Chambers's journal of popular literature, science, and art, fifth series, no. 122, vol. III, May 1, 1886
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Title: Chambers's journal of popular literature, science, and art, fifth series, no. 122, vol. III, May 1, 1886

Author: Various

Release date: March 25, 2023 [eBook #70372]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: William and Robert Chambers, 1853

Credits: Susan Skinner, Eric Hutton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 122, VOL. III, MAY 1, 1886 ***

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

CONTENTS

SMUGGLING, PAST AND PRESENT.
IN ALL SHADES.
MAN-LIKE APES—AND MAN.
SPIRITED AWAY.
FORTUNE.
THE IVORY TRADE.
SPOKEN IN ANGER.

No. 122.—Vol. III.

Price 1½d.

SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1886.

SMUGGLING, PAST AND PRESENT.

BY AN EXAMINING OFFICER.

In a recently issued, readable little volume by Mr W. D. Chester, H.M. Customs, London, entitled Chronicles of the Customs, there occurs a chapter on the tricks of smugglers, which suggests an interesting comparison of past and present methods of smuggling. The volume referred to treats of many matters connected with Customs’ work besides the prevention of smuggling; but we must confine our remarks to smuggling pure and simple, with a few examples of clever evasions of the Customs’ laws.

From the days of Ethelred, when it was enacted that ‘every smaller boat arriving at Billingsgate should pay for toll or custom one halfpenny, a larger boat with sails one penny,’ those who have had to carry out the collection of the revenue have been disliked by everybody who had to submit to taxation. It is not easy to understand this dislike. People who use coal, gas, water, or any of the necessities of existence do not, as a rule, view with very great disfavour the people whom they pay to supply these commodities. Why they should dislike those whose business it is to collect the funds which provide government with the wherewithal to insure protection for life, property, and trade, is an anomaly which it is difficult to comprehend. In olden days, the bold and daring smuggler was the darling of the coast, and the officers who endeavoured to prevent his depredations the most disliked of all government officials. Yellow-backed novels have portrayed his prowess in the most glowing colours. The word-pictures which represent him as a free-and-easy, good-natured soul, with gentlemanly manners and genteel exterior, have been read and admired wherever English novels of a seafaring type have been circulated; and no exciting ocean tale is considered sufficiently spicy unless a chapter or two is devoted to the daring thief who defies his country’s laws, and is rewarded with admiration for doing so; while ordinary thieves are spoken of with contempt, and obtain a far from acceptable recompense in the shape of jail ‘skilly.’

No longer ago than 1883, an amusing case, illustrative of this feeling, occurred in the neighbourhood of Sunderland. A party of officers had been away at Hull attending a departmental examination. On their return journey in the train, they met with a seafaring man, who, not knowing the profession of his fellow-passengers, entered into a long conversation on the comparatively easy methods by which he—the sailor—evaded detection. Growing eloquent on this theme, he further explained the modus operandi of his proceedings, and informed the officers that he had in his chest an ingeniously concealed receptacle for the very purpose of smuggling, and that he then had in it several pounds of foreign tobacco. Great was his consternation to find, on his arrival at Sunderland, that his fellow-passengers were Customs’ officers, who at once seized the man’s chest and confiscated the tobacco found therein, for the possession of which the loquacious seaman was subsequently fined. The moral of the story rests in the fact, that no sooner was the affair made known, than the local press went ablaze with denunciations of the unfortunate officers who had prevented the country’s pockets being pilfered of the amount of duty leviable on the quantity of tobacco found. The incident is one which proves that among a certain class of people the smuggler is a hero still. With the audience in a police court the smuggler is no end of a favourite. Only a few months ago, a case occurred at Whitby where a couple of fishermen were charged with smuggling about forty-four pounds of tobacco, the highest penalty for which being £42 with alternative imprisonment. The Bench, however, let the prisoners off with the mitigated fine of £30, and yet, on the announcement of the merciful decision, ‘there were,’ says the police-court reporter, ‘expressions of disapprobation in the crowded court.’

In contradistinction to the sympathising feeling which in the olden time and at the present day was and is extended to the smuggler, it is satisfactory to find that his nefarious transactions do not always shield him from ridicule. Not long ago, a friend of mine was crossing from the continent to one of the eastern English ports, and on the voyage was applied to by another passenger as to how he—the passenger—could most successfully evade paying the duty on two or three boxes of cigars which he had in his possession. My friend, who knew something of Custom House strictness, and had, besides, a conscientious respect for the laws of his country, advised his fellow-voyager either to throw the cigars overboard, or to ‘declare’ and pay duty upon them when he landed. This, it subsequently transpired, the passenger did not do, but rolled up the cigars in some soiled linen and placed the lot in a portmanteau. When it came to declaring baggage at the landing-stage or railway station, the smuggler, like many of his class, grew timid, and left his portmanteau in the hands of the Customs’ officials without owning it as his property. My friend declares that the scared look of the gentleman-smuggler as he hid back in the railway carriage while a Customs’ boatman walked up and down the platform with the unlucky portmanteau, and calling out stentoriously, ‘Claim your luggage! claim your luggage!’ was a sight, once seen, never to be forgotten. The unfortunate passenger of course lost his portmanteau, clothes, and cigars.

In order to present to the reader the unromantic aspect of present-day smuggling in a comparative light, the writer is induced to quote one or two cases mentioned by Mr Chester. By perusing these selected instances, and comparing them with the methods adopted in our own day, it will be seen that smuggling in former times was surrounded with an adventurous atmosphere which certainly does not obtain in a matter-of-fact age like the present. One of the cases quoted by Mr Chester is a characteristic one. It occurred at the time when duties were levied on laces, silks, gloves, &c. These were mostly French manufactures, and, consequently, Dover and other southern ports were the most convenient localities in which the smuggling fraternity exercised their calling. At that time, well-horsed spring vans were used to convey the goods from Dover to London, and at intervals on the journey, particular houses were used as storage places for the booty until it could be safely conveyed to the metropolis. ‘On one occasion,’ says Mr Chester, ‘the Customs’ officers at Dover were sent on a fool’s errand. A van loaded with silk and lace left the town at night; and to insure it a successful journey, an accomplice informed the officers of its departure, the venture being suspected. Forthwith they went in pursuit in a postchaise. The parties in the van, after going about four miles, drew into a side-road, extinguished the lights, and remained quiet. The officers soon rushed by in hot haste; and when they had passed, the smugglers betook themselves in another direction, and got safely off with their booty.’

At a time when goods were subjected to ad valorem duties, there were no end of tricks practised by which an importer, whose goods were seized, obtained his own importations for the veriest trifle, and thus made a handsome profit by his cleverness. Mr Chester relates an instance of an importer, more shrewd than honest, who imported into Folkestone a case of gloves on which he declined to pay duty. The goods, of course, were seized. Into London, the same gentleman imported a similar case with a like result. When the goods were offered for sale at the two places, it was found that the Folkestone case contained all right-hand gloves, while those in London were all left-hand gloves. Being considered valueless, they were knocked down to the buyer for a mere trifle. It is needless to add that the buyer in each case was the importer, who paired the gloves and pocketed a respectable profit by the transaction.

Another instance from the same authority illustrates the stratagems which were resorted to for the purpose of evading Customs’ duties on watches, when such imports were in vogue. A foreigner, it appears, had made up his mind to realise a small fortune at the expense of his comfort; so, taking a passage from Holland, he secreted a large number of watches round his body in leathern receptacles. The weight was so great that the unfortunate smuggler was unable to lie down. He had calculated on a voyage of twenty-four hours, but, being a foreigner, he little knew the density or the stopping powers of a Thames fog. The fog detained the ship for another twenty-four hours; and when the vessel arrived in London, the strain on the smuggler’s system had been so enormous that he was completely exhausted; his courage oozed out with his strength; and at last he gave himself up to the Customs’ officials, who had had a watchful eye on his suspiciously distressed-looking features.

Since the so-called ‘good old days’ of the novelist, smuggling has lost much of its attractiveness. The abolition of duty on watches, silks, lace, gloves, &c., has done a great deal to lessen an illicit traffic, and wholesale attempts at smuggling are now of comparatively rare occurrence. Of course, now and again a case crops up in which the old spirit seems to have revived; but such cases are comparatively few. Yet, though petty smuggling is, in the main, the special offence with which Customs’ officers have now to deal, wholesale smuggling has not yet become a thing of the past. In 1881, a daring attempt to defraud the revenue took place in London. The writer happened to be stationed there at the time, and can well remember the excitement caused in official circles by the discovery, and can recollect the crowds of officers who used daily to visit the quayage front of the Custom House, where lay a pair of marine boilers in which five tons of tobacco had been conveyed to this country from Rotterdam. The history of the attempted fraud is an interesting one. An anonymous writer, it appears, had been giving continuous hints to the officials in London that extensive smuggling was being carried on between Rotterdam and England. Such anonymous communications being far from uncommon in Lower Thames Street, but little attention was paid to them, till at last the writer grew so persistent in his efforts, and gave such plausible and detailed information, that a detective officer was sent to Rotterdam to watch the ingenious proceedings.

Taking advantage of the information given by the informer, the officer occupied a room from which a view of a large boiler-foundry was obtainable. Keeping strict watch, he saw large quantities of tobacco being packed, by means of hydraulic pressure, into a couple of marine boilers, which, when the packing was completed, were placed on board a steamer for conveyance, if I remember aright, to Newcastle. Unfortunately, however, for the parties concerned in the smuggling transaction, a telegram arrived before the boilers. These were not seized at Newcastle, but were allowed to be placed on the railway and reach King’s Cross, London, without interference, the authorities wishing to take the principal participators red-handed. At King’s Cross they duly arrived, and remained unclaimed for several days. At last, one was taken to a railway arch at Stepney, where it was watched day and night until the smugglers came to claim it, when they were of course arrested. The other boiler, which had remained at King’s Cross, was—through a telegraphic error, which caused the police to relax their watchfulness—removed from that locality without their knowledge. But the conveyance on which it was removed broke down under the heavy weight, and through this unlooked-for casualty, it was at last secured. The smugglers were mulcted in a fine of nearly five thousand pounds, and being unable to pay it, were sent to jail. The writer remembers well inspecting the boilers when they were lying at the Custom House, and to those who had the opportunity of seeing them, their construction gave ample evidence that smuggling as a science was not yet entirely extinct. The boilers were simply ‘dummies.’ The iron used in their construction was too thin to resist steam-pressure, and they had evidently been made for the express purpose of conveying tobacco to this country. It is not at all improbable, either, that the ‘dummy’ boilers had made more than one trip to England, and had put a good many pounds sterling in the pockets of their ingenious but dishonest designers.

