r-NRLF B 3 13M flS3 URAL HISTORI AM) BIOLOGY LIBRARY "V THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID CONTRIBUTIONS ^TATUEAL HISTOEY AKD PAPERS ON OTHER SUBJECTS. BY JAMES .SIMSON. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel ; but, being in, Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee. This above all, to thine ownself be true." SHAKSPEARE. NEW YQ.RK: JAMES MILLER, PUBLISHER, 779 BROADWAY. 1878. All rights reserved. > BIOLOGY LIBRARY Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by JAMES SIMSON, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Re-ente'ed, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by JAMES SIMSON, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, EDWARD O. JENKINS 1 PRINT, 20 North William Street, Xew York. PUBLISHERS NOTE. THIS work was stereotyped and printed in this city in 1875, but allowed to remain in sheets till now, for various reasons, among which was the dullness in the Book Trade and in busi- ness generally. An edition, however, was published in Great Britain from duplicates of the plates. All of the subjects treated are of a permanent nature and interest, even including John Stuart Mill as a representative man. The book has gained greatly by the delay, inasmuch as it now contains an Appen- dix of Comments on British Criticisms, and in further eluci- dation of the questions discussed. The work was set up in its present form for reasons satis- factory to the author. The only part of it that has appeared anywhere before is about twenty-six pages, published in London, in Land and Water and Notes and Queries, as explained at the bottom of each article ; and an Appeal to the Scottish Clergy (similarly marked), which was distributed privately in 1871. The Publisher cannot help remarking that, in his opinion, justice has not apparently been done to this book in Great Britain; as if the evidence gathered in America were not suffi- cient to satisfy the Press there, or, it may be, because it in- terferes with, or sets aside, its ideas regarding the matters and persons under investigation. NEW YORK, August 15, 1878. ""7 f 1> H'**' f-y -- INTRODUCTION. THE following Contributions to Land and Water are, I think, too interesting and valuable to the lovers of natural history tc be allowed to remain in the columns of a newspaper.* There are too few of them to make a volume, and so are published in this form.f I would have added to them but for the difficulty in finding subjects, or leisure to develop them, that have not been treated before, or treated in such a way as to require to be corrected, and placed on another and more permanent founda- tion than heretofore. Intelligent and ingenious people generally prefer to see an idea started and elucidated, with all the circum- stances attending it as some enjoy the breaking away of a fox, and being well up with the hounds, and in at the death rather than have the dry result of an inquiry stated to them ; for then they become, as it were, investigators along with him who makes it, while the particulars give them detailed and positive evidence of the conclusions arrived at. For my part, I consider the testimony to prove the leading fact set forth in these Contri- butions so complete, that nothing could be added to it ; although it would be very interesting to have a careful examination of the anatomy of the Snake, to ascertain the physical peculiarities con- nected with the phenomenon described. What I have said on the subject of snakes swallowing their young applies to everything connected with natural history, viz : that it " should be settled by evidence, as a fact is proved in a court of justice ; difficulties, suppositions or theories not being allowed to form part of the testimony " (p. 28). In other words, the writer should be placed in the witness-box, and severely cross-questioned as to his facts, systems and theories; or place himself there, and be his own examiner. In these days, on the subject of natural history among others, we stand greatly * Such of these Contributions as were printed in Land and Water have a note giving the date of pub- lication ; the others, with only one date attached, were returned by request, t It was originally intended to print these in the form of a pamphlet. JV INTRODUCTION. in need of Bacon's* philosophy, which might be called common sense systematized and refined, having for its object the finding of facts, and tracing them to their roots, or from their roots through their various ramifications ; which constitute the phil- osophy of any question. I am well aware of the difficulties at- tending the reception of new facts and ideas, which are apt to bewilder and bore people whose judgments have never been really cultivated. The general and sometimes almost involuntary aversion to receive them is somewhat like the resistance made to a suit at law to dispossess people of their properties, to say nothing of the timidity of many to commit themselves to what might be, or what might be held by the public to be, " vulgar errors;" but that is presumed, by the "force of truth," sooner or later to disappear. It is wonderful how much the Serpent is mixed up with the Old and New Testament histories, and how little is known about it ; and it would be remarkable if no meaning could be attached to the Scriptural allusions to it, or that no interest should be felt in regard to it. However odious the reptile is held to be, it wonderfully rivets the attention of people meeting it, and it is either timidly avoided or savagely killed. Many of them are not only harmless, but of great Use to the farmer in clearing his fields of mice and other vermin ; but some of the venomous kinds are so dangerous, that a person bitten by them might as well, in some instances, lay himself down and die, like a poisoned rat in its hole. It is one of the mysteries of nature why some snakes should be poisonous and others harmless, when the for- mer could apparently serve the end for which it was created without its venomous peculiarity. The leading traits in the natural history of the Snake are incidentally illustrated in the present Contributions. The Papers on Other Subjects were added after the above was written. NEW YORK, ist September, 1874. CONTENTS. PAGE VIPERS AND SNAKES GENERALLY, 7 WHITE OF SELBORNE ON THE VIPER, 10 WHITE OF SELBORNE ON SNAKES, 17 SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG, 23 SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG, 25 SNAKES CHARMING BIRDS, . 30 MR. FRANK BUCKLAND ON ENGLISH SNAKES, .... 31 MR. GOSSE ON THE JAMAICA BOA SWALLOWING HER YOUNG, . 33 AMERICAN SNAKES, 36 AMERICAN SCIENCE CONVENTION ON SNAKES, ... 36 CHARLES WATERTON AS A NATURALIST, .... 39 ROMANISM, 49 JOHN STUART MILL : A STUDY. HIS RELIGION, 69 HIS EDUCATION, 82 " A CRISIS IN HIS HISTORY, ... 90 " " HIS WIFE, 97 " " MILL AND SON, 105 SIMSON'S HISTORY OF THE GIPSIES, in MR. BORROW ON THE GIPSIES, 112 THE SCOTTISH CHURCHES AND THE SOCIAL EMANCIPATION OF THE GIPSIES 150 WAS JOHN BUNYAN A GIPSY ?* 157 THE DUKE OF ARGYLL ON THE PRESERVATION OF THE JEWS 161 INDEX 171 APPENDIX. I. JOHN BUNYAN AND THE GIPSIES, . . . . .183 II. MR. FRANK BUCKLAND AND WHITE OF SELBORNE, . 187 III. MR. FRANK BUCKLAND ON THE VIPER, . . . .192 IV. THE ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH 199 VIPERS AND SNAKES GENERALLY* FOR some time back I have no- ticed communications in Land and Water on the question, " Do vipers swallow their young?" but I have not seen the subject investi- gated in this way : Has any one, in dissecting a female viper, found eggs within her ? and has any one found young ones inside of another ? If both have been found, then, as a matter of course, the reptile must have swallowed her progeny. I will establish the principle by what I have observed on Long Is- land, a short distance from New York. When strolling with a friend, he very suddenly seized a stone and dashed it with all his might upon the top of a low dry stone wall, and killed a pretty large snake of the ordinary brown striped species, ly- ing on it, basking in the sun. As it appeared more than ordinarily full about the body, I began to dissect it in a rough way, by tearing it apart with two sticks (for I did not like to touch it), to see what it con- tained, thinking it might be an ani- mal it had swallowed, as a few days before I had killed another that had a frog partly down its gullet, feet foremost, bui making no noise, when its intended prey hopped away as if it had not been injured. Having always understood that snakes were animals that "laid eggs," I was greatly surprised at finding about twenty snakelets of considerable size, and rather lively ; but my friend asserted on the spot that snakes swallowed their young. This naturally led me to make in- quiries, and I found a trustworthy neighbour who said positively that he had seen it done. Another, equally trustworthy, informed me that he found a bunch of snake's eggs when repairing a fence, and placed them as a curiosity on his mantelpiece, and one morning, very soon thereafter, he was surprised at finding a number of young snakes wriggling about on it, the heat of the fire having brought the eggs to the hatching point. Now it is ex- tremely likely that the snake that laid these eggs was of the same species as the one that was killed, for both were in the same neighbour- hood, where they were very numer- ous ; and it is a peculiarity of snakes in America that you seldom or never find two kinds occupying the same ground at least, during two years, I never came across any other kind than that of the one killed, and I saw many of them. I at once concluded that the snake that laid the eggs, and the one con- taining the young ones, were of the same species ; and as a natural con- sequence, that the latter had swal- lowed her young quite indepen- dent of the general belief, and the positive ocular testimony of one person as to the fact.f Now to confirm the question by analogy, and on my own testimony. I have said that different kinds at least certain kinds of snakes are not apt to be found on the same ground. There is a deadly enmity between black -snakes and some others. At a place in New Jersey, where I frequently visited, and kept a lookout for snakes, I never met with any on the same ground but black ones. On one occasion I killed one, very full about the body, and took it to the house I was visit- ing for careful dissection, expect- ing to find it with young, when I would satisfy myself whether the * Dated December 7th, 1872 ; printed 2ISt. f As will be seen, they were of the identical species. (7) 8 VIPERS AND SNAKES GENERALL Y. young had been swallowed or were in a state previous to birth. To my surprise I extracted fifteen, six- teen, or seventeen eggs (I forget which), all of one size, perhaps a little thicker at one end than the other, and of a dirty white colour, and soft, indiarubbery touch, con- nected together by a glutinous sub- stance, and lying like a necklace along, as it were, the backbone of the animal. On being torn asunder the eggs contained a thick, milky- like matter. The glutinous sub- stance would make the eggs stick together like a bunch, in the manner of those placed on the mantelpiece. Being all of one size and maturity, the snake would evidently lay them all at once, which she does some- what like the turtle, to be hatched by heat, altogether disconnected from herself. Indeed the snake is such a cold-blooded animal cold to touch in the hottest of weather that it could not apparently hatch its eggs.* I came at once to the con- clusion that, if brown and black snakes brought forth their young in the same way, then surely the brown snake had swallowed hers. To confirm this analogous proof, a friend, in whom every confidence can be placed, positively affirmed that a black -snake of the same species as the one from which I took the eggs was cut in two in his presence, when about twenty young ones were taken out of it, of about five inches long, and so active that they had to be killed to prevent their escape. In short, the mother had swallowed them. I then consulted an old New Jer- sey justice, a very reliable man, who ploughed up many a nest of * This is in allusion to the oviparous snakes, the eggs of which are hatched in the ground. The so-called viviparous bring the eggs far forward to maturity inside of them, leaving it an open ques- tion whether the eggs are hatched inside or outside of the reptile, or in the act of parturition. snake's eggs, generally near the stumps of trees, and exposed to the sun. He says that the covering re- sembled the white of a hen's egg very hard boiled a fair description of those taken out of the animal. He says that he has taken the young out of various kinds of snakes, particularly black ones, and that the creatures always conducted themselves as if they had been on the earth before. He knew a num- ber of people, who not only saw young snakes run into the mother's mouth, but took them out of her after killing her. As to the swal- lowing, he does not understand how any one could doubt it. I repeat the question I started with Has anyone in England found eggs in a viper? and has anyone found young ones in the same species? If both have been found, then the latter were swal- lowed ; for it would be simply ab- surd to say that the same animal could bring forth its young in both ways. As American snakes swal- low their young, the same should easily be believed of the English viper, even if no one had seen it done. It has surprised me that, at this time of day, such a question should be an open one. What is the meaning of science, if it cannot be settled whether or not vipers swallow their young without it be- ing necessary for people to see it done? I should think the anatomy of the reptile, in the hands of a skilful man, would show whether it was an egg or animal-bearing creature. Mr. Frank Buckland is, therefore, very unreasonable, when he says he will not believe that vipers swallow their young, unless he or some one else sees it done : and still more so, when he expects the creature to do it to order in a state of captivity, when it has no incentive to do it. It is uncertain what leads snakes to do it. Perhaps they do it for no particular reason, when they take charge of the young after being VIPERS AND SNAKES GENERALL K. hatched by means independent of themselves. It would be impossible for such a tiny creature to move about on the rough ground old snakes go over. Sometimes it might be to protect them from the weather, or carry them off in time of danger. The brown snake, killed in my presence, could not have been influenced by fear, for there had been none near her when suddenly approached by myself and friend, and particularly as she was basking, as I have said, on the top of a low stone wall, where it was apparently impossible for the young ones to get, unless taken there in- side of the mother. In a state of captivity, the snake can have no apparent incentive to take her young inside of her. Although the neck of a snake is narrow, it has an immense power of disten- sion when gradually swallowing its prey, while retaining its powers of breathing. The female has doubt- less peculiarities given her by na- ture for taking her young down her throat and keeping them alive there- Once down, her great distension of body furnishes them with an excel- lent place of safety. It has often been observed that snakes of a size not likely to be able to take care of themselves are seldom or never seen. Some of your readers may not be aware that snakes (some species at least) shed their skins late in the spring or early in the summer, although it is not known that every snake gets a new coat every year.* On the place on Long Island men- tioned, where the brown snakes were very numerous, I came across a skin that had been shed appar- ently the previous year, as it was considerably weather - beaten and dilapidated; but a few days after- wards (about the end of May), I * All snakes doubtless shed their skins once a year ; some people say oftener, with some species. found a beautiful specimen, soft and complete, including even the cover- ing of the eyes in short, a com- plete snake, barring the animal in- side. Indeed, I thought it was a snake till it did not move, when I approached it considerately, and be- fore touching it, carefully exam- ined how it could have wriggled itself so completely out of its skin. I found that it had caught itself a little below the head (or shoulders, if I may so express myself) on a knot on the stem of a small but stout dry weed of the previous year's growth. I gave it to the per- son who killed the snake containing the young ones, on his going to vis- it his friends in Scotland, to show it to them, and keep for the pur- pose (as he said) of wrapping it round any gathering, to bring it to a head. Although a fine, it was not a large specimen. I may add by way of P. S., by an- other mail, that I yesterday met a very intelligent man, long a farmer in Illinois, who, on being asked generally, "What about snakes?" informed me very fully in regard to them, and exactly as I have written. He says that he has often seen them, of various species, swallow their young, and that it is a very interesting sight. So quickly is it done, that it somewhat resembles a continuous glistening string passing into the mother's mouth. He says it takes place on the approach of wet weather and danger, and, as he supposes, when the snake wishes to "locomote." We see in this an amazing adaptation of means to an end, perhaps as wonderful a one as is to be found in natural history. For, when the snake goes to where she deposited her eggs to begin her maternal duties proper, and, in all probability, at the moment of hatch- ing, she would be absolutely unable to take care of, perhaps, twenty helpless creatures, emerging from eggs about an inch in length, laid by a snake about three feet long, if IO WHITE OF SELBORNE ON THE VIPER. she did not take them inside of her, for she has no other way of provid- ing for their safety ; but, by the mutual instinct of " all aboard," she can at once proceed on her travels with her family ; for a snake is an animal that lives altogether in the open, on sometimes very rough ground, and only retires to hidden places on the approach of cold weather to hybernate.* In cutting open the black-snake mentioned, which was fully three feet long, I found that the string of eggs, say fifteen in number, would measure about fifteen inches in all, and were in a chamber of much greater height and width than was necessary to hold them something apparently distinct from the stom- ach proper, and doubtless the re- ceptacle for the young after being hatched outside, and which could be greatly expanded, according to the nature of snakes. Since we know that life is originated and maintained in an egg, and in a womb containing sometimes a doz- en of young, it can be easily im- agined that the young of a snake can have air supplied to them, tem- porarily at least, when confined in the way described, doubtless by a special provision of nature to that end. Perhaps they are even nour-^ ished in the same manner, for it cannot be imagined that a tiny creature can be fed in the gross way of the old one, which has no means for tearing and dividing its prey among its progeny. And this gives rise to the questions, how and on what new - born and young snakes are nourished, when not in a state of captivity ? It would be singular, indeed, if this peculiarity of snakes is not de- scribed in treatises on the natural history of the animal. I did not see it noticed in the long article in the Encycl&pczdia Britannica, on a hasty glance I gave it. To people inclined to doubt the facts given, I would say how can they find eggs that are hatched outside of the ani- mal that laid them, returning to the inside of the same animal in the shape of complete creatures, that can help themselves in any way, excepting only what a larger growth would enable them to do, unless they entered it by the mouth ? WHITE OF SELBORNE ON THE VIPER.\ WHAT I have said in regard to snakes having no other in- stinct or resource given them by nature for taking care of their young than receiving them inside of them, would not perhaps be sufficient to * This is in reference to the black and brown striped or garter snakes in Amer- ica, and is not intended to apply to all snakes, whether of the land or water species. And the same may be said of some of the other peculiarities men- tioned. f Dated December i4th, 1872; printed January nth, 1873. satisfy some English readers that the same peculiarity doubtless ob- tains with the British viper, unless I said something on what White of Selborne has recorded on the sub- ject. He advanced little of his own knowledge, and admitted that he was no authority, for he said : " The reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with so well as I could wish, with regard to their natural history. There is a degree of dubiousness and obscurity at- tending the propagation of this class WHITE OF SELBORNE ON THE VIPER. II of animals. . . .The serpent kind eat, I believe, but once a year, or rather but only just at one sea- son of the year." [!] What he wrote really proved that the viper did swallow its young, for he said : " Several intelligent folks assure me that they have seen the viper open her mouth and admit her helpless young down her throat on sudden surprise." This is very positive testimony of people having no apparent motive for imposing on him, nor likely to have been under an illusion themselves. But, in op- position to their evidence, he says : " The London viper-catchers insist on it that no such thing ever hap- pens." That is, they never saw it done, perhaps during the season of viper-trapping, which really was no testimony at all. He says that about the 24th of May, 1768, a neighbouring yeoman killed and took out of a viper " a chain of eleven eggs, about the size of those of a blackbird," such as I took out of an American black- snake which swallows her young. According to American snakes this would give about two feet for the mother, which is said to be seldom found much above that length, and four-and-a-half or five inches for the young when hatched. Seven years thereafter, on the 4th of Au- gust, 1775, he himself took out of another fifteen young ones,the short- est of which was fully seven inches in length, and about the size of full-grown earth-worms. Here,then, was a phenomenon for him to solve, viz. the same animal (for argu- ment's sake) containing a string of fifteen eggs about an inch long, lying along her back, after the na- ture of snakes, " none of them ad- vanced so far towards a state of maturity as to contain any rudi- ments of young" (to the country- man's naked eye, for White does not say that he examined them), and seventy-two days thereafter ap- pearing inside of her as snakes up- wards of seven inches long, and so mature in their nature that they, "with the true viper spirit about them, showed great alertness as soon as disengaged from the belly of the dam, twisting and wriggling about, setting themselves up, and gaping very wide when touched with a stick, and showing manifest tokens of menace and defiance," to such an extent that he compared their action to " a young cock that will spar at his adversary before his spurs are grown, and a calf or lamb that will push with their heads be- fore their horns are sprouted." Yet, notwithstanding that several intel- ligent people assured .him that they had seen a viper admit her young down her throat, he says : " There was little room to suppose that this brood had ever been in the open air before, and that they were taken in for refuge at the mouth of the dam when she perceived that danger was approaching." And for what reason ? " Because then, probably, we should have found them some- where in the neck and not in the abdomen," That is, we might ex- pect to find fifteen snakes seven inches and a fraction long, or fully nine feet of snakes, in the neck of the mother, that would be three feet long at the very most in the neck, that to the eye or the imagination would hardly admit a passage for one of the young ones at such short notice as a sudden surprise would imply ! How did these eggs change to such complete, large, and active snakes before birth ? That is, how did a string of fifteen eggs, lying along the back of the animal, become fifteen snakes, upwards of seven inches long, so active and wicked before they were born, and so filling the abdomen of the mother that she seemed " very heavy and bloated ?" The very nature of an egg is to be laid and hatched by the animal laying it, or by the artifice of man, or by the elements. Yet White says of vipers : " Though they are ovi- 12 WHITE OF SELBORNE ON THE VIPER. parous, they are viviparous also, hatching their young within their bellies, and then bringing them forth"; perhaps drawing his con- clusion from the phenomenon men- tioned, and absolutely ignoring the testimony of people who had seen vipers swallow their young. It would be a curiosity in nature to find an animal that hatched an un- laid egg inside of itself ; so great a curiosity as at once to be rejected unless it could be supported by evi- dence. Assuming, however, that the viper did it, we could under- stand how each of the young was nourished when inside of its own egg ; but howwould they be fed, or eveji kept alive, after leaving the eggs and entering and perhaps run- ning about the abdomen at large? And why should snakes at least seven inches long, emerging from eggs one-seventh that length, be found unborn when they proved themselves so knowing on being forced to the light of day ? Do un- born animals of any kind act in that way ? And how did eggs that would yield snakes four-and-a-half or five inches long when hatched, produce ones from two-and-a-half to three inches longer before being born ? And if they were born inside, what had become of the shells or rather coverings of the eggs ? If they had been voided, why should not the young which they contained have followed in the same direction, and at the same time? White, by his own admission, knew little or noth- ing of the matter, and paid no re- gard to what others testified to of their own knowledge as to the swal- lowing of the young. He had most probably seen the snake that con- tained the eggs and killed the one himself containing the young, and concluded that therefore these young must have been hatched inside.* * It is surprising that White should have commented on this subject so superficially and unsatisfactorily, after contemplating the eggs and the young It must therefore be held that the viper, like all animals producing eggs, is really an oviparous one, bringing forth her young like other serpents of her kind that is, lays eggs to be hatched by the elements, and discharges her maternal duties like them by taking them inside of her on occasions, unless it can be proved otherwise by evidence that cannot be controverted. I of course mean when the animal is in her nat- ural state and not in captivity, which would probably somewhat modify her instincts and habits. How could it be known that the eggs of vipers are hatched inside unless noticed at the time of birth, when the young and the substance that covered them emerged to- gether, or the one (and which one ?) before the other, and in the same direction? And how could it be learned that the eggs increase in maturity inside unless various vi- pers containing eggs are killed dur- ing the season, and a comparison be made as to their respective con- ditions? We would have then to ascertain where the bursting of the egg takes place that is, inside or outside of the animal. If it takes place outside, no matter how shortly after the egg is laid, then is the vi- per an oviparous animal; and in that case how could we find vipers inside like those described by White, and as can be found any summer in England? Let a viper containing young, as described by White, be killed and submitted to properly qualified scientific men for inspec- tion, and they would doubtless soon settle the question whether the young were unborn or had entered the mother by the mouth. If they found the young and the coverings of the eggs, they could say that they had been hatched inside ; but if they found the young only, how as being inside of the mother. This circumstance goes a very long way to prove that he was not a scientific natu- ralist. WHITE OF SELBORNE ON THE VIPER. could they say that they had been so hatched, and not taken in at the mouth, in common with all the American snakes, so far as known ? Thereafter they could examine the anatomy of both, and if they found both alike, what reason could they have for saying that the viper did not, and could not, swallow her young, like the American serpents, whether the bursting of the egg took place at the time of birth, or before it, or after it had been laid ? Being both snakes, and conceiving eggs in the same way, with the young more or less developed in them when laid (as laid they must be), it must be held, as I have just said, that vipers are not on)y ovi- parous, but " swallowers," unless it can be proved that they are neither, which would be an exceedingly dif- ficult if not impossible matter to do, for the most that could be said would be that it was not known, which would only prove ignorance in regard to the subject. So far from its being even plaus- ible to say of White's vipers that there was " little room to suppose that the brood had ever been in the open air before," there is every rea- son for saying that they had been in the world for such time as enabled them to add perhaps two inches to their length, and gain considerable experience, which would account for their being so exceedingly ac- tive, like their American relations. They had simply been swallowed, but not from fear, at least immedi- ate fear, for the mother was enjoy- ing herself by lying in the grass and basking in the sun when killed (like the American snake on the top of a dry stone wall), having no fear for her young inside of her while she herself was safe. That is done in America for no apparent reason ; perhaps merely to gratify the natu- ral instinct of the mother, however she might feel in the event of her family quarrelling, when, I presume, she would be only too glad to drive them forth by the same power that enabled her to swallow them. I have given a form of experi- ment for testing whether or not vipers swallow their young, by ex- amining a dead one. I will now explain how it might be tried in the person of a living one. Let some one procure a pregnant viper (but distinguishing the appearance from that of having swallowed an animal much thicker than herself), and confine her in an open space suit- able to her natural disposition, but* from which she could not escape, and watch results. If she is preg- nant with eggs she will either de- posit them like American snakes, or retain them, according to White's theory, to be hatched inside of her. If she lays the eggs she will return to her natural size, and continue so till the eggs are hatched and the young ones require her care, when they will either be seen with her or found inside of her, which will manifest itself in her second preg- nancy, causing her to become more " heavy and bloated " as they in- crease in size. If she is caught when pregnant with young, there will be times that they will be seen, causing a corresponding diminution in her size, and times when they will not be seen, causing her again to appear pregnant from having swallowed them. If she was preg- nant with eggs, and brings forth ac- cording to White, it would not be possible, in her comparative free- dom, to have a midwife present to ascertain whether the eggs were hatched inside or outside of the animal, or what became of the shells, that is, whether young and shells were voided at the same time, or which first. If, however, she came in pregnant, and suddenly produced young after remaining in her original state night and day for a considerable time (which fact never could be ascertained), then White's theory, to a certain extent, would appear correct as to the hatch- WHITE OF SELBORNE ON THE VIPER. ing ; for the eggs of the American snake appear to be laid immediately after being formed, as they are ' sometimes found in the ground con- taining only the slightest tinge of foetus, but otherwise exactly as I took them out of the animal, when I discovered no appearance of that in the eggs, which I examined (but not carefully) with the naked eye. Mr. Frank Buckland has agreed to test the phenomenon of swallow- ing in a very unphilosophical way, by procuring a viper with young already born or hatched he prob- ably does not know which and asks for proof of the swallowing while the creature is in the hands of the Philistines, when she has no call to do it, to cany the young anywhere, or protect them from the weather, or preserve them from ap- proaching danger that is avoidable. In short, her captivity prevents that which Mr. Buckland insinuates it should lead to a very ingenious and frank way to choke off pro- swallowers. Cats generally will not even look at rats when interfered with in their own way and place of tackling them. There is nothing to prevent Mr. Buckland making the experiments I have suggested. He has already " taken proceed- ings " in the matter, but in a very unreasonable manner ; and it is to be hoped he will do something fur- ther, and gratify the curiosity of naturalists everywhere, whatever the result might be. I need not suggest the experiment of trying to hatch the eggs of the viper in a temperature like that of the place from which they were tak- en, in the same way that the Amer- ican brought forth his snakes on the mantelpiece ; for if she lays eggs, that would settle the question as to her being a " swallower." I may, however, say something more about the American experiment. The gentleman who conducted it I had hunted up, after a lapse of thirteen years (sometimes a rather difficult matter in America), and examined fully. There was no fire burn- ing, as it was in July. He killed the mother, which was hovering about, apparently in the expectation of her services being required, as the eggs proved very near the hatch- ing point. He took one of them to his place of business in New York, to satisfy incredulous people, and fortunately the birth took place on a table, in the presence of several people. The young snake, which measured six inches in length, made its appearance by the head, gradu- ally uncoiling itself out of its pris- on, which was an inch long, but not nearly so broad, and did not break in pieces like a brittle fowl's egg on being hatched, but opened in two, as the outside covering of some kinds of nuts come apart. It proved of the ordinary brown striped spe- cies (a harmless kind), the same as the old one killed, which was about three feet long an exact descrip- tion of the one from which I took the young ones. Immediately after it disengaged itself, it began to move about in a pretty lively way like snakes, but did not prove in any way belligerent when touched. It was then put into spirits and pre- served. The substance covering it resembled ordinary paper in thick- ness, and dry, but considerably at- tenuated from its original condi- tion.* The eggs found by this gentleman were in a pretty bunch or cluster, all sticking together, but how formed he did not know till I told him that before being laid they were in a string, lying along the back of the snake, loosely connect- * If fifteen or twenty eggs, lying along the back of a snake, were hatched inside in the way described, we would have, on a small scale, something worse than an earthquake. Or, imagine the eggs, hatch- ed at birth like the bursting of a shell at the mouth of a gun, or some time after leaving it, and returning to the gun, without being taken into it, and we would have the doctrine of anti-swal- lowers well illustrated. WHITE OF SELBORNE ON THE VIPER. ed by a soft glutinous substance, and apparently ready to be laid ; when he concluded with me that they had all been deposited at once, with a spiral or circular turn of the animal, which would give them the shape in which they were found. The New Jersey and Illi- nois gentlemen assert that the eggs found by them (about three inches below the surface in loose soil in Illinois) were not so connected to- gether but then they ploughed them up.* Those from Long Island and Illinois assert that different kinds of snakes are found on the same ground, although my experi- ence, which was much less than theirs, found it otherwise-! The young of a snake from two to three feet long, when born, they say, are from four-and-a-half to six inches * The eggs found on Long Island had evidently been deposited in a confined space, which would make them bunch or cluster, in place of being connected by the ends, by the glutinous substance, as when laid. f Some kinds of snakes are found on the same ground, although they live separately, except when they hybernate, when several kinds are found together. Some species not only make war upon but devour others. Here is what Hun- ter, to whom I will again refer, says on the subject : " Both the rattle and black snakes prey on them [the prairie dog] ; . . . . but their destruction would be still more considerable were it not for the perpetual belligerency of these reptiles" (p. 177). " The common black, copperhead, and spotted swamp snakes never fail, I be- lieve, to engage with and destroy them [the rattlesnakes] whenever they meet, which, together with the hostility that exists between the two species [of rattle- snakes, the black and parti coloured], prevents an increase that would other- wise render the country almost uninhabit- able "(p. 179). "When the two species [of rattlesnakes] fight, it is by coiling and striking at each other ; they fre- quently miss in their aim, or rather avoid each other's fangs by darting simultaneously in a direction different from the approaching blow. When one is bitten, it amounts to a defeat, and it instantly retreats for a watering place, at which, should it arrive in time, it in length, and, although helpless to protect themselves, are exceedingly nimble "sharp as needles," as illustrated by their passing like a " continuous glistening string" down the mother's throat, when by her peculiar " hiss " she calls them to her on the approach of danger, al- though they are always near her ; and that very young snakes are never seen by themselves, and sel- dom even with the mother, for the reason that she has already provid- ed for their disappearance on the approach of danger. The Long Islander never saw snakes so dis- appear, but one day he heard the peculiar hiss, the meaning of which he knew well from description, al- though the snake was hidden from view;* and he made a rush to where it seemed to be, to see the phenom- slakes its thirst, swells, and dies. I have witnessed the effects of the poison on their own bodies, or on those of the an- tagonist species, in several instances, and have never known one that was bitten to recover, notwithstanding the generally prevailing opinion to the con- trary, that such instinctively resort to efficient antidotes" (p. 179). "In one instance, I vexed a rattlesnake till it bit itself, and subsequently saw it die from the poison of its own fangs. I also saw one strangled in the wreathed folds of its inveterate enemy, the black-snake" (p. 118). " The other hostile snakes grasp their necks between their teeth, wreathe round, and strangle them " (p. I79> " Rattlesnakes .... would infest the country to a much greater extent, were it not for the hostility that exists between them and the deer. This animal, on dis- covering a snake, as I have repeatedly witnessed, retreats some distance from it, then running with great rapidity alights with its collected feet upon it, and repeats this manoeuvre till it has de- stroyed its enemy" (p. 116). Others state that the deer runs round and round the snake, narrowing the circle each time, till it lights upon it with its feet, as described, and destroys it. It is not mentioned that the deer destroys any other species of snakes ; and, if that is true, the curious question would arise, how is the deer enabled to make the distinction in the case of the rattlesnake only? i6 WHITE OF SELBORNE ON THE VIPER. enon, but he was too late, for the young ones had already been swal- lowed. He, however, killed the snake, when the young ones ran out of her mouth. They proved of the same species as those hatched by him, and those taken by me out of a snake. He said that the mother became comparatively helpless after the operation, and showed a won- derful disregard for her own safety in her desire to protect her family. The Illinois gentleman positively asserted that he had seen a young black-snake, fully a foot and a half long, enter the mouth of its mother, which was fully six feet in length. As a general thing, a knowledge of the habits of snakes, more than per- haps any other animal, can be ac- quired only by a person collecting the experience of others, and com- paring it with his own ; one having observed one thing, and another another. None I have spoken to know how new-born snakes are fed. They suppose that being born so active they gather their food as newly-hatched chickens do pick- ing it up themselves, perhaps with the assistance of the mother, but, of course, seizing much smaller prey than would suit her. They do not consider it impossible that they might at first be nourished by the mother by the same means she uses for their protection when she takes them down her throat. All over America young people are often killing snakes, some of them pregnant with young and some with eggs, and sometimes the same spe- cies pregnant with both, but not, of course, at the same time, which, as well as swallowing of the young, cause them no small astonishment, and there the matter rests. But older and more intelligent people understand the phenomenon of the animal laying her eggs to be hatch- ed in the soil, and then taking the young inside of her for their pro- tection ; and they often express their surprise that this peculiarity of the serpent tribe is not describ- ed, or hardly recorded, in the pages of natural history. There are a great variety of snakes in America. Sometimes in the West, on a small- sized farm containing prairie and timber and a little swampy land, there will be found at least seven different kinds. All over the coun- try they are found in the gardens, and at times in the barns, corn- cribs and milk-houses, and occa- sionally even in the houses. I will conclude by saying that, for the many reasons given, the British viper is doubtless a " swal- lower," and oviparous or semi-ovi- parous. It would be strange in- deed if the alleged fact of her swal- lowing her young cannot be proved by trustworthy ocular testimony. If it can be demonstrated that she is even semi-oviparous in the proper sense of the word, then it necessa- rily follows that she is a " swal- lower," since she is found with young inside of her. The philosophical naturalist, of all men, should be guided in these matters by his reason, by analogy and the nature of things, along with his eyes, and not by his eyes alone, and should remember that facts in natural history take precedence of everything. The snake has neither feet, wings, nor fins, and is easily disabled, a sharp stroke with a switch being sufficient to break the back of one of con- siderable size; and many of them have little or no means of defence to protect themselves, to say noth- ing of sometimes twenty of a progeny. As mammals are pro- vided with means for giving birth to their large-sized young, it is not unreasonable to suppose that serpents, at the proper season, are enabled to receive theirs down their throats for protection. The anat- omy of their mouths, throats, and stomachs will doubtless substantiate this opinion. Such a phenomenon is not contrary to the laws of nature, WHITE OF SELBORNE ON SNAKES. but rather illustrative of them. For, as St. Paul says, " All flesh is not the same flesh; for there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds," and we might add another of serpents, each having natural laws peculiar to itself, and illustrating the wonderfully diversi- fied works of the Creator of all. The serpent, however much she is hated, has been an object of inter- est, wonder, or worship at all times and among all nations. In Genesis she is described as " more subtile than any beast of the field," and the highest of all authority commands us to imitate her for her wisdom, provided it is allied with the harmlessness of the dove. WHITE OF SELBORNE ON SNARES.* WHITE, in his Natural History of Selborne, page 126, edi- tion 1833, says: "Monographers, come from whence they may, have, I think, fair pretence to challenge some regard and approbation from the lovers of natural history ; for, as no man can alone investigate all the works of nature, these partial writers may, each in his depart- ment, be more accurate in their dis- coveries, and freer from errors, than more general writers, and so by de- grees may pave the way to a univer- sal correct natural history." " Men that undertake only one district are much more likely to advance na- tural knowledge than those that grasp at more than they can pos- sibly be acquainted with. Every kingdom, every province, should have its own monographer " (p. 128). " It has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours whose studies have led them to- ward the pursuit of natural know- ledge ; so that, for want of a com- panion to quicken my industry and sharpen my attention, I have made but slender progress in a kind of information to which I have been attached from my childhood " (p. 39). " It is no small undertaking for a man, unsupported and alone, to begin a natural history from his own autopsia. Though there is endless room for observation in the field of nature, which is boundless, yet investigation (where a man en- deavours to be sure of his facts) can make but slow progress ; and all that one could collect in many years would go into a very narrow compass " (p. 118). A state of ignorance in regard to the serpent tribe cannot be said to exist in America, although the knowledge possessed by people is of a casual and partial nature, more or less recent and rusty, and dis- connected from any theory or sys- tem, which makes it all the more reliable to a person who will gather it up, like pieces of a puzzle lying loosely around, and arrange it into a whole. In the event of the pres- ent papers finding their way back to America, and being so brought before the notice of the public as to really interest it, I am satisfied that more could be collected from, intelligent people in or from country places, than one would perhaps care to be troubled with ; for to them a story about snakes is always interesting. f I am really astonish- * Dated January nth, 1873; printed July igth and August ^3d. f Under the article " American Sci- ence Convention on Snakes" it will bo seen that a newspaper notice on the sub- ject of snakes called forth, from different parts of the United States, no less than ninety-six answers,. 18 WHITE OF SELBORNE ON SNAKES. ed at how much I meet with inci- dentally, sometimes where I could hardly have expected it. Thus I was introduced to a gentleman who had seen an adder on Staten Island, with many young ones, which al- most instantly disappeared, he did not know how; but he killed her, and as she seemed very 4< heavy and bloated," he cut her open, and found upwards of twenty young ones inside of her. The dog of an old acquaintance of mine killed another adder, and shook the eggs out of her, when they appear- ed ready to be laid; and he him- self happened to kick a piece of loose turf near his house, and found a nest of brown striped snake's eggs under it, very near the hatch- ing point. On a trip to Baltimore, at the new year, I dropped into conversation on the subject of snakes with three people only, who happened to sit next me, with the following result. First, with a Vir- ginia Negro, who found, when hoe- ing a field of Indian corn, a nest of black-snake's eggs, twenty-eight in number, and very near the time of hatching. The next was an engin- eer or machinist, returning from doing a job on the railroad, who saw a snake, close to water, in the State of Delaware, with fully twenty young ones, which in- stantly entered her mouth, when she plunged into the stream. The other was a very respectable- looking and intelligent farmer, from the same State, who saw the ordi- nary brown striped snake swallow her young, when he killed her, and found them more than half way down her body. He also found a nest of eggs of the same species, nearly ready to be hatched, under a shallow stone that little more than rested on the ground, when clearing up a field. Both these men said that they were so completely fascinated by the phenomenon, and the " quick as winkie" way in which the young disappeared, that they lost their presence of mind for the moment, as happens with every one on such occasions, especially for the first time. Indeed, the plunging of the snake into the water with all her family aboard of her took away the man's breath, as for an instant it did mine, till I saw and was told it was a water-snake. I immediately remembered that an acquaintance, worthy of every confidence, told me that he had several times seen water-snakes in North Carolina swallow their young. Water is, per- haps for the most part, their natural element, to which they flee in time of danger, and they are always near it, somewhat like water-rats. In approaching people for informa- tion, so far from putting leading questions, I almost invariably begin as one utterly ignorant of the sub- ject, and dropping on it by acci- dent, and let them tell their stories complete, and if time and circum- stances permit, then question and cross-question them to the most minute detail, in the most approved legal way, giving them at the close of the " investigation " my reasons for doing so. I almost invariably find them " interested witnesses " in the proper sense of the word, easy to manage, and excited, as most people who have been brought in contact with snakes are apt to be, on the subject being mentioned to them. In America those that no- tice animated nature are always in- telligent, whatever might be their education, and generally men of humanity in proportion to the in- terest they take in the subject. But, as Gilbert White says, " the bane of our science is the comparing of one animal to the other by mem- ory" (p. 135), which applies to some extent to the composition of these papers, and gives them a rather rambling character, but per- haps adds to what interest they may possess for that very reason. Thus, to return to the American snakes swallowing their young. WHITE OF SELBORNE ON SNAKES. When the young enter the mother, they must, in the nature of things, turn themselves and lie inside in the same direction as her, for the air, "bringing their heads to wind- ward ;" and that is done very quick- ly, as they ran out of the mouth of the mother killed by the Long Is- lander so soon after he heard, at a few paces off, her hiss for her pro- geny to betake themselves to their place of refuge. And that reminds me that the young snakes taken out of the mother in my presence all lay in the same direction. White says that the viper killed by him was "crowded with young." In America the phrase is " packed " or " stuffed " with them, the usual number given being " about twenty" or " fully twenty." The Virginia Negro, as I have already said, counted twenty-eight eggs in a nest, all with young that would be hatch- ed in three or four days, judging from his experience with fowls' eggs. Other nests are found with as few as twelve or thirteen eggs. The eggs of snakes cannot addle for the same reason as fowls', for the only natural risk they run is from the elements ; and the animal is so " wise in her generation " as to choose a place of deposit safe from everything except, perhaps, excessive rain or cold. The water- snake deposits her eggs in little island-like hillocks, a little above the water-mark, and covers them with what dry stuff she can find on them. It is necessary for snakes to have a large progeny to provide against their many enemies, of which the pig is not the least formidable ; for the best means of ridding a neigh- bourhood of snakes, even the most venomous, is to turn out the pigs for the purpose. They fight the rattlesnake most scientifically, dodg- ing it, and at the worst presenting the cheek or side of the neck to its blow, when they seize it, and with their teeth and feet soon rend it. It is difficult for poisonous snakes to injure a pig, for its skin, fat, and absence of small veins generally, prevent serious consequences. When a rattlesnake is killed, and placed on a road where a pig will pass, the pig starts aside at first, and then seizes the snake with great gusto, to the amusement of those placing it there for the purpose. The Illinois gentleman, mentioned in the first and second papers, when going to his hay-field, saw a black- snake swallow her young, and drove his hay-fork into her, and carried mother and young over his shoulder and threw them into his pig-pen, when the animals started, but as quickly proceeded to enjoy their delicacy. I will now consider what White of Selborne put on record about snakes depositing their eggs and shedding their skins, prefacing what 1 have to say with some gener- al remarks of his own. He wrote : " Candour forbids me to say abso- lutely that any fact is false because I have never been witness to such a fact" (p. 127). " My remarks are the result of many years' observa- tion, and are, I trust, true on the whole ; though I do not pretend to say that they are perfectly void of mistake, or that a more nice ob- server might not make many addi- tions, since subjects of this kind are inexhaustible " (p. 180). " The question which you put with re- gard to those genera of animals that are peculiar to America . . . is too puzzling for me to answer ; and yet so obvious as often to have struck me with wonder " (p. 90), which remark was applicable, at the time, to the opossum, which car- ries her progeny in her pouch, to which they flee in time of danger; while she will feign dead, notwith- standing the roughness of the usage she may receive, when she finds she cannot escape; this peculiarity being also exhibited by the young before they have left the mother. WHITE OF SELBORNE ON SNAKES. " This would be adding wonder to wonder, and instancing in a fresh manner that the methods of Provi- dence are not subject to any mode or rule, but astonish us in new lights, and in various and changeable ap- pearances " (p. 1 1 1). These quota- tions, and those to follow, are taken from his observations on subjects in which he was perfectly at home, and are now applied to those of which he knew very little, as he admitted, and for that reason are much more applicable to the two questions on hand. In America snakes are found pregnant with eggs in the spring, or early in the summer; then the eggs are hatched in the ground, and the young are found with the mother or inside of her. The interval be- tween the laying and the hatching may be six weeks ; the Illinois gen- tleman says it may be four or five weeks, so difficult is it to arrive at the time actually required, to say nothing of the uncertainty of a per- son's memory in regard to what he has casually observed. The Vir- ginia Negro said that the eggs he found when hoeing his Indian corn could not possibly have been de- posited till after the ground was ploughed, which could not have been more than six weeks previous to the eggs being found very near the hatching point. In the Middle and Western States the ground is ploughed for corn say about the ist of May, planted on the 8th, and hoed on the 3ist, which would make a month ; and allow a week more for the Virginia style of farming, and we have about five weeks for the eggs to mature. The time that intervened between the dog shaking the eggs out of the snake and its owner finding a nest of them nearly ready to hatch (although they were of different species) was exactly a month ; so that four or five weeks would be a safe estimate for the time a snake's eggs require to hatch. I admit that there may be some difference between the British and American snakes, as there is between .the rabbits, for the Ameri- can rabbit does not burrow as illustrated by an American's remark when he said, " I will give ^5 for every hole dug by an American rab- bit, which does not show even a scrape of its foot on the ground." But between the snakes there can- not be such a difference as is im- plied in White's remark, when he says : " Snakes lay chains of eggs every summer in my melon beds, in spite of all that my people can do to prevent them, which eggs do not hatch till the spring following, as I have often experienced " (p. 70.) Both snakes lay chains of eggs, and deposit them in the ground ; but why should the eggs of British snakes be laid in the summer, and remain in the earth all the winter, and be hatched in the spring, when the eggs of the American snakes are hatched in four or five weeks after being laid ? White's assertion is contrary to the analogy of nature, for it is only the insects on land, existing but for a season, that leave eggs to be hatched the following year. White, by his own account, had many opportunities for experi- menting on the hatching of snakes' eggs. He could easily have sur- rounded a nest, when they would have hatched, although the assist- ance of the mother might have beer necessary to remove the soil, to allow the young ones to come to the surface ; but he throws no light on the subject. Even in regard to his favourites, the birds, he says: " I am no bird catcher ; and so little used to birds in a cage, that I fear, if I had one, it would soon die for want of skill in feeding" (p. 116). It is difficult to account for his an- tipathy, as that of a naturalist, to snakes when they could not injure his melon beds, and his indifference to their peculiarities, when he had such opportunities for observing them, for he says : " The reptiles, WHITE OF SELBORNE ON SNAKES. 21 few as they are, I am not acquainted with, so well as I could wish, with regard to their natural' history. There is a degree of dubiousness and obscurity attending the propa- gation of this class of animals " (p. 66). What he says^n regard to the hatching of their eggs must, there- fore, be rejected in the absence of details of the data from which he drew his conclusion. He says the eggs were laid every summer in his melon beds, in spite of all his people could do to prevent it, but siys nothing of the rest of the garden, nor explains why the .snakes preferred the other part of the ground. When the eggs were deposited, the soil had either not been dug, and, when dug, they would be discovered and destroyed; or the seeds of the melons had been sown or had sprung, when no op- portunity would be given for dis- covering the nest, by such cultiva- tion as the melons required ; or, if they were so discovered, they would be destroyed by the gardener, in obedience to orders, or- from his natural antipathy to the animal, and particularly as it would involve no trouble in doing it. Besides, it is natural to suppose a snake would leave no trace of her nest, unless when she disturbed newly and fine- ly-dressed ground, requiring an ex- pert to tell what it implied, which White's people were not apt to be. If the eggs were not discovered, how did White know they were there at all, or if discovered, that they were laid in the summer and hatched in the spring? Or how did he know that they were not intended for a second brood, or were not a second laying after the first had been destroyed ? One cannot easily account for the snakes preferring the melon beds to the exclusion of the rest of the garden, and espe- cially in the face of the persecution which they suffered year after year for so doing. In short, White's as- sertion as to the eggs lying in the ground all winter must be rejected, unless it could be proved; and it must be held that British like American snakes deposit eggs to be hatched the same year. White, at least, admits that the viper con- tains eggs about the 2yth of May, and young ones by the 4th of Au- gust. The nest of the black-snake, like that of other species, is never found except when turned up by accident. The Illinois gentleman, on a closer examination, says the eggs, com- pletely covered by about three inches of loose soil, which slightly flattens the tops of them, are found neatly coiled in a solid circle, one tier deep, and connected by a sub- stance like a loosely-made cotton thread, that is easily broken, and is covered with something like mildew, which in a less degree attaches to the eggs and the earth immediately surrounding them. This connect- ing thread, noticed by others on a like occasion, was the remains of the glutinous substance connecting the eggs, which were taken out of one of the same species by myself. This evidence somewhat contra- dicts that of the Long Islander, who, however, insists that the eggs found by him were in a bunch or cluster, but then they were of an- other species, and deposited in a different soil. On one occasion, the young, on the eggs being opened, ran about three yards, but died, ap- parently from the effects of the sun, which is doubtless a reason for the mother taking them inside of her for some time after birth. A snake when at rest naturally chooses the warmest spot, where the rays of the sun are concentrated, especially at the opening and closing of the sea- son, and which would be too strong for her newly-born progeny without some covering. That doubtless ac- counts for the one containing the young being killed on the top of a dry stone wall, nearly three feet high. I had some difficulty in see- 22 WHITE OF SELBORNE ON SNAKES. ing how she could have got on the wall with so many young inside of her, till I learned she was a climber, 'a friend having killed one of the same species when emptying a bird's nest of its young, about six feet up a tree-like bush, when he took the birds out of her, the mother all the while screaming and flying around.