THE WILL OF MRS ANNE BOWDEN.
IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAP. II.
I called at the hospital twice or thrice, to see if any inquiry had been made for the mysterious and irritating parcel which I had so unwittingly appropriated on the 24th of February. I looked in the newspapers for advertisements of lost documents; I even myself advertised my possession of a sealed envelope, of which I gave as elaborate a description as so simple an object permitted. All in vain! Nobody seemed to want the packet, and it remained an unclaimed foundling on my hands.
We discussed the question of my duty in the matter in full conclave. (It was about this time that ‘full conclave’ began to mean, as it has now done for many years, the conference of Gerald, May, and myself.) We could come to no decision. Gerald thought I should insist on leaving the envelope at the hospital, and trusting to chance and the authorities there for its restoration to the owner; May, being of the true blood of Eve, was of opinion that I ought to open the packet, and, by study of the contents, find out what I should do; while, for my own part, I inclined to what is termed ‘masterly inactivity.’
The truth is that I have an exaggerated, almost superstitious idea of the sanctity of sealing-wax. No one, in these days of gummed envelopes, seals a letter without a special intention of keeping its contents secret; and the use of the elaborately engraved stamp seems to me not more of a safeguard against idle curiosity than an appeal to the honour of any one for whose perusal the packet is not intended to leave it inviolate. This was the argument I used to my dear fellow-judges; and, strange to say, support of it came from a very unexpected quarter.
May was in the habit of narrating to Mrs Bowden the incidents of Gerald’s life and mine. The harmless gossip seemed to give pleasure to the poor old lady, whose personal intercourse was limited almost wholly to what she held with greedy and self-seeking ‘connections’—‘not relatives,’ as she frequently wrung their hearts by telling them; and we had no reason for desiring secrecy. To her, then, was repeated the story of the mysterious packet; she was much interested in it; and May reported her advice to me next time we met at Gerald’s lodging. (It was strange with what frequency these meetings occurred; but it was stranger still, considering how often I visited Atherton, that I should occasionally have missed his sister. Soon after this, I managed to get apartments in the same house, so that I had as large a share of May’s society when she came to Camden Town as her brother had.) It was in these words, May said, that Mrs Bowden had given her adhesion to my opinion: ‘Tell Mr Langham that it is never safe, from however good a motive, to tamper with a sealed document. Whoever does so, is liable to be accused of having forged the paper which he presents as authentic.’
‘Surely not, if the document does not affect his interest in any way,’ said May. ‘A man commits forgery only to benefit himself; and it is quite impossible that the contents of this packet, whatever they are, can have anything to do with Mr Langham.’
‘Improbable, child; not more than that; nothing is impossible.’
‘Then I went on with the book I was reading to her,’ said May, in repeating the conversation to me; ‘but I don’t think she listened. At least her eyes were twinkling all the time, though it was quite a serious book, and in the middle of one very grave passage she laughed aloud. I stopped in surprise, and then she asked me if I was sure that I had described the seal correctly. I assured her that I had given your description of it word for word, at which she laughed again, and said, “Poor George.” I wonder if she meant Mr George Bowden; but I don’t see what he had to do with the matter. Then she repeated her warning about breaking seals, and bade me be sure to convey it to you.’
‘It is very considerate of Mrs Bowden,’ I said in some bewilderment; ‘but I cannot imagine why she should be so much interested in the matter. Is she at all—queer?’
‘She is eccentric, certainly; but not in the least mad, if that is what you mean. She has heart-disease, I believe; but her mind is all right, indeed particularly acute.’
‘Why, it’s simple enough,’ interposed Gerald. ‘Mrs Bowden hasn’t an amusement in the world except teasing her relatives, and she gets tired of that sometimes. But now chance informs her of a curious accident; and the little possibility of mystery and romance about it excites her, just because her own life happens to be free from either. It’s as good as a novel to her at present; but if the dénouement doesn’t come on quickly enough, she’ll lose interest in the matter, and soon forget all about it. She cares merely for the sensation.’
But Mrs Bowden’s interest in the unclaimed packet and in its unwilling possessor was curiously deep and persistent.
‘She asks far more questions about you than about Gerald,’ said May to me one fortunate half-hour when her brother had left me to be her escort to church. (Her employer managed very frequently to dispense with her attendance on Sundays, and thus made the day one of tenfold happiness to us.)
‘Then I hope you strain your conscience, and speak well of me in your replies?’
‘I say just what I think of you,’ she answered very demurely.
‘And that is——?’ I asked.
