[Illustration:
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
Fifth Series
ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832
CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)
NO. 133.—VOL. III. SATURDAY, JULY 17, 1886. PRICE 1½_d._]
MODERN SLAVERY.
A WORD FOR OUR SHOP-ASSISTANTS.
That we, as a nation, are not lovers of change for the sake of change,
can hardly be disputed; indeed, our conservatism in minor matters may
justify the reflection cast upon us by our neighbours. But although
we may be willing to continue patronising forms and institutions that
may justly be considered antiquated and effete, yet it is nevertheless
a fact that once get the public ear, and the cry of the oppressed
will never be raised in vain, even though redress involves uprooting
of old-established customs. Opposition to sudden and violent changes
there may be; but the familiar instance of our factory laws shows that
there is help for the poorest and weakest, let the need for help once
be made known. But, unhappily, those who most need assistance are just
those least able to plead their own cause, either from ignorance or
from fear of the consequences of complaint. Such was the case with the
children, who needed an outsider’s voice to raise their ‘cry;’ and
with those women-labourers, the story of whose underground toils and
miseries needed but to be heard, to awake indignant protest against the
whole system which could produce such results. In the latter case, so
sweeping was the reform, that the recurrence of the evil is impossible;
and though the working of the Factory and Workshop Act may not be
altogether perfect, it affords a considerable measure of protection to
the helpless, and stands as a wholesome check between oppressor and
oppressed.
By the Factory Act, not only are factories proper placed under
government inspection, but all proprietors of workshops or workrooms
are liable to the salutary visit of the inspector, whose duty it is
to see that the terms of the Act are complied with; that is, that
the ‘hands’ work only a certain specified number of hours; and that
due regard is paid to ventilation and sanitary precautions. But the
inspector’s boundary is the workshop or workroom, and beyond this he
is powerless to interfere; although on his way to his department he
frequently passes by large numbers of those who need supervision and
protection fully as much as those on whose behalf his visit is paid,
yet who, as the law now stands, are utterly and hopelessly in the power
of employers, who are free if they will to work their victims to death
with impunity.
Not, of course, that all employers are deaf to the claims of humanity
and think only of their own gain; on the contrary, many large
establishments are remarkable for the attention given to the comfort
of employees, who work only a fair number of hours, are well housed,
and treated generally with consideration. But even in such cases, the
restrictions and regulations are purely voluntary, and it is quite
conceivable that a change of proprietorship might involve a complete
reversion of the order of things; and as a fact, the vastly larger part
of retail business is carried on in a manner that makes the position
of the shop-assistant practically one of cruel slavery. Not that the
work is in itself laborious; though, as it involves of necessity an
unusual amount of standing, it is not suited to the naturally feeble
or delicate. The assistant’s chief hardships centre round the abnormal
length of his working-day, a day so protracted that none but the
strongest can bear the strain. The standing itself becomes very much a
matter of habit to the robust, provided the hours are reasonable, and
that sufficient time is allowed for meals to enable the worker to get
a real rest at least twice during a day of twelve hours, in addition
to a regular weekly half-holiday. The assistant’s working hours should
number about sixty per week, certainly not a low percentage; but, as
matters now stand, it is no exaggeration to say that a very large
majority of shop-assistants work from eighty to ninety hours a week,
out of which, in many cases, no regular meal-times are allowed, food
being hastily eaten, and work resumed as soon as the too hasty meal is
finished. Nominally, indeed, there are stated times for meals in most
establishments, in the better classes of which the assistants enjoy the
meal in comfort; but in too many cases the unfortunate assistant has to
accommodate his appetite to suit the tide of customers.
Thirteen or fourteen hours daily, with scarcely a break, would be
considered hard work, were it carried on under the invigorating
influence of fresh air, or were the work of a varied or partly
sedentary nature; but when, in addition to the length of hours, there
is the weary monotony of standing, the pain of which increases with
every hour of violence to nature, and the fact that, in the large
majority of cases, the air breathed is vitiated and impure, it needs
but a little foresight to predict that a few years of such slavery will
put an end to the working-power of its victims.
Let any impartial observer take note of the ages of
shop-assistants—especially in poor, crowded neighbourhoods—and he can
hardly fail to be struck by the fact that the very large majority are
young, and that the apprentice-age predominates. Indeed, it is not the
least sad part of the picture that the crushing influence of habitual
overwork is brought to bear most heavily upon the young man or woman,
hardly more than boy or girl, who begins the new career full of the
illusions of youth, and finds, long before the years of apprenticeship
are over, that the capital of health and strength is either entirely
gone or fast declining. Cases have come within our own experience in
which the rosy cheeks and exuberant spirits of fifteen or sixteen
have at nineteen or twenty given way to the pale face and languid,
artificial smile habitual to the overworked, who, in spite of pain and
weariness, are forced to keep up the semblance of cheerfulness. In one
instance, the gradual lowering of tone caused such a susceptibility to
disease, that an ordinary cold was sufficient to extinguish the feeble
flame of life; and in other cases, tendencies to special ailments have
arisen, distinctly traceable to the overtaxing of immature strength.
This personal experience is fully corroborated by many who have taken
sufficient interest in the question to study the causes and effects
of a system involving such a large amount of avoidable suffering to
an important section of society. To take but one instance. The Rev.
J. S. Webber, chaplain of University College Hospital, writing to the
President of the Shop Hours’ Labour League, says: ‘I have noticed the
result of long hours amongst the assistants employed at the smaller
houses of business—have met with many a young girl, broken down in
health, with the brain weakened. Instead of getting a walk after
business, or enjoying some other healthy recreation, they have resorted
to stimulants in the shape of intoxicating drinks, to keep up, as they
fancy, the poor fragile frame. We find in our Sunday schools that the
poor teachers who are assistants in shops cannot get to school on
Sunday morning. This also applies to church. The shop-assistant is
at a terrible disadvantage compared with the mechanic. Many of the
former cannot leave business until nine or ten every evening, and
twelve o’clock on Saturday, with body and mind so exhausted, whatever
educational advantages might offer, they are too exhausted to do
anything but rest.’ This testimony from a man of large experience
touches upon two or three of the incidental but by no means slight
effects of overwork. Sunday, to the aching body and weary brain of
the shop-assistant, whose Saturday, instead of being a half-holiday,
is the crowning point to a week of toil, may bring with it something
of physical refreshment; it certainly has little chance of affording
that quiet time for reflection and spiritual exercise essential to the
development of noble life.
Again, as to innocent recreation—the health-giving walk, stimulating
game, and harmless musical entertainment, are as entirely beyond the
reach of the shop-assistant as are the educational advantages offered
by public lecture, picture-gallery, or library. His, or her, life is,
in fact, an example of the ‘all work and no play’ which in the nature
of things produces ‘a dull boy’—or girl. And with whatever ability or
education the shop career is begun, it is a pretty sure thing that the
mind will become so stupefied with the burden of physical weariness,
that the inclination towards self-culture will quickly vanish, and the
overworked assistant sinks into a state of apathy, which, especially
in the case of the male assistant, reduces him to the dead-level of
hopeless existence; and not only is his present life a burden, but the
ordinary castle-building of the young man has very limited play in his
case; for every dream of future bliss is checked by the reflection
that should he dare to face poverty and found for himself a home, his
services will very probably be at a discount, the married assistant
standing a worse chance of employment than the single.
Who shall wonder if, under such circumstances, the young man or woman
is not always proof against the temptations of those more than doubtful
pleasures which present the only substitute for natural and rational
enjoyments?
What is the medical voice on this question of overwork, need hardly be
said. Whenever a doctor writes or speaks on the subject, he is sure
to give unequivocal testimony as to the premature failure of health
amongst shop-assistants in general, and especially amongst growing
boys and girls, whose immature frames cannot, without injury, be made
to habitually violate every physiological law. And yet, in face of all
this, the market is so overstocked with volunteers for slavery, that
the master has matters completely in his own hands, and is perfectly
safe in defying rebellion, sure that were the whole of his assistants
to leave to-day, their places could with ease be filled to-morrow.
Much of this over-supply is due to ignorance on the part of parents and
guardians, who, finding a ‘genteel’ employment for the boy or girl,
do not stop to inquire what goes on behind the curtain of gentility.
And by the time his apprenticeship is over, the assistant is not at
an age to mark out for himself a new career, and is bound to make the
best of a bad bargain. Not only so, but one of the special drawbacks
to shop-labour is the fact that if the employee offends his employer
in any way, even to such matters as attending a meeting or taking in
a paper that is disapproved of, he is liable to dismissal without a
reason and without a character; so that virtually the shop-assistant
gives into his employer’s hands the absolute control of his time, his
health, and his character; and whatever may be the results of that
surrender, escape or redress is equally unattainable.
Again, we repeat that many employers refrain from taking advantage of
their power; but nevertheless the fact remains, that a master who,
through thoughtlessness or greed, overworks, under-pays, badly houses
and badly feeds his employees, or dismisses them without a character,
is at perfect liberty to do so, and is in no danger of being called to
account for his actions!
The Early Closing Association has done something towards procuring at
least an amelioration of the shop-assistant’s condition, by seeking to
establish a universal half-holiday. It works on the persuasive line,
and in some parts of London and in many provincial towns has succeeded
in securing this boon of half a day’s rest; but persuasion alone will
never be able to treat with an evil so widespread; for, as long as the
early closing is purely voluntary, so long it will be in the power of
any one man to compel a whole neighbourhood to refuse or abolish the
half-holiday. If his shop is open when others are closed, he will to
a certainty obtain customers; and this is an advantage his neighbours
dare not allow him; therefore, they must follow suit and keep open at
his pleasure.
In this one-man power lies the secret of the present abnormal length of
hours; for it is a matter of experience that as long as shops are open,
so long customers will continue to come; and hence competition has
suggested lengthening of hours with a view to checkmating neighbours.
Yet no method of doing business ever brought with it more disadvantage,
for less gain. The public is certainly no better off than if shopping
had to be got through in reasonable time; and beyond dispute, the
shopkeeping class is not only no better, but very much worse off for
this tyranny of custom, which compels even the unwilling employer to
keep his assistants at work far beyond the ordinary limits of labour.
And so deep-seated and established has the slavery become, that there
remains nothing for it but an appeal to the State to interfere with an
extension of the Factory and Workshop Act; and although we are by no
means of those who believe in ‘grandmotherly legislation,’ this is a
case, if ever there was one, in which the strong hand of the law alone
can lift a whole section of society out of the misery in which it now
lies, and from which, unaided, it can never escape. An extension of the
Factory Act, although it would of necessity leave the shop-assistant’s
hours longer than those of most workers, would at least protect him
from unlimited labour, and would insure his work being carried on under
fairly healthy conditions.
The grumbling section of the public would doubtless raise many
objections to a shopping day of only twelve hours; but we confidently
prophesy that a year’s probation would show the new order of things to
be no hardship to the purchaser; and as regards employers, although,
doubtless, many will make great capital out of the grievance of
coercion, the more sensible and far-sighted will recognise the fact
that on this question at least the interests of employer and employed
are identical. Once insure that _all_ shops shall be limited to the
same number of hours, and there need be no anxiety as to loss of
business. The consumer’s wants must be met, and if he has only a
limited (and reasonable) number of hours in which to do his shopping,
he will have no choice but to adapt his habits to the new order of
things.
Hardship, of course, it would be if the law were limited to certain
neighbourhoods, or if clashing trades were not all under the same
restriction; but as long as there was one uniform code for all, the
only difference to the shopkeeper would be greater personal leisure
without loss of business. To those heads of large establishments to
whom reference has already been made, this may seem a trifling matter;
but many and many a small shopkeeper will rejoice, fully as much as his
assistants, in freedom from the excessive toil which makes his life as
much a slavery as theirs, and from which he is equally powerless to
escape.
Under the name of the ‘Shop Hours’ Labour League,’ a scheme has been
set on foot having for its object the presentation to parliament of
such a bill as has been suggested; and the interest of every individual
member of society is earnestly invited, in the hope of creating a
public conscience on a question affecting thousands of workers, whose
services are essential to the comfort of the community. The President
of the League, Thomas Sutherst, Esq., barrister-at-law, has compiled a
shilling volume on the subject, which, under the somewhat sensational
title of _Death and Disease behind the Counter_, contains a large
amount of sober fact, and can scarcely fail to awaken strong feeling in
the mind of every reader who takes an interest in the welfare of his
fellows. The League needs help, not in money, but in personal effort
and influence; and Mr Sutherst (3 Dr Johnson’s Buildings, London),
whose work is purely a labour of love, is ready to give information,
or to suggest methods by which help may be rendered to a cause which
thoroughly deserves the heartiest support.
IN ALL SHADES.
CHAPTER XXXV.
At the dinner that evening, Macfarlane, the Scotch doctor, took in
Nora; while Harry Noel had handed over to his care a dowager-planteress
from a neighbouring estate; so Harry had no need to talk any further to
his pretty little hostess during that memorable Tuesday. On Wednesday
morning he had made up his mind he would find some excuse to get away
from this awkward position in Mr Dupuy’s household; for it was clearly
impossible for him to remain there any longer, after he had again asked
Nora and been rejected; but of course he couldn’t go so suddenly before
the dinner to be given in his honour; and he waited on, impatiently and
sullenly.
Tom Dupuy was there too; and even Mr Theodore Dupuy himself, who knew
the whole secret of Harry’s black blood, and therefore regarded him now
as almost beyond the pale of human sympathy, couldn’t help noticing to
himself that his nephew Tom really seemed quite unnecessarily anxious
to drag this unfortunate young man Noel into some sort of open rupture.
‘Very ill advised of Tom,’ Mr Dupuy thought to himself; ‘and very bad
manners too, for a Dupuy of Trinidad. He ought to know well enough that
whatever the young man’s undesirable antecedents may happen to be, as
long as he’s here in the position of a guest, he ought at least to be
treated with common decency and common politeness. To-morrow, we shall
manage to hunt up some excuse, or give him some effectual hint, which
will have the result of clearing him bodily off the premises. Till
then, Tom ought to endeavour to treat him, as far as possible, in every
way like a perfect equal.’
Even during the time while the ladies still remained in the
dining-room, Tom Dupuy couldn’t avoid making several severe hits,
as he considered them, at Harry Noel from the opposite side of the
hospitable table. Harry had happened once to venture on some fairly
sympathetic commonplace remark to his dowager-planteress about the
planters having been quite ruined by emancipation, when Tom Dupuy fell
upon him bodily, and called out with an unconcealed sneer: ‘Ruined by
emancipation!—ruined by emancipation! That just shows how much you know
about the matter, to talk of the planters being ruined by emancipation!
If you knew anything at all of what you’re talking about, you’d know
that it wasn’t emancipation in the least that ruined us, but your
plaguy parliament doing away with the differential duties.’
Harry bit his lip, and glanced across the table at the young planter
with a quiet smile of superiority; but the only word he permitted
himself to utter was the one harmless and neutral word ‘Indeed!’
‘O yes, you may say “Indeed” if you like,’ Tom Dupuy retorted warmly.
‘That’s just the way of all you conceited English people. You think you
know such a precious lot about the whole subject, and you really and
truly know in the end just less than absolutely nothing.’
‘Pardon me,’ Harry answered carelessly, with his wine-glass poised
for a moment half lifted in his hand. ‘I admit most unreservedly that
you know a great deal more than I do about the differential duties,
whatever they may be, for I never so much as heard their very name in
all my life until the present moment.’
Tom Dupuy smiled a satisfied smile of complete triumph. ‘I thought as
much,’ he said exultantly; ‘I knew you hadn’t. That’s just the way of
all English people. They know nothing at all about the most important
and essential matters, and yet they venture to talk about them for all
the world as if they knew as much as we do about the whole subject.’
‘Really,’ Harry answered with a good-humoured smile, ‘I fancied a man
might be fairly well informed about things in general, and yet never
have heard in his pristine innocence of the differential duties. I
haven’t the very faintest idea myself, to tell you the truth, what they
are. Perhaps you will be good enough to lighten my darkness.’
‘What they are!’ Tom Dupuy ejaculated in pious horror. ‘They aren’t
anything. They’re done away with. They’ve ceased to exist long ago.
You and the other plaguy English people took them off, and ruined
the colonies; and now you don’t as much as know what you’ve done, or
whether they’re existing still or done away with!’
‘Tom, my boy,’ Mr Theodore Dupuy interposed blandly, ‘you really
mustn’t hold Mr Noel personally responsible for all the undoubted
shortcomings of the English nation! You must remember that his father
is, like ourselves, a West Indian proprietor, and that the iniquitous
proceedings with reference to the differential duties—which nobody can
for a moment pretend to justify—injured him every bit as much as they
injured ourselves.’
‘But what _are_ the differential duties?’ Harry whispered to his next
neighbour but one, the Scotch doctor. ‘I never heard of them in my
life, I assure you, till this very minute.’
‘Well, you know,’ Dr Macfarlane responded slowly, ‘there was a time
when sugar from the British colonies was admitted into Britain at a
less duty than sugar from Cuba or other foreign possessions; and at
last, the British consumer took the tax off the foreign sugar, and
cheapened them all alike in the British market. Very good, of course,
for the British consumer, but clean ruination and nothing else for the
Trinidad planter.’
For the moment, the conversation changed, but not the smouldering war
between the two belligerents. Whatever subject Harry Noel happened to
start during that unlucky dinner, Tom Dupuy, watching him closely,
pounced down upon him at once like an owl on the hover, and tore him to
pieces with prompt activity. Harry bore it all as good-naturedly as he
could, though his temper was by no means naturally a forbearing one;
but he didn’t wish to come to an open rupture with Tom Dupuy at his
uncle’s table, especially after that morning’s occurrences.
As soon as the ladies had left the room, however, Tom Dupuy drew up his
chair so as exactly to face Harry, and began to pour out for himself in
quick succession glass after glass of his uncle’s fiery sherry, which
he tossed off with noisy hilarity. The more he drank, the louder his
voice became, and the hotter his pursuit of Harry Noel. At last, when
Mr Theodore Dupuy, now really alarmed as to what his nephew was going
to say next, ordered in the coffee prematurely, to prevent an open
outbreak by rejoining the ladies, Tom walked deliberately over to the
sideboard and took out a large square decanter, from which he poured a
good-sized liqueur-glassful of some pale liquid for himself and another
for Harry.
‘There!’ he cried boisterously. ‘Just you try that, Noel, will you.
There’s liquor for you! That’s the real old Pimento Valley rum, the
best in the island, double distilled, and thirty years in bottle. You
don’t taste any _hogo_ about that, Mr Englishman, eh, do you?’
‘Any what?’ Harry inquired politely, lifting up the glass and sipping
a little of the contents out of pure courtesy, for neat rum is not in
itself a very enticing beverage to any other than West Indian palates.
‘Any _hogo_,’ Tom Dupuy repeated loudly and insolently—‘_hogo, hogo_.
I suppose, now, you mean to say you don’t even know what _hogo_ is,
do you?—Never heard of _hogo_? Precious affectation! Don’t understand
plain language! Yah, rubbish!
‘Why, no, certainly,’ Harry assented as calmly as he was able; ‘I
never before did hear of _hogo_, I assure you. I haven’t the slightest
idea what it is, or whether I ought rather to admire or to deplore its
supposed absence in this very excellent old rum of yours.’
‘_Hogo_’s French,’ Tom Dupuy asserted doggedly, ‘_Hogo_’s French, and I
should have thought you ought to have known it. Everybody in Trinidad
knows what _hogo_ is. It’s French, I tell you. Didn’t you ever learn
any French at the school you went to, Noel?’
‘Excuse me,’ Harry said, flushing up a little, for Tom Dupuy had asked
the question very offensively. ‘It is _not_ French. I know enough of
French at least to say that such a word as _hogo_, whatever it may
mean, couldn’t possibly be French for anything.’
‘As my nephew pronounces it,’ Mr Dupuy put in diplomatically, ‘you may
perhaps have some difficulty in recognising its meaning; but it’s our
common West Indian corruption, Mr Noel, of _haut goût_—_haut goût_, you
understand me—precisely so; _haut goût_, or _hogo_, being the strong
and somewhat offensive molasses-like flavour of new rum, before it has
been mellowed, as this of ours has been, by being kept for years in the
wood and in bottle.’
‘Oh, ah, that’s all very well! I suppose _you_’re going to turn against
me now, Uncle Theodore,’ Tom Dupuy exclaimed angrily—he was reaching
the incipient stage of quarrelsome drunkenness. ‘I suppose _you_ must
go and make fun of me, too, for my French pronunciation as well as
this fine-spoken Mr Noel here. But I don’t care a pin about it, or
about either of you, either. Who’s Mr Noel, I should like to know, that
he should come here, with his fine new-fangled English ways, setting
himself up to be better than we are, and teaching us to improve our
French pronunciation?—O yes, it’s all very fine; but what does he want
to go stopping in our houses for, with our own ladies, and all that,
and then going and visiting with coloured rubbish that I wouldn’t touch
with a pair of tongs—the woolly-headed niggers!—that’s what I want to
know, Uncle Theodore?’
Mr Dupuy and Harry rose together. ‘Tom, Tom!’ Mr Dupuy cried warningly,
‘you are quite forgetting yourself. Remember that this gentleman is
my guest, and is here to-day by my invitation. How dare you say such
things as that to my own guest, sir, at my own table? You insult me,
sir, you insult me!’
‘I think,’ Harry interrupted, white with anger, ‘I had better withdraw
at once, Mr Dupuy, before things go any further, from a room where I
am evidently, quite without any intention on my own part, a cause of
turmoil and disagreement.’
He moved hastily towards the open window which gave upon the lawn,
where the ladies were strolling, after the fashion of the country, in
the silvery moonlight, among the tropical shrubbery. But Tom Dupuy
jumped up before him and stood in his way, now drunk with wine and rum
and insolence and temper, and blocked his road to the open window.
‘No, no!’ he cried, ‘you shan’t go yet!—I’ll tell you all the reason
why, gentlemen. He shall hear the truth. I’ll take the vanity and
nonsense out of him! He’s a brown man himself, nothing but a brown
man!—Do you know, you fine fellow you, that you’re only, after all, a
confounded woolly-headed brown mulatto? You are, sir! you are, I tell
you! Look at your hands, you nigger, look at your hands, I say, if ever
you doubt it.’
Harry Noel’s proud lip curled contemptuously as he pushed the
half-tipsy planter aside with his elbow, and began to stride angrily
away towards the moonlit shrubbery. ‘I daresay I am,’ he answered
coolly, for he was always truthful, and it flashed across his mind in
the space of a second that Tom Dupuy was very possibly right enough.
‘But if I am, my good fellow, I will no longer inflict my company, I
tell you, upon persons who, I see, are evidently so little desirous of
sharing it any further.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Tom Dupuy exclaimed madly, planting himself once more
like a fool in front of the angry and retreating Englishman, ‘he’s a
brown man, a mulatto, a coloured fellow, gentlemen, own cousin of that
precious nigger scamp, Isaac Pourtalès, whose woolly head I’d like to
knock this minute against his own woolly head, the insolent upstart!
Why, gentlemen, do you know who his mother was? Do you know who this
fine Lady Noel was that he wants to come over us with? She was nothing
better, I swear to you solemnly, than a common brown wench over in
Barbadoes!’
Harry Noel’s face grew livid purple with that foul insult, as he
leapt like a wild beast at the roaring West Indian, and with one
fierce blow sent him reeling backward upon the floor at his feet like
a senseless lump of dead matter. ‘Hound and cur! how dare you?’ he
hissed out hoarsely, planting his foot contemptuously on the fallen
planter’s crumpled shirt-front. ‘How dare you?—how dare you? Say what
you will of me, myself, you miserable blackguard—but my mother! my
mother!’ And then, suddenly recollecting himself, with a profound bow
to the astonished company, he hurried out, hatless and hot, on to the
darkling shrubbery, casting the dust of Orange Grove off his feet half
instinctively behind him as he went.
Next moment a soft voice sounded low beside him, to his intense
astonishment. As he strode alone across the dark lawn, Nora Dupuy, who
had seen the whole incident from the neighbouring shrubbery, glided
out to his side from the shadow of the star-apple tree and whispered a
few words earnestly in his ear. Harry Noel, still white with passion
and trembling in every muscle like a hunted animal, could not but stop
and listen to them eagerly even in that supreme moment of righteous
indignation. ‘Thank you, Mr Noel,’ she said simply—‘thank you, thank
you!’
CHAPTER XXXVI.
The gentlemen in the dining-room stood looking at one another in blank
dismay for a few seconds, and then Dr Macfarlane broke the breathless
silence by saying out loud, with his broad Scotch bluntness: ‘Ye’re a
fool, Tom Dupuy—a very fine fool, ye are; and I’m not sorry the young
Englishman knocked you down and gave you a lesson, for speaking ill
against his own mother.’
‘Where has he gone?’ Dick Castello, the governor’s aide-de-camp, asked
quickly, as Tom picked himself up with a sheepish, awkward, drunken
look. ‘He can’t sleep here to-night now, you know, and he’ll have to
sleep somewhere or other, Macfarlane, won’t he?’
‘Run after him,’ the doctor said, ‘and take him to your own house. Not
one of these precious Trinidad folk’ll stir hand or foot to befriend
him anyhow, now they’ve been told he’s a brown man.’
Castello took up his hat and ran as fast as he could go after Noel. He
caught him up, breathless, half-way down to the gate of the estate;
for Harry, though he had gone off hurriedly without hat or coat, was
walking alone down the main road coolly enough now, trying to look and
feel within himself as though nothing at all unusual in any way had
happened. ‘Where are you going to, Noel?’ Castello asked, in a friendly
voice.—‘By Jove! I’m jolly glad you knocked that fellow down, and tried
to teach him a little manners, though he _is_ old Dupuy’s nephew. But
of course you can’t stop there to-night. What do you mean now to do
with yourself?’
‘I shall go to Hawthorn’s,’ Harry answered quietly.
‘Better not go there,’ Dick Castello urged, taking him gently by the
shoulder. ‘If you do, you know, it’ll look as if you wanted to give a
handle to Tom Dupuy and break openly with the whole lot of them. Tom
Dupuy insulted you abominably, and you couldn’t have done anything else
but knock him down, of course, my dear fellow; and he needed it jolly
well, too, we all know perfectly. But don’t let it seem as if you were
going to quarrel with the whole lot of us. Come home to my house now at
Savannah Garden. I’ll walk straight over there with you and have a room
got ready for you at once; and then I’ll go back to Orange Grove for
Mrs Castello, and bring across as much of your luggage as I can in my
carriage, at least as much as you’ll need for the present.’
‘Very well, Captain Castello,’ answered Noel submissively. ‘It’s very
kind of you to take me in. I’ll go with you; you know best about it.
But hang it all, you know, upon my word I expect the fellow may have
been telling the truth after all, and I daresay I really am what
these fools of Trinidad people call a brown man. Did ever you hear
such absurd nonsense? Calling me a brown man! As if it ever mattered
twopence to any sensible person whether a man was black, brown, white,
or yellow, as long as he’s not such a confounded cad and boor as that
roaring tipsy lout of a young Dupuy fellow!’
So Harry Noel went that Tuesday night to Captain Castello’s at
Savannah Garden, and slept, or rather lay awake, there till Wednesday
morning—the morning of the day set aside by Louis Delgado and Isaac
Pourtalès for their great rising and general massacre.
As for Nora, she went up to her own boudoir as soon as the guests had
gone—they didn’t stay long after this awkward occurrence—and threw
herself down once more on the big sofa, and cried as if her heart
would burst for very anguish and humiliation.
He had knocked down Tom Dupuy. That was a good thing as far as it went!
For that at least, if for nothing else, Nora was duly grateful to him.
But had she gone too far in thanking him? Would he accept it as a proof
that she meant him to reopen the closed question between them? Nora
hoped not, for that—that at anyrate was now finally settled. She could
never, never, never marry a brown man! And yet, how much nicer and
bolder he was than all the other men she saw around her! Nora liked him
even for his faults. That proud, frank, passionate Noel temperament of
his, which many girls would have regarded with some fear and no little
misgiving, exactly suited her West Indian prejudices and her West
Indian ideal. His faults were the faults of a proud aristocracy; and
it was entirely as a member of a proud aristocracy herself that Nora
Dupuy lived and moved and had her being. A man like Edward Hawthorn
she could like and respect; but a man like Harry Noel she could admire
and love—if, ah if, he were only not a brown man! What a terrible
cross-arrangement of fate that the one man who seemed otherwise exactly
to suit her girlish ideal, should happen to belong remotely to the one
race between which and her own there existed in her mind for ever and
ever an absolutely fixed and irremovable barrier!
So Nora, too, lay awake all night; and all night long she thought but
of one thing and one person—the solitary man she could never, never,
never conceivably marry.
And Harry, for his part, thinking to himself, on his tumbled pillow, at
Savannah Garden, said to his own heart over and over and over again:
‘I shall love her for ever; I can never while I live leave off loving
her. But after what occurred yesterday and last night, I mustn’t dream
for worlds of asking her a third time. I know now what it was she meant
when she spoke about the barrier between us. Poor girl! how very wild
of her! How strange that she should think in her own soul a Dupuy of
Trinidad superior in position to one of the ancient Lincolnshire Noels!’
For pride always sees everything from its own point of view alone, and
never for a moment succeeds in admitting to itself the pride of others
as being equally reasonable and natural with its own.
SOME PET LIZARDS.
BY CATHERINE C. HOPLEY.
Those who live near commons and turfy heaths may in the spring-time
espy the lizards peeping cautiously out from among the weeds to court
the sunshine after their winter’s sleep; or, on a warm day, boldly
flitting across the grass, but hiding again on the slightest alarm.
Much may the amateur naturalist find to interest and amuse him in
these tiny lizards; to admire also, for their colours are often very
beautiful, their eyes bright and watchful, their form and actions
anything but ungraceful. Among these native lizards, the Slow-worm
(_Anguis fragilis_) is included—the ‘deaf adder’ or ‘blindworm,’ as it
is commonly but wrongly called. As a pet, _Anguis fragilis_ has many
recommendations. Small, clean, unobtrusive, inoffensive, and easily
fed, are more than can be said of most pets: domestic qualifications
which, indeed, may be extended to its little four-legged cousins, the
British lizards, often found in the same habitat, and all of which
can be caught and transferred to a large glass bowl with ease and
satisfaction. One of the bell-shaped glasses with a perforated knob at
the top answers capitally. Reversed and furnished with moss, turf, and
sand, the hole serves for drainage, because water is indispensable for
the lizards, and the moss and turf should be sprinkled occasionally. A
stand into which the reversed glass fits can be purchased with it, and
a large china plate completes the arrangement, which, with its pretty
occupants, is an ornament for any window or conservatory.
By an accident, I soon discovered that a slow-worm—my first and then
only pet reptile—requires water. Knowing that it fed on slugs, I was
hunting in the garden, and at length found some small ones under a
flower-pot saucer, and conveyed them undisturbed to a place in the
cage. The slow-worm soon discovered the addition, but instead of
selecting a slug for supper, began to lick the cold, damp saucer,
putting out its tongue repeatedly, as if refreshed; and forthwith the
saucer was reversed and filled with the beverage, which the little
reptile soon lapped eagerly, continuing to do so for some minutes.
After this discovery, fresh water was supplied daily. That little
creature became quickly tamed, a fact which her history will easily
explain.
‘Do you want a live viper?’ a friend in the Reading Room of the British
Museum asked me, one day.
‘A viper! Here?’
‘Yes, a deaf viper. It was caught in Surrey last week. We had a
field-day.’
My friend was a member of a Natural History Society, as was also the
gentleman who had found the so-called ‘viper.’ His hobby being geology
rather than zoology, he had been breaking and turning over fragments
of rock in a sort of dell, when he had discovered the harmless little
creature, which he—a scholarly man, by the way—would have immediately
put to death, as a dangerous viper, had not my friend—also a learned
man, though not versed in snakes—reserved it for me, and with much
caution transferred it to a tin box. It was subsequently consigned
to a bottle, and tightly corked until I could see it. My friend now
promised me he would not put the ‘deaf viper’ to death, as his lady
relatives were daily entreating him to do; and a few days afterwards,
he shook out of its narrow prison on to my table—not a viper, but a
feeble slow-worm, the poor little thing having had no food during those
eight or ten days of captivity. No wonder, then, that the half-famished
reptile grew easily reconciled to an improved home with fresh grass and
moss and other luxuries, and soon learned to recognise its preserver.
Soon a companion was brought for it, one freshly caught and full of
health and vigour. This one was not so easily reconciled to a glass
house, and only by slow degrees would it allow itself to be taken up
and handled.
Another year, my saurian family increased to nine, including all the
three British species, and all living amicably together in one large
bell-glass. I will not trouble my readers with the nine names by which
the nine lizards were known in the domestic circle. Scientifically,
they were _Anguis fragilis_, _Lacerta agilis_, and _Zootica vivipara_;
the last so called from its giving birth to live young. _Anguis
fragilis_ also produces its young alive; or, as in the case of one
of my own, in a membranous case or ‘shell,’ quite entire, but easily
ruptured. The specific name _agilis_ has been applied to the larger
lacertine; but a more agile, swift, and flashing little creature than
_Zootica vivipara_ can scarcely exist; so that the true names of these
three species of lizard are not, after all, so truly descriptive.
_Zootica_ is much smaller, and must have acquired its astonishing
celerity protectively, the wee animal having no other safeguard than
in flight. And its suppleness equals its activity. Caught and held in
the closed hand so tightly that one almost feared to crush it, it would
nevertheless turn itself round, or rather double itself completely back
and escape the other way, where no outlet seemed possible; or between
the fingers, where you least expected. It is extremely restless and
timid, and less easily tamed than _lacerta_. One of my _zooticas_ had a
peculiar dread of being handled, and was so ever on the alert, watching
my slightest approach, and looking up sideways out of one eye, and
with its head on one side in such a bird-like manner, that it acquired
the name of ‘Birdie.’ Birdie seemed guided by intellect more than any
of the family; and the devices she practised in order to escape me,
when she anticipated my intentions to get hold of her, were truly
intelligent. She vanished somewhere, but presently you caught sight of
one bright eye peeping up from the depths of the moss, as if saying:
‘Ah, I know what you’re up to!’ Perhaps I did try to circumvent Birdie
somewhat heartlessly, just to observe her manœuvres. She would peep at
me and watch me through the glass, when I was sitting far away and had
no intention of going near; but at last she learned to stay in my open
hand, and I sometimes suspected there was as much play as fear in her
hiding.
The lizards were also thirsty little creatures, and eagerly refreshed
their tongues by lapping the wet moss, until they learned to lap out
of a saucer. The male _lacerta_ is of a handsome iridescent green,
pale and delicate on the throat and belly, and a rich dark colour on
the back. _Lacerta_ is easily tamed. It soon learns to settle itself
comfortably in a warm hand, and is quite appreciative of caresses
in the form of a gentle stroking with the finger. In intelligence,
both species certainly rank above _Anguis fragilis_; they more easily
recognise the voice and the owner of the voice, looking up when
addressed in the peculiar tone which was reserved for lizard training.
A large and handsome female _lacerta_ that lived in a smaller glass
by itself, escaped one day, and fell out of the window near which it
was placed. It must have sustained some internal injury, and had, no
doubt, suffered from cold and terror during the two days and nights it
was lost, until found on a neighbour’s balcony. I had reason to suspect
she would soon deposit eggs, but she grew gradually thin and feeble,
refusing food, and was evidently suffering, though showing no outward
appearance of injury. It exhibited a strong desire to climb against the
side of its cage, or whatever upright surface it was near, and remain
in a perpendicular position; or if it could find no such leaning-place,
it threw up its head and thus held it, as if to relieve itself of some
pain. Then, more and more it kept its eyes closed, or opened them only
to seek some object against which it could rest in that perpendicular
position. As winter approached, I allowed the little sufferer to lie
on a table near the fire, and covered it over for warmth; but it never
remained contented on the _level_. Though its eyes were usually closed,
whenever I spoke to it in the peculiar tone with which it was familiar,
it invariably opened them and came towards me. If it could not reach
me, it would even jump from the table to my lap in order to gain its
favourite perpendicular position on my dress, where it remained quiet
until removed. It grew more and more feeble, until one could scarcely
detect life in it, except in the effort to open its eyes and try to
approach when I spoke to it, and this to the very last.
These little lizards are easily procured; and I trust the perusal
of these memoirs may induce some kind and patient individual to try
them as pets, when it will be found that their sense of hearing and
intelligence is in no way exaggerated.
Lizards cast their skins at uncertain intervals during the summer,
being greatly influenced by temperature. One very warm season, when
they were much in the sunshine, mine changed their dress on an average
once in three weeks. Some of the sloughs came off entire, even to the
tips of the tiny, delicate fingers, like a perfect glove. Sometimes
they were shed in fragments. The head shields are not regularly
renewed with the skin, which was always reversed. _Anguis fragilis_
on one occasion cast its skin entire and unreversed, a very unusual
occurrence. All begin at the mouth, as snakes do; and you will see
when the process is about to commence by the little creatures rubbing
their mouths and their heads against whatever they are near, the
loosening cuticle no doubt causing irritation. To watch the process
is exceedingly interesting, especially when the lacertines free their
limbs of the old garment, shaking off and dragging themselves out of it
as you get off a tight sleeve.
A word about the voice of lizards, on which so much has been written.
That these do utter a sound is certain; but it is very feeble; though,
perhaps, in comparison with their size, not more feeble than the
hiss of a snake. And only when much disturbed and annoyed do they
ejaculate even this little sound, which is as if you half pronounced
and whispered the letter _t_ or _th_. Sometimes it resembles _ts_,
only audible when quiet prevails. Both the lizards and the slow-worms
expressed their displeasure by this same little expulsion of breath,
scarcely to be called a hiss. But once when a slow-worm fell from a
high stand to the floor, there was a singular sort of loud chirp or
chuckle, as if the breath were forced suddenly from the lungs by the
fall. It was wholly unlike its regular ‘voice,’ and was so remarkable,
that if it had not been ejaculated simultaneously with the ‘flop’ on
the carpet that announced ‘Lizzie’s’ fall, I might have thought a young
bird or a frog was in the room. The slow-worms often got out of their
cage and fell to the floor, seeming to be none the worse; but only on
this one occasion did I hear the breath escape so audibly.
Recommending them as pets, it is important to say that they all like a
change of diet; and herein lies the chief difficulty of keeping them,
except to those who have gardens or who live in the country. _Anguis
fragilis_ will content itself for a long period on worms, but these
must be fresh; and it enjoys a slug or a small smooth caterpillar for
a change. But the lizards are more fastidious, as is perhaps natural;
for in their wild state they catch such insects as are in season, and
have a choice of these. In the suburbs of London, I found them glad
of such varieties as could be procured from the shrubs in a garden,
or by digging; and small worms, caterpillars, spiders, or insects
were in turn eagerly pounced upon. ‘Birdie’ was particularly quick in
detecting a rarity and in being first to seize it. Flies are liked by
the lizards, but not by the slow-worms, the latter preferring less dry
food. Centipedes were rejected by common consent.