FOOTNOTES:
[G] Since the above was written, despatches and explanations have been received from Governor Eyre, and published; also an unofficial account of the trial of Mr. Gordon, from the pen of a reporter who was present. It is to be regretted that these papers do not relieve the authorities from the charge of atrocious and illegal cruelty in the slightest degree. Neither does the evidence in any way justify the legal or illegal murder of Mr. Gordon. While in November there was an evident desire to boast of the number and severity of the punishments which had been inflicted upon the unfortunate blacks, there is as evident a desire in January to show that the number of those who perished has been greatly exaggerated. But it is difficult to see how the actors propose to refute statements for which they themselves furnished the materials. One agreeable fact comes out in these papers, that the British home authorities never committed themselves to a support of the conduct of the Jamaican officials. On the contrary, it now appears that Mr. Cardwell, the British Colonial Secretary, from the beginning intimated very clearly his doubt on the propriety of the proceedings, especially in the case of Mr. Gordon.
THE CHIMNEY-CORNER FOR 1866.
IV.
DRESS, OR WHO MAKES THE FASHIONS.
The door of my study being open, I heard in the distant parlor a sort of flutter of silken wings, and chatter of bird-like voices, which told me that a covey of Jennie's pretty young street birds had just alighted there. I could not forbear a peep at the rosy faces that glanced out under pheasants' tails, doves' wings, and nodding hummingbirds, and made one or two errands in that direction only that I might gratify my eyes with a look at them.
Your nice young girl, of good family and good breeding, is always a pretty object, and, for my part, I regularly lose my heart (in a sort of figurative way) to every fresh, charming creature that trips across my path. All their mysterious rattle-traps and whirligigs,—their curls and networks and crimples and rimples and crisping-pins,—their little absurdities, if you will,—have to me a sort of charm, like the tricks and stammerings of a curly-headed child. I should have made a very poor censor if I had been put in Cato's place: the witches would have thrown all my wisdom into some private chip-basket of their own, and walked off with it in triumph. Never a girl bows to me that I do not see in her eye a twinkle of confidence that she could, if she chose, make an old fool of me. I surrender at discretion on first sight.
Jennie's friends are nice girls,—the flowers of good, staid, sensible families,—not heathen blossoms nursed in the hot-bed heat of wild, high-flying, fashionable society. They have been duly and truly taught and brought up, by good mothers and painstaking aunties, to understand in their infancy that handsome is that handsome does; that little girls must not be vain of their pretty red shoes and nice curls, and must remember that it is better to be good than to be handsome; with all other wholesome truisms of the kind. They have been to school, and had their minds improved in all modern ways,—have calculated eclipses, and read Virgil, Schiller, and La Fontaine, and understand all about the geological strata, and the different systems of metaphysics,—so that a person reading the list of their acquirements might be a little appalled at the prospect of entering into conversation with them. For all these reasons I listened quite indulgently to the animated conversation that was going on about—Well!