apart from the others, and in the act of changing his shooting-jacket for an office coat, was quietly beckoned by Mr. Frodsham. He was a good-looking youngster of four-and-twenty, with a frank, ingenuous expression, crisply curling chestnut hair, regular features, and brilliant teeth. Had he a duplicate key of the safe? Certainly he had; but why was he asked? Was anything the matter? Mr. Frodsham shrugged his shoulders and heaved a sigh. The sergeant was heard to murmur something about "words took down" and "not committing yourself:" the key was produced; and the policeman, Mr. Frodsham, and Mr. Danby walked into a private office -Mr. Moger, the recognised wit among the clerks, causing great mirth by whispering that "Danby had frisked the till, and was going to be searched."

There was no necessity for Mr. Danby's key, for the door of the safe stood wide open. Mr. Frodsham could scarcely believe his eyes, and young Danby uttered a loud exclamation of astonishment. The policemen looked on in silence; but the sergeant, with his eye on Mr. Danby, repeated the handcuff-searching process. Mr. Frodsham was the first to speak.

"It's plain enough now," said he; "there's been robbery as well as murder. The villains must have been disturbed and hurried off, leaving the door open! "I don't know that," said Mr. Danby, who had approached the safe. "Everything here seems undisturbed; and here is the key of the strong room in its usual position. Mr. Middleham may have forgotten

"Bah!" said Mr. Frodsham, taking a sonorous pinch of snuff. "Did you ever know Mr. Middleham forget anything in business? I never did, and I've been with him for thirty years!"

"Better get to the strong-room, gentlemen, please," interposed the sergeant; "talkin's a waste of time in these matters." The strong-room door was found locked; but when it was opened, there was an end to all doubt as to what had been done. The floor was strewn with bits of cut cord and tape, with seals adhering to it; one of the office candles, in its old-fashioned, heavy, lead candlestick, was on a shelf; two large boxes, belonging to customers, had been forced open, the chisel used in the process lying by them. Mr. Frodsham lifted a sunk lid in a kind of counter across the far end of the room, and looked eagerly into the aperture. Then he cried

out, and beckoned those who were standing stupefied to come to him.

There were two thousand sovereigns in this till last night," he said, shaking all over. "Two thousand; for I counted them myself, and now there's not one-not a single one!"

"Better look at the notes," said Mr. Danby, taking down something looking like a book, and unbuckling the straps surrounding it. "No!" he said, running his eyes and fingers rapidly over the crisp Bank of England notes, lying flat on each other, and divided into packets of different amounts. "All seems straight here; the thieves must have missed them!"

"Not much of a miss they did'nt make!" observed the sergeant forcibly, though ungrammatically; "a sovereign 'll go anywhere, but them notes is no good to them, numbers known and stopped, must send 'em abroad, getting, perhaps, three shillin's in the pound, and the large ones not to be fobbed off at any price! They knew what they was about, this lot did, knew what bankin' business meant, into the bargain!"

"What do you mean by that?" asked Mr. Frodsham, indignantly.

"What I say, sir," answered the sergeant, coolly, but with perfect respect. "To my mind this was a put-up job, this was; the parties as were in it knew all about the ins and outs of this establishment, knew their way all about the place, where the keys was kept, and where to lay their hands on this or that, knew the chief cashier-who, I've heard, is a remarkable smart man--was away, and that, no offence to you sir," turning to Mr. Frodsham, "things might have gone a little slack, and discipline not be maintained at the usual very high pitch. What they did not know, and what no one could have known, for he seems to have settled it all unexpected, poor gentleman, was that Mr. Middleham intended to sleep at the bank last night, and that cost him his life."

66

Do you think so, sergeant?" said Mr. Frodsham. "Good Lord, what an awful idea-such a mere chance as that!"

"My notion is that they wanted the old gentleman's keys, and the old gentleman would not let 'em have 'em. And-and that's how it came about! However," continued the sergeant, "this is a big business, sir, and I must report it to my inspector. I'll leave my men on the premises, if you please, for when the news gets wind I dare say you'll have a crowd round here.

Mr. Middleham was a well-known man, and it ain't everyday that we has a murder and a bank robbery in the city!"

As the sergeant passed out of the private door he noticed that business had commenced in the bank, and that much conversation, upon what subject there could be no doubt, was being carried on across the counter. But Mr. Frodsham and young Danby returned to the strong-room, after the former had given out the money for the day, and then pursued their investigation. All the deeds and papers, all the bonds and securities, were there, but a large amount of jewellery, left there for safe keeping, had vanished, and Mr. Danby hunted in vain for some magnificent diamond ornaments, deposited by a foreign customer of the bank, which he recollected assisting Mr. Heath in cataloguing and packing shortly before the chief cashier went away. By the time they had finished their search, and made memoranda of what they supposed to be missing, the inspector had visited the bed-room, the hue and cry had spread, the lane was lined by the crowd, the news had reached the newspaper offices, ragged boys with copies of "Third Edition" hanging over their arms, were charging up Fleet-street, yelling out, "Murder banker-robbery," the whole London world took it up, and "Middleham's murder" was at once installed as the topic of the day. Middleham's murder! It was years since a crime had been committed under circumstances of such daring atrocity, years since a victim of such position, and so well known, had been selected. It was the theme of discussion everywhere, in the city taverns, where the clerks ate their stand-up luncheons at the bar, and the city clubs, where the smart stock-brokers, and the portly old merchants, took their mid-day meal; at the Bentinck, of which the dead man had been a member so many years, and where his elegy was spoken in the words "Middleham played a steady game-your deal;" in society, which bestowed a few words of astonished pity on the manner of his death "so horrid, don't you know!" and forgot him immediately after; up the river where, for a year or two, boating-men would point out the lovely lawn at Loddonford, as the "place" which "belonged to that old banking buffer who was murdered in the city." Daily newspapers published sersation articles about it, and a weekly illustrated journal gave a view of the room in which the crime was committed, a view

which was somewhat blurred and spotty in its general effect, to be accounted for by the fact that it had already done duty as "Bed-room of the Mannings in Miniver place, Bermondsey," and "Rush's kitchen." It was made the theme for magazine poetry, and the text for sermons, and afforded many Little-Bethel divines an opportunity for enlarging on the sin of making money, and keeping a country house.

Middleham's murder! For murder it was, though some would-be wiseacres hinted at suicide. The coroner (a very pleasant little man, devoted to Thames angling, and well acquainted with the deceased at Loddonford) held an inquest, and the jury brought in a verdict of "wilful murder, against some person or persons unknown." Unknown they were,

and unknown they seemed likely to remain, for the police were quite unable to hit upon their track.

AN OLD MINE RE-OPENED.

THE ancient British and the modern English word "Cant" have widely different meanings. So recently as the Elizabethan era its original signification had been lost in the darkness of antiquity. At that day it was applied to what was called the jargon or gibberish used for purposes of secrecy by thieves, tramps, beggars and gipsies, and was supposed to be no language at all, but a merely arbitrary creation of the vulgar and illiterate. Gradually this meaning of the word gave place to that which it now retainshypocritical and insincere speech. A canting hypocrite is a bad man who pretends to be a good man; a fellow who affects to be better, and holier, than his neighbours, though all the while he may be a scoundrel.

