"THE STORT OF OUR LIVES FROM YEAR TO YEAR."—SHAKESPEARE. ALL THE YEAE EOUND. A WEEKLY JOURNAL. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

N°- 244.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26. 1S63. [PRICE 2d.

By this time nothing could surprise Jackey VERY HARD CASH. Tar. Pour sailors executed the order promptly. BI THB AUTHOR OP " IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND. " Bosen, pipe to duty." While the men were dispersing to their several CHAPTER LVII. stations. Captain Bazalgette apologised to the JUST before noon next day, on board the Vul- chaplain, and explained to him and to the officers. ire, the bell on which the half-hours are struck But I give his explanation in my own words, was tolled slowly to collect the ship's company; binding the ship quiet, the purser went to the and soon the gangways and booms were crowded, captain down below, and asked him coolly tvhat and even the yards were manned with sailors, entry he should make in the ship's books about collected to see their shipmate committed to the this William Thompson, who was no more deep. Next came the lieutenants and midship­ William Thompson than he was. " What do you men and stood reverently on the deck : the body mean ?" said the captain. Then the purser told was brought and placed on a grating. Then all him that Thompson's messmates, in preparing heads being uncovered below and aloft, the chap­ him last night for interment, had found a little lain read the solemn service of the dead. bag round his neck, and inside it a medal of the Humane Society, and a slip of paper written cn Many tears were shed bythe rough sailors, in a lady's hand; then they had sent for him; the more so that to most of them, though not to and he had seen at once that this was a myste­ the officers, it was now known that poor Billy rious case : this lady spoke of him as her husband, had not always been before the mast, but had and skipper of a merchant vessel. seen better days, and commanded vessels, and saved lives; and now he had lost his own. "What is that?" roared the captain, who The service is the same as ashore, with this hitherto had listened with scarce half an ear. exception: that the words "We commit his " Skipper of a merchant vessel, sir, as sure as body to the ground, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, you command her Majesty's frigate Vulture: &c.," are altered at sea, thus : "We commit his and then we found his shirt marked withthe same name as the lady's." body to the deep, to be tumed into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, when "What was the lady's name?" the sea shall give up her dead, and the life ofthe " Lucy Dodd; and David Dodd is on the shirt." world to come." At these words the body is "Why didn't you tell mc this before ?" cried allowed to glide off the grating into the sea. The chaplain's solemn voice drew near those very the captain. words, and the tears of pity fell faster; and "Didn't know it till last night. " W^iy it is twelve o'clock. They are burymg Georgie White, an affectionate boy, sobbed vio­ lently, and shivered beforehand at the sullen him." plunge that he knew would soon come, and then "Yes sir." he should see no more poor Billy who had given "Lucy would never forgive me," cried the his life for his. . captain. And to the purser's utter amazement he At this moment the captain came flying on clapped on his cocked-hat, and flew out of the deck, and jumping on to a gun, cried sharply, cabin on the errand I have described. "Avast! Haul that body aboard." He now descended to the cabm and looked: The sharp voice of command cut across the a glance was enough : there lay the kmdly face soleran words and tones in the most startling that had been his friend man and boy. way. The chaplain closed his book with a look He hid his own with his hands, and moaned. of amazement and indignation: the saUors staral, He cursed his own blindness and stupidity in and for the first time did not obey an order, lo not recognising that face among a thousand, lu be sure it was one they had never heard before. Siis he ^vas unjust to himself. David had never Then the captain got angry, and repeated his looked ^/«s^//till now. command louder; and the body was almost He sent for the surgeon, and told him the jerked in board. „ whole sad story : and asked l^m what could be " Carry him to ray cabin; and uncover his tace. done His poor cousin Lucy had more Unn

2lt VOL. X. :^ 410 [December 26,1863.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby once expressed her horror of interment at sea. sure of it. This is catalepsy. He may lie this " It is very hot," said he; " but surely you must way for a week. But dead he is not. I'll try know some way of keeping him till we land in the douche." David was then by his orders New Zealand : curse these lies; how they bite !" 3trii4)ed, and caaried to a place -where they The surgeon's eyes sparkled; he happened to could turn a watercock on hrm from a height: be an enthusiast in the art of embalming. " Keep and the surgeon had soon the happiness of pomt­ him to New Zealand ?" said he, contemptuously. ing out to the captain a slight blush on David's "I'll embalm him so that he shall go to England skin in parts, caused by the falling water. All looking just as he does now—by-the-by, I never doubt ceased with this : the only fear was lest saw a drowned man keep his colour so well they should shake outtbe trembling life by rou^h before—ay, and two thousand years after that, if usage. They laid him on his stomach, and with you don't mind the expense." a bellows and pipe so acted on the lungs, that "The expense! I don't care if it cost me a at last a genuine sigh issued from the patient's year's pay. I think of nothing but repairing my breast. Then they put him in a warm bed, and blunder as far as I can." applied stimulants; and by slow degrees the The surgeon was delighted. Standing over eyelids beg«,n to wink, the eyes to look more his subject, who lay on the captain's table, he mellow, the respiration to strengthen, the heart told that officer how he should proceed. "I to beat: "Patience, now," said the surgeon; have all the sjTinges," he said; " a capital col­ "patience, and lots of air." lection. I shall inject the veins with care and Patience was rewarded. Just four hours after patience; then I shall remove the brain and the the first treatment, a voice, faint but calm and viscera, and provided I'm not stinted in arsenic genial, issued from the bed on their astonished and spices " ears, " Good morniug to you aU." " I give you carte blanche on the purser: make They kept very quiet. In aboift five minutes your preparations, and send for him. Don't more the voice broke out again, calm and tell me how you do it; but do it. I must write sonorous. and tell poor Lucy I have got him, and am bring­ " WHERE IS MY MOKEY ? • MY rouKiEEN THOU­ ing him home to her—dead." SAND POUNDS." The surgeon was gone about a quarter of an hour; he then returned with two men to remove These words set them all looking at one the body, and found the captain still writing his another; and very much puzzled the surgeon: letter, very sorrowful: but now and then slap­ they were delivered with such sobriety and con­ ping his face or leg with a hearty curse as the viction. "Captain," he whispered, "ask him if flies stung him. he knows you." The surgeon beckoned the men in softly, and " David," said the captain kindly, " do you pointed to the body, for them to carry it out. know me ?" Now, as he pointed, liis eye following his David looked at him eamestly, and his old finger, fell on something that struck that ex­ kindly smile broke out. " Know ye, ye dog," said perienced eye as incredible : he uttered an ex­ he, " why you are my cousin Reginald. And how clamation of astonishment so loud, that the came you into this thundering Bank ? I hope captain looked up directly from his letter; and you have got no money here. Ware land sharks!" saw him standing with his finger pointing at the " We are not in a Bank, David ; we are on corpse, and his eyes staring astonishment."" What board my ship." now ?" said the captain, and rose from his seat "The deuce we are. But where's my money?" "Look! look! look!" " Oh, we'll talk about that by-and-by." The captain came and looked^and said he saw The surgeon stepped forward and said sooth­ nothing at all. ingly, "You have been very ill, sir. You have "^ The fly; the fly!" cried the surgeon. had a fit." "Yes, I see one of them has beeu biting him; " I believe you are right," said David thought­ for there's a little blood trickling. Poor fellow.'' fully. "A dead mau can't bleed from the small veins " WUl you allow me to examine your eye ?" in his skin," said the man of art. "He is " Certainly, doctor." alive, captain, he is alive, as sure as we stand The surgeon examined David's eye mik his here, and God's above. That little insect was thumb and finger; and then looked into it to see wiser than us ; he is alive." how the pupil dilated,and contraicted. "Jackson, don't trifle with me, or I'll hang you He rubbed his hands.after this examination; afc the yard-arm. God bless you, Jackson. Is it really possible ? Run some of you, get a mirror " More good news, captain!" then lowering his I have heard that is a test." voice, " Tour friend is as sane as lam." The surgeon was right. A shock had brought busiJ^is''"'' ^^ ^^''°^'^' ^°^*°'" -^^^ ^^°^^ ^'^back the reason a shock had taken away. But All was now flutter and bustle : and various how or why I know no more than the child un­ attempts were made to resuscitate David but all born. ^ The surgeon wrote a learned paper, and explained the whole most ingeniously. I don't m vain. At last the surgeon had an idea.' « This believe one word of his explanation, and can't man was never drowned at aU," said he : "I am better it, so confine myself to the phenomena. Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [December 26,18^3.] 411 Being now sane, the boundary-wall of his memory have burnt out all his impetuosity, leavin. was shifted. He remembered his whole life up him to his demanding his cash back of Richard ^TT n^ sober, calm, and self-governed. Hardie: andthere his reawakened mind stopped Mr. Compton took the money and the wilL dead short. Being asked if he knew William and promised the executrix Skinner should be Thompson, he said, "Yes, perfectly. The man decently interred and aU his debts paid out of was a foretopman on board the Agi-a, and rather tfie estate. He would look in at 66 by-and-by. a smart hand. The ship being aground, he came And uow a happy party wended theii- way towards Pembroke-street. out to sea on a piano: but we cut the hawser, But Alfred was beforehand with them: he went and he got safe ashore." His recovered reason boldly up the stairs, and actually surprised Mrs. rejected with contempt as an idle dream all that Dodd and Sampson together. bad happened while that reason was in defect. At sight of him she rose, made him a low The last phenomena I have to record were bodily; curtsey, and beat a retreat. He whipped to the one was noted by Mr. G«orgie White in these door, and set his back against it. "No," said terms: " Billyhs eyes used to be like a seal's: but he, saucUy. now he is a great gentleman they are like yours She drew back astonished, and the colour and mine." The other was more singular: with mounted in her pale face. " What, sir, would his recovered reason came his first grey hair, you detain me by force ?" and in one fortnight it was all as white as ^^ "And uo mistake," said the audacious boy. snow. " How else can I detain you ? when you hate me He remained a fortnight on board the Vulture, so ?" She began to peep into his sparkling eyes beloved by liigh and low. He walked the quarter­ to see the reason of this strange conduct. deck in the dress of a private gentleman, but "C'way from the door, ye v^abm," said looking like an admiral. The sailors touched Sampson. their hats to him with a strange mixture of "No, no, my friend," said ]\Irs. Dodd, trem­ veneration and jocoseness. They called him bling, and still peering into his sparkling eyes. among themselves Commodore Billy. He was "Mr. Alfred Hardie is a gentleman at all events: snppHed with funds by Reginald, and put on he would not take this liberty with me, unless board a merchant ship bound for England. He he had some excuse for it." landed, and went straight to Barkington. There " You are wonderfully shrewd, mamma," said he heard his family were in London. He came Alfred, admiringly. "The excuse is I don't hate back to London, and sought them; a friend told you as you hate me ; and I ara very happy." him of Green; he went to him, and of course " Why do you call me mamma to-day ? Oh Green saw directly who he was. But able men doctor, he calls me mamma." don't cut business short; he gravely accepted " Th' audacious vagabin." David's commission to find him Mrs. Dodd. Piud- " No, no, I cannot think he would call me that inghun so confident, David asked him if bethought unless he had some good news for us both ?" he could find Richard Hardie, or his clerk, Noah " What good news can he have, except that fifcroner; both of whom had levanted from Bark­ his trial is goin' well, and you don't care for ington. Green, who was on a hot scent as to that." Skinner, demurely accepted both commissions ; " Oh, how can you say so ? I care for aU that and appointed David to meet him at a certain concerns him : he would uot come here to place at six. insult my misery with his happiness. He is He came; he found Green's man, who took noble, he is generous, with all his faults. How him up-stairs, and there was that excited group dai-e you call me mamma, sir! Call it me again, determining the ownership of the receipt. ?;. my dear child : because then I shall kruno you Now to David that receipt was a thing of are come to save my.heart from breaking." And yesterday. "It is mine," said he. They all with this, the tmth must be told, the stately tumed to look at this man, with sober passionless Mrs. Dodd did fawn upon Alfred with palms voice, and hair of snow. A keen cry from Julia's outstretched aud piteous eyes, and aU the cajoling heart made every heart there quiver, and in a arts of her sex. moment she was clinging and sobbing on her "Give me a kiss then, mamma," said the father's neck. Edward could only get his hand impudent boy, " and I will tell you a little bit and press and kiss it. Instinct told them Heaven of good news." had given them their father back mind and all. She paid the required tribute with servile Ere the joy and the emotion had calmed them­ humility and readiness. selves, Alfred Hardie stepped out and ran like a " Well then," said Alfred, and was just gomgte deer to Pembroke-street. tell her all, but caught sight of Sampson making Those who were so strangely reunited could the most expressive pantomime to him to be not part'for a long time, even to go dovra the cautious. "Well," said he, "I have seen a stairs one by one. sailor." David was the first to recover his composure : "Ah!" indeed, great tranquillity of spirit had ever since " And he is sure Mr. Dodd is alive." his cure been a remarkable characteristic of this Mrs. Dodd lifted her hauds to Heaven but man's nature. His passing mania seemed to could Hot speak. " In fact," said Alfred, hesitat- =^ 412 [December 26,1863.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by

ing (for he was a wretched hand at a fib), "he world is so wide, and the adventures and emotions saw him not a fortnight ago, on board ship. But of our race so many. that is not all, mamma, the sailor says he has his One by one all were had up to that sacred reason." room to talk to the happy pair. They foimd Mrs. Dodd sank on her knees, and said no David seated calraly at his wife's feet, her soft word to man, but many to the giver of all good. hand laid on his white hair, lest he should leave When she arose she said to Alfred, " Bring this her again : and they told him all the sorrow sailor to me. I must speak with him directly." behind them ; and he genial, and kindly as ever Alfred coloured. "I don't know where to told thera all the happiness before them. He find him just now." spoke like the raaster of the house, the father of " Oh, indeed," said Mrs. Dodd quietly : and the faraily, the friend of thera all. this excited her suspicion; and from that But with all his goodness he was sternly moment the cunning creature lay in wait for resolved to have his 14,000/. out of Eichard Master Alfred. She plied him with questions, Hardie. He had an interview with Mr. Compton and he got more and more puzzled how to that very night, and the lawyer wrote a letter to sustain his stoiy. At last, by way of bursting Mr. Hardie, saying nothing about the death of out of his own net, he said, "But I am sorry to Skinner, but saying that his client. Captain Dodd, say lus hair has turned white. But perhaps you had recovered from Noah Skinner the receipt No. won't mind that." 17 for 14,010/. 12s. 6d., and he was instructed to " And he hadn't a grey hair." sue for it unless repaid immediately. He added " It is not grey, like the doctor's; it is white as Captain Dodd was mercifully restored, and the driven snow." remembered distinctly every particular of the Mrs. Dodd sighed; then suddenly turning on transaction. Alfred, asked him, " Did the sailor tell you that ?" He hesitated a moment and was lost. They aU thought in their innocence that "You have seen him," she screamed; "he is Hardie v. Hardie was now at an end. Captain in London : he is in the house. I feel hira near Dodd could prove Alfred's soi-disant illusion to me :" and she went into something very like be the simple tmth. But Compton let them hysterics. Alfred was alarmed, and whispered the know that this evidence had come too late. truth. The doctor sent him off to meet them, and "What, may we not get up and say here is papa, recommended caution; her nerves were in such a and it is all true ?" cried Julia, indignant. state a violent shock, even of happiness, might " No, Miss Dodd, certainly not; our case is kill her. closed." Thus warned, Julia came into the room alone, " But suppose I insist on doing it ?" and while Dr. Sampson was inculcating self- "Theu you will be put out of court. Miss restraint for her own sake, she listened with a Dodd." superior smile, and took quite a different line. "Much I care, Mr. Compton." "Mamma," said she, "he is in the town: but I He smiled, but convinced them. dare not bring him here till you are composed: Well then they would all go as spectators, and his reason is restored; but his nerves are not so pray that justice might prevail. strong as they were ; now, if you agitate your­ They did go: and aU sat together to hear a self you will agitate him, and will do him a matter puzzled over, which had David come one serious mischief." day earlier he would have set at rest for ever. , This crafty speech produced an incredible Dick Absolom was put in to prove that Alfred effect on Mrs. Dodd. It calmed her directly: had put two sovereigns onthe stumps for him to or rather her great love gave her strength to be bowl if he could; and after him the defendant, Mr. calm. "I will not be such a wretch," she said. Thomas Hardie, a mild, benevolent, weak, gentle­ " See, I am composed, quite composed. Bring man was put into the box, and swore the boy's me my darling, and you shall see how good I father had come to hira with story after story will be : there now, Julia, see how calm I am, of the plantifTs madness, and the trouble it quite calm. What, have I borne so much misery, would get hira into : and so he had done for the with Heaven's help, and do you think I cannot best. His simplicity was manifest, and Saunders bear this great happiness, for my dear darlins's worked it ably. When Colt got hold of him, and sake?" ° badgered him, he showed soraething more than On this they proposed she should retire to her simplicity. He stuttered, he contradicted hun­ room, and they would go for David. self, he perspired, he all but wept. "Think over the meeting, dear, dear mamma," Colt.—Are you sure you had no spite against said Julia, " and then you will behave well for him? his sake, who was lost to us and is found." Deft.-No. Husband and wife met alone in Mrs. Dodd's Colt.—You are not sure, eh ? room. No eye, even of the children, ventured to This candid interpretation of his .words knocked witness a scene so strange, so sacred. We may hira stupid. He made no reply, but looked try and imagine that meeting; but few of us utterly flabbergasted. can conceive it by the light of our narrow ex­ Colt.—Did he not provoke you ? Did he not perience. Yet one or two there may be; the call you an idiot ? Z Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [December 26,1SG3.] 413 Deft,—He might. Colt (satirically). — Of course he mi<^ht that aU our liberties depended on them "Jn (Laughter). But did he? ° ' vara," said he, "have we beheaded one tyrant Deft, (plucking up a little spirit).—No. He and bamshed another, to secure those liberties called me Sora TOMMY. If men are to be allowed to send away their own flesh and blood mto the worst of all prisonsTo? This revelation, and the singular appropriate­ life and not smart for it, in those bmentably few ness of the nickname, were so highly relished by cases in which the law finds them out and lay! an mtelligent audience, that it was a long time be­ hdd of them." But it would taskmy abiSLno fore the trial could go on for roars. The plain­ Wie utmost, and occupy more time than is left tiff's ringing laugh was heard among the rest. me, to do anything like justice to the fiuent fiery The cross-examination proceeded in this style eloquence of Colt, Q C, when he got a greS till the defendant began to drivel at the mouth a ehance like this. Tonat, fulgurat, et raS little. At last, after a struggle, he said, with a eloquentisefluctibus cuncta proruit et proturbat piteous whine, that he could not help it: he -tiursts of applause, that neither crier nor jud-e hated signing his name; some mischief always could suppress, bore witness to the deep indig­ came of it; but this time he had no option nation Bntons feel when their hard-earned fiber- "No option?" said Colt. "What do you ties are tampered with by power or fraud in mean?" dehauce of law; and when he sat dowu, the jury And with one or two more turns of the screw, were ready to flyout at him with 5000/. in hand. out came this astounding revelation : Then rose the passionless voice of "justice ac­ "Richard said if I didn't put Taff in one, he cordmg to law." I wish I could give the very would put me in one." words. The foUov^^ng is the effect as /under­ The Judge.—In one what ? stood it. Lawyers forgive deficiencies ! Deft, (weeping bitterly).—In one madhouse, my lord. " This is an important, but uot a difficult case. The plaintiff sues the defendant under the law In the peal that followed this announcement, of England for falsely imprisoning him in a mad­ Colt sat down grinning. Saunders rose smiling. house. The imprisonment is admitted, and the "I am much obliged to the leamed counsel for sufferings of the plaintiff not disputed. The making my case," said he : "I need not prolong question is, whether he was insane at the time the sufferings of the innocent. You can go down, of the act ? Now, I must tell you, that iu a Mr. Hardie." case of this kind, it lies upon the defendant to The Judge.—Have you any defence to this prove the plaintiff's insanity, rather thau on the action ? plaintiff to prove his own sanity. Has the "Certainly, my lord." defendant overcome this difficulty? We have "Do you call Richard Hardie ?" had from him hearsay and conjectures of re­ "No, my lord." spectable persons, but very little evideuce. "Then you had better confine yourself to the Illusion is the best proof of insanity : and a question of damages." serious endeavour was certainly made to fasten The sturdy Saunders would not take the hint: au illusion on the plaintiff about a sum of 14,000/. he replied upon the whole case, and fought hard But the proof was very weak, and weut partly for a verdict. The line he took was bold; he on an assumption that all error is hallucination: described Richard Hardie as a man who had this is illusory, aud would, if acted on, set one acqmred a complete power over his weaker half the kingdom imprisoning the other half; brother: and had not only persuaded him by and after all, they did uot quite prove that the statements, but even compelled hira by threats, plaintiff was in error. They advauced no unde­ to do what he believed would be the salvation of niable proof that Mr. Richard Hardie lias not his nephew. Will you imitate the learned embezzled this 14,000/. I don't say it was proved counsel's cmelty? Will you strike a child ? In on the other hand that he did embezzle that short, he made a powerful appeal to their pity, sum. Richard Hardie suing Alfred Hardie for while pretending to address their judgments. libel on this evidcuce might possibly obtain a Then Colt rose like a tower, and assuming the verdict: for then the burden of proof would lie verdict as certain, asked the jury for heavy on Alfred Hardie : but here it lies on those who damages. He contrasted powerfully the defend­ say he is insane. The fact appears to be that ant's paltry claim to pity with the anguish the the plaintiff imbibed a reasonable suspicion of his plamtiff had undergone. He drew the wedding own father's integrity; it was a suspicion founded party, the insult to the bride, the despaii- of the on evidence ; imperfect, indeed, but of a high kidnapped bridegroom; he lashed the whole character as far as it went. There was a letter gang of conspirators concerned in the crime, re­ from Captain Dodd to his family, announcing his gretted that they could ouly make one of all return with 14,000/. upon him, and, while as yet tbese villains smart, but hinted that Richard unaware of this letter, the plaintiff heard David and Thomas Hardie were iu one boat, and that Dodd accuse Richard Hardee of possessing im­ heavy damages inflicted on Thomas would find properly 14,000/., the identical sum. At least, the darker culprit out. He rapped out Mr. he swears to this, and as Richard Hardie was Cowper's lines on liberty, and they were new to not called to contradict him, you are at liberty to ^e jury, though to nobody else: he wamed them suppose that Richard Hardie could uot contra- 414 [December 26,1863.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by

diet him on oath. Here, then, true or false, was for vengeance, but for compensation, and resto­ a rational suspicion; and every man has a right ration to that society which he is every way to a rational suspicion of his neighbour, and even fitted to adorn. More than this—and all our to utter it within due limits: and, if he overstep sympathies—it is not for us to give him. But those, the party slandered has his legal remedy; then the defendant's counsel went too far the and, if he omits his legal remedy, and makes an other way. His client, he says, is next door to an attempt of doubtful legality not to confute but idiot, and so, forsooth, his purse must be spared to stifle the voice of reasonable suspicion, shrewd entirely. This is all very well if it could be done men will suspect all the more. But then comes without ignoring the plaintiff and his just claim to a distinct and respectable kind of evidence for compensation. If the defendant, instead of bemg the defendant; he urges that the plaintiff was weak-minded, were an idiot or a lunatic, it would going to sign away his property to his wife's protect hira from punishment as a felon, but not relations. Now, this was proved, and a draft for damages in a suit. A sane man is not to be of the deed put in and swom to. This falsely imprisoned by a lunatic without full com­ taken singly, has a very extraordinary look: pensation from the lunatic or his estate; a still, you must consider the plaintiff's reasonable fortiori, he is not to be so imprisoned by a mere suspicion that money belonging to the Dodds fool without just compensation. Supposing your had passed irregularly to the Hardies, and then verdict then to be for the plaintiff, I think vui- the wonder is much diminished. Young and dictive daraages would be imfair on this feeble noble minds have in every age done these defendant, who has acted recklessly, but under generous, self-denying, and delicate acts. The an error, and without malice or bad faith. On older we get, the less likely we are to be incar­ the other hand, nominal or even unsubstantial cerated for a crime of this character. But we damages would be unjust to the plaintiff, and are not to imprison youth and chivalry because perhaps leave in some minds a doubt I am sure we have outgrown them. To go from particulars you do not entertain, as to the plaintiff's perfect to generals, the defendant, on whora the proof sanity during the whole period of his life." lies, has adTanced hearsay and' conjecture, and As soon as his lordship had ended, the foreman not put their originators into the box. And the of the jury said their minds were quite made up plaintiff, on whom the proof does not lie, has long ago. advanced an overpowering araount of evidence Si-lence in the court. that he was sane at the tirae of his incarceration: We find for the plaintiff, with damages three this was proved to demonstration by friends, thousand five hundred pounds. strangers, and by himself." Here the judge ana­ The verdict was received with some surprise lysed the testimony of several of the plaintiff's by the judge, and all the lawyers, except J/b. witnesses. Colt,.and by the people with acclamation; in the "As to the parties themselves, it is curious midst of which Mr. Colt announced that the how they impersonated, so to speak, then- re­ plaintiff had just gained his first class at (M>rd. spective lines of argument. The representa­ " I wish him joy," said the judge. tive of evidence and sound reasoning, though accused of insanity, was clear, precise, frank, CHAPTER LVin. rational, and dignified in the witness-box. The THE verdict was a thunder-clap to Richard party who relied on hearsay and conjecture, Hardie; he had promised Thomas to bear him was as feeble as they are; he was almost blameless. The Old Turks, into which he had imbecile, as you observed; and looking at both bought at 72, were down to 71, and that impHed parties, it seems monstrous that the plaintiff a loss of five thousand pounds. On the top of should be the one confined as a lunatic, and all this came Mr. Compton's letter neatly copied the defendant allowed to run wild and lock by Colls : Richard Hardie was doubly and trebly up his intellectual superiors. If he means to ruined. lock them ali up, who is safe ? (Laughter.) Then in his despair and hate he deterrained to The only serious question, I apprehend, is baffle them all, ay, and sting the hearts of some on what basis the damages ought to be assessed. of them once more. The plaintiff's counsel has made a powerful ap­ He would give Peggy his last shilling; write a peal to your passions, aud calls for vengeance. line to Alfred, another to Julia, assui-ing them Now I must tell you you have no right to make he had no money, and they had killed him; and yourselves ministers of vengeance, nor even to with that leave them both the solemn eurse of a punish the defendant in a suit of the kind: still dying father, and then kill himself. less ought you to strike the defendant harder than you otherwise would, in the vague hope of Not to be interrupted in his plan, he tem­ hitting indirectly the true mover of the defendant porised with Mr. Compton; wrote that, if the and the other puppets. Let me solemuly warn Receipt was really signed by his agent, of course you against that unfortunate suggestion of the the loss must fall on him; it was a large sum, leamed counsel's. If the plaintiff wants ven­ but he would sell out and, do his best, in ten geance, the crirainal law offers it. After bene­ days from date. With this he went and bought fiting by your verdict, be can still indict the guilty a pistol, and at several chemists' shops a little pany or parties. Meanwhile he comes here, not essential oil of almonds: his plan was to take the poison, and if it killed without pain well and

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Charles Diotens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. Pecember 26,1863.] 415

•rood; but, if it tortured him, then he would me the mterest; but for a great piece of good blow his brains out at once. fortune on the Stock Exchange I could never He soon arranged his worldly affairs, and next have paid the whole principal," he said warmly. day gave Peggy his 500/., and told her she had "The interest should never be demanded better keep it for fear he should be arrested. He through him." sent her on an errand to the other part of the He called in Colls, delivered up the Receipt, town : then with his poison and the pistol before and received the 14,010/. 12s. 6d. from Mr. Hardie. him on the table, wrote a brief but emphatic curse for his son, and Julia; and a line to Peggy 0 immortal Cash! You, like your great in­ to thank her for her fidelity to one so much ventor, have a kind of spirit as Avell as a body; older than herself, and to advise her to take a _and on this, not on your grosser part, depends tobacconist's shop with his money: wheu he had your personal identity. So long as that survives, doue all this, he poured out the fragrant poison yom- body may be recalled to its lawfol owner and tasted it. from Heaven knows where. Ere he could drink it, one of those quidnuncs, Mr. Compton mshed to Pembroke-street and who are always interrupting a gentleman when put this hard, hard Cash in David Dodd's hands he has important business on hand, came running once more. in with all manner of sraall intelligence. Mr. Hardie put down the glass, and gave lum short, Love and Constancy had triumphed: and Julia sullen answers, in hopes he would then go away and Alfred were to be man-ied and go down to and let him proceed to business. And at last Albion Villa to prepare it for the whole party: his visitor did rise and go. Mr. Hardie sat down tenants no more: Alfred had bought it. The with a sign of relief to his fragrant beverage. Commissioners of Lunacy had protected his Doesn't the door open, and this bore poke inhis 20,000/. zealously from the first: and his trustees head. " Oh, I forgot to tell you : the Old Turks had now paid the money over. are going up to-day, Uke a shot." And with Alfred, consulted by Mrs. Dodd, wliose pet of this he slammed the door again, aud was off. pets he now was, as to the guests to be asked to At this the cup began to tremble in the reso­ the wedding breakfast, suggested "none but the lute wretch's hand. The Old Turks going up ! tried friends of our adversity." He poured the poison back into the phial, and "What an exceUent idea!" said ili-s. Dodd pnt it and the pistol, and all the letters, carefully naively. into his pocket, and took a cab to the City. Dr. Sampson being duly invited, asked if he The report was true; there was an extraordi- should bring his Emulsion. ^ naiy movement in the Old Turks. The Sultan was This proposal puzzled all but Mrs. Dodd. She about to pay a portion of this loan, bemg at six was found laughing heartUy in a comer without per cent; this had transpired, and at four o'clock any sound of laughter. Being detected and the Turks were quoted at 73. Mr. Hardie retumed pointed out by Julia, she said, with a little crow, a gainer of 5000/. instead of a loser. And he " He means his wife ! Yes, certainly, bring your locked up the means of death for the present. Emulcent"—pretending he had used that more And now an ordinary man would have sold elegant word—"aud then they wiU all see how out, and got clear of the fatal trap : but this was weU you cau behave." not an ordinary man: he would not sell a share Accordingly he brought a lady, who was ab­ that day. In the aftemoon they rose to 74. He surdly pretty to be the mother of several grown came home, unloaded his pistol, and made him­ young ladies and gentlemen, and two shades self some brandy-and-water, and with a grim more quiet and placid than Mrs. Dodd. She smile flavoured it with a few drops of the poison: quietly had her chau- placed by Dr. Sampson's, that was a delicious tumbler. The Turks went and, whenever he got racy, she put a hand gently up, up, up, to 82. Then he sold out, and cleared on his shoulder, and by some mesmeric effect it 49,000/., and all in about ten days. moderated him as Neptune did the waves in the With this revived the habits of his youth; no .^neid. She was such a mistress of this mes­ more cheating : nothing could excuse that but meric art, that she carried on a perfect conversa­ the dread of poverty. He went to his appoint­ tion with her other neighbour, yet modulated her ment with Mr. Compton; asked to see the Re­ Uon lord with a touch of that composing hand, in a parenthetical manner, and while, looking ceipt ; said Yes; that was his form, and Skinner's another way. handwriting; he had never personally received one farthing of the money; Skinner had clearly This baud, soft as dovra, yet to all appearance embezzled it: but that did not matter; of irresistible, suppressed the great art of healing, course. Captain Dodd must not lose his money. vital chronometry, the wrongs of inventors, " Send your bill of costs in Hardie v. Hardie to the coUusions of medicine, the Mad Ox, and aU tlte, Mr. Compton," said he, " they shall not be but drawing-roora topics, at the very first symp­ taxed : you have lost enough by me already." tom, and only just aUowed the doctor to be the There was an air of dignity and good faith Ufe and soul of the party. about the man that imposal even on Compton. Julia aud Mrs. Dodd had a good cry at part- And wheu Mr. Hardie drew out the notes and in''. Of course AUred consoled them; reminded said, " I should be grateful if you would forgive them it was only for a week, aud carried off his

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416 [December 26,18G3.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby lovely prize, who iu the carriage soon dried her As years roUed on Dr. Sampson made many eyes upou his shoulder. converts at home and abroad. The foreign ones Theu she appUed to her new lord and master acknowledged their obligations. The leadino' for information. " They say that you and me London physicians managed more skilfuUy; they are one, now," said she. carae into his ideas, and bit by bit reversed theh He told her triumphantly it was so. whole practice, and, twenty years after Sampson, " Then from this raoraent you are JuUus and I began to strengthen the invalid at once, instead am Elfrida," said she. of first prostrating him, and so causing either " That is a bargain," said he, and sealed it on long sickness or sudden death. But, with all the.sweet lips that were raurrauring Heaven so this, they disovraed their forerunner, and still near him. called hira a quack whUe adopting his quackery. In this sore-tried and now happy pair the This dishonesty led them into difficulties. To ardour of possession lasted long, and was suc­ hide that their whole practice in medicine was ceeded by the sober but full feUcity of conjugal reversed on better information, they went from love and high esteem combined. They were so shuffle to shuffle, till at last they reached that young and elastic, that past sorrows seeraed but climax of fatuity and egotism—THE TYPE OP to give one zest more to the great draught of DISEASE IS CHANGED. happiness they now drank day by day. They aU lived together at Albion ViUa, thanks to Alfred. Katura rautatur, non nos mutamur. He was by nature combative, and his warlike 0, mutable Nature and immutable doctors! soul was roused at the current theory that you can­ • 0, unstable Omniscience, and infalUble Ne­ not be happy under the same roof with your wife's science ! mother. " That is cant," said he to Mrs. Dodd; The forraer may err; the latter never—in its " let us you and I trample on it hand in hand." own opinion. "My child," said poor Mrs. Dodd sorrow­ At this rate, draining the weak of their fife- fuUy, "everybody says a mother-in-law in the blood was the right thing in Cervantes's day: house bores a young gentleman sadly." and when he observed that it kUled men like "If a young gentleman can't Uve happy with sheep, and said so, sub tit. Sangrado, he was con­ you, mamma," said he, kissing her, " he is a Uttle founding his own age with an age to come three snob, that is all, and not fit to live at aU. De- hundred years later, in which coming age deple­ lenda est Cantilena! That means down with tion was going to be wrong. Cant!" They did Uve together: and behold MoUere—in lashing the whole scholastic sys­ eleven Prench plays, with their thirty-three tem of lancet, purge, and bUster as one of EngUsh adaptations, confuted to the end of time. slaughter—committed the same error: mistook Creatures so high-bred as Mrs. Dodd never his century for one to come. fidget one. There is a repose about them; they And Sampson, thirty years ago, sang the same are balm to all those they love, and bUster'to tunCy and mistook his inflammatory generation for none. Item, no stranger could tell by Mrs. the cool generation unborn. In short, it is the Dodd's manner whether Edward or Alfred was characteristic of a certain blunder caUed genius her own sou. to see things too far in advance. The surest Oh, you happy Uttle vUla! you were as like way to avoid this is not to see them at aU ; but Paradise as any mortal dweUing can be. A day go blindly by the cant of the hour. Race mou- camei however, when your waUs could no longer tonniere, va! hold aU the happy inmates. Julia presented Sampson was indignant at findingthes e gentry, Alfred with a lovely boy: enter nurses, and the after denouncing hira for years as a quack, were vUla showed symptoms of bursting. Two months pUfering his system, yet stiU revUing him. He more, and Alfred and his wife and boy over­ went iu a towering passion, aud lashed them by flowed into the next vUla. It was but twenty tongue and pen : told them they were his sub- yards off; and there was a double reason for tractors now as weU as detractors, asked thera the migration. As often happens after a loug how it happened that in countries where there is separation, Heaven bestowed on Captain and no Sampson the type of disease remams un­ Mrs. Dodd another infant to play about then- changed, depletion is the practice, and death the knees at present, and help thera grow younger result, as it was iu every age ? instead of older: for tender parents begin Ufe No raan, however stout, can help being deeply again with their chUdren. wounded when he sees his ideas stolen, yet their The boys were neariy of a size, though the author and pubUsher disowned. Many men's nephevy was a month or two older than his uncle, hearts have been broken by this: but I doubt a relationship that was early impressed on their whether they were really great raen. young minds, and caused those who heard theur Don't teU me LilUput ever really kills Brob- ^:)rattle raany a hearty laugh. dingnab. Except of course when Brobdingnab " Mrs. Dodd," said a lady, " I couldn't teU by takes medical advice of LUliput. your manner which is yours and which is your Dr. Sampson liad three shields against sub­ daughter's." traction, detraction,~and aU the wrongs inventors ." Why they are both mine," said Mrs. Dodd endure ; to wit, a choleric teraper, a keen sense piteously. of humour, and a good wife. He storms and Cliarles Dickens.] -A.LL THE YEAR ROUND. [December 26,1868.] 417 rages at his detracting pupUs; but ends with roars of laughter at their impudence. I am told came more loving, and he more knowing. They are now a happy pair, and aU between her first honest he still hopes to meet with justice some day, and love and this her last, seems to her a dream. ^ give justice a chance, he goes to bed at ten, says he. So you see a female rake can be ameliorated by a loving husband, as weU as a male rake by a Jinny ns, jinny us, loving wife. •-••• Take care of your carcase, •explains that no genius ever Uved to ninety It sounds absurd, but that black-browed jade is like fo be oue of the best wives and mothers ithout being appreciated. m England. But then, mind you, she had always " If Chatterton and Keats had attended to this, —Brains. they would have been all right. If James Watt had died at fifty he would have been aU wrong; for at fifty he was a failure : so was the painter I don't exactly know why Horace puts to^-e- Etty, th' EngUsh Tisbin." And then he accu­ ther those two epithets, "just" and "tenacio°u3 mulates examples. of purpose." Perhaps he had observed they go together. To be honest, I am not clear wheth°er His last-distich bearing on Hard Cash is wortli this is so on the graud scale. But certainly recording. " Miss Julee," said he, " y' are goeu to these two features did meet remarkably in one maerry int' a strange family— of my characters—Alfred Hardie. The day the Where th' ijjit puts the jinny us bank broke, he had said he would pay the credi­ In—til a madhus," tors. He now set to work to do it by degrees. which, like most of the droll things this man He got the names and addresses, Uved on half his said, was true : for Soft Tommy and Alfred were income, and paid half away to those creditors: the two inteUectual extremes of the whole tribe he even asked Julia to try and find Maxley out, of Hardies. and do something for him. "But don't let me Mrs. Archbold, disappointed both in love and see him," said he trembling, " for I could not revenge, reposed her understanding and soothed answer for myself." Maxley was known to be her mmd with Prank Beverley and opium. This cranky, but harmless, and wandering about the soon made the forraer deep in love with her, aud couutry. Julia wrote to Mr. Greeu. his inteUect grew by contact with hers. But one Alfred's was an up-hill game ; but fortune day news came from AustraUa that her husband favours the obstinate as well as the bold. One was dead. Now, perhaps I shall surprise the day, about four years after his marriage with reader if I tell hira that this Edith Archbold Julia, being in London, he found a stately began her wedded life a good, confiding, loving, figure at the comer of a street, holding out his faithful woman. Yet so it was : the unutterable hand for alms, too dignified to ask it except by blackguard she had married, he it was who that mute aud touching gesture. laboured to spoil her character, and succeeded It was his father. at last, and drove her, unwilling at first, to other Then, as tmly noble natures must forgive the men. The news of his death was like a shower- fallen, Alfred was touched to the heart, and bath; it roused her. She took counsel with thought of the days of his chUdhood, before herself, and hope revived in her strong head and temptation came. ''^Father," said he, "have miserable heart. She told Prank, and watched you come to this ?" hira like a hawk. He instantly fell on his knees, "Yes, Alfred," said Richard composedly: "I and implored her to marry him directly. She undertook too many speculations, especially in gave him her hand and turned away, and shed land and houses; they seemed profitable at first the most womanly tear that had blessed her for too; but now I am entirely hampered : if you years. " I am not mad, you know," said poor would but relieve me of them, and give me a Erank ; "I am only a bit of a muff." To make guinea a week to live on, I would forgive all your a long story short, she exerted all her intelli­ disobedient conduct." gence, and with her help Prank took measures " Come home with me, sir," said the young towards superseding his Commission of Lunacy. man. Now, in such a case, the Lord Chancellor always He took him to Barkington, bag and baggage; examines the patient in person. What was the and his good Christian wife received the old man consequence ? Instead pf the vicarious old Wolf, with delight; she had prayed day and night for who had been devouring him at third and fourth this reconciliation. Finding his son so warm, hand, Frank had two interviews with the Chan­ and being himself as cool, Richard Hardie en­ ceUor himself : a leamed, grave, upright gentle­ trapped Alfred into an agreement, to board and man, who questioned him kindly and shrewdly; lodge him, and pay him a guinea every Saturday and finding him to' be a young man of small in­ at noon; in return for this Alfred was to manage tellectual grasp, but not the least idiotic or mad, Richard's property, and pocket the profits, if superseded his commission in defiance of his any. Alfred assented: the old man chuckled at greedy kinsfolk, and handed him his property. his son's simplicity, and raade him sign a formal He married Edith Archbold, and she made hira agreement to that effect. as happy as the day was long. Por the first year This done, he used to sit brooding and miserable or two she treated his adoration with good- neariy all the week till guinea time came; and natured contempt; but, as years rolled on, she be­ then brightened up a bit. One day Alfred sent 418 [December 26, 186S.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby

for an accountant to look after his father's who roUed in wealth, and vmthed under imagi. papers, and see if matters were really desperate. nary poverty? The accountant was not long at work, and One reflection more. Do not look to see Pro. told Alfred the accounts were perfectly clear, vidence dash the cup of prosperity from every and kept in the most admirable order. " The dishonest hand; or you vrill often be disap- cash balance is 60,000/.," said he : " and many pointed: yet this, if you look closer, you shall of t)he rents are due. It is an agent you want, often see; such a man holds the gUtJtering cup not an accountant." tight, and nectar to the brim; but iuto that cup " What are you talking about ? a balance of a shadowy hand squeezes sorae subtle ingredient, 60,000/. ?" Alfred was stupified. whieh turns that nectar to wormwood. • The accountant, however, soon convinced him Richai-d Hardie died, his end being hastened by the figures it was so. by fear of poverty coraing, Uke an armed man, Alfred went with the good news to his father. and his guinea a week going. Matthews met His father went into a passion. " That is one with an accident, and being impervious to pain, side of the account, ye fool," said he; " think but subject to death, was laid beside his poor of the rates, the taxes, the outgoings. You mistress in St. Anne's churchyard. Julia buried want to go from your bargain, and turn rae on him, and had a headstone put to his grave; aud, the worid; but I have got you in black and when this was done, she took her husbaud to white, tight, tight." see it. On that stone was fresh carved the true Then Alfred saw the truth, and wondered at name of the deceased, James Maxley. his past obtuseness. " I have done what you told me," said JuUa His father was a monomaniac. solemnly. He consulted Sampson, and Sampson told him "I know it," said Alfred softly. "I saw to increase the old man's comforts on the sly, who your Matthews was; but I coiild not and pay him his gumea a week. " It's all you speak of hira, even to you. You have done can do for him." right, ray good Christian wife. I wish I was like Then Alfred eraployed an agent, and received you. My poor Uttle Jenny!" a large income from his father's land and houses, Richard Hardie's papers were all in order; and another frora his consols. The old gentle­ and araong them an old wUl leaving 14,000/. to raan had purchased westward of Hyde Park- Edward Dodd. square, and had bought with excellent judgraent On this being announced to Edward, he re­ till his mind gave way. But Alfred never spent a marked that it was a fraud. Aired had been farthing of it on himself: all he took was for his at hira for a long time with offers of money, and father's creditors. " All justice is good," said faiUng these had lost his temper and forged a he, "even wUd justice." Some of these un­ wiU, in his, Edward's, favour. happy creditors he found in the workhouse ; the This scandalous defence broke down. The Misses Lunley that survived, were there, alas ! document was indisputable, and the magic sum He paid them their four thousand pounds, and was forced down Master Edward's throat, niUy restored thera to society. The name of Hardie wUly. Thus rose the Hard Cash once more from began to rise again from the dust. the grave. Now, wlule Richard Hardie sat brooding and AU this enabled the tenacious Alfred to carry miserable, expecting utter ruin, and only brighten­ out a deeply-cherished design. Hardie's late ing up on guinea day, Julia had a proteg^ with bank had been made into a shop; but it be­ equaUy false views, but more cheerful ones. It longed to Mrs. Dodd; he bou^t it of her, was an old man with a sUver beard, and a and set up the bank again, with Edward as machine with which he stamped leather into managing partner. This just suited Edward, round pieces of sUver, in his opinion. Nothing who sadly wanted employment. Hardie and Co. could have shaken that notion out of his mind. rose again, and soon wiped out the late disgraceful Julia confirmed it. She let it be known that she episode, and hooked ou to the past centuries of would always cash five pieces of round leather honour and good credit. No creditor of Richard from Mr. Matthew's mint per day, and ten on Hardie was left unpaid. Alfred went in for Friday, when working men are poorest. politics; stood for Barkiagton, was defeated by She contrived this with diaboUcal, no, angelical seventeen: took it as a matter of course ; told cunning, to save the old man from ridicule, and his friends he had never succeeded in anythmg to do his soul much good. All souls were dear at first; nor been beaten in the end ; stood again, to her. What was the consequence ? He went and became M.P. for Barkington, whence to dis­ about with his mint, and relieved poor people, lodge him I pity any one who tries. and gratified his mania at the same time. His For a long tirae Mrs. Dodd was nervous, and face began to beam with benevolence, and inno­ used to wake with a start at night, and put out cent self-satisfaction. On Richard Hardie's aU her hand to make sure David was not lost again: was cordage: and deep gloom sat ou his ever- but this wore off. knitted brow. For years the anniversary of tbat fatal day, Of these two men which was the rich man; when he was brought home on the stretcher, he who had nothing, yet thought he possessed carae back to them all as a day of gloom: but enough for himself and his neighbours: or he that wore off. Z Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [December 26,18C3.] 419

Sometimes the happiness of her family seemed " Ah, that I wUl!" said Julia; and caught up incredible to her, remembering what they had all the ueai-est brat, and kissed it. gone throi^k At first, their troubles were too " It wasn't only bemg friends, mamma," said terrible and recent to be discussed. But even that Edward; "it was our sticking together so." wore off, and they could talk of it all; and things In lookiug back on the story now ended, I bitter at the time became pleasant to reraember. incline to the same conclusion. Almost my first One midsummer day they had all dined toge­ word was that Mrs. Dodd aud her childreu were ther rather early at Albion VUla, and sat on the bosom friends; aud my last is to congratulate lawn with Mrs. Dodd's boy and Julia's boy and them that it was so. Think of their various trials girl playing about these ladies' knees. Now after and temptations, and imagine what would have a httle sUence, Mrs. Dodd, who had been thinking become of them if family love and unity had not quietly of many things, spoke to them all, and abounded! Their little house was built on the said: " If my chUdren and I had not been bosom sure foundation of true famUy affection: aud so friends, we never should have survived that the winds of adversity descended, and the floods terrible time we have passed through, ray dears. came, and burst upon that house, but could not Make friends of your children, ray child." prevaU against it; it was founded on a rock. THE END OE VERY HAUD CASH. NOTE. THE STATEMENTS AND, OPINIONS OP THIS JOURNAL GENERALLY, ARE, OF COURSE, TO BE RE­ CEIVED AS THE STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS OF ITS CONDUCTOR. BuT THIS IS NOT SO, IN THE CASE OF A WORK. OF FICTION FIRST PUBLISHED IN THESE PAGES AS A SERIAL STORY, WITH THE NAME OF AN EMINENT WRITER ATTACHED TO IT. WHEN ONE OF MY LITERARY BROTHERS DOES ME THE HONOUR TO UNDERTAKE SUCH A TASK, I HOLD THAT HE EXECUTES IT ON HIS OWN PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, AND FOR THE SUSTAINMENT OF HIS OWN REPUTATION; AND I DO NOT CONSIDER MYSELF AT LIBERTY TO EXERCISE THAT CONTROL OVER HIS TEXT WHICH I CLAIM AS TO OTHEK CONTRIBUTIONS. CHARLES DICKENS.

CHINA ORNAMENTS. the quantity of teas exported to Great Britab and the United States. LET me glance through the newspaper—the I put the paper in my pocket and turned North China Herald—before taking a stroll out into the town. Shanghai consists of two about Shanghai. The Herald is the weekly parts, the native city and the foreign settle­ organ of British and foreign commercial in­ ments. The native city is surrounded by the terests at that town. A leading article in it, usual wall, and contains about eight hundred headed with the motto " Impartial, not Neutral" thousand inhabitants. Within it are the Temple —an account of a pic-nic in a temple ou the of Confucius, the residences of the Yaouti, or top of a mountain two thousand feet high— governor, aud the principal civU and military Despatch Number Twenty-eight, extracts from authorities, together with a sprmkling of halls text of Treaty—rig in your jib and spanker and joss-houses, as the chief specimens of towm booms, and top or brace up your lower and top- architecture. The foreign settlements are on saU yards if you contemplate safe anchoring in concessions of land made by the imperial the Woosung river. Extracts frora the Tai-ping government at different times. The EngUsh edUion of the Bible—what Uke ?—" Shangti is by far the most fiourishing, the Hongo, or a fire, the Sun likewise is a fire, hence Shangti mercantUe houses, being so many palaces of and the Sun have both come here! Respect commerce reared by British ingenuity. The this!" And so we would, if we could understand number of British traduig vessels in the river is it. Four-fiftha of the paper is advertisement. greater, also, than those of all the other nations Every great British quack is here, alive 0! put together. The American settlement is the Here are our Kitten's Cough Lozenges, and favourite place of resort for Loafers of every Hampshire Sauce. The AccUmatisation So­ colour, and bears no very good repute in con­ ciety of Victoria, Australia, inserts a notice sequence. Shanghai is all on one bank of the offering a reward of the value of one hun­ river, there being nothing but an iron foundry on dred pounds to any one who, within the cur­ the other side except the soap-works and a rent year, shall introduce the most valuable or cemetery. The Clunese city and the English interesting animal, bird, or fish, in sufficient and French settlements are in Shanghai Proper, numbers to establish the breed. AU persons the American Concession, separated from them indebted to the estate of Sin-thae, deceased, are by the large river-like creek, is in Hong-que. requested to make imraediate payment to Tze- Here the creek is spanned by a long hideous- Tziou-Poo. There foUow some tea-chest looking looking bridge, half wood, half brick, built inscriptions, which represent the names of the on piles driven deeply into the mud, and a toll trustees. Mr. Fazulbhoy Habibhoy will in future of three cash—twenty cash being one penny cany on business by hiraself, and authorises Ma- —is levied upon all Chinese of low degree, ex­ hamed Ladha to sign his name by procuration. cept those who are in European service. The Here, too, is au important statistical account of British Consulate is at the foot of the English end 420 [December 26, 1863.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by of the bridge. The Woosung varies in width which was affixed a written statement of his here from one-half to three-fourths of a mile; crime. A body of braves preceded him, armed and, during the recent incursions of the Tai- with long sticks, having iron hooks fastened to pings, it was not an unusual sight to see ten or their ends, to clear the way for the procession. A a dozen dead bodies daily floating down to the mandarin mounted on a mule, and clothed in a sea; some of them headless, nearly all wanting a blood-coloured dress, followed; then a crowd; limb, and in two instances lashed back to back. then another mandarin; sundry officials bearing In each of the numerous creeks are little something very like a bundle of umbrellas; and boats with arched roofs of raatting or old sacks, finally the Number One mandarin, a very bloated in which thousands of people are supposed to self-sufficient looking person. As the procession live by fishing. In the loose sense of the phrase, passed a certain house, the prisoner—who up to they do indeed fish for their living. How they get this time had never uttered a word—broke out it, I have not been able to discover. All the into fearful imprecations against the inmates, and way up both banks these dwellings are full of could scarcely be silenced. The cro\frd halted man and woraen, birds, beasts, insects—arks with at the western suburbs of the town, and dis­ old patriarchal Noahs in raany of them. China­ posed itself around a table placed in the middle men of some fabulous age. Frora the grand­ of the street for the use of the mighty Number father or grandame of eighty, to the puling One, who took his seat at it with nonchalance, infant tied round the middle to keep it from and began arranging his writing materials for no tumbling out of the boat, they swarm. Cats are apparent purpose. The condemned knelt down there tied by the neck, cocks and hens tied by the after having been divested of his jacket by a legs, the roof is tied to the sides, the sides are couple of assistants, one of whora then seized tied to the bottom of the boat, and finaUy, the his tail and stretched his neck. In another boat itself is tied to the embankment. Little instant I saw the quivering sinews and muscles China boys make their dirt-pies in the flower­ of a headless trunk. pot sort of stove at the head of the boat, regard­ There is another way of punishment for Ughter less of the swift current which laps its bow and offences. The prisoner's head is shaved, and a sides. In dry weather they are put ashore to peculiar kind of ointment is rubbed all over him, play, and hearty good use they make of their time. from his crown to the soles of his feet. He is They run up and down, tumble each other about, then brutally fiogged, and in the course of fonr- and disport themselves Uke little Jack Tars and-twenty hours becomes a raass of ulcers. ashore after a six months' cruise. Opposite A Chinese merchant of respectabUity com­ the Chinese city are moored in regular lines, large handsome junks each occupied by thirty mitted a crirae, about twenty years back, or forty people. The whole number of river for which he was sentenced by a mandarin to residents here is about eight thousaud, whUe be chained to a post, hamstrung, and left to two hundred thousand Chinese live in the Eng­ starve to death. The people, however, fed Ush settlement, and are subject to British law. him secretly; and, in course of time, erected a Shanghai contains a Roman CathoUc cathedral, rude shed over hira, coihposed of mud and a chapel, and two churches. matting. Here he has resided ever since, and derives a precarious subsistence by seUing nuts Ah! there is again a floating headless trunk. and cakes, and soraetiraes gambling with the Enormities in China take even the name of spectators. He is scantily clothed, and exposed justice. That I have seen. Five Chinese, for to the inclemency of every weather—a miserable example, broke into the house of a Mussulman wreck of humanity. at Pekin, and robbed him of forty dollars. They As a contribution to the study of Chinese made their escape, but only as far as Tien-tsin, ingenuity in the conception of cruelties, I have where they were captured and tried, after the had a description of the Teraple of Horrors from a Chinese mode of trial, which is conducted thus : friend who visited it recently. It is situated close A_ mandarin of the first order is seated on a to the wall of Tien-tsin, and consists of a num­ raised bench or platform in a temple, and ber of single storied rooms built of mud and surrounded by the officers of justice and a few roofed with tUes. At the entrance to the ^ate soldiers. The accused is brought in heavily stands, on either side, a pole sixty feet high, ironed, and when the accusers have stated the fixed into a pyramid of mud, tastefuUy orna­ charge against hira the raandarin pronounces mented with iialf-burnt bricks. Poles are fre­ sentence. If it be an adverse one, the accused quently seen in China at the entrance to large is led out for torture, until he confess his guUt. edifices. On entering, my friend found himself He is stripped to the waist and flogged un- in the presence of a " grand guard," consisting mercifuUy with rods, which have been steeped of ten braves, five on each side, all made of in' brine for the purpose, and when the poor straw and mud, and painted in most gorgeous mangled wretch is released, his shoulder, back, and breast are one mass of scarified flesh. Of the colours. The figures were as large as life, and five prisoners who were condemned to death clothed in three different sorts of costume. after confessing their guilt, I saw only one exe­ Some of them sported formidable-looking mous­ cuted : the sight was quite enough to satisfy my taehios of a peculiar material. Their horses curiosity. He was brought out of the jaQ strongly were also of life-size, and stood in spirited atti­ shackled, and with apiece of bamboo sticking out tudes. The first roora examinedi '^ad in it about of the neck of his jacket behind, to the end of seventy different images, of from two to four feet high, standing, sitting, kneeling, or lying

BBli! -^

Charles Dickens.} ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [December 26, 1863.] 421 on the floor. Four figures, in elevated niches, " From far. And His narae that hath sent me is were of gigantic dimensions, and appeared to be God," said the Spectre, " and mine the judges of this Celestial Hades. The fiends Was Hannibal once, ere thou wast: and the name whose Ijusiness it was to torment figurative that I now have is Fate. Chinese for their earthly sins, were • aU painted But arise, and be swift, and return ; for God waits, black, and grinned horribly. and the moment is late." Then "I go," said the Vandal: and went. Horror number one, is a miniature castle on fire, and, in the midst of the flames, which issue "When at last to the gates he was come, Loud he knock'd with his fierce iron fist. And firll- from the tower, there stick up the legs of an un­ drowsily answer'd him Eome, fortunate sinner, supposed to be roasting below, " Who is it that knocketh so loud ? Get thee hence: head downward: whUe the smoke rises through let me be: for 'tis late." a hole in the flat roof of the furnace to a mill above, where two fiends are assiduously grinding " Thou art wanted," cried Genseric. " Open! His name that hath sent me is Fate. it into men, women, aniraals, birds, and fishes, And mine, who knock late, Retribution." who are repeopUng the world as fast as pos­ sible. Horror number two, is the figure of a Rome gave him her glorious things, woman confined by upright posts, who is being The keys sbe had conquer'd from kingdoms, the sawn asunder. Horror number three, is a victim, crowns she had wrested from kings, over whom a fiend is directing the stroke of an And Genseric bore them away into Carthage, avenged thus on Rome, immense hammer. Number four, an officious And paused, and said, laughing, " Where next ?" demon cutting out tbe tongue of a woman, who sheds red tears. Number eight, is a jagged And again the Ghost answered him, " Home ! rock, whence luckless mortals hurl themselves For now God doth need thee no longer." from before fiends armed with clubs: aU falUng " Where leadest thou me by the hand?" upou sharp-pointed stakes, where they are Cried the King to the Ghost. And the Ghost fianlly entwined by expectant serpents. Of the arswer'd, " Into the Fashionless Land." ninth horror, the victims swing on hooks. In the eleventh, a man is being crushed between two COURT-MARTIAL. grindstones. In the next horror, there is set forth a huge pot of molten liquid, on the surface BY the side of a road, right face to the camp of which skulls and bones are floating; a demon at Aldershott, with a fiagstaff and flag flying, is has another victim ready to be cast into the a plain Uttle hall, with beaked roof and a sraall i broth. The last of the horrors represents a pair of wings. It is enclosed in a smaU bit of ! woman bound by iron rings to a red-hot stove­ planted ground. There is a group of red-coats pipe. After this, there is shown a crowd of within the enclosure, and, at the gate, an beings crossing a neatly-constracted wooden apple-staU. This is the club-house, and it is bridge. A demon stands with terrible grimace one of the days of the great Aldershott court- to obstmct tbe passage of some, while the rest martial there being held. I pass tluough a side- hurry by him safely, with upraised hands and door into a little space behind a barneMpace thankful faces. In the water, some are swimming occupied by a smaU crowd of about forty soldiers, for their lives; others are being devoured by who are to-day the general public present at the immense water-snakes. court-martial. „ , , • i xi. In the last room visited, there sat on his cano­ Immediately in front of the barrier at the pied throne the emperor, in white gloves, his tace lower end of the long room is placed the busy plentifuUy bedaubed with paiut, and his person line of reporters. What do they see to report i dressed in garments of aU hues. In the whole A roora of good height, narrow in proportion temple there were three or four hundred images. to its length, a club-room that might serve as a little ball-room, with a couple of g ass chande­ GENSERIC. liers hung from the roof, and brackets against GEXSERIC, King of the Vandals, who, having laid the side^alls for Ughts and ornaments or waste seven lands. flowers, and with divers doors into the little From Tripolis far as Tangier, from the sea to the side-rooms. Behind the reporters' barrier are Great Desert sands, the general public. At the upper end, where the wall is adorned with lookm-glass, there Was lord of the Moor and the African, thirsting s anither smaU piece cut off th. len^h of the anon for new slaitghter, ,,;,•* room, and furnished with chairs for the special SaU'd out of Carthage, and sail'd o'er the Mediter­ public of officers and persons notable m military ranean water, . , ^ Syes. Between these publics of the upper and Plunder'd Palermo, seized Sicily, sack'd the Lucanian the lower classes, the space thatjemains is st^U And paused, and said, laughing, " Where next ?" Ion- in proportion to its breadth, an^l clown the Then there came to the Vandal a Ghost ':ild\e li if comes the long tab e for the fif e n From the Fashionless Land that lies hid and un­ officers forming the court-mar m^. The resi known in the Darkness Below, And answer'd, " To Rome." Si^atVs^abr^S^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Said the King to the Ghost, " And whose naner and pens before them. At the lower end envoy art thou ? of ^thelon- table, stands the witness under ex- Whence art thou ? and name me his name that hath Lb^tionr and, pon the table at the witnesses sent thee: and say what is thine." 422 [December 26,1863.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by end, are placed models of certain huts, fre­ without breaking down in spite of the prompter. quently referred to in iUustration of the case. At lunch-time the President iatimates that the Near the same end, and within reach of the wit­ court will retire for half an hour to consider a ness, is a Uttle square table, on which to place point raised by the prisoner. whatever else may be produced. As we look up In ordinary cases a general court-martial con­ the central table, we perceive a small table where, sists of thirteen officers, including the President; in fall uniform, sits the prisoner, between the no field-officer may be tried by any officer under two lawyers, who advise him. On the left is the degree of captain, and, if possible, he is not the stationer's show table of despatch boxes and to have any officer of lower rank than his own papers, at which sits in fuU uniform the Judge- sitting in judgment on him. The greater propor­ Advocate, or official prosecutor, with a lawyer tion of officers of high rank the wiser and more in civilian costume. Between him and us is respectable the court is theoreticaUy supposed the bare little table that suffices for the work to be. An officer of commissariat, of engineers, of the official short-hand reporter. Finally or of artiUery, should have three or four officers and particularly, at the other end of the room, of commissariat, of engineers, or of artUlery, at a little table to the right of the President and upon the court. behind him, is the table of the Deputy Judge- The trial is usuaUy conducted by the Deputy Advocate, whom I find employed in reading Judge-Advocate-^General, the witnesses for pro­ questions to the witness. The light and airy secution and those of which the prisoner has effect of the roora, the bright uniforras in little given in a list having been summoned by the groups detached from the great central cluster, Judge-Advocate. The Judge-Advocate-General and the generaUy pleasant aspect of the officers is appointed by letters patent under the Great employed in uncongenial work, contents the eye. Seal; the Judge-Advocate is appointed by com­ But the understanding is not so well satisfied. mission under the sign manual. Without an offi­ The good-natured-looking officer at the little ciating Judge-Advocate, duly appointed, no ge­ table behind the right elbow of the President, neral court-martial is legal; and a grave offender has a list of written questions wliich the once escaped his sentence because the officer who prisoner is putting to the witness. They can­ served at his trial as Judge-Advocate, had not not be put directly by the prisoner. They been duly appointed. must go the official round. A question is slowly Court-martials pretend to a right to forbid and officially read. The witness begins to newspaper reports of their proceedings whUe reply, and tells something about what is caUed they remain open, and at Lieutenant Perry's first the chick. He has named chick, and there he trial the President of the court-martial talked must stop till the official questioner has delibe­ about conterapt of court, while the Deputy rately copied down his answer as far as the Judge-Advocate said that the " offending party" word chick, then it is indicated to him that he was liable to be proceeded against under the may go on, and he proceeds, " which completely Mutiny Act. He found it so written in his obstructs the " There he is checked; and, " Simmons." Judiciously, however, they re­ during a pause of five minutes the good-humoured fused to take any information that might have military official carefully writes all that down. brought their claim of secresy to test. The When it is all recorded in the best official cali- Times, which like other London papers gave grapliy, the witness is suffered to go on, and he daily reports, added to the observation made by completes his answer by adding the word " vi­ the court-martial, its own note within brackets. sion." " The court is open. Not a tittle of evidence Presently it occurs to the prisoner's lawyers can be received with closed doors; and no re­ to offer sorae sort of impediment to some porter who knew his duty would consider him­ part of the inquiry. They never speak audi­ self bound by an order which the court had no bly, but they are always making themselves right to raake, and no power to enforce." The heard. The prisoner rises with a bit of paper in Aldershott court-raartial has made no attempt his hand, and slowly and boggUngly reads from to renew the iUegal claim made by its famous it what has been written down for him to say, predecessor, and has practically recognised in the and what is delivered thus, reads to the public most liberal manner the presence of the public in the newspaper report like shrewd sponta­ ear at its deliberations. neous suggestions. Each objection is followed When a court-martial first meets, the prisoner by a pause—sometimes a long pause. The may object to be tried by any of its members. court seems agam and agaui to have been hit in If the President be challenged, the court has the wind and to have coUapsed tUl it gets breath power only to argue with the prisoner. If he again. But this is only apparent; the court- persist in his objection, the court must adjourn martial is only twiddling its official thurabs and report to the authority by which it was con­ whUe the prosecution produces in neat smaU vened. If the chaUenge of an ordinary member text its answer to, or comment upon, the objec­ of the court be allowed, his place can be at once tion raised. This is then read aloud, and causes filled by an officer in waiting. The Judge- a fresh stoppage, and so the weary business Advocate should be the prosecutor. His duty is drags its slow length along; looking like the official, and he is exempt by his office from the dullest conceivable rehearsal of a law scene by odium that would attach to the personal prosecu­ mUUary amateurs, who have bad parts and detest tion of one officer by another. It is only at a them, and cannot get through ten Unes of them general court-martial, and not alwavs then. Z ss; "V Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. ^December 26,1863.] 423 that the prosecutor introduces the case with an consent to the sentence finally pronounced • but opening address. Such an address is out of in charges of murder, two-thirds must agree to order at inferior courts-martial, and, whenever the finding of guUt, and two-thirds of the court aUowed, it is to be confined to a statement of must agree whenever sentence of death is pro­ the facts to be set forth in evidence, with nounced. reasonable certainty of proof. The court may by a majority, for reasons AU evidence is sworn, and it is usually against stated, recommend a prisoner to mercy The rule to allow a witness to teU what he has to Commander-in-Chief, on the other hand, may say in the form of simple narrative. Informa­ refuse to confirm either the finding or'the sen­ tion is to be taken by question and answer; each tence, and may send the case back for revision, Juestion being written down before or imrae- the Judge-Advocate-General stating by letter iately after it is put, and the reply which has the grounds of his disapproval. The court then been waited for, bemg also carefuUy written reassembles, and adheres to or revises its former down as it is delivered. The prosecutor ex­ finding and sentence. amines in chief. The prisoner cross-examines. Lastly, the court re-examines. At the Aldershott That is the system which experience has court-martial the prisoner was allowed to esta­ proved to be most unsatisfactory in practice. bUsh a precedent of reserving his cross-examina­ At the late trial of Captain Robertson, of the tion to the day following the examination in Fourth Dragoon Guards, officers contradicted chief, in order that his lawyers might have the each other upon oath for upwards of a month, amplest time for advising him as to the way of and when, in defiance of tmth and justice. Cap­ shaking any serious points in the evidence that tain Robertson was cashiered, the sentence had been given. Only one witness is in court would have been carried into effect, had it not at a time. Commencing at ten o'clock in the been for the public press. The issue was morning, courts-martial must, by the articles of more creditable m another case of a dead war, adjourn at four. If evidence have been set on a man who was disliked by his co­ taken after the legal hour, it must be legaUsed lonel. A Lieutenant Hyder, of the Tenth by repetition when the court next meets. Hussars, was brought to a general court-martial in March, 1846, to answer certain charges pre­ The prosecution being closed, the prosecutor, ferred against him by his commanding-officer. or Judge-Advocate, declares the fact, which is It came out on tiiat court-martial, that a system recorded. The prisoner is then asked when he of intimidation and injustice had been carried wUl be prepared to enter upon his defence? on, which was unequalled even in the affair of the If a few days' delay be asked, they are not Fourth Dragoon Guards. Lieutenant Hyder's refused. The prisoner usually begins by ex­ horses were repeatedly cast as being unfit for amination of his witnesses to facts, and wit­ chargers; he was not aUowed to iiave charge of nesses to character; he may also put in letters a troop; he was annoyed in every possible firom distant witnesses on proof of handwriting, manner. The whole affair was so clear even to and may then ask for a day to complete his the court, that there was no miscarriage of written defence, or defer tiU that time a request justice, and Lieutenant Hyder was acquitted, for adjournment. The prisoner is not obliged and his colonel reprimanded in a General Order to read it himself if there be reason why he from the Commander-in-Chief. should have it read for lum. If evidence Another celebrated general court-martial was as to new matter have been improperly ad­ held at Nottingham in 1849. The Third Dragoon mitted by the court, the prosecution raay—in Guards, then lying there, were all confined to bar­ the army, not in the navy—claim to reply, and racks by order of the commanding-officer, because a reply introducing other fresh evidence may he alleged that the horses were not clean. The establish a prisoner's right to rejoinder. But men broke out of barracks by twenties. Pickets the trial being in the usual manner finished with were sent after them, but the pickets joined the the defence, the prosecutor, or Judge-Advocate, absentees. An inquiry was made into the matter, sums up: uot by giving any of his own opinions and some of the culprits were tried, and received on the case, but by pointing out where evidence various punishments, ranging from two years' to is contradictory or ill supported. The court, of three months' imprisonment. The public press, which the members have been taking such notes when treating of the evidence given by the as they wished, is then cleared for deliberation, witnesses for the prosecution, said that "in a and examines evidence, with the Judge-Advo­ civil court the greater part of the witnesses cate's help in referring to the different points iu would have been convicted of penury." Trust tbe evidence. The Judge-Advocate finally asks goes by rank. The worst feature in aU courts- the decision of each member, beginning with the martial is, that unless the witnesses produced by youngest and ending with the President, as to the prisoner be of a higher military grade thau the guUt or innocence of the prisoner u])on each those brought forward by the prosecution, his charge. If the whole finding of the majority be ciiance is a poor one. In many cases, officers Not GuUty, there are added the words " and he have been actually ordered by their commanding- is acquitted." U the finding be Guilty, it be­ officers to convict, on the plea that even if the comes the business of the Judge-Advocate to man were innocent, it would bc prejudicial to the point out the article of war, or other military law, interests of the service to acquit hun. With that relates to the punishment. If there be this feeling many commatiding-odicers award pu- fifteen officjers in the court-martial, eight must nishraent. Ouce a private soldier averred that 424 [December 26, 1863.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by he could bring all the men in the room to prove heart was broken, but the commanding-officer that the corporal was telling a falsehood; the remained "an officer and a gentleman" as before. answer was:—" I would sooner take the word Sergeant Teesdale, in his letters addressed of the junior lance-corporal, than believe the to the people of England in 1835, told that: oaths of all the privates in the regiment." "During our stay in Bremen, which was for Take some examples of this. In 1849, Cor­ about six weeks, we had a parade to attend poral Jones, of the Tenth Hussars, was mounting morning and aftemoon. The officers command­ guard, and, being rather nervous, was trembling ing companies received orders from Major B. when the adjutant and sergeant-major were to inspect their men closely, and turn out parading him: so he was ordered to fall back, to the front such as they found dirty. A nnd was sent to his room for being drunk. This square was then formed for punishment, and was at six A.M. ; at three minutes past six he those who had been found fault with were •was in his room, a large one, where between raarched in, tried by a drura-head court-martial, thirty and forty men slept. All these men said and flogged to a raan, without reference to that he was sober; and, on the court-raartial, character. There was no remission of sentence, he called upon them as evidence for the defence. not a lash excused. I have known from ten For the prosecution there were the sergeant- to fifteen, or twenty-five, flogged at a parade on major and a sergeant, who swore that the cor­ this frivolous pretext, and the practice was poral was very drunk. The men in his room continued on every parade until it was put a stop swore that he was sober, both before going on to. At one of the above flogging parades, when parade and after he came off. But their evidence we had been nearly two hours witnessing the was not admitted; the President saying that he horrible scene of bloodshed, and when the hands was not tried for being drunk five minutes before and feet of every soldier in the regiment were six, or three minutes after six, but for being benumbed with cold, from reraaining such a drunk at six o'clock precisely. Accordingly he . length of time in one position, a brave old soldier, was found guilty, and sentenced to be reduced whose character was unimpeachable, happened to to the ranks. What would the world say to cough in the ranks. He turned his head a little on justice so administered in civil cases ? one side to discharge the phlegm, and was in­ Under the mask of a court-martial, more injus­ stautly ordered into the centre of the 'square, tice has been perpetrated in the army, than any stripped of his accoutrements, and placed in front man out of it can imagine.' During the Penin­ of the halberts. He went through the mock form sular War, the unjust sentences pronounced, and of trial by a drum-head court-martial. Major B. the cruel tyranny practised by these tribunals, swore he was unsteady in the ranks, and on the were beyond conception, and even now they ipse dixit of that tyrant he was sentenced to fifty scarcely cau be credited; for instance, what lashes. After the brave veteran was tied he would be thought of this now-a-days ? The implored hard for mercy, adding that, ' he had Marine Officer, in his Sketches of Service, tells been twenty years in the service, and was never this story:—The commanding-officer of the till then brought to the halberts.' The pale, Ninth Regiment of Foot, who ruled chiefly worn, and dejected appearance of the raan, from by fear, after the defeat of the enemy at age and length of service, was in itself enough liolipa, established a permanent court-raartial to excite compassion and sympathy, even had he in the regiment: a kind of sitting provost com­ been guUty of a crime. His appeal was useless; mission. The men serving on this were exempt he had every lash of his sentence, and he never from the other duties of the corps. One day a looked up afterwards." soldier of the regiment, for some irregularity, Courts-martial may be divided under three was sentenced by this court-martial to be flogged. heads : as general, district, and regimental. The The regiment being on the march was haUed, first are assembled by authority of the Queen: the halberts were stuck up, the proceedings of or, abroad, of the officer comraanding-in-chief. the court-martial were read, and the culprit was General courts-raartial consist, as we have seen, ordered to strip. A generous sergeant of the of not less than a President and twelve raerabers. regiment then recovered his musket, and said, District courts-raartial are ordered to assemble "May it please your honour, the culprit is by the officer in coraraand of the division or guUty, but he is a brave soldier, aud if your honour wUl take me as a security for his future district, and are composed of an officer and six good conduct, I will answer for hira with my merabers. Regimental courts-raartial are ordered body, and if he commits any future offence I to assemble by the officer comraanding the regi­ wiU be ready to offer myself up to receive the ment. A regimental court-martial is a farce. sentence of the present court-raartial." " You There is no Judge-Advocate to tell the court mutinous rascal," said the commanding-officer what the law is. The raan, in many cases, has in a rage, " I'll teach you manners 1" His arms been virtually tried and sentenced before he is were taken from him, and he was sent a brought to the tribunal. It is a weU-known prisoner before the permanent court-martial, fact in the array that one soldier found another's who not only reduced, bim to the ranks, but sentence in the colonel's handwriting before the sentenced him to be flogged for interfering in man had been tried, that he boldly produced this favour of a fellow-soldier. When writhing at paper at the court-martial, and that the regi'- the halberts he ground his teeth, and mut­ mental court-raartial was therefore dissolved. tered " I will have blood for this 1" The man's Commanding-officers who thus dictate to the President and members of regimental courts- Z Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [December 26,1863.] 425 martial, or who send back the proceedings for regimental court-martial does not interpose a revision, may be somewhat likened to a governor sufficient check upon the severity of some com­ of the East Indian Company, who, in writing to manding-officers. Young men are allowed to be an officer who had been appointed judge of civil members who have never considered the moral affairs in India, told him, " I expect my wiU and effects of punishment; they are famUiarised to orders shaU be your will, and not the laws of severity by the recorded instances of their pre­ England, which are a heap of nonsense, compUed decessors ; they are instructed to consider par­ by a number of country gentlemen who hardly ticular offences as forcmg de se a precise award know how to govern their ovra famUies, much without the consideration of a man's previous less to regulate our affairs." character .... they too frequently assemble A man named Spooner was reported for without a thought upon the important trust some trivial affair to his troop officer, who committed to them; they hear with levUy, and awarded hira three days' driU. The sergeant- decide without reflection." major confined the man afterwards for having There was a case in India that will show said to him, " Why did you report me to the how tme this is. In 1848, Private Gallaghan, oflScer ?" and he was tried for this. The raen Tenth Hussars, a man of irreproachable cha­ upon each side of him swore that he never made racter, was confined for insubordination; the any such remark. Spooner himself pleaded facts were clearly proved, and he was sentenced "Not Guilty," and the President and members to some months' imprisonment. No sooner was of the court returned that he was " Not his time expired, than he was again confined on Guilty" of the charge preferred against hira. a simUar charge, found "guilty," and again In defiance of this, the comraanding-officer awarded imprisonment. On his release, pre­ ordered the court to reassemble, and to re­ cisely the same thing occurred again, insub­ consider the finding: stating, likewise, that as ordination, with the same result. Immediately the sergeant-major, who was within four yards of after the third term of imprisonment he again the prisoner, had sworn that he had made use coraraitted himself, and then at last it was dis­ of those words, the sergeant-major's evidence covered that the poor feUow had beeu all along was to be taken before any other. The court insane. About a week before the commission accordingly reassembled, found the prisoner of the first offence, Gallaghan, with some others, "Guilty," and sentenced hira to "twenty-eight had been ordered to take a drunken man of the days' imprisonment, with hard labour." Yet name of Howard to the guard-room: a ruffian each of the officers composing the court had at any time, but a most dangerous ruffian when sworn to "duly administer justice." drunk. He had seized poor Gallaghan, and There have been instances in which courts- thrown him heavily on the head. He fell with martial have been threatened with the charge his head on a door-step, was taken up insensible, of contumely, for refusing to augment an al­ was in hospital for a few days only, and came ready awarded sentence, when the reasons for out apparently aU right, but in reality with his mercy were well founded. In rare cases, the skuU fractured. The acts of insubordination, members have refused steadily to alter their the courts-martial,' aud the imprisonment fol­ sentence. Dr. MarshaU teUs that. The mera­ lowed. It never appeared to strike any of the bers of a regiraental court-martial, who had dis­ raerabers of the court, chiefiy officers of his own appointed the commanding-officer by acquitting corps, who knew the man, that it was strange a soldier, were ordered to wait upon a general for a man hitherto of exemplary conduct, and officer to account to him for their decision. To mostly quiet and inoffensive, all at once, and an observation made by the general, one of the without provocation, to become one of the most members replied, like a true officer and gentle­ desperate characters m the regiinent. Not a man, " When I became a member of the court- raan on the court had used his brains. martial in question, I swore that I would duly Let us not be raisunderstood. We have the administer justice without partiality, favour, or warmest respect for military officers, and most affection, according to the best of my under­ heartily esteem their noble sense of duty. The standing, and having done so, I did not expect objections to courts-martial that we have here to be called before any tribunal in regard to our recorded, do not for a moment unply that we decision, but my own conscience, with which I in the least doubt there being great numbers of am at peace." " That wUl do," said the general; men who bring honour and tenaer conscience to ou may all go." We can, of course, make the court-martial table. The army has its 2>wance for those who submit to undue infiu­ Ciydes as well as its solemn and absurd mar­ ence. Officers joining the service are generally tinets. How raany fine, true-hearted, conscien­ only boys of sixteen or eighteen. In a few weeks tious bits of duty made up the sum of Lord they are considered eligible, and placed on the Clyde's simple and heroic life ! Let us listen to roster for court-martial duty, wnen they can the noble and wise rebuke of his to a court- know nothing about the regulations, or the martial m whicii the Commander-in-Chief righted articles of war. As the sentence to be awarded the scales of justice for an unconsidered private is first given by the junior member, and so on in the ranks. The letter teUs its story for itself: upwards, the absurd severity of sorae sentences " Adjutant-General's Office, Allahabad, need not be wondered at. 21st December, 1858. Sir Robert WUson^ whose authority is of the "The Commander-in-Chief has under his best, says rightly, that, "The judgment of a consideration the proceedmgs of a court-martial 426 [December 26, 1863.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby upon the trial of a private soldier, on a charge and the understanding explained. M. Gratiolet of which he was convicted, of having wilfully narrates a dreara of his own which is singularly destroyed an Enfield rifie; and on which pro­ illustrative of how the brain makes ghosts in ceedings his excellency feels himself constraUied sleep. Many years ago, when occupied in to make the following observations: studying the organisation of the brain, he " Three witnesses deposed to having seen prepared a great number both of human and the prisoner 'break' the rifle, but they do not animal brains. He carefuUy stripped off the describe the nature of injury done; a fourth membranes, and placed the brains in alcohol. witness deposed to the cost of a new and com­ Such were his daily occupations, when one plete rifle. The prisoner then proposed the night he thought that he had taken out his following question to this witness : 'Is the own brain from his own skull. He stripped rifle now on the table wholly destroyed ?' This it of its membranes. He put it into ajcouol, question, a negative reply to which it was much and then he fancied he took his brain out of to the prisoner's advantage to obtain, the court the alcohol and replaced it in his skuU, But, would not aUow the witness to answer. contracted by the action of the spirit, it was " The very issue before the court was, whe­ much reduced in size, and did not at all fill up ther the rifle had or had not been destroyed. the skull. He felt it^ shuffling about iu his By refusing to receive evidence on that point head. This feeling threw him into such a great the conviction has been invalidated, and the perplexity that he awoke with a start, as if soldier has not improbably suffered wrong. If from nightmare. the rifle had been actuaUy destroyed, there M. Gratiolet, every tirae he prepared the should not have been even hesitation in receiving brain of a man, raust have felt that his own testimony to tliat effect; but if it had been only brain resembled it. This impression awakening damaged, and could be repaired, and again made in a brain imperfectly asleep, whUst neither serviceable, it was the duty of the court to have the senses nor the judgment were active, the elicited the fact, recorded a verdict in accord­ physiologist carried on an operation in his ance, and awarded stoppages only to the extent sleep which probably had often occurred to his necessary for effecting the repairs. fancy when at his work, and which had then "It may have been the case that the rifle been summarUy disraissed very frequently. A was actually destroyed, and bould not be made pursuit which had at last become one of routine, serviceable again, and thatthe officers sitting on and the association of himself with his study, the court-martial perceived this by their own explain the bizarre and ghastly dream of M. personal observation; but, nevertheless, they Gratiolet. A sensation from the gripe of a cold completely lost sight of the fact that without hand, misinterpreted by the imagination acting recorded evidence on the point, it would be alto­ without the aid of the discerning faculties, gether out of the power ofthe confirming officer accounts for the ghastly vision of the other to form an accurate judgment as to the correct­ sleeper. ness or otherwise of the conviction. Every one is conscious of a perpetual series " Neither is the officer who did confirm the of pjictures, soraetiraes stationary, sometimes Conviction exempt from blame. He should have fleeting, generally shifting; yet occasionaUy perceived the deficiency of proof, and it was his fixed in his mind. Sleep is the period in which duty to have reassembled the court for revision, the nerves derive their nourishment from the in order to obtain a finding consistent with the blood. The picturing nerves, like those of evidence. tlie senses, are generally inactive in their " There having been no evidence on the face functions at feeding times ; and thoroughly ofthe proceedings thatthe prisoner had destroyed healthy nervous systems, dream very little or a rifle, the Commander-in-Chief has annulled the not at all. Dreams betoken troubled brains. conviction of that offence, and has directed, in The brain of a woman who had lost a portion of the Adjutant-General's department, that the sol­ her cranium used to swell up and protrude dier may be iramediately restored to his duty, when she was drearaing, and then contract and and that the entries of the conviction be can­ become tranquil again when she vras sleeping celled in the regimental records." soundly. The wakeful senses, the active judgment, and the wUl even of the strongest and soundest BRAIN SPECTRES. minds, are not always able to control the false and perverse impressions of the nerves. I knew THE brain raakes ghosts both sleeping and once a commander in the navy whose left eye waking. A man was lying in troubled sleep was shot clean out by a bullet in a naval action when a phantom, wUh the cold hand of a corpse, in the beginning of this century, and whom, seized his right arra. Awaking in horror, he forty years afterwards, it was irapossible to con­ found upon his arra stiU the irapression of the vince that he did not see aU sorts of strange cold hand of the corpse, and it was only after objects with his lost eye. " It is not impos­ reflecting that he found the terrible apparition sible," he would quietly say; " I know it too to be due to the deadening of his own left well." Everybody has known men who suffered hand in a frosty night, which had subsequently rheumatism in legs long lost and replaced by grasped his right arm. This was a real ghost wooden ones. of the brain, which the awakening of the senses A nervous, dreamy, imaginative lad was walk- CharlesDickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. Pecember 26,1863.] 427 inc one day with some comrades araong rank ecstatics, to fancy they are flying. And nearly grass. The place was noted for adders, and the everybody is famUiar with the haUucination of ouths talked about thera. Instantly this lad falUng from personal experience. Wheu lying ?elt something enter the leg of his pantaloons in bed trying in vain to fall asleep, or to warm and twist itself with the swiftness of lightning the cold sheets, the patient feels as if sinking round his thigh. He stopped terrified, and a through the floor, and stretches out his arras careful examination proved that the adder was suddenly to save himself: yet nothing has hap­ a creature of his imagination. The vividness pened except the coincidence of a cold shiver of the fancy of this youth made his waking with a coraplete expiration. senses and his disceming faculties of no raore use Physiologists and philosopliers of authority to him for the raoraent than if they had been say we are all mad in our dreams; and, if the asleep. absence of the control of reason is a tme defi­ This condition of the brain is called by the nition of insanity, there is no gainsaying the savans hallucination. Mueller, the physiologist, proposition. But madness means something and Goethe, the poet, have both described hal­ more, in dreams the faculties which control lucinations to which they were subject, and the picturing or imagining powers are simply in­ which they compared in conversation together. active ; they are neither absent nor incapable. The rarest case, says Mueller, is that of an indi­ Far from identifying sleeping dreams with mad­ vidual who, whilst perfectly healthy in body and ness, I feel disposed to contend that voluntary mind, has the faculty, on closing his eyes, of see­ and momentary hallucinations—seeing by the ing really the objects he wishes to see. History blind, hearing "by the deaf, sensations of smeU­ cites only a very few instances of this pheno­ ing, touching, tasting, things which do not exist menon. Garden and Goethe were exaraples —are only signs of insanity when the faculties of it. needful for correcting the errors of sensation are Goethe says': " When I close ray eyes and diseased. Persons unaccustomed to railway tra­ stoop my head, I figure to myself and see a velling are not insane, although for many minutes flower in the middle of my visual organ. This they often beUeve the train is going backwards, flower preserves only for an instant its first forra. because they retain the power of correcting the It soon decoraposes itself, and out of it issues haUucination by watching the objects they are other flowers, with coloured and soractimes passing. green petals. Tbey were not natural but fan­ The senses are seeing, hearing, smelling, tastic flowers, yet regular as the roses of the touching, and tasting instruments. There are sculptor. I could not look fixedly at that crea­ between these and the seat of intelUgence, nerves tion, but it remained as loug as I liked without performing the functions of carriers. _ Even increasing or diminishing. In the sarae way after the instruments have ceased to exist, the when I imagined a disk full of various colours, carriers often continue to carry messages—false I saw continuaUy issue from the centre to the messages. When a man has lost an eye, during circumference new forras Uke those of the the inttammatoiy period of recovery the carriers kaleidoscope." convey horrible images of fiery figures. It is MueUer talked this subject over with Goethe the carriers who convey the pam of rheumatism in 1828. It was interestiug to thera both. frora the lost limb. "Knowing," says Mueller, "that when I was A man who was recovering from typhus fever calmly lying on my bed with my eyes shut, believed he had two bodies, one of which was although not asleep, I often saw figures whicii tossing in pain on an uneasy bed, and the other I could observe very well, he was very curious lying sweetly on a delicious couch. I am not to leam what I then felt. I told him that my disposed to ascribe this hallucmation to the wiU had no influence either upon the production duaUty of the brain, but to a conflict between or upon the changes of these figures, and that I the recollection of his sufferings, and the ex­ had never seen anything symmetrical or of the perience of bis recovery. If the patient should character of vegetation." Goethe could at will, have been permanently unable to overpower on the contrary, choose his theme, which trans­ memory by reality he would have been insane, formed itself forthwith in a manner apparently Uke the maniacs who beUeve their legs to be involuntary, but always obeying the laws of stalks of straw, or thek bodies fragile as glass. symmetry and harmony. Mueller used to get Pictures have produced hallucinations. Leav­ nd of the figures wliich haunted him by ing aside the eyes of Madonnas, cases in which turning his face to the wall. Although he the power of religious ideas come into play, 1 did not see them change place, they were may mention other instances of their effects on StiU before him. but they soou began to minds keenly sensitive to the beauties of the fade. Jean Paul'recommended the observation fine arts. A French physiologist, Mst study- of these phantoms as a good plan for faUing ing intensely an EngUsh engraving of Landseer s asleep. Horse-shoeing, smelt horn burning, and fixed the idea in his miud for the momeut that the smeU These are haUucinations of sane minds. The came from the foot of the horse m the engrav- delusive sensations of flymg and falling art inrr Auotlier Frenchman records a similar ex­ known to many persons. Young girls lying in pedience. He had beeu takiug a nreparation of bed between sleeping and waking at the epoch Indian hemp, and was seated at table with a pic­ of life when their girihood is passing into ture behind him representmg a battle of cavalry, womanhood, are especially apt, like the reUgious 428 [December 26,1863.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by when he suddenly turned round, crying, " Well, doodum doo," and even " The young man froia then, I dislike kicking horses, even in paint­ the country," who is too knowing to be "g^ ings. over" by any one (a great practical lesson that!), are stUl trolled on rare occasions by the side of Uttle beds, and that if the "legitimate" has GOING TO CHAPPELL. disappeared from chUdhood's stage, a fine " bur. lesque" spirit still prevails. How far this may ONCE upon a time it seems to have been be, or may not be, an advantage to the rising a part of the necessary education of a well-re­ generation, is a vexed question, upon which I gulated nursery-maid, to have her raind plenti­ hesitate to corapromise myself. fully stored with a collection of old ballads, Of course I am bound to admit, to the dis­ which were to be sung by the bedsides of her paragement of my own generation, that when little charges. I speak not only from personal ex­ children were allowed to listen to legendary perience of that not very remote once upon a rhymes, chanted to quaint but pleasant tunes, time, but from information carefully collected and conjuring up strange visions before their araong my contemporaries and predecessors in half-closed eyes, they ran the danger of being infancy, when I assert that this acquirement, if carried away after an unwise and practical-spirit- not deemed indispensable by the parents, and thwarting fashion, into naughty regions of certamly " considered" in the payment of wages, romance. At the same time—and I admit this was looked upon by the old race of nursery­ fact with an increase of shame—they were never maids themselves, as a necessary qualification duly informed of the remote antiquity of their for a place in the nursery, and an indispensable favourite ditties, and thus, by taking a dose of braneh of their professional science. My own the utUe along with the dulce, brought to the nursery-maid, once upon a time, was only, as knowledge of such archaeological lore as is doubt­ I have every reason to believe, a pretty fair less possessed by weU-educated little children type of the comraon species of the day ; and cer­ in these better-informed tiraes. Their "thiek- tainly, her treasury of ballad-lore was as exten­ coraing fancies" were never even enlightened and sive as it was varied. I ara not aware, either, raodified by the instruction of a little antiquari- that I was a more fractious or contumacious anisra. They never drearaed that these metrical chUd than the ordinary "run" of children—of tales, which afforded them so much delight, had the male sex, of course I mean to say; as we been listened to, with equal rapture probably, by all know that children of the more privileged their ancestors, in days when opera existed not, sex are necessarily little angels without encum­ or only in a very primitive form (Shakespeare's bering wings. But I can perfectly weU re­ Tempest being probably the first drama that member that I invariably and most obstinately bore some sUght resemblance to an operatic refused to allow my light to be put out, and to performance of the present day), and that the go to sleep at once, as it is to be trusted aU romances, dear to their little hearts, had b'een good little boys and girls do at the present day, chanted to other eager listeners, young and old, without hearing at least one (and more on high centuries before they were bom. days and holidays) of that marveUous store oi old ballads, with which good old Susan's head My own enlightenment upou this matter, as was so plentifully garnished. Ifl say "old" well as upon many other curious detaUs con­ Susan, it is because my nursery-maid really did nected with the ballads which formed the ro­ look old to me in those days, when in truth her mances of my chUdhood, was, I must confess, a age may have been about three or four-and- tardy one. It came upon me only a few years twenty. She had a clear, kindly blue eye, and ago, upou the perusal of MK. WILLIAM CHAP­ a ruddy complexion—in all probability she was PELL'S work on Popular Music of the Olden a country girl—and a pleasant, low voice of Time. But, in convincing me that I was no great compass, but of considerable expres­ crammed in my childhood by my attendant nur­ sion. It seems to rae now, that she raust have sery-spirit with a raass of ancient lore, of the possessed some natural dramatic feeUng: for antiquity of whicii I was wholly ignorant, Mr. pathos, terror, and humour were all conveyed Chappell has, at the same time, by giving the to my young mind with singular vividness. Or true aud faithful versions of the baUads, as was it, perhaps, that my own temperaraent was they first came before the world, forced upon naturally predisposed to such impressions ? me the unwillingly received truth, that I was then treated to variations from the original, But this was once upon a time. Now-o'- which, slight as they were, would have shocked days, as far as I cau learn, this race of nursery­ the ears of a Percy or a Ritson. It has been maids has died out; and old baUads are no a subject of wonder to me, however, that the longer sung by the bedsides of the rising gene­ ditties of my childhood had, in their centuries' ration. It is to be feared—perhaps it may be progress of transmission, lost so little, instead considered raore proper to say, it is to be hoped of so much, of their original form. Curious, —that our world has grown too wise to allow indeed, would it be to trace, were it possible, the childish heads of our future practical young how these old songs had been sung down by gentlemen, and good young ladies, to be set a oral tradition frora mother to daughter, from dreaming by such "vain imaginings." It has cradle to cradle, from pallet to tent-bed. But come to my knowledge, however, that " Kitty, this is a matter of archaeological research, which katty, kino," "In the Strr.nd," "Hoop de it would be impossible to pursue unless under CharlesDickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [December 26,1863.] 429 circumstances of peculiarly favouring chance. The ballad, licensed to Edward White at Sta­ My delight was quite sufficient in having tioners' Hall in 1580, bore the evidently catch­ stumbled upon so many old friends of my child­ ing title of A most strange Wedding of the hood, gathered together under Mr. Chappell's Frog and the Mouse; although most certainly fostering auspices, and treated by him, not as in the version to which I had been so early ac­ the " Bohemians" I might have suspected them customed no such happy denouement as a to have been, but as respectable worthies of wedding took place, the successful issue of the high and ancient lineage. It was quite beside " wooing" having been tragically prevented by my pui-pose to wander into any speculation as the fatal catastrophe alluded to above. Many to the process by which they had been orally ballads seem to have been written upon the and traditionally carried down even to our days. sarae (apparently popular) subject. One begins, All the fresh feeUngs of that fanciful old once " There was a frog Uved in a weU, and a farce upon a time were revived within me on greet­ (fast?) mouse in a mill;" and, that tradition ing theni again. assigned Mousey's residence to such a locality, I confess that, many as were the years that seems to be borne out by another composition, had weighed upon me since my childhood, my mentioned in Wedderburn's Complaint of Scot­ heart was strangely stirred within me when, land, as early as 1549, as one of the songs sung amidst the songs of Popular Music of the by the shepherds of the time, and commencing, Olden Time, I stumbled upon Lord Thomas "The Frog came to the mylder" (mill-door). and Fair EUinor. What long-slumbering emo­ Araidst a variety of these imitations, Mr. Chap­ tions were reawakened within me by the words, pell begins the baUad, whieh he apparently "Lord Thomas he was a bold forester, and a offers as the raost authentic, with the words, chaser of the king's deer. Fair EUinor was a " It was a frogge in a well," and only opens the fine woman, and Lord Thomas he loved her second verse with, " The frogge he would a dear!" What mattered false rhyme and mis­ wooing ride" But, as I find that my own iden­ placed accent ? It was the romance of ray early tical "A frog he would a wooing go" is men­ years—the sketch which boyish imagination tioned among the other versions, and more had fiUed up with such vivid colours. The especially as I cannot bring my mind to accept tangled woods, the flying deer, the coat of the idea that Froggy would, by any possibility, Lincoln green, and the fair damsel with long ever have lived down in a well, which no decent hair floating down her back, were all, in an frog ever does, or ever bestrode any kiud of instant, again lefore ray eyes. How raany steed, I am wilfully induced to maintain the other hearts may have thrilled also since the more correct authenticity of my dear old nur­ time of Elizabeth, or much earUer still—for sery song. Kitson conjectures it may have been " originally There is good reason to beUeve, it must be a minstrel song"—on hearing the recital of this admitted at the same time, that there had crept eventful history! "Not long since," says the into the version of my childhood a variation, Same author, "a sort of dilapidated minstrel which was of very questionable authenticity, was to be seen in the streets of London, who and apparently of modern date, inasmuch as played upon an instrument he, properly enough, Mr. Chappell not only does not attempt to called a humdrum, and chanted (among others) explain this variation, but does not condescend the old baUad of Lord Thomas and Fair to notice the innovation at all. Instead of EUinor." This roraance of ray chUdhood, the burden " Humble-dum, mumble-dum," and then, " not long since" walked the streets ; and "Tweedle, tweedle, twino," employed in the the little ragged boys of Whitechapel and Shore- song of Mr. Chappell's book, I remember that dUch may have dreamed bright visions of these the fancy of my eariier days was wont to be illustrious personages, as well as the spoiled considerably mystified by one about " Gammon young gentleman,' whose curtained bed was and spinage," and " Heigho said Rowley." I then to him that paradise of song and story remember, too, how my fancy gradually became which an opera-box was destined afterwards to reconciled to its own explanation, that "_ Rowley" become. (" Anthony" was added in the repetition of the StiU more startled was I at the discovery burden) was the name of the gallant frog, and that my favourite tragic-comedy of the poor that the "Heigho" had reference to his love- frog who "would a wooing go," and was so sio-hs. Fancy likewise endeavoured to content craeUy "gobbled up" by a duck—a baUad only itself with the notion that the " spinage" had sung to me on special hoUdays, and as a farce something to do with the food upon which after a tragedy—and yet was not that a most Mousey lived. But it could raake nothing out pathetic tragedy in its burlesque form ?—was of the " garamon," except with reference to actually " licensed at Stationers' HaU" so long Mousey's love for baco.i, and certainly refused ago as the year 1580. This serio-comic ballad to "•ive the word any meaning, reflecting upon had been one of ray greatest delights in days the orthodoxy of the legend. This same fancy, when I Uttle drearaed that poor Froggy went grown older, and more pedantic, has since " a wooing" to his fascinating Mouse as eariv couHit to attach a poUtical meaning to the song, as the sixteenth century, and that his laraent­ and'find an allusion to Charies the Second and able history had been probably the delectation his cavalier party in the well-known name of of Uttle children, and doubtless grown-up chil­ "Rowley." But in this attempt it has broken dren Ukewise, so very many generations ago. down as completely as with the " gammon. >4

430 [December 26,1863.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by

Perhaps in no instemce, during the perusal of quarian dispute, whether " Scarlet" town, the Mr. Chappell's book, did I feel so keenly that locality designated in the supposed authentic heart-beating of "joy's recoUection," which iu version, as the residence of the cruel Barbara, this case was most decidedly "joy," as when I ought not to be read " CarUsle" town, and whe­ stumbled on " Barbara Allen." I am not quite ther the " Reading" town of the later printed sure that the tears did not absolutely come once copies is not altogether an impudent and pre­ again into my eyes, as they did when my boyish tentious case of mal-appropriation, I was hap­ head hid itself with false shame against ray pily as ignorant: and even to tins day, I am pillow, on my once more glancing over the disposed to pass over the whole discussion as tragic history of Barbara's cruelty. Nor did I futile, iiaving in my mind's eye my owu pet feel, I fancy, much less acutely than of yore, town, from which my imagination indignantly when I read the sad contrast, how "In the refuses to remove itself. merry month of May, When green buds they I cannot well reckon the famous baUad-poem were sweUin', Young Jemmy Grove on his death­ of " Chevy Chase," upon which so many com­ bed lay. For love of Barbara AUen." Nor mentaries have been written by learned anti- was the thrill of painful excitement rauch less c[uarians, araou" ray archaeological discoveries real, when cmel Barbara, having been summoned in Mr. Chappell's book, inasraucli as, eveu in to the unhappy lover's death-bed, came " slowly, my early boyhood, I seera to have had an inkling slowly" up : " And slowly she came nigh hira : that this wonderful romance was a very very old And aU she said when there she came. Young story. Perhaps Susan raay have had sufficient man I think you are dying." Again were before my eyes the fields of my boyish imagination, lore of her own to have bestowed upon me this where cruel Barbara was walking wheu " She little piece of information. I must confess, at heard the bell a knellin': Aud every stroke did the sarae time, that this most celebrated of all seem to say. Unworthy Barbara Allen,"—again old ballads was not one of my special favourites. the open space (derived by imagination from a Spite of the gorgeous spectacular and sorae­ curious old plain, surrounded by quaint gabled what distracting visions it never faded to houses, iu my native city) where Barbara conjure up before ray eyes, it had probably too " Turned her body round about. And spied the much of the " cut and thi-ust" character about corpse a comin';" and where " Lay down, lay it to suit a nascent temperament, more inclined down the corpse, she said. That I raay look upon to find congenial food in the siraple pathos of him,"—again the white curtained low paneUed the " domestic drama," than in the wearing charaber (there was such a one in my grand­ turmoil -of raore " sensational" tragedies. More­ father's house) where the cruel maid, when over, as I find that Susan's bedside version was " Her heart was struck with sorrow," cried " O but a truncated and mutilated torso of the mother, mother, make my bed. For I shall die grand old original form, whereas in other in­ to-morrow," and again the green-brocade heavily- stances her unauthentic variations were simply vallanced bed (I had seen the original some­ confined to mere words in general, I think it where) where the remorseful girl lay, and better, out of respect for that genial minstrel's "Begged to be buried by him, And sore repented meraory—although, by the way, she may pro­ of the day, That sbe did e'er deny Mm." What bably be living stiU, a sturdy grandmother—and tears did I not shed, as Susan chanted to me this out of fear lest she should be crueUy mauled by story (^to the very same tune that Mr. Chappell antiquarian commentators, to drop the subject gives in his book), and never refused to sing it of _" Chevy Chase" altogether, noting only my over again, and again once more, as the tears pride in knowing that my own nursery once feU thicker and thicker, and sobbings became upon a time was connected, even although im­ violent, and were only to be soothed by a low perfectly, with a once upon a time of such merry strain, tbat at last lulled me off to sleep. glorious and respected antiquity. But how many other eyes had shed bitter tears Far more cherished by me, as it must be by over this sad ditty, I was only destined to learn all chUdren, was that ballad of ballads so touch­ long afterwards. Susan never told me, and ing to childhood's ears, "The ChUdren in the doubtless, spite of her archseological store, was Wood." There too I have found it, in Mr. unable to inform me, that Goldsmith in one of ChappeU's book, an " old old story," and yet Ids essays had confessed a feeling sympathetic " ever new." I could have hugged my copy to to my own, when he said, " The music of the my heart. Of most respectable antiquity truly finest singer is dissonance to what I felt, when it is. Does it uot appear in the registers of our old dairy-maid sang rae into tears with the Stationers' Company, under the date of 15th 'Johnny Arrastrong's Last Good Night,' or October, 1595, in the words "Thomas MilUng- ' The Cruelty of Barbara Alien.' " Little did I tonentred for his copie under t' handes of bothe know, then, that a black-letter copy of this very the wardens, a baUad intitulted, Tbe NorfoUc old baUad bore the title of "Barbara Allen's Gentleraan, his will and Testament, and howe he Cruelty, or the Young Man's Tragedy, with Bar­ comraytted the keepin* of his chUdren to his bara Allen's Laraentation for the unkindness to owne brother, who delte most wickedly with her Lover and herself;" nor was I in a position them, and howe God plagued him for it" ? A to remark that " sensational" titles were as most " sensational" title, it must be admitted! much in vogue centuries ago as now, although It has been surmised by Sharon Turner, that in a far more diffuse form. Of the great anti­ this most popular of all old stories was written upon the murder of his nephews by Eichard the Charles Dickeas.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [December 26, 1SC3.] 431

«\#—• Third, " before it was quite safe to stigmatise much matter to me, when " The Devil and Doctor hini more openly:" and other writers have Faustus," although rarely sung to me, and not advocated the same theory. But the arguments without much pressing, on account of the upon this point have evidently been advanced equivocal nature of the^'subject, conjured up to upon internal evidence only, and with no direct my childish mind scenes of an awful splendour proof. My own convictions are that this was and thrilling vividness, which " the great not the case. I still cling to the assurance that congurer" himself, wUh all his ma?ic power. the subject is one of a real traditional raurder, could not have outdone ? enacted in the county of Norfolk. Is not the No less to my surprise did I find that one ballad also styled, "Tbe NorfoUc Tragedy?" of my great favourUes once upon a time, the and as a Norfolk man, can I allow my county "Blind Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal Green," to be robbed of any of its cherished traditions, was a ballad of much respectable antiquity. To or its feathered tribe of any of their glories? be sure, I may have had some inkling of the The original tune was preserved by Susan: and matter, when the story was dramatised in my it came strangely to my ears when, on my first own day, and, although not one of the successful witnessing a representation of " The Beggar's of Mr. Sheridan Knowles's plays, enjoyed a Opera," Polly Peachem appropriated the well- certain popularity. Moreover, I certainly known air of my childhood, aud even the first learned from garrulous Mr. Pepys, in his Diary, words of the tragical ballad, " Now ponder well, that this ballad was " an old song" in his days; ye parents dear." and he likewise had informed me that, when Old-fashioned nursery-maids seem to have dining at Sir WiUiam Ryder's at "Bednall" stored their memories as much with the ancient Green, the very house was said to have been tunes, as with the words of the old ballads. At built by the " Blind Beggar so much talked of all events, my childhood's prima donna evidently and sung iu baUads," although some said " it had done so; for in very few cases do I find was only some outhouse of it." But it was that the melodies she chanted to particular only later that I was convinced by official baUads, vary in any material point from those archaeological authority that "this popular old scored in Mr. ChappeU's book. One remarkable ballad was written iu the reign of Elizabeth, as instance of her unconscious archaeological eru­ appears not only from the verse, where the arms dition in this particular I fouud in tbe tune to of England are called the ' Queene's Arms,' but which she invariably sang the ballad, to which from its tune beiug quoted in other old pieces she gave the title, but not without a certain de­ written in her time." gree of shame, and always with an appearance of I cannot afford to dwell upon " Death and apology—not on account of its inaccuracy, but for the Lady," twice mentioned by Goldsmith in other obvious reasons—of "The Devil and Doc­ The Vicar of Wakefield; for, although one of tor Faustus." The tune was certainly a most Susan's most cherished strains, she evidently lugubrious oue, as may be proved by reference having a predUection in favour ofthe lugubrious, to Mr. ChappeU's scoring, and never one of my it had never enough of the pictorial romance favourites. But Susan invariably defended its about it to excite my boyish imagination and propriety, whieh as a child I questioned: and thrill my heart, and was not, consequently, she was right. For have I not since learned its among my pet ditties. Nor will I lay any store history frora the erudite and accurate Mr. Chap- by the "King and the Miller of Mansfield," peU? How this raelancholy tune was originally about which latter quasi-historical romance caUed " Fortune's ray foe," and was enormously there was a tinge of coarseness, unpleasant to popular in the time of Elizabeth, being alluded my boyish sensibiUties. I had little sympathy to by Shakespeare in "The Merry Wives of with the miller, and less, I believe, with the Windsor," and by almost all the dramatists of king, about whose identity I cared too little for the age in various plays—how it afterwards the personage to inquire; so that I was but obtained the designation ofthe "hanging tune" little moved by the information, afterwards con­ (some instinct must have told rae this, to account veyed, that, although popular error attached for my antipathy to it in ray childhood) inas­ the personaUty of "bluff King Hal" to the much as " the metrical lamentations of extraor­ adventure in question, authentic black-letter dmary criminals" were chanted to this air on copies of the old baUad entitle it "King Henry their going to execution, and continued to be the Second, and the Miller of Mansfield." " for ttpwards of two hundred years"—and how, In spite of my fondness, in the old baUads of eventuaUy, the universal popularity of one my childhood, for subjects that may be called baUad adapted to this tune, "The Life and the "romantic-domestic," I admit there was Death of Doctor Faustus, the Great Congurer," one, certainly of a not very refined description, threatened.to absorb the original title, and to which was constantly given me "by special ive to the " hanging tune" that of " The air of desire," and was looked upon by me as an ex­ f >octor Faustus." Susan was right. But she cellent " concluding farce." This was a song could not tell me, as Mr. Chappell afterwards setting fortli how "There was a bonny blade, did, that most of the lamentable baUads of the who "married a country maid," because she time were set to this tune, and among others, was "dumb, dumb, dumb," and who, when she the old ballad of " Titus Andronicus," upon which was cured of her infirmity by an officious doctor, Shakespeare founded his (contested) play of the was so crushed by her overflow of tongue, that same name. But, after all, what did the tune he would have given "any kind of thing that 432 ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [December 26,18G3.] she were dumb, dumb, durab." I certainly much too far; it flows in such rapid and never expected to find this favourUe "comic seeminglv never-ending flood. There are otherI song" araong the Popular Music of the Olden ballads also belonging to ray Susan's collection, Time, in Mr. ChappeU's book. There it stood, and aU of undoubted antiquity, which I must however, accompanied by a vast quantity of pass over with a sign of regret. How great eradition, in the way of explanatory informa­ was her store! But was it greater, I am induced tion. To be sure, this erudition had more again to ask, than tbat of most of the nursery, reference to the tune (again Susan's "old maids of that pleasant, but unpractical once original") than to the story of the poor gentle­ upon a time? That it was far from com­ man so crueUy cheated of his legitimate hopes plete, however, is proved by the fact, that one by his wife's unexpected loquacity. But it was of the most faraous and popular of all old pleasant to be informed even of circumstances English ballads, especially in the_ days of the attending the antiquity of the strain. This gallant and turbulent spirit of'prenticeship, "The tune, it appears, was originally caUed, " I am London Prentice," teUing of " his brave adven­ the Duke of NorfoUj," and was one of the tures done in Turkey, and by what means he greatest favourUes of the Elizabethan age: and married the king's daughter," was unfortu­ I learned that a proof of the long traditional nately not in her repertoire. Oh! had it been, popularity of this ballad was to be found in the what visions of kings' daughters "pearls of fact that a curious custom stiU reraains in parts princely majesty," bestowing their hands on of Suffolk to sing this song at harvest suppers, me at gorgeous altars, might not have been one of the corapany being crowned with an in­ conjured up! verted pillow or cushion, whilst another presents Nor will I linger longer to discuss the sub­ him with a jug of ale, which he is bound to ject, whether it was to the advantage or dis­ drink, without spUlmg a drop or allowing the advantage of a former generation of children cushion to fall—a ceremony supposed to have to have been soothed to sleep by a nursery­ some allusion to the homage formerly paid to maid rich in baUad-lore. But I will freely the Lords of Norfolk, who possessed imraense raake the adraission, that if it had been possible domains in the sister county. The country to have connected information with song, they people in Warwickshire, it seeras, also use a cushion for a crown at their harvest-home diver­ might have leamed how our old English bal­ sions : and to this custora Falstaff is supposed lads are so intimately associated with the to allude in Henry the Fourth, Part First, when annals of our country, its battles, its triumphs, he says : " This chair shall be my state, this its romantic episodes, its festal ceremonies, and dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown." its political changes, that the students of these To " serve the Duke of Norfolk" seems to have ditties may gather from them, in a pleasant form, been also a coraraon expression for making a very tolerable compendiura of the History of merry, as to "dine with Duke Humphrey" England. meant quite the reverse. Now ready, and to be had at all the Libraries, .But the dabbling thus in the stream of archaeological information, connected with the HARD CASH, old ballads of my childhood, and revealed to In 3 vols., 31s. 6d. me by Mr. Chappell's book, would drag me London: SAMPSON LOW, SON, and Co.

Now readv, Stitched in a Cover, price Fourpence, MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS, FORMING THE EXTRA DOUBLE NUMBER FOR CHRISTMAS. COKXENTS : How Mrs. Lirriper carried on the Business. How the Third Floor knew the Potteries. How the First Floor went to Crowley Castle. How the Side-Room was attended by a Doelor. How thp Best Attic was under a Cloud. How the Second Floor kept a Dog. How the Parlours added a Few Words.

Next week will be commenced, to be completed in Six Numbers, a New Story, caUed A WHITE HAND AND A BLACK THUMB. Volume XI. will begin on the 15th of February, 1864, vrith a New Serial Story, entitled - QUITE ALONE, BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. ,

The Right of Translating Jrticlesfiom ALL THE YEAR BOUND is reserved by the Authors.

fuWished nt the Omce, Xo. 2G, Wenirsr'.^n SI™-'- SirDn.)/i"nntL-(l hv C. WiirriNn. P.<^a..fnrt Hon-