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is right to add, that the gaiety was clearly not assumed.

She was helped to mount the high chair placed under the rope, but the rope proving to be still beyond her reach, her brother stepped forward and held her up in his arms, while she with her own hands passed the fatal noose over her head and adjusted the cruel slipknot to the back of her neck. The red silk napkin was then placed over her face, and a handkerchief fastened to her right hand. At a signal given by herself, her brother stepped back and left her suspended in mid air. She then, shaking her joined hands before her breast, "chin-chinned" the crowd: her own weight causing her to turn round and round, so that persons on all sides received her parting salutations. The spectators had, up to the fatal moment, been laughing and chattering as if assembled at a village fair; but now there was perfect stillness, as every ear was strained and every eye intent. In two or three minutes the action of the bands, at first decided and regular, grew weaker and weaker, and finally ceased altogether; then followed a convulsive shudder of the tiny feet (not above three inches in length), and all was over.

I have since heard that a costly funeral will be granted to the remains of the devotee, at the public expense; an arch will be erected to her memory, as to the memory of the soldier's wife in the story, in order that the bright example of her virtue may be impressed upon others, and may receive the praise of future generations.

As to the real nature of this dreadful transaction, I cannot help looking upon it rather as an act of determined suicide than as an instance of extraordinary and superstitious devotion. The woman was evidently in a low station of life, and on the death of her husband was left absolutely destitute and unprotected. Her small feet would prevent her from gaining a living by field labour, or any work of a like nature, while her unprepossessing face left her no chance of being purchased into the harem of any man of wealth. In England, a country abounding with the rich and generous, and furnished with a poor-law, such a desolate condition would be bad enough; but in China, where the wounded deer is invariably either driven from the herd, or gored to death, it is far more miserable. The choice lay between abject life as a drudge, and triumphant death as a saint-and the woman preferred the latter.

The body was allowed to remain suspended for about a quarter of an hour, when it was cut down and placed in a common covered palanquin, which was in waiting: the bridal chair having been removed. The rope which had been the instrument of death, was now cut into small pieces and distributed among the friends on the scaffold, all struggling violently to obtain a portion. The chair and the corpse were carried to a small temple about a hundred yards from the spot, followed by a terrific rush of people anxious to obtain another glimpse of the lifeless clay. My friend, who was somewhat sceptical of the reality of the transaction, forced his way into the temple, and witnessed the removal of the corpse from the chair. He returned, painfully satisfied that no deception had been practised: the poor girl's swollen and blackened face bearing unmistak-I able testimony to the manner of her death.

THIS SHEET OF PAPER.

My parents, natives of Livonia, were originally settled near Riga. About a year before my birth they emigrated to Belgium, with a vast number of their relatives, and established themselves in the neighbourhood of Courtrai, where on the broad plain watered by the river Lys-I first felt the breath of air. My family name, Latinised, according to a prevalent custom, was Linum, but the honest Flemings amongst whom my earliest days were spent preferred calling me Vlas, which, with a very slight alteration, becomes, in English, Flax. Though not very tall, my height being under two feet, I was greatly admired for my slender figure and general elegance of appearance, and must do my Flemish nurses the justice to say that, during my infancy, they took the greatest care of me, and did their best to train me in an upright manner. A selfish motive was, without doubt, at the bottom of this treatment; but, as it made me strong and healthy, I suppose I must not complain. I had a great many brothers and sisters, all born at the same time as myself, and treated in every respect like me; so comIt is worthy of note that, although the greater pletely, indeed, were our fortunes identified in part of those present were, as I have said, fe-after life, that I necessarily include their advenmales, yet the only sense of pity or dread that I tures in relating my own. saw shown in any way, was on the part of one of three Canton women who stood near us, and whose dress and manner showed but too plainly the position they held in Foo-Chow. At the moment the victim was left to herself on the rope, this girl, unable to endure the sight, crouched on the ground, and buried her face in her handkerchief: while others, holding respected stations in society, were tearless and unmoved.

I have since been informed that had her mother-in-law been alive, she would have been in attendance, and that it would have been her duty to help in forcing the soul from its earthly tenement by grasping the feet of her daughter, and adding her strength to the weight already bearing on the rope.