* In regard to the snake shedding its skin, White says : " It would be a .most entertaining sight, could a person be an eye-witness to such a feat, and see the snake in the act of changing its garment " (p. 383). But as that would be a difficult matter, we must judge of the act by the nature of things. So uni- form is nature, that we must con- clude that all snakes cast their sloughs in the open air, from the fact of so many being found there, and, so far as known, nowhere else. White says that a skin found by him, in a field near a hedge, " ap- peared as if turned wrong side out- ward, and as drawn off backward, like a stocking or woman's glove." But stockings and gloves cannot be drawn off inside out. Again he says, " snakes crawl out of the mouth of their own sloughs," and there he is right, but very confused when he adds, " and quit the tail part last, just as eels are skinned by a cook-maid." How could a stock- ing or glove be drawn off " just as eels are skinned " ? The cook makes an incision round the neck, and takes hold of the head in one hand and the skin in the other, and pulls opposite ways, so that the skin must come off "wrong side out- ward." It would be as impossible for a snake to turn its skin inside out, as it came out of it, as it would be for a hand to draw itself out of its glove with the same result ; even r .the glove must be placed against * Snakes do not ascend a tree cork- screw-like, as some might think, but straight up, as they go on the ground, but not of course so fast. Many of them are also excellent swimmers. something presenting resistance to allow the hand to be pulled out of it in the ordinary way. It would be interesting to see an unsophisti- cated man like White attempt with his sock or glove what he asserts the snake must have done. He seems to have forgotten what he said on another occasion. " I de- light very little in analogous reason- ing, knowing how fallacious it is with regard to natural history " (p. 1 06). " Ingenious men will readily advance plausible argu- ments to support whatever theory they shall choose to maintain ; but then the misfortune is, every one's hypothesis is each as good as an- other's, since they are all founded on conjecture " (p. 90). The British snake can shed its skin in no other way than the American one, that is, leave it right side out- ward, and no more turning it than a scabbard would be turned by the sword being drawn out of it, as the Illinois gentleman expressed it. If snakes shed their skins when in a state of captivity, it should be known in England how it is done. The shedding of its skin doubt- less causes a snake pain or sickness, but that is not likely to arise from the thick part of the body passing through the skin of a narrower part. The stretching of the skin in itself must be a pleasant sensa- tion, when the animal swallows its prey. The sickness must proceed from the skin separating from the body, as it probably does gradually and all over. The snake then re- quires something to press its side against, for the resistance necessary to enable it to pull itself out of its old garment.f f The following appeared in Land and Water, on the nth October, 1873 : " SNAKES SHEDDING THEIR SKINS. Sir : Mr. Higford Burr, in Land and Water of the i3th September, in allusion to my article on the 23d August, advances the idea of White of Selborne, which I did not consider of sufficient importance to notice, that snakes cast their skins inside out because ' the coverings of the eyes are concave ' or hollow. That, in my opinion, is the very reason SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG. I find that I omitted, in my paper of the 1 4th December, to ask under what circumstances Mr. Buckland's viper and her young ones were caught, and what were their respec- tive lengths, and whether the progeny might not have been past the swallowing age, since he has said that they had not favoured him with an exhibition of their dexterity in that respect. Much is said of the snake that would indicate that she is possessed of wisdom, but which I will not put on record, for the reason that I am not in a position to vouch for it. But in regard to her taking care of her young, she must be very wise when contrasted with the ostrich, " which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the dust, and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not heis; her la- bour is in vain without fear, because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her un- derstanding." Job xxxix., 14-17.* SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG.\ A COMMUNICATION I sent Land and Water, on the i ith of January, contained a reply to the question of R. S. F., printed on the 1 8th, as to how young snakes enter the stomach of the mother, and how they leave it. They go in head foremost and come out , head fore- most turning, of course, inside. I said that all those taken out of a why they are not cast ' inside out.' Before the snake can be~in to move out of its skin it must lo sen itself at the head, and then, as it were, 'crawl out of its mouth,' which would involve more or less tugging, pulling, or wrenching of the body to separate it from the skin. When that takes place, the thin, and at first doubtless soft, scales of the eyes will naturally be pulled in, and retain that position, or fall into it, after the slough has been left behind. But if the snake turns its skin wrong side out in any way, or as White supposes as l an eel is skinned,' then the coverings of the eyes would be pulled out or be convex. Without examining the eyes, my own experience and that of others I have conversed with on the subject is that the skins are not found inside out ; and that must be held to be the true position of the matter till the opposite can be demonstrated. It would have been something to the point had Mr. Burr told us how the skin itself looked, for surely any one could easily tell of a newly-shed skin whether it was right or wrong side out ; or had he informed us how a snake could possibly turn its i>kin as it came out of it, and, in addition to that, preserve in such a convulsion the delicate scales of the eyes intact. He does not say to what extent the eyes were concave, nor in what position the skin was found, nor its surroundings with reference to its shedding. I refer him to what I said on the subject on the occasion mentioned, and I would add that his finding the scales of the eyes concave did not warrant his conclusion that * there can be no further doubt about it,' that the animal left its snake by myself lay in the same di- rection as the mother. I did not examine them particularly in that respect, but that was their position so far as I noticed and remembered. They certainly were lying length- wise. The Illinois gentleman, so far as he remembers, found them lying some one way and some an- other. He does not consider it garment the opposite way it wore it. J. S. (New York, September 27). [According to my experience the cast skins of snakes are always turned inside out. F. BUCK- LAND.]" Many hold to the opinion expressed by Messrs. Burr and Buckland. It is simply a matter of proof, and it can be considered an open question. How a snake sheds its skin in confinement would not necessarily be a fair cri- terion of how it does it in a state of na- ture; for unless it is furnished with the means of doing it as it would choose, it will be apt to make a mess of the opera- tion. As a question of conjecture, it is much easier to imagine that the reptile wriggles out of its skin rather than parts from it as White describes the pheno- menon. * It would appear that Job is not strict- ly accurate in his description of the ostrich. Neither he nor Solomon seems to have noticed that the serpent swallows her young for their protection. f Dated February 8th, 1873. SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG. necessary that they should turn while confined in their place of ref- uge, but that turn they must when they leave it. I gave an instance of their run- ning out of a brown striped snake after the Long Islander killed her. I give another in the adder, noticed by a very trustworthy young friend, who saw several young ones run out of the mother, when lying on a road fatally injured by some one, mashed and helpless. Having an aversion to snakes, he did not examine her otherwise than when passing, but he distinctly saw the young ones coming out of the mouth. We can only conjecture in regard to the physical circumstances of the moth- er swallowing her young. She can doubtless permit and refuse admis- sion, by simply opening and shut- ting her mouth when she ceases to swallow them, doubtless consider- ably, if not long, before she casts them off altogether, as all animals do with their young. Perhaps there is nothing worthy of special notice in the anatomy of the throat or stomach to receive, reject, or retain young of a certain age, if we judge from the fact of the young running out after the mother is killed, unless it should be that nature provides her with the instinct of giving a passage in her last gasp for the es- cape of her progeny. The circum- stances under which the young en- ter the mother should influence them in their movements when in- side ; for, if they enter under the in- fluence of fear, they will naturally be on the qui vive what to do when there, and so turn inside to be ready, if taken in the rear, to run out as instinctively as they ran in. There is a phrase in the letter of R. S. F. to which I object. He speaks of its being a " theory " that snakes swallow their young. The right expression is^t&at it is a fact. For example, as re-gfcitds the black and browrt ^striped^f' garter snake in particujj^ wgjiSave eggs taken out of them, and eggs found in the ground when ready or nearly ready to hatch, and then the young found in the mother. Should not that sat- isfy any reasonable person that the young were swallowed? To that add that the young have been seen to run out of the mother when killed ; and, to crown all, that they have been seen to run into her, and have been taken out of her by the same people all of which establish it as a fact, and not as a theory, that snakes swallow their young. If R. S. F. does not know how snakes are brought into the world and taken care of in the first stage of their existence, and can refer to no one who does, why should he object to what I have written on the subject? If he admits that the snake lays a " string of eggs," how can he doubt that the chamber that contained them can also hold their contents, to say nothing of the ex- tra room when the eggs were there, and the further expansion of the animal when the young are received inside ? The turning inside would seem to be the easiest part of the phenomenon ; nor can there be any difficulty in believing that the young can be kept alive, after the exceed- ingly mature and lively vipers taken by White of Selborne out of a mother. I avail myself of this opportunity to suggest that Mr. Buckland should give us some information regarding his viper and her progeny, embraced under the following heads: When, on what kind of ground, where, how, and by whom caught, and how carried to their present place of keeping? What were the mother and young ones doing, and how far from each other were they when seen and caught ? What resistance did the old one make, and how did she defend her young, and how did they act, on the occasion ? And bow did it happen that the family were bagged at the same time ? Or, how many of them were caught, SNAKE S SWALLO WING THEIR YO UNG. and how many escaped, and how did they escape ? What was the length of the mother and progeny when caught ? How have they at vari- ous times been housed or kept? If exposed to the air, how did they appear in warm, wet, and cold weather? How watered and fed, and particularly, how the young ones were watered and fed ? How has the mother behaved towards the family and the family towards her, and how towards her keeper and others, and the same in regard to the young ? with a detailed account of all other particulars noticed of the mother and young since their capture. Did the old one shed her skin, and, if so, how and when? What are the seasons during which people from London do and do not catch vipers ? SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG* "N 1 O ox casts its hide so that it can be picked up and made boots of, no horse swallows a mouth- ful as wide if not twice as wide as its body, and no sow on the ap- proach of danger receives her in- fantile grunters inside of her ; there- fore no snake does any of these things." " If I were told that a snake receives her young inside of her, I would not believe it on any evidence, for the reason that I do not understand how it could be done, or what purpose it would serve." Apply this style of reasoning to the communication of D. of York- town, Virginia, printed in Land and Water on the ist February, and you have a pretty fair description of what is the production of one who is evidently not an American. He advances nothing of his own knowledge nor of that of others. Indeed he says, " I am not familiar with the supposed young-swallowing snakes " a sufficient reason for him to have kept silent on the sub- ject ; but he adds, " I have often ob- served other kinds" without say- ing what kinds, or what he has no- ticed of them. I doubt not he has seen snakes in a field, or crossing a road, or along a fence, but that seems to be the extent of his know- ledge of them. His ideas have evi- dently been culled from printed matter, and intermixed with crude suppositions of his own, and then put forth in a manner that entitles him to little ceremony on being' taken notice of, particularly when he speaks of the "mist that surrounds myself and others in the matter of snakes," basing his remarks on the detailed and circumstantial evi- dence of several people on snakes swallowing their young, contained in my paper printed on the 2ist December. The affidavits of twen- ty people of the highest credibility as to the fact would apparently have no effect on him. He is evidently one of those people who will dis- pute anything, and contradict any- one, like a man I knew who con- tradicted even death (for he was not dying, not he) till death came along and contradicted him. He says that the egg-laying spe- cies, like the American black-snake (and he makes no exceptions), are never seen in company with their young, which are never found in- side of them (so far as he knows), and that they abandon their eggs * Dated February aid, 1873. 26 SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG.. when laid, and that it would be im- possible for them to recognize their progeny, even if aware of the prob- able period of hatching, and that their services are not needed to protect their offspring or feed them. It would have been interesting if he had told us how he learned all that, or how most of it could be ascertained by any one. Let the reader imagine a person in the sheerest wantonness doggedly maintaining the opposite of what a hundred men could testify to, and he will have a good illustration of the action, and what seems to be the character, of this one. He goes on to say that it is only the class producing " living young," in- cluding the English viper and the American rattlesnake, to which at- taches the idea of swallowing their young ; whereas the popular belief in America is that " snakes," without regard to species, do it, while there are few neighbourhoods in which one if not several people cannot be easily found who can testify to it as a fact, and very few indeed from whom something about snakes can- not be learned. In Rees' Cyclopedia we find the following : " Palisot Beauvois thus relates the fact we allude to : Having perceived a rat- tlesnake at some distance, I ap- proached as gently as possible, when on lifting my hand to strike her. she sounded her rattle, opened her mouth, and received into it five small serpents, about the size of a quill. I retreated and concealed myself, when the animal, thinking the danger at an end, opened her mouth and let out her progeny. When I appeared again, they im- mediately took to the same retreat." The editor adds : " He had heard this fact from American planters, ^and it has been since confirmed by 'other travellers." D. says: "If there is one marked peculiarity in the race generally, it is the extreme slowness with which they swallow." Certainly, when they take in an ani- mal twice or perhaps three times their own width. " Is there any special adaptation in the gullet of the viper that enables it to swallow, on an emergency, with lightning rapid- ity ? " I dare say, none is necessary to enable an average-sized rattle- snake to swallow young " about the size of a quill." The Frenchman doubtless under-estimated their size, owing to the distance (short as it might have been) and the extreme quickness of the creatures, that would prevent an accurate idea be- ing formed of their dimensions. I am not aware of the throat of a snake having been examined to see whether it could allow an instant passage for her young. There is nothing to justify us in supposing it could not, especially at the time nature calls for it. If a throat were examined, it should be that of a snake that was alleged or supposed to have swallowed her progeny. I pick up reliable information on the subject of snakes by simply making casual inquiries among peo- ple with whom I am or get ac- quainted. One gentleman killed on Staten Island an adder, that was very full about the body, and he put his foot on her head, and with a stick pressed her towards the tail, and forced twenty-one eggs out of her. They had the ordinary softness and apparent strength of snakes' eggs, and the same colour a creamy or dirty white but showed a darkish substance or body inside, as seen through a dull transparency, doubtless the young well on towards maturity ; but un- fortunately the eggs were not open- ed to see what the contents were. This opinion is strengthened by the fact that eggs taken out of the same species by another acquaint- ance did not present the same ap- pearance, owing doubtless to the fcetus not being developed in them to the same extent. It was about the 1 5th July, that the eggs were SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG. pressed out of the adder, and about the ist August (but not the same year) the same gentleman saw, about twenty feet from him, an- other adder and five or six young ones (there might have been others inside of her) about six inches long (so far as he could judge), enjoying themselves, when he came suddenly upon them. He at once made for her to kill her, when his hand was immediately stayed by the young ones entering the mother in such a hurry that he could not see the tail of one from the head of another, for they " flew " in, as he expressed it. Immediately after they were taken in, the mother made off and got into a hole near a fence-post, where he could not get her, to his great disappointment, as he wished to take the young ones out of her. Another friend (a lady this time) saw a black - snake swallow her young; and a very respectable-look- ing and well-off Negro, whom I met in the company of him who saw the adder swallow her young, also saw a black-snake do the same. All these, and others who have testified to similar facts, are willing to make affidavits to that effect. What then become of D.'s remarks about snakes swallowing their young be- ing " mists " and " delusions," and the other incoherent ideas in his communication, which I would not have noticed but for its appearing in Land and Water, and also for the reason that it furnishes the op- portunity for saying something more on the subject. I learned the other day that the young of black and brown striped or garter snakes (and most likely other kinds) are found by them- selves under stones and stumps of trees, doubtless left there by the mother when she goes out to forage or enjoy herself, relieved of the care of her large progeny. Several people, whom I know intimately, testify to this fact, for they have often found them under stones. On these be- ing lifted, the young snakes (often about the size of new-born ones) are found neatly stowed away, with no room for the old one, and no re- mains of the eggs from which they were hatched. On being disturbed they at once scatter, if not imme- diately crushed by the foot or other- wise destroyed. There is no doubt of the extremely young ones being placed there by the mother for a special purpose, and that it is only at times she takes them abroad with her. Excepting for the purpose, of hybernating, the only occasions a snake has for a hole is to find shelter from the weather or danger; and she will be more solici- tous in that respect when she has young, like the adder mentioned.* D. advances it as a reason against the mother swallowing her young, the inconvenience of the load she would have to carry, which would be as sound an argument against her shedding her skin, or gorging herself with a meal two and per- haps three times her own width, both of which she does in her usual haunts. I have never met people who saw snakes shed their skins, but many who killed them when gorged with a meal. One I killed with a live frog in its mouth, when it made a feeble effort to escape to cover, pushing its prey before it, and apparently unable and unwil- ling to relieve itself of its burden. A friend saw, from a window, at a distance of about twenty feet, an adder about thirty inches long mov- ing slowly towards a medium-sized toad, which stood motionless, as if paralyzed, and facing it at about eighteen inches from it. He im- mediately sought his hat and went outside, but could find no toad. He, however, killed the snake, and took out of it a toad, not completely dead, and nearly half-way down its body. The snake made no effort to escape or defend itself, but seemed * See note at page 10. 28 SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG. torpid ; and the time that elapsed could not have exceeded two min- utes. As to the inconvenience to a snake from having swallowed her young, it could hardly be greater than in the case of White's viper (or any similar one to be found any summer in England), which, although probably little more than two feet long, yet contained in the abdomen fifteen young ones, the shortest of which was fully seven inches in length ; it making little difference whether the young had been swallowed, or had not yet been born, according to White's theory. And that disposes of D.'s assertion that "no compe- tent naturalist has ever found young vipers in the stomach of the mo- ther;" which assertion is as un- founded as his other one, that the "egg-laying American snakes are never found with young inside of them." He further remarks: " Physiologists say there is no physical obstacle to the supposed habit [of swallowing the young] and the cumulative testimony of many witnesses would compel us to receive it as an established fact." Then why reject it for the odd rea- son that " experience warns us, on the other hand, of the extreme liability of untrained observers to be misled by preconceived opin- ions," when such observers have, in almost every instance, no precon- ceived opinions or theories on the subject most of them not even the capacity to form them but narrate merely what they have seen, and in return find their observa- tions not merely doubted, but dis- credited and disputed by people full of " preconceived opinions," and empirics in natural history. What reason could any one ad- vance against snakes swallowing their young, beyond the one I have mentioned, viz. : " No sow on the approach of danger receives her infantile grunters inside of her; therefore no snake does it with her young." That the snake receives her young inside of her is a ques- tion that should be settled by evi- dence, as a fact is proved in a court of justice; difficulties, suppositions or theories not being allowed to form part of the testimony. As il- lustrating how particular I am in such matters, I give the following : The gentleman that took a toad out of an adder came suddenly on one of a different species, lying in the middle of a road, and killed her, mashing her head and body so as to burst the latter. He turned, at a distance of about fifteen feet, to look at her, when he observed a number of young ones leaving her, some of which he killed. As the mother was thicker and much wider than ordinary, and bloated, while her abdomen, after she was killed, heaved as with something moving inside, there was no moral doubt of the young ones having been inside of her ; but as they were not seen to enter and leave her, it should, as a case of swallowing, be decided as "not proven." The mother mea- sured about two feet, and the young ones about five inches. D. also maintains the old theory, as if he knew it to be a fact, that the eggs of vipers are hatched in- side, and says that any one who does not know it as a fact is in a " mist." Chambers' Encyclopedia speaks of the " eggs probably burst- ing in the act of parturition." Either must be proved to be a fact before being received as such ; and if neither can be proved it must be held that the eggs are laid and then hatched. In my paper printed on the nth January, I gave an argu- ment against their being hatched inside, and I should like to see one in favour of the theory. And if it hap- pens that the " eggs of vipers burst in the act of parturition," it would also be interesting to see an argu- ment in -favour of well-grown and active vipers being found inside of the mother, unless they entered her SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG. 2 9 by the mouth. On the occasion mentioned I described how the egg of a garter snake was hatched on a table, that is, how the snake burst it and uncoiled itself out of it ; and I presented to the doubters of vipers swallowing their young the following phenomena : " If fifteen or twenty eggs, lying along the back of a snake, were hatched inside in the way described, we would have, on a small scale, something worse than an earthquake. Or, imagine the eggs hatched at birth like the bursting of a shell at the mouth of a gun, or sometime after leaving it, and returning to the gun, without being taken into it, and we would have the doctrine of anti-swallow- ers well illustrated." Chambers says that "the young are produced in the early part of the summer, from twelve to twenty or more at a birth;" while White of Selborne testified that eggs having no trace of fcetus in them were taken out of one about the 27th May, and young ones out of another on the 4th August. If both are right, and the propagation of vipers is uniform as to time, with no second brood, and if the seasons were the same, we could conclude that the eggs come rapidly to maturity ; and that White's vipers (upwards of seven inches long) were perhaps six weeks old when forcibly taken out of the mother. I lay it down as an axiom that we must hold that all snakes swallow their young, till the oppo- site can be proved of any particular species of them. I may add that the United States are a fine field for the study of snakes, as they are still to be found close up to even large cities like New York. They were and are yet numerous around Hoboken, op- posite, in the State of New Jersey. " Snake Hill," the site of the county poor-house, got its name from hav- ing been a great resort of many kinds of them. The snakes of a harm- less kind that annoy the American housewife the most, in some places, are the black and milk species. The first will gobble up the eggs of hens that lay, or " steal their nests," in the woods, or the chickens so hatched that become wild after some time, requiring trouble to re- claim them, like kittens born in a stable or where they cannot be seen and handled. The other snake is said to steal into the premises and drink the milk ; hence its name. Snakes seem loth to go into winter quarters, and apparently resort to expedients to delay it. On the rail- road, close up to the petroleum dock at Weehawken, near where Burr shot Hamilton, they have been found lying along the rails and sometimes across them, for the heat of the sun concentrated on the iron, when the train would come quickly along and cut in two those lying across the rails in a partly lethargic state. As the season approaches its close they are easily killed in the woods. Four men, one of whom I am acquainted with, set out one day on a nutting expedition in the neighbourhood, but not succeeding in that, turned it into snake-hunt- ing. In a short time they killed thirty-six, comprising black and garter snakes, and another species the name of which they did not know. They found them all bask- ing on the warmest spots, and more or less near each other as regards species. A snake's winter den is often discovered by a straggler going late to it. On one occasion a den, under the root of a tree, was found in this way. By the count it con- tained seventy snakes, torpid and " lumped up " together, in about the following proportions : black, 4; adder, 2 ; and garter, i. Another den contained about thirty* but mostly adders. Sometimes a snake is overtaken by the winter and frozen in the woods. A son of the Negro I have mentioned, when bringing " brush " into the house for kindling or " brightening " fires, SNAKES CHARMING BIRDS. included in the lot a fine piece, a lit- tle like a black walking-stick ; and very soon thereafter his mother was like to go into convulsions owing to a snake being in the house and acting like ^Psop's viper, which caused the husband great surprise before he managed to see how it had got there at that time of the year. SNAKES CHARMING BIRDS* I HAVE frequently noticed para- graphs in American newspapers on snakes charming birds, but I never witnessed the phenomenon, nor incidentally met one who had, perhaps from the subject of snakes not being alluded to, till lately, when the fact came up on that ques- tion being discussed. One of the parties is an acquaintance of sixteen years' standing, and the other the father of another, both thoroughly reliable, and unknown to each other. The first, when " gunning " in the woods, about the middle of September, had his attention arrest- ed by a bird, evidently in great dis- tress, chirping and hovering close to the top of a bush nearly nine feet high, with a clear stem of from three to four feet. It seemed to be attracted by some object, which turned out to be a snake, whose head protruded at times from among the leaves, and was within twelve or fifteen inches of the bird, which kept gradually but steadily approaching it, when the snake was shot, and the bird flew away. The other gentleman, when passing, in June, along a road having an abruptly-falling wooded slope at the side of it, noticed, on a little lower level than himself, a bird pretty well out on a branch of a tree (having a clear stem of about eight feet, and about ten inches in diameter), chirping and fluttering, * Dated April 2d, 1873 ; printed May 3d- and moving from side to side ; and facing it, on the same branch, to- wards the trunk, at about twenty inches from it, was a snake, moving its head in a similar way. On a piece of wood being thrown at them, the snake came down the tree, and the bird flew off. In both instances the snakes were of the black species, about four feet long, and the intended prey catbirds (about the size of an English thrush), so called from their cry somewhat resembling that of a cat. The impulse one has on meeting a snake is to avoid it or kill it. But in a case like the pres- ent, a naturalist would have " be- come a party to the suit," by quiet- ly approaching as near as possible and patiently seeing the thing through, and then killing the snake. And that could have been easily done, for the two said that the birds and snakes were so engrossed as to seem unconscious of their pres- ence, and did not move till actual- ly disturbed. The first was within about ten feet and the other about twenty feet of the scene, and paused about two minutes before they realised what was passing before them. The circumstance of the snakes and birds being of the same species respectively, should enable us to judge of part of the phenom- enon by comparison. In the first case there was no nest on the tree to attract the bird to it, and most likely none in the second ; and there can be no doubt that the birds were MR. BUCK LAND OiV ENGLTSH SNAKES. on the trees when the snakes climbed up to them and began their charming, the various stages of which are unfortunately left to the imagination. Neither gentleman could see the "countenance " of the reptile, which doubtless presented to its victim a yawning abyss that threw out forked lightning, and had a glowing coal on each side of it, sufficient to paralyse any simple bird. Very probably the snakes on climbing the trees had first amused the birds by their serpentine move- ments, and gradually magnetised them, like the one on the outer part of the branch, till, perhaps, making a premature effort to seize its prey, it drove it off the tree in the other case, which did not break the spell, for the bird most probably returned to its charmer, and if left alone would very soon have drop- ped into its mouth. The shot and the throwing of the piece of wood, however, completely broke the en- chantment. The ~ general nature of such a phenomenon, doubtless, somewhat resembles that of a timid person suddenly encountering a large and ferocious beast from which there is no escape, and rushing towards it in the frenzy of the moment, after the nature of a nightmare. This characteristic of the snake catching its prey is doubtless the most wonderful one to be found within the range of natural history, and il- lustrates that she is, in the language of the Scriptures," more subtile than any beast of the field ;" and is a proof, besides that of her peculiar way of taking care of her young, that she has received from the Creator a large amount of wisdom and understanding. I think I have seen notices of her also charming rabbits, squirrels, and other animals that she could not easily seize in the ordinary way ; and that is not un- likely to be the case with at least partly-grown animals. She has no occasion, however, to " cast her glamour " over the frog, for she can easily catch it, giving occasion to a great noise on the part of the vic- tim, which attracts people acquaint- ed with her peculiarities in that re- spect, and leads to her destruction, although the noise of the frog ceases as it resigns itself to its fate. The snake is a dainty creature in regard to her feeding, for she must catch what she eats ; and so particu- lar is she about the freshness of her food that she swallows it alive, ex- cept in the case of the constrictor, which first crushes it in her folds and then swallows it. MR. BUCK LAND ON ENGLISH SNAKES* IN the first series of Mr. Buck- land's Curiosities of Natural History, page 229, New York edition of 1864, I find the follow- ing : " However, though bats don't lay eggs, snakes do. They are gen- erally deposited in a long string connected together by a sort of vis- cous matter. I have seen as many as thirty in one string. The mother generally deposits them in a dung- hill or heap of decaying vegetable matter, and gives herself no more concern about them." It would be interesting to know how Mr. Buck- land arrived at that conclusion, that is, how he knew that the mother " gave herself no more concern about them," but left the young to come into the world and take care of themselves in the best way they * Dated May 2.8th, 1873 ; printed June I4th. MR. BUCK LAND ON ENGLISH SNAKES. could. Has the common English snake, while in a state of nature, never been seen with her young? Or has no one had one which had a progeny when in captivity, to know how the young are hatched, and whether the mother shows no con- cern in regard to them ? It is possi- ble that evidence on these points cannot be found in either of these ways, but it would not on that ac- count follow that the mother's labour was only to lay the eggs and cover them up. Mr. B. says she deposits the eggs in " a dunghill or heap of decaying vegetable matter," without saying how far from the sur- face, and how covered up. This snake, I presume, is not, and can- not be, either a digger or scraper, like the turtle when she deposits her eggs in the sand, or when she hy- bernates ; which peculiarity is also shown by the young as they leave the eggs. How, then, do the young snakes emerge from the stuff that surrounds, and, doubtless, covers them? According to the Encyclo- paedia Britannica, crocodiles " are oviparous, and bury their eggs in the sand, and the female remains in the vicinity to dig them up on the day that the young ones break the shell;" and of the St. Domingo crocodile it says : " At the time of the escape of the young, the female comes to scrape away the earth and let them out. She conducts, de- fends, and feeds them by disgorg- ing her own food for about three months." And, according to Audu- bon, the female alligator watches near the spot where her eggs are deposited, covered with rubbish and mud, and leads the young to the lake. In the propagation of fish we can easily understand why the mother leaves the eggs to their fate ; and the same may be said in regard to some insects and the frog family, on account of the various stages of development through which they pass, and also for the reason of the immense number of eggs laid, which would prevent the mother taking care of them all. But the English snake, large as her progeny some- times is, is doubtless perfectly able to act the part of a mother to them, like the adder and the American snakes, which take care of their young, even receiving them inside of them. Besides, the English snake, like them, deposits her eggs in her habitat, and is never far from them ; and the natural conclusion would be, that she visits her nest and removes, or helps to remove, the matter surrounding the eggs, and takes the young under her care for a time, however short. Does anyone know, for certainty, that she does not do so ? What Mr. Buckland says of the English snake applies well to those in America. " The shell of the egg is of a beautiful white colour, like a common hen's egg, and feels like a very soft white kid-glove. If we cut open these eggs just before they are hatched, the young snakes will come out quite lively and attempt to escape. I tried this experiment last summer." It is very unlikely that American snakes should take the great care they do of their young, while the English one does nothing further than lay the eggs. The American snakes are doubtless " in at the birth," and assist on the occasion, for how else could they mother the progeny ? Would they likely do that with any covey of young snakes that might come in their way ? I gave, on a former oc- casion, an instance of a man on Long Island killing an old snake (doubtless the mother) which kept hovering about a nest of eggs at the point of hatching, which he found in a fence when repairing it. Mr. Buckland also says : " I have been credibly informed that a gentleman, fond of natural history, while taking a ramble on the coast of Essex, killed a viper full of eggs. He took out his penknife and let out a string of eggs fourteen in MR. GOSSE ON THE JAMAICA BOA. 33 number. In each of these was a young adder, perfectly formed, and enveloped in a glutinous fluid. The little creatures, although they had never seen the light before, raised themselves up and evinced an incli- nation to bite." These eggs were ap- parently ready, or nearly ready, to be laid, or the young hatched, although " enveloped in a glutinous fluid " after being taken out of the eggs, having thus two coverings, as the description would imply. They differed in that respect from those taken by White of Selborne out of another, which were not enveloped in anything; and which makes it remark- able that he was not struck with the phenomenon of a " string of eggs " changing into an " abdomen crowd- ed with young upwards of seven inches in length ;" and could see nothing in it but that " some snakes are actually born alive, being hatch- ed within the body of the mother." This still leaves the question an open one, whether the eggs of the viper are hatched inside or outside of the mother, or in the act of par- turition. Mr. Buckland does not say how long the young vipers were, nor the time of year found, to com- pare them with White's, which were taken out on the 4th August. The evidence in regard to the hatching of the turtle, or sea-tor- toise, would seem to be that the mother is not present on the occa- sion, but leaves the young to them- selves, although in Figuier's Rep- tiles and Birds we find the follow- ing : " Under the fostering care of their mother those which have escaped the birds of prey on their way to the sea." The same point, I think, requires to be definitely settled in regard to river, land and mud tortoises, which live, deposit their eggs, and hybernate in the same locality, as distinguished from the sea-tortoise, which swims many hundreds of miles from land, and, so far. as known, does not hybernate, for the apparent reason that its tropical or semi-tropical habitat does not require it. MR. GOSSE ON THE JAMAICA BOA SWALLOWING HER YOUNG* MR. GOSSE, in his Natural- ist's Sojourn in Jamaica, 1851, page 314, in describing the yellow boa in that island, says that it commonly attains a length of eight or ten feet, and a diameter of two and a half inches in the thick- est part of the body, and alludes to others of the lengths of six and nine feet by measure. All his authori- ties black as well as white agree that this snake lays eggs, and hatches them by incubation, which he proved by personal experiment. Six eggs were brought to him, which were taken out of a large chamber, well lined with trash, 3 in the centre of a low but wide heap of pulverised earth, in which the yam tuber is planted, discovered by the snake crawling out of a hole in the side of it just wide enough to admit her. These eggs were "long oval, i-Jin. by -J- in., plump when first discovered, but now, through exposure to. the air, shrunken in at the sides."" One of them he opened, and found a snake in it, comparatively lifeless, owing, apparently, to the length of expo- sure to which it had been subjected, * Dated June 26th,. 1873,; printed August 30th. 34 MR. GOSSE ON THE JAMAICA BOA. and about seven inches long, doubt- less near its full length, for grown ones, taken alive out of the belly of a boa, varied from eight to ten inches. Mr. Gosse says : " The interest- ing circumstance of the Python bivitatus incubating its eggs, which took place in the menagerie of the Museum of Paris, is thus shown to be characteristic of the family, the habit being common to the Ameri- can and Indian species of the JBoadcz j for the fact that the fcetus in the case which I have recorded above was fully formed and capa- ble of motion when extracted, suf- ficiently proves that some time had elapsed since the deposition of the eggs, while the exit of the boa from the nest, which led to the discovery, shows that the parent was still ful- filling the duties of incubation." " The generation of the Boadce is well known to be oviparous." Notwithstanding that, he says : " Other persons have assured me that often on killing a female yellow snake (the boa) they find the young in her belly. And this is curiously confirmed by a note from Mr. Hill, who thus writes me : 'The Honour- able Thomas James Bernard, mem- ber of the Council, has related to me a very curious fact of the yel- low snake. Lately his labourers in the Pedro mountain district, St. Ann's, killed a yellow snake con- taining some ten or twelve grown young ones varying from eight to ten inches in length. The Negroes expressed their surprise at this cir- cumstance, because they knew that this boa produced its young from eggs.' " A phenomenon like this was well calculated to call forth from Negroes their usual " golly " of surprise, but it should have ex- cited in intelligent observers and professional naturalists some other idea than that snakes have a " local option " in bringing forth their young, by eggs hatched in the ground, or by incubation, or by "bearing them alive." Mr. Hill timidly ventures the remark : " Is this to be received as a case of snakes that retire upon alarm into the mouth and stomach of the parent? It is stated of the rattle- snake in ' Hunter's Memoirs of a Captivity Among the North Ameri- can Indians,' that, when alarmed, the young ones, which are general- ly eight or ten in number, retreat into the mouth of the parent, and reappear on its giving a contractile muscular token that the danger is past.' Credible eye-witnesses say the same of the European viper. (See Charlesworth's Mag. Nat. His., Vol. I., new series, 1837, p. 441-)" Notwithstanding what has been said of the boa being oviparous and an incubator, Mr. Gosse, at pages 323 and 501, says that Mr. Hill describes her as viviparous, on the authority of " a young friend studi- ous of natural history," who wrote him thus: " It was on the 3rd of July, 1849, that I caught the snake [a gravid boa] 1 put it into a box with a wire front. . . I could never induce the snake to eat, though I offered it every- thing I could think of; and it was more savage than most others, and bit me several times, each bite drawing blood, like a severe scratch from a cat. It measured 6ft. lin. (its tail short and blunt), and io|in. round the body. It was very in- active, lying all day in a corner of its cage, or coiling in graceful folds about the perches. On the morn- ing of the i pth of October I was surprised to find my captive had produced twenty-three young ones ; they were all perfectly formed, and of much the same size. I measured six of those that died first, and found them 16 in- long, and i \ in. in circumference. The last of the young ones died on the 24th, and the mother on the 28th of the same month. ... I am anxious to try them again, for I always sup- MR. GOSSE ON- THE JAMAICA BOA. 35 posed they laid eggs, like other snakes, though this one certainly brought forth her young alive. F. R. Griffith, Cumberland Pen, Ja- maica, 8th May, 1851." We have here no evidence what- ever that these snakes were there and then " brought forth alive." The language used would not necessarily imply that this snake produced young from a womb, like mammals (which no snake does), but merely that she did not lay eggs. If they were hatched inside, what had become of the shells of the eggs? These could not have been missed, and as Mr. Griffith says nothing about them we must conclude that the young were not then born at all, but let out of the mouth, having been hatched by in- cubation and swallowed before cap- ture, and let out at night or during the day when all was quiet, and quickly swallowed on the approach of any one, without being noticed, till nature could hold out no longer, when they were let out for good, leading perhaps, directly or indi- rectly, to the death of both mother and young. This boa must have had her young long before the i9th of October, perhaps before the 1 9th of July, like snakes in America, those as far South as Louisiana being hatched not later than the ist of August. How did it happen that these snakes, pro- duced by a small one six feet one inch, were 16 inches long, when others often taken alive out of other snakes (we will assume of the same length) were only from 8 to 10 inches about half the size of Mr. Griffith's ? And how did it happen that eggs 1 1 inch by \ inch, like those examined by Mr. Gosse, yielded snakes 16 inches by i inch, as found by Mr. Griffith? That is, how could these be eleven times the length and fully the width of the eggs from which they had just emerged? The mother was 73 inches long, and the 23 young ones, each 16 inches, would give 368 inches of snake, which would doubtless make the mother thicker than ten and a half inches round the body, in her most bloated condition, as to which Mr. Griffith says nothing. If his snake had been killed when captured, the young would doubtless have been Sfound inside of her, of about half their size when seen by him, like those taken out of other snakes running at large. And this would have made the following remark of Mr. Gosse unnecessary : " Is it possible that a serpent nominally oviparous might retain the eggs * within the oviduct until the birth of the young when circumstances were not propitious for their deposi- tion ?" That at least is not proba- ble. It would certainly be interest- ing to confine snakes pregnant with eggs, with no means of depositing them, to be hatched by the soil or by incubation, and carefully watch results ; but it would be necessary to know that they were really preg- nant with eggs, which would be a difficult, if not impossible, matter to do ; so that the only principle to guide the person making the ex- periment would be to find the shells of the eggs along with the young as they made their appearance, to feel sure that the mother con- tained eggs to begin with. Mr. Gosse is right when he says : " If there was no error in the observa- tion of this case, it must be con- sidered as an aberration of habit;" but very wrong when he adds, in the appendix, that, " Mr. Hill ob- tained from his informant the fol- lowing clear and interesting details of the matter which render the fact [of the yellow boa being viviparous] indubitable, however strange," for, as I have said before, he presented no evidence whatever that the snakes were born there at all. If people in Jamaica will make experiments they will doubtless AMERICAN SCIENCE CONVENTION ON SNAKES. find that the yellow boa, like many other serpents, is a " swallower ;" but they should bear in mind that a naturalist cannot be too full and circumstantial, exact and logical, in his information, to make it of any use in settling a question like the one under consideration. AMERICAN SNAKES.* PROFESSOR G. BROWN GOODE, of the University of Middletown, Connecticut, caused a notice to appear in an Agricultural Paper, having a wide circulation in the United States, asking for infor- mation on the subject of snakes swallowing their young, f I have a letter from him, dated " Head- quarters U. S. Fish Commission, Peak's Island, Portland, Maine, July 2ist, 1873," in which he says: " I have in my possession over fifty letters from all parts of the United States giving the testimony of persons who have not only found the young in the throat of the parent, but have seen them run into her mouth. I am not getting up a formal discussion of the subject, but am thinking of reading a short paper at the meeting of the Ameri- can Association, next month. I find that many of our naturalists seem determined not to believe in it, yet I cannot but think that the evidence sustains our side. May I use your name, if necessary, in connection with this question ? Professor Sydney J. Smith, of the Sheffield Scientific School, Yale College, assures me that he has seen the act, and believes with us. I will return your papers at an early date." It has often occurred to me that the female snake must have two throats one for ordinary purposes and the other to give a passage to her young, or one throat for a cer- tain length, leading by a valve, as it were, to another that enters the chamber that contained the eggs, and which doubtless becomes the receptacle of the young when hatched. It will be difficult to find this passage unless when it is in use, for it will become so con- tracted at other times as to escape any observation that is not very minutely made. Mr. Goode speaks of the young being found in the throat of the parent, which is evi- dently a slip in a hasty note, for it is in the body they take refuge apparently in the chamber that contained the eggs, which, as I said on a former occasion, appears to be distinct from the stomach proper. AMERICAN SCIENCE CONVENTION ON SNAKES.\ ON the 23d July I informed you that Mr. G. Brown Goode, of Middletown University, Connecti- cut, had received many letters from different parts of the United States, testifying to the fact that snakes swallow their young. The follow- ing is an abstract of a paper read * Dated July zsd, 1873. f This notice appeared on February ist, 1873. % Dated September zoth, 1873. AMERICAN SCIENCE CONVENTION ON SNAKES. 37 by him before the Science Conven- tion at Portland, in the State of Maine, as taken from the New York Tribune, of the 27th of August : "ON THE QUESTION 'DO SNAKES SWALLOW THEIR YOUNG?' BY G. BROWN GOODE, OF MIDDLETOWN UNIVERSITY, CONN. " This paper discussed the habit ob- served in certain snakes of allowing their young a temporary refuge in their throats, whence they emerge when danger is past. He stated that the question had been a mooted one since the habit was first discussed by Gilbert White in his ' Natural History of Sel- borne/ published in 1789. Reference was made to the views of Sir William Jarcline, M. C. Cooke, and Prof. F. W. Putnam, as well as to the recent discus- sion of the subject in The London Land and Water. " The question can only be decided by the testimonies of eye-witnesses. Through the courtesy of the editors of The American Agriculturist, a note was inserted asking for observations. By this means and by personal inquiry the testimony of 96 persons has been secured. Of these, 56 saw the young enter the parent's mouth, in 19 cases the parent warning them by a loud whistle. Two were considerate enough to wait and see the young appear when danger seemed to be past, one repairing to the same spot and witnessing the same act on several successive days. Four saw the young rush out when the parent was struck ; 18 saw the young shaken out by dogs, or running from the mouth of their dead parent ; 29 who saw the young enter, killed the mother and found them living within, while only 13 allowed the poor parent to escape ; 27 saw the young living within the parent, but as they did not see them enter, the testimony is at least dubious. " It may be objected that these are the testimonies of laymen, untrained and unaccustomed to observation. The let- ters are, however, from a very intelli- gent class of farmers, planters, and business men intelligent readers of an agricultural magazine. In addition, we have the testimony of several gentle- men whose word would not be doubted on other questions in zoology. There were given the statements of Prof. S. J. Smith, of Yale College, Dr. Edward Palmer, of the Smithsonian Institution, the Rev. C. L. Loomis, M.D., of Mid- dletown, Conn., and others ; and the statement of the editor of The Zoolo- gist regarding the Scaly Lizard of Eu- rope (Zootoca vivipara), which has a similar habit. " In the opinion of Profs. Wyman and Gill and other physiologists, there is no physical reason why the young snakes may not remain a considerable time in the dilatable throat and stomach of the mother. The gastric juice acts very feebly upon living tissues, and it is al- most impossible to smother reptiles. Toads and frogs often escape unharmed from the stomachs of snakes. If the habit is not protective, if the young cannot escape from their hiding-place, this habit is without parallel ; if it is protective, a similar habit is seen in South American fishes of the genera Arius Bagrus and Geophagus, where the males carry the eggs for safety in their mouths and gill-openings. " Since many important facts in biol- ogy are accepted on the statements of a single observer, it is claimed that these testimonies are sufficient to set this matter forever at rest. The well attested cases relate to the garter snake and ribbon snake (Eutosnia sirtalis and saurtta), the water- snake ( Tropidono- tus sipedon), the rattlesnake (Caudisona horrida), the copperhead and moccasin (Ancistrodon contortrix and piscivo- rus), the massasauga (Crotalustergemi- nus), the English viper (Pelias berus), and the mountain black-snake (Coluber Alleghaniensis). It is probable that the habit extends through all the species of the genera represented, as well as throughout the family of Crotalidtz. It is noteworthy that all these snakes are known to be ovoviviparous,while no well attested case occurs among the truly oviparous, milk snakes (Ophebolus), grass snakes (Liopeltis and Cyclophis)^ ground snakes ( ' Storeria), or the smooth black-snakes (Bascanion con- strictor). It yet remains to be shown that the habit is shared by egg-laying snakes. Further observations are much needed, as the breeding habits of more than 25 North American genera are entirely unknown. " Prof. Gill corroborated the state- ment that there was no physical reason why the habit could not exist, and said that he considered the evidence suffi- cient to finally decide the matter. He repudiated the popular idea that snakes AMERICAN SCIENCE CONVENTION ON SNAKES. are sometimes swallowed by men, and that they live afterward in the stomach ; and he was glad of the opportunity of ^denouncing that common error. One of the members present added to the testimony of the paper his personal evidence that he had seen ' with his own eyes ' young snakes entering and issuing from the mouth of an older one." In this abstract allowance must "be made for incorrectness or in- completeness in reporting; still I may make a few remarks on some points contained in it. I said, on a former occasion, that a string of eggs lying along the back of a black-snake appeared to be con- tained in a roomy chamber distinct from the stomach proper. The young I took out of a garter snake were not lying in a string, like these eggs, but filled up about the middle third of the body, about equally dis- tant from the head and tail not mixed up in any way with the en- trails, but presenting somewhat the appearance of a nest or bag-full of caterpillars found on a tree ; if we imagine it of an elongated shape, and the larvae lying in more than one length longwise. Both the black and garter snakes are beyond question egg-laying or oviparous, and " swal- lowers," for their eggs have been found in the ground in all stages of maturity, and the young have been seen running into and been taken out of the mother, as I have on more than one occasion mentioned. It thus seems odd to be told in the abstract that " all these snakes [in- cluding the garter one] are known to be ovoviviparous, while no well attested case [of swallowing] occurs among the truly oviparous; "and that " it yet remains to be shown that the habit is shared by egg-laying snakes." There is some confusion ' in the paper itself, or in the abstract made of it, on that head. The real value of it is that it proves that " many kinds of snakes swallow their young," and bears out what I said on a former occasion : " I lay it down as an axiom that we must hold that all snakes swallow their young till the opposite can be proved of any particular species of them." * In this paper allusion is made to the gastric juice of the mother. On the occasion men- tioned, I said I was under the im- pression that she must have two throats, or one with two passages, one- passage leading to the stomach proper, and the other to the cham- ber that contains the eggs, apparent- ly where the young ones take refuge. We are also told that " twenty-seven [people] saw the young living within the parent, but as they did not see them enter, the testimony [as to their having been swallowed] is at least dubious." How could that be doubted if the young were hatched from eggs de- posited in the ground ? And if the species were viviparous, how could a chain of eggs, in twenty-seven in- stances, change into a stomach full of young, with no remains of the shells of the eggs from which they were hatched, in the face of so many such serpents having been actually seen to swallow their young, to say nothing of the uncertainty of how or where the eggs were hatched ? It would be interesting to know on what authority so many kinds of snakes are classed as vivi- parous. If it is merely because they have been killed with young inside of them, the evidence would not hold good in the face of their swal- lowing their young. I know no way to determine the fact but by taking the eggs out of the snake and examining their condition; and then there would be the question whether the eggs are hatched inside or outside of the mother, or in the act of parturition. As in mathematics we require to know some things to demonstrate others, so in snakes swallowing their young, it is not necessary for a man * See page 29. CHARLES WATERTON AS A NATURALIST. 39 of science, or common sense, if he will but exercise it, to see it done in order to believe it; but when ocular testimony is added, it sets the question at rest beyond all doubt. The next thing to be considered is the anatomy of the snake im- mediately after the birth of her progeny ; but that could not be so easily ascertained as that she swal- lows them.