CHAPTER X.
It was the forenoon of the second day after the picnic. There was thunder in the air, but the storm had not yet broken. Any moment the clouds might part and the first bolt fall. What might have been the result of the collision between Laroche and Colonel Woodruffe on the day of the picnic, but for the opportune invasion of the glen by a number of excursionists, who put privacy to flight, it is of course impossible to say. It may be also that the Frenchman read something in the colonel’s eye which warned him not to proceed too far. No sooner, therefore, had the remark last recorded passed his lips, than he turned abruptly on his heel, and striking into the same winding pathway that Mora had taken earlier in the day, became at once lost to view in the depths of the shrubbery.
‘Had you not better let me take you back to the hotel at once?’ said the colonel to Mora after a little pause. ‘You can easily make an excuse to your party for leaving them. There is an inn at the foot of the valley at which we can hire a fly.’
Mora at once assented. Now that the worst was known, now that everything had been told, her heart cried out for solitude: she wanted to be alone with her despair.
On their way they encountered Miss Gaisford, to whom Mora made some kind of an excuse. An hour later they alighted at the Palatine. As they stood for a moment at the door, the colonel said: ‘I shall remain here at the hotel for the present, in case you should need me. No one can tell what may happen. Night or day I am at your service.’
She gazed into his eyes for a moment, pressed his hand tenderly, and was gone.
From that hour, Madame De Vigne had ceased to appear in the general sitting-room down-stairs. The bedrooms occupied by the sisters were separated by a small boudoir. In this latter room Madame De Vigne now passed her time, and here she and Clarice partook of their meals. Miss Penelope and Nanette alone had access to their room.
Of all the people in the hotel Colonel Woodruffe alone was aware that the polite and good-looking French gentleman who called himself M. De Miravel had any acquaintance with Madame De Vigne, or had as much as spoken a word to that lady. De Miravel, to all appearance, did not know a soul in the place. He was very smiling and affable to every one, but seemed to have no acquaintances. His sole occupation—if occupation it could be called—seemed to be to lounge about the grounds and smoke. Once, it is true, he went for an hour’s row on the lake, but that was all. When he and Colonel Woodruffe chanced to meet, they passed each other like utter strangers.
Another visitor who appeared not to care to make acquaintances was Mr Santelle. He took his breakfast in the public coffee-room, and dined at the table-d’hôte; his keen, watchful eyes saw everything and everybody, but he rarely addressed himself to any one. He was not so much en évidence as M. De Miravel; but with a guide-book under his arm and a field-glass slung over his shoulder, he took the steamer from place to place, and seemed bent upon seeing all that there was to be seen. Jules kept a furtive eye upon him at meal-times, but not the slightest sign of recognition passed between the two men.
When Clarice got back to the hotel on the evening of the picnic, she found a telegram from Archie awaiting her. ‘Governor not yet to hand,’ ran the message. ‘Probably fatigue of travelling has been too much for him. May have broken journey somewhere. Can only await his arrival. Hope he will turn up in the morning. Will telegraph again to-morrow.’
Clarice handed the telegram to Mr Etheridge. That gentleman read it slowly and carefully, and handed it back with a smile. ‘I think it very likely, as Mr Archie suggests, that Sir William has broken his journey,’ he observed. ‘But I have long thought that Sir William fancies himself more of an invalid than he really is, and that if he chose to exert himself a little more, it might perhaps be all the better for his health. But there is no accounting for the whims of these rich people. I sometimes think that a little poverty would be a good thing for some of them.’
There was more cynicism in this speech than in any that Clarice had hitherto heard from the old gentleman’s lips. But it was not in her province to make any reply to it. She had never even seen Sir William, whereas Mr Etheridge had known him for years.
When not with her sister—and Mora seemed to prefer to be as much alone as possible—Clarice spent most of her time with the old man. She could talk to him about Archie, whom he seemed to have known from childhood, and could listen with unfailing interest to all that he had to tell about the eccentric baronet; while Mr Etheridge seemed quite as fond of her society as she was of his. No message, either by telegram or letter, had yet arrived for him, but he never failed to ransack the letter-rack three or four times a day. ‘We can only wait,’ he said once or twice to Clarice, as he turned from the rack with that faint, patient smile which she was beginning to know so well. ‘Sir William is a man who can never bear to be hurried in anything.’