‘That you are Gerald’s friend.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Is it not enough?’
‘No—not nearly enough. Do you not like me for my own sake as well as for Gerald’s? It isn’t for his sake that I love you, May, and I shall not be content till you care for me for myself, independently of Gerald’s friendship.’
‘You want a great deal, Mr Langham,’ she said, keeping her eyes turned away from me.
‘Do I want too much—more than you can give me?’—Silence for a few moments.—‘Answer me, May. I must know the truth, whether it is good or bad. Do I ask for more than you can give me?’
Another pause, a short one; then came the sweetest whisper I had ever heard: ‘No;’ and I am afraid the vicar of St Barnabas had two very inattentive listeners that evening.
What days of planning and projecting followed! We meant to be very prudent and do nothing rashly. Marriage was impossible at present; but some day, in two or three years, when my salary should reach the princely sum of a hundred and fifty pounds a year, we would form a little home, and Gerald would live with us. Meanwhile, the most rigorous economy was to be observed; every penny saved brought that little home a shade nearer.
Mrs Bowden soon found out what was meant by the tiny pearl ring on May’s finger, and proved a most sympathetic confidant. ‘But I don’t mean to alter my will in your favour, remember,’ she said to my darling in her sharp abrupt way. ‘That would be too much bother; and besides, my property will fall into the hands of a good man who will not fail to provide for you.’
May thought of Mr George Bowden, and mentally doubted the accuracy of this last statement. She made no remark, but Mrs Bowden guessed the tenor of her thoughts.
‘You don’t agree with me, I see,’ she said; ‘but you’ll find out that I have said too little of his care for you.—But you must not leave me, child. I have grown to love you, and I shall not need your service long.’
‘You don’t feel worse, I hope, dear Mrs Bowden?’
‘Worse or better, little May, as you choose to read the meaning of the words, but assuredly not far from the end. And since it is so, you will, I think, gratify a caprice of mine. I want to see your lover. Ask him to come up some evening, and let me have a few minutes’ conversation with him.’
Of course I went. Gerald had occasionally gone to see his sister; but hitherto I had had no right to cross the portal of Mrs Bowden’s house, and I was not without some curiosity to see the amiable ogress who was May’s mistress. My first impression was a confused one of having seen her before—long ago, when she was younger and more gentle than now; but I could in nowise affix either date or place to the memory. It was vague, yet ineffaceable. Our conversation was eccentric to the point of discourtesy.
‘You seem interested in my appearance,’ Mrs Bowden said after a very curt greeting.
‘Your face is familiar to me,’ I replied; ‘I think I must have seen you before.’
‘No, you haven’t,’ she returned in a tone that forbade further assertion of the point.
After a pause, she said: ‘So you are going to make an imprudent marriage, like your father.’
I fired up at this. ‘If I win as good a wife as my father did, I shall consider myself guilty of no imprudence,’ I said.
‘You are young and foolish. Money is a good thing.’
‘Yes, but only one of many good things. If I can have the others, I’ll dispense with it.’
‘You’ll find it difficult. If your father had not been so great a fool as you, you would have been a rich man to-day.’
‘In that case, I might never have met May, so I’m better as I am.—But tell me, madam, did you know my father?’
‘Yes, before you were born.—Don’t question me on the subject. I am tired now; go away. I’ll see you again another time—perhaps—I don’t know.’
I was at the door, when Mrs Bowden spoke to me again. ‘You have not broken the seal of that packet, I hope?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t do so. It will be asked for some day, and it may be for your profit that the seal is intact.—You may go now. You’re a good lad, and I am pleased to think that you will be May’s husband.’
I felt strangely curious about the eccentric old lady, and hoped that she would again command in her imperious fashion that I should visit her. But it was not to be. Little more than a week had passed, when May came to Gerald’s rooms, weeping, and with all her little possessions. Mrs Bowden had been found dead in her bed that morning; and before noon, Mr George Bowden, in his self-assumed capacity of executor, had turned my poor little sweetheart out of the house.
I said some harsh things about this greedy and self-seeking man, and gave expression to some unkindly wishes about his inheritance of his sister-in-law’s property; but I did not guess what a strangely complete punishment his rapacity was to receive.
Ten days had passed since Mrs Bowden’s death. May was domiciled in my apartments, which I had vacated for her, and was trying to obtain daily teaching. I was accompanying my hurried dinner at a City restaurant by a yet more hurried study of the Daily Telegraph, when my eye was caught by the following advertisement: ‘Lost, on the 24th of February, by a gentleman since deceased, a sealed envelope containing the Will of Mrs Anne Bowden, of Well Walk, Hampstead. Any one bringing the same, or giving information by which it may be recovered, to Messrs Godding and Son, Solicitors, Bedford Row, E.C., will be rewarded.’
