Household words, No. 26, September 21, 1850
Author: Unknown
Date: 2026-02-27T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: English literature -- Periodicals

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Title: Household words, No. 26, September 21, 1850

A weekly journal

Editor: Charles Dickens

Release date: February 27, 2026 [eBook #78061]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Bradbury & Evans, 1850

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78061

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

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSEHOLD WORDS, NO. 26, SEPTEMBER 21, 1850 ***

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

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

No. 26.]

{Price 2d.
{Stamped 3d.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1850.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREIGNERS’ PORTRAITS OF ENGLISHMEN.

THE STEAM PLOUGH.

A SACRED GROVE.

“CAPE” SKETCHES.

“BATTLE WITH LIFE!”

SPY POLICE.

CHIPS.

TWO CHAPTERS ON BANK NOTE FORGERIES.

FOREIGNERS’ PORTRAITS OF ENGLISHMEN.

The extraordinary being, conjured up in the minds of most foreigners under the generic term Englishman, seems to be something more uncommon than the veracious Gulliver ever encountered, and more heterogeneous than John Bulwer in his Artificiall Changeling pourtrayed. As a Spanish olla podrida and a Devonshire squab-pie are said to be made up of all the contradictory edibles that can be conceivably assembled in one dish; so is the hash, cooked up by the French or German novelist and dramatist to represent a true born Briton, an incarnation of every unlikely extravagance it is possible to assemble in one character.

The true expression of what is popularly believed of us abroad is not to be found so distinctly set forth in novels, as in plays. The novelist is restricted in a measure within the not narrow bounds of probability; but the dramatist may first revel at will in the rankest breadths of impossible absurdity; and then the actor may intensify the enormity by dress, gait, and unmeasured foolery. The amount of instruction on the manners, habits, feelings, modes of expression, gesture, dress, and general demeanour of his compatriots which an Englishman may glean in some of the foreign Theatres, when an Englishman is being represented on the stage, is perfectly astounding. We have in this way become acquainted with English characteristics of which the most comically inclined maniac could never dream after the most dyspeptic of suppers.

It is not long since the mirror held up to Nature—that is, English nature reflected by the French—revealed to us, at the Ambigû Comique and at the Théâtre des Variétés, in Paris, “that of ourselves which yet we knew not of”—dreamt not of. One gentleman who supported not only the character of a Prefect, but an enormous cocked-hat, assured us that when we were at home, we groaned under the tyranny of a feudal government, which ground us to the dust; that our Commonality was overridden and harrowed by tax-exacting aristocrats; that they died of starvation in heaps; that if they dared to call their souls their own, the latter were summarily released from their bodies by a perambulating police disguised as members of the Royal Humane Society. In another scene the same public instructor told us, that all Englishmen (of course including the starved Commonality) possess enormous wealth, which they usually employ in the purchase of “Le titre de Lord;”—an unnecessary outlay, as every person not a tradesman receives the title as a matter of course. Yet this avails them little, as the different orders of our nobility hold no communication with persons of higher or lower rank; our national pride preventing the one, and the best of all reasons—“because they can’t—” the other. Our patricians ride abroad followed by armed retainers; nor is any vulgar person allowed to come between the wind and their nobility: the streets being expressly cleared for them by constables. When at home, however, seated in a golden chair in company with the Spleen, the “jeune Miss,” his wife, and a “boulle-dog,” a native of our kingdom passes his time chiefly in drinking tea with lemon in it, and saying, “Hoh!—Hah!—Yeeas!—Gottam!—and ver gut!”

Our ladies are a little too much given to fighting, and a little too lightly won. We sell our wives. This is a very common mercantile transaction indeed. A “pen” of no mean dimensions is appropriated in Smithfield for the interesting periodical auction. Our Queen makes away with many millions a year, and cuts off the heads of any persons to whom she may take a dislike, or hangs them, without the intervention of judge, jury, or any other functionary than the executioner, who—another Tristan the Hermit—is a regular member of the Royal Household. We are, however, for the most part, a harmless and ridiculous race, affording excellent sport to innkeepers and adventurers. We eat prodigiously. Indeed so great is our love for good cheer, that we name our children after our favourite dishes. If a person in good society is not called Sir Rosbif, he will probably answer to the name of Lord Bifstek—in honor of the two great national dishes, which we have spelt in that manner from time immemorial.

In a pretty piece at the Gymnase in Paris, where the Prime Minister of England unfortunately ruined himself by speculating in Railway shares, a thorough-going English servant appeared under that thorough-going English name Tom Bob—the honest fellow having been christened Tom, and born the lawful son of Mr. and Mrs. Bob. In an Italian adaptation of Dumas’ preposterous play of “Kean,” which we once saw at the great Theatre of Genoa, the curtain rose upon that celebrated Tragedian, drunk and fast asleep in a chair, attired in a dark blouse fastened round the waist with a broad belt and a most prodigious buckle, and wearing a dark red hat of the sugar-loaf shape, nearly three feet high. He bore in his hand a champagne-bottle, with the label Rhum, in large capital letters, carefully turned towards the audience; and two or three dozen of the same popular liquor which we are nationally accustomed to drink neat as imported by the half-gallon, ornamented the floor of the apartment. Every frequenter of the Coal Hole Tavern in the Strand, on that occasion, wore a sword and a beard.

Every English lady presented on the stage in Italy, wears a green veil; and almost every such specimen of our fair countrywomen carries a bright red reticule, made in the form of a monstrous heart. We do not remember to have ever seen an Englishman on the Italian stage, or in the Italian Circus, without a stomach like Daniel Lambert, an immense shirt-frill, and a bunch of watch-seals, each several times larger than his watch, though the watch itself was an impossible engine. And we have rarely beheld this mimic Englishman, without seeing present, then and there, a score of real Englishmen, sufficiently characteristic and unlike the rest of the audience, to whom he bore no shadow of resemblance.

These edifying pictures of the English are not complete without the finishing touches of grotesque absurdity vouchsafed by the actors. A few winters ago we were enticed into the little theatre of Coblentz by the information paraded in large placards on the doors that it was “very well warmed;” that Auber’s opera of Fra Diavolo was to be played; and that the part of Lord Allcash was to be personated by a distinguished comic actor. Even while we write, his lordship is before our mind’s eye, blazingly costumed in a green coat, blue inexpressibles, top-boots, a brace of yellow handkerchiefs sticking out of either pocket, a couple of watches, and a hat with a feather in it! Yet, if they do not know something of the ordinary appearance of an English traveller in Coblentz, where should they? He must be at least as well known there, as in Devonshire or the Isle of Wight.

So, in Brussels, where the English almost outnumber the native population, the audiences relish a curious amount of ignorance respecting England and the English; as the dramatis personæ of a piece exhibited so recently as last May at the Théâtre St Hubert, will show. It was called “La Lectrice, ou une folie de jeune homme. Comédie Vaudeville en 2 actes, par M. Bazard.” It must have had a considerable run; for the play-bill states that M. Ferville had created a great sensation in the character of “Sir Cobridge,” at Paris. We have some idea that “Sir Cobridge” must be intended for the Sleeping Partner in a Porter-Brewery, and that the name is a dreamy reminiscence of the popular individual Sir Co, made easy of remembrance by sign-boards. But the first personage we have occasion to mention is, “Sir Arthur” (jeune officier), who has no other name, and who has no occasion for one, everybody calling him “my lord,” according (as he observed) to the usual form of address in England. Sir Arthur considers it the first duty of a British officer to insult a respectable blind old gentleman—who is moreover his guest—because the blind old gentleman ventures to insinuate something against one of the officers of Sir Arthur’s regiment, through whom he has suffered severely. This chivalrous young nobleman, disdaining all inquiry into the circumstances, at once constitutes himself champion of every individual belonging to the entire British army. The next personage is a young gentleman possessing (as he observed) a name extremely common in Britain, to wit, “Clac-Own.” The actor of this part was fitted up with a wig of violently red hair, like a carriage-rug, and was dressed in a kind of fusion of an English jockey with a French Field-Marshal. Expecting to inherit the vast possession of his uncle, Sir Cobridge, Clac-Own passed his time, according to the custom of Anglican nephews in such cases, in giving his uncle to understand how extremely inconvenient he finds his society, and in informing him that “Shak-es-pair”—who, being Sir Cobridge’s favourite author, is naturally the avowed bugbear of Clac-Own,—is an insufferable bore. This is going too far; and the wealthy old gentleman (who has quietly submitted to every other species of personal insult from his intended heir,) is so shocked by this contempt for “Shak-es-pair,” that he feels himself compelled to sing a song; wherein he demonstrates, in the most lucid tira-lal-a-la logic, that Clac-Own is very decidedly in the wrong. The scena concludes by Sir Cobridge ordering Clac-Own off, in some very deep bass notes, to “Le Lincoln!”—an idiomatic place of banishment, that would appear to be very popular among us, though whether it stands for Coventry, Bath, Jericho, Halifax, or any other such place, we are unable to report. Clac-Own, Sir Arthur, and several others having assembled at a later stage of the proceedings to go out hunting, the Belgian public perceive that our usual equipment for that sport is a white tailed coat, light blue breeches, patent leather hessian boots with brass spurs, a red neckerchief—such as one may see whispering to the gale in Field Lane or Wapping,—a turned-down shirt-collar, a gun, a cutlas, and an enormous game pouch. Thus arrayed and mounted on the “chevaux fougueux” of our island, we pursue and capture the crafty fox.—When we add that Monsieur Bazard, who is the author of this singular production, is of the opinion of Boiardo, that the English have an especial talent for falling off their horses—and no wonder, riding across the country in such trim!—we have described the leading points of this accurate picture.

Most of these distorted views of English life originate with the French with whom we have had most intercourse, and who ought to know us best; but our German and Austrian friends, the dramatic caricaturists, have a very hard hit at us now and then. Only last month we were attracted to the Carl Theatre, in Vienna, by one little line in a play-bill, which announced a new piece, the English title of which is, “The Benefit Night.” Here is the line:—

~=Lord Pudding, ein reisender Englander | Hr. Heese.=~
Lord Pudding, a Travelling Englishman | Mr. Heese.

In rigid obedience to the law, which has impressed the names of eatables upon the eaters thereof, the author had christened his “pock-pudding-Englisher” (to borrow a pleasant periphrasis from Scotland), out of the pot. Nevertheless “The Benefit Night”—in which we think we descry some reflection of a very good French vaudeville—is written with considerable cleverness and wit. The plot was chiefly evolved from the endeavours of a manager to obtain the assistance of certain eminent “stars” of the profession for his benefit. He first presented himself to a great singer, who was, of course, afflicted with a cold, but who was at length frightened into voice by hearing that a rival had already agreed to sing his part, and by an assurance from the manager that the new singer had already taken everybody by storm at the rehearsal. A great tragedian the manager won by flattery; “the food of gods” being the only thing worthy the acceptance of so august a personage; and a dancer he bribed by assuring her that the wealthy Englishman, “Lord Pudding,” would be in the house, especially to fall in love with her. He also promised a troop of experienced claqueurs to applaud her new “pas.”

We were introduced to Lord Pudding, as he appeared while indulging in the singular fancy of taking a lesson in Elocution from a German actor! His personal appearance was wonderful to behold. He was much stuffed out with wadding to increase his natural proportions, and his dress was such as the tailors—not only of Pall-Mall and St. James’s Street, but of any English extraction or habitation whatsoever—would see with amaze. It was composed of a blue dress coat, with white buttons, a red waistcoat, nankeen tights, shoes of polished leather, and long brass spurs. His neck-kerchief was a bright blue, carrying the eye pleasantly up to a very white hat with an imperceptible brim. The author appeared to have studied the manners of our aristocracy with exceeding diligence; for, to the usual peculiarities which may be considered the “stock” of Foreign theatricals, he added some strikingly original features. Lord Pudding was, of course, a lover, and of course an unsuccessful one: he was jilted by the French dancer. When he danced he was made to tumble; when he saluted a lady he gave his lips a loud smack. He entered a room like a whirlwind, and between his paroxysms of “fuss” our usual friendly salutation “Gottam” was repeated many times; to the enthusiastic delight of the audience, who believed it to be a polished sort of “How-d’ ye-do?” He was quite the Clown to the Ring; and had the long pockets—in which that gentleman usually searches for the chalk when it is required for the tight-rope—well-filled. Nor was Pudding stingy with his money. Despite his hard usage by the ballet-lady, he was liberal to the manager. Though wrathful, he was of easy faith; being readily imposed upon, and peculiarly sensible to flattery, by which means he was induced to take three boxes for the benefit, viz., one for himself; one for the policeman who had been in constant attendance on him since his arrival, to restrain his inveterate propensity for knocking down the lieges of the city (so intense was his love for “the boaks;”) the third for the exclusive occupation of ——, his boulle-dog! One or two little touches, which distinguished his lordship, showed that the actor was, at least, an observer. Such were, the hat pushed back from the crimson forehead, the heavy rolling walk, and a strenuous objection to be kissed—all particularly English.

Other specimens of the genus we had previously seen, however, showed that Lord Pudding was a very fair example of an English gentleman on the German stage.

We cannot but believe that though amusing, these caricatures—exhibited as they are to ignorant and prejudiced minds—tend to confound the just relations between one people and another. Perhaps friendly Excursions on both sides of the channel may do much to lessen these absurdities. Unfortunately—as recent publications too well prove—the mistaken estimate of the English is by no means corrected by the graver works now and then put forth by distinguished men. Highly as we esteem M. Guizot and some Frenchmen of real attainments, who have written upon England, we have never taken up a book on the subject without painful disappointment, or without seeing in it errors almost equal to M. Ledru Rollin’s more recent incongruities.

To the honour of our modern English authors be it spoken, they have been zealous to avoid such ridiculous mistakes. It is true that the harmless old legends respecting Foreigners—that nine-tenths of them are Frenchmen; that all are of very slender proportions in figure; that their staple diet is frogs; and that, despite Alison’s and every other History of Europe, they very much prefer to dance than to fight; together with other popular delusions—still linger in the minds of some of our bold peasantry and milder cockneys; but it is to be hoped, after many years of peace and better sense, that we may now claim for the majority of even an under-educated British public, a more correct knowledge of the personnel and manners of our Continental neighbours, than our Continental neighbours manifestly have of us. The very foible of Lord Pudding himself—that of being a travelling Englishman—would defend him from such blunders as the literary Frankenstein who gave life to the monster, has fallen into. Travelling Englishmen are common abroad, who speak foreign languages, and understand foreign customs, extremely well. There are many of our travellers whom we should be very glad to improve: and thanks to railways, and to our possession of some—though not very much—of the wealth which the foreign dramatic and fictionist artists so liberally attribute to us, we are rapidly polishing off the rust of national prejudice, and ignorance of our brethren abroad. Should an English author or actor be guilty of such laughable mistakes about foreigners as those we have pointed out, woe unutterable would alight on his ignorant head.

Every sort of attraction which brings people of different nations, and even of different counties, together—whether it be a German wool fair, a music meeting, or a Swiss shooting-match—smooths away the acerbities of caste, and strengthens the sympathies of individuals. Let us, therefore, hope that the myriads of exotics which will be attracted next year to the Great Industrial Conservatory in Hyde Park, will receive new vigour and fresh intelligence from their temporary transplantation; that they will learn that Englishmen and English women are not quite the monstrosities they at present appear to believe them. Foreigners will then have the advantage of seeing us at home, and in a mass; and will thenceforth cease to judge us by those follies which they observe in a few idle tourists from these islands. They will see us as we are, reciprocating what we believe to be the general desire here, in reference to them.

THE STEAM PLOUGH.

When the first experiments were being made with the Hay-making Machine, now commonly used in some parts of the country, it happened that Shelley, Mrs. Shelley, and Peacock, the author of “Crotchet Castle,” “Headlong Hall,” and other works of pungent erudition, were walking through a field where this strange-looking machine was in operation. Instead of the pleasant sight of the rustic men and women with their forks and rakes—a scene so full of indelible associations, from childhood upwards—they saw this quaint monster rolling round the field over the long swathes of hay, its rotatory forks, or rather fingers on wheels, flinging up the hay on all sides as it went spinning onwards. Meditating on the effect, if successful, this would, some day, have on the vast numbers of poor people in England, to say nothing of the summer invasions of Irish—whose sole dependence for the year is the money they make in the English hay-season—Shelley and the others walked onwards, and left the field. Presently they met a clownish fellow, who was looking intently at the whirling and whisking performance of the round-about machine in the hay-field. Shelley, having no objection to find, in the then adjusted state of society with regard to the labouring classes, that this machine was a failure, said to the clown, in a sort of half contemptuous tone—“Now, tell me,—does that thing answer at all?” The fellow looked Shelley full in the face—“It answers a deuced deal too well,” said he; “I wish it was working in the inside of him that made it!”

In this very unsophisticated reply, how vast a question is comprised! But into it we cannot now enter; our present business is how to plough by steam; and the smoke from the “nostrils” of a variety of elegant ploughs, of various horse-and-man powers, is already inviting our attention. Truly, it requires one to take one’s breath before commencing the examination!

Old Hesiod, in the second book of his “Works and Days,” after giving particular directions for the selection of the wood, as to its natural qualities and form, and also its suitability to an artificial curve, gravely shakes his venerable head, and says—

“To make a plough, great is the expense and care.”

Virgil, following his great progenitor, enters with still more minute precision into the details of the selection of the wood and its manufacture into a plough, adding, that he can “recite to you many precepts of the ancients—unless you decline them.”

Well, then, to be frank with antiquity, and all its great poets and philosophers, the present age fairly announces by its practices, that it does decline, not only the precepts but the example of the ancients, especially in agricultural matters.

The last and not the least important innovation on agricultural labour has yet to be consummated; and it would seem from two large plates, with explanatory remarks, which have been recently published by Lord Willoughby de Eresby, that a monster innovation is not very distant;—no less than “Ploughing by Steam.” All great inventions are the result of gradual improvement on a first idea; and an examination of these plates naturally induces us to take a cursory view of what has previously been attempted, and done, in this way.

Not wishing to go back to the “dawning idea” of a steam-plough, (for the problem was started some fifty years ago), we will begin with taking a look at Mr. Etzler’s “Iron Slave.” This was invented by a German, and constructed by an Oxfordshire engineer. A public trial of the Iron Slave was made in October 1845. A few signal shots were fired at day-break, the church-bells were set to ring a merry peal, and all the inhabitants of Bicester and Blackthorn came pouring out into the fields to witness the steam-performance of the newly discovered agricultural serf. Booths were erected, and the spectators made a long morning’s holiday while the Slave did his ploughing; and hoped that his success would lead, as it ought, to many other morning holidays. The most important result of this first trial was the establishment of a new mechanical principle, viz., “the transmission of power from a fixed point to a moving point, going in arbitrary directions at the will of one man at the steering wheel.” This, it seems, had been thought impossible by many scientific engineers. The engine was intended to move and do its work at the rate of three miles an hour; but whether the Iron Slave had not had his proper breakfast of coals, nor time enough to digest them into steam, or some part of his inside was a little out of order, was not accurately discovered; but certain it is that he could not plough fast enough. In other respects everybody was satisfied that steam-ploughing was a practicable thing.

In 1847, Mr. John T. Osborne, of Demerara, took out a patent for a steam-plough, the chief improvement (or distinguishing peculiarity—we must be cautious in the use of the word improvement,) on all previous attempts, being the employment of two engines and two ploughs, for one course of ploughing. While one plough was working in a given direction, and laying down the chain or rope by which it is to be worked back to the side from which it started—the other plough was performing a similar course in the reverse direction. When both had each traversed the ground once, the engines were removed forward the breadth of one furrow, by means of a chain or rope; one end of which was attached to an anchor fixed in the ground a-head.

Another Mr. Osborn, in 1848, tried some experiments near Stratford, in Essex, with a locomotive steam-engine, constructed for agricultural works in general, and for ploughing more especially. He appears to have taken out his patent in conjunction with Mr. Andrew Smith’s wire-rope—a manufacture of extraordinary strength. In the first trial, a pair of these peculiarly constructed locomotives was placed opposite each other—about one hundred and twenty yards apart—with a sufficient length of wire-rope between them. Although not successful, it demonstrated a novel fact as between the comparative draught by horses, and by a long rope, showing that the condition of the modes differ in a very marked way; the horse draught being upwards, and exercising a direct control by its proximity to the plough; whereas, the draught by steam-power and a rope was downwards, distant, and exercised no direct control over the plough. Hence this experiment, though unsuccessful, was instructive, and therefore to be valued as a good contribution to knowledge. Other trials were subsequently made by Mr. Osborn with a locomotive engine of ten horse power, and the ploughing was well done; fully settling the question of practicability, but leaving doubts in the minds of many on the important question of economy.

“These engines,” says a writer in the Mechanics’ Magazine, “possess great advantages in being applicable to thrashing, and other agricultural purposes, and can be moved from farm to farm, and from field to field, with the greatest facility.” No doubt of it. We see what will soon happen. Thrashing, and many other agricultural purposes! The great farmers, once in possession of the talisman of a steam-plough, will never rest till they make it applicable to all sorts of operations. Already almost every farmer in Scotland is provided with a stationary steam-engine; a locomotive that can turn—not its hands—but its wheels to anything, is now his only other thing needful. In the specification of the very first of these ploughs—Etzler’s Iron Slave—it is distinctly stated that, although the machine is intended for ploughing, yet the Slave will be ready at all times to devote his energies and skill to “sowing, and reaping; and also to making canals, roads, tunnels,” &c. Exactly so! After we have ploughed, sowed, reaped, and thrashed by steam, we shall soon find turnips hoed, carrots drawn, beans plucked up, dried, carted, and stacked; sheep sheared, cows milked, butter churned, cheese pressed, pigs transformed into pork, and pork into gammons, by the same omnipotent agency. Hatching eggs by steam is already an old story.

A patent for a new steam-plough was taken out in January of the present year by Mr. James Usher of Edinburgh; and another in June, by Messrs. Calloway and Purkiss. The peculiarity of the former consists in mounting “a series of ploughs in the same plane round an axis, so that the ploughs shall successively come into action;” and secondly, in applying power to give a rotary motion to the series, “so that the resistance of the earth to the ploughs, as they enter and travel through the earth, shall cause the machine to be propelled”—instead of motion being communicated to the machine from the wheels which run on the land. The other invention—that of Messrs. Calloway and Purkiss—mainly consists of a number of chains working round a wheel, and fitted on the outside with ploughshares. Rotary motion is communicated by a locomotive.

“I consider,” says Sir Abel Handy, in the comedy of Speed the Plough, “that a healthy young man between the handles of a plough, is one of the noblest illustrations of the prosperity of Britain.” But shortly after saying this, Sir Abel invents a splendid curricle plough drawn by high-bred Leicestershire horses; who set off at full gallop with the plough at their heels over hill and dale, and instead of doing the allotted work a-field, they rush about at random, ploughing up Salisbury Plain. What would Sir Abel have said to Sir Willoughby de Eresby’s snorting steam-horse, perfectly under control?

His machinery consists of a locomotive engine, weighing only three-and-a-half tons, and of a twenty-six horse power. It was designed by Mr. Gooch. It has a double capstan attached, “removable, when the engine is required for other purposes.” His lordship does not indicate any of these; but we may fairly imagine that his farm-engine will possess the same versatile genius as the inventions which have preceded it. His description of this machinery is very brief, clear, and without the use of any technical terms.

“The engine moves across the centre of the field on a light, portable railway. The ploughs advance and recede on either side of the railway, at right angles to it.

“The ploughs employed consist of four ordinary, and four subsoil ploughs, fixed in a frame. It is directed by a person standing upon a small platform.

“Two such ploughs, one on either side the railway, alternately advance and recede; the advancing plough working, the other idle until it regains its proper position for ploughing the next four furrows. On the completion of the four furrows both ways, the engine and side frames advance each three feet.

“The ploughs are attached to an endless chain, one hundred and fifty yards in length. They can be detached at pleasure, or shifted from one side of the chain to the other. They travel at the rate of five miles an hour. Provision is made in case they strike against any impediment.”

Arrangements are also made to suit irregularly shaped fields. The full power of the engine is not exerted with the ploughs, as thus described; and the number of blades can be increased if desirable. And now for the next statement, which brings us to a most important consideration.

“In the present state of things, it is difficult to form a correct estimate of the value of the invention in a commercial point of view. I will only say that a machine of the power, and with the arrangement described, would perform the work usually done by sixteen ploughs, driven by as many men, and drawn by thirty-two horses. Requiring itself the attendance of eight men, and a horse to draw the water for the engine, it would thus save the labour of thirty-one horses and eight men. Against this must be set an expense of five shillings a day for coals.”

In examining the question of economy in the use of steam-power instead of horses, we shall obtain valuable assistance from a paper addressed to Mr. J. T. Osborne, of Demerara, by the Council of the Highland Society. This paper sets the period of the productive labour of a horse against the unproductive period necessary for its rest, and exhibits results of a startling kind. Horses are fed and tended three hundred and sixty-five days of twenty-four hours, or eight thousand seven hundred and sixty hours in the year. But they work only three hundred days, of about eight hours, taking the average, or two thousand four hundred hours a year. Thus we have a clear loss of six thousand three hundred and sixty hours of unproductive feeding and tending. It may be argued, that they are not fed and tended throughout the night, and therefore there is no such loss as the figures displayed by the Highland Society; but they are fed and tended enough to suffice them during the night, for which no compensating work is performed, so that it comes, we think, to nearly the same thing.

According to McCulloch, there are about one million two hundred thousand agricultural horses employed in Great Britain, which, at twenty-five pounds per head for maintenance, amounts to thirty millions sterling per annum for their keep. The unproductive portion, therefore, he finds amounting to the enormous sum of twenty-one millions seven hundred and eighty-five thousand three hundred and six pounds. It will be seen that this estimate is founded on the previous figures displaying the number of hours of feeding and tendence, compared with the number of hours’ work, and the consequent loss of six thousand three hundred and sixty hours. The only compensation for this loss of hours, represented by the above sum of upwards of twenty-one millions sterling, is in the value of the manure, which is thus produced at too great a cost.

“There are insuperable difficulties,” writes the Council of the Highland Society, “attending the employment of vital power; but mechanical power puts forth its energy when called for—it can be regulated, and, at pleasure, stopped. If it is desired to occupy the entire hours of daylight—to extend the field of operations—to work up more raw material—the energy of the animal ceases after a time; but not so that of the machine. The longest hours of summer may be advantageously employed.” And why not in the shortest nights of winter also? Could not steam-ploughs be made to carry their own lights with Hale Thomson’s patent silvered-glass reflectors, like other locomotives?

The next sentence brings us full-butt against the corner-stone of our social edifice, and moots the question as to the effect of machinery in increasing the demand for human labour:—“Were the whole period of daylight industriously employed in the most effective manner—that is, by the employment of machinery—the demand for human labour would be augmented in the exact ratio of the increased time, multiplied by the augmented force of the machinery.”

“Be fruitful and multiply,” said the God of Nature;—“You must be starved, if you do!” say the beldame economists. Meantime, an immense proportion of the habitable and fertile earth lies quite uncultivated, the vast seas are full of prolific food, and the land which is cultivated, is not made the most of. The art of tilling has not kept pace with other improvements. Before the wonders of steam appeared in the world there was occasionally a random attempt to introduce some improvement in tillage, but the experiments originated in a wish rather than in any definite plan, and were of course a failure and an absurdity. Dean Swift brought his pungent satire to bear upon these attempts, in his account of the grand Academy of Lagado, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver says he was highly pleased with a projector who had discovered a plan for turning up the ground with hogs, to save the charge of ploughs, cattle, and labour. The method was beautifully simple. In a given field you bury at six inches distance, and eight inches deep, a quantity of acorns in long rows. You then drive six hundred hogs into the field, who, in search of the food they most love, will root or plough up the whole into furrows, with their snouts. The absurdities committed soon led to a cessation of all mere experiments, until at length came steam-engines, and thence, in due course, the dream of a steam-plough. This dream we are peradventure about to see realised in a few months; and then, though our million of agricultural horses will be diminished, our fine breed of Yorkshire and Lancashire ploughmen will not be thinned; any more than spinning and weaving machinery exterminated—as was awfully predicted it would—our army of spinners and weavers.

“I was bred to the plough,” said Robert Burns, when addressing a letter to the wealthy gentlemen of the Ayrshire Hunt:—“I am independent;” but it may turn out that the plough of old will soon be a sorry thing to depend upon. We are rather reminded of the Prologue to Chaucer’s “Ploughman Tale,” though he could have had no anticipation that his cessation from this labour would be final.

“The Ploughman pluckéd up his plough,
When Midsomer moon was comen in,
And saied his beasts should eat ynowe,
And lye in the grasse up to the chin.
He shook off shere, and coulter off drowe,
And hongéd his harnis on a pin.”

“Our strongest hope for the improvement of our social condition,” says Miss Martineau, “lies in the directing of intelligence full upon the cultivation of the soil.” The more the powers of science are brought to bear upon the tillage of the earth, and the production and manufacture of food, the greater will be the number benefited, and the more speedily will Miss Martineau’s axiom be verified. Cordially coinciding with that lady, we wish all success to the important undertaking of Lord Willoughby de Eresby, and shall be glad to find he accomplishes and establishes what has hitherto been confined to experimental trials.

A SACRED GROVE.

Here Silence is the queen of time; her hand
Is raised—and the tide trembles to a pause.
Beauty, too awful to be loved, awakes
And spell-binds Man’s repose. The sunken sun,
Whose mantle’s gold is melted in the tint
Of evening’s purple sadness, near the west
Lingers awhile, as loth to quit the scene.

Yet ’tis not sadness all; for though the trees,

Heavy with cumbrous melancholy, sweep

Their sombre-foliaged boughs close to the grass,

And solemn twilight peers between the trunks,
Tinging the dome of yonder vacant fane—
O’er all a spirit of subdued emotion

Breathes in pathetic sweetness, deep diffused.

In this dim palace of grey Solitude,

Where not a sigh wafts o’er the lily’s urn,

And nought, save marble forms of tenderest grace,

With pensive attitude stand in lone bowers—
The heart, upheaving into the fresh air,
Itself abandons to the scene, and claims

Kindred with placid Death, and those lost hopes

That lived around the loved ones, now no more.

Their tombs smile pale beneath these cypress boughs,

Heavy with memory of all the past.

Moveless I stand before these moveless trees—

Breathless as those broad boughs; and gazing thus,

At the dark foliage imaged in the pools,
Which deepen, as the brooding mind surveys
Their trance and awful beauty; ’tis a scene
That lures us backward to an elder time,
Through ages dim—and, thence, into a realm

Whose secret influence fills us with its soul—

Shadows of things which are not of the world,

And hopes that burn, yet find no vent save tears.

“CAPE” SKETCHES.

Cape Wants are neither peculiar nor numerous. Captain Smoke, in Jerrold’s comedy of “Bubbles of the Day,” confides to his friend, Lord Skindeep, that he is “terribly in want of a thousand pounds.” The reply is “You may take it as a general rule, Captain Smoke, that every man wants a thousand pounds.” As with men so with Colonies. The sun never sets upon one of the dependencies of Great Britain, young or old, which would not be the better for a thousand pounds. Our Colonies feel, however, another want;—it is for something to which the Smokes of the old country show a very marked aversion; and that is labour. “Capital and labour!” is a cry which reaches us from every quarter of the earth. The demand does not resound so loudly perhaps from the Cape as from other and newer Colonies; but the want of the first necessities of enterprise, civilisation, and progress is not the less felt. Any sort of European labour (except convict labour), any kind of capital, is welcome in our South African dependencies; and in the long run “pays.”

As to Capital; men with from two thousand pounds to ten thousand pounds will find plenty of most profitable employment for their money. The Colony has innumerable resources—amongst them I may mention her fisheries and her mineral treasures. The former produce a large revenue even now, though carried on, from want of enterprise and capital, in the most unsystematic and slovenly manner. Of minerals there is abundance; ore in many places actually lying on the surface. The assegais (or spears) of the Kafirs are all made of iron, smelted and welded by themselves; while recent travellers from the northernmost extremity of the Colony bring accounts of innumerable implements in use among the savage tribes there, formed of iron of their own manufacture. Copper and lead have been discovered within fifteen miles of Algoa Bay.

But such riches remain utterly unproductive without facile means of transport, and a great want in the Colony is good roads. Of course, want of labour is the cause of this deficiency, which is, however, being slowly remedied by the local government. Whether the Cape Colonists were wise in rejecting the convicts, so kindly proffered to them by Lord Grey, I shall not presume to opine, because I have a notion that everybody knows their own business best; but we must not forget that New South Wales owes the blessing of her good roads to what was, it must be admitted, in other respects, a great curse to her—the bands of convicts the Colonial Office were so obliging as to send her.

Before I dilate on the greatest of all colonial wants, I will mention what the Cape of Good Hope does not want; namely, young gentlemen with white hands and empty pockets, of no profession, and with very extensive notions of refinement. She does not require martinet “half-pays,” who know more of pipe-clay than of soils, and more of killing than of breeding and fattening. Fine ladies, who are proficient pianistes, and do not understand poultry, she is much better without. What she does require, are:—In the towns, mechanics and artisans of all kinds; in the country, good farmers and sturdy dames, shepherds and agricultural labourers; in both, domestic servants, male and female. For all these the Cape is open, and it offers them first-rate livelihoods, abundance of food of the best description, and a climate which the returns taken of the mortality among the troops prove to be amongst the healthiest in all Her Majesty’s world-wide dominions. The Colony has also one great advantage over Australia—it is ten thousand miles nearer to England.

Want the third in point of importance is a change in the present system of selecting Colonial Governors. Were we to choose Generals to lead our armies—not from soldiers trained to arms and distinguished in the field—but from decayed statesmen, who had “never set a squadron in the field,” nor even handled a sword; would not our enemies not only beat us, but laugh at us? Yet conversely we commit precisely this absurdity: we “reward” meritorious Generals by appointing them Governors; of whose duties they are, as a rule, as ignorant as a Lord of the Treasury is of fortification. The Governor of a Colony, as the representative of the highest power in the Empire, is required to fulfil the highest civil functions; to conduct the most difficult and delicate negotiations; and we select a brave old General, who hardly knows the geography of his government; is profoundly ignorant of the habits and requirements of its people; who never even pretended to statesmanship, and either commits himself to something so rash that it makes everybody angry, or to something so silly that it makes everybody laugh.

In Education, England might take a lesson from her South African dependency—it is in the education of the people. Government schools are established in every town, and almost every village of the Colony, open to children of all classes and all creeds, and free of all expense. They are presided over by intelligent teachers, chiefly selected from the Scotch Universities, and truly their pupils do these gentlemen infinite credit. I do not hesitate to say, that the rising generation of the Cape Colony will be the best educated men of their class in all the British Empire. It is to Dr. Jones, the former President of the South African College, in Cape Town, that the colony is indebted for this invaluable boon. Even the population in the far interior are better off in this respect than the children of our English peasantry. Thanks to the energy of Campbell, Latrobe, Moffat, and other energetic, common-sense, as well as pious, members of the Missionary Society; the children of the Hottentots, Griquas, and even of some of the Bechuanas, are fast being brought into the pale of civilisation by attendance at the schools established by those gentlemen. Some of the offspring of English parents in the “interior” of England, have no such schools to attend.

Sheep Farming is, perhaps, the best and most profitable occupation at the Cape. It is far better than agriculture, and better than cattle farming, for the following reasons. The great deficiency of the colony is the want of sufficient water for irrigation. Wherever this want is not felt, all kinds of grain may be raised with profit, and Cape wheat is universally pronounced to be the finest in the world. But the farms, or portions of farms, on which it can be grown are few and far between. Nor is this the only drawback to agriculture; the farmer has two other dire enemies to contend with. The one is the blight or “smut,” which is very common; and frequently destroys whole crops. Two young friends of mine hired a farm in partnership, and, in spite of the warnings of more experienced persons, determined to turn their principal attention to agriculture. They went to great expense in the purchase of agricultural implements, paid the highest wages for labourers, and worked with their own hands as hard as any ploughman in England. They raised a magnificent crop, and began to indulge a sweet reverie on the “Dollars” it was to bring them. Alas, the “smut” came, and the beautiful crop was destroyed, while not one solitary dollar found its way into the young farmers’ pockets. Disappointed, but not disheartened, they set to work again, and next year with precisely the same result. Luckily they were prudent fellows, and had neither been personally extravagant, nor sunk all their money in one enterprise. They, therefore, purchased some sheep, cattle, and horses, and only cultivated a very small portion of their farm; and now they are among the most prosperous farmers in the Colony.

Another enemy of the agriculturist at the Cape, not less destructive than the former, though less frequent in his attacks, is the locust. Till I went to the Cape, I never had a clear conception of the mischief that could be done by this one of the “Plagues of Egypt.” They came always in clouds, and fly with the wind. I am almost afraid to describe their numbers. I have seen the air as full of these creatures as of the flakes of snow in a heavy snow-storm—in fact, literally “raining locusts.” I have been obliged to turn back on a journey from the impossibility of getting my horse to face them when driven against us by the wind. I have seen immense plains one day covered with grass, corn, and gardens; and the next day left, after a visit of locusts, without one solitary blade of verdure on any part of them. I have seen millions of these insects driven by the wind into the sea at Algoa Bay, and washed on shore in such heaps, that their bodies decaying have become so offensive as to oblige the authorities of the town to employ all the Coolies in the place in burying them. Think of all this, grumbling farmers of England. What corn-laws could afford you “protection” against such an importation? Still, I must add that during my five years’ residence at the Cape, I can only recall three visits of these pests; nor must it be supposed that they at any time spread over the whole Colony. When they visit a sheep or cattle farm, the owner has, of course, no other alternative than to move his stock to some place which they have not visited.

Cattle are profitable stock at the Cape; but no Englishman seems to like them so well as sheep. Besides, it occasionally happens that, in a fit of caprice, every Hottentot labourer on your farm will leave you in a day, and you will have to be your own herdsman. This is comparatively nothing with sheep; but if you had a couple of hundred cows that wanted milking you would be rather in a “fix.”

Horses are also a profitable stock, and far more suited to English taste. But the “returns” are necessarily slow; and few men can afford to wait three years for their profits.

Sheep are the best. Here is one example, by no means extraordinary, but forming an average sample of the fruits of sheep-farming:—A gentleman who was reading for the Church, at Cambridge, found that his health would not allow him to continue his studies; he emigrated to Algoa Bay, with a capital of about two thousand five hundred pounds. He wisely listened to good advice in the selection of a farm and the purchase of his stock of sheep. At the end of three years I visited him, and we talked about sheep-farming, which was then in a bad condition. I was expressing my wonder that so many sheep-farmers had lately been “sold up;” and this was his reply, “What else could you expect? Half of them come out here without one farthing of capital. They hire a farm; buy stock on credit (for two or three years), live on the sale of the wool and also on credit—for they live ‘like fighting-cocks’—and then when pay-day comes at last, they, of course, have not a sixpence. But, look at my own case: I have been here three years; my wool fetches double the price that it did the first year; my stock is just doubled in number and vastly improved in quality; I have lived in as much comfort as I require in the meantime; and I don’t owe a sixpence.”

The life of a Cape farmer is necessarily solitary. His nearest neighbour is probably seven miles off, and his only daily companions are his stock and his labourers. A visitor (especially if he come from one of the Towns) is a veritable Godsend; and is safe to be welcome as long as he chooses to remain. He may ride his host’s horses and shoot or hunt his game, smoke his pipes, and drink his “Cape Smoke,”[A] as long as he pleases. But he must be contented with very rough fare. Mutton and goats’ flesh, meal-cakes (very similar, I fancy, to those which King Alfred burnt), Indian corn, and badly-made coffee, will form the staple articles of his food. He will sleep on a home-made sofa with goatskins for blankets, in a room with a mud floor, and very probably no ceiling but the thatch roof. The house will most likely be built of lath and plaster, and look far more like the stable of a third-rate country inn than a gentleman’s residence. Yet the host is often a highly educated and sensible man, fighting his way to competence, living a comparatively easy life, and, if unblessed with luxuries, at least unharassed by cares, save when an occasional wolf (or rather hyæna) makes a night assault on his homestead.

[A] Cape Brandy.

Of the Cape Trade, the most peculiar and profitable branch is that with the native tribes. At present it is carried on in the most primitive style. A trader will load a couple of waggons with such goods as are likely to sell among savages. Coarse cloth, smart Manchester printed calicoes, blankets, beads, brass curtain-rings (worn by the natives as ornaments on their arms), soldiers’ jackets, wide-awake hats, &c. With this load he will proceed across the colonial boundary, and penetrate as far as he pleases into the interior, calling where experience has shown him he is likely to find customers, and selling his goods like a hawker, or “Cheap Jack,” in England. But he seldom obtains money for his goods,—nor does he wish for it. He gets ivory, ostrich feathers, wild-beast skins, horns, and, in fact, all the rarest trophies of the chase. With these he reloads his waggons for his return home, and reaches the Colony after, perhaps, six or eight months’ absence, with a load which fetches him at once, seven or eight hundred—sometimes a thousand—pounds in exchange for his outlay of one hundred and fifty pounds.

It seems clear that the establishment of trading stations in the interior of Southern Africa would be most profitable to the projectors, and most advantageous to the native tribes, by accustoming them to the sights and habits of a civilised life.

The shopkeepers are rather jealous of the merchants at the Cape. The latter are very often so undignified as to sell a dozen pair of stockings or a single hat, to the exceeding disgust of retailers.

A Cape shop is a curiosity. It strikes a man as odd, to buy his boots and his cheese, or his hat and his sugar, at the same shop,—still more odd to purchase his wife a Chinese shawl and his child a peg-top in the same establishment.

The Wild Sports of South Africa have been celebrated by many a writer, from Major Cornwallis Harris down to Mr. Gordon Cumming. For large game the country is perhaps the finest sporting ground in the world. People come even from India to hunt the lion and the buffalo, the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus, the elephant, the giraffe, and the innumerable varieties of wild deer, from the delicate and graceful springbok to the heavy and powerful gnu. Some of the most dreaded amongst them are not nearly so terrible as travellers’ tales would persuade “the gentlemen of England who sit at home at ease.”

On one occasion I was riding through a wood, with a single companion; we were on a journey, and quite unarmed. At a little open space in the woods we dismounted and knee-haltered our horses to let them feed, while we lazily stretched ourselves under a tree, and “took a pull” at our pocket-pistols, loaded with Cognac. A slight rustling sound was heard above our heads, and down came something to the ground in front of us. It was a fine, full-grown, handsome leopard, who coolly turned round and stared us in the face. I very much doubt whether two respectable young gentlemen ever felt in a greater fright than my friend and myself at that moment. The unwelcome visitor, however, merely wagged his tail, and having apparently satisfied his curiosity as to our personal appearance, trotted quietly off into the woods. Without uttering a word we each drew a long breath, took another pull at the eau-de-vie, caught our horses, and put as many miles as we could in a few minutes between ourselves and that same wood.

The lion can even be companionable. Major Nicholson occupies a farm near the north-east boundary of the Colony. He is a great sportsman, and goes out alone to look after a lion with as much unconcern as a Regent Street lounger seeks out a Skye-terrier as a present for his lady-love. In one of his afternoon rambles the Major fell in with a lion; they were both going the same way and jogged along for some distance silent, though excellent friends. At length the lion stopped, turned round, faced the Major, and sat on his haunches like a great tom-cat. The Major, not knowing how soon his majesty’s tacit treaty of peace might be broken with him, levelled his piece, taking aim between the eyes. He was just about to fire, when a sound caused him to turn round; he then at once understood that, the lion having been out for a walk, his lady had come, like a dutiful wife, to meet him. The Major drew back and calculated the odds—two to one in favour of the quadrupeds—and reserved his fire; deciding that it would be little satisfaction to kill the husband and be eaten by the wife, or vice versâ. The respectable couple then continued their walk alone, treating the Major with the most sovereign contempt, and allowing him, like Young Norval, to “mark the course they took,” and to follow them to their abode. This he next day visited, with men, dogs, and guns; and a week afterwards I was sleeping soundly, in the Major’s house, on the skin of that same king of the forest, while his consort’s hide served me for a coverlid.

Although the keener sportsman prefers to go beyond the colonial boundary for prey, yet it is customary in the towns for a number of friends to make up a shooting party, who sally forth with waggons and a tent, which they pitch on some agreeable spot, and stay for several days, living al fresco,—enjoying good sport by day and good fare at the end of it, with merry songs, toasts, and stories. Others prefer hunting, mount their active little horses, and, followed by a whole host of curs, whose pedigrees would puzzle the most ingenious zoologist, sally forth in search of wild bucks; and many a good run they enjoy, and much do they contribute to the stock of good things which grace the table on the greensward at night.

“BATTLE WITH LIFE!”

Bear thee up bravely,
Strong heart and true!
Meet thy woes gravely,
Strive with them too!
Let them not win from thee
Tear of regret,
Such were a sin from thee,
Hope for good yet!

Rouse thee from drooping,
Care-laden soul;
Mournfully stooping
’Neath grief’s control!
Far o’er the gloom that lies,
Shrouding the earth,
Light from eternal skies
Shows us thy worth.

Nerve thee yet stronger,

Resolute mind!

Let care no longer

Heavily bind.

Rise on thy eagle wings

Gloriously free!

Till from material things

Pure thou shalt be!

Bear ye up bravely,
Soul and mind too!
Droop not so gravely,
Bold heart and true!
Clear rays of streaming light
Shine through the gloom,
God’s love is beaming bright
E’en round the tomb!

SPY POLICE.

We have already given some insight into the workings of the Detective Police system of London, and have found that it is solely employed in bringing crime to justice. We have no political police, no police over opinion. The most rabid demagogue can say in this free country what he chooses, provided it does not tend to incite others to do what is annoying to the lieges. He speaks not under the terror of an organised spy system. He dreads not to discuss the affairs of the nation at a tavern, lest the waiter should be a policeman in disguise; he can converse familiarly with his guests at his own table without suspecting that the interior of his own liveries consists of a spy; when travelling, he has not the slightest fear of perpetual imprisonment for declaring himself freely on the conduct of the powers that be, because he knows that even if his fellow-passenger be a Sergeant Myth or an Inspector Wield, no harm will come to him.

It is not so across the Channel. There, while the criminal police is very defective, the police of politics is all powerful. In March last, thirty thousand political malcontents were swept beyond the gates of Paris in a single morning, before the rest of the people were up; and nobody was any the wiser till the masterly feat had been performed; but during the same month several single individuals were knocked down and robbed—some in broad day, others at dusk—yet neither of the robbers were taken. In Austria, in some of the German states, and in Italy, political espionage is carried to a point of refined ingenuity of which no Englishman can form an idea. Mr. Tomkins goes, for instance, to Naples; and—as the Emperor of Russia might have enlarged on the happiness and prosperity of that city after his recent visit to it, because the streets were cleared of beggars, the cabmen compelled to dress in their best, and the fishermen to wear shoes—so in the “Travels in Italy,” which Mr. Tomkins would undoubtedly publish, there would be not a word about the police spy system; because he, innocent man, was unable to detect in his table companions, in his courier, or in his laundress, an agent of police. It is now our purpose to supply from the authentic information of a resident in Naples, the hiatus to be found in all the books of all the Mr. Tomkinses who have written “Travels.”

The chief agent is the Commissary, who, says our friend, has a certain district put under his care, and is thus made responsible for its order and fidelity; he is a kind of nursing father, in short, to the unhappy inhabitants, with power to ruin or destroy; for though he nominally receives his orders from the Minister of Police, yet, as the cant phrase is, his office is eminently “suggestive;” and whether a suspicion is to be cleared up, an act of vengeance to be perpetrated, or some object of interest or licentiousness to be attained, the report of the Commissary supplies all the data for the operations at head-quarters.

Immediately under his orders this General of Division has both regular and irregular troops, the former being the Policemen of the City; the latter simply Spies. When any long course of inquiry is to be carried out, he employs deputies, who bring in their intelligence from time to time; but if any immediate or important information is desired, the Commissary undertakes that little bit of business himself—it is a delicate morçeau which this gourmand cannot resist, and away he posts to enjoy the banquet.

Some years ago, there resided in the neighbourhood of Naples a foreigner, whose health compelled him to seek a southern climate. His tastes and occupations were literary, and his habits quiet; but whether he had some secret enemy who had denounced him, or whether the Government were afraid of him, because he read and wrote, I know not; but one fine morning the little town was much agitated by the appearance of a Commissary of Police and his attendant “Sbirri.” Many were the conjectures—as is always the case under such circumstances—as to what could be the object of this visitation. No one took it to himself; but as in a church each good Christian lolls in his corner and admires the applicability of the sermon to his neighbour in the next pew; so every little townsman knew precisely the person who merited the inspection of the Police. Don Roberto was sure that the visit was meant for his mortal enemy, Don Giuseppe; whereas the master of the favourite “Cantino” was equally sure that it must be for his rival who sold such acid wine, and permitted scenes in his shop enough to awaken the anger of the Saints. He always thought he was a Carbonaro!

The Commissary, on his arrival, sent for the Syndic.

“Pray, Signor Syndic,” he said, “is there a foreigner residing here, called Don Ferdinand?” (every one is Don, in Naples.)

“Yes!” was the reply.

“And pray, Sir, what is the object of his residence here?”

“I understand, Signor Commissario, that he is in search of health and amusement.”

“Ah! very good: health and amusement. And what may be his occupations?”

“They do say, Sir, that he is engaged much in reading and writing.”

“Reading and writing! Yet in search of health and amusement,” said the official, opening his eyes. “That’s a curious combination; but tell me, has Don Ferdinand any intercourse with the inhabitants? does he ever invite any of them to dinner?”

“I must confess,” said the Syndic, “that he does.”

“Then it is true, that Don Ferdinand proposes toasts after dinner?”

“Well,” replied the Syndic, as if such an admission would be fraught with danger. “I cannot deny it—he does propose toasts.”

“What are they?” asked the great official, sharply.

“His usual practice is, first, to propose the health of our Sovereign Lord the King, and then the health of his Sovereign Lady, the Queen.”

Not without disappointment at having made out nothing serious against Don Ferdinand, our Commissary dismissed the Syndic, merely observing that he had taken note of all his answers, and should draw up his report therefrom, and present it to the Minister of Police.

After that, the Commissary of the Police came twice to my friend’s residence, and put a number of searching questions to his porter. Nothing, however, came of these investigations; first, because there was nothing really alarming in the fact of a man reading and writing, and giving toasts; and, secondly, and perhaps more strongly, because Don Ferdinand was an Englishman; for there is a prestige attaching to the very name of an Englishman which attracts to him the respect of the people and a cautious deferential treatment on the part of the Governments. It is felt, that, however distant he may be from his native land, he is not beyond its protective power, and that any injustice done to him will be resented as an injustice done to the nation. It is this conviction which has been his security in circumstances where I have known the subjects of other States arrested, imprisoned, or sent out of the country, without receiving the protection of their Governments.

The Commissary is eminently a night-bird; sometimes you see him with “measured step and slow,” followed by his Myrmidons, stealing along under the dark shadows of the houses, like a cat treading; or, perchance, you are returning home through the silent streets, carelessly and thoughtlessly, when, at some dark corner, you find yourself confronted by this spectre. He listens for and pauses at every foot-fall, waits about in entries, stops at doors, watches the lights in houses, and, like a true inductive philosopher, from such simple facts—as seeing two or three lights, more or less, or a larger group of heads than usual, infers conspiracies most dreadful and dangerous to the State. Presently a Commissary is seen bustling along with his attendants, with a quick and eager step. He is not on a mission of inspection—oh, no—that cheerful promptitude indicates that game’s a-foot, and that something is to be done. And now he stops before a house and knocks aloud—“Who is there?”—demands some one from within. “Open in the name of the law!” is the reply. What consternation do these words create; lights are gleaming and people are hurrying backwards and forwards, but the knocking continues and becomes louder, and the door is opened, and the unfortunate master of the house is dragged from his bed to be plunged into the dungeons of the Vicaria. His neighbour, luckier than he, had timely notice of the honour intended him by the Commissary; and, escaping over the roof of his house, was enabled to get on board some friendly vessel. Their crime you ask? That of hundreds of others who are eating the bread of penury in exile, or pining in loathsome dungeons—they had taken part in the movements which preceded the publication of the “Constitution” (yet an article of that “Constitution” says, that “a veil of oblivion shall rest upon the past”). They had, in short, assisted in the development of a Constitution which I saw the Majesty of Naples swear on the Gospels to observe.

I know no better type than certain noxious insects for the myrmidons of the Commissary—the Police Spies of the South of Italy. Their multitude, their ubiquity, their unwearied perseverance, their sharp sting, make them worse than the whole insect tribe united, and infinitely more dangerous. You may crush the wasp, or smoke the mosquito, or brush away the ant, and get some intervals of repose in spite of renewed attacks; they give you, too, some warning signs of their approach—but the Police Spy is invisible and never out of hearing; whether you are relaxing in frank and thoughtless merriment, or abandoning yourself to the sweet and delicious dreams of friendship; in the market or the street—the drawing-room—the café—or the church—there he is: “A chiel’s amang ye taking notes, and ’faith he’ll prent it!” They reconnoitre the ground in various detachments for the Commissary, and report the movements, words, and almost thoughts, of the “suspected,” or of whomsoever they please to place upon that fatal list. They assume no distinctive dress—make no sign; they walk in darkness, and move like the pestilence, yet they are as real existences, and follow as precise a trade, as the vendor of maccaroni. These spies are not sent forth at random, like gleaners in a wheat-field, to pick up whatever they can; but they are selected with caution, and assigned a position for which their talents or rank best fit them. Thus it happens that every grade of society has its appropriate and peculiar spies. Some are appointed to watch over the upper classes; some over the canaglia; some over the clergy; all watch each other. Enter a drawing-room, and rustling in satin, and distributing the courtesies and refinements of the galleria (drawing-room), you may behold a Government Spy. Beauty and refinement unite to lament the fate of the poor Marchese Maroni, who was arrested yesterday; nay, two crystal drops confirm the grief of the sympathising syren—“It was so hard a case. There was really nothing that could be proved against his Eccellenza. Alas! who is safe under the existing order of things—is there no hope—will there never be any change?” But beware—fall not into the meshes, though they may be woven of silk; be silent or indifferent; the very lips which pronounced these commiserations, are those which a few hours ago denounced the subject of them to the Government. You adjourn, at the close of the Opera, to a café; you are accompanied by several friends, and feel disposed to relax over a glass of iced punch—’tis so hot—and then from one topic of conversation you range to another, as if you were breathing the air of liberty. But who is that sleek old gentleman opposite, whose keen and cunning eye glances occasionally at you from above his paper? He has been seated there, I know not how long, spelling rather than reading yesterday’s paper; yet he has a benevolent expression of countenance; perhaps he is infirm, poor fellow, or is looking for an advertisement; perhaps some article has deeply interested him. Phaugh! waste not your compassion or your speculation upon him—he is a Spy! he has been taking notes, and woe be to you if you have been betrayed into any thoughtless expression of opinion; for every word is registered. What corner of the city, or the country, what class of society is free from this pest! Nor is all this merely imaginary. I paint from the life, and could adduce instances of betrayal in the belle of high society, or in the shopman at the counter, in the caburan who takes your paltry buonamancia, or the friend you have cherished in your bosom.

For even private friendship is not held sacred. There was living in Naples, upwards of a year since, a Count Montinona, who appeared to have no particular object in view except the pursuit of pleasure. For many years he had lavished his bounty and his friendship on another, who was at length discovered to have made somewhat free with the Count’s property; accusations ensued, and, though compassion and a certain lingering recollection of the past did not permit the Count to cast the villain entirely off; yet he so far restricted his intimacy as to put it out of his power to rob him—“he was poor, and the temptation had been too great!” But what ensued?—This man denounced his friend as having concealed arms, and as entertaining free and dangerous opinions. Straightway the Count was arrested—his house and papers were examined, though nothing could be found to implicate him or to prove the charge; yet for many, many months he pined away in prison. I never heard when he was released, or if he is yet at liberty. All that time the informer ranged about at his own sweet will, to entrap as many new jail victims as he could make.

The effect of the Spy System on the national character is exceedingly demoralising. There is no country in Europe where the low, secret vices, as opposed to those of a bolder, opener, and more ferocious character, exist so strongly as in the South of Italy. There, the result of that timidity and want of faith in what is good, and just, and true, which has been engendered by intrigue, is practised in its most comprehensive sense. The Secret Police system is one of the very many causes of this. To appreciate this thoroughly, you must regard it as being not merely a political institution, but as having now become national; people have followed the example which has been set them, and have all become spies—spies on each other’s actions, words, and thoughts. Sometimes this habit is pursued to the extent only of simple curiosity, watching, investigating, and reporting the commonest trifles. Sometimes it is a little more malignant, and engages, almost as a pastime, in embroiling individuals or families. Sometimes it pushes further, and furnishes denunciations to the Priest, the Bishop, the Intendente, or the Minister. I have seen it under all its phases, and the effect has been to produce a want of faith in all that is high, generous and noble, and to form a low national character.

It is more ridiculous and annoying than can well be imagined, to get behind the scenes of Italian life, and listen to the daily gossip:—How such an one “ha fatto un’ ricorso” against this or that person. How Don So and So has written certain letters to the Intendente, containing charges against another Don, and has forged two signatures. How So and So has been to the bishop and laid a long list of crimes at the door of some luckless priest. Then watch the tempest of official papers which fly through the air; some contain inquiries into the truth of the statements, addressed to the judge or the syndic; some are orders to a dozen unfortunate wights to present themselves at the Intendenza; while others contain ghostly reproofs from the bishop, or orders to suspend a priest at his reverence’s will and pleasure, and rusticate him in some monastery. Every denunciation is received and inquired into.

I remember an instance of two men who kept a whole district in inquietude during one winter. Both had received some private offence, and straightway each shrank into a corner and wove his envenomed meshes; charges were devised and letters written to the Intendente, accusing some score of their friends of Carbonarism or constitutionalism; then came the usual dispatches to the judge and other authorities to inquire into the truth of the statements. The judge, it happened, was friendly with the unfortunate denounced, and drew up therefore a favourable report, but had he been less honest or less amicable, these poor fellows might have swelled the number of those who now pine in the prisons of the Vicaria.

Indeed, the influence of the Police Spy System (united with other causes), has been such as to convert the whole nation into spies upon each other. As suspicion and want of confidence universally prevail, so there is a deficiency of truthfulness. This cannot be more strongly proved than by the admission of the Italians themselves who, when wishing to conciliate your belief, tell you that they speak “la parola Inglese,”—on the word of an Englishman.

CHIPS.

THE INDIVIDUALITY OF LOCOMOTIVES.

It is a remarkable truth, and, well applied, it might be profitable to us, in helping us to make fair allowance for the differences between the temperaments of different men—that every Locomotive Engine running on a Railway, has a distinct individuality and character of its own.

It is perfectly well known to experienced practical engineers, that if a dozen different Locomotive Engines were made, at the same time, of the same power, for the same purpose, of like materials, in the same Factory—each of those Locomotive Engines would come out with its own peculiar whims and ways, only ascertainable by experience. One engine will take a great meal of coke and water at once; another will not hear of such a thing, but will insist on being coaxed by spades-full and buckets-full. One is disposed to start off, when required, at the top of his speed; another must have a little time to warm at his work, and to get well into it. These peculiarities are so accurately mastered by skilful drivers, that only particular men can persuade particular engines to do their best. It would seem as if some of these “excellent monsters” declared, on being brought out of the stable, “If it’s Smith who is to drive me, I won’t go. If it’s my friend Stokes, I am agreeable to anything!”

All Locomotive Engines are low-spirited in damp and foggy weather. They have a great satisfaction in their work when the air is crisp and frosty. At such a time they are very cheerful and brisk; but they strongly object to haze and Scotch mists. These are points of character on which they are all united. It is in their peculiarities and varieties of character that they are most remarkable.

The Railway Company who should consign all their Locomotives to one uniform standard of treatment, without any allowance for varying shades of character and opinion, would soon fall as much behind-hand in the world as those greater Governments are, and ever will be, who pursue the same course with the finer piece of work called Man.

THE OLDEST INHABITANT OF THE PLACE DE GRÈVE.

The Police Courts of London have often displayed many a curious character, many a strange scene, many an exquisite bit of dialogue; so have the Police Courts in Ireland, especially at the Petty Sessions in Kilrush; but we are not so well aware of how often a scene of rich and peculiar humour occurs in the Police tribuneaux of Paris. We will proceed to give the reader a “taste of their quality.”

An extremely old woman, all in rags, was continually found begging in the streets, and the Police having goodnaturedly let her off several times, were at last obliged to take her in charge, and bring her into the Court. Several magistrates were sitting. The following dialogue took place between the President and the old woman.

President. Now, my good woman, what have you to say for yourself? You have been frequently warned by the Police, but you have persisted in troubling people with begging.

Old Woman (in a humble quavering tone). Ah, Monsieur le President, it is not so much trouble to other people as it is to me. I am a very old woman.

Pres. Come, come, you must leave off begging, or I shall be obliged to punish you.

Old W. But, Monsieur le President, I cannot live without—I must beg—pardon me, Monsieur—I am obliged to beg.

Pres. But I say you must not. Can you do no work?

Old W. Ah, no, Monsieur; I am too old.

Pres. Can’t you sell something—little cakes—bonbons?—

Old W. No, Monsieur, I can’t get any little stock to begin with; and, if I could, I should be robbed by the gamins, or the little girls, for I’m not very quick, and can’t see well.

Pres. Your relations must support you, then. You cannot be allowed to beg. Have you no son—no daughter—no grandchildren?

Old W. No, Monsieur; none—none—all my relations are dead.

Pres. Well then, your friends must give you assistance.

Old W. Ah, Monsieur, I have no friends; and, indeed, I never had but one, in my life; but he too is gone.

Pres. And who was he?

Old W. Monsieur de Robespierre—le pauvre cher homme! (The poor, dear man!)

Pres. Robespierre!—why what did you know of him?

Old W. Oh, Monsieur, my mother was one of the tricoteurs (knitting-women) who used to sit round the foot of the guillotine, and I always stood beside her. When Monsieur de Robespierre was passing by, in attending his duties, he used to touch my cheek, and call me (here the old woman shed tears) la belle Marguerite:—le pauvre, cher homme!

We must here pause to remind the reader that these women, the tricoteurs, who used to sit round the foot of the guillotine on the mornings when it was at its hideous work, were sometimes called the “Furies;” but only as a grim jest. It is well known, that, although there were occasionally some sanguinary hags amongst them, yet, for the most part, they were merely idle, gossiping women, who came there dressed in neat white caps, and with their knitting materials, out of sheer love of excitement, and to enjoy the spectacle.

Pres. Well, Goody; finish your history.

Old W. I was married soon after this, and then I used to take my seat as a tricoteur among the others; and on the days when Monsieur de Robespierre passed, he used always to notice me—le pauvre cher homme. I used then to be called la belle tricoteuse, but now—now, I am called la vielle radoteuse (the old dotardess). Ah, Monsieur le President, it is what we must all come to!

The old woman accompanied this reflection with an inimitable look at the President, which completely involved him in the we, thus presenting him with the prospect of becoming an old dotardess; not in the least meant offensively, but said in the innocence of her aged heart.

Pres. Ahem!—silence! You seem to have a very tender recollection of Monsieur Robespierre. I suppose you had reason to be grateful to him?

Old W. No, Monsieur, no reason in particular; for he guillotined my husband.

Pres. Certainly this ought to be no reason for loving his memory.

Old W. Ah, Monsieur, but it happened quite by accident. Monsieur de Robespierre did not intend to guillotine my husband—he had him executed by mistake for somebody else—le pauvre cher homme!

Thus leaving it an exquisite matter of doubt, as to whether the “poor dear man” referred to her husband, or to Monsieur de Robespierre; or whether the tender epithet was equally divided between them.

TWO CHAPTERS ON BANK NOTE FORGERIES.

CHAPTER II.

In the history of crime, as in all other histories, there is one great epoch by which minor dates are arranged and defined. In a list of remarkable events, one remarkable event more remarkable than the last, is the standard around which all smaller circumstances are grouped. Whatever happens in Mohammedan annals, is set down as having occurred so many years after the flight of the Prophet; in the records of London commerce a great fraud or a great failure is mentioned as having come to light so many months after the flight of Rowland Stephenson. Sporting men date from remarkable struggles for the Derby prize; and refer to 1840 as “Bloomsbury’s year.” The highwayman of old dated from Dick Turpin’s last appearance on the fatal stage at Tyburn turnpike. In like manner, the standard epoch in the annals of Bank Note Forgery, is the year 1797, when (on the 25th of February) one pound notes were put into circulation instead of golden guineas; or, to use the City idiom, “cash payments were suspended.”

At that time the Bank of England note was no better in appearance—had not improved as a work of art—since the days of Vaughan, Mathieson, and Old Patch; it was just as easily imitated, and the chances of the successful circulation of counterfeits were increased a thousand-fold.

Up to 1793 no notes had been issued even for sums so small as five pounds. Consequently all the Bank paper then in use, passed through the hands and under the eyes of the affluent and educated, who could more readily distinguish the false from the true. Hence, during the fourteen years which preceded the non-golden and small-note era, there were only three capital convictions for the crime. When, however, the Bank of England notes became “common and popular,” a prodigious quantity—to complete the quotation—was also made “base,” and many persons were hanged for concocting them.

To a vast number of the humbler orders, Bank Notes were a rarity and a “sight.” Many had never seen such a thing before they were called upon to take one or two pound notes in exchange for small merchandise, or their own labour. How were they to judge? How were they to tell a good from a spurious note?—especially when it happened that the officers of the Bank themselves, were occasionally mistaken, so complete and perfect were the imitations then afloat. There cannot be much doubt that where one graphic rascal was found out, ten escaped. They snapped their fingers at the executioner, and went on enjoying their beefsteaks and porter; their winter treats to the play; their summer excursions to the suburban tea-gardens; their fashionable lounges at Tunbridge Wells, Bath, Margate, and Ramsgate; doing business with wonderful unconcern and “face” all along their journeys. These usually expensive, but to them profitable enjoyments, were continually coming to light at the trials of the lesser rogues who undertook the issue department; for, from the ease with which close imitation was effected, the manufacture was more readily completed than the uttering. The fraternity and sisterhood of utterers played many parts, and were banded in strict compact with the forgers. Some were turned loose into fairs and markets, in all sorts of appropriate disguises. Farmers, who could hardly distinguish a field of standing wheat from a field of barley: Butchers who never wielded more deadly weapons than two-prong forks: Country boys with Cockney accents, bought gingerbread, and treated their so-called sweethearts with ribbons and muslins, all by the interchange of false “flimseys.” The better mannered disguised themselves as ladies and gentlemen, paid their losings at cards or hazard, or their tavern bills, their milliners, and coachmakers, in motley money composed of part real and part base bank paper. Some went about in the cloak of the Samaritan, and generously subscribed to charities wherever they saw a chance of changing a bad “five” for three or four good “ones.” Ladies of sweet disposition went about doing good among the poor; personally inquired into distress, relieved it by sending out a daughter or a son to a neighbouring shop for change; and left five shillings for present necessities, walking off with fifteen. So openly—in spite of the gallows—was forgery carried on, that whoever chose to turn utterer found no difficulty in getting a stock-in-trade to commence with. Indeed, in the days of highwaymen, no travelling gentleman’s pocket or valise was considered properly furnished without a few forged notes wherewith to satisfy the demands of the members of the “High Toby.” This offence against the laws of the road, however, soon became too common, and wayfarers who were stopped and rifled had to pledge their sacred words of honour that their notes were the genuine promises of Abraham Newland; and that their watches were not of the factory of Mr. Pinchbeck.

With temptations so strong, it is no wonder that the forgers’ trade flourished, with only an occasional check from the strong arm of the law. It followed, therefore, that from the issue of small notes in February 1797, to the end of 1817—twenty years—there were no fewer than eight hundred and seventy prosecutions connected with Bank Note Forgery, in which there were only one hundred and sixty acquittals, and upwards of three hundred executions! 1818 was the culminating point of the crime. In the first three months there were no fewer than one hundred and twenty-eight prosecutions by the Bank; and by the end of that year, two-and-thirty individuals had been hanged for Note Forgery. So far from this appalling series of examples having any effect in checking the progress of the crime, it is proved that at, and after that very time, base notes were poured into the Bank at the rate of a hundred a day!

The enormous number of undetected forgeries afloat, may be estimated by the fact, that from the 1st of January 1812, to the 10th April 1818, one hundred and thirty-one thousand three hundred and thirty-one pieces of paper were ornamented by the Bank officers with the word “Forged”—upwards of one hundred and seven thousand of them were one-pound counterfeits.

Intrinsically, it would appear from an Hibernian view of the case, then, that bad notes were nearly as good, (except not merely having been manufactured at the Bank), as good ones. So thoroughly and completely did some of them resemble the authorised engraving of the Bank, that it was next to impossible to distinguish the false from the true. Countless instances, showing rather the skill of the forger than the want of vigilance in Bank officials, could be brought forward. Respectable persons were constantly taken into custody on a charge of uttering forgeries, imprisoned for days and then liberated. A close scrutiny, proving that the accusations were made upon genuine paper. In September, 1818, Mr. A. Burnett, of Portsmouth, had the satisfaction of having a note which had passed through his hands returned to him from the Bank of England with the base mark upon it. Satisfied of its genuineness, he re-inclosed it to the cashier, and demanded its payment. By return of post he received the following letter:

“Bank of England, 16 Sept., 1818.

“Sir,—I have to acknowledge your letter to Mr. Hase, of the 13th inst. inclosing a one pound note, and, in answer thereto, I beg leave to acquaint you, that, on inspection it appears to be a genuine Note of the Bank of England; I therefore, agreeably to your request, inclose you one of the like value, No. 26,276, dated 22nd August, 1818.

“I am exceedingly sorry, Sir, that such an unusual oversight should have occurred to give you so much trouble, which I trust your candour will induce you to excuse when I assure you that the unfortunate mistake has arisen entirely out of the hurry and multiplicity of business.

“I am, Sir,

Your most obedient servant,

A. Burnett, Esq.

J. Rippon.

7 Belle Vue Terrace.

Southsea, near Portsmouth.”

A more extraordinary case is on record. A note was traced to the possession of a tradesman, which had been pronounced by the Bank Inspectors to have been forged. The man would not give it up and was taken before a magistrate, charged with “having a note in his possession, well knowing it to be forged.” He was committed to prison on evidence of the Bank Inspector; but was afterwards released on bail to appear when called on. He was not called on; and, at the expiration of twelvemonths (having kept the note all that time), he brought an action against the Bank for false imprisonment. On the trial the note was proved to be genuine! and the plaintiff was awarded damages of one hundred pounds.

It is a fact sufficiently dreadful that three hundred and thirty human lives should have been sacrificed in twenty-one years; but when we relate a circumstance which admits the merest probability that some—even one—of those lives may have been sacrificed in innocence of the offence for which they suffered, the consideration becomes appalling.

Some time after the frequency of the crime had, in other respects subsided, there was a sort of bloody assize at Haverfordwest, in Wales; several prisoners were tried for forging and uttering, and thirteen were convicted; chiefly on the evidence of Mr. Christmas, a Bank Inspector, who swore positively, in one case, that the document named in the indictment “was not an impression from a Bank of England plate; was not printed on the paper with the ink or water-mark of the Bank; neither was it in the handwriting of the signing clerk.” Upon this testimony the prisoner, together with twelve participators in similar crimes, were condemned to be hanged!

The morning after the trial, Mr. Christmas was leaving his lodging, when an acquaintance stepped up and asked him, as a friend, to give his opinion on a note he had that morning received. It was a bright day; Mr. Christmas put on his spectacles, and carefully scrutinised the document in a business-like and leisurely manner. He pronounced it to be forged. The gentleman, a little chagrined, brought it away with him to town. It is not a little singular that he happened to know Mr. Burnett, of Portsmouth, whom he accidentally met, and to whom he showed the note. Mr. Burnett was evidently a capital judge of Bank paper. He said nothing, but slipping his hand into one pocket, handed to the astonished gentleman full change, and put the note into another. “It cannot be a good note,” exclaimed the latter, “for my friend Christmas told me at Haverfordwest that it is a forgery!” But as Mr. Burnett had backed his opinion to the amount of twenty shillings he declined to retract it; and lost no time in writing to Mr. Henry Hase (Abraham Newland’s successor) to test its accuracy.

It was lucky that he did so; for this little circumstance saved thirteen lives!

Mr. Christmas’s co-inspectors at the Bank of England actually reversed his non-official judgment that the note was a forgery. It was officially pronounced to be a good note; yet upon the evidence of Mr. Christmas as regards other notes, the thirteen human beings at Haverfordwest were trembling at the foot of the gallows. It was promptly and cogently argued that as Mr. Christmas’s judgment had failed him in the deliberate examination of one note, it might also err as to others, and the convicts were respited.

The converse of this sort of mistake often happened. Bad notes were pronounced to be genuine by the Bank. Early in January, 1818, a well-dressed woman entered the shop of Mr. James Hammond, of 40, Bishopsgate Street Without, and having purchased three pounds worth of goods, tendered in payment a ten-pound note. There was something hesitating and odd in her manner; and, although Mr. Hammond could see nothing the matter with the note, yet he was ungallant enough to suspect—from the uncomfortable demeanour of his customer—that all was not right. He hoped she was not in a hurry, for he had no change; he must send to a neighbour for it. He immediately dispatched his shopman to the most affluent of all his neighbours—to her of Threadneedle Street. The delay occasioned the lady to remark, “I suppose he is gone to the Bank?” Mr. Hammond having answered in the affirmative, engaged his customer in conversation, and they freely discussed the current topics of the day; till the young man returned with ten one pound Bank of England Notes. Mr. Hammond felt a little remorse at having suspected his patroness; who departed with the purchases with the utmost despatch. She had not been gone half an hour before two gentlemen rushed into the shop in a state of grievous chagrin; one was the Bank clerk who had changed the note. He begged Mr. Hammond would be good enough to give him another for it. “Why?” asked the puzzled shopkeeper. “Why, Sir,” replied the distressed clerk, “it is forged!” Of course his request was not complied with. The clerk declared that his dismissal was highly probable; but Mr. Hammond was inexorable.

The arguments in favour of death punishments never fail so signally as when brought to the test of the scaffold and its effect on Bank Forgeries. When these were most numerous, although from twenty to thirty persons were put to death in one year, the gallows was never deprived of an equal share of prey during the next. As long as simulated notes could be passed with ease, and detected with difficulty, the Old Bailey had no terrors for clever engravers and dexterous imitators of the hieroglyphic autographs of the Bank of England signers.

At length public alarm at the prevalence of forgeries, and the difficulty of knowing them as such, arose to the height of demanding some sort of relief. In 1819 a committee was appointed by the Government to enquire into the best means of prevention. One hundred and eighty projects were submitted. They mostly consisted of intricate designs such as rendered great expense necessary to imitate. But none were adopted, for the obvious reason that ever so indifferent and easily executed imitation of an elaborate note is quite sufficient to deceive an uneducated eye; as had been abundantly proved in the instance of the Irish “black note.” The Bank had not been indifferent or idle on the subject, for it had spent some hundred thousand pounds in projects for inimitable notes. At last—not long before the Commission was appointed—they were on the eve of adopting an ingenious and costly mechanism for printing a note so precisely alike on both sides as to appear as one impression, when one of the Bank printers imitated it exactly by the simple contrivance of two plates and a hinge. This may serve as a sample of the other one hundred and seventy-nine projects.

Neither the gallows, nor expensive and elaborate works of art, having been found effectual in preventing forgery, the true expedient for at least lessening the crime was adopted in 1821:—the issue of small notes was wholly discontinued, and sovereigns were brought into circulation. The forger’s trade was nearly annihilated. Criminal returns inform us that during the nine years after the resumption of gold currency the number of convictions for offences having reference to the Bank of England notes were less than one hundred, and the executions only eight. This clinches the argument against the efficacy of the gallows. In 1830 death punishments were repealed for all minor offences, and, although the cases of Bank Note Forgeries slightly increased for a time, yet there is no reason to suppose that they are greater now than they were between 1821 and 1830.

At present, Bank paper forgeries are not numerous. One of the latest was that of the twenty pound note, of which about sixty specimens found their way into the Bank. It was well executed in Belgium by foreigners, and the impressions were passed among the Change-agents in various towns in France and the Netherlands. The speculation did not succeed; for the notes got into, and were detected at, the Bank, a little too soon to profit the schemers much.

The most considerable frauds now perpetrated are not forgeries; but are done upon the plan of the highwayman mentioned in our first chapter. In order to give currency to stolen or lost notes which have been stopped at the Bank (lists of which are supplied to every banker in the country), the numbers and dates are fraudulently altered. Some years since, a gentleman, who had been receiving a large sum of money at the Bank, was robbed of it in an omnibus. The notes gradually came in, but all were altered. The last was one for five hundred pounds, dated the 12th March, 1846, and numbered 32109. On the Monday (3rd June) after the last “Derby Day,” amid the twenty-five thousand pieces of paper that were examined by the Bank Inspectors, there was one note for five hundred pounds, dated 12th March, 1848, and numbered 32409. At that note an inspector suddenly arrested his rapid examination of the pile of which it was one. He scrutinised it for a minute, and pronounced it “altered.” On the next day, that same note, with a perfect one for five hundred pounds, is shown to us with an intimation of the fact. We look at every letter; we trace every line; follow every flourish: we hold both up to the light; we undulate our visuals with the waves of the water-mark. We confess that we cannot pronounce decisively; but we have an opinion derived from a slight “goutiness” in the fine stroke of the figure 4 that No. 32409 is the forgery! so indeed it was. Yet the Bank Inspector had picked it out from the hundred genuine notes as instantaneously—pounced upon it as rapidly, as if it had been printed with green ink upon card-board.

This then, O gentlemen forgers and sporting note alterers, is the kind of odds which is against you. A minute investigation of the note assured us of your exceeding skill and ingenuity; but it also convinced us of the superiority of the detective ordeal which you have to blind and to pass. In this instance you had followed the highwayman’s plan, and had put with great cunning, the additional marks to the 1 in 32109 to make it into a 4. To hide the scraping out of the top or serif of the figure 1—to make the angle from which to draw the fine line of the 4—you had artfully inserted with a pen the figures “£16 16” as if that sum had been received from a person bearing a name that you had written above. You had with extraordinary neatness cut out the “6” from 1846, and filled up the hole with an 8 abstracted from some note of lesser value. You had fitted it with remarkable precision; only you had not got the 8 quite upright enough to pass the shrewd glance of the Bank Inspector.

We have seen a one-pound note made up of refuse pieces of a hundred other Bank notes, and pasted on a piece of paper (like a note that had been accidentally torn), so as to present an entire and passable whole.

To alter with a pen a 1 into a 4 is an easy task—to cut out the numeral from the date in one note and insert it into another, needs only a tyro in paper-cutting; but to change the special number by which each note is distinguished, is a feat only second in impossibility to trumping every court-card of every suit six times running in a rubber of whist. Yet we have seen a note so cleverly altered by this expedient, that it was actually paid by the Bank cashiers. If the reader will take a Bank note out of his purse, and examine its “number,” he will at once appreciate the combination of chances required to find, on any other note, any other figure that shall displace any one of the numerals so as to avoid detection. The “number” of every Bank note is printed twice on one line—first, on the words “I promise,” secondly, on the words, “or bearer.” Sometimes the figures cover the whole of those words; sometimes they only partly obscure them. No. 99066 now lies before us. Suppose we wished to substitute the “0” of another note for the first “9” of the one now under our eye; we see that the “9” covers a little bit of the “P,” and intersects in three places the “r,” in “Promise.” Now, to give this alteration the smallest chance, we must look through hundreds of other notes till we find an “0” which not only covers a part of the “P” and intersects the “r” in three places, but in precisely the same places as the “9” on our note does; else the strokes of those letters would not meet when the “0” was let in, and instant detection would ensue. But even then the job would only be half done. The second initial “9” stands upon the “or” in “or bearer,” and we should have to investigate several hundred more notes, to find an “0” that intersected that little word exactly in the same manner, and then let it in with such mathematical nicety, that not the hundredth part of a hair’s breadth of the transferred paper should fail to range with the rest of the letters and figures on the altered note; to say nothing of hiding the joins in the paper. This is the triumph of ambidexterity; it is a species of patch-work far beyond the most sublime achievements of “Old Patch” himself.

Time has proved that the steady perseverance of the Bank—despite the most furious clamour—in gradually improving their original note and thus preserving those most essential qualities, simplicity and uniformity—has been a better preventive to forgery than any one of the hundreds of plans, pictures, complications, chemicals, and colours, which have been forced upon the Directors’ notice. Whole-note forgery is nearly extinct. The lives of Eminent Forgers need only wait for a single addendum; for only one man is left who can claim superiority over Mathieson, and he was, unfortunately for the Bank of England, born a little too late, to trip up his heels, or those of the late Mr. Charles Price. He can do everything with a note that the patchers, and alterers, and simulators, can do, and a great deal more. Flimsy as a Bank note is to a proverb, he can split it into three perfect continuous, flat, and even leaves. He has forged more than one design sent into the Bank as an infallible preventive to forgery. You may, if you like, lend him a hundred pound note: he will undertake to discharge every trace of ink from it, and return it to you perfectly uninjured and a perfect blank. We are not quite sure that if you were to burn a Bank note and hand him the black cinders, that he would not bleach it, and join it, and conjure it back again into a very good-looking, payable piece of currency. But we are sure of the truth of the following story, which we have from our friend the transcendant forger referred to; and who is no other than the chief of the Engraving and Engineering department of the Bank of England:

Some years ago—in the days of the thirty-shilling notes—a certain Irishman saved up the sum of eighty-seven pounds ten, in notes of the Bank of Ireland. As a sure means of securing this valuable property, he put it in the foot of an old stocking, and buried it in his garden, where Bank note paper couldn’t fail to keep dry, and to come out, when wanted, in the best preservation.

After leaving his treasure in this excellent place of deposit for some months, it occurred to the depositor to take a look at it, and see how it was getting on. He found the stocking-foot apparently full of the fragments of mildewed and broken mushrooms. No other shadow of a shade of eighty-seven pounds ten.

In the midst of his despair, the man had the sense not to disturb the ashes of his property. He took the stocking-foot in his hand, posted off to the Bank in Dublin, entered it one morning as soon as it was opened, and, staring at the clerk with a most extraordinary absence of all expression in his face, said:

“Ah, look at that, Sir! Can ye do anything for me?”

“What do you call this?” said the clerk.

“Eighty-sivin pound ten, praise the Lord, as I’m a sinner! Ohone! There was a twenty as was paid to me by Mr. Phalim O’Dowd, Sir, and a ten as was changed by Pat Reilly, and a five as was owen by Tim; and Ted Connor, ses he to ould Phillips—”

“Well! Never mind old Phillips. You have done it, my friend!”

“Oh Lord, Sir, and it’s done it I have, most com-plate! Oh, good luck to you, Sir, can you do nothing for me?”

“I don’t know what’s to be done with such a mess as this. Tell me, first of all, what you put in the stocking, you unfortunate blunderer?”

“Oh yes, Sir, and tell you true as if it was the last word I had to spake entirely, and the Lord be good to you, and Ted Connor ses he to ould Phillips, regarden the five as was owen by Tim, and not includen of the ten which was changed by Pat Reilly—”

“You didn’t put Pat Reilly, or ould Phillips into the stocking, did you?”

“Is it Pat or ould Phillips as was ever the valy of eighty-sivin pound ten, lost and gone, and includen the five as was owen by Tim, and Ted Connor—”

“Then tell me what you did put in the stocking, and let me take it down. And then hold your tongue, if you can, and go your way, and come back to-morrow.”

The particulars of the notes were taken, without any reference to ould Phillips: who could not, however, by any means be kept out of the story; and the man departed.

When he was gone, the stocking-foot was shown to the then Chief Engraver of the notes, who said that if anybody could settle the business, his son could. And he proposed that the particulars of the notes should not be communicated to his son, who was then employed in his department of the Bank, but should be put away under lock and key; and that if his son’s ingenuity should enable him to discover from these ashes what notes had really been put in the stocking, and the two lists should tally, the man should be paid the lost amount. To this prudent proposal the Bank of Ireland readily assented; being extremely anxious that the man should not be a loser; but, of course, deeming it essential to be protected from imposition.

The son readily undertook the delicate commission proposed to him. He detached the fragments from the stocking with the utmost care, on the fine point of a penknife; laid the whole gently in a basin of warm water; and presently saw them, to his delight, begin to unfold and expand like flowers. By and by, he began to “teaze them” with very light touches of the ends of a camel’s-hair pencil, and so, by little and little, and by the most delicate use of the warm water, the camel’s-hair pencil, and the penknife, got the various morsels separate before him, and began to piece them together. The first piece laid down was faintly recognisable by a practised eye as a bit of the left-hand bottom corner of a twenty pound note; then came a bit of a five; then of a ten; then more bits of a twenty; then more bits of a five and ten; then, another left-hand bottom corner of a twenty—so there were two twenties!—and so on, until, to the admiration and astonishment of the whole Bank, he noted down the exact amount deposited in the stocking, and the exact notes of which it had been composed. Upon this—as he wished to see and divert himself with the man on his return—he provided himself with a bundle of corresponding new, clean, rustling notes, and awaited his arrival.

He came exactly as before, with the same blank staring face, and the same inquiry, “Can you do anything for me, Sir!”

“Well,” said our friend, “I don’t know. Maybe I can do something. But I have taken a great deal of pains, and lost a great deal of time, and I want to know what you mean to give me!”

“Is it give, Sir? Thin, is there anything I wouldn’t give for my eighty-sivin pound tin, Sir; and it’s murdered I am by ould Phillips.”

“Never mind him; there were two twenties, were there not?”

“Oh, holy mother, Sir, there was! Two most illigant twenties! and Ted Conner—and Phalim—which Reilly—”

He faltered, and stopped as our friend, with much ostentatious rustling of the crisp paper, produced a new twenty, and then the other twenty, and then a ten, and then a five, and so forth. Meanwhile, the man, occasionally murmuring an exclamation of surprise, or a protestation of gratitude, but gradually becoming vague and remote in the latter as the notes re-appeared, looked on, staring, evidently inclined to believe that they were the real lost notes, reproduced in that state by some chemical process. At last they were all told out, and in his pocket, and he still stood staring and muttering, “Oh holy Mother, only to think of it! Sir, it’s bound to you for ever that I am!”—but more vaguely and remotely now than ever.

“Well,” said our friend, “what do you propose to give me for this?”

After staring and rubbing his chin for some time longer, he replied with the unexpected question:

“Do you like bacon?”

“Very much,” said our friend.

“Thin it’s a side as I’ll bring your honor to-morrow morning, and a bucket of new milk—and ould Phillips—”

“Come,” said our friend, glancing at a notable shillelah the man had under his arm, “let me undeceive you. I don’t want anything of you, and I am very glad you have got your money back. But I suppose you’d stand by me, now, if I wanted a boy to help me in any little skirmish?”

They were standing by a window on the top storey of the Bank, commanding a courtyard, where a sentry was on duty. To our friend’s amazement, the man dashed out of the room without speaking one word, suddenly appeared in the courtyard, performed a war-dance round this astonished soldier—who was a modest young recruit—made the shillelah flutter, like a wooden butterfly, round his musket, round his bayonet, round his head, round his body, round his arms, inside and outside his legs, advanced and retired, rattled it all round him like a firework, looked up at the window, cried out with a high leap in the air, “Whooroo! Thry me!”—vanished—and never was beheld at the Bank again from that time forth.

This day is Published, Price 5s. 6d., neatly Bound in Cloth,

THE FIRST VOLUME
OF
HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

Publishing Monthly, Price 2d., Stamped, 3d.,

THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
OF
CURRENT EVENTS.

This Monthly Supplement of Household Words, containing a history of the previous month, is issued regularly with the Magazines.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

Published at the Office, No 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. Printed by Bradbury & Evans, Whitefriars, London.

Transcriber’s Notes

Lines marked with ~= ... =~ were in German Fraktur.

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

Itemized changes from the original text:

- On page 32, changed “where-ever” to “wherever”, near “generously subscribed to charities”

- On page 34, changed “watermark” to “water-mark”, near “paper with the ink or”

- On page 38, changed “have,” to “have”, near “chemicals, and colours, which have”

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSEHOLD WORDS, NO. 26, SEPTEMBER 21, 1850 ***

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Table of Contents

- HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

- TABLE OF CONTENTS

- FOREIGNERS’ PORTRAITS OF ENGLISHMEN.

- THE STEAM PLOUGH.

- A SACRED GROVE.

- “CAPE” SKETCHES.

- “BATTLE WITH LIFE!”

- SPY POLICE.

- CHIPS.

- TWO CHAPTERS ON BANK NOTE FORGERIES.

- Transcriber’s Notes

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE