Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

uns; quicker and worse, if anything. I've known older men than you tied up.' And then followed a jocose comparison, in the very worst taste, and void of all originality, between the marriage tie and the noose of the last officer of justice.

The room was still during this speech. An expectation prevailed that my uncle would deliver himself after a very strenuous fashion, indeed, and that, as was whispered in corners, 'Royster would get rather better than he brought.' A muttered caution was passed about to the purport that he'd do well to take care how he put old Joe Strangways' monkey up.' But, greatly to the surprise of all, my uncle held his peace. He simply blinked at the fire, and took to stirring his tumbler busily.

'Marriage is easy enough. Like a prison, for that matter. You're soon in, if you ain't so soon out. A man's only to ask and to have. There's women enough in the world. There's wedding-rings in all the jewellers' windows; there's a parson in every church. Sharp's the word if you mean business. I wonder you ain't got married before, Strangways. You're just the sort of man as women would come round, I should have thought. How you've gone on single all these years, is more than I can say. Not that it's too late now; you've time before you, and the church don't count age an obstacle. The old corn sometimes fetches a better price than the new. Bless you, you'd soon find a market, if you sought one. There's many a woman would bid for you, and bid high too. Now, there's that Mrs Brocklebank of yours.'

There arose a general murmur that this was 'too bad, much too bad.' It was felt to be a great liberty. If gentlemen's housekeepers were to be dragged into the conversation, and their names bandied about in this lax way, where were things to end? The sanctities of private life were invaded, and decency was defied. "Society could not exist upon such terms. Still, my uncle said nothing The irrepressible and audacious Royster persisted with his discourse.

'Mrs Brocklebank's a fine woman,' he said, addressing himself pointedly to Mr Strangways. 'You really think she's a fine woman?' my uncle inquired mildly.

'Certainly, I do; no question of it. Weigh her; measure her; walk round her. She'll pull down a many bushels of corn, if they was put in the scale against her, would Mrs Brocklebank. How you've managed to let her remain Mrs Brocklebank so long, I can't think; nor how she's let you remain a bachelor so long, neither.'

There were cries of Shame!' 'Scandalous!' 'The man's drunk!' My uncle was quietly gazing at the clock.

'I mean no scandal,' went on the outrageous Royster. Strangways knows his own business, I suppose. There's no harm in saying Mrs Brocklebank's a fine woman. I dare any man to deny it.' 'Nay, but coupling names in that way, Royster,' said one of the guests, staring into the depths of his grog, and shaking his head deprecatingly; 'it's against all rules. It's unfair-there! I'll go farther. It's offensive-right down offensive. It's wounding to gentlemen's feelings. I don't care who says it isn't.'

My uncle drew his huge gold watch from his fob, and compared it with the Salutation clock.

'I mean no offence,' resumed Royster, a little abashed, for he perceived that the feeling of the

room was decidedly against him. 'I don't want to hurt any gentleman's feelings. But I'm not one to be put down. What I said, I'll say again.' He emptied his tumbler, and glared aggressively at the guest who had interposed. 'Parties shouldn't be in too great a hurry to be offended. For coupling names, that's not my doing. If names come together, who can hinder it? I'm not called on to part 'em, am I? What did I say? Simkinson's married; why not Strangways? If married, why not to Mrs Brocklebank? A man might do worse. She's admitted on all hands to be a fine woman.'

'Well, well; enough said,' the guest observed; he was a sugar-broker of pacific nature and great respectability. 'It's no affair of yours, you know, Royster.'

6

Did I say it was my affair? I appeal to the room. It's Strangways' affair; I know that very well. If he likes to marry Mrs Brocklebank, why shouldn't he? Let him, I say. Perhaps he's married to her already, for all I know. Such things have happened before now.'

This was beyond all bounds. There was a great commotion in the room. All agreed that Royster was quite insufferable. 'What's come to the man? people asked. He can be pleasant. He never was one to go on like this before.'

In the midst of the tumult, my uncle rose. There was apprehension, perhaps even hope, that he was then and there about to fall upon Royster, and chastise him severely for his insolence, or at least that he meditated a stinging speech, denunciatory of the treatment to which he had been subjected. Mr Strangways, however, merely took down his hat from the peg appropriated to his use, said in his usual precise way: 'Good-night, gentlemen all,' and departed. It was noted that he had left the Salutation about half an hour earlier than usual. Still he appeared in nowise disturbed at what had happened. Altogether, his conduct occasioned much amazement to his friends. He was hardly in their eyes the same old Joe Strangways' they had known since so many years.

'Give me my candle,' said my uncle, when the door in Mole's Buildings was opened to admit him by Mrs Brocklebank the housekeeper. She lighted his candle for him. He stood for a few moments at the foot of the stairs, tapping his fingers on his chin, with a meditative yet irresolute air.

'Is there anything else, Mr Strangways?' inquired Mrs Brocklebank.

the

He started, turned towards her, and held up candle so that its light might fall full upon her face. For some moments he remained so, speechless.

'You're looking uncommonly well, to-night, Mrs Brocklebank,' he said at length.

Lor, Mr Strangways, I'm pretty middling, thank you,' answered the housekeeper.

Uncommonly well,' my uncle repeated gravely. 'I'm flushed, that's all,' said Mrs Brocklebank. 'I've been bending over my work, or the kitchen fire's caught my cheeks. I'm usually pale, I think.'

as he

'No, not pale, I shouldn't say pale, Mrs Brockle bank,' remarked my uncle thoughtfully, continued to gaze at his housekeeper. 'Well, sir, colour don't matter much at my years' Mr Strangways seemed to muse over this statement with an inclination to dispute it.

[ocr errors]

Would you like the warming-pan to-night, sit

'No, thank you, Mrs Brocklebank; not to-night, I think.'

He mounted a few steps, and then paused anew. 'Good-night, sir,' said the housekeeper. He took no heed of this benediction.

'Was Brocklebank a good husband to you?' he inquired suddenly.

"Well, sir, he might have been better, and that's the truth. But he's been dead this many a year now, and I don't care to speak ill of him.' 'You're sure he's dead?'

'Quite sure, sir.'

'Drowned at sea, I think you told me once?' 'First-mate on board a coasting-vessel, wrecked upon the Good'ins. His poor body was picked up at low-tide with all his features full of sand.' 'Did he beat you ?'

'Never, when he was sober, sir.' 'Was he often sober?' 'Not always, sir.' 'Poor creature!' It was not clear whether my uncle referred to his housekeeper or to her deceased husband. 'Good-night, Mrs Brocklebank;' and he continued his route up-stairs.

e-'but he's

'Royster was right,' he muttered. He's a blackguard'—here Mr Strangways swore—' right. She is a fine woman; there's no gainsaying it. And people have been coupling names, have they? It's a liberty, but perhaps it's not so "Simkinson married; why not very surprising. "If married, Strangways?" That's how they talk. "A man might why not to Mrs Brocklebank?" do worse." A fine woman-certainly. I wonder I've never noticed it before. Yes, that coarse blockhead Royster's right-no question of it.'

'What's come to him?' Mrs Brocklebank asked herself. 'He never remarked on my looks before, and he seemed quite particular about 'em to-night.' She studied her reflection in the looking-glass. 'I'm much as usual, I think, only my cap might have been put on straighter. It was quite strange how he looked at me. Had he been taking an extra glass? Gentlemen will, at times, and then there's no knowing what they won't say or do. But no-he's home half an hour earlier than usual, and sober and steady as a judge he was; there's no saying otherwise. But for all that, he did look at me uncommon strange. His eyes quite pierced me. And why should he ask about Brocklebank ? Very odd of him, certainly.'

BUTCHER-MEAT.

THE rise in the price of meat has been attributed by the people at large to all sorts of reasons, of which scarcely any single one can be considered as real. The butcher and the grazier, so vehemently attacked by our sturdy provincial matrons, have been at all times fond of large profits, and there is no reason to believe that they are more extorting now than they ever were. The foot-and-mouth disease and the cattle-plague have no doubt their share of influence in the matter; but cattle were at all times exposed to various sorts of illnesses, just as all other living beings are, and meat rose in price all over Europe during years when there was no kind of epidemic to complain of. The severe measures taken by the government against the import of diseased beasts from abroad-measures so foolishly abused at our working-men's meetings

might also have exercised their little influence, but it could by no means have been a considerable one, for the whole import of foreign live-meat amounts, according to the Reports of the Board of Trade, to only 81,578 tons, which makes scarcely five per cent. of the yearly consumption of the country. Therefore, if the import was completely cut off, it could not naturally raise the price of meat more than about a halfpenny per pound. The real reasons of the constantly increasing dearth of meat are numerous, and the most important among them are: 1. The killing of immature animals; 2. The enormous increase of population; and 3. The more general use of meat. Of these, only the influence of the first could be alleviated by some artificial means, like a prohibition of bringing veal and lamb into the market, or by imposing a tax upon this sort of meat. The two other causes are permanent and unalterable. Besides, they are acting not only in this country, but abroad too, though in a less violent form. The well-known French statistician, M. Maurice Block, calculated the yearly consumption of meat in 1848 and 1868, amounting per head of the whole population of

[blocks in formation]

In England, the yearly consumption of meat is now generally understood to be one hundred pounds a head of the whole population; while Macculloch estimated it, in 1835, for London, only as amounting to ninety-six pounds a head-the country population consuming usually but half the amount of meat consumed by the inhabitants of large cities. We may therefore pretty fairly assume that the average consumption of meat all over the country has doubled within these last thirty-five years. Besides, the above table shews that nowhere in Europe does this consumption reach anything like the limits it reaches in this country. Calculated at one hundred pounds a head, our total yearly absorption of meat makes the fabulous amount of something like 3,200,000,000 pounds. Towards this enormous national demand for live-meat, the statistics, in April last, 9,347,789 of cattle of all country had in stock, as shewn by agricultural age, 31,416,829 sheep and lambs, and 4,136,903 pigs. The average weight of English beasts is generally considered as being six hundred pounds for cattle of all age, sixty pounds for sheep and lambs, and one hundred and thirty-four pounds for pigs. Upon these data, a writer in the Manchester Guardian made the following calculation with reference to the whole weight of the national flock and herd: In cattle, 5,608,673,400; in sheep and lambs, 1,885,009,740; in pigs, 554,344,202: total, 8,048,027,342. Of this amount, says the writer, the 31,817,108 inhabitants which were ascertained to live on these

islands on the 3d of April 1871, 'would leave a balance of live-meat of not more than 3,868,316,542 pounds, which, taking an average aggregate animal -an ox-sheep-pig, so to say-as weighing 265 pounds, would give an allotment of not half a beast per inhabitant-14,645,138 aggregate animals for thirty-one million odd of men! This, it will be admitted, is not a flourishing state of affairs, nor one that promises any reduction in the price of meat.' In fact, these data shew that, with such a consumption, we must yearly reduce our national flock and herd; and agricultural statistics frankly avow the case to be so. Commenting further on that question, the same writer says: "The chief cause of the constantly growing dearness in the means of life, a cause against which no amount of grumbling can help, is the amazing increase of population in the United Kingdom. The success of the recent French loan has once more puzzled the world, by shewing how prosperous is the mass of the people in France. The chief reason of this prosperity, and especially of a more uniform spread of it over all classes, lies in the fact, that the population increases very slowly. Since the end of the wars of the First Empire, the French population has increased by only about eight millions, making an average of about one hundred and fifty thousand a year; while the population of the United Kingdom has increased during the same time by about nineteen millions, giving an average yearly increase of about three hundred and fifty thousand; without taking into account the fact that emigration has freed the British soil during the same period of some 6,765,697 inhabitants. It may be said, without risk of exaggeration, that had every man born in these islands remained here, there would be a very speedy end to everything, and not to live-stock only. Some one hundred and twenty thousand square miles of not very fertile land, of which, moreover, a good deal remains uncultivated, and some is quite uncultivable, are called upon to feed thirty-two millions of inhabitants this side of the Channel; while over two hundred thousand square miles of excellent land, every acre of which is turned to the best account, are called upon to feed thirty-eight millions on the other side. Is it reasonable to expect any equality in the cost of living in these two cases, especially if we take into consideration the fact, that while in the less advantageously situated country one hundred pounds of meat a year is the lowest estimate of consumption a head all over the country, on the other hand, in the more advantageously situated country this proportion holds good only for the capital, and the provinces consume scarcely fifty pounds a year a head?'

Whether this be a thoroughly correct view to take on the question or not, there can be no doubt that, when a population increases so speedily, and gets into the habit of eating more meat besides, this article of food must necessarily rise in price, unless imports can be made to balance the increased demand. Now, imports of live-meat cannot be easily increased, for, besides bringing epidemics into the country, they are regulated by the prices of cattle abroad, and these prices rise almost as quickly abroad as they rise here. We have no reliable data concerning the rise in prices of cattle in Russia and Germany; but M. Maurice Block gives the following figures for France. In 1827, an imported bullock fetched, on an average, two

hundred francs; in 1847, two hundred and eighty francs; in 1857, four hundred franes; and in 1867, four hundred and forty francs.' Sheep have risen in still greater proportion; they were worth seventeen francs apiece in 1827, and one hundred francs apiece in 1867. Meat was supplied to the Paris hospitals at thirty-six centimes per pound in 1830, at thirty-nine centimes in 1840, and at fiftytwo centimes in 1855. These data shew that the rise in prices of meat in this country is not an exclusive fact, and that the vast majority of the poorer classes will be compelled to have recourse to Australian meat, the import of which is already increasing in enormous proportions. In the firs half-year of 1868, when it was first imported, the whole half-yearly supply did not exceed one thousand tons; while during the first half of the current year it has reached one hundred thousand tous, which is a quantity sufficient to provide animal food for four millions of Englishmen at the average of one hundred pounds a year.

IN THE FALL

O AUTUMN, with thy dying smell ;

So faint, so sad, and yet so sweet;
Amid the strewings at my feet,
By pattering nut and broken shell,
I feel the secret of thy spell,

The flying year in full retreat-
For ever.
Reburnished by the last week's rains,

The fields recall the green of spring; The hills describe a sharper ring; The dews in diamonds drench the plains; The leaves grow thinner in the lanes;

The threads upon the hedgerows cling-
In silver.

Pale, like the fading forest hair,
The slanting sunbeams straggle through;
The sky is of a tearful blue;

A pensive essence fills the air;
And, with pathetic sweetness fair,

The wan world seems to wave adieu-
For ever.

The cattle browse along the lea;

The piping robin haunts the lanes; The yellow-turning woodland wanes ;' The apple tumbles from the tree; And Autumn, ranging through, links me To Nature.

O pensive and poetic year,

What is the secret of thy power?
Whereby my poesy would flower
Between a radiance and a tear!
And yet, I find no language here
To paint what trembles to the hour-
Within me!

O Eden-world of hill and green,
And distant gleams of slumbering blue!
I find no lyric language true
To paint the shadowed and the seen:
O infinitely touching view,
In vain thy spirit peeps between!
The sublimities that lie in you
Evade me.

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Pater noster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH Also sold by all Booksellers.

CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL

No. 464.

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
Fourth Series

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1872.

THE RED MEN OF TO-DAY. THE antagonism between various races of men is too well known to need much enforcing by argument, and the 'law,' of which the white people always speak so glibly, which demands that darkskinned tribes shall waste and fade, seems at anyrate to be taken for granted. No race, it is probable, ever interested civilised nations so much, and at the same time roused such a bitter, deadly hatred in those who came in contact with them, as the Indians of North America. That the original wrongs which produced this bitterness were on the white man's side, few will attempt to dispute; but as you cannot hold a fire in your hand by thinking on the frosty Caucasus, neither can a man govern his temper, when he hears of some more than fiendish piece of barbarity, by remembering that his grandfather was in the wrong, or that the grandfathers of the perpetrators of these horrors were in the right.

PRICE 1d.

man continued: 'It is right the people here should know the kind of man you are supporting. I had a home in the West once. I was a farmer; and while I was at work, my wife and child were murdered and scalped by Red Cloud, who sits beside you. I claim'- But further speech was lost amidst the tumult which arose, and during which the man was turned out of the hall for disturbing the meeting. This incident, which is, I have no reason to doubt, a fact, will illustrate, as clearly as need be, how difficult it is to make men, living widely apart, view the troubles of each other with similar glasses.

New America has made thousands familiar with the battle or massacre of Sand Creek, near Denver. This arose immediately through the slaughter of a family named Hungate, and it is really difficult to see what men are to do, except engage in a war of extermination, when savages, insensible to all other argument, are raging around their homes. There had been many Indian murders In America, as in England, there are two parties: in the vicinity of Denver; one which roused its those who would befriend and cherish the abo-people to a high pitch of excitement, occurred at a rigines, and who are, as a rule, inclined to support them in their disputes; and those who would make short work with them, and would exterminate them on any pretext, right or wrong. As in English experience, too, those who live at a distance are commonly the philanthropists; those who come in contact with the children of the prairie' are commonly advocates for 'strychnining' them-a new verb, probably, to some of my readers, but one which carries its own explanation.

[ocr errors]

One of the most famous, or infamous, chiefs of the day is Red Cloud, of the Cheyenne Indians; and he, in company with other chiefs-Standing Buffalo, Jumping Buffalo, and the like-has paid several visits east. At a meeting held at a great town, during one of these trips, this chief was, with several others, on the platform, and a gentleman was explaining the nature of their mission, their desire for peace, their friendly feeling to their white brethren, and so on, when a man rose up

[blocks in formation]

farm-house between the town and the mountains. In this case, the farmer, on returning to his lonely shanty at sundown, beheld the horrible sight of his wife scalped, and nailed by her hands and feet to the side of the house. Coming soon upon this was the Hungate murder, referred to above. Here a man, his wife, and three children, living not many miles from Denver, were slaughtered and mutilated in the most shocking manner. When their mangled bodies were discovered, they were brought into Denver, laid upon rude biers, and exposed in the main street, so that every one should see them. The excitement rose to frenzy; and at its height it was proposed to raise the famous 'Third Cavalry' of Colorado, the term of enlistment being one hundred days. It was well understood that the aim of this corps was to strike a heavy blow at the Indians, and nearly a thousand men volunteered; all classes joining so eagerly, that most of the shops and stores were closed. Electing 'Colonel' Shelvington to the command, the newly raised corps went in search of the red

e

we might call it-and so got ready to proceed with a numerous train then leaving. Unfortunately, as he thought, an accident to two of his wagons compelled him to remain behind, and he lost a day or two; however, he pushed on to overtake the party, which he did, on the banks of a considerable stream. But before he got there, Indian war had burst like a thunder-storm on the plains; he found the huge caravan pillaged and burnt, with many of its defenders lying dead and mangled in the ruins. There were no Indians about there then, but the tokens of their presence were horribly visible wherever a home had been. Almost every farm-house in a circuit of many miles was burnt, and its inmates massacred.

men, and fought the most bloody battle in all Indian history. The tribes were encamped at Sand Creek, some one hundred and seventy miles from Denver, and which is a very broad road, or strip of sand, looking like the deserted bed of a river, and running for many miles. There were supposed to be eleven hundred men, women, and children there, and the best accounts say that seven hundred of these were killed. There were only eleven white men killed, and about forty wounded. The Indians, directly they knew of the approach of their enemies, made what we should term rifle-pits, and rude fences of sand; but nothing could resist the fury with which the white men burst upon them. Nine infants were drowned in one trough of water which was lying there; the women were killed, and portions of them cut off and worn in the men's hats, as they rode back to Denver. It is gravely contended, that the only thorough way to beat the Indians, and to keep them under, is to destroy the children, who otherwise will grow up, as a matter of course, to be Indians themselves. 'In Arizona,' said a man, arguing the point with me, we always killed the papooses. We thought it more important to kill them, than to kill the bucks and squaws. This principle was sternly acted upon at Sand Creek; yet one of the many actors in the fight that I have known went against it. He tells me, that after the first burst of the fight was done, and the Indians were broken and fleeing, he and a comrade were riding past a miserable tent, when they saw a boy, a mere child of apparently six or seven years, sitting quietly in the midst of the blood and slaughter all round. The second man called my informant's attention to the child, and asked if he should shoot him; but the other, being of milder mood, took the little creature before him on his saddle. The Indian boy shewed no sign of fear or pain-yet they found that a bullet had taken his right forefinger off, close to the hand. The kindly soldier fed his little captive with some biscuit, which he ate ravenously, and gave him some water; carry-of ing him before him for some hours, until, unfortunately, he was ordered to ride off with all speed, to a distance of some few miles. He was obliged to leave the child, but he placed him under the protection of a comrade. In his own words: Bill minded the little devil, till he was ordered off by the captain to do something, so he told the young redskin to sit quietly there until he came back. But I came back first, and when I see Bill, I asked him about the youngster, and I thought I would go and find him; but some of the boys had seen him, and cut his throat. Such is Indian warfare.

[ocr errors]

One most remarkable escape at this time attracted a good deal of attention in the West, but I am not aware that it was known in England. A young lady was paying a visit to a farm, about half a day's ride from her home, and she rode thither alone, being, of course, perfectly unaware of the frightful events of the day. The house to which she was going was not visible until she turned a bluff, or hill, when she came upon it within a distance of two or three hundred yards. Her consternation may be imagined when she saw the house in flames, and a mob of Indians dragging the bodies of the farmer and his family around the blazing building, hacking and cutting at what, doubtless, were senseless corpses. She turned her pony and fled, but the savages had seen her, and a large number galloped after her. The girl was riding a favourite pony, which she had broken in herself, and which was valued for its docility and speed. The gallant little thing kept the lead of the Indians for several miles, until she carried her mistress to a large ranch or farm, where some forty or fifty men were assembled, with many women and chil dren, as a place of refuge. The pony galloped right up under the verandah, and the Indians, deeming they had not only the girl, but other prey in their grasp, followed with whoops and yells-when a host

white men burst from each door of the building, and pouring a volley into the savages, killed five outright, and drove the remainder off.

It is of no use arguing with men who have once seen or shared in such scenes as those just hinted at. A man who has lost a home or a relative by the savages, cannot be reasoned with; and no wonder. Within a few miles of where I live, there died last year a Colonel Pfeiffer, a very early settler in these parts, and a great foe to Indians. His wife and child had been murdered by the barbarians, and the colonel never forgot his revenge, and for many years was on the trail, at all possible times, of the tribe which had bereaved him. He was supposed to have slain with his own hands one hundred Indians, and few who knew the circumstances of his calamity would have bid him spare them.

among

Indians,

The outbreak of an Indian war is usually terribly sudden at the moment, although the coming of Indian troubles can always be foretold; indeed, there is often a sort of notice given by the red men themselves; yet the time and Those who have travelled much place of the first blow can never be divined. and away from the chief centres of commerce, At the outbreak of the last great Indian war, have all some shocking story to relate, and, the traffic from Leavenworth, or Kansas City, very generally, some narrow escape. A man across the plains was by team, no railroad having whom I know very well was crossing the praine yet been started; Denver, the then extreme a few years back the prairie' in this article being frontier city, was rising into importance, and a always supposed to be the great Kansas prairie great deal of prairie-trade was done. Indian with a train of six wagons, and after two or three troubles were known to be impending; and a days, finding unmistakable evidence that they friend of my own, having to cross the prairie, was were watched and dogged by Indians, they were anxious to join a powerful party-or caravan, as very glad to meet another train, consisting of twelve

« ПредишнаНапред »