SHO

TABLE TALK.

THE DEATH OF DESDEMONA.

HOULD Othello, after the revival of the half-murdered Desdemona, stab her with his dagger? The text says no; the actor, in practice at least, says yes. So far as evidence can be trusted, Garrick was the first person to use a dagger for the purpose of slaying Desdemona, but the innovation won immediate acceptance, and every actor since-to Fechter, Mr. Irving, Mr. Edwin Booth, and Signor Salvini-has adopted it. The course has been approved by some even of the commentators. Stevens applauds it; Knight thinks it "most probable" that Othello stabs Desdemona; Collier says, "It may be so." Dr. Horace Howard Furness, the editor of the American Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, of which "Othello," published during the past summer, is the latest volume, opposes it. Before publishing his edition he drew the attention of some of the principal medical men in the United States to the passage in "Othello" referring to the death of Desdemona, and asked what conclusion they formed. In every case except one the decision was that the death was by suffocation, and that no dagger was employed. One medical man, indeed, goes so far as to say positively Desdemona "died of fracture of the cricoid cartilage of the larynx. Shakespeare is entirely consistent, and must have had, as in everything else, an intuitive if not practical knowledge of the subject." Another, without making so positive an assertion, approves of this conclusion. I am not going to uphold this special view of the cause of death. In face, however, of such indications as "I'll not shed her blood," and "Your niece, whose breath indeed these hands have newly stopped," I think it time that the innovation of employing a dagger should be reconsidered by our actors.

I

CHILDREN AND CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.

NOTE with pleasure an attempt to include in elementary educa. tion the lesson of kindness to animals. If I refer continuously to the subject it is because of the elements in national greatness few Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company.

are more important than this. Where, as among the Latin races, no respect is felt for animal life, crimes of cruelty and violence prevail. Where, again, as in Scandinavia, the wild birds will scarcely rise from under your feet, and will all but eat out of the hand of the stranger, such crimes are rare. France is going retrograde in such respects, and is, in spite of protests, allowing the most barbarous of sports to be revived in her midst. An inevitable result of this will be the depravation of her populace, which has always been subject to paroxysms of violence and bloodshed. It is impossible for us in England to dream of the students of our Universities applying to be the executants of a decree of slaughter issued against prisoners for religion. This, however, was done by the students of Toulouse. It is a curious fact that the only northern or quasi-northern race which is still addicted to sports involving extreme cruelty, the Dutch, whose quasi-revolutionary outbreak has attended the effort to stop proceedings of unheard-of brutality, is also the only northern people under the ban, justly or unjustly borne, of extreme cruelty. I am aware that English sport is cruel enough, and that while such things as pigeon-shooting are tolerated or practised by our upper classes it sounds hypocritical to censure other nations. Public sentiment, in England, however, is against brutality in sport, and the things of which complaint is made will soon belong to the past. Meantime, of all movements that have come under my observation that started by the so-called "Dicky Bird" Society of Newcastle-on-Tyne, which seeks to make children the protectors of birds instead of the assailants, and so establish the theory of kindness to animals even from infancy, is the most promising.

A NATIONAL ACADEMY OF Art.

NGLAND has no National Academy of Art. The uses of Academies have been questioned, and their conduct in every country in which they have been adopted has been challenged. It is well known that the most brilliant Frenchmen, from Molière to Gautier, were never admitted among the august forty constituting the great literary Academy of France, witness the brilliant victory of the forty-first or unoccupied fauteuil of that body. In modern days, however, the cry for English Academies of Art has been frequently heard. Now, whatever may be the advantages or disadvantages of academies, it is at least certain that it is worse than useless to have what is accepted as a national academy and is not. In answer to the proposals of reformation which have been addressed to it the Royal

Academy has always replied that it is a private institution, existing for the benefit of its members. Some of the more distinguished academicians are in favour of limiting the space assigned to themselves, and then making room for more outsiders. Private interest, however, and the inertia characterising most long-established bodies, have resisted all movement from within as well as all appeal from without, and every academician, regardless of the fact of obvious servility, is allowed to place his eight works "upon the line."

THE LATEST PROTEST AGAINST THE EXISTING ACADEMY.

THE

HE proper answer to this state of affairs is the establishment, as has been suggested, by Messrs. Walter Crane, G. Clausen, and Holman Hunt, of a National Exhibition of Art in England, "which should be conducted by artists on the broadest and fairest lines-in which no artist should have rights of place; and all works should be chosen by a jury selected by and from all artists in the kingdom." The greatest obstacle to this scheme is the existence of the Royal Academy itself, which confers upon a large number of artists privileges social and pecuniary, few of them will care to forego. It is, of course, possible, and it certainly would be expedient, for the Royal Academy to concur in such a scheme, and even to take the initiative. This, however, is little probable. The Academy itself has never arrogated to itself any national character. The public, however, insists upon regarding the exhibition as national, and the diploma which its members exhibit in the letters added to their name has the value of a national distinction. The first step to the formation of an institution such as is proposed would diminish the prestige of the Royal Academy, and there is no reason to doubt that the most active and distinguished of the academicians would soon take part in such a movement when once set afoot. As for the tail, this might be left to follow in its proper place behind.

SYLVANUS URBAN.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

I

OCTOBER 1886.

MR. CARTON'S WILL.

BY W. H. STACPOOLE.

PART I.

WAS breakfasting one morning in the beginning of April 187-, at my lodgings in 54 Doughty Street, when the door of my sitting-room opened suddenly, and a beautiful fair-haired girl of about twenty-two, who was the only child of the landlady, rushed into the room, crying:

"Oh, Arthur, for mercy's sake come downstairs-something dreadful has happened!"

Louisa Grahame and I were secretly engaged to be married as soon as I should have passed my final examination at the College of Surgeons, a fact which, together with her excitement, will account for the abrupt manner in which she entered my room.

"What is it?" I said, getting up from the table.

66 Oh, Jane could not get any answer at Mr. Carton's door, so she told me, and I have been knocking at his door for the last five minutes, and there's not a sound in the room. I'm so terrified. Do for goodness' sake come down ; I'm afraid of my life to tell mamma.” "Are you sure he was at home last night?" I asked.

"Certain," replied Miss Grahame; "he sent Jane out to post a letter at ten o'clock, and told her to bring up his hot water at nine o'clock this morning."

Mr. Carton, who was the only other lodger in the house at the time except myself, was a retired official of the Bank of England, who had been lodging with Mrs. Grahame, the widow of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, for nearly seventeen years-in fact, ever since she had come to the house after her husband's death. He was an extremely VOL, CCLXI. NO. 1870.

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reserved man, nearly seventy years of age, and had the reputation of having made a large fortune during the railway mania.

I followed Miss Grahame down to the door of his bedroom, which was on the first floor. After I had knocked several times without getting any answer, I looked through the key-hole, and saw that the room inside was in total darkness.

"He is either in a fit or dead," I said to myself, so I put my shoulder to the door, and with one strong effort sent it flying in on its hinges. Having drawn the curtains aside, and opened the shutters, I looked at the bed. A glance told me that Mr. Carton had been dead for several hours. When I had drawn the sheet over the face of the corpse, I came out of the room and broke the news as gently as I could to Miss Grahame, who was waiting for me on the landing. She was naturally very much shocked, and, at her earnest request, I went downstairs with her to tell her mother what had happened. Mrs. Grahame was a very delicate nervous woman, and for some time she seemed perfectly stunned with the intelligence. As soon, however, as she had recovered herself a little, I ventured to tell her that she ought to communicate at once with the relatives of the deceased man.

"But I don't know who they are, or whether he had any," she answered. "He has had very few people to visit him, and I never heard him speak of any relative."

"Then you ought to communicate with the Bank of England. They are sure to know something about him there," I replied. "In the meantime, I must get in Dr. Power to see if he can certify as to the cause of death; I shall go to Russell Square and see if he is at home.”

I went upstairs to get my hat, and, when I came down, Miss Grahame came with me to the hall-door. After saying a few words to comfort her, for she was very much grieved, I opened the door and found myself face to face with a tall grey-haired man, who was in the act of stretching out his hand to reach the knocker. He looked askant at me as I stepped out of the house, and, knowing that poor Miss Grahame, who was standing behind me, was not in a fit state to hold parley with strangers, I at once asked him if he wished to see anyone.

"Yes," he replied in a very polite tone, "I would like to see Mr. Carton."

"Mr. Carton !" I could not help exclaiming, while Miss Grahame hid her face in her handkerchief, and began to sob afresh. "Will you walk in, sir," I continued, after a moment's pause. We went