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CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH JOURNAL.

intended to represent, kings and queens, lords and ladies, dukes and duchesses, naval and military officers, chiefs and haughty dames of the olden time, pirates and highwaymen, drunken sailors, and beggars upon crutches, old men tottering and paralytic, and women of equal age and frailty attending to them with an affection and care apparently as great as if they had climbed and descended the bill of life together. Little boys with their whimsical and ludicrous trappings, and girls having their brows encircled with chaplets and garlands of flowers; in a word, every variety of character that can well be imagined was present on the occasion, and many of no character at all. Numbers of respectable ladies were irresistibly attracted to survey the scene, and gentlemen of rank and standing mixed freely among the sable group.

Previously to the ball being led off by Vincent Paradise himself, who was king, and by his lady, who was queen, Daniel Stron raised himself into an erect posture from off his crutches, on which he rested a body apparently wasted by age and bent by decrepitude, and addressed the assembly in a loud, clear, and distinct voice, to the following effect:-Ladies and Gentlemen, I see that the present meeting is composed of the natives of England, Ireland, and Scotland. It is to the exertions and good-will of the British nation, and to the kindness

of this Colony,' and said he challenged the Emerald Isle, the Land of the Rose, the Land of the Thistle, and the Land of the Leek, to produce a peasantry so contented, independent, and happy, as those which are in this colony. Attempts have been made to poison their inexperienced minds, and sow the seeds of discontentment among them; but he was glad to find that they were now beginning to know their friends from their foes, and hoped that they This was suitably acknowledged. Supper over, dancing would never become the dupes of the latter. was resumed and kept up with great spirit until after daylight in the morning.

The dresses at this fancy ball, taken altogether, cost upwards of L.300 sterling, and the whole expenses of the

entertainment about L.400."

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. THOMAS GEDDELY'S CASE.

nary pertinacity), or by his confession at the point of sworn on the trial, had had a scuffle with the deceased, death (for the case is related both ways), that he himself had been the murderer! The accused, indeed, as soon after found by the juryman, between whom and the deceased an accidental quarrel arose in the same in which he had dropped his pitchfork, which had been field, where the deceased continued to work after the departure of the person with whom he was seen to man had unfortunately stabbed him with that very have the affray. In the heat of this quarrel the jurypitchfork, and had then got away totally unsuspected; apprehended on suspicion of being the murderer, and fearing, as the circumstances appeared so strong but finding soon after that the other person had been against him, that he should be convicted, although not guilty, he had contrived to get upon the jury, as the only way of saving the innocent, without endangering himself.

THE LOST MONEY.

of our good Queen Victoria, that we owe the relieving of open and robbed, and Thomas Geddely disappearing London to see a son there settled in a respectable

our necks from the yoke. It shall be our constant endea

vour, both as subjects of Queen Victoria, and as agricultural labourers in the colony of British Guiana, to behave

ourselves as becomes free men. I hope we shall never disgrace our good queen by acting contrary to her wish. I hope always to see plenty of labour and good crops in this colony. Gentlemen, I am glad to see you all here this evening, and I hope you will enjoy yourselves well.' As soon as Mr Stron had concluded the speech, he bent himself down upon his crutches, resumed his assumed character of a mendicant, and supported it well throuhgout the evening.

Dancing commenced about nine o'clock. There was room sufficient for eight sets of quadrilles, and politeness and good nature prevailed in the whole assembly.

About one o'clock, or rather after, supper was announced, and there was a decorum, observed in going to, while at, and in coming from, the table, that many assemblies of Mr Mahigher pretensions might have been proud of. theson, a gentleman engaged in the conducting of the affairs of the Vreed-en-Hoop estate, was in the chair, and Mr Sanderson, the manager, was croupier. It was with peculiar satisfaction that we observed seated, at the same table, the labourer and his employer, together with magistrates, professional and private gentlemen. It was a rich entertainment for a benevolent eye to behold---gentlemen of rank and standing in the colony encouraging, by their presence, the infant efforts of our emancipated population to rise into respectability, independence, and into the refinements of civilised life.

