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called Mutries Hill. He made directly for the fugitive, thinking to overtake him almost before he could reach the bridge. But what was his surprise, when, in a moment, the flying object vanished from his sight, as if it had sunk into the ground, and left him alone and objectless in his headlong pursuit. It was possible that it had fallen into some concealed well or pit, but this he was never able to discover. Bewildered and confused, he at length returned to the provost's house, and re-entered the apartment of the sick maiden. To his delight and astonishment, he found her already in a state of visible convalescence, with a gradually deepening glow of health diffusing itself over her cheek. Whether his courage and fidelity had been the means of scaring away the evil demon, it is impossible to say; but certain it is, that the ravages of the plague began soon afterwards to decline in Edinburgh, and at length died away altogether.

The conclusion of this singular traditionary story bears, that the provost's daughter, being completely restored to health, was married to the foreigner who had saved her life. This seems to have been the result of an affection which they had conceived for each other during the period of her convalescence. The African, becoming joint-heir with his wife of the provost's vast property, abandoned his former piratical life; became, it is said, a douce Presbyterian; and settled down for the remainder of his days in Edinburgh. The match turned out exceedingly well; and it is even said that the foreigner became so assimilated with the people of Edinburgh, to whom he had proved so memorable a benefactor, that he held at one time an office of considerable civic dignity and importance. Certain it is, that he built for his residence a magnificent land near the head of the Canongate, upon the front of which he caused to be erected a statue of the emperor of Barbary, in testimony of the respect he still cherished for his native country; and this memorial yet remains in its original niche, as a subsidiary proof of the verity of the above relation.

VICTIM S.

VICTIMS are persons who have dropped out of the ranks of society, and become a prey to fortune. There are tasks which philosophers apply to, less worthy of them than might be an inquiry into the various causes which degrade men from their place in society. Some are vicious and imprudent, which of course are causes of very direct operation; but there is also an immense number whose decline is strictly the effect of that for which they cannot be blamed-want of the intellect and courage necessary for the place to which they were born. A certain quality, called by the common world softness, but which a metaphysician would trace to weak judgment, excessive kindness of disposition, and want of ambition and self-love, brings about a great number of bankruptcies in the mercantile world, and causes many a youth to forfeit commissions and appointments obtained for him by friends, even where there has been little to find fault with in the moral life. We must remember that this is a very artificial kind of world which prevails now-a-days: every individual is not to be expected to be suitable for a system. In the pastoral stage, all can make a certain livelihood, for all can tend sheep and cattle; but all are not calculated to adapt themselves to the many nice requirements of a mechanical era, such as is now passing. Hence victims are in some measure an unavoidable result of our social condition. The men, baffled in one thing, might go a step lower and try another; but we very well know that all men cannot do so, however much they ought.

There is, nevertheless, generally an element of bad conduct in the lives of victims. If their first decline is not the result of any such cause, they are sure to go wrong in some way before they are allowed by friends to attain the ripeness of the character. And for such errant

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behaviour there is usually but too much temptation or stimulus in the unpleasant circumstances in which they are placed. Friends, too, perhaps, are not always suffi ciently forbearing. It is, unluckily, so very easy to pick holes in the doublets of unfortunate men. A rejected advice is enough to set off a rich uncle any day. Others, it must be owned, are more lenient, and stick longer. Still, one way or another, men out of suits with fortune are extremely apt to be thrown off the right balance. And it is only then that victimhood commences, or can commence. So long as there is self-respect, it may be considered as almost impossible. This recalls to mind that married men are far less liable to victimisation than single. The wife is a conservative being. A family system goes on by its greater weight, where a bachelor's establishment stands still. There is more to struggle for against misfortune, and considerations of wife and small children bring many well-wishers and supporters. Ergo, a married man must be a considerably worse man before he victimises than a single one needs to be.

After the first decided step towards disrespectability, the incipient victim may for some time keep up appearances in a small degree. He may venture to appear on the principal thoroughfares in the evening, or in a crowd going to church; and if you meet him, he shakes you off a remarkably good-humoured nod from one side of his head, as if there had been nothing the matter with him. But by and by, this last shred of privilege leaves him, and he becomes condemned to the back streets and the shabbiest parts of the town. He is now found wearing white hats when all other people are wearing black ones, indulging in obsolete fashions of coats, and adopting a strange habit of carrying one of his gloves in his hand, even in cold weather. In time, the apparel gets worn-threadbare-slit-torn-patched-darned-let ink, thread, and judicious arrangement of person, do their best. He begins to wear a suspicious amount of whity - brown linen in the way of cravat. Collars fail. Frills retire. The vest is closed to the uppermost button, or even

with a supplementary pin-a pin, in some circumstances, is the most squalid of all objects-at top. Still, at this period, he tries to carry a jaunty, genteel air; he has not yet all forgot himself to rags. But, see, the buttons begin to shew something like new moons at one side; these moons become full; they change; and then the button is only a little wisp of thread and rags, deprived of all retention over button - hole. His watch has long been gone to supply the current wants of the day. The vest by and by retires from business, and the coat is buttoned up to the chin. About this period, he perhaps appears in a pair of nankeen trousers, which, notwithstanding the coldness of the weather, he tries to sport in an easy, genteel fashion, as if it were his taste, If you meet him at this time, and inquire how he is getting on the world, he speaks very confidently of some excellent situation he has a prospect of, which will make him better than ever; it is perhaps to superintend a large new blacking manufactory which is to be set up, and for which two acres of stone-bottles, ten fect deep, have already been collected from all the lumbercellars in the country- quite a nice easy business; nothing to do but collect the orders and see them executed; good salary, free house, coal, candle, and blacking; save a pound a year on the article of blacking alone. At length - but not perhaps till two or three years have elapsed-he becomes that lamentable picture of wretchedness which is his ultimate destiny; a mere pile of clothes without pile-a deplorable—a victim.

Mr John Kier was at one time, to all appearance, a respectable nursery and seedsman in Edinburgh. He seemed an unusually smart and active man, and therefore well qualified to make his way in life. I well remember with what an almost magical degree of celerity he could tie up little parcels of seeds. The eye nearly lost sight of his fingers, as it ceases to individualise the spokes of a wheel which is turned with great rapidity. Kier was the inventor of a curious tall engine, with a peculiar pair of scissors at top, for cutting fruit off trees.

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This he sent through the principal streets every day with one of his boys, who was instructed to draw the string every now and then, so as to make the scissors close sharply. The boy would watch his men-broad-skirted men with top-boots-and, gliding in before them, would make the thing clip. Boy, boy, the stranger would cry, 'what's that? The boy would explain; the interrogator would be delighted with the idea of cutting down any particular apple he chose out of a thickly-laden and unapproachable tree; and after that, nothing more was required than to give him the card of the shop. Unfortunately, Kier, with all his cleverness, was wanting in steady habits. This, with defective capital, ruined his business prospects. He failed-tried in vain to get a situation as traveller, clerk, or even shopman-and erelong sunk into victimhood. After losing sight of him for two or three years, I one day met him on a road a little way out of town. He wore a coat buttoned to the chin, and which, being also very long in the breast, according to a fashion which obtained about the year 1813, seemed to enclose his whole trunk from neck to groin. With the usual cataract of cravat, he wore a hat of uncommonly melancholy aspect. His face was inflamed and agitated; and as he walked, he swung out his arms with a strange emphatic expression, as if he were saying: 'I am an ill-used man; I shall tell it to the world.' Misery had evidently given him a slight craze, as it often does. Some time afterwards, I saw him a little revivified through the influence of a somewhat better coat, and he seemed, from a small leathern parcel which he bore under his arm, to be engaged in some small agency. But this was a mere flash before expiration. He relapsed to rags and to wretchedness, and finally disappeared, and was

seen no more.

Looking at victims as they appear in their daily walk, it is difficult to imagine how they obtain the means of livelihood. They hang much about taverns in the outskirts of the town. Perhaps a decent man from Penicuik, with the honest rustic name of Walter VOL. VI.

J

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