The author of a philological work which was published in 1689, under the title of "Gazophylacium Anglicanum, containing the derivation of English words, proper and common, proving the Dutch and Saxon to be the prime fountains; fitted to the capacity of the English reader, who may be curious to know the original of his mother tongue: gave a curious etymology for the word "cant." "To cant," he says, is to use canting language, possibly from the Teutonic Tand, a ridiculous phantasm; or from the Latin cento, idle discourse." This derivation was not

satisfactory to other compilers of Dictionaries to Johnson and his successor Richardson. The latter held that the terms "cant" and "canting," were probably derived" from 'chaunt' and 'chaunting,' the whining tone and modulation of voice adopted by beggars with intent to coax, wheedle, or cajole." Bailey's Dictionary described "Cant" to be gibberish, pedlar's French, and the obscure talk of gipsies and rogues. Dr. Johnson, apparently to his own satisfaction, traced the word from the Latin cantus, a song; and gave five shades of meaning to it; first, a corrupt dialect used by beggars and vagabonds; second, a form of speaking peculiar to some certain class or body of men; third, a whining pretension to goodness; fourth a barbarous jargon; and fifth an auction. For the last of these meanings he cites the authority of Dean Swift. The Latin etymology looks plausible enough, but is erroneous. That which is given in the Spectator is still more amusing than those of Johnson and his predecessors. "Cant," says the Spectator, in an article written by Tickell, "is, by some people, derived from one Andrew Cant, who, they say, was a Presbyterian minister in some illiterate part of Scotland, who by exercise and use had obtained the faculty, alias gift, of talking in the pulpit in such a dialect that it is said he was understood by none but his own congregation, and not by all of them. Since Master Cant's time it has been understood in a larger sense, and signifies all sudden whinings, exclamations, unusual tones, and, in fine, all praying and preaching like the unlearned of the Presbyterians."

Philologists looked so far a-field to make discoveries, only because they were ignorant of the fact that there was an unexplored mine of language under their very feet, and that the old speech of the British people had not so wholly perished from the land as men supposed. Had they known in what direction to turn their researches, they would have discovered that the true root of the word Cant, is the Gaelic and ancient British Cainnt, which simply signifies language; the language, in fact, of the British people before the irruption of the Anglo-Saxons and Danes. This language, or part of it, still survives in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, and has left many traces in the vernacular English as spoken during the last thousand years. Every now and then an old word from this ancient sub

stratum exudes through the Anglo-Saxon upper crust of modern English, and, if noticed by philologists, is said to be cant, or slang, and described as low, vulgar, and without etymology. The real derivation of a few of these despised, but venerable and expressive words, apropos of a recently published Slang Dictionary, may be of interest at a time like this, when a Celtic revival, begun by German scholars, is slowly extending itself to Great Britain.

The editor of the Slang Dictionary, Etymological, Historical, and Anecdotical (Chatto and Windus, 1874), says, truly, "The word Cant, in its old sense, and Slang in its modern acceptation, although used by good writers and persons of education as synonymous, are in reality quite distinct and separate terms. Cant, apart from religious hypocrisy, refers to the old secret language of gipsies, thieves, tramps, and beggars. Slang represents that evanescent language, ever changing with fashion and taste, which has come into vogue during the last seventy or eighty years, spoken by persons in every class of life, rich and poor, honest and dishonest. Cant is old; Slang is new and ever changing."

The collection of cant and slang, or, as they were once called, flash words and phrases, is no new thing in English literature. One of the earliest was published in the sixteenth century, under the title of the Fraternitie of Vagabonds. This was followed, some years later, in 1566, by a Caveat, or Warning for Common Cursetors, vulgarly called Vagabonds, set forth by Thomas Harman, Esquire, for the utility and profit of his natural country, &c., a new edition of which was published in 1871. This book is principally devoted to an account of the tricks of thieves and tramps, and contains a not very copious glossary of their peculiar words, without any attempt to show their origin or etymology. Various other collections of a similar kind appeared at intervals, until the year 1785, when the most pretentious and important of them was published by Captain Grose, under the title of "A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue." This work, however, has long been superseded, and its place promises to be assumed and retained by the far more copious Slang Dictionary which has just made its appearance.

I propose to treat only of Cant or Cainnt, derived from the old British and Gaelic tongue, and shall select from a multitude of

highest

Beak. A magistrate, a police magistrate: Gaelic, Beachd, judgment; whence Beachdair, one who sits in judgment. The Slang Dictionary says the ancient word was beck, and was derived from the Saxon beag, a necklace or gold collar, emblem of authority. The compiler queries whether the word is connected with the Italian becco, which means a bird's beak, and also a blockhead!

Banyan days. This phrase is employed by sailors, to denote the days when no animal food is served out to them. The word is derived from the remembrance of their childhood on shore, when bread-andmilk days came round twice or thrice in the week. Dr. Worcester, in his Dictionary, says, the Banians are "a peculiar class among the Hindoos, who believe in metempsychosis, and therefore abstain from animal food." The real derivation is to be found nearer home, in the Gaelic Bainne, milk, and bannachan, a cake made with milk.

Bloke. This word has recently become popular to signify disrespectfully a man, a person, a party. The Slang Dictionary derives it from the gipsy and Hindoo loke, or from the northern English bloacher, any large animal. In Gaelic the consonants b and pare almost identical in pronunciation. The word is of native, not of Hindoo, growth. The Gaelic ploc, signifies a round mass, a large head; plocach, a stout man; plocag, a stout woman; plocanta, a stout, sturdy person, one with large cheeks.

Boss.-The master or chief person in a shop or factory. This word, recently introduced into England from the United States, was originally used by the American working classes to avoid the word master -a word which was only employed to signify the relation between a slave-owner and his human chattel. Bos, in Gaelic, signifies the hand; whence bos bhuail, to slap or strike hands, and bos ghaire, applause by the clapping of hands. Bos, or Boss, used in this sense, would mean the chief hand in the business, where all the workmen are known as hands, and would thus become a euphemism for the master.

commendation of a man's character. "He's a regular brick," i.e. the best of good fellows. The learned have accepted a Greek origin for this phrase, and derived it from an expression of Aristotle's, tetragōnos anēr, a man of four corners. But the derivation, though universally admitted, may, nevertheless, be wrong. At all events a Gaelic root suggests itself for consideration. In that language brigh signifies pith, essence, vigour, spirit; and brigheil, spirited, pithy, strong; whence by metaphor, a "brick may mean a man of the right spirit.

Bumper. A full glass or goblet. Many attempts have been made to trace the origin of this word. Some have derived it from a supposed habit in England in pre-Protestant times of drinking in a full glass to the health of the bon père, i.e. the Pope. Others have derived it from bump, a protuberance, because in a bumper the liquor flows, or protrudes, over the brim. The Gaelic supplies a third derivation in the words bun, the bottom, and barr, the top; corrupted in pronunciation into bumbarr, i.e. full from the bottom to the top. A bumper house, in theatrical parlance, is a house full from the bottom to the top.

Cabbage. To steal; originally and still applied to tailors and milliners, who are supposed to cut off for their own use pieces of the cloth, silk, velvet, or other materials entrusted to them to be made up. Gaelic cabaich, to notch, to indent, to make square, or blunt, by cutting off the end of anything.

Card. A person, a man, a fellow; a queer card," a strange person, an odd fellow, a "cool card," a coolly impudent person. Gaelic caird, a workman, a mechanic, a tinker.

Cagg. To abstain for a certain time from liquor. Grove says this "is a military term used by the private soldiers, signifying a solemn vow or resolution not to get drunk for a certain time, or, as the term is, not till their cagg is out; which vow is commonly observed with strictness; ex. "I have cagged myself for six months." "Excuse me this time and I will cagg for a year." This term is also in use among the common people in Scotland. Gaelic cagail, to save, to spare, to refrain, to economise. Cagailt, frugality, parsimony. Cagallach, careful, sparing, niggardly.

Corned.-Drunk, intoxicated. Possibly derived, says the Slang Dictionary," from soaking or pickling oneself (with liquor)