berss Jou
SIXTH S ERIES-
THE OPAL BRACELET.
By A. FRASER ROBERTSON, Author of A Commonplace Woman, &c.
CHAPTER I.
fIITTLE Mrs Lamington was giving a
fi dinner-party — quite a small, in-
formal affair—I, as the governess,
not being much concerned there-
with, except in the matter of table
decoration. On the morning of the
day, however, Mrs Lamington came hurriedly into
the schoolroom.
‘I want you to come downstairs to-night, Miss
Ashley, please, she said. ‘Cyril has gone and
asked an extra man.’ '
Nothing seemed to go right with that dinner-
party from. the outset. Half-an-hour before
dinner she came to me again—this time flushed
and agitated, an open note in her hand.
‘Could anything be more provoking? Dr
Grenfell sends an apology at the last moment—
“suddenly indisposed ;” and, Mrs Grenfell not
even the sense to decline. It spoils the numbers,
of course—disorganises the whole’ table. I shall
have to take Mr Hooper; and now, whom will
Marion Crescent have ?’
‘If I stay out,’ I suggested, ‘that will equalise
numbers, and Miss Crescent can have my man.’
But Mrs Lamington impatiently negatived my
proposal.
‘Nothing of the sort, she said. ‘That would
make it too much of a family party’—Lady
Crescent was a second or third cousin of Mrs
Lamington’s, and Mr Hooper was connected with
her, too, in a similarly distant manner—‘and that
almost always falls flat or ends in friction. But if
you don’t mind having no partner—and, as you
say, Marion can have Mr Crosley.’
She bustled out of the room, leaving me to ad-
just a spray of scarlet geranium in the bosom of
my black lace gown. I was not to be allowed to
escape the ordeal, although I would gladly have
relinquished a quarter’s salary to avoid the close
contact this impromptu dinner-party involved with
Jack’s aunt, the terrible Lady Crescent, and her
daughter Marion, both of whom divined my en-
No. 127.—Vou.
(All Rights Reserved. ]
gagement to Jack, and regarded me as some sneak-
ing reptile who had wormed herself into his unsus-
pecting affections on the strength of a pretty face.
In the back seat befitting the governess of the
house, I awaited the guests’ arrival. Mrs Laming-
ton had partly got over her vexation, and Mr
Lamington would have worn the same unconcerned
and genial air had the Prince of Wales or the
Prime Minister suddenly elected to dine with him.
Lady Crescent, with her hawk-like features and
aggressively insolent bearing, emphasised by a
tortoise-shell pince-nez, sailed in first, followed by
her daughter, narrow-eyed and sallow—the bride
his aunt had selected for my Jack. Mrs Grenfell
succeeded, comfortable and good-tempered in the
prospect of a good dinner. She in her turn was
followed by three nondescript men—a dried-up
scientist, a man who looked like a professional
diner-out, and the Mr Crosley who had been the
late addition to the party.
We paired in to dinner, I partnerless, and re-
garded with that uncertain air with which people
look upon the governess of the house, not sure
whether to treat her as a servant or as a lady,
and in the end hitting something of a mean
between the two extremes. I found on my right
the eminent scientist, on my left a vacant space,
and beyond Lady Crescent’s formidable propor-
tions. At a safe distance, Marion’s pale eyes
scrutinised me across an elaborate arrangement
of chrysanthemums and feathery grasses. and
silver candelabra. I began to breathe freely. The
scientist made an isolated remark to me during
soup, in a voice whose depth suggested dungeons
of abstruse learning. Then an officious servant,
moved by some fiendish impulse, cleared away
the things belonging to my partner’s unoccupied
place ; and, with an ‘Ah! that is better, Lady
Crescent moved her chair a little way nearer mine,
‘I never, never crowd my table,’ Mrs Lamington,
whose quick ear had caught the remark, said to
me later. ‘I consider it an insult to my guests,
May 5, 1900.
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354 CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL.
She had heaps of room. She only wanted to
torment you—all on account of Jack, of course.
I could have cried with vexation when I saw
how I had managed things.’
I inwardly trembled as I noted the movement.
Her ladyship’s fat hand crumbled bread at my
very elbow. Her podgy white fingers were en-
crusted with diamonds, and her arm was clasped
by a broad opal-and-diamond bracelet. Jewelless,
and in my severe black gown, I seemed to shrivel
into nothing beside her sparkling magnificence.
During an interval in the courses she levelled
her pince-nez at the table.
‘Your handiwork?’ she asked abruptly.
‘Do you mean the table?’ I asked. ‘Yes, I
did it.
‘Humph !’ she remarked ; ‘some girls make it
a profession nowadays, I believe, during the
season, they make quite a respectable income.’
‘So I have heard,’ I said.
‘Opportunities for girls obliged to earn a living
are greatly increased in these days, she went on,
helping herself largely to a quenelle entrée as she
spoke. ‘It relieves the congested state of the
governess market.’
I said nothing. I was quite alive to the
improved condition of the market as regarded
woman’s work ; but her ladyship’s remarks struck
me as in doubtful taste.
‘You have never thought of striking out some
more enterprising line?’ she asked, determined,
I thought, to make me speak.
‘Never,’ I said coolly. ‘I am very happy.’
‘Ah!’ she said, ‘you are fortunate in your
berth, and don’t like the idea of change. Of
course change is a bad thing. By the way, isn’t
there a society that gives rewards and medals and
such things for long periods of service—just as
domestic servants have—pensions for old age, and
so on? Very good things, too. They act as a
check upon those horrid registers and that rest-
lessness and love of change that are the crying
evils of the day. Don’t you think so?’
‘I really don’t know,’ I said. ‘I have not
studied the subject. I do not think, however,’ I
added, deliberately dealing a stab to my opponent
with great relish, ‘many girls look forward to
being governesses to the end of their lives.’ She
turned her bead-like eyes quickly on me, She
quite understood my insinuation. Lady Crescent’s
réle was a persistent ignoring of my engagement
to her nephew, as if her refusal to admit it would
alter the fact.
Suddenly she swept her arm along the table to
reach some salted almonds in a bonbonniére in my
vicinity. In drawing it back she brushed my
elbow, and her bracelet caught momentarily in
the lace of my sleeve.
She disengaged it with an impatient movement.
‘The clasp is not too secure,’ she remarked,
examining it without apologising, ‘So like a
man, she went on, speaking half to herself,
although the words were intended for me; ‘and,
most of all, like my nephew. He gives nothing
trifling. His presents are all massive and’ hand-
some.” She regarded her ornament with great
satisfaction. ‘He and Marion chose it together,
she added in a pensive aside,
My heart beat at the mention of Jack’s name,
but I made no remark. So he had been the
donor of the handsome bracelet! It was perhaps,
after all, a little hard on Lady Crescent that a
penniless governess, however pretty, should have
stepped in and wrested the prize that would so
well have suited her daughter.
She turned to Mr Lamington, and my quick
ear caught the words:
‘He hopes this native disturbance will soon be
over, and then we. expect him home. Marion
heard from him the other day. The wretched
climate of the place makes us anxious.’
I smiled to myself. I had later news of him
than Marion,
Then Mrs Lamington made a move, and the
ladies rustled out of the dining-room; Lady
Crescent, with a white marabout feather waving
aloft, like a ship in full sail.
When we reached the drawing-room Marion
ensconced herself in a distant corner, with a book
of photographs on her knee, a distinct intimation
that she preferred her own society to that of any
one else. Mrs Grenfell engaged Mrs Lamington
in close conversation regarding the symptoms of
her husband’s sudden indisposition, and again
Lady Crescent was left to me—or, rather, I was
left to her—with very much the sensations of a
helpless mouse left to the tortures of a cat.
‘Marion, love,’ she said, looking over at her
daughter, ‘you are in a draught, There is
always a certain amount of draught between a
window and a fire, and you know how delicate
your throat is.’
‘I shall do very well, mother, said that young
lady shortly, without budging. She always ignored
my presence when possible.
I made an attempt to escape upstairs, but
Lady Crescent pinned me down with:
‘By the by, Miss Ashley, Mrs Lamington pro-
mised you would show me the sofa-blanket you
have done for her. She said I might have it for
Marion to copy.’
‘Now?’ I asked reluctantly.
‘There is no time like the present—is there?’
she asked, with a disagreeable smile.
I rose and reached forward Mrs Lamington’s
standing work-basket, and unfolded the blanket.
‘It looks very elaborate, she said, raising her
tortoise-shell pince-nez and examining it; ‘but I
dare say Marion could manage it. You could come
along for a few afternoons and set her going.
You could do a corner. I shall let you know
what afternoons we are disengaged when I consult
my engagement slate.’
‘I am afraid that would be quite impossible,
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THE OPAL BRACELET. 355
Lady Crescent, I said coldly. ‘My afternoons
are very fully taken up. I certainly could not
dispose of them as you propose,’
‘Some people are very disobliging,’ she re-
marked, with a tart laugh.
‘I had rather be disobliging than dishonourable,’
I said, with heightened colour. ‘My afternoons,
please to remember, are not my own to give
away.’
Lady Crescent muttered something about ‘nice
sense of honour’ and ‘hair-splitting distinctions,’
with a little sneer,
‘I presume you will hardly combat Mrs
Lamington’s decision if I speak to her on the
subject?’ she said, with hardly-suppressed wrath.
‘I shall certainly combat it, I said, extremely
nettled, ‘if it includes my giving lessons in
needlework to strangers’ I was quite in the
mood to do battle and to enjoy it. I do not
know what would have been the upshot of our
contest had not the drawing-room door suddenly
opened and a small, white-robed figure, with
bare feet and wide-open staring blue eyes, ushered
itself in upon the company.
Mrs Grenfell stifled an exclamation of alarm.
Mrs Lamington, instinctively grasping the situa-
tion, breathed a soft ‘Hush!’ The rest of us were
silent, while Sid, unconscious and open-eyed, came
towards the sofa where Lady Crescent and I were
sitting. I laid my hand softly on the child’s,
unwilling to wake him suddenly. Now and then,
at long intervals, he walked in his sleep. In-
voluntarily I drew the blanket I was exhibiting
round his shoulders, when suddenly Lady Crescent
made a dive at the unconscious figure.
‘Good gracious !’ she exclaimed in astonishment,
‘you don’t say the child’s asleep. It’s positively
uncanny. I declare it‘thas given me quite a turn.
I hope he doesn’t do this often, Evelyn.’
Thus rudely awakened, the dreaming eyes took
on a confused expression of fear and apprehension
that grew into positive alarm as they lighted on
Lady Crescent’s huge nose, thus suddenly thrust
before his eyes, and was accentuated by an abrupt
attempt on her part to draw him to her. He
shrank frightened into the folds of the blanket
from her enforced embrace. The large nose, the
waving white marabout erected on coils of false
hair, produced only horror in the bewildered mind
of the child. The brilliant lights, the strange
faces, the unexpected scene, all seemed to him like
a bad dream. He shuddered and began to cry.
‘Let me have him, I demanded, trying to
draw him from Lady Crescent’s tentative grasp.
‘Nothing of the sort,’ she said, retaining her
hold from pure contradiction.
‘You are only frightening him,’ I said, ‘He
should never have been waked. It is the worst
possible thing for a sleep-walker.’
‘You are the only authority on the subject, I
suppose,’ she sneered, ‘Poor little dear, his nerves
must be quieted.’
Meantime the ‘poor little dear’ struggled. I
appealed to Mrs Lamington, who was looking
flushed and distressed on the edge of the group.
Here Sid burst into a wail, and from the depths
of Lady Crescent’s voluminous embrace held out
his arms to me.
‘Better let him away before the gentlemen come
in” put in Mrs Grenfell; and I managed to
extricate and carry him off.
It was not to be the only diversion of that ill-
fated evening. After soothing Sid I was just in
the excited state when I would fain have crossed
lances with Lady Crescent again. I no longer
trembled. My blood was stirred. When I came
back to the drawing-room I found that the
gentlemen had joined the ladies, and that all
were concentrated in a group round my enemy.
She herself was standing erect, her headgear
quivering excitedly. My first impression was that
her dress had caught fire; my second, that some
objectionable insect had lodged in the front
breadth of her dress, which she was shaking so
violently as to display a considerable length of
ankle and white petticoat,
‘Had it! Of course I had it, she was pro-
testing excitedly, in answer to a suggestion of
Mrs Lamington’s. ‘I never have missed wearing
it in the evenings since Jack gave it to me.
Marion clasped it for me.—Didn’t you, my love ?’
Marion nodded, ‘ Don’t excite yourself, mother,’
she said, ‘It can’t be far off’
But Lady Crescent made no attempt to repress
her feelings. It might have been Billingsgate,
instead of a highly respectable abode in Kensing-
ton, to judge from the anxiety she manifested as
to the safety of her property.
‘I have a presentiment I shall never see my
bracelet again,’ she broke out at last excitedly.
At a suggestion from his wife, Mr Lamington
rushed off to the dining-room and searched that
apartment thoroughly. Lady Crescent declared
she remembered to have seen it since coming to
the drawing-room. The eminent scientist went
down on his knees and delved his long thin fingers
into the recesses of the sofa-sides with an eagerness
that could hardly have been exceeded had there
existed the possibility of geological or botanical
‘specimens.’ Mr Crosley adjusted his single eye-
glass and walked round Lady Crescent, examining
her as if he expected to find the lost article sus-
pended from her back hair. The diner-out seized
the fur hearth-rug and shook it so violently that
the dust rose in clouds from the ash-pan. Sud-
denly Lady Crescent’s distracted looks fastened
themselves on me.
‘Miss Ashley, she cried, ‘you saw it. You
remember we were talking about it at dinner.
I told you it was a present from my nephew,
Captain Vernon, You remember it caught on the
lace of your sleeve at dinner?’
‘I certainly remember the bracelet,’ I said,
suddenly constituted a centre of observation, and
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356 * CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL.
reddening furiously because of Jack’s name and
the consciousness of Marion’s furtively scrutinising
eyes, Lady Crescent’s remark about it catching
in my sleeve seemed to impart a fresh impetus
and a new direction to the search.
Mr Crosley took a turn round me instead of
Lady Crescent, specially focussing his eye-glass on
my elbow, as if he fully expected to find the
bracelet still dangling from my sleeve. The pro-
fessional diner-out reshook the rug and blew fresh
clouds of ash from the fireplace. Mr Lamington
lighted a candle and examined the fender, while
the rest of us awaited the result of the scientist’s
operations. They were all in vain.
‘You say it was a diamond bracelet set in gold,’
remarked Mr Crosley reflectively, as if the search
had issued in the discovery of several bracelets,
none of which exactly answered the description
of the lost one.
‘I did not say anything of the kind, snapped
Lady Crescent irritably. ‘1 said it was a broad
gold band set in opals and diamonds.’
‘Oh, opal!’ murmured Mrs Grenfell, turning to
me. ‘Such an unlucky stone!’—as if this cir-
cumstance accounted sufficiently for the mishap.
Lady Crescent, arrived at a stage beyond con-
cealing her anxiety, turned sharply on the speaker.
‘Excuse me,’ she said; ‘that’s a common mis-
take. In certain circumstances it is lucky rather
than otherwise ; for instance, when it happens to
be the stone of your month. My birthday is in
October.’
This effectually put the matter beyond a doubt,
and silenced Mrs Grenfell.
‘Let us go to the dining-room and search there
again. Lady Crescent may have made a mistake
about seeing it afterwards in the drawing-room.’
And we repaired in a body to the scene of our
late festivity. Clark (the butler) and the table-
maid, both servants of long standing in the
Lamington family, had apparently been conducting
the search under the table, and now came up
breathless but unsuccessful. The table-napkins
of the entire table were shaken out without result,
and my decorations ruthlessly picked to pieces, as
if the bracelet might have lurked in one of the
chrysanthemums.
Lady Crescent’s agitation knew no bounds by
this time. Mrs Lamington’s distress and _ the
guests’ discomfort equalled it in intensity.
‘I would not have lost Jack’s gift for worlds;
she kept repeating.
The guests murmured ‘Most extraordinary !’
at intervals, or ‘Quite inexplicable!’ or ‘Very
mysterious!’ And every few seconds, till I was
vaguely exasperated, Lady Crescent reiterated :
‘You saw it, Miss Ashley. You can vouch for
my having worn it,’ with special stress on the
pronoun. And on each of these occasions Marion
fixed me with her narrow green eyes.
Our search was fruitless. The rings of the im-
patient cabmen who had come to convey away the
guests bore the fact in upon us at last. The
bracelet had disappeared as completely as if it
had been spirited away or vanished into thin air.
The guests gradually melted away, completely
baffled, at their wits’-end; and, I venture to
think, with more material for discussion than is
generally afforded by an ordinary dinner-party.
‘Most extraordinary!’ Mrs Lamington ejacu-
lated, reiterating the threadbare remark when her
guests had dispersed. ‘I shan’t know a moment's
peace till the old hag’s bracelet is found. I should
not wonder if she thought one of us had taken it.’
Her eye wandered round the room, and by chance
lighted on me as she concluded. Then she
laughed. ‘My dear Miss Ashley,’ she continued,
‘you looked guilty enough to have been the
thief twice over when you heard that it was
a present from Captain Vernon. You should
really learn to control your blushes.’
I laughed and blushed again. Mrs Lamington
privately enjoyed the Crescents’ disgust that
Captain Vernon had been ‘hooked’ by a penniless
governess. She had come in, too, for the odium
of having ‘encouraged’ his attentions to me.
HOW INSECTS RECOGNISE THEIR FRIENDS
AND WARN THEIR ENEMIES.
By Professor A. 8S. PACKARD.
[Copyright in the United States and Canada by Perry Mason & Co., 1900.]
E recognise our friends by their per-
sonal appearance, by their features,
voice, and dress. This is because,
with us, no two individuals are
alike. We share, though in a
more marked way, that quality of
individuality which is common to all animals.
Within very slight limits the individuals of each
kind of insect differ from each other in colour,
markings, size, &c.
Ants and honey-bees are very modestly
coloured ; and yet our best observers agree that
the individual differences between ants and bees
are well marked. So close and good an observer
as Sir John Lubbock (now Lord Avebury), speaking
of the individual differences existing between ants,
tells us that they also differ in moral character ;
‘that there are priests and. Levites and Good
Samaritans among them, as among men.’
Lubbock does not question the general opinion
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HOW INSECTS RECOGNISE THEIR FRIENDS. 357
that ants recognise their friends, the members of
their own colony or nest. He threw a number
of ants into water, and let them get half-drowned
and become insensible ; but even then they were
recognised by their friends. He gives strong
proof that a strange ant is never tolerated in a
-community ; and this he claims, as a matter of
course, implies that all the members of a colony
have the power of recognising one another—‘a
most surprising fact when we consider the short-
ness of their life and their immense numbers ;’
for in the large nest of the European field-ant
there are probably nearly half-a-million indi-
viduals; and in other cases, he adds, even that
number is exceeded.
Huber gives an instance where ants recognised
each other after an interval of four months. So
apt an observer as Forel, another Swiss naturalist,
thinks that ants will recognise each other after a
separation of several months.
Now, the question arises) How do ants and
bees recognise their friends ?
The question is difficult to answer. Some have
even supposed that the members of each nest
have a sign or password; but Lubbock has dis-
proved this by experiment, and, on the face of
it, it does not seem probable. Others have
thought that these insects recognise one another
by their odour or smell. This really seems the
safest conclusion or explanation. Lubbock seems
unwilling to accept this view; he regards it as
‘certainly unfavourable to the theory that any-
thing like an intelligent social sentiment exists
among the ants. The recognition of their fellows
is reduced to a mere matter of physical sensation
or “smell.”’ He does not think this view is con-
clusively established.
It seems probable, however, in the light of
Bethe’s researches, that in this matter we shall
have to fall back on the sense of smell, and
suppose that in the case of ants and bees—which
are dull-coloured—a common scent pervades each
colony, and that all the individuals are infected
with it, and are thus mutually and to the same
degree recognisable. We do know that moths
recognise their mates by scent. The assembling
of silkworm-moths is due to the fact that the
males can smell the females when miles away.
That ants can distinguish each other by some
peculiarity of form or dress or markings of any
sort is extremely doubtful. We know but little
about the eyesight of insects—how well they
see; but experiments made on certain species
show that they do not see well, and that they
are very near-sighted. Probably most insects only
perceive other objects or even insects when in
motion, when flying towards or from or past
them.
It cannot be denied that some insects, as
butterflies and bees, have the colour-sense. Even
ants have been shown by Lubbock to have this
sense of distinguishing colours; they are very
sensitive to violet, but not so to ultra-red rays.
He has also shown that bees have certain colour-
preferences; with them blue and pink are the
most attractive colours, while they seem less in-
clined to fancy yellow and red.
Now, brightly-coloured bees, such as_ the
humble-bees, which are yellow and black, pro-
bably recognise their fellow-citizens not only by
the odour peculiar to their species, but alsé by
their colour-markings. It is a curious fact that
the yaily-marked, banded, and hairy humble-bees
are mimicked by certain big, hairy flies, species
of Volucella, of their own size, which, though
they have but two wings and differ in other most
important respects, yet would, probably, be at
first mistaken by many of my readers for humble-
bees. Under this disguise the Volucella enters
the nests of the bees and deposits its eggs with-
out apparently awakening their suspicions; and
there they live on, hatching as parasites, feeding
at the expense of their involuntary hosts by
devouring their young. In this case it would
seem that the bees recognise one another by their
colours and gay trappings, and that the Volucellas
take advantage of their disguise to deceive their
hosts. -
Such styles of colouration as in humble and
other bees, as well as other insects, have been
called by Mr Wallace ‘recognition marks,’ and
they are the main reliance of naturalists in re-
cognising species, while they enable the insects
possessing them to recognise individuals of their
own kind. They occur in many insects such as
wasps and butterflies; but they are most notice-
able in those birds which assemble in flocks or
which migrate in company. Morgan, in his in-
teresting book entitled Animal Life and Intelligence,
thinks that in such birds there is what he calls
‘preferential mating’ between individuals possess-
ing special recognition marks.
It seems probable, then, that insects in general
recognise others of their own kind by scent,
while some at least distinguish their fellows by
their colours.
I turn now to a subject on which it is easier
to form a decided opinion. We certainly know
that many insects hang out danger-signals and
warn their enemies, and thus save their own
lives. The most familiar example, among animals,
is that of the skunk. It is easy to see this
creature in the night because of the broad, con-
spicuous white stripes on its black body. Thanks
to this danger-signal, many of us take warning
and give the creature a wide berth; and, on the
other hand, the creature’s enemies hesitate at
least before attacking an animal so well armed.
Another very clear case is that of a Nicaraguan
frog, ‘which hops about in the daytime dressed
in a bright livery of red and blue.’ Its immunity
from harm is due to the fact that ducks and
fowls cannot be induced to eat it, owing to» its
unpleasant taste.
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358 CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL.
Such danger-signals among insects are displayed
by many caterpillars, which are gaily ornamented
with bright spots and stripes, but are distasteful
to birds. For example, the currant measuring-
worm—unlike others of its group, green or gray
and protectively marked and coloured, which are
greedily snapped up by birds—is severely left
alone because of its bad taste. It is bright
yellow, spotted with black. Its flaring, con-
spicuous style of colouration warns off birds,
which know well that it is useless to spend any
time on them.
Few experiments have been made with the
American currant-worm ; but an allied European
species has been fed by different naturalists to
several kinds of birds, lizards, frogs, and spiders,
all of which almost invariably refused to touch
the caterpillars when offered to them. Yet birds
have been known to swallow currant-worms—
perhaps in a half-hearted way. Mr Beddard
relates in his attractive book on Animal Colowra-
tion that a specimen was eaten by the green
lizard, and several birds were seen to peck at
them, and one bird swallowed a worm. Monkeys,
he says, are well known to be great eaters of
insects. He experimented with four of them.
A marmoset monkey ate insects quite greedily,
while two Cebus monkeys sucked at caterpillars
and threw away the skins after the contents
had been entirely extracted; they paused now
and again to sniff suspiciously at the caterpillars,
but nevertheless they steadily persevered in
munching them.
Mr Beddard also made further experiments in
the London Zoological Gardens, which are de-
scribed in his book. A drone fly, which is of the
same colour and bears a remarkable resemblance
to the honey-bee, was seized, but quickly dropped,
by a thrush. It was then tasted and refused, as
if unpalatable, by an Australian plover; a third
specimen was entirely disregarded by a rose-
coloured pastor. A cautious Australian crow was
offered one, which it seized, but carefully pinched
with the tip of its bill before eating it, as if
it had formerly experienced unpleasantness with
a bee. Marmosets seemed afraid of the fly; but
in some cases they soon found out the decep-
tion, and greedily ate the insect. A blue jay
consumed an Eristalis ‘without making any
fuss about it ;’ and these flies, which so closely
copy the form and colour of the honey-bee,
were seized without hesitation and eaten with
relish by a chameleon, green lizard, and sand-
skink. Toads will, of course, he says, eat
this fly, for they will eat wasps, bees, and the
most gaudy of caterpillars, being no respecters of
persons.
One often sees on apple-trees large clusters
of the Datana caterpillars, which are black and
conspicuously marked with longitudinal yellow
stripes. No experiments have been made in offer-
ing them to birds; but it is quite evident that
their colours are of a warning nature, otherwise
they would be devoured.
Experiments on English caterpillars show that
they are not regarded by the birds as particu-
larly desirable. One was offered to a great spotted-
woodpecker, and partially eaten, though after some
delay and much pecking. The worm was eaten
by marmosets, though they found it to be very
tough. One was well tasted, but rejected, by a
duck; but these worms were not noticed by
fowls. These experiments show that caterpillars
with warning colours may at times be eaten, if
the bird is hungry enough.
A case in point is that of the American tent-
caterpillars. They appear on apple-trees when
the leaves bud out, and early in June attain
maturity. They feed in a very open manner,
spinning their large, conspicuous tents in the
crotches of the trees, and the birds never seem
to eat them, as they refuse hairy caterpillars.
During the summer before last, at the end of
June, in a farmer’s orchard which was overrun
by a large number of hens, these caterpillars
abounded everywhere, on or near the ground
and on the stone wall; but the hens never
seemed to eat them. I threw a number to
the owls, but they paid no attention. These
caterpillars are hairy and gorgeously coloured,
being gray, spotted with bright blue, and vari-
ously marked. Their bright colours seem to
signal the birds that they are inedible; and the
industrious insect-eaters take note of the warning
and confine their attention to the less gaily-
decked worms swarming among the leaves and in
the buds. Never before have these tent-cater-
pillars been more numerous and destructive in
the New England States, where immense damage
was done by them to forest trees of different
kinds. Their abundance was evidently due to
their inedibility, and they flaunted their gay
colours to good purpose, so far as their own
existence was concerned.
The trees in Boston Common and other parks
are in some seasons sorely afflicted by the tussock
caterpillar, which is a very beautiful yellowish
hairy worm, with tufts and long pencils of black
hair. It feeds in conspicuous positions, and is
evidently unharmed by birds. We know of no
experiments on the American species, but Mr
Beddard says that lizards either eat or reject the
English one.
On the whole, though there may be exceptions,
it seems that some, and probably many, brightly-
marked and hairy caterpillars which feed con-
spicuously, seeking no concealment, as most
caterpillars do, are passed over by birds and other
animals, and allowed to live, their bright mark-
ings serving as danger-signals,
Mr Poulton has also pointed out how very ‘im-
portant it is that an inedible caterpillar should
‘be at once recognised and avoided: ‘Owing to
the thinness of the skin which encloses the blood
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HOW INSECTS RECOGNISE THEIR FRIENDS. 359
under considerable pressure, the slightest injury
may prove fatal; for the blood will escape in
considerable amount quite incommensurate with
the size of the wound, or the pressure of the
blood may force out the viscera; hence the
means of protection are chiefly passive, depending
upon concealment or advertisement by warning
colours.’
What makes the caterpillars, at least such as
the currant-worms, distasteful has been supposed
by Dr Eisig to be the colouring matter in the
skin. It has also been proved that this nauseous
pigment material is formed from the excretions
of the animal, being the waste products of the
blood, which are retained in the skin instead of
being thrown off.
Now, geologically speaking, the insects appeared
before the birds, and in early times there may
have been as highly-coloured caterpillars as now,
and the warning colours may have existed with-
out reference to insectivorous birds. Hence
Beddard thinks that the brilliant colours have
caused the inedibility of the species ‘rather than
that the inedibility has necessitated the produc-
tion of bright colour as an advertisement.’
Another group of insects with warning colours
are the wasps, so gaily painted in black with
bright-yellow trappings. Though toads and bee-
eaters readily devour them, they are not as a
rule molested by birds in general. A young bird
which has innocently tried to swallow a wasp
and been stung in the attempt will not make the
mistake a second time, we may be sure, so easily
are wasps recognised by their bright markings.
It is apparently owing to this immunity of wasps
from the attacks of most birds that certain flies
painted like wasps are not eaten by birds.
Once, while in the woods of northern Maine,
my attention was attracted by an insect I had
never before seen, and which I thought was a
wasp. I instinctively drew my hand back, but
afterwards captured it with a sweep of my net.
On examination I found it was a harmless wasp-
like fly, but with a rounder body and more truly
wasp-like in its yellow trappings than most
Syrphus flies. If I was thus deceived, why should
not a bird be mistaken? These black and yellow
Syrphus flies are very common in America, hover-
ing near or alighting upon flowers to feed upon
the pollen. They apparently have no fear, and
escape the attacks of birds, and thus owe their
immunity from danger to their resemblance to
other insects which hang out danger-signals saying
very plainly, ‘Touch me not.’
After all, as has been stated by Mr Poulton in
his Colours of Animals, warning colours can only
be safely adopted by a small proportion of insects
in any country. The means of defence is so
simple that we should expect more instances of
it. We do see that honey-bees, with their modest
Quaker-like garb, are not thus protected, their
sting being their sole means of defence; but yet
there are many beautifully-coloured bees, especially
in the tropics, which may be said to possess
warning colours.
The males of insects play quite a less important
réle than the male of the human species, in their
own sphere; they are not the lords of creation.
Male wasps and also bees of highly-coloured
kinds, as humble-bees, are marked in nearly the
same way as the workers or females; but they
have no sting. It will be readily seen, then,
that the warning colours of this sex are all-
important. Certainly most people would fear to
pick up a male wasp, though an entomologist can
recognise them by the different shape and colour
of the front of the head. But there is little
doubt that birds confound them with the females,
and let them alone.
It may be stated, finally, that the matter of
warning colours is not fanciful, but apparently
well founded; for there are clear cases of the
kind in animals. Very striking examples occur
among snakes, frogs, and salamanders ; also, while
some animals possess warning colours, it has been
pretty well established that others have alluring
colours ; but space forbids our entering upon this
subject. Meanwhile we would commend such
attractive themes to our young and rising
naturalists.
OF ROYAL BLOOD.
A STORY OF THE SECRET SERVICE.
By WILLIAM Lr QuEvux.
CHAPTER XXIII—EVEN MORE CURIOUS.
| LOWLY I retraced my steps towards
| the winding sun-lit river, stumbling
on utterly heedless of where I
went. Through a full hour I had
remained with my love, holding
her hand and trying to comfort
her; but, emailed by a weight of secret
sorrow, she only sobbed upon my breast. The
world, she said, was against her, and her dream
of happiness with me could never be realised. I
strove to induce her to look upon the bright
side of life, but she had only mournfully shaken
her head, saying, ‘For me, it is all finished —
finished.’
As I went along, dull and dispirited, I turned
and glanced back at the frowning pile standing
t
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360 CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL.
out black and forbidding against the mellow sun-
light. High up, at one of those narrow windows,
the Princess was undoubtedly watching me; and
as I stood at the last bend of the road from
which I could see the Castle I tried to decide
which was the window of the room where our
interview had taken place. Upon my lips was
the impress of her fond, passionate, final kiss,
and in my ears rang her parting words of love
and despair. Then, with a sigh, I took a farewell
look of the ancient fortress of the Hapsburgs and
dragged myself wearily forward ; her sweet face—
the sweetest God ever gave to woman—rising
before me, full of fine sympathy and irresistible
charm.
As I had followed the servant across the old
courtyard Judith was standing at a window,
watching my departure. In her eyes I discerned
a dastardly evil glint, by which I knew that she
suspected that I had told the truth; yet I cared
not now for her vengeance or her allegations.
I had given the Princess timely warning of
Judith’s identity ; but the result of my visit had
only been to increase the mystery which seemed
to surround her actions, and to add to our un-
happiness.
One day, nearly a week afterwards, when I was
back in Brussels again, my man brought in a
letter, the envelope of which bore the Hapsburg
coronet and cipher. My heart gave a bound ; for
Mélanie seldom wrote to me. I tore the letter
open and read it eagerly. Full of expressions of
trust and tenderness, it also contained a strange
request—namely, that, in order to fulfil my pro-
mised offer of assistance, I should proceed to
London on the following day, and call at nine
o'clock in the evening at a certain house in Por-
chester Terrace, Bayswater, but for what purpose
was not stated.
‘If you love me, Philip, you will not hesitate
to serve me in this,’ the letter concluded. ‘I
rely on you to redeem your promise to assist a
helpless and friendless woman who is in gravest
peril. Adieu !’
I pondered over the strange letter long and
earnestly ; then, finding that it had been ap-
parently delayed for a day in delivery by post,
and that I had only half-an-hour in which to
catch the morning mail to England by way of
Ostend, I scribbled a note to Sir John Drummond
explaining my absence, and then set forth upon
my journey.
I arrived in London about five o’clock, dined at
the club, and later took a hansom up to Bays-
water. The house at which I alighted was a
large and comfortable-looking one, which bore on
its exterior evidences of prosperity in the shape
of sun-blinds and a small well-kept garden. A
few stunted, smoke-blackened trees overhung the
wall which shut the place in from the gaze of
passers-by ; and as, in the evening light, I passed
up the gravelled walk I fancied I detected a dark
figure disappear from one of the ground-floor
windows.
The moment I ascended the steps and rung
the bell the ludicrousness of the position flashed
upon me: I did not know for whom to ask.
Therefore, when the elderly man-servant opened
the door I lamely said, ‘I believe I am expected
here,’ and handed him a card.
‘Yes, sir,’ answered the smart and evidently
well-trained man. ‘Kindly step this way ;’ and
he led me to an elegantly appointed little room
which looked out upon a small flower-garden in
the rear.
I wondered why I had been sent there; but I
was not kept long in suspense, for a few seconds
later the door was opened and Mélanie herself, in
a dark-green travelling-dress and neat toque, stood
before me.
‘Ah, dearest !’ I said in joyous surprise, spring-
ing forward and seizing her hand, ‘I had no idea
that you were in London.’
‘No,’ she smiled. ‘But how am I to thank
you sufficiently for keeping this appointment ?’
‘Thanks are unnecessary between lovers,’ I
answered.
‘Then you do still love me, Philip?’ she asked
in a strange tone of doubt and anxiety.
‘Love you! Of course I do, darling. Why do
you doubt me?’ I asked quickly.
She sighed, and I thought I detected in the
corners of her pretty mouth an almost impercep-
tible expression of bitterness.
‘Because,’ she answered in a low, nervous voice
—‘because, when you know the truth, your love
will turn to hatred.’
‘Never!’ I cried. ‘Never! How strangely you
speak! Tell me why you have come here, and
what I can do to assist you.’
‘Wait,’ she answered in the voice of one speak-
ing in a dream. ‘Be patient, and you shall know
all—everything.’
‘But it is all so puzzling,’ I said. Then, after
an instant’s pause, I asked, ‘What of Judith?
Has she left you?’
She nodded.
‘After making a charg> against me?’ I in-
quired.
Again she nodded.
‘And you believe it?’ I gasped.
‘I believe nothing without proof,’ she answered ;
and I saw a sweet, sympathetic love-look still in
her eyes.
‘I swear that her allegation is not true,’ I said.
She was calm but pale, and I fancied she
shuddered when I took her hand and raised it to
my lips.
‘You think it strange that I should meet
you here,’ she said at last. ‘This house is the
home of a lady with whom I lived for three
years while learning English, and this room
has been kept just as I left it on my return
home to make my début in society. How well
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OF ROYAL BLOOD.
361
I remember it,’ she exclaimed, glancing round ;
‘and how happy I used to be here, in my
girlhood days, before the great evil fell upon
me!’
‘The great evil? What do you mean ?’
‘Ah, Philip!’ she answered, ‘it is only right
and just that you should know, even if after I
have spoken I dare never to look into your face
again. You are an honest, upright, conscientious
man, a trusted servant of your Queen and
country, and a lover of whom any woman might
be proud—yet I have deceived you.’
‘Deceived me!’ I ejaculated. ‘How ?’
‘Towards you my life has been a living lie.
I have’——
But her words were interrupted by the entrance
of the man-servant, who said, ‘A gentleman who
gives the name of Krauss desires to see your
Highness.’
‘Krauss!’ she gasped, turning to me, in an
instant white as death. ‘Is he alone?’ she in-
quired with an assumed calmness.
‘A lady is with him. She is fair, and dressed
in black.’
There was a short pause; then, with a calm,
determined look, she ordered them both to be
shown in.
‘Krauss and Judith Kohn!’ she said, turning
to me. ‘They have lost no time in tracing
me here, and their purpose is undoubtedly a
sinister one: to obtain by foul means that which
I have refused them.’
‘Happily I am with you,’ I said reassuringly.
‘Yes, yes,’ she cried in despair; ‘but you, like
all others, will turn from me when you know the
wretched, ghastly truth.’
Next instant the spy and traitor, together with
the handsome woman who was his ingenious con-
federate, entered the room. Both drew _ back
aghast. Probably they remembered that the frus-
tration of their clever designs was once due to
my watchfulness; at any rate they both had
sufficient cause to detest the memory of those
past days.
‘Good-evening to you,’ I said, with an affected
politeness. The interesting pair had evidently
walked quite unconsciously into a trap. Their
confusion was, however, very quickly dispelled,
for Krauss, arrogant and overbearing as was his
wont, answered :
‘I called to see the Princess alone.’
‘I am a friend of hers—an intimate friend—
and shall yemain here,’ I said.
‘Then my business can wait until she is alone,’
he answered, with a grin. ‘I am in no immediate
hurry, I assure you.’
‘Speak,’ exclaimed Mélanie hoarsely, grasping
the back of a chair to steady herself. ‘I well
know that the object of your visit is in continua-
tion of the overtures you have so constantly made
to me. Speak. Explain.’
‘My business can only be transacted with you
when alone, he answered, fixing his eyes upon
her quite calmly.
Judith stood at a little distance, a silent figure
in black, her handsome features but half-concealed
by her spotted veil.
‘You know Philip Crawford,’ Mélanie said im-
patiently. ‘You have met before, and are not
strangers. Why do you hesitate to speak ?’
The spy, silent for a few moments, exchanged
a quick glance with his companion.
‘Because,’ he said at last, ‘exposure is quite
unnecessary. The matter between us is entirely
of a private character.’
‘Then if you are determined not to speak, I
myself will explain, said Mélanie, bracing herself
up with an effort. ‘I am resolved to suffer no
longer. I am determined to end once for all this
eternal mental torture, even at risk of losing
all in this world I hold most dear.’
‘Your love—eh?’ sneered Krauss, with a glance
of contempt at me. He had not forgotten our
encounter on that well-remembered night in
Brussels.
‘Listen, Philip!’ she cried in a voice of despera-
tion. ‘The persecution of this man has driven
me to moral suicide. To-night I will end it all.
Hear me, and then judge my faults impartially
and with justice. I know I am unworthy; yet
I have deceived you because, loving you as I
did, I feared that, when you knew the hideous
truth, you would cast me aside and forsake
me.’
A cynical laugh escaped the ex-captain’s lips.
‘Continue, I said. ‘Take no heed of this re-
leased criminal’s jeers.’
Krauss made no reply; his face puckered into
a frown, and he darted at me an evil glance.
‘For years I have been this man’s victim,’
the Princess continued breathlessly. ‘ Fearing
always to disobey his commands, I have been
compelled to act as he has directed, to be
his cat’s-paw in the many dishonourable trans-
actions in which he has been implicated. To-
night, however, I release myself from the hate-
ful thraldom by making full confession of all
the past. True, I am of an honourable House
upon whom no breath of scandal has ever rested,
and at the outset I declare that I will rather
die by my own hand than bring discredit and
idle gossip upon the Hapsburgs. The pride of
my family has always been the virtue and in-
tegrity of its women; and in order to clear the
escutcheon I have besmirched by my conduct
I tell the whole truth without concealing a
single fact.’
‘Then you’re an idiotic fool,’ interrupted Krauss
bluntly. ‘You were always the most circumspect
and cautious woman I ever knew; but now you
actually intend to bring scandal on yourself in a
manner utterly unnecessary. You alone can suffer
by such an exposure.’
‘Wait until I have finished, she cried, turning
362 CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL.
fiercely upon him. ‘I have suffered enough at
your unscrupulous hands. I have been compelled
to perform mean and despicable actions, even to
commit crimes which might have brought me
within the clutches of the law, to pose as your
lover when you so desired it, and to render you
assistance in official quarters. Little the world
has imagined that you, the condemned traitor to
your country, obtained your liberty through my
effort, or that my money has kept you in luxury
and extravagance for months—nay, years. And
why? Because I feared you. I was not long in
discovering how mean and relentless you could be
when occasion required, and I knew that defiance
meant my ruin and a scandal which would fill
the newspapers, and cause half Europe to gossip.
The safety of an empire was at stake ; the honour
of a Royal House was in your hands; therefore I,
believed by all to be innocent and ingenuous, was
compelled to submit to your demands, to act as
you dictated, to supply you with information
which you sold at enormous profit to enemies of
my House and country. In a foolish moment I
had placed myself in your power; and you,
a cunning schemer, used me as your tool where-
with to execute some of the most delicate and
ingenious feats of espionage ever perpetrated.
Nothing is sacred to you—patriotism, honour,
family ties, or even a woman’s life. These three
long weary years have to me been a veritable
century of suffering. Now you have driven me
to desperation ; and I prefer exposure, the execra-
tion of the world, even the denunciation of the
man who loves me so tenderly and truly, to this
secret alliance which has crushed and killed my
very soul.’
At these passionate words the man drew back
with an uneasy laugh, meant to be derisive, but
sounding strangely artificial My previous deal-
ings with him had shown me that he was by no
means easily abashed. To obtain success he had
hesitated at nothing, and was an adventurer of
the very worst and most irresponsible type. There
was a look of cruel, crafty cunning upon his
countenance, and a glitter in his eyes which told
of fierce thoughts within.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘explain all if you consider it
wise. You alone will suffer.’
‘You,’ she cried, ‘have striven to drive me to
commit suicide, and I should long ago have taken
my own life were it not for the fact that by
doing so you would triumph. Indirectly you
sent this woman to me,’ she said, pointing to
Judith, ‘in order to obtain what you sought;
but by a fortunate circumstance Mr Crawford
came to Brandenberg, and there recognised her as
the woman who helped you in your nefarious,
traitorous work in Vienna. It placed me on my
guard, and happily I have been enabled to
frustrate your attempt at a coup which would
undoubtedly have startled the world.’
‘But tell me,’ I interrupted, much puzzled—
‘tell me by what influence you have been held
powerless in the toils of this man.’
‘Ah! it is a wretched story,’ she answered,
turning to me; ‘yet it is only just that all
mystery should now be removed, and that you
should have full and clear explanation. Four
years ago, while still in my teens, I delighted to
escape from the Palace and wander about alone.
We were living in Vienna, and I often went out
secretly and alone to make various little pur-
chases, being in the habit of calling at a pastry-
cook’s where they made English tea. On one
of these visits I met a smart-looking officer who
showed me some trivial attention, and who
afterwards returned so frequently that I could
not help guessing that he came purposely to meet
and chat with me. This acquaintanceship quickly
became more sincere; he gave me his card, and
at his request I one evening met him clandes-
tinely. In those romantic days of girlhood I
thought it great amusement to have a lover, and
evening after evening I would contrive to get
away from the home-circle to walk with him.
Months went on. He was unaware of my name
or who I was—for I had given as my address the
house of a friend on the outskirts of the city—
until one day he was ordered to do duty with
the Palace-guard, and quite by accident dis-
covered my identity. Almost a year had elapsed—
a year of halcyon days and foolish dreams of love
and happiness—when one evening he did not keep
the appointment he had made. I waited for him
over an hour, then went back disappointed. For
three evenings following I returned to the same
spot; but he came not, nor did he write and
explain. I thought that probably he had been
ordered into the country suddenly; but about a
week later the real truth became revealed, for I
received anonymously in an envelope a clipping
from a newspaper which briefly stated that Cap-
tain Oswald Krauss of the 33rd Regiment of
Artillery had been arrested for gross dereliction
of duty.’
‘Krauss!’ I echoed. ‘Then he was the oflicer
whom you met, and whom you loved !’
‘Yes,’ she answered hoarsely. ‘I loved him ;
but remember I was young, and utterly inex-
perienced in the ways of the world. I knew little
of life beyond the walls of the Palace or of
Brandenberg.’
‘Well, after his arrest—what then?’ I in-
quired, amazed at her revelation, and recollecting
how I had successfully tracked the spy through
a perfect labyrinth of complications previous to
his arrest.
‘I knew that he would be tried by court-mar-
tial ; therefore at my request the president allowed
me to remain in an adjoining room at the trial.
There, through a small window, I saw the man
who was my lover standing between two guards
with fixed bayonets, and I heard the terrible
charge against him. I heard the evidence, and
ees
of
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OF ROYAL BLOOD. _ 363
was present when you explained how you had
first made the discovery of his treachery. He
trembled at your calm, straightforward denuncia-
tion, and I saw of what dastardly treachery he
had been guilty. He had coclly sold his country,
and placed the lives of his fellow-men in jeopardy
in exchange for German gold. Had you not dis-
covered the truth in time he would have given
Germany the key to Austria.’
‘You actually heard me give my evidence?’ I
exclaimed, amazed.
‘I heard every word of it, being present each
day that the court-martial sat,’ she answered.
‘I was present, too, on that morning when at
sunrise the spy was led forth into the barrack-
square, and, in front of the whole garrison, his
sentence was read out, although the exact charge
was not stated, for fear of giving offence to Ger-
many. Then his sword was broken, his epaulettes
torn off, the gay braiding cut from his tunic;
and, to loud drumming and the execrations of
his brother-officers and the men who had served
under him, he was led off to prison, a scowling,
sneaking wretch in whose crime there had been
no extenuating circumstance. From that moment
my love for him turned to hatred. He had de-
ceived me, and had sought to betray his country
and his Emperor.’
SPECULATING IN DIFFERENCES.
By ONE WHO HAS TRIED IT.
E used to laugh at the man in the
play who was anxious to speculate
on the Stock Exchange, and being
advised to ‘sell Trunks,’ eagerly
began to buy Grand Trunk stock,
that he might be in a position to
sell. But probably no very large proportion of
us would have known how to go to work if,
holding no stock, we had wished to take advan-
tage of a falling market. We knew vaguely that
the Stock Exchange was the portal to either a
country mansion or the bankruptcy court, and
that it sometimes led from one to the other.
How it was done, however, was as deep a mys-
tery as some of those manufacturing processes of
which we see the completed results every day, but
the details of which are hidden from the eye.
However, knowledge is now extending in all
directions, and soon there will be no mysteries
left. Every Board school teaches the history of
the common things around us; and—to come
back to stocks—-every newspaper contains the
seductive announcements of those who are pre-
pared not only to initiate you into all the secrets
of the Stock Exchange, but to show you how you
may enter its mazes with a certainty of coming
back a richer and a wiser man. For one who
knew anything about speculation in stocks and
shares thirty years ago, there must now be a
hundred. There are, I think, three principal
reasons for this change: (1) the spread of educa-
tion of a superficial character, which has tended
to popularise everything which depends for its
success upon the number of persons possessing
a little knowledge; (2) the greater diffusion
of wealth, so that a very large proportion of
the people have now rather more income than
is needed to meet the immediate wants of the
hour; (3) the enormous development of the
joint-stock system, which has thrown open to
public speculation hundreds of business con-
cerns which would a quarter of a century ago
have been conducted by private individuals,
singly or in partnership.
The third cause is largely the outcome of the
first and second. This combination of a little
wealth with a little knowledge has given strength
and appetite to the gambling spirit inherent in a
large proportion of mankind; and this has found
its nourishment on the Stock Exchange and the
turf. The class of man who used to hear only
the remote echoes of the great events of Epsom
and Newmarket and Doncaster has now just suffi-
cient education to ‘follow form’ in the sporting
papers, and just sufficient spare cash to back his
fancy for half-a-crown with the neighbouring
hairdresser or tobacconist, or the ‘bookie’ lurk-
ing at the street corner. The middle-class pater-
familias who would in days gore by have carefully
hoarded the hundred pounds he had _ laboriously
saved is now immersed in a constant stream of
prospectuses which invite him to invest it at
20 per cent., and ‘bucket-shop’ circulars which
show how he may double it in a few weeks.
The gambling bacillus is abroad in the land,
and has found its way among all classes, not
omitting by any means the parsonage and the
manse. We are all, indeed, bitten by the same
craze—the desire to get money without earning it.
It does not lie in the mouth of the speculative
lord to blame the labourer’s pitch-and-toss ; neither
can the labourer who has his ‘bit’ on a horse throw
stones at the peer’s over-capitalised company. The
man who never earned a shilling in his life by
honest toil is just as anxious to add to his posses-
sions by a successful gamble as is the worker
to add a trifle to his hard-earned wages.
The moral aspect of all this seems to be entirely
a question of degree and of circumstances. Where
is the difference between the man who buys a plot
of land because he believes it will increase in value
and one who purchases Grand Trunk stock because
he believes the price will go up? The essence of
the two transactions is the same; either may,
364
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL.
according to the circumstances, be a pure gamble
or a piece of perfectly legitimate enterprise.
Be this as it may, I did not set out to criticise
others or to discuss morals, but to narrate the
results of my own modest excursion into the
domain of speculative finance. It may interest
those who have had similar experiences, as well
as those who have never put their fingers to the
fire, or rather to the cog-wheels, for that is a
more appropriate simile ; and it should also serve
as a warning to some who may be tempted to
‘listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy
and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope’
which are heard and seen in the neighbourhood of
Capel Court. I shall be laughed at, no doubt ;
but this happy land contains a large and varied
assortment of fools, and the folly of those who
laugh may have taken another form. At any
rate, I paid for my experience without any serious
detriment either to myself or to any one else, and
not all the fools can say so much as that.
It was in April last year that my attention
was drawn to an advertisement offering to send,
post free, a pamphlet showing how to deal suc-
cessfully in shares, and I wrote for a copy. It
came in due course, and was quickly followed
by two from other firms who had by some means
discovered where to cast their bait. Perhaps they
had a spy in the rival office. However, I dealt
only with the people to whom I first wrote. I
formed the opinion that they were a respectable,
well-established firm (though not, of course,
members of the Stock Exchange, or they could
not have advertised), and I have found no reason
to change that opinion. At the same time my
readers are advised never to invest money except
through a recognised member of the Stock
Exchange.
The prospectus indicated several methods of
speculation or investment; but my observations
will be confined to ‘cover accounts,’ or speculation
in differences.
Let the reader look at the list of Stock Exchange
quotations in his daily paper, and he will find
that, as compared with the previous day, certain
stocks have gone up and others down. London,
Chatnam, and Dover Railway Stock, for example,
may have stood at 264 to 26} yesterday, and
fallen to-day to 253 to 26. No commission is
charged, and the margin between the higher
quotation and the lower furnishes the dealer's
profit. Consequently, whereas yesterday you could
have bought stock at £26, 15s. or sold it at
£26, 10s., to-day you can buy at £26 or sell at
£25, 15s. So far as it affects the speculator the
margin is like the banker’s advantage in vingt-
a-un, rouge et noir, and other games of that
character. The gamester, in his optimism, is con-
tent that the mathematical chances should be
slightly against him, trusting to his luck to
counteract the disadvantage ; and the speculator in
differences runs a similar risk, relying partly on
luck and partly on what he knows of the
probable course of the market.
Of course where the change in price is greater
the amount of the dealer’s margin is proportion-
ately smaller. Had Chathams fallen from 26$-}
to 25}-3, the man who sold £500 yesterday
and repurchased to-day would have made £5,
the difference between £26, 10s. per cent. and
£25, 10s. per cent. The dealer’s contract notes
would in that case read something like this:
Jany. 1, 1900.
Bought by us of John Smith, Esq.,
for account Jany. 10,
£500 London, Chatham, and Dover Stock at
Jany. 2, 1909.
Sold by us to John Smith, Esq.,
for account Jany. 10,
£500 London, Chatham, and Dover Stock at
£127 10 0
Of course, no stock passes. Indeed, there is no
sale at all; it is merely a contract to sell, and
one transaction neutralises the other. It is only
on settling-day that the time comes for specific
performance. The settlement occurs about once a
fortnight ; and I suppose in the ordinary course
of things John Smith would have been obliged to
purchase Chatham stock by the 10th of January,
in order to fulfil his contract to sell, whatever
the price they had gone to in the meantime ; but
he has an alternative. He may pay a contango,
and thus carry over the transaction to the next
settlement, when a change in the quotation may
have taken place which will make his situation
either better or worse than before. Of the con-
tango, which is of the nature of interest, I shall
have a little more to say hereafter.
I need hardly say that were every speculator
required to make himself responsible for the full
value of the stock which he buys or sells these
operations could never gain a wide popularity.
Hence the invention of the system of cover, which
presents itself at first sight in charmingly modest
and attractive colours. This is how the cover-
system works: You have—or think you have—
reason to believe that Chatham stock will rise,
and you send to the dealer £10, instracting him
to buy for you (or sell to you, for that is nomi-
nally the nature of the transaction) £1000 of
Chatham at 1 per cent. cover. This means that
your liability is limited to £10. If the stock
stands at 264-3, and you buy at 263, and it
rises before the settlement 1}, to 27}-28, you can
sell at £27, 15s, thus making a profit of £10;
but if it falls %, to 25g-§ (the cover not
running off until its limit, in this case 259,
is the middle price), then your £10 is gone.
I don’t know that there is any limit to the
amount which may be risked in this way. A
-cover of £500 at 1 per cent. commands £50,000
of stock, and you may gain £1000 if the quota-
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SPECULATING IN DIFFERENCES. 365
tion rises over two points before the settlement.