For a moment I perceived nothing more than that the will of May’s Mrs Bowden was missing; but immediately the conviction rushed upon me that this which was advertised for was my packet, the mysterious envelope, the possession of which had for four months—it was now June—been so irritating to me. Could it be possible that the two documents were the same? and that Mrs Bowden had been aware all the time that it was in my hands, yet had made no effort to regain possession of it, or to restore it to her solicitor, who had originally been destined to keep it till it was wanted? It seemed wholly unlikely; but the eccentricity of the dead lady’s character made it not impossible; and if so strange a coincidence really had happened, her oft repeated advice that I should not break the seal received a new importance. I could not delay investigating the matter. Instead of returning to the office of Messrs Hamley and Green, I rushed off to my lodging in Camden Town, took the packet from the desk in which it had been reposing so long, and hurried off to Bedford Row.
Mr Godding was engaged when I reached his office, and I was put into an anteroom to wait; but this was separated from the solicitor’s private room only by a not wholly closed door, and the voices of him and his client were raised to such loud altercation that I could not avoid hearing their words.
‘I tell you that you are making an unnecessary fuss about this matter,’ said one. ‘I have every reason to believe that my sister-in-law meant to leave her property to me; and in advertising for this missing will and postponing my entrance into my inheritance, you are simply wasting time, and, I have no doubt, lining your pockets with my money.’
‘Your last suggestion is too absurd to be annoying, sir,’ replied the other, evidently the lawyer. ‘Mrs Bowden did not, you admit, definitely state that you were to be her heir; she merely told you on the 24th of last February that she had signed a will and intrusted it to my father, who, as you know, was on that day seized with the illness which terminated in his death. You say that she “gave you to understand” that this will was in your favour. That is a phrase which may mean much or little. May I ask what, in this case, it does mean?’
‘It means that she gave me the seal—my brother’s seal—with which she had stamped the envelope containing the will, and said to me: “I wish you to keep this as a means of verifying any document brought forward after my death as my will. It will be genuine only if the impression of this seal is stamped upon the envelope in red wax.” You see she was very accurate in her phrases. This is the seal, attached to my watchchain; I have never let it go out of my possession for a moment, night or day, since it was given to me; and I consider Mrs Bowden’s words to be conclusive evidence that I am her heir.’
‘No evidence at all, Mr Bowden, not even strong presumption. As, however, this will is lost, my duty is plain—to make all possible search for it; and if, after all needful expenditure of time and trouble’ (‘And my money,’ came a growl from Mr Bowden), ‘it cannot be found, to try to obtain a decree dividing the estate between the nearest relatives of the deceased lady.’
‘Well, that’s me,’ cried Mr Bowden with ungrammatical emphasis.
‘Wait a moment. You are not a relative at all, only a connection by marriage. The first step would be to look for heirs of Mrs Bowden’s own family; and only failing the discovery of these could the property be divided between the next of kin of the late Mr Bowden, who are—not you alone—but you and your two sisters.’
Thereupon, the unhappy would-be inheritor gave vent to a despairing ejaculation.
Mr Godding was beginning to expound the law of the question, and the faint and expensive possibilities of obtaining a result favourable to his client’s wishes by appeals to various courts; while Mr Bowden soothed his ruffled nerves by a muttered indulgence in promiscuous profanity, when it struck me that it was in my power to end the scene by announcing my presence and my errand. I had listened first with surprise, then with interest, lastly with amusement, and these emotions had prevented my realising the influence I probably had over the discussion that was going on within. Now, however, without waiting till Mr Godding should think himself at leisure to receive me, I entered the room. I easily guessed that the hot and irascible-looking little man with the bald head was Mr George Bowden; while the quiet, young-looking gentleman, sitting in true legal attitude with his elbows leaning on the arms of his chair, and the tips of his fingers lightly pressed together, was the solicitor, Mr Godding. Each looked up in annoyance at my unexpected intrusion, but annoyance gave way to surprise and satisfaction as I said: ‘I bring what I believe to be the will of Mrs Anne Bowden.’
The sight of an elderly man excited, hopeful, and impatient, is interesting and unusual. I had ample opportunity for observing the spectacle as exemplified in Mr Bowden during the next few minutes. Passing by his outstretched hand, I gave the packet to Mr Godding, who examined the outside of it in leisurely fashion, while his client gazed at him with staring eyes, standing first on one leg, then on the other, and exhibiting a feverish anxiety that would not have disgraced a schoolboy.
