PIANOS FOR THE MILLION.Thereseems to be an increasing disposition among us to regard music as an agent of civilisation, and therefore an increasing anxiety to diffuse a taste for the art throughout all classes of the people. The simple songs that are found in countries in an early stage of progress cannot constitute the music of a refined nation, any more than their rude ballads can be the staple, instead of the mere germ, of their poetry. Both, however, serve as an excellent foundation for the superstructures of taste; and to both we return occasionally from amid the complications of art, to snatch from them a healthy inspiration.It is not in mere refinement that the operation of music is obvious and powerful: it humanises, and 'makes the whole world kin.' 'There is no free-masonry so intimate and immediate, I believe,' says a recent author when relating a conversation with Mrs Hemans, 'as that which exists among the lovers of music; and although, when we parted, I could not tell the colour of her eyes and hair, I felt that a confidence and a good understanding had arisen between us, which the discussion of no subject less fascinating could have excited.' It is in this point of view that music should be regarded by philanthropists: the science should be given to the masses of the people as a bond of sympathy between them and the upper stratum of society. But while many efforts are making in this direction, there is still great sluggishness in one important branch of the business: the lower classes have no good instruments, and have no great artists; the inspiration derived from a Jenny Lind or a Sontag never descends beneath a certain line in the social scale; and the pianoforte, the most useful of all musical instruments, has never served for a rallying-point in the domestic circles of the poor.To deal with the former of these two difficulties is arduous—perhaps impossible. Even in this country, where everything bears a money value, including even the light that enters our houses, there aresomegalleries where the works of great painters are patent to the public. But the sister art is a monopoly of the rich, because the efforts of performers produce no permanent creations, but merely an evanescent sound, which may elevate the mind and linger on the memory, but can never be reproduced by the listener. A painter lives by the sale of works which survive even himself perhaps for hundreds of years; but a musician retails performances that are not prolonged even by an echo. The great singer, however, demands a higher reward than the great poet; and the great actor grows rich while the great dramatist barely lives. Who can help it? We give willingly what they demand: there is no compulsion in the case, and the day of sumptuary laws is gone by.But this deprivation does not press so much upon the poor as upon a great portion of the middle-classes. We cannot find fault with musical artists for demanding half a guinea or a guinea from every one who chooses to listen to a few songs; because such sums are voluntarily paid, and all dealers, even those who deal in harmonious sounds, have the same right to sell them in the dearest market that they have to buy their wines and jewels in the cheapest. But unluckily the deprivation is felt by the very class which would benefit the most, and confer the most benefit, by being admitted on reasonable termsto such exhibitions of high art. It is neither from among the poor nor the rich that great artists usually spring, but from that large middle-class in which the genius of individuals receives an impulse from pecuniary necessity. In that rank large sums cannot be paid for a song, and their claims to gentility will not permit them to class themselves even at a concert with the grade beneath them, permitted to listen for a lower price in organ lofts and at the back of galleries. We do not say that there is no remedy even for this evil. The genius of the present age is fertile in expedients, and perhaps some plan may be hit upon to satisfy the exorbitant expectations of musical artists, by providing a larger and more frequent audience at prices better adapted to ordinary means. So long as the present system, however, continues, music cannot be expected to make any rapid progress among us; for the effect of the system is to degrade art to the level of fashion, and thus repress the noble and generous aspirations of genius.But the difficulty arising from the enormous expense of such musical instruments as the piano is less complicated; and indeed it would appear at first sight to be very extraordinary that in an age of almost unbounded speculation and competition it should exist at all. There is nothing in the construction of the machinery of a piano which ought to prevent it from being found in tens of thousands of houses in this country from which it is at present entirely excluded. The existing piano, however, is a traditional instrument—an heir-loom of the wealthy; and for them alone it must be manufactured. Its case must be of expensive foreign woods, and its keys of ivory; its legs must be elegantly turned; its handsome feet must roll on brazen wheels adapted for the rich carpet; and generally it must be decorated with carvings in wood, such as of themselves, entirely superfluous as they are, add several pounds to the expense. The manufacturers say that all this is so because the instrumentsmustbe made exclusively for the rich, who would not purchase them if they were not elegant in form, and costly in material and workmanship. But this, we strongly suspect, is no longer true. Music has now descended lower in the social scale than it did in the last generation, and thousands of hearts are beating with the feeling of art and its aspirations, which were formerly cold and silent. The comparatively poor and the really economical do not buy pianos, simply because they are far beyond their means; and in England the cause of musical science and kindly feeling is deprived of the aid of a family instrument, which in Germany is found even in the parlour of the village public-houses.Tables and chairs, bedsteads, and other articles of furniture, are manufactured on purpose to suit the means of the various classes of purchasers. Bedsteads may be had in London, and we presume elsewhere with equal ease, at 18s. and at L.50 a piece; and chairs which, in one form, cost L.2 or L.3 each, in another—of stained wood, with cane seats, extremely pretty and lasting—sell for 15s. the half-dozen. Why should not the less wealthy families have their own piano as well as their own chair or bedstead? And the humbleness of the materials, it should be remarked, would not necessarily involve any want of elegance in shape. The cheap chairs alluded to are sometimes very passable imitations of rosewood chairs—and they answer the purpose as well! Let us add, that the introduction of the new process of desiccation applied to timber would seem to render the present a very favourable juncture for such speculations as we hint at. Formerly, many years' warehousing would have been required to divest the wood of those juices which interrupt sound, and the trade in the material would thus be a monopoly of wealthy capitalists; but now, thanks to the science of the day, timber may be thoroughly dried in hours instead of years, and thus a ruinous interest on invested money saved.Should this new manufacture, however, be commenced, the speculators must please to bear in mind that we do not ask for inferior instruments, but for cheap materials and plain workmanship. Some time ago an attempt was made to introduce watches with imitative gold cases: but the works were spurious imitations likewise; and these out-of-time-pieces, brought forward, if we recollect rightly, at 15s., sank speedily to 5s., and are now rarely seen at all. This should be a lesson to piano-makers for the million. They should further recollect, however, that an instrument, hitherto the prescriptive property of the rich and refined, must, however humble its materials, retain a certain elegance of form. A plain deal piano, for instance, even if the wood were suitable, would not be bought; but one made of birch, and French polished, with cheap keys, &c. would not disgrace a drawing-room. We remember seeing furniture of this timber in some of the small country inns in Russia; and it struck us as having an enormously-extravagant look, having all the appearance of satin-wood. This, however, we give merely as an illustration of our meaning. We put forth these paragraphs as nothing more than a hint to set thinking on the subject persons who possess the mechanical knowledge we cannot pretend to; and having so done, we take leave of the subject.L. R.
Thereseems to be an increasing disposition among us to regard music as an agent of civilisation, and therefore an increasing anxiety to diffuse a taste for the art throughout all classes of the people. The simple songs that are found in countries in an early stage of progress cannot constitute the music of a refined nation, any more than their rude ballads can be the staple, instead of the mere germ, of their poetry. Both, however, serve as an excellent foundation for the superstructures of taste; and to both we return occasionally from amid the complications of art, to snatch from them a healthy inspiration.
It is not in mere refinement that the operation of music is obvious and powerful: it humanises, and 'makes the whole world kin.' 'There is no free-masonry so intimate and immediate, I believe,' says a recent author when relating a conversation with Mrs Hemans, 'as that which exists among the lovers of music; and although, when we parted, I could not tell the colour of her eyes and hair, I felt that a confidence and a good understanding had arisen between us, which the discussion of no subject less fascinating could have excited.' It is in this point of view that music should be regarded by philanthropists: the science should be given to the masses of the people as a bond of sympathy between them and the upper stratum of society. But while many efforts are making in this direction, there is still great sluggishness in one important branch of the business: the lower classes have no good instruments, and have no great artists; the inspiration derived from a Jenny Lind or a Sontag never descends beneath a certain line in the social scale; and the pianoforte, the most useful of all musical instruments, has never served for a rallying-point in the domestic circles of the poor.
To deal with the former of these two difficulties is arduous—perhaps impossible. Even in this country, where everything bears a money value, including even the light that enters our houses, there aresomegalleries where the works of great painters are patent to the public. But the sister art is a monopoly of the rich, because the efforts of performers produce no permanent creations, but merely an evanescent sound, which may elevate the mind and linger on the memory, but can never be reproduced by the listener. A painter lives by the sale of works which survive even himself perhaps for hundreds of years; but a musician retails performances that are not prolonged even by an echo. The great singer, however, demands a higher reward than the great poet; and the great actor grows rich while the great dramatist barely lives. Who can help it? We give willingly what they demand: there is no compulsion in the case, and the day of sumptuary laws is gone by.
But this deprivation does not press so much upon the poor as upon a great portion of the middle-classes. We cannot find fault with musical artists for demanding half a guinea or a guinea from every one who chooses to listen to a few songs; because such sums are voluntarily paid, and all dealers, even those who deal in harmonious sounds, have the same right to sell them in the dearest market that they have to buy their wines and jewels in the cheapest. But unluckily the deprivation is felt by the very class which would benefit the most, and confer the most benefit, by being admitted on reasonable termsto such exhibitions of high art. It is neither from among the poor nor the rich that great artists usually spring, but from that large middle-class in which the genius of individuals receives an impulse from pecuniary necessity. In that rank large sums cannot be paid for a song, and their claims to gentility will not permit them to class themselves even at a concert with the grade beneath them, permitted to listen for a lower price in organ lofts and at the back of galleries. We do not say that there is no remedy even for this evil. The genius of the present age is fertile in expedients, and perhaps some plan may be hit upon to satisfy the exorbitant expectations of musical artists, by providing a larger and more frequent audience at prices better adapted to ordinary means. So long as the present system, however, continues, music cannot be expected to make any rapid progress among us; for the effect of the system is to degrade art to the level of fashion, and thus repress the noble and generous aspirations of genius.
But the difficulty arising from the enormous expense of such musical instruments as the piano is less complicated; and indeed it would appear at first sight to be very extraordinary that in an age of almost unbounded speculation and competition it should exist at all. There is nothing in the construction of the machinery of a piano which ought to prevent it from being found in tens of thousands of houses in this country from which it is at present entirely excluded. The existing piano, however, is a traditional instrument—an heir-loom of the wealthy; and for them alone it must be manufactured. Its case must be of expensive foreign woods, and its keys of ivory; its legs must be elegantly turned; its handsome feet must roll on brazen wheels adapted for the rich carpet; and generally it must be decorated with carvings in wood, such as of themselves, entirely superfluous as they are, add several pounds to the expense. The manufacturers say that all this is so because the instrumentsmustbe made exclusively for the rich, who would not purchase them if they were not elegant in form, and costly in material and workmanship. But this, we strongly suspect, is no longer true. Music has now descended lower in the social scale than it did in the last generation, and thousands of hearts are beating with the feeling of art and its aspirations, which were formerly cold and silent. The comparatively poor and the really economical do not buy pianos, simply because they are far beyond their means; and in England the cause of musical science and kindly feeling is deprived of the aid of a family instrument, which in Germany is found even in the parlour of the village public-houses.