* CHARLES WATERTON AS A NATURALIST^ I. WHAT Charles Waterton said of HumboJdt in regard to orni- thology applied well to himself in the matter of snakes and other ani- mals. At page 251, Warne, 1871, he wrote : " As for Humboldt, I cannot think of submitting to his * The following short articles appear- ed in Land and Water, on the days re- spectively mentioned : " THE VIPER AND ITS YOUNG. A few days ago, says the Ulverston Mirror, Mr. Edward Swainson, Nibthwaite, met with a viper on the eastern side of Conis- ton Lake, and killed it. Then, observing it to be of unusual thickness about the middle, he put his foot upon the place, thinking that the reptile had recently swallowed a mouse. The pressure brought out ten young vipers from the mouth of the old one. Some of them were about five inches long, and some shorter ; but all were alive and active, as if they had previously seen the light of day, and had again sought shelter in the parent." September z^fh, 1873. " VIPERS SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG. Sir : I observed in your paper of last week I have not a copy by me, and do not remember the signature the state- ment of a correspondent, that having killed a female viper, he placed his foot upon her, and that forthwith out of her mouth issued a stream of viperlings. If they came out of the mouth, they must have previously entered it. I wish to ask Mr. Frank Buckland, and I beg for a categorical answer, whether he believe this story or not ? If he do, he must re- cant his often-expressed conviction, that the fact is incredible and impossible. If not, he must be prepared to show that your correspondent, intentionally or otherwise, has stated what is not true. G. R. " [I perfectly believe the young vipers testimony in matters of ornithology for one single moment. The avo- cations of this traveller were of too multiplied a nature to enable him to be a correct practical ornithologist." And he illustrated what White of Selborne said about naturalists generally : " Men that undertake were pressed out of the mouth of the mother viper when our correspondent put his foot upon it ; but it certainly does not follow that these young vipers had been previously swallowed by the moth- er ; they had never been born. When the foot was placed upon the mother viper they were squeezed out of her mouth. F. BUCKLAND.]" October $th. " VIPERS SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG. Sir : In your last impression I begged for an explicit answer from Mr. Buck- land, ' Whether or not he believed the statement made by a correspondent that, having killed a female viper and placed his foot upon her, out of her mouth is- sued a stream of viperlings?' To this he replies that, 'The young vipers were pressed otit of the mouth of the mother when your correspondent put his foot upon it.' This is not exactly the cate- gorical answer I expected, but I must now ask Mr. Buckland to reconcile this explanation with his statement, repeated in two or three numbers of your paper last year, that the unborn vipers were proved on dissection to be located not in the stomach with which, of course, the mouth communicates but in the abdomi- nal parietes, a portion of the creature entirely distinct and unconnected with it ! It appears to me self-evident that the young vipers, if they came out of the mouth, must have gone in at the mouth. They could not otherwise have reached that orifice. The question, there- fore, again resolves itself into ono of credibility. G. R." October nth. f Dated August i6th, 1873. CHARLES WATERTON AS A NATURALIST. only one district are much more likely to advance natural know- ledge than those that grasp at more than they can possibly be acquaint- ed with " (Edition 1833, page 128). What his biographer and editor, Mr. Moore, says of him is very far from the truth, however it might be in re- gard to birds. " He rarely ven- tured upon a statement which he had not abundantly verified, and his ad- versaries were careless observers or book-worms " (p. 129). "In all his pryings into animal ways his accu- racy was extreme. To this hour he has not been convicted of a single error" (p. 134). Waterton says: " Our own snakes here in England are scarcely worth notice so far as their venom is concerned. One species, which I designate under the name of adder, is a harmless lictle fel- low. . . . Our other snake is the well-known viper, armed with two small poison-fangs" (p. 432). To show that these designations are not a slip of the pen, he adds, at page 435 : " We have no vipers in this neighbourhood, but adders are plentiful within the park- wall, where I encourage and protect them." This seems odd, when all admit that adders and vipers are the same serpents. He had more reason than he imagined for writing as follows : " In taking a retrospective view of what I have written on the na- ture and habits of snakes, as it dif- fers widely from the accounts which we have already received, I really hesitate to lay these notes before the public " (p. 437). And he might have " hesitated " before publish- ing the following : " If they can show that I have deviated from the line of truth in one single solitary instance, I will consent to be called an impostor ; and then may the Wanderings be trodden under foot, and be forgotten forever " (p. 58). J would not think of taking him at his word, either in regard to his Wanderings or Essays, for a person may prove very erroneous in his estimate of what he believes to be truth, and very hasty and presumpt- uous in putting forth for truth that which has no foundation in fact. He informs us that the " common and accepted notion that snakes can fascinate animals to their de- struction, by a dead-set of the eye at them, is erroneous, and ought to be exploded. Snakes in fact have no such power" (p. 431). He repeats the idea on another occasion : " The supposed horridly fascinating power said to be possessed by the serpent, through the medium of the eye, has no foundation in truth " (p. 465). He admits that this is a " common and accepted notion." Now, if anything is generally be- lieved of snakes in the United States, it is that of charming, fasci- nating, magnetising or paralysing animals, and particularly birds, by whatever means it is done. I gave, in Land and Water, on the 3d of May last, the testimony of two highly intelligent and credible peo- ple on the subject. I find the fol- lowing in a work, published in Philadelphia and London, in 1823, titled Manners and Customs of Seve- ral Indian Tribes, by John Dunn Hunter. This man was carried oft by the Indians when very young, and left them when a young man, in consequence of having betrayed their intended treachery to the Whites. Being naturally of excel- lent parts, he was easily educated, and, being greatly befriended by his own race, published his me- moirs, which show truth on the face of every page of them. Of the rattlesnake he says : " Whenever it fixes its piercing eyes on a bird, squirrel, etc., it commences and keeps up an incessant rattling noise until the animal, convulsed by fear, approaches within the reach of its formidable enemy, and sometimes into its very jaws. This, however, is not always the result, for I have repeatedly seen animals thus agi- tated, and in imminent danger, CHARLES WATER TON AS A NATURALIST. make their escape without any inter- vention in their favour except the recovery of their own powers " (p. 179). The latter half of this ac- count is not very clear ; perhaps the appearance of a third party, under certain circumstances, broke the spell. If we turn to Waterton s Life, page 51, we will find what was apparently an exact counterpart of this scene in an early stage of it; so that he had witnessed part of the " horridly fascinating power " with- out being aware of it. In Gosse's Naturalists Sojourn in Jamaica, 1871, we have the following: " Sam has seen a boa ascend a mango-tree, on one of whose branches a fowl was perching, and when at some distance from the prey, begin to dart out and vibrate its tongue, its eyes fixed on the fowl, while it slowly and uniformly drew near; the poor hen all the time in- tently watching the foe, but without stirring or crying. Help came fortuitously, just as the snake was about to strike, and the fowl was rescued. How strange it is that in widely remote parts of the world we should hear the same state- ments. Sam has never read what other observers have described about fascination, but he and others affirm, from their own observation, that some such power is exercised " (p. 317). Waterton denied this power or peculiarity in snakes, al- though he was apparently within a hair-breadth of witnessing it. But how did he know that they did not have it? Why, by peering into their eyes, he could tell you, and tell you infallibly, that they could not, and therefore did not, have it ! He gave it as an opinion that the eyes of snakes are immovable, and yet in his Wanderings he said that the ?abarri snake k ' would appear to keep his zyo. fixed on me, as though suspi- cious, but that was all " (p. 190). Why could not an immovable eye have a glowing coal kindled up in- side of it ? Again, Waterton says : " The cast-off slough always appears inside out " (p. 432). It would be inter- esting to know how he learned that as a fact in regard to all snakes ; or if he could explain how a snake could come out of its skin, turning it " inside out," leaving the scales that covered its eyes in the most perfect and beautiful condition, and the whole skin stretched out, al- most as natural as when the snake was inside of it.* Again, he says : " Properly speaking, all snakes are boa-constrictors " (p. 434)- I would ask again, how did he learn that? Did he see every kind of snake catch and swallow its prey, to know whether it was a constrictor or not? When I met a garter snake with a frog pretty well down its throat, feet foremost, and appearing at perfect ease, and killed it, so that the frog hopped away, like any other frog, I could certainly say that that snake was not a constrict- or in any sense of the word ; for a* constrictor crushes its prey in al- most a moment of time, and then swallows it. W. Gordon Gumming says that he made a daman, a species of water -snake, seven or eight feet long, in India, disgorge a frog which was all swallowed but the head, when the frog disappear- ed among the weeds. That is a very common occurrence in America. Waterton says that the boa-constrictor " swallows the tor- toise alive, shell and all" (p. 186). If he is right, the boa is not always a constrictor, for she could hardly crush the tortoise, and so would " bolt " it as it stood. And it is possible that the snakes that swallow alive may constrict when there is to be a fight for it. These matters simply involve a question of evi- dence. Surely some information could be procured in English collections of snakes, as to how they shed their skins, and seize and * See note at page 2,2. CHARLES WATERTON AS A NATURALIST. swallow their prey, while in captiv- ity, however they might do these while in a state of nature. Waterton says : " I have been in the midst of snakes for many years ; I have observed them on the ground, on trees, in bushes, on bedsteads, and upon old mouldering walls " (p. 440) ; and adds very strongly : " I have seen numberless snakes re- tire at my sudden approach, and [in addition to that] I have seen many remain quite still until I got up quite close to them " (p. 446), after having, in almost the previous breath, said, " As for snakes, I sel- dom saw them " (p. 436). And, " when we consider the immense extent of tropical America, and view its endless woods, we are forced to admit that snakes are comparatively few. I have seen more monkeys in one day than I have found snakes during my entire sojourn in the forests. When I did fall in with them (and they were not wanted for dissection), whether they were poisonous or harmless, I would contemplate them for a few minutes ere I proceeded" (p. 432), offering them no molestation. Such evidence as Waterton's on the ques- tion before us would not be re- ceived in any court of justice, be- cause he contradicts himself as regards the numbers of his snakes, and gives no information in regard to his authorities in support of his assertions. A very safe conclusion to draw would be, that Waterton's pursuit of snakes was to procure specimens to set up, leading to some incidental information about them, which certainly would not justify him in attempting, Pope-like, to speak ex cathedra on the subject. On his third journey he told us that he collected 230 birds and 2 large .serpents, besides a few other ani- mals. His editor says : " For every observation which Waterton had printed he had made at least a hundred" (p. 134). If this was Intended to apply to snakes, it would have been interesting to have seen the ninety-and-nine " observations " which he left in the wilderness of his memory. His information re- garding snakes resembled an old Indian's medicine-bag a collection of odds and ends of no intrinsic value, but of the first importance to him, to give him confidence in his movements and to conjure by, and which it would be sacrilege for any one to touch but himself. And woe would have been to that " closet naturalist " who would have dared to touch his medicine-bag in his life- time. He would have been scalped at once, and skinned at leisure for his temerity. II. Charles Waterton died in 1865, aged 83 years. He spent his life in the study of natural history, principally if not almost entirely in ornithology, and the setting up of animals, and particularly birds, which seem to have been the end of his existence, and the breath of his nostrils. He entered upon the family estate of Walton Hall, York- shire, when he was 24 years of age, and surrounded part of it with a wall ten feet high, and did every- thing to carry out his favourite pur- suit, giving absolute protection to every kind of animal, foxes and rab- bits, I believe, only excepted. It would have argued poorly for him if he had not become an adept in his special studies, even if his genius for them had been of a common order; but he proved an unreliable authority outside of his sphere, and illustrated the truth that if the mind is allowed to run ex- clusively and for long on one sub- ject, it becomes incapacitated for any other, even if it bears a cog- nate relation to it. My trouble in proving this as regards Waterton, in addition to what has been consider- ed on the subject of snakes, will be to select material from his Essays, where it lies in profusion. Since I CHARLES WATER TON AS A NATURALIST. 43 have the privilege of picking and choosing, I will begin with sun- stroke. He says : " I am not a believer in what is generally called sun- stroke, or coup de soldi. To prove this, during several years I went out of the house exactly at twelve o'clock, and stood bareheaded under the heliscentre ray, in latitude six north of the equator, for a quarter of an hour. My compan- ions were terrified for the result. I assured them that I apprehended no manner of danger" (p. 614). An intelligent West Indian informs me that he ran the risk of catching a fever a modified form of " what is generally called a sunstroke." Sun- stroke, however, is little known in the West Indies, perhaps for the reason of the gradual increase and steadiness of the heat, tempered by breezes and the peculiarity of the atmosphere, and not merely because the people expose themselves less than in other places. The same can be said of New Orleans, as distin- guished from New York, where it is very common, there being a special hospital for its treatment, while the other public hospitals receive pa- tients, and each police station (which has a surgeon) is prepared to treat cases temporarily. In New York, where the temperature ranges from say o to 100, the disease mani- fests itself in connection with a variety of circumstances, such as fatigue and exposure, weakness or sickness, the weight of the clothes worn, and dissipated habits, par- ticularly among the foreign popula- tion. Waterton's system was doubt- less in excellent condition for a tropical climate. He ate moderate- ly, and was a total abstainer, and he had a thick head of hair, made thicker by frequent cropping, and very probably a skull to correspond, which he trained for years to an ex- posure, " while standing at ease," of only fifteen minutes, going out of the house with his body in its natural temperature into one described by himself as follows : " There is sel- dom an entire day of calm in these forests. The trade-wind generally sets in about ten o'clock in the morning " ( Wanderings, $d ed., p. 171). " During the day the trade- wind blows a gentle and refreshing breeze, which dies away as the night sets in " (p. 225). In opposition to his own theory, he told us, in his Wanderings, of his having had " many a fit of sickness brought on by exposure to the noonday sun, etc. " (p. 1 60). Had he told us what his ** terrified companions " dreaded, it would doubtless have been a com- plete refutation of his hypothesis^ which he said was a proof against the existence of sunstroke, or his belief in it. This allusion to sun- stroke acts as a key to at least one cell of his character, and lets in day- light upon it. He seems to have neither believed nor disbelieved in moonstroke. The idea of sunstroke was, singu- larly enough, tacked on to the ques- tion whether the pythoness at Lon- don, in 1862, could hatch her eggs. That, of course, he considered, in his usual way, a " granny's idea," notwithstanding that a pythoness hatched her eggs at Paris, about ten years previously, while the London one failed only in consequence of the eggs having, from a variety of causes, become addled, a living ser- pent having been taken out of an egg at an early stage of the incuba- tion. Ordinary people would think that all snakes would hatch their eggs in that way, if they did not know that the generality of them do not; and that it would not be un- reasonable if some of them did, as an intermediary between hatching them in the soil and bringing them far on towards hatching inside of them, and then giving birth to them in a way that is apparently yet to be discovered. Waterton did not seem to be troubled with ideas -of that kind ; his dogmas covered everything. 44 CHARLES WATER TON AS A NATURALIST. If there is an animal in the United States that is known and detested for its peculiarities, it is the skunk. 'Tis in the mouth of al- most every one in country places, when a person has behaved un- gratefully, abused one's confidence, done a mean action, or been guilty of cheating. According to Apple- tons Cyclopcedia, it is described (and correctly) as follows, " Though weak, timid, and slow in its mo- tions, it is effectually armed against its most ferocious enemies by an acrid and exceedingly offensive fluid, secreted by two glands whose ducts open near the anus . . . sufficient to eject the fluid to a dis- tance of fourteen feet. ... It is a very cleanly animal, and never allows its own fur to be soiled with its secretion. ... Its flesh is white and fat, and, if properly skinned, in no way tainted by its secretion ; it is highly esteemed by the Indians, and is eaten by the Whites in various parts of the country." Appleton says that its secretion has been successfully em- ployed in some forms of asthma, and for other medical purposes. Its grease is used for rheumatism and diseases of the joints. I have known it to be taken from a skunk for such purposes. Now, turn to what Waterton says about this ani- mal, in his essay on the weasel : " At what old granny's fireside in the United States has the writer of this picked up such an important piece of information? How comes the 'pole-cat to be aware that the emitted contents of a gland . . . should be offensive to all its pur- suers ?" (p. 227.) He returns to the question again, and says : " I can- not refrain from asking by what power of intuition the pole-cat is convinced that a smell, naturally agreeable to itself, is absolutely in- tolerant to man?" (p. 341.) A queer question fora " naturalist " to ask. "It now and then happens that we are led astray by our feel- ings when we pronounce judgment on the actions of irrational ani- mals " (p. 341), especially when we are asked to " reject the Transatlan- tic theory as a thing of emptiness," and agree with Waterton when he says : " If we are called upon for an opinion as to the real uses of the foetid gland in pole-cats, let us frank- ly own that we have it not in our power to give anything satisfactory on the subject" (p. 228). He con- sidered himself an injured man when told he was not a " scientific natu- ralist," when, by his own confes- sion, he could not settle a question that any old Yankee granny can, in common with the cur that sits on her door-step. Was it like a natu- ralist of any kind to dogmatize on a subject about which he apparent- ly knew nothing, and characterize another's opinion as a " granny's story," without giving one of his own, or showing that he even had the capacity to form one ? Under the head of " the dog tribe," he says : " I have heard and read much of dogs and wolves hunting in packs, but believe it not " (p. 202) ; and, under the head of " the food of animals," he repeats the idea : " I consider the stories about wolves hunting in packs as mere inventions of the nursery to keep cross children quiet" (p. 471). That wolves hunt in packs all the time is what I should suppose no one will maintain ; but that they never, or do not often, do it, would be as contrary to evidence as any- thing that could be mentioned. A question like that Waterton does not pretend to settle by his own knowledge, nor would he have re- course to that of others, for then he would have become, what he had a peculiar horror for, a " closet natu- ralist." Said he: "Whip me, you dry and scientific closet nat- uralists " (p. 127), and field ones, too, should such be around. " He did not recast the information pick- ed up from books ; he did not even CHARLES WATER TON" AS A NATURALIST. 45 retail the hearsay collected on the spot " (p. 134). He trusted to his " intuitive perceptions," and maintained that wolves hunt singly, for the reason that if they did it in packs they would quarrel over the spoil, and, like the cats of Kilkenny, destroy each other ! Again, he says : " Were wild dogs to hunt in packs, the daily supply of food would not be sufficient to satisfy the cravings of every individual " (p. 203). Now, it holds to reason that if ravenous animals live on flocks in a state of nature, they will follow these flocks, so that they can never lack food as long as the flocks exist ; nor do wild flocks, as a general thing, appear to leave their favourite feed- ing grounds on account of being disturbed or preyed upon by others of the brute creation; and if they did, their enemies would follow them, as in the case of the buffalo and other American animals. The main reason for wolves and such animals hunting in packs, is ap- parently to combine their strength against such quarry as would take perhaps half a dozen wolves to master, or give them courage or confidence, or when their prey went in flocks for protection. It is un- necessary for me to illustrate at length what I have said, by quoting the evidence of trustworthy travel- lers, as to certain animals following and killing their prey in packs ; and that more than one wild animal can and do eat off the same carcass at the same time; which would be a great saving in the economy of na- ture, for that particular species, rather than each animal killing its prey and leaving much, if not most, of it to be consumed by others, which would never have it in their power to partake of such fare, if they had to acquire it themselves. In Lewis and Clarke's Expedition across the Rocky Mountains, we have many allusions to wolves constantly attending on the herds of buffalo, elk, deer, and antelopes ; and the following passage from Hunter illustrates at a glance the re- lation between buffaloes and wolves ; " The cows bring forth in March or April. They are proverbially attached to their young, and form at night a circular phalanx round them, with their horns outward, to protect them against the attacks of the wolves " (p. 173). But this "founder of a school " for naturalists, in his cru- sade against " closet naturalists," has the following whimsical objec- tion to animals hunting in packs : " When at a great distance from their supposed retreat, what master- dog will take upon himself to organize the pack ? and when the hard day's hunting is over how will he dispose of his confederates ? Are the females, which remained behind on the hunting morning, in order to take care of their newly- whelped pups, supposed to wait in anxious expectation that some gen- erous hound will return with a neck of goat in his mouth for their sup- port?" (p. 203.) As an instance of his " phil- osophy," I may give what he says about the apes on the Rock of Gib- raltar. Ordinary people would conclude that these were the de- scendants of others that had escaped from confinement ; but he scouts the idea. " I believe there is noth- ing on record to show that this establishment of an apish colony had ever taken place " (p. 144) ; as if that were likely to have been "put on record," when the escape of two apes, " unbeknown" to any one, could have done all the mis- chief ! He has recourse to the "por- tentous circumstance " of Europe 1 and Africa being separated by a " tremendous convulsion of na- ture," which cut off the apes' retreat towards the South, and left a few of them high and dry on the top of Gibraltar ; the only place in Europe where they are found, and where they maintain themselves under the CPIARLES WA TERTON AS A NA TURALIST. hardships of changes of tempera- ture, wind and weather, and the dif- ficulty of finding food, but where they are secure, undisturbed by any- one. The mountain in labour giv- ing birth to a mouse was truth when compared to the breaking up of the foundations of the earth being necessary to give us in Europe the only wild representatives of these " unlucky mimickers of man !" I have not by any means exhaust- ed the points to be commented on, for they are scattered in profusion through Waterton's works. I will content myself by presenting, in my next and last paper, a general sum- ming up of his character as a natu- ralist. III. Charles Waterton appeared be- fore the world as a naturalist under the most favourable circumstances. He was the representative of an ancient family, the possessor of a romantic estate, and the owner of comfortable, if not ample, means, and he could have well afforded to let his Wanderings, which contained much interesting and valuable infor- mation, find their way gradually into public favour, leaving others to defend them against attacks made on them, or defending them himself in a dignified way, avoid- ing the use of names and epithets. Instead of that, he acted the part of a brawler and bruiser, using lan- guage inconsistent with the ameni- ties of a man of business, or the courtesies and instincts of a gentle- man. If he had studied a little the natural history of his own species to any advantage, he would have been satisfied to have had his work abused rather than not noticed at all ; either of which is the common fate of what adds to knowledge, when something has to make way for it ; and he would have presented it to the public in a manner calcu- lated to secure its ear sooner or later. In place of that, he gave an ex- ceedingly ill-arranged, rambling and wandering account of his adventures and observations, mixed with many simpering sentimentalisms, trifling egotisms, and pedantic quotations, of no earthly use to a large part of his readers ; peculiarities seldom or never met with in a character that is judicious and manly, or real- ly amiable. With no sense of con- sistency, he spoke of the book as having " little merit," yet quoted a high eulogium passed by Sir Joseph Banks on the first half of it, the other half having been written after his death. In the work he described what he called a nondescript, as re- gards its habits and capture, giving its likeness in a frontispiece; and urged his readers to visit the scenes of his adventures to procure speci- mens of the same animal ; all, as he afterwards admitted, pure fiction, to gratify his spite against the govern- ment for charging him, according to law, a duty of twenty per cent, on the valuation of his collection, if it was for private use, and nothing if intended for a public museum ! Taking his own account of the oc- currence, he was really well treated by the custom-house. If he had landed fifteen years afterwards, and very probably at that time, a donkey loaded with diamonds, the only duty he would have had to pay was ten shillings for the donkey ! A man of the world and a gentleman, knowing from experience what all governments are, and possessed of ample means, would have paid the duty, without any ado be- yond making it the occasion of agi- tating for the abolition of it for the future. Had he been a man occu- pying the position of that of little better than a beggar in the pursuit of natural history, he would have doubtless received the entire pub- lic sympathy ; and all the more so had he told us how much the " Hanoverian Rats " had devoured of his substance. Besides giving the world the nondescript as a sweet CHARLES WATERTON AS A NATURALIST. 47 revenge against tfie Lords of the Treasury, he tells us ; " In fine, it is this ungenerous treatment that has paralysed my plans [robbed him of his available means, so that he could not print an additional dozen pages of MS. ?] and caused me to give up the idea I once had of inserting here the newly-discov- ered mode of preparing quadrupeds and serpents." When he found that the public classed other matters in his Wanderings with the nonde- script, there was no end to his scold- ing, and almost cursing, every one who even presumed to differ from him. There was so little tact and sense, self-respect and good-breed- ing manifested at the outset of his public career, at the mature age of forty-three years, and so much that was capricious and whimsical, that little room was left for the display or development of that principle and judgment which, sooner or later, command the respect or confidence of the world. Any prejudice Waterton may have met with on account of being a Romanist of " many centuries standing " he owed to himself, for the reason that he proclaimed him- self such in an unusual and uncalled- for manner, and as having had his mind manipulated from his infancy by the Jesuits a set of men as of- fensive to humanity at large, even when they come in the garb of " angels of light," as obnoxious animals are to a barn-yard, where everything having a horn in its head will stick it into them. Not- withstanding the eulogium he pass- ed upon them, as the embodiment of the humane and Godlike virtues, he could not have objected to his own language being applied to them when he wrote : " It is said, if you give a dog a bad name, whether in- nocent or guilty, he never loses it. It sticks close to him wherever he goes. He has many a kick and many a blow to bear on account of it." By his own admission, con- stantly gloried in, he was a black Romanist, dyed in the wool, and doubtless a lay Jesuit, who believed in everything of the system as ab- solutely as the most ignorant and blinded devotee, native or foreign ; and whose particular aversion was for the " Hanoverian Rats," with a " God rest the soul of Charles Stuart." As a naturalist, he seems to have been testy and easily " riled," as well as spiteful and re- vengeful, self-engrossed and illogi- cal, and in the highest degree prag- matical and dogmatical, presumpt- uous and arrogant, in matters with which he was evidently little con- versant. He says, in writing to George Ord, of Philadelphia, when seventy-three years old : " We bird-stuffers are a very low set, very jealous of each other, and excessive- ly prone to anger and defamation ;" which, like most of his opinions, must be received with a good deal of question or qualification. He was constantly abusing what he called " closet naturalists," who drew their information from books, as an illiterate man abuses newspapers, and sneered at ^ market naturalists " as if they were kitchen gardeners ; while in many of his lucubrations he sunk below both, drawing his infor- mation, not from books or the con- versations of observers, but from his imagination, or the " depth of his consciousness " occult attributes, very difficult of defining or depend- ing on. Witness, for example, his singular remarks and crude specu- lations about snakes, skunks, wolves, dogs, the food of animals, and sun- stroke.* * There runs through Waterloo's Works a marked aversion to what he called a "closet naturalist," whom he seems to have consideied as a natural enemy ; but he did not define exactly what he meant by the term. Taking one view of the question, it could doubtless be said that he would have called him a closet natu- ralist who quoted himself against him- self, in any variation or vagary he might have fallen into in his writings. 4 8 CHARLES WATER TON AS A NATURALIST. Charles Waterton, however, seems to have been a distinguished man in his way, that is, as a taxidermist or setter-up of animals, and ornitholo- gist, or in anything of that nature that he actually saw and described ; but very unreliable in questions of philo- sophical inquiry, or that required judgment, in matters relating to nat- ural history. In short, he seems to have been " all sight and no scent," with a blessed ignorance of where the one ends and the other begins. His writings generally are poorly put to- gether, and sometimes sadly mixed with extraneous matter, showing the want of a well-trained and scientific mind; notwithstanding which, his works and life, marred as they are by personalities, however much pro- voked, and especially his establish- ment at Walton Hall, will ensure his being well remembered by the lovers of natural history everywhere. He says : " Most men have some fa- vourite pursuit, some well-trained hobby, which they have ridden from the days of their youth. Mine is orni- thology, and when the vexations of the world have broken in upon me, I mount it and go away for an hour or two amongst the birds of the valley ; and I seldom fail to return with better feelings than when I first set out" (p. 496). This, and what relates to it, and matters connected with natural history in general, seem to have made up his character, for nothing can be drawn from his writ- ings to indicate that anything else of any importance, beyond his religion, attracted him, except some of the Latin poets, whom he quoted to il- lustrate his subjects and ideas. Per- haps the influence of the Jesuits is here observable, for the end of their teaching is to stunt or emasculate the mind in its higher faculties, and hold it in subjection, limiting its functions in that respect to one idea, viz : THE CHURCH,* beyond whose * Waterton, in his Wanderings, com- plains of Southey, in his History of Brazil, when referring to the Jesuits, making use teachings all is dangerous and impi- ous speculation. His editor is anything but free from the bad taste of calling names and indulging in improper language. He should have apologised for Wa- terton in that respect, rather than imitated him, after the time that had elapsed. He says : " In fact, Water- ton flogged two generations of quacks, and it would be well if a second Waterton arose with a new rod and a larger " (p. 130) ; never im- agining, when penning these words, that he might have been putting one in pickle, to be laid over the back of himself as well as his friend. He seems to have damned him not with faint, but with fulsome praise, calcu- lated to make him enemies rather than friends. He has no right to characterize him as a man of " acute intellect," or a " profound natural- ist," or that all " his observations are so accurate that they delight the profoundest philosopher," for the very opposite can be said of many of them. Waterton says : " I cannot understand how he can make me, at one and the same time, a very ob- serving and an unscientific naturalist " of the phrase, "Whose zeal the most fa- natical was directed by the coolest policy," and adds: "It will puzzle many a clear brain to comprehend how it is possible in the nature of things, that zeal the most fanatical, should be directed by the coolest policy" If Waterton was sincere in what he said, it would follow that he would have been plucked had he tried to take the degree of " First Wriggler " in the Order. He mentions with great gusto, how he got the better, in a Jesuitical way, of the prefect at Stonyhurst, who had hunted him for nearly half an hour in grounds forbidden to the boys, and "cornered" him. As a last resource, he got the old brewer to cover him with pigs' litter, just as the official bounced in by the gate through which he had entered. " Have you seen Charles Waterton ?" said he, quite out of breath. And his " trusty guardian answered, in a tone of voice which would have deceived anybody, ' Sir, I have not spoken a word to Charles Waterton theso three days, to the best of my knowledge ' " (Warne t p. 19). ROMANISM. (p- 55?)- This represented his men- tal peculiarity. As a general illus- tration of such a distinction, it may be said that a person may make all observations possible on a complica- ted subject, and yet be devoid of the capacity or mental training so to weave them into a theory or system, that will immediately, or at any time, meet with acceptance. Waterton was not a " man of science " in the proper sense of the word (whatever he might have been as a taxidermist and ornithologist), so that his editor's words are out of place when he says : " As a man of science, he has never, in my opinion, obtained his rightful place "(p. 133)? meaning by that, that he was a " naturalist the first of his own time, and in no age surpassed " (p. i); and for other reasons than that " he provoked many enemies by his advocacy of truth and exposure of error "(p. 133). "Few things are 49 easier than to feign a hypothesis " (P- 5?) but few more difficult than to make one good. Waterton spoke of " Selborne's immortal natural- ist," whom his editor alludes to as one of his few favourite English au- thors. It would have been well had he studied him to more purpose than he did, in two respects at least ; that in every branch of natural his-v tory, facts are everything, and theo- ries and difficulties nothing, and that among naturalists of the right stock, opprobrious names and abusive epi- thets should find no place. It is to be hoped that for the future, no one will maintain that Waterton " rarely ventured upon a statement which he had not abundantly verified," or that " in all his pryings into animal ways, his accuracy was extreme," and, above all, that " to this hour he has not been convicted of a single error." ROMANISM. WATERTON literally dosed his readers with his Romanism, which makes it a subject of legiti- mate comment here. Let almost any religion of purely human origin, with a regular priesthood, become established and acquire a history and traditions, and hardly any rea- sonable means can extirpate it, al- though it may disappear when its followers, uninfluenced from with- out, quarrel among themselves, and, as in the case of Mahometanism, move like an avalanche, carryingwith it every object in its course. The -less reason a devotee has for believ- ing in the origin and truth of such a religion, the greater seems the difficulty in getting him to renounce it, particularly among Asiatic races, and as was illustrated in the fall of Paganism in Europe. That nat- ural adhesion becomes amazingly strengthened in the case of Roman- ism, the most subtle and successful, the best organized, and apparently the most permanent of religions of corrupt human nature, based on certain scriptural truths, or some of their aspects, and innumerable su- perstitions, that took possession of an originally divine building, or the framework of it, and turned it into another structure, and applied it, with its traditions and associations, for the most part, to other purposes and towards other objects than the original ones. By systematically and perseveringly stimulating and manipulating the religious instincts and faculties from their very birth, it has taken a transcendent hold on ROMANISM. the imagination -and obedience of its followers, notwithstanding the clouds of witnesses moral and in- tellectual, historical and biblical that surround it, and question, dis- pute and disprove all its peculiar dogmas. It is then no wonder that Romanists should remain Roman- ists (for a religion of some kind, coming to them from without, they must have) when men of the great- est candour, diligence, and capacity have had to undergo a struggle somewhat like a convulsion in na- ture, before they could break the spell that bound them, and a similar struggle in acquiring a new faith, both taking place at the same time, and frequently leaving the person a roaring infidel. Little chance, there- fore, is there of such impulsive and illogical, and, in some respects, weak- minded men (to say nothing of wo- men) like Waterton, by their own efforts or the assistance of others, being apt to renounce the faith in which they were carefully reared before their earliest recollection, under the impressive influence of the absolute submission of their parents, and the ghostly nature of the priests' instruction and ceremonial, and em- brace another which holds as an abomination that which they for- merly worshipped, in the face of the wonderfully efficient means used by the priests in looking after their " sheep/' and guarding them against the " wolves," which, of course, in- clude everything outside of their fold. Here we have the most absolute obedience and belief in THE CHURCH, whatever it may teach, and the consequent safety in the other world, by virtue of paying dues, and discharging easily per- formed duties, and making confes- sion and receiving absolution from time to time, and especially at the hour of death, at the hands of the visible, audible, and tangible being with whom the devotee has to do, perhaps his own child or near rela- tion. Romanism, by captivating the senses, with its seductive music, incense, and gorgeous ceremonial, j and forms of worship generally, and ' particularly the mass and confession, and absolution, that enthrall the soul, becomes part of his nature, which he will not and cannot doubt any more than he would his own exist- ence, or that of the amulets on his person to keep him constantly re- minded of being a " son of the Church;" but if such a thought is entertained it becomes a heinous offence, that requires a correspond- ing penance before it can be for- given. The very essence of his re- ligion is to believe and receive everything taught by his Church, and close his ears against everything to the contrary. In short, the wor- shipper is passive in the hands of the priest, who undertakes every- thing for him on his yielding im- plicit obedience to his commands, as those of the Church ; and the priest becomes to him the door-keeper of heaven, without whose permission there is no admittance. On the other hand, we have the priest so far raised above every dig- nity known to man that even kings in secret grovel at his feet, and re- ceive from him pardon and a pass- port to purgatory, or have them withheld, or rendered of no ef- fect even if given, according to the intention or inattention of the priest when pronouncing them, or the quality, reality or com- pleteness of the confession ; * and there they remain till released by the alms and suffrages of the faithful paying for masses for their (deliverance ; which masses will be * The following passage of Scripture should have some meaning in connec- tion with the every-day confession of a %Romanist to his priest, on the strength of which he is absolved, and placed in the position of never having sinned : " Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of; but the sorrow of the world worketh death." 2 Cor. vii. 10. ROMANISM. said as long as they are paid for, for the Church does not publicly profess to know or teach when souls are released, and passed to a state of final happiness. In virtue of his consecration, which separates him from all earthly relations, the priest becomes a member of a world-wide caste, that is exalted above any order that can be conceived, and that secures him provision for life, almost as if he were independent of Providence for a sustenance ; as well as immunity against arrest or punish- ment by any person or power out- side of the Church, where Roman- ism is completely in the ascendant. Even if raised from the dunghill, he is yet eligible to the office of our " sovereign lord the Pope," who is "above all principalities and powers;" and although filling an humble posi- tion in the Church, and yielding implicit obedience to his superiors, he can confess and pardon even that superhuman dignitary, as if, in short, he were a part of the God- head itself ; for priests confess and pardon priests on all occasions, no less than the most ignorant devo- tees. And let anyone wallow in the mire every day of his life, he can go to the priest and make confession and receive forgiveness, paying, of course, a fee on the occasion. The most memorable events in the lives of priests, before or after consecra- tion, are the first sin they pardoned, and the first wafer they converted into a god to be worshipped. This " mystery of iniquity" is propagated, bodily and mentally, from age to age, and becomes the daily life, and hope for happiness in a future state, of countless millions ; and the dignified sacerdotal position in so- ciety, as well as the "bread and butter," of the principals, managers, or governors, with no apparent pros- pect of it ever coming to an end. And not only that, but it makes converts among ritualists, and that floating part of the population, of both sexes and all ages and classes, that, in the language of St. Paul to Timothy, are " ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth;" and (which is not so surprising) among those who have little more knowledge of religion than the instinct of nature "that in- tellectual and emotional want that is as common to man as instinct is to the brute creation for the ends which it has to serve."* Every religion of which we have any knowledge, except what has been revealed in the Scriptures, seems to have sprung from the ex- ercise of this natural instinct, which was doubtless accompanied origin- ally by a revelation. So deep is the darkness and mystery surrounding the origin and degradation of re- ligion, and the innumerable forms of worship and superstition to which they gave birth, that we may dis- miss the questions from contempla- tion so far as they could illustrate any one, in whole or in part, known to us, except in the matters of sac- rifice and prayer. But even these are worthy of little regard, inasmuch as in the cases of the enlightened Greeks and Romans, St. Paul tells us that " the things which the Gen- tiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils (demons) and not to God" (i Cor. x. 20). And the prayers which ac- companied their sacrifices, as well as their supplications in general, no matter how sincere they were, doubt- less went in the same direction certainly to beings that existed only in the imaginations of the worship- pers; as illustrated by Plato the divine and godlike Plato when he said, " Let us pray," and thus began : " O Pan, and ye other gods of this place;" and by Socrates when he said, " Crito, we owe a cock to yEs- culapius ; pay it, and by no means neglect it." God did not altogether abandon men to themselves, " for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly * Disquisition on the Gipsies, p. 502. ROMANISM. seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are without excuse" (Rom. i. 20). " Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our heart with food and gladness " (Acts xiv. 17), although " in times past he suffered all nations to walk in their own ways" (verse 16), "because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful ; but became vain in their imagina- tions, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorrupt- ible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creep- ing things, wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness " (Rom. i. 21-24). " And even as they did not like to retain God in their know- ledge, God gave them over to a rep- rojpate mind .... who, know- ing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" (verses 28 and 32), yet holding them to accountability, " for when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto them- selves ; which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their con- science also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accus- ing or else excusing one another. " (Rom. ii. 14, 15). Here we have the human mind, while possessing its wants and natural instincts intact, presenting a vacuum in regard to religious know- ledge, into which an impostor or en- thusiast could force his way, but with much difficulty, and keep pos- session through the religion he introduced, till dispossessed by some other; the devotions or whims, wants or vices of its members, the growth of a priesthood, and the nature of their organization, doc- trines and ceremonies, and the man- ner in which these were presented to the worshippers, the lapse of time, and the political or social con- vulsions of society, as well as the corruption or abuse of the religion itself, such as it was, influencing the question of a faith, taking or keep- ing possession of a people where a revelation was not given, or brought to bear upon them. Many of the religions of human nature doubtless had their origin in " the spontaneous and gradual growth of superstition and impos- ture, modified, systematised, adorn- ed or expanded by ambitious and superior minds, or almost wholly in the conception of these minds." * How a religion or form of worship might have had its origin is illus- trated in the adventure of Paul and Barnabas among the rude people at Lystra, when they would have ren- dered divine honours to them as Jupiter and Mercury, but for the objection that was made; when the priest of Jupiter, apparently rush- ing in on the top of the wave, to be ahead of the people, and the master of ceremonies, " brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people " (Acts xiv. 13), although he would doubtless have been just as ready to head them in slaying the Apostles, had the current run in that direction.f How a religion has * Disquisition on the Gipsies, p. 502. f The other instance when St. Paul was taken for a god was on the island of Melita or Malta, when a viper fastened on his hand as he laid a bundle of sticks on a fire. The barbarous people present immediately concluded that, having just escaped shipwreck, he must have been a murderer, whom vengeance would not suffer to live. " But after they had look- ed a great while, and saw no harm come to him [for 'he shook off the beast into the fire and felt no harm'], they changed ROMANISM. 53 been established in modern times, in the memory of people hardly past the middle of life, is illustrated by Mormonism, which has a much greater hold upon its followers than the world is aware of, or willing to believe. The conclusion to be drawn would be, that human nature was formerly, as it is now, capable of in- venting a religion, and setting up a worship, and establishing a priest- hood, manufacturing it out of noth- ing, as it were, having everything to seek where nothing was to be found, except the natural instinct of man to receive, and the faculty to act on, what was presented to it. Why, then, could not that self-same hu- man nature, as it got gradually con- verted to or absorbed in it, and then born into it, take an actual revelation, complete in itself, and applying to this life and the next, and create from or out of it a re- ligion and worship completely its own, but much superior to common Paganism, using its facts, ideas and phrases only to twist and pervert them to " other purposes and to- wards other objects than the origi- nal ones," and adding " innumer- able superstitions" to it ; so that it became a religion of nature, or Paganism, which its followers would their minds, and said that he was a god " (Acts xxviii. 1-6). Deification among the Pagans seems to have been a common occurrence, but it was only that of the true benefactors of mankind that took root and flourished. It was the rule among the heathen em- perors of Rome, extending sometimes to members of the imperial family. Thus Tacitus says that Tiberius forbad the " forms of religious worship" at the funeral of his mother, Livia, the widow of Augustus ; which was unnecessary, as "it was her desire not to be deified." Claudius, however, rendered her "divine honours," as related by Suetonius. And a daughter of Nero, dying before she was four, months old, we are told by Tacitus, " was canonised for a goddess : a temple was decreed to her, with an altar, a bed of state, a priest, and religious cere- monies." afterwards even fight for, as " the faith of their ancestors," or main- tain it for contention or filthy lucre's sake, or make it supply the place generally filled by all the religions known among men ? When such a revelation had been perverted, God could with much more reason and justice not merely " give them over to a reprobate mind," as he did the heathen, but " send them strong de- lusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleas- ure in unrighteousness" (2 Thess. ii. ii, 12).* We read of the Apostles healing people or striking them dead, or bringing them to life again (which no priest will attempt to do), but never of their having pardoned their sins, for the apparent reason that God alone does that with the really penitent and believing; while the other gifts, being visible and tangi- ble acts, obvious to every one, would serve the purpose of advancing the religion preached, which the pardon of sins could not do, and was there- fore foreign to the mission of the Apostles, as applicable to any other offences than those connected with church discipline. But the fountain for the washing away of sins as against God, claimed by a priest, ignorant and immoral as he some- times is, never runs dry or freezes, particularly while the applicant's money holds out; while St. Peter * This seems to have been the " natural history " of man : First, we have the race, with the exception of Noah and his fam- ily, destroyed by the flood (Gen. vi. 5-8), without apparently improving it ; next, the confusion and scattering of it at Ba- bel ; then the Jews who " received the law by the disposition of angels and did not keep it" dispersed over the earth, for their wickedness ; and lastly, the way in which the Christian Revelation was sooner or later treated. All these cast a certain light over the "darkness and mystery surrounding the origin and deg- radation of religion, and the innumerable forms of worship and superstition to which they give birth." ROMANISM. scorned to accept money to confer a Christian grace, with the words, " Thy money perish with thee, be- ' cause thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money " (Acts viii. 20). Nor did he pardon any one, for he said, " Repent therefore of this thy wick- edness, and Pray GW, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee" (verse 22). Nor would he allow any one to fall down at his feet, for he raised Cornelius from that position, saying, " Stand up ; I myself also am a man " (Acts x. 26). Nor would Paul and Barna- bas, on the occasion mentioned,, al- low the same to be done, for we are told that when the people would have rendered them divine honours, as understood among heathens, " they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying, out, and saying, Sirs, why do ye these things ? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and ' earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein " (Acts xiv. 14, 15). While St. Peter permitted no one to fall down at his feet, but made him stand up, his so- called successor allows and expects, if he does not command, even the kings of the earth to kiss his foot, or rather his big toe, as well as that of the statue of " Blessed Peter."* And, although no one doubts that a living lion is better than a dead dog, Romanists "worship the Saints," who for anything they know never were saints, some of them being of doubtful, others of hateful character, and some of them never having had any existence as saints or sinners. * It is interesting to notice the light in which the old Pagans would have re- garded such an act of homage, if rendered to one of their emperors ; for, says Plu- tarch : " If you were commanded to kiss Caesar's feet, you would think it an out- rage and an excess of tyranny. What else is this than slavery?" And it is partly through the merits and intercession of such uncertain beings that Romanists expect to get to heaven. Not content with that, they will not even let their bones rest in peace, or the rags that covered them while on earth or in the tomb, but use them (or substitutes for them) for conferring benefits on the living ; while they pray to the sup- posed saints in heaven, imagining that they can hear and attend to the wants of countless millions at the same time, as if they were omni- present and omniscient, and there- fore gods. The Apostles would re- ceive no veneration or worship from any one while on earth, for they were engaged in too holy a cause, and were of too elevated character to look for that, or approve of it after death, or perhaps even give a thought to the estimation in which they would personally be held among men. We are told in the Scriptures that the Church is " built upon the foun- dation of the apostles and prophets," that is, on what they taught, " Jesus Christ himself being the Chief Cor- ner-stone " (Ephes. ii. 20) ; but Ro- manists tell us that Peter had length and breadth and thickness on which to erect the whole Church, past, present, and to come ! A sorry foundation " Blessed Peter " was on which to build anything. Although possessed of many eminent quali- ties, he was forward, hasty and pre- sumptuous, and much of a bragga- docio having " given up his all," perhaps " an old cobble boat and a rotten net," to follow his master; often open to reproof and correction, and apt to get his company into trouble, yet, like the rest, a runaway when real danger presented itself. Three times, with cursing and swear- ing, did he deny his master, who at one time ordered him, as Satan, to get behind him, like a dog that had been spoken to. After the ascen- sion, he so trimmed and shuffled on a question that should have been ROMANISM. 55 met in a manly way, that Paul " withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed" (Gal. ii, n), for being a " dissembler," and as guilty of " dissimulation " (verses 11-16). He unquestionably occu- pied the position of priority, and priority only, at first, but afterwards, as his character or capacity develop- ed itself, a secondary one, that of a servant, messenger or deputy, in carrying out his colleagues' deci- sions ; and then he became the Apos- tle to the Jews. And was it on this rolling stone that the Church was built, and through whom the Pope claims to be infallible in faith and morals, in virtue of merely being his so-called successor as bishop of Rome, when no positive evidence can be shown that " Blessed Peter " ever was at Rome, and much to show that he never was bishop of it ? In all their allusions to their Church, Romanists never mention the Greeks, for the reason that they are heretics and schismatics from that Church, that is, according to their theories, from the Church, having broken away from it when they formed about a third of its num- bers, after having been founded and, as it were, colonized by it, the mother Church in which Christianity altogether had its origin and was de- veloped ; and from which they sepa- rated, as the United States parted from their mother country, but un- der somewhat different circum- stances. Never, in all my conversations with Romanists, could I get one of them to enter upon that subject, or even allow it to be discussed, for the reason that they can advance no argument in proof of their own le- gitimacy ; but they are very brave when the question is between Rome and the rest of the West, while they will scowl when the Eastern Church is mentioned to them. The Pope should be required, in legal phraseology, to " prove his pedigree " on the following points : i st. Was St. Peter in any way in- fallible, that is, when " speaking ex cathedra" or otherwise ? Or did he ever personally speak ex cathedra at all ? zd. Did he ever pardon sins, not as against himself or the Church, but as against God, so that they could not be charged against the sinner in a future state ? If neither of these can be proved of him, then his so-called successors, and their priests, in claiming such attributes, as being inherited or in any way derived from or through him, must be impostors ; without raising the question whether Peter or any of the Apostles transmitted such power to any who have since claimed it, assuming that it was possessed by the Apostles at first ; or asking why Romanists do not also claim the power of healing the sick, raising the dead, or working the other miracles of the Apostles. 3. 