CHAPTER VI.

After his victory over his aunt, Mason's spirits had been continually rising. That humorist Payne, who thought it such a hoax to pit two cocktails against each other and pull the strings of the puppets, writhed under his merciless chaff. Mason had called for candles, and, chipping balls of the spermaceti blacked in an æsthetic spirit with pencil-dust, had used them for practice with a parlor pistol, alleging that the leaden balls damaged the furniture. When Lee came to cast bullets, using the brazier's furnace in the room, Mason made him sit down, took the moulds and threw them in the Brown duelling pistol-case, and set himself to entertain the party and chaff Payne. He lolled back in his chair, his handsome figure showing to advantage, now rallying Payne on the prospect of figuring in a "ring-tailed gaberdine" as a victim of the dowager's anger, and now reciting marvellous horse-stories, mixed with anecdotes pertinent and impertinent. The party consisted of an editor, a surgeon, a German geologist prospecting that wonderful fossil bed of the Falls, and evidently looking on Mason as a miracle excelling anything dug up, and the seconds.

Mason rattled on with his racing and racy anecdotes: "Yes, sir, it was a perfectly white mare, sky-blue mane and tail. I put her in the racing-buggy on Aunt Fanny's round quarter-track, and she spun around so fast the off wheels never touched the turf from the quarter-post to the judges' stand. Fact, gentlemen! fastest trotting-time on record. Rather peculiar color too."

"Very," said the German in admiration of his host. "A remarkable peculiarity in the pigment granules. What became of this singular animal?"

"Singular, as you say," said Mason easily. "She took navicular and jolted off her pins: trotted ten miles an hour on the stubs after she cast her hoofs."

"Eggsdraordinary vitality!" ejaculated the German in deep gutturals, and looking around as if distrustful of Mason's rapid utterance. "How did you call it?"

"Skylight," said Mason carelessly. "Imp. Milky Way by dam Cerulean, as the stud-books rather profanely style it. Tremendous vitality, though!" passing a pair of moulds to Lee and winking to attract his attention, "I thought to preserve the hair and hide as a curiosity. Wouldn't do--wouldn't begin to do! Digestive function so strong action continued from the skin. Had to substitute brickdust and charcoal. Drop into my private museum some day. Happy to show you that and some other curiosities picked up in my rather remarkable adventures."

Lee was now busy casting bullets, and Mason's spirits seemed to rise with the operation. Some listened, others laughed, but Mason had a cool way of perking up his eyebrows and going on negligently, as much as to say, "If you deprive yourself of the satisfaction of believing, the fault lies with the listener." He seemed divided between a wish to distract Lee from careful observation of his employment and to chaff Payne. Once Payne started suddenly as if about to say something to Lee, but a look quenched him.

"Friend of my youth, this goblet sip," laughed Mason. "For what says the Psalmist?--'Let the galded jade wince, our wethers is unwrung.' But never be it said," rising and speaking with theatrical emotion--"Not while Reason holds her throne in this distracted globe--never, while Mason lives, shall his Damon, his caster, be cast in prison-bonds by a ravaging female she-aunt. Never shall penitential garb encase those manly limbs nor base turnkey's shears clip those auburn locks for which ripe beauty in melting accents is wont to plead in vain."

"You're devilish generous," growled Payne. "You know the old griffin doesn't propose to bag me unless you get hit."

"Is it possible," asked the German, catching a meaning in this raillery, "the second of an American duel is imprisoned if his principal is shot? I ask for information."

"You have come to the right shop now," said Lind. "He is, invariably. Some rather curious contretemps grow out of it. Duelling is very popular among us, very--especially with the fair sex," kissing his hand to an indefinite noun of multitude. "A great favorite being imprisoned for acting as second, the people took it up--elected him governor by an overwhelming majority. It was supposed, of course, he would pardon himself; but no: he was a Roman, the noblest Roman of them all. 'The prerogative of executive clemency,' he said, 'had already been grossly abused. It would ill repay the generous confidence of his constituents to exercise it in his own behalf and in order to escape the just penalty of the law.' He refused to pardon himself, and so served out his term in both offices."

This struck the German as something heroic.

"True, sir, true," said Lind: "rather inconvenient, however. When the legislature met, as it necessarily did, in the penitentiary, you could not tell a member from a convict. Rather awkward, you see, if the wrong body adjourned itself by mistake."

The party broke up late, and Mason, throwing off his coat, called for Webster's _Quarto_ and Watson's _Poetical Quotations_, saying he would address his aunt in such an Orphic strain as would make her wig curl and ma'amselle's rouge-pot chalky. Watson's _Poetical Quotations_ was not in the hotel; but with the big _Quarto_ before him, arms akimbo, his legs spread out under the table, Mason went at his task, pausing to shout a passage at Payne, and swear it would liquefy the crystal of his aunt's frigid humor like a hot collar in July, or to scratch his head over some fickle-vowelled monosyllable that defied orthography; and the soft dark night deepened to the gray, lustreless morning.

* * * * *

An early marketer from Jeffersonville spread a rumor that R. Nettles was shot through the lungs, and poor little Sue read it in the paper an hour later. An eager reporter recognized the hotel-van from over the river, with a tarpaulin thrown over its contents. "Anything of Captain Mason's party?" he asked.

"Stout, rosy man, good deal o' gas?" asked the porter.

"Yes! yes! what of him?"

"Nothing: I guess he won't gas no more," motioning toward the tarpaulin. "Them's his'n. Do you know where his aunt lives?"

Anybody knows; the van drives off; the rumor flies--both parties slain.

Let us follow the van. At Aunt Fanny's the tarpaulin is thrown off, and reveals nothing worse than a trunk, gun-case, etc., but the man's story confirms the worst. He has a letter for the dowager, and it is sent up. The dowager calls ma'amselle to read, which she does with strong emotion and French accent:

"MY DEAR AND VENERATED AUNT--"

"Hand me the vinaigrette, and don't read so loud: I am not deaf," said the dowager.

The poor maid subdued her tones as she best could, and read:

"Now is the hour when churchyards yawn and graves give up their dead. It is midnight's holy hour. I hear the rush of the Falls like a mill-sluice, and it recalls 'the happy, happy hours of childhood.' But ere another day I may ride upon the Styx, and hear the dam loud roaring no more."

"Ride upon a stick, and hear _what_?" ejaculated the dowager at poor Lind's rhetoric.

"Mais oui, madame," translates the French maid, "c'est la fleuve de l'enfer et les cris des âmes perdues."

"Oh, the Styx!" said the dowager, taking snuff.--"Use your handkerchief, Hortense, and go on."

She obeys:

"Ere my venerated aunt peruses this calligraphy an eagle soaring in its pride of place will be by a mousing Nettles hawked at and killed."

"Poor boy!" said his aunt. "I must have a black grenadine, trimmed with bugles and flounced very deep, for mourning.--Don't forget it, Hortense."

"My last thoughts," continued the reader, "are with my revered relative; for who forgave the boyish trick, and fed me on a candy-stick, and nursed me when it made me sick?--My aunt. Who taught me to back a colt or make a book? Who entered me for the purse with Cousin Fanny Alison, but the filly bolted with Bob Ascot?--My aunt."

"Patience alive!" cried the dowager: "what does the man mean, with his doggerel poetry and slang of the stables at such a time?"

"Oh, madame! it is noble," said the poor maid with streaming eyes, and then continued:

"She besought me with the salt rheum in her optical organs to suppress my fury; but who can restrain the wrath of a Brown? She denied me the spondulics--a Latin word for cash--to carry out my nefarious purpose, though it grieved her generous heart."

"That's well thought of," said the dowager. "People talk so. We must get it to those newspaper-men. Poor Lind!"

"To those who assert a mercenary motive I triumphantly respond, 'She paid up my little bills, and has doubtless destroyed the evidences of them.'"

"They are in the steel casket," said the dowager. "Burn them. But he never would have paid."

"When she honors my sight draft," read ma'amselle, "for two-fifty to settle up my present expenses in this business, she will pay the last debt of him who has paid the last debt of Nature. For if the knave do cut but deep enough, I'll pay it instantly with all my heart. (_Shakespeare_.)

L. BROWN MASON."

"Give me the cheque-book, and let the man come up," said the dowager.

The man was questioned, and had but little to tell. He was told Captain Mason had been shot, and to bring the letter. After he was dismissed the dowager said, "Let Fanny bring the chocolate. I hope the cream is better: it curdled yesterday. Poor Lind! He had a good heart."

* * * * *

About the time his aunt was cashing his last draft, and reckoning that that little enterprise of marrying Sue Brown to Captain Mason had cost her a thousand dollars for failure, Captain Mason, with a party in the carriage, stood on Mrs. Walter Brown's front steps explaining to her that at a little expense in cutting down her ornamental trees and grubbing up her rare exotic shrubbery the front lawn could be converted into a beautiful quarter-track, and offering his services to effect the desirable change. Then advancing, he graciously held out his hand to poor, pale, red-eyed little Sudie, still hysterical over that dreadful paragraph.

"No," said Sue tartly. "Mamma may shelter you from the police, but you ought to be hung. There! And I won't shake a _murderer's_ hand. There! I won't! I won't! I won't! There!"

Mason's jolly face looked queer. "I see," said he. "'Twas ever thus from childhood's hour. I never bucked a card or colt, but what some fellow held the bower or else that horse was sure to bolt. When, at pensive evening's hour, I stroll among the tombs, I read the virtues of the--erra--clammy, the clammy. As I read the testimony of the rocks, of the rocks, it strikes me the wicked never die, and I long to be--erra--wicked. There is no raising that card," wagging his head solemnly at little Sue, who stared in spite of herself, "until Gable--I believe his name is Gable--turns trump. But I have brought you all that is mortal of the late R. Nettles."

He turned to the door as he spoke, while the shocked, terrified girl hid her face, thinking of the vision in that very parlor under the white seals of death.

But Bob Nettles's cheery, commonplace tones interrupted: "How'd do, Miss Sue? how'd do, Mrs. Brown? Captain Mason said he'd break it to you, and I thought--"

But Sue had turned her face to the wall in a corner, and stood shaking her plump shoulders and stamping her little feet like a pettish child, as she said, "Go 'way from me, Bob Nettles! I'll never speak to you again as long as I live; and as for Cousin Lind," with a shake and a stamp, "I hate him!"

"See what it is to lose the virtues of the clammy," said Mason, pulling his beard and grinning at Bob's blank looks. "But I must go to my aunt. By a shocking oversight we forgot to settle the hotel-bill at Jeffersonville, and I am afraid the greedy landlord has forwarded a note to have been delivered to her in case of accident, and a draft. It is humiliating to think she has paid it, and honor requires I should promptly settle it with an I.O.U. As for Payne--"

"Dry that up," said Payne.

"Well, I'll only say the next duel I fight may Payne load the pistols!" added the captain.

What that meant is the unsolved mystery of the duel. Deane Lee insists that it was a fair, honest, stand-up fight. True, he had used the wrong moulds the night before in casting bullets, but he had seen Payne load the famous Brown duelling-pistols.

But Mason's old comrades wink at the story of the wax bullets blacked with pencil-dust by Mason to represent the real thing, and say Payne was so cowed by the dowager's threat and Mason's chaff that no power could have made him charge with dangerous missiles. Mason himself says that neither he nor Nettles could have hit a barn-door; but a mere index of the veracious stories of that famous duel, as told by Mason, would fill a book. As his debts were paid and the dowager keeps him in feather, and as Bob and Sue were married, that game-bird is right in declaring it the only duel that was ever "satisfactorily adjusted honorably to all parties."

WILL WALLACE HARNEY.

FOLK-LORE OF THE SOUTHERN NEGROES.

All tribes and peoples have their folk-lore, whether embodied in tales of daring adventure, as in our own doughty Jack the Giant-killer, or in stories of genii and magic, as in the _Arabian Nights_, or in legends of wraiths, witches, bogles and apparitions, as among the Scotch peasantry; and these fables are so strongly tinged with the peculiarities--or rather the idiosyncrasies--of the race among whom they originate as to furnish a fair index of its mental and moral characteristics, not only at the time of their origin, but so long as the people continue to narrate them or listen to them.

The folk-lore of Africo-Americans, as appearing in our Southern States, is a medley of fables, songs, sayings, incantations, charms and superstitious traditions brought from various tribes along the West African coast, and so far condensed into one mass in their American homes that often part of a story or tradition belonging to one tribe is grafted, without much regard to consistency, upon a part belonging to another people, while they are still further complicated by the frequent infusion into them of ideas evidently derived from communication with the white race.

Any one who will take the trouble to analyze the predominant traits of negro character, and to collate them with the predominant traits of African folk-lore, will discern the fitness of each to each. On every side he will discover evidences of a passion for music and dancing, for visiting and chatting, for fishing and snaring, indeed for any pleasure requiring little exertion of either mind or body; evidences also of a gentle, pliable and easy temper--of a quick and sincere sympathy with suffering wheresoever seen--of a very low standard of morals, combined with remarkable dexterity in satisfying themselves that it is right to do as they wish. Another trait, strong enough and universal enough to atone for many a dark one, is that, as a rule, there is nothing of the fierce and cruel in their nature, and it is scarcely possible for anything of this kind to be grafted permanently upon them.

