828
1929 Readiana
R 285r
04
A 518552
J

ܠܡܐ
1
ANZANIA NA
LIBRARY
(2017
VERITAS
DEATH
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
PRESENTED BY
THE HEIRS OF
NATHAN B. HYDE
1


1
READIANA:
COMMENTS ON CURRENT EVENTS.
BY CHARLES READE.
NEW YORK:
GEORGE MUNRO, PUBLISHER,
17 TO 27 VANDEWATER STREET.
:;

!

972:12--09:15, 19:
READIANA.
THE BOX TUNNEL.
A FACT.
THE 10.15 train glided from Paddington, May 7, 1847. In the
left compartment of a certain first-class carriage were four passen-
gers: of these, two were worth description. The lady had a smooth,
white, delicate brow, strongly marked eyebrows, long lashes, eyes
that seemed to change color, and a good-sized delicious mouth, with
teeth as white as milk. A man could not see her nose for her eyes
and mouth: her own sex could and would have told us some non-
sense about it. She wore an unpretending grayish dress, buttoned
to the throat, with lozenge-shaped buttons, and a Scotch shawl that
agreeably evaded the responsibility of color. She was like a duck,
so tight her plain feathers fitted her; and there she sat, smooth,
snug, and delicious, with a book in her hand and a soupçon of her
snowy wrist just visible as she held it. Her opposite neighbor was
what I call a good style of man-the more to his credit, since he be-
longed to a corporation, that frequently turns out the worst imagi-
nable style of young man. He was a cavalry officer, aged twenty-
five. He had a mustache, but not a repulsive one; not one of those
sub nasal pig-tails, on which soup is suspended like dew on a shrub;
it was short, thick, and black as a coal. His teeth had not yet been
turned by tobacco smoke to the color of tobacco juice, his clothes
did not stick to nor hang on him, they sat on him; he had an en-
gaging smile, and, what I liked the dog for, his vanity, which was
inordinate, was in its proper place, his heart, not in his face, jostling
mine and other people's, who have none:-in a word, he was what
one oftener hears of than meets, a young gentleman He was con-
versing, in an animated whisper, with a companion, a fellow officer
-they were talking about, what it is far better not to do, women.
Our friend clearly did not wish to be overheard, for he cast, ever
and anon, a furtive glance at his fair vis-à vis and lowered his voice.
She seemed completely absorbed in her book, and that reassured
him. At last the two soldiers came down to a whisper, and in that
whisper (the truth must be told) the one who got down at Slough,
and was lost to posterity, bet ten pounds to three, that he, who was
going down with us to Bath and immortality, would not kiss either
of the ladies opposite upon the road. "Done! Done!" Now I am
sorry a man I have hitherto praised should have lent himself, even

4
READIANA.
...
in a whisper, to such a speculation: "but nobody is wise at all
hours," not even when the clock is striking five-and-twenty; and
you are to consider his profession, his good looks, and the tempta-
tion-ten to three.
66
After Slough the party was reduced to three; at Twyford one
lady dropped her handkerchief; Captain Dolignan fell on it like a
tiger and returned it like a lamb; two or three words were inter-
changed on that occasion. At Reading the Marlborough of our tale
"Times
made one of the safe investments of that day; he bought a
and a
Punch;" the latter was full of steel-pen thrusts and wood-
cuts. Valor and beauty deigned to laugh at some inflated humbug
or other punctured by "Punch.' Now laughing together thaws
our human ice; long before Swindon it was a talking match-at
Swindon who so devoted as Captain Dolignan-he handed them
out-he souped them-he tough-chickened them-he brandied and
cochinealed one, and he brandied and burnt-sugared the other; on
their return to the carriage one lady passed into the inner compart-
ment to inspect a certain gentleman's seat on that side the line.
""
*
Reader, had it been you or I, the beauty would have been the de-
serter, the average one would have stayed with us tili all was blue,
ourselves included; not more surely does our slice of bread and but-
ter, when it escapes from our hand, revolve it ever so often, alight
face downward on the carpet. But this was a bit of a fop, Adonis,
dragoon-so Venus remained in tête-à-tête with him. You have seen
a dog meet an unknown female of his species; how handsome, how
empressé, how expressive he becomes; such was Dolignan after
Swindon, and, to do the dog justice, he got handsomer and hand-
somer; and you have seen a cat conscious of approaching cream—
such was Miss Haythorn; she became demurer and demurer; pres-
ently our captain looked out of window and laughed: this elicited
an inquiring look from Miss Haythorn.
"We are only a mile from the Box Tunnel.”
Do you always laugh a mile from the Box Tunnel?" said the
lady.
"C
Invariably.'
"What for?"
"Why!-hem!-it is a gentleman's joke."
Cap-
"O, I don't mind its being silly, if it makes me laugh.'
tain Dolignan, thus encouraged, recounted to Miss Haythorn the
following: "A lady and her husband sat together going through
the Box Tunnel-there was one gentleman opposite; it was pitch-
dark; after the tunnel the lady said, 'George, how absurd of you to
salute ine going through the tunnel!'-'I did no such thing.'—
You didn't?'' No! why?'-'Why, because somehow I thought
Here Captain Dolignan laughed, and endeavored to
you did.'
lead his companion to laugh, but it was not to be done.
entered the tunnel.
"""
The train
Miss Haythorn. "Ah!"
C
Dolignan. What is the matter?"
Miss Haythorn. "I am frightened."
""
* This is supposed to allude to two decoctions called port and sherry, and
imagined by one earthly nation to partake of a vinous nature,
-
•
READIANA.
5
Dolignan (moving to her side). "Pray do not be alarmed, I am
near you.
"You are near me, very near me indeed, Captain
"
Miss Haythorn.
Dolignan.
Dolignan.
"You know my name!"
Miss Haythorn. "I heard your friend mention it. I wish we were
out of this dark place.
Dolignan. "I could be content to spend hours here, reassuring
you, sweet lady.
},
"Nonsense!"
Miss Haythorn.
Dolignan.
C4
Pweep!" (Grave reader, do not put your lips to the
cheek of the next pretty creature you meet, or you will understand
what this means.)
Miss Haythorn. "Ee! Ee! Ee!"
What is the matter?"
Friend.
(+
Miss Haythorn. Open the door!-open the door!"
The door was opened. There was a sound of hurried whispers,
the door was shut and the blind pulled down with hostile sharpness.
Miss Haythorn's scream lost a part of its effect because the engine
whistled forty thousand murders at the same moment: and fictitious
grief makes itself heard when real cannot.
Between the tunnel and Bath our young friend had time to ask
himself, whether his conduct had been marked by that delicate re-
serve, which is supposed to distinguish the perfect gentleman.
With a long face, real or feigned, he held open the door-his late
friends attempted to escape on the other side-impossible! they
must pass him. She whom he had insulted (Latin for kissed) de-
posited somewhere at his foot a look of gentle blushing reproach;
the other, whom he had not insulted, darted red-hot daggers at him
from her eyes, and so they parted.
It was perhaps fortunate for Dolignan that he had the grace to be
friends with Major Hoskyns of his regiment, a veteran laughed at
by the youngsters, for the major was too apt to look coldly upon
billiard balls and cigars; he had seen cannon balls and linstocks.
He had also, to tell the truth, swallowed a good bit of the mess-room
poker, but with it some sort of moral poker, which made it as im-
possible for Major Hoskyns to descend to an ungentlemanlike word
or action as to brush his own trousers below the knee.
Captain Dolignan told this gentleman his story in gleeful accents;
but Major Hoskyns heard him coldly, and as coldly answered that
he had known a man lose his life for the same thing. That is
nothing," continued the major, but unfortunately he deserved to
C
C
lose it.
At this the blood mounted to the younger man's temples, and his
senior added: "I mean to say he was thirty-five; you, I presume,
are twenty-one!"
(6

Twenty-five.
"That is much the same thing. Will you be advised by me?"
"If you will advise me.
"c
Speak to no one of this, and send White the £3 that he may
think you have lost the bet."
"
"That is hard when I won it."
Do it for all that, sir."

6
READIANA.
Let the disbelievers in human perfectibility know that this dragoon
capable of a blush did this virtuous action, albeit with violent reluc-
tance: and it was his first damper. A week after these events, he
was at a ball. He was in that state of factitious discontent which
belongs to us amiable English. He was looking, in vain, for a lady,
equal in personal attraction to the idea he had formed of George
Dolignan as a man, when suddenly there glided past him a most
delightful vision, a lady whose beauty and symmetry took him by
the eyes. Another look: "It can't be!-Yes, it is!" Miss Haythorn
-(not that he knew her name!)—but what an apotheosis!
The duck had become a pea-hen-radiant, dazzling; she looked
twice as beautiful and almost twice as large as before. He lost sight
of her. He found her again. She was so lovely she made him ill-
and he, alone, must not dance with her, nor speak to her. If he had
been content to begin her acquaintance in the usual way, it might
have ended in kissing, but having begun with kissing it must end
in nothing. As she danced, sparks of beauty fell from her on all
around, but him-she did not see him; it was clear she never would
see him. One gentleman was particularly assiduous; she smiled on
his assiduity; he was ugly, but she smiled on him. Dolignan was
surprised at his success, his ill taste, his ugliness, his impertinence.
Dolignan at last found himself injured. "Who was this man? and
what right had he to go on so? He had never kissed her, I sup-
pose," said Dolly. Dolignan could not prove it, but he felt that,
somehow, the rights of property were invaded. He went home and
dreamed of Miss Haythorn, and hated all the ugly successful.* He
spent a fortnight trying to find out who this beauty was-he never
could encounter her again. At last he heard of her in this way: a
lawyer's clerk paid him a little visit and commenced a little action
against him, in the name of Miss Haythorn; for insulting her in a
railway train.
The young gentleman was shocked; endeavored to soften the law-
yer's clerk; that machine did not thoroughly comprehend the mean-
ing of the term. The lady's name, however, was at last revealed by
this untoward incident; from her name to her address was but a
short step; and the same day our crestfallen hero lay in wait at her
door, and many a succeeding day, without effect. But one fine after-
noon she issued forth quite naturally, as if she did it every day, and
walked briskly on the nearest parade. Dolignan did the same, he
met and passed her many times on the Parade, and searched for
pity in her eyes, but found neither look, nor recognition, nor any
other sentiment; for all this she walked and walked, till all the
other promenaders were tired and gone-then her culprit sum-
moned resolution, and taking off his hat, with a voice tremulous for
the first time, besought permission to address her. She stopped,
blushed, and neither acknowledged nor disowned his acquaintance.
He blushed, stammered out how ashamed he was, how he deserved
to be punished, how he was punished, how little she knew how un-
happy he was: and concluded by begging her not to let all the world

* When our successful rival is ugly the blow is doubly severe, crushing,-
we fall by bludgeon: we who thought the keenest rapier might perchance
thrust at us in vain,

READIANA.
";
know the disgrace of a man who was already mortified enough by
the loss of her acquaintance. She asked an explanation; he told
her of the action that had been commenced in her name; she gently
Em-
shrugged her shoulders, and said, "How stupid they are.
boldened by this, he begged to know whether or not a life of distant
unpretending devotion would, after a lapse of years, erase the mem-
ory of his madness-his crime?
"She did not know.'
19
"She must now bid him adieu, as she had some preparations to
make for a ball in the Crescent, where everybody was to be. They
parted, and Dolignan determined to be at the ball where everybody
was to be. He was there, and after some time he obtained an intro-
duction to Miss Haythorn, and he danced with her. Her manner
was gracious. With the wonderful tact of her sex, she seemed to
have commenced the acquaintance that evening. That night, for
the first time, Dolignan was in love. I will spare the reader all a
lover's arts, by which he succeeded in dining where she dined, in
dancing where she danced, in overtaking her by accident when she
rode. His devotion followed her even to church, where our dragoon
was rewarded by learning there is a world where they neither polk
nor smoke-the two capital abominations of this one.
He made acquaintance with her uncle, who liked him, and he saw
at last, with joy, that her eye loved to dwell upon him, when she
thought he did not observe her.
It was three months after the Box Tunnel that Captain Doliguan
called one day upon Captain Haythorn, R. N., whom he had met
twice in his life, and slightly propitiated by resolutely listening to a
cutting-out expedition; he called, and in the usual way, asked per-
mission to pay his addresses to his daughter. The worthy Captain
straightway began doing Quarter-Deck, when suddenly he was sum-
moned from the apartment by a mysterious message. On his return
he announced, with a total change of voice, that it was all right,
and his visitor might run alongside as soon as he chose. My reader
has divined the truth; this nautical commander, terrible to the foe,
was in complete and happy subjugation to his daughter, our heroine.
66
""
As he was taking leave, Dolignan saw his divinity glide into the
drawing-room. He followed her, observed a sweet consciousness
which encouraged him; that consciousness deepened into confusion
-she tried to laugh, she cried instead, and then she smiled again;
and when he kissed her at the door, it was " George," and " Marian,
instead of Captain this, and Miss the other. A reasonable time after
this (for my tale is merciful and skips formalities and torturing de-
lays) these two were very happy-they were once more upon the rail-
road, going to enjoy the honeymoon all by themselves. Marian
Dolignan was dressed just as before-duck-like, and delicious; all
bright except her clothes: but George sat beside her this time instead
of opposite; and she drank him in gently from under her long eye-
lashes. Marian," said George, "married people should tell each
other all. Will you ever forgive me if I own to you-no-"
66
44
"Yes! yes!"
Well, then! you remember the Box Tunnel" (this was the first
allusion he had ventured to it), "I am ashamed to say 1 had bet £3
!
Ad
!
"1
.
8
READIANA.
+
.
to £10 with White, I would kiss one of you two ladies;" and George,
pathetic externally, chuckled within.
"I know that, George I overheard you," was the demure reply.
O, you overheard me?-impossible.
66
""
"C
And did you not hear me whisper to my companion? I made a
bet with her.
"You made a bet?-how singular! What was it?"
Only a pair of gloves, George.
"Yes, I know, but what about?"
'

That, if you did, you should be my husband, dearest."
Oh!-but stay: then you could not have been so very angry
with me, love; why, dearest, then who brought that action against
me?"
"C
Mrs. Dolignan looked down.
"I was afraid you were forgetting me. George, you will never
forgive me?"
"Sweet angel!-why, there is the Box Tunnel."
Now reader-tie!-no! no such thing! You can't expect to be in-
dulged in this way every time we come to a dark place. Besides, it
is not the thing. Consider two sensible married people-no such
phenomenon, I assure you, took place; no scream issued in hopeless
rivalry of the engine-this time.
A BRAVE WOMAN.
THE public itches to hear what people of rank and reputation do
and say, however trivial. We defer to this taste: and that gives us
a right to gratify our own now and then, by presenting what may be
called the reverse picture, the remarkable acts, or sufferings, or qual-
ities, of persons unknown to society, because society is a clique; and
to fame, because fame is partial.
In this spirit we shall tell our readers a few facts about a person
we are not likely to misjudge, for we do not know her even by sight.
31st of August, 1878, a train left Margate for London by the Chat-
ham and Dover line. At Sittingbourne the pointsman turned the
points the wrong way, and the train dashed into a shunted train at
full speed. The engine, tender, and leading carriages were crushed
together and piled over one another The nearest passengers were
chatting merrily one moment, and dead, dying, or mutilated, the
next.
Nearest the engine was a third-class carriage, and in its furthest
compartment sat a Mrs. Freeland, who in her youth had led an ad-
venturous life in the colonies, but now in middle age had returned
to mother England for peace and quiet. She felt a crash and heard
a hissing, and for one moment saw the tender bursting through the
compartments toward her; then she was hurled down upon her face,
with some awful weight upon her, and wedged immovable in a débris
of fractured iron, splintered wood, shattered glass, and mutilated
bodies.
>

READIANA.
9
In a few minutes people ran to help, but in that excited state which
sometimes aggravates these dire calamities. First they were for
dragging her out by force, but she was self-possessed, and said:
Pray, be calm and don't attempt it; I am fast by the legs, and a
great weight on my back."
(4
Then they were for breaking into the carriage from above: but she
called to them, Please don't do that-the roof is broken, and you
don't know what you may bring down upon us.
""
66
Thus advised by the person most likely to lose her head one would
think, they effected an entrance at the sides. They removed from
her back an iron wheel and a dead body, and they sawed round her
jammed and lacerated limbs, and at last with difficulty carried out a
lady, with her boots torn and filled with blood, her clothes in rib-
bons, her face pouring blood, her back apparently broken, and her
right leg furrowed all down to the very foot with a gaping wound,
that laid bare the sinews, besides numberless contusions and smaller
injuries. They laid her on a mat upon the platform, and there she
remained, refusing many offers of brandy, and waiting for a surgeon.
None came for a long time and benevolent Nature, so-called, sent
a heavy rain. At last, in three quarters of an hour, surgeons arrived,
and one of them removed her on her mat into a shed, that let in only
part of the rain. He found her spine injured, took a double hand-
ful of splinters, wood, and glass, out of her head and face, and then
examined her leg. He looked aghast at the awful furrow. The
sufferer said quietly, "I should like a stitch or two put into that."
The surgeon looked at her in amazement. Can you bear it?" She
said: “I think so.
>>
*
He said she had better fortify herself with a little brandy. She
objected to that as useless. But he insisted, and the awful furrow
was stitched up in silk. This done he told her she had better be
moved to the Infirmary at Chatham.
CC
Army surgeons?" said she. "No, thank you. I shall go to a
London hospital.
"",
Being immovable in this resolution, she had to wait three hours
for a train.
At last she was sent up to London, lying upon a mat on the floor of a
carriage, hashed, as we have described, and soaked with rain. From
the London station she was conveyed on a stretcher to St. George's
Hospital. There they discovered many grave injuries, admired her
for her courage and wisdom in having had her wounded leg sewn
up at once, but told her with regret that to be effectual it must be
secured with silver points, and that without delay.
40
Very well," said she, patiently; "but give me chloroform, for 1
>>
am worn out.
The surgeon said: "If you could endure it without chloroform it
would be better." He saw she had the courage of ten men.
C&
Well," said she, "let me have somebody's hand to hold, and I
will try to bear it."
A sympathizing young surgeon gave this brave woman his hand:
and she bore to have the silk threads removed, and thirty little silver
skewers passed and repassed through her quivering flesh, sixty
wounds to patch up one. It afterward transpired that the good

10
READIANA.
**
surgeon was only reserving chloroform for the amputation he thought
must follow, having little hope of saving such a leg.
Whatever charity and science-united in our hospitals, though
disunited in those dark hells where God's innocent creatures are cut
up alive out of curiosity-could do, was done for her at St. George's
Hospital; the wounded leg was saved, and in three weeks the pa-
tient was carried home. But the deeper injuries seemed to get
worse. She lay six months on her back, and after that was lame
and broken and aching from head to foot for nearly a year. As soon
as she could crawl about she busied herself in relieving the sick and
the poor, according to her means.
Fifteen months after the railway accident, a new and mysterious
injury began to show itself; severe internal pains, accompanied with
wasting, which was quite a new feature in the case. This brought
her to death's door after all.
But, when faint hopes were entertained of her recovery, the malady
declared itself-an abscess in the intestines. It broke, and left the
sufferer prostrate, but out of danger.
Unfortunately, in about a month another formed, and laid her low
again, until it gave way like its predecessor. And that has now been
her life for months; constantly growing these agonizing things, of
which a single one is generally fatal.
In one of her short intervals of peace a friend of hers, Major Mer-
cier, represented to her the merits and the difficulties of a certain
hospital for diseases of the skin. Instantly this brave woman sets
to work and lives for other afflicted persons. She fights the good
fight, talks, writes, persuades, insists, obtains the public support of
five duchesses, five marchionesses, thirty-two countesses, and a hun-
dred ladies of rank, and also of many celebrated characters; obtains
subscriptions, organizes a grand bazaar, etc., for this worthy object.
Now, as a general rule, permanent invalids fall into egotism; but
here is a lady, not only an invalid, but a sufferer, and indeed knocked
down by suffering half her time; yet with undaunted heart, and
charitable, unselfish soul, she struggles and works for others, whose
maladies are after all much lighter than her own.
Ought so much misfortune and merit to receive no public notice?
Ought so rare an union of male fortitude and womanly pity to suffer
and relieve without a word of praise? Why to us, who judge by
things, not names, this seems some heroic figure strayed out of An-
tiquity into an age of little men and women, who howl at the scratch
of a pen.
-
Such a character deserves to be sung by some Christian poet; but
as poetasters are many and poets are few, Mrs. Rosa Freeland, brave,
suffering and charitable, is chronicled in the prose of "Fact."
ཏན
READIANA,
11
AS
A BAD FALL.
TO THE EDITOR OF FACT "
SIR,-1 sometimes get provoked with the British workman-and
Bay so. He comes into my house to do a day's work, and goes out
again to fetch the tool he knew he should want, and does not come
back till after breakfast. Then I think I have got him.
But no;
he sharpens his tools and goes out for a whet. Even when he is at
work he is always going into the kitchen for hot water, or a hot
coal, or the loan of a pair of tongs, or some other blind. My maids,
who, before he came, were all industry and mock modesty, throw
both these virtues out of the window, and are after him on the roof,
when he is not after them in the kitchen. They lose their heads
entirely, and are not worth their salt, far less their wages, till he is
gone, and that is always a terribly long time, considering how little
he has to do. For these reasons, and because whenever he has been
out on my roof, the rain comes in next heavy shower, I have per-
mitted myself to call him in print "the curse of families.
Then he strikes, and combines, and speechifies, and calls the capi-
tal, that feeds him, his enemy; and sometimes fights with the capi-
tal of a thousand against the capital of a single master, and over-
powers it, yet calls that a fight of labor against capital. Then he
demands short time, which generally means more time to drink in,
and higher wages, which often means more money to drink with.
Thereupon I lose my temper, rush into print, and call the British
workman the British talk-man and the British drink-1
-man.
But it must be owned all this is rather narrow and shallow.
"Where there's a multitude there's a mixture," and a private gen-
tleman in my position does not really know the mass of the work-
men, and their invaluable qualities.

One thing is notorious-that in their bargains with capital they
are very lenient in one respect, they charge very little for their
lives; yet they shorten them in many trades, and lose them right
away in some.
Even I, who have been hard on them in some things, have already
pointed out that instead of labor and capital the trades ought to
speechify on life, labor, and capital; and dwell more upon their
risks, as a fit subject of remuneration, than their professed advocates
have done.
Is it not a sad thing to reflect, when you see the scaffolding pre-
pared for some great building to be erected either for pious or mun-
dane purposes that out of those employed in erecting it some are sure
to be killed?
•
All this prolixity is to usher in a simple fact, which interests me
more than the petty proceedings of exalted personages, and their
migrations from the blue bed to the brown;" and some of your
readers are sure to be of my mind.
The Princess's Theater, Oxford Street, is being reconstructed.
12
READIANA.
The walls, far more substantial than they build nowadays, are to
stand, but the old interior is demolished, and the roof heightened.
Sullivan, a young carpenter, was at work with his fellows on a
stage properly secured. They wanted some ropes that lay on an-
other stage, and sent him for them. Between the stages was a plank,
which he naturally thought had been laid to walk on. He stepped
on it—it was only a half-inch board. It snapped under his weight
like a carrot, and he fell through in a moment.
He caught at a projection, but merely tore his fingers, and de-
scended into space with fearful velocity.

The height was fifty feet-measured.
The thing he fell on was a hard board, lying on hard ground.
Those who saw him fall, and heard his one cry of horror, had no
hope of taking up anything from the ground below but a battered
corpse with broken back, fractured skull, and shattered ribs.
Thirty-five feet below the place he fell from, a strong bolt, about
an inch in diameter and four feet long, protruded from the wall al-
most at right angles, but with a slight declension downward.
The outer end of this protruding iron just caught Sullivan by the
seat, ripped up his clothes, and tore his back, and partly broke his
fall. Nevertheless, such was its violence that he bounded up from
the board he eventually fell upon, and was found all in a heap in a
hollow place close by, senseless, and almost pulseless.
He was taken to the Middlesex Hospital. There he came to his
senses and his trouble. His pulse was soon over 100. His tempera-
ture 108-a very alarming feature. This, however, has subsided,
and they have got his pulse to 98, but he cannot eat; his eyes can-
not bear the light. There are one or more severe wounds upon his
back parts, and much reason to fear injury to the spinal column.
He is in danger; and, if he survives, which I think very possible,
it is to be feared he will never be able to walk and work again.
These, sir, are the dire realities of life; and very fit to be admitted
into your graver columns. Here is a sad fact and a curious fact.
Sullivan was a handsome young fellow, just beginning the world.
In a moment there he lies a cripple and a wreck, and that is a sad
thing for any feeling heart to think of. The bolt which saved him
from immediate death is a curious fact. It is still to be seen dan-
gling from the wall as it did when it ripped up the workman's
clothes, furrowed his back, and broke his fall.
Will it prove his friend or his enemy, that piece of iron? The
enemy of his body if it makes him a cripple instead of a corpse; but
the friend of his soul if he reads his own story right; wherefore
hope some servant of God will go to his bedside with the true balm
of Gilead.
1 am sir,
Yours faithfully,
I
CHARLES READE.
13
#i
PERSEVERANCE
ON a certain day in the year 1819, Mr. Chitty, an attorney in
Shaftesbury, was leaving his office for the day, when he was met at
the door by a respectable woman and a chubby-faced boy with a
bright eye. He knew the woman slightly-a widow that kept a
small stationer's shop in the town
"
READIANA.

She opened her business at once
"
Oh, Mr. Chitty, I have brought you my Robert; he gives me no
peace; his heart is so set on being in a lawyer's office. But there, I
have not got the money to apprentice him. Only we thought per-
haps you could find some place or other for him, if it was ever so
small. Then she broke off and looked appealingly, and the boy's
cheeks and eyes were fired with expectation.
""
Most country towns at that time possessed two solicitors, who
might be called types; the old-established man, whose firm for gen-
erations had done the pacific and lucrative business-wills, settle-
ments, partnerships, mortgages, etc. — and the sharp practitioner,
who was the abler of the two at litigation, and had to shake the
plum tree instead of sitting under it and opening his mouth for the
windfalls. Mr. Chitty was No. 2.
But these sharp practitioners are often very good-natured; and so,
looking at the pleading widow and the beaming boy, he felt dis-
posed to oblige them, and rather sorry he could not. He said his
and,
was a small office, and he had no clerk's place vacant;
indeed, if I had, he is too young; why, he is a mere child!"
""
"I am twelve next so-and-so," said the boy, giving the month
and the day.
"C
You don't look it, then," said Mr. Chitty incredulously.
Indeed, but he is, sir," said the widow; "he never looked his
age, and writes a beautiful hand.
64
But I tell you I have no vacancy," said Mr. Chitty, turning
dogged.
64
Well, thank you, sir, all the same," said the widow, with the
patience of her sex. Come, Robert, we musn't detain the gentle-
man."
So they turned away with disappointment marked on their faces,
the boy's especially.
Then Mr. Chitty said in a hesitating way:
a vacancy, but it is not the sort of thing for you.'
66
""
"To be sure, there is
What is it, sir, if you please?" asked the widow.
Well, we want an office boy.'
""
"An office boy! What do you say, Robert? I suppose it is a
beginning, sir. What will he have to do?”
Why, sweep the office, run errands, carry papers-and that is
not what he is after. Look at him-he has got that eye of his fixed
on a counselor's wig, you may depend; and sweeping a country
attorney's office is not the stepping stone to that." He added warily,
"at least, there is no precedent reported."
*
.
14
READIANA.
م
.
.
.
"La! sir," said the widow, "he only wants to turn an honest
penny, and be among law-papers.
""
Ay, ay, to write 'em and sell 'em, but not to dust 'em!"
For that matter, sir, I believe he'd rather be the dust itself in
your office than bide at home with me." Here she turned angry
with her offspring for half a moment.
+6
And so I would," said young master stoutly, endorsing his
mother's hyperbole very boldly, though his own mind was not of
that kind which originates metaphors, similes, and engines of inac-
ouracy in general.
100

"Then I say no more,
observed Mr. Chitty; "only mind, it is
half-a crown a week-that is all."
>>
The terms were accepted, and Master Robert entered on his humble
duties. He was steady, persevering, and pushing; in less than two
years he got promoted to be a copying clerk. From this in due
course he became a superior clerk. He studied, pushed and per-
severed, till at last he became a fair practical lawyer, and Mr.
Chitty's head clerk. And so much for Perseverance.
He remained some years in this position, trusted by his employer
and respected too; for besides his special gifts as a law clerk, he was
strict in morals, and religious without parade.
In those days country attorneys could not fly to the metropolis and
back to dinner. They relied much on London attorneys, their
agents. Lawyer Chitty's agent was Mr. Bishop, a judge's clerk;
but in those days a judge's clerk had an insufficient stipend, and
was allowed to eke it out by private practice. Mr. Bishop was agent
to several country attorneys. Well, Chitty had a heavy case coming
on at the assizes, and asked Bishop to come down for once in a way
and help him in person. Bishop did so, and in working the case
was delighted with Chitty's managing clerk. Before leaving, he
said he sadly wanted a managing clerk he could rely on.
Mr. Chitty oblige him and part with this young man?
Would
Chitty made rather a wry face, and said that young man was a
pearl. "I don't know what I shall do without him; why, he is
my alter ego.
"
However, he ended by saying generously that he would not stand
in the young man's way. Then they had the clerk in and put the
question to him.
"
'Sir," said he, "it is the ambition of my heart to go to London."
Twenty-four hours after that, our humble hero was installed in
Mr. Bishop's office, directing a large business in town and country.
He filled that situation for many years, and got to be well known in
the legal profession. A brother of mine, who for years was one of
a firm of solicitors in Lincoln's Inn Fields, remembers him well at
this period; and to have met him sometimes in his own chambers
and sometimes in Judge's Chambers; my brother says he could not
help noticing him, for he bristled with intelligence, and knew a deal
of law, though he looked a boy.
The best of the joke is that this clerk afterward turned out to be
four years older than that solicitor who took him for a boy.
He was now up amongst books as well as lawyers, and studied
closely the principles of law whilst the practice was sharpening


15
:
:
READIANA
him. He was much in the courts, and every case there cited in
argument or judgment he hunted out in the books, and digested it,
together with its application in practice by the living judge, who
had quoted, received, or evaded it. He was a Baptist, and lodged
with a Baptist minister and his two daughters. He fell in love with
one of them, proposed to her, and was accepted. The couple were
married without pomp, and after the ceremony the good minister.
took them aside, and said, "I have only £200 in the world; I have
saved it a little at a time, for my two daughters Here is your
share, my children. Then he gave his daughter £100, and sho
handed it to the bridegroom on the spot. The good minister smiled
approval and they sat down to what fine folk call breakfast, but they
called dinner, and it was.
After dinner and the usual ceremonies, the bridegroom rose and
surprised them a little. He said, "I am very sorry to leave you,
but I have a particular business to attend to; it will take me just
one hour.'
>>
Of course there was a look or two interchanged, especially by
every female there present; but the confidence in him was too great
to be disturbed: and this was his first eccentricity.
He left them, went to Gray's Inn, put down his name as a student
for the Bar; paid away his wife's dowry in the fees, and returned
within the hour.
Next day the married clerk was at the office, as usual, and entered
on a twofold life. He worked as a clerk till five, dined in the Hall
of Gray's Inn as a sucking barrister; and studied hard at night.
This was followed by a still stronger example of duplicate existence,
and one without a parallel in my reading and experience—he be-
came a writer and produced a masterpiece, which, as regarded the
practice of our courts, became at once the manual of attorneys,
counsel, and judges.
practice," showed
The author, though his book was entitled "
some qualities of a jurist, and corrected soberly but firmly unscien-
tific legislature and judicial blunders.
So here was a student of Gray's Inn, supposed to be picking up
in that Inn a small smattering of law, yet, to diversify his crude
studies, instructing mature counsel and correcting the judges them-
selves, at whose chambers he attended daily, cap in hand, as an at-
torney's clerk. There's an intellectual hotch-potch for you! All
this did not in his Inn qualify him to be a barrister; but years and
dinners did. After some weary years he took the oaths at Westmin-
ster, and vacated by that act his place in Bishop's office; and was
a pauper-for an afternoon.
But work, that has been long and tediously prepared, can be ex-
ecuted quickly; and adverse circumstances, when Perseverance con-
quers them, turn round and become allies.
The ex-clerk and young barrister had plowed and sowed with
Half
such pains and labor, that he reaped with comparative ease.
the managing clerks in London knew him and believed in him.
They had the ear of their employers, and brought him pleadings to
draw and motions to make. His book, too, brought him clients, and
he was soon in full career as a junior counsel and special pleader.
READIANA.
:
16
Senior counsel too found that they could rely upon his zeal, ac
curacy, and learning. They began to request that he might be re·
tained with them in difficult cases, and he became first junior coun-
sel at the bar; and so much for Perseverance.
Time rolled its ceaseless course, and a silk gown was at his dispo-
sal. Now, a popular junior counsel cannot always afford to take
silk, as they call it. Indeed, if he is learned, but not eloquent, he
may ruin himself by the change. But the remarkable man, whose
career I am epitomizing, did not hesitate; he still pushed onward,
and so one morning_the_Lord Chancellor sat for an hour in the
Queen's Bench, and Mr. Robert Lush was appointed one of Her
Majesty's Counsel learned in the Law, and then and there, by the
Chancellor's invitation, stepped out from among the juniors and
took his seat within the Bar. So much for Perseverance.
From this point the outline of his career is known to everybody.
He was appointed in 1865 one of the Judges of the Queen's Bench,
and, after sitting in that Court some years, was promoted to be a
Lord Justice of Appeal.
A few days ago he died, lamented and revered by the legal profes-
sion, which is very critical, and does not bestow its respect lightly.
I knew him only as Queen's Counsel. I had him against me once,
but oftener for me, because my brother thought him even then the
best lawyer and the most zealous at the Bar, and always retained
him if he could. During the period I knew him personally Mr.
Lush had still a plump, unwrinkled face, and a singularly bright
eye. His voice was full, mellow, and penetrating, it filled the Court
without apparent effort, and accorded well with his style of elo-
quence, which was what Cicero calls the temperatum genus loquendi.
Reasoning carried to perfection is one of the fine arts; an argu-
ment by Lush enchained the ear and charmed the understanding.
He began at the beginning, and each succeeding topic was articulat-
ed and disposed of, and succeeded by its right successor, in lan-
guage so fit and order so lucid, that he rooted and grew conviction
in the mind. Tantum series nexuraque pollent.
I never heard him at Nisi Prius, but should think he could do
nothing ill, yet would be greater at convincing judges than at per-
suading juries right or wrong; for at this pastime he would have to
escape from the force of his own understanding, whereas I have
known counsel blatant and admired, whom Nature and flippant flu-
ency had secured against that difficulty.
He was affable to clients, and I had more than one conversation
with him, very interesting to me. But to intrude these would be
egotistical, and disturb the just proportions of this short notice. I
hope some lawyer, who knew him well as a counsel and judge, will
give us his distinctive features, if it is only to correct those vague and
colorless notices of him that have appeared.
This is due to the legal profession. But, after all, his early career
interests a much wider circle. We cannot all be judges, but we can
all do great things by the perseverance, which, from an office boy,
made this man a clerk, a counsel, and a judge. Do but measure
the difficulties he overcame in his business with the difficulties of
rising in any art, profession, or honorable walk; and down with
READIANA.
17
despondency's whine, and the groans of self-deceiving laziness.
You who have youth and health, never you quail
At those twin gaolers of the daring heart,
Low birth and iron fortune.'
See what becomes of those two bugbears when the stout champion
SINGLE-HEART and the giant PERSEVERANCE take them by the throat.
Why the very year those chilling lines were first given to the pub-
lic by Bulwer and Macready, Robert Lush paid his wife's dowry
away to Gray's Inn in fees, and never whined nor doubted nor
looked right nor left, but went straight on-and prevailed.
Genius and talent may have their bounds-but to the power of
single-hearted perseverance there is no known limit.
Non omnis mortuus est; the departed judge still teaches from his
tomb; his dicta will outlive him in our English Courts; his gesta
are for mankind.
Such an instance of single-heartedness, perseverance and propor-
tionate success in spite of odds is not for one narrow island but the
globe; an old man sends it to the young in both hemispheres with
this comment: If difficulties lie in the way, never shirk them, but
think of Robert Lush, and trample on them. If impossibilities en-
counter you-up hearts and at 'em.
One thing more to those who would copy Robert Lush in all es-
sentials. Though impreguated from infancy with an honorable am-
bition, be remembered his Creator in the days of his youth; nor did
he forget Him, when the world poured its honors on him, and those
insidious temptations of prosperity, which have hurt the soul far
oftener than "low birth and iron fortune. He flourished in a
skeptical age; yet he lived, and died, fearing God.
>>
A HERO AND A MARTYR.
THERE is an old man in Glasgow, who has saved more than forty
lives in the Clyde, many of them with great peril to his own. Death
has lately removed a French hero, who was his rival, and James
Lambert now stands alone in Europe. The Frenchman saved more
lives than Lambert, but then he did most of his good work with a
boat and saving gear. The Scot had nothing but his own active
body, his rare power of suspending the breath, and his lion heart.
Two of his feats far surpass anything recorded of his French com-
petitor; he was upset in a boat with many companions, seized and
dragged to the bottom, yet contrived to save nearly them all; and
on another occasion, when the ice had broken under a man, and the
tide sucked him under to a distance of several yards, James Lam-
bert dived under the ice, and groped for the man till he was nearly
breathless, and dragged him back to the hole, and all but died in sav-
ing him. Here the chances were nine to one against his ever finding
that small aperture again, and coming out alive. Superior in daring
to his one European rival, he has yet another title to the sympathy
of mankind; he is blind; and not by any irrelevant accident, but in
consequence of his heroism and his goodness. He was working at
Uor M


18
READIANA.
..
a furnace one wintry day, and perspiring freely. The cry got up
that a man was drowning. He flung himself, all heated as he was,
into icy water, and, when he came out, he lost his sight for a time
on the very bank. His sight returned; but ever after that day he
was subject to similar seizures. They became more frequent, and
the intervals of sight more rare, until the darkness settled down,
and the light retired for ever.
""
The meaning of the word martyr" is a man who is punished
for a great virtue by a great calamity. Every martyr in Fox's
book, or Butler's, or the "Acta Sanctorum," or the “ "Vita Patrum
Occidentis, comes under that definition; but not more so than
James Lambert, and the hero who risks his life in saving, is just as
much a hero as he who risks his life in killing his fellow creatures.
Therefore I do not force nor pervert words, but weigh them well,
when I call James Lambert what he is a hero and a martyr. That
is a great deal to say of any one man; for all of us who are really
men or women, and not, as Lambert once said to me mere broom-
besoms in the name o' men," admire a hero, and pity a martyr, alive
or dead.
S
"
((
In espousing this hero's cause I do but follow a worthy example.
Mr. Hugh M'Donald was a Glasgow citizen, and a man known by
many acts of charity and public feeling. He revealed to the Glas-
gow public the very existence of Burns' daughter, and awakened a
warın interest in her; and in 1856 he gave the city an account of
James Lambert's deeds and affliction, and asked a subscription.
Glasgow responded warmly; £260 was raised, and afterward £70.
The sum total was banked and doled to James Lambert ten shil-
lings per week. However, the subscribers made one great mistake,
they took for granted Lambert would not outlive their money; but
he has.
In 1868, having read Mr. M'Donald's account, I visited Lambert,
and heard his story. Being now blind, and compelled to live in the
past, he had a vivid recollection of his greatest deeds and told me
them with spirit. I, who am a painstaking man, and owe my suc-
cess to it, wrote down the particulars, and the very words that, he
said, had passed on these grand occasions. Next day, I took the
blind hero down to the Clyde, whose every bend he knew at that
time, and made him repeat to me every principal incident on its own
spot. From that day I used to send James Lambert money and
clothes at odd times; but I did not write about him for years. How-
ever, in 1874, I published my narrative (entitled "A Hero and a
Martyr") in the Pall Mall Gazette, London, the Tribune, New
York, and a shilling pamphlet with a fine engraving of James Lam-
bert. I invited a subscription, and, avoiding the error of the former
subscribers, announced from the first that it should be directed to
buying James Lambert a sinall annuity for life. The printed story
flew round the world. Letters and small subscriptions poured in
from every part of England, and in due course from Calcutta, from
the Australian capitals, from New York, Boston, San Francisco,
and even from Valparaiso in Chili. An American boy sent me a dol-
lar from New Orleans. Two American children sent me a dollar
from Chicago. A warm-hearted Glasgow man wrote to me with rap-
ture from the State of Massachusetts, to say every word was true;
!!
READIANA.
19
>>
he remembered blythe Jamie well, and his unrivaled reputation, re-
membered his saving the mill-girls, and added an incident to my
narrative, that in all the horror of the scenes James Lambert's voice
had been heard from the bank shouting lustily, "Dinna grip my
arms, lassies; hing on to my skirts." The English papers quoted
largely from the narrative and recommended the subscriptions.
But, whilst the big world rang with praises of the Glasgow hero,
and thrilled with pity for the Glasgow martyr, detractors and foes
started up in a single city. And what was the name of that city? Was
it Rome jealous for Regulus and Quintus Curtius? Was it Tarsus
jealous for St. Paul? Was it Edinburgh, Liverpool, Paris, or
Washington? Oh, dear no: marvelous to relate, it was Glasgow,
the City of Hugh Macdonald, the hero's own birthplace-and the
town which the world honors for having produced him. These
detractors deny James Lambert's exploits, or say they were few and
small, not many and great. They treat his blindness and its cause
as a mere irrelevant trifle, and pretend he squandered the last sub-
scription-which is a lie, for he never had the control of it, and it
lasted ten years. Scribblers who get drunk three times a week,
pretend that Lambert-who, by the admission of his enemy Mc-
Ewen, has not been drunk once these last five years-is an habitual
drunkard, and that they, of all people, are shocked at it. Need 1
say that these detractors from merit and misfortune are anonymous
writers in the "Glasgow Press. It does not follow they are all
natives of Glasgow. Two of them, at least, are dirty little penny-a-
liners from London. The public knows nothing about the Press,
and is easily gulled by it. But I know all about the Press, inside
and out, and shall reveal the true motive of the little newspaper con-
spiracy against Lambert and Reade. It is just the jealousy of the
little provincial scribbler maddened by the overwhelming superiority
of the national writer. I'll put the minds of these quill-drivers into
words for you.
Curse it all! there was a hero and a martyr in our
midst, and we hadn't the luck to spot him. [In reality they had
not brains enough in their skulls nor blood enough in their hearts
to spot him. But it is their creed, that superior discernment is all
luck.] Then comes this cursed Englishman and hits the theme we
missed. What can we pigmies do now to pass for giants? It's no
use our telling the truth and playing second fiddle. No-our only
chance now, to give ourselves importance, is to hiss down both the
hero and his chronicler. If we call Lambert an impostor and a
drunkard, and Reade a mercenary fool, honest folk will never divine
that we are ourselves the greatest drunkards, the greatest dunces,
and the most habitual liars in the city." That was the little game
of the Glasgow penny-a-liners, and twopence a-liars; and every man
in Scotland, who knows the provincial Press, saw through these
caitiffs at a glance. But the public is weak and credulous. Now,
they might as well bay the moon as bark at me; I stand too high
above their reach in the just respect of the civilized world. But
they can hurt James Lambert, because he is their townsman.
Therefore, I interfere and give the citizens of Glasgow the key
to the Glasgow backbiters of a Glasgow hero and martyr. I
add one proof that this is the true key. The exploits and the
calamity of James Lambert were related by Hugh Macdonald
CC

20
READIANA.
··
"
<+
eighteen years ago when proofs were plentiful. If they were
true eighteen years ago how can they be false now? Answer
me that, honest men of Glasgow, who don't scribble in papers
and call black white. Can facts be true when told by a Glas-
gow man, yet turn false when told by an Englishman? ? ? ! ! !
Now observe they might have shown their clannishness as nobly as
they have shown it basely. There are brave men in England - many;
and unfortunate men-many; whom a powerful English writer
could celebrate. But no-he selects a Scotchman for his theme,
and makes the great globe admire him, and moves England to
pity and provide for him. Any Scotch writer worthy of the
name of Scotchman, or man, observing this, would have said
Well, this English chap is not narrow-minded any way. You
need not be a Cockney to win his heart and gain his pen. He is
warmer about this Glasgow man, than we ever knew him to be
about a south countryman. It is a good example.
It is a good example. Let us try and
rise to his level, and shake hands with the Southron over poor Jamie
Lambert." This is how every Scotsman, worthy of the name, would
have felt and argued. But these Glasgow scribblers are few of
them Scotsmen, and none of them men. The line they have taken in
vilifying a blind man, who lost his sight by benevolent heroism, is
one that hell chuckles at, and man recoils from. They have dis-
graced the city of Glasgow and human nature itself. Whatever
may be the faults of the working classes they are MEN. Anony-
mous slanderers and detractors are not men-they are mere lumps of
human filth. I therefore ask the operatives of Glasgow, and the
manly citizens, to shake off these lumps of dirt and detraction, and
aid me to take the Glasgow hero and martyr out of all his troubles.
The Frenchman I have mentioned had one great title to sympathy,
whereas Lambert has two; and this is how France treated her heroic
son. He lived at the public expense, but free as air. The public
benefactor was not locked up and hidden from the public. His
breast was emblazoned with medals, and amongst them shone the
great national order, the Cross of the Legion of Honor, which many
distinguished noblemen and gentlemen have sighed for in vain; and
when he walked abroad every gentleman in the country doffed his
hat to him. Thus does France treat a great saver of human lives.
James Lambert lives at the public expense, but not as that French-
man lived. It grieves my heart to say it; but the truth is, James
Lambert lives unhappily. He is in an almshouse, which partakes of
the character of a prison. It is a gloomy, austere place, and that
class of inmates, to which he belongs, are not allowed to cross the
threshold upon their own business, except once in a fortnight. But
to ardent spirits loss of liberty is misery. Meanly clad, poorly fed,
well imprisoned, and little respected-such is the condition of James
Lambert in Glasgow, his native city. Yet he is the greatest man in
that city, and one of the very few men now living in it, whose name
will ring in history a hundred years hence; the greatest saver of
lives in Europe; a man whose name is even now honored in India
and Australia, in the United States and Canada, and indeed from
the rising to the setting sun, thanks to his own merit, the power of
the pen, and the circulation of the Press-a true hero and a true
martyr, glorious by his deeds and sacred by his calamity.
⠀
B
READIANA.
21
A DRAMATIC MUSICIAN.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "ERA."
SIR,-There died the other day in London a musician, who used
to compose, or set, good music to orchestral instruments, and play
it in the Theater with spirit and taste, and to watch the stage with
one eye and the orchestra with another, and so accompany with
vigilant delicacy a mixed scene of action and dialogue: to do which
the music must be full when the actor works in silence, but sub-
dued promptly as often as the actor speaks. Thus it enhances the
action without drowning a spoken line.
These are varied gifts, none of them common, and music is a
popular art. One would think, then, that such a composer and
artist would make his fortune nowadays. Not so. Mr. Edwin Ellis
He was
lived sober, laborious, prudent, respected, and died poor.
provident and insured his life; he had a family and so small an in-
come that he could not keep up the insurance. He has left a wife
and nine children utterly destitute and he could not possibly help
it. The kindest-hearted Profession in the world-though hardened
with many charitable claims-will do what it can for them; but I
do think the whole weight ought not to fall upon actors and mu-
sicians. The man was a better servant of the public than people
are aware, and therefore I ask leave to say a few words to the pub.
lic and to the Press over his ill-remunerated art, and his untimely
grave.
Surely the prizes of the Theater are dealt too unevenly, when such
a man for his compositions and his performance receives not half
the salary of many a third-class performer on the stage, works his
heart out, never wastes a shilling, and dies without one.
No individual is to blame; but the system seems indiscriminating
and unjust, and arises from a special kind of ignorance, which is
very general, but I think and hope is curable.
Dramatic effects are singularly complex, and they cannot really be
understood unless they are decomposed. But it is rare to find, out
of the Theater, a mind accustomed to decompose them. The writer
is constantly blamed for the actor's misinterpretation, and the actor
for the writer's feebleness. Indeed, the general inability to decom-
pose and so discriminate goes so far as this-You hear an author
gravely accused by a dozen commentators of writing a new play four
hours long. Of those four hours, the stage-carpenter occupied one
hour and thirty minutes. Yet they ascribe that mechanic's delay to
the lines and delivery, when all the time it was the carpenter, who
had not rehearsed his part, and therefore kept the author and the
actors waiting, just as long as he did the audience.
Where the habit of decomposing effects is so entirely absent, it
follows, as a matter of course, that the subtle subsidiary art of the
able leader is not distinguished, and goes for nothing in the public
estimate of a play. I suppose two million people have seen Shaun
1
A

22
READIANA,
((
>
""
the Post escape from his prison by mounting the ivied tower, and
have panted at the view. Of those two million how many are aware
that they saw with the ear as well as the eye, and that much of their
emotion was cauesd by a mighty melody, such as effeminate Italy
never produced-and never will till she breeds more men and less
monks-being played all the time on the great principle of climax,
swelling, higher and higher, as the hero of the scene mounted and
surmounted? Not six in the two million spectators, I believe. Mr.
Ellis has lifted scenes and situations for me and other writers scores
of times, and his share of the effect never been publicly noticed.
When he had a powerful action or impassioned dialogue to illustrate
he did not habitually run to the poor resource of a hurry or a
nonsense tremolo," but loved to find an appropriate melody, or a
rational sequence of chords, or a motived strain, that raised the
scene or enforced the dialogue. As to his other qualities, it was
said of Cæsar that he was a general who used not to say to his sol-
diers "
go" but
come," and that is how Mr. Ellis led an orchestra.
He showed them how to play with spirit by doing it himself. He
was none of your sham leaders with a baton, but a real leader with
a violin, that set his band on fire. A little while before he died he
tried change of air, by the kind permission of Messrs. Gatti, and he
helped me down at Liverpool. He entered a small orchestra of good
musicians that had become languid. He waked them up directly,
and they played such fine music and so finely that the entr'acte
music became at once a feature of the entertainment. A large the-
ater used to ring nightly with the performance of fifteen musicians
only; and the Lancashire lads, who know what is good, used to ap-
plaud so loudly and persistently that Mr. Ellis had to rise nightly in
the orchestra and bow to them before the curtain could be raised.
Co
-
Then I repeat that there must be something wrong in the scale of
remuneration, when such a man works for many years and dies in
need, without improvidence. In all other professions there are low
rewards and high rewards. On what false principles does such a
man as Ellis receive the same pittance as a mediocre leader, who
doses a play with tremolo, and "hurries," and plays you dead with
polkas between the acts, and, though playing to a British audience,
rarely plays a British melody but to destroy it by wrong time, wrong
rhythm, coarse and slovenly misinterpretation, plowing immortal
airs, not playing them?
I respectfully invite the Press, over this sad grave, to look into
these matters-to adopt the habit of decomposing all the complex
effects of a theater; to ignore nobody, neither artist nor mechanic,
who affects the public; to time the carpenters' delays on a first night
and report them to a second; to time the author's lines and report their
time to a minute; to criticise as an essential part of the performance
the music, appropriate or inappropriate, intelligent or brainless, that
accompanies the lines and action; and not even to ignore the quality
and execution of the entr'acte music. A thousand people have to
listen to it three quarters of an hour, and those thousand people
ought not to be swindled out of a part of their money by the mis-
interpretation of Italian overtures or by the everlasting performance
of polkas and waltzes. These last are good musical accompaniments
to the foot, but to seated victims they are not music, but mere
}
1
READIANA.
23
rhythmical thumps. There is no excuse for this eternal trash,
since the stores of good music are infinite.
If the Press will deign to take a hint from me, and so set them-
selves to decompose and discriminate, plays will soon be played
quicker on a first night, and accomplished artists like Edwin Ellis
will not work hard, live soberly, and die poor. Meantime, I do not
hesitate to ask the public to repair in some degree the injustice of
fortune. Millions of people have passed happy evenings at the
Adelphi Theater. Thousands have heard Mr. Ellis accompany The
Wandering Heir and between the acts play his Songs without
Music" at the Queen's. I ask them to believe me that this deserv-
ing and unfortunate musician caused much of their enjoyment
Those spectators,
though they were not conscious of it at the time.
and all who favor me with their confidence in matters of charity, I
respectfully invite to aid the Theatrical and Musical Professions in
the effort they are now making to save from dire destitution the
widow and children of that accomplished artist and worthy man
1 am, sir, yours respectfully,
CHARLES READE
CC
DEATH OF WINWOOD READE.
FROM THE "DAILY TELEGRAPH," April 26, 1876.
WE regret to announce the death of Mr. Winwood Reade, well-
known as an African traveler and correspondent, and by many
works of indubitable power. This remarkable man closed, on
Saturday last, April 24, a laborious career, cheered with few of
Fortune's smiles. As a youth he had shown a singular taste for
natural science. This, however, was interrupted for some years by
University studies, and afterward by an honest but unavailing
attempt to master the art of Fiction, before possessing sufficient ex-
perience of life. He produced, however, two or three novels con-
taining some good and racy scenes, unskillfully connected, and one
("See Saw,'') which is a well-constructed tale. He also published
The theories
an archæological volume, entitled "The Vale of Isis.
of M. Du Chaillu as to the power and aggressive character of the
gorilla inflamed Mr. Reade's curiosity and awakened his dormant
genius. He raised money upon his inheritance, and set out for
Africa fully equipped. He hunted the gorilla persistently, and found
him an exceedingly timorous animal, inaccessible to European sports-
men in the thick jungles which he inhabits. Mr. Reade then pushed
his researches another way. On his return he published “Savage
Africa," a remarkable book, both in matter and style.
""
After some years, devoted to general science and anonymous liter-
ature, he revisited that Continent-" whose fatal fascinations," as
he himself wrote, no one having seen and suffered, can resist,'
and this time penetrated deep into the interior. In this expedition
he faced many dangers quite alone, was often stricken down with
fever, and sometimes in danger of his life from violence, and once
was taken prisoner by cannibals. His quiet fortitude and indom-
**
24
READIANA.
itable will carried a naturally feeble body through it all, and he came
home weak, but apparently uninjured in constitution. He now pub.
lished two volumes in quick succession" The Martyrdom of Man,"
and the "African Sketchbook "—both of which have met with warm
admiration and severe censure. Mr. Reade was now, nevertheless,
generally recognized by men of science, and particularly by Dr.
Darwin and his school. In November, 1873, he became the Times'
correspondent in the Ashantee war, and, as usual, did not spare him-
self. From this, his third African expedition, he returned a broken
man. The mind had been too strong for the body, and he was
obliged to halt on the way home. Early in this present year, dis-
ease, both of the heart and lungs, declared itself, and he wasted
away slowly but inevitably. He wrote his last work, The Out-
cast, with the hand of death upon him. Two zealous friends
carried him out to Wimbledon, and there, for a day or two, the air
seemed to revive him; but on Friday night he began to sink, and on
Saturday afternoon died, in the arms of his beloved uncle, Mr.
Charles Reade.
CC
""
The writer thus cut off in his prime entered life with excellent
prospects; he was heir to considerable estates, and gifted with genius.
But he did not live long enough to inherit the one or to mature the
other. His whole public career embraced but fifteen years; yet in
another fifteen he would probably have won a great name, and cured
himself, as many thinking men have done, of certain obnoxious
opinions, which laid him open to reasonable censure, and also to
some bitter personalities that were out of place, since truth can surely
prevail without either burning or abusing men whose convictions
are erroneous but honest. He felt these acrimonious comments, but
bore them with the same quiet fortitude by help of which he had
endured his sufferings in Africa, and now awaited the sure approach
of an untimely death at home. Mr. Reade surpasses most of the
travelers of his day in one great quality of a writer-style. His
English, founded on historical models, has the pomp and march of
words, is often racy, often picturesque, and habitually powerful yet
sober; ample yet not turgid. He died in his 37th year,
0
CREMONA FIDDLES.
FROM THE "C PALL MALL GAZETTE."
FIRST LETTER.
August 19th, 1872.
UNDER this heading, for want of a better, let me sing the four-
stringed instruments that were made in Italy from about 1560 to
1760, and varnished with high-colored yet transparent varnishes,
the secret of which, known to numberless families in 1745, had van-
ished off the earth by 1760, and has now for fifty years baffled the
laborious researches of violin makers, amateurs, and chemists.
That lost art 1 will endeavor to restore to the world through the
medium of your paper. But let me begin with other points of con-
READIANA.
25
noisseurship, illustrating them as far as possible by the specimens
on show at the South Kensington Museum.
The modern orchestra uses four-stringed instruments, played with
the bow; the smallest is the king; its construction is a marvel of
art; and, as we are too apt to underrate familiar miracles, let me
analyze this wooden paragon by way of showing what great archi-
tects in wood those Italians were, who invented this instrument and
its fellows at Brescia and Bologna. The violin itself, apart from its
mere accessories, consists of a scroll or head, weighing an ounce or
two, a slim neck, a thin back, that ought to be made of Swiss syca-
more, a thin belly of Swiss deal, and sides of Swiss sycamore no
thicker than a sixpence. This little wooden shell delivers an amount
of sound that is simply monstrous; but, to do that, it must submit
to a strain, of which the public has no conception. Let us suppose
two Claimants to take opposite ends of a violin string, and to pull
against each other with all their weight; the tension of the string so
produced would not equal the tension which is created by the screw
in raising that string to concert pitch. Consider, then, that not one
but four strings tug night and day, like a team of demons at the
wafer-like sides of this wooden shell. Why does it not collapse;
well, it would collapse with a crash, long before the strings reached
concert pitch, if the violin was not a wonder inside as well as out.
The problem was to withstand that severe pressure without crippling
the vast vibration by solidity. The inventors approached the diffi-
culty thus: they inserted six blocks of lime, or some light wood;
one of these blocks at the lower end of the violin, one at the upper
and one at each corner-the corner blocks very small and triangular;
the top and bottom blocks much larger, and shaped like a capital D.
the straight line of the block lying close to the sides, and the curved
line outward. Then they slightly connected all the blocks by two
sets of linings; these linings are not above a quarter of an inch
deep, I suppose, and no thicker than an old penny piece, but they
connect those six blocks and help to distribute the resistance.
Even so the shell would succumb in time; but now the inventor
killed two birds with one stone; he cunningly diverted a portion of
the pressure by the very means that were necessary to the sound.
He placed the bridge on the belly of the violin, and that raised the
strings out of the direct line of tension, and relieved the lateral press-
ure at the expense of the belly. But as the belly is a weak arch, it
must now be strengthened in its turn. Accordingly, a bass-bar was
glued horizontally to the belly under one foot of the bridge. This
bass-bar is a very small piece of deal, about the length and half the
size of an old-fashioned lead pencil, but, the ends being tapered off,
it is glued on to the belly, with a spring in it, and supports the belly
magically. As a proof how nicely all these things were balanced,
the bass-bar of Gasparo da Salo, the Amati, and Stradiuarius, being
a little shorter and shallower than a modern bass-bar, did admirably
for their day, yet will not do now. Our raised concert pitch has
clapped on more tension, and straight-way you must remove the
bass-bar even of Stradiuarius, and substitute one a little longer and
deeper, or your Cremona sounds like a strung frying-pan.
Remove now from the violin, which for two centuries has endured
this strain, the finger board, tail-piece, tail-pin and screws-since

26
READIANA.
these are the instruments or vehicles of tension, not materials of
resistance and weigh the violin itself. It weighs, I suppose, about
twenty ounces: and it has fought hundredweights of pressure for
centuries. A marvel of construction, it is also a marvel of sound;
it is audible further off than the gigantic pianoforte, and its tones in
a master's hand go to the heart of man. It can be prostituted to
the performance of difficulties, and often is; but that is not its fault.
Genius can make your very heart dance with it, or your eyes to fill;
and Niel Gow, who was no romancer, but only a deeper critic than
his fellows, when being asked what was the true test of a player, re-
plied: "A MON IS A PLAYER WHEN HE CAN GAR HIMSEL' GREET WI'
""
HIS FIDDLE.
A
Asking forgiveness for this preamble, I proceed to inquire what
country invented these four-stringed and four-cornered instruments?
I understand that France and Germany have of late raised some
pretentions. Connoisseurship and etymology are both against them.
Etymology suffices. The French terms are all derived from the
Italian, and that disposes of France. I will go into German pre-
tensions critically, if any one will show me as old and specific a
German word as viola and violino, and the music composed for
those German instruments. "Fiddle" is of vast antiquity; but
pear-shaped, till Italy invented the four corners, on which sound as
well as beauty depends.
THE ORDER OF INVENTION.-Etymology decides with unerring
voice that the violoncello was invented after the violono or double-
bass, and connoisseurship proves by two distinct methods that it
was invented after the violin. 1st, the critical method: it is called
after the violin, yet is made on the plan of the violin, with arched
back and long inner-bought. 2d, the historical method: a violon-
cello made by the inventors of the violin is incomparably rare, and
this instrument is disproportionately rare even up to the year 1610.
Violino being a derivative of viola would seem to indicate that the
violin followed the tenor; but this taken alone is dangerous; for
viola is not only a specific term for the tenor, but a generic name
that was in Italy a hundred years before a tenor with four strings
was made. To go then to connoisseurship-I find that I have fallen
in with as many tenors as violins by Gasparo da Salo, who worked
from about 1555 to 1600, and not quite so many by Gio Paolo Mag-
gini, who began a few years later. The violin being the king of all
these instruments, I think there would not be so many tenors made
as violins, when once the violin had been invented. Moreover, be-
tween the above dates came Corelli, a composer and violinist. He
would naturally create a crop of violins. Finding the tenors and
violins of Gasparo da Salo about equal in number, I am driven to
the conclusion that the tenor had an unfair start-in other words,
was invented first. I add to this that true four-stringed tenors by
Gasparo da Salo exist, though very rare, made with only two cor-
ners, which is a more primitive form than any violin by the same
maker appears in. For this and some other reasons, I have little
doubt the viola preceded the violin by a very few years. What puz-
zles me more is to time the violin, or, as we childishly call it (after
its known descendant), the double-bass. If I was so presumptuous
as to trust to my eye alone, I should say it was the first of them all,
}
READIANA.
27
It is an instrument which does not seem to mix with these four-
stringed upstarts, but to belong to a much older family-viz., the
viole d'amore, da gamba, &c. In the first place it has not four
strings; secondly, it has not an arched back, but a flat back, with a
peculiar shoulder, copied from the viola da gamba; thirdly, the
space between the upper and lower corners in the early specimens is
ludicrously short. And it is hard to believe that an eye, which had
observed the graceful proportions of the tenor and violin, could be
guilty of such a wretched little inner-bought as you find in a double-
bass of Brescia. Per contra, it must be admitted, first, that the
sound-hole of a Brescian double-bass seems copied from the four-
stringed tribe, and not at all from the elder family; secondly, that
the violin and tenor are instruments of melody and harmony, but
the violon of harmony only. This is dead against its being invented
until after the instruments to which it is subsidiary. Man invents
only to supply a want. Thus, then, it is. First, the large tenor,
played between the knees; then the violin, played under the chin;
then (if not the first of them all) the small double-bass: then, years
after the violin, the violoncello; then the full-sized double-bass; then,
longo intervallo, the small tenor, played under the chin.
However, I do not advance these conclusions as infallible. The
highest evidence on some of these points must surely lie in manu-
script music of the sixteenth century, much of which is preserved
in the libraries of Italy; and, if Mr. Hatton or any musician learned
in the history of his art will tell me for what stringed instruments
the immediate predecessors of Corelli, and Corelli at his commence-
ment, marked their compositions, I shall receive the communication
with gratitude and respect. I need hardly say that nothing but the
MS. or the editio princeps is evidence in so nice a matter.
The first known maker of the true tenor, and probably of the vio-
lin, was Gasparo da Salo. The student who has read the valuable
work put forth by Monsieur Fétis and Monsieur Vuillaume might
imagine that I am contradicting them here; for they quote as
"luthiers "-antecedent to Gasparo da Salo-Kerlino, Duiffoprug-
car, Linarolli, Dardelli, and others. These men, I grant you,
worked long before Gasparo da Salo; I even offer an independent
proof, and a very simple one. I find that their genuine tickets are
in Gothic letters, whereas those of Gasparo da Salo are in Roman
type; but I know the works of those makers, and they did not make
tenors nor violins. They made instruments of the older family,
viole d'amore, da gamba, &c. Their true tickets are all black-letter
tickets, and not one such ticket exists in any old violin, nor in a sin-
gle genuine tenor. The fact is that the tenor is an instrument of
unfixed dimensions, and can easily be reconstructed out of different
viole made in an earlier age. There are innumerable examples of
this, and happily the Exhibition furnishes two. There are two curi-
ous instruments strung as tenors, Nos. 114 and 134 in the catalogue:
one is given to Joan Carlino, and year 1452; the other to Linaro,
and 1563. These two instruments were both made by one man,
Ventura Linarolli, of Venice (misspelt by M. Fétis, Venturi), about
the year 1520. Look at the enormous breadth between the sound-
holes; that shows they were made to carry six or seven strings.
Now look at the scrolls; both of them new, because the old scrolls
28
READIANA.
1.
were primitive things with six or seven screws; it is only by such
reconstruction that a tenor or violin can be set up as anterior to Gas-
paro da Salo. No. 114 is, however, a real gem of antiquity; the
wood and varnish exquisite, and far fresher than nine Amatis out
of ten. It is well worthy the special attention of collectors. It was
played upon the knee.
There are in the collection two instruments by Gasparo da Salo
worth especial notice; a tenor, No. 142, and a violono, or primitive
double-bass, 199. The tenor is one of his later make, yet has a
grand primitive character. Observe, in particular, the scroll all
round, and the amazing inequality between the bass sound-hole and
the purfling of the belly; this instrument and the grand tenor as-
signed to Maggini, and lent by Madame Risler, offer a point of
connoisseurship worthy the student's attention. The back of each
instrument looks full a century younger than the belly. But this
is illusory. The simple fact is that the tenors of that day, when not
in use, were not nursed in cases, but hung up on a nail, belly out-
ward. Thus the belly caught the sun of Italy, 'the dust, &c., and
its varnish was often withered to a mere resin, while the back and
sides escaped. This is the key to that little mystery. Observe the
scroll of the violono 199! How primitive it is all round: at the back
a flat cut, in front a single flute, copied from its true parent, the
viola da gamba. This scroll, taken in conjunction with the size and
other points, marks an instrument considerably anterior to No. 200.
As to the other double basses in the same case, they are assigned by
their owners to Gasparo da Salo, because they are double purfled
and look older than Cremonese violins; but these indicia are value-
less; all Cremona and Milan double-purfled the violon as often as
not; and the constant exposure to air and dust gives the violono a
color of antiquity that is delusive. In no one part of the business is
knowledge of work so necessary. The violoni 201-2-3, are all fine
Italian instruments. The small violon, 202, that stands by the side
of the Gasparo da Salo, 199, has the purfling of Andreas Amatus;
the early sound-hole of Andreas Amatus; the exquisite corners and
finish of Andreas Amatus; the finely cut scroll of Andreas Amatus;
at the back of scroll the neat shell and square shoulder of Andreas
Amatus; and the back, instead of being made of any rubbish that
came to hand, after the manner of Brescia, is of true fiddle wood,
cut the bastard way of the grain, which was the taste of the Amati;
and, finally, it is varnished with the best varnish of the Amati.
Under these circumstances, I hope I shall not offend the owner by
refusing it the inferior name of Gasparo da Salo. It is one of the
brightest gems of the collection, and not easily to be matched in
Europe.
SECOND LETTER.
August 24th, 1872.
GIO PAOLO MAGGINI is represented at the Kensington Museum
by an excellent violin, No. 111, very fine in workmanship and var-
nish, but as to the model a trifle too much hollowed at the sides,
and so a little inferior to some of his violins, and to the violin No.
70, the model of which, like many of the Brescian school, is simple
,
"
READIANA.
29
and perfect. (Model, as applied to a violin, is a term quite distinct
from outline.) In No. 70 both belly and back are modeled with
the simplicity of genius, by even gradation, from the center, which
The
is the highest part, down to all the borders of the instrument.
world has come back to this primitive model after trying a score,
and prejudice gives the whole credit to Joseph Guarneríus, of Cre-
mona. As to the date of No. 70, the neatness and, above all, the
slimness of the sound-hole, mark, I think, a period slightly posterior
to Gasparo da Salo. This slim sound-hole is an advance, not a
retrogression. The gaping sound-holes of Gasparo da Salo and
Maggini were their one great error. They were not only ugly; they
lessened the ring by allowing the vibration to escape from the cavity
too quickly. No. 60, assigned to Duiffoprugcar and a fabulous
antiquity, was made by some 'prentice hand in the seventeenth cen-
tury; but No. 70 would adorn any collection, being an old master-
piece of Brescia or Bologna.
THE SCHOOL OF CREMONA.-Andreas Amatus was more than
thirty years old, and an accomplished maker of the older viole,
when the violin was invented in Brescia or Bologna. He does not
appear to have troubled his head with the new instrument for some
years; one proof more that new they were. They would not at first
materially influence his established trade; the old and new family
ran side by side. Indeed it took the violin tribe two centuries to
drive out the viola da gamba. However, in due course, Andreas
Amatus set to work on violins. He learned from the Brescian
school the only things they could teach a workman so superior-
viz., the four corners and the sound-hole. This Brescian sound-hole
stuck to him all his days; but what he had learned in his original
art remained by him too. The collection contains three specimens
of his handiwork: Violin 202, Mrs. Jay's violin-with the modern
head-erroneously assigned to Antonius and Hieronymus; and vio-
loncello No. 183. There are also traces of his hand in the fine tenor
139. In the three instruments just named the purfling is composed
in just proportions, so that the white comes out with vigor; it is
then inlaid with great neatness. The violoncello is the gem. Its
outline is grace itself: the four exquisite curves coincide in one pure
and serpentine design. This bass is a violin soufflé; were it shown
at a distance it would take the appearance of a most elegant violin;
the best basses of Stradiuarius alone will stand this test. (Apply it
to the Venetian masterpiece in the same case.) The scroll is perfect
in design and chiseled as by a sculptor; the purfling is quite as fine
as Stradiuarius; it is violin purtling, yet this seems to add elegance
without meanness. It is a masterpiece of Cremona, all but the
hideous sound-hole that alone connects this master with the Brescian
school.
His sons Antonius and Hieronymus soon cured themselves of that
grotesque sound hole, and created a great school. They chose bet-
ter wood and made richer varnish, and did many beautiful things.
Nevertheless, they infected Italian fiddle-making with a fatal error.
They were the first SCOOPERS. Having improved on Brescia in out-
line and details, they assumed too hastily that they could improve on
her model. So they scooped out the wood about the sound-holes
and all round, weakening the connection of the center with the sides

30
READIANA.
1.
of the belly, and checking the fullness of the vibration. The Ger-
man school carried this vice much further, but the Amati went too
far, and inoculated a hundred fine makers with a wrong idea. It
took Stradiuarius himself fifty-six years to get entirely clear of it.
The brothers Amati are represented in this collection, first by sev-
eral tenors that once were noble things, but have been cut on the
old system, which was downright wicked. It is cutting in the
statutory sense, viz., cutting and maiming. These ruthless men
just sawed a crescent off the top, and another off the bottom, and
the result is a thing with the inner-bought of a giant and the upper
and lower bought of a dwarf. If one of these noble instruments
survives in England uncut, I implore the owner to spare it; to play
on a £5 tenor, with the Amati set before him to look at while he
plays. Luckily the scrolls remain to us; and let me draw attention
to the scroll of 136. Look at the back of this scroll, and see how it
is chiseled-the center line in relief, how sharp, distinct, and fine-
this line is obtained by chiseling out the wood on both sides with a
single tool, which fiddle-makers call a gauge, and there is nothing
but the eye to guide the hand.
There are two excellent violins of this make in the collection--
Mrs. Jay's, and the violin of Mr. C. J. Read, No. 75. This latter is
the large pattern of those makers, and is more elegant than what is
technically called the grand Amati, but not so striking. To appre-
ciate the merit and the defect of this instrument, compare it can-
didly with the noble Stradiuarius Amatisé that hangs by its side,
numbered 82. Take a back view first. In outline they are much
alike. In the details of work the Amati is rather superior; the bor-
der of the Stradiuarius is more exquisite; but the Amati scroll is
better pointed and gauged more cleanly, the purfling better com-
posed for effect, and the way that purfling is let in, especially at the
corners, is incomparable. On the front view you find the Amati
violin is scooped out here and there, a defect the Stradiuarius has
avoided. I prefer the Stradiuarius sound-hole per se; but if you
look at the curves of these two violins, you will observe that the
Amati sound-holes are in strict harmony with the curves; and the
whole thing the product of one original mind that saw its way.
Nicholas Amatus, the son of Hieronymus, owes his distinct repu-
tation to a single form called by connoisseurs the Grand Amati.
This is a very large violin, with extravagantly long corners, ex-
tremely fine in all the details. I do not think it was much admired
at the time. At all events he made but few, and his copyists, with
the exception of Francesco Rugger, rarely selected that form to
imitate. But nowadays these violins are almost worshiped, and,
as the collection is incomplete without one, I hope some gentleman
will kindly send one in before it closes. There is also wanting an
Amati bass, and, if the purchaser of Mr. Gillott's should feel dis-
posed to supply that gap, it would be a very kind act. The Rugger
family is numerous; it is represented by one violin (147).
Leaving the makers of the Guarnerius family-five in number—
till the last, we come to Antonius Stradiuarius. This unrivaled
workman and extraordinary man was born in 1644, and died in
December, 1737. There is nothing signed with his name before
1667, He was learning his business thoroughly. From that date
i
theme
JE
P


READIANA,
31
till 1736 he worked incessantly, often varying his style, and always
improving, till he came to his climax, represented in this collection
"by the violins 83 and 87, and the violoncello 188.
•
He began with rather a small, short-cornered violin, which is an
imitation of the small Amati, but very superior. He went on, and
imitated the large Amati, but softened down the corners. For thirty
years-from 1672 to 1703-he poured forth violins of this pattern;
there are several in this collection, and one tenor, 139, with a plain
back but a beautiful belly, and in admirable preservation. But,
while he was making these Amatisé violins by the hundred, he had
nevertheless his fits of originality, and put forth an anomaly every
now and then; sometimes it was a very long, narrow violin with
elegant drooping corners, and sometimes, in a happier mood, he
combined these drooping corners with a far more beautiful model.
These
Of these varieties No. 86 gives just an indication; no more.
lucid intervals never lasted long, he was back to his Amatis next
week. Yet they left, I think, the germs that broke out so marvel-
ously in the next century. About the year 1703 it seems to have
struck him like a revelation that he was a greater man than his
master. He dropped him once and forever, and for nearly twenty
years poured forth with unceasing fertility some admirable works,
of which you have three fine examples, under average wear, hard
wear, and no wear-90, 92, 91. Please look at the three violins in
this order to realize what I have indicated before-that time is no
sure measure of events in this business. Nevertheless, in all these
exquisite productions there was one thing which he thought capa-
ble of improvement-there was a slight residue of the scoop, espe-
cially at the lower part of the back. He began to alter that about
1720, and by degrees went to his grand model, in which there is no
scoop at all. This, his grandest epoch, is represented by the Duke
of Cambridge's violin, Mr. Arkwright's, and M. le Comte's: this
last has the additional characteristic of the stiffer sound hole and the
wood left broad in the wing of the sound-hole. One feature more
of this his greatest epoch: the purfling, instead of exactly following
the corner, is pointed across it in a manner completely original. He
made these grand violins and a bass or two till about 1729; after
that the grand model is confined to his violins, and the details be-
come inferior in finish. Of this there is an example in No. 84, a
noble but rough violin in parts of which certain connoisseurs would
see, or fancy they saw, the hand of Bergonzi, or of Francesco or
Homobuono Stradiuarius. These workmen undoubtedly lived, and
survived their father a few years. They seem to have worked up
his refuse wood after his death; but their interference with his work
while alive has been exaggerated by French connoisseurs. To put a
difficult question briefly; their theory fails to observe the style
Stradiuarius was coming to even in 1727; it also ignores the age of
Stradiuarius during this his last epoch of work, and says that there
exists no old man's work by Stradiuarius himself; all this old man's
work is done by younger men. However, generalities are useless on
a subject so difficult and disputed. The only way is to get the
doubtful violins or basses and analyze them, and should the mu-
seum give a permanent corner to Cremonese instruments, this Fran-
cesco and Homobuono question will be sifted with examples. The
-

32
READIANA.
::
minutiæ of work in Stradiuarius are numerous and admirable, but
they would occupy too much space and are too well known to need
discourse. His varnish I shall treat along with the others. A few
words about the man. He was a tall, thin veteran, always to be
seen with a white leathern apron and a nightcap on his head; in
winter it was white wool, and in summer white cotton. His indom
itable industry had amassed some fortune, and "rich as Stradiua-
rius was a byword at Cremona, but probably more current among
the fiddle-makers than the bankers and merchants. His price
toward the latter part of his career was four louis d'or for a violin;
his best customers Italy and Spain. Mr. Forster assures us on un-
impeachable authority that he once sent some instruments into Eng-
land on sale or return, and that they were taken back, the merchant
being unable to get £5 for a violoncello. What ho! Hang all the
Englishmen of that day who are alive to meet their deserts! How-
ever, the true point of the incident is, I think, missed by the nar-
rators. The fact is that then, as now, England wanted old Cre-
monas, not new ones. That the Amati had a familiar reputation
here and probably a ready market can be proved rather prettily out
of the mouth of Dean Swift. A violin was left on a chair. A lady
swept by. Her mantua caught it and knocked it down and broke
it. Then the witty dean applied a line in Virgil's Eclogue-
+4 Mantua væ miseræ nimium vicina Cremonæ.”
""
This was certainly said during the lifetime of Stradiuarius, and
proves that the Cremona fiddle had a fixed reputation; it also proves
that an Irishman could make a better Latin pun than any old Ro-
man has left behind him. Since I have diverged into what some
brute calls anec-dotage let me conclude this article with one that is
at all events to the point, since it tells the eventful history of an in-
strument now on show.
THE ROMANCE OF FIDDLE-DEALING.-Nearly fifty years ago a
gaunt Italian called Luigi Tarisio arrived in Paris one day with a
lot of old Italian instruments by makers whose names were hardly
known. The principal dealers whose minds were narrowed, as is
often the case, to three or four makers, would not deal with him.
M. Georges Chanot, younger and more intelligent, purchased
largely, and encouraged him to return. He came back next year
with a better lot; and yearly increasing his funds, he flew at the
highest game; and in the course of thirty years imported nearly all
the finest specimens of Stradiuarius and Guarnerius France pos-
sesses. He was the greatest connoisseur that ever lived or ever can
live, because he had the true mind of a connoisseur and vast oppor-
tunities. He ransacked Italy before the tickets in the violins of
Francesco Stradiuarius, Alexander Gagliano, Lorenzo Guadagnini,
Giofredus Cappa, Gobetti, Morgilato Morella, Antonio Mariani,
Santo Maggini, and Matteo Benti of Brescia, Michel Angelo Ber-
gonzi, Montagnana, Thomas Balestrieri, Storioni, Vicenzo Rugger,
the Testori, Petrus Guarnerius of Venice, and full fifty more, had
been tampered with, that every brilliant masterpiece might be as-
signed to some popular name. To his immortal credit, he fought
against this mania, and his motto was A tout seigneur tout hon-
neur."
The man's whole soul was in fiddles. He was a great
64
**


READIANA.
33
N
dealer, but a greater amateur. He had gems by him no money would
buy from him. No. 91 was one of them. But for his death you
would never have cast eyes on it. He has often talked to me of it;
but he would never let me see it, for fear I should tempt him.
Well, one day Georges Chanot, Senior, who is perhaps the best
judge of violins left, now Tarisio is gone, made an excursion to
Spain, to see if he could find anything there. He found mighty
little. But, coming to the shop of a fiddle-maker, one Ortega, he
saw the belly of an old bass hung up with other things. Chanot
rubbed his eyes, and asked himself, was he dreaming? the belly of a
Stradiuarius bass roasting in a shop-window! He went in, and very
soon bought it for about forty francs. He then ascertained that the
bass belonged to a lady of rank The belly was full of cracks; so,
not to make two bites of a cherry, Ortega had made a nice new one.
Chanot carried this precious fragment home and hung it up in his
shop, but not in the window, for he is too good a judge not to know
the sun will take all the color out of that maker's varnish. Tarisio
came in from Italy, and his eye lighted instantly on the Stradiuarius
belly. He pestered Chanot till the latter sold it him for a thousand
francs and told him where the rest was. Tarisio no sooner knew
this than he flew to Madrid. He learned from Ortega where the
lady lived, and called on her to see it. Sir," says the lady, “it is
at your disposition. That does not mean much in Spain. When
he offered to buy it, she coquetted with him, said it had been long
in her family; money could not replace a thing of that kind, and in
short, she put on the screw, as she thought, and sold it him for about
four thousand francs. What he did with the Ortega belly is not
known-perhaps sold it to some person in the tooth-pick trade. He
sailed exultant for Paris with the Spanish bass in a case. He never
let it out of his sight. The pair were caught by a storm in the Bay
of Biscay. The ship rolled; Tarisio clasped his bass tight, and trem-
bled. It was a terrible gale, and for one whole day they were in
real danger. Tarisio spoke of it to me with a shudder. I will give
you his real words, for they struck me at the time, and I have often
thought of them since-
""
>>
(C
AH, MY POOR MR. READE, THE BASS OF SPAIN WAS ALL BUT
""