Next afternoon there came a second telegram addressed to Miss Loraine: ‘No news of the governor yet. Most extraordinary. Would have started back to-day, but Blatchett strongly advises to remain till morning. Should there be no news by ten A.M., you may expect me at the Palatine in time for dinner.’
‘Just like Sir William—just like him; I’m not a bit surprised,’ was Mr Etheridge’s curt comment when he had read the telegram.
‘He must indeed be a singular man,’ said Clarice. Then her eyes began to sparkle, and a lovely colour flushed her cheeks. ‘Perhaps by this time to-morrow Archie may be back again,’ she said, more as if speaking to herself than addressing Mr Etheridge.
In the course of these two days Colonel Woodruffe and Mr Etheridge met more than once. They talked together, walking side by side on the lawn of the hotel. The chief part of the talking, however, seemed to be done by the colonel, his companion’s share of it being mostly confined to ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ a confirmatory nod of the head, or now and then a brief question.
When Lady Renshaw got back from the picnic on Wednesday evening, and was in a position to have a quiet chat with her niece, she declared that she had not spent so pleasant a day for a long time. Dr M‘Murdo was really a most agreeable, well-informed man—a man whose talents ought to make him a position in the world; and as for the poor, dear vicar, he was nothing less than charming. ‘So simple-minded and unworldly, my dear. He quite puts me in mind of the Vicar of Wakefield.’ Then she added by way of after-thought: ‘But I cannot say that I care greatly for that sister of his. There is something about her excessively flippant and satirical—and I do dislike satirical people, above all others.’
But Lady Renshaw’s real enjoyment—of which she said nothing to her niece—arose from her thorough belief that both the doctor and the vicar had been irresistibly smitten by her charms. If they were not in love, or close on the verge of it, why had they followed her about all day like two spaniels, each of them jealously afraid to leave her alone with the other? It was delightful! As she sipped a cup of tea after her return, she began to ask herself whether she might not do worse than accept this clever, well-preserved Scotch doctor. She had no doubt in her own mind that he would propose in the course of a few days. With the help of her money, he might buy a first-class West-end practice; and after that, there was no knowing what he might not rise to in the course of a few years. Seven to ten thousand a year, so she had been given to understand, was by no means an uncommon income for a fashionable doctor to make nowadays. She would think the matter over in the quietude of her own room, so that she might be prepared with her answer, when the inevitable moment should arrive.
The fact was that Dr Mac had fooled her to the top of her bent, as Miss Gaisford had prophesied he would do. Her vanity, as he soon found, was insatiable; no compliment was too egregious for her to swallow. ‘I’ve done my duty like a man,’ he remarked with grim humour to Miss Pen at the close of the day; ‘but I hope you will never set me such a task again: the creature’s self-conceit is stupendous—stupendous!’
The picnic took place on Wednesday. Thursday was ushered in with wind and rain. The hills had wrapped thick mantles of mist about them, and had retired into private life. Visitors shook their heads as they peered out of the rain-streaked windows, and made up their minds to settle down for the day to novels, gossip, and letter-writing. Despite the wind and rain, Dr Mac set out for Kendal at an early hour with the avowed intention of hunting up some old friends. The vicar, too timid to tackle the widow by himself, kept to his own room, on the plea of having a sermon to compose. Miss Wynter might have been justified that day in her belief that her aunt’s temper was not invariably the most angelic in the world.
Bella had enjoyed her picnic more, far more than her aunt was aware of. And yet the girl was troubled in her secret heart. Dick had never made love to her so audaciously before; in fact, the opportunity had never been afforded him; while she herself had never quite known till that day how dear he had become to her. Her training, almost from childhood, and her mode of life since her aunt had taken charge of her, had all tended to stifle the feelings natural to her age and sex, and to induce her to regard the sacrament of marriage as a mere question of pounds, shillings, and pence. Yet here, almost to her dismay, and very much to her mortification, because she felt that she could not help it, she found herself hopelessly in love with a man the amount of whose income seemed in her eyes little more than an equivalent for semi-genteel pauperism. What was to be done? Should she treat Dick after the fashion in which she had treated more than one man already? Now that she had brought him to her feet, should she turn her back on him with a little smile of triumph, and bid him farewell for ever? But then, she had never cared for those other men; while for Dick she did care very much. Whatever she might decide to do must be decided quickly. Dick, easy-going and full of fun as he might seem to be, was not a man to stand any shilly-shallying nonsense. As he stood for a moment or two on the dusky lawn with her hand in his after their return from the picnic, he had given her plainly to understand that he should expect a categorical ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ from her on Friday. And now Friday was here, and her mind was no nearer being made up than it had been on Wednesday. Not much appetite for her breakfast had Miss Wynter that morning.
