Majesty the Queen, in a manner as practical as it was generous and
graceful. The National Rifle Association, which may be said to be the
mainspring of the whole affair, and which has since become one of
our most popular institutions, had decided to hold the first annual
contest in rifle-shooting at Wimbledon Common, and the great ‘Tir
National’ of England was successfully inaugurated by the Queen firing
the first shot. The rifle was laid for her, and Her Majesty pulled the
trigger. By the aid of the ‘mechanical rest’ the bullet struck the
bull’s-eye, and thus with an omen of happy import was commenced the
series of contests which to-day has given us an army of sharpshooters
ready to ‘do or die’ for Britain. The Queen then announced that she
would give a prize of two hundred and fifty pounds to be shot for
annually, the winner having the choice of receiving it either in money
or in a souvenir of the same value. This prize, which is called the
‘blue-ribbon’ of Wimbledon, can only be shot for by Volunteers; and to
it are also attached the gold medal and badge of the National Rifle
Association. The Prince Consort also gave an annual prize to be shot
for, and this has been continued to the meeting by the Prince of Wales.
These royal acts at once put the seal of popularity upon the Volunteer
cause, and prizes of all kinds were offered for competition. Things
were at first somewhat chaotic at Wimbledon; but as time wore on,
the common changed its fair-like aspect, in which refreshment booths
occupied the most prominent place, to the spectacle which it now always
presents on these occasions—namely that of a neat and well-ordered
encampment where, while the meeting lasts, the strictest military
discipline is understood to prevail. Competitors from all parts of the
world meet there annually, for many of the prizes are of a cosmopolitan
nature. The Dominion of Canada and Australia send teams of marksmen,
for whom special ‘challenge cups’ are prepared; while the Army and
Navy, the two Houses of Parliament, and our great Public Schools also
exhibit their skill in the use of the rifle.
Our Volunteers had a good deal to put up with in the first few years
of the movement from the street arabs and other idlers, who could find
no better employment than to fling all kinds of rough sarcasm and what
may appropriately be termed ‘gutter criticism’ at the members of the
different corps. An unfortunate Volunteer, for instance, was fined
for shooting a dog on Blackheath Common as he was going to drill, and
almost immediately every Volunteer was hailed in the London streets
with the cry of ‘Who shot the dog?’ Again, when the Volunteers met in
the public parks for drill they were closely surrounded by a critically
tantalising crowd, which obstructed their movements and laughed
heartily at their mistakes. The comic papers were also filled with
amusing caricatures of our citizen soldiers; and a great deal was done
even in high places to throw cold-water upon this patriotic and popular
movement. It has now, we are glad to record, outlived all this, and has
become enthroned in the hearts of Englishmen as one of our greatest
institutions. It numbered at first some two hundred thousand men,
but this included persons of all ages, sizes, and classes; and after
the first flush of enthusiasm passed off, the motives which actuated
many of them were not so much military zeal or any of the more solid
military virtues, as a love of novelty and a taste for good-fellowship.
The Volunteers are now organised upon a somewhat different footing.
No one is accepted as a recruit who is not physically able to
undergo military work and marching; but should the Volunteer wish to
quit the service, he must comply with the following rules as laid
down in _Regulations for the Volunteer Force_. He must give to the
commanding-officer of his corps fourteen days’ notice in writing of his
intention to quit the corps. He must deliver in good order—fair wear
and tear only excepted—all arms, clothing, and appointments that may
have been issued to him. And he must pay all money due or becoming due
by him, under the rules of the corps, either before or when he quits
the corps. When the above regulations have been observed, the Volunteer
is free to bid adieu to the ranks. His uniform is supplied to him free,
but only on condition that he shall make himself an ‘efficient;’ a
condition which if fulfilled, will earn for the funds of his corps the
government capitation grant of thirty shillings per year. Efficiency is
gained by attending a certain number of drills and parades and gaining
a regulated score of marks for rifle-shooting.
Thus at a small cost to the state the different corps are made
self-supporting, the Volunteer himself being put to no expense beyond
the time which he gives up to the necessary drills and parades. The
Volunteers have now learned what military discipline is, and have, by
their attending the exercises and manœuvres of the regular army, shewn
themselves willing to submit to it. Most Volunteer officers also take
a pride in knowing their duty, and are no longer helplessly dependent
on the adjutant and the drill-instructor. Instead of being regarded in
the light of a novelty, volunteering is now looked upon as a serious
business by all engaged in it, and as a task which in its perfect
fulfilment will render them worthy citizens of a great and widely
extended empire.
The service which the Volunteer movement has rendered to Britain is of
incalculable value, for besides giving us a defending army of nearly
two hundred thousand ‘efficient’ men, trained to the use of every
weapon known in warfare, it has been a school in which, during the
twenty years of its existence, thousands have learned those elementary
principles of military life which, in the case of an invasion, would
enable them again to come forward in defence of their Queen and
country. The very fact of Great Britain possessing such an army would
deter, and for aught we know to the contrary, may have deterred hostile
nations from invading her shores.
The two largest Volunteer corps are Scotch—namely the 1st Lanarkshire
Artillery with seventeen batteries, and the 1st Edinburgh (Queen’s)
Rifle Brigade with twenty-five companies; these being the only two
corps whose strength entitles them to two adjutants each. The militia
and yeomanry trainings of 1876 were attended by seventy-six thousand,
and nine thousand five hundred officers and men respectively; while
the annual inspections of the Volunteers for last year resulted in an
attendance of 159,378 men of all ranks.
We find by reference to the Annual Returns of the Volunteer corps,
that no fewer than 16,306 officers and sergeants obtained Certificates
of Proficiency in 1877. These are facts which it is consoling for the
public to know, for they ought to dispel in the future any fear of the
consequences of foreign invasion.
The Civil War in America shewed us what a Volunteer army could do; and
it behoves this country now to see that this magnificent force which it
has at its disposal should be placed on such a footing in relation to
the other forces as will for ever secure its services. Our Volunteers
constitute a force to which no other country can present a parallel;
and as such, irrespective of its being the means of doing away with the
evils of conscription, is worthy of all the support which the state can
give it, for certain events within the past few years have shewn us to
what straits a country is driven, and how great is the misery of its
people when it has been successfully invaded. As a sign of the times
too, we may note with satisfaction the patriotic feeling which has,
in the present crisis of our national history, induced many Volunteer
corps to offer their services to the government for garrison duty at
home, in the event of our army proceeding abroad, one regiment—the
London Irish—even going so far, we learn, as to place itself at the
absolute disposal of the government for service either in or out of the
United Kingdom.
Long may it be ere these shores are ever again approached by an enemy
bent upon our destruction as a people; but we cannot shut our eyes to
the fact that such an enterprise would perchance ere this have been
effected if it had not been for the patriotic conduct of our youth, who
have enabled Britain to cover herself with an impenetrable shield,
and to find in the arms and hearts of her own sons that indomitable
strength which is best and most appropriately expressed in the peaceful
words that form the motto of our citizen army—namely _Defence, not
Defiance_.
MONSIEUR DE BOCHER.
Badly as the streets of Paris were lighted at the close of the reign
of Louis XV., the art of illuminating ballrooms was as well understood
then as it is in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The guests
who flocked to the receptions of M. de Bocher, after passing through
streets in which a few flickering oil-lamps scarcely succeeded in
making darkness visible, found themselves in the centre of floods of
dazzling light, and surrounded by all that was bright, fashionable, and
gay in the pleasure-loving city of Paris.
Times had much altered since the days of the Grand Monarque, and the
hard and fast lines of society, then so rigidly observed, were now
well-nigh obliterated. A precursor of the great Revolution which was
hereafter to overthrow the state, was to be found in the invasion of
the saloons of the nobility by financiers and capitalists, who were
received with open arms by those who wished either to borrow money from
them, or to recruit their shattered fortunes by alliances with the
money-bags of the period. Nor was this all; for the poets and writers
of the day, anxious to secure the support of well-known and wealthy
patrons, flocked to these reunions, which they enlivened with their
geniality and wit.
Monsieur de Bocher could lay but little real claim to the patrician
prefix which he had for some years adhibited to his otherwise plebeian
name. But he held a quasi-official appointment, which, although
outside the Cabinet, gave him almost the dignity of a minister; while
his well-known wealth and splendid entertainments attracted the best
society in Paris. He was, moreover, a man of wit and learning, and
as he possessed the somewhat rare faculty of playing the host to
perfection, had an excellent cook and a cellar of first-class wine,
his mansion in the Faubourg St Germain was one of the most popular in
Paris. Dukes and peers, ambassadors and foreigners of distinction, the
simple gentleman, the poet, the literary man, the barrister, and the
capitalist, all found here a common ground for the display of their
various talents. Fools were rare, for they soon found that the climate
was not congenial; and the conversation was not only remarkable for its
piquancy, but its intellectual character. Each guest, after paying his
respects to Madame de Bocher, mixed at once in the throng, and was soon
busied in discussing the last news of the day, or deep in the question
which agitated Paris. Marmontel and Diderot, La Harpe and Helvetius,
seldom missed a reception; but here, as indeed throughout Paris,
Voltaire was the presiding genius. It was a hopeless struggle for any
young author to attempt to hold his own against so powerful a clique.
Voltaire denounced him before his face; Diderot caricatured him at the
Café Procope; he was jeered and laughed at everywhere, and ended by
submitting to his tormentors. The result of such a censorship was not
difficult to foresee; and in a short time no literary effort which did
not contain at least a covert attack upon religion, in accordance with
the principles of the fashionable philosophy, had a chance of success.
Let us now tell the story of M. de Bocher’s acquisition of wealth.
His origin indeed was of the lowliest, for his father was but a working
mason in the days of the Grand Monarque. One evening, as the father was
returning home with his work-basket on his shoulder and trowel in hand,
a man wrapped in a long brown cloak, and closely followed by a carriage
without any armorial bearings or ciphers, tapped him on the shoulder
and asked him whether he would like to earn five-and-twenty louis. The
mason eagerly acquiesced; and having entered the carriage, his eyes
were bandaged, and the horses started off at a great rate. For several
hours the carriage was driven rapidly about the streets of Paris, with
the obvious intention of making the occupant lose all trace of the
route he had traversed; and when the object had been accomplished, the
carriage stopped suddenly in the court-yard of a large mansion. Bocher
was then desired to alight; and was at once conducted, his eyes still
bandaged, into a kind of cellar, where his eyesight was restored to
him. Here he found two men, both armed, and with their faces concealed
by masks. The poor man was in an agony of terror, believing that his
last hour had come, but was somewhat reassured by the gestures of his
companions, who, fearful of trusting their voices, made signs to him to
make some mortar of the lime which was lying on the floor. A hole in
the wall disclosed a recess; and the two men raising with difficulty
a weighty strong box, placed it in the interior, and made signs to
the mason to build up the wall afresh. Bocher, seeing that nothing
was required of him but the legitimate exercise of his craft, quickly
recovered his self-possession; and guessing that the proprietors of the
treasure were obliged to quit the country, and had hit upon this device
for concealing it until better times should dawn upon them, the notion
of appropriating it to his own use flashed like lightning across his
brain.
When he concluded his work, as if intending to give a last polish to
its completion, he placed his hand, thickly covered with wet mortar,
on the new wall, and thus left the distinct impression of his five
fingers on the hiding-place of the treasure-deposit. The promised
five-and-twenty louis were then faithfully counted out into his hand;
his eyes were again bandaged, and he was re-conducted to the carriage,
which after following the same course of deception for three long
hours, at last deposited him in the same street as that in which the
man in the brown cloak had found him.
From that day forth Bocher abandoned the use of the hammer and
trowel, and passed his time in wandering about Paris inspecting the
houses advertised to be sold, directing his attention especially to
the cellars and lower regions of the buildings; seeking everywhere,
but without success, that imprint of his hand which would point the
way to unlimited wealth. In the pursuit of this phantom, not only the
twenty-five louis but all the little savings of his hard work rapidly
melted away, and misery and hunger began to knock loudly at the mason’s
door. One after another he sold the petty articles of furniture which
had embellished his humble home, to procure the bread which was
necessary to sustain life; and pale and in rags he wandered about
Paris, reading every new announcement of vacant houses, and became a
nuisance to the porters intrusted with the care of shewing them.
Two years thus passed away—two long years, occupied day by day in
seeking a fortune, and night by night in dreaming that it was found. He
was returning home one evening, sad and dispirited, with the proceeds
of the sale of the bed upon which his mother had died, and which had
been one of the very last articles of furniture he possessed, when
his eye was caught by a large posting-bill announcing the sale of a
magnificent mansion belonging to the Duc de Cairoux, in the immediate
vicinity of his own dwelling. He recollected the story of the sudden
disappearance of the Duke, and on reading the bill, found that the
property was sold under a legal decree, which constituted the heirs
proprietors with a power of sale. A last hope crossed poor Bocher’s
mind, and he at once proceeded to the house, and knocked hastily at the
door. It was almost dark, and no one paid any attention to his eager
summons. After a sleepless night he again made his appearance at the
portal of the Duke’s mansion; but although it was now opened, another
difficulty presented itself, for the porter hesitated to admit a man so
ragged and dirty as the poor mason had become. At length, however, he
agreed to do so upon the understanding that a servant accompanied the
strange visitor during his survey of the premises. The powdered lackey
was scarcely more courteous than the porter, and scornfully exhibited
the rich furniture, pictures, and priceless china which adorned the
apartments, to his humble companion. But these were not what Bocher had
come to see, and at last he induced the man to shew him the cellars.
Whilst the footman was descanting upon the quantity and quality of the
wines around them, Bocher was anxiously scrutinising all the walls,
in hopes of finding that print on the mortar which was to open to him
the door to untold wealth. It was all in vain; and deaf to the man’s
insolence, Bocher was on the point of leaving, convinced that his
last hope had vanished like its predecessors, and that this could not
have been the house he had visited on that eventful evening, when he
suddenly perceived a small cellar situated in an angle of the wall,
which had hitherto escaped observation. He turned back and examined it
closely, his technical knowledge as a mason at once shewing him that
the mortar in one part of the wall was much fresher than elsewhere. He
approached the spot, and there—yes, there was no doubt about it—there
were the marks of the five fingers, plain and distinct!
‘At last, at last!’ he murmured to himself; and to make assurance
doubly sure, he traced out each of the impressions with a trembling
hand. There could be no doubt whatever about it. At last his long
search was ended.
Eight days afterwards the property was to be sold by auction, and
numbers of the aristocracy of Paris sent their stewards to bid for it.
It was put up at fifty thousand louis d’or, and two thousand louis were
at once added by the steward of the Duc de Berri.
‘Sixty thousand louis,’ said a voice from a corner; and the audience
turning round to look at the man who had the audacity to outbid the
richest man in Paris, discovered a poor man whom they had supposed to
be a beggar.
‘Sixty thousand louis,’ said the auctioneer; ‘sixty thousand louis are
bid, and this fine property is going for only sixty thousand louis!’
The steward added five thousand louis, and the offer was at once capped
by the mendicant who bid seventy thousand louis. Thus the war was
carried on until one hundred thousand louis were offered, and people
were aghast at this extraordinary duel between the steward of the
wealthy Duke and a miserable-looking beggar.
‘One—hundred—and—ten—thousand—louis,’ slowly, but with emphasis,
shouted the steward with a withering look at his ragged opponent.
Bocher hesitated, for although he well remembered how heavy the strong
box was, it was doubtful whether it contained so large a sum as
this, and he was well aware that the penalty for non-payment was the
Châtelet prison for life with all its horrors. There was not much time
for reflection, for already the ‘Going, going’ of the auctioneer was
sounding in his ears.
‘One hundred and twenty thousand louis,’ he shouted; and ‘One hundred
and twenty thousand louis are bid,’ repeated the auctioneer amidst a
breathless silence. This time there was no advance on the bidding; and
after waiting the stipulated time, the property was knocked down to
Bocher; and the discomfited steward of the Duke quitted the field of
battle, revenging himself with a bitter jest as he passed his conqueror.
Bocher, with the penalty of non-payment of the enormous purchase-money
staring him in the face, handed over the required sum within
twenty-four hours, receiving in return the necessary title-deeds.
The mason became a dealer in monopolies, and finished by leaving an
immense fortune and a patent of nobility to his son.
* * * * *
Not contented with the house in Paris which had satisfied his father’s
aspirations, the son built himself a splendid château at Montigny,
where he had the honour of entertaining amongst other important
personages, Louis XV. and M. de Voltaire. The château was built on a
hill; and puffed up with the vanity of his riches, M. de Bocher had
the presumption to attempt to surpass the great work of Louis XIV. at
Versailles, by bringing the water from a greater distance and throwing
it to a greater elevation. He had a theatre attached to the château,
and lived the life of great land-proprietors in England, a state of
things quite unknown in France. His museum of natural history, his
collection of pictures by the old masters, his stud of horses, were all
unrivalled, and moreover he had the luck to enjoy his good fortune to
the last, for he died on the eve of the great Revolution, leaving two
sons behind him to enjoy his mysteriously acquired wealth.
FACTS WORTH KNOWING.
From inquiries made among French hatters by Dr Delaunay, some curious
facts concerning heads have come to light. In families developing
towards a higher intellectual standard, heads increase from generation
to generation; while families failing intellectually, shew a regular
decrease in size. The men who made the Revolution of 1789 had bigger
heads than their fathers; while the sons of the present ruling families
in France are craniologically so deficient that hats have to be made
specially for them. In Paris the largest heads are to be found in the
quarter of the schools, and among the schools themselves the secular
stand above the ecclesiastical.
As flies are said to eat the animalcules in impure air, thus removing
the seeds of disease, leanness in a fly is _primâ facie_ evidence of
pure air in a house, while corpulency indicates foul wall-paper and bad
ventilation. Talking of a foul and fresh atmosphere, there has lately
been adopted in India a novel method of giving change of air to people
who cannot afford to leave home. Patients go up in a balloon, which
ascends to a certain height, and is there made captive. It seems that
a few days passed in this atmosphere, which is quite different from
that on the plains beneath, temporarily braces up the most languid
of invalids. The importance to health of a free perspiration no less
than of fresh air, and what dangers arise from perspiration being
suddenly checked, has been proved by the fact that a person covered
completely with a compound, impervious to moisture, will not live over
six hours. On the occasion of some papal ceremonies, a poor child was
once gilded all over with varnish and gold-leaf to represent the Golden
Age. No wonder that it died in a few hours, when we consider that the
amount of liquid matter which passes through the pores of the skin in
twenty-four hours in an adult person of sound health, is about sixteen
fluid ounces, or one pint. Besides this, a large amount of carbonic
acid—a gaseous body—passes through the tubes; so we cannot fail to see
the importance of keeping them in perfect working order by frequent
ablutions or other means.
It has often been stated that ocular weakness and diseases in various
forms appear to have been rapidly increasing in recent times. Dr
Loring, in discussing before the New York County Medical Society the
serious question, ‘Is the human eye gradually changing its form under
the influence of modern civilisation?’ confirms the opinion, so far at
least as short-sightedness is concerned. Constant study, now incidental
to the lives of so many, has, he says, a tendency to engender this
derangement of the eye, and it is often transmitted to descendants. In
his opinion, near-sightedness is a disease of childhood, and rarely
develops itself after the fifteenth or eighteenth year. On examining
the eyes of over two thousand scholars in the New York public schools,
Dr Loring found that the proportion of those in a healthy condition
were eighty-seven per cent. among children under seven years, while
between that age and twenty-one, the proportion of normal eyes
was but sixty-one; which shews, he thinks, that near-sightedness
increases directly with the age to which schooling is extended.
In Königsberg, Germany, he found considerably more than half the
population were short-sighted; and in America it is more commonly met
with among the older eastern cities than the new ones of the west.
Among the most prominent causes of the disease are, in his opinion, a
sedentary life, poor food, bad ventilation, and general disregard of
hygienic requirements—all conducing to a laxity of tissue, of which
near-sightedness is an indication.