‘Yes, this seal seems to correspond with that said to be on Mrs Bowden’s will,’ said the solicitor at last. ‘But as you have the seal with you, Mr Bowden, perhaps you will be so kind as to let us have an impression of it.’ And he lighted a taper, and pushed wax and paper towards the little gentleman, whose trembling fingers could scarcely detach the seal from his chain. The impression made proved to be identical with that on the envelope—the old English letters H. L. B., the mailed hand grasping the dagger, the motto, ‘What I hold, I hold fast,’ were unmistakably the same. Then, in reply to Mr Godding’s questions, I briefly stated now it had come into my possession.
‘You are sure that it was on the 24th of February that you picked it up?’
‘Quite sure,’ I replied, for I recalled that it was the birthday of Gerald and May, and the day on which I had first seen my darling.
‘Your account of the manner of finding it exactly tallies with what we know of the way in which it was lost. My father, having Mrs Bowden’s newly signed will in his possession, went to his stockbroker’s, where he heard some news about an investment in which he was interested, that affected him greatly. That evening, I received a message stating that he was at the London Hospital, and on going there, found him just recovering consciousness after an apoplectic fit. I was told that he had been brought there by a young man, who had seen him taken ill in the street.—This tends, I think, Mr Bowden, to prove the identity of this document brought by—you have not mentioned your name, sir—Langham, you say—by Mr Langham with the will we are in search of.’
‘My dear Mr Godding, nobody but yourself ever doubted that,’ cried the impatient Bowden. ‘Pray, make haste and open the will.’
‘Patience, Mr Bowden. For the sake of expectant legatees, who may have less reason to be satisfied with the provisions of the will than you expect to be, it may be well to set down every proof of its authenticity.—So, Mr Langham, I must ask you a few questions about yourself, in order to satisfy inquirers that the will has been found by a truthful and honest man.’
Thus thwarted, Mr Bowden tried to expedite the settlement of affairs by repeating my answers to Mr Godding’s questions, with critical comments.
‘Richard Langham, age twenty-four, clerk with Messrs Hamley and Green—good firm, Hamley and Green—must get them to raise your salary—took the late Mr Godding to the hospital—very Christian action—brought the packet to the hospital next day; found the patient removed, and could get no definite information about him; was told his name was Collins or Cotton—Cotton very like Godding; kept the packet unopened, that its authenticity might not be questioned if the owner was found—quite right—always best to restrain curiosity—besetting sin of youth; brought the packet here on seeing your advertisement—very sensible and honest. And now, Mr Godding, for any sake, open the will!’
The little man’s voice rose to a scream of entreaty as he uttered the last adjuration; but when the will was opened, there never were three men more surprised at its provisions than were the solicitor, Mr George Bowden, and myself.
Mr Godding looked over the will with that professional glance which takes in immediately all that is of moment in a document, avoiding the arabesques of legal phraseology, and then turning to me, asked: ‘What was your father’s name?’
I began to share Mr Bowden’s impatience. It was quite incredible that there was any necessity for stating my long-dead father’s name in order to identify me as the finder of Mrs Bowden’s will. Nevertheless, I hid my irritation, and answered quietly: ‘Richard Langham, like my own.’
‘And your mother’s maiden name?’
‘Marion Trench.’
‘Had your father any near relatives?’
‘A step-sister, Anne, about ten years older than himself.’
‘What became of her?’
‘I don’t know. About eight years ago, she married, and I have heard nothing of her since.’
‘You don’t know the name of her husband?’
‘No.’
‘Well, it was Henry Leigh Bowden.’
‘What!’ The exclamation came not from me, but from Mr Bowden, who began to suspect something sinister to his interests in the catechism I was undergoing.
‘Yes, Henry Leigh Bowden,’ repeated the lawyer. ‘The deceased Mrs Bowden, whose will you have been the means of restoring, was your aunt; and it is to you that she has left the bulk of her property.’
It was the howl of a wild beast, rather than any human cry, that came from George Bowden’s lips as he heard these words. ‘It’s a lie!’ he cried, rushing forward, and snatching the will from Mr Godding’s hands—‘a lie, a cheat, a plot, a swindle! The two of you are in league to keep me out of my rights. The will is in my favour; it must be.’
But he was wrong. There, in as plain English as the law can use, was the bequest by Mrs Bowden of all she might die possessed of to ‘her nephew, Richard Langham, son of her brother Richard Langham, who in the year 1850 married Marion Trench, and died at Lowborough in the year 1855.’ Mrs Bowden had made sure of the important dates in my father’s history, that there might be no difficulty in identifying her legatee.
Once assured that his eyes were not playing him false, Mr Bowden began to swear that the will was a forgery, of which I had been guilty in order to secure Mrs Bowden’s money for myself. In vain I protested my entire ignorance of the relationship between the dead lady and myself.
‘I don’t believe you are related; it’s all a fabrication. If you put these names in the will, of course you knew what to reply to Mr Godding’s questions.’
‘But,’ I exclaimed, ‘I couldn’t forge the impression of a seal which you had in your possession all the time.’
‘Hang the seal!’ cried the little man. ‘What’s a seal? A seal isn’t evidence. I swear that the thing’s a forgery, and I’ll contest it in every court in the kingdom.’
‘But if you do,’ interposed Mr Godding, ‘and though you should prove your case, you would not profit in the least. If this will is a forgery, we must assume that Mrs Bowden died intestate, for any disposition of her property she may have had drawn up would now, in all probability, be destroyed. In that case, all she possessed will descend to Mr Langham, as her next of kin.’
Mr Bowden glared from one to the other of us with the fiendish impotence of a caged hyena. ‘You’re both in the plot,’ he snarled; ‘but I’ll fight it out. I’ll have justice, though it should cost me my last penny; and I won’t grudge it, if only I see you both doing penal servitude before I die. I hope I shall!’ With this benevolent aspiration on his lips, Mr Bowden departed, leaving me alone with the lawyer, and too bewildered by the occurrences of the last half-hour to be elated by my sudden good fortune.
‘Do you think he will carry out his threat?’ I asked.
‘It is most unlikely. Twenty-four hours’ reflection will convince Mr Bowden how unwise it would be for him to spend his own money without the hope of getting anybody else’s. You may rely on being undisturbed in your good fortune.—And now, let me say how glad I am to make the acquaintance of the man for whose kindness to my poor father I have always felt grateful, and express my hope that I may enjoy the privilege of your friendship.’ Before my dull brain could furnish any reply to Mr Godding’s words, he spoke again: ‘By-the-bye, there is in the will, not a charge, but merely a recommendation that you should make some adequate provision for a Miss May Atherton, whom Mrs Bowden describes as her “beloved companion and adopted child.” I hope you have no objection to doing so?’
I blushed like a school-girl as I explained how I had already proposed to provide for Miss Atherton; and I think I may truthfully say that she has hitherto—and several years have passed since my aunt’s death—been satisfied with her share in Mrs Bowden’s property.
We live in the house at Hampstead, and often speak of the strange woman who dwelt there before us, and to whom we owe the comforts of our life.
‘Her heart was kinder and her conscience more acute than she would avow,’ May declares. ‘When she learned your history from me, Dick, she determined to atone to you for what your parents had suffered, and at the same time punish the Bowden family for their unscrupulous fortune-hunting. I have no doubt she found a grim pleasure in knowing, as she must have done, that her will was in your hands, ready to descend like a thunderbolt on the heirs-expectant; and I think it was this knowledge that made her so earnest in her insistence that you should not open the envelope which contained it.’
‘I think,’ adds Gerald, who, though he has lately taken a wife and a house of his own, is still emphatically one of us—‘I think the old lady must have got a great deal of satisfaction out of the anticipation of her brother-in-law’s disappointment. How she would have enjoyed being present at that interview in Godding’s office! Well, let who will grumble, we three have no cause to grieve over the contents of that wandering document—the Will of Mrs Anne Bowden.’
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
Near the village of Burgbrohl, on the Rhine, there is a cavity in the ground which has for a long time yielded a copious supply of carbonic acid gas. Apparatus has recently been erected close to this borehole by which the gas can be compressed to the liquid state, and one hundred and ten gallons of gas are so compressed into a pint and three-quarters of liquid every minute. Iron bottles holding about eight times that quantity are used for purposes of storage and transport.
It is reported that the Cowles Electric Smelting and Aluminium Company, whose works are at Cleveland, Ohio, have declared their ability to produce the valuable white metal known as aluminium at the price of half-a-crown a pound. If this report be true, we may look for a revolution in many branches of trade, for the metal is not alone useful as it is, but is almost more important by reason of the valuable alloys it forms with copper, &c. The Company reduce it from the ore by means of a modification of the electric furnace invented some years ago by the late Sir W. Siemens. It is probable that aluminium bronze will replace steel for many purposes where great tensile strength is required. The expense saved by substituting for steel, which has to be welded and built up coil by coil, a metal for heavy ordnance which can be simply cast and run into moulds, would be enormous.
The discovery of petroleum wells on the west coast of the Red Sea is both interesting and full of promise for a country such as Egypt, whose finances have for so long been in a deplorable condition. The yield of oil is at present but insignificant when compared with the enormous quantities which gush forth at Baku, and with the amount tapped from the American wells. But there is every indication that the yield will increase to a great deal more than two tons a day, the present output. There is little doubt that petroleum will form the fuel of the future for our steamships; and a station so near the great international highway of Suez where that fuel can be readily obtained, cannot fail to become a place of great importance. Already the oil is being used by certain ships instead of coal.
Once again has truth outrun fiction, for the camera in the hands of MM. Henry of Paris has accomplished a feat which no romance-writer would have dared to imagine. Most persons know by sight that beautiful group of stars called the Pleiades, and most people know, too, that this group attracted the attention of star-gazers in very early times. It is mentioned in the book of Job, and profane authors have also weaved many a pretty legend concerning this group of distant suns. In November last, the Messrs Henry photographed the Pleiades; and the picture showed the presence of a nebula of spiral form which no human eye had before seen. Another photograph taken in America showed the same appearance, though the largest telescopes in the Paris Observatory gave no evidence to corroborate the photographic appearances. But at the observatory of Pultova, where a gigantic instrument, possessing an object-glass thirty inches in diameter, has lately been erected, the nebula has been detected by the eye of M. Struve.
Professor Gerlach has devised a means whereby the embryo growth in a bird’s egg may be watched. The end of the egg has a round hole cut in it; and by means of a kind of putty made of gum-arabic and wool, a pane of glass is inserted in the opening. This pane consists of a small watchglass, which is further secured in its place by cementing the outside of the joint with a suitable varnish. The egg so treated is put into an incubator in the horizontal position, and it can be removed and turned up for examination when required.
A new kind of refrigerator has been devised, and is on sale in New York. The principle on which it acts is old enough, but the application of that principle is simple and interesting. An iron pipe two feet long and three and a half inches in diameter is filled with liquefied ammonia. To a stopcock at one end of this pipe is fitted a smaller pipe, which ultimately forms a coil within a cylinder about ten inches high and as many in diameter. This cylinder is made of wood and lined with hair-felt. The action of the apparatus is as follows: When the stopcock is turned on, the liquid ammonia rushes out in the form of gas, and absorbs so much heat that the temperature of surrounding bodies is immediately lowered. Any vessel placed within the coil inside the box can actually be lowered in temperature to sixty degrees of frost in a few minutes.
Mr Price Edwards’s paper on ‘The Experiments with Lighthouse Illuminants at the South Foreland,’ recently read before the Society of Arts, London, was full of interest. In these experiments, the relative advantages of electricity, gas, and oil were put to careful test, temporary lighthouses having been erected for comparative trials of each. In the result, it was shown that in clear weather each illuminant was actually more brilliant than necessary. In dull and foggy weather the electric light penetrated further into the murky atmosphere than either gas or oil. But this extra penetration—amounting to two hundred or three hundred feet—is not of any practical importance to navigation. The final conclusion of the Examining Committee was: ‘That for ordinary necessities of lighthouse illumination, mineral oil is the most suitable and economical illuminant; and that for salient headlands, important landfalls, and places where a powerful light is required, electricity offers the greatest advantages.’
It may be noted as a matter of interest in the above-mentioned trials that the electric arc-lights employed were furnished with a novel kind of carbon rods, called the Berlin core carbons, and furnished by Messrs Siemens. These rods were fully an inch and a half in diameter, and were provided with a core of plumbago, or graphite, running through the centre. They were found to burn with exceptional steadiness, a result due to the superior conducting power of the central core.
According to Mr J. C. Clifford, who lately delivered a lecture before the Balloon Society of London, the art of dentistry in America is far in advance of the practice of the Old World. The dentists there are specialists. One will devote himself to extracting teeth, another to filing them, another to making artificial teeth, and so on. The lecturer also stated that these clever dentists had found out that if necessary, they could take a tooth out, cut off the diseased end, replace it, and it would grow firm again in a few days. Transplanting was also successfully carried on.
An interesting discussion has lately arisen concerning the deterioration of pictures by exposure to light and from other causes. There seems to be no doubt that in the case of water-colour pictures this deterioration is an undeniable fact. In oil-colours, the pigments being used in greater masses, and each particle of colour being inwrapped as it were in a protecting globule of oil, there is no perceptible change except a gradual darkening, due most probably to the oil and varnish. The number of organic substances upon which light will exert a bleaching action is far greater than is commonly supposed, and pigments of organic origin should always be regarded with suspicion. Luckily for our artists, there are pigments at their disposal which are permanent in character, and these alone should be used if they wish their works to remain ‘a joy for ever’ as well as ‘things of beauty.’
It seems a great pity that the art of producing pictures in far more permanent pigments, that of drawing in pastels or coloured chalks, should have been almost lost sight of, or at least relegated to the itinerant artist who decorates our pavements with impossible landscapes. In the middle of the last century, this art flourished in France; and works by its votaries, as fresh now as the day they were executed, are much sought after. In France, a Society has been formed for the revival of pastel-work, and its influence has been felt in London, where an excellent Exhibition of Coloured Chalk Drawings has lately been opened. We may hope that these efforts will lead to a revival of a lost art, which has other advantages besides permanence to recommend it.
In framing a picture covered with glass, be it a water-colour, a photograph, or an engraving, there is one precaution which should always be adopted, but is too often neglected—the glass should fit the frame exactly, and should be cemented to the wood inside by a slip of thick paper. This should be glued all round the frame; and if done properly, will exclude all dust, dirt, and undesirable vapours. The backboards, too, should be well papered, so that the picture may rest in a dust-proof and air-tight receptacle.
Our recent annexation of Burmah has had the effect of calling attention to the manners and customs of a very interesting people. Among the latest things noted is the fact that the Burmese and their neighbours the Shans are very expert blacksmiths, although the apparatus used is of a very crude description. The bellows employed for the forge curiously suggests in its construction a double cylinder steam-engine. The cylinders are represented by two bamboo trunks four inches in diameter, and about five feet long, standing upright on the ground. At their lower ends, a tube runs from each to the charcoal fire in which the iron to be wrought is heated. Piston rods also made of bamboo, and packed with bunches of feathers, are fitted within the cylinders. These, when forced downwards, cause the compressed air to be urged to the fire through the smaller tubes. A boy perched on a high seat works the bellows by depressing each piston rod alternately. The Burmese have also a primitive method of turning out brass and bronze castings. The article to be made is first of all modelled in clay; it is then covered with a layer of beeswax of the same thickness that it is desired the finished casting to be. An outer skin of clay two inches in thickness is laid above the wax. Funnel-shaped holes at frequent intervals in this outer crust afford a passage for the molten metal; and there are also straw-holes to let out the imprisoned air. As the hot metal melts out the wax, it occupies its place, solidifies, and forms a hollow casting.
In the metropolitan police district, there occurred last year three hundred and seventy-three cases of rabies in dogs, and twenty-six deaths from hydrophobia in man. This alarming and sudden increase in a most terrible disease led to stringent police regulations. All dogs, unless led by a string, had to be muzzled, and all stray dogs were destroyed. Although this order met with great opposition from lovers of dogs, who possibly forgot that a modern wire muzzle cannot be half so distressing to its wearer as a respirator is to a human being, its wisdom is seen in a return lately issued, which shows how rabies has decreased since it was put in force. In January last, the cases of rabies had fallen to twenty-seven, and there was only one death. In February, fourteen cases only were recorded, and there were no deaths. It is reported that our government, being fully alive to the importance of M. Pasteur’s discoveries with regard to the cause and prevention of hydrophobia, has appointed a Commission of eminent pathologists and physicians to inquire into the matter and to report thereon.
Mr Shirley Hibberd’s paper on the Protection of British Wild-flowers, recently read before the Horticultural Club, London, calls attention to the possible extinction of many of our wild plants. Many of these are in great demand for political as well as horticultural purposes, and the lecturer made special mention of the modest primrose. He petitioned all those who truly love the country to abstain from purchasing wild plants from travelling hucksters, whose baskets represent the half-way house for a plant on the road to extinction. He also strongly deprecated the practice of offering prizes for wild-flowers at flower-shows, as being another cause which must help extinction.
Sir Joseph Fayrer, in a recent lecture delivered in London on Cholera, said that contagion by personal intercourse was a theory of the disease which was no longer tenable. The British and Indian governments, who were in possession of well-ascertained facts concerning this subject, had discontinued all quarantine measures, and relied solely upon sanitary laws. In perfect sanitation resided the sole means of preventing the disease; and every individual should be scrupulously careful in his living and clothing as the best means of prevention. Care in diet, avoidance of all depressing influences, precautions against chills, violent alternations of temperature, impure water, unripe fruit, were the main considerations for those who wished to be safe from cholera. In addition to these precautions, the dwellers in every town and village in the country should do their best to secure good ventilation, perfect drainage, and should avoid overcrowding. Many of these safeguards are unfortunately beyond the scope of individual effort, especially in our crowded cities; but much good could be done if public bodies would only do their duty.
One of the London vestry clerks has proposed a comprehensive scheme for getting rid of and utilising the contents of the London dustbins. On the banks of the Thames between Tilbury and Southend there is an expanse of useless, marshy land which only waits the process of reclamation. The proposal is to convey the refuse of London to this land and to turn it into profitable terra-firma. It is calculated that the metropolis pays at present one hundred and twenty thousand pounds annually for the removal of dust and road-sweepings, which go to the farmers and brickmakers. If the new scheme could be carried out at the same or less cost, Londoners would be glad to adopt it. At present, householders are entirely at the mercy of the contractor, who undertakes to remove the dust regularly, but does not do so.
In a recent article in the Century magazine, there are some interesting particulars concerning the cultivation of wheat and rye. The former is one of the oldest of cultivated plants, and figured in prehistoric times, for remains of wheat-seeds have been found in the ruined habitations of the lake-dwellers. Compared with wheat, rye is of modern origin, and although for many centuries the two plants have been cultivated side by side, the first plants appearing to be true hybrids between them bore seeds this year in the United States. Although it may be possible that wheat and rye have been crossed in former times, there seems to be no record of such a circumstance.
Archæological interest just now centres at Assouan on the Nile, which our readers will remember is the site of the first cataract, and may be regarded as the place where Lower Egypt ends and Upper Egypt begins. General Grenfell has discovered in the Libyan Desert, opposite Assouan, an ancient necropolis. Several of the tombs already opened date apparently from the twelfth dynasty, which would be about 3000 B.C. But many tombs are of far later date. Our soldiers are busily engaged in the work of discovery under General Grenfell, and their labours are likely to lead to important results, for the necropolis is a very extensive one.
Professor Newton, late keeper of the Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum, has just concluded a course of lectures at the Royal Institution, on the unexhibited Greek and Roman sculptures in the national collection. Let us quote some of his concluding words: ‘Here are a number of sculptures which have been buried in a cellar since the year 1852, which are defaced and begrimed with dirt, and utterly useless to anybody, for in their present position they cannot be seen unless by the light of a lantern.’ Might we suggest to the trustees of the Museum that if they cannot find better accommodation for these treasures—which have been purchased with grants of public money—they might be handed over to our provincial museums, where they would once more see the light of day and be appreciated by art students? Enterprising curators might try the experiment of asking for them.
The success of some experiments in the neighbourhood of Moscow having for their object the artificial reproduction and culture of trout, has negatived the formerly accepted theory that the propagation of that fish in Central Russia was an impossibility. It was thought that the trout could only live in streams which were both cold and rapid. But this view is incorrect, for trout have now been reared in ponds, the water of which have a summer heat as high as fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit. There are many pieces of water in Central Russia which fulfil this condition, and pisciculture will no doubt now assume the position of an important industry, as it has in many other countries.
All visitors to the New Forest are familiar with the very ugly monument which marks the place where the Red King met his death. The inscription on that monument tells how Sir Walter Tyrrell’s arrow glanced from a tree and slew Rufus, whose body was conveyed by one Purkess, a charcoal-burner, to Winchester Cathedral, where it was buried. Until fifteen years ago the body of the king rested in a tomb in front of the altar; but it was removed on the score of convenience. It is satisfactory to note that the marble sarcophagus is now to be replaced in its old position of honour, hard by the memorials which cover the dust of Saxon and Danish monarchs.
The Silvertown Submarine Cable Company are at present engaged in surveying a route for the prolongation of one of their cables in the South Atlantic, and their sounding ship the Buccaneer is employed in the work. With an enlightened regard for science which cannot be too highly extolled, Mr Buchanan of the Challenger expedition, who has charge of the soundings, has permission from the Company to make soundings and observations for scientific purposes. He is to make use of the ship on its return voyage in any way that may seem good to him for purely scientific work. If other Cable Companies will imitate this public-spirited conduct, we shall gain a knowledge of the depths of the sea which would be perhaps unattainable in any other way.