EUGENE ARAM.
The recollection of this man is still preserved at Lynn, in Norfolk, at which town he was for some time usher at the grammar-school. A small room at the back of the house, in which he slept, was, until these last few years, (when it was pulled down and rebuilt,) mysteriously pointed to by the little urchins as they passed up to bed of a cold, ghost-enticing night, as the chamber in which the "usher, who was hanged for murder," was used to sleep.
The tradition which remains of his character is, that he was "a man of loneliness and mystery," sullen and reserved; that on half-holy-days, and when his duties would allow, he strayed solitary and cheerless, as if to avoid the world, amongst the flat uninteresting marshes which are situated on the opposite side of the river Ouse.
At Lynn the character of Aram was, until his apprehension, unexceptionable; but after that event, circumstances were then called to mind which seemed to indicate a naturally dark character; but whether these were all strictly founded in truth, or magnified suspicions arising from the appaling circumstances of the crime of which he was convicted, I am unable to determine. The following, derived from unquestionable authority, having been related by Dr. L., who was master of the grammar-school at the time, may serve as a sample:—there can be no doubt but that the worthy Dr. himself believed his suspicions well founded, as he used to tremble when he related it. It was customary for the parents of the scholars, on an appointed day, to dine with the master, at which time it was expected they would bring with them the amount of their bills. It was late at night, after one of such meetings, that Dr. L. was awakened by a noise at his bed-room door; he rose up, and going into the passage which led to the staircase, but which was not in the direct way from Aram's bed room to the ground-floor, he discovered the usher dressed. Having questioned him as to the object of his rising at that unseasonable hour, Aram confusedly answered that he had been taken unwell, and had been obliged to go do down stairs. The Dr. then retired, unsuspiciously, to bed. From the combined circumstances of the noise at the door, his great agitation and confusion, and from his being found in the passage, the worthy Dr., in later years, had no doubt, that, from its being known to Aram that a considerable sum of money was in his bed-room, Aram intended nothing less than to rob him; and no doubt, continued the narrator, he would have murdered me too, if it had been rendered necessary, from my discovering or opposing him.
The spot just at the entrance to the play-ground, at which Aram was taken into custody by two strange men from Yorkshire, is still remarked, and generally by the young scholar in a tremulous whisper.—Literary Gazette.
THE NATURALIST.
AGENCY OF MAN IN EXTINGUISHING OR SPREADING SPECIES.
Let us make some inquiries into the extent of the influence which the progress of society has exerted, during the last seven or eight centuries, in altering the distribution of our indigenous British animals. Dr. Fleming has prosecuted this inquiry with his usual zeal and ability, and in a memoir on the subject has enumerated the best authenticated examples of the decrease or extirpation of certain species during a period when our population has made the most rapid advances. We shall offer a brief outline of his results.