Читать книгу: «The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851», страница 21
"I have recently," said the host, "read in the Police Reports several cases of this description; and imagined that some narcotic drug must have been mixed with the liquor drank by such persons. Adulterations of some sort must go on to a frightful extent in gin-palaces."
"Not by any means," answered the Doctor, "to the extent you suppose. It is said that the spirit dealer makes his whisky or gin bead by adding a little turpentine to it. Well! what then? Turpentine is a very healthy diuretic. It is given to infants to kill worms in very large doses. Then, again, vitriol is spoken of; but so strong is sulphuric acid, that it would clearly render these spirits quite unpalatable. I do not affirm that the art of adulteration may not occasionally be had recourse to, even with criminal intentions, for such cases have been brought under the notice of the authorities; but I do not believe the practice is so general as some persons suppose. I apprehend dilution is a more general means of fraud."
"It has often occurred to me," said the Clergyman, "that our municipal regulations ought, on this subject, be much improved. Our Excise officers enter the cellars of the wholesale and retail spirit-dealers, only to gauge the strength of the spirit, and to ascertain how much it may be overproof, which alone regulates the Government duty; but for the sake of the public health I would go further than this. If a butcher be found selling unhealthy meat; a fishmonger, bad fish; or a baker cheat in the weight of bread, they severally have their goods confiscated, and are fined; and so far the public is protected. But the authorities seem not to care what description of poison is sold across the counter of gin-palaces—an evil which may easily be remedied. I would put the licensed victualler on the same level with the butcher and fishmonger: and if he were found selling adulterated spirits, and the charge were proved against him by the same having been fairly analyzed, he, too, should be liable to be fined, or even lose his license. The public health is, upon this point, at present, utterly unprotected."
"Some such measure," observed the host, "might be advantageously adopted; but I confess that I do not advocate the prohibition principle; instead of preaching a Crusade against the use of any particular article, whether of necessity or comfort, let us educate the people, and improve their social condition by inculcating sound moral principles; they will soon learn that habits of industry and temperance can alone insure them and their children happiness and prosperity; and in so doing you will teach a sound, practical permanent lesson."
"But," interrupted the Clergyman, "if we continue the conversation longer, we shall ourselves become transgressors; the 'stirrup-cup' is drained; much remains doubtless to be said respecting the evils, physical and moral, which arise from intemperance; but let us now adjourn."
"With all my heart!" exclaimed the host, "and now, 'to all and each, a fair good night.'"
From "Rambles beyond Railways;" by W. Wilkie Collins, author of "Antonina."
MINING UNDER THE SEA
In complete mining equipment, with candles stuck by lumps of clay to their felt hats, the travellers have painfully descended by perpendicular ladders and along dripping-wet rock passages, fathoms down into pitchy darkness; the miner who guides them calls a halt.
We are now four hundred yards out under the bottom of the sea, and twenty fathoms or a hundred and twenty feet below the sea level. Coast-trade vessels are sailing over our heads. Two hundred and forty feet beneath us men are at work; and there are galleries deeper yet even below that. The extraordinary position down the face of the cliff, of the engines and other works on the surface at Botallack, is now explained. The mine is not excavated like other mines under the land, but under the sea.
Having communicated these particulars, the miner next tells us to keep strict silence and listen. We obey him, sitting speechless and motionless. If the reader could only have beheld us now, dressed in our copper-colored garments, huddled close together in a mere cleft of subterranean rock, with flame burning on our heads and darkness enveloping our limbs, he must certainly have imagined, without any violent stretch of fancy, that he was looking down upon a conclave of gnomes.
After listening for a few moments, a distant unearthly noise becomes faintly audible,—a long, low, mysterious moaning, that never changes, that is felt on the ear as well as heard by it; a sound that might proceed from some incalculable distance, from some far invisible height; a sound unlike any thing that is heard on the upper ground in the free air of heaven; a sound so sublimely mournful and still, so ghostly and impressive when listened to in the subterranean recesses of the earth, that we continue instinctively to hold our peace, as if enchanted by it, and think not of communicating to each other the strange awe and astonishment which it has inspired in us both from the very first.
At last the miner speaks again, and tells us that what we hear is the sound of the surf lashing the rocks a hundred and twenty feet above us, and of the waves that are breaking on the beach beyond. The tide is now at the flow, and the sea is in no extraordinary state of agitation: so the sound is low and distant just at this period. But when storms are at their height, when the ocean hurls mountain after mountain of water on the cliffs, then the noise is terrific; the roaring heard down here in the mine is so inexpressibly fierce and awful that the boldest men at work are afraid to continue their labor; all ascend to the surface to breathe the upper air and stand on the firm earth; dreading, though no such catastrophe has ever happened yet, that the sea will break in on them if they remain in the caverns below.
Hearing this, we get up to look at the rock above us. We are able to stand upright in the position we now occupy; and, flaring our candles hither and thither in the darkness, can see the bright pure copper streaking the dark ceiling of the gallery in every direction. Lumps of ooze, of the most lustrous green color, traversed by a natural network of thin red veins of iron, appear here and there in large irregular patches, over which water is dripping slowly and incessantly in certain places. This is the salt water percolating through invisible crannies in the rock. On stormy days it spirts out furiously in thin continuous streams. Just over our heads we observe a wooden plug of the thickness of a man's leg; there is a hole here, and the plug is all that we have to keep out the sea.
Immense wealth of metal is contained in the roof of this gallery, throughout its whole length; but it remains, and will always remain, untouched: the miners dare not take it, for it is part, and a great part, of the rock which forms their only protection against the sea, and which has been so far worked away here that its thickness is limited to an average of three feet only between the water and the gallery in which we now stand. No one knows what might be the consequence of another day's labor with the pick-axe on any part of it. This information is rather startling when communicated at the depth of four hundred and twenty feet under ground. We should decidedly have preferred to receive it in the counting-house. It makes us pause for an instant, to the miner's infinite amusement, in the very act of knocking away about an inch of ore from the rock, as a memento of Botallack. Having, however, ventured, on reflection, to assume the responsibility of weakening our defence against the sea by the length and breadth of an inch, we secure our piece of copper, and next proceed to discuss the propriety of descending two hundred and forty feet more of ladders, for the sake of visiting that part of the mine where the men are at work.
Two or three causes concur to make us doubt the wisdom of going lower. There is a hot, moist, sickly vapor, floating about as, which becomes more oppressive every moment; we are already perspiring at every pore, as we were told we should, and our hands, faces, jackets, and trousers, are all more or less covered with a mixture of mud, tallow, and iron-drippings, which we can feel and smell much more acutely than is exactly desirable. We ask the miner what there is to see lower down. He replies, nothing but men breaking ore with pickaxes: the galleries of the mine are alike, however deep they may go; when you have seen one, you have seen all.
The answer decides us: we determine to get back to the surface.
From Tait's Magazine.
THE COSTUME OF THE FUTURE
Our business is with male attire, and it would be ungallant to introduce, merely in a parenthesis, the subject of ladies' dress, or we might pause to congratulate them and ourselves upon the very reasonable and natural costume which they have enjoyed for some time. The portraits of the present day are not disfigured by the towering head-gear, the long waists and hoops against which Reynolds had to contend, nor by the greater variety of hideous fashions, including the no-waist, the tight clinging skirt, the enormous bows of hair, and the balloon or leg-of-mutton sleeves, which at various periods interfered with the highest efforts of Lawrence. The present dress differs slightly from that of the best ages; and Vandyke or Lely, if summoned to paint the fair ladies of the Court of Queen Victoria, would find little they could wish to alter in the arrangement of their costume. But what would they say to the gentlemen?
They would miss the rich materials, the variety of color and of make, and the flowing outlines to which they were accustomed, and would find, instead of them every body going about in a plain, uniform, close-fitting garb, admitting of no variety of color or make, and not presenting a single line or contour upon which they could look with pleasure. They might not be much gratified by learning the superior economy of modern fashions: they might say that, putting rich materials and delicate hues aside, it is possible to contrive a picturesque dress out of the most simple fabrics. Beauty and expense are by no means of necessity associated in dress. When Oliver Goldsmith, after spending more than would pay a modern gentleman's tailor's bill for a couple of years, upon a single coat of cherry-colored velvet, had the misfortune to stain it in a conspicuous place, he was obliged to go on wearing it, and always to hold his hat (in this instance of some use) before the fatal grease-spot. He could not afford to have another new coat, and yet this expensive and unfortunate piece of finery was every bit as ugly, if not more so, than the plain black or invisible-green cloth coat of this age. The long shoes, pointed toes, and other grotesque fashions of the middle ages, must all of them have been expensive; and it was by inefficient sumptuary laws that it was attempted to put them down. The draperies which we admire on an Etruscan vase were of the coarsest woollen: and the possession of silken stuffs in abundance has not tended to make the Chinese national dress better than what we know it to be.
Of coats, the frock is better than the evening or dress-coat. It fulfils the purpose of a garment more completely, and when buttoned up is capable of protecting the chest. The triangular opening in front of the coat and waistcoat is, however, an absurdity. It leaves unprotected from cold and wet the very part which most requires protection. Pictorially, the regularly-defined patch of white seen through it is always offensive; but its whiteness has one merit, if it really be white. The exposure of part of the linen worn under the tailor's portion of the man's dress makes attention to its condition necessary; and perhaps has contributed to the greater personal cleanliness which obtains among a coat-wearing than among a blouse-wearing population. Cleanliness is very truly reputed to be next to godliness, and it may be worth while making some sacrifice of convenience and taste for the sake of it: it belongs to morals rather than to æsthetics, and should accordingly take precedence of any thing appertaining only to the latter.
The tail or dress coat is evidently derived from the frock, or from something like the frock, by turning back the skirts. Remains of this process may be seen in the buttons which, without serving any useful purpose, still continue to decorate the coat-tails in many military uniforms, and in servants' liveries, and in those which, without being so remarkable, still adhere to the tails of an ordinary dress-coat. This arrangement may be noticed very distinctly in the well-known portraits of Charles XII. of Sweden, in which the white livery is seen buttoned back upon the blue cloth which forms the outer side of the coat skirts.
The tail-coat is certainly the worst of the two, whether for utility or for appearance; and so thought George IV., whose opinion, however, in matters of taste, was not in general good for much. This king, in his latter days, carried his aversion to it so far as to banish it entirely from his back, and from his presence for a time, during which he, and the persons immediately about him, wore a kind of frock coat in evening dress. But the public did not follow the royal lead, and the swallow-tails still flutter behind the wearer of an evening coat.
Waistcoats do not call for much reprobation, except in the matter of the already-mentioned white triangle, in which they err in company with the coats. But a good long waistcoat, buttoned up to the throat, is a very useful and unexceptionable piece of attire. A few years ago, people wore them of all kinds of color, and of all kinds of stuffs, silks, and velvet; now, however, black is your only wear, with perhaps an occasional license to assume the white waistcoat, which was once associated with that exceedingly frivolous and now evanescent party who were called 'Young England.'
Trousers are so sensible and convenient a portion of attire that little can be said against them. It is a form of covering for the legs well fitted for the inhabitants of a cold and variable climate, and hardly differs from what may be seen on the figures of the Gauls on Trajan's Column, and other monuments of antiquity. In practical convenience, they far surpass their shorter rivals, which also require continuation by stockings to complete the purpose of clothing the leg. Buttons at the knee are a great nuisance, and probably were what chiefly contributed to the melancholy determination of a certain gentleman in the last century, who found his existence insupportable, and put an end to it with his own hand. Life, he said, was made up of nothing but buttoning and unbuttoning; and so he shot himself one morning in his dressing-gown and slippers, before the intolerable burden of the day commenced.
Trousers are great levellers. The legs of Achilles and of Thersites would share the same fate in them, and both would in modern London be as well entitled to the epithet of "well-trousered," as the former alone was to that of 'well-greaved' before Troy. Probably the majority of mankind are but too well content with this result, as there are few who could emulate Mr. Cruikshanks in James Smith's song of names, who
"–stepped into ten thousand a year
By showing his leg to an heiress;"
and the trouser is therefore likely to be a permanent article in the wardrobe, so that its continued existence must be taken as a datum or postulate in any discussion upon vestimentary reform. This, it must be allowed, makes any reform to a very picturesque costume out of the question; for not only is the loose trouser itself hostile to the fit display of the lower limbs, but it interferes with the use of any such dress as the military habit of the Romans, or the Highland kilt, or the short tunic with which we are familiar on the stage in costumed plays, where no particular accuracy as to place or time is affected. The effect of the combination may often be noticed in the dress of little boys, who may be seen wearing trousers under such a tunic, reaching to the knee or a little above it. The horizontal line which terminates the lower part of the kilt is seen in immediate contrast with, and at right angles to the almost perpendicular lines of the trousers, which produces a most disagreeable appearance; although it is well adapted, by the contrast of a straight line with the graceful curves of the legs, to set them off to advantage when uncovered.
Flowing robes after the classical or eastern fashion are of course not to be thought of. They would be mightily out of place in railroad carriages, or in omnibuses, or in walking the streets on muddy days. Modern habits of activity and personal independence require the dress to be tolerably succinct and unvoluminous; but some change in the right direction has been lately made by the introduction of what are called paletots, and other coats of various transitional forms between them and the shooting-jacket proper. In these a good deal of the stiffness and angularity of the regulation frock coat is got rid of, and they admit of adaptation to different statures and sizes. They have much comfort and convenience to recommend them, and it would be a great point gained if they were altogether adopted, and the frock-coat, which still asserts a claim to be considered more correct, were quietly given up.
It may be matter only of custom and association, or it may also depend upon some deeper considerations, but the result of much observation is, that with the ordinary out-of-door costume of the present day, as worn in cities, nothing goes so well as the black hat. There is an ugliness and a stiffness about it which is congruous with the ugliness and stiffness of every thing else. Its very height and straight sides tend to carry the eye upwards, in conformity with the indication of the principal lines in the lower part of the dress. It is like a steeple upon a Gothic tower, and repeats the perpendicular tendencies of what is below it, instead of contradicting them by the introduction of a horizontal element. Certainly, no kind of cap goes well with it: the traveller who has not unpacked his hat, and continues to wear in the streets what served him on the road, or the Turk, European in all but his red fez, cut but a sorry and mongrel figure among the shining beavers around them, which retain their place as necessary evils under the existing order of things.
Once, however, escape from the town, and see how every one gets rid of his regular coat, and of his chimney-pot. The man of business in his rural retreat, the lawyer in vacation, the lounger at the sea-side, have all discarded them. Emancipation from the coat and hat is synonymous with leisure, enjoyment, and freedom from the formal trammels of public and civic life. The most staid and reverend personages may now be seen disporting themselves in divers jackets, and in that Wide-awake which a few years since was confined to the sportsman or his slang imitator. Surely this universal consent of mankind must be accepted as an omen of the future; and when the looser and more sensible garments now worn in the country, shall be established as the usual dress of the towns also, they will be accompanied by the soft and wide-leaved hat of felt, which already goes along with them wherever they are tolerated.
From the Athenæum.
LIFE IN PERSIA, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Prince Alexis Soltykoff, a Russian, who published in Paris last year his Travels in India, has just given to the world from the same city a volume of Novels in Persia. In both works we find the same charm of simplicity in the narrative, the same truth and spirit in the drawings, and, we may add, what some people would call the same deficiencies—that is to say, the same absence of got-up learning and bookmaking art. There are no historical, geological, or philological treatises pressed into their pages, no statistical calculations, not one quotation from other people's books, not a single word about Darius, Sapor, or Khosroes!
Prince Soltykoff has not followed the too commonly adopted recipe for writing a book of travels. He has not on his return home read every body else's book on the same subject,—and then condensed his readings into one volume, bristling with erudition and stuck full of learned notes which, ten to one, are either not read at all or read in the wrong place. As to notes—there are not two to each volume. Satisfied with having said nothing that is not true, and with having related nothing that he has not seen, he feels no misgivings or regret at leaving much unsaid. Of all the information which can be acquired without leaving one's fireside in London or St. Petersburg he gives not a word, but the valuable testimony of the eyewitness he records in a series of drawings in which Eastern life is 'taken in the fact' with a truth and liveliness of touch rarely found in an amateur pencil. The letter-press is a secondary part of the work,—merely to render the drawings intelligible; and we are convinced that if the author could have imagined a more unpretending title for his book than the one given, he would have selected it. Indeed, the word book is scarcely an appropriate one to use on this occasion; and we may compare the pleasure which we have derived in perusing Prince Soltykoff's travels both in Persia and in India to that afforded by the inspection of the album of an intelligent traveller who should enliven the exhibition by his agreeable and instructive conversation.
The travels in India took place between the years 1841 and 1846, while those in Persia were accomplished as far back as 1838. We are not told why the publication has been so long delayed, and can account for it only by supposing that the fashion which has lately brought before the public in the capacity of authors so many subjects of the Czar, was not in 1838 so prevalent at St. Petersburg. Be that as it may, a picture of the Eastern world in its immobility can brave a lapse of time which would prove fatal to the likeness of any portraiture of European society. The following sketch, for instance, is likely to be as true now, as when it was written:—
"After three months' stay at Teheran, I was heartily tired of it and of Persia altogether. The manner of living is fearfully monotonous. A stranger, debarred from female society, and deprived of all the diversions of European cities, can scarcely find employment for his day. I had hired for six toumans a month (the touman is worth about ten shillings) one of the prettiest houses of the town in the quarter named Gazbine-Dervazé. The air, it is true, circulated as freely through it as in the open street, but the climate is so mild and the weather was so fine that this could scarcely be considered an objection. The house consisted of two stories of several rooms with two terraces to each. Those of the upper story overlooked the town, which, in spite of its dulness, had a certain air of activity. Two rows of windows—the lower closed with wooden shutters and the upper one formed of colored glass,—gave light to the principal room, of which the walls were white as snow. I took advantage of two niches to place therein two complete Persian armors which I had procured with inconceivable trouble, for no one can imagine the numberless and tedious difficulties which impede every kind of transaction. For the most trifling purchase one hundred toumans are spoken of as a hundred roubles in Russia. Besides, punctuality is a virtue unknown in Persia, and this alone would suffice to make the country odious to foreigners. If you charge a tradesman with want of faith, he replies gravely that 'his nose has burned with regret'—a strange expression of repentance certainly! Indeed, the habit of falsehood is so inveterate among Persians of this class—and I may even say of all classes—that when they happen by chance to keep their word they never fail to claim a reward as though they had performed a most rare and meritorious act. Having examined all the rare but rather heterogeneous articles which compose the royal treasury, we went to see the king's second son (the eldest was at Tauris), to whom Count Simonitsch had to pay a farewell visit. We found the little prince in the audience chamber, seated on the floor on a cachmere, and propped by several large bolsters covered with pink muslin. He was a delicate sickly child of four or five years old, with an unmeaning countenance, a pale face, insignificant and rather flattened features, and red hair, or rather, I should say, with his hair dyed of a deep red. He was dressed in a shawl caftan lined with fur, and wore on his little black cap a diamond aigrette. We sat down in front of him on the carpet;—Mirza-Massoud, the minister for foreign affairs, and two or three other dignitaries who were present at the interview, remained standing. Démàhi schoumà tschogh est? that is to say, 'Is your nose very fat?' inquired Count Simonitsch. This extraordinary form of speech universally used by well-bred persons in Persia, seems to indicate that they ascribe considerable hygienic importance to that feature. All my researches to discover the origin and symbolical meaning of this courtesy have proved in vain; I have never obtained a satisfactory explanation to my questions on this head: all I can say is, that the hackneyed forms of salutation in use among European nations have since seemed to me far less absurd than they formerly did."
We have no doubt that even should Prince Keikhobade-Mirza have departed this life, another original might be found for the following picture of a Persian prince in reduced circumstances:
"On my return home I found an Armenian merchant waiting for me who seemed somewhat less of a rogue than his brethren. He had brought me a Sipehr (shield) in delicately wrought steel, ornamented with inscriptions and arabesques, inlaid in gold; it belonged, he said, to Prince Mohammed-Veli-Mirza, and he demanded a sum of thirty-six toumans (about eighteen pounds), which I gave without hesitation. It was not dear at that price. This Mohammed-Veli-Mirza, one of the numerous sons of the late Fet-Ali-Schah, had been, if I mistake not, governor of Schiraz. His reputation, as well as that of his brother Keikhobade-Mirza, (indeed, I might say of all his brothers), was so well established in the country, that the Armenian begged I would not consider the bargain as concluded until he had paid the money into the prince's hands, lest he should wish to recede from his word. You know, he said, that these Schahzadès have no scruples in these matters,—that they are all tamamkharab, that is to say, bad characters—kharab, meaning a thing that is bad—decayed, dilapidated. Fortunately the fears of the prudent Armenian were not realized; for a wonder, Mohammed-Veli-Mirza was contented with the sum he had first asked, and the Sipehr was added to my collection. A few days later I received a deputation from Prince Keikhobade-Mirza, offering me a similar shield as a present. In the first impulse of my gratitude I hastened to present my thanks to the generous donor. His house was the abode of poverty; his appearance was noble and dignified, and his countenance very handsome, although he squinted. The portrait of his royal father, the late Fet-Ali-Schah, hung in the room, and I was struck with the resemblance between father and son. The full-length portrait of my gracious host was there also—in the full dress of a prince of the blood holding a shield. Keikhobade-Mirza, whose gracious and cordial reception touched me the more on account of the evident poverty of his household, pointed to this latter portrait,—saying that in his father's lifetime he was, as I could see, his selictar, or royal shield-bearer, and enjoyed a brilliant station, but that now he was fallen; adding that he had sent me the shield which he had inherited—the same which I saw represented in the picture—knowing that I had been looking out for curious arms at the bazaar. I was profuse in my expressions of gratitude, although thanks in Persia denote a man of mean station, and though my Persian servant, who had accompanied me, was making signs to me to stop. 'It is a mere trifle,' said the Prince, 'and I hope to find some other articles more worthy your acceptance, for my only desire is to be agreeable to you.' The morrow brought me his Nazir, or steward, to ask for three hundred toumans (150l.); and as I seemed in no hurry to give them, he sent for his shield back again. Some time afterwards, he came to see me, and asked why I had returned it. 'You sent for it by your nazir,' I said. 'My nazir,' he replied, (although the man was present and looking on with an ambiguous smile,) 'is a rogue and a storyteller; give me a hundred toumans and I will let you have the shield, which indeed is yours. I begged you to accept it as well as every thing else I may possess.' And so the matter ended."
The foregoing picture of Oriental munificence can scarcely be more disenchanting than the sight of the sketch of Mohammed-Schah which Prince Soltykoff had the honor to take. The large head, the heavy inexpressive features, the clumsy frame, are sad dream dispellers; and were it not for the redeeming Persian cap, the "Centre of the World" might be mistaken for a grocer of the Rue St. Denis in a shawl dressing-gown. On grand occasions the appearance of the Schah must be still more incongruous, if we are to believe the description which the author gives of the state dress preserved in the royal treasury. One can scarcely fancy a gouty Centre of the World attired in a European uniform of blue cloth, with the facings embroidered in diamonds, ruby buttons, and epaulets formed of immense emeralds, to which are attached fringes of large pearls. We translate a description of a last sitting, and of the exchange of courtesies between the royal model and the amateur artist; it may serve to reconcile some of our readers to the rather monotonous form in which royal munificence is usually displayed in European courts. When compared to a lame horse, a gold snuff-box appears—if not an ingenious—at least a convenient present:
