HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times, 1888-5-10, Page 2[Now FIRST PnnenseinD.1 [Aer, RIOEITS RESERVED.]
, .
By U. E. BRADDON,
Arrenon oe "LADY Annexes SEDRET, Weereenp's WeXPA, Eve, ETO.
CHAPTER X1V.—Nor A Comeestet
The thing which decided Madge upon
leavieg the comfort and protection of Bel-
field Abbey for the uncertainties of a great
city, With ite imminent dangers and pessb
billy of starvation, was a passage in the
Police Reports of that London paper which
was most effeoted in the servants hall.
"Mrs, Meeadevilie, of N. 144, Little
Leopold -street, Mayfair, was brought before
the Magistrates, at the Westminster Pollee
Court, for attempting to commit suicide by
taking oxalic acid. The evidence showed
that the lady had been dining with a gentle.
man who passed in the house as Major Man-
deville, but who is supposed to have lived
there under an assumed name, and that al.
ter dinner a scene of some violence occurred
between Mrs, Mandeville and the gentle.
man in question, in the course of which
Mrs. Mandeville rushed from the room, and
ran to a cupboard upon an upperdnor,
where a solution of oxalic acid wagie
the housemaid for the purpose ofeeeesaning
lamp glasses. She drank a large teientity
Of *IS SOlUf1011, and was immediately seized
with all the symptoms of virulent poison,
and was for some hours in danger of her
life. The person passing as Major Mande-
ville left the house while she was lying in
agony. The screams of one of the servants
had attracted a policeconstable, who enter-
ed the house, and took the prisoner in
.charge as soon as she was so far recovered
,.as to be brought to the station. It was not
the first time she had attempted suicide.
His Worship : And I suppose you had
no more intention of dying on this occasion
than yoti had upon your previous attempt.
You only wanted to eive Major Mandeville
.a lesson?
The Prisoner wanted to make an end
rof myself on both occasions. I have been
- very cruelly treated, and I have nothing in
the world to live for.
His Worship: Teat is a badhearing from
a person of your attractive appearance.
The Prisoner: 1 might have been better
-off if I had been as ugly as sin.
Rio Worship: Is Mandeville your real
name? '
The Prisoner: It is the name I have
borne for nearly twenty years.
His Worship: And you think you have a
pretty good right to it—a equietter's right.
But it is not your real name?
The Prisoner; I have no real name—not
in the Red Beole—if that's what you inean.
My father is a basket -maker in the country.
He was always called John Dawley, in my
hearing. I never heard that he had any
other name.
Hereupon followed a brief lecture from
the naagistrate, and the prisoner promised
to refrain from any future attempt upon her
life, and was finally disraissed in a spirit of
half-oontemptuous pity upon the part of his
worship.
The paper gave the little scene and dia-
logue in extenso. The offender was a hand-
some woman, living ,in Mayfair and the
case was therefore deemed of aufficient in to be reported fully, with a sensation-
al side -heading, " MAyeeta MonALS."
urned the
had been
ould go to
er, rescue
The perusal of this report t
scale ,of Madge's mind which
wavering for some time. She w
London and :seek out her moth
that brand from the burning, if it were in
. her affec-
the power of her intelligence and
tion to do as nmeh. It would be something
and useful
for her to do, some fixed purpose
end in life at the least. Here she had neither
end nor aim. She despised herself as an
imposter and a spy. To watch Valentine
from a distance, to see him falling deeper
and deeper in love with Helen Deverill, to
hear an occasional snatch of talk between
those two; words and tones which said so
much to that eager ear—to know that what-
ever fancy he had once bad for her was dead
and forgotten, all this had been acutest
agony, and yet she had stayed on at the
Abbeyto endure that jealous pain, bhat bit-
ter humiliation.
The report in the newspapers decided
her. She would go to her mother at once,
in the hour of her despair. That was surely
the time in which a daughter's love might
avail most, might mean redemption:
She would go ; but before leaving she
would launch a thunder bolt. Those two—
traitor and traitress—should stand revealed
to the man who so blindly trusted in both.
She wrote her few words of warning, and
put the slip of paper in Sir Adrian's room
in the twilight, after his valet had laid out
his neestees dress clothes and made all ready
for the evening toilet.
Within an hour of daybreak next morn-
ing she had lefb the Abbey and was trudging
along the road to the station. She had a
little money, just enough to pay for a third -
elan ticket for Waterloo, and to leave her
a few shillings in hand. Mrs. Marrable had
given her three sovereigns on account of
wages to be fexed in the future, when it was
decided how much her services were worth
,n the household. '
She had been on trial hitherto, we it were,
an apprentice to domestic service. She had
taken one oilier sovereigns to Mr Rocks tone,
and had insisted Up011 his re od"3„.t it as
part payment for the money he unced
for her clothes. She had given t -Aga
to her grandfather on her lase Suraette/$isit
to the hovel by the river. Slili‘,.`e'esesethus
thirty shillings with which tone't6F.h the
world. What was she to do wan. those
Jew shillings were exhausted, when she found
herself penniless in the gest desert of
'London?
Writhe did not mean to live uponher mother,
Mrs. Mandeville, whose West End house
might be an abode of wealth and luxury.
Or, she had no intention of accepting
either food or shelter in that house, which
seemed to her as Tophet in little. Mra.
Marrable had said of her that she was nob a
common girl, and her inten ions as to her
future life were not those of a limn:ion
girl.
She was exceptionally strong, and she
meant to work for a living, to labour with
those strong hands and robust arms of here,
to accept the rmighest toil, were it neces-
sary, to earn her bread he the sweat of her
brow, and if possible to earn her mother's
bread elect.
"1 will rescue her out of that hell upon
earth, if 1 ca,n," she said to herself. "Peo-
ple an live upon so little if they have only
a mind to do it. Bread in cheap, encl. I have
lived upon dry bread before now."
In the basket reakeres household, life had
oeen sustained upon the hardest fare.
&dee had never eosin smoltlng joint:: or
;toed cheer of any kind till she went to the
Obey. Her out had almost revolted
:gainst that plethora of food in the servants'
mil.. She thought of the ineltitucles wno
vete starving, those easethingmaeses of Lon-
don poor about whom the vicar had told
her, and she sickened in that atmosphere of
plenty. Not by any Meant! 4 common girl.
E.
S/ae thought she had a mission something
to do in this hie ; and that her first duty
was to cue for the mother who lead never
eared for her.
She had been carefully taught in her place
in the village school, taught earnestly and.
conscientiously by Mr. Rockstone, and she
had a stronger idea of duty than many a girl
who has been expensively trained by French
and German governesses, with occar,ional
supervision from the parental eye. She
had taken the vicar's teaching in her own
way; and she was assuredly not a common
girl.
She knew that she wee handsomer than
one woman in fifty. She had looked at
herself in the shabby little glass which her
mother had bought of a travelling hawker
lave and twenty years before—the blurred
and clouded glass which hung against
the whitewashed wall in the old baoket
maker's cabin—and the refleetion had told -
her that We was beautiful. Those flashing
yea with their long black lashes and arch-
ed brows, that rich olive complexion with
ita warmth and oolor, the perfect mouth and
teeth, and beautifully moulded °lain set MI
to a throat that might have given immor-
tality to marble—these were elements of
beauty not to be mistaken or underrated by
the ignorance of an inexperienced girl.
She knew that she was beautiful, and in
her scanty converse with the world she had
learnt j ust enough to understand that beauty
is e rare and wonderful gift, and that her
whole future life might depend upon the use
she made of it.
Beauty has its price all the world over.
What was to be the. price of hems? Not
shame and iufamy, she told herself. Not
such a name as her mother had left behind
her among the villagers, who still remem-
bered and talked of her.
Thus it was that when Valentine Belfield
came to the basket -maker's hovel, prepared
for easy conquest, he found a woman of a
different ritamp from other women whom he
had admired and pursued in the past. Not
so easily did the bird fall into the net of the
fowler.
He came upon her unawares one day as
she stood at the cabin door, watching his
boat drift slowly by with the tide as he sat
lazily reloading his gun. He loeked up and
saw her at her cottage door, a dazzling un-
expected apparition.
He put down his gun and took up a boat-
hook and pushed it towards the bank, tied
his boat to the branch of a pollard willow,
and lauded.
He went straight up to the threshold where
the girl was standing, and accosted her
easily and frankly, asking BOMB OSMIUM -
place questions about the grounds =el the
shooting. She answered him as freely,
looking him full in the face, in no wise
abashed by his striking presence or superior
rank. She told him all that could be told
about the sport in that desolate region. And
then he went on to talk of other things, and
asked her for a light for his cigar, and
seated himself on a bench by the door to
smoke.
She had seen him in church occasionally
with his mother, and had recognized him at
the firlit glance. She was in no wise abashed
by his presence. She looked at him fear-
lessly with those deep inscrutable eyes of
hers, which seemed fraught with the mys-
terious influences of an ancient race. It
was he who felt abashed in her presence, as
she stood in a careless attitude, leaning
against the door post, looking gravely down
ab him
He lingered for an hour • went again the
next day; and the next, and the next, and
! so Ton daily, remaining longer and longer
I each day, until he reached the limit of safe-
ty, and only left early enough to escape a
'meeting with the basket -maker. He wen
las one draan by a spell. He carried his gun
and game bag with him every morning, but
the birds had an easy time. The only bird
he wanted to snare wore a ver g different
plumage.
He had practised all the tempter's arts,
and yet he seemed no nearer success than he
had been when he first stopped his boat,
surprised by that sudden vision of low -born
beauty. His proffered gifts had been re-
fined with a quiet scorn which was a new
thing in his experience. His subtlest flat-
teries had been resisted with a steo,dfs,etness
which might be pride or calculation. And
yet he thought she loved him; that beneath
this strength of character there burned hid-
den fires. Yes, he had seen her face light
up at his coming, and had noted the cloud
of sadness when he bade her good -night.
Yet to his reiterated prayer that there
should be no such parting, that their lives
should flovv on together in some luxurious
retreat, some dainty house beside yonder
river where its banks were loveiest, some
hidden haven were they might make their
mutual paradise apart from the outer world,
she had been as adamant to his pleading.
She provoked him at last into quarreling
with her. That stubborn persistence roused
his worst passions, his pride, his cruelty, his
anger, against any creature who opposed leis
will. He upbraided her with her coldness,
her selfish, calculating temper.
"Yon are playing me as an angler plays
a fish," he said. "You think that by keep-
ing me at bay, driving me to madness with
your cold-hearted obstinacy, you will make
a better bargein. It is a matter of exchange
and barter with you. If you loved me you
would not treat me so."
"Perhaps I don't love you."
"You are a strange girl, with a heart as
hard as the nethermost millstone," he an-
swered, and left her in a fever of rage.
Never before had he been so thwarted,
never had he been SO resolved on conceneet.
He hardly knew whether he loved or hated
her most, that winter evening, as he tramped
along the causeway, leaving the tell-tale
footprints in the day which were to be frozen
hard before to -morrow morning.
He would leave her to her pride and her
folly; he would leave her to find out what
life was worth without him, once having
known the stveetnees of his flatteries, the
delight of his company. He had a letter
from an old college friend in his pocket, a
letter proposing a month at Monte Carlo.
Yes, he would go he would forget this
gipsy girl, and lot her forget him if she
could.
He went back to the Abbey half cured of
his paseion for that strange girl, and it was
a shock to him, and fat from a pleesant one,
to fitia her in his mother's house.
HO accepted her presence there as a sign
of her complete subjugation. She had risk•
ed everything to be near him. He felt Ur.
fain of ultimate eMeatteet. She might carry
herself even so proudly, butat heart she was
his slaee.
Then came an unexpected distraction in
the pre:swift of another woman. He begat
to make love to his brother's betrothed in
Riot. It pleaned hint to discover hie in -
fluence over that weak and giddy nature,
like the power of a seake over a bird, Poor
little bird, how it fluttered and dropped
under the spell, and waited helplessly to be
caught. Rio earlier feelings were those of
amusement, flattered vanity only. He did
not mope to be disloyal to Adrian. And
then arose within him the old thirst for con.
qeest, the hunter's passion for the chane,
and the kill. It was not enough to have
fluttered that foolish heart. He must be
:sure of victory. His own fancy had been
kindled in the pursuit, and he told himself,
as he had often done before, that this was
the repot serious pession of his life. What
was fidelity to a brother that it :should
hinder a men's life longhappiness?
It was seven oi
'olock n the evening when
Madge found herself at Waterloo station.
In her ignonance of railways aud time-
tables, she hod contrived be epend a long
day upon a journey that might have been
easily accomplished in five or six hours.
She had travelled in local trains, and had
wasted hours at various junctions and it
seemed to her that she had beeu junctions,
for a week, when she aeightecl amidst the
crowd and bustle at Waterloo. She had
eaten only a penny roll upon her journey,
and she longed for the refreshment of a, oup
of tea after the dust and heat of the way,
but she had to husband her few shillings,
and so tramped off, faint and thirsty, in the
direction whioh a policeman had indicated
to her as We nearest way to Meyfttir.
The neareet way seemed a very long way
to that solitary explorer before she had
reached her destination, and York road,
Lambeth, gave her a sorry idea of thegreat
city. But when she came to Westminster
Bridge the grandeur of colossal London
burst upon her all in a moment. She was
awed by that spectacle ot Senate Houses
and Abbey, the broad river veiled in the
mists of evening, the long lines of golden
lamps. It was all grand and wonderful;
but the heavy smoke -laden atmosphere op.
preened her. She seemed to lose all the
elasticity of her nature, the light free step of
the rustic,
It was a weary walk from the bridge to
Little Leopold -street, for at almost every
turn she had to inquire her way, and the
roar of the traffic bewildered her, while
every omnibus looked like a juggernaut
car bearing down upon her with murderous
intent •
Little Leopold -street seemed a haven of
rest after the noise and bustle of the great
thoroughfares. It was a quiet little street,
lying perdu among streets of greater altitude
and social importamee. It was an exclusive
little street, or gave itself aira of arietocracy,
and there were il.owers in all the windows.
Number 144 was brightened by red silk
blinds, behind which lights were shiningin
• drawing -room and dining room, shining
dimly in the dusk. 1VIadge's heart almost
failed her as she rang the bell. The house
had such an aspect of elegance and luxury,
as she waited there, with the perfume of the
flowers in her nostrils. Every window was
full of flowers. And it was from such &nest
as this she was to ask her mother to go out
with her into the stony wilderness of Lon-
don to toil for daily bread.
She had to remember the dialogue in the
police court in order to give herself courage.
A smartly dressed young woman opened the,
door.
"1 want to see Mrs. Mandeville, it you
please,- said Madge.
"1 ain't at all sure as she can see you.
What's your business ?"
"Von can tell her that I am a relation of
hers, and that I have come a long way on
purpose to see her."
You can step inside while I go and ask,
but I'M pretty sure Mrs. Mandeville won't
be able to see you to -night. She's expecting
company."
"Please ask her to let me speak to her,
if its only for five minutes."
"Well, I'll see. You can take a seat
while I go upstairs."
Madge entered the hall. It was small,
but set off with all the artistic trickery of
the fashionable upholsterer. White lean -
wiling, Japanese curtains, Japanese jars.
Madge sat down on a bamboo bench, and
waited. The door of the dining -room stood
open, and she saw a table luxuriously
arranged for four people. Silveri china, all
the service more extravagantthan anything
she had seen at the Abbey. While she was
looking at this bright interior, the table,
sideboard, and mantel -piece lighted with
wax candles, and glowing with 'lowers, the
door of a back room was stealthily opened
and a shabby -looking old man with a grimy
countenance peered curiously at her, and
then withdrew.. Sho had been just in time
to see a small room, with two candles and a
jug and glass upon a table.
Who could that horrid looking old man
be, and what had he to do amidst all this
smartness and glitter?
The maid reappeared upon the narrow
stairoase.
"You can step this way," she eaid,
beckoning, and Madge went up,to the second
Boer, wondering , as she went at the hot-
house flowers on the stairodne'the velvet -
covered hand -rail, the amber brocade cur-
tains which veiled the large window on the
landing.
"She ain't in a state to see any one," she
said as she retired, and left Madge standing
just within the threshold.
She had never been in such a room before,
so gaudily decorated and richly furnished,
and SO wanton in its disorder. The low
French bed was draped with velvet and lace,
and the silken coverlet was heaped with
things that had been flung there haphazard
one upon another. A silk gown, a riding
habit, hat, whip, and gloves, a pearl and
feather fan, a pair of satin slippers, 4 news
paper or two, and a volume of a novel. All
the chairs were encumbered, a Persian cat
coiled round upon one, a heap of books aud
newspapers on another, a tee tray on a
third. Mantlepiece and fireplace were
draped with point lace, over turquoise
velvet. There was a fire burning in the low
hearth, and the atmosphere was oppressively
b ot
A woman was lying on a sofa in front of
the fireplace, her long black hair hanging
loose over her white muslin dreasing.gown.
A woman who had once been strikingly
handsome, and who was handsome still, even
in decay. Her cheeks were hollow, and
• there were lines upon the low broad fore-
head, but the large dark eyes had lost little
of their splendour, and the finely cut
features were unimpaired by time.
1 The woman who called hereelf Mrs.
'Mandeville turned those darkly brilliant
/ eyes upon the intruder with a look of keen-
est scrutiny. Then slowly, without a word
she rose with languid movements from her
' sofa, walked across to Madge, and laid her
i
hands upon the girl's shoulders.
jSilently, deliberately, she scanned her
face, an they stood thus, confronting otioh
f ether. Madge's eyes seemed transfixed by
f those other eyes so like her own,
1" To my knowledge I have bub two vela.
tient: in the world," old Mite. Mandeville
:
;lootevimy
ly, daughter 1" and my daughter. Ate
,
I " Yes, mother," answered Madge, with
' her arms round her mother's tuick.
I (to DE eeileettnee.)
YOUNG FOLKS.
HOW ROB WENT OVER THE PALLS.
130 wremen 0, ST000ARD.
What I Do.
I'm busy, o busy all day,
D' you think I'm too little for that?
I pick up the threads from the floor,
And work, thro' a spool, on my mat.
D' you know how to make one? I do.
It's easy if you can begin,
It goes through a hole in the epee',
You work it all round with a pin.
And then, when you have enough done,
You new it around, through and through,
heven't much done to mine yet,
But that's what I'm going to do.
The boat in which Rob Norris decided to
make his trip over Niagara, Falls was built
like a yawl. It WAS not so very sherp, but
was wide and deep and buoyant, It was
ever so much better for the purpose than a
barrel or suit of blown -up India -rubber, or
any kind of diving armor. He intended to
we oars, and he rigged a mast and sail for -
wad, for he meant to make the trip 00
some day when the wind should be blowing
strongly down the river. What he most re-
lied upon to steady the boat was his drag -
board. This was made of two boards, each
twelve feet long and one foot wide, nailed
together at the edges so that it all looked
like four yards of a wooden gutter. He fit-
ted two iron rings into the edge of one
board. They were six feet apart, and when
a rope was put through the rings and fasten-
ed to the stern of the boat, it was plain that
the drag -board would drag tremendously.
"Von don't mean to take along any pro-
visions, do you ?" asked jim Hooker.
"Of course not," said Rob. "It's one of
those things that don't take a great while to
do." .
"And you won't need any lantern," said
Jim, "unless you drift into the cave under
the falls after you get down. Do you s'pose
you will?"
" NoI " m 1
id Rob "there isn't ay danger
of that. A111 want is to go over steady,
and come down right side up. It's too misty
to see anything, lantern or no lantern. The
river runs right along, and the boat'll go out
with the river." ,
"I'd take a lantern if I Was going," said
Jim. Everybody ought to have a candle or
or something when they're going into a
stange place.
Rob thought about it and concluded that,
after all, he had better have some lunch put
up, but that there wouldn't be any place
around the bottom of the fails dry enough
to scratch a match on, and so a candle would
be of no use. It was better, too, to go bare-
footed than to wear rubbers, and a tin dip-
per was worth more than a sponge to bail the
boat with, if any water should come in.
Of course everybody knew that Rob was
going over the falls, and some people talked
against it, and said there was too much tisk
in it. Rob himself thought that there might
be some, and he expected to get wet, but he
had a great deal of eonfiience in his drag -
board. When the day came, and the trip
was to be made, all the boys were at the,
landing, just as Rob expected. It was per-
fectly natural that they should come, and
that all of them should feel disappointed
' because he would not let them have seats
'th him in the b t;b t they ht not
to have called him stingy, nor to have said
that he wanted to have his ride, and the
falls too, all to himself. What he really
was afraid of was that if one of them came
along, especially Jim Hooker, he might be
all the while meddling with the drag -
board and disturbing the balance of the
boat, so that she would not go over the falls
well.
As for other people, it was j us , as Jim
Hooker had said that it would be: every-
body that lived within twenty miles was
there. Both banks of the river Swarmed
with them—men women, and children.
Rob counted fourteen Sundaysehools,
banners and all, and some Turnvereins, and a
Sehutzenfest, and afree.labor procession, end
associations for the improvement of general
information, besides a militia regiment and
some fire.00mpanies. All elong the bank of
the river people had built great wooden
stair platforms, to lot out seats at ten cents
each, and they were all full, and Rob wish-
ed that they had to divide the profits with
him. Conaidering that he was the boy that
was to ge over the falls, it would have been
exactly the fair thing, and would have
given him no end of pocket money.
The moment Rob F30t the boat loose and
pulled out from the shore, people began to
cheer and wave their handkerchiefs and the
militia
salute.
Rob threw over his drag -board, put up the ,
sail, and began to row hard right down- !
stream. The rapids carried the beet along I
so swiftly teat everybody cheered again. At
the same time the sail and the rowing kept
the boat going a little faster than the rapids,
to that the drag -board Away out behind,
more than six feet from the stern of the
boat, had a fair cho.nee to drag and keep '
things perfectly steady.
Rob had never before felt so proud in all
his life, for he knew he was beating all the
men that ever jumped over from anywhere
into anything. It would surely make him
famous forever, and every boy in the world ,
is anxious to become a great man, and have
all sorts of things said about him, and have
his name in the pipers.
The boat !mem aplendidly, and the wind
blew harder and harder, and the falls roar-
ed louder as they came nearer; that is, as
Rob aud his experiment cone nearer to
them.
The crowds along the shore took a deep
interest and cheered a greet deal, and sever-
al boys tried to see if they could throw
stones as far out as the boat was. Two of
them succeeded, and the stones they threw
came right into the boat, but they didn't
happen to hit Rob. He knew that all great
men have stones thrown at them, and he
didn't mind it.
The falls roared louder, the wind blew
harder, the water ran swifter, the drag -
board worked better and better, and Rob
was sure he saw a rainbow in the mist
ahead of him,
"There's the edge I" he shouted, as he
took in his oars and turned around. "1
Mud be looking aheed when 1 go over, or I '
shsen't see what's coming." f
It was the last chance for the boys on '
shore, and tome of them threw stones with
all their might, but they missed their aim,
and had nothing whatever to brag of.
"Now for it I" shouted Rob, as the boat
shot clean out from the edge of the falls
with the impetus She had gathered all the
Way, and With the force of the wind upon
the saiL
It was just as lie had expected. The water ,
kept hold of the drag -board, arid it took the
boat down nicely all the way, with the facial
of the greet hale aboeb four feet behind the
stem, If it had not been for the dreg -board
the boat would have either tipped Over or
gone down endwise and spilled Rob out.
As it was, she came down into the water at
the bottom steedily and evenly, as buoyant
as e cork, and shot away down -stream.
Rob felt prouder than ever for just one
moment, while he thought of how great a
man it would make him ; but the drag -board
began to pull a little too strongly, and there
was so dark Le fog he wished he had followed
Jim Hooker's advice and brought a candle
or lentern. It drew and it drew'and it was
pulling him in under the falls, The water
began to come down right on hie face and
into hie mouth, end just as he was gasping
and choking he heard Jim Hooker exclaim:
Well, Rob Norris, the belle just rung to
let out school. Never knew you to sleep so
lard before. Took a whole spongeful to
start your eyes open. '
" Gum 'twee the arithmetic did it," said
Rob, rubbings his oyes; "but there must'
have been a quart of water in that sponge."
Relation of Diet to D:eams.
"Ah, if our dreams only came true,' sigh.
ed the young men that boards on South
Division street. "Last night I dreamed
that 1 called on a lord. I find that I can
control my visions to a considerable extent
bydieting. For instance, if I wish to
enjoy a calm night, with dreams of 4 pleas-
ant character, I eat toast or bread end
milk just before retiring. If 'wish to have
a little excitement, quarrelling, disputing
or a little active exercise, I eat quash pie.
I have found from experience and observe, -
don that quash pie acts strongly on the
posterior part of the brain where lie the
bumps of combativeness and acquieitiveness.
I have known times when the °enwrap.
tion of two pieoes of equash pie has led me
to slay a man for his money within fifteen
minutes after going to bed. To make my
brain a chamber of hotline, however, r sit
down " &II hour before bed -time aud eat
three sardines, six olives, a little Rochefort
cheese with crackers, washing the whole
downwitho, bottle of Bass. Beforemorning
I charge single handed with my razor on
herds of wild horaea, and jump from sundry
steeples. Oh, yes, it is possible to control
one's dreams, and when we understand psy-
chology aright we can lie down and map
out our dream as' we now map out a day's
work."--13ufalo Courier.
Cremation in Italy.
The cremation system seems to be making
way in Italy, slowly though surely. Milan
was the first Italian city in which this me-
thod of disposing ot the dead was revived
-under Government sanction. But now a
new crematorium has been erected at the ex-
treme end of the Campo Santo, just outside
the walls. The Temple as it is called, is a
building in the Grsew-Vorio ety le, construct-
ed of stone and having an open facade Blip -
ported by columns, from behind which rises
a tower—so at least in appearance, though
in reality it is a chimney. The inside of the
building is divided into several rooms, in
the first of which the religious rites attend-
ing the incineration take place, and the walls
of which are lined with funeral urns con-
taining the ashes of many of those who have
been cremated at Milan. There is a separate
' apartment in which the bodies are placed,
and a third in which the relatives and friends
spent the two hours which the ghastly cere-
mony takes. The practice seems to be
spreading throughout Italy, since there are al-
ready about thirty-two societies established
for its promotion. Itmaybe mentioned that of
the total number of 952 cremations that have
taken place in seventeen Italian cities since
1876, as many as 518 have occurred in Milan
Reolaiining Land in Egypt.
A Cairo despatch to the London Standard
says :—." I have just returned from a visit
to the Aboukir reclamation works, which
are now well advanced. As this scheme has
always been regarded more or less as a test
of the possibility of reclaiming salted lands
too much importance can scarcely be attach-
ed to its success or fatten. The concession,
comprising about 30,000 acres, is the largest
that has been made of late years, and if the
result proves satisfactory similar conceseiona
will probablyquickly be given in other dis-
tricts. Theirrigation canals and drains are
already completed over about 12,000 acres,
all converging on a point on Aboukir Bay,
where two powerful Gwynne engines are
discharging foul salt water into the sea at
the rate of 240,000 tons every twelve hours,
this water holding in solution 8,400 tons of
solid salt. In the course of next week the
machines will be kept working all the
twenty-four hours, when this amount will
of course be doubled. The same system
will be applied next year to the remaining
18,000 acres, and it iS hoped before long to
offer the whole as a cultivable surface for
the benefit of the town of Alexandria, which
possesses scarcely any arable land within a
radius of ten miles. The experiment is
being watched Ninth the greatest interest
both by Alexandrian speculators and by the
authorities of the Departments of Finance
a,nd Public Works."
Would it be tlarriecl out?
It often happens that men who enter
saloons are eat upon and seriously assaulted
by infuriated inebriates who are allowed
to harbour there. The supreme Court of
Pennsylvania has by a recent decision de-
clared that in such oases the saloon keeper
is responsible for the consequences. Their
decision is based on the common law of the
country, so that it should apply to the
whole of the United States. The language
of the court in this matter is clear and
positive:
"Where one enters a saloon or tavern,
opened for the enterbainment of the public,
the proprietor is bound to see that he is pro-
perly protected from the assaults or insults
of those who are in his employ, as well as
of the drunken and vicious men whom he
may choose to harbour."
If such a principal were hid down and
enforced in Canada, particularly in the
cities, the number of woes of persons re-
ported assaulted or robbed in saloons Would
be speedily diminished.
On her trial trip the Reina, Repute, the
new Spanish war ship, which has just left
the hands of her English buldere, developed
a speed of 21 knot].
A compound Corliss engine of a gigantic
denctiption, has been produced at one of the
Scottish foundries, designed for a cotton mill,
in Bombay.Acacording to the description,
the high presence cylinder of this immense
engine is some 40 inohes diameter, and the
low pressure cylinder 70 inches, each having
a stroke of 6 foot: and the fly wheel, which
weighs about 110 tons, is 30 feet in diameter,
by 3 feet 6 inches wide, grooved for 38 ropes,
by which the power is tranemitted to the
various lines of shafting in the mill. The
engine rune at the rate of 60 , revolutions
per minute,thug. giving a speed of ropes of
considerably more than 1 mile a minute, The
crank shaft, made of the best whitworth
fluid compressed steel is 25 inches in dia.
meter in the body, ahd 20 in the beeringe.
The steain pressure is rated at 100 potinds
per square inch, and the engine works easily
to2,500 horse power.
ande'‘raenne °et:: began 1 n
Marriage Presente, l's 'the
Everywhere and by all sorts of people
complaints aro being mode about the black-
mailing that has come to be almost recog-
nized as a matter of comae in the way of
marrie,ge presents. Comparative atrangere
are systematically invited to be present on
such interesting owasions for no poseible
reason but to extrat a more or IOSS valuable
(gkui tetnforecaini them, caintuoi et aoornmweb.terinofdenced c if
eaou-
invitations were accepted there would be
Any amount of embarrassment on the pert of
the invitere. But then it is understood to
be the right thing to send the present along
with the exeuee. In this way sometimes as
many RS hundreds are roped and the happy
pair are blessed with what the newsPe+Pers
cell " numerous and valuable expressions of
regard." All this is quite terrible • d will
need to be reformed or life will me , eely be
worth the living. Occasionally t is folly
in
and sin acts unpleasantly in Another way.
Some few shy, modest people are nervous
about it even being hinted that they gave
,invitation for the sat e of a Present
aemordingly don't invite some
whom they would •be glad to have had
present with them on the joyous occasion.
Offense is in this way given when none was
intended, We have known of such cases
where the offence or supposed slight was
not got over for years. As a rule, however,
,ttews Lie the rare exceptions, The custom,
istwenhceal is
weem, etiut it has ended in becoming a
good feeling and friendly
nurr AY 1` of a very disagreeable character.
The oe.' 'ling is to retorm it out of ex -
true. of marriages comes also to
be all but equally so of funerals. The
flowers sent in on such occasions are . ex-
pressions neither of affection nor sorrows
but simply ostentatious sacrifices to Mrs.
Grundy aud the goddess of vulgar display.
What with pillows, crosses, anchors and so
forth there is scarcely the possibility of a
person being allowed to be buried in peace.
The vulgar bad taste displayed in such ex-
hibitions is execrable, but the re is something
even worse than that in the stupid fad.
When will people have sense enotegh to i
recognize what s in accord with the fitness
of things ?
Girls, Learn a Business,
Walter Besa,nt says that "Never till now
ham the army of gentlewomen been so great,
or its distress so acute." Perhaps that is ao,
but perhape it is not. Self help among wo-
men is far more common than it was
thirty years ago, and even "gentlewo-
men," who have hitherto played the
" lilies " and have " toiled " not, are
beginning to bestir themselves and to be-
lieve that it is better to engage in even any '
humble lamest toil than to starve, beg, or go
to the bad. 'When changes are so many, so
sudden and so overwhehning as .bles; are it
is the worst of folly to bring up y ng wo-
men to be merely ornamental and to fancy
that it would be degrading for themto make
a bed, dust a room or cook a dinner. ei long
time ago a wealthy merchant and ineleufaa-
turer as a mere piece of fun bought an an.
uity for each of his daughters as soon as they
were born. These annuities were old to be
k....
paid when the ladies had reached bl,eue-
ture age of thirty -live and were unme. eied.
It was a mere bagatelle, and the whim was
often laughed over in that luxurious home.
e7.2\t changes came a,nd for many years those
s annul ies were a a e o between
those gentlewomen and the poor house.
Fathers are ,dreadfully guilty if they don't e
do their best to provide some little inde-eae.
pendenoe for unmarried daughters But'
t ey w wipe° a er gu ty if they
their girls in idle, selfindelgent /aabits as
if it were ladylike to be able to de no honest
work, and a pcsitive degradation to make
even the attempt. There are ," decayed
gentlewomen" in houses of bad fame in To-
ronto, to which they went deliberately. and
of their own accord, because thy had been
taught that everykind of honest work was
menial and dishonorable.
nea
11 t 11 th t to d b
h ill be i 11 il • rear
The Geneva Award.
e "The United States Government is wit
always celebrated for doing the noble and
right thing. It takes what it can get and
Looks for more without being very much con- ,
caned about how the transaction looks or
how iteinay be generally Genie:tented on.
Sixteen years ago, for instance, the British
Government under the award of the Geneva
Arbitration Court paid a very heavy SUM to
the United States in compensation for the
damage done by the Alabama. In spite of
the most industrious search for :those who
could make any claim for danaarges and in
spite of the most liberal dealings with those
who fyled such claim, a considerable amount
of the money could not, with the slightest
approval to decency, be disbursed. But ib
has never been returned and remains in the
coffers of the United States and in all like-
lihood will remain as long as those coffers
exist. Two years ago the United States
paid to China a SUM et £48,000 by way of in-
demnity for a brutal massacre of Chinese im-
migrants in Wyoming Territory. The Pekin
Government invited the families of the victims
toputin their claims. Only half a dozen did so.
These received a full,' fair compensation.
But after all was done that could be, a large
balance remained and this was promptly re-
turned We', 'le Federal Treasury. The Unit-
ed Staetet 'Government expressed. itself
" high*pleased with China's fair and honest
dealing," But it has never dreamed of go-
ing and doing likewise. The shyster spirit
is twin strong. What is the use of surren-
dering money on a point of honour and fair
dealing that can be kept without fear of
either war or law ?
Dr. Parker, of London, who was SO ralleh
of a failure when he came to Amerioa seine
time ago, to eulogize, thereby, Henry Ward
Seedier and to boone himself,' breaks out
every now and then. on.ithe -pewspapers.
They are awfully bad and mourahlyi
ewcked.
Very like!" they don t burn esufficAyet incense
at this vain man's shrine.
The Mormons are overflowing their limits
and pushing their colonies into Canada. in
one respect they are not undesirable settlors.
They are patient, industrious, and, upon the
whole, ingenious and successful in their cul-
tivation of the soil and in all other industri-
al pursuits. With their religion nobody has
any tight to interfere, so long as it does not
conflict With the lime of the land mad the
well-being of neighbore. But when it in-
troduces the system of polygamy so entirely
opposed to the laws, traditions end cuetoms
of Comedians, then there comes tip a question
that must be faced at once. With that dff.
ficulty Canada cannot potter, The Mor.
mons must absolutely give up that doctrine
with ib corresponding practioe or there °en
be no room for them within the Dominion.
It is trite true that many Canadians who
have no wife at all are yet living in a worse
moral condition than if they wore polygam-
ists, but that is no matter. The pelygainist
introduces an entirely new principal which
legally and inevitably tends ,to the
.
don of woman and eventually to tne nue of
the state. No terms can be mule with it
and that it in to be hop6a the emigrating /
Moment: will won both Flee end undehitand.