LOST.
Was not this a true connoisseur! a genuine enthusiast? Observe!
there was also an ephemeral insect called Luigi Tarisio, who would
have gone down with the bass: but that made no impression on his
mind. De minimis non curat Ludovicus.
He got it safe to Paris. A certain high priest in these mysteries,
called Vuillaume, with the help of a sacred vessel, called the glue-
pot, soon rewedded the back and sides to the belly, and the bass
being now just what it was when the ruffian Ortega put his finger
in the pie, was sold for 20,000 fr. (£800.)
I saw the Spanish bass in Paris twenty two years ago, and you
can see it any day this month you like; for it is the identical vio-
loncello now on show at Kensington, numbered 188. Who would
divine its separate adventures, to see it all reposing so calm and uni-
form in that case-" Post tot nauragia tutus.”
34
READIANA.
THIRD LETTER.
August 27th, 1812.
THE Spanish bass" is of the grand pattern and exquisitely made:
the sound-hole, rather shorter and stiffer than in Stradiuarius's pre-
ceding epoch, seems stamped out of the wood with a blow, so swiftly
and surely is it cut. The purfling is perfection. Look at the section
of it in the upper bought of the back. The scroll extremely elegant.
The belly is a beautiful piece of wood. The back is of excellent
quality, but mean in the figure. The sides are cut the wrong way
of the grain; a rare mistake in this master. The varnish sweet,
clear, orange-colored, and full of fire. Oh, if this varnish could
but be laid on the wood of the Sanctus Seraphin bass! The belly is
full of cracks, and those cracks have not been mended without
several lines of modern varnish clearly visible to the practiced eye.
Some years ago there was a Stradiuarius bass in Ireland. I believe
it was presented by General Oliver to Signor Piatti. I never saw it;
but some people tell me that in wood and varnish it surpasses the
Spanish bass. Should these lines meet Signor Piatti's eye, I will
only say that, if he would allow it to be placed in the case for a
single week, it would be a great boon to the admirers of these rare
and noble pieces, and very instructive. By the side of the Spanish
bass stands another, inferior to it in model and general work, superior
to it in preservation, No. 187. The unhappy parts are the wood of
the sides and the scroll. Bad wood kills good varnish. The scroll
is superb in workmanship; it is more finely cut at the back part than
the scroll of the Spanish bass; but it is cut out of a pear tree, and
that abominable wood gets uglier if possible under varnish, and less-
ens the effect even of first-class work. On the other hand, the back
and belly, where the varnish gets fair play, are beautiful. The belly
is incomparable. Here is the very finest ruby varnish of Stradiuari-
The back was the same color
us, as pure as the day it was laid on.
originally, but has been reduced in tint by the friction this part of a
bass encounters when played on. The varnish on the back is chipped
all over in a manner most picturesque to the cultivated eye; only it
must go no further. I find on examination that these chips have all
been done a good many years ago, and 1 can give you a fair, though
of course not an exact, idea of the process. Methinks I see an old
gentleman seated sipping his last glass of port in the dining room
over a shining table, whence the cloth was removed for dessert. He
wears a little powder still, though no longer the fashion; he has no
shirt-collar, but a roll of soft and snowy cambric round his neck, a
plain gold pin, and a frilled bosom. He has a white waistcoat-
snow-white like his linen: he washes at home-and a blue coat with
gilt buttons. Item, a large fob or watch-pocket, whence bulges a
golden turnip, and puts forth seed, to wit a bunch of seals and
watch-keys, with perhaps a gold pencil-case. One of these seals is
larger than the others; the family arms are engraved on it, and only
important letters are signed with it. He rises and goes to the draw
ing-room. The piano is opened; a servant brings the Stradivarius
bass from the study; the old gentleman takes it and tunes it, and,
not to be bothered with his lapels, buttons his coat, and plays his
part in a quartett of Haydn or a symphony of Corelli, and smiles as
he plays, because he really loves music, and is not overweighted.
5x
ན
READIANA.
35
Your modern amateur, with a face of justifiable agony, plows the
hill of Beethoven and harrows the soul of Reade. Nevertheless, my
smiling senior is all the time bringing the finest and most delicate
varnish of Stradiuarius into a series of gentle collisions with the fol-
lowing objects:-First, the gold pin; then the two rows of brass but-
tons; and last, not least, the male chatelain of the period. There is
an oval chip just off the center of this bass; I give the armorial seal
especial credit for that: à tout seigneur tout honneur.
""
Take another specimen of eccentric wear: the red Stradiuarius
kit 88. The enormous oval wear has been done thus:-It has be-
longed to a dancing-master, and he has clapped it under his arm fifty
times a day to show his pupils the steps.
""
The Guarnerius family consisted of Andreas, his two sons Petrus
and Joseph, his grandson Petrus Guarnerius of Venice and Joseph
Guarnerius, the greatest of the family, whom Mons. Fétis considers
identical with Guiseppe Antonio, born in 1683. There are, however,
great difficulties in the way of this theory, which I will reserve for
my miscellaneous remarks.
Andreas Guarnerius was the closest of all the copyists of the
Amati; so close, indeed, that his genuine violins are nearly always
sold as Amati. Unfortunately he imitated the small pattern. His
wood and varnish are exactly like Amati; there is, however, a
peculiar way of cutting the lower wing of his sound-holes that be-
trays him at once. When you find him with the border high and
broad, and the purfling grand, you may suspect his son Petrus of
helping him, for his own style is petty. His basses few, but fine.
Petrus Guarnerius of Cremona makes violins prodigiously bombés,
and more adapted to grumbling inside than singing out; but their
appearance magnificent: a grand deep border, very noble, sound-hole
and scroll Amatisé, and a deep orange varnish that nothing can sur-
pass. His violins are singularly scarce in England. I hope to see
one at the Exhibition before it closes.
Joseph, his brother, is a thorough original. His violins are nar-
rowed under the shoulder in a way all his own. As to models, his
fiddles are bombés like his brother's; and, as the center has generally
sunk from weakness, the violin presents a great bump at the upper
part and another at the lower. The violin 97 is by this maker, and
is in pure and perfect condition; but the wood having no figure, the
beauty of the varnish is not appreciated. He is the king of the
varnishers. He was the first man at Cremona that used red varnish
oftener than pale, and in that respect was the teacher even of Stradi-
uarius. When this maker deviates from his custom and puts really
good hare-wood into a violin, then his glorious varnish gets fair
play, and nothing can live beside him. The other day a violin of this
nake with fine wood, but undersized, was put up at an auction
without a name. I suppose nobody knew the maker, for it was sold
on its merits, and fetched £160. I brought that violin into the coun-
try; gave a dealer £24 for it in Paris.
He made a very few flatter violins, that are worth any money.
Petrus Guarnerius, the son of this Joseph, learned his business in
Cremona, but migrated early to Venice. He worked there from 1725
to 1746. He made most beautiful tenors and basses, but was not sq
36
READIANA.
happy in his violins. His varnish very fine, but paler than his
father's.
Joseph Guarnerius, of Cremona, made violins from about 1725 to
1745. His first epoch is known only to connoisseurs; in outline it is
hewed out under the shoulder like the fiddles of Joseph, son of
Andrew, who was then an old fiddle-maker; but the model all his
own; even, regular, and perfect. Sound-hole long and characteristic,
head rather mean for hiin; he made but few of these essays, and
then went to a different and admirable style, a most graceful and ele-
gant violin, which has been too loosely described as a copy of Stradi-
uarius; it is not that, but a fine violin in which a downright good
workman profits by a great contemporary artist's excellences, yet
without servility. These violins are not longer nor stiffer in the in-
ner bought than Stradiuarius: they are rather narrow than broad
below cut after the plan of Stradiuarius, though not so well, in the
central part, the sound-holes exquisitely cut, neither too stiff nor too
flowing, the wood between the curves of the sound-holes remarkably
broad. The scroll grandiose, yet well cut, and the nozzle of the
scroll and the little platform. They are generally purfled through
both pegs, like Stradiuarius; the wood very handsome, varnish a
rich golden brown. I brought three of this epoch into the country;
one was sold the other day at Christie's for £260 (bought, I believe,
This epoch,
by Lord Dunmore), and is worth £350 as prices go.
unfortunately, is not yet represented in the collection.
The next epoch is nobly represented by 93, 94, 95. All these vio-
lins have the broad center, the grand long inner bought, stiffish yet
not ungraceful, the long and rather upright sound-hole, but well cut;
93 is a little the
the grand scroll, cut all in a hurry, but noble.
grander in make I think; the purfling being set a hair's breadth
further in, the scroll magnificent; but observe the haste-the deep
gauge-marks on the side of the scroll; here is already an indication
of the sloveliness to come: varnish a lovely orange, wood beautiful;
two cracks in the belly, one from the chin-mark to the sound-hole.
94 is a violin of the same make, and without a single crack; the
scroll is not quite so grandiose as 93, but the rest incomparable;
the belly pure and beautiful, the back a picture. There is nothing
in the room that equals in picturesqueness the colors of this magnifi-
cent piece: time and fair-play have worn it thus: first, there is a
narrow irregular line of wear caused by the hand in shifting, next
comes a sheet of ruby varnish, with no wear to speak of; then an
irregular piece is worn out the size of a sixpence; then more varnish;
then, from the center downward, a grand wear, the size and shape of
a large curving pear; this ends in a broad zigzag ribbon of varnish,
and then comes the bare wood caused by the friction in playing, but
It is the very beau-
higher up to the left a score of great bold chips.
ideal of the red Cremona violin, adorned, not injured, by a century's
fair wear. No. 95 is a roughish specimen of the same epoch, not so
brilliant, but with its own charm. Here the_gauge-marks of impa-
tience are to be seen in the very border, and I should have expected
to see the stiff-throated scroll, for it belongs to this form.
The next epoch is rougher still, and is generally, but not always,
higher built, with a stiff-throated scroll, and a stiff, quaint sound-
hole that is the delight of connoisseurs; and such is the force of
15
READIANA.
37
genius that I believe in our secret hearts we love these impudent fiddles
best-they are so full of chic. After that, he abuses the patience of
his admirers; makes his fiddles of a preposterous height, with sound-
holes long enough for a tenor; but, worst of all, indifferent wood and
downright bad varnish-varnish worthy only of the Guadagnini
tribe, and not laid on by the method of his contemporaries. Indeed,
I sadly fear it was this great man who, by his ill-example in 1740-45,
killed the varnish of Cremona. Thus to show the range of the
subject-out of five distinct epochs in the work of this extraordinary
man we have only one and a half, so to speak, represented even in
this noble collection-the greatest by far the world has ever scen.
But I hope to see all these gaps filled, and also to see in the collec-
tion a Stradiuarius violin of that kind I call the dolphin-backed.
This is a mere matter of picturesque wear. When a red Stradiuarius
violin is made of soft velvety wood, and the varnish is just half worn
off the back in a rough triangular form, that produces a certain
beauty of light and shade which is in my opinion the ne plus ultra.
These violins are rare. I never had but two in my life. A very
obliging dealer, who knows my views, has promised his co-operation,
and I think England, which cuts at present rather too poor a figure
in respect of this maker, will add a dolphin-backed Stradiuarius to
the collection before it is dispersed.
CARLO BERGONZI, if you go by gauging and purfling, is of course
an inferior make to the Amati; but, if that is to be the line of reason-
ing, he is superior to Joseph Guarnerius. We ought to be in one
story; if Joseph Guarnerius is the second maker of Cremona, it fol-
lows that Carlo Bergonzi is the third. Fine size, reasonable outline,
flat and even model, good wood, work, and varnish, and an in-
describable air of grandeur and importance. He is quite as rare as
Joseph Guarnerius. Twenty-five years ago I ransacked Europe for
him for he is a maker I always loved-and I could obtain but few.
No. 109 was one of them, and the most remarkable, take it
altogether. In this one case he has really set himself to copy Stradi-
uarius. He has composed his purfling in the same proportions,
which was not at all his habit. He has copied the sound-hole
closely, and has even imitated that great man's freak of delicately
hollowing out the lower wood-work of the sound-hole. The varnish
of this violin is as fine in color as any pale Stradiuarius in the world,
and far superior in body to most of them; but that is merely owing
to its rare preservation. Most of these pale Stradiuariuses, and
especially Mrs. Jay's and No. 86, had once varnish on them as beau-
tiful as is now on this chef d'œuvre of Carlo Bergonzi.
Monsieur Fétis having described Michael Angelo Bergonzi as a
pupil of Stradiuarius, and English writers having blindly followed
him, this seems a fit place to correct that error. Michael Angelo
Bergonzi was the son of Carlo; began to work after the death of
Stradiuarius, and imitated nobody but his father-and him vilely.
His corners are not corners, but peaks. See them once, you never
forget them; but you pray Heaven you may never see them again.
His ticket runs, Michael Angelo Bergonzi figlio di Carlo, fece nel
Cremona," from 1750 to 1780. Of Nicholas, son of Michael Angelo
Bergonzi, I have a ticket dated 1796, but he doubtless began before
that and worked till 1830. He lived till 1838, was well known to
CC
.
38
REA DIANA.
+
Tarisio, and it is from him alone we have learned the house Stradi-
uarius lived in. There is a tenor by Michael Angelo Bergonzi to
be seen at Mr. Cox, the picture dealer, Pall-mall, and one by
Nicholas, in Mr. Chanot's shop, in Wardour-street. Neither of
these Bergonzi knew how their own progenitor varnished any more
than my housemaid does.
STAINER, a mixed maker. He went to Cremona too late to unlearn
his German style, but he moderated it, and does not scoop so badly
as his successors. The model of his tenor, especially the back, is
very fine. The peculiar defect of it is that it is purfled too near the
border, which always gives meanness. This is the more unfortu-
nate, that really he was freer from this defect than his imitators.
He learned to varnish in Cremona, but his varnish is generally paler
than the native Cremonese. This tenor is exceptional: it has a rose-
colored varnish that nothing can surpass. It is lovely.
SANCTUS SERAPHIN.-This is a true Venetian maker. The Vene-
tian born was always half-Cremonese, half-German. In this bass,
which is his uniform style, you see a complete mastery of the knife
and the guage. Neither the Stradiuarius nor the Amati ever purfled
a bass more finely, and, to tell the truth, rarely so finely. But oh!
the miserable scroll, the abominable sound-hole! Here he shows the
cloven foot, and is more German than Stainer. Uniformity was
never carried so far as by this natty workman; one violin exactly
like the next; one bass the image of its predecessor. His varnish
never varies. It is always slightly opaque. This is observed in his
violins, but it escapes detection in his basses, because it is but sliglit,
after all, and the wonderful wood he put into his basses, shines
through that slight defect and hides it from all but practiced eyes.
He had purchased a tree or a very large log of it; for this is the third
bass I have seen of this wonderful wood. Nowadays you might
cut down a forest of sycamore and not match it; those veteran trees
are all gone. He has a feature all to himself; his violins have his
initials in ebony let into the belly under the broad part of the tail-
piece. This natty Venetian is the only old violin maker I know
who could write well. The others bungle that part of the date they
are obliged to write in the tickets. This one writes it in a hand
like copper plate, whence I suspect he was himself the engraver of
his ticket, which is unique. It is four times the size of a Cre-
monese ticket, and has a scroll border composed thus:-The sides of
a parallelogram are created by four solid lines like sound-holes;
these are united at the sides by two leaves and at the center by two
shells. Another serpentine line is then coiled all round them at
short intervals, and within the parallelogram the ticket is printed:-
Sanctus Seraphin Utinensis,
Fecit Venetiis, anno 17-.
-
THE MIGHTY VENETIAN.-1 come now to a truly remarkable
piece, a basso di camera that comes modestly into the room without
a name, yet there is nothing except No. 91 that sends such a thrill
through the true connoisseur. The outline is grotesque but original,
the model full and swelling but not bumpy, the wood detestable;
the back is hare-wood, but without a vestige of figure; so it might
just as well be elm; the belly, instead of being made of mountain
READIANA.
39
¿
:
deal grown on the sunny side of the Alps, is a piece of house timber.
Now these materials would kill any other maker; yet this mighty
bass stands its ground. Observe the fiber of the belly; here is the
deepest red varnish in the room, and laid on with an enormous
brush. Can you see the fiber through the thin varnish of Sanctus
Seraphin as plainly as you can see the fiber through this varnish
laid on as thick as paint? So much for clearness. Now for color.
Let the student stand before this bass, get the varnish into his
mind, and then walk rapidly to any other instrument in the room
he has previously determined to compare with it. This will be a
revelation to him if he has eyes in his head.
f
An
CC
And this miracle comes in without a name, and therefore, is
passed over by all the sham judges. And why does it come without!
à name? I hear a French dealer advised those who framed the'
catalogue. But the fact is that if a man once narrows his mind to
three or four makers, and imagines they monopolize excellence, he
Lever can be a judge of old instruments, the study is so wide and
his mind artificially narrowed. Example of this false method: Mr.
Faulconer sends in a bass, which he calls Andreas Guarnerius.
adviser does not see that, and suggests "probably by Amati. Now
there is no such thing as probably by Amati," any more than there
is probably the sun or the moon. That bass is by David Tecchler, of
Rome; but it is a masterpiece; and so, because he has done better
than usual, the poor devil is to be robbed of his credit, and it is to
be given, first to one maker who is in the ring and then to another
who is in the ring. The basso di camera, which not being in the
ring, comes without a name, is by Domenico Montagnana of Venice,
the greatest maker of basses in all Venice or Cremona except one.
If this bass had only a decent piece of wood at the back, it would
extinguish all the other basses. But we can remedy that defect.
Basses by this maker exist with fine wood. Mr. Hart, senior, sold
one some twenty years ago with yellow varnish, and wood striped
like a tiger's back. Should these lines meet the eye of the pur-
chaser, I shall feel grateful if he will communicate with me there-
upon.
I come now to the last of the Goths, thus catalogued, No. 100,
ascribed to Guarnerius. Probably by Storioni."
"
Lorenzo Storioni is a maker who began to work at Cremona about
1780. He has a good model but wretched spirit varnish. Violin
No. 100 is something much better. It is a violin made before 1760
by Landolfo of Milan. He is a maker well known to experienced
dealers who can take their minds out of the ring, but, as the writers
seem a little confused, and talk of two Landulphs, a Charles and a
Ferdinand, I may as well say here that the two are one. This is
the true ticket:
1911
Carolus Ferdinandus Landulphus,
fecit Mediolani in via S. Mar-
garitæ, anno, 1756.
>>
Stiff inner bought really something like Joseph Guarnerius; but all
the rest quite unlike: scroll very mean, varnish good, and sometimes
very fine. Mr. Moore's in point of varnish, is a fine specimen. It
has a deeper, nobler tint than usual. This maker is very interest-
ing, on account of his being absolutely the last Italian who used the

40
READIANA.
glorious varnish of Cremona. It died first at Cremona; lingered a
year or two more at Venice; Landolfo retained it at Milan till 1760,
and with him it ended.
In my next and last article I will deal with the varnish of Cre-
mona, as illustrated by No. 91 and other specimens, and will enable
the curious to revive that lost art if they choose.
FOURTH LETTER.
August 81st, 1872.
THE fiddles of Cremona gained their reputation by superior tone,
but they hold it now mainly by their beauty. For thirty years past
violins have been made equal in model to the chef-d'œuvres of Cre-
mona, and stronger in wood than Stradiuarius, and more scientific
than Guarnerius in the thicknesses. This class of violin is hideous,
It has one quality in perfection-POWER; whilst the master-pieces
of Cremona eclipse every new violin in sweetness, oiliness, crisp-
ness, and volume of tone as distinct from loudness. Age has dried
their vegetable juices, making the carcass much lighter than that
of a new violin, and those light dry frames vibrate at a touch.
But M. Fétis goes too far when he intimates that Stradiuarius is
louder as well as sweeter than Lupot, Gand, or Bernardel. Take a
hundred violins by Stradiuarius and open them; you find about
ninety-five patched in the center with new wood. The connecting
link is a sheet of glue. And is glue a fine resonant substance? And
are the glue and the new wood of John Bull and Jean Crapaud
transmogrified into the wood of Stradiuarius by merely sticking on
to it? Is it not extravagant to quote patched violins as beyond rivalry
in all the qualities of sound? How can they be the loudest, when
the center of the sound-board is a mere sandwich, composed of the
maker's thin wood, a buttering of glue, and a huge slice of new
wood?
Joseph Guarnerius has plenty of wood; but his thicknesses are
not always so scientific as those of the best modern fiddle-makers;
so that even he can be rivaled in power by a new violin, though not
in richness and sweetness. Consider, then, these two concurrent
phenomena, that for twenty-five years new violins have been better
made for sound than they ever were made in this world, yet old
Cremona violins have nearly doubled in price, and you will divine,
as the truth is, that old fiddles are not bought by the ear alone. I
will add that 100 years ago, when the violins of Brescia and of
Stradiuarius and Guarnerius were the only well-modeled violins,
they were really bought by the ear, and the prices were moderate.
Now they are in reality bought by the eye, and the price is enor-
mous. The reason is that their tone is good but their appearance
inimitable; because the makers chose fine wood and laid on a varnish
highly colored, yet clear as crystal, with this strange property-it
becomes far more beautiful by time and usage: it wears softly away,
or chips boldly away, in such forms as to make the whole violin
picturesque, beautiful, various, and curious.
..
To approach the same conclusion by a different road-No. 94 is a
violin whose picturesque beauty I have described already; twenty-
five years ago Mr. Plowden gave £450 for it. It is now, I suppose,

READIANA.
41
:
worth £500. Well, knock that violin down and crack it in two
places, it will sink that moment to the value of the "violon du
diable," and be worth £350. But collect twenty amateurs all ready to
buy it, and, instead of cracking it, dip it into a jar of spirits and wash
the varnish off. Not one of those customers will give you above £40
for it; nor would it in reality be worth quite so much in the market.
Take another example. There is a beautiful and very perfect violin
by Stradiuarius, which the Times, in an article on these instruments,
calls La Messie. These leading journals have private information on
every subject, even grammar. I prefer to call it--after the very in-
telligent man to whom we owe the sight of it-the Vuillaume Štra-
diuarius. Well, the Vuillaume Stradiuarius is worth, as times go,
£600 at least. Wash off the varnish, it would be worth £35; be-
cause, unlike No. 94, it has one little crack. As a further illustration
that violins are heard by the eye, let me remind your readers of the
high prices at which numberless copies of the old makers were sold
in Paris for many years. The inventors of this art undertook to
deliver a new violin, that in usage and color of the worn parts should
be exactly like an old and worn violin of some favorite maker.
Now, to do this with white wood was impossible; so the wood was
baked in the oven or colored yellow with the smoke of sulphuric
acid, or so forth, to give it the color of age; but these processes kill
the wood as a vehicle of sound; and these copies were, and are, the
worst musical instruments Europe has created in this century; and,
bad as they are at starting, they get worse every year of their un-
tuneful existence; yet, because they flattered the eye with some-
thing like the light and shade and picturesqueness of the Cremona
violin, these pseudo-antiques, though illimitable in number, sold like
wildfire; and hundreds of self-deceivers heard them by the eye, and
fancied these tinpots sounded divinely. The hideous red violins of
Bernadel, Gand, and an English maker or two, are a reaction against
those copies; they are made honestly with white wood, and they
will, at all events, improve in sound every year and every decade.
It comes to this, then, that the varnish of Cremona, as operated on
by time and usage, has an inimitable_beauty, and we pay a high
price for it in second-class makers, and an enormous price in a fine
Stradiuarius or Joseph Guarnerius. No wonder, then, that many
violin-makers have tried hard to discover the secret of this varnish;
many chemists have given days and nights of anxious study to it.
More than once, even in my time, hopes have run high, but only to
fall again. Some have even cried Eureka! to the public; but the
moment others looked at their discovery and compared it with the
real thing, "inextinguishable laughter shook the skies.' At last
despair has succeeded to all that energetic study, and the varnish of
Cremona is sullenly give up as a lost art.
>>
I have heard and read a great deal about it, and I think I can state
the principal theories briefly, but intelligibly.
1. It used to be stoutly maintained that the basis was amber; that
these old Italians had the art of infusing amber without impairing its
transparency; once fused by dry heat, it could be boiled into a varnish
with oil and spirit of turpentine, and combined with transparent yet
lasting colors. To convince me, they used to rub the worn part of
42
READIANA.
a Cremona with their sleeves, and then put the fiddle to their noses,
and smell amber. Then I, burning with love of knowledge, used to
rub the fiddle very hard and whip it to my nose, and not smell am-
ber. But that might arise in some measure from there not being
any amber there to smell. (N.B.-These amber-seeking worthies
never rubbed the colored varnish on an old violin. Yet their theory
had placed amber there.)
2. "That time does it all. The violins of Stradiuarius were raw,
crude things at starting, and the varnish rather opaque.
3. Two or three had the courage to say it was spirit-varnish, and
alleged in proof that if you drop a drop of alcohol on a Stradiuarius,
it tears the varnish off as it runs.
4. The far more prevalent notion was that it is an oil varnish, in
support of which they pointed to the rich appearance of what they
called the bare wood, and contrasted the miserable hungry appear-
ance of the wood in all old violins known to be spirit-varnished-for
instance, Nicholas Gagliano, of Naples, and Jean Baptiste Guadag-
nini, of Piacenza, Italian makers contemporary with Joseph Guar-
nerius.
5. That the secret has been lost by adulteration. The old Cre-
monese and Venetians got pure and sovereign gums, that have re-
tired from commerce.
Now, as to theory No 1.-Surely amber is too dear a gum and too
impracticable for two hundred fiddle-makers to have used in Italy.
Till fused by dry heat it is no more soluble in varnish than quartz
is; and who can fuse it? Copal is inclined to melt, but amber to
burn, to catch fire, to do anything but melt. Put the two gums to
a lighted candle, you will then appreciate the difference. I tried
more than one chemist in the fusing of amber; it came out of their
hands a dark brown opaque substance, rather burnt than_fused.
When really fused it is a dark olive green, as clear as crystal. Yet
I never knew but one man who could bring it to this, and he had
special machinery, invented by himself, for it; in spite of which he
nearly burned down his house at it one day. I believe the whole
amber theory comes out of a verbal equivoque; the varnish of the
Amati was called amber to mark its rich color, and your a priori rea-
soners went off on that, forgetting that amber must be an inch
thick to exhibit the color of amber. By such reasoning as this Mr.
Davidson, in a book of great general merit, is misled so far as to put
down powdered glass for an ingredient in Cremona varnish. Mark
the logic. Glass in a sheet is transparent; so if you reduce it to
powder it will add transparency to varnish. Imposed on by this
chimera, he actually puts powdered glass, an opaque and insoluble
sediment, into four receipts for Cremona varnish.
But the theories 2, 3, 4, 5 have all a good deal of truth in them;
their fault is that they are too narrow, and too blind to the truth of
each other. IN THIS AS IN EVERY SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY, THE TRUE
SOLUTION IS THAT WHICH RECONCILES ALL THE TRUTHS THAT SEEM
AT VARIANCE.
The way to discover a lost art, once practiced with variations by
a hundred people, is to examine very closely the most brilliant spec-
imen, the most characteristic specimen, and, indeed, the most extrav
READIANA.
43
1..
agant, specimen-if you can find one. I took that way, and I found
in the chippiest varnish of Stradiuarius, viz., his dark red varnish,
the key to all the varnish of Cremona, red or yellow. (N.B.-The
yellow always beat me dead, till I got to it by this detour.) There is
no specimen in the collection of this red varnish so violent as I have
seen; but Mr. Pawle's bass, No. 187, will do. Please walk with
me up to the back of that bass, and let us disregard all hypotheses
and theories, and use our eyes. What do we see before us? A bass
with red varnish that chips very readily off what people call the bare
wood. But never mind what these echoes of echoes call it. What
is it? It is not bare wood. Bare wood turns a dirty brown with
age. This is a rich and lovely yellow. By its color and its glassy
gloss, and by disbelieving what echoes say and trusting only to our
eyes, we may see at a glance it is not bare wood, but highly varnished
wood. This varnish is evidently oil, and contains a gum. Allowing
for the tendency of oil to run into the wood, I should say four coats
of oil varnish, and this they call the bare wood. We have now dis-
covered the first process: a clear oil varnish laid on the white wood
with some transparent gum not high colored. Now proceed a step
further; the red and chippy varnish, what is that? "Oh, that is a
varnish of the same quality but another color," say the theorists
No. 4. "How do you know?" say 1. It is self-evident.
Would a man begin with oil varnish and then go into spirit var-
nish?" is their reply. Now observe, this is not humble observa-
tion, it is only rational preconception. But if discovery has an enemy
in the human mind, that enemy is preconception. Let us then trust
only to humble observation. Here is a clear varnish without the
ghost of a chip in its nature; and upon it is a red varnish that is all
chip. Does that look as if the two varnishes were homogeneous?
Is chip precisely the same thing as no chip? If homogeneous, there
would be chemical affinity between the two. But this extreme read-
iness of the red varnish to chip away from the clear marks a defect
of chemical affinity between the two. Why, if you were to put your
thumb nail against that red varnish, a little piece would come away
directly. This is not so in any known case of oil upon oil. Take
old Forster, for instance: he begins with clear oil varnish; then on
that he puts a distinct oil varnish with the color and transparency
of pea-soup. You will not get his pea-soup to chip off his clear
varnish in a hurry. There is a bass by William Forster in the col-
lection a hundred years old; but the wear is confined to the places
where the top varnish MUST go in a played bass. Everywhere else
his pea-soup sticks tight to his clear varnish, being oil upon oil.
Co
$
Now, take a perfectly distinct line of observation. În varnishes
oil is a diluent of color. It is not in the power of man to charge an
oil varnish with color so highly as the top varnish of Mr. Pawle's
bass is charged. And it must be remembered that the clear varnish
below has filled all the pores of the wood; therefore the diluent can-
not escape into the wood, and so leave the color undiluted; if that
red varnish was ever oil varnish, every particle of the oil must be
there still. What, in that mere film so crammed with color? Never!
Nor yet in the top varnish of the Spanish bass, which is thinner still,
yet more charged with color than any topaz of twice the thickness.
This, then, is how Antonius Stradiuarius varnished Mr. Pawle's
--
44
READIANA.
"C
bass. He began with three or four coats of oil varnish containing
some common gum. He then laid on several coats of red varnish,
made by simply dissolving some fine red unadulterated gum in spirit;
the spirit evaporated and left pure gum lying on a rich oil varnish,
from which it chips by its dry nature and its utter want of chemical
affinity to the substratum. On the Spanish bass Stradiuarius put not
more, I think, than two coats of oil varnish, and then a spirit varnish
consisting of a different guin, less chippy, but even more tender and
wearable than the red. Now take this key all round the room, and
you will find there is not a lock it will not open. Look at the var-
nish on the back of the violon du diable," as it is called. There is
a top varnish with all the fire of a topaz and far more color; for slice
the deepest topaz to that thinness, it would pale before that varnish.
And why? 1st. Because this is no oily dilution; it is a divine un-
adulterated gum, left there undiluted by evaporation of the spiritu-
ous vehicle. 2nd. Because this varnish is a jewel with the advan-
tage of a foil behind it; that foil is the fine oil varnish underneath.
The purest specimen of Stradiuarius's red varnish in the room is,
perhaps, Mr. Fountaine's kit. Look at the back of it by the light of
these remarks. What can be plainer than the clear oil varnish with
not the ghost of a chip in it, and the glossy top varnish so charged
with color, and so ready to chip from the varnish below, for want of
chemical affinity between the varnishes? The basso di camera by
Montagnana is the same thing. See the bold wear on the back re-
vealing the heterogeneous varnish below the red. They are all the
same thing. The palest violins of Stradiuarius and Amati are much
older and harder worn than Mr. Pawle's bass, and the top varnish
not of a chippy character; yet look at them closely by the light of
these remarks, and you shall find one of two phenomena-either the
tender top varnish has all been worn away, and so there is nothing
to be inferred one way or other, or else there are flakes of it left;
and, if so, these flakes, however thin, shall always betray, by the
superior vividness of their color to the color of the subjacent oil
varnish, that they are not oil varnish, but pure gum left there by
evaporating spirit on a foil of beautiful oil varnish. Take Mrs.
Jay's Amatisé Stradiuarius; on the back of that violin toward the
top there is a mere flake of top varnish left by itself; all round it is
nothing left but the bottom varnish. That fragment of top varnish
is a film thinner than gold leaf; yet to look at its intensity; it lies on
the fine old varnish like fixed lightning, it is so vivid. It is just
as distinct from the oil varnish as is the red varnish of the kit.
Examine the Duke of Cambridge's violin, or any other Cremona in-
strument in the whole world you like; it is always the same thing,
though not so self-evident as in the red and chippy varnishes. The
Vuillaume Stradiuarius, not being worn, does not assist us in this
particular line of argument; but it does not contradict us. Indeed,
there are a few little chips in the top varnish of the back, and they
reveal a heterogeneous varnish below, with its rich yellow color like
the bottom varnish of the Pawle bass. Moreover, if you look at the
top varnish closely you shall see what you never see in a new violin
of our day; not a vulgar glare upon the surface, but a gentle inward
fire. Now that inward fire, I assure you, is mainly caused by the
oil varnish below; the orange varnish above has a heterogeneous foil
1
**
.:

READIANA.
45
below. That inward glow is characteristic of all foils. If you
could see the Vuillaume Stradiuarius at night and move it about in
the light of a candle, you would be amazed at the fire of the foil and
the refraction of light.
}
Thus, then, it is. The unlucky phrase " varnish of Cremona
has weakened men's powers of observation by fixing a preconceived
notion that the varnish must be all one thing. THE LOST SECRET IS
THIS. THE CREMONA VARNISH IS NOT A VARNISH, BUT TWO VAR-
NISHES; AND THOSE VARNISHES ALWAYS HETEROGENEOUS: THAT IS
TO SAY, FIRST THE PORES OF THE WOOD ARE FILLED AND THE GRAIN
SHOWN UP BY ONE, BY TWO, BY THREE, AND SOMETIMES, THOUGH
RARELY, BY FOUR COATS OF FINE OIL VARNISH WITH SOME COMMON
THEN UPON THIS OIL VARNISH,
BUT CLEAR GUM IN SOLUTION.
WHEN DRY, IS LAID A HETEROGENEOUS VARNISH, VIZ., A SOLUTION
IN SPIRIT OF SOME SOVEREIGN, HIGH COLORED, PELLUCID, AND,
Gum-lac, which for forty years has
ABOVE ALL, TENDER GUM.
been the mainstay of violin-makers, must never be used; not one
atom of it. That vile, flinty gum killed varnish at Naples and
Piacenza a hundred and forty years ago, as it kills varnish now.
Old Cremona shunned it, and whoever employs a grain of it, com-
mits willful suicide as a Cremonese varnisher. It will not wear; it
will not chip; it is in every respect the opposite of the Cremona
gums. Avoid it utterly, or fail hopelessly, as all varnishers have
failed since that fatal gum came in. The deep red varnish of Cre-
mona is pure dragon's blood; not the cake, the stick, the filthy
trash, which, in this sinful and adulterating generation, is retailed
under that name, but the tear of dragon's blood, little lumps deeper
in color than a carbuncle, clear as crystal, and fiery as a ruby. Un-
adulterated dragon's blood does not exist in commerce west of Tem-
ple-bar; but you can get it by groping in the City as hard as Diogenes
had to grope for an honest man in a much less knavish town than
London. The yellow varnish is the unadulterated tear of another
gum, retailed in a cake like dragon's blood, and as great a fraud.
All cakes and sticks presented to you in commerce as gums are auda-
cious swindles. A true gum is the tear of a tree. For the yellow
tear, as for the red, grope the City harder. than Diogenes. The
orange varnish of Peter Guarnerius and Stradiuarius is only a mixt-
ure of these two genuine gums. Even the milder reds of Stradiua-
rius are slightly reduced with the yellow gum. The Montagnana
bass and No. 94 are pure dragon's blood mellowed down by time
and exposure only.
A violin varnished as I have indicated will look a little better than
other new violins from the first; the back will look nearly as well
as the Vuillaume Stradiuarius, but not quite. The belly will look
a little better if properly prepared; will show the fiber of the deal
better. But its principal merit is, that like the violins of Cremona,
it will vastly improve in beauty if much exposed and persistently
played. And that improvement will be rapid, because the tender
top varnish will wear away from the oily substratum four times as
We
quickly as any vulgar varnish of the day will chip or wear.
cannot do what Stradiuarius could not do-give to a new violin the
peculiar beauty, that comes to heterogeneous varnishes of Cremona
from age and honest wear; but, on the other hand, it is a mistake to
**
1
46
READIANA.
suppose that one hundred years are required to develop the beauty
of any Cremona varnishes, old or new. The ordinary wear of a
century cannot be condensed into one year or five, but it can be con-
densed into twenty years. Any young amateur may live to play on
a magnificent Cremona made for himself, if he has the enthusiasm
to follow my directions. Choose the richest and finest wood; have
the violin made after the pattern of a rough Joseph Guarnerius;
then you need not sand-paper the back, sides, or head, for sand-
paper is a great enemy to varnish; it drives more wood-dust into the
pores than you can blow out. If you sand-paper the belly, sponge
that finer dust out, as far as possible, and varnish when dry. That
will do no harm, and throw up the fiber. Make your own linseed
oil-the linseed oil of commerce is adulterated with animal oil and
fish oil, which are non-drying oils-and varnish as I have indicated
above, and when the violin is strung treat it regularly with a view
to fast wear; let it hang up in a warm place, exposed to dry air,
night and day. Never let it be shut up in a case except for trans-
port. Lend it for months to the leader of an orchestra. Look after
it, and see that it is constantly played and constantly exposed to dry
air all about it. Never clean it, never touch it with a silk handker-
chief. In twenty years your heterogeneous varnishes will have
parted company in many places. The back will be worn quite
picturesque; the belly will look as old as Joseph Guarnerius; there
will be a delicate film on the surface of the grand red varnish mel-
lowed by exposure, and a marvelous fire below. In a word, you
will have a glorious Cremona fiddle. Do you aspire to do more, and
to make a downright old Cremona violin? Then, my young friend,
you must treat yourself as well as the violin; you must not smoke
all day, nor the last thing at night; you must never take a dram
before dinner and call it bitters; you must be as true to your spouse
as ever you can, and, in a word, live moderately, and cultivate good
temper and avoid great wrath. By these means, Deo volente, you
shall live to see the violin that was made for you and varnished by
my receipt, as old and worn and beautiful a Cremona as the Joseph
Guarnerius No. 94, beyond which nothing can go.
To show the fiddle-maker what may be gained by using as little
sand-paper as possible, let him buy a little of Maunder's palest copal
varnish; then let him put a piece of deal on his bench and take a
few shavings off it with a carpenter's plane. Let him lay his var-
nish directly on the wood so planed. It will have a fire and a beauty
he will never quite attain to by scraping, sand-papering, and then
varnishing the same wood with the same varnish. And this applies
to hare-wood as well as deal. The back of the Vuillaume Stradiua-
rius, which is the finest part, has clearly not been sand-papered in
places, so probably not at all. Wherever it is possible, varnish after
cold steel, at all events in imitating the Cremonese, and especially
Joseph Guarnerius. These, however, are minor details, which I have
only inserted, because I foresee that I may be unable to return to
this subject in writing, though I shall be very happy to talk about
it at my own place to any one who really cares about the matter.
However, it is not every day one can restore a lost art to the world;
and I hope that, and my anxiety not to do it by halves, will excuse
this prolix article.
CHARLES READE.
t
-
}
1
READIANA.
47
THE STORY OF THE BOAT RACE OF 1872.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "OBSERVER.”
THIS great annual race has become a national event. The rival
crews are watched by a thousand keen eyes from the moment they
appear on the Thames; their trials against time or scratch crews are
noted and reported to the world; criticism and speculation are unin-
termittent, and the Press prints two hundred volumes about the race
before ever it is run.
When the day comes England suspends her liberties for an hour
or two, makes her police her legislators; and her river, though by
law a highway, becomes a race course; passengers and commerce
are both swept off it not to spoil sacred sport; London pours out her
myriads; the country flows in to meet them; the roads are clogged
with carriages and pedestrians all making for the river; its banks on
both sides are blackened by an unbroken multitude five miles long;
on all the bridges that command the race people hang and cluster
like swarming bees; windows, seats, balconies, are crammed, all
glowing with bright colors (blue predominating), and sparkling with
brighter eyes of the excited fair ones.
The two crews battle over the long course under one continuous
roar of a raging multitude. At last-and often after fluctuations in
the race that drive the crowd all but mad-there is a puff of smoke,
a loud report, one boat has won, though both deserve; and the vic-
tors are the true kings of all that mighty throng; in that hour the
Premier of England, the Primate, the poet, the orator, the philoso-
pher of his age, would walk past unheeded if the Stroke oar of the
victorious boat stood anywhere near.
To cynics and sedentary students all this seems childish, and looks
like paying to muscle a homage that is never given by acclamation
to genius and virtue.
But, as usual, the public is not far wrong; the triumph, though
loud, is evanescent, and much has been done and endured to earn
it. No glutton, no wine-bibber, no man of impure life could live
through that great pull; each victor abstinuit venere et vino, sudavit
et alsit.
The captain of the winning boat has taught Government a lesson;
for in selecting his men he takes care of Honor, and does not take
care of Dowb, for that would be to throw the race away upon dry
land; but the public enthusiasm rests on broader and more obvious
grounds than these. Every nation has a right to admire its own
traits in individuals, when those traits are honorable and even inno-
cent. England is not bound to admire those athletes, who every
now and then proclaim their nationality by drinking a quart of gin
right off for a wager; but we are a nation great upon the water,
and great at racing, and we have a right to admire these men, who
combine the two things to perfection. This is the king of races, for
it is run by the king of animals working, after his kind, by com-
48
READIANA.
bination, and with a concert so strong, yet delicate, that for once it
eclipses machinery. But, above all, here is an example, not only of
strength, wind, spirit, and plück indomitable, but of pure and crys-
tal honor. Foot races and horse races have been often sold, and
the betters betrayed; but this race never-and it never will be.
Here, from first to last, all is open, because all is fair and glorious
as the kindred daylight it courts. We hear of shivering stable boys
sent out on a frosty morning to try race horses on the sly, and so
give the proprietors private knowledge to use in betting. Some-
times these early worms have been preceded by earlier ones, who
are watching behind a hedge. Then shall the trainer whisper one
of the boys to hold in the faster horse, and so enact a profitable lie.
Not so the University crews; they make trials in broad daylight for
their own information; and those trials are always faithful. The
race is pure, and is a strong corrective annually administered to the
malpractices of racing. And so our two great fountains of learning
are one fount of honor, God be thanked for it! So the people do
well to roar their applause, and every nobleman who runs horses
may be proud to take for his example these high-spirited gentlemen,
who nobly run a nobler creature, for they run themselves. The
reccnt feature of this great race has been the recovery of Cambridge
in 1870 and 1871, after nine successive defeats; defeats the more re-
markable that up to 1861 Oxford was behind her in the number of
victories. The main cause of a result so peculiar was that system of
rowing Oxford had invented and perfected. The true Oxford stroke
is slow in the water but swift in the air; the rower goes well for-
ward, drops his oar clean into the water, goes well backward, and
makes his stroke, but, this done, comes swiftly forward all of a
piece, hands foremost. Thus, though a slow stroke, it is a very
busy one. Add to this a clean feather, and a high sweep of the oars
to avoid rough water, and you have the true Oxford stroke, which
is simply the perfection of rowing, and can, of course, be defeated
by superior strength or bottom; but, cæteris paribus, is almost sure
to win.
Nine defcats were endured by Cambridge with a fortitude, a
patience, and a temper that won every heart, and in 1870 she reaped
* her reward. She sent up a crew, led by Mr. Goldie-who had been
defeated the year before by Darbishire's Oxford eight-and coached
by Mr. Morrison. This Cambridge crew pulled the Oxford stroke,
or nearly, drove Oxford in the race to a faster stroke that does not
suit her, and won the race with something to spare, though stuck
In 1871 Ox-
to indomitably by Darbishire and an inferior crew.
ford sent up a heavy crew, with plenty of apparent strength, but
not the precision and form of Mr. Goldie's eight. Cambridge
took the lead and kept it.
This year Oxford was rather unlucky in advance. The city was
circumnavigable by little ships, and you might have tacked an In-
diaman in Magdalen College meadow; but this was unfavorable to
eight-oar practice. Then Mr. Lesley, the stroke, sprained his side,
and resigned his post to Mr. Houblon, a very elegant oarsman, but
one who pulls a quick stroke, not healthy to Oxford on Father
Thames his bosom. Then their boat was found to be not so lively
as the Cambridge boat built by Clasper. A new boat was ordered,
3
!
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49
and she proved worse in another way than Salter's. In a word Ox-
ford came to the scratch to-day with a good stiff boat, not lively,
with 20lb. more dead weight inside the coxswain's jacket, and with
a vast deal of pluck and not a little Hemiplegia. The betting was
five to two against her.
Five minutes before the rivals came out it was snowing so hard-
that the race bade fair to be invisible. 1 shall not describe the snow,
nor any of the atmospheric horrors that made the whole business
purgatory instead of pleasure. I take a milder revenge; I only
curse them.
Putney roared; and out came the Dark Blue crew; they looked
strong and wiry, and likely to be troublesome attendants. Another
roar, and out came the Light Blue. So long as the boats were sta-
tionary one looked as likely as the other to win.
They started. Houblon took it rather easy at first; and Cambridge
obtained a lead directly, and at the Soap Works was half a length
ahead. This was reduced by Mr. Hall's excellent steering a foot or
two by the time they shot Hammersmith Bridge. As the boats
neared Chiswick Eyot, where many a race has changed, Oxford
gradually reduced the lead to a foot or two; and if this could have
been done with the old, steady, much-enduring stroke, I would not
have given much for the leading boat's chance. But it was achieved
by a stroke of full thirty-nine to the minute, and neither form nor
time was perfect. Mr. Goldie now called upon his crew, and the
Clasper boat showed great qualities; it shot away visibly, like a horse
suddenly spurred; this spurt proved that Cambridge had great re-
serves of force, and Oxford had very little. Houblon and his gallant
men struggled nobly and unflinchingly on; but, between Barnes
Bridge and Mortlake, Goldie put the steam on again, and increased
the lead to about a length and a half clear water. The gun was fired,
and Cambridge won the race of 1872.
In this race Oxford, contrary to her best traditions, pulled a faster
stroke than Cambridge; the Oxford coxswain's experience compen-
sated for his greater weight. The lighter coxswain steered his boat in
and out a bit, and will run some risk of being severely criticised by
all our great contemporaries—except Zig-Zag. As for me, my fifty
summers or fifty winters-there is no great difference in this island
of the blessed, they are neither of them so horrible as the spring-
have disinclined me to thunder on the young. A veteran journalist
perched on the poop of a steam vessel has many advantages. He
has a bird's eye view of the Thames, and can steer Clasper's boat
with his mind far more easily than can a youngster squatted four
inches above the water, with eight giants intercepting his view of a
strange river, and a mob shouting in his ears like all the wild beasts
of a thousand forests.
Mr. Goldie has done all his work well for months. He chose his
men impartially, practiced them in time, and finally rowed the race
with perfect judgment. He took an experimental time, and finding
he could hold it, made no premature call upon his crew. He held
the race in hand, and won it from a plucky opponent without dis-
tressing his men needlessly. No man is a friend of Oxford, who
tells her to overrate accidents, and underrate what may be done by
a wise President before ever the boats reach Putney. This London
+
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}
race was virtually won at Cambridge. Next year let Oxford choose
her men from no favorite schools or colleges, lay aside her prejudice
against Clasper, and give him a trial; at all events, return to her
swinging-stroke, and practice till not only all the eight bodies go
like one, but all the eight rowlocks ring like one; and the spirit and
*bottom that enabled her to hang so long on the quarter of a first-rate
crew in a first-rate boat will be apt to land her a winner in the next
and many a hard-fought race.
CHARLES READE.
BUILDERS' BLUNDERS.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "PALL MALL GAZETTE.'
FIRST LETTER.
SIR,-Amidst the din of arms abroad and petty politics at home,
have you a corner for a subject less exciting, but very important to
Englishmen? Then let me expose that great blot upon the English
intellect, the thing we call A HOUSE, especially as it is built in our
streets, rows, and squares.
To begin at the bottom-the drains are inside and hidden; nobody
knows their course. A foul smell arises: it has to be groped for,
and half the kitchen and scullery floors taken up-blunder 1. Drains
ought to be outside: and, if not, their course be marked, with the
graving tool, on the stones, and a map of the drains deposited with
a parish officer; overlying boards and stones ought to be hinged, to
facilitate examination. Things capable of derangement should never
be inaccessible. This is common sense; yet, from their drains to
their chimneypots, the builders defy this maxim.
The kitchen windows are sashes, and all sash-windows are a mis-
take. They are small; they ought to be as large as possible. The
want of light in kitchens is one of the causes why female servants-
though their lot is a singularly happy one-are singularly irritable.
But, not to dwell on small errors, the next great blunder in the kitch-
en is THE PLASTER CEILING.
>>
The plaster ceiling may pass, with London builders, for a venerable
antiquity that nothing can disturb, but to scholars it is an unhappy
novelty, and, in its present form, inexcusable. It was invented in a
tawdry age as a vehicle of florid ornamentation; but what excuse
can there be for a plain plaster ceiling? Count the objections to it
in a kitchen. 1. A kitchen is a low room, and the ceiling makes it
nine inches lower. 2. White is a glaring color, and a white ceiling
makes a low room look lower. 3. This kitchen ceiling is dirty in a
month's wear, and filthy in three months, with the smoke of gas,
and it is a thing the servants cannot clean. 4. You cannot hang
things on it.
Now change all this: lay out the prime cost of the ceiling, and a
small part of its yearly cost, in finishing your joists and boards to
receive varnish, and in varnishing them with three coats of good
copal. Your low room is now nine inches higher, and looks three
feet, You can put in hooks and staples galore, and make the roof
*
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51
of this business-room useful; it is, in color, a pale amber at starting,
which is better for the human eye than white glare, and, instead of
getting uglier every day, as the plaster ceiling does, it improves every
month, every year, every decade, every century. Clean deal, under
varnish, acquires in a few years a beauty oak can never attain to.
So much for the kitchen.
The kitchen stairs, whether of stone or wood, ought never to be
laid down without a protecting nozzle. The brass nozzle costs some
money, the lead nozzle hardly any: no nozzle can be dear; for it
saves the steps, and they are dearer. See how the kitchen steps are
cut to pieces for want of that little bit of forethought in the builder.
We are now on the first floor. Over our heads is a blunder, the
plaster ceiling, well begrimed with the smoke from the gaselier, and
not cleanable by the servants: and we stand upon another blunder;
here are a set of boards, not joined together. They are nailed down
loose, and being of green wood they gape: now the blunder imme-
diately below, the plaster ceiling of the kitchen, has provided a re-
ceptacle of dust several inches deep. This rises when you walk
upon the floor, rises in clouds when your children run; and that
dust marks your carpet in black lines, and destroys it before its time.
These same boards are laid down without varnish; by this means
they rot, and do not last one-half, nor, indeed, one-quarter, of their
time. Moreover, the unvarnished boards get filthy at the sides be-
fore you furnish, and thus you lose the cleanest and most beautiful
border possible to your carpet. So the householder is driven by the
incapacity of the builder to pitiable substitutes-oil cloth, Indian
matting, and stained wood, which last gets uglier every year, whereas
deal boards varnished clean improve every year, every decade, every
century.
I am, sir,
Yours very truly,
CHARLES READE
SECOND LETTER.
SIR,-When last seen I was standing on the first floor of the thing
they call a house, with a blunder under my feet-unvarnished, un-
joined boards; and a blunder over my head-the oppressive, glaring,
plaster ceiling, full of its inevitable cracks, and foul with the smoke
of only three months' gas. This room has square doors with lintels.
Now all doors and doorways ought to be arched, for two reasons-
first, the arch is incombustible, the lintel and breast-summer are
combustible; secondly, the arch, and arched door, are beautiful; the
square hole in the wall, and square door, are hideous.
SASH WINDOWS.
This room is lighted by what may be defined "the unscientific
window." Here in this single structure you may see most of the in-
tellectual vices that mark the unscientific mind. The scientific way
is always the simple way; so here you have complication on com-
plication: one half the window is to go up, the other half is to come
down. The maker of it goes out of his way to struggle with Nat-
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READIANA.
ure's laws: he grapples insanely with gravitation, and therefore he
must use cords, and weights, and pulleys, and build boxes to hide
them in-he is a great hider. His wooden frames move up and
down wooden grooves open to atmospheric influence. What is the
consequence? The atmosphere becomes humid; the wooden frame
sticks in the wooden box, and the unscientific window is jammed.
What ho! Send for the CURSE OF FAMILIES, the British workman!
Or one of the cords breaks (they are always breaking)-send for the
CURSE OF FAMILIES to patch the blunder of the unscientific builder.
Now turn to the scientific window; it is simply a glass door with
a wooden frame; it is not at the mercy of the atmosphere; it enters
into no contest with gravitation; it is the one rational window upon
earth. If a small window, it is a single glass door, if a large win-
dow, it is two glass doors, each calmly turning on three hinges, and
not fighting against God Almighty and his laws, when there is no
need.
The scientific window can be cleaned by the householder's serv-
ants without difficulty or danger, not so the unscientific window.
How many a poor girl has owed broken bones to the sash-window!
Nowadays humane masters, afflicted with unscientific windows, send
for the CURSE OF FAMILIES whenever their windows are dirty; but
this costs seven or eight pounds a year, and the householder is
crushed under taxes enough without having to pay this odd seven
pounds per annum for the nescience of the builder.
We go up the stairs-between two blunders: the balusters are
painted whereas they ought to be made and varnished in the carpen-
ter's shop, and then put up; varnished wood improves with time,
painted deteriorates. On the other side is the domestic calamity,
foul wear, invariable, yet never provided for; furniture mounting
the narrow stairs dents the wall and scratches it; sloppy housemaids
paw it as they pass, and their dirty gowns, distended by crinoline,
defile it.
What is to be done then? must the whole staircase be repainted
every year, because five feet of it get dirty, or shall brains step in
and protect the vulnerable part?
The cure to this curse is chunam; or encaustic tiles, set five feet
high all up the stairs. That costs money! Granted; but the life of
a house is not the life of a butterfly. Even the tiles are a cheap
cure, for repeated paintings of the whole surface mighty soon balance
the prime cost of the tiles set over a small part.
The water-closet has no fire place. That
That is a blunder. Every
year we have a few days' hard frost, and then, without a fire in the
water-closet, the water in the pan freezes, the machinery is jammed,
and the whole family endure a degree of discomfort, and even of
degradation, because the builder builds in summer and forgets there
is such a thing as winter.
The drawing-room presents no new feature; but the plaster ceiling
is particularly objectionable in this room, because it is under the
bedrooms, where water is used freely. Now if a man spills but a
pint of water in washing or bathing, it runs through directly and
defiles the drawing room ceiling. Perhaps this blunder ought to be
equally divided between the ceiling and the floor above, for when-
ever bedroom floors shall be properly constructed they will admit of
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READIANA.
53
buckets of water being sluiced all over them; and, indeed, will be
so treated, and washed as courageously as are sculleries and kitch-
ens only under the present benighted system.
I pass over the third floor, and mount a wooden staircase, a ter-
rible blunder in this part of the house, to the rooms under the roof.
These rooms,
if the roof was open-timbered, would give each inmate
a great many cubic feet of air to breathe; so the perverse builder
erects a plaster ceiling, and reduces him to a very few cubic feet of
air. This, the maddest of all the ceilings, serves two characteristic
purposes; it chokes and oppresses the poor devils that live under it,
and it hides the roof; now the roof is the part that oftenest needs
repairs, so it ought to be the most accessible part of the house, and
the easiest to examine from the outside and from the inside. For
this very reason Perversity in person hides it; whenever your roof
or a gutter leaks, it is all groping and speculation, because your
builder has concealed the inside of the roof with that wretched ceil-
ing, and has made the outside accessible only to cats and sparrows,
and the curse of families." N.B.-Whenever that curse of fam-
፡፡
06
ilies goes out on that roof to mend one hole, he makes two. Why
not? thanks to the perverse builder you can't watch him, and he
has got a friend a plumber.
We now rise from folly to lunacy; the roof is half perpendicular.
This, in a modern house, is not merely silly, it is disgraceful to the
human mind; it was all very well before gutters and pipes were in-
vented: it was well designed to shoot off the water by the overlapping
eaves: but now we run our water off by our gutters and pipes, and
the roof merely feeds them; the steep roof feeds them too fast, and
is a main cause of overflows. But there are many other objections
to slanted roofs, especially in streets and rows:
1st. The pyramidal roof, by blocking up the air, necessitates high
stacks of chimneys, which are expensive and dangerous.
2d. The pyramidal roof presses laterally against the walls, which
these precious builders make thinner the higher they raise them, and
subjects the whole structure to danger.
3d. It robs the family of a whole floor, and gives it to cats and
sparrows. I say that a five-story house with a pyramidal roof is a
five-story house, and with a flat roof is a six-story house.
4th. It robs the poor cockney of his country view. It is astonish-
ing how much of the country can be seen from the roofs of most
London streets. A poor fellow who works all day in a hole, might
smoke his evening pipe, and see a wide tract of verdure-but the
builders have denied him that; they build the roof for cats, and the
curse of families," they do not build it for the man whose bread
they eat.
5th. It robs poor families of their drying-ground.
6th. This idiotic blunder, slightly aided by a subsidiary blunder
or two, murders householders and their families wholesale, destroys
them by the most terrible of all death-burning alive.
And I seriously ask you, and any member of either House, who
is not besotted with little noisy things, to consider how great a matter
this is, though no political squabble can be raised about it.
Mind you, the builders are not to blame that a small, high house
is, in its nature, a fire-trap. This is a misfortune inseparable from
丫
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READIANA.
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F
the shape of the structure and the nature of that terrible element.
The crine of the builders lies in this, that they make no intelligent pro-
vision against a danger so evident, but side with the fire not the family.
Prejudice and habitual idiocy apart, can anything be clearer than
this, that, as fire mounts, and smoke stifles, all persons who are above
a fire ought to be enabled to leave the house by way of the roof, as
easily and rapidly as those below the fire can go out by the street door?
Now what do the builders do? They side with fire; they accumu-
late combustible materials on the upper floors, and they construct a
steep roof most difficult and dangerous to get about on, but to the
aged and infirm impossible. Are then the aged and infirm incom-
bustible? This horrible dangerous roof the merciless wretches make
so hard of access that few are the cases, as well they know by the
papers, in which a life is saved by their hard road. They open a
little trap-door-horizontal, of course; always go against God Al-
mighty and his laws, when you can; that is the idiot's creed. This
miserable aperture, scarcely big enough for a dog, is bolted or pad-
locked. It is seven feet from the ground. Yet the builder fixes no
steps nor stairs to it; no, get at it how you can. What chance has a
mixed family of escaping by this hole in case of fire? Nobody ever
goes on that beastly pyramid except in case of fire; and so the bolt
is almost sure to be rusty, or the key mislaid, or the steps not close;
and, even if the poor wretches get the steps to the place, and heave
open the trap, in spite of rust and gravitation, these delays_are
serious; then the whole family is to be dragged up through a dog-
hole, and that is slow work, and fire is swift and smoke is stifling.
A thousand poor wretches have been clean murdered in my time
by the builders with their trap-door and their pyramidal roof.
Thousands more have been destroyed, as far as the builders were
concerned; the fire-men and fire-escape men saved them, in spite of
the builders, by means which were a disgrace to the builders.
But in my next, sir, I will show you that in a row of houses con-
structed by brains not one of those tragedies could ever have taken
place.
I am, sir,
Yours very truly,
CHARLES READE.
THIRD LETTER.
SIR, -It is a sure sign a man is not an artist, if, instead of repair-
ing his defects, he calls in an intellectual superior to counteract
them. The fire-escape is creditable to its inventor, but disgraceful
to the builders. They construct a fire-trap without an escape; and
so their fellow-citizens are to cudgel their brains and supply the
builders' want of intelligence and humanity by an invention work-
ing from the street. The fire-escape can after all save but a few of
the builders' victims. The only universal fire-escape is-THE RA-
TIONAL ROOF.
To be constructed thus: Light iron staircases from the third floor
to top floor and rational roof. Flat roof, or roofs, metal covered,
with scarcely perceptible fall from center. Open joists and iron
girders, the latter sufficiently numerous to keep the roof from fall-
ing in, even though fire should gut the edifice. An iron-lined door,
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1
surmounted by a skylight; iron staircase up to this door, which
opens rationally on to the rational roof. Large cistern or tank on
roof with a force-pump to irrigate the roof in fire or summer heats.
Round the roof iron rails set firm in balcony, made too hard for
bairns to climb, and surmounted by spikes. Between every two
houses a partition gate with two locks and keys complete. Bell
under cover to call neighbor in fire or other emergency.
Advantages offered by "the RATIONAL roof :”—
1. High chimney stacks not needed.
2. Nine smoking chimneys cured out of ten. There are always
people at hand to make the householder believe his chimney smokes
by some fault of construction, and so they gull him into expenses,
and his chimney smokes on-because it is not thoroughly swept.
Send a faithful servant on to the rational roof, let him see the chim-
ney-sweep's brush at the top of every chiney before you pay a shil-
ling and good-by smoking chimneys. Sweeps are rogues, and the
irrational roof is their shield and buckler.
3. The rails painted chocolate and the spikes gilt would mightily
improve our gloomy streets.
4. Stretch clothes'-lines from spike to spike, and there is a dry-
ing-ground for the poor, or for such substantial people as are sick of
the washerwomen and their villainy. These heartless knaves are now
rotting fine cambric and lace with soda and chloride of lime, though
borax is nearly as detergent and injures nothing.
5. A playground in a purer air for children that cannot get to the
parks. There is no ceiling to crack below.
6. In summer heats a blest retreat. Irrigate and cool from the cis-
tern: then set four converging poles, stretch over these from spike
to spike a few breadths of awning: and there is a delightful tent
and perhaps a country view. If the Star and Garter at Richmond
had possessed such a roof, they would have made at least two thou-
sand a year upon it, and perhaps have saved their manager from a
terrible death.
7. On each roof a little flagstaff and streamer to light the gloom
with sparks of color, and tell the world is the master at home or not.
This would be of little use now; but, when once the rational roof
becomes common, many a friend could learn from his own roof
whether a friend was at home, and so men's eyes might save their legs.
8. In case of fire, the young and old would walk out by a rational
door on to a rational roof, and ring at a rational gate. Then their
neighbor lets them on to his rational roof, and they are safe. Mcan-
time, the adult males, if any, have time to throw wet blankets on
the skylight and turn the water on to the roof. The rational roof,
after saving the family which its predecessor would have destroyed,
now proceeds to combat the fire. It operates as an obstinate cowl
over the fire; and, if there are engines on the spot, the victory is
certain. Compare this with the whole conduct of the irrational roof.
First it murdered the inmates; then it fed the fire; then it collapsed
and fell on the ground-floor, destroying more property, and en-
dangering the firemen.
1 am,
Yours very truly,
CHARLES READE.
20
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READIANA.
FOURTH LETTER.
SIR,-The shoe pinches all men more or less; but, on a calm sur-
vey, I think it pinches the householder hardest.
A house is as much a necessary of life as a loaf; yet this article of
necessity has been lately raised to a fancy price by the trade con-
spiracies of the building operatives-not so much by their legitimate
strikes for high wages as by their conspiring never to do for any
amount of wages an honest day's work-and the fancy price thus
created strikes the householder first in the form of rent. But this
excessive rent, although it is an outgoing, is taxed as income; its
figure is made the basis of all the imperial and parochial exactions
that crush the householder. One of these is singularly unfair; 1
mean the inhabited house duty." What
What is this but the property
tax rebaptized and levied over again, but from the wrong person?
The property tax is a percentage on the rent, levied in good faith,
from the person whom the rent enables to pay that percentage; but
the inhabited house duty is a similar percentage on the rent levied,
under the disguise of another name, from him whom the rent dis-
ables.
C
-
In London the householder constantly builds and improves the
freehold; instantly parochial spires raise his rates. He has employed
labor, and so far counterbalanced pauperism; at the end of his lease
the house will bear a heavier burden; but these heartless extortion-
ers they bleed the poor wretch directly for improving parochial
property at his own expense. At the end of his lease the rent is
raised by the landlord on account of these taxed improvements, and
the tenant turned out with a heavier grievance than the Irish farmer;
yet he does not tumble his landlord, nor even a brace of vestrymen.
The improving tenant, while awaiting the punishment of virtue,
spends twenty times as much money in pipes as the water companies
do, yet he has to pay them for water a price so enormous, that they
ought to bring it into his cisterns, and indeed into his mouth, for
the money. He pays through the nose for gas.
He bleeds for the vices of the working classes; since in our wealthy
cities, nine-tenths of the pauperism is simply waste and inebriety.
He often pays temporary relief to an improvident workman, whose
annual income exceeds his own, but who will never put by a shil-
ling for a slack time.
In short, the respectable householder of moderate means is so
ground down and oppressed that, to my knowledge, he is on the
road to despondency and ripening for a revolution.
Now, I can hold him out no hope of relief from existing taxation;
but his intolerable burden can be lightened by other means; the sim-
plest is to keep down his bill for repairs and decorations, which at
present is made monstrous by original misconstruction.
The irrational house is an ANIMAL WITH ITS MOUTH ALWAYS OPEN.
This need not be. It arises from causes most of which are remov.
able; viz., 1st, from unscientific construction; 2d, plaster ceilings;
3d, the want of provision for partial wear; 4th, the abuse of paint;
5th, hidden work.
Under all these heads I have already given examples. I will add
another under head 3. The dado or skirting board is to keep furni-
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READIANA.
57
ture from marking the wall; but it is laid down only one inch thick,
whereas the top of a modern chair overlaps the bottom an inch and
a half. This the builders do not, or will not, observe, and so every
year in London fifty thousand rooms are spoiled by the marks of
chair-backs on the walls, and the owners driven to the expense of
painting or papering sixty square yards, to clean a space that is less
than a square foot, but fatal to the appearance of the room.
Under head 4 let me observe that God's woods are all very beauti-
ful; that ONLY FOOLS ARE WISER THAN GOD ALMIGHTY; that var-
nish shows up the beauty of those woods, and adds a gloss; and
that house-paint hides their beauty. Paint holds dirt, and does not
wash well; varnish does. Paint can only be mixed by a workman.
Varnish is sold fit to put on. Paint soon requires revival, and the
old paint must be rubbed off at a great expense, and two new coats
put on. Varnish stands good for years, and, when it requires re-
vival, little more is necessary than simple cleaning, and one fresh
coat, which a servant or anybody can lay on. 5. Hidden work is
sure to be bad work, and so needs repairs, especially in a roof, that
sore tried part; and the repairs are the more expensive that the weak
place has to be groped for.
I have now, I trust, said enough to awaken a few householders
from the lethargy of despair, and to set them thinking a little and
organizing a defense against the extraordinary mixture of stupidity
and low instinctive trade cunning of which they are the victims;
for a gentleman's blunders hurt himself, but a tradesman's blunders
always hurt his customers; and this is singularly true of builders'
blunders; they all tend one way-to compel the householder to be
always sending for the builder, or that bungling rascal the plumber,
to grope for his hidden work, or botch his bad work, or clean his
unscientific windows, or whitewash his idiotic ceilings, or rub his
nasty unguents off God's beautiful wood, and then put some more
nasty odoriferous unguents on, or put cowls on his ill-cleaned chim-
neys; or, in short, to repair his own countless blunders at the ex-
pense of his customer.
Independently of the murderous and constant expense, the bare
entrance into a modest household of that loose, lazy, drunken, dis-
honest drink-man and jack-man, who has the impudence to call
himself the "British workman," though he never did half a day's
real work at a stretch in all his life, is a serious calamity, to be
averted by every lawful means.
1 am,
sir,
Yours faithfully,
CHARLES READE.
J
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#
58
READIANA.
OUR DARK PLACES.
TO THE GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS.
No. 1.
GENTLEMEN,—On Friday last, a tale was brought to me that a
sane prisoner had escaped from a private madhouse, had just baffled
an attempt to recapture him by violent entry into a dwelling-house,
and was now hiding in the suburbs.
((
66
The case was grave: the motives alleged for his incarceration
were sinister; but the interpreters were women, and consequently
partisans, and some, though not all, the parties concerned on the
other side, bear a fair character. Humanity said, "Look into the
case!" Prudence said, Look at it on both sides.' I insisted,
therefore, on a personal interview with Mr.
This was con-
ceded, and we spent two hours together: all which time I was of
course testing his mind to the best of my ability.
""
I found him a young gentleman of a healthy complexion, manner
vif, but not what one would call excited. I noticed however that
he liked to fidget string, and other trifles between his finger and
thumb at times. He told me his history for some years past, speci-
fying the dates of several events: he also let me know he had been
subject for two years to fits, which he described to me in full. I
recognized the character of these fits. His conversation was sober
and reasonable. But had I touched the exciting theme? We all
know there is a class of madmen who are sober and sensible till the
one false chord is struck. I came therefore to that delusion which
was the original ground of -'s incarceration; his notion that
certain of his relations are keeping money from him that is his due.
This was the substance of his hallucination as he revealed it to me.
His father was member of a firm with his uncle and others. Shortly
before his death his father made a will leaving him certain person-
alities, the interest of £5000, and, should he live to be twent-four,
the principal of ditto, and the reversion, after his mother's death,
of another considerable sum.
A p
Early last year he began to inquire why the principal due to him
was not paid. His uncle then told him there were no assets to his
father's credit, and never had been. On this, he admits, he wrote
abominably passionate" letters, and demanded to inspect the
books. This was refused him, but a balance-sheet was sent him,
which was no evidence to his mind, and did not bear the test of
Addition, being £40,000 out on the evidence of its own figures.
This was his tale, which might be all bosh for aught I could tell.
Not being clever enough to distinguish truth from fancy by divi-
nation, I took cao, and off to Doctors' Commons, determined to bring
some of the above to book.
Well, gentlemen, I found the will, and I discovered that my
maniac has understated the interest he takes under it. I also find,
{}
1
.
土
​READIANA.
59
as he told me I should, his uncle's name down as one of the wit-
nesses to the will. Item, I made a little private discovery of my
own, viz., that-
is residuary legatee, subject to his mother's life
interest, and that all his interest under the will goes to five relations
of the generation above him should he die intestate.
I now came to this conclusion, which I think you will share with
me, that
's delusion may or may not be an error, but cannot be
a hallucination, since it is simply good logic founded on attested
facts. For on which side lies the balance of credibility? The father
makes a solemn statement that he has thousands of pounds to be-
queath. The uncle assents in writing while the father is alive, but
gives the father and himself the lie when the father is no longer on
earth to contradict him. They say in law, “Allegans contraria non
est audiendus.'
/
""
"C
<<
Being now satisfied that the soi-disant delusion might be error but
could not be aberration of judgment, I subjected him to a new class
of proofs. I asked him if he would face medical men of real emi-
nence, and not in league with madhouse doctors. "He would with
pleasure. It was his desire. We went first to Dr. Dickson, who
has great experience and has effected some remarkable cures of
mania. Dr. Dickson, as may well be supposed, did not take as
many seconds as I had taken hours. He laughed to scorn the very
1
notion that the man was mad. He is as sane as we are," said Dr.
Dickson. From Bolton Street we all three go to Dr. Ruttledge,
Hanover Square, and, on the road, Dr. Dickson and I agree to apply
a test to Dr. Ruttledge, which it would have been on many accounts
unwise to apply to a man of ordinary skill. Dr. Dickson introduced
and me thus, One of these is insane, said to be. Which is
it?" Dr. Rutledge took the problem mighty coolly, sat down by me
first, with an eye like a diamond: it went slap into my marrow-bone.
Asked me catching questions, touched my wrist, saw my tongue, and
said quietly, "This one is sane. Then he went and sat down by
and drove an eye into him, asked him catching questions, made
him tell him in order all he had done since seven o'clock, felt pulse,
saw tongue: "This one is sane too. Dr. Dickson then left the
room, after telling him what was -'s supposed delusion, and
begged him to examine him upon it. The examination lasted nearly
half an hour, during which related the circumstances of his
misunderstanding, his capture, and his escape, with some minute-
ness. The result of all this was a certificate of sanity; copy of which
I subjoin. The original can be seen at my house by any lady or
gentleman connected with literature or the Press.
>>
">
Gay
We hereby certify that we have this day, both conjointly and
separately, examined Mr.
and we find him to be in every respect
of sound mind, and laboring under no delusion whatever. Moreover
we entertain a very strong opinion that the said Mr.
has at no
period of his life labored under insanity.
"He has occasionally had epileptic fits.
(Signed)
66
19 GEORGE STREET. HANOVER SQUARE,
9th August, 1858."
JAMES RUTTLEDGE, M.D,
S. DICKSON, M.D.
=རྟt
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:
CARRICK CLUB,
10th August, 1858.
60
READIANA.
This man, whose word I have no reason to doubt, says the keeper
of the madhouse told him he should never go out of it. This, if
true, implies the absence of all intention to cure him. He was a
customer, not a patient; he was not in a hospital, but in a jail, con-
demned to imprisonment for life, a sentence so awful that no English
judge has ever yet had the heart to pronounce it upon a felon
is an orphan.
The law is too silly, and one-sided, and slow, to protect him against
the prompt and daring men who are even now hunting him. But
while those friends the God of the fatherless has raised him concert
his defense, you can aid justice greatly by letting daylight in. 1
will explain why this is in my next.
I am, Gentlemen,
""
Your obedient servant,
CHARLES READE.
NO. II.
GENTLEMEN,-In England "Justice" is the daughter of "Pub-
licity. In this, as in every other nation, deeds of villainy are done
every day in kid gloves; but they can only be done on the sly; here
lies our true moral eminence as a nation. Our Judges are an honor
to Europe, not because Nature has cut them out of a different stuff
from Italian Judges: this is the dream of babies; it is because they
sit in courts open to the public, and “sit next day in the newspapers.
Legislators who have not the brains to appreciate the Public, and
put its sense of justice to a statesmanlike use, have yet an instinctive
feeling that it is the great safeguard of the citizen. Bring your
understandings to bear on the following sets of propositions in
lunacy law:-First grand division-Maxims laid down by Shelford.
"*
(C
A. The law requires satisfactory evidence of insanity. B. Insan-
ity in the eye of the law is nothing less than the prolonged departure,
without an adequate external cause, from the state of feeling, and
modes of thinking, usual to the individual when in health.
c. The
burden of proof of insanity lies on those asserting its existence.
D. Control over persons represented as insane is not to be assumed
without necessity. E. Of all evidence, that of medical men ought
to be given with the greatest care, and received with the utmost cau-
tion. F. The medical man's evidence should not merely pronounce
the party insane, but give sufficient reasons for thinking so.
For
this purpose it behooves him to have investigated accurately the col-
lateral circumstances. G. The imputations of friends or relations,
&c., are not entitled to any weight or consideration in inquiries of this
nature, but ought to be dismissed from the minds of the judge and
jury, who are bound to form their conclusions from impartial evi-
dence of facts, and not to be led astray by any such fertile sources of
error and injustice.
The second class of propositions is well known to your readers. A
relative has only to buy two doctors, two surgeons, or even two of
* We are indebted to Lord Mansfield for this phrase,
READIANA.
61 ·
ܘ
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1.
""
those whose poverty though not their will consents," and he can
clap in a madhouse any rich old fellow that is spending his money
absurdly on himself, instead of keeping it like a wise man for his
heirs; or he can lock up any eccentric, bodily-afflicted, troublesome,
account-sifting young fellow.
In other words, the two classes of people, who figure as suspected
witnesses in one set of clauses, are made judge, jury, and execu-
tioner, in another set of clauses, one of which, by a refinement of
injustice, shifts the burden of proof from the accusers to the accused
in all open proceedings subsequent to his wrongful imprisonment.-
Shelford, 56.
"C
Now what is the clew to this apparent contradiction—to this
change in the weathercock of legislatorial morality? It is mighty
simple. The maxims, No. 1, are the practice and principle that
govern what are called Commissioners of Lunacy.' At these the
newspaper reporters are present. No. 2 are the practice and princi-
ple legalized, where no newspaper reporters are present. Light and
darkness.
Since, then, the Law de Lunatico has herself told us that she is an
idiot and a rascal when she works in the dark, but that she is wise,
cautious, humane, and honest in the light, my orphan and myself
should indeed be mad to disregard her friendly hint as to her double
character. This, gentlemen, is why we come to you first: you
must give us publicity, or refuse us justice. We will go to
the Commissioners in Lunacy, but not before their turn. We
dare not abjure experience. We know the Commissioners: we
know them intus et in cute; we know them better than they know
themselves. They are of two kinds: one kind I shall dissect else-
where; the rest are small men afflicted with a common malady, a
commonplace conscience.
These soldiers of Xerxes won't do their duty if they can help it;
if they can't, they will. With them justice depends on Publicity,
and Publicity on you. Up with the lash!!
I am now instructed by him who has been called mad, but whose
intelligence may prove a match for theirs, to propose to his enemies
to join him in proving to the public that their convictions are as
sincere as his. The wording of the challenge being left to me, I in-
vite them to an issue, thus:-" My lads, you were game to enter a
dwelling-house kept by women, and proposed to break open a -
woman's chamber-door, till a woman standing on the other side
with a cudgel, threatened to split your skulls,' and that chilled
your martial ardor.
C
Vos etenim juvenes animum geritis muliebrem
Illa virago viri.
"And now you are wasting your money (and you will want it all),
dressing up policemen, setting spies, and in short, doing the Vene-
tian business in England; and all for what? You want our orphan's
body. Well, it is to be had without all this dirty maneuvering, and
silly small treachery. Go to Jonathan Weymouth, Esq., of Clifford's
Inn. He is our orphan's solicitor, duly appointed and instructed;
he will accept service of a writ de lunatico inquirendo, and on the
writ being served, Mr. Weymouth will enter into an undertaking
H
:
༦༢,༥ 3་
£1
62
READIANA.
"
with you to produce the body of E. P. F. in court, to abide the issue
of a daylight investigation. If you prove him mad, you will take
him away with you; if you fail to make him out mad before a dis-
interested judge, at all events you will prove yourselves to be honest,
though somewhat hard-hearted, men and women.
>>
Should this proposal be accepted, the proceedings of our op-
ponents will then assume a respectability that is wanting at present,
and in that case these letters will cease. Sub judice lis erit.
1 am, Gentlemen,
Your obedient servant,
CHARLES READE.
NO. III.
GARRICK CLUB, October,
GENTLEMEN,-My last letter concluded by inviting the person,
who had incarcerated my orphan on the plea of insanity, to prove
that, whether mistaken or not, he was sincere. No such evidence
has been offered. He has therefore served a writ upon this person
and will proceed to trial with all possible expedition, subject of
course to the chances of demurrer, or nonsuit.*
It would not be proper to say more, pendente lite. But, some shal-
low comments having been printed elsewhere, it seems fair that
those Editors, who had the humanity, the courtesy, and, let me add,
the intelligence, to print my letters, should possess this proof that
their columns have not been trifled with by
Their obliged
And obedient servant,
CHARLES READE.
NO. IV.
"Cunctando restituit rem.
GENTLEMEN,-When, four months ago, I placed my orphan
under the wing of the law, I hoped I had secured him that which is
every Englishman's right, a trial by judge and jury; and need draw
no further upon your justice and your pity. I have clung to this
hope in spite of much sickness of heart, month after month; but at
last both hope and faith are crushed in me, and I am forced to see,
that without a fresh infusion of publicity, my orphan has no reason-
able hope of getting a public trial, till he shall stand with his op-
ponents before the God of the fatherless. I do not say this merely
because his trial has been postponed, and postponed, but because it
has been thrice postponed on grounds that can be reproduced three
hundred times just as easily as thrice, unless the light of publicity
is let in.
Let me premise that the matters I have to relate are public acts,
* Individually I entertain no apprehension on this score. The constitu-
tional rights of Englishmen are safe in the hands of the present judges; and
trial by jury, in a case of this character, is one of those rights-provided, of
course, the proper Defendant has been sued.
*
1
READIANA.
63
and as proper for publication and criticism as any other judicial
proceedings, and that they will make the tour of Europe and the
United States in due course. When the day of trial drew near in
November last, defendant's attorney applied to have trial postponed
for a month or two, for the following sole reason:-He swore, first,
that a Mr. 3 Stars, dwelling at Bordeaux, was a witness without
whom defendant could not safely proceed to trial; and he swore,
second, that said 3 Stars had written to him on the 18th November,
that, owing to an accident on the railway, he was then confined to
his room, and had little hope of being able to leave Bordeaux for a
month. No. 1, you will observe, is legal evidence: but No. 2 is no
approach toward legal evidence. Nothing is here sworn to but the
fact that there exists an unsworn statement by a Mr. 3 Stars On
this demi-semi-affidavit, unsupported by a particle of legal evidence,
a well-meaning judge, in spite of a stiff remonstrance, postponed
the trial, nominally for one month, really for two months. I fear
my soul is not so candid as the worthy judge's, for on the face of
this document, where he saw veracity, I saw disingenuousness,
stand out in alto relievo. So I set the French police upon Mr 3
Stars, and received from the Prefect of La Gironde an official docu-
ment, a copy of which is inclosed herewith. By it we learn, first,
that the accident or incident was not what plain men understand by
an accident on a railway. The man hurt a leg getting down from a
railway carriage, just as he might from his own gig. Second, that
it was not quite so recent as his suppression of date might lead a
plain man to presume, but was three weeks old when he wrote as
above; third, that he must have been well long before the 9th of
December, for, writing on that day, the Prefect describes him as
having made frequent excursions into Medoc since his incident.
Unfair inaccuracy once proved in so important a statement, all be-
lief is shaken. In all human probability, Mr. 3 Stars was convales-
cent on the 18th November, viz., three weeks after his railway inci-
dent. But it is certain he was well on or about the 1st December,
and that, consequently, he could with case have attended that trial,
which his statement that he could not move till about the 18th De-
cember caused to be put off for two months. What man who knows
the world can help suspecting that the arbitrary period of a month
was arranged between him and the attorney, not so much with ref-
erence to the truth as to the sittings of the Court at Westminster
upon special jury cases?
So much for abjuring the experience of centuries, and postponing
an alleged lunatic's trial for two months, upon indirect testimony
that would be kicked out of a County Court in a suit for a wheel-
barrow; hearsay stuccoed, nursery evidence; not legal evidence.
Well, gentlemen, the weary months crawled on, and the lame, old,
broken-windowed, loitering beldame, British justice, hobbled up to
the scratch again at last. Mr. 3 Stars was now in England. That
sounded well. But he soon showed us mat-
"Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans currunt."
His health still fluctuated to order. Pretty well as to the wine
trade; very sick as to the Court of Queen's Bench. He comes from
Bordeaux to London (and that is a good step), burning, we arc told,
64
READIANA.
C
to attend the trial at Westminster. The trial draws near: he whips
off-to Hampstead? No;-to Wales. Arrived there, he writes, in
due course, to his late colleague in affidavit, that he can't travel.
This time the gentleman that does the interlocutory swearing for
the defendant (let us call him Fabius), doubting whether the 3 Stars
malady would do again by itself, associated with his malade
affidavitaire " two ladies, whom, until they compel me to write a
fifth letter, I will call Mrs. Plausible and Mrs. Brand. Non-legal
evidence as before. Fabius swears, not that 3 Stars is ill; that
might have been dangerous; but that 3 Stars says he is ill: which is
true. Item that Mrs. Brand cannot cross the ditch that parts France
from England, because she has had an operation performed. It
turns out to have been twelve months ago. Item, Fabius swears that
Mrs. Plausible says, the little Plausibles have all got scarlatina; and,
therefore, Fabius swears that Mrs. Plausible thinks the constitu-
tional rights of the English people ought to remain in doubt and
suspense, in the person of our orphan, till such time as the said
<< A
scarlatina has left her nursery (and the measles not arrived?),
tout bambin tout honneur.
""
All which conjectural oaths, and sworn conjectures, and nursery
dialectics, they took to Mr. Justice Erle, of all gentlemen in the
world; and moved to postpone the trial indefinitely. Early in the
argument their counsel having, I think, gone through the schools
at Oxford, took a distaste to the Irish syllogism that gleamed on his
brief; videlicet, no witness who has scarlatina can come to Westmin-
ster and stand cross-examination by Q.C. Little b, c, and d are not
witnesses, but have got scarlatina.
Ergo, capital A can't come to Westminster and stand cross-ex-
amination by Q.C.
Counsel threw over Mrs. Plausible and Hibernian logic generally,
and stood on the 3 Stars malady, second edition, and the surgical
´operation that was only twelve months old. But Mr. Justice Erle
declined to postpone human justice till sickness and shamming should
be no more. He refused to ignore the plaintiff, held the balance,
and gave them a just and reasonable delay, to enable them to ex-
amine their "malades affidavitaires upon commission. He was
about to fix Saturday, Jan. 5, for the trial. They then pleaded
hard for Monday. This was referred to plaintiff's attorney, who
conceded that point. Having accepted this favor, which was clearly
a conditional one, and only part of the whole arrangement, they were,
I THINK, bound by professional good faith not to disturb the com-
pact. They held otherwise: they instantly set to work to evade Mr.
Justice Erle's order, by tinkering the Irish syllogism. In just the
time that it would take to send Mrs. Plausible a letter, and say it is
no use the little Plausibles having scarlatina; you must have it
yourself, madam; you had better have it by telegraph-Mrs. Plausi-
Scarlatina
ble announces the desired malady, but not upon oath.
is easily said." Il va sans dire que they don't venture before Mr.
Justice Erle again with their tinkered affidavit. They slip down to
Westminster, and surprise a fresh judge, who has had no oppor-
tunity of watching the rise and progress of disease. Their counsel
reads the soldered affidavit. Plaintiff's counter affidavits are then
intrusted to him to read. What does he do? He reads the preamble,
""
"C
SP
}
*
i
!
::
READIANA.
65
but burks the affidavits. The effect was inevitable. Even bastard
affidavits cannot be met by rhetoric. They can only be encountered
by affidavits. Judges decide, not on phrases, but on the facts before
them. Plaintiff's facts being silenced, and defendant's stated, the
judge naturally went with defendant, and postponed the trial.
(No. 3.)
Now, gentlemen, I am the last man in the world to cry over
spilled milk. I don't come to you to tinker the untinkerable past,
but, for the future, to ask a limit to injustice in its worst form, trial
refused.
44
Without your help, this alleged lunatic is no nearer the term of
his sufferings; no nearer the possibility of removing that frightful
stigma, which is not stigma only, but starvation; no nearer to trial
of his sanity by judge and jury, than he was four months ago.
True, there are now three judges who will not easily be induced to
impede the course of justice in this case; but there are other unin-
formed judges who may be surprised into doing it in general.
Fabius can at any day of any month swear that some male or female
witness says she wants to come into the witness-box, and can't.
And so long as Jack swears that Jill says is confounded with
legal evidence, on interlocutory motions, justice can be defeated to
the end of time, under color of postponement. Gentlemen, it is a
known fact among lawyers that, in nine cases out of ten, postpone-
ment of trial has no other real object but evasion of trial by tiring
out the plaintiff, or breaking his heart, or ruining him in expenses.
J}
1 see little reason whatever to doubt that this is a principal object
here. Defendants have a long purse. Plaintiff is almost a pauper
in fact, whatever he may be in law. Mr. 3 Stars, sworn to as an
essential witness, has not seen the boy for years. How can he,
therefore, be a very essential witness to his insanity at or about the
period of his capture? Dr. Pillbox or Mr. Sawbones must be better
cards so far: in a suit at law the evidence of insanity, like that of
sanity, cannot be spread out thin over disjointed years, like the little
bit of butter on a schoolboy's bread. Mr. 3 Stars may be an evi-
dence as to figures: but then the books are to be in court subpœna;
and nobody listens much to any of us swearing arithmetic, when a
ledger is speaking. The lady I have called Mrs. Plausible, would
not, in my humble opinion, go into a witness-box if she were paid a
hundred pounds a minute. I mean this anything but discourte-
ously.
I implore all just and honest men, especially those who are in the
service of the State, to try and realize the frightful situation in
which postponement of trial keeps an alleged lunatic. The blood-
hounds are hunting him all this time. There were several men
looking after him the very last day he lost his hopes of immediate
trial. Suppose that, on unsubstantial grounds, and illegal evidence,
time should be afforded to find him out and settle the questions of
fact and law, by brute force, what complexion would these thought-
less delays of justice assume then in the eye of the nation; ay, and,
to do them justice, in the consciences of those whose credulity would
have made the blood-hounds of a lunatic asylum masters of an argu-
ment that has been now for many months referred to the Lord Chief
Justice of England and a special jury? Mind, the constitution has
8
C
66
READIANA.
been tampered with; "habeas corpus" has been suspended by the
boobies that framed the Lunacy Acts. The judges have power to
impede justice, but none to impede injustice. In these peculiar
cases, I am advised, they can't order a sane man out of a lunatic
asylum into the witness-box. Justice hobbles, but injustice flies to
its mark. 1 declare to you that I live in mortal terror lest some evil
should befall this man, under the very wing of the court-not of
course from the defendant-but from some member or members of
the gang of stupid ruffians I am assured are still hanging about the
skirts of the defense; men some of whom have both bloodshed and
reasonshed on their hands already. My very housemaids have been
tampered with to discover where" the pursuer," as the Scotch call
him, is hiding and quaking. Is such an anomaly to be borne? Is
a man to be at the same time run from with affidavits and chased
with human blood-hounds? Is this a state of things to be prolonged,
without making our system the scorn and laughing-stock of all the
citizens and lawyers of Europe?
Fletcher v. Fletcher only wants realizing. But some people are
so stupid, they can realize nothing that they have not got in their
hands, their mouths or their bellies. This is no common case; no
common situation. This particular Englishman sues not merely
for damages, but to recover lost rights dearer far than money, of
which rights he says he is unjustly robbed; his right to walk in day-
light on the soil of his native land, without being seized and chained
up for life like a nigger or a dog; his footing in society, his means
of earning bread, and his place among mankind. For a lunatic is a
beast in the law's eye and society's; and an alleged lunatic is a
lunatic until a jury pronounces him sane.
I appeal to you, gentlemen, is not such a suitor sacred in all good
men's minds? Is he not defendant as well as plaintiff? Why, his
stake is enormous compared with the nominal defendant's; and, if
1 know right from wrong, to postpone his trial a fourth time, with-
out a severe necessity, would be to insult Divine justice, and trifle
with human misery, and shock the common sense of nations.
I am, your obedient servant,
CHARLES READE.
With this a copy is inclosed of the French Prefect's letter, and
other credentials. These documents are abandoned to your discre-
tion.
Nothing in the above letter is to be construed as assuming that the
defendant has a bad case. He may have a much better one than
the plaintiff. I am not asking for the latter a verdict to which he
may have no right; but a trial, to which he has every right.
BORDEAUX, le 9 Décembre, 1858.
MONSIEUR,-En réponse à la lettre que vous m'avez adressée, à
la date du 26 Novembre dernier, j'ai l'honneur de vous transmettre
les renseignements qui m'ont été fournis sur le Sieur Cunliffe, sujet
anglais.
Il est
Le Sieur Cunliffe demeure à Bordeaux, rue Corie, 43.
négociant en vins et paraît jouir de l'estime des personnes qui le
connaissent.
#
་ ་ ་
A
READIANA.
67
Il est vrai qu'un accident lui est arrivé, il y a un mois et demi, sur
le chemin de fer; il est tombé en descendant et s'est blessé à une
jambe; par suite il a gardé la chambre pendant quelque temps, mais
aujourd'hui il paraît être rétabli; vaque à ses occupations ordinaires
et fait souvent des excursions dans le Médoc, à quelques lieues de
Bordeaux.
Recevez, Monsieur, l'assurance de ma parfaite considération,
Le Préfet de la Gironde,
(Signed)
A MONSIEUR CHARLES READE,
6, BOLTON Row, MAYFAIR, LONDRES.
In spite of letter four: the trial was postponed twice more.
At last it came and is reported in The Times of July 8, 1859. The
court was filled with low repulsive faces of madhouse attendants
and keepers, all ready to swear the man was insane. He was put
into the witness-box, examined and cross-examined eight hours, and
the defendant succumbed without a struggle. The coming damages
were compounded for an annuity of£100 a year, £50 cash, and the
costs.
As bearing upon this subject, my letter to the Pall Mall Gazette of
Jan. 17, 1870, entitled, How Lunatics' Ribs get Broken," should
be read. This letter is now reprinted at the beginning of Hard
Cash.
46
LETTER TO MR. J. R. LOWELL
(UNITED STATES MINISTER),
ON INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
19, ALBERT GATE, KNIGHTSBRIDGE,
September 2, 1880.
DEAR MR. LOWELL,-You are good enough to desire my
opinion upon a proposed Copyright Treaty between the United
States and Great Britain, the principal feature of which is the
granting of Copyright, provided the book be manufactured in the
country so granting it by a subject or citizen thereof within three
months of its publication by the author."
To reply to this outline I must ask to dissect it; for here in one
sentence are two proposals that I consider heterogeneous, and even
discordant.
"C
Permit me then to put the matter thus:—
1.-The book to be manufactured in the country granting Copy-
right, by a subject or citizen.
2.-This to be done (and I conclude the book published) within
three months, &c.
No. 1.-Let us examine precisely the grievance this treaty proposes
to alleviate.
An author's work which, when worth pirating, is the fruit of great
labor, consists of an essential substance and a vehicle,
+
68
READIANA.
1
1
The substance is the composition; the vehicle is generally paper
and words written with ink.
That the composition is the substance-though puny lawyers and
petty statesmen cannot see it, is shown by this-it can be sold vivâ
voce apart from paper and written or printed words: dramatic com-
positions are so sold, and the first Epic poem was so delievered to
the public for centuries, and the Chronicles of Froissart were sold
vivâ voce by the author, and to his great profit, and no copies made
till he died; and the public used to pay Dickens a much higher
price for his spoken compositions, than for the same compositions
papered, printed, and bound.
A printed book, or play, is only the manuscript multiplied; the
composition remains the substance; the paper, print, and binding,
are still a mere vehicle, and not the only one; the Theater sells the
same composition with quite a different vehicle.
Now the grievance of authors against nations cultivating piracy is
this-they rob the foreign workman, who produces the substance,
of a book or play, yet remunerate all the workmen, whether native or
foreign, who produce the mere vehicle. The injury is leveled at the
foreign author quâ author, and not a quâ foreigner.
Let a foreign author cross the water with a play and a book. Let
him go into a theater and a printing-house; let him play one of those
many characters he has created in his drama, and print fifty pages
of his own composition, he can extort remuneration-although he is
a foreigner-for both vehicles; but he can enforce none for the far
more valuable substance he has created with infinitely greater,
higher, and longer labor. Here then is an exceptional fraud leveled
at exceptional merit, and one producing laborer picked out of a dozen
for pillage, though what he produces contributes more to the aggre-
gate value, than the labor of all the other workmen concerned.
This iniquity may pay a handful of booksellers, or theatrical
managers, in a nation cultivating Piracy, but it massacres the
authors of that nation by the competition of stolen compositions, and
it robs the nation of the habit of literary and dramatic invention,
which is a greater national treasure than any amount of stolen com-
positions, since the nation, which harbors pirates, has to pay the
full price for the vehicles, and does not get the substance or compo-
sition for nothing, any the more because its booksellers and theatri-
cal managers do. Indeed, as to the latter, the prices are never low.
ered to the native public one cent, in those cases where the manager
steals the drama from a foreign author.
Now proposition 1, taken singly, certainly cures the above griev-
ance, so far as printed books are concerned.
Authors have a moral right to be paid for their compositions, in
every nation where the vehicle is paid for and the combination sold,
not given away; but they have no moral claim, that I am aware of,
to create and sell the vehicle in a distant land, and if they have no
such right, still less can their native publishers-mere occasional
assignees of copyright-pretend to acquire a right from authors,
which authors themselves do not claim.
The United States are a protectionist nation, and it would be
egotistical and childish of English authors to expect that nation to
depart from its universal policy, and to make an exception in favor of
wp
READIANA.
69
"no partial-
authors, and their mere occasional assignees; our cry is "
ity!" To ask you to deviate from your universal policy would be
to ask for " some partiality.
""
Proposition 2.-This rests on no basis of universal equity or of
uniform national policy. It does not come from the mind of any
American lawyer or statesman. It is one of those subtle sug-
gestions of Piracy, with which all copyright acts are marred. Copy-
rights are neither meal nor meat, and therefore, like other products
of high civilization, they cannot obtain their just value on a forced
sale. But three months to transact the sale of the composition and
also create the vehicle is a very forced sale.
Habits are strong, and this proviso would encourage the bad habit
the treaty professes to cure, instead of stimulating a good one. It
would turn all the publishers, on both sides of the water, into Lot's
wives, hankering after dear old Piracy, and longing to put the clock
on three months. By hanging back during that short period they
might drive even popular authors into a corner. But the proviso
would do a much worse thing than that-the rising American author,
who is literally withering under the present system, and who is the
victim that needs loyal and earnest protection, far more than any
British author does-would be juggled, under this proviso. For
some years he must necessarily come into our market at a certain
disadvantage independent of law. British publishers would either
offer him one-tenth of his value or demand time to see how his book
sold in the United States: and then, having gained time, would use
this proviso, steal his composition, if it proved a success, or chuck
him a bone instead of his just slice.
But these comments, you will understand, are leveled at the nude
proviso as you have presented it to me.
If your government has foreseen that it is certain to be abused,
and to render the whole treaty more or less illusory, and therefore
intends to control it by some other clause, that is another matter.
If not, and the proviso has been incautiously inserted with the rea-
sonable desire to protect the public against a foreign author's refusal
to sell his copyright at all, or on reasonable terms, the whole case
could be met by an additional clause giving the foreign author or
proprietor the right to apply to the Judges in Banco for an extension
of the terms, on the ground that he had offered the copyright, or a
share in it, or the use of it, but had been unable to obtain terms
corresponding in any degree with his market value at home. The
judges to have the right to receive written evidence, less strict than
a jury would require, and to extend the term or authorize the foreign
proprietor to publish through a native agent, or afford some other
relief, under the vital conditions of the treaty.
Having gone deeper into the matter than I intended, I may as
well volunteer a remark or two outside your queries, which may be
of service to the American Legislator, if he will receive it from me.
There are two great literary properties of nearly equal value and
importance.
1. A man's exclusive right to print and publish the composition
he has created, whether history, romance, treatise, or drama, etc.
2. His exclusive right to represent on a public stage the dramatic
composition he has created.
70
READIANA.
""
No. 1 is called Copyright, No. 2 is called Stage-right. But, un-
fortunately, the Anglo-Saxon muddlehead has hitherto avoided the
accurate terms, stage right, and applied, iu the teeth of sense, gram-
mar, and logic, the imbecile phrase, dramatic copyright," to No.
2. But the phrase, "dramatic copyright," means the sole right of
printing and publishing a play-book, or it means nothing at all. It
cannot mean, nor be made to mean the right of representing a play.
Now men are the slaves of words; and so our lawgivers and yours,
having the word "copyright" dinned eternally into their ears, and
never hearing the word "stage-right," are at this moment in a fool's
paradise. They imagine copyright to be an all important right and
stage-right an insignificant affair.
Pure chimera! stage-right is at least as important as copyright,
and international morality and sound policy demand international
stage-right as much as they do international copyright.
Our two nations invest their money on the following scale.
1. A vast sum, daily, in newspapers, of which the title is copyright;
but not the contents. These protect themselves from fatal piracy;
they die a natural death every afternoon, and so escape assassination
next morning.
2. A small sum, daily, in books.
3. A large sum, daily, in represented plays-one hundred thousand
pounds sterling per day at the very least.
As regards 2 and 3, you will find the comparative scale indicated
in the newspapers themselves; these, with unerring instinct, discover
the habits of their nation. Take them through the breadth of the
land, you will find they review a book now and then, but they are
eternally puffing plays, and at great length.
Now by piracy of stage-right from foreigners, a nation loses its
chance of that great treasure, a national drama, and does not get
one cent per annum in exchange for that serious deprivation. The
piractical publisher pretends he sells a book cheaper for stealing the
composition. It is not true; for, if he bought the composition under
a copyright act, he would sell all the copies instead of sharing the
sale with other pirates; and so could sell cheaper than in the way of
Piracy: but, if not true, it is plausible, and has deceived shallow
statesmen by the score.
But the piratical manager of a theater does not even pretend to
lower his prices to the public in those cases, when he steals the
composition.
There are, besides all this, two special reasons why you should
propose international stage-right to the British Government, along
with international copyright, and not as an afterclap, which you
will have to do if you will not listen to Cassandra, better known in
Knightsbridge as Charles Reade. One is, that the people most
likely to give you trouble in this country, over international copy-
right, are the British publishers. Habitual creators of the vehicle
and not of the composition and the copyright, they will naturally
think it very hard they are not to be allowed to create the vehicle in
the United States.
Their opposition might be serious; because, for some generations,
they have been allowed to thrust themselves forward and put the
authors unreasonably in the background,
•
·
READIANA.
71
.
To discuss with our Government the two great properties authors
create, viz., stage-right and copyright, would tend to open John
Bull's eyes and show him which is really the leading character in
literary property, the authors, who create all the stage-rights and all
the copyrights, or the publishers, who acquire by assignment about
one-third of the copyrights only, and none of the stage-rights.
The second reason is that at present the American dramatic author
suffers a special iniquity, by Act of Parliament, deteriorating the
common law of England.
If a British author writes a drama, represents it on the stage in
Great Britain, but does not publish it, and then exports it to the
United States, he possesses the sole right of representation in the
United States, or, at all events, in the principal States. This has
been decided by your judges after full and repeated discussion.
The American dramatist, until 1842, possessed the same right
under the law of England; and accordingly Macklin v. Richardson,
which is the English case that protects all unpublished dramas
under the common law, was lately cited with authority in the trib-
unals of the United States on the occasion I have referred to.
But our copyright act of 1842 poked its nose into stage-right, with
which it had nothing on earth to do, and inserted an unjust, op-
pressive, and unreasonable clause, outlawing from stage-right all
dramas not first represented in Great Britain. The framers of this,
and a similar clause in the body of the act, mistook the root of an
author's title. The poor souls imagined it accrues by publication
or representation under an Act of Parliament, whereas it accrues
earlier in time, and by an older and much higher title, viz. : creation,
and under the common law.
Test.-Let A. write a MS. and lend it to B. B. print and pub.
lish it, and register it at Stationers' Hall, and hand the MS. back,
uninjured, without a scratch on it, to A. A. would sue B. for
breach of copyright, under the common law, and B.'s parliamentary
title, by publication and registration, would prove not worth a rush
against the precedent title by creation and common law.
The American dramatist, therefore, is by the above clause in an
act that had no need to run, like a frolicsome colt, out of copyright
into stage-right, and so extend the field of its blunders, subjected to
a special iniquity.
In copyright there is, at present, a sort of equity of fraud. Rob
my authors, and I will rob your authors. But in stage-right it is
pure iniquity, and the American dramatist the victim.
These are the principal reasons why I venture to advise you not to
exclude international stage-right from your discussion of inter-
national copyright with the British Government.
I must now apologize for my presumption-which, however, arises
from good-will-and for the crude and hasty character of these com-
ments. But I present them to one who is well able to sift the chaff
from the grain, and so make the best of them.
1 am,
My dear Mr. Lowell,
Yours very sincerely,
CHARLES READE.
}
·
72
READIANA.
·
.
VICARIA.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY TELEGRAPH.”
SIR,-There is a little stroke of business going to be done next
Friday in the little town of Uxbridge, against which 1 beg to record
a little protest. It is a public auction of a very small personalty pro-
fessedly for the benefit of the Crown; but I apprehend the proceeds
will go to another branch of the revenue. This sale and the threat-
ened appropriation of certain money which was regarded by the de-
ceased holder as trust-money, arose out of the following circum-
stances: The Rev. W. Orr, a Nonconformist minister, wrote, with
his own hand, August 6, 1881, a will, containing a just and proper
disposition of his small property. He bequeathed £50 to New Col-
lege, Hampstead; £50 in three sums to three poor Christian women
who had been his housekeepers at different periods; a few of his
choicest books to clerical friends; his gold watch and chain to a Miss
Ellen Orr; and the balance, after payment of expenses, to a Mrs.
W. Orr. But as to a sum of £300, he did not bequeath it, but di-
rected it to be returned to Miss Sarah Peters; and he appointed a
Mr. Harris his executor. Mr. Orr showed this will at various times
to several persons who knew his handwriting; and its contents be-
came public. They even reached the three poor housekeepers; and
that is a sad feature of the case at present. A few days before Mr.
Orr died, a dear friend of his learned that his will was not attested,
and advised him to repair that omission. Mr. Orr assented, but
death surprised him before he could execute his declared purpose.
He died February 7, 1882, deeply mourned by his own flock and re-
vered by all good Christians in the town of Uxbridge.
""
He had no relations in law. His will was attested, in fact, by half
a dozen witnesses, but not, in law, "by two," and therefore his
property lay at the mercy of what cuckoos still call "the Crown,
but accuracy-if such a bird of paradise existed in England-would
call "the Revenue."
However, high-minded men, acting in the name of the Crown,
have of late been very shy of confiscating even in cases of felony, and
as Mr. Orr was not a felon, but only a saint and an Irishman, and
therefore could not, ex vi terminorum, be a man of business, we
hoped that the Lords of the Treasury would respect his solemn
wishes, since they are as clear, and clearer, than if the will had been
drawn by a lawyer's clerk and signed by two witnesses.
Accordingly the matter went before the Lords of the Treasury in
two forms.
1. Sarah Peters petitioned for the return of her £300, as above.
2. Mr. Harris, the executor, offered to act and discharge all the
debts, expenses, and legacies, if the Lords of the Treasury would
forego their claim.
>
Miss Peters tells me she has received no reply.
Mr. Harris had heard only from the Solicitor of the Treasury,
ordering an immediate sale of the property-with one exception.
READIANA.
73
His vicarious Majesty, the Solicitor for the Treasury, accords to the
executor the right to withhold the choice books, but not the right to
withhold the gold watch and chain, which were as solemnly be-
queathed to a person specified as the books were. Now, I did not
expect this Imperial edict and high-minded, though illogical, dis-
tinction to be signed by the chief of that bureau, for he has valued
books far more than gold from his youth up until now. But, by
what I can learn, the edict is not signed by any Lord of the Treasury
whatever. It is clear on the face of things that neither the petition
of Miss Peters nor the proposal of Mr. Harris has been laid before
the Lords of the Treasury, nor considered by responsible men. Yet
prompt action is taken at once by vicarious rapacity. There is no
vice in any of the individuals concerned; it is merely a vicious sys-
tem. The Solicitor of the Treasury would not pounce upon this
property for his personal benefit; the Lords of the Treasury will bring
their understandings and their consciences to bear on the matter-
after a few months or years; and will probably decide in favor, not
of English law, but of Continental law and universal morality, both
of which support this deceased clergyman's will written by his own
hand and shown to his friends. But, meantime, this harsh auction,
ordered with inconvenient and indecorous haste, over a new-made
grave-this present activity of vicarious greed and dead silence as to
equity to come-have shocked and revoited a thousand mourners,
and cruelly disappointed the humble legatees as well as excited some
public odium. I do not wish to inflame their feelings, but to sug-
gest their removal. Therefore, as my views are always unintelligible
to the clerks and secretaries, the duffers, the buffers, and the agents,
of a public office, and I can no more get a manuscript past that in-
carnate rampart of vicaria" than Miss Peters or Mr. Harris can,
will you kindly allow me to approach the magnates of the Treasury
by the only direct road I know-viz., the columns of a great public
journal? I think, my lords, it would be well to let the people know
without delay that you intend personally to consider the question
whether or not, under the peculiar circumstances, any portion of this
deceased clergyman's estate, except the amount of legacy duty, shall
be finally appropriated by the State; and as regards the gold watch
and chain, it is not too late to withdraw them from the coming sale;
and I hope you will concede this favor, because, if they are thrown
into the melting-pot of the Treasury next Friday, for not being
hexaglot bibles, it may be difficult, even should Dr. Stevenson
vouchsafe his aid, to reintegrate and reconstruct the component parts
so as to recover their value to the legatee. To her they are not so
many ounces of jeweler's gold, but the souvenir of one who never
wasted time, yet lived for eternity.
(6
Yours faithfully,

"
让
​1
CHARLES READE.
C
a
:
1
+45
4
A
74
READIANA.
HANG IN HASTE, REPENT AT LEISURE.
A SUPPRESSED INDICTMENT.
12
FIRST LETTER.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY TELEGRAPH.”
September 29th, 1877.
SIR,-I read with surprise and deep concern these lines in the
Daily Telegraph, Sept. 27:-
1
"The Jury asked the learned Judge if they could have a copy of
the Judictment.
Mr. Justice Hawkins said, 'It would not help them in the least,
written as it was in legal phraseology.
"""
?
Now if the judge had said, "Of course, gentlemen, you have as
much right to examine the indictment as I have; but I warn you it
is written in a jargon you are not intended to understand, but only
to pronounce on, and so hang your fellow-creatures," there would
have been no harm done, and a wholesome reprimand administered
to the pedantic clique which words these public and terrible accusa-
tions in jargon and equivoques.
But I infer from your printed lines that the jury asked for a copy
of the indictment to compare with the condensed evidence, and did
not get one.
If so, the thing is monstrous, and vitiates the proceedings, credit-
able as they were in many respects. Consider, sir, the Crown is not
above the law. The Crown, in a prosecution of this sort, comes be-
fore the jury, who are the country, in the general character of plain-
tiff and proceeds by indictment. That indictinent is the grave and
deliberate accusation which the Crown, to guard against the errors
and defects of the tongue, submits in writing to the judge and the
jury. It is a legal document which the judge is bound to criticise
severely, on grounds of law. It is an allegation of facts and motives
the jury is equally bound to dissect severely, and compare it in every
particular with the evidence. Then, if there is a legal defect in it
no bigger than a pin's head, the judge can upset the case in spite of
its merits; and by the same rule-whatever the egotism of the legal
clique may think-if it vary from the truth in its allegations of fact
or of motives, which latter are the vital part of an indictment, it is
the duty of the jury to throw it over, or in certain cases to reduce
the verdict. And it does so happen that in cases of alleged homicide
the indictment ought always to be dissected without mercy by the
jury, for here, where the Crown ought to be most accurate, it is most
apt to exaggerate. The truth is, that many years ago the legal
advisers of the Crown thirsted for the blood of accused persons, and
framed indictments accordingly; and such is the force of precedent
こ
​READIANA.
175
that even now the Crown (or some attorney's clerk we are content to
call by that name) is somewhat given to equivocating, exaggerating,
and alleging more than can be proved, especially in the way of mo-
tives, which are the true sting of an indictment.
Whatever bad and unreasonable custom the legal clique, in dealing
with the nation, may have introduced into our courts, it is clearly
the duty of the Crown Solicitor to lay before the jury, who are the
country, not the copy, but twelve copies, of the indictment, before
the prosecuting counsel opens his lips. The judge has no better, no
other, title to a copy of the indictment than each several juryman
has. As to the jargon of indictments, I have not found it so thick
but that a plain man can pick out of the rigmarole the facts and
motives whereof what we call "the Crown" accuses the prisoner.
If it were, the matter should be looked into at once. All cliques,
however respectable, are public enemies at odd times. Many years
ago the country had to compel the clergy to read prayers
in a
language understanded of the people. Country v. Clique. Next
we had to compel a clique to give us the laws of England in En-
glish. Country v. Clique. By and by we had to force a clique to
drop the grossest compost of bad Latin and bad French nation ever
groaned under, and to give us our law pleadings in English. Coun-
try v. Clique. And now, if it is seriously asserted that the Crown
attacks the lives and liberties of Britons in a language not under-
standed of the country, though the country has to judge both Crown
and prisoner, it is time we copied ancestral wisdom, and put our
foot on imbecility No. 4. Country v. Clique.
??
These, however, are after-considerations; at present I stand upon
clear constitutional rights.
I understand the country demanded in open court a copy of that
indictment, and did not get one.
I repeat that demand in your columns, in order that the country
may see it, jargon, or no jargon, and compare it with the evidence
in your columns. Of course I do not address my demand to any
gentleman in particular. There are several copies in existence. No
doubt some just man will awake from his slumbers and send you a
copy. I earnestly hope to see it printed in extenso. Till then 1
forbear all comments on the case, because the issues are not before
me, any more than they were before the country at the trial.
CHARLES READE.
Your faithful servant,
SECOND LETTER.
October 2d, 1877.
SIR,-It is an old saying that one fool makes many. I have, how-
ever, discovered something more-viz., that one muddlehead some-
times makes a million, if he can get a popular journal to print him.
1 must take the world as it is; and in so grave and terrible a case,
I dare not let your correspondent "A. B." pass unanswered.
He is a lawyer, and does not pretend to deny that the jury have as
good a right to a copy of the indictment as the judge bas But he
says that in a large experience of criminal trials, he never knew a
judge to hand a copy of the indictment to the jury. He adds, in
the roundabout style of men who do not think clearly, what really
こ
​76
READIANA.
¿
comes to this, that as the judge talked a great deal and well, it did
not matter to the jury what the Crown wrote.
C
Now, sir, this is no answer to me. I never said the judge was
bound to volunteer a copy of the indictment to the jury; I never
denied the malpractice of the courts, and that the Crown Solicitor
does not hand twelve copies to the jury, though it is his duty. 1
have never denied that twelve unguarded jurymen, new to the
courts, often let the legal clique trepan them into trying a case with-
out studying the written issues. But ignorant persons can only
forego their own rights. Their ignorance does not forfeit the rights
of the informed. What we have to do with
What we have to do with is a jury which acted
on their rights and their duty. They were just enough, wise enough,
and wary enough, to demand, at a critical period of the trial, a copy
of the very words of the Crown upon which, and not upon the
judge's words, they had to say, Guilty or not Guilty." The judge
put off this their just and proper demand, and gave a reason which,
weighed against the wise and proper reasons of the jury and against
their constitutional right, sounds almost like. mere levity. By so
doing, he left them to give their verdict on his own spoken words
alone, and not on the written words of his Sovereign and theirs.
This is the case. I think it is without precedent and vitiates the
proceedings. If there is a precedent, however, it will be found and
quoted. But the country will expect it to be a precedent that fits the
case, without shuffling or equivocation, and meantime I hope the
execution will not be hurried, but time given for the country and
the Home Secretary to consider this fatal blot on the proceedings.
Indeed, the matter ought to be noticed in Parliament, especially in
the House of Commons.
I am, sir, your faithful servant,
CHARLES READE.
THIRD LETTER.
October 3d, 1877.
'It is Never too Late to
SIR, -Mr. Abbott says the author of
Mend" is soft-hearted. Not a bit of it. He is only harder-headed
than certain Englishmen. He proved in the story cited above that
the honest man who kills a thief in prison contrary to law is a greater
criminal than the thief. That was logic; not compassion. Mr.
Abbott now reminds us that pettifogging judges, looking too closely
into indictments, have quashed them on trumpery grounds of law,
in spite of evidence. This is notorious. But what is the inference?
are the judges not to be allowed a copy of the indictment? He has
proved that, or he has proved nothing; for no jury ever defeated
justice with a quibble on the indictment. In spite of these occa-
sional abuses, constitutional rights must not be tampered with. A
judge is as much entitled to a copy of the indictment as even the
jury are, who have to try the issues. What we have to do with is
a new thing-the separate indictments of four persons, submitted to
the judge, but not seen by the jury, though they asked for them,
and the jury delivering a sort of lump verdict on unseen indict-
ments, in which, perhaps, the Crown did not lump four very differ-
ent cases in one without any discrminating words whatever. Who
knows? The indictments are still suppressed. Another of your cor-
READIANA.
rypy
3
respondents draws me out by malicious misinterpretation. He puts
violent and cruel words into my mouth, and is reckless enough,
with my sober lines before him, to pretend that I compare Mr.
Justice Hawkins to Judge Jeffreys. Of course such unscrupulous
people can compel a man to notice them. The learned judge has
been my counsel, and I have profited by his abilities. 1 was never
so unfortunate as to have him against me, in court. I hope I never
shall. The jury asked by word of mouth for the indictment. He
replied, without much reflection, by word of mouth. His reply
was unfortunate, as many a hasty reply of my own has been, and,
as its effect was to deprive the jury of their constitutional rights, 1
think it vitiates the proceedings. As to the merits of the case, is it
fair of any man to tell the public what I think when I myself have
been so careful not to rush hastily into that question? As it hap-
pens, I approve some things in the learned judge's summing-up in
spite of the objection taken to those particulars by others. It is only
in one part of the subject I do not at present agree with him. Even
then, 1 desire to think well before I write, for no man feels more
than I do the responsibility to God and man of every one who uses
the vast power of a popular journal in a case of life and death.
Yours faithfully, CHARLES READE
1
3
FOURTH LETTER.
October 10th, 1877.
SIR, -When a woman of property is half-starved by people who
are eating her bread, and her husband, with his paramour, lives but
one mile distant, on the money of their injured benefactress, and the
victim dies covered with vermin and weighing about five stone, the
wildfire of indignation will, I hope, always run through every vein
of the country, and the judges share the just wrath of the gentry
and of the millions who work so hard to feed their own helpless
charges.
But great wrath, even when just, is still a fever of the mind, and
cannot discriminate. Whilst the heart is still hot with that fire
which has been so truly called "a passing frenzy” (ira brevis furor),
the culpable ones seem criminal, the criminal ones seem monsters,
and our great revenge has stomach for them all."
CC
1, who write these lines, am but a man recovering fast from a
fever in a nation which is recovering slowly but surely. I recover
fast, because, from my youth, I have been trained in a great school
to reason closely and discriminate keenly, and armed with Oxford
steel against the tricks and sophistries of rhetoric, against the
derangement of dates (which single artifice will turn true facts into
lies), against those fatal traps, equivoques in language, and against
all gaps in evidence, however small they may appear to the unwary:
I grieve to say that I receive shoals of insulting letters, telling me I
am a Whalleyite and a novelist, and so disqualified. This draws a
few unwilling words from me to disarm prejudice. I declared
against Orton in the Daily News before ever the Crown tried him. 1
then laid down the scientific principle which governs his case, the
doctrine of multiplied coincidences; and, though I write novels at
one time, I can write logic at another, and when I write a novel I
(93)
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READIANA.
Barkako eu des
+
;'
give the public my lowest gifts, but 1 give them my highest when I
write in a great journal upon life and death and justice. But the
best thing the public, and those who govern it, can do, will be to
go by things, not names, to sift my arguments as closely as I shall
analyze the evidence and the hasty inferences in the greatest judicial
error of modern times.
The verdict against the Stauntons and Rhodes is a hodge-podge,
in which the legally criminal and the legally culpable are con-
founded, and both sets of legal culprits are confounded with the
moral culprits, who are clear of the case by the law of England and
the rules of evidence that bind the Central Criminal Court.
Few observers of mankind will deny me this, which, indeed,
reads like a truism:
Where A, B, and C confound four things, and D, on the same evi-
dence, distinguishes them, it is a thousand to one that D is right,
and A, B, and C are wrong.
The position becomes even stronger when we find that A, B, and
C have been subject to several confusing influences. It may be
worth while to point out the confusing processes that muddled the
jury, of which processes some rise from the habitual malpractices of
this particular court, and others from faults that have been imported
into it for this single occasion.
PROCESSES OF CONFUSION.
1. The court, for its convenience, tried four dissimilar cases in
the lump, and the four prisoners stood together at the bar.
2. Being near and dear to each other, and involved in one danger,
they suffered and sympathized openly.
""
3. Twelve unguarded men looked on, and deluded by the senses,
which are always stronger than the judgment in untrained minds,
said to themselves "they are all in one boat. So they were-in
one family boat, not one legal boat. But the family boat being in a
legal dock, these good souls took it for a legal boat directly.
4. The four separate indictments, with their curious counts,
would have tended to cure this. But here the malpractices of the
court came in with another process of confusion.
By the law of England the arraigment of a prisoner consists of
three parts; (a) He is called to the bar by his name; (b) the indict-
ment is read to him, every syllable of it; (c) he is invited to plead to
the indictment, and no other form of words, and he has a right to
plead guilty to one count, and not guilty to another count; and, if
he is legally culpable, but not criminal, it is the wisest thing he
can do.
This being done by the Clerk of Arraigns, the paper that Clerk
has read from becomes, from the universal practice of all our courts,
the property of the jury so long as that trial lasts.
But the Clerk of Arraigns, by a modern malpractice, broke this
just and necessary law, and the judge let him. So each prisoner
was grossly robbed of his right to admit one count and deny another,
and the jury were grossly robbed of a copy of the indictment, though
the mere preliminary jury, whose responsibility is so much less, had
one to study and find a true Bill on; and though it is not merely the
right but the duty of the jury, as laid down by Blackstone himself
L
1
READIANA.
79
66
very clearly, to study the indictment very closely and to find
guilty" on one count, and "not guilty" on another, and to carry
discrimination even further, for they can find guilty on one half of
a divisible count and acquit upon the other.
5. Law, justice, and common sense having thus been defied by
the Central Criminal Court, and the great written instrument of
discrimination withheld from them contrary to law, they were ma- ·
nipulated and confused by a rhetorician on the Bench, who picked
out the highest count and ignored the others, and with gentle hand
extinguished their one faint gleam of incipient discrimination, and
left no doubt to the jury in a case crammed with doubts; which was
unprecedented.
The result corresponded with all these co-operating processes.
The judge laid down the law that whoever has by law, or takes
upon himself, the charge of a helpless person and does not give her
enough to live upon, is guilty of murder by omission. He did not
say whoever has one-fourth of the charge, for that is not the law.
THE CHARGE.
UNDER this ruling, on which I have something to say hereafter,
the jury on the evidence contrived to see four persons, all of whom
had either by law or their own act "the charge
"the charge" of Harriet Staun-
ton, and all saw her pine to death and let her pine to death.
Now let all men, in whose minds the very landmarks of truth are
not obliterated, look on that picture conjured up by a jury under
several processes of confusion along with this picture which the
evidence reveals to a discriminating eye.
Patrick Staunton, a committer of a crime, responsible for Harriet
Staunton's life by a pecuniary contract with Louis. He docks her
food, strikes her, terrifies and strikes his wife for interfering, &c.
The evidence suggests that if the man had died in 1876, Harriet
Staunton might be alive now. He comes under the judge's ruling.
He had the charge. This is the only committer of them all. Yet
the jury can see nothing exceptional in his position. We now step
down to a much lower grade of crime.
>>
THE MERE OMITTERS.
<<
At the head is Mrs. Patrick Staunton, a grown-up woman, experi-
enced, and no fool. Her neglect of Harriet is prima facie barbarous;
but it transpires that there was conjugal influence and coercion.
The woman encountered blows in defense of the victim. The deter-
ring effect of those blows, and her pregnancy, cannot be exactly esti-
mated; nor is it necessary. The law, already disposed to assume
conjugal influence, except in an indisputable case of murder, is
amply satisfied with the admissions made on this head, and she is
not a criminal, but a culpable offender. Two years' imprisonment.
The next omitter is Clara Brown. She slept in the same room with
the victim; allowed the vermin to accumulate; saw her sufferings
more than Mrs. P. Staunton: filled her own belly and let her perish;
nor did she show any positive goodness of heart, as the elder woman
did once or twice. I mean she never faced a blow nor got an angry
word, and she never told a soul till the Crown Solicitor inspired her
4
80
;
་
READIANA.
with higher sentiments. On the other hand, she was young, inex-
perienced, and stupid; and, though she saw most of the victim,
never anticipated her death, which blindness in her rouses a suspi-
cion that the whole set were much greater fools and smaller villains
than they look. We now take a step in law which is as wide as the
step down from the one committer to the four omitters. We go out
of the house. We don't even go next door, but to another house a
mile distant, where two self-indulgent adulterers were hiding them-
selves from Harriet Staunton and absorbed in adultery, which was
made smooth by Patrick's control of the injured wife. I never
knew how low the human understanding could sink till I saw a
jury who could confound this situation with that of Mrs. Patrick
Staunton and Clara Brown, two people living in the house where
Harriet Staunton pined on the first floor. That first floor Louis
Staunton and Alice Rhodes avoided from self-indulgent motives,
that are out of the case. Of these two persons, the law never had
any hold on Rhodes. A mistress living in one house is not bound
to provide food for a wife living in another. Rhodes is out of the
case. Louis Staunton, until some day in August, 1876, was deep in
the case. But the judge, in order to make hostile comments on his
niggardliness, let in as evidence that he made a contract with Pat-
rick Staunton of this kind-Patrick was to receive Harriet in his
own house, and receive twenty shillings per week. Louis was a
mean scoundrel to offer so small a sum, but a rustic laborer and
eight children live on less. It crushes the charge of murder as
completely as twenty pounds a week would. It is a contract in
which both contracting parties contemplated, not the death, but the
indefinite life of Harriet Staunton. Its very niggardliness proves
that on behalf of Louis Staunton. A man can transfer his legal re-
sponsibility. It is done daily. The legal responsibility of Louis
Staunton passed by that pecuniary contract to Patrick as much as
did the responsibility of that mother, who handed her child for five
shillings a week to a baby-farmer, which baby-farmer neglected the
child till it died a bag of bones, and was tried by Sir James Hawk-
ins two days after the Stauntons. (See The Daily Telegraph, Oct. 1.)
The attempts made to drag Rhodes into the case at all, and to drag
Louis back into it after admission of that contract, are pure sophis-
try and equivocation, as I shall show in the proper place. Meantime
here is the true picture.
1. Committer and criminal.
2. Culpable omitters; one condemned to die, one walking about
London.
3. and 4. Two vile moral omitters clear of the crime, but relieved
by the lawyers of all their ill-gotten money, defended with admir-
able speeches, but worse defended on the evidence than they could
have defended themselves, and condemned to die.
The blunder has been brought about partly by the recent malprac-
tices, and the inherent defects, of the Central Criminal Court, whose
system is so faulty that it never gets below the surface of a case,
and is the worst instrument for the discovery of truth in Europe;
and partly from special vices and errors, that found their way into
the case, and surprise the whole legal profession, so opposed are
they to precedent, and to the best traditions, and most sober habits,
I
READIANA.
81
!-
of the court.
These it will be my next duty to analyze closely, but
I think I can hit upon a briefer method than I have been able to
pursue in this letter.
Yours faithfully,
CHARLES READE.
FIFTH LETTER.
October 12th, 1877.
SIR,-Were 1, who denounce an indiscriminating verdict upon
four immoral egotists, to indorse the indiscriminating censure lev-
eled at the judge who tried the case, I should exceed the error I
condemn, for I should be morally unjust to the good; he has only
been legally unjust to a portion of the bad.
I declare then, that he had no power to prevent one of the omit-
ters from giving evidence against the others, whose mouths were
closed by an iniquity of the law which is itself doomed to death;
nor had he any right to disparage her whole evidence, but only to
reject one part and sift the rest with keen suspicion; and, when he
directed the jury to prefer the opinion of Doctors who had seen the
body, to that of Doctors who had not, and bade the jury observe the
ugly circumstance that Harman, the doctor who had watched the
post-mortem examination on behalf of the defendants, was not
called for the defense, he did his duty to the jury, guided by innu-
merable precedents, which not only justified, but bound him. He
did not make the rules of evidence: he found the rules of evidence,
and very wise they are. In a word, I will not willfully object to any-
thing but what defies precedent, and the habits of our other judges,
and every one of their predecessors, whose name their country
honors.
1. The judge laid down the law thus, as affecting the only count
of a suppressed indictment which he permitted the jury to try;
•
every person who is under a legal duty, whether such duty be im-
posed by the law, or imposed by contract, or by the act of taking
charge, wrongfully, or otherwise, of another person, to provide the
necessaries of life, every such person is criminally responsible for
the culpable neglect of that duty. And if the person so neglected,
is, from age, insanity, health, or anyother cause, unable to take
care of himself, and by reason of that neglect, death ensues, the
crime is murder.'
"}
Now this is the law if you don't stretch it, and try to catch more
fish than the law allows. It is the law as it lies in the Text-Books,
and is there applied to a single person, having the sole legal charge.
But as regards these four offenders it is too broad and loose, and is
not the law of England as appears in the cases to which those very
text-books refer, and in fifty other cases, well known, though not
reported by lawyers, but only word for word by the newspapers.
These are shunned by the lawyers; they are invaluable; but then
they are not published and sold by that sacred clique.
However, the cases of criminal omission, though pitiably reduced
in number by that childish prejudice, are, I think fatal to this new
theory of criminal responsibility in the highest degree attaching to
persons who have not the sole charge in law of the murdered person.
What will my readers think, and what will the Home Secretary
3
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READIANA.
think, when I tell him that to find in the books a verdict of murder
by omission I must go back to eighty-seven years-to a time when
jurymen were so used to shed blood like water by statute law that
they naturally applied even the common law with a severity that is
now out of date.
1, who with these eyes have seen a boy of eighteen hanged for
stealing a horse, though the jury could have saved him, and the
judge could have saved him with a word, am not disposed to rate
beyond its value the case of Rex v. Squires," on which Sir J.
Hawkins, I think, relies, still less to stretch it ad infinitum, where
the jury that hanged him restricted it so closely.
เเ
In 1790 the Crown indicted Squires and his wife for murder.
They had starved a young apprentice, and beaten him cruelly. The
wife, as to the beating, could not by law prove conjugal influence,
for she had beaten the boy in her husband's absence, which bars
that plea. The post-mortem, however, revealed starvation, and not
the boy's wounds, to be the cause of death. The jury found Squires
guilty of murder; but they held that Mrs. Squires had not in this,
as she had in the blows, acted independently of her husband. She
had not intercepted any food her husband had given her for the boy.
If this case is to be acted on in our day, at least we should not
garble and take the sanguinary half. The jury acquitted Mrs.
Squires, a far worse woman than Mrs. P. Staunton, and they ac-
quitted her logically. In a case of omission they could not convict
the husband capitally but by loading him with the whole charge,
and the whole criminality of a joint act. Does this case, looked into
and understood, support the new theory of criminal responsibility,
infinitely divisible, without diminution of guilt.
A leading case of our own day, and therefore a better guide for
us, is "The Queen v. Bubb and Hook." Elizabeth Bubb was a
widow with two children, and sister to Richard Hook's wife, de-
ceased. Hook invited her into his house, and gave her money to
keep the family. She fed and clothed her own family, and half
starved the poor dead sister's. She carried her cruelty so far that
the neighbors remonstrated often, but Hook looked calmly on, and
did not mind. By steady degrees this fiendish woman murdered
Hook's youngest child by starvation and cold. She was indicted
for murder. The jury did not conceal their horror, but they used
their right, and reduced the crime to manslaughter; but, as that ver-
dict opens the door to lenient sentences, they guarded the judge in a
way that shows how wise twelve plain men can be when each of
them thinks for himself. They brought it in aggravated man-
slaughter." Hook was tried for manslaughter at the same assize.
As he had supplied Bubb with means, there was nothing against
him but his apathy and neglect of his pining child, and his turning
a deaf ear to remonstrances. It was left to the jury to decide
whether this was culpable neglect, or stupid neglect in a father-not
an outsider, like Rhodes. They decided for stupid neglect, and ac-
quitted Hook. Here is the same principle. They were resolved to
put the saddle on the right horse, and not upon two horses. Will
my readers pause, and compare the guilt of the heartless, relentless
fiend Bubb-sole executor of a deadly deed, in spite of remonstrances
—with the case of Mrs. Patrick Staunton, a wife, and under influ-
66

READIANA.
83
ence, who in her moments of-conscience resisted the cruelty, and
was overpowered?
If you divide an apple into four pieces, you have four pieces, but
not four apples. If, in a case of omission, you could really divide
the legal charge, and the highest criminal responsibility, the effect
would not be what Sir J. Hawkins told the jury the effect would be
-to subdivide and fritter away the criminal responsibility till it
should escape the lash of the law, and meet no punishment but pub-
lic reprobation.
Example-two Welsh parents had an imbecile girl, who professed
sanctity and fasting, and the old people made their money out of
her. Incredulous doctors demanded a test. Parents consented.
Doctors watched night and day, and went at the first plunge much
deeper than the Stauntons; for they stopped all supplies dead short.
They killed her quick amongst them. The doctors sat round her
bed and saw the lamp of life burn out in eight days. Vulgar curi-
osity does not excuse deliberate murder. See now if by any quib-
bling or evasion the conduct of the parents can be taken out of
murder-as the law laid down for the Stauntons, see above-or the
doctors cleared of manslaughter. Clean stoppage of food is the
short cut to murder, with the goal in sight all the way.
Insufficient supply of food is an uncertain road to manslaughter.
The victim may get used to it. Luigi Cornaro achieved a vast lon-
gevity by no other means than insufficient nutriment arrived at by
degrees. If divided responsibility leaves seven people equally re-
sponsible, why were not those parents and doctors all hung?
2.
IMPOSED BY LAW, OR, IMPOSED BY CONTRACT."
True. But throughout this case he withheld from the jury that
when the law and lawful contract are opposed, contract prevails.
In order to submit to the jury some just comments on the niggardly
wretch, Louis Staunton, and the 20s. he agreed to pay Patrick to
house and board his wife, he let in the paltry contract as evidence;
yet he withheld from the jury the immediate legal effect of the con-
tract. This was to give Patrick the sole charge of the wife, and the
sole criminal responsibility of the highest degree.
The legal responsibility passed clean out of Louis by passing into
Patrick. Had Louis failed to pay weekly, Patrick could have sued
him.
Whether a responsibility originally so sacred as a husband's could
not be revived partially, and in a lower form, by Louis constantly
visiting his wife and actually seeing her pine away, and whether
this would not make him guilty of manslaughter is another matter,
and one I shall deal with under another head; but I complain that
the judge withheld his legal knowledge from the jury whenever it
could serve a prisoner, of which this is one example.
3. —Another is his dead silence as to Mrs. P. Staunton's legal posi-
tion as a wife, and the influence of her husband upon her as well as
on Rhodes—an influence the law is not unwilling to assume, though
of course it can be rebutted, as when Mrs. Manning was proved to
be the instigator of a joint crime. But here the husband had by
contract the sole legal charge, like Squires in 1790.
4.-Illegal and improper evidence was admitted, such as no pris-
ד
84
READIANA.
oner with his mouth closed has ever been assassinated by in my
time. Clara Brown was allowed to depose to the existence of a let-
ter written by Louis Staunton to Alice Rhodes in August, 1876.
That was allowable, for Rhodes admitted having received and lost a
letter. But now comes the legal wrong. She was allowed to own
herself a thief as regarded that particular letter, and also what the
old judges called a spoliator of evidence."
66
"
As regarded that one letter, I mean she was allowed to depose that
she had burnt it willfully, and with her own hand, and yet she was
permitted to take advantage of her own suppression of the real let-
ter, to give by memory or imagination just so many words as the
Crown Solicitor, who got up the case, thought might suffice to hang
Louis Staunton by an equivocation pointing to murder, and an ad-
mission of long criminal intimacy to prove adultery before as well
as after marriage. Spoliation of evidence" does not figure much
in the text-books. You must go wide and deep to find the hun-
dreds of cases that lie behind all the older maxims of law. As-
sume everything to the discredit of a spoliator of evidence" is the
maxim, and the person who destroys any written document divining
its importance is certainly a spoliator of evidence. But if the good,
though almost obsolete, phrase be objected to, I will resign it, and
stick to the substance. Why, even at Nisi Prius, if a witness, to
decide a case, swore he received a letter from a party who could not
be put in the box, and proved that he really had received a letter
from that person of some kind or other, would he be allowed to say
46
I burned the letter, seeing its importance; the writer cannot be
called to contradict me, so I remember enough of the contents to win this
verdict, £50,000, for the party who puts me in the box "-would not
the judge hesitate to let the jury's mind be prejudiced by hearing
this witness's garbled quotations? If another hand had burned it,
well and good; but surely not when he had burned it himself, and
so put the court entirely at the mercy of partial quotation and mis-
quotation. I am of opinion, subject to the decision, of the judges—
and it is quite time they sat to review criminal cases-that this sham
reproduction of a selected and garbled part of a written letter the
witness had willfully destroyed was legally inadmissible against two
prisoners whose mouths were sealed.
..
I shall show in my next that this violation, not of some pedantic
rule of evidence, but of its very fundamental principles, lets a whole
vein of romantic error into the case, and shall expose generally the
false system by which the order of the facts was dislocated and the
facts falsified.
Yours faithfully,
CHARLES READE.
1 beg to acknowledge with thanks some insulting letters from peo-
ple who don't sign their names, and some encouraging ones from
ladies and gentlemen who do.
SIXTH LETTER.
October 18th, 1877.
SIR,-In reply to reasonable comments let me say I have not put
forward that branch of law which concerns the aiding and abetting
$
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READIANA.
85
any kind of murder, whether by commission or omission, because
the judge did not lay that down to the jury, and he was bound to
do so if that was the law he relied on.
He never treated Louis Staunton as an
accessory before the
fact," which under this head of law was the only cap that could be
made to fit him. He never told the jury what precise evidence the
law demands against a man who has made a niggardly contract con-
templating, by its very niggardliness, the indefinite life of the vic-
tim, ere a jury is to pronounce that he did “ procure, counsel, com-
mand and abet" the murder of that person.
(C
Of course no lawyer will pretend that a man living out of the
house of murder can be accessory at the fact, or what the text books
call a principal in the first degree;" nor will any lawyer deny that
if he lives out of the house, but procures, counsels, commands, or
abets the murder, beyond doubt, he can be an accessory before the
fact, or a principal in the second degree. But there must be high
evidence and direct evidence, and if spoken or written words are
relied on they must be addressed to the very person who does the
murder, and must be unequivocal. A doubtful phrase addressed to
Rhodes, who took no part in the murder, is not at all the kind of
See the word
evidence required by all the books and all the cases.
>>
accessory in any text book or report whatever.
"C
++
THE FACTS.
In our Criminal Court, where the prisoners, the only people who
really know the ins and outs of the case, are not allowed to open
their lips, and correct any of the shallow guesswork that is going on
about them in their astonished ears, one great abuse like that I de-
nounced in my last letter is sure to let in many more. Clara
Brown, the one witness on whom the case for the Crown really de-
pends, was allowed by the judge to swear she had destroyed a letter,
and yet to cite so much of it, correctly or incorrectly, as fitted the
two horns of the prosecution. That abuse led at once to another.
This model witness was allowed another privilege the rules of evi-
dence do not grant-viz., to argue the case. For this the defend-
ants are indebted to their counsel.
He asked whether she understood the sentence about Harriet being
out of the way "to refer to her death. To this question she re-
plied "Yes.
<<
French counsel surprised by a prosecution would immediately
have had a personal conference with the prisoners, and would have
asked the girl questions that would have greatly benefited the pris-
oners. The jury, hearing a witness swear to an interpretation of a
doubtful phrase, were not aware this was not evidence, and ought
severely to be rejected from their minds. So one abuse led to
another, and it is not too much to say that this imaginary letter with
the witness's black-hearted interpretation is the rope that is to hang
Louis Staunton.
Well, such a rope of sand has never hung an Englishman in my
day. It is pitiable to see how little, if anything, that can even by
courtesy be called mental power, was brought to bear by twelve
men of the world on this quotation of a letter without its contents,
"

86
READIANA.
one of the stalest frauds in the world and also in literature of every
kind, especially controversial theology.
Permit me to test this imaginary extract from what was proved, I
think, to be a real letter, by one or two sure methods of which I am
not the inventor.
Have those twelve gentlemen counted the number of words a
young servant girl swore she had remembered in their exact order
for nine months or more, though she had burned the letter, and the
subject had never been recalled to her mind till she fell into the
hands of the prosecution?
The words are sixty-two in number.
*C
My own darling,-1 was very sorry to see you cry when I left
you. It seems as though it never must be, but there will be a time
when Harriet will be out of the way, and we shall be happy together.
Dear Alice, you must know how I love you by this time. We have
been together two years now.”
Now, sir, even if those fatal words about a time when Harriet
will be out of the way were ever written without some explanatory
context, I think the jury ought to have been throughout solemnly
warned and guarded against the illogical interpretation of them.
The just rule of interpretation is that you should always prefer a
literal to a vague or metaphorical interpretation. The words " out
of the way
mean out of the way; they don't mean dead. A
man can say "dead," and if Rhodes was projecting murder with
him, why should he not have said so?
The next rule is, that you prefer the interpretation which the
writer himself confesses by his own act, and the next is, that you
prefer the interpretation that is first fulfilled in order of time.
Now, it was Louis, the writer of the words, who took a farm soon
after, settled Harriet with Patrick, and so got her out of the way,
and lived in smooth adultery with Rhodes, whereas it was other
people who killed Harriet Staunton, and nine months afterward.
But I shall now show the extract as sworn to was never written.
1st objection.-It is too long, and too short, which two traits can
never meet in a genuine extract.
A. Too long for a servant girl to remember, word for word, nine
months after hearing it.
B. Too short. Louis Staunton was not preparing his own prose-
cution. It was not on the cards of mere accident that he should
furnish in sixty-two words two equivocal expressions-one establish-
ing a long adulterous intercourse of which there is no corroborative
proof, but the reverse; and another quibble projecting distant mur-
der, of which there is no corroborative proof, since Harriet was well
used for months after.
2. The line reminding her she had been his mistress for two years
is worded by a woman, and not by Staunton or any man. Decent
women like Clara Brown have a delicate vocabulary unknown to
men. "We have been together, "which means everything the
prosecution wanted, but says nothing at all, is a woman's word for
criminal connection.
3. The statement itself is not true, and from that you must argue

READIANA.
87
backward against the genuineness of the quotation, since he would
not say this to a girl who knew better.*
4. The witness could remember nothing but her lesson: sixty-two
consecutive words, all neat and telling, and meeting the two great
views of the persecution; but, that done, a blank-a total blank;
not six consecutive words. This is barefaced. Daniel Defoe would-
have managed better. He would have armed the witness with ten
consecutive words on some matter quite foreign to the objects of the
prosecution. The quotation is fabricated.
The process has nothing exceptional in it, nor is there any one to
blame, except the Court, for letting in parole evidence about a
written document destroyed by the witness herself.
Allow 10,000 such witnesses, and, if the case is ably prepared, you
must, in the very nature of things, have 10,000 inaccurate quota-
tions, all leaning toward the side that calls the witness.
The people who get up a prosecution have but one way of deal-
ing with such a witness. She comes to them remembering a word
here or there. She is advised to speak the truth and take time. But,
as the conference proceeds, she is asked whether she happens to re-
member anything of such a kind? She is very ductile, and forces
her memory a bit in the direction she instinctively sees is desired.
The very person who is examining her with an ex parte view does
not see that she is so wax-like as she is.
Add a small grain of self-deception on both sides, and a mixture
of truth and falsehood comes into the unwary and most inconsistent
court, which stops Louis Staunton's mouth, yet lets in a worse
kind of evidence than the prisoner's own, viz., this horrible hodge-
podge of memory, imagination, and prompting, which, in the nery
nature of things, and by the mere infirmity of the human mind, must
be a lie.
That a man should die only because he is tried in England. Bring
your minds to bear on this, my countrymen. If an ignorant man,
like this Staunton, is defendant in a suit for fifty-one pounds, he
can go into the witness box and explain all the errors of the plaintiff,
if any; but if he is tried for his life, which is dearer to every man
than all the money in the world, he is not allowed to say one word
to the jury, if he has counsel. Now, in France he may speak after
his counsel have done muddling his case, but here with heartless
mockery, when Ignorance all round has hanged him, he is allowed
to speak-To whom? To the judge. On what? The nice quib-
bles of the law, but not on facts or motives-that being the one
thing he can never do, and this being the thing he could generally
do, and flood the groping Court with light, especially as to his true
motives and the extenuating circumstances of his case. By this
system the bloodthirsty murderer, who chooses his time, and slays
swiftly in the dark, gains an advantage he cannot have in the wiser.
Courts of Europe. But God help the malefactor who is not an
habitual criminal, or one of the deepest dye, but a mixed sinner,
who has glided from folly into sin, and from sin into his first crime,
and who has been fool as well as villain. His mouth is closed, and
* Since this letter was written, it has been proved to be a falsehood. The
criminal connection was hardly one year old.
88
READIANA.
-
all the extenuating circumstances that mouth could always reveal
are hidden with it, or, as in this case, grossly and foully perverted
into aggravating circumstances.
This is very unfair. The Nation will see it some day. At present
what is to be done? After all, thank God, it is a free country, and
one in which bad law is sometimes corrected by just men.
To all such I appeal against the rope of sand I have had to un-
twist in this letter.
The post has enabled me to do something more: to resist foul play
and garbled quotations and those most dangerous of all lies, equi-
voques in language, such as "Harriet out of the way," the very kind
of lies Holy Writ ascribes to Satan, and the great poets of every age
have described as hellish, which they are.
I resolved to give Louis Staunton, what that den of iniquity and
imbecility, the Central Criminal Court, did not give him, one little
chance of untwisting that rope of sand, although he has the misfort-
une not to be a Frenchinan. I conveyed a short letter to Mr. Louis
Staunton through the proper authorities, requesting him to try and
remember the entire matter of a certain letter he had unquestiona-
bly written to Alice Rhodes in August, 1876, and to send it to me
verbatim. Some delay took place while my letter was submitted to
authorities outside the jail, but Fair Play prevailed, and I now ap-
pend the letter to my own, which is of less value. I send it all the
same, because I have looked narrowly into that of Staunton's, and I
don't see any of that self-evident mendacity I have felt it my duty
to point out in the garbled quotation the rope of sand. This letter,
at all events, may be true. For here I see youth, with its selfish
vices, not looking months and months ahead, either for good or bad,
but getting Harriet out of the way without a metaphor, to enjoy the
sweet vice his self-indulgent soul was filled with, aad not with long
cold-blooded schemes of murder such as belong to more hardened
natures than this, who, we learn from the Crown itself, and on oath,
sat down and cried because his wife upset the house. The follow-
ing is
LOUIS STAUNTON'S LETTER.
MAIDSTONE JAIL, October 11th, 1872.
SIR,-I duly received your letter of the 9th inst., and now beg to
reply to it. The letter in question I wrote to Alice Rhodes on or
about August 17, 1876. The facts are these: I had several times
promised to take Alice Rhodes down to Brighton for a week, but
had been prevented from doing so. But on Saturday, August 14,
Mrs. Staunton, Alice Rhodes, and myself, went down to Cudham,
for the purpose of leaving Mrs. Staunton there, that we might go to
Brighton on the Tuesday; but on the Monday I received a telegram
to say my father was worse. My brother and myself immediately
came up to London, leaving Alice Rhodes and Mrs. Staunton at
Cudham. I then wrote her this letter:
"MY OWN DARLING,-I know you will be sorry to hear that my
poor dear father passed away yesterday. This is a sad blow to me,
but we all have our troubles. Our trip must now be put off again.
It seems as if it is not to be; but I will arrange another time to get
t
<!
We
"
89
READIANA.
Harriet out of the way; so you must not be disappointed. I shall
have to remain down home for a few days, so Harriet had better
stop down with you.
I believe I have now given you word for word what I said in this
letter. 1 have thought well over it, and cannot remember saying
anything more. What I meant by "It seems as if it is not to be,
was our going to Brighton, and of getting "Harriet out of the way,
that she might not know anything about it.
""
This is the whole truth of the letter.
I am, Sir,
>
Yours obediently,
LOUIS STAUNTON.
CHARLES READE, ESQ.
The Public is to understand that I deal fairly with the Powerful
Journal which has done me the honor to allow me to express boldly
my unalterable convictions. I do not write letters and say “Thus
said Staunton;" I tender you his handwriting, begging you to do
me the honor to keep it, and show it to few or many as you think
proper. I do not lead witnesses as I think Clara Brown was led-
unconsciously, no doubt. My short letter, to which this is a reply,
lies in Maidstone Jail. I can't remember what I write, like this
young sinner, nor imagine what other people write-like Miss Brown
plus an attorney's clerk. But I am sure it is a short line, just ask-
ing the man to send the truth. He looks on himself as a dying
man; has no hope of saving himself; and I think he has come pret-
ty near the truth in his letter.
Yours faithfully,
CHARLES READE.
P.S.-Now that I have opened the dumb creature's mouth which
that beastly court, the disgrace of Europe, had closed, who doubts
the real meaning of the letter, and that the writer had Adultery in
view, and had not Homicide.
THE LEGAL VOCABULARY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE “PALL MALL GAZETTE.”
SIR,-Now those swift-footed hares, my eloquent contemporaries,
have galloped over Diblanc's trial, may I ask you, in the name of
humanity, to let the tortoise crawl over it with his microscopic eye?
Where female culprits are to be judged, a patient drudge, who has
studied that sex profoundly in various walks of life, including Di-
blanc's, is sometimes a surer exponent of facts than is a learned law-
yer. I will keep strictly within the limits of the legal defense. The
Crown used Diblanc as its witness to the killing, and this, by a rule
of law which is inexorable, and governs alike a suit or an indict-
ment, let in the prisoner's explanations as evidence. But there are
degrees of evidence; what she said against herself was first-class evi-
dence; what she said favorable to herself was low evidence, to be
<t
12
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READIANA.
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:
received when it is contradicted neither by a living witness nor a
clear fact. I keep within this circle, traced by the judge himself,
simply premising that I have seen many a prisoner acquitted on his
own explanation of motives thus made admissible, though poor,
evidence, by the prosecutor.
.
<<
Now did the criminal seek the victim, or the victim her? Where
was the crime committed? In the kitchen. And what is the-
kitchen? It is a poor man's cottage on the ground-floor of a gentle-
man's house. No paper-no carpet-stone floor-it is made like a
servant's home out of contempt; but the result of that contempt is,
that the female domestic feels at home in it, soul and body. It is
the servant's house, and the cook's castle and workshop. To come
and insult her there galls her worse than in the gentlefolk's part.
What a lady feels if a cook walks up into the drawing-room to
affront her, that the cook feels if the mistress comes down into her
castle to affront her. But a kitchen is something else—it is an ar-
senal of deadly weapons, with every one of which the cook is famil-
iar. The principal area hatchet to chop wood, a rolling-pin, a
steel to sharpen knives, a cleaver, an enormous poker, a bread knife,
carving knife, &c. Into this cook's castle and arsenal of lethal
weapons comes Diblanc's mistress on a Sunday forenoon, when even
a cook is entitled to a little bit of peace and some little reduction of
her labor, if possible, and gives an inconsiderate order. The cook
says there's no need for that; dinner is not till seven. This offends
the mistress, and she threatens to discharge her on the spot. The
cook says she will go directly if her month's wages are paid her.
No," says the mistress, "I will keep you your time; but I will
make you suffer." Here there is a lacuna; but the climax was that
the mistress called this poor hard-working woman, in her castle and
workshop, a prostitute, and dwelt upon the epithet. Then the cook,
goaded to fury, took, not one of the murderous weapons close at
hand, but sprang at her mistress's throat, and griped it with such
fury that she broke the poor creature's jaw and throttled her on the
spot, and probably killed her on the spot, whatever she may have
said to the contrary. The deed done, the criminal is all amazement,
vacillation, and uncertainty in word and deed. Her deeds: She car-
ried the body wildly here and there; she puts a rope round its neck
in a mad attempt to pass the act off for suicide; she resolves on
flight; she has not the means; she casts her eyes round, and sees the
safe with money in it; she breaks it open, and takes enough for her
purpose; she does not pillage; she steals the means of flight; she
robs in self-defense. Her words: "I leave for Paris this evening."
Then a horror falls on her like a thunderclap. No, I shall never
see Paris again, not even my parents." Is there nothing human in
I shall
this sudden cry of a poor savage awaking to her crime?
try to leave for America. So, then, she goes out intending to sail
to America, and goes just where she did not mean to go-to Paris.
She gets there, and instantly pays a just debt with the money she no
longer needed to save her life. In other words, she is no more a
real thief than a real murderer, as the common-sense of mankind
understands the words. With the light thus reflected by her subse-
quent conduct, all vacillation and inability to carry out a design, I
return to the homicide and its true interpretation.
"C
""
30
A
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!
Fact goes by precedent as well as law, and, strange to say, lawyers,
those slaves of precedent, often forget this. Now, what does ex-
perience or precedent teach us with regard to the murder of adults
by adults? Is the open hand the weapon murder selects? It is the
weapon cold-blooded robbery has often selected to avoid murder.
But is it the weapon murder has often selected? Certainly not.
But Diblan's defense rests on far stronger ground. The point of her
defense is this: She stood in an arsenal of deadly weapons, and yet
avoided them, and used the non-lethal weapon-her bare hands-being
maddened to fury and burning for revenge, but not positively intend-
ing to murder either before the attack or at the moment of the attack.
These facts, minutely examined, tear the theory of "premeditation
up by the roots; but you cannot tear that theory up by the roots
without displacing the theory of "intention," and letting in the de-
fendant's evidence that she did not intend to kill Madame Riel. And
this brings me naturally to the nature and extent of the provocation
that stung her to fury.
""
Mr. Baron Channell says that no mere words can by provocation
reduce willful killing to manslaughter. Granted; but I think this
applies only to killing with lethal weapons. Where two things
combine-where A receives a foul provocation in language from B,
and, avoiding the lethal weapons close to his hand, kills B with the
bare hand, I think the jury have a right to call that manslaughter if
they please. A calls B a liar; B knifes him. Murder. B calls C a
liar; C fells him with a blow, and kills him. Manslaughter. Oh,
but throttling is worse than striking. Ay, worse in a man, but not
in a woman, because women do not fight with the fist; they always
go at each other with the claws, and no murder done one time in a
thousand. If we are to judge women we really must not begin by
being pig-headed idiots, and confounding them entirely, mind and
limbs, with men. The truth is, language contains no word with
which a man can strike a man to the heart, in his own person, as a
woman can strike a woman with a word. It is at once stupid and
cruel the way in which this poor creature's provocation has been
slurred over. The evidence is all in favor of her continence. When
out of place in Paris she fell in debt directly; a plain proof labor
was her only way of getting bread. Here in London it comes out
that her wages were everything to her. She wanted to go, but could
not for want of a little money. Why, her very strength, about
which so much twaddle has been uttered, was not the strength of the
individual, it was only the strength that comes to women of her age
by an honorable, laborious, and continent life. And is it a small
thing that to such a woman, working in her kitchen for her bread,
another woman, whose life was not laborious and honorable like
hers, should come and say, "You are a prostitute”?
You are a prostitute"? "Facile judicat
qui pauca considerat." We must consider not the insult only, but
the quarter whence it came; and we shall find the utmost limits of
verbal provocation have been reached in Diblanc's case. The time
-Sunday morning, when the world gets peace, and even cooks hope
for it. The place-her own kitchen. The insult-the most intolera-
ble the mind can conceive; and a lie. The result-honest labor and
continence used none of the lethal weapons at hand, but took luxury
and foul-mouthed slander by the throat. Luxury's arm was pithless
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READIANA.
:
against insulted labor and continence, and a crime was consum-
mated, when between two working women there would only have
been a fight.
It is the misfortune of women that few men except one or two
writers of fiction, can put themselves in a woman's place, and so
qualify themselves to judge her in these obscure cases. But let me
put a man, as nearly as I can, in this woman's place. A man is
with his wife, whom he loves as dearly as Diblanc loves herself.
Another man comes and calls that woman a prostitute to her face
and his; there's a hatchet on one side of the husband, a carving
knife on the other. The husband takes neither, but seizes the
slanderer by the throat and squeezes the life out of him. Would
that man be indicted for murder? 1 doubt it. Would Baron Chan-
nell ask a conviction for murder? I doubt it. If he did, no jury in
England would convict. Yet here the provocation is purely verbal,
and the killing identical with Diblanc's.
""
Let me now, without blaming any living person, draw the atten-
tion of public men to the stereotyped trickery and equivocation by
means of which the death of Marguerite Diblanc has been com-
passed-in theory; for she is not to die, I conclude. Some lawyer,
in the name of a humane Sovereign, draws a blood-thirsty, exag-
gerated indictment, and says Diblanc slew Madame Riel willfully
and with malice aforethought. The evidence contradicts the malice
and the aforethought, which are the very sting of the indictment,
and the jury demur. Oh, let that flea stick in the wall," says the
judge, we don't go by Johnson's Dictionary here; 'aforethought,'
that means 'contemporaneous' in our vocabulary, and malice
means rage, passion, anything you like-except malice, of course. All
you have got to do is to disregard the terms of the indictment, and
if she killed the woman at all say she killed her with malice afore-
thought." The jury, who are generally novices and easily overcome
by the picture of a gentleman thatched with horsehair, assent with
reluctance, and recommend the prisoner to mercy, thereby giving
their verdict the lie: for if the indictment was not an impudent false-
nood and their verdict another she would be a most unfit subject for
"Yes
with a trumpet
mercy. This bastard verdict which says
and No" with a penny whistle being obtained by persuasion, the
judge goes coolly back to Dr. Johnson, whom he has disowned for
a time in order to get a verdict, and condemns the woman to death
for having killed her fellow-creature with malice aforethought, as
Johnson understands the words. But, as he too knows it is all
humbug, and a verbal swindle invented by dead fools and forced
upon him, he takes measures to refer it to a layman called the Home
Secretary, who is to find straightforwardness, sense, manhood, and,
above all, English for the whole lot.
C
>
"
Now, sir, I agree with the writer of your able article of the 15th
of June, that the way out of this is to enlarge, purify, and correct
the legal vocabulary. The judges are in a hole. With two words
manslaughter " and "murder "--they are expected to do the
work of three or four words; and how can they? It is impossible.
Enlarge this vocabulary, and the most salutary consequences will
flow in. Sweep away "manslaughter," which is an idiotic word
meaning more than murder in etymology, and less in law, and divide
READIANA.
93
unlawful killing into three heads-homicide, willful homicide, mur-
der. Then let it be enacted that henceforward it shall be lawful for
juries to understand all words used in indictments, declarations,
pleadings, &c., in their plain and grammatical sense, and to defy all
other interpretations whatever. Twelve copies of every indictment
ought to be in the jury box, and every syllable of those indictments
proved whether bearing on fact or motive, or else the prisoner ac-
quitted. Neither the Crown nor the private suitor should be allowed
to exaggerate without smarting for it in the verdict, just as in the
world overloaded invective recoils upon the shooter.
1 am, sir, yours faithfully,
CHARLES READE.
MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD,
June 17th, 1872.
COLONEL BAKER'S SENTENCE.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY TELEGRAPH."
SIR,-A great many journals and weeklies have told the public
that an English judge has passed too lenient a sentence on Colonel
Baker because he belongs to the upper classes. Some have added
that the same judge had inflicted a severe sentence on certain gas
stokers, and so we have a partial judge upon the bench. This is a
grave conclusion, and, if true, would be deplorable. You would
yourself regret it, and therefore will, I am sure, permit me to show
you, by hard facts, that all this is not only untrue, but the exact
opposite of the truth in every particular. Fact 1. The proceedings
against Baker commenced with an application for delay and a special
jury. Here was an opportunity to favor him. The judge rejected
the application, and he was tried by a common jury. 2. On the
trial the prosecuting counsel attacked him with a severity that is
now unusual, and used a false comparison to lead the jury further
than the evidence warranted. 3. In contrast to this, Baker was de-
fended with strict moderation. In France the accused speaks as well
as his counsel, but in England his own mouth is closed, and we
must assume instructions and give him the credit or discredit due to
his line of defense. Now, there was a point in the plaintiff's evi-
dence which to my mind is womanly and charming, but still, before
a common jury, Mr. Hawkins could have done almost what he
liked with it. It appeared that when the young lady was on the
doorstep she told her assailant he must hold her or she would fall.
They little know the power of counsel who doubt that, by a series
of sly ironical questions on this point, the case could have been
weakened by ridicule, and the plaintiff tortured. Since the lower
orders have been dragged into this, it should be considered that
every one of them would have so defended himself, except those
who had got rid of the case before by shoving the girl off the step
instead of holding her. That is the sort of men they are." My
brilliant contemporaries know nothing about them. How should
they, being in an exalted sphere? 4. The common jury cleared him
*C
་ ་་
94
READIANA,
11
.
:
of a criminal assault, and found him guilty of an indecent assault.
My brilliant contemporaries hanker after the higher issue, and
would like to see it in the judgment, though it was not in the ver-
dict. But that would be to juggle with the constitutional tribunal,
and be inexcusable in a judge. 5. Mr. Justice Brett dwelt on the
enormity of the offense, and admitted only one palliating circum-
stance-viz., that the culprit, when he found the lady would risk
her life sooner than be insulted, came to his senses, and showed a
tardy compunction. This was so; and Colonel Baker's line of de-
fense before the magistrates and before the court entitled him to this
small palliation. 6. Witnesses were called to character, with a view
to mitigating punishment. Now, when a culprit of the lower orders
can do this effectually, it always reduces punishment-sometimes one
half, or more. Were it to go for nothing where a gentleman has
committed his first public crime, there would be gross partiality in
favor of the lower orders, and an utter defiance of precedent. 7.
The punishment inflicted was a fine, £500, and a year's imprison-.
ment as a first-class misdemeanant. My brilliant contemporaries
think that a poor man would have been much more punished. Now
let us understand one another. Do they mean a poor man who had so
assaulted a lady, or a poor man who had so assaulted a poor wom-
an? Their language only fits the latter view. Very well, then.
My brilliant contemporaries have eaten the insane root that takes
the reason prisoner. Every day in the year men of the lower orders
commit two thousand such assaults upon women of the lower orders,
and it is so little thought of that the culprits are rarely brought to
justice at all. When they are, it is a police magistrate, and not a
jury, the women apply to. It is dealt with on the spot by a small
fine or a very short imprisonment. Colonel Baker, had he been a
navvy, would have got one month. My brilliant contemporaries go
to their imagination for their facts. 1, poor drudge, go to one out
of twenty folio notebooks in which I have entered, alphabetically,
the curious facts of the day for many a year. The fines for inde-
cent assaults range from five pounds to twenty. Amongst the ex-
amples is one that goes far beyond Baker's case, for the culprit had
recourse to chloroform. I call this a criminal assault. The magis-
trate, however, had a doubt, and admitted the culprit to bail. At
the expiration of the bail the Lucretia in humble life walked into
the court on Tarquin's arm, and begged to withdraw the plaint.
She had married him in that brief interval. And that, O too im-
aginative contemporaries, is the sort of women they are." The
magistrate scolded them both, and said it was collusion to defeat
the law. He lacked humor, poor man. When a lady or a gentle-
man is one of the parties, that immediately elevates the offense. I
have a case in my list that resembles Baker's in some respects. It
was a railway case-the offender a gentleman, the plaintiff a re-
spectable milliner. This was dealt with at quarter sessions; fine
£200, no imprisonment. In Craft's case the parties were reversed.
Craft, a carpenter, at Farringdon, kissed by force the daughter of
a neighboring clergyman. She took him before a jury, and he got
six months. But her Majesty remitted three months of this sen-
tence.
"L
I am informed there was a case the other day, and a bad one-
*
READIANA,
95
1
❤
punishment two months. But I will not be sure, for I have not seen
it. Of this I am absolutely sure, that Baker's sentence is severe be-
yond all precedent. His fine is more than double the highest previ-
ous fine. His imprisonment, if not shortened, will be four times
the term of Craft's, and about twelve times what, if the female had
been in humble life, a blackguard by descent and inheritance would
have got, and he is both fined and imprisoned. I think it most
proper a gentleman should be more severely punished for so heinous
an offense. But it is not proper that facts should be turned clean
topsy-turvy, and the public humbugged into believing that the
lower order of people are treated more severely in such cases, when,
on the contrary, they are treated with gross partiality; still less is it
proper that these prodigious errors of fact should be used to cast a
slur upon the just reputation of a very sagacious, careful, and inde-
pendent judge. To drag the gas stokers' case into this question is
monstrous. Law has many branches, and a somewhat arbitrary
scale of punishments that binds the judges more or less. As a rule it
treats offenses against the person more lightly than offenses against
property-ay, even when marks of injury have been left upon the
person for months. Now, the law of England abhors conspiracy,
and Mr. Justice Brett found the law; he did not make it, nor yet
did his grandfather. The gas stokers' sentence had nothing on earth
to do with their birth and parentage. They were representative
men-the ringleaders of a great conspiracy, and the only offenders
nailed in a case where our jails ought to have been filled with the
blackguards. It was a heartless, egotistical, and brutal conspiracy;
its object a fraud, and its instrument a public calamity. The as-
sociated egotists inflicted darkness on a great city during the hours
of traffic. They not only incommoded a vast public cruelly; they
also added to the perils of the city, and most likely injured life and
limb. The judge who punished these deliberate and combined
criminals severely was the mouth-piece of an offended and injured
public, and not of any clique whatever; for no clique monopolizes
light nor can do without it, least of all the poor. He gave his rea-
sons at the time, and the press approved them, as anybody can see
by turning to the files. To these facts, sir, I beg to add a grain of
common sense. What is there in a British Colonel to dazzle a
British judge? The judge is a much greater man in society and in
the country; and in court he is above the Princes of the Blood, for
he represents the person and wields the power of the Sovereign.
Class distinctions do not much affect the judges of our day. They
sit too high above all classes. One or two of them, 1 see, share the
universal foible, and truckle a little to the press. If a modern judge
is above that universal weakness, he is above everything but his
conscience and his God. Perhaps my brilliant contemporaries have
observed that solitary foible in our judges, and are resolved that
Mr. Justice Brett shall not overrate their ability to gauge his intel-
lects or his character. If that was their object, they have written
well.
CHARLES READE.
August 30th, 1875.
I
96
READIANA.
3
·
PROTEST AGAINST THE MURDER AT LEWES
JAIL.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY NEWS."
SIR,-I claim the right of a good citizen to disown, before God
and man, a wicked and insane act just committed in the name of the
country, and therefore in mine, unless 1 publicly dissent.
An Englishman named Nurdock was killed yesterday at Lewes by
the ministers of the law, for a crime the law of England does not
visit with death. The crime was manslaughter. It is not possible
that even an English judge could so mistake the law as really to
take the man's crime for murder. It was destitute, not of one, two,
or three, but of all the features that the law requires in murder. On
the other hand, it had all the features that distinguish manslaughter.
There was no murderous weapon-there was no weapon at all; no
premeditation, no malice. The act was done in the confusion, hurry,
and agitation of a struggle, and that struggle was commenced, not
by the homicide but the victim.
As respects the animus at the time, it is clear the violence was done
alio intuitu; the prisoner was fighting, not to kill but to escape; and
that he never from first to last aimed at killing appeared further by
his remaining in the neighborhood, and his surprise and ignorance
of his victim's death. In a word, it was manslaughter in its mildest
form. I have seen a boy of eighteen hanged for stealing a horse. It
was a barbarous act, but it was the law. I have seen a forger
hanged. It was cruel, but it was the law. But now, for the first
time (while murderers are constantly escaping the law), 1 have seen
an English head fall by the executioner in defiance of the law. I
wash this man's blood from my hands, and from my honorable name.
1 disown that illegal act, and the public will follow me. 1 cannot
say to-day where the blame lies, and in what proportions; but I will
certainly find out; and as certainly all those concerned in it populo
respondebunt et mihi.
CHARLES READE.
STARVATION REFUSING PLENTY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY TELEGRAPH."
SIR,-The journals recorded last week the death by starvation of
a respectable seamstress. Now, the death by starvation of a single
young working woman is a blot upon civilization and a disgrace to
humanity. It implies also great misery and much demi-starvation
in the class that furnishes the extreme example. The details in this
case were pitiable, and there were some comments in the Daily Tele-
graph well adapted to make men feel and think even if they never
knew hunger personally. They have set me thinking for one, and I
READIANA.
97
:
..
beg to offer my thoughts. I have observed, in a general way, that
the world is full of live counterparts, by which I mean people that
stand in need of other people, who stand equally in need of
them; only these two live counterparts of the social system
cannot find each other out. Distance and ignorance keep them
apart. Of late the advertisement sheet has done much to cure
that, and is an incalculable boon to mankind. But as there are
counterpart individuals, so there are counterpart classes, and I shall
ask your assistance to bring two of these classes together and substi-
tute for starvation repletion. I see before me, say, two thousand
honest, virtuous, industrious young women, working hard and half
starved; and I see before me at least twenty thousand other women
holding out plenty in both hands, and that plenty rejected with scorn
by young women of very little nerit, or, if not rejected, accepted
only under vexatious and galling conditions imposed by the persons
to be benefited.
Aid ine then, sir, to introduce to a starving class an oppressed and
insulted and pillaged class which offers a clean healthy lodging and
no rent to pay, butcher's meat twice a day, food at all hours, tea,
beer, and from £12 to £18 a year pocket-money, in return for a few
hours of healthy service per day. To speak more plainly, domestic
servants have become rare, owing to wholesale and most injudicious
exportation; and although their incapacity in their business bas
greatly increased-especially the incapacity of cooks-they impose
not only higher wages, but intolerable conditions. The way the
modest householder is ground down by these young ladies is a griev-
ance too large to be dealt with under this head, and will probably
lead to a masters' and mistresses' league. Suffice it here to say that
full forty thousand domestic servants are now engaged yearly in
London on written characters, and thirty thousand without a char-
acter; and I speak within bounds when I say that there are good
places by the dozen open to any respectable seamstress.
There are
mistresses by the thousand who, in the present dearth of good and
civil servants, would try a respectable novice. A respectable seam-
stress has always half a character, for she is trusted with materials
and does not steal them; and the oppressed mistresses in question
would forgive a few faults in housework at first starting in a woman
who could compensate them by skill with the needle-no mean
addition to a servant's value. I now turn to the seamstresses.. Why
do they sit hungry to the dullest of all labor, and hold aloof from
domestic service, at a time when ladies born are beginning to recog-
nize how much better off is the rich housemaid than the poor lady?
I suspect the seamstresses are deluded by two words, "liberty" and
wages. They think a female servant has no liberty, and that her
principal remuneration is her “ wages.
Ci
??
"}
1 address myself to these two errors. Οὐκ ἔστιν ὅστις, ἐστ᾽ ἀνήρ
éhɛúlɛрoç. Our liberty is restrained by other means than bolts
and bars. It is true that a female servant cannot run into the streets
whenever she likes. But she sometimes goes on errands and takes
her time. She slips out eternally, and gets out one evening at least
every week. Then, as to wages, the very word is a delusion as far
as she is concerned. Her wages are a drop in the ocean of her re-
muneration. She comes out of a single room, where she pigs with
4
Uorm
1
98
READIANA.
..
her relations, and she receives as remuneration for her services a nice
clean room all to herself, the market price of which, and the actual
cost to her employer, is at least 68. per week; and the use of a kitch-
en, and in some cases of a servants' hall, which is worth 28. per
week, and the run of other bright and healthy rooms. In the crib
where she pigged with her relations, she often had a bit of bacon for
dinner, and a red herring for supper. In the palace of cleanliness
and comfort she is promoted to, she gets at least four meals a day,
and butcher's meat at two of them. This, at the present price of
provisions, is 16s. per week, which is more than an agricultural
laborer in the Southern counties receives wherewith to keep a wife
and seven children. But, besides this, she gets a shilling a week for
beer, and from a shilling to eighteenpence for washing. Besides all
this she has from twelve to eighteen pounds in hard cash, with oc-
casional presents of money and dress. The wages of her class have
been raised when they ought to have been lowered. The mechanic's
wages are justly raised, because the value of money depends upon
the value of the necessaries of life. These have risen, and therefore
money has sunk. But that rise does not affect the female servants,
and it does affect those who feed them like fighting cocks. A droller
piece of logic than the rise of fed servants' pocket-money because
unfed servants' wages are raised, I never encountered even in
Anglo-Saxony. However, the upshot is that any half-starved seam-
stress who will read this crude letter of mine, and make diligent in-
quiries, will find that 1 am right in the inain; that domestic servants
are trampling too bard upon the people who are called their masters
and mistresses; and that three thousand homes are open to a young
woman who can prove that she is not a thief, and six thousand
hands are offering not only plenty, but repletion, and liberal pocket-
money to boot.
The pay of a housemaid, in rent, fire, food,
washing, beer, and pocket-money, is about £70 a year, and this
hungry seamstresses can obtain if they will set about it, and without
any loss of dignity: for, as a rule, servants nowadays hold their
heads as high or a little higher than their mistresses do.
I ain, sir,
Your faithful servant,
CHARLES READE.
OUTRAGES ON THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.
TO THE Editor of THE DAILY TELEGRAPH.”
"
SIR,-1 am one of the many persons who are moved by your de-
nunciation of the lawless cruelties perpetrated on the Jews in Russia,
and the apparent connivance or apathy of the varnished savages who
misgovern those barbarians. If the latter persist in that course and
so make that a national crime which might otherwise remain the
crime of numerous individuals, some great calamity will fall on
them, or history is a blind guide; and by the same rule you give
friendly advice when you urge our Government and people to protest
and wash their hands before God and man of this terrible crime. I
Mчou
བསམ
READIANA.
99
fear, however, that a mere Government protest will be slighted or
evaded by Russian mendacity. Fortunately our nation can speak
and act by other organs besides our Government, and now is the
time to show ourselves men, and men whose hearts are horrified at
the cowardly cruelty of this Tartar tribe to God's ancient people.
Let us take a wide view of this situation, since it is so great and
so new in our day; for wholesale persecution of the Jews is not of
this epoch, but " a reversion" to the dark ages. One of the signs
that distinguish a true Christian from a sham one is that the former
studies the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures with care and reverence,
and there learns the debt his heart, soul, and understanding owe to
historians, poets, philosophers, prophets, preachers, and teachers,
some writing Greek, some Hebrew, but every one of them Jews; and
also learns to pity and respect the Jewish nation, though under a
cloud, and to hope for the time when they will resume their ancient
territory, which is so evidently kept waiting for them. This, the
hope of every Christian, is the burning and longing desire of many,
for another reason-because the prophecies we receive, though ob-
scure in matters of detail, are clear as day on two points: That the
Jews are to repossess Palestine, and, indeed, to rule from Lebanon
to Euphrates; and that this event is to be the first of a great series of
changes, leading to a vast improvement in the condition of poor
suffering mankind and of creation in general. Now we have here
in prospect a glorious event as sure as that the sun will rise to-
morrow. The only difference is that the sun will rise at a certain
hour, and the Jews will occupy Syria and resume their national
glory at an uncertain day.
to us.
No doubt it is the foible of mankind to assume that an uncertain
date must be a distant one. But that is unreasonable. Surely it
is the duty of wise and sober men not to run before the Almighty
in this thing; but, on the other hand, to watch precursory signs and
lend our humble co-operation should so great a privilege be accorded
This sudden persecution of the Jews in the very nation
where they are most numerous-may it not be a precursory sign and
a reminder from Providence that their abiding city is not in
European Tartary? I almost think some such reminder was needed;
for when I was a boy the pious Jews still longed for the Holy Land.
They prayed, like Daniel, with their windows open toward Jerusa-
lem. Yet, now that the broken and impoverished Saracen would
cede them territory at one tenth of its agricultural and commercial
value, a cold indifference seems to have come over them. I often
wonder at this change of sentiment about so great a matter and in so
short a period, comparatively speaking, and puzzle myself as to the
Two solutions occur to me: 1. Dispersed in various nations,
whose average inhabitants are inferior in intelligence and forethought
to themselves, they thrive as individual aliens more than they may
think so great a multitude of Jews could thrive in a land of their
own, where blockheads would be scarce. 2. They have for centuries
contracted their abilities to a limited number of peaceful arts and
trades; they may distrust their power to diversify their abilities, and
be suddenly a complete nation, with soldiers, sailors, merchants,
husbandmen, as well as financiers and artists.
reason.
If I should happen to be anywhere near the mark in these sug-
Uor M
*

100
READIANA.
gestions, let me offer a word in reply to both objections In the first
place, they both prove too much, for they would keep the Jews
dispersed for ever. It is certain, therefore, they will have to be got
over some day, and therefore the sooner the better. As to objection
one, it is now proved that sojourning among inferior nations has
more drawbacks than living at home. True, the Russian yokel has
for years been selling to the Jews his summer labor in winter, and
at a heavy discount. But the silly, improvident brute has turned
like a wild beast upon them, and, outwitted lawfully, has massacred
them contrary to law: and truly Solomon had warned them there is
no animal more dangerous than a fool and a brute beast without
understanding. Besides, they need not evacuate other countries in
a hurry and before the resources of their own land are developed.
Dimidium fucti qui bene cæpit, habet. Palestine can be colonized
effectually from Russia alone, where there are 3,000,000 Jews trem-
bling for life and property; and the rest would follow. As to the
second objection, History is a looking glass at our backs. Turn
round and look into it with your head as well as your eyes, and you
shall see the future. Whatever Jews have done Jews may do.
They are a people of genius, and genius is not confined by Nature,
but by will, by habit, or by accident. To omit to try is not to fail.
What have this people tried heartily and failed in? Warriors,
writers, builders, merchants, law-givers, husbandmen, and supreme
in all!
When they will consent to rise to their destiny I know not, but
this I do know, that, whenever they do, not excessive calculations,
but some faith, will be expected from them, as it always has been,
as a condition of their triumphs, and they will prove equal to the
occasion, and be great in the arts of peace and war, and their ene-
mies melt away before them like snow off a dyke. Should they
seem to require help, at starting, from any other nation, blessed
will be the nation that proffers it; and the nation that persecutes them
will be made an example of in some way or other. Therefore, if by
any chance this recent outrage should decide the Jewish leaders 10
colonize Palestine from Russia, let us freely offer ships, seamen,
money-whatever we are asked for. It will be a better national in-
vestment than Egyptian, Brazilian, or Peruvian bonds. Meantime,
I implore our divines to separate themselves, and all the souls under
their charge, in all the churches and chapels of the land, from the
crime of those picture-worshiping idolaters and cowardly murderers,
by public disavowal and prayerful humiliation, since the monsters
call themselves Christians.
Yours faithfully,
3, BLOOMFIELD VILLAS, UXBRIDGE ROAD.
Mou
CHARLES READE.
READIANA.
101
.
SCENE-The Old Bailey.
C
DIALOGUE BETWEEN A JUDGE AND A JAILER.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY TELEGRAPH."
SIR,-At Christmas imagination runs rife; Pantomimes threaten,
wherein Wisdom will be kept within bounds by Fancy; and even
in our columns I have just read a Dream, and found it interesting.
May I then profit by your temporary leniency and intrude into the
sacred Telegraph a dialogue? It is imaginary, but not idle: it may
do good, and make Power think instead of thinking it thinks-a
common but hurtful habit.
The Judge. Is the jailer present?
Mr. Holdfast. Here, my lord.
Judge. I sentence this man to four months' imprisonment, with
hard labor: you understand?
Holdfast. Perfectly, my lord. You mean unwholesome labor, and
as much as he can do and a little more. So then when he falls
short, we reduce his diet to increase his strength, since it has proved
unequal; this to be continued in a circle, and take his bed every
now and then and let him lie on a plank.
Judge. What! hard labor, yet short diet, with the addition of cold
at night and broken rest! Why, this is not Detention, it is Destruc
tion-either to man or beast. No, sir, I do not condemn this man to
imprisonment for life-he is not a murderer-I give him just four
months, no more, no less; and in that sentence it is clearly implied
that at the end of four months he is to come out, improved in his
habits by labor, and in his body by regular meals, of simple, nour-
ishing food, with no alcohol.
Holdfast. Excuse me, my lord; the Act of Parliament authorizes a
jailer to reduce a prisoner's diet and inflict other punishments.
Judge. Ay, at safe intervals; but not in quick repetition, nor in
unreasonable conjunction-hard labor on the heels of privation, and
cold on the top of both. These things united soon exhaust the
body. Your Act of Parliament contains no clause, that can be read
in a court of law, to repeal the law of Egland regarding so great a
matter as homicide. That immortal law, which was here before
these little trumpery Acts of Parliament, made to-day to be repealed
to-morrow, and will be here after Parliament itself has run its course,
deals with the case thus: If A, having the legal charge of B, and
keeping him in duresse, so that he cannot possibly obtain the neces-
saries of life elsewhere, subjects him to privation of food, rest, &c.,
and otherwise so shortens his life directly or indirectly by sheer ex-
haustion of the body, or by any disease which is a natural result of
multiplied privations and hardships, A can be indicted for a felony;
and he will be tried, not by any officer of State assuming unconsti-
tutional powers, but constitutionally, by the Queen in the person
of her judge, and by the country in the person of its jury.

102
READIANA.
N
Holdfast. They would never find a jailer guilty, not if a dozen of
the scum died in their term of imprisonment.
Judge. It is not for me to say. They are getting more intelligent,
like the rest of us. Certainly it would be their duty to demand
good evidence, and the true facts are hard to get at in a jail. Acton
and Fleetwood destroyed many prisoners, yet were acquitted on
trial. But at all events dismiss from your mind that a jailer can
plead the Act of Parliament, or any purely legal defense, to blood-
Îess destruction of a British subject in duresse. Keep strictly to my
sentence. It is not only the sentence of the Queen and the law, but
it is expressly proportioned to the verdict of the country. Four
months in a house of detention, not destruction, a house of correc-
tion, not a subtle shambles. The sentence has two limits, both
equally absolute. If, during the four months, you turn this man
into the street, you are indictable for a misdemeanor; if, during the
four months, you thrust him cannily into his grave, you are indict-
able for a felony; and, should I be the judge to try you, it will be
my duty to tell the jury that you took this prisoner, not from the
clouds, nor from any Government official, with no power to sentence
man, woman, nor child, where I sit, but from me; and that I sen-
tenced him, in your hearing, to four months' imprisonment, and not
to imprisonment for life.
י
KNIGHTSBRIDGE, CHRISTmas Day.
I am, sir,
Your obedient servant,
NOTE TO A SICK FRIEND.
My friend, with age come grief and care.
To every son of man,
Sickness or sorrow hard to bear,
Though life is but a span.
Since last we met, my heart has bled,
And will bleed till I die;
MOU
And you, confined to a sick bed,
In pain and languor lie.
:
We all should do the best we may
To cheer a friend in need.
Expect to morrow, or next day,
A visit from
19, ALBERT GATE, Knightsbridge.
CHARLES READE.
THE END.
}
14
CHARLES READE.
+
:
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25
43 Dark Days. By Hugh Conway. 25
44 King Arthur. By Miss Mulock.. 25
45 Living or Dead. Hugh Conway 25
46 A Wicked Girl. Mary Cecil Hay 25
47 Bound by a Spell. Hugh Conway
48 Beaton's Bargain. By Mrs. Alex-
ander..
25
By
··
19
L LLL LL
By
25
25
25
25
25
HP HP HP HP +3 +3 +3 +3 1912 1911 1 1 13 4
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25 102 "Twixt Smile and Tear.
Charlotte M. Braeme.
•
103
Lady Diana's Pride. By Char-
lotte M. Braeme.
55 Once Again. Mrs. Forrester.... 25
56 Vera Nevill; or, Poor Wisdom's
Chance. Mrs. H.Lovett Cameron 25
57 The Outsider. Hawley Smart.. 25 104 Sweet Cymbeline. By Charlotte
58 Jess. By H. Rider Haggard……….. 25
59 Dora Thorne. By Charlotte M.
Braeme..
M. Braeme....
25
61 Hilary's Folly. By Charlotte M.
Braeme....
25
62 Barbara Heathcote's Trial. By
Rosa Nouchette Carey
63 Between Two Sins. By Charlotte
M. Braeme.
64 A Bachelor's Blunder.
E. Norris.....
By W.
Rosa Nou-
65 Nellie's Memories.
✰✰✰.
chette Carey..
66 Repented at Leisure.
lotte M. Braeme...
By Char-
68 The Merry Men. By Robert
Louis Stevenson.
70 Othmar. By "Ouida.
72 Sunshine and Roses.
lotte M. Braeme..
74 Les Misérables.
Hugo. Part I...
74 Les Misérables.
Hugo. Part II.
74 Les Misérables.
Hugo. Part III.
75 One Thing Needful.
E. Braddon……….
16 The Master Passion.
25
* 41 + 2 + 3 + LP
25
NO.
PRICE.
78 Under Two Flags. By "Ouida" 25
79 The Dark House. By George
Manville Fenn.
25
25
82 Why Not? By Florence Marryat 25
83 Weavers and Weft; or, "Love
That Hath Us in His Net."
By Miss M. E. Braddon..
84 The Professor. By Charlotte
Bronté...
88 Springhaven. R. D. Blackmore 25
89 A Vagrant Wife. By Florence
Warden...
25
25
109 The Rabbi's Spell. By Stuart
C. Cumberland..
111 Phyllis. By "The Duchess
25 112 Tinted Vapours. By J. Maclaren
Cobban.
25 113 A Haunted Life. By Charlotte
M. Braeme
25 114 The Woodlanders. By Thomas
25
•
90 Struck Down. By Hawley Smart 25
91 At the World's Mercy. By Flor-
ence Warden..
92 Claribel's Love Story; or, Love's
Hidden Depths. By Charlotte
M. Braeme...
93 The Shadow of a Sin. By Char-
lotte M. Braeme..
95 Faith and Unfaith. By
Duchess "
"The
97 Little Tu'penny. By S. Baring-
Gould.
98 Cometh Up as a Flower. By
Rhoda Broughton...
99 From Gloom to Sunlight. By
Charlotte M. Braeme…..
100 Redeemed by Love. By Char-
lotte M. Braeme.
...
101 A Woman's War. By Charlotte
M. Braeme
··
·
Hardy.
25 115 Wee Wifie. By Rosa Nouchette
...
By
105 The Belle of Lynn. By Char-
lotte M. Braeme.
·
•••
Carey
116 Worth Winning. By Mrs. H.
Lovett Cameron.
117 Sabina Zembra. By William
Black...
119 Good-bye, Sweetheart!
Rhoda Broughton..
121 Rossmoyne. By "The Duch-
* KL HP L
25
.....
25
By
25
25
~N & & NŇ Ň & & & & & & &&& & & & & & & & & & & &
25
25
25
25
25
25
106 Dawn. By H. Rider Haggard.. 25
107 The Tinted Venus. By F. Anstey 25
108 Addie's Husband; or, Through
Clouds to Sunshine..
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
By Char-
By Victor
By Victor
By Victor
ess"
25
By Miss M.
122 A Girl's Heart..
By Flor-
25 123 Garrison Gossip: Gathered in
Blankhampton. By John
Strange Winter....
ence Marryat...
25
………………
17 Marjorie. Charlotte M. Braeme 25 124 File No. 113. By Emile Gaboriau 25
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Hyder Ragged
NO.
148 Doris. By "The Duchess
25 151 The Squire's Darling. By Char-
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25 152 Robur the Conqueror. By Jules
Verne.
127 The Romance of a Poor Young
Man. By Octave Feuillet.... 25 153 A Dark Marriage Morn.
128 Hilda. By Charlotte M. Braeme 25
Charlotte M. Braeme.
130 Portia. By "The Duchess " 25
154 Within an Inch of His Life.
132 Mrs. Geoffrey. The Duchess" 25
Emile Gaboriau.
134 In Durance Vile. By "The
155 Other People's Money.
Duchess "
Emile Gaboriau..
66
126 He. By the author of "King
Solomon's Wives"
PRICE.
By
....
136 Loys, Lord Berresford.
"The Duchess "
....
138 Airy Fairy Lilian. By "The
Duchess"
1)
"The Duchess
140 Molly Bawn.
142 Beauty's Daughters. By "The
Duchess
"3
143 A Maiden All Forlorn. By "The
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156 Gold Elsie. By E. Marlitt.
157 Her Second Love. By Charlotte
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158 East Lynne. By Mrs. Henry
Wood.......
By LEWIS CARROLL,
Author of "Through the Looking-Glass.”
By
...
....
159 On Her Wedding Morn. By
Charlotte M. Braeme..
Allan Quatermain. By H. Rider
Haggard....
161 The Duke's Secret. By Char-
lotte M. Braeme...
160
* * * * * * * * *
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MUNRO'S PUBLICATIONS.
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Persons who wish to purchase the following works in a complete
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AUTHORS' LIST.
20
20
Works by the author of “ Addie's | 806 Her Dearest Foe. 2d half....
Husband.”
888 Addie's Husband; or, Through
Clouds to Sunshine..
504 My Poor Wife...
814 The Heritage of Langdale.
815 Ralph Wilton's Weird.
900 By Woman's Wit....
10
20
997 Forging the Fetters, and The
Australian Aunt..
20
246 A Fatal Dower...
372 Phyllis' Probation..
461 His Wedded Wife…..
829 The Actor's Ward…….
Works by the author of “A Fatal
Dower.'
•••
··
322 A Woman's Love-Story.
677 Griselda……….
Works by the author of “A Great
Mistake."
244 A Great Mistake…….
588 Cherry..
..
Mrs. Alexander's Works.
5 The Admiral's Ward.
17 The Wooing O't....
62 The Executor..
..
189 Valerie's Fate.
229 Maid, Wife, or Widow?.
236 Which Shall it Be?.
···
·
Works by the author of “A
Woman's Love-Story."
··
10
10
RORR
•
• ·
20
10
20
20
20
10
339 Mrs. Vereker's Courier Maid... 10
490 A Second Life.
!
10
20
20
20
20
10
10
20
20
10
20
Alison's Works.
194 "So Near, and Yet So Far!"... 10
10
278 For Life and Love……….
481 The House That Jack Built.... 10.
F. Anstey's Works.
59 Vice Versâ.
225 The Giant's Robe...
503 The Tinted Venus. A Farcical
Romance..
819 A Fallen Idol........…………
R. M. Ballantyne's Works.
89 The Red Eric.
95 The Fire Brigade.
96 Erling the Bold……..
772 Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood
Trader..
S. Baring-Gould's Works.
787 Court Royal..
878 Little Tu'penny
564 At Bay.
794 Beaton's Bargain.
20
20
797 Look Before You Leap..
805 The Freres. 1st half..
805 The Freres. 2d half……
806 Her Dearest Foe. 1st half..... 20 199 The Fisher Village...
20 188 Idonea.
··
Basil's Works.
344
The Wearing of the Green
547 A Coquette's Conquest.
585 A Drawn Game.
..
··
Anne Beale's Works.
11
··
..
20
20
10
20
10
10
10
20
20
10
20
20
20
2892903
10
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY-POCKET ÉDITION.
2
Walter Besant's Works.
F
97 All in a Garden Fair…….
187 Uncle Jack.
140 A Glorious Fortune……….
146 Love Finds the Way, and Other
Stories. By Besant and Rice 10
230 Dorothy Forster...
824 In Luck at Last....
541 Uncle Jack….
651 "Self or Bearer
""
882 Children of Gibeon..
904 The Holy Rose.
906 The World Went Very Well
Then
980 To Call Her Mine….
William Black's Works.
•
晶
​..
..
A Story of These
··
mance..
78 Madcap Violet.
81 A Daughter of Heth.
M. Betham-Edwards's Works.
273 Love and Mirage; or, The Wait-
ing on an Island...
579 The Flower of Doom, and Other
Stories....
594 Doctor Jacob.
70 White Wings: A Yachting Ro-
...
..
QAA A 2AAARA 22
20
898 Romeo and Juliet: A Tale of
Two Young Fools...
962 Sabina Zembra.....…………….
10
1 Yolande..
18 Shandon Bells.
21 Sunrise:
Times..
28 A Princess of Thule.
39 In Silk Attire…….
44 Macleod of Dare…….
49 That Beautiful Wretch.
50 The Strange Adventures of a
Phaeton.
20
10
...
20
10
10
•
10
20
10
20
20
10
10
202080
22 22222 & 288
20
20
20
20
10
222 22
20
20
Miss M. E. Braddon's Works.
35 Lady Audley's Secret....
56 Phantom Fortune.
74 Aurora Floyd.
110 Under the Red Flag.
153 The Golden Calf.
497 The Lady's Mile.
498 Only a Clod.
...
499 The Cloven Foot..
20 511 A Strange World.
20
20
20
20
2
ter. Part I...
478 Diavola; or, Nobody's Daugh-
ter. Part II...
480 Married in Haste. Edited by
Miss M. E. Braddon..
20
..
R. D. Blackmore's Works.
67 Lorna Doone. 1st half.
67 Lorna Doone. 2d half.
427 The Remarkable History of Sir
Thomas Upmore, Bart., M. P. 20
615 Mary Anerley..
625 Erema; or, My Father's Sin... 20
629 Cripps, the Carrier.
630 Cradock Nowell. First half.
630 Cradock Nowell. Second half. 20
631 Christowell. A Dartmoor Tale 20
632 Clara Vaughan...
943
633 The Maid of Sker.
633 The Maid of Sker.
636 Alice Lorraine.
666 Alice Lorraine.
926 Springhaven
20
20
First half.. 20
Second half 20 947
First half……... 20
Second half.. 20 947
20
·
204 Vixen...
211 The Octoroon
10
234 Barbara; or, Splendid Misery.. 20
263 Au Ishmaelite.....
20
315 The Mistletoe Bough. Christ-
mas, 1884. Edited by Miss M.
E. Braddon..
Wyllard's Weird.
434
478 Diavola; or, Nobody's Daugh-
*
·· •
•
··
515 Sir Jasper's Tenant.
20 524 Strangers and Pilgrims.
529 The Doctor's Wife………..
542 Fenton's Quest....
544 Cut by the County; or, Grace
Darnel.
20
20
548 The Fatal Marriage, and The
Shadow in the Corner.
……. 10
124 Three Feathers.
20
125 The Monarch of Mincing Lane. 20 549 Dudley Carleon; or, The Broth-
126 Kilmeny.
20
er's Secret, and George Caul-
field's Journey.
138 Green Pastures and Piccadilly. 20
265 Judith Shakespeare: Her Love
496 Only a Woman. Edited by Miss
M. E. Braddon..
•
487 Put to the Test. Edited by Miss
M. E. Braddon..
488 Joshua Haggard's Daughter.... 20
489 Rupert Godwin.
20
495 Mount Royal..
20
... •
··
..
•
...
•
RRR=RR=RR
20
20
20
10
•
(Se-
20
20
• • •
552 Hostages to Fortune.
Affairs and Other Adventures 20 553 Birds of Prey…….
472 The Wise Women of Inverness. 10 551 Charlotte's Inheritance.
quel to "Birds of Prey ")
627 White Heather...
557 To the Bitter End....
559 Taken at the Flood..
560 Asphodel...
561 Just as I am; or, A Living Lie 20
567 Dead Men's Shoes.
20
570 John Marchmont's Legacy. ..
618 The Mistletoe Bough. Christ-
mas, 1885. Edited by Miss M.
E. Braddon.
22 2 2 2 2222 222222222 ≈ 2
20
20 840 One Thing Needful; or, The Pen-
alty of Fate...
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
10
PRR RRRRRRR
10
20
20
20
20
20
2 220
20
881 Mohawks..
890 The Mistletoe Bough. Christ-
mas, 1886. Edited by Miss M.
E. Braddon...
20
Weavers and Weft; or, "Love
that Hath Us in His Net" 20
Publicans and Sinners;
or,
Lucius Davoren. First half.. 20
and Sinners; or,
Publicans
Lucius Davoren. Second half 20
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY-POCKET EDITION.
•
Works by Charlotte M. Braeme, 459 A Woman's Temptation. (Large
Author of "Dora Thorne."
type edition)...
951 A Woman's Temptation.
19 Her Mother's Sin...
51 Dora Thorne..
54 A Broken Wedding-Ring.
68 A Queen Amongst Women..... 10
69 Madolin's Lover.
73 Redeemed by Love; or, Love's
Victory..
76 Wife in Name Only; or, A
Broken Heart.
G
…….
254 The Wife's Secret, and
but False.
..
··
469 Lady Damer's Secret; or, A
Guiding Star...
470. Evelyn's Folly.
20
471 Thrown on the World..
79 Wedded and Parted..
10
476 Between Two Sins; or, Married
in Haste.……….
92 Lord Lynne's Choice...
10
148 Thorns and Orange-Blossoms.. 10 516 Put Asunder; or, Lady Castle-
190 Romance of a Black Veil..
maine's Divorce..
220 Which Loved Him Best?.
10
10
237 Repented at Leisure. (Large
type edition)..
967 Repented at Leisure.
249"Prince Charlie's Daughter
250 Sunshine and Roses; or,
ana's Discipline..
··
•
· ·
…..
··
• •
..
•••
""
...
+ ■
··
**
•
..
Di-
•
Fair
10
10
10
283 The Sin of a Lifetime.
287 At War With Herself.
923 At War With Herself.
type edition)..
20
288 From Gloom to Sunlight; or,
From Out the Gloom..
10
955 From Gloom to Sunlight; or,
From Out the Gloom. (Large
type edition)..
291 Love's Warfare.
292 A Golden Heart..
293 The Shadow of a Sin.
948 The Shadow of a Sin. (Large
type edition)..
294 Hilda; or, The False Vow..
・・・
928 Hilda; or, The False Vow.
(Large type edition).
295 A Woman's War……
952 A Woman's War. (Large type
edition).
296 A Rose in Thorns.
297 Hilary's Folly; cr, Her Marriage
Vow.
(Large
953 Hilary's Folly; or, Her Mar-
riage Vow. (Large type edi-
tion)....
• ▸
299 The Fatal Lilies, and A Bride
from the Sea...
• ·
•
303 Ingledew House, and More Bit-
ter than Death.
·
N
2
•
•
•
• •
▸
ARRAR & RAAAAA AAA A
10
-
20 460 Under a Shadow
20
465 The Earl's Atonement..
466 Between Two Loves.
20 467 A Struggle for a Ring.
20
20
10
10
10
20
10
300 A Gilded Sin, and A Bridge of
Love...
10
QAAA AA 22 2A A
20
10
10
··
304 In Cupid's Net..
305 A Dead Heart, and Lady Gwen-
doline's Dream.
306 A Golden Dawn, and Love for
a Day.....
10
10
307 Two Kisses, and Like no other
Love..
10
308 Beyond Pardon..
20
322 A Woman's Love-Story
323 A Willful Maid..
411 A Bitter Atonement.
433 My Sister Kate……
10
20
931 Lady Diana's Pride..
20 949 Claribel's Love Story; or, Love's
10
Hidden Depths..
10 958 A Haunted Life; or, Her Terri-
ble Sin....
10
969 The Mystery of Colde Fell; or,
Not Proven.
10
20
10
10
576 Her Martyrdom.
626 A Fair Mystery.
-- --
741 The Heiress of Hilldrop; or,
The Romance of a Young
Girl..
745 For Another's Sin; or, A Strug-
gle for Love..
792 Set in Diamonds...
821 The World Between Them..
853 A True Magdalen.
854 A Woman's Error..
922 Marjorie.
924 'Twixt Smile and Tear..
927 Sweet Cymbeline...
929 The Belle of Lynn; or, The
Miller's Daughter.
·
15 Jane Eyre……
57 Shirley.
944 The Professor.
•
... •
***
995 An Unnatural Bondage, and
That Beautiful Lady..
Charlotte Broute's Works.
*
10 768 Red as a Rose is She.
20 769 Cometh Up as a Flower.
20 | 862 Betty's Visions.
10 894 Doctor Cupid………..
•
...
· •
Rhoda Broughton's Works.
S6 Belinda…
101 Second Thoughts..
227 Nancy.
**
645 Mrs. Smith of Longmains.
758 Good-bye, Sweetheart!"
765 Not Wisely, But Too Well
767 Joan...
· •
O •
•
RARRRR RRR = RRR
20
10
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
973 The Squire's Darling.
975 A Dark Marriage Morn..
978 Her Second Love..
982 The Duke's Secret..
985 On Her Wedding Morn, and
The Mystery of the Holly-Tree 20
988 The Shattered Idol, and Letty
Leigh...
990 The Earl's Error, and Arnold's
Promise...
10
20
20
20
R RRRRRR22 88 & 2 AARRA 2 2 2 2
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
RRRAAARRR=R
20
20
10
20
20
20
20
10
20
S
=
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY POCKET EDITION.
Mary E. Bryan's Works.
731 The Bayou Bride.
20
20
857 Kildee; or, The Sphinx of the
Red House. 1st half..
857 Kildee; or, The Sphinx of the
Red House. 2d half.
20
Robert Buchanan's Works.
145 "Storm-Beaten:" God and The
Man....
154 Annan Water…….
181 The New Abelard.
398 Matt: A Tale of a Caravan
646 The Master of the Mine
892 That Winter Night; or, Love's
Victory..
••
912 Pure Gold……….
963 Worth Winning
··
•
...
Captain Fred Burnaby's Works.
375 A Ride to Khiva..
384 On Horseback Through Asia
Minor..
E. Fairfax Byrrne's Works.
521 Entangled.
538 A Fair Country Maid.
· · •
·· -
...
· ···
Hall Caine's Works.
445 The Shadow of a Crime..
520 She's All the World to Me………….. 10
20
10
.....
RRAAR A
...
Lewis Carroll's Works.
462 Alice's Adventures in Wonder-
land. Illustrated by John
Tenniel....
20
20
··
10
52 The New Magdalen..
102 The Moonstone..
167 Heart and Science.
168 No Thoroughfare. By Dickens
and Collins...
• •
175 Love's Random Shot, and Other
Stories...
233 "I Say No;" or, The Love-Let-
ter Answered..
508 The Girl at the Gate
10
20
10
20
2 20
Stories...
711 A Cardinal Sin.
804 Living or Dead.
Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron's Works. 830 Bound by a Spell..
595 A North Country Maid……….
796 In a Grass Country...
891 Vera Nevill; or, Poor Wisdom's
Chance...
20
20
22 222
Rosa Nouchette Carey's Works.
215 Not Like Other Girls....
396 Robert Ord's Atonement.
551 Barbara Heathcote's Trial…….
608 For Lilias.
930 Uncle Max………
932 Queenie's Whim..
934 Wooed and Married.
936 Nellie's Memories...
961 Wee Wifie.
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
789 Through the Looking-Glass,
and What Alice Found There,
Illustrated by John Tenniel.. 20
Wilkie Collins's Works.
20
20
20
20
591 The Queen of Hearts...
613 The Ghost's Touch, and Percy
and the Prophet..
623 My Lady's Money.
701 The Woman in White.
.... ••
10
20
20
10
10
20
10
10
10
1st half 20
701 The Woman in White. 2d half 20
702 Man and Wife.
702 Man and Wife.
764 The Evil Genius...
896 The Guilty River.
946 The Dead Secret.
977 The Haunted Hotel..
1st half..
2d half.
Hugh Conway's Works.
240 Called Back..
251 The Daughter of the Stars, and
Other Tales..
301 Dark Days....
302 The Blatchford Bequest.
502 Carriston's Gift...
•
...
Mabel Collins's Works.
749 Lord Vanecourt's Daughter.... 20
828 The Prettiest Woman in Warsaw 20
•
•
·
.....
[1 • •
20 J. Fenimore Cooper's Works.
.
359 The Water-Witch.
361 The Red Rover.
373 Wing and Wing.
378 Homeward Bound;
Chase..
525 Paul Vargas, and Other Stories 10
543 A Family Affair……….
20
601 Slings and Arrows, and Other
60 The Last of the Mohicans....
63 The Spy..
309 The Pathfinder
·
....
310 The Prairie...
318 The Pioneers; or, The Sources
of the Susquehanna.
349 The Two Admirals..
U
··
•
•
•
•
...
•••
..
379 Home as Found. (Sequel to
"Homeward Bound").
380 Wyandotte; or, The Hutted
Knoll....
··
...
...
or, The
385 The Headsman; or, The Ab-
baye des Vignerons.
894 The Bravo.
397 Lionel Lincoln; or, The Leag-
R AARRRRR=RR
..
20
20
10
20
20
20
·
414 Miles Wallingford. (Sequel to
"Afloat and Ashore ").
A AAAAAA =22&
10
10
10
10
10
10
20
20
20
R222 222R2 2 2 2 RR RRR RRR 2 R
20
20
uer of Boston.
400 The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish... 20
413 Afloat and Ashore..
20
20
20
20
20
20
415 The Ways of the Hour..
416 Jack Tier; or, The Florida Reef 20
419 The Chainbearer; or, The Little-
page Manuscripts..
420
Satanstoe; or, The Littlepage
Manuscripts.
421
The Redskins; or, Indian and
Injin. Being the conclusion
of the Littlepage Manuscripts 20
"
542
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY POCKET EDITION.
J. Fenimore Cooper's Works
(CONTINUED).
422 Precaution...
423 The Sea Lions; or, The Lost
Sealers..
424 Mercedes of Castile; or,
Voyage to Cathay
··
...
425 The Oak-Openings; or, The Bee-
Hunter.
431 The Monikins..
B. M. Croker's Works,
207 Pretty Miss Neville..
260 Proper Pride.
412 Some One Else.
May Crommelin's Works.
452 In the West Countrie….
619 Joy; or, The Light of Cold-
Home Ford..
647 Goblin Gold….
...
The
Georgiana M. Craik's Works.
450 Godfrey Helstone......
606 Mrs. Hollyer....
Alphonse Daudet's Works.
534 Jack....
574 The Nabob: A Story of Parisian
Life and Manners.
41 Oliver Twist…...
77 A Tale of Two Cities.
84 Hard Times……….
··
••
•
♣
•
20
20
20
2 22
...
20
……….
20
20
20
202283
10
Charles Dickens's Works.
10 The Old Curiosity Shop...
22 David Copperfield. Vol. I.
22 David Copperfield. Vol. II.... 20
24 Pickwick Papers. Vol. I.
20
20
20
24 Pickwick Papers. Vol. II... 20
37 Nicholas Nickleby. First half. 20
37 Nicholas Nickleby. Second half 20742
20
20
10
10
91 Barnaby Rudge. 1st half..
20
91 Barnaby Rudge. 2d half.
20
94 Little Dorrit.
20
20
20
20
First half.
94 Little Dorrit. Second half.
106 Bleak House. First half.
106 Bleak House. Second half.
107 Dombey and Son. 1st half 20
107 Dombey and Son. 2d half…………. 20
108 The Cricket on the Hearth, and
Doctor Marigold..
10
131 Our Mutual Friend. (1st half). 20
131 Our Mutual Friend. (2d half).. 20
132 Master Humphrey's Clock..... 10
152 The Uncommercial Traveler…….. 20
168 No Thoroughfare. By Dickens
and Collins.
169 The Haunted Man.
437 Life and Adventures of Martin
Chuzzlewit. First half.. ... 20
437 Life and Adventures of Martin
Chuzzlewit. Second half…………. 20
439 Great Expectations.
20
440 Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings....
447 American Notes....
10
20
20
20
20
20
448 Pictures From Italy, and The
Mudfog Papers, &c...
20
454 The Mystery of Edwin Drood.. 20
456 Sketches by Boz. Illustrative
of Every-day Life and Every-
day People..
676 A Child's History of England.. 20
20
10
10
Sarah Doudney's Works.
338 The Family Difficulty...
679 Where Two Ways Meet
...
F. Du Boisgobey's Works.
82 Sealed Lips.
104 The Coral Pin. 1st half………
104 The Coral Pin. 2d half..
264 Piédouche, a French Detective. 10
328 Babiole, the Pretty
the Pretty Milliner.
First half....
328 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner.
Second half..
••••
14 Airy Fairy Lilian
16 Phyllis...
25 Mrs. Geoffrey.
edition)...
950 Mrs. Geoffrey.
29 Beauty's Daughters.
30 Faith and Unfaith...
Stories......
453 The Lottery Ticket.
475 The Prima Donna's Husband.. 20
522 Zig-Zag, the Clown; or, The
Steel Gauntlets....
20
523 The Consequences of a Duel. A
Parisian Romance..
648 The Angel of the Bells..
697 The Pretty Jailer. 1st half………. 20
697 The Pretty Jailer. 2d half.
20
699 The Sculptor's Daughter. 1st
half
699 The Sculptor's Daughter. 2d
half....
20
1st half.
20
·· **
►
782 The Closed Door.
782 The Closed Door. 2d half. .. 20
851 The Cry of Blood. 1st half.... 20
851 The Cry of Blood. 2d half..
918 The Red Band, 1st half.
918 The Red Band. 2d half
Cash on Delivery.
• ·
• •
"The Duchess's” Works.
2 Molly Bawn.
6 Portia.
··
•
•
***
•
(Large type
10
10
RRRA & RRR R RAAR & RRRRAAAR
..
20
284 Doris ..
312 A Week's Amusement; or, ▲
Week in Killarney....
20
20
20
20
118 Loys, Lord Berresford, and
Eric Dering.
119 Monica, and A Rose Distill'd.
|
123 Sweet is True Love.
129 Rossmoyne…..
134 The Witching Hour, and Other
Stories..
136 "That Last Rehearsal,'
and
Other Stories.
166 Moonshine and Marguerites.... 10
171 Fortune's Wheel, and Other
RRAR RAAR AAAA A 99 8A A
20
10
20
20
10
··
.. 10
10
10
10
10
6
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY-POCKET EDITION.
"The Duchess's" Works
(CONTINUED).
842 The Baby, and One New Year's
Eve...
390 Mildred Trevanion.
404 In Durance Vile, and Other
Stories......
•
66
486 Dick's Sweetheart.
494 A Maiden All Forlorn, and Bar-
bara....
517 A Passive Crime, and Other
Stories
...
541"As It Fell Upon a Day."
733 Lady Branksmere.
771 A Mental Struggle..
785 The Haunted Chamber
862 Ugly Barrington..
875 Lady Valworth's Diamonds.... 20
...
·· •
Alexander Dumas's Works,
55 The Three Guardsmen.
75 Twenty Years After.
259 The Bride of Monte-Cristo. A
Sequel to The Count of
Monte-Cristo"
262 The Count of Monte-Cristo.
Part I...
262 The Count of Monte-Cristo.
Part II……….
- 顱
​•
717 Beau Tancrede; or, The Mar-
riage Verdict..
...
George Ebers's Works.
474 Serapis. An Historical Novel.
983 Uarda.....
•
··
• •
·
•
George Eliot's Works.
8 The Mill on the Floss.
31 Middlemarch. 1st half.
31 Middlemarch.
2d half.
34 Daniel Deronda. 1st half…………
34 Daniel Deronda. 2d half.
36 Adam Bede……
42 Romola..
$93 Felix Holt, the Radical.
•
•
•
•
9º 9 A AARR=AR
10
•••
10
Maria Edgeworth's Works.
708 Ormond..
788 The Absentee. An Irish Story. 20
20
20
2280
2 2 2 2
10
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
10
ARARARAR
707 Silas Marner: The Weaver of
Raveloe...
10
10
10
20
20
20
20
728 Janet's Repentance.
762 Impressions of Theophrastus
Such...
B. L. Farjeon's Works.
179 Little Make-Believe....
573 Love's Harvest......
607 Self-Doomed....
616 The Sacred Nugget..
657 Christinas Angel..
20 721 Dolores..
|
20
907 The Bright Star of Life...
909 The Nine of Hearts
•
G. Manville Fenn's Works..
193 The Rosery Folk...
558 Poverty Corner.
587 The Parson o' Dumford.
609 The Dark House..
...
•
Octave Feuillet's Works.
66 The Romance of a Poor Young
Man..
...
386 Led Astray; or, "La Petite
Comtesse
··
726 My Hero….
727 Fair Women..
•
Mrs. Forrester's Works.
80 June..
•••
280 Omnia Vanitas. A Tale of So-
715 I Have Lived and Loved.…….
·
ciety.
484 Although He Was a Lord, and
Other Tales.
724 My Lord and My Lady
··
729 Mignon.
....
732 From Olympus to Hades.
734 Viva..
572 Healey.
935 Borderland..
...
··
··
736 Roy and Viola.
740 Rhona..
744 Diana Carew; or, For a Wom-
an's Sake..
883 Once Again.
Mrs. Annie Edwards's Works.
644 A Girton Girl…….
834 A Ballroom Repentance.
835 Vivian the Beauty.
836 A Point of Honor.
837 A Vagabond Heroine.
838 Ought We to Visit Her?.
839 Leah: A Woman of Fashion….. 20 314 Peril...
841 Jet: Her Face or Her Fortune? 10
20
842 A Blue-Stocking.
843 Archie Lovell.
10
20
20
R. E. Francillon's Works.
844 Susan Fielding
135 A Great Heiress: A Fortune
845 Philip Earnscliffe; or, The Mor-
20
in Seven Checks.
als of May Fair…….
846 Steven Lawrence. First half. 20 319 Face to Face: A Fact in Seven
Fables..
846 Steven Lawrence. Second half 20
850 A Playwright's Daughter...... 10 360 Ropes of Sand.
656 The Golden Flood. By R. E.
Francillon and Wm. Šenior.. 10
20 911 Golden Bells…...
20
Emile Gaboriau's Works.
7 File No. 113..
12 Other People's Money.
20 Within an Inch of His Life.... 20
26 Monsieur Lecoq. Vol I......
26 Monsieur Lecoq. Vol. II...... 20
Jessie Fothergill's Works.
ARARARR
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10
20
10
10
20
20
10
10
10
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20
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10
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20
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20
20
20
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10
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22227
20
20
20
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY-POCKET EDITION.
1
Emile Gaboriau's Works
(CONTINUED).
33 The Clique of Gold....
38 The Widow Lerouge...
43 The Mystery of Orcival...
144 Promises of Marriage.
979 The Count's Secret. Part I... 20
979 The Count's Secret. Part II..
1002 Marriage at a Venture.......
10
**
20
20
Charles Gibbon's Works.
64 A Maiden Fair...
317 By Mead and Stream....
222 The Sun-Maid..
555 Cara Roma..
614 No. 99...
680 Fast and Loose.
Arthur Griffiths's Works.
•
James Grant's Works.
566 The Royal Highlanders; or,
The Black Watch in Egypt... 20
781 The Secret Dispatch.....
10
Miss Grant's Works.
Thomas Hardy's Works.
139 The Romantic Adventures of
a Milkmaid…….
Mary Cecil Hay's Works.
65 Back to the Old Home.
72 Old Myddelton's Money
196 Hidden Perils.
John B. Harwood's Works.
143 One False, Both Fair.......
858 Within the Clasp....
197 For Her Dear Sake.
224 The Arundel Motto.
281 The Squire's Legacy
290 Nora's Love Test.
408 Lester's Secret.
H. Rider Haggard's Works.
432 The Witch's Head
20
753 King Solomon's Mines
20
910 She: A History of Adventure.. 20
941 Jess..
20
959 Dawn
20
989 Allan Quatermain.
20
•
...
·
·
··
678 Dorothy's Venture.
716 Victor and Vanquished.
849 A Wicked Girl..
987 Brenda Yorke…….
213 The Lover's Creed..
802 A Stern Chase.
..
•
530 A Pair of Blue Eyes.
690 Far From the Madding Crowd. 20
791 The Mayor of Casterbridge.... 20
945 The Trumpet-Major.
957 The Woodlanders..
20
20 663 Handy Andy.
664 Rory O'More,
· •
**
.
……….
···
• ••
..
••
Mrs. Cashel-Hoey's Works.
$09 Nell Haffenden..
$14 "Twixt Love and Duty....
..
Tighe Hopkins's Works.
…………….
•
•
20
20
20
10
20
20
20
10
20
10
20
Works by the Author of “Judith
Wynne."
22208
332 Judith Wynne.
506 Lady Lovelace..
2220
William H. G. Kingston's Works.
117 A Tale of the Shore and Ocean. 20
133 Peter the Whaler.
10
761 Will Weatherhelm.
763 The Midshipman, Marmaduke
Merry
Vernon Lee's Works,
399 Miss Brown.
859 Ottilie: An Eighteenth Century
Idyl. By Vernon Lee. The
Prince of the 100 Soups. Edit-
ed by Vernon Lee…….
Charles Lever's Works.
···
• · •
...
··
...
20 282 Donal Grant..
325 The Portent..
看看
​191 Harry Lorrequer.
212 Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dra-
goon. First half.
First
·····
··
212 Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dra-
goon. Second half.
243 Tom Burke of "Ours."
half..
243 Tom Burke of
ond half.
Mary Linskill's Works.
473 A Lost Son...
Ours."
Sec-
20
··
620 Between the Heather and the
Northern Sea.
20
•
George Macdonald's Works.
20
20
326 Phantastes. A Faerie Romance
20
for Men and Women.
20 722 What's Mine's Mine........
20
20 914 Joan Wentworth….
RER R
•
...
20
20
20
Mrs. E. Lynn Linton's Works.
122 Ione Stewart...
..
817 Stabbed in the Dark...
886 Paston Carew, Millionaire and
Miser....
Samuel Lover's Works.
20
2 2 2 2 2
Sir E. Bulwer Lytton's Works.
40 The Last Days of Pompeii……………
83 A Strange Story...
90 Ernest Maltravers...
10 130 The Last of the Barons. First
20
half..
20 130 The Last of the Barons. Sec-
20
ond half....
20 | 162 Eugene Aram…...
20 164 Leila; or, The Siege of Grenada 10
20 650 Alice; or, The Mysteries. (A Se-
20
quel to "Ernest Maltravers ") 20
20 720 Paul Clifford
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
10
20
20
20
RRA & RRA RA
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
10
Katharine S. Macquoid's Works.
479 Louisa
10
20
222228
20
20
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY-POCKET EDITION.
E. Marlitt's Works.
652 The Lady with the Rubies..... 20
858 Old Ma'm'selle's Secret………..
972 Gold Elsie..
20
20
999 The Second Wife..
20
Florence Marryat's Works.
159 Captain Norton's Diary, and
A Moment of Madness.... 10
183 Old Contrairy, and Other
Stories....
..
……
208 The Ghost of Charlotte Cray,
and Other Stories..
10
276 Under the Lilies and Roses... 10
444 The Heart of Jane Warner.... 20
449 Peeress and Player..
689 The Heir Presumptive.
825 The Master Passion.
860 Her Lord and Master..
861 My Sister the Actress..
863 "My Own Child."
864 IL No Intentions.”
865 Written in Fire.
897 Ange...
899 A Little Stepson..
939 Why Not?..
998 Fighting the Air
998 Open Sesame..
1004 Mad Dumaresq.
866 Miss Harrington's Husband;
or, Spiders of Society.
867 The Girls of Feversham...
868 Petronel....
869 The Poison of Asps.
870 Out of His Reckoning.
872 With Cupid's Eyes...
873 A Harvest of Wild Oats.
877 Facing the Footlights..
893 Love's Conflict. 1st half.
893 Love's Conflict. 2d half
895 A Star and a Heart…..
•••
··
··
• ·
901 A Lucky Disappointment.
903 Phyllida...
905 The Fair-Haired Alda.
•
• •
D
19
•
L ·
D
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• D •
88 The Privateersman….
272 The Little Savage.
991 Mr. Midshipman Easy.....
……
Captain Marryat's Works.
535 Murder or Manslaughter?.
673 Story of a Sin
713 "Cherry Ripe
795 Sam's Sweetheart.
798 The Fashion of this World.
799 My Lady Green Sleeves....
•
Helen B. Mathers's Works.
13 Eyre's Acquittal...
221 Comin' Thro' the Rye.
438 Found Out....
•
•
•
•
•
•
·
Justin McCarthy's Works.
121 Maid of Athens..
602 Camiola..
685 England Under Gladstone.
1880-1885..
A A RAR
10
20
20
20
20
20
RAAAA A22:
20
20
20
Mrs, Alex. McVeigh Miller's
Works.
267 Laurel Vane; or, The Girls'
Conspiracy..
…………
268 Lady Gay's Pride; or, The
Miser's Treasure..
269 Lancaster's Choice……….
316 Sworn to Silence; or, Aline
Rodney's Secret.
Jean Middlemas's Works.
155 Lady Muriel's Secret.
539 Silvermead..
20
10
20
Miss Mulock's Works,
20
•••
11 John Halifax, Gentleman.
20 245 Miss Tommy, and In a House-
Boat...
20
ARAARARAR
Alan Muir's Works.
172 "Golden Girls "
346 Tumbledown Farm.………………………
·
747 Our Sensation Novel. Edited
by Justin H. McCarthy, M.P.. 10
779 Doom! An Atlantic Episode... 10
··
184 Thirlby Hall...
277 A Man of His Word..
355 That Terrible Man..
500 Adrian Vidal.
824 Her Own Doing.
10 848 My Friend Jim...
20 871 A Bachelor's Blunder.
10
10
20
20 537 Piccadilly
20
10
20
David Christie Murray's Works.
58 By the Gate of the Sea..
10 195 "The Way of the World"
10 320 A Bit of Human Nature.
20 661 Rainbow Gold……….
20 674 First Person Singular.
20 691 Valentine Strange.
20 695 Hearts: Queen, Knave, and
20
Deuce
10 698 A Life's Atonement.
20 737 Aunt Rachel...
10 826 Cynic Fortune.
10 898 Bulldog and Butterfly, and Julia
20
and Her Romeo..
20
W. E. Norris's Works.
··
20
10
808 King Arthur. Not a Love Story 20
• ·
• •
•
•
·
•
··
45 A Little Pilgrim.
177 Salem Chapel...
20 205 The Minister's Wife…..
20
..
·
Laurence Oliphant's Works.
47 Altiora Peto.
Mrs. Oliphant's Works.
•
...
20
20
20
20 376 The Crime of Christmas Day. 10
596 My Ducats and My Daughter... 20
2 22 2
20
Works by the author of "My
Ducats and My Daughter."
20
20
20
..
321 The Prodigals, and Their In-
heritance..
20
2220
20
10
ARARRR RROR
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20
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10
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RAARAAR
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10
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2008
10
288888
10
20
30
10
20 337 Memoirs and Resolutions of
Adam Graeme of Mossgray,
including some Chronicles of
the Borough of Tendie…………….. 20
?
*
ها
*
+
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY-POCKET EDITION.
**
***
Mrs. Oliphant's Works
(CONTINUED).
345 Madam....
351 The House on the Moor.
357 John..
370 Lucy Crofton…..
371 Margaret Maitland.
377 Magdalen Hepburn: A Story of
the Scottish Reformation………. 20
402 Lilliesleaf; or, Passages in the
Life of Mrs. Margaret Mait-
land of Sunnyside....
410 Old Lady Mary.
527 The Days of My Life..
528 At His Gates..
•
1st half.
2d half.
•••
239 Signa.
433 A Rainy June..
639 Othmar.
568 The Perpetual Curate.
569 Harry Muir
603 Agnes. 1st half
603 Agnes. 2d half
604 Innocent.
604 Innocent.
605 Ombra...
645 Oliver's Bride
··
20
655 The Open Door, and The Portrait 10
687 A Country Gentleman………
703 A House Divided Against Itself 20
710 The Greatest Heiress in England 20
827 Effie Ogilvie..
880 The Son of His Father.
902 A Poor Gentleman.
1003 Chandos.
1003 Chandos.
•
• •
•
...
•
Second half.
First half.
Second half.
ľ
·
•
"Ouida's" Works.
20
••••
4 Under Two Flags
9 Wanda, Countess von Szalras. 20
116 Moths
James Payn's Works.
48 Thicker Than Water.
186 The Canon's Ward.
343 The Talk of the Town.
577 In Peril and Privation.
589 The Luck of the Darrells.
823 The Heir of the Ages…….
20
20
20
128 Afternoon, and Other Sketches 10
226 Friendship
20
228 Princess Ñapraxine...
20
238 Pascarel…….
20
20
10
20
10
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20
10
20
10
20
1.
D ·
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10
20
671 Don Gesualdo.
672 In Maremma. First half………..
672 In Maremma. Second half…….
874 A House Party.
974 Strathmore; or, Wrought by
His Own Hand. First half.. 20
974 Strathmore; or, Wrought by
20
His Own Hand. Second half 20
981 Granville de Vigne; or, Held in
Bondage. First half..
981 Granville de Vigne; or, Held in
Bondage. Second half...... 20
996 Idalia. First half.
996 Idalia. Second half.
1000 Puck. First half.
1000 Puck.
20
20
20
RARAR
20
20
20 173 The Foreigners.
20 331 Gerald………
20
20
20
20
20
20
Miss Jane Porter's Works.
660 The Scottish Chiefs. 1st half.. 20
660 The Scottish Chiefs. 2d half.. 20
696 Thaddeus of Warsaw.....
20
Cecil Power's Works.
336 Philistia.
611 Babylon..
20
46 Very Hard Cash..
98 A Woman-Hater...
10
206 The Picture, and Jack of All
Mrs. Campbell Praed's Works.
428 Zéro: A Story of Monte-Carlo. 10
477 Affinities.
10
20
811 The Head Station.....
Eleanor C. Price's Works.
Charles Reade's Works.
·
Trades..
..
210 Readiana: Comments on Cur-
rent Events....
•
""
...
·
Mrs. J. H. Riddell's Works.
71 A Struggle for Fame
593 Berna Boyle....
"Rita's" Works.
252 A Sinless Secret……..
446 Dame Durden..
598 Corinna. A Study
617 Like Dian's Kiss..
11
213 A Terrible Temptatiou.
214 Put Yourself in His Place....
216 Foul Play.
20
231 Griffith Gaunt; or, Jealousy... 20
232 Love and Money; or, A Perilous
Secret ..
··
235 "It is Never Too Late to
Mend.' A Matter-of-Fact Ro-
mance.
20 109 Little Loo.
20
20
·
·
F. W. Robinson's Works.
| 157 Milly's Hero..
217 The Man She Cared For..
261 A Fair Maid...
455 Lazarus in London...
590 The Courting of Mary Smith
··
W. Clark Russell's Works.
85 A Sea Queen.
•
592 A Strange Voyage.
682 In the Middle Watch.
Stories..
20
20
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20
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Sea
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180 Round the Galley Fire..
209 John Holdsworth, Chief Mate…. 10
223 A Sailor's Sweetheart.
20
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10
20
20
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20 | 743 Jack's Courtship. 1st half………. 20
10 743 Jack's Courtship. 2d half.
20 884 A Voyage to the Cape...
20 | 916 The Golden Hope………….
20
20
20
10
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY-POCKET EDITION.
Adeline Sergeant's Works.
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353 The Black Dwarf, and A Le-
gend of Montrose.
►
862 The Bride of Lammermoor..
363 The Surgeon's Daughter.
364 Castle Dangerous..
391 The Heart of Mid-Lothian…….
392 Peveril of the Peak.
393 The Pirate:..
401 Waverley
417 The Fair Maid of Perth; or, St.
Valentine's Day
418 St. Ronan's Well...
463 Redgauntlet. A Tale of the
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507 Chronicles of the Canongate,
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367 Tie and Trick.
550 Struck Down.
847 Bad to Beat..
925 The Outsider..
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429 Boulderstone; or, New Men and
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580 The Red Route..
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649 Cradle and Spade…..
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405 My Friends and I. Edited by
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599 Lancelot Ward, M.P.....
20 642 Britta....
20
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27 Vanity Fair.
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10 464 The Newcomes. Part I.
20
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20 464 The Newcomes. Part II.
20 670 The Rose and the Ring. Illus-
trated...
20
20
20
10
637 What's His Offence?.
780 Rare Pale Margaret.
20 784 The Two Miss Flemings.
831 Pomegranate Seed.
10
20
10
20
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686 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde...
704 Prince Otto.
832 Kidnapped..
855 The Dynamiter...
856 New Arabian Nights
888 Treasure Island..
889 An Inland Voyage.
940 The Merry Men, and Other Tales
and Fables...
20
20
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270 The Wandering Jew. Part I... 30
20
270 The Wandering Jew. Part II.. 20
271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part I. 20
271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part II. 20
20
20
10
10
20
141 She Loved Him!...
142 Jenifer
565 No Medium.
Works by the Author of "The
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·
389 Ichabod. A Portrait..
960 Elizabeth's Fortune..
··
·
· ·
··
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.. •
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32 The Land Leaguers..
93 Anthony Trollope's Autobiog-
raphy
147 Rachel Ray..
200 An Old Man's Love.
298 Mitchelhurst Place..
586" For Percival "
..
..
10 578 Mathias Sandorf.
20
Part III....
Margaret Veley's Works.
••
..
Jules Verne's Works.
87 Dick Sand; or, A Captain at
Fifteen..
10
10
10
10
531 The Prime Minister.
1st half.. 20
531 The Prime Minister, 2d half... 20
621 The Warden...
....
2222
··
20
20
20
20
622 Harry Heathcote of Gangoil... 10
667 The Golden Lion of Granpere.. 20
700 Ralph the Heir. 1st half....
700 Ralph the Heir. 2d half.
775 The Three Clerks.....
20
.......
10
20
10
02080
10
R RRARR==RARA
20
20
20
10
10
20
20
...
20 100 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas. 20
10 368 The Southern Star; or, the Dia-
10
10
20
20
2253
10
20
mond Land.
395 The Archipelago on Fire..... 10
578 Mathias Sandorf,
Illustrated.
Part I...
578 Mathias Sandorf.
Part II...
Illustrated
Illustrated.
R2 RA A
20
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Jules Verne's Works
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659 The Waif of the "Cynthia ".
751 Great Voyages and Great Navi-
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751 Great Voyages and Great Navi-
gators. Second half..
833 Ticket No. “9672.” First half.
833 Ticket No. " 9672."
9672." Second half 10
976 Robur the Conqueror; or. A
Trip Round the World in a
Flying Machine...
10
20
F. Warden's Works.
192 At the World's Mercy.
248 The House on the Marsh.
…………
•
William Ware's Works.
709 Zenobia; or, The Fall of Pal-
myra. 1st half..
··
709 Zenobia; or, The Fall of Pal-
myra. 2d half …….
760 Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third
Century
E. Werner's Works.
327 Raymond's Atonement...
540 At a High Price....
10
10
286 Deldee; or, The Iron Hand.... 20
482 A Vagrant Wife…….
20
20
556 A Prince of Darkness.
820 Doris's Fortune...
10
A
2 2 29
t
20
20
20
..
20 22 23
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409 Roy's Wife.
451 Market Harborough, and Inside
the Bar...
L. B. Walford's Works.
Charlotte M. Yonge's Works.
247 The Armourer's Prentices...... 10
10
241 The Baby's Grandmother...... 10275 The Three Brides..
256 Mr. Smith: A Part of His Life. 20 535 Henrietta's Wish; or, Domi-
258 Cousins.
658 The History of a Week.
20
10
20
20
20
John Strange Winter's Works.
492 Bootles' Baby; or, Mignon. Il-
lustrated
600 Houp-La. Illustrated ..
688 In Quarters with the 25th (The
Black Horse) Dragoons...... 10
688 A Man of Honor. Illustrated.. 10
746 Cavalry Life; or, Sketches and
Stories in Barracks and Out.. 20
813 Army Society. Life in a Gar-
rison Town..
20
20
10
10
10
10
10
818 Pluck.
376 Mignon's Secret……….
966 A Siege Baby and Childhood's
Memories....
20
971 Garrison Gossip: Gathered in
Blankhampton.
20
Mrs. Henry Wood's Works.
8 East Lynne..
255 The Mystery.
277 The Surgeon's Daughters..... 10
508 The Unholy Wish
10
513 Helen Whitney's Wedding, and
Other Tales...
20 800 Hopes and Fears; or, Scenes
from the Life of a Spinster.
First half...
..
514 The Mystery of Jessy Page,
and Other Tales..
610 The Story of Dorothy Grape,
and Other Tales……….
1001 Lady Adelaide's Oath.
• •
...
··
800 Hopes and Fears; or, Scenes
from the Life of a Spinster.
Second half………
887 A Modern Telemachus..
•
14
son...
99 Barbara's History.
Edwards.
RRAA A A 28
neering..
10
563 The Two Sides of the Shield.... 20
640 Nuttie's Father……..
.. 20
665 The Dove in the Eagle's Nest.. 20
666 My Young Alcides: A Faded
Photograph
739 The Caged Lion.
742 Love and Life.
783 Chantry House..
...
790 The Chaplet of Pearls; or, The
White and Black Ribaumont.
First half...
20
20
··
10
10
10
20
20
••
790 The Chaplet of Pearls; or, The
White and Black Ribaumont.
Second half.
GA ARRR RRAR
20
20
20
20
20
20
2222228
20
Miscellaneous.
53 The Story of Ida. Francesca.. 10
Mrs. Row-
61 Charlotte Temple.
20
10
Amelia B.
20
103 Rose Fleming. Dora Russell.. 10
105 A Noble Wife. John Saunders 20
111 The Little School-master Mark.
J. H. Shorthouse.
112 The Waters of Marah. John
Hill...
10
20
113 Mrs. Carr's Companion. M. G.
Wightwick.
10
...
20
10
··
114 Some of Our Girls. Mrs. C. J.
Eiloart...
115 Diamond Cut Diamond. T.
Adolphus Trollope..
120 Tom Brown's School Days at
Rugby. Thomas Hughes.... 20
127 Adrian Bright. Mrs. Caddy. 20
149 The Captain's Daughter. From
the Russian of Pushkin..
151 The Ducie Diamonds. C. Blath-
erwick..
156"For a Dream's Sake." Mrs.
Herbert Martin..
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20
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Norman Mac-
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158 The Starling.
leod, D.D...
160 Her Gentle Deeds. Sarah Tytler 10
161 The Lady of Lyons. Founded
on the Play of that title by
Lord Lytton..
163 Winifred Power.
rell..
170 Great Treason, A. By Mary
Hoppus. First half..
170 Great Treason, A. By Mary
Hoppus. Second half..
174 Under a Ban. Mrs. Lodge.
176 An April Day. Philippa Prit-
tie Jephson..
...
178 More Leaves from the Journal
of a Life in the Highlands.
Queen Victoria...
...
...
Joyce Dar-
•
•
•
...
••
274 Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse,
Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch
and Letters ..
279 Little Goldie: A Story of Wom-
an's Love. Mrs. Sumner Hay-
den...
285 The Gambler's Wife.
289 John Bull's Neighbor in Her
True Light. A" Brutal Sax-
*1
··
182 The Millionaire..
20
185 Dita. Lady Margaret Majendie 10
187 The Midnight Sun. Fredrika
Bremer..
198 A Husband's Story
203 John Bull and His Island. Max
O'Rell...
330 May Blossom; or, Between Two
Loves. Margaret Lee....
334 A Marriage of Convenience.
Harriett, Jay
835 The White Witch.
340 Under Which King? Compton
Reade.
341 Madolin Rivers; or, The Little
Beauty of Red Oak Seminary.
Laura Jean Libbey..
2 2 2 22 A
..
10
347 As Avon Flows. Henry Scott
Vince..
20
....
20
10
218 Agues Sorel. G. P. R. James.. 20
219 Lady Clare: or, The Master of
the Forges. Georges Ohnet 10
242 The Two Orphans. D'Ennery. 10
253 The Amazon. Carl Vosmaer.. 10
266 The Water-Babies. Rev. Chas.
Kingsley
10
20
20
10
ARA AA O
10
10
10
355 The Princess Dagomar of Po-
land. Heinrich Felbermann. 10
356 A Good Hater. Frederick Boyle 20
365 George Christy; or, The Fort-
unes of a Minstrel. Tony
Pastor....
366 The Mysterious
2 20
Hunter; or,
The Man of Death. Capt. L.
C. Carleton..
20
...
369 Miss Bretherton.
phry Ward..
374 The Dead Man's Secret.
Jupiter Paeon..
381 The Red Cardinal.
Elliot....
...
+4
...
382 Three Sisters. Elsa D'Esterre-
Keeling..
383 Introduced to Society. Hamil-
ton Aïdé..
387 The Secret of the Cliffs. Char-
lotte French..
·
Mrs. Hum-
Dr.
•••
..
Frances
••
...
10
20
493 Colonel Enderby's Wife. Lucas
10
Malet....
20 501 Mr. Butler's Ward. F. Mabel
Robinson..
20 504 Curly: An Actor's Story. John
Coleman...
505 The Society of London.
Count
...
··
Cobban..
491 Society in London. A Foreign
Resident...
....
··
850 Diana of the Crossways. George
512 The Waters of Hercules.....
518 The Hidden Sin.
10
Meredith...
Edward Garrett. 10 | 519 James Gordon's Wife.
352 At Any Cost
354 The Lottery of Life. A Story
of New York Twenty Years
Ago, John Brougham...
Paul Vasili...
510 A Mad Love. Author of "Lover
and Lord"
403 An English Squire. C. R. Cole-
ridge
406 The Merchant's Clerk. Samuel
Warren...
407 Tylney Hall. Thomas Hood... 20
426 Venus's Doves. Ida Ashworth
Taylor.
430 A Bitter Reckoning.
Author
of "By Crooked Paths " ... 10
435 Klytia: A Story of Heidelberg
Častle. George Taylor……..
436 Stella. Fanny Lewald..
441 A Sea Change. Flora L. Shaw. 20
442 Ranthorpe. George Henry
Lewes..
...
20
& A & A A A 2 2 22 2 A 222 & A A
on
311 Two Years Before the Mast. R.
H. Dana, Jr..
329 The Polish Jew.
20
• ...
..
10 468 The Fortunes, Good and Bad,
of a Sewing-Girl. Charlotte
M. Stanley
483 Betwixt My Love and Me. By
author of "A Golden Bar "... 10
485 Tinted Vapours. J. Maclaren
(Translated
from the French by Caroline
A. Merighi.) Erckniann-Chat-
rian...
10
10
20
A
20
•
•
526 Madame De Presnel. E. Fran-
10
10
443 The Bachelor of the Albany... 10
457 The Russians at the Gates of
Herat. Charles Marvin...... 10
20 458 A Week of Passion; or, The
20
Dilemma of Mr. George Bar-
ton the Younger. Edward
Jenkins...
•
20
10
10
10
20
20
10
20
20
20
20
20
10
20
10
10
A ARRR 22
10
20
20
20
ces Poynter..
20 532 Arden Court. Barbara Graham 20
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Miscellaneous-Continued.
538 Hazel Kirke. Marie Walsh.... 20
536 Dissolving Views. Mrs. Andrew
Lang.
Edna
738 In the Golden Days.
Lyall.
20
20
748 Hurrish: A Study.
By the
Hon. Emily Lawless.
750 An Old Story of My Farming
Days. Fritz Reuter. 1st half 20
64
10
··
545 Vida's Story. By the author of
Guilty Without Crime"
546 Mrs. Keith's Crime. A Novel.. 10 750 An Old Story of My Farming
Days. Fritz Reuter. 2d half 20
571 Paul Crew's Story. Alice Co-
myns Carr..
Jackanapes, and Other Stories.
Juliana Horatia Ewing
752
10
20
754 How to be Happy Though Mar-
ried. By a Graduate in the
University of Matrimony..... 20
755 Margery Daw.
756 The Strange Adventures of Cap-
tain Dangerous. A Narrative
in Plain English. Attempted
by George Augustus Sala.... 20
10 757 Love's Martyr. Laurence Alma
Tadema.
10
20 759 In Shallow Waters. Annie Ar-
mitt...
20
10 766 No. XIII; or, The Story of the
Lost Vestal. Emma Mar-
shall...
575 The Finger of Fate. Captain
Mayne Reid..
•
·
•
•
581 The Betrothed. (I Promessi
Sposi.) Allessandro Manzoni 20
582 Lucia, Hugh and Another. Mrs.
J. H. Needell..
643 The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey
Crayon, Gent.
Irving..
Washington
583 Victory Deane. Cecil Griffith.. 20
584 Mixed Motives.
599 Lancelot Ward, M.P. George
Teniple
A
612 My Wife's Niece. By the author
of " Dr. Edith Romney
""
624 Primus in Indis. M. J. Colqu-
houn...
628 Wedded Hands. By the author
of "My Lady's Folly
634 The Unforeseen. Alice O'Han-
>>
lon..
541 The Rabbi's Spell. Stuart C.
Cumberland….
10
654 "Us." An Old-fashioned Story.
Mrs. Molesworth……
2 2 99 ÷ 2 2 820 a 2
•
10
662 The Mystery of Allan Grale.
Isabella Fyvie Mayo.
668 Half-Way. An Anglo-French
Romance..
10
669 The Philosophy of Whist.
William Pole
20
10
10
770 The Castle of Otranto. Hor-
ace Walpole..
10
773 The Mark of Cain. Andrew
Lang..
10
10
786
774 The Life and Travels of Mungo
Park....
2076 Père Goriot. Honoré De Balzac 20
777 The Voyages and Travels of
of Sir John Maundeville, Kt.. 10
8 Society's Verdict. By the au-
thor of "My Marriage ".
Ethel Mildmay's Follies. By au-
thor of "Petite's Romance". 20
Vivian Grey. By the Rt. Hon.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of
Beaconsfield. First half.
Vivian Grey. By the Rt. Hon.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of
Beaconsfield. Second half…… 20
10 801 She Stoops to Conquer, and
The Good-Natured Man. Oli-
ver Goldsmith.
793
20
20
705 The Woman I Loved, and the
Woman Who Loved Me. Isa
Blagden
803 Major Frank. A. L. G. Bos-
boom-Toussaint.
807 If Love Be Love. D. Cecil Gibbs 20
809 Witness My Hand. By author
of "Lady Gwendolen's Tryst " 10
810 The Secret of Her Life. Ed-
ward Jenkins.
10
706 A Crimson Stain. Annie Brad-
shaw..
10
712 For Maimie's Sake.
Grant
20
Allen.
718 Unfairly Won. Mrs. Power
O'Donoghue.
816 Rogues and Vagabonds. By
George R. Sims, author of
"'Ostler Joe "
•·
719 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
Lord Byron....
723 Mauleverer's Millions. T. We-
myss Reid..
725 My Ten Years' Imprisonment.
Silvio Pellico...
730 The Autobiography of Benja-
min Franklin.
735 Until the Day Breaks. Emily
Spender
2 20
10
20
20
20
675 Mrs. Dymond. Miss Thackeray 20
681 A Singer's Story. May Laffan. 10 793
683 The Bachelor Vicar of New-
forth. Mrs. J. Harcourt-Roe. 20
684 Last Days at Apswich....
692 The Mikado, and Other Comic
Operas. Written by W. S.
Gilbert. Composed by Arthur
Sullivan.
20
2
2 2 2 2 2 2 2
20
20
20
10
10
29
...
Part I....
885 Les Misérables.
Part II……....
··
2
20
822 A Passion Flower. A Novel.... 20
10852 Under Five Lakes. M. Quad.. 20
879 The Touchstone of Peril. A
Novel of Anglo-Indian Life,
With Scenes During the Mu-
tiny. R. E. Forrest..
885 Les Misérables. Victor Hugo.
Victor Hugo.
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20
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885 Les Misérables.
Victor Hugo.
20
20
20
Part III.
908 A Willful Young Woman
913 The Silent Shore.
Bloundelle-Burton
915 That Other Person. Mrs Al-
John
20
20
fred Hunt..
917 The Case of Reuben Malachi.
956 Her Johnnie. By Violet Whyte 20
964 A Struggle for the Right; or,
Tracking the Truth
965 Periwinkle. By Arnold Gray.. 20
966 He, by the author of King
Solomon's Wives"; and A
Siege Baby and Childhood's
Memories, by J. S. Winter……. 20
968 Blossom and Fruit; or, Mad-
ame's Ward. By the author
of "Wedded Hands'
970 King Solomon's Wives; or, The
Phantom Mines. By Hyder
Ragged. (Illustrated)..
984 Her Own Sister. By E. S. Will-
""
20
AR
H. Sutherland Edwards…………… 10
919 Locksley Hall Sixty Years Af-
ter, etc. By Alfred, Lord Ten-
nyson, P.L., D.CL...
920 A Child of the Revolution. By
the author of "Mademoiselle
Mori "
10
20
iamson..
921 The Late Miss Hollingford. 886 The Great Hesper. By Frank
Rosa Mulholland..
Barrett...
...
10
933 A Hidden Terror. Mary Albert 20 992 Marrying and Giving in Mar-
937 Cashel Byron's Profession. By
George Bernard Shaw...
938 Cranford. By Mrs. Gaskell..
954 A Girl's Heart. By the author
of "Nobody's Darling"
20
20
riage. By Mrs. Molesworth. 20
994 A Penniless Orphan.
Heimburg.
By W.
20
...
20
Miscellaneous-Continued.
A
22 2 2
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669 Pole on Whist………………………..
432 THE WITCH'S HEAD. By
H. Rider Haggard……
20
974 Strathmore; or, Wrought_by
His Own Hand. By “Ouida.”
First half..
20
974 Strathmore; or, Wrought by
His Own Hand. By "Ouida."
Second half.
20
975 A Dark Marriage Morn. By
Charlotte M. Braeme, author
of "Dora Thorne ".
20
··
976 Robur the Conqueror; or, A
Trip Round the World in a
Flying Machine. Jules Verne 20
977 The Haunted Hotel. By Wilkie
Collins..
978 Her Second Love.
lotte M. Braeme,
"Dora Thorne"
979 The Count's Secret. By Emile
Gaboriau. Part I...
979 The Count's Secret. By Emile
Gaboriau. Part II..
980 To Call Her Mine. By Walter
Besant...
By Char-
author of
•
20
20
20
20
981 Granville de Vigne; or, Held in
Bondage. By Ouida." 1st
2 20
.
987 Brenda Yorke, and Upon the
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988 The Shattered Idol, and Letty
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989 Allan Quatermain. By H. Rider
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990 The Earl's Error, and Arnold's
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991 Mr. Midshipman Easy. By Cap-
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992 Marrying and Giving in Mar-
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993 Fighting the Air. By Florence
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994 A Penniless Orphan. By W.
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20
half.
20
44
20
..
981 Granville de Vigne; or, Held in
Bondage. By Ouida." 2d
half..
982 The Duke's Secret. By Char-
lotte M. Braeme, author of
"Dora Thorne
983 Uarda. ARomance of Ancient
"
20
Egypt. By George Ebers.... 201009
984 Her Own Sister. By E. S.
Williamson..
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985 On Her Wedding Morn, and
The Mystery of the Holly-
Tree. Charlotte M. Braeme,
author of "Dora Thorne ... 20
986 The Great Hesper. By Frank
Barrett...
20
"}
20
20
....
995 An Unnatural Bondage, and
That Beautiful Lady. Char-
lotte M. Braeme, author of
"Dora Thorne
20
996 Idalia. By “Ouida.” 1st half. 20
996 Idalia. By "Ouida." 2d half. 20
997 Forging the Fetters, and The
Australian Aunt. By Mrs.
Alexander………
998 Open. Sesame! By Florence
Marryat.
20
20
999 The Second Wife. E. Marlitt. 20
1000 Puck. By "Ouida." 1st half 20
1000 Puck. By "Ouida." 2d half. 20
1001 Lady Adelaide's Oath; or, The
Castle's Heir. By Mrs. Henry
Wood...
20
1002 Marriage at a Venture. By
Emile Gaboriau…….
1004 Mad Dumaresq. By Florence
Marryat..
20
20
1005 99 Dark Street. F.W. Robinson 20
1006 His Wife's Judgment. By
Charlotte M. Braeme, author
of "Dora Thorne"
1007 Miss Gascoigne.
20
By Mrs. J.
H. Riddell..
20
>>
1008 A Thorn in Her Heart. Char-
lotte M. Braeme, author of
"Dora Thorne
20
In an Evil Hour, and Other
Stories. By "The Duchess" 20
1010 Golden Gates. By Charlotte
M. Braeme, author of "Dora
Thorne"
1011 Texar's Vengeance; or, North
Versus South. Jules Verne.
1012
20
Part I....
A Nameless Sin. By Charlotte
M. Braeme, author of "Dora
Thorne"
1013 The Confessions of Gerald
Estcourt. Florence Marryat. 20
1014 A Mad Love. By Charlotte M.
Braeme, author of
"Dora
Thorne
••
1016 A Modern Circe. By The
Duchess"
20
20
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P. O. Box 8751.
2 2 2
20
20
1017 Tricotrin. The Story of a Waif
and Stray.
“Ouida.” 1st half 20
"Ouida.
1017 Tricotrin, The Story of a Waif
and Stray. "Ouida." 2d half 20
20
20
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Die Deutsche Library."
Nachfolgende Werke sind in der ,,Deutschen Library" erschienen:
1 Der Kaiser von Prof. G. Ebers 20
2 Die Somosierra von R. Wald-
müller...
39 Der Doppelgänger von L.
Schücking....
40 Die weisse Frau von Greifen-
stein von E. Fels..
•
41 Hans und Grete von Fr. Spiel-
hagen....
42 Mein Onkel Don Juan von H.
10
3 Das Geheimniss der alten Mam-
sell. Roman von E. Marlitt.
Quisisana von Fr. Spielhagen 10
5 Gartenlauben - Blüthen von E.
Werner.
....
6 Die Hand der Nemesis von E.
A. König.
· ·
...
12 Goldelse von E. Marlitt....
13 Vater und Sohn von F. Lewald
14 Die Würger von Paris von C.
Vacano...
..
↑ Amtmann's Magd v. E. Marlitt 20
8 Vineta von E. Werner.
20
9 Auf der Rümmingsburg von M.
Widdern...
10 Das Haus Hillel von Max Ring
11 Glückauf! von E. Werner.
15 Der Diamantschleifer von Ro-
senthal Bonin...
16 Ingo und Ingraban von Gustav
Freytag.
20 Gelebt und gelitten von H. Wa-
chenhusen..
21 Die Eichhofs von M. von Rei-
chenbach.
22 Kinder der Welt von P. Heyse.
Erste Hälfte.
≈ 0 2 222 ARARA & A & R
22 Kinder der Welt von P. Heyse.
Zweite Hälfte...
23 Barfüssele von Berthold Auer-
bach..
10
24 Das Nest der Zaunkönige von
G. Freytag...
20
83 Der Heiduck von Hans Wa-
chenhusen....
34 Die Sturmhexe von Gräfin M.
Keyserling..
15 Das Kind Bajazzo's von E. A.
König..
20
10
20
20
17 Eine Frage von Georg Ebers.. 10
18 In Paradiese von Paul Heyse
19 ln beiden Hemisphären von
Sutro....
10
10
20
10
20
10
20
22 & 2 A RAR & A 202 ≈ 29 & 29 &
20
10
20
20
10
20
20
25 Frühlingsboten von E. Werner. 10
26 Zelle No. 7 von Pierre Zacone
27 Die junge Frau v. H. Wachen-
husen.
28 Buchenheim von Th. v. Varn-
büler.
29 Auf der Bahn des Verbrechens
v. Ewald A. König.
80 Brigitta von Berth. Auerbach.. 10
31 Im Schillingshof v. E. Marlitt
32 Gesprengte Fesseln v. E. Wer-
ner..
20
10
20
10
20
10
20
20
Die Brüder vom deutschen
Hause von Gustav Freytag..
87 Der Wilddieb v. F. Gerstäcker 10
28 Die Verlobte von Rob. Wald-
müller.........
990
Hopfen.
43 Markus König v. Gustav Frey-
tag..
···
44 Die schönen Amerikanerinnen
von Fr. Spielhagen..
10
45 Das grosse Loos v. A. König.. 20
46 Zur Ehre Gottes von Sacher
und Ultimo v. F. Spielhagen 10
47 Die Geschwister von Gustav
Freytag.
14
20
10
20
chenhusen.
55 Johannisnacht von M. Schmidt
56 Angela von Fr. Spielhagen...
57 Falsche Wege von J. v. Brun-
Barnow..
*
58 Versunkene Welten von Wilh.
Jensen..
2 2 22 2 2
48 Bischof und König von Mariam
Tenger und Der Piratenkö-
nig von M. Jokai…….
10
49 Reichsgräfin Gisela v. Marlitt 20
50 Bewegte Zeiten v.Leon Alexan-
drowitsch.
51 Um Ehre und Leben von E. A.
König...
52 Aus einer kleinen Stadt v. Gu-
··
59 Die Wohnungssucher von A.
von Winterfeld…….
20
A & A & RA RAR A & 2
10
stav Freytag,
· ..
53 Hildegard von Ernst v. Waldow 10
54 Dame Orange von Hans Wa-
20
20
10
20
10
20
10
60 Eine Million von E. A. König 20
61 Das Skelet von F. Spielhagen
und Das Frölenhaus von Gu-
stav zu Putlitz..
A 2 RA & A
10
...
62 Soll und Haben v. G. Freytag.
Erste Hälfte..
62 Soll und Haben v. G. Freytag.
Zweite Hälfte...
63 Schloss Grünwald von Char-
lotte Fielt.....
64 Zwei Kreuzherren von Lucian
Herbert......
65 Die Erlebnisse einer Schutzlo-
sen v. Kath. Sutro-Schücking 10
66 Das Haideprinzesschen von E.
Marlitt...
20
67 Die Geyer-Wally von Wilh. von
Hillern....
68 Idealisten von A. Reinow.....
69 Am Altar von E. Werner......
70 Der König der Luft von A. v.
Winterfeld..
71 Moschko von Parma v. Karl E.
Franzos...
20
20
10.
20
ARA 8 X
10
20
10
20
་
DIE DEUTSCHE LIBRARY.
72 Schuld und Sühne von Ewald
A. König...
20
20
73 In Reih' und Glied v. F. Spiel-
hagen. Erste Hälfte..
73 In Reih' und Glied v. F. Spiel-
hagen. Zweite Hälfte...
74 Geheimnisse einer kleinen
Stadt von A. von Winterfeld 10
75 Das Landhaus am Rhein von
20
...
B. Auerbach. Erste Hälfte.. 20
75 Das Landhaus am Rhein von
B. Auerbach. Zweite Hälfte 20
76 Clara Vere von Friedrich Spiel-
hagen.
77 Die Frau Bürgermeisterin von
G. Ebers...
10
20
....
78 Aus eigener Kraft von Wilh.
v. Hillern.
20
79 Ein Kampf um's Recht von K.
Franzos.
20
80 Prinzessin Schnee von Marie
Widdern..
10
20
10
81 Die zweite Frau von E. Marlitt
82 Benvenuto von Fanny Lewald
83 Pessimisten von F. von Stengel
84 Die Hofdame der Erzherzogin
von F. von Witzleben-Wen-
delstein...
20
85 Ein Vierteljahrhundert von B.
Young..
86 Thüringer Erzählungen von E.
Marlitt.
87 Der Erbe von Mortella von A.
Dom..
··
88 Vom armen egyptischen Mann
v. Hans Wacheuhusen……………
89 Der goldene Schatz aus dem
dreissigjährigen Krieg v. E.
A. König..
20
90 Das Fräulein von St. Ama-
ranthe von R. von Gottschall 10
91 Der Fürst von Montenegro v.
A. Winterfeld………
92 Um ein Herz von E Falk..
93 Uarda von Georg Ebers.
94 In der zwölften Stunde von
Fried. Spielhagen und Ebbe
und Fluth von M. Widdern... 10
95 Die von Hohenstein von Fr.
Spielhagen. Erste Hälfte.
20
20
95 Die von Hohenstein von Fr.
Spielhagen. Zweite Hälfte..
96 Deutsch und Slavisch v. Lucian
Herbert....
10
97 Im Hause des Commerzien-
Raths von Marlitt....
20
98 Helene von H. Wachenhusen
und Die Prinzessin von Por-
tugal v. A. Meissner,
99 Aspasia von Robert Hammer-
ling..
100 Ekkehard v. Victor v. Scheffel
101 Ein Kampf um Rom v. F.Dahn.
Erste Hälfte.
..
•
...
A
10
20
10
20
10
H
20
10
20
20
20
104 Der Todesgruss der Legionen
von G. Samarow
105 Reise um den Mond von Julius
Verne...
101 Ein Kampf um Rom v.F.Dahn.
Zweite Hälfte………
102 Spinoza von Berth, Auerbach. 20
108 Von der Erde zum Mond von
J. Verne..
10
106 Fürst und Musiker von Max
Ring.
20
20
107 Nena Sahib v. J. Retcliffe. Er-
ster Band..
107 Nena Sahib von J. Retcliffe.
Zweiter Band…………….
20
107 Nena Sahib von J. Retcliffe.
Dritter Band…….
20
108 Reise nach dem Mittelpunkte
der Erde von Julius Verne 10
109 Die silberne Hochzeit von S.
Kohn..
110 Das Spukehaus von A. v. Win-
terfeld..
10
20
111 Die Erben des Wahnsinns von
T. Marx..
10
10
112 Der Ulan von Joh. van Dewall
113. Um hohen Preis v. E. Werner 20
114 Schwarzwälder Dorfgeschich-
ten von B. Auerbach. Erste
Hälfte....
• ••
...
114 Schwarzwälder Dorfgeschich-
ten v. B. Auerbach. Zweite
Hälfte...
115 Reise um die Erde von Julius
Verne....
116 Cäsars Ende von S. J. R.
(Schluss von 104).
117 Auf Capri von Carl Detlef...
118 Severa von E. Hartner..
• →
119 Ein Arzt der Seele von Wilh.
v. Hillern…..
120 Die Livergnas von Hermann
Willfried...
121 Zwanzigtausend Meilen un-
term Meer von J. Verne...
122 Mutter und Sohn von August
Godin...
123 Das Haus des Fabrikanten v.
Samarow
124 Bruderpflicht und Liebe von
Schücking.
Alte Ketten. Roman von L
Schücking.
•••
20 132 Ueber die Wolken v. Wilhelm
Jensen....
20 133 Das Gold des Orion von H.
Rosenthal-Bonin…….
20
10
(2)
134 Um den Halbmond von Sama-
row. Erste Hälfte...
20
& A RAR & A &&&
20
10
10
125 Die Römerfahrt der Epigonen
v. G. Samarow. Erste Hälfte 20
125 Die Römerfahrt der Epigonen
v. G. Samarow. Zweite Hälfte 20
126 Porkeles und Porkelessa von
J Scherr....
10
127 Ein Friedensstörer von Victor
✔ Blüthgen und Der heimliche
Gast von R. Byr....
128 Schöne Frauen v. R. Edmund
Hahn..
10 129 Bakchen und Thyrsosträger
von A. Niemann……….
20
10
20
20
10
20
10
20
130 Getrennt. Roman von E.Polko 10
131
20
10
20
RA & A ≈ &
29
10
10
29

_____ DIE DEUTSCHE LIBRARY.
134 Um den Halbmond von Sama-
row. Zweite Hälfte..
135 Troubadour - Novellen von P.
Heyse...
186 Der Schweden-Schatz von H.
Wachenhusen…….
..
187 Die Bettlerin vom Pont des
Arts und Das Bild des Kaisers
von Wilh. Hauff……….
188 Modelle. Hist. Roman von A. v.
Winterfeld..
189 Der Krieg um die Haube von
Stefanie Keyser....
140 Numa Roumestan v. Alphonse
Daudet...
141 Spätsommer. Novelle von C.
von Sydow und Engelid, No-
velle v. Balduin Möllhausen
142 Bartolomäus von Brusehaver
u. Musma Cussalin. Novellen
von L. Ziemssien.
143 Ein gemeuchelter Dichter. Ko-
mischer Roman von A. von
Winterfeld. Erste Hälfte...
143 Ein gemeuchelter Dichter. Ko-
mischer Roman von A. von
Winterfeld. Zweite Hälfte..
144 Ein Wort. Neuer Roman von
G. Ebers...
•
··
…….
...
155 Die Schwester v. L. Schücking
156 Die Colonie von Friedrich Ger-
stäcker...
..
20
10
20
2020
F. O• Box 3751.
10
10
20
10
20
157 Deutsche Liebe. Roman v. M.
Müller
158 Die Rose von Delhi von Fels.
Erste Hälfte..
..
158 Die Rose von Delhi von Fels.
Zweite Hälfte..
20
159 Debora. Roman von W. Müller 10
160 Eine Mutter v. Friedrich Ger-
stäcker......
161 Friedhofsblume von W. von
Hillern....
162 Nach der ersten Liebe von K.
Frenzel.
20
20
10
145 Novellen von Paul Heyse.....
146 Adam Homo in Versen v. Pa-
ludan-Müller....
20
147 Ihr einziger Bruder von W.
Heimburg,
10
148 Ophelia. Roman von H. von
Lankenau.......
20
149 Nemesis v. Helene v. Hülsen 10
150 Felicitas. Histor. Roman von
F. Dahn..
10
20
151 Die Claudier. Roman v. Ernst
Eckstein..
152 Eine Verlorene von Leopold
Kompert..
153 Luginsland. Roman von Otto
Roquette....
10
20
154 Im Banno der Musen von W.
Heimburg...
183 Der Zigeunerbaron, von Jokai
184 Himmlische u. irdische Liebe,
von Paul Heyse...
10
10
185 Ehre, Roman v. O. Schubin
186 Violanta, Roman v. E. Eckstein
187 Nemi, Erzählung von H. Wa-
chenhusen....
20
10
188
20 188
189
**
20
163 Gebannt u. erlöst v. E. Werner 20
164 Uhlenhans. Roman von Kried.
Spielhagen..
165 Klytia. Histor. Roman von G.
Taylor....
166 Mayo. Erzählung v. P. Lindau 10
167 Die Herrin von Ibichstein von
F. Henkel...
……….
168 Die Saxoborussen von Sama-
row. Erste Hälfte....
168 Die Saxoborussen von Sama-
row. Zweite Hälfte....
169 Serapis. Histor. Roman v.
Ebers....
10 170 Ein Gottesurtheil. Roman von
E. Werner..
171 Die Kreuzfahrer.
Felix Dahn..
Roman von
172 Der Erbe von Weidenhof von
F. Pelzeln...
173 Die Reise nach dem Schicksal
v. Franzos..
174 Villa Schönow. Roman v. W.
Raabe....
175 Das Vermächtniss v. Eckstein.
Erste Hälfte……….
175 Das Vermächtniss v. Eckstein.
Zweite Hälfte...
176 Herr und Frau Bewer von P.
Lindau..
...
.....
...
•♥♥•
G.
177 Die Nihilisten von Joh. Scherr
178 Die Frau mit den Karfunkel-
steinen von E. Marlitt...
179 Jetta. Von George Taylor.
180 Die Stieftochter. Von J. Smith
181 An der Heilquelle. Von Fried.
Spielhagen.
182 Was der Todtenkopf erzählt,
von Jokai..
...
• •
Strandgut, von Joh. v. Dewall.
Erste Hälfte..
George Munro, Herausgeber,
···
Strandgut, von Joh. v. Dewall.
Zweite Hälfte………
Homo sum, Roman von Georg
Ebers...
20
≈ 88 & 22 2 2 2 2
10
20
20
20
20
20
20
10
20
2 & 9 ÷ 2 & AA 282 2 22 288 A & & &
20
10
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20
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10
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