Of their American-born superstitions, by far the greater part are interwoven with so-called religious beliefs, and go far to show their native faith in dreams and visions, which they are not slow to narrate, to embellish, and even to fabricate extemporaneously, to suit the ears of a credulous listener; also showing their natural tendency to rely upon outward observances, as if possessed of some _fetish_-like virtue, and in certain cases a horrible debasement of some of the highest and noblest doctrines of the Christian faith. These superstitions must of course be considered apart from the real character of those who are sincerely pious, and upon which they are so many blemishes. They are, in fact, the rank and morbid outgrowth of the peculiarities of religious denominations grafted upon the prolific soil of their native character.

Of the few which may be mentioned without fear of offence, since they belong to the negro rather than to his denomination, the following are examples: Tools to be used in digging a grave must never be carried through a house which any one inhabits, else they will soon be used for digging the grave of the dweller. Tools already used for such a purpose must not be carried directly home. This would bring the family too closely for safety into contact with the dead. They must be laid reverently beside the grave, and allowed to remain there all night. A superstition in respect to posture is by some very rigorously observed. It is, that religious people must never sit with their legs crossed. The only reason given--though we cannot help suspecting that there must be another kept in concealment--is, that _crossing the legs is the same as dancing, and dancing is a sin_.

These are fair samples of Americanized superstitions--puerile, it is true, but harmless. It is only when we come into contact with negroes of pure African descent that we discover evidences of a once prevalent and not wholly discarded demonolatry. The native religion of the West African, except where elevated by the influence of Mohammedanism, was not--and, travellers tell us, is not yet--a worship of God as such, nor even an attempt to know and honor Him, but a constant effort at self-protection. The true God, they say, calls for no worship; for, being good in and of himself, He will do all the good He can without being asked. But there are multitudes of malignant spirits whose delight is to mislead and to destroy. These must be propitiated by gifts and acts of worship, or rendered powerless by charms and incantations.

No one knows, or has the means of ascertaining, to what extent real devil-worship is practised in America, because it is always conducted in secret; but we have reason to believe that it has almost entirely ceased, being shamed out of existence by the loveliness of a purer and better faith, and a belief in the agency of evil spirits, and consequent dread of their malign powers, although still more or less dominant with the negroes, has also greatly declined.[C] To give a sample of this last: The time was--but it has nearly passed away, or else the writer has not been for many years in the way of hearing of it, as in the days of childhood--when one of the objects of greatest dread among our seaboard negroes was the "Jack-muh-lantern." This terrible creature--who on dark, damp nights would wander with his lantern through woods and marshes, seeking to mislead people to their destruction--was described by a negro who seemed perfectly familiar with his subject as a hideous little being, somewhat human in form, though covered with hair like a dog. It had great goggle eyes, and thick, sausage-like lips that opened from ear to ear. In height it seldom exceeded four or five feet, and it was quite slender in form, but such was its power of locomotion that no one on the swiftest horse could overtake it or escape from it, for it could leap like a grasshopper to almost any distance, and its strength was beyond all human resistance. No one ever heard of its victims being bitten or torn: they were only compelled to go with it into bogs and swamps and marshes, and there left to sink and die. There was only one mode of escape for those who were so unfortunate as to be met by one of these mischievous night-walkers, and that was by a charm; but that charm was easy and within everybody's reach. Whether met by marsh or roadside, the person had only to take off his coat or outer garment and put it on again inside out, and the foul fiend was instantly deprived of all power to harm.

Multifarious, however, as are the forms and aspects of folk-lore among this remarkable and in some respects highly interesting people, the chief bulk of it lies stored away among their fables, which are as purely African as are their faces or their own plaintive melodies. Travellers and missionaries tell us that the same sweet airs which are so often heard in religious meetings in America, set to Christian hymns, are to be recognized in the boats and palm-roofed houses of Africa, set to heathen words, and that the same wild stories of Buh Rabbit, Buh Wolf, and other _Buhs_ that are so charming to the ears of American children, are to be heard to this day in Africa, differing only in the drapery necessary to the change of scene.

Almost without exception the actors in these fables are brute animals endowed with speech and reason, in whom mingle strangely, and with ludicrous incongruity, the human and brute characteristics. The _dramatis personæ_ are always honored with the title of _Buh_, which is generally supposed to be an abbreviation of the word "brother" (the _br_ being sounded without the whir of the _r_), but it probably is a title of respect equivalent to our Mr. The animals which figure in the stories are chiefly Buh Rabbit, Buh Lion, Buh Wolf and Buh Deer, though sometimes we hear of Buh Elephant, Buh Fox, Buh Cooter and Buh Goose. As a rule, each Buh sustains in every fable the same general character. Buh Deer is always a simpleton; Buh Wolf always rapacious and tricky; Buh Rabbit foppish, vain, quick-witted, though at times a great fool; Buh Elephant quiet, sensible and dignified.

Of the Buh fables, that which is by all odds the greatest favorite, and which appears in the greatest variety of forms, is the "Story of Buh Rabbit and the Tar Baby." Each variation preserves the great landmarks, particularly the closing scene. According to the most thoroughly African version, it runs thus: Buh Rabbit and Buh Wolf are neighbors. In a conversation one day Buh Wolf proposes that they two shall dig a well for their joint benefit, instead of depending upon chance rainfalls or going to distant pools or branches, as they often have to do, to quench their thirst. To this Buh Rabbit, who has no fondness for labor, though willing enough to enjoy its fruits, offers various objections, and finally gives a flat refusal.

"Well," says Buh Wolf, who perfectly understands his neighbor, "if you no help to dig well, you mustn't use de water."

"What for I gwine use de water?" responds Buh Rabbit with affected disdain. "What use I got for well? In de mornin' I drink de dew, an' in middle o' day I drink from de cow-tracks."

The well is dug by Buh Wolf alone, who after a while perceives that some one besides himself draws from it. He watches, and soon identifies the intruder as Buh Rabbit, who makes his visits by night. "Ebery mornin' he see Buh Rabbit tracks--ebery mornin' Buh Rabbit tracks." Indignant at the intrusion, he resolves to set a trap for his thievish neighbor and to put him to death. Knowing Buh Rabbit's buckish love for the ladies, he fits up a _tar baby_, made to look like a beautiful girl, and sets it near the well. By what magical process this manufacture of an attractive-looking young lady out of treacherous adhesive tar is accomplished we are not informed. But listeners to stories must not be inquisitive about the mysterious parts: they must be content to hear.

Buh Rabbit, emboldened by long impunity, goes to the well as usual after dark, sees this beautiful creature standing there motionless, peeps at it time and again suspiciously; but being satisfied that it is really a young lady, he makes a polite bow and addresses her in gallant language. The young lady makes no reply. This encourages him to ask if he may not come to take a kiss. Still no reply. He sets his water-bucket on the ground, marches up boldly and obtains the kiss, but finds to his surprise that he cannot get away: his lips are held fast by the tar. He struggles and tries to persuade her to let him go. How he is able to speak with his lips sticking fast is another unexplained mystery; but no matter: he does speak, and most eloquently, yet in vain. He now changes his tone, and threatens her with a slap. Still no answer. He administers the slap, and his hand sticks fast. One after the other, both hands and both feet, as well as his mouth, are thus caught, and poor Buh Rabbit remains a prisoner until Buh Wolf comes the next morning to draw water.

"Eh! eh! Buh Rabbit, wah de matter?" exclaims Buh Wolf, affecting the greatest surprise at his neighbor's woeful plight.

Buh Rabbit, who has as little regard for truth as for honesty, replies, attempting to throw all the blame upon the deceitful maiden by whom he has been entrapped, not even suspecting yet--so we are to infer--that she is made of tar instead of living flesh. He declares with all the earnestness of injured innocence that he was passing by, in the sweet, honest moonlight, in pursuit of his lawful business, when this girl _hailed_ him, and decoyed him into giving her a kiss, and was now holding him in unlawful durance.

The listener ironically commiserates his captive neighbor, and proposes to set him free; when, suddenly noticing the water-bucket and the tracks by the well, he charges Buh Rabbit with his repeated robberies by night, and concludes by declaring his intention to put him to immediate death.

The case has now become pretty serious, and Buh Rabbit is of course woefully troubled at the near approach of the great catastrophe: still, even in this dire extremity, his wits do not cease to cheer him with some hope of escape. Seeing that his captor is preparing to hang him--for the cord is already around his neck and he is being dragged toward an overhanging limb--he expresses the greatest joy by capering, dancing and clapping his hands--so much so that the other curiously inquires, "What for you so glad, Buh Rabbit?"

"Oh," replies the sly hypocrite, "because you gwine hang me and not trow me in de brier-bush."

"What for I mustn't trow you in de brier-bush?" inquires Mr. Simpleton Wolf.

"Oh," prays Buh Rabbit with a doleful whimper, "please hang me: please trow me in de water or trow me in de fire, where I die at once. But don't--oh don't--trow me in de brier-bush to tear my poor flesh from off my bones."

"I gwine to do 'zactly wah you ax me not to do," returns Wolf in savage tone. Then, going to a neighboring patch of thick, strong briers, he pitches Buh Rabbit headlong in the midst, and says, "Now let's see de flesh come off de bones."

No sooner, however, does the struggling and protesting Buh Rabbit find himself among the briers than he slides gently to the ground, and peeping at his would-be torturer from a safe place behind the stems, he says, "Tankee, Buh Wolf--a tousand tankee--for _bring me home_! De brier-bush _de berry place where I been born_."

Another favorite story is that of the "Foot-Race." Buh Rabbit and Buh Frog are admirers of the beautiful Miss Dinah, and try their best to win her. The lady likes them both, but not being permitted to marry both, she resolves to make her choice depend upon the result of a foot-race. The distance is to be ten miles--that is, five miles out and five miles in--along a level road densely bordered with bushes. The day arrives. Miss Dinah, seated at the starting-point, is to give the word to the rivals, who stand one on either side, and the goal for the winner is to be a place _in her lap_. By agreement, Buh Rabbit is to take the open road, and Buh Frog, who prefers it, is allowed to leap through the bushes, and both are to halloo to each other at the end of every mile. Buh Rabbit, however, with all his cunning, has this time met his match; for Buh Frog has engaged five of his kinsmen, so nearly like himself in appearance that they cannot be distinguished from him, and has stationed one in concealment near each mile-post, with instructions how to act, while he has provided for himself a nice hiding-place in the bushes near Miss Dinah's seat. At the word Go! the rivals start, Buh Frog leaping into the bushes, where he disappears, and Buh Rabbit capering along the road and flaunting his white tail merrily at the thought of distancing the other so far that he shall never see or hear of him again till after Miss Dinah has been won. At the end of the first mile Buh Rabbit turns his head back and tauntingly halloos, "I here, Buh Frog! How you git 'long?"

To his dismay, however, he hears the voice of the other in the bushes ahead of him singing out, "Boo-noo! I here too! I beat you here, I'll beat you there: I'll beat you back to Miss Dinah's lap!"

On hearing this boast repeated ahead of him in the bushes at each mile-post, Buh Rabbit becomes frantic, and rushes through the last mile as he had never run before. But all in vain. Just as he comes within easy view of the coveted goal he sees Buh Frog leap from the bushes plump into Miss Dinah's lap, and hears him sing, with as good breath as though he had not run a mile,

"Boo-noo! Before you! I beat you there, I beat you here: I've beat you back to Miss Dinah's lap!"

Another version makes the competitors Buh Deer and Buh Cooter (the negro name for terrapin or land-tortoise), in which Buh Cooter wins the day by collusion with some of his closely-resembling kin. Substantially the same story is to be heard from the natives of each of the four continents, but whether the African gained his idea of it from Europe or Asia, or whether the European or Asian gained it from Africa, is perhaps past determining. The writer can testify that the story as above narrated, or rather the substance of it, was told him in childhood by negroes supposed to have obtained it direct from Africa.

Some of these stories are mere laudations of Buh Rabbit's shrewdness and common sense. Buh Wolf has long had a watering of the mouth for rabbit-flesh, but has never been able to gratify it. He finally hits upon the following expedient: He causes a report to be spread that he has suddenly died, and all his neighbors, especially Buh Rabbit, are invited to his funeral. He has no doubt that his plump, short-tailed neighbor, being once enclosed within the walls of his house, will fall an easy prey to himself and his attending cousins. Buh Rabbit, however, is not to be easily ensnared. He goes demurely to the house of mourning, but does not enter. He seats himself on the steps by the side of Buh Cat, who is enjoying the sunshine in the doorway.

"Is Buh Wolf dead, for true and true?" he inquires.

"I suppose so. Eberybody say he dead," answers Buh Cat.

"How did he die, and when?" he continues to inquire.

