first, was in reality quite different from it. Instead of counting the
number of points of light seen with the same telescope in equal small
areas in various parts of the Milky-way, he now attempted to estimate
the depth by noting the telescopic power necessary to ‘resolve’ the
nebulous places into crowds of separate stars. When we examine the
galaxy with the naked eye, it appears to be simply a cloud of misty
light. A small telescope, however, suffices to show that it is made
up of stars; but in most parts the background still seems nebulous.
A stronger telescope entirely clears up and resolves some of these
nebulous portions, while other parts require a still stronger power,
and so on. In this way, then, assuming that the more difficult a
misty part of the heavens was to resolve, the farther off the stars
composing that misty part were, he attempted to gauge the star depths.
It now appears that when he thought he was penetrating space farther
and farther with telescopes of gradually increasing power, he was in
reality only resolving masses of (smaller) stars situated at about
the same average distance as the larger bodies which had been already
distinguished with a feebler power, and which he had therefore assumed
to be nearer. As a well-known writer says: ‘In each case where Herschel
had assumed that he was penetrating farther and farther into space,
he was only analysing more and more scrutinisingly a complex cloud of
stars.’ It is interesting to notice in this connection that one still
sees Herschel’s so-called split-grindstone theory (which was based
on observations made by the first method) quoted and illustrated in
many text-books, although he renounced it himself; and it is perfectly
obvious to any one who has considered the question in the light of
recent researches, that that theory is totally untenable.
The charting method gives a very different account of the constitution
of the universe. Investigation in this direction has shown that the
Milky-way, far from being an affair of great depth in proportion to its
distance from us, is really what it seems, an immense irregular stream
or belt composed of stars of all sizes. Much information has been
extracted from Argelander’s great charts; but the photographic charts
that will contain sixty or seventy times as many stars will be still
more useful. If the idea is taken up as enthusiastically as it ought to
be, and if our government, so niggardly in matters scientific, can be
induced to follow the enlightened example of the Emperor of Brazil,
and provide our observers with proper instruments, there is no reason
why this great atlas should not be an accomplished fact in a few years.
DAVID’S SON SOLOMON.
Mr David Moses, who is now dead, was a jeweller and pawnbroker in
Wych Street. He kept a very good show of jewelry in the front window
of his establishment, and was never known to complain as to trade
being unsatisfactory in the line of watches and precious stones and
electro-plate. But Mr Moses made much more money by his pawnbroking
than by his jeweller’s shop, and still more by discounting bills
at cent. per cent., than by either of the two businesses which he
ostensibly followed. The bill-discounting, which was also accompanied
by money-lending at stiff rates, was not done at the shop in Wych
Street, but at an office in the neighbourhood of Lombard Street. The
office was handsomely fitted up; the shop was rather second-hand in
appearance, and filled with odds and ends which had never been redeemed
from pawn. At the shop, Mr Moses rarely showed himself, for he had a
valuable assistant in the shape of his deceased wife’s sister, Miss
Rachel Levi, who managed the pawnbroking and jewelry business with
a regard to the main point that would have done credit to Shylock.
The aptitude of this elderly Jewess left Mr Moses plenty of time to
attend to the office in the neighbourhood of Lombard Street. He was
not Mr David Moses there; that cognomen was painted in faded gilt
letters above the Wych Street shop; but the office bore the name of
‘Mr Alfred Morris,’ which title seemed more in accordance with the
character of the clients who came thither to borrow on the strength
of their aristocratic names or connections, or to transact business
connected with what is technically termed a ‘bit of stiff.’ Anybody who
was anybody could always get a ‘bit of stiff’ from Mr Alfred Morris,
provided he had no objection to pay a handsome rate of interest,
and allow a fair margin for commission and charges and other little
incidental expenses. Many of Mr Alfred Morris’s clients knew his real
name to be David Moses, and were aware of the Wych Street business,
where, indeed, some of them had property lying in pledge. These,
however, were old customers, and could be trusted; to all new ones and
to the outside world, Moses was Mr Alfred Morris.
In appearance, the old man was eminently Hebraic. He had a hooked
nose, and very curly white hair; he spoke with a nasal accent, and
called middle-aged men ‘ma tear.’ As regards his business character,
he was Shylockish. He wanted, and took good care to get, his pound of
flesh, and an ounce or two over. He never blushed to lend you fifty
pounds on a hundred pounds acceptance, or seemed to think it out of
the way to deduct five pounds from the fifty for ‘present expenses.’
By his orders, the poor folk who came on Monday morning to put the
Sunday wearing apparel into pawn till the following Saturday evening
were screwed down to the fraction of a penny; while the timid vendor
of second-hand jewelry or old gold was browbeaten to such an extent
that he or she gradually came to the opinion that the goods were
really worth no more than Miss Rachel Levi represented, and thankfully
accepted the price which that estimable lady offered. It was Mr Moses’
idea of business to be hard and sharp and to look out for number one.
There was, however, in the heart of Moses one very soft spot. It may
seem incredible that he who sucked the very lifeblood from young and
foolish scions of noble houses, or made no difficulty in getting hold
of the substance of widows and orphans, should have been capable of
affection. But Moses was capable of a great deal of affection, and
this soft spot was all affection. It is a pity that we should have to
say the affection was lavished on a worthless object; for Mr Solomon
Moses, the only son and child of the old money-lender, and whom the
old man loved as well and as dotingly as his riches, was a thoroughly
bad young scoundrel. When David Moses was sixty, his son Solomon was
twenty-three, and schooled in vice and debauchery.
The senior Moses’ plans with regard to his boy were from the boy’s
very birth of the high and mighty kind. He intended first of all that
the little Solomon should be a ‘shentleman,’ and have nothing to do
with the shop in Wych Street. He should, on attaining his majority,
be provided with unlimited pocket-money and told to ‘go the pace.’
Perhaps, thought Mr David Moses, some of the young swells whom he was
always having dealings with would take Solomon up and initiate him
into the mysteries of society. When, therefore, Solomon came to his
twenty-first birthday, Mr Moses took expensive chambers for him in the
West, placed a handsome sum with a banker at his son’s credit, and told
the young man that nothing would please him better than to know that
his boy was living the life of a gentleman. You may be quite certain
that Mr Solomon Moses was not slow to take advantage of his father’s
kindness. His ideas of a gentlemanly life were somewhat hazy, but
they were decided enough upon the subject of clothes of the fastest
and loudest cut and style, of billiards and unlimited card-games, of
gambling and prizefights, and of disreputable companions. He ‘went the
pace’ splendidly; and Mr David Moses liked it, and thought his son a
fine, lively young gentleman indeed.
When Solomon was twenty-three, he was as villainous a scamp as one
could find in all London. The money he wasted would have supported a
dozen ordinary families in comfort, yet he had twice persuaded his
father to double his allowance. The old man was beginning to fear his
son, and readily acceded to any request for money which Solomon made.
Once or twice a shadow of suspicion had crossed his mind that Solomon
was not the brilliant result he had hoped for. The younger Mr Moses,
for instance, had not gained the entrée to society which it had been
his father’s aim he should secure. He had not made the acquaintance
of the aristocracy, nor did he seem likely to contract a brilliant
marriage with a peer’s daughter; and the only comfort old David had was
the thought that these things took time.
One hot day in the summer of 1883, Solomon called a hansom, and was
driven to his father’s office near Lombard Street. He found ‘Mr Alfred
Morris’ in and free, and forthwith made known his wishes, which ran in
the direction of the sum of one thousand pounds. Old David stared.
‘But, ma tear poy, I haven’t so much moneys about me!’ he objected.
‘And pesides, ma tear, I gave you your money for the quarter on’y last
week. What may you require the moneys for?’
‘Betting heavy, and lost,’ said young Solomon briefly.
‘Petting! O my poy, that’s pad—that’s pad! And lost too—that’s worse!
I tolt you not to pet unless you was certain of winning, Solomon, ma
tear. Oh, to think that you are making the peautiful moneys fly away
like that!’ And then Mr David Moses plucked up spirit, and gave his
worthy son a real good lecture on the evil of wasting money. Solomon
listened impatiently, and again repeated his request for a thousand
pounds. And he got it—as he knew he would. Then he went away and called
another cab, and prepared to be driven back to his elegant rooms. As
he was piloted up the Strand, it occurred to him that he would call
in at Wych Street and see Aunt Rachel; so he stopped his cab, and
went into the jeweller’s shop, and was welcomed by the old Jewess in
the back-parlour. The worthy lady was polishing up some diamonds, and
Solomon’s eyes wandered over the precious baubles covetously.
‘Anything very valuable there, auntie?’ he asked presently.
‘No, Solomon dear; nothing—nothing. The big diamond there is pretty
well. It is worth two thousand pounds.’
‘Two thousand, eh?’ said young Mr Moses. ‘Very fair that, ain’t it?’
‘Well, your father lent one thousand on it—or rather, I did.’
‘Never redeemed?’
‘No.’
Solomon took up the glittering stone and looked it carefully over. It
was set in a massive ring, very plainly made, and with two or three
distinctive marks inside the hoop. ‘And you’re asking two thousand for
this, auntie?’
‘Yes, my dear, that’s the price. I shall put him in the window in a
week or so.’
Solomon went home soon after that. His first proceeding, when he got
out of his father’s shop, was to write down in his pocket-book a very
accurate description of the big diamond and its ring. A very clever and
equally rascally plan was forming itself in his brain. By the time he
reached Trafalgar Square, his plan was complete.
During the next week, more than one person stopped to gaze at the
great diamond flashing in Moses’ shop-window. Its price was not upon
it; but it was evident from its size that it was of tremendous value.
Passers-by speculated on the probable amount, and wondered when the
thing would find a purchaser. About eleven o’clock on the first day
of its exposure, a middle-aged gentleman, sauntering leisurely up
Wych Street from Booksellers’ Row, stopped in front of Moses’ shop,
and looked for some minutes at the contents of the window. He was a
good-looking man, well dressed in a quiet, unostentatious fashion;
evidently a man of substance and position. He was turning away, when
his eye fell on the great diamond. He looked at it a second, and then
opened the shop-door and walked in. A red-headed boy of distinct
Hebraic extraction was yawning behind the counter. ‘What is the price
of the large diamond in your window?’ asked the solid-looking gentleman.
The red-headed youth didn’t know, but would find out. He disappeared
for a moment, and came back followed by Miss Rachel, who looked
narrowly at the man who dared to ask the price of so large a stone. The
gentleman bowed courteously to Miss Rachel, and repeated his question.
‘Two thousand pounds,’ replied Miss Rachel.
‘Ah! A large price. May I see it?’
Miss Rachel acquiesced, and took the diamond ring from its case in the
window. The stranger looked it carefully over, examined every mark with
a sharp eye, and finally returned it to the old Jewess.
‘I will purchase that ring, madam,’ he said. ‘Be good enough to put it
aside for me until to-morrow morning, when I will call and pay for it. I
have been in search of such a stone for some time.’
Miss Rachel Levi was delighted. So, she was sure, would Mr David Moses
be. She carefully locked up the ring in a big safe, and the stranger
went his way with many bows on either side.
Precisely at eleven o’clock the following morning the customer called.
He was accompanied by a dapper little man, whom Miss Rachel recognised
as one of Mr Attenborough’s principal assistants.
‘Good-morning, madam,’ said the stranger. ‘Here I am, you see, and here
is the price of the ring—two Bank of England notes of one thousand
pounds each. I think that is correct?’
Yes, that was correct; and Miss Rachel unlocked the safe and handed
the ring over to the customer, who had laid his two one-thousand-pound
notes on the counter before her. She placed the notes in the safe,
looking them over with an experienced eye, to see that they were all
right as regarded genuineness. The stranger received his ring, and
turned to the man accompanying him.
‘I brought this gentleman with me,’ he said to Miss Rachel, ‘just to
tell me his opinion of the stone.—Very fine one, is it not, Mr Jones?’
He passed the ring to the man as he spoke, and began to talk to Miss
Rachel about the weather.
The man named Jones looked with attentive eye at the glittering thing
in his hand. He examined the gold setting and seemed satisfied, and
then looked at the enormous stone. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation
which made Miss Rachel and the customer look round sharply. Mr Jones
took a little peculiar-looking glass from his pocket and gazed at the
diamond suspiciously. He said ‘Ah!’ very emphatically, and threw the
ring on the counter.
‘How much did you give, sir?’ he asked of the customer, whose
attention was now thoroughly aroused.
‘Two thousand pounds.’
‘Humph! Worth next to nothing. The gold’s very good; the diamond’s
first-class paste!’
Miss Rachel uttered a faint scream as the customer turned to her. ‘What
explanation can you give of this, madam?’ he asked.
The poor woman was dumb-stricken. She knew not what to say.
‘Where did you get the ring, Miss Levi?’ asked Mr Jones. ‘Perhaps
you’ve been imposed upon.’
‘It was pledged with my brother David,’ said Miss Rachel. ‘O dear me,
gentlemen, I can’t think how it is! It must be an imposition.’
‘Well, at anyrate, _I_ can’t be imposed upon,’ said the stranger. ‘So
I’ll thank you for my notes, madam; and there is your paste ring.—Dear
me, what an escape I’ve had! I’m much obliged to you, Mr Jones, for
your penetration.’
‘Oh,’ said Mr Jones, ‘that’s nothing! What puzzles me is that Moses,
who is very sharp, should have been swindled, as he must have been. And
then Miss Levi here is a regular authority on stones.’
By this time poor Rachel had handed over the notes, and was regarding
the false ring with a very disconsolate face. She was thinking what
David would have to say on his return home.
The stranger pressed something in the way of remuneration on Mr Jones
and went away.
Jones stayed a minute or two longer and talked the matter over with
Miss Rachel. It was his idea that old Moses had had a duplicate made
of the big diamond for some purpose of his own, and that he had
substituted the shadow for the substance. He suggested this to Miss
Rachel, who was thereby a little comforted.
But Mr Jones’ suspicion was wrong, as Miss Rachel quickly found on her
brother’s home-coming. She told him the story immediately he appeared,
and the old man went nearly mad. He yelled for the ring to be brought
him. Once in his hands, he literally shrieked with horror. ‘It isn’t
the tiamont at all!’ he cried. ‘Mine was not paste, as this is. It’s
some conjuring trick, woman!’ And he fell to moaning and sobbing as
if his heart would break. But the first fit of rage passed off, Mr
David Moses took a practical step. He called on Mr Jones, and the two
went away together to Scotland Yard; there Jones described the strange
would-be purchaser. The hard-featured ‘chief’ who listened to them
smiled.
‘That anything like him?’ he asked, taking up an album and pointing to
a portrait.
‘The very man!’ cried Mr Jones.
‘Ah!’ said the chief.—‘Well, now, Mr Jones, be particular on one point.
Did you keep your eye on the ring from Miss Levi’s taking it from her
safe till its coming into your hands?’
‘No,’ said Jones; ‘I didn’t. Miss Levi put the notes in the safe, and I
was watching her for a second before the man passed me the ring.’
‘Common trick,’ said the chief—‘changed it for a fac-simile.’
‘But,’ objected Jones, ‘how could he make the fac-simile? The ring had
only been in the window one day.—Had it, Mr Moses?’
‘Only one day, ma tear—only one little day,’ sighed the old Jew. ‘O
tear, O tear me!’
The chief set his lips very hard at this. ‘Are the marks—hall-marks and
so on, just the same?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Moses, ‘and the gold too. It’s only the stone.’
In the end, they went away, and the chief promised to do his best. He
knew the stranger, who was a returned convict and a clever trickster.
The mystery was the fac-simile of the ring. It implied previous
acquaintance of a very intimate type. In about a week Mr Moses received
news: the real ring had been pawned in Manchester for five hundred
pounds, and was now in possession of the Scotland Yard authorities. The
latter had, they said, got a clue to the persons implicated; but they
would say nothing more. When Moses was wanted, they would let him have
word.
A week or two passed on, and one morning Mr David Moses received an
urgent message asking him to go to Scotland Yard. The thieves, or
whatever you would call them, were found. He called on Mr Jones, and
set out with an exultant heart up the Strand.
‘Well,’ said the chief, ‘we’ve got ’em both. There are two of them. One
is the man whose photo I showed you; the other is a young fellow who
won’t give any name. He pawned the ring under the name of Morris.’
Moses thought that rather a coincidence; but he let the thought slip
out of his mind, and smiled pleasantly when two policemen brought
in the well-dressed gentleman who so tricked poor old Rachel. The
_ci-devant_ convict winked in a friendly fashion at Jones.
‘Did it well, eh?’ he said. ‘No good disguising it, I suppose? Reckon
I’ll get a good dose for this.’
‘You’re right there, my friend,’ said the chief.—‘Take him away,
sergeant, and bring the young man in.’
In a minute or two the men returned, leading in a young, loudly dressed
man, who hung his head on his breast. Old Moses turned from examining
a pair of handcuffs hanging on the wall, and discovered the thief of
his cherished diamond to be—his son Solomon! The old man saw it all
in a moment. His white face and chattering teeth showed the chief
that something was wrong. The old Jew strove vainly to speak for a
second or two; then he turned to the chief and stretched out his hands
imploringly.
‘O Mr Inspector,’ he said, ‘it’s a mistake—it’s a terrible mistake, ma
tear Mr Inspector! Don’t say no more about it, and I’ll—I’ll give _you_
the tiamont—yes, O yes! Why, this is ma tear son Solomon!—O Solomon, my
poy, how could you do it?’
‘Your son, eh?’ said the astonished chief. ‘Well, I’m sorry for you,
old man; but the law must take its course.’
‘Oh, don’t say that,’ screamed Moses—‘don’t sir, don’t! I’ll give you
the stone, and a thousand pounds besides! Let him go, sir.’
‘No; I haven’t the power.—Take him away, men.’ And they marched Mr
Solomon off, while poor old David alternately wept and implored and
raved, and beseeched the chief to have mercy on his ‘tear poy.’
* * * * *
That night, they found poor David Moses, alias Mr Alfred Morris, dead
in his little sanctum in Wych Street. The doctor said he had died of
a sudden shock to the nervous system. We are of opinion that his son
Solomon had given him a shock which broke his poor old heart.
A NEW ART-GUILD.
An admirable proposal has lately been made at Liverpool for the
formation of an ‘Art-workers’ Guild,’ with the view to the diffusion of
sound principles of decoration, and to the encouragement of workmen and
others desiring to undertake decorative work of all kinds. The general
object would appear to be to find good art-workmen, and to bring them
into communication with those who require their work, and also to form
a collection of good examples of decorative work of various kinds.
Perhaps one of the best results of this sort of effort will be to bring
forward the actual worker himself—the real artist, in fact—and thus get
rid of the middleman or art-tradesman who hires the genuine artist to
do the work, and then stamps it with his (the tradesman’s) own name, as
though the work were actually his own, whilst, in fact, he is merely
the employer of highly trained and perhaps highly talented art-labour—a
system at once as unfair as it is unjust. It has been said that the
ugly patterns in calico-printing seem to sell as readily as the pretty
ones; and one of the objects of the proposed Guild is to try to alter
this—to endeavour to produce a better taste. But teaching a prejudiced
and often ignorant public to improve itself on subtle questions and
nice points of art-excellence is at best a difficult if not a hopeless
task; and if the Guild raises the artist-worker to a better position
and gives him direct employment, it will certainly be conferring a
benefit on a worthy class of men, never yet properly recognised.
A RETROSPECT.
I waited long;
My love was strong
For Cary.
‘In spring,’ she said,
The darling maid,
‘We’ll marry.’
The winter passed;
Spring came at last
With showers.
But what of them,
When after came
The flowers!
Our wedding-day,
A grand array—
Bells ringing!
Blue sky above,
Hearts full of love,
Flowers springing.
My blushing bride
And I beside
The altar:
She looked so nice,
Although her voice
Did falter.
Our honeymoon
Ran all too soon
Its measure:
We roamed at will
By vale and hill,
With pleasure.
And years have flown;
We’re wiser grown,
And older;
But aye the same
Love’s kindly flame,
No colder.
As down we glide,
Still side by side,
Life’s river,
Each opening spring
New joys will bring
For ever.
J. B. L.
* * * * *
Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
* * * * *
_All Rights Reserved._