Chapter XXIV: The Child Fina (3)

Such are the highly-bred and intelligent animals which are eagerly waiting for us to-day--Di, with her white coat, soft as wavy silk, her chestnut ears and one spot on the back alone marring its snowy purity; Sancho, jet black, with "featherings" like a King Charles spaniel. They are over the fence already, and tearing about the field so recklessly in the exuberance of their joy that they must certainly startle any game which may be there. The timid little field-buntings glide away on silent wing through the grass; the meadow-larks rise with gentle flappings and sail off with that easy flight so tempting to very young wing-shots; now and then a flock of doves whistle off too far for a certain shot, and clouds of crow-blackbirds rise with hoarse chirps and seek less public feeding-grounds; a rabbit dashes off from a brier-patch and both dogs rush pell-mell at his heels, but a single note from the whistle brings them to a sudden halt and makes them look thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Off they go again, as wild as deer; but suddenly Di's whole action changes: crouching to the ground and beating her sides rapidly with her tail, she runs hither and thither, snuffing eagerly in the grass. Now Sancho comes up and catches the cold trail, for a covey has certainly been in that place to-day. Most probably they rose from the spot, frightened by the swoop of a hawk, and made for the nearest cover, for the dogs can do nothing with the scent. But that little whiff of the exciting effluvia has brought them down to their work, and a beautiful sight it is as they quarter the ground with quickly-beating tails and noses high in the air, crossing and recrossing the wind in zigzag lines and concentric circles, hunting the ground so closely that no trail, however cold, can escape their keen sense of smell. A wave of the hand to Sancho, and the sagacious fellow is off toward the far corner of the field, when suddenly Di stops in mid-career with a jerk that must try every sinew in her frame. The birds are right under her nose, and she dares not move a muscle, but stands as if changed into stone, her eyes starting with excitement, her nostrils expanded, her feathery stern quivering stiffly out behind and every line of her figure standing out like whipcord. "Toho!" The black dog catches the sound and turns his head: he sees her rigid form, and backs her where he stands as firmly as if he too had the scent. There is no hurry, for the dogs are true as steel and will stand there as long as the frightened birds lie, while the latter, obedient to the instinct of sudden terror, will cower where they are for an hour, with their heads drawn back, their mottled breasts pressed to the earth and their legs gathered under them, ready to spring into the air. We cock our guns, agree to shoot respectively at the birds which go right or left or straight before us, and then advance to flush the covey ourselves. The staunch dog never winces as we pass her: two paces, three, a sudden rush and whirr as of many wings, five sharp reports in quick succession and four birds down! Another, wild with fright, rises straight up for twenty feet and darts off behind us, but his beautiful head droops as the crack of my last barrel resounds on the air and a cloud of feathers floats downward. The shot has struck him in the line of flight, and he goes to the ground with a bounce, some thirty yards away, as if hurled there by a vigorous arm. The well-trained dogs come to the "Down! charge!" while we reload our guns, and then seek the dead birds and bring them carefully in to us.

Leaving the broken covey to be worked up on our return, we push on to another part of the large pea-field, where, perched upon the topmost limb of a tall dead pine, we see a red-tailed hawk engaged in quiet observation. There is no surer sign of birds, but it takes close hunting to find them, for they dare not move about while their savage enemy is on the watch. As we approach the hawk stretches out his neck, jerks his wings two or three times and oscillates his ungainly body, and then, with a loud scream of angry disappointment, he is off. The tree stands in a little piece of sedge, not far from a dense growth of pine-saplings, and we know that the moment the hawk left his perch the birds started for the cover, and our only chance for shooting is to head them off and turn them. The dogs have struck the running trail, and their action is totally different from what it was with the first covey. Crouching flat to the ground, they glide after the startled birds with a snake-like movement, now stopping, now running swiftly in. Suddenly Di leaves the trail and dashes off at full speed to the right. Making a wide circuit, she skirts the pines, and, turning short round, comes to a firm stand in the very face of the retreating covey, while Sancho lies prone with his nose between his paws. It is an old trick of hers thus to "huddle" running birds, and we follow her example, come up behind her, and get six with four barrels as the birds rise in a bunch.

But if the reader follows us too closely, he will have all the fatigue of a long tramp without the compensation of healthful excitement and full game-pockets. Thirty-five fine birds in a pile on the pantry-table offer a capital _raison d'être_ for weary feet and soiled fingers when we reach home just in time for the supper-bell. There have been some arrivals while we were gone, for Christmas is near at hand, and the old house is filling up with guests. To-morrow the "St. John's Hunting-Club" has its monthly deer-hunt and dinner at Black Oak, and we need a good night's rest to prepare us for an experience the omission of which would render imperfect any truthful reminiscence of life at the old plantation.

