ did you drink your beer out of that jug?”
“ No! ” said that gentleman, shortly.
“Your ale went into that jug,” said Dick, who had heard Susan’s question. “ I poured it in there by mistake first, and then poured it back into the can.”
“ What was in the jug?” inquired Mrs. Bussle, catching hold of Susan’s sleeve.
“Oh! please,” sobbed Susan, beginning to cry, “it was Mr. Warts’s plug out of his pipe. He gave it to me to soak, and I couldn’t find nothing to soak it in but the jug, and I meant to take it out, and I forgot all about it; and, oh! it did stink! ”
Mr. Warts, who felt it was a rather awkward corner for him, concluded it would be best to assume the offensive; and so putting on rather a stern look, and addressing Mr. Punder, he said: “ Sir, if you have swallowed my plug, I shall certainly expect you to pay me for it. It cost me some two or three shillings several years ago, and was of greater value now than when it was new.”
“Well,” replied Mr. Punder, almost speechless with indignation, and pallid with the thought of a horrible plug simmering in his interior; “ You first of all poison me, and then come on to me for damages.”
“ I feel convinced it’s gone down,” observed Mr. Punder, dolefully; “I noticed something Jumpy seemed to pass through my throat before I detected the full flavour of what I was drinking.”
Two lighted candles were brought, and Warts, Punder, Mrs. Bussle, Susan, and Dick all went plug-hunting. They tried the garden, the road, the area, but all in vain; no plug could be found.
Warts was constant in his reiteration as to the value of that plug in his eyes. He felt it necessary to do this in order to sustain the rather questionable position he had assumed in the affair. “ Dear me,” he kept saying, “ Dear me, how very vexatious! wouldn’t have lost it for any money; shall never be able to replace it, I am sure. Such a lovely plug, saturated to perfection [this made poor Punder groan]. marvellously true in its bore. I’d sooner have lost five shillings, ten shillings even, than that plug. Oh I I am sorry.”
“ ’Tis a pity,” said Dick. “ It is,” continued Warts, feeling strength in sympathy; “ I’d willingly give five shillings for that plug—willingly.”
At last the hunt had to be discontinued, and the street door was closed on a group of unhappy and discontented mortals.
“ I suppose, Mr. Punder,” said Mr. Warts, feeling it still necessary to maintain his ground, “ that you will have no objection to make good my loss ? ”
“ You are entitled to suppose what you please,” replied Mr. Punder, speaking slowly, and prodding himself gently in various parts of his stomach, as if to feel the whereabouts of the plug; “ but I am very much surprised at your expectation of getting anything out of me, after poisoning me in this fashion.”
“ I did not poison you,” said Warts; “If you had offered me a half-crown to be allowed to swallow my plug, I would not have taken it; the value of the article to me was very great.”
“ Well, I shan’t pay you,” quoth Punder, roughly. “ You ought to be ashamed of yourself, to give a dangerous thing like that to a child to clean ; and, Mrs. Bussle, I am surprised at you not looking into a jug before you use it for drinking purposes. I shall leave on Monday fortnight, if I’m alive. I suppose we have cockroaches in our coffee. Ugh! the very thought makes me sick. I give you notice, so don’t forget.”
“ Oh ! sir, don’t do that! ” said Mrs. Bussle, imploringly. “ It was quite an accident. I took the jug down in the dark, or it would never have happened.”
Susan sat crying in a corner, and everybody was looking at everybody else very gloomily, when there came a knock at the door.
On the door being opened, the potman Dick asked^leave to see Mr. Warts, and so was ushered into the kitchen. In his hand he held the once lost, but now recovered plug. “ Here
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it is,” said he. “I had to go home to change my shirt, and this was inside my waistcoat. It must have gone there when Mr. Ponder threw the ale over me. Let me see, sir [this < was to Warts], five shillings, I think, was the reward you offered ? ” Mr. Warts felt there was nothing to do hut to pay Dick, which he did with an air of great joy—whether assumed or otherwise, he knew best. It was quite reviving to see what a good effect the recovery of the plug had. Mr. Punder, of course, was very much relieved, and so was Susan, for she had been expecting every moment to see the last-named gentleman fall on the floor, either dead or in an advanced state of horrible convulsions. Mr. Warts now felt that it was his duty to put matters straight. He held out his hand to Mr. Punder. “Forgive me,” said he; “my mind was upset a bit at my loss; but now I frankly confess it was wrong of me to give that plug to Susan. Forgive me, Mr. Punder; and, at my request, withdraw your notice to leave. Come up into my room, and let us have a friendly glass.” Punder was overcome. “Mrs. Bussle,” said Warts, quite happy now that he was general peacemaker, “you must get yourself a new jug, and charge me with it; also, send Susan round for some stout for your supper, and charge me with that; and, as your nerves have been unstrung a bit, if you’ll kindly step upstairs, I’ll treat you to a nip of something good.” Mrs. Bussle was overcome, went upstairs and had her nip, and Susan was allowed to stay on. So matters were veiy comfortably arranged. Dick was very well satisfied with the five shillings, and went on his way rejoicing, while Mr. Punder and Mr. Warts had a comfortable glass or two with their pipes upstairs. The acquaintanceship begun so singularly was lasting and honest. They are capital chums to this day; and, as to Warts, he still smokes the head of the jolly old monk, containing the Lost Plug. Didimus Goggs. ®amp-fire Smohe-bireat^s. It is in New Zealand, in the early summer-time—December, in point of fact—and I am one of a surveyor’s party, operating far up country in the heart of the forest. Our party consists of three Europeans, a couple of half-breeds, and about a dozen Maoris. We have formed here a stationary camp—stationary, that is, for several weeks; and for three days we have been employedin “humping” our tools and provisions and various necessaries up here on our backs, from the nearest point on the river that we were able to boat up to. Here, then, is our home for some little time, shut out and isolated from the rest of the world, lost to civilisation. The site of our camp is on a slight eminence in a glade of the forest, at the bottom of which a small creek babbles along. From the summit of the hill above us it may be seen that the country around is sharply and roughly mountainous in character, and that it is covered, as far as the eye can reach in every direction, with the interminable forest. The camp consists of a long, low hut, constructed of slender poles thatched over with the fronds of the nikau palm, and open at one side. Beneath this shelter we sleep secure from wind or rain, with the blazing fire in front of us. The scene is grandly picturesque in this after-supper time. The dark shadows of the forest around are brought out in strong relief by the patches of moonlight that break through the tree-tops here and there; while the ruddy blaze of the huge fire gives a wilder aspect to the group around it. Our supper is over—our supper of the inevitable tea and “ damper,” salt pork, and possibly an eel or two from the creek, or birds, or wild-pig meat—and we are luxuriating in the sense of rest. Some are lying lazily stretched on their beds of fern and moiinga-mounga; others are sitting on logs, or grouped in various postures; but every face, be it the hirsute countenance of a bushman or the wrinkled and tattooed brown visage of a Maori, wears a look of settled content, fitfully apparent between the curling wreaths of Tobacco smoke that universally circulate. For a time we are too lazy to talk, unt.l the deep silence of the surrounding forest grows oppressive, rendered only more intense as it is by the occasional hoot of a “ morepork,” the distant boom of a bittern, or the sharp call of a kiwi. Gradually a dropping conversation grows up amongst us, which, as is usually the case, gives way to “yarn-spinning” on the part of one or two to whom the others are disposed to listen. To-night I am sitting beside the old chief of our native gang; a hoary-headed old sinner is he, and has been, so they say, one of the “ old cannibals.” He has been trying to wheedle me out of some Tobacco, and I have been endeavouring to arrange a transfer of a very remarkable-looking pipe that the old fellow is smoking in lieu thereof, but without success. It is an extraordinary looking affair this pipe, carved out of a single piece of bone, apparently, and ornamented with all the grotesque minuteness of Maori art. But its owner regards it with such strong affection that not the most liberal offers will induce him to-entertain the idea of parting with it. “Give Tametui a plug, and get him to tell the story of that pipe,” says one of my comrades, and his advice I take; and, after much persuasion, I elicit from the	old fellow a narrative, given with much wild and excited gesticulation, that I now reproduce, as well as I can, under the title of TAMETUI'S PIPE. Plenty long ago, said Tametui, I was one of the young men in the taua of Hongi, the great chief of the Ngapuhi. Hongi was a great good man, and ate more of his enemies than any other Maori chief. It was he who invented guns and powder to shoot with. But Ewangi, chief of the Ngatetaiti, said that his Atua (god) was stronger than Hongi’s, and this vexed Hongi, for he knew that what Ewangi said was not true. And so Hongi sent some men to talk to Ewangi, and to tell him that his Atua was a„taipu (devil). But Ewangi was bad, and he killed and ate those men, and he came with his troop into Hongi’s country, and took all the pigs, and sweet potatoes, and bread-root from a village that belonged to my father, and he hurt my father, so that he ran away into the bush and died there. And Hongi was very sad, for he said “This is a bad man, I must go and eat him ;” and he called me and said “ Tametui, let us go and fight with Ewangi, and we will kill him, and all his men, and his women and children; and we will eat this bad man, and his head and his bones shall be compensation to you for your father that he killed.” So next morning Hongi and myself and all the men of the tribe took guns, and powder, and bullets, and battle-axes, and war-clubs, and spears, and went into the bush to find the Ngatetaiti; and with us there went the women and slaves carrying food on their backs. And we went a great way, and travelled many days. So, by-and-by, we came to a river, and on the other side of the river we saw a great many people; these were Ewangi’s men. We rested in that place for two days, and each day some would go and stand on the banks of the river and talk to the men on the other side, and tell them they were bad, and that we were come to kill and eat them. But they were foolish people, and said the same thing to us, and put out their tongues and told us to go home. So, on the morning of the third day, we saw that the Ngatetaiti had gone back from the river, and stood in a flat open space a long way off. Then we put off our cloaks and took our weapons and went across the river, and stood also in a line opposite to those men. Then Hongi went in front of ns, and Ewangi came in the front of his troop, and each sang his war-song very loud. When Hongi had sung for a time he commenced to dance, and then we all began also to dance, and to sing our war-songs, and shout, so as to frighten the other people. We danced so hard that the ground shook, for there were a great many people. But presently every one fired his musket, and then threw it down behind him for the Tyomen to pick up; and then we took our meres (battle-axes), and shouted a great deal, and ran forward to meet the enemy. And each man took hold of his enemy by the hair with his left hand, and beat at him with his mere till he cut his head off. And the women came behind, and took the heads, and stuck them on spears, and carried away the dead bodies. And after Hongi had killed Ewangi, his men ran away, and we followed them, and killed a great many. So for many days after we stayed in that place, dancing, and singing, and we were very happy, for it was a great victory. But Hongi kept the head of Ewangi after it was cured, for he said: “It is a good head and I killed him, so it is mine, and shall be stuck upon my house.” But I had plenty heads, and I took the body of Ewangi; and the women cooked him with the other bodies, and we all ate the flesh a great deal, and it was very, very good. And I took the bone from Ewangi’s right arm, and kept it. And afterwards my wives cut the face of Ewangi on the bone, and carved it, and made a pipe of it; and Ewangi’s bad spirit lives there always, and when it smokes he says: “ Oh! Tametui good! ” “ Oh! Tametui great! ” But Ewangi burns always. This is the right arm of Ewangi. This is my pipe, and the ’Baccy of the Pakeha is good to smoke in it. W. D. Hat. | (Sennan Oriental. I. Or the German poet Frederick Ruckert I have long purposed giving a copious and critical account. The Germans regard Ruckert and Platen as the last of their great poets belonging to what they call the Classical Period. It might be supposed that Heine ought to be reckoned as a third; but Heine’s fame has far less resonance in his native land than in England and France, and his countrymen, half ashamed of him for his cynicism, question his claims to abiding renown. Whether the Germans are herein right or wrong, I do not care to pronounce. Older than Heine, younger than Riickert, Augustus Count Von Platen-Hallermiinde was born at Ansbach, on the 24th October, 1796. He sprang from a very ancient family; but his father, a Bavarian “ Oberforstmeister,” does not seem to have been rich. At an early age Augustus entered the Bavarian army, and took part in the second campaign against France. When peace returned he devoted himself to the study of philosophy and of Oriental literature. He published
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a volume of poems in 1821, and from that time till his death he gave to the world numerous productions, dramatic and lyrical, besides a work in prose on the History of Naples. His satirical sharpness was equal to his lyrical fire, and he used it especially to lash degeneracy and barbarism in literature. Aided by a pension from the Bavarian Government, he went, in 1826, to Italy, which, with the exception of two visits to Germany, was thenceforth bis home. Dread of the cholera drove him to Sicily, in September, 1835. Flying from one disease, he fell victim to another. On the 5th December, 1835, he died of fever at Syracuse. Platen had the highest ideal of poetical purity and perfection. But it is questionable whether a great literary genius should ever attempt to be a great literary reformer. Shakespeare would have ceased to be Shakespeare if, instead of producing sublimely and boundlessly, he had warred with literary barbarism and corruption.
At this hour England suffers as much from poetical as from theological confusion. No one seems to have a clear notion what true poetry is, or what a great poet should be. Beyond homage, pious and intelligent, or abject and ignorant, to the supreme genius—or, rather, to the illustrious name— of Shakespeare, we behold nothing but chaos. Into rivalry with the pretentiousness, the priggishness of criticism, poetical eccentricities and impudicities rush. The English in everything are so prone to sectarian worship, that they never knock down one idol without setting up another. Byron is dethroned, and Shelley becomes the favourite fetisch. Scott is scorned as a prosaic talker, and Tennyson is exalted to Olympian heights; Browning and Swinburne have each a tribe of fanatical adorers. In a Socinian periodical, called “ The Modern Review,” an oracular William Knight pompously echoes the preposterous utterance of tho oracular Matthew Arnold, that, ” with the exception of Dante, Moliere, and Goethe, Wordsworth is superior to any European poet of the modern age.” Other pronouncements of the same William Knight keep this particular pronouncement in countenance, or, rather, transcend it in absurdity. He wearies us with dreary jargon about Wordsworth as a moral teacher and as a philosopher; for it seems that Wordsworth’s writings—their unrivalled poetical merits apart—contain an exalted ethical code and a profound system of philosophy! What must every great poet possess ? Phantasy and passion in a superlative degree, along with consummate mastery of form. Bvron had passion in superabounding measure, vivid conception, demonic energy; but of phantasy, in its loftiest, richest sense, he was wholly destitute, and his flow and glow of expression often degenerated into rhetoric. It was, however, as the electrical prophet of woe that he influenced so deeply the literature of his period. Hence it is so difficult to determine his literary position. Shelley had phantasy in incomparable opulence; yet, while the most emotional, he was the most passionless of men, though it may sound like paradox to say so. In truth, to be quickly, sensitively impressionable, is often to be free from passion. Shelley had not the historical sense so indispensable to the perfect poet, and so notable in Shakespeare ; because the aspects, the apocalypses of Nature interested Shelley more than books, and books more than human beings. A lack so grievous, the fervent admirers of Shelley wilfully or ignorantly overlook. The historical sense predominant in Schiller was comparatively weak in Goethe, to whom a gem, a fossil, or an anatomical preparation was more attractive than the fate of nations. Shelley may have been a diviner genius than Byron, and yet Byron, from his prompt and intense historical instinct, and from other causes, may have been the more accomplished poet. More than half of Scott’s success as a poet must be attributed to his historical sympathy and historical divination. On Browning and Swinburne I venture no opinion, for I have not read their works ; but I lately read, and for the first time, the works of Tennyson. Now, I find in Tennyson neither phantasy, nor passion, nor historical insight. He is a landscape painter, and that only. As a landscape painter he is eminently successful; but when he has the ambition to be aught else, he signally fails. How poor, for instance, is his poem “ Oenone,” except as a pictorial catalogue of the various points in Nature which strike the speaker’s eye! Moreover, in the productions of this vaunted poet, how slovenly is often the workmanship, how defective the rhythm, how wearisome and puerile the perpetual chase after archaisms and conceits, how easily detected the dexterity of the artisan where we should expect to encounter the inspiration of the artist! In no modern English poet are there so many glaringly faulty rhymes. Her as a rhyme to hair is an example of a common sin. Tennyson’s lines have been lauded for their music; but it is a curious kind of music, that in which monosyllables have so frequently to do duty as dissyllables and dissyllables as monosyllables—fire being a specimen of the one, and higher of the other. Grammatical negligences augment and vary the defects and the disfigurements. In short, Tennyson is an adroit and extensive manufacturer in verse, just as Bulwer was an adroit and extensive manufacturer in prose. What shall we say of Wordsworth ? He lived a simple and natural life, and was. as a literary artist, conscientious and careful. We owe to his pen much that is beautiful. But he was a literary reformer, not a literary creator; and as a literary reformer he held wholesome and valiant and abiding sway. To enthrone the worthy man, however, beside primordial literary creators, is to mistake entirely
his mission and his labours. Passion, phantasy, the historical sense, not one of all these was he endowed with. He turned away from books and from the cold artificialities of the eighteenth century, gazed at Nature for himself, and taught his countrymen to do the like; and for so teaching them his countrymen ought to be, and are sure to be, eternally grateful. William Knight and other imbecile persons hinder, by their babblement and their bathos, Wordsworth from gaining the glory which is his due. But William Knight’s idiotic rhapsodies serve to illustrate that poetical confusion of which I have spoken, a confusion which has its origin in the disposition to see aberration as originality. In poetry, as in all things, it is Man that makes Nature, and not Nature that makes Man, interesting. Hence, in poetry, to give more prominence to Nature than to Man is to rob it of its essential character and to lead it grievously astray. There is a Divine Ideal, and there is a true classicality, to which poetry must always be faithful. And there are a thousand reasons why there should not be any flagrant or fantastic departure from the grand Hellenic tradition, though Boileau and all the other pedants may be very unceremoniously dealt with, for a false classicality is as baleful as everything else which is false. Allegiance in poetry to the Divine Ideal, to true classicality, to the grand Hellenic tradition, is neither a bondage nor a burden. Like all chivalrous allegiance, it is the noblest liberty, and wars with nothing but that insane or guilty excess, whose first result is exhaustion, and whose final result is barrenness. It is in dread of the exhaustion and the barrenness that I take, in reference to poetry and in opposition to poetical anarchy, a conservative attitude. Doubtless genius is irrepressible, and is its own law by being its own life. But best can it manifest itself as genius by entering into loving and loyal fellowship with the genius of past ages, which subjected itself of its own accord to wholesome restraints; for a leading characteristic of celestial art of every kind is self-mastery.
Platen is a classical poet, according to the German standard; but he is also a classical poet from the traces which all his works bear of Hellenic culture and of Hellenic impulse. He was a child of Greece, as much as a modem Franconian can be. Hereby is not implied any slavish imitation, but rather intuitional and sympathetic assimilation. Tn the older theologies the indwelling of the Holy Spirit was much spoken of. There is a poetical indwelling of the Holy Spirit as well as a religious. And coming from Greece, the Holy Spirit of poetry found in Platen’s soul a temple and a home.
To Ruckert the Franconian, as to Platen the Franconian, Greece gave poetical strength and wealth and discipline. But to Riickert Greece was the gate of the East. Therefore, it is as a German Oriental that Ruckert rises radiantly before us. He was profoundly intimate with the Oriental languages; and as a poetical interpreter of the East he has, perhaps, never had an equal. But he was as familiar with the Romanic languages and literatures as with the Oriental. His creative power corresponded to his vast and manifold recipiency.
Ruckert’s Oriental affinities and aspirations he proved, among other things, by his passionate love of smoking. There have been few more enthusiastic smokers than this marvellously gifted poet. Goethe disliked smoking, partly, perhaps, from aristocratic disdain, from the desire to forget that, though he was admitted to the Weimar Court circle, his father was a scrivener and his grandfather a tailor. Like Voltaire, Goethe was great more by talent than by character, and his fopperies, pettinesses, and affectations were not few. But as he could drink four or five bottles of Rhenish at dinner, let us pardon him for being too dainty and effeminate to put a pipe or a cigar between his lips. Drinking never seems to have clouded his clear and brilliant intellect. To Lessing, Schiller, and Richter, as to Goethe, wine was indispensable as stimulant and sustenance; and let us think better of all the four for loving wine so well. The wisest of the Greek philosophers thought not merely that wine is a blessing, but that to get fou occasionally is commendable. And of the same opinion was Seneca, the Roman representative of Greek Stoicism, whom Hermann Schiller, the historian of the Roman Empire under Nero, and Mommsen have ignobly depicted as a mere phrasemonger; but whom Bruno Bauer, in his admirable work on “ Christ and the Caesars,” has magnificently vindicated. Burns, who was not a drunkard, as has so often been caluminiously declared, but in certain moods and on certain occasions a convivial drinker, would, but for his social temper and bacchanalian indulgences, have sunk into the deepest melancholy; and then he would have written nothing but dismal stuff fitted to please nobody except Professor Shairp. When Old King Cole called for his pipe and his bowl and his fiddlers three, it was that by showing what a good fellow he was he might promote good fellowship. The stimulants which degrade men of a low type nourish and unfold what is best in men of a high type, and potently aid their genius, if they chance to possess genius. We do not expect to find in the world perfect men; but we welcome with our whole soul complete men; and complete a man cannot be who is unable to join epicurean enjoyment to stoical endurance. Such a complete man was Frederick Ruckert, who could smoke his pipe and drink his wine, and then soar on the wings of phantasy to the empyrean.
So far as I am aware, Dr. C. Beyer, of Eisenach, is the only
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one who has written the Biography of Rtickert at length; and to him I confess my obligations. I have had many thankless tasks in my day, and have, I believe, done more ploughing and sowing in the barren sand than any man of this generation. But it has always been a supreme delight to me, and never a wholly fruitless labour, to make known to the English reader those gifted or heroic men of France, Germany, and other countries with whom he was unacquainted. I persuaded myself that hereby I aided his moral elevation as well as his intellectual enrichment. Imprisoned in his insular prejudices and bigotries, the Englishman is morally stunted. But hitherto the intellectual importations have not been of a kind to cure the evil. Comte, whom the Germans do not deem worthy of a moment’s notice, has had 1 apostles in England by the dozen. The sublime metaphy-I sical speculations of Germany, however, are in England I comparatively unknown; and Dr. Stirling, the ablest inter-1 preter of those speculations, is shamefully neglected. Let me hope to be more fortunate with the poet Riickert than he has been with the philosopher Hegel. His is a labour of love; and so is mine. Scoto-Celt. ®ur Smoke ^omn Okie. English Men of Letters. Edited by John Morley. London: Macmillan and Co. 1878-9. XL—THACKERAY, BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE. (1879.) This little book more than fulfils oar expectations: we expected to find it considerably poor, and we find it considerably poorer. Disgusted by some fulsome biography, as well he might be in an age wherein it is “the custom to publish two volumes upon every man or woman whose name has appeared on a title page,” Thackeray charged his daughters not to publish any Life of him *, so it is not Mr. Trollope's fault that his Memoir is very meagre. But it w Mr. Trollope's fault that the biographical chapter, containing about enough matter for a readable magazine article, is swelled out to sixty pages, or two-sevenths of the book, by details that are quite trivial, explanations that are superfluous, and reflections that are easy twaddle. As to tiie remaining five-sevenths, occupied with descriptions and criticisms of Thackeray's works, we find them on the whole of somewhat less thin no value; the descriptions void of illumination, the criticisms always shallow, and often mean or perverse or both. And the style is as poor as the matter, lax throughout, and frequently incorrect. So that, as we have said, the booklet even surpasses our expectations, and may be briefly characterised as shoddy and slipshoddy. Being thus, it has, of course, in itself no claim to our notice; and we only give it, grudgingly, a portion of our valuable apace on account of the position of its writer, and in deference to the Series of which it is another unworthy member. We find it pervaded by a misconception, so gross as to be ludicrous, of the relative magnitude and importance of its writer and his subject, of Trollope and Thackeray. Mr. Tmllope appears to feel, without, perhaps, thinking it out clearly: The other T. is a popular novelist, so am I; my popularity was much more readily acquired, and my popular novels are much more numerous than his; therefore any difference between us is in my favour; and I can sit in judgment upon him with an easy equality, as foreman of the jury of his peers; or, rather, indeed, with a benign and familiar superiority, as somewhat above him in station, and free from the indiscretions which brought him into court. In fact, Mr. Trollope seems quite unaware of Douglas Jerrold’s pregnant distinction, that two men may row in the same boat with very different sculls. He begins, “I will give such incidents," “I will tell how,” “ Then I will tell how ”; in the tone of a Macaulay opening a History of England, or a Gibbon that of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; all by way of preface to a magazine sketch twaddled out to fill sixty pages. He graciously allows, p. 8, that Thackeray did a good life's work; but again and again denounces his laziness, as p. 7, “ He was always idle,” Ac., and p. 19, “ Unsteadfast, idle, changeable of purpose. . . no man ever failed more generally than he to put hie best foot foremost.” This, by-the-bye, occurs in a contrast of Thackeray and Dickens, of whom we are told, p. 18, “ I will make no comparison between two such rivals, who were so distinctly different from each ”; so that Dickens was distinctly different from Dickens as well as from Thackeray, and Thackeray distinctly different from Thackeray as well as from Dickens: a truly remarkable pair of rivals. Also, by-the-bye. we are told, p. 8: “ Dickens has informed us that he first met Thackeray 1 in 1835,” when T. “'proposed to become the illustrator of my earliest book.* . . We may presume that the offer was rejected.” There is no need to presume; T. also has informed us of the offer, and, further, of its rejection. Again, p. 7, scanty as are his biographical materials, Mr. Trollope don't think it worth while to mention Goethe in connection with T.’s sojourn in Weimar, though T. favoured Mr. Lewes with a longish reminiscent letter for the Life of Goethe, and though Mr. Trollope was writing an In Memoriam of Lewes not long ago. But he does think it worth while to give us three and a-half pages, 10-18, of platitude on the fascinations and uncertainties of literature as a profession. Of three daughters, p. 20, the first is indeed the eldest, but the last is only the younger. Concerning Thackeray’s lecturing: and with reference to Forster’s argument in disuasion of Dickens, pp. 48-5, “ that to become publicly a reader must alter, without improving, his position publicly as a writer, and that it was a change to be justified only when the higher calling should have failed of the old success"; Mr. Trollope delivers judgment with characteristic spirit and logic: “When such discussions arise, money generally carries the day—and should do so. When convinced that money may be earned without disgrace, we ought to allow money to carry the day. When we talk of sordid gain and filthy lucre, we are generally hypocrites. (Speak for yourself only, Mr. A. T.) If gains be sordid and lucre filthy, where is the priest, the lawyer, the doctor, or the man of literature, who does not wish for dirty hands?" We think T. would have pleaded somewhat differently for his lecturing, and even D. for his public reading. We thought the very point in dispute was whether money could be thus earned without disgrace ; Forster seeing a descent, only to be justified by necessity. We have also only been wont to term gain sordid when acquired sordidly, and lucre filthy when grubbed up filthily; attributing neither sordidness nor filthiness to the profits of any honourable profession exercised honourably. To meet Mr. Footer's case, the question should have been put somewhat thus: “ Do the priest, the lawyer, the doctor, the literary man, who, not failing of success each in his own profession, respectively for greater profit turn crammer, pettifogger, apothecary, reporter, lower themselves or not? Are their extra gains thus secured sordid or not?” However, we quite appreciate the forcibleness, from the pen of Mr. Trollope, of that “ money generally carries the day—and should do so.” The one impassioned and poetical outburst we have remarked in the book gushed from the same	aureate inspiration: that, p. 12, in which he chants of the literary novice “ who succeeds in earning a few halcyon, but, ah! so dangerous guinea." Halcyon guineas I oh, the gorgeous dithyrambic 1 the “ liberal phrases of his golden tongue ” 1 as another lyrist sings. There is, indeed, further on a passage of a similar strain, though in a somewhat less elevated key; wherein we are saluted, to borrow his own wonderful poetic diction (p. 3), by “ the continued note of triumph which is still heard in the final voices of the spoilt child of literature, even when they are losing their music "; though how this child becomes > osseseed of these final voices surpasses our pro»aic comprehension. This passage may be found, by those who think it worth finding, on pp. 51-2. It relates how, about two mouths before the Cornhill came out, the big T. asked the little t. whether he could go to work at once on a long novel, so that it might begin with the first number. Little t. carries on his continued note of triumph through text and note: “ At the same time I heard from the publisher, who suggested some interesting little details as to honorarium. The little details were very interesting, but absolutely no time was allowed to me. . . . Now, it was my theory—and ever since this occurrence has been my practice—to see the end of my own work before the public should see the commencement. If I did this thing I mu«t not only abandon my theory, but instantly contrive a story, or b^gin to write it before it was contrived. That was what I did, urged by the interesting nature of the details. ... I hesitated, but allowed myself to be allured to what I felt to be wrong." Little t. does himself injustice inconsistent with his former wise dictum, “ we ought to allow money to carry the day." The continued note of triumph of the final voices of the spoilt child of literature swells into a note thus concluding: “Could I not begin anew one [story] —English—and if possible about clergymen ? The details were so interesting that had a couple of archbishops been demanded, I should have produced them." A mere couple of archbishops! we should think so, indeed 1 and if those dear little details were interesting enough, would have doubtless thrown in, if required, a batch of cardinals, a Pope, a Patriarch of Constantinople, a Sheikh-al-Islam, and a Grand Lama. How the pleasant humour of the little aureate poet chuckles over the delicious refrain of th<we interesting I ttle details; mouthing them over and over lingeringly, sweetest morsels on his golden tongue! He is not like that great idle, unsteadfast Thackeray; not he. Has he not informed the world that be can turn out morning after morning his regular amount of copy, with some insignificant variation allowed for a cigar or glass of wine more or less the previous night? just as a machine can be depended upon to turn out its regular amount of work day by day, with some very slight variance for fouling or lubrication. Little t. has thus over big T. all the eminent commercial advantages which a steady-going machine possesses over a mutable man; with the additional advantage of being comfortably conscious of them t We would cite much more set to Mr. Trollope’s favourite tune of “ His bags of chink he chunk; ” but pass on to some high-toned moral criticism of Tliackeray’s “ Four Georges,” which proves that our little aureate poet is likewise a little port laureate. He tells ur, pp. 46—8: “There arose the question whether too much freedom had not been taken with an office which, though it be no longer considered to be founded on di ine li^ht, is still m sacred as can be anything that is human. If there is to remain among us a sovereign, that sovereign, even though divested of political power, should be endowed with all that personal respect can give.” The idea of divestin? sovereignty, which is sacred, of political power, which is its very essence! “ And this should not depend altogether on personal character . . . The respect of which we [I] speak should, in the strongest degree, be a poRsession of the immediate occupant . . . and the throne of which we wish to preserve the dignity seems to be assailed when unmeasured evil is said of one who has sat there within our own memory.’’ His Most Gracious Majesty George the Fourth, to wit. “ He [Thackeray] was one who revered modesty and innocence rather than power, against which he had in the bottom of his heart something of a republican tendency.” A dangerous fellow 1—but it must have been a tendency against nothing in this caw, for your sovereign is divested of power. Little t. returns to the charge, like the valiant illogical Royalist he is, pp. 155-7. Thus: “It is difficult to speak fittingly of a sovereign, either living or not, [dele comma] long since gone. You can hardly praise such a one without flattery.’ What! the D. T. flatter our Queen 1 Theodore Martin, C.B., flatter Prince Albert! Infelix Whitehurst or Blanchard Jerrold flatter Napoleon HI.! Cancel this in your next edition, Mr. T. “You can hardly censure him without injustice." This is right; as we see in Thackeray on George IV., or Victor Hugo on Napoleon HI. “ We are either ignorant of his personal doings or we know them as secrets, which have been divulged for tho most part either falsely or treacherously,—often both falsely and treacherously.” This is truly exquisite. “ It is better, perhaps, that we should not deal with the personalities of princes.” This is simply damnable; for we should thus be bereft of all those lofty panegyrics on their supereminent private virtue# which kindle our loyal enthusiasm. Probably, however, Mr. Trollope, when he has filled Mudie’s to bursting-point with novels an 1 settled Caesar and Cicero once for all, will run us off a History of the British Empire under the House of Brunswick, wherein the personalities of the sovereigns shall be reverently ignored. He has the distinction of agreeing with that illustr ous monarch James I., who, when asked why he did not like Sir Walter Raleigh's “History of the World,” shrewdly replied, “It is too saucy in censuring the acts of princes.” But then, James was a king, while Mr. Trollope is only a superior postman. The literary criticism is nearly as high-toned, but we have not space for more than the smallest sample. Mr. Trollope is pleased to think the lectures on the English Humourists better than those on the Four Georges; but ha cannot quite approve the list, pp. 157, Ac. “ Pope we [I] should hardly define as a humourist;” but may he not be this, as well as much else? “ Nor should we [I] have included Fielding or Smollett, in spite of Parson Adams and Tabitha Bramble, unless anxious to fill a good company.”! Trollope on Swift is of course beyond notice. “ I almost question Prior’s right to be in the list.” As for Sterne, he is indeed a humourist, but “ the leas often he is taken down the better.” Just so; leave Sterne on the shelf (and take down Trollope), in contempt of that nuisance “ the intelligent foreigner,"—not more intelligent, after all, than a mere Goethe, or Heine, or Balzac! So much, and too much, for the shoddy; a few specimens must serve for the abundance of slipshoddy. P. 3, “ His very notes would be delightful to read, partaking of the nature of pearls when prepared for his own use; ” 58, neither of them give; 18, it is to that which be is brought; 46, the second aeries were; 197, neither easy or lucid; 155, the lecturer had not time enough or room enough for real history; 84, requirements demanded of them; 106, the reader will have found that every page will have been; 119, sad tragedies; 122, “ as a chain is not stronger than its weakest link, so is a . . novelist to be placed in no lower level thin that which be has attained by his highest sustained flight,”—a muddle of direct analogy and inverse proportion. Such scribbling may do well enough for the circulating libraries, but decidedly does not befit a series of books on English Men of Letters by English literary men. NOTICE TO C0BBESP0NDENT8. We cannot return unaccepted MSS. or Sketches, unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope; and we do not hold ourselves responsible for loss.
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XI.
Fcedera, Tom. XX., 1636-1654.
1637, March 16. De Commissions speciali Georgio Domino Goring et aliis concessfi, concemente Venditionem de Tobacco absque Licentid Regia. Commission to George Lord Goring, Baron of Hurst Perpoint, and six others: 44 Whereas We are informed, that daily Complaint is made by Sundry Persons by Us licensed, in several Parts of our Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales, by Letters Patents under our Great Seal of England, to vent and utter Tobacco by Retail, that divers Persons, contrary to our Royal Proclamations and Letters Patents, without any License or Authority from Us in that behalf obtained, do unlawfully vent and utter Tobacco by Retail, whereby the said licensed Persons are not only much hindered and prejudiced, but also are disabled to pay such Rents unto Us, as are reserved upon their said Licenses.” [It may be noted that the spelling is perfectly modern.]
For remedy whereof, and for prevention of other Incon* veniences which may ensue thereby; We have constituted you to be our Commissioners, with full power to call before you or any two of you all Persons complained of for venting Tobacco by Retail without License; and also to enquire upon Oath and all other lawful ways and means what quantities of Tobacco Have been thus vented; and also to enquire whether any Vintners, Innkeepers, Alehouse-keepers or Victuallers have, contrary to our Regal Proclamations and Letters Patent, contemptuously vented the same by Retail, or taken recompense for any Tobacco under colour or pretence of giving away the same, or by permitting their Wives or Servants or any others belonging unto them, with their privity, to give or sell the same directly or indirectly; and further also to enquire whether any Tobacco be sold or uttered by Retail in any Towns or Places where no Licenses have been granted, and by whom the same is so sold. I It will be observed that all these inquiries refer to the Proclamation of Oct. 13,1633, cited in our last Section.]
And if you our said Commissioners or any two of you shall upon due Examination or Proof find any Person complained of guilty of the said Offence, you shall take Bonds or Recognizances to our Use of every such Person to offend no more in like kind, and order some reasonable recompence to be made by him to whoever made the Complaint.
And forasmuch as it may happen that some malicious Persons for private Respects may make false Informations unto you, whereby our Subjects may be put to trouble and expence, We do hereby give you Authority, in case you shall find any Person falsely accused or complained of, to order every Person so complaining to make reasonable Recompence to the Person wrongfully complained of.
And in case any Person complained of shall contemn your Authority, you shall give Information unto our Privy Council, 44 or such of them as by our Letters Patents under our Great Seal of England, dated, the five and twentieth day of February, in the ninth year of our reign [not in ‘‘Fcedera”], are authorized and appointed to treat and agree with our Subjects for retailing of Tobacco,” of the Contempt and Disobedience of every such Person, and in the meantime take such secure course for his forthcoming as you shall think fit. [Say prison with no habeas corpus.] •
44And whereas it hath fallen out and may daily happen, that divers Persons complained of, to have offended in this
kind, having entered into Bond to our Use, not to offend any more against our said Proclamations, and yet do nevertheless persist in offending contrary to the same, whereby they have justly incurred the Penalty and Forfeiture of the said Bonds, for the better Encouragement of all such Persons as have taken Licences from Us, and for the Indemnity of every such Person as shall be prejudiced by Retailers of Tobacco without our Licence, We do hereby authorize and appoint you our said Commissioners, or any two of you, by and with the Approbation of our Attorney-General for the time being, to deliver such of the said Bonds to every such Patentee or Person licenced as shall be prejudiced or damnified by the breach of them, to be sued and recovered in our Name to the use and benefit of the said Patentees so damnified as aforesaid, as you in your Discretions shall think fit.”—And I warrant me that to whatever extent these Patentees or delegated Monopolists were damnified, they were much more extensively damned.
1637, March 23. A Declaration of the several Duties to be paid for Subsidies and Imposts upon goods exported and imported.—This alters the Rates of Value of certain specified Goods (Tobacco not among them) for assessment of 44 Customs, Subsidies, and Imposts.” I mention it because in the preamble it refers to Letters Patents sealed with the Great Seal, bearing date the one and thirtieth day of August, in the eleventh year of our reign (1635); in which Letters Patents [not in “Fcedera”] 44 We did declare that We, by the advice of our Privy Council, had caused a new Book of Rates to be made, and had set down therein and expressed the several Customs, Subsidies, and Imposts, which We did intend should be thereafter collected and duly answered and paid to our Use, upon the particular Goods and Merchandizes therein named, to be imported or exported, into or out of this our Realm of England, Dominion of Wales, Port and Town of Berwick, or any of them.”
1637, June 22; pp. 201-2. Among the Officia de Anno decimo tertio Caroli primi (1637-8), we have grants to Drugo Dean, Knight, and others, and to John Latch, of the Office of Agency for his Majesty, to grant Licences to sell Tobacco by Retail for seven years.
1639, April 9; Given at our Manor at York. A Proclamation declaring his Majesty's gracious Pleasure, touching sundry Grants, Licences, and Commissions obtained upon untrue Surmises.—Revokes a number of them as having been found prejudicial and inconvenient to his People. Among those enumerated are, A Commission for compounding with Offenders touching Tobacco; and A Grant of Incorporation made unto Tobacco-pipe-makers.—Verily the times were rapidly getting more and more out of tune with their motto, “Let brotherly love continue;” but this revocation did not finally extinguish their Company, for, as stated in Section IV., on the authority of 44Stow’s London,” their charter was confirmed by Charles n.. in 1663.
With reference to this Proclamation it may be worth while to give the sarcastic sentence quoted in the “ Pict. Hist.” (HI., 203) from Roger Coke: 44 This King's good-nature never more appeared than in his necessities; so that when he came to York, by proclamation he recalled thirty-one monopolies and patents, formerly granted by him, he not before understanding how grievous they were to his subjects.’*
1639, May 5; Given at our Court at York. A Proclamation for the better ordering the Transportation of Cloths and other Woollen Manufactures into Germany and the Low Countries [Netherlands], and to restrain the Transportation of Wool, Woolfels, Woollen Yarn, Fullers Earth, and Tobacco-pipe-clay.—None except those who are free of the
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Fellowship of Merchant-Adventurers shall export any Woollen Good to the said Countries. The last two clauses specially concern us:—
“And whereas his Majesty is informed of much decay in the trade of Cloth and other Woollen Manufactures, by secret conveying (contrary to sundry good Laws and Proclamations) of Woolls, Woolfels, Woollen-yarn and Fullers-earth, into the Parts beyond the Seas; His Majesty doth therefore hereby strictly charge and command, That no person or persons whatsoever, presume to transport or convey out of this Kingdom into any the Parts beyond the Seas, any Woolls, Woolfels, Woollen-yarn, or Fullers-earth, nor any sort whatsoever of Tobacco-pipe-clay (which is now found to be of the same nature and use with Fullers-earth) upon pain of his Majesty’s high Displeasure, and to be proceeded against and punished with all severity, as shall be meet for Contempts of so high a nature.
“And his Majesty doth further will and command, all the Farmers and Officers of his Customs, within his Realm of England, Dominion of Wales, and Port of Berwick, that they or any of them, do not permit or suffer any of the said Fullers-earth or Tobacco-pipe-clay to be laden, shipped, water-born [borne] or transported from Port to Port, under any pretence or colour whatsoever, any Licence or Toleration therein formerly granted, in any wise notwithstanding.”
Charles was at York on his ignominious expedition against the Scots, arrayed under Leslie and Monroe “ For Christ’s Crown and the Covenant.” He had plenty of warlike stores, arms and ammunition, and a good train of artillery, and was gathering an army to use them; so as the cancelling of the monopolies was intended to conciliate the people in general, this last Proclamation was probably issued for the purpose of winning favour with the great Woollen interest of the North, where Wentworth as Lord President of the Council of the North must have created profound disaffection by his despotic reign of terror. As for the Scottish embroilment, ultimately so fatal to Charles, he had been thrust into it by Laud with his mad persistent attempts to force the Liturgy, the High Commission, the Book of Canons, Laudian Ceremonial, and Tulchan Bishops,* on a people brought up in the austere Kirk of John Knox. On Sunday, July 23, 1637, the first episcopal sermon was attempted in St. Gile’s, Edinburgh, and the jointstool of Jenny Geddes flew at the bishop’s head, “diverted by the hand of one present—luckily diverted—for, though thrown by the arm of a woman, it was thrown with such vigour, that the general opinion was, that had it hit him, supposing his skull to be of only ordinary/ thickness, the stool must have killed the bishop” (“Pict. Hist.,” HI., 183): Jenny crying out as she flung it: “ De’il colic the wame [womb, stomach] of thee! Thou foul thief, wilt thou say mass at my lug [ear]? ” “A Pape, a Pape!” cried others: “stane him!” Carlyle’s “Cromwell”; Part I. Before the Civil War. On the 1st of March, 1638, in that same St. Gile’s Kirk, the New Covenant was first sworn; soon to be sworn by nearly all the nation. And now, in 1639, when Charles arrives at Berwick with an army, numerous, indeed, and well equipped, but ill-disciplined and yet more ill-affected, he will find himself confronted by Leslie, with an army burning with patriotic and religious enthusiasm, thoroughly well disciplined, and commanded by officers who had fought in Holland against the Spaniard, or in Germany under Gustavus Adolphus. So His most sacred Majesty dared not cross the Tweed (the Scots refrained from crossing this time, although already in close secret correspondence with the most eminent English patriots), and was forced to yield all their demands, including a Parliament and the General Assembly; although, of course, Charles began scheming how to break his word before the ink of the treaty was dry on the parchment.
1639, August 19; Whitehall. A Proclamation declaring his Majesty’s pleasure to continue his Commission and Letters Patents for licensing Retailers of Tobacco :—
“ Whereas by His Majesty’s Proclamation dated at York, the ninth day of April last, it was declared, that (amongst sundry other Commissions and Grants obtained upon untrue surmises) a Commission for compounding with Offenders touching Tobacco, was thereby revoked and determined: Under Colour whereof, and by a wilful mistaking of his Majesty’s said Proclamation, sundry Persons have pretended, that H.M.’s Commission to the Lord Goring and others for licensing Retailers of Tobacco within England, Wales and
• “ A Tulchan is, or rather was, for the thing is long since obsolete, a Cfclf-skin stuffed into the rude similitude of a Calf,—similar enough to deceive the imperfect perceptive organs of a Cow. At milking-time the Tulchan, with head duly bent, was set as if to suck; the fond cow looking round fancied that her calf was busy, and that all was right, and so gave her milk freely, which the cunning maid was straining in white abundance into her pail all the while I The Scotch milkmaids in those days cried ‘ Where is the Tulchan, is the Tulchan ready ?’ So of the Bishops. Scotch Lairds were eager enough to ‘ milk ’ the Church Lands and Tithes, to get the rents out of them freely, which was not always easy. They were glad to conduct a Form of Bishops to please the King and Church, and make the milk come without disturbance. The reader now knows what a Tulchan Bishop was. A piece of mechanism constructed not without difficulty, in Parliament and King's Council, among the Scots; and torn asunder afterwards with dreadful clamour, and scattered to the four winds, so soon as the Cow became awake to it 1 ”—-Carlyle's “ Cromwell ”; Introduction,under date 1617.—This, of course, refers to the Episcopacy which James endeavoured to impose upon the Scotch, but it applies equally to the Scotch Bishops of Laud and Charles, only in their case, the Cow being thoroughly awake to the imposture, and the Scotch Lairds themselves, almost to a man, signing the New National Covenant (there was an Old one in the time of John Knox), the wretched Tulcbans were kicked over the Border with the utmost promptitude and contempt.
Berwick, was thereby called in [Commission, March 16. 1637; cited at beginning of this Section]; And thereupon H.M.’s Commissioners have been interrupted in their Proceedings in that service for H.M.; Tobacco in divers parts of the Kingdom, contrary to H.M.’s Proclamation of the 25th of March last,* hath been retailed without H.M.’s licence, and many of those persons who have Licences, have forborn to make Payment of their Rents.
“H.M. therefore, to remove all doubts and questions touching the Premisses, hath thought (with the Advice of his Council) to make publick Declaration of his Royal Intention and meaning therein, which was, that H.M.’s Letters Patents and Commission to the Lord Goring and others, concerning the Licensing of Retailers of Tobacco, was not impeached or meant to be impeached by H.M.’s said Proclamation of the 9th April last, but that the same Letters Patents and Com. mission are still in force, and no way infringed or restrained thereby . . .
“ And H.M. doth further declare hereby, that H.M. by his said Proclamation, in April last, to repeal a Commission to Lawrence Lownes and others [which I do not find in “Feeders”], to compound with such as from the 9th April, in the first year of H.M.’s Reign, until the date of that Commission, had offended in defrauding of H.M. of his Customs and other Duties for Tobacco imported, or in planting Tobacco in England or Ireland, or by importing Tobacco of the growth of other foreign Parts, or in greater quantities than were limited, or in buying or selling the same, contrary to H.M.’s Proclamations before that time published, and none other Commission concerning Tobacco.” Punishments threatened; officers and officials charged to enforce.
Sigvat.
^alt SS^timaw.
HL
In Section H. I hazarded the statement that Whitman has written poems on the Civil War immeasurably greater and deeper and nobler than anything I have seen by any other American on the same subject. But he did somewhat else than write on the War; somewhat that demanded far more valour and fortitude, as well as that human love which is divine compassion, than merely to fight in it, however bravely; he went to the front to tend and cherish and comfort the multitudinous wounded and sick and dying during the war, and remained in Washington to carry on the same good work in the immense army hospitals long after the war was over. Mr. W. Douglas O’Connor, in his pamphlet, “ The Good Gray Poet; a Vindication” (New York), notes that when the war broke out, and so many were skulking from the call to arms, Whitman was careful to have his name enrolled for service in his turn, although he might easily have evaded, his grey hair making him look much older than he was; but no stress need be laid on such an act in his case. We may be sure that to him it was the most simple and natural act in the world, not costing a moment’s thought: he was calmly prepared to do things considerably more difficult than this. Dr. Burroughs says that he first went to the front at the close of ’62, to tend his brother, Lieut.-Col. George W. Whitman, 51st New York Veterans, who was hit in the face by a piece of shell at Fredericksburgh; but from the first of Whitman’s own “Memoranda During the War” it would appear that he was present at the battle itself. His note on this brother (with whom, I believe, he now lives at Camden, New Jersey), as one of the typical Northern soldiers, is worth citing:—
“-------in ’61 a young man working in Brooklyn as a carpenter—was not supposed to have any taste for soldiering— but volunteer’d in the ranks at once on the breaking out of
♦ Not in “Foedera.” There is one of March 26, 1639 (1688 in “Feeder*;* but I throughout make the New Year begin 1st J any.), granting to the Queen a yearly Pension of forty thousand Pounds (probably equal to full £100,000 now) for the term of three-score years, if she live so long, to begin after oar death and decease: Farmers and Collectors. Receiver and Receivers of Us, oar Heirs and Successors, of our greater and lesser Customs, the Imposts, Subsidies, and other Duties, upon Goods and Merchandises Exported and Imported, are authorised and commanded to pay this Pension quarterly upon sight of these our Letters Patents, or of the Inrolment or Exemplification thereof. Tobacco may be included in this lien. As for the Queen, Henrietta Maria, she over-lived Charles twenty years, but we know that she and her daoghter Henriel ta were very poor in France before the latter, in 1661, was married to the Duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV. Naturally the Common vealth would not pay her pension; and after the Restoration her dutiful sea was always too much in want of money for himself and his mistresses U give her much, though she probably recovered the lands of her dowry, whicl had been mainly distributed among certain of the regicides (“ Lingard,” 5th Ihu vol. IX., p. 66, Note; at date 1660). How she reciprocated the love ofWr uxorious husband, on whom, after Strafford’s execution and Laud’s in#r-ceration she exercised supreme influence, and whom she potently impend to the proceedings that led directly to the Civil War, may be read in hist* J. Thus (“ Pict. Hist.,” III., 861; date, close of 1646; Charles a prisoner): M 1< now his heart sank within him, and he resolved to escape, if poesi> le, al fly to the Continent—a project which he had entertained once or twice befo. but from which he had been dissuaded by his wife, who not only thoug that his evasion would be dangerous to the monarchic principle, but who d not wish for his presence or society in France, where she was notorious wasting all the money she could get [by sale of crown jewels, plate, & upon Jermyn and her other favourites. Never was the blindness of politiJ partisanship more severely taxed than in exciting an idolatrous worship > this woman as a heroine—as a pattern of conjugal affection.” Her affecti • was for the Crown, and for the despotic power and sumptuousnees of ^ Crown, not for him who wore it. Mr. Jermyn, one of her household, was n* Lord Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Albans; a widow, she privately maxr 4 him.
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the war—continued in active service all through, four years, re-enlisting twice—was promoted, step by step (several times immediately after battles), Lieutenant, Captain, Major, and Lieut.-Colonel—was in the actions at Roanoke, Newbern, 2d Bull Run, Chantilly, South Mountain, Antietam; Fredericks-burgh, Vicksburgh, Jackson, the bloody conflicts of the Wilderness, and at Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, and afterwards around Petersburg. At one of these latter he was taken prisoner, and pass’d four or five months in Secesh military prisons, narrowly escaping with life, from a severe fever, from starvation and half-nakedness in the winter.”
Dr. Burroughs tells us that he supported himself during the ensuing two or three years by correspondence with Northern newspapers. Mr. Rossetti, in his Prefatory Notice, writes “he undertook the nursing of the sick and wounded in the field, writing also a correspondence for the New York Times. I am informed that it was through Emerson’s intervention that he obtained the sanction of President Lincoln for this purpose of charity, with authority to draw’ the ordinary army rations; Whitman stipulating at the same time that he would not receive any remuneration for his services. . . . From the spring of 1863, this nursing, both in the field and more especially in hospital at Washington, became his ‘one daily and nightly occupation ’; and the strongest testimony is borne to his measureless self-devotion and kindliness in the work, and to the unbounded fascination, a kind of magnetic attraction and ascendancy, which he exercised over the patients, often with the happiest sanitary results. Northerner or Southerner, the belligerents received the same tending from him.” Returning to Dr. Burroughs, he tells us that Whitman remained in the field during the winter of ’62-3, then returned to Washington, where the sick and wounded were mainly concentrated. The capital city wras then one huge hospital. Mr. O’Connor writes in the Vindication: “ Few know the spectacle presented by those grim wards. It was hideous. I have been there at night, when it seemed that I should die with sympathy if I stayed.” He spent the winter of ’63-4 with the army at Brandy Station and Culpepper, Virginia, among the brigade and division hospitals. The following summer the “bloody holocaust of the Wilderness, and the fierce promenade down to the James river,” gave him plenty to do, and he did it well, until prostrated himself. Burroughs says in a note:—
“In the hot summer of 1864, Whitman, w’ho up to that period [age 45] had been the picture of health, and strong, unsurpassed physique, was taken down with an illness which, although he recovered from it, has left effects upon him to this day. He was nurse at the time to a number of soldiers, badly wounded in the late battles, and whose wounds, from previous enforced neglect and the intense heat of the weather, were mortified, and several corrupted with worms. He remained assiduously day and night with these lamentable cases. The consequence was that his system, doubtless weakened by anxiety, became deeply saturated with the worst poison of hospital malaria. He was ordered north by the physicians; an illness of six months followed, the first sickness of his life.
“ In February, 1865, wishing to return to the field of his labors, in Washington, he received from the then head of the Department of the Interior an appointment to a clerkship. This gave him leisure for hospital visits and secured him an income. He performed his clerical work well, and was promoted. He was now dividing his leisure hours between services to the wounded and in composing the memorial to Abraham Lincoln, ‘When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloomed’ [of which something must be said in the sequel]. It was at this juncture that a new Secretary, Hon. James Harlan, suddenly removed him from his situation, for the reason that ‘ he was the author of “Leaves of Grass.” ’ The circumstances are far more brutal and infamous than is generally known. An eminent person, intimate with Mr. Harlan, went to him, and in a long interview thoroughly proved Walt Whitman’s personal character, and the theory and intentions, at least, of his book. Harlan, in reply, merely said that the author of ‘ Leaves of Grass ’ should never be allowed in his department. [Elsewhere we are told that Harlan declared, ‘If the President himself directed me to put the author of “Leaves of Grass” back in his place, I would resign sooner than do it.’ High-minded, narrowminded man, of the ruthless Inquisitorial type. This dismissal aroused much indignation throughout the country, and produced O’Connor’s * Vindication.’]
“ Immediately on this occurrence (July, 1865) Mr. Whitman was sent for by a distinguished Cabinet officer, and offered a place at his disposal, under Government [in the Attorney-General’s office], of moderate pay, but an honourable position. This he accepted, and has continued to occupy since. ... ...
“ Since the close of the war he has continued his ministrations among the sick and wounded just the same, down to the present time (March, 1867). Every Sunday finds him at the hospital, and he frequently goes there during the week. For the maimed and the infirm of the war we have yet among us, in many a dreary case, and the wounds of the contest are still unhealed.”
Here is Dr. Burroughs’ summing-up of these voluntary unpaid army hospital services of Whitman; well worth meditating by honest readers hitherto misled by the persistent calumnies, whether malignant or merely stupid, of the
“infinitely little” anonymous hirelings of the press,* who have succeeded for a time in keeping down a great man, as the multitudinous Liliputians managed to pin Gulliver to the earth:—
“I would say to the reader that I have dwelt upon this portion of Walt Whitman’s life, not so much because it enters into the statement of his biography [hero I dissent], as because it really enters into the statement of his poetry, and affords a light through which alone the later pieces, and in, some sort the whole of his work, can be fitly construed. His large oceanic nature doubtless enjoyed fully, and grew all the larger from, the pouring out of its powerful currents of magnetism; and this is evident in his pieces since 18(11.
“ The statement is also needed with reference to the country, for it rises to national proportions. To more than a hundred thousand suffering soldiers was he, during the war, personally the cheering visitor, and ministered in some form to their direct needs of body and spirit; soldiers from every quarter, west, east, north, south—for he treated the rebel wounded the same as the rest.
“ Of course there were many others, men and women, who engaged faithfully in the same service, lint it is probable that no other was so endowed for it as Walt Whitman. I should say his whole character culminates here; and as a country is best viewed by ascending some peak, so from this point his life and books arc to be read and understood.”
Judge now between this “ half Bowery boy,” this “hero of the roughs,” all “ affectation and pretence,” with his “ drivel and indecency,” and those who decry or contemn him. Judge between him and the “ Property Committee ” of Association Hall in Philadelphia, who this very March refused to let him have their Hall for a lecture ; between him and the publishers who will not publish, the book-store keepers who will not keep for sale his books; between him and all “ the established American poets who studiously ignore him ; ” between him and “the orthodox American authors, publishers, and editors,” who treat him and his works with “determined denial, disgust, and scorn;” nay, between him and the superfine philosophers and philanthropists of Boston, up to Emerson himself, who having done their utmost to exasperate the South into Secession, did their utmost to exacerbate the North during the conflict and after the triumph, while he was ministering at the sacrifice of his health to “ more than a hundred thousand suffering soldiers,” Northerners and Southerners alike. And further, judge between this man and his country, including the relics and relatives of the more than a hundred thousand; between this man who devoted himself to such divine ministrations, and his people, who, as we were told four years ago, suffer him to languish “ old, poor, and paralysed”—in his own words “poor even to penury”—old with premature age, paralysed and afflicted with anamia of the brain, as the results of the stupendous expenditure of vitality in those ministrations of mercy— “while he lies at Camden preparing, largely with his own handiwork, a small edition of his works in two volumes, which he now himself sells to keep the wolf from the door.” I do not blame his people for not appreciating his poetry, nor do I imply that he has any claims upon them as a great neglected poet: when a man deliberately and consciously strikes out a new path in literature, art, philosophy, or, indeed, anything else, he should know well that it must be many years before the public will be able to make up its mind to follow him ; and if such a one complains that he is left to pursue his way alone, or resents the popular shouts that he is on the new high road to nowhere, he is but a little-minded, faint-hearted fellow, or, worse still, one without any real faith in the new’ path, who trusted to attract followers by the mere affectation of being original, thus combining the advantages of singularity and popularity. Assuredly Whitman neither thus complains nor resents. I simply express my wonder and sorrow that the Americans, with their well-earned reputation for generosity, should allow such a great and noble public benefactor, prematurely broken down by the tremendous exertions of his public beneficence, to languish and die in neglect and poverty. Such a blot upon the name of a nation lasts long: when will Scotland be forgiven for Burns? This case is as if England were to ignore Miss Nightingale in her old age “ poor even to penury” (these are his own words of himself in ’76).
Knowing now the general scope of Whitman’s work in the Army Hospitals, let us see in what manner he set about and accomplished it. We will first take the record of Dr. Burroughs:—
“An army surgeon, who at the time watched with curiosity Mr. Whitman’s movements among the soldiers in the hosptals, has since told me that his principles of operation, effective as they were, seemed strangely few, simple, and on a low key: to act upon the appetite, to cheer by a healthy and fitly bracing appearance and demeanor, and to fill and satisfy, in certain cases, the affectional longings of the patients, was about all. He carried among them no sentimentalism nor moralizing: spoke not to any man of his ‘ sins ’; but gave something good to eat, a buoying word, or a trifling gift and a look. He appeared with ruddy face, clean dress, with a flower or a green sprig in the lappet of his coat. Crossing the fields in summer, he would gather a great bunch of dandelion blossoms, and red and white clover, to bring and scatter on the cots, as reminders of out-door air and sunshine.
“ When practicable, he came to the long and crowded wards of the maimed, the feeble, and the dying, only after preparations as for a festival—strengthened by a good meal, rest, the
* I term “ hirelings of the press,” not all those who write for hire, for circumstances cornel many good and honest men to do this; but those who for hirp are ready to write anything to ord«r, on any side of any question, irrespective of their own convictions,—and their name is legion, like that of the devils in the Gos]>el.
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bath, and fresh underclothes. He entered with a huge haversack slung over his shoulder, full of appropriate articles, with parcels under his arms, and protuberant pockets. He would sometimes come in summer with a good-sized basket, filled with oranges, and would go round for hours paring and dividing them among the feverish and thirsty.”
In another place Dr. Burroughs tells that in the fall of 1863 he himself left New York for Washington; and continues :—
“Mr. Whitman was at Washington in 1862 and 1863, engaged in the army hospitals. I easily found him out, as he had become well known around the city, and soon made his acquaintance. I had met him once or twice without our interviews amounting to much, as I found him, although cheerful and friendly, not at all inclined to talk on any such subjects as poetry or metaphysics; when on one of my Sunday afternoon rambles in the woods, two or three miles from Washington, I plumply encountered him travelling along a foot-path between the trees, with a well-stuffed haversack slung over his shoulder, and the pockets of his overcoat also filled. He was on his way to some army hospital barracks in the vicinity, and, with his permission, I accompanied him..............
“ The actual scene, as I saw it, of this man moving among the maimed, the pale, the low-spirited, the near-to-death, with all the incidents and interchanges between him and those suffering ones, often young almost to childhood, can hardly be pictured by any pen, however expert. His magnetism was incredible and exhaustless. It is no figure of speech, but a fact deeper than speech. The lustreless eye brightened up at his approach; his commonplace words invigorated; a bracing air seemed to fill the ward, and neutralize the bad smells. I beheld, in practical force, something like that fervid incantation of one of his own poems (“Walt Whitman,” in Section 40]:—
‘ To any one dying—thither I speed, and twist the
knob of the door;
Turn the bed-clothes toward tho foot of the bed; Let the physician and priest go home.
* I seize the descending man, and raise him with resistless will.
*0 despairer, hero is my neck:
By God 1 you shall not go down! Hang your whole weight upon me.
‘ I dilate you with tremendous breath—I buoy you up;
Every room of the house do I fill with an
arm'd force, Lovers of me, bafflers of graves.’”
Here is Whitman’s own account of his general mode of procedure, selected by Dr. Burroughs from the newspaper correspondence, and not included in the “Memoranda During the War”:—
“ My custom is to go through a ward, or collection of wards, endeavouring to give some trifle to each, without missing any. Even a sweet biscuit, a sheet of paper, or a passing word of friendliness, or but a look or nod, if no more. In this way I go among large numbers without delaying, yet do not hurry. I find out the general mood of the ward at the time; sometimes see that there is a heavy weight of listless-ness prevailing, and the whole ward wants cheering up. I, perhaps, read to the men, to break the spell; calling them around me, careful to sit away from the cot of any one who is very bad with sickness or wounds. Also, I find out, by going through in this way, the cases that need special attention, and can then devote proper time to them. Of course, I am very cautious among the patients in giving them food. I always confer with the doctor, or find out from the nurse or ward-master, about a new case. But I soon get sufficiently familiar with what is to be avoided, and learn also to judge intuitively what is best.
“ I buy during the hot weather boxes of oranges from time to time, and distribute them among the men; also preserved peaches and other fruits; also lemons and sugar, for lemonade. Tobacco is also much in demand. Large numbers of the men come up, as usual, without a cent of money. Through the assistance of friends in Brooklyn and Boston, I am again able to help many of those that fall in my way. It is only a small sum in each case, but it is much to them. As before, I go around daily and talk with the men, to cheer them up.”
He alludes to writing letters by the bed-side:—
“I do a good deal of this, of course, writing all kinds, including love-letters. Many sick and wounded soldiers have not written home to parents, brothers, sisters, and even wives, for one reason or another, for a long, long time. Some are poor writers, some cannot get paper and envelopes, many have an aversion to writing because they dread to worry the folks at home—the facts about them are so sad to tell. I always encourage the men to write, and promptly write for them.”
Surely nothing could be more simple and succinct than the style, nothing more practical and sagacious and quietly energetic, while nobly tender-hearted, than the conduct, of this uncultivated “half Bowery boy,” this “hero of the roughs”; who confessed to Mr. Conway that he had no talent for industry, that his forte consisted in loafing and writing poems, and in the opening of “Walt Whitman” had chanted,
“ I loafe and invite my Soul;
I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a
spear of summer grass.'
But he had at length found his true sphere of industry.
J. T.
|ipt ®oobs.
Besides the gorgeous Oriental pipes, the ambitious aristocratic meerschaum pipes, the countless variety of common clay pipes—churchwarden, beloved of Kingsley, Tennyson, Carlyle; dhudeen, beloved of Ireland; cuttie, beloved of Scotland, and so on—there are pipes of wood, whose social position is questionable, though they claim kinship and fellowship chiefly with things Bohemian. They are more popular in France and Germany than in England, and those in England with whom they find favour are supposed to have a slightly eccentric taste. Besides being an enjoyment, and one of the highest to the born smokers—and those who are not born smokers should not smoke at all—smoking is an art. It has its aisthetical aspects and its wsthetical conditions, and takes its share in that culture-combat of which the ponderous Germans are so fond of speaking. Wooden heads of any kind are not of much value or repute in the culture-combat, in jesthetical education. And if wooden heads are employed in smoking, wooden heads they still remain. Nevertheless, as the universe rejoices in variety, and the individuality of the individual is the divinest of inspirations and of laws, we do not condemn pipes of wood, though we do not particularly sympathise with them, or with those who prefer them to all other pipes. They have the recommendation of being easily made, easily replaced; they are cheap, and are not so fragile as either their humbler or their more pretentious brethren.
Two German authors, Raufer and Tomasek, have described pipe woods at considerable length. Both verbally and substantially, one of them must have copied the other; but which is the plagiary it is not worth while taking the trouble to determine, though we think it is Raufer. In our excursions and explorations through the rich region of Nicotian literature we have repeatedly found the Germans, who have such a high reputation for erudition, laboriousness, and honesty, as careless compilers and as unscrupulous thieves as the much decried French. Let this be as it may, let us, aided by Raufer, Tomasek, and others, say briefly about pipe woods whatsoever needs to be said.
We abstain from giving the botanical names, which would would needlessly encumber and pedantise our slight sketch. Without the lumber of sesquipedalian Latin words, the following is, we believe, a tolerably complete list of the pipe woods:—
1.	Maple.—There are many kinds of maple, one of them, as is well known, furnishing sugar in America. All the kinds are suitable for pipes, though there are positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of merit. Out of maple whipsticks can also be made, a fact which Anti-Nicotians had better ponder upon.
2.	Bird Cherry Tree.—The American bird cherry tree grows to a height of sixty or seventy feet. The wood is not attacked by worms, can be used in turning, takes a good polish, and has beautiful veins and waves.
3.	Aspen.—The aspen, white or silver aspen, or silver poplar, among other qualifications as pipe wood, can easily be tinted more or less variously and deeply.
4.	Acacia.—The wood of the American locust tree, belonging botanically to the acacia family, is hostile to worms, is a tough and incorruptible wood, and admits of being easily and well turned and coloured and polished.
5.	Birch.—The fitness of birch for pipes depends not a little on the soil where the tree grows. Tomasek states that birch pipe heads combine lightness and durability. In the Tyrol the cellulose, along with the bark and a part of the inner wood, is made into snuff-boxes.
6.	Heath Root.—The French word for heath is bruyere; and in Germany bruyere is the name preferred for heath root as a material for pipes. The Pyrenees, Algiers, and Italy furnish it. Much in esteem, especially in France, heath root pipes, beautiful in themselves, take a venerable dark brown colour when exposed to the air.
7.	Box.—The hardest of European woods, indeed so heavy that it sinks in water, is one of the most popular woods for pipe heads, cigar tubes, and so on. The best quality comes from Spain. Boxwood is also brought from the Caucasus by way of Constantinople, and from Smyrna by way of Leghorn. In Franche-Comt6, one of the ancient provinces of France, an artificial mode of producing boxwood for pipe purposes is practised.
8.	Campeachy Wood.—This wood has its name from Campeche, in the peninsula of Yucatan, Mexico, where it is chiefly found; but it also grows in other places. Both from its natural qualities and from the changes of tint which it undergoes through age, it is one of the most interesting of the pipe woods.
9.	Cedar.—Famous in history, no less notable in natural history, cedar, from its fragrance and from its incorruptible character, supplies, as is most just, material for pipe stems and cigar tips.
10.	Wild Service Tree.—The wood of this tree, though very hard and firm, can be easily worked, and from its essential excellence, and from ihe diversity and fineness of its tints, can be made into beautiful pipes.
11.	Alder.—Thewood of the alder is very easily worked. The hardness is moderate, but the firmness and elasticity are especially deserving of mention. Only the wood of stunted stems is made use of for pipe heads.
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12.	Ash.—The ash veined woods, which are often converted into pipe heads, are equal in hardness to the box veined woods, and have the advantage over these of not being rimose, even when perfectly dried. They have a very beautiful and pleasing appearance, with veins, speckles, and waves. The white, the red, the dark red, and the brown ash W’oods have all their individual merits, both positively and in their chemical relations and treatment. 13.	Tree of the Gods.—This tree grows in North Tartary and in China. The wood is hard, shines like satin, and takes a splendid polish. 14.	Hazel.—The common hazel is of small importance for the maker of pipes; but Raufer warmly praises the Turkish hazel, and laments that it is so little known. 15.	Elder Tree.—The wood of the black elder tree is easily worked, resembling hazelwood in colour, and birchwood in hardness and toughness. 16.	Hornbeam.—The central wood of old hornbeam or white beech tree is marked with beautiful brown stripes, and, when stained black, has a great resemblance to ebony. 17.	Buckthorn.—The common buckthorn can be used both for pipe heads and pipe stems. The wood has a glittering, silky appearance, is dense, finely zoned, almost as hard as box; is easily turned, takes a brilliant polish; splendidly veined are the roots. 18.	Linden.—The species of linden are divided into the summer and the winter linden, which are about equal in regard to their Nicotian characteristics and claims. In old Undens very charming speckles are often found at the stem end; this speckled portion can be converted into beautiful pipes. 19.	Mulberry.—The wood found in the heart both of the black and of the white mulberry can be used for pipes. The waved and speckled wood of the Italian sorts of this tree finds much favour for pipe heads. 20.	Haicthorn.—The wood does not warp, takes a good polish, and is in Germany one of the favourite woods for turning. 21.	The Olive Tree.—Among other good qualities, the wood has that of durability. The wood of the root is much liked for pipes, for it is marked with figures Uke Florentine marble. 22.	The Plane Tree.—The Western plane tree supplies a good and beautiful wood, which can be worked without much difficulty, and takes a fine polish. 23.	The Poplar.—1There are many kinds of poplar. It is chiefly the roots which are used for pipes. The beauty of the wood can be greatly increased by chemical treatment. 24.	The Elin.—1This valuable and noble tree has many varieties. In general the elm veined woods, on account of their firmness of fibre, find cordial welcome in the pipe factory; they can be worked into a mirror-like smoothness, and take a fine polish ; and they do not lose their briUiancy and beauty through use. 25.	The Mountain Ash.—The wood is tough, tolerably hard, dense, firm, fine-fibred, readily admits of chemical treatment, and of being coloured and polished. Tomasek gives a preference to the wood of the cultivated kind. 26.	The Walnut Tree.—The roots and the stem-ends of walnut trees which have grown on stony, thin, and sterile ground, can be converted into pipe heads, which from smoking grow blackish in the course of time, and as “Ulm pipes” enjoy great favour. 27.	The Perfumed Cherry Tree.—It is also called the Mahaleb cherry tree. This designation it brought from its original home in Persia. The Turkish kind is harder than the Persian, but it is scentless. The cultivation of the Persian variety has been carried on in Baden for centuries. The wood never quite loses its perfume. It is called in France St. Lucian wood, from the Minorite monastery Sainte Lucie, near the town of Michel, where the tree grows. In Spain it has the name of St. Gregory Wood, and is famous there as a remedy against madness. The pipe tubes made of the wood are in Germany known as Weichselrohre. 28.	The Vine.—1The old roots of the vine furnish excellent materials for streaked or veined pipes. 29.	The Yew.—For colour, for texture, for durability, the wood of the yew is much liked by pipe turners. 30.	Cherry Tree.—Both the varieties of the common cherry —that producing sweet fruit and that producing sour fruit— furnish wood finding ardent acceptance from the makers of pipes. 31.	Cornel Tree.—1The wild cornel tree has a very firm wood, with which pipe tubes are sometimes made. 32.	Chestnut Tree.—1The roots of the horse chestnut tree have recently sought a modest though honourable place in the pipe factory. 33.	Barberry.—1The common barberry has a beautiful yellow wood, which can be used for cigar tips and pipe tubes. 34.	Wayfaring Tree.—This tree, whose Latin name is Viburnum, and whose general and special designations in Germany are as various as they are poetical, has interesting characteristics. The kind called by the Germans the “woolly snowball,” from the nature and aspect of the under side of the leaves, has its home in Central and Southern Europe, though it is cultivated as an ornament of parks and gardens in the North and the West. Its black, mealy, slimy, sweetish berries were formerly employed as a remedy for	diarrhea and for catarrhal inflammations of the throat. From the roots birdlime is made in Southern Europe. The bast of the branches is sharp and draws blisters on the skin. It was at one time used for rowels (or setons) in the maladies of domestic animals. From the boughs are made those beautiful, flexible, velvety pipe tubes which, called Turkish, or Polish, or Hungarian, or Ortowiu, or Ortuin tubes, are popular in Germany. They are dear; but, though dear, they find their way from Ruhla, one of the chief places of manufacture, to a great distance. 35.	Willow.—Not well suited for pipes are willows, though the wood of the “great round-leaved sallow” (the salix caprea) is sometimes employed. 36.	Briery Boot.—It is, we believe, France to which the English smoker is principally indebted for the “briery roots” of which he is so fond. But it is odd that neither Raufer nor Tomasek mentions them. It has been said, however, that there are really no Briery Root pipes, and that briery is merely a corruption of the French bruyere. Our list of pipe woods is more complete than any hitherto given in English. But our space, of course, limits us to the meagrest summary. By proper and prolonged modes of drying, the wood intended for pipes has to be very carefully prepared, for if the saps are not gradually and thoroughly expelled, the pipes may be useless, or soon break or decay. Thereupon the wood is cut into the requisite lengths. Then the knife, the chisel, the file, the borer, the turning lathe come into play, and the pipe receives its shape in tho rough, but so that no further essential change is needful. Cement is next applied to the rents and the hollows. It is now the turn of the mordants and colours, and respecting the preparation and application of these Raufer and Tomasek give very copious and curious details. Polishing and finishing follow, and are succeeded by those processes which make the pipe a noble artistic production and a “joy for ever;” or, at least, a joy as long as the pipe tube or the pipe lasts. Regretting exceedingly that we cannot follow Raufer and Tomasek into this interesting and important department of the subject, we hope to be able to return to it at some future period. It must strike the reader, as it has struck ourselves, as strange and unaccountable that pipe woods, and the attractive and lucrative branch of manufacture founded thereon, should hitherto have been viewed by English industrial enterprise with so much indifference. Perhaps one reason why France is more uniformly prosperous than England, and recovers far sooner from commercial catastrophe and depression, is that it has so many small industries, not more than one or two of which can suffer at a particular time. England should apply the lesson, England, which relies so credulously on its great industries. Why should not England take the foremost place in the production of pipes of every kind? ^n ^tfre philosopher. [From Puck, May 19th, 1880.] Here in my kingdom up four pair of stairs, Above all the city’s confusion and noise— I laugh at my sorrows, and throw off my cares, Though I own I can't boast of a great many joys. Still the air here is pure, and the prospect is fine: Tve a glimpse of the sea on a clear summer day; When the smoke’s not too thick I can almost divine The shape of the chimney-pots over the way. You’d laugh at the room. There’s a ricketty bed, A table, an easel, a cosey arm-chair ; And there by the window that wonderful head Of the Cenci still smiles in its frozen despair. I’m not lodged like an emperor here, as you see— But, believe it or not, I’ve often fared worse. This bit of Bohemia is home-like to me— And besides it just matches my lean little purse. When I sit by the hearth at the falling of night, And the wreaths from my pipe make a cloud round my head, From the embers old faces appear to my sight, And my thoughts hasten back to the years that are fled. I’m wrinkled, and battered, and care-worn, and old— And, worse than all that, I confess I am poor, But I look on the past as a tale that is told— ’Tis the future alone of which one is not sure. I regret not the past—’tis too late to regret, I sigh not for beauty, fame, fortune, or friend, I live in the present and strive to forget That this, like all else here, must come to an end. I’ve tried love and friendship—they fade like the leaves; I’d a short dream of fame—like a dream it has flown; So the fresh Summer morns, and the cool Autumn eves, Find me here in my garret—content and alone! A. D.
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goral Songs.
THE BRADLAUGH EPISODE.
Let us now consider matters atheistical, Matters philosophical, and matters very quaint;
Let us in good order go, taking facts statistical, Lest we scandalise a sinner, lest we hurt a saint.
Chorus of Northampton Bootmakers:
“ He’s the man to represent us;
He holds views that well content us;
Don’t suppose we’re blind as moles!
For he, d’ye see,
As well as we, Declines to believe in everlasting soles.”
Strange it was to some minds, almost unbelievable. To hear the Christian Premier defend Northampton’s choice;
Ditto, only more so—in fact, inconceivable,
When the House sat quaking at the lighting Quaker’s voice.
Government Chorus:
“Let him make an affirmation, Tolerance delights the nation. We would welcome even a Shaker!
So vote, now vote, Row in this boat;
The cap’n’s Churchman, the bosun’s a Quaker.”
Sad it was to see the Faith Christians ought to dignify
Left to be defended by the “horsey men” and Jews: Saint-like they became at once—there, what does it signify?
They’d no “card” but Piety to give the foe the blues.
Chorus of Horsey Men and Renegade Jews.
“ Chuck him out. the bold blasphemer, Anti-population schemer!
Leave the infidel in the lurch.”
The odds put down On Queen and Crown; Who’ll take two to one on the Church?”
L.
& Blucher ripe Head.
[From the German of Riichert.]
With the best of Tobacco fill me, For here Blucher’s image behold!
And kindle the leaves as an incense, Encircling, honouring Blucher the Bold!
With powder smoke the old hero
Was blackened in many a fight;
And here, as was ever his fashion,
Looks grand in the smoke, the grim old wight.
Scoto-Celt.
& Jabari an in S^nle.*
The contents of this volume are very various and very interesting. The author, Felix Dahn, a Bavarian gentleman, is a witty and animated writer, and is chargeable only with one fault—a very common fault in these days—the desire to be perpetually brilliant. A little relief in the style would often be a great relief to the reader. Though the volume has many suggestive, many attractive pages, we should not have called attention to it but for the fresh life and light which the author contrives to give to a subject with which our readers must now be tolerably familiar: Amber, the precious “gold of the sea.” We translate the whole of a letter which Felix Dahn addressed from Koenigsberg, in the autumn of 1872, to a friend, and which seems to have been intended for publication in a German periodical; and we may by-and-by give further extracts, keeping, however, the famous elektron exclusively in view. That Felix Dahn is not a profound and elaborate historical investigator like Genthe and others does not lessen the worth of his information :—
Verily, Thule was regarded as an island, and it has been sought for further to the North and further to the West. By some the islands to the North of Scotland have been regarded as the real Thule. In any case, the whole unknown Amber Land of the North has been designated by that name which sounds to us like a breath, like a sigh of legend or of myth. At all events, the country is North enough for me. I often feel as if I were in Thule when the mist of the evening on the solitary downs bathes and veils sea and land in an indistinguishable grey; and perhaps you and other friends who in my letters from the Isar and the Etsch (Adige), from the ruins of Ravenna, from the hills of Sedan, from the vine-scented resting-place of Walter Von Der Vogelweide, have
• Baustcine: Gesammelte Kleine Schriften. Von Felix Dahn, Erst Reibe. Berlin, 1879. Verlag Von Otto Janke.
received so many salutations from me, desire to know how the images of the extreme North-eastern boundary of our empire mirror themselves in my soul.
How brilliant, stalwart, and majestic soever the life of our great existing Germany, as regards culture, society, and the State, how important and how imposing affairs, even in this remote Prussian province, may appear to the traveller who is the citizen of a small city, the member of an insignificant commonwealth, yet I must confess that, more than the Present, the mighty Past occupies my thoughts and my historical phantasies, when over the sombre fir forest bordering the Haff (name of each of three expanses of fresh water connected with the Baltic) the moon ascends, in whose pale light far on the open sea a belated vessel glides like a spirit, while with light play the wave rhythmically rolls on the sand of the Downs.
Verily, in the history of this remote land two periods, separated by two thousand years, potently seize and fascinate the historical sense: the period of the Phoenicians, who came as purchasers of amber, and the period glittering with the gleam of swords, when the white mantle of the Teutonic Knights fluttered and flashed over these marshy heaths, and through the dark pine forest—the period of the “Mette Von Marienburg,” and of “Ralf Vom Rhein.”
The whole of Samland, and at an earlier period the coast near Pillau, I have surveyed, as three thousand years ago they were doubtless beheld by the swarthy seafarers of hot Sidon and of luxurious Tyre, who had been attracted toward the North. On the journey through Samland, the strange-sounding local names on every direction-post, on every waymark—Pobaethen, Warniken, Palmniken, Rokaemen, Duwax-ten, and especially, almost with startling force, Kraxtepellen— summoned to the imagination races long extinct, races long vanquished by the sword and the cross, races over whose resting-places the plough has long passed. Amazement and a strange glamour come over us at the thought. In those dim times, during which not the faintest trace is discernible of the later culture-lands of Central Europe, and of the East as far as the Caucasus, a singular shimmer streams—feeble, verily, but not fugitive—and illuminating successive centuries as it glowed on the coasts of the North Sea and on the shores of the Baltic, which were after a while to be wrapped anew in the mists of oblivion. From the far Africa merchants of high culture and of luxurious habits face all the terrors of unknown seas, and come to these inhospitable strands ; and they purchase from the rough fishing and hunting tribes, not silver and tin, such as they obtained from the Iberian peninsula and from the British Islands, but a mysterious, amphibious production, the moist gold of the sea, dashed by the salt waves to and fro, and which had flowed many thousands of years before from the tops of tall firs—amber, elektron. Strange thoughts about the perishable and the imperishable, about the necessary but perplexing concatenation of human culture, assail thee, when thou pickest up from the sand of the downs a piece of the magically attractive mass, fragile in substance, faint in colour, which for countless ages has been in ceaseless contact with the throbbings of the sea. Many thousand years before a man trod the earth, a glutinous resin flowed from the bark of slender fir-like trees, which in immense forests, comparable in extent to a sea, made music with their summits as they waved. A midge, a chafer, a small flower were entangled, and were imprisoned, as in a prison of gold, by the resinous drops. Prodigious convulsions of Nature, a total revolution of clime, plucked those proud forests down. They were changed to coal, or they rotted in humidity, or they stiffened in ice. The waves of the sea now rush and roar where once the crowns of the trees towered, and age after age they have made a plaything of the petrified resin.
Then, driven from sunny Central Asia by stronger and nobler races, tribes of doubtful origin (for, the conditions being more favourable, in Asia and in Africa did the beings first spring up who, in the course of thousands of years, developed into what we call men), tribes, perhaps of Finnish origin, swept on slowly through Europe, rudely thrust from East to West, from South to North, till they arrived at this marshy and sandy coast. They fished and they hunted. On the moist sand of the Downs they found masses of a yellow stonelike substance. Their maidens and their wives strung the pieces together, and hung them as an ornament round their neck.
Anew, after many hundred years, a stately, lofty-decked ship, filled with seafaring men, a ship with three benches of oars, and rowed by slaves; a ship whose flag, dyed in the blood of the purple snail (purpura) of Sidon, waves from the mast, while at the bow gleams with commanding prominence a richly-gilt Astarte—this ship, with shattered sails, is driven by the storm on an unknown strand. The seafarers had started to procure tin from the Cassiterides (Scilly Islands); but the strong west-south-west wind had asserted its despotic will against the rudder and the mast made from the cedars of Lebanon. The gorgeous trireme is brought to anchor in the sheltering bay. After a thankoffering to the old Semitic God I of the Sea, a part of the crew approaches in a boat the strand, which is clothed with trees down to the very edge. The men have armed themselves carefully with swords and spears of bronze, with helmets and shields of metal, with a coat of mail, and with metal-tipped arrows. For they have seen that on the arrival of the great ship natives, attired in skins and ,
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furs, have streamed to the shore. But the Sidonians soon convince themselves that they have little to fear from these natives, whose missive weapons have strong fish-bones and other bones for points, and whose felling and cutting weapons are the stone axe and the singularly curved antlers of stags. The Sidonians, in their shimmering armour and in the bril-liant hues of their precious garments, are by the poor fishermen admired, are adored as gods or demigods. Hospitably the natives share with the strangers the spoils of the chase—the elk, the reindeer, the ure ox. After the hospitalities a small traffic commences. The seafarers purchase a rich supply of living and of slaughtered animals, in view of their diminished stores and of their homeward voyage. Thereupon, growing bolder and more confiding, the women and the maidens come forward. They are decked in their best ornaments, and begin to dance before the fire blazing on the white sand. Then the captain perceives on the neck of one of the dancers glittering beads, which have the glory of gold. He tries to make a bargain for these adornments. He offers to the father of the maiden the sharp and curved dagger-knife which he wears at his girdle in a sheath of leather, gorgeous and varied in hue. Eagerly the fisherman seizes the weapon. Scarcely does the Phoenician behold the dazzling effect of the bright beads on his own dark-hued arm, when the thought darts into his covetous Semitic brain that the beads would be an admirable decoration for the brown beauties of Tyre, that they would be ready to tear each other to pieces to have strings of such beads on their swarthy shoulders, and that the beads could not fail to be a capital article of traffic. The great mercantile mariner then falls with his cunning and calculating mind into a soliloquy: “Verily, the expenses are sure to be enormous; the journey is a far journey; the way along which the Storm god has hither driven the involuntary vessel would be difficult to find again. Just, however, for these very reasons I should have the monopoly, and, perhaps, for generations—as long, indeed, as the secret of the seaway can be kept in my family. By a ghastly picture of dangers— of the icebergs, of the sharp and yawning reefs, of the seawater, almost as thick and impenetrable as pitch (literally train-oil^ an improbable and unnatural word in the mouth of a Phoenician), of the sea monsters, and, more terrible still, of the natives whom I should represent with the heads of dogs, and man-eaters—I should exclude for a while even the bravest from competition, and frighten them from seeking the trace of my voyage. Let proud Hamilko and greedy Jarbas continue as before to get a pitiful seventy per cent, from the purchase of tin in the Western Islands, and from the export of purple to Jerusalem to the wise king there; more than a hundred per cent, should I gain from this brittle glass! But the question is whether the brilliant substance occurs as abundantly in this land of mist as to make commerce in it profitable.” Thereupon he calls the men away from the dance round the fire, and places before their astonished eyes on the ground the shimmering helmet, the vaulted shield, two magnificent bronze spears, the costly bow and quiver, with twenty sharp and shining arrows; points to the amber ornament in his hand, and, by eloquent signs, asks, “How many of the yellow stones will you give me for those arms?” The cunning Phoenician knows well what a yearning for, and what a need of metal weapons the rough races have. A wild excitement breaks forth in all the men of the tribe. They are intoxicated, blinded by the possibility of obtaining those precious arms at whatever cost. They hasten in every direction to the neighbouring huts, impel the wives and the children to be as alert and active as themselves, and soon return, bearing in rush baskets, in coarse platters and pitchers of red clay, immense loads of amber ornaments, amber utensils, amber in an unprepared state—all that spoil of the sea which had suddenly become so valuable, and which day by day the moving wind throws on the coast, to be gathered with little trouble. They contrive to make clear to the trafficker that he can have as much of the amber as he cares for. The crafty merchant takes care not to show the whole of his joy. He asks whether the “goldstone” can be used for other than ornamental purposes. They present their nets to let him see that pieces of the gleaming substance are employed as rings and as sinkweights. He thinks to himself: “The substance is as cheaply estimated as it is abundant! ” He puts the question: “What else is done with it?” Then a woman brings a small bag made of reindeer leather, and filled with small amber fragments and with amber dust. The contents she throws into the flashing fire. Immediately arises a strong scent, exhilarating, intoxicating the senses. The Phoenician has now some difficulty in concealing the eagerness of his appetite as a trader. He considers that the substance can be used as incense as well as ornament. In the silence of his own soul he reflects that for a considerable period the price of myrrh has been increasing, through the ever-augmenting demand and the ever-growing pomp of the Temple service. His soliloquy proceeds: “This fragrance is new, and not less delicious and powerful in its influence than myrrh! Can it be a hard task for me to persuade my brother-in-law, the High Priest of Astarte, that it is just as holy, just as agreeable to the gods ? ”
Many days the strangers take up their abode on the strand. And when they row back to the trireme their boats are loaded with the new article of traffic. And a piece of the resin which two hundred thousand years before shut up a midge in prison, travels to Phoenicia, and the merchant sells it, with
many other pieces, to the beautiful Queen of Sheba. Enchased in silver as a mantle-clasp, she sends it as a return gift to her far-away friend, the poet of the Song of Songs, who sits on the throne of David inventing wise sayings. And he places it in his treasury.
After many, many hundred years, the cohorts of Titus carry from burning Jerusalem to Bome the contents of the treasury, the amber mantle-clasp included. Anew, after four hundred long years, the piece of amber, with the insect imprisoned so many ages before, goes back to Africa. The Vandal Genserich places it, as good booty from plundered Rome, in his treasury at Carthage. There the beautiful captive, the Emperor’s daughter, Eudoxia, wears it, the pale, sad queen of the wild Hunerich. After a few generations, Belisarius, Justinian’s general, breaks into the palace of the Vandals, and carries off the treasures of the last Asding, the last King of the Vandals, Gelimer, the skilful harp-player; carries off with them the King himself, and parades both in triumphal procession in the Hippodrome at Byzantium. For more than six hundred years our morsel of amber, weary of ■wandering, dreams an undisturbed dream. It thinks that it has now found a final resting-place. But it is mistaken. In the year 1204 the Venetians, and the Latin tribes of every tongue, escalade the lofty walls of Constantinople. The Bishop of Soissons leads the first band of French knights. As in storming a city and as in victory, so also in plundering, his Northern French are the foremost. A valiant vassal of the Bishop, Raoul De Haute-Pierre, from the beautiful region of the Aisne Valley, strikes open with his battle-axe the richly-gilt doors of the treasure-house of the Komnenoi, and, with many a precious ornament, many a jewel, the amber clasp journeyed to the West, journeyed to France.
In the rich and noble family of Haute-Pierre the beautiful old stone was a heritage of the Chatelaines from generation to generation. At the birth of the first child, the Marchioness, according to ancient custom, wore it, along with other ancestral ornaments, on her breast; for, after a while, the clasp had been transformed to a brooch. The piece of amber which had been the witness of the worship of Perkunos, which had then become familiar with the offerings to Baal and to Jehovah, and to the genius of Titus, and with the religious adoration of the Arians at Carthage, has for many generations been a beholder of the sacrament of Catholic baptism. But, even among the rich vineyards of the Aisne, the rolling amber-stone was not destined to find repose. In September of the year 1870 the Germans march toward Paris. At the end of the month the Mobile Guards and the Volunteers of the Department of Soissons essay to check the onrush of the Prussians by way of Rheims. But on the 28th September they are dashed back by the Landwehr Battalions, Landsberg, Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and Woldenberg. In a fierce and turbulent mood they return to Soissons, and plunder and destroy as they retreat the houses and the goods of their own countrymen, on the pretence of “ changing the country as far as Paris into a desert.” They become the tormenting spirits of the population. In a disorderly mass, some of them rush into the old and venerable castle of Haute-Pierre. Courageously the old Marchioness, the “ Chatelaine,” alone had remained to guard the possessions and the honour of her house. Her husband sleeps the sleep of the grave in the distant Crimea; her son had been taken prisoner at Sedan. The cellar of the castle is broken into and soon emptied. The intoxicated soldiers begin to plunder and wreck the castle. Then shots are heard from a distance; the pursuing Germans are drawing nigh. The drunken captain of the Mobiles shouts: “ They must not find any entrance here; set fire to the old aristocratic den.” Immediately the damask curtains burst into flame; rudely is thrust aside the old lady who strives to defend her household and its rights. But the German horsemen have already arrived; they are Lithuanian dragoons. They dismount; after a few carabine shots they are in the court. The officer hastens up the steps; he enters the first floor at a right time to drive off two ruffians who are fiercely threatening the lady because she takes the part of the Prussians. They dart out by the window, but a ball from the revolver of the flying captain hits the German officer severely. The officer’s last command before his senses leave him is: “Extinguish the flames, comrades!” Many weeks the fair-haired officer lay in the castle of Haute-Pierre, tenderly nursed by the old lady. And often he showed to her the portrait of his beautiful young wife, which he carried on his breast. And once there came from the far Baltic strand a letter, which was read with tears of joy. For the beautiful young wife had in the Prussian land brought into the world a vigorous little boy. And the young officer, who in this campaign could no longer use his disabled arm, got leave of absence and travelled home to oak-rustling Samland. And the aged Marchioness, the kind nurse, sent to the young mother the amber brooch. And the young mother was to wear the old baptismal ornament of the Chatelaine of Haute-Pierre at the baptismal festival of her first-born. Thus the piece of amber, with the insect which it had taken captive sons ago, wandered back to the shore where several thousands of years before the Phoenician merchant had purchased it from the dancing maiden. And the happy spouses, anew united, show it to all the guests in their hospitable mansion.
Thus you see, dear Readeress (Leserin) all things can be imagined about a piece of amber; but you must leave your imagination free.
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|]ipe ^ofourtrs.
XXIV.—HOPLEY’S LODGER.
Hopley’s lodger had a name, of course; but as I only arrived at that through private information, I feel bound not to reveal it.
Hopley lived some five or six miles from town, and several years back his lodger came to live with him. Very few folks knew his name. His face and form were familiar to all the village, and he was always known as “Hopley’s Lodger.” Hopley’s house, though small, was larger than he required for himself and his wife, so he let the front and back parlours to his lodger. He also supplied him with breakfast each morning, and all day feeding on each Sunday; and this was done, not on any haphazard style of reckoning up this and that, but at a stated sum per week, which the lodger paid faithfully, much to his own credit and the satisfaction of Hopley.
Some time ago I was hunting up information to supply these most truthful records, and dropped in to Hopley’s to have a pipe with that worthy. . After a bit we got to chatting about the lodger.
“ He’s not a bad sort,” said my host. “ He has his faults as all of us have, but on the whole I like him. Fact is, he pays me with conscientious regularity, and that helps me to live with some little comfort, so I don’t mind a little eccentricity occasionally,”
“ Oh!” I interrupted, “ is he eccentric ? ”
“ Well,” said Hopley, “ perhaps I used a word I ought not to use. He prides himself on never getting into debt, and he’s an awful talker. He never seems to be able to get at what he is driving at; where ten words would explain a matter, he takes ten minutes, and then seems sorry he’s finished. Very likely you may hear a bit of this to-night, for he said this morning he had some communication of importance to make to me. He may not, however, come home till late. He’s rather odd, too, if he takes it into his head to do a thing in his own fashion. To give you an idea of what sort of a person he is, I will relate an incident concerning him. Last summer he confessed to me that he was rather pressed for funds ; this he made no particular bother about, but it came out in the course of casual conversation. He, however, in May, invested in a new suit of light clothing, which he took into regular wear at once, for both week days and Sundays. All the summer he never went out on Sundays till after dinner. All the summer he had a fire in his sitting-room on Sunday morning, and all the summer that suit looked, I tell you, nearly as good as new. Of course it got thinner and showed signs of some wear, but it never looked soiled or dirty on any part of it.
“My curiosity was aroused, and I determined to investigate the matter. I knew the Sunday morning fire had something to do with it, or at least I guessed as much; so one Sunday I took the liberty of rapping at his sitting-room door.”
“ ‘Who’s there? ’ said he.
“ ‘ Me! ’ I replied.
“ ‘What do you want?’
‘“I’ve a bottle of rare Scotch ale for you?
“I simply heard ‘ Oh? and then the door opened. I knew the ale would fetch him if he’d been half dead.
‘“Shut the door? he cried hurriedly, and I obeyed his order.
“He had rigged up a sort of roasting jack, and there hung his trousers, gently turning and turning round before the fire. His jacket was on a chair a little on one side, and his waistcoat on another.
“ ‘Busy? ’ I said.
‘“Yes? he replied, resuming his seaton another chair in the front of the fire, and giving his breeches a gentle turn, ‘ It’s rather warm work, and that ale will be very welcome?
“ I opened the bottle and we finished it. He then explained his mode of dealing with this suit; he simply went carefully over the more exposed parts of it with the soap and flannel, and some cold water, and then dried them at his leisure, sitting, clad in his shirt only, and smoking his pipe before the fire, attending to the drying process.”
“ Well,” I said, “ I rather admire him for that.”
“ Certainly,” replied Hopley. “ It showed a proper pride, only it made such a queer picture.”
“ Does he drink much, and smoke much ? ” I inquired.
“As to smoking,” replied Hopley, “ he’s always at it. He’s got a rack full of pipes up stairs, some of them coloured to perfection; and as to drinking, I think he enjoys his drops, but he seldom seems to be overcome at all by liquor. I was a little suspicious of him some two or three weeks ago, for I was roused up from my slumber by a strange noise. It was about one o’clock in the morning. Someone was evidently hitting one hard substance against another hard substance. The noise did not seem to be quite inside or quite outside the house, and yet, as I argued, it must be one or the other. Whack, whack, whack, went the noise again; and then followed a clinking sound, as if some glass had been broken. I sprang out of bed, thinking of thieves; I opened the door of my room and called out, not because I was frightened, but just to frighten them. ‘Who’s there?’ The reply came from my lodger in rather a thick voice. ‘ 0, it’s all right, its only me, don’t be alarmed, good night? Feeling tolerably satisfied, I retired to bed again.
“The next day, while he was out, I took a survey of premises ; I found his front window” sill slightly chipped, aQ(j I found the neck of a bottle in the front garden. The incident was revealed. He’d broken off the neck of a bottle to get at the beer inside. I, of course, remonstrated with him for damage the house. He apologised and explained, as nearly as I ca* recollect, in this fashion; said he: ‘ I am not in the lea^ offended at the course you have thought it most advisable take, or, rather, at the course you have taken. Under the circumstances it was no doubt advisable that some course should be taken, and you appear to have taken not only the best you could find, but the best any man, however learned or clever could have found. However, I will explain and apologia the same time, although I entertain no sort of doubt whatever that my explanation, being both just and reasonable will be considered not only equivalent to an apology, but even more satisfactory. As you are aware, I was out late last evening, and when I came home I felt thirsty; I found a bottle of beer in the cupboard, and endeavoured to draw the cork in orthodox fashion, but owing to the extreme tenacity with which the bottle clung to it, I was unable to do as I wished. What was I to do ? I was very thirsty and weary with intense mental and physical exertion. I felt that Imust obtain the beer, and so, with as little racket as possible I broke the neck on the window sill. ’ ”	'
Mr. Hopley paused to take breath, and I venture to say that I thought the explanation of the lodger very reasonable.
“ It might have been,” said Hopley, “ if I had not picked up the neck of the bottle in the garden. That told a different story, for the string or wire, which ever it was, was uninjured; besides, I recollected a short time before I had borrowed his corkscrew, and it was, at the time of this bottle breaking business, on the kitchen dresser. As for the intense mental and physical exertion he mentioned, he was at a bachelors’ supper party, from seven till half-past twelve, I know.”
“ Did you tell him about the bottle neck? ” I asked.
“No,” replied Hopley; “it would only have led to more orations, so I said nothing.”
Just at this moment we heard a key inserted into the keyhole. The door then opened.
“ The lodger! ” whispered Hopley; “ I’ll ask him in.”
“ Do,” I whispered, in Hopley’s fashion.
As the lodger passed the door of the room in which we were sitting, Hopley cried out: “ Oh, Mr. B., you have something to say to me, I believe; won’t you come in? ”
The lodger, who had halted just outside the door, pushed it open a matter of six inches or so, that his voice might be the better heard, and said: “No, I won’t come in, Mr. Hopley; my boots are very muddy. It won’t take me more than a minute or so to say what I have to say, so I will give utterance to it here.”
“As you please, sir,” said the landlord to the lodger; “I don’t wish you to stay out there, but it’s a free country.”
“ Thank you, Mr. Hopley,” replied the lodger, in a friendly fashion ; “and now to what I have to say. I have something to introduce to your notice, in the form of a proposal.”
“ Yes,” said Hopley.
“ That proposal, or this proposal,” continued the lodger, “ may not at first sight seem pleasant, or even just; but I beg that you will look at it calmly and examine it on every side, and view it in all possible lights, before you return me an answer in the negative.”
“I must first hear the proposal,” observed the worthy Hopley.
“ Of course you must,” said the lodger, with a little laugh; “ because, till you have heard it, it does not arrive at the fact of a proposal at all; and a man cannot give an answer till what calls for the answer is set before him. I shall now set it before you.”	•
“ Thank you,” said Hopley.
“ You scarcely ought to say that,” the lodger went on, with rather a thoughtful voice, “because you may be inclined to say otherwise when I have finished; and it is always more awkward for a man to make another man understand folly that he is decidedly not thanked, if a moment or two before the man who now wishes to give the opposite of thanks, has previously said * thank you ’ to that other man.”
“ Well,” said Hopley, getting rather impatient, “ suppose we get to the proposition.”
“ Just so,” replied the lodger “it is my intention to speedily place it before you. I should like, however, to say, before doing so, that I attach great importance to your answer. If your answer is, as I trust it 'will be, in the affirmativei the bonds by which we are to a certain extent linked together will become stronger and more secure than formerly; bat your answer should be, not only not in the affirmative, hot in the negative, and that in so positive and decided a fashion that I can hope for no change in your views, then* Mr. Hopley, I feel compelled to say, though not without great pain, that our bonds will fall to pieces as a rotten rope, and separation and estrangement will take the place of the close attachment which now we feel so much pleasure in.”
“ Go on, sir,” said Hopley, with a sly wink at me.
“ I will, sir,” continued his long-winded lodger. “ I that, however you may view my proposition, whether <>® favour or disfavour, that you will not fail to appreciate the delicacy with which I bring it forward. I dislike at all times, and under any arrangement of circumstances, to give a^
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person, whether a stranger or a friend, a shock of any description ; and when I am about to introduce a matter that may be a little disagreeable to a gentleman occupying the peculiar position towards me which you occupy, and which I trust you will continue to occupy, I feel doubly solicitous to avoid coming on to you with unpleasant suddenness.”
“For that,” said Hopley, “of course I can, and do thank you.”
“ For that you are entitled to thank me,” continued the lodger graciously, “ without having any cause to fear that you will have to withdraw your thanks; and now to the proposal itself. There is one thing I do hope, and that is, that I have given you no unnecessary alarm. 1 know I am apt to be over nervous in matters of this sort. A delicate state of health is mostly accompanied by a more sensitive mental organisation than is a state of rude health, and it is possibly owing to the fact that my state of health is delicate rather than rude, that I am so extremely sensitive over the matter now before us. There is, I assure you, nothing to be alarmed at in the proposition I am about to make. You are aware, of course, that by our agreement you are entitled to so many shillings per week, for the following items:—Two rooms, one a sittingroom, and the other a bedroom; a whole day's diet on Sunday, and a breakfast every morning. Is this correct?”
“ It is, sir,” replied Hopley. •
“ And do I pay you regularly?” inquired the lodger.
“ You do,” said Hopley.
“That truth being established on your own testimony,” continued the lodger, “and the testimony of my receipt book, which can be produced if necessary, we will now get on. Everything springs from something else. There is no effect without a cause; my proposition I will call the effect; the unsatisfactory state of my digestive organs I will call the cause. I am entitled to breakfast each morning, am I not? ”
“You are,” said Hopley, who began to look anxious.
“And yet, alas, I never eat anything.” sighed the lodger.
“That is not my fault,” cried Hopley, rather hurt; “it is always there! ”
“It is,” said the lodger solemnly, “it is always there, but—it is never here.”
By “ here ” he evidently meant his stomach; I could not see the man, but I feel sure that at the moment he said here he placed his hand on the organ I have mentioned.
“ But—” said Hopley—
“ But me no buts,” exclaimed the lodger, in a tone of sadness, “I know what you are about to say. I freely admit it is not your fault; still it is rather hard on me that I should pay for what I do not have. This is what I propose. That each morning when I am called, at eight o’clock, you shall supply me with a glass of rum and milk ; this will cost you less than a breakfast, so that you cannot possibly object to it on the score of economy.”
“ I may have other objections though,” said Hopley.
“ You cannot object to it on the score of morality,” replied the lodger, with some little excitement, “ I shall leave this house a better man, if I go out warmed and comfortable each morning, instead of going out empty and miserable.”
“ There are other reasons,” said Hopley.
“ You cannot object to it on the score of trouble,” cried the lodger, raising his voice and speaking rather hotly, “the milk comes at half-past seven ; the rum you can keep in the house; one minute will suffice for the mixing. If you object to the trouble (here his voice grew softer), most estimable of landlords, I shall not mind mixing it for myself.”
“ I’ve no licence to sell rum,” said Hopley.
“ As a gift I ask it, as a gift I will take it,” returned the lodger; “you can have no objection to it on the score of Excise laws, I know.”
“ I’ll think it over,” said Hopley.
“But little thought will it require,” laughed the lodger, growing rapturous, “it is amongst the impossibilities that you can refuse me! No! ” he shouted, “ we that have watched the flowers grow, and the ceilings darken year by year; we that have grown to know each other like brothers; we that have smoked so many pipes together, and drank so many glasses together; we that have got merry together, and waked up sad about the same time; we that have pawned—”
The situation was becoming so ticklish that Hopley yelled out, “ All right, sir, all right, you shall have your Bum and Milk.”
D. Goggs.
Uggtian fomsuns.
XI.
Fhysic and Physicians.
Hippocrates, the progenitor of all the doctors, and whom the ancients placed among the gods, compared medical treatment to a comedy carried on by three actors, the physician, the patient, and the disease, each of whom did the best possible. Such was the opinion of Hippocrates, who lived four or five hundred years before Christ. The celebrated Dr. Hufeland was in the habit of saying to his friends: “I divide my patients into these three categories: those whom Nature would have cured more rapidly than I cured them; those whom Nature would have cured as well and as fast as I; and
those whom I have helped Nature to cure.” Since the time of Hippocrates, two thousand years ago, doctors have made immense pretensions to cure men scientifically; yet essentially Hufeland is of the same opinion as Hippocrates, who had, however, no apothecary to help him, whereas now apothecaries abound, and every apothecary, for the benefit of Nature, of the physician, of the disease, has as many boxes as the devil.—From the German of Koerte.
fjharqui in €hili»
According to the custom of the country, we were asked to sit down on chairs ranged along the wall. The mistress of the house took her seat opposite, and began to talk about the news with Marcello, who, however, did not say a word about supper. I nudged him with my elbow, and then he mentioned the subject. The lady replied that it was very late, but said that inquiries should be made at a neighbouring posada whether there was anything there to satisfy hunger. At the moment she went out, two young and pretty senoritas, daughters of the house, entered by a side door, and saluted Marcello, who presented me as a French cavalier, one of his friends, whom he was taking with him to Santa Rosa De Los Andes. Soon the mother returned, bringing in a large dish, and told her daughter Carmen to cover the table while Mari-quita kept us company. When everything was ready, and the table placed before us, the three senoras sat down to eat, to keep us company. The large dish contained a sort of blackish broth, on the top of which floated pieces of onions. Each of us, supplied with a small loaf of unleavened bread and with a spoon made of deer’s horn, went to work in a fraternal fashion. We all ate out of the one dish, after the habit of soldiers (and sailors). I plunged my spoon to the bottom, to assure myself whether there was anything in the broth more solid than the onions floating on the surface, and I fished up a hashed substance analogous to flesh, but which I found it impossible to chew. I decided to swallow it without any other form of process. I asked Marcello to what animal of the creation this flesh belonged. He answered that it was cow’s flesh dried in the sun, then pounded between two stones to make it tender, then chopped small, and that, thanks to all these successive operations, it was rendered very eatable, as I could easily convince myself. Carmen .told me that this ragout was called a valdisiana, and asked me how I liked it. I confessed that the dish seemed to me detestable; and no one contradicted me. Charqui is the customary food of the peons when travelling. It had been served to us because nothing else could be found at the posada. Fried eggs terminated our repast. All five of us drank out of one enormous glass, containing a kind of piquette of the country called chicha. (The French give the name of piquette to a drink made with water poured into a barrel containing the grounds or husks of grapes. By extension any bad or inferior wine is called piquette.)—From the French of Louis D'Ayzac.
The Soman Xerxes.
Lucius Licinius Lucullus (born 109, died 57 b.c.) was one of the most remarkable men of his time, from the variety of his talents and the amiable qualities of his character. Almost without any apprenticeship, he showed himself a great general and an administrator of the first order. But one thing he lacked; he did not occupy himself actively enough with his soldiers. His indifference toward the men placed under his command robbed him of all durable power over them, and exposed him to sad disturbances, which annulled in appearance the results of his campaigns. Nevertheless, those results were glorious. To him more than to Sylla, and especially more than to Pompey, belongs the honour of having conquered Mithridates and carried the Roman arms beyond the Tigris, a limit rarely attained afterwards. In the midst of his campaigns, while heaping benefits on the subject provinces, he added to his patrimonial fortune enormous riches, of which, however, he made a liberal use. His luxury is not less celebrated than his victories over Mithridates. His gardens in a suburb of Rome, his villas near Tusculum ana Naples, were of a magnificence which had never before been equalled. He especially delighted in conquering Nature by gigantic works, so that Pompey called him, in derision, “ the Roman Xerxes.” The splendour of his repasts surpassed even that of his constructions. It is stated that a single dinner in a hall of his house, called the Hall of Apollo, cost what in French money would be about 43,000 francs (about two thousand pounds English). A more honourable trait of the character of Lucullus was his love of literature. He consecrated a part of his fortune tn the acquisition of a library, which he opened to the public. It was his supreme joy to assemble there philosophers and Greek men of letters, and he listened with intense interest to their metaphysical discussions. From the time that he was Quaestor he kept near him Antiochus of Ascalon, who instructed him in the Platonic Doctrines. He was also the patron of the poet Archias, and of the sculptor Arcesilaus. In Greek he composed a History of the Marsic War, which has not come down to us. The introduction of the cherry tree into Italy is ascribed to him.—From the French,
lamaism and the ®ead.
The mode of disposing of corpses among the natives that believe in that form of Buddhism called Lamaism is different according to rank and circumstances, and also according to
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astrological and other superstitious considerations. As we learn from the history of the Grand Lama who died at Pekin, the body of the Supreme Pontiff is enbalmed, and placed in one of the pyramidal tombs. Other exalted ecclesiastics or persons famous for piety and learning are burned after their death, and their ashes distributed as relics, or kept in images or in small metal cones. Temporal princes and lords likewise are, when dead, committed to the flames. But in Thibet and Mongolia the customary way of dealing with the dead is “giving them to the air,’’ as the phrase goes—that is to say, in the fields, in the steppes, on the tops of mountains, in solitary glens, or in places walled round for the purpose, leaving them in the open air to dissolution, and as food for vultures and other birds of prey. The place of the birds is represented in the cities, and especially in Lhassa, by troops of dogs, which are nourished and cherished with that special design. There is even a class of men whose horrible office it is to tear the bodies to pieces. They impale the body, and morsel by morsel cut the flesh from the bones and throw it to the brutes. The bones are then pounded in large mortars, and the dust, mixed with meal and formed into balls, is flung as food to the dogs and the ravenous birds. This mode of disposing of the dead is regarded as honourable, and the ecclesiastics continue to turn it to a profitable purpose; for in some of the monasteries they keep so-called “holy dogs.” To be devoured by these after death is considered very desirable and meritorious, and, of course, has to be paid for at an extremely high rate. The water, as a grave for the dead, is deemed unlucky; and it is only very poor people who can bring themselves to throw their dead into rivers or lakes. Interment, in the proper sense of the word, is unusual; though the bodies which are exposed are covered with a thin laye^of earth, or with stones. Sometimes, in imitation of the Chinese, the Southern Mongolians inter the dead.—From the German of Koepfen.
©ur Smohe 1a oom ®hHc.
English Men of Letters. Edited by John Morley. London: Macmillan and Co. 1878-9.
XU.—MILTON, BY MARK PATTISON, B.D., Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. 1879.
To pass from the “Thackeray” of Anthony Trollope to the “Milton” of Mark Pattison, is to pass from pinchbeck to sterling silver. Even excluding from the comparison the immense difference in studious preparation, the latter was probably three or four times as long in the actual writing as the former: and, as usual, the solid mental contents are in the full cube of this ratio. This is a scholarly and thoughtful little work, thorough in its method and excellent in its execution, liberal in appreciation while candid in criticism of its subject: and it is a book which can plead valid reasons for its existence. Mr. Pattison writes in the opening:—“In our own generation all that printed books or written documents have preserved about Milton has been laboriously brought together by Professor David Masson, in whose ‘Life of Milton’ [Narrated in Connexion with the History of His Timel we have the most exhaustive biography that ever was compiled of any Englishman. It is a noble and final monument erected to the poet’s memory, two centuries after his death. My excuse for attempting to write of Milton after Mr. Masson is that his life is in six volumes octavo, with a total of some four to five thousand pages. The present outline is written for a different class of readers, those, namely, who cannot afford to know more of Milton than con be told in some two hundred and fifty pages.” And the number of commonly intelligent readers whose ignorance sadly requires to be told even so little is so vast as to discourage any attempt at calculation.
In thus respectfully and gratefully commending the volume as a whole, we. of course, do not imply agreement with all its judgments, biographical, historical, or literary. We, in fact, venture to differ from some of them, as wo should pretty surely differ from some pronounced by any one save our noble selves; but where we dissent, we do so with unfeigned diffidence; feeling that the author, with his incomparably larger knowledge and riper culture and d« eper thought, is far more likely to bo in the right than we are. Wo have not here the space, even if we had the ability, for discussion of tho more important points at issue: and shall, therefore, mainly direct our remarks to a few minor slips and, as we think, errors. The tendency of such notes may appear depreciatory, but their real spirit is just the opposite: for whereas in writing on Mr. Trollope's “Thackeray,” as also on Professor Shairp’s “ Burns,” our purpose was to prevent our reader* from wasting money and more precious time on it, and to prove it altogether unworthy of existence; we assume, in writing on this, that our readers will study it for themselves, because we esteem it well worthy study; of substance and workmanship durably good, and therefore well worthy careful revision. In effect, we said. That is mere pinchbeck; have nothing to do with it: whereas wo now sav, This is well-wrought silver; burnish away the slight specks.
In the noble autobiographical introduction to Book II. of the “ Reason of Church Government urged against Prelatry” (which, by-the-bye, Mr. Pattison very indistinctly indicates as “thepamphlet No. 4”), Milton writes of the great poem to which he has dedicated himself “os being u work not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite, nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her Siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim w ith the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips oi whom he pleases.” Of tho two words we have italicised anutrist is quoted rightly on p. 167, but is turned into encomiast on p. 187; an unfortunate mistake, as amorist is in strict correlation with the heat of youth, while encomiast is about the same as rhyming parasite. The other, lips, fares worse still; for on both p. 17 and p. 167, it is quoted life. This repeated blunder is the more astonishing, seeing that the allusion to Isaiah vi., G-7 is so obvious, and that Mr. Pattison himself, p. 188, writing with this passage in his mind, uses the correct word, “ It is God’s truth which passes his lips—lips hallowed by the touch of sacred fire.” Moreover, it is given correctly in the “ Prose Works of John Milton.” Edited by Charles Symmons, D.D. of Jesus College, Oxford (1806), Vol. I., 12 3; and in Mr. Masson’s “Life,” Vol. II., 389; which we presume are the works most likely to have been under the author’s eye.
Again, p. 193, we have: “ Poetry he had said long before should be ‘ simple, sensuous, impassioned ’ (“ Tractate of Education ”).” Milton does not say it should be, but simply that it is, and he does not use the word impassioned. Here h the ‘^ntence referred tn, “Symmons" I., 281: “To which [h-gic and rhetoric] pcx try would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less subtle and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate.” Of
course, in stating what poetry is. he implies in a manner wliat it should be; and the sequel proves that lie thus characterised the very loftvst poetry: “I mean not hire the prosody of a verse . . . but that sublime art which . . . teaches what the laws are of a true epic poem, what of a dramatic, what of a lyric, what decorum is, which is the grand masterpiece to observe. This would make them soon perceive what despicable cMtunM our common rhimers and playwriters be; and show them what religious, what glorious and magnificent use might be made of poetiy both in divine and human things.” In this last clause we have the distinct preconception of what he long afterwards set himself to accomplish in the “ Paradise Lost," the “Paradise Regained,” and the “Samson Agonistes;” but where in these great works is the simplicity? where the svusuonsness? where even the passion, except of hostility, and indignation, and measureless scorn?
Mr. Pattison, as a real scholar and experienced teacher, is on the whole carefully considerate of the lack of scholarship in the general public for which ho is writing; giving us no recondite classical allusions, no Greek, scarcely any Latin, only a scrap or two of German, and three or four sentences of French, the last perhaps allowable without translation even in a popular handbook. On the last page the printer should have accented the e in reputation (Fr.). On p. D3 we read, “ Whilst du Dichter ganz vendehen, musst in Dicbter's Lande gehen.” The possessive apostrophe is of coarse wrong; and the quotation itself, like most quotations of verse from memory, is, we believe, not quite accurate. We presume the original is the second couplet of the quatrain prefixed by Goethe as motto to the Notes and Elucidations to his delightful series of poems the “ West- istlicher Divan ”:—
“ Wer des Dichtcn will verstehen
Muss in’s Land der Dichtuug gehen; Wt r den Dichter will verstehen Muss in Dichters Lande gehen.” Which we may doggrolise in English:—
Who the Poem would understand Must away to the Poetry’s hind; Who the Poet would understand Must away to the Poet's land.
A dictum to be understood in a much broader and deeper sense than the merely geographical.
On p. 172 we are told that in a MS. book preserved at Trinity College, Milton noted nearly one hundred subjects as eligible for poetic trvatiuiDt; and then: “The historical subjects are all taken from native history, none are foreign, and all from the time before the Roman conquest.” litre the “none are foreign” is obviously redundant; and we are pretty sun that Roman is a slip of the pen, or of the compositor, for Norman, as we read on p. 176: “In the Trinity College MS. of loll, Arthur has already disappeared from the list of possible subjects, a list which contains thirty-eight mi;^-tions of names from British or Saxon history, such as Vortigern, Edward the Confessor. Harold, Macbeth, Ac. [etc. rendundunt after such as]. While he demanded the basis of reality for his personages, with a true instinct he at the same time rejected all that fell within the period of well-ascertained history. Ho made the Conquest the lower limit of his choice." The Conquest here being, of course, the Norman.
Mr. Pattison, though a good writer as well as a good scholar, is not altogether free from a certain laxity of style common to women in general and university men in particular. Take a few minute examples, such as can be noted briefly. P. 1, of Milton we know more . . . than of any mon of letters of that age: should be ring other. So, p. 25, any [other] single word : p. 216. Notlung [else] which Dryden ever wrote (and the irhich should be that i. P. 25,1 would ask if: 2b, will ask if; 174, it is doubtful if; 202, ditto ■- the if should be whether. These mistakes, we believe, arc to be found in every volume as yet published of this Scries; so that the learned writers had better have taken a few preliminary lessons in precision of style (involving precision of thought) from some of the unlearned general public (say, from ourselves I they kindly condescend to instruct. P. 2, in the passage first quoted, tome four to five thousand might have been made exact (with the help of a Cambridge man, if required) by simple addition ; and some two hundred andpfly made just two hundred and twenty, by reserving a blank till the number was known. P. 11, The delay sprung, should be sprung, there being here no excuse of stress of rhyme. P. 18, which should seem, the should worse than redundant; 19, no less than sixteen, read fewer; 30, would be thought to be intrusive, the to be superfluous and inelegant. P. 53, his masters, Dante or Tasso, read and; Milton might have known bettor than to have taken, to have brought, and to have looked, read to take, to bring, and to look. 1’. 74, Usher is the most learned Churchman of the age; 75, the most learned mon of the day; 102, Selden, the most learned of Englishmen; 130, The three men most eminent for learning (in the usually received sense of the word) in England at that day were Selden, Gatakcr, and Archbishop Ushr-r. P. 75, adroitly should be rightly, and the put out after puts is awkward; the rude wantonnesH of untempered youth, is written of Milton, aged 38. P. 85, a little furtherfrom the city,better farther; 87, March 1646,0.8. should be added for the general public, the year being 1647 N.S. (see p. 85, June 1646. a previous date). P. 100, the execution of Charles I. is dated January 29, 1619, having on p. 93 been properly dated January 30. P. 120, when he wrote be is; 124, Of the two regards tho last as the most dangerous, for latter and more; 129, Milton’s ideas are profound and far-reaching, while 130, his scheme of thought is narrow; 144, The grand loneline-s of Milton after 166$'. should surely be 1660, the year of the blessed Restoration. P. 145, his third marriage took place in February, 1663; while 149, on his marriage in 166?; the former being N.S, the latter O.S.; 151, he would lay awab' the whole night; this is very terrible! 166, Milton, born 9th December, 1608, was in his twenty-third year in 1682 (the Cambridge man is required); 168, Between 1645 and 1667, a period of twenty-icven years; 169, during these twenty-fire years: (he must be a wrangler). P. 179, my personal security, the my worse than redundant; 183, If tire reader’s imagination is not active enough to assist the poet, he must at least not resist him; if it for he would not exactly express the writer's meaning, the sentence should be otherwise cast, ro as to avoid the confusion of the he (reader) and him (poet). Pp, 175-6, 183-6, there is much confusion, or. rather, contradiction of language, whether or not of thought, os to the reality and the unreality of the events and personages of Milton’s two epics. 185, b. 4. abstraction should be abstractions; 188, the function of the poet is like those of the prophet . . He is the passive instrument, through whom flowed ... his words were not his own. . . . even for style he teas indebted; 196, ther» Asd been many catastrophes, should be hare, for among them is mentioned the Revocation of the Edict (of Nantes, 1686), and the writer is engaged with our Royalist reaction of 1660, whereof he both unkindly and strangely adds, “ when the old serpent bruised the heel of freedom by totally crushing Puritanism,”—let Matthew Arnold look to it.
All th^se slips and errors are, as we have remarked, minute; but what would the Rector of Lincoln College say to equivalent ones in a Latin exercise ? Now, we hold that for an Englishman, even if he be likewise a University don, correctness of English is even more important than correctness of Latin. Wherefore we urge Mr. Pattison to avail himself promptly erf our friendly emendations, while thanking him heartily for what he has taught us.
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No? 126.—Vol. II.]	SEPTEMBER, 1880.	[^58^®™^
Oba mi legislation in tin Sbree ^ingboms.
xn.
Fsdbra, Tom. XX., 1636-1654 (Concluded).
1639, Dec. 16; Westminster. De Commission* tpeciali Henrico Ashton Armigero et aliis ad amovendum Henricum Hawley Gubematorem de Barbadoes.—Commission to Captain Henry Ashton and four others; two Esquires, one Captain, and one Gentleman. Recites that James, now Earl of Carlisle, with consent of the Trustee of the Estate of the late Earl of Carlisle, and according to the power given to the said late Earl and his Heirs by opr Letters Patents of July 2, 1627, and April 7, 1628, did by Commission under his Hand and Seal bearing date in March last past, appoint Serjeant Major Henry Hunckes to be Governor of the Island of Barbadoes in the Parts of America, whereof Captain Henry Hawley was formerly Governor, being one of the Caribee Islands, or part of the Province of Carlisle, by the said Letters Patents granted, which appointment We approved and confirmed by our Letters under our Sign Manual and Privy Signet dated 16th March last. [None of these Documents in “Fcedera.”]
“And whereas We are credibly informed that the said Captain Henry Hawley, by Colour of our Letters or Commission under our Sign Manual or Signet, bearing date the 27th March last [not in “Fcedera”] ,whereby he was only authorized to treat, as well with the Inhabitants of the said Island of Barbadoes, as of other our Plantations concerning a Moderation to be held in the Planting of Tobaccoes, and the regulating the Prices thereof (and for none other Employment intended by Us) wherein he stiling himself Lieutenant-General and Governor of Barbadoes, by colour and under pretence thereof, or by some other pretended power formerly given him (which in truth is determined and void) he assumed to himself the Government of the said Island, and that he and others by his procurement, have refused to receive or allow the said Serjeant Major Hunckes for Governor there, and to declare his Commission and our said Letters to the Inhabitants of the said Island, and kept our said Letters from him,” .
Therefore We, accounting the Proceedings of the said Hawley to be a transcendent Offence, and of high Presumption and Insolency in him to abuse our Commission and contradict our Royal Commands; and We intending to establish the said now Earl in his lawful Right and Jurisdiction in the said Island; and for reducing the said Hawley and his Adherents, or such of them as shall be refractory, to due Order and Obedience; We appoint you our Commissions to repair with all convenient speed unto Barbadoes and other the said Islands of the said Earl; and We grant you or any two of you full power and authority on your arrival to declare publicly that Hawley has not been appointed by Us the Governor; And to charge him to yield the Office to Hunckes; And that by the next Passage from those Parts, Hawley and his Deputy or Agents do make his and their personal repair into England to answer the Premisses, and such other Matters as shall be objected against him or them. And if be or they refuse, you shall arrest or cause to be arrested him or them, and keep him or them in Prison and safe Custody, and send him and [sic] them to England by the next convenient Passage, together with all such Persons as shall resist or not conform to our Pleasure herein declared”; &c., &c.
All of which reads somewhat strangely in our times; yet by no means so strangely as the despatches of a timid and
obsequious Tory Colonial Secretary and a pious philanthropic South African Pro-Consul determined on wholesale robbery and massacre; nor even so strangely as the replies of Liberal ministers to demands for this amiable Pro-Consul’s recall.*
1639; p. 379. Under Officia de Anno decimo quinto Caroli primi (1639-40). The King, the sixth day of April, granteth to Timothy Butts and others, the Office of Receivers of all Fines and Rents upon Licences for selling Tobacco, during their lives.
Ditto; p. 380. The King, the sixth day of April, granteth to John Haies and Thomas Knevett, the Office of Collectors of all Sums of Money, that shall grow due upon the imposition set upon Tobacco.
The painfully patched-up pacification with the Scots could not last: the King meant to break it as soon as he conld feel powerful enough; and the Scots, with good reason, thoroughly distrusting him, though they disbanded their army, conserved their organisation, and drew closer their relations with the leading English patriots. Charles during his inglorious campaign had been in constant communication with Wentworth, who had given him better advice than he had the energy, the courage, the sagacity to adopt and effectuate. Laud and Hamilton were his intimate and trusted counsellors for England and Scotland; Laud quite destitute of political sense; Hamilton shrewd enough, but timid and vacillating. The Queen could excite to despotic assumptions and actions, but could give no prudent advice; and her favourites, Jermyn, Holland, and the rest, were at home in any chamber but the chamber of council. The King, desperately in want of money and men, to carry out his purposes against the Scots, at length summoned to bis side “ the one supremely able man ” he had thoroughly devoted to himself and his absolutism. Not long after his return from the Tweed, “ as if the oracle of Delphos had been to be consulted, he sent for his great Lord Deputy of Ireland; ” whom, after all, he seems to have favoured and trusted less than he did his irresolute Hamilton and his resolutely pernicious Laud, and whom the more and more dominant Queen never liked ; but who had given such proofs of all-commanding capacity and energy in Ireland, that the weaker man in extremity was forced to cling to his strength,—free to abandon his head afterwards as a peaceoffering to the enemy.
I must note a few points of Wentworth’s administration in Ireland/up to this time, as Tobacco is considerably concerned in it; and this appears a convenient place to do so. My main authority is Forster’s “Earl of Strafford,” in that noble series of Lives of the Eminent Statesmen of our Old Revolution, Sir John Eliot, Strafford (“ How art thou fallen from Heaven, 0 Lucifer, Son of the Morning! ”), Pym and Hampden,
♦The wife of the “late Earl” of thin Commission was the famous Countess of Carlisle; before and after his death mistress of Stiafford; after Strafford’s execution, mistress of Pym who brought it about. Forster's “ Earl of Strafford: ” 277, Note; 286, Note; in Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclops dia. She was, I suppose (for I have no pretensions in genealogy), the beautiful Lucy Percy, youngest daughter of the Earl of Northumberland, who by the intervention of the King, for the father was haughtily against the match, was married to Hay, afterwards Earl Carlisle, one of James’ most profuse favourites, in November, 1617.—See Nichols’ “Progresses, &c. of James I.;” passages referred to in Index iii. Persons. Her sister Dorothy married Sir Robert Sydney, afterwards Earl of Leicester, and was mother of Algernon Sydney and Waller's Sacharissa. Strangely enough, she was mistress of the first Duke of Buckingham, and was concerned with Cardinal Richelieu in that famous business of the diamond aiguillettes given by Anne of Austria, Queen of France, to Buckingham, on which Dumas founded the main plot of his “ Trois Mousquetaires. It was she who cut off the two of the twelve aiguillette, which the Duke so cleverly and promptly got replaced in time to return the whole secretly to the Queen.—See Continuation, Mackintosh’s “ England,” VoL V, 2-5, text and notes, in Lardner. Dryden after Restoration, called her the “ Helen of her country; ” Waller termed Venus “ the bright Carlile of the court of heaven.” Forster's “ Strafford; ” Note p. 286.
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the younger Vane and Henry Marten, Oliver Cromwell; a series which has probably done more to place and establish these men and their principles and conduct at their due height in popular estimation, than all the books together which preceded it, and even than Carlyle’s “Cromwell” which succeeded it; for Carlyle, in the intense fascination of his Hero-worship, is apt to lessen the grandeur of those who prepared the foundations and reared the bastions of our Commonwealth, in order to swell the grandeur of him who finished it in more senses than one. * Wentworth was appointed Lord Deputy early in 1632, but did not go over to Ireland until he had thoroughly prepared the way by gathering information and securing for himself extraordinary power. Confident in his own resources and irresistible energy of will, he persuaded the King to let him summon a Parliament. In July, 1634, the Irish Commons met; Protestants and Catholics admirably balanced by his manoeuvres, that he might play off the one against the other. There were to be two sessions; the first, “ according to the natural order,” devoted to the Sovereign, the second to the subject for redress of grievances. On the second day he demanded and was granted the enormous amount of six subsidies ; then from the Convocation of Irish Clergy he extracted eight subsidies; with these money-bills he was able to treat the Lords with contempt, it being his policy to set House against House, as sect against sect. He, moreover, secured a standing revenue for maintenance of the army, &c.: “For it is far below my great master to come at every year’s encl, with his hat in his hand, to entreat that you would be pleased to preserve yourselves.”—“When the second session came, in which the Parliament were to debate upon the grievances of the country, they were cut short ab initio, taunted, reviled, menaced by the man who had made them solemn promises in the king’s name, and by the king's express orders (italics in original), but who, by his commanding person and manners, and overwhelming eloquence, made them appear like criminals before an inflexible and upright judge, and hold their timid tongues.” (“Pict. Hist.,” HI., 199.) “Wentworth was appointed Lord Deputy in 1632, and soon changed the state of public affairs. The Crown was in debt, and the revenue, far short of the expenditure, could be collected only by a military force. Wentworth displayed, on entering upon his government, that union of capacity and vigour for which he was then unrivalled—for the world was yet unacquainted with the genius of Cromwell [or, it should be added, with that of Pym, Hampden, or the younger Vane]. He called a parliament, from which he obtained a grant of six subsidies; he discovered and corrected malversations; he vindicated the rights of the crown, where they were usurped or intercepted; and, in fine, he restored the king’s finances, and paid the king’s debts. Wentworth, doubtless, exercised a vigour beyond the law [rather I]; if, indeed, any act should be so called, according to the practice of government in Ireland at that period. [Lord Falkland, his immediate predecessor, had done his best to make the government legal, equitable, and beneficial, but was throughout thwarted by Charles.] But his government was that of a superior mind ; comprehensive in its designs; equal, if not equitable in its pressure; or unequal and crushing only when it encountered subaltern tyrants, who raised against him the cry of oppression because they were no longer suffered to oppress.” “ Continuation, Mackintosh,” V., 155. It was no less unequal and crushing, however, against any personal opponent or in favour of any minion.
Returning to Forster: Wentworth had now nothing more to do than write one of his most pleasing despatches to his royal master, containing “ a clear and full relation of the issue of this second session . . . with great advantage to your majesty, by those excellent and beneficial laws which, with much tugging, are gotten from them; and all the graces prejudicial to the Crown laid also so sound asleep as I am confident they are never to be awakened more.'1 And soon after in a despatch to Laud: “ So now I can say the king is as absolute here as any prince in the whole world can be, and may be still, if it be not spoiled on that side [in England and Scotland].” And in another: “I know no reason, then, but you may as well rule the common lawyers in England, as I, poor beagle, do here; and yet that I do, and will do, in all that concerns my master's service, upon the peril of my head." Mr. Forster notes how frequently this ominous last clause, or some equivalent, as “ I shall be answerable with my head,” recurs in the despatches of Wentworth. In his confidential correspondence with Laud, still not fully deciphered, the dominant key-note is that famous “Thorough,” or “thorow and thorow,” meaning royal and ecclesiastical absolutism.
♦There is one practical defect in the first two volumes of Forster’s “Lives,” easily to be remedied in any future edition; an insufficiency of precise dates. His Vane and Marten and Cromwell volumes have analytical and chronological tables; but not the others. Thus, while his references to authorities are abundant, and always exact when required as to volume and page, we are often in doubt as to what year and month we are in, unless some other work at hand can give us the information. This complaint also applies to the admirable “Pictorial History of England: Being a History of the People as well os a History of the Kingdom ; ” one of the many benefactions popular education owes to Charles Knight. The references are ample, but the exact dates are few, and even tho years, when given, but commence quite inconspicuously a new paragraph in the body of the text. All such Histories and Biographies should have a running headline of the years, as in that of England by Sir James Mackintosh and his continuator in Lardner; and better still if they have, like Lingard, the month and day of the chief events in the margin of their record. Carlyle, the most imaginative of our Historians, is likewise one of the most scrupulously accurate and precise in this as in other respects ; he beats Dryasdust on Dryasdust's own ground; his elaborate Indexes (or Indices, if so you prefer it,) fill a poor student’s heart with thankfulness.
“ Left settled in his government of Ireland [we have not yet reached May, 1636, when he came over to London to present himself at Court] he next sought, by every possible resource, to establish a permanent revenue [in order mainly to an efficient standing army, not only for overawing the Irish, but, if required, to maintain the King’s despotism in England and Scotland]. In this pursuit he exhausted his industry, his energy, his genius. Under his superintendence the produce of the Customs rose, within four years, from £12,000 a year to £40,000, and continued to advance rapidly. Nor were the means by which it was accomplished other than just and honourable. He improved the method of collection, protected the coasts, swept the channels and the harbours of pirates, and, in fine, lifted the commerce and the shipping of Ireland into a rich prosperity, by freeing it from danger. . . . In completion of this scheme, the Lord Deputy struggled hard to rescue the trade of Ireland from several absurd restrictions and monopolies; and in this having partially succeeded, his government left a claim for gratitude which is remaining still.” A terrible despot; but with brains, energy, and dauntless courage.
“ In resorting to just measures occasionally, however, when they were not found to interfere with hid ulterior schemes, Wentworth had taught himself no lesson of refraining from what was unjust. Money was to be had somehow—if justly, well—if not, it was to be had no less. He now, for instance, imposed a licence upon the retail of Tobacco, and himself farmed the privilege for an annual rent of £7000, and finally of £12,000. A tax was laid also on brewing, by way of feeler for the introduction of the excise,—an object of mortal hatred with the Irish.” Let the reader bear in mind this Tobacco monopoly in Ireland: we shall hear of it again, and it will figure in Strafford’s impeachment by Pym and the Long Parliament.
His genius had “the infinite capacity of taking pains," which some eminent men have confounded with genius itself. He introduced statutes of wills and uses, no less beneficial to the Crown than just to the subject. He erected an Irish mint; got over workmen from England to sink for saltpetre; made several successful attempts to work marble quarries and silver mines, forwarding with one of his packets to the King “an ingot of silver of 300 oz., being the first that ever was got in Ireland.” All his plans were preceded by a thorough investigation and collation of all accessible facts relating to the various subjects. Before he set foot in Ireland, in a remarkable despatch, written while waiting at Westminster for the ship that was to convoy him to Dublin, he propounded the noble scheme of opening a victualling trade between Ireland and Spain; showing d how admirably the commodities and the wants of the respective kingdoms correspond, and how closely reciprocal are their interests.” His after despatches on this business “ even supply a statement, drawn up with enormous pains from the information of various commercial agents, of the commodities which each port in Spain could either receive from Ireland, or give back in return. In one matter especially Wentworth saw the source of enormous advantage,—since the great annual fleets to the colonies, which were so often detained in the Spanish harbours for want of provisions, could clearly be supplied far more conveniently and cheaply from Ireland than from any other country in Europe.” At the same time he had resolved to attempt two other projects. “And surely, sir,” he wrote to the King. “ if we be able to furnish, and go through with this undertaking,—increase the growth and set up the manufactory of hemp and flax in that your Kingdom,—I will hope to leave your subjects there [in Ireland] in much happier condition than I found them, without the least prejudice to your subjects here [in England]. For this is a ground I take with me, that to serve your majesty compleatly well in Ireland, we must not only endeavour to enrich them, but make sure still to hold them dependent upon the Crown, and not able to subsist without us. Which will be effected by wholly laying aside the manufacture of wools into cloth or stuff there, and by furnishing them from this kingdom, and then making your majesty sole merchant of all salts on that side:—for thus shall they not only have their clothing, the improving of all their native commodities (which are principally preserved by salt), and their victual itself from hence (strong ties and enforcements upon their allegiance and obedience to your majesty),—but a means found, I trust, much to advance your majesty’s revenue upon salt, and to improve your customs. The wools there grown, and the cloths there worn, thus paying double duties to your Crown in both kingdoms; and the salt outward here, both inward and outward there.” As Mr. Forster remarks: “ In such principles as these, as through the majority of Wentworth’s despotic schemes, some good wrestled with the evil. The linen manufacture, for instance, springing out of this monstrous intention, turned out to be a blessing to the island. ... At his own charge and adventure he imported and sowed a quantity of superior flax seed:—the next year, his first crop having outgone his expectation, he expended £1000 on the same venture, erected a vast number of looms, procured workmen from France and Flanders, and at last sent forth a ship to Spain, st his own risk, with the first investment of linen that had ever been exported from Ireland.” The monopoly of salt had to be abandoned through the jealousies of Weston, Charles* treasurer, and the English patentees.
The reader will, I hope, pardon these digressions from our proper subject: it is such a relief to turn from the cruel and noxious
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and unprofitable extortions of a narrow-minded King and an obsequiously incapable Council, to the measures of a born statesman abounding in vigour and sagacity. It may be on the whole fairly affirmed that the faults of Wentworth’s commercial policy, when not directly resulting from his detestable despotic principles, are those of his age; and, especially as regards poor Ireland and our Colonies, those of many ages after; while the virtues, the large views, the deep insight, the courageous initiative, the strenuous furtherance and accomplishment, are all his own. Siovat.
Jhllagt ^bbifits ; or, the ^nn of f^t ^ollg tapsters.
II.—APOTHECARY POPINJAY.
Drowsy and dreamy and all as Twintieton was, there were times —and they were neither few nor far between—when it seemed te awake suddenly to all the realities of life. If the parson’s wife got a new bonnet, it would certainly be the subject of conversation for one evening at least, over many a cup of Congou; and if t’ ould squire got a new horse, there were plenty to rub him well down, in the bar parlour of the inn of the “ Jolly Tapsters.” A race of any kind—a horse race, a boat race, or a race for a wife—was an event of no ordinary interest; while during a general election Twintieton was for the time being, completely lifted out of itself, and, to listen to the speeches of some village Odger, as he fierily railed at the policy of a Dizzy, was to make one long for the days—certain to come at last—when there won’t be anything else but working men returned to Parliament. The town, too, could boast of a goodly contingent of gay young men, and a bright array of marriageable daughters. And the marriageable daughters were never deaf to the pleadings of the tender passion. In winter they were to be w ooed by the cosy hearthstone; in summer, on sultry sunny forenoons, the young men sought the green lanes, with hearts brimful of love and cabbage leaves in their straw hats; and you would meet them again at eventide, wandering (not alone) by the river-side, evidently making Inve, and apparently breathing midges. So innocent was Twintieton.
Now, Twintieton was the healthiest place in all the country round. Where trees grow tall, and green, and luxuriant, there assuredly will men and women flourish too. The trees all around our village were a sight, and nobody ever seemed to grow any older in it, and its people were seldom ailing. Our oldest inhabitant was a centenarian, and he would often tell you, and tell you honestly, that he could smoke his pipe, and drink his pot, much better “now” than he could one hundred years ago. “ Nobody has any right to die in this dear little village,” was a remark often heard in Twintieton. Well, judge of the surprise of everybody in the “ Jolly Tapsters,” when one evening we were told, by a late arrival, that he had just heard there was a doctor coming to Twintieton! It a kind of took our breath away; but presently up speaks our oldest member: “Be he going to bring infection with him, then?” says he. And “Lord bless you, neighbours,” says the landlord, in his dry way, “the man’ll starve in a week. We’ll have him in the almshouse along o’ Sally Bunny in no time.”
But the doctor did come, and a dashing, energetic fellow he was, and, to the surprise of everybody, he lived, and even started a carriage. And the next thing this doctor did was to propose to the daughter of old Dives, the richest man in the place. Strange to say, old Dives couldn’t quite truckle to the joke; and here is the remark he made to the worthy medico:—
“ You aint eligible, sir, by a darned sight. Cut! ”
[N.B.—It is said that old Dives made the remark with his foot, just as the good doctor was clearing the hall door, without his hat, which he afterwards found behind him.] Well, this victim of unrequited affection broke his heart, as in duty bound; but henceforth a doctor of some kind was to be a standing dish in the village of Twintieton, and a week had hardly passed when down came no less a character than the hero of my present true and moral yarn.
“What did he look like?” did you ask me? Let Sally Bunny reply, and she turns her eyes heavenwards, and makes a little round mouth, as she speaks: “ Which he’s a nice, respektabil-like young man, and the werry pictur o’ my son-in-law in Amerikay.”
Was he clever? Rather—it was just there you had him. He papered his walls with testimonials, and his book-shelves groaned under the weight of volumes won, during a long and successful academical career. Clever, indeed 1 you’ll know he was clever before my story is ended. Now, when I tell you that my hero lived and flourished, under the alarmingly aristocratic name of Marmaduke Adolphus Popinjay, you will be prepared for the information that his manners and bearing were distinguished in the extreme. But here is a curious trait in this gentleman’s character: marvellous though his manners were, polished though his hearing, he himself seemed impressed with an idea that he lacked refinement, and was deficient in bon ton. This was very strange—a hallucination, in fact; but it is stranger still that there were not wanting in Twintieton people who positively—thought as he himself did. You see, it is a queer world.
Marmaduke Adolphus Popinjay! Yes, and he was a doctor too, a real M.D., and had a score of other letters attached to his name, far too numerous and puzzling to quote, for he had studied at the best universities, both at home and abroad, and had walked the hospitals shoulder to shoulder with the most noted surgeon that ever couched a lance or pricked a pimple.
“ Besides all this, he talked in Greek Ah natural as the pigs do squeak, And Latin deemed no more difficile Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle.”
And yet there were both taste and modesty shown in the card this man left in your hall; the taste was exhibited in its shape and appearance: it was small and neat, enamelled as to surface and gilded as to edges; the modesty was displayed in its extreme simplicity of superscription—
glpot^cnrg Jopinjaj.
But the Twintletonians are a simple race, and they soon found the Popinjay too big a word for their mouths, so they dropped it, and alas! Marmaduke Adolphus had not been in the village a week till he was known familiarly, even among the schoolboys, as simply the “ ’Puthecary.” This, I think, was a mean way of curtailing a man’s dignity, and shows a want of respect for their superiors which reflects anything but credit on the Twintletonians. But such is life.
And now the moral of my tale will begin to dawn upon my readers’ minds, as soon as I have told them that the great first cause of his future misfortunes, and the ultimate ruin of poor Popinjay, lay in the fact that he abjured Tobacco. In other words, the ’Puthecary didn’t smoke.
Ah! ye smokers who scan these lines, ponder, I pray ye, on the fate of Popinjay, then hug your meerschaums more and more, and cling the closer to your cutties; and ah! ye yellow-bellies • who never have experienced the divine and soothing influence of a bit of twist, take warning by his terrible end, and tremble lest his lot be yours; remembering the beautiful passage in Solomon, where he says, “ It is never too late to learn—to smoke.” The ’Puthecary didn’t smoke, and the reasons for his abstinence which he once gave to a friend who offered him a cigar, did not seem to my sinful self to carry much weight.
Everything at first seemed to favour the ’Puthecary. Fortune smiled upon him; the marriageable daughters of Twintieton followed Fortune’s example, and smiled upon him too. His horse—a beautiful bay, playfully named Rosi-nante—was for ever to be seen flying over country and town, and it would be difficult to say which the fair sex admired the most, the ’Puthecary himself or his feats of horsemanship ; but even at this early date, had an intimate friend asked him how things went, “I have a splendid practice,” he would have answered; “but, jigger them all, the beggars won’t pay! ”
Things came to a crisis at last, and practice itself seemed even shaky; Rosinante’s stall was empty, and the cupboard wasn’t over full. Then the poor ’Puthecary pulled himself together, and “ By George 1 ” he cried, “ I’ll marry, and retrieve my fortunes.”
The better to carry out this resolve, the ’Puthecary bought a book. It was “ The Manners and Customs of the Upper Ten, by One of Themselves.” How he hugged the little volume to his heart of hearts, how he studied it night and day before the glass, and even in bed, need not be told. Suffice it to say, that in manners and tone Marmaduke Adolphus Popinjay waxed more polished day by day, till there wasn’t a marriageable maiden in all Twintieton, or five miles around, from seventeen years of age to seventy, who wouldn’t have given the ears out of her head to fly for life to the ’Puthecary’s arms.
But he couldn’t marry them all, that was evident. No, he must be firm, he must marry the one who had the largest income. So he spent much time and much money at Doctors’ Commons, poring over copies of wills, and meanwhile he made love to all Twintieton’s marriageable daughters indiscriminately. At last, at long last, when he had found out all he could find out, he made his calculations, and his choice fell upon Lotty Jessamine. A charming name, and she was charming too, a sweet young guileless thing just a trifle over fifty—a widow, with £500 a-year and no encumbrances. Was he happy, I wonder, when he proposed and was accepted? Did he never think of Lena Lee ? Lena was the youngest of all his lovers—aye, and mind you he loved her too, for she was by far and away the loveliest and sweetest of Twintieton’s marriageable daughters; but—her father couldn’t leave her the fortune Lotty had. Alack-a-day I had Popinjay the ’Puthecary, instead of buying that pitiful book of bon ton, bought a bundle of cigars and smoked them, he would then have been able to sit down and think—think in the calm, clear way that only smokers can; he would have learned that it is better in this world to “ marry for love and work for siller.” Love in a cottage, with Lena now, for instance—
•• That girl serene, who scarce seventeen Summers on earth had seen.”
But it was not to be. He had sworn allegiance to Lotty, aye
♦ I beg to say that I use the epithet “ yellow bellies ” advisedly, out of no disrespect to the Antis hut rather in the sacred interests of truth. For it is a fact well known to physiologists, and one that is revealed time after time in the dissecting-room, that the cuticle which covers the epigastric regions of those who have ever denied themselves the benign pleasure of Nature’s true narcotic, assumes, at a comparatively early age, a hue which may be correctly described as decidedly guano bag-ish.
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and fond affection, and had even called her his Lottsy Tottsy, and said he couldn't live without her.
About this point of my story there comes upon the stage a tall, handsome young fellow, who falls head over ears in love with Lena. It showed his sense; he was a dashing young guardsman, and smoked, for all of which the ’Puthecary hated him wholesomely, and wished him anywhere and a great deal farther.
My moral yarn now rushes headlong to its gloomy close.
For many weeks Twintieton was held in a state of suspense, quite on tip-toe, in fact, waiting for the wonderful wedding, which took place at length quietly enough, and the happy pair went off, to enjoy a honeymoon of a whole week’s duration. Then back they came, and the ’Puthecary hung up his hat behind his new hall door.
But the avalanche burst at last over the head of Popinjay. It burst one day when he found out that the late lamented Mr. Jessamine had so willed it, that all Lotty’s money died to her on the very day she should enter again into the bonds of matrimony.
Lotty broke the news very gently to him, on the very day the first monthly washing bill came in with a demand for immediate settlement. “ And why,” said Lotty, “ I didn’t tell you this before we were married, Manny dear, was because I didn’t like to vex you too soon, you know. But,” she added, coaxingly and soothingly, “you still have me, Marmy; you still have your little Lottsy Tottsy.”
“ Oh-h! ” groaned the ’Puthecary, as he ground his teeth.
He said nothing more; he only slapped his hat on his head, and rushed out.
There are some deepish ponds in the river that glides so quietly, so solemnly past our pretty village, and into one of these the ’Puthecary plunged. In the most orthodox fashion he rose and sank several times before final subsidation; and as he rose for the very last time, who do you think he spied, not a stone’s throw distant from him? Why, Lena Lee, linkingly lovingly along on the arm of the handsome guardsman.
Poor Popinjay I
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
Oalt Mbilman.
IV.
Knowing now something of the extent and method of Whitman’s noble voluntary work in the Army Hospitals, we may consider a few of the published details. Before coming to his own “ Memoranda,” let me quote a piece from an essay on him by Joseph B. Marvin, in the quarterly “Radical Review” (New Bedford, Mass.), August, 1877:—
“There are many interesting anecdotes of his career in the hospitals. . . . There was a certain young soldier in one of the Washington Hospitals, who was suffering a tedious confinement on account of a wound; and a gentleman of the city, a relative of the young man, called often to see him. He generally found him in a despondent mood. One day, as the gentleman entered the hospital, he saw Whitman passing from cot to cot, having just visited the cot of the young friend whom he had come to see. As he approached, he found the boy with his head buried in his pillow, and when he spoke, asking what was the matter, the young fellow looked up, with tears in his eyes, but with an expression of happiness in his face despite his tears, and, with choked utterance, replied: ‘Walt—Walt kissed me!’ and immediately hid his face again in his pillow. Walt had found him dispirited, and, stooping down, had slipped an orange under his pillow, and kissed him, saying, probably, as he did so, ‘Don’t give up, my dear boy; you will come out of this all right yet! * and so had passed on to serve each poor sufferer in some tender and fitting way. ‘There was no one in Washington,’ says the New York Tribune, ‘ who spent more of his life for the benefit of the soldiers than Mr. 'Whitman. His open collar and snowy head were as well known to the boys in camp and hospital as the bright uniform of the young Napoleon himself.’ [I leave it as a riddle for the junior generation : Who was this miracle of military genius?] Although Whitman was at this period but forty-five years of age, yet, as indicated in the above paragraph, his hair was gray ; and this, with his gait, which was remarkably dignified and slow, gave him a venerable appearance beyond his years [as already noted from Mr. O’Connor]. A stranger, meeting him, was pretty sure to inquire who he was, struck by his majestic and genial air, as well as by the contrast between his ruddy complexion and his gray hair. This contrast was once the cause of an amusing incident. Passing along one of the streets in the suburbs of Washington, at a time when the city was surrounded by the Confederate forces, he was stopped by two policemen, who proposed to arrest him, supposing that he wore false hair and beard, or a false face. He easily convinced them of their error, and said, ‘Well, boys, if you have undertaken to arrest every man who has a false face, you will have your hands full.’ ”
Whitman’s “Memoranda During the War,” which with the Notes added make a pamphlet of 68 pages of pretty close type, included in the second volume of his works, are not a reprint of his newspaper correspondence during the war,
qualified by Burroughs as “ quite extensive,” though some of them seem to have been transferred at the time without change into that correspondence, which ought to furnish good materials for another pamphlet, or even volume. The “Memoranda” were first published some years after the war was over, in the New York Graphic; and here is Whitman’s own account of their origin and character:—
“ During the Union War I commenced at the clone of 1862, and continued steadily through '63. '64, and '65, to visit the aick and wounded of the Army, both on the held and in tho Hospitals in and around Washington city. [Mark the ‘steadily.’ See Sect. III. for Burroughs’ testimony to visits every Sunday and frequently on week days up to March '67, when he wrote.] From the first I kept little note-books for impromptu jottings in pencil to refresh my memory of names and circumstances, and what was specially wanted, &c. In these I briefd cases, persons, sights, occurrences in camp, by the bedside, and not seldom by the corpses of the dead. Of tho present Volume most of its pages are verbatim renderings from such pencilling* on the spot. Some were scratch’d down from narratives I heard and itemized while watching, or waiting, or tending somebody amid those scenes. I have perhaps forty such little note-books left, forming a special history of those years, for myself alone, full of associations never to be possibly said or sung. I wish I could convey to the reader the associations that attach to these soil'd and creas’d little livraisons, each composed of a sheet or two of paper, folded small to carry in tho pocket, and fasten'd with a pin. I leave them just as I threw them by during the War, blotch’d here and there with more than one blood-stain, hurriedly written, sometimes at the cliniqua, not seldom amid the excitement of uncertainty, or defeat, or of action, or getting ready for it, or a march. Even these days, at the lapse of many years, I can never turn their tiny leaves, or even take one in my hand, without the actual army sights and hot emotions of the time rushing like a river in full tide through me. Each line, each scrawl, each memorandum, has its history. Some pang of anguish—some tragedy, profounder than poet ever wrote. Out of them arise active and breathing forms. They summon up, even in this silent and vacant room as I write, not only the sinewy regiments and brigades, marching or in camp, but the countless phantoms of those who fell and were hastily buried by wholesale in the battle-pits, or whose dust and bones have been since removed to the National Cemeteries of tho land, especially through Virginia and Tennessee.”
The first of these Memoranda is dated Falmouth, Va., opposite Fredericksburgh, Deer. 21, 1862; the last, Harewood Hospital, Washington, Deer. 10, 1865. It has been remarked of the few brief extracts from Whitman’s newspaper correspondence given by Dr. Burroughs: “They are above all impressive by the stern self-restraint and concision of their tenderness: the poet whose songs had been shouts of jubilation, mighty and tumultuous as the voice of many waters, has only the most simple and quiet words for the abounding agonies he witnesses and tends; it is clear that if once he should let loose his feelings from under stoical control, they would utterly overwhelm and disable him.” These remarks apply to the bulk of the hospital jottings in the Memoranda, which are mainly of the same subdued tone as the record of “ Three Young Men’s Deaths ” contributed by the Poet to the Tobacco Plant of April, 1879; like “muffleddrums beating funeral marches to the grave”: but they do not equally apply to the general observations in the Introduction and Notes written several years afterwards, or to the passages concerning Abraham Lincoln, for whom, we are told, Whitman cherished a deep personal attachment, regarding him as by far the noblest and purest of the political characters of the time, and likewise as a sort of representative historical American.
I proceed to give some too short extracts from the Memoranda, showing the pomp and glory of war in contrast with the humble obscurity of mere self-sacrifice and exhaustless brotherly love:—
“Falmouth, Va., opposite Fredericksburgh.
“ 1862, Deer. 21.—Out doors, at the foot of a tree, within ten yards of the front of the house, I notice a heap of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, Ac., a full load for a one-horse cart. Several dead bodies lie near, each cover’d with its brown woollen blanket. In the door-yard, towards the river, are fresh graves, mostly of officers, their names on pieces of barrel-staves or broken board, stuck in the dirt. (Most of these bodies were subsequently taken up and transported North to their friends.)” Glorious War's gracious returns to widows and orphans, sisters and sweethearts: mangled and putrid carrion for living husbands and fathers, brothers and lovers; corpses or fragments of corpses demanding instant reinterment instead of strong bread-winners loving and beloved................“The	large mansion is quite crowded,
upstairs and down, everything impromptu, no system, all bad enough, but I have no doubt the best that can be done; all the wounds pretty bad, some frightful, the men in their old clothes, unclean and bloody. . . .
“Deer. 23 to 31.—The results of the late battles are exhibited everywhere about here in thousands of cases (hundreds die every day,) in the Camp, Brigade, and Division Hospitals. These are merely tents, and sometimes very poor ones, the wounded lying on the ground, lucky if their blankets are spread on layers of pine or hemlock twigs or small leaves. No cots; seldom even a mattress. It is pretty cold. The ground is frozen hard, and there is occasional snow. I go around from one case to another. I do not see that I do much good, but I cannot leave them. Once in a while some youngster holds on to me convulsively, and I do what I can for him; at any rate, stop with him and sit near him for hours, if he wishes it.”
“Washington, Jany., ’63.—I am now remaining in and around Washington, daily visiting the Hospitals. Am now able to do a little good, having money, (as almoner of others home,) and getting experience. . . .
“Jany. 21.—Devoted the main part of the day to Armory Square Hospital; went pretty thoroughly through Wards F, G, H, and I; some fifty cases in each 'Ward. In Ward F supplied the men throughout with writing paper and stamp’d
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envelope each; distributed in small portions, to proper subjects, a large jar of first-rate preserv’d berries, which had been donated to me by a lady—her own cooking. Found several cases I thought good subjects for small sums of money, which I furnish’d. (The wounded men often come up broke, and it helps their spirits to have even the small sum I give them.) My paper and envelopes all gone, but distributed a good lot of amusing reading matter; also, as I thought judicious, Tobacco, oranges, apples, &c. . . . (I urn more and more surprised at the very great proportion of youngsters from fifteen to twenty-one in the army. I afterwards found a still greater proportion among the Southerners.” . . .
li Fifty Hours Left Wounded on the Field.—Here is a case I found among the crowded cots in the Patent Office. He likes to have some one to talk to, and we will listen to him. He got badly hit in his leg and side at Fredericksburgh that eventful Saturday, 13th of December. He lay the succeeding two days and nights helpless on the field, between the city and those grim terraces of batteries; his company and regiment had been compell’d to leave him to his fate. To make matters worse, it happen’d he lay with his head slightly down hill, and could not help himself. At the end of some fifty hours he was brought off, with other wounded, under a flag of truce. ... I ask him how the rebels treated him as he lay during those two days within reach of them—whether they came to him, whether they abused him? He answers that several of the rebels, soldiers and others, came to him, at one time and another. A couple of them, who were together, spoke roughly and sarcastically, but nothing worse. One middle-aged man, however, who seem’d to be moving around the field, among the dead and wounded, for benevolent purposes, came to him in a way he will never forget; treated our soldier kindly, bound up his wounds, cheer’d him, gave him a couple of biscuits, and a drink of whiskey and water; ask’d him if he could eat some beef. This good Secesh, however, did not change our soldier’s position, for it might have caused the blood to burst from the wounds, clotted and stagnated. ... (It is not uncommon for the men to remain on the field this way, one, two, or even four or five days.)”
“A Connecticut Case.— . . Though not more than twenty-one, or thereabouts, he has knock’d much around the world, on sea and land, and has seen some fighting on both. When I first saw him he was very sick, with no appetite. He declined offers of money—said he did not need anything. As Iwas quite anxious to do something, he confessed that he had a hankering for a good home-made rice pudding. . . . things in the hospital, though better than usual, revolted him. I soon procured B. his rice pudding. A Washington lady, hearing his wish, made the pudding herself, and I took it up to him the next day. He subsequently told me he lived upon it three or four days. ... I took a fancy to him, and gave him a nice pipe, for a keepsake. He receiv’d afterwards a box of things from home, and nothing would do but I must take dinner with him, whish I did, and a very good one it was. . . .
*‘J Sccesh Brave.—The brave, grand soldiers are not comprised in those of one side, any more than the other. Here is a sample of an unknown Southerner, a lad of seventeen. At the War Department, a few days ago, I witnessed a presentation of captured flags to the Secretary. Among others a soldier . . . presented a rebel battle-flag, which one of the officers stated to me was borne to the mouth of our cannon and planted there by a boy but seventeen years of age, who actually endeavor’d to stop the muzzle of the gun with fence-rails. He was killed in the effort, and the flag-staff wAs severed by a shot from one of our men. (Perhaps in that Southern boy of seventeen, untold in history, unsung in poems, altogether unnamed, fell as strong a spirit, and as sweet, as any in all time.)”
“May 12,1863.—A Night Battle, over a week since. . . . There was part of the late battle of Chancellorsville, (second Frederickburgh,) Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday, under Gen. Joe Hooker [others led by Stonewall Jackson, who was not to lead them more], I would like to give just a glimpse of —(a moment’s look in a terrible storm at sea—of which a few suggestions are enough, and full details impossible.) . . . It was largely in the woods, and quite a general engagement. The night was very pleasant, at times the moon shining out full and clear, all Nature so calm in itself, the early summer grass so rich, and foliage of the trees—yet there the battle raging, and many good fellows lying helpless, with new accessions to them, and every minute amid the rattle of muskets and crash of cannon, (for there was an artillery contest too,) the red life-blood oozing out from heads or trunks or limbs upon that green and dew-cool grass. The woods take fire, and many of the wounded, unable to move, are consumed—quite large spaces are swept over, burning the dead also—some of the men have their hair and beards singed—some, splatches of burns on their faces and hands—others holes burnt in their clothing. . . . The flashes of fire from the cannon, the quick flaring flames and smoke, and the immense roar— the musketry so general, the light nearly bright enough for each side to see one another—the crashing, tramping of men—the yelling—close quarters—we hear the Secesh yells— our men cheer loudly back, especially if Hooker is in sight— hand to hand conflicts, each side stands up to it, brave, determin’d as demons, they often charge upon us—a thou-
sand deeds are done worth to write newer, greater poems on— and still the woods on fire—still many are not only scorch’d —too many, unable to move, are burn’d to death. . . . Then the camp of the wounded—O heavens, what scene is this?—is this indeed humanity—these butchers’ shambles? There are several of them. There they lie in the largest, in an open space in the woods, from 500 to 600 poor fellows—the groans and screams—the odor of blood, mixed with the fresh scent of the night, the grass, the trees—that Slaughter-house! O well is it their mothers, their sisters cannot see them— cannot conceive, and never conceiv’d these things. . . . One man is shot by a shell, both in the arm and leg—both are amputated—there lie the rejected members. Some have their legs blown off—some bullets through the breast—some indescribably horrid wounds in the face or head, all mutilated, sickening, torn, gouged out—some in the abdomen— some mere boys—here is one his face colorless as chalk, lying perfectly still, a bullet has perforated the abdomen— life is ebbing fast, there is no help for him. In the camp of the wounded are many rebels, badly hurt—they take their regular turns with the rest, just the same as any—the surgeons use them just the same. . . . Such is the camp of the wounded—such a fragment, a reflection afar off of the bloody scene—while over all the clear large moon comes out at times softly, quietly shining. . . .
“ What history, again I say, can ever give—for who can know, the mad, determin’d tussle of the armies, in all their separate large and little squads—as this—each steep’d from crown to toe in desperate, mortal purports? Who know the conflict hand-to-hand—the many conflicts in the dark, those shadowy-tangled, flashing-moonbeam’d woods—the writhing groups and squads—hear through the woods the cries, the din, the cracking guns and pistols—the distant cannon—the cheers and calls, and threats and awful music of the oaths— the indescribable mix — the officers’ orders, persuasions, encouragements—the devils fully rous’d in human hearts— the strong word, Charge, men, charge—the flash of the naked sword, and many a flame and smoke? . . .
“ Of scenes like these, I say, who writes—who e'er can write the story? Of many a score—aye, thousands,’North and South, of unwrit heroes, unknown heroisms, incredible, impromptu, first-class desperations—who tells? No history, ever—No poem sings, nor music sounds, those bravest men of all—those deeds. No formal General’s report, nor print, nor book in the library, nor column in the paper, enbalms the bravest, North or South, East or West. Unnamed, unknown, remain, and still remain, the bravest soldiers. Our manliest—our boys—our hardy darlings.” . . .
The concluding passage points to where the poet’s heart was, his great democratic heart. Not with the prominent generals, who indeed, as a rule, had little to boast of on the Federal side; but with the common valiant soldiers, North and South, slain or wounded in undistinguished, often undis-tinguishable multitudes. “ Unnamed, unknown, the bravest soldiers. Our manliest—our boys—our hardy darlings.”
Some delicate nerves will doubtless be shocked by his realistic glimpses into the camps of the wounded: “ O heavens, what scene is this?—is this indeed humanity—these butchers’ shambles ? . . the groans and screams—the odor of blood, mixed with the fresh scent of the night, the grass, the trees —that Slaughter-house!” War-correspondents and artists are often severely blamed for picturing too clearly the real horrors of the battle-field, the ambulance, the hospital tent. What, then, shall we say of the rulers and statesmen who—for the most part wickedly and wantonly, on the one side if not on both—safe themselves, set the tremendous machinery of these horrors in motion? what of the chivalrous heroes who hire themselves out to be always ready for the human butchery, be their country’s cause just or unjust? what of the pious priests and prelates who render fervent public thanksgivings to their God of Love and Mercy when the slaughter has been exceedingly great, but greater of another people than of their own? We exult and triumph in national actions whose inevitable consequences we cannot bear to look upon, even in the dim vague reflection of pictures or words. Unashamed of the deeds, we blench from their truthful record. Tender girls and women worship the scarlet at balls and reviews, while they shrink with abhorrence from the blood of which it is the proper flaming emblem, shrink with nausea from such far faint suggestions of the blood as red ink or red paint. As for the common Jingoes (we no longer need borrow chauvinists from the French, having by recent vile experience gotten us so much viler a name for a so much more despicable species of the same genus among ourselves) —as for the cowardly, greedy, callous, vaiuboastful Jingoes, of the clubs, the slums, the Exchange, the music-halls^ the press, and even the pulpit, who inflame others to the carnage to which they never expose themselves, we will not heed their piteous protests against the faithful record of murder and devastation. Our Poet, contemplating the still-living fragments of humanity gathered after the conflict, bursts out, “ O well is it their mothers, their sisters cannot see them —cannot conceive, and never conceiv’d, these things.” It is a natural cry to be wrung by such a spectacle from a heart supremely human and humane; and it was doubtless well for the personal comfort of those particular mothers and sisters that they could not see or conceive the actual state of their darlings: but it would be infinitely better if all men and women could see, or, not seeing, eould conceive and realise in
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their imaginations * such hideous shambles as are the result of every battle, such misery and desolation and bereavement as are the fruits of every campaign; for then War would be soon extinct, drowned and consumed beyond resuscitation in a lava flood of horror and loathing, throughout all our pseudo-civilised world. Therefore, the more plainly, the more brutally and disgustingly, because the more veraciously, the horrors and agonies of war can be depicted by pen and pencil and related by word of mouth, the better; that the poor, foolish, unimaginative people who are fascinated by the flaunting trappings of War in peace, may be terrified into shuddering abhorrence of War in action; ravaging, burning, mangling, murdering; changing rich fields to trampled swamps, fair cities to black ruins, brave strong men to carrion; leaving parents childless, children fatherless, wives widowed, maidens frustrate of wifehood and motherhood. 11 Sensational" ? Axe you so imbecile as to dream that there can be one thousandth part so much “sensation” in any writing or picture ss in the fever-stricken, the wounded, the maimed, the ruined, the dying, and all their afflicted families, the teeming produce of every glorious War?
J. T.
IUothI Songs.
THE LEGISLATOR AND THE ARTISAN.
It was a legislator bland, A wealthy man was he;
A rasher for his breakfast, and
A haddock for his tea:
He could afford, whene’er he chose, To revel in such things as those. Oh, my! the virtuous legislator; Oh, my! the sapient legislator.
Ping, dong!
Sing a little song, Sing a little song for the temperance legislator.
He thought he saw where duty lay, He thought he’d got it clear;
And it was this: on Sabbath day No man should buy his beer.
He knew that he was right, d’ye see, For all his stuff at home had he.
Oh, my! the sagacious legislator;
Oh, my I the discerning legislator.
Ding, dong!
Sing a little song, Sing a little song for the enlightened legislator.
It was a British artisan, A joyless man was he;
A row for breakfast, so it ran, A ditto for his tea.
Dog, cat, and babes, and wife all “jined” To drive from him a peaceful mind.
Oh, my! the discontented artisan;
Oh, my I the irritated artisan.
Ding, dong!
Sing a little song, Sing a little song for the broken-hearted artisan.
He knew a quiet “public,” where
On Sunday peace he found;
And when he felt inclined to swear, His pipe would bring him round.
Then in good time he’d gently roam, His mind at rest, to those at home. Oh, my! the alcoholic artisan;
Oh, my! the amicable artisan.
Ding, dong!
Sing a little song, Sing a little song for the “ pint o’ four arf ” artisan.
This legislator, in his might, At liquor ’gan to foam;
So Sunday saw the “ pubs ” shut tight. And poor “Bill” stayed at home.
Then things at home they got so hot, He massacred the blessed lot.
Oh, my! the much-begoverned artisan;
Oh, my! the assassinating artisan.
Ding, dong!
Sing a little song,
Sing a little song for the M.P. and the artisan.
H. L.
♦“The great secret of mornls 1b love, or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselvcH with tho beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person [? passion], not our own. A naan to be greatly good, mrat imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others ; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.’’— Shelley: “ Defence of Poetry." Exquisitely applicable to Shelley himself, this is no less exquisitely applicable to Whitman, who might well declare of himself in the words of his glorious predecessor:
r Me, who am as a nerve o’er which do creep The else-unfelt oppressions of this earth ”
glr. ^ostp^ Ration.
Wk hkab that this most energetic and versatile writer, who, following the example of Dickens and others, has lately come forward as a public reader, and with marked success, is about to pay a second visit to America. We believe that the main motive of this visit is business in connection with the New York Times, of which Mr. Hatton is the London representative ; but he will take the opportunity to repeat in a few of the principal cities the entertainment which his proved so successful here—first in various parts of the country, and lately in London. On this last occasion he had a numerous and fashionable audience, and thoroughly delighted it. The following, from the Morning Post of July 1, is a fair specimen of the criticisms we have seen in the London press, and, moreover, defines the subject and nature of the recitation:—
“ One more has now to be added to the long list of writers of eminence who have appeared as readers from their own works. During some months occasional paragraphs have been seen in country newspapers announcing Mr. Hatton’s success in the delivery of a dramatic version of his own novel 4 The Queen of Bohemia.' His entertainment has now found its way to London, and has at the Steinway Hall met with an amount of success which renders probable its repetition in various portions of the metropolis. The plan adopted by Mr. Hatton is as follows:—Taking as basis bis own novel, he has, with the assistance of Mr. Albery, converted the whole into a play furnished with telling and appropriate dialogue, and leading to what, with the addition of scenery and action, would be very dramatic situations. In the presentation of the lights and shadows of London life Mr. Hatton has few superiors, and his pictures of scenes with which many of his hearers must have been familiar arrested their attention by their strict fidelity. Very considerable are Mr. Hatton’s qualifications for the task of reader. He has a good presence and delivery, and his voice has both range and power. In the stronger situations he obtains a strong hold upon the public, and in the lighter he stirs it readily to laughter. A constant tribute of applause was accorded Mr. Hatton, and at the close of each of the separate acts of which the piece is composed he received a recall, which at the close of the entertainment swelled into a loud and well-deserved display of approval. A special feature in the entertainment was the really admirable singing by Mrs. Osgood, in the reception scene of the last act, of Mr. Cowen’s song, ‘ The Better Land,* and Mr. Sullivan’s ‘My Dearest Heart.’ Mrs. Osgood was fortunate in having the composer of the first-named song for accompanist.”
Although Mr. Hatton’s chief works are well known and widely appreciated, few persons are aware how much work he has already accomplished (he is not yet forty-four), and in how many departments of literature. We, therefore, select some details of his public career, having by no means the space to enumerate all, from the Biograph of March, 1879, which devotes eight pages to the subject. In his own words, he was “ born next door to a printing-press, in an atmosphere of proofs and ink”; being son of the late F. A. Hatton, proprietor of the Derbyshire Times. After filling engagements on various country papers, he was appointed to a responsible position on the Bi istol Mirror when only nineteen, and within three years became its editor. Then to the Durham Advertiser tor two years, during which he wrote as many novels—“Against the stream ” (afterwards published as “In the Lap of Fortune”) and “Bitter Sweets, a Love Story,”—and contributed biographical sketches of famous men to Joseph Cowen’s Newcastle Chronicle. About 1864 he came to London, where ho was introduced to Mr. B. W. Johnson, proprietor of Berrow's Worcester Journal, the oldest of English newspapers. Of this he became editor and manager, and two or three years afterwards proprietor, as well as a town councillor and volunteer captain. Then for six year# he edited the Gentleman's Magazine. “In his hands this famous publication changed its character and its price, and successfully entered the lists as a rival to the popular magazines of the day . . . for six years the Gentleman's flourished under his editorship, during the early days of which he was backed by a brilliant staff, including Tom Taylor, Shirley Brooks, Henry Kingsley, Luke Limner, Mark Lemon, William Jerdan, ‘H. H. D.’and others, who wrote regularly for the periodical on subjects specially selected by the editor, who thus always secured for the magazine a tone and character of current interest and ‘ Urbanian ’ individuality beyond the generally accepted features of a magazine.” He bad meanwhile published “The Tailants of Barton,” and attempted to establish the Illustrated Midland News, the first attempt of the kind. But the Graphic was started shortly after, and pushed considerably in the midlands. Passing over much miscellaneous writing, we read: “For the Gentleman's Maga-zine, while it was published by Bradbury and Evans, Mr. Hatton re-cast and edited ‘ Not in Society ’; he wrote * A Memorial Window,’ * Christopher Kenrick,’ and some miscellaneous articles. During the days when it was published by Allen and Co. and Grant and Co. he wrote for it ‘ The Valley of Poppies ’ and ‘Clytie.’ ” Bradbury and Evans re-published “Christopher Kenrick” and “Pippins and Cheese,” a miscellaneous volume. In 1869, as a friend, Mr. Hatton accompanied Mark Lemon on his Falstaff tour through Scotland, the Bohemian incidents of which he related in a volume
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entitled “ With a Show in the North.” In 1871 he founded the School Board Chronicle which was speedily accepted as the organ of the new educational movement. At the end of 1873 he retired from tho Gentleman's Magazine, and was presented with a piece of plate and an illuminated address by the chief contributors and a few private friends.
Some time afterwards he bought the Hornet, and conducted it for two years, making it both feared and respected. Again passing over much miscellaneous writing, we may note that he contributed the article on Printing and Bookbinding to Stanford’s “ British Manufactures and Industries,” and “ The True Story of Punch" to London Society.
In 1876 Mr. Hatton made a tour in America and Canada, where he was cordially received, the Lotos Club of New York inviting him to a banquet, at which Mr. William Black, his friend and fellow-novelist, was present. On his return he sold the Hornet, and, contributing a couple of papers on America and Canada to Tinsley and Belgravia, comm meed a new novel, a commission from an American publisher. Messrs. Warne and Co. then added the whole of his novels to their “Companion Library,” and early in 1877 Chapman and Hall published his “ Queen of Bohemia” in two volumes. In 1878 appeared “Cruel London.” Between the New York oorrespondentship, involving the writing of four or five columns a week, and the current fiction for the country journals [“Cruel London”], Mr. Hatton still found time for collaborating in the work of a new drama called “ Liz ” (produced with great success in London and the provinces), and several plays in literary partnership with Mr. James Albery. In collaboration with Mr. Charles Dickens, he has just finished a version of “ Edwin Drood” for Charles Warner and the Princess’s Theatre.
As an essayist, journalist, critic, novelist, dramatist, he is well known on both sides of the Atlantic, and to be popular in the United States as well as in England has been counted by a great writer better than posthumous fame. Mr. Hatton has lived a good deal in artistic society. [We are told that when little more than a child he played a duet with Professor Lee in the theatre at Chesterfield, where he was at school.]. . . American correspondents in transatlantic journals have more than once referred to the artistic receptions which Mr. and Mrs. Hatton have occasionally given in a modest way at their pleasant little house in Regent’s Park. He is one of those Englishmen who have a special liking for Americans, and who take a delight in reciprocating the courtesies which they never tire of showing to litterateurs who visit America. “Nothing,” he said to us the other day, “ gave me greater pleasure than, while being entertained by a few members of the Century Club in New York, to hear Mr. Stoddard, the poet, in proposing my health, quote ‘Christopher Kenrick’—except, perhaps, when the Lotos Club invited mo to a banquet, and displayed a flattering familiarity with the books which I am most proud of having written, 1 The Valley of Poppies’ and ‘Clytie.’” Mr. Hatton has manifested a more than ordinary sympathy with America and Americans in his latest novels, and we believe the best fruits of his journalistic pen now go to the press of the United States.
It will thus be seen that Mr. Hatton needs no introduction to our cousins across the water, among whom the success of bis dramatic readings is pretty well assured beforehand; and we have but to wish him Bon voyage I
literature anb florals.
The influence of low-class literature on the morals of young readers is a subject of painful interest to certain worthy persons. Magistrates from the bench, and parents from the arm-chair, must have their say about it. From time to time the columns of the newspaper are made a vehicle for their sentiments. When Tom Jones, ten years old, son of most respectable parents, takes to amateur housebreaking, and, being found trying to pick a stable lock with a broken penknife, is whipped and sent to prison for a week, these magistrates and parents are at no loss to account for it all. They are confident the sad business is directly traceable to the fact that Tom has been reading the weekly numbers of that delectable serial “ The Bad Burgling Brothers of Britain,” whose publishers guarantee not less than five crimes to the page. When the boy was captured a copy of it was found in his pockets, together with a toy pistol that would not fire. These wiseacres do not see that, supposing the adventure to have been anything more than a harmless boyish freak, there must have been, beforehand, something in tho character and disposition of Tom himself to incline him to read this thing. Good Sammy Wilkins, who loves his Sunday school and the pious little stories he gets there, would not even have looked at it. They do not comprehend that the something which thus inclined Tom is precisely the force which moved him to play at housebreaking. If there had been no dreadful boy, the dreadful book could have done no harm; a well-disposed boy would have enjoyed it innocently enough, or would not have enjoyed it at all. But, given the dreadful boy, and the absence of dreadful books will not keep him out of mischief.
Dash a little more grossn^ss into the amiable and worthy magistrate and parent, and you create active supporters of Anti-Vice Associations, Societies for the Promotion of Super-
fine Morals, and the like. Henceforth, all kinds of literature which in your simplicity you fancied innocent, prove to be hot-beds of nastiness. The “maiden’s blush” is now called into play. Even the respectable daily broadsheet is reckoned “unfit for the family circle,” if it does not suppress one-half the facts of life and carefully trim the rest. The male members of the family now come to evince the greatest anxiety for the morals of the female members, and the married to exhibit the utmost concern on behalf of the unmarried. If they have anything of a doubtful character to say—one of those loose witticisms which married people love — they whisper it. With all the looking after which young people get, one wonders how any of them have even enough knowledge to go wrong, or, for that matter, to go right either, whatever be their individual dispositions. Or one would wonder this, if the story of a young couple who were protected with utmost care from the fruit of a poisonous tree, of which nevertheless they ate, did not recur to us.
Well, then, are some books really in themselves immoral, and others essentially moral? Are we to conclude that “Don Juan,” Ouida’s novels, Whitman. Swinburne, and Rossetti’s poems are very naughty and exceedingly dangerous? If so, how shall we explain the fact that some good, intelligent people see much beauty and no badness in them, discovering, even in passages which have been pronounced “improper,” splendid spiritual significance? Wordsworth, as we know, abused “Wilhelm Meister” heartily: “It was full of all manner of fornication. It was like the crossing of flies in the air. He had never gone further than the first part; so disgusted was he, that he threw the book across the room.”
When I read that book, many years ago, I confess I would not have been disinclined to endorse Wordsworth’s verdict, although I did not throw the volume away. But remembering as I do, the time when I looked upon “ Sartor Resartus” as unreadable for dulness, while now I do not praise it because to praise so grand a work would seem an insult, I feel bound to suspend my judgment about “Wilhelm Meister,” lest haply the time should come when I shall appreciate it also. I must withhold my decision until I have read it again once or twice. Does not the author of “Sartor Resartus” himself love this book of Goethe’s and rank it very high? and Carlyle, at least, is not addicted to careless or inferior judgments. “It is with ‘Meister,’” he tells us, “ as with every work of real and abiding excellence, the first glance is the least favourable. A picture of Raphael, a Greek statue, a play of Sophocles or Shakespeare, appears insignificant to the unpractised eye; and not till after long and patient and intense examination do we begin to descry the earnest features of that beauty which has its foundations in the deepest nature of man, and will continue to be pleasing through all ages.” When Miss Alcott—the well-known author of “ Little Women”—was a girl, she one day went to Mr. Emerson for a “ real, good, interesting book ” to read, and he at once chose for her this very “ Wilhelm Meister.” Of course, the British Parent of the type referred to would take this opinion of Carlyle’s to be unimportant, and this behaviour of Emerson’s as nothing short of disgraceful. He can see for himself that the book is “immoral,” and though he may perhaps read it in the privacy of his own room, he will by no means permit it to fall into the hands of his sons and daughters—or at least into the hands of his daughters.
Perhaps the truth of the matter simply is, that books are very much what we take them to be. “Sartor Resartus” was, years ago, unreadable—to me. It has not changed since: the square, brown cover, white paper, black print, are all—saving that a little more dust has fallen on them—just the same now as they were when I first laid the book aside. Now, as I take it up again, it is readable; yes, a book inspired of God, bearing a Divine Message to me! Surely the message was offered all along; but then I was dull of hearing, and now I can partly understand it. So, perhaps, the forbidden and naughty books also, about which there is such complaint, are not so much naughty as are some of the people who read them, who, having an affinity for nastiness, find its traces everywhere; or who, wearing coloured spectacles, see nothing in the world purely. Thackeray tells us, in his “Roundabout Papers,” that he never knew there were any indecencies in Shakespeare and “Arabian Nights” until he read household editions.
Touching this question of the influence and tendency of books, a few thoughtful remarks of George Sand are quoted by Mr. Matthew Arnold in his recent essay on “Copyright.” They are as follows:—“It was thought when railways came that we had seen the last of conveyance by horses and carriages, and that the providers of it must all be ruined; but it turns out that railways have created a business for horses and carriages greater than there ever was before. In the same way the abundant consumption of middling literature has stimulated the appetite for knowing and judging books. Second-rate, common-place literature is what the ignorant require for catching the first gleam; the day will dawn for them as it does for the child who, by degrees, as he learns to read, learns to understand also; and in fifty years from this time the bad and the middling in literature will be unable to find a publisher because they will be unable to find a market.”
Mr. Arnold himself, however, does not altogether agree with this:—“I do not think it safe to say that the consumption of the bad and the middling in literature does, of itself, necessarily engender a taste for the good, and that out of the
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multiplication of second-rate books for the million, the multiplication of first-rate books does, as a natural consequence, spring.”
Shall we adopt another standard by which we will judge books, from that employed by our over-anxious friends, the magistrate and the parent? We will not say that a book is to be reckoned good or bad by what is called its “ effect” on those who read it, for this influence we find to arise from a quality in the reader rather than in the book itself. But we will call that book good whose author is competent and conscientious. A writer who has heart and brain will produce a good book if he put the best powers of his heart and brain into his work. But if his aim is nothing more than to turn out so many sheets of “copy” with the least labour to himself, then, depend upon it, whatever be his talents and his reputation, the product will be bad. That is what we find so much of in the present day—careless and worthless work; and only once and again a conscientious, true Book. If our friends who are so sadly perplexed about pernicious literature would turn their attention to this aspect of the question, and devise means of preventing the publication of literary work which was not the author’s best, then the taste for good, sound books would be strengthened, and “ the bad and the middling in literature ” would tend to die out. For the rest, we may trust the young people that their morals—when they have any—will not be corrupted by the reading of any books whose authors in the writing of them have been honcut.
pipe Cotourers.
XXV.—WOBBER’S PRESIDENT.
Ma. Wobber is a very old friend of mine. He has coloured several pipes in his time, but I have no story to tell of his pipe-colouring powers. He frequently gets hold of some eccentric idea, and the more idiotic it is, the better he seems to like it. His latest idea is to found a Society for the Reformation of Teetotalers.
A short time back we were sitting smoking in the snug parlour of a way side inn some ten miles from town. At length Wobber, whose quaint soul had been going through various exercises unknown to ordinary mortals, broke silence.
“To every thoughtful man,” said he, “there must come at some period of his life a desire to do something for the benefit of his fellow creatures. If there is a thoughtful man who has not yet had the desire, let him take comfort, it is coming. Let him be encouraged to keep a sharp look out, so that when it does come he will not miss it, or mistake it for something of no account. The desire will come, and must. If the man dies before the desire comes, that is the fault of the man and not of the desire. Many a time I have had desires (mostly unworkable) to do good; but now I feel that a grand thought, a glorious idea, has entered into me. For many years the teetotalers have been trying to do the drinkers good, by persuading them to abstain from ale, beer, Ac. Now I, in gratitude, feel inclined to do some of these teetotalers good, by persuading them to quit their dreadful drinks and come back to honest beer. I am quite sure many of them would be the better for it. Why, sir, there are men in their ranks who boast that they have never tasted beer. Goggs, the thought is dreadful. Can banners console for the loss of barrels ? or processions make up for the absence of pots and pints? No!”
I assured Wobber of my sympathy, but told him I thought there would be little use in his attempting to start such a society.
Said Wobber, as if suddenly hit by a new idea, “ Right! I must have a President, and I think I can find the man. You know the hotel just by the railway station, close by my house?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“ There shall we find him. I have not spoken to him, but I have seen him go in to the little parlour there on your left. With snowy hair aud beard, with bright, kindly eyes, and the sweetness of grand and benevolent old age on cheek and brow; he’s the man. Let us away and seek him.”
After another tankard of Wobber’s delight, we took train home, and soon arrived at the hotel mentioned.
After we had been seated in the little parlour some five minutes, the old gentleman mentioned by Wobber came in.
“ My President,” whispered Wobber. The old gentleman was, in truth, a very old gentleman—eighty-four, as he to )k occasion to tell us several times in the course of the evening. He gave his order for some gin and hot water, and a biscuit. This, according to a little remark he dropped, was his regular supper. This, to me, was a dreadful spectacle. An old man with one foot—say, rather, two feet up to the knees—in the grave, supping on gin and biscuit. The old man evidently had no teeth. He took his meal by soaking his biscuit in his hot gin, and nibbling off the soft parts. Wobber and I waited patiently till the meal was done. A look of intense sorrow crept over the countenance of the old gentleman when he found, on arriving at the finish of his biscuit, that he had soaked up the whole of his beverage. There was not a drop left to wash down the last crumb with. All he could do was to run his tongue round his stumps, in search of any fragments of spiritualised biscuit, worry them out into the open, and let them drift down as best they could.”
Presently Mr. Wobber, anxious to secure his President, endeavoured to open a conversation. Removing his pipe from his mouth, he said: “Fine evening, sir.”
“ Yes,” said the old man, shortly.
“ Nice little room this,” Wobber went on.
“ It would be a nice little room,” replied the old man, “ if you did not fill it with your nasty Tobacco smoke.”
Here was a revelation! The man was an Anti, and, to judge from what he said and the way in which he said it, an Anti of rather a severe sort. Wobber was at a loss, so the old man thought he might as well go on. “ Smoking.” said he, looking fiercely at Wobber, “ is an unnecessary thing, and nothing can be said in its favour. More than that, it is a filthy, dirty practice, besides being hurtful; and more than that, it is a public nuisance.”
“ Oh! oh! ” said Wobber, rather warmly, “ because you do not find it necessary to smoke, you call it an unnecessary habit, do you? Well, then, I’ll take your own style of argument. I call taking gin and biscuit an unnecessary habit, as I do not find it necessary to take it for supper—see ? ”
“Well,” said the old Anti slyly, “I’m glad you told me that, because there are certain appearances about your face, certain alterations from the natural hue of health, certain blots and splashes of a deeper red than what I may term the body colour of your countenance, that would lead some people to believe that you not only took gin (with or without biscuits) for supper, but for tea, dinner, and breakfast as well.”
“What do you mean to insinuate? yon—you—hatchetnosed old relic! ” cried Wobber hotly. “ Do you mean to accuse me of being a drunkard?”
“ Certainly not,” said the old man, grinning; “ by the way in which you handle that pewter measure, and the liberal way in which you pass that liquor down, I should say it would be very difficult for you to get drunk. In fact, I should say there is only one thing you would find more difficult, and that would be to be a teetotaler. But let us avoid personalities ; they only lead to disagreement. I hate and detest Tobacco, and it vexes me to come in here and have to breathe the filthy atmosphere created by the pipes of men who say they think Tobacco is a good thing.”
“But this is a public room,” said Wobber, “where smoking is permitted ; and surely I may smoke here if I like smoking?”
“If you like it;” said the old man, smiting the table with his umbrella, “ If you like it, why the deuce don’t you swallow it, eh? The child puts fruit, and cake, and sweets in its mouth, and swallows them because it likes them. The man puts meat, and bread, and beer in his mouth, and swallows them because he likes them. You tell me that you like smoking, and yet you blow the smoke out of your mouth as fast as you take it in. It appears to me, sir, that you don’t like it, but that you dislike it. If you like it, as I said before, why the deuce don’t you swallow it ? Don't you think, sir, that I should be foolish, if I filled my mouth with beer, and then spat it out, to prove that I liked it ? Who would believe me if I said that ? It is a monstrous fabrication, sir—you don’t like it, and that is why you eject it!” And the old man sent his tongue round his teeth again in search of stray crumbs.
“But,” said Wobber, “I like to take the smoke in my mouth and blow it out again.”
“Then,” said the anti, “you are doing what Nature never intended you to do. Nature never intended that to be put in the mouth which was not to be swallowed.”
“I suppose that’s the reason,” said Wobber, savagely, “why you’ve swallowed your teeth, then.”
“I am eighty-four,” said the old man, proudly; “and you do not show your good sense by alluding to the effects of my great age. As I said before, we should do well to avoid personalities. I doubt if ever you will see eighty-four; but, if you do, not only will you have no teeth in your head, but I doubt if you’ll have a head left capable of holding a tooth. Long ere eighty-four can reach you, sir, I prophecy, from your habits, that you will be a toothless, palsied, purplenosed, shambling idiot, fit for nothing in the world but the pole-axe.”
“ Thank you,” said Wobber, looking at the old man as if he would like to cut his throat. “ I admire the discreet way in which you avoid all personalities. But never mind that. You say smoking is a baneful practice. Prove it.”
“Look at the white-faced lads smoking pipes in the street,” said the old man, with a glance of scorn at Wobber; “ Look at them, I say, and tell me if further proof is necessary. Surely you must admit that smoking is doing them harm.”
“I do admit it,” said Wobber; “I often mourn over it. In fact, when the opportunity occurs, I reprove them for it. In some instances I’ve persuaded them to give up the habit.
“Good, to a certain extent,” said the Anti, with a nod; “ but still your practice must weaken your advice. You can only say to them, ‘Do as I say’; I can say to them, ‘Do as as I do?”
“What?” said Wobber, “Would you recommend these growing youngsters to have hot gin and biscuit for supper? Never!”
“You purposely misunderstood me,” cried the Anti, furiously; “without your head is so muddled by.that detestable pipe that you cannot understand common sense.”
“I can understand common sense,” replied Wobber; “but
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you are gifted with such superhuman and uncommon sense that I am in some doubt as to whether I fully comprehend all your meaning at all times.”
“In countries,” said the old man, growing geographical, “In countries where there are swamps, and fens, and unhealthy marshes, Tobacco may be of some little benefit, although I doubt it; but here, where we are dry and well drained, Tobacco can only do harm. It leads to dissipation and immorality, encourages idleness, extravagance, and every form of vice; and, in fact, is worthy to be called Nicotine, not for the reason it was so called, but because it is the choicest flower in the garden of Old Nick the Devil, and the most useful to serve his purpose in poisoning the world he hates.”
Wobber having had enough of his President, rose to go; but, pausing a moment to fill and light his pipe, sat himself on the table. I shall not in a hurry forget the wrath of that ancient Anti. “There!” shouted he. “There! There are your smokers’ manners! There is the influence of the pipe! How dare you, sir ? ”
•‘ What’s up now? ” said Wobber, looking quite astonished, for he did not comprehend for the moment how he had given offence.
“What’s up,” cried the Anti, “Nothing is np, it’s you that’s down. Disgusting! You are not in a tap-room, sir, or a barrack-room. There are chairs if you wish to sit down —use them.”
“Do you mean to say,” inquired Wobber, “that you are putting yourself in a rage just because I sat for a moment on the table ? Why, if you weren’t so old, and so sharp in your different corners, rd put you on the table and sit on you.”
“ Eh ? ” said the old man, all agape and almost speechless with indignation; “Sit on me, sir; on me, in the eightyfourth year of an honourable life! How dare you say such a thing, sir? ”
“ Look here,” cried Wobber, “ if you think your age gives you licence to go about insulting people, you make a mistake. Til tell you what you are, and if you feel at all afraid that you will forget, I don’t mind writing it down for you. You are a cantankerous old idiot, and that’s the mildest form I can put it in.”
The old man fairly bubbled with rage. He could not speak, so he seized his glass and shot the crusher at Mr. Wobber. It did no harm, however, but fell on the floor without even breaking. The old Anti then seized his hat and umbrella, and vanished, turning round for a moment at the door to shake his bony fist in a furious manner at Wobber.
“ Exit the President! ” said I.
Wobber said nothing—or, at least, nothing that shall be printed. D. Goggs.
& (german Oriental.
n.
It is pleasant to be born by the banks of a river, when you are not fortunate enough to be born by the shores of the sea. If Shakspeare had been born near the sea instead of near a river, his rich genius might have been made richer thereby. It was on the banks of one of the most memorable rivers of Germany, the river Main, that Frederick Ruckert had his birth, on the 16th May, 1788, when Byron was scarcely four months old. Frankfort-on-the-Main was, as is well known, Goethe’s birthplace. While the Main can boast of two great poets, the Neckar can boast of another, At Marbach, where the Muer flows into the Neckar, Schiller came into the world. Schweinfurt, the ancient Suevefurtum, has about ten thousand inhabitants, and has both historical interest and commercial and manufacturing importance. It is situated in the district of Lower Franconia. Franken, what we call Franconia, has its name from the grand conquering race of the Franks, with whose origin anti conquests it was closely intertwined. It is divided into Upper, Middle, and Lower Franken, or Franconia, and, after many vicissitudes, now forms a part of the kingdom of Bavaria.
Ruckert’s family belonged to that official class which has such numerous representatives in Germany, and which is in general as uninteresting as a piece of old parchment. His grandfather, Johann Michael Ruckert, married Ernestine Helena Zehring, and had seven children. The third son, Johann Adam Ruckert, was the father of our poet. Johann Adam, who was born in 1763, and who died in 1831, chose, treading in his father’s footsteps, the juristic career, and in different parts of Germany held various offices with untranslateable names. He married, in 1787, Maria Barbara Schop-pach, the only daughter of an advocate. This lady died in 1835, and thus lived long enough to see her firstborn illustrious. From his father Ruckert inherited lofty stature, noble presence, love of work, energetic perseverance in work, and a certain reserve which made society of the more noisy kind distasteful; from his mother bright dark eyes, warm feelings, and a resolute, strenuous will. German biographers spare us no detail. We must not, therefore, marvel to be informed that Frederick Ruckert first saw the light at six o’clock in the morning, as if saluting the fresh dawn which he was so often to celebrate in his poems; that the natal house is in the Market Place, and faces the Town Hall; that
the natal chamber is the corner chamber on the third storey, and is called the Green Chamber; that the natal house is marked by a memorial tablet, so that any English traveller passing through Schweinfurt can have no difficulty in finding it. Some oddities in a neighbouring house and a swing in his father’s house seem, in reference to this part of his life, to have been what Ruckert was fondest of recalling.
In 1792, before Frederick Riickert had completed his fourth year, his father went to occupy an official post at Oberlau-ringen, a village with about nine hundred inhabitants, a hundred and fifty of whom were Jews, the rest being Protestants. It was here that Ruckert spent twelve years of his boyhood, the family returning to Schweinfurt in 1804. They were twelve momentous years for France, for Europe, for the world, beginning with the downfall of one of the most ancient monarchies and ending with the establishment of the Napoleonic Empire. Never into so brief a period were so many striking and marvellous events crowded; from no period did so many puissant influences flow. The tranquil development of the boy Riickert at Oberlauringen contrasts with the crash of a thousand catastrophes. Oberlauringen lies charmingly on a western spur of the romantic Hassberg, a woody ridge in the Hausgan, a region rich in corn and grass. The village is connected with the larger life of mankind by means of tho road which goes from Schweinfurt to Konigshofen. In the vigorous and lively boy the fields, the dells, and the groves of Oberlauringen nourished that intense love of Nature and that spontaneous spirit of poetry which so notably characterised him. It was with the feelings of a boy that in his manhood and his old age he recalled the impressions which as a boy he had received, and of which many of his productions bear the vivid trace. Those impressions, quickened by other impressions, unfolded under the artist’s hands into beautiful forms and noble creations. The idyllic landscapes environing Oberlauringen, the inhabitants, with their solid and, at the same time, picturesque attributes, their innocent superstitions, their patriarchal life, were treasures for the man’s soul and for the man’s phantasy as much as they had been pleasures for the boy’s heart. While Frederick had an earnest and ecstatic eye for the glories of Nature, he had an eager ear for the legends, the myths, the chronicles with which the villagers entertained each other, and which had been sacredly transmitted from generation to generation. What was food for his phantasy, the sound understanding which he had, in common with all great artists, swiftly and easily appropriated. Oftener alone than in the company of his brother and of the village boys, he sought commune with the manifold scenery round. He was fondest of roaming on the Krahenberg, or, as it was likewise called, Rabenberg, at whose foot the Lauer brook has its source. Plants and flowers he warmly loved, but he liked to see them growing; he neither gathered the plants nor plucked the flowers, and the scentless, hueless flowers and plants of a herbarium he viewed with extreme repugnance. He, however, collected butterflies, because he thought that butterflies still retained their beauty after death. But if a herbarium is ghastly, surely a collection of butterflies is ghastlier still. For the study of Natural History such a collection may be made; never, certainly, to gratify curiosity. The best thing to do with dead plants and dead animals is to bury them.
The Amthaus, in which the Amtmann Riickert and his family for twelve years dwelt, has vanished from the face of the earth; and the immense orchard appertaining thereto has descended from its dignity into a vulgar cornfield. However, the pilgrim to Oberlauringen may be glad to know that the Amthaus stood to the south-east of tho church, at the point where the roads from Leinach and Sulzfeld meet.
At a distance of five or six miles from Oberlauringen is the Monastery of Bildhausen. An occasional visit to the monastery, in the company of his father, was one of Riickert’8 chief delights. It amused him to see how monks lived as they might have lived in the Middle Ages. But the real charm was the forest scenery, which, a glory for the hour, had an afterglow in Riickert’8 verse. Once the boy made a stravaig as far as Konigshofen to discover how the world looked beyond a particular range of hills. To a dreamy child, all beyond the mountain, the river, or the sea which bounds the house is fairyland. And how bitter is often the regret that the boundary has been passed!
German rural existence has more a Scottish than an English aspect, being marked by a simplicity and a frugality to which English customs and traditions and the constitution of the English community are profoundly antagonistic. Moreover, while for more than three hundred years Germany and Scotland have had the advantages of education, it is only now that England is beginning to find that a great nation should be an educated nation. Any one who knows what Scottish villages were fifty years ago, must remember that, besides two or three daft men—who, though daft, contrived to say the wisest and wittiest things—there were two or three poets, and two or three mortals who never stuck to anything or succeeded in anything, but who were more than usually gifted, and who had a more than usual amount of knowledge, which, being good fellows, they were very willing to impart. Members of a class kindred to the last were in Oberlauringen the peasant Heinrich Muller, called the Schun-kenheiner, and the peasant Reich. Muller, a man of free thought, free speech, and large intelligence, had a huge work
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on natural history, adorned with numerous pictures. To the treasures of this marvellous museum he introduced Frederick, performing at the same time the parts of commentator and interpreter. On the poetical development of the boy’s mind Reich had the deepest influence. In his youth Reich had been in a house of commerce at Schweinfurt. Then he took to farming. He was an enthusiastic adorer of the poets, and he loved his writing desk and his books better than his plough. From the works of the poets he bad formed a manuscript anthology in many volumes. Often for hours he declaimed to Frederick, who was as enthusiastic as himself, the poems of Burger, Gleim, Schiller, and so on, expla ning certain passages as he proceeded. With flashing eyes the boy listened. Reich’s fate as a farmer was that of Burns: he fell into poverty. Frederick’s father obtained for Reich, at Schweinfurt, a situation as magistrate’s clerk, and thus saved him from utter destitution.
Higher impulses of culture Frederick received from Neurer, the Catholic parish priest at Grossbarrdorf. Seeing that the boy had a yearning for everything lofty and noble, Neurer made him the intimate and sympathetic companion of Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius. Neurer’s chaplain, who seems to have been at one time a traveller, led the boy into another domain —less elevating, perchance, but more enchanting. By graphic narratives of journeys and explorations in every part of the globe, and especially the East, he kindled Oriental aspirations, awoke Oriental affinities in the boy’s exuberant fancy.
After learning all that Hellmuth, the master of the village school, could teach him, Frederick, with his brother, was placed under the charge of Johann Caspar Stepf, the village pastor. In classical studies Frederick was so thoroughly trained by Stepf, that on entering the Gymnasium, or Classical School, at Schweinfurt, he was regarded as one of the best scholars. Traceable as far back as this period, or further, is that love of beauty, of order, of proportion, which signalised him alike in great matters and in small. Among the small matters may be mentioned penmanship. Simply as a caligraphist, the boy would have excelled. His manuscripts were as elegant, as artistically perfect, as those of the mediaeval copyists. The initial letters he painted with red or green ink, which he had himself prepared. Though less adorned, the manuscripts of the man were as neat as the manuscripts of the boy.
Poets should be peculiarly sensitive to musical enchantments, seeing that poetry is itself a kind of music. Musical aptitudes or sympathies Ruckert did not in his boyhood manifest. To play on the piano was to him, if he had to leave any of his favourite amusements, a penance, not a pleasure. His musical instructor employed manifold devices to entice him to diligence and perseverance. We are driven to conclude that Frederick’s lack of inclination evinced a lack of capacity.
Unsuccessful in music, Frederick failed in love. The prose and the poetry of life are evermore the companions and evermore the foes of each other. The more in our early days we are poetical, the more we are certain to fix our affections on some pretty but insipid girl. Anna Steigmeyer, born 22nd August, 1790, and possibly living still as a venerable great grandmother, tempted Frederick to enter love’s fairyland, and to cherish love’s idyllic visions. But Anna preferred Christopher Arnold, whose prosaic nature was more in accordance with her own. Frederick flung at Anna’s indifference, or supposed treachery, some lines of Ovid. In writing the lines, Frederick quoted from memory, and very inaccurately. No earlier manuscript of his has been found than that containing the lines. It belongs to his thirteenth year. As a reminiscence, Anna inspired some of his poems. A second relic, appertaining to his fourteenth year, is a metrical German interlinear version, in his school copy, of the Odyssey. The penmanship is very beautiful; but it is very faint, as a lead pencil had been employed.
There was nothing extraordinary in Frederick Ruckert’s boyhood. Indeed, what we have recorded is so trivial as to be scarcely worth snatching from oblivion. Ruckert had a wholesome, natural boyhood, and that is nearly all we can say. A rural parish is, in its essence, commonplace and monotonous. Far different is a fishing village, with steep braes behind, in a varied garniture of furze and broom and fir and hazel, with the ocean before eternally flowing, and islands and highlands in the distance, so grand, so majestic, as to seem like resting-places for the sun on his journey westward. In such a village what diversities of aspect, what hosts of incidents! With what plenitude of impressions such a village enriches the breast of an imaginative boy I How he feels as if Ossian were ever speaking, in mournful and yet rapturous accents, to him! In a rural district, the most gifted boy cannot get further than a sort of sluggish recipiency. Valiant individuality, or individuality of any kind, is impossible. But a fishing village which has sublime scenery and an affluence of vitalities all around, makes individuality the first thing and recipiency only the second. Recipiency, however, is the characteristic of German literature, just as individuality is the characteristic of English literature. It is rare for a man of genius to possess individuality and recipiency in the same degree. Much that passes for genius is recipiency; and this is true even in relation to a man such as Goethe. Ruckert had more recipiency than Goethe, and less individuality. Probably, whatever had been the circumstances of Ruckert’s boyhood, they would not greatly have modified his recipient faculties and tendencies. To one who was destined to be an assimilator and an interpreter of the gorgeous East, an excess of recipiency was of supreme service. Scoto-Celt.
^g |irst Cigar.
[From Burlington Hawkeye.]
’Twas just behind the woodshed, One glorious summer day, Far o’er the hills the sinking sun Pursued its westward way.
And in my one seclusion, Safely removed afar From all of earth’s confusion, I smoked my first cigar.
Ah, bright the boyish fancies Wrapped in the wreaths of blue;
My eyes grew dim, my head was light, The woodshed round me flew.
Dark night closed in around me, Rayless without a star,
Grim death, I thought, had found me, And spoiled my first cigar.
I heard my father’s smothered laugh, It seemed so strange and far;
I knew he knew, I knew he knew I’d smoked my first cigar.
^t Ruthless gl.|.’s.
[From Punch, August 28, 1880.]
I love to be lazy and lounge ’neath the limes, And glance at orations one reads in the Times! It makes me quite hot reading speech after speech— I cool my parched throat with a ripe ruddy peach— The Twelfth’s gone and past and they’re still in the House! The Twelfth gone and past, not a bang at the grouse!
I read and I marvel, ’neath wide-spreading trees, And pity the sorrows of grouseless M.P.’s.
I swing in a hammock and smoke cigarettes, And list to the lawn-tennisonian pets;
Who make themselves hot: they should take my advice, To sit and sip calmly some something-and-ice.
I swing and I slumber, blow ring after ring, I dream and I wonder, I ponder and sing: When lulled off to sleep by the humming of bees, I dream of the droning of dismal M.P.’s.
I’ve nothing to think about, nothing to do— I drift down the stream in my nutshell canoe: With pipe in my mouth, and with paddle in hand, I would not change places with one in the land! Who’d broil at St. Stephen’s at this time of year, Who might be so happy by Hambledon Weir?
As white sails are filled by the light summer breeze, . Sincerely I pity those luckless M.P.’s.
All day is my own, I can just throw a fly—
Not dream of the Speaker, nor “catching his eye”— Can lounge in a punt, go to bed when I please;
I’m heedless of all Parli’ment’ry decrees!
’Tie lucky sometimes when you can't reach the goat Most fortunate I—at the foot ot the poll.
Had I but got in at Saint Shuckleton Lees, I now should be groaning with luckless M.P.’s.
An Extravagant Smoker.—One day a party of gentlemen were smoking together in a hotel somewhere in Connecticut. “ Young men,” said the inevitable social statistician who was present, “ smoking is an extravagant habit. Don’t you think you should give it up ? ” One of those addressed removed his cigar from his lips and coolly replied on behalf of the company that he “couldn’t see it.” “ Well,” returned the statistical person, “ I’ll give you an example which is within my own knowledge. Right here, in this very town, lives a friend of mine who used to be a great smoker. One day he determined to abandon the habit and save the money which he would otherwise have spent in cigars. At the end of fifteen yean he bought a very nice house with the money saved in this way. What do you think of that ? ” The spokesman of the smokers ought to have been crushed, but he wasn’t. “ He has the house,” said he, “ but you must admit that he hasn’t had the cigars.”
“ The potato crop in Ireland is bad.”—Daily paper. “’Taters” bad, oh cruel Natur’, Why don’t you spoil the Agitator?
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Manfacturer, Dunfermline, the GOODWILL of the Business, which has for many years been carried on by him, and his whole STOCK-IN-TRADE, MACHINERY, and SHOP FITTINGS are now for Sale.
The deceased had formed a large Wholesale connection in Glasgow and throughout the country. He had also a large Retail business. The Premises are well adapted for both branches of the trade, being situated in one of the best positions in the High Street. They contain extensive accommodation, and are provided with all the requisite Machinery and Appliances.
A Lease will be given for such period as may be agreed on.
Inventories of the Stock can be seen in the hands of John Ross, Solicitor, Dunfermline, who will give all information, and offers will be received by him.
SOLACE. One Shilling Bundles, containing 4 Cigars.
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•	Delicate in flavour; bum evenly, with a flrm white ash; made with
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Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made from a peculiar kind of Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking of this Tobacco is said to give relief in cases of Asthma.
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No? 127—Vol. IL]~	OCTOBER, 1880.	[g8Bgp^T
^mbtr.
XXIV.—THE AMBER FLORA.
In treating of the Amber Flora and the Amber Fauna, we have simply to present briefly and unpretendingly the substance of the information furnished to us by the labours of Goeppert and others. From observations of a speculative character we absolutely abstain. We devote ourselves first of all to the vegetal Inclusa in amber; and here Goeppert is our best guide. Goeppert has given two delineations of the amber flora, one very copious, in 1845; one very compendious, but more complete, in 1853. It is the earlier of the two which we shall now begin by reproducing. In this department of our subject we do not so much wish to instruct as to stimulate and suggest. Some of our readers, either from love of knowledge or from the audacity of exploration, may be induced to enter a domain of researches and conjectures, the path to which—or, at least, the vision of which— we have offered. It would be impertinent if, where Goeppert was so competent, we should permit anyone but himself to speak. Let our readers, therefore, remember that from this point it is Goeppert who is addressing them, not we. Of course we shall abridge or omit as seemeth unto us needful:—
In my observations on fossil plants I deem it necessary not only to occupy myself with the definition and description of those plants, but also, where possible, to discover the fashion whereby they fell into the fossil state and have been preserved to us in that state. The admirable preservation of organic remains in amber, therefore, doubly demands from us the satisfaction of those just requirements. Before, consequently, I proceed to description and definition, let me be permitted to offer some remarks on the condition in which the organic remains, especially the plants found in amber, are seen.
When a plant fell into the still fluid resin as it streamed from the tree, and which had probably the same consistence as the resin of our conifers, the organic form or the compass of the plant was not changed through pressure, because the solidification of the resin was gradual, and the amount of volatile oil was so small that the compass of the included mass was only to a slight extent diminished. Hence it comes to pass that we find in amber plants and portions of animals —for instance, the feet and wings of insects—not pressed together, but for the most part in their natural position, and more or less extended. If the parts of plants were fresh, and especially if they were humid, as we are justified in pre-supposing, numerous air-bubbles were developed from them, which vanished if the sohdification was slow, but which remained if it was rapid, and thereby contributed to give the inclusum an indistinct appearance. In dead portions, and generally in portions not much saturated with sap, such phenomena were in a less degree conspicuous. Through the operation of the volatile oil, which, as experiments made by me have long demonstrated, renders the chlorophyll brown, the fragments in the amber took a brown hue; and at a later period the decay of important internal portions began, decidedly hastened by the attenuated sulphuric acid everywhere existing in the strata of the earth. Thereby, however, the volume of the organic remains in the amber did not undergo any transformation; for by this time the resin had long been hardened. In this fashion it becomes intelligible to us that such voluminous inclusa as young pine cones, thick-bodied spiders, and so on, are met with, which still retain their round form. When we place plants in Venetian turpentine, and allow them
to remain there for a considerable period, we can easily convince ourselves of the successive steps in the whole process just described. Immediately after the plants sink in the turpentine the phenomena we have noted grow discernible. Most plants lose their green colour very swiftly—for instance, the Hypnum Squarosum loses it in the course of half a year; the plants become pale, and at last brown. It is true that decay may only commence at a much later period. Even when this decay extended to the surface of the included portions, the animal or the plant was still recognisable, and left an impress on the amber which straitly imprisoned them. Though, for instance, the organic remains of the epithelial cells may be lacking, yet their form may be accurately discerned in the amber. The interior, however, has been usually changed into a decayed brownish-black or black mass, in which, as may readily be understood, the anatomical structure of the parts can no longer be perceived. Scarcely need I to add that just as little here as in the whole domain of the science of petrifactions, can there be question of the transfigurement of the organic remains into the indosing substance. Thus the structure which the surface of any animal or vegetal remains presented we see with the greatest distinctness retained by the inclosing resin; as, for instance, regular or irregular cells with winding walls, covered with stomatia half or wholly opened or wholly shut, or furnished with hairs, simple or stellated, or gliding into scale-like appearances, the surface of a delicate anther or blossom with glandular hairs, the whole ligneous structure with dotted prosenchyme cells and medullary streaks. In this process of decay various kinds of gas were also developed, which, from the porous character of the amber, found for themselves a vent; or when they met resistance, but a resistance of the Substance still soft, extended the mass, and so gave rise to numerous bubbles, which imitated the form of plants, and were regarded as plants, and especially as Fuci; because, on the one hand, the submarine origin of amber had become an article of scientific faith, and on the other, because till a very recent period it was the custom to class with the Fuci all plants, or what seemed to be plants, whose characteristics it was difficult to discern and define. Cavities of this kind in amber often contain a great number of organic remains more or less pulverised. Others are far therefrom, and are simply formed by the inclusion of air bubbles, as my friend Berendt has demonstrated very fully, thus dispensing me from making here more than a simple allusion to the matter. If a plant in a perfectly dry state fell into amber, or if after its imprisonment it was little exposed to humidity, either there was a very slight decay of the internal portions, or none at all; and it could happen, though possibly not very often, that a plant with its natural colour, wood with its white tint, leaves little changed in app arance, but as if dried, could in amber find an abiding home. Sometimes, moreover, the wood of the amber tree was changed into coal, which could only take place through humid action, forasmuch, as it is well known, amber cannot bear a high temperature without falling into dissolution. One of the most interesting pieces which I have in my collection is changed into brilliant black coal, and the amber adhering thereon and therein, between the annual rings, is brown and transparent. Manifestly an important element of this combination is the sulphuric acid which, though extremely attenuated, is always present in the brown coal strata in which amber is found. In my collection I possess some pieces of coniferous wood transformed into glittering black coal. This wood, not exposed to any high temperature, had served as a covering to the outlet of the horizontal chimney of the arsenic works at Altenburg, in Silesia.
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Obviously the wood had been converted into that state through the development of the sulphuric and sulphuric-acid vapours during the torrefaction of the arsenic. Nevertheless, only delicate organic portions could fall into the resin flowing from the tree and be inclosed by it. Into the resin hardening, or already hardened, nothing but robust organic portions could penetrate. Without, therefore, as may readily be understood, wishing to maintain that these latter portions could not have been imprisoned during the outflow of the resin, I content myself here with declaring that it is easy to distinguish the successive periods of captivity through the nature of the amber layer inclosing the plant, a fact confirmed by experiments of my own. If into a very thick-flowing resin, despoiled of the chief part of its volatile oil, we insert vegetal portions, such as splinters of wood, twigs, and so on, splints and rents in great number arise, which surround the organic body and disappear no more. In thin-flowing resin this result is not seen. Something kindred to the above is frequently beheld in the root fibres and wood splinters enclosed in amber, whereby we are unable to distinguish thin epithelium, or even an impress of the same, in the surrounding amber. They, therefore, fell into the amber while it was hardening. On the contrary, all other portions in which the con titions of environment just described are not perceptible, fell in while the resin was still flowing.
In this simple and natural manner are, I think, all the relations and conditions explained of the organic bodies and their remains found in amber.
In an outline of the fossil flora which was inserted, in 1836, in Professor Germar’s “ Manual of Mineralogy,” I employed the natural system of De Candolle, which, for many reasons that I need not here present, I deem the most suitable, and which I propose here again to employ. As is well known, that system embraces two primordial departments: the vascular plants and the cellular plants, which are furthermore divided into eight orders or sub-classes, whereof six appertain to the first and two to the last. With the exception of the first order, the Thalamiflora, of which I possess a doubtful specimen, the fragment of a pod or capsule, and the fifth order of the Monocotyledones Phanerogarnica, I am able to furnish representatives of all the divisions.
In associating certain illustrious names with the amber flora, I have wished to commemorate the scientific services in regard to that flora both of the living and the dead. A star indicates names not previously introduced into the amber flora. The brackets mark the vegetal remains which are found, not in, but near amber:—.
DIVISIO I.—Plante Vasculabes.
Classis L—Dicotyledones.
Sub-Classis 1.—Thalamiflore.
So far not conclusively represented.
Sub-Classis 2.—Calyciflore.
[Juglandites Schweiggeri............Goeppert	and Berendt.]
[	„ Hagenianus.................. „	,,	]
* Carpantholites Berendtei....................Goeppert.
•	Enantioblastos Viscoides.........Goeppert	and Berendt.
•	Dermatophyllites	Stelligerus....	„	„
„	Azaleoides.......	„	,,
„	Latipes................. „
„	Porosus.............. „	„
„	Kalmioides .......... „	,,
„	Revolutus........	„	„
„	Minutulus............... ,,
„	Attenuatus .......... „	„
„	Dentatus ............ „	„
•	Enantiophyllites	Sendelii........... „	„
Sub-Classis 3.—Corolliflore.
*	Berendtia Primuloides........................Goeppert.
* Sendelia Ratzeburgiana...........Goeppert and Berendt.
Sub-Classis 4.—Monochlamydee.
[Quercites Primaevus.......................... Goeppert.]
„	Mey erianus..............Goeppert and Berendt.
* Carpinites Dubins................ „	„
Pinites Succinifer................. „	,,
[ „	Protolarix............................Goeppert.]
„	Rigidus.....................Goeppert and Berendt.
[ „	Thomasianus...........................Goeppert.]
[ ,, Brachylepis...................Goeppert and Berendt.]
[	„	Sylvestris....................... „	„	]
[	„	Pumilio ......................... „	„	]
Abietites Obtusifolius ................ „	„
„ Reicheanus........................... „	,,
„ Wredeanus............................ „	,,
Cupressites Linkianus ................. „	,,
* Toxodites Bockianus.................. „	,,
Thuites Klinsmanicanus................. „	„
„	Ungerianus...................... „	„
„	Breynianus...................... ,,	„
„	Mengeanus....................... ,,	,,
„	Kleinianus ..................... ,,	,,
Juniperites Hartmannianus.............. „	,,
[Taxitos Ayckei............................. „	n ]
[	„ Affinis  .............................. „	„ ]
Ephedrites Johnianus................
• Populites Succineus ..............
Alnites Succineus...................
Classis II.—Monocotyledones.
Sub-Classis 5.—Monocotyledones Phanerogamice. Hitherto not found in or near amber.
Sub-Classis 6.—Monocotyledones Cryptogamice.
Pecopteris Humboldtiana ..........Goeppert and Berendt.
DIVISIO II.—Plante Cellularis.
Sub-Classis I (7).—Foliacee.
Muscites Apiculatus...............Goeppert and Berendt.
„	Serratus...................... ,,	„
„	Confertus .................... „	„
„	Dubius ....................... „	„
„	Hirsutissimus ................ „	„
•	Jungermannitis Neesianus ..................Goeppert.
„	Con tortus.........Goeppert and Berendt.
„ Acinaciformis...................	„	„
Sub-Classis 2 (8).—Aphylle.
•	Sporotrichites Heterospermus...Goeppert and Berendt.
*	Pezizites Candidus............. „	„
^mbtr gibus anir giggtrs.
We have already made our readers acquainted with Felix Dahn’s entertaining book. Few parts of the book are more interesting and instructive than that of which we herewith present a translation:—
It is in the highest degree a delight to watch the amber diving at the lighthouse of Briisterort and the amber digging at Palm-nicken, both of which are carried on for the benefit of Herr Becker. In an attire admirably suited for the purpose, and with the helmet adapted to their profession on their head, the divers, according to the declaration of the inspector, can remain from three to four hours under the vrater. The helmet is quadrangular, is very heavy, and is formed of glass, leather, metal. Through it the air is pumped from the boat. We saw the men leaving the water at their appointed times. Generally a man dives to the bottom of the sea at six in the morning, and is drawn up at ten in the forenoon. He presents in a leathern bag the amber he has gathered, then goes home for food or rest. At two or three o’clock in the afternoon he again dives for about three hours. Only very strong men can bear the exhausting toil; but such men are not lacking on the coast of our Fatherland. Often I thought it would fare ill with the French if they landed here, and if the people were to thrust back the invaders in the valiant spirit of Vogel Von Falckenstein’s battle-cry: “Death to every Franzman who puts his foot on your coast.” However, even under the surface of the sea men do not lay aside their nature. In our Bavarian mountains there is a saying, “Above the top of the steeple there is no sin ”—that is to say, “ Beyond that point the control of the priest and of the judge extends not.” In like fashion, we might say: “ In the depths of the sea no wrong can be either done or suffered.” Yet divers carry into the depths of the sea envy and strife, cunning and violence. Often a diver, just when he has given or received the sign for drawing up, descries rich and beautiful pieces of amber. He cannot take them with him, therefore he tries to cover them swiftly with sand, in order that the diver who is to come after him may not find them. Or two divers let down at a short distance from each other discover at the same moment precious masses of amber. They both rush toward them, and the sharp instrument which should serve for digging is turned into a weapon of war in the hands of combatants fathoms down in the water. A rent is soon made in the waterproof thick garment of waxcloth ; the floods rush in, and the covetous son of man is drowned. Nevertheless, in the course of five years only one man thus perished, probably from some defect in the helmet. On the day of our visit about twenty boats were at work, though the sea was tolerably rough. Even with the increasing cold the diving is continued, till the partial freezing of the water on the coast puts an end to operations. In their helmets the divers have the look of sea-devils. But we must not expect to find in these brave and honest Masurians and Siim-landers the romantic feeling of Schiller’s Diver, who puts the knights to shame and excites the compassion of the king’s daughter. The good God invites all kinds of guests to his bountiful table, and the great German people in its various tribes and districts has a marvellous diversity. With the Prussians of the North I compared the Wiesbacher and the Chiemgauer of my own region; the Northerners and the Southerners are both excellent, but essentially different. In the pothouse at Briisterort we passed the night. A storm swept away a part of the thatched roof. My companion and I talked Old Bavarian to our hearts’ content; the Baltic air was certainly never before loaded with so many Baju varian sounds. Full of curiosity, the workpeople stood round us, who had come for their evening drop of Schnaps. When next morning we presented ourselves to the very courteous inspector, and requested permission to watch the diving operations from the sea, he at once complied, though, as he said with a smile, we by his people had been denounced to him the evening before as two foreigners “ who did not utter a word of German, and who always conversed in French.”
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At Palmnicken we visited the diggings in which, about thirty paces from the domain of the waves, the Sea-gold is sought for. An amazing sight! In the downs shafts and galleries are made. The fresh water is pumped out. Forty feet under the sea level the pits are dug, and the perpendicular boring is about fifty feet altogether. In three parallel rows the workmen stand, knocking to pieces every mass, every clod of the “blue earth,” that stratum in which amber is oftenest found. Under each overseer is a group of six or eight men. While he stands by watching, with a stick in his hand, what is found is thrown into a vessel filled with water. Those workmen who are grouped nearest to the sea throw the “ blue earth,” when surveyed, with large shovels from the lowest bottom of the pit to the higher platform, to which there is ascent by long narrow ladders. Here the blue earth is again taken charge of by a group of men and women with shovels, and flung to the third or uppermost platform, whence it is carted away. All the operations accord with the lilt of a slow and monotonous melody which the overseers sing. This regularity of the prescribed movements is intended, among other things, to prevent pilfering, which, however, according to the statements of the overseers, cannot be altogether hindered; though at the conclusion of the day’s work all the workmen are carefully searched before leaving the pit. It is not astonishing that in the whole range of diggings on many a day not less than twenty hundredweights are yielded. Men, women, and children, in all imaginable costumes, in the oddest of attires, shielding themselves against the sharply whistling winds, digging vigorously, or swinging their shovels to the languid rhythm of the sombre melody; what a singular spectacle is this I After all, however, there is nothing more wonderful in this region than the sea and the downs. At Warniken the lofty downs, cleft by torrents, form deep, tower-high, precipitous ravines, three hundred feet in elevation. They are thickly wooded, even to immediate proximity with the breakers, especially with very old oaks. The storm throws the crests of the waves to the loud-sounding crests of the oaks. In thunder, and flinging its waters afar, the sea dashed on the downs. Mantle and face were drenched by the invisible pulverised foam. Green and white rolled near me the angry flood. But in the distance, as far as the longing eye could look, was beheld in majestic repose the vast sea, doubly, deeply blue, like “ solid steel.” And long I stood, thinking of Perkunos and Wodan, who had reigned in these forests, and listening to sounds round holm and haff, like those made by the flight of the Walkuren, till the narrow crescent of the moon stole from the evening cloud. A belated fisherman was hastening homeward ; a heron with melancholy cry was darting toward the rushes, and I was alone with the night and with the holy sea.
hygienic Prolegomena.
Hygiene is the art of preserving our health. Medicine is the art of re-establishing our health after wre have lost it, or more or less seriously injured it. Health is the normal state of man. To be well and to feel well is to live. Disease is an exceptional state of life. To be ill is to be on the way to die. Health renders man fit to fulfil the duties which Nature imposes upon him. Sickness converts him into an inutility, burdensome and cumbersome to society. Respect to the sick man, if he has brought on his sickness in the service of humanity, of the fatherland, or of the family! We have here one of those glorious wounds on which every hand hastens to pour a balm and a benediction. Sympathy to the sick man, if his languishing state is a legacy of his birth or an accident of chance, and if, poor scapegoat, he expiates, in the face of God and men, the errors of his parents or the caprices of fortune! The cares which society lavishes upon him area feeble compensation for the wrong which Nature has done him in giving him life! Shame to the sick man, if he has sacrificed his health to filthy pleasures, to dangers without utility and without glory, to evil passions! Remorse is not one of his least sufferings. It is from charity, and not from sympathy, that he is cared for. What has he done to be loved? How many beautiful natures, how many herculean constitutions I have seen withering away from the imprudences and the excesses of a moment! There is too much preaching to the youth in these days of the morality which is wearisome, and not enough teaching of physiology. Our young men are not told often enough that nothing is so foolish as risking or ruining health for headlong gratification. Be persuaded that the libertine, the liar, and the dishonest man are feebly constituted beings, physically as well as morally and that they are feeble most when they are most inclined to sin. The Libertine has not sufficient strength to be a good husband or the husband of a virtuous woman. The liar has not sufficient force to tell the truth with impunity. The dishonest man has not the courage of labour; he is a parasite, and not a producer. All the three are diseased beings. The wise man is the complete man, man in the normal state, man as a type and a model. The aim of society is to arrive at astite where only such men are possible, and to shield men from every hurtful accident; it is to have men strong in body and in mind, to maintain them in conditions favourable to their health and their sociability, and to cure them of their maladies by means alike prompt and
efficacious. Do we find ourselves at present in such social conditions? Assuredly not. Health and morality encounter a thousand rocks on which they may suffer shipwreck, and very few resources to reach the desired haven. To man are sold for heaps of gold both the snares into which he falls and the wretched succours which have the pretence of delivering him from the snares. And how often, after he has paid in advance for a sustaining and succouring cord, it breaks in his hand the moment he has seized it. Woe to the govermental system which, instead of progressively ameliorating men, tends only to corrupt them, in order to render them more docile to its views!—From the French of Raspail.
®bt Smoking ^Ita-
[From the German of Leistner.]
In eighteen hundred and forty-nine
At Petersburgh I the winter spent;
The cold was frightful, you may divine:
To the very heart the grim cold went.
All things were frozen: down, down, far down
To the very bottom was ice the sea;
The Sound and the Belt had an icy crown;
Not the deepest abysses from ice were free.
When wrapped in the thickest furs at night,
You risked to freeze in the warmest bed;
If you were a sluggish and somnolent wight, A sleep too long was the sleep of the dead.
One night from a slumber more short than sound
I awoke, and beard a curious hiss;
Well might it my fancy alarm, astound:
It came from the table. What was amiss?
No living thing in the room could be;
The cold in an instant all life would slay;
And yet the hiss, hiss, hiss to me
Rushed in the strangest, most awful way.
I saw that on the table still
The spirit lamp under the basin burned, The water to guard from the night’s breath chill, Which each drop to a hard mass would have turned.
I thought that the hiss, hiss, hiss must rise
From the basin itself, though that seemed queer;
An eyeglass I seized, like a student wise, Resolved to pierce the mystery here.
What then I found you never could guess:
Spite of the lamp, the water was ice;
The noise so odd, which had been my distress, What was that? This, too, I learned in a trice.
On the icy surface, so smooth and bright, Was skating, bold, brisk, and nimble, a flea;
He was darting along like a thing of light;
A better skater there could not be.
We live in a sceptical age, and you doubt;
But my sharpest eyeglass I used, and I saw That the flea had a good cigar in his snout, And puffed and puffed like a Turkish Bashaw.
He skated to keep limbs and body warm;
He smoked to keep warm his ears and his nose;
When he stopped to breathe he came to harm:
Foolish, fatal pause! The poor flea froze.
Scoto-Celt.
Bllxge ©bbifits; or, t^e |nn of t^e lollg tapsters.
HI.—CAPTAIN O’GRADY AND THE BEGUM OF BOHATR
We all of us always called him “ old Phil.” We called him old Phil in a friendly way, and he took to the appellation kindly. In the sere and yellow leaf it may be granted that he was; but aged, in the strict sense of the term, Phil certainly was not. Although he wagged a bushy beard as white as Alpine snows, although he daily combed and brushed a poll of silvery luxuriance, there was hardly a wrinkle in his reddest of red faces, the blue of his eye was like the blue of the firmament, the white as pearly and clear as that of a child. ,
A right merry, hearty fellow was old Phil, and many a droll story he told us. Wild enough, too, were some of the yarns that he spun to us in the long fore-nights of winter; for in his younger years Phil had led the life of a sailor bold. The wide, wide world was as well known to Phil as is our own parish to some of us stay-at-home folks; he had kept his weather eye lifting, too, and was blessed with the gift of a good memory. Phil was a favourite at the “ Jolly Tapsters ” —not that he was a very frequent guest, however, for he was oftentimes seized with roving fits, and would be away around the country maybe for a whole month at a time; but he was
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always welcome when he did come, and his entrance of an evening was ever the signal for a general lowering of pipes, rising of bodies, and hand-shakings all round the ring. Ay, and 1 have known the landlord do for Phil what I never saw him do to any other mortal man. I’ve known him get up out of his own chair in the cosy chimney corner, and make Phil sit down. The word “ Phil” you may fancy is a contraction of Phillip, or Philander. Not a bit of it, for Phil’s name was Felix—• Felix O'Grady; there you have it complete, and surely, then, I have no need to inform you that Phil was a Paddy. Yes, a real Irishman he was, from skin, through bone, and even to the brogue itself. “ Faith no, me lads,” he would tell you, “ IT1 niver be after denying me counthry; and troth, I don’t think I’ll ever lose the brogue as long as there’s a nose on my ould face.” When I add that Phil’s frame was that of a man and a sailor, and that he possessed the warmest of hearts and could sing a good song, you will readily believe that all over he was a jolly, genial, and right good fellow. Sing ! why, I think I hear him now, trolling forth the last bar of that grand old melody ‘‘Tom Bowling”—just where the quiver comes in, you know, to the words “ but now he’s go-o-one aloft.” Honest Phil! his own soul has now gone aloft. There is a green, grassy mound in the little churchyard of Twintieton, and there ‘‘ under hatches ” lies Phil’s body. Ho has a headstone; we, the “ Jolly Tapsters,” erected it. The inscription on it is short and simple, but not, methinks, without a rude pathos. It runs thus:— “^ia is tin 6rabt of poor Jib'd.” But there, dear reader, don’t pipe your eye. I mean to amuse, and not to sadden you. Well, then, though not a very frequent visitor at the inn, Phil might justly be called a “Jolly Tapster.” He was only on speaking terms with the god Bacchus, but a most humble servant to the goddess Nicotine. In other words, he liked his pot, but he loved his clay, and he died at a goodly old age for all that. And that makes a nut for an Anti to crack. The winter of eighteen hundred and seventy so-and-so was a hard one; and, if you remember, Christmas came and passed in real old-fashioned style. The earth was like adamant for weeks together, and thereon lay white and thick the starry snow. People were pretty jovial everywhere, and we, at the inn of the “Jolly Tapsters,” were probably more jovial than anybody else. On Christmas Eve it was snowing fast; but, around that roaring fire, what cared we for that ? Pipes were lit and pots were called for, and the laugh and the joke flew round right fast and merrily. “ I wonder,” said the landlord, “ if old Phil be a-coming in to-night.” Wlien, just as he finished speaking, the room door opened, and there stood the identical individual himself. There was a general chorus of “ King Christmas.” And I can assure you that, with the smiles dancing over his broad red face, with his white beard all a-waggle, and the snow an inch thick on his hat and shoulders, he looked the very image of that mythical monarch. . And old Phil was soon the merriest of the lot of us. “But bedad,” said Phil, “you were laughing at this ould white beard av mine; sorrow to me if I haven’t a good mind to tell you how it got bleached.” “ Go on, old Phil; ” we all cried, most of us commencing to refill, in hopes of hearing a story. “Ah ! well thin,” says Phil, “you must know that when I was at school, a sprig av an urchin av ten, the divil a more forward boy there was at all at all, and iverybody said I would soon bate the ould schoolmaster himself, and that he couldn’t have much more to taich me; and my mother said she’d make a parson av me at the very laste. But och ! me boys, it wasn’t to be; for, being more forwarder than the other boys, what should I go and do but fall in love! The maid av me choice was the swatest and the tidiest child in all the parish, and there wasn’t a penny or halfpenny I could scrape together, that I didn’t go and buy swates for her with, just to pleasure her, don’t you see? Faith, it’s myself that would have stolen the pence off me dead grannie’s eyes to have bought lollies for swate Aileen Macrae. “Well, gintiemen, at this time I was me mother’s darling and her purty boy, and, faix! I thought myself no small drink, I can tell ye. But the boys at the siminary—which, by the same token, was held in an ould cowshed—called me . ‘ Carrots.’ They’d give me no other name at all, and all along of me having the most beautiful auburn hair that ever you clapped eyes upon. * But, troth,’ says I to myself, ‘ what care I if the "boys do call me ‘Carrots?’ Sure my little Aileen won’t know what they do be calling me.’ “ My love match got on famously for weeks, though, bedad, it was composed of ogling and lollipops entoirely; but a day came when I couldn’t stand it any longer; I’d bring matters to a crisis, I’d know me fate. I determined to ask her—no, not to be my wife—only to give me a kiss. And faith and I did. You see, there wasn’t a soul to be seen on all the road, and the temptation wasn’t to be resisted. But, och ! murder and bacon, hadn’t I let the fat in the fire with a vengeance? I think I see the purty little minx foreninst me now, straightening herself up as bold as brass. “‘What!’ she cried, ‘kiss a boy with a red red head! Kiss Carrots! he! he! he!’	“And she laughed me to scorn on the spot; but when a whole swarm of little boys came a-laping and a-flying from ahint the hedge, and joined in the laugh, and raised a perfect chorus of ‘Carrots,’ faith, gintiemen, if you plase, I just took to my heels and trotted home like a sheep. And I did more than this, for the very next day I left my ould mother and went to the say.” Here old Phil looked downwards into the bowl of his pipe and heaved a bit of a sigh. “I don’t think I repent,” he continued, “going to the say. I stuck to me profession like tar to a tiller, and in a tride over tin years I was strutting on the quarter-deck of a ship of me own, as proud as any paycock that ever flaunted a tail. I think that from the very first day that I was addressed as captain, this beard o’ mine began to flourish and grow, and sorra a bit of me had the heart to cut it off, though it was just as red as carrots could be. I would have been about the happiest man about this pairiod o’ me life in all creation, bar one thing, my red hair and beard. “ Well, gintiemen all, years flew on sure and swiftly. I went ivirywheres in me own little craft, and saw ivirything worth seeing, and the divil a bit av me cared what I carried; one voyage it might be red herrings, and the next a cargo of gentle folks going a pleasuring. I dearly loved a passenger cargo. What with one thing or another we bad merry times av it. The funniest cargo iver I shipped was one av Tobacco, whisky, and arms for the Faynians. I had always a soft side to the ould country, and was maybe a bit av a Fayniau meself; but, the poor craytures, they couldn't foight athout the arms, and they wouldn't foight athout ’Baccy and whisky, and small blame to them aither. “One lovely autumn I had engaged to take a party of rale ould gentry down the Levant; and, somehow or other, it came into my head that, being just past thurty, and a grey hair making its appearnce here and there in the temples of me, it was high time Felix O’Grady had a wife. And sure, thinks I to meself, isn’t it loikely enough I may find some purty young lady during the present cruise, who would jump at the thoughts of sailing the says wid Captain O’Grady. I thought av the likeliness av the matter the livelong night, and before morning had arranged it all as nate and as purty as ye loike.” At this period old Phil was constrained to stop for a moment, hook his nose into the pot, and drain it to the dregs ere he continued. “Mother av Moses! me bhoys, when Hooked into the glass in the morning, and saw the ugly red head of me, and the ugly red beard, bedad, ye could have knocked me down with a sledge hammer, for the great grief that was on me. ‘Och! and och!’ I cried, ‘ what sins have me forefathers committed that poor Felix O’Grady should be so sorely afflicted?’ Propose to a lady, indade! Troth, what would she tell me? ‘Kiss carrots?’ she’d cry, and laugh me to scorn. “That same day, in the evening, what should I be doin’ but explaining my throubles to Michael O’Leary, as we smoked our dudheens all in peace by ourselves, though sorra a bit o’ good the ’Baccy seemed doin’ me. “‘Arrah!’ says Mike, ‘it’s as simple as sinning.’ ‘“What is, Mike?’ says I. “‘Gettin’ out o’ your trouble,’ says Mike. “‘Mike!’ I cries, jumping up and sazing his hand, ‘it isn’t loikely that iver I’d be forgettin’ you, bein’ the frind ye are; but get me out o’ me trouble, and it's prayin’ for ye ivery noight av my loife that I’ll be, and sayin’ masses for the sowl av ye after you’re dead.’ “‘Felix,’ says Mike, ‘you must dye.* “‘So must we all,’ says I, solemnly. “But it wasn’t death that Mike was alludin’ to, but the dyein’ av me hair. ‘“Yrou’ll get,’ says Mike	 “‘Stop! ’ cries I. ‘The first thing we’ll get is the biggest bottle av the best champagne in all the house, for this is the happiest hour av my life.’ “‘Now,’ says Mike, ‘you’ll get a case av the Begum of Bohair’s infallible hair dye; it instantaneously restores red or grey hair to its original colour.’ “ ‘Red? ’ says I. ‘ That’s me, that’s my purty self; though for the loife o’ me,’ I says, scratching my head, ‘Icouldn’t tell you what the original colour was at all at all.’ “When I shook hands with Mike, off I marches, bedad, straight to the barber’e, and buys two bottles av the Begum; for, thinks I to meself, if one Begum won’t act, begum! we’ll try the other. . Just then, d’ye see, I was living in lodgings in Glasgow, the ship bein’ in dock, and the passengers not arrived. Och! the liurry I was in to get up to my rooms to change meself entoirely. I locked the door, read my instructions, more airnestly, be gorrah! than I’d ever read the Bible. ‘Carrots no more,’ says I, beginning to apply the Begum right foreninst the looking-glass. “I tell ye, my bhoys, when I’d gone all over me poll and md beard, me own mother, rest her simple sowl, wouldn’t ’ave known me. It was a purty black gintieman I saw in the glass, wid the rosy face av Captain O’Grady, and divil seize me if I didn’t feel twenty years younger on the spot. But the operation wasn’t finished; me wig had to be washed. I washed him in the bath and me beard as well. So I rubbed and I scrubbed, and then had another peep in the glass. “ Thonomon Diaol! my face was as red as before, but me hair was as green oj the grate! I shook my fist in my own face.
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‘“Phil, you fool,’ I cried, ‘Phil, ye ould Faynian, ye've often prayed to see “ the green above the red,” and, be jabers! there it is to purfection. What iver will I do with myself?’
“But, gintiemen, I tried another dose of the Begum, then a third, then a fourth, and I was victorious after tin hours’ hard work. But augh! for the smell in the room; and as for tbe wather in the bath, I might have been killing cuttie fish in it, so black it was.
“ It was late next morning before I got up, and me land-la ly eyed me strangely. At last she up and says, says she, ‘Eh! sirs, but I’m thinking, sir, you’d better seek for ither lodgins. You're no the man I took ye for, ava. You’re changed somehoo. You’re maybe the deil in disguise; you look like him, and you smell like him. So gang, sir, gang; I’ll lodge nae deevils in my hoose.’
“ Gintiemen, I’ll bring my story to a close. I sailed with me passenger cargo, and troth I didn’t forget the Begum. I made love to the richest young girl on board, and she smiled on me love, and so did her father, a hard-fisted old Yankee. But, woe is me! one windy night I was down below, close closeted wid me friend the Begum, when what does the first mate do but go and git drunk, then he ran the ship on a rock, and she sank. Faith, I stuck to my passengers till I boated them. We landed on a half deserted island, and there we lay for months. But where was the Begum ? At the bottom av tho say. And, strange to tell ye, bhoys, but my beard and my hair, instead av turning the original colour, turned first grey, and thin white, just as ye see it now. An ancient mariner at thirty-five! My darling girl smiled on me no more, and the ugly ould divil av a father av her sazed me one day by the throat, and just about kilt me entoirely. ‘Ye darned old fraud!’ he cried, ‘relinquish all claim to the hand of my daughter, or instant death is your portion.’
“ We were saved, bhoys, but me hair remained bleached. Well, it was a bit hard at first to be always taken for an ould man at parties and balls, to have to take the ouldest and ugliest maids in to dinner, and to have to flirt with the grandmothers. But, troth, I got over it; I had one consolation—me pipe. Now, bless you, me bhoys, but do as 1 tell ye: whether your hair be grey or red, don't try to change it to the original colour—just stick to your ’Baccy, and give a wide berth to the Begum.”
Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
different Savours.
The fundamental savours which are most diffused in alimentary substances, and which even of themselves produce pleasure, acting in a specific manner on the sense of ta-te, are the sweet, the bitter, the salt, the acid, and the fat. The sweet can, in general, produce pleasure in all its grades. It is preferred by women and children. It can ally itself to all other savours, but chiefly furnishes delight when blending with vegetal and feculent elements. Rare is its accordance with the bitter and with the fat. The bitter is agreeable only to a few, and seldom except in its lowest degrees. In general, it is not relished except by the robust palates of grown men. Unless in a minor measure, the salt does not charm. For the most part it harmonises with few other savours, and forms by itself infinite combinations with vihnds which supply the highest pleasure through their physical characteristics. By almost all it is liked. The acid does not please, except in its milder grades. It associates very well with the sweet, rarely with the salt and the fat, almost never with the bitter. It is preferred by palates that like the sweet. The fat almost never pleases by itself, and in general the pleasures which it gives are intensified by tactile sensations and by strong savours. No laws are known to me which regulate the preferences for it. But I might venture to say that it is liked by many who have a consumptive tendency. Besides these fundamental relations, there are many others which have no particular names, but which are called after the substance that furnishes them. In the chaos of these sensations it is scarcely possible to trace even an uncertain line of demarcation, not to speak of a certain one. There are many pleasures accessible solely to delicacy of organisation; and here the charm is so fugitive and so faint, that it compels us to a certain extent to be attentive. A beautiful example is offered by tea, which presents us with a ])erfumo so exquisite, that it escapes coarse aud listless palates. A pleasure contrasting with the preceding is that springing from the force of sensation, and which can only be really a pleasure when the nerves are capable of supporting it without being too enervated. Rum, cinnamon, peppers, mustard, and many other aliments, give us these pleasures. Between these two extremes is an innumerable host of great and small pleasures which cannot be defined or classified, and which, combining in a thousand fashions, are the rapture of gastronomes. No one, for instance, can explain why the aroma of vanilla is so delicious, or why the flesh of the hog is more savoury than that of the ox. In the pleasures of taste, the individual idiosyncracies being infinite, it is very difficult to trace the limits between physiological and pathological sensations. He who flies from the very smell of cheese has certainly no right to call pathological the pleasure of him who deems delicious a piece of Stracchino, of
Gorgonzola, in which audaciously grow infinite cryptogams, in the small groves whereof feed tbe young of countless insects and myriads of infusoria. There are viands which please nearly all men, while other viands have both their friends and their enemies. Fortunately almost all agree in calling good the aliments most adapted to repair the waste of the organism; and the most furious adversaries of gluttony only quarrel with the high place assigned to viands of pure luxury. Oysters, snails, caviar, absynth, have always bad adorers and foes equally implacable; but they are not at all necessary to the life of man On the other hand, the ears of the cereals, and tbe flesh of the herbivores follow man in all his migrations. Tho aversion of whole nations for certain kinds of food is a pathological phenomenon; aud it is custom alone which can make certain savages fond of ants, the Chinese fond of the nest of swallows, and the inhabitants of Florida fond of the flesh of dogs. The pathological pleasure of taste does not begin to appear till a substance is sought which cannot be nutritive. Hysterical persons, who crush pieces of charcoal with their teeth, or hide themselves to rush with transport on a sumptuous repast of ashes, of earth, or of lime, must have very morbid tastes indeed. Pathological pleasure is in every case produced by a congenital, or adventitious, or transient vice of organisation. I know a Bergamese gentleman who is entirely destitute of the sense of smell, and almost wholly deprived of the sense of taste. He relishes nothing but what is sweet. Therefore he has always on his table an abundant quantity of sugar, with which he seasons his soup, his beef, his salt-meat, and every viand which is not sweet of itself.—From the Italian of Mantegazza.
Food of the Chilenian Indians,
It is well known that the Republic of Chili is inhabited by Creoles, Half-castes, Negroes, and Indians. The Chilenian Indians are very much given to drunkenness, which converts them—who, when sober, are good-natured, harmless creatures —to wild, raging beasts. Especially in the months of February and March do they abandon themselves with excess to the enjoyment of a kind of cider, Chicha De Manganag. In the choice of their food they are not very scrupulous. The men are remarkable for the enormous quantity of victuals they can consume; and it is chiefly animal food that both they and the women prefer. Agriculture tbe Indians regard as unmanly and degrading. At certain times of the year they eat nothing but flesh : in times of peace they generally roast it; but when war comes they devour it raw. The maize and the leguminous productions, which they purchase from the Chilenians, they give to their flocks; they themselves seek the nourishing grains of the araucaria or the pehuen. From those grains, as well as from the common Aristotelia Magui and a species of Barberry, the women prepare spirituous drinks. Mare’s flesh is the choicest morsel, the daintiest bit of the Chilenian Indians, who do not eat cow’s flesh, except when pressed by necessity. When at peace they are very hospitable to strangers. From a remote period they have been masticators of coca. With regard to the smoking of Tobacco and the taking of snuff, it must be said that the first, when Chili and Peru were discovered aud conquered, was wholly unknown to the Indians of those lands. None of the Spanish writers of the sixteenth century, not even the most trustworthy of them all, Garcillasso De Vega (the son of a Spanish Conquistador; was born at Cuzco aud died at Vallalodid; was the author of numerous works) mentions smoking when speaking of those Indians. But Garcillasso says that they snuffed, and that they did so to clear their brain. He describes the Tobacco plant under the name of Sagri. The Spaniards taught the Indians of Chili, Peru, and Bolivia to smoke; and it was from Indians that they themselves had learned smoking.—From the German of lieich.
^ 6enn;m Oriental.
in.
Though the Riickert family did not resume residence in Schweinfurt till 1801, yet from Easter, 1832, Frederick had been a student in the Gymnasium there. He and the other students were boarders in the institution, and had to submit to cloistral discipline and control, consummately irksome. From the colour of the mantles they wore, the students were called “ The Blacks.” To “ The Blacks ” the Rector’s daughter Lucretia, or Grethel, was, as a tale-bearer, very hateful. From the pedantic supervision and the perpetual imprisonment the students escaped as often as they could, and Grethel was always on the watch to play the part of informer. Not very serious were tho chief offences. When the students succeeded in eluding the vigilance of Grethel, they committed no more deadly sin than smoking a few pipes of Tobacco and drinking a few glasses of beer. Though Tobacco and beer had their attractions for Frederick Ruckert, ho was, nevertheless, a diligent scholar. Like many a diligent scholar, he- was subject to absence of mind. Once ho appeared in the class with a slipper on the one foot and a
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boot on tho other. Distraction sometimes takes a more comical form. Sully, the famous minister of Henry IV., complained, after going to church, that he felt very cold. It was delicately suggested to him that the reason, perhaps, was that he had forgotten to put on his breeches!
As precious proofs of Ruckert’s industry and intelligence, two of his manuscripts are preserved in the library of the Schweinfurt Gymnasium: dissertations on passages of Ovid and Virgil. Visitors to the library who have not the courage, or the time, to read the dissertations—which, probably, are not in themselves very remarkable—are yet fascinated by the singular beauty of the handwriting. When, on the 4th October, 1805, Frederick Riickert quitted the Schweinfurt Gymnasium, a highly commendatory certificate was given him. It stated that in Greek, Latin, French, Mathematics, Geography, History, Natural History, Technology, and other things, has progress had been most satisfactory; that his conduct had been excellent, and that a healthy development of the body had harmonised with the wholesome growth of mind and soul. Youths of low and licentious taste are an abomination; but a little folly, or even a great amount of folly, in a youth of genius is not unwelcome to his biographer. Nothing so interesting in the career of John Wilson as his Titanic eccentricities at Oxford. However, we must take the good Riickert just as he was. Neither in his blood nor in his brain was there aught tempting him to oddities and audacities. The serenity, the solidity of the patient, earnest scholar he had from the outset. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that the classical schools and the universities of Germany are nobly loyal to their professed objects ; whereas the great English schools and the great English universities exist half for ecclesiastical and half for social purposes. How few go to those schools, or those universities, from the simple love of learning! The sons of the rich men who have risen from the ranks crowd to Eton and Harrow, to Cambridge and Oxford, to form aristocratic connections, to imitate aristocratic extravagance, and to steep in oblivion the plebeian origin of their fathers. Hence youth rivals with youth in running into debt, and in varying vulgarest snobberies with maddest absurdities. The German students have their own modes of being funny and fantastic, and very ponderous and awkward and truly German modes they are; but from noble allegiance to learning the students are by the pastimes never enticed. How base it would seem to the students to enter the Gymnasium merely to be toadies to aristocratic foplings! O! Englishman, art thou capable of any genuine, any fervent religion, except the abject adoration of a lord?
During Ruckert’s gymnasial time Goethe and Schiller were in the fulness of their glory. But it was other poets than they that influenced Ruckert’s spirit: Homer and Herder and Klopstock. Herder’s “ Cid ” and Klopstock’s “ Odes ” Ruckert read with rapture. This rapture throbbed again whenever he went back in imagination to the old gymnasial days. The sway of Homer must have been abiding. Herder wrote prose admirably; as a poet he did not excel. In literature, however, he was the most catholic and sympathetic soul of the eighteenth century. And it was probably Herder who helped to make Riickert one of the most catholic and sympathetic of poets. The frigid and pedantic Klopstock may have aided in unfolding and perfecting Riickert’s sense of form. If Riickert had been brought at an early period under the empire of Goethe and Schiller, slavish imitation might have been the result.
On the 9th November, 1895, Riickert became a student in the University of Wurzburg, a city interesting from its picturesque position on both banks of the Maine, from its monuments, and from its historical associations. By his father’s wish he was to consecrate bis time and his thoughts to jurisprudence. But probably he had already in his father’s house found jurisprudence arid and repulsive. Tlie meagre, or musty, or dry and dusty dishes passing under the general name of law’, were not made more savoury to him by being cooked in a university kitchen. As a dutiful son, he treated law with respect. His love, however, he reserved for poetry, and for what some may deem as arid as law, philology. Yet every word, fecundly regarded, is a picture and a poem. When Theophile Gautier came home late at night, jarred and jaded, he found nothing so refreshing for his mind as the Dictionary of the French Academy. To philosophy Riickert had a suggestive and salutary introduction through the lectures of Johann Jakob Wagner, a gifted man, who was born at Ulm, 21st January, 1775, and who died there, 22nd November, 1841. Wagner tried to take part in the spiritual revolution which had been begun by Kant, and which was continued by Fichte and Schelling. His first waitings were leavened by Kantian and Platonic ideas. Then Schelling gained dominion over him—a dominion, however, which after a while he thrust from him, saying that the philosophy of Schelling was a chaotic jumble of unripe empiricism and unripe speculation. Thereupon he attempted to found a philosophy of his own, by means of what is called the tetradic construction —that is, the harmonious action of four primordial ideas. He was an acute, ingenious, perhaps even original man. But he was always isolated. In Riickert, however, he had a warm admirer and an earnest disciple.
Riickert had no ascetical antipathy to the half-rough, half-childish recreations of his fellow-students; but he no further took part in them than was just needful to keep him from being regarded as a underling, and, above all, from being- deemed
apathetic toward the emancipation of Germany; for the students had the ambition to be considered as pre-eminently patriots. German patriotism has slender claims on our admiration and sympathy. When not insatiable selfishness, it has been the silliest sentimentalism or the most abject servility. From the first conflict of Germany with Rome, the Germans have been hirelings. There is remarkable breadth in the German nature, but no nobleness, no loftiness in the German character. The talk about deliverance from the Napoleonic yoke was signally imbecile, because the German rulers practised despotism of the pettiest, most pedantic, most stupid, most oppressive kind. Napoleonism, if it had completely subdued Germany, would have been a real, a grand enfranchisement compared with the mediaeval tyrannies and idiocies to which the Germans have still to submit. Liberty in all ages is as sacred as religion: but a liberty which is a creative potency, not a barren phrase, a liberty which is the beautiful heritage of heroic generations. Such liberty the Germans never possessed, and the chances are small that they ever can possess it. However, we cannot expect students of sixteen or eighteen to be very discriminating. When, therefore, we are informed that Frederick Ruckert, when a student at Wiirzburg, was an ardent patriot, and that some of his earliest poetical productions had a patriotic inspiration, we must not marvel thereat. Assuredly it was a very odd sort of freedom which Germany gained on the downfall of Napoleon, when Continental Europe was subjected to the tender mercies of the Holy Alliance, and when Alexander I. of Russia, the most execrable Tartufe that ever sat upon a throne, became, reeking with the stench of bis loathsome debaucheries, the Chief Priest of sanguinary reaction.
Except in his patriotic poems, Riickert, as a student, was neither effusive nor demonstrative. But we are told that when with intimate and congenial friends he was cheerful, sportive, expansive. One of those friends was Christian Stockmar, afterwards known as the Baron Von Stockmar. Beyer speaks of him as a “celebrated statesman.” Mrs. Kingsley, in her Biography of her husband, calls Prince Albert “ a great prince.” This is the age of tawdry magniloquences, just [is it is the age of Byzantine etiquette. The follicularian does not declare that some conspicuous nobody who has been ill is “getting better,” but that he is “progressing favourably toward recovery.” Baron Von Stockmar is a “statesman” so very “celebrated,” that few Englishmen who have not waded through Theodore Martin’s most loyal, most lifeless pages have ever heard of him. The worthy Albert was so far a “great prince” that—through the parsimony for which, even in shabby Germany, the Coburgs are noted—he amazingly augmented his own possessions and the possessions of his children. But why should Englishmen be asked to proclaim him “Albert the Good,” and even “Albert the Great ” ? The conventional respect shown to persons in high position is not to be condemned. Courtesy makes social intercourse smoother and sweeter. Why, however, should the English be more craven and canting to persons in high position than the African negroes are to their kings ? In any case, Frederick Riickert and Christian Stockmar continued to be friends till death broke the bond.
Poverty of incident marks Riickert’s existence at Wurzburg, and contrasts with the fulminating events which, echoing the tramp of Napoleon’s victorious legions, were shaking the Continent. His vacations Riickert generally spent with his parents; that of 1806 at Riigheim, between Hassfurt and the Bettenburg; those of 1807 and 1808 at Sesslach, a village about two leagues from Coburg. The eight hundred inhabitants of Sesslach were Catholics. This was, perhaps, a chief reason why legends abounded in the region. Nearly all Christian legends have a heathen origin; and it is natural that Catholics, in whose faith and ritual there are so many Polytheistic elements, should cherish the legends very tenderly. Some of the legends Riickert arrayed in poetical attire. It was partly in search of legends that he took long rambles through dale and over hill.
Riickert’s patriotic ardours rose to feverish intensity when, in April, 1809, Austria declared war against France. The young poet thought that the time was come when he should fight as well as write. He had just completed his studies at the University of Wiirzburg, and, therefore, deemed himself at liberty to take an immense bound in the direction of patriotic adventure. Besides the colossal conflicts on the chief theatre of war, where the Archduke Charles proved that he was not an unworthy antagonist of the unrivalled master of strategy, Napoleon, there were military movements of a minor and more irregular kind. The rising in the Tyrol found a valiant response in Schill’s expedition; and in the Spessart, a mountainous and woody region specially interesting to Riickert as a Franconian, the peasants formed themselves into guerilla bands, and deemed themselves the bravest of the brave when they murdered stray Frenchmen. After a brief campaign, Napoleon crushed Prussia at Jena, in October, 1806; and, after a brief campaign, he crushed Austria at Wagram, in July, 1809. When, therefore, the bold volunteer Riickert reached Dresden, he discovered, to his astonishment and dismay, that bis enthusiastic devotedness to the Father-land could not now take a martial shape. Ere he could grasp the sword he had again to grasp the pen. With increased zeal he resumed the studies which he had for a moment forsaken.
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To German patriotism a sublime impulse was given in 1808 by Fichte, in his ♦ Addresses to the German Nation,” which united to a Tyrtwan fervour a philosophical comprehensiveness and an incomparable moral elevation. These majestic ♦♦ Addresses” seek in vain a parallel in ancient and modern times. Very different indeed are they from Burke’s insane ferocities. Transient, however, was the effect of Fichte’s magnificent prophetical utterances, whereas Burke’s fierce, mendacious bombast misled and maddened a bigoted and brutal people for years. The Germans can be dreamers of dreams, and they are admirable interpreters of dreams; but to prophetic voices their sluggish, servile nature cannot give more than momentary heed. Ruckert felt the eloquence of Fichte’s appeals, but just as little as other Germans could he ascend to the holy heights from which Fichte thundered. Fichte means Pine, and Fichte towered like a solitary pine in a wilderness of stunted shrubs. When, flattering Goethe, Napoleon told him who was so conspicuously destitute of manliness that he was a man, he could not have more convincingly shown how far from manly he deemed the German nation. But Fichte was a man: a man of antique valour and of Hebrew earnestness. Ruckert was more of a Goethe than of a Fichte; and Fichte needed Fichtes as incarnations of his grand and awful words. Scoto-Celt.
floral Songs.
IDIOTS AT LARGE.
Dr. Gabriel, resident superintendent and physician at the Earlswood Asylum for Idiots, says: “From the facts within my own knowledge, a large number of persons who ought to have been returned as idiots at the taking of the last census were not so returned.”
Truth is sometimes hard to find when we’re seeking for it;
When it starts up all unsought let us not ignore it;
Now to what the doctor says let us pay attention:
Idiots not described as such generously we ’ll mention.
Chorus.
Idiots political, ®sthetical, and critical;
Dot ’em down, tot ’em up, what’s the figure now?
Idiots educational, natatory, sensational;
Dot ’em down, tot ’em up, whack row-de-dow!
Walk about the public streets, look into the papers;
Not a day or hour can pass but they cut their capers;
It would take us all our time if we had to file ’em, Far more idiots are at large than are in the asylum.
Chorus.
Idiots dogmatical, cynical, ecstatical;
Dot ’em down, tot ’em up, what’s the'figure now?
Idiots theoretical, pedestrian, prophetical;
Dot ’em down, tot ’em up, whack row-de-dow!
H. L.
Prussian ^ipts anb politics.
A Correspondent of the Allgemeine Schweizer Zeitung,* who seems to have been spending his holiday at Kissingen, was naturally eager, like all the other visitors, to learn what he could about the doings and sayings of the most renowned health-seeker at the Bavarian bath, Prince Bismarck. Doubtless many of the anecdotes which are collected concerning this famous statesman, and despatched to various Continental journals, need a good deal of critical revision. The ready writer, who chances to be on the spot, is expected to say something about the great Chancellor of the German Empire; and he not improbably accepts thankfully any piece of gossip, without a very rigid probation of the amount of truth which it may contain. The writer whom we have just named informs us that the Prince, during his last stay at Kissingen, made a journey toward the Blauen Bergen of the Rhbn. We need hardly say that he neither forgot his pipe nor his Tobacco, for our weed is to the Prussian “ man of blood and iron ” all that his unshorn locks were to the strong Hebrew, Samson. A pipeless Bismarck, we heartily believe, could never have wrought the gigantic works which the great smoker has effected—the humiliation of France, the virtual destruction of Bonapartism, the recovery of Tobacco-growing Elsass for Germany, and the unification of the sundered and mutually jealous German States. It is a treasured historical tradition of Prussia that her prominent statesmen and soldiers should be mighty smokers. Little Brandenburg was developed into great Prussia amidst the fumes of Tobacco. We need only recur to Friedrich Wilhelm I. and his remarkable institution the Tobacco-Parliament. The most popular of Prussian soldiers, the rough and ready Blucher, had as warm a passion for his pipe as he had for fighting the French. German anecdotal literature has many a story in which the old field-marshal’s pipe plays the leading part. We may be tempted, hereafter, to collect some of the scattered tales concerning Blucher and his pipe, and offer them to the editor of the Tobacco Plant.
Prince Bismarck, to return to our story, stepped into his grand Hofcarosse, or court chariot, taking with him, of course,
♦August 26, 1880.
plenty of Tobacco, and was driven toward the Blauen Bergen. When he had just passed through the friendly little village of Neustadt, he overtook a patriarchal peasant-farmer, who was slowly jogging along in his primitive cart. A famous English statesman was always anxious to know the opinion of ♦♦ the man in a white hat,” of “ the man in the omnibus,” or of *‘ the man over the way.” He took the opinion of the everyday man to be a probably fair gauge of the awful totality of convictions and prejudices known at any given moment as ♦♦public opinion.” Prince Bismarck has notably an equal anxiety for learning what is thought about public affairs by the shrewd everyday man of business. He was much taken with the appearance of the old agriculturist; he ordered his own coachman to stop, and, getting out of his chariot, walked up to the side of the farmer’s cart, and asked the astonished owner if he would kindly allow him to ride by his side for a little while, and have a chat. The farmer had no suspicion who the grand gentleman was; but he drew to one side, pushed a bundle of straw to the other side for a cushion, and invited the Imperial Chancellor to mount the cart, and make himself as comfortable as he could. The Prince’s chariot followed behind at a slow pace. The peasant was at first somewhat shy of the “high-born stranger.” But he gathered confidence as Prince Bismarck chatted in his usual affable way; so that after a short time the statesman became chiefly a listener, and drew the man out into a free flow of talk, first upon his own immediate work and prospects as a farmer, and then upon all sorts of current questions, as they presented themselves to the mind of an astute old Franconian agriculturist. At the conclusion of the talk, the Prince observed that he should be glad if he could do any little kindness for his companion, though he did not disclose his name. “ Well,” replied the old man, “ I shall soon be at home, where I find all that I want. But if you would do me a real favour, just tell me the name of the shop where you buy that good Tobacco which you are smoking. It smells as sweet as Ndchelich! ” The Nelke, or pink, is the flower which the peasantry of the old Frankenland prefer above every other in the world; and its scent is their favourite symbol for a sweet odour. “ That pleasure,” said Prince Bismarck, “ I can easily give you.” He wrote down the old man’s name and address, and then added: “I will take care that you have some of the right sort, from my own shop.” The Chancellor shook hands with the farmer, took his seat in his own carriage, waved an adieu, and was quickly whirled out of sight. In the course of three days the delighted farmer received by the post a dozen packets of that fine Tobacco in which the famous statesman so notably delights. The old man enjoyed the acceptable gift all the more when he learned, to his astonishment, from whom it came.
The Anti-Socialist legislation of the great Prussian statesman seems to have been followed up by a series of incidental by-laws, or off-hand civil and military regulations, especially in those districts where the Social-Democrats have some following, as in the populous districts of Saxony. Max Kaiser, one of the few Social-Democratic deputies in the German Reichstag, is the owner of a cigar-shop in the Saxon capital. A few weeks ago, the military authorities of the Dresden garrison issued an ordinance strictly forbidding the soldiers from frequenting Herr Kaiser’s shop, lest this dangerous member of the Imperial Parliament should affect them with political heresies. The Parliamentary Tobacconist is a man of humour. He has replied to the military order by inserting an amusing advertisement in the Dresden evening paper, the Abend-Zeitung, to which we believe he contributes with his pen. Herr Kaiser in this advertisement “begs to commend, not only to civilians, but also to the military, his well-assorted cigar and Tobacco stores.” He specially invites the Reserves, “ as soon as they are dismissed,” to visit his shop, as “he has laid in a number of choice cigars named after eminent Socialists and Revolutionists.” They are requested to try the “ Lassalle Cigar,” the “ Marx Cigar,” the “Bebel Cigar,’ the “Liebknecht Cigar,” the “Freiligrath Cigar,” and other varieties. The public smiles complacently at this harmless, but irritating, species of Socialist demonstration, which is quite beyond the reach of any clause of the severe “ Sozialisten gesetz.” *
Passing from the great Prussian statesman and the Saxon Socialist Tobacco-dealer to the most august of all Prussians and Germans, the genial old Kaiser Wilhelm, we learn that he has done honour to the Nicotian traditions of the Prussian Cabinet and the Prussian army. Fedor von Koppen, in a pleasant article on the old hunting-seat of Konigs-Wuster-hausen, the scene of the Tabackscollegium of Friedrich Wilhelm I., informs us that the present King of Prussia and German Emperor has in a manner restored the “smoking evenings ” in this memorable building. The property had passed away from the Prussian Crown to the Menke family (the mother of Prince Bismarck was a member of this family); but a few years ago, in 1868, the royal Hofkammer re-purchased the domain. The King ordered the old Schloss to be restored without and within, and for the last twelve years— with the exception of the war-year, 1870—it has been used, as of old, as a royal hunting-seat in the autumn, and sometimes even in the early winter. The Emperor occupies two rooms on the ground floor. He keeps the Hunting-register (Jagdbuch) with his own hand, entering the date of each
♦ Since writing the above, I hear that the police have stopped the publication of the Social-Democratic Abend-Zcitung.
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hunt, and the names of royal, noble, and other distinguished participators in the chase. The Emperor has also restored, as we have already said, the “ Tabakscollegium,” to which the little Schloss of Konigs-Wusterhausen owes its world-wide fame. I should, perhaps, rather say that he has restored the royal Prussian smoking-evenings of Wusterhausen, in a certain sense. The smoking is again carried on, hut the conversation amidst the Tobacco fumes is not now of so political a character as to deserve the title of a “Ranch-Parliament.” In the very some room, on the upper floor of the Schloss, in which the absolute old monarch formerly held his Smoking-Parliament, his successor, the present Kaiser, invariably assembles with all his fellow-huntsmen on the evening of every hunting-day. H. Liiders has made a pair of sketches of the old and the modern Tabackscollcgia. At the same long wooden table, and on the same chairs which King Friedrich Wilhelm I. and his companions formerly used, the royal “ Tabaksgesellschaft ” of the present day is seated after the fatigues of a hunting-day. Dutch Tobacco is provided for the guests, and it is smoked, as of old, in long clay pipes. Even the Emperor—who is notably no such regular smoker as his son is, or as his Chancellor is—wields his clay pipe on these occasions, and takes his few whiffs. The glasses are filled with genuine Bavarian beer from huge earthenware tankards; but the talk does not run on the political affairs of Prussia and of Europe, as in the old Tabakscollegium of Friedrich Wilhelm I , but simply on the events of the day’s sport. Tables for card-players are placed in the corners of the room, and a buffet well furnished with various cold meats stands in a niche in the ante-chamber. There was a kind of historical congruity in the re-assembling of the Hohenzollern Smoking College in the upper room of Schloss Konigs-Wusterhausen after the Franco-Germ an war, when the King of Prussia had defeated Napoleon III. The Schloss, so intimately connected with the royal house of Prussia, had been sold by the predecessor of the present Emperor, in the darkest hour of Prussian and German history, and in order to meet the demands exacted by the triumphant Napoleon I.
The pipe is evidently destined to play a leading part in the politics of Prussia, as the ruling State of Germany, during the next few months—not, indeed, as the inspirer and soother of its statesmen and its warriors, but as the vexata. quastio of its rival financial parties, who take opposite sides on the Bismarckian scheme of the State Tobacco monopoly. The new German Empire inherited, along with Elsass, the Imperial Tobacco-manufactory in Strassburg, the capital of that province. In the month of August, stores for the sale of the Imperial produce were opened in many of the great German cities—we believe, amongst others, in Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, and Berlin. This act of trade competition on the part of the State is regarded as a tentative step toward the introduction of the monopoly. The Vossische Zeitung informs us that the Imperial Tobacco manufactory is sending out two sorts of very cheap Tobacco—a stark and pungent weed for the North Germans, and a weaker and milder sort for the Bavarians and Swabians of Southern Germany.
T. H.
^ipc ® oleums.
XXVI.—GOGGS’ FAST.
[We do not know if the following should rightly appear amongst the Pipe Colourers. It concerns the old man Didimus; but it did not come from him, as the note enclosed with it explains. The whole affair may be a fraud.—Ed. C.T.P.j
The note alluded to we give; it is rather irreverent:—
. Aug. 24, 1880.
Dear Copey,—Mr. Goggs was greatly interested in Dr. Tanner’s fast. We all used to talk about it a good deal, but Goggs could talk of nothing else; in fact, the poor old buffer wanted to try it on himself. We, however, persuaded him out of it, and suggested that he should go for forty days without Tobacco in any shape or form. Openly we told him it would be a great saving to him, but secretly we assured ourselves that it would be a greater saving to us; for the way in which he forgets to buy his weed, and the way in which he don’t forget to use ours, is simply dreadful.
He rather held back at the idea of going forty days without his pipe, but eventually agreed to do twenty days; and this, we believe, he has done conscientiously.
Thinking that a brief account of this event might prove interesting, we enclose it.
We should just like to say that the old gentleman is doing well, but we saved nothing, for he has had it out of us, or, rather, out of our pouches, in a grand manner.
We are, Sir, Yours truly,
Job Grimes,
Felix Groffin, ------ Samuel Smell.
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE TWENTY DAYS’ ABSTINENCE FROM TOBACCO OF DIDIMUS GOGGS, Esq.
Written by Job Grimes, Descriptive Writer.
When the glowing sunshine of early life fills the heart and brain of youth with noble and heroic longings, it is not difficult to understand the many glorious and enduring actions that have been performed in times past by the young, ever anxious to win fame in a noble and unselfish fashion;
but it is more difficult to understand, although not more difficult to admire, venerable old age flinging aside the natural feebleness and selfishness that clothe it as a garment, and striding to the front of humanity to show what it can do for the benefit of science, virtue, and civilisation.
Is there one, wise in his own conceit, who will dare to say that it was a little thing for our grand old Didimus to lay down his pipe for twenty days? Is it a little thing for the fond lover to part from his mistress for so long a time? Is it a little thing for the mother to abstain from caressing her first-born for so long a time ? We say no 1
Go, naze on the tearful lover, Sadly ho goes, I guess;
Go, gaze on the weeping mother, Longiug for baby’s kiss.
I did not mean to be betrayed into poetry, but I have been. I say that it was a tremendous thing for Mr. Goggs to do, and society should reward him. Look for a moment at his previous habits. He always used to smoke just before a meal, in order that his appetite should be kept within decent limits. Immediately after every meal he smoked, to enable him to digest the food he had taken. Between meals he followed no particular plan, but mostly smoked all the time.
The night previous to the Twenty Days’ Fast our worthy Didimus, gently puffing out the smoke from the pipe that was to be so long laid aside, said:—
“I have fully made up my mind to go through with the experiment. I know I shall have a hard time of it; but, thinking much over the matter, I clearly perceive my greatest danger. That danger is that I shall become too moist. That eminent man Dr. Tanner had an opposite fear, which was that he might dry up. To prevent this he constantly kept himself both internally and externally damp, and doubtless thereby saved his life.
“ My case is different; I have kept my body so thoroughly smoke-dried and ham-cured these many years by constant smoking, that I rather fear the giving up of that habit will cause me to secrete such a large amount of moisture in my system, that it may chill my natural heat, and possibly extinguish the vital spark itself. If this excessive moisture does no other harm, it may turn me mouldy in places, and a mouldy, or partially mouldy man, would not be a welcome addition to society. Therefore I, assisted by you, must take especial precautions on this point.”
We all murmured, “ Whisky.”
“Internally,” said the old gentleman; “whisky internally, certainly; and fire externally. Plenty of heat, plenty of heat.”
The first day of his fast Didimus got on pretty fairly. He began by sleeping two hours longer than usual, so as to shorten the day. He then partook of some smoked haddock for breakfast, and afterwards read his newspaper in a calm and happy frame of mind. Towards night, however, he grew restless, and there was a wild light in his eyes, and a dangerous gleam about his teeth, that rather disconcerted one or two nervous persons who had heard of what was going forward, and called in to see the old hero. He, however, fell peacefully asleep about midnight, with a black-lead pencil firmly held in his teeth.
Second day. The old man woke cheerful, but said he wished he hadn’t opened the second bottle of whisky, as it had made him thirsty, and he was afraid to drink water for fear of creating moisture. He had some coffee and toast for breakfast, followed by toasted cheese and pickled onions. Later in the day he grew restless. Pulse good. Language bad. The third and fourth day passed away without anything particular to make a note of.
Fifth day. Goggs was very low-spirited. The expression in his eye said “ Suicide.” We allowed him to clean his teeth with a little cigar ash. There was some suspicion excited that he swallowed a portion, but a careful weighing of the ash and water, both before and after the operation, apart at first and mixed afterwards, showed us that we were wrong. The old man was much hurt at our suspicions, and wept bitterly. The tooth-brush was then carefully boiled for four hours before he was allowed to have it in his possession again. Temperature low. Wind N. by N.W. His sensations on this day he described as more peculiar than painful. He said he felt as if there were worms in his head, crawling and wriggling about in an uneasy manner. This, no doubt, arose from a distempered imagination.
The next day Goggs complained of a general icy feeling all down his backbone, and a peculiar sensation of effervesence beneath his toe nails. He consumed large quantities of whisky, and had a great deal rubbed in between his shoulder blades and on the soles of his feet. Feeling better after this, he sang, in a cheerful but pathetic style, “ Put me in my little bed.” It moved some of us to tears, but we thought it best to humour him, and an hour after he was fast asleep, all pangs forgotten.
On the tenth day poor Goggs broke down utterly, yet never for a moment failed to struggle heroically with himself. Doubled up on the floor he lay, the picture of a mental, spiritual, and physical wreck. * “ Don’t teU my poor old uncle,” he moaned, “that his Diddy can’t do it; don’t let him think that his Goggy hasn’t got pluck.” As no one knew where his uncle lived, of course we did not go and tell him, but assured the poor fellow of our sympathy. “I will do it,” he yelled, suddenly rising into a sitting position, and pressing his thighs against his chest and stomach to stifle the
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agonies that were eating his great heart out. Then he stood on the floor, pale but noble-looking, for a brief moment, to exhibit the power of his gigantic will. Then ho was fain to reach over a towel-horse, letting his toes touch the floor on one side and his lingers on the other. In this position he remained for some twenty minutes, softly sighing, as his memory carried him back to early bright days of childish happiness. Groflin started his musical snuff-box, and tears streamed from the eyes of Goggs as the soft strains of music woke in his soul poetical and gorgeous imaginings.
We found, with some alarm, that Goggs had lost twelve ounces in weight, but were reassured when we remembered that he had had a bath the day before. The old man, feeling very faint in the afternoon, adopted Dr. Tanner’s plan of putting his feet out of the window. This might have led to an accident, for Didimus fell asleep, and while he slept there came a hungry cat along. She spied “ bones,” and, making a desperate spring, landed with her teeth among his toes. Both Goggs and the cat were very much frightened, but neither were hurt.
On the fifteenth day, as poor Goggs seemed very low, we agreed to allow one of the attendants to smoke in his presence. Goggs, however, was not to open his mouth, but was to be allowed to sniff freely. The experiment came to an end suddenly, for, unable to resist the temptation, the old man suddenly opened his mouth and endeavoured to gulp down quite a volume of smoke. This was prevented by one of us dashing at it with a towel, the corner of which going into Goggs’ eye, gave him something else to think about.
Didimus protested that it was an accidental yawn, but we declined to accept the explanation.
On the seventeenth day Goggs was very low. His head looked shrunken and old, like a potato that has been lying forgotten and withering for a long time in some obscure corner. His eyes were fixed in a dull and vague stare. His gums seemed drawn away from his teeth, leaving teeth and stumps starting apparently out of their sockets. His palate was rough and hard, like the skin of a shark. His ears stuck away from his head, as if they meant to abandon it. His cheeks had fallen in, and approached in colour No. 1 chrome, mixed with burnt umber. His eyebrows drooped, and his eyelashes curled a little, as if in pain. His chin stuck out sharp and bony, and his finger nails were deathly white, with tiny splashes of green, red, and yellow distributed all over them; and still his only cry, painful, pathetic, and yet musical as the burden of a sad song, was: “Don’t let my poor old uncle know.” Heat 104°, cold *010°, with a reserve not ascertainable, as the instrument was out of repair.
That day we allowed him to suck an old pipe, as he showed symptoms of madness. It was taken away from him at the end of an hour, when it was found that he’d been trying to nibble the bone mouthpiece. Had he succeeded it would have been a question if he had not broken his fast; so that after this he was only allowed to smell occasionally a very old meerschaum that had been in smoke for twenty years.
Strength diminishing, but expressions decidedly strengthening. Temperature 17 over proof.
At the last hour of the fast the scene was fine. There sat the grand old martyr, the man who had dared to struggle with what was worse than anything else—himself! Compared with this, everything else is as nothing. In struggling with the forces of Nature, for instance, a man may have the consciousness that, do what he may, be must be beaten, and without disgrace; but when a man struggles with himself and is beaten, then he feels he is disgraced, and disgraced by himself. In fact, he feels he is a heap of disgrace. It is a disgrace to him that he has not been able to beat himself, and it is a disgrace to him to have been beaten by himself. This may sound paradoxical, but nevertheless it is true. It is a problem out of Humanity which is a greater problem. Humanity, being nothing but a vast problem, breeds, and can breed, nothing but smaller problems.
The clock struck, the fast was over, and now the old man was at liberty to smoke. Three minutes are all that it will bo necessary to pass over, and then, oh! how the old man laughed! Three pipes were in his mouth—wood, clay, and meerschaum. One held Cavendish, one Shag, and one Bird’s Eye; all were alight, and all were busy. A cigar was stuck playfully in each ear. A Tobacco-pouch was in one hand, and a giant Tobacco-jar in the other; and there he sat and chuckled, and smoked. Meanwhile we, at his request, rubbed snuff into his silvery locks, filled his pockets, boots, and hat with Tobacco and cigars, and wrapped his ancient feet in Tobacco leaves. At times he would remove his pipes, and give vent to such ejaculations as “Good!” “Fine!” “Bully!” Ac. We could only hear the words, we could not see the man; he had hidden himself in a vast cloud, and there we left him. We leave it to your discretion to add that subscriptions to defray expenses (whisky mostly) will be received by you, and forwarded to us.
[At the moment of going to press wo received the following telegram from Goggs :—“ Account of Fast doubtless correct. If anything libellous appears in print, look out! Remember Figaro and Mrs. W., and tremble.” We do remember, but we forget to tremble. We feel calmly assured that nobody can libel Goggs, say what they may.—Ed.]
Jtrbose Aliments.
Much has been said on narcotics and stimulants, but not till these late years have they, under the name of nervose aliments, been comprehensively and thoroughly studied. Perhaps the most powerful, and certainly the most eloquent, populariser of the subject is Mantegazza, a distinguished Italian professor. In a condensed form, we propose to present what Mantegazza has said on nervose aliments, which, if rightly regarded, are the greatest physical blessings offered to the human race, let fanatical teetotalers and others say about them what they may.
Nervose aliments Mantegazza thus classifies —
First Family.—Alcoholic Aliments.
First Subdivison.—The Fermented: Wine, Beer, Cider, Mead, Chicha, and the rest.
Second Subdivision.—The Distilled: Brandy, Rum, Gin, Whisky, and the rest.
Second Family.—Alcaloid Aliments.
First Subdivision.—Caffeic Aliments: Coffee, Tea, Mate, Guarana, and the rest.
Second Subdivision.—Narcotic Aliments: Opium, Hasch-isch, Kawa, Betel, Coca, Tobacco, and the rest.
Third Family. — Aromatic Aliments : Sage, Rosemary, Mint, Cinnamon, Pepper, Ginger, Garlic, Onions, and the rest.
The beauty of this classification must at once be seen.
According to Mantegazza, nervose aliments are distinguished by the following salient characteristics :—
They act almost always in a small quantity, and their action is subordinated rather to their nature than to their mass.
They are used almost exclusively by man, whose nervous life is much more complicated than that of other animals. Of these, such as are nearest to man in intelligence may find them agreeable when in a domesticated state they become acquainted with them. Monkeys, parrots, and dogs may grow passionately fond of coffee and tea; but in their natural state they would not by instinct seek or find them. Nevertheless, it seems to be proved that cats eat valerian, not to nourish, but to intoxicate themselves. Elephants, in some regions, devour with avidity a fruit which makes them tipsy, and when tipsy they appear to be more than usually happy. Darwin saw more than once monkeys smoking, and they looked as if they enjoyed the luxury. Brehm states that in the north-east of Africa the natives catch apes by placing in their way vessels filled with a very strong beer, which makes them the helpless victims of their foes. By-and-by wA may hear of Good Tempi ar ism among cats, elephants, and monkeys.
At the different ages of life the consumption of nervose aliments is always in proportion to the celebral development. The child is contented with milk, in which no nervose aliment has hitherto been proved to exist. The youth must use with much moderation coffee and wine, and in general does not feel the need of them. The grown man, in the full exercise of all the nervose functions, can use the nervose aliments with a prudent moderation.
Man requires nervose aliments more than woman, because his brain and his muscles labour more actively.
Civilised man needs and enjoys nervose aliments more than the savage, and in the brilliant development of his intelligence consumes in a single day the fermented juices of the grapes of Vesuvius, the heavy beer of England, the cocoa of America, and the tea of far-distant China.
The stomach, under the immediate action of nervose aliments, feels a special comfort, and rebels against a diet which wholly excludes them. Youths and women may for a time feel well enough when their diet consists entirely of milk and fruits; but to such a diet the grown man cannot for the most part be made to submit, somnolence and a dul-ness, a heaviness of the sensations being the almost inevitable results thereof. Dr. Laragna states that when he lived at Paria a lassitude in the members and a disposition to sleep, which he found it difficult to resist, almost invariably came when he drank in the morning a cup of tepid milk. So often overcome in this way, he had at last to renounce milk, whieh he had daily taken, and with advantage, under the stimulating atmosphere of Genoa. When milk is hot, its soporific and other disagreeable effects are less felt, and they entirely vanish when coffee, or tea, or chocolate, or wine is blended with the milk. In this respect the companionship of coffee and milk, devised in France by a noble lady, was a culinary and hygienic discovery of the first order; because, under a form pleasant and of easy digestion, there are here blended several groups of aliments. It is not, therefore, from habit or from fashion that perhaps four-fifths of the inhabitants of Europe and America drink at breakfast milk mixed with tea, or coffee, or chocolate.
Nervose aliments are almost always absorbed with much rapidity, and, entering the circulating current, they excite at all points of our nervous organism the various provinces of the nervous system. Some of them would seem to be absorbed without any previous digestion at all, whereby they are the fittest aliments swiftly to repair the waste of nervous force. The man who returns wearied from the fields desires nothing more ardently than a glass of wine, or of beer. The traveller in South America, after a gallop of fifty or more
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540	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[October, 1880.	
miles in the pampa, receives with joy the matg which a courteous and hospitable hand in the rancho holds out to him. When the organism has been rapidly refected by the alcohol of wine, or by the caffeine and the aromatic principles of the mate, the stomach can patiently wait for the more solid and enduring restorative effect of plastic and respiratory food. Nervose aliments pass either unchanged into our organism or undergo successive transformations. Under this aspect physiology waits with impatience for new lights from chemistry. Some nervose aliments, from the abundance of hydro-geno-carbonic principles they contain, have a respiratory value which equals or even exceeds their nervous power. This is the case with alcohol and with the fatty matter of bacon. Others have a marked plastic virtue, as, for instance, tea, which in some countries in the East is eaten, and furnishes to the organism a plenteous supply of albuminoids. Nervose aliments contribute immensely to render life more joyous. Under their action the consciousness of existence is augmented, moral sufferings are mitigated or forgotten, and a rapture is sometimes excited which may, as in the case of coca, opium, and so on, reach the highest degree of felicity. Nervose aliments vary much from each other in their action, and adapt themselves to the manifold needs of life according to age, sex, temperament, climate, and race. The history of nervose aliments, studied in their diversified relations to civilisation, to health, to medicine, is still a desideratum. The words excitation and stimulation must not, in reference to nervose aliments, be at all understood in the sense which the writers on dietetics apply to the words. Nervose aliments may, perchance, be an adjunct and aid to the nervose life by retarding the acts of organic regression, thus suspending one function to the advantage of another. The attempt here to be subtle and precise would simply be to forerun our ignorance. Let us content ourselves, meanwhile, with the little that is known, and with much that is hardly known. From his mode of presenting the chief characteristics of nervose aliments, it must in a moment be seen that Mante-gazza, being not an arrogant dogmatist, but a sagacious and ingenious explorer, considers the study of nervose aliments to be yet in its infancy; though he accepts as well ascertained certain great principles and certain leading facts. Furthermore, he believes that from the inexhaustible treasures of Nature myriads of nervose aliments have yet to be discovered, and that the more the discoveries are multiplied, the more in the main must nervose aliments be found favour- • able to health, happiness, culture, and morality; though he deplores as bitterly and profoundly as anyone the gross abuse of Nature’s choicest blessings. This large, luminous, and humane philosophy needs energetic exponents and enthusiastic disciples in England, where ignorant fanatics league themselves together to make war on nervose aliments as on the chief curse of mankind. We are less inclined, however, to blame the fanatics than the men of science and the medical men who, from ignoble motives, lend countenance to idiotic crotchets. ^mbtr. For the smoker amber has an interest, though of a commonplace kind; and probably few smokers extend their regard for amber beyond its well-known Nicotian uses. But amber has also a poetical charm; for its history, which goes back to the ' remotest times, is interwoven with some of the most beautiful myths of antiquity. Attractive in its history, amber is not less attractive in its natural history. Amber’s worth as a decoration, and amber’s commercial value, have undergone singular vicissitudes. After being more valuable than gold, amber suffered a Jong eclipse; and chiefly through Nicotian influences has it regained somewhat of its pristine supremacy. At first, viewed by the instinct of the Ancients as a vegetal gum, then considered by the ignorance of the Middle Ages as a mineral, amber has, through the scientific research of modern days, completely established its claim to be classed with the vegetal resins. In its liquid state, it is supposed to have flowed from the amber tree, which belonged to the coniferous family, and is believed to have perished at a period previous to the last grand transformation of the earth. The literature of amber is very extensive, but till a recent period it was more curious than instructive or trustworthy, containing many odd facts of dubious or suspicious aspect, mixed up with many silly or superstitious fables. The reign, however, of fiction and fatuousness has come to an end, and everything is now as clear as science can make it. We have simply to suppose a vast amber forest, flourishing in all its glory, and exuding a resin which there was no human hand to gather, and which would have been of no use if it had been gathered, except to make the fire on the hearth burn more briskly; and then the annihilation of the amber forest when Nature, the insatiably creative and insatiably destructive, was marching on from upheaval to upheaval. Of tho forest, the most precious trace remains in the hardened resin. This hardened resin is, in more than one sense, the chronicle and the epitaph of an extinguished world. It contains in richest variety the remains of vegetal and animal organisms, pictures the whole nature, the whole environments of the	amber tree itself, is one of the most beautiful geological revelations. The amber forest seems to have waved its branches long, long ago, almost exclusively in the Northern regions of the world: North America, Siberia, the coast lands of the North Sea, and, above all, the coast lands of the Baltic. Sicily furnishes good amber, but in small quantities; and it is said that African, Brazilian, East Indian amber, and in general the amber of the Southern, the warmer zones, is not properly amber at all, but copal, and that when burned it is easily distinguishable by the smell from genuine amber. We are safe in conjecturing that amber was known and valued long before the historical period. The allusions to it in Homer and other old Greek poets show that amber had been familiar to men for many centuries. The ingenious myth in which Phaethon and his sisters figure, and which Ovid has made immortal; a similar myth to which a greater than Ovid, Sophocles, has given lustre and consecration; the fragment of a drama which Euripides devoted to the subject of Phaethon, demonstrate the poetical fascination of amber, and the prosaic interest, thousands of years old, wherefrom that poetical fascination sprang. At the dawn of civilisation, tin and amber tempted the luxurious or covetous spirit of the dwellers round the shores of the Mediterranean. To gain both articles the Phoenicians undertook daring and dangerous voyages to the North, and to deter rivals they pictured the perils as a thousandfold more terrible than they were. By-and-by a great trade in amber was carried on by land. This trade, a barter trade, was chiefly in the hands of the Etruscans. Within the last few years it has become the subject of profound and fruitful researches. Among others, the German Genthe and the Pole Sadowski have studied, with marvellous erudition and sagacity, the routes it followed. A remarkable episode in the history of amber was the voyage of Pytheas of Massilia, who was a contemporary of Alexander the Great. The fullest account of amber by an ancient writer is that by Pliny, who, though a credulous compiler, was not essentially mistaken as to the real nature of amber. Homer represents women as wearing, at the time of the Trojan War, bracelets and necklaces of Elektron, which, perhaps, was not pure amber, but a substance of which amber was the principal ingredient. There is reason to believe that the Ancients, besides using amber extensively as an ornament, employed it medicinally. In the Middle Ages, when from various causes the trade in amber sank to a minimum, amber, not much esteemed as a decoration, had a certain popularity as a medicine, and was converted into amulets to protect against numerous real or imaginary evils. And no doubt amber amulets answered the purpose as well as other amulets. As already stated, the first great impulse to the revival of the amber trade was given by the increasing demand for Nicotian objects of which amber is a necessary part, and which are too well known to all smokers to require description. Large quantities of amber are made into beads. Amber necklaces are much rarer in the United Kingdom than they were; but in the north of Germany they are still very common. It is chiefly, however, in Africa, China, Japan, Thibet, and among the savage tribes of the South Sea that amber beads and amber trinkets are in request. The captains of ships leaving London and the French ports take a good supply with them for purposes of barter. Sicilian amber is at Catania converted into crosses, rosaries, and images of the saints. If a fly with expanded wings is found in a piece of amber, this piece is suspended over the image of a saint as a spirito santo. The normal colour of amber, a resin modified and moulded by water and by atmospheric pressure, is a honey yellow. But there is a variety of tints, passing from that clear as water or white as chalk, through yellowish or greenish, to red or brown. In Sicily, extremely beautiful emerald, violet, and purple hues are met with. Amber is used as incense. It burns with a yellow flame. For mechanical or artistical purposes it is very easily worked, requiring little labour or skill. The amalgamation of amber with coloured substances, with gold, with silver, with precious stones, with ebony, with ivory, and so on, so familiar to the Ancients, is one of the forgotten arts. Through chemical processes, amber acid, amber oil, amber varnish are produced. In commerce, more than a hundred and fifty sorts of amber figure. About two hundred and fifty thousand pounds of raw amber are annually obtained, four-fifths of the whole amount being from the Baltic coast. Each pound is worth, perhaps, fifteen shillings in English money. But, of course, the amber, when wrought, greatly increases in value. The largest piece of amber ever found weighed twenty-seven pounds. Catania, in Sicily, Constantinople, certain cities of Germany, are some of the chief places where amber articles are made. Amber is met with both as a fossil and as one of the treasures of the deep. As a fossil, it generally lies in the diluvium, in immediate contact with the so-called brown coal strata, and has to be won by mining. As a treasure of the deep, and especially of the Baltic Sea, it has to be gained by great and often perilous labour. The amber gatherers either wade into the water and fish for the precious substance with large bag nets, or go off in boats and seize it by means of long poles armed with prongs. They have always been a wretchedly remunerated class. When rubbed, amber yields a pleasant scent. The electrical qualities of amber, well known to the Ancients, led to the discovery of electricity as a science.
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COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
541
COPE’S WORLD-FAIR, 1880,
WITH EXPLANATORY KEY,
IS NOW READY, AND BEING ISSUED TO SUBSCRIBERS.
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Publishing Office—10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool.
U. S.
TOBACCO JOURNAL,
184,	MAIDEN LANE (CORNER OF WATER STREET), NEW YORK.
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NEW YORK TOBACCO LEAF, Organ of the Tobacco Trade of the United States. Published weekly. Subscription, 20/- per Annum, post free to any part of the United Kingdom. Sole Agents for the United KingdomCope Bros. & Co., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by whom Advertisements and Subscriptions will be received. Specimen copy sent for Id. postage stamp.
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THE PRINTERS’ REGISTER contains much interesting and valuable information on the progress of the Art of Printing, both at Home and Abroad. It circulates very largely in Australia, India, China, Canada, Ao.; and it affords tho best medium for any matter connected with the Printing Trade. A new and original Treatise on Practical Printing commenced in the number for August, 1875.
Address— The Editob, St. Bride Street, London, E.O.
TOBACCO MANUFACTURER’S BUSINESS
FOR SALE.
IN consequence of tho death of Mr. David Greig, Tobacco
Manfacturer, Dunfermline, the GOODWILL of the Business, which has for many years been carried on by him, and his whole STOCK-IN-TRADE, MACHINERY, and SHOP FITTINGS are now for Sale.
The deceased had formed a large Wholesale connection in Glasgow and throughout the country. He had also a large Retail business. The Premises are well adapted for both branches of the trade, being situated in one of the best positions in the High Street. They contain extensive accommodation, and are provided with all the requisite Machinery and Appliances.
A Lease will be given for such period as may be agreed on.
Inventories of the Stock can be seen in the hands of John Ross, Solicitor, Dunfermline, who will give all information, and offers will be received by him.
SOLACE. One Shilling Bundles, containing 4 Cigars.
ENGLAND’S BEST. One Shilling Bundles, containing 6 Cigars.
The Richmond Cavendish Company, Limited,
BONDED TOBACCO WORKS,
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Always on Hand, a Large Stock of Pressed Tobacco, Bright Cavendish in All Sizes, and a Well-selected Stock of American Manufactured Cavendish.
Price Lists on Application.
542	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[October, 1880.
COPE’S CIGARETTES.
PRICE LISTS SUPPLIED TO THE TRADE ON APPLICATION.
GOLDEN CLOUD BRAND.
WITHOUT MOUTHPIECE.
In Sixpenny Boxes, containing twelve Paper Cigarettes, In Cardboard Cases, containing three dozen Sixpenny Boxes.
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In Sixpenny Boxes, containing twelve Paper Cigarettes, In Cardboard Cases, containing three dozen Sixpenny Boxes.
Cope’S ^^hiffs. In Fourpenny Bundles of ten. In Cedar Boxes, containing forty Bundles, or 400 Cigarettes.
The Ficj3.ro. Extra Mild. In Sixpenny Boxes, containing twelve leaf-covered Cigarettes. In Packets, containing two dozen Sixpenny Boxes.
Fairy Brand. In Cardboard Boxes, gold mounted, with beautiful Parisian label, containing ten internal Packets of ten Cigarillos each.
Bouquet (With Tubes). PeerleSS (Without Tubes). In Cardboard Boxes, containing four Bundles of 23 Cigaretos. In very handsome Cedar Cases, containing ten Boxes, or 1000 Cigaretos.
Delicate in favour; burn evenly, with a firm white ash; made with great care for a mild morning smoke.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes. In Cardboard Boxes, containing 30. In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1000, with lock and key.
Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made from a peculiar kind of Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking of this Tobacco is said to give relief in cases of Asthma.
COPE BROTHERS & CO. TOBACCO WORKS, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool
Printed and Published for the Proprietors at the Office, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, hy Jomr Fiabkb, of 1, Spekeland Road, Edge-Hill, Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster.
KTT1RID AT 8TATX0HD8' BALU

A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
No. 128.—Vol, IL]	NOVEMBER, 1880.	Jgg&..L^
|s&ana anb its Cigars.
An insurrection has recently been suppressed in Cuba which had raged for ten years, made the island itself desolate, and rendered Spain the anarchical more anarchical still. But probably few of those who smoke the cigars for which Cuba is so famous knew much or cared anything about the contest. As a rule, the smoker is rather a good fellow, a genial companion, than a keen politician. He belongs to the vast and increasing family of the Lotos-eaters.
Leaving politics aside, let us look at Cuba under those aspects fittest to interest the Nicotian enthusiast; though when we speak of Cuba it is more particularly Havana that attracts him.
On the 12th October, 1492, Columbus set foot on Guana-hani, an island of the Bahama group. This was the first land in the New World that he touched. The 28th October presented to him something very different from the insignificant Guanahani,—magnificent Cuba, by some called the Queen of the Antilles, by others the Pearl of the Antilles—a “pearl of great price” to unscrupulous London publishers when they want to steal a title. Columbus wished to call the grand island Guana; others thought Femardina a more appropriate designation; but the native name, Cuba, has prevailed. Cuba, however, is both a Latin and a Spanish word. There was a very kind and useful goddess Cuba, who was supposed to protect the slumber of children; and doubtless she still watches over children of a larger growth when, smoking Cubas, they fall into a deliciously drowsy state. The Spaniards give the name of Cuba to a wooden barrel containing wine, olive oil, or any other liquid; they have a proverb, “ Cada Cuba huele al Vino que tiene,” “ Every cask smells of the wine which it holds.” The word Cuba they likewise apply to a big-bellied man, or a notorious drunkard. Cuba is, moreover, a measure used in Africa for liquids. The Spanish Cuba comes from the Latin Cupa, which, besides meaning a cask or barrel, signifies also a drinking vessel. Hence our Cup. These small linguistical curiosities may perhaps show that a pipe of wine and a pipe of Tobacco claim natural fellowship.
It was Hispaniola that the Spaniards first brought under their dominion; and it was from Hispaniola that in 1511 Diego Columbus, the son of Christopher Columbus and Viceroy of Hispaniola, sent Diego Velasquez to conquer Cuba. This was an easy task. Having accomplished it, Velasquez introduced slavery into Cuba, along with other Christian benefits. He likewise sent forth, or sanctioned, exploratory expeditions, the strongest and most successful of which was that under Cortes to Mexico. In Cuba, as in other parts of the world, the Spaniards were as lethargic as colonisers as they had been prompt and vigorous as conquerors. Cuba dragged on a drowsy existence, diversified by episodes, such as the attacks of the lawless buccaneers toward the close of the seventeenth century, and the conquest of the island by the English in 1762. The English gave back the island to Spain, and received Florida as an equivalent, a gift made useless by the revolt of England's North American Colonies. From Florida many Spanish colonists flocked to Cuba, adding alike to its wealth and its population. After the French Revolution, a still more important class of colonists—intelligent French colonists—came from Hispaniola. By them the coffee culture was immensely extended and improved. Early in the present century those insurrections began which have hitherto been so fruitless.
Cuba possesses everything fitted to make a country pros-
perous, except good and wise government; an, unsurpassed geographical position, a genial climate, a prolific soil, mineral wealth, a marvellous extent of coast in proportion to the size of the island, excellent harbours, and in Havana one of the primordial havens of the world. Cuba has a population of about a million and a-half, the white and coloured portions being about equal. If all its resources were vigorously evolved, Cuba could support a much larger population. It is not much more than a hundred years since Cuba's agricultural and commercial importance began to be felt in the markets of Europe. When undisturbed by insurrections, Cuba pours about two millions sterling into the needy and greedy Spanish treasury. Of the commerce of the island, more than sixty per cent, centres in Havana. Cuba's chief export is sugar, amounting to nearly eighty-three per cent. Of manufactured Tobacco is exported about four and a-half per cent.; of Tobacco in leaf, nearly three per cent.; of coffee, rather less than three and a-half per cent. Miscellaneous articles, including wax, honey, fruits, preserves, sponges, and chocolate, are exported to the extent of about two per cent. There are—or, at least, there were—1442 sugar, 1670 coffee, and 10,000 Tobacco plantations. Santiago was formerly the political, and it is still the ecclesiastical, capital of the island.
Though we hear so much of Cuba as a Tobacco-growing country, yet in only a small portion of the island is Tobacco cultivated. Nevertheless, the annual value of the Tobacco produced in Cuba is estimated at twenty millions of dollars. As the number of Tobacco farms has in fifty or sixty years doubled, it is plain that the cultivation is extending in a very important degree. Though cultivated in patches all over the island, yet it is in proximity to Havana that the best Tobacco grows. That part of Cuba which lies to the southwest of Havana is called the “ Lower Valley.” The Tobacco district in this “ Lower Valley” is twenty-seven leagues long and seven leagues broad. It was in the neighbourhood of Havana that Tobacco was first cultivated. This was in 1580. But the fame of the “ Lower Valley ” as a producer of Tobacco did not begin till about ninety years ago. Contiguous to the “ Lower Valley ” lie the so-called Partidos, winch produce the Tobacco sent to Europe as Partido or Cabanas. The leaf often surpasses that of the “Lower Valley” in size and fineness, as well as in the beauty of the colour; but it is inferior in quality. The Tobacco from which the cigars bearing the distinctive appellation of “Cubas” are made, grows on the hills round Trinidad, Puerto Principe, and other cities lying far to the east of Havana. The village of Yara, near Manzanillo, gives its name to the “ Yara” cigars, which are liked by some, but which the American writer Hazard condemns as bitter and strong. The Cuban Tobacco farmers are a kind of yeomen. They do not own a large extent of land; each of them, on an average, possesses rather more than thirty acres. They know their business well; they are a jovial and not a particularly honest class; they will cheat if they can. Toward the end of September the operations of the Cuban Tobacco farmer begin. At that time the seed is sown in the semilleros, or planting beds, which, as a rule, lie higher than the rest of the farm. At the end of October, after the land has been prepared, the young plants are placed in lower ground. So much are they affected by the caprices of the seasons, that there is only one very good crop every five years. There are two bad crops and two tolerable ones. Attempts have been made to get two crops in the year, but they have all failed. The Tobacco plant, which grows to a height of from six to nine feet, and whose appearance engravings have made familiar to most people, requires great care. It is assailed by three different
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kinds of insects; one attacks the foot of the leaves, a second the under side of the leaves; a third devours the heart of the plant. A large ant, also, sometimes works great havoc. Against these pests the planter and his assistants wage ceaseless war. Such of the Tobacco farmers as wish to produce a great deal of Tobacco, without regard to the excellence of the article, leave the plant to its natural growth, which is both scientifically and otherwise objectionable; for it is on a process of thinning and pruning that a due diffusion of sap in the leaves depends, and consequently the quality of the Tobacco. At the beginning of January the Tobacco is ready for cutting. If the harvest is good, all the leaves are taken from the plants at once. Tobacco consisting of those leaves is called Temprano, or “Early Ripe.” If, on the contrary, the harvest is not good, the immature leaves are left to grow. Tobacco formed of these leaves has the name of Tardio, or 11 Late Ripe.” In every respect, appearance included, the Temprano is much superior to the Tardio. In the purchase of Tobacco it is a principal thing to ascertain how much or how little Temprano a parcel contains. Moreover, there are what are called bastard leaves, which grow after the leaves proper have been gathered. Just as the Tardio is inferior to the Temprano, so these bastard leaves are inferior to the Tardio. As soon as the Tobacco is cut, it is placed on poles in a drying-house. Having dried for some time, the Tobacco is moistened and placed in large heaps to ferment. After the Tobacco has duly fermented, it is sorted and packed. An intermediate’ process, however, is moistening the Tobacco with strong Catalan wine and other ingredients. When packed, the Tobacco undergoes a second fermentation. Various writers give various modes of classifying the article. Samuel Hazard mentions four classes. The first is the Desecho, or Desecho Limpio, the leaf at the top of the plant, and the best as having been benefited to the utmost by sun, rain, and dew; the second is the desechito, whose value is determined by a somewhat lower position on the plant; the third is the libra, the small top leaf; the fourth, the injuriado, is the leaf nearest the root. When the Tobacco has been harvested and dressed, it is formed into bundles called gavillas. Four gavillas, tied together with strips of palm leaf constitue a manoja. From fifty to eighty manojas compose a tercio or bale, the average weight of which is two hundred pounds. If a farm produces nine thousand pounds of Tobacco, there are, as a rule, four thousand five hundred pounds of injuriado, two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds of libra, one thousand eight hundred pounds of desechito, and four hundred and fifty pounds of desecho. As each class is packed by itself, with its own mark and number, there would seem to be no room for fraud. But though the great cigar manufacturers of Havana, or of other Cuban cities, may, even, as a matter of calculation and interest, be perfectly honourable men, the wholesale Tobacco dealers often surpass in dishonesty the Tobacco planters. One of the tricks is to efface the distinctive marks of the classes on the packages, and thus a third or a fourth class is converted into a first by a marvellous legerdemain. So immense is the disparity of prices, that the price paid for a bale of the choicest sorts may be twenty times higher than that for which a bale of the inferior qualities is sold. Not to speak of other Cuban towns, there are in Havana more than a hundred and twenty manufacturers of cigars. Some of them employ only four or five men, others five or six hundred; but, besides the regular workers, soldiers, prisoners, and many private persons find occupation as makers of cigars. Of the Havana cigars generally it has been said that they are as beautifully formed as if they had been turned on a lathe. Everyone, foreigner or native, can become a manufacturer of cigars at Havana as soon as he has obtained a licence from the Government. A copy of the mark he intends to use must be given to the Government, in order that it may be registered, and to prevent anyone else from using it, which is. under the severest penalties, forbidden. Of the cigar makers—the workmen, that is, as distinguished from the cigar manufacturers—many are Spaniards, many Creoles. Among the negroes employed, not a few are slaves. The free cigar makers of Havana have a very bad reputation; of all classes they are said to be the most demoralised. They are as selfish, as unreasonable, as unscrupulous as those English working men who are always ready to go on strike unless their extravagant claims are conceded. A cigar manufacturer at Havana devotes, as a rule, all his ingenuity and diligence to one class of cigars. This contributes incalculably to perfection. On arriving at the cigar factory the Tobacco is not at once manufactured; it undergoes a variety of processes which we must pass by. The leaf employed for the wrappers of cigars is called capa; that for the filling tripa. The cigar maker is seated at a low table, which has ledges on every side except that next to him. He spreads a leaf of Tobacco before him, and cuts from it the portion required. Having placed a few fragments of filling in the centre of a strip of leaf, he moulds the whole into the shape of a cigar; and then, taking the wrapper, moulds it spirally round the cigar. If he is a perfect workman, no trimming from the knife is here needed. As a model, the workman has always near him a citola, or wooden cigar, which has been made by turning. This gives the form and size of the cigar he has to make. He has a further guide in a flat piece of wood with a hole just large enough for the cigar to pass through. On account of the continued draught
of air, the workman is obliged to keep the Tobacco he is about to use covered with a wet cloth. The Tobacco cannot be used when it is too dry. To give the cigar tip cohesiveness neither gum nor starch is used, but crumb of bread only, which the cigar maker brings with him. He moistens it, kneads it, and applies it so cleverly that it is seldom perceivable on the cigars. When the workman has got fifty cigars ready, he binds them with a piece of bast, the finest cigars being placed outside, with the veins turned inwards. To give the cigars a pretty, smooth and round appearance, the workman rolls them by the help of a flat board or a flat knife. Fifty cigars are called a medio rueda, and according to ruedas, or parcels of a hundred cigars each, is the reckoning made. As a rule, a workman can make from two hundred to two hundred and fifty cigars a day. The parcels are placed in closed presses to dry, and are kept there till they are sorted. The greater the renown of a manufacturer, the smaller are his cigars. There are no straw cigars made at Havana, but cigarettes are manufactured in large numbers, cigarette making giving employment to six thousand workmen. Samuel Hazard gives an account of a visit he paid to “La Honradez,” the largest cigarette factory at Havana, and, perhaps, in the world. This factory produces daily two million five hundred and thirty-two thousand, yearly more than nine hundred and twenty-four million cigarettes. If this large production of a single factory astonishes ns, we have to consider that in Cuba itself, and pre-eminently at Havana, the cigarette is more extensively smoked, especially by ladies, than even the cigar. Everything needful for equipping the cigarettes for their journey of glory is made on the premises. For instance, there is a complete printing office constantly employed in every branch of typography and lithography. The number of patterns of envelopes for the cigarettes amounts to two or three thousand, and most of them are characterised by ingenuity and beauty.
As Havana cigars are known by the marks of the makers, they are further classified according to the size and form. It is this classification we have now to furnish. The Regalias Imperiales are large cigars, being nearly seven inches long. Their excellence has gained for them a wide reputation and a warm love. The Imperial speaks for itself; the Regalia comes from Regalar, to give or present. The Regalias differ from the preceding by being somewhat smaller and thinner. The Medias Regalias are considerably smaller. The Caza-dores Imperiales and the Cazadores correspond to the Regalias Imperiales and the Regalias, but are rather more slender in form. The Caballeros Imperiales and the Caballeros correspond to the Cazadores, with increased slenderness. The Panatelas Imperiales are more slender still than the preceding sort. The Panatelas (in English, “ Bread ” Cigars) are very thin and long. Bajonetas resemble the Caballeros and Panatelas. Canones (in English, “ Cannons ”) correspond to the Regalias. They have to some extent been displaced by the Millares Communes. Trabucos and Trabu-quillas are small cigars, thick in the middle. In Spain, Trabuco is the pame given to the short musket which widens toward the muzzle. Trompetas (Trumpets), Piramitas (Pyramids), are small cigars which gradually enlarge from the tip to the lighted end. Entreactos (“Between Acts”) are small cigars supposed to be smoked between the acts at the theatre; hence the name. They are very beautifully made. Damas (“Ladies,” cigars for ladies) are gracefully formed and exceedingly small. Others besides ladies smoke them, as is well known. Londres (London) is a small cigar, light in weight and very convenient in shape. Both in England and in the United States it is the most popular of all Havana cigars. Millares Communes are cigars of a plebeian type, in extensive use in Cuba itself. Made from common Tobacco, they have various subordinate names, according to the way in which they are pressed to add to the beauty of their appearance. Vegueros (“Planters,” or country cigarsi are made, or supposed to be made, on the Vegas, or Tobacco farms. They are roughly twisted into shape, and thus owe nothing to beauty; but only the finest leaves are employed. Their excessive price, and the great demand for them, have tempted manufacturers to imitate; thus producing, under the name of Vegueros, a very inferior article.
There is a further classification of cigars according to their strengths or colours, the colour being here taken as the indication of the strength. The colours or strengths are: the Amarillo Claro, bright yellow; Jmarillo, yellow; Amarillo Obscuro, dark yellow; Claro, bright; Colorado Claro, bright red; Colorado, red; Colorado Obscuro, dark red ; Colorado Maduro, red ripe or mellow; Maduro Claro, bright ripe or mellow; Maduro, ripe or mellow; Maduro Obscuro, dark ripe or mellow; Pajizo Claro, bright straw coloured; Pjizo Obscuro, dark straw coloured; Pajizo, straw coloured; Fuerte, strong or heavy; Entre Fuerte, rather strong or heavy; Flojo, light.
Finally, there is the indication of the qualities: Superfine; Fino, not quite so fine; Flor, finest or firsts; Superior, next or seconds; Buenos, next or thirds.
Thus, then, a cigar has a notable history. First has to be determined the part of the plant from which the Tobacco is taken; then the part of the leaf from which it is taken, the Tobacco being best which is furthest away from the root or middle of the leaf. One elaborate process follows another for the perfection of a work of art; for as such, as cannot too often be said, we must regard a cigar. So that we may say
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that, looking at the matter in all its numerous phases, only connoisseurs, never amateurs, should pronounce authoritatively and artistically on a cigar’s value. The fiscal part of the affair has an interest of its own, but it belongs to the domain of general statistics. Much, also, might be said about the best time to buy, and so on; but we may take it for granted that everyone who engages in the Tobacco trade knows, or ought to know, what he is about. For the English smoker, Cuba’s odorous cigar boxes give an additional fascination to Cuba’s odorous cigars. It may, however, be mentioned that, to preserve the aroma and fragrance of cigars, Cubans keep the cigars in wrappers of oiled and soft silk; and at the table the cigars are brought forth from their hiding-place with as much ceremony as if they were about to be worshipped. In connection with smoking, Hazard commends the Candela. This is a beautifully formed silver or plated dish or vase. It is filled with wood ashes, in the heart of which are some live coals. After each meal—generally just after the fruits—it is placed on the table. Both for elegance and convenience its superiority to even the most odorous match is indisputable. It would not surely be difficult to “ acclimatise ” in England this beautiful “institution.” When smoking cigarettes, Cuban ladies and gentlemen, who are or wish to be deemed “ throughbreds,” make use of a species of tongs, very graceful in design and shape, and made of silver or gold. One end has small claws to grasp the cigarette; the other is furnished with a small ring to put on the finger and to keep the glove or the hand itself from being stained. The Spanish call the famous Cuban city Habana. It is, perhaps, from a peculiarity of Spanish pronunciation that the English have changed this into Havana. Heartily we trust that our imperfect delineation may make the “Pearl of the Antilles” dearer to the true smoker than ever it has been. ^. Valiant ^bimling.* That Dr. Philip Pearsall Carpenter was eminent enough to merit a cordial and copious record of his sayings and doings cannot be questioned. In his brother, Russell Lant Carpenter, he has found an admirable biographer. Mr. Carpenter has accomplished a difficult and delicate task, alike with the best taste and the most affectionate devotedness. His tender regard for the memory of one who had too much of the saint to have anything of the sage, never betrays him into extravagant eulogy. As a philanthropist of a very peculiar, or, perchance, rather of a very eccentric type, Dr. Philip Carpenter is a supremely interesting figure. But he was also conspicuous as a scientific investigator, and as a conchologist he had few equals. It is, however, as the representative of a class whose good intentions are worthy of all praise, but whose influence is profoundly pernicious, that he chiefly deserves our attention and provokes our criticism. At Bristol, on the 4th November, 1819, was born Philip Pearsall Carpenter. He was the youngest of the six children of Dr. Lant Carpenter, a distinguished Unitarian minister. First three daughters and then three sons had come into the world. The eldest of the three daughters, Mary Carpenter, gained high and wide fame for her philanthropic labours, especially in connection with India. Mrs. Herbert Thomas and Mrs. Robert Gaskell, the other sisters, incited by the precepts and encouraged by the example of pious and benevolent parents, were, according to their means and opportunities, zealous in aiding schemes for the promotion of human welfare. Of Dr. William Benjamin Carpenter, the eldest of the three sons, it is not needful to speak, as he has long held a commanding and honoured position in the scientific world. The second son, Russell Lant Carpenter, is, like his father, a Unitarian minister, and he has shown that he is fitted to excel, no less as a writer than as a preacher. It is thus seen that Philip Carpenter belonged to a race of the gifted and the good. But he had, in a higher degree than the other members of his family, that originality which, if not always genius, is always akin thereto. In" Philip Carpenter’s early training there was nothing remarkable. As the son of a man who, besides occupying a pulpit, kept a school of a superior class, Philip had every educational advantage. James Martineau, a brother of Harriet Martineau, had been one of Dr. Lant Carpenter’s pupils. Dr. Carpenter fell seriously ill; and at midsummer, 1827, James Martineau undertook to superintend his school for a year. It was under this brilliant man that Philip Carpenter commenced his school career. Philip was a lively, affectionate boy, of quick parts. But his originality was in his character, not in his mind. He could learn easily and well in every domain of knowledge; he had, however, no instinctive inspiration, no interior life. Like many men of the past and of the present generation, he was over educated. A power of rapid assimilation, a feverish restlessness, a sharp eye for movement, but a total blindness to latent force, marked him out for the activities which revolutionise, which ♦ Memoirs of the Life and Work of Philip PearaaU Carpenter, B.A. London, Ph.D. New York. Chiefly derived from his Letters. Edited by his Brother, Bussell Lant Carpenter, BA Second Edition. London: C. Began Paul and Co., 1880.	transfigure the surface, but which seldom go below it. Beings like Philip Carpenter never suspect that there is such a thing as Nature at all—that is, an awful abysmal plenitude of life, ready to crash forth and wreck the glory of earth and the peace and joy of human communities. Amiable, cheerful, and with a sense of humour brisk rather than bountiful, Philip Carpenter could not be profoundly or permanently unhappy; but from his earliest days he was doomed to disappointment and disenchantment, because he thought, as nearly all our social reformers think, that a sort of fussy vivaciousness can work miracles. It was fortunate for him that in his tender years he got a fondness for shells and for music, and that he ultimately attained a thorough acquaintance with both; and it was fortunate for him that Bristol, though dirty and dismal in parts, is a very interesting city, and has the loveliest neighbourhood. The hours he spent in the beautiful landscapes round Bristol, and in the Cathedral, had a wholesome effect, and counteracted narrowing sectarian influences and the despotism of pedantries. He learned to play on the piano, then on the organ, and could sing well. Indeed, his musical proficiency enabled him to be, even from youth, an accomplished and successful musical instructor. Carlyle once said of Harriet Martineau that her literary career might be a blunder, but that she had supremely the faculties of an organiser, of a teacher. Philip Carpenter was likewise endowed with those faculties. But, as the son of a schoolmaster, and as himself a predestined schoolmaster, he saw not that, though the labours of pedagogues may be useful, it is only prophets who can be the redeemers of mankind. At the beginning of 1833, Philip Carpenter and his brother Russell entered the Bristol College, an institution which, benefiting Philip in other ways, helped him to gratify his liking for the natural sciences. One of the professors was Francis William Newman, from whom he could not fail to get valiant stimulation, and whose antipathy to vaccination, to roast beef, and to Tobacco, had not yet passed beyond the embryonic state. The eldest of Dr. Lant Carpenter’s sons, William, was a medical student at the University of Edinburgh. In October, 1836, William’s concluding session began. It was deemed advisable that Philip should accompany him. For Philip, as a lover of science, Edinburgh and its University had numberless attractions. Among other classes which Philip attended was that of Professor John Wilson, who had been his father’s fellow-student. To Wilson’s hospitable house William and Philip were always warmly welcomed. Wilson’s lectures did not impress Philip much, and Philip’s biographer speaks of them somewhat disparagingly. He who has been called the Rhapsodist of the Heather was, in the Edinburgh Chair of Moral Philosophy, in a wholly false position, especially as the successor of a metaphysician so subtle, so accomplished as Thomas Brown. But into all his utterances Wilson could not help pouring robust and opulent imagination and contagious virility. If the lectures had little metaphysical value, they had great poetical suggestiveness. The less they aided the students to be thinkers, the more they impelled and fitted them to be men—men of gigantic stature and mould. Always seeking channels for the expenditure of his energy, Philip, when in Edinburgh, became morning organist at St. Mark’s Unitarian Chapel. He also took a catechetical class in St. Mark’s Sunday School. At the end of the session, in April, 1837, Philip returned from Edinburgh to Bristol. It was decreed that Russell and Philip Carpenter were to be Unitarian ministers. For that purpose they, in September, 1837, went to the Manchester College, York. The Principal of the College, and the chief Theological Professor, was Charles Wellbeloved, a man of great and genuine learning, who published a translation of the Pentateuch, and who died in 1858, in his ninetieth year. The classical tutor, John Kenrick, Mr. Wellbeloved’s son-in-law, wrote works full of erudition, such as “Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs.” Mr. Kenrick had, like Mr. Wellbeloved, reached his ninetieth year when he died, in 1877. One of the smallest, the Unitarian has been one of the most timid and trimming of English sects, and it is now completely fossilised. It always felt uneasy till it ostracised those of its teachers who manifested any prophetic individuality. Philip Carpenter was not a prophet born. The Romans had a god called Pavor, and the god was served by priests named Pavorians. Philip Carpenter must have seen at York that he was expected to be a Pavorian, and to deaden his free spirit into Unitarian torpor. Pavorianism wearied and worried him, but his attempts to revolt against it during his college life it would be of slender profit here to recall. Appointed, in September, 1841, minister of the Unitarian Chapel at Stand, near Manchester, Philip Carpenter did much good, but was ensnared at every step by those hypocritical pedantries, those spurious humanitarianisms, which are the chief curse, the most flagrant contumely of the present generation, and which, along with the anarchical spirit that assumes the holy garb and the sacred ensigns of liberty, must ultimately ruin England. Philip had a brave, a true, a tender heart, and a keen, clear intellect; but bigness and brawniness he entirely lacked. He thought that a process of circumcision, of excision, applied to the whole individual, to the whole community, was the one thing needful. No more beer, no more Tobacco, no more gunpowder; unlimited tapioca and twaddle: what an Eden of delights!
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Lancashire was the centre of two great agitations: that in favour of the Charter and that against the Corn Laws. To those agitations Philip Carpenter could not be indifferent. But his own crotchets were of far more importance in his eyes. War he detested, not seeing that the operations of Nature are a fierce and ceaseless battle, that patriotism is impossible without the willingness to die for the fatherland, that war has been the grandest of civilising agencies, that it nourishes all beautiful chivalries, all divine virtues, that it rebukes and smites wickedness, though the wicked may often use it for base purposes, that it renders life holy by the sublimity of self-sacrifice. The more a crotchet was new and absurd, the more was Philip Carpenter the enthusiastic champion thereof. Doubtless, if he had been with us still, he would have bowed the knee to that puniest, most pretentious, most preposterous of prigs, Dr. Richardson! Possibly he might even have hailed as the Columbus of new philosophies and new religions the crazy creature called Hine, who has got two or three hundred thousand idiots to believe that Britons are the direct descendants of the lost ten tribes, and the heirs of the Israelitish mission, whatever that may be. Philip Carpenter was a curious compound of simplicity and shrewdness, of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; and his countrymen in general are not unlike him. Panza means Paunch; and, after an Englishman has ravenously filled his paunch, he is tormented by the vapour which ascends from the crude victuals to his brain. It is well if the vapour only turns to one mania; but it is almost sure to turn to a score. That Philip Carpenter’s sincerity was equal to his simplicity only made his crotchets the more pernicious to himself and to those who were influenced by his words and his example. How has the political action of England been paralysed and degraded by the insane and ignoble babblement about peace I And how crime has increased in England, and taken more and more loathsome and horrible shapes, through the sickly sympathy with the criminal I To surround the malefactor with a romantic interest is now the chief aim of our penal legislation. Then, again, how have the whims and whines about temperance despoiled morality of its sacred and heroic character, and benoodled it into an affair of cookery and police ! He whom the cantankerous abstainers and fanatical negationists profess profoundly to revere, and gladly to obey, was called gluttonous and a winebibber; He told his followers to take no thought for their life, what they should eat, or what they should drink ; He declared that not what goeth into the mouth, but that what cometh out of the mouth, defileth the man. In the Epistles attributed to Paul there are frequent and fervent rebukes of the petty spirit which would render a man the abject slave of his neighbour’s fantastic and silly notions about meats and drinks. Those who make the loudest profession of Christianity, in these days, are inspired wholly by the Pharisaism which was the nascent Gospel’s principal foe. From hypocrisy Philip Carpenter was wholly free, and he deemed himself a devout Christian. Yet what is wise and genial and catholic and truly human in the New Testament he scornfully rejected, and rushed into the jangle and echoed the jargon of the Mawworms and the Tartufes who, long centuries ago, crucified a Divine Being, crucified Him for shattering the chains of form and rite and ceremony, and teaching and emboldening the soul to breathe the free breath of the open heavens. I view it as an imbecility too pitiable Io be laughed at, when I find Philip Carpenter first refusing wine at the Lord’s Supper, and afterwards deriving great delight and comfort from the use of unfermented wine at the celebration of the Sacrament. Fortunately, Philip Carpenter, when at Stand, did not waste all his time in and on these sillinesses. He was an indefatigable worker; he had practical insight; he had a perspicacious glance; he was thoroughly unselfish; his heart was pure; his deeds were blameless, even if often odd. His sweetness of temper and his essential courtesy disarmed opposition. Like his friend Travers Madge, he atoned by holiness, renouncement, and love, for the maddest aberrations. But every saint, as such, is narrow, just as every sage, as such, is cold. Every saint, therefore, needs continual commune with enlarging influences—influences, too, which correct excesses, and which counsel while encouraging. Influences of this kind a Francis of Assisi, a Vincent de Paul, who were the elder brothers of Philip Carpenter and Travers Madge, found in the rich bosom of the Catholic Church, which, even in its most degenerate days, never lost its heritage of Roman valour and of Roman sagacity. But as the minister of a small sect, a sect as dead as the shells he studied, Philip Carpenter added to the narrowness of the saint the narrowness of the sect; and the double narrowness was never so absurd or so fatal, as when draping itself in the garb of a false enfranchisement.
At midsummer, 1846, Philip Carpenter left Stand to become minister of the Unitarian Chapel at Warrington. As Mr. Russell Carpenter states, Warrington had been a famous scene of Nonconformist action. From 1757 to 1783 a college or academy had existed at Warrington, which could boast of having among its professors half-a-dozen men more or less celebrated, Joseph Priestley being the foremost. But five primordial revolutionary forces had been busy in the world since the academy vanished into space—or, rather, changed its abode from Warrington to York. The first was the vast and awful political and social upheaval in France; the second the marvellous transfigurement of philosophy,
through Hume, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Krause, and others; the third the profound exploration of the Middle Ages, which renewed literature, transfigured criticism, and disclosed or created many fresh domains of thought; the fourth the colossal march of science; the fifth the still more colossal march of industrialism. Through the play of those forces the chapel at Cairo Street, Warrington, had, like nearly every other Unitarian chapel, grown into a species of anachronism, a sort of mortuary chapel, where the funeral service was said over a certain number of dead dogmas. What could be done in the discouraging circumstances, Philip Carpenter did; but at Warrington he was still more erratic than he had been at Stand. Many of his philanthropic efforts were admirable, and bore good fruits; many more were consummately ridiculous. I do not deem it ridiculous—I deem it, on the contrary, sublime and worthy of a St. Francis—that once, when his house was robbed, Philip invited by handbill the unknown thieves to come and have a friendly colloquy with him! Human goodness, and faith in human goodness, could not be carried farther. But I deem it ridiculous, and reprehensible as well as ridiculous, that, misled by hi# morbid commiseration, he should, when crimes however foul or flagrant were committed, have seen nothing but hapless human beings to be fondled and amended. About thirty years ago Carlyle wrote an Essay on Model Prisons, which, from its harsh spirit, was rather the protest against a social evil than the solution of a social problem. In his indignation at sentimental stupidity and sentimental slang, Carlyle overlooked the distinction between sins of infirmity and sins of depravity. As regards crime, the first thing we have to look at is the protection, the safety of society; the second,the preventihle causes of the offences; the third, the treatment of the offender, which, how severe soever, should never be inhuman, never be cruel; for cruelty in punishment brutalises the community, and thus becomes itself a fresh source of crime. Herefrom is derived the chief argument against the use of the lash. It has been said that the lash put down garotting. But to shoot the garotters would have put down garotting still more promptly, and would neither have been cruel nor brutalising. Philip Carpenter’s teetotalism revelled at Warrington in the most delirious gambols; and, in his hatred of war, he thought it wise and witty to call soldiers “Mankillers.” Here again he scorned the New Testament examples which he took as guides of his conduct. John the Baptist was as earnest as Philip Carpenter, and he had fiery elements in him which Philip Carpenter had not. Yet when soldiers demanded of John the Baptist what they should do, he did not denounce war as wicked, but he told them to do violence to no man, to accuse no man, and to be content with their wages. Philip’s wildest, most wayward wrath, however, was expended on Tobacco. He established an “ Oberlin Press,” with which he published leaflets and tracts. Through the aid of these tracts and leaflets he asked, in presence of the astonished Universe, “ Have Christians a right to smoke?” cried “Do not poison my air,” and “ Smokers, beware! ” The Oberlin Press was not to pollute itself by printing bills for publicans, pawn-tickets, “ puffs of Tobacco.” Philip delivered lectures on Customs of Hospitality, in which, of course, smoking occupied the same bad eminence as drinking. A part of his strength he spent in organising “ Bands of Hope.” The pledge was: “I promise to abstain from all intoxicating drinks as a beverage; ” there was generally, as an addition, “and also from opium and Tobacco.” Here we are equally led to detest the gross ignorance of human nature and the monstrous bigotry. As a rule, the heart of children is fixed on amusement, and their stomach yearns for nothing more perilous to their health and peace than fruits and sweetmeats. But can there be any more effectual way of tempting children to long for intoxicating drinks, for opium, and for Tobacco, than by making them swear to abstain from them ? Is it not detestable also to treat children as responsible beings, capable of sound and mature judgment on matters respecting which moralists and men of science are far from agreeing? Philip Carpenter could see the harm of training children to be the slaves of theological dogmas; but he could not see that his “ Band of Hope” tyranny was equally execrable. In allusion to an excursion which he and some friends had taken to Peterborough, he said that the “whole expense of a journey of nearly three hundred miles was less than a month’s drinking and smoking to an ordinary working man.” Now, Philip Carpenter knew —or, at least, he ought to have known—that there is no necessary connection between smoking and drinking; that the most enthusiastic smokers are not drinkers; that, even if a working man is devoted both to beer and Tobacco, very small indeed is the outlay on the Tobacco compared with the outlay on the beer. But, as the ardent apostle of a hundred fads, he could not resist the temptation to smite smoking and drinking with the same anathema. At the end of 1858, Philip Carpenter took a journey to America, which had various objects, some of them scientific. But we might almost think that the principal object was to intensify to the insanest point his enmity to the Divine Weed. He “ went to Professor Agassiz at his den—a frame house, and the idea of fire is appalling; and yet he and his assistants are constantly smoking.” The reckless brutes I Going by steamer to Louisville, Philip walked to the famous Mammoth Cave. Of course his dislike to smoking was increased by his dislike to slavery. This is his account of his behaviour in the cave on his first
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visit, when he lunched along with a number of gentlemen and two ladies:—“ The gentlemen smoked. I ventured to remark that it was a wonder the female part of the population could do without smoking, while the men were always doing it. Whereupon one of them said that the females got their share. I replied: ‘ Yes, indeed ; and we men that do not smoke have to breathe all the puffs that have been in the men’s dirty mouths I ’ This struck them all of a heap, and there was a great silence. One of them then suggested that I should be punished. I suggested, however, that I had punishment enough in being obliged to walk all through smoke, all the way through the cave, and it w-as agreed that should suffice.” Philip Carpenter’s motive may have hem very noble; but most of us must confess that he was guilty of extreme impertinence. On emerging from the cave he had this experience of a stage coach :—“ One of the stage horses fell down dead. Of course, none of the lazy fellows smoking on the top of the coach offered to walk when they saw the poor beasts flogged; people who flog men and women cannot be expected to be very particular about other men’s horses.” The hotels were as repulsive as the stage coaches : ‘•It is very appalling to pass through the entrance and thread one’s way through the pack of lazy, drinking, smoking Southerners, all staring at you with the air of men who are accustomed to know everybody’s business, and, if not satisfactory, to lynch them.” At St. Paul’s, Minnesota, Philip met a young Philadelphian, who might have found favour in his eyes, but for Tobacco: ‘‘He talked learnedly about scientific matters; ‘ No one here cared for such things, had not time, and so forth.’ To whom I said ‘ that it appeared to me that the people had plenty of time for anything, from the way they lounged about smoking, and so on; and that what was wanting was the taste and the will;’ soon after which he and his cigar decamped.” Philip Carpenter was in the Senate House, Washington, about a year before the Secession War began. Seward made a speech, and Philip records: ‘‘My Southern neighbour grunts opposition, and chews Tobacco, and spits.”
On his return to Warrington, in June, 1860, Philip Carpenter, on whom the University of New York had conferred the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, resumed as far as he could his former modes of existence. But many things made his position uncomfortable, among which must not be reckoned his marriage, on the 1st October, 1860, to Miss Minua Meyer, of Hamburg. More and more extending his scientific range, he did not relax his philanthropic efforts; but he continued to display his old narrowness, bigotry, and self-sufficiency. It is amusing to hear him say, as a niaIdeologist: “Working so long over strong spirits makes me feel very queer.” And his brother adds, with charming innocence: “ Sometimes even the shells brought him into a poisoned atmosphere, when he had to work on them with those to whom smoking seemed a necessity.” A poisonous atmosphere created by Tobacco, a powerful disinfectant! Energetic young men had established a Co-operative Society in Warrington. At first Philip Carpenter counselled and aided ; “ but when it was resolved to sell Tobacco at the store, he took no further part in it.”
In January, 1862, he resigned his pastorate at Warrington, and. after a lecturing tour, settled for a season at Manchester. During his visit to America he had been much fascinated by Montreal, and by the vast landscapes of which it is the centre. Accompanied by his wife, and by a boy whom he had adopted in America, he sailed from Liverpool on the 26th October, 1865. With the exception of a visit to England in 1874, the remainder of his life was spent at Montreal, and resembled that Indian summer about which all travellers in America are enthusiastically eloquent. Having renounced preaching as a profession, he set up at Montreal a school, which flourished as much through moral suasion as through intellectual sway. He was more useful and happy in the New World than he had been in the old. The scientific museums of Montreal he enriched; its scientific studies he stimulated. But it was chiefly by aiding to bring Montreal into a better sanitary condition that he made himself mighty and memorable. After his ancient fashion, however, he persisted in throwing into a hideous jumble things which had no necessary relation. Take these words as proof: “If we breathed pure air, drank and washed over daily with pure water, ate pure food, allowed none but pure thoughts and chaste actions ; if the poisons of alcohol, Tobacco, drugs, dead bodies of Digs, and corrupt food, of rotten vegetable and animal matters, and of corrupting lusts in heart and life were put far from us, we should have no further need of vile remedies for a hundredfold viler diseases.” On his way to England he made, with scientific designs, an excursion to Peak’s Island, near Portland. Tobacco would not leave him at rest even here: “ On Saturday afternoon we saw a great smoke, and then three fine steamers, one after another, sail down the tide, all in full blaze. We found afterwards that it caught under an office on the wharf, full of shavings and so on. I suppose, as usual, some one’s pipe end.” On the voyage he hid himself in his stateroom “ a good part of the day, to avoid talk and Tobacco.” Even after his death Tobacco comes upon us. Some young men “unite in saying that whenever they think of smoking and drinking, they remember his warning, and will not have anything to do with either.”
On the 23rd May, 1877, the holy, heroic, and honoured career of Philip Carpenter came to a close, at “Brandon
Lodge,” Montreal. The inhabitants lamented in him one of the noblest citizens, one of the best of men. In his last years his religious opinions underwent considerable change, and inclined toward Swedenborgianism, though he was fondest of worshipping in Episcopalian churches. His virtues were his own; his faults and failures arose from his radical misconception of human duty and of human destiny. To shatter the harmoniously arranged Sun System into an eccentric Comet with crown and tail, verily that is not our work as children of Nature; but our work is to bring ourselves into the general order, the magnificent sweep of solar forces. The community cannot be regenerated by exceptional and repressive agencies, by abstinence from beer and Tobacco, by Local Option, and the like quackeries and Gothamisms. Manliness is godliness; and manliness is a positive power, a kingly development. How deplorable is the moral penury of the present age! In the days, long gone by, of the mythical period, the elemental and demonic energies had their empire; in the beautiful symmetry of the Hellenic world virtue, no less than genius, had a home; in the Feudal aud Catholic centuries richness of phantasy aud most stalwart strength atoned for the anarchy and the misery. But now all is restraint and bondage and negation and parochial paltriness; and even the purity that receives such profuse homage from the Pharisees and from saintly souls like Philip Carpenter, is not true purity, which comes from passion alone, as the purity of the sea comes from immense and ceaseless agitation.
An Old University Man.
|kriptctic ^rpts.
The following correspondence explains itself.— [Ed.] TO THE EDITOR OF COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
Dear Sir,—I confess with regret that I can find no more “ Pipe Colourers” worthy of the Plant. I may come across others some day. If I do, I shall be happy to let you know all about them. I am rather at a loss what to be about next. I’m getting too old for work that calls for much labour. I will be bold with you. Take me in as your Poet. You may not be aware of it, but that is your weak point. You have no proper bard attached to your staff. For some years I have felt a longing to be occupied in writing poetry. Will you kindly yield to my solicitations? I enclose specimens.
Yours faithfully,
Didimus Gooos.
Liverpool.
Sir,—The specimens of poetry you enclosed, we have read. Two of them are very fine—they are from Byron. One is weak: that is from Tupper. The other three are, we presume, your own. O! Goggs, we thought it was the cucumber that made us feel so queer the other night, till we remembered we had been reading your poetry. (?) We dare not print any of it. We should have our windows broken by an infuriated mob. To say nothing about the sense—or, rather, nonsense —of it, look at the extraordinary variations you play on metres generally. A thought strikes us: yours must be the poetry of tho future—we mean the future not within “measurable distance.” Our belief is that you do not know the difference between a pentameter and a penny squirt. Hide your head, you ancient fraud! One of your lines contains eleven feet in excess of what it should, while in the same “poem” you rhyme “hat” with “judgment” and “fountain” with “exclamation.” A pretty bard, truly! There is only one way in which you will be useful on the staff of the Plant. You know as well as we do that it is only out of charity, and to keep you from the workhouse, that we employ you at all. Just put on your hat, if you have not pawned it, and walk abroad. Do a series of “ Peripatetic Pipes,” and send us any details of interest you can get hold of; and, if you abstain from untruthfulness, and make your dish readable, you may remain with us for the present.
Yours &c.,
The Editob.
TO THE EDITOR OF COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
Sir,—I am hurt, greatly and deeply hurt; not only at your criticism and observations, but at the whole of your contemptuous and insulting document. Were it not for the fact that I am supporting by my literary labours two broken-down schoolmasters and a nobleman out of work, I should spurn your filthy lucre. I cannot, however, let my proteges perish, so I take my hat and well-worn umbrella and go forth into the world.
Yours sadly,
D. Gooos.
“ Rise, Herod, my hound, from the stranger’s floor; Old friend, we must wander the world once more.”
These pathetic lines of the poet were on my lips as I passed into the street. Not that I had a dog of any description, much less a hound; but, apart from the existence of the dog addressed, it seemed to me that there was a sad similarity in my fate and the fate of the gentleman who owned Herod. To pause for a moment, I think, perhaps, that if the whole history of that affair was known, we might find that in bestowing
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sympathy on Herod and his owner, we were bestowing it on xinworthy objects. What right had Herod on a stranger’s floor at all, to say nothing of his attitude ? He was evidently sprawling, or his master would not have told him to rise. Now, if the floor was small and the hound large, he’d cover about half of it, so that the owner of the house would very likely have to go and sit on the stairs. But to my journey.
Having lit my old pipe, I paused at the street corner. Which way should I bend my feeble steps ? The wise men came from the East; should I, then, go West? “To the West, to the West, to the land of the free! ” I sighed. “Ah! I’ve no business in the land of the free. Am I not a slave, a slave to an Editor? Shall I go to the East? No,” said I; “that is where the wind I dislike so much comes from; I shall certainly not go and meet it half-way. To the North ?” A cloud sat on my massive brow as I reflected that every step I took in that direction would bring me nearer to my hateful task-master. No North for me. The South, then, was the only way open to me; so, consulting the compass attached to my watch-chain, a cheap little toy given to me many years ago at school for truthfulness, I started due South.
I walked to the end of a long road without meeting any obstacle or adventure; and then, to my utter astonishment, I found a tavern right in front of me. I could have gone round either side of this tavern; but I had laid my course for due south, as near as I could do it, and was I to be turned out of my way by a public-house? No! The centre door was exactly south, so in I went. Here I found the bar facing me. Of course I could not climb over that, nor could I well pass out at a side door without taking a glass of ale, for there stood an attendant waiting my orders. Knowing the danger of drinking a glass of ale suddenly, I concluded to sit down for a little time in sober reflection.
There was a fat, greasy-looking man standing at the bar, smoking his pipe, and adding to his bulk by occasional draughts of some description of beer out of a pewter pint pot. He had rough clothes on that had seen a great deal of service, and a hat that had evidently seen better days a good long time ago. I should say that hat had gone through every sort of hat adventure, from simply getting wet in a shower of rain to being run over. I regret to have to say that the man was not perfectly sober. His legs told the secret to me. At times he seemed to be smitten with a sudden impulse to assume a kneeling posture. His knees would give way a little; but, quick as lightning, his calves would spring back with a jerk. At other times he seemed inclined to take a sudden seat in the sawdust; but each time those ever watchful and sturdy calves fetched him up to the perpendicular, like a couple of drill-sergeants. He did not stagger, for the soles of his feet never once quitted their original position.
Suddenly turning to me, the man described above said: “ What I maintain is this, and I defy you to deny it. I’m a Radical, a regular up-hill and down-dale Radical; I’m a Radical to my marrow, sir.” ■
“ Ah! ” I replied, feeling bound to say something, “ very good ; and very energetically put, as a solid, sober man would put it.” I said this to mollify him. I feared if I enraged him, he might fall on me and break me into pieces. Old people are very brittle.
“I’m solid, but I’m not sober, sir,” he cried, bringing down his Ast with a bang on to the counter. “Am I now? Honestly—am I ? ”
“ Well,” I answered, for I felt that I was in rather a delicate position, “ you might, perhaps, possibly be a little more sober, but if any person was to say that you were drunk, right down drunk, I for one should be inclined to think, if not to say, that the person making such a statement was inclined at times, if not always, to build on a slight foundation of truth an edifice of lies.”
“But I am drunk,” he said, in a quiet and confidential manner; “I’m drunk with excitement. You’ll excuse me putting it into poetry; I do a little that way sometimes.
11A glass of ale, and a jolly good ‘ holler*
Makes you more drunk than if quarts you swollen”
“ Not Shakespeare,” I observed.
“No, sir; a better man than Shakespeare wrote that.”
“ Oh! ” said I.
“Yes,” he replied, “that’s mine, and I’m a better man than Shakespeare, because I’m alive and he’s dead. Here’s my meaning: have a glass of ale and then get arguing; get excited and hot over it, same as I do, and that’ll make you drunk as sure as anything. I only had one glass of ale and an argument before I had this half-pint, and see how drunk I ““•” . .
“ What have you been arguing about ? ” I inquired.
“ Politics, sir—politics,” he replied, “ and everything else, nearly. Tm a Radical, and I don’t care who knows it. We’ve been arguing and hollering, and the ale’s got into my head. I suppose the arguing takes away some of the brain, and the ale takes its place.”
“ Possibly,” I said.
“ I’m not only a political Radical,” he continued, “ but a moral, a social, and a personal Radical. Everything wants altering—everything! We depend too much on one another, and not enough on ourselves. If a man wants a table, say I, let him make it. If a man wants a chair, let him make it, or go without it. If a man wants luxuries, let him make ’em.”
“But surely you do not consider tables and chairs luxuries?” I inquired.
“ Most certainly I do,” he replied, fiercely. “ How about Adam and Eve? Did they want chairs and tables, chests of drawers, four-post bedsteads, and warming pans? Not they. They did without them; why can’t we ? Besides, if they did have them, they had to make them.”
“You mean to say,” I retorted, for I was getting out of patience with the fat man, “that whatever a man wants he should make, or go without. How about your clothes? did you make them? Did you even make that remarkable hat?”
He looked at me for a moment gloomily; then said, “You are an old fool; ” and, finishing his beer, stalked grimly out of the house. I very soon left the place, and, throwing “due south ” to the dogs, wandered at will.
I gave a copper to a poor fellow who seemed to deserve it. His story was rather sad, but too long to relate here. I will give it condensed. He said: “I am hungry, sir, and thirsty. I have been out of work for many years. The last time I had a job was eleven years ago, and that was holding a horse. It was cold weather, and I just trotted him up and down a bit, so as he shouldn’t get cold. I was only about a couple of miles away, when the owner came up in a cab and gave me into custody for stealing his horse. Notwithstanding my protestations of innocence, I was sentenced to penal servitude, and it broke my heart. I’ve never worked since.”
D. Goggb.
| Smoke ^uisanrt.
[From Fun, November 3,1880.]
Not smoke in my uniform! Well!
What can you expect after that ?
They make Volunteering a “ sell”— Such strict regulations—that’s flat!
’Tis hard to be treated this way— It goes much beyond any joke!
Yet if I resign, they will say, His soldiering’s ended in smoke!”
I’m no slave to country and Queen— That no Briton ever will be!
And so it remains to be seen
If I will obey this decree.
Should conscience decide that I ought, Of course I can never refuse—
Ha! if I can’t smoke—happy thought! I always can “chew”—if I choose!
Sobara ^sislaiion in f^t S^wt ginghams.
xm.
Mr. Forster thus sums up the results of this department of Wentworth’s activity:—“ The embarrassments of the Irish treasury had now vanished, no anticipations any longer weakened it, every charge of government was paid to a day,— and, in the fifth year of his power, Lord Wentworth announced to the King that the annual income would exceed the expenditure by £60,000.” •
In May, 1636, he appeared at the English court, was received with the greatest favour, and commanded by the King to recite all the details of his Irish administration “ at a very full Council.” Toward the close of his narrative he adverted to “ some particulars wherein I have been very undeservedly and bloodily traduced.” He mentioned the “ slanders ” [essentially true] that had been circulated, proclaiming him “a severe and austere and hard-conditioned man, rather indeed a basha of Buda, than the minister of a pious Christian King.” He referred to his private life in order to prove that any “seeming strictness” in his public was necessary for his Majesty’s service. “ For where I found a Crown, a Church, and a people spoiled, I could not imagine to redeem them from under the pressure with gracious smiles and gentle looks. It would cost warmer water than so!” The
♦Mr. Forster remarks, p. 382: “ Yorkshire meanwhile, and Wentworth Woodhouse had not been forgotten by the lord deputy! If he had been living simply as a private gentleman in Ireland, instead of being the immediate manager and director of schemes which would have overwhelmed the strength of a dozen ordinary men,—he could not have attended with greater minuteness and apparent ease to his private affairs in England."
And he could find time for other things too, p. 835: “ So also, burthened with his mighty schemes, the lord deputy found time for every office of private service, of friendship, of scholarlike amusement. He made hi# newsman, Mr. Garrard, forward him copies of Dr. Donne’s poetry, which he was amazingly fond of; gathered antiquities for the King; vanquished Inigo Jones in a discussion on architecture; reared a young greyhound among his own children for the little Prince of York; corresponded with old friends in Yorkshire; discussed with Vandyke on various marbles; hunted, hawked, and played at the games of primero and mayo. * He played excellently well,’ says Radcliffe [Sir George Radcliffe, his private secretary and dmr damnee, whose “Essay towards the Life of my Lord Strafforde” was published as an appendix to “ The Earl of Strafforde's Letters and Dispatches," Dublin, 1740: Forster, p. 178], and for company sake, in Christmas, and after supper, he would play sometimes; yet he never was much taken with it, nor used it excessively, but as a recreation should be used. His chief recreation was after supper, when, if he had company which were suitable unto him, that is, honest cheerful men, he would retire into an inner room, and set two or three hours, taking Tobacco, and telling etoriee with great pleasantness and freedom [Forster’s italics]: and this he used constantly, with all familiarity .in private, laying then aside all State and that due respect which in public he would expect.’ ”
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genuine strain of your born master of men and circumstances, be it a Strafford, a Cromwell, or a Napoleon; the last of whom insisted on the notable fact that omelettes cannot be made without breaking of eggs. Still Lord President of the North, he went down to York, and with his usual vigour set about the collection of ship-money. “ In every other county, murmurs, threats, and curses accompanied the payment,—in Yorkshire, during Wentworth’s presence, silence.” The miserably mean King refused him for the second time an earldom, for which he asked in order to increase his dignity, and therefore his power as lord deputy. Returning to Ireland, he carried on the old arbitrary but sagacious system of government. “ While the subject enjoyed security [unless he had lands which Wentworth wanted for the Crown] from the entire suppression of internal insurrections and depredations, the royal revenues, arising from produce and consumption, experienced a rapid increase. . . Not a messenger or a letter arrived from England, however, without news that dashed his prosperity and his pride. He saw as much beyond the narrow vision of the English courtiers as his sagacity out-reached theirs, and, in the hollow madness of their measures, had already discerned disastrous issues. The ruin they were precipitating he bitterly knew would involve himself ; yet he had not even the poor consolation of feeling that the only portion of the King’s service that had in it any of the elements of stability, his own government, had a single hearty defender at the English Court. Laud, indeed, was still his friend ; but Laud’s ecclesiastical administration had by this time well high incapacitated its master for any purpose of good. The popular party in England, meanwhile, taking advantage of the occasion, raised a loud and violent voice of clamour against the Lord Deputy of Ireland. . . . Charles had now the Queen’s influence upon him, and the Queen was not displeased to hear of the sinking fortunes of Wentworth.” For the Queen loved chamber knights, and loved not this man of the “ bent brow” and demoniac energy, who fascinated sympathetically a high-spirited Countess of Carlisle, and carried by storm the hearts of weaker women; but Henrietta Maria was devoted to a Jermyn and other such creatures of the sleek chamberlain or genteel lackey type.
It must be always borne in mind that he went on carrying out his vast and manifold designs, “which would have overwhelmed the strength of a dozen ordinary men,” while tortured and partially disabled (most men would have been utterly disabled) by a terrible complication of grievous maladies: “ The gout, the toothache [perhaps neuralgia], the ague, an intermittent pulse, faint sweats and heaviness, and, to crown all, the frightful disorder of the stone, alternately broke his spirits [?—he was simply indomitable, his spirit was not to broken] and warned him ‘that nodong life awaited him here below 1 ’ What still remained to him, he yet resolved to live out bravely. ‘ A frame of wood,’ he writes to Laud, * I have given order to set up in a park I have in the county of Wickloe. And, gnash the tooth of these gallants never so hard, I will by God’s leave go on with it, that so I may have a place to take my recreation for a month or two in a year [even in those days he could get back to Dublin within a couple of hours], were it for no other reason than to displease them, by keeping myself, if so please God, a little longer in health! ’ ” He lived in royal State; not, as he averred and I believe truly, out of vanity but of necessity, “ judging it not to become me, having the great honour to represent his Majesty’s sacred person, to set it forth, no not in any one circumstance, in a penurious mean manner, before the eyes of a wild and rude people.”—“Nor did he scruple to conceal [reveal?] the fact that his own private fortune had been assisted in these vast charges, by certain public profits. 1 It is very true,’ he writes to Laud, ‘ I have, under the blessing of Almighty God, and the protection of his Majesty, £6000 a year good land [say £15,000 at present values], which I brought into his service; and I have a share for a short term in these customs, which, whilst his Majesty’s revenue is there increased more than £20,000 by year, proves nevertheless a greater profit to me than ever I dreamt of.’ When Laud read this passage to Charles, the king observed, impatiently, ‘ but he doth not tell you how much,’ and plainly intimated that he grudged the Minister his share of profit. Wentworth had few occasions of gratitude to Charles during a life worn out in his service! In respect to these customs, it is not to be doubted that Charles’s suspicions were grossly unjust. He would have had more of abstract justice with him in objecting to a different source of his lord deputy’s revenue, that of the Tobacco monopoly, for, on the latter ground, undoubtedly, Wentworth was open to grave charges, though, even here, the King was the last person from whom with any propriety they could issue.”—Forster, 353-5.
Tn Sects. XI. and XII. I have touched on the Scottish business, of which Charles, with Laud and Hamilton, made such a miserable mess; and related how the King, after making but poor use of the counsel Wentworth had given in writing at last in extremity summoned him to the Court and Council. But before leaving Ireland he had settled matters there, at least for the time, in his own “ thorough ” manner:—“ By his amazing personal energy, he forced down some opening rising commotions among the 60,000 Scottish settlers in Ulster, and not only disabled them from joining or assisting their countrymen but compelled them to abjure the covenant. Nor this alone! He forwarded from Ireland a detachment of troops to garrison Carlisle; he announced that the army of Ireland was in
a state of active recruiting and discipline; he offered large contributions from himself and his friends towards the necessary expenses of resistance; and by every faith of loyalty, and bond of frendship and of service, he called on every man in Yorkshire to stir themselves [sic] in the royal cause . . . The sluggish and irresolute councils of England looked ill beside the movements of the deputy. The King asked a service of him, but the instructions came too late. ‘If his Majesty’s had been known to me in time, he wrote to Vane, the treasurer of the household [soon to be Secretary of State, superseding old Coke: he was Sir Henry the little father of the great Sir Henry], I could have as easily secured it against all the covenanters and devils in Scotland, as now walk up and down this chamber. But where trusts and instructions come too late, there the business is sure to be lost! Openly he now expressed his censure of the royal scheme that had prevailed since the death of Buckingham.”—359-60.
Summoned by the King, he at once prepared to obey, putting in order all State and family affairs. Secretary Windebanke had hinted the danger he incurred. “I humbly thank you,” he answered, “ for your friendly and kind wishes to my safety, but if it be the will of God to bring upon us for our sins that fiery trial,—all the respects of this life laid aside, it shall appear more by my actions than words, that I can never think myself too good to die for my gracious master, or favour my skin in the zealous and just prosecution of his commands.” Another—whom he deemed not unwilling to thwart him, reckoning upon safety from the consequences in the lord deputy’s certain destruction—he thus warned: “ Perchance even to those that shall tell you, before, them I am but as a feather, I shall be found sadder [heavier] than lead! ”
“He had arranged everything for his departure, when one of his paroxysms of illness seized him. He wrestled with it desperately and set sail. On landing at Chester he wrote to Lady Wentworth a sad description of the effects of the journey upon his gout, and the ‘flux’ which afflicted him. He rallied, however, and appeared in London, in November, 1639. In a memorable passage, the historian May has described the general conversation and conjecture which had prepared for his approach* Some, he says, remembering his early exertions in the cause of the people, fondly imagined that he had hitherto been subservient to the Court only to ingratiate himself thoroughly with the King, and that he would now employ his ascendancy to wean his Majesty from arbitrary counsels. Others, who knew his character more profoundly, had different thoughts, and secretly cherished their own most active energies [most notably Pym and Hampden.] ”—Forster, 366. This “ memorable passage ” in May’s “ Pari. Hist.” is cited at length in the “ Pict. Hist.,” HI., 209, Note. It opens: “ Great was the expectation of all the English, what would be the effect of his coming over: great was the opinion which men in general had of his ability and parts; looking at him as the only hinge upon which the State was now likely to turn.” And closes: “But others durst not hope so much from him, when they considered his government in Ireland, and the ambition of the man: they feared . . . that he was sent for only to complete that bad work which others of less brain than he had begun. Which he would sooner venture to do, than to make himself the author of a new and good one; seeing it hath been observed that few statesmen have ever opposed princes, but rather seconded and assisted them in their bad inclinations.”—May, Sir Humphrey, was a contemporary, and had been a conspicuous member of Parliament in 1628, when he delivered to the House the King’s gracious (and insincere) message for recording and printing and publishing the Petition of Right with the royal confirmation. —“ Pict. Hist.,” III., 134 ; and Sect. VIII., April, last paragraph.
“Wentworth, Laud, and Hamilton instantly formed a secret council—a ‘cabinet council,’ as they were then enviously named by other courtiers; a ‘ junto,’ as the people reproachfully termed them. The nature of the measures to be taken against the Scots was variously and earnestly discussed, and Wentworth, considering the extremity of affairs, declared at once for war.”f He had done his best by letters to dis-
♦ Though Charles, with his love of underhand ways, had written in summoning him, after saying that his advice was required respecting the army, “ but I have much more, and indeed too much to desire your counsel and attendance for some time, which I think not fit to express by letter, more than this,—the Scots’ covenant begins to spread too far. Yet, for all this, I will not have you take notice that I have sent for you, but pretend some other occasion of business.'’ Just as, with altogether selfish and cowardly duplicity, Charles had imposed on Wentworth the arrangement that the King should gather “ golden opinions ” by a liberal bestowment of honours in Ireland in his own name on the more troublesome suitors, while to his deputy was assigned the task of publicly interposing a veto on the royal benefactions (not intended, but pretended) in cases where honours and grants were refused, and receiving in his own person the curses of the disappointed.—Forster, 244. All the good to be attributed to the King, all the evil to the lord deputy: an excellent arrangement for his most gracious Majesty 1]
I It may be worth while noting that the “Bishop’s War" against the Scots occasioned the disgrace and expulsion of the mordant court '‘fool,” Archy Armstrong, so long a favourite of James and Charles. In 1618 (Sect. V.) we have seen that he was granted the monopoly of making Tobacco pipes; in 1623 he joined Prince Charles and Buckingham at Madrid. Notwithstanding his cap and bells, he was a stout Presbyterian, or Puritan, and, as such, very averse to the Spanish match. Howell writes (quoted “ Pict. Hist.," ID., 94): “ Our cousin Archy hath more privilege than any; for he often goes with his fool's coat where the Infanta is with her Meuinas and ladies of honour [Menina, feminine of page; attached from girlhood to personal service of Spanish princess], and keeps a blowing and blustering among them, and blurts out
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suade Charles from the first ignonimous attempt at war, and so was not at all responsible for this “ extremity.” In like manner he had resolutely refused to be goaded by Laud into precipitate measures for constraining Ireland into a conformity of religion with England. “ So while Laud, in England, was, by a series of horrible persecutions, torturing and mutilating the Puritans, the deputy of Ireland could boast with perfect truth that ‘ since I had the honour to be employed in this place, no hair of any man’s head hath been touched for the free exercise of his conscience.’ ”—See Forster, 316-21.
Wentworth proposed a loan among the great lords and officers of the Crown, subscribing to it by way of example, an example by no means zealously followed, the enormous sum of £20,000; proposed, likewise, the instant issuing of writs for ship-money to the amount of £200,000 (say, equal £500,000 now); and pledged himself to bring over a large subsidy from Ireland if the King would call a Parliament there. But the writs of ship-money now brought in little, being resisted by many and ill-paid by more. However, encouraged by Wentworth’s assurance and dominating vigour, it was resolved not only to summon a Parliament in Ireland, but also a little later in England, the object being that the former should serve as a good example to the latter. The resolution to call together the English Parliament was voted in full Council; Laud, Bishop Juxon (lord high treasurer), Hamilton, Northumberland, Cottington, Windebanke, Vane (the elder), Wentworth. Charles, upon finding the Committee unanimous, put this significant question—‘‘ whether, if the Parliament should prove as untoward as some have lately been [nearly eleven years since the last!], the Lords would not then assist him in such extraordinary ways in this extremity as should be thought fit. Which being put to votes, the Lords did all unanimously and cheerfully promise that in such case they would assist him with their lives and fortunes in such extraordinary ways as should be advised and found best for the preservation of his State and Government. Whereupon his Majesty declared his resolution for a Parliament, and that it shall begin the 13 of April next. It had begun sooner, but that the lord deputy is to go first into Ireland, and to call a Parliament likewise there, and make a session before this here shall meet.”—Windebanke to Sir Arthur Hopton; ‘‘Clarendon State Papers,” II.. 812.
So his most pious and gracious Majesty, backed by his most loyal Council, had already resolved to coerce his beloved people by force of aims, at the risk of civil war, if they did not crouch abjectly under his despotism.
We have already, Sect. XI., had Boger Coke’s shrewd observation, “ This King’s good nature never more appeared than in his necessities.” So now, finding himself and his absolutism, which may well be named the Bad Old Cause in contrast with the Good Old Cause for which Vane was to die on the scaffold, almost wholly dependent on the vigour and and daring of “ his one supremely able man,” Charles, with that gratitude which is a lively sense of favours to come, vouchsafed unsolicited to Wentworth the honour, and more than the honour, twice solicited in vain; solicited, I verily believe, as Wentworth averred, purely for the purpose of increasing his dignity and power in the estimation of tho people of Ireland. He was created Earl of Strafford and Baron of Raby in January, 1640, adorned with the Garter, and, instead of Lord Deputy, named Lord Lieutenant or Lieutenant General of Ireland, a title which had not been given since the days of Elizabeth’s last favourite. He forthwith wrote to his wife : ‘‘ God willing, you will soon see the Lieutenant of Ireland, but never like to have a Deputy of Ireland to your husband any more.”—Foster, 367.
On his way back to Ireland he had a severe attack of gout at Beaumaris, yet, still able to move, he hurried on board, notwithstanding the contrary winds, lest he should be utterly prostrated. He wrote at the same time in high spirits to Secretary Cooke:—“ Sound or lame, you shall have me with you before the beginning of the [English] Parliament. I should not fail, though Sir John Eliot were living!” [A remarkable tribute, coming from such a man, to the lofty genius and formidable energy of the noble martyr who impeached Buckingham.] “ In the mean space, for love of Christ, call upon and hasten the business now in hand, especially the raising of horse, and all together, the rather, that for this work now before us, should it miscarry, we are all like to be very miserable,—but carried through advisedly and gallantly, shall by God’s blessing set us in safety and peace for our lives at after [aiej, nay, in probability, the
what he list.” I have already (Sect. V.) quoted his bitter equivoque: “ Great Praise to God, and little Laud to the Devil.” Now we read in Forster s “ Pym,” p. 88, concerning Laud's desperate attempt to impose the common prayer, Ac., upon the Scots: “A fool might have seen the result, and, indeed, one fool did see it, and was whipped for his folly. I do not know that it has been remarked before, but the disgrace of the famous Archy, the jester of Charh h I., took place at this time. ‘Archy is fallen into a great misfortune,’ writes a letter of the time. ‘A fool ho would be, but a fonl-mmthud knave he hath proved himself; being in a tavern in Westminster, drunk, he saith himself [which makes it very dubious], he was speaking of the Scottish business, he fell a railing on my lord of Canterbui y, said he teas a monk, a rogue, and a trailor. Of this his grace complained at Council, the King being present; it was ordered he should be earned to the porter's lodge, his coat pulled over his cars, and kicked out of the Court, never to enter within the gates, and to be culled into the Star-chamber. The first part is done, but my lord of Canterbury hath interceded to the King, that ♦ h^re it should end. [“Hero Satan s sole good work deserves insertion’] There is a new fool in his place, Muckle John, but he will never be so rich, for he cannot abide money? This last must have been a fool indeed 1 ”
generations that are to succeed us. Fi a faute de courage, je rien aye que trop! What might I be with my legs that am so brave without them? Well, halt, blind, or lame, I will be found true to the person of my gracious master, to the service of his crown and my friends.”—Forster, 367-8.
Sigvat.
tillage (Dbbitics; or, t^t ^nn of the ^ollg tapsters.
IV.—DICK ARNOLD, THE “ OCCASIONAL TAPSTER.” Sometimes, of an afternoon, there would drop into the inn of the “ Jolly Tapsters ” a bicyclist, looking tired and weary enough, aud wishful for tea and a break in his journey townward or down south. Pray, don’t turn up your nose at the mention of tea. You wouldn’t have turned up your nose at the tea they placed before you at the “Jolly Tapsters.” The spotless cloth would be laid in the cosiest room in the best of styles; the knives glittered, and the forks shone like silver, if they weren’t. Then there was the fragrant congou itself, the delicious country cream, and the butter, rich in colour as the golden cowslip, sweet as an early primrose, to say nothing of those crisp and lovely rashers, and the pearly eggs with yolks of deepest red. No, your nose would have naturally been turned in quite another direction.
“Occasional Tapsters” we used to call those wandering bicyclists, and most excellent fellows some of them turned out to be, and redolent of mirth and fun. True, the anecdotes they dispensed might have been told at many a table in far-off London town. What did that matter? they were all fresh and new to us simple-minded Twintletonians. They —these bicyclists—would look shyly into the room at first, apparently envying our comfortable attitudes around the parlour fire, taking a glance at the pewters and a look at the pi]>es. They would stand for a moment half-apologetically, with the door in hand, as if they wished to ask, “ Is this room private? Would it be intrusion to venture in? ” But where will you find men more hospitable and kind—or, to use a Scottish phrase, more “good-willy”—than your genuine smoker? Echo answers “nowhere.” They were always welcomed in, and, as far as I can remember, they invariably-made themselves perfectly at home in a free and easy way, as gentlemen of the world ought. I made the acquaintance —nay, more, I gained the friendship—of one of these, whom I am never likely to forget. He dropped in promiscuously one evening, when we Tapsters were mustered pretty strongly, but we sent for another chair at once. From his dress, and the cut of his jib, I immediately put him down as a sailor— the first mate, perhaps, of some swift clipper or bounding barque that sailed periodically to the China seas. I was so far right in my conjecture, but was a little surprised to find that, like myself, he was a sailor doctor.
He had travelled much in America, the land of big licks, and many a humorous yarn did he spin us about his friends the Yanks. Some of these I may retail to you another day. However, to his credit be it said, he never insisted on your believing his wonderful stories. “ Of course, gentlemen,” he would say, “my tales are all true. They are all facts— ordinary facts, however, and go down better if you take a pinch of salt with them. That’s so.”
This Occasional Tapster, I think, grew fond of us—well, at least, he was fond of fishing, and would stop for weeks at a time in Twintieton, for sake of the sport which our quiet streams afforded. And some glorious Jacks fell to his rod, too, of which he was justly proud. I’ve often said of this, that, or t’other friend of mine, that he was the “tallest” smoker ever I knew; but at this moment I feel convinced in my own mind that Dick Arnold—for that was our bold sailor’s name—was the smoker of smokers. Unless when eating, the pipe—or, rather, a pipe—was never out of his mouth ; and 1 believe he smoked himself nightly into oblivion. Many a long, delicious ramble Dick and I had together, by streams and in woods, and among the numerous sweet wee villages that nestled here and there on the banks of the winding Thames. When the fish wouldn’t bite we took to boating, landing here, there, or anywhere, wherever there was aught to be seen, or an enticing-looking hostelry that promised the allurement of a cool glass of beer. There wasn’t much to be seen in the streets of the little towns we sauntered up through ; but Dick had one universal remedy ior ennui. It was embodied in the simple sentence, “Let’s buy a pipe.” If a village dinner hadn’t been satisfactory, or the beer had been hard, “Never mind,” Dick would say, “ let’s go and buy a pipe.” If Dick went too early to the station, what did it matter? there was just time to buy a pipe. Buying a new pipe was Dick’s panacea for all the ills of life. “ Did you ever,” he said to me one Sunday, as we left the church; “ Did you ever hear such a drone of a parson? And the worst of it is,” he added, almost savagely, “one can’t go and buy a pipe.” This was hard on Dick. Dick, when he purchased a new pipe, never threw away the old one; he simply dropped it into the right hand pocket of his monkey jacket, and forthwith loaded and lit up the new favourite, with a celerity which almost bounded on the nervous.
“ How does it go, Dick?” I would ask, as soon as he was in full blast.
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Dick would be far too full of blissful contentment to give a long answer. “Prime ! ” was the usual laconic, reply. For reasons to bo hereafter named, Dick Arnold took apartments in the village of Mossfield, and thither he transported all his goods and chattels. He fain would have kept a boat, for the river runs cheek by jowl with the little town; but, as Dick himself said, it wouldn’t run to it. Among his goods and chattels were, of course, his pipes. After he had fairly settled down, I went to see him, to smoke in his rooms the calumet of peace. Surely rooms before were never so crowded with pipes. They were of all sizes, from the Highland cutty upto the Turkish hubble-bubble; of all shapes, from the long clay to the hookah; and of all textures, from humble briar to princely meerschaum. There they were, hung on the walls, lying on the mantel-piece, crowding drawers and cupboards, and all over the house, too, from cellar to attic— pipes, pipes, pipes! Had Dick Arnold been pipe-major to the 92nd Highlanders, he could have given every man in the regiment a pipe, and two each to the oilicers. That was the sort of man Dick was. Dick’s yarns were never long ones—pithy and humorous enough, but never long. I was at the river-side, one day, with Dick, when he pulled above w’ater the nose—nothing more—of what might have been a shark, or a hundred-year-old pike, or anything a size less than a whale. Next moment Dick was reeling up a broken line—hooks, and gut, and all were gone. “ Well, I’m blowed!” said Dick. “Why, he was as big as the salmon I got put in gaol for. Let’s go and buy a pipe.” Same evening Dick might have been seen sitting by the parlour fireside of the “ Jolly Tapsters,” with his bare feet in his slippers and his knickerbockers loosened at the knee, scarcely hiding his shapely legs. He had a new pipe in each hand, and he was looking somewhat puzzled, first at one, then at the other. “ I ought not to have bought two at once,” he said, “ but I won’t make either jealous. Landlord, I’d like a long clay.” “Dick,” said I, “what about that big salmon you got put in limbo for? ” Dick laughed. “There is really nothing in it, you know,” he said; “ but once, when I was a medical student and had been working pretty hard to pass an exam., I took it into my head that a breath of Highland air might do me good. I could ill afford such a luxury, but I scraped together all the cash I could, and off I started for the Trossachs, and took lodgings in a small, out-lying house, not far from Callander. I took the rooms for a month, and paid for them beforehand, to make sure of paying them at all. On the money I had over I thought I would just manage to exist. I had plenty of books and plenty of Tobacco, and pipes galore. It was a good thing, too, that I had Tobacco; for by the time I had been two weeks in tho place, what with my own lack of thrift and the Highland air making me so hungry, I was reduced to my last pound. ■ I could only afford two meals a day, and my luncheon was a long, long smoke. It was the season of the year when the salmon come up the tiny streamlets to spawn: there they were in thousands, you could have thrown them out on the banks in armfuls. Of course they were well watched; there was a keeper for every two or three hundred yards. So no one could touch the salmon ; but you might look at them. And that is what I did. I used to wander up and down the banks of the streamlets, smoking, and gaze hungrily down at the fish. “ * Foul fish and all, as they are,’ I used to say to myself, * half a pound or so would go down nicely with a few mashed potatoes.’ “ Ln this strain I must have been thinking aloud one day, when a great shoulder of mutton fist was laid on my back, and on looking round, behold! the brown beard and red face of Donald Oak. “ ‘ How you pe? ’ says Donald; ‘you pe strongly, sir?’ ** ‘ As a rule,’ said I. •“Och, then,’ says Donald, ‘her nainsel is a Hielan’ shentleman, but she’ll no pe liking to see folks hungry, and for a pit of Topacco, troth she’ll gaff you a fish.’ “ I gripped the Highlander’s hand. I squeezed it. “ ‘ Bravo man! ’ I said, ‘ gaff me a fish; gaff me a big one, and a pound of Tobacco shall be your guerdon.’ “ After dark, for the law was strict, I met Donald and the fish. And it was a whopper; I could hardly carry it, and when I stowed it away in my big sea-chest, even there it hardly had room enough. *• Well, for days after that I had salmon for breakfast, dinner, and supper. I don’t know whether my landlady smelt a rat or not, only she held her peace. Smelt a rat, did I say ? Horror of horrors ! one fine morning I smelt something infinitely worse. I made the dire discovery that I couldn’t eat my fish fast enough. He was going off—he was crying aloud for burial; and, by hook or by crook, buried he must be. The Booie woods weren’t far away, and that same night, in their darkest depths, I dug a grave. And next night I wrapped my fish in the columns of the Daily News, and sallied forth like a felon to bury him. But, woe is me! hardly had I finished my eerie work, when I found myself fast in the clutches of two stalwart bobbies. “ ‘ Clap on the darbies, Jamie!’ cried one; ‘Quick! he’s like an eel.’ *• Resistance was out of the question, and, one hour after, I	was being whirled along the road to Stirling gaol. I wasn’t quite sure, even then, what Iwas arrested for, but it soon came out. “‘Wha was the mither o’t?’ said one of the bobbies. “‘The mither o’ what?’ said I; ‘the mither o’ that foul fish ? ’ “ ‘ The mither o* the bairn ye buried,’ was the stern reply. “ ‘ 0! ye hardened young villain, ye’ 11 hang as high as Haman for this nicht’s walk.’ “ Next day I was arraigned for murder, sure enough, before a Stirling bailie. And there was no small amusement in court when I told the story of the salmon. But I was kept under lock and key until the truth of my tale was established, and the fish exhumed. Then I was let off with a fine.” “ And went right away and bought a pipe, I suppose,” said I. “ That I did,” said Dick, laughing; “ and I’m not sure I didn’t buy two.” The reason why Dick had taken apartments at Mossfield was this: he had fallen in love. Aye, and was to have been married too, and a charming girl his intended was. But the marriage never came off. Ah! dear me, that dark and sullen Thames, how many a life it has to account for! Yes, reader, Dick was drowned, drowned almost close to where his bride-alhanced dwelt. He’ll never buy another pipe. Gordon Stables, MD., R.N. ^rtlanb anb Tobacco. I. There is a Greek saying, and a very sound and pregnant saying it is, about presenting common things in a new way and new things in a common way. In reference to Ireland it seems impossible to do either. How can we utter about that mad and wicked and wretched country aught new, either in substance or form? Without any pretensions to novelty, but in a very earnest spirit, I, a Celt of the Celts, offer a few suggestions, which may not be wholly profitless. What has been called the Island of Sidnts should rather be named the Island of Savages. Race, in every region, is of far more importance than climate. Through certain valiant and indomitable qualities, how deep and grand is the impress of themselves which the Hebrews, a mere handful of men, have left in history! From what feeble beginnings the Greeks and Romans went forth as conquerors! The Greeks had supreme physical and moral and intellectual gifts; the Romans were as wise as they were courageous. What best explains Ireland’s horrible, seemingly hopeless doom ? The inherent unfitness of the Irish race for civilisation; an unfitness which ought no more to astonish than a similar unfitness in North American Indians, in African negroes, and in South Sea Islanders. That Ireland was uninhabited till the wanderings of the Celts began is incredible. It is from the haze of fable that we have to seize a few solid points in Ireland’s early historical existence. Not till we approach the time of the English Conquest do we feel that we have firm footing and clear vision. In the sense which the Greeks and the Romans gave to the word, the Celts were Barbarians; but savages they were not. Indeed, in sundry respects the Celts displayed nobler aptitudes for civilisation than the Germans. We are compelled to assume that long before the subjugation of Britain by the Romans there had been successive Celtic streamings into Ireland, and that eye those streamings commenced Ireland had been peopled by Autochthons or by migratory bands like the Celts themselves. The Celts vanquished Ireland’s primaeval dwellers, and induced or forced them to accept some of their own customs and institutions and their language. That this must have been the process is demonstrated by the simple fact that the Celts, ere blending with other races, had a high fame for physical beauty even among their foes. The most loquacious, most audacious, most mendacious of Irish demagogues would scarcely ask us to go to Connaught for forms diviner than those of Venus and Apollo. Moreover, in the sublime Celtic legends Ireland did not figure. In the Arthurian Cycle, for instance, the Irish have no place. The Celts of Great Britain and of the Continent showed no disposition to recognise or to rejoice in the bond of consanguinity connecting them with Ireland, if such a bond existed. In a Latin edict of Edward the Confessor it was decreed that the Britons of Armorica should be treated as fellow-citizens, on account of the former relations of the colony with the mother country. What similar proclamation of kinship with the Irish do we anywhere find? From what we now know of the antiquity of man, and of the remote period when the first migratory wave, to be followed by many other migratory waves, rolled from Asia, we conclude that Ireland must have been the abode of men long ages before the Phoenician explorations. Enough has been said for and against the Irish race, and the subject is very wearisome. To the Irish race all imaginable virtues and all imaginable vices have been attributed. It may be free from the vices, and it may possess every god-like gift, every god-like grace; but the gifts and the graces go for nothing, because the Irish race is inherently, incomparably, incurably anarchical. It is just as anarchical in Australia and America as in England itself. Never has it been, never can it be ruled or pacified. Celtic, Scandinavian, English, Scottish colonisings
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have not made the Irish race more governable, which adores turbulence as the highest of pleasures, insurrection as the holiest of rights and of duties. The English have been blamed for governing Ireland badly, and there has been a cant about Irish ideas and English ideas as applied to the complicated Irish problem. But if the English had governed Ireland with supreme wisdom and persistent vigour, instead of alternating rabid repression with cowardly concession, Ireland would still have been the scene^ of irrepressible anarchy. The sooner this fact is faced the Better. A complete expulsion of the Irish race from Ireland would not be easy, and would certainly not harmonise with modern conceptions of freedom, though those conceptions may be very foolish and misleading. But, with English help and under English protection, colonies exclusively Irish could be founded in the islands of the Pacific. Or, for good or evil, the whole vast island of Borneo could be surrendered to Irishmen, for a great colonising experiment. Doubtless anarchy would flourish in Borneo, as it flourishes wherever there are Irishmen, but it would not trouble English prosperity and peace. The House of Lords acted wisely, courageously, and with true patriotic instinct when it rejected the mad and monstrous bill for legalising confiscation. But all statesmanship should be creative. Something more than the simply judicial and judicious is expected of the House of Peers. Why did not the Peers show that the real, the most effectual remedy for the worst of Irish woes is the encouragement of emigration to the utmost possible extent? No evicted peasant could complain if he was offered a farm ten times as large as that which he had been cultivating, and a free passage for himself and his family. The early Irish chronicles, so far as they are trustworthy, reveal Ireland to us as a hunting and grazing country. A grazing country it must again mainly be if it is to prosper. But the feeding of sheep and of cattle, to be profitable, demands large farms and a considerable capital. It is, therefore, incompatible with a peasant proprietary, especially a peasant proprietary so lazy, so thriftless, so rebellious as that which has hitherto been the principal hindrance to the development of Ireland’s manifold resources. The example of France is continually in the mouths of the Irish agitators. But France has a rich soil, a genial climate, a frugal and industrious population, a people strongly conservative in feelings and habits and customs. A peasant proprietary has made Ireland unspeakably wretched; and yet a peasant proprietary is to be extended and made eternal! That our land laws require radical amendment must at once be granted. The radical amendment, however, does not imply fierce defiance of common sense and common justice. It is solid and fruitful reforms that we want, not the capricious and headlong innovations for which the ignorant and envious mob so furiously clamours, and which our weak statesmen so readily accomplish. The soil of the Three Kingdoms is a fixed quantity, and the aim of a stalwart and sagacious statesmanship must be to make every portion, however minute, of the soil productive up to its highest point. How much of the soil of Great Britain and Ireland is badly cultivated ! And how much of it is not cultivated at all! Surely this is folly, and surely it is guilt as well as folly. Even in the immediate neighbourhood of London the husbandry is often of the most slovenly kind. In an extensive fruitgrowing district, twelve miles from London, the weeds are allowed unimpeded empire till they have scattered their seeds by millions and millions, and then, still laden with seeds, they are dug into the ground, whereas at the very outset they should have been pulled and burned. Recently I saw, not far from London, b field of thirty or forty acres close to two railway stations. The field so swarmed with weeds that no one could be found bold enough to undertake its cultivation, even without the obligation of paying rent. Most execrable wastefulness, diversified by most contemptible meanness, is a leading characteristic of everything English. As regards the soil, wastefulness is not merely a sin against national prosperity; it is a sin against Nature. But would not wastefulness be immeasureably increased in Ireland by further division and subdivision of the soil? It is cultivators of the French, the German, the Dutch, the Belgian, the Scottish, or even the Chinese type for whom the soil of Ireland yearns. What a miraculous and holy revolution if in Ireland the strenuous, ingenious Dutch cultivator were universally substituted for the indolent, improvident, restless pseudo-Celt, gabbling unceasingly about the wrongs of his country instead of taking the plough or the spade into his hand! It is not only as respects the soil that the pseudo-Celt manifests his egregious incapacity. Ireland has a magnificent, an almost unri vailed commercial position; it has numerous fine harbours; it has noble rivers and noble lakes, offering, along with other advantages, facilities for canallage; its streams and its seas are crowded with fish; its mineral wealth is not small; even its very bogs could help to make the people rich. Now, are we to be told that a curse has fallen on all those treasures because in past ages the English, in their dealings with Ireland, were unwise and cruel? Rather let us say that the Hibernian Autochthon, the Hibernian pseudoCelt is himself the curse of his country. Unfortunately he is the curse of England too. England offers him a generous share of the large banquet which she spreads before her own sons. After greedily eating it, the Hibernian Autochthon, the Hibernian pseudo-Celt slanders, tries to murder, rejoices in every misfortune that befalls, the bountiful giver. . A Son of Murdoch.	floral Songs. THE LONG FIRM. Emperors, ministers, kings: These are the swells of the Long Firm. Political larcenous rings Occupy mostly this strong firm. With councils, and treaties, and such like fun, Merrily round the moments run; And they scatter the ink, And\they pray, and they wink, While every day there is somebody done. Chorus. Rub-a-dub-a-dub! for the Long Firm; Rub-a-dub-a-dub! for the strong firm; ’Tie a firm that must go, In the end, as we know; But, alas! its decay is most painfully slow. Gunpowder, great and sublime, Agent it is to the Long Firm; Misery, murder, and crime, Servants they are to this strong firm. For death, desolation, and horror and pain, They issue their orders again and again; And humanity’s way Is to suffer, and pay, With a breaking of heart and a burning of brain. Chorus. Rub-a-dub-a-dub! for the Long Firm; Rub-a-dub-a-dub! for the strong firm; Bang! tootle! and shout! And the banners fling out. *Tis a heaven-sent firm, oh, there isn’t a doubt. Labours of men and their lives, These are absorbed by the Long Firm; Starving of children and wives Trouble but little this strong firm. Triumphant it goes, just the same as of old, Just as savage and wicked and brutal and bold. It appeals to the Lord, But it trusts to the sword; So the wolves, dressed as shepherds, still ravage the fold. Chorus. Rub-a-dub-a-dub! for the Long Firm; Rub-e-dub-a-dub! for the strong firm. Bang away, bang away, Till the reckoning day, When the firm will be “ smashed”; for that time let us pray.	H. L. & Sargeant's ^kss Song. With our arms round the waists of the charming girls, Through the galop-sweeps and the swift waltz-whirls, While our beards are brushed by their dancing curls, Dance, boys, dance! With the old black pipe and the steaming glass, And a toast to the health of each sonsie lass, And a right jolly set the toast to pass, Drink, boys, drink! For we have our hold of the world to-day, And must snatch our share of it while we may, Before they bury us out of the way: Dance, boys, dance! So we’ll smoke our pipe, and we ’ll drink our glass, And we ’ll play our game, and we ’ll hug our lass; And as for the rest—why, the devil’s an ass: Drink, boys, drink!	Sigvat. foie gallinm uf the Eagles. By Walt Whitman. Skirting the river road, (my languid forenoon walk, my rest,) Skyward, in air, a sudden muffled sound—the dalliance of the eagles, The rushing amorous contact high in space together, The clinching, interlocking claws—a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,	. Four beating wings—two beaks—A swirling mass, fight grappling, In tumbling, turning, clustering loops, straight downward falling, Till o’er the river pois’d, the twain yet one, a moment’s lull, A motionless, still balance in the air—then parting, talons loosing, Upward again, on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate, diverse flight,	. She hers, he his, pursuing.
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"NATIONAL EAGLE,”	“WYOMING,”	“SPRING FLOWERS,
“SANCHO PANZA,”	“EXPRESS,”	“MOSS ROSE,”
“UNION”	"ANCHOR”	“NEPTUNE.”
80LE MANU FACTU RER8 of the celebrated “RICHMOND SMOKING MIXTURE.”
Always on Hand, a Large Stock of Pressed Tobacco, Bright Cavendish in All Sizes, and a Well-selected Stock of American Manufactured Cavendish.
Price Lists on Application.
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654	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[November, 1880.
COPE’S CIGARETTES.
PRICE LISTS SUPPLIED TO THE TRADE ON APPLICATION.
GOLDEN CLOUD BRAND.
WITHOUT MOUTHPIECE.
In Sixpenny Boxes, containing twelve Paper Cigarettes, In Cardboard Cases, containing three dozen Sixpenny Boxes.
WITH MOUTHPIECE.
In Sixpenny Boxes, containing twelve Paper Cigarettes, In Cardboard Cases, containing three dozen Sixpenny Boxes.
Cope’S 'Whiffs. In Fourpenny Bundles of ten. In Cedar Boxes, containing forty Bundles, or 400 Cigarettes.
The FiCjaTO. Extra Mild. In Sixpenny Boxes, containing twelve leaf-covered Cigarettes. In Packets, containing two dozen Sixpenny Boxes.
Fairy Brand. In Cardboard Boxes, gold mounted, with beautiful Parisian label, containing ten internal Packets of ten Cigarillos each.
Bouquet (With Tubes). Peerless (Without Tubes). In Cardboard Boxes, containing four Bundles of 23 Cigaretos. In very handsome Cedar Cases, containing ten Boxes, or 1000 Cigaretos.
Delicate in flavour ; bum evenly, with a firm white ash; made with great care for a mild morning smoke.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes. In Cardboard Boxes, containing 50. In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1000, with lock and key.
Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made from a peculiar kind of Oriental Tobacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking of this Tobacco is said to give relief in cases of Asthma.
COPE BROTHERS & CO.
TOBACCO WORKS, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool
Printed and Published for the Proprietors at the Office, 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by Johx Fiaiu, of 1, Spekeland Road, Edge-Hill, Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster.
A MONTHLY PERIODICAL,
INTERESTING TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE DEALER, AND THE SMOKER.
N^m-VoLn.^	I >ECEMBER, 1880.	gS ^!^E™^
®bt Mintage Collection.
Mr. William Bragge, of Birmingham and Sheffield, is a good type of the best class of collectors. That wonderful race have much in common, but they differ in the intensity, and still more in the uses to which they devote their collections. Some are simply possessed by the Demon of Accumulation, at whose shrine they offer great sacrifices. They collect, without object and without discrimination, everything that strikes them as rare or curious. They make life a burden to themselves, and to the people of their household, by turning what should be their home into an ill-arranged old curiosity shop, where an heterogenous medley of objects makes up a nightmare burlesque of a really scientific and systematic museum. Collectors of this class are usually the prey of charlatans, who trade on their anxious ignorance, and pass off upon them impious frauds that equal in unveracity the pious frauds of mediaeval relic-mongers. These unsystematic people are generally good-natured, and if in their odd lots there are any that will help a student or a scholar, they are usually willing that he should have the benefit to be derived from their inspection. The difficulty is that generally they do not know much of what they hive got. nor where they have put it. Such a collection is a Tom Tiddler’s ground, where you may find gold and silver, but where you must find dirt and dust and ashes. Other collectors there are who have skill enough to direct their operations with much better result, and who bring together treasures illustrative of some special subject or particular epoch, and who rejoice in their possessions not because they are their own, but because they cannot belong to anyone else. They guard the gems in their cabinets as jealously as the Eastern potentates guard the lights of their harems. Such collections are the tombs of learning. Their books they do not read themselves, nor will they permit anyone else to open their mystic pages. The objects they have gathered at cost and pains from every quarter of the habitable globe are held under a cloud of darkness. To the artist they would be an inspiration; to the antiquary the key to some of the riddles of time. The collector of this type has not the genius of the artist nor the learning of the archaeologist, but he rejoices in being able to thwart them both, and still further to feed the vanity of ownership.
We are glad to think that such men are few, but they do exist. Yet even skunks have their uses, and the presence amongst us of such base minds makes clearer and brighter the generous nature of such men as Mr. William Bragge, whose scholarly instincts are animated by warm public spirit. His success as a collector has been shown in varied fields. Not to mention the extraordinary series of illuminated MSS. which he brought together, we may cite his Cerva nt s books and his extraordinary assemblage of books and objects connected with the use of Tobacco.
The sc ri s of books in illustration of the great Spanish humourist were lost in the burning of the Birmingham Library, to which he had given them. It was a great loss. Nowhere else in the United Kingdom is there such a collection. The burning of Don Quixote’s library is the only calamity to which one can compare it. Fate acting the part of the Curate. “ Cansdse el Cura," says Cervantes, “ de ver man It bro*., y asi d cargo, cerrada quiso que todos los demas se quematfen." (p. i., c. vi.). Rare editions, excellent commentaries, a complete apparatus for the loving study of Cervantes, all perished in that unhappy catastrophe. The Cervantes collection was cremated, and the funeral pyre, if it wanted the honours of the ancient ceremonial, was not without mourners.
The Tobacco collection, which by most persons is rightly considered the more important, is still in the possession of its indefatigable creator, but, with rare liberality, he has allowed more than one town to have the pleasure and profit of seeing it. When last we visited the famous pipes they were at the Industrial Museum in Edinburgh. The popular interest everywhere excited by them suggests at once the idea that, after all, they would be better placed as the property of a corporation or public museum than as the possession of a private gentleman.
The Bragge Tobacco collection consists of a library and a museum. Each of them are unexampled in extent and completeness. There is a fatal flaw of incompleteness in all human effort, and, doubtless, there are books and pipes that have escaped the clutches of Mr. Bragge. We have a secret joy, which has no taint of envy, in saying that we know of some Tobacco leaves that have escaped even this mighty book-hunter. The bibliography of Tobacco has yet to be completed, and it will nee I the suavity of Brunet, the penetration of QuSrard, the patience of Robert Watt, and the erudition of Thomas Watts, to do it worthily. Whenever it is done the result will be one of the curiosities and wonders of literature. It will show the praise and blame that has been heaped upon the Indian weed in every clime. We shall see in it every form of literary expression, from rabid denunciation to dithyrambia adulation. We shall see the same herb proclaimed as the panacea of every disease and as the cause of all the ills that flesh is heir to. Whenever a paragon of bibliographers shall arise and do justice to the literature of Tobacco, he will find good help in the Bibliotheca Nicotiana of Mr. William Bragge, who, indeed, may fairly claim to have laid a substantial foundation on which the coming bibliographer may build his superstructure.*
The first edition of the list of books was issued in 1874, and has been duly noticed in these columns. Since then many additions have been made to the list, and it is now reprinted, together with an inventory of objects relating to tho use of Tobacco. The two in combination make a complete record of the contents of the Bragge Nicotian Collection in its two departments of Library and Museum. The one shows the Literature and tho other the Art of Tobacco. The literature belongs necessarily to the modern world, for it is only four centuries since the Old World, which is really the parvenu, learned from the New World, which is really the most ancient —in a Nicotian sense, at least—the custom of smoking. It may be that in the future, when the Champoilion and Young of the New World have done their work, and solved the mystery of the Mexican hierogliphs, some hymniu tabaci of a pre-historic Thorius may be brought to light. It may be that there was a Tobacco question under the Incas, and that the royal indulgence of Montezuma, who had his after-dinner pipe brought to him with great ceremony by the ladies of his Court, awakened the indignation of some Mexican scribe endowed with all the earnestness of the late lamented Mr. Thomas Reynolds, and, it is to be hoped, with more grammar and logic than that perfervid author and orator was wont to exhibit. These things may be, but as yet they are not. All that the elder peoples of America have contributed to the literature of Tobacco are a few traditions, some of them probably adulterated by the reporters. The aboriginal silence has not been imitated in Europe, for from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century there has been a constant succession of references to the herb petun. It was described by traveller,
♦Biblotheca Nicotiana; a catalogue of books about Tobacco, together with a catalogue of objects connected with the use of Tobacco in all its forms. Collected by William Bragge, F.S.A., Birmingham. Privately printed, 1800.
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656	COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.	[December, 1880.	
denounced by priest, advocated by physician, satirised by poet, and even inveighed against by a king. 'Its praises were said in stately prose and sung in flowing verse. Of the making of many books about Tobacco there is no end. Each year swells the long array. If ancient America has contributed little or nothing to nicotian literature, it is very different with respect to the aesthetic aspects of Tobacco. Artists of every European land have employed their best skill and talent in the decoration of pipes, of Tobacco pouches, of snuff-boxes, and of the other adjuncts of the smoker; but it may well be doubted if in genuine artistic quality any of them have surpassed the mound builders of tho Mississippi Valley, who. in ages so remote as to baffle calculation, decorated their pipes with bold, vigorous images of men and animals, wrought in the hardest stone, and with a power and fidelity that no modern skill can surpass. The pre-historic pipes in Mr. Bragge’s collection are of exceeding interest. Those from ancient Mexico came from the private collection of the unhappy Emperor Maximilian— aut Casar, aut nullus—who, although a prince himself, learned by bitter and fatal experience the folly of putting trust in princes. One of these pipes, first used, perhaps, thousands of years ago under an ancient and forgotten dynasty, shows a human head with the face all wrinkled by time and care, and is an admirable specimen of artistic modelling. Even in that dim golden age Care rode behind the horseman, and Time printed the marks of his crow’s feet on the human face divine. Other of these pipes show grotesque figures of animals. All are in terra cotta. The pipes of the Mound Dwellers are more varied as to the substances employed. Limestones of different colours, steatites, quartzite, whinstone, and various clays were used. One, representing a dog clasping the charmed bowl, was engraved in Neander’s “ Tabacologia,” in 1626. ' Another shows two kneeling figures and a tortoise in relief. Some of these mound pipes are actually unfinished. One shows that although the drilling of the stem was completed the drilling of the bowl had only began when the pre-historic pipe-maker was called away from his task, ages before Columbus “ out of the darkness called forth a New World.” The North American Indians, the descendants or the successors of the pre-historio races, were equally ardent devotees of Tobacco. They regarded it as the gift to man of the Great Spirit, sent to yield pleasure and afford consolation for the woes of humanity. It had an important part in their religious, social, and political economy. The calumet, or pipe of peace, was the indispensable adjunct to the treaties between the different tribes. It was the gift of Gitche Manito to the assembled nations. The warriors departed homeward, M While the Master of Life ascending Through the opening of cloud curtains, Through the doorways of the heavens Vanished from before their faces In the smoke that rolled around him, The Pukwana of tho Peaoe-pipe 1 ” The pipe of peace did not, unfortunately, supplant the pipe of war, and Mr. Bragge has five specimens of tomahawk pipes in his museum. One of these belonged to Strongbow, the chief of the Seneca Indians. Another is a vicious weapon, which is believed to have been supplied by the Board of Ordnance to one of the alhes of the English in the American war. Here is one which might excite the envy even of a London rough. It is only a stem, 31 inches in length, but then it has a woman’s scalp attached to it. There is a remarkable group of pipes from the Pacific coast, all elaborately carved, and often with grotesque designs. These fine specimens of native art may be contrasted with others in which a deteriorating European influence is manifest. From Paraguay there is a pipe made of palo santo, with sides containing an incised representation of a serpent, ant, bear, leopard and cub, together with ornamental devices. This was used by the Payagua chieftains. From the Madeira river, in Brazil, there is a double tube, made of the bones of a bird, and united to a short single tube. Whilst the base is dipped into Niopo snuff, the two tubes are inserted in the nostrils, the nose thus receiving a double 1 battery of the titillating powder. From America we pass to Europe. On walking through Mr. Bragge’s museum we can see the various devices and fashions adopted by the captives of Tobacco, as it passed, like a conqueror, from the New World to the Old, from America to Europe, from Europe to Asia, to Africa, to Oceania, and to Australia. The French took to Tobacco with great gusto, and have expended much talent and ingenuity in the decoration of their pipes. The instruments designed for the Gallican smokers are distinguished by an average elegance, artistic merit, and sometimes wickedness, which we look for in vain in other nations. Indeed, there has been a sufficient amount of ill-directed skill to furnish a sufficient number of objects for a museo secreto of Nicotian improprieties. These are, of course, absent. The bowls of Sdvres ware, with their arabesques and pictures, may be contrasted with the wooden “ Lanterne ” pipes of 1866, when the enraged Frenchmen managed to infuse politics even into Tobacco smoke. Many pipes bear on them the effigies of famous personages, sometimes in token of respect, sometimes of derision. Political enthusiasm has many ways of expressing its hatred or admiration; and there is no harm done, since those who do not wish to smoke “ Boyalist ” or “ Republican ” pipes, will have no difficulty in	finding bowls decorated with literary and theatrical notabilities. or with grotesque subjects sufficiently unlike anything in nature to be safe even for a Mohammedan anxious not to rebel against his Prophet’s prohibition of graven images. The early English pipes are not very remarkable, but in the last century they began to show elaborate ornamentation, chiefly of a grotesque character. Historic figures like Nelson and Wellington divide the honours with monkeys, old women, and crocodiles. (This circumstantial concatenation is not “ wrote sarcastic.”) From Swansea and Worcestershire there are extraordinary specimens of snake pipes, some of them convoluted in the most serpentine of fashions. The “ fairy pipes ” of the seventeenth century, with their miniature bowls hardly larger than those used by the opium smokers of the present day, may be contrasted with the ample provision made in a pipe with seven bowls, curiously ornamented with human faces, narrow leaves, &c. Wedgwood, that most artistic of potters, larished his ceramic skill for the delectation of smokers. It is a curious fact that he was employed by the East India Company to manufacture hookah bases and chillums for the native rulers, and one, at least, of the examples in tho Bragge Museum, after being despatched from the classically named Etruria to the “ barbaric East,” has journeyed back again, and found a resting-place in the land of its birth. There are some very charming specimens of Wedgwood ware. Passing over some pretty examples of the art of the silversmith, let us notice the pipe formed of Coquilla nut, which is carved all over, and has in the front of the bowl a group of figures, in which the Virgin Queen is seen seated, whilst around her stand Raleigh, Spenser, and Shakspere, the great names of a great time, when there were still giants in the land. The Dutch are said to have derived the habit of smoking from the English students at Leyden. The early clay pipes of Holland are numerous in this collection. There are two “bridegroom” pipes, still decorated with the ribbons placed upon them on a certain festal day that faded into nothingness two centuries ago. The bridegroom pipe was one of the household gods of Holland. Smoked in augury of a happy future upon the wedding day, it was held too sacred to be touched again save on the recurrence of tho anniversary of the momentous event. Here are records of two life-unions. Were they happy, were they sad? The ribbons round the stems, do they signify the joy of hearts that gave love and faith in true wedlock, or are they but tho ornaments which decked a sacrifice? The jolly bridegroom and the blushing bride have been food for the wo? ms long, long ago. It is the moral of George Wither’s song (if it be his):— “ Lastly the ashes left behind	; May daily shew, to move the mind,	| That to ashes and dust return we musk Thus think, and drink Tobacco." The Germans also were inoculated by the English with the taste for Tobacco. How strong that has become mavbe seen from the numerous specimens in this collection. Here is a wooden bowl in which the figure of Time holds a silver scroll of the Ten Commandments. Some of the pipes are at once enormous in size and elaborate in ornamentation. The meerschaums beloved of students are here in every variety, and with them bowls of agate and chalcedony, and serpentine and jasper. There are porcelain bowls bearing pictures of student life. Here are some pretty nymphs carrying Cupid in a basket of flowers—a fancy ns quaint as that of love among the roses. There are insects exquisitely painted by Leonhard Geiser. Many of the old Meissen pipe bowls are interesting for their portraits. One of these quaint pipes is in tbe form of a goat. The Berlin bowls are ornamented with varied matters. One bears a “portrait” of Guttenberg, another shows some women bathing, whilst a large bowl is ornamented with six different subjects, not including in the number a map of Germany and a piece of music ! Amongst the later Meissen bowls there is a large one that is elaborately pain ed with the arms of Cologne. It was smoked by the giant in the Guild * processions of the ancient but malodorous town. Let us hope that the fumes from its ample depths drowned the stenches for which the city is famous—or infamous—alike in prose and ' rhyme. Proceeding to Northern Europe, there is a remarkable pipe carved by a Swedish peasant. Tho stem is, in fact, a runic । calendar or elogg-almanac, such as were formerly in use in some parts of this country. Of Russian work there are many varieties, from tho plain wooden bowls of the peasants* pipes of Nijni-Novgorod to the sumptuous instruments affected by the richer classes. Here are specimens of the cigar tubes fitted with wire gauze to guard against fire in the grain warehouses of Odessa. There is a pipe made from a knotted and gnarled root by a Russian peasant, who, after decorating it with grotesque heads, loyally presented it to his Emperor. There is a bowl of yellow jasper, with exquisitely carved amorini. These little loves, wuh their mother, the seaborn Venus, were carved by Cizie for a Prime Minister of Alexander I. Italy has contributed some characteristic specimens, the prettiest being echoes of classical art or sentiment. One, indeed, is a poem in Capo di Monte porcelain. A band is seen carrying leaves and enfold, ug an aged man. whose hand rests upon a skull, and a babe holding a rosebud. There is a mystic meaning in this leaf from the book of hfe which each may divine for himself.
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The Turk, who is now the most unspeakable smoker, was taught the art by Englishmen somewhere about 1605. He has given his mind to it, and makes up for his abstinence from wine by his devotion to Tobacco. The Turk and the other Orientals far surpass in the luxurious adornment of the instruments of smoking the attempts made in the colder Western World. The hamal of Constantinople may be content tent with a clay bowl, a wooden stem, and a leathern thong, but his richer co-religionists lavish on hookah and narghile a wealth of artistic embellishment in choice woods and precious stones, in gold, and in silver. The Mohammedan artist, forbidden to use figures, has let his fancy run riot in fanciful decoration, in which the most varied combinations of geometrical and arabesque designs are translated into colours at once gorgeous and harmonious. This general peculiarity of modern Oriental art renders verbal description difficult if not impossible. How can we describe the hookahs and chillums of India and Persia ? We suppose it is the influence of the Giaour, but some of these pipes which have presumably been smoked by the faithful, perhaps even by the Scherifs, wearers of the green turban and descendants of the Mohammed, are decorated, or desecrated, by images of men and beasts. From the Patkoi Mountains, in Assam, we have a pipe bowl bearing a human face spotted with dots, which indicate the successes of its former owner as a hunter or as a soldier. Another bowl, of black stone, has under it a bamboo receptacle for the Tobacco juice. This delectable fluid is said to be drunk after feasts. De (pintibus non est di*putandix. “ May good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both.’*
Chinese and Japanese art is entirely different in character from that of other Oriental nations. The notable specimens here are chiefly grotesque fancies. One pipe with a small bowl was engraved in “ Edwin Drood,” under the mistaken idea that it was an opium pipe. Those who desire to see the genuine article can be gratified, for there is an interesting collection of objects connected with the use and abuse of that dangerous delight which enslaved Coleridge and has been celebrated by De Quincey and Baudelaire. Here we may also fittingly mention the collection of betel-cutters and betelboxes.
Japan is well represented in Mr. Bragge’s museum. Who can fail to gaze with respectful awe on the pipe which once belonged to the foster-brother of an Emperor of Japan? Its bowl and tip is of silver, and its iron stem is inlaid in gold with the royal emblems. The imperial lips even may have had a draw from it. The peculiar characteristics of Japanese art are well illustrated in these specimens. Their love of the grotesque, their keen sense of humour, are no less evident than the untiring patience with which the artist covers some tiny object with the results of bis loving skill. Perhaps these qualities are even more manifest in the carved ivory buttons used to fasten the Tobacco pouch to the smoker’s belt. Of these nrtxukex there are no less than 120 examples. Some of them represent small shells with the valves open. In the orifice, carved with the utmost truth and delicacy, may be seen a miniature of some town dear to the pleasure-seekers of Nippon. Others of these buttons represent personages of the Shintoo mythology, incidents from Buddhist fables, or scenes from the history of the piist feudalism of Japan, which has so suddenly given place to a queer imitation of the externals of European civilisation.
From Asiatic Russia there are the quaint pipes of whale’s bone, and mammoth ivory, used by Samoyedes and Esquimaux. Some of the latter have on them clever sketches of animals, which may give pause to those who think that the few remains we have of the pre-historic art of Europe could not have been the product of a savage or semi-savage race.
From Java there are pipes both for opium and Tobacco. Some of these have a curious interlaced ornament, with knobs in high relief.
The African, no matter to what tribe he may belong, whether steeped in the lowest degradation or approaching the confines of civilisation, is invariably a smoker. It would be hazardous to say that all varieties of African pipes are represented in the Bragge collection, but there are certainly an extraordinary number of the narcotic instruments*used by the “image of God cut in ebony.” We recommend to the notice of Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, the ever genial and witty historian of co-operation, a pipe-bowl from Mostaganem, intended for the concurrent delight of four smokers. We shall expect to find in the next edition of his amusing and instructive book an additional chapter on the history of cooperative smoking. Ibero are a number of Fan pipes which have bowls at right angles to and in the middle of the stem. From Dahomey is a pipe on which a boy is seen strangling a serpent, doubtless a negro version of the story of the infant Hercules. Another from the Cameroons shows a woman with arms akimbo. Then there is a Dinka pipe with a red clay bowl, well polished, and fixed to a stem of soft wood by a long socket of hide. There is a movable mouthpiece, “ forming a chamber in which bark fibre is saturated with Tobacco juice, a ‘ quid ’ from which is given as an act of hospitality.” There are also some Sisha pipes, used for smoking through milk, in its way as great a refinement as the Turkish and Persian Narghile, in which the smoke passes through perfumed water before it reaches the mouth. Amongst the Kaffir pipes is one of serpentine shape, closely resembling in its form those found in the pre-historic mounds of North
America. Another Kaffir pipe is in the form of a tomahawk, with a narrow curved blade. In addition to the classes we have indicated, there are pipes from Cape York,New Caledonia, New Guinea, the Marquesas, New Zealand, and the Fiji Islands.
The museum contains not only pipes, but pipe cases. The earliest with a date on it is made of ebony, and belonged to “ Nicolaus Foorsee, Anno 1626.” There are all sorts of devices on these cases. Thus, one shows a group of Virginian Indians, whilst another is presided over by the Archangel Michael and Satan.
There are also Tobacco stoppers and prickers of various nations and ages. One is surmounted by a clown, another by Dr. Saoheverell. One shows the head of Charles I., another the Pope and the Devil. This must have been made for an Orangeman. Shakspere’s bust, carved from the traditional mulberry tree, would surely give a literary flavour to the poorest birds-eye.
Another section of the museum will serve to remind the visitor of the wonderful changes brought about by the invention of matches. The old-fashioned tinder box and steel, with other forms of fire mills, are shown in great variety.
Leaving the pipes, we now come to a series of Tobacco boxes and jars. One box of japanned Birmingham ware has a burning glass in the centre of the lid, with the inscription, “ Bright 8 d through this your pipe will light, and help old age to read and write.” There is a Delphic touch about this oracular distich. Several of the Dutch specimens bear representations of scriptural subjects. One has on it the words, “ To smoke by madams is impolite,” a statement that is oracular, and therefore capable of double meaning. There are Tobacco pouches in every variety, French, German, Dutch, Turkish, North American, Chinese, Japanese, &o. There are cigar cases, varying from the plain black paper of Japan to the Dresden porcelain of Germany. One Indian specimen is completely covered by fine ornament in gold, inlaid on blue enamel. There is one of plaited rush from Mexico, several of woven grass from Lagos and Western Africa, and a very fine one of Panama grass, with an open work edge, from Panama.
If we may be pardoned a very obvious pleasantry, Mr. Bragge is quite “ up to snuff,” and in the section devoted to that sternutatory has gathered together some very interesting ethnographical objects. The earliest dated snuff mill in the Museum is inscribed with the year 1607. There are snuff rasps in ivory, wood, metal, enamel, dtc. They are richly carved with figures illustrating passages of Biblical history, of ancient mythology, or some humorous or grotesque imaging of the artist’s brain. There are snuff jars of gr&s de Flandres, Delft, and Persian pottery, glass, and metal. There are many snuff-bottles from Norway, Germany, Russia, Iceland, Holland, Italy, and France. Some of these in glass were made in Venice for the Gold Coast trade. There are similar specimens from Asia and Africa. One of these, which is gourd-shaped, is said to have been made by the Kaffirs from the albumen of blood. Another, made of the same curious material, is shaped like a buffaJo. Some of the Kaffir snuff spoons are constructed to supply both nostrils at once. There is an extensive series of Chinese snuff-bottles in rock-crystal, jade, chalcedony, amethyst, green turquoise, lapis lazuli, Mocha stone, Carnelian, agates, jasper, steatite, and limestone. Many of these are beautiful ornaments. There are a number of cloisonne enamels, several in metal, amber, lac, pearl, ivory, wood, porcelain, and glass. Some •f the glass snuff-bottles have been cut as cameos at Shan-Tung. There are also several examples of painted glass and of applied ornament in glass. This very extensive collection affords much room for comment, and is of high artistic interest. There are snuff-boxes in jade, avanturine, and other varieties of hardstones from various countries. Metal, ivory, and wood has found equal favour with those who have not adopted the id^e napoleonienne of carrying their powder loose in their waistcoat pocket. Many of these snuff-boxes are highly decorated. A Spanish specimen is in the form of a bale of wool, chiselled and perforated all over. A steel snuff-box has on it a picture of a convivial owl, who is enjoying himself with jug and glass and pipe. Some are decorated with Wedgwood plaques. The artists in their choice of subject have been remarkably eclectic, for whilst one has selected Rebecca at the Well, another has depicted a nymph and satyr in loving conversation. Lastly, we may mention ten fine snuff mulls. One of these is a ram’s head bearing a snuffbox of silver chased with pink crystal on the lid, with silver shields at the base of the horns and silver tips. There are thistles in silver set with pink crystals ; two hare’s feet and two prickers are attached by silver chains, and the mull is on three rollers.
We have thus rapidly indicated some of the more salient features of this remarkable collection. In order to tell the reader what he would be most likely to see in a brief inspection, if he used his eyes keenly and with discrimination, we have suppressed the many temptations to speculate on the ethnographic and artistic problems that occur in such a survey. We see a custom existing for ages amongst the denizens of a land then unknown to the historic races, we see it transplanted to Europe, and thence spreading with amazing rapidity over the whole of the Old World, and permeating the domestic life of every nation, gavage or civilised. Each race fashions its instruments for the use of Tobacco in
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accordance with its own artistic instincts, and in each there is the desire for the ornamentation of the pipe or the snuffbox. This collection stretches over three centuries of European history, and over some thousands of years of the pre-historic period of America. It embraces not only the more or less academic art of England and the Continent, but the rich national and racial art developments of India and Persia. It includes also the clever, though crude, aboriginal attempts of ruder races, like the Esquimaux and the various African tribes. Hence, it affords a rich mine for the observation of the student of art in its historic developments, and for the anthropological investigator, who, in the belief that the proper study of mankind is man, sees that a knowledge of the varied history of social culture in the past is the surest guide to the improvement of the race in the future. The Bragge Collection is like that touch of nature which makes the whole world kin. There is not a thoughtless smoker in the land who would not be interested in it, and the wisest and most learned would find in it a fountain of new knowledge and fresh thought.
A collection so peculiar is, we repeat, scarcely a fitting one to be in private hands, even when they are so liberal as those of Mr. Bragge. It would be a distinct loss to history' and to science if this Nicotian Museum and Library were ever to be dispersed. It should be secured for some centre of the Tobacco trade. Such a record of the past and present of the use of Tobacco, well housed in Liverpool or New York, would be an eighth wonder of the world. Is there no possibility on the banks of the Mersey of a consummation so devoutly to be wished ?
^lalt '^Ibitinnn.
V.
Judging by myself, I think the reader who has not met with Whitman’s works (and they do not by any means come in everybody’s way) will be interested in some further extracts from his “ Memoranda During the War,” which I therefore proceed to give. I may as well note here that there is frequent mention of gifts of Tobacco, for which the wounded (as was also the case in the Franco-German War) had a keen longing, and which, when smoked, must have performed the double service of comforting and soothing the poor smoker, and of tending to disinfect the ward from the deadly hospital malaria.
On p. 18, under date June 18, 1863, we have a parenthesis confirming a passage cited from Dr. Burroughs in Sect. III.:
“ In my visits to the Hospitals I found it was in the simple matter of Personal Presence, and emanating ordinary eheer and magnetism, that I succeeded and help’d more than by medical nursing, or delicacies, or gifts of money, or anything else. During the war I possess’d the perfection of physical health. [As stated in Sect. III., the illness from hospital malaria during the latter half of 1864 was the first in his life.] My habit, when practicable, w as to prepare for starting out on one of those daily or nightly tours, of from a couple to four or five hours, by fortifying myself with previous rest, the bath, clean clothes, a good meal, and as cheerful an appearance as possible.” And on p. 36 we read : “ Another thing became clear to me—while cash is not amiss to bring up the rear, tact and magnetic sympathy and unction are, and ever will be, sovereign still.”
(The following, which appears to me very tender and wise and beautiful in its perfect simplicity, is also given by Burroughs, so was presumably transcribed verbatim for the correspondence.)
“A Sew York Soldier.—This afternoon, July 22 (we are still in ’63), I have spent a long time with Oscar F. Wilber, Company G, 154th New York, low with chronic diarrhoea, and a bad wound also. He ask’d me to read to him a chapter in the New Testament. I complied, and ask’d him what I should read. He said : * Make your own choice.’ I open’d at the close of one of the first books of the Evangelists, and read the chapters describing the latter hours of Christ, and the scenes at the crucifixion. The poor, wasted young man ask’d me to read the following chapter also, how Christ rose again. I read very slowly, for Oscar was feeble. It pleas’d him very much, yet the tears were in his eyes. He ask’d me if I enjoyed religion. I said: ‘ Perhaps not, my dear, in the way you mean, and yet, may-be, it is the same thing.’ He said: ‘ It is my chief reliance.’ He talk’d of death, and said he did not fear it. I said: ‘ Why, Oscar, don’t you think you will get well ? ’ He said : * I may, but it is not probable.’ He spoke calmly of his condition. The wound was very bad, it discharg’d much. Then the diarrhoea had prostrated him, and I felt he was even then the same as dying. He behaved very manly and affectionate. The kiss I gave him as I was about leaving he return’d fourfold. He gave me his mother’s address. I had several such interviews with him. He died a few days after the one just described.”
Creatures of the type of Appleton’s anonymuncule may find this kissing of man and man very maudlin. Others may remember a certain “ Kiss me, Hardy.”
“Aug. 8.—To-night, as I was trying to keep cool, sitting by a wounded soldier in Armory Square, I was attracted by some pleasant singing in an adjoining Ward. As my soldier
was asleep, I left him, and entering the Ward where the music was, I walk’d half way dow’n and took a sent by the cot of a young Brooklyn friend, S. B., badly wounded in the hand at Chancellorsville, and who has suffer’d much, but who at that moment in the evening was wide awake and comparatively easy. He had turn’d over on his left side to get a better view of the singers, but the plentiful drapery of the mosquito curtains of the adjoining cots obstructed the sight. I slept round and loop’d them all up, so that he had a clear show, and then sat down again by him, and look’d and listened. The principal singer was a young lady nurse of one of the Wards, accompanying on a melodeon, and join'd by the lady nurses of other Wards. They sat there, making a charming group, with their handsome, healthy faces; and standing up a little behind them were some ten or fifteen of the convalescent soldiers, young men, nurses, Ac., with books in their hands, taking part in the singing. Of course it was not such a performance as the great soloists at the New York Opera House take a hand in ; but I am not sure but I receiv’d as much pleasure, under the circumstances, sitting there, as I have had from the best Italian compositions, express'd by world-famous performers. . . . The scene was, indeed, an impressive one. The men lying up and down the hospital, in their cots (some badly wounded—some never to rise thence), the cots themselves, with their drapery of white curtains, and the shadows down the lower and upper parts of the Ward; then the silence of the men, and the attitudes they took— the whole was a sight to look around upon again and again. And there, sweetly rose those female voices up to the high white-washed wooden roof, and pleasantly the roof sent it all back again. They sang very well; mostly quaint old songs and declamatory hymns, to fitting tunes. Here, for instance, is one of the songs they sang:—
SHINING SHORES.
My days ore swiftly gliding by, and I a Pilgrim stranger, Would not detain them as they fly, those hours of toil and danger; For O we stand on Jordan's strand, our friends are pissing over. Aud just before, the shining shores we may almost discover.
We'll gird our loins, my brethren dear, our distant home discerning, Our absent Lord has left us word, let every lamp be burning ;
For O we stand on Jordan’s strand, our friends are passing over, And just before, the shining shores wo may almost discover. .
“As the strains reverberated through the great edifice of boards (an excellent place for musical performers), it was plain to see how it all sooth’d and was grateful to the men. I saw one near me turn over, and bury his face partially in his pillow; he was probably ashamed to be seen with wet eyes.”—There is a subject for a painter competent to realise and paint it.
Aug., p. 24: il Soldiers and Talks.—Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, you meet them every where about the city [Washington], often superb looking men, though invalids dress’d in worn uniforms and carrying canes and crutches. I often have talks with them, sometimes quite long and interesting. One, for instance, will have been through the peninsula under McClellan—narrates to me the fights, the marches, the strange, quick changes of that eventful campaign, and gives glimpses of many things untold in any official reports or books or journals. These, indeed, are the things that are genuine and precious. The man was there, has been out two years, has been through a dozen fights, the superfluous flesh of talking is long work’d off him, and now he gives me little but the hard meat and sinew. ... I find it refreshing, these hardy, bright, intuitive American young men (experienced soldiers with all their youth). The vital play and significance moves one more than books. Then there hangs something majestic about a man who has borne his part in battles, especially if he is very quiet regarding it when you desire him to unbosom. I am continually lost [bewildered, astonished] at the absence of blowing and blowers [boasting and boasters] among these old-young American militaires. I have found some man or another who has been in every battle since the War began, aud have talked with them about each one, in every part of the United States, and many of the engagements on the rivers aud harbors too. I find men here from every State of the Union without exception. (There are more Southerners, especially Border State men, in the Union army than is generally supposed.) I now doubt whether one can get a fair idea of what this War practically is, or what genuine America is, and her character, without some such experience as I am now having.”
On p. 26, under date August, September, and October, ’63, we read in a general description of the Washington Army Hospitals : “ Here in Washington, when they are all fill’d, (as they have been already several times,) they contain a population more numerous in itself than the whole of the Washington of ten or fifteen years ago. Within sight of the Capitol, as I write, are some fifty or sixty such collections or camps, at times holding from fifty to seventy thousand men.”—So many unripe fruits of glorious war; the fully ripe were the dead, “The Million Dead” of whom we read on pp. 56 and 57; thus: “—the Infinite Dead—(the land entire is saturated, perfumed with their impalpable ashes' exhalations in Nature's chemistry distill’d, and shall be so forever, and every grain of wheat and ear of corn, and every flower that grows and every breath we draw—not only Northern dead leavening Southern soil—thousands, aye many tens of thousands of Southerners crumble to-day in Northern earth.
“ And everywhere among these countless graves—every-
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where in the many Soldiers Cemeteries of the Nation (there are over seventy of them)—as at the time in the vast trenches, the depositaries of slain, Northern and Southern, after the great battles—not only where the scathing trail pass'd those years, but radiating since in all the peaceful quarters of the land—we see, and see, and ages yet may see, on monuments and gravestones, singly or in masses, to thousands or tens of thousands, the significant word
UNKNOWN.
In some of the Cemeteries nearly all the dead are Unknown. At Salisbury, N.C., for instance, the known are only 85, while the Unknown are 12,027, and 11,700 of these are buried in trenches. A National Monument has been put up here, by order of Congress, to mark the spot—but what visible, material monument can ever fittingly commemmorate that spot?” —So much for military glory. See also among the poems completing the second volume, under the general title “ Passage to India,” the section Ashes of Soldiers,
Page 27, under date Oct. 20: “ Spiritual Characters among the Soldiers.—Every now and then in Hospital or Camp, there are beings I meet—specimens of unworldliness, disinterestedness and animal purity and heroism—perhaps some unconscious Indianian, or from Ohio or Tennessee—on whose birth the calmness of heaven seems to have descended, and whose gradual growing up, whatever the circumstances of work-life or change, or hardship, or small or no education that attended it, the power of a strange, spiritual sweetness, fibre and inward health have also attended. Something veil'd and abstracted is often a part of the manners of these beings. I have met them, I say, not seldom in the Army, in Camp, and in the great Hospitals. The Western regiments contain many of them. They are often young men, obeying the events and occasions about them, marching, soldiering, fighting, foraging, cooking, working on farms, or at some trade, before the war—unaware of their own nature, (as to that, who is aware of his own nature?) their companions only understanding that they are different from the rest, more silent, * something odd about them,' and apt to go off and meditate and muse in solitude.
Similarly in the *‘ Drum-Taps ;” vol. I., p. 295 :—
” O tan-faced prairie-boy!
Before you camo to camp came many a welcome gift;
Praises and presents came, and nourishing food— till at last, among the recruits,
You came, taciturn, with nothing to give—we but look’d on each other,
When lo! more than all the gifts of the world yon gave me.”
Page 31, under date “ Washington Again—Summer of 1804;” he having been with the army in Virginia:—
“ In these Wards, or on the field, as I thus continue to go round, I have come to adapt myself to each emergency, after its kind or call, however trivial, however solemn—every one justified and made real under its circumstances—not only visits and cheering talk and little gifts—not only washing and dressing wounds, (I have some cases where the patient is unwilling anyone should do this but me)—but passages from the Bible, expounding them, prayer at the bedside, explanations of doctrine, etc. (I think I see my friends smiling at this confession, but I was never more in earnest in my life.)” His friends might smile because in his poem of Walt Whitman, and elsewhere, while proclaiming himself and his writings supremely religious, he had at the same time proclaimed himself supremely indifferent in relation to all the various gods and creeds, “ Taking them all for what they are worth, and not a cent more.”
“ Not objecting to special revelations—considering a curl of smoke, or a hair on the back of my hand, just as curious as any revelation.”
“ The supernatural of no account—myself waiting to be one of the Supremes.”
“What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but that man or woman is as good as God ?
And that there is no God more divine than Yourself.”
“I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d;
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins; They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;
Not one is dissatisfied—not one is demented with the mania of owning things;
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago;
Not one is respectable and industrious over the whole earth.” And in the great Preface to the first edition of “Leaves of Grass,” reprinted, in its integrity, as already stated, by Mr. W. M. Rossetti,* we read:—
“ The whole theory of the special and supernatural, and all that was twined with or educed out of it, departs as a dream.”
“ It is also not consistent with the reality of the soul to admit that there is anything in the known universe more divine than men and women.”
* I have seen a copy of this first edition, which was set up by Whitman himself. The prose Preface hud a most curious appearance, there being three or four or more points after every clause, or nearly every clause, of every sentence. Mr. Rossetti in reprinting adopted, wisely, the ordinary mode of setting up.
“ There will soon be no more priests. Their work is done. They may wait awhile—perhaps a generation or two,—dropping off by degrees. A superior breed shall take their place. A new order shall arise; and they shall be the priests of man, and every man shall be his own priest.”
And, peculiarly characteristic (as it has been remarked) of his own nature and poetry : “ The soul has that measureless pride which consists in never acknowledging any lessons but its own. But it has sympathy as measureless as its pride, and the one balances the other, and neither can stretch too far while it stretches in company with the other.”
So the friends might well smile, and yet we may well believe that he was never more earnest in his life. His main object was to comfort and support, and, if possible, cure the patients; and if any of them found comfort and support and healing in passages from the Bible, and prayers by the bedside and explanations of theological doctrines, he would of course administer these as patiently and cheerfully as any other restorative or remedy which the poor men might long for and he could obtain. In other words, he had none of that fanatical bigotry so common among so-called Free-thinkers, and so much more disgusting than the bigotry of the superstitious, because the latter avow themselves fettered by stark dogmas while the former claim to be liberal and free. Spinoza smoking a calm pipe in the company of his simple host and hostess, could assure them, with the sincerity of wisdom, that they did well to go to church, that their religion would certainly save them if they were good and true. So Whitman, as* we have seen, when asked by poor Oscar Wilber whether he enjoyed religion, could honestly reply, “ Perhaps not, my dear, in the way you mean, and yet, may-be, it is the same thing.”
P. 33.—“ After the battles at Columbia, Tennessee, where we repulsed about a dozen of vehement rebel charges, they left a great many wounded on the ground, mostly within our range. Whenever any of these wounded attempted to move away by any means, generally by crawling off, our men, without exception, brought them down by a bullet. They let none crawl away, no matter what his condition.”—The magnanimous chivalry of War!
P. 36.—“I am regularly supplied with funds for this purpose [gifts to the many wounded, without a cent of money in their pockets] by good women and men in Boston, Salem, Providence, Brooklyn, and New York. . . . My supplies, altogether voluntary, mostly confidential, often seeming quite Providential, were numerous and varied. For instance, there were two distant and wealthy ladies, sisters, who sent regularly, for two years, quite heavy sums, enjoining that their names should be kept secret. The same delicacy was indeed a frequent condition. From several I had carte blanche. Many were entire strangers. From these sources, during from two to three years, in the Hospitals, I bestow’d, as almoner for others, many, many thousands of dollars. I learn’d one thing conclusively—that beneath all the ostensible greed and heartlessness of our times there is no end to the generous benevolence of men and women in the United States, when once sure of their object.”
1865, Feb. 28.—“ Soon after I met John Wormley, 9th Alabama—is a West Tennessee raised boy, parents both dead —had the look of one for a long time on short allowance— said very little—chew’d Tobacco at a fearful rate, spitting in proportion—large clear dark-brown eyes, very fine—didn’t know what to make of me—told me at last he wanted much to get some clean underclothes, and a pair of decent pants. Didn’t care about coat or hat fixings. Wanted a chance to wash himself well and put on the underclothes. I had the very great pleasure of helping him to accomplish all those wholesome designs.” J. T.
Uggeian feasuees. xn.
The Pleasures of Intoxication.
It would be extremely difficult to determine with an approximative figure the number of men who, on the surface of the globe, devote themselves to the pleasures of intoxication ; but it is still more difficult to find a race or a country unfamiliar with those pleasures. The rich Englishman combats spleen with the delicious wines of Xeres and Oporto, which he sends on a voyage to India in order to complete their delicate aroma; while the inhabitant of Kamtschatka swallows a fragment of fungus ( Amanita Mu caria), passes a night of delirium, and the day after drinks his own narcotised urine in order to prolong the hours of felicity. The descendant of the Incas drinks the turbid chicha, on which swims the fat oil of the frumentaceous mass that was masticated by filthy lips to form the ferment of that singular, though most wholesome, beverage; while the Tartar inebriates himself with the Kanyungtsyen (lamb’s flesh, fermented with rice and other vegetals), or with the dearly-beloved Koumiss, which he obtains from the fermentation of mares’ milk. Tn the East men eat and drink and smoke opium; in Bolivia and in Peru they masticate coca. If in some remote countries you find a wild tribe unfamiliar with an alcoholic drink or a narcotic poison, be sure that alcohol under all its forms, and
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with all its consequences, is destined soon to arrive. In the face of these facts, the sceptic shakes his head and thinks that man, created essentially and exclusively for enjoyment, seeks in inebriating substances facile delights, and that it would be useless to combat the propensity. The moralist frowns, talks about original sin, and curses man, wholly made up of crime and corruption. The philosopher, on the contrary, neither laughs nor curses; but, as a student, seeks in human nature the primal causes of vices and virtues, persuaded that the practical and really useful applications must be based on th? knowledge, so much contemned, of the material of which we are constituted. Man has made the juice of the grape ferment, and has gathered the drops oozing from the capsules of the poppy, guided by the same instinct which has enabled him to find quinquina in the woods of the Cordilleras and the pearl at the bottom of the sea. If by chance he learns how to intoxicate himself, he transmits with his blood this fresh vice to posterity; and he does so by that natural right of inheritance which makes good and evil pass from one generation to another, like current money, which changes its value and its form, but which without pause circulates from one hand to the other. Intoxication is a transient delirium, or an intensitication of one or more faculties of the cerebro-spinal axis, produced by the introduction into our organism of any particular substance. All inebriating substances cause in us certain general effects, which give us certain general pleasures. But what serves as material to all the others is the supreme sensation of existence, which precedes all the others, and almost always dominates them. In the first stages of intoxication we have a fuller, more sensitive consciousness of life; we produce artificially that state of delight which we enjoy when under the double influence of vigorous health and exhilarant passion. At a more advanced stage many faculties of feeling, of thinking, and of moving are more or less excited; and from the state of calm and apathy in which we had been, we are thrown into a surexcitation, which may vary in degree and in hature, but which is always a feverish activity. In the first stages of intoxication we can take part in the spectacle of active life toward which our affections are drawn. But at a later point the disordered and excessive intensification of certain pleasures irresistibly flings reason into the whirl of anarchy, and wo enjoy a confused emotion, a dithyrambic agitation, in which all the elements of good and evil, having burst the bounds which restrained them, clasp each other, commingle, to rush into the unbridled licence of bacchanalian excess. Another general characteristic of the pleasures of intoxication is that of inundating all the vast domain of the mind anti of the heart, so as to drive away all importunate cares, all the secret anguish of the future, all the remorses of the past. The confusion and the accumulation of intellectual elements of every kind, the thoughts which wildly rush toward the telegraph of speech, form such a whirl that the consciousness can scarcely occupy itself with the present, and forgets the past and the future, just as the flying dust of a tumultuous dance does not permit us to see the objects which surround us, the beautiful ringlets on which shortly before our glance had lovingly rested. The story of intoxication, considered uuder the manifold aspect of philosophy, of hygiene, and of morality, has still to be written, and I attempt nothing more than to trace rapidly some lineaments thereof, to indicate that a palace may be built where I have raised nothing but a tent. In any case, whosoever wishes to give us the natural history of intoxication, must divide it into alcoholical, narcotical, and cafeical.—From the Italian of Mantegazza.
Ablutions before the Kepast.
The custom of washing the hands before a meal goes back, in Wales, beyond the twelfth century. When dinner-time arrived, the valets brought to each of the guests a vessel filled with warm water, and a napkin for wiping his hands. Among the great, the vessel was often of gold or silver. Among persons not so rich, marine shells were used, or simply vessels of glazed clay. From the time of Houel-da, the use of ablutions was general at the court of princes, for it is mentioned in an article of the Domestic Laws:—“Etiquette demanded that the almoner should present the vessel to the King, and hold his gloves while he washed his hands.”—From the French of Hersart de la Villemarqut.
Ulourning £ttire in Armorica.
It appears that yellow was the colour worn by women among the ancient Britons in seasons of mourning. The Welsh peasant women, who have retained many usages renounced by the higher classes in the country, have, however, forsaken this one, and now wear black like their neighbours, the English women. But it subsists in Lower Britanny. We often, with astonishment, see in the country districts women following the funeral of their husband, and wearing a head-dress of a saffron hue. When the mourning ends they resume the white head-dress, like the other peasant women of Britanny. Probably, it is only because yellow stuffs are not made in Britanny that the women do not wear gowns of a yellow tint. In certain districts the women belonging to the working class wear shoes of vari-coloured leather. It is regarded as a supreme elegance. The shoes are called hontouler-marellet.—From the French of Hersart de la Villemarqut.
£ South American IVahe.
If the voyage were not a long one, I should advise you to go and die in Entre Rios; you have the pleasure in that case of knowing that your death is sure to give to many people a night of great enjoyment. When a man in Entre Rios, after being a living member of society, has become a corpse, he is immediately attired in his best raiment, aud placed on a bier on the floor in his chamber. This operation is carried out with so much eagerness and haste, that more than once, being summoned to a dying person at the distance of a few miles, I fo md him already dressed for the wake, and surrounded by a blazing array of tadow candles, waiting for the night to bring him the tribute of the velurio. Though the good folks are not acquainted with the studies of Brown-sequard, they know very well how to discern the epoch when cadaveric rigidity has unmistakably come; and they hurry to put the gorgeous garments on the dead before that rigidity gives them any trouble. To the ve Iorio (wake) are invited relatives and friends; neighbours, parasites, idlers invite themselves. The professed design is to watch for a night in prayer for the departed soul; but between one rosary and another mate is sipped, there is eating, there is drinking, there is gambling. The slow and sad murmur of the De Profundis, to which the few mourners devote themselves, is interrupted by the shameless clamour of the gamblers and by the chatter of lovers. The contact of joy and sorrow’, of life and death, forms a contrast so inharmonious, that we cannot help shuddering when we think of the very strange stuff of which the Homo Sapiens of Linna ug is made. Meanw hile, believe me when I declare that the Entre-rians are neither harder in heart nor more sceptical than the Romans, who paid for tears, and, having bought them, placed them in an urn, as if in mockery of the solemn silence of death ; or than the good Milanese, who fly from the house of a dead person, either from horror of the bier or from a profound regard for tin ir own safety. When in Entre Rios a child dies, the rclorio is alw’ays accompanied by a ball. Hence has come the Argentine proverb, “Let him die, that we may dance.” How sad a school for a youth, in his education for life, is this transfiguremeut of death into a festival!—From the Italian of Muntegazza.
Determination of the Causes of our Maladies,
Disease is not a thing of reason, an occult influence, and the cause of which is not susceptible of falling under our senses, an entity finally, and an arcanum of Nature. A healthy organ elaborates and functionates in a normal manner, as long as it does not leave the sphere of the circumstances favourable to its elaboration. As long as these circumstances remain the same, it cannot fall ill; it can only grow old. It would be absurd to think that a healthy organ has the faculty of rendering itself ill; that the heart should take a fancy, so to speak, to suspend its movements, the lung to stop its respirations, the brain to extinguish its thought, the stomach to refuse to elaborate the aliments, and so on. The function of an organ being the invariable result of the concourse of its constitution and of the circumstances which nourish, it cannot cease as long as those two conditions are present. For an organ to become diseased—that is to say, to suspend or cease its functions—the aliment for its elaboration must be lacking, or some change must come to alter its constitution. The cause of our maladies is, therefore, always external to our organs. Disease comes to them always from without, and never emanates from themselves. To say that such or such a malady comes from the blood, or from the bile, or from the nerves, or from the humours, and so on, is to employ an old jargon, at which philosophy has laughed, but laughed in vain, for centuries, and at which we do not think it worth while to laugh in these days. These phrases belong to the same family as that which tells us that Nature abhors a vacuum. When disease shows itself in one of our organs, all suffers, and all is affected—the bile, the humours, the blood, the nerves; for in the grand unity which constitutes our being, the smallest organ cannot refuse its contingent of function without influencing all the other functions. The bile cannot be healthy when the blood is diseased, the blood healthy if the bile is diseased. The nervous system cannot be irritated without affecting the elaboration of the bile, of the blood, and of the humours. Simple effects of an external cause, they become in their turn the progressive causes of new effects; a vicious circle of ills the occasion of other ills, and the two ends of which only join at the gates of death. Examples appreciable by our glance furnish us with the thread of the analogy which must conduct us to the elimination of the causes which escape our senses. When a pointed instrument penetrates your flesh, or when a simple thorn pierces into your dermis, your sufferings can be very terrible. What makes you so ill ? The presence of this dart in your flesh. Why ? Because it has opened to the exterior air access to the tissues which the epidermis protected, and lias violently rent the superficial expansions of the nervous subdivisions. The cause, then, of your malady in this case ia evidently a very little thorn, of which every one, without being a physician, can appreciate the nature and the origin. Also no one then says that the malady comes from the bile, from the blood, from the nerves, and so on; in the eyes of all it comes from the presence of the thorn. But suppose that, through the effect of a chance which is hidden from our view, this
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thorn penetrates into the stomach or the lungs, the presence of this foreign body in the one or the other of these organs, so essential to life, produces results much more serious, and which compromise health on a far vaster scale. As nothing reveals the cause of the disease, the physician arrives with a whole swarm of hypotheses. The patient abdicates his free will and the use of his faculty of reasoning, to submit to what be comprehends just as little'as those who take hold of his body as of an enigma to be divined. In this case one says, “ It is the bile; ” a second, “ It is the blood; ” a third, *‘ It is the nerves.” And all this is equivalent to saying “ It was a simple thorn,” if the patient, once dead, is subjected to an exact autopsy. We can make the same reasoning in regard to poisons, miasmata, insects, and so on. In all cases the study of the disease appertains to the domain of simple good sense, when the cause is accessible to the senses. But when it eludes our appreciation, pedantic science takes hold of it, and then no one understands anything about it, because in medicine men have always neglected to follow the thread of analogy, to reason by inductions, to proceed by demonstrations.—From the French of haapail.
Ijippocratcs.
The dislike of Hippocrates was as great to hypotheses as to empiricism; to hypotheses because he proceeded always—or, at least, he flattered himself that he proceeded always—by direct observation : to emniric’sm. forismuchas his medical system, connected in all its parts, kept him clear of dangerous attempts and of experiments inspired by the caprice of imagination. Ho knew, or thought he knew, beforehand everything that eomd happen in a given case, in administering such or such a therapeutic agent. The action of the substances destined to the regimen or the medication was regulated and calculated like everything else in the totality of the system, and every substance responded to every indication which claimed attention and fulfilment. Placed between tho philosophical schools and the medical schools, Hippocrates combats the physiology of the first and the narrow views of the second. Ho secured for medicine a form which has triumphed over time and sects. The method and the conception of the system have subsisted; we may even say that more remains of Hippocrates than of Galen, after the great medical reform accomplish'd bv the immortal discovery of Harvey. In the path on which he entered, Hippocrates does not seem to have had any real predecessors. He was a primordial thinker; and, am^ng the Ancients, we can compare him with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle alone.—From the French of Daremberg.
Life and Disease*
Life consists in the movement of the blood, a circulatory movement that maintains the integrity of the substance of which the body is composed. The ethereal fluid, or the vital spirits which disengage themselves from that fluid, are prepared by the brain, and distributed by the brain to the nerves. Thence result the acts of the organic life, which are of two sorts: movement of expansion or dilatation, and movement of constriction or contraction. So much for the physiology of the subject. In the pathological condition, which results from a perturbation of the movement of the solids and of tho liquids, there is either acceleration through excess of contraction, or retardation of the movement through excess of dilatation. In the first case the maladies are spasmodic; in the second, atonic.—From the Latin of Frederick Hoffmann.
£ Melancholy Philosopher.
Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher of the Ionian school, lived during the sixty-ninth Olympiad, and died at the age of sixty years. We may therefore approximately place the epoch of his birth towards the sixtieth Olympiad—that is to say, 54>) years before the Christian era, and consequently that of his death toward 48). He was born and he died at Ephesus, a city of Asia Minor, an Ionian colony, situated on the coast of Lydia, on the Cais ter, not far from Sardes, the capital and the residence of the Lydian kings. The father of Heraclitus was the leading citizen, or political chief, of Ephesus. Heraclitus, who after the death of his father could have inherited his functions, renounced them in favour of his brother, either because, as Antisthenes states, he feared lest political pursuits might thwart his taste for philosophy, or because that melancholy which was natural to him, and which was destined to gain such fatal development, inspired in him a profound repugnance for that intercourse with men which is inseparable from political affairs. Perhaps these two causes both operated to produce in Heraclitus tho determination to dwell apart from the business of the State. Also, when at a later period his fellow citizens entreated him to give them laws, he resolutely refused; alleging as a reason that the corruption of the Ephesians was so great and so inveterate that he deemed it incurable. We are inclined to believe that the spectacle of the moral degradation into which his native city and all the great cities of Asiatic Greece had fallen powerfully contributed to nourish and to exasperate that melancholy which formed the basis of his temperament. The exile pronounced against his friend Hermoderos further embittered his character. We know how jealous the Greek Democracy was. A transcendant talent almost always incurred the suspicion of a tendency to tyranny, and as an inevitable consequence ran the risk of exile. If we are to trust the testimonies that remain to
us, it is to this cause that we must attribute the exile of Hermoderos. These various circumstances so immensely intensified the misanthropy of Heraclitus that he broke off all relations with his fellow-citizens. Ho passed his time in playing with children before the temple of Diana, and said to those who came to watch him : “ Perverse men, why should you be astonished at what I do? Is it not better to act as I am acting than to occupy myself like you, with the affairs of the State?” He ended by leaving Ephesus, withdrawing to the mountains, and lived on herbs and roots. This kind of life brought on a dropsy, which made him return to Ephesus. He consulted physicians, and asked them, in an enigmatical form, what means they could employ to convert rain into drought. As his questions were not understood, he tried to. cure himself, and shut himself up with stall-fed oxen, hoping to vanquish dropsy through the heat of the dung. But he hoped in vain, and he succumbed to his malady. The philosophical doctrines of Heraclitus were contained in a book which he plated in the temple of Diana, and which about a hundred and sixty-seven years after was published by Crates, the Academician. This book was not written in verse like those of the philosophers who had preceded Heraclitus, but in Ionian prose.—From the French of C. Mallet.
(The celebrated Socialist Lassalle wrote a work on Hera-kleitos.)
51 Cbainpion of Smohinij Wanton.
Wk gave an account some time since of a renowned German emancinirte, the Countess Hatzfcld, the spiritual mother of Lassalle, and the actual mother of Gr./ Hatzfcld, the present ambassador of tho German Empire at the court of the Sultan. This exceedingly strong-minded woman signalised her liberation “ by the incessant smoking of cigars.” Since her time smoking has greatly increased am mgs1 the ladies of Europe; not only the advanced young damsels o' Russian Nihilism and the impudent females of the Paris dem --monde, but even sober and staid German housemistresses of solid social standing— if we may trust the Frau Wanda von Dunajew—have taken generally to Tobacco of late years. The lady who writes under this title is an Austrian, ami the wife of a very popular author. She has taken up the defence of female smokers, and the editor of the Berlin Deutsche* Mont ig dd itt has permitted her to deal with it as one of tin' “ zeiifragen,” or great questions of the age, which are from time to time ventilated by experts in the columns of that journal. She puts her thesis in the form of a question—“ May Women Smoke?”— and she has replied seriatim to a whole armoury of negative answers with which the question is almost invariably met. The appearance of her article, which was written in a tone half-humorous and half-serious, seems to have brought the editor quite a hurricane of requests for leave to controvert it or to support it in his paper. The amiable man consented to print some of these replies, whereupon they multiplied so thick and fast that he was obliged to give extracts from them, and Anally to declare that they must cease altogether. We, for our part, refuse to sit in judgment upon the question. We confess, after reading all Frau von Dunajew’s eloquent and eager special pleadings, that we, nevertheless, have our prejudices. Our readers will not care to know whether these prejudices lean this way or that, and we shall coniine ourselves to introducing them to the advocate of female smoking, allowing her to speak for herself.
“Thira are many women,” says the Frau von Dunajew, “ who regard it as an unpardonable fault when one of their bolder and less prejudiced sisters puffs little blue clouds of Tobacco-smoke into the air.” She deals gently, however, with these female objectors. Her battle is directed against the German men, smokers themselves, who speak of smoking as a crime or a folly, unless the smoker happens to be of tlieir own sex. She has tried to get from the male objectors some argument sufficiently convincing to persuade her that no woman of self-respect and common-sense ought ever to place another cigarette between her lips.
Their first reply, she observes, is an off-hand dismissal of the whole subject—“ Smoking is injurious to health.” By whom is this said ? “ By the very same men who come to our breakfast-tables with burning cigars in their mouths, who light a second cigar as soon as breakfast is over, and who are scarcely for one moment without a cigar between their lips until they go to bed at night That the stale reek of Tobacco-smoke is injurious to the temper of the house-mistress, that it is injurious to our fine white curtains and thick hangings, may be granted. That the fumes of stark and rank Tobacco are not acceptable to the human throat and stomach is indisputable. But it remains to be proved that the woman has greater susceptibility than the man for the poison in such fumes. If Tobacco is killing, we have living proofs always about us that it takes a very long time indeed to do its work. We women have just as much right to poison ourselves by this dilatory process as our fathers, lovers, husbands, and brothers have.” Frau von Dunajew has often been informed that smoking is bad for the lungs, and bad for the teeth. She has lived for some time in Turkey, and states that “ lung-disease is notably a rarity amongst the stark-smoking Turks,” and that they happen to be famous for keeping their teeth.
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The next argument brought against the advocate of feminine smoking is derived from the so-called “ Tabaksqualm.” Anyone who has been shut up in a small room, or in a smoking-carriage on the railway, where everyone else waa smoking, while he had left his pipe or cigar-case at home, will understand what is meant by the Tobacco-qualm. Frau von Dunajew meets the difficulty boldly, and, we think, successfully. “Well,” she asks, “what is the one certain way not merely to get immediately better of the qualm, but to endure the smoke with complacency as long as we are in the midst of it? To light a cigarette for ourselves.” While we accept her statement of the mode of cure as quite incontrovertible, we do not for a moment concede that it is a sufficient justification for female smoking. The lady is not obliged to seat herself in a smoking compartment. But we must allow the champion to speak for herself. “ So long as our husbands smoke in our society,” she observes, “we must turn their argument against themselves. If smoking is so injurious to them, why should we leave themialone in their heroic self-exposure to certain death by poison? Why should we not insist upon sharing their fate? ”
When the plea of health fails to convince the female smoker, or would-be smoker, the masculine dog in the manger—or, perhaps, we should rather call him dog in theTobacco-jar— betakes himself to far more invidious arguments. He appeals to the inherent conservative instinct of womankind. Frau von Dunajew is frequently told that a cigarette in the mouth of a woman is regarded as an indisputable symbol that she has joined the ranks of the emancipated sisterhood. Men and women alike conclude, when they see Tobacco fumes arising from her lips, that she is cogitating destructive schemes against the social and political order of the world, that she is a social-democrat, a Nihilist, a potential regicide, and the secret agent of some terrible Vehmgericht. Sometimes an appeal to the supposed desire of the sex for the admiration of the smoking sex is shyly appended to this appeal to its conservatism. “ They tell us,” says Frau von Dunajew, “ that there are very few men in the world who are not decided foes of Fraucn-emancipation, very few who are not horrified at the thought of having an emancipated female near them. In Germany, especially, there are said to be very perceptible reasons why a smoking lady should be regarded with very mistrustful looks, and sedulously avoided.” The lady replies that such suspicions are very unjust and unreasonable. The fact that emancipated females usually smoke is no proof that any lady who lights a cigarette is an emancipated female. So absurd a conclusion reminds her of the old logic at which she learned to laugh in her school days: “ All cats are black in the night time; hence, whenever one sees a black cat, one knows that it is night time.” She goes again to the East for her argument, and asks in what part of the world the whole theory and programme of the emancipated female is so detested, or so hopelessly impracticable, as in Turkey ? Yet Turkey, she triumphantly exclaims, is a land which swarms with women-smokers.
A German, who lived for some time amongst the Austrian Poles, has observed: “ Here, from the moment of her marriage, every woman has the choice of two courses. Either she must absolutely govern her husband, and make him her slave (which she usually manages to do), or else she must contentedly sink clown into his slave, a miserable and despised creature. Words can hardly express the coarseness and brutality with which wives of this latter class are treated by their husbands.”* Our pleader for the woman’s cigarette, after citing the above passage, adds that every Polish woman is a smoker. The she-despot, the bard tyrant over the feeble husband, smokes : tho wretched slave, maltreated by her cruel husband, consoles herself with Tobacco. “ This frightful physical and moral poison,” says Frau von Dunajew, “ has hitherto effected no sort of alteration.” It has not tamed or killed any of the Polish shrews, nor has it inspired any of the Polish she-slaves to rise up and fight for their emancipation.
But the foe of the lady’s cigarette, when he turns from direct argument to indirect flattery, tells her that smoking gives her a masculine appearance, that it destroys a part of her womanliness, and thus robs her of her greatest charm. She replies, first, that the tastes of men differ. Some admire a Joan of Arc, and others prefer a Griselda. Many men think that bold horsemanship is peculiarly unbecoming for a woman, while others think that she is never so attractive as when she is seated in the saddle and flourishing a whip. The short answer, however, to all male objections is, that they are grounded upon prejudice and conservative dislike to the new, unknown, and unaccustomed. “If the ladies of England, Germany, Hungary, and partially also of France,” says Frau von Dunajew, “are conventionally prohibited from smoking, their sisters in Spain, Busshi, Poland, Wallachia, Turkey, and Southern America lose not a fraction of their grace, womanliness, soundness of lung, and loving submission to the other sex by their daily use of Tobacco.” Some literary friends of the authoress appear to have warned her that they regard female smoking as “ unasthetisch.” She thinks that there is probably more force in this argument than any other. Smoking must be exercised with tact and discernment. She holds that “ a cigar ill befits a lady’s mouth,” and that “ an ordinary pine would naturally expose her to laughter and ridicule. But a lady who is already deficient in grace, tact, and chic”
w Aus Galizien,” Leipzig., 1849, p. 54.
she adds, “ need not begin to smoke in order to become uniesthetic or ridiculous; while a lady of good taste will understand how to smoke, and nevertheless continue every inch a true lady.” Here she introduces a highly-coloured picture of an aristocratic young lady, the daughter of one of the richest Beys of Bosnia, whom she visited some years ago. After-describing this lady enjoying her Nargileh in the midst of her friends, she declares her to have been and looked “ a great deal more aesthetic than our ladies at their stocking-knitting.”
When we attempt to sum up the arguments of Frau von Dunajew on behalf of her cigarette, we are afraid that they are not likely to be as convincing to others as they are to herself. Our conspectus of them will be tolerably fair, we imagine, if it is stated as follows: 1. Because smoking is hurtful to men, women ought also to poison themselves with nicotine, not out of passion for it, but purely out of love to their fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, or lovers; 2. Because women feel qualmish in a smoky atmosphere, they ought to increase the volume of smoke in order to get rid of the qualm; 3. Because women of a powerful nature make an easier conquest of men than feebler women do, a woman ought to smoke in order to give proof of her power; 4. Because the women of Russia, Poland, Turkey, Wallachia, and the poorer class in Holland are great smokers, the representatives of the highest feminine culture in England, Germany, and France ought to lay in a stock of cigarettes, and use them; 5. Because the Frau von Dunajew was charmed with the picturesqueness, grace, tact, and chic of an aesthetic young Polish lady-smoker, all women who wish to acquire those virtues in perfection should devote themselves to the use of Tobacco. T. H.
peripatetic pipes.
H.
There seems to be quite a mania for what are called “ Society Papers ” at the present time. It is to my mind a clear indication of a decline in common-sense. To anyone who is disposed to question this assertion, I say, obtain a round dozen of them, and carefully read the batch right through, and then call for the steward.
I confess that I sometimes read them, partly to see what editors have the conscience to ask money for, and partly because I unfortunately contracted a taste for reading in early life, which grows stronger every day. If I could get nothing to read I should expire. When I have been hard pressed for matter, I have taken to advertisements, tombstones, posters, shop fronts, grocers’ and linendrapers’ price lists, and even Martin Tupper.
The driest reading I ever got hold of was a waste copy of a Chinese playbill. It was midnight, too, and in a strange house. There was no gas, and I had consumed my candle, so that I had to get through a bit at a time by striking lucifer matches. I should not have related this, only to show my great appetite for reading. I should like to say that I do not wish it to be thought that I understand Chinese. Far from it; not a single character. Wading through one of these society papers, the other day, it, struck me that the editor exhibited a great lack of fairness.
Persons of rank, wealth, and importance were freely talked about. There was not much in the talk, but still it was all concerning the big or the beautiful. The toiling millions were left out, and this set me wondering whether the reason was to be found in the fact that folks without wealth or greatness never did anything, or had anything happen to them, worth recording.
“ Surely,” said I, to myself, “ this cannot be ”; and I reached for my “ Sartor Resartus,” grimly grinning, as I tried to imagine how many nights’ rest our grand old hero of the pen and the pipe—Thomas of Chelsea—had lost in studying society papers. Turning to the chapter on “ Helotage,” I read of the “ toilworn craftsman that with earth made implement laboriously conquers the earth ”; I read of his “ hard hand, crooked and coarse, wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the sceptre of this Planet,” and “ the rugged face all weather-tanned and besoiled, with its rude intelligence, for it is the face of a man living man-like.”
This decided me, and I determined to’light my pipe and go and hunt up some of these rude intelligences, and see if I could not glean some information concerning them.
Once well in the street, I concluded the best way to begin would be to proceed to a neighbourhood where likely subjects resided. This decision I carried out, and in the course of an hour found myself on what was called a working man’s estate.
I rather shrank at the idea of knocking at a strange'person’s door, and, like a flash of lightning, thought carried me back to the days of my boyhood. Why, then there was no shrinking, but a wild delight as the knocker was strongly clutched, swiftly raised, and brought down with a grand crash. How I could run at that time, to be sure ! Ah, me 1
Specials, however, must not be too particular; and so, screwing my courage to the knocking point, I gave a modest rat-tat at the door of one of the houses.
The door was at once opened by a man, rugged-faced and aoarse-handed. “ A man, living man-like,” I whispered to myself; for I felt that I had one of the right sort before me. I was rather put out when he said: “Got nothing to give
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away—hook it! ” I gently prevented him from closing the door, and observed mildly: “My good friend”-----------“Now, none of your preaching! ” he interrupted; “It’s no go; I’ve got quite enough to do to feed the old woman and the kids, so trot! ”
“ I want nothing! ” I cried indignantly.
“ Then what the deuce did you knock at my door for, eh ? ” cried the man, fiercely.
I replied, looking as amiable as I could : “ I merely wished to ask how you are getting on, and whether you have any items of interest to impart to me, with a view to having them placed before the world at large. Even your opinions on matters in general, whether of importance or comparative unimportance—ranging, say, from the Eastern Question to the compulsory illumination of bicycles—I should be glad to listen to.”
“Well, I’m jiggered,” cried the son of toil. “What are you? Are you a school board, or a tax gatherer, or a harmless lunatic? I certainly admire your cheek. You’re an old man, so I won’t give you a prop, but I’ll leave the old woman to settle you. Here, missis; here’s a animated fossil come to waccinate the twins.”
“ I’ll twins him,” cried the good lady, as she hurried to the door. “Now, what do you want?” This was to me; and she put her elbows out, and stuck the backs of her hands into her ribs, to show me plainly that she intended to have no twins vaccinated that day.
I removed my hat and bowed; then said: “ Madam, I have not the slightest desire to perform any surgical operation on any of the members of your family. Your good husband is a bit of a wag, I perceive, and is inclined to make merry at my expense. I am not a doctor, but a humble member of the fourth estate.”
“Oh,” said the lady, “you are to do with the estate, are you? A pretty lot of fellows you are. When we moved on to this estate this house was eight shillings a week; now the rent’s been risen and risen till it’s ten and six. Do you call that honest? You’re a pretty pack of scoundrels, tempting poor people to move here, and then putting up the rents till the houses arc as dear as anywhere else.”
“ I do not belong to this estate company,” I protested. I mentioned the fourth estate to let you know that I am connected with the press.”
“The press. What press?” inquired the woman.
“Well,” I answered, “the newspaper press, and so on.”
“We always has our newspapers on Sunday morning of the regular man,’ was the exasperating reply. “We don’t want to change ; we have dealt with him for a long time.”
I began to despair of making myself understood, but resolved to make one more effort. I said: “I do not want to sell you any newspapers; I simply wish to ascertain if you can tell me of any interesting incidents that have recently happened to your husband and yourself.”
“If you mean the twins,” cried the woman, quite savagely, “ and I don't know what else you can mean, I think it’s like your precious impudence. Go away and hide yourself, you indelicate old pig!” And she concluded by slamming the door in my face.
Badly as I had been treated, I resolved to try another son of toil, so toddled some twenty yards further down the street, and gave a genial rat-tat at another door. I could hear people inside, but no one came to the door, so I supposed my summons had not been heard. I knocked a second time, and still the door was unopened. A third time I knocked, this time with much vigour. Presently a window over my head opened, and the head and shoulders of a rough man appeared. The man cried out, with a laugh, “ Its no go, old ’un; you’re only wasting time.” “ What is no go ? ” I inquired, innocently enough. “ Oh, of course, you don’t know,” cried the fellow’, with a grin “ You fancy, because you look like a superannuated journeyman parson, that you’re going to have the door opened, don't you? Why, you hypocritical old crock, I’m a good mind to drop a flat-iron on your hat for your impudence.”
“ My dear sir,” I cried, “ I do not understand you. I wish you would come and open the door and explain. Your words are so mysterious that my curiosity is quite excited.”
“ Get along with you,” cried the man, with scorn and rage in his threatening eye. “ Of course you don’t know that the broker particularly wants that door open, and of course you aint a broker’s man; certainly not. I suppose you only wants to have the door open so as you can chuck in a hatful of sovereigns to pay my debts with. Hi 1 ” this was to some one in the house, “ bring up a pail of hot water, and just put a handful of soot in it, and make haste.”
I waited to hear no more. I went away greatly vexed. It only shows to what contumely and insult special correspondents are subject. I almost determined to give up my project of investigation, but concluded to make one more call, at all events.
This time, when I knocked, the door was opened readily enough. The man who opened it was clean and tidy, and with rather an intellectual cast of countenance. I liked his appearance immensely, and determined to broach personal matters with a little more delicacy than I used in the first instance related here.
The man asked me civilly what I required.
“Sir,” I said, “first allow me to apologise for knocking at your door. My object may seem peculiar, but when you come to know me, I am convinced, from your personal appearance, that its peculiarity will not prevent you from
seeing and agreeing as to its importance.” The man half smiled, and I felt encouraged. “ I am convinced,” I continued, “ that in, if I may use such a term without offence, in the lower orders lurks much that deserves to occupy a more prominent position. What I mean is this: that if the opinions and the incidents of everyday life of working men were placed more before the public than they are, that higher grades of society would be both interested and benefited. My mission is to bring this state of affairs about. Would you mind just fetching any of your favourite authors, for I am convinced that you love books. It will not take you long to point out to me some of their beauties, and give your opinions on passages that are a little difficult to understand, if there are any. I think it quite possible that I should find in you a competent critic, and possibly I might find that among your opinions some would be valuable enough to give to the world at large. Or, if you think it would take up too much time to get your books out, would you mind, more by way of experiment than anything else, giving me your opinion on some subject, anything you like, either political or philosophical, I care not what.” Here I paused.
“ Susan,” cried the man, “ bring me yesterday’s newspaper.” I rubbed my hands gleefully. It was evident the man thoroughly fell in with my views, an 11 looked forward to quite a comfortable chat. The newspaper was brought, and the man turned it round about and over till he found the paragraph he wanted. “Listen!” said he, with what I thought was unnecessary sternness.
“ Go on,” I said, “ go on.” The man then read in a loud voice—“ Caution to Householders. Householders are cautioned against a man who may call. He assumes various disguises, and gives various pretences for calling. Sometimes he represents himself as a life insurance agent, sometimes he professes to be in search of a friend whose address he has lost. His principal object, however, is to get the person who opens the door to go into the house to make further inquiries. He then, if there is an opportunity, makes off with any coats, hats, or umbrellas that happens to be in the hall. He is in reality about fifty years of age, and very fleet of foot, but mostly makes himself up to look like a man of seventy, and assumes an appearance of decrepitude and feebleness to excite sympathy and allay suspicion.”
“ There,” cried the man when he had finished his reading, “ how do you like your description ? If you’re not off I’ll have you locked up, so sure as my name is what it is.”
“ But,” I cried, indignantly------- “ Gammon ” shouted the man, interrupting me. “ Off you go, if you don't want the dog set on you,” and he banged the door in my face.”
I shook my head sadly as I stopped for a moment to console myself with a pipe of Tobacco. “ A beggar,” I muttered ; “ a broker’s man, and now a thief. Hard-handed sons of toil, no more will I seek your habitations.” Then, shaking the dust of the estate off my feet, I sought a friendly tavern, where I refreshed myself with a glass of ale. D. Gogos.
®bt Stlcgrapbn of the ®tgar.
A German philosopher, who has dedicated fifty years of his life to studying the properties of Tobacco, has communicated to us the following observations respecting the telegraphic use which can be made of the cigar. We recommend it to gallant bachelors, in order that they may, without fear of aunts or mothers-in-law, declare their bold thoughts to the tender girls who suffer from some of those terrible anti-amorous maladies called Auntism and Mother-in-law-ism.
We offer our thanks to Dr. Schaffausenzogen Vormigot-tisdorff, in the name of the lovers in our polished capital.
Here is the mute language of the cigar:—
To light the cigar.—“Attention ! ”
To hold it between the forefinger and the lips.—“ I long to clasp thee in my arms.”
To hold the cigar with three fingers.—“ I am thy slave.”
To hold the cigar with the thumb and the forefinger.— “ This floor is not to let.”
To pass the cigar from one hand to the other.—“Thou hast hit me there.”
To suck the cigar lightly.—“ I am in a hurry.”
To shake the ashes from the cigar.—“ All is over.”
To move the cigar with the finger.—“ I’ll think of it.”
To smoke the cigar with vehemence.—“Farewell for ever.”
To contemplate the column of smoke.—“ Wilt thou ever cease to love me ? ”
To sweep away the smoke with the hand.—“I long for thee, but without any mother-in-law.”
To bring the lighted end of the cigar to the lips.—“ What a sell I ”
To puff out the smoke with force.—“Devil take the intruders! ”
To puff the smoke through the nostrils.—“ I confide in thee.”
To puff the smoke through both mowth and nostrils.—“ Thy neighbour is frightfully in my way.”
To puff the smoke forward.—“ Wilt thou give me a kiss?”
To puff the smoke sideward.—“You have forgotten me for another.”
To puff the smoke through tho ears.—“ I believe what then tellest me.”
To puff the smoke through the eyes.—“ I will marry you.” To swallow the smoke chokingly.—“ I am hooked! ”
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®^c language of f^e ^ipc. The ladies of Spain and South America are said to have a Language of the Fan—elegant, fluent, and expressive; the poets have created a pretty, symbolical Language of Flowers ; and smokers have their Language, or Telegraphy, of the Pipe and Cigar. Thus, a smoker holding his cigar or pipe horizontally, looking at the same time at his friend or companion across the street, or the table, signifies “On the square.” Pointing the pipe or cigar over the right shoulder, during conversation, expresses coincidence of opinion, approbation, “O.K.” The action repeated twice means “All’s well.” Pointed over the left shoulder, it is an expression of incredulity. The point held upward signifies, of a third person, “I think him honest, or upright,” and vice versa. The point held to the smoker’s own breast signifies, to th* person looked at, “I want an interview with you.” Puffing slowly means “Be cautious;” rapidly, “I have made up my mind.” Looking into the pip?, or at the lighted end of the cigar, advises “ Examine, scrutinise, or listen carefully ” to the thing or matter in question: “ Look before you leap.” Turning the cigar round in the fingers, or the pipe from side to side, says “Change the subject.” Holding the point, or tip, from the smoker, is a suggestion to the person looked at to “Go,” “Retire,” “Leave the room.” A deflection of the point, in the direction of the smoker's lips, asks “ Will you drink?” Waving the smoke away with the hand intimates “I am weary of the subject—drop it.” Knocking the ash off the cigar, or out of the pipe, conveys the advice “ Say no more,” “ Observe a discreet silence.” Crushing or crumpling up the spill, after lighting, means condemnation, emphatic opposition ; and laying down the pipe or cigar expresses disappointment, displeasure, vexation. To give or pass a light is, with smokers, a mark of civility and friendliness, to be denied only to the base and worthless; for no member of the smoking fraternity would be so mean, illiberal, and bigoted as to refuse light to his deserving fellow-men. &bt language of the Snuff-^or. The punctilis, grace, and etiquette of Snuff-taking, as practised by our forefathers, may almost be classed among the lost arts. In the niceties of refined society, from the age of the Second Charles to about the end of the time “ when George the Third was King,” the Snuff-box played a conspicuous part, and was largely the medium of a graceful politeness which in our more go-a-head age is almost unrepresented. We moderns take snuff, it is true ; but—as Americans take food—in a hurry ; unceremoniously, selfishly. The Snuff-box was formerly a necessary adjunct of a gentleman, as without it he lacked one means of making himself agreeable, and of comporting himself with that politeness, consideration, and elegance of demeanour which characterised Society; whereas, duly provided with a supply of the fragrant and pungent herb, in an elegant box, he was “ point device, the very man ” ; the invariable and indispensable mark of courtesy on gentlemen meeting being then for each to present his Snuff-box, pinches being interchanged ceremoniously, with bows and smiles ; nothing so well displaying the breeding and refinement of a gentleman, as nothing so ! soon betrayed the want of gentlemanly attributes and training, ' as the individual’s demeanour in the act of offering and of taking suuff. In the Spectator may be found an “ Advertisement ” of Charles Lille, perfumer, of the Strand, informing the nobility and gentry of over a century ago that he taught “ the fashionable ceremony and exercise of the Snuffbox, or rules for offering Snuff to a stranger, a friend, or a mistress, according to the degrees of familiarity or distance; with an explanation of the careless, the scornful, the pohte, or the surly pinch, and the gestures proper to each of them.” The advertiser expresses his confident expectation soon to “ have formed a body of regular Snuff-boxes, trained ready to meet and make headway against the regiment of Fans which have been lately disciplined, and are now in motion.” Actions represented sentiments, and in grace and elegance consisted the grammar of the Language of the Snuff-box. Thus, to present snuff with erect bearing, coldly informed the recipient “ I am willing to treat you with politeness, but cannot permit familiarity ; keep your distance.” Holding the box in the left baud, with a similar bearing, was a condescension, ami said “ I recognise you—nothing more.” A tap on the box lid, with the knuckles, opening and presenting the Lox with a smile, was the salutation of a hearty, jolly good fellow, and said “We understand one another.” * A firm slap on the box with the open hand, previous to opening, meant “This is my ultimatum.” Presenting the open box, tapping its side with the fingers of the other hand, and accompanying the action with a smile and a slight bow, was an elegant and refined way of saying “You have my confidence—my respect—my esteem—my friendship”; and was applicable, with different degrees of facial expression, whether addressed to an inferior, an equal, or a superior. To take a pinch while presenting the box was a cordial act on the part of a noble or gentleman, but marking condescension. To pinch after an equal or superior was	etiquette; but to pinch before and after the person addressed was an expression of the greatest cordiality. Bowing gravely, and presenting the box in both hands, said “I present my respectful compliments, and solicit your good offices, orcou-sideration.” To place the Snuff-box closed in the hands of another signified “I am wholly at your service.” To give it open expressed “Do in this matter as you will, I entrust it to your discretion entirely.” Placing the pinch on the thumb under the right nostril, and pausing, signified uncertainty; to reverse the hand, knuckles outwards, with the pinch under the left nostril, expressed doubt. In response, there was the slow, grave pinch, signifying “I will think seriously of the matter;” the smilingly assenting pinch; the quick, gleeful pinch, signifying the entente cordiale ; and a host of others. The “ nice conduct ” of the Snuff-box imparted grace to oratory; sustained, elegantly illustrated, and added emphasis thereto, whether at the social table, or the bar, or in the crowded senate. To kiss the box before presenting snuff to a lady, was gallantry’s most supreme manifestation of esteem and regard; whilst to place the box in her hand was to declare “I am your slave; my destiny is in your charge;” and amounted to a formal proposal. If the lady closed the box, and returned it untasted to its owner, the action said, according to the manner that accompanied it, as abruptly, “No; ” lingeringly, and with a sigh, “Not yet.” Retaining a pinch between the thumb and finger mermt “ I am engaged to another.” To let the pinch fall to the ground announced sadly “ I shall never marry.” Accepting a pinch with a courtesy, but not taking the snuff, intimated “ I am sensible of the honour you do me, but must respectfully decline your offer.” Whilst a pinch taken smilingly signified consent. Other “ fashionable airs and motions ” were taught, signifying “the scornful,” “the surly pinch,” and the like; but we omit them, as not properly belonging to The Polite Art of Snuff-taking. floral Songs. A SONG OF SQUARING. Wherefore all this fuss ? Fie, for shame, my brothers! Are others worse than us Or are we worse than others ? Deny it he who can, If he looks all round, sir, Few things older than Squaring can be found, sir. Hip! Hooray 1 There is a way. Honesty being but saleable stuff, If only the squarer goes high enough. Electors have been squared, Fie, for shame, 0 “ Exes ” ! When the fraud is bared, How the judge it vexes. Many an M.P. banned; Has to quit his seat, sir, Being too free to stand Everyone a treat, sir. Hip! Hooray! There is a way. A delicate mixture of cheek and chink, As the palm is greased ; with a friendly wink. Detectives have been squared. Fie, for shame, 0 peelers ! Would you ’scape when snared? Ready be with “ feelers.” Do not ask me where, Do not ask me when, sir; True it is, I swear, And ’twill be again, sir. Hip! Hooray! There is a way. The truth of which no man need doubt, If he takes the trouble to find it out. Markers have been	 [As we have no desire to figure in an action for Ebel, this verse we will omit.—Ed.] All sorts have been squared. Fie, for shame, 0 all men 1 Whether lout or laird, Whether great or small men. Judges, jockeys, peds, Journalists and jailers; Tories, Whigs, and Reds, Soldiers, too, and sailors. Hip! Hooray 1 There is a way. The truth may not be any too nice, But every man, ’tis said, has his price. H. L.
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No. ISO.—Vol. IL]	JANUARY, 1881.	rasTO^^
Winter.
XXV.—THE AMBER FLORA.
Goeppebt’s description continued:—
DIVISIO I.—Plants Vasculabes.
Classis I.—Dicotyledonbs.
Sub-Classis I.—Thalamifloke.
Hitherto, as has been stated, not distinctly demonstrable.
Sub-Classis 2.—Calyciflorje.
Herein I include, besides the Juglandete, a blossom which, from its peculiar nature, is still problematical to me, and which I cannot bring into any of the families of this class known to me, and several folioles which seem to belong to the family of the Erioaceas—
[Juglandece............... Juglandeacitre, Presl.]
[Juglandites, Sternb.............Juglans,	Brong^
On a former occasion I have pleaded for the first of these names as a generic designation, because in none of the nuts found in a fossil state is there discernible relation to a known living species. In the brown coal mines and in the amber diggings of Prussia, two species have been found, one of which may be regarded as tbe representative of the genus Carya, Nutt., the other as that of tbe genus Juglans; though meanwhile it seems suitable to comprehend them both under the name Juglandites, and simply indicate the sub-division; whereunto I further remark that in the generic characterisation I do not mention the carnose shell or Epikarpium, because it has not hitherto been met with in the fossil state, and may never, by reason of its excessive destructibility, be encountered.
[Juglandites..............Sternb. and Goeppert.]
Fructus drupacei ovato-oblongi vel angulati. Drupa mono-pyrena pericarpio vel putamine osseo lateri subtetragono vel intus rugoso irregulariter sulcato, inferne quadriloculari, auperne uniloculari, bivalvi monosperma.
f Caryoidejs.
Drupa pericarpio vel putamine osseo lateri subtetragono-rotundiusculo vel oblongo.
[Jugglandites Schweiggeri .. Goeppert and Berendt.]
J. fructu conico oblongo acuminate, pericarpio vel putamine laevi quadri-carinato.
A correct description and a pictorial representation were given by the meritorious Schweigger in the “Observations made in Travels Devoted to Natural History,” published in 1819. Sprengel regarded the Juglandites Schweiggeri as very nearly related to the fruits of the Phyllanthus Emblica. Schweigger, however, compares them with walnuts, and herein he is unquestionably much nearer the truth. Recently Nuttall has separated the species with smooth shell or peri-karpium, under the name of Carya, from Juglans, to which division tbe species under consideration belongs. It has a likeness to Carya olivaformte, Nutt., which, however, at both ends, and especially the under one, is more pointed. Still more it differs from the other fruits of this genus known to me, of which I have had occasion to compare those of J. alba, Nutl., sulcata, N., tomentesa, N., amara, N., porcina, N., consequently most of the kinds hitherto discovered.
ft Juglanditje Veri.
Drupa pericarpio vel putamine osseo, extus rugoso, irregulariter sulcato.
Juglandites Hagenianus...........Goeppert and Berendt.
J. fructu ovato-oblongo, putaminei rregulariter rugoso sulcate, basi stellatim quinque-sulcato, sulcis longitudinalibus flexuosis.
This nut, changed into a black carbonic mass, the late Dr. Hagen found in the amber diggings at Neidcnburg. It has an egg-like elliptical form, is blunted at both ends, and is rather more than an inch long. Among the nuts of the existing world, it seems to have nearest affinity to tbe Juglans Nigra.
Carpantholithes.........................Goeppert.
Calyx deciduus triphyllus, foliolis lanceolatis obtusis. Corolla tubulosa ealyei insidens, monopetala tubo brevissimo sursum ampliate, Umbo tripartite, laciniis ovato-rotundius-culis concavis retusis reflexis. Stamina duo tubo corollte inserta, antheris liberis ovato-oblongis. Stylus simplex e basi vel medio fundo floris adscendeus, elongates, laciniis duplo longior. Stigma—deficit.
Carpantholithes Berendtii...............Goeppert.
In a former publication of mine described and pictorially represented. I repeat what there I stated, that I chose the name, conpounded of Karpos fruit and AntJios flower, to indicate mv doubt whether this member of the amber flora was a real blossom or a fruit capsule. Further study has left the matter still problematical:—
Loranthace.®.
Enantioblastes Viscoides .... Goeppert and Berendt.
K spray two lines and a half long found in not very clear amber. The whole of the little plant has a striking resemblance to Vtecum, with which genus it ought, perhaps, to be classed, though probably the species was very different from ours. The distinguishing name was suggested by the buds which stand opposite to each other:—
Ericaceae.
To species of this family belong, most probably, the following leaves, to which, on account of their firm, stiff, leathery quality, I give the general name of Dermatophyllites.
DermatophyUites SteUigcrus.. Goeppert and Berendt.
A leaflet seven lines long, two lines and a half broad—on the upper side of a bright brown, on the lower side of a rusty brown. Egg-shaped, of leathery consistency, so that the veins both on the upper and under surface are not readily traceable. On the upper and under surface, but especially on the latter, and above all on the middle vein, are small whitish bristles, which spring from tiny protuberances. Between the bristles are star-like, many-rayed hairs.
Dermatophyllites Azalcoides.. Goeppert and Berendt.
A leaflet two lines long, and two-thirds of a line broad. Leathery, not very sharp at the point, rounded at the junction with the petiole, which is slightly curved. The lower surface is partly, and the middle vein is wholly, covered with whitish hairs lying close together. In its outer form, and especially in the peculiar curvature of the petiole, the leaf has a striking resemblance to that of the Azalea Procumbent, in which, however, the hairs are lacking.
Dermatophyllites Latipes .... Goeppert and Berendt.
A small leaflet having a considerable resemblance to the preceding one. The hairs, however, do not cover the middle veins, but lie close to the sides thereof. It has also a more oval shape. It is very probably an Azalea, but belonging to a different species.
Dermatophyllites Porosus .... Goeppert and Berendt.
Resembles Dermatophyllites Minutulus in outward form, but deviates considerably from it in structure. It is of leathery consistency, and of dark brown colour; gradually
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narrows toward the junction with the petiole. The upper surface is smooth and hairless,and consists of parenchymatous cells. On the under side, between the middle vein and the replicate rim, are seen the admirably preserved dermatic pores. Round the leaflet is a whitish nebulous garniture, which, closely examined, seems to consist of crystalline bodies of indefinite shape. As other leaves bear similar garnitures, I believe that the origin must be sought in the effusion of the saps after inclusion; but I have not yet arrived at any conclusion respecting the chemical constituents.
Dermatophyllites Kalmioides. .Goeppert and Berendt.
Found in bright transparent amber, with the point bent toward the base almost rectangularly. If the leaf were fully stretched out the length would be about an inch and a quarter. From the rough, leathery consistency, the veins on neither side are very traceable. The cells on the upper side are parenchymatous cells, and are regular—that is, the length and the breadth are equal.
Dermatophyllites Revolutus.. Goeppert and Berendt.
k leaflet six Unes long, and a line and a quarter broad, somewhat pointed, at the border strongly revolute, shortstemmed, of a dim-green colour, of so leathery a consistency that on the upper surface the rudiment of the middle vein cannot be discerned. The upper side is remarkable from a mass of vesicular cells, regarding which I cannot venture to declare that they formed a verrucose surface, but rather that they arose from the air bubbles in the parenchyma; and this is all the more probable from the fact that the amber in which the leaflet is enveloped is rich in similar vesicles. On the tinder side are visible two parallel longitudinal lines near the border, which, in my opinion, indicate the limits of the leaflet revolute on both sides, but not veins.
Dermatophyllites Minutulus.. Goeppert and Berendt.
A small leaflet, spatulate, entire, one-veined, yellow-brownish, diminishing toward the petiole, leathery, somewhat revolute at the border, on both the surfaces showing a resemblance to Dermatophyllites Porosus. Leaflets of this kind frequently occur.
Dermatophyllites Attenuatus..Goeppert and Berendt.
k leaflet six lines long, and two lines broad. On the upper surface it is of a brilliant greenish-brown, on the under of a brown colour. The border is entire, not serrated. The leaf gently narrows toward the petiole. On both sides the leaf is smooth and of leathery consistency, so that the few veins going from the middle veins in moderately sharp angles are not perceptible except through the aid of the microscope. The anatomical structure resembles that of the Dermatophyllites Kalmioides. In both cases the dermatic pores are lacking.
Dermatophyllites Dentatus.... Goeppert and Berendt.
A leaf differing much from the preceding leaves, but like them coriaceous. A fragment of only two lines in length, consisting of the higher end of the leaf. The original dark green colour has been remarkably well preserved. I am not disinclined to compare this leaf with that of many species of Chyrsanthemum, for instance Chyrsanthemum Leucanthemum. But it may be brought into relation with Ericacea, for instance Pyrola.
The firm coriaceous structure of all the leaves just described, the feeble prominence of veins, and even of the central vein on the upper surface, the revolute border in nearly all of them, the peculiar insertion of the petiole, which in some of them resembles a curvature, bring them into intimate relationship to the family of the Ericaceae, among which the genera Azalea, Rhododendron, Kalmia, and Andromeda bear leaves of a similar form. Nevertheless, in the species of these genera which I have examined belonging to the existing world, I have found no decidedly analogous forms, still less any that could be paralellised with the present flora of Prussia or Germany:—
LeOUMINOSE ?
•Enantiophyllites Sendelii... Goeppert and Berendt.
k spray with opposite leaves, which Sendel described and pictorially represented, and which Klein sold for the sum of fifty ducats to the Dresden Cabinet, where it is still found. Four pairs of leaflets are preserved; the uppermost pair is partly broken. The leaflets are of unequal size, and not, as is usual with pinnate leaves, diminishing in size from the basis to the point. The lowest pair is smaller than the one immediately above it. The leaflets are from six to eight lines long, and from two to three lines broad; they are egg-shaped. On the attributes which would determine its relationship to the Leguminos® I cannot pronounce. Breyne, and the other natural'sts of his time accustomed to seek the originals of petrifactions in their environment, regarded this inclusum, which was sometimes deemed the spray of a myrtle, sometimes the spray of a boxtree, as the pinnate foliage of a plant closely related to the Coronilla Varia, an opinion which I cannot adopt, though I have not sufficient materials for its refutation:—
Sub-Classis 3.—Coralliflore.
Hereto belong two blossoms, acalycinous, but furnished with stamens. The family I do not venture to determine.
Berendtia ...................................Goeppert.
Corolla subhypocrateriformis rogulariter quinqueloba, lobis ovatis obtusEsim s into; ris (fauce glanduLs notata). Stamina quinque fanci coroikc inserta erecta laciniis corolla) opposita. Filamenta laciniis breviora. Anther® apice acuminata? inferne truncat® dorso supra basi affix® biloculares, loculis appositis, rima longitudinal! dehiscentes.—Pollen globosum.
Berendtia Primuloides......................Goeppert.
At the first glance this inclusum would seem to be related to Viburnum or Sambucus. But a closer examination reveals that it is essentially distinguished therefrom, and that it has more affinity with the Primulacece. But I abstain from any authoritative declaration on the point. Under a considerable magnifying power may be recognised the cellular texture and the glandules, still, as it seems, in their natural position and direction. They consist of cells clear as water: at their point is a small, slightly oblong capitulum, containing a brownish mass. As the first example of so tender an organ in the fossil flora, this observation is interesting.
Sendelia ......................Goeppert and Berendt.
Corolla profundequinque-partita; laciniis ovatis acuminatis glabris. Stamina quinque. Filamenta antheris breviora, anther® oblongo cylindrical erect®, rima longitudinal! dehiscentes.
Sendelia Ratzeburgiana..........Goeppert and Berendt.
It is difficult to characterise this inclusum, because it if not easy to ascertain how the stamens are fastened. Vesicles close to the inclusum prevent its distinctive attributes from being fully studied. In the receptacle I discover no trace of a female organ. The two undermost of the five stamens look pressed down by two vesicles.
Sub-Classis 4.—Monochlamydee.
Two families, Cupulifer® and Conifer®, are with certainty demonstrable.
Cupuliferje.
Quercites ................................Goeppert.
In proximity to the erratic rocks scattered over North Germany, in many districts of Lusatia, Silesia, the Grand Duchy of Posen, the province of Prussia, Pomerania, the Mark Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, especially on small hills of the diluvial land, occur, sometimes on the surface, sometimes a few feet beneath it, isolated fragments of petrified wood. A great part thereof is in a very decayed state, and then it is either whitish or yellowish brown. When the fragments of the coniferous species are in this state, the year-rings can easily be stripped off one by one, as I myself have repeatedly observed in the stems of fir or of pine found under the turf. Silicious earth is usually the petrifying material, sometimes in connection with the peroxide of iron. Occasionally the latter is met with alone, in which case, after treatment with muriatic acid, the organic fibres are found admirably preserved, which they seldom are in the former case. Very interesting, on account of the singular preservation and the striking analogy with the trees of the existing world, is a petrified wood found in Silesia, on the small ridge covered with Northern boulders of the primitive, transition, and tertiary formations, that extends from the neighbourhood of Gross-Glogau, on the left bank of the Oder, to Grfinberg. The colour of this wood is usually whitish grey, sometimes also black, in which latter case, after the petrifying material has been dissolved by fluoric acid, the organic substance, in the form of a brown mass, manifesting the structure, remains. It has a striking resemblance to our oak woods, and does not differ from them in any essential particular. That primeval oaks grew by the side of the amber trees sufficiently accounts for the amber accompaniments of the oak fossils. The resin in its most fluid state penetrated and enveloped the roots and other parts of the neighbouring oaks.
f Trunci.—Stems.
[Quercinium................................Unger.]
Strata annotina regularia distincta. Radii medullarea utrinsque form® majores et minores : majores (omnia ligni strata permeantes) rariores fere ®quedistantes ad quadrantem line® partem usque lati, minores crebriores illis multo angus-tiores, vix nudo oculo visibiles, uterque cellulis punctatis. Vasa punctata (vel porosa) cellulis parenchymatosis impleta, majora inprimis initio annui incrementi in duplici vol triplici serie irregulariter disposita, minora inter ligni cellulas ipsas dispersa. Cellul® ligni prosenchymatos® omnibus parietibus punctis vel poris annulo duplici cinotis pradit®.
Quercites Primavus.......................Goeppert.
(Klccdenia Quercoides.—A name at first proposed by Goeppert in honour of his friend Dr. Kloeden, of Berlin, but subsequently rejected as inadequate and inaccurate.)
It seems to belong to the Tertiary Formation, and sometimes in a petrified, sometimes in a carbonated state.
ft Flores—Blossoms.
Mas: Amenta elongata, laxa, ebracteata. Flores remoti. Perigonium calcynum, sex-octopartitum laciniis, in®quelibus, ciliatis nonnullis interdum bilidis. Stamina 6-10, perigonii basi circa discum glandulosnm inserta. Filamenta filiformia, simplicia in®qualia; anther® biloculares, didym®, loculis suboppositis.
Quercites Meyerianus..........Goeppert and Berendt.
Named after one of the most distinguished students of the existing flora of Prussia, Dr. E. Mayer, professor, to whom our work is indebted for many interesting communicationsand suggestions. On comparing the fossil blossoms with the blossoms of our North German oaks—Que reus Bobur and Quercut Pedunculata—I found, indeed, the corresponding parts characterised by hairs, but not by star-formed hairs. Tn several foreign oaks, however, these occur, as, for instance, in Quercus Ilicifolia of North America. A similar formation
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I discovered in sundry kinds of South German oaks—for instance, Quercus Pubescent.
Carpinites.........................Goeppert	and Berendt.
The fragment of a fossil ament (or catkin) led me to propose this name. The characteristic features resemble, but are not perfectly identical with those of Carpinus Betulus. Meanwhile, as doubts exist, Carpinites Dubius may as a name be more modest and more suitable. Under the trap-tuff at at Schlackenwerth I found remains which seemed to have affinity with Carpinus.
Corylus.
A hazelnut which I obtained from the amber diggings in Samland is in nothing distinguished from the nut of Corylus Avellana. Therefore I deemed it right not to pass it by.
Conifer®.
The family of the Conifer®, which in the Tertiary Formation takes the first rank, through the number of species and through the mass of vegetation, comes in countless fossil forms before us, and has all the greater significance that the mother plant of amber belongs thereto, as I have already demonstrated. As is well known, the Conifera of the existing world fall into four groups:—1. Abietine®; 2. Cupressine® ; 3. Taxine®; 4. Gnetace®, which all have representatives in the amber flora:—
I. Abietine® .................Pinites	............Bich.
(How much we compress may be seen when we state that Goeppert here devotes nearly three of his huge folio pages to a vindication of his own classification and terminology of fossil plants, and to a refutation of those of his “learned friend,” Professor Unger. This portion of Goeppert’s work is not without both polemical and expository interest. But we content ourselves with simply indicating it, that we may not transgress the limits we have allotted ourselves. For the sake of brevity one of our lines has often to do duty for one of Goeppert’s pages).
Pinites...............................With, and Goeppert.
f Trunci.
Truncorum structura fere Pinorum viventium. Trunci ipsi medulla centrali e ligni stratis concentricis quandoque obsoletis et cortice formati, ductibus resiniferis instruct!. Cellul® ligni prosenchymatos® poros®. Pori rotundi in simplici vel duplici interdum vel triplici serie in iis plerumque tantum cellularum parietibus, qu® sibi oppositi et radiorum medullarium parallel! sunt, interdum nonnull® in omnibus inveniuntur. Pori ipsi, si in duplici vel triplici serie adsunt, turn juxta se in eodem piano horizontali positi videntur. Radii medullares minores simplici rarius duplici nel multiplici cellularum serie formantur. Ductus reseniferi creberriifii.
I supplement this somewhat long diagnosis—which could not, however, without a sacrifice of intelligibility, be shorter— with some elucidations. The Prosenchymatous cells, of which, besides the medullary cylinder and the medullary radii, the ligneous body alone consists, are in cross-section almost quadrangular, and, when greatly magnified, show the structure, which in my description of the amber tree I have expounded. Most of the cells are furnished with wide orifices; others form the year-ring, appearing to the naked eye as a yellowish zone, are remarkably thick-walled, and usually of smaller compass than the rest. Often the number of these remarkable cells is very small, and thus the year-ring is but faintly indicated. In a longitudinal section drawn through the axis we see pores, as small discs, consisting sometimes of two, sometimes of three concentric circles, which in simple rows are lengthwise more or less distant from or sometimes near each other, though sometimes from two to four rows are in combination. In the latter case the pores, unless, as for instance toward the terminations of the vessels, they are so approximated that they touch, are always near each other, not quincuncially or in spiral rows, as is the case with the Araucaria. As a rule, we find the pores on the two opposite sides parallel to the medullary radii, but sometimes also on the other, the thick-walled cells, which mark the frontiers of the year’s growth, though not so numerously, and usually of smaller form. Through this characteristic the pine species are distinguished from the other Dicotyledones, whose cells on all the walls are equally pointed. Hence their just reception as a generic characteristic. The medullary radii of the genus Pinites belong to the so-called small medullary radii, which, as is well known, do not penetrate all the year-rings. With the naked eye we recognise the radii ‘as very delicate divergent streaks, running from the centre to the periphery, which, viewed in horizontal section under the microscope, consist of one or more rows of parenchymatous cells. In longitudinal section in the bark, or parallel to the bark, the radii appear usually as rows of sexagonal cells, standing in twos or threes above each other; the rows are sometimes double, seldom more than double, in which latter case, in the middle, or more frequently in the upper part of the medullary radii, is found a large resinous channel, surpassing in diameter all the other cells, wherefrom, toward both terminations the whole medullary radius is prolonged, ending with simple rows of cells. In the centre, or in the section made through the axis, we see them as prolonged cells of small altitude, with numerous pores, usually formed by a more lengthened circle. The resinous channels occur very frequently in the bark; but they also occur in the wood exactly as among existing Conifer® ; they especially abound between the thick-walled cells of the year-rings.
Pinites Aquisgranensis.......................Goeppert.
P. stratis concentricis distinctis, cellulis prosenchymatosis leptotichis, poris uniserialibus, radiis medullaribus simplici-bus e cellulis 1—10 superpositis formatis.
Pinites Eichwaldianus........................Goeppert.
P. stratis concentricis distinctis, cellulis prosenchymatosis pachytichis ad annuli limitem orassioribus, poris uniserialibus sparsis subremotis, nodiis medullaribus simplicibus e cellulis 1—10 superpositis.
Pinites Basalticus...........................Goeppert.
P. stratis concentricis subdistinctis, cellulis prosenchymatosis leptotichis ad limitem annuli parum angustioribus, eorum membrana vix incrassata poris uni vel bi serialibus approximatis, radiis medullaribus simplicibus coposissimis cellulis 1—20 superpositis.
Pinites Gypsaceus............................Goeppert.
P. stratis concentricis distinctis, cellulis prosenchymatosis pachytichis ad limitem annuli sensim angustioribus, poris uniserialibus subapproximatis, radiis medullaribus creberrimis simplicibus etxellulis uniserialibus 1—30 superpositis.
(To the diagnosis of these four species of the genus Pinus Succinifer Goeppert has appended no German exposition).
Pinites Succinifer...............Goeppert	and Berendt.
P. stratis concentricis distinctis, cellulis prosenchymatosis leptotichis ad limitem annuli sensim angustioribus, poris subremotis ®que distantibus uniserialibus, radiis medullaribus e cellulis 1-16 superpositis formatis.
Found both in sea amber and land amber.
(It is the amber tree, properly so called, of which elaborate descriptions have been given by many, and eminently by Goeppert himself. It has been seen from the diagnosis that the species have many features in common. They who hesitate to accept the Darwinian Theory may marvel that, when the amber tree perished, some tree nobler, more precious than itself, did not arise. Nature often did in the past what she seems unable to do now.)
©iHagt ©irbifics; or, th ^nn of th ^olln Opshrs.
v.—PTOSIS.
“ Ptosis? ” I think I hear you query. “ What a strange title to choose for a tale 1 What the dickens,” or “ What the deuce is it, at all? ”
And you use the word “ dickens ” or the word “ deuce ” according to the comparative amount of your morality. N.B.—I have heard the salt of the earth put more spleenful vim into the simple ejaculation “ Bother the man I” which isn't swearing, than any neer-do-weel could possibly express with a good round “ D----the fellow 1” I wonder if the recording angel makes any note of this. But I digress. To return, then, to my title, Ptosis to wit. I didn’t choose the title. It chose itself—it came, as it were, as all good names and titles do.
The word Ptosis, then, you will readily remember, is derived from the Greek wtow, to fall, and is applied by the medicine men to a curious affection of the upper eyelid, or rather of the nerve that supplies it; for this latter, failing in the performance of its duty, allows the lid to drop as if the owner were only just about half awake. That’s Ptosis. Now do you see ? Of course you do, and you will at once jump to the conclusion that the subject of my present moral yarn, namely my good friend Findlay, was afflicted with this ailment. You are right. Only, mark me, the symptoms in his case were what I might call circumbended; for it wasn’t a falling down of the upper eyelid that he suffered from, but a morbid elevation of the lower one. It was a kind of Irish Ptosis. Don’t smile, please ; you’ll be sorry for Findlay e’re my tale is finished. Now bear this in mind, that wicked lower eyelid of Findlay’s wasn’t always elevated, any more than Findlay was himself. It would have been far better for the unhappy man if it had been glued or gummed up, and always kept in the same position; but, on the contrary, at most times the eyelid was like anybody else’s, stationary and steady enough, and all at once it would give one little jump upwards, then fall back again into its place, and there would be an end of it for the time being.* Ah I yes, for the time being, but, unfortunately for Findlay, in that little moment of time, in the ghost of a second, the mischief was done, and my poor friend in many instances found himself in a scrape.
Now, had friend Findlay been a great big lump of a Findlay, with shoulder of mutton fists, a fighting heart, science, and all that sort of thing, it would have been an easy matter to have got out of the scrapes which his winking eye—girls called it his wicked eye—got him into. But he wasn’t, he was a mite of a man; as to his hand, he wore six and three quarters; as to a fighting heart, bless you, our friend Findlay would have run a mile any day rather than fight a minute; and yet a better-hearted little soul than Findlay never entered the doors of the “ Jolly Tapsters.” He was honest and
* This spasmodic twitching of the lower eyelid, I may mention seriously, is a not uncommon accompaniment of dyspepsia in people of the nervous temperament.
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industrious, temperate though pimply-faced, beardless and virtuous. His motto was, like the Yankee’s,
M Early to bed, and early to rise. Never get tight, and advertise.'*
Tight! no. I defy the whole of Twintieton to say they ever saw Findlay tight. Just a leetle elevated sometimes, you might say, and had he held his tongue even then nobody would have been a bit the wiser; but whenever Findlay got “ just a wee drap in his ee,” he would persist in singing, in a dulcet but half-choked voice, the melting chorus of
“ 'Tis but a little faded flower.”
Whenever you heard Findlay at this, you might take your oath he was happy.
Again, to show you what a thoroughly good little soul Findlay was, I may tell you that he never smoked, and that his pet oath was “Jumping Moses ! ”
Findlay often swore by Jumping Moses that he would never smoke in this world. Whether or not Findlay looked forward with joy to the worship of the blessed goddess Nicotina in the other world or not, I cannot s^y. Such was Findlay.
And I will now relate to you one or two of the scrapes that Ptosis got this poor little man into. I could relate hundreds, but I only give specimens.
I can tell you, for instance, how Findlay lost a friend. This friend and he, with a third party, were standing one day at the bar of the “ Jolly Tapsters,” having a quiet chat upon turf matters.
“ I’ll take ten to one on Gamester,” says the third party, addressing Findlay’s friend.
Now Findlay had in his earlier days been very near getting on for a jockey, and he was still considered large on all matters horsey. It was most unlucky, then, that just as the third party spoke Findlay should happen to glance at his friend, and that at the same time his wicked eye should twitch.
“ On with you for a fiver !” roared his friend.
“Done with you !” cried the third party.
“Jumping Moses!” cried Findlay, but it was too late; and so, when the day came and the race was run, Findlay’s friend found himself minus his money, and friend Findlay was minus a friend.
More than once, at the bar of the “Jolly Tapsters,” Findlay offended people who did not know him by, as they thought, winking at them; and more than once he got into a row in consequence.
“ You winked at me! ” cried an irascible commercial, one evening.
“ ’Tis but a little fa—a—aded flower,” sang Findlay.
“You winked, Isay!” roared the commercial. “I consider it a piece of impertinent familiarity.”
“ I’ve got a weakness in my left eye,” said Findlay.
“ Blow your eye! come to the door, and I’ll blacken ’em both,” said the traveller.
“Findlay bristled up; he was very brave indoors.
“ You blacken my eye! Have you the faintest notion you are talking to Findlay, sir—to fighting Findlay, sir? Out you go—I’ll show you Ben Gaunt. Jumping Moses!
“ I’m not going to leave my beer, though,” said Findlay, as they were both at the door. “ Jumping Moses! no.”
The honourable commercial naturally thought he would follow, and went out. Findlay didn’t. He knew a trick worth a dozen of that. He coolly drank his beer, and then popped out of the other door, and so got out of that scrape.
But Findlay wasn’t always so fortunate. One fine day, for example, he was travelling by train; it was a market day, and the carriages were somewhat crowded, the joskin element largely predominating. Right opposite to Findlay sat a pretty country girl, and by her side her big-mouthed rustic lover. Well, during the journey Findlay looked at this pretty girl, and, as ill-luck would have it, his wicked eyelid gave a twitch.
The lover took his pipe out of his mouth, and, nodding to Findlay,
“I had my eye on yourn just then,” says he.
“Oh! had ye?” says Findlay, with a little laugh.
The rustic lover resumed his pipe, and said no more; and poor Findlay thought no more would be said, and was pleased in consequence. But that lover came to the front again, and a mob of other lovers, as soon as they had left the terminal station.
“ Look ’ee here, sir,” he cried, “ye beant a-going like that. Not if I knows it, I can tell ye. You would wink at my Sally, would ye ? Hold my coat, mates. Give us a ring. I ain’t going to stand it. Bust me if I does.”
There was no getting through that rustic ring. He made several maudlin attempts to force it, butting at it with his head down; but he was invariably thrust rudely back and asked to stand up and be a man. Now, that was the very last thing that Findlay would have thought about. He wasn’t a fool. Next day would be Sunday, and he had no wish to appear at church looking as though he had just been through a sausage machine.
“ Look here, lads,” he began, trying to get a hearing.
They listened, as louts do when told to.
“ I did wink at the girl, and now I’m willing to stand treat all round. I’ll pay for the wink.”
“ Bravo! ” was the chorus, as friend Findlay led the way to an adjoining inn to pay for his wink.
Findlay paid for his wink another day in quite a different fashion. This was likewise a travelling adventure, for once again did Findlay find himself sitting in front of a pretty girl; indeed, one would be inclined to think that Findlay had a partiality for pretty girls. However, oheek-by-jowl with this particular pretty girl was a by no means very pretty specimen of a mother. A most antediluvian-looking specimen she was, too, and her dress was a dark stuff gown and a merino mantle; her goods and chattels were her daughter and a huge umbrella, besides a reticule basket with Banbury cakes and a bottle of gin.
“ Aha! ” suddenly exclaimed this antiquated dame, poking a skinny finger towards friend Findlay. “ Aha! I seed it that time. Oh! ye ould good-for-nothing wagabone. You would wink at my precious darter, would ye? You would outrage a mother’s feelings, would ye ? ”
“ Really, really,” stammered Findlay, “ I assure you my lady, that is ma’am, I had no intention. It is only my weakness. I—I—I—Oh! jumping Moses! I dare say I’m in for it again.”
All the rest of the journey the watchful mother kept her eye on Findlay—Findlay kept his on the ceiling—frequently muttering to herself, “ Aha! his weakness, indeed; Til show him my weakness.”
As she made an application to the bottle every time she spoke, Findlay flattered himself she referred to the gin.
He was cruelly undeceived when they landed, however. The old lady undeceived him with her umbrella. Oh! didn’t she lay it on with a will too ?
Poor Findlay hopped all round the station calling out “Jumping Moses !”
“ I’ll give you Moses !” cried the old lady.
“ Well done, old girl, give it to him!” cried the mob.
She wound up at last with one cruel dig in the ribs, which sent him sprawling on his face, and the old lady looked down upon him triumphantly.
“ That’s my weakness,” says she. “ Aha! ”
Only one other example, and it happened not an hour afterwards. Friend Findlay was walking soberly along the pavement in a quiet side street, when he met a very much over-dressed gentleman with a very much over-dressed lady on his arm. I suppose Findlay looked at them; he was in a pensive, thoughtful mood, for his ribs were painful and his shoulders were stiff. He swears till this day that if upon this occasion his eyelid did twitch, he was not aware of it.
“ You scoundeeral!” roared the gentleman, who was French. “ Vat you mean sare ? Vat you vink at my vife for? ”
Findlay denied it stoutly.
“ It vas a vink, I tell you, sare,” persisted the Frenchman; it vas a vink, and a sly one too—a devilish sly vink. I fight you, sare, English style.”
Now here was a chance which Findlay should not have missed, for surely anybody could fight a Frenchman—English style. But I am ashamed to say that Findlay declined the combat, and—fled. He thought he had had quite enough for one day.
Now all this was terribly hard on Findlay, and no wonder that at last he made up his mind to consult a doctor.
Well, he did, not one doctor only, but a score at least, and never less than three at a time; and as he tried to obey them all at once, and swallowed oceans of medicine and pecksful of pills, it is no wonder the little man got nervous and ill. And the twitching got worse; he wouldn’t look at a girl; he was almost afraid to look his own mother in the face, for fear of being accused of unfilial impertinence; and one day he actually winked at the parson in the pulpit. After this Findlay kept at home; he wouldn’t go out, nor he wouldn’t go anywhere. So low in spirits had he become that he asked his old landlady, with tears in his eyes, to please not think him rude if he winked at her, and please not to give him warning, as he had nowhere else to go.
About a month after this, one dark sleety evening, a knock came to my door, and, on going myself to open it,
“ 0! please do come quick,” says Findlay’s old landlady, “ which my lodger have been and gone and bought a bottle of P—rustic assid, and I know he means to do for his little self.”
Things looked serious, and I went away with the old creature at once. Not empty-handed, however. She had described the bottle—a common ounce poison phial—to me, and I gave her one exactly similar, with a nice strong sleeping draught in it, and as we hurried through the sleet, I described to his landlady how she was to change the bottles while I kept Findlay talking. I have been at many a death-bed scene, but never like this one of Findlay’s. You see his old woman, as he called her, had managed matters capitally; and there was I, sitting on the end of friend Findlay’s bed, chewing the end of my meerschaum nearly off to stifle the laugh; and there was Findlay lying with his white nightcap on, and thinking himself on the brink of eternity, and looking as solemn as I can’t tell you what; but, by George! I smile when I think of him, and I smile when I think of the start he gave when I said to him, “Have a smoke—it’ll cure you of winking.”
“Jumping Moses! no!” he said; “I said I never would smoke in this world, and you'll find I won't."
He brought out the last five words in a voice that was really sepulchral. “Good night, then,” I said; “I hope you'll sleep sound.”
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“ Good night,” he groaned; I know I shall.” “ Hullo! ” I cried next morning, bursting into Findlay’s room, splitting with laughter; “ What! not dead yet? ” “ Good heavens! ” he exclaimed, “ is it you ? ” “Only me,” I said; “ did you think it was the devil? And now, Findlay, have a weed; you’re out of the world now, and dead, you know.” Findlay saw the trick at once that I had played him, and, like a wise man, he lit a cigar, then lay peacefully back on the pillow and smoked and smiled, then smiled and smoked again. Findlay’s cure was slow, but complete, and he sticks to his weed now like a man, and he never winks unless he wants to. Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N. ®^t ^iHiograpbn of giduns.* The latest form of hero-worship is personal bibliography. Tennyson and Ruskin having each received this meed of admiration, it would have been strange indeed if Dickens and Thackeray had escaped attention. A Dickens Bibliography ie before us, and a Thackeray Bibliography is announced. We may almost say that the creator of this novel form of literary praise is Mr. Richard Herne Shepherd, the compiler of the four booklets that are or are to be. We should say so at once, if there did not stand upon our shelves a highly-prized volume, in which Mr. Alexander Ireland has described the writings of Hazlitt, Hunt, and Lamb; and, in spite of the existence of that book and some still earlier types of the same kind of work, we are inclined to give Mr. Shepherd the credit of a new departure. Apparently, too, he has found a sympathetic public, so that there is, perhaps, reason to anticipate a constant succession of lists of this kind. Carlyle, especially in his green and salad days, did a good deal of literary journey-work, and since he has been acknowledged as a force in the formation of public opinion, has, from time to time, delivered himself of fragmentary but oracular utterances. Each of these, for the most part, may be likened to the dead prophet of Israel, of whom it has been said: “No man knoweth of his sepulchre to this day.” There are devoted disciples of the sage of Chelsea who would welcome such an indication of the buried wisdom of their master. Browning and Swinburne are both tempting subjects for a biographer of Mr. Shepherd’s stamp. Instead of cutting out more work for that gentleman, however, let us examine his latest—not his last—book. The first thing that strikes the reader is the incomplete aspect of the title-page. It does not tell either the author or printer’s name, or the date or place of publication. The information as to authorship is given at the end of the preface, and as to the printer in the colophon on the fly-leaf at the end of all. This is not well done for a bibliographer, and is not the only instance of a neglect of form on the part of Mr. Shepherd. In the preface he rightly claims to have spared no pains to make the list complete. Looking at its extent, we can readily credit the assertion. Further, we can honestly praise the industry and skill shown in the attempt to record “ all the accessible printed utterances of Charles Dickens.” To those who are collecting the works of that great painter of the humour and pathos of the life of the English middle classes such a list will be most acceptable. Students who desire to appreciate in exact detail the literary position and labours of Charles Dickens will find it a great help, as it will enable them to examine the casual and slighter work that intervened between his more serious efforts. Dickens commenced his literary career by some sketches which appeared in the Monthly Magazine in 1834. These, although slight in structure, at once struck the public fancy, for they revealed a new social world to the readers of that day. The public were tired of the high-born hysterics of the Lady Ethelindas and Viscount de Montmorencis of the fashionable novelists, and gladly welcomed a new set of characters, who, if they were vulgar, were at least amusing. The signature of “Boz” was first adopted in August, 1834. This pseudonym had a curious origin. A younger brother of Dickens received from the future novelist, as a pet name, the appellation of Moses, “in honour of the Vicar of Wakefield.” A nasal pronunciation of this name had been shortened into “ Boz,” and this household word was adopted as a pen-name when he entered upon authorship. The success of these papers paved the way for the “Sketches in London,” winch commenced in the Evening Chronicle, on the 31st of January, 1835, and continued until the 20th of August. These were followed by a similar series in Bell's Life, in 1835-36. Others appeared in the Librai'y of Fiction. These were all reprinted in the “ Sketches by Boz,” which, in 1836, put en evidence the existence of a new English humourist. The pencil of George Cruikshank was employed to illustrate and heighten their comic interest. The next book of Dickens issued in the same year, brought him into alliance with an artist whose name was afterwaids so closely associated with his own. “ Phiz ” and “ Boz,” who were • The Bibliography of Dickens, a Bibliographical List, arranged in Chronological Order, of the published Writings, in Prose and Verse, of Charles Dickens, from 1884 to 1880. Manchester: A. Ireland and Co.	in after years in many works inseparable, joined in presenting “ Sunday under Three Heads.” This was an attack, and a vigorous one, on the Sabbatarian prejudices that are not yet entirely extinguished, though their baleful fires are somewhat moderated. Mr. Shepherd does not mention that this early work was reprinted by the National Sunday League in 1875, in successive numbers of the Free Sunday Advocate. It will probably be news to many that Dickens, who was the prince of amateur actors—and, indeed, might easily have won distinction upon the stage—had a desire to be a dramatist, and was actually the author of four pieces, all of them exceedingly slight in construction, and all belonging to the earlier period of his career. The “ Sketches ” were but a prelude to the greater success of the “ Pickwick Papers.” Regarded from an artistic standpoint, there is much cause for dissatisfaction in this famous book. This was due, no doubt, to the peculiar genesis of the work. Dickens was, on account of his rising reputation as a comic writer^Bengaged, if not to write up to the plates of Seymour, as the son of that artist contended, at least to work in very close harmony with him. The idea of a club of Cockney sportsmen appears to have been suggested or imposed upon the autlior. Whether the plan would ever have worked is very doubtful; but the unfortunate death of the artist put an end to it. After a brief trial of Mr. Buss, the task of illustrating the further vagaries of Mr. Pickwick and his friends was entrusted to “ Phiz.” No better selection could have been made, and the real name of the artist, Mr. Hablot K. Browne, must ever remain inseparably associated with the great masterpieces of Dickens. The periodical fashion in which “ Pickwick ” appeared was probably the cause of its want of literary form. The cumbrous machinery of the club, with its elaborate and impossible follies, would have killed any work of less talent. As the periodical progressed, the author had to escape by hook or crook from these foolish trammels. Some of the stories introduced have very much the appearance of having been hunted up from Borne hidden drawer, in response to an inconvenient demand for “ copy.” The fresh and racy personality of Sam Weller would have saved the book, if everything else in it had been as dull as bad. But if Sam was supreme as a comic character, he was surrounded by such a crowd of humorous personages, each instinct with life and individuality, that the public was taken by storm. With all its fun and rattle, “ Pickwick ” is a novel with a purpose, and attacked with vigour and determination some of the abuses of English law. The success of “ Pickwick ” was so decisive as to place the young novelist upon the highway to fame and fortune. A number of imitators appeared, who were anxious to trade upon its popularity by continuations, adaptations, and colourable counterfeits. In February, 1837, came out, in Bentley's Miscellany, the first chapter of “ Oliver Twist.” As to the paternity of this parish boy there has been some dispute, for George Cruikshank repeatedly and unequivocally claimed to have supplied Dickens with the general scheme of the tale, and with the idea of some specific scenes. Cruikshank made a similar claim with regard to some of Ainsworth’s novels. The artist’s claims have in each case been vehemently denied. It has also been clearly shown that Dickens dissatisfied with two of the last plates, wrote to the artist asking him to redraw them. In this novel he assailed the abuses of the poor law and workhouse system. The public were more impressed by Bumble and the Artful Dodger than by the author’s theories. It may be doubted if Dickens ever showed more tragic power than in the description of Fagin in the cell, and of the death of Bill Sikes. Dickens’s miscellaneous contributions to Bentley were comparatively unimportant. His attacks on the British Association are simply ludicrous for their incapacity to understand the motives and objects of that scientific corporation. Nor did the “Sketches of Young Gentlemen” (1838) and “ Sketches of Young Couples ” (1840) do much to advance his fame. The intention of publishing “ Nicholas Nickleby ” in parts was announced in a mock proclamation, signed “ Boz,” and dated 28th February, 1838. Whatever wit or humour there was in it appears to have been evaporated by time. “Nicholas Nickleby” was an attack upon the cheap and nasty schools which, under the pretence of furnishing food for the minds and bodies of the young at an economical rate, really stinted the pupils physically and mentally. The evils were flagrant, and, when personified in Mr. Squeers, excited universal indignation. To counterbalance this portraiture of evil, we have such charming portraits as that of John Browdie and the Brothers Cheeryble. In the same year which saw the birth of Nickleby, there appeared the “Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi,” a side-splitting book, which was “edited by 4Boz.’” Dickens also contributed some trifles to the Examiner, one of them a notice of Tom Hood’s “ Up the Rhine.” He sacrificed his duty to the public to a desire to serve his friend; for, though he thought the book a poor one, he did not say so. What will the Recording Angel do with that review ? In 1840 appeared the first number of “ Master Humphrey’s Clock.” This was a cumbrous setting for the “ Old Curiosity Shop” and “Barnaby Rudge,” which were supposed. to be read to a club. It speaks well for the literary taste of Charles Dickens that he had the firmness to give up this inappropriate plan, though in doing so he had to sacrifice some really
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good writing, especially those portions recording the re-appearance of Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller. The Clock was wound up, or rather stopped, in 1841.
“ The Old Curiosity Shop” is, to many minds, the finest work of Dickens. The pathetic figure of Little Nell stands out in its purity from the dark background of folly and crime which form its surroundings. Quilp, Sally Brass, the Marchioness, and Dick Swiveller are amongst the many figures in this odd portrait gallery. The central interest, however, is the pure presence of Little Nell, and the story of her death, whilst it moves to tears, is a source of inspiration for pure thought and sacred resolve.
“ Barnaby Budge,” however, showed that Dickens, in addition to the humour and pathos with which he was justly credited, possessed also, in a very uncommon measure, the power of historical insight. No more brilliant picture of the period of the Gordon riots has ever been drawn, nor can any one really understand that crack-brained episode of London history who has not listened attentively to tb6 croaking of Barnaby’s raven.
With the exception of a contribution to the “ Pickwick Papers,” in 1841, of a story founded upon his own farce of the ** Lamplighter,” Dickens produced nothing of moment until his return from the United States. In 1842 appeared the “American Notes.” Its reception was somewhat mixed. In England it was received with laughter, but in America with a howl of indignation for which the author was ill-prepared. He never retracted, but after his second visit contrived to make the amende honorable without eating his words. Perhaps the most perfect bit of writing in the book is the account of the “ little woman” in the Mississippi steamboat. The baby is still living, and was entertained on bis birthday at a “ Dickens reception.”
“ Martin Chuzzlewit” was another result of Dickens’ transAtlantic experiences. One can imagine the wrath of the countrymen of Charles Sumner and George Ticknor at the portraits of Jefferson Brick and the Hon. Elijah Pogram, which “ Boz ” offered as those of typical Americans. The English, as a rule, laugh at caricatures of themselves. They have a stolid sense of their own importance, which finds only food for amusement in the misapprehensions of others. The Americans have a quicker circulation, and they were less tolerant in such matters in 1843 than they are in 1880. Even if we admit that they were too self-conscious, it remains true that Dickens would have consulted his own fame best if he had learned the art to blot, and applied it to those portions of his writings which gave offence to a sensitive nation, who had met him with a cordiality and appreciation unequalled in the history of literature. In 1868 appeared an article called “ A Debt of Honour,” which is appended to the “ Notes” and “Chuzzlewit,” and is intended as amends for the pain caused by those earlier utterances. We have Emerson’s testimony that the lesson, if bitter, was not without a useful effect. After all, the interest centres not upon the American improbabilities, but upon the ineffable Pecksniff, the veracious Sairey Gamp, her visible acquaintance Betsy Prig, and her invisible friend Mrs. Harris.
Dickens re-invented Christmas. The poor old gentleman who had seen better times was on his last legs when there appeared, in 1843, “ A Christmas Carol in Prose.” The touch of the enchanter’s wand was sufficient to revivify all the fading glories of that ancient festival of goodwill. This was followed up by “The Chimes” (1844), “The Cricket on the Hearth” (1845), “ The Battle of Life” (1846), and the “ Haunted Man” (1848), all devoted to the same gospel of charity and kindly feeling. It is impossible to resist the charm. There have been many honest resolves for ‘better lives made over these stories. When the repentant sinners have become philanthropists, it is painful to think of the dyspepsia they have occasioned by the over liberal administration of plum pudding to unaccustomed stomachs. In all these Christmas books the aim was “ to awaken some loving and forbearing thoughts, never out of season in a Christian land.”
Dickens, remembering his earlier days, had always a kindly feeling for literary aspirants, and wrote some words of interest and commendation for a volume written by an artisan named John Overs, who, however, has not made any great place for himself in the republic of letters.
Of more importance than the Christmas books was “ Dombey and Son,” which began in October, 1846, and ended in April, 1848. The figure of Paul Dombey is one that, in its pathetic beauty, stands on the same level as Little Nell. The memorable Captain Cuttie and the dental Carker, and the epistolary and pugilistic Toots, are stars that shine around the house of “ Dombey and Son.” A year later came the beginning of “ David Copperfield,” which was always the favourite work of its author, and is in a certain, or rather in an uncertain, measure autobiographical. How far one may admire the author for the liberties he is believed to have taken with the failings of his own kindred in some of the characters of this novel, is a nice question for the literary casuist. There certainly is a little shock on finding reason to suspect that the assertor of the sanctity of the home affections did not hesitate to draw his own father as Wilkins Micawber. These considerations, however, do not affect the artistic value of the portraits. The willing Barkis, the faithful Peggotty, the wayward “ child-wife ” Dora, remain impressed upon our inmost memory. Who has not rejoiced over the discomfiture of
Uriah Heep, and sorrowed over the flight of Em’ly ?
Amongst the minor productions of this period was a letter on the execution of the Mannings, and Mr. Shepherd may like to know that it was issued as a tract by those who were opposed to capital punishment. Hundreds and thousands of copies of it were given away, and have for the most part passed into non-existence.
Dickens always had a fancy to be in direct communication with the public. After the first success of the “ Sketches ” followed the publication, in parts, of “Pickwick” and “Master Humphrey’s Clock,” then the editorial experiment with Bentley's Miscellany, and then the resumption of the periodical form with “ Martin Chuzzlewit.” In 1850 he began the issue of a weekly magazine known as Household Words, which lasted until 1859. He gathered round him a staff of able and brilliant writers, and formed a school in literature. He was a most patient and painstaking editor, and did not shrink from the drudgery of that position when he got matter that was crude, but capable of being transmuted into good literary metal. Amongst his own contributions were the “Child’s History of England” and “ Hard Times ”—the latter certainly his poorest work of fiction—and a number of shorter articles, many of which were re-issued under the name of “Reprinted Pieces” (1858). Amongst the best of these is “ A Child’s Dream of a Star” and “ A Poor Man’s Tale of a Patent,” in which the absurdities of our laws respecting inventions are set forth.
Amongst the pieces not reprinted was the famous “ Personal ” statement respecting his separation from his wife, which appeared 12th June. 1858. In this, as in some other matters, the self-assertion of the great novelist passed far beyond the bounds of good taste. In consequence of a difference between Dickens and his publisher, Household Words came to an end in 1859, aud was immediately succeeded by AU tie Year Round, which is still going on under the editorship of Charles Dickens, jun.
“ Bleak House ” began in monthly parts, in 1852. There is a deepening gloom about this novel which contrasts strangely with the careless revelry of “ Pickwick.” As life went on, Dickens found, as most men do, a deepening sense of its earnestness, and of the way in which we are ail blindly groping for the hidden clue that so often eludes the grasp. Even the comic business of the piece has a spice of gloom. “ Bleak House ” is distinctly a novel with a purpose. In it Dickens declared war against the “ law’s delay,” as exemplified in the shameful and shameless dilatoriness of the Court of Chancery. The monstrous injustice of the system was hardly caricatured in the cases of Miss Flite and the Man from Shropshire.
Dickens had a way of using up his friends as artistic material. “ Boythorn ” is, in a certain measure, a portrait of Walter Savage Landor, and charming Leigh Hunt sat for “ Horace Skimpole.” The novelist, however, found, to his regret, that his readers did not always understand his method, and credited to Hunt not only the airy manner but the selfish spirit of Skimpole. Dickens’ explanation will be found in AU the Year Round for December, 1859. The most original creation, however, in this novel is the character of Jo, the crossing sweeper. Alas that we should have to own that, in its native virtue and neglect, such an existence should be possible in the richest and most Christian city in the world. A curious controversy arose as to the possibility of spontaneous combustion, the method by which Dickens elected to get rid of Mr. Erook.
“ Hard Times ” appeared in an independent form in 1854, and was intended by its author as a “ satire against those who see figures and averages and nothing else—the representatives of the wickedest and most enormous vice of this time; . . . the addled heads, who would take the average of cold in the Crimea during twelve months as a reason for clothing a soldier in nankeen on a night when he would be frozen to death in fur.” That such persons ever existed no one but Dickens ever supposed. The redeeming part of this poor novel is the character of Stephen Blackpool. The “purpose” is a law of divorce, and the change which Dickens advocated has since been accomplished.
The first monthly number of “ Little Dorrit” appeared on the 1st of December, 1856. This novel contains the famous attack on the Circumlocution Office. Some malicious sprite incited the Edinburgh Review to cite this as an example of the “licence of modern novelists,” and to say that the catastrophe of the tale had been suggested by the recent accident in Tottenham Court Road. The guileless reviewer even ventured upon the extraordinary assertion that there had been no Circumlocution in the dealing of the Government with Rowland Hill’s scheme of postal reform. Dickens had an easy task in tearing to pieces this rash statement. As a matter of fact, Rowland Hill had the usual difficulties to contend against, and was very shabbily treated by the powers that were, in the manner of the usual creeping things after their kind. So far from the Tottenham Court Road accident having suggested the catastrophe in “Little Dorrit,” it had been carefully prepared for in the earlier chapters, and was actually written, engraved, and printed before the occurrence of the accident. The Barnacles, the Patriarch, Tattycoram and Young John Chivery, are fine examples of the varied power of realisation which Dickens possessed in so marked a degree.
The first page of AU the Year Round was occupied
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by “ A Tale of Two Cities,” which also appeared in monthly parts in 1859. In this novel Dickens once more showed his mastery of historical painting. The bloody madness of the Reign of Terror is depicted with marvellous force and precision. The character of Sydney Carton, whose follies are burnt away in the purifying fire of love, is a fine one. The regenerating influence of a noble passion is well exemplified in the self-sacrifice of this “ man who died for men.”
“ The Uncommercial Traveller” is a collection of essays from All the Year Round, which may be compared with the earlier impressions recorded in the “ Sketches by Boz.” A second series appeared in 1868.
In “ Great Expectations,” which began in /Iff the Year Round in December, 1860, and was issued in a separate form in the following year, Dickens went over some of the familiar ground of his childhood. There is something eerie and uncanny in the story of Miss Havisham and the rearing of Estella. Joe Gargery, the “Aged,” and other characters, important and unimportant, show the old power of minute and humorous delineation. After this, with the exception of an “In Memoriam” notice of Thackeray, nothing of importance appeared until May, 1864, when “ Our Mutual Friend ” commenced its ungrammatical career. The genial figure of the Golden Dustman is an admirable contrast to Silas Wegg, “ the literary man with the wooden leg,” who drops into poetry—for a consideration. We confess to a greater satisfaction in Jenny Wren, and even Rogue Riderhood, than in the “ Society people ” who are to be met with in this story.
Dickens’ share of the Christmas stories issued with Household Words and AU the Year Round were collected in 1871. One effect of this was to show how great had been his influence upon his colleagues, some of whose contributions had long been supposed to be from his pen. Yet his own contributions included enough to have made the fame of another man, as witness Richard Doubledick, the Boots at the Hollytree Inn, Mrs. Lirriper, and Dr. Marigold, not to mention others.
“ George Silverman’s Experience ” appeared simultaneously in the Atlantic Monthly and in All the Year Round, early in 1868. It is a comparatively unimportant story. “ Holiday Romance ” was another experiment in dual publication, and appeared in Our Young Folke and in All the Year Round of 1868.
The last paper which Dickens wrote in All the Year Round was a notice of Forster’s Life of Landor. The triple association of these three talented men gives a certain pathetic interest to an otherwise slight sketch. Two more pieces of work belong to this year. One a friendly notice of Charles Fechter, in the Atlantic Monthly, written to introduce that clever actor to the American public, and the other an introduction to a posthumous statement of the “Religious Opinions ” of the late Reverend Chauncey Hare Townshend.
In April, 1870,began the “Mystery of Edwin Drood,” and, whilst the Wizard was busy weaving his web and spelling over his incantations, Death came and broke the magic wand. The mystery can never be solved. The solution of the riddle lies buried with Charles Dickens in Westminster Abbey, where he lies amid those to whom England wishes to do honour.
Since Dickens’ death there has been a constantly increasing literature respecting him. Some of these contributions are purely ephemeral, whilst others have a real critical value. The publication of John Forster’s Life (1872-74) did not enhance the public estimation of Dickens. The scheme of the work was so artificial, and in the earlier and autobiographical portion there was an exaggeration of self-pity that rather caused a revulsion against the name and fame of Dickens. It is certainly the least satisfactory biography that Forster ever wrote. Whatever feeling of disappointment this may have left gave way to delight on the publication of the two volumes of Letters issued in 1880. It was then found that Dickens, in addition to being a keen man of business, a clever actor, a too observant traveller, an accomplished reader, and a great novelist, was also a most charming letter-writer. Whilst everybody had been saying that letterwriting was a lost art, one of the busiest men of the age had been writing epistles that were full of fun, humour, polish, of sparkling wit, of genial criticism, and of keen observation of men and things. The letters addressed to Forster, which alone had been printed in the “ Life,” had given little or no indication of the brilliant quality of Dickens as a literary and friendly correspondent. Mr. Shepherd’s corrections of errata in the printing and editing of the Letters, and his indications of books and periodicals in which epistles yet inedited are to be found, is a piece of very good work, and one of the most valuable portions of his little volume.
Dickens was a brilliant speaker. No man ever excelled him in after-dinner oratory. Mr. Shepherd collected fifty-six of Dickens’ speeches in a volume which has already been noticed in these pages. The bibliography of Dickens closes with a list of 64 articles and books classified as “ Ana.” Mr. Shepherd is, perhaps, unduly severe on Mr. James Cook, of Paisley, who published a somewhat confused and confusing “Bibliography of the Works of Charles Dickens” (Paisley : J. and J. Cook, 1879). That book, although scrappy and deficient both in literary skill and arrangement, contains a number of particulars which are not without value, and which will be sought for in vain elsewhere. Pereant qui
ante nos nostra dixerunt may have been the exclamation of Mr. Shepherd when first he saw this work, and the feeling has found expression in a somewhat acrimonious criticism. The particulars given by Mr. Cook of the “ plagiaristic titles” of the catchpenny imitators of “ Boz” are certainly curious as evidences of the great interest excited by the writings of Dickens. Neither Mr. Shepherd nor Mr. Cook afford full and accurate information as to the American editions and the foreign translations. The latter, however, states that at the date of Dickens’ death there were in his library “copies of translations of his books in the following languages:—In French, eleven ; in German, nine; in Dutch, two ; in Russian, two; in Italian, one; in Hungarian, one.”
It is forty-six years ago since “ Boz” startled and delighted the reading public. We who write this, lean and slippered, with spectacle on nose, dare hardly confess how long it is since first we assisted at the “ Election for the Beadle.” Why, Plancus was Consul when we began to roar over the jokes of ^m Weller, and at the misadventures of Winkle and Tupman. As we turn over the leaves of Mr. Shepherd’s book, what remembrances of bygone pleasures crowd upon our memory. How we looked for each new picture from the master’s hand. The vanished hand is still and quiet now in its resting-place in the Abbey, but the voice still lives, and will sound in the ears of our children’s children, preaching to them as to us, “ Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.”
Wiliam ganhls.
William Daniels, an artist whose genius entitled him to a place in the foremost rank of his countrymen, but who shrank from even provincial fame, on the thirteenth day of October last, and in the sixty-eighth year of his age, joined the noble army of the illustrious and immortal dead.
He was the son of parents who wrought in the brickfields, along the North Shore, Liverpool. Well-to-do folks they were, and a handsome couple. The father, “ Sam,” had been a soldier, and he married his wife in this town, where William, their first son and second child, was born. “ Bill” was very early in life pronounced a genius, the little fellow modelling in clay with skill and acute observation of form that was surprising in one so young.
A painter and wood-engraver named Mosses heard of the lad, and prevailed upon the parents to let him learn drawing. But not before “the tale of bricks” was daily told could he leave his labour in the brickfields, for Sam was a disciplinarian. Mosses was drawing-master at the Royal Institution, Colquitt-street, and thither young Daniels went; and there he quickly carried all before him. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to the wood-engraving under Mosses, and the lad always understood that he was to be taught
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painting, but that must have been a mistake. Anyway, Mosses found him skilful with the graver, and kept him to the workbench, which he quitted for ever at the expiration of his faithfully served seven years’ term.
A painter he would be, and had long produced little candlelight pictures, selling them for about a crown apiece. He had painted portraits, too, and wished to be known as a portrait painter, as the following anecdote will prove. I give it in the words of my informant:—“I was in my shop one day—it is nearly forty years ago—when there entered a tall and handsome, though very swarthy, gentleman, who had ruddy cheeks, piercing jet-black eyes, and long black curls hanging about the velvet collar of his coat; the coat was blue, with brass buttons, his trousers were lavender, his vest of black velvet, and he wore a crimson scarf and a white hat. He had a pipe in his mouth, and fire enough in his eyes to light it. He said: ‘ Mr. 8., I want you to engrave for me a card-plate, lettered William Daniels, portrait painter.’ I suggested that * artist’ would be a (fetter term, when he exclaimed aloud, hastily, and with flashing eyes that nearly frightened me, portrait painter, I said. If you don’t wish to do what I want, say so, and I will find somebody else who will.’ I shut my mouth and opened the order book, entered the job, the plate was cut, the cards were printed, and the painter and I contracted a friendship that has continued to this day.”
There has been much gratuitous and pharisaical headshaking about his occasional intemperance, but that he was somewhat of a Bacchanalian it would he absurd to deny. What is more to the purpose, in these pages, is that he was a Tobacconalian; and the first time the writer of these lines ever saw him, now nearly forty years ago, he had a pipe in his mouth, and afterwards knowing him intimately over a period of thirty-five years, I scarcely ever saw him, even to the hour of his death, without a pipe between his lips. The occasion spoken of was on
The day that comes between a Saturday and a Monday, when bells were knolling to church, and he was breasting the stream of good, pious folks, who,
“ Drest in all their best,” were .flocking to their prayers. In his left hand he grasped a bunch of pencils, upon his thumb he bore his palette, and in his right hand he carried a kit-cat canvas ; going to paint some trade-tied sitter, maybe, who had no other time to sit, indiscreetly indifferent to what might be thought or said of him by saint or sinner; and he was smoking like a volcano. Notwithstanding this gratuitous piece of folly, I ever subsequently found him, when in the company of gentlemen, quiet, respectful, and, though diffident, perfectly at home. He was more reserved in the society of ladies. He pitied dullards, despised coxcombs, and for the mere money-ocracy he had unmitigated scorn, and tried not to conceal it. He had painted a picture of pretty Mary Owens, his fiancee, as a pedlar, and sold it to Joshua Walmsley to raise money for their wedding; and later, when he was Sir Joshua, Daniels received a commission to paint her ladyship, an undertaking on the artist’s part that interfered with his nicotian joys, and brought out a trait of independence in his character.
The picture was an immense one, representing Lady Walmsley at full length, standing on the steps of a garden terrace, and was painted at the residence of Sir Joshua, where the artist abstained from his beloved weed until nature would not longer bear the privation. He told her ladyship, whose picture was by this time finished, so far as the face was concerned, that it was his custom to smoke at work, and politely, apologetically, even humbly, entreated permission to fight his pipe, but the lady emphatically refused. “ Then,” said the artist, who could be as emphatic as she, “ I will take the picture away, and finish it where I can smoke;” and he shouldered it on the spot, and, to the wonder of all who saw him, carried it to his home. No entreaties could induce him to return, and, after an interval, my lady’s dress was forwarded to him, placed upon a lay figure, and the picture was duly finished and sent home.
Daniels proceeded, one remarkable day, to Waterloo, on business that seems to have demanded more than usual attention to costume, as some display of linen appears to have been considered necessary. He had survived the loud costume previously mentioned, and was now quiet, and by no means particular in the matter of dress. Always scrupulously cleanly, he was yet somewhat careless, though never slovenly; but the reverse of dapper or neat. The artist’s demand for a clean white shirt was met by the information that the washerwoman had pawned the lot, and that in the emergency Mrs. Daniels had provided for her husband a false shirt-front called a dicky, a sort of sham that the artist had a contempt for, as he had of all shams. However, he eventually submitted to having the false front pinned and tied on, over his usual woollen shirt, and his large black scarf gave way to a neat little tie, so that the clean linen should not “ waste its sweetness on the desert air” of the Waterloo shore. Forth he sallied, and, arrived at Waterloo, his attention was attracted by a herculean fellow who was cruelly beating his donkey. The little animal was struggling in the shafts of a heavily-laden cart, and the brutal driver was raining blows upon the patient creature with a heavy stick. Daniels, always a most humane man, expostulated with the driver on his cruelty, which interference was insolently repudiated by the
fellow. “ Your ass is the nobler animal of the two,” said Daniels, “ and you deserve a cudgeling worse than it does.” “ Oh,” sneered the fellow, “ that’s all dicky.” The artist glanced hastily at his shirt-front, but no straggling corner peeped forth to betray the dimensions of the linen he wore. “ Go on, Mister Dicky!” continued the blackguard, the terror of his neighbourhood. “ Go on, or I’ll give yer wot I guv the moke.” “By Gog and Magog!” exclaimed Daniels, “It it a dicky,” and he clutched it in his grasp, tore it from its moorings and tossed it into the cart. “ And now,” cried he, “ come on and beat me if you can.” A public-house that stood close by quickly furnished a number of spectators who formed a ring, resolved to see fair play, but hoping to witness the overthrow of the bully donkey-driver. If the painter’s soul was in arms, the blackguard was no less eager for the fray, and he advanced with audacious confidence, but soon found that he had caught a tartar (for Daniels had sparred with Ward, the champion of England, and was scarcely second to Jim in the “ noble and manly art of self-defence”), and, sorely punished, the donkey man cried peccavi. “ Go on,” cried tfie ostler to him, “ you have’nt had half enough yet, Dick.” “Well,” replied the fellow, “ you can go in and get the other half.” “ Now,” said Daniels, “ use your donkey better, and be civil. Wipe your face, and come and have a pint of ale.” He pondered as they went along, and then he asked, as they reached the tap, “ How did you know that I wore a dicky?” “ W’y, guvnor,” quoth the fellow, “ w’enever I sees a shirt-front as has buttons stitched on where there is no button-holes, I knows as that there shirt’s a dicky.”
As he had put the donkey-driver’s pipe out, his own was destined to be extinguished. So charmed was Sir Joshua Walmsley with his wonderful talent that he obtained for him a commission to paint no less distinguished a person than the Duke of Wellington. Daniels attended at Apsley House, and had the honour of a sitting from the hero of Waterloo, who, when the first rub-in was accomplished, said, appointing his next sitting: “ To-morrow, Mr. Daniels, nine a.m. prompt.” The artist bowed and retired, and, arriving ten minutes late next morning, the Iron Duke refused to see him, and Daniels returned, humbled and grieved, and he ever spoke of the affair afterwards with sorrow and regret.
“ There is a tide in the affaire of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune: Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows, and in miseries.”
And it is sad to think that the career now closed might have been so much more honourably distinguished.
He saw everything through Tobacco-smoke—it was to him a second atmosphere; his clothes smelt of Tobacco, especially that easy black velvet coat, seen in our wood-cut, which garment he always wore when at work, and which, as a special mark of favour, he insisted upon the present writer wearing when sitting for a picture, discarding the more regulation garment. Daniels’ painting-room—he would never call it, nor have it called, “ studio ”—was redolent of the weed as a Tobacconist’s shop; and his Bembrandt-like pictures, so richly brown, so “ maduro ” in their shadows, seemed to have been tinged with the colour of his darling, sunbeam-concentrating weed—Nicotia’s leaf. He loved to listen when at work to the prattle of children, to the song of birds, to a good reader, or to music, and, failing any other, he would wind up and set going a very large and fine music-box that was presented to him by Mr. Roskell.
There was a rich vein of compassion in the man’s nature, and a melancholy one, with true sympathy for sorrow, poverty, and suffering; and at one time or other he painted every member of his family as hawkers, ballad-singers, and beggars. He was so kind and so grateful for any trivial service rendered him, that he gave away very many valuable pictures, and painted a large number of portraits as gifts to the sitters. He was so charitable as often to give away money of which he stood in need. He was not a good man of business, and dealers made much by him, for he would not haggle with anyone about the price of a picture. He lost large sums of money through his aversion to press a debtor, even when he was himself in need.
In matters of business pertaining to pelf. O’er easy with others, uneasy yourself.
He would have done anything to serve a “ brother brush,” and I never once heard him utter a harsh criticism of a picture, or use one sentence in disparagement of other painters’ work, however indifferent. On the contrary, if there was anything at all in a picture to admire, it had his high admiration, whilst in regard to his own glorious work he was singularly modest.
I mentioned James Ward a few lines back. I saw the veteran “ champion of England”—a very superior man, considering his profession and surroundings—about two months ago. He wore the belt, I think, at the time of an occurrence that is worth relating. “ Jem,” as he was called by all the world, conceived a violent liking for Daniels and his work, and, ambitioning the skill to handle an artist’s brush as well as his “ bunch of fives,” he determined to be a painter; and I have seen some of his productions in that line that were not contemptible. He had heard Daniels expatiate upon the glories of Turner's skies, and was fond of lots of colour, like Claude, and, like that illustrious Venetian, he affected sunsets. For his effects in these he drew upon his
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imagination, which bank, Daniels thought, did not honour the cheque ; so, giving him a check of another sort, our artist said, “ Look here, Jem; if you want to learn how to paint sunsets, go and tee sunsets. No man can paint what he cannot seo, and no one can see the sun set in Playhouse Square.” (Jem at that time kept the York Hotel). “Take lodgings at Waterloo, watch the sun go down into the sea as as often as you can, and study sunsets.” Ward laid in a stock of brushes, canvases, and colours, and did as he was advised, and returned in about a week with a number of skies that would have made Claude and Turner stare. “ Well, Jem,” said Daniels, when he saw the gladiator who had been wrestling with Sol, “ How have you got on ?” “ Oh,” replied the Genie of the Ring, “ I know every sanguinary move in sunsets.”
One picture by Daniels was the wonder and admiration of all who saw it; as which was not? I allude to the “Gold Fish; ” not the one with a child looking at the gleaming swimmers, but the second, and immeasurably superior one, that has in it a black cat gazing at the fish with flashing eyes. It was exhibited at the Liverpool Corporation Exhibition in 1876, held in the rooms of the Museum, and thereby hangs a tale. Daniels was righteously greatly incensed at the way in which this picture was treated, looking upon it as an intentional affront and injury; and, having a studio in the top room of a lofty building in Castle Street at the time, to this place he invited the gentlemen of the Hanging Committee. All but one, whom I will call L., were too wary to accept the invitation, but he innocently wended his way to the studio of the indignant and chafing artist. “ Come in ” cried a stentorian voice in response to his gentle tap, and in he went. Daniels no sooner saw whom it was than he sprang fiercely to the door, and, placing his back against it, demanded, with flashing eyes, “ Are there any more of you beggars ? ” “ N—n—no,” stammered L., who perceived that he was in the lion’s den. “That’s a pity,” growled the artist; and then he thundered, furiously, “ Wliat do you mean by using my picture as you did?” The affrighted visitor had probably heard that “ Committees have neither souls to be saved nor bodies to be kicked,” but now began to doubt the latter part of the sentence, feeling that he was in a likely way to have it disproved on his own person. “ You are a nice Hanging Committee-man! ” cried Daniels, scowling, and in tones of withering contempt; and then, “ You soon will be,” he roared, furiously. “ Do you see the rope over that beam ? You will be a hanging committee-man at the end of it in a brace of shakes, and then I’ll fling your carcass through the window.” It was now poor L.’s turn to roar, and he did so lustily, but no help came; and Daniels went across deliberately, as if to adjust the rope. Never had L. moved with such precipitancy as that with which he now darted to the door,—never did a trapeze-flier bound with greater agility than the Hanging Committee-man did down stairs and into the street, panting and palpitating, escaped, as he thought from the jaws of death. Daniels had seen the man’s terror and anguish, and his almost demented condition, and, though in a towering passion, had perceived the ludicrous side of the episode; so he walked away from the door to permit the poor fellow to escape. Whether he and his fellows had the grace to return thanks for deliverance from great peril, I know not; but it was a narrow escape.
He is generally described as of the Rembrandt school, but his works had other characteristics than those of the Flemish master. His sense of form was so fine, and his touch so true, that he never (after his student days) sketched his subject on the canvas, but, after roughly drawing his design upon a board, he painted in the outlines of his picture at once. In candle and fire light subjects he was unequalled, and he painted glass and shells with a fidelity that was startling. The opalistic play of light on his shells, and chromatic reflections of stained glass, were triumphs of art. He was devotedly fond of shells, and always—whatever his subject—kept them within view when painting. As he said, “ They refresh the eye, and keep the visual organs healthy.”
Daniels was not a vulgar drunkard, nor a violent bully, as has been orally given out, untruthfully and maliciously. To a large number of his most intimate friends he was never other than cordial and respectful, however “ powerfully refreshed,” as he called it. Towards the writer he ever behaved as an honourable, polished gentleman. Few people knew the deeper nature of the man, but, could they have dived to its recesses, they might have found there many a pearl. As Byron was misunderstood and misrepresented by the world at large, so was Daniels by the little world about him. The man is gone, the artist is still with us, and we have to do now not with the erring mortal—
M He that hath not sinned, let him cast the first stone,” but with the genius, often more sinned against than sinning. He sleeps with three of his children, and has left a widow and five children. He sleeps nigh to Huskisson (whom he Icnew well), in the family grave, at The Mount Cemetery, Liverpool, within a gunshot of the church where he was married. Earth has in-urned his ashes, but the light of his genius—genius that oft burned so fiercely—is abroad.
Rpite of detraction, Ms long-envied name Will aye be treasured by immortal fame.
Robert Crompton.
^enpafifi^^ipts.
HI.
I have recently made a change in residences. That sounds better than saying “ I’ve moved,” although it means no more. There is no particular reason why I should mention this fact, and no particular reason why I should keep it hidden. Still I like to do things above-board. My address now is----but, stay! My dear friends who have been wandering round recently, and wondering with innocent, lamb-like faces how it was that I chose to remove my goods in the dead of the night, a few days before the termination of last quarter, can obtain my address from the Editor of this paper. They will understand what I mean.
I knew my present neighbourhood many years ago. It is all changed now: where fields and trees were to be seen, there are long streets of houses, terraces, and shops. The country has become town. I have been making explorations all round about, and my heart is no lighter for the discovery that all tne happy hunting-grounds of my youth have been covered with bricks and mortar.
I was pottering along the other afternoon, smoking a contemplative pipe and thinking of the past, when I paused under a railway arch, to glance for a moment at some of the huge posters which adorned the walls.
There is a large publishing firm in London, that very widely advertises an educational monthly. One of its advertisements is in a pictorial form. There are nine human faces and heads on the sheet. These heads are larger than life, and altogether the advertisement is a very attractive one. First, on the left hand side, is the face of a child, happy and innocent. Then, following on, there are four heads at the top, and four at the bottom. The four faces at the top are clean, good-looking, and respectable. These show the career of the youth who reads the educational monthly. The four faces at the bottom are dirty, ill-looking, and disreputable. These show the career of the youth who does not read the educational monthly. Young men will be wise to take the hint, and get the book. Those who have passed the days of youth must put up with the consequences.
Quite needlessly, I think, the artist has introduced a pipe into the mouth of one of the characters—in the bottom row, of course: none of the top row smoke. That can be seen at a glance.
Under the arch where I was standing, one of these pictorial placards was on exhibition, and my attention was arrested by the attitude and appearance of a man who was closely inspecting it.
He was ragged and dirty, and not good-looking. He was smoking a short pipe, and seemed very angry and very much excited. He was muttering to himself, and shaking his fist at the advertisement generally.
As it is the principal thought of my life to cheer the sorrowful and console the afflicted, I spoke to this man kindly, and said: “ What is it distresses you, my friend ? Can I be of any assistance ? ”
“ Look here, guv’nor,” said he; “ can you see that blessed picture? ”
“ Extremely well,” I replied. “ It is very large, and I am close to it, so that I can see it without difficulty.”
“ Now, look at this cove here,” said my companion, pointing to the gentleman with the pipe in his mouth. “ Does he remind you of anyone in particular?”
“ No,” I said, after examining it closely. “ The next face reminds me somewhat of Ally Sloper, and the last might do for the Wandering Jew in an unwashed condition ; but this face does not call to my mind anyone in particular.”
“ I tell you, sir,” cried the dirty man, “ it’s a Ubel, a base libel.” “ A libel?” I inquired.
“ Yes,” he replied, excitedly. “ A libel on me. Look at me; ain’t it exactly like me, pipe and all. Ain’t it ? I’ll have damages, blowed if I don’t, if I can get ’em.”
“ So I would,” said I; “for now I come to look at it, and look at you, the picture is as much like you as if you had sat for it.”
“ Where does the cove live as has these bills stuck up ?” inquired the man, anxiously.
“ You go up to Ludgate Hill,” I replied, “ and inquire for the office of this firm. When you get there, ask to see one of the editors.”
“ The ed-hitter! No, no! ” said the fellow; “ I don’t want no hitters, nor no chuckers-out. Pm afraid, old man, you’re trying to get up a ‘ go along ’ for me. None of your barneys.”
“My dear friend,” I said, soothingly, for the man was looking fierce, “ I suppose you mean by a 1 go along ’ that I want to send you on a fool’s errand. Now, have you not expressed a wish to obtain damages ? Well, Tve given you the address of the firm. The firm has a number of editors in its employ. An editor is not, as you suppose, a fighting man, but a man who takes a paper or magazine under his charge. Now, an editor is a man of consequence, and could, I dare say, introduce you to one of the firm. Then you could make your complaint, and hear what he had to say in his defence”
“ Do you honestly think I could get anything out of this firm? ” inquired the man.'
“ The law,” said I, “ as far as I recollect in recent oases, gives a man power to object to other folks exhibiting his portrait without his permission. Now, here your portrait is exhibited without your permission, and”—for here I was struck by another thought—“there is prospective libel as
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well. This placard pictorially prophecies: that is to say, it assures the looker-on that this person here represented smoking a pipe—you, in fact—will come in time to look like these faces following. It says, in effect, that in a certain number of years you will become like this dreadful old gentleman at the end of the sheet. Are you,” I inquired, “possessed of much imagination? Because, if you are, according to some psychologists, the long-continued contemplation of this fearful face at the end will have some considerable influence on your mind in an injurious direction—will, in fact, cause you, to a certain extent, to grow like unto it.”
“ I don’t quite understand you,” said the man, looking puzzled; “ I don’tthink there’s much ’magination about me.”
“ Could you,” I said, “if you tried, imagine a thing to be true that was not true? ”
“ A thing as ain’t true is a lie, and a lie can’t be true,” replied my companion, growing argumentative.
“ That is not quite what I mean,” said I. “ Have you ever tried to imagine things occurring to you that have not occurred, but that you would like to occur ? F# instance, could you, when very thirsty, and in possession of a single penny only, have a half-pint, and imagine it was a quart ? ”
“ I begin to see now,” replied the man, “ what you mean; but I don’t think I could do it that way so easy as the other. I think if I was very thirsty, and had a quart, I could imagine it was only half a pint; at all events, I’d sooner try that way first, if you wants to make an experiment.”
I felt that my dirty friend was entitled to a glass for this answer, and asked him to show me the most respectable tavern in the neighbourhood. That reached, I gave an order for two glasses of ale, and over his beer my companion forgot all about his libel case. He complained very much of the hardness of the times, and the difficulty of getting an honest living.
“ But why are you not at work ?” I inquired, “ instead of loafing about.”
He replied, “ I should be at work, only I got a afternoon off to go and see the last of the poor old worm-killer.”
“ Dear me,” I said, “ that is an extraordinary business ; let me fill your glass again, and tell me all about it.”
“ There ain’t much to tell,” replied the man, as he puffed the smoke out thoughtfully. “ The old chap we called the worm-killer was a ostler.”
“ Then,” I inquired, “ why did you give him the other extraordinary title ?”
“ Well, it was this way,” replied the man. “ Tve heerd him say that when he was a little kid, his mother, seeing him look wery thin, thought as ’ow he’d got worms. Somebody told her to give him two or three plums before breakfast, and then all on a sudden, on top of the plums, to give him a drop of gin neat.”
‘ • Ah I” said I. “ Go on.”
“ When he growed up he was still wery thin, and still kept up the drop of gin neat, although he left out the plums; and every time he had a glass he called it killing a worm. He was a queer chap, and lots of people treated him. Why, I’ve knowed him kill as many as thirty worms the same day, often and often. What settled him was this. There was a swell as lost a walluable dog, and this here ostler found it. The swell gives him a quid. He took a holiday, and had a good sixteen hours worm-killing. I helped him home and helped him to bed. As I was a-coming away he said, * Killed ’em all, Jack ; killed ’em all.’ I don’t know if he did, but he killed himself, for he never got out of bed again.”
“ Was there an inquest?” I inquired.
“ Yes,” replied my companion, “ and the verdict was, ‘ Died from extensive drinking.’ ”
“ Excessive drinking, I suppose you mean ?” said I.
“ Well, now, ain’t it the same ?” said the friend of the wormkiller.
I was obliged to admit it was. “Bless me,” said my friend suddenly, “ how many glasses have I had?”
“ I think that is your fifth,” was my reply.
“ Dear me,” said the fellow, innocently, “ what a strange thing that there ’magination is; I can really fancy I ain’t had more than about one.”
I concluded it was about time for me to go, so I paid for one more glass, and left the libelled individual to finish it at his leisure.
On my road home I passed the residence of a friend, Mr. Twiller. He professes to be able to do almost anything, but I never knew him do a single thing well. He was at his door taking the lock off. It had gone wrong somehow, it wouldn’t work well. He asked me in to see him repair it, and have a chat and a pipe at the same time. It always interests me to see a man like Twiller at work, so in I went.
The lock came off easily, and Twiller proceeded with it into the back kitchen. I sat in a chair to see the performance. He spread an old newspaper on the table to save the cloth, and procured a duster, some oil in a saucer, and a candle, which he placed on the table, as the gas, which was fixed over the fireplace, did not give him sufficient light. Then he set to work to take the lock to pieces. He unscrewed two screws and took them out. The plate of the lock, however, still held fast; so he inserted a blade of his pen-knife into a convenient place, and applied pressure. The blade broke. Here occurred the first injudicious arrangement of syllables on the part of Mr. Twiller. I coughed, of course, so as to make him think I had not noticed this slip of his from the paths of strict morality; and the engineering went on with a recklessness on his part that promised still further abbre^ia-
tions of cutlery. He managed, however, to get the plate off, and the interior of the lock was then displayed. There was a spring, which he got out. This being old, and spirit-broken with long solitary confinement, should have been gently dealt with. Twiller, however, gave it a good squeeze to ascertain how many horse-power it was, and it broke feebly in half. More quotations from unknown authors by the engineer. The girl was sent out for a new spring, which cost twopence. The lock, I may say, was a patent one, and Twiller now proceeded to take out six small brass plates with springs attached to them, and with holes and slots cut in them. They looked like pieces of a puzzle. They certainly turned out to be what they looked like. As Twiller moved each plate he cleaned it and laid it aside. Each one was laid carefully on the one that preceded it, so that all might go back in their proper places. Having got all the plates out, he now cleaned the inside of the lock, and then, well satisfied with things so far, made up his mind to light his pipe. Instead of lighting this at the candle, he used a short piece of paper, and burnt his fingers. This made him drop the paper in among his work, and in trying to extinguish it he knocked over his parts of a puzzle, and they got well mixed. Now ensued an hour of what the Christy Minstrels would term a variety entertainment. As he tried one way and another, and meditated, he rubbed his nose and brow a good deal, and, as his hands were well covered with oil and dead dirty grease out of the lock, he gradually assumed a spotted appearance. He first started, after the parts were so terribly mixed, by putting them into the lock at random. It was a saucy way, and deserved success on account of its originality, but it did not succeed; and Twiller gave a foolish sort of grin, indicative of brave hope defeated. Then he turned them all out, and started afresh, trying each one with the key as he placed it in the lock. He fixed number one and found that was correct. Number two was the same. He felt better, and relit his pipe, which had died during the previous exciting moments. He now ventured on number three, and, to his delight, found he was right again. He was so pleased that he took a cheering glass of ale, and expressed sorrow for words he had used in his passion, promising to use them no more. He fitted number four, and over his face there stole a piebald serenity. Number five was placed in the lock and there was a hitch. He took it off, however, with the air of a man who holds the winning cards, and tried the only other one. This worked capitally, and he now placed on the sixth, and said, looking at me for applause, “ Domino!” Strange to say, this would not go right, and no power of force or persuasion would make it go. He coaxed it gently. He spake to it chidingly. He gave it an extra drop of oil to drink, but it was beyond bribery. Then, forgetting his recent resolution, he flung the whole concern down savagely and spake aloud. All the plates now came out, to see what had occasioned such violence, and Twiller had to begin again. In a species of insanity he shook the six plates in an old hat, and started anywhere; but this time, either from excitement or a shaking hand, he could not get even the first to go right; so, after all this waste of time and destruction of moral tissue, the lock had to be mended by the locksmith, at a cost of ninepence. D. Goggs.
Hallari ri t^t |tto gear.
Amans. “ Let us chaunt the New Year!
Oynicus. “Nay: let us rather despair that, with the dying of the Old, we find men as vile and women as fickle as when the Old was New.
Amans. “Despair an you will; it sootheth me to hope for better things.”	Woman: A Comedy.
The Old Year is painfully dying, His moments nor hasten nor stay:
As the life-blood of one, who is lying Death-stricken, ebbs slowly away, So the night will melt into the day:
Soon the Young Year that waits at the door
Will assume his supreme, though short, sway: We shall know Eighteen-Eighty no more.
He will go with his frauds and his lying— With his wretched attempts to be gay;
His ears filled with sobs and with sighing
For laughter has wandered astray:
And we can but hopefully pray
That the New Year will have a rich store Of good luck; ’twill be welcome as May, When we know Eighteen-Eighty no more.
No good was attained yet by crying: If rough and unpleasant our way, We can soften our labour by trying On dark days to find out the ray Of Hope, that is shining for aye:
Though the cloud of despair may hang o’er Our horizon, ’twill vanish as spray,
When we know Eighteen-Eighty no more.
L’ENVOL
0, Pipe! of dark, sweet-savoured clay, Who sootheth when idiots bore;
Your charms will the New Year’s outweigh, When we know Eighteen-Eighty no more.
London, Dec. 31,1880.	T. W. Littleton Hat.
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COPE’S TOBACCO PLANT.
677
Facsimile of Label.
NEW BRAND OF CIGARETTES:
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//V SIXPENNY. BOXES; containing Twelve Leaf Covered Cigarettes of excellent quality and value.
In Packets containing
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Published on the 6th of every Month; price per annum, post free, 4s.
Cbe |kinftrs’ Register,
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Address—Thu Editor, St. Bride Street, London, E.C.
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NEW YORK TOBACCO LEAF, Organ of the Tobacco Trade of the United States. Published weekly. Subscription, 20/- per Annum, post free to any part of the United Kingdom. Sole Agents for the United Kingdom— Cope Bros. & Co., 10, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, by whom Advertisements and Subscriptions will be received. Specimen copy sent for Id. postage stamp.
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COPE’S CIGARETTES.
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Bouquet (With Tubes). FeerleSS (Without Tubes). In Cardboard Boxes, containing four Bundles of 25 Cigaretos. In very handsome Cedar Cases, containing ten Boxes, or 1000 Cigaretos.
Dedicate tn flavour; burn evenly, with a firm white ash; made with great care for a mild morning- smoke.
Bouquet No. 2. Extra Size, Patent Tubes. In Cardboard Boxes, containing 50. In handsome polished Cedar Cases, containing 1000, with lock and key.
Bouquet No. 2 Cigaretos are made from a peculiar kind of Oriental 7'obacco, which we ourselves import. The smoking of this Tobacco is said to give relief in cases of Asthma.
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