Another famous instance of present-day smuggling was brought to light in the Queen’s Bench division in 1883. From the evidence then given, it appeared that the smugglers had inaugurated a systematic method of conveying tobacco from Rotterdam, and that, by no means content with the old-fashioned practice of having a single buyer and seller, they had regularly appointed agents, whom they stationed at different ports in the United Kingdom. On the arrival of the tobacco, the agent or agents communicated by telegraph with the principals in the affair, and by means of an arranged cipher, gave information as to when the goods arrived and when they had passed the Customs’ officers undetected. The principal was an Irishman, who carried on business as a tobacco merchant. He had a brother who traded in flax-seed. It occurred to the former that importations of tobacco which had evaded the duty would be much more profitable than duty-paid importations, and what more natural than that his brother’s barrels of flax-seed would form a not easily detected mode of conveyance? The course adopted then was this: a large quantity of flax-seed was purchased at Rotterdam, and also a quantity of tobacco. Sixty pounds-weight of the tobacco was rammed firmly down into the bottom of a cask, which was then filled up with flax-seed; and the casks so filled were shipped to this country, and reported and entered as containing flax-seed only. On one occasion, four hundred casks containing tobacco stowed in this way escaped detection; and in April 1882, fourteen hundred pounds of tobacco were smuggled into the country in twenty-five casks, each containing half a hundredweight of tobacco. Later on in the same month, two thousand pounds of tobacco followed their predecessors, and further consignments occurred in May.

At last the crisis came. Somebody, in smuggling parlance, ‘split;’ the officers boarded a ship from Rotterdam, opened the casks, and the nefarious consignment was at last laid bare. Despite the discovery, the Attorney-general, who conducted the case for the Crown, had no little difficulty in bringing the guilt home to the proper parties. The concealed tobacco had all been addressed to fictitious consignees, but the evidence of an accomplice exposed such a state of affairs that the defendant consented to a verdict being entered against him for over six thousand pounds, being treble the value of the goods, of which penalty, however, only one-third was eventually enforced.

But this was by no means the end of the history of one of the most daring attempts in the annals of modern smuggling. Some few months later, an action was brought against a tenant farmer in Ireland to recover £1731, 12s. 6d., being treble the value of nearly two thousand pounds of tobacco found on his premises. The discovery, as in most cases of the sort, was brought about by information. A police constable, ‘from information received,’ reported his suspicions to his superiors. A search was then instituted among the outhouses of the defendant’s premises. In the first story of one of the outhouses were a piggery and carthouse, the loft being reached by a ladder. One of the constables mounted the ladder, and peering through a chink in the locked door, perceived a bag lying on the floor with tobacco protruding from it. The door having been forced, fourteen bags of tobacco were found, with flax-seed scattered over them, the latter naturally suggesting the quarter from which the tobacco was obtained. The farmer when questioned denied all knowledge of the tobacco, asserting that he had let the loft at a weekly rental to a man whom he did not know. Evidence, however, was stronger than assertion. It was proved that the farmer, subsequent to the flax-seed seizure mentioned above, frequently brought bags and bales of cake and leaf-tobacco to the tobacco merchant’s premises about six o’clock in the morning, and that it was spun during the night. The jury were inclined to think that the farmer was not so innocent as he pretended to be, and found a verdict for the Crown in the full amount claimed.

We have now, perhaps, given sufficient instances of wholesale smuggling to warrant the opinion that illicit traffic in dutiable articles is not yet confined to the sailor or fireman who ekes out a scanty wage by bringing a couple or three pounds of tobacco or a few bottles of spirits to dispose of at the end of a short continental voyage. We will, then, before bringing this paper to a conclusion, give a brief description of the methods of concealment now pursued in petty smuggling cases. One system, now happily on the wane, is known as that of ‘Coopering,’ and the method is as follows. For some years past, a number of Dutch vessels had taken up positions along the eastern coast just outside the ‘three-mile limit.’ Their object was to provide tobacco, spirits, and even obscene pictures to the fishermen who frequent the locality. The tobacco was of the vilest description; and the fiery, so-called brandy viler still. The fishermen, thinking that the Customs’ officers did not suspect, grew bold in their transactions, and bought tobacco and spirits right and left from the Dutch ‘Coopers.’ Suspicion was aroused, however, and a raid was made on the fishing-boats. Only a small quantity of dutiable articles was discovered; but, as it subsequently transpired that a fishing coble had slipped off to give warning of the raid to the vessels that were still coming in, and that suspicious parcels and stone bottles of foreign manufacture were thrown by many of these craft into the sea in full view of the people on the shore, the quantity discovered was by no means a criterion of the extent of the illicit traffic. It has been calculated that during the fishing season five hundred pounds of smuggled tobacco per week were consumed by the fishing population of a small port on the eastern coast, and that in a seaport fishing-town in the same district, of from twelve thousand to fifteen thousand inhabitants, the revenue was defrauded to the extent of from four thousand to five thousand pounds per annum.

The smuggler’s present methods of concealment, notwithstanding frequent detections, give evidence that if not so inventive as his more courageous predecessors, he still retains their faculty of hiding his contraband goods in places where they will probably be least suspected. A case occurred at Hull, in December 1883, which proves that perseverance at least is still an attribute possessed by the smuggler. On the arrival of a steamer at that port, the officers discovered in the donkey-engine boiler twenty-one pounds of tobacco. To effect the seizure, the officers were compelled to unscrew the manhole lid of the boiler; and on a consulting engineer being called to give evidence, he stated that it must have taken at least a couple of hours to stow the tobacco away. Another case of a similar nature occurred at Sunderland some time ago, when an engineer on board a steamer had a large tin made exactly to fit the manhole of a water-tank. The water-tight tin was packed with tobacco and sunk in the tank, so that the smuggler had to strip to get at it. With amusing candour, the prisoner explained, when brought before the magistrates, that ‘of course it was no use putting the can where the officers would easily find it.’ False-bottomed drawers and chests were formerly a favourite hiding-place for contraband goods; but the trick is now too well known to be safe.

Another method much in vogue in the old days of smuggling, but seldom practised now, was to conceal tobacco in loaves of bread specially baked for the purpose. This particular trick has not been lost sight of altogether. At Hull, in March 1884, on a Customs’ officer rummaging the firemen’s quarters on board a steamer, he found two loaves of bread baked in the German fashion. Taking them in his hand, he suspected the weight as being excessive, and cutting one in two with his knife, found four pounds of tobacco inside. The packages had been firmly tied together, and a thin crust baked over them.

An ingenious place of concealment was discovered by the officers at Hull in January 1883, when, on boarding a vessel from the continent, they found seventeen boxes of cigars concealed in the hollow of the port and starboard rails which surmounted the bulwarks. Underneath firewood, buried in ballast, hidden in chain lockers, beneath oilcloths, in the stuffing of sofa-pillows, behind cabin panels, in the empty interior of an innocent-looking cabin clock, in these and a thousand other places have the officers, from time to time, discovered the contraband of the smuggler; while it is known that the ropes apparently constituting the upper rigging of small craft have occasionally consisted of tobacco twisted into a resemblance of cordage!

From what we have written, it would appear that though smuggling on an extensive scale belongs more to past than to present days, yet the same spirit still exists among people, otherwise honest enough, whose education and social position ought to free them from thieving propensities. It is almost against human nature to expect that revenue frauds will ever be thoroughly eradicated while the present high duties on special commodities are maintained. The duty on tobacco, for instance, amounting to five times its value, makes it one of the greatest temptations to seamen. Most strenuous efforts on the part of the Customs’ authorities and shipowners have been made to eradicate the traffic, yet every now and then a successful detection—which represents three or four successful evasions—occurs, which shows that the spirit of smuggling is difficult to conquer.

IN ALL SHADES.

BY GRANT ALLEN,

Author of ‘Babylon,’ ‘Strange Stories,’ etc. etc.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The governor’s dance was the great event of the Trinidad season—the occasion to which every girl in the whole island looked forward for months with the intensest interest. And it was also a great event to Dr Whitaker; for it was the one time and place, except the Hawthorns’ drawing-room, where he could now meet Nora Dupuy on momentary terms of seeming equality. In the eye of the law, even in Trinidad, white men, black men, and brown men are all equal; and under the governor’s roof, as became the representative of law and order in the little island, there were no invidious distinctions of persons between European and negro. Every well-to-do inhabitant, irrespective of cuticular peculiarities, was duly bidden to the governor’s table: ebony and ivory mingled freely together once in a moon at the governor’s At Homes and dances. And Dr Whitaker had made up his mind that on that one solitary possible occasion he would venture on his sole despairing appeal to Nora Dupuy, and stand or fall by her final answer.

It was not without serious misgivings that the mulatto doctor had at last decided upon thus tempting Providence. He was weary of the terrible disillusion that had come upon him on his return to the home of his fathers; weary of the painfully vulgar and narrow world into which he had been cast by unrelenting circumstances. He could not live any longer in Trinidad. Let him fight it out as he would for the sake of his youthful ideals, the battle had clearly gone against him, and there was nothing left for him now but to give it up in despair and fly to England. He had talked the matter over with Edward Hawthorn—not, indeed, the question of proposing to Nora Dupuy, for that he held too sacred for any other ear, but the question of remaining in the island and fighting down the unconquerable prejudice—and even Edward had counselled him to go; for he felt how vastly different were the circumstances of the struggle in his own case and in those of the poor young mulatto doctor. He himself had only to fight against the social prejudices of men his real inferiors in intellect and culture and moral standing. Dr Whitaker had to face as well the utterly uncongenial brown society into which he had been rudely pitchforked by fate, like a gentleman into the midst of a pot-house company. It was best for them all that Dr Whitaker should take himself away to a more fitting environment; and Edward had himself warmly advised him to return once more to free England.

