Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

“Yesterday paid the first instalment of $200. $1000 more, and that
unfortunate episode in my life will be closed forever.

“I do not seem to take as much interest in the book as I once did.
For the first time in many years I have let nearly a week go by
without a record in it.

“Shall I tell what happened when I left her at her door at midnight
less than an hour ago? I have long made it a point to be sincere
and frank in these pages, but I cannot always write down the most
important things in my life, especially now. I will only write that
ineffable joy surrounded me.

‘O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?’”

JOSEPH H. CHOATE

FROM A CHARCOAL PORTRAIT BY JOHN SARGENT]

THE MIND OF THE JURYMAN

WITH A SIDE-LIGHT ON WOMEN AS JURORS

BY HUGO MÜNSTERBERG

Author of “American Traits,” “Psychology and Life,” etc.

Every lawyer knows some good stories about some wild juries he has known, which made him shiver and doubt whether a dozen laymen ever can see a legal point. But every newspaper reader, too, remembers an abundance of cases in which the decision of the jury startled him by its absurdity. Who does not recall sensational acquittals in which sympathy for the defendant or prejudice against the plaintiff carried away the feelings of the twelve good men and true? For them are the unwritten laws, for them the mingling of justice with race hatreds or with gallantry. And even in the heart of New York a judge recently said to a chauffeur who had killed a child and had been acquitted, “Now go and get drunk again; then this jury will allow you to run over as many children as you like.”

Yet whatever the temperament of the jury and its legal insight, we may sharply separate its ideas of deserved punishment from that far more important aspect of its function, the weighing of evidence. The juries may be whimsical in their decisions, they may be lenient in their acquittals or over-rigid in their verdicts of guilty, but that is quite in keeping with the democratic spirit of the institution. The Teutonic nations do not want the abstract law of the scholarly judges; they want the pulse-beat of life throbbing in the court decisions, and what may seem a wilful ignoring of the law of the lawyers may be a heartfelt expression of the popular sentiment. Better to have some statutes riddled by illogical verdicts than legal decisions severed from the sense of justice which is living in the soul of the nation.

But while a rush into prejudice or a hasty overriding of law may draw attention to some exceptional verdicts, in the overwhelming mass of jury decisions nothing is aimed at but a real clearing up of the facts. The evidence is submitted, and while the lawyers may have wrangled as to what is evidence and what is not, and while they may have tried by their presentation of the witnesses on their own side and by their cross-examinations to throw light on some parts of the evidence and shadows on some others, the jurymen are simply to seek the truth when all the evidence has been submitted. And mostly they do not forget that they will live up to their duty best the more they suppress in their own hearts the question whether they like or dislike the truth that comes to light. Whoever weighs the social significance of the jury system ought not to be guided by the few stray cases in which the emotional response obscures the truth, but all praise and blame and every scrutiny of the institution ought to be confined essentially to the ability of the jurymen to live up to their chief responsibility, the sober finding of the true facts.

It cannot be denied that much criticism has been directed against the whole jury system in America and Europe by legal scholars, as well as by laymen, on account of the prevailing doubt whether the traditional form is really furthering the clearing-up of the hidden truth. Where the evidence is so perfectly clear that every one by himself alone feels from the start exactly like all the others, the coöperation of the twelve men cannot do any harm; but it cannot do any particular good, either. Such cases do not demand the special interest of the social reformer. His doubts and fears come up only when difference of opinion exists, and the discussion and the repeated votes overcome the divergence of opinion. The skeptics claim that the system as such may easily be instrumental for suppressing the truth and bringing the erroneous opinion to victory. In earlier times a frequent objection was that lack of higher education made men unfit to weigh correctly the facts in a complicated situation, but for a long while this kind of arguing has been given up. The famous French lawyer who, whenever he had a weak case, made use of his right to challenge jurymen by systematically excluding all persons of higher education, certainly blundered in this respect, according to the views of to-day. Those best informed within and without the legal science agree that the verdicts of straightforward people with public-school education are in the long run neither better nor worse than those of men with college schooling or professional training. A jury of artisans and farmers understands and looks into a mass of neutral material as well as a jury of bankers and doctors, or at least their final verdict has an equal chance to hit the truth.

But the critics say that it is not the lack of general or logical training of the individual person which obstructs the path of justice. The trouble lies rather in the mutual influence of the twelve men. The more persons work together, the less, they say, every single man can reach his highest level. They become a mass, with mass consciousness, a kind of crowd in which each one becomes oversuggestible. Each one thinks less reliably, less intelligently, and less impartially than he would by himself alone. We know how men in a crowd do indeed lose some of the best features of their individuality. A crowd may be thrown into a panic, may rush into any foolish, violent action, may lynch and plunder, or a crowd may be stirred to a pitch of enthusiasm, may be roused to heroic deeds or to wonderful generosity; but whether the outcome be wretched or splendid, in any case it is the product of persons who have been entirely changed. In the midst of the panic or in the midst of the heroic enthusiasm, no one has kept his own characteristic mental features. The individual no longer judges for himself; he is carried away, his own heart reverberates, with the feelings of the whole crowd. The mass consciousness is not an adding-up, a mere summation, of the individual minds, but the creation of something entirely new. Such a crowd may be pushed into any roads; chance leaders may use or misuse its increased suggestibility for any ends. No one can foresee whether this heaping up of men will bring good or bad results. Certainly the individual level of the crowd will always be below the level of its best members. And is not a jury necessarily such a group with a mass consciousness of its own? Every individual member is melted into the total, has lost his independent power of judging, and has become influenced through his heightened suggestibility and social feeling by any chance pressure which may push toward error as often as toward truth.

But if such arguments are brought into play, it is evident that it is no longer a legal question, but a psychological one. The psychologist alone deals scientifically with the problem of mutual mental influence and with the reënforcing or awakening of mental energies by social coöperation. He should accordingly investigate the question with his own methods, and deal with it from the point of view of the scientist. This means he is not simply to form an opinion from general value impressions and to talk about it as about a question of politics, where any man may have his personal idea or fancy, but to discover the facts by definite experiments. The modern student of mental life is accustomed to the methods of the laboratory. He wants to see exact figures, by which the essential facts come into sharp relief. But let us understand clearly what such an experiment means. When the psychologist goes to work in his laboratory, his aim is to study those thoughts and emotions and feelings and deeds which move our social world. But his aim is not simply to imitate or to repeat the social scenes of the community. He must simplify them and bring them down to the most elementary situations, in which only the characteristic mental actions are left.

Is this not the way in which the experimenters proceed in every field? The physicist or the chemist does not study the great events as they occur in nature on a large scale and with bewildering complexity of conditions, but he brings down every special fact which interests him to a neat, miniature copy on his laboratory table. There he mixes a few chemical solutions in his retorts and his test-tubes, or produces the rays or sparks or currents with his subtle laboratory instruments, and he feels sure that whatever he finds there must hold true everywhere in the gigantic universe. If the waters move in a certain way in his little tank on his table, he knows that they must move according to the same laws in the midst of the ocean. In this spirit the psychologist arranges his experiments, too. He does not carry them on in the turmoil of social life, but prepares artificial situations in which the persons will show the laws of mental behavior. An experiment on memory or attention or imagination or feeling may bring out in a few minutes mental facts which the ordinary observer would discover only if he were to watch the behavior and life attitudes of the man for years. Everything depends upon the degree with which the characteristic mental states are brought into play under experimental conditions. The great advantage of the experimental method here is, as everywhere, that everything can be varied and changed at will and that the conditions and the effects can be exactly measured.

If we apply these principles to the question of the jury, the task is clear. We want to find out whether the coöperation, the discussion, and the repeated voting of a number of persons is helping or hindering them in the effort to judge correctly upon a complex situation. We must therefore artificially create a situation which brings into action the judgment, the discussion, and the vote; but if we are loyal to the idea of experimenting, we must keep the experiment free from all those features of a real jury deliberation that have nothing to do with the mental action itself. Moreover, it is evident that the situations to be judged must allow a definite knowledge as to the objective truth. The experimenter must know which verdict of his voters corresponds to the real facts. Secondly, the situation must be difficult, in order that a real doubt may prevail. If all the voters were on one side from the start, no discussion would be needed. Thirdly, it must be a rather complex situation, in order that the judgment may be influenced by a number of motives. Only in this case will it be possible for the discussion to point out factors which the other party may have overlooked, thus giving a chance for changes of mind. All these demands must be fulfilled if the experiment is really to picture the jury function. But it would be utterly superfluous, and would make the exact measurement impossible, if the material on which the judgment is to be based were of the same kind of which the evidence in the court-room is composed. The trial by jury in an actual criminal case may involve many picturesque and interesting details, but the mental act of judging is no different when the most trivial objects are chosen.

I settled on the following simple device. I used sheets of dark-gray cardboard. On each were pasted white paper dots of different form and in an irregular order. Each card had between ninety-two and a hundred and eight such white dots of different sizes. The task was to compare the number of spots on one card with the number of spots on another. Perhaps I held up a card with a hundred and four dots, and below it one with ninety-eight. Then the subjects of the experiment had to decide whether the upper card had more dots or fewer dots than the lower one. I made the first set of experiments with eighteen Harvard students. I took more than the twelve men who form a jury in order to reinforce the possible effect, but did not wish to exceed the number greatly, so that the character of the discussion might be similar to that in a jury. A much larger number would have made the discussion too formal or too unruly. The eighteen men sat about a long table, and were first allowed to look for half a minute at the two big cards, each forming his judgment independently. Then at a signal every one had to write down whether the number of dots on the upper card was larger, equal, or smaller. Immediately after that they had to indicate by a show of hands how many had voted for each of the three possibilities. After that an excited discussion began, three or four men speaking at the same time.

After five minutes of talking, the vote was repeated, again at first being written and then being taken by a show of hands. A second five-minute exchange of opinion followed, with a new effort to convince the dissenters. After this period the third and last vote was taken. This experiment was carried out with a variety of cards with smaller or larger difference of numbers, but always with a difference enough to allow an uncertainty of judgment. Here, indeed, we had repeated all the essential conditions of the jury vote and discussion, and the mental state was characteristically similar to that of the jurymen.

The very full accounts which the participants in the experiment wrote down the following day indicated clearly that we had a true imitation of the mental process despite the striking simplicity of our conditions. One man, for instance, described his inner experience as follows:

I think the experiment involves factors quite comparable to
those that determine the verdict of a jury. The cards with their
spots are the evidence pro and con which each juryman has before
him to interpret. Each person’s decision on the number is his
interpretation of the situation. The arguments, too, seem quite
comparable to the arguments of the jury. Both consist in pointing
out factors of the situation that have been overlooked, and in
showing how different interpretations may be possible.

Another man wrote:

In the experiment it seemed that one man judged by one criterion
and another by another, such as distribution, size of spots, vacant
spaces, or counting along one edge. Discussion often brought a
man’s attention to other criterions than those he used in his first
judgment, and these often outweighed the original. Similarly,
different jurymen would base their opinion on different aspects
of the case, and discussion would tend to draw their attention to
other aspects. The experiment also illustrated the relative weight
given to the opinion of different fellow-jurymen. I found that the
statements of a few of the older men who have had more extensive
psychological experience weighed more with me than those of the
others. Suggestion did not seem to be much of a factor. A man is
rather on his mettle, and ready to defend his original impression
until he finds that it is hopeless.

Again, another wrote:

To me the experiment seemed fairly comparable to the real
situation. As in an actual trial, the full truth was not available,
but, certain evidence was presented to all for interpretation. As
to the nature of the discussion itself, I think there was the same
mingling of suggestion and real argument that is to be found in a
jury discussion.

Another said:

The discussion influenced me by suggesting other methods of
analysis. For instance, comparison of the amount of open space
in two cards, comparison of the number of dots along the
edges, estimation in diagonal lines, were methods mentioned
in the discussion which I used in forming my own judgments.
It does not seem to me that in my own case direct suggestion
had any appreciable effect. I was aware of a tendency toward
contrasuggestibility. There was a half-submerged feeling that
it would be good sport to stick it out for the losing side. The
lack of any unusual amount of suggestion and the presence of the
influences of analysis and detailed comparison seem to me to show
that the tests were in fact fairly comparable to situations in a
jury-room.

To be sure, there were a few who were strongly impressed by the evident differences between the rich material of an actual trial and the meager content of our tests, there the actions of living men, here the space relations of little spots. But they evidently did not sufficiently realize that the forming of such number judgments was not at all a question of mere perception; that, on the contrary, many considerations were involved. Most men felt the similarity from the start.

What were the results of this first group of experiments? Our interest must evidently be centered on the question of how many judgments were correct at the first vote before any discussion and any show of hands were influencing the minds of the men, and how many were correct at the last vote, after the two periods of discussion and after taking cognizance of the two preceding votes. If I sum up all the results, the outcome is that fifty-two per cent. of the first votes were correct, and seventy-eight per cent. of the final votes were correct. The discussion of the successive votes had therefore led to an improvement of twenty-six per cent. of all votes. Or, as the correct votes were at first fifty-two per cent., their number is increased by one half. May we not say that this demonstration in exact figures proves that the confidence in the jury system is justified? And may it not be added that, in view of the wide-spread prejudices, the result is almost surprising? Here we had men of high intelligence who were completely able to take account of every possible aspect of the situation. They had time to do so, they had training to do so, and every foregoing experiment ought to have stimulated them to do so in the following ones. Yet their judgment was right in only fifty-two per cent. of the cases until they heard the opinions of the others and saw how they voted. The mere seeing of the vote, however, cannot have been decisive, because forty-eight per cent.,--that is, virtually half of the votes,--were at first incorrect. The wrong votes might have had as much suggestive influence on those who voted rightly as the right votes on those on the wrong side. Nevertheless, if the change was so strongly in the right direction, the result must clearly have come from the discussion.

But I am not at the end of my story. I also made exactly the same experiments with a class of advanced female university students. When I started, my aim was not to examine the differences of men and women, but only to have ampler material, and I confined my work to students in psychological classes because I was anxious to get the best possible scientific analysis of the inner experiences. I had no prejudice in favor of or against women as members of the jury, any more than my experiments were guided by a desire to defend or to attack the jury system. I was anxious only to clear up the facts. The women students had exactly the same opportunities for seeing the cards and the votes and for exchanging opinions. The discussions, while carried on for the same length of time, were on the whole less animated. There was less desire to convince and more restraint; but the record which was taken in shorthand showed nearly the same variety of arguments that the men had brought forward. Everything agreed exactly with the experiments of the men, and the only difference was in the results. The first vote of all experiments with the women showed a slightly smaller number of right judgments. The women had forty-five per cent. correct judgments, as against the fifty-two per cent. of the men. I should not put any emphasis on this difference. It may be said that the men had more training in scientific observations, and the task was therefore slightly easier for them than for most of the women. I should say that, all taken together, men and women showed an equal ability in immediate judgment, as with both groups about half of the first judgments were correct. The fact that with the men two per cent. more, with the women five per cent. less, than half were right would not mean much. But the situation is entirely different with the second figure. We saw that for the men the discussion secured an increase from fifty-two per cent. to seventy-eight per cent.; with the women the increase is not a single per cent. The first votes were forty-five per cent. right, and the last votes were forty-five per cent. right. In other words, they had not learned anything from discussion.

It would not be quite correct, if we were to draw from that the conclusion that the women did not change their minds at all. If we examine the number of cases in which in the course of the first, second, and third votes some change occurred, we find changes in forty per cent. of all judgments of the men and nineteen per cent. of all judgments of the women. This does not mean that a change in a particular case necessarily made the last vote different from the first; we not seldom had a case where for instance the first vote was larger, the second equal, and the third again larger. And, as a matter of course, where a change between the first and the last occurred, it was not always a change in the right direction. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the votes always covered three possibilities, and not only two. It was therefore possible for the first vote to be wrong, and then for a change to occur to another wrong vote. The nineteen per cent. changes in the decisions of the women accordingly contained as many cases in which right was turned into wrong as in which wrong was turned into right, while with the men the changes to the right had an overweight of twenty-six per cent. The self-analysis of the women indicated clearly the reason for their mental stubbornness. They heard the arguments, but they were so fully under the autosuggestion of their first decision that they fancied that they had known all that before and that they had discounted the arguments of their opponents in the first vote. The cobbler has to stick to his last: the psychologist has to be satisfied with analyzing the mental processes, but it is not his concern to mingle in politics. He must leave it to others to decide whether it will really be a gain if the jury-box is filled with persons whose minds are unable to profit from discussion and who return to their first idea, however much is argued from the other side. It is evident that this tendency of the female mind must be advantageous for many social purposes. The woman remains loyal to her instinctive opinion. Hence we have no right to say that one type of mind is better than another. We may say only they differ, and that this difference makes men fit and women unfit for the task which society requires from jurymen.

In order to make quite sure that the discussion, and not the seeing of the vote, is responsible for the marked improvement in the case of men, I carried on some further experiments in which the voting alone was involved. To bring this mental process to strongest expression, I went far beyond the small circle which was needed for the informal exchange of opinion, and operated, instead, with my large class of psychological students in Harvard. I have there four hundred and sixty students, and accordingly had to use much larger cards with large dots. I showed to them any two cards twice. There was an interval of twenty seconds between the first and the second exposure, and each time they looked at the cards for three seconds. In one half of the experiments that interval was not filled at all, in the other half a quick show of hands was arranged, so that every one could see how many on the first impression judged the upper card as having more or an equal number or fewer dots than the lower. After the second exposure every one had to write down his final result. The pairs of cards which were exposed when the show of hands was made were the same as those which were shown without any one knowing how the other men judged. We calculated the results on the basis of four hundred reports. They showed that the total number of right judgments in the cases without showing hands was sixty per cent. correct, in those with show of hands about sixty-five per cent. A hundred and twenty men had turned from the right to the wrong; that is, had more incorrect judgments when they saw how the other men voted than when they were left to themselves. It is true that those who turned from worse to better by seeing the vote of the others were in a slight majority, bringing the total vote five per cent. upward; but this difference is so small that it could just as well be explained by the mere fact that this act of public voting reinforced the attention and improved a little the total vote through this stimulation of the social consciousness. It is not surprising that the mere seeing of the votes in such cases has so small an effect, incomparable with that of a real discussion in which new vistas are opened, inasmuch as in forty per cent. of the cases the majority was evidently on the wrong side from the start. Those who are swept away by the majority would, therefore, in forty per cent. of the cases be carried to the wrong side. I went still further, and examined by psychological methods the degree of suggestibility of those four hundred participants in the experiment, and the results showed that the fifty most suggestible men profited from the seeing of the vote of the majority no more than the fifty least suggestible ones. In both cases there was an increase of about five per cent. correct judgments. I also drew from this the conclusion that the show of hands was ineffective as a direct influence toward correctness, and that it had only the slight indirect value of forcing the men to concentrate their attention better on those cards. All results, therefore, point in the same direction: it is really the argument which brings a coöperating group nearer to the truth, and not the seeing how the other men vote. Hence the psychologist has every reason to be satisfied with the jury system.

THE LAST FAUN

“‘_Since I slept, the boughs have pressed so near
The narrow path is lost. But I must run
And chase my fellows out into the sun._’”

DRAWN BY CHARLES A. WINTER]

THE LAST FAUN

BY HELEN MINTURN SEYMOUR

WITH PICTURE BY CHARLES A. WINTER

By mead and wood I called them all day through,
All day I hunted them from dale to dale,
From height to height, each rift we ever knew,
At hide-and-seek, and still no answering hail.
Ah, could they be so cruel in their play
To make me lose the first delicious day
Since spring came up the vale?

I mind me how the northern whirlwind tore
Our wood. I saw those agèd giants quake.
Their wreckage lay about my cavern door.
I shut it close and, deep in withered brake,
I hugged my icy flanks all shivering,
And closed mine eyes, and dreamed of spring--of spring
Whose voice would bid me wake.

And next I heard the inmost water run
In the cliff’s heart, and wondered, half asleep,
If all the snow were melted in the sun,
And waited for a hamadryad to peep
Through yonder cleft and mock me for my sloth.
But, oh! the fern was soft, and I was loth
From out my bed to creep.

Slow, slow I drew the rotting bolt away.
My hoofs sank deep among the drifted leaves.
But, farther on, a lonely sunbeam lay
On fading snowdrops, and my granite eaves
Were overthatched with mosses green and fine;
And every bud upon the dangling vine
Showed how the warm sap heaves.

I marvel how the streamer hangs so low
About my door, that with the fading year
Was out of reach--or did I dream it so?
No. Since I slept, the boughs have pressed so near
The narrow path is lost. But I must run
And chase my fellows out into the sun.
“O playmates, playmates, hear!”

So went I calling, listening, singling out
Each voice, each sound, each little stir that woke
The drowsy shadows. Now it was the rout
Of vagrant winds, and now a bird that broke
The trance with song up-brimming through the birch,
And now the boars disputing in their search
For mast beneath the oak.

I ran to find them at the dancing-green.
The grass had sprung untrampled by their feet.
Great oaks had fallen, and the copse between
Changed the smooth lawn. Each knoll and ivied seat
Was crumbling fast. The forest life had drowned
In waves of lush young growth our pleasure-ground,
Whelmed every nymph’s retreat.

I thought: “The gods have wrought a cruel jest,
Blasting our wood and those who dwell therein,
Bidding the coverts break their wonted rest
To grow and grow and drown the dancing-green;
And so in dark, numb days, the winter through,
The charm was wrought, and still the ruin grew,
Unheard-of and unseen.

“And they, my comrades, waking even as I,
Have they, too, seen the change and crept away
To weep, untroubled by the laughing sky,
Far in the utmost shadow? Stay, oh, stay!
O brothers mine, here’s one who weeps with you
The sunny glade, the dancing in the dew,
The pipes of yesterday!”

So went I calling, calling down the glade:
“Oh, harken, brothers, harken, one and all!”
Mad Echo jeered me from the hemlock shade,
But never came there answer to my call.
Their caves lay overgrown and tenantless,
Nor by a sound nor footprint might I guess
What sorrow should befall.

There came a laughter veering down the breeze,
Soft, cruel sounds as from a dryad’s throat.
“Even now they mock you, hid among the trees,
Shaping their signals to the wood bird’s note,
With sly, malicious dance and mirth-brimmed eyes.”
The laughter broke, and, wavering into sighs,
Failed, wind-like and remote.

Panting, I swung from stem to jutting stem
Up the wet crag, and, ever as I clomb,
I called, ’twixt tears and pain, and offered them
Bribe of my last year’s harvest, honeycomb,
Beechnuts, and hazel; yet there came no sign
Save Echo’s, answering that call of mine,
“O friends, come home! Come home!”

Oh, not among the cliffs or on the height!
“Some glad adventure leads them far astray,
Surely,” I said; “the coming of the night
Will bring them back.” And for a while I lay
And racked my wits with plans of punishment.
Then up I sprang in doubt and discontent,
And sought another way.

And now that dark has fallen, and I lie
Curled on the leaves and nurse my bleeding sides,
I wonder, was it Pan who wandered by,
And lured them down the unfamiliar rides--
That Pan whose piping has a sweeter note
Than spring has bred in any woodland throat
To win the shy-winged brides?

Or else another, mightier than Pan,
That Other who has neither form nor speech,
Who stops the spider ere he weaves his span,
Or lizard, darting o’er the fallen beech,
Who draws a film across the doe’s brown eyes,
And takes the lark, though high and high he flies
And dreams him out of reach.

He blows the noiseless reed which none may hear
Save such as he would draw unto his hand.
He takes a tribute of the waking year,
And wanders, piping, through the flowery land.
And there a locust hears him and is mute;
And here a rabbit leaves a nibbled root
To hark and understand.

O piper in the shadows, pipe once more!
Send but one call from out the fading west!
Aye, though I crouch behind my cavern door,
One note of thine would draw me to the quest,
To journey past the sunset and the rain,
Where I may find my people once again,
And the lost winds find rest.

THE COUNTRY OF THE DORMER-WINDOW

MURRAY BAY, A CANADIAN SUMMER RESORT

BY HENRY DWIGHT SEDGWICK

WITH PICTURES BY W. T. BENDA

The way to go to Murray Bay is down the St. Lawrence by boat from Quebec. There is, indeed, another way, which most people take, but it should be taken only by impatient travelers who prefer a speedy to a picturesque arrival.

The “bateau” is one of the three paddle-wheel boats that ply between Quebec and the Saguenay River. Each bateau has its own character, its own history, its own aliases. A bateau regards shipwreck as a baptism, and thereupon takes a new name and a new coat of paint. The dean of the fleet, at least according to the Murray Bay tradition, is a sort of Methuselah. The story goes that before our Civil War, in the days when the Mississippi ran unvexed to the gulf, when young Sam Clemens was crying out “Mark Twain,” a paddle-wheeler plied between New Orleans and Vicksburg--but this gossip is beneath the dignity of history. The bateau, whatever its dubious past may have been, leaves the wharf at Quebec at eight o’clock in the morning and arrives at Murray Bay at half-past one. This legend, which I take from the Richelieu and Ontario time-table, is less trustworthy than the other. Let us come to facts. At some time or other the bateau leaves Quebec; it passes the Ile d’Orleans, the Falls of Montmorency, and about sixty miles of beautiful shore; and after what, if the day be fine, is a most delightful sail, draws near to Bay St. Paul. This arrival is the prologue to Murray Bay. The bateau gyrates, heaves, trembles, and sidles toward the dock. Shouts from the bateau, answering shouts from the dock; the bateau hesitates, shivers, and like a tired cow comes diffidently up alongside. The passengers crowd to the landward rail; the population of Bay St. Paul crowds to the edge of the quay. A small coil of rope is hurled through the air from the bateau; it is caught by the population of Bay St. Paul; attached to the rope is the boat’s hawser, which is made fast to a pile. Friends exchange joyous greetings; the _charretiers_, whose carriages and carts in long sequence stretch the length of the causeway from the dock to the shore, wait politely for customers.

The bateau prefers to arrive at the moment when the tide either lifts it far above or leaves it far below the level of the quay; the gang-plank is always at a sharp angle, and in consequence the cargo, put on or off,--barrels, bales, bundles, trunks--slides down or is rushed up with bumps, bangs, and loud shouts of “Prenez garde! Faites attention!” or less articulate expressions. For a time all is feverish excitement, joyous activity, perspiration, and hullabaloo. Then, as the gang-plank, at a whistle from the quarterdeck, is about to be lifted, shrieks from the quay indicate the belated arrival of a barrel, a pig, or some stout passenger waving breathlessly hand-bag and umbrella. At last the bateau glides on toward Murray Bay. The same bustle which characterized the arrival at Bay St. Paul, but tempered by a higher civilization, marks the arrival at Murray Bay. The custom-house is a mere amiable ceremony, and the traveler is at once confronted with his first exercise of choice: “Will monsieur have a _calèche_ or a _planche_?”

As soon as the traveler has climbed into the calèche (the luggage is left for the _charrette_), the charretier gives a warning cry and swings down the long causeway, and, turning to the right, goes up the hill that buttresses the Pic. Here you learn your first vehicular lesson. At a particular point going up the hill--it will not vary six feet on any hill, for the rule is _de rigueur_, and every native boy is born with the knowledge--the charretier leaps to the ground and drives on foot from alongside.

Once free of the dock and over the hill, the traveler drives down the long village street. Every French-Canadian village properly consists of one long street. This is partly in order to economize shoveling and plank-walk during the winter, and partly because Latin sociability and democracy hold that every house has a right to front on the main street. Here the traveler sees the most charming touch of art in Murray Bay architecture, the curve of the gable-roof. In old times all the native houses, or most of them, had this curving roof; but of late years desire for space and lack of taste betray themselves in repeating the ugly roofs familiar to the south of the Canadian border. Nothing in architecture is more soothing than this curve in the gabled roof; it contains all the picturesqueness, all the poetry, that the patron saint of roofs--is it, perchance, St. Rufinus?--allows to them.

VIEW OF MURRAY BAY FROM POINTE-AU-PIC]

The traveler who means to put up at a hotel has an ample range of choice. The Manoir Richelieu, a younger sister to the Château Frontenac of Quebec, gazes over a glorious expanse of river from the heights above the quay. It supplies its guests with _confort moderne_ softened to the native simplicity of Murray Bay, but it can hardly count as a part of the village; it is too young, it is an interloper. There is also the Château Murray, on the main street, which looks over the bay, and presents a comfortable air of seeming to receive, as no doubt it does, the compliments of departing guests; and, though even younger than the Manoir Richelieu, it is much more in accord with Murray Bay habits and traditions. But beyond cavil _the_ hotel of Murray Bay is the Lorne House, as it calls itself on its letter-paper, which is known to its familiars, and to all the world, as Chamard’s. Architects, builders, upholsterers, and tinsmiths can create Manoirs Richelieu ad libitum; so, with the addition of a French sense of proportion, they can also create Château Murray; nobody except the late Monsieur Chamard could have created Chamard’s. It is a personality expressed in the form of a hotel; it is a spirit embodied in dining-room, parlors, office, veranda, and partitions. The partitions remind the guest of Shakspere’s lines, like “cloud-capp’d towers” and “gorgeous palaces”: he expects them to dissolve, melt into thin air, and “leave not a rack behind.” Chamard’s is the one hotel, I should suppose, in all the world that rises triumphantly above material things. The table, no doubt, is wholesome and exhilarating, but nobody cares; for at Chamard’s, quite unlike other human abodes, the table is not the center of gravity. The place is a club, gathered about Monsieur Chamard’s interesting and attractive personality, and, now that he is gone, prospering upon his memory and Mademoiselle Chamard’s disposition and character. The physical structure used to stand about where the Manoir Richelieu now is; but it flitted away, or, like the phenix, was reborn, on a bold eminence above the golf-links, where half a dozen cottages, seedlings from the parent plant, have grown up about it. But Chamard’s is not a hotel for chance comers; it demands, so one of the guests assures me, an introduction from some one known to a guest, at least.

The first thing for a new-comer to do is to take a drive; and the first drive should be up the _rive droite_ of the Murray River as far as the red bridge and down the _rive gauche_, or, for custom is liberal in this matter, up the rive gauche and back by the rive droite. This drive uncovers all that is typical in the scenery of Murray Bay.

Besides introducing the traveler at once to the scenery, the Murray River drive has another advantage--it takes him past the principal sights. The road skirts the golf-links, turns sharp at the Village Mailloux, and then cuts the links in two just before the path that leads to the famous sixth tee, the _pons dufforum_. Here the charretier, if he is a good cicerone, points his whip to a house that stands in a little garden radiant with bright flowers: “Voilà, monsieur, la maison de Mademoiselle Anger.” One may draw aside the veil that has been very transparent ever since the French Academy crowned “L’Oublié,” and say that Mademoiselle Anger is Laure Conan, the novelist. A few minutes further, to the left, on the edge of the bay, stands the manor-house of the seigniory.

VIEW OF MALBAIE (MURRAY BAY) FROM THE BRIDGE]

From the manor-house the road runs along the edge of the bay, where picturesque schooners float or lie on their sides, according to the tide, and then on to the village of Malbaie, or Murray Bay. Americans call it the Far Village, but the native resident of Pointe-au-Pic, who wishes Monsieur Anger, _le notaire_, brother to Laure Conan, to draw up a legal document, or Monsieur Perron to cut him a suit of homespun, or Monsieur Shea to sell him a clock or a banjo-string, says, “Je vais au village” (“I am going to the village”), just as a suburban resident says, “I am going to town.” At the end of the bay stands the Far Village church in all her kindly, simple seriousness. Her bells ring out the angelus over the waters of the bay, along the shores, and back into the uplands, proclaiming that she is ready, like a hen gathering her chickens under her wings, to receive and comfort all the faithful. On the façade, if three doorways and a barn-like front can count as a façade, there is a statue of the Madonna that has drawn to itself some of the beauty of the place. Hard by is the residence of Monsieur le Curé and his assistants. The younger priests officiate in the church and also teach school. It is pleasant, when driving by during recess, to see these serious-faced young men, dressed in their long black cassocks, playing with the children, or, when off duty, refreshing themselves with a pipe and animated conversation.

THE CHURCH OF ST. ETIENNE AT MURRAY BAY, WITH TEACHING BROTHERS IN THE FOREGROUND]

The Far Village has a little inn of its own, but it is undisturbed by foreigners; it is sufficient to itself, with its shops, its bank, its ecclesiastical edifices, its little houses, some of which back on the river, in fact, lean perilously over the brink, strongly reminding one of the old Florentine houses along the Arno. The court-house is on the rive gauche, and somewhat away from the village. To say the truth, its bald, rather brazen, aspect suggests the less amiable side of the law, and it seems singularly out of keeping with the general innocence of Malbaie. There is a story that Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, when at the bar, long before he became chief-justice of Canada, went there to argue a case, carrying only one book under his arm. A native remarked this penury of legal preparation: “C’est fort peu de chose; il ne réussira pas avec M’sieur le juge” (“That’s too little; he won’t win his case”). The next time Sir Charles carried several large volumes: “A la bonne heure; cette fois-ci il est sérieux” (“Good; this time he means business”).

A ROAD NEAR MURRAY BAY]

Now and then, whether on your first drive up the Murray River, or on your second up Maltais’s Hill and on the way to St. Agnès to see mountains rise behind mountains in deepening hues of violet and blue, you pass a plain, black cross. These crosses stand in little inclosures, eight feet square, which are filled with monk’s-hood. At these places the people of the neighborhood gather in the month of May to say a prayer, and ask _la Sainte Vierge_ to bless the sowing of the grain. Sometimes you pass one of the old baking-ovens, and, if you are in luck, a pretty girl examining the condition of the loaves.

The traveler who is used to the more gingerly driven horses of other places need not fear lest the wiry little horse, which ends his course downhill at a canter and starts uphill at a gallop, will tire himself out. The charretier always spares his horse by jumping out himself as soon as the first uphill gallop is over. This is a comfort to the tender-hearted traveler, for as soon as he leaves the Far Village he is, or seems to be, going up or down hill all the time.

VIEW ACROSS THE BAY FROM THE HILLSIDE

Chamard’s in the foreground; Cap-à-l’Aigle manor in the middle distance]

Beyond the Murray River, on the high bluffs overlooking the St. Lawrence, lies the village of Cap-à-l’Aigle. The relations of Cap-à-l’Aigle to Pointe-au-Pic would require a chapter by themselves; they seem to present the difference between slap-everlasting and auction bridge; some like one game and some the other. Even the views are very different. Nothing can be finer in its way--one feels that here the player makes a most successful slap--than the view over the St. Lawrence; and there are notable objects of pilgrimage at Cap-à-l’Aigle. There is nothing north of the St. Lawrence--one may hazard the assertion--more charming in its way than the garden of Mount Murray manor, the seigniory that was allotted to Colonel Fraser at the time the seigniory on the west side of the Murray River was allotted to Colonel Nairne. It is hard to say what makes a garden charming, or what makes a garden old-fashioned, or why we praise old fashions when all the world is agog for new fashions; but whatever the causes, they are operative here, and most successfully. There is a glorious prodigality of color and sweet odor, an inspiriting sense that the flowers are all animated by as reckless a purpose to enjoy life as is compatible with floral propriety; and all is hedged in by a gracious seclusion.

BAKING BREAD IN MURRAY BAY]

Of course there are other things to do at Murray Bay than to drive or to visit the sights. But do what you will, so long as you stay out of doors you cannot escape the view. There is golf, pursued with the regularity that characterizes all kinds of superior machinery, on a links of much variety and picturesqueness, which is associated with memories of President Taft and of the late Mr. Justice Harlan; there is tennis; there is the Sunday afternoon walk. There is canoeing for those who venture out on the bay or along the shore of the St. Lawrence. And canoeing, which is not without a spice of danger, might well be worth a greater risk, for only from the center of the bay can you see the mountains rise in sequent tiers beyond the Far Village church; only on the bay can you appreciate the angelus or see all the beauty of the Murray Bay sunsets, gloriously reflected in the water and coloring the eastern sky. But the chief pastime is fishing. There are salmon to be had in the Murray River, and ambitious fishermen spend long, happy hours, casting, casting, casting. It is hard to say whether catching enters into this sport or not, stories differ so widely.

A NATIVE FAMILY AND A TYPICAL HOUSE IN MURRAY BAY]

Trout-fishing is obligatory. A visitor is at liberty to play golf, canoe, walk, or not, as he pleases; but unless he is willing to pass for a misanthrope, or, what is worse, a misichthus (or whatever word will serve to designate some wretch of Doctor Johnson’s way of thinking), he must go trout-fishing. Let me hasten to say that what we in our slipshod American fashion call trout are not the true British-born trout, but char or I know not what else. This, very properly, is the A B C of a Canadian’s education. The way to go trout-fishing is to camp on the shore of one of the little lakes in the back country. There a club or a host provides a tent, and the guest brings his rod, blankets, and food. The _gardien_ of the lake, and one or two of his friends, cook, make the fires, and paddle the boats. Some people--parsons, Englishmen, young ladies--are totally absorbed in weights and numbers and interminable fish-stories. Others, of soberer disposition or piscatorial incapacity, enjoy the woods, the birds, the shy hare, the amiable chipmunk, and all the denizens of the forest. But the great pleasure of it all is to sit about the fire after supper, with the stars overhead and a faint breeze just audible over the lake and in the trees, and listen to the men sing their Canadian songs.

There are no better-mannered people than the _habitants_ who live on the borders of the woods. In earlier times all the natives used to have charming manners, but the coming of strangers who set no special store by manners--Americans who have more important things to think about, others from different places who hold themselves superior to the natives--has tended to bring in different standards and values. But even now the habitants on the borders of the woods have always good manners--a refinement, a self-effacement, a wealth of consideration for their guests--that must rank as one of the fine arts. Their manners are their chief possession; they are poor and not quick-witted. One gardien, to whom a letter had been sent bidding him be ready to expect a party of fishermen on Monday, was discovered sitting on his door-step.

_Gardien_: “Bonjour, messieurs.”

_We_: “Bonjour, mon ami, est-ce que tout est prêt?”

_Gardien_: “Que voulez-vous dire, messieurs?”

_We_: “N’avez-vous pas reçu notre lettre?”

_Gardien_: “Ah, oui, j’ai reçu votre lettre.”

_We_: “Eh bien, nous avons dit que nous arriverions aujourd’hui, lundi” (“We said that we should come to-day, Monday”).

_Gardien_ (after a pause): “J’ai lu _lundi_, mais j’ai compris _jeudi_” (“I read Monday, but I understood Thursday”).

The great charm of Murray Bay lies even more in the character and disposition of its people than in its beautiful scenery. To every one who has been long familiar with Murray Bay its most delicate charm lies in the memories of the men whose dignity of character and fine friendliness of manner set a special seal upon the beautiful place. Among those who will not come again to brighten the summer days by their presence are Mr. Edward Blake and Mr. Justice Harlan. These men belong to the history of Canada and of the United States, but in matters that do not concern the muse of history they belong to Murray Bay. No golfer can tee his ball on the links without involuntarily expecting to see Judge Harlan’s noble figure striding joyously from hole to hole, and to hear his exultant, boyish glee over a good stroke or his humorous explanation of an unlucky one. No worshiper goes to the Protestant church, the pretty stone church on the village street, without a glance at the spot where the justice used to stand on Sunday mornings, a symbol of large-hearted, Christian hospitality, and greet the congregation as it straggled in. And if, for instance, in order to give a visual reality to one of Shakspere’s heroes, one seeks for an embodiment of dignity, grace, and high character, the image of Mr. Edward Blake comes instantly up, with his handsome bearing and courtly simplicity. Indeed, Murray Bay is rich in human memories that outdo nature in her prodigal attempts to make the place delightful.

CLOWN’S RUE

BY HUGH JOHNSON

Author of “A Man and his Dog,” etc.

WITH A PICTURE BY H. T. DUNN

The “Incorrigibles” of the Sixteenth Cavalry was an unofficial gild of bachelors consisting of a major named Merton; of Gallipoli, who is named as the homeliest man in the army; of Fredericks, who is a born and joyful celibate; and of Swinnerton.