Buh Cat gives the particulars as reported to him, and Buh Rabbit pretends to receive them with all faith, expressing great sorrow for the loss experienced by the neighborhood. But after a little musing he seems to be struck with a new idea, and turning to Buh Cat he inquires in hopeful tone, "But did he _grin_ or _whistle_ before he died? People who die _must_ do one or t'other; and some, who die hard, do both. I'm a doctor, you know."

This is said in the doorway, near the stiff-looking corpse, and in a whisper loud enough to be heard all through the room. Very soon Buh Wolf is heard to whistle, and then his lips settle into a grin so broad as to show his teeth.

"Buh Cat," says Buh Rabbit, putting his hand on his stomach and screwing up his face as if seized with mortal sickness, "I mus' hurry home and take some yarb tea, or mebbe I'll have to grin and whistle like our poor neighbor. Good-bye, Buh Cat. Come to me, please, after Buh Wolf done berry and tell me all about it. Good-bye."

To the surprise of all who are not in the secret, the corpse gives a loud sneeze, then leaps from the table, throws off his "berryin' clothes," and joins his friends in eating heartily of his own funeral dinner.

His hankering, however, for rabbit-mutton still continues, and he resolves, notwithstanding his recent inglorious defeat, to attempt again to gratify it. With this end in view he makes frequent visits to his neighbor and talks with him across the fence, but is never invited beyond. One day, in the course of conversation, he informs him that there is a fine pear tree on the other side of a neighboring field, loaded with luscious fruit just in condition to be gathered.

"I will go get some."

"When?"

"To-morrow, when the sun is about halfway up the sky."

"Go: I will join you there."

Buh Rabbit rises very early, goes to the tree soon after daybreak, finds the pears uncommonly good, and is laughing to himself to think how he has outwitted his enemy, when he hears a voice under the tree: "Ho, Mr. Rabbit! in the tree a'ready?"

"Yes," replies Buh Rabbit, trembling at the sight of his dreaded foe: "I wait for you, and tink you nebber gwine come. I tell you w'at," smacking his lips, "dem here pear too good."

"Can't you trow me down some?" inquires Buh Wolf, so strongly impressed by the sound of that eloquent smack that he longs to get a taste of the fruit.

Buh Rabbit selects some of the finest, which he throws far off in the soft grass, in order, he says, to avoid bruising, and while Buh Wolf is engaged in eating them, with his head buried in the grass, Buh Rabbit slides quietly from the tree and hurries home.

A few days thereafter Buh Wolf makes still another attempt. He pays a visit as before, and speaks of a great fair to be held next day in a neighboring town. "I am going," says the rash Buh Rabbit; and he does go, although we might suppose that he would have sense enough to keep out of harm's way. On returning home, late in the day, he sees Buh Wolf sitting on a log by the roadside, at the bottom of a hill, waiting for him. His preparations for escape have already been made in the purchase of a quantity of hollow tinware. Slipping quietly into the bushes, without being seen by the waylayer, he puts a big tin mug on his head and a tin cup on each hand and foot, and, hanging various tin articles around his body, he comes rolling down the hill toward Buh Wolf, who is so frightened at the unearthly noise that he runs off with his tail between his legs, and never troubles Buh Rabbit again.

The struggle between them, however, does not cease even with this triumph of the weaker party. There is a contest now of love and strategem. They both pay their addresses to the same young lady, making their visits to her on alternate evenings. In the progress of the courtship Buh Rabbit learns that his rival has spoken of him contemptuously, saying that he is very dressy and foppish, it is true, but that he has no manliness; adding that he (Buh Wolf) could eat him up at a mouthful. To this Buh Rabbit retorts the next evening by assuring Miss Dinah that Buh Wolf was nothing but his grandfather's old _riding horse_; adding, "I ride him, and whip him too, whenever I choose, and he obeys me like a dog." The next afternoon Buh Rabbit tempts his unsuspecting rival to join him in the play of riding horse, which consists in each in turn mounting the other's back and riding for a while. Buh Rabbit, who has thought out the whole case beforehand, offers to give the first ride, and so times it that the ride ends at his own door about the time for the usual visit to Miss Dinah. He runs into the house and puts on his dandy clothes, pleading that he cannot enjoy a ride unless he is in full dress; and pleading, moreover, that he cannot ride without saddle and bridle and all that belongs to a horseman, he persuades Mr. Fool Wolf to allow a strong, rough bit to be put into his mouth and a close-fitting saddle to be girded to his back, upon which Buh Rabbit mounts, holding in his hand a terrible whip and having his heels armed with a pair of long sharp spurs. Thus accoutred, he prevails upon Buh Wolf to take the road toward Miss Dinah's house, on approaching which he so vigorously applies both whip and spur as to compel his resisting steed to trot up to the door, where Buh Rabbit bows politely to his lady-love, saying, "I told you so: now you see for yourself." Of course he wins the bride.

There is a class of stories approaching somewhat in character those related of our own Jack the Giant-killer, leaving out the giants. The one given below seems to have a common origin with the Anglo-Saxon story of the "Three Blue Pigs." This is entitled "Tiny Pig."

A family of seven pigs leave home to seek their fortunes, and settle in a neighborhood harassed by a mischievous fox. Each of these pigs builds himself a house of dirt, except Tiny Pig, who, though the runt of the litter, is a sensible little fellow and the hero of the tale. He builds his house of stone, with good strong doors and a substantial chimney. In due course of time, Fox, being hungry, comes to the house of one of the brothers, and asks to be admitted, but is refused. The request and refusal, as told by the negroes, is couched in language which is intended to be poetical, and is certainly not without some pretension to the picturesque. Fox's request in each case is--

"Mr. Pig, Mr. Pig, oh let me in: I'll go away soon, and not touch a thing."

And the refusal is--

"No, no, Mr. Fox, by the beard on my chin! You may say what you will, but I'll not let you in."

On being refused, Fox threatens to _blow down_ the house and eat up the occupant. Pig continuing to refuse--as what pig would not?--the house is blown down and the owner eaten up. This sad fate befalls in turn each of the six who had been so foolish or so lazy as to build their houses of dirt. Fox, having finished all six, and becoming again hungry, comes at last to the stone house, where he makes the same hypocritical request, and meets the same heroic refusal. He now threatens to blow down the house. "Blow away and welcome!" retorts the little hero. Fox blows "until his wind gives out," but cannot move the first stone. He then tries scratching and tearing with his paws, but only succeeds in tearing off two of his own toe-nails. "I will come down your chimney," he threatens, leaping as he says so to the roof of the house. "Come soon as you please," sturdily replies Tiny Pig, standing before his fireplace with a big armful of dry straw ready to be thrown upon the fire. As soon as Fox has entered the chimney, and come down too far to return quickly, Tiny Pig throws the dry straw upon the fire, which creates such a blaze that Fox is scorched and smoked to death, and Tiny Pig lives the rest of his life in peace, the hero of his neighborhood.

This story certainly furnishes foundation for a moral which we will leave the reader to construct for himself, remarking as we pass that, so far as we know, no moral has ever been drawn. Several other stories may be regarded as inculcating, though feebly, some moral precept.

One of these bears some features of American negro life, grafted probably upon African stock: The denizens of a certain farmyard--ducks, geese, turkeys, pea-fowls, guinea-fowls, hens, roosters and all--were invited by those of another farmyard to a supper and a dance. They all went as a matter of course, headed by the big farmyard rooster, who strutted and crowed as he marched. They were a merry set, and such an amount of quacking, cackling and gabbling as they made was seldom heard. After a few rounds of dancing, just to give them a better appetite for supper and fit them for a longer dance afterward, they were introduced to the supper-room. There they saw on the table a pyramid of eatables high as the old gobbler's head when stretched to its utmost; but, alas! it was, or seemed to be, a pyramid of _corn bread_ only--pones upon pones of it, yet nothing but corn bread.

On seeing this the rooster becomes very indignant, and struts out of the house, declaring that he will have nothing to do with so mean a supper, for he can get corn bread enough at home. As he is angrily going off, however, the others, who are too hungry to disdain even the plainest fare, fall to work; and no sooner has the outer layer of corn loaves been removed--for it is only the outer layer--than they find within a huge pile of bacon and greens, and at the bottom of the pile, covered and protected by large dishes, any amount of pies and tarts and cakes and other good things.

Poor Rooster looks wistfully back, and is sorry that he had made that rash speech. But it is too late now, for his word is out, and no one ever knew Rooster take back his word if he had to die for it. He learned, however, a valuable lesson that night, for from that time to this it has been observed that Rooster always _scratches_ with his feet the place where he finds, or expects to find, anything to eat, and that he never leaves off scratching until he has searched to the bottom.

Our last story is more purely African, at least in its _dramatis personæ_. Buh Elephant and Buh Lion were one day chatting upon various subjects, when the elephant took occasion to say that he was afraid of no being on earth except man. On seeing the big boastful eyes of the lion stretching wider and his mane bristling, as if in disdain, he added, "You know, Buh Lion, that, although you are held as the most to be dreaded of all beasts, I am not afraid of any of your tribe, for if any of them should attack me I could receive him on my tusk, or strike him dead with my trunk, or even shake him off from my body and then trample him to death under my feet. But man--who can kill us from a distance with his guns and arrows, who can set traps for us of which we have no suspicion, who can fight us from the backs of horses so swift that we can neither overtake him nor escape from him--I do fear, for neither strength nor courage can avail against his wisdom."

Buh Lion, on hearing this, shook himself, and said that he was no more afraid of man than he was of any other creature which he was in the habit of eating; and added that the only beings on earth he was afraid of were _partridges_.

"Partridges!" exclaims Buh Elephant in wonder. "What do you mean?"

"Why this," says Buh Lion, "that when I am walking softly through the woods I sometimes rouse a covey of partridges, and then they rise all around me with such a whir as to make me start. I am afraid of nothing but partridges."

Not long afterward Buh Elephant heard a gun fired near a neighboring village, followed by a loud, prolonged roar. Going there to learn what was the matter, he saw Buh Lion lying dead by the roadside with a great hole in his body made by a musket-ball. "Ah, my poor friend," said he, "partridges could never have treated you in this way."

WILLIAM OWENS.

FOOTNOTES:

[C] Of the terrible forms of superstition prevalent under the names of Obi, Voodooism, Evil-eye or Tricking, in which a trick-doctor or witch-doctor works against another person's life or health or plans, or seeks to neutralize the influence of another doctor, our subject leads us to say nothing.

SELIM.

Surrender your soul to the spell of enchantment, And wander with me Where, river of magical fancies, Euphrates Flows down to the sea.

What city sleeps fair and mysterious by moonlight Upon the dark shore? Oh, those are the minarets gleaming of Basrah That heavenward soar.

And bright are her flower-lit gardens, whose fountains Unceasingly rise, Where oft, when the locust grew shrill and the summer Shone red in the skies,

The caliph would hasten from camp and from council To rest and to dream. To forge, in the workshop of silence, such weapons As deadliest gleam.

And with him came Selim, the friend of his spirit-- Friend favored and true-- Whose palace of marble Euphrates encircled With girdle of blue.

There oft by the murmuring waters the caliph Would calmly recline, And mark how the stars on that earth-sullied bosom Seemed trembling to shine,

Until, as one evening the moon rose serenely, Fair pearl of the sky, And filled with her presence the palace and desert, The far and the nigh, A trouble which hung On the aspect of Selim Fell dark on his king, As clouds 'twixt the sun and the sand-billowed ocean Their dusky shapes fling.

"O friend of my heart!" quoth the caliph, "what sorrow Lies deep in thy breast?" And Selim, replying, the source of his anguish Thus humbly confessed:

"Great lord of my being! life trembles and quivers With fulness of joy: The rays of my hopes are as gold in my pathway, Undimmed by alloy;

"Thy banners float far on the breezes of India, Thy counsels are wise; The thoughts of thy valor and strength to thy people As light to their eyes;

"Yet still, in the midst of thy glory and power, Thou deignest to rest Thy soul on the soul of thy servant, whom daily Thy favors have blest,

"Till he who once couched on his sheepskin reposes On cushions of down, And holds a fair wife in his arms who had only A steed for his own.

"Thus over the heaven thy grace has illumined No shadow appears, Save one, at whose coming thy servant unworthy Shrinks, falters and fears--

"The shadow of Azraël, angel of terror, Surpassingly strong, The roar of whose onrushing wings soundeth louder Than laughter or song;

"Till I, even I, from the conflict of battle, The scimitar's sweep, Turn cowering, fearful of glory's last service And manhood's best sleep.

"Behold! now the heart of thy servant is open, And bare to thy view." Then slowly the caliph replied, while his gaze sought The firmament blue:

"Dread Prophet of Allah! thou knowest my spirit, My heart and my life; Thou knowest the desolate years of my manhood, Their unended strife;

"Thou knowest that never a friend have I cherished Save only this one, And now I have lost him; but, Allah il Allah! Thy will still be done!"

Then, turning, the caliph departed, and Selim, Like one drunk with wine, Arose all unconscious and turned to his dwelling, His heart's inmost shrine,

And followed the gleam of his lamp to the chamber Where, sheltered and calm, She peacefully slumbered who faithfully loved him-- That wild heart's "sweet balm."