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When the cloth was removed, the chairman gave The Queen; and after the hearty cheers and acclamations which the toast had called forth had subsided, Vincent Paradise returned thanks, and expressed himself to the following import :--- Ladies and Gentlemen, in the name of the labourers upon this estate, I will return thanks for the health of her Majesty Queen Victoria. We all feel grateful for the gift of our freedom. I have been headman on Vreed-en-Hoop, in slavery time, in 'prentice time, and since free, and have always seen good men well treated; and I do not think that good honest labourers, who were willing to work, were ever badly treated; they might be by some masters, but not many. From the goodness of Queen Victoria that gave us our freedom, we have all opportunities of making ourselves comfortable and independent; and I hope there will not be a negro found in all this colony who will prove ungrateful to the queen and to the people of England for the important

gift that they have bestowed upon us. Gentlemen, I am very happy to see you all here, and much obliged to you for coming; and I sincerely trust that the pleasure and harmony of this evening may be the forerunners of future peace and good understanding between the proprietors and the labourers of the colony. Mr Paradise concluded

his speech amid loud and continued cheering.

Mr Sanderson gave 'The Governor and Court of Policy.' This was received with great enthusiasm and loud cheering.

Mr Matheson rose and said, 'In the absence of Mr Stuart, the attorney of this estate, I have one other toast to propose, and in doing so I may be allowed to say that it has been Mr Stuart's wish, as it has been my endeavour, to cultivate a good understanding between the employer and those who conducted the labour of the estates, and I trust that the good feeling which now prevails between the employer and labourers on this estate, may long continue to the mutual benefit and satisfaction of both parties. I will now propose health, prosperity, and happiness, to our hosts on this occasion, and to all the Mr Vincent Paradise said, that he felt proud for that toast, and hoped that all the labourers of British Guiana would ever be found worthy of the good opinion of the proprietors; and concluded by proposing the health of Mr Gladstone, and peace and prosperity on all the estates, Mr Matheson-I now beg to return thanks, in the name of Mr Gladstone, for the favour just conferred on him, and I may express the pleasure I am sure he would feel were he now present here to witness the way in which his efforts to make his labourers contented and happy are appreciated.

labourers of British Guiana.'

Mr McClelland said, that, with the permission of the chair, he wished to propose a toast. He prefaced it by saying, that he would not detain the company by any lengthened remarks, although the subject was one of a very soft, delicate, and important nature, and well caleulated to awaken all the finer feelings of the soul, inasmuch as every thing connected with the harmonies and elegances of human existence was intimately connected with it. He wished to propose The Ladies. This was responded to with unbounded applause.

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Mr McCormick proposed 'The Agricultural Interests

THOMAS GEDDELY lived as a waiter with Mrs Han-
nah Williams, who kept a public-house at York. It
being a house of much business, and the mistress very
stances. One morning her scrutoire was found broken
assiduous therein, she was deemed in wealthy circum-
at the same time, no doubt was entertained as to the
robber. About a twelvemonth after, a man calling
days for a precarious subsistence, in carrying goods as
himself James Crow came to York, and worked a few
a porter. Many accosted him as Thomas Geddely.
was James Crow, and that he never was at York
He declared he did not know them, that his name
before. But this was held as merely a trick to save
himself from the consequences of the robbery com-
mitted in the house of Mrs Williams, when he lived
with her as waiter.

His mistress was sent for, and in the midst of many people instantly singled him out, called him by his name (Thomas Geddely), and charged him with his was directly hurried before a justice of peace, but on unfaithfulness and ingratitude in robbing her. He his examination absolutely affirmed that he was not Thomas Geddely, that he knew no such person, that he never was at York before, and that his name was James Crow. Not, however, giving a good account of bond and petty rogue, and Mrs Williams and another himself, but rather admitting that he was a vaga person swearing positively to his person, he was committed to York Castle for trial at the next assizes.

On arraignment, he pleaded not guilty, still denying that he was the person he was taken for; but Mrs Williams and some others made oath that he was the identical Thomas Geddely who lived with her when she was robbed; and a servant girl deposed that she had seen him, on the very morning of the robbery, in the room where the scrutoire was broken open, with a poker in his hand. The prisoner, being unable to prove an alibi, was found guilty of the robbery. He was soon after executed, but persisted to his latest breath in affirming that he was not Thomas Geddely, and that his name was James Crow.

And so it proved! Some time after, the true Thomas Geddely, who on robbing his mistress had fled from York to Ireland, was taken up in Dublin for a crime of the same stamp, and then condemned and executed. Between his conviction and execution, and again at the fatal tree, he confessed himself to be the very Thomas Geddely who had committed the robbery at York, for which the unfortunate James Crow had been executed.

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We must add, that a gentleman, an inhabitant York, happening to be in Dublin at the time of Geddely's trial and execution, and who knew him when he lived with Mrs Williams, declared that the resemblance between the two men was so exceedingly great, that it was next to impossible to distinguish their

persons asunder.

THE RECUSANT JURYMAN.