Tables and chairs, bedsteads, and other articles of furniture, are manufactured on purpose to suit the means of the various classes of purchasers. Bedsteads may be had in London, and we presume elsewhere with equal ease, at 18s. and at L.50 a piece; and chairs which, in one form, cost L.2 or L.3 each, in another—of stained wood, with cane seats, extremely pretty and lasting—sell for 15s. the half-dozen. Why should not the less wealthy families have their own piano as well as their own chair or bedstead? And the humbleness of the materials, it should be remarked, would not necessarily involve any want of elegance in shape. The cheap chairs alluded to are sometimes very passable imitations of rosewood chairs—and they answer the purpose as well! Let us add, that the introduction of the new process of desiccation applied to timber would seem to render the present a very favourable juncture for such speculations as we hint at. Formerly, many years' warehousing would have been required to divest the wood of those juices which interrupt sound, and the trade in the material would thus be a monopoly of wealthy capitalists; but now, thanks to the science of the day, timber may be thoroughly dried in hours instead of years, and thus a ruinous interest on invested money saved.
Should this new manufacture, however, be commenced, the speculators must please to bear in mind that we do not ask for inferior instruments, but for cheap materials and plain workmanship. Some time ago an attempt was made to introduce watches with imitative gold cases: but the works were spurious imitations likewise; and these out-of-time-pieces, brought forward, if we recollect rightly, at 15s., sank speedily to 5s., and are now rarely seen at all. This should be a lesson to piano-makers for the million. They should further recollect, however, that an instrument, hitherto the prescriptive property of the rich and refined, must, however humble its materials, retain a certain elegance of form. A plain deal piano, for instance, even if the wood were suitable, would not be bought; but one made of birch, and French polished, with cheap keys, &c. would not disgrace a drawing-room. We remember seeing furniture of this timber in some of the small country inns in Russia; and it struck us as having an enormously-extravagant look, having all the appearance of satin-wood. This, however, we give merely as an illustration of our meaning. We put forth these paragraphs as nothing more than a hint to set thinking on the subject persons who possess the mechanical knowledge we cannot pretend to; and having so done, we take leave of the subject.
L. R.
THE PRISONS OF PARIS AND THEIR TENANTS.SECOND ARTICLE.Thecastle of Vincennes, within a few miles of Paris, has always been as terrible a place of detention as was the Bastille. Even in these days of comparative liberty and justice, Vincennes is made an engine of oppression; for throughout all political changes, the French government never scruples to seize and incarcerateillegallyany one against whom it has a grudge.The prisoners of Vincennes, till of late years, were seldom tried, and rarely knew what their offence was. The question they had to ask themselves was not, what is my crime?—but who is my enemy? who wants my fortune or my place? who covets my wife or my sister? who dreads my influence? Then the walls were so thick, the dungeons so deep, the guard so strict, that no cry for justice could reach the world outside.An unhappy person destined to be the inmate of this castle was generally seized and brought there in the middle of the night. After crossing a drawbridge, which spans a moat forty feet deep, he found himself in the hands of two men, who, by the pale light of a lamp, directed his trembling steps. Heavy doors of iron, with enormous bolts, were opened and closed one after another; narrow, steep, winding stairs, descending and descending; on all sides padlocks, bars, and gratings; and vaults which the sun never saw! Arrived in his dungeon, the prisoner, who perhaps an hour before had been dancing and feasting at a court-ball, and still wore his suit of velvet and gold, was searched and stripped of everything but the bare clothes that covered him, and was then left with a miserable pallet, two straw chairs, and a broken pitcher—the parting injunction of the jailors being, that he was not to permit himself the slightest noise. 'C'est ici le palais de la silence!' say they—('This is the palace of silence!') Those who were fortunate enough to see the light again, and lived to be restored to the world, were searched in the same way on leaving their dungeon, and were obliged to take an oath never to reveal what had passed in this state-prison, under the penalty of incurring the king's displeasure. As the king's displeasure would have immediately carried them back to Vincennes, we may believe that the vow was seldom violated.The tragedy of the Duc d'Enghien, who, on the 21st of March 1804, by the dim light of a lantern, was shot in the fosse of the castle of Vincennes, is too well known to be dilated on here: but although everybody has heard of the lamentable death of this brave man,and although the universal voice of mankind has pronounced his execution one of the darkest blots that stain the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, few people are aware that his arrest, or at least the pretence for it, originated in a simple police report, which was itself founded on a misunderstanding. The duke, who had emigrated to Germany, had there secretly married the Princess Charlotte de Rohan. What family reasons induced them to make a mystery of the marriage have never been disclosed; but the precautions he took to conceal his visits first awakened the suspicions of the police, and ultimately led them to report him as engaged in a counter-revolutionary intrigue. Another of the accusations brought against him originated in the mispronunciation of a name. It was reported that he was on intimate terms with General Dumourier, a man most obnoxious to the First Consul. It was too late discovered that the name of his associate was GeneralThumery. The German pronunciation had rendered these two names identical to the ears of the French agents of police. It is singular that the sole favour the duke asked for on arriving at Vincennes was a day's liberty on his parole, to shoot in the forest. The only tears shed at the sad ceremony of his execution were by the wife of the commandant, Madame Harel, who, by a romantic coincidence, happened to be his foster-sister.One of the most celebrated prisoners of Vincennes in the eighteenth century was Masères de La Tude, who expiated a folly by twenty years of cruel captivity, spent partly here and partly in the Bastille. Ingenious, clever, indefatigable, and patient, the schemes he contrived to effect an escape, and to communicate with his neighbours in misfortune, would fill a volume. Nevertheless, although Madame de Pompadour, the person he had offended, was dead, he would probably have never recovered his liberty but for a lucky breeze of wind, which blew a piece of paper, on which he had described his sufferings, into the lap of an honest woman called Legros, who kept a shop in Paris. The good soul was so touched by the narrative, that, by dint of perseverance and money, she obtained the release of her protégé in 1784.Not far from the chamber inhabited by La Tude was that of the unhappy Prévôt de Beaumont, who was guilty of the unpardonable rashness of denouncing the famousPacte de Famine. 'I accused De Sartines,' says he in his memoir published after the Revolution, 'who was attorney-general under Louis XV., of occasioning the famines that desolated France for three years; and to punish me, he inflicted on me, for fifteen years, sufferings to which the martyrology of the saints can present no parallel. Torn from my family and friends, buried alive in a dismal dungeon, chained to the wall, deprived of light and air, perishing of hunger and cold, nearly naked, I endured horrors so repugnant to nature, that my surviving to relate them is nothing less than a miracle!'Not only did the dire injustice of arbitrary will in those days tyrannise thus cruelly over men's bodies, but it did not scruple to destroy their minds. When a prisoner of state was considered dangerous from his courage, his patience, or his power of endurance, it was no uncommon thing to put him in a strait waistcoat, and carry him to Bicêtre. Here he was shut up in a cage, and bled, under pretext of curing him, till he died, or went really as mad as they said he was. Few survived and withstood this treatment; but amongst those who did was the Prévôt de Beaumont. He was found at Bicêtre by Mirabeau and his colleagues when they visited the hospital for the purpose of releasing those who had been unjustly confined there; on which occasion the infamies discovered are said to have been terrific. Many of the prisons in France are distinguished by the names of saints, which arises from the circumstance of their having been formerly religious houses. St Pelagie is the place to which persons were latterly sent for political offences: editors of newspapers, caricaturists, and people who would not be satisfied with things as they are, formed a considerable portion of its population.At the period of the First Revolution, the keeper of this prison was a man named Bouchotte, who, uninfected by the rage of cruelty that seemed to have seized on the population of Paris, distinguished himself by his courageous humanity. When the massacres of September were being perpetrated, and the furious mob were attacking all the jails, and slaughtering the prisoners, the jailors, far from making any resistance, generally threw wide their gates with a hearty welcome; but when the assassins reached St Pelagie, they found the house apparently abandoned; the gates were closed, all was silent within, and none answered to their summons. At length, having obtained implements, and forced an entrance, they found Bouchotte and his wife fast bound with cords. 'You are too late, citizens!' said Bouchotte; 'the prisoners, hearing of your approach, became desperate, and revolted. After serving us as you see, they have all made their escape!' Fortunately the mob was deceived; nor was it known till long afterwards that the whole scene was a scheme of this worthy man's to save the lives of the intended victims.An American gentleman of the name of Swan resided for twenty years in this prison; for we can scarcely say he was confined there, since he might have been restored to liberty had he desired it. After a long suit with a Frenchman, in which the American was cast, he preferred going to jail to paying a demand he considered unjust. Every year his creditor paid him a visit, in hopes of finding him less obstinate; and theemployésof the prison, as well as his fellow-captives, by all of whom he was exceedingly beloved, would intreat him to give way; but he only smiled, and bowing to his disappointed visitor, bade him adieu till that time next year. The love the prisoners bore him was well earned by innumerable acts of kindness and beneficence. He not only gave bread to the poorer debtors, but he restored many to liberty by satisfying the demands of their creditors. Mr Swan died at St Pelagie in 1830.Clichy is also a prison for debtors, where a cell is shown which was for two years inhabited by a man of forty years of age, who had been sent there for a very singular sort of debt—namely, the money he owed for the wet nurse's milk which he had imbibed while an infant, the amount of the debt at the period of his incarceration having accumulated to twelve thousand francs!A law formerly prevailed in France, that if a debtor escaped, the keeper became responsible for his debt. Of course this arrangement rendered evasion extremely difficult; nevertheless, to revenge some real or fancied injustice, a singular trick was played by a debtor, which greatly amused the Parisians. A certain Monsieur L—— having contrived to escape, presented himself one evening at the house of his astonished creditor.'You see,' said he, 'I am free. You may seize me, certainly, and send me back to jail, but I can never pay you; whereas, if you will give me money enough to escape out of the country, you can claim your debt of the keeper who can.'The creditor, who does not seem to have been very scrupulous, consented to this arrangement, on condition that he himself saw Monsieur L—— off by the diligence; which having done, and feeling himself safe, he on the following morning knocked at the gate of Clichy, and asked the keeper if he remembered him.'Certainly,' said the functionary; 'you are the creditor of Monsieur L——.''Exactly,' answered the creditor; 'and you are doubtless aware that Monsieur L—— has effected his escape, and that you are now responsible to me for the six thousand francs he owes me?'But instead of the face of dismay he expected, the officer began to laugh, and assured him that Monsieur L—— was safe in his room, and should immediately make his appearance, which, on being summoned, he did. The prisoner had his joke and his few hours ofliberty, and the creditor his disappointment, which his dishonest intentions well merited. So many debtors escape, that it was lately proposed to revive this law, now obsolete; but the suggestion was negatived, under the apprehension that this trick of Monsieur L——'s might be repeated in right earnest.There is a singular story