As a matter of course, Mr Etheridge was introduced to Lady Renshaw. Her ladyship was very gracious indeed, when she found in what relation the pleasant-voiced, white-haired gentleman stood to Sir William Ridsdale, and that he was the bearer of a letter all the way from Spa for Mr Archie. With her usual penetration, her ladyship at once concluded in her own mind that the story about a letter for Archie was a mere blind, and that the real object of Mr Etheridge’s journey was to spy out the weakness of the land. In other words, Sir William had deputed him to ascertain all that could be ascertained respecting Madame De Vigne and her sister, their mode of life, antecedents, &c.; which, under the circumstances, was no doubt a laudable thing to do. In fact, all her ladyship’s sympathies were on the side of Mr Etheridge, and she would most gladly have assisted him in his task, had she only seen her way clearly how to do so. She smiled to herself more than once, as she remarked how innocently all these good people around her accepted Mr Etheridge’s version of the reason of his visit to Windermere, not one of them seeming to dream that there could possibly be anything in the background. But then, it is not given to all of us to be so far-seeing as the Lady Renshaws of this world.
As she rose from the breakfast-table this Friday morning she chanced to spy Mr Etheridge pacing the lawn in front of the windows with his hands clasped behind him. He was waiting for Clarice. The two were going on a little excursion together; but not to any distance, as Clarice thought that at any moment there might come a telegram from Archie. Lady Renshaw, seeing Mr Etheridge alone, could not resist the temptation of a little private conversation with him. She might perhaps be able to glean some information as to how matters were progressing; besides which, she had another motive in view.
‘I trust that you left dear Sir William quite well, Mr Etheridge?’ remarked her ladyship after the usual greetings had passed.
‘Tolerable, ma’am, tolerable. At the best of times his health is never very robust; but there has been a considerable improvement in it of late—or he fancies there has, which comes, perhaps, to pretty much the same thing.—Probably Sir William has the honour of your ladyship’s acquaintance?’
‘N-no; I have never yet had the pleasure of meeting him. You see, he has lived so much abroad, otherwise I have no doubt we should have met at the house of some mutual acquaintance in town.’
Mr Etheridge coughed a dry little cough, but said nothing.
‘Dear Archie, now, and I are old acquaintances. What a fine young fellow he is! So clever, you know, and all that. I’m sure Sir William must be proud of such a son.’
‘Possibly so, madam—possibly so.’
Her ladyship was anxious to touch on delicate ground, but scarcely saw her way to begin. However, it was necessary to make a plunge, and she did not long hesitate.
‘Between you and me, Mr Etheridge,’ she said insinuatingly, ‘don’t you think it a great pity that a young man with Mr Archie’s splendid prospects should seem so determined to throw himself away—no, perhaps I ought not to make use of that phrase—but—to—to—in short, to take up with a young lady like Miss Loraine, who, so far as any one knows, seems to have neither fortune, prospects, nor antecedents? To me, it seems a great, great pity.’ She glanced sharply at her companion as she finished, anxious to note the effect of her words.
Mr Etheridge came to a halt, apparently engaged in deep thought for a few moments before he replied. Then he said, speaking very deliberately: ‘It does perhaps seem a pity, as you say, madam, that Mr Archie should be so infatuated with this young lady, when he might do so very differently, were he so minded.’
‘I was quite sure that you would agree with me,’ returned her ladyship in her most dulcet tones. ‘But no doubt Mr Archie will listen to reason. When Sir William places the matter before him in its proper light, and proves to him how irretrievably he will ruin himself by contracting such an alliance, he will surely see that, in his case at least, inclination must give way to duty, and that his career in life must not be frustrated by the mere empty charms of a butterfly face.’