A great poet has told of the cruelties which, in his tender age, were practised on the renowned John Barleycorn. Those inflicted upon us, after the first period of delusive kindness was past, would not fall short by comparison. Torn from our mother's bosom, we were huddled together in groups, and exposed to the wind and sun until all the moisture in us was evaporated. We were then carried into rude sheds, and treated with great barbarity, some of us

made pleasant to the sufferers, I, for one, might have enjoyed being made a martyr under the sharp scissors and needles of the lively chattering damsels, whose province it was to convert me and my relatives into shirts.

An English nobleman, called by Mademoiselle Clotilde, "Milor," and nothing else, had long been a customer at the "Toison d'Or," and, passing through Paris after a long journey, during which his stock of linen had become greatly reduced-let us say through the negligence of washerwomen, without accusing his valet-found it necessary to give an order for an immediate supply. Milor, who paid handsomely, required garments of the very finest quality, and I (speaking collectively) was the article destined to adorn his person. My particular maker was a girl named Aglae, a fine tall Brugeoise, with a large share of the beauty which is the peculiar inheritance of her townswomen-the only women, by the way, who can boast of beauty in my native Flanders-and I confess it was with something like a pang-for shirts are often as sensitive as the hearts they cover-that I felt for the last time the pressure of her slender fingers and quitted the lap on which I had happily reposed, to take my place in the wardrobe of Milor. I had been admirably "got up" by the blanchisseuse whom Mademoiselle Clotilde employed, and unsunned snow was not whiter than my delicate form, as, with swan-like bosom, proudly displayed, over which floated a cloud-like frill of transparent muslin

being subjected to the torture of an iron comb, and others stretched on a board and beaten with a flat wooden bat, till our capsules were all removed and nothing was left of us but the dry stems on which they grew. Collected into bundles, we were then, without the least regard to our own convenience, set up alternately on our heads and tails, and closely jammed into a large oaken frame, which was sunk in the river Lys, heavy stones being placed upon us to keep us down. Here we remained until, in the language of our persecutors, we were thoroughly steeped" a heartless word for expressing our pitiful noyade. Removed from the water, our ligatures were taken off, comparative liberty was allowed us, and we were spread upon the grass. But we had not been there long, before our tormentors were at us again, pushing us about with long thin rods, and not suffering us to enjoy a moment's rest, except when they themselves went to bed. After about a fortnight of this treatment, we were taken under cover and broken into four, and stuck into narrow slits, and "scutched" (as they call it) with wooden swords; and, as if this were not cnough, they "heckled" us with a square piece of wood studded with rows of iron teeth about four inches long, scratching and scarifying our fibre until not a particle of manly roughness remained in our composition. They then said that we were "finished"-by which they meant marketable and on the very first opportunity, not being able to devise any more tortures, or do us any further harm, they sold us to a linen-collar full six inches high, and sharp all round manufacturer, who lost no time in converting us as the edge of the exterminating instrument of into the substance in which he dealt. The pro- Monsieur de Paris-and my arms somewhat sincess we were now submitted to, if less cruel gularly folded behind my back, I lay on the top than the first, was equally tedious and annoying; of my companions; white, I repeat, as Alpine and after having been drawn, doubled, carded, snow, but as cold as that which rests on the roved, and spun, we finally assumed the texture herbless granite. Excuse fine writing at this which, under the name of linen, plays so im- point of my story, for I am thinking of Aglaë, portant a part in all well-regulated households. and contrasting her joyous society with the As my personal fibre-if I may be allowed the splendid misery of being for ever after assoexpression was of a far robuster nature than ciated with the dull, heavy, pompous, unintelthat of any of my companions, I shall hence-ligent, obstinate old nobleman whose property forward speak of myself only, in describing our subsequent career.

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I became. "For ever after," do I say? No, thank goodness, not that exactly, but long enough in all conscience, if I had not been a remarkably smart piece of linen, to have made me as dull, heavy, pompous, unintelligent and obstinate as himself.

I never knew exactly how the transfer took place-being sewn up for some time in a coarse packing-cloth-but one morning the bale to which I belonged came down with a heavy thump on what I have since learnt was a counter That these epithets are not misplaced will, I in a merchant's warehouse in Paris; and before think, be admitted by every candid person in I could recover from my surprise-and I may these enlightened days, when I state that my add, from the pain I felt I heard voices chaffer- proprietor was perhaps the most thoroughing over my body, like the Greeks and Trojans going Tory that ever sat in the House of Lords, contending for the corse of Patroclus. A bar- the most determined placeman, the most uncomgain was being struck between the warehouse- promising sinecurist, and the most resolute foe man and the retail dealer, and the result was that ever breathed to everything that wore a my removal to the shop of the latter, where, one look of change. His political creed-he had fine day, I was cut up into lengths and carried been born in that creed, and in that creed he meant off by a porter to the establishment of Made- to die, on the floor, too, of the august House of moiselle Clotilde, a celebrated seamstress, whose which he was a member, if necessary—was taxsign was the Toison d'Or, in the Rue de la Paix.ation: that is to say, taxation of all the neThey were a merry, hard-working lot the couturières over whom Mademoiselle Clotilde presided, and if martyrdom could at any time be

cessities of life; for on its luxuries he looked with an indulgent eye. If his advice had been taken-and he very frequently offered it, un

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asked, in the form which, in " a certain place," is
called a speech"-he would have no such
things as taxes on hair-powder, armorial bearings,
hounds, race-horses, carriages, dice, or playing-
cards; these he considered dangerous fiscal in
novations, or, at best, unwise concessions; but
taxes on food, and light, and clothing, on all that
most affects the hard-working community, for these
helent his voice with the heartiest good will, and the
minister whose budget most severely ground the
faces of the poor, was always sure of the sup-
port of Lord Millstone. He was not, however,
a man with only one idea, though what follows
may be thought by many merely the complement
of his political character, and not a distinct fea-
ture; he detested "freedom of opinion," whether
written or spoken, but chiefly written, that is to
say printed. A radical orator was, naturally,
Lord Millstone's aversion; but he had no words
to express
his abhorrence of a radical news-
paper.

ever way your lordships please? I vote, therefore, in favour of my noble friend's proposition." Of the pleasures of Paris, the subject of so much animated talk on the part of Aglaë and her companions, I had no experience; for very shortly after I was sold to Lord Millstone he returned to England. He travelled post, but I saw nothing of the country; indeed, I could scarcely hear the oaths of the postilions, being shut up in a large imperial on the top of my lord's carriage; nor did I see the light again until my prison door was thrown open at the Dover custom-house. With a peer of the realm, and such a peer as Lord Millstone, the examination was a mere ceremony; to touch anything marked with a coronet being thought, at that time, far too awful a sacrilege to enter the mind of a custom-house officer. It would have been as much as his place was worth, to have dared to lift me from the spot where I was lying; though had there been a functionary Some fragments have been preserved of a sufficiently resolute and evil-minded to dip speech of his which show how strong this feel- his hand deep enough down, his courage, or his ing was in him. It was on the occasion of the malevolence, would have been rewarded by the great privilege question, when Type, the famous discovery of as much lace as would have made printer, was brought before the bar of the an ordinary smuggler's fortune. "My lord's House of Lords and sentenced to a fine of five wearing apparel!" said the solemn valet who hundred pounds and twelve months' imprison- stood by at the "search ;" and straightway the ment for having made a noble lord speak sense searcher shrunk back aghast, the lid of the imin a previous debate, whereas the noble lord had perial was clapped down, and the hieroglyphic spoken quite the contrary. The point was one in chalk affixed, which declared that the customthat touched Lord Millstone nearly. He accord-house examination had been duly made. Except ingly rose and said:

for the fact that he had plenty of room, Lord Millstone almost went out of his way to smuggle lace in his personal baggage, for the ambassador's bag was at his service in Paris to send anything he liked to the Foreign-office in London, whence it would be forwarded to his own house without the slightest delay; but perhaps he thought that the delicate fabric would run less risk of being rumpled when carefully stowed away with his own effects, or he might have liked to indulge afterwards in the easy boast of having outwitted "a set of fellows," who were much too deferential, and, it may be added, too ready to pocket a guinea, to give his lordship the slightest trouble. Be this as it may, the lace was iny bed, and in it I travelled to Grosvenor-square.

"I can conceive nothing more fatal to the authority of your lordships' House--and I need not say if that authority be sapped, what must be the consequences, not only to this realm, but to the world at large-nothing more fatal, I repeat, to that authority than the substitution for your lordships' language of the words of a common person like the culprit, whose unauthorised, and, I may say, daring interference with your lordships' privileges we are here to arraign. It is not the least amongst the evils which, in our legislative capacity, we are called upon to combat, and, by the assistance of Divine Providence, to eradicate-evils which have their source, as most of your lordships are aware, in the pernicious doctrines that were disseminated by the French revolution. (Loud cheers from My first appearance in London was at a dinthree Tory peers, not quite deaf enough to lose ner given by Lord Millstone to a few political this point, Lord Millstone's perpetual illustra- friends, ostensibly with the object of imparting tion. It is not, I say (Lord Millstone was to them his "views" on the state of Europe, given to repetition), the least amongst the evils but in reality to discuss the merits of his new against which we have to fight, that a system of chef: an artist who, at a great sacrifice, and a ideas is at present abroad, encouraged, I grieve large salary, had consented to accompany the to say, by those whose rank and station, and noble stranger to a land of barbarians, where, whose duty to-to-society-and to-them- according to his belief-the only belief he enter selves, should teach them a widely different tained-cookery was a thing unknown. To be lesson,-which tends to reduce everything above a great politician it is not necessary that you it to its own vulgar level. (More cheers from should be a grand politique," as Louis the the three Tory peers.) Can anything, my lords, Thirteenth called Cardinal Richelieu when he be more monstrous, more insulting, more sub- was dead, but you must at all events be a gourversive of all that is right-minded and-and mand; and politicians of the calibre of Lord proper, than this attempt to control the pre- Millstone console themselves for their want of scriptive and constitutional right of your lord-political knowledge by reflecting-when they ships' House to utter their sentiments in what-do reflect-that some of the leading statesmen

of Europe have been the best dinner-givers: the first place in that rank being occupied by Prince Talleyrand, of whom Carême said when he died, that he took with him to the grave the greatest secret that ever man possessed-that of the receipt for a "ragoût de truffes à la Périgord," a dish so magically compounded, that it made even the dumb_to_speak. Dumb enough in "the House," Lord Millstone's guests found the use of their tongues at his table, but only interjectionally until their appetites were sated, for it is a rule with all great eaters not to talk before they have had their fill. What they said then, is not, however, worth recording, and I merely mention this dinner because it was the precursor of hundreds exactly like it. If dinnergiving could prolong life, Lord Millstone might have lived for ever; but as dinner-giving has often an opposite tendency, it is not surprising that the noble lord should one day have been struck down by apoplexy.

It was not altogether the salmi de perdreaux, or the pâté de foie gras, that was in fault, though each of these dishes might have contributed in its degree; the actual catastrophe was caused by a paragraph in the government organ, wherein the probability was hinted at of a change in the ministerial policy on the subject of the paper duties.

high moral and political question, and concur-
ring in most of the opinions expressed by the
deputation, he trusted that the day was not far
distant when an improved aspect of public
affairs might present itself sufficient to justify
a remission of the fiscal burdens which now
weighed so heavily upon thought; being con-
vinced, as he firmly was, that a free and cheap
press lay at the root of all public and social
improvement." "A free and cheap press,"
reiterated Lord Millstone, gulping down a glass
of port wine and filling again. Blasphemy
and sedition!" another glass emptied and re-
filled; "everybody free to say what they like.
Hone! Cobbett! Tom Paine! God bless my
soul, the world's at an end!"
A third glass;
but, before it was half way down, Lord Mill-
stone was down, and the world remained un-
changed. Half an hour afterwards, his lord-
ship's butler entered the room and found his
lordship under the table, not drunk, but dead!

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When George the Fourth-Lord Millstone's kind and "gracious master"-died, his majesty's white satin small-clothes lined with swansdown, together with the rest of his personal effects, were sold at public auction, as if with the object of paying his debts. On the death of Lord Millstone, who, thanks to his numerous sinecures, had contrived to keep out of debt, his Lord Millstone, when he dined alone, always valet came in for his wardrobe, and among his sipped his port to the accompaniment of the lordship's changes of raiment I was considered evening journal of his predilection, and was thus sufficiently well preserved to figure as Mr. engaged when his attention was caught by the Tiptoe's principal dress-shirt. I deserved this following lines: "A deputation, consisting of position, for it had been a leading feature of the heads of some of the leading publishing Mr. Tiptoe's domestic policy-as I believe it to houses in London, Edinburgh, and elsewhere, be of the domestic policy of valets in generaltogether with several eminent literary men, and not to allow his late master to wear his best others interested in the repeal of the taxes on clothes oftener than could be helped. The word knowledge, had an interview, this afternoon,"reversion" is the pleasantest sounding word in with the First Lord of the Treasury, at his a valet's vocabulary, but of what value to the official residence in Downing-street. The views successor is it, if that which reverts be nearly of the deputation having been placed in a very in rags? A shirt, under such circumstances, strong light by successive speakers, who dwelt can neither be worn nor disposed of-not on the impolicy of seeking to derive a revenue proudly worn, I mean, nor advantageously disfrom taxing the efforts of the mind, and pointed posed of-Mr. Tiptoe having both these objects out the educational advantages which would in view. Mr. Tiptoe was equally fond of creating arise from the diffusion of cheap literature, the a sensation by his personal appearance, and minister replied,"-did Lord Millstone read the of having money to spend. In appropriating words aright?" The minister replied, that the Lord Millstone's wardrobe, he made a comquestion of the repeal of the taxes on know- promise between his love of finery and his desire ledge was not to be debated on mere grounds of for cash. He kept me, consequently, for his finance." "Mere grounds of finance!" ex-grand occasions, and for his menus plaisirs he claimed Lord Millstone, laying down the paper with a trembling hand; mere grounds! He could not have said so! Mere! Why is not taxation everything? How are we to conduct the business of the state, to provide for-for everybody, that is to say, for all of us, without taxation? And what, I should like to know, deserves to be taxed so heavily as a vile levelling revolutionary press? Things are come to a pretty pass when ministers adopt such a jargon as taxes on knowledge! What else did he say, I wonder! Let us see!" Lord Millstone took up the paper again, and read on. "So far from this being the case, he (the First Lord of the Treasury) thought that it was a

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sold my companions. Unfortunately for those who love pleasure, pocket-money, however carefully expended, must one day be exhausted; and Mr. Tiptoe having, in the course of service, acquired many fashionable wants, found himself at last with nothing in his pockets. It is a common expression-significant of parting with the last thing you have to say, of a generous man, that he would give the very shirt off his back;" but with persons who are simply prodigal, the shirt is the first thing that goes when money is to be raised. In the absence of a shirt, a specious appearance may be preserved by wearing a false collar and buttoning the coat close up to the chin; Mr.

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Charles Dickens.]

THIS SHEET OF PAPER.

Tiptoe, when in extremis, became aware of this vale, racing along the velvet turf, climbing
fact, and deposited me with the pawnbroker. the spiral staircase in the Palm-house, playing
As a matter of course, Mr. Tiptoe lost the pawn-at hide-and-seek behind the trees-when Anna
broker's ticket, and at the expiration of a twelve- Maria was always caught by Alfred, and the
month-and-a-day, or some such mysteriously ro- two bridesmaids by their respective young
Crown, we dined on
mantic period, I was sold off at a grande battue men-and then returning to the Rose and
of unredeemed pledges.

"all the delicacies of
the season;" or, if any were absent from the
banquet, none of the party missed them, so per-
fect in everybody's opinion were all the arrange-
ments.

Anna

father-but unfortunately I was unpegged from the clothes-line, and carried off by an unprincipled and unsympathising appropriator of other men's goods and chattels who caught a glimpse of me over the garden wall. And as that was the only obstacle between his desire and its accomplishment, it follows that I was forthwith stolen.

My next proprietor was a dealer in secondhand articles of all kinds, whose customers did not go the length of having tailors, bootmakers, hatters, and shirt-makers, of their own, I confess to having led a very agreeable life article "chanced it," for any but, as it were, of dress they might happen to require. To him during my sojourn with Mr. Washball, and not came one evening a journeyman hairdresser, the less so because I was much envied by my anxious, as he said, to "come it strong" in the master's friends whenever I was worn. way of fine linen, but desirous of doing so at Maria always looked to my washing, plaiting, the lowest figure for which fine linen was pro- starching, and ironing, herself: in fact, I held curable. The hairdresser's reasons-need I say a place in her estimation not second even what Mr. Washball's reasons were for seeking to the muslin dress which had arrayed her this luxury?-well,-he was thinking of being own fair form on the happy day at Kew. married; to tell the truth, the lady had con- For the first twelve months of his married life sented, the day was named, the banns were to Alfred was as proud of me as he could possibly be read for the third time on the following be of anything made by hands; after that period, an object that naturally made its appearance At more than one Sunday, and as Thursday had arrived, it was high time that Mr. Washball should give his usurped my place in his regard. Still I was not mind to the necessity of procuring not the least by any means neglected. indispensable of his wedding garments. The christening I shone out in all my original splensecond-hand dealer, who made a point of selling dour; when Anna Maria's next sister, Eliza, everything under prime cost-that condition was married, to one of the hide-and-seek young of things having no reference to the amount he men, I again appeared before the altar; had given-accommodated Mr. Washball by should no doubt have graced an event of a less muleting him of nearly a week's wages in ex-joyful nature-the funeral of Anna Maria's change for my valuable self. Though the society into which I was thus thrown was not first-rate, I could not complain; for had I not been a prisoner for more than a year, and are not daylight and sunshine precious to the emancipated Solitary splendour had been my fate while the slave of Lord Millstone; then The gentleman who had thus surreptitiously came a gleam of liberty while I flaunted on the person of Mr. Tiptoe; but those hours of freedom, during which I saw something of the acquired possession of my person, though he world, were dearly paid for, by my confinement occasionally bore a fine historical name, was in an obscure garret, a ticketed but unnoticed neither a member of the aristocracy, a legisbundle. On Mr. Washball's wedding-day I was, lator by law or popular choice, nor the proto a certain extent, myself again; once more I prietor of a large landed estate: in point rejoiced in the pleasures of those who were at of fact, he had no estate whatever, whether once happy and innocent, and if Anna Maria, large or small, not so much as would fill a the bride, whose christian names were a stum-flower-pot; owning nothing more than the perbling-block to Alfred Washball, did not equal sonal tenement covered by his hat, and not Aglae in beauty, she was quite her match in always the uncontrolled proprietor of that. But light-hearted merriment. It was a satisfaction if not in either House of Parliament, he yet beMembers" of the Swell -my weakness must be pardoned-to be once longed to a numerous and influential body: more associated with white kid gloves and being one of the class euphemistically described whiskers redolent of bergamot; but it was a by the newspapers as greater satisfaction to me to be pressed as Mob. A first-rate linen shirt, though beginning Alfred Washball pressed me to the throbbing to manifest some symptoms of the wear and tear honour, love, obedience, troops of bosom of Anna Maria, when the ceremony that that accompanies old age, instead of the tradiends in "amazement" had been duly performed, tionary and we headed the procession that issued from friends," was a godsend to one in the position the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields on our of the Honourable Percy Plantagenet Mowbray Our Fitz-Howard, as Mr. Thomas Rumball, alias "The Mizzler," at that time called himself. way in cabs to the Waterloo station. destination for the day was Kew. We rowed on the Thames, Alfred, without coat and waist- Allusion has already been made to the hermetical coat, exhibiting me and his muscular ener- process by means of which the shirtless make a gies in perfection; we made "the Gardens" ligure in society, and it only remains to be obour own, roaming through the rhododendron served, that The Mizzler was an adept in art;

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