358). This invasion of Scotland by Irish Gipsies has, of late years, greatly alter- ed the condition of the nomadic Scot- tish tribes ; for this reason, that as Scotland, no less than any other coun- try, can support only a certain number of such people who " live on the roads," so many of the Scottish Gipsies have been forced to betake themselves to other modes of making a living. To such an extent has this been the case, that Gipsies, speaking the Scottish dia- lect, are in some districts comparatively rarely to be met with, where they were formerly numerous. The same cause may even lead to the extinction of the Scottish Gipsies as wanderers ; but as the descendants of the Irish Gipsies will acquire the Scottish vernacular in the second generation (a remarkably short period among the Gipsies), what will then pass for Scottish Gipsies will be Irish by descent. The Irish Gipsies are allowed, by their English brethren, to speak good Gipsy, but with a broad and vulgar accent ; so that the language in Scotland will have a still better chance of being preserved. England has like- wise been invaded by these Irish swarms. The English Gipsies complain bitterly of them. "They have no law among 130 MR. BORROW ON THE GIPSIES. them," they say; ''they have fairly de- stroyed Scotland as a country to travel in ; if they get a loan of anything from the country-people, to wrap themselves in, in the barn, at night, they will de- camp with it in the morning. They have brought a disgrace upon the very name of Gipsy, in Scotland, and are heartily disliked by both English and Scotch." " There is a family of Irish Gipsies living across the road there, whom I would not be seen speaking to," said a superior English Gipsy ; " I hate a Jew, and I dislike an Irish Gipsy." But English and Scottish Gipsies pull well together ; and are on very friendly terms in America, and frequently visit each other. The English sympathize with the Scottish, under the wrongs they have experienced at the hands of the Irish, as well as on account of the persecutions they experi- enced in Scotland, so long after such had ceased in England. Twenty-five years ago, there were many Gipsies to be found between Londonderry and Bel- fast, following the style of life described under the chapter of Tweeddale and Clydesdale Gipsies. Their names were Docherty, McCurdy, McCloskey, Mc- Guire, McKay, Holmes, Dinsmore, Mor- row, Allan, Stewart, Lindsay, Cochrane, and Williamson. Some of these seem to have migrated from Scotland and the North of England. In England, some of the Irish Gipsies send their children to learn trades. There are many of such Irish mechanic Gipsies in America. A short time ago, a company of them landed in New York, and proceeded on to Chicago. Their occupations, among others, were those of hatters and tailors (Ed, p. 357). Mr. Borrow speaks of three kinds of travelling people in England, which he says the so-called Gipsies proper designate under the names of Chorodies, Kora-mengre, and Hin- dity-mengre. Of the first he says : " The trades of the men are tinkering and basket-making, and some few ' peel the stick ' [that is, make skewers]. The women go about with the articles made by their husbands, or rather partners, and sometimes do a little in the fortune- telling line " (p. 267). Those he met at Wandsworth " live in the vilest tents, with the exception of two or three families, who have their abode in broken and filthy caravans. They have none of the comforts and elegancies of the Gipsies " (p. 267). " They have coarse, vulgar features, "and hair which puts one wonderfully in mind of refuse flax, or the material of which mops are com- posed [a very good description of fair, mixed Gipsies]. Their complexions, when not obscured with grime, are rather fair than dark, evidencing that their origin is low, swinish Saxon, and not gentle Romany. Their language is the frowsiest English, interlarded with cant expressions and a few words of bastard Romany " (p. 267) [a point worth noticing]. But they say of themselves, " We are no Gipsies not we ! no, nor Irish either. We are English, and decent folks none of your rubbish." * " The Gipsies hold them, and with reason, in supreme contempt, and it is from them that they got their name of Chorodies " (p. 268) \Choredo, in Gipsy, signifying a poor, miserable person]. " The Kora-mengre are the lowest of those hawkers who go about the coun- try villages and the streets of London, with caravans hung about with various common articles, such as mats, brooms, mops, tin pans, and kettles. These low hawkers seem to be of much the same origin as the Chorodies [whatever that is], and are almost equally brutal and repulsive in their manners. The name Kora-mengre is Gipsy, and signifies fel- lows who cry out and shout, from their practice o/ shouting out the names of their goods " (p. 268). " Lastly come the Hindity-mengre, or Filthy People. This term has been be- stowed upon the vagrant Irish by the Gipsies, from the dirty ways attributed to them The trade they osten- sibly drive is tinkering, repairing old kettles, and making little pots and pans of tin. The one, however, on which they principally depend, is not tinkering, but one far more lucrative, and requir- ing more cleverness and dexterity ; they make false rings, like the Gipsy smiths " (p. 269). " Each of these Hindity-men- gre has his blow-pipe, and some of them can execute their work in a style little inferior to that of a first-rate work- ing goldsmith " (p. 270). * Mixed Gipsies tell no lies, when they say that they are not Gipsies ; for, physi- ologically speaking, they are not Gipsies, but only partly Gipsies, as regards blood. In every other way they are Gipsies, that is, chabos, cabs, or dials (Ed., p. 427). THE DESTINY OF THE ENGLISH GIPSIES. Mr. Borrow does not venture to tell us who these Irish Hindity-men- gre are, but he says : " The Chorodies are the legitimate [why the legitimate ?~\ descendants of the rogues and outcasts who roamed about England long [how long ?] before its soil was trodden by a Gipsy foot " (p. 267) ; and that \ho.Kora-inengre " seem to be of much the same origin as the Chorodies " (p. 268). It would be interesting to know why he so arbitrarily pitched upon their descent from people having an existence long before the Gipsies en- tered the country. He describes them as " Strange, wild guests .... who, without being Gipsies, have much of Gipsyism in their habits, and who far exceed the Gipsies in number " (p. 266) ; " Gipsies, or gentry whose habits very much resemble those of Gipsies " (p. 278) ; and "vagrant people, less of Gip- sies than those who call themselves trav- ellers [the cant phrase for Gipsies in- cog.], and are denominated by the Gip- sies Chorodies" (p. 280). Here we have nothing but asser- tion, or rather mere supposition, and no trace of any investigation into the subject. As for English mixed Gipsies, whether settled or itinerant, he says nothing about them, as if they had no existence. He indeed incidentally alludes to two mixed marriages, that of the parents of Thomas Herne the father being a Gipsy, and the mother a " Gen- tile of Oxford" (p. 157); and one of the Hernes married to at least a so-called " thorough-bred English- man," whose " caravan, a rather stately affair, is splendidly furnished within" (p. 282). Nor does he ac- count for the people mentioned liv- ing so exactly like Gipsies, and as being outwardly Gipsies in every- thing but their physical appearance. We have seen that Mr. Borrow expressed his inability to account for what became of the Spanish Gip- sies, when he alluded to the subject in the Gipsies in Spain, published in 1841. In the present work he re- fers to the same aspect of the ques- tion as it applies to the race in Eng- land. Thus he says : " The Gipsies call each other brother and sister, and are not in the habit of admitting to their fellowship people of a different blood, and with whom they have no sympathy" (p. 214). "The highly exclusive race of the Gipsies" (p. 216). " They have a double nomen- clature, each tribe or family having a public and a private name ; one by which they are known to the Gentiles, and an- other to themselves alone " (p. 225). And yet he says of this very pecu- liar and exclusive people so self- contained and so prolific in their nature, and so separated from the rest of the population by such a strong prejudice of caste as exists against them that, by the mere change of life, brought about by the rural police preventing them camp- ing out, and following the original Gipsy habits, " there is every reason to suppose that within a few years the English Gipsy caste will have disappeared, merged in the dregs of the English population " (p. 222). In point of fact, they can- not avoid being Gipsies, settled or un- settled, honest or dishonest, and will " merge " part of the common Eng- lish blood among them, as the tribe in the British Islands and Western Eu- rope have to a very great extent done already, as illustrated by what Mr. Borrow himself found at Yet- holm. " Gipsyism is declining, and its days are numbered" (p. 220). He said that more than thirty years ago. As for the Gipsies "declin- ing," " becoming extinct," or " ceas- ing to be Gipsies," by a change of habits, there is as much discrimina- tion and reason in the assertion or supposition, as would be implied in the opinion of the farmers' chick- ens, that there are few or no Gipsies in the country for the reason that the hen-roosts have not been trou- bled as of old. " True Gipsyism consists in wan- I 3 2 MR. BORROW ON THE GIPSIES. dering about, in preying upon the Gentiles, but not living amongst them " (p. 221). That is its original condition, no doubt. The power of the rural police must be in its nature limited : it does not extend over the tribe in towns, or in the country when it does not trespass on private property, or encumber the roads; nor could the force otherwise le- gally interfere with the tribe un- less when it engaged in actions for- bidden to it, in common with the rest of the population. Mr. Bor- row has at various times given ex- pression to a number of amazingly crude remarks on this subject. Did he never meet with Gipsies who did not live in the old fashion ? and did he not find them Gipsies as much as those following the original habits ? It has often been a subject of reflec- tion to me, why people should have taken a view of this subject so dia- metrically opposed to the facts of it, and without in any way investigat- ing it.* The strangest phenomenon con- nected with the Gipsies is, in some respects, Mr. Borrow himself. Here has he been "a-sweeping" the Gipsy chimney for the last thirty odd years, and has not got further in the job than sticking in the vent, and preventing it drawing, or being swept by others. And heaven knows that that chimney wants cleaning badly. As to the so-called disap- pearance of the Gipsies, I could not look upon what he says as his real * A Gipsy, of some property, who gave one of her sons a good education, de- clared that the young man was entirely spoiled (p. 364). It is well to notice the fact, that by giving a Gipsy child a good education, it became "entirely spoiled." It would be well if we could " spoil " all the Gipsies. A thoroughly-spoiled Gipsy makes a very good man, but leaves him a Gipsy notwithstanding. A " thorough Gipsy" has two meanings ; one strongly attached to the tribe, and its original hab- its, or one without these original habits. There are a good many " spoiled " Gip- sies, male and female, in Scotland (Ed., p. 364). opinions, were it not for his incon- sistent and illogical ideas about other matters connected with their history. Even to the last he sticks to his old opinion regarding the disappearance of the tribe by in- termarriage, in the face of the great- ly-mixed breeds he found at Yet- holm, some of whom he described, as we have already seen, " as nei- ther the children nor the grand-chil- dren of real Gipsies, but only the remote descendants," " in whom a few drops of Gipsy blood were mix- ed with some Scottish and a much larger quantity of low Irish "* (p. 328). And that throws a great light upon all he said about the three * The Rev. John Baird, the Minister of Yetholm, in his first missionary report in 1840, when he had thirty -eight Gipsy children attending his school, mentions that a few of the Gipsy population there " possess fair complexions, and some of them even red hair," so that a " stranger, entering their dwellings, would never for one moment regard them as real Gip- sies." " However, this is true of much the smaller proportion The present race are little more than half caste." The woman Mr. Borrow first address- ed, said of this Gipsy colony, that " they are far less Gipsy than Irish, a great deal of Irish being mixed in their veins with a very little of the much more respectable Gipsy blood " (p. 311). .This idea is doubt- less an assumption, so far as it applies to common Irish blood as imported, although it may apply to Irish blood gipsified in Ireland before it found its way into Scot- land. In the History of the Gipsies, we find the following : " Almost all the Scottish Gipsies assert that their ancestors came by way of Ire- land into Scotland. " [This is extremely likely. On the publication of the edict of Ferdinand of Spain, in 1492, some of the Spanish Gip- sies would likely pass over to the'South of Ireland, and thence find their way into Scotland before 1506. Anthonius Gawino, above referred to, would almost seem to be a Spanish name. We may, therefore, very safely assume that the Gipsies of Scotland are of Spanish' Gipsy descent (Ed., p. 98)]-" The Yetholm Gipsies may even have called themselves Irish, when that would have served a better purpose than to be known as Gipsies. THE NATURAL PERPETUA TION OF THE GIPSY RACE. kinds of " travelling people " to be found in England, as described by him. They will deny that they be- long to the tribe ; so will the pure- blood or more original kind of Gip- sies say the same of them. But there is no difficulty in the way of believing that they, or many, or most of them, " belong to the tribe," however remote the descent from the original Gipsies, even if they had only " a few words of Bastard Roma- ny," or none at all for that matter, excepting, perhaps, a few catch or pass-words. For a full discussion 'of the whole subject, I refer the reader to the History of the Gipsies, and will add here the following extracts from it : In expatiating on the subject of the Gipsy race always being the Gipsy race, I have had it remarked to me : " Sup- pose Gipsies should not mention to their children the fact of their being Gipsies ? " In that case, I replied, the children', especially if, for the most part, of white blood, would simply not be Gipsies ; they would, of course, have some of ''the blood," but they would not be Gipsies if they had no knowledge of the fact. But to suppose that Gipsies should not learn that they are Gipsies, on ac- count of their parents not telling them of it, is to presume that they had no other relatives. Their being Gipsies is constantly talked of among themselves ; so that, if Gipsy children should not hear their " wonderful story " from their parents, they would readily enough hear it from their other relatives. This is as- suming, however, that the Gipsy mind can act otherwise than the Gipsy mind ; which it cannot. It sometimes happens, as the Gipsies separate into classes, like all other races or communities of men, that a great deal of jealousy is stirred up in the minds of the poorer members of the tribe, on account of their being shunned by the wealthier kind. They are then apt to say that the exclusive members have left the tribe ; which, with them, is an undefined and confused idea, at the best, principally on account of their limited powers of reflection, and the subject never being alluded to by the others. This jealousy sometimes leads them to dog these straggling sheep, so that, as far as lies in their power, they will not allow them to leave, as they imagine, the Gipsy fold (Ed., p. 413). There is a point which I have not explained so fully as I might have done, and it is this : " Is any of the blood ever lost? that is, does it ever cease to be Gipsy, in knowledge and feeling ? " That is a question not easily answered in the affirmative, were it only for this reason : how can it ever be as- certained that the knowledge and feel- ing of being Gipsies become lost ? Let us suppose that a couple of Gipsies leave England, and settle in America, and that they never come in contact with any of their race, and that their chil- dren never learn anything of the mat- ter from any quarter. In such an ex- treme, I may say, such an unnatural case, the children would not be Gipsies, but, if born in America, ordinary Americans. The only way in which the Gipsy blood that is, the Gipsy feeling can pos- sibly be lost, is by a Gipsy (a man espe- cially) marrying an ordinary native, and the children never learning of the cir- cumstance. But, as I have said be- fore, how is that ever to be ascertained ? The question might be settled in this way : Let the relatives of the Gipsy interrogate the issue, and if it answers, truly, that it knows nothing of the Gipsy connexion, and never has its curiosity in the matter excited, it holds, beyond dispute, that "the blood" has been lost to the tribe. For any loss the tribe may sustain, in that way, it gains, in an ample degree, by drawing upon the blood of the native race, and trans- muting it into that of its own fraternity (Ed., p. 532). The subject of the Gipsies has hither- to been treated as a question of natural history only, in the same manner as we would treat ant-bears. Writers have sat down beside them, and looked at them little more than looked at them described some of their habits, and reported their chaff. To get to the bottom of the subject, it is necessary to sound the mind of the Gipsy, lay open and dissect his heart, identify one's self with his feelings and the bearings of his ideas, and construct, out of these, a system of mental science, based upon the mind of the Gipsy, and human na- ture generally. For it is the mind of the Gipsy that constitutes the Gipsy; that which, in reference to its singular origin 134 MR. BORROW ON THE GIPSIES. and histoiy, is, in itself, indestructible, imperishable and immortal (Ed., p. 452). What may be termed the philosophy of the Gipsies is very simple in itself, when we have before us its main points, its principles, its bearings, its genius ; and fully appreciated the circumstances with which the people are surrounded. The most remarkable thing about the subject is, that people never should have dreamt of its nature, but, on the contrary, believed that " the Gipsies are gradually disappearing, and will soon become extinct." The Gipsies have always been disappearing, but where do they go to ? Look at any tent of Gip- sies, when the family are all together, and see how prolific they are. What, then, becomes of this increase ? The present work answers the question. It is a subject, however, which I have found some difficulty in getting people to understand. One cannot see how a person can be a Gipsy, " because his father was a respectable man ;" another, " because his father was an old soldier ;" and another cannot see " how it neces- sarily follows that a person is a Gipsy, for the reason that his parents were Gipsies." The idea, as disconnected from the use of a tent, or following a certain kind of life, may be said to be strange to the world ; and, on that ac- count, is not very easily impressed on the human mind. It would be singular, however, if a Scotchman, after all that has been said, should not be able to understand what is meant by the Scot- tish Gipsy tribe, or that it should ever cease to be that tribe as it progresses in life. In considering the subject, he need not cast about for much to look at, for he should exercise his mind, rather than his eyes, when he approaches it. It is, principally, a mental phenomenon, and should, therefore, be judged of by the faculties of the mind : for a Gipsy may not differ a whit from an ordinary na- tive, in external appearance or character, while, in his mind, he may be as thor- ough a Gipsy as one could well imag- ine. In contemplating the subject of the Gipsies, we should have a regard for the facts of the question, and not be led by what we might, or might not, imag- ine of it. The race might, to a certain extent, be judged analogously, by what we know of other races ; but that which is pre-eminently necessary, is to judge of it by facts : for facts, in a matter like this, take precedence of everything. Even in regard to the Gipsy language, broken as it is, people are very apt to say that it cannot exist at the present day; yet the least reflection will con- vince us, that the language which the Gipsies use is the remains of that which they brought with them into Europe, and not a make-up, to serve their pur- poses. The very genius peculiar to them, as an Oriental people, is a suffi- cient guarantee of this fact ; and the more so from their having been so thor- oughly separated, by the prejudice of caste, from others around them ; which would so naturally lead them to use and retain their peculiar speech. But the use of the Gipsy language is not the only, not even the principal, means of maintaining a knowledge of being Gip- sies ; perhaps it is altogether unneces- sary ; for the mere consciousness of the fact of being Gipsies, transmitted from generation to generation, and made the basis of marriages, and the intimate as- sociations of life, is, in itself, perfectly sufficient. The subject of two distinct races existing upon the same soil is not very familiar to the mind of a British subject. To acquire a knowledge of such a phenomenon, he should visit cer- tain parts of Europe, or Asia, or Africa, or the New World. Since all (I may say all) Gipsies hide the knowledge of their being Gipsies from the other in- habitants, as they leave the tent, it can- not be said that any of them really deny themselves, even should they hide them- selves from those of their own race. The ultimate test of a person being a Gipsy would be for another to catch the internal response of his mind to the question put to him as to the fact ; or observe the workings of his heart in his contemplations of himself. It can hardly be said that any Gipsy denies, at heart, the fact of his being a Gipsy (which, in- deed, is a contradiction in terms), let tiim disguise it from others as much as tie may. If I could find such a man, tie would be the only one of his race whom I would feel inclined to despise as such (Ed., p. 505). In investigating this subject, I would formulate the inquiry under the following heads : i st. What constitutes a Gipsy in a settled or unsettled state ? 2d. What should we ask a Gipsy HO IV THE GIPSIES ARE REARED, 135 to do to " cease to be a Gipsy," and become more a native of the coun- try of his birth than he is already ? 3d. In what relation does the race stand to others around it, with refer- ence to intermarriage and the des- tiny of the mixed progeny, and that of the tribe generally ? An investigation of this kind would involve a search for so many facts, however difficult of being found ; and should be conducted as I have stated of snakes swallowing their young, that is, " as a fact is proved in a court of justice ; difficul- ties, suppositions, or theories [or anal- ogies] not being allowed to form part of the testimony " (p. 28). As I do not anticipate having another opportunity to say anything on the subject of the Gipsies, I avail myself of this one to give a few more extracts from the History, as illustrative of some of their pecu- liarities, and of the relation exist- ing between them and those among whom they live. The first extracts describe how a Gipsy is reared, which is the most important point connected with their history. And how does the Gipsy woman bring up her children in regard to her race ? She tells them her " wonder- ful story " informs them who they are, and of the dreadful prejudice that ex- ists against them, simply for being Gipsies. She then tells them about Pharaoh and Joseph in Egypt, terming her people " Pharaoh's folk." In short, she dazzles the imagination of the children, from the moment they can comprehend the simplest idea. Then she teaches them her words, or lan- guage, as the "real Egyptian," and fright- ens and bewilders the youthful mind by telling them that they are subject to be hanged if they are known to be Gipsies, or to speak these words, or will be looked upon as wild beasts by those around them. She then informs the children how long the Gipsies have been in the country ; how they lived in tents ; how they were persecuted, banished, and hanged, merely for be- ing Gipsies. She then tells them of her people being in every part of the world, whom they can recognize by the lan- guage and signs which she is teaching them ; and that her race will every- where be ready to shed their blood for them. She then dilates upon the bene- fits that arise from being a Gipsy bene- fits negative as well as positive ; for should they ever be set upon gar- roted, for example all they will have to do will be to cry out some such expres- sion as " Bienerate, calo, chabo " (good- night, Gipsy, or black fellow), when, it there is a Gipsy near them, he will pro- tect them. The children will be fon- dled by her relatives, handed about and hugged as " little ducks of Gipsies." The granny, while sitting at the fireside, like a witch, performs no small part in the education of the children, making them fairly dance with excitement. In this manner do the children of Gipsies have the Gipsy soul literally breathed into them. In such a way what with the su- preme influence which the mother has exercised over the mind of the child from its very infancy ; the manner in which its imagination has been dazzled ; and the dreadful prejudice towards the Gipsies, which they all apply, directly or indirectly, to themselves does the Gipsy adhere to his race. What with the blood, the education, the words, and the signs, they are simply Gipsies, and will be such as long as they retain a consciousness of who they are, and any peculiarities exclusively Gipsy (Ed., p. 379). Imagine, then, a person taught from his infancy to understand that he is a Gipsy ; that his blood (at least part of it) is Gipsy ; that he has been instruct- ed in the language and initiated in all the mysteries of the Gipsies ; that his relations and acquaintances in the tribe have undergone the same experience ; that the utmost reserve towards those who are not Gipsies has been continu- ally inculcated upon him, and as often practised before his eyes ; and what must be the leading idea, in that person's mind, but that he is a Gipsy ? His pedi- gree is Gipsy, his mind has been cast in a Gipsy mould, and he can no more " cease to be a Gipsy" than perform any other impossibility in nature (Ed., p. 457). It is even unnecessary to inquire, par- ticularly, how that has been accomplish- ed, for it is self-evident that the process which has linked other races to their ancestry, has doubly linked the Gipsy 136 MR. BORROW ON THE GIPSIES. race to theirs. Indeed, the idea of be- ing Gipsies never can leave the Gipsy race. A Gipsy's life is like a continual conspiracy towards the rest of the world ; he has always a secret upon his mind, and, from his childhood to his old age, he is so placed as if he were, in a negative sense, engaged in some gun- powder plot, or as if he had committed a crime, let his character be as good as it possibly may. Into whatever company he may enter, he naturally remarks to himself, " I wonder if there are any of us here." That is the position which the mixed and better kind of Gipsy occu- pies, generally and passively. Of course, there are some of the race who are al- ways actually hatching some plot or other against the rest of the world (Ed., P-453). The next extracts explain the effect of the prejudice that exists against the Gipsies : It appears to me that the more their blood gets mixed with that of the ordina- ry natives, and the more they approach to civilization, the more determinedly will they conceal every particular relative to their tribe, to prevent their neighbours ascertaining their origin and nationality. The slightest taunting allusion to the forefathers of half -civilized Scottish Tinklers kindles up in their breasts a storm of wrath and fury : for they are extremely sensitive to the feeling which is entertained toward their tribe by the other inhabitants of the country. " I have," said one of them to me, " wrought all my life in a shop with fel- low-tradesmen, and not one of them ever discovered that I knew a single Gipsy word." A Gipsy woman also in- formed me that herself and sister had nearly lost their lives on account of their language. The following are the par- ticulars : The two sisters chanced to be in a public-house near Alloa, when a number of colliers, belonging to the coal-works at Sauchie, were present. The one sister, in a low tone of voice, and in the Gipsy language, desired the other, among other things, to make ready some broth for their repast. The colliers took hold of the two Gipsy words shau- cha and blawkie, which signify broth and pot ; thinking the Tinkler women were calling them Sauchie Blackics, in derision and contempt of their dark, sub- terraneous calling. The consequence was, that the savage colliers attacked the innocent Tinklers, calling out that they would " grind them to powder," for calling them Sauchie Blackies. But the determined Gipsies would rather perish than explain the meaning of the words in English, to appease the en- raged colliers; "for," said they, "it would have exposed our tribe, and made ourselves odious to the world." The two defenceless females might have been murdered by their brutal assail- lants, had not the master of the house fortunately come to their assistance (p. 283). She stated that the public would look upon her with horror and contempt, were it known she could speak the Gipsy language (p. 285). On the whole, however, our Scot- tish peasantry, in some districts, do not greatly despise the Tinklers ; at least not to the same extent as the inhabit- ants of some other countries seem to do. When not involved in quarrels with the Gipsies, our country people, with the exception of a considerable portion of the land-owners, were, and are even yet, rather fond of the superior families of the nomadic class of these people, than otherwise (p. 284). This opinion is confirmed by the fact that the Gipsies whom the Rev. Mr. Crabbe has civilized will not now be seen among the others of the tribe, at his annual festival at Southampton. We have already seen, under the head of Continental Gipsies, that "those who are gold-washers in Transylvania and the Banat, have no intercourse with others of their nation ; nor do they like to be called Gipsies " (p. 283). The prejudice of their fellow -crea- tures is a sufficiently potent cause in itself to preserve the identity of the Gipsy tribe in the world. It has made it to resemble an essence, hermetically sealed. Keep it in that position, and it retains its inherent qualities undiminish- ed ; but uncork the vessel containing it, and it might (I do not say it would} evaporate among the surrounding ele- ments (Ed., p. 534). Then we have the way in which the race gradually leave the tent the hive from which they swarm and acquire general itinerant or settled habits. The primitive, original state of the HOW THEY LEAVE THE TENT, YET LOVE THE LANGUAGE. Gipsies is the tent and tilted cart. But as any country can support only a limit- ed number in that way, and as the in- crease of the body is very large, it fol- lows that they must cast about to make a living in some other way, however bit- ter the pill may be which they have to swallow. The nomadic Gipsy portion resembles, in that respect, a water trough ; for the water which runs into it, there must be a corresponding quan- tity running over it. The Gipsies who leave the tent resemble the youth of our small seaports and villages ; for there, society is so limited as to compel such youth to take to the sea or towns, or go abroad, to gain that livelihood which the neighbourhood in which they have been reared denies to them. In the same manner do these Gipsies look back to the tent from which they, or their fa- thers, have sprung. They carry the language, the associations, and the sympathies of their race, and their pecu- liar feelings toward the community, with them ; and as residents of towns have generally greater facilities, 'from others of their race residing near them, for perpetuating their language, than when strolling over the country (Ed., p. 10). Still, they will deny that they are Gipsies, and will rather almost perish than let any one, not of their own race, know that they speak their language in their own households and among their own kindred. They will even deny, or at least hide it from many of their own race (Ed., p. 12). But it is in large towns they feel more at home. They then form little communities among them- selves ; and by closely associating and sometimes huddling together, they can more easily perpetuate their language, as I have already said, than by straggling twos or threes through the country. But their quarrelsome disposition frequent- ly throws an obstacle in the way of such associations. Secret as they have been in keeping their language from even being heard by the public while wander- ers, they are much more so since they have settled in towns (Ed., p. 13). I further inquired of her how many of her tribe were in Scotland. Her an- swer was, " There are several thousand ; and there are many respectable shop- keepers and householders in Scotland that are Gipsies." It was evident from this woman's manner, that she knew much she would not communicate (p. 297). These innkeepers and stone- ware merchants are scarcely to be distinguish- ed as Gipsies : yet they all retain the language, and converse in it among themselves. The females, as is their custom, are particularly active in mana- ging the affairs of their respective con- cerns (p. 347). The love which the Gipsies have for their language is described as follows : It is certain that a Gipsy can be a good man, as the world goes, nay, a very good man, and glory in being a Gipsy, but not to the public. He will adhere to his ancient language, and talk it in his own family ; and he has as much right to do so, as, for example, a Highlander has to speak Gaelic in the Lowlands, or when he goes abroad, and teach it to his children. And he takes a greater pride in doing it, for thus he reasons : " What is English, French, Gaelic, or any other living language compared to mine? Mine will carry me through every part of the known world ; wherever a man is to be found, there is my language spoken. I will find a brother in every part of the world on which I may set my foot ; I will be welcomed and passed along wherever I may go. Freemasonry in- deed ! what is Masonry compared to the brotherhood of the Gipsies ? A lan- guage a whole language is its pass- word. I almost worship the idea of be- ing a member of a society into which I am initiated by my blood and language. I would not be a man if I did not love my kindred, and cherish in my heart that peculiarity of my race [its lan- guage] which casts a halo of glory around it, and makes it the winder of the world ! " (Ed., p. 12.) For, besides the dazzling hold which the Gipsy language takes of the mind of a Gipsy, as the language of those black, mysterious heroes from whom he is de- scended, the keeping of it up forms the foundation of that self-respect which a Gipsy has for himself, amidst the preju- dice of the world ; from which, at the bottom of his heart, whatever his posi- tion in life, or character, or associations, may be, he considers himself separated (Ed., p. 408). They pique themselves on their descent, and on being in pos- session of secrets which are peculiarly and exclusively theirs, and which they imagine no other knows, or will ever 138 MR. BORROW ON THE GIPSIES. know. They feel that they are part and parcel of those mysterious beings who are an enigma to others, no less than to themselves (Ed., p. 402). They are also anxious to retain their language, as a secret among themselves, for the use which it is to them in con- ducting business in markets or other places of public resort. But they are very chary of the manner in which they employ it on such occasions. Besides this, they display all the pride and van- ity in possessing the language which is common with linguists generally (p. 284). It is beyond doubt that the Gipsy lan- guage in Great Britain is broken, but not so broken as to consist of words only ; it consists, rather, of expressions, or pieces, which are tacked together by native words generally small words which are lost to the ordinary ear, when used in conversation. In that respect, the use of Gipsy may be compared to the revolutions of a wheel : we know that the wheel has spokes, but, in its velocity, we cannot distinguish the colour or ma- terial of each individual spoke ; it is only when it stands still that that can be done. In the same manner, when we come to examine into the British Gipsy lan- guage, we perceive its broken nature. But it still serves the purpose of a speech. Let any one sit among English Gipsies, in America, and hear them converse, and he cannot pick up an idea, and hardly a word which they say. " I have always thought Dutch bad enough," said an Irishman, who has often heard English Gipsies, in the State of New Jersey, speak among themselves ; " but Gipsy is perfect gibble-gabble, like ducks and geese, for anything I can make of it" (Ed., p. 432). Had a German listened a whole day to a Gipsy conversation, he would not have understood a single expression. Grellmann. The dialect of the English Gipsies, though mixed with English, is tolerably pure, from the fact of its being intelligi- ble to the race in the centre of Russia. Borrow (Ed., p. 298).* f * I shall only observe, that the way in which the Gipsy language has been cor- rupted is this : That whenever the Gip- sies find words not understood by the people among whom they travel, they How the Gipsies are taught their language is thus explained : Their speech appears to be copious, for, said he, they have a great many words and expressions for one thing. He further stated that the Gipsy lan- guage has no alphabet, or character, by which it can be learned, or its gram- matical construction ascertained. He never saw any of it written. I observed to him that it would, in course of time, be lost. He replied, that " so long as there existed two Gipsies in Scotland, it would never be lost." It was further stated to me, by this family, that the Gip- sies are at great pains in teaching their Children, from their very infancy, their own language ; and that they embrace every opportunity, when by themselves, of conversing in it, about their ordinary affairs (p. 316). I observed to this woman that her language would, in course of time, be lost. She replied, with great serious- ness, " It will never be forgotten, sir ; it is in our hearts, and as long as a single Tinkler exists, it will be remembered " (p. 297). " Yes," replied Ruthven, " I am a Gipsy, and a desperate, murdering race we are. I will let you hear me speak our language, but what the better will you be of that ?" She accordingly ut- tered a few sentences, and then said, " Now, are you any the wiser for what you have heard ? But that infant," pointing to her child of about five years of age, " understands every word I speak." " I know," continued the Tink- ler, " that the public are trying to find out the secrets of the Gipsies, but it is in vain." This woman further stated that her tribe would be exceedingly displeas- ed, were it known that any of their fraternity taught their language to commit such to memory, and use them in their conversation, for the purpose of concealment. In the Lowlands of Scot- land, for example, they make use of Gae- lic, Welsh, Irish, and French words. These picked-up words and terms have, in the end, become part of their own pe- culiar tongue ; yet some of the Gipsies are able to point out a number of these foreign words, as distinguished from their own. In this manner do the Gipsies carry along with them part of the language of every country through which they pass (P- 333). HOW THEY TEACH THE LANGUAGE, AND RESENT CURIOSITY. " strangers." She also mentioned that the Gipsies believe that the laws which were enacted for their extirpation were yet in full force against them. I may mention, however, that she could put confidence in the family in whose house she made these confessions * (p. 294). At first, he appeared much alarmed, and seemed to think I had a design to do him harm. His fears, however, were in a short while calmed ; and, after much reluctance, he gave me the following words and expressions, with the corre- sponding English significations. Like a true Gipsy, the first expression which he uttered, as if it came the readiest to him, was, " Choar a chauvie" (rob that person) which he pronounced with a smile on his countenance (p. 295). He stated to me that, at the present day, the Gipsies in Scotland, when by them- selves, transact their business in their own language, and hold all their ordi- nary conversations in the same speech. In the course of a few minutes, Steed- man's fears returned upon him. He ap- peared to regret what he had done. He now said he had forgotten the language, , and referred me to his father, old An- drew Steedman, who, he said, would give me every information I might re- quire. I imprudently sent him out, to bring the old man to me ; for, when both returned, all further communica- tion, with regard to their speech, was at an end. Both were now dead silent on the subject, denied all knowledge of the Gipsy language, and were evidently under great alarm. The old man would not face me at all ; and when I went to him, he appeared to be shaking and trembling, while he stood at the head of his horses, in his own stable. Young Steedman entreated me to tell no one that he had given me any words, as the Tinklers, he said, would be exceedingly displeased with him for doing so. This man, however, by being kindly treated, * The Gipsies are always afraid to say what they would do in such cases. Per- haps they don't know, but have only a general impression that the individual would " catch it ;" or there may be some old law on the subject. What Ruthven said of her's being a desperate race is true enough, and murderous too, among themselves, as distinguished from the in- habitants generally. Her remark was evidently part of that frightening policy which keeps the natives from molesting the tribe (Ed., p. 294). and seeing no intention of doing him any harm, became, at an after period, communicative, on various subjects rela- tive to the Gipsies * (p. 296). This man conducted himself very po- litely, his behaviour being very correct and becoming; and he seemed much pleased at being noticed, and kindly treated. At first, he spoke wholly in the Gipsy language, thinking that I was as well acquainted with it as himself. But when he found that I knew only a few words of it, he, like all his tribe, stopped in his communications, and, in this instance, began Jo quiz and laugh at my ignorance. On returning to the street, I repeated some of the words to one of the females. She laughed, and, with much good humour, said, " You will put me out, by speaking to me in that language " (p. 329). This is the way in which the Gip- sies resent the curiosity of others in regard to their language : During the following summer, a brother and a cousin of these girls called at my house, selling baskets. The one was about twenty-one, the other fifteen, years of age. I happened to be from home, but one of my family, suspecting them to be Gipsies, invited them into the house, and mentioned to them (although very incorrectly), that I understood every word of their speech. " So I saw," replied the eldest lad, " for when he passed us on the road, some some time ago, I called, in our language, to my neighbour, to come out of the way, and he understood what I said, for he immediately turned round and looked at us." At this moment, one of my daughters, about seven years of age, repeated, in their hearing, the Gipsy word for pot, having picked it up from hearing me mention it. The young Tinklers now thought they were in the midst of a Gipsy family, and seemed quite happy. " But are you really a Nawken? " I asked the eldest of them. " Yes, sir," he replied ; " and to show you I am no impostor, I will give you the names of everything in your house ;" which, in the presence of my family, he did, to the extent I asked of him! " My speech," he continued, " is not the cant of packmen, nor the slang of common thieves " (p. 302). Without entering into any preliminary conversation, for the purpose of smoothing the way for more direct questions, I took him into 140 MR. BORRO W ON THE GIPSIES. my parlour, and at once inquired if he could speak the Tinkler language ? He applied to my question the construction that I doubted if he could, and the con- sequences which that would imply, and answered firmly, " Yes, sir ; I have been bred in that line all my life." " Will you allow me," said I, " to write down your words ? " " O yes, sir ; you are welcome to as many as you please." " Have you names for everything, and can you converse on any subject, in that language ? " " Yes, sir ; we can con- verse, and have a name for everything 1 , in our own speech" (p. 304). Like the Gip- sy woman with wh&m I had no less than seven years' trouble ere getting any of her speech, this Gipsy lad became, in about an hour's time, very restless, and impatient to be gone. The true state of things, in this instance, dawned upon his mind. He now became much alarmed, and would neither allow me to write down his songs, nor stop to give me any more of his words and sen- tences. His terror was only exceeded by his mortification ; and on parting with me, he said that, had he at first been aware I was unacquainted with his speech, he would not have given me a word of it (p. 306). Like the Gipsy chief, in presence of Dr. Bright, at Csurgo, in Hungary, she in a short time became impatient ; and, apparently when a certain hour arrived, she insisted upon being allowed to de- part. She would not submit to be ques- tioned any longer (p. 298). This family, like all their race, now be- came much alarmed at their communica- tions ; and it required considerable trou- ble on my part to allay their fears. The old man was in the greatest anguish of mind at having committed himself at all relative to his speech. I was very sorry for his distress, and renewed my pro- mise not to publish his name, or place of residence, assuring him he had noth- ing to fear (p. 317). When I inquired of the eldest girl the English of Jucal, she did not, at first, catch the sound of the word ; but her little sister looked up in her face and said to her, " Don't you hear ? That is dog. It is dog he means." The other then added, with a downcast look, and a melancholy tone of voice, " You gentle- men understand all languages now-a- days " (p. 293). A gentleman, an acquaintance of mine, was in my presence while the chil- dren were answering my words ; and as the subject of their language was new to him, I made some remarks to him in their hearing, relative to their tribe, which greatly displeased them. One of the boys called out to me, with much bitterness of expression, "You are a Gipsy yourself, sir, or you never could have got these words " (p. 293). It is a thing well-nigh impossible, to get a respectable Scottish Gipsy to ac- knowledge even a word of the Gipsy language. On meeting with a respect- able Scotchman, I will call him in a company, lately, I was asked by him, "Are ye a* Tinklers ? " " We're travel- lers," I replied. " But who is he ? " he continued, pointing to my acquaintance. Going up to him, I whispered, " His dade is a baurie grye-femler '' (his father is a great horse-dealer) ; and he made for the door, as if a bee had got into his ear. But he came back ; oh, yes, he came back. There was a mysterious whispering of " pistols and coffee," at another time (Ed., p. 432). Publish their language ! Give to the world that which they had kept to them- selves, with so much solicitude, so much tenacity, so much fidelity, for three hun- dred and fifty years ! A parallel to such a phenomenon cannot be found within the whole range of history (p. 318). Smith, in his Hebrew People, writes : " The Jews had almost lost, in the seventy years' captivity, their original language ; that was now become dead ; and they spoke a jargon made up of their own language and that of the Chaldeans, and other nations with whom they had mingled. Formerly, preachers had only explained subjects ; now, they were obliged to explain words ; words which, in the sacred code, were become obsolete, equivocal, dead" (Ed., p. 318). When we consider, on strictly philo- sophical principles, the phenomenon of the perpetuation of the Gipsy language, we will find that there is nothing so very wonderful about it after all. The race have always associated closely and exclusively together ; and their lan- guage has become to them like the worship of a household god hereditary, and is spoken among themselves under the severest of discipline (Ed., p. 24). THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GIPSIES. 141 The following facts will explain the idea the Gipsies have of the uni- versality of their race : A word upon the universality of the Gipsies. English Gipsies, on arriving in America, feel quite taken aback, on coming across a tent or wigwam of In- dians. " Didn't you feel," said I to some of them, " very like a dog when he comes across another dog, a stranger to him ? " And with a laugh, they said, "Exactly so." After looking awhile at the Indians, they will approach them, and " cast their sign, and salute them in Gipsy ;" and if no response is made, they will pass on. They then come to learn who the Indians are. The same curiosity is excited among the Gipsies on meeting with the American farmer, on the banks of the Mississippi or Mis- souri ; who, in travelling to market, in the summer, will, to save expenses, un- yoke his horses, at mid-day or evening, at the edge of the forest, light his fire, and prepare his meal. What with the " kettle and tented wagon," the tall, lank, bony, and swarthy appearance of the farmer, the Gipsy will approach him, as he did the Indian ; and pass on, when no response is made to his sign and salutation. Under such circumstances, the Gipsy would cast his sign, and give his salutation, whether on the banks of the Mississippi or the Ganges. Nay, a very respectable Scottish Gipsy boasted to me, that by his signs alone, he could push his way to the wall of China, and even through China itself. And there are doubtless Gipsies in China. Mr. Borrow says, that when he visited the tribe at Moscow, they supposed him to be one of their brothers, who, they said, were wandering about in Turkey, China, and other parts. It is very likely that Russian Gipsies have visit- ed China, by the route taken by Rus- sian traders, and met with Gipsies there.* But it tickles the Gipsy most, when it is insinuated, that if Sir John Franklin had been fortunate in his expe- dition, he would have found a Gipsy tin- * Bell, in an account of his journey to Pekin [17*1], says that upwards of sixty Gipsies had arrived at Tobolsky, on their way to China, but were stopped by the Vice-governor, for want of passports. They had roamed, during the summer season, from Poland, in small parties, subsisting by selling trinkets, and telling fortunes (Ed., p. 430). kering a kettle at the North Pole (Ed., p. 430). The particulars of a meeting between English and American Gipsies are in- teresting. Some English Gipsies were endeavouring to sell some horses in An- napolis, in the State of Maryland, to what had the appearance of being respect- able American farmers ; who, however, spoke to each other in the Gipsy lan- guage, dropping a word now and then, such as " this is a good one," and so on. The English Gipsies felt amazed, and at last said, " What is that you are say- ing? Why, you are Gipsies !" Upon this, the Americans wheeled about, and left the spot as fast as they could. Had the English Gipsies taken after the Gip- sy in their appearance, they would not have caused such a consternation to their American brethren, who showed much of " the blood " in their counte- nances ; but as, from their blood being much mixed, they did not look like Gip- sies, they gave the others a terrible fright, on their being found out. The English Gipsies said they felt disgusted at the others not acknowledging them- selves. But I told them they ought rather to have felt proud of the Ameri- cans speaking Gipsy, as it was the pre- judice of the world that led them to hide their nationality. On making in- quiry in the neighbourhood, they found that these American Gipsies had been settled there since, at least, the time of their grandfather, and that they bore an English name (Ed., p. 431). I accidentally got into conversation with an Irishman, in the city of New York, about secret societies, when he mentioned that he was a member of a great many such, indeed, "all of them," as he expressed it. I said there was one society of which he was not a mem- ber, when he began to enumerate them, and at last came to the Zincali. " What," said I, " are you a member of this so- ciety ? " " Yes," said he ; "the Zincali, or Gipsy/' He then told me that there are many members of this society in the city of New York ; not all members of it, under that name, but of its out- posts, if I may so express it. The prin- cipal or Arch-gipsy for the city, he said, was a merchant, in street, who had in his possession a printed vocabulary or dictionary of the language, which was open only to the most thoroughly initiated. In the course of our conver- 142 MR. BORROW ON THE GIPSIES. sation, it fell out that the native Ame- rican Gipsy referred to at page 420 was one of the thoroughly initiated ; which circumstance explained a question he had put to me, and which I evaded, by saying that I was not in the habit of telling tales out of school. In Spain, as we have seen, a Gipsy taught her language to her son from a MS. I doubt not there are MS., if not printed, vocabularies of the Gipsy lan- guage among the tribe in Scotland, as well as in other countries (Ed., p. 438). The destiny of the Gipsies is thus considered in the following ex- tracts : What is to be the future of the Gipsy race ? A reply to this question will be found in the history of it during the past, as described ; for it resolves itself into two very simple matters of fact. In the first place, we have a foreign race, deemed by itself to be, as indeed it is, universal, introduced into Scotland, for example, taken root there, spread and flourished ; a race that rests upon a basis the strongest imaginable. On the other hand, there is the prejudice of caste towards the name, which those bearing it escape only by assuming an incognito among their fellow-creatures. These two principles, acting upon be- ings possessing the feelings of men, will, of themselves, produce that state of things which will constitute the history of the Gipsies during all time coming, whatever may be the changes that may come over their character and condi- tion. They may, in course of time, lose their language, as some of them, to a great extent, have done already ; but they will always retain a consciousness of being Gipsies. The language may be lost, but their signs will remain, as well as so much of their speech as will serve the purpose of pass-words. " There is something there," said an English Gipsy of intelligence, smiting his breast; "there is something there which a Gipsy cannot explain." And, said a Scottish Gipsy, " It will never be forgotten ; as long as the world lasts, the Gipsies will be Gipsies." What idea can be more preposterous than that of saying, that a change of residence or occupation, or a little more or less of education or wealth, or a change of .character or creed, can eradicate such feelings from the heart of a Gipsy ; or that these circumstances can, by any human possibility, change his descent* his tribe, or the blood that is in his body? How can we imagine this race, arriving in Europe so lately as the fif- teenth century, and in Scotland the century following, with an origin so dis- tinct from the rest of the world, and so treated by the world, can possibly have lost a consciousness of nationality in its descent, in so short a time after arrival ; or, that that can happen in the future, when there are so many circumstances surrounding it to keep alive a sense of its origin, and so much within it to pre- serve its identity in the history of the human family ? Let the future history of the world be what it may, Gipsydom is immortal. This sensation in the minds of the Gipsies, of the perpetuity of their race, creates, in a great mea- sure, its immortality. Paradoxical as it may appear, the way to preserve the ex- istence of a people is to scatter it, pro- vided, however, that it is a race thorough- ly distinct from others, to commence with. When, by the force of circum- stances, it has fairly settled down into the idea that it is a people, those living in one country become conscious of its existence in others ; and hence arises the principal cause of the perpetuity of its existence as a scattered people (Ed., p. 441). It would be well for the reader to consider what a Gipsy is, irrespective of the language which he speaks ; for the race comes before the speech which it uses. That will be done fully in my Disquisition on the Gipsies. The lan- guage, considered in itself, however in- teresting it may be, is a secondary con- sideration ; it may ultimately disappear, while the people who now speak it will remain (Ed., p. 292). Some Gipsies can, of course, speak Gipsy much better than others. It is most unlikely that the Scottish Gipsies, with the head, the pride, and the tena- city of native Scotch, would be the first to forget the Gipsy language. The sen- timents of the people themselves are very emphatic on that head. " It will never be forgotten, sir; it is in our hearts, and, as long as a single Tinkler exists, it will be remembered " (p. 297). "So long as there existed two Gipsies in Scotland, it would never be lost" (p. 316). The English Gipsies admit that the language is more easily preserved in a settled life, but more use- ful to travelling and out-door Gipsies ; DIFFERENCE IN MIXED GIPSIES AND ORDINAR Y NA TIVES, 143 and that it is carefully kept up by both classes of Gipsies. This information agrees with our author's, in regard to the settled Scottish Gipsies. There is one very strong motive, among many, for the Gipsies keeping up their lan- guage, and that is, as I have already said, their self-respect. The best of them believe that it is altogether prob- lematical how they would be received in society, were they to make an avowal of their being Gipsies, and lay bare the history of their race to the world. The prejudice that exists against the race, and against them, they' imagine, were they known to be Gipsies, drives them back on that language which belongs exclusively to themselves ; to say no- thing of the dazzling hold which it takes of their imagination, as they arrive at years of reflection, and consider that the people speaking it have been trans- planted from some other clime. The more intelligent the Gipsy, the more he thinks of his speech, and the more care he takes of it (Ed., p. 433). The difference between the Gip- sies of mixed blood and the ordi- nary natives of the country is thus illustrated : Besides the difference just drawn be- tween the Gipsy and ordinary native that of recognizing and being recog- nized by another Gipsy I may mention the following general distinction be- tween them. The ordinary Scot knows that he is a Scot, and nothing more, un- less it be something about his ancestors of two or three generations. But the Gipsy's idea of Scotland goes back to a certain time, indefinite to him, as it may be, beyond which his race had no exist- ence in the country. Where his ances- tors sojourned, immediately, or at any time, before they entered Scotland, he cannot tell ; but this much he knows of them, that they are neither Scottish nor European, but that they came from the East. The fact of his blood being mix- ed exercises little or no influence over his feelings relative to his tribe, for, mix- ed as it may be, he knows that he is one of the tribe, and that the origin of his tribe is his origin. In a word, he knows that he has sprung from the tent. Sub- stitute the word Scotch for Moor, as re- lated of the black African Gipsies, at page 429, and he may say of himself and tribe, "We are not Scotch, but can give no account of ourselves." * It is a little different, if the mixture of his blood is of such recent date as to connect him with native families ; in that case, he Jias " various bloods " to contend for, should they be assailed ; but his Gipsy blood, as a matter of course, takes precedence. By marrying into the tribe, the connex- ion with such native families gradually drops out of the memory of his descend- ants, and leaves the sensation of tribe exclusively Gipsy. Imagine, then, that the Gipsy has been reared a Gipsy, in the way so frequently described, and that he "knows all about the Gipsies," while the ordinary native knows really nothing about them ; and we have a general idea of what a Scottish Gipsy is, as distinguished from an ordinary Scotchman. If we admit that every native Scot knows who he is, we may readily assume that every Scottish Gipsy knows who he is. But, to place the point of difference in a more striking light, it may be remarked, that the native Scot will instinctively exclaim, that " the pres- ent work has no earthly relation either to him or his folk;" while the Scottish Gipsy will as instinctively exclaim, " It's us, there's no mistake about it ; " and will doubtless accept it, in the main, with a high degree of satisfaction, as the history of his race, and give it to his children as such (Ed., p. 461). A respectable, indeed, any kind of, Scottish Gipsy does not contemplate his ancestors the " Pilgrim Fathers," and "Pilgrim Mothers," too as robbers, although he could do that with as much grace as any Highland or Border Scot, but as a singular people, who doubtless came from the Pyramids ; and their lan- guage, as something about which he really does not know what to think ; whether it is Egyptian, Sanscrit, or what it is. Still, he has part of it ; he loves it ; and no human power can tear it out of his heart. He knows that every in- telligent being sticks to his own, and clings to his descent'; and he considers it his highest pride to be an Egyptian a descendant of those swarthy kings * The tradition among the Scottish Gipsies of being Ethiopians, whatever weight the reader may attach to it, dates as far back, at least, as the year 1615 ; for it is mentioned in the remission under the privy seal, granted to William Auch- terlony, of Cayrine, for resetting John Faa and his followers (Ed., p. 315). 144 MR. BORROW ON THE GIPSIES. and queens, princes and princesses, priests and priestesses, and, "of course, thieves and thievesses, that, like an ap- parition, found their way into, and, after wandering about, settled down in, Scot- land. ' Indeed, he never knew anything else than that he was an Egyptian ; for it is in his blood ; and, what is more, it is in his heart, so that he cannot forget it, unless he should lose his faculties and become an idiot ; and then he would be an Egyptian idiot. How like a Gipsy it was for Mrs. Fall, of Dunbar, to " work in tapestry the principal events in the life of the founder of her family, from the day the Gipsy child came to Dunbar, in its mother's creel, until the same Gipsy child had become, by its own honourable exertions, the head of the first mercantile establishment then existing in Scotland " (Ed., p. 462). The Scottish Gipsies, when their ap- pearance has been modified by a mix- ture of the white blood, have possessed, in common with the Highlanders, the faculty of " getting out " of the original ways of their race, and becoming supe- rior in character, notwithstanding the excessive prejudice that exists against the nation of which they hold them- selves members. Except his strong par- tiality for his blood and tribe, language and signs, such a Gipsy becomes, in his general disposition and ways, like any ordinary native. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. Whenever a Gip- sy, then, forsakes his original habits, and conforms with the ways of the other inhabitants, he becomes, for all practi- cal purposes, an ordinary citizen of the Gipsy clan. If he is a man of good nat- ural abilities, the original wild ambition of his race acquires a new turn; and his capacity fits him for any occupation. Priding himself on being an Egyptian, a member of this world-wide community, he acquires, as he gains information, a spirit of liberality of sentiment ; he reads history, and perceives that every family of mankind has not only been barbarous, but very barbarous, at one time ; and, from such reflections, he comes to con- sider his own origin, and very readily be- comes confirmed in his early, but indis- tinct, ideas of his people, that they real- ly are somebody. Indeed, he considers himself not only as good, but better than other people. His being forced to as- sume an incognito, and " keep as quiet as pussy," chafes his proud spirit, but it does not render him gloomy, for his nat- ural disposition is too buoyant for that. How, then, does such a Scottish Gipsy feel in regard to his ancestors? He feels exactly as Highlanders do, in re- gard to theirs, or, as the Scottish Bor- derers do, with reference to the " Bor- der Ruffians," as I have heard a Gipsy term them. Indeed, the gallows of Perth and Stirling, Carlisle and Jed- burgh, could tell some fine tales of many respectable Scottish people, in times that are past (Ed., p. 462). It is certainly a singular position which is occupied, from generation to generation, and century to century, by our settled Scottish, as well as other, Gipsies, who are not known to the world as such, yet maintain a daily intercourse with others not of their own tribe. It resembles a state of semi-damnation, with a drawn sword hanging over their heads, ready to fall upon them at any moment. But the matter cannot be mended. They are Gipsies, by every physical and mental necessity, and they accommodate themselves to their cir- cumstances as they best may. This much is certain, that they have the ut- most confidence in their incognito, as regards their descent, personal feelings, and exclusively private associations. The word "Gipsy," to be applied to them by strangers, frightens them, in contemplation, far more than it does the children of the ordinary natives ; for they imagine it a dreadful thing to be known to their neighbours as Gipsies. Still they have never occupied any other position ; they have been born in it, and reared in it ; it has even been_ the nature of the race, from the very first, always to " work in the dark." In all probability, it has never occurred to them to imagine that it will ever be otherwise ; nor do they evidently wish it ; for they can see no possible way to have themselves acknowledged, by the world, as Gipsies. The very idea hor- rifies them. So far from letting the world know anything of them, as Gip- sies, their constant care is to keep it in perpetual darkness on the subject. Of all men, these Gipsies may say : " . , . rather bear those ills \ve have, Than fly to others that we know not of." Indeed, the only thing that worries such a Gipsy is the idea that the public should know all about him ; otherwise, he feels a supreme satisfaction in being a Gipsy ; as well as in having such a DIFFERENCE IN MIXED GIPSIES AND ORDINAR Y NA TIVES. 145 history of his race as I have informed him I proposed publishing, provided I do not in any way mix him^ up with it, or " let him out." By bringing up the body in the manner done in this work, by making a sweep of the whole tribe, the responsibility becomes spread over a large number of people ; so that, should the Gipsy become, by any means, known, personally, to the world, he would have the satisfaction of knowing that he had others to keep him com- pany ; men occupying respectable posi- tions in life, and respected, by the world at large, as individuals (Ed., p. 464). The difference of feeling between the two races at the present day proceeds from positive ignorance on the part of the native towards the other ; an ignorance in which the Gipsy would rather allow him to remain ; for, let him turn him- self in whatever direction he may, he imagines he sees, and perhaps does see, nothing but a dark mountain of preju- dice existing between him and every other of his fellow-creatures. He would rather retain his incognito, and allow his race to go down to posterity shroud- ed in its present mystery (Ed., p. 426). It necessarily follows, that the race must remain shrouded in its present mystery, unless some one, not of the race, should become acquainted with its history, and speak for it (Ed., p. 427). In seeking for Gipsies among Scotch people, I know where to begin, but it puzzles me where to leave off. I would pay no regard to colour of hair or eyes, character, employment, position, or in- deed any outward thing. The reader may say : " It must be a difficult mat- ter to detect such mixed and educated Gipsies as those spoken of." It is not only difficult, but outwardly impossible. Such Gipsies cannot even tell each other from their personal appearance ; but they have signs, which they can use, if the others choose to respond to them (Ed., p. 428). For all these reasons, the most appro- priate word to apply to modern Gipsy- ism, and especially British Gipsyism, and more especially Scottish Gipsyism, is to call it a caste, and a kind of ma- sonic society, rather than any particular mode of life. And it is necessary that this distinction should be kept in mind, otherwise the subject will appear con- tradictory (Ed., p. 12). IO Consider, then, that the process which I have attempted to describe has been . going on, more or less, for at least the last three hundred and fifty years ; and I may well ask, where might we ?iof expect to meet with Gipsies, in Scotland, at the present day ? And I reply, that we will meet with them in every sphere of Scottish life, not excepting, perhaps, the very highest. There are Gipsies among the very best Edinburgh families. I am well acquainted with Scotchmen, youths and men of middle age, of edu- cation and character, and who follow very respectable occupations, that are Gipsies, and who admit that ' He was ashamed to do it.' Pity it is that there should be a man in Scotland, who, independent of personal character, should be ashamed of such a thing. Then, see how the Gipsy woman, in our author's house, said that 'the public would look upon her with horror and contempt, were it known she could speak the Gipsy lan- guage.' And again, the two female Gip- sies, who would rather allow themselves to be murdered than give the meaning of two Gipsy words to Sauchie colliers, for the reason that ' it would have exposed their tribe, and made themselves odious to the world.' And all for knowing the Gipsy language ! which would be con- sidered an accomplishment in another person ! What frightful tyranny ! Mr. Borrow, as we will by and'bv see, says a great deal about the law of Charles III., in regard to the prospects of the Spanish Gipsies. But there is a. law above any legislative enactment the law of society, of one's fellow-creatures which bears so hard upon the Gipsies ; the despotism of caste. If Gipsies, in such humble cir- cumstances, are so afraid of being known to be Gipsies, we can form some idea of the morbid sensitiveness of those in a higher sphere of life" (Ed , p. 313). sort to the /// quoque the tit for tat argument as regards their enemies, and ask, " What is this white race, after all ? What were their forefathers a few gen- erations ago ? the Highlands a nest of marauding thieves, and the Borders little better. Or society at the present day what is it but a compound of de- ceit and hypocrisy ? People say that the Gipsies steal. True ; some of them steal chickens, vegetables, and such things ; but what is that, compared to the robbery of widows and orphans, the lying and cheating of traders, the swin- dling, the robberies, the murders, the ig- norance, the squalor, and the debauch- eries of so many of the white race? What are all these, compared to the simple vices of the Gipsies ? What is the ancestry they boast of, compared in point of antiquity to ours ? People may despise the Gipsies, but they cer- tainly despise all others not of their own race : the veriest beggar Gipsy, without shoes to his feet, considers himself bet- ter than the queen that sits upon the throne. People say that Gipsies are blackguards. Well, if some of them are blackguards, they are at least illustrious blackguards as regards descent, and so in fact ; for they never rob each other, and far less do they rob or ruin those of their own family." And they conclude that the odium which clings to the race is but a prejudice (Ed., p. n). With regard to the general politics of the Scottish Gipsies, if they entertain any political sentiments at all, I am con- vinced they are monarchical ; and that were any revolutionary convulsion to loosen the bonds of society, and sepa- rate the lower from the higher classes, they would take to the side of the supe- rior portion of the community. They have, at all times, heartily despised the peasantry, and been disposed to treat menials with great contempt, though, at the very moment, they were begging at the doors of their masters. In the few instances which have come to my know- ledge, of Scottish Gipsies forming matri- monial connexions with individuals of the community, those individuals were not of the working or lower classes of society (p. 366). Indeed, they were al- ways much disposed to treat farm-ser- vants with contempt, as quite their in- feriors in the scale of society; and al- ways boasted of their own high birth, and the antiquity of their family (p. 225). What our author says of the politics 148 MR. BORRO W ON THE GIPSIES. of the Gipsies is rather more applicable to their ideas of their social position. Being a small body in comparison with the general population of the country, they entertain a very exclusive, and con- sequently a very aristocratic idea of themselves, whatever others may think of them ; and therefore scorn the preju- dice of the very lowest order of the com- mon natives (Ed., p. 367). Many of the Gipsies, following the various occupations enumerated, are not now to be distinguished from others of the community, except by the most min- ute observation ; yet they appear a dis- tinct and separate people ; seldom con- tracting marriage out of their own tribe. A tradesman of Gipsy blood will sooner give his hand to a lady's maid of his own race, than marry the highest female in the land ; while the Gipsy lady's maid will take a Gipsy shoemaker, in prefer- ence to any one out of her tribe. A Gipsy woman will far rather prefer, in marriage, a man of her own blood who has escaped the gallows, to the most industrious and best -behaved trades- man in the kingdom. Like the Jews, almost all those in good circumstances marry among themselves, and, I believe, employ their poorer brethren as ser- vants. I have known Gipsies most sol- emnly declare, that no consideration would induce them to marry out of their own tribe ; and I am informed, and con- vinced, that almost every one of them marries in that way. One of them stated to me that, let the'm be in whatever sit- uation of life they may, they all " stick to each other " (p. 369). In the Disquisition on the Gipsies I said that, " It is beyond doubt that there cannot be less than a quarter of a million of Gipsies in the British Isles, who are living under a grinding despotism of caste ; a despotism so absolute and odious, that the people upon whom it bears cannot, as in Scotland, were it almost to save their lives, even say who they are !" (p. 440): and that, " This peculiar family of mankind has been fully three centuries and a half in the country, and it is high time that it should be acknowledged, in some form or other ; high time, certainly, that we should know something about it " (p. 529). In dealing with a question like this, the main thing to be done is to establish a principle, such as will be explained in ihe fol- lowing article on the Social Emanci- pation of the Gipsies. Here I will add some extracts from the Disqui- sition on the Gipsies on the improve- ment of the race generally. As regards the improvement of the Gipsies, I would make the following suggestions : The facts and principles of the present work should be thorough- ly canvassed and imprinted on the pub- lic mind, and an effort made to bring, if possible, our high-class Gipsies to acknowledge themselves to be Gipsies. The fact of these Gipsies being received into society, and respected as Gipsies (as it is with 'them at present, as men), could not fail to have a wonderful effect upon many of the humble, ignorant, or wild ones. They would perceive, at once, that the objections which the community had to them proceeded, not from their being Gipsies, but from their habits only. What is the feeling which Gipsies, who are known to be Gipsies, have for the public at large ? The white race, as a race, is simply odious to them, for they know well the dreadful prejudice which it bears towards them. But let some of their own race, however mixed the blood might be, be respected as Gipsies, and it would, in a great measure, break down, at least in feel- ing, the wall of caste which separates them from the community at large. This is the first, the most important, step to be taken to improve the Gipsies, what- ever may be the class to which they be- long. Let the prejudice be removed, and it is impossible to say what might not follow. Before attempting to reform the Gipsies, we ought to reform, or at least inform, mankind in regard to them ; and endeavour to reconcile the world to them before we attempt to re- concile them to the world ; and treat them as men before we try to make them Christians. The poor Gipsies know well that there are many of their race occupying respectable positions in life ; perhaps they do not know many, or even any, of them personally, but they believe in it thoroughly. Still they will deny it, at least hide it from stran- gers, for this reason, among others, that it is a state to which their children, or even they themselves, look forward, as ultimately awaiting them, in which they THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE GIPSIES. 149 will manage to escape from the odium of their fellow-creatures, which clings to them in their present condition. The fact of the poor travelling Gipsies know- ing of such respectable settled Gipsies, gives them a certain degree of respect in their own eyes, which leads them to repel any advance from the other race, let it come in almost whatever shape it may. The white race, as I have already said, is perfectly odious to them.* This is exactly the position of the question. The more original kind of Gipsies feel that the prejudice which exists against the race to which they belong is such, that an intercourse cannot be maintained be- tween them and the other inhabitants ; or, if it does exist, it is of so clandestine a nature, that their appearance, and, it may be, their general habits, do not al- low or lead them to indulge in it. I will make a few more remarks on this subject further on in this treatise (Ed., p. 436). The latter part of the Gipsy nation, whether settled or itinerant, must be reached indirectly, for reasons which * People often reprobate the dislike, I may say the hatred, which the more origi- nal Gipsy entertains for society ; forget- ting that society itself has had the greatest share in the origin of it. When the race entered Europe, they are not presumed to have had any hatred towards their fel- low-creatures. That hatred, doubtless, sprang from the severe reception and universal persecution which, owing to the singularity of their race and habits, they everywhere met with. The race then be- came born into that state of things. What would subsequent generations know of the origin of the feud ? All that they knew was that the law made them out- laws and outcasts ; that they were sub- ject, as Gipsies, to be hung before they were born. Such a Gipsy might be com- pared to Pascal's man springing up out of an island : casting his eyes around him, he finds nothing but a legal and social proscription hanging over his head, in whatever direction he may turn. What- ever might be assumed to have been the original, innate disposition of a Gipsy, circumstances attending him, from his birth to his death, were certainly not cal- culated to improve him, but to make him much worse than he might otherwise have been. The worst that can be said of the Scottish Gipsies, in times past, has been stated by our author. With all their faults, we find a vein of genuine nobility of character running through all their ac- have already been given ; for it does not serve much purpose to interfere too di- rectly with them, as Gipsies. We should bring a reflective influence- to bear upon them, by holding up to their observa- tion some of their own race in respect- able positions in life, and respected by the world, as men, though not known to be Gipsies. For, in this way, the Gipsies, of all classes, would see that they are not outcasts ; but that the pre- judices which people entertain for them are applicable to their ways of life only, and not to their blood or descent, tribe or language. Their hearts would then become more easily touched, their affec- tions more readily secured ; and the at- tempt made to improve them would have a much better chance of being successful. A little judgment is necessary in con- ducting an intercourse with the wild Gipsy, or, indeed, any kind of Gipsy ; it is very advisable to speak well of ' ' the blood," and never to confound the race with the conduct of part of it. There is hardly anything that can give a poor Gipsy greater pleasure than to tell him something about his people, and par- dons, which is the more worthy of notice, considering that they were at war with soci- ety, and society at war with them. Not the least important feature is that of gratitude for kind and hospitable treatment. In that respect, a true Scottish Gipsy has al- ways been as true as steel ; and that is saying a great deal in his favour. I can- not agree with Mr. Borrow, when he says, that the Gipsies " travelled three thou- sand miles into Europe, with hatred in their hearts towards the people' among whom they settled" In none of the earliest laws passed against them is anything said of their being other than thieves, cheats, etc., etc. They seem to have been too politic to commit murder ; moreover, it appears to have been foreign to their disposition to do aught but obtain a living in the most cunning manner they could. There is no necessary connexion between pur- loining one's property and hating one's person. As long as the Gipsies were not hardly dealt with, they could natural- ly have no actual hatred towards their fellow-creatures. Mr. Borrow attributes none of the spite and hatred of the race towards the community to the severity of the persecutions to which it was exposed, or to that hard feeling with which society has regarded it. These, and the example of the Spaniards, doubtless led the Gi- tanos to shed the blood of the ordinary natives (Ed., p. 433). 150 THE SCOTTISH CHURCHES AND THE GIPSIES. ticularly should they be in a respectable position in life, and be attached to their nation. It serves no great purpose to appear too serious with such a person, for that soorf tires him. It is much bet- ter to keep him a little buoyant and cheerful, with anecdotes and stories, for that is his natural character ; and to take advantage of occasional opportuni- ties, to slip in advices that are to be of use to hirrv What is called long-faced- ness is entirely thrown away upon a Gipsy of this kind (Ed., p. 529). It is the Christian who should be the most ready to take up and do justice to this subject ; for he will find in it a very singular work of Providence the most striking phenomenon in the history of man. In Europe, the race has existed, in an unacknowledged state, for a greater length of time than the Jews dwelt in Egypt. And it is time that it should be introduced to the family of mankind, in its aspect of historical development ; embracing, as in Scotland, members ranging from what are popularly under- stood to be Gipsies, to those filling the first positions in Christian and social society (Ed., p. 532). It is the Christian who should endea- vour to have the prejudice against the name of Gipsy removed, so that every one of the race should freely own his blood to the other, and make it the basis of a kindly feeling, and a bond of brotherhood, all around the world (Ed., P- 534). THE SCOTTISH CHURCHES AND THE SOCIAL EMANCIPA TION OF THE GIPSIES* F) EVEREND SIR : I take the J\ liberty of referring you to the accompanying papers on the Gipsies, a subject that well merits the atten- tion of the Church, inasmuch as to it has belonged, almost exclusively, since the introduction of Chris- tianity, the mission of raising up humanity in the religious, moral, and social aspects of its nature. That being the case with regard to the mere instruction of mankind, it becomes a much greater claim upon the Church, to treat people as men, before attempting to make them Christians, which is so necessary to be done with the Gipsies ; for the feeling that people in general enter- tain for them is not much better than that which is displayed for toads and snakes, or reptiles of some kind. And yet, the Gipsies are physically a fine race of men, and anything but dolts in apprehension or capacity; and, in their way, are very polite at all times, and espe- cially when properly approached by other people. This tribe appeared in Scotland not later than the year 1506. Its existence for generations thereafter has been so established by the rec- ords of tradition, and so many acts of the Scots' Parliament, that its in- troduction and long continuance in the country cannot be questioned. The subject, however, has of late years so greatly passed beyond the attention of the public, that some even doubt the existence of the race at all. The civil and political rights of individuals or corporations may be proscribed by lapse of time ; but such cannot be said of a principle, or of a people, so long as it can perpetuate its existence, whatever the form or aspect of its develop- ment. The Gipsies entered Scotland in possession of a language totally dis- tinct from the Scotch, one word of which they probably did not at first * This, and what is said of John Bunyan and the Jews, formed a communication I addressed to some of the Scottish clergy, early in 1871. THE SOCIAL EMANCIPA TION OF THE GIPSIES. understand. They arrived com- pletely organized, in the form of tribes, provincial chieftains, and a king over all, with their hand against every man, and the hand of every man (at least in feeling) against them. In short, they were a robber tribe, which held in the highest esti- mation successful and undiscovered theft, practised, with some excep- tions, on all outside of their own fraternity. They were not originally a part of the native population that separated from the community, dur- ing a social, religious tor political convulsion, and adopted habits that made them outcasts from society, and afterwards regained their social standing among their own race, by resuming their original habits ; but were a people differing nearly as much from the inhabitants of Scot- land, as the Indians did from the colonists settling in America. They were thus not Gipsies in consequence of certain habits, so that a change of habits, or the acquisition of means, or education, or creed, could not change them from being Gipsies into some other family, tribe or race. 1 have spoken of the singular feeling that is entertained for the Gipsies. In the face of that feel- ing, does it surprise you to be told that the race should hide everything connected with itself from others? It would be contrary to the simplest instincts of nature and all experi- ence, should they have done other- wise ; or that they should not " marry among themselves," like the Jews, and " stick to each other," what- ever may be their positions in life. Hence, the tribe have so far suc- ceeded in preventing other people from knowing almost anything con- nected with them, that their very existence as Gipsies is almost, if not altogether, doubted, if not denied. A very natural question to ask is, Where have the Gipsies gone to ? Has their fate been that of the lost ten tribes, which, it is generally ad- mitted, is beyond the reach of in- vestigation ? How could that be predicated of a people of such recent introduction among civilized na- tions that really belongs to con- temporary history, and is to be found in existence among us to- day ? How unreasonable it is to con- clude that the tribe has ended in nothing, rather than by a careful examination and induction discover the real history of it ! You thus see that the subject becomes one of dis- interested and serious inquiry, in which there should be shown none of that apathy and contempt, and unreflecting incredulity, that is gen- erally manifested, and is so un- worthy of the age in which we 'live, and especially of men of educa- tion, and social and'official standing in society. Speak of civilized Gipsies, and even intelligent people become be- wildered as to the meaning of the phrase, or rise in arms against the idea, and demand proof that there is, or even can be, such a phenome- non in existence as a civilized Gip- sy. I, of course, appeal to the fact, in all its bearings, showing how it is a fact, and state, as a simple elementary truth, that the children or descendants of Gipsies are Gip- sies, whatever their habits, charac- ter or position in life may be ; leav- ing to the intuitive intelligence of others to realize the fact, as explain- ed, and to their candour to acknow- ledge it. I might even turn upon such objectors, and ask them what they mean, when they speak of Gip- sies of any kind, and what these or their descendants must do to divest themselves of the character of be- longing to a tribe that is to be found everywhere, and become different from what, in regard to blood, feel- ings and associations, they really are. Indeed, a remark of that kind gene- rally closes the door to all further questions or objections of that na- ture. I might also expatiate on the unreasonableness of people dogma- 152 THE SOCIAL EMANCIPA TION OF THE GIPSIES. tizing on a subject on which (as it may be) they know nothing person- ally, and can appeal to no one bet- ter informed on the point than themselves. I readily admit, in a general way, the truth of the adage, " out of sight, out of mind ; " but I decidedly object to its being applied to the Gipsies to mean " out of sight, out of existence." To the world at large, the subject of civilized Gipsies is a new idea (although an old fact), that is very apt to be objected to because it is a new idea, for the reason that people allege they do not understand it. But do people in every instance un- derstand what all admit to be facts ? Do they even understand what a Gipsy of the popular kind means ? We in reality understand little of what we believe, and it has been well said, that if we believed only what we understood, we would all have remarkably short creeds. As people have believed in Gipsies of the popular kind without really un- derstanding the subject, or giving it a serious thought, so might they be- lieve in those more or less civilized, on 'the simple ground that they are the children or descendants of ordi- nary Gipsies, having their blood, an inherent sense of being members of the tribe, and some of the language and signs peculiar to themselves, like a Masonic society, although the possession of these words and signs is not absolutely necessary to con- stitute them Gipsies; for the mere consciousness of the fact of being Gipsies, transmitted from genera- tion to generation, and made the basis of marriages and the intimate associations of life, is in itself per- fectly sufficient. Hence, we can understand the meaning of Gipsy lady's maids, Gipsy fiddlers at par- ties, Gipsy spae-wives, and Gipsies in other spheres of life, mentioned by the author, whose facts, in the language of an American writer, are " so obviously derived from personal observation or conscientious inqui- ry, and so unaffectedly related," as to command belief; to say nothing of what I have added, in the way of facts and philosophy, establishing the perpetuation of the Gipsy na- tionality in a settled and civilized state. You will thus see, as a result of the Gipsy nationality, forced as it has been to hide itself from the rest of the world, that a bond of sympa- thy exists between its members when they happen to meet, and that no- thing can be more natural or credi- ble. But, however natural or credi- ble, we find the following singular comments on the subject in All the Year Round, for the i;th March, 1866 : " Another craze, hitherto not general, but which, if believed in, will throw over society a delightful if slightly madden- ing amount of mystery, has been put forth in a certain book, written by a Scottish enthusiast, by which it appears that both Scotland and England are penetrated through and through with Gipsy blood, and that men and women whom we had all along taken for douce and honest Anglo-Saxons, or at the least Celts of the true breed, are nothing better than Gipsies." " Our lady's maids may be Gipsies, with fair hair and blue eyes, ' chattering Gipsy ' secretly to other ' romany managies,' likewise cun- ningly disguised. Soldiers and sailors may mset other ' Nawkens ' or Gipsies like thsmselves in the enemy's camp, and cry, ' Zincali ! zincali ! ' as at the discovery of a brother . . . but we do not believe it. Nothing is easier than to make up a mystery [?]. . . . It is all one to the mystery-monger, provided only he can weave his webs with the faintest show of reason." " Once admit this base of secrecy, and you may build on it the most gigantic pyramid of mar- vel you choose." " We may be excused if we somewhat doubt the accuracy of statements which cannot be proved by any modern methods known to us." [As if research and observation, and the sa- tisfying ourselves as to facts, were not " modern methods known to us " ! Or that one can doubt the " secrecy " that characterizes the Gipsies !] We thus see how mere novelists THE SOCIAL EMANCIPA TION OF THE GIPSIES. 153 treat a question like the present. Their minds seem to be so besotted with fiction, as not, in a matter of this kind, to be capable of distin- guishing between fact and fable. As a class, or almost invariably, they are anything but men of science or philosophy. With their tawdry senti- mentality and improbable coinci- dence of circumstances, and all their " mystery - mongering," they cannot produce anything of lasting interest, that can approach facts, when found out of the beaten track, and seem jealous of them in conse- quence. A man of Dickens' stand- ing might naturally have been sup- posed to become fired with the new ideas presented to him, so as to make them the subject of one of his powerful romances ; but that would have been inconsistent with his genius, which preferred to stick to what people already admitted ; so that he proved but " an ordinary personage " on the occasion, assum- ing that he was the writer of the article in question. Does the re- mark of Bunsen, in his Egypt's Place in Universal History, hold good, when he says : " Sound judgment is displayed rather in an aptness for believing what is histori- cal, than in a readiness at denying it. . . . Shallow minds have a decided propensity to fall into the latter error." " Incapability of believing on evidence is the last form of the intellectual imbe- cility of an enervated age, and a warn- ing sign of impending decay." * * Mr. Lei and, in his English Gipsies, writes: "Mr. Dickens has set before us Cheap Jacks, and a number of men who were, in their very face, of the class of which I speak ; but I cannot recall in his writings any indication that he knew that these men had a singular secret life with their confreres, or that they could speak a strange language ; for we may well call that language strange which is, in the main, Sanscrit, with many Persian words intermingled. Mr. Dickens, how- ever, did not preten-d, as some have done, to specially treat of Gipsies, and he made no affectation of a knowledge of any mysteries. He simply reflected popular life as he saw it " (p. 5). Dickens' making In an article in Black-wood's Maga- zine, for May, 1866, it is said : "If an enterprising traveller gets starved to death in Australia, or frozen up at the North Pole, or eaten by the natives .in Central Africa, at least he reaps the glory of the venture. But to penetrate into Gipsydom . . . offers no sort of honour or credit by way of reward." The motive here presented rises no higher than the one described by Samuel Johnson, when he said, that such a one " would tumble in a pig- stye, if he could but get people to come and admire him." I admit that the subject of the Gipsies, so far as it is understood, and as Black- wood will have, or will allow, it to be understood, presents little interest to the world, if it means only a cer- tain style of life that may cease at any moment. The reviewer abso- lutely ignores the allusions of the author to the Gipsies, in a greatly mixed state, as regards blood, and in a settled and civilized condition, and characterizes my additions to the work in the following terms : "But they [some of the facts and anecdotes] have unfortunately been mixed up on the editor's part with so much w^ld speculation, and so many unsupported assertions, which are made to pass for arguments." "These ac- cessories take, up nearly half of the volume, which would be much more readable in every way if they had been omitted." That is, if all I have added were represented by blank paper, litera- ture and the world at large would have been gainers ! That conserv- atism which might be termed Black- woodism could go no further. How does this writer know that these ad- ditions are " wild speculations " and " unsupported assertions " ? It never seems to have occurred to him that his additions to the subject are no pretence of any knowledge of the Gipsies was a good reason why he should not have allowed the article in question to appear in All the Year Round. 154 THE SOCIAL EMANCIPA TION OF THE GIPSIES. " wild speculations " and " unsup- ported assertions," in all probability got up to meet a special order from the shop. The fact is, the author had a grievance against the Blackwoods, and I have a letter from Blackwood the elder, stating that he will have his MS. searched for. In sending the MS. home for publication, I un- fortunately omitted to say that it was not to be given to the Black- woods ; and, as bad luck would have it, it went straight to their shop. There it remained for nearly three years, the firm, so far as is known, acting the dog in the manger that is, they would neither take it, nor allow it to be offered to another. A correspondence ensued, and a de- termination was come to to com- mence legal proceedings against them, which I presume were threat- ened, for the MS. very soon made its appearance, after I had given it up as lost, for the fifth time. Not- withstanding that, the article con- tinues : " The book has a wandering history of its own. . . . Even now it has been banished the realm, and shipped off to America [!], and there at last it has found its way into print." It was indeed a pity that it had not been altogether " burked." The younger Blackwoods seem to have conceived a spite for the work, aris- ing, I presume, from their father and their magazine having been so much mixed up with it, in its incep- tion and origin, of which they were doubtless ashamed, in the present popular feeling towards the subject. As for a civilized Gipsy, the maga- zine (on what authority does not appear) scoffs at the idea, and says, *' Very few [it might have said none] can have realized it, as set forth in this book " an interesting admis- sion. Space will not permit me to say much about the history of the Gip- sies, as the blood becomes mixed with native. The question is very fully discussed in the work. The humblest native will tell you that he "would as soon take a toad to his bosom, as marry a tinkler." The consequence is, that when an amal- gamation does take place, the pro- geny naturally and instinctively go with the " toad " and the toad's peo- ple ; and if they are settled Gipsies, everything is kept a profound se- cret from the relations on the " other side of the house," and an ab- solute separation ensues if they are Gipsies of the old stock. You can thus see that the native element in- troduced /// detail^ into the body of Gipsydom goes with that body, and in feeling becomes incorporated with it, although in physical appear- ance it so changes the Gipsy race, that it becomes " confounded with the residue of the population," but remains Gipsy as before ; and that, instead of the Gipsies becoming lost among the native population, a cer- tain part of the native blood becomes lost among them, adding greatly to the number of the body. It would be unreasonable to say that a thing does not exist among the Esquimaux, because it is not to be found among the New Zealanders, or vice versa. Analogy has its use, no doubt; but everything must be settled on its own merits, although JBlackwood seems to think otherwise, for in reference to the Gipsies be- coming wedged in among native families, he says : " If your great -great-grand father had the eccentric taste to marry a Hotten- tot, you have at least the comfort of thinking that by this time the cross must have pretty nearly disappeared." What astonishes me the most, in connexion with the subject of the Gipsies, is, that writers, like the present one, should dogmatize so positively on what are in reality matters of fact of which they ap- parently know nothing ; which can hardly be said of any other subject of which the mind takes cognizance. You might as well take some people THE SOCIAL EMANCIPATION OF THE GIPSIES. 155 with a warrant, or dispossess them of their properties, as disturb them in their ideas, however ill-founded.* In one of his articles in Black- wood's Magazine, the author, in re- ference to the more original kind of Gipsy, said : "What vexed me not a little was, when I put questions on the subject to sensible individuals, they generally burst out a-laughing, and asked me, ' Who would trouble themselves about tink- lers ? ' Such is, and has been, the con- duct and manners of the Gipsies, that the very word tinkler excites merriment whenever it is mentioned. 7 ' In Scotland to-day, most people are surprised when the word Gipsy is mentioned, and will ask, " Do you mean thae tinkler bodies? Wha would bother themselves wi' a wheen tinklers ? " In the work, the author wrote : " The fact is, the Gipsies have hitherto been so completely despised, and held * in such thorough contempt, that few ever thought of, or would venture to make inquiries of them relative to, their ancient customs and manners ; and that, when any of their ceremonies were actually observed by the people at large, they were looked upon as the mere frolics, the unmeaning and extravagant practices of a race of beggarly thieves and vagabonds, unworthy of the slight- est attention or credit." The apathy and contempt, and unreflecting incredulity, here spoken of, naturally blind people to facts the most obvious and incontestable, and become, under Providence, a complete protection against any in- * It is hardly necessary for me to point out the trifling fallacy in comparing the idea of being a member of the Gipsy tribe, that exists in Scotland and every other country, with that of a person hav- ing had a remote ancestor from one of the tropical countries visited by Scotch- men. And yet there is some of such blood in the country. So accustomed are people to be influenced by what is conventional only, that few could attach a meaning to the phrase " a Scotch Negro," while that of "American Negro "would pass current anywhere. quiry regarding the tribe, in the singular position which it occupies in the world. In the work, I have said : " As the Jews, during their pilgrimage in the Wilderness, were protected from their enemies by a cloud, so have the Gipsies, in their increase and develop- ment, been shielded from theirs by a mist of ignorance, which, it would seem, requires no little trouble to dis- pel." I think I have said enough to create in your mind a curiosity and interest towards the subject of the Gipsies, and the more so by the many narrow escapes the MS. had from being lost, and the peculiar way the work is now brought under your notice. What, under Provi- dence, may be its ultimate destiny in Scotland, will depend greatly up- on those to whom this communica- tion is addressed. There is to be encountered, in the first place, the prejudice (I will not call it the hos- tility) of centuries, that has become a feeling of caste the most difficult thing to grapple with. Yet no one can be blamed for that feeling ; it is but the result of preceding causes or circumstances. It has had this effect upon the tribe, that they are " ashamed " to let it be known that they are Gipsies, and (as it may be) can speak the language ; and they think they "would become odious" to the world, and would be " looked on with horror and contempt," in consequence. The result is, that the subject has become like a substance hermetically sealed from the public, which retains its inherent qualities undiminished when kept in that po- sition. It is unfortunate that there should be such a feeling entertained for a people that have lived in Scotland for 365 years. It cannot be said that it is applied to other Gipsies than those of the old stock, for the question has never been tested. The organs of society do not seem to have noticed the subject, perhaps I 5 6 THE SOCIAL EMANCIPA TION OF THE GIPSIES. for the reason that they do not think the people will receive what they may say in regard to it. It is on that account I have addressed this letter to you, with the hope that you will consider it a duty, a privi- lege, and a pleasure, to do some- thing in the way of diffusing a knowledge and creating an opinion on the subject, and a sympathy and respect for the people described. Your position in society is very in- fluential, and the liberality of your education, particularly as regards logic and metaphysics, gives you a great advantage in drawing the dis- tinctions necessary to be made, in investigating the subject treated. I do not mean that you should neces- sarily take any public or official no- tice of it, but that, as a private Christian'gentleman, you should do your best, among your friends and neighbours, to bring about a change of ideas and feelings, in a quiet, genial, and gradual manner, as the ruder season passes into the more gentle, and as a purely social and moral movement should be made ; just as Christianity itself, in its gen- eral principles, spread its benign influences over all that came within its reach. I intend sending this communication to all the Scotch clergy, and many people holding positions of trust and influence, as well as to the press ; in short, to people who will not be apt to " laugh " at the subject, when they come to understand what it means, so that no hesitation need be shown in alluding to it in society. What is wanted, is to " make a beginning," and it will happen, as in most mat- ters, that difficulties will disappear, or will not prove so formidable as at first imagined. The leading ideas to be kept in mind, in such a movement, should be, \st. That the subject of the Gip- sies should be investigated and de- cided on its merits, whatever the consequences. 2d. That no Scotch- man is to be disparaged on account of his blood, but should be treated on his individual merits, as ordi- narily recognized by society. 3^. That being a Gipsy should entitle the person to greater honour, in proportion to his good character, and the hard name the race has hitherto borne, ^th. That it would be gratifying to have the race " clothed and in its right mind," and " raised up and openly acknow- ledged," and respected by the rest of the population. $th. That it would be interesting, and every way advantageous to themselves and the community at large, for the tribe to acknowledge themselves freely and openly, and form them- selves into societies for such pur- poses as the world recognizes. 6th. That it should be a credit, rather than a disparagement, for any one to speak the Gipsy language. *jth. That the word Gipsy should invari- ably begin with a capital letter. To show you Jiow the ideas of so- ciety change, I may remind you that not long ago none but such as led about bears, monkeys, and raccoons, would dare to wear beards and mustaches ; but that soon thereafter they became fashionable among all kinds of people, not excepting grave and reverend clergymen. WAS JOHN BUNYAN A GIPSY f AS regards the nationality of John Bunyan, it can be said that he told us most positively what he was, and v/hat he was not, and it would be strange if no intelligible meaning could be attached to what he in- formed us on that head. You know that we hang people on circumstan- tial evidence, actually hang them on the mere force of circumstances, without direct proof, and justly so. Cannot we then use such evidence to prove a simple fact regarding the nationality of a man whose praises are in all the Churches, and indeed in all the world, when every moral and religious, every humane and God-like purpose is to be served by it ? And why cannot a question of that kind be settled by society by as rigid rules as would be enforced in a court of justice? Each juryman is sworn to decide by the evidence laid before him, and in no other way. He is also challenged, and if he has already made up his mind on the case, he is excluded. A witness is sworn, and can be imprisoned if he will not testify, and if he testifies falsely, sent to the hulks. In Grace Abounding, John Bun- yan says : " For my descent, it was, as is well known to many, of a low and inconsid- erable generation, my father's house being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families of the land." Here he speaks most positively of what he was that is, the meanest and most despised of ALL the families of the land ; and as positively of what he was not : " Another thought came into my mind, and that was, whether we [his family and relations] were of the Israel- ites or no ? For finding in the Scrip- tures that they were once the peculiar people of God, thought I, if I were one of this lace [how significant is the ex- pression !] my soul must needs be hap- py, Now, again, I found within me a great longing to be resolved about this question, but could not tell how I should. At last I asked my father of it, who told me, No, we [his father included] were not." Can we possibly apply the lan- guage contained in these two ex- tracts to any other than the Gipsies ? To assert that Bunyan was not a Gipsy, but a tinker, would be as meaningless as to say that he was not a Gipsy, but a tailor. There can be no question that the genera- tion and family to which he belong- ed were Gipsies the meanest and most despised of all those of the land, where they had lived for up- wards of a century, and had existed in Europe for more than two centu- ries. Hence, as the tribe is an enig- ma to itself, no less than to others, the question, and the great trouble to solve it, on John Bunyan's part, to ascertain whether he was a Jew. Could the language quoted, by any possibility, mean that he was a com- mon native of England of any kind or calling ? But why did he not say plainly that he was a Gipsy ? Sim- ply for the reason that it' was death by law to be a Gipsy, and " felony without benefit of clergy " for " any person, being fourteen years, whe* ther natural-born subject or stran- ger, who had been seen in the fel- lowship of such persons, or dis- guised like them, and remained with them one month at once or several times ; " to say nothing of the popu- lar odium attaching to the name, which was, in all probability, the greatest reason he had for not using the word, as it is the greatest bar (I might say the only bar) to his na- tionality being acknowledged to- (157) WAS JOHN BUN VAN A GIPSY? day. Even in the United States, I find intelligent and liberal-minded Scotchmen, twenty years absent from their native country, saying, " I would not like it to be said," and others, " I would not have it said that Bunyan was a Gipsy." Notwith- standing all that, the writer in Black- wood says : "John Bunyan was so exceedingly plain-spoken, that he would most likely have called himself a Gipsy if he were really one," even if he were to be hanged for it, or treated as a felon " without ben- efit of clergy," and incurred the odium of his fellow-creatures of the native race, when there was no call or occasion for him to say anything about his ancestry or family ; and that, " Our editor's idea of a ' conclusive ' proof is a defiance and anathema to any who shall dare to assert the contrary." It sounds strange, as coming from the seat of legal science in Scotland, to be told that a thing cannot be proved against a man unless he con- fesses it ; and that he is not even to be believed on the point if he does confess it, but declines using a word to which the law and society attach so severe a penalty as the one in question. You will perceive at once the bearing that Bunyan's nationality will have on the raising up of the name of the Gipsy tribe. People will get accustomed and reconciled to the idea, and entertain a becom- ing respect for it, were it only on his account; for it unfortunately hap- pens that, owing to the peculiarity of their origin, and the prejudice of the rest of the population, the race hide the fact of their being Gipsies from the rest of the world, as they acquire settled habits, or even leave the tent, so that they never get the credit of any good that may spring from them as a people.* * What follows did not appear in the paper sent to the Scottish clergy. In the Disquisition on the Gipsies^ I have said that " the world never can do justice to Bunyan unless it takes him up as a Gipsy ; nor can the Christian, unless he considers him as being a Gipsy, in Abraham's bosom. His biographers have not, even in one instance, done justice to him ; for, while it is altogether out of the question to call him the ' wicked tinker,' the * depraved Bun- yan,' it is unreasonable to style him a ' blackguard,' as Southey has done" (p. 519). The argument showing that he was a Gipsy is very fully given on pages 506-523. I may give here a few extracts bear- ing on his nationality generally : John Bunyan has told us as much of his history as he dared to do. It was a subject upon which, in some respects, he doubtless maintained a great reserve; for it cannot be supposed that a man occupying so prominent and popular a position, as a preacher and writer, and of so singular an origin, . should have had no investigations made into his his- tory, and that of his family ; if not by his friends, at least by his enemies, who seemed to have been capable of doing anything to injure and discredit him.* But, very probably, his being 1 a tinker was, with friends and enemies, a cir- cumstance so altogether discreditable, as to render any investigation of the kind perfectly superfluous. In mention- ing that much of himself which he did, Bunyan doubtless imagined that the world understood, or would have under- stood, what he meant, and would, sooner or later, acknowledge the race to which he belonged. And yet it has remained in this unacknowledged state for two centuries since his time. How unreason- able it is to imagine that Bunyan should have said, in as many words, that he was a Gipsy, when the world generally is so apt to become fired with indigna- tion, should we now say that he was " one of the race. How applicable are * It is not impossible that people inti- mate with Bunyan learned from his own mouth that he was a Gipsy, but suppress- ed the information, under the influence of the unfortunate prejudice that exists against the name, with all the timidity that makes sheep huddle together when attacked by a ravenous animal. WAS JOHN BUN VAN A GIPSY? 159 the words of his wife, to Sir Matthew Hale, to the people of the present day : " Because he is a tinker, and a poor man, he is despised, and cannot have justice." John Bunyan was simply a Gipsy of mixed blood, who must have spoken the Gipsy language in great purity ; for, considering the ex- tent to which it is spoken in England to-day, we can well believe that it was very pure two centuries ago, and that Bunyan might have written works even in that language (p. 516). To a candid and unprejudiced person, it should afford a relief, in thinking of the immortal dreamer, that he should have been a member of this singular race, emerging from a state of compara- tive barbarism, and struggling upwards, amid so many difficulties, rather than he should have been of the very lowest of our own race ; for in that case, there is an originality and dignity connected with him personally, that could not well at- tach to him, in the event of his having belonged to the dregs of the common natives. Beyond being a Gipsy, it is impossible to say what his pedigree really was. His grandfather might have been an ordinary native, even of fair birth, who, in a thoughtless moment, might have " gone off with the Gipsies ;" or his ancestor, on the native side of the house, might have been one of the "many English loiterers" who joined the Gipsies on their arrival in England, when they were "esteemed and held in great admiration;" or he might have been a kidnapped infant ; or such a " foreign tinker " as is alluded to in the Spanish Gipsy edicts, and in the Act of Queen Elizabeth, in which men- tion is made of " strangers," as distin- guished from natural-born subjects, be- ing with the Gipsies. The last is most probable, as the name, Bunyan, would seem to be of foreign origin. It is, therefore, very likely that there was not a drop of common English blood in Bunyan's veins. John Bunyan belongs to the world at large, and England is only entitled to the credit of the forma- tion of his character. Be all that as it may, Bunyan's father seems to have been a superior, and therefore important, man in the tribe, from the fact, as Southey says, of his having " put his son to school in an age when very few of the poor were taught to read and write " (p. 518). The day is gone by when it cannot be said who John Bunyan was. In Cow- per's time his name dare not be men- tioned, " lest it should move a sneer." Let us hope that we are living in happier times. Tinkering was Bunyan's occu- pation ; his race the Gipsy a fact that cannot be questioned. His having been a Gipsy adds, by contrast, a lustre to his name, and reflects an immortality upon his character ; and he stands out, from among all the men of the latter half of the seventeenth century, in all his soli- tary grandeur, a monument of the grace of God, and a prodigy of genius. Let us, then, enroll John Bunyan as the first (that is known to the world) of eminent Gipsies, the prince of allegorists, and one of the most remarkable of men and Christians. What others of this race there may be who have distinguished themselves among mankind, are known to God and, it may be, some of the Gip- sies. The saintly Doctor to whom I have alluded was one of this singular people ; and one beyond question, for his admission of the fact cannot be de- nied by any one. Any life of John Bunyan, or any edition of his works, that does not contain a record of the fact of his having been a Gipsy, lacks the most important feature connected with the man that makes everything re- lating to him personally interesting to mankind (p. 523). The innkeeper evidently thought him- self in bad company, when our author asked him for the Tinkler's house, or that any intercourse with a Tinkler would contaminate and degrade him. In this light read an anecdote in the history of John Bunyan, who was one of the same people, as I shall afterwards show. In applying for his release from Bedford jail, his wife said to Justice Hale, " Moreover, my lord, I have four small children that cannot help them- selves, of which one is blind, and we have nothing to live upon but the charity of good people." Thereat Justice Hale, looking very soberly on the matter, said, " Alas, poor woman ! " " What is his calling ? " continued the judge. And some of the company, that stood by, said (evidently in interruption, and with a bitter sneer), " A tinker, my lord ! " " Yes," replied Bunyan's wife, " and be- cause he is .a tinker, and a poor man, therefore he is despised, and cannot have justice." Noble woman ! wife of a noble Gipsy ! If the world wishes to know who John Bunyan really was, it i6o WAS JOHN BUNYAN A GIPSY? can find him depicted in our author's visit to this Scottish Gipsy family ; where it can also learn the meaning of Bunyan, at a time when Jews were legally ex- cluded from England, taking so much trouble to ascertain whether he was of * A rather singular notice of the His- tory of the Gipsies appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, for August, 1866, in which the Disquisition is described as "of amusing- ly pompous and inconsequent nature." And yet the writer speaks of the argu- ment showing that John Bunyan was a Gips)', as being such, that the reader "makes no struggle to escape the conclu- sion thus skilfully sprung upon him ;" which would show that that part of the Dis- quisition, at least, was anything but " in- consequent." He speaks of the theory of Bunyan having been a Gipsy as some- thing "invented," seemingly ignorant of the fact that it is an " invented theory," and a very foolish one at that, that he was a common Englishman. It would be interesting to have an argument in favour of the common native hypothesis, beyond the trifling remarks made by Blackwood, which were amply anticipated in the Dis- quisition. In the face of what Bunyan said of himself, it is very unreasonable to hold that he was not a Gipsy, but a com- mon native, when the assumption is all the* other way. Let neither, however, be assumed, but let an argument in favour of both be placed alongside of the other, to see how the case would look. The writer in the Atlantic goes on to say: "His subject has been too much for him, and his mental vision, disordered by too ardent contemplation of Gipsies, reproduces them wherever he turns his thought. If he values any one of his il- lusions above the rest for they all seem equally pleasant to him it is his persua- sion that John Bunyan was a Gipsy." It is amusing to notice the presumption of this gentleman rushing in, in the sheer- est wantonness, where, not an angel, but even a fool would fear to tread in speak- ing of the contents of the work being " il- lusions," when the subjects specially treated appear to have been unknown to him, and evidently beyond his compre- hension or candour. He concludes with the remark : " Otherwise, the work is a mass of rather interesting rubbish." It would be interesting to know how such ignorance and lack of the ordinary courtesies could have gained admittance to the pages of the Atlantic. Perhaps the following will partly explain it : " Will it be believed that the inventor of this theory [that Bunyan was a Gipsy] was denied admittance to the columns of the religious newspapers in this country, that race or not. From the present work generally, the world can learn the reason why Bunyan said nothing of his ancestry and nationality, when giv- ing an account of his own history (Note of Ed., p. 313).* on the flimsy pretext [in one instance] that the editor could not afford the space for a disquisition on John Bunyan's Gipsy origin ? " That will be very easily believed, if we consider the difficulty experienced in getting a hearing for any new idea, let it be what it may, and especially if it would unsettle the belief of the world in regard to John Bunyan, however much it might add to his reputation and the interest attaching to him. It was there- fore anything but becoming that this writer should have had the discourtesy to insinuate and more than insinuate that what I had stated was not true ; and ap- parently made it the grounds of his thoughtless, undignified, and ungrateful remarks about the work generally. It also indicated a low cast of natural intel- ligence, whatever the education or train- ing, that was anything but creditable to the latitude of Boston. It is doubtful whether a religious or almost any kind of paper has, up to the present time, fairly admitted the idea of John Bunyan having been a Gipsy into its columns ; to say noth- ing of stating it at any length, and giving an opinion whether the question has been settled, or even rendered probable, or not. I think that the argument is suffi- ciently "consequent" to hang a man, especially if, as the writer in the Atlantic says, it is such that the reader " makes no struggle to escape the conclusion thus skilfully sprung upon him." Blackwooa and the Atlantic doubtless hold themselves to be the high-priests of criticism, each in his own country, whose prerogative, sometimes, is rather to endeavour to sup- press what contributes to knowledge ; playing a part that is a useful though an ignoble one. The remarks of the follow- ing journals, although they show a timid- it)- or an aversion to entertain the ques- tion, are yet couched in language that entails no discredit on them : " If our readers are unconvinced, let them not confess it" (Pall Mall Gazette). 11 He thinks that because John Bunyan was a tinker [and for other reasons], he was al- most certainly [rather altogether] of Gipsy origin. . . . We may possibly, some day, devote an article to this strange peo- ple " (British Quarterly}. " But we are getting on dangerous ground, and as we have no wish to illustrate the proverb, we break off before catching the Gipsy's hypothetical ancestor" (Westminster Re- view). Englishmen, generally, are not in THE DUKE OF ARGYLL ON THE PRESERVATION OF THE JEWS. IN thinking of the Gipsies, an allu- sion to the Jews is natural. Many hold that their existence since the dispersion is a miracle, and others that it is a special providence. Now, miracles are of two kinds; one iri which the hand of man does not ap- pear, as in the burning bush, and the other in which it does appear both appealing palpably to the sen- ses. In no meaning of the word, then, can the existence of the Jews since the dispersion be a miracle ; nor can it be a special providence, for as Providence creates and sus- tains us, and numbers our years, and counts the hairs on our heads, feeds the sparrows, and clothes the lilies of the field " preserving and gov- erning all his creatures, and all their actions " there is no room for a special providence. Revelation and miracles, providence and grace are the only attributes of the Deity, of that nature, made known to us. A large part of the Jews never lived in Palestine after the Babylo- nian captivity, and at the destruc- tion of Jerusalem perhaps the most of the race were abroad, so that they became what they were already the habit of shirking responsibilities of any kind. In the Disquisition are to be found the following sentiments of the Gipsies, that illustrate the question whi.ch John Bunyan asked his father : "We must have been among the Jews, for some of our cere- monies are like theirs" (p. 511). "They naturally think of the Jews, and wonder whether, after all, their race may not, at some time, have been connected with them" (p. 512). This point is naturally laid stress on by Mr. Leland in his English Gipsies, published lately, with reference to Bunyan's question, and the great trouble he took to have it answered, " Whether we were of the Israelites or no." On the occasion of erecting a statue to Bunyan, at Bedford, on the roth of June last, II a scattered people, looking to Pales- tine as the home of their race and religion, as Catholics, in the matter of creed, have looked to Rome. Al- though informed by prophecy of what was to befall the Jews, the means bringing it about were of the most ordinary kind that is, the sys- tem of Roman conquest, as applied to all the surrounding nations, and their own passions, factions and vices. Ever since, the Jews have existed in the same position, and by the same means; the dislike and persecution by the world at large, acting on the inherent peculiarities of the race, being alone sufficient to keep them separate from other peo- ple. I have discussed the subject pretty fully in the work, showing that the existence of the Jews since the dispersion is in exact harmony with every natural law, and that it would have been a miracle had they ceased to be Jews, and become any- thing else than what they are to- day ; and that there is no analogy between their history and that of any European nation. The Jews a family that are de- scended from a common parentage nothing was said as to who he really was ; and yet that is the most important question connected with the illustrious pilgrim's history. The honours then shown to his memory were for the most part bestowed on a being existing only in the imagina- tions of his worshippers. Had they ad- mitted his Gipsy nationality, they would have isolated him from all of his age, and placed his memory, by contrast, on a pedestal that will outlive bronze and granite. The people of England will make a sorry exhibition of themselves, if such men as the Duke of Bedford and the Dean of Westminster prove capa- ble of being influenced by other motives than a regard for the evidence, in coming to a decision on the important matter at issue. (161) 1 62 THE PRESER VA TION OF THE JE WS. possess a physiognomy that dis- tinguishes them at a glance from other people. They hold that, with the exception of themselves, all that are descendants from Adam and Noah form the common family of mankind ; but that they, the de- scendants of Abraham and Sarah the third and last, as a family, to whom a general revelation was made are distinguished from the rest of the human species, as the Lord's aristocracy ; and that to them, and them exclusively, was given the only religion of a divine origin. Besides that, the Jews have migrated or been scattered in every direction, where they exist within and inde- pendent of other nations ; so that the race, as such, could not be de- stroyed by what might happen in any particular country, for others might migrate from other parts, to contribute to the number, or take the place of those that might have suffered or been destroyed. Paradox- ical as it may appear, the way to pre- serve the existence of a people, is to scatter it, provided it is a race total- ly distinct from those among whom it may be cast, and has inherent pe- culiarities calculated to keep it sep- arate from others ; and more especi- ally if it is also persecuted, or for- bidden, or barely tolerated, to live among others. Its idea of nation- ality consists in its existing every- where in general, and nowhere in particular. As contrasted with such a phenomenon, we have the na- tionality of Europeans consisting merely in birth on the soil of peo- ple whose parents, perhaps, arrived from all parts, and whose nation- ality and laws, and even the name of their country, might, by events, become blotted out of human re- membrance; while their children might acquire or form a new nation- ality, by being born and reared on another territory. The Duke of Argyll makes some strange remarks on this subject, in his Reign of Law. He says : " It is not surprising, therefore, that the preservation of the Jews .... is tacitly assumed by many persons to come strictly within the category of miraculous events." Why should that be assumed, tacitly or other- wise ? What if it is only a " vulgar error," started by some person now unknown, and echoed by others after him ? It was surely worth while to ascertain whether the foun- dation was sound on which the fol- lowing structure was built : " What is this," says a writer on the evidences of Christianity, " but a miracle 1 Connected with the prophecy which it fulfils, it is a double miracle. Whe- ther testimony can ever establish the credibility of a miracle is of no importance here. This one is ob- vious to every man's senses. All nations are its eye-witnesses. . . . The laws of nature have been sus pended in their case." The Duke calls it " a striking il- lustration how a departure from the * ordinary course of nature ' may be effected through the instrumentality of means which are natural and comprehensible." One would think that anything that was effected by what was natural and comprehensible was no departure from the ordinary course of nature. He speaks of the Jews being kept distinct from others by " superhuman means," which, however, he says, " belong to the region of the natural." If these means " belong to the region of the natural," how can they be " super- human," so far as they are the ac- tions of men ? What would he call the means which keep Quakers dis- tinct from the rest of the world ? Protestants from Catholics in Ire- land ? Native Scotch from Irish, as imported, or Scotch of Irish lineage and Romish creed ? And the vari- ous Protestant sects in England so separated from each other? To say nothing of different races in Eu- rope, existing under the same gov- ernment, occupying the same ter- ritory, living even, I believe, in the THE PRESERVATION OF THE JEWS. 163 same street, and professing substan- tially the same religion. Let him also turn to India, where the castes have kept themselves distinct from each other from time immemorial, but certainly not by " superhuman " means. Humble Scotch people would indeed be surprised if told they were " preserved " distinct from " thae Irish " by " superhu- man " means ; and they would be astounded if asked to turn them- selves -flesh, bones and blood, phy- siognomy, mind and religion into Jews, like those they have living among them ; or that these should or could turn themselves, in the same way, into common Scotch. In Scotland are to be found Scotchmen extracted from members of most of the European nations, who are always more or less recip- rocating the favour. Such is the genius of Europeans in regard to nationality, which is exhibited in a striking manner in the United States of America. But it is not so in the East. Englishmen born there do not become Hindoos, Chinese, Ja- panese, Hottentots, or Negroes, as the case may be. Nor do Asiatics amalgamate and get lost among each other, although by despotism and slavery, polygamy and concubinage, some of the more powerful races or families absorb a little of the blood of others. It has been the genius of almost all, if not all, Asiatic races, from time immemorial, to live sepa- rate from each other, as tribes or nations, while dwelling in the same community or country -Jews and Samaritans, Turks and Greeks, Par- sees and Armenians, and others un- necessary to mention and no one ever thinks that these races are kept apart by " special providence " or " superhuman means." And if Asiat- ics do that among themselves, is it to be supposed they would do other- wise when they come in contact with the races of another continent ? It is therefore not trtfe when the Duke asserts that the separate existence of the Jews is " at variance with all other experience of the laws which govern the amalgamation with each' other of different families of the hu- man race."* It is precisely the con- trary, for the isolation of the Jews is in exact harmony with the cus- toms and genius of that part of the world where they originated and had their existence as a people ; and which has been increased immeas- urably by the special genius of their nation, from the call of Abraham, that it was to exist distinct from all others, and to continue so forever. And the Jews have been so perse- cuted or disliked by other nations, that they have never, as a people, had the opportunity of " amalga- mating and becoming lost among others," assuming that they ever had the wish to do it. The fact of the Jews keeping dis- tinct from others is a simple ques- tion, that is easily understood when investigated inductively and on its merits. It is neither miraculous, a special providence, wonderful, nor remarkable. There is no occasion for the special interference of Provi- dence in a matter that is settled by the Jews on the one side, and by * Abb6 Dubois says : " In every coun- try of the Peninsula, great numbers of foreign families are to be found, whose ancestors had been obliged to emigrate thither, in times of trouble or famine, from their native land, and to establish themselves amongst strangers. This spe- cies of emigration is very common in all the countries of India ; but what is most remarkable is, that in a foreign land, these emigrants preserve, from generation to gene ^ ration, their own language and national peculiarities. Many instances might be pointed out of such foreign families, set- tled four or five hundred years in the dis- trict they now inhabit, without approx- imating in the least to the manners, fash- ions, or even to the language of the na- tion where they have been for so many generations naturalized. They still pre- serve the remembrance of their origin, and keep up the ceremonies and usages of the land where their ancestors were born, without ever receiving any tincture of the particular habits of the countries where they live." Preface, xvii. 164 THE PRESERVATION OF THE JEWS. the rest of the world on the other. Perhaps the best way for Providence to preserve the Jews as they have existed since the dispersion would have been merely to leave them alone leave them to their impeni- tence and unbelief, and take that much care of them that is taken of ravens ; and that would consist with their relation to Him that of rebels against the majesty of heaven, and outcasts from His presence. Before asking how it is that the Jews exist to-day, it would be well to inquire by what possible process they could cease to be Jews ; and by what human means they, as a people, will receive Christ as their Messiah, and thereby become Christian Jews. It is no wonder that they should be Jews, as all the circumstances that have kept them distinct from others during past generations continue to keep them apart at the present day. It is quite sufficient for the Christian to know that the Jews exist, and that they have fulfilled, and will yet fulfil the prophecies that have been delivered in regard to them, and that they are a living proof of the truth of Christianity, without hold- ing that any miracle has been wrought for that end. He should be more considerate in his estimate of what a miracle is, and not maintain that the existence of the Jews is one, for nothing having the decent ap- pearance of an argument can be ad- vanced in support of such a theory ; and far less should he, like the writer on the Christian evidences alluded to, stake, in a spirit of gambling, the whole question of revelation on his own dogma, and according to his hypothesis lose it. " Yea, we estab- lish the law." The Duke says, " The case of the Gipsies has been referred to as somewhat parallel. But the facts of this case are doubtful and obscure, and such of them as we know in- volve conditions altogether dissimi- lar in kind." I should not imagine that he knows personally much of either, particularly the Gipsies. His remark is too short, vague and ob- scure to admit of any comment be- ing made on it. For a full discus- sion of the two questions, I refer him to the History of the Gipsies, which was published a year before the first edition of the Reign of Law appeared ; and two years before the fifth edition, in which corrections were made to meet criticisms on va- rious matters treated in it. I may add, that the subject of the Jews is not so well known to the world at large, as to justify the many positive assertions that have been made in regard to them.* To elucidate the subject of the preservation of the Jews, I add a few extracts from the Disquisition on the Gipsies. The circumstances connected with the perpetuation of the Gipsy and Jew- ish races greatly resemble each other. Both races are scattered over the face of the earth. The Jew has had a home ; he has a strong attachment to it, and looks forward to enter it at some future day.. Make the acquaintance of the Jews, and you will find that each gene- ration of them tell their "wonderful story " to the following generation, and the story is repeated to the following, and the following. The children of Jews are taught to know that they are Jews before they can even lisp. Soon do they know that much of the phe- nomenon of their race, as regards its origin, its history, and its universality, to draw the distinction between them, and those around them who are not Jews. Soon do they learn how their race has been despised and persecuted, and imbibe the love which their parents have for it, and the resentment of the odium cast upon it by others. It has been so from the beginning of their history out of Palestine, and even while there. Were it only religion, considered in itself, that has kept the Jews together as a people, they might have got Jost among the rest of mankind ; for among the Jews there are to be found the rankest of infidels ; even Jewish priests * What follows did not appear in the paper sent to the Scottish clergy. THE PRESERVATION OF THE JEWS. I6 5 will say that, " it signifies not what a man's religion may be, if he is only sin- cere in it." Is it a feeling, or a know- ledge, of religion that leads a Jewish child, almost the moment it can speak, to say that it is a Jew ? It is simply the workings of the phenomena of race that account for this ; the religion peculiar to Jews having been introduced among them centuries after their existence as a people. Being exclusively theirs in its very nature, they naturally follow it, as other people do theirs ; but although, from the nature of its origin, it presents infinitely greater claims upon their in- telligent belief and obedience, they have yielded no greater submission to its spirit and morals, or even to its forms, than many other people have done to their religion, made up, as that has been, of the most fabulous superstition, on the principle, doubtless, that "The zealous crowds in ignorance adore, And still, the less they know, they fear the more."* The Jews being a people before they re- ceived the religion by which they are dis- tinguished, it follows that the religion, in itself, occupies a position of secondary importance, although the profession of it acts and reacts upon the people, in keeping them separate from others. The most, then, that can be said of the religion of the Jews is, that, following in the wake of their history as a people, it is only one of the pillars by which the building is supported.! If inquiry is * The following extract from Leaves from the Diary of a Jewish Minister, published in the 'Je^uish Messenger, on the 4th April, 1862, may not be uninter- esting to the Christian reader: " In our day, the conscience of Israel is seldom troubled ; it is of so elastic a character, that, like gutta percha [india- rubber?], it stretches and is compressed, according to the desire of its owner. We seldom hear of a troubled conscience. . . . . Not that we would assert that our people are without a conscience ; we merely state that we seldom hear of its troubles. It is more than probable, that when the latent feeling is aroused on matters of religion, and for a moment they have an idea that ' their soul is not well,' they take a homoeopathic dose of spiritual medicine, and then feel quite convalescent" (p. 503). f The only part of the religion of the jfu\vs having an origin prior to the estab- made of Jewish converts to Christianity, we will find that, notwithstanding their having separated from their brethren, on points of creed, they hold themselves as much Jews as before. But the con- versions of Jews are, " Like angels' visits, few and far between." In the case of individuals forsaking the Jewish, and joining the Christian, Church, that is, believing in the Messiah having come, instead of to come, it is natural, I may say inevitable, for them to hold themselves Jews. They have feelings which the world cannot under- stand. But beyond the nationality, physiognomy, and feelings of Jews, there are no points of difference, and there ought to be no grounds of offence, between them and the ordinary inhab- itants (p. 473). Substitute the language and signs of the Gipsies for the religion of the Jews, and we find that the rearing of the Gipsies is almost identical with that of the Jews ; and in the same manner do they hold themselves to be Gipsies. But the one can be Gipsies, though ignorant of their language and signs, and the other, Jews, though ignorant of their religion ; the mere sense of tribe and community being sufficient to constitute them members of their respec- tive nationalities (p. 475). But how different is the posititn which the Jews occupy towards the rest of the world ! They are certainly quiet and inoffensive enough as individuals, or as a community; whence, then, arises the dislike which most people have for them ? The Gipsies may be said to be, in a sense, strangers amongst lishment of the Mosaic law was circum- cision, which was ..termed the covenant made by God with Abraham and his seed (Gen. xvii. 10-14). The abolition of idols, and the worship of God alone, are pre- sumed, although not expressed. The Jews lapsed into gross idolatry while in Egypt, but were not likely to neglect cir- cumcision, as that was necessary to maintain a physical uniformity among the race, but did not enter into the wants, and hopes, and fears inherent in the hu- man breast, and stimulated by the daily exhibition of the phenomena of its ex- istence. The second table of the moral law was, of course, written upon the hearts of the Jews, in common with those of the Gentiles (Rom. ii. 14, 15). (P. 474.) 1 66 THE PRESERVATION OF THE JEWS. us, because they have never been ac- knowledged by us ; but the Jews are, to a certain extent, strangers under any circumstances, and, more or less, look to entering Palestine at some day, it may be this year, or the following. If a Christian asks, " Who are the Jews, and what do they here ? " the reply is very plain : " They are rebels against the Majesty of Heaven, and outcasts from His presence." They are certainly entitled to every privilege, social and political, which other citizens enjoy ; they have a perfect right to follow their own religion ; but other people have an equal right to express their opinion in regard to it and them (p. 484). The position which Jews occupy among Christians is that which they occupy among people of a different faith. They become obnoxious to peo- ple everywhere ; for that which is so foreign in its origin, so exclusive in its habits and relations, and so conceited and antagonistic in its creed, will always be so, go where it may. Besides, they will not even eat what others have slain ; and hold other people as impure. The very conservative nature of their creed is, to a certain extent, against them ; were it aggressive, like the Christian's, with a genius to embrace all within its fold, it would not stir up, or permanently retain, the same ill-will toward the people who profess it ; for being of that nature which retires into the corner of selfish exclusiveness, people will natu- rally take a greater objection to them. Then, the keen, money-making, and ac- cumulating habits of the Jews make them appear selfish to those around them ; while the greediness and utter want of principle that characterize some of them have given a bad reputation to the whole body, however unjustly it is applied to them as a race (p. 486). The circumstances attending the Jews' entry into any country to-day are substantially what they were before the advent of Christ ; centuries before which era, they were scattered, in great num- bers, over most parts of the world ; hav- ing synagogues, and visiting or looking to Jerusalem, as their home, as Catho- lics, in the matter of religion, have looked to Rome. In going abroad, Jews would as little contemplate forsaking their own religion, and worshipping the gods of the heathen, as do Christians to-day in Oriental countries ; for they were as thoroughly persuaded that their religion was divine, and all others the inventions of man, as are Christians of theirs. Then it was a religion exclu- sively Jewish, that is, the people follow- ing it were, with rare exceptions, exclusively Jews by nation. The ill- will which all these circumstances, and the very appearance of the peo- ple themselves, have raised against the Jews, and the persecutions, of vari- ous kinds, which have universally follow- ed, have widened the separation between them and other people, which the genius of their religion made so imperative, and their feelings of nationality nay, family so exclusive. Before the dispersion, Palestine was their home ; after the dis- persion, the position and circumstances of those abroad at the time underwent no change ; they would merely contem- plate their nation in a new aspect that of exiles, and consider themselves, for the time being, at home wherever they happened to be. Those that were scattered abroad, by the destruction of Jerusalem, would, in their persons, con- firm the convictions of the others, and reconcile them to the idea, that the Jewish nation, as such, was abroad on the face of the earth ; and each genera- tion of the race would entertain the same sentiments. After this, as before it, it can scarcely be said that the Jews have ever been tolerated ; if not actually persecuted, they have, at least, always been disliked, or despised. The whole nation having been scattered abroad, with everything pertaining to them as a nation, excepting the temple, the high- priesthood, and the sacrifices, with such an ancient history, and so unequivocally divine a religion, so distinct from, and obnoxious to, those of other nations, it is no wonder that they, the common descendants of Abraham and Sarah, should have ever since remained a dis- tinct people in the world ; as all the cir- cumstances surrounding them have uni- versally remained the same till to-day (p. 487). A Jew of to-day has a much greater aversion to forsake the Jewish commu- nity than any other man has to re- nounce his country ; and his associa- tions of nationality are manifested wherever a Jewish society is to be found, or wherever he can meet with another Jew. This is the view which he takes of his race, as something dis- tinct from his religion ; for he contem- plates himself as being of that people THE PRESERVATION OF THE JEWS. I6 7 of the same blood, features, and feel- ings, all children of Abraham and Sarah that are to be found everywhere ; that part of it to which he has an aversion being only such as apostatize from his religion, and more particularly such as embrace the Christian faith. In speak- ing of Jews, we are too apt to confine our ideas exclusively to a creed, forget- ting that Jews are a race ; and that Christian Jews are Jews as well as Jewish Jews. Were it possible to bring about a reformation among the Jews, by which synagogues would embrace the Christian faith, we would see Jewish Christian churches ; the only difference being, that they would believe in him whom their fathers pierced, and lay aside only such of the ceremonies of Moses as the Gospel had abrogated. If a movement of that kind were once fairly afoot, by which was presented to the Jew, his people as a community, however small it might be, there would be a great chance of his becoming a Christian, in one sense or other : he could then assume the position of a pro- testing Jew, holding the rest of his coun- trymen in error ; and his own Christian- Jewish community as representing his race, as it ought to exist. At present, the few Christian Jews find no others of their race with whom to form asso- ciations as a community ; so that, to all intents and purposes, they feel as if they were a sort of outcasts, despised and hated by those of their own race, and separated from the other inhabitants by a natural law, over which neither have any control, however much they may associate with and respect each other (p. 488). The main prop of a Jew for remain- ing a Jew, in regard to religion, rests much more upon the wonderful phe- nomena connected with the history of his nation its antiquity, its associations, its universality, and the length of time which it. has existed, since its dispersion, distinct from the rest of the world, and so unique (as he imagines), that he at once concludes it must have the special approbation of God for the position which it occupies ; which is very true, although it proceeds from a different motive than that which the Jew so vainly imagines. The Jew imagines that God approves of his conduct, in his stubborn rebellion to the claims of Christianity, because he finds his race existing so distinct from the rest of the world ; whereas, if he studies his own Scriptures, he will see that the condition of his race is the punishment due to its rebellion (p. 490). The history of the Jews acts as a spell upon the unfortunate Jew, and proves the greatest bar to his conversion to Christianity. He vainly imagines that his race stands out from among all the races of mankind, by a miracle, wrought for that purpose, and with the special approbation of God upon it, for adhering to its religion ; and that, there- fore, Christianity is a delusion (p. 491). Christians not only flatter but delude the Jew, when they say that his race is " purity itself; " they greatly flatter and delude him, when they say that the phe- nomenon of its existence, since the dis- persion, is miraculous. There is nothing miraculous about it. There is nothing miraculous about the perpetuation of Quakerdom ; yet Quakerdom has existed for two centuries. Although Quakerdom is but an artificial thing, that proceeded out from among common English peo- ple, it has somewhat the appearance of being a distinct race, among those sur- rounding it. As such, it appears, at first sight, to inexperienced youth, or people who have never seen, or perhaps heard much of Quakers. But how much greater is the difference between Jews and Chris- tians, than between Quakers and ordi- nary Englishmen, and Americans ! And how much* greater the certainty that Jews will keep themselves distinct from Christians, and all others in the world ! It must be self-evident to the most un- reflecting person, that the natural causes which keep Jews separated from other people, during one generation, continue to keep them distinct during every other generation. A miracle, indeed ! We must look into the Old and New Testa- ments for miracles. A Jew will natu- rally delude himself about the existence of his race since the dispersion being a miracle ; yet not believe upon a person if he were even to rise from the dead (P- 493) ! While the history of the Jews, since the dispersion, greatly illustrates that of the Gipsies, so does the history of the Gipsies greatly illustrate that of the Jews. They greatly resemble each other. Jews shuffle when they say that the only difference between an English- man and an English Jew, is in the mat- ter of creed ', for there is a great differ- ence between the two, whatever they 1 68 THE PRESERVATION OF THE JEWS. may have in common, as men born and reared on the same soil. The very ap- pearance of the two is palpable proof that they are not of the same race. The Jew invariably and unavoidably holds his "nation " to mean the Jewish people, scattered over the world ; and is reared in the idea that he is, not only in creed, but in blood, distinct from other men ; and that, in blood and creed, he is not to amalgamate with them, let him live where he may. Indeed, what England is to an Englishman, this uni- versally scattered people is to the Jew ; what the history of England is to an Englishman, the Bible is to the Jew ; his nation being nowhere in particular, but everywhere, while its ultimate des- tiny he, more or less, believes to be Palestine. Now, an Englishman has not only been born an Englishman, but his mind has been cast in a mould that makes him an Englishman ; so that, to persecute him, on the ground of his being an Englishman, is to persecute him for that which can never be changed. It is precisely so with the Jew. His creed does not amount to much, for it is only part of the history of his race, or the law of his nation, traced to, and emanating from, one God, and Him the true God, as distinguished from the gods and lords many of other nations : such is the nature of the Jewish theocracy (P- 496). The being a Gipsy, or a Jew, or a Gentile, consists in birth and rearing. The three may be born and brought up under one general roof, members of their respective nationalities, yet all good Christians. But the Jew, by be- coming a Christian, necessarily cuts himself off from associations with the representative part of his nation ; for Jews do not tolerate those who forsake the synagogue, and believe in Christ, as the Messiah having come ; however much they may respect their children, who, though born into the Christian Church, and believing in its doctrines, yet maintain the inherent affection for the associations connected with the race, and more especially if they also occupy distinguished positions in life. So intolerant, indeed, are Jews of each other, in the matter of each choosing his own religion, extending sometimes to assassination in some countries, and invariably to the cruellest persecutions in families, that they are hardly justified in asking, and scarcely merit, toleration for themselves, as a people, from the nations among whom they live. The present Disraeli doubtless holds him- self to be a Jew, let his creed or Chris- tianity be what it may ; if he looks at himself in his mirror, he cannot deny it. * We have an instance in the Capadose family becoming and remaining for several generations Christians, then re- turning to the synagogue, and in ano- ther generation joining the Christian Church. The same vicissitude may at- tend future generations of this family. There should be no great obstacle in the way of it being allowed to pass current in the world, like any other fact, that a person can be a Jew and at the same time a Christian ; as we say that a man can be an Englishman and a Christian, a McGregor and a Christian, a Gipsy and a Christian, or a Jew and a Christian, even should he not know when his an- cestors attended the synagogue. Chris- tianity was not intended, nor is it capa- ble, to destroy the nationality of Jews, as individuals, or as a nation, any more than that of other people (p. 497). In my associations with Gipsies and Jews, I find that both races rest upon the same basis, viz : a question of peo- Ele. The response of the one, as to who e is, is that he is a Gipsy ; and of the other, that he is a Jew. Each of them has a peculiarly original soul, that is perfectly different from each other, and others around them ; a soul that passes as naturally and unavoidably into each succeeding generation of the respective races, as does the soul of the English or any other race into each succeeding generation. For each considers his na- tion as abroad upon the face of the earth ; which circumstance will pre- serve its existence amid all the revolu- tions to which ordinary nations are sub- ject. As they now exist within, and independent of, the nations among whom they live, so will they endure it these nations were to disappear under the subjection of other nations, or be- come incorporated with them under new names. Many of the Gipsies and Jews might perish amid such con- vulsions, but those that survived would constitute the stock of their respective nations ; while others might migrate from other countries, and contribute to their numbers (p. 499). In considering the phenomenon oi the existence of the Jews since the dis- persion, I am not inclined to place it on THE PRESERVATION OF THE JEWS. one of the one of the one of the pressions of any other basis than I would that of the Gipsies ; for, with both, it is substan- tially a question of people. They are a people, scattered over the world, like the Gipsies, and have a history the Bible, which contains both their history and their laws ; and these two contain their religion. It would, perhaps, be more correct to say that the religion of the Jews is to be found in the Talmud, and the other human compositions, for which the race have such a superstitious rever- ence ; and even these are taken as in- terpreted by the Rabbis. A Jew has, properly speaking, little of a creed. He believes in the existence of God, and in Moses his prophet, and observes cer- tain parts of the ceremonial law, and some holidays commemorative of events in the history of his people. He is a Jew, in the first place, as a simple mat- ter of fact, and, as he grows up, he is made acquainted with the history of his race, to which he becomes strongly at- tached. He then holds himself to be first-born of the Lord," chosen of the Eternal," " Lord's aristocracy ;" ex- amazing import in his worldly mind, that will lead him to al- most die for \i\sfaith : while his reli- gion is of a very low natural order, " standing only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances," suitable for a people in a state of pupil- age. The Jewish mind in the matter of religion is, in some respects, pre-emi- nently gross and material in its nature ; its idea of a Messiah rising no higher than a conqueror of its own race, who will bring the whole world under his sway, and parcel out, among his fellow- Jews, a lion's share of the spoils, consist- ing of such things as the inferior part of human nature so much craves for. And his ideas of how this Messiah is to be connected with the original tribes, as mentioned in the prophecies, are childish and superstitious in the extreme. Writ- ers do, therefore, greatly err, when they say, that it is only a thin partition that separates Judaism from Christianity. There is almost as great a difference between the two, as there is between that which is material, and that which is spiritual. A Jew is so thoroughly bound, heart and soul, by the spell which the phenomena of his race exert upon him, that, humanly speaking, it is impos- sible to make anything of him in the matter of Christianity. And herein, in his own way of thinking, consists his peculiar glory. Such being the case with Christianity, it is not to be suppos- ed that the Jew would forsake his own religion, and, of course, his own people, and believe in any religion having an origin in the spontaneous and gradual growth of superstition and imposture, modified, systematized, adorned, or ex- expanded, by ambitious and superior minds, or almost wholly in the concep- tions of these minds ; having, for a foun- dation, an instinct an intellectual and emotional want as common to man as instinct is to the- brute creation, for the ends which it has to serve.* We cannot separate the questions of race and belief, when we consider the Jews as a people, however it might be with individuals among them (p. 501.) Amid all the obloquy and contempt cast upon his race, amid all the perse- cutions to which it has been exposed, the Jew, with his inherent conceit in having Abraham for his father, falls back upon the history of his nation, with the utmost contempt for every- thing else that is human ; forgetting that there is such a thing as the " first being last." He boasts that his race, , and his only, is eternal, and that all other men get everything from him ! He vainly imagines that the Majesty of Heaven should have made his dispensa- tions to mankind conditional upon any- thing so unworthy as his race has so frequently shown itself to be. If he has been so favoured by God, what can he point to as the fruits of so much loving-kindness shown him? What is his nation now, however numerous it may be, but a ruin, and its members, but spectres that haunt it ? And what has brought it to its present condition ? " Its sins." Doubtless, its sins ; but what particular sins ? And how are these sins to be put away, seeing that the temple, the high-priesthood, and the sacrifices no longer exist ? Or what effort, by such means as offer, has ever been made to mitigate the wrath of God, and prevail upon Him to restore the people to their exalted privileges ? Or what could they even propose doing, to bring about that event ? Questions like these involve the Jewish mind in a labyrinth of difficulties, from which it cannot extricate itself. The dispersion Quoted at pages 51 and 5: I/O THE PRESERVATION OF THE JEWS. was not only foretold, but the cause of it given. The Scriptures declare that the Messiah was to have appeared before the destruction of the temple ; and the time of his expected advent, according to Jewish traditions, coincided with that event. It is eighteen centuries since the destruction of the temple, before which the Messiah was to have come ; and the Jew still " hopes against hope," and, if it is left to himself, will do so till the day of judgment, for such a Messiah as his earthly mind seems to be only capable of contemplating. Has he never read the New Testament, and reflected on the sufferings of him who was meek and lowly, or on those of his disciples, in- flicted by his ancestors, for generations, when he has come complaining of the sufferings to which his race has been exposed ? He is entitled to sympathy, for all the cruelties with which his race has been visited ; but he could ask it with infinitely greater grace, were he to offer any for the sufferings of the early Christians and their divine master, or were he even to tolerate any of his race following him to-day (p. 503). INDEX, PAGE AFRICANS, the prejudice against them in the United States, .... 146 AMERICA as a field for the study of snakes, . . . 8, 16-18, 26, 29, 36, 37 AMERICAN GIPSIES, 141 AMERICAN SCIENCE CONVENTION on snakes, 36 APES, the, on the Rock of Gibraltar, 45 APOSTLE, Mill as an, 105 APPLETON'S CYCLOPAEDIA on the skunk, 44 ARGYLL, THE DUKE OF, his singular ideas regarding the preservation of the Jews, 162 On the Jews and Gipsies, 164 ASIATIC RACES, how they keep distinct from each other, . . . . 163 ATHENAEUM, THE, its opinion on Mill's History of India, . . . .71 On the disappearance of the Gipsies, . mil * ATLANTIC MONTHLY, THE, on the Gipsies and John Bunyan, . . . ni6o AUDUBON on the hatching of crocodiles' eggs, 32 AURELIUS, MARCUS, on the contemplation of death, 78 BACON, LORD, his philosophy, 4 On Antichrist, 68 BAIN, A., his assistance to Mill, 104 BAIRD, REV. JOHN, of Yetholm, on the Gipsy language, . . . . #115 On the mixture of the Gipsy blood, #132 BANKS, SIR JOSEPH, his eulogium on Waterton's Wanderings, . 46 BATS do not lay eggs, . 31 BEARDS, by whom only they were lately worn, 156 BEDFORD, THE DUKE OF, erects a statue to Bunyan at Bedford, . . . ni6i BENTHAM, JEREMY, James Mill's letter to him, 108 His creed and system, 77, 85, 109 BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, its opinion of Mill's History of India, . . 71 On Mill as a servant of the East India Company, 72 On the services Mill rendered to his generation, 105 On Billy Marshall and his descendants, 1 14 Description of Old Will Faa, of Yetholm, 120 On the History of the Gipsies, 153,154 On John Bunyan, 158, #160 BORROW, GEORGE, omits to notice what others have said of the Gipsies, . 112 Scantiness of his information, ....... 113,120 His writings sketches only, 113 His reflections on the destiny of the Gipsies, . 113, 114, 124-127, 131, 132 (171) 172 INDEX. PAGE BORROW, GEORGE, his speculations regarding the origin of the Gipsies, . 114 His visit to Yetholm : The secrecy of the Gipsies in regard to the lan- guage, 115; the extent of the queen's knowledge of it, Ib. ; the pe- culiarities of the tribe in regard to it, 116 ; an appointment, a disap- pointment, and a meeting at the fair, Ib. ; the queen and her niece, Ib. ; peculiarities of Yetholm mixed Gipsies, 117, 118 ; Thomas Herne's family, #117, 131 ; his estimate sf the extent of the lan- guage, 118; the character of the queen, Ib. ; his definition of Nokkum, niK) ; not a judge of character, Ib.; his visit to Yetholm in some respects unsatisfactory, Ib. Gipsy surnames, . . . . . . . . . . .121 Gipsies stealing children, . . . . . . . .121,122 Gipsies harbouring priests, and running wenches, 122 His strange contradictions about the Gipsies speaking their language, . 123 His description of three kinds of travelling people in England, 130, 131, 133 Mr. Borrow a strange phenomenon connected with the Gipsies, . .132 On the English Gipsy language, . . . . . 138 On the hatred the Gipsies have for other, people, #149 BREWSTER,. SIR DAVID, his letter to Prof. James Forbes, . . . .81 BRIGHT, DJR., on the secrecy of the Gipsies in regard to their language, 123, 140 BRITANNICA, ENCYLOP^EDIA, THE, does not allude to snakes swallowing . their young, 10 On the hatching of crocodiles' eggs, 32 BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, THE, on the Gipsies and John Bunyan, . ;zi6o v BUCKLAND, FRANK, on vipers swallowing their young, ... 8, 14, 23, ^39 Requested to make experiments on the subject, . . . .13,14,24 On snakes shedding their skins, . .. . . . . . . #23 On the hatching of their eggs, 3 X 3 2 BUFFALOES, how they protect their young against wolves, .... 45 BUNSEN, CHEVALIER, on sound judgments and shallow minds, . . .153 BUNYAN, JOHN, on child-stealing, 122 His description of what he was, and what he was not, . . . .157 The penalties attaching to the name of Gipsy, 157 His name calculated to raise up that of the Gipsy tribe, . . .158 The injustice of his biographers towards his memory, . . . .158 His nationality still unacknowledged, 158 He might have written works in the Gipsy language, . . . . 1 59 His most probable pedigree as a Gipsy, 1 59 The first of eminent Gipsies known to the world, 1 59 A Scottish Gipsy family that illustrates that of Bunyan, . . . 1 59 .Has a statue raised to his memory at Bedford, ni6i BURR, HIGFORD, on snakes shedding their skins, ' ^22 BUTLER'S ANALOGY, the influence it had on James Mill, .... 7 CANTING, the, of Mill, . . . . 80, 107 CAPADOSE FAMILY, vicissitudes in the religious history of the, . . .168 CARLYLE, THOMAS, his so-called anti-self-consciousness theory, . . -95 The opinion of the Mills regarding him, 108 INDEX. 173 PAGE CASTE in Great Britain, 146,72147,148,150,154,155 in India, 163 in the United. States, . . 146 CATS will generally catch rats only under certain circumstances, . . . 14 CHAMBERS' ENCYCLOPEDIA on the hatching of vipers' eggs, ... 28 , Time of birth of vipers, and number of progeny, . . . . . 29 CHAMBERS' JOURNAL on the disappearance of the Gipsies, . . . . 72111 CHINA, Gipsies in, 141 CICERO on the belief in an ancestral religion, . ... ,. . . 59,60,66 On the existence of God, . * . . . . . . 79, 80 COMTE on receiving information from others on certain subjects, . . -75 The influence his Traite de Legislation had on Mill, . . . .77 On the great things philosophers are to do, . . . . . .81 The influence he had on. Mill's Logic, , 104 CRABBE, REV. JAMES, his mission among the English Gipsies, . . . 136 CROCODILE, the, how its eggs are hatched, and its young taken care of, . 32 CUMMING, W. GORDON*, on snakes swallowing frogs, 41 DEER, their antipathy to the rattlesnake, #15 DEIFICATION among Pagans 7253 DICKENS, CHARLES, and the Gipsies, 152,153 DISRAELI, the present, a Jew as well as a Christian, 168 DIVINITY STUDENTS (SCOTCH), the nature and length of their studies, . 70 The. effects that patronage had on them, 7271 The disadvantages they are under in the start in life, .... #89 They could acquire more knowledge of the world than they do, . . 7290 DUBOIS, ABBE, on scattered races in India, 72163 EDINBURGH REVIEW, THE, on James Mill's reading of sceptical books, . 70 On Mill as a servant of the East India Company, 72 On his quarrelling with his friends on Mrs. Taylor's account, . . 99 Its estimate of Mrs. Mill, 101 On Mill's public services, . 105 On Benthamism, and some of Mill's peculiarities, 109 EDUCATION, what might be called a common sense and useful one, . . 84 Among the Gipsies, ........ 72132,159 ENGLISH GIPSIES, 127-129,142 EPICTETUS, his. prayer, 78 On the existence of God, . , -79 On the lack of common sense in some philosophers, .... 94 ETHIOPIA, the Scottish Gipsies say they came from, . . . . . 72143 ETHNOLOGY on its legs, . .112 FA AS, the Gipsy, at Yetholm, . 117,119,120 FALL, MRS., of Dunbar, a Gipsy, . . . 144 FIGUIER'S Reptiles and Birds How tortoises are hatched, ... . . 33 FORBES, PJROF. JAMES, letter to him from Sir David Brewster, . . .81 FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, on Jesus of Nazareth, 75 174 INDEX. PAGE FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, his creed, . . . . . . . . #75 ERASER'S MAGAZINE on Mill's associating with Mrs. Taylor, ... 99 FROGS as eaten by snakes, . .... . 7, 27, 31, 41 FROGS' mode of propagation, 32 GIPSIES, probable number of the, in Great Britain and Ireland, . . . in How they mix their blood and perpetuate their race, . . 112, 126, 127 Their secrecy in regard to their language, . . 115,116,118,120,123 Gipsy surnames, , 121,130 Stealing children, . <.>>. . . . . 121,122 Spanish Gipsies, . . . . r. ' - ::.*.' . . 123-127 Hungarian Gipsies, :;,:;.,_ .... . . . . . 123,^125,138 English Gipsies, . v! . 127-129,142 Irish Gipsies, , .. 129, 7*132, 141 Education among the Gipsies, ; . #132, 159 The natural perpetuation of the race, . . . . ... 133,134 How the subject should be investigated, . . . . . .134 How a Gipsy is reared, V ;. " . . 135 The effects of the prejudice that exists against the Gipsy race, . 136, 146 How they gradually leave the tent, and acquire settled habits, . .136 The love which they have for their language, 137 How the language is taught, and how it has got mixed with others, . 138 How they resent the curiosity of others in regard to their language, . 139 American Gipsies, 141 The universality of the race, i- - ^4 , . . . . -'. - -.. 141 Its destiny, .' J.r ,;.,; i- * . 142 The difference between mixed Gipsies and ordinary natives, . . .143 Peculiarities of settled Gipsies, . . , - . . t . 143-145 How they resent the prejudice that exists against them, . . .147 Their ideas of their social position, 147 How they " marry among themselves," and " stick to each other," . 148 Improvement of the Gipsies, 148-1 50, 1 56 Arrival of the tribe in Scotland, in 1 506, . . . "> Y I 5 Their organization, social position, and destiny, . ;- . - . , 151 Civilized Gipsies, ---.-. r,;. . .:: < ;, ...N. ..... ,.:,,,. . - . 151 Their secrecy, nature, and mutual sympathies, . .-. . . -.., +.+ ' ... . 152 The perpetuation of the Gipsies resembles that of the Jews, . 164, 167, 168 GOODE, PROF. G. BROWN, his information on American snakes, . . 36-38 GOSSE, P. H., on the Jamaica boa generally, 33 On snakes fascinating birds, . . . . . . . . .41 GREEK CHURCH, THE, Romanists' aversion to hear it mentioned, . . .55 It scorns the claims of Rome, and denies its baptism, .... 60 Its confessional and status generally, . . . . . . .61 GRELLMANN on the colour of the Gipsies as they become civilized, . . #125 On the secrecy of the Gipsies in regard to their language, . . 123, 138 GUTHRIE, DR. THOMAS, on the effects of patronage on Scotch divinity stu- dents, n*]\ His advantages as a student and probationer compared with others, . ^90 INDEX. 175 PAGE HALE, SIR MATTHEW, his interview with Bunyan's wife, . . . . 1 59 HOYLAND, JOHN, on Gipsy surnames, 121 HUMBOLDT, as an ornithologist, as estimated by Waterton, .... 39 HUNGARIAN GIPSIES, 123, 7*125, 138 HUNTER, JOHN DUNN, on snakes in the Western States of America, . . 7*15 On the rattlesnake swallowing its young, 34 On the rattlesnake charming or magnetizing birds, . . ^ . 40 How buffaloes protect their young against wolves, .... 45 INDIA, James Mill's History of, .... 71, 85, 109 IRISH GIPSIES in Great Britain and the United States, . . . 129, 7*132, 141 JAMAICA, experiments on the boa wanted in, 35 JESUITS, Waterton educated by the, 47 The dislike of other people for them, 47 The end of their teaching, 48 Their policy as described by Southey, #48 The honour in which they hold Christ and his Apostles, ... 57 JEWS, the, disliked by the Gipsies, 130 Their language during the Babylonian captivity, 140 The Gipsies marry among themselves, like the Jews, . 148 Protected by a cloud while in the wilderness, . . . . .155 A scattered people before the destruction of Jerusalem, . . .161 The means of their dispersion, 161 The Jews an exclusive family, possessing an exclusive religion, . .162 Their peculiar nature, special genius, and persecution keep them dis- tinct from others, 163 The isolation of the Jews effected entirely by natural causes, . .164 How a Jew is reared, 164 His religion a secondary consideration, 164 The indifference of many Jews to their religion, #165 The religion of the Jews previous to the Mosaic law, . . . . 7*165 The position they occupy in the world to-day, . . . . .165 How they were affected by the destruction of Jerusalem, . . .166 The light in which they look on their race and religion, . . .166 The phenomena of their race the greatest bar to their conversion to Christianity, 167 The comparison and contrast between an Englishman and an English Jew, 1 67 How Jews tolerate each other in the matter of religion, . . .168 The profession of Christianity does not destroy the nationality of Jews, 168 The peculiar genius of the Jews as a scattered people, . . . .168 Their religion, and the light in which they look on themselves, . .169 Their ideas of a Messiah, 169 The phenomenon of the Jews as a scattered people, . . ... 169 JOB on the ostrich, . . . . ... . . * . . .23 On the mystery of his existence, 81 JOHNSON, SAMUEL, on a person becoming religious, 64 On a certain kind of ambition, , , 153 1/6 INDEX. PAGE LELAND, C. G., on Dickens and the Gipsies, 72153 On John Bunyan's nationality, . n\6i LEWIS AND CLARKE'S allusion to wolves hunting their prey, ... 45 MARMONTEL'S Memozreslhe alleged effect they had on Mill, . . 93, 96 MARRIAGE in connection with Mill, .... 98, 99, 101, 104, 105 METHODISM, Mill's allusion to, 92, 96 MILL, JAMES, his education for the Church, and rejection of all religion, . 69 Becomes a tutor, and then settles in London as an author, ... 69 His personal character as described by his son, . . . 69, 71, 86-88 His religious history previous to his becoming a practical atheist, 69, 70, 76 The effect that Butler's Analogy had on him, 70 His reading of sceptical books while at college, . . ... 70 His playing the hypocrite for the benefit of the worldly advancement, 70, 71 His literary character as described by his son, . . 71, 85, 108, 109 Becomes the servant and satellite of the East India Company, . . 72 His careful training of his family to have no religious belief, ... 73 His ideas on religion generally, ....... 73, 76, 82 His ideas on the subject and standard of morality, ... 73, 80 The odiousness of his religious, or want of religious, sentiments, . . 74 His temper, deportment, and mode of instructing his children at home, 86, 87 His humble rearing, 89 His unfitness to have the charge of children, 89 The estimate he put on feeling, 96 How he left the world, . . . 108 His ideas on human life, education, and government, . . . 108-110 His letter to Jeremy Bentham, 108 MILL, JOHN STUART, is brought up without any religious belief, . . 69, 73 As a servant and satellite of the East India Company, . . . 72,91 On the bad effects of reticence in the matter of religion, ... 72 His aristocratic standing as an English atheist, 72 His ideas of the worship of God in any form, 73 His ideas on the subject and standard of morality, 73, 80, 85, 95, 96, 100 On religion in general, ........ 74~77> 82 He makes a religion of his wife's memory, . . . . 77 His philosophical canting, 80,107 His Utopian ideas on what philosophers are- to accomplish, . . 8r Proposes his education as an example for others, . . . 82 The probable opinion of the world in regard to it, . . . . 83 His early " studies," . ' . . 83 His wonderful acquirements, . . .84 His complete break-down in defining the words, idea, and theory, . 84 His crude ideas regarding education and the capacity of children, 84, 85 As a "tumbler" in the "arena of thought," 86, 95 As a speaker, . . . . #86 As a teacher of his brothers and sisters, . . . . . . 87 On the " corrupting influences " of boys, and his lack .of boyish amuse- ments, '87 INDEX. PAGE MILL, JOHN STUART, how he ultimately shook himself clear of his father, . 89 On the ungodliness, unnatural treatment, and cruelty in his education, . 90 He begins at fifteen to be a " reformer of the world," . . . 90, 92 His life previous to his engagement with the East India Company, . 91 Attacked by a nervous disorder A " crisis in his mental history," . 92 How he emerged from it, with the results it had on him, . 93 The apparent cause of the disorder, . . . . . 94 His estimate of the break-down in his father's system of instruction, . 95 His crude ideas regarding the " basis of his philosophy of life," . . 95 His ideas of the cultivation of the feelings, music, poetry, and human affections, 96 The treatment he should have had during the "crisis in his mental history," . . 94, 96 The extravagant language inscribed on his wife's tomb, . . . lor His deficiency in looking at two sides, not to say all sides, of a question, 101 Egotism as part of his character, 83,102,108,110 The firm of Mill, Son & Co. Its establishment, principles, and sign or coat-of-arms, . . . . . . . . . . .102 The loss he sustained intellectually by the death of his father, . .102 His " apostleship " that of rank atheism, 105 His principles destructive of the opinions and institutions of his country, 105 The mischief-making tendencies of his nature and teaching, . . 105, no A fanatic as judged by the standard of his father, . . . .106 A made or manufactured man, as described by himself, . .. .106 Educated and trained like a stalled ox, 106 Much of a demagogue in his principles and practices, . . . .106 His crude and raw-lad-like peculiarities, 1 06, 107 His deficiency in common sense, and delicacy or manliness of feeling, 94, 107 His ideas regarding Carlyle, ........ 108 His various changes, no An estimate of some aspects of his character, no MILL, MRS., her memory made a religion of by her husband, .... 77 Was she also an atheist, like himself? 78, 99 His regard for her the main reason for writing his Autobiography, . 97 How Mill made her acquaintance, 97 Her talents, and the great influence she exercised over him, . . 97 Leaves her husband, Mr. Taylor, for the society of Mill, 97 Repudiation of criminality in the relation, ...... 98 Her intimacy with Mill a source of bitterness to her husband, . . 99 And the cause of a separation between Mill and his friends, ... 99 The peculiar ideas of Mill and Mrs. Taylor on the subject of liberty, . 99 The uncertainty of Mrs. Taylor's support while separated from her husband, 100 The death of Mr. Taylor, and the marriage of the widow to Mill, . 100 Her death at Avignon, and the epitaph placed on her tomb, . . . 101 Her many exalted qualities, as described by Mill, 102 The great service she was to him in his literary enterprises, . . 99, 103 The part she had in his various works, 103-105 12 178 INDEX. PAGE MILL, MRS., in what way did she acquire all the knowledge she possessed ? . 105 MIRACLES, the nature of, 161, 162 MONOGRAPHERS, White of Selborne on . . . . . . . .17 MOORE, NORMAN, his high eulogium on Waterton not sustained by facts, 40, 42, 48, 49 His use of improper language when alluding to others, .... 48 MORMONISM, the hold it has on its followers 53 NATURALISTS should be guided mainly by facts in their researches, . . 16 Generally men of humanity and intelligence, 18 Closet, Waterton's antipathy to, 42, 44, 47 NATURAL HISTORY, how researches should be conducted in, 3, 18, 28, 34, 36 Of man in his apostacy from God, #53 NATURAL RELIGION, see Paganism. NOVELISTS, the general intellectual character of, 152 OPOSSUM, peculiarities of the, . . . . . . . . .19 OSTRICH, the, as described by Job, 23 OWL, peculiarities of the, #93 PAGANISM, the difficulty in converting a people from, 49 The sacrifices of the Gentiles, the prayer of Plato, and the sacrifice of Socrates, 51 Natural religion apparently the corruption of an original revelation, . 5 1 Natural religion, as described by St. Paul, 51 The difficulties attending the establishment of a religion, . . .52 St. Paul taken for a god on two occasions, 52, 54 The establishment of Mormonism, 53 Human Nature capable of setting up a worship of its own, . . -53 And converting a revelation into a religion of nature, . . . 49, 53 Deification among the ancient Pagans, . . . . . . ^53 The natural history of man in the matter of religion, .... #53 The religion of the Athenians, 58, 79, 82 Contrast between the claims of the priests of modern and ancient Rome, 59 Cicero on an ancestral religion, 59, 60, 66 Its foundation the authority of the priests and tradition, 59 Paganism in some respects tolerant, 59 Plutarch on the " agreeable things " connected with Paganism, . . 59 It could neither be attacked nor defended on the question of its ori- gin, ......... 60, n6 1 It rested entirely on " venerating the religion of its ancestors," . . 60 It gave to Romanists most of their peculiarities, 61 How it existed before and after the establishment of Christianity, . 62 The awe inspired by Pagan temples and religious groves, . . .65 The worship of Diana of the Ephesians, 65 The religions of ancient and modern Rome compared, .... 66 PALL MALL GAZETTE, THE, on the Gipsies, ni6o PAN, Plato's prayer addressed to, 5 1 INDEX. 179 PAGE PAN would not have been a god under certain circumstances, . . . 1 1 1 PHILOSOPHERS, the great things they are to accomplish according to Mill, . 81 The want of common sense among many of them, .... 94 PIG, the, a great enemy to snakes, 19 How it fights the rattlesnake, . 19 PLATO, his prayer to Pan, 5 1 On future punishment, 78 PLINY, the Consul, on the contemplation of death, 78 PLUTARCH on the idea of kissing a Pagan emperor's foot, .... #54 On the pleasant associations connected with the religion of Pagans, . 59 On the existence of God, 79 PONS ASINORUM, the, of the Gipsy question, 7*124 PROTESTANTS, the religion of, n6o, 64 The power they have to encounter in Romanism, 62 PSALMIST, THE, on the mysteries of his being, 81 QUAKERS, how they keep themselves distinct from others, . . . 162, 167 QUINTILIAN on the existence of God, 79 On the education of youth, 88 On common sense, and premature intellectual efforts, .... 88 RABBIT, the American, does not burrow, 20 REES' CYCLOPAEDIA on the rattlesnake swallowing her young, ... 26 RITUALISTS in the English Church, . . . . . . .51, ^58 ROEBUCK, Mill's quarrel with, 96 ROMANISM : The natural adherence of mankind to the religion of their an- cestors, 49 Though springing from Christianity, a religion of corrupt human nature, 49 The way in which it is taught by the Church and its priests, . . 49 The difficulties of Romanists shaking off the system, .... 50 In what it consists, 50 The absolute belief and submission of its devotees, .... 50 The dignity and power of the priesthood, 50 Their worldly position, 51 The miracles of the Apostles not attempted by the priests, . . -53 The fountain for the washing away of sins claimed by a priest, . -53 The scorn of St. Peter when refusing money to confer a Christian grace, 54 He commands people to pray to GOD for forgiveness, and raises Corne- lius from the ground, 54 Refusal of divine honours by St. Paul, .54 The kissing of the Pope's foot, 54 The worship of the "saints" and of their "relics," .... 54 The foundation of the Church, . . 54 Peter as a foundation, 54 His character, 54 The aversion of Romanists to hear the Greek Church mentioned, . . 55 The Pope should be required to "prove his pedigree" on a variety of subjects, 55 INDEX. PAGE ROMANISM : The natural perpetuation of a religion that has been established, 56 A scepticism that is common among Romanists, 56 The rearing of priests, 56 Sceptical and atheistical priests, 57 The light in which priests regard themselves and those around them, . 57 The confessional generally, . 58 Peculiarities of priests, 58 The power of the priests of modern and ancient Rome compared, . 59 The absolute belief of Romanists under any circumstances, ... 60 Christianity originated in a civilized age, and is based on facts, . . 60 The fight between it and Paganism, .61 A coalition formed, 61 Romanism borrowed most of its peculiarities from Paganism, . . 61 Romanism not Christianity, . . . . . . . . .61 The despotism of its priesthood, 61,7264 The historical foundation on which Romanism rests, . . . . n6i The foundation of corrupt Christianity like that of a human religion, . 62 Both can maintain themselves in the world, 62 The gradual growth of Romanism and the powers claimed by it, , . 62 Romanism as a power which Protestantism has to combat, ... 62 Sincere and nominal Romanists, ........ 63 The sincerity of the priests, 64 The peculiar training of Roman priests, 65, ngo The influence of the Romanist system over its votaries, .... 65 Its effects resemble, in some respects, those of the goddess Diana, . 65 The belief and practices of lay and clerical Romanists, .... 66 Comparison between Romanism and ancient Paganism, ... 66 The extent to which Christianity has been corrupted by Romanism, . 66 The infallibility of the Pope, 67 The right of private judgment among Romanists, 67 The trouble which the Scriptures cause the Romanists, ... 68 Passages in Scripture which the Pope should be called upon to interpret, 68 The second commandment set aside by Romanists, .... 68 Christ's words on the perpetuity of the moral law, .... 68 SATURDAY REVIEW, THE, on the disappearance of the Gipsies, . . . nm SCEPTICS seldom or never investigate the religion they object to, . . -75 Their so-called religion, as described by Mill, 77 SCOTT, SIR WALTER, his opinion on the disappearance of the Gipsies, . .114 On the difficulties in acquiring the language of the Gipsies, . . .124 SKUNK, singular peculiarity in the, 44 SNAKES, belligerency among, 7,15,7215 Climbers and swimmers, -. 22, 30, 41, 42 Constrictors, 31, 4 1 Eggs, description of, 8, 10, 14, 26, 32 Fascinating birds, 30, 31, 40, 41 Feeding, 7,11,22,27,29,31,41 Hatching of their eggs, probable time required for, . . " . . 20 INDEX. l8l PAGE SNAKES hatched on a mantelpiece, and on a table, 7 14 Holes, the use they make of, io 2 7, 29 Hybernating, 2 9 Incubators, 33 43 Natural history of, how generally acquired, . . . . 16,17,26,36 Nests, how made and found, 8, 15, 18-21, 31, 33 Oviparous, 7, 8, 12, 14, 34, 37, 38 Progeny, number of, 8,11,18,19,29,31-34 Scriptural allusions to, i?, 3 r Skins, shedding of their, 9, 22, 27, 41 Swallowing of their young, 7-9,11,13,15,16,18,19, 23, 24, 26, 27, 34, 35, 37, ^39 Apparent mode of, . . . . . 9, 10, 16, 24, 26, 36, 38 All snakes should be assumed to be " swallowers," . . 29, 38 Viviparous (so-called), . . * - . " . - . . . 8, 12, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38 Water, ./ '. V ...... 18 How their nests are built, 19 Young, how are they fed ? . '. -. V M \ . . . 10,16,25 Seldom seen by themselves, v .' 9 J 5 When seen by themselves, . . -y. ..... 27 SOCRATES, his sacrifice to ^Esculapius, 5 r Man's ignorance regarding his origin, 7" On the existence of God, 79 SOUTHEY, ROBERT, on the policy of the Jesuits, '; ' ' '' .... 7248 Styled Bunyan a "blackguard," . '. ': I '. ' '; . . .158 On Bunyan's education, . . . , -. 159 SPANISH GIPSIES, 123-127 ST. ANDREWS, Mill's legacy to the students of, 74 ST. PAUL on the laws of nature in the propagation of animals, . . .17 On godly sorrow and the sorrow of the world, .-; , . . . n$o On people who are " ever learning," 51 The sacrifices of the Gentiles, and the religion of nature, . . .51 Taken for a god at Lystra, and in the Island of Malta, . . 52 On the delusion sent to the ungodly, .- . .: . . . 53, 67 His horror at having the divine honours of Pagans offered him, . . 54 His opposition to St. Peter, . . . . . . . . 55 On the religion of the Athenians, 58, 79, 82 On speaking in an unknown tongue, as applicable to the Pope's infalli- bility, 67 On the teaching and influence of the Holy Scriptures, .... 67 On the coming of Antichrist, ........ 68 On the fear of death and future punishment, ...... 78 On the Epicurean creed, ....... < 80 ST. PETER scorned to accept money to confer a Christian grace, ... 54 He commands people to pray to GOD for forgiveness, and raises Corne- lius from the ground, 54 His character generally, 5 STANLEY, DEAN, on the confessional and the Eastern Churches, 61 Eulogizes Bunyan at Bedford, ni6i 1 82 INDEX. PAGE SUNSTROKE illustrated, 43 SURNAMES among the Gipsies, 121, 130 TOAD, the, eaten by snakes, 27 TORTOISES AND TURTLES, how they are generated, 33 The tortoise swallowed alive by the boa, 41 WATERTON, CHARLES, greatly in error in regard to snakes, . . . 39-42 Surrounds Walton Hall with a wall, for the sake of natural history, . 42 His writings full of errors in regard to natural history, ... 42, 46 On sunstroke, . . . . , 43 The pythoness hatching her eggs, . . .. . ' ; , . . . . 43 The skunk, . . * . 44 On wolves, ^ . .44 The apes on Gibraltar, ; . . 45 A description of his writings, 46, 48 Avows himself to be a Romanist, . 47 On bird-stuffers, 47 On closet naturalists, . . . 44, 47 His character as a naturalist, ; 42, 47, 48 Some peculiarities in his private character, 46, 47 His eulogium on the Jesuits, by whom he was educated, 47 How he got the better of a Jesuit at Stonyhurst, #48 His complaint on being termed an unscientific naturalist, ... 48 He was not a man of science in the proper sense of the word, . . 49 WESTMINSTER REVIEW, THE, on the Gipsies, m6o WHITE, GILBERT, of Selborne, on the propagation and feeding of snakes, . 10 His testimony regarding vipers swallowing their young, and viper-catch- ers, II Describes a viper pregnant with eggs, and another with young, . . 1 1 ' His theory regarding the hatching of vipers' eggs, . . 11,12,33 Was not apparently a scientific naturalist, n\2 On monographers, 17 On the difficulties attending the formation of a natural history, . . 17 On the comparing of one animal to another by memory, . . .18 As a man of candour, and open to conviction in regard to natural history, 19 On the genera of animals peculiar to America, . . . .* 19 On the variety of the methods of Providence in natural history, . . 20 On the hatching of snakes' eggs, 20,21 Was no bird-catcher or tamer, 20 On snakes shedding their skins, 22 Was not fond of analogous reasoning or theories, 22 WOLVES, how they hunt their prey, 44, 45 WORDSWORTH, the influence of his poetry on Mill, 96 ZINCALI SOCIETY, THE, in the city of New York, 141 APPENDIX. 7. JOHN BUNYAN AND THE GIPSIES* A WORK by myself, entitled Con- tributions to Natural History and Papers on Other Subjects, now in the hands of Edinburgh publishers, from stereotype plates sent from this side, was set up before I saw Notes and Queries of the nth July last, which contains an article from Mr. Dudley Gary Elwes, on the parent- age of John Bunyan. In that arti- cle Mr. Elwes writes : " As I was (by the courtesy of the vicar of the parish), inspecting the reg- ter of Wootton parish, Co. Bedfordshire, I came across the following entries, which evidently allude to some of John Bunyan's ancestors, as Wootton is not so very far from Elstow about five miles and they may, perhaps, eventually lead to the discovery of who were his par- ents ; they also do away with the sup- position of those who think that John Bunyan may have had Gipsy blood in his veins." And he gives a list of seven bap- tisms, four marriages, and five buri- als of people of the names of Bun- nion and Bunion, between the years 1581 and 1645. In Notes and Queries for roth October, 1874, D. C. E. gives a list of many baptisms, marriages, and burials, principally under the name of Bonyon, from Chalgrave register, Co. Beds., between the years 1559 and 1629. And in John Camden Hotten's Original list of Emigrants, etc., to the American Plantations, *This article on " John Bunyan and the Gipsies," was sent to Notes and Que- ries, on the 3d March, 1875, and printed on the 27th. I have thought it advisable to insert it here, in its original form. (1874), we find " John, son of John and Mary Bunnyon, bap. 16 Octo- ber, 1679," taken from the register of Christ Church, Barbadoes. In the Sunday Magazine, for Jan- uary, 1875, I find the following: " The Rev. John Brown, of Bunyan meeting, has gone with great care into many of the old registers connected with the meeting and the parish, and has contrived to throw a good deal of light on several points regarding the ' Great Dreamer.' First of all, he finds that the idea of Bunyan being of Gipsy race, is totally discountenanced, which suppo- sition might have been encouraged by the fact of Bunyan's trade being that of a tinker or travelling brazier, in which many Gipsies were engaged. He has discovered that though the name of Bunyan has now died out from Bedford- shire, it is of great antiquity, and was pretty common there under various forms of spelling. It was borne by people of good position." And the writer quotes from The Book of the Bunyan Festival, as fol- lows : " In the original accounts of the real and personal estates of delinquents seized by the Parliament of England, between the years 1642 and 1648, the rent of Sir George Bynnion, delinquent, in the parish of Eaton-Socon, Bedford- shire, is returned at ^223, us. 4d. From the same account it appears that the land of Mr. Foster, delinquent, in the parish of Stretly, was let by the year to John Bunnyon, tenant, at a rent of ^30. It is perhaps worthy of notice, that the farm of this John Bunnyon was not far from that village of Samsell, where our John Bunyan was appre- hended for preaching. Were they kins- men, and had the tinker been on a visit 1 84 APPENDIX. to his more prosperous relative when he fell into trouble? [!] Quite recently also it has been discovered that between October, 1581, and January, 1645, the name of Bunnion or Bunion occurs no less than sixteen times in the register of the parish church at Wootton, a vil- lage three or four miles from Elstow. There can be little doubt that these dif- ferent modes of spelling are simply vari- ations of the same name, and their long existence in the county effectually dis- poses of the supposition that the Bun- yans were Gipsies." From the above-mentioned no- tices of the Gipsies, as well as others scattered of late through Notes and Queries, it does not appear that the writers have made any real inqui- ries in regard to the subject, but merely to have set out with precon- ceived ideas, popular impressions, or suppositions and theories, and made their remarks dovetail into them. Now, what is wanted is a carefully considered investigation, starting from certain facts connected with the Gipsies, as they exist, such as: " i st. What constitutes a Gipsy in a settled or unsettled state ? 2d. What should we ask a Gipsy to do to ' cease to be a Gipsy,' and become more a native of the country of his birth than he is already ? 3d. In what rela- tion does the race stand to others around it, with reference to intermarriage and the destiny of the mixed progeny, and that of the tribe generally ? An inves- tigation of this kind would involve a search for so many facts, however diffi- cult of being found ; and should be con- ducted as .... a fact is proved in a court of justice ; difficulties, suppositions or theories, or analogies not being allowed to form part of the testimony." Con- tributions, p. 134. Many who take an interest in this subject, and are doubtless desirous of getting to the bottom of it, and learning most of the facts of it, may not have the time or opportunities to investigate it ; or they may not have the talents suitable for the busi- ness, or may find it difficult to get hold of the thread of it, so as to unravel it to the satisfaction of them- selves and others. Such people I would refer to Simsorfs History of the Gipsies, edited by myself, and published by Sampson Low & Co., in 1865 ; a work of 575 pp., con- taining a minute index of all the information to be found in it. In the ordinary course of things, what is contained in this work would be commented on, admitted or reject- ed, so far as current ideas are con- cerned, and taken as the basis of future investigations. But the wri- ters alluded to have apparently either never seen or heard of the book, and are therefore not " read up " on the subject they discuss ; or they purposely ignore it, and so raise the question whether they are merely treating the subject to make a paragraph, or maintain a theory. And that applies more particularly to the fact of Bynnion, Bunnyon, Bonyon, Bunnion or Bunion being a name not uncommon, in the seven- teenth century, in Bedfordshire. Hence the two writers specially al- luded to conclude in triumph, and perhaps with a flourish of trumpets, that John Bunyan could not possi- bly have been a Gipsy, for the rea- son that others of the British race were of the same name ! and, as a corollary, that no one bearing a British name can, under any circum- stances, be a Gipsy ! The two gen- tlemen mentioned seem to know very little, if anything, of the sub- ject, and should have exhausted every source of information, and looked at every side of the question, before so dogmatically asserting that they " do away with the supposition of those who think that John Bunyan may have had Gipsy blood in his veins ; " that " the idea of Bunyan being of Gipsy race, is totally dis- countenanced," and that the long existence of the name in the county, " effectually disposes of the suppo- sition that the Bunyans were Gip- sies." The question is, When, and for JOHN BUNYAN AND THE GIPSIES. I8 5 what purpose, and under what cir- cumstances, did the Gipsies assume the Christian and surnames of Great Britain and Europe generally ? The natural answer is that it was to pro- tect themselves against the severity of the laws passed against them. A tribal tradition (as distinguished from a private family one) on a sub- ject of that kind would be easily and accurately handed down from so recent a time as Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. Now, the tradition among all the British Gipsies is that their British names were origi- nally assumed from those of people of influence, among whom the tribe settled, as they scattered over the country, and had districts assigned to them, under chieftains, with a king over all, and tokens or passes to keep each in his district, or from infringing on the rights of other families. All that is fully explained in Simson's History of the Gipsies (pp. 116, 117, 205, and 218), where will also be found (p. 206) the fancy the tribe have always had for term- ing themselves " braziers," and hav- ing the word put on their tomb- stones. And how a person can, in the most important sense of the word, be a Gipsy, with blue eyes and fair hair, as well as black, no matter what his character or habits, calling or creed may be, is also very elaborately explained in the same work. And that anticipated Mr. James Wyatt, who said, in Notes and Queries, on the 2d Janu- ary last, that John Bunyan could not have been a Gipsy, owing to his personal appearance, as he was " Tall of stature, strong-boned, with sparkling eyes, wearing his hair on the upper lip after the old British fashion, his hair reddish, but in his latter days sprinkled with grey ; his nose well cut, his mouth not too large, his forehead something high, and his habit always plain and modest. " To the History of the Gipsies, and to the forthcoming Contributions in both of which Mr. Borrow is very fully reviewed all parties in- quiring about the Gipsies and John Bunyan are referred. The discovery of Bunyan (with a variety in the spelling), having been the name of native families, is in- teresting, and shows how superficial previous inquiries must have been. I was under the impression that the Bunyan family had brought it into England with them ; but admitting that it was assumed by them, it still holds good that " Very likely there was not a drop of common English blood in Bunyan's veins. John Bunyan belongs to the world at large, and England is only entitled to the credit of the formation of his character." Contributions, p, 159. The name of Bunyan having been borne by native families would not, under any circumstances, even make it probable that John Bunyan was not a Gipsy, for there is a great variety of native names among the race. Had he belonged to the native race, he could have said that he was, in all probability, of a " fine old Saxon family in reduced circum- stances, related to a baronet and many respectable families." In place of that he said : " For my descent, it was, as is well known to many, of a low and incon- siderable generation, my father's house being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families of the land." At this time it was death by law for being a Gipsy, and " felony without benefit of clergy" for as- sociating with them, and odious to the rest of the population. Besides telling us that his descent was " well known to many," he add- ed : "Another thought came into my mind, and that was, whether we [his, family and relations] were of the Israel- ites or no ; for finding in the Scriptures that they were once the peculiar people of God, thought I, if I were one of this race [how significant is the expression !] 1 86 APPENDIX. my soul must needs be happy. Now, again, I found within me a great long- ing to be resolved about this question, but could not tell how I should. At last I asked my father of it, who told me ; No, we [his father included] were not." Language like this is pregnant with meaning when used by a man who " Was simpjy a Gipsy of mixed blood, who must have spoken the Gipsy language in great purity ; for consider- ing tlje extent to which it is spoken in England to-day, we can well believe that it was very pure two centuries ago, and that Bunyan might have written works even in that language." Contri- butions, p. 159. " It would be interest- ing to have an argument in favour of the common native hypothesis In the face of what Bunyan said of him- self, it is very unreasonable to hold that he was not a Gipsy, but a common native, when the assumption is all the other way. Let neither, however, be assumed, but let an argument in favour of both be placed alongside of the other to see how the case would look." Id., p. 1 60. In the forthcoming Contributions an effort is made to have the sub- ject of the Gipsies placed on a right foundation, and the race, in its various mixtures of blood and positions in life, openly acknowl- edged by the world ; John Bunyan taking his place " as the first (that is known to the world) of eminent Gipsies, the prince of allegorists, and one of the most remarkable of men and Christians. " The remarks I have made about two writers in particular are not altogether inapplicable to Mr. A. Frgusson, United Service Club, Edinburgh, who wrote thus, in Notes and Queries, on igih Decem- ber, 1874, on "Gipsy Christian names and tombs" : " The ideas of most people, however, on the subject, derived chiefly from sen- sational novels and the mystified tales of George Borrow, are, I imagine, still rather hazy." However, I give him, as follows, in answer to his inquiry, copies of inscriptions on two Gipsy tomb- stones, in the cemetery of Grove Church, in North Bergen township, on the edge of Union Hill, in New Jersey, opposite to New York : Neat upright marble tablet, with a weeping willow, partly covering a monument, carved on the surface : IN MEMORY OF NAOMI DAVIS, WHO DIED MARCH 4, 1855, AGED 22 YEARS. Farewell father, mother, husband and son, Don't weep for me although I am gone ; Don't weep for me, nor neither cry, I trust to meet my God on high. " The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, Blessed be the name of the Lord." On a smaller upright marble mon- ument, within the enclosure, formed by a chain and marble supports, a little out of order, there is the follow- ing, to the memory of her sister : VASHTI, WIFE OF T. WORTON, DIED Nov. 26, 1851, M. 26 YR. This family and some of their connections I was well acquainted with. I found them of various mixtures of blood; some with the Gipsy features and colour strongly marked, and others bearing no re- semblance to the tribe. They all spoke the language. One of the sons-in-law was a half-caste Scotch Hindoo from Bombay. They did not have much education, but were naturally intelligent, and smart and 'cute.* In addition to the investigations made in church registers, I would suggest that the records of the differ- ent criminal courts in Bedfordshire, (if they still exist) should be exam- ined, to find if people of the name of Bunyan (and how designated) are found to have been on trial, and for what offences. * This was an English Gipsy family. II. MR. FRANK BUCKLAND AND WHITE OF SEL- BORNE* ON looking over Mr. Buckland's edition of White's Natural History of Selborne, I find some strange remarks made by him on the question alluded to by White, whether vipers, on the approach of danger, swallow their young. White himself was the very embodiment of dignity and simplicity, candour and courtesy, and was open to con- viction on every question relating to natural history, let the informa- tion come from whatever direction it might. Thus he said : "Monographers, come from whence they may, have, I think, fair pretence to challenge some regard and approbation from the lovers of natural history." " Men that undertake only one district are much more likely to advance natural knowledge than those that grasp at more than they can possibly be ac- quainted with." " Candour forbids me to say absolutely that any fact is false because I have never been witness to such a fact." Mr. Buckland, when discussing * the question, should have presented in a condensed form the pro and con of it, and given his own conclusion, so that the reader could have formed an estimate of his judgment and of the subject generally. In place of that, he has not, even in the most distant manner, alluded to the affirmative side of the question, nor suggested how the idea could have arisen, or how it happens that * This and the following article were of- fered, unsuccessfully, to some English publications. 1 give them in the original form, that they may carry more weight, or be more interesting, than if they had been specially got up for the use they are now put to, although they will present the ap- pearance of a repetition of some of the ideas and facts given. so many intelligent people maintain it as a fact personally known to themselves. The course adopted by him was not for want of informa- tion, for (not to speak of many others) he had a number of articles from myself in Land and Water, and others, in his possession for several months, which did not ap- pear in that journal, but which were again laid before him in a work published last year under the title of Contributions to Natural History, and Papers on other Subjects. In that work I said, in regard to snakes swallowing their young, that " I consider the testimony so com- plete that nothing could be added to it, although it would be very interesting to have a careful examination of the ana- tomy of the snake to ascertain the phy- sical peculiarities connected with the phenomenon described " (p. 3). "As in mathematics we require to know some things to demonstrate others ; so in snakes swallowing their young it is not necessary for a man ot science or common sense, if he will but exercise it, to see it done in order to believe it ; but when ocular testimony is added, it sets the question at rest be- yond all doubt. The next thing to be considered is the anatomy of the snake immediately after the birth of her progeny ; but that could not be so easily ascertained as that she swallows them " (P- 38). " I am not aware of the throat of a snake having been examined to see whether it could allow an instant pas- sage for her young. ... If a throat were examined, it should be that of a snake that was alleged or supposed to have swallowed her progeny " (p. 26). " It will be difficult to find this passage unless when it is in use, for it will be- come so contracted at other times as to escape any observation that is not very minutely made " (p. 36). That evidence I have not seen (187) 1 88 APPENDIX. impeached by any one. Part of it consisted of a paper read by Pro- fessor G. Brown Goode, of the Uni- versity of Middletown, Connecticut, before the Science Convention at Portland, in the State of Maine, in 1873, which furnished evidence from nearly a hundred people from many parts of the United States; several gentlemen present testifying of their own knowledge to the fact of snakes swallowing their young, particularly Professor Sydney J. Smith, of the Sheffield Scientific School, Yale College, who "added to the testi- mony of the paper his personal evi- dence, that he had seen ' with his own eyes ' young snakes entering and issuing from the mouth of an older one." Mr. Buckland brings forward no evidence whatever in support of himself and his friends as "anti- swallowers." What he says amounts virtually to this, that what he and they do not know, or do not under- stand, has no existence in fact! The twelve verses of the song, to the tune of Lord Lovel, composed by Mr. Henry Lee, in connection with himself and Mr. Higford Burr, in attempted derision of " swallow- ers," has no bearing on the ques- tion at issue. He, indeed, advances Mr. Davy, the bird-catcher and dealer, who and whose employes never saw a viper swallow her young, and therefore pronounce the idea a " story of Old Mother Hub- bard ! " He also quotes Mr. Hol- land, the keeper of the snakes at the Zoological Gardens, who never saw it done in his collection of snakes; from which Mr. Buckland infers that the idea is a romance. I attach no weight to what Mr. Davy says ; but Mr. Holland is entitled to a particular notice. I would ask him if he knows for certainty how vipers are born. If he finds that the mother passes the young in the shape of an egg or ball, about the size of a blackbird's egg, when they immediately disengage themselves from the covering after it has touched the ground, how can he find a viper full of young, upwards of seven inches long, arid so active as to instantly fight or run, unless they afterwards entered her by the mouth ? Like Mr. Davy, the bird- man, he will doubtless scratch his head and cry, " Old Mother Hub- bard ! " Most likely both gentle- men's knowledge is limited to their own observations, and, like such people generally, they are poor judges of what has been observed by others under different circum- stances. Thus Mr. Holland con- cludes that vipers do not, and there- fore cannot, swallow their young while in a state of nature, because they do not do it while in captivity a most illogical conclusion. His vipers have either been born in captivity, or become reconciled to it through time, so that their house, cage, or den is the only place of safety they know of. And for what purpose would a viper swallow her young under these circumstances? It could not be to carry them any- where, or shield them from the weather, or protect them against danger that was avoidable ; the last being the reason always given by people who have seen the phenome- non. This I explained in Land and Water, when I also met the objection of the viper-catchers. It would be interesting to be told by Mr. Buckland how viviparous snakes are actually born. He cuts open a viper, and finds inside a string or necklace of eggs about an inch in length. Further on in the season he cuts open another viper, and finds the same number (as it may be) of young, upwards of seven inches long, complete and active snakes, lying all sorts of ways, with no remains of the eggs. He says that these have not yet been born ; whereas, in fact, they had previously been born in the way described, and had returned to the same cham- ber by the mouth. An assumption MR. FRANK BUCKLAND AND WHITE OF SELBOXNE. I8 9 or supposition of Mr. Buckland on a point like this amounts to nothing. It would also be interesting if he would tell us what animals are not covered, or partly covered, with something, however slight, when they come into the world. If he finds, as a matter of fact, that vipers are born singly, in the open air, with a covering on them, how can he pos- sibly resist the conclusion that those found inside of a mother, as de- scribed, had entered her by the mouth? That there may be no question on this point, we find in America that oviparous snakes are found with young inside of them which were hatched in the soil ; the young having been seen to run in and run out by people whose evi- dence it would be out of the ques- tion to dispute. Mr. Buckland's ideas on this sub- ject are very hazy and vague. Thus a writer in Land and Water, on the 27th of September, 1873, said that a gentleman killed a viper, and " ob- serving it to be of unusual thickness about the middle, he put his foot upon the place, thinking that the reptile had recently swallowed a mouse. The pressure brought out ten young vipers from the mouth of the old one. Some of them were about five inches long, and some shorter ; but all were alive and act- ive, as if they had previously seen the light of day, and had again sought shelter in the parent." Mr. Buckland admitted all .this, but maintained that the young had not been born, but were squeezed out of the mouth! a rather strange phe- nomenon for the young inside of an egg or covering to be forced out of the mouth, in the direction of which, according to Mr. Buckland's theory, there is no passage. One would naturally think that the pressure of the foot would have converted the contents of the mother into a jelly, or forced them out towards the tail, rather than produced a " stream of viperlings " from her mouth, " alive and active," as described.* On the i4th of August, 1875, he was in- formed of an officer of the 77th Reg- iment killing a viper with " young ones alive inside." To that Mr. Buckland replied : " To say that a viper has swallowed its young because they are found inside it, is as logical as to state that because a lot of kittens are found alive in a moth- er cat, therefore the cat had swallowed them." From this one would conclude, that snakes do not swallow their young because cats do not do it ! " There is nothing extraordinary in finding live baby vipers inside the mother; but they were not, and never had been, inside the stomach proper." As if any one had ever as- serted that, or imagined that Nature was such a botch as to permit the young to get mixed up with the en- trails or vital organs ! " They were by the side of the stomach, each wrapt up in a thin delicate membrane " (the remains of the original egg), as indeed they were before they were born ; but these were divested of the membrane, and, as it were," run- ning about " inside, as can be found in a viper any summer in England. Another strange thing to be no- ticed in Mr. Buckland's notes on White> besides not admitting a single word in opposition to his theory as distinguished from the fact of snakes swallowing their young, is, that he does not admit of White's own evidence, which was complete, excepting that he did not tell us (because he says he did not know) how vipers are born. White wrote thus of vipers : " Though they are oviparous, yet they are viviparous also, hatching their young within their bellies, and then bringing them forth." In supporting this assertion, it would have been interesting had he * For the particulars of this phenom- enon see note at page 39. igo APPENDIX. given us his authority. Like others, before and since, he evidently con- cluded that, as some vipers are killed pregnant with eggs and others with young, the latter must have been, and therefore were, hatched inside. His real knowledge was illustrated when he said that " the reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with so well as I could wish with regard to their natural history. There is a degree of du- biousness and obscurity attending the propagation of this class of ani- mals." Then he says : "Several intelligent folks assure me that they have seen the viper open her mouth and admit her helpless young down her throat on sudden surprises ; " whereas Mr. Buckland writes thus: "It is still believed by many that a female viper will swallow her young when they are in peril. In nearly all the cases [he does not explain the ex- ceptions] that have come under my ex- amination, the event always happened a long time ago. The witness gener- ally begins his statement thus : ' When I was a little boy,' ' Many years ago,' ' My grandmother told me,' etc., etc. If vipers swallowed their young ' many years ago,' why should they not do so in our time ?" And he adds with a pooh, pooh air, as if he had noticed a crow flying past a window : "A correspondence on this subject takes place in Land and Water almost every year," while all the evidence furnished, in- cluding my own and that of the American Science Convention, as already explained, and the evidence to be drawn from other sources, has been passed by as if it had no value, or even existence. Presuming on something or other, whatever it may be, he thus carries things with a very high hand, riding rough-shod over every kind of evidence quite unlike a man of superior character, intellect, and acquirements. In his defence he says : " I have made many anatomical pre- parations to show that the young vipers found inside the mother have never been born." It would certainly be interesting to have these examinations minutely described, but divested of technical phrases, so as to make them per- fectly intelligible to the ordinary reader, and in which nothing is as- sumed, but everything proved, or logically and elaborately argued, if it cannot admit of proof.* He further says : " I still continue my public offer of a reward of i for a specimen of a viper which has been seen to swallow its young, the young being actitally in the cesophagus, or in the stomach proper, when it is opened by me in the presence of witnesses." The words underlined by him will prevent him being ever called upon to pay the pound, for young snakes do not enter that part of the mother, but take refuge in the chamber that contained the eggs, and that lies by the side or in front of the stomach, and extends below it, if my memory serves me correctly. There might be danger in taking the pound in the event of Mr. Buckland buy- ing a "pig in a bag," and lay- ing his " subject " aside to suit his convenience in having it dis- sected in the presence of his wit- nesses, who must be called together ; for he could have the countryman arrested for obtaining money on false pretences, on the plea that the young had not been swallowed ; for, had they been swallowed, they would have been in the stomach, and not in the chamber! And he * It was evidently in reply to this re- quest that Mr. Buckland gave, in Land and Water, a wood cut illustration of "a viper supposed to have swallowed its young," as alluded to in the following article. MR. FRANK BUCKLAND AND WHITE OF SELBORNE. might even get Messrs. Lee and Burr, and others of that " way," to back him and prove his case before many a "justice," unless the un- fortunate man stumbled over some " vagabond attorney " who was " up to snakes," and stretched them all on the rack of the cross-question, and completely floored or dished the prosecution, and immediately began an action for false imprisonment and slander. If the applicant for the pound waited to see the result of the examination before getting his money, he might be turned out like a dog for having insulted the savants, notwithstanding his most solemn asseverations that he actually saw the viper swallow her brood, in whatever part of her they might be found. This "offer" of Mr. Buckland, however meaningless it is in its nature and indelicate in its appeal to naturalists, has been well circu- lated for years back, and will be so for the future, unless the press should say, " Stop that advertise- ment," till he does the following : ist, That he should give his ex- aminations of vipers which he says showed that the young had never been born ; zd, that he should tell the world how vipers, as a matter of fact, are born ; and, 3^, that if he finds they are born " singly, in the open air, with a covering on them, how can he possibly resist the con- clusion that those found inside of a mother, as described, had entered her by the mouth?" This Mr. Buckland can easily do, since it rests with himself; whereas his offer is addressed to every one, and what is everybody's business is nobody's business.* * Thus far of this article I offered to a London natural history publication, with the request that it might be returned if not accepted ; and it came back, with every courtesy on the part of the editor. The remainder of the article was sent (o another London journal that should certainly have printed it, but took no notice of it, as I shall mention at p. 198, In White's Natural History of Selborne, published by Bickers & Son (1875), we have the original text, and the original notes marked G. W., so that the work, as it came from the hands of the author, stands out clearly from remarks made by others. Judged by this standard, Mr. Buckland's edition is an amaz- ing production, which it would be difficult to characterize in be- coming language. He disposes of White's notes as follows: 13 (some of them considerably mangled) are embodied in the text; 24 (not al- ways copied correctly) are used as notes, with nothing to distinguish them from his own (of which he has about 30); and 24 are entirely sup- pressed. The language of the text is changed to incorporate the notes with it ; and other liberties have been taken, but to what extent can only be ascertained by collating the two publications, which would be the more troublesome, owing to the letters being arranged differently from those in the original edition. The changes that may have been made are not likely to improve the language, if we judge from Mr. Buckland's Preface. White's Ob- servations on Nature have been omitted, and in their place about a third of them, without any explana- tion given, have been inserted in brackets in the body of some of the letters, and in the most clumsy way ; the word Observations being placed outside of the brackets, and some- times omitted. Quotation marks have been left out when they should appear ; and occasionally Mr. Buck- land's own remarks printed, with nothing excepting the sense to dis- tinguish them from White's text. In this way he breaks in upon the genius and beauty of the work a charmingly desultory production, in which we can never imagine what even the next paragraph is likely to be ; frequently the same subjects be- ing alluded to again and again, ex- actly as they were written from time 192 APPENDIX. to time ; while the interest attach- ing to the Observations, and most of the Observations themselves, as well as the Summary of the Weather, have been entirely done away with. Translations of Latin quotations have been printed as part of the text, and various Latin documents excluded from the Antiquities. Per- haps Mr. Buckland is the only man in England who would so treat such a book an inheritance which every one should regard with reverence. He has shown a singular peculiarity of judgment and sense of responsi- bility in so " editing " it. With no references in the text, of which they are, or are supposed to be, illustrations, he adds 134 pages of notes, a very large part of which, however interesting most of them are, bear no relation whatever to White's matter, but would be suitable for a collection of illustra- tions, odds and ends, or scraps in natural history; and it wouJ4 not be amiss to consign large parts of most of the remaining notes to the same repository ; while there are a great many nice points in various branches of natural history that have not been commented on at all, and 45 pages that have no notes of any kind. It is to be sincerely hoped that Mr. Buckland's book will pass at its true value, and never be allowed to corrupt the text of the amiable White ; for it is only the Natural History of Selborne al- tered, mixed and mutilated, and at the best only a part, although the most part, of what has hitherto passed under that name. Mr. Buck- land says that " White's Selborne has held its own as a standard book for a hundred years, and will probably be as fresh -as ever a hundred years hence ;" but it must be as White left it, with additions distinguished from the original matter. White was a man that doubtless brooded over the books he read on his favourite subjects. In regard to that Mr. Buckland says, that " I have discovered that White had not only deeply studied Derham and also Ray, but [that] in many cases he illustrates [illustrated] Derham's argu- ments by his own observations." As if his work does not suffi- ciently " discover " that ; for in it we find Ray mentioned at least forty times, and Derham frequently al- luded to. Mr. Buckland also says : " We live in a beautiful and happy world Rest assured that if we, like White, love animals (commonly called dumb because we cannot under- stand their language), we shall never experience the feeling of solitude." That is running natural history into the ground. The world wants a " philosophy of life " deeper and more complex than that ; natural history, in any of its branches, con- tributing to it according to people's opportunities and tastes running, or being cultivated, in that direction. III. MR. FRANK BUCKLAND ON THE VIPER. IN the Dublin University Maga- zine for July, 1875, appeared a notice of Contributions to Natural History and Papers on Other Sub- jects, in which I find the following: " The principal articles in this volume that have reference to natural history, originally appeared \nLandand Water" "For instance, it is a vexed question whether, under any circumstances, the young retreat into the stomach of the mother snake. A great authority [?], Mr. Frank Buckland, affirms that they do not ; while our author is as positive that they do. And he certainly, with JJ MR. FRANK BUCK LAND ON THE VIPER. reason, contends that the question is entirely one of evidence ; and, therefore, should be settled ' as a fact is proved in a court of justice; difficulties, suppo- sitions, or theories not being allowed to form part of the testimony.' " " In sup- port of his own views, Mr. Simson has collected a large body of evidence that undoubtedly appears authentic and con- clusive." In all I have read of Mr. Buck- land's writings on this subject, I have seen no evidence in support of his assertion that vipers do not swallow their young. He merely maintains the negative, and produces others like himself who do not know of it, and therefore do not believe in the phe- nomenon, and says that it is impos- sible ; but he has never told us how he knows that vipers do not swallow their young, and why it is impossi- ble. The question must occur to any one, how did the idea that vipers (as well as other snakes) swallow their young originate? A subject of that kind never could have be- come a superstition among country people. It has been simply a mat- ter of observation. As such, it is not to be settled by a denial, for in that case one's ignorance would be the standard by which it would be measured, or the scales in which it would be weighed. The truth is, Mr. Buckland has committed himself so frequently, so fully, and so publicly on this subject, that it becomes a difficult matter to " go back on " himself. That I can easily understand, as well as that he should say nothing about the mat- ter; but I cannot so easily recon- cile it with the " law of literature " that he should continue asserting a negative, and ignoring every kind of evidence against his theory, as he did lately in his edition of White's Natural History of Selborne, after being in possession of Contributions both before and after publication, saying nothing of the evidence to be drawn from other sources. In re- 193 gard to that work he (or Land and Water for him) says : " Contributions to Natural History, etc. The fact that the natural history papers in this volume made their ap- pearance in the first instance in these columns is an effectual bar to our offer- ing any opinion on their merits Of the first half we have already said we can offer no opinion." To this I replied that " All of the natural history papers were sent to this journal, but only about half of them, as the work plainly shows, were published in it ; and these did not include the most important on the viper question. They were all intended for Mr. Buckland, in his usual manner, to comment on them, and admit or reject the evidence contained in them." Mr. Buckland has always shirked the evidence to prove that vipers do swallow their young, and has be- come " a bar in the way " to its tak- ing its place as a fact in natural his- tory. The question is a very simple' one that is of easy solution if we consider it according to evidence, direct as well as circumstantial ; and it is strange that it should have been allowed to remain unsettled for a century, since White of Selborne brought it into prominent notice. Mr. Buckland's last contribution to the discussion presents the sub- ject in an aspect that makes it, I think, of considerable popular in- terest. In Land and Water, of the 2d of September, 1876, he gives a wood- cut illustration of " a viper supposed to have swallowed its young." His definition is correct enough, for no one but himself and his " school " would have supposed such a thing. The fact is that the young there de- scribed had never been born, and consequently could neither have run into nor out of the mother, especi- ally as he says that each was " wrap- ped up in a very fine skin or mem- brane, tender as silver paper," (the I 9 4 APPENDIX. remains of the original egg), which shows that they had " never yet been born," but that " in a very short time the young vipers, as drawn, would have been born." I can easily believe Mr. Buckland when he says that he has lost the friendship of a gentleman, who would not speak to him, because he asserted that vipers do not swallow their young ; for he (Mr. B.) did so (very probably in the most offen- sive manner, and) in palpable igno- rance of the point in dispute ; an ignorance which apparently no fact or argument will remove from his mind, or get him to acknowledge. He admits that in England, Wales, and Scotland, one-half of the people believe that " a viper does habitu- ally swallow its young, while the other half are totally incredulous." He does not account for either phe- nomenon, although he says that "for something like thirty years I have been endeavouring to settle this point." For this reason the subject should be taken out of his hands, as a person incompetent of treating it. He gives no reason for half of the population being " totally incredu- lous " on this subject, but leaves us to say that they are wilfully so, or because they have never had it fairly explained to them. That the other half are a swallowers" is because, according to Mr. Buckland's long rigmarole, they are under the influ- ence of myths, superstitions, etc. a very high compliment to pass up- on half of the inhabitants of that Island called Great Britain. As regards the direct evidence to the swallowing, he says : " I can recollect but one man only a game-keeper who could affirm that he had positively seen it," whereas White of Selborne wrote : "Several intelligent folks assure me that they have seen the viper open her mouth and admit her helpless young down her throat on sudden surprises." * And yet Mr. Buckland adds that in his " Humble opinion those who state they have seen vipers run down the mother's throat are perfectly honest in their belief, but yet not accurate as to facts. The story is generally to this effect : They have seen the viper bask- ing in the sun with the young ones around her ; on being alarmed the old viper opens her mouth, and the young ones scuttle away." One would think that that would settle the question, for he does not say how these people could be mis- taken in what they saw with their own eyes, and not those of others ; but he continues : " The viper is then killed, pressed with the foot, or opened with a knife, and the young are found inside the stomach, all alive oh ! " Such people, most likely, used the word stomach here, not distinguish- ing between the stomach proper and the chamber described in the en- graving, in which the young take refuge. Mr. Buckland does not say that he ever dissected such a viper, and found the young " wrapped up in a very fine skin or membrane, tender as silver paper." Had he known more of the subject, or been willing to be informed of it by others, he would have referred to White of Selborne, who personally cut open a viper containing, not un- born vipers, coiled up in an egg or covering, about the size of a black- bird's egg, but fifteen exceedingly belligerent reptiles, the shortest of them being fully seven inches long a phenomenon that can be ob- served any summer in England. But he examined another viper * White's definition of the phenome- non is apparently more correct than the shorter one, " swallowing," in common use. MR. FRANK BVCKLAND Off THE VIPER. '95 pregnant with eggs, near the point of hatching or birth, and says : "In the engraving will be found a drawing by Mr. Bergeau, the artist, giv- ing a representation of a viper that has been supposed to have swallowed its young." He here finds young that had not been born, and gives that as a tri- umphant reason that vipers do not swallow their young ! He might have dissected various vipers, showing eggs ranging from the condition in which the foetus could not be dis- covered with the naked eye, to the time of birth, and said that these dissections prove the same thing ! A scientific, or even common- sense, naturalist will not necessarily stoop so low as to demand ocular proof of snakes swallowing their young. He ascertains that vipers pass their young with a covering on them the original egg attenuated to the last degree which breaks as it leaves the mother, or immediately after it touches the ground ; and are killed with young inside of them, sometimes upwards of seven inches long, and divested of a cov- ering ; and he concludes at once that the young were swallowed. And his opinion is confirmed by the fact of oviparous snakes being killed with young inside of them that were hatched in the soil, which proves b.eyond doubt that they must have been swallowed. Ocular testi- mony confirms the opinion in both instances that the young were swal- lowed. As I have already said, about half of Contributions to Natural History appeared in Land and Water, and the other half were in Mr. Buck- land's possession for several months before publication. Among these last was a paper read by Prof. G. Brown Goode, before the American Science Convention, in 1873, in which was found the positive evi- dence of nearly a hundred people, from various parts of the United States, as to various kinds of snakes swallowing their young; several scientific gentlemen present testify- ing of their own knowledge to the fact, particularly Prof. Sydney J. Smith, of the Sheffield Scientific School, Yale College, who " added to the testimony of the paper his per- sonal evidence that he had seen, with his own eyes, young snakes entering and issuing from the mouth of an older one." He was also in possession of an appendix to the work, bearing the title of Mr. Frank Auckland and White of Sel- borne, that answered by anticipa- tion all that he has advanced in his article under review. All the evi- dence contained in these counted for nothing in Mr. Buckland's esti- mation. He says that " for some- thing like thirty years " he has been labouring to ascertain whether or not vipers swallow their young ; so that we have his own evidence to satisfy us that during all that time he has been merely trifling with the subject. In his edition of White's Natural History of Selborne Mr. Buckland, as we have seen, says that <4 a cor- respondence on this subject takes place in Land and Water almost every year." This was ^illustrated by J. A. D., on the i6th of Decem- ber, 1876, when he said that he saw a viper swallow her young ; and on the same day by Wm. G. Gard, who said : " I can be under no delusion what- ever about the case. I saw the mother and young ones ; I saw the young ones enter her mouth ; and I saw them re- leased from her stomach by its being ripped open by my father, and I saw them killed." On the 3oth Francis Edwards testified to the phenomenon having been seen by Isaac Mitchell, a farm labourer ; and on the 6th of Janu- ary, 1877, Mr. Gard, in reply to some meaningless cavilling of "Law- yer C." about the fact being " im- 196 probable," and asking how the little vipers breathe, and how the diges- tion of the old one acts (Mr. Buck- land's heresy), said : " I again assert that I saw the young ones swallowed; and it matters not after this whether the releasing of them from the inside of the mother was skil- fully or otherwise performed ; nor can any amount of special pleading on the part of ' Lawyer C.' in any way affect that fact." Facts like these can be ascer- tained any summer in England, in opposition to Mr. Buckland's asser- tion that they are " grandmothers' stories," and " tales of Old Mother Hubbard." At the end of Mr. Card's remarks Mr. Buckland said that " the discussion must now close." It should certainly close with the affirmative, that vipers do swallow their young, on evidence direct as well as circumstantial, and " as a fact is proved in a court of justice ; difficulties, suppositions, or theories not being allowed to form part of the testimony." In the form of a prefatory note to the preceding article, entitled Mr. Frank Buckland and White of Selborne, printed and extensively circulated in Great Britain, as an appendix to the book, was the fol- lowing : " It is to be hoped that this subject will be well ventilated in England, where there are so many publications that take more or less notice of natural history. Mr. Buckland being in the way should prove no bar to that being done ; for it is a question with many, What is his real standing as a natu- ralist ? " In his treatment of the matter in dispute, he has ignored every circum- stance, argument, and fact bearing on the affirmative side of it, and has had recourse to the ignorance of others, and a song, instead of hard facts and solid reasons, in support of it. Since he has committed himself so fully to the ques- tion at issue, judgment must be given APPENDIX. against him by default in the event of his not making good, or not explaining, the challenge he has had before the world for years back. " His surroundings in England make it a difficult matter to ' bring him to jus- tice ' on this question, in the ordinary way. Appropriate parts of the accom- panying article were offered to two journals there, bat were declined - for reasons which I and others may imagine, but cannot state." I have not noticed that even one paper there took Mr. Buckland to task for " altering, mixing, and mutilating" the text of White, and inserting all kinds of frivolous matter in the work, such as the song to the tune of Lord Lovel, phrases like " grandmothers' stories " and "tales of Old Mother Hubbard," and remarks in keeping with what he lately wrote to the Times, when, in speaking of the destruction of oyster spat, he said : " I think then what an awful slaughter of oyster-mothers and babies has been carried on during the last two or three weeks in London alone. Why, it is worse than the Turkish atrocities ! " This tone, indeed, runs through most of his writings, where it may remain, but it is sadly out of place in White's Natural History of Sel- borne. The only journal which really called Mr. Buckland to account in any way, that I know of, is the Ex- aminer, long afterwards, that is, on the 2d February, 1878, when, in re- viewing Professor Bell's Edition of White, it wrote rather gingerly as follows : " Of a later edition [than that of Ben- nett], by another hand, [that is, Mr. Buckland], we need say nothing ; it has already succumbed under its own pre- sumptuous inefficiency." I have nothing to say of Mr. Buckland personally, but I claim MR. FRANK BUCK LAND ON THE VIPER. 197 the privilege of speaking of him in his public capacity, since he is " a bar in the way " the cause of un- necessary trouble' in having the question of the viper swallowing her young admitted as a fact in natural history. And he and his friends can have no reason of com- plaint against me for doing so, inas- much as he has treated the subject capriciously, and not with that candour and courtesy which the " sacred deposit of truth " called for. My opinion, then, of him is that he is a wonderfully overrated man, but in high esteem in England among conventional people who, even although of high education and intelligence, are not qualified to judge him in questions of natural history, or who have never heard his merits discussed, or who will not take the trouble to look into them, and will almost resent it being done by others. In reality he is, for the most part, but a kind of broker in natural history facts and anecdotes almost every one send- ing him all kinds of articles and odds and ends connected with the subject, of which he becomes the depositary and registrar, to be re- ferred to as occasion calls for. In this capacity he would be a useful and interesting member of socie- ty, if he accurately arranged and thoroughly digested his informa- tion, and dealt it out correctly, giving his authorities, after their information had been well tested and confirmed, for everything with which he favoured the public, so that it could always be depended on. And then his labours would be too multifarious to secure accuracy on all occasions. In denying that Charles Waterton was a scientific naturalist I said that " A person may make all observations possible on a complicated subject, and yet be devoid of the capacity or mental training to weave them into a theory or system, that will immediately, or at any time, meet with acceptance " (p. 49). The same may be asserted, in a much greater degree, of the relation in which Mr. Buckland stands to natural history generally (for it is almost the reverse of Waterton's), whatever might be said of him as a taxidermist and anatomist (the labours of his own hands), or in any particular department of natural history that he may have practically studied to advantage. Witness, for example, his amazing remarks, given at page 189, about a "stream of viperlings, alive and active, forced out of a viper by the pressure of the foot," being " in the egg and not yet born, but squeezed out of the mouth "y and that vipers do not swallow their young because cats do not do it! Could a "naturalist," with the overwhelming amount of evidence before him, ever have given expression to two such opin- ions ? The son of, and " the successor in natural science " to, the Dean of Westminster, the well-known Bridge- water writer, lately a surgeon in the Life Guards, the natural history editor of Land and Water, and the leading commissioner of the fisher- ies preceded by his page and secre- tary Mr. Buckland presents an im- posing aspect to all kinds of " poor people," who would rather not offend him, or the society in which he figures so prominently, and far less call in question his authority or almost his infallibility in natural history. So divided and subdivided is the press, with its various spheres so clearly defined, that journals whose province is not natural his- tory will not interfere with him in disputed points, but will rather say, "We leave that to Mr. Buckland." Even papers on natural history seem to have a delicacy in meddling with him, on account of his editorial and official standing, and his peculiar relation to a large part of the com- munity interested in the popular aspects of the subject ; while natu- ralists of admitted scientific reputa- I 9 8 APPENDIX. tion, in their respective branches, not regarding him as a reliable authority on the many questions on which he is so ready to give so absolute a decision, evidently will not enter the sphere of which he is the luminary. Having thus sub- stantially a clear course before him, he acts as if he considered himself society's darling, that can do pretty much what he pleases in regard to natural history, and defy any moral magistrate British and especially American to commit him or bind him over. He rather went over the mark, however, in marring the sacred text of White ; after which there is hardly anything for him to be guilty of but contempt of majesty and sacrilege. The phrase " presumptuous in- efficiency " applied by the Examiner to his edition of White is a bitter expression, and all the more bitter because the editor had apparently to decline using it in a formal im- peachment of the writer by name. That purpose would have been served had I succeeded in getting part of the preceding article at page 191, from " In White's " to the end of it, with my name attached, in- serted in a London journal which I always considered one of independ- ence, and the special medium for pointing out the unpardonable liberties taken with White. " Presumptuous inefficiency " is absolute truth when applied to Mr. Buckland's treatment of the viper question, where he has been caught, as it were, in a trap from which there is no living extrication; so that no one need look to him, even after his thirty years' labour, to have that very interesting point in natural history decided; and about which there need be no controversy, inter- national or otherwise. Besides vipers swallowing their young, I repeat what I have said in the work: " I lay it down as an axiom that we must hold that all snakes [when living in a state of nature] swallow their young, till the opposite can be proved of any particular species of them " (p. 29). On paying a visit this year (1878), about the yth of April, to Wee- hawken, near Hoboken, in New Jersey, opposite New York, where snakes have been killed by the rail- road trains passing over them while lying along or on the rails, for the heat of the sun concentrated in the iron (p. 29), I noticed, here and there, dead garter snakes of all sizes, lying sometimes three together, too fresh-looking to have been killed last year ; and I made inquiries of a man in the immediate vicinity, who has mowed the marsh there for many years. He said that they made their first appearance in the early part of March so early and mild was the season and in great force about the ist of April, when the children and more grown-up people turned out and killed many of them, some in the open air and others on turning over the stones to get at them. This man, intelligent and doubtless in this matter reliable, after having had many opportunities for noticing snakes, assured me, on being asked generally, "what he knew about snakes," that he had seen a black and a garter snake (both oviparous) swallow their young. He was mi- nute in his description in the latter instance. He said that he saw the snake at a very short distance, then distinctly heard a peculiar noise, and saw her open widely her mouth, and the young snakes, coming quickly from every direction, and in a con- fused-looking scramble, enter it; making a scene very interesting to witness. He then put his foot on her, immediately below the head, just as the last one went down her throat, and seized her by the tail, and ripped her open with his knife, without touching the stomach pro- per, and let out a number of young ones, which were several weeks old, so far as he could judge. He said that the peculiar noise served the THE ENDO WMENT OF RESEARCH. I 99 purpose of that of a hen when she calls her chickens around her ; but he could not imitate it, or even de- scribe it beyond saying that the old snake spoke to her progeny. This but illustrates what I have said at page 17, that " More could be collected from intelli- gent people in or from country places, [in America, about snakes] than one would perhaps care to be troubled with;" and at page 26, in regard to them swal- lowing their young, that " the popular belief in America is that snakes, with- out regard to species, do it, while there are few neighbourhoods in which one, if not several people, cannot be easily found who can testify to it as a fact." IV. THE ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH. PROFESSOR HUXLEY, in an address at the opening of the Johns Hopkins University, at Baltimore, on the i2th of Septem- ber, 1876, when alluding to the " en- dowment of research," said : " It is given to few to add to the store of knowledge, to strike new springs of thought, or shape new forms of beauty." But he did not add that such, al- most invariably, are, for a time at least, abused, or refused the slight- est courtesy, when something has to give place to what is brought for- ward. It would take up too much room to give the philosophy of such a phenomenon at length ; suffice it to say that one reason for it is the opposition, or the objection to dis- cussion, on the part of those who have such things in their special keeping, and the consequent indif- ference, incredulity, or even aver- sion of those who look to them for light on the subjects treated. One of these questions is the preservation of the Jews, which the Duke of Argyll, in his Reign of Law, attributes to a miracle or a special providence. On the face of it one would say that the Duke would not do any of the following things : ist, Maintain as true what he does not believe to be so; ad, ad- vance as truth what he does not know to be fact or fable ; 3d, main- tain a personal or popular dogma as a truth until the contrary is demon- strated ; 4th, refuse to acknowledge that any position taken up by him is unsound on its being proved to be so, or that there is no reasonable foundation for it ; and 5th, allow his opinion to influence others on any subject he may have maintained, after it has been proved to be falla- cious. After completely refuting, I think, all that the Duke advanced on that subject, I said : " The fact of the Jews keeping dis- tinct from others is a simple question, that is easily understood when investi- gated inductively and on its merits. It is neither miraculous, a special provi- dence, wonderful, nor remarkable " (p. 163). " I have discussed the subject pretty fully in the work, showing that the existence of the Jews since the dis- persion is in exact harmony with every natural law, and that it would have been a miracle had they ceased to be Jews, and become anything else than what they are to-day ; and that there is no analogy between their history and that of any European nation " (p. 161). And that " nothing having the decent appearance of an argument can be ad- vanced in support of such a theory " (p, 164,) as is generally held on this subject, In my Disquisition on the Gipsies I have said that " Writers on the Christian Evidences should content themselves with main- taining that the Jews have fulfilled the prophecies, and will yet fulfill them, and 2OO APPENDIX. assert nothing further of them," (p. 459). In expatiating on the difficulties attending the " endowment of re- search," Professor Huxley, on the occasion mentioned, while discour- aging the vulgar expedient of offer- ing money for it, said nothing of ex- tending to it the courtesy of discus- sion through the ordinary channels, doubtless for the reason that that aspect of the question was not specially before the meeting. Another subject requiring to be " brought into more prominent no- tice than ordinary, when the publi- cations devoted to it decline or de- lay doing it," as I wrote in the Spectator^ on the 26th of August, 1876, with reference to Mr. Frank Buckland and the viper, is that of the Gipsies, a race that has existed in Great Britain for upwards of three centuries and a half, and about which I have said : " I admit that the subject of the Gip- sies, so far as it is understood, and as Blackwood will have, or will allow, it to be understood, presents little interest to the world, if it means only a certain style of life that may cease at any mo- ment," (p. 153). The real interest, in the higher sense of the word, attaching to this people is centred in the relation in which it " stands to others around it, with reference to intermarriage and the destiny of the mixed progeny, and that of the tribe generally " (p. 135), especially in English-speaking countries. In an appeal which I made to the Scottish Clergy on this subject, I said : "You thus see that the subject be- comes one of disinterested and serious inquiry, in which there should be shown none of that apathy and contempt, and unreflecting incredulity, that is general- ly manifested, and is so unworthy of the age in which we live, and especially of men of education, and social and official standing in society," (p. 151). I find that the great " bar in the way " of this subject being investi- gated is Mr. George Borrow, for people say that if there is anything of the nature mentioned in it, he must have found it and told us of it, as it has been in his " special keep- ing " for many years. In that re- spect I have said : " What becomes of the Gipsies, is a question that cannot be settled by reference to any of Mr. Borrow's writ- ings, although these contain a few inci- dental remarks that throw some light on it, when information of a positive and circumstantial nature is added," (p. 120). In his Gipsies in Spain he wrote : " We have already expressed our be- lief that the caste has diminished of latter years ; whether this diminution was the result of one or many causes combined of a partial change of habits, of pestilence or sickness, of war or famine, or of a freer intercourse with the Spanish population we have no means of determining, and shall abstain from offering conjectures on the sub- ject," (p. 126). And in his Romano Lavo-Lil he said : "There is every reason to suppose that within a few years the English Gip- sy caste will have disappeared, merged in the dregs of the English population," (P- This last remark, as he admits, is a mere supposition, based on noth- ing of the nature of a research, and contradicted by every fact or cir- cumstance bearing on the subject mentioned in his writings. Mr. Borrow has never been re- garded as an accurate investigator and reasoner, possessing the com- prehensiveness and judicial calm- ness of a philosopher, or as showing solidity of judgment in any question treated by him. He has had many THE ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH. 201 opportunities for examining his favourite subject, in the aspects of its ethnological, social, and historic- al development, in reply to what I wrote in the History of the Gipsies, published in London, in 1865, and in New York, in 1866, and in Con- tributions under consideration ; and never having made any sign in con- nexion with either, he cannot com- plain if he is now counted out and shelved without ceremony. And yet I find one of his recruits writing of him, in a London journal, as fol- lows : " We can stand all this pretty well, but we are up in arms when George Borrow .... is taken to task in a cold-blooded manner for all sorts of mis- leading statements, and is proved to be altogether an incompetent and ignorant guide on the subject. This is too much for our equanimity, and we honestly confess that we are weak enough to prefer George Borrow's stories to Mr. Simson's arguments." And like that of a raw recruit, his parting shot is " In short, the world is full of blockheads ; but there is one wise man left, and his name is Simson." Indeed, George Borrow, Frank Buckland, and Charles Waterton may be described, without offence, as three impulsive, headstrong, ex- cathedra-talking dogmatists, inca- pable, when left to themselves, of constructing an argument of a com- plex nature, or of giving a satisfac- tory exposition of an intricate sub- ject that could stand scrutiny. To train a thirteen-inch bomb on them, in that respect, would be superfluous, for a thimbleful of " sparrow-hail " would suffice. The judicious use of that " little crooked thing which asks questions," called an interrog- atory, would dispose of much that has been advanced by all of them. Of the Gipsy tribe, mixed as it is in regard to blood, and large in point of numbers, that is to be found pretty much everywhere, in many positions of life, from a tinker up- wards, with the character and fre- quently the appearance of ordinary natives of the soil, I have said that its perpetuity is based on the "Simple ground that they are the children or descendants of ordinary Gipsies, having their blood, an inherent sense of being members of the tribe, and some of the language and signs peculiar to themselves, like a Masonic society, although the possession of these words and signs is not absolutely neces- sary to constitute them Gipsies ; for the mere consciousness of the fafft of being Gipsies, transmitted from generation to generation, and made the basis of mar- riages and the intimate associations of life, is in itself perfectly sufficient,' 1 (p. 152). That this people should be openly acknowledged by the rest of the population, and " treated on their individual merits as ordinarily re- cognized by society," and allowed to "form themselves into societies for such purposes as the world re- cognizes," may well be considered the subject of a "research" con- ducted by the labour and at the ex- pense of him making it that stands in no need of an " endowment," but merits the attention of a variety of classes too numerous to mention, provided that it is carefully studied, and has a corresponding interest created for it. The pride which the Gipsies have in their peculiar sept, their exclusive and secretive characteristics, which are inherent in them, and their natural resentment of the prejudice existing against the name and race, have made an amalgamation with the natives almost impossible, un- less these become incorporated with them, whatever their habits or positions in life; and an absolute silence is observed on the subject of their nationality or society with outsiders, even in many cases Gipsies being afraid of being known as such to other Gipsies. The consequence is, that as the race perpetuates itself and develops its condition, it main- tains such a reserve in regard to it- 202 APPENDIX. self, that its members, as it were, or in a sense, " skulk through life like thieves, conspirators, or assassins, afraid of being apprehended by all they meet with," in the event of these coming to learn all about them, however good their characters may be. When one has a doubt about the spelling of a word he writes it vari- ously, one under the other, and generally picks out the correct one. In the same way let him attempt arguments in favour of the native and Gipsy hypotheses as regards John Bunyari's nationality, and all he can say of the former will be something like the trifling remarks to be found in Blackwood 's Magazine for May, 1866, in which it is said: "John Bunyan was so exceedingly plain-spoken, that he would most likely have called himself a Gipsy if he were really one," (p. 158). In my Disquisition on the Gipsies, I wrote : "I do not ask for an argument in favour of Bunyan not being a Gipsy, but a common Englishman, for an argu- ment of that kind, beyond such remarks as I have commented on, is impractica- ble ; but what I ask for is an exposition of the animus of the man who does not wish that he should have been a Gipsy," (p. It is a law in literature, indeed it is common-sense, that if nothing can be said in favour of one of two hypotheses, and everything in favour of the other, the latter must be ac- cepted as the truth; and this we have in the one that Bunyan was a Gipsy. All that is wanting to change the hypothesis into a fact would be Bunyan's verbal acknowledgment, which the legal and social proscrip- tion of the race and name would prevent him making, and which strengthens the Gipsy hypothesis as such; so that if we have not his formal confession, we have his infer- ential admission, as circumstantial evidence, which is better than as- sertions either way, when a man's estate, character, or life is at stake. That Bunyan was a member of the Gipsy tribe, doubtless speaking its language in great purity, is what, I think, no one that has a regard to reason and self-respect should deny, after the evidence is laid before him. The principal difficulties in the way of receiving him as a Gipsy are the prejudice against the name, and the aversion, as well as the great diffi- culty, however willing, inherent in human nature, to adjust its ideas to a new state of things on a subject that should have been settled two centuries ago. In that respect it is to be hoped that men of such stand- ing as the Duke of Bedford and the Dean of Westminster, who have taken so much interest in Bunyan. will not prove " capable of being in- fluenced by other motives than a regard for the evidence, in coming to a decision on the important mat- ter at issue" (p. 161). Such a state of mind might be looked for in that part of society who take their opin- ions from others, or follow their caprices or passions when anything that is novel, and opposed to popu- lar ideas and prejudices, is brought forward, and who are forever shut- ing their stable doors after their horses have been stolen. In the History of the Gipsies an elaborate argument was given in favour of John Bunyan having been a Gipsy, with full information of how and when the race assumed the names common to the natives of the soil. I repeated the argument in Contributions , and again in Notes and Queries, on the 3d of March, 1875, and printed the article as an appendix to the book (which see), in reply to The Book of the Bun- yan Festival and the Sunday Maga- zine for January, 1875; in both of which there was a great flourish of trumpets over the discovery that there were people of the name of Bunyan (variously spelt) in Bed- THE ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH. 203 fordshire before the arrival of the Gipsies ; which " effectually disposes of the supposition that the Bun- yans were Gipsies," and which as " effectually disposes of the suppo- sition " that there are Gipsies in the country at the present day, since they all, so far as I know, bear Brit- ish names ! I have seen no further allusion to the subject, nor indeed any reference, at any time, to the affirmative side of the question in the Sunday Magazine, although it has been furnished with all the evi- dence in regard to it. Indeed, two prominent Scotchmen, each control- ling an organ, which should have en- tertained this question, have gone to their graves without apparently dar- ing to look it in the face. How strange it is that "champions of the truth and standard-bearers of the Lord," that might lay their necks on the block, or go to the stake, for their religious professions and opinions, will yet (so far as I can judge) quail before Mrs. Grundy on being asked to entertain the question whether or not John Bunyan was a Gipsy ! And yet in recognizing and dis- charging the duties incumbent on them in the service of their divine master, what could be more simple or elementary than to acknowledge people to be men, whatever the race they belong to, before attempting to make them Christians ? It would also be strange to have it said that, in the year 1878, the British press, religious or secular, would not tolerate the idea that John Bunyan was a Gipsy even to appear in its columns ; and that people frowned upon or became fired with indignation at the bare mention of it, while they wondered that, if it were so, Bunyan should not have told us plainly of the fact, when it was odious to the rest of the population, and death by law, for being a Gipsy, and " felony without benefit of clergy " for associating with the race, or even being found in its company. In Contributions I have said : " In mentioning that much of himself which he did, Bunyan doubtless imag- ined that the world understood, or would have understood, what he meant, and would, sooner or later, acknowledge the race to which he belonged ; " and that, " it is not impossible that people intimate with Bunyan learned from his own mouth that he was a Gipsy, but suppressed the information under the influence of the unfortunate prejudice that exists against the name " (p. 1 58).* Settling this question in the affirm- ative would resemble a decision in a supreme court of justice in a case that is representative of many others ; and could not fail to have an immense influence on the raising up of the Gipsy tribe, to which Bun- yan belonged. I have said that subjects that are capable of proof " should be settled by evidence as a fact is proved in a court of justice; difficulties, supposi- tions, or theories not being allowed to form part of the testimony " (p. 28), whether that evidence is positive, or circumstantial, or mixed. How would it look if it were maintained that any question should be decided by any one, or by any number of people, in the negative, by the mere assertion of its belief in its non-ex- istence, without any investigation, rather than by evidence being led to prove the affirmative ? And yet many people, of whom better things could be expected, especially in regard to crude popular beliefs, of long stand- ing, but not religious in their nature, practically maintain, with the most complacent assurance and sincerity, the negative unless the affirmative * " In order to discover truth, we must be truthful ourselves, and must welcome those who point out our errors as heartily as those who approve and confirm our discoveries." Max Muller, "Chips from a German Workshop" 1st vol., p. 1 6, New York edition. 2O4 APPENDIX. can be proved, or vice versd; which is no proof of, and does not even affect, the question either way ; for the negative or the affirmative may be true, irrespective of the igno- rance and denial, or the knowledge and assertion, of people interesting themselves in the questions at issue. These are all doubtless truisms, but although truisms not the less worthy of being kept in mind when we treat any subject of which the mind can or does take cognizance. Nor could it be almost imagined that, in a constitutional country, in time of peace, with the courts in full operation, any question that is actionable should be denied even a hearing by a competent court, on the plea of favouring the defendant, or on account of the absence of the plaintiff (provided he employs an accredited attorney, and gives security for costs), or to gratify popular prejudices against a suit that is legal and moral in its nature. The same may be said of the laws and courts of criticism, for if they are in a sound state they will at once entertain, discuss, and settle any and every question suitable to the journal before which it is brought. It is unquestionably within their sphere to entertain de- murrers, and see that they are re- spected, to the extent at least that no one can be allowed to make as- sertions, and assertions only, after they have been repeatedly denied, with proofs of denial, or arguments showing them to be untenable, or highly improbable. They should also see that no denial or assertion is permitted unless it is accompanied by evidence, or an argument in its favour. As illustrative of what I mean by demurrers, I give the article entitled Mr. Frank Buckland on English Snakes, in which he said : " The mother generally deposits them Sier eggs] in a dung-hill or heap of ecaying vegetable matter, and gives herself no more concern about them," (P- 30- To which my reply read thus : " It would be interesting to know how Mr. Buckland arrived at that conclusion, that is, how he knew that the mother ' gave herself no more concern about them,' but left the young to come into the world and take care of themselves in the best way they could," (p. 31). And I argued, inductively and by analogy from the habit of other ovip- arous reptilia taking care of their progeny, that what Mr. Buckland asserted was not true ; leaving him to make good his assertion by proof, positive or otherwise. If it is wrong to believe that to be a truth which has never been in- vestigated, it becomes culpable to enunciate it as such. No intelli- gent and self-respecting man will ever be knowingly and deliberately guilty of that, and far less of deny- ing that to be a fact which he does not know to be a fact or not, or act factiously in the matter. Indeed it may be asserted that such a person has no moral right, not merely to publicly or privately express an opinion on a great variety of sub- jects, but even to entertain one, unless he has thoroughly examined them, or had it done for him, when the most that he might be justified in saying would be that such a thing is possible or impossible, probable or improbable, and be willing and ready to give his reasons at length for his opinion, whatever it might be. Candour, in short, is so emi- nently a virtue, that it might have been worshipped (as it doubtless was) in heathen times, as a deity, having a temple in every parish, and a shrine at every cross-road, with the notice : " No dogmatist allowed here." With so much that is aggressive in this Appendix, and in the work to which it belongs, and conse- quently with so much that must be THE ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH. 20$ more or less offensive, and unavoid- ably so, to many, although I hope not to all, however the subjects might be treated, for " it is impossible but that offences will come," I feel that in publishing them in Great Britain, I must, in some respects, resemble (but resemble only) " a desperate adventurer landing on a coast, and burning his ships, and committing himself to fortune," and of whom it could be most appropriately said : " Woe to the coward, that ever he was born, Who did not draw the sword before he blew the horn." Still, in England, there is that sense of dignity and honourable dealing among high-class, high-toned jour- nals, that if they do not entertain or do justice to the book (or rather to the subjects discussed in it), they will not abuse it. And, besides that, there is a strong conservative feel- ing peculiar to most of them that impels them to be careful in regard to what they introduce to their read- ers; which is a great drawback to anything novel or original, whatever its truth or attraction, being given to the world through their pages. But as all of the subjects treated are of a permanent nature and interest, the work can wait till it suits the convenience or pleasure of these journals to take it up, after it has become more conventional to do so than seems to be the case at present. As regards myself personally, I have no requests to make of any kind, for even the commonest " rough " there, when a stranger gets into trouble, will generally call for " a ring and fair play." In this light read the accompany- ing notice of the book by the Edin- burgh Scotsman, the leading Scotch newspaper, whose character would be the following, if I were describing a man in every-day life : that is, well- educated, talented, enterprising, not over-scrupulous, and wealthy, very tyrannical by nature, and of great personal importance, but of no fami- ly, pedigree, or connexions worth speaking of, yet whose motto is, " A fig for providence, but come to me ! " He is a great professor of hu- manity, liberalism, science, and so forth, and the patron and mouth- piece of a large " promiscuous lot " in regard to their opinions and in- terests (many of which are ques- tionable), and undefined and almost undefmable religious sentiments ; and is very free, even tyrannically so, in his unprovoked remarks on almost all that differ from him, or are not of his "following," gener- ally to an extent of being uncalled for, indelicate or impertinent, and frequently nearly if not altogether scurrilous amplifying and harping on subjects and persons till his spun- out questionable wit and palpable animus become tiresome and offen- sive even to those who generally re- gard him as an oracle. Moreover, he is "a godless old fellow withal," to whom anything like sincere prac- tical religion, based on the Christian evidences, with clearly-defined ideas, when publicly expressed outside of the regular church service, is gener- ally offensive, and frequently provo- cative of all kinds of bantering, jeer- ing, and gibing. My allusions to the Pope and John Stuart Mill, and the aspects of natural and revealed re- ligion, incidentally brought in, and, above all, the public appeal to the Scottish Clergy, seem to have acted on him like the shaking of a red rag in his face, and become a subject to be discredited, if not destroyed. In- deed, if one takes even an Ishmael- itish squint in the direction of the Ark in daylight, he has to reckon with another whose eyes are globules of water and who lacks bowels for such a subject an excellent " defender of the faith " against its unauthor- ized or injudicious friendsv Many sensible, learned, and pious, and what are called good men (and many not possessed of all of these 206 APPENDIX. attributes), who are entitled to pro- mulgate their opinions, and be fairly treated or " let alone," have been lit- tle better than systematically perse- cutedfrequently almost roasted or blistered or attempted to be made odious by the " Scottish Thunderer," as his admirers style him, apparently with the object of giving pleasure to himself and friends, and pain to those so treated. Pious and peace- able people, possessing a fine sense of self-respect, deeming it unbecom- ing, at least unprofitable, to bandy words with him, or lay themselves open to his animadversions, to a great extent disregard him, especi- ally when the fit of " fractious con- trariness " is upon him, for the reason that they consider " his tongue no scandal ; " and so far as I know or can conceive, they will not even pray for him, that he may be converted or rebuked, believing that, in " the present state of his soul," any good person or cause that he abuses is greatly honoured and ultimately benefited by his hostility, however influential he may be, in the estimation of himself and friends, in the affairs of the city, the nation, and the world at large although gener- ally, passively or actively, opposed, even faetiously so, to almost every movement, whatever its nature, that does not originate with him, his friends, or his party, or that does not seek or care for, and particularly that scorns their patronage or sympathy. A book like the present one, finding its way to Edinburgh from America, under the peculiar circum- stances of this one a thing of rare occurrence in Scotland was entitled to some little consideration from even such a journal as the Scotsman. It does not seem to have come be- fore the celebrated Jeffrey, who, when acting under a high sense of responsibility, would doubtless have approached it as a careful, cautious man would have acted when pick- ing his steps in dim twilight, among broken glass and rusty nails, bare- footed, with the consciousness of having a ruffian waiting to throttle him as he got through. It rather had the misfortune of " coming un- der the eye " of the notorious Jef- freys, alluded to by Macaulay m his History of England, as follows : " Early in June the Fellows [of Mag- dalene College] were cited to appear be- fore the High Commission at -Whitehall. Five of them, deputed by the rest, obeyed the summons. Jeffreys treated them after the usual fashion. When one of them, a grave doctor, named Fairfax, hinted some doubt as to the validity of the com- mission, the Chancellor began to roar like a wild beast. ' Who is this man ? What commission has he to be impu- dent here ? Seize him. Put him into a dark room. What does he do without a keeper ? He is under my care as a luna- tic. I wonder that nobody has applied to me for the custody of him.' " With what I have said, illustrative of the "habit and repute" character of the critic, or rather of the jour- nal which he represents, I will now " let the man speak for himself," re- marking that I would much rather swaddle a person in swan's-down and cover him with gossamer, or fan him to keep the life in him, than put him into a vise and rasp him, but for the principle propounded or ad- mitted even, I believe, by a Quaker, that " We must not allow silly pity to rob justice of her due and the people of a proper example," especi- ally with such an "old offender " as the Scotsman, the Great Liberal ! of whom it could or could not be said that "aiblins he'll mend." " What may be the ordinary calling of Mr. James Simson, of New York, is not known to us ; but to judge from this volume of Contributions to Natural History, etc., his mission is to set every- body else right with respect to the hab- its of snakes, the abilities as a natural- ist of the late Charles Waterton, the errors of Romanism, the real character of John Stuart Mill and his father, James Mill, and the manners and customs of the Gipsies. The papers included in the volume are in part reprinted from Land THE ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH. 207 and Water ; others were sent for inser- tion in that periodical, but its conductors had too much discretion to insert them [they were politely returned by request/ as stated in the Introduction to the work] ; the rest have been added as the result of labours undertaken in time during which it is a great pity Mr. Sim- son could find nothing better to do. . . . He accumulates a mass of evidence to prove that young snakes are in the habit, after being hatched outside, of taking refuge inside their parents' bodies on very small provocation ; but this evi- dence it would be found very difficult to sift or test, and the impertinent dog- matism with which Mr. Simson treats Buckland, White of Selborne, and other naturalists who do not favour his views, is, of itself, sufficient to warrant a doubt as to the value of his observations. Mr. Simson's remarks on Waterton, and es- pecially on Mill, are neither more nor less than a string of absurd and point- less criticisms, interspersed with a con- siderable amount of personal abuse. The puzzle is, why he should suppose that his views on Waterton and Mill are of the smallest importance to any human be- ing except himself. The volume is alto- gether a literary curiosity, presenting a combination of bigotry and egotism such as it would not be easy to parallel." (June loth, 1875). In regard to James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill, I have said that " It was after finally breaking with the Church, perhaps in consequence of disappointment of a benefice, and of the restraint on his godless opinions, that he gave vent to all his spitefulness against religion of every kind, natural as well as revealed" (p. 71). In his Life of James Mill, in Mind, a London quarterly review, Professor Bain says of him : " The latest recorded incident of his career in Scotland is his being defeated in his attempt to become minister of the pleasant parish of Craig, a long narrow strip of uplands lying on the coast between Montrose and the Bay of Lunan. Mill could have taken care of such a parish [as parishes were then frequently 'taken care of], and yet have found time for his favourite studies, working his way to authorship, and perhaps a chair in a university " (p. 1 1 5). Powerful as was his influence, that of his rival, James Brewster (a brother of Sir David Brewster), was more so. It is added : " Brewster was a man far more acceptable to an ordinary congregation than ever Mill could have been." Professor Bain says that the popu- lar idea of Mill's disappointment being the cause of his going to Lon- don, in the beginning of 1802, was a mere guess, for with his friends he would soon have found a church. But no allowance is made for his chagrin, his hasty temper, or the delay (nearly eighteen months) till the case was settled, after the resig- nation of the incumbent, in June, 1803, under circumstances which are not explained. We find Mill writing from London, on the 7th of February, 1807, to Mr. David Bar- clay, as follows : " Have you no good kirk yet in your neighbourhood [as if he had given him a standing commission from the first to find him one] which you could give me, and free me from this life of toil and anxiety which I lead here?" (p. 530).* It was doubtless with this in view that he carefully kept his sermons, about which Professor Bain says : "I cannot account for John Stuart Mill's uncertainty as to whether his father had been licensed to preach. I have been told by members of the family that their father s sermons were known to be in the house. What became of them no one can tell" (p. ill). (Per- haps they were surreptitiously de- stroyed). This remark has reference to his * There is nothing to show that James Mill did not write to others to the same effect, even subsequently to the time mentioned, particularly as Professor Bain says that, " with his friends he would soon have found a church." 208 APPENDIX. inquiry addressed to Mr. Barclay in regard to his father, after his death, in which he said : "I believe he went through a medical course, and also that for the Church, and I have heard that he was actually licensed as a preacher, but I never heard him say so himself, and never heard of it till after his death. I do not know whether it is true or not ; perhaps you do" (p. 104).* Professor Bain writes : "The account given by John Stuart Mill (Autobiography) of his father's introduction to the Fettercairn family is a somewhat loose version of the state- ment made to him by Mr. David Bar- clay in a letter written after his father's death in 1836" (p. 104). His father's " apostolic labours," after being licensed by the Presby- tery to " preach the gospel of Jesus Christ," seem to have been anything but acceptable. The evidence shows that " The generality of the hearers com- plained of not being able to understand * The ignorance of John Stuart Mill on this point, however we may look at it, is remarkable. It must surely have occur- red to him to ask his father, for what pur- pose he went to college, if not when re- ceiving his education from him person- ally, at least after he grew up. And the idea would again naturally present itself to him when being instructed in the ir- religious principles impressed on his mind almost from his earliest recollec- tions. Mill by his admission seems to have had very little curiosity about his father's early history, or no means of information on the subject from his father's early Scotch associates or con- nexions, or acquaintances of any kind ; yet it must have been well known to the public at large, owing to his notoriety, that James Mill was a " stickit stibbler," as the Scotch call a " minister " who never finds a church and abandons the profession in consequence. The reticence of James Mill, under certain circum- stances, was natural enough, but incon- sistent with his allowing his sermons to " knock about " the house, to the know- ledge of " members of the family," John Stuart Mill excepted. him. Other traditions concur in regard to his unpopular style. Sir David Brewster said to myself, ' I have heard him preach ; and no great han' he made o't.' His discourses would no doubt be severely reasoned, but wanting in the unction of the popular evangelical preacher " [who sincerely believed what he taught] (p. in). James Mill was born on the 6th of April, 1773, went to college at Edinburgh in 1790, was licensed as a preacher on the 4th of October, 1798, and went to London in the beginning of 1802, after being dis- appointed in getting a church. On the 7th of February, 1807, when 34 years of age, and nearly a year after the birth of John Stuart Mill, we find him, as we have seen, writing to a friend in Scotland, asking him if he had not yet found him a good kirk in his neighbourhood. What John Stuart Mill said with reference to his father's religious history is as follows : *' He was licensed as a preacher, but never followed the profes- sion, having satisfied himself that he could not believe the doctrines of that or any other church " (p. 69, Auto. p. 3), having "been early led to reject not only the belief in Revelation, but the foundations of what is commonly called Natural Religion " (p. 69, Auto. p. 38). He " rejected all that is called religious belief" (p. 73, Auto. p. 39"). "He re- garded it with the feeling due not to a mere mental delusion, but to a great moral evil. He looked upon it as the greatest enemy to morality," and as " radically vitiating the standard of morals " (p. 73, Auto. p. 40), and "not only false, but hurtful " (p. 76, Auto. p. 45) ; and that " the most perfect con- ception of wickedness which the human mind can devise " is " embodied in what is commonly presented to mankind as the creed of Christianity " (p. 76, Auto. P. 41). Here we have a dismal chasm to be bridged, for no value can be at- tached to John Stuart Mill's re- marks on this subject. I have al- ready said : THE ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH. 2O9 " There is so much in the Autobi- ography that is so illy arranged, and so loosely and illogically put together, that among other things, the positive truth cannot be drawn from it in regard to the stages of the elder Mill's religious ideas ; and there is much that requires explanation about him consenting to be educated by others for the Church, and being licensed to preach at the age of twenty-five, and then becoming a practi- cal atheist" (p. 69). "The circum- stances and details between the first doubt and the final step, had he been able and willing to give them, would doubtless have been interesting " (p. 70). And yet John Stuart Mill says of his father that " He will be known to posterity as one of the greatest names in that most important branch of speculation on which all the moral [?] and political sciences ultimately rest " (p. 108, Auto. p. 204) ; and that " by his writings and his personal influence he was a great centre of light to his generation" (p. 1 08, Auto. p. 205). The course of the elder Mill in the matter of seeking a church a position that, above all others, should be assumed with " clean hands and a pure heart " was a practical, one- sided illustration of his doctrine, that " the exclusive test of right and wrong [is] the tendency of actions to produce pleasure or pain " (Auto., p. 48), that is, pleasure to himself and his immediate connexions, how- ever it might be acquired, and how- ever it might affect others. Utility as " a standard in ethics and politics," when its professed motive is the benefit of " the aggregate of our fel- low creatures," or " the greatest happiness of the greatest number," should not be scrutinized too closely when the animus is hid from us; but it assumes quite a different as- pect when the action is that of a would-be moral obtruder on a parish and the " cure of souls " that are to be fed, not on " the gospel of Jesus Christ," but on the husks of his philosophy and logic, which the generality or perhaps the whole of ** his people " would not understand. And it would be a singular " system of morals " which advocated or tolerated the idea that, while not believing the doctrines on the sworn profession of which he was admitted to his " pastorate," he should " take care of the parish," with the ulterior object of "working his way to author- ship, and perhaps a chair in a uni- versity," on something better than "a little oatmeal," although that would of course make part of his support. The history of both of the Mills, especially in regard to the religious ideas, from first to last, of James Mill, as representing a class, is well worthy of a " research." It must have been a difficult matter for the latter to throw off the effects of his associations and training, and his long-continued aspirations after a church, whatever the " history of his mind " or his sincerity might have been. At all events we find him, in October, 1816, when John Stuart Mill was upwards of ten years old, writing of his History of India as follows : " Thank God, after nearly ten years since its commencement, I am now re- vising it for the press " (Bain). * The executors of John Stuart Mill have been greatly blamed for publishing his melancholy and of- fensive Autobiography, but doubt- less unjustly so; for, for what pur- pose was it written ? and how do we know that he did not enjoin on them by all which he deemed sacred that they would not fail to give it to the world ? The subjects of John Stuart Mill and Romanism are naturally provo- * I have not been able to see more than the first two articles of Professor Bain, in Mind, but I presume the rest of them will shed no further light on James Mill's religious ideas. 2IO APPENDIX. cative of something more being said on that comprehensive idea ex- pressed by the phrase " human nat- ure," in its physical, moral, and relig- ious aspects, as applicable to man in- dividually and collectively, in the past, the present, and the future ; but it would result in a treatise, branch- ing off into many cognate questions, that would be too long to form part of this Appendix, and contain mat- ter perhaps too foreign to be em- braced under the title. NOTE. I find that, at page 51, I have put into the mouth of Plato the prayer beginning, " O Pan, and ye other gods of this place," while it was that of Socrates the " wisest of mankind " as reported by Plato. The error is not material, for such a prayer was addressed to Pan, in common with all the so-called gods and goddesses, by the ancient heathen. SECOND EDITION. SIMSON'S HISTORY OF THE GIPSIES. 575 PAGES. CROWN 8vo. PRICE, $2.00. NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. National Quarterly Review." The title of this work gives a correct idea of its character ; the matter fully justifies it. Even in its original form it was the most interesting and reliable history of the Gipsies with which we were acquainted. But it is now much en- larged, and brought down to the present time. The disquisition on the past, present, and future of that singular race, added by the editor, greatly enhances the value of the work, for it embodies the results of extensive research and careful investigation." " The chapter on the Gip- sy language should be read by all who take any interest either in com- parative philology or ethnology ; for it is much more curious and in- structive than most people would expect from the nature of the subject. The volume is well printed and neatly bound, and has the advantage of a copious alphabetical index." Congregational Revieiv. (Boston.) " The senior partner in the authorship of this book was a Scotchman who made it his life-long pleasure to go a ' Gipsy hunting,' to use his own phrase. He was a per- sonal friend of Sir Walter Scott His enthusiasm was genuine, his diligence great, his sagacity remarkable, and his discoveries rewarding." " The book is undoubtedly the fullest and most reliable which our lan- guage contains on the subject." " This volume is valuable for its in- struction, and exceedingly amusing anecdotically. It overruns with the humorous." " The subject in its present form is novel, and we freely add, very sensational." " Indeed, the book assures us that our country is full of this people, mixed up as they have become, by marriage, with all the European stocks during the last three centuries. The amalgama tion has done much to merge them in the general current of modern education and civilization ; yet they retain their language with closest tenacity, as a sort of Freemason medium of intercommunion ; and while they never are willing to own their origin among outsiders, they are very proud of it among themselves." " We had regarded them as entitled to considerable antiquity, but we now find that they were none other than the ' mixed multitude ' which accompanied the Hebrew ex- ode (Ex. XII 38) under Moses straggling or disaffected Egyptians, who went along to ventilate their discontent, or to improve their fortunes. .... We are not prepared to take issue with these authors on any of the points raised by them." Methodist Quarterly "Review. " Have we Gipsies among us ? Yea, verily, if Mr. Simson is to be believed, they swarm our country in secret legions. There is no place on the four quarters of the globe where some of them have not penetrated. Even in New England a sly Gipsy girl will enter the factory as employe, will by her allurements win a young Jonathan to marry her, and in due season, the 'cute gen- tleman will find himself the father of a young brood of intense Gipsies. The mother will have opened to her young progeny the myetery and tt) NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. the romance of its lineage, will have disclosed its birth-right connection with a secret brotherhood, whose profoimder Freemasonry is based on blood, historically extending itself into the most dim antiquity, and geographically spreading over most of the earth. The fascinations of this mystic tie are wonderful Afraid or ashamed to reveal the secret to the outside world, the young Gipsy is inwardly intensely proud of his unique nobility, and is very likely to despise his alien father, who ia of course glad to keep the late discovered secret from the world. Hence dear reader, you know not but your next neighbour is a Gipsy." " The volume before us possesses a rare interest, both from the unique charac- ter of the subject, and from the absence of nearly any other source of full information. It is the result of observation from real life." The language " is spoken with varying dialects in different countries, but with standard purity in Hungary. It is the precious inheritance and proud peculiarity of the Gipsy, which he will never forget and seldom reveal. The varied and skillful manoeuvres of Mr. Sinison to purloin or wheedle out a small vocabulary, with the various effects of the opera- tion on the minds and actions of the Gipsies, furnish many an amusing narrative in these pages," " Persecutions of the most cruel character have embittered and barbarized them. Even now . . . they do not realize the kindly feeling of enlightened minds toward them, and view with fierce suspicion every approach designed to draw from them the se- crets of their history, habits, laws and language." " The age of racial caste is passing away. Modern Christianity will refuse to tolerate the spirit of hostility and oppression based on feature, colour, or lineage." The "book is an intended first step for the improvement of the race that forms its subject, and every magnanimous spirit must wish that it may prove not the last. We heartily commend the work to our readers as not only full of fascinating details, but abounding with points of interest to the benevolent Christian heart." " The general spirit of the work is em- inently enlightened, liberal, and humane." Evangelical Quarterly Review." 'i he Gipsies, their race and language have always excited a more than ordinary interest. The work before us, apparently the result of careful research, is a compre- hensive history of this singular people, abounding in marvelous inci- dents and curious information. It is highly instructive, and there is appended a full and most careful index so important in every work." National Freemason. " We feel confident that our readers Will relish the following concerning the Gipsies, from the British Ma- sonic Organ : That an article on Gipsyism is not out of place in this Mag- azine will be admitted by every one who knows anything of the history, manners, and customs of these strange wanderers among the nations of the earth. The Freemasons have a language, words, and signs peculiar to themselves ; so have the Gipsies. A Freemason has in every country a friend, and in every climate a home, secured to him by the mystic in- fluence of that worldwide association to which he belongs ; similar are the privileges of the Gipsy. But here, of course, the analogy ceases Freemasonry is an Order banded together for purposes of the highest benevolence. Gipsyism, we fear, has been a source of constant trouble and inconvenience to European nations. The interest, therefore, which as Masons we may evince in the Gipsies arises principally, we may say wholly, from the fact of their being a secret society, and also from the fact that many of them are enrolled in our lodges. There are NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. in the United Kingdom a vast multitude of mixed Gipsies, differing very little in outward appearance, manners, and customs from ordinary Britons; bat in heart thorough Gipsies, as carefully and jealously guarding their language and secrets, as we do the secrets of the Masonic Order." " Mr. Simson makes masterly establishment of the fact that John Bunyan, the world-renowned author of the ' Pilgrim's Progress/ was descended from Gipsy blood." New York Independent " Such a book is the History of the Gipsies. Every one who has a fondness for the acquisition of out-of-the- way knowledge, chiefly for the pleasure afforded by its possession, will like this book. It contains a mass of facts, of stories, and of legends connected with the Gipsies ; a variety of theories as to their origin . . . and various interesting incidents of adventures among these modern Ishmaelites. There is a great deal of curious information to be ob- tained from this history, nearly all of which will be new to Americans." " It is singular that so little attention has been heretofore given to this particular topic ; but it is probably owing to the fact that Gipsies are so occupy not wanting in interest." New York Observer. " Among the peoples of the world, the Gipsies are the most mysterious and romantic. '1 heir origin, modes of life, and habits have been, until quite recently, rather conjectural than known. Mr. Walter Simson, after years of investigation and study, produced a history of this remarkable people which is unrivalled for the amount of information which it conveys in a manner adapted to excite the deepest interest ." " We are glad that Mr. James Simson has not felt the same timidity, but has given the book to the public, having en- riched it with many notes, an able introduction, and a disquisition upon the past, present, and future of the Gipsy race." " Of the Gipsies in Spain we have already learned much from the work of Borrow, but this is a more thorough and elaborate treatise upon Gipsy life in general, though largely devoted to the tribe as it appeared in England and Scot- land." " Such are some views and opinions respecting a curious people, of whose history and customs Mr. Simson has given a deeply interest- ing delineation." Neiv York Metfyodist." The Gipsies present one of the most remarkable anomalies in the history of the human race. Though they have lived among European nations for centuries, forming in some dis- tricts a prominent element in the population, they have succeeded in keeping themselves separate in social relations, customs, language, and in a measure, in government, and excluding strangers from real knowl- edge of the character of their communities and organizations. Scarcely more is known of them by the world in general than was know when they first made their appearance among civilized nations." " Another curious thing advanced by Mr. Simson is that of the perpetuity of the race He thinks that it never dies out, and that Gipsies, however much they may intermarry with the world's people, and adopt the hab- its of civilization, remain Gipsies, preserve the language, the Gipsy mode of thought, and loyalty to the race and its traditions to remote genera- dons. His work turns, in tact, upon these two theories, and tho Incl- NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. dents, facts, and citations from history with which it abounds, are all skillfully used in support of them " " There are some facts of interest in relation to the Gipsies in Scotland and America, which are brought out quite fully in Mr. Simson's book/'-which "abounds in novel and interesting matter . . . and will well repay perusal." ' Tertinent anec- dotes, illustrating the habits and craft of the Gipsies, may be picked up at random in any part of the book." New York Evening Post. " The editor corrects some popular notions in regard to the habits of the Gipsies. They are not now, in the main, the wanderers they used to be. Through intermarriage with other people, and from other causes, they have adopted more stationary modes of life, and have assimilated to the manners of the countries in which they live As the editor of this volume eays : ' They carry the language, the associations, and the sympathies of their race, and their peculiar feelings toward the community with them ; and, as residents of towns, have greater facilities, from others of their race re- siding near them, for perpetuating their language, than when strolling over the country.' " " We have no space for such full extracts as we should like to give." New York Journal of Commerce. " We have seldom found a more readable book than Simson's History of the Gipsies. A large part of the volume is necessarily devoted to the local histories of fami- lies in England (Scotland), but these go to form part of one of the most interesting chapters of human history." " We commend the book as very readable, and giving much instruction on a curious subject." Neiv York Times. "Mr has done good service to the American public by reproducing here this very interesting and valuable volume." " The work is more interesting than a romance, and that it is full of facts is very easily seen by a glance at the index, which is very minute, and adds greatly to the value of the book." New York Albion. " An extremely curious work is a History of the Gipsies." " The wildest scenes in ' Lavengro,' as for instance the fight with the Flaming Tinman, are comparatively tame beside some of the incidents narrated here." Hours at Home (now Scribner's Monthly). "Tears ago we read, with an interest we shall never forget, Borrow's book on the Gipsies of Spain. We have now a history of this mysterious race as it exists in the British Islands, which, though written before Bor- row's, has just been published. It is the result of much time and patient labor, and is a valuable contribution toward a complete history of this extraordinary people. The Gipsy race and the Gipsy language are subjects of much interest, socially and ethnologically." "He esti- mates the number of Gipsies in Great Britain at 250,000, and the whole number in Europe and America at 4,000,000." "The work is what it profesres to be, a veritable history a history in which Gipsy life has been stripped of everything pertaining to fiction, so that the reader will see depicted in their true character this strange people. . . . . . And yet, these pages of sober history are crowded with facts and incidents stranger and more thrilling than the wildest imaginings of the toman- tic school." NEW YORK: JAMES MILLER. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED brairy ; This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. JAN 1 i j IAM i 7 19*57 JHli A Wwi JAN 6 196 f SJ&BIMS .,.,. : - , o -, b - 1 1, - b^ .