Two men were seen fighting together in a field.
One of them was found, soon after, lying dead in that
field. Near him lay a pitchfork, which had appa-
rently been the instrument of his death. This pitch-
was seen fighting with the deceased, and he was
fork was known to have belonged to the person who
known to have taken it with him only that morning.
Being apprehended and brought to trial, and these
circumstances appearing in evidence, and it being also
found that there had been for some time an enmity
between the parties, little doubt was entertained that
the prisoner would be convicted, although he strongly
persisted in asserting his innocence; but, to the great
surprise of the court, the jury, instead of bringing in an
immediate and unanimous verdict of guilty, withdrew,
and after staying out a considerable time, returned,
and informed the court that eleven out of the twelve
had been from the first for finding the prisoner guilty,
but that one man would not concur in the verdict.
Upon this the judge pointed out to the dissentient
person the great strength of the evidence, and asked
him "How it was possible for him, all circumstances
considered, to have any doubt as to the guilt of the
accused?" But no arguments that could be urged
either by the judge or the rest of the jury, could per-
suade that juryman to find the prisoner guilty; so
that the rest of the jury were at last obliged to agree
This affair remained for some time mysterious;
to the verdict of acquittal.
but at length it came out, either by the private ac-
knowledgment of the obstinate juryman to the judge
who tried the cause (and who is said to have had the
curiosity to inquire into the motives of his extraordi-

The following remarkable case was communicated to
us by the party in whose personal experience it oc-
curred. The narrator had gone from Edinburgh to
situation. Having a week or two of unoccupied time,
he resolved, before returning to the north, to visit Paris,
preter. "It so happened (continues the narrator) that I
and, being ignorant of the French language, made some
inquiries for a companion who might act as his inter-
was intimate in Edinburgh with a Mr F, a native
of France, who, I understood, was going to Paris about
the same period, but when I left Edinburgh I had no
One Sunday afternoon, however, while walking in St
James's Park, I met a friend of his, who informed
me that he had received a letter from Mr F-
opportunity of making an arrangement with him.

don on Monday evening, and informed me where I
should find him.
stating that he was to have sailed from Leith on the
previous day, and that he would probably be in Lon-

I now considered that I could not do better than

of the French language, and proceed with him to
avail myself of Mr F's knowledge of France, and
Paris. I accordingly went and found him at his
rent times during the week, we conversed about the
proposed jaunt to Paris, and it was finally resolved
lodgings on Tuesday. On that occasion, and at diffe-
that on the next Sunday we should sail from London
to Calais. It was also arranged, at my suggestion,
should come to my inn on the Saturday afternoon,
that in order to prevent disappointment, Mr F.
and that we should proceed together to the vessel on
the following day.

My son, who had been occupying a bedroom, the
entrance to which was through my own apartment,
suggested that Mr F should oc-
business, and
had left it the previous day to be nearer his place of
cupy this inner apartment, so that we might be near
one another; and to this arrangement Mr F-

once agreed.

at

In the course of the Saturday evening we had some secured his cash in a concealed part of his dress, where conversation relative to the money each of us had in his possession; and Mr F showed me how he it would not be suspected, in case we should fall in with any of the gentry disposed to peculation. Mr F had a parcel of Bank of England notes, to the amount of L.95, besides a considerable quantity of gold and silver. The notes he replaced in the pocket,

and we soon afterwards went to bed.

Mr F, having chanced to awake early next counting his gold and silver, but did not meddle with morning (about four o'clock, I believe), commenced the coins, and on learning what he was about, I inquired his notes, as he believed them to be quite safe in the if all was right, and he answered quite right, and in a pocket of his trousers. I was awoke by the jingling of short time he went to bed, and again we fell asleep. At six o'clock, a knock was heard at our outer bedroom door, and at last Boots' entered, and inquired if we examined it on the previous evening, when all was were in possession of all our money, and we both assured him we were, for we recollected that we had right, and Mr F had ascertained still more recently that his gold and silver were undisturbed. Boots,' however, insisted that we were in error, and told us that he had that morning found a parcel of bank notes to the amount of L.95 (lying in one of the master. On hearing the sum of L.95 mentioned, Mr outhouses, near to the place where he cleaned his immediately arose, much agitated, knowing boots), which he had put into the possession of his The man, however, went and F that such was the very amount of his notes, but at the same time feeling almost certain that he had the money quite secure. brought the money from his master, which Mr F was to us quite incomprehensible. immediately knew to be his own parcel of notes; but how it could have found its way to the coach-yard,

It soon occurred to me, however, how the circum's, and put them outside the door, and it stance had taken place. I recollected that just bemust have happened that Mr F, in taking off his fore going to bed, I had taken my own boots and Mr Ftrousers, which were rather tight, and he being old and stiff, the parcel of notes during the exertion must have fallen out of his pocket, into one of the boots which were lying near him at the time.

