often censured the tenacity with which he you or myself to this painful position. I held to office, and inveighed against the want to part good friends with you; and if spectacle of an old and feeble man in the there may have been anything in my disdischarge of laborious and severe duties, course worth carrying away, I would not were now obliged to own that his speech willingly associate it with weariness at the was vigorous and eloquent; and though last. And yet I am very loth to say goodallusion had been faintly male in the ad- bye. Authors are, par excellence, buttondress to the high honour to which the Crown holders, and they cannot relinquish their had desired to advance him and the splen- grasp on the victim whose lapel they have did reward which was placed within his caught. Now I would like to tell you of reach, yet, with a marked delicacy, had he that wedding at the Swan's Nest. You'd forborne from any reference to this passage read it if in the Morning Post,' but I'm other than his thankfulness at being so far afraid you'd skip it from me. I'd like to restored to health that he could come back recount the events of that breakfast, the again to those functions, the discharge of present Sir Brook made the bride, and the which formed the pride and the happiness charming little speech with which the Chief of his life. proposed her health. I'd like to describe to you the uproar and joyous confusion when Tom, whose costume bore little trace of a wedding garment, fought his way through the servants into the breakfast-room.

"Never," said the journal which was once his most bitter opponent, "has the Chief Baron exhibited his unquestionable powers of thought and expression more favourably than on this occasion. There were no artifices of rhetoric, no tricks of phrase, none of those conceits by which so often he used to mar the wisdom of his very finest displays; he was natural for once, and they who listered to him might well have regretted that it was not in this mood he had always spoken. Si sic omnia and the press had never registered his defects nor railed at his vanities.

"The celebrated Sir Brook Fossbrooke, so notorious in the palmy days of the Regency, sat on the bench beside his lordship, and received a very flattering share of the cheers which greeted the party as they drove away to Killaloe, to be present at the wedding of Miss Lendrick, which takes place to-morrow."

Much-valued reader, has it ever occurred to you towards the close of a long, possibly not very interesting, discourse, to experience a sort of irreverent impatience when the preacher, appearing to take what rowing men call "second wind," starts off afresh, and seems to threaten you with fully the equal of what he has already given? At such a moment it is far from unlikely that all the best teachings of that sermon are not producing upon you their full effect of edification, and that, even as you sat, you meditated ignoble thoughts of stealing

away.

I am far from desiring to expose either

And I'd like to grow moral and descriptive, and a bit pathetic perhaps, over the parting between Lucy and her father; and, last of all, I'd like to add a few words about him who gives his name to this story, and tell how he set off once more on his wanderings, no one well knowing whither bent, but how, on reaching Boulogne, he saw from the steamer's deck, as he landed, the portly figure of Lady Lendrick walking beside her beautiful daughter-in-law, Sewell bringing up the rear, with a little child holding his hand on either side a sweet picture, combining, to Boulogne appreciation, the united charm of fashion, beauty, and domestic felicity; and finally, how, stealing by back streets to the hotel where these people stopped, he deposited to their address a some what weighty packet, which made them all very happy, or at least very merry, that evening as they opened it, and induced Sewell to order a bottle of Cliquot, if not, as he said, "to drink the old buck's health," at least to wish him many returns of the same good dispositions of that morning.

If, however, you are disposed to accept the will for the deed, I need say no more. They who have deserved some share of happiness in this tale are likely to have it. They who have little merited will have to meet a world which, neither over cruel nor over generous, has a rough justice that generally gives people their deserts.

From the Examiner. | Philippon's print-shop in the Place de la Bourse. Therewith he made such an impression on the dealer that Philippon called on Doré's father, and completed his conversion to the opinion that his son had a genius by which he could earn his bread more surely than in any of the more customary ways. Philippon, who soon afterwards started the Journal pour Rire, undertook to buy as many sketches as the boy was able to supply. So Gustave Doré was left in Paris, before he was fifteen years old, beginning business as an artist, and working with such industry that he produced more than a thousand sketches in the next three years. He was left in Paris, however, on the condition that he should attend at the Lycée to complete his education. This he did, and he assented afterwards to the urgent representations of Philippon · Camacho's and other friends, that he should not be content with living by his pencil, but pass as an art student through accurate training in use of the palette and brush.

book is for new France with all its jesting, a stern satire upon military justice. Captain Castagnette, in the wars of Napoleon, lost limb after limb, and had them replaced by artificial substitutes. A bombshell lodged in the small of his back was left there because its extraction would be dangerous, and so at last, when he went to sleep before the fire and got his wooden leg unconsciously among the embers, his artificial limbs began to burn without awaking him until the fire came to the bombshell, which exploded, and allowed him no time to collect himself. In the series of whimsical pictures which illustrate such a story are two or three, showing the captain's experiences during the retreat from Moscow, which have a terrible earnestness. A skeleton face grins by the roadside from out of the fripping of the bussar's cap and coat, while, escorted by wolves and pursued by crows that even settle on their bayonets, the captain on his wooden legs and two or three comrades with their faces wrapped in their cloaks as protection from the frost and from the crows who will not wait till they are dead, plod wearily through the snow. One has sunk upon his knees, and the crows are already plucking at his covered face. The next picture realizes the glory of a heap of dead and dying on the battle-fi ld. In the next, over dead and dying, an eagle - it may be the eagle of France - claws a tattered standard, and is battling against other birds of prey. wonder that a genius at heart so earnest, with so rare a sense of the sublime, has drawn themes from the Scripture story, and from Dante and from Milton, and has fastened eagerly upon the humour of a Rabelais and a Cervantes. Dore's Milton' is to be one of the gift-books of the coming Christmas season, and he has also illustrated for us a forthcoming edition of Tennyson's Idylls of the King.'

published by Messrs. Mame and son, of that we commend to all who are in search of Tours, and now in course of reproduction, Christmas gift-books for the young. The as the most magnificent of English illustrated Bibles, also by Messrs. Cassell and Co., who have taken a place of great honOur as publishers by the thorough zeal and efficiency of their labour for the naturalizing of Dore's genius among Englishmen. The work is worthy of a publishing house distinguished by many years of successful labour for the diffusion of sound literature among the people. Goldsmith, Bunyan; a cheap and exceedingly good illustrated and annotated Bible of their own, widely dispersed through the country; cheap popular illustrated journals, all of the wholesomest, and one, the Quiver, distinctly religious; indicate the direction in which this firm has been labouring strenuously, and not without the merited success. It is incidental illustration of the essential earnestness of Gustave Doré's genius, that he should have been fastened upon, with an evident enthusiasm, by such a firm as this. And these English publishers are right. We leave out of account all academic shrugs at the audacities of Doré's genius, all depreciatory suggestions that he is not a great painter, but a draughtsman in whom genius overrides much evident want of knowledge, or that there is a strong family likeness between many of his pictures. For that matter we are glad to admit that there is a strong family likeness among them all. The stamp of his individual genius is upon every one. Good and less good, all are distinctly his, and the effect of their wide diffusion and extended popularity in England will be to strengthen the sense, too weak in this country, of the difference between true genius and smooth conventional dexterity. France is full of effective cleverness with pencil and with pen. This French instinct for effect, Doré no doubt has; but with him all faculties of mind, the very soul itself, are felt to be as much concerned in his work as the hand and eye. His popularity in England may be greater than elsewhere, for of the essence of the English character is the profound earnestness that underlies a wholesome sense of the ridiculous. It is not in Gustave Doré to be merely frivolous.

Take, for example, one of the most extravagantly whimsical and playful of his lesser works, his illustrations to the study of that new military Munchausen, Captain Castagnette. They have been published, with a translation of the story to which they belong, as a cheap illustrated book

*The Authentic History of Captain Castagnette, Nephew of the Man with the Wooden Head. From

No

So much of Doré generally. We shall return to him for more particular discussion of those of his works which have been, or are being, published in England, and begin with the English edition of his Dante and the English Don Quixote, which has been appearing in monthly parts with Dore's illustrations, and was last week issued complete in a massive volume. This book, at its price of thirty shillings, cannot fail to be one of the cheapest, as assuredly it is also one of the best, gift-books of this or any the French of Manuel. Illustrated with Forty Three Pictures by Gustav Doré. Beeton.

year. One note upon a mere mechanical this stock about 12 per cent. is slaughtered detail we would make of the Don Quixote yearly. If any use has been made of the now, when it may not be too late for its meat it has been by the conversion of it publishers to correct the oversight. For into jerked beef or "charqué." Much of issue in parts an even distribution of the this is exported to Brazil and Havana, is large plates was desirable, but in binding the staple food of the negroes, and is a the book the plates should be opposite the great favourite. But whether it was impages to which they refer. If all the copies properly prepared, or naturally distasteful are bound like the one sent to us, even to Europeans, the charqué that was sent to distribution of the plates is obtained at the England was ill received, and all attempts expense of the reader's comfort and con- to introduce it proved a failure. Mr. Ford venience. Such disorder as the placing of understands that if it had been shipped in the illustration to page 632 opposite page a wet state and well stowed it would have 578 is rather the rule than the exception. been perfectly sound on its arrival. He To place the pictures rightly would cause admits, however, that cheap and wholesome unevenness in the distribution, but it would as it may be, its mode of preparation deshow more distinctly with what mind the prives it of much nutritive property. The artist read the book, and cause his in- meat is cut into thin slices, immersed in terpretations to blend with the text as strong brine, and laid down in salt for two readily as they should blend with it for days; but one of the results of this is that the quickening reader's apprehension and the brine absorbs much nutriment, and by enjoyment. Most pictures in books are mere the time the salt has penetrated to the dead weight upon the reader's fancy, and centre of the slice the outward parts are the farther they are removed from the almost destroyed by excess of salting. The text they spoil the better for us. But it is processes which have succeeded to this are not so with Doré. It is much to say, but it those of Mr. John Morgan, Baron Liebig, is true, that Doré, in his own way, is not a and Messrs. Paris and Sloper, and each one man of less genius than Cervantes. in its way has proved more or less successful.

From the Economist.

SOUTH AMERICAN MEAT.

THE question of meat supplies becomes so pressing, and the price of those which are accessible rises so rapidly, that we cannot wonder at the formation of more than one company to utilise the flesh of the South American cattle that have hitherto been slaughtered for their hides_alone. A report has been made to the Foreign Office on three methods adopted by as many companies, and we propose to summarise these methods for our readers. Mr. Ford, the writer of the report, says that the superabundance of meat produced in the rich pasture lands watered by the River Plate and its tributaries is such that even now first-rate joints are sold at Buenos Ayres by the piece and not by weight, a leg of mutton costing 10d or 1s, and beef being comparatively cheaper. From the number of hides and the amount of wool exported last year, he calculates that there must be a stock of twenty-two million cattle and thirty-five million sheep in the countries bordering the River Plate, and of

Mr. Morgan's process, which has been patented and is worked by a company, is based on forced infiltration and is extremely simple. It acts by the adoption of the circulatory system as a means for introducing brine into the tissues, and in this way it demands little labour and inexpensive machinery. "The animal, if a sheep, is killed by a blow on the head; if an ox, by the insertion of the point of a knife at the back of the head, which severs the spinal cord and causes instantaneous death. The chest is then sawn open, and kept so by a cross-piece of wood, and the heart is exposed. An incision is made in the right ventricle and another in the left, the blood being allowed to escape; when it has ceased flowing, a pipe with a stopcock is introduced into the incision in the left ventricle of the heart, and so into the aorta or great vessel leading through the body, and is there firmly retained. pipe is connected by a gutta percha flexible tube to a barrel containing the fluid to be injected, which is composed of water and salt (one gallon of brine to the cwt) and a quarter to half a pound of nitre, carefully refined, and fixed, at an altitude of from 18 to 20 feet. The briny fluid being let on rushes out at the right side of the heart, after traversing all the circulatory organs, clearing the vessels and capillaries, and

This

preparing the body for the second stage, and 1 lb of essence will make soup for 128 which is performed by closing the incision men. Eight small tins hold the concenin the right side of the heart with a sliding trated alimentary matter of an entire ox, forceps, and thereby rendering the circu- and will make more than 1,000 basins of latory system perfect, with the vessels free good strong soup. A tin containing 1 lb and ready to receive the perservative fluid. of the essence can be sold for 12s 6d in A few seconds suffice for the brine to infuse London, and we may add from our own the whole body, when by cutting the ear or experience is sold for 18s. hoof of the animal, a stream of clear pure brine, untainted by a single particle of blood, will instantly be seen to flow." An ox can be preserved in ten minutes, and a sheep in less time, while by mixing phosphoric acid in the fluid to be injected, antiscorbutics can be added to the flesh, while the natural juices are retained. Operations were commenced in the month of May last year, and since then 500,000 lbs have been shipped to Liverpool, being sold at 4d a lb, and eagerly purchased. Still it is reckoned that at present this price is barely remunerative, owing to the heavy expenses attendant on the establishment of a new business. A suggestion has, however, been made by the local manager of having vessels fitted up for the express purpose of meat transport, so as to save the barrels which now form the heaviest item. If this is done, and the working placed on a sound basis, it is thought the present price will leave a fair profit..

Baron Liebig's process differs from that of Mr. Morgan, as the meat instead of being preserved whole is reduced to an essence. After the animal has been killed, the flesh is left to cool for twenty-four hours; it is then placed in round iron rollers with points inside, which are turned by steam, and reduce the meat to a pulp. The pulp is thrown into a large vat of water and steamed for an hour. It is then passed into a trough-shaped reservoir with a sieve at the bottom, and the gravy oozes through this into another vat, where the fat is drawn off. Now the pure gravy is put in open vats supplied with steam pipes and with bellows on the surface, which produce a blast so as to assist evaporation and prevent condensation. After six or eight hours of this process the stuff is passed into a filtering vat, out of which it emerges in the form of extract of meat, and is ready to be packed in tins. It partially hardens when cool, but is still in too fluid a state to be used except as stock. But as stock it has peculiar excellence: the bulk is small, which adapts it for military or naval use; and its purity and absence from grease fit it for hospitals or invalids. Its strength may be estimated from the fact that 33 lbs of meat form 1 lb of essence,

The remaining process is that of Messrs. Paris and Sloper, by which the meat is to arrive in England in the exact condition of fresh killed butchers' meat, and at a price which would make an English butcher kill himself. The method adopted is the destruction of oxygen in the vessel where the meat is packed; all bone is extracted from the meat, but the fat is left. 66 From the tins in which it is placed the air is exhausted by means of water forced in at the bottom, which, when it reaches the top, is allowed to redescend and run off, and the vacuum thus left is filled from above by a certain gas, the composition of which is kept a profound secret. The two holes at top and bottom are carefully soldered down, and the meat is then ready for exportation. The only risk it runs is from leakage, the smallest opening in the tin case proving destructive, by allowing the gas to escape and the air to get in." Samples of beef thus preserved were taken out from England, and on being tasted by members of the Argentine Government were declared quite the same as freshly killed meat. A dinner was also given in London the other day with much the same result. And as this meat too is to be sold at 4d to 5d per lb, the effect of throwing open such a market to the English poor will be inappreciable. Each of the processes seems to have its peculiar advantages, each being addressed to one class more than another. Of course Baron Liebig's process has its especial public, while the methods of Mr. Morgan and Messrs. Paris and Sloper are more fit for the general community. But the want of invalids and armies on the march is for something strong and portable, and with the existing scarcity of food it is not easy to provide what is comparatively a luxury, though to those who use it it is a necessity. Meat itself we fear threatens to become a luxury where it has been a necessity, and it will soon be impossible to keep up the proper supply of food for all classes, if even those who are in comfortable circumstances have to expect a deficiency. If the process of Messrs. Paris and Sloper succeeds, there can be little doubt that some reduction in price may be forced upon our butchers. It has