The first cast sent both flies and a lump of line tumbling on to the

pool, and would have driven the boldest of salmon out of its wits. The

second pretty nearly took a piece out of Ingram's ear, and made him

shift his quarters with rapidity. Duncan gave him up in despair. The

third cast dropped both flies with the lightness of a feather in the

running waters of the other side of the pool; and the next second

there was a slight wave along the surface, a dexterous jerk with the

butt, and presently the line was whirled out into the middle of the

pool, running rapidly off the reel from the straining rod.

"Plenty o' line, sir, plenty o' line!" shouted Duncan in a wild fever

of anxiety, for the fish had plunged suddenly.

Ingram had come running down to the bank. Sheila was all excitement

and interest as she stood and watched every slackening or tightening

of the line as the fish went up the pool and down the pool, and

crossed the current in his efforts to escape. The only self-possessed

person, indeed, was Lavender himself, who presently said, "Miss

Mackenzie, won't you take the rod now and have the honor of landing

him? I don't think he will show much more fight."

At this moment, however, the line slackened suddenly, and the fish

threw himself clean out of the water, turning a complete summersault.

It was a dangerous moment, but the captive was well hooked, and in his

next plunge Lavender was admonished by Duncan to keep a good strain on

him.

"I will take the second one," Sheila promised, "if you like; but you

must surely land your first salmon yourself."

I suppose nobody but a fisherman can understand the generosity of the

offer made by the young man. To have hooked your first salmon--to have

its first wild rushes and plunges safely over--and to offer to another

the delight of bringing him victoriously to bank! But Sheila knew. And

what could have surpassed the cleverness with which he had hooked the

fish, and the coolness and courage he showed throughout the playing of

him, except this more than royal offer on the part of the young hero?

The fish was losing strength. All the line had been got in, although

the fore finger of the fisherman felt the pulse of his captive, as it

were, ready for any expiring plunge. They caught occasional glimpses

of a large white body gliding through the ruddy-brown water. Duncan

was down on his knees more than once, with the landing-net in his

hand, but again and again the big fish would sheer off, with just

such indications of power as to make his conqueror cautious. At length

he was guided slowly in to the bank. Behind him the landing-net

was gently let into the water--then a quick forward movement, and a

fourteen-pounder was scooped up and flung upon the bank, landing-net

and all. "Hurrah!" cried Ingram, and Lavender blushed like a

school-girl; and Sheila, quite naturally and without thinking, shook

hands with him and said, "I congratulate you;" and there was more

congratulation in her glad eyes than in that simple little gesture.

It was a good beginning, and of course the young man was very much

pleased to show Sheila that he was no mere lily-fingered idler about

town. He buckled to his work in earnest. With a few more casts he soon

got into the way of managing the big rod; and every time the flies

fell lightly on the other side of the pool, to be dragged with gentle

jerks across the foaming current of the stream. Ingram went back to

his couch on the rock. He lay and watched the monotonous flinging

back of the long rod, the light whistle of the line through the air,

and the careful manipulation of the flies through the water. Or was

it something else that he was watching--something that awakened in

his mind a sudden sense of surprise and fear, and a new and strange

consciousness that he had been guiltily remiss?

Sheila was wholly preoccupied with her companion and his efforts. He

had had one or two rises, but had struck either too soon or too late,

until at last there was a terrific plunge and rush, and again the line

was whirled out. But Duncan did not like the look of it, somehow. The

fish had been sheering off when it was hooked, and the deep plunge at

the outset was ugly.

"Now will you take the rod?" said Lavender to Sheila.

But before she could answer the fish had come rushing up to the

surface, and had thrown itself out of the water, so that it fell on

the opposite bank. It was a splendid animal, and Duncan, despite his

doubts, called out to Ingram to slacken his hold. There was another

spring into the air, the fish fell with a splash into the water, and

the line was flying helplessly in the air, with the two flies floating

about.

"Ay," said Duncan, with a sigh, "it wass foul-hooked. It wass no

chance of catching him whatever."

Lavender was more successful next time, however, with a pretty little

grilse of about half a dozen pounds, that seemed to have in him the

spirit and fight of a dozen salmon. How he rushed and struggled, how

he plunged and sulked, how he burrowed along the banks, and then ran

out to the middle of the pool, and then threw himself into the air,

with the line apparently but not really doubling up under him! All

these things can only be understood by the fisherman who has played in

a Highland stream a wild and powerful little grilse fresh in from the

salt water. And it was Sheila who held him captive, who humored him

when he sulked, and gently guided him away from dangerous places, and

kept him well in hand when he tried to cross the current, until at

last, all the fierceness gone out of him, he let himself be tenderly

inveigled into the side of the pool, where Duncan, by a dexterous

movement, surrounded him with network and placed his shining body

among the bright green grass.

But Ingram was not so overjoyed this time. He complimented Sheila in a

friendly way, but he was rather grave, and obviously did not care for

this business of fishing. And so Sheila, fancying that he was rather

dull because he was not joining in the sport, proposed that he should

walk back to the house with her, leaving Mr. Lavender with Duncan. And

Ingram was quite ready to do so.

But Lavender protested that he cared very little for salmon-fishing.

He suggested that they should all go back together. The sun was

killing the wind, and soon the pools would be as clear as glass. Had

they not better try in the afternoon, when perhaps the breeze would

freshen? And so they walked back to the house.

On the garden-seat a book lay open. It was Mr. Mill's _Essay on

Liberty_, and it had evidently been left there by Mr. Mackenzie,

perhaps--who knows?--to hint to his friends from the South that he was

familiar with the problems of the age. Lavender winked to Ingram, but

somehow his companion seemed in no humor for a joke.

They had luncheon then, and after luncheon Ingram touched Lavender

on the shoulder and said, "I want to have a word with you privately.

Let's walk down to the shore."

And so they did; and when they had got some little distance from the

house, Ingram said, "Look here, Lavender. I mean to be frank with you.

I don't think it fair that you should try to drag Sheila Mackenzie

into a flirtation. I knew you would fall in love with her. For a week

or two, that does not matter--it harms no one. But I never thought

of the chance of her being led into such a thing, for what is a mere

passing amusement to you would be a very serious thing to her."

"Well?"

"Well? Is not that enough? Do you think it fair to take advantage of

this girl's ignorance of the world?"

Lavender stopped in the middle of the path, and said, somewhat

stiffly, "This may be as well settled at once. You have talked of

flirtation and all that sort of thing. You may regard it as you

please, but before I leave this island I mean to ask Sheila Mackenzie

to be my wife."

"Why, you are mad!" cried Ingram, amazed to see that the young man was

perfectly serious.

The other shrugged his shoulders.

"Do you mean to say," continued Ingram, "that even supposing Sheila

would consent--which is impossible--you would try to take away that

girl from her father?"

"Girls must leave their fathers some time or other," said Lavender

somewhat sullenly.

"Not unless they are asked."

"Oh well, they are sure to be asked, and they are sure to go. If their

mothers had not done so before them, where would they be? It's all

very well for you to talk about it and argue it out as a theory, but

I know what the facts of the case are, and what any man in my position

would do; and I know that I am careless of any consequences so long as

I can secure her for my wife."

"Apparently you are--careless of any consequences to herself or those

about her."

"But what is your objection, Ingram?" said the young man, suddenly

abandoning his defiant manner: "why should you object? Do you think I

would make a bad husband to the woman I married?"

"I believe nothing of the sort. I believe you would make a very good

husband if you were to marry a woman whom you knew something about,

and whom you had really learned to love and respect through your

knowledge of her. I tell you, you know nothing about Sheila Mackenzie

as yet. If you were to marry her to-morrow, you would discover in six

months she was a woman wholly different from what you had expected."

"Very well, then," said Lavender with an air of triumph, "you can't

deny this: you think so much of her that the real woman I would

discover must be better than the one I imagine; and so you don't

expect I shall be disappointed?"

"If you marry Sheila Mackenzie you will be disappointed--not through

her fault, but your own. Why, a more preposterous notion never entered

into a man's head! She knows nothing of your friends or your ways of

life: you know nothing of hers. She would be miserable in London, even

if you could persuade her father to go with her, which is the most

unlikely thing in the world. Do give up this foolish idea, like a good

fellow; and do it before Sheila is dragged into a flirtation that may

have the most serious consequences to her."

Lavender would not promise, but all that afternoon various resolutions

and emotions were struggling within him for mastery, insomuch that

Duncan could not understand the blundering way in which he whipped

the pools. Mackenzie, Sheila and Ingram had gone off to pay a visit

to an old crone who lived in a neighboring island, and in whom Ingram

had been much interested a few years before; so that Lavender had

an opportunity of practicing the art of salmon-fishing without

interruptions. But all the skill he had shown in the morning seemed to

have deserted him; and at last he gave the rod to Duncan, and, sitting

down on a top-coat flung on the wet heather, indolently watched the

gillie's operations.

Should he at once fly from temptation and return to London? Would

it not be heroic to leave this old man in possession of his only

daughter? Sheila would never know of the sacrifice, but what of that?

It might be for her happiness that he should go.

But when a young man is in love, or fancies himself in love, with a

young girl, it is hard for him to persuade himself that anybody else

can make her as happy as he might. Who could be so tender to her, so

watchful over her, as himself? He does not reflect that her parents

have had the experience of years in taking care of her, while he would

be a mere novice at the business. The pleasure with which he regards

the prospect of being constantly with her he transfers to her, and

she seems to demand it of him as a duty that he should confer upon her

this new happiness.

Lavender met Sheila in the evening, and he was yet undecided.

Sometimes he fancied, when their eyes met unexpectedly, that there

was something wistful as well as friendly in her look: was she too

dreaming of the vague possibilities of the future? This was strange,

too, that after each of those little chance reveries she seemed to be

moved by a resolution to be more than usually affectionate toward

her father, and would go round the table and place her hand on his

shoulder and talk to him. Perhaps these things were but delusions

begotten of his own imaginings, but the possibility of their being

real agitated him not a little, and he scarcely dared to think what

might follow.

That evening Sheila sang, and all his half-formed resolutions

vanished into air. He sat in a corner of the curious, dimly-lit and

old-fashioned chamber, and, lying back in the chair, abandoned himself

to dreams as Sheila sang the mystic songs of the northern coasts.

There was something strangely suggestive of the sea in the room

itself, and all her songs were of the sea. It was a smaller room than

the large apartment in which they had dined, and it was filled with

curiosities from distant shores and with the strange captures made by

the Borva fishermen. Everywhere, too, were the trophies of Mackenzie's

skill with rod and rifle. Deer's horns, seal skins, stuffed birds,

salmon in glass cases, masses of coral, enormous shells and a thousand

similar things made the little drawing-room a sort of grotto; but it

was a grotto within hearing of the sound of the sea, and there was no

musty atmosphere in a room that was open all day to the cold winds of

the Atlantic.

With a smoking tumbler of whisky and water before him, the King of

Borva sat at the table, poring over a large volume containing plans

for bridges. Ingram was seated at the piano, in continual consultation

with Sheila about her songs. Lavender, in this dusky corner, lay and

listened, with all sorts of fancies crowding in upon him as Sheila

sang of the sad and wild legends of her home. Was it by chance, then,

he asked himself, that these songs seemed so frequently to be the

lamentation of a Highland girl for a fair-haired lover beyond the sea?

First of all she sang the "Wail of Dunevegan," and how strangely her

voice thrilled with the sadness of the song!--

Morn, oh mantle thy smiles of gladness!

Night, oh come with thy clouds of sadness!

Earth, thy pleasures to me seem madness!

Macleod, my leal love, since thou art gone.

Dunevegan, oh! Dunevegan, oh!

Dunevegan! Dunevegan!

It was as in a dream that he heard Ingram talking in a matter-of-fact

way about the various airs, and asking the meaning of certain lines of

Gaelic to compare them with the stiff and old-fashioned phrases of the

translation. Surely this girl must have sat by the shore and waited

for her absent lover, or how could she sing with such feeling?--

Say, my love, why didst thou tarry

Far over the deep sea?

Knew'st thou not my heart was weary,

Heard'st thou not how I sighed for thee!

Did no light wind bear my wild despair

Far over the deep sea?

He could imagine that beautiful face grown pale and wild with anguish.

And then some day, as she went along the lonely island, with all the

light of hope gone out of her eyes, and with no more wistful glances

cast across the desolate sea, might not the fair-haired lover come

at last, and leap ashore to clasp her in his arms, and hide the

wonder-stricken eyes and the glad face in his bosom? But Sheila sang

of no such meeting. The girl was always alone, her lover gone away

from her across the sea or into the wilds.

Oh long on the mountain he tarries, he tarries:

Why tarries the youth with the bright yellow hair:

Oh long on the mountain he tarries, he tarries:

Why seeks he the hill when his flock is not there?

That was what he heard her sing, until it seemed to him that her

singing was a cry to be taken away from these melancholy surroundings

of sea and shore, and carried to the secure and comfortable South,

to be cherished and tended and loved. Why should this girl be left

to live a cruel life up in these wilds, and to go through the world

without knowing anything of the happy existence that might have been

hers? It was well for harder and stronger natures to withstand the

buffetings of wind and rain, and to be indifferent to the melancholy

influences of the lonely sea and the darkness of the northern

winters; but for her--for this beautiful, sensitive, tender-hearted

girl--surely some other and gentler fate was in store. What he, at

least, could do he would. He would lay his life at her feet; and if

she chose to go away from this bleak and cruel home to the sunnier

South, would not he devote himself, as never a man had given himself

to a woman before, to the constant duty of enriching her life with all

the treasures of admiration and respect and love?

It was getting late, and presently Sheila retired. As she bade

"Good-night" to him, Lavender fancied her manners was a little less

frank toward him than usual, and her eyes were cast down. All the

light of the room seemed to go with her when she went.

Mackenzie mixed another tumbler of toddy, and began to expound to

Ingram his views upon deer-forests and sheep-farms. Ingram lit a

cigar, stretched out his legs and proceeded to listen with much

complacent attention. As for Lavender, he sat a while, hearing vaguely

the sounds of his companions' voices, and then, saying he was a trifle

tired, he left and went to his own room. The moon was then shining

clearly over Suainabhal, and a pathway of glimmering light lay across

Loch Roag.

He went to bed, but not to sleep. He had resolved to ask Sheila

Mackenzie to be his wife, and a thousand conjectures as to the future

were floating about his imagination. In the first place, would she

listen to his prayer? She knew nothing of him beyond what she might

have heard from Ingram. He had had no opportunity, during their

friendly talking, of revealing to her what he thought of herself; but

might she not have guessed it? Then her father--what action might not

this determined old man take in the matter? Would his love for his

daughter prompt him to consider her happiness alone? All these things,

however, were mere preliminaries, and the imagination of the young man

soon overleapt them. He began to draw pictures of Sheila as his wife

in their London home, among his friends, at Hastings, at Ascot, in

Hyde Park. What would people say of the beautiful sea-princess with

the proud air, the fearless eyes and the gentle and musical voice?

Hour after hour he lay and could not sleep: a fever of anticipation,

of fear and of hope combined seemed to stir in his blood and throb in

his brain. At last, in a paroxysm of unrest, he rose, hastily dressed

himself, stole down stairs, and made his way out into the cool air of

the night.

It could not be the coming dawn that revealed to him the outlines of

the shore and the mountains and the loch? The moon had already sunk in

the south-west: not from her came that strange clearness by which all

these objects were defined. Then the young man bethought him of what

Sheila had said of the twilight in these latitudes, and, turning to

the north, he saw there a pale glow which looked as if it were the

last faint traces of some former sunset. All over the rest of the

heavens something of the same metallic clearness reigned, so that the

stars were pale, and a gray hue lay over the sea, and over the island,

the white bays, the black rocks and the valleys, in which lay a

scarcely perceptible mist.

He left the house and went vaguely down to the sea. The cold air,

scented strongly with the seaweed, blew about him, and was sweet and

fresh on the lips and the forehead. How strange was the monotonous

sound of the waves, mournful and distant, like the sound in a

seashell! That alone spoke in the awful stillness of the night, and

it seemed to be telling of those things which the silent stars and the

silent hills had looked down on for ages and ages. Did Sheila really

love this terrible thing, with its strange voice talking in the night,

or did she not secretly dread it and shudder at it when she sang

of all that old sadness? There was ringing in his ears the "Wail of

Dunevegan" as he listened for a while to the melancholy plashing

of the waves all around the lonely shores; and there was a cry of

"Dunevegan, oh! Dunevegan, oh!" weaving itself curiously with those

wild pictures of Sheila in London which were still floating before his

imagination.

He walked away around the coast, seeing almost nothing of the objects

around him, but conscious of the solemn majesty of the mountains and

the stillness of the throbbing stars. He could have called aloud,

"Sheila! Sheila!" but that all the place seemed associated with her

presence; and might he not turn suddenly to find her figure standing

by him, with her face grown wild and pale as it was in the ballad,

and a piteous and awful look in her eyes? Did the figure accuse him?

He scarcely dared look round, lest there should be a phantom Sheila

appealing to him for compassion, and complaining against him with her

speechless eyes for a wrong that he could not understand. He fled from

her, but he knew she was there; and all the love in his heart went out

to her as if beseeching her to go away and forsake him, and forgive

him the injury of which she seemed to accuse him. What wrong had

he done her that he should be haunted by this spectre, that did not

threaten, but only looked piteously toward him with eyes full of

entreaty and pain?

He left the shore, and blindly made his way up to the pasture-land

above, careless whither he went. He knew not how long he had been away

from the house, but here was a small fresh-water lake set round about

with rushes, and far over there in the east lay a glimmer of the

channels between Borva and Lewis. But soon there was another light

in the east, high over the low mists that lay along the land. A pale

blue-gray arose in the cloudless sky, and the stars went out one by

one. The mists were seen to lie in thicker folds along the desolate

valleys. Then a faintly yellow whiteness stole up into the sky, and

broadened and widened, and behold! the little moorland loch caught

a reflection of the glare, and there was a streak of crimson here

and there on the dark-blue surface of the water. Loch Roag began to

brighten. Suainabhal was touched with rose-red on its eastern slopes.

The Atlantic seemed to rise out of its purple sleep with the new

light of a new dawn; and then there was a chirruping of birds over

the heath, and the first shafts of the sunlight ran along the surface

of the sea, and lit up the white wavelets that were breaking on the

beach. The new day struck upon him with a strange sense of wonder.

Where was he? Whither had gone the wild visions of the night, the

feverish dread, the horrible forebodings? The strong mental emotion

that had driven him out now produced its natural reaction: he looked

about in a dazed fashion at the revelation of light around him, and

felt himself trembling with weakness. Slowly, blindly and hopelessly

he set to walk back across the island, with the sunlight of the fresh

morning calling into life ten thousand audible things of the moorland

around him.

And who was this who stood at the porch of the house in the clear

sunshine? Not the pale and ghastly creature who had haunted him during

those wild hours, but Sheila herself, singing some snatches of a song,

and engaged in watering the two bushes of sweetbrier at the gate. How

bright and roseate and happy she looked, with the fine color of her

face lit up by the fresh sunlight, and the brisk breeze from the sea

stirring now and again the loose masses of her hair! Haggard and faint

as he was, he would have startled her if he had gone up to her then.

He dared not approach her. He waited until she had gone round to the

gable of the house to water the plants there, and then he stole into

the house and up stairs, and threw himself upon the bed. And outside

he still heard Sheila singing lightly to herself as she went about her

ordinary duties, little thinking in how strange and wild a drama her

wraith had that night taken part.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

[Footnote 12: Pronounced _Argyud-chark_; literally, "hen-money."]

MEDICAL EXPERT EVIDENCE.

There is scarcely any position of more responsibility than that of

the medical expert in cases of alleged poisoning. Often he stands with

practically absolute power between society and the accused--the former

looking to him for the proof of the crime and for the protection which

discovery brings; the latter relying upon him for the vindication

of his innocence. How profound and complete, then, should be

his knowledge! how thorough his skill! how pure and spotless his

integrity! how unimpeachable his results! Yet recently the humiliating

spectacle has been repeatedly presented of expert swearing against

expert, until the question at issue was apparently degraded into one

of personal feeling or of professional reputation. So far has this

gone that both judicial and public opinion seems to be demanding

the abolition of expert testimony. The medical expert must, however,

remain an essential feature in our criminal procedures, partaking as

he does of the functions of the lawyer, inasmuch as he has, to some

extent, the right to argue before the jury, partaking also of the

judicial character in that it is his duty to express an opinion upon

evidence, but differing from both judge and advocate in that as a

witness he testifies to facts. Were the attempt made to do away with

his functions, there would be an end to just convictions in the class

of cases spoken of, because no one would be qualified to say whether

any given death had been produced by poison or by a natural cause.

In many matters that come under the notice of medical experts there is

room for honest differences of opinion. Of such nature are questions

of sanity and insanity. It must be remembered that these are, after

all, _relative_ terms. Reason leaves its seat by almost imperceptible

steps. Who can determine with exactness the line that separates

eccentricity from madness--responsibility from irresponsibility?

Moreover, the phenomena upon which opinion is based are, in such

cases, so hidden, so complex, so obscure, that in the half-lights of a

few short interviews they will often be seen differently by different

observers.

In scarcely any of its parts does toxicology belong to this class

of subjects--certainly not at all in so far as it deals with mineral

poisons. To a great extent it is a fixed science--a science whose

boundaries may be widened, whose processes may be rendered more

delicate, but whose principles are in great measure settled for ever.

Not in the imperfections of the science, but in the habits of the

American medical profession and in the methods of our criminal

procedures, lies the origin of the evils complained of.

Some of the causes of the present difficulties are readily to be seen.

One is the common ignorance of legal or forensic medicine among the

members of the profession. In none of our medical colleges is legal

medicine taught as a part of the regular course or as an essential

branch of study. Consequently, when the student graduates he has only

heard a few passing allusions to the subject from professors of other

branches. Unfortunately, this is more or less true of many other

medical subjects of importance: helped out, however, by his mother

wit, and impelled by necessity, the imperfectly-educated graduate

after a time becomes very generally a skillful practitioner. During

the period of growth his daily needs govern the direction of his

studies, which are therefore more or less exclusively confined to the

so-called practical branches. Forensic medicine is not one of these,

poison cases are comparatively rare, and to be called upon to give a

definite opinion upon such matters before a legal tribunal happens

not once in the lifetime of most medical men. Consequently, to a great

part of the American medical profession legal medicine is a veritable

_terra incognita_.

Moreover, the whole drift of modern medicine is toward a division

of labor, and forensic medicine is more widely separated from the

ordinary specialties of the science than these are from one another.

In a case of delicate eye-surgery who would value the opinion of a

man whose attention had been devoted mainly to thoracic diseases? What

specialist of the latter character would even offer an opinion? Yet

physicians who acknowledge that they have paid no especial attention

to toxicology do not hesitate to give the most positive opinions upon

the most delicate questions of that science. Men who would, as in

honor bound, ask for a consultation in any case of serious sickness

outside of their line of private practice, on the witness-stand put

forth with the utmost boldness their ignorant crudities, careless

or forgetful of the fact that they may be imperiling the life of an

innocent human being. On the trial of Mrs. Wharton for the attempted

murder of Mr. Van Ness, Dr. Williams asserted that there are

peculiar characteristic symptoms or groups of symptoms of tartar

emetic poisoning;[13] and both he and Dr. Chew--who with frankness

acknowledged that he had not especially studied toxicology--did most

positively recognize tartar emetic as the sole possible cause of

certain symptoms which were but a little beyond the line of medicinal

action, and for which obviously possible natural cause existed.

Contrast these bold opinions with the cautious statement of a man

who had given a lifetime of study to this particular subject. On the

trial of Madeleine Smith, Professor Christison--at that time the first

toxicologist of England--stated that if in any case the symptoms and

post-mortem appearances corresponded exactly with those caused by

arsenic, he should be led to _suspect_ poisoning.

Another source of mischief lies in the fact that the law does not

recognize the well-established principles of forensic medicine, and

consequently the books in which these principles are laid down by the

highest authorities are excluded by the courts, while the _vivâ voce_

evidence of any medical man, however ignorant on such points, is

admitted as that of an expert.

It is therefore not to be wondered at that juries give but little

consideration to the knowledge or professional standing of expert

witnesses. It is, in fact, notorious that the medical autocrat of the

village, who has superintended the entrance of the majority of the

jurymen into this troublous world, is a more important witness than

the most renowned special student of the branch: indeed, the chief

value of the real expert often rests on his ability to influence the

local physician.[14] At the late Wharton-Van Ness trial the defence

desired to show that the work of the chemist employed by the

prosecution was unreliable, because the analyses made by him in a

previous case had "been condemned by the united voice of the whole

scientific world." The court was not able to see the _relevancy_ of

this, and refused to allow the professional ability or standing of an

expert to be called in question. The witness thus adjudged competent

brought no results into court; had kept no laboratory notes; relied

solely on a memory so deficient that although he had been teaching for

thirty-five years, he could not tell the shape of a crystal of tartar

emetic, the poison in question; and upon the stand made a statement

different from one which he had furnished officially to the district

attorney of Baltimore fourteen months before.

There are principles of toxicology which ought to have legal force

and recognition, and ought to govern expert testimony in the same

way that the principles of evidence govern ordinary testimony.

Without presuming to enumerate these, I will cite two or three for

illustration. Certain substances, the so-called irritant poisons, such

as arsenic, tartar emetic and the like, induce their toxic effects

by causing irritation and inflammation of the alimentary canal. All

authorities agree that poisoning by these substances cannot be proved,

or even rendered, very probable, by symptoms alone--that chemical

evidence, the discovery of the poison in the food, dejections, or in

case of death the body, is absolutely essential for making out a case.

Irritation and inflammation of the alimentary canal occur so often

and so suddenly from natural causes, which are sometimes apparent, but

often hidden, that no especial weight can be attached to them.

In the case of the so-called neurotic poisons, those which act upon

the nervous system, the symptoms are so closely simulated by natural

disease that even when they agree in the most absolute manner with

those usually developed by any such poison they only render poisoning

highly probable, not certain.[15] When in any case the symptoms

diverge from the typical array, poisoning becomes improbable just in

proportion to the amount of divergence.

All toxicological authorities also agree that in the case of the

metallic poisons, such as tartar emetic and arsenic, the metal must be

brought into court, and that the so-called "color tests" are not to be

relied on. When sulphuretted hydrogen is passed through solutions of

these metallic substances colored precipitates are thrown down, which

at one time were thought to be absolute proof of the existence of the

poison in the original solution. But in the celebrated Donnal case,

tried at Falmouth, England, in 1817, Dr. Neale saved the accused by

showing that a decoction of onions, of which the deceased had eaten a

short time before death, yielded similar precipitates to those relied

upon by the prosecution as establishing the presence of arsenic in

the stomach. In regard to tartar emetic, Dr. Taylor, in his work on

medical jurisprudence, says: "Antimony in the metallic state is so

easily procured from a small quantity of material that on no account

should this be omitted. A reliance on a small quantity of a colored

precipitate would be most unsatisfactory as chemical evidence." In

defiance of all the authorities the prosecution, on the trial of Mrs.

Wharton for the murder of General Ketchum, rested its proof of poison

upon these color tests and their sequences. The defence, however,

found that the counterparts of three out of the four so-called

characteristic reactions were readily performed with the substances

known to have been in the stomach of General Ketchum at the time of

his death.

Several cases of poisoning which have been tried recently in this

State and Maryland have attracted much attention, and I propose now

briefly to outline these, and show that the disgraceful scenes

which have taken place were not due to deficiencies of toxicological

science, but to the causes already spoken of.

First in time among these _causes célèbres_ was the Schoeppe case,

the facts of which may be briefly summed up as follows: Dr. Schoeppe,

a young German practicing medicine in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, became

engaged to be married to a Miss Stennecke, a maiden lady of sixty

years of age. Miss Stennecke was somewhat of an invalid, not often

actually sick, but habitually distressed by dyspeptic symptoms, etc.

On the morning of the 27th of January, 1869, feeling unwell, she sent

for Dr. Schoeppe, who gave her an emetic. In the afternoon, according

to the testimony of her maid, she was weak, but apparently not ill.

Between 7 and 8 P.M., however, she became much worse, and her servant

noticed that she was very drowsy, so that if left alone she would

immediately fall asleep whilst sitting in her chair. Shortly after

this she was put to bed, and was not seen again until the next morning

about six o'clock, when she was found comatose, with contracted

pupils, irregular respiration and complete muscular relaxation. Late

in the afternoon of the same day she died quietly.

Nothing was said about poisoning until some days afterward, when, a

will having been produced in favor of Dr. Schoeppe, an accusation

was made against him. The body of Miss Stennecke was exhumed, and

underwent a post-mortem examination, which, for culpable carelessness

and inexcusable omissions, stands unrivaled. Not a single organ in

the whole body was thoroughly examined, and many of the more important

parts were not looked at. Death, preceded by the symptoms exhibited

in the case of Miss Stennecke, occurs not infrequently from insidious

disease of the kidneys, yet these organs were not taken out of the

body. The stomach was examined chemically by Professor Aiken of the

University of Maryland, who reported that he had found prussic acid,

and who testified on the trial that Miss Stennecke had received a

fatal dose of that poison. When, however, his evidence was sifted, it

was discovered that he had only obtained traces of the poison by the

distillation of the stomach with sulphuric acid. As saliva contains

ferrocyanide of potassium, out of which sulphuric acid generates

prussic acid, the latter substance will always be obtained by the

process adopted by Professor Aiken from any stomach which has in it

the least particle of saliva. If, then, the professor did really get

prussic acid, without doubt he manufactured it.

Dr. Hermann, however, testified that Miss Stennecke, whom he saw on

the morning of her death, must have died of a compound poison, because

her eye looked like that of a hawk killed by himself some years before

with a dose of all the poisons he had in his apothecary's shop. Dr.

Conrad confirmed the assertion of Dr. Hermann, that Miss Stennecke

could not have died from a natural cause, and testified that as the

liver was healthy, therefore the kidneys must have been so too--a

conclusion which could only have been evolved from his inner

consciousness.

In vain Professor Wormley protested, declaring that it was impossible

Miss Stennecke could have been killed by prussic acid, because that

poison always does its work in a few minutes, if at all, whereas Miss

Stennecke lived nearly twenty-four hours after the alleged poisoning.

What did it matter that Dr. Conrad had shown himself by his

post-mortem examination ignorant of the first rudiments of legal

medicine, and that Dr. Hermann was a village doctor of the olden

type dragged into court from a mediæval contest with the diseases of

simple country-folk, while Professor Wormley had devoted his life to

toxicology and achieved a world-wide reputation? What did it matter

that the written words of all authorities upon such subjects in every

land were in absolute accord with Dr. Wormley? Under the ruling--which

has been reaffirmed at Annapolis--the settled principles of science

were overborne by ignorant conjecture, and to the mockery of justice,

to the deep disgrace of our commonwealth, Dr. Schoeppe was condemned

to death upon evidence which, from the same bench, was subsequently

stigmatized as being insufficient to warrant his commitment for trial.

Three years of close confinement under the shadow of death followed.

The governor refused a pardon, and Dr. Schoeppe heard the hammer

driving the nails into his scaffold beneath the prison-window. He was

measured for his coffin, but at the last moment was reprieved, and

listened to the heavy thud as the drop fell and a man whose companion

he was to have been on the scaffold was launched into eternity.

Finally, moved by the incessant pleadings of Mr. Hepburn, the junior

counsel, by the urgings of the public press, led by the Philadelphia

_Evening Bulletin_, and by the protests of numerous scientific bodies,

the legislature passed a special act granting Dr. Schoeppe a new

trial. On this occasion the judge allowed the weakness of the expert

testimony for the prosecution to be demonstrated, and chiefly as a

result of this demonstration--of what has been called the "coarse

brutality" of showing Dr. Conrad's ignorance--Dr. Schoeppe was

acquitted.

If the principles contended for in this article had been acknowledged,

the processes and results in the case of Dr. Schoeppe would have been

far different. In the first place, the post mortem would have been

entrusted to some one qualified to make it--an expert in legal

medicine--and very probably a natural cause for the death of Miss

Stennecke would have been found. Such post mortem not having been

made, the case, after Professor Aiken's analysis, would have been

dropped, because it was impossible that prussic acid could have caused

the death. Had, however, capable experts failed to detect a natural

cause of death, a very serious case might have been made out against

Dr. Schoeppe, even though the analyst had not found morphia in the

stomach. The prosecution might have affirmed that the poison had been

absorbed, and therefore was not in the stomach, and, for the support

of the charge, relied upon the resemblance of the symptoms to those

produced by morphia, and upon the absence of natural cause of death.

A case which has acquired even more celebrity than the last is that of

Mrs. Wharton of Baltimore. The chief facts, as developed at the first

trial at Annapolis, are as follows: General Ketchum, a man of over

middle age and usually in good health, was very much engaged in

attending to matters of business at Washington throughout the entire

day of the 24th of June, 1871. The weather was very hot, yet he walked

about hurriedly and steadily, getting no dinner, and returning in

the evening to Mrs. Wharton's at Baltimore about 9 P.M., where he

ate a very hearty meal, consisting partly of raspberries. During the

night he was heard to go down stairs several times. The next day he

complained of feeling unwell, but took at bed-time a glass of lemonade

with brandy, and during the night had some slight vomiting and

purging. In the morning he complained of sick stomach and giddiness,

and at Mrs. Wharton's earnest request[16] Dr. Williams was finally

sent for, and on arriving at 4 P.M. found him sitting up and vomiting,

and prescribed as for a slight attack of cholera morbus. The next

morning General Ketchum thought himself so much better that he

discharged his physician. He was, however, very drowsy during the

day, and the evidence at the trial rendered it probable that he took

laudanum on this day upon his own responsibility. In the evening

he was found sleeping heavily upon the lounge, and again at Mrs.

Wharton's request Dr. Williams was sent for, but did not think it

worth while to come. The next morning Mrs. Wharton again sent for Dr.

Williams, as General Ketchum was found still lying upon the lounge in

a stupor. He remained in this state until his death, which took place

in a convulsion at 3 P.M. He had had during the intervening period

repeated convulsions, and about one o'clock had become very uneasy,

uttering incoherent cries, but did not recover true consciousness. At

the examination of the body, made the following morning, the spinal

cord was not looked at: the inner membranes of the brain were found

congested, and the brain-substance presented throughout "those dark

points of blood which indicate passive congestion." No other lesions

were found, and the stomach was handed for analysis to Professor

Aiken, who in due time reported that he had "satisfied himself" of

the existence of at least twenty grains of tartar emetic in it.

It is highly probable that this official announcement had much

influence upon the minds of Drs. Williams and Chew, with

their colleagues, and it is very certain that by it and their

representations was created the public belief in Baltimore that

General Ketchum had been poisoned. The false analysis remained

for months uncontradicted, and backed up as it was by the whole

intellectual and moral force of the University of Maryland, it could

scarcely happen otherwise than that public opinion should become

so set and hardened that no testimony at the trial could affect it,

especially as local pride and local prejudice came to its support

when experts from other cities questioned the work of the Baltimore

physicians.

Mrs. Wharton's servants were first accused, but after a few days she

was arrested, and with her daughter--who has clung throughout to her

faith in her mother's purity and goodness--was thrust into a common

felon's cell, with only the grated bars between her and the lowest of

men in every stage of drunkenness and delirium. After nearly two weeks

her lawyers obtained her removal to one of the better rooms of the

jail, but it was months before anything was said in her favor.

The trial opened on December 4, 1871, at Annapolis, and lasted nearly

two months. The circumstantial evidence certainly went no farther than

to render it probable that if General Ketchum died of poison it was

administered by Mrs. Wharton. The State attempted to prove as a

motive that Mrs. Wharton owed the deceased money. They were signally

unsuccessful in this, however; so that a very intelligent member of

the jury said to the writer since the trial, "Whether Mrs. Wharton

did or did not poison General Ketchum, certainly the State completely

failed to prove a motive." The defence admitted that Mrs. Wharton

had bought tartar emetic near the time of the alleged poisoning,

but proved that she was in the habit of using it externally as a

counter-irritant, and that it was purchased in the most open manner,

through a third party, not with the secresy that marks the steps of

the poisoner.

Thus the whole case centred in a rather remarkable degree upon the

expert testimony, and the very point of it all was the chemical

analysis. This is not the place to follow out in detail the scientific

testimony, but only to point out some peculiarities of it. Almost

all the medical witnesses for the prosecution were colleagues of

Professor Aiken, none of them men of eminence in toxicological

science--surgeons, physiologists, obstetricians, the whole faculty,

trying apparently to hide the nakedness of their colleague. Never

was strong language more justifiable than that of Mr. Hagner, when

he said, "It seemed that the University of Maryland was on trial, and

that blood was demanded to support it."

After all, the testimony of most of these gentlemen amounted only to

this: that they did not believe the death of General Ketchum could

have occurred from natural causes. On the other hand, the numerous

medical witnesses for the defence, unconnected by any bond of common

interest, testified that natural causes, were sufficient to account

for the death; many of them asserting that the case in all its

symptoms and post-mortem appearances tallied precisely with the

so-called fulminating form of cerebro-spinal meningitis, which was

prevalent in Baltimore at the time of General Ketchum's death.[17]

The medical witnesses for the defence further called attention to

the fact that the symptoms of General Ketchum's illness were wholly

different from those produced by tartar emetic, and some denied that

the latter could have caused the sickness. The chemical evidence for

the prosecution was triumphantly refuted. It was shown that antimony

did not conform in its reactions with at least one of the tests,

which Professor Aiken said his precipitates did; that almost all the

other reactions could be closely simulated with ordinary organic

bodies; that the processes used were those universally condemned by

authorities; and that carelessness was everywhere so manifest in their

conduction as to entirely vitiate any results. It was also proved that

Professor Aiken had simply estimated the amount of tartar emetic in

General Ketchum's stomach by the _ocular comparison_ of the _bulk of

precipitates, neither of which could have been pure_, and _in neither

of which was the existence of antimony really proved_. To weigh

a precipitate was a labor not to be thought of when nothing more

important than the life of a woman was involved: _guessing_ was all

that such a trifling issue demanded!

The most extraordinary event of this most extraordinary trial occurred

when the chemists for the defence had completely broken down the

testimony of Professor Aiken. With the knowledge, it is said, of at

least one of the judges, without the presence of a representative of

the defence, or even of a legal officer, the body of General Ketchum

was secretly exhumed by the doctors who had shown themselves so eager

for the execution of Mrs. Wharton. The viscera, which they removed,

were put into the hands not of a chemist of national reputation,

but of an individual who had been advanced from the position of

hospital steward at Washington to that of professor of chemistry in

a small local institute at Baltimore. This professor, when on the

witness-stand, was singularly confused as to his weights and measures,

and finally shared the ignominy of his predecessor. The defence had

several chemists at Annapolis of world-wide reputation and unspotted

integrity. If the prosecution really believed that General Ketchum had

been poisoned, if they really did expect tartar emetic to be found,

why did they not allow the presence of these gentlemen at the

analysis, and thereby ensure the condemnation of Mrs. Wharton? The

conviction is irresistible that they were _afraid of the truth_--that

they were simply determined to procure the desired verdict at

all hazards and by any means. Yet this was the procedure for the

completion of which the court suspended the trial for two days,

because, as Chief-Justice Miller stated from the bench, "it thought

the ends of justice demanded it"! Is any further evidence needed of

the strange ideas, of the perversion of truth and justice, which have

grown out of the American method of using expert testimony?

Before leaving this trial I desire to quote from advanced sheets of

the edition of Dr. Taylor's great work on medical jurisprudence, now

passing through the press. Reviewing the trial in London with that

freedom from bias which the isolation of distance produces, he

says: "The trial lasted fifty-two days, and an astonishing amount

of evidence was brought forward by the defence and prosecution,

apparently owing to the high social position of the parties, for there

is nothing, medically speaking, which might not have been settled in

forty-eight hours. The general died after a short illness, but the

symptoms, taken as a whole, _bore no resemblance_ to those observed in

poisoning with antimony; and but for the alleged discovery after death

of tartar emetic in the stomach, _no suspicion of poisoning_ would

probably have arisen.... The chemical evidence," he adds, "does not

conflict with the pathological evidence, for _it failed to show_ with

clearness and distinctness _the presence_ and proportion of poison

said to have been found. The _evidence that antimony was really there_

was not satisfactory, and that twenty grains were in the stomach

wholly unproven."[18]

What would have been the course of this trial if expert testimony were

established upon proper principles? Professor Aiken having shown his

complete incompetency in the Schoeppe case, the analysis would have

been entrusted to some skillful chemist, who by failing to discover

poison would have established the innocence of Mrs. Wharton, or by

bringing positive results into court have ensured conviction; or,

Dr. Aiken having made the analysis, and having broken all the laws of

toxicological evidence, his testimony would have been ruled out, and

the case dismissed because the bungling of the State's witness had

destroyed the evidences of guilt or of innocence.

In January, 1873, Mrs. Wharton was tried at Annapolis for attempting

to poison Eugene Van Ness. The facts of the case are briefly as

follows: Mr. Van Ness, whose relations with the Wharton family had

been extremely intimate for many years, was a bank-clerk, but during

the spring and early summer of 1871, besides attending to his regular

duties, was employed in settling a large estate. He habitually rose

early, often at 5 A.M., and generally worked until eleven o'clock at

night. During this period he suffered from severe nervous headaches,

and probably from other symptoms of an overworked nervous system, but

on this point the testimony disagreed. His stomach is at all times so

sensitive that brandy nauseates him. On the 19th of June, after taking

some claret on an empty stomach at Mrs. Wharton's, he felt very

badly, suffering from lightness of the head or giddiness and general

wretchedness, with stiffness and numbness in the back of his neck.

On the 20th he stopped at Mrs. Wharton's about 4 P.M., having eaten

nothing for seven or eight hours, and took raspberries with cream,

and drank claret. This claret, he stated, "had a taste like peach

leaves."[19] Directly after this he had an attack similar to, but

much more violent than, that of the day before. Some little time

after this, whilst in a condition of profound relaxation, he took some

brandy, and at once emptied his stomach by a single spasmodic effort

of vomiting, with immediate relief. The weather was extremely hot

during the whole time in which the various attacks here narrated took

place.

On the 24th of June, Mr. Van Ness rose at 5 A.M., but was forced to

return to bed by a severe headache. At 9 A.M., after dressing, he

said to his wife that he would not eat at home, but would stop at Mrs.

Wharton's on his way to the office, to get a cup of her "nice black

tea." A piece of toast was all he ate before his return to Mrs.

Wharton's from the banking-house at 4 P.M. Mrs. Wharton then offered

him some lager beer, and, partly at his own suggestion, put into it

something out of a bottle labeled "Gentian Bitters." He found the

liquid so bitter that he took but a part of it.[20]

Shortly afterward Mr. Van Ness became partially blind, and was "seized

with the same feeling of giddiness" as on the day before. After this

he had convulsions, with unconsciousness, for which large doses of

chloroform and chloral were given. During the attack the patient

repeatedly said it was of the same character as the preceding ones,

and referred the trouble to the pit of the stomach and to indigestion.

The next morning (Sunday), about an hour after waking, he took some

tea and toast, and in ten minutes was seized with nausea, followed by

heartburn and retching, which lasted all day. On Monday morning some

beef tea--two-thirds of a cupful--was given him, and in less than an

hour as much more, which induced nausea with heartburn. In the evening

he was roused, and more beef tea offered him, which he refused because

the last dose had made him sick, and he was afraid this would have the

same effect. He was, however, prevailed on to take it. After this he

fell asleep, but in a short time woke up with violent nausea, burning

at the pit of the stomach, and finally vomiting. Not until this

occurred did he discover anything wrong with the beef tea: as he

vomited it he found it had an acrid metallic taste.[21]

The circumstantial evidence in the case did not amount to any more

than, or indeed as much as, in the previous trial. It was distinctly

admitted that no motive could be found, Mr. Van Ness testifying that

the relations between himself and Mrs. Wharton were most friendly;

that he held four thousand dollars of her government bonds, for

which she had not even a receipt; that she depended upon him for the

completion of her pecuniary arrangements for a contemplated trip to

Europe; or, in other words, that she had nothing to gain and much to

lose by his death, and that there was no conceivable emotional motive,

such as hate, revenge or envy.[22]

No attempt was made to prove that Mrs. Wharton had at any time in her

possession strychnia, the poison alleged to have been used by her. As

on the previous trial, the case centred upon the expert testimony, but

there was no direct chemical evidence, neither the food, the matters

vomited nor the bodily secretions having been examined. Some sediment

found in a tumbler of punch was asserted by Dr. Aiken to consist

largely of tartar emetic. This tumbler was not connected with Mrs.

Wharton, except by being found at her house in a position where, in

the language of one of the State's witnesses, "hundreds of persons"

had access to it. It was carried about in the pocket of a lady

inimical to Mrs. Wharton, and into at least one drug-store, before it

reached Professor Aiken, whose analysis was as faulty as before. Any

tartar emetic present in the sediment might have been procured in

a pure form by the simple process of dialysis. The only apparatus

necessary for this would have been a glass vessel divided into two

compartments by a piece of hog's bladder stretched across it. These

chambers having been partially filled with distilled water, and the

sediment of the tumbler put into one of them, the tartar emetic

would have left the other ingredients and passed into the second

compartment. By taking the water out of this and evaporating it, the

poison would have been obtained in a pure crystalline state, and might

have been brought into court. But Dr. Aiken thought it sufficient for

him to "satisfy himself:" as he stated on the witness-stand, he did

not consider it his business whether other people were or were not

satisfied. Consequently, the court was only favored with a memorized

report of the color tests used by him, exactly as in the previous

trial. One of the reactions which he said he obtained antimony does

not conform to.

Drs. Williams and Chew unhesitatingly stated on the witness-stand that

they recognized poisoning as early as the Saturday of Mr. Van Ness's

illness.[23] Yet they gave no antidote. They employed on Monday and

Tuesday a treatment which, although well adapted to a case of natural

disease presenting such symptoms, would in a case of poisoning have

materially increased the risk to life. They did not save the matters

vomited: they did not save the secretions, which would certainly

have contained antimony if Mr. Van Ness had been poisoned as alleged.

According to their testimony, Mr. Van Ness received six doses of

poison on as many different days, four of the doses administered under

their eyes; yet they gave no warning to the unfortunate victim or to

his friends. If the theory they upheld be correct, that Mrs. Wharton

poisoned both General Ketchum and Mr. Van Ness, the extraordinary

spectacle was presented of one man lying dead in the house from the

effect of poison, of another receiving day after day the fatal dose

with the knowledge of the attending physician, yet no antidote given,

no warning word put forth, no saving of the evidences of guilt! It

would seem as though silence at a trial would best become gentlemen

with such a record, yet they were the only experts who asserted that

strychnia was the sole possible cause for the attack of the 24th of

June, and tartar emetic of the subsequent attacks.

The experts for the defence asserted that the convulsion of Saturday

could not have been caused by strychnia or other known poison; that

although the symptoms of the later attacks resembled those of tartar

emetic poisoning, they were not identical with those usually produced

by that drug; and that it was exceedingly improbable that these

attacks were due to the poison named, because obvious natural causes

for them existed.[24]

The impropriety and total insufficiency of our methods of criminal

prosecutions were very strongly shown by this trial. One member of

the jury could barely write his name, and not more than one or two

of them were in the lowest sense of the term educated; no record of

the testimony was kept by the court, and none, except in the very

beginning, by the jury, who must therefore have been guided chiefly

by impressions, lawyers' speeches or newspaper records; the feeling

amongst the populace, with whom the jurymen freely mingled, was so

bitter that one of the experts was barred out of his lodgings at

ten o'clock at night, openly because he was for the defence of Mrs.

Wharton; the newspaper which circulated most largely in the place

misrepresented the testimony, and devoted its columns to scurrilous

attacks upon the integrity and professional ability of the medical

witnesses for the defence. Yet under these influences, mazed and

confused by the subtleties and partial statements of the lawyers,

these twelve honest but ignorant men were called upon to decide

between physicians offering precisely opposite opinions. It is well

when this so-called administration of justice ends as a monstrous

farce and not as a tragedy.

The conduct of the Wharton-Van Ness trial would have been far

different if the expert testimony had been what it ought to have

been. If the excretions of Mr. Van Ness had been put in the hands of

a properly-qualified chemist, by finding the metal antimony or by

proving its absence he would at once have settled the case. As it

is, there is no proper evidence of the guilt of Mrs. Wharton. The

probabilities are in favor of her innocence, because the symptoms were

certainly widely divergent from those induced by poison, if not, as I

believe, absolutely incompatible with poisoning. The medical gentlemen

who attended Mr. Van Ness, by destroying all the evidence, have made

a just conviction and an absolute proving of innocence equally

impossible.

If it were necessary, further illustrations of the deficiencies of our

criminal processes could be detailed. Some little time since, upon the

chemical evidence of Professor Aiken, a poor colored woman was hung

in Anne Arundel county, Maryland. She died protesting her innocence,

and the general impression appears to be now that she did not commit

the crime. A prominent member of the Maryland Bar told me recently

of a case tried in that State, in which the accused, as he stated,

certainly did kill the deceased with arsenic, yet in which, by showing

the insufficiency of Professor Aiken's analysis of the stomach, he

obtained the acquittal of the prisoner.

It cannot be stated too strongly that the trouble is not in the

science of toxicology, nor in the real students of it. So far as

mineral poisons are concerned, any qualified expert will determine

the question of poisoning with the unwavering step of a mathematical

demonstration.

The legal recognition of the true character and position of the

expert, and of certain principles of medical jurisprudence, would

probably improve the present status, but it is doubtful whether some

other method of reform may not be more available. Professor Henry

Hartshorne, at the last meeting of the American Medical Association,

suggested that the court should appoint in poisoning cases a

commission to collect the scientific testimony and make report on the

same. This seems at first sight practicable, but suppose the court

had appointed, as is not at all improbable they would have done,

Professors Aiken and Chew and Dr. Williams as the commission in

Mrs. Wharton's case? The result would certainly have been an unjust

conviction.

In Spain and some other countries of Europe the custom is to refer

the case to the local medical society. If the opinion afterward given

is unanimous, the court is bound by it; if any member object to the

opinion, the case is referred to the medical society of the province;

if the disagreement continue, the matter is brought before the chief

society of the capital. Evidently, this plan would not work well here.

In Prussia it was formerly, and may still be, the custom for an expert

holding a fixed appointment under the government to investigate the

case, and to send his report to the Royal Medical College of Prussia.

A standing committee of this body, after investigating the matter,

sent the original report, with their comments, to the ministry, by

whom it was referred to a permanent commission of experts. The report

of the latter body, with all the other papers, was finally sent to

the criminal court. This method seems complicated, but it resulted in

giving to Prussia the best corps of experts the world has ever seen,

as well as the most eminent individual medical jurists.

It is not, however, the object of the present paper to urge any

especial method of reform, but to call attention to the need of

it, and to show that the present evils do not grow out of the

imperfections of medical jurisprudence, but out of the methods of our

criminal procedures. Certainly, the matter needs investigation, and

it is hardly possible but that some practicable means of relief could

be devised by the deliberations of a mixed commission of lawyers and

medical jurists of eminence.

H.C. WOOD, JR., M.D.

[Footnote 13: The utter absurdity of Dr. Williams's assertion is shown

by the fact that on the first and second trials of Mrs. Wharton he

affirmed that the violent convulsions, the extreme muscular rigidity,

the retentive stomach, seen in the last day of General Ketchum's life

were due to tartar emetic, and that to tartar emetic were due the

excessive vomiting, the motionless prostration and muscular relaxation

of Mr. Van Ness on the Sunday and Monday of his illness. Tartar emetic

the sole possible cause of precisely opposite symptoms!]

[Footnote 14: The parsimony of many legal authorities is an indication

of their want of appreciation of the differences in men. Not

rarely medical experts are forced to sue a borough or county for

compensation, even when the fee has been agreed on beforehand. In

Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania, some time ago a woman was arrested

on the charge of poisoning her mother-in-law, and the stomach of the

deceased was sent to Professor Reese of this city for analysis. Warned

by previous experience, he refused to make the analysis without a

written agreement as to the fees. Nearly three months were spent by

the authorities in vainly trying to get him to do it without such

arrangement, and finally the stomach was returned unopened. During the

whole of this time the poor woman, very probably innocent, was lying

in prison with the dreadful charge hanging over her.]

[Footnote 15: A very forcible illustration occurs to me from my own

experience. I was once summoned to see a woman in the Philadelphia

Hospital to whom an assistant nurse of bad character had been seen

to administer laudanum. At the time of my arrival she was apparently

suffering from the advanced stages of opium poisoning. I spent about

five hours in trying to restore her. The nurse protested that she

had given only the medicinal dose ordered by the doctor, but was

not believed. After death we found thrombosis of the brain--a rare

affection, leaving such minute traces behind it that a careless

examination will always fail to detect them. This was one of the

affections which, as I had stated on the witness-stand some months

before the occurrence just narrated, might have caused the death of

Miss Stennecke with symptoms resembling those of opium poisoning.]

[Footnote 16: According to the testimony in both the cases of alleged

poisoning by Mrs. Wharton, professional advice was called in at her

request.]

[Footnote 17: I think the general opinion of the profession has

endorsed the position of the defence. It is very probable that General

Ketchum did die of the disease named, but there are other affections

of which he I may have died; and certainly there were no sufficient

grounds for asserting that the facts of his case were inconsistent

with natural disease. The truth is, disease is often so hidden, its

manifestations so obscure, its stamp upon the tissues so faint, that

rarely is a physician justified in asserting from the symptoms and

a _partial_ negative post mortem, such as was performed on General

Ketchum, that any given death could not have been due to a natural

cause. Numerous cases of death from natural causes have occurred in

which science has been apparently baffled. I have myself seen at least

one sudden death in which a careful post mortem failed entirely to

detect the cause.]

[Footnote 18: Since writing the present paper I have been shown a

private letter of Judge Pierce, written last April in regard to the

first trial of Mrs. Wharton. After considerable solicitation the judge

has allowed the publication of an extract from it, which I insert

here as the words of one of our most eminent criminal jurists, He

says: "I had made up my mind, when Dr. Williams's first testimony

was concluded, that the case would fail. When Professor Aiken's

examination was concluded it was beyond recovery. All efforts to

secure a conviction after that were a waste of time and money. The

case could have been safely for the defendant given to the jury on the

testimony of the prosecution alone. If I had been sitting as a judge

in the case, I would have instructed the jury at the close of the case

for the State, if there had been no other testimony, that the evidence

would not warrant a conviction. And I would have set aside the verdict

if the jury had found the defendant guilty. I do not know the lady

who was so wantonly charged with this crime, and I do not know of any

case in the annals of criminal jurisprudence which, from the evidence

submitted in the case, had so baseless a foundation for so grave a

charge."]

[Footnote 19: It is proper to state that Miss Wharton, in his

presence, partook of the same claret, but perceived nothing peculiar

either in its taste, as she told him at the time, or in its effects

upon her afterward. According to Miss Wharton's testimony, Mrs.

Wharton actually drank the claret left in the glass of Mr. Van Ness

directly after he left the room.]

[Footnote 20: This bottle was found in the house after the arrest of

Mrs. Wharton, with compound tincture of gentian in it.

I have outlined the circumstances as Mr. Van Ness told them. A

peculiarity of this trial was the direct contradiction of witnesses.

Mr. Van Ness for a long time refused to entertain the idea that Mrs.

Wharton had poisoned him. Whilst he was being persuaded into this

belief he sent for Mrs. Neilson, a prominent lady of Baltimore, with

whom both he and Mrs. Wharton were very intimate, and dismissing his

wife from the room had a private conversation with her. During this,

according to Mrs. Neilson's testimony, he stated that Mrs. Wharton

could not have poisoned him on the Saturday, because they had

exchanged glasses when he complained of the bitterness of the one

into which she had put the gentian. On the stand Mr. Van Ness flatly

denied ever having said anything of the sort. In a point of such

vital importance it is impossible to account for the contradiction by

"failure of memory."

Miss Neilson also contradicted Mr. Van Ness, and the act was in this

case especially impressive from the manner in which it was done. Miss

Neilson being on the stand, a dispute arose as to whether Mr. Van Ness

had or had not previously made a sufficient denial for contradiction.

To settle this, Miss Neilson left the stand: Mr. Van Ness went up and

took the oath. Then the question was put, "Did you say so and so?" He

answered, "I certainly did not." Miss Neilson returning to the stand

immediately after this, the question was put to her. The court-room

was in the deepest silence while in a low but audible voice she

replied, "He did say it." The testimony of these ladies was in no

degree shaken by a severe cross-examination.]

[Footnote 21: An essential symptom of tartar emetic poisoning is

purging as well as vomiting. Dr. Williams of course knows this. It

is a singular circumstance that whilst Mr. Van Ness stated that his

bowels were scarcely affected at all, Dr. Williams testified that

there was frequent purging. No remedies calculated to arrest purging

were employed by Dr. Williams, however, during the illness of Mr. Van

Ness.]

[Footnote 22: Mrs. Wharton's trip to Europe had been arranged and her

passage engaged months before the occurrence of these events. If the

theory of the State of Maryland, that she poisoned General Ketchum,

be true, by poisoning Mr. Van Ness she placed herself in the position

of the criminal who voluntarily and without motive destroys his means

of escape. Either she was insane, or the asserted crimes were not

committed.]

[Footnote 23: It is well worthy of mention in this connection that Mr.

I.G. Moale of Baltimore testified that he went for Dr. Chew on Sunday

morning, on account of the sick stomach of Mr. Van Ness, and that Dr.

Chew told him that the vomiting was the almost necessary result of the

remedies used the day before--a truth which, previous to Mr. Moale's

appearance in Annapolis, the experts for the defence had insisted

upon. H. Clay Dallam also testified that Dr. Williams had told him

on Saturday that the indisposition of Mr. Van Ness the day before had

been a nervous attack from overwork. This opinion also was in absolute

agreement with the opinion expressed by the experts for the defence.]

[Footnote 24: The detailed reasons for this opinion will be given in

a medical journal at the proper time. It is allowable here to state,

however, that not one of the symptoms laid down by authorities as

characteristic of strychnia poisoning was present in the attack of the

24th of June, and that not one of the symptoms which characterizes the

natural convulsion was absent. Further, there is a connection between

the various portions of Mr. Van Ness's illness which is inconsistent

with the theory advanced by the prosecution. Mr. Van Ness stated

very positively that the attacks of the 19th, 20th and 24th of June

commenced in the same way, with the same symptoms. Yet, according to

the theory alluded to, they were the result of poisons which act in

precisely opposite methods. On the other hand, the very simple natural

explanation of the illness of Mr. Van Ness which was offered by the

defence at the trial accounts for the unity and the diversity of the

attacks, the basis of which, according to it, was over-susceptibility

of the nervous system and of the stomach, produced by overwork and

heat.]

THE SWEET WATERS.

The denizens of great cities, whose weary eyes are doomed to rest

eternally on long rows of buildings, unrelieved by anything softer

or fresher than brownstone or marble fronts, thirst for an occasional

glimpse of Nature, so healing to jaded mind and wearied body. So

universal is this sentiment that provision for gratifying it is not

confined to the cities which our modern civilization has reared, nor

do the capitals of Christendom alone boast of their parks and similar

places of resort. In effete and uncivilized Turkey the "institution"

has long been established, and still flourishes; and the "Sweet Waters

of Constantinople" draw quite as well, as regards both male and female

visitors, as either Fairmount, Central or Hyde Park, or even the Bois

de Boulogne, to which far-famed resort of all that is wise, wicked or

witty in Paris these Turkish parks most nearly assimilate.

One of the two "Valleys of the Sweet Waters" is on the European,

the other on the Asiatic, side of the Bosphorus. The former is more

frequented by the Greek and other Christian populations, while the

latter is chiefly resorted to by the higher classes among the Turks

and the veiled ladies of their hareems, and is often visited by the

sultan himself.

To the Asiatic Sweet Waters you must go by boat, or rather by

_caique_, a peculiar little frail cockle-shell of a conveyance, rowed

by the most truculent-looking and unmitigated ruffians, Turkish

or Grecian, to be found on any waters or in any land, Christian or

heathen. Picturesque in costume and exceedingly ragged and dirty,

with the most cut-throat expression of face possible to conceive of,

when you entrust your person and purse to their tender mercies you

involuntarily remember with satisfaction that you insured your life

for a good round sum before leaving your native country, and that this

is one of the risks it covers.

To the European Sweet Waters you may go by carriage, but if wise will

go there also by caique; for even the corduroy roads of our Southern

country, so famous for their dislocating qualities, can be paralleled

by the so-called road over which once (and once only), for our sins,

we suffered ourselves to be shaken, not driven. It is the fashion at

Constantinople to visit the Asiatic Sweet Waters only on Friday (the

Mussulman Sabbath), and the European Sweet Waters on Sunday; and

on those days all that may be seen of Turkish ladies is on full

exhibition.

If you select the Asiatic Sweet Waters for your visit, you go down to

the wharf at Tophane, where the rival boatmen (caiquejees) raise as

loud a din and make as fierce a fight for your person and piastres as

you ever encountered on your arrival at New York in a European steamer

from rival hack-drivers or hotel "touters." Pulled, pushed and shoved

about in all directions as fiercely as ever was the body of Patroclus

in the _Iliad_, when Greek and Trojan contended for possession of it,

you are at last hustled into a caique, and deposited in the bottom

on soft cushions, your back supported by the end of the boat, your

face to the two boatmen. The caique is gayly ornamented and pretty

to look at, but it is the crankiest and tickliest of all nautical

inventions--more resembling a Canadian birch-bark canoe than any other

craft you are acquainted with. Admiring the view, you partially rise

up and lean your elbow on the side of the boat. A warning cry from

your boatmen and a sudden dip of your frail bark, which almost upsets

you head-foremost to feed the fishes of the Bosphorus, admonish you

to sit quietly, and you can scarcely venture to stir again during

the long row. The caique is long and very narrow, and sharp at both

ends--pointed, in fact. It is boarded over at these ends to prevent

shipping seas. These planks are prettily varnished, with gilded rails,

which give the boat a gay look.

The men row vigorously, and the frail skiff skims along the water at

a rate of speed equal to an express-train. But the rushing of the

rippling waters past the boat is the chief indication of the rapidity

of our progress, so smoothly do we glide along. One peculiarity of the

caique is that there are no rowlocks for the oars, which are held by a

loop of leather fastened on the boat.

All the senses are soothed and steeped in Elysium during this rapid

transit. The eye lazily runs over the squat-looking red houses with

flat roofs which line the shore, to rest on the dark cypress trees

which fill the intervening spaces, with the gilded balconies of

some pleasure-palace of sultan or high Turk catching the sight

occasionally. Caiques similar to your own are darting about in all

directions, following, passing or meeting you, until at length you

reach your destination, indicated by the crowd of caiques tied up

there, like cabs on a grand-opera night waiting for their customers.

Those of high Turkish functionaries or foreign ambassadors are very

different from yours--as different as a coach-and-four from a common

cab. Many of these have twelve rowers, all in fancy uniforms--red

fezzes and jackets embroidered with gold--while the larger caiques are

profusely and expensively ornamented.

Stepping ashore, you see a long line of carriages drawn up in several

rows, and of every conceivable variety--from the Turkish araba to the

most coquettish-looking Parisian coupé--gilded and adorned in a style

to make a French lorette stare with amazement at a lavishness of

expenditure exceeding her own.

The fair ones to whom these carriages belong may be seen in the

distance squatting down on rugs spread out beneath the trees,

and sipping coffee or sherbert while listening to musicians or

story-tellers. You stroll toward them as near as their attendant

guardians--grim-looking black eunuchs armed to the teeth, and quite

ready to use those arms with very little provocation on the persons

of any "dogs of infidels" who may interfere or seem to interfere with

their fair charges--will permit. You see bundles of the gayest colored

silks worn by women whose veils are thin as gossamer, and generally

permit a very fair view of their charms, not only of face, but of

bust as well. The bold black eyes of the caged birds flash out

unshrinkingly on the strangers, who inspire curiosity, and not always

aversion, if the language of those eyes be interpreted according to

the Western code. In fact, the women seem to take a malicious pleasure

in annoying their guards by encouraging such advances as can be made

by the mute language of looks and signs.

Every Friday in the year the same pantomime is performed. The women

go to the Sweet Waters to sit and stare at men whom they do not and

never will know or speak to, and the men go to walk or waddle about

and stare back at the women in the same way. This monotonous and

melancholy pastime is varied by much stuffing of sweetmeats and cakes

and sipping of colored beverages by the fair ones, and endless smoking

by the men. There are strolling jugglers and musicians plying their

trades for the amusement and paras of the public, and they are

liberally patronized in the dreary dearth of amusement on these

pleasure-grounds.

To the foreigner, after the sight has been seen a few times and

divested of its novelty, the whole thing becomes tedious in the

extreme; but we must remember that in his tastes the Turk is the very

opposite of the Western man, and what would be death to us is fun

to him. His idea of true enjoyment is that it should be passive, not

active: his highest happiness is in "keff," a perfect repose of mind

and body--an exaggeration of the Italian _dolce far niente_. This keff

he enjoys at these weekly meetings, and the women in their way enjoy

it too as the only public exposition of themselves they are permitted

to make, and as a break in the monotony of their dreary and secluded

lives.

But there is another mode of killing time there, evidently borrowed,

as are the carriages, from Europe. The conveyances at intervals are

driven round a circular road in two long files, going and coming, to

permit people to stare at each other, just as in London, Paris or New

York, minus the salutations to friends or conversation. As the poet

says of the stars--

In silence all

Move round this dark terrestrial ball,

though the women, while sitting under the trees, chatter like magpies

to one another. The etiquette is to recline languidly back in the

carriage and speak through the eyes alone to the mounted cavaliers,

who prance as near the carriages containing veiled inmates as the

sable guards will permit, to the infinite amusement of Fatima and

Zuleika, and boundless wrath and disgust of Hassan or Mustapha, "with

his long sword, saddle, bridle, etc."

Two of these carriages are so peculiar to the place and people as

to merit description. One of these, the "araba," is an heirloom

from their old Tartar ancestry, and is only an exaggerated ox-cart

with seats, and a scaffolding of poles around it. Over these poles

there hangs a canopy of red to keep off the sun, and the seats are

well-stuffed cushions, making a kind of bed of the bottom of the

wagon. Into this curious conveyance are piled promiscuously the

mother, children and slaves of the establishment--packed in as tightly

as possible; and the contrast of costumes, faces, colors and ages

between its occupants may be imagined, but cannot be described. For a

genuine old-fashioned family carriage commend us to the araba.

This curious conveyance is drawn not by horses, but by white oxen,

whose broad fronts are pleasingly painted between the eyes bright red

with henna, the dye with which the Turkish ladies tinge their own fair

hands and the soles of their feet. The oxen bear high wooden yokes

covered with fringes and tassels, and their tails are often looped up

with bright cords. Their pace, bearing their heavy burden of wood and

flesh, is slow and stately, and the jolting of the springless wagon

over the rough roads seemingly very severe. But the inmates seem

used to their discomforts, and sit placidly and contentedly on their

uneasy seats, apparently proud of their turn-out and the effect

they are producing. These cumbrous vehicles are much affected

by the elder ladies of the sultan's court, who constitute the

Faubourg-Saint-Germain portion of society. True old-school Turks

these, who look down with scorn on the new fashions, both in costume

and carriage, stolen or adopted from the despised Franks.

Chief and most conspicuous of these latter is the small imitation

brougham or coupé, termed a "teleki," and generally built at Paris

regardless of cost, and resembling a Christian carriage about as

nearly as the Turk resembles a European when he puts on a similar

dress. The teleki is pumpkin-shaped, almost round, painted and gilded

in the gayest colors, with large bunches of the brightest flowers

painted on panels and on the glasses which shut it in all round. It

is the most dazzling carriage the imagination of carriage-makers ever

devised, and well adapted to the taste of the grown-up children it is

intended for, who, clad in raiments of rose-color, pink, bright blue

or scarlet, seem a fit lining for the gorgeous exterior. Unlike the

French carriage, the teleki has no springs; so the exercise these fair

ladies get is about equal to that of a ride on a hard-trotting horse.

Another peculiarity consists in the driver's dismounting from his box

and walking gravely alongside the carriage, holding in his hands the

colored silken reins to guide the well-bred horses.

On horseback alongside prance the ill-favored eunuchs, ready to

swear at or smite the insolent Frank venturing too near the moon-eyed

beauties in the teleki.

At these Sweet Waters the sultan has his own kiosk, a gilded

monstrosity of architecture, and at its window, worn, pallid, haggard,

gazing out with lacklustre and indifferent eye upon the scene below,

this shadow of the Prophet might frequently be seen a few years since.

It was etiquette for him to come sometimes, so he did it as a duty,

not a pleasure; for the poor man had no pleasures, being the most

utterly _blasé_ man in this wide world. The drawback on all his pomp

and power is the condition annexed to it, that no one is worthy of

his society, and he must be ever alone, in public as in private. A

representative of the faith as well as of the loyalty of his people,

no one can be supposed to meet or associate with him on terms

approaching equality, and hence his isolation from human sympathy or

society.[25]

The fountain is covered by a square roof, and all around it are marble

slabs with Turkish inscriptions in gilt letters praising the virtues

of the water. In that scriptural phraseology so common in the East you

are notified that "These waters are as sweet as those of the well of

Zemzem, of which Abraham drank, and like unto those of the rivers

of Paradise to the hot and thirsty who come here to taste them." The

water was really very good water, but its praises struck us as rather

hyperbolical, possibly because the Frank at Constantinople generally

drinks and prefers other and more potent beverages.

But drinking the water is the least part of the performance here, and,

unlike Saratoga, "flirtation around the spring" is a thing undreamed

of where the sexes, at peril of life and limb, dare not even

approximate, much less exchange courtesies over the draught.

There is a narrow road which leads you away from this busy spot to

the sources of the fountains of these Sweet Waters. But road-making

is not one of the triumphs of Turkish skill, and this is a very dirty

and dusty road, full of holes which would smash the springs of any

conveyances less primitive and strong than those in use. It is hedged

in by fig trees growing to a size which would astonish those who have

only seen the dwarf trees of the species which we possess. Passing

along this road, we reach the inner valley. Here we find fewer people,

but the same astonishing variety of race and costume which makes the

other so curious and characteristic. The richness of the silk and

satin dresses, all of the brightest colors, which adorn the women,

and the gayly-embroidered jackets of the men, make the eyes ache which

gaze upon them. Almost every specimen of the Eastern races may be

seen here--all taking their pleasure in the same indolent way which

distinguishes Eastern enjoyment. The Circassian and Georgian women

are certainly very beautiful, as far as regularity of features, bold

flashing eyes and great symmetry of form can make them; but they lack

expression, the highest feminine charm, and softness is alien to those

bold beauties. They remind you of Jezebel, and like her they "paint

their faces" before going into public. Not only do they smear their

faces freely with white and red, but they also join together their

eyebrows by a thick black band of _kohl_, and with the same pigment

blacken the lower lids of the eyes, giving a wicked and peculiar

expression to the eyes. The tips of the fingers are stained red

with henna; and without these appliances no Eastern woman deems her

toilette complete. Many of them would doubtless be exceedingly lovely

were they to let themselves alone, but Turkish taste requires these

appliances, and an unpainted woman is a rarity.

It is an Eastern saying that a woman should be a load for a camel, and

in deference to this taste they fatten themselves up until they become

mountains of flesh. Where obesity is considered a charm, delicacy of

outline ceases to be regarded, and a woman who has not rotundity is

regarded as an unfortunate being. They are decidedly the greatest

collection of well-fed females to be seen in the world.

The task of the black guards who accompany these houris is anything

but a sinecure, and "nods and becks and wreathed smiles" are freely

bestowed on the male passers-by in spite of etiquette and eunuchs. If

the scandalous chronicles of the coffee-shops and bazaars are to

be relied upon, "Love laughs at locksmiths" here as well as in more

civilized lands, and Danger and Opportunity wink at each other. There

is far less decorum and outward reserve of manner here than in our

parks, but this freedom is all confined to looks and gestures, access

and converse being both forbidden.

Frequently, however, the bad-tempered guardians of the hareem commit

outrages on the persons of real or supposed aggressors in this way,

and from these even members of the foreign embassies have not always

been exempt. The difficulty of identifying the offender in such cases

enhances the impunity of these wretches, for to arrest one on the spot

would be impossible in the midst of a crowd which sympathizes with

the offender, instead of the sufferer, and looks upon it as a proper

punishment for the insolent Giaour. A private person unconnected with

an embassy has still less chance for satisfaction, but must pocket the

affront, even if smitten by whip or flat of sabre, considering himself

fortunate to have escaped maiming or mutilation should he incautiously

give a pretext for Ethiopian or Nubian intervention.

Few persons of foreign birth and training would go more than twice

to visit the Sweet Waters of Asia, whose peculiarities and amusements

have been thus briefly sketched. The spectacle at the European Sweet

Waters differs somewhat from the routine already described. There,

although you also meet the Turks, the greater proportion of the

visitors are either Greeks or native Christians of different races.

You see fewer arabas and telekis, and more carriages, or rather hacks,

and men galloping along on raw-boned horses in a kind of imitation

"Rotten-Row" style. The men wear the European dress, often surmounted

by the red fez: the women dress in an insane imitation of French

fashions, and glitter with jewelry--a passion with Eastern women of

all races and creeds. Frequently a woman carries her whole fortune

and her husband's in these ornaments, which, in a country where the

difference between _meum_ and _tuum_ is so little observed by persons

in authority, is regarded as the safest mode of investment.

The European Sweet Waters are rather more dull and less interesting

than the Asiatic, owing to the causes already described, nor is

compensation to be found in the superior beauty of the women; for,

as a general rule, the Greek men are better looking than the women;

and the intercourse between the sexes is regulated on the Eastern

plan to a very great extent, though there is not the same absolute

prohibition, nor the same peril attendant on the attempt to open an

acquaintance. In all Eastern countries, however, the position and

treatment of woman are modified by the prevailing prejudice, which

places her on a much lower level than the man, and deprives her of

most of the cherished privileges of her more favored Western sisters.

If the Turk has failed in forcing his religious faith on his Christian

vassals, he has succeeded in fixing the social status of their women

on much the same basis as his own.

The day selected for visiting the European Sweet Waters by the native

or Greek population is either Sunday or on the festival of some one

of the many saints whose names are legion in the Greek calendar. Never

was there a people so fond of holidays, or who take them oftener under

religious pretexts. Yet they celebrate them in anything but a pious

manner. Their fasts are much fewer and not so punctiliously observed.

As the restriction on intoxicating beverages is not such a cardinal

article of faith at the European as at the Asiatic Sweet Waters,

that element enters into the diversions at the former place, to the

frequent scandal of the decorous and abstemious Turks. The fiery

wines of Sicily and the Greek islands are freely indulged in, and

tipsy cavaliers, caracoling on the hacks of Pera and Galata, are not

infrequent accessories, aggravating the danger and discomfort to the

stranger of the return in carriage or on horseback. The roughness of

the road, its heat and dust, are bad enough; but to aggravate these

discomforts you have a crowd of hacks and a swarm of cavaliers

pursuing the same route, with all the collisions inevitable from

unskillful coachmen and tipsy riders. It is a long, dreary drive too,

with no scenery worth looking at on the route, even could you discern

it through the dense clouds of dust which envelop you from its

commencement to its close. When you reach your hotel you take a bath

to refresh yourself, and go down to supper, exclaiming with a sigh of

relief, "Well, thank Heaven! I have seen the Sweet Waters!"

EDWIN DE LEON.

[Footnote 25: This rule was observed by Abdul Medjid, the late sultan,

of whom I speak. It is said that his successor has broken through this

restriction to a considerable extent, and is a social being.]

MADEMOISELLE STYLITES.

I.

The discussion between Mr. John Woodstock and his sister was becoming

animated, and their aunt, who never could understand the difference

between a discussion and a quarrel, was listening anxiously, expecting

every moment to see Marjory flounce out of the room at one door, and

John at the other, in their respective furies. It began in this way:

John had just read a notice of an extraordinary concert to come off

the next week, and had pushed the paper over to Marjory, with the

remark, "Like to go, Peg?"

_She_. Of course I should like to go! You don't mean to say you have

tickets for it? (Excitedly.)

_He_. No, of course I don't: I am not a thief.

_She_. No, you are only the next thing to it--a shabby fellow. Why did

you ask me in that way when you knew we couldn't go?

_He_. How you do jump at lame and impotent conclusions! Who said we

could not go? I am sure I did not.

_She_. John Woodstock, if you don't stop this, and tell me what you

mean, I will never make you another shirt!

_He_. Small loss! Of all mean things, a homemade shirt is the meanest;

and why a man of my native nobility of character should be condemned

to wear them--

_Their aunt_ (distressedly). Children! children!--

_He_ (soothingly). Never mind, aunty: she did not mean it. She would

not put it out of her power to say that she had made every shirt I

ever wore for all the mines of Golconda.

_She_. What a small potato you are!

_He_. Now, my dear Marjory, how often must I tell you that calling a

fellow names is not arguing? If you could keep from being abusive for

five minutes, you might hear of something to your advantage. I have

a little money, for a wonder, but it is like the turkey--too much for

one, and not enough for two. You cannot go by yourself, for it is an

evening affair; but if you were not so frightfully vain about your

personal appearance, I think we could manage it. I heard you say

yesterday that you had the money for a new pair of gloves: if you will

sacrifice them, we can go, and in two weeks I can give you the gloves

besides. I can't before, for my princely income is at present heavily

mortgaged. Can you furbish up your old ones till then, and thereby

prove yourself sensible for once?

_She_. You are a pretty good boy, after all; but really I have not a

decent pair to my name: that last pair of light ones got lemonade all

over them, and it took the color out, of course.

_He_. Now I'll tell you what! I can take them for you on my way down

town, and leave them to be dyed, and then you can do some fancy-work

on their backs; and what more do you want?

_She_ (doubtfully). But would black gloves do?

_He_ (conclusively). Of course they would for a thing like that. Fetch

them out, and be quick about it; and bring your money too, for I

had better buy the tickets this morning, and then we shall have some

choice as to seats.

So it was arranged. Marjory's lofty mind did wince a little at the

idea of dyed gloves, but she tried not to think of it. John brought

the objectionable kids home in time for elaborate decoration "on their

backs;" but, as he watched her in the pauses of his reading aloud,

they both observed with anxiety that the black "came off a little,"

and Marjory asked him to warn her if he saw her let them go anywhere

near her face.

Two children never enjoyed a holiday more than these two enjoyed that

concert. Dyed gloves and all other sublunary trials were forgotten:

Marjory did not touch her face once; and when the happy evening was

over, the gloves were put away with a loving pat on their backs, and

John had risen ten degrees in Marjory's respect.

If those gloves had but rested on their laurels! But if people of

genius will not do that, can you expect it of dyed gloves? Few are the

authors who have not followed up a brilliant success with something

very like a failure, and Marjory's gloves seemed to catch the spirit

of the times.

Before the two weeks were up which were to restore John to

comparatively easy circumstances, and Marjory to respectability so far

as her hands went, John asked her to go with him to hear a lecture.

Just about that time he was rather wild concerning natural history,

for which, I am sorry to say, Marjory did not care a pin. She

indignantly repelled the idea of a gorilla somewhere toward the top of

her family tree, asserting that she preferred to believe that she had

descended from so mean a man as Adam, and so curious a woman as Eve,

to that: furthermore, she was indifferent upon the subject. But there

was not much she would not do to please John; so when he asked her to

go with him to hear a lecture about the gorilla, she made a face to

herself, and said certainly she would.

She consented with rather better grace from the fact that Mr.

Pradamite--such was the lecturer's euphonious name--undertook to prove

conclusively that man was _not_ descended from the gorilla; but when

the little old gentleman walked briskly upon the stage, she whispered

John that he would have been a valuable advocate of the theory held

by the other side: he wanted nothing but a little pointed felt hat,

with a feather in it, to look very much like a small edition of

the original gorilla reduced to earning his living by assisting a

hand-organist.

The lecture, to John, was delightful--so clear, so logical, went so

far back, and so deep down, and so high up. "Walked all around that

fellow I heard last week on the other side," John said. But Marjory,

who had herself taken a long walk that afternoon, thought the whole

thing unutterably stupid: her eyelids would drop, her neck felt

double-jointed and would not stay erect. Fortunately, their seats

were far back, not very brilliantly lighted, and Marjory's had the

advantage of being next a pillar. John, however, considered this fact

unfortunate, for he could not obtain a good view of the remarkable

figures with which the old gentleman was illustrating his lecture,

talking in spasmodic jerks as he drew, and when John saw a dear and

scientific friend on a front seat, with a vacant place beside him, he

could not resist the temptation to take it. He looked at Marjory: she

was half asleep, but still contending bravely for the other half. He

surveyed their immediate neighbors--three strong-minded-looking women

just behind them; a fatherly-looking old gentleman in the seat next

his own; a pillar protecting Marjory on the other side, and two highly

respectable-looking young men in the row of seats before them, who

appeared to be listening intently and occasionally taking notes;

at least, one of them was, and he submitted his note-book to the

criticism of the other, who smiled approvingly. The seats immediately

in front of his own and Marjory's were vacant.

"Would you mind, Peggy," said John, deprecatingly, "if I left you for

a few minutes? I can't half see what he is drawing, and there is a

vacant front seat. I'll only stay five minutes."

"Certainly, dear," said Marjory with sleepy amiability: "stay up

there till he has finished, and then come back for me. I am not at all

afraid."

"Oh no: I will not do that," answered John, considerately, "but I do

want to go for a few minutes." So away he went, and, once up there,

he of course "took no note of time," and Marjory was left to her own

devices. These were few and simple, but small causes sometimes produce

great effects. She had on those gloves, of course.

She never could recall that part of the evening very distinctly. A

confused recollection that she found the pillar very comfortable for a

while; that finally the ridges in it hurt her cheek; that she had one

or two lucid intervals between her naps, in one of which she concluded

that it would be better to take those gloves off for fear of marking

her face; and that while she was doing so she caught a sentence or

two of the lecture--something like this: "This one essential point of

difference is in itself convincing proof of the theory which I hold.

The difference in the formation of the hands is a difficulty which

no theory of development can overcome." These few insignificant items

were all which remained in her memory: then the little gentleman's

voice gradually took to her ears the form of a chant: his "theory," as

the simple rustic said about a matter less abstruse, "might be wrong,

but it was awful soothin'," and pleasant dreams of having four hands,

all available, and not of the objectionable sort whose bones the

professor was dangling, beguiled the time for Marjory--how long she

knew not.

What woke her? Surely somebody laughed? She started up: the lecture

was over at last; John, with a penitent face, was hastening back to

her; the people who had sat nearest her were gone, and so were her

gloves!

"What, in thunder--" said John forcibly, looking at her face in blank

amazement.

"Oh, I didn't mind," she answered mildly, thinking he was apologizing.

"I believe I have had a little nap, Jack, but I can't find my gloves:

will you look under the next seat, please?"

"My dear child," said John, shaking with suppressed laughter,

"your face has 'found your gloves' with a vengeance! It's as black

as--anything. Can't you put your veil down till we get out of this?"

Obediently hiding her countenance, Marjory, bewildered and still not

quite awake, followed John after a few minutes' further and fruitless

search for the missing gloves.

The brisk walk home through the frosty air restored her consciousness,

and when John led her up to the looking-glass, kindly removing her

veil at the same time, consciousness took the form of wrath.

"I _never_ could have done all that myself," she exclaimed

indignantly. "Why, I took those hateful gloves off, and put them on

the cushion; and it is just my belief that one of those dreadful boys

in front of us--"

"Boys!" interrupted John. "Those fellows were enough older than

you--or I either, for that matter."

"I don't care," said Marjory, with tears of vexation in her brown

eyes. "They behaved like boys, for when I woke--I mean just before

you came for me--I thought I heard somebody laugh, and then they were

gone, and my gloves were gone too; and I just believe they managed to

blacken my face somehow, and then stole my gloves."

"If I thought that--" exclaimed John savagely; and then added in a

puzzled tone, "But how could they have done it, Peg, unless you were

sleeping like a rock?"

"Well, I believe I was," answered the young woman candidly, "for I was

tired to death, and couldn't understand half the gorilla said."

"It was all my fault for dragging you there, and then leaving you,"

said John, his penitence making him overlook this glaring disrespect

to his hobby and its rider. "But those fellows looked like gentlemen;

and besides, I know who that old man was who sat next me, and I am

sure he would not have let any such trick be played right under his

nose without stopping it."

"You can think what you please," said Marjory, a little crossly, for

her naturally good temper had been severely tried, "but nothing will

ever make me believe it was not those boys."

II.

Some weeks had elapsed since that sorrowful result of praiseworthy

economy. Marjory's feelings had been soothed by a pair of tan-colored

kids, three-buttoned, stitched on the backs, accompanied by a

glove-buttoner and a hug from John. The mention of dyed gloves still

raised a flush on her round cheeks and painful recollections in her

heart, but she was beginning to banish the sore subject from her mind,

and to half smile to herself when she did think of it; for, in spite

of the enormity of the supposed offence, the vision of her remarkable

appearance when John raised her veil before the glass was too much for

her risibles as it grew more and more retrospective. For she was one

of those happy mortals who cannot help seeing a joke, even when it

points their way.

She came down stairs one evening arrayed in her best bib and tucker,

and was speedily joined by John, whose appearance likewise indicated

some approaching festivity--all but his face, which wore a rather

disgusted expression. "What a bore parties are!" said that world-weary

individual from the height of his twenty-third year.

"That depends," answered Marjory with the superior wisdom of eighteen.

"If one meets bright people, they are not a bore. And I'll give you

some advice, Jack: don't always take it for granted that the girls

can only talk gossip and fashions. Take it for granted that they have

at least as much sense as you have, and talk about something worth

while."

"The descent of man, for instance?" suggested John, somewhat

mischievously. "From the interest _you_ take in that, I've no doubt

the rest of the girls would be charmed."

"What is that thing somebody said about the man of one book?" asked

Marjory, looking abstracted.

"Don't know," replied John--"never met him."

The party was about as lively and about as stupid as parties generally

are. There was a little pleasant music, a little innocent "square

dancing," a very well-ordered supper, and a good deal of conversation.

Toward the close of the evening the hostess came to Marjory. "My

dear," she said, "I have a young friend here whom I wish to introduce

to you and your brother: he told me he had heard of John's interest

in scientific matters, and as he has just come to live in the city, he

has not many acquaintances. He is a very nice fellow. I know all about

him, and I want him to have a few pleasant visiting-places: I always

feel so sorry for a young man away from his family in a large city.

May I bring him and introduce him to you?"

"Certainly, if he is not stupid," said Marjory, smiling. "There is

John: I will make him come here before you have captured your young

man, and then we can be introduced together.".

John, however, was talking biology or protoplasm or something else to

an interested listener on the other side of the room, and was blind

to all Marjory's "nods and becks and wreathèd smiles." So, when the

amiable old lady returned with her prize, whom she appeared to

have "captured" without either difficulty or delay, Marjory had

the introduction all to herself. She was not one of those wonderful

inventions, a girl who can meet a man's eyes with a steady stare,

and for the first few minutes after their hostess left them she only

noticed that her new acquaintance looked and spoke like a gentleman,

that he had a very pleasant voice, and that, without being pedantic,

he was not talking nonsense. Imagine the sensation which took place

in her head when, at some bright speech from her antagonist--for they

had immediately fallen into an argument--she raised her laughing eyes

to his face, and saw--one of the youths who had fallen under her

righteous indignation on the memorable night of the gorilla lecture!

Marjory had what are called "speaking eyes." It afflicted her greatly

that, no matter what the emergency, her feelings would appear in

her face; so--although she struggled hard to go on as if nothing had

happened, resolving, after a hasty mental review of the situation,

to behave as if she had never seen him before, and upon better

acquaintance demand the truth if she liked him, and let him severely

alone if she did not--anybody could have seen her countenance change,

and to her intense chagrin she felt herself blushing. To make matters

worse, he blushed too, and over his intelligent face flitted just the

shadow of a smile.

This was too much! Marjory fanned herself vigorously, and hazarded an

original observation in a constrained voice. "Don't you think it is

very warm here?" she said.