Chapter II: How I Became Destined for the Stage (2)

"As I told you, we lives like fightin'-cocks 'ere," said Bagge. "When you're full in the back teeth, we'll 'ave your mates up. We likes to feed the pore and 'ungry, don't we, doctor?"

The cook, to whom Bagge had confided something, said he did his best, his humble best.

"The _Star's_ an 'appy ship," he added. "We know what your ship is."

The other two men came up in their turn and were filled with tea and biscuit and butter and marmalade till they smiled.

"This is like home," said Wat Crampe, who was from Newcastle.

"It wass petter--much petter," said Evan Evans, "and ass for the captain's wife, she iss a lady, whatefer."

That evening Ryder and his wife returned the call and were rowed to the _Battle-Axe_ by Bagge, Bob Condy, and two more of the men. Bagge and Condy went into the fo'c's'le. They lost no time in condemning the _Battle-Axe_ and in lauding their own ship.

"This 'ere's a stinkin' 'ooker, mates," said Silas Bagge; "why, our fo'c's'le is a lady's droring-room compared with it. And as for the grub, ask them as come on board us this afternoon. What d'ye say, Gribbs?"

"Toppin'," said Gribbs. "It's spiled my happetite 'ere."

"It wass good," said the Welshman; "it wass good, whatefer."

Bagge took Billy Gribbs aside on the deck and had a talk with him.

"Oh, Lord!" said Gribbs. "Oh, what?"

"Straight talk," replied Silas; "_she_ said so."

"Do you mean it?"

"Do I mean it?" replied Silas, with unutterable scorn. "In course I mean it. It will sarve them right as it sarves right."

Gribbs held on to the rail and laughed till he ached. "It's the rummiest notion I ever 'eard tell on."

"Not _so_ rummy!"

"Wot!" cried Gribbs, "not so rummy? Well, if it ain't so rummy, I'm jiggered. I'll think of it."

"Do, and tell your mate Tidewell."

"If I tell Ned, 'e'll do it for sure. 'E's the biggest joker 'ere!"

"Then tell him," said Silas.

That evening Ned Tidewell and Billy Gribbs acted in a very strange way on board the _Battle-Axe_. Without any obvious reason they kept on bursting into violent fits of laughter.

"The pore blokes is gone dotty from the 'eat," said the pitying crowd. "We've 'eard of such before."

"Why shouldn't I laugh?" asked Gribbs. "I'm laughin' because I'm a pore silly sailor-man and my life ain't worth livin'. If I'd died early I'd ha' been saved a pile o' trouble. I was thinkin' of my father's green fields as I looked over the side this afternoon."

"Was you really?" asked the oldest man on board. "Then you take my advice quick and go and ask the skipper for a real good workin' pill of the largest size."

"Wot for?" asked Gribbs.

"Because you've hobvious got a calentoor," said the old fo'c's'le man. "And chaps as gets a calentoor jumps overboard. Oh, but that's well known at sea by those as knows anythin'."

But Gribbs laughed.

"The worst is as it's catchin'," said his adviser, anxiously; "it's fatally catchin'. I've 'eard of crews doin' it one hafter the hother, till there wasn't no one left. In 'eat it was and in calm."

"Gammon," said Gribbs. But he was observed to sigh.

"Are you 'ot in your 'ead?" asked the anxious and ancient one.

"I feels a little 'ot and rummy," said Gribbs; "but what I chiefly feels is a desire to eat grass."

The old man groaned.

"Then it's got you. Mates, we ought to tie Gribbs up, or lock 'im in the sail-locker, or 'is clothes will be auctioned off before long."

But Gribbs kicked at that, and just then eight bells struck.

"I'm turnin' in," said Gribbs, "and I'm all right."

But at six bells in the first watch he was missing, as was discovered by old Brooks, the authority on calentures. He waked up Ned Tidewell, who was extraordinarily fast asleep.

"Where's Gribbs?"

"Not in my bunk," returned Ned, who with Gribbs was one of the few who still dossed in the fo'c's'le.

"Then 'e's gone overboard for sartain," said Brooks, in great alarm; "there was the look of it in his eye, and in yours too, youngster. These long calms is fataller than scurvy. I shall go aft and report it."

He reported it to Mr. Seleucus Thoms, the second mate, who came for'ard, and roused the watch below from the deck-house and t'gallant fo'c's'le. When all hands were mustered it was certain that Gribbs was missing.

"This is a terrible catastrophe," said Seleucus Thoms, who had a weakness for fine language, derived from his rare Christian name, of which he was extremely proud. "My name is not Seleucus Thoms if he hasn't gone overboard."

"'E was rampagious with laughter in the second dog-watch, sir," put in old Brooks. "And 'e talked of green fields, the which I've 'eard is a werry fatal symptom of calentoor."

"Humph!" said Mr. Thoms, "there's something in that."

And when he went for'ard old Brooks was as proud as a dog with two tails! Though he usually spent the second dog-watch daily in proving that Thoms was no sailor, this endorsement of his theory flattered him greatly.

"I've been mistook in the second," he said, as Thoms went aft. "He's got 'orse sense, after all. I shouldn't be surprised if he'd make a sailor some day."

And Thoms reported the catastrophe to Watchett.

"Drowned himself?" roared the captain; "drowned himself? And who's responsible if you ain't?"

He came on deck in a great rage and scanty pyjamas and mustered the crew aft, and roared at them for full ten minutes as if it was their fault. When he had relieved his mind he asked if there was anyone who could throw light on the matter, and old Brooks was shoved to the front. He explained his views on calentures.

"Never 'eard of 'em," said Watchett.

"And I think, sir, as Tidewell 'ere 'as the symptoms."

"I haven't," said Tidewell, indignantly.

"Wild laughin' is a known symptom, sir, and Tidewell was laughin' 'orrid in the second dog-watch," insisted Brooks; "I'd put him in irons, sir."

But Watchett was not prepared to go so far in prophylaxis.

"If any of you 'as any more symptoms I'll flog 'im and take the consequences," he declared. He went below again unhappily, for he wasn't quite a brute after all.

"This is a mighty unpleasant thing," he said to poor Mrs. Watchett, who cried when she heard the news. "It's a mighty unfortunate affair. Gribbs was the smartest man in the whole crowd and worth two of the others."

But still the great and terrible calm lasted, and the morning was as hot as yesterday and the sea shone like polished brass and lapped faintly like heavy oil against the glowing iron of the sister barques. At dawn, which came up like a swiftly opening flower out of the fertile east, the vessels were just too far apart for hailing, and Watchett signalled the news to the _Star of the South_.

"Lost a man overboard!" said Ryder. "That's strange; I wish to Heaven we'd found him!"

When he told his wife she seemed extraordinarily callous.

"Serves him right," she said.

And it was wonderful how the crew of the _Star_ took the news. They had never seemed so cheerful. They grinned when Watchett came aboard.

"This is an 'orrid circumstance," said Watchett. "I never lost a man before, not even when I was wrecked in the _Violet_. And this a dead calm!"

"Your men aren't happy," said Mrs. Ryder, "and you don't try to make 'em. If I give you three seven-pound tins of marmalade and some butter, will you serve it out to them?"

But Watchett shook his head angrily.

"I'll not cocker no men up," he declared; "not if they all goes overboard and leaves me and the missis to take 'er 'ome. And what's marmalade against 'eat like this?"

He mopped a melancholy brow and sighed.

"It will help them to keep from gloomy thoughts," said Mrs. Ryder. "The _Star of the South_ is a home for our men."

"And two run in Valparaiso," retorted Watchett. "And I on'y lost one."

He took a drink with his cousin and went back on board the _Battle-Axe_, and spent the torrid day in getting a deal of unnecessary work done. And still no flaw of lightest air marred the awful mirror of the quiet seas. Early in the first watch the boats were lowered again to tow the vessels apart. At midnight, when the watch below came aft and answered to their names in the deep shadow of the moonless tropic night, Ned Tidewell did not answer to his name.

"Tidewell!" cried Thoms, angrily and anxiously.

And still there was no answer, but a groan from old Brooks.

"Wot did I tell you?" he demanded. "I seed it in 'is eye."

They searched the _Battle-Axe_ from stem to stern; they overhauled the sails in the sail-lockers; they hunted with a lantern in the forepeak; they even went aloft to the fore and main tops, where once or twice someone who sought for coolness where no coolness could be found went up into what they jocosely called the "attic." But Ned had lost the number of his mess.

"More clothes for sale," said the melancholy crew, as they looked at each other suspiciously. "'Oo'll be the next?"

Brooks declared to the other fo'c's'le men that the next would be Wat Crampe, or Taffy, as they called the Welshman.

"There's an awful 'orrid look o' the deep, dark knowledge of death in their faces," declared old Brooks. "They thinks of the peace of it and the quiet, and smiles secret!"

Next morning Watchett hailed the _Star_ and told the latest dreadful news. And at the end he added, in a truly pathetic roar, "Send me them tins o' marmalade aboard, and the butter."

And when Mrs. Ryder superintended the steward's work getting these stores out of the lazaret, she smiled very strangely. She said to her husband: "If he loses another hand or two the _Battle-Axe_ will be no easy ship to work, Will."

"I wouldn't have believed the matter of a hundred pounds would have made you so hard," said Ryder. And Connie Ryder pouted mutinously, and her pout ran off into a wicked and most charming smile.

"I'm not thinking so much of the money as of our ship being beaten," she said.

And poor Watchett was now beginning to think the same of his ship. Like most vessels, the _Battle-Axe_ required a certain number of men to work her easily, and her luck lay in the number allowed being the number necessary. With two hands gone a-missing she would not be much superior to the _Star_ in easiness of handling, and if more went a week of baffling winds now or later, when the north-east trade died out, might give the _Star_ a pull which nothing but an easterly wind from the chops of the Channel to Dover could hope to make up. He began to dance attendance on his crew as if they were patients and he their doctor. And the curious thing was that they all began to feel ill at once, so ill that they could not work in the sun. A certain uneasy terror got hold of them; they dreaded to look over the side, lest in place of an oily sea they should look down on grass and daisies.

"Daisies draws a man, and buttercups draws a man," said old Brooks.

"Don't," said Crampe, with a snigger. "You make me feel that I must pick buttercups or die."

"Do you now?" asked Brooks. "Do you now?"

And he sneaked aft to the skipper, who was turning all ways, as if wondering where windward was.

"I'm very uneasy about Crampe, sir," he said, with a scrape, as he crawled up the port poop ladder. "'Is mind is set on buttercups."

"The deuce it is!" cried Watchett, and going down to the main deck he called Crampe out.

"What's this I 'ears about your 'ankering after buttercups?" he demanded, very anxiously.

"I _did_ feel as if I'd like to see one, sir," said Crampe.

"Don't let me 'ear of it again," began Watchett, angrily, but he pulled himself up with an ill grace. "But there, go in and lie down, and you needn't come on deck in your watch. I can't afford to lose no more mad fools. And you shall have butter instead of buttercups."

"And marmalade, sir?" suggested Crampe. "Marmalade's yellow too, as yellow as buttercups."

"Say the word agin and I'll knock you flat," said the skipper. But, nevertheless, he sent the whole crowd marmalade and butter at four bells in the first dog-watch.

"Hoo, but it iss fine," said "Efan Efans." "Thiss iss goot grup whatefer and moreover, yess!"

"They scoffs the like in the _Star_ day in and day out," said Crampe; "if I can't roll on grass I'd like to be in her."

And that night both Crampe and Evans disappeared.

"I believe I 'eard a splash soon after six bells," said old Brooks. "Mates, this is most 'orrid. I feels as if I should be drawed overboard by a mermaid in spite of myself."

And Watchett went raving crazy.

Ryder came on board the _Battle-Axe_ as soon as the latest news was signalled to him. Mrs. Ryder declined to go, but she gave him a timely piece of advice.

"Don't let him off the bet, Will, or I'll never forgive you."

"I won't do that," said her husband, hastily, as if he hadn't been thinking of doing it.

"And if he asks for a man or two, you know we're short-handed already."

"Tell me something I don't know," said Ryder, a trifle crossly. Even his sweet temper suffered in 115deg. in the shade.

"I dare say I could," said his wife, when he was in the boat; "I dare say I could."

Watchett received his cousin with an air of gloom that would have struck a damp on anything anywhere but the Equator.

"This is a terrible business," he said. "I never 'eard of anything like it. Every night a man, and last night two!"

Ryder was naturally very much cut up about it, and said so.

"Will you have some more marmalade?" he asked, anxiously.

"Marmalade don't work," said Watchett, sadly; "it don't work worth a cent. Nor does butter. I'd give five pounds for some green cabbage."

A brilliant idea struck Ryder.

"Why don't you paint her green, all the inside of the rail and the boats?"

"She'd be a beauty show, like a blessed timber-droghing Swede," said Watchett, with great distaste. "But d'ye think it'd work?"

"You might try," replied Ryder.

"And now you've got the bulge on me," sighed Watchett; "with two 'ands missing from both watches, she'll be as 'ard in the mouth as your _Star_. You might let me off that bet, Bill."

"No," said Ryder, "a bet's a bet."

"But fairness is fairness," urged Watchett; "there should be a clause in a bet renderin' it void by the act of God or the Queen's enemies."

"There isn't," said his cousin, "and you forget you wouldn't help me about those two hands I wanted."

"Oh, if you talk like that----"

"That's the way I talk," said Ryder, remembering the wife he had left behind him. "I'm sorry."

"Hang your sorrow," said Watchett. "But I'll lose no more, and 'tain't your money yet."

"Will you and Mary come on board to tea?" asked Ryder.

"I won't tea with no unfair person with no sympathy," returned Watchett, savagely.

And when Ryder had gone he set the crowd painting his beautiful white paint a ripe grass-green.

"Watch if it soothes 'em any," he said to Seleucus Thoms. "If it seems to work I'll paint 'er as green as a child's Noah's Ark."

And that night there was no decrease of the _Battle-Axe's_ sad crowd, in spite of the fact that he did not act on his impulse to lock them up in the stuffy fo'c's'le. For soon after midnight Mr. Double felt one side of his face cooler than the other as he stood staring at the motionless lights of the _Star of the South_, then lying stern on to the _Battle-Axe's_ starboard beam.

"Eh? What? Jerusalem!" said Double. Then he let a joyous bellow out of him. "Square the yards!"

For there was a breath of wind out of the south. Both vessels were alive in a moment, and while the _Battle-Axe_ was squaring away the _Star's_ foreyard was braced sharp up on the starboard tack till she fell off before the little breeze. Then she squared her yards too, and both vessels moved at least a mile towards home before they began fooling all round the compass again.

"Them hands missin' makes a difference," said Watchett, gloomily. "Less than enough is starvation."

As they fought through the night for the flaws of wind which came out of all quarters, the short watches of the _Battle-Axe_ found that out and grumbled accordingly. But it was a very curious thing that the _Star of the South_ was never so easy to handle.

"That foreyard goes round now," said old Semple, "as if it was hung like a balance. This is very surprisin'. So it is."

He mentioned the remarkable fact to McGill when he came on deck at four in the morning, and so long as it was dark, as it was till nearly six, McGill found it so too. And both watches were in a surprisingly good temper. For nothing tries men so much as "brace up" and "square away" every five minutes as they work their ship through a belt of calm. But as soon as the sun was up the _Star_ worked just as badly as she did before.

"It's maist amazin'," said McGill.

During the day the calm renewed itself and gave everyone a rest. But once more the breeze came at night, and the amazing easiness of the _Star_ showed itself when the darkness fell across the sea. Ryder and Semple and McGill were full of wonder and delight.

"The character of a ship will change sometimes," said Semple. "It's just like a collision that will alter her deviation. This calm has worked a revolution."

Because of this revolution the _Star_ got ahead of the _Battle-Axe_ every change and chance of the wind. She got ahead with such effect that on the third day the _Battle-Axe_ was hull down to the south'ard, and when the fourth dawn broke she was out of sight. This meant much more than may appear, for the _Star_ picked up the north-east trade nearly four days earlier than her rival, and a better trade at that. When the _Battle-Axe_ crawled into its area it was half-sister to a calm, while the _Star_ was doing eight knots an hour. And as there was now no need to touch tack or sheet, there was no solution of the mysterious ease with which she worked in the dark. How long the mystery might have remained such no one can say, but it was owing to Mrs. Ryder's curious behaviour that it came out. She laughed in the strangest manner till Ryder got quite nervous.

"These chaps that jumped over from the _Battle-Axe_ laughed like that," he told her, in great anxiety.

And she giggled more and more.

"Shall I try marmalade?" she asked. Then she sat down by him and went off into something so like hysterics that a mere man might be excused for thinking she was crazy.

"They're not dead!" she cried; "they're not dead!"

"Who aren't dead?" asked her husband, desperately.

And, remembering something which had been told him years before, he took her hands and slapped with such severity that she screamed and then cried, and finally put her head upon his shoulder and confessed.

"Was it mutiny of me to do it?" she asked, penitently.

Will Ryder tried to look severe, and then laughed until he cried. "What ever made you think of it?"

"It wasn't a what; it was a who," said his wife; "it was Silas Bagge."

"The dickens it was," said Will, and with that he left her.

"Call all hands and let them muster aft," he said to McGill, who, much wondering, did what he was told. The watch on deck dropped their jobs and the watch below turned out.

"Call the names over," said Ryder, sternly.

"They're all here, sir," said McGill.

The skipper looked down at the upturned faces of the men and singled out Silas Bagge as if he meant to speak to him. But he checked himself, and, going down to the main deck, walked for'ard to the fo'c's'le. The men turned to look after him, and there was a grin on every face which would have been ample for two. Ryder walked quietly, and pushing aside the canvas door he came on a party playing poker. He heard strange voices.

"I go one petter, moreover," said one of them.

"I see you and go two better," said a man with a Newcastle burr in his speech.

Then Ryder took a hand.

"And I see you," he remarked. They dropped their cards and jumped to their feet.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded. And there wasn't a word from one of them; they looked as sheepish as four stowaways interviewing the skipper before a crowd of passengers.

"Get on deck," said Ryder. And much to McGill's astonishment the addition to the crew appeared with the captain behind them.

"Divide this lot among the watches," said Ryder.

Leaving McGill to "tumble to the racket," he walked to the mate's berth and explained to him that henceforth the _Star of the South_ would go about as easy by day as by night.

"Then they're not dead!" cried Semple.

"Not by a jugful," said Ryder, nodding.

"This is very lucky, sir," said the mate, smiling.

"It's confoundedly irregular, too," replied the skipper, as he rubbed his chin. "Are you sure you knew nothing of it, Mr. Semple?"

"Me, sir! Why, I'd look on it as mutiny," said Semple; "rank mutiny!"

"It was Mrs. Ryder's notion, Semple."

"You don't say so, sir! She's a woman to be proud of!"

"So she is," replied Ryder. "So she is."

He went back to his wife.

"You'll win the hundred pounds now, Will?"

"I believe I shall," said Ryder.

"And I'll spend it," cried his wife, running to him and kissing him.

"I believe you will," said Ryder.

It was a happy ship.

_The Size of the World's Great Cities._
BY ARTHUR T. DOLLING.

Those imposing agglomerations of houses and dwellers we call cities (in most cases political or commercial capitals) have shown a notable rate of progress during the last two or three decades. More and more do the centripetal forces at work in almost every nation make for the growth of the capital at the expense of the rural community. A century ago a million human beings dwelling side by side under a single municipal government was almost of itself one of the great wonders of the world. Men spoke of London with bated breath and wondered where it would all end. Reports of monster cities in China with a population double that of London were dismissed as travellers' tales. Travellers' tales, verily, they have proved to be, seeing that Peking even to-day has fewer than a million souls. But what would our forefathers have said of these twentieth-century "wens," these "gloomy or glowing, febrile and throbbing concentrations" of human life, numbering not merely two, but three, four, and even five millions of souls?

Let us take London as the basis of our diagrams. London is an indeterminate quantity. It may mean the City of London, which comprises only 673 acres, or it may mean the Administrative County of London, which boasts nearly 117 square miles, or 74,839 acres, or Greater London, which embraces the Metropolitan Police district, and has an area of no less than 692 square miles, or 443,420 acres. If we take the second of these Londons we shall find it to consist of twenty-nine large and small cities, ranging in population from 334,991 to 51,247 inhabitants. These are called the Metropolitan boroughs; but as it is rather geographical size than population which here concerns us, we may state that the largest of these boroughs is Wandsworth, with an area of 9,130 acres, and the smallest is Holborn, with 409 acres. The average area of these boroughs, if we exclude the City, is about four square miles. Within these borders of London--which must not be confounded with Greater London--there were in 1901 4,536,541 souls, living in 616,461 houses. Within this area, besides buildings, must be counted 12,054 acres of grass, including the public parks and gardens.

If we take Greater London we embrace a far wider and yet still a homogeneous community, for it cannot be denied that the adjoining boroughs just outside the pale of the administrative county are policed from the same centre, are London to the Post Office, and commonly regard themselves, what they must soon be officially, as an integral part of the Great Wen. Greater London--within the fifteen-mile radius--is far more homogeneous and compact than Greater Chicago, for example, or even than Greater New York or Greater Boston. We have here an aggregation of 6,580,000 inhabitants and, as we have already seen, 443,420 acres. But perhaps the fairest estimate of London is the natural one of a single mass of buildings, without any unoccupied or unimproved areas. This gives us a solid, compact city of 85,000 acres and 6,000,000 inhabitants; extending from Edmonton on the north to Croydon on the south, and east and west from Woolwich to Ealing. Nor can one doubt, at the present rate of expansion, that even more distant areas than Croydon will eventually be included, although the Scotsman may have been a little "previous" who addressed a letter to a friend at "Bournemouth, S.W."

In the following article we propose to compare with London the sizes of the chief cities of the world and, by printing a black map of each city upon a map of London, to display their relative magnitude at a glance. Let us see, to begin with, how Paris compares with London as represented in the above diagram.

At a _coup d'oeil_ we perceive that the French capital is for its population remarkably small in area, a fact clearly owing to its fixed military barriers, which make growth upward rather than outward. Consequently, dwellers in Paris often have six or eight pairs of stairs to climb where the dweller in London has but two. There have been repeated agitations for municipal expansion, but so far nothing has been done to annex the surrounding communes. Paris has a population of 2,700,000, living in 75,000 houses, and an area of over thirty-one square miles. If, however, the agglomeration of houses be taken--including the suburbs--the area is forty-five square miles and the population 3,600,000, although, as yet, this is not actually and geographically Paris.

Berlin, a mere village a century ago, is the third city of Europe in point of population, and its growth since 1870 has been phenomenal, as we shall see. Yet the technical barriers which enclose the city remain precisely what they were more than forty years ago, and Berlin is still as it was in 1861, compressed within twenty-eight square miles, six miles long and five and a half wide. At the close of the Franco-Prussian War Berlin, now the capital of a new empire, became a paradise for builders. Streets of houses appeared almost as if by magic, and the whole aspect of the city became changed. From being the worst lighted, the worst drained, and ugliest capital in Europe it has become one of the finest, cleanest, and handsomest of cities, and its population has more than doubled. Berlin now boasts within its boundaries 1,857,000 inhabitants. But without there is, in Ibsen's phrase, "the younger generation knocking at the door," and Greater Berlin might have a population of 2,430,000, with an area at least treble, extending, indeed, as far as Potsdam. Berlin's actual increase from 1800 to 1900 was 818 per cent., multiplying its population by nine.

"The transformation of Vienna" has for nearly half a century been a watchword amongst the progressive party in the Austrian capital. The example of Paris--with which the Viennese love to be compared--has, since 1858, brought to the fore innumerable Haussmannizing projects, all of which have tended to the city's amplifying and beautifying. The second or outer girdle of fortifications has been taken down; the barriers thus removed, fifty suburbs became, in 1891, part and parcel of the capital. Before this time Vienna was twenty-one English square miles, or one-third less than Paris; afterwards it covered sixty-nine square miles, besides having by the process added half a million to its population, which now stands at 1,662,269. But Vienna does not intend to be stationary in the coming decade. The fever of the municipal race for territory is upon her also. She is now reaching out for the adjoining town of Floridsdorf across the Danube, together with four other communes, having a population of 50,000; and this step increases the area of Vienna to about eighty-two square miles, nearly thrice the size of Berlin. Naturally such a large territory for a population smaller than a third that of London would comprise much open ground, especially as there is great overcrowding in the industrial districts. And, as a matter of fact, over five-eighths of Vienna is woods, pastures and vineyards, and arable ground, while above a tenth of the total area is made up of parks, gardens, and squares. The cost of making Vienna so vast has been enormous; but it has not been borne by the ratepayers to any oppressive extent, because the appropriated military ground and sites of fortifications have yielded a handsome profit, and municipal improvements in the annexed districts have, of course, enhanced the value of property. Moreover, the most acute observers are convinced that, if Vienna had not roused herself to material self-improvement, her prestige, which is already threatened by Budapest, would ere this have completely vanished. After the Austro-Prussian struggle and the marvellous rise of Berlin and Budapest, the city on the Danube would have sunk to be the Bruges of the twentieth century.

There is, perhaps, hardly a capital in the world so badly situated as St. Petersburg. To its north and east is a desolate wilderness, and to its south is a mighty stretch of marshland, and it is 400 miles from any important commercial centre. Yet, built at the behest of an Imperial autocrat, it has risen steadily into magnitude and wealth, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of human lives.

St. Petersburg is, as all the world knows, built on a swamp, or low-lying alluvial deposits, at the mouth of the Neva. These cover altogether an area of 21,185 acres, of which 12,820 are part of the delta proper of the river and 1,330 acres are submerged. In consequence of its origin and present condition the city is naturally subject to inundations, but these, owing to the admirable public works and precautions taken, are not of frequent occurrence. Of the area of the city, 798 acres are given up to gardens and parks, while a third of the whole area is densely overcrowded, the average in some districts being one inhabitant for every ninety-three square feet and some dwellings containing from 400 to 2,000 inhabitants each. As for the population, it is now 1,248,739, to which if that of the suburbs be added (190,635), the Russian capital is the fifth city of Europe. Yet in area it is far too small; overcrowding is universal, in spite of the 1,000 dwellings that are erected annually, and the mortality is appalling.

Liverpool is about six miles long by about three broad, the area being 13,236 acres. It has a population of 686,332 within boundaries less than half the size of Berlin or Paris. But it comprised only 5,210 acres in 1895. In that year, feeling cramped, Liverpool annexed an area of 8,026 acres. Of the total area, there is comprised 772-1/2 acres of parks and gardens.

Peking, as we may see, is a walled city of oblong shape, and contains a total area of about thirty square miles. The two chief divisions are known as the Tartar city and the outer or Chinese city. The population is now about 1,000,000. Writing twenty years ago Sir Robert Douglas thought that a population of a mere million was "out of all proportion to the immense area enclosed within its walls. This disparity," he continued, "is partly accounted for by the fact that large spaces, notably in the Chinese city, are not built over, and that the grounds surrounding the Imperial Palace private residences are very extensive."

What would he have said of Chicago, New York, Budapest, or, indeed, of any modern capital "expanded"? To us, at the beginning of the twentieth century, a million inhabitants seems a very respectable population indeed for a city of only thirty square miles, and in this respect we can no longer sneer or be astonished at the "peculiarities" of Oriental cities.

Boston is one of the older and more conservative American cities which have lately been seized by the expansion fever, and now proudly refers to its "Greater Boston." But this is as yet only a term, and the new Boston metropolitan district, embracing all the area within a circle of ten miles from the State House, is hardly yet a distinct municipality. It will doubtless soon come about, and in that case twenty-two towns and cities will be taken to the bosom of "the Hub," and the total population will be close upon a million and a quarter. At present the area of the city is over thirty-seven square miles (24,000 acres), or just the size of Chicago a decade ago, of which 2,308 acres are common open spaces and 126 acres ponds and rivers, in addition to numerous squares, gardens, and playgrounds. The length of the city is eight miles and its greatest breadth about seven miles.

Exactly one hundred years ago the American Government built Fort Dearborn, on Lake Michigan. In 1831 there was a village of one hundred people on the site; to-day the city of Chicago has spread out (rather too generously, its rival municipalities think) until it comprises 190-1/2 square miles and a population of 1,698,575. But only some seventy square miles of this area is improved, and less than fifty miles built upon. As there are also 2,232 acres of parks and open spaces, Chicago cannot be said to be overcrowded; especially when one remembers the great height of most of the buildings in the business quarter. Chicago's expansion, in truth, follows the lines laid down by the early Western boom "cities," which were prairie wilderness one week, were surveyed the next, had a population of twelve, one man to the square mile, and applied for a charter the week following, and elected a Mayor and Corporation. The next week the boom was over and a mere shanty remained to mark the site of Boomopolis.

Before 1898 the city of New York lay partly on Manhattan Island, a long and narrow strip of land at the head of New York Bay, thirteen miles long and twenty-two square miles in area, and partly, although to a very trifling extent so far as population was concerned, north of the Harlem River, and on several small islands in the bay and East River. The total area was forty-two square miles, within which was a population of 1,515,301 souls. But in the aforementioned year the great arms of the city flung themselves out and gathered to its bosom so many of the outlying parts and people as to bring the total area of Greater New York up to 307 square miles, and the population to 3,437,202. It must be confessed that much of this huge municipal territory has been rather irrelevantly brought in--especially Staten Island (area 57.19 square miles), which is separated from New York proper by the width of the bay. But, on the other hand, other and nearer towns, such as Jersey City and Hoboken, were excluded, for the reason that they were in another State. Within Greater New York are included 6,766 acres of parks and open spaces, which is but little more than half that of London; yet the proportion of unoccupied land not under the control of the city is, of course, many times as great. The actual agglomeration of buildings in Greater New York--excluding Staten Island--covers barely 51,000 acres, or eighty square miles, as is shown in the diagram. Less than 5,000 acres is built upon in Staten Island.

_Some Novel Banquets._

BY THEODORE ADAMS.

The art of him who prepares the banquet has reached, in these latter days, a distinction of novelty which might reasonably make the gastronomer of fifty years ago hold up his knife and fork in wonder. It is a novelty born of the desire for change. No longer does the dinner-giver merely prepare, with the aid of his costly _chef_, the menu for his guests and the viands on it. He--or, more properly, she, because of the present prominence of the fair hostess--tries not only to set a pretty table with flowers and cutlery of gold. The giver of dinners is ever thinking of that which will make the banquet memorable to the guest, and, in some cases, even wonders what the Press will say about it. This means to lie awake at night, and in such nightly vigils many wondrous things have been evolved.

Thus we have come to hear of banquets under conditions that make the imagination reel, and arouse speculation as to what the dinner of the twenty-first century will be like. When thirty-two people sat about on horseback a year ago, in a temporary stable, eating from dishes handed to them by waiters dressed as grooms, it seemed as if the top notch of _bizarrerie_ had been reached. But, as the German says, _noch nicht_.

This remarkable horseback dinner was given in the great ballroom at Sherry's by Mr. C. K. G. Billings, of New York, and, as it was intended to celebrate the construction of a new stable, the rumour went round that the banquet would be held in the structure itself. The guests, however, met at Sherry's, and were escorted to a small banquet room, where a long table, in the form of an ellipse, was lavishly banked with flowers. The centre space was occupied by a stuffed horse, which cast his glass eyes curiously upon the assembly as the oysters and caviare were served. So convinced were the guests that this was the real and much-talked-about equestrian dinner that their surprise was great when they were asked to follow their host into an adjoining room.

"Here," according to the report of one who was at this famous banquet, "there had taken place an amazing transformation, for the decoration, the waxed floors, and everything of the world of indoors had been obliterated. A space sixty-five by eighty-five feet in the centre of the room had been enclosed by scenery. The guests were in a land of winding roadways, of brooks which coursed through green meadows, and of giant elms. There were cottages, vine-covered, and at the edge of a country estate was a porter's lodge. Far away stretched fields of grain. Over all was the blaze of a summer sun, for above in a vault of blue were strung electric lights. On all sides was the country, and in the middle of the room, rising in a pyramid, were geraniums, daisies, and roses, all blooming as if in the air of June. Above them a palm formed the apex of a pyramid thirty feet at the base. The floor was covered with long, velvety grass. Around the centrepiece were arranged thirty-one horses waiting for their riders. Mr. Billings's mount stood near the door, gazing into the geranium bed. How the steeds got up to the ballroom is no mystery in these days of large lifts, and they were well-trained horses, who cared not for lights and unusual conditions. Each guest found his mount by means of a horseshoe-shaped card attached to the saddle of the horse, just as he had been guided to his seat at the preliminary banquet by means of the bits of Bristol-board at each cover."

Between every two horses there was placed a carpet-covered block, from which the diners swung into their saddles, where, from little tables placed upon the pommels, they ate their splendid dinner. The horses showed little nervousness. Their trappings were yellow and gold, making pretty contrast with the costumes of the servants, who wore trousers of white buckskin, scarlet coats, and boots with yellow tops. Towards the end of the feast the horses were treated with a consideration due to their efforts, for a turkey-red fence surrounding the floral pyramid was discovered by the guests to contain feeding-troughs in which had been placed a plentiful quantity of superior oats. After dinner the horses were taken from the room by the grooms, small tables and chairs were brought in, and the guests sat down to an after-dinner chat as if in a beautiful garden.

The horse has figured in a less ambitious, though perhaps quite as attractive, manner at the dinners of the Equestrian Club, which meets in New York during the winter once a month. For one of these banquets was arranged a rural scene with trees, shrubs, and beautiful beds of tulips and hyacinths, the whole floor being covered with stage grass. The table represented a horse's head, chairs being placed around the neck, while the head proper of the horse was a mass of flowers, with eyes, nose, and mouth displayed by means of ornamental and many-coloured flowers. The bridle, particularly, stood out strongly in brilliant red. The menu was formed in the shape of a horse's head, with a small bit and bridle made of leather and steel attached to it.

The use of effective scenery at such functions is growing more common. Perhaps the most effective use to which it was ever put was at the Proal banquet of April, 1903, when thirty-five ladies dined within a monster Easter egg. The egg itself towered to the top of Sherry's ballroom and extended almost to the outer walls. Outside the egg was represented a farm on which chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, pigs, lambs, and guinea-pigs disported to the life--for they were really live. The ballroom had been turned into a fine landscape, with scenes representing fields and pastures, with flowing brooks near by, and farmhouses, windmills, and hayricks in the distance. One or two mirrors reflected parts of this landscape, which had been arranged to express that longing for "green fields and pastures new" which comes to all who live a city life when spring appears.

In every respect the farm was true to life. A farmer with blue overalls and smock passed in front of the guests, followed by a flock of geese. Pigs ran between his legs, and the spring lamb frisked upon the green. Rabbits munched their carrots until, timid at the sight of strange people, they hid themselves in the straw which lay about. Around were scattered the implements of labour, as if the farmers had just left their work. There were scythes, mowing-machines, milk-pails, and milking-stools to be seen. Every detail, in fact, had been thought of necessary to make the illusion complete, and the guests--all of whom had been kept in ignorance until they came into the room--were justly astonished at the sight.

The egg itself, with its shell of white, was geometrically perfect, and brought to mind the famous tale of Sindbad and the gigantic roc. The shell was fashioned with light timber bands bent to the required shape, and the supports were covered with green, all making a delightful arbour-like effect. The table was oval in form, hollowed in the centre, within which were floral decorations representing the white and yellow of an egg. Daffodils and jonquils were used for the yolk, while lilies, candytuft, and other white flowers were freely used. The air was filled with fragrance from these blooms. Mrs. Proal sat at the head of the ornamental table, with her guests around the oval. Music was provided by a band of negro musicians, who, seating themselves on wooden benches outside the dining-room, sang plantation melodies. The waiters were dressed as farm-labourers in gaily coloured shirts and smocks, with wisps of straw upon their heads. Fortunate, indeed, were the thirty-five women who took part at this unique banquet, for the farm and its giant egg had come into existence only for a single day, to be destroyed when luncheon was ended and its use was over.

We already begin to see in these dinners the existence of a new form of humour. This is shown even better in the so-called "babies' dinner" given at Sherry's by a Philadelphia organization called the Kettle Club. This club, composed of gentlemen who summer in the Adirondack Mountains, and who eat their forest meals round a vast and fragrant kettle, recently decided to admit five new members, or "babies." The only condition of candidacy was that the "babies" should show due appreciation of the honour conferred upon them. The result was a banquet such as had never been held before. To it were invited the older members of the club. The ballroom resembled a forest glade. Round the walls were painted forests with real trees in the foreground, to one of which was hitched a hunting-horse. The scenic effects included a dark blue cloth which represented a sky, with a moon in the distance and twinkling stars. In the centre of the room rested on a tall mound a huge kettle, twenty-five feet high and twenty-eight feet in diameter, with a door at one side reached by a rustic stairway. There was a circular table within the kettle, around which sat the guests, each with a wine "cooler" at his side.

In the centre of the table, perfectly dark when dinner began, was a bed of tall flowers on the floor, nine feet below. Suddenly, when this hole was lighted, was revealed a magnificent display of orchids, with a vine of pale purple flowers. Below sat a negro with a banjo, who sang and played throughout the evening for the pleasure of the guests. The menu card showed a picture of the kettle, into which five babies were climbing, the faces of these being those of the five new members, each with a teething ring, a nursing bottle, and a rattle. Souvenirs of the occasion were given to the guests in the form of small kettles, each with the name of the guest and the club motto, "Take the Kettle," painted on the side. This same inscription appeared on the structure in which the banquet took place, as shown in our illustration. Here we may note the part which the backcloth played at this noteworthy function.

Another novel dinner was that given by a well-known New Yorker, Colonel O'Brien, to the Old Guard of Delmonico's, known to fame as the guard that "dines but never surrenders." For this affair two menus had been provided, one as a joke, the other for consumption. The mock bill of fare contained a list of dishes which _might_ have been provided. For example, under the heading of oysters were the words "half shell," which the waiters solemnly set before the assembled gentlemen, minus the bivalves. These being removed made way for the next item, which, being "cream of celery" and presumably a soup, was found to be small tubes of celery with cold cream inside. Through all the regular courses the joke was carried, with amusing success, the joint being spring lamb with "string," or French, beans. What was the astonishment of the guests to find served for this course a woolly toy lamb on a spring, which squeaked when pressed, and wore dried beans on a string around its neck! The humour of the dinner came with the continued surprise at the ingenuity shown by the preparer of the feast, and it can be truly said that each item tickled the guests immensely. With the woolly lambs this band of gastronomers were especially pleased, and it was at the moment when these ridiculous toys were handed round to the well-proportioned diners that our photograph was secured.

A few years ago Mr. Sherry himself was returning with the _impresario_, Maurice Grau, from Europe, and as the result of a wager upon the ship's "run" Mr. Grau was given a splendid dinner. It is now known in gastronomic history as the "lyre dinner," for the table was arranged in the form of an enormous lyre. Long gilded ropes covered with pretty vines represented the strings, while, to carry out the idea of the instrument, there was a golden cloth on the inner side of the table. Into this were woven mauve orchids, with electric lights sparkling under the green leaves, thus bringing out sufficient brilliancy to please the guests and not to affect their eyesight. Between each two seats of the table was a wine "cooler," sunk into the wood in such a way that the neck only of each champagne bottle showed above the edge. The banquet was attended by those best known to music in New York, and its brilliancy has probably never been surpassed.

_A Doubtful Case._
BY MRS. EGERTON EASTWICK (PLEYDELL NORTH).

When, in the year 189-, a weakness of the throat prevented me from preaching for a time, I had considerable difficulty in persuading Allan Fortescue to take my place in the pulpit.

He had been amongst us rather more than two years; and although an ordained priest in the Church of England, and a man of considerable ability, was without preferment, and, apparently, content to remain so.

How came it, I often wondered, that he stayed on in our quiet village, with no apparent interest or occupation in life beyond his garden and his books?

Nor, when he at length consented to my proposal and preached his first sermon in Stony Lea, was my perplexity lessened. His diction was that of a classical scholar, but his words were also the outpouring of a sensitive, warm-hearted man; I could have fancied that in these impersonal utterances he sought compensation for years of enforced silence and isolation.

He had attracted me from the first. Manly, genial, but strangely reserved, Sir Lewin Maxwell and myself were, I believe, the only visitors who had gained admittance to his cottage.

When I so far induced him to change his habits as to help me with my weekly sermons Sir Lewin Maxwell was abroad. He had left Stony Lea for the Riviera in November, and now, early in May, the fact of his marriage had just been announced. No particulars, however, concerning the bride had reached us, and the appearance of the newly-married couple at the Hall was looked for with much interest and curiosity. They did not come until June, and then, by the express desire of Sir Lewin, were met by no demonstration of any kind; indeed, no one, I believe, except the steward and myself knew the exact date or hour at which they were to be expected.

On the Sunday following their arrival, therefore, glances were turned with some eagerness towards the Hall pew, but it was occupied only by a stout, elderly lady, who could not assuredly be Sir Lewin's newly-married wife.

No sooner, on that day, had Allan Fortescue in due course mounted the pulpit than I became aware of something amiss. From my position in the chancel I could not see his face, but the pause which preceded his announcement of a text was just long enough to cause uneasiness, and his voice, when at length he broke the silence, was harsh and unnatural, although, when once fairly started, he spoke with even more than his usual fervour.

When I reached the sacristy after the service Fortescue had already left, and as I was preparing to follow him I was accosted by the lady whom I had seen in the squire's pew.

My visitor's comely, good-tempered face was flushed with heat and nervous indignation. After abruptly closing the sacristy door upon the two of us she turned to me and inquired whether I was aware of the true character of the man I had admitted to my pulpit, adding that it was with the greatest difficulty she had refrained from walking out of the church.

Somewhat startled, I asked for further explanation, whereupon she gave me, at considerable length, the particulars I will here try to relate as concisely as possible.