most memorable experiences of the siege, and what was done by balloons
and pigeons is likely to form a precedent for similar episodes in all
time. The French had always a fancy for ballooning, and were probably
in advance of the rest of the world in this respect. They soon started
a service of mail-balloons twice a week from Paris, despatching them
at first in the afternoon; but it was found that they did not rise
quickly enough to escape Prussian bullets, and the hour of departure
was therefore changed to one in the morning. The speed of the balloons
was sometimes marvellous. One descended in Norway on the very morning
it left Paris. Another fell into the sea off the coast of Holland a
few hours after its departure, and the passengers were rescued by a
fishing-smack. Out of ninety-seven balloons despatched, ninety-four
arrived safely--about the proportion, says Colonel Hoffman, of railway
trains in these later times. Two fell into the hands of the enemy,
and one was supposed to have been drifted out to sea and lost. A
balloon was seen off Eddystone Lighthouse; and a few days afterwards
a gentleman spending the winter at Torquay received a letter from the
rector at Land's End, stating that a number of letters had drifted
ashore, supposed to have been lost from a balloon, and among them was
one addressed to him. It proved to be a balloon-letter from Colonel
Hoffman, and is still preserved as a souvenir of the siege--and the
sea. The pigeon experiment Colonel Hoffman considers proved a failure,
as so few birds succeeded in reaching their destination. Two or three
times, however, a carrier arrived safely, bringing with it one of
those marvels of scientific skill, which under the microscope revealed
correspondence equal to the contents of a good-sized newspaper.
Not nearly sufficient, in the writer's opinion, was done in the way of
sorties from Paris. He contends that the garrison should have made a
sortie every night, with sometimes a thousand and sometimes a hundred
thousand men. ‘Had they done so,’ he says, ‘they would have soon worn
out the Germans with constant _alertes_, and with comparatively little
fatigue to themselves. But the entire French army was in want of
organisation.’ On the other hand, the members of the naval service have
Colonel Hoffman's warmest admiration. ‘The officers,’ he says, ‘are a
very superior class of men, and the sailors under them fought gallantly
during the war, for there was a large number of them detailed to the
army. They felt strongly the deterioration of the sister-service.’ The
colonel was once dining at a Versailles restaurant near a French naval
officer, when one of the army, accompanied by two non-commissioned
officers, entered and made a great disturbance. ‘_Cette pauvre armée
française! cette pauvre armée française!_’ muttered the naval officer.
SHAMROCK LEAVES.
BEGGARS.
The poorhouse and the policeman have considerably abated Irish
mendicants, especially in the towns; but in the country and in remote
places, ‘the long-remembered beggar’ is still an institution. The
workhouse is held in abhorrence by this class of vagrant, and any
amount of suffering is preferred to the confinement, the enforced
cleanliness, and the discipline it involves. The Irish poor are, as a
rule, indifferent to creature comforts. They love their liberty under
hedge and open sky; and resemble the dog in the fable, who preferred
his precarious bone and freedom to the good feeding and luxuries of his
tied-up friend. A wretched old woman, decrepit and barefoot, appearing
on the hall-door steps of a house she was in the habit of visiting,
would be remonstrated with in vain by her patrons, however delicately
the obnoxious subject, the poorhouse, was approached.
‘Now, Biddy, it is all very well in summer to go about; but in this
bitter wintry weather, would it not be better to go where you would
have a good bed and shelter, and be warmed and fed and comfortably
clothed, instead of shivering about, ragged and hungry? Why not
try--only for a while, you know, till summer comes back--why not try
the poorhouse?’
‘The poorhouse!’ (firing up); ‘I'd rather die than go there! I'd rather
lie down under the snow at the side of the road and _die_! But sure the
neighbours will help me. There isn't one 'ill refuse me an air of the
fire or a night's lodging, or maybe a bit and sup of an odd time. And
you're going to give me something yourself, my lady, avourneen, you
are! Don't I see it in yer face? You're going to bring out the dust of
dry tay and the grain of sugar and the couple o' coppers to the poor
old granny. Ah yes! And maybe the sarvant-maids will have an ould cast
petticoat to throw to her, for to keep the life in her ould carcase
this perishing day.’
Before the famine of 1846-7, which brought about a change in the food
of the peasantry, systematic begging was the annual custom. Potatoes
were then the sole food of the working-classes, and the farmers paid
their labourers by allowances of potato-ground (half or quarter acres),
with seed to till it. Money, therefore, was little in circulation
among the lower orders. In the interval between the consumption of
the old potatoes and the coming in of the new--expressively known as
‘the bitter six weeks’--there were occasionally great privation and
distress. Whole families turning out of their cabin and leaving it with
locked door, might at this time be seen trooping along the roads--the
father away ‘harvesting’ or getting work where he could. As they went
along, stopping at every cabin on their route, a few potatoes would be
handed to them--less or more, according as the stock of the donors was
holding out--so that by nightfall the bag on the mother's back would
have increased to sufficient proportions to furnish a good meal for the
family. And thus they continued to live until the new potatoes were
fit to dig, when the cabin-door was unlocked, and plenty once more the
order of the day.
The charity of the poor to the poor is very touching, and nowhere do we
see more of this than in Ireland. The people are naturally good-natured
and full of kindly impulses; and they attach moreover, a superstitious,
almost religious value to the blessing of the poor, with an equal dread
of their curse.
A fatal instance of the latter feeling occurred near Limerick some
years since.
A young man fell in love with a girl who did not return his affection;
telling him plainly that it was useless to persevere, as she never
could care for him. He took his disappointment so much to heart that he
fled the country and went off to America.
Maddened with rage and despair at the loss of her only son--the darling
of her heart and her sole support, for she was a widow--the bereaved
mother went straight from the ship that took away her boy, to the young
woman's house. Kneeling down on the threshold, and stretching her arms
to heaven with frantic gesticulation, she called down its vengeance
upon her trembling hearer, pouring forth a torrent of imprecations upon
her head.
By the broken heart of her son--by the widow's hearth made desolate--by
the days and nights of lonely misery before her, she cursed the girl!
And the latter, appalled by her bitter eloquence, and superstitiously
convinced that those awful curses would ‘cleave to her like a garment,’
never rallied from the terror and the shock to her nerves of this
vindictive outbreak. She went into a decline, haunted by the woman's
dreadful words; and her death confirmed the popular belief.
To return to our subject. Although the use of Indian meal and
griddle-bread as articles of food in place of the exclusive potato,
together with increased wages and the payment of labour in cash instead
of kind, have abolished the annual begging migrations, mendicants
still abound. The tourist season brings them out, as numerous as the
flies in summer, and equally troublesome. A party of English clergymen
visiting Killarney were pestered, as most travellers are there, by
beggars. These reverend gentlemen had, for greater convenience, adopted
the usual tourist costume, with the exception of one who belonged to
the ultra High Church party, and retained his clerical garb in all
its strictness. His dress caused him to be mistaken by the peasantry
wherever he went for a Roman Catholic priest; and he was not a little
startled when, in Tralee, a girl flung herself down on her knees before
him in the muddy street to ask his blessing. The abject obeisance of
the people to their priests in those days, was an unaccustomed sight to
an English clergyman.
The traveller in question soon became accustomed to the position, and
used it for the benefit of his party. Tormented on one occasion by the
importunities of a crowd of beggars who followed them, he suddenly
stopped. Drawing a line across the road with his stick, he cried to the
clamorous troop: ‘Pass that mark, and the curse of the priest will be
upon you!’ All fled in a moment!
Another time the same individual utilised the mistake in the cause of
humanity. The party were travelling on a jaunting-car, and going up a
steep hill, the driver was flogging his horse unmercifully.
‘My friend,’ said the clergyman, addressing the man, ‘do you know what
will happen to you, if you do that--when you go to the next world?’
‘O no, yer Riverence. And sure how could I?--What is it now?’ pulling
off his hat and looking greatly frightened.
‘You will be turned into a horse, and devils will be employed to flog
you, just as you're flogging now that poor beast of yours.’
‘Ah, don't, yer Riverence--don't say that now! for the love of heaven,
sir, don't! An' I'll promise on my two knees to give him the best of
thratement from this out, and never to lay whip into him that way
again.’
The beggars in towns are often very caustic in their remarks, and
indulge in personalities more witty than polite, when unsuccessful in
their demands.
A late well-known Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, remarkable for
a peculiarly shaped and very ugly nose, resisting the importunities
of a woman for ‘a ha'penny for the honour of the blessed Vargin,’ she
turned upon him with: ‘The Lord forgive you! And that He may presarve
yer eyesight, I pray; for faix 'tis yerself has the bad nose for
spectacles.’
Another spiteful old beldam of the same stamp attacked Sir A. B. for
alms, following him down the whole length of Sackville Street. The
baronet had tender feet, which with other uncomely infirmities, caused
his gait to be none of the most graceful.
‘Ye won't give it--won't ye?’ broke out the woman in an angry whine. ‘O
thin, God help the poor! And look now; if yer heart was as soft as yer
feet, it wouldn't be in vain we'd be axing yer charity this day.’
‘That the “grace of God” may never enter into your house but on
parchment!’ was the terse and bitter anathema in which another gave
vent to her wrathful disappointment. She knew that all writs are on
parchment, and had probably learned from cruel experience the formula
with which they commence: ‘Victoria, by the grace of God, Queen, &c.’
The ingenious proceedings of Captain C---- touching the mendicant
fraternity, should not be omitted while on the subject.
When about to be quartered with his men in Mullingar, a friend told him
before going there that the place was infested with beggars; and that
his predecessor, the commanding officer of the last troop, had been
greatly annoyed by them. The captain listened attentively, resolving to
take his measures. On the night of his arrival at the hotel he called
up the waiter.
‘I am informed,’ he said, ‘that you have a great many beggars in this
town.’
‘Well, yes, sir; we certainly have,’ replied the waiter.
‘I wish to see them all--all collected together under the windows of
this hotel. Do you think that could be managed?’
‘If you wish it, sir. O yes; Certainly, sir,’ said the man, with the
usual waiter-like readiness to promise everything under the sun; albeit
a little taken aback at so unusual a request.
‘Very well; let them be all here to-morrow at twelve o'clock precisely.’
Such a motley assemblage of rags and wretchedness as presented itself
under the hotel windows next day was seldom seen. The tidings had
spread like wild-fire; and from every lane and alley of the town
came crowding in the blind, the lame, the maimed, the aged--beggary,
deformity, idiotcy, and idleness in all their varieties. Curiosity and
greed were equally on the _qui vive_, and the excitement of the eager
crowd may be imagined.
At length the captain appeared on the balcony. There was a breathless
silence.
‘Are you all here,’ he said, ‘every one?’
‘Every mother's sowl of us, plaze your honour, barring Blind Bess with
her crippled son, and the Gineral.’
‘Then call Blind Bess and the General,’ said the captain. ‘I want you
all.’
‘Sure enough, here's Bess,’ cried a voice, as a double-barrelled
mendicant in the shape of a blind woman with a sturdy cripple strapped
on her shoulders, came hurrying up.
‘And here's the Gineral driving like mad up the street. But sure yer
honour won't give _him_ anything--a gintleman that keeps his carriage!’
shouted a wag in the crowd.
A dilapidated old hand-cart dragged by a girl now made its appearance.
It was covered at top with a piece of tattered oil-cloth, and from a
hole cut in the middle of this protruded the head of ‘the Gineral,’
decorated with the remains of an old cocked-hat. The shrivelled face of
the old cripple was half covered with a grizzly beard, and his rheumy
eyes peered helplessly about in a feeble stare.
‘Now,’ said the captain, ‘ladies and gentlemen’---- A murmur in the
crowd, especially among the feminine portion.
‘Ah thin, bless his darlin' face; 'tis he that has the civil tongue in
him, and knows how to spake to the poor!’
‘Not a bit o' pride in him; no more than in the babby unborn!’
‘Sure any one to look at him would know he was good! Isn't it wrote
upon his features?’
‘No nagur [niggard] like the one was here before him, that never gave a
poor man as much as a dog would keep in his fist.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen--you are, I am told, all here assembled. I have
requested your attendance in order to state that I have given, for your
benefit, one pound to the parson, and one pound to the priest of the
parish; and further to inform you that during my stay in Mullingar, not
a single farthing beyond these sums will I bestow on any one of you!’
A howl of disappointment rose from the listeners. The captain did not
wait to note the effect of his words. He disappeared into his room in
time to be out of reach of the chorus of abuse with which--their first
surprise over--his speech was received by his enraged audience.
WOODCOCK GOSSIP.
From a recent number of that entertaining journal of sports and
pastimes, _Land and Water_, we take the following account of the
curious habits of the woodcock.
‘Probably no kind of game is more keenly sought after in this country
than this, the head of the Snipe family; and we will undertake to say
that many an ardent gunner, who has become aware that some of these
birds of passage have already reached our shores, will keep a more
than usual sharp look-out for “cock” when beating up his coverts for
pheasants and such-like perennial game. It is astonishing what a fillip
to the day's sport a single woodcock added to the bag will give. Row
after row of cock-pheasants, noble in proportions, and in their really
beautifully variegated plumage, may be laid out with other game on
the lawn at the evening count-up, and the host may proudly scan these
evidences of the prowess of himself and his guests and the excellence
of his preserves; but his eye will always seek its goal in that little
russet-coloured bird, the only representative of his species, amongst
the other spoils of the chase. The man too who has been lucky enough
to have shot him, no matter how indifferently he has behaved at those
occasional “rocketers” that have presented themselves to him during
the day, is regarded as the hero of the party. The reasons why this
annual visitant has such distinguished attention paid him, and always
such a warm welcome awaiting his arrival, are that, compared with other
game, he is scarce, peculiar, inconstant in his habits, difficult to
shoot, and last, but not least, unsurpassed by any, and equalled by
few other birds that fly in these islands, as a gastronomic delicacy.
There are very few places in England where even in the most favourable
seasons woodcock are found in sufficient numbers to warrant shooting
expeditions being organised purposely for their pursuit, but they
are generally taken with the rest, extra vigilance being observed
in beating out all likely localities. The first immigration of the
woodcock from the continent generally takes place some time in October,
when he will be generally found near the coast for some few days after
landing. He is purely a winter visitant and nocturnal, and arrives
in England with an easterly wind, and by the light of the moon or in
the early dawn. If the elements are unfavourable to his flight, or he
is too weak to accomplish the whole journey without a rest, he drops
wherever he can find a rock or an island in his course. Lighthouse
keepers sometimes find him dead on the lantern, and occasionally, on
Lundy Island, woodcocks are found in considerable numbers, thin and
weak, and but the shadow of what they will be a few days after their
arrival at their favourite boring-grounds. During migration-time the
inhabitants used to set nets from house to house in the street of
Heligoland to trap them, and probably do so now.
‘As soon as they have recovered strength enough after landing they
disperse, and take up their quarters generally in the neighbourhood of
springs and soft boggy grounds, but there is no dependence to be placed
on their movements. A dozen may be seen in one covert to-day, while
to-morrow not a single bird can be found in the whole district. To-day
they are flushed amongst the heather on the hill-sides; to-morrow in
the deepest and most thickly-wooded dells, or under the hollies and
laurels in the home-covert drives. To describe the personal appearance
of this confirmed rover is not necessary, as his long beak, bright
eye, _tête carrée_, old-oak coloured body, and his black-and-white
tipped tail, are well known, and although there are occasionally found
specimens somewhat differing in colour and size, one may live in an
ordinary cocking district for twenty years and never meet with one of
these variations in the colour of his coat, although some very much
varying in proportions from their fellows may be killed in the same
district every season.
‘His peculiarities may perhaps be worth notice. His wings are each
provided with a little symmetrical, pointed feather, found at the
extremity of what is known as the bastard wing, which feather was many
years ago sought after by miniature-painters for mounting, to use as a
brush in the exercise of their art. The ear is a curious structure,
is as proportionately large as that of the owl, and is situated at
the extremity of the gape of the beak. The eyeball is enormous, and
together with the ear, occupies nearly all the external space on either
side of the head. The sexes are almost undistinguishable by external
marks, although some naturalists affirm that the outermost feather in
the wing of the hen-bird presents a stripe of white on the exterior
veil, which in that of the cock-bird is regularly spotted with black;
this is a very fine distinction, and not always to be depended on.
Another criterion is the size, which offers a peculiarity in that the
hen is generally the larger bird. Woodcock are great gluttons, and
to this fact we think it very probable their solitariness is partly
attributable. Like a goose to a Cornishman--Cornishmen are reputed
heavy feeders--one boring-ground may be enough for one woodcock, but is
“starvation for two.” Recognising this fact, apparently our long-billed
friends do not usurp each other's feeding-ground, having probably an
instinctive knowledge that the tenant in possession can find sufficient
accommodation for the vermiform portions of life to be found therein.
Hence a feeding-ground seldom yields more than one woodcock, although
when that one is shot its place is very commonly found occupied by
another the next day. Where the latter came from, or why it did not
jointly occupy with the former tenant--except for the reason adduced
above--is a mystery.
‘The manner of flight of a woodcock when flushed is very irregular.
Sometimes he will flap lazily down a ride in front of you like an old
red owl startled from his noonday sleep and stupefied by the glare
of the sun. At other times he will rise and dart about and zigzag
amongst the stems of the trees with a velocity scarcely credible
after witnessing an example of one of the owl-like flights previously
mentioned. When he indulges in his twisting and darting tricks, he is a
wonderfully easy bird to miss. Sometimes he will fly off slowly for a
short distance, turn sharply to the right or left behind a tree, bush,
hedge, or other object, dart swiftly onwards for fifty yards or so,
and suddenly drop, or perhaps, as if receiving a new impetus from his
sudden change of direction, speed away to some far-distant shelter. In
covert, however, a woodcock's ulterior point, whatever peculiarities
of flight he may indulge in on being flushed, is generally the first
opening between the tree-tops; when shooting, therefore, as a general
rule fire at the first glimpse, no matter how near he is--for the
chances are it is the only sight of him you will obtain--and hold the
second barrel ready for the aforesaid opening, through which, if you
keep a sharp look-out, you may see him dart.’
A TRIUMPH OF ART.
On the Peacock island in Potsdam we find amongst the white marble
statues an image of Rachel, the celebrated French tragedian, placed
there in memory of her triumph over a monarch who had been by no means
friendly disposed towards her. We mean Nicholas, Emperor of Russia,
whose dislike to her had been caused by her republican sympathies and
turbulent sentiments, which he abhorred, and on account of which he had
prohibited her entrance into Russia; he is even known to have said
that he wished never to set eyes on her. This inclement verdict of the
powerful monarch was no small stumbling-block in the great tragedian's
way, for Russia is a mine of gold; foreign artists and many a Rachel
and Patti of our days might relate wonderful, almost fabulous tales of
costly gems raining down upon them on the stage amid the enthusiastic
cheers of an enchanted audience.
Therefore Mademoiselle Rachel was highly pleased when in the summer of
1852 she received an invitation to act before the court at Potsdam,
where the Emperor Nicholas was just then staying as the king of
Prussia's guest. The famous actress had been desired to recite several
scenes from French plays, but neither in costume nor in company of
other actors. She therefore arrived attired in black, the most costly
lace covering her beautiful arms and shoulders; but the gentleman who,
by the king's orders, was at the station to receive her, expressed
his doubts whether the royal and imperial party would not object to
so melancholy and mournful an apparel; and on reaching the palace,
the artist was kindly invited by the late Princess Charles (sister to
the Empress Augusta, and wife of the Emperor's brother) to wear a few
gayer-looking things of her own. Such an offer could not be refused,
and Mademoiselle Rachel appeared in the gardens adorned with roses. On
inquiring for the stage, she was told that there was none erected, and
that she was expected to stand on a grass plot in front of the seats of
her noble audience. This demand roused her quick temper, so that she
was on the point of returning to Berlin, when her official attendant,
the above-mentioned gentleman, pacified her by remarking that she would
be on the same level with the audience, that her art would prove the
greater for the want of any stage apparatus; and (last but not least)
he reminded her of how much was at stake--an enormous honorarium
and perhaps the repeal of that fatal interdiction. After a moment's
hesitation and a struggle with herself, Mademoiselle Rachel took her
cicerone's arm, and suffered him to lead her to the spot destined for
her performance.
The evening was lovely; the moon, half-hidden behind a group of
poplars, threw her silvery light on the pond and the gently murmuring
fountain. A few torches and lights illuminated the face of the artist,
while the court sat in the shadow. Deep silence ensued upon her
appearance--one could hear the crickets chirp--and then she began
her orations. The listeners seemed spell-bound: that was not human
speech, it was music dropping from her lips. She was determined to
be irresistible; and she succeeded so well, that even the hitherto
unfriendly Emperor himself, won by her art, rose from his seat when she
had ended, and meeting her half-way, kissed her hand in presence of the
assembled court, assuring her that henceforth she would be welcome in
Russia.
What were the praises, flatteries, and congratulations of the others
who were crowding round the happy artist, compared to the homage
rendered to her by the mighty ruler of Europe's vastest country, the
monarch from whom a sign ordered thousands of his subjects to be or not
to be!
Thus was one of the greatest autocrats in Europe won over by the acting
and the elocution of--a woman!
EDITORIAL NOTE.