On the other hand, of course, a very moderate
fall will sweep away the £500. If you choose to
make the cover 2 or 3 per cent. you can do s0,
and run a smaller risk, for the stock must fall
two or three points before the cover runs off;
but of course the chances of gain are also smaller,
for at 3 per cent. it would require £30 to com-
mand £1000 of stock. One would think that 3
per cent. was a tolerably safe margin, and that
you could with some confidence risk a fall of
three points when a rise of one will at any rate
give you some 30 per cent. profit. But after all
(apart from any knowledge you may possess of
the probable course of the market) this is only
like laying odds of three to one on a three to one
chance, with the odds slightly against you, as re-
presented by the dealer’s margin; and my own
experience shows that 3 per cent. is not enough
to ensure safety. This will be readily understood
when I say that Chathams, for example, last year
varied from 28? to 214, and this is not an ex-
treme instance of fluctuation. Many British rail-
way stocks varied more than 10 per cent. Great
Eastern Ordinary fluctuated between 120 and 138.
Some of the facts I have mentioned were not,
I confess, clear to me when I resolved to try on
a small scale what it felt like to speculate in
stocks. It would not risk much. It might give
me the novel sensation of getting a few pounds
without earning them, and it would at least give
me a little experience of the interest which those
dull-looking columns in the commercial pages of
the daily newspapers must possess for thousands
of persons. I admit it was a mere gamble, for I
did not even trust to any knowledge, or acute-
ness, or prevision of my own. The firm an-
nounced in their prospectus that at the request
of many clients they had established a system of
operating every Monday in a stock likely to go
up or down. They made contracts in these
stocks for any one sending the amount of the
cover (2 per cent. being the rule in this depart-
ment), and the client could either close the trans-
action when he chose or leave it to their
discretion. It is due to them to say that they
expressed a preference for clients to select their
own stock, and I do not in the least blame them
for the unfortunate results of the selections they
made on my behalf. It is doubtless to their in-
terest that their clients should succeed, and thus
be encouraged to further business.
On April 29 I sent a cheque for £5, being
2 per cent. cover on £250 of stock selected by
the dealers, to close at their discretion. This
was the minimum acceptable, and the reader
need only multiply my figures throughout to see
how much may be gained or lost in these trans-
actions; for had the cheque been for £500 the
result, in proportion, would of course have been
the same. In due course came a contract note for
the sale to me of £250 North British Ordinary
at 45} (£113, 2s. 6d.) for settlement May 12.
Within a day or two the stock, instead of rising,
as had been expected, was down below 45, but. it
kept fairly steady ; and at the close of the week,
so as to have another iron in the fire, I sent a
second £5 on similar terms. This time I pur-
chased £250 Great Eastern at 127% (£319,
13s. 9d.), and two days later came another note
showing that the Great Eastern had been sold at
128% (£321, 11s. 3d.). Here was a clear gain of
£1, 17s. 6d. on the first completed transaction,
though a little of the gilt was taken off it by the
receipt of a contango note showing that, short as
had been the interval between purchase and sale,
it had been necessary to carry the contract over
to the next settlement at a cost of 18s. 9d. The
North British were also carried over, but the
charge for this was only 5s. 8d.; and, deducting
the contangoes, I was still left with a balance of
13s. 1d. to the good.
Slightly encouraged by this result, I next ven-
tured upon a little deal on my own account.
Being persuaded, in my wisdom, that Spanish
Bonds were at an inflated price, and bound to
come down, I sent £5 for the sale of £500 worth
at 1 per cent. cover. They were bought from
me on May 25 at 618, and the very next day,
for some inscrutable reason, they shot up, to about
64, so away went my £5 irrecoverably.
North British meantime continued sluggish, but
remained well above the 43}, at which the cover
would run off. On May 29 they were again
carried over at a cost of 5s. 8d., the price about
this time being 44}-}. Seeing that I had got
on a weak stock, and hankering after that £5
lost on Spanish Bonds, I sent another £5 to be
invested as the dealers thought best; and on
June 5 I was the purchaser of £250 Great
Northern Deferred at 714, at 2 per cent. cover.
This bold venture must have alarmed the market,
for the stock at once began to decline steadily.
Indeed, home rails generally were just entering
upon a rather bad time; and within a short
period both my outstanding contracts had ap-
proached perilously near the running-off point.
At the risk of throwing good money after bad, I
wired on June 9 to increase the cover on both
stocks to 3 per cent., and thus for another £5 I
was safe till North British ran down to 42}, or
Great Northern to 68}. I omit the fractional
margin for convenience, and, indeed, it did not
affect the result in any case.
All through this month of June business in
home rails was deadly dull; money was said to
be dear—that was the chief cause assigned—and
political troubles were in the air. Day after day
my two precious stocks stood at fractions over 42
and 69 respectively, and watching the quotations
lost its interest in a sickening monotony. Then
I bethought me of a piece of advice given in my
dealers’ pamphlet: that if you hold a stock that
has fallen and it is a good security, the wise
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366.
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
plan is to buy again at the lower figure, for a rise
will probably follow on the fall, and then you
will get a profit on the second purchase if not on
the first. Accordingly I resolved to retrieve my
waning fortunes by a master-stroke, and sent £10
to the dealers with instructions to sell me £250
each of the two stocks if they thought it would
be a good plan in my circumstances. The reply
was that they thought the home railway market
was likely now to go better, and that North
British and Great Northern were two of the
cheapest stocks on the list. On June 24, there-
fore, I became the holder of £250 more North
British at 42%, and £250 Great Northern at 69%.
I now held £1000, nominal, and had £25 at
risk. The £5 on Spanish Bonds had gone, the
profit on Great Eastern had already dribbled
away in contangoes, and the £5 originally in-
vested in this stock was being eaten into by
these recurrent charges for bridging over from
one settlement to another.
July brought no improvement in the situation.
Various home rails attained better prices as the
dividend season came round; but my two stocks
continued miserably flat. By the 17th the Great
Northern bought on June 5 fell to vanishing-
point, and at 684 the 3 per cent. cover ran off.
On the 28th the dividend was announced. This
disappointed the market and caused a heavy fall,
which left my second purchase hopelessly in
arrear, so that also ran off at 67%. It was now
becoming a serious question whether I should
save anything at all from the wreck. I was
simply waterlogged and could do nothing, except
take the advice the dealers tendered to put
money in some other ship. This I was not
disposed to do, and there was nothing for it but
to await events.
I was thus left with only the North Pritish,
and the prospect for them was by no means a
rosy one. Dissension in the management of the
line had come to a head; and though this did
not affect the price so seriously as might have
been expected, I had little hope of saving the
£12, 10s. which remained. On August 2 the
first lot went by the board, the £250 bought
just three months before running off at 42},
after I had paid £1, 11s. 9d. for carrying it
over six settlements. The one hope remaining
was that the dividend announcement might save
my last £5; but the Scotch lines do not declare
their dividends until September, and before the
announcement was made the price had fallen to
my limit. On the 9th 403 was touched, and my
little adventure came to an ignominious con-
clusion. This was the net result of it:
£35 0 0
u Profit on Great Eastern............... 117 6
£36 17 6
By loss on North British.................. £12 10 0
" Great Northern................ 1210 0
" " Spanish Se 5 00
£3617 6
It would have been rather too tragically comic
to receive 9d. as the sole salvage from the wreck ;
and I wrote and told the dealers to give it to
the office-boy, which I presume they did. They
again advised me to try this and that; but I
had come to the conclusion that speculation in
differences was not a sufficiently interesting game
at the price,
THE STATE OF
OST people in England, if asked
about the State of Washington,
would say that it was somewhere
up in the frozen north, near Alaska,
and it is hard to realise the fact
that, far north as it is, Washington
enjoys one of the mildest, most delightful, and
most equable climates in the whole world.
Washington is the extreme western state of the
Union, and lies between the British Columbia
line on the north and the Columbia River on the
south, a distance of two hundred and twenty
miles, On the east is Idaho, and three hun-
dred and thirty miles across is the Pacific Ocean.
Its area is nearly forty-five million acres.
The state is divided into two quite different
regions by the Cascade Mountains, a range that
averages about eight thousand feet in height.
Eastern Washington is almost entirely agvri-
cultural. Here, in the rich valleys of the Palouse
and the Big Bend, and the fertile plains that
WASHINGTON.
border on the Columbia River, are the wheat-fields
that produce most of the grain that goes to
Europe from the Pacific coast, The soil is a rich
sandy loam, and so well watered is it that the
crops seldom, if ever, fail, as in California, from
drought, while the pests that infest the wheat in
other parts seem to be unknown here, Over .-
twenty million bushels are raised here every year,
the greater part of which is exported to Europe
by way of Tacoma and Puget Sound. There is,
however, a large quantity of flour manufactured
in the numerous mills in this section; and most
of this, outside of local consumption, is shipped to
China and Japan. Wheat yields from thirty-five:
to fifty bushels to the acre, and is the principal
crop; but hay, potatoes, and fruit grow to per-
fection, and are raised in large quantities. This
is also a fine country for stock-raising and dairy-
farming. Cattle do well on what is known as
the ‘bunch-grass’ of the ranges, and are always
‘in demand. The butter and cheese made here
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THE STATE OF WASHINGTON. 367
amount to over six hundred thousand dollars
annually,
Just east of the Cascade Mountains is what was
formerly known as the Great Yakima Desert, a
stretch of rolling country, entirely without water,
with a light soil of volcanic ash that looks like
cement, and which in its natural state will grow
nothing but wild-sage brush, Some years ago a
great system of irrigation was started, conducting
water in canals from the Columbia and Yakima
Rivers and from artesian wells; and the result is
that the desert has been transformed into one
of the most fertile regions on the earth. The
flourishing town of Yakima is surrounded by an
immense area of irrigated land divided up into
small farms, on which are raised extraordinary
crops of hay, alfalfa, potatoes, and fruit. Four
crops of alfalfa can be cut in one season; and
this makes the finest kind of feed for hogs
and cattle. Potatoes yield from two hundred
to five hundred bushels to the acre; while the
yield of fruit is enormous—apples, pears, peaches,
apricots, melons, grapes, and cherries, Prunes
(dried for export) and hops form a big item
in the product of this irrigated country. The
summers east of the Cascades are warm, and
the winters are tolerably cold, with plenty of
snow.
The Northern Pacific Railroad and the Great
Northern Railroad cross the Cascades through
different passes in the mountains, at great eleva-
tions, and partly through tunnels at the summit.
This journey over the mountains is one of the
great attractions of transcontinental travel. The
wild, rugged scenery is terrible in its grandeur,
as seen from the dizzy height as the train literally
climbs up the steep ascent. As you descend the
western slope, at this time of the year, you leave
the snow and all signs of winter behind you, and
strike a new climate entirely. Here everything
is fresh and green and spring-like. Cattle are
grazing out, and there is no sign of winter
anywhere; the air is warm, and your heavy
overcoat feels uncomfortable.
The western side of the mountains is covered
by an almost limitless forest of fir, cedar, and
spruce that extends in some parts clear to the
Pacific Ocean. The trees are enormous—from
three to six feet in diameter, and from two hun-
dred to three hundred feet in height. This timber
is Washington’s great source of wealth, and, even
at the present rapid rate of consumption, will last
for generations. The trees when cut down are
sawn into logs and floated down the small streams,
or brought by rail to the sawmills on Puget
Sound. The output of lumber from the sawmills
of the Sound amounts to over ten million dollars
annually, The fir lumber is for the most part
shipped to foreign countries in sailing-ships or
to the eastern states by rail. It is always in great
demand on account of its superior strength, and
for the almost unlimited size of the timbers. A
stick of timber thirty inches by thirty inches and
a hundred feet long, without a knot, is nothing
unusual. The cedar is shipped in the shape of
roofing shingles, doors, and fine inside finishing.
The sawmills of Puget Sound are large concerns,
many of them cutting from three hundred to four
hundred thousand feet per day, and employing
hundreds of men. Unlike the pine of the eastern
states, the fir and cedar will not grow on poor
land.
The mountains and foot-hills are full of
minerals — gold, silver, lead, copper, and iron,
These are extensively mined; but still the great
mineral resources of the state have hardly begun
to be developed,
Washington bids fair to be the great coal-pro-
ducing state of the Union. There are immense
deposits of lignite and bituminous coal nearly all
over the western part of the state. The mines
already opened up yield over twenty million
tons annually, nearly all of which is shipped to
California and the Hawaiian Islands, So extensive
are the coalfields that so far they have hardly
been touched, and there are thousands of acres
of the finest coal-land, with seams of coal ten
feet thick and over, lying waiting for capital to
develop them. In the near future there is going
to be a great manufacturing city somewhere on
Puget Sound, as the supply of coal is practically
unlimited.
The valleys and districts watered by the numer-
ous rivers, the islands in the Sound, and the
lands bordering upon it are wonderfully fertile.
Fruit and vegetables grow to perfection. Straw-
berries grow so large that some varieties weigh
an ounce apiece, and cannot be eaten at one
mouthful. Cherries yield enormously, and so do
apples, pears, and plums. Prunes make the most
profitable crop. The trees begin to bear at about
four years, and an eight-year-old orchard will
yield six tons of green fruit to the acre. Prunes
are nearly all dried and shipped to the eastern
markets and to Europe. Hops are extensively
grown, and more than forty thousand bales were
shipped abroad last year. The hop-picking is
a very busy time while it lasts, most of the
pickers being Indians who come from long dis-
tances, even from British Columbia, to share in
the hop-harvest. The arrival of these Indians in
their canoes is one of the picturesque sights of
Washington.
Wheat is not raised on the west side of the
mountains, but oats are; and on the reclaimed
lands, and those lands overflowed by the freshets
on some of the rivers, the yield is from one
hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty
bushels to the acre. Some of these low lands have
been raising oats steadily for thirty years in
succession, and the yield still keeps up.
Western Washington is a perfect paradise for
flowers, Roses grow here in greater profusion
than in any other part of the world, Even the
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368 CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL.
choicest varieties grow out of doors, and need
hardly any protection in winter. The display
at the annual Rose Carnival at Tacoma would
be almost incredible to a stranger from a colder
climate.
The ‘state flower’ is the rhododendron, which,
with the pink-flowering currant, grows wild on the
shores of Puget Sound. The old English favourites
—the holly, ivy, primroses, cowslips, &.—grow
here as in few other parts of the United States.
No one need starve on Puget Sound. Fish
are wonderfully plentiful and of endless variety.
Shell-fish, such as clams, &c., can be had for the
digging. Salmon are so numerous in the season
that they can be caught by the merest tyro; and
often when the fishing-boats come to the wharf
the supply is so great that a huge salinon can
be bought for a few cents. Cod, herring, smelts,
soles, crabs, shrimps, &c. are caught in enormous
quantities. The salmon are mostly packed in the
numerous canneries and shipped abroad ; while
the halibut, which is caught on the banks farther
north, is sent east on refrigerator-cars,
The capital of Washington is Olympia, a small,
old-fashioned place on the Sound. The principal
cities are Spokane, Seattle, and Tacoma. Spokane
is in Eastern Washington, and is a rapidly growing
place, with a magnificent water-power used to run
a number of large flour-mills. It is also the
trading-post for Rossland and other mining towns
in British Columbia. Seattle and Tacoma are on
Puget Sound. They have both fine harbours, and
are rivals for the first place as shipping ports.
Seattle is the oldest and largest, with a popula-
tion of about sixty thousand. It has most of the
local Sound trade as well as that to Alaska,
Tacoma, with a population of forty thousand, is
only about twelve years old. It has by far the
finest harbour on the coast, and has most of the
shipping of wheat, coal, and lumber to foreign
countries. Both of these places are terminals for
the transcontinental railroads, and each of them
has distinct lines of steamers to China and Japan.
The trade with these countries, both inward and
outward, is an immense one, although only recently
started. Three-fourths of the tea imported into
the United States comes by way of Tacoma;
while the outward cargoes, consisting mostly of
Washington flour and canned products, Texas
cotton, cotton cloths from Massachusetts, and
machinery of all sorts, is always a large one. The
harbour in Tacoma is so deep that the largest
vessels can come up to the wharf at any tide.
Ships are loaded and unloaded by means of
electricity ; and it is only a matter of a few hours
to unload the largest steamer, and, should the
cargo be tea or silk, to put it direct upon the
railroad cars that come up almost to the ship’s
side, and send it to its destination across the
continent without any delay.
These cities are well built, with fine business
streets, public buildings, churches, &., and .
Printed and Published by W. & R. CHamBERS, Limited, 47 Paternoster Kow, Loxvox ; and EpinpunaH.
beautiful homes with the loveliest gardens. The
streets are all lighted by electricity, and electric
cars run on all the principal streets and even
far into the country. The public schools are
exceptionally good, and there are several colleges.
Tacoma has several flouring-mills, a fine floating
graving-dock, and a large smelter for the reduc-
tion of the ores from the neighbouring mines.
Puget Sound is well named the ‘ Mediterranean
of America.’ It is a beautiful piece of water, of
immense depth, and navigable at all seasons. It
winds its way, like a huge, branching river,
through the most picturesque part of the state.
The scenery is lovely: heavily timbered shores,
numerous wooded islands, ranges of mountains on
all sides, and above all the massive, solitary peaks
of Mount St Helens and Mount Rainier, the
latter raising its snow-covered head fifteen thousand
feet above the level of the sea, and the highest
peak in the United States. This mountain, an
extinct volcano, is easily accessible, and is a great
objective-point for tourists,
Washington has no cyclones, tornadoes, nor
thunderstorms, and its climate is most inviting.
The advantages of the state for the tourist, the
home-seeker, the invalid, and the capitalist are
great; and when better known it will become
one of the richest, most prolific, and most popu-
lous states in the Union.
TREMYNFA, ABER.
A stoping old-world garden, whose high wall
Shuts out from view the winding village street ;
A cool veranda, round whose pillars tall
Clamber convolvulus and jasmine sweet.
A pleasant upper room looks far away
O’er land and water, field and tower and tree,
Across the village house-tops and the bay,
To fair Beaumaris, Queen of Anglesey.
The subtle fragrance of a thousand flowers
Floats through the open window on the breeze ;
In drowsy dalliance pass the sultry hours
As grow the length’ning shadows of the trees ;
And from the mill hard by the mighty wheel
With rumbling cadence fills the air with sound—
The groaning giant slowly grinds the meal,
Urged by the stream to run his daily round.
Nor does tradition leave this spot unsung ;
The mystic Mydand, bold Llewelyn’s tower,
Attests where princes ruled ere Edward flung
Across the land the chains of conquering power.
No longer gall those chains; but, hand in hand,
Along the broadening path of freedom tread
Two friendly nations—one united band—
All ancient enmities for ever fled.
Farewell, Tremynfa! peaceful scenes are thine ;
No warriors now the Aber slopes invade,
And up the glen naught breaks the calm divine
Save the loud roaring of the wild cascade.
G. A.
ih!
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