The governor’s dance was given, not at Government House in the Plains, but at Banana Garden, the country bungalow, perched high up on a solitary summit of the Westmoreland mountains. The big ballroom was very crowded; and Nora Dupuy, in a pale, maize-coloured evening dress, was universally recognised by black, brown, and white alike as the belle of the evening. She danced almost every round with one partner after another; and it was not till almost half the evening had passed away that Dr Whitaker got the desired chance of even addressing her. The chance came at last just before the fifth waltz, a dance that Nora had purposely left vacant, in case she should happen to pick up in the earlier part of the evening an exceptionally agreeable and promising partner. She was sitting down to rest for a moment beside her chaperon of the night, on a bench placed just outside the window in the tropical garden, when the young mulatto, looking every inch a gentleman in his evening dress—the first time Nora had ever seen him so attired—strolled anxiously up to her, with ill-affected carelessness, and bowed a timid bow to his former travelling companion. Pure opposition to Mr Dupuy, and affection for the two Hawthorns, had made Nora exceptionally gracious just that moment to all brown people; and, on purpose to scandalise her ‘absurdly punctilious’ chaperon, she returned the doctor’s hesitating salute with a pleasant smile of perfect cordiality. ‘Dr Whitaker!’ she cried, leaning over towards him in a kindly way, which made the poor mulatto’s heart flutter terribly; ‘so here you are, as you promised! I’m so glad you’ve come this evening.—And have you brought Miss Whitaker with you?’

The mulatto hesitated and stammered. She could not possibly have asked him a more mal à propos question. The poor young man looked about him feebly, and then answered in a low voice: ‘Yes; my father and sister are here somewhere.’

‘Nora, my dear,’ her chaperon said in a tone of subdued feminine thunder, ‘I didn’t know you had the pleasure of Miss Whitaker’s acquaintance.’

‘Neither have I, Mrs Pereira; but perhaps Dr Whitaker will be good enough to introduce me.—Not now, thank you, Dr Whitaker; I don’t want you to run away this minute and fetch your sister. Some other time will do as well. It’s so seldom, you know, we have the chance of a good talk now, together.’

Dr Whitaker smiled and stammered. It was possible, of course, to accept Nora’s reluctance in either of two senses: she might be anxious that he should stop and talk to her; or she might merely wish indefinitely to postpone the pleasure of making Miss Euphemia’s personal acquaintance; but she flooded him so with the light of her eyes as she spoke, that he chose to put the most flattering of the two alternative interpretations upon her ambiguous sentence.

‘You are very good to say so,’ he answered, still timidly; and Nora noticed how very different was his manner of speaking now from the self-confident Dr Whitaker of the old Severn days. Trinidad had clearly crushed all the confidence as well as all the enthusiasm clean out of him. ‘You are very good, indeed, Miss Dupuy; I wish the opportunities for our meeting occurred oftener.’

He stood talking beside her for a minute or two longer, uttering the mere polite commonplaces of ballroom conversation—the heat of the evening, the shortcomings of the band, the beauty of the flowers—when suddenly Nora gave a little jump and seized her programme with singular discomposure. Dr Whitaker looked up at once, and divined by instinct the cause of her hasty movement. Tom Dupuy, just fresh from the cane-cutting, was looking about for her down the long corridor at the opposite end of the inner garden. ‘Where’s my cousin? Have you seen my cousin?’ he was asking everybody; for the seat where Nora was sitting with Mrs Pereira stood under the shade of a big papaw tree, and so it was impossible for him to discern her face, though she could see his features quite distinctly.

‘I won’t dance with that horrid man, my cousin Tom!’ Nora said in her most decided voice. ‘I’m quite sure he’s coming here this minute on purpose to ask me.’

‘Is your programme full?’ Dr Whitaker inquired with a palpitating heart.

‘No; not quite,’ she answered, and handed it to him encouragingly. There was just one dance still left vacant—the next waltz. ‘I’m too tired to dance it out,’ Nora cried pettishly. ‘The horrid man! I hope he won’t see me.’

‘He’s coming this way, dear,’ Mrs Pereira put in with placid composure. ‘You’ll have to sit it out with him, now; there’s no help for it.’

‘Sit it out with him!—sit it out with Tom Dupuy! O no, Mrs Pereira; I wouldn’t do it for a thousand guineas.’

‘What will you do, then?’ Dr Whitaker asked tremulously, still holding the programme and pencil in his undecided hand. Dare he—dare he ask her to dance just once with him?

‘What shall I do?—Why, nothing simpler. Have an engagement already, of course, Dr Whitaker.’

She looked at him significantly. Tom Dupuy was just coming up. If Dr Whitaker meant to ask her, there was no time to be lost. His knees gave way beneath him, but he faltered out at last in some feeble fashion: ‘Then, Miss Dupuy, may I—may I—may I have the pleasure?’

To Mrs Pereira’s immense dismay, Nora immediately smiled and nodded. ‘I can’t dance it with you,’ she said with a hasty gesture—she shrank, naturally, from that open confession of faith before the whole assembled company—‘but if you’ll allow me, I’ll sit it out with you here in the garden. You may put your name down for it, if you like. Quickly, please—write it quickly; here’s Tom Dupuy just coming.’

The mulatto had hardly scratched his own name with shaky pencilled letters on the little card, when Tom Dupuy swaggered up in his awkward, loutish, confident manner, and with a contemptuous nod of condescending half-recognition to the overjoyed mulatto, asked, in his insular West Indian drawl, whether Nora could spare him a couple of dances.

‘Your canes seem to have delayed you too late, Tom Dupuy,’ Nora answered coldly. ‘Dr Whitaker has just asked me for my last vacancy. You should come earlier to a dance, you know, if you want to find a good partner.’

Tom Dupuy stared hard at her face in puzzled astonishment. ‘Your last vacancy!’ he cried incredulously. ‘Dr Whitaker! No more dances to spare, Nora! No, no, I say; this won’t do, you know! You’ve done this on purpose.—Let me have a squint at your programme, will you?’

‘If you don’t choose to take my word for the facts,’ Nora answered haughtily, ‘you can see the names and numbers of my engagements for yourself on my programme.—Dr Whitaker, have the kindness to hand my cousin my programme, if you please.—Thank you.’

Tom Dupuy took the programme ungraciously, and glanced down it with an angry eye. He read every name out aloud till he came to number eleven, ‘Dr Whitaker.’ As he reached that name, his lip curled with an ugly suddenness, and he handed the bit of cardboard back coldly to his defiant cousin. ‘Very well, Miss Nora,’ he answered with a sneer. ‘You’re quite at liberty, of course, to choose your own company however it pleases you. I see your programme’s quite full; but your list of names is rather comprehensive than select, I fancy.—The last name was written down as I was coming towards you. This is a plot to insult me.—Dr Whitaker, we shall settle this little difference elsewhere, probably—with the proper weapon—a horsewhip. Though your ancestors, to be sure, were better accustomed, I believe, sir, to a good raw cowhide.—Good-evening, Miss Nora.—Good-evening, Dr Whitaker.’

The mulatto’s eyes flashed fire, but he replied with a low and stately bow, in suppressed accents: ‘I shall be ready to answer you in this matter whenever you wish, Mr Dupuy—and with your own weapon. Good-evening.’ And he held out his arm quietly to Nora.

Nora rose and took the mulatto’s proffered arm at once with a sweeping air of utter indifference. ‘Shall we take a turn round the gardens, Dr Whitaker?’ she asked calmly, reassuring herself at the same time with a rapid glance that nobody except poor frightened Mrs Pereira had overheard this short altercation.—‘How lovely the moon looks to-night! What an exquisite undertone of green in the long shadows of those columns in the portico!’

‘Undertone of green!’ Tom Dupuy exclaimed aloud in vulgar derision (he was too much of a clod to see that his cue in the scene was fairly past, and that dignity demanded of him now to keep perfectly silent). ‘Undertone of green, indeed, with her precious nigger!—Mrs Pereira, this is your fault! A pretty sort of chaperon you make, upon my word, to let her go and engage herself to sit out a dance with a common mulatto!—Where’s Uncle Theodore? Where is he, I tell you? I shall run and fetch him this very minute. I always said that in the end that girl Nora would go and marry a woolly-headed brown man.’

CHAPTER XXIV.

Nora and the mulatto walked across the garden in unbroken silence, past the fountain in the centre of the courtyard; past the corridor by the open supper-room; past the hanging lanterns on the outer shrubbery; and down the big flight of stone steps to the gravelled Italian terrace that overlooked the deep tropical gully. When they reached the foot of the staircase, Nora said in as unconcerned a tone as she could muster up: ‘Let us walk down here, away from the house, Dr Whitaker. Tom may perhaps send papa out to look for me, and I’d rather not meet him till the next dance is well over. Please take me along the terrace.’

Dr Whitaker turned with her silently along the path, and uttered not a word till they reached the marble seat at the end of the creeper-covered balustrade. Then he sat down moodily beside her, and said in what seemed a perfectly unruffled voice: ‘Miss Dupuy, I am not altogether sorry that this little incident has turned out just as it has happened. It enables you to judge for yourself the sort of insult that men of my colour are liable to meet with here in Trinidad.’

Nora fingered her fan nervously. ‘Tom Dupuy’s always an unendurably rude fellow,’ she said, with affected carelessness. ‘He’s rude by nature, you know, that’s the fact of it. He’s rude to me. He’s rude to everybody. He’s a boor, Dr Whitaker; a boor at heart. You mustn’t take any notice of what he says to you.’

‘Yes; he is a boor, Miss Dupuy—and I shall venture to say so, although he’s your own cousin—but in what other country in the world would such a boor venture to believe himself able to look down upon other men, his equals in everything except an accident of colour?’