During the months spent at the plantation there is little social visiting among the gentlemen, and, except on Sundays and occasions of public meetings, the various local clubs offer their only opportunities for seeing each other, Another object--at least, under the old _régime_--was to bring together those who occupied somewhat different social positions. Formerly the clubs were strictly exclusive, and, indeed, this feature was never lost, but in every community there would be some _novi homines_, clever men many of them, whom the old gentry were quite willing to recognize, though a marked difference in culture prevented family visiting. These could be admitted to membership, and at the club-house could be met on equal terms. The hunting feature was always preserved, though few of the older members ever joined in the sport. Under the rules there was a place, a day and an hour for the weekly meet; and I remember when it was a safe thing to be at "the White Bridge" on the Santee Canal any Saturday morning at nine o'clock. Somebody was sure to be there with dogs and driver, prepared for a "wallet-hunt"--i.e., an all-day hunt with wallets at the crupper well filled with hunter's cheer. Once a month the club met for dinner, each member "finding" in turn, and on that day a single drive, or at most two, was all that could be enjoyed. The club-house was a plain frame building in the woods, with a huge fireplace at each end, heavy stationary pine table extending the length of the room, and broad soft-pine benches. The dishes, wines, liquors and cigars were all specified in the rules, the finder being allowed two extra dishes at will, and supplying all the crockery, cutlery and glass. The kitchen was a rough shed close to the cool and shaded spring of pure, clear water. Being myself but a guest, I have not the privilege of extending an invitation to the reader; so, by his leave, we will drop the present tense and I will assume the part of _raconteur_. How vividly do the scenes of that day come back through the highways of memory, crowded as they are with experiences of more than twenty varied years! As I rode up to the bridge on that bright December morning I found a party which promised rare sport. There was Kit Gillam with his crooked nose, and Tom Clifton with his deadly Manton and fine cry of dogs, and cheery Jack Parker, who hunted only for the good company, and whose gun was as likely as not to be unloaded when the deer came out to him. Two drives were decided on which might be relied on for shooting, and yet were small enough to give ample time for reaching the club-house before dinner.

As we rode toward our stands I thought it a good chance to settle a point which had long excited my curiosity. "Kit," said I, "I have often wondered how your nose got out of plumb. What caused it?"

"When I was a little bit of a boy I fell down and stepped on it."

This very satisfactory explanation brought us to our ground, and we were soon at our respective stands and listening eagerly for the trail-notes of the old hounds. The deer have regular runs, from which they rarely deviate, and which do not vary in the course of years. These are guarded by the standers while the game is driven down from the opposite direction. A large drive may have a dozen of these stands, by one of which the deer will almost certainly pass, but which one nobody knows. Quiet is absolutely necessary and a cigar is fatal to sport, but concealment is useless, as these animals see imperfectly in daylight.

I had not to wait long before I caught the distant cheering and hand-clapping of the drivers as they encouraged the dogs to hunt. In the quiet of the sombre woods every sound was distinctly audible. Suddenly three or four quick, sharp yelps brought my gun to the "ready," and the hammers clicked as a burst of music followed. But above the clamor of the hounds came the crack of the driver's whip, and his voice, mellowed by distance, was heard in angry tones: "Come back yah, you good-for-nuttin', wutless lee' rabbit-dog, you! I sway maussa ha' for shoot da' puppy 'fore he spile ebery dog in de pack!"

Soon, however, came another open, deep and musical, and there was no mistaking old Drummer's trail-note: then Killbuck joined in, and then the cry became general. For a while the broken, quavering tongue tells that the dogs are only trailing and the deer is still cowering in his bed, or perhaps has sneaked out of the drive at the first sound of the horn. Hark! what a burst! They had "started" within two hundred yards of me. The next moment there was a rustle of leaves, and a yearling doe dashed by. I am not a dead shot, and have nothing to say about that first barrel, but the second sent her down and over with a roll that almost broke her neck. The dogs were stopped and the deer thrown over the pommel of one of the boys, and we rode on to try the Brunswick swamp. The boy had assured us that "One pow'ful big buck bin in day (there) las' night. I see all he track gwine in, an' I nebber see none come out."

We were soon strung along the narrow dam across which the game was to be forced by the drivers, who had to make their way through an ugly bog among cypress "knees" and dense brier-patches. Jack Parker stood next to me, fidgeting about uneasily, because it was against rules to talk on stand. Jack's prominent feature was his nose, and he had an incorrigible trick of blowing it "out loud" whenever there was a particular reason for keeping perfectly quiet. The dogs had begun to open, and their loose, scattering trail-notes indicated turkeys. Looking directly before me, I saw seven noble gobblers stepping cautiously toward my stand. Their glossy breasts glittered with coppery lustre in the straggling sunbeams as, with drooping wings and expanded tails, they advanced, looking fearfully about and uttering their low alarm-notes, "Quit! quit! quit!" Three more steps will make a certain shot, and--out rang Jack's nasal clarion, loud and clear as the _morte_ at a fox-chase. I looked round in horror, and there stood my hunter complacently eying me and flourishing his white silk handkerchief, while his gun leaned against a tree ten paces distant: "Expect I'd better go back to my stand, eh? Are those dogs barking at a deer?"

I jumped to my feet for a snap-shot at the old gobbler which flew over me, making a clear miss. Bang! bang! went two more guns; a woodcock whistled up from the bog and two swamp-rabbits dashed into the brier. The dogs came out, shaking the water from their coats, and the spattered drivers rode through the creek. There was not a feather to show, and of course everybody was "down" on Jack, but with an air of deep injury he put it off on me with the question, "Why didn't you tell me the turkeys were coming? How can a fellow help having a cold?"

We reached the club-house just in time to take our seats as dinner was served, and were in capital condition to enjoy the rich mutton, the fat turkey, the juicy home-cured ham and the rare old madeira which graced the board. This last was a specialty with the gentlemen of those days, and probably no cellars in the world could boast choicer vintage than the "Newton & Gordon" and "Old Leacock" which cheered the table of that "hunting-club." There were stronger liquors, too, though these were chiefly used as appetizers before dinner. The moderate use of brandy was universal, but the drunkenness which blots these days of prohibitory laws was comparatively rare. Few ever left the club-house "disguised" by liquor except the young men, who then, as now and always, would occasionally indulge in a "frolic." With the clearing of the board came the regular and volunteer toasts, and then an hour of "crop-talk" and "horse-talk" and hunting-stories over the wine and cigars. With the departure of the older members came the inevitable quarter-race, with its accompaniment of riding feats which would have done credit to a Don Cossack. The equestrian performance was commenced by Kit Gillam (who now dismounts and leads over every little ditch) forcing his active chestnut up the wooden steps and into the club-room, and rearing him on the dining-table. Then came a leaping-match over a ten-railed fence, resulting in the barking of some shins and the demolition of sundry panels of rail. Joe Keating, the wildest rider I ever knew, had emptied his tumbler too often, and insisted on running his horse home through the woods. An hour after he was overtaken trudging along the road, perfectly sober, with the saddle on his shoulders and the bridle over his arm.

"Why, Joe, where's your horse?"

"Dead!" was the laconic reply.

Sure enough. He had run full against a huge pine, and the horse had gone down with a broken skull. He never tried it again.

Christmas Eve has come at last, and the old plantation is in all its glory. Carriage after carriage has deposited its freight of blooming girls and merry-eyed children at the broad, open hall-door. There is not a vacant stall in the stables, nor an unoccupied bedroom among all the seventeen of the spacious mansion. The broad dinner-table is set diagonally in the long dining-room, and to-morrow, at least, the guests will have to take two turns at filling its twenty seats, while the children go through the same manoeuvre in the pantry. Where they will all sleep to-night is a mystery which none can unravel save the busy, hospitable "lady of the manor;" but it makes little difference, for there will be little sleeping done. The day passes in riding-parties and rowing-parties and similar amusements, as each freely follows the bent of his inclination. "Brass," the negro fiddler, has been summoned, and "Newport" comes with his stirrup and steel for the "triangle" accompaniment, and the merry feet of the dancers are soon keeping time to the homely but inspiriting music. The "German" and the "Boston" have not usurped the places of the old-time cotillon, quadrille and Virginia reel, and the dance is often varied by romping games of "Blindman's Buff," "Move-House" and "Stage-Coach," in which old and young unite with equal zest.

But this is not the limit of the fun. From time immemorial Christmas Eve has been licensed for the performance of all sorts of tricks, and demure little faces are flitting about convulsed by the effort to conceal the merry sense of mischief. The stockings are duly hung for Saint Nicholas, and the holly, with its glossy leaves and scarlet berries, stands ready to be planted in the parlor, to bloom to-morrow into all kinds of rich flowers and gift-fruit. At nine o'clock the work of arranging the Christmas tree begins. The ladies retire, and after a quiet smoke by the roaring hall-fire the gentlemen follow suit. To bed, but not to sleep. Jack Parker is the first man ready, and bounces into the best bed to secure the softest place; but the bars have been skillfully removed, and he is the centre of a rather mixed pile on the floor. I feel another, to be sure that all is right, and slip cozily between the sheets, but some graceless little wretch has placed a walking-cane "athwart-ships," which nearly breaks my back. None escape. Some find their sheets strewed with chaff or cockle-burs, some find no sheets at all. At midnight a fearful roar comes from the girls' room, followed by pretty shrieks and terrible confusion; but it is only the old Cochin rooster, which was slyly shut up in the empty chimney-place before they retired, indulging in his first crow.

Daylight puts an end to all sleep, for the boys are on the piazza ready to welcome Christmas with innumerable packages of fire-crackers. We rise to find our pantaloons sewed up, our boots stuffed with wet cotton, our tooth-brushes dusted with quinine and our _café noir_ sweetened with salt. These practical jokes are all taken in good part and made to contribute to the jollity of the season. At the breakfast-table lumps of cracked marble serve admirably for loaf-sugar, except that the hottest coffee will not dissolve them, and boiled eggs tempt the appetite only to disappoint with their sawdust filling. Then all assemble on the piazza to witness the merriment of the crowd of negroes who have assembled to claim little gifts of tobacco and sugar and to receive the annual glass of whisky which a time-honored custom bestows. The liquor is served in a wine-glass, and swallowed eagerly by men, women and boys from ten years old upward. Then they disperse to get their portion of the Christmas beef which has been slaughtered for their special benefit, and we prepare for service at the parish church, which stands among the shadows of the old forest oaks an easy walk from the house. There the solemn services temper and soften, but do not check or lessen, the joy and good-will which so well become the season, and which find their appropriate manifestation in all kinds of innocent amusement. The religious and the social observances of the day react each upon the other, and harmonize most admirably in the impressions which they produce. The interchange of gifts and tokens around the Christmas tree follows most appropriately, and the Christmas feast is marked by profuse hospitality and keen enjoyment unmarred by riot or excess.

Ah, well! there are piles of dusty memories in the old cockloft still untouched, but I shall rummage no more to-night. The scenes which have floated past me with the wreathing smoke of my cigar are green and fragrant to me with a freshness which time can never blight, but they never can harden into reality again for any mortal experience. They have gone into the irretrievable past with a state of things which some may regret and others rejoice in, and well will it be if the new _régime_ shall supply their places with other pictures which twenty years hence it may be no less pleasant to remember.

ROBERT WILSON.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

A GERMAN AGRICULTURAL FAIR.

From the 27th to the 30th of September all Stuttgart flocks to Cannstatt for the _Volksfest_; and this year every good Würtemberger was bound to feel an additional interest in the fête on account of the opening ceremony, the inauguration of a statue to the late king, Wilhelm I.--and "well beloved," one is tempted to add from the way in which his people still speak of him. "The old king" and "this one" they say with an inflection of voice anything but flattering to the latter. Our landlady assures us that let the weather look as threatening as it would, the sun always contrived to burst out when in former times the late king rode into the arena to give the prizes; and she is evidently by no means certain it will not pour all three days of the fair this year. However, to judge from the skies, "this one" is not so bad as he might be: the sun shines propitious on him too, and consequently on us as we set forth to see what we can see. The second is the great day, as the prizes are then distributed; but already on Monday the booths and shows were on the field, and Cannstatt was gay with banners and wreaths and garlands of green. The carpenters were still hard at work hammering at seats for us to occupy next day, but the wonderful triumphal arch stood quite completed and worthy of sincere admiration. No one knows who has not seen it worked into an architectural design how beautiful a string of onions can be, how gorgeous a row of vegetable-marrows, how delicate a cluster of turnips. It sounds puerile, but it was lovely nevertheless. Imagine a temple-like construction all composed of odorous pine, with an arched portal on either hand, and then every line and curve, every niche and pillar and balustrade, defined with glowing fruit. It was looped in festoons and hung in tassels of red and white and gold: the arms of Würtemberg even were traced in yellow corn, while above it all rose a graceful column, a mosaic from base to summit of every fruit that autumn can bring to perfection.

That was the great show: after that, mammoth cucumbers and carrots or rows of agricultural implements did not detain us long. The next best thing was to see the booths and the crowd on the outskirts of the exhibition. There the circus was in full blast, and triumphant, brazen-throated opposition to all smaller attractions that had ventured into that neighborhood. The performing dogs in red petticoats were reduced to making an appearance before their tent to entice spectators, and Harlequin and Columbine had to shout themselves hoarse inviting people to come in and split with laughter for sixpence. Those who did not aspire to a seat under painted canvas gathered round a melancholy bear dancing a _pas seul_ on the grass with heartbroken gravity. Then came the _Schützhallen_, where the marksmen stationed themselves three feet from the target and cracked away at it with no other visible effect than that produced on a monkey doing its tricks close by: at every shot the poor little creature stopped fiddling and looked over its shoulder with a distressed air of "If I'm not hit this time!" Hand-organs, penny trumpets and rattles quite drowned the voice of a street-songstress with a large assortment of vocal music before her, from which she was giving the public a selection. Whether the songs had any reference to the pictures that formed her background we did not discover, but, at all events, the latter were tragic in the extreme. "The twenty-four-year-old murderer of his mother and six brothers and sisters" was there portrayed in a neat suit of black, with a hatchet in his hand and a very irresolute expression of countenance, while the various members of his family, seen through the open bedroom doors, awaited their fate in peaceful slumber. The booths, with toys, gingerbread, sausages, cheese and light literature tastefully intermingled, went on and on like the restaurants that lined each side of the long avenue. Around primitive tables family parties clinked foaming glasses and hailed with demonstrative hospitality any stray cousin who chanced that way. In one of the last of these improvised _Trinkhallen_ we came upon a young man and maiden who had the place quite to themselves. Her brown parasol kept the sun off them both, and it was of no sort of consequence that they had nothing more interesting than the back of a shed to look at. Future prospects were the only ones they cared for: the present had no need of anything but a faint beeriness, conducive to day-dreaming.

As we get into the carriage again our coachman says we must see the new statue. Accordingly, we drive through the town and halt before it in the square. It is very fine, glowing like gold from the mint. The king sits his charger well, and gazes majestically at nothing in particular: still, one must be a little critical, and we imagine the horse's tail is not quite right. But then is not the whisk of a tail in bronze almost impossible to conceive of? If the artist suffers no severer censure than that, he will probably call himself a happy man. The inscription on the pedestal of the statue reads, "From his grateful people." High and low have contributed to it, and gladly. "That was a man!" says our driver. He was a soldier under him, and knows. And in fact the old king seems to have been always doing something for the country, so that the gratitude is not without a cause. The inhabitants of Cannstatt have special reason to remember him kindly: he himself was grateful to them and showed it. In the troublous times of 1848 he was sadly in need of money: Ludwigsburg (another satellite of Stuttgart) refused it, while Cannstatt came up to the mark handsomely. The royal creditor never forgot that. He instituted the _Volksfest_ as a sort of memorial, and Cannstatt is proud and prosperous, while Ludwigsburg is like a city of the dead. So the coachman affirms; and once conversation is opened between us it flows without intermission. His head is over his shoulder all the way as we roll back to the city under the beautiful trees of the palace grounds. "If the old king had been living, Würtemberg would never have joined in the last war: he would have told Prussia to fight it out by herself." Apropos of the war, we ask what he thinks of Bismarck. He evidently thinks a great deal of him, though not perhaps in the generally accepted sense of that expression. He states as a fact that there _are_ limits, leaving it to us to understand that the chancellor of the empire has overstepped them. He declares further that a Prussian, and especially a Berliner, is always to him an obnoxious member of society through his insisting on knowing everything (except his own place) better than anybody else. "Now, there was the Prussian general before this last one," he continues, changing from politics to court-gossip (naturally, since 1870, military matters in Würtemberg flourish under Prussian auspices): "the first ball he went to at the palace he asked the queen to dance! _Our_ queen!! And then he took his whole family, and they sat in chairs that never were meant for them, so that the king had to say to him next day, "Mr. General, first come I, and then my ministers, and then this one, and then that one, and _then_ you." He went back to Berlin soon after. It is pleasanter to sit one's self down where one doesn't belong than to be set down by somebody else." Our driver chuckles, and then bursts out afresh, "Asking the _queen_ to dance!" He certainly has perfect faith in his own stories.

We saw the successor of that presumptuous military man next day among the greater and lesser lights that revolve around the throne of Würtemberg. We ourselves were stationary, crowded into the foremost of the tiers of seats that rose surrounding the immense enclosure, and in the best place for observation, close by the royal pavilion. The hills, bright in the sun and velvet in shadow, made a natural amphitheatre beyond, a little church with its pretty tower looked picturesquely down from a neighboring height, and the whole place was gay with flags and branches, glittering uniforms and gorgeous liveries. We were to see the _hohe Herrschaften_ come in at the farthest entrance and drive around directly before our seats. As the trumpets flourish and the first magnificence sweeps by we hear all about us, "The princess Vera," and "No, the duchess of Uhra," and "Is it?" "Isn't it?" "Which is it?" till we finally settle down to the serene conclusion that it is either one or the other. There is no mistaking the queen, however, with the outriders, six superb black horses and postilions in scarlet and gold. The Majesty herself looks pale and resigned, bending to the right and left in answer to the bows and _hochs._ Our neighbors "the Weimars" come in full force. A superfluous prince of that family appears to have drifted to these regions, and makes our street aristocratic for us. Young Weimar looks uncommonly well in his hussar uniform, and the old prince and his wife and daughter are resplendent. We met them later that same day in town, but they had taken off their best clothes, and truth compels us sadly to admit that we should hardly have known them.

In the course of time, after various false alarms on our part, the band confidently strikes up "God Save the King!" and there is a flashing and prancing in the distance that creates a great stir. The citizen guard, a stately body of burghers, rides out with the king on this day of all the year, and comes caracoling by in fine style, he in the midst bowing and smiling. And now, after the _Herrschaften--hohe_ and _höchste_--come the animals. First, horses haughtily stepping, and then splendid bulls with wreaths on their horns and garlands round their--waists shall we say?--are led before the king, standing at the foot of the steps and handing the prizes to the farmers, who present themselves, ducking and scraping. It seems a shame to tie up the creatures' legs so, and put rings through their noses: some have even a cloth bound over their heads; and if all these precautionary measures are necessary, it ought to be a relief when the procession of mild cows begins, They look out amiably from under the floral crowns that have slipped low on their brows, or turn with half-conscious pride to the handsome little calves that trot beside them. The sheep, seeking to attract too early the notice of royalty, dash out in a flock, and are driven back with jeering and hooting, as they deserve to be. Then the pigs stagger by: their garlands are excessively unbecoming. Such of the family of swine as are too young to stagger are wheeled in handcarts in the rear; and so the ceremonies are closed, except for a couple of races which take place immediately, and with no great éclat. The burgher races these are called, while on the third and last day are the officers' races. The rain prevented our attending them, and we consoled ourselves, hearing it intimated by those who had been at Ascot and Longchamps that we had not lost a great deal.

G.H.P.

A PAIR OF WHEELS AND AN OLD PARASOL.

The threads from which the tissue of history is being woven are ever in unceasing and rapid motion in the hands of the Fates. But these deities for the most part love to work unseen, like the bees. It is only when the spinning is going on with exceptional rapidity and vigor that the movements of the threads and the characteristics of the operation can be observed on the surface of social life, Such is the case in these days at Rome, and it is not necessary to watch the actions of governments or listen to the discussions of legislative chambers in order to assure one's self of the fact. One cannot walk the streets without having the phenomena which are the outward and visible signs of it thrust in a thousand ways on the observation of our senses. The other day I read a whole chapter of contemporary history compressed into the appearance of a pair of wheels engaged in their ordinary daily duty in the streets. It was in that central and crowded part of the city which is between the church of the Gesù and the Farnese palace, a labyrinth of tortuous streets and lanes, not often visited by foreigners unless when bent on some special expedition of sight-seeing. There are no sidewalks for foot-passengers in these streets. They are narrow, very tortuous and very crowded. Foot-passengers and vehicles of all sorts find their way along as best they may in one confused mass. It was there I saw the historic pair of wheels in question. They were attached to the barrow of a coster-monger, who was retailing a stock of onions, carrots and "cavolo Romano" which he had just purchased at the neighboring market of the "Campo de' Fiori." His wares, I fear, had been selected from the refuse of the market, and he and his barrow were in a state of dilapidated shabbiness that matched his stock in trade. But not so the wheels on which his barrow was supported. They were wheels of the most gorgeous description. The spokes and the circumference were painted of the most brilliant scarlet, and the entire nave was gilded so as to have the appearance of a solid mass of gold. It is impossible to imagine anything more _bizarre_ than the effect of these magnificent wheels doing the work of carrying such an equipage. Nevertheless, the apparition seemed to attract very little attention in the crowded street. The grand scarlet and gilded wheels flamed along among the crowd of shabby men and shabby vehicles with their load of onions and cabbages, and scarcely anybody turned his head to stare at them. I suppose the denizens of the district were used to the apparition of them. To me they looked as if they had been the originals from which Guido Reni painted those of the car in which he has placed the celebrated Aurora of his world-famous fresco. They were solidly and heavily built wheels--very barbarous an English carriage-builder would have considered them in their heavy and clumsy magnificence--but they were very gorgeous. What could be the meaning of their appearance in public under such circumstances? I was walking with an Italian friend at the time, who saw my state of amazement at so strange a phenomenon, and explained it all by a single remark.

"Yes," said he, "there go a pair of His Eminence's wheels. They are sharing the fortunes of their late master in a manner that is at once dramatic and historical."

The wheels from a cardinal's carriage! Of course they were. How was it possible that such wheels should be mistaken for any other in the world? A few years ago, when pope and cardinals had not yet suffered the horrible eclipse which has overtaken them, one of the most notable features of the Roman streets and suburban roads used to consist of the carriages of the members of the Sacred College taking their diurnal drive. It was not etiquette for a cardinal to walk in the streets, or indeed anywhere else, without his carriage following him. There was no mistaking these barbarously gorgeous vehicles. They were all exactly like each other, and unlike any other carriages to be seen in the nineteenth century--heavy, clumsy, coarsely built and gorgeously painted of the most flaming scarlet, and largely gilded. They were drawn by long-tailed black horses covered with heavy harness richly plated with silver, or something that looked like it, and driven by a coachman whose livery, always as shabby as magnificent, was as heavily laden with huge masses of worsted lace of the kind that used to be placed on carriage-linings some five-and-twenty years ago. Two similarly bedizened footmen always stood on the monkey-board at the rear, who descended and walked behind His Eminence and his chaplain when the cardinal left his carriage to get his constitutional. Ichabod! Ichabod! The glory has departed! Such cavalcades are no longer to be seen crawling along the Via Appia, or following His Eminence on a fine and sunny afternoon about four o'clock as he walks on the footpath between the Porta Pia and the Basilica of St. Agnes in search of an appetite for his dinner. The world will never see such carriages and such servants any more. _Fuit Ilium!_ I thought of the old lines on the "high--mettled racer," and of "imperial Cæsar, dead and turned to clay, stopping a hole to keep the wind away." To see such splendor reduced to the service of such vile uses! Yes, as my Italian friend said, "There go the cardinal's wheels," and it is impossible not to feel sure that the phenomenon is symbolical of the way the cardinal is going himself. When an institution, a dignity, a social arrangement of any sort, has grown to be purely ornamental, has become so splendid that its splendor has come to be the essence of it, it will no longer be able to exist shorn of its splendor, however much it may in its origin have been adapted for use rather than for show. The wheels were heavy, cumbrous and ill put together; they were not well adapted for the costermonger's purpose, and will probably fall to pieces before long. Their fate is a type of that of their once master. That ornamental individual, shorn of his ornamental character, is useless. His _raison d'être_ is gone as entirely as Othello's occupation was. And it will probably not be long before the fate of the cardinal's wheels overtakes the cardinal himself.

The second little bit of street incident which recently occurred to me was in itself less striking, but seemed to me to symbolize changes of yet higher moment and wider significance. This time what I saw was in the Ghetto. Many of my readers probably know what the Ghetto at Rome is, but untraveled stayers-at-home may very excusably never have heard of it. The Ghetto is the Jews' quarter in Rome--the district in which they were for many generations compelled to reside and to be locked in by night, and where from habit the greater part, especially of the poorer members of the Jewish community, still live. As will be easily believed, it is the worst and most wretched quarter of the city--the lowest physically as well as morally--and inundated with tolerable certainty every year by the rising of the Tiber. The dilapidated and filthy streets of the other parts of old papal Rome used to look clean and spruce by comparison with the lurid and darksome dens of the Ghetto. There are Ghettos in London--streets where the children of Israel congregate, not in obedience to any law old or new, but drawn together by mutual attraction and similarity of occupation. And the occupations there are very much of the same nature as those pursued in the Ghetto of Rome--the buying and selling of old clothes and second-hand property of all sorts, the preparation and distribution of fried fish, and here and there a little usury. But the _genius loci_ here impresses on the trade in discarded odds and ends a peculiar character of its own. A much larger number of old pictures figure among the hoards of useless "property" than would be the case elsewhere. The constant decay of noble and once wealthy families furnishes to the second-hand market a much more abundant supply of the remains of articles that were once rich and rare in their day--old damask hangings torn from walls that have witnessed the princely revelry of many a generation; rich brocades and stuffs that have made part of the moving pageant in the same saloons; lace of the finest and rarest from the vestments of deceased prelates, whose heirs, as regards such property, have probably been their serving-men; purple and scarlet articles from the wardrobes of cardinals and princes of the Church; and odds and ends of various sorts widely different in kind from aught that could be found in similar repositories in other cities. And another specialty of the Roman Ghetto is that it is not altogether easy to obtain a sight of the miscellaneous treasures of this rag-fair. Partly because the low-lying and narrow lanes of the Ghetto are too murky and filthy to permit of the advantageous exposure of the merchandise in question; partly, probably, from an habitual consciousness on the part of the dealers that the details of their traffic in all its particulars are not of a nature to be safely submitted to the public eye; partly from that secretiveness which is the natural result of living for many generations from father to son under the tyranny of an alien race, whose bitterly hostile prejudices were but little restrained by law or justice; and partly also, no doubt, from the genuine Roman laziness, which in its perfection is capable of overriding even Jewish keenness of trade,--the Jew brokers of the Ghetto are often unwilling to show their hidden stores to the first comer. Some amount of diplomacy and some show of the probability of effecting an advantageous deal must be had recourse to in order to attain the purpose of the explorer.

On the recent occasion to which I have referred these difficulties had been overcome, and I had made my way into the interior of one of the dens I have described in the company of a lady friend who is a confirmed and irreclaimable lace-hunter, and who in pursuit of her game would have confronted worse obstacles than any that we had to encounter. For, in truth, the exterior appearance and the entrance-chambers are the worst part of the Ghetto dwellings. One is curiously reminded of the old mediæval stories of Jewish dwellings, where the utmost squalor and poverty of exterior was a mere blind for an interior gorgeous with every manifestation of wealth and luxury. I will not say that much of the latter is to be found in the dwellings of the Ghetto, but a degree of comfortable decency and indications of the possession of capital may be met with which the exterior appearances would not have led one to anticipate. Well, we had reached the third floor of one of these sinister-looking abodes, conducted by a fat old Jewess with a pair of huge black eyes, a large smooth face as yellow as a guinea, and a vast development of bust clad in dirty white wrappers of some sort. A door on the landing-place jealously locked with two huge keys admitted us into a suite of three good-sized rooms crammed from floor to ceiling with a collection of articles more heterogeneous than can easily be conceived--far more so than can be described.

Those who have ever accompanied a lady lace-hunter when she has struck a promising trail know that the business in hand is likely to be a somewhat long one. My companion on the present occasion very soon convinced the Jewess that she knew quite as much about the matter as she, the dealer, did. But I presume that some of the old yellow stores produced were "the real thing;" for my friend and the old Jewess soon became immersed in an eager and, as it seemed to me interminable, discussion as to qualities, condition and values. Meantime, I had to amuse myself as best I might by looking at the multifarious objects. I must content myself with mentioning one article, the appearance of which in such a place struck me as strange and not a little significant. It was simply an old parasol, very much faded and a little tattered, but not such a parasol as your fair hands ever carried, my dear madam, nor such as the once equally fair hands of any generation of your ancestors ever carried. The article in question was more like the shelter which we see represented in Chinese paintings as carried over the heads of persons of high rank among the Celestials. It was very large, not much curved into the shape of a dome when expanded, very clumsily and coarsely put together, but of gorgeous magnificence of material. It was made of a very thick and rich damask silk, additionally ornamented by embroidery in gold and silver thread, and the handle and points of the supports were richly gilt. In a word, I perceived at once, not being a novice in such matters, that the article before me was one of the canopies used for holding over the "Host" when the holy sacrament is carried by the priest through the streets to a dying person. It needs but a moment's reflection on the Roman Catholic theory of the sacrament of the "Last Supper" to be aware of the extremely sacred nature of the uses to which this parasol had been put, and of the associations connected with it. Nevertheless, I found this bit of sacred church property in the hands of a Jew broker, exposed to sale for a few francs to the first comer, heretic, scoffer or infidel, that might take a fancy to buy it. This would hardly have been the case when the pope was absolute master of Rome and of all in it. The thing could not have happened save by the dishonesty and cynical disbelief of some priest, and indeed probably of more than one. And, upon the whole, it struck me as a second curious indication of the somewhat breakneck speed with which the threads of history are spinning themselves in these days and in these latitudes.

T.A.T.

MEDICAL EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

A great deal of discussion has recently taken place on the subject of medical education in the United States. To a foreigner, or to one not acquainted with the influences that have led to and have kept up this discussion, it might seem to be the result of a spontaneous outburst of popular feeling, earnestly demanding much-needed progress. Really, however, the very reverse is the case; and the revolutionists are those whose _kind_ and _sympathetic_ interest in the welfare of the community is prompted solely by selfish considerations. The changes urged by these self-condemning philanthropists are not demanded by the medical profession nor by the public; neither have they been, nor will they be, sustained by both or by either. This assertion is clearly proved by the experience of the University of Pennsylvania, In 1846 the American Medical Association recommended to all medical colleges certain changes and improvements in their courses of instruction. In consequence of this recommendation the University of Pennsylvania extended its session to six months: not a _single medical college in the country followed_ its progressive lead, and after continuing the experiment for six years at great pecuniary loss, it was reluctantly obliged to retrace its steps, and to return to the old standard as to length of session. During the period of this advance the classes of the University fell off greatly, and the classes of other medical schools correspondingly increased. Even medical men sent their sons to other medical schools, to save the time and money necessary for the longer course. Indeed, medical men, as a rule, have sought to evade the restrictions as to length of time of study, etc. more than any other class; and the statement, that the "student usually dates his medical studies from the time he buys his first _Chemistry_" applies more frequently to the sons of _physicians_ than to any others. Hence, I declare that these proposed changes are not demanded by the medical profession nor by the public.

The writer of a recent article in _Lippincott's Magazine_ (Dr. H.C. Wood) on "Medical Education in the United States" seems to have been so lost in admiration at the methods of instruction followed in European medical colleges as to be utterly blind to the good in the system of medical education as it exists in this country--a system the _necessary_ result of our political, social, financial and territorial conditions; a system which, though in the abstract may not be the best, is certainly, judging from its results, the best _possible_ under our peculiar circumstances. This much abused system of medical education (only greatly improved in its extent and thoroughness--improvements developed by the constant advances in knowledge) is the same system which has produced the great medical men of the United States during the past seventy-five years--medical practitioners whose success has been surpassed by none in Europe; surgeons whose skill has been, and is, world-wide in reputation; authors whose works are standard authorities everywhere. It is the same system of medical instruction--I quote verbatim (italics mine) from this article that holds it up to scorn--which "accomplished such _splendid results_ during the late rebellion." The writer says: "The great resources of the medical profession were proved during the civil war, when there was created in a few months a service which for magnitude and efficiency has rarely if ever been equaled. Indeed, military medicine was raised by it to a point _never reached before that time in Europe_ and the results achieved have, in many points, _worked a revolution in science_." After this frank declaration of the inestimable value and glorious results of American medical education, the writer draws the _logical_(?) sequence that it (American medical education) is responsible for a case of most heartrending malpractice, which he relates, compared to which the Japanese hari-kari were merciful mildness, and approaching more nearly the tortures by crucifixion as administered by this same _kind-hearted_ people. With about as much reason and justice might he conclude that the _American system_ of Sunday-school education is lamentably inferior to that of Great Britain, _because_(!) Jesse Pomeroy was a possibility in that most respectable town of Boston.

Dr. Wood alludes to the ignorance of the American medical student, and makes a statement "not founded on the authority of official publication," in which he endeavors to show that from "six to ten per cent." of American medical students have an ignorance of vulgar fractions and rudimentary astronomy that would exclude them from an ordinary infant-school. Every one familiar with the students attending our first-class American medical colleges knows perfectly well that in origin and in culture they compare favorably with the young men engaged in the study of law and divinity, or with those entering upon mercantile or manufacturing pursuits. True, there are some imperfectly educated, but certainly not "six or ten per cent." destitute of that knowledge taught even in _American_ infant-schools, and without knowing, and without the statement "being founded on the authority of any official publication," I _infer_ that in _Europe_, owing to their "better methods," similar knowledge is communicated to the average European child many months _before its birth_.