CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF "CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,"

NUMBER 437.

EYE HINTS.

Ir is remarkable how small a peculiarity in form, posture, or arrangement, suffices to give us a general idea of an entire object, and not only of that, but of many things and conditions relative to it. In a popular book of travels we are presented with a plate, representing the lower part of a pair of limbs projected through a window into the open air; and from that fragment of a gentleman, we can in an instant form an idea of the attitude, bodily and mental, of the whole man. He is a jolly Carolinian, sitting on a rocking-chair, smoking his pipe, and conscious of nothing but the pleasant sensations which follow a good dinner. We are often reminded of this whimsical engraving, as we daily pass one of the club-houses. There, within a window through which one can see from the street, is generally to be seen some snatch of a human figure. Very frequently the object seen is the back part of a head, the owner of which has come to the light to read the newspapers. One just catches a bald crown, below that some short grey hair, and below that again some very red layers of neck. Nothing else is needed. It is a country gentleman of course; one who has been familiar with good port for half a century. Being now temporarily in town, he has called to have his daily spell of the Post or Chronicle, as it may be. Such an object is at once recognised as characteristic of the place, and quite suitable to it. And though the whole man were standing before one, one could not see him more palpably.

The least hint, indeed, suffices. Hence it is quite possible, in casting one's eye along a crowded street, to point out all the proud people within a quarter of a mile, at least all those who are walking away from the position of the spectator. Mark where you .see much of the crown of a hat. Wherever that is the case, and the individual is receding, you have a proud man; for, in walking, such men throw back the head, and that enables any one behind to see a good deal of the crown. On the other hand, when much of the crown of an approaching hat is seen, the probability is, that the owner is a studious, or bashful man, or one who feels that he has little reason to expect much courteous regard from his fellow-men. One only source of fallacy besets our outlook for proud

men.

There are a few old gentlemen, very generally belonging to one of the learned professions, who, in consequence of sedentary life, and through other causes, have become very corpulent in front; by reason of which peculiarity, they are obliged to keep their heads pretty well back. It is just possible that a crown of a hat brought much into view behind, may belong to some such person. This, however, is only an exception from a rule which will generally be found to hold good.

When a lady and gentleman are seen walking together, no person of average acuteness of intellect can be at a loss to distinguish whether they are married persons or not. There is a well-known pair of prints, common in wayside country houses, professing to represent Courtship and Matrimony. In "Courtship," a gentleman is seen displaying great attention to a lady, in helping her over a stile, which she seems at ro loss to mount unassisted. In "Matrimony," the same lady is seen attempting with some difficulty to get over the same stile, while the gentleman, already past, is walking coolly and unheedingly on in front. The design of this print has always appeared to us a shameful libel on matrimony. We truly believe the conduct of the gentleman to be capable of explanation. The thing is this. In the first print, he was full of solicitude and anxiety, as all persons who have not the good fortune to be married must be; and this solici

SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1840.

tude made him fussily eager to help the lady where
she did not need help. By the time, however, that
we have him in the second print, he has been made
as happy as man can be. His mind has been brought
into a state of delightful calm, so much so as to amount
to abstraction. So completely has he been rapt by his
happy sensations away from all common thoughts, that
he has forgot the very person who has been the occasion
of all his felicity. But this obliviousness, judged in a
liberal sense, is just the highest compliment he could
pay to his wife. So, in the ordinary paths of the
world, when a lady and gentleman are seen walking
together, if you observe in the latter an air of undue
solicitude about his companion; if he inclines much
towards her, and seems over-polite; and if she, on the
other hand, looks a little flurried and frivolous, and
appears far more interested about the way her reticule
hangs than there is any occasion for; then know that
these are unmarried parties. But if the gentleman
and lady walk on quietly arm in arm together, both
quite upright, and just behaving as a lady and gentle-
man in their sober senses ought to do, then believe
that these persons are married; for now, with both,
all anxiety is past, the days of frivolity and fuss have
been succeeded by a lady-and-gentlemanlike style of
happiness, and all is contentment and peace.

If you observe a pair, who are obviously from such ap-
pearances inarried, entering their dwelling, and should
you wish to know whether they have any children,
cast a glance at the windows; and if you see a little
dog sitting wagging his tail at one, and a macaw
chattering on his beam at another, you will be safest
to conclude in the negative. But should you perceive
no such objects, not even a few flower-pots on the
balcony at the drawing-room windows, and, looking
a little higher, see two windows with wooden bars
across them, you may be as sure there are children in
the case, as if you saw the chubby rogues staring
through the panes, or heard their merry shout as
papa and mamma enter.

The world is familiar with the story of the physician who concluded that his patient had been eating oysters from seeing some shells of that species of the testacea under the bed, and how finely this surmise was commented on by his apprentice, who, going to another patient, and observing a saddle under the bed, came home and reported that the man must have lately eaten a horse. In the case of the oysters, it must be owned that possibly the patient had not been eating any such thing; yet a strict regard to the principles of reasoning obliges us to believe that it was much more likely that oysters had been gobbled in the one case, than that a courser had been bolted in the other. To be very candid, there might be some rashness in the physician's conclusion. The oysters might have been eaten by some other member of the family. Yet, after all, it was not unlikely that they had formed a regale to the patient himself. We know very well that from similar evidence conclusions are come to every day in the world. Old Mr Towser, of a certain town in the west of England, had a large dog remarkably like himself, and which was intimately associated by every body with the idea of his own figure. Whenever this animal was seen at the door of the Bridgewater, did any passer by ever presume to doubt that Mr Towser was sitting in his ordinary seat at the bar fireside, taking his glass of brandy and water? Convictions from such symptoms come upon one intuitively, and are irresistible. Supposing that Mr Towser had been accused of having committed a murder about the same hour when his dog was seen at the door of the Bridgewater, scarcely any one, out of all who had seen the animal there, could have hesi

PRICE THREE HALFPENCE.

tated to swear an alibi in his favour. It is possible they might have been wrong. Pyramus was so when he accepted the veil of Thisbe as a proof that she had been devoured by the lion. But the readiness with which people act on such hints is a powerful proof of the aptitude to receive and make inferences from them.

The human figure is at an average five and a half feet. Now, supposing that, in a darkened room bordering on some well-frequented thoroughfare, a tube of certain dimensions were so arranged as to allow of our only commanding the lowermost six inches, or one-eleventh, of the persons of all who passed. We aver that, in such circumstances, it would be possible to know a very great deal of the general figure and character of those who might pass in review. It would not be merely the old story of guessing a Hercules from a large foot, but much of the general condition of individuals might be predicated from that small portion of the figure. For example, if you saw a pair of feet come up, ensconced within a very nicely made and nicely brushed pair of boots, with deep tapering heels, pointed toes, and blue trousers with braided scams, neatly cut and strapped so as to apply very exactly to the boots, you could entertain no doubt

that the owner of these said feet was some officer of the dragoon regiment lying in the barracks, an indefatigable forenoon promenader, a haunter of all possible balls, and a decided lady-killer. Suppose you next observed a pair, sunk in loose-mouthed shoes tied with thongs, and connected with a pair of thin legs, wearing black worsted stockings, and of which even the four inches exposed to view manifest an inclination forwards of at least ten degrees, you could not doubt that you saw the basement of an old man who acts in some such capacity as that of verger, or a winder-up of city clocks, or a recorder of mortality, and the rest of whose habiliments consist of a rusty black coat of antique wideness of sweep, a deep vest, and a pair of equally black and rusty nondescripts, tied with black worsted tape at the knee. Suddenly come upon you a pair of something in white silk stockings and pale-coloured jane boots, with a very small vision of ankle above, and then the bottom of a silk pelisse: you know in a moment from the twitter of those pretty feet, their cut and dress, and the light yet firm hold which they take of the ground, that the owner is a decidedly smart young lady, whom the officer before mentioned surveyed very critically a minute ago as he passed, and whom he intends to have another peep of, by turning round at the end of the street, and meeting her on his return. What varieties of people there are in the world! The next pair of feet exhibit dimly blacked shoes, black spatterdashes, and the bottom of a pair of unstrapped rusty black trousers: reader, do you require to be told that this is the modest-looking man who acts as a private tutor three doors off? Next come a pair of stumping boots, very much splashed, evidently not made by Hoby, thick in sole and low in heel, having strapped spurs attached, and a considerable many folds about the ankles your seeing the remaining ten-elevenths of this man could not more effectually assure you of an honest farmer who has just ridden in from the country to attend market. The boots stop and give a turn round: the man is looking for some shop, where he was commissioned to buy something by his wife or daughters. A pair of large lightcoloured snow-boots, which next succeed (the season not being winter), and which come heavily but not slowly marching along, with a skirt of bombazette or some such stuff sweeping round them, is detected in an instant as the foundation of a fat

old lady, who goes to market with a basket on her arm to buy her own eggs and butter. Then we may perhaps have presented to us two huge pediments, with heavy soiled shoes, and corduroy spatterdashes, the thongs of the shoes being drawn through pie-holes in the spatterdashes, and then tied down above them; this, you know in a moment, is Saunders Bathgate, the Pennycuick carrier, newly arrived in town with his cart, and now engaged in delivering orders "for goods" on behalf of his many country customers. Your mind comprehends the whole man, the integer Saunders, as readily and clearly as if you met him face to face on the plainstones. If six inches of man can signify so much, much more will six inches of child, for there the proportion of the part to the whole is in favour of the observer. See here come a pair of little sturdy shoed feet, with very short thread stockings above the shoes, and above that again pieces of thick red fleshy legs which the stockings have evidently great difficulty in clasping or keeping up upon; you need to see no more in order to be aware that this is a stout well-built little gentleman of three years and a half, with the port and dress of a miniature beef-eater, taking a forenoon walk with his nurse, and excessively troublesome on the subject of guns at all the toy-shop windows, although he has a ball in one hand already, and draws a horse behind him with the other. It

were needless to enumerate more figures. The above must form a convincing proof of how little in many instances the eye requires to see, to enable the understanding to vaticinate on all that remains.

These speculations are not altogether mere whim or drollery. They point to some practical good lessons. In the social world, points as minute in dress and bearing as any of those above adverted to, have their effect in giving a general impression of individuals. A piece of attire out of taste in its colour or form, a slight uncouthness of pronunciation or address, even so small a matter as a careless or over-familiar attitude, particularly in sitting-all of these little matters, and many others, tell upon men of the world, and also upon women, as indications of the whole man, and may be decisive of much that is for his disadvantage. Great and constant vigilance is accordingly necessary, in those who do not stand quite independently in the world, for the detection and suppression of all such peculiarities.

his fellow-men, Booksellers, like other capitalists, and like other men of all professions that have not something degrading in their nature, are average men, actuated by the same motives, whether tending to selfishness or generosity, as their neighbours; perhaps, indeed, from the nature of their pursuits, and the class of persons they come in contact with, they may be rated a degree higher in point of liberality and good feeling than the average of traders. But this is a digression.

it must be of such a nature that people will give some-
thing for it on account of its utility in a commercial
point of view-in other words, on account of its value.
The commodity which of all others in existence is
most purely of the nature of capital, is money; and so
strongly is this felt, that, in the estimation of some,
it is the only commodity which should be called capital.
This, however, is decidedly a fallacy, for even if money
were the criterion of capital, certainly whatever will
bring money is in the same position. Thus, railways,
Much has been said of the advantages which the
roads, piers, docks, and other public works, the stock
of which is saleable, are in every respect capital. world has derived from the division of labour, a sub-
Public works, however, which the sovereign of a state ject which may be noticed on some future occasion.
This system never could be carried to any considerable
has made for the general and unrestricted use of the
people, however useful they may be, are not capital. extent without capital, and the more abundant the
A pier at which every vessel is allowed to touch, and capital, the more does the community profit by this
Adam Smith has given a
by which no individual makes money, is no more capital beneficial arrangement.
than a good natural roadstead, or a fair wind, is. If beautiful illustration of the division of labour, in the
the wind could be taken possession of and let out to preparation of so petty an article of commerce as a
pin. He found that ten persons could make 48,000
hire, it might be converted into capital.
In the opinion of some, manufactories and other pins in a day when their labour was divided, whereas,
works, which are capital put into operation, cease to had they been working singly, "they certainly could
not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one
be, strictly speaking, capital, except to the extent to
which they are saleable. It is evident, however, that pin, in a day." If we withdraw the existence of
such establishments, if they are successful, are pro- capital entirely from the pin-maker, we will find the
ducing the best effects of capital; and it might per- "not one pin in a day" fully realised. We must not,
haps tend better to a clear understanding of the sub-in such a supposition, presume that the operative has
ject, to make a distinction between available and brass wire, or even wrought brass, in his possession,
invested capital. Thus, money, and any thing that for these are created by capital. If he wants to make
a pin, we must set him in search of copper ore, which
will bring money, is available capital. An establish-
ment of warehouses and machinery, of which the he has to smelt and amalgamate with zinc, that he
owner makes profit, but which no other person would may have brass to make his pin with. This is putting
take off his hands, is invested capital. A manufactory a case which probably never occurred, but it may
will in many instances be a mixture of both. It will serve as an illustration. The individual would hardly
often happen, that in the hands of the person who perhaps (supposing him even to live in a place where
has planned and organised it, it is worth more than it copper is found) make his pin in a week. By Adam
would be in any other person's, and that, consequently, Smith's estimate, each individual of the ten must be
no other man will give so much for it as it is worth considered as making 4800 pins per day. Even this
to the owner. To the amount that it will fetch in number, however, would, it appears, be increased by
the market, it is available capital. The remainder of a more liberal employment of capital than that which
its value-that is, of its value to the owner-is in- took place in the instance alluded to by him. "I
If the owner of an establishment have seen," he says, "a small manufactory of this
vested capital.
kind where ten men only were employed, and where
which no other person will give any thing for ceases
to make use of it, it is no longer capital either avail- some of them, consequently, performed two or three
able or invested, and it becomes, like the Pyramids, an distinct operations. But though they were very poor,
old ruin, or any other object that cannot be applied and therefore but indifferently accommodated with
to commercial purposes-a mere portion of the crust the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted
themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of
of the earth.
pins in a day." It is very evident from this, that an
increase of capital would in such a case increase the
proportional results.

Let us now look to the benefits conferred by the accumulation of labour, when it possesses the qualities of capital. It is the great engine by which the useful energies of the human race are concentrated and directed. It keeps the results of industry piled up and accumulated, to await the moment when it can be most advantageously put forth, as Napoleon concentrated his forces, that their united efforts might bear on one selected point. Every convenience which the citizen of a civilised country has at his hand, is when he wants warm clothing for winter, has to hunt down a wild beast, and to prepare the skin for its destined purpose. The inhabitant of one of our large cities can procure, by stepping to a shop in an adjoining street, a similar piece of fur, which the silent operation of capital has caused to be stripped from some animal in a frozen wilderness thousands of miles distant, and to be adjusted, as if by some miraculous anticipation, to his most fastidious taste.

POPULAR INFORMATION ON POLITICAL the result of this accumulated labour. The savage,

ECONOMY.

THIRD ARTICLE-CAPITAL.

CAPITAL has been defined as "accumulated labour."
This, to a certain extent, explains what capital is
composed of, but it is not a full definition of the word.
There cannot be capital which is not created by the
accumulation of labour, but all accumulated labour is
not capital. To make any article constitute capital, Like many other unintentional benefactors of the
it must be capable of being employed in satisfying the human race, the capitalist has been the subject of
wants of mankind, either by its being itself adapted to
much ignorant abuse. Undoubtedly his aim, like that
of most other men, is generally self-interest. It is
those wants, or by its being the means of bringing into because it returns a profit to himself, not because it
existence those things which are so. It must, in fact, gives the consumer a chcaper article and feeds the
be an useful commodity. It is not sufficient, however, workman, that he puts his money out to use, but the
that it be something merely useful to the individual service done is not the less because he profits by it as
well as others. In those communities which swarm
who has it; the root which the savage takes out of
with idle able-bodied men, and where the introduction
the earth and eats, is not capital in any form. It must of capital is of service the most signal, the opposition
be something that has utility, and, consequently, value, to the monied man is generally the most bitter-
with reference to individuals besides the possessor. witness the attempts which were made in the earlier
Thus potatoes piled in a granary, whether to be sold, part of the last century to introduce an enlarged sys-
tem of farming into the Highlands, and the later efforts
or to be employed by the farmer in feeding the work-
that have been made to settle manufactures in some
men on his farm, are to a certain extent capital. The parts of Ireland. The more numerously human beings
extent to which an article possesses the qualities of are congregated together, the more powerfully benig-
capital is not measured by the pains bestowed on it, nant is the influence of capital; and when Ireland
or the difficulty of its acquisition. It is not measured, shall freely embrace the sometimes overflowing re-
in short, by its cost. A thousand pounds may be
sources of England, it is impossible to anticipate the
amount of felicity and prosperity which such a change
spent in labour, the result of which shall not be six-might bring to that hitherto unhappy land. But we
pence worth of capital-say, in building a monument must not throw on the ignorant and needy the sole
on the top of a hill. A calculation was lately made odium of the prejudices against the capitalist. Such
(whether it be correct or not, is little to the point), to is the natural jealousy which man feels towards the
the effect that the Great Pyramid of Gizeh must
neighbour who shares advantages with him, that we
find this feeling lurking in the most enlightened
have cost about as much (that is, occasioned about as
quarters. Authors, for instance, are peculiarly sub-
much labour) as the Liverpool and Manchester rail- ject to it. Their complaints against the booksellers
way. Here we have two specimens of accumulated are of notorious recurrence; and some of them are
labour. The former, however interesting it may be
as a study, and thence valuable to mankind at large,
is, like any of the works of nature, not worth sixpence
in the commercial world, while the latter constitutes
a capital far more valuable in the aggregate than the
various individual portions of labour of which it is
constituted.

There is an important quality which must distinguish accumulated labour before it can be called capital;

classical, from the bitter genius with which they are
pointed. Yet were it not that the bookseller can
exercise his capital upon them, many of the noblest
works of genius would never see the light, and few
authors would be rewarded for their toils. It is true
that the bookseller, whatever appreciation he may
have of the genius or merits of the author, will give
nothing for a work unless he expects to make the usual
profit by his outlay; but this is no more than saying
that he is not a disinterested benefactor of genius,
who has resolved to bestow his money on a portion of

Want of capital is the chief evil which poor communities industriously inclined have to combat with. The long and steady industry of Great Britain, coupled with the absence of internal convulsions and foreign invasion, have given us a greater amount of this accumulated labour than perhaps all the rest of the world put together. It is by this that we preserve our manufacturing and commercial superiority in spite of many advantages on the part of other nations, which might at first sight appear of superior importance. The cotton we use grows in India, but there is no accumulated labour there to be concentrated in its manufacture in the form of the steam-engine and the spinning-jenny; and so, with the disadvantage of being ten thousand miles from the place of its growth, we can manufacture it, and send it back in the form of clothing to the agriculturist who produced it. Again, when there is a sudden demand in some distant country for a commodity which is produced in a neighbouring land, neither of the two states perhaps has capital enough to convey the article from the place where it is a superfluity, to that where it is wanted, until the accumulated labour of Britain, lying by for a profitable use, accomplishes the exchange. In modern warfare, capital is a powerful auxiliary, and nothing but our vast command of it could have supported us through our later struggles. To naval warfare, in which we are so pre-eminent, it is essential. An army may support itself by rapine; it may be merely a collection of human beings let loose to shift for themselves. A navy, however, must be a set of vast machines, which capital alone can create; and until some other country can rival us in this quality, none will be able to meet us on the sea. The extent to which luxuries, or artificial wants, pervade the great body of the people, is one of the most marked outward indications of the existence of capital. It is thus a somewhat singular inversion of ancient notions, that the nation which possesses the greatest quantity of luxuries is likely to be the most successful

in war.

The peculiarity of the capitalist, if we compare him with the simple operative or non-capitalist, is, that he can wait for the returns of the industry which is going on under his auspices. The operative works for daily bread, and cannot wait for a market. The capitalist concentrates the fruits of the workman's industry, until they are put in the most advantageous state for being disposed of. Take a piece of printed calico as an illustration. The sailor brings the cotton over the Atlantic; the carter and bargeman take it to Manchester; the carder, spinner, weaver, and printer, with many other operatives, are all successively employed on it, ere it has reached the final purpose for which the cotton was grown. It has lain for weeks on the counter of the retail merchant, and has perhaps been worn as many more before the labour expended on it has been finally paid for; yet the various operatives engaged in preparing it, have, through the instrumen

tality of the different kinds of capital applied to the manufacture, been paid their wages, some of them months, others years, perhaps, before the final return has been so obtained.

It is not unnatural that the artisan, who sees that his employer never personally touches the manufacture through which he makes his fortune, should conceive that he is himself the sole fabricator of the commodity, and alone deserving of the remuneration. The artisan too frequently considers himself the only person concerned in the creation of that which his hands have made; and as such fallacies have generally their counterparts, the capitalist perhaps occasionally thinks that he is the creator of those riches, of which he is but incidentally the depositary. There are, in truth, no two classes whose interests are more mutually dependent. That the capitalist could not make his large profits without the industrious and intelligent labourer, is self-evident. That the labourer would be poorly off without the stimulant which the capitalist supplies, a little reflection will perhaps make fully as clear. It is quite true that the capitalist does not work in proportion with the artisan for what he makes; yet, if he should cease to make his profits, the artisan would suffer; and it is poor consolation to a starving family to reflect that the rich man is not increasing his store. If it should come to a question between the capitalists and the operatives of this country, which could most easily cast aside the other, the advantage would lie with the former. There are few places in which capital cannot be put out to use; there are not many in which industry alone can find a market. Labourers cannot easily leave their country in large bodies; but a slip of paper may be the means of transferring to another country as much capital as would employ

These birds naturally choose retired habitations. The falcon, in particular, builds her nest amongst cliffs in wild and unpeopled regions. In order to fit birds for the sport of falconry, it was necessary to take them from the nest at a very early stage of their existence (then technically called eyasses), or to ensnare them in their more mature age, and then train them for the purpose. A falcon in its natural state was said to be a haggard; hence, apparently, the term by which we still express a wild or agitated aspect. The first step in training the falcon, was to man it, or accustom it to the presence of human beings. Feeding was the grand source of the power which its keeper acquired over it. When it did as required, it was fed, and thus taught to know that it had done right-and not otherwise. If extremely refractory, a stream of cold water was directed at its head, as an admonition that nothing was to be gained by such conduct. From the very first, the animal was accoutred with certain paraphernalia, the names of which at least must be familiar to most readers. First, its head was covered by a leathern hood, fitting close all round, so as to shut up its eyes, and calculated, by a slit behind, to be readily slipped on and off. On the top of the hood there was a tuft of feathers, which usually has a graceful effect in the old pictures representing ladies or gentlemen travelling with their hawks upon their wrist. Leathern straps, called jesses, a few inches in length, were fitted to the legs of the bird by a button slipping through a slit or loop. Close beside the end attached to each leg, was a small spherical bell, like those of a child's rattle, and composed of silver for clearness of sound, the one being in some nice instances made a semitone higher than the other. The other ends of the jesses were furnished each with a ring, which could be readily fitted upon the swivel designed to connect them both with the leash, a long FALCONRY. slender strap, sometimes prolonged by a creance or FALCONRY was the favourite field-sport of the middle common cord, and designed as a tether by which to restrain the animal, at the same time that it should be ages, as shooting with the gun is the predominant one allowed considerable room for free motion. Two great of the present day. It appears, in this country, to objects in training were to teach the bird to fly at its have declined and gone out of use in the seventeenth proper game, and to habituate it to come back to the century, in consequence of the gun having then become, hand of its master, after on any occasion having been by the addition of the lock and flint, a much more let free in pursuit of its prey. For the first of these ready means of bringing down game than the use of ends, in the case of long-winged birds, an implement termed the lure was used. It consisted either of a hawks had ever been. Falconry, while it existed, was stick or of a cord, on the end of which were fixed the peculiar sport of kings, and princes, and nobles, pieces of flesh, with a bunch of the feathers of the prey many of whom were painted in life with their hawks which it was designed that the bird should fly at, or seated on their wrist, and were sculptured on their perhaps an actual resemblance of the prey in its entire form. The falcon being set loose by one man, another tombs after death with the same creature placed at stood at a distance waving the lure around his head, their feet, thus marking the special regard in which thus tempting the animal to advance and strike at it. they held the animal which was the means of giving A whistle was the implement used to reclaim or bring them so much amusement. All over Europe, and far back the hawk. When a hawk was to be kept on into Asia, the sport may be said to have flourished, its talons. It may here be remarked, that the training the hand, strong gloves were worn for protection from from the latter years of the Roman empire downwards; of falcons was altogether a most laborious business, and amongst the earliest books of an instructive kind and that trained birds were accordingly to be only which found their way into print in most civilised purchased at a high price. At the beginning of the countries, were books descriptive of falconry, and con- seventeenth century, a trained goshawk and tiercel taining directions for those who would practise it with favour to part with them. The extreme labour atbrought one hundred marks, and it was considered a success. Circumstances connected with hawks and tending the training of the animals must have been hawking, the modes of the sport itself, and the techni-sufficient in early times to confine the sport to persons cal terms employed in it, were introduced largely into literature and into the ordinary language of the people, as we shall more particularly show in a subsequent part of this paper.

thousands of them.

of birth and fortune, if there were no other cause,
and it must also have conduced to the rapid decline
and extinction of the sport, after a ready means of
killing wild-fowl by the gun became attainable.

steadily engaged in avoiding it. To effect this, the affrighted heron strenuously endeavours to rise above the hawks, who, however, by superior power of wing, commonly succeed in getting the upper station, from which one presently makes its stoop; and happy it is for the poor heron if he can evade the blow, which he occasionally does, either by shifting his station, or by receiving the falcon on his sharp bill, which instantly transfixes it. This danger is, however, denied on authority, but we feel assured that it does occur. The second hawk, if the first fails, stoops in his turn; but the meditated blow of this also is frequently evaded like the former. The trio then still rising higher and higher, the sight becomes interesting in the extreme, and the spectators are scarcely less agitated than the feathered warriors above. At length another stoop takes place, and the fatal seizure is made by one hawk, while the other binds to his fellow, and all three quickly descend together, but not with a dangerous rapidity, as their powers of inflation and the action of their wings break the fall. It is now that the mounted horsemen make the best of their way to the assistance of their falcons, and their first efforts must be directed to secure the head of the heron, that the sharp beak may not take effect on one or both of them."

Pheasants are objects of this sport, but not to a great extent, on account of the inconvenience presented by the sylvan ground in which the sport must be practised. Partridge-hawking is found to be a more convenient sport. To quote the same authority"The scene of practice is commonly on large fields, or open tracts of country, where the horsemen and company generally can beat in line, and the attendant falconer or master, being well mounted, can ride forward, and be ready to receive the quarry. Either pointers or spaniels are necessary, or both. Sir John Sebright says, that high-ranging pointers are the best dogs for the sport, for the birds will often lie to a dog when they will not suffer horsemen to approach them. Neither, provided the hawk used be well broke, is it necessary that it should be very near the dogs when they point, or near the birds when they rise. He also observes, that, if the hawk be within two or three hundred yards, it will be near enough, if her soar be high and she directs her view inwards. In case she should not do this, she must be lured by the voice, or constrained into noticing by the lure itself. It is however observed, that it is better that a flight be lost by the hawk ranging too far, than that she should be lowered or confined in her pitch by too much luring. Sufficient time should by all means be allowed to the hawk to mount well before the game is sprung; for being sufficiently elevated, her range of vision will be equal to take in the whole expanse around her, and incline her to watch the moving scene more attentively than if she were nearer.

with astonishing rapidity, and seize on it; at which The partridge being flushed, the hawk will stoop time neither horses, dogs, nor company, should press forward; on the contrary, they should permit the falconer only to advance, who, approaching the hawk with caution, must walk quietly round her, when, in the act of feeding the hawk, he should lay hold of gently kneeling down with his arm extended, as though the partridge, and at the same time place the hawk on his fist. This done, put on the hood, and reward the hawk with the head of the quarry, and if she be not intended to fly again, let her be fed immediately. A somewhat different method of partridge-hawking is practised in the latter part of the season, when the The sport, after being long given up, was revived country is very bare, and when the partridges are in England a few years ago by Colonel Thornton, often very wild, and lie indifferently even to the dog. the Duke of St Albans, and a few other gentlemen, In such cases it is recommended that the company chiefly through the influence of a taste for what-draw up in line at fifty or sixty yards' distance forefathers. It is said to be a gallant and goodly hawk upon wing,' the falconer being in the centre of ever is elegant and romantic in the usages of our from each other, and gallop across the plain with a sight, when a train of well-mounted English gentle- the line, that he may regulate the pace by the situamen and ladies ride forth on a clear sunshiny day, to tion of the hawk. Sir John Sebright informs us that pursue this sport, attended by their falconers, each this method of partridge-hawking has afforded him with his hawk on his wrist. In the present day, as more sport than any other, and that when the face of yore, various kinds of feathered game are flown at. of the country was so bare, and the birds so wild, as The heron, as must be generally known, is a large bird way. Heron-hawking is, we believe, in greatest esteem. to make it impossible to approach them in the usual in appearance, with a long neck, long legs, and a long sharp bill, being designed to haunt marshes and pools, and feed upon whatever fish it can find therein. It is, however, a light insubstantial bird, with nothing to protect it from enemies but its sharp bill. Herons are gregarious, and the lonely places where they live are called heronries. These explanations will introduce the following account of heron-hawking, from Blaine's Encyclopædia of Rural Sports :

The sport, we need scarcely remark, was founded on the natural instinct of the rapacious order of the feathered creation, as the chase may be said to be founded on the instinct of the dog to pursue the hare, fox, and other animals. The rapacious order of birds, of which the eagle, falcon, and owl, are the three principal types, are formed in such a way as evidently fits them for pursuing, seizing, and destroying the smaller birds; a part in creation which at first sight appears to involve much cruelty, but which has been clearly shown to be intended to save rather than to produce pain, and to be indispensable to a system of things in which one leading feature is, that there shall always be as many living creatures as can possibly be supported.* The falcon family were alone employed for purposes of sport, as alone possessing the required docility, and of this family two or three species were more frequently used than any other. Of those possessing long wings, the falcon proper and the ger-falcon; places are watched by the falconers, who station them "The daily visitations of the heron to its feeding and of the short-winged, the goshawk and sparrow-selves to the leeward or down wind of the heronry, so hawk; seem to have been the favourite kinds. Species called the hobby, the kestral, the merlin, and buzzard, were the next in request. The female, which is in all the varieties of this tribe considerably larger than the male, was alone employed in sport, and the common names of all the species apply to that sex, the male having usually some distinctive appellation: thus the male of the ger-falcon was called the jerkin, of the falcon proper the tierce gentle, of the goshawk the tiercel, and of the sparrow-hawk the musket.

* See the ingenious reasonings on this subject in Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise.

that the heron on its return must fly against the
breeze, which gives a great advantage to its enemy.
As soon as one is discovered on the return, a cast of
rise in pursuit. The heron, instinctively aware that
falcons is let loose, who, catching sight of the quarry,
its life is at stake, prepares for the fray by disgorging
the contents of its stomach to lighten the weight of
the body. The coursing falcons ascend the airy vault
in spiral gyrations, by which the atmospheric resist-
been observed, have frequently the curious effect of
ance to their flight is lessened. These circlings, it has
presenting the three birds as flying in different direc-
tions; whereas the real intentions of the two hawks
are steadily directed to one point, which is that of
contact with the heron, whose entire efforts are as

Brook-hawking, as it is often termed, was much in vogue formerly. The practice was not, however, con fined to brooks, but extended to rivers, sea-shores, moors, and ponds. It engaged, according to Blome, tassel gentle.' Waterfowl of every description were the jer-falcon, the haggard falcon, the jerkin, and the made prey of; but some particular objects, according with the training of the falcons, were particularly sought for. Dogs were employed to rouse the fowl, while horsemen, with the hawks on their fists, were at being led on by men who traversed the water's edge; hand to cast off one or more, according to the nature of the game. A heron or mallard would require two, while a widgeon or a teal would probably engage only one.

with the following hints on the training of falcons to Blome's description of brook-hawking commences this sport: In many places there are ponds inclosed with woods, bushes, and the like obscurities, so that they are concealed from passengers, and such places ducks do much resort unto: now, for the training up Your hawk being in all points ready to fly, be proyour hawk to take them, observe these directions. vided with two or three live train ducks, and let there be a man who must lie concealed in some bush by the pond with them, so that, coming to the place, having your hawk prepared for the sudden flight, beat the

place where the birds retained by the English monarch
were put on those occasions, near his palace, was called
the King's Mews. The buildings for the hawks were
in time supplanted by stables for the royal stud, but
still the name of King's Mews or Meuse was retained.
This has in time spread to stable-lanes, as already
mentioned, all over the kingdom.

SANATORIUMS.

bush with your pole, where the man lieth concealed
with the ducks, who must cast forth one of them, to
the end the hawk may think it was put up by you;
and if with a courage she takes it, reward her well;
and this is the way to train up a goshawk to catch a
fowl at source. Having trained your hawk to this, you
may boldly go with her to the ponds where the fowl
lies, and creeping close to the place, raise them up by
beating about with your pole; and when any rise, let
go your hawk from your fist, and if she seize it, let
her take pleasure thereon, and reward her well. It is THE term Sanatorium, which is nearly synonymous
very necessary to have a spaniel with you; for if the with the French Maison de Santé, or House of Health,
hawk is well acquainted with the sport, she will be so
has been suggested as the title for an Hospital-Esta-
nimble at the catch, that they will fall into the water
together, and by that means the fowl may go to plunge, blishment of a peculiar order, lately proposed to be
set on foot in London. The objects of this institution
so that then the spaniel will be ready to do good ser-
vice, and not displease the hawk. It is when your seem to us of so commendable a character as to claim
hawk will fly, jump, and come in at your lure, it is some notice at our hands, and we give it with the
then that she is fit to go to the river in earnest; and greater willingness, as our pages are more particularly
to further manage your flight, observe these direc-addressed to the very classes of society chiefly inte-
tions. When you have found where the fowl lies, rested in the subject, and may be the means of calling
then go about a quarter of a mile up in the wind to
the river side, and whistle off your hawks, loosing their their attention to it more readily and extensively.
hoods, and let them fly with their heads in the wind, The Sanatorium is intended to be, in some measure,
for there must be a cast of hawks for this flight; then
a private hospital, calculated for the benefit of many
let the falconers, or others that are at the sport, strike individuals of the middle and lower classes of society,
their poles in the water, to cause the hawks to come
in unto you, and own the river; and when they are who, when labouring under disease, are unwilling to
got up into their places, then let one of the falconers resort for relief to an ordinary medical charity, yet
go below the fowl, that is, down the river; and the
are not so circumstanced as to be able to pay for
other that is above, let him come down, and show the medicines, and to procure the attendance of physi-
fowl again, and by that means the fowl will be crost
over land, that the hawks may make a fair stooping; cians and nurses at home-at least, in a manner suit-
and knocking the fowl on the land, will occasion the able to their ailments. In short, the proposal is, to
killing it, which will quarry your hawks. But if they give to every such person, through the advantages
should miss their stooping, so as the fowl may get to of combination, the amplest and best means of relief
the river again, then your hawks must go to their under bodily distress, at the lowest possible rate of
wings to make good their flight; but if the fowl
should go to plunge, then take down your hawks, lest | cost, without rendering them debtors to public charity,
you should fly them too long; and the falconers, with as in the case of common hospitals. It appears to us
their spears or poles, may endeavour to spear or kill that there is a large section of society, which establish-
the fowl, which take to quarry the hawks with. If ments of this order are calculated to benefit extensively
they kill not the fowl at first stooping, give them and lastingly. Mechanics and working men of every
respite to recover their place; and when they are at
their place again, and their heads in, lay out the fowl description, and all who fill the humbler departments
as before directed, and reward them well if they kill. in offices, shops, and warehouses – especially where
You should do well to have a live duck in your hawk- they are unmarried and live in lodgings-together
ing-bag, that if they kill not the fowl which is stooped with all domestic servants of the more respectable
(as ofttimes it happens), then your hawks being at class, who usually are compelled to leave their places
their pitch, and their heads in, you may throw to your
hawks and reward them; and by this means you shall of service when attacked by serious diseases these,
always keep hawks in good life and blood, and to and many similarly situated parties, must be again
your
and again thrown into the deepest distress by the
want of such institutions as the one now proposed.
On the other hand, there is an equally large class of
individuals, not residing in cities, to whom such insti-
tutions would also be of the highest benefit. There
with diseases of a chronic kind, such as old ulcers,
are numerous persons, in rural situations, afflicted
eruptions, tumours, and the like, who might be relieved
by the superior medical advice to be got in cities, but
who cannot make up their minds to enter a common
hospital as objects of charity, or to risk the expense
attending a residence in private lodgings under the
charge of proper nurses and proper medical attendants.
They are in decent enough circumstances to shrink
from the first of these alternatives, yet too poor to
venture on the second step. Small farmers, and re-
spectable tradesmen, with their wives and families, as
well as servants and others who have laid up a little
money, are the parties usually placed in this dilemma,
and whose comfort in life is too often impaired in con-
shortened by the same cause. To these persons the
Sanatorium would be an institution of the highest
value. They would there enjoy, for the least possible
cost, the best possible tendance and advice, and would
neither, on the one hand, have their honest pride hurt
by the sense of accepting eleemosynary relief, nor be
alarmed, on the other, by fears of incurring debt, or
draining the scanty resources of their families for a
personal end.

be inwards.'

Laying out of view entirely the partial revival of the sport in modern times, it may be said that falconry is, and must ever remain, a living thing amongst us, in consequence of there being so many references to it in literature, and its terms being so largely received into our common language. Dante, Chaucer, Spencer, and Shakspeare, to say nothing of many meaner names, abound in allusions to this sport of the noble and princely, and in images derived from the falconer's craft. One of the most affecting stories in Boccaccio is that of the reduced gentleman, who long wooed a lady unsuccessfully, and at length on her visiting him, having no other means of entertaining her, gallantly sacrificed his falcon for her meal, and thereby, though without design, gained her affections. The idea in Othello's exclamation respecting the suspected Des

demona

I'll whistle her off, and let her down the wind,
To prey at fortune-

is taken from the act of setting off the hawk upon her sequence. Their existence itself is in many cases flight.

What! all my pretty ones-all
At one fell swoop 7—

the frantic inquiry of Macduff—is from the act of the
bird itself in descending upon its prey. Milton speaks
of "imping his wing" to a bolder flight. Imping is
the technical term for the process of mending a broken
feather in the wing of the hawk; the process itself
consisting in splicing, as the sailors would say, a new
feather to the stump of the old one, with a needle
passing through both at the juncture, and holding the
two pieces together. Knowing this, the reader will
understand Sir Philip Sidney, when he speaks in his
sonnets in praise of Edward IV:

Not for his fair outside, nor well-lined brain,
Although less gifts imp feathers aft on Fame.

« Hood-winked,” a familiar phrase for one who walks
in any kind of mental darkness, is from the practice
of keeping hawks hooded till they were ready to fly.
We speak of "flying at higher game," from a tradition-
ary notion of hawking. The term hawker, expressive
of a travelling merchant or pedlar, is probably derived
from the old custom of carrying about hawks for sale.
These men carried the birds upon a frame slung from
their shoulders, and termed a cadge : hence coulger, an-
other but comparatively local term for an itinerant
dealer. Most curious of all is the term musket, which
seems to have been derived from the technical name
for the male sparrow-hawk, on the same principle
which was followed in calling pieces of ordnance in
the sixteenth century by such names as the Great
Falcon, Thrawn-mou'ed Meg, and so forth. Another
strange memorial of falconry is found in the term,
now common in our large cities, for a lane of stables
running behind a street. The birds employed in the
sport annually mewed, or changed their feathers. The

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the annual ones of a guinea, are already numerous, and there is every prospect of the requisite sum being soon made up, and the building got ready. As for medical attendance, it seems to be arranged that one resident medical officer shall take the general charge of the house, assisted by others who are to act as visiting physicians.

We trust that this establishment will go on and prosper. But we have now to present a claim for the Scottish capital, as having had the merit of leading the way in this particular path of sanatory policy. In 1837, a private hospital was opened at Minto House, Argyle Square, Edinburgh, the leading prinSanatorium, as will appear from the words of the ciple of which is identical with that of the London original Report. "It is intended for the benefit of a numerous class of individuals, who, when labouring under disease, are unwilling to be considered_objects of charity, and to enter a public hospital. It must lodgers, when affected with ill health, cannot, in their frequently happen that housekeepers, servants, and peculiar circumstances, obtain all the attention and comfort they require. In many cases it is particularly inconvenient for the masters or friends with whom they reside, to afford them suitable accommoing; and to them, therefore, the advantage of a maison dation, professional attendance, medicines, and nurs de santé, to which recourse may be had, must be apparent. In such an institution the patients enjoy the seclusion of a home; and as something is paid for the would arise from being treated entirely as objects of services of which they stand in need, the feelings which charity are removed." The same Report then points out several of the advantages likely to accrue to country patients from such an institution, with other circumstances rendering it worthy of public notice; and mentions that the charge for board, lodging, medical attendance, and nursing, was to vary from 103. to 20s. per week..

Three regular medical officers, Drs Peddie, Brown, and Cornwall, aided by the valuable services of Professor Syme, in the capacity of consulting surgeon, House, where it was commenced, had formerly been took the management of this private hospital. Minto a surgical hospital, and is a building of no great extent, yet airy and commodious. As the originators did not possess the advantage of large subscriptions to establish their Sanatorium on a very extensive by them has not been, on an average, above fifty scale, the number of patients received and treated or sixty annually. This may seem a comparatively limited amount of practice, but it must be remembered that only eight or nine patients can be received into the house at one time, and that many of them, being afflicted with diseases of long standing, regard to the description of persons thus relieved, we occupy the rooms for a considerable period. With are told that they consisted of the class for whose as strangers from the country, individuals in reduced benefit the institution was principally intended, such circumstances, clerks, shopmen, the upper class of servants, &c. Of the cases coming under treatment, many have been highly important and interesting in a medical point of view, and several requiring the performance of severe surgical operations." The Report for last year also states that "patients have lately come from great distances, and that the hospital has met with countenance from families in the higher circles in town, from commercial houses in which boarders are kept, and from hotel and lodging-house keepers, who have placed under our care valued servants and others." The medical managers conclude, from their past experience, that, as the institution becomes more widely known, the number of admissions will progressively increase.

It is but just, therefore, to the gentlemen now mentioned-who have for three years sustained this Sanatorium by gratuitous labours of no common extent, as well as kept up a large out-of-door and dispensary practice, by which no fewer than 5611 poor persons were relieved during last year-to state that they have the merit of having given a fair trial to the scheme now about to be carried into operation in London. It So much for the principle of the Sanatorium, which is true that the trial has been made on a comparatively seems much the same as that which leads gentlemen small scale, yet the public have it in their power, by to form club-houses; union lessening cost to indivi- increased support, to extend the advantages and duals. Sanatory institutions, based on this leading sphere of usefulness of the institution. It is excellent principle, appear to us likely to do much good in every as far as it goes, and has nurses, medical attendants, great seat of population. The details of the plan and other conveniences suitable for its extent; the may differ in different places, and will do so, it is pro- patients are treated as if they were in their several bable, if the idea be adopted to any great extent. The homes, and, according to their wishes and means, are following are the leading features in the scheme of the provided with single rooms, or have the comfort London Sanatorium, projected, we believe, by Dr (which most of them are found to like) of the comSouthwood Smith, a gentleman who has won an ho-pany of others of their own sex during their confinenourable reputation by his excellent work on human ment; scales of comfortable diet are arranged for physiology. A payment of about two guineas a-week them, in accordance with their wants and their mamade by cach patient, insures to him bed, board, ladies; and, in short, the establishment is conducted and medicine; the attendance of skilful physicians with great liberality, judgment, and care. But Edinand nurses; the use of a separate room if requisite; burgh and its neighbourhood, if fully alive to the adwith baths, quiet, pure air, and all the curative vantages of such an institution, would support its means and appliances which science has provided managers more generously, and enable them to work in aid of medicine. To collect a fund of L.3000 on a scale of increased utility. This might be done, wherewith to commence operations, life-subscriptions, to a certain extent, by patients themselves taking of ten guineas each, and yearly subscriptions of one advantage of the opportunities which the institution, guinea, have been proposed and opened, the subscribers as it is, affords; but if the public were to come forin such cases being privileged not only to share the ward at the annual meetings of the supporters of the advantages of the institution at a lower rate of cost, dispensary and general establishment of Minto House, but to recommend non-subscribers as inmates. It is and to strengthen the hands of its managers by their only a few months since the idea of the institution was support, something still more worthy of the capital first started, but the subscriptions, and particularly of Scotland, in the shape of a Sanatorium, might be