‘Oh, Dr Whitaker, you make too much altogether of his rudeness. It isn’t personal to you; it’s part of his nature.’

‘Miss Dupuy,’ the young mulatto burst out suddenly, after a moment’s pause and internal struggle, ‘I’m not sorry for it, as I said before; for it gives me the opportunity of saying something to you that I have long been waiting to tell you.’

‘Well?’—frigidly.

‘Well, it is this: I mean at once to leave Trinidad.’

Nora started. It was not quite what she was expecting. ‘To leave Trinidad, Dr Whitaker? And where to go? Back to England?’

‘Yes, back to England.—Miss Dupuy, for heaven’s sake, listen to me for a moment. This dance won’t be very long. As soon as it’s over, I must take you back to the ballroom. I have only these few short minutes to speak to you. I have been waiting long for them—looking forward to them; hoping for them; dreading them; foreseeing them. Don’t disappoint me of my one chance of a hearing. Sit here and hear me out: I beg of you—I implore you.’

Nora’s fingers trembled terribly, and she felt half inclined to rise at once and go back to Mrs Pereira; but she could not find it in her heart utterly to refuse that pleading tone of profound emotion, even though it came from only a brown man. ‘Well, Dr Whitaker,’ she answered tremulously, ‘say on whatever you have to say to me.’

‘I’m going to England, Miss Dupuy,’ the poor young mulatto went on in broken accents; ‘I can stand no longer the shame and misery of my own surroundings in this island. You know what they are. Picture them to yourself for a moment. Forget you are a white woman, a member of this old proud unforgiving aristocracy—“for they ne’er pardon who have done the wrong:” forget it for once, and try to think how it would feel to you, after your English up-bringing, with your tastes and ideas and habits and sentiments, to be suddenly set down in the midst of a society like that of the ignorant coloured class here in Trinidad. On the one side, contempt and contumely from the most boorish and unlettered whites; on the other side, utter uncongeniality with one’s own poor miserable people. Picture it to yourself—how absolutely unendurable!’

Nora bethought her silently of Tom Dupuy from both points of view, and answered in a low tone: ‘Dr Whitaker, I recognise the truth of what you say. I—I am sorry for you; I sympathise with you.’

It was a great deal for a daughter of the old slave-owning oligarchy to say—how much, people in England can hardly realise; and Dr Whitaker accepted it gratefully. ‘It’s very kind of you, Miss Dupuy,’ he went on again, the tears rising quickly to his eyes, ‘very, very kind of you. But the struggle is over; I can’t stand it any longer; I mean at once to return to England.’

‘You will do wisely, I think,’ Nora answered, looking at him steadily.

‘I will do wisely,’ he repeated in a wandering tone. ‘Yes, I will do wisely. But, Miss Dupuy, strange to say, there is one thing that still binds me down to Trinidad.—Oh, for heaven’s sake, listen to me, and don’t condemn me unheard.—No, no, I beg of you, don’t rise yet! I will be brief. Hear me out, I implore of you, I implore of you! I am only a mulatto, I know; but mulattoes have a heart as well as white men—better than some, I do honestly believe. Miss Dupuy, from the very first moment I saw you, I—I loved you! yes, I will say it—I loved you!—I loved you!’

Nora rose, and stood erect before him, proud but tremulous, in her girlish beauty. ‘Dr Whitaker,’ she said, in a very calm tone, ‘I knew it; I saw it. From the first moment you ever spoke to me, I knew it perfectly.’

He drew a long breath to still the violent throbbing of his heart. ‘You knew it,’ he said, almost joyously—‘you knew it! And you did not repel me! Oh, Miss Dupuy, for one of your blood and birth, that was indeed a great condescension!’

Nora hesitated. ‘I liked you, Dr Whitaker,’ she answered slowly—‘I liked you, and I was sorry for you.’

‘Thank you, thank you. Whatever else you say, for that one word I thank you earnestly. But oh, what more can I say to you? I love you; I have always loved you. I shall always love you in future. Take me or reject me, I shall always love you. And yet, how can I ask you? But in England—in England, Miss Dupuy, the barrier would be less absolute.—Yes, yes; I know how hopeless it is: but this once—this once only! I must ask you! Oh, for pity’s sake, in England—far away from it all—in London—where nobody thinks of these things! Why, I know a Hindu barrister—— But there! it’s not a matter for reasoning; it lies between heart and heart! Oh, Miss Dupuy, tell me—tell me, tell me, is there—is there any chance for me?’

Nora’s heart relented within her. ‘Dr Whitaker,’ she said slowly and remorsefully, ‘you can’t tell how much I feel for you. I can see at once what a dreadful position you are placed in. I can see, of course, how impossible it is for you ever to think of marrying any—any lady of your own colour—at least as they are brought up here in Trinidad. I can see that you could only fall in love with—with a white lady, a person fitted by education and manners to be a companion to you. I know how clever you are, and I think I can see how good you are too. I know how far all your tastes and ideas are above those of the people you must mix with here, or, for that matter, above Tom Dupuy’s—or my own either. I see it all; I know it all. And indeed, I like you—I admire you, and I like you. I don’t want you to think me unkind and unappreciative.—Dr Whitaker, I feel truly flattered that you should speak so to me this evening—but’—— And she hesitated. The young mulatto felt that that ‘but’ was the very deathblow to his last faint hope and aspiration. ‘But—— Well, you know these things are something more than a mere matter of liking and admiring. Let us still be friends, Dr Whitaker—let us still be friends.—And there’s the band striking up the next waltz. Will you kindly take me back to the ballroom? I—I am engaged to dance it with Captain Castello.’

‘One second, Miss Dupuy—for God’s sake, one second! Is that final? Is that irrevocable?’

‘Final, Dr Whitaker—quite final. I like you; I admire you; but I can never, never—never accept you!’

The mulatto uttered a little low sharp piercing cry. ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed in an accent of terrible despair, ‘then it is all over—all, all over!’ Next instant he had drawn himself together with an effort again, and offering Nora his arm with constrained calmness, he began to lead her back towards the crowded ballroom. As he neared the steps, he paused once more for a second, and almost whispered in her ear in a hollow voice: ‘Thank you, thank you for ever for at least your sympathy!’

MAN-LIKE APES—AND MAN.

Man-like, or in scientific parlance, Anthropoid Apes, are distinguished from others of the monkey tribe on account of their greater size and their greater resemblance to the human species. Within the last quarter of a century, they have, owing to the growing prominence of the doctrine of evolution, been raised to a much higher place than before as subjects of study for the naturalist, the scientist, the philosopher. From being little other than mere curiosities in animal life, they have become important objects of psychological inquiry, and have taken their place as factors not to be overlooked in the elevated regions of speculative thought. This is due almost solely to the change that has passed over our methods of studying animal life. We have ceased to regard the lower creatures as little better than pieces of living mechanism, and have come to view them as vital steps in the great ladder of progression which connects the higher with the lower orders of organic existence. Hence it is not now a matter of wonder that a whole volume of the ‘International Scientific Series’ should be devoted to the study of Man-like Apes. The volume, Anthropoid Apes (London: Kegan Paul & Co.), is from the pen of Professor Hartmann of Berlin, and forms the fifty-third of the above valuable series of works.

On account, says the author, of their external bodily characteristics, of their anatomical structure, and their highly developed intelligence, Anthropoids not only stand first among apes, but they take a still higher place, approximating to the human species. Their fossil remains carry us into a far-back period of prehistoric time; and even within historic times, we have them mentioned as early as 500 B.C. They were then known to the Carthaginians, who call them ‘gorillai,’ and describe them as hairy silvan creatures who replied to the attacks of the seafarers by throwing stones at them.

The gorilla, the chimpanzee, the orang-utan, and the gibbon, are the chief of the animals included under the title Anthropoid Apes. They differ from each other and among themselves in external form according to the age and sex, the difference between the sexes being most strongly marked in the gorilla, and least apparent in the gibbon. ‘When a young male gorilla is compared with an aged animal of the same species, we are almost tempted to believe that we have to do with two entirely different creatures.’ Into the distinguishing physiological peculiarities of the external form of these creatures, we cannot of course enter here, and must refer to the full and elaborate investigations placed on record by Professor Hartmann.

Among the Anthropoids, the gorilla, the ‘prototype of the species,’ deserves our notice first. The aged male gorilla, in the full strength of his bodily development, is a creature of terrible aspect. This animal, when standing upright, is more than six feet in height. The hinder part of the head is broader below than above, and the projecting arches above the eyes give a peculiar prominence to this part of the skull. ‘The dark eyes glow between the lids with a ferocious expression.’ The neck is very powerful, almost like that of a bull, and the shoulders are remarkable for their breadth. The arms are very long, and of enormous strength; but the legs short and feeble in proportion. The gorilla inhabits the forests of West Africa, and is sometimes seen in large numbers on the sea-coast, probably driven thither from the interior by a scarcity of food. The gorilla, moreover, lives in a society consisting of male and female, with their young of varying ages, and the family group inhabits the recesses of the forest. According to one observer, they frequent the same sleeping-place not more than three or four times consecutively, and usually spend the night wherever they happen to be when night comes on. The male gorilla chooses a suitable tree, not very high, and by twisting and bending the branches, constructs a kind of rude bed or nest for his family. He himself spends the night under the tree, and thus protects the female and their young from the nocturnal attacks of leopards, which are always ready to devour all species of apes. In the daytime, the gorillas roam through the forest in search of the favourite leaves or fruits which form their food.