One arm half encircled her baby, who sturdily Clenched his round fist, And lay with his rosy lips parted and eager, As though lately kissed;

While over them both her soft tresses, all fragrant, Had rolled in their play: How fair and how childish they looked in the moonlight, Scarce purer than they!

One moment stood Selim, while over his being Hell's bitterness passed: The next, and his dagger flashed forth like the lightning, And fell like its blast.

And Selim was wifeless and childless! In silence He stood by the bed Where still lay the wife and the child in the moonlight-- Not sleeping, but dead.

One moment he gazed at the faces, still peaceful, Still tender, still fair, Then fled to the desert, whose vastness could only Give space to despair.

But when, in the red eastern morning, the caliph Stood sternly alone, And watched the proud river, now mournful for ever For all that was gone,

Lo! Selim knelt calmly before him: "Great caliph! Behold now thy slave, For Azraël, angel of death, have I conquered And bound in the grave."

ANNIE PORTER.

ENGLISH DOMESTICS AND THEIR WAYS.

An American lady, on coming to England and observing the workings of domestic life, is apt to think English servants perfection, and to listen to any complaints of them which she may hear with an ill-concealed smile. "What! complain of these excellent, admirable, respectful, hard-working servants!" she exclaims to her English friends. "If you could only see what we have to endure from these women in our American households, then indeed you would appreciate the quiet and efficient hand-maids whose services you can command here in the mother-country." And, to make good her case against the "help" which hinder our happiness so much in America, she will speak of the high wages given them, the kind treatment they receive, the ingratitude with which they take all favors, their inefficiency, and so on.

But after a short sojourn in England our American lady will see many things in respect to the duties and demands of English servants which were not quite apparent to her at first; and by dint of observation she will soon become aware that an English servant has privileges and requirements which would be thought excessive in our country. In the first place, no English servant will do any washing and ironing, not even for herself. Everything, down to the smallest towel, must be done up by the laundress. Some servants go so far as to stipulate what amount of linen, etc. they may have laundried each week; and in the case of "nice young persons," who like to keep themselves neat and fresh with light calico dresses and tiny white caps and spotless collars and large white aprons, the bill for the servants' washing is apt to swell into quite an item. Again, all English servants exact either beer or beer-money. (How surprised an American housekeeper would be if a new aspirant for the situation of cook or chambermaid should say, "Do you supply me with lager, or give me money to buy it myself?"!) After various struggles with the difficulties presented by this beer question, the generality of English housekeepers have come to the conclusion that it is better to give beer-money than to furnish beer to their servants. When money is given it is likely not to be spent for beer at all, which is quite as well; whereas if there is a servants' cask of beer on tap in the kitchen, there are constant disputes as to how much has been drunk, given away or wasted. The usual allowance for beer when money is given is a shilling a week--a sum which in theory means twenty-five cents of our money, but in actual practice, as prices now range, we may calculate as representing about fifty cents. Thus, fifty cents for beer, and certainly fifty cents more for personal laundry-work, add a dollar a week to the wages of each servant. It is impossible to calculate the cost of the family washing and ironing, but whatever it be, it must come out of the housekeeper's pocket; for, as I have said, no servant will do it. Five dollars a week is not a large calculation for the laundry-bill of a family, especially if there are children. In America this money is generally saved, but at what a price!--the house in disorder with wash-tub and ironing-board during the beginning of every week, grumbling from all servants, anxiety on the part of the members of the family about overcrowding the soiled-linen basket, and often the clean clothes sent up "not fit to be seen."

Another privilege which I find English servants possess, and which I confess surprises me, is that of inviting friends to tea at the mistress's expense. Every Sunday evening one or another servant holds a symposium of choice spirits below stairs, for whom flows the infusion of the costly leaf from far Cathay. No meat is allowed at these repasts, but tea, milk, sugar and bread and butter are permitted to be offered. There is going on now an earnest effort to put a stop to this practice. Economical housekeepers very justifiably object to paying for treats to their servants' company. But the custom has been handed down from the feudal days, when drinking and eating were the only amusements within the scope of even the very rich, and when every soul who in a friendly spirit passed the castle-walls was welcome to all he could gorge or swill, or carry away in his two arms for those he had left behind in his poor cottage. In what is known now as "noble houses" the practice is still in force to a great extent. Does master or mistress receive a call? Then wine and sweet biscuits are at once to be carried into the drawing-room to beguile the caller's tedium in waiting. Has a tradesman brought a package? Give the good man a mug of beer. Have you come in a cab, and kept it standing outside? Here, quickly take out some beer in a pewter tankard to comfort Cabby, which he tosses off as he sits perched on the high seat of his hansom. In houses as lavish as this a veritable banquet is served each day in the servants' hall, to which the upper servants have the privilege of inviting their friends. And so the custom goes on, dwindling in costliness until it reaches the homes of people in fairly comfortable circumstances, who are struggling, but almost in vain, to crush it. The trouble is, that when an English servant enters a house where giving tea to her friends is not allowed, she is apt to receive such pressure from her mother, who has been probably a servant in the "good old days," and other conservative domestics of the lavish school, that she will make the matter square by slyly appropriating that which she believes should have been legitimately given; and once in this path her peculations are apt to extend to things more valuable than bread and tea. This is a great pity, for as a rule English servants are as honest as the sun. There is not one drop of that Chinese blood which sets the almond-eyed John to pilfering everything he can lay hands on flowing in these honest Saxon veins. Of course there are always exceptions to any rule, but for these exceptions there exists in England that inflexible system of punishment by law whose motto most emphatically is, "It is a sin to steal a pin." To be a thief in England is as poor a business as one would wish to follow.

In engaging a cook in England you find that she makes many demands you never heard of in America. I have alluded to the refusal of all such servants to have any hand in the laundry-work. In rich households (especially in the country) a laundress and laundry-maid are regularly employed, who have no work of any kind to do outside the laundry: they wash and iron for the household, including the servants. In cities, however, and in small families even in the country, the washing is generally done by a laundress outside. No cook would tolerate washing and ironing anywhere about the kitchen.

The next imperative demand your cook will make will probably be to ask you if you keep a scullery-maid or an "under-servant." If your purse will not permit this luxury, what "assistance" is your cook to be furnished with? This means, is she to have a "charwoman" once a week or oftener for the day to clean pots and pans, scrub steps and passage-ways, and scour, dust and rub up generally in the kitchen and rooms adjoining? In England this cleaning business is far more formidable than with us. We lay down so much oilcloth on our stairways and passage-ways, paint or cover with carpeting, matting or oilcloth so many floors, that it is rather an infrequent experience to see our servants down on their hands and knees scrubbing away for dear life. Even in neat Philadelphia, where there is so much of brick sidewalk and of marble doorstep to be cleaned, the use of hose and broom has to a great extent superseded the scrubbing-brush oiled with elbow-grease. But in England there are so many stone floors and steps to be scrubbed, so much brass-work to be cleaned and polished, so many steel grates, with tongs, poker and shovel, to be brightened till you can see your face in them, that it is no wonder your cook would like to have assistance in these heavy manual exertions.

Ladies in England have found that when the work in their houses is such that assistance must be had, it is better to keep an "under-servant" for the cook (a position even less exalted than the "scullery-maid" in this complex system of domestic gradations) than to have a charwoman come occasionally. We have no special name for the "charwoman" in America, unless it be simply the generic term, "a woman," or, to be Victor Hugoish, the woman who cleans. Char (pronounced _chair_) is simply the old-fashioned word still popular in New England, _chore_, and the charwoman is merely the woman who does chores. English ladies say she does other and more objectionable things. She drinks, for instance, and finds it necessary to bring a basket with her, which, they think, would be found to be more weighty on leaving (if the matter were tested) than it is when she arrives. Another favorite plan for lightening labor, even with families who are in moderate circumstances, is to keep a "Buttons," a useful little urchin, who is forced to make himself respectable in appearance by wearing a livery provided for him, the distinguishing feature of which is its lavishness in the way of buttons. This boy is expected to do anything and everything--to clean boots, fetch coal, run errands, open the door, assist in waiting at table, rub up knives and silver; in short, to be at the beck and call of everybody in the house for each and any duty. He may be called a sort of light brigade or sharpshooter on the outposts between the heavy cavalry in the kitchen in the shape of cook and the solid infantry which moves with regular step through the housemaid's set round of duties. And whenever the wheels of a household in England are found to creak, additional help in the shape of under-servants is engaged, the matter of the efficiency of the upper-servants being of course first satisfactorily settled. Here is the very kernel of the nut of the question: this it is which makes "all the difference" between the management of a house say in New York and a similar one in London. A family without children, occupying a brown-stone front in New York, will consider that two servants should do all the work of the household, and do it well. I am not speaking of people who live on the "swell" avenues and keep carriages or give frequent balls and parties: I mean unpretending people who own or rent a nice three- or four-story house, and want to live with entire comfort and freedom from rows or disputes with servants, and expect to be well waited on. They engage cook and chambermaid--the chambermaid to act also as waitress, both to act as laundresses. High wages are given, and when the work is done unsatisfactorily more money is offered as a bribe, or else there are disagreeable scenes, ending with the lady saying hotly, "Well, if you can't do my work, I'll find some one else who can." But she is mistaken. She will never find two women who can cook, wash, iron, clean, dust, wait at table and do the work generally of a three- or four-story house as it should be done. In a household of that importance in England there would be hired, at the least, cook and under-servant, housemaid and Buttons, and all the laundry-work put out.

And oh how smoothly life passes in such an English home! How brightly every inch of brass shines! how well dusted is every article you touch! how clear is the crystal for table use! how spotless the napery! how noiselessly your servants move about! how respectfully each addresses the heads of the household whenever required to do so, not otherwise! It is the very perfection of service, and a luxurious satisfaction which we in America rarely get a chance to enjoy. But the times are changing now. It may be possible that in the future the demand-and-supply market for domestic service may have so settled itself that for the money we have hitherto paid as yearly wages to two only tolerable servants we shall obtain the services of as many efficient ones as are needful to make our American homes the equal of those in England for the quiet perfection of their interior management.

OLIVE LOGAN.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

FERNAN CABALLERO.

About thirty years ago there appeared in the _Heraldo_ of Madrid a novel called _La Gaviota_ ("The Sea-gull"). Spanish literature at the present day is poor in novels, and thirty years ago it was much poorer. _La Gaviota_ was like a tall tiger-lily suddenly appearing among low-growing exotics. The book was what the French call a _roman de moeurs_: it was signed with an unknown name--Fernan Caballero. Nobody knew Fernan Caballero. Madrid concluded that it must be one of those great living writers whose names could be counted on the first five sticks of a lady's fan. Seville ascribed it to an author of local fame, and Cadiz was amazed by the fact that anything so good could come out of Spain. The novel was eagerly read, even by the Gallicanized element in society, and pronounced a success in all things, except that it was not French. Following _La Gaviota_, _La España_ published _Elia_ in its columns: then followed _La Familia Alvareda_, _Una en Otra_, _Pobre Dolores_, _Lucas Garcia_ and others. It became evident that the masked writer was a woman, but not one of those _femmes auteurs_ of whom Louis Veuillot says, with more force than elegance, "Il me semble que si ma femme signait tels livres, j'aurais scrupule à signer ses enfants." Her thoughts were pure and high, and every detail was gifted with life.

The Spanish public was not particularly pleased to discover that its admired Fernan was a woman. If Cervantes had been a woman, there would have been a precedent for it; but Cervantes was a man. Fernan Caballero's readers would have wavered in their allegiance had her stories not become a part of themselves. It was unfortunate that a woman should write such things. "A blue-stocking!" cries Don Judas Tadéo Barbo, representative of this feeling, in _Una en Otra_. "Ave Maria! A woman who writes and rushes into print! It is a mortal sin! A woman has as much business to write a book as a man would to have a baby. And a pretty woman, too! Who would have believed it? A woman who writes should be old, ugly and decrepit."

In spite of the attention excited by her stories, she was still tenacious of her mask. In a letter to Germonde de Lavigne, one of the French translators of her works, she said: "It was cruel of you to tear away my pseudonym. You know how much I value it. You perhaps wished me to make a buckler of my fan; but, believe me, the beautiful things I have gathered do not need it. I have not tried to put into my stories studies of the heart or the world: there is neither art nor invention nor inspiration, only the exact painting of our actual society. Spanish types of all classes, the manners, the feelings, the witty and poetical language, I have painted from the life. My personality and my name are things outside of these. All that I have written is true. I cannot invent: I possess only the talent of dovetailing facts and placing them in relief. I have passed my life in collecting those treasures of tradition, poetry, stories, legends, pious and poetic beliefs which make an atmosphere of picturesque purity--proverbs like Sancho's, maxims as beautiful as Don Quixote, couched in the forcible and flowery language of the people. I am as proud as an artist of the beauty of my model. The story of _Lucas Garcia_ is true; I have known Simon Verde; an old woman told me the story of the lottery in _La Estrella_; in _Una en Otra_ everything is true. I have caught nearly all my dialogues from the lips of the people who spoke them. I have gleaned the last grain from a beautiful field, already growing desolate. I have made a sheaf, despised perhaps to-day, although the world has gathered some corn-flowers which fell from it, but which some day will be appreciated."

"Like Sir Walter Scott," says M. de Mazade in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, "Fernan Caballero has a lively feeling for the traditional and local in regions of which she writes. Her first and only inspiration is Spain. She loves even its miseries, which are not without their grandeur. Her creations, her characters, her combinations, have no reflection of imitation: they are taken from the heart of the national life. They proceed from an observation of the reality and a feeling of the poetry of things--two sentiments which, balancing each other and uniting, form true and original invention.

"Another trait in this rare talent," continues M. de Mazade--"a trait in which the imagination of the woman is shown--is the absence of complication in her tales: they have none of those hard knots that bind up action. Fernan Caballero has a genius for details. She makes everything live. She has an intuition of a thousand shades, often imperceptible to ordinary eyes, which give each mood of Nature a distinct physiognomy. Like Sir Walter--more than Sir Walter Scott--she enjoys digressions, sinuous conversations; she abandons herself to them with delight; she draws pictures and portraits, full of freshness, one after the other; she is prodigal of all that can throw light on manners or character. She passes with graceful ease from the refinements of the aristocratic world to the most humble scenes of popular life."

An author, it seems, is never _sui generis_ in the estimation of the critics. Fernan Caballero, compared by M. Mérimée to Sterne and by others to Scott, imagined that if her talent was similar to anybody's it was like Émile Souvestre's; but her models and method were as much like Souvestre's as Spain is like France. Fernan Caballero--or, as she was known in real life, Doña Cæcilia de Baer, marquesa de Arco-Hermosa--may be compared, reservedly, to Miss Mitford. It is true that fiery thoughts and violent passion are not to be found in Miss Mitford's beautifully-enamelled miniatures; but fire and passion were not apparent in the English life she painted, while in the works of the Spanish artist passion glows under the simplest forms, as the red of an orange among its leaves and blossoms. It has been truly said of Madame de Baer that she gave a new world to Castile and Leon--an Andalusian world--almost Arcadian in its newness and simplicity. She showed to the world that the Spain of thirty years ago was still the Spain of Don Quixote. "What was true yesterday," she quotes from Calderon, "is true to-day." Our Don Quixote is not the Spanish Don Quixote. "Sir Roger de Coverley, Sir Charles Grandison and Don Quixote," said Colonel Newcome, "are the finest gentlemen in the world." The Spaniards see in Don Quixote something higher. "In Cervantes," says Madame de Baer, "the mind stifled the heart. It was not his heart that made of Don Quixote a thing for laughter. Neither the casque of Mambrino nor the love of Maritornes makes me laugh: it makes me weep."

Progress--as the word is generally understood--also makes her sad. The Andalusian, surrounded by a world of poetry and beauty, is happy in his ignorance. He reads sermons in the lives of animals, poems in the trees, maxims and proverbs everywhere. Why should he read them in books? In _La Gaviota_, Frederick Stein, a German surgeon who has been thrown upon the charity of some Spanish peasants, hears a shepherd mention an infallible cure for pain in the eyes. Stein asks where this remedy is to be found.

"I cannot tell you," answered the shepherd: "I know that there is such a thing."

"Who can find it, then?" asked Stein.

"The swallows," said José.

"The swallows!"

"Yes, sir. It is an herb called _pito real_, which nobody knows or sees except the swallows. When their little ones lose their sight they rub the little eyes with the _pito real_, and cure them. This herb has also the virtue of cutting iron and everything it touches."

"What absurdities this José swallows like a real shark!" cried Manuel, laughing.--"Don Frederico, he actually believes that snakes never die."

"No, they never die," said the shepherd gravely: "when they see death coming they escape from their skin and run away. When old they become serpents: little by little scales and wings appear. They become dragons, and return to the desert.--But you, Manuel--you do not wish to believe anything. Do you also deny that the lizard is the friend of man? If you do not believe it, ask Miguel."

"Does he know it?"

"Without doubt. He was sleeping in a field; a snake glided near him; a lizard, which lay in the furrow, saw the snake, and presented itself to defend Miguel. The lizard was large, and it fought with the snake; but Miguel not awaking, the lizard pressed its tail against his nose, and ran off as if its paws were on fire. The lizard is a good little beast: it never sleeps in the sun without descending the wall to kiss the earth."

Imagination in the Andalusian supplies the place of knowledge. He has a precedent for everything. Tradition is the light that guides his feet. Let him alone, says Fernan Caballero. Would he be happier if his wants were greater--if his life were less simple? Would he be happier if he believed less? If he thinks, with the good Maria in _La Gaviota_, that the Jews formerly had caudal appendages, and that they are only now prevented from wearing them by the ring that governs in place of the queen, _qu' importe_ so long as a sick Jew will be treated as tenderly as a sick Christian? If you could alter their ardent natures, if you could cut out the firm love that often changes to fierce jealousy and deadly hate, you would improve them and lessen crime; but that you cannot change until you can change the climate. Change Spain to England, and you can have schools, trades-unions, and all the modern improvements; but while Spain is Spain you of the North can neither understand nor reform her.

And strange it is that this author, who has identified herself with Spain, is not Spanish. Her father was John Nicolas Böhl de Fabre, who migrated from Hamburg to Cadiz: to him Spain owes a collection of ancient poetry, _Floresta de Rimas Antiquas Castellanas_. His daughter Cæcilia was born in 1797 at Morges in Switzerland. The publication of her first work was due to the advice and encouragement of Washington Irving. She first wrote an exquisite idyl of Andalusian life, _The Alvareda Family_, in German, and then translated it into Spanish. Irving admired it in manuscript, and induced her to go to work on another, which appeared under the title of _La Gaviota_--a title borrowed from its wild and untamable heroine, Marisalada Santalo. This second story at once made her reputation in Europe. It stands at the head of her numerous works. The character of the uncontrollable heroine is developed as by a master-hand, and the handling of the story until it culminates in Marisalada's passion for Pepe Vera and the despair of her husband, Stein, is graphic and almost too pitiless. Don Modesto, commandant of Fort San Cristobal, is worthy of the hand of Cervantes. The author has received the greatest compliment that unliterary Spain could pay her: a complete edition of her works was issued--_not_ at the expense of the queen--by Don Francesco de Mallado at Madrid.

Madame de Baer was married three times; so, besides her three cognomens, it is well that she has one that will always be remembered--Fernan Caballero. During the reign of Isabella she occupied apartments in the Alcazar of Seville, but after the revolution she removed to the Calle de Burgos, where she lived quietly among those lifelong friends, her flowers and books. During her last illness the ex-queen and the duke and duchess de Montpensier were her frequent visitors. She died on the seventh of April of this year.

M. F. E.

THE OCTROI.

Those travellers who, after an excursion to the suburbs of Paris, see their carriage stopped by an official in a green tunic with silver buttons, who asks solemnly, "Have you anything to declare?" are usually far from imagining that they are witnessing a manifestation of one of the most important of the Parisian financial functions. For such undoubtedly must the _octroi_ be considered. It is the tax that supports Paris--that pays for her improvements, her cleansing, her lighting, her poor-fund--that supports the hospitals, keeps her pavements and sewers in repair, and, in a word, pays all her necessary expenses. It encircles Paris as with an iron hand; it watches at every gate, at every quay, at every entrance-point to the city; it is for ever on the alert to discover fraud. One hundred and twenty-five officers and three thousand subordinates are employed in collecting this colossal tax and in guarding against its being evaded. The revenue thus produced has amounted during the last few years to over twenty-five millions of dollars annually. No wonder that Paris can afford to beautify herself with new adornments continually. She is a millionaire among cities, and can pay for new decorations at will.

The octroi, in its present form, is a comparatively modern institution. It dates from the 18th of October, 1798. Before the law was passed Paris had fallen into a piteous plight. The contractors threatened to cease all operations; nobody had been paid for a long time; the city was not even able to pay the pitiful sum of sixteen thousand francs which was owing to the street-sweepers. Out of this municipal poverty arose the octroi, and during the first year of its functions it produced over a million and a half of dollars. Yet it was far from bringing in at that time all that it should have done, owing to the insufficient force of agents employed and the gigantic frauds that were perpetrated on all sides. As soon as night came the smugglers set to work at all the unprotected points--and they were many--of the fortifications. Ladders were planted against the walls, and barrels of wine, bottles of brandy, packets of butcher's meat, etc. were lowered into the city by means of cords. Subterranean passages were dug, establishing a communication between the interior and the exterior of the city. It was not till the reign of the First Napoleon that these abuses were definitely suppressed.

Nearly every article of daily consumption that enters Paris is taxed by the octroi--meat, wine, spirits, fruits, vegetables, ice, wood, coal, etc.--and also all building materials. It has been estimated that the octroi-tax on an edifice in Paris that costs twenty thousand dollars amounts to one thousand dollars. The largest part of the revenue is acquired from wines and spirits. Wine pays about twenty-three francs on the hectolitre: it is taxed by quantity, and not _ad valorem_; which is an act of crying injustice to the poor man, whose cup of _petit bleu_ must pay as much as does the goblet of old Burgundy of the millionaire. One of the heaviest taxed of all articles is absinthe, owing to the desire of the authorities to suppress the use of it as much as possible. After all claims upon it are acquitted a bottle of absinthe will be found to have been charged nearly four hundred per cent. on its original value.

This law, which strikes not only absinthe, but all other kinds of liqueurs and of spirits, with excessive duties, was passed in 1871, and the effects were immediately manifest, only sixty thousand hectolitres of alcohol being brought into Paris in 1872, against one hundred and sixty-nine thousand in 1871. The immense consumption of absinthe, which just before the war was so marked a feature of the café-life of Paris, has now greatly decreased. But to make this temperance movement on the part of the French authorities fully effectual, the tax on _vin ordinaire_ should have been taken off altogether.

These heavy duties have naturally called into being among the quick-witted French an active system of frauds against the octroi; and that is not the least interesting part of the question to study. Against these petty smugglers a band of picked officials, selected for their probity and intelligence from among the whole force of the service of the octroi, has been organized. Eighteen among these act as detectives. They wear no uniform, assume various disguises, and are well acquainted with all the mysterious nooks of Paris and with all the holes and corners of the suburbs. They seem to scent out a fraud as a hunting-dog does game. Thus, a few years ago two huge blocks of Swiss granite passed the barriers unquestioned. Some keen-witted detective immediately asked himself why and for what purpose had those great masses of stone been brought from such a distance. He prowled about them for a little while, observed a curious depression in one end of the largest block, and ended by discovering that both were hollow and were packed full of contraband goods.

The custom-house authorities have formed a museum of the most curious of the objects that have been captured whilst passing the barriers, and that were constructed for the purposes of fraud. The list is an interesting one, and reflects great credit upon the ingenuity of the smugglers, if not upon their honesty. False busts worn by make-believe wet nurses, false abdomens, hats with double crowns, hollow horse-collars, footstools lined with tin, carriage-seats concealing tin boxes, etc., etc., abound. There, too, may be seen a pile of pieces of linen fastened together with a cord, each of which is simply a box of zinc covered with linen. This trick was really ingenious, and was detected in a very odd way. The wagon that conveyed this merchandise into Paris was marked on the side "Toiles et Nouveautés," and the letters struck the custom-house agents as being a great deal too large and conspicuous. Hence arose suspicion and a thorough examination.

The museum also preserves among its curiosities an ordinary-looking cab, which is a hollow structure made of painted tin. There, too, are to be seen piles of common plates, as innocent-looking as it is possible for crockery to be. The first half dozen plates are all right: the rest are perforated and conceal a tube of tin. It will be seen that all these contrivances are directed toward the smuggling of one article--namely, spirits.

The product of the octroi averages about sixty francs per annum for every inhabitant of Paris. It is an indirect income-tax which is exacted from every dweller in the city. Unfortunately, its operations weigh heavily only on the very poorest classes. The banker of the Faubourg St. Honoré or the noble of the Faubourg St. Germain troubles himself very little about the extra price that he is thus forced to pay for his salmon or his chambertin. But among the very poor, those whose daily expenditure is counted not by sous, but by centimes, this tax is very severely felt. It is argued, however, that the poor man profits even more by the product of this tax than does the rich one, the hospitals, for instance, being chiefly maintained by its means.

L. H. H.

FOREIGN LEADERS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY.

There is an old regimental tradition, which meets the Eastern traveller at times in Egyptian hotels and Indian mess-rooms, that an English interpreter in the Turkish service, being present at a conference between his pasha and a Russian general, was just commending the two as "admirable specimens of their respective races," when suddenly General Kormiloff and Selim Pasha, after staring at each other for a moment, broke out simultaneously, "Eh, Donald Campbell, are _ye_ here?"--"Gude keep us, Sandy Robertson! can this be _you_?"

This is merely a grotesque version of an actual and very significant fact--viz. that both the Russian and his hereditary enemy have achieved many of their greatest triumphs under the command of foreigners. The prominence of the latter in the military history of both nations is of considerable antiquity. As early as 1397, Sultan Bajazet formed the Christian captives of Nikopolis into the formidable brigade whose title of _Yengi Scheri_ ("new soldiers") gave rise to the terrible name of _Janissary_; while several of the earlier czars in like manner surrounded themselves with a foreign body-guard. Coming down to later times, we find the Tartar Skuratoff acting as the right-hand man of Ivan the Terrible (1531-84). In the ensuing century the Russian centre at Smolensk was commanded by the terrible Sir Thomas Dalziel of Binns, afterward the fiercest persecutor of the Scottish Covenanters. Peter the Great's best officer was General Gordon, a cadet of the Huntley family, and his best engineer was M. Lefort, a native of Geneva. The Turkish service, too, contained at this time several Swiss and Frenchmen (mostly refugees from the religious persecutions of Louis XIV.), some of whom attained high rank.

In the earlier part of the eighteenth century the fame of the new military system established by Frederick William of Prussia and his son, Frederick the Great, led the sovereigns of Russia to give the most liberal encouragement to any German officers who could be persuaded to undertake the training of their ill-disciplined levies. Among these imported generals[D] the most distinguished was the celebrated Marshal Münnich, commander-in-chief of the Russian army under the empresses Anne and Elizabeth, the latter of whom at length banished him to Siberia, whence he was not recalled till the accession of Peter III. in 1762. His Russian successor, Apraxin, was speedily superseded by an Englishman named William Fermor, a distant relation of the beautiful heroine of Pope's _Rape of the Lock_; but the total defeat of this new leader by Frederick the Great at Zorndorf in 1758 ousted _him_ in his turn, and the imperial troops were commanded by native Russians up to the end of the Seven Years' War. But under the far-sighted rule of Catherine II., who ascended the throne in 1763, the German element began to predominate once more, and speedily attained such prominence that toward the middle of her reign, before Suvaroff's formidable renown had raised the prestige of the native stock, the proportion of foreign officers (chiefly Germans) in the Russian service was estimated at not less than eighty-five per cent. It was in allusion to this circumstance that the grim old marshal, himself a Russian _pur sang_, answered Catherine's gracious inquiry how she could best reward his services by saying, with characteristic bluntness, "Mother Katrina, make me a German!"

About the same period several Irish soldiers of fortune, driven from home by political troubles, appeared in the Turkish ranks, as well as not a few Poles, dispossessed by the "second partition" of their country, and longing for a chance of avenging the wrong. Several of these adventurers adopted the Mohammedan faith, and, gaining the entire confidence of their adopted countrymen, were enabled to inflict considerable injury upon the invading armies of Russia. But the greatest service rendered to the Crescent by a foreigner at that time (we might almost say the greatest which it ever received) was achieved in 1802 by the French envoy, Colonel (afterward General) Sebastiani. When a British squadron lay off Prinkipos Island, within easy reach of Constantinople, threatening it with instant bombardment, the undaunted ambassador, defying alike the hostile guns and the fury of the fanatical mob, calmly set himself to achieve the same task which General Todleben accomplished in the Crimea half a century later. Under his vigorous superintendence the city was impregnably fortified by the incessant labor of a single week, while a show of negotiation diverted the attention of the English admiral; and the hostile squadron, suddenly confronted by twelve hundred heavy guns, was forced to retire with considerable loss.

The enlightened rule of Alexander I., whose zeal for the improvement of Russia quickened instead of keeping down his appreciation of foreign talent, filled the Russian camp with officers from Western Europe. Benningsen, the most formidable antagonist of Napoleon in 1807; Pfuhl, who constructed the fortified camp of Drissa in 1812; Barclay de Tolly, the Russian commander-in-chief in the early part of that memorable campaign; Wittgenstein, who bore the palm of valor during the invasion of France in 1814; the great strategist Jomini, who was Alexander's aide-de-camp; and Langeron, whose storming of Montmartre sealed the fate of Paris,--were all men of foreign blood. Even after the accession of the Russomaniac Nicholas in 1825, the "over-the-frontier men," as the natives emphatically call them, continued to hold the same prominent place. The Russian navy, indeed, which in the time of Catherine II. owed to Western Europe the only three competent seamen whom it possessed--Greig, Elphinstone and Dugdale--was by this time officered chiefly by native Russians, though still manned by Finns, Greeks and Livonians; but in the army Count Diebitsch himself, the hero of 1828-29, and his two principal subordinates, Generals Roth and Rüdiger, were of German descent. In the Crimean war the array of foreign names on either side was still more striking. Omar Pasha, perhaps the greatest general whom Turkey has ever possessed, was a Hungarian deserter from the Austrian army, his true name being Theodore Lattos. The defence of Silistria was the work of two English subalterns, Lieutenant Nasmyth and Captain Butler. Ibrahim Aga, the veteran of Sultan Mahmoud's Egyptian wars, was originally Thomas Keith, a gunsmith from the "Old Town" of Edinburgh. Omar Pasha's best cavalry officer in 1853, Iskander Bey, was a Polish refugee, by name Michael Tchaikovski, whose stirring war-songs are still affectionately preserved by his countrymen. Bairam Pasha was merely the Turkish alias of General Cannon. Among the Russians, again, General Todleben, incomparably the greatest name of the war on their side, was a Courlander from Mitau. Prince Paskievitch, the conqueror of Erivan and besieger of Silistria, sprang from a Slavonian family in Transylvania. Generals von Schilders, Aurep and von Lüders, though Russian subjects, were all of foreign extraction, as were also Count Osten-Sacken and General Dannenberg.

But it is in the present war that the foreign element has asserted itself most conspicuously. Whether on the Russian or the Turkish side, almost every leader of note is a foreigner. The Turkish fleet is commanded by an Englishman, who still retains his own name of Augustus Hobart. Another Englishman--the notorious Colonel Valentine Baker, called, like his brother, Sir Samuel, "Baker Pasha"--heads the cavalry of the army of the Danube. The sultan's two best engineers, under whose guidance Shumla has been refortified, though now known to fame as Reschid Pasha and Blum Pasha, were serving not many years since in the German army as Captains Strecker and Blume. Mehemet Ali Pasha himself, the late commander-in-chief, is a Prussian, born in Berlin. Suleiman Pasha's chief of staff is Bielowski, a Pole, known in the Turkish army as General Nihad, and General Mina, recently appointed to the command of a cavalry division at Rasgrad, is a Belgian. On the Russian side, again, Generals Loris-Melikoff and Tergukassoff are Armenians, the former having made his first step to renown by attracting Count Mouravieff's notice as an active young dragoon officer in the Kars campaign of 1855. General Oklobschio, who commanded before Batoum last summer, though for many years in the Russian service, is by birth a Montenegrin, and has the rashness as well as the valor of his warlike countrymen. Baron Krudener, of Plevna notoriety, comes of a German family which settled in Russia toward the close of the last century. The gallant Scobeleff is said to belong to the Ayrshire family of Scobie. General Nepokoitchitski is a Pole. Prince Tcherkasski has a tinge of Tartar, Prince Mirski of Polish, blood. General Gourko springs from a Cossack family of formidable renown in the Turkish and Polish wars of the seventeenth century; and the family name of General Zimmermann, the leader of the Dobrudscha army, speaks for itself.

Nor is all this to be wondered at. The Turk and the Russian, closely alike in many points, are more especially so in this--that both can follow and neither can lead. In steadfast obedience and endurance of every extreme of hardship they have no superior on the face of the earth, but the prompt energy of the man who is accustomed to think and act for himself in every emergency is wanting to both. Under the command of a skilful general both Russian and Turkish troops will advance unflinchingly against the strongest position, or hold their ground with that stubborn tenacity which Frederick the Great aptly illustrated by saying that "when you fight with a Russian you must kill him first and knock him down afterward." But let them once be deprived of their leader or lose their solid formation, and their helplessness becomes instantly manifest.

D. K.

THE DEPARTURE OF THE IMPERIAL GUARDS.

Moscow, Sept. 11 (Aug. 30, Russian style), 1877.

Excitement here is now a veritable epidemic. Go where you will, charity-boxes, designating the purpose for which alms are solicited, and each boasting the bright crimson cross stamped on a pure white surface, meet your eye. They are affixed to the walls of the various _ooclitzas_ (or roads) traversing this mighty city; they greet you at the entrance of every church and cathedral, the charming little English church occupying a site in the Tchernetchefsky Perculok forming no exception to the rule; do you happen to enter "Gurin's," the well-known Muscovitish restaurant, the probability is that your charity "on behalf of the sick and wounded" is instantly demanded by a lady, who, duly escorted by some member of the "nobler sex," has taken upon herself the duty of "begging" in this particular district. The topic of--as also endless incidents attendant upon--this deplorable war meets one at every point--in the lowest _peeteny-dom_ (drinking-house); in every shop; in the very _droshky_ which one hires, the driver (_eezvostchik_) being invariably well versed in the latest phases of the combat.

To-day a fresh impetus has been given by the departure from Moscow, after a two days' stay here, of a portion of the Imperial Guards from St. Petersburg _en route_ for the field--were it not better to say many fields?--of battle. This body, numbering about thirty-six hundred officers and soldiers, was despatched from the modern capital in instalments of six hundred men. The Guards, it must be remembered, constitute the flower and pride of the Russian army, and it is impossible that they could be regarded in any other light. A veritable set of giants, so to speak, they one and all appeared, clad in their rough brown winter gear, with heavy top-boots, and carrying heavy knapsacks with superfluous pairs of nailed high boots strapped thereon.

The organization of the Imperial Guard dates from the reign of the most autocratic of the czars. Peter the Great, left fatherless at an early age, spent his childhood in the village of Preobragensky, situated not many versts from Moscow, where his greatest delight, as he grew in years, was to assemble the youths of the village and train them into a fighting corps, constituting himself their captain. But the youthful hero was not content with this venture. He also made friends with the boys of the neighboring village--Semenovsky by name--and assembled them in like fashion. Hence the names attached to the first and second regiments of the _Infanterie de la Garde_--Preobragensky and Semenovsky. In after-life Peter retained the rank in early days thus self assumed, remaining captain of his favorite Preobragensky regiment.

The Infanterie de la Garde consists of three divisions, each comprising four regiments. The first division, besides the two already named, includes the regiments designated as Ismailovsky and the Chasseurs de la Garde. The regiments of the second division are named, respectively, Pavlovsky, Les Grenadiers de la Garde, Moscovsky, and De Finlande. The third division embraces the Volensky and Letovsky regiments, as also those dubbed L'Empereur d'Autriche and L'Empereur de Prusse. The cavalry has also three divisions, the first comprising the four regiments named Les Chevalier Gardes, Les Gardes à Cheval, Les Cuirassiers de l'Empereur and Les Cuirassiers de I'Impératrice; the second, Les Hussards de l'Empereur, Les Lanciers du Grand Duc Nicolas, Les Grenadiers à Cheval, and Les Dragons de l'Empereur; and the third, two regiments, Les Lanciers de l'Empereur and Les Hussards de Grodno.

Soon after six o'clock A. M., on a bleak and rainy morning, I found my way in a horribly shaky and shabby droshky to the railway terminus, where the soldiers were gathered, many of them accompanied by friends and near relations, principally, however, women--mothers, wives and children. Nearly all were seated on the wide platforms stretching in various directions. They sat in clusters, some drinking the inevitable _chipeet_ (tea), but perhaps quite as many _votky_ (a kind of brandy). The majority were talking fast and gesticulating vigorously in true Russian style. Many, however, were singing and shouting, out of sheer bravado, as it seemed. "Yes, they would meet their fate thus. It were better far than weeping; and there were but two alternatives: why choose the last named?" One bronze-featured Muscovite specially attracted my notice. A burst of noisy song--little short of a scream in fact--came from his lips ever and anon, alternating with a stormy burst of laughter or a sudden flow of tears. I watched him with considerable interest. This, I reflected, was a type of the wellnigh universal Russian temperament--sad to-day, gay to-morrow: in the very depths of despair one moment, brimming over with joy the next. But there were other groups; and herein lay another characteristic feature in the picture. Here and there a soldier was endeavoring to drown not only his own feelings, but also those of the surrounding circle, by plunging into all the wild vagaries of the Russian dance; and furiously his arms as well as his legs worked to do full justice to the famous national jig. "Hurrah! hurrah!" rang cheerily from the lips of many around, still struggling hard with their tears. "Apait! apait!" ("Again! again!"). Knapsacks lay scattered all around. The troops were all ready to be summoned at a word and packed into the various carriages, or rather vans, holding an average number of thirty-five. Alongside the station stood a regiment newly arrived, and waiting to take the place of that which was about to leave.

We passed slowly along the line, glancing at the many heavily-laden wagons, and then at compartment after compartment filled with fine-looking but highly-disconcerted horses, rebelling at the restrictions as regarded space imposed upon them.

"I declare I am as utterly sorry for the horses as for the men," exclaimed a soft-hearted Russian lady. "To think of the poor dumb brutes all going thus helplessly to their fate!"

A tent erected for the officers and their friends stood on our left, and, forming part of a privileged party, we entered it. A long table, supplied with the daintiest of viands, provided by the citizens, extended through its entire length. Many ladies were present, some weeping bitterly. Few waited for a formal introduction before exchanging words. "Your son, madame? it is from him you are about to part?"--"And my husband, madame. All my other sons are there already. May God help and protect them!"--"Amen!" is the involuntary answer.

The officers--most of them chatting, and many of them even laughing gayly--are drinking wine, exchanging felicitations and good-wishes, and touching glasses across the table. In the midst of all I spied a mouse--a tame one, surely--careering about at pleasure.

But in another minute the aspect of affairs had changed. The word of command had suddenly been given, the officers marched out, the troops crouched in such numbers on the platforms rose promptly to their feet, grasping their knapsacks; and then the women's arms were bound fast around the necks of those stepping, now fast, according to orders, into the carriages immediately facing them. The notes of the Russian hymn rose and fell from time to time: many of the voices were more than half choked.

In flocked all, the sobbing women left behind, with heads wrapped up in the thick woollen Russian shawl or extemporized _bashlik_, "crossing" their departing friends three times in earnest and true Russian fashion, praying Heaven to bless them. And then all waited, all was ready: the long line of carriages was already moving off.

"Preicheit!" ("Good-bye!") rose from the lips of those around, but the word was quickly supplemented by another more suggestive of pleasantness--"Dussvedinia!" ("Au revoir!"), which was echoed again and again. The train moved now more quickly. The soldiers shouted, cried and laughed alternately, waving their caps in signal of adieu. "What matters it?" shouted one: "we must all die once." The officers grasped firmly the hands of those yet marching bareheaded by their side along the platform: the lonely women left behind, many of them gray-headed, fell, some of them, senseless on the ground.

E. S.

A MISSING ITEM.

Among the long and varied list of reasons assigned for the financial reverses of the past five years, we do not recollect to have discovered the falling off of European immigration. This would appear one of the most obvious and controlling of them all. About a million less have been added from abroad to the population of the Union within that time than the figures of a like number of years immediately preceding caused to be expected. If, according to the prevailing estimate, each individual thus acquired is worth a thousand dollars to the country, its aggregate loss in this way far exceeds the sum sunk in superfluous railways, to which extravagance almost exclusively the custom is to ascribe the revulsion. Eight hundred or a thousand millions of money which the country had under its hands as it were, reckoned among its available assets and used in gauging the immediate future of its industry, suddenly vanished. The direct abstraction from its resources of so large an item could not fail to be seriously felt. It amounts to the reduction of an average State to a desert condition--to the loss of twice as many pairs of stout hands as were sacrificed in the four years of civil war. The homes marked out for them are desolate, the waste places they would have made to bloom given to the weeds, the industries which craved them paralyzed, and the wealth they were to create cancelled.

Such is undoubtedly the economic aspect of this check to the movement of human freight upon the Atlantic. Viewed from the politico-social side, its effects will not be deemed so unfortunate even by those whose confidence in the assimilative power of our institutions is most unqualified. A million and a half or two millions of matriculates at the great modern political school is quite a liberal allowance for one decade. Twice the number might press heavily on the provision made for adequate tuition. The results of the course upon those who have already graduated, born at home or abroad, are not at all too flattering. In the West, where our European guests most do congregate, notions are discoverable of a very helter-skelter description upon divorce, the "rights of labor," and religion in the public schools--notions which, whether sound or the reverse, clearly need settling rather than additional disturbance. The case is similar in cities and densely-peopled districts at the East, where the same element has especial weight. At the same time, it is difficult to say how far this association of facts is accidental or necessary and significant. The proportion of crotchety agitators among the population of foreign birth we believe to be actually less than among the natives. Certainly, our most mischievous "ringmasters" in partisan politics have been Americans. Immigrants do not usually bring that class of men with them. As to the masses, it can rarely be said that the European peasant, as he reaches our shores, is calculated to demoralize his new neighbors in personal and social habits. He is never intemperate, unless he come from the British Isles, and his tastes and amusements are simple and often refined. We are in the habit of supposing that what inferiority the Briton of the lower classes may labor under in these respects is made up by his superior political information and training to free institutions.

The arrivals on our shores represent so many different nationalities that the faults of each may be balanced by the better traits of others, and that the chances of good qualities overpowering bad in the resultant compound is inferable from the exceptionally favorable conditions of life which draw them so far from home. They are so many convergent threads of different strength and fineness, twisted into one on the Cisatlantic spindle, to be then woven into the broad and ever-widening web. The weaving process may possibly be too much hurried; and that is about the only compensation we have for the loss of so many hundreds of thousands of allies in our contest with the wilderness.

A CRYING EVIL.

Is there no grand jury for the train-boy? Can he not be presented and abated as a nuisance? He runs every day the gauntlet of hundreds of these inquests, strung along the thousands of miles he makes hateful to the traveller. Yet he still treads unchecked and unabashed his endless round of evil-doing. To realize the enormity of the wrong let us fancy him abandoning his stronghold in the railway carriage and adventuring his raids on terra firma. How long would the most patient of publics endure his promenading the sidewalk three times an hour each way, and every time thrusting upon the occupants of every house, at work, at amusement or at meals, a package of candy, a semi-rancid orange, or a wholly rancid novel? He would be clapped into quod and permanently extinguished before completing his third tour of the square.

The railways have no police to do us this good turn. If they have any, this youth of the period has purchased their silence. The passenger is handed over to him like a sheep, his helpless victim, bought with a price. No means of escape are left open. Frowns and cold shoulders are thrown away on him. A calm ignoring of his existence is but a spur to his determination to conquer you. He sets you down as a foeman worthy of his steel. "Ah, old fellow!" he soliloquizes as he takes your measure, "I'll have you yet. If you are not politician enough to want yesterday morning's triple sheet _Tomahawk_, you will want to bury yourself from my reach in the mazy tables of last year's _Railway Guide_, or, if not that, you'll be glad, after a while, to let me soothe you with a willow-leaf Havana." Revolving these thoughts, he strolls imperturbably on, for he understands you perfectly, as he does all the rest of his various victims.

Discouragement is a word he has no use for. He does not seem to sell anything. Sometimes you will listlessly yet curiously observe his career, and settle back into your seat in luxurious satisfaction as he emerges through the rear door without having effected a solitary transaction. Better still, he caught his basket in the doorway, and spilled some of his oranges under the feet of yon slumbering rustic: no, he recovered himself too soon. He never drops anything except of set purpose--a circular or the book it recommends. A passenger will occasionally do it, or be made to seem to do it, and then have of course to purchase the article under foot; but that is a trick of trade, and one the average train-boy is not master of, the leaders of the craft only being adepts in it.

On some lines the train-boy was formerly utilized in summer by handing round ice-water to the thirsty at stated intervals. But the thirsty were a minority: the cans would splash on the sufficiently moist majority, and that device for contriving a _raison d'être_ for the train-boy was abandoned. He is now more inexcusable and more ubiquitous than ever. He and cinders are twin evils born of fast schedules. To add four or five miles an hour to the old rate, station refreshment-booths and platform-peddlers and spark-catchers have been abolished. The local peanut interest has been ruthlessly immolated on the altar of Hurry, and the incense of the same rite poured in, thick and black, at every car-window and ventilator. Let us hope for an early change in the mode of worship. This acolyte is unknown in Europe. Travellers there manage to lunch, read and smoke very comfortably without him; and they can do it here with perfect ease if similar methods are adopted for supplying their real wants.

E. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[D] These adventurers are easily distinguished from their native comrades by the fact of all purely _Russian_ names terminating either in "-off" or "-in."

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

The Life of Count Cavour. Translated from the French of Charles de Mazade. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

In this substantial volume M. Charles de Mazade has related in a very interesting manner the history of an extraordinarily interesting career. Cavour's career was a short one--the space of eleven years covers the whole of it, and the shorter space of six years witnessed its most striking achievements--but it was nevertheless one of the most remarkable and most active in the annals of statesmanship. Clearly and harmoniously unfolded as it is in these pages, it reads indeed like a romance or a fairy-tale: there seems almost an element of magic in Cavour's inveterate successes. M. de Mazade is a passionate admirer of his hero, and the story loses in his hands none of its brilliancy of coloring. But it needs no retouching: the naked facts themselves are a drama, with all the necessary requisites--the large and moving argument, the skilful performers, the thickening plot, the moment of suspense, the happy dénouement, the attentive auditory. The work accomplished by Cavour had a peculiar completeness and unity: it was a single, consistent task cut out for him by circumstances. It is sometimes said of him that circumstances had more part in the result than the man himself, and that if they had not happened to combine themselves again and again in a peculiarly favorable manner the liberator of Italy would not have been known beyond the limits of the quiet little kingdom of Piedmont. But M. de Mazade points out that Cavour's greatness was precisely in his marvellous talent for making his occasion--for knowing just the way in which to take hold of circumstances. From the day on which, of his own moment and as the first step in a far-seeing plan, he sent, in the face of domestic opposition, a Piedmontese contingent to the Crimean war, he pursued this vigilant culture of opportunity without faltering or going astray. M. de Mazade characterizes him as an extraordinary mixture of prudence and boldness; and these qualities with him always went hand in hand. He knew equally well how to wait and when to act. But it is the element of discretion, the art of sailing with the current of events, that enabled him to effect a great revolution by means that were, after all, in relation to the end in view, not violent--by measures that were never reckless, high-handed or of a character to force from circumstances more than they could naturally yield. For M. de Mazade, Cavour is the model of the moderate and conservative liberal. Liberal he was, as a friend said of him, "as he was fair-complexioned, lively and witty--by birth." But M. de Mazade constantly emphasizes the fact that his liberalism was untinged by the radical leaven, and that if he was a liberator, he had nothing in common with some of the gentry who aspire to this title. All this is very obvious. Cavour was not only the champion of his country: he was also the servant of his king, and his dream was to see Italy not only united, but brought under the sway of the old Piedmontese crown. He often said, according to M. de Mazade, that no republic can give as much liberty, and as real liberty, as a constitutional monarchy that operates regularly. It is noticeable that, keeping in view his hero's conservative side, M. de Mazade relates in considerable detail the story of the liberation of Italy, with no allusion to Mazzini beyond speaking of him two or three times as a vulgar and truculent conspirator, and with a regrettable tendency to stint the mixture of praise to the erratic but certainly, during a most important period, efficient Garibaldi. But Cavour's nature was a wonderfully rich and powerful one; and there is something very striking in such religious devotion to an idea when it is unaccompanied with fanaticism or narrowness of view, and tempered with good sense and wit and the art of taking things easily.

Cavour had had his idea from the first: he cherished it for a long time very quietly: he was awaiting his opportunity. "We will do something," he said one day in 1850, rubbing his hands--his legendary gesture--as he looked across Lago Maggiore to the Austrian shore. It was not till 1855 that the first serious opportunity came, but he attached himself to this with the quiet zeal and obstinacy of a man who feels that he is driving in the narrow end of the wedge. There were all sorts of telling objections to be made to the co-operation of Piedmont in the Crimean war, and Cavour was at the disadvantage, for a man who was rigidly and supremely practical, of having to defend his course on ideal and far-fetched grounds. But his idealism proved to be plain good sense: it brought little Piedmont to the notice of Europe, and gave her the right to call attention to her affairs. The young Italian officer spoke the truth who said to a poor soldier struggling with the mud in the Crimean trenches, "Never mind--make the best of it: with this mud we are making Italy!" As Piedmont had had a hand in the war, so she had a seat at the Congress of Paris which followed it; and here Cavour, finding his auditory ready made to his hand, introduced--a little perhaps by the shoulders--the then comparatively novel "Italian question." This was his second opportunity. The emperor Napoleon had asked him, from an impulse of imperial civility, "If there was any thing he could do for Italy?" and Cavour, taking him at his word, and more than his word, had instantly drawn up a list of _desiderata_. M. de Mazade gives a detailed and very interesting account of the gradual adoption by the emperor of his Italian policy--of the various phases through which it passed, of its complications and interruptions, and of Napoleon's curiously fitful, illusive and at times evasive attitudes. Cavour's relations with Napoleon III. may serve as the best example of his disposition to use the best instruments and opportunities that offered themselves, and not quarrel with them because they were not ideally perfect. This was what the Italian "patriots" of the mere romantic type could never forgive: that Italy should appeal for liberation to the oppressor of France was to them a displeasing and monstrous anomaly. But Cavour had a lively sense of reality in human affairs, and for him the best thing was the best possible thing. It was enough that--for reasons best known to himself--the "Man of December" had taken a fancy to this idea of lending a hand to the oppressed Peninsula: his own duty was to fan the flame. The emperor's sympathy with Italian independence is certainly the most interesting and honorable feature in his career, and its mingled motives and mysterious fluctuations present a very curious study. The desire to do something for Italy was, however, steadfast, and had been an early dream; and the reader of M. de Mazade's pages can easily believe that Cavour's personal influence and magnetism had something--had even a good deal--to do with bringing it to a climax. Napoleon appreciated the Piedmontese statesman, and felt his superiority. From a certain ideal point of view there is something displeasing in seeing the advocate of so noble a cause dancing attendance upon an unscrupulous adventurer, and hanging as it were upon his lips; but we know not what other ways there may have been: we only know that, in fact, a great deal of generous French blood was shed upon the plains of Lombardy.

After the Congress of Paris, Cavour spent two years of eager, anxious waiting and of the most active private agitation. It was by the aid of England and France combined that he proposed to compass his aim, but he had, in the case of England, to content himself with a strictly Platonic sympathy. His mingled ardor and tact during this period, his tension of purpose, and yet his self-restraint, his inveterate skill in turning events to his advantage, are vividly narrated by M. de Mazade. At last, in the summer of 1858, Napoleon sent for him to Plombières, drove him out in a dog-cart, and during the drive told him that he was now ready to "do something" for Italy. Then and there the outline of the war of 1859 was resolved upon. The abrupt conclusion of the war was, at least momentarily, a profound disappointment to Cavour: the Peace of Villafranca, which left half its fruits ungathered, seemed to the Italian party almost an act of treachery on the part of the French emperor. Napoleon was, in fact, alarmed at his work: he had been almost too successful, and he determined to throw up the game. Cavour, in irritation, disgust and despair, immediately withdrew from the ministry, his place being taken by Urbano Rattazzi. The new minister presided at that great breaking-up throughout the rest of Italy for which the expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy had given the signal, and which took place under the direct patronage of Piedmont. The attitude of the latter state was a very difficult one, and Rattazzi proved but half master of the situation: at the end of six months Cavour was recalled to power. From this point in his work one step succeeds another with a sort of dramatic effectiveness. He was confronted with the constant necessity of presenting an unflinching front to Austria; the necessity, equally imperious, of checking reactionary excesses in Parma and Modena, Bologna and Tuscany; the need of keeping what had been gained, and at the same time reaching forth for more; of keeping on good terms with France, who had drawn back almost as far as she first advanced; of remaining free, especially, from the reproach of meddling with the papacy--an enterprise for which the occasion was not ripe; of stimulating England, who had advanced in proportion as France withdrew; and of being supremely careful, generally, to commit no faults. The cession of Savoy and Nice brought down upon Cavour a storm of denunciation, but he had counted the cost, and the resolution with which he paid the price of Napoleon's assistance was extremely characteristic of him. It was apparently equally characteristic of Garibaldi, born at Nice and her most illustrious son, that he felt it a mortal affront that by this diplomatic bargain he should have been "deprived of a country." M. de Mazade characterizes very happily Cavour's attitude during Garibaldi's invasion of the Two Sicilies--his silent complicity, his skill in giving his terrible associate rope, as it were, and yet keeping him in hand. Cavour did not live to see the last two acts of his great drama--the occupation of Venetia and of Rome--but they were only, as it were, the epilogue: they were implied in what had gone before. He died of overwork--broke down in the midst of his labors. Great innovator as he had been, he was remarkable for the moderation of his attitude toward the Church; and the last words he uttered to the good friar who attended his deathbed were a repetition of his famous formula--"Libera chiesa in libero stato."

Egypt as it Is. By J. C. McCoan. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

During the three quarters of a century which have elapsed since the French invasion a voluminous Egyptian library has been built up, but it is almost wholly scientific, sentimental or "entertaining." Of the antiquities and the natural history of the country, the temples, mummies and crocodiles, and the humors of Fellah-life, we have been told a great deal. An account of the condition and prospects of the country from an economic point of view has remained a desideratum. This seems the less remarkable when we recall the fluctuations through which the industry, commerce and politics of Egypt have passed since Mehemet Ali seized and commenced repolishing the sceptre of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies. He and his four successors stood forth as the absolute lords of the land; but it was subject not only to the accidents of their character and policy, but to the capricious and almost always mischievous interference of their suzerain the Porte, and the often beneficial, but never quite disinterested, control of the great Christian powers.

The progress of the past fourteen years has been more palpable than that of the preceding half century. The khedive Ismaal succeeded the reactionary Abbas, who stopped, and, as far as in him lay, nullified, the work of Mehemet in 1865. Since that year 971 out of 1126 miles of railway have been built; three or four hundred miles of telegraph have grown to fifty-five hundred; 112 miles of canal have been dug, and a great part of the old system deepened or restored; the great Suez Canal, additional to that, has been undertaken and completed at a net cost to Egypt of sixty-seven millions of dollars; the barrage, or damming for irrigation purposes, of the Lower Nile has been pushed at a cost of five millions; ten millions have been spent on the harbor of Alexandria, one upon lighthouses, which make the coast as safe as that of any European power, and half a million on the bridge at Cairo; schools have been multiplied, remodelled and endowed in like proportion; the judiciary has been recast with the best results, so far as time has permitted them to be shown; and the exports, excluding the transit-trade, which the opening of the Isthmus Canal has diverted from Alexandria, raised from twenty-four millions in 1866 to sixty-three millions in 1875. The cotton production, created about the beginning of the present reign by the civil war in the United States, shows a recovery and re-advance since the loss of that stimulus, shipments from Alexandria having grown from 1,288,797 quintals in 1866 to 2,615,120 in 1875. The blow dealt the commerce of that city by the transfer of the Indian trade to Port Saïd has similarly been "discounted," the mercantile sagacity of Alexander the Great continuing to assert itself in a movement of business and population which cannot fail to be largely aided by the extension of the arable area of Egypt proper and the railway development of Nubia and the Soudan. The population of the first of these three districts has grown to five and a half millions, or 484 to the square mile--a density exceeding that of Belgium. Its multiplication, and the more wonderful advance in the products of its industry, go to support Mr. McCoan's assertions of its general well-being. In this regard he maintains that the Egyptian peasantry compare favorably with those of any Eastern country. Their mode of life, rude enough in the eyes of Western tourists, is, he holds, the same as under the builders of Thebes, and much the same with what the climate and other local conditions will always make it. Their oppression by the old system of tax-collecting and military conscription has been greatly relieved. We cannot see, indeed, why an army nominally of thirty, but actually of less than twenty thousand, and recruited in great measure from Nubia, should be burdensome. The navy has almost disappeared, a veto from Constantinople having made iron-clads a prohibited luxury, so that impressment for the fleet is unfelt.

Mr. McCoan, though generally fair and practical in his statements, tends to the rose-colored side of things Egyptian. Thus it fares with slavery. Slaves, white and black, are very numerous in Egypt, "nearly all the indoor work of every family above the poorest" being done by slaves. In the town of Mansourah in 1873 an English consular agent, "in rank not even a vice-consul," used his power under a then existing privilege to liberate "seventeen hundred in a single month." Mansourah has but sixteen thousand of population, so that the slave-element must be great. But Mr. McCoan says the institution is strictly patriarchal, and no way comparable to the extinct Western form. This does not seem to be borne out by his other statement, that "few black slaves (the most numerous by far) reach middle age, ten or a dozen years generally sufficing to sweep away a generation, at the end of which the whole have to be replaced." And how are they replaced? By Arab raids among the negro tribes, costing the death, in battle or on the march, of four or five for one that reaches the Nile or the Red Sea. The Circassian supply has been brought pretty well to an end by the Russian conquest of the Caucasus, and is kept up only in a feeble way by the continued habit of selling their daughters yet prevalent among the emigrants from that region who have sought refuge among their coreligionists in the interior of Turkey.

The fortunes of Egypt must be affected by the Turko-Russian war; although, as England is quite able, and seemingly quite determined, to cork up the Dardanelles, it is not likely that the ships of the czar can threaten Port Saïd for generations to come. The interest of the money-changers, too, is to keep her quiet and the hands of her Fellaheen occupied only with the implements of peace--the shovel and the hoe. She is far from warlike, is indisposed in the extreme to quarrelling with Europe or any part of it, and should the Turkish empire go to wreck, will be content to drift out of the wreck as noiselessly as possible. She will, if allowed a chance, be able ere long to set a shining and valuable example of thrift and liberality to the rest of the Moslem world. She has already shown that its crust of bigotry and case-hardened conservatism may be broken, and nobody of any faith be one whit the worse. Her capacity for improvement will not be questioned by any reader of this volume, which is the result of a thorough study of her condition and recent progress.

HOLIDAY BOOKS.

The season for holiday publications has not yet fairly opened, but we notice a few of those which have already reached us, hoping to present a tolerably complete list in our next number.

_Californian Pictures in Prose and Verse_, by Benjamin Parke Avery (New York: Hurd & Houghton), is not a record of travel, but a description of scenes visited by the author, whose observations extend over a large portion of California, from Mount Shasta to the Santa Cruz Mountains. It is written in a clear and fluent style, but "word-painting" is a form of writing requiring exceptional nicety of execution, and Mr. Avery has not the power or delicacy of language which would be needed to sustain the interest of a volume of this size with little or no aid from incident. There is no _sauce piquante_ to set forth attractively the real merits which the volume possesses. A sincere feeling for Nature appears to have been turned by Mr. Avery into the special channel of enthusiasm for the Sierra scenery, which he has studied with loving and minute care. He explored no new region, but he went beyond the beaten track, and has sought to avoid a repetition of the most worn Californian themes. Yet it is to Californians and to those who have visited the State that the book must chiefly appeal; and to these it may safely be recommended as a memorial volume, agreeably written, handsomely got up, and embellished with illustrations by various artists and engravers, some of Mr. Thomas Moran's familiar light-bathed distances being perhaps the most noticeable.

Three volumes, bearing the imprint of G. P. Putnam's Sons, are suitable for children of almost any age. Of these, _Six Sinners; or, School-Days in Bantam Valley_, by Campbell Wheaton, is a pleasantly-written story, the warm-hearted, clever, impulsive little heroine being very naturally and sympathetically drawn. There is a good deal of reality in the delineation of the other characters, and the school in which the sensitive Dora was so miserable is no doubt a faithful picture of some boarding-school in New England of twenty years ago. The miseries, though pathetic, are not of long duration: we take leave in the last chapter of a very happy little girl, with friends reconciled and circumstances adjusted in the most delightful way. The story is nicely constructed, and the interest well sustained, but the title seems to have no special fitness beyond that of alliteration.

_Patsy_ (by Leora B. Robinson) goes through all the stages of girlhood, from pinafores and paper dolls to long dresses and young ladyhood, with bewildering celerity. We find her on one page learning the Primer along with the elements of flirtation, and on the next she is finishing her education with all the philosophies and -ologies. There is no lack of funny incidents in the book, but they are too crowded, and the characters are too numerous. This, however, may be no obstacle to children, who have often a faculty for unravelling genealogical problems, and like to have their fun spread thick. They will not even have to skip the moral, which, such as it is, is aimed entirely at parents and guardians.

_The Wings of Courage_, adapted from the French by Marie E. Field, with illustrations by Lucy G. Morse, contains three rather long stories. But why "adapted"? and why is not George Sand acknowledged as the author? There ought to be an authentic translation of Madame Sand's fairy-tales, which are full of fancy, earnestness and charm. These stories appeal to a more imaginative and cultured audience of boys and girls than that to which the realistic tales of American writers are addressed. The beauty and simplicity of the antique will, we fear, appear dull when compared with the adventures of hoydens and newsboys, and Young America is not partial to the young naturalist unless he justifies the singularity of his pursuit by an abundance of slaughter.

_Books Received._

Tales from Foreign Tongues, 3 volumes--"Memories," from the German of Max Müller; "Graziella," from the French of Lamartine; "Marie," from the Russian of Pushkin. Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Co.

Money and its Laws: Embracing a History of Monetary Theories and a History of the Currencies of the United States. By Henry V. Poor. New York: H. V. and H. W. Poor.

China-Painting: A Practical Manual for the Use of Amateurs in the Decoration of Hard Porcelain. By M. Louise McLaughlin. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co.

History of the Ottoman Turks: From the Beginning of their Empire to the Present Time. By Sir Edward S. Creasy, M.A. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

Through Rome On: A Memoir of Christian and Extra-Christian Experience. By Nathaniel Ramsay Waters. New York: Charles P. Somerby.

The Enchanted Moccasins, and Other Legends of the American Indians. By Cornelius Matthews. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

The Biography of Alfred de Musset. From the French of Paul de Musset, by Harriet W. Preston. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Last Series of Christian Aspects of Faith and Duty: Discourses by John James Tayler. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Surly Tim, and Other Stories. By Frances Hodgson Burnett. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

History of French Literature. By Henri Van Laun. Vol. III. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Music in the House. By John Hullah, LL.D. (Art-at-Home Series.) Philadelphia: Porter & Coates.

Will Denbigh, Nobleman. (No-Name Series.) Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Pauline. By L. B. Walford. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

Diana. By Susan Warner. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.