a column, in conspicuous type: ‘Arrival of the Cape Mail. Audacious
Robbery from a Cape Town Bank’—then in smaller print: ‘A considerable
sensation has been caused at Cape Town by the discovery of a robbery
planned and carried out with an audacity which it is not too much
to describe as unique in the annals of crime. The circumstances
are briefly these. On the morning of Wednesday the 16th June, the
mail-steamer _Turcoman_ arrived in Table Bay from England, having on
board some five thousand pounds in gold for the Alliance Bank, to
whose care it was duly delivered on the same day. A portion of this
amount, namely, fifteen hundred pounds, was destined for the use of
the bank’s Diamond Fields branch at De Vriespan, where it was required
with all expedition. The overland service between Cape Town and the
Diamond Fields is a bi-weekly one, leaving the former place at six
A.M. on Monday and Thursday, and covering the whole distance of seven
hundred miles in about five days nine hours. In order, therefore, to
insure the despatch of the case containing the specie by the mail-cart
on the following day, Mr Percival Royston, the assistant-cashier,
was requested to undertake, in conjunction with the senior clerk, Mr
Albertus Jager, the duty of counting and repacking the gold, after the
completion of their ordinary work at six or seven o’clock. According to
the latter gentleman’s statement, the task was not commenced till after
dinner at about eight o’clock. They had made some considerable progress
when Royston remarked how pale and tired his companion was looking.
Upon Mr Jager’s admitting that he was feeling far from well, the other
asked him if he would not give up the work and go home to bed, saying
that he (Royston) would finish the counting himself and have everything
ready in plenty of time for to-morrow. Knowing how thoroughly the
assistant-cashier was trusted by the bank, Mr Jager allowed himself to
be persuaded, and left at once for his own quarters. The case was duly
despatched in the morning, in charge of a clerk proceeding to the De
Vriespan office on promotion, the fact being reported by Royston to the
head-cashier.
‘Nothing further appears to have transpired until Tuesday the 21st
June, when the head-cashier addressing Royston, asked: “By the way,
when is that gold due at De Vriespan? To-day?”
“Yes, sir,” was the answer; “we ought to get the telegram announcing
its arrival in half an hour or so.”
‘It is the custom of the bank to send a junior clerk to the home-going
mail-steamer with late letters for England, which may be posted on
board upon payment of an extra fee. This duty Royston asked to be
allowed to perform on the present occasion, stating that he would be
glad of the opportunity of seeing some friends off who were leaving by
the steamer that day. He left the bank at three forty-five, was seen to
go on board with a travelling-bag ten minutes later, and has not since
been heard of. His other luggage, consisting of two portmanteaus, had
been removed from his lodgings before daybreak, Royston having somehow
obtained the services of a coolie, who states that, following his
instructions, he first carried the luggage to an inn near the docks,
subsequently transferring it thence by hand-truck to the ship as soon
as the dock gates were opened. It should be remarked that Royston
occupied rooms on the ground-floor, the landlord and his wife and the
other lodgers sleeping on the first and second floors. But for this
fact, it would probably have been impossible to effect the removal of
the luggage without disturbing the other occupants of the house.
‘At five o’clock a telegram was received at the Alliance Bank: “De
Vriespan, four thirty. Case just arrived. On being opened, found to
contain nothing but lead-sheeting to exact weight of gold expected.
Clerk in charge denies all knowledge. Wire any instructions.” A cab
dashed furiously to the docks, its occupant the head-cashier, who, as
he turned the corner towards the quay, was just able to descry the
smoke of the vanishing steamer now four or five miles on her way. “Too
late!” shouted the Steam Company’s agent as he passed on foot. “Ship
sailed sharp at four thirty!”
‘The above incident will most probably give a sharp impetus to the
movement, already initiated in Cape commercial circles, for the
establishment of ocean cable communication with Great Britain direct,
the importance of which, from an imperial as well as a colonial point
of view, has long been recognised.’
* * * * *
A keen east wind was blowing in my teeth as I hurried along the Strand
towards Temple Bar one morning in March, and as I bent my head to meet
a more than usually piercing gust, I came against a passer-by, who
answered my apology with a smile of recognition. ‘Mr Rodd, I think?’
It was no other than the polite detective, more polite than ever,
because of the whirling dust and biting wind, against which the best of
good-humour is so rarely proof.
‘Ah, sir,’ he went on, as we drew into a low archway for a moment’s
talk, ‘you would be astonished to hear the story of the wildgoose chase
we had after Mr Percival Royston last summer and autumn. If you would
care to call in at my quarters any day after four o’clock, I should be
very pleased to tell you about it.’
‘Thank you,’ I replied; ‘I will see. Meanwhile, how did it end?’
‘All wrong for _us_, I am sorry to say. He got clean away from us; and
I don’t suppose we shall ever hear of him again.’
The sun shone out for a moment, and the wind seemed to have lost
something of its bitter chill as I wished Detective Elms good-morning
and passed on my way eastward.
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
The abnormally mild winter—if winter it can be called—which has been
experienced this year, has once more raised hopes in the minds of
farmers that brighter times are in store for them. The extreme mildness
of the season has not only been favourable for all field operations,
but it has been most beneficial for stock. Lambs have never been so
numerous as they are this year in many of the southern counties, for
not only have they had the climate in their favour during the most
critical time of their lives, but there has been a wonderful number of
twins. Indeed, the proportion of these latter to single births has on
some farms been as high as sixteen out of twenty.
A silver lining to the dark cloud which has so long overshadowed the
British farmer may also perhaps be discerned in certain operations
which are now being pushed forward at Lavenham, in Suffolk. A private
Company has been formed to recommence, under the more favourable
conditions which the progress of scientific agriculture has rendered
possible, the making of beet-sugar in this country. Between the years
1869 and 1873, Mr James Duncan tried a similar experiment, and the
present Company has acquired his works at Lavenham, to take up once
more the industry which he tried to establish. The recently devised
methods of extracting sugar from the beet are much easier and simpler,
and far less costly, than the processes employed by Mr Duncan; and the
promoters of the enterprise are sanguine of success, if they can only
induce the farmers to grow sufficient beetroot for them to operate
upon. The Company has arranged favourable terms of transport with the
railway authorities; for instance, a truck-load of roots can be brought
to Lavenham from Bury—a distance of eleven miles—for eighteenpence a
ton. For the same distance, Mr Duncan formerly paid four shillings and
twopence a ton. The experiment will be watched with extreme interest by
all agriculturists.
Mr Wood’s lecture to the Institute of Agriculture on the subject of
Ensilage gave some valuable particulars of experiments he had made
with the object of ascertaining which are the crops that can be most
profitably cultivated for that method of preservation. He first of all
took the value of ensilage at twenty-six shillings and eightpence,
or about one-third the value of hay. An acre of heavy meadow-grass
produced twelve tons of compressed food; and the same quantity dried
into hay weighed only two tons seven hundredweight. After allowing for
the cost of producing each, the lecturer showed a balance in favour of
the ensilage over hay of nearly five pounds sterling an acre. Buckwheat
cultivated for treatment as ensilage, against the same valued as a
seed-crop, showed a gain in favour of the silo of two pounds eight
shillings and threepence per acre. Oats compared in like manner show a
balance of five pounds per acre; and here there is a further gain, for
oats cut in the green state have not had the time to exhaust the soil
as if they had been left to mature. There is still a further gain in
favour of ensilage, when it is remembered that the ground is cleared
before the usual time, and is therefore ready very early for new crops.
The lecturer concluded by throwing out a useful hint that dairymen and
cowkeepers in towns could be with great advantage supplied with the new
form of fodder in casks, a sixty-gallon cask holding about thirty-one
stone-weight of the compressed material.
Mr W. F. Petrie, whose recently published book upon the Pyramids of
Gezeh we noticed two months ago, has just undertaken some excavations
in another part of Egypt, which are likely to bear fruitful results.
Amidst a desolation of mud and marsh, there lies, in the north-eastern
delta of the Nile, a place far from the track of tourists, and which
is therefore seldom visited. This now remote spot, Sàn-el-Hagar (that
is, Sàn of the Stones), was once a splendid city, in the midst of the
cornlands and pasturage which formed part of the biblical ‘field of
Zoan.’ Excavations were begun here in 1861 by Mariette Pasha, and he
unearthed the site of the principal temple; but lack of funds and want
of support generally, caused him to give up the work, though not before
several treasures had found their way from his diggings to the Boulak
Museum at Cairo, and to the Louvre. Mr Petrie, under the auspices of
the newly formed Egypt Exploration Fund, commences the work anew in
this promising field of research; and before long we may possibly have
very important finds to chronicle.
At the recent meeting of the Scottish Meteorological Society, held in
Edinburgh, an interesting account was given of the daily work which has
been carried on in the Ben Nevis Observatory since its first occupation
in November last, and which is telegraphed daily from the summit of the
mountain. Several new instruments have been added since that date, and
improvements in the buildings costing a thousand pounds will shortly
be commenced. Referring to the new marine station at Granton, near
Edinburgh, Mr Murray of the _Challenger_ expedition gave an interesting
account of the work going on there. The laboratory is now in working
order, and there is accommodation for five or six naturalists. It is
intended to offer this accommodation free of expense to any British or
foreign naturalist having a definite object of study in view.
The French Academy of Sciences has just received an interesting account
of a meteorite which fell not long ago near Odessa. A bright serpentine
trail of fire was seen one morning to pass over that town; and the
editor of one of the papers, surmising that a meteoric mass might have
fallen from the sky, offered a reward to any one who would bring it to
him. A peasant, who had been terribly frightened by the stone falling
close to him as he worked in the fields, and burying itself in the
ground, answered this appeal. He had dug the stone out of the soil,
and preserved it, keeping the matter quite secret from his neighbours,
as he feared ridicule. This stone was found to be a shapeless mass
weighing nearly eighteen pounds. The fall of another meteorite, which
in its descent near the same town wounded a man, was also reported; but
it had been broken into fragments and distributed among the peasants,
who preserved them as talismans.
The visitors to Cliff House, San Francisco, had recently the rare
opportunity of viewing a marvellous mirage, during which the headland
of North Farallon, which is under ordinary circumstances quite out
of sight, indeed absolutely below the horizon, not only came into
view, but appeared to be only a few miles from the shore. The strange
sight fascinated the onlookers for many hours, and marine glasses and
telescopes were brought to bear upon these veritable castles in the air.
It seems strange that Samuel Pepys, whose famous Diary is known to
all English readers, should have been left without a monument in the
old London church where his remains repose, until one hundred and
eighty years after his death. This may be partly explained by the
circumstance that Pepys’ Diary was not published until the year 1825.
It was originally written in cipher, and the key to it, strange to say,
was not made use of until that time. Although Pepys was a well-known
man in his day, and occupied a good official position as ‘Clerk of the
Acts’ and Secretary to the Admiralty, his fame is due to his unique
Diary. At last, however, Pepys has a monument to his honour, which
was unveiled the other day in the ancient city church of St Olave’s,
near the Tower of London. The question has been raised whether Pepys,
in using a cipher alphabet, did not intend his Diary as a private
document. But still he left the key behind him, which he might have
easily destroyed. However this may be, the book has delighted thousands
of readers, giving as it does in a very quaint style a picture, and a
true picture too, of London life two hundred years ago.
A curious record of the year 1478 is quoted in the _Builder_, which
points to an early case of water being laid on to a town-house. The
ingenious individual who thus tapped the conduit or watercourse running
along the street, seems to have paid more dearly for the privilege than
even a London water-consumer has to pay to the Companies in the present
day. The man was a tradesman in Fleet Street, and is thus referred to:
‘A wex-chandler in Flete-strete had by crafte perced a pipe of the
condit withynne the ground, and so conveied the water into his selar;
wherefore he was judged to ride through the citie with a condit uppon
his hedde.’ This poor man was nevertheless only adapting to his own
purposes a system of water-conveyance that had been known and practised
in many countries ages before his time.
It is expected that nearly one thousand members and associates of the
British Association will cross the Atlantic in August next to take part
in the meeting which is to be held this year at Montreal. All visitors
to the Dominion know well that the Canadians understand the meaning of
the word hospitality in its broadest sense, and they are, according to
all reports, taking measures which will cause their British cousins to
long remember the welcome which they will receive. The Association is
taking good care that the members shall be seen at their best, and no
new members will be allowed to join the party except under stringent
conditions. This will very rightly prevent an influx of people who will
take a sudden interest in scientific research for the sake of getting a
cheap trip to Canada. The names of the representative men under whose
care the various sections are placed, are sufficient guarantee that
plenty of good work will be done. We may mention that special attention
will be paid in section D, under Professor Ray Lankester, to the vexed
question of the supposed connection between sun-spot periods and
terrestrial phenomena. This question has long been a bone of contention
among scientific men, one side bringing forward figures giving
remarkable points of agreement, the other side disclaiming them with
the assertion that statistics can be made to prove anything. Perhaps
this meeting of the Association may guide us to a right solution of the
problems involved.
‘The Mineral Wealth of Queensland,’ the title of a paper recently
read before the Royal Colonial Institute by Mr C. S. Dicken, was full
of matter which should be interesting to those who are seeking an
outlay for their capital. Queensland is five and a half times larger
in area than the United Kingdom. Its gold-fields are estimated to
cover a space of seven thousand square miles, and it produces large
quantities of silver, copper, and tin. According to the official
Reports of geologists, coal crops out on the surface over some
twenty-four thousand square miles. Hitherto, these vast resources
have been comparatively untouched. Men and capital are required for
their development; and as the climate is a healthy one, and the laws
administered by capable and impartial men, there is every incentive to
Europeans to turn their attention to the country.
A Bill now before the House of Commons is of extreme interest and
importance to students of natural history, to artists, and many others.
We allude to Mr Bryce’s ‘Access to Mountains (Scotland) Bill.’ In the
preamble to this proposed measure, it is set forth that many large
tracts of uncultivated mountain and moorland, which have in past times
been covered with sheep and cattle, are now stocked with deer, and in
many cases the rights which have hitherto been enjoyed by artists and
others of visiting such lands, have been stopped by the owners. It is
now proposed that it should be henceforward illegal for owners of such
property to exclude any one who wishes to go there ‘for the purposes
of recreation, or scientific or artistic study.’ At the same time the
Bill clearly provides that any one committing any kind of poaching or
damage is to be regarded as a trespasser, and dealt with accordingly.
Parks and pleasure-grounds attached to a dwelling-house are of course
excepted from the operation of the Act.
Mr Johnston’s book upon _The River Congo_ is full of interesting
particulars of his wanderings through that part of Africa and his
meeting with Stanley. He certainly throws some new light upon the
climate of the country; for whereas previous travellers have described
it as fever-breeding, and full of terrors to the white man, Mr Johnston
tells us that the climate of the interior table-land is as healthy
as possible, and that any European taking ordinary precautions as
to temperate eating and drinking, need never have a day’s illness
there. This is perhaps a matter of personal constitution and physique.
Because one man has had such a pleasant experience of African climate,
it is no reason why every one else should expect the same exemption
from illness. Still, we trust that Mr Johnston’s deductions may prove
correct.
We are all of us now and then astonished by the report of some sale in
which a fancy price, as it is called, has been paid for something of no
intrinsic value, and very often of no artistic value either. Hundreds
of pounds have been paid within recent years for a single teacup,
provided that the happy purchaser can be sure that it is unique. Even
thousands have been paid for a vase a few inches high simply because
it was rare. The mania for collecting curiosities which prompts people
to pay these large sums, is by no means confined to articles of virtu.
Natural history claims a large army of such collectors. A single
orchid was sold only the other day for a small fortune. At the time
of the Cochin-China fowl mania, which John Leech helped to caricature
out of existence, a single rooster fetched five hundred pounds. Only
last month, in London, some enormous prices were obtained under the
hammer for a collection of Lepidoptera, vulgarly known as moths and
butterflies. Single specimens fetched three and four pounds apiece,
and even more; whilst a common white butterfly, apparently having a
particular value because it was caught in the Hebrides, was actually
knocked down for the sum of thirteen guineas. It would be extremely
interesting to ascertain the exact nature of the pleasurable sensations
with which the owner of this butterfly doubtless regards his purchase.
The export of a few white butterflies to the Hebrides might prove a
profitable venture, if not overdone.
It may be that the age of big prices for little teacups and vases is on
the eve of passing away, for it would seem that the secret processes
by which the old workers could endow the china with a depth of colour
and richness of tone impossible to achieve by more modern hands, have
been rediscovered. It is reported that M. Lauth, the Director of the
Sèvres state porcelain manufactory, has attained this result. Moreover,
his discovery does not, like too many others, resolve itself into a
mere laboratory experiment, but represents a manufacturing success. The
results, too, can be looked for with certainty, whereas there is little
doubt that the old workers had many a failure as well as successes.
The recent opinion of Mr Justice Stephen that cremation, if properly
conducted, is not illegal, has again opened up a subject, which,
although of a somewhat delicate, and to some people actually repulsive
nature, is bound sooner or later to force its importance upon public
attention. There is every reason to believe that public opinion is
fast undergoing a very great change, as the subject becomes better
understood. A like alteration of public feeling is also observable
in other European countries. Sir Spencer Wells has lately published
an account of the public cemetery in Rome, where, in the four months
previous to his visit, no fewer than forty bodies had been submitted
to the new form of sepulture. Dr Cameron’s Bill for the regulation
of the practice of cremation will possibly come before the House of
Commons before these lines appear in print, and we shall then have an
opportunity of gauging the feeling for and against a practice which,
after all, is not new, but very old indeed.
Lovers of nature will be glad to hear that otters are yet extant in
the Thames; but unless possessed of that unfortunate instinct which
causes the average Briton to kill and slay anything alive which is not
actually a domestic animal, they will be disgusted to learn that these
interesting creatures are no sooner discovered than they are shot and
stuffed. In January 1880, an otter weighing twenty-six pounds was shot
at Hampton Court; another shared the same fate at Thames-Ditton in
January last; and one more has recently been slaughtered at Cookham.
We have recently had an opportunity of visiting the steep-grade tramway
which is being laid, and is now on the point of being finished, on that
same quiet Highgate Hill where tradition tells us Dick Whittington
heard the bells prophesying his future good-fortune. This tramway is
the first of its kind in this country, and will probably prove the
pioneer line of many others in situations where the hilly nature of
the ground forbids horse-traction. Briefly described, it consists of
an endless cable, a steel rope kept constantly moving at the rate of
six miles an hour by means of a stationary engine. This cable moves
in a pipe buried in the ground midway between the rails; but the pipe
has an opening above. Through this opening—a narrow slit about an inch
wide—passes from the car a kind of grip-bar, which by the turn of a
handle in the car is made to take hold of the travelling-rope below, or
to release its hold, as required. This system has been in successful
operation in San Francisco for many years, and there is no reason why
it should not succeed in this country. The only question seems to be
whether the traffic up and down Highgate Hill is sufficient to make the
enterprise pay.
The profits of the International Fisheries Exhibition amount to
fifteen thousand pounds. Two-thirds of this sum will be devoted to the
benefit of the widows and orphans of fishermen, presumably through
the instrumentality of some Society or Insurance Association to be
formed for the purpose; three thousand pounds will go to form a Royal
Fisheries Society for scientific work in connection with the harvest of
the sea; whilst the balance remains in hand, at present unappropriated.
THE PROGRESS OF PISCICULTURE.
Of late years, no feature of fishery economy has excited more attention
than the progress we have been making in what is called ‘Pisciculture.’
Fish-eggs are now a common article of commerce—the sales of which,
and the prices at which they can be purchased, being as regularly
advertised as any other kind of goods. This is a fact which, a century
ago, might have been looked upon by our forefathers as something
more than wonderful. Such commerce in all probability would have
been stigmatised as impious, as a something ‘flying in the face of
Providence.’