In walking, gorillas place the backs of their closed fingers on the ground, or more rarely support themselves on the flat palm, while the bent soles of the feet are also in contact with the ground. Their gait is tottering; the movement of the body, which is never in an upright position as in man, but bent forward, rolls to some extent from one side to another. They are skilful climbers, and when ranging from tree to tree, will go to their very tops. The gorilla is regarded as a dreadful and very dangerous animal by the negroes who inhabit the same country; though Professor Hartmann considers that Du Chaillu’s descriptions are greatly exaggerated ‘for the benefit of his readers.’ When the animal is scared by man, he generally takes to flight screaming, and he only assumes the defensive if wounded or driven into a corner. At such times his size, strength, and dexterity combine to render him a formidable enemy. ‘He sends forth a kind of howl or furious yelp, stands up on his hind-legs like an enraged bear, advances with clumsy gait in this position and attacks his enemy. At the same time the hair on his head and the nape of his neck stands erect, his teeth are displayed, and his eyes flash with savage fury. He beats his massive breast with his fists, or beats the air with them. Koppenfels says that if no further provocation is given, and his opponent gradually retreats before the animal’s rage has reached its highest point, he does not return to the attack. In other cases he parries the blow directed against him with the skill of a practised fighter; and, as is also done by the bear, he grasps his opponent by the arm and crunches it, or else throws the man down and rends him with his terrible canine teeth.’

Enough of this silvan monster in his wild state. Let us turn to him in captivity; and we can only take one out of several individuals described. The one referred to was caught young, and gradually accustomed to a mixed diet preparatory to his being brought from Africa to Europe. While still with his first possessors, he was allowed to run about as he chose, being only watched as little children are watched. He clung to human companionship; showed no trace of mischievous, malicious, or savage qualities, but was sometimes self-willed. He expressed the ideas which occurred to him by different sounds, one of which was the characteristic tone of importunate petition, while other sounds expressed fright or horror, and in rare instances a sullen and defiant growl might be heard. In moments of exuberant satisfaction, he would raise himself on his hind-legs, rub his breast with both fists, or, after quite a human fashion, clap his hands together—this an action which no one had taught him. His dexterity in eating was particularly remarkable. He took up a cup or glass with instinctive care, clasped the vessel with both hands, and set it down again so softly and carefully that the narrator cannot remember his breaking a single article of household goods. ‘His behaviour at meal-times was quiet and mannerly; he only took as much as he could hold with his thumb, fore, and middle finger, and looked on with indifference when any of the different forms of food heaped up before him were taken away. If, however, nothing was given him, he growled impatiently, looked narrowly at all the dishes from his place at table, and accompanied every plate carried off by the negro boys with an angry snarl, or a short resentful cough, and sometimes he sought to seize the arm of the passer-by, in order to express his displeasure more plainly by a bite or a blow. He drank by suction, stooping over the vessel, without even putting his hands into it or upsetting it, and in the case of smaller vessels, he carried them to his mouth.’ He was clever in manifesting his wishes, and often expressed them in an urgent and caressing manner. Child-like, he took a special pleasure in making a noise by beating on hollow articles, and he seldom omitted an opportunity of drumming on casks, dishes, or tin trays, whenever he passed by them. After being brought to Berlin, however, he did not live long, dying of a ‘galloping consumption.’

The second species of anthropoid apes is the chimpanzee. The full-grown animal of this species is smaller than the adult gorilla. An aged male chimpanzee has broad, rather rounded shoulders, a powerful chest, long muscular arms reaching to the knees, and a long hand, which seems to be very slender in comparison with that of the gorilla. Like the latter animal, he is a denizen of forests, and subsists on wild fruits of various kinds. He lives either in separate families or in small groups of families. Where he inhabits the forest regions of Central Africa, his habits are more arboreal than those of the gorilla; elsewhere, as on the south-west coast, he seems to live more upon the ground. His gait is weak and vacillating, and he can stand erect but a short time. These animals send forth loud cries; and the horrible wails, the furious shrieks and howls that may be heard morning and evening, and often in the night, make these creatures truly hateful to travellers. When chimpanzees are attacked, they strike the ground with their hands, but they do not, as the gorilla does, beat their breasts with their fists. As for the penthouses which Du Chaillu asserts these animals build, Professor Hartmann is somewhat doubtful regarding them. An illustration of this structure, as given by Du Chaillu, has been imitated in London, but this, in Hartmann’s opinion, has been embellished. ‘Koppenfels believes that the so-called penthouse is only the family nest, under which the male places himself; while Reichenfels thinks it possible that some parasitic growth, perhaps a Loranthus, gave rise to the belief that such a penthouse is erected.’

A male chimpanzee, which was kept in the Berlin Aquarium in 1876, was remarkable for his excessive liveliness, and was on particularly friendly terms with a little two-year-old boy, the son of Dr Hermes, the director of the aquarium. ‘When the child entered the room, the chimpanzee ran to meet him, embraced and kissed him, seized his hand and drew him to the sofa, that they might play together. The child was often rough with his playfellow, pulling him by the mouth, pinching his ears, or lying on him, yet the chimpanzee was never known to lose his temper. He behaved very differently to boys between six and ten years old. When a number of schoolboys visited the office, he ran towards them, went from one to the other, shook one of them, bit the leg of another, seized the jacket of a third with the right hand, jumped up, and with the left gave him a sound box on the ear. In short, he played the wildest pranks. It seemed as if he were infected with the joyous excitement of youth, which induced him to riot with the troop of schoolboys.’

One day when Dr Hermes gave his nine-year-old son a slight tap on the head for some blunder in his arithmetic, the chimpanzee, who was also sitting at the table, thought it his duty likewise to show his displeasure, and gave the boy a sound box on the ear. If, again, Dr Hermes pointed out to him that some one was staring or mocking at him, and said: ‘Do not put up with it,’ the creature cried, ‘Oh! oh!’ and rushed at the person in question in order to strike or bite him, or express his displeasure in some other way. When he saw the director was writing, he often seized a pen, dipped it in the inkstand, and scrawled upon the paper. ‘He displayed a special talent for cleaning the window-panes of the aquarium. It was amusing to see him squeezing up the cloth, moistening the pane with his lips, and then rubbing it hard, passing quickly from one place to another.’

Of a female chimpanzee, Massica by name, kept in the Dresden Zoological Gardens, some extraordinary things are told. She was a remarkable creature, not only in her external habits, but in her disposition. ‘At one moment she would sit still with a brooding air, only occasionally darting a mischievous, flashing glance at the spectators; at another she took pleasure in feats of strength, or she roamed to and fro in her spacious inclosure like an angry beast of prey.’ She would sometimes rattle the bars of her cage with a violence that made the spectators uneasy; at other times would claw at people who entered the vestibule of her cage, and try to tear their clothes. She was fond of playing with old hats, which she set upon her head, and if the top was quite torn off, she drew it down upon her neck.

But Massica was frequently ungovernable. She hardly obeyed any one except Schöpf, the director of the gardens; and when in good-humour she would sit on his knee and put her muscular arms round his neck with a caressing gesture. But, in spite of this, he was never quite secure from her roguish tricks. She was able to use a spoon, though somewhat awkwardly; and she could pour from larger vessels into smaller ones without spilling the liquor. If she was left alone for any time, she tried to open the lock of her cage; and she once succeeded in doing so, but on that occasion she stole the key. It was kept hanging on the wall; and she, observing it, took it down, hid it in her armpit, and crept quietly back to her cage. When the occasion served her purpose, with the key she easily opened the lock, and walked out. She also knew how to use a gimlet, to wring out wet clothes, and to blow her nose with a handkerchief. If allowed to do so, she would draw off the keeper’s boots, then scramble with them up to some place out of reach, and, when he asked for them, throw them at his head. She, like the clever gorilla before described, died of consumption. When her illness began, she became apathetic, and looked about with a vacant, unobservant stare. Just before her death, she put her arms round Schöpf’s neck when he came to visit her, looked at him placidly, kissed him three times, stretched out her hands to him, and died. ‘The last moments of Anthropoids,’ remarks our author, ‘have their tragic side!’

Did space permit, we might give many other details of a similar character as to the habits of the orang-utan, the gibbon, and others of the larger apes, both in their wild state and in captivity; but the above are sufficient to illustrate the family to which they belong. A much more interesting matter remains to be considered, namely, what is called the ‘anthropomorphism’ of these creatures, that is, their relation physically to the highest of all the mammalia, man.

Professor Hartmann observes that Huxley’s statement, that the lowest apes are further removed from the highest apes than the latter are from men, is, according to his experience, still perfectly valid. ‘It cannot be denied that the highest order of the animal world is closely connected with the highest created being.’ But it does not follow therefrom that man is descended from apes, or is simply an improved kind of ape. There is, we fear, still prevailing among large sections of intelligent persons the belief that Darwin’s theory was intended to prove that the monkey was the progenitor of man. Of course no one who reads Darwin’s works for himself would ever go away with such a misconception of the whole question. What Darwin’s hypothesis suggested was, not that man was descended from the monkey, but that both man and the monkey may be descendants of a common progenitor, a common type, now extinct, and of which no indisputable traces have yet been found. From this common type, or ground-form, so to speak, the process of development may, according to Darwin, have resulted in two distinct branches or offshoots—the one branch of development ending in the monkey tribe, the other branch ending in man. It is, in the absence of any certain traces of the extinct common type or progenitor, not a subject on which to dogmatise, but is a theory or hypothesis which, in the opinion of Darwin and many other scientists after him, best accounts for the morphological development of man viewed merely from the physical side.

Professor Hartmann admits that his investigations have not brought the problem any nearer to a solution. A baby gorilla is much nearer in physical constitution to a human baby, than the full-grown gorilla is to the mature man; thus indicating that the process of development within the lifetime of an Anthropoid is not in the direction of improvement or further approximation to the human type, but is in the direction of retrogression, or further removal from the human type. ‘A great chasm,’ he says, ‘between Man and Anthropoids is constituted, as I believe, by the fact that the human race is capable of education, and is able to acquire the highest mental culture, while the most intelligent Anthropoid can only receive a certain mechanical training. And even to this training a limit is set by the surly temper displayed by Anthropoids as they get older.’ So that it would seem as if the development of the Anthropoids morally, if we may so use the word here, is, like their physical development, not one of progress or improvement in the individual. These larger apes, therefore, with all their striking resemblances to the human form, are not moving nearer towards Man, but merely remain Man-like.

SPIRITED AWAY.

IN THREE CHAPTERS.—CHAP. I.