What her ladyship meant by a ‘butterfly face’ she did not condescend to explain.
‘As to whether Mr Archie will listen to what your ladyship calls reason is a point upon which, as matters stand at present, I am scarcely competent to offer an opinion.’
‘Sly old fox!’ muttered her ladyship. ‘He wasn’t born yesterday. But he doesn’t take me in with his innocent looks.’
She had another arrow left. ‘Then, as regards the sister of Miss Loraine—this Madame De Vigne? A very charming person, no doubt; but that is not everything. I daresay, Mr Etheridge, your experience will tell you that the most charming of our sex are sometimes the most dangerous?’
Mr Etheridge bowed, but did not commit himself further.
‘On all sides I hear people asking, “Who is Madame De Vigne? Where did she spring from? Who was Monsieur De Vigne? What was he, when alive?” Question after question asked, but no information vouchsafed. Ah, my dear Mr Etheridge, where there’s concealment, there’s mystery; and where there’s mystery, there’s—there’s—— Well, I won’t say what there is.’ Possibly her ladyship had not quite made up her mind what there was. ‘In any case, Mr Etheridge,’ she resumed, ‘were I in your position, I should deem it imperative on me to make Sir William acquainted with everything, down to the most minute particulars. You are on the spot; you can see and hear for yourself. Of course, it would be a dreadful thing if, after Mr Archie were married to the young lady, something discreditable were to turn up—some family secret, perhaps, that would not bear the light of day; some scandal, it may be, that could only be spoken of in whispers. For Sir William’s sake, if not for that of our dear, foolish Archie, everything should be made as clear as daylight before it is too late. I hope you agree with me, Mr Etheridge?’
‘Quite, madam—quite.—What a splendid man of business your ladyship would have made, if you will excuse me for saying so. Sir William shall be made acquainted with everything. I will see to that; yes, yes; I will see to that.’
‘He is a spy, then, after all,’ said Lady Renshaw complacently to herself.
At this moment, Clarice emerged from the hotel. Lady Renshaw greeted her with a smile of much amiability. ‘I trust that dear Madame De Vigne is better this morning?’ she said. ‘I have been so grieved by her indisposition. But, really, on Wednesday I myself found the heat most trying. I cannot wonder at her prostration.’
‘My sister is a little better this morning, thank you, Lady Renshaw,’ answered Clarice in her gently serious way. ‘I trust that by to-morrow she will be well enough to join us down-stairs.’
‘I hope so, with all my heart,’ answered her ladyship with as much fervour as if she were repeating a response at church.
After a few more words, Clarice and Mr Etheridge went their way. As her ladyship turned to go indoors, Miss Wynter, escorted by Mr Golightly in his boating flannels, emerged from the hotel. They had breakfasted an hour before her ladyship, who was a somewhat late riser. Dick had said to Bella at table: ‘I want you to go on the water this morning. It’s going to be a bit cloudy later on, I think, and it’s just possible that the perch may be in the humour for biting.’
‘As if he cared a fig about the perch!’ said Bella to herself. ‘The wretch only wants to get me into a boat all to himself, and then he thinks he can say what he likes to me.’ She trembled a little, feeling that the crisis of her fate was at hand. She would have liked to mutiny and say, ‘I shan’t go,’ as under similar circumstances she would have said to any other man. But with Dick, poor Dick! who had run such risks for her sake, and had done so much to win her, she felt that she could not be so cruel. Besides, she had a woman’s natural curiosity to hear what he would say. ‘And I needn’t say “Yes” unless I choose to,’ she remarked to herself; but in her heart of hearts she knew that her ‘No,’ if uttered at all, would be a very faint one indeed. As it was, she merely looked at him a little superciliously for a moment or two, and then quietly assented.
‘I trust, dear Mr Golightly, that you are thoroughly competent to manage a boat?’ remarked her ladyship, when she had been told where the young people were going.
‘Rather,’ answered Richard a little brusquely. ‘I didn’t pull stroke in the Camford Eight, seven years ago, for nothing.’