This circumstance at the moment afforded me a

good deal of amusement, but when I began to reflect

upon what the consequences might have been, I was very seriously concerned.

If the circumstance had occurred in the way I have supposed, and I can conceive no other, the boots must have been taken away from the door, and thrown down with others, to the number perhaps of twenty or thirty pairs, in a small outhouse in the stable-yard, where the boots were taken to be cleaned, and as there were at all times of the day a number of hostlers, coachmen, and others, going about, the house being one of the greatest stage-coach establishments in London, the safe return of the money appears almost miraculous; for had the money fallen into the hands of a person less honest than Boots' himself, it is not improbable that the temptation would have overcome any scruples he might have had, the sum being large; and had the person kept it secret, no suspicion could possibly have attached to him.

Now, supposing, what is highly probable, that the money had not been returned, in what a situation should I have been placed! Take into consideration all the circumstances of the case. Knowing that Mr F was going to reside some months in France, I must have been presumed to calculate that he would have a considerable sum of money in his custody. Finding out his residence in London, arranging to go with him to France, getting him to come to my lodg ing and into my own bedroom, introducing the subject regarding the securing of the money, so as to ascertain where it was concealed, would all have appeared as certain proof that I had arisen during the night, and taken possession of the money. It could scarcely have availed me to deny all knowledge of the circumstance, or allege the improbability of my having committed a robbery where it could be so easily detected. Such circumstances have often occurred before, where the desire could not be resisted. Nor could Mr F have been blamed had he made application to the public authorities to investigate the matter. What a clear case of circumstantial evidence would any judge or jury have made out against me! At the very least, the loss of reputation for life would have been the ultimate consequence."

66

DANGER OF IGNORANCE.

There are few villages in the country which do not present us specimens of the uneducated; we meet him in the gin-shop and in the street; he is an idler, a drunkard, a quarreller: we hear of him in every riot, he is an aider and abettor in every outrage. His family are slovenly, reckless, debased, wretched. He is a quarreller because a drunkard; and he is a drunkard because he is idle. But why is he idle? Because he has never felt the value of labour, the pleasure of thinking, the joy of a good conscience. He has never been habituated to form Judgments of these things. The powers necessary to form such judgments have been neglected. He has never been taught to examine, to inquire, to attend. He has become passive. He feels the pressure of want brought on by his own habits; but how does he try to remedy it? All his life he has been taught to spare, as much as possible, his own exertions, and to hang, beggar-like, as much as possible on those of others. He is the slave, from laziness, of authority. It is not in a sudden emergency he is likely to throw it off. All his life he has sacrificed, with the shortsighted selfishness of ignorance, the future to the present, and every interest, public and private, to his own. He is turbulent, but not independent: he talks of freedom, and is a slave to every man and thing around. But indolence is not a merely passive vice. Better to wear out" than to "rust out" has been truly said; but he who "rusts out" "wears out" too. No greater burden than sloth; no greater consumer of the spirit and body of man than doing nothing and having nothing to do. Every day spent in inactivity renders action more difficult; every hour which does not add, steals away some instrument of virtue and happiness, and leaves the sluggard more at the mercy of those visitations of sickness or want to which even the industrious are exposed. Nor is this all. Omission of duty soon becomes commission of crime. Painful reflections now beset him. They are sought to be extinguished, but not by reform. Conscience drives him to fresh vice. This goes on for a time; but health, means, companions, must at last fail. Then it is that he sees, for the first time, how bootlessly he has squandered away the healthy morning-tide, the working hours of life. He has paid down existence, and all that makes existence a glory and a good, in advance. Body and soul are spent. He becomes sullen and sour. Disappointments thicken on him, and they are all of his own causing. His farm is covered with weeds, his shop deserted, his children profligates and rebels, his household a hell. He gradually becomes an enemy to all social ordinance, to law, justice, truth, good faith-to all that makes community to man. He envies and hates the good and happy; he looks on every check as a wrong, rush for rescue from these encompassing evils? The on every prosperous man as a foe. Whither is he to gospel he never understood, and therefore never practised. His religion is an hypocrisy or a superstition. It affords him now no direction in his errors, no consolation in his afflictions. He finds in it neither warmth nor light. The religion he learned never penetrated to the spirit: it was a tinkling cymbal, a jargon of meaningless and profitless words. But crime, which had long been ripe in thought, is at last on the point of bursting into act. He is at last ready for every desperate attempt. Education has been held up as the great principle of all modern restlessness and disorder. Is this the case? Let facts answer.

happiness should emanate? Private vice has but to make a few steps and a few proselytes, and it becomes public corruption: individual discontent wants only time and circumstance to spread out into general disorder. Such, indeed, are the real revolutionists; men bad and blind -blind because they are bad-a huge Polyphemus, sightless and strong, waiting only some crafty guide to lead the monster on against society. Nor is such want likely to remain long unsupplied.-Wyse on Education.

THE GERMAN NIGHT WATCHMAN'S SONG. FROM "SOUVENIRS OF A SUMMER IN GERMANY." [A few nights since I heard a man's voice under the window singing a few simple notes. An hour flew away, and the song rose once more under the window. The singer proved to be the watchman of the little town, and his Nacht-lied, or night song, as it is beautifully called-a sort of hymn, each verse adapted to the hour at which it is sung. There is something delightful in

this idea; it is deeply characteristic of the spirit of natural religion which seems to pervade Germany, and the custom is primitive and poetical to the greatest degree. What can be more touching than to hear the guardian of the silent village, as he walks his nightly rounds, thus drawing a simple moral from the fleeting hours; and invoking for the sleeping inhabitants the protection of that God who neither slumbers nor sleeps. The following is a

translation.]

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of eight, good sirs, has struck.
Eight souls alone from death were kept,
When God the earth with deluge swept-
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.

Lord! through thine all-prevailing might
Do thou vouchsafe us a good night!
Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of nine, good sirs, has struck.
Nine lepers cleansed returned not,
Be not thy blessings, man, forgot.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord, &c.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of ten, good sirs, has struck.
Ten precepts show God's holy will,
Oh! may we prove obedient still.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord, &c.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour eleven, good sirs, has struck.
Eleven apostles remained true,
May we be like that faithful few!
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord, &c.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of twelve, good sirs, has struck.
Twelve is of time the boundary-
Man! think upon eternity.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord, &c.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of one, good sirs, has struck.
One God alone reigns over all;
Nought can without his will befall.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord, &c.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of two, good sirs, has struck.
Two ways has man to walk been given,
Teach me the right-the path to heav'n
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord, &c.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of three, good sirs, has struck.
Three Gods in one-exalted most,
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.

Lord, &c.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of four, good sirs, has struck.
Four seasons crown the farmer's care,
Thy heart with equal toil prepare-
Up-up-awake! nor slumber on,
The morn approaches, night is gone!
Thank God, who, by his power and might,
Has watched and kept us through this night!

THE LEARNED LANGUAGES.

The learned languages are still considered by many, emphatically, education. To teach them, and to teach little else, was a portion of the wisdom of our ancestors: but though wisdom in them, it does not follow it is such in us. With them it was knowledge, not for ornament but use. It was the instrument of action as well as of thought. Law, diplomacy, medicine, religion, all was Latin: a man who was no "Latiner" was a mere villein" in education; he was deemed unfit in civil life for But to insist on it at present, but above all as the only any situation destined for the "ingenuous" and free. thing necessary, and to the sacrifice of many other things really so, is a folly of which our ancestors could not have been guilty: they did not require Hebrew to prescribe for a patient, nor was it in Greek trochaics they nego tiated loans or ratified treaties of peace. Our social existence has been multiplied and spread out by recent discovery and extensive and rapid communication to an extraordinary degree. We require means and instruments corresponding with this diversity and extent, and we are still to be limited to one little manageable, and, as we are taught to manage it, of little use. Of what Here are men uneducated enough, ignorant advantage to a merchant, to the head of a manufactory, enough, to produce the most perfect quiet, if ignorance to a military man, or to any of the numerous classes deand absence of education could produce it. Yet is it pendent on our public offices, the most complete knowfrom materials like these you are to expect the tranquil-ledge of the ancient languages? It is a luxury, but lity and prosperity of a great nation? Is it in the nature luxuries are but poor substitutes for necessaries. Men of things, that out of elements so utterly evil, peace and cannot live on cakes, neither will erudition conduct

through life. If they will read the ancient authors, let them read them in translations. It is not the best, but the best is attainable at too dear a rate. We live too fast in the present age to spend so much time in words. Things press upon us at every step, and an education dealing with things-a real or reality education, as the Germans term it is the education best fitted for the practical, the reality-men-for the active classes of the community. Wyse on Education.

[If the above propositions be correct, why do men who consider Latin unnecessary in general education continue to introduce Latin words and sentences into their writ ings? By doing so, they only keep up the delusion which in other respects they are endeavouring to dissipate. It should be a fixed rule with all who wish to see youth instructed in a knowledge of things instead of words, never at any time or in any circumstances to use a single Latin or Greek expression.]

MACAIRE AND THE DOG.

A gentleman named Macaire, officer of the bodyguard of Charles V., king of France, entertained a bitter hatred against another gentleman, named Aubry de Montdidier, his comrade in service. These two having met in the Forest of Bondis, near Paris, Macaire took an opportunity of treacherously murdering his brother officer, and buried him in a ditch. Montdidier was unaccompanied at the moment, excepting by a greyhound, with which he had probably gone out to hunt. Julius Scaliger, who tells the story, does not mention whether the dog was tied or muzzled, or in what manner the assassin got the deed accomplished without its interference. But, be this as it might, the hound lay down on the grave of its master, and there remained till hunger compelled it to rise. It then went to the kitchen of one of Aubry de Montdidier's dearest friends, where it was welcomed warmly, and fed. As soon as its hunger was appeased, the deg disappeared. For several days this coming and going was repeated, till at last the curiosity of those who saw its movements was excited, and it was resolved to follow the animal, and see if any thing could be learned in explanation of Montdidier's sudden disappearance. The dog was accordingly followed, and was seen to come to a pause on some newly-turned-up earth, where it set up the most mournful wailings and howlings. Scaliger says, that these cries were inexpressibly touching. Those who heard them dug into the ground at the spot, and found there the body of Aubry de Montdidier. It was raised and conveyed to Paris, where it was soon afterwards interred in one of the city cemeteries.

The dog attached itself, from this time forth, to the friend, already mentioned, of its late master. While attending on him, it chanced several times to get a sight of Macaire, and on every occasion it sprang upon him, and would have strangled him had it not been taken off by force. This intensity of hate on the part of the animal awakened a suspicion that Macaire had had some share in Montdidier's murder, for his body showed him to have met a violent death. Charles V., on being informed of the circumstances, wished to satisfy himself of their truth. He made Macaire and the dog be brought before him, and beheld the animal again spring upon the object of its hatred. The king interrogated Macaire closely, but the latter would not admit that he had been in any way connected with Montdidier's murder.

Being strongly impressed by a conviction that the conduct of the dog was based on some guilty act of Macaire, the king ordered a combat to take place between the officer and his dumb accuser, according to the practice, in those days, between human plaintiffs and defendants. This remarkable combat took place on the isle of Notre-Dame at Paris, in presence of the whole court. The king allowed Macaire to have a strong club, as a defensive weapon; while, on the other hand, the only self-preservative means allowed to the dog consisted of a hole or recess, into which it could retreat if hard pressed. The combatants appeared in the lists. The dog seemed perfectly aware of it's situation and duty. For a short time it leapt actively around Macaire, and then, at one spring, it fastened itself upon his throat, in so firm a manner that he could not disentangle himself. He would have been strangled had he not cried for mercy, and avowed his crime. The dog was pulled from off him, but he was only liberated from its fangs to perish by the hands of the law. The fidelity of this dog has been celebrated in many a drama and poem. It is usually called the Dog of Montargis, from the combat having taken place at the Chateau of Montargis.

We again beg to state, that a paragraph which we some time ago copied from a London newspaper, purporting to describe a

remarkable mode of curing deafness, has been discovered by us to have been originally put in circulation as a quackish puff.

The very vile practice, of which nearly all newspaper proprietaries are guilty, of inserting paid paragraphs pretending to convey the

opinions of the editor, renders it extremely difficult to know what is true from what is false in the public prints; and we deeply regret having on the above occasion been imposed upon by one of these fabricated announcements, and thereby given it a circulation which it by no means deserved.

LONDON: Published, with permission of the proprietors, by W.S.
ORR, Paternoster Row; and sold by all booksellers and news-
men.-Printed by Bradbury and Evans, Whitefriars.
Complete sets of the Journal are always to be had from the

publishers or their agents; also, any odd numbers to complete sets. Persons requiring their volumes bound along with titlepages and contents, have only to give them into the hands of any bookseller, with orders to that effect.

[graphic]

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

"CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE," &c.

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NUMBER 428.

MORAL EPIDEMICS. THERE is a remarkable analogy between diseases of the body and diseases of the mind, and it is shown in nothing more strikingly than in the tendency of some morbid mental conditions to spread, like common bodily ailments, and take possession of great bodies of people. Some of the most puzzling things in the history of superstition may be explained upon this principle.

For example witchcraft. It has always appeared to enlightened inquirers as a very strange peculiarity attending this superstition, that so many of the individuals accused of it were themselves, as appears from their confessions and otherwise, under the impression that they were witches. We could not of course expect that any individual accused of this imaginary crime would have rested a defence upon an allegation of its imaginary character, for the belief in it was then universal. But we might have expected that most of the accused would represent themselves as innocent in thought, word, and deed. The contrary of this is the case. Vast numbers readily confessed to those very impossible things in which the superstition consisted -to intercourse, for instance, with supernatural beings, including the prince of evil spirits, to midnight journeyings through the air, and to successful practisings against the health and prosperity of their neighbours. How should this be?

An extensive observation of witch cases supplies a key to the mystery. It is found that there is a remarkable sameness in them all, even those of different countries presenting in general the same leading features. Almost always we find that the culprit has received visits from Satan in a human form, and sold to him her soul and hopes of salvation. The acts of reverence paid to him, and the marks which he makes upon their bodies to distinguish them as his flock, are always the

same.

SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 1840.

Geneva saw five hundred burnt in three months;
Lorraine nine hundred in a few years; and in France
the number burnt was described as "almost infinite."
The delusion lasted in Germany, and most other coun-
tries of Europe, till the latter part of the seventeenth
but occasionally flaming up into a greater blaze than
century, not always manifesting the same intensity,
disease, which sometimes slumbers a little, and some-
usual. Its whole features were those of a contagious
ever a reawakening took place, the delusion always
times seems to revive with fresh strength. But when-
went on for a while, increasing and spreading, and
this sheerly in consequence of the strong bent of the
to burn itself out, or something else occurred to divert
public mind to the subject, until it seemed, as it were,
attention. There can be no doubt that the whole evil
arose from that unhappy bull, followed up as it was
by books commenting on and explaining it. The doc-
trines were by these means extensively made known
and deeply impressed. Working on minds unenlight-
to prosecutions and executions, by which the excite-
ened, unreasonable, bigoted, and barbarous, they led
ment was further increased. Then all the persons of
a certain order, namely, those of weakest and most
excitable minds, brooding over what all were talking
were guilty of the crime; and the doctrines of demon-
of, would work themselves up into a belief that they
ology, which had been made familiar to them, would
take form in their minds as recollections of actual
transactions in which they had been engaged. Hence
their confessing to an impossible offence, and hence
the uniformity or general resemblance of all the con-
fessions.

We have another remarkable example of such a
moral epidemic in the history of the Anointers of
Milan, which has lately been placed before the British
notion that the plague could be propagated by a dele-
public in a translation from an Italian work.* The
the walls of a house, was, it seems, one of old date.
terious ointment, applied to the person, or even upon
In 1630, four Frenchmen fled from Madrid, under
suspicion of having attempted to propagate the disease
by such means in that city. The king sent circulars
amongst the rest to Milan, where the plague was
describing the supposed culprits to various states, and
The intelligence produced a
raging at the time.
strong impression in the infected city, and, ere long,
it was discovered that several houses had been se-
look at the houses, and to speculate on the nature of
The excite-
cretly anointed during the night. People flocked to
the offence and its probable authors.
ment was much increased by a proclamation stating
the fact, and offering a reward for the discovery of the
anointers, and very soon a few persons were taken
delinquents. Great anxiety was felt to detect the
up on suspicion, and tortured to make them confess.
them, they were condemned and executed, generally
Though scarcely any evidence could be brought against
in the most barbarous modes that could be devised;
and thus the excitement was still further increased.
The house of the supposed compounder of the oint-
ment was pulled down, and a tall pillar erected on the
spot, to commemorate his guilt. Meanwhile, more
be anointed, and the public appetite for victims was
houses were discovered to be anointed, or supposed to
increased. At one time fifteen hundred persons were
in prison on suspicion. Scores were broken on the
wheel, or had their flesh torn with red-hot pincers
from their bodies; and many only anticipated that
fate by dying in prison of the pestilence. It is re-

The description of a witch meeting in the county of Nairn, in the north of Scotland, A.D. 1662, is identical with the accounts given by Glanvil of meetings of Swedish witches in the Blocula; and always a broomstick or the stalk of any common shrub is sufficient equipage for the old ladies, if they only, on mounting, pronounce a certain sentence in the name of their grisly master. The things which witches can do are always the same, and have been so in all ages. Their power of raising storms is alluded to by the Roman poet Tibullus. Their power of destroying any one by making a waxen image of him, and melting it away before a slow fire, is adverted to by Ovid as well as Shakspeare. The very things which they use for their incantations-toads, newts, fragments of human bodies, and the ashes of the dead-have undergone no change in the course of time; and their taking the form of hares and cats, their enchantments to produce sickness, and their malicious efforts to stop mills, and drain their neighbours' cattle of milk, are all stated and ordinary parts of witch procedure, repeated over and over again, without variation, in every part of Christendom. It is, in short, quite evident that the confessions of these unfortunate persons took their form from what may be called the code of popular doctrines on the subject of witchcraft. And the history of this code is a very instructive one. It first took a decided shape in a bull of Pope Innocent VIII., in 1484, by which witchcraft was amply described, and powers were granted for its punishment. From this time, much was written on the subject; prosecutions were frequent; public attention was strongly attracted; and, exactly in proportion as more and more witches were burnt, so did more and more witches come into being. Before the issue of the bull, the offence was obscure and rare; bat, in thirty years after, it was so common, that | London, Rolandi.

* Trial of the Anointers during the Plague of Milan, A. D. 1630.

PRICE THREE HALFPENCE.

markable, that, as the punishments increased, the
number of houses anointed, or supposed to be an-
ointed, increased also, till at length it became a wonder
how so much ointment was made. It may now be
fairly doubted if any house really was anointed,
although the historians of the time inform us without
the least appearance of doubt in their own minds,
every night. But whether anointing really took place,
or was only a delusion of the senses, there can
that hundreds and thousands were smeared over
be no doubt of one important fact, that many persons
at length spontaneously confessed that they had been
guilty of anointing with a view to spread the pesti-
lence. The probability is that, as in the case of
witchcraft, the persons of more weak and excitable
mind, after long and intense pondering on the sup-
posed act, at length came to believe that they had been
guilty of it; but it is not impossible that, under a
delirious excitement, some had actually done or at-
tempted to do that which so many were supposed to
be doing. However the truth may be in this respect.
we have an equally instructive illustration of what we
have ventured to call moral epidemic.

History is full of similar illusions spread under the influence of great excitement. Some are of a nature requiring to be spoken of with tenderness, and which

we shall therefore leave uncommented on; but in all, the rule is universal, that certain shapes of ideas are worked out into realities, and even rapture is felt in the strictest conformity to a model. The craziest minds are first affected, and then the next craziest, and so on. What one says he has felt, another soon thinks he feels; and thus the epidemic goes on, till, the materials of excitement being exhausted, it comes to a natural death.

The same law holds with regard to crime. In the farm buildings in the county of Kent, were burnt by autumn of 1830, some corn-stacks, barms, and other their property with the same treatment, unless the wages of farm labour were raised, and the use of manight, and several farmers received letters, threatening months of the year, these nocturnal acts of incendiachinery discontinued. In the course of the three last ingham, Sussex, and Surrey, and some took place so far north as Berwickshire. There is considerable rearism were extended into Hampshire, Wiltshire, Buckson to believe that they were, to a great extent, not, as ordinary crimes are, the result of wicked disposispoken of the first burnings with great alarm. Much Swing," political importance was attached to them. The potions, but merely imitative acts. The newspapers had pular fancy was caught by the odd term " which, from being the signature of threatening letters, came in a little time to distinguish the whole transactions. Thus much excitement was at length felt. There can be little doubt that, almost from the first, some of the burnings arose from the excitement alone; but, latterly, the most of them, if not all, had probably no other origin. One of the criminals afterwards confessed that he had set fire to his master's ricks from no motive whatever: only he had been incessantly thinking of the burnings, and even had dreamt of them, and at length he had risen from his sleep, and gone out and done the deed. We may fairly presume that much of the guilt of this dreadful time would not have been incurred, if the first outrages had not obtained so much notoriety. In an early age, when there tieth part of the outrages committed. were no newspapers, it is probable that, with the same popular discontent, there would not have been a twen

The effect which the performance of Schiller's play of the Robbers had upon the university youth of Germany, in making them go out upon the highway, is

upon what the consequences might have been, I was very seriously concerned.

If the circumstance had occurred in the way I have supposed, and I can conceive no other, the boots must have been taken away from the door, and thrown down with others, to the number perhaps of twenty or thirty pairs, in a small outhouse in the stable-yard, where the boots were taken to be cleaned, and as there were at all times of the day a number of hostlers, coachmen, and others, going about, the house being one of the greatest stage-coach establishments in London, the safe return of the money appears almost miraculous; for had the money fallen into the hands of a person less honest than Boots' himself, it is not improbable that the temptation would have overcome any scruples he might have had, the sum being large; and had the person kept it secret, no suspicion could possibly have attached to him.

happiