Part 30

Early on the 24th of January, 1822, the turnpike-house, about four miles from Basingstoke, on this side of Overton, was attacked, with intent to enter, by two men, who had taken off some tiles at the back part of the premises (the roof being very low) to effect their purpose. These villains knew, it would appear, that a lone woman, Mrs. Whitehouse, received the tolls at this gate, and that her husband attended a gate as far distant as Colebrook. Mrs. Whitehouse, however, very fortunately possessed three loaded pistols, one of which she fired--then a second, and a third, without effect. These determined ruffians (notwithstanding being thrice fired at) were, it appears, resolved not to depart without accomplishing the projected robbery. Mrs. Whitehouse's little boy, only 11 years of age, in the mean time had re-loaded a brace of pistols, one of which Mrs. Whitehouse fired, and wounded one of the desperadoes full in the face--he fell, and the blood flowed profusely; yet, strange to relate, the accomplice had hardihood enough to drag away the wounded robber! On observing this, Mrs. Whitehouse fired the fifth pistol at them, but missed them. The fellow who received the contents of the fourth pistol being supposed to have been killed, and some persons residing at a considerable distance from the spot having heard of the circumstance, assembled, and made diligent search at daybreak to discover the body of the deceased; but, although the blood could be traced some distance from the house, the body could not be found; nor were those concerned in the attack ever found out. The successful resistance, however, deserves to be recorded.

GIGANTIC BONES.

Whenever any bones of unusual magnitude were discovered, it was invariably the custom to ascribe them to some giant. This was always so up to recent years, and no wonder it was intensely the case at the early period of 1660. About that period, when the brook or rivulet from which the town of Corbridge, in the north of England, derives its name, had been worn away by some impetuous land-flood, a skeleton, supposed to be that of a man of extraordinary and prodigious size, was discovered. The length of the thigh bone was nearly six feet, and the skull, teeth, and other parts proportionably monstrous, so that the length of the whole body was computed at twenty-one feet. It is conjectured, by the more enlightened men of modern times, that these strange bones belonged to some large animal that had been sacrificed by the Romans at the altar dedicated to Hercules, which was found here some years ago. Notwithstanding that the superstition of our forefathers has lost nearly all its credit and influence, a singularly large bone found here is now exhibited in the Keswick Museum as the rib of the giant Cor.

NEW STYLE OF ADVERTISEMENT.

The following editorial announcement is taken from the Philadelphia _Weekly Mercury_, of November 30, 1752, because it forms a complete novelty in its way, and also affords us an insight into the degree of communication which existed at that period between the large towns and the provinces in America. It is, moreover, a curious jumble of information, strangely mixing up the starting of the stage coach with the news of the day:--

On _Monday_ next the Northern Post sets out from _New-York_, in order to perform his Stage but once a Fortnight, during the Winter Quarter; the Southern Post changes also, which will cause this Paper to come out on _Tuesdays_ during that Time. The Colds which have infested the Northern Colonies have also been troublesome here, few Families having escaped the same, several have been carry'd off by the Cold, among whom was _David Brintnall_, in the 77th Year of his Age; he was the first Man that had a Brick House in the City of _Philadelphia_, and was much esteem'd for his just and upright dealing. There goes a Report here, that the Lord _Baltimore_ and his Lady are arrived in _Maryland_, but the Southern Post being not yet come in, the said Report wants Confirmation.

MAKING A CANDLESTICK OF GUNPOWDER.

A marvellous escape from destruction is related in the MS. Life of Alderman Barnes.--"One of his brother-in-law's (Alderman Hutchinson's) apprentices, stepping up into the back-lofts to fetch somewhat he wanted, in his heedlessness and haste, stops his candle into a barrel of gunpowder whose head was struck off, to serve instead of a candlestick. But the man reflecting what he had done, was struck with affrightment, his heart failed him, nor durst he stay any longer, but running down stairs, leaves the candle burning in the gunpowder cask, and with horror, trembling, and despair, tells the family what indiscretion he had committed; they were all immediately as their wits' end, and well they might, for the lofts were three stories high, very large, and stowed full with whatever is combustible, as brandy, oil, pitch, tar, rosin, flax, alum, hops, and many barrels of gunpowder. Had the candle fallen to one side, or had the least spark fallen from the snuff into the cask, the whole town had been shaken, and the whole of the house immediately blown up and in a blaze; but one of the labourers, a stout fellow, ran forthwith into the loft, and joining both his hands together, drew the candle softly up between his middlemost fingers, so that if any snuff had dropped, it must have fallen into the hollow of the man's hand, and by this means was Newcastle saved from being laid in ashes." This must have happened about the year 1684.

THE CAMDEN CUP.

The subjoined engraving represents the Silver-gilt Standing Cup and Cover bequeathed by the celebrated historian, William Camden, Clarenceux King at Arms, to the Worshipful Company of Painter Stainers'. Camden's will is recorded in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (in the register designated III Swann 3, probate granted November 10, 1623), and it has been printed by Hearne in his _Collection of Curious Discourses_, Ox. 1720. After directing the sum of eight pounds to be given "to the poore of that place (Chislehurst) when it shall please God to call me to his mercie," Camden continues--"I bequeath to Sir Foulke Greville, Lord Brooke, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who preferred me gratis to my Office, a peece of plate of ten pounds; Item, to the Company of Painter-Stainers of London, to buy them a peece of plate in memoriall of mee, sixteene pounds;" the inscription upon which is directed to be--"_Guil. Camdenus Clarenceux, filius Sampsonis, Pictoris Londinensis, dono dedit_."

This stately and richly-decorated cup and cover is used on Corporation Festivals, in memory of the illustrious donor. In height, it is altogether twenty-three inches and a quarter, the cover only being eight inches and three-quarters; and the cup, independent of the stand, five inches and a-half, its greatest diameter being five inches and a-half. The inscription encircles the upper rim of the cup; and directly under it is an engraved escutcheon of Camden's arms; _Or_, a fess engrailed, between six cross crosslets fitchee, _Sable_. The cover presents an object of much elegance, a richly ornamented open pyramid, based on the heads of birds, the breasts bending gracefully with cartouche ornaments: the pinnacle of the pyramid surmounted by a female figure, the right hand resting on a shield, charged with the same arms as shown on the side of the cup. The birds' heads have apparently a reference to the phoenix heads in the second and third quarters of the armorial ensigns, and to the crest of the Company of Paper-Stainers.

RICHARDSON, THE SHOWMAN.

This eccentric individual, who died in 1836, left behind him upwards of L20,000. He was born in the workhouse of Marlow, Bucks, but ran away from that place in order to seek his fortune in London. After various vicissitudes, he became the landlord of the Harlequin public-house, in Drury-lane, where he saved some money, which he embarked in fitting up a portable theatre, and was known for forty years as the "Prince of Showmen," and used frequently to boast that Edmund Kean and several other eminent actors were brought out by him. His property, after various legacies to the itinerant company which had attended him for many years, descended to two nephews and a niece, and he desired by his will to be buried in Marlow churchyard, in the same grave as his favourite "spotted boy," a lad who, some years before, was exhibited by him, and attracted great notice in consequence of the extraordinary manners in which he was marked on various parts of his body. Some years since the scenery, dresses, and decorations of Richardson's theatre were exposed for auction by Mr. George Robins, and L2,000 were bid for them. They were bought in; the "old man," as he was technically denominated, considering them to be worth at least L3,000.

PRESERVATION OF DEAD BODIES.

There is an arched vault, or burying-ground, under the church of Kilsyth, in Scotland, which was the burying-place of the family of Kilsyth, until the estate was forfeited, and the title became extinct in the year 1715; since which it has never been used for that purpose, except once. The last Earl fled with his family to Flanders, and, according to tradition, was smothered to death about the year 1717, along with his lady and an infant child, and a number of other unfortunate Scottish exiles, by the falling in of the roof of a house in which they were assembled. What became of the body of the Earl is not known, but the bodies of Lady Kilsyth and her infant were emboweled and embalmed, and soon afterwards sent over to Scotland. They were landed, and lay at Leith for some time in a cellar, whence they were afterwards carried to Kilsyth, and buried in great pomp in the vault above mentioned. In the spring of 1796, some rude regardless young men, having paid a visit to this ancient cemetery, tore open the coffin of Lady Kilsyth and her infant. With astonishment and consternation, they saw the bodies of Lady Kilsyth and her child as perfect as in the hour they were entombed. For some weeks this circumstance was kept secret, but at last it began to be whispered in several companies, and soon excited great and general curiosity.

"On the 12th of June," says the Minister of the parish of Kilsyth, in a letter to J. Garnet, M.D., "when I was from home, great crowds assembled, and would not be denied admission. At all hours of the night, as well as the day, they afterwards persisted in gratifying their curiosity. I saw the body of Lady Kilsyth soon after the coffin was opened; it was quite entire. Every feature and every limb was as full, nay, the very shroud was as clear and fresh, and the colours of the ribbons as bright, as the day they were lodged in the tomb. What rendered this scene more striking and truly interesting was, that the body of her son and only child, the natural heir of the title and estates of Kilsyth, lay at her knee. His features were as composed as if he had been only asleep. His colour was as fresh, and his flesh as plump and full, as in the perfect glow of health; the smile of infancy and innocence sat on his lips. His shroud was not only entire, but perfectly clean, without a particle of dust upon it. He seems to have been only a few months old. The body of Lady Kilsyth was equally well preserved; and at a little distance, from the feeble light of a taper, it would not have been easy to distinguish whether she was dead or alive. The features, nay the very expression of her countenance, were marked and distinct; and it was only in a certain light that you could distinguish anything like the ghastly and agonizing traits of a violent death. Not a single fold of her shroud was decomposed nor a single member impaired.

"Let the candid reader survey this sketch; let him recal to mind the tragic tale it unfolds; and say, if he can, that it does not arrest the attention and interest the heart. For my own part, it excited in my memory a thousand melancholy reflections; and I could not but regret that such rudeness had been offered to the ashes (remains) of the dead, as to expose them thus to the public view.

"The body seemed to have been preserved in some liquid, nearly of the colour and appearance of brandy. The whole coffin seemed to have been full of it, and all its contents saturated with it. The body had assumed somewhat the same tinge, but this only served to give it a fresher look. It had none of the ghastly livid hue of death, but rather a copper complexion. It would, I believe, have been difficult for a chemist to ascertain the nature of this liquid; though perfectly transparent; it had lost all its pungent qualities, its taste being quite vapid.

"The head reclined on a pillow, and, as the covering decayed, it was found to contain a collection of strong-scented herbs. Balm, sage, and mint were easily distinguished; and it was the opinion of many, that the body was filled with the same. Although the bodies were thus entire at first, I confess I expected to see them crumble into dust; especially as they were exposed to the open air, and the pure aromatic fluid had evaporated; and it seems surprising that they did not. For several weeks they underwent no visible change, and had they not been sullied with dust and drops of grease from the candles held over them, I am confident they might have remained as entire as ever; for even a few months ago (many months after), the bodies were as firm and compact as at first, and though pressed with the finger did not yield to the touch, but seemed to retain the elasticity of the living body. Even the shroud, through torn by the rude hands of the regardless multitude, is still strong and free from rot.

"Perhaps the most singular phenomenon is, that the bodies seem not to have undergone the smallest decomposition or disorganization. Several medical gentlemen have made a small incision into the arm of the infant; the substance of the body was quite firm, and every part in its original state." To the above remarkable instance we may add the following:--The tomb of Edward the First, who died on the 7th July, 1307, was opened on the 2nd of January, 1770, and after the lapse of 463 years, the body was found not decayed; the flesh on the face was a little wasted, but not putrid.

The body of Canute the Dane, who got possession of England in the year 1017, was found very fresh in the year 1766, by the workmen repairing Winchester Cathedral. In the year 1522, the body of William the Conqueror was found as entire as when first buried, in the Abbey Church of St. Stephen, at Caen; and the body of Matilda, his wife, was found entire in 1502, in the Abbey Church of the Holy Trinity in the same city.

No device of art, however, for the preservation of the remains of the dead, appears equal to the simple process of plunging them over head and ears in peat-moss.

In a manuscript by one Abraham Grey, who lived about the middle of the 16th century, now in the possession of his representative, Mr. Goodbehere Grey, of Old Mills, near Aberdeen, it is stated, that in 1569, three Roman soldiers in the dress of their country, fully equipped with warlike instruments, were dug out of a moss of great extent, called Kazey Moss. When found, after a lapse of probably about fifteen hundred years, they "were quite fresh and plump."

PERFUMES.

So perfect were the Egyptians in the manufacture of perfumes, that some of their ancient ointment, preserved in an alabaster vase in the Museum at Alnwick, still retains a very powerful odour, though it must be between 2,000 and 3,000 years old.

FRENCH ASSIGNATS--THEIR ORIGIN.

Extraordinary devices for raising money are legitimate subjects for our pages. Of these devices, the French Assignats are not the least remarkable. They originated thus--in the year 1789, at the commencement of the great Revolution in France, Talleyrand proposed in the National Assembly a confiscation of all church property to the service of the state. The Abbe Maury opposed this project with great vehemence, but being supported by Mirabeau, it received the sanction of the Assembly by an immense majority on the 2nd of November. The salaries fixed for the priesthood were small, and, moreover, were not sufficiently guaranteed; whence originated much misery to all classes of priests, from the archbishops down to the humble cures; and as monastic institutions were treated in the same way, monks and nuns were suddenly placed in precarious circumstances regarding the means of subsistence. Here, however, an unexpected difficulty sprang up; the National Assembly were willing to sell church property, but buyers were wanting; conscience, prudence, and poverty combined to lessen the number of those willing to purchase; and thus the urgent claims of the treasury could not be satisfied. Applications for loans were not responded to; taxes had been extinguished; voluntary donations had dwindled almost to nothing; and 400,000,000 of livres were necessary for the vast claims of the year 1790. The municipalities of Paris and other cities sought to ameliorate the state of affairs by subscribing for a certain amount of church property, endeavouring to find private purchasers for it, and paying the receipts into the national exchequer. This, however, being but a very partial cure for the enormity of the evils, the National Assembly fell upon the expedient of creating state-paper or bank-notes, to have a forced currency throughout the kingdom. Such was the birth of the memorable assignats. Four hundred millions of this paper were put in circulation; and a decree was passed that church property to that amount should be held answerable for the assignats. Our sketch represents several of the different forms in which the Assignats were issued to the public.

EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI.

The judicial murder of Louis XVI. was the climax of the Revolution in France. The Convention voted his death at three o'clock on the morning of the 20th January, 1793, and he was taken to execution in twenty-six hours afterwards.

The guillotine was erected in the middle of the Place Louis XV., a large open square, having the Champs Elysees on one side, and the gardens of the Tuileries on the other. The Place bristled with artillery, and every street and avenue leading to it was crowded with troops and armed multitudes, who had cannon with them charged with grape-shot; while the carriage was surrounded by picked men, who had orders to despatch the king with their carbines in case of any rescue being attempted. At about half-past ten, the king, who had been engaged in prayer during the ride, arrived at the spot; he descended from the coach, and his confessor followed him. Three executioners approached to remove his upper garments, but he put them back, and performed that simple office for himself. He resisted somewhat the indignity of having his hands tied, and only yielded on the entreaty of his confessor; and had also to yield on the subject of cutting off his back hair. He ascended the steps that led to the platform with a firm bearing, still followed by M. Edgeworth. When on the top, he made a sudden movement towards the edge of the scaffold, and exclaimed with a loud and firm voice: "Frenchmen, I die innocent; it is from the scaffold, and when about to appear before my God, that I tell you so. I pardon my enemies; I pray that France"----Here Santerre, on horseback, raised his right hand, and cried: "Drums! Executioners, do your duty!" Several drummers immediately began by their noise to drown the sound of the king's voice: and six executioners brought him to the centre of the scaffold. He exclaimed again: "I die innocent; I ever desired the good of my people;" but his voice could be heard only by the executioners and the priest. He then knelt down, in order to place his head in the appointed spot; the confessor, bending over him said: "Son of St. Louis, ascend to heaven!" The spring of the machine was touched, the heavy axe descended in its grooves, and the once royal head was severed from the body. Samson, the chief executioner, took up the bleeding head by the hair, and walked three times round the scaffold, holding it up at arm's-length to show it to the people. The troops and the spectators shouted: "Vive la Republique!" put their hats and caps upon their bayonets and pikes, and waved them in the air, with prolonged and re-echoing cries of "Vive la Republique!" "Vive la Nation!" "Vive la Liberte!" Many of the savage men standing near the scaffold dipped their pike-heads into the king's blood, and others their handkerchiefs--not as a sacred memento, but as a symbol of the downfall of all kings; they even paraded these gore-stained objects before the windows of the Temple, that perchance the queen and her children might see them. The headless trunk of Louis was put into a large wicker-basket, placed in the coach, and carried to the cemetery of La Madeleine; where, without coffin or shroud, it was thrown into a deep pit, partly filled up with quicklime. On that same morning, one Benoit Leduc, a tailor, who had on some occasions worked for Louis, presented a petition to the Convention, praying to be allowed, at his own expense, to bury the body of the king by the side of his father, Louis XV., and under the monument raised to that prince by the city of Sens; but the Convention rejected his petition, and ordered the executive council to see that Louis was buried like other criminals.

A MAN AGED ONE HUNDRED YEARS CLAIMING A BOTTLE OF WINE.

John Bull, of London, stock-broker, died 1848, aged 100 years. When at the age of about 93, and in the employ of Messrs. Spurling, stock-brokers, he left by mistake in the office of the accountant of the Bank of England, a large number of bank notes. On discovering his loss, after diligently searching for the missing parcel, he went back to the accountant's office, partly to acquaint Mr. Smee with the circumstance, and partly as a last hope that he might there find the missing treasure. To his great joy he found the parcel safe in the accountant's possession, whom he earnestly implored to keep the secret, lest his employers should think his faculties were failing. Mr. Smee of course gave him the required assurance, and goodnaturedly added, that when Mr. Bull should attain the age of 100 years, he would treat him to the finest bottle of wine in his cellar. Some time before his becoming a centenarian, he was pensioned off by his employer, and Mr. Smee had, in all probability, quite forgotten the affair; when, true to the engagement, the venerable, but still active old clerk, made his appearance at the bank on the important day, and claimed the promised bottle of wine. The claim was promptly allowed; and the last birthday of the aged official was one of the happiest among his friends of the long list of such events which had been its precursor. After continuing vigorous and active, and almost free from indisposition up to this time, he, along with many other aged persons, fell a victim to that fatal influenza which prevailed so extensively throughout the country, and more especially in London and its suburbs, during the autumn of 1847 and the winter of 1848.

CHARITY REWARDED BY A RICH AND LIBERAL MENDICANT.

Within the present century, a beggar in Moorfields used daily to have a penny given him by a merchant on his way to the Exchange. The penny was withheld, and the appearance of the merchant manifested his embarrassment and distress. The beggar at length spoke to him, offered him a loan of L500, and another of the same sum if it were required. It re-established his affairs.

HACKNEY COACHMAN OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II.