‘I only spoke because I’m told that the lake is most treacherous, and that a year rarely passes without one or more fatalities.—Bella, darling, I think you ought to have taken a warmer shawl with you. The air on the water is often chilly.’ Then in an aside: ‘Be careful what you are about. If he proposes, only accept him provisionally. This affair of Archie Ridsdale’s is by no means at an end yet.’
Bella nodded. ‘Too late, aunty, too late,’ she said to herself. ‘I’m very much afraid that I can’t help myself.’
Lady Renshaw, as she turned away, remarked to herself: ‘I’m not sure that young Golightly is quite such a nincompoop as I took him to be at first. But in any case, Bella ought to be able to twist him round her finger.’
Clarice had not left her sister many minutes when Nanette entered her mistress’s room carrying a note on a salver. It was simply addressed, ‘Madame De Vigne.’ One glance at the writing was enough. Mora remembered it too well. She turned sick at heart as she took the note. ‘You need not wait,’ she said to Nanette. As soon as she was alone, she sank down on the ottoman and tore open the envelope. The note, which was written in French, ran as follows:
‘I have not troubled you since our last interview. I have left you alone, that you might have time to think over what I said to you. But I have had no message from you, and this long delay begins to irritate me. I must know at once what you intend to do. I propose to call upon you at seven o’clock this evening. I need not say more.—Laroche.’
Madame De Vigne sat staring at the letter for some minutes, as though the reading of its contents had taken from her all power of sense or feeling. Then waking up as if from a trance, she said to herself: ‘It must be done; there is no other course.’ She touched the tiny gong at her elbow. Nanette appeared. ‘Inquire whether Colonel Woodruffe is in the hotel,’ she said. ‘If he is, tell him that I should like to see him here at his convenience.’
(To be concluded next month.)
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
It has long been understood that the vaults of the British Museum contained many treasures for which no space could be found in those parts of the building accessible to the public. But the removal of the Natural History Collection to its new home at South Kensington has placed a series of spacious galleries at the disposal of the authorities, and these are now being filled with the hitherto hidden antiquities. Among the most interesting of these is a collection of tablets bearing inscriptions relating to Babylonian history. One is a Babylonian Calendar, from which it would appear that in Babylon the superstition existed of certain days in the year being either lucky or unlucky. This book of fate had to be consulted before performing various acts of domestic life. The same superstition is common to the Chinese, and seems akin to the astrological fictions prevalent in Europe a few centuries back.
Mr Petrie, whose excavations at San (Zoan) have been adverted to more than once in these pages, has now returned to England, and has recently given an account of his work at a meeting of the subscribers to the Egypt Exploration Fund. He has examined more than twenty sites of ancient cities and remains, and speaks of certain ground so thickly strewn with early Greek pottery ‘that the potsherds crackled under the feet as one walked over it.’ He pointed out that the main object with regard to San—a city built seven years before Hebron—was to gain knowledge of the unknown period of the Shepherd kings. But the work will occupy several years, for the district to be explored covers some square miles, and the remains are in many cases lying beneath eighty feet of earth. The Exploration Fund shows a balance of two thousand pounds, a circumstance partly due to the liberality of our American cousins, who are greatly interested in the work.
It is proposed to found at Athens a British School of Archæology, the aim of which will be to promote the study of Greek art and architecture, the study of inscriptions, the exploration of ancient sites, and to promote generally researches into Hellenic life and literature. His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is President of the General Committee, which includes a large number of distinguished representatives of our universities and schools. Sufficient money has already been subscribed to start the enterprise, but more will be required for its maintenance. Subscriptions may be sent to Mr Walter Leaf, Old Change, London, or to Professor Jebb, at the University, Glasgow.
The French Minister of Agriculture some time ago commissioned a Professor of the Collège de France to experiment upon the best method of destroying the winter eggs of the Phylloxera, it having been ascertained that that line of attack was the most efficient in dealing with that terrible scourge of the vineyard. After several trials, a mixture of oil, naphtha, quicklime, and water has been tested on a large scale with the most successful results. It was of course easy enough to hit upon a chemical compound which would kill the eggs, but not so easy to find one which would not destroy the vine at the same time. The remedy is not only efficient, but cheap.
For some years, Dr Jaeger, of Germany, has been preaching a new hygienic doctrine, which has quickly gained disciples in the Fatherland and in other countries as well. Under the title of Sanitary Clothing, this new creed teaches that our dress requires a far more radical change than is indicated in the philosophy of so-called dress-reformers. Here is the pith of the matter. Man being an animal, should follow the dictates of nature by wearing only clothing made from wool and similar animal products. Cotton, linen, &c., are harmful in collecting the emanations from the skin, whilst animal textures assist in their evaporation. At the same time, animal clothing is warmest in winter, and coolest in summer, and by its adoption we might count upon the same immunity from disease as is seen in well-cared-for domestic animals. By night as well as by day we must shun contact with vegetable fibres. Sheets must give place to wool and camel-hair coverings. It is obvious that, besides revolutionising the Englishman’s innate regard for ‘clean linen,’ the general adoption of these new tenets would cause a revolution in trade, and would therefore at once court opposition; but for all this, the doctrine seems to have a considerable amount of common-sense about it.
A very pleasant and interesting ceremony was witnessed on Scarborough sands the other day, where a large collection of donkeys and ponies were assembled in review order. A few gentlemen have for the past two years subscribed for prizes to be offered at the end of each season to those drivers who can show their beasts in good condition and bearing the signs of kind treatment. This was the second distribution of the kind. There are many seaside places and other spots of popular resort where this good example might be followed with much advantage.
Lord Brabazon utters a useful note of warning when he points out, what has long been patent to many observers, that there is a deterioration in physique of the inhabitants of the more crowded portions of our cities. Want of food, exercise, and fresh air are the causes of this decline. He points out that in this year’s drill competition of School Board scholars it was clearly noticeable that those children from the poorest and most crowded districts were of shorter stature than the others. As a partial remedy for this lamentable state of things, Lord Brabazon advocates more variety in the system of education, and begs the authorities to remember that the body should be cared for as well as the brain. He pleads also that cookery, needlework, and the knowledge of a few simple rules for maintaining the body in health, will be of more value to a girl than a smattering of French, and that a boy will make a better citizen for having been trained to use his hands as well as his head in honest labour.
It is stated that a Wild Birds’ Protection Act is much needed in several parts of our Indian possessions. The birds have been hunted down for the sake of their bright plumage, until in some districts certain species are almost exterminated. The frightened agriculturists are now calling out for protection for their feathered friends, for insects of various kinds are increasing to an alarming extent, and are playing sad havoc with the crops.
According to the Building News, another curious use has been found for paper. At Indianapolis, a skating rink has been constructed of this ubiquitous material. Straw-boards are first of all pasted together, and are subjected to hydraulic pressure, and these when sawn into flooring-boards are laid so that their edges are uppermost. After being rubbed with glass paper, a surface is obtained so smooth and hard, and at the same time exhibiting such adhesive properties, that it is well adapted for the modern roller-skates. It is also stated that in Sweden old decaying moss has been manufactured into a kind of cardboard which can be moulded in various ways for the purposes of house decoration. It is said to be as hard as wood, and will take an excellent polish.
When we read the account of some fatal gas explosion, we are always prepared to find the oft repeated tale of the foolish one who goes to look for the leak with a lighted candle. A recent explosion of this kind in Paris has led to the appointment of a Commission to determine the best manner of searching for gas-escapes. It has been now decided that an electric incandescent light fed by an accumulator—or secondary battery—shall be rendered obligatory for such operations, and suitable apparatus has been selected and approved. It now remains to be seen where the lamps are to be kept, how they are to be always charged ready for use, and whether the foolhardy folk who court explosion with a naked candle or match will ever trouble themselves at all about the provision made for their protection.
Japan has the unenviable distinction of being the one spot on this globe where earthquakes are most frequent, and therefore it may be assumed that the Seismological Society of Japan has plenty of work to do. In the last issue of the ‘Transactions’ of this useful body of workers, there is a good paper by Professor Milne on Earth Tremors. The study of these slight movements of our great mother is called microseismology, and a number of exceedingly ingenious instruments have been contrived for identifying and self-recording them. From the fact that earthquakes are generally preceded by great activity in the way of tremors, it is hoped that reliable means may be found of forecasting those terrible occurrences. Professor Milne supposes earth tremors to be ‘slight vibratory motions produced in the soil by the bending and crackling of rocks, caused by their rise upon the relief of atmospheric pressure.’ Another investigator thinks that they may be the result of an increased escape of vapour from molten material beneath the crust of the earth consequent upon a relief of external pressure. In other words, these premonitory symptoms are developed when the barometer is low.
Messrs Manlove and Company, engineers at Manchester, Leeds, &c., in calling our attention to a paragraph which appeared some months back in this Journal descriptive of a street-refuse furnace or ‘destructor,’ point out that that title was given to an apparatus of their invention some years ago, which is now in successful operation in various parts of the kingdom. Owing to the word ‘destructor’ not having been protected by copyright, it has been applied by other inventors to more recent contrivances.
A New Jersey capitalist has lately planted a vast area in Florida with cocoa-palms, and he expects in a few years to rival the most extensive groves of these trees in other parts. The plantation covers one thousand acres, and each acre numbers one hundred trees. They will not yield any return for the first six years; but at the end of that time a profit of ten per cent. on a valuation of two million dollars is looked for, the original cost of planting being only forty thousand dollars. The trees, we learn, will flourish only within a certain distance of the sea-coast, and each full-grown tree produces annually sixty nuts. We presume that the estimated profits take into consideration the processes of oil-extraction and fibre-dressing, which necessarily follow in the wake of cocoa-nut cultivation.
The International Health Exhibition has been even more financially successful than its predecessor ‘The Fisheries,’ for the total number of persons who passed its turnstiles is more than four millions, a number equal to the population of London itself. The Exhibition of Inventions which is to open next year has met with some unexpected but not unnatural opposition from some of our great manufacturers. These complain that competition with foreign countries is so keen just now that it will be a national mistake to exhibit for the benefit of others, machinery and processes which have deservedly earned for Britain a proud pre-eminence in various manufactured products. They point out that a patent is very little protection in such a case, because of the ease with which, in other countries at least, it can be infringed, and because of the difficulty and expense of tracing the delinquents. It is probable that for this reason many of our manufacturers will stand aloof, or will only exhibit such things as comprise no trade secrets.
The dwellers in a certain part of suburban London have hitherto been in the happy possession of artesian wells on their premises, from which they could draw a never-failing supply of good water. They feared not the calls of the water-rate collector, and looked with indifference at the disputes with the Water Companies going on around them. But suddenly they have been rudely awakened from their pleasant dream of security, for their wells have run dry. An enterprising Water Company has sunk a deeper well than any of the others; and as water will insist on finding the lowest level, the smaller fountains have been merged into the big one.
No one likes to pay exorbitantly, especially for such a necessary as water, but the system of artesian wells is hardly suitable to a crowded city. In London itself, many pumps have been closed because of the dangerous contamination of the subterranean water by sewage and proximity to graveyards, &c. As a case in point, the city of New York, instead of drawing its water-supply from a hundred miles’ distance—as London does from the hills of Gloucestershire—has to seek it underground. Lately, the cholera scare has frightened people into a sense of insecurity; and inquiry shows that leakage of sewers has rendered the New York water unsafe, and it has been condemned by the city Board of Health. This is of course hard upon those who have sunk wells at great expense; but we have all to learn the lesson that the individual must occasionally suffer for the public weal.
A clever imitation of amber, which it is difficult to distinguish from the genuine fossil gum, is made from a mixture of copal, camphor, turpentine, and other compounds. It exhibits attraction and repulsion on being rubbed, like real amber (electron), which because of the same properties has given its name to the science of electricity. It is now being largely manufactured into ornaments and mouthpieces for pipes. It will not bear the same amount of heat that genuine amber will withstand, and it softens in ether. These two tests are sufficient to distinguish it from the genuine article.
The great ship-canal between St Petersburg and the small fortified town of Cronstadt, which up to this time has been the actual port of Peter the Great’s city for all vessels drawing more than nine feet of water, has at last been opened, the work of construction having occupied about six years. The canal is nearly twenty miles long, it has an average width of about two hundred feet, and is twenty-two feet in depth. Apart from its importance commercially both to Russia and the traders of other countries, who before were subject to the cost of transhipment of goods going to St Petersburg, the canal will have a strategical value. Ships of war could now retreat up the canal if Cronstadt were attacked, and could, if required, emerge from the security of the waterway fully equipped and ready for action.
That small creature called the weevil, whose depredations were always understood to be confined to grain and biscuits, has lately developed a taste for tobacco. In America, smokers have found to their disgust that both cigarettes and cigars are riddled through and through by this pest, the creature confining his attention to the choicest brands. This discovery has had a most prejudicial effect upon the cigarette trade in New York and Philadelphia. It is said that in some factories the weevil is swarming from cellar to garret.
The chairman of the Western Railway Company of France has lately volunteered a statement respecting the behaviour of the Westinghouse brake, which has been in use on that line for rather more than four years. In this statement we find a list of accidents which have been avoided by the use of the brake, and these accidents are classified under different heads, such as Collisions, Obstacles on the Line, Rolling-stock not removed in time, and so forth. Upwards of forty disasters have been clearly avoided by the prompt use of the brake. On the other hand, the brake itself will sometimes get out of order and refuse to act at the critical moment. How many accidents, we wonder, have already occurred from this cause! We may mention in this connection, that a meeting of the friends of the killed and injured in the Peniston disaster has been held, and that it has been resolved that a test action should be brought against the Railway Company concerned, on the ground that to send out a train with an insufficient brake, after the Board of Trade have for seven years laid down certain conditions, is a wrongful act. The necessary money has been raised without difficulty.
The recent exhibition of the Photographic Society was a very interesting one, the pictures shown, a large proportion of which were by amateur photographers, indicating a very high average of excellence. The modern gelatine dry-plate system, with its ease of working and its cleanliness, has attracted a number of amateurs, who, a few years back, under the old condition of things would never have dreamt of handling a camera. Indeed, aspirants to photographic fame have become so numerous of late, that a special journal, The Amateur Photographer, has been started in their interests, and bids fair to attain a wide circulation.
The vexed question as to how long a gelatine plate can be kept between the moment of exposure and its after-development, has been partially answered in a satisfactory manner by a certain picture in the Photographic Exhibition. It was taken in July 1880, and not developed till four years afterwards. No one would guess, from looking at it, that the plate which received the light impression had been kept so long before that impression was made visible by development.
The Times correspondent at the Philadelphia Exhibition gives an interesting account of the electric lighting system in that city. The Brush Company there supply arc-lights to the streets and the shops. The charge amounts to as much as fifty pounds per light per annum; but the people are content to pay this for a brighter light than gas will afford. There are no fewer than fourteen towns in the States which are lighted in this manner; and the writer of the account thinks that the English public and the English manufacturers have perhaps been rather hasty in condemning the light on insufficient grounds. We are disposed to think that the light has had a very fair trial here. Many of our railway stations and public thoroughfares have been illuminated by electricity, and many of them have discarded it. In a word, it does not pay. With improved appliances, which are sure to appear, we may nevertheless still regard it as the light of the future.
It may interest many of our readers to know, since the ambulance classes which have been established in most of our large towns have drawn attention to the subject, that a small case or chest, containing the requisites for ready treatment of injuries, may be had for a moderate sum. This case, first introduced at the Sunderland Infirmary Bazaar by the inventor, Mr R. H. Mushens of that town, is intended for use in shipbuilding yards and large factories where accidents are likely to occur. As in many instances the life of an injured man depends on prompt and ready treatment, and as a considerable time may elapse before the appearance of a doctor, the advantage of such a handy means of assistance to employers of labour will be at once apparent. The case is twenty-one inches long, nine broad, and seven deep, and is furnished with a brass handle for carrying it about from place to place. It contains a complete set of splints; roller and Esmarch bandages for finger, hand, arm, head, and broken ribs; tourniquet for arresting bleeding; strapping-plaster; sponge, scissors, Carron oil, &c., with printed hints regarding the rendering of assistance to, and the removal of the injured. The use of such simple appliances does not do away with the necessity of the presence of a doctor, but it may save the life of the injured person, and simplify matters very much for the doctor by the time he has reached the sufferer.