club or place of call for all officers going out of or coming in to
barracks. It was considered incumbent on every passer-by to drop in
on the officer of the guard and help him to while away the tedium of
his confinement by retailing any news there might be going; while
he on his part provided alleviation for any thirst accruing from
dry narration. By night, the guardroom was generally pretty full
until a late hour. A recent order of the Duke of Wellington, then
commander-in-chief, and which procured for him the cognomen of ‘the
Tobacco-stopper,’ prohibited the use of tobacco in the precincts of
the mess; and though this order was afterwards so far modified as to
permit smoking in the anteroom, it was confined to cigars; so those who
preferred the luxury of a pipe had either to indulge the propensity in
their own rooms or seek the shelter of the guardroom. Needless to say,
the latter alternative was the one most generally followed, and the
hospitality of the subaltern on guard was accepted as freely as it was
offered. Altogether, the main-guard was not a disagreeable place to
spend twenty-four hours, especially if it rained, which it can do in
those parts, and we ourselves preferred it to the duties of regimental
orderly-officer.
One day in the mid-winter of 1846, it came to my turn to mount this
guard. The weather had been unusually severe—it had been snowing for a
day or two, and the ground was covered to the depth of several inches,
while a smart frost had served to make the snow hard as a brick; so
that, as I marched my guard across the square to where the old guard
was drawn up, waiting our arrival, the men’s tread made no more track
than if we had been marching on the surface of the square itself. The
preliminaries of relieving guard having been got over as quickly as
possible, we paid the parting compliment to the old guard of presenting
arms, as it moved off in slow time; and then dismissing our own, we
visited the sentries, to ascertain if they had the orders of their
respective posts correctly, and then gladly dived into our own den,
and doffing our cloak, proceeded to make ourselves as comfortable in
front of a huge peat-fire as it was possible to be, braced up in a high
stiff stock and tightly fitting coatee and epaulets, as was then the
regulation.
The day passed like most others on guard; but, owing to the weather,
the passers-by were fewer, and our after-mess visitors didn’t stay so
late as usual; by eleven or half-past, all had taken their departure
for their respective quarters; and about midnight we proceeded to go
round the sentries. There was a bright moon, with a clear star-studded
sky. It was not unpleasant walking over the hard frozen snow, and we
were not long reaching the farthest-off and last of the sentries, who
was posted at the hospital gate. Besides the usual orders, he had
special directions to look after the dead-house, a small building
situated close inside the hospital gate, to which the bodies of
deceased men were conveyed until interment, and to allow no one to
enter it unless passed in by the hospital-sergeant. The sentry, when
giving up his orders, added that a man had died in the hospital late
that evening, and that his corpse was now lying on the table in the
dead-house. Accompanied by the corporal of the escort, we walked
over to the window, and by the bright moonlight could see something
extended on the table, as the man had said, covered with a sheet. After
this, we came back across the square to the guardroom, and lighting
a pipe, were soon deeply interested in a book that we were reading.
Gradually we began to nod, and the book to slip from our hand, and
the grand-rounds having already visited the guard, and there being
but little danger of having to turn it out again before the morning’s
reveille, we were about to go to sleep in earnest on the guardroom
sofa, when we were startled from our semi-somnolent condition by
hearing the loud challenge, ‘Who goes there?’ from the sentry who had
been pacing up and down in front of the veranda. We could hear the
rattle of his arms as he threw his firelock to the ‘port,’ and the
rapid tread of some one running towards the guardroom and crunching the
frozen snow. Presently the challenge was repeated in a quick peremptory
tone, but, as in the former case, without obtaining any response; and
then there came a kind of half-articulate gurgling cry, followed by the
sound of a heavy fall, and the crash of arms and accoutrements, and the
shout of, ‘Sergeant of the Guard!’
Fearing that something bad had happened, we jumped up and dashed out of
the guardroom, and saw lying on the snow, close to the sentry, who was
standing at the ‘charge,’ the figure of a soldier clad in his greatcoat
and fully accoutred, and a little way from him his firelock with fixed
bayonet lying on the snow, as it had escaped from his grasp in falling.
The sergeant and all the men of the guard had rushed out at the same
time as we had, and were now engaged lifting the prostrate figure, who
at the moment we feared had been run through by the sentry for not
replying to the challenge, and trying to run past him. Such, however,
happily was not the case; the sentry hadn’t touched him, and said that
the man had come rushing towards him from the far angle of the square,
and instead of answering the challenge, had continued to approach,
making the queer gurgling sound which we had heard, and falling as if
shot when he came to where he now lay.
The sergeant of the guard now reported to me that the man was alive,
though quite insensible and making a moaning noise, as if in a fit.
He further stated that he was the sentry who had been posted at the
gate of the hospital. We at once sent a man of the guard for one of
the assistant-surgeons of the regiment whose quarters were close
at hand, and had the insensible man carried into the guardroom and
laid on the guard-bed, his stiff leather stock removed, coat, &c.
unbuttoned, and water sprinkled on his face; but all, seemingly, to
no purpose: he remained unconscious, and kept up the moaning noise,
while now and then struggling hard with those about him. At last the
doctor arrived; and having administered some restoratives, after a
while the poor fellow became sensible, and sufficiently calm to inform
us why he had committed the serious offence of deserting his post. He
stated that he had continued to walk about on his beat at the hospital
gate for some time after we had visited him, and that all was quiet,
when suddenly sounds as if of chairs being upset and knocked about
appeared to come from the dead-house; that he had gone up to the
window, as we had a short time before, and looked in, and that he saw
the corpse off the table, and standing up close inside the window,
and that it, as he said, ‘jeered’ at him; that this fearful sight had
so unmanned him, that without more ado he had taken to his heels, and
had no recollection of anything else that happened until he returned
to consciousness on the guard-bed. He was evidently suffering from a
terrible shock to his nervous system; and it was only with the greatest
difficulty that, mingled with heavy sobs and shudderings, we could
manage to get the poor fellow to speak: he was driven nearly demented
by the ghastly sight which he was persuaded that he had witnessed.
As soon as he could be left with safety to the care of the guard, who
were directed not to pester him with questions, the surgeon and I with
a corporal and file of men set off for the hospital; and as we crossed
the square, strange noises began to reach us, the growling, snarling,
and other sounds of canine conflict mingling with the unmistakable
howls with which Doubleworks interlarded his performance.
‘Hillo!’ we said to the doctor; ‘do you hear that? What an hour for
Doubleworks to be hunting the badger; we thought he was never allowed
in barracks after tattoo.’
As we neared the hospital, the badger hunt, which had ceased for a
few moments, broke out afresh, this time mingled with shouts of wild
unearthly laughter, and proceeding unmistakably from the dead-house,
in which the corpse of the dead soldier had been deposited. We roused
up the hospital sergeant, who, good quiet man, snored serenely through
it all, and got from him the key and a lantern, and opening the door,
found that with the dead man the wretched Doubleworks had been locked
up. How he got there unnoticed, no one could tell; he had not been
observed by any one about the place; and the only conclusion that we
could arrive at was, that he had slipped in when the body was being
placed on the table, and had ensconced himself behind the door until it
was pulled to and locked upon him.
However true this theory might have been, there was no means of
verifying now, for, from whatever cause arising, it was but too evident
that poor Doubleworks had become quite insane. He had removed the sheet
from the body of the dead man, which lay there in its solemn stiffness
before us, in strange contrast to the mad pranks of the lunatic, who,
having, no doubt, wrapped himself in the sheet, had presented himself
so disguised to the sentry, when he looked in at the window, thereby
almost driving him as mad as he was himself.
Why he didn’t favour us with a similar exhibition when we went to look
in at the window, we can’t imagine; perhaps he may have objected to the
presence of more than one spectator, for he must have heard the steps
of the corporal and file of men who were with us when going our rounds.
At anyrate, he made no objection to leaving the dead-house now, though
he seemed in no way in dread of the other occupant of it. He was next
day made over to the civil authorities, and was afterwards transferred,
we heard, to the district lunatic asylum; and what was his subsequent
fate, we do not know. The sentry he had so horribly frightened, after
several weeks in hospital, returned to his duty; but we don’t think he
ever quite got over the shock, and he was discharged from the service
within a twelvemonth after. Perhaps he may be still alive, and if so,
we will bet a trifle he has not forgotten Doubleworks.
RUSSIAN PETROLEUM.
Mr Charles Marvin, who has already done much to familiarise English
readers with the Russian petroleum industry and the extraordinarily
prolific nature of the oil-wells at Baku, on the Caspian, has again
returned to the subject in a pamphlet entitled _The Coming Deluge of
Russian Petroleum_ (Anderson & Co., Cockspur Street, London). As these
wells, when transport facilities are more perfect, may seriously affect
the home and American oil-trade, the facts brought out in Mr Marvin’s
pamphlet are worthy of attention.
We learn that of the five hundred petroleum wells at Baku, the majority
are situated on the Balakhani Plateau, eight or nine miles to the
north of the town. The latest ‘spouter’ of Tagieff’s is, however, in
a different locality, being situated on a promontory three miles to
the south of Baku. Here Gospodin Tagieff began boring about three
years ago. At first, the oil was slow to come, and at its best had
never yielded more than sixteen thousand gallons a day. On the 27th
September last, having touched oil at seven hundred and fourteen feet,
the well began to spout oil with extraordinary force. ‘From the town,
the fountain had the appearance of a colossal pillar of smoke, from the
crest of which clouds of oil-sand detached themselves and floated away
a great distance without touching the ground. Owing to the prevalence
of southerly winds, the oil was blown in the direction of Bailoff
Point, covering hill and dale with sand and petroleum, and drenching
the houses of Bailoff, a mile and a half away. Nothing could be done to
stop the outflow.’ It seems that the whole district was covered with
oil, the outflow being at the rate of thousands of tuns a day, which
filled up cavities, formed a lake, and on the fifth day began to escape
into the sea. The square in front of the town-hall of Baku was drenched
with petroleum. On the eighth day, the outflow reached the highest
ever known—a rate of eleven thousand tuns, or two and three-quarter
million gallons a day. ‘Thus,’ says Mr Marvin, ‘from a single orifice
ten inches wide there spouted daily more oil than was being produced
throughout the whole world, including therein the twenty-five thousand
wells of America, the thousands of wells in Galicia, Roumania, Burmah,
and other countries, and the shale-oil distilleries of Scotland and New
South Wales.’ By the fifteenth day, those in charge had got the outflow
so far under control as to restrict it to one quarter million gallons a
day. It was certainly a misfortune that of the ten million gallons of
oil ejected from Tagieff’s well, most of it was at first lost for want
of storage accommodation.
The yield of oil at Baku is thus much ahead of the greatest product of
the American wells. Nobel Brothers’ No. 18 Well has yielded, from a
depth of seventeen hundred and twenty-one feet, nearly thirty million
gallons of oil; and their No. 9 Well, from a depth of six hundred
and forty-two feet, forty million gallons. Some of these wells are
kept closed while oil is being sold at so cheap a rate. Against the
assertion that the product of these wells may dry up and will not last
very long, Mr Marvin says that there is ample historical evidence
that petroleum has been flowing from the Apsheron peninsula for two
thousand five hundred years, and that there seems more likelihood of
the American wells drying up than those of Baku. Besides, the petroleum
region of the Black Sea has scarcely been touched, and there the oil
seems as plentiful as in America.
Owing to this prodigious outflow without a ready market, oil was
selling there, in the beginning of October last, at _one penny per
sixteen gallons_. The best refined petroleum or lamp-oil is sold at
three-farthings a gallon. The production of crude petroleum last year
exceeded four hundred and twenty million gallons; there are now one
hundred and twenty firms with oil-refineries at Baku, which last year
turned out one hundred and twenty million gallons of refined petroleum.
The production in 1878 was only one and a quarter million gallons. The
bulk-system of transport, as distinguished from carrying in barrels,
first adopted in 1879, has had a tendency to revolutionise the trade,
and now there are one hundred oil steamers on the Caspian. Some of
these steamers have a capacity of carrying eight hundred tuns of oil
each trip.
After extracting thirty per cent. of lamp-oil, and allowing ten per
cent. for waste and dregs, the remaining sixty per cent., out of every
hundred gallons, is used for lubricating and other purposes. Large
quantities are imported by certain firms in London, for the manufacture
of lubricating oils. Although thus exported, the supply of this waste
or residue is so great that it has become the principal fuel in
South-east Russia. Steamers purchase it at Baku at fourpence a tun,
to be used as fuel. When sent by rail to Batoum, the price rises as
high as one pound per tun, which is still cheaper than English coal.
More than two hundred and fifty tank and many passenger steamers and
locomotives now use this waste oil as fuel in place of coal. A tun
of liquid fuel is said to do the work of two or three tons of coal:
the chief advantage of its use consists in the fact that it can be
turned off and on like gas; it is clean, and takes up very little
bunker-space, a matter of great importance to steamers travelling
to long distances. The Black Sea Steam Navigation Company, owning
seventy-six steamers, intend to commence using this oil-refuse.
The chief outlets for the transport of Baku oil at present are by the
Volga and the Transcaucasian Railway. A concession has been granted by
the Russian government for laying down a petroleum pipe six hundred
miles long for the carrying of the oil from Baku to a point on the
Black Sea. The pipe must be large enough to carry one hundred and
sixty millions of gallons of oil a year; and it is expected that three
years will elapse before it is in working order. Meantime, the North
Caucasus Railway will be completed in 1887, and it is expected that it
will convey at least one hundred million gallons of oil to the port
of Novorossisk, on the Black Sea. Thence it can be shipped in tank
steamers to Europe.
We learn that a huge iron reservoir is being built at a remote spot in
the outer harbour of Amsterdam for the storage of petroleum. It will
be nearly thirty-three feet in diameter, and of the same depth, and is
calculated to hold nearly one million seven hundred and forty thousand
gallons. The petroleum will be brought direct from Russia in these tank
steamers, and will be pumped out at Amsterdam into the tanks, thus
saving the expense of filling and emptying casks, besides diminishing
the risks of accidents.
Mr Marvin is of opinion that the world is consuming more oil yearly,
and he calculates the daily consumption at two million gallons. Along
with the cheapening of the oil have also come great improvements in
the make of lamps, such as the Defries Safety-lamp, in which the
receptacle for the oil is formed of brass. Mr Marvin makes the sensible
suggestion, that as Russia is flooding the surrounding countries with
oil, our manufacturers might supply the south-east of Europe with
lamps, and thousands of cooking and warming stoves. It appears that
there is not a country in Europe to which Baku oil is not now shipped,
and the figures quoted show that American petroleum is being driven
from the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Mr Marvin is of opinion that
the shale-oil industry of Scotland already shows signs of yielding to
the competition of America, ‘and unless special circumstances should
arise, must eventually be crushed by the rivalry of Russian petroleum,
when imported in bulk.’ And apparently he has written his pamphlet in
order to rouse British ship-owners, manufacturers, and capitalists to
secure a share in the expansion and development of the Baku oil-trade.
[We have on more than one occasion advocated the use of oil in calming
_broken_ billows at sea, and thus saving a ship or boat which otherwise
might succumb to the fury of the storm. Might it not, therefore, be
worth while to make further experiments in the abandonment of costly
coal, and fit up steamers with this comparatively cheap material,
which, while driving the ship, might in a heavy seaway save her, if the
oil be allowed to ooze from bags made fast to windward? The use of oil
at sea during rough weather _cannot be overestimated_.—ED.]
TOBACCO-CULTURE IN SCOTLAND.
It is quite right for agriculturists to do what is possible in the
direction of introducing new kinds of crop that may possibly turn
out remunerative; and in this view, some interest is attached to
recent experiments in the culture of tobacco. If the North Americans
can compete with British farmers in the production of good beef and
mutton, Britain may possibly maintain the equilibrium by cultivating
the weed of which the New World has long had a monopoly. Potatoes were
introduced into this country from America, and have proved to be a
rich benefit. It is just possible that tobacco also may turn out to be
a not less lucrative gift to the producer. More than a hundred years
have elapsed since a trial was made in Scotland, principally, but not
exclusively, in the south-eastern counties. It failed at that time,
through the combined influences of a bad season, the interference of
the government—believed to be at the instance of Glasgow merchants—and
ultimately of a rapid fall in the price of imported tobacco, a
combination of circumstances not likely to occur again.
Of the trial made towards the close of last century, a detailed account
has been left on record by the Rev. Dr Somerville of Jedburgh. In
consequence of the war with America, tobacco had continued to rise
in price, till, in 1781, it reached the unprecedented price of two
shillings the pound. Dr Jackson, a gentleman who possessed a small
estate near Kelso, had for two years previous laid out a few acres in
the culture of tobacco, the science of which he had learned from long
experience in America. In 1781, his whole crop had been sold at the
extraordinary rate of two shillings and sixpence a pound. His example
and reputed success led others to follow in the same line. Even the
minister of Jedburgh had five acres of his glebe laid out as a tobacco
plantation; and his statement is that, in 1782, many thousands of acres
in the counties of Roxburgh, Berwick, and Selkirk were planted with
tobacco, nearly every farmer in these counties having devoted some
considerable part of his arable land to this adventurous speculation.
In Berwickshire, complaints were made that many acres of the best land
were occupied with tobacco instead of being cropped with grain.
The year 1782 is notable as having been one of the most inclement
seasons either in the eighteenth century or the present. Snow, which
had fallen plentifully during the winter, remained so long on the
ground that the sowing of grain was delayed at least a month after the
ordinary time. The summer was uncommonly wet and cold; the harvest
was so late that even in early districts corn was not cut down till
October, while a great part of it was reaped only in November; and
much of it in the higher grounds never ripened at all. Tobacco, like
other crops, suffered from the cold rainy season; and its destruction
was completed in the month of August by a thunderstorm of unusual
violence, accompanied with a great fall of hail. The succulent leaves
were riddled; many of the most luxuriant plants were destroyed; and the
prospects of speculative farmers were seriously blighted.
The discomfiture of tobacco-planters, begun by the unpropitious season,
was completed through the interference of Glasgow merchants. The
tobacco trade in that city had gradually grown to large dimensions. It
had begun in a small way soon after the union with England in 1707. At
first, Glasgow merchants had no ships of their own, but were dependent
on English vessels; and not till 1718 did the first Glasgow ship cross
the Atlantic. Gradually the tobacco trade of Glasgow increased, till
it roused the jealousy of merchants in London, Liverpool, Bristol, and
Whitehaven, who made strenuous but unsuccessful efforts to crush those
enterprising Scottish traders. The traffic continued to flourish till
in 1775 there were fifty-seven thousand one hundred and forty-three
hogsheads of tobacco imported from Virginia, Maryland, and Carolina.
At the instance of these Glasgow merchants, the government officials
came to understand that the revenue would suffer if tobacco grown in
Scotland were carried free of duty into England. Accordingly, an Act
was passed in 1782 permitting the use and removal of tobacco, the
growth of Scotland, into England for a limited time under certain
restrictions; but liable to duties similar to those due and payable on
the importation of such tobacco, the growth and produce of the British
colonies or plantations in America.
By a subsequent Act, provision was made for granting relief to the
proprietors of such tobacco, in consideration of the inferior quality
thereof, or any accident or defect that may happen in the growth or
culture of the crop so as to render the same not marketable or worth
the duties imposed thereupon. For this purpose, it was enacted that
the Commissioners of Customs at Edinburgh might allow, and order to be
paid to the owner or proprietor of such tobacco, out of any revenue
under their management which is applicable to the payment of incidents,
at the rate of fourpence for every pound-weight thereof, for which
the owner or proprietor thereof shall refuse to pay the full duties
imposed by the said recited Act, provided the commodity shall be given
up and _burned_, the owners being compensated at the rate of fourpence
a pound. Even at that moderate figure, it was said that thirteen
acres in the parish of Crailing brought one hundred and four pounds
sterling, or about eight pounds an acre. The return would have been
three times as much, but for the Act of Parliament which fixed the rate
of compensation so low. Altogether, the county of Roxburgh was believed
to have lost fifteen hundred pounds by the arrangement. The experiment
was not renewed in 1783, one reason for which is doubtless indicated in
the announcement made on the 21st of March that year, that ‘tobacco has
fallen fourpence a pound this week.’