told of a young man called Pierrot Dubourg, who was for some time a prisoner in the Luxembourg. Pierrot was a young farmer, who in 1788 resided about twenty miles from Paris. Handsome, gay, and prosperous in his circumstances, he was one of the happiest of men; the more so, that he had won the affections of a beautiful young girl called Geneviève, who had promised to become his wife. When the period appointed for the wedding approached, Pierrot told her that he must go to Paris for a short time, promising to bring her on his return all sorts of pretty things for hercorbeille. Well, Pierrot went, but he did not return. Geneviève waited and waited, week after week, and month after month; till at last, overcome by an anxiety which was rendered more acute from a spice of jealousy, she determined to seek him in the great city herself. She knew the address of the house he lodged at on his arrival, and thither she directed her steps.'Monsieur Pierrot Dubourg?' said the woman of the house; 'certainly he lodged here, but that is some months ago: he has been in prison ever since, and is not likely to get out, I fancy, for he was sent there by the Comte de Fersen!'Further inquiry elicited the following particulars:—Pierrot, on his arrival in Paris, with plenty of money in his pocket, had fallen into the hands of a set of persons who had very soon relieved him of it, and indeed of everything he possessed besides. These were the servants of some of the profligate courtiers of those days, whose morals appear to have been of the same complexion as their masters'. The person who had introduced him into this nest of plunderers was the Comte de Fersen's coachman, and when Pierrot found himself ruined, it was to him he attributed the mischief. Irritated and miserable at the loss, he one day relieved his vexation by falling foul of the offender just as he was mounting his box, full dressed, to drive his master to court. Of course the comte, who was in the carriage, was indignant, and poor Pierrot soon found himself in prison.It might have been supposed that Geneviève would be very much grieved when she heard this story, but, on the contrary, she was very happy: her lover was not unfaithful, only unfortunate, and with a determined will she set about getting him free. But although she succeeded at last, the success cost her very dear, and strange to say, it cost the king of France very dear too. After addressing herself to the police and the judges, and after presenting a petition to the king, which remained unanswered, and kneeling in the dust as the queen passed to Versailles, who drove on without attending to her, Geneviève at length procured an introduction to the Baron de Besenval, the favourite of the Comte d'Artois, the king's brother, to whom she made many prayers and many visits; and then one morning Pierrot Dubourg found himself, he knew not why or wherefore, suddenly at liberty. As he stepped into the street, an old woman accosted him, and bade him follow her. After walking some distance, she begged permission to tie a handkerchief over his eyes, to which—his curiosity being greatly excited—he consented. When the bandage was removed, Pierrot opened his eyes in a magnificent apartment, where nothing met his view but satin, velvet, gold, and glass, and before him stood a lady attired like a princess, but masked. Alas! it was the old story of Claudio and Angelo. Furious with rage, Pierrot struck her, and then, ashamed of the unmanly act, he was about to rush from the room; but she stopped him, and after telling him that she gave him back his vows, and renounced his love, she handed him a packet containing her peasant's dress, and all the presents he had made her in their happy days: and so they parted; and when Pierrot returned home, and they asked him what had become of Geneviève, he said she was dead.This happened in the reign of Louis XVI., and one might wonder how the humble Pierrot's disappointed love could influence the destiny of the king of France; and yet it did so. Pierrot had quitted Paris with his heart full of bitterness against the aristocracy; but more especially against the king, who had rejected Geneviève's petition; and against the queen, who had disdained her tears and prayers. After staying a short time in his formerly happy home, the contrast with the past, and the cruel recollections constantly suggested, became too bitter for him, and he wandered away, living an irregular sort of life, and mingling more and more with the violent republicans, to whom his only tie was, that they, too, hated the court and the courtiers. The course of his travels having at length brought him to St Menehould, he happened to be one day lounging in the streets, when, observing two carriages approaching, he stopped to see them pass. His surprise may be conceived when, on the driving-seat of one of them, dressed as a servant, he recognised the Comte de Fersen! Such a disguise could not be worn for nothing, and urged by hatred, he drew near the carriage, and looked in. There sat the queen of France, whilst the king, attired as a valet, was awkwardly endeavouring to perform the duties of his supposed office. It was Pierrot Dubourg who whispered to Drouet the postmaster who the travellers were, and it was he who accompanied Drouet's son in pursuit of the unhappy fugitives, who were overtaken at Varennes, and brought back to Paris. Pierrot Dubourg came too, and after losing sight of him for some time, we find him again filling the office of assistant executioner, in which situation he witnessed the beheading of his once-loved Geneviève, who was guillotined on the same day with Madame Dubarry.Monsieur Arago, in his éloge of Lavoisier, relates that this great chemist might possibly have escaped the death inflicted by his ignorant and ungrateful countrymen, who told him they had no more need of learned men, had he not been more anxious for the safety of others than his own. A poor woman in the neighbourhood of the Luxembourg had received him into her house, where she neglected no precautions for his safety and concealment; but his alarm for the consequences to his benefactress should he be discovered, distressed him so much more than his own danger, that he made repeated attempts to escape from her friendly roof, which she, by her vigilance, defeated. One night, however, he succeeded in eluding her watchfulness, and the next day saw him in the Luxembourg, whence he was removed to the Conciergerie, on his rapid way to the scaffold.Condorcet, the great mathematician, is said to have lost his life by not knowing how many eggs there should be in an omelette. Aware that he was suspected by Robespierre—for though a republican, he had dared to pity the royal family—he disfigured his face and hands with mortar, and fled from Paris in the disguise of a mason. After passing twenty-four hours in a wood, hunger drove him to a little inn, where he ordered an omelette.'Of how many eggs?' asked the servant.'Twelve,' replied the philosopher at random. A mason ordering an omelette of twelve eggs awakened suspicion; he was searched, and a volume of Horace being found in his pocket, he was arrested. Unable to face the scaffold, Condorcet took poison, and died on the road to Paris.Everybody knows that the horrors of the French Revolution were redeemed by many noble actions. We have told the story of Bouchotte at St Pelagie. Benoit, the keeper of the Luxembourg, also distinguished himself by many generous and courageous deeds. He saved the life of the Duchess of Orleans, the mother of Louis-Philippe, by refusing to give her up when summoned before the Committee of Public Safety. He declaredshe was ill—dying—all but dead, and thus averted her fate till she had an opportunity of obtaining protection.A lady called Jeanne Faurie also found a powerful friend in a jailor of the Luxembourg. She was young, and extremely beautiful, and although Rifaut was looked upon as one of the most inflexible of functionaries, her bright eyes melted his rigidity. He procured her pens, ink, paper, and books. 'I know my character and my life are at stake,' said he; 'but speak! command me! Whatever you desire I will do.' When he heard that she was on the list of persons to be executed, he gave her a disguise and all the money he had, and set her at liberty. For some time he concealed the lady's flight; but when it could be no longer kept secret, he went to Benoit, confessed his fault, and demanded the punishment. Benoit, however, did not betray him; and Jeanne Faurie's escape was not known till there was no danger in making it public. The Luxembourg was called the Reservoir of the Conciergerie, and Josephine Beauharnois was confined here before being transferred to the latter prison. It is related that when she afterwards resided in the Luxembourg as wife of the First Consul, she one day intreated Bonaparte to accompany her to the cell she had formerly inhabited. When there, she asked him for his sword, with which she raised one of the flags, and there, to her great joy, she found a ring given her by her mother, on which she set the highest value. She told him that when she was summoned to quit the prison, supposing she was going to the scaffold, she had contrived to conceal the jewel, which she could not bear to think should fall into the hands of the public executioner.Amongst the names inscribed on the keeper's register of the Luxembourg, are those of the ministers of Charles X. in 1830, and also that of Louis-Napoleon, the present President of the French Republic, who was confined here after the unsuccessful affair of Strasburg.
SECOND ARTICLE.
Thecastle of Vincennes, within a few miles of Paris, has always been as terrible a place of detention as was the Bastille. Even in these days of comparative liberty and justice, Vincennes is made an engine of oppression; for throughout all political changes, the French government never scruples to seize and incarcerateillegallyany one against whom it has a grudge.
The prisoners of Vincennes, till of late years, were seldom tried, and rarely knew what their offence was. The question they had to ask themselves was not, what is my crime?—but who is my enemy? who wants my fortune or my place? who covets my wife or my sister? who dreads my influence? Then the walls were so thick, the dungeons so deep, the guard so strict, that no cry for justice could reach the world outside.
An unhappy person destined to be the inmate of this castle was generally seized and brought there in the middle of the night. After crossing a drawbridge, which spans a moat forty feet deep, he found himself in the hands of two men, who, by the pale light of a lamp, directed his trembling steps. Heavy doors of iron, with enormous bolts, were opened and closed one after another; narrow, steep, winding stairs, descending and descending; on all sides padlocks, bars, and gratings; and vaults which the sun never saw! Arrived in his dungeon, the prisoner, who perhaps an hour before had been dancing and feasting at a court-ball, and still wore his suit of velvet and gold, was searched and stripped of everything but the bare clothes that covered him, and was then left with a miserable pallet, two straw chairs, and a broken pitcher—the parting injunction of the jailors being, that he was not to permit himself the slightest noise. 'C'est ici le palais de la silence!' say they—('This is the palace of silence!') Those who were fortunate enough to see the light again, and lived to be restored to the world, were searched in the same way on leaving their dungeon, and were obliged to take an oath never to reveal what had passed in this state-prison, under the penalty of incurring the king's displeasure. As the king's displeasure would have immediately carried them back to Vincennes, we may believe that the vow was seldom violated.
The tragedy of the Duc d'Enghien, who, on the 21st of March 1804, by the dim light of a lantern, was shot in the fosse of the castle of Vincennes, is too well known to be dilated on here: but although everybody has heard of the lamentable death of this brave man,and although the universal voice of mankind has pronounced his execution one of the darkest blots that stain the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, few people are aware that his arrest, or at least the pretence for it, originated in a simple police report, which was itself founded on a misunderstanding. The duke, who had emigrated to Germany, had there secretly married the Princess Charlotte de Rohan. What family reasons induced them to make a mystery of the marriage have never been disclosed; but the precautions he took to conceal his visits first awakened the suspicions of the police, and ultimately led them to report him as engaged in a counter-revolutionary intrigue. Another of the accusations brought against him originated in the mispronunciation of a name. It was reported that he was on intimate terms with General Dumourier, a man most obnoxious to the First Consul. It was too late discovered that the name of his associate was GeneralThumery. The German pronunciation had rendered these two names identical to the ears of the French agents of police. It is singular that the sole favour the duke asked for on arriving at Vincennes was a day's liberty on his parole, to shoot in the forest. The only tears shed at the sad ceremony of his execution were by the wife of the commandant, Madame Harel, who, by a romantic coincidence, happened to be his foster-sister.