It was about eight o’clock on a certain November evening in the year 188-, that I found myself one of a number of passengers disgorged from a train on the platform of the St Pancras Station. I was just turned nineteen years of age, and this was the first time I had set foot in London. My journey had been a long and tedious one, and I was thoroughly chilled and worn out when I stepped out of the carriage. I had started from home at six in the morning for a twelve miles’ walk to the nearest station, and after that, had spent hour after hour, first in one third-class carriage, and then in another, for my home was in a remote district many miles from any main line to the metropolis. I may just add that I had but lately recovered from a long illness, having outgrown my strength—or so my friends averred—and to that fact some portion of the weariness I now felt was no doubt attributable.

However, here I was at last, really and truly, in London—in the great city. It was the consummation of the dreams of my youth, as it is of the dreams of so many hundreds of ambitious, country-bred lads. I had no luggage to detain me, the sole article I had brought with me being a small handbag containing a few necessaries: my portmanteau was to follow in the course of a couple of days. As I was making my way towards the exit, I caught sight of the refreshment room. I had had nothing to eat since morning but a few biscuits, and now the pangs of hunger began to make themselves felt. I pushed open the swing-doors of the restaurant, and going up to the counter, I asked for a cup of coffee and a couple of sandwiches. While I was being served, I counted over again the small amount of money in my purse and asked myself whether I could afford to take a cab to my destination. Why not walk? The night was young, and the street in which my friend lived, being in the heart of London, could not be more than two or, at the most, three miles away. Besides, there seemed a spice of adventure, something that would serve me to talk about in time to come, in finding my way, utter stranger as I was, alone and by night through the streets of London—those streets about which I had read so much, and had so often pictured in my thoughts. I decided that I would walk.

Here it becomes needful to mention that my destination was the lodgings of a certain friend, whose name, for the purposes of this narrative, shall be Gascoigne. I call him my friend, and such he was, although he was four years older than myself. We were both natives of the same small country town; his parents and mine were old friends; and owing to the similarity of our tastes and pursuits, he and I had been much thrown together up to the date of his leaving home to push his fortunes in London. We had kept up an unbroken correspondence after his departure; and now that my father had lighted on evil days, and it became imperative that I should turn out into the world, Gascoigne had at once come to the rescue. I must leave home, he wrote, and take up my quarters with him till he should succeed in finding some situation that would be likely to suit me, which he had little doubt about being able to do in the course of a few weeks at the most. And thus it fell out that here I was in London.

Outside the station, I found a policeman, from whom I inquired my nearest way to the Strand, in a street off which thoroughfare Gascoigne’s rooms were situated. The night was damp and raw, with a sort of thin, wet mist in the atmosphere, which blurred the lamps and the lights in the shops a little way off, and made the pavement greasy and unpleasant to walk on. But little recked I about the weather. I was pacing London streets, and to me, for the time being, that was all-sufficient. The coffee had warmed me; the fatigue I had felt previously was forgotten as I walked on and on in a sort of waking dream. More than once I had to ask my way, and more than once I wandered from the direct road; but at length, after about an hour’s walking, I found the street I was in search of, and two minutes later I knocked at the door of No. 16. My summons was responded to by a middle-aged woman—Gascoigne’s landlady, as I afterwards found—who, in answer to my inquiry, informed me that my friend had been called out of town two days previously on important business, and was not expected home till the morrow. I turned from the door with a sinking heart, feeling more lost and lonely than I had ever felt before. I was in the heart of the great Babylon, and knew not a single soul out of all the teeming thousands around me. Presently, I found myself in the Strand again, and there I came to a halt for a little while, gazing on a scene so fresh and strange to me. The glare, the uproar, the interminable tangle of vehicles, the hundreds of human beings, young and old, rich and poor, passing ceaselessly to and fro, winding in and out without touching each other, like midges dancing in the sun—all these affected my spirits like a tonic, and in a very little while put all morbid fancies to flight. What if I were alone in London without a creature anywhere that I knew—there were thousands of others in a similar plight. Gascoigne would be back on the morrow, and for this one night I must make shift with a bed at some decent coffee-house or inexpensive hotel. It was too early yet to think of turning in; it would be time enough an hour hence to set about finding quarters for the night.

I wandered on, heedless whither my footsteps might lead me, my weariness all but forgotten in the novelty of the scenes which met my country-bred eyes at every turn. As the clocks were striking ten, I found myself on one of the bridges, gazing over the parapet at the black-flowing river as it washed and swirled through the arches under my feet. A thick fog was slowly creeping up, and even while I was gazing at the fringe of lamps on some other bridge, its dark mantle closed round them, and shut them in as completely as though they had never been. A few minutes later, the fog had reached the spot where I was standing, and had caught me in a damp, sickly embrace, which in a very little while sufficed to chill me to the marrow, and blotted out as completely as with a wet sponge all the seething world around me.

When I began to move again after my halt, I realised for the first time how thoroughly weary and dead-beat I was, and that I must no longer delay seeking out a lodging for the night. The fog was thickening fast, and it was impossible to see more than three or four yards in any direction. In my bewilderment, instead of turning back towards the Strand side of the bridge, as my intention was, I seem to have unwittingly crossed to the Surrey side, seeing that, a few minutes later, I found myself in a maze of narrow, tortuous streets, in which gin palaces and fried-fish shops seemed to be the chief places of entertainment.

I wandered on, turning from one thoroughfare into another, feeling in that thick, black fog more utterly lost and bewildered, even in the streets of London, than I should have done if set down at midnight in the heart of Salisbury Plain with nothing but the stars to guide me on my way. In the district in which I now found myself there seemed to be no small hotels where a stranger might find cheap but decent accommodation for the night—nothing but flaring taverns and low coffee-shops. Three or four of these latter I passed which, even dead-beat as I was, I could not summon up courage to enter—they looked too unsavoury and repulsive to a youth of countrified tastes like myself. At length I came to one which seemed more promising than any I had yet seen—cleaner and neater in every way, as far as I could judge by peering through the window. It was merely a coffee-shop, with some cups and saucers and a few muffins, teacakes, and other comestibles in the window; but what had more attraction for me than anything else was the welcome legend, ‘Good Beds,’ painted in black letters on the lamp over the door. I hesitated no longer, but pushed open the swing-doors and entered.

My first glance round showed me that the place was one much frequented by foreigners; and when the cafetier himself came down the room to inquire my pleasure, I saw at once that, whatever else his nationality might be, he was certainly not an Englishman. My wants were simple—a chop and some coffee. I put the question of bed aside for the present, till I should have seen more of the place and its frequenters. The cafetier answered me with much politeness, but in very broken English, that my requirements should be at once attended to, and that, meanwhile—with a comprehensive wave of his hand—the newspapers, English and foreign, were at the service of monsieur. He did not look much like a coffee-house keeper, with his long grizzled hair, his high bald forehead, his dark deep-set eyes, in each of which glowed a spark of vivid fire, and his thin white hands; there seemed about him too much of the air of a man of breeding and education for such an occupation.

He was still addressing himself to me, when there was a sudden irruption into the room of a little black-eyed, short-haired, bullet-headed waiter, French or Swiss most probably, in a black jacket and short white apron, who, dancing up to me, took possession of me at once, divined my wants in a moment, and pirouetted off to fetch me my coffee, pending the cooking of my chop, leaving his master extinguished, so to speak, both morally and physically. ‘Ah, Jean will attend to monsieur,’ said the latter, putting his hands to his sides and straightening his long thin back. ‘Jean, he is a good fellow, and will make monsieur comfortable.’ And with that he lounged slowly away to a small counter at the upper end of the room, behind which he seated himself, and became at once immersed in the perusal of some foreign journal.

I was still looking at him, sitting with my arms folded over the table, when my eyelids closed unconsciously, and I dropped asleep as I sat—but only for a few moments, for Jean was quickly at my side with the coffee and a roll, flicking some imaginary crumbs off the table with his serviette as a polite way of arousing me. A draught of coffee imparted new life to me for a time, and I could afford to look round with some degree of curiosity. In all, there were about a dozen people in the place. Two or three customers got up and went away, while others came in and took their places. Others there were who seemed habitual frequenters of the place, and sat playing draughts or dominoes, smoking their cigarettes, and sipping at their coffee or chocolate between times. Only one here and there was English; the rest of them were unmistakable foreigners, of various types and nationalities, but all readily recognisable as such even to my untutored eyes. Nimble-handed Jean was equal to the requirements of each and all.

Seated at one of the narrow tables on the opposite side of the room, and facing the door, was a man who took my attention more than any one there, the cafetier excepted. He was a full-cheeked, heavy-browed man, not tall, but strongly built, and with something of that added corpulence which so often comes with middle age. He had close-cropped iron-gray hair, which stood out like a stiff stubble in every direction; but his moustache and imperial were jet black, and therefore presumably dyed. He had a rather thick aquiline nose, and he wore a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles; but once or twice I caught a glance from his eyes, which were steel-gray in colour, so keen and piercing, that his assumption of artificial aid for them seemed somewhat of a mockery. He was dressed in a tightly buttoned black frock-coat, and wore a wisp of black ribbon round his neck, tied in a formal little bow under his turn-down collar. His trousers were dark gray in colour, and his feet were incased in a pair of broad-toed varnished boots. His rather large plump hands were white and shapely, and his filbert nails were carefully trimmed. He looked so superior to the general run of the other frequenters of the coffee-shop whom I had hitherto seen, that he had an air of being altogether out of place. He neither spoke to nor was addressed by any one except Jean, who served him with his chocolate, but seemed immersed in the contents first of one foreign newspaper and then of another, several of which were spread on the table in front of him. Still, notwithstanding his seeming indifference to everything that was going on around him, an impression somehow got possession of me that not a man entered or left the place without being keenly scrutinised from behind those gold-rimmed spectacles, while more than once I had an uneasy consciousness that I was the object who was being photographed by that coldly penetrative gaze.

As soon as I had finished my chop, Jean came to clear the table, upon which I took the opportunity of saying to him: ‘I shall require a bed here to-night. I suppose you can find room for me?’

He stared at me for a moment or two in open-eyed astonishment. Then he said: ‘Monsieur is mistaken. We have no beds for strangers here.’

‘Then why have you the announcement of “Good Beds” painted up on the lamp outside?’ I demanded a little hotly.

Jean shrugged his shoulders. ‘Ah, that is a mistake—all at once a mistake,’ he answered with his strong French accent. ‘The Englishman who had this place before Monsieur Karavich, used to let out beds; but Monsieur Karavich, who has been here but two months, does not. No.’

At this juncture M. Karavich himself appeared on the scene. He had come to ascertain what the discussion was about. He put a question to Jean in French, and the latter answered him volubly in the same language.

‘Jean is right, monsieur,’ said the cafetier to me in his broken English, which I had some difficulty in comprehending, and with an air of polite deprecation. ‘We do not let out beds to strangers. The lamp shall be altered to-morrow. I am sorry—truly sorry, monsieur.’

‘So am I sorry,’ I answered stoutly. ‘I am an utter stranger in London, never having set foot in it till three hours ago, and I know no more where I am than the man in the moon. Besides, think of the fog! What am I, a stranger, to do if turned out into the midst of it? You can surely find me a bed somewhere. I don’t care how humble it is—and it’s only for one night. Put your head outside the door, monsieur, and see for yourself whether on such a night you would turn even a dog into the streets.’

The cafetier spoke to Jean in some language with which I had no acquaintance. Jean replied volubly as usual. Then the cafetier spoke again, but this time his voice had an imperative tone in it such as I had not noticed before. Jean turned pale, and replied, not in words, but by turning out the palms of his hands and spreading wide his fingers. It was an answer replete with significance. Turning to me, the cafetier said, in his slow, hesitating tones: ‘I will find monsieur a bed. He is a stranger and an Englishman and claims my hospitality: that is enough for Fedor Karavich.’

I did not fail to thank him. He smiled faintly, made me a little bow, and went slowly back to his counter. When I turned my eyes on Jean, he was scowling at me most unmistakably. What could I possibly have done to annoy the sprightly little man?

The stranger with the gold spectacles pushed away his newspapers and rose to go. Jean helped him on with his fur-lined overcoat, and as he did so, a quick whisper passed between the two. Then Jean left him. The stranger put on his hat, and coming down a pace or two till he stood close by the end of my table, he proceeded to leisurely button up his coat. I happened to look up, and our eyes met. The stranger smiled, and said in a soft, pleasant voice, in which there was the faintest perceptible trace of a foreign accent: ‘Pardon, but I think I heard monsieur say just now that he was a stranger in London. Is that not so?’

‘Quite a stranger,’ I replied. ‘I only arrived here three hours ago, and was never in London before.’

I was glad to have some one to speak to, were it only this pleasant-voiced foreigner; it seemed in some measure to take off the edge of my loneliness.

‘Again pardon,’ said the other; ‘but monsieur would naturally find the fog outside rather bewildering? Ah, your English climate! He would be puzzled, for instance, to find his way from this house to Charing Cross, or even to the nearest bridge; is it not so?’

‘Faith, you’re right there,’ I answered with a laugh. ‘I have not the slightest idea of the locality of this house, nor even on which side the river it is situated. But daylight will solve my difficulties in that respect.’

‘Ah, that daylight is a great tell-tale,’ answered the stranger with the ghost of a shrug. ‘Bon soir, monsieur; I hope you will sleep well, and have pleasant dreams.’

Again the same inscrutable smile flitted across his face. Raising his hat slightly, he pushed open the swing-doors, and passed out into the fog and darkness.

It was growing late by this time. Besides myself, there were only two customers now left in the place, who seemed still as intent on their game of dominoes as they had been when I went in. Summoning Jean, I asked to be shown to my room.

I think the bedroom into which I was presently inducted was the very smallest in which it was ever my lot to sleep, while the bed itself was so short, that a tall lanky fellow such as I was might well wonder how his length of limb was to be packed away in so small a compass. On turning down the bedclothes, the sheets and pillow-cases, to my countrified eyes, accustomed to the snowiest of linen, looked far too dingy to be at all inviting. It seemed to me that they had not been changed for a considerable period; but be that as it may, I had no inclination to trust myself into too close contact with their dubious purity. I was tired enough to sleep anywhere, and had there been anything in the shape of an easy-chair in the room, I would have made that my couch for the night. What I did was to take off my collar, boots, and coat, lie down on the bed, turn up the counterpane over me on both sides, and lay my coat over that. Thousands in London that night had a far worse bed than mine. Leaving the end of candle which Jean had given me to burn itself out, three minutes later I was in a sound dreamless sleep.

FORTUNE.

By a deplorable limitation of the meaning of the word, it has come about that the idea suggested to most minds by the expression ‘fortune’ or ‘a fortunate man’ is the accumulation of wealth. It would seem, therefore, that, in the popular estimation, no man is fortunate who is not in the possession of riches. A little thought, above all a little experience of life, will soon convince us that this is not the case; and so far is it from being true, that wealth will be found to be but a small and solitary factor in those various accidents or providences of our lives from which we derive our happiness. The sordid wooer in the ballad, who asked, ‘What is your fortune, my pretty maid?’ knew of no fortune beside that of riches. The pretty and witty maid knew better. ‘My face is my fortune, sir,’ she said; and let in a flood of unaccustomed light upon the benighted mind of her baffled suitor, to whom it had never occurred that fortune might consist in beauty and the qualities that win love and admiration.

It is doubtful whether a man who, by a stroke or two of the pen, can flutter the innocent dovecots of the Exchange, is, by virtue of that power, any happier than the humble farmer whose year’s income may be straitened by one night’s rain. Far in advance of wealth, in estimating what meed of fortune has fallen to any man’s lot, should be placed health, upon the state of which our welfare so largely depends, and the preservation of which is so nearly contingent upon the method of life we adopt. Riches without health do not bring with them the capacity for their enjoyment; and yet how many of us waste the latter in the pursuit of the former! The merchant who rises early and toils till a late hour at his desk in the sunless city office for the sake of amassing money, has generally advanced far beyond middle age before his object is attained, and finds then that he has lost the faculty of enjoyment. Leisure has become a weariness to him; the pursuits for which he once coveted it have lost their attraction for him; the studies he once desired opportunities to follow up, have lost their interest; he has no longer the robust health and bodily strength demanded for the sports and pastimes which once seemed to him to make life worth living. Without the accustomed occupation, the day is a blank; he must still journey to the office, still add sovereign to sovereign, and take what comfort is possible from the reflection that another may perhaps spend them, and that they may serve to keep in ease and idleness one who never worked for them—a poor and second-hand solace, indeed, for no man yet ever started life with the intention of acquiring wealth for the sole benefit of his successor. The proper image of such a man, wearing out his days in the dull monotonous round of business, is the ass in the great hollow wheel of the water-well in Carisbrooke Castle, which walks for ever up-hill, but which never advances, and never rises, and the end of whose labour is to draw water that others may drink it.

With numerically unimportant exceptions, we have all to toil for our living; and it is probable that that man is most truly described as fortunate who at the outset in life has chosen work in which he can take pleasure. To labour during the best hours of the day in hatred or contempt of the task, for the sake of the few hours of leisure that are thereby earned, will in the long-run weaken the moral fibre and lower the vitality; and those hours of leisure will probably be wasted when won. But he who has been fortunate enough to find work for his hands to do which will bring him food and shelter, and in which at the same time his soul can rejoice, will lay aside his task with a spirit fresh for a new study, a new enterprise, or with a zest for innocent and healthy enjoyment.

The artist who labours to create forms, hues, and ideas of beauty; the author who enriches the world with fresh treasures of thought; the physician whose aim and whose reward is to relieve suffering; the carpenter to whom his craft is a pride and a triumph; the labourer in the field who loves the soil he tills, and delights to watch from season to season the checkered success of his operations: these, and such as these, are the truly fortunate men, into whose annual money-winnings we have no need to inquire before pronouncing them happy. Here, again, our lot is to a large extent in our own hands; for though we have not all the professions and occupations of life offered to our choice, yet some selection is open to us, and it behoves us to choose both wisely and boldly, and it is an instance where boldness is often wisdom. Even where the choice presented to us is so narrow as seemingly to preclude all chance of satisfying our aspirations, there is but little work in the world which we cannot ennoble by our method of performing it and by the spirit in which we undertake it. The ideal life which presents us with the spectacle of the Master washing the feet of his disciples and kneading the common clay of the ground, teaches us how to invest with dignity the meanest labour of our hands. From the examples of Chaucer, whose pen ‘moved over bills of lading,’ and of Burns, whose feet trod deep into the miry furrows behind the plough he guided, we may learn that while a humble toil cannot degrade the man, a man may infinitely ennoble the toil. Let us but once recognise that it is necessary and right that any piece of work should be done, and that it has fallen to our lot to do it, and a genuine pleasure may be derived from its thorough performance. ‘The manly part,’ says Emerson, ‘is to do with might and main what you can do.’ Indifference as to the excellence of the work turned out, hurried or perfunctory or slovenly execution, will result in lethargy and self-dissatisfaction; while a right pride in a piece of good work well done will leave the nerves braced and not relaxed, and the faculties developed instead of diminished.

Fortunate, again, beyond the power of mishap to depress, is the man who is endowed with such elasticity of spirit that he can shake off the anxieties and wearinesses of the mind in the mere delight of existence; to whom the fresh breath of morning as he rises, the sense of bodily strength as he steps forth into the open air, the consciousness of vigour as he performs his mid-day toil, the assurance of sound sleep as he lays his head on the pillow at night, can bring oblivion of the losses or the disappointments of yesterday. And, once more, a measure of this good fortune is within the reach of most of us. The temper that broods over trouble, that cries over spilt milk, and forebodes unrealised ills, is one easy indeed to yield to, but one which can be put to rout with a little fortitude and resolve; and, that once achieved, the energies necessary for the retrieval of our position will quickly reassert themselves.

Highly favoured, too, of fortune is the man who has been born with an ear and a heart for Music, with an eye and a heart for Art and Nature, and with a brain and a heart for Poetry; for veritably in these are to be found the most inexhaustible riches, the most enduring delights, the most exalting pleasures. But it would be unavailing to attempt to capitulate the various gifts that birth or accident confers which are worthy to be regarded as good fortune. A moment’s reflection is all that is needed to prove that opulence is but a small and single item among the infinite number of such gifts; and the sordid tendency of the mind, and the liability of words to become restricted in their meaning and debased in their application, is evinced in the narrowed signification of opulence ascribed by common usage to the word ‘fortune.’ We live in a money-grasping age, and it is well to call to mind from time to time that guineas are not the only counters with which the game of life is played and won or lost, and that our banker is not, after all, the best judge of our fortune.

THE IVORY TRADE.

There is no doubt in the world but that American trade is being admirably served by American consuls in every part of the world. The Reports which these gentlemen send are not only written in an interesting manner, but embrace nearly every subject that can be of service to the industrial occupations of any country. Among recent Reports is one by Mr Consul Webster on ivory so far as it relates to the Sheffield cutlery trade; and as his Report embraces nearly every matter connected with this trade—though some of his figures are not very new—the facts cannot fail to be of interest to this country also. From the Report, it appears that in 1880 there were imported 13,435 cwt. of ivory from the following countries; British East Indies sent us 2972 cwt.; west coast of Africa, 2310 cwt.; Egypt, 2003 cwt.; British possessions in South Africa, 1114 cwt.; the native states, east coast of Africa, 1099 cwt.; Aden, 693 cwt.; France, 612 cwt.; Holland, 431 cwt.; Malta, 411 cwt.; Portuguese possessions, West Africa, 361 cwt.; British possessions, West Africa, 162 cwt.; and all other countries, 1267 cwt.

Malta is the port of shipment to England of ivory that finds its way to Tripoli and other points on the north coast of Africa. To Holland, ivory is brought from her possessions on the coast of Africa. France receives but little except what has been purchased in England, portions of which are sometimes returned. The Bombay, Siam, and Zanzibar ivory is bought for the making of piano keys, carvings, and other expensive articles of luxury. All ivory from the east coast of Africa, except the Cape, comes through Zanzibar, and pays a royalty to the sultan. This is known to the trade by a mark—a rude figure of an elephant—that is put upon it after the payment of this royalty. Mr Webster calls attention to the fact that this mark is often erased from tusks that are to be sent to the United States from the English sales, and suggests that this is done to prevent identification, and evade the extra duty chargeable on all ‘goods the produce of countries east of the Cape of Good Hope, when imported from places west of the Cape of Good Hope.’ It will be news to most of us in this country that the United States thus tries to prohibit, where possible, the purchase of raw material through the European markets.

Mammoth tusks of ivory occasionally come to this country from Siberia; but as these have been lying exposed for centuries, and probably for many thousands of years, and often buried in ice, the ‘nature’ has gone out of them, and they are not fit for the cutler’s use. The teeth of the walrus and hippopotamus are used in considerable quantity, and being of suitable size, are used whole for making expensive carved handles. Ivory of the best quality comes from the west coast of Africa, under the names of Cameroon, Angola, and Gaboon ivory. This is brought down from the interior, and retains a larger proportion of the ‘fat’ or gelatine, from the fact, probably, that it is more recently from the animal. In this state it is called ‘green’ ivory. It is more translucent, and not so white as the Egyptian and other kinds, called ‘white’ ivory, that have been lying a longer time and in a more sandy region, and exposed to the heat of the sun until the animal matter has disappeared. The excellence of the ‘green’ ivory consists in its greater toughness and in its growing whiter by age, instead of yellow, as is the case with the whiter varieties. Yet buyers of cutlery, through ignorance of these qualities, usually prefer the whiter kinds, which on that account are more in demand for the Sheffield trade, and have more than doubled in price since 1879. The sales of ivory occur every three months at London and Liverpool, and sales are also held to a limited extent and at irregular intervals at Rotterdam. At Liverpool, only ivory of the best quality, and from the west coast of Africa, is offered. Buyers from Germany and France and agents of American consumers attend these sales; and it is estimated that about one quarter of the whole amount goes to Sheffield, another quarter to London, and the other half to Germany, France, and the United States.

Turning from the sources and sale of ivory, we next have some very interesting facts relating to its manufacture. The experienced eye is quick to discern the value of a lot of ivory, when—which is essential—it is guided by a knowledge of the country from which it comes. It is also said that the electric light is beginning to be used to test the soundness of the tusks. There is just now great anxiety as to the future supply of ivory. The stocks in public warehouses are smaller than for many years past, and the rapid increase in prices is causing great anxiety to manufacturers. At a recent sale at Liverpool, the best African ivory sold by the ton at over twelve shillings and sixpence per pound. This will explain the fact that the principal factor in the value of the best table cutlery is the handle. When the ivory comes into the hands of the cutler, much skill is required to make the most of the precious material, and every scrap is turned to account. After cutting out the scales of all sizes for pocket-knives, and the solid handles for table cutlery, the small pieces are usually sold to the button-makers, or maybe made into ‘pearls.’ These latter are the small pieces of ivory, pearl, or horn inserted into the handles of tea and coffee pots as non-conductors of heat, and are so called because they were originally made of pearl. The fine sawdust is sold for fertilising purposes, for the manufacture of gelatine, and for making a fine white sizing used in the manufacture of lace curtains and other fabrics. The refuse still remaining goes to the makers of ivory black. The proportion of this residuum is about fifteen pounds to the hundredweight, and sells at from sixteen to twenty pounds per ton. Many efforts have been made to devise some method for the solidification of ivory dust, but as yet without success. Great skill is required in the cutting of ivory, as of wood, to bring out the beauty of the grain. The saw of the cutter occasionally reveals a rifle-ball that has been lodged in the tusk, and that has been completely covered over by subsequent growth. About one-third the length of the tusk, where it enters the head of the elephant, is hollow. This hollow, when the tusk is in place upon the live animal, is filled with a soft pulp or core, which supplies the growth of the tusk. A ball lodged in this core will in time be imbedded in the solid ivory. This hollow portion is cut off and sold separately, except the thinnest portion, as bangle ivory, and is in great demand for bangles or ornamental rings for the ankles and arms of Indian and African women. That portion of the tusk towards the point is usually more solid and of finer grain. This is cut off and sold by itself at high prices under the name of billiard-ball points. Small teeth of from ten to fifteen pounds-weight are called in the trade ‘scrivelloes.’ The points of these small tusks are used in their natural state for making handles for expensive carving sets and for other articles of luxury. The large proportion of very small tusks which are now brought to market annually is a sure indication of the increasing number of elephants that die young. To show to what size these tusks might attain, the American consul states that there was in a Sheffield showroom an African elephant’s tusk nine feet long, twenty-one inches in girth, and weighing one hundred and sixty pounds. The value of the tusk was one hundred and thirty pounds, and it is said that an animal large enough and strong enough to carry such a pair would attract far more attention than Jumbo did. In the nine years which ended with 1881, there were 5286 tons of ivory imported into Great Britain, and as the number of tusks is known, the average weight of pairs of tusks can be ascertained. It is a little under forty pounds each pair. At this rate, these imports represent 296,016 pairs, and consequently the same number of elephants have either died long ago, or have been recently slaughtered, to supply the demands of luxury in nine years alone. ‘At this rate of destruction,’ says Mr Webster, ‘it will be seen how rapidly this noble animal must disappear, and how surely ivory will become a thing of the past. There are, doubtless, large quantities of ivory still remaining in the interior of the African continent; but with the rapid advance of civilised man, and the temptation of increasing high prices, these will soon be discovered and exhausted.’

SPOKEN IN ANGER.

’Twas but a little word in anger spoken,

While proud eyes flashed through bitter burning tears;

But oh, I felt that fatal word had broken

The cord of love that bound our hearts for years.

Thy tortured face, that long wild look of sorrow,

Like some pale ghost, must haunt me while I live;

And yet, how bright, how full of joy the morrow,

Had I but breathed one simple word—‘Forgive!’

I did not hear thy tender voice appealing,

Nor marked thy anguish when I cried, ‘Depart!’

Too blind to see thy pitying glance, revealing

The generous promptings of thy noble heart.

How could I know that faithful heart was yearning,

Though crushed and wounded to its inmost core,

To take me back, like weary bird returning

In fear and trembling, when the storm is o’er!

‘Remember, love, that it may be for ever;

To see my face no more by night or day.

Be calm, rash heart, think well before we sever;

Recall the angry word, and bid me stay.’

Dead silence fell; the song-birds hushed their singing.

‘Enough,’ I proudly cried; ‘I choose my fate.’

While ever through my maddened brain kept ringing

The death-knell of my love—too late, too late!

‘Forgive, forgive!’ I wailed, the wild tears streaming,

As, ’mid the moaning trees, I stood alone;

‘Love, let thy kisses wake me from my dreaming.’

Thy pleading voice, thy tortured face, was gone.

That angry word, I may recall it never;

For o’er thy narrow grave, rank weeds have grown.

‘Remember, love, that it may be for ever.’

Ah, words prophetic! love, had I but known!

My locks are gray, my eyes are dim with weeping,

The face once loved by thee, no longer fair;

Beneath the daisies, thou art calmly sleeping:

There, a lone woman often kneels in prayer.

Ah, sweetheart mine, thou art so lowly lying,

Thou canst not hear the tearful voice above,

That with the night-wind evermore is sighing:

‘I spoke in anger! oh, forgive me, love!’

Fanny Forrester.

Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.

All rights reserved.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 122, VOL. III, MAY 1, 1886 ***

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Table of Contents

- CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

- CONTENTS

- SMUGGLING, PAST AND PRESENT.

- IN ALL SHADES.

- CHAPTER XXIII.

- CHAPTER XXIV.

- MAN-LIKE APES—AND MAN.

- SPIRITED AWAY.

- CHAPTER I.

- FORTUNE.

- THE IVORY TRADE.

- SPOKEN IN ANGER.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE