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EDINBURGH

JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

No. 234. NEW SERIES.

SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1848.

WOMEN'S HUSBANDS.

THE exigencies of life sometimes put the lords of creation into curious predicaments. It so happens that, with all the virtues of our present industrial arrangements, some men can do no good in the world. They try many things, and fail in all, although it is not always easy to see the cause of the failure. The wife has then, if possible, to come forward and undertake the duty of providing for the family, while the worthy man sinks of course into the subordinate position. A terrible time it is when these domestic revolutions take place; seldom short in duration, usually marked by many vicissitudes of rule, and ups and downs of fortune. A vexing problem, too, the superfluous husband usually is to the poor wife. The difficulty is, to get him made perfectly negative and neutral. He would fain be doing, were it only for a show-how to keep him idle! If kept idle, then how to occupy his energies innocuously to the concern in which the wife is engaged! Oh, a sad business it is to have a woman's husband in charge. Women are naturally shrinking beings, prone to keep back amidst the obscurities of kitchens and parlours, while men rough it for them through the outer world. It requires, in general, the impulse of the affections to bring the gentler sex into public life or professional exertion. Of course there is nothing they will not do for their babes-nature has taken good care of that point. The upper classes, who never see women working but at gewgaws for ecclesiastical purposes, can little imagine what is in the heart of a poor wife in the middle ranks of society, when, after years of suffering, the consequence of failure on her husband's part to produce a livelihood, she comes out from her humble retirement, to struggle for dear life to her household. Duty, one would say, can never be a degradation; yet habits are a second nature, and to break through the fine veil of matronly privacy which she has been accustomed to draw between her and the world, cannot be unattended with pain. The reward afforded by the consciousness of performing a duty is confessedly sweet; yet who does not know that the world pays more homage to the dignity which has no duty to perform, than to the humility which knows nothing but duty on earth? Dear conventionalities, which we daily condemn, and momently worship, and evermore cling to, you it is which make it bitter for even a mother to battle for her sucklings. We verily believe the lioness herself, when she fronts danger for her cubs, has some sacrifice of feeling to make. Even she must feel the false position.

But what use to talk? It is but a part of the tragic character ever mingling with this social life of ours, that beings born for all gentleness should occasionally be forced, weeping, trembling, oft looking back, into the

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mêlée, there to clutch at what they may get, in part for those who ought to be the means of sparing their cheeks from the too rough visits of the wind. No help for it. Our world says that a lady shall not even set in a chair for herself if a man be by, yet leaves the same person to drudge unassisted for the mouthful required for herself and offspring, whether she be a widow, or, what is sometimes worse, a wife whose husband cannot gain her bread. There are her young ones-there the husband, willing perhaps, but inefficient-there the illreplenished house, fast dimming in the cold shade of adversity. Friends worn out-how soon they wear! Debts pressing. Shades of 'last resources' standing three deep, and not another substantial one in view. There is no longer any choice. If educated, she must take to schooling; if not, to some grosser businesskeeping lodgers or boarders, or a shop, or an inn; things much to be determined by circumstances, as well as tastes. The first steps are usually the most difficult, not merely as regards means, but with respect to inclinations. After a commencement has been made, and some success attained, the pain deadens. Former connections cease to be remembered unpleasantly- the excitement of activity becomes its own reward-the mind gets accommodated more or less to its new conditions. Still there is much encountered and undergone which the world does not see; and of this the husband generally bears no small part.

It is bad enough when this personage is tolerably rational, and limits his ambition to keeping the books of the concern, and attending to such other little duties as he is fit for and his wife finds he may be intrusted with. Even in these favourable circumstances, it is not easy to keep him right, for he can scarcely fail to be the worse of the half idleness to which he must needs be assigned. If, indeed, he be an old man, he may walk genteelly about, haunt the reading-room, and talk learnedly of stocks and markets in which he has not one penny of interest. Sometimes he may be allowed to cater or act on little commissions, or even, completing the reversal of the sexes, take a general charge of the house, thus sparing time to his wife, which she may bestow upon her business. But never in any circumstances does he prove otherwise than a source of anxiety and trouble. The fact is, he is no one thing rightly, and it is impossible to put him in his proper place. Servants, children, customers, all mistake him. He scarcely knows what he is himself, but only has a vague sense of being treated less reverently than is his due. The wife has therefore, in addition to all other duties, to manage her husband's self-respect. She must contrive to maintain a useless man, in the impression that he is useful. She must shape her own course, so as to prevent possibilities of his interfering with or thwarting it.

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looked for, till the weariness of wo shall sink her into the grave, a broken-down unrecognisable thing; who, in doing so, can say that all our social arrangements are quite right? Who does not see the wrongs which the selfishness of society inflicts on individuals, or at least tolerates and sanctions for its own ends? Yet we talk of the martyr-burnings of former ages, as if all such sacrifices to mistaken views were past!

Perhaps existing circumstances in our island are not just to women's husbands.' Should we ever come to have a National Guard, they would probably shine out in a very different light, being highly qualified to act the part of officers in such a band. In the event of a new organisation of labour after the plans of Louis Blanc, they would be found not less qualified for the more conspicuous situations, being remarkably well adapted to work out the ideas of that Lilliputian philosopher. We would have the ladies to think of it, both on account of the pay, tending to lighten their own labours, and because nothing keeps the true woman's husband' so well in temper, as to think he is doing something, while in reality he is doing nothing.

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC ART. INVENTIVE genius seldom fails in exciting our admiration; and the history of a new discovery, after it has been a few years before the public, is highly interesting, affording as it does the means of tracing the gradual development and growth of thought from a crude and often accidental germ into shape and form, until at last science seizes upon it, and gives it a practical direction. This is peculiarly the case with regard to photography, an art involving some of the profoundest philosophical speculations and experiences, intimately connected with problems whose solution promises extraordinary triumphs for science. Considering the persevering industry with which experiments on light are now conducted in various parts of Europe, we may look for results which shall let us farther and farther into the secret of many as yet inexplicable phenomena.

Matters are much determined by the degree of selfcomplacency possessed by the gentleman. It is to the last degree unfortunate if he be ill endowed in this respect, for then is he continually getting rubs, for which an incessant application of the soothing salve is necessary. If, on the contrary, on good terms with himself, there is comparatively little difficulty. He then feels as much master as ever. Sitting in his chair over his book or his newspaper, and emitting a word of sage advice or remark now and then, he believes that in reality he directs everything, while the lady is a mere instrument. Speaking of home affairs to any one else, he seems only to allow his wife to enter into certain engagements, in which he does not choose to interfere it never appears as if she were in any respect the centre of the family system. As the children rise up, and take successively to industrious courses, they must all likewise become planetary to him. This kind of man maintains a dignified and gentlemanlike appearance before the world; no great freshness of attire perhaps, but a good presence and a clean neckcloth; always very well - bred, often a favourite, on | account of his agreeable company. You might meet him frequently without ever supposing him to be anything but a gentleman possessed of a quiet little competency, who took to newspapers and constitutional walks from choice. On falling into conversation with him, you find him more given to talk of public than of private matters. He speaks of supporting' Sir Robert Peel, the reason being, that Sir Robert is such a financier.' Modern men of business he holds in something like contempt; they do not conduct matters in a gentlemanly way, all seeking to undersell each other. He worships some ideal, which the shabby practices of the world have not allowed him to reach. If you ever find out what he really is, you are left to infer that it is not he who is to blame for his not being a rich fellow enough. In a large class of cases the woman's husband is a less estimable, or at least harmless member of society. His constantly drinking his pocket-money may be the gentlest of his weaknesses. A tendency to make foolish intrusions upon his wife when she is engaged In the spirit of some laborious investigators, we might with those by whose patronage she gains the family go back to remotest antiquity for the origin of photobread-thus humiliating her in their eyes, and per-graphy, and find it in the knowledge of the action of light haps offending them-is not the worst kind of action possessed by the Egyptians, or detect it again in the magic he is noted for. What struggles poor women often mirrors and similar juggleries of the middle ages. We have to keep up decent appearances, and sustain their may, however, fairly assume the days of Giambattista exertions, while secretly tormented with an indis- della Porta, a Neapolitan, and the discovery of the creet associate of this kind!-the story of the actor camera obscura (darkened chamber), as our startingplaying his part while the stolen fox was gnawing reflected on the wall of a darkened room when the light point. Porta had noticed that external objects were his bosom under his cloak, is but a type of the case. The little fabric of success reared with labour and was admitted through a small aperture. Following up difficulty inexpressible, is continually liable to ruin at the inquiry thus opened to him, he contrived the fitting the hands of the domestic ogre, who himself perhaps of a lens to a movable box, and in this way produced the enjoys the largest share of its results. He eats his instrument which has suggested greater things, which to bread and butter, and threatens the life of her who lays the draughtsman and photographer is invaluable. As it before him. Swamp the whole concern!' was the was usual in that day, Porta incurred the displeasure of tipsy cry of such a man with reference to a little busi- the priestly authorities, by whom he was censured as a ness which his wife carried on, and which somehow meddler in supernatural affairs. aggrieved him. We see here all the evils of lunacy, while yet the patient is not in a state which entitles others to reduce him to harmlessness. He must be flattered out of his maudlin furies, and allowed to have his will by way of bribery, when he ought rather to be manacled and strait-waistcoated. In his partner, all the time, there is one struggle going on in addition to all others, between the relics of old affection, or the sense of decency towards her children and the world, and the heaving throes of disgust at conduct from which her womanly worth and delicacy revolt. Hard, hard indeed is the fate of some women! To look at a gay assemblage of young ones, and think that some of these happy creatures are yet to groan out a weary life as the slaves of debased fatuous tyrants, with that terrible perplexity which arises in such circumstances from children-no help to be expected from any bystander, no more than to Sinbad when he was about to be lowered into the sepulchre with his dead wife-no relief to be

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in 1566, mentions a kind of silver ore which, on exposure Fabricius, in his work 'De Rebus Metallicis,' published to light, lost its natural colour, yellowish-gray, and be, came of a violet colour, which afterwards deepened into black. The same substance is referred to in the writings of some of the alchemists: they appear to have been ac quainted with the effects of light on paper prepared with the metal. About 1770, the celebrated Scheele tried some experiments in connection with the subject; and a year or two later, Petit, a Frenchman, observed that

nitrate of potash and muriate of ammonia crystallised coveries followed; and about the beginning of the present more actively in the light than in darkness.' Other discentury, attempts were made by Wedgewood and Dary action of light. They could not, however, succeed in to copy profiles, and transfer from paper to glass by the

Photography: a Popular Treatise, designed to convey Correct General Information concerning the Discoverers Niepce, Daguerre, Talbot, and others. By an Amateur. Brighton. 1847.

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rendering their pictures permanent: no sooner were they produced, than they vanished.

copies of Daguerreotype and Talbotype portraits can be obtained by throwing magnified images of them by means of lenses upon it.' As in the case of Daguerreotype, the quicker the process the better; to expedite it, a heated iron is sometimes applied to the back of the camera: for the production of a perfect image, it is essential that the paper be of uniform texture. The sensitive properties of the paper here described render it highly valuable to travellers, or any one desirous of taking correct impressions of objects. Etchings, too, may be copied by it, and wood blocks prepared for engraving with the utmost accuracy. In fact the field of research thus opened, both useful and curious, is boundless. In some instances the Daguerreotype has been engraved, and an electrotype plate taken from it, by means of the electrogalvanic battery.

Niepce's is the next name that occurs: he was living at Chalons-sur-Saone when, in 1814, he detected the action of light upon resinous substances. He coated a silvered plate of pewter with vapour of asphalte; the plate being then placed in the camera, received an invisible impression of the objects placed before it, and the latent picture was brought out by an application of oil of lavender and oil of petroleum. Niepce came to England, hoping to gain attention and patronage; but failing in this, he returned to France, where he made various improvements in the process, which he described as the method of fixing the image of objects by the action of light,' and to which he gave the general name of heliography, or sunpainting. The fixing' was a most important step gained, as the previous experiments had failed in this essential point. Subsequently, a year or two before his death, Niepce became acquainted with Daguerre; and further investigations were conducted with such success, that in 1839 the latter had, so to speak, perfected the process, for which the French government awarded to him a pen-bably be attributed the rapid diminution of the excitesion of 6000 francs, and another of 4000 francs to Niepce's son: the secret thus became public property. In the same year, our countryman Mr H. Fox Talbot communicated a paper to the Royal Society on the Art of Photogenic Drawing a remarkable instance of coincident invention and discovery. No communication had taken place between the parties, and Mr Talbot is said to have commenced his researches into photography in 1834.

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The introduction of paper into the photographic art promises to be of considerable service in overcoming the objection which exists in many quarters to a picture on a metallic plate, as in Daguerreotypes. A metallic surface presents many inconveniences, to which cause may proment and interest created by Arago's announcement of the discovery in 1839. The latest additions to this branch of art, whether practical or philosophical, may be gathered from a paper published in the Philosophical Transactions' of the Royal Society for 1847. According to the author, Mr Claudet, it had been observed, from the origin of the invention, that red, orange, and yellow rays exert but a slight influence upon the metal plate. Experiments made by Sir John Herschel, Becquerel, and Dr Draper of New York, have led to the discovery of other interesting properties. The latter gentleman considers that the rays comprehended from the blue to the red, under the powerful sun of Virginia, when separated from the remainder, operated as a check to their action. On this part of the subject the general result of the investigations, which have been extensively carried on, is, that while red rays impede, yellow rays will produce, a photogenic effect. By photogenic effect is meant the bringing of the plate into a state in which it will receive vapour of mercury: the picture or Daguerreotype image is produced solely by the affinity for mercury of the parts previously affected by the photogenic rays.'

Niepce's process occupied from two to six hours; but such have been the progressive improvements, that the operation is now instantaneous: formerly, the picture was as the bloom on the grape, liable to obliteration on the slightest touch; now, the impressions are permanent. The process of sun-painting at the present day is thus described: The silver tablet is first carefully cleaned and highly polished; it is then coated by the vapour of iodine, and afterwards exposed to that of chlorine or bromine the proper focus of the object having been obtained, the plate is in darkness inserted in the place of the ground-glass screen of the camera obscura; the aperture of the camera is opened to admit the image, for a time decided by preceding experiments and the judgment of the artist, and then closed; the plate is removed (still Most of the experiments here adverted to were made excluded from light), and placed in a box with mercury with the pure rays of the prism. Mr Claudet has reslightly heated, to expedite volatilisation, until the pic-peated them, but with coloured glasses, and arrived at ture, which before would not have been perceptible, is various novel and important conclusions. He finds that fully and clearly developed; finally, the type-invested the red glass absorbs two-thirds, and yellow glass one-half, surface is subjected to the solution of hyposulphate of of the transmitted light. During one of the dense London soda, for the removal of iodine, so that there shall remain fogs, when the sun looks like a dark-red disk, a plate was upon the plate only the mercury which represents the exposed to the dim light: it left a round black image. On image. The picture being now approved, there is left but another plate, exposed for twenty minutes, a long black to protect it with the solution of gold.' Some of the stripe was produced, marking the sun's passage; but there most important improvements in this method of manipu- had been no photogenic action in either case. These lation have been effected by Fizeau and Claudet. experiments, while proving that red, orange, and yellow rays destroy the effect of photogenic light, have led to some highly valuable practical and economical results.

Mr H. F. Talbot's discoveries are not less beautiful than those of Daguerre; in some respects they are preferable, as the pictures are produced on paper from what is termed a negative image, and admit of being copied in endless numbers. The value of this mode of multiplying old drawings, letterpress, correct copies of objects of any kind, will be well appreciated by the artist, naturalist, and antiquary. The sensibility of the paper is caused by repeated soaking in a solution of chloride of silver and common salt. Mr Talbot has also discovered that paper prepared with nitrate of silver, iodide of potassium, acetic and gallic acid, will render a perfect picture in twenty or thirty seconds. Taking the Greek word kalos (beautiful), he named his process Calotype; with a view, however, of preserving the name of the inventor, it has since been called Talbotype. When the photographic recipient is taken from the camera, the picture is not visible, but has to be developed by washing with gallo-nitrate of silver, and by heat. The fixing of a Talbotype is accomplished by washing with a solution of bromide of potassium, or by a bath of hyposulphate of soda, or with a strong brine of common salt. So highly sensitive to light is the Calotype paper, that enlarged

It has hitherto been necessary to prepare the plates in the dark, as their sensitiveness would be weakened or destroyed by exposure to light. This precaution may now be dispensed with. The sensitiveness of a plate can be completely restored by exposing it under a red glass for some time before placing it in the camera. This possibility,' observes Mr Claudet,' of preparing plates in open day, offers a great advantage to those who wish to take views or pictures abroad, and who cannot conveniently obtain a dark room. Again, in the case of a plate which has been left too long in the camera obscura, or accidentally exposed to the light, instead of rejecting it, we can restore its sensitiveness by placing it under a red glass. There is still another useful application of this property: if, after one or two minutes' exposure to the mercury, we perceive the image is too rapidly developing, or presenting signs of solarisation, which a practised eye discovers before it is too much advanced, we have only to stop the accumulation of mercury by exposing the plate for a few seconds to the red light, and again place it in the mercury box, to complete the modi

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fications, which give the image all its tones, and the most the blinding sleet blowing full in his face, when he saw favourable tint. In truth we may complete all the ope- those little round red fiery eyes in the ruddy grate, rations of the Daguerreotype in the open air. The which told that they were both watching and keeping exposure under red glass, necessary to destroy the effect the 'pot a-boiling.' Although old John was not a man produced by white light, must be a hundred times longer of many words, he was civil and obliging to all his custhan has been the exposure to white light, that of the tomers; and a strange lot they were at times, consisting orange glass fifty times, and that of the yellow glass only often of the most indifferent characters of both sexes. ten times. Thus a plate exposed to white light for a Sometimes, however, he had a sprinkling of what he second, will be restored to its former sensitiveness in ten called 'bettermost-sort-of-people,' such as returned very seconds by the yellow glass, in fifty by the orange, and in late from the theatres, and preferred walking home to a hundred by the red.' hiring a cab, or of young 'swells,' who stopped to light their cigars, or men whose business on the press detained them late, and others who were compelled to be up and out early-but these were exceptions: his principal patrons belonged to a class who neither 'toiled nor spun.' True, there were the poor cabmen, doomed to be out for the night, and the police, who are forbidden to enter any house to refresh themselves whilst on duty to these, on a bitter winter-night, old John's beverage was indeed acceptable.

Thus we find that every ray has its own peculiar action. "The effect commenced by the blue rays is destroyed by the red and yellow; that which was produced by the red is destroyed by the yellow; the effect of the yellow rays is destroyed by the red; and the effect of the two latter is destroyed by the blue: each radiation destroys the effect of the others.' Mr Claudet is of opinion that the red rays exert an electrical action. From this point of view a wide field is open for investigation, connected, as before observed, with some of the highest questions respecting natural phenomena on which scientific men are now engaged. At all events an ample reward awaits the patient inquirer.

THE FORCE OF HABIT.

BY THOMAS MILLER.

A BRIEF paragraph, announcing the untimely end of the subject of this sketch, went the round of the papers about ten years ago. For the few additional facts woven into the following article I am indebted to a friend, who was well acquainted with the original.

A person must either be out very late or very early before he arrives at a knowledge of half the ways and means of obtaining a livelihood in London-let him search through a long summer-day, and he will never meet with a coffee-stall in the streets, while at midnight scores may be found scattered at the corners of the chief thoroughfares. Under low archways-at the entrance of narrow courts-the foot of the bridges-and even at what in the daytime are the most public and crowded places-may these open-air stalls of refreshment be found, from the midnight hour to the grey dawning in winter, and in summer until about six in the morning. They form a kind of mustering ground, where many wait, from the closing to the opening of thegin palaces' (a period seldom exceeding in some neighbourhoods more than two or three hours), and here they regale themselves with coffee, cakes, and bread and butter, until the doors of the halls of drunkenness are again thrown open. So long as there is no very outrageous disturbance, the police pass on, and allow the sons and daughters of night to congregate around these places by scores. But little capital is required to open one of these establishments-a chair, with an awning large enough to shelter the vender and his table from the wet-a few cups and saucers-milkjug and sugar-basin, with charcoal-pan, kettle, bellows, lantern, and a little coffee, and bread and butter, are all the requisites for a street coffee-stall, many of which have proved most profitable investments.

Near a great central London thoroughfare had old John Nighton stood for above a quarter of a century with his coffee - stall. He began business by selling saloop, a decoction of some kind of sassafras, which, with milk and sugar, formed a welcome beverage for those who could not afford the then costly luxury of coffee. It was not until he had thoroughly established himself, that he ventured to introduce coffee to his superior customers, as he called them, while at the same time he dealt out saloop to the poorer classes; and there is no doubt that he was one of the first who introduced this article amongst his out-of-door customers. Throughout the pleasant nights of summer, and when the winter winds come howling over the bleak bridges, old John was ever to be found at the same spot; and many a belated wanderer smiled, as he came along with

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A man of great conversational powers would never have got on like old John Nighton: his principal observations were confined to 'A cold morning-Thank you -Fourpence, please-Much obliged-Change, sir'and all such little matters as solely appertained to business; for those who assembled around his coffee-stall came only for what they wanted, or to inquire after some one they had appointed to meet there, or to converse with one another. Rumour did say that old Johu was in possession of many secrets, and that rich offers had often been made to him to reveal them; but neither inspector nor sergeant could ever get more out of him than that he had enough to do to mind his own business, and to see that his customers paid for what they took.' No one ever remembered seeing the old man out in the daytime: the light seemed to make him drowsy; and he was always thankful when the days began to shorten. He used to wish that the sun rose and set at six all the year round; for that, he argued, would seem natural. If ever he took a bad shilling, be laid the blame to the daylight, which he said 'dazzled his eyes.' He was never known to be a minute behind his time: as the church clock tolled the hour of midnight, the cart, which he himself drew, was sure to be seen in the old accustomed place. At six in the mornings of summer, and seven in winter, he had packed up, and was gone.

For years he had been his own housekeeper; but as age crept upon him, he employed a charwoman, a sharp-looking, talkative little body, who by degrees began to assist at the coffee-stall, and often brought the old man a little something hot and comfortable about four in the morning. Old John never drank his own coffee; he said it did not agree with him.' In the course of time the little sharp-eyed woman became Mrs Nighton; and it was observed by many that from that period old John never again looked the man that he once did. One winter John caught a severe cold, and for a whole week, for the first time in his life, he was unable to attend to his business. His wife, however, managed to get through it, though not without a great deal of grumbling, besides telling the cus tomers that it was his own fault-that he had quite enough to go into some other line of business, without exposing himself to the cold and the night air any longer. She also got the customers to reason with her husband about the matter; and they did. Her proposition was, to sell the fixtures and good-will of the coffeestall, to take a good-sized house, and furnish it, and let it off into lodgings. There were no end of lodgers, who had known the old man for years, ready to come any day and occupy the apartments. Mrs Nighton was delighted-She had known people make a mint of money in the lodging-house line, and why shouldn't they? After many a growl and deep-meaning shake of the head, the old man at last allowed himself to be over-persuaded, although he said he knew it would come to no good. He asked L.20 for his business, and

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declared that it was worth L.100. One day, whilst he was asleep, his wife sold the fixtures and all for L.10; when he awoke, and began to prepare for the night as usual, cart, kettle, charcoal, and all were gone. There was a noise like subsiding thunder heard for above an hour in the house, and it is said that the old man sat growling in his arm-chair, and smoking his pipe at intervals until daylight; nor could all her persuasions induce him to go to bed until his usual bedtime. I should be dead in a week,' said he, if I broke up my old habits.'

The next day Mrs Nighton took a large twelveroomed house, and having in the course of the week persuaded her husband to allow her to draw a considerable sum out of the savings' bank, it was soon furnished from cellar to attic. Her next step was to procure a thorough' servant; as for lodgers, she had more applications than rooms. The old man never interfered with her arrangements; all he at first did was to steal out in the night, and bemoan the loss of his coffee-stall at the bars of the late night-houses. Sleep he could not, excepting in the daytime; and when he could find no one else to speak to, he accompanied the policemen on their beat, sometimes never once speaking for the hour together. In vain did they tell him that his wife was a sharp, clever woman, and sure to do well-he only shook his head.

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Now Mrs Nighton, with all her apparent cunning and calculation, had her weak points, and prided herself on taking people by their looks.' Old John would have preferred a good reference with his lodgers, but his better-half pooh-poohed;' anybody could get a reference, she said, but an honest-looking face was a gift of nature. She had her own way, and lost by it. Her honest-looking lodgers came and went without paying, and she consoled herself by saying that she knew they would if they could, and that it would be all right enough at last. Wiser people said that it was just what might be expected, and that the riff-raff who wasted their nights in the streets and at coffee-stalls, couldn't be expected to pay for apartments, and that really they could not see of what use lodgings were at all to suchlike people. In fact they paid Mrs Nighton back again in her own coin, and said that she knew they were honest.

Meantime the old man had formed an acquaintance with his successor, and now went out night after night, and hovered like a ghost around his old coffee-stall. To and fro he traversed, almost a shadow of his former self, and sometimes when an order was given, he so far forgot himself as to move forward as if to serve; then he passed his hand across his forehead, shook his head, muttered something to himself, and continued his measured march as usual. One morning, as his successor was packing up, and after John had nodded his goodby,' the old man turned back and said, 'Twenty-five down; come in to-night.' The new occupier replied, No, no; not for double that amount.' John Nighton heaved a deep sigh, and that day could not be persuaded to get up for an hour, as was his general custom at dinner time.

A visible alteration for the worse had already taken place in old John's appearance. His face, which before, through exposure to the wind and weather, looked blue, and purple, and crimson, as if made up of a minglement of all kinds of healthy and lasting colours, now faded into a series of dingy yellows. His clothes, too, which before suited his thick rotundity,' now hung about him in loose disorder, a world too wide for his shrunk' form; and although he went to bed as usual in the morning, the old familiar sleep visited him not. Punctual as the midnight itself, he was ever found at his former post; and for five weeks in succession did he make an advance of five pounds each week on his original offer; but fifty pounds was not sufficient to buy

out the new-comer.

Matters grew worse at the lodging-house. Lodger after lodger decamped; and not satisfied with escaping

rent-free, they carried off all they could lay their hands upon. Bed-ticks were found without feathers; pillows, sheets, and blankets were taken away; the very mantelpieces were plundered of their ornaments: fenders, fire-irons, and hearthrugs vanished as if by magic; and after being pledged, the duplicates were sometimes forwarded to Mrs Nighton, assuring her of their honesty, and promising that they would redeem them as soon as they could. After much 'gnagging and werretting,' she succeeded in driving the old man out in the daytime, giving him strict orders that, if he came in contact with the defaulters, he was at once to call the police and give them in charge. Poor John Nighton! he went out more for the sake of peace and quietness, and to get rid of his wife's incessant clamour, than in the hope of ever retrieving anything from the plunderers.

Behold him at last in the crowded streets of London in the open noon of day! He seemed to wander along like a man in a dream; he was ever running against somebody, then pausing to rub his eyes, and gaze around in astonishment: sometimes he filliped his nose, or pulled his hair, or struck his elbow against the wall, as if doubtful whether he was asleep or not. A dark narrow court was his delight; and where any other person would have been compelled to have groped his way, there he saw all that was going on, and would watch the people passing by for the hour together. His favourite haunt was beneath those gloomy arches on which the Adelphi Terrace is built. He was also often seen to peep down those dark gratings near Waterloo Bridge, where the cellars are five storeys deep. Had he been single, he would have occupied one of these. quiet, and shady,' he used to say; 'a man might sleep there in the daytime.'

Cool,

After many offers to purchase back his old business, all of which were refused, a bright beam of hope at last shot across his mind-it was the last flicker of the flame before it shot up and expired in the darknesshe would set up in opposition to his rival. A few nights after, he was seen stationed at the end of a neighbouring street, at a spot which few people passed in the night. For a whole fortnight he stood his ground manfully, although he was scarcely visited by a single customer; the few who approached only cried shame on him for selling his business, and then attempting to injure the purchaser. Even those who had stolen his goods refused to deal with him, and went so far as to justify their conduct by his own.

On reaching home one morning his wife was missing; and two or three days passed away and no tidings came; but at length a letter arrived stating that her former husband had returned from transportation, and as she always had a liking for him, they had set sail together for America. The little that remained in the savings' bank she had drawn out before her departure, leaving also the half-year's rent, besides a considerable amount of taxes, unpaid. This last blow was too much for the old man: what remained of his goods was seized and sold, and from that hour he went wandering about like a restless spirit during the day, and at night occupied his new position with his coffee-stall at the corner of the court. This lasted but for a few nights; no one came near him saving the policeman, and he once or twice found the old man fast asleep in his chair.

One night they missed him at the 'accustomed place;' inquiries were made at the little house up the court where he lodged: he went out at 'dark-hour,' and had not returned. Tidings came next day that an old man answering to his description had been seen late at night wandering on Blackheath; another day passed without bringing any further rumour of his 'whereabout.'

At length a notice was stuck up at the police station that the body of an old man had been discovered suspended from a beam in a ruinous outhouse near Lewisham. Old John Nighton had hanged himself; he had fulfilled his own prophecy, for from the very night when

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