One of the most celebrated prisoners of Vincennes in the eighteenth century was Masères de La Tude, who expiated a folly by twenty years of cruel captivity, spent partly here and partly in the Bastille. Ingenious, clever, indefatigable, and patient, the schemes he contrived to effect an escape, and to communicate with his neighbours in misfortune, would fill a volume. Nevertheless, although Madame de Pompadour, the person he had offended, was dead, he would probably have never recovered his liberty but for a lucky breeze of wind, which blew a piece of paper, on which he had described his sufferings, into the lap of an honest woman called Legros, who kept a shop in Paris. The good soul was so touched by the narrative, that, by dint of perseverance and money, she obtained the release of her protégé in 1784.
Not far from the chamber inhabited by La Tude was that of the unhappy Prévôt de Beaumont, who was guilty of the unpardonable rashness of denouncing the famousPacte de Famine. 'I accused De Sartines,' says he in his memoir published after the Revolution, 'who was attorney-general under Louis XV., of occasioning the famines that desolated France for three years; and to punish me, he inflicted on me, for fifteen years, sufferings to which the martyrology of the saints can present no parallel. Torn from my family and friends, buried alive in a dismal dungeon, chained to the wall, deprived of light and air, perishing of hunger and cold, nearly naked, I endured horrors so repugnant to nature, that my surviving to relate them is nothing less than a miracle!'
Not only did the dire injustice of arbitrary will in those days tyrannise thus cruelly over men's bodies, but it did not scruple to destroy their minds. When a prisoner of state was considered dangerous from his courage, his patience, or his power of endurance, it was no uncommon thing to put him in a strait waistcoat, and carry him to Bicêtre. Here he was shut up in a cage, and bled, under pretext of curing him, till he died, or went really as mad as they said he was. Few survived and withstood this treatment; but amongst those who did was the Prévôt de Beaumont. He was found at Bicêtre by Mirabeau and his colleagues when they visited the hospital for the purpose of releasing those who had been unjustly confined there; on which occasion the infamies discovered are said to have been terrific. Many of the prisons in France are distinguished by the names of saints, which arises from the circumstance of their having been formerly religious houses. St Pelagie is the place to which persons were latterly sent for political offences: editors of newspapers, caricaturists, and people who would not be satisfied with things as they are, formed a considerable portion of its population.
At the period of the First Revolution, the keeper of this prison was a man named Bouchotte, who, uninfected by the rage of cruelty that seemed to have seized on the population of Paris, distinguished himself by his courageous humanity. When the massacres of September were being perpetrated, and the furious mob were attacking all the jails, and slaughtering the prisoners, the jailors, far from making any resistance, generally threw wide their gates with a hearty welcome; but when the assassins reached St Pelagie, they found the house apparently abandoned; the gates were closed, all was silent within, and none answered to their summons. At length, having obtained implements, and forced an entrance, they found Bouchotte and his wife fast bound with cords. 'You are too late, citizens!' said Bouchotte; 'the prisoners, hearing of your approach, became desperate, and revolted. After serving us as you see, they have all made their escape!' Fortunately the mob was deceived; nor was it known till long afterwards that the whole scene was a scheme of this worthy man's to save the lives of the intended victims.
An American gentleman of the name of Swan resided for twenty years in this prison; for we can scarcely say he was confined there, since he might have been restored to liberty had he desired it. After a long suit with a Frenchman, in which the American was cast, he preferred going to jail to paying a demand he considered unjust. Every year his creditor paid him a visit, in hopes of finding him less obstinate; and theemployésof the prison, as well as his fellow-captives, by all of whom he was exceedingly beloved, would intreat him to give way; but he only smiled, and bowing to his disappointed visitor, bade him adieu till that time next year. The love the prisoners bore him was well earned by innumerable acts of kindness and beneficence. He not only gave bread to the poorer debtors, but he restored many to liberty by satisfying the demands of their creditors. Mr Swan died at St Pelagie in 1830.
Clichy is also a prison for debtors, where a cell is shown which was for two years inhabited by a man of forty years of age, who had been sent there for a very singular sort of debt—namely, the money he owed for the wet nurse's milk which he had imbibed while an infant, the amount of the debt at the period of his incarceration having accumulated to twelve thousand francs!
A law formerly prevailed in France, that if a debtor escaped, the keeper became responsible for his debt. Of course this arrangement rendered evasion extremely difficult; nevertheless, to revenge some real or fancied injustice, a singular trick was played by a debtor, which greatly amused the Parisians. A certain Monsieur L—— having contrived to escape, presented himself one evening at the house of his astonished creditor.
'You see,' said he, 'I am free. You may seize me, certainly, and send me back to jail, but I can never pay you; whereas, if you will give me money enough to escape out of the country, you can claim your debt of the keeper who can.'
The creditor, who does not seem to have been very scrupulous, consented to this arrangement, on condition that he himself saw Monsieur L—— off by the diligence; which having done, and feeling himself safe, he on the following morning knocked at the gate of Clichy, and asked the keeper if he remembered him.
'Certainly,' said the functionary; 'you are the creditor of Monsieur L——.'
'Exactly,' answered the creditor; 'and you are doubtless aware that Monsieur L—— has effected his escape, and that you are now responsible to me for the six thousand francs he owes me?'
But instead of the face of dismay he expected, the officer began to laugh, and assured him that Monsieur L—— was safe in his room, and should immediately make his appearance, which, on being summoned, he did. The prisoner had his joke and his few hours ofliberty, and the creditor his disappointment, which his dishonest intentions well merited. So many debtors escape, that it was lately proposed to revive this law, now obsolete; but the suggestion was negatived, under the apprehension that this trick of Monsieur L——'s might be repeated in right earnest.
There is a singular story told of a young man called Pierrot Dubourg, who was for some time a prisoner in the Luxembourg. Pierrot was a young farmer, who in 1788 resided about twenty miles from Paris. Handsome, gay, and prosperous in his circumstances, he was one of the happiest of men; the more so, that he had won the affections of a beautiful young girl called Geneviève, who had promised to become his wife. When the period appointed for the wedding approached, Pierrot told her that he must go to Paris for a short time, promising to bring her on his return all sorts of pretty things for hercorbeille. Well, Pierrot went, but he did not return. Geneviève waited and waited, week after week, and month after month; till at last, overcome by an anxiety which was rendered more acute from a spice of jealousy, she determined to seek him in the great city herself. She knew the address of the house he lodged at on his arrival, and thither she directed her steps.
'Monsieur Pierrot Dubourg?' said the woman of the house; 'certainly he lodged here, but that is some months ago: he has been in prison ever since, and is not likely to get out, I fancy, for he was sent there by the Comte de Fersen!'
Further inquiry elicited the following particulars:—Pierrot, on his arrival in Paris, with plenty of money in his pocket, had fallen into the hands of a set of persons who had very soon relieved him of it, and indeed of everything he possessed besides. These were the servants of some of the profligate courtiers of those days, whose morals appear to have been of the same complexion as their masters'. The person who had introduced him into this nest of plunderers was the Comte de Fersen's coachman, and when Pierrot found himself ruined, it was to him he attributed the mischief. Irritated and miserable at the loss, he one day relieved his vexation by falling foul of the offender just as he was mounting his box, full dressed, to drive his master to court. Of course the comte, who was in the carriage, was indignant, and poor Pierrot soon found himself in prison.
It might have been supposed that Geneviève would be very much grieved when she heard this story, but, on the contrary, she was very happy: her lover was not unfaithful, only unfortunate, and with a determined will she set about getting him free. But although she succeeded at last, the success cost her very dear, and strange to say, it cost the king of France very dear too. After addressing herself to the police and the judges, and after presenting a petition to the king, which remained unanswered, and kneeling in the dust as the queen passed to Versailles, who drove on without attending to her, Geneviève at length procured an introduction to the Baron de Besenval, the favourite of the Comte d'Artois, the king's brother, to whom she made many prayers and many visits; and then one morning Pierrot Dubourg found himself, he knew not why or wherefore, suddenly at liberty. As he stepped into the street, an old woman accosted him, and bade him follow her. After walking some distance, she begged permission to tie a handkerchief over his eyes, to which—his curiosity being greatly excited—he consented. When the bandage was removed, Pierrot opened his eyes in a magnificent apartment, where nothing met his view but satin, velvet, gold, and glass, and before him stood a lady attired like a princess, but masked. Alas! it was the old story of Claudio and Angelo. Furious with rage, Pierrot struck her, and then, ashamed of the unmanly act, he was about to rush from the room; but she stopped him, and after telling him that she gave him back his vows, and renounced his love, she handed him a packet containing her peasant's dress, and all the presents he had made her in their happy days: and so they parted; and when Pierrot returned home, and they asked him what had become of Geneviève, he said she was dead.
This happened in the reign of Louis XVI., and one might wonder how the humble Pierrot's disappointed love could influence the destiny of the king of France; and yet it did so. Pierrot had quitted Paris with his heart full of bitterness against the aristocracy; but more especially against the king, who had rejected Geneviève's petition; and against the queen, who had disdained her tears and prayers. After staying a short time in his formerly happy home, the contrast with the past, and the cruel recollections constantly suggested, became too bitter for him, and he wandered away, living an irregular sort of life, and mingling more and more with the violent republicans, to whom his only tie was, that they, too, hated the court and the courtiers. The course of his travels having at length brought him to St Menehould, he happened to be one day lounging in the streets, when, observing two carriages approaching, he stopped to see them pass. His surprise may be conceived when, on the driving-seat of one of them, dressed as a servant, he recognised the Comte de Fersen! Such a disguise could not be worn for nothing, and urged by hatred, he drew near the carriage, and looked in. There sat the queen of France, whilst the king, attired as a valet, was awkwardly endeavouring to perform the duties of his supposed office. It was Pierrot Dubourg who whispered to Drouet the postmaster who the travellers were, and it was he who accompanied Drouet's son in pursuit of the unhappy fugitives, who were overtaken at Varennes, and brought back to Paris. Pierrot Dubourg came too, and after losing sight of him for some time, we find him again filling the office of assistant executioner, in which situation he witnessed the beheading of his once-loved Geneviève, who was guillotined on the same day with Madame Dubarry.
Monsieur Arago, in his éloge of Lavoisier, relates that this great chemist might possibly have escaped the death inflicted by his ignorant and ungrateful countrymen, who told him they had no more need of learned men, had he not been more anxious for the safety of others than his own. A poor woman in the neighbourhood of the Luxembourg had received him into her house, where she neglected no precautions for his safety and concealment; but his alarm for the consequences to his benefactress should he be discovered, distressed him so much more than his own danger, that he made repeated attempts to escape from her friendly roof, which she, by her vigilance, defeated. One night, however, he succeeded in eluding her watchfulness, and the next day saw him in the Luxembourg, whence he was removed to the Conciergerie, on his rapid way to the scaffold.
Condorcet, the great mathematician, is said to have lost his life by not knowing how many eggs there should be in an omelette. Aware that he was suspected by Robespierre—for though a republican, he had dared to pity the royal family—he disfigured his face and hands with mortar, and fled from Paris in the disguise of a mason. After passing twenty-four hours in a wood, hunger drove him to a little inn, where he ordered an omelette.
'Of how many eggs?' asked the servant.
'Twelve,' replied the philosopher at random. A mason ordering an omelette of twelve eggs awakened suspicion; he was searched, and a volume of Horace being found in his pocket, he was arrested. Unable to face the scaffold, Condorcet took poison, and died on the road to Paris.
Everybody knows that the horrors of the French Revolution were redeemed by many noble actions. We have told the story of Bouchotte at St Pelagie. Benoit, the keeper of the Luxembourg, also distinguished himself by many generous and courageous deeds. He saved the life of the Duchess of Orleans, the mother of Louis-Philippe, by refusing to give her up when summoned before the Committee of Public Safety. He declaredshe was ill—dying—all but dead, and thus averted her fate till she had an opportunity of obtaining protection.
A lady called Jeanne Faurie also found a powerful friend in a jailor of the Luxembourg. She was young, and extremely beautiful, and although Rifaut was looked upon as one of the most inflexible of functionaries, her bright eyes melted his rigidity. He procured her pens, ink, paper, and books. 'I know my character and my life are at stake,' said he; 'but speak! command me! Whatever you desire I will do.' When he heard that she was on the list of persons to be executed, he gave her a disguise and all the money he had, and set her at liberty. For some time he concealed the lady's flight; but when it could be no longer kept secret, he went to Benoit, confessed his fault, and demanded the punishment. Benoit, however, did not betray him; and Jeanne Faurie's escape was not known till there was no danger in making it public. The Luxembourg was called the Reservoir of the Conciergerie, and Josephine Beauharnois was confined here before being transferred to the latter prison. It is related that when she afterwards resided in the Luxembourg as wife of the First Consul, she one day intreated Bonaparte to accompany her to the cell she had formerly inhabited. When there, she asked him for his sword, with which she raised one of the flags, and there, to her great joy, she found a ring given her by her mother, on which she set the highest value. She told him that when she was summoned to quit the prison, supposing she was going to the scaffold, she had contrived to conceal the jewel, which she could not bear to think should fall into the hands of the public executioner.
Amongst the names inscribed on the keeper's register of the Luxembourg, are those of the ministers of Charles X. in 1830, and also that of Louis-Napoleon, the present President of the French Republic, who was confined here after the unsuccessful affair of Strasburg.
NEW THEORY OF POPULATION.Theidea of Mr Malthus, that population has a tendency to increase faster than the means of subsistence, unless some powerful and obvious checks be interposed to keep down the race to the level of subsistence, has been recently met by Mr Doubleday with a denial and an effort at refutation. From an article by Mr Hickson in the last number of the 'Westminster Review,' we learn that Mr Doubleday endeavours to show grounds for believing that, while there are powerful tendencies to increase beyond the limits of subsistence, there are likewise tendencies to a decrease, which must result in preserving what may be called a balance between the quantity of food and the number of people. Mankind, from Adam downwards to our own day, have gone forward and backward in numbers by a series of fits and starts—they have by no means been going on as a constantly-increasing quantity. Look at the countries in the East mentioned in the Bible—Egypt, Judæa, Asia Minor, Persia, Assyria. Once densely peopled, they are now either desolate, or inhabited by a poor decaying remnant of the proud races which formerly inhabited them. Egypt would soon expire as a nation if not constantly recruited by fresh arrivals from abroad. Neither China nor India is so populous as it was two thousand years ago. The cultivated aboriginal races of America, who left monuments of their greatness, long since disappeared, and were succeeded by tribes of Indians, who are now rapidly disappearing. The history of the world presents many other instances of an entire disappearance of populations.No doubt war, pestilence, famine, vice, and misery, have all played an important part in sweeping away nations, or in reducing the numbers of their people; but Mr Doubleday holds it to be demonstrable that redundancy of population is prevented in a less continuous degree by these causes, than by one which Malthus altogether overlooks—one, in fact, which militates against his theory. The mention of this check, which is only of recent discovery, will come upon most persons as a surprise: it iscomfort—easy circumstances, allied with cultivated feeling; and, to all appearance, the easier the circumstances, the less the increase. Mr Doubleday thinks it would not perhaps be going too far to say, that by carrying these influences a certain length, the race might become extinct. As proof, he refers to the gradual dying out of families among the aristocracy and baronetage—two orders of persons who, above all others, might be expected to be prolific in descendants:—'Thus it has been,' proceeds this writer, 'that the peerage of England, instead of being old, is recent; and the baronetage, though comparatively of modern origin, equally so. In short, few, if any, of the Norman nobility, and almost as few of the original baronets' families of King James I., exist at this moment; and but for perpetual creations, both orders must have been all but extinct. * * * Of James I.'s creation inA.D.1611, onlythirteen familiesnow remain; a decay certainly extraordinary, and not to be accounted for upon the ordinary ideas of mortality and power of increase amongst mankind.'Commenting on these facts, the reviewer observes:—'Several instances from humbler, but still wealthy, or at least comfortable classes of society, are given by Mr Doubleday, tending to the same conclusion, that an ample provision of the means of subsistence does not necessarily act as a stimulus to population, but often seems to have a directly contrary tendency; as if ease and abundance were the real check of population, and a certain amount of poverty and privation were essential to any considerable increase. Thus he mentions the case of the free burgesses of the wealthy corporation of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a body, in 1710, of about 1800, possessing estates and endowments, and exclusive privileges, amply sufficient to protect every individual among them from want; and shows that, although all the sons of every citizen were free by birth, their numbers would have diminished had they not been recruited from without; and that, even with the aid of contested elections, when freemen by purchase were admitted for the sake of votes, the entire body of burgesses remained nearly stationary for upwards of a century. This, too, while the poorer corporation of Berwick-upon-Tweed doubled the number of its free citizens during the same period.'The examples of the corporation of Durham and Richmond in Yorkshire are adduced to the same effect; but we need not go so far north for corroborative evidence of the same class of facts. In the corporation of London, all the children of a citizen, whether male or female, enjoy the right of freedom by inheritance; and as many of the exclusive privileges of this body have not yet been done away, women still exercise in the city various avocations in their own name (such, for instance, as the trade of a town carman), from which the rest of the inhabitants of the metropolis, non-freemen, are excluded. Until recently, the freedom of the corporation of London was essential to a share in the administration of revenues amounting to upwards of a million per annum, and is still indispensable to a large portion of them. We may reasonably conclude that it was an object of some importance to the ancient citizens of London to keep the patronage connected with such large funds in their own hands, or to leave it in the hands of their own posterity. This object, however, has been so entirely defeated, that if we now inquire into the origin of the present holders of the good things in the gift of the London corporation and the trading companies, we find they are nearly all north countrymen, who have elbowed their way into the city from Scotland or the provinces, and that the descendants of such men as Sir William Walworth and Sir Thomas Gresham are nowhere to be found.'During the forty years from 1794 to 1833, the admissions by patrimony to the freedom of the corporation of London were only 7794 out of a total of 40,221 admitted—a third of the number having been strangers who purchased their freedom, and one-half sons of strangers obtaining their freedom by apprenticeship.'Mr Doubleday's explanation of these phenomena is to the effect, that it is not misery, but comfort, whichdeadens the principle of increase. It is notorious that the poorest parents have, as a general rule, the greatest number of children. Only feed people on potatoes and salt, oatmeal-porridge, or any other plain fare, and let them at the same time maintain a struggle to get even that, and sure enough their firesides, or the places where the fire should be, will be garnished by as plenteous a crop of youngsters as you could wish to behold! How these children are fed it is often so difficult to comprehend, that one is almost driven to the conclusion that they somehow live and have strength to romp about on the mere element—fresh air. It is very clear that nature abhors all sorts of codling and pampering:—'It is a fact, admitted by all gardeners as well as botanists,' says Mr Doubleday, 'that if a tree, plant, or flower be placed in a mould either naturally or artificially made too rich for it, a plethoric state is produced, and fruitfulness ceases. In trees, the effect of strong manures and over-rich soils is, that they run to superfluous wood, blossom irregularly, and chiefly at the extremities of the outer branches, and almost, or entirely, cease to bear fruit. With flowering shrubs and flowers the effect is, first, that the flower becomes double, and loses its power of producing seed; next, it ceases almost even to flower. If the application of the stimulus of manure is carried still further, flowers and plants become diseased in the extreme, and speedily die; thus, by this wise provision of Providence, the transmission of disease (the certain consequence of the highly-plethoric state, whether in plants, animals, or in mankind) is guarded against, and the species shielded from danger on the side of plenty. In order to remedy this state when accidentally produced, gardeners and florists are accustomed, by various devices, to produce the opposite, or deplethoric state; this they peculiarly denominate "giving a check." In other words, they put the species in danger in order to produce a corresponding determined effort of nature to insure its perpetuation—and the end is invariably attained. Thus, in order to make fruit-trees bear plentifully, gardeners delay, or impede, the rising of the sap, by cutting rings in the bark round the tree. This, to the tree, is the production of a state of depletion, and the abundance of fruit is the effort of nature to counteract the danger. The fig, when grown in this climate, is particularly liable to drop its fruit when half-matured. This, gardeners now find, can be prevented by pruning the tree so severely as to give it a check; or, if grown in a pot, by cutting a few inches from its roots all round, so as to produce the same effect. The result is, that the tree retains, and carefully matures, its fruit. In like manner, when a gardener wishes to save seed from a gourd or cucumber, he does not give the plant anextraquantity of manure or warmth. He does just the contrary: he subjects it to somehardship, and takes the fruit that isleastfine-looking, foreknowing it will be filled with seed whilst the finest fruit are nearly destitute. Upon the same principle, it is a known fact, that after severe and long winters, the harvests are correspondingly rapid and abundant. Vines bear most luxuriantly after being severely tried by frost; and grass springs in the same extraordinary manner. After the long and trying winter of 1836-37, when the snow lay upon the ground in the northern counties until June, the spring of grass was so wonderful as to cause several minute experiments by various persons. The result was, that in a single night of twelve hours the blade of grass was ascertained frequently to have advanced full three-quarters of an inch; and wheat and other grain progressed in a similar manner.'It is shown by facts, that in the animal economy a low physical state, of course along with air and exercise, is equally favourable. In proportion, therefore, as conditions adverse to this simple principle are encouraged, so will the ratio of increase be limited. Indulgent idleness, want of out-door exercise, codling with cordials, dosing with medicines, tight-lacing, late hours, mental excitement, and fifty other things, induce the physical weakness and irritability which renders the production of offspring an impossibility. Causes of this kind, operating along with those artificial restraints, the validity of which Malthus is so far right in recognising, are mainly concerned in keeping population within bounds. It would then appear, that so long as there is an abject, struggling poor, ignorant and ill-fed, there will be a vigorous growth, a dangerous population—dangerous, because redundant as respects their capacity and will to work. On the other hand, by an universal spread of education, by the cultivation of rational tastes and habits, and by the simple mode of living which such tastes would engender, there will ensue something like a medium between a relatively-redundant and a comparative extinction of population.
Theidea of Mr Malthus, that population has a tendency to increase faster than the means of subsistence, unless some powerful and obvious checks be interposed to keep down the race to the level of subsistence, has been recently met by Mr Doubleday with a denial and an effort at refutation. From an article by Mr Hickson in the last number of the 'Westminster Review,' we learn that Mr Doubleday endeavours to show grounds for believing that, while there are powerful tendencies to increase beyond the limits of subsistence, there are likewise tendencies to a decrease, which must result in preserving what may be called a balance between the quantity of food and the number of people. Mankind, from Adam downwards to our own day, have gone forward and backward in numbers by a series of fits and starts—they have by no means been going on as a constantly-increasing quantity. Look at the countries in the East mentioned in the Bible—Egypt, Judæa, Asia Minor, Persia, Assyria. Once densely peopled, they are now either desolate, or inhabited by a poor decaying remnant of the proud races which formerly inhabited them. Egypt would soon expire as a nation if not constantly recruited by fresh arrivals from abroad. Neither China nor India is so populous as it was two thousand years ago. The cultivated aboriginal races of America, who left monuments of their greatness, long since disappeared, and were succeeded by tribes of Indians, who are now rapidly disappearing. The history of the world presents many other instances of an entire disappearance of populations.
No doubt war, pestilence, famine, vice, and misery, have all played an important part in sweeping away nations, or in reducing the numbers of their people; but Mr Doubleday holds it to be demonstrable that redundancy of population is prevented in a less continuous degree by these causes, than by one which Malthus altogether overlooks—one, in fact, which militates against his theory. The mention of this check, which is only of recent discovery, will come upon most persons as a surprise: it iscomfort—easy circumstances, allied with cultivated feeling; and, to all appearance, the easier the circumstances, the less the increase. Mr Doubleday thinks it would not perhaps be going too far to say, that by carrying these influences a certain length, the race might become extinct. As proof, he refers to the gradual dying out of families among the aristocracy and baronetage—two orders of persons who, above all others, might be expected to be prolific in descendants:—
'Thus it has been,' proceeds this writer, 'that the peerage of England, instead of being old, is recent; and the baronetage, though comparatively of modern origin, equally so. In short, few, if any, of the Norman nobility, and almost as few of the original baronets' families of King James I., exist at this moment; and but for perpetual creations, both orders must have been all but extinct. * * * Of James I.'s creation inA.D.1611, onlythirteen familiesnow remain; a decay certainly extraordinary, and not to be accounted for upon the ordinary ideas of mortality and power of increase amongst mankind.'Commenting on these facts, the reviewer observes:—'Several instances from humbler, but still wealthy, or at least comfortable classes of society, are given by Mr Doubleday, tending to the same conclusion, that an ample provision of the means of subsistence does not necessarily act as a stimulus to population, but often seems to have a directly contrary tendency; as if ease and abundance were the real check of population, and a certain amount of poverty and privation were essential to any considerable increase. Thus he mentions the case of the free burgesses of the wealthy corporation of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a body, in 1710, of about 1800, possessing estates and endowments, and exclusive privileges, amply sufficient to protect every individual among them from want; and shows that, although all the sons of every citizen were free by birth, their numbers would have diminished had they not been recruited from without; and that, even with the aid of contested elections, when freemen by purchase were admitted for the sake of votes, the entire body of burgesses remained nearly stationary for upwards of a century. This, too, while the poorer corporation of Berwick-upon-Tweed doubled the number of its free citizens during the same period.'The examples of the corporation of Durham and Richmond in Yorkshire are adduced to the same effect; but we need not go so far north for corroborative evidence of the same class of facts. In the corporation of London, all the children of a citizen, whether male or female, enjoy the right of freedom by inheritance; and as many of the exclusive privileges of this body have not yet been done away, women still exercise in the city various avocations in their own name (such, for instance, as the trade of a town carman), from which the rest of the inhabitants of the metropolis, non-freemen, are excluded. Until recently, the freedom of the corporation of London was essential to a share in the administration of revenues amounting to upwards of a million per annum, and is still indispensable to a large portion of them. We may reasonably conclude that it was an object of some importance to the ancient citizens of London to keep the patronage connected with such large funds in their own hands, or to leave it in the hands of their own posterity. This object, however, has been so entirely defeated, that if we now inquire into the origin of the present holders of the good things in the gift of the London corporation and the trading companies, we find they are nearly all north countrymen, who have elbowed their way into the city from Scotland or the provinces, and that the descendants of such men as Sir William Walworth and Sir Thomas Gresham are nowhere to be found.'During the forty years from 1794 to 1833, the admissions by patrimony to the freedom of the corporation of London were only 7794 out of a total of 40,221 admitted—a third of the number having been strangers who purchased their freedom, and one-half sons of strangers obtaining their freedom by apprenticeship.'
'Thus it has been,' proceeds this writer, 'that the peerage of England, instead of being old, is recent; and the baronetage, though comparatively of modern origin, equally so. In short, few, if any, of the Norman nobility, and almost as few of the original baronets' families of King James I., exist at this moment; and but for perpetual creations, both orders must have been all but extinct. * * * Of James I.'s creation inA.D.1611, onlythirteen familiesnow remain; a decay certainly extraordinary, and not to be accounted for upon the ordinary ideas of mortality and power of increase amongst mankind.'
Commenting on these facts, the reviewer observes:—'Several instances from humbler, but still wealthy, or at least comfortable classes of society, are given by Mr Doubleday, tending to the same conclusion, that an ample provision of the means of subsistence does not necessarily act as a stimulus to population, but often seems to have a directly contrary tendency; as if ease and abundance were the real check of population, and a certain amount of poverty and privation were essential to any considerable increase. Thus he mentions the case of the free burgesses of the wealthy corporation of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a body, in 1710, of about 1800, possessing estates and endowments, and exclusive privileges, amply sufficient to protect every individual among them from want; and shows that, although all the sons of every citizen were free by birth, their numbers would have diminished had they not been recruited from without; and that, even with the aid of contested elections, when freemen by purchase were admitted for the sake of votes, the entire body of burgesses remained nearly stationary for upwards of a century. This, too, while the poorer corporation of Berwick-upon-Tweed doubled the number of its free citizens during the same period.
'The examples of the corporation of Durham and Richmond in Yorkshire are adduced to the same effect; but we need not go so far north for corroborative evidence of the same class of facts. In the corporation of London, all the children of a citizen, whether male or female, enjoy the right of freedom by inheritance; and as many of the exclusive privileges of this body have not yet been done away, women still exercise in the city various avocations in their own name (such, for instance, as the trade of a town carman), from which the rest of the inhabitants of the metropolis, non-freemen, are excluded. Until recently, the freedom of the corporation of London was essential to a share in the administration of revenues amounting to upwards of a million per annum, and is still indispensable to a large portion of them. We may reasonably conclude that it was an object of some importance to the ancient citizens of London to keep the patronage connected with such large funds in their own hands, or to leave it in the hands of their own posterity. This object, however, has been so entirely defeated, that if we now inquire into the origin of the present holders of the good things in the gift of the London corporation and the trading companies, we find they are nearly all north countrymen, who have elbowed their way into the city from Scotland or the provinces, and that the descendants of such men as Sir William Walworth and Sir Thomas Gresham are nowhere to be found.
'During the forty years from 1794 to 1833, the admissions by patrimony to the freedom of the corporation of London were only 7794 out of a total of 40,221 admitted—a third of the number having been strangers who purchased their freedom, and one-half sons of strangers obtaining their freedom by apprenticeship.'
Mr Doubleday's explanation of these phenomena is to the effect, that it is not misery, but comfort, whichdeadens the principle of increase. It is notorious that the poorest parents have, as a general rule, the greatest number of children. Only feed people on potatoes and salt, oatmeal-porridge, or any other plain fare, and let them at the same time maintain a struggle to get even that, and sure enough their firesides, or the places where the fire should be, will be garnished by as plenteous a crop of youngsters as you could wish to behold! How these children are fed it is often so difficult to comprehend, that one is almost driven to the conclusion that they somehow live and have strength to romp about on the mere element—fresh air. It is very clear that nature abhors all sorts of codling and pampering:—
'It is a fact, admitted by all gardeners as well as botanists,' says Mr Doubleday, 'that if a tree, plant, or flower be placed in a mould either naturally or artificially made too rich for it, a plethoric state is produced, and fruitfulness ceases. In trees, the effect of strong manures and over-rich soils is, that they run to superfluous wood, blossom irregularly, and chiefly at the extremities of the outer branches, and almost, or entirely, cease to bear fruit. With flowering shrubs and flowers the effect is, first, that the flower becomes double, and loses its power of producing seed; next, it ceases almost even to flower. If the application of the stimulus of manure is carried still further, flowers and plants become diseased in the extreme, and speedily die; thus, by this wise provision of Providence, the transmission of disease (the certain consequence of the highly-plethoric state, whether in plants, animals, or in mankind) is guarded against, and the species shielded from danger on the side of plenty. In order to remedy this state when accidentally produced, gardeners and florists are accustomed, by various devices, to produce the opposite, or deplethoric state; this they peculiarly denominate "giving a check." In other words, they put the species in danger in order to produce a corresponding determined effort of nature to insure its perpetuation—and the end is invariably attained. Thus, in order to make fruit-trees bear plentifully, gardeners delay, or impede, the rising of the sap, by cutting rings in the bark round the tree. This, to the tree, is the production of a state of depletion, and the abundance of fruit is the effort of nature to counteract the danger. The fig, when grown in this climate, is particularly liable to drop its fruit when half-matured. This, gardeners now find, can be prevented by pruning the tree so severely as to give it a check; or, if grown in a pot, by cutting a few inches from its roots all round, so as to produce the same effect. The result is, that the tree retains, and carefully matures, its fruit. In like manner, when a gardener wishes to save seed from a gourd or cucumber, he does not give the plant anextraquantity of manure or warmth. He does just the contrary: he subjects it to somehardship, and takes the fruit that isleastfine-looking, foreknowing it will be filled with seed whilst the finest fruit are nearly destitute. Upon the same principle, it is a known fact, that after severe and long winters, the harvests are correspondingly rapid and abundant. Vines bear most luxuriantly after being severely tried by frost; and grass springs in the same extraordinary manner. After the long and trying winter of 1836-37, when the snow lay upon the ground in the northern counties until June, the spring of grass was so wonderful as to cause several minute experiments by various persons. The result was, that in a single night of twelve hours the blade of grass was ascertained frequently to have advanced full three-quarters of an inch; and wheat and other grain progressed in a similar manner.'
'It is a fact, admitted by all gardeners as well as botanists,' says Mr Doubleday, 'that if a tree, plant, or flower be placed in a mould either naturally or artificially made too rich for it, a plethoric state is produced, and fruitfulness ceases. In trees, the effect of strong manures and over-rich soils is, that they run to superfluous wood, blossom irregularly, and chiefly at the extremities of the outer branches, and almost, or entirely, cease to bear fruit. With flowering shrubs and flowers the effect is, first, that the flower becomes double, and loses its power of producing seed; next, it ceases almost even to flower. If the application of the stimulus of manure is carried still further, flowers and plants become diseased in the extreme, and speedily die; thus, by this wise provision of Providence, the transmission of disease (the certain consequence of the highly-plethoric state, whether in plants, animals, or in mankind) is guarded against, and the species shielded from danger on the side of plenty. In order to remedy this state when accidentally produced, gardeners and florists are accustomed, by various devices, to produce the opposite, or deplethoric state; this they peculiarly denominate "giving a check." In other words, they put the species in danger in order to produce a corresponding determined effort of nature to insure its perpetuation—and the end is invariably attained. Thus, in order to make fruit-trees bear plentifully, gardeners delay, or impede, the rising of the sap, by cutting rings in the bark round the tree. This, to the tree, is the production of a state of depletion, and the abundance of fruit is the effort of nature to counteract the danger. The fig, when grown in this climate, is particularly liable to drop its fruit when half-matured. This, gardeners now find, can be prevented by pruning the tree so severely as to give it a check; or, if grown in a pot, by cutting a few inches from its roots all round, so as to produce the same effect. The result is, that the tree retains, and carefully matures, its fruit. In like manner, when a gardener wishes to save seed from a gourd or cucumber, he does not give the plant anextraquantity of manure or warmth. He does just the contrary: he subjects it to somehardship, and takes the fruit that isleastfine-looking, foreknowing it will be filled with seed whilst the finest fruit are nearly destitute. Upon the same principle, it is a known fact, that after severe and long winters, the harvests are correspondingly rapid and abundant. Vines bear most luxuriantly after being severely tried by frost; and grass springs in the same extraordinary manner. After the long and trying winter of 1836-37, when the snow lay upon the ground in the northern counties until June, the spring of grass was so wonderful as to cause several minute experiments by various persons. The result was, that in a single night of twelve hours the blade of grass was ascertained frequently to have advanced full three-quarters of an inch; and wheat and other grain progressed in a similar manner.'
It is shown by facts, that in the animal economy a low physical state, of course along with air and exercise, is equally favourable. In proportion, therefore, as conditions adverse to this simple principle are encouraged, so will the ratio of increase be limited. Indulgent idleness, want of out-door exercise, codling with cordials, dosing with medicines, tight-lacing, late hours, mental excitement, and fifty other things, induce the physical weakness and irritability which renders the production of offspring an impossibility. Causes of this kind, operating along with those artificial restraints, the validity of which Malthus is so far right in recognising, are mainly concerned in keeping population within bounds. It would then appear, that so long as there is an abject, struggling poor, ignorant and ill-fed, there will be a vigorous growth, a dangerous population—dangerous, because redundant as respects their capacity and will to work. On the other hand, by an universal spread of education, by the cultivation of rational tastes and habits, and by the simple mode of living which such tastes would engender, there will ensue something like a medium between a relatively-redundant and a comparative extinction of population.
THE IRISH BARON.AN ANECDOTE OF REAL LIFE.Atthe beginning of the present century a certain regiment was ordered to Ireland, and was very soon dispersed over various districts. One detachment was sent to Ballybrag, and when the officer in command and his two subalterns met at the wretched pothouse (for it was scarcely an inn) where they were to mess, and began to discuss their prospects of amusement, they were quite thrown out. There was no visiting, no hunting, no shooting, no billiard-table, no horses to ride, no milliners to flirt with, not so much as even 'a bridge to spit over.' In those days military men had rarely a literary turn, but books became of so much importance, that they read over the few they possessed, and sent to the nearest town, which was very distant, for more. Active amusement, however, was what they chiefly desired; and one evening the countenances of all three became animated, during a listless ramble, at the sight of a boy in a crownless hat, torn coat, and nether integuments held on by a single button; he was shouting forth 'The County Tyrone,' as he dangled a brace of trout in one hand, and switched the air with a long wand he held in the other, his curly hair blowing over his bright rosy countenance in the fresh breeze, the picture of health and careless happiness.'Hollo! my fine fellow! where did you catch these trout?''Plase your honour, in the Junnagh, just beyant.''Beyant! where's that?''Just behind them hills there's plenty. If I had but a fishing-rod, and something more sinsible nor a crooked pin!''What a handsome intelligent boy! What's your name?''Patrick O'Sale, plase your honour.''Well, Paddy, you'll show us the trouting stream, and I'll give you a shilling.'Paddy O'Sale had heard of a shilling, but had never yet seen one; so his gratitude was unbounded: he not only showed them the stream, but made rush-baskets for the fish they caught, told them tales, sung them songs, and, in short, by his good-humour and intelligent fun, very much enlivened their stay at Ballybrag. He was very proud of the notice of these gentlemen, was happy to be employed in doing anything for them, and when the route came, manifested so much genuine sorrow, that they resolved to adopt him, and make him, in fact, afils du régiment. He accordingly began his military career as a fifer in the —th regiment, and when older, entered the ranks, and became servant to his first friend, Captain B——. Very soon he distinguished himself by his extraordinary intelligence and orderly conduct, which promoted him to the rank of sergeant; twice he headed a forlorn-hope, and upon all occasions showed so much bravery and prudence, that upon the first vacancy he was unanimously recommended for an ensigncy, which he obtained, retaining as an officer the good opinion he had before possessed of all his former comrades. He was a remarkably handsome man, and, we need scarcely observe, a very clever one also, taking advantage of all that fell in his way as to education, &c. But alas! no one is perfect; and Patrick O'Sale was vain and extremely ambitious: so, not wishing to remain where his very humble origin was so well known, he exchanged into another regiment, and very soon became equally popular with his new companions as he had been with his old friends of the —th.The peace reduced him and many others to half-pay, and with it and his handsome person he resolved to take his chance of fortune. He settled himself in a town on the north coast of France, and looked about for a wife. Not long had he to wait: his proficiency in French, which his quick capacity enabled him to pick up easily, opened many doors which were shut against his higher-born but less talented compatriots; and ere long, the widow of a hotel-keeper, twenty years his senior, gave him to understand that he needed but to propose. Whether this was in all respects the prize he looked for it is hard to say; but they married, and lived together three years, during which time he behaved to her with affectionate kindness; and when she died, she left him all that was in her power, which, although much less than he had hoped for, made up, together with his half-pay, a reasonably good income. This, although it would have been a mere pittance to most men, seemed a fortune to our adventurer; and with it he started for Paris, where he made so good a figure, that a young and handsome widow manifested the same admiration his former less distinguished wife had done. We need not enter into a description of the affair further than to say that it terminated as the other had done—in marriage. While arranging the preliminaries, the lady objected to his name.'O'Sale!' cried she (eau sale!—dirty water!); 'never can I follow such a name into a drawing-room!''I am very sorry, but it is my name.''Is there notitlein your family?''No,' stoutly answered the quondam Paddy.'What, then, is the name of your father's estate?'He thought of the cabin in which he had passed his childhood—the pig, his playmate that had paid its rent—his father, in his long frieze coat, with a hay-band round his hat—and his mother, attired in the fluttering rags which so many of the Irish seem to think impart an airy smartness to their dress; perhaps, too, he thought with regret of the warm hearts that had beat beneath them, so fond, so proud of him; and the 'sunshine' of his own 'breast,' that, in spite of his almost uninterrupted good-fortune, had never bounded so lightly since: but at anyrate he answered with admirably-acted quiet dignity, 'It is, alas! no longer in our family.''But,' persisted the lady, 'you were born near some village—in some parish that had a name?''The village of Ballybrag was not far from our residence.''A la bonne heure—that will do excellently well! Call yourself the Baron de Ballybrag.''Call myself?''Mais oui, why not? I shall not object to be named De Ballybrag.'She accordingly had her cards printed 'La Bnnede Ballybrag,' and her husband, who, after all, had a fondness for his patronymic, left his with his acquaintances as the Baron O'Sale de Ballybrag. One of these I preserve as a memento of the odd characters and adventures which so frequently make real life resemble a romance.
AN ANECDOTE OF REAL LIFE.
Atthe beginning of the present century a certain regiment was ordered to Ireland, and was very soon dispersed over various districts. One detachment was sent to Ballybrag, and when the officer in command and his two subalterns met at the wretched pothouse (for it was scarcely an inn) where they were to mess, and began to discuss their prospects of amusement, they were quite thrown out. There was no visiting, no hunting, no shooting, no billiard-table, no horses to ride, no milliners to flirt with, not so much as even 'a bridge to spit over.' In those days military men had rarely a literary turn, but books became of so much importance, that they read over the few they possessed, and sent to the nearest town, which was very distant, for more. Active amusement, however, was what they chiefly desired; and one evening the countenances of all three became animated, during a listless ramble, at the sight of a boy in a crownless hat, torn coat, and nether integuments held on by a single button; he was shouting forth 'The County Tyrone,' as he dangled a brace of trout in one hand, and switched the air with a long wand he held in the other, his curly hair blowing over his bright rosy countenance in the fresh breeze, the picture of health and careless happiness.
'Hollo! my fine fellow! where did you catch these trout?'
'Plase your honour, in the Junnagh, just beyant.'
'Beyant! where's that?'
'Just behind them hills there's plenty. If I had but a fishing-rod, and something more sinsible nor a crooked pin!'
'What a handsome intelligent boy! What's your name?'
'Patrick O'Sale, plase your honour.'
'Well, Paddy, you'll show us the trouting stream, and I'll give you a shilling.'
Paddy O'Sale had heard of a shilling, but had never yet seen one; so his gratitude was unbounded: he not only showed them the stream, but made rush-baskets for the fish they caught, told them tales, sung them songs, and, in short, by his good-humour and intelligent fun, very much enlivened their stay at Ballybrag. He was very proud of the notice of these gentlemen, was happy to be employed in doing anything for them, and when the route came, manifested so much genuine sorrow, that they resolved to adopt him, and make him, in fact, afils du régiment. He accordingly began his military career as a fifer in the —th regiment, and when older, entered the ranks, and became servant to his first friend, Captain B——. Very soon he distinguished himself by his extraordinary intelligence and orderly conduct, which promoted him to the rank of sergeant; twice he headed a forlorn-hope, and upon all occasions showed so much bravery and prudence, that upon the first vacancy he was unanimously recommended for an ensigncy, which he obtained, retaining as an officer the good opinion he had before possessed of all his former comrades. He was a remarkably handsome man, and, we need scarcely observe, a very clever one also, taking advantage of all that fell in his way as to education, &c. But alas! no one is perfect; and Patrick O'Sale was vain and extremely ambitious: so, not wishing to remain where his very humble origin was so well known, he exchanged into another regiment, and very soon became equally popular with his new companions as he had been with his old friends of the —th.
The peace reduced him and many others to half-pay, and with it and his handsome person he resolved to take his chance of fortune. He settled himself in a town on the north coast of France, and looked about for a wife. Not long had he to wait: his proficiency in French, which his quick capacity enabled him to pick up easily, opened many doors which were shut against his higher-born but less talented compatriots; and ere long, the widow of a hotel-keeper, twenty years his senior, gave him to understand that he needed but to propose. Whether this was in all respects the prize he looked for it is hard to say; but they married, and lived together three years, during which time he behaved to her with affectionate kindness; and when she died, she left him all that was in her power, which, although much less than he had hoped for, made up, together with his half-pay, a reasonably good income. This, although it would have been a mere pittance to most men, seemed a fortune to our adventurer; and with it he started for Paris, where he made so good a figure, that a young and handsome widow manifested the same admiration his former less distinguished wife had done. We need not enter into a description of the affair further than to say that it terminated as the other had done—in marriage. While arranging the preliminaries, the lady objected to his name.
'O'Sale!' cried she (eau sale!—dirty water!); 'never can I follow such a name into a drawing-room!'
'I am very sorry, but it is my name.'
'Is there notitlein your family?'
'No,' stoutly answered the quondam Paddy.
'What, then, is the name of your father's estate?'
He thought of the cabin in which he had passed his childhood—the pig, his playmate that had paid its rent—his father, in his long frieze coat, with a hay-band round his hat—and his mother, attired in the fluttering rags which so many of the Irish seem to think impart an airy smartness to their dress; perhaps, too, he thought with regret of the warm hearts that had beat beneath them, so fond, so proud of him; and the 'sunshine' of his own 'breast,' that, in spite of his almost uninterrupted good-fortune, had never bounded so lightly since: but at anyrate he answered with admirably-acted quiet dignity, 'It is, alas! no longer in our family.'
'But,' persisted the lady, 'you were born near some village—in some parish that had a name?'
'The village of Ballybrag was not far from our residence.'
'A la bonne heure—that will do excellently well! Call yourself the Baron de Ballybrag.'
'Call myself?'
'Mais oui, why not? I shall not object to be named De Ballybrag.'
She accordingly had her cards printed 'La Bnnede Ballybrag,' and her husband, who, after all, had a fondness for his patronymic, left his with his acquaintances as the Baron O'Sale de Ballybrag. One of these I preserve as a memento of the odd characters and adventures which so frequently make real life resemble a romance.
CHEMICAL INQUIRIES.Experience had long taught the Scotch that oats, such as they grow in their climate, are a most nutritious food; but the habits of the more influential English, and the ridicule of a prejudiced lexicographer, were beginning to make them ashamed of their national diet. Chemistry has here stepped in, and by her analysis of both, has proved not only that the oat is richer in muscle-forming matter than the grain of wheat, but that oatmeal is in all respects a better form of nourishment than the finest wheaten flour. But what is more, chemistry has brought us acquainted with the value of parts of the grain formerly considered almost as waste. The husk or bran of wheat, for example, though given at times to pigs, to millers' horses, and other cattle, was usually thought to possess but little nutritive virtue in itself. Analysis, however, has shown it to be actually richer in muscular matter than the white interior of the grain. Thus the cause of its answering so well as food for cattle is explained; and it is shown that its use in bread (whole-meal bread) must be no less nutritive than economical. The true value of other kinds of food is also established by these inquiries. Cabbage is a crop which, up to the present time, has not been a general favourite in this country, either in the stall or for the table, except during early spring and summer. In North Germany and Scandinavia, however, it appears to have been long esteemed, and various modes of storing it for winter use have been very generally practised. But the cabbage is one of the plants which has been chemically examined, in consequence of the failure of the potato, with the view of introducing it into general use, and the result of the examination is both interesting and unexpected. When dried so as to bring it into a state in which it can be compared with our other kinds of food (wheat, oats, beans, &c.), it is found to bericher in muscular matter than any other crop we grow. Wheat contains only about 12 per cent., and beans 25 per cent.; but dried cabbage contains from 30 to 40 per cent. of the so-called protein compounds. According to our present views, therefore, it is pre-eminently nourishing. Hence if it can but be made generally agreeable to the palate, and easy of digestion, it is likely to prove the best and easiest cultivated substitute for the potato; and no doubt the Irish kolcannon (cabbage and potatoes beat together) derives part of its reputation from the great muscle-sustaining power of the cabbage—a property in which the potato is most deficient. Further, it is of interest—of national importance, we may say—that an acre of ordinary land will, according to the above result, produce a greater weight of this special kind of nourishment in the form of cabbage than in the form of any other crop. Thus twenty tons of cabbage—and good land will produce, in good hands, forty tons of drum-head cabbage on an imperial acre—contain fifteen hundred pounds of muscular matter; while twenty-five bushels of beans contain only four hundred pounds; as many of wheat only two hundred, twelve tons of potatoes only five hundred and fifty, and even thirty tons of turnips only a thousand pounds. The preference which some farmers have long given to this crop, as food for their stock and their milk-cows, is accounted for by these facts; while of course they powerfully recommend its more general cultivation as food for man. Again:—In many parts of our island furze or gorse grows up an unheeded weed, and luxuriates in favourable spots without being applied to any useful purpose. In other districts, however, it is already an object of valuable though easy culture, and large breadths of it are grown for the feeding of stock, and yield profitable returns. Chemical researches show its nutritive property to be very great. Of muscle-building materials it contains, when dry, as much as 30 per cent., and is therefore in this respect superior to beans, and inferior only to the cabbage. Under these circumstances we can no longer doubt the conclusions at which some experimental feeders had previously arrived, nor the advantage which might be obtained from the more extensive cultivation of gorse on many poor and hitherto almost neglected soils.—Edinburgh Review.
Experience had long taught the Scotch that oats, such as they grow in their climate, are a most nutritious food; but the habits of the more influential English, and the ridicule of a prejudiced lexicographer, were beginning to make them ashamed of their national diet. Chemistry has here stepped in, and by her analysis of both, has proved not only that the oat is richer in muscle-forming matter than the grain of wheat, but that oatmeal is in all respects a better form of nourishment than the finest wheaten flour. But what is more, chemistry has brought us acquainted with the value of parts of the grain formerly considered almost as waste. The husk or bran of wheat, for example, though given at times to pigs, to millers' horses, and other cattle, was usually thought to possess but little nutritive virtue in itself. Analysis, however, has shown it to be actually richer in muscular matter than the white interior of the grain. Thus the cause of its answering so well as food for cattle is explained; and it is shown that its use in bread (whole-meal bread) must be no less nutritive than economical. The true value of other kinds of food is also established by these inquiries. Cabbage is a crop which, up to the present time, has not been a general favourite in this country, either in the stall or for the table, except during early spring and summer. In North Germany and Scandinavia, however, it appears to have been long esteemed, and various modes of storing it for winter use have been very generally practised. But the cabbage is one of the plants which has been chemically examined, in consequence of the failure of the potato, with the view of introducing it into general use, and the result of the examination is both interesting and unexpected. When dried so as to bring it into a state in which it can be compared with our other kinds of food (wheat, oats, beans, &c.), it is found to bericher in muscular matter than any other crop we grow. Wheat contains only about 12 per cent., and beans 25 per cent.; but dried cabbage contains from 30 to 40 per cent. of the so-called protein compounds. According to our present views, therefore, it is pre-eminently nourishing. Hence if it can but be made generally agreeable to the palate, and easy of digestion, it is likely to prove the best and easiest cultivated substitute for the potato; and no doubt the Irish kolcannon (cabbage and potatoes beat together) derives part of its reputation from the great muscle-sustaining power of the cabbage—a property in which the potato is most deficient. Further, it is of interest—of national importance, we may say—that an acre of ordinary land will, according to the above result, produce a greater weight of this special kind of nourishment in the form of cabbage than in the form of any other crop. Thus twenty tons of cabbage—and good land will produce, in good hands, forty tons of drum-head cabbage on an imperial acre—contain fifteen hundred pounds of muscular matter; while twenty-five bushels of beans contain only four hundred pounds; as many of wheat only two hundred, twelve tons of potatoes only five hundred and fifty, and even thirty tons of turnips only a thousand pounds. The preference which some farmers have long given to this crop, as food for their stock and their milk-cows, is accounted for by these facts; while of course they powerfully recommend its more general cultivation as food for man. Again:—In many parts of our island furze or gorse grows up an unheeded weed, and luxuriates in favourable spots without being applied to any useful purpose. In other districts, however, it is already an object of valuable though easy culture, and large breadths of it are grown for the feeding of stock, and yield profitable returns. Chemical researches show its nutritive property to be very great. Of muscle-building materials it contains, when dry, as much as 30 per cent., and is therefore in this respect superior to beans, and inferior only to the cabbage. Under these circumstances we can no longer doubt the conclusions at which some experimental feeders had previously arrived, nor the advantage which might be obtained from the more extensive cultivation of gorse on many poor and hitherto almost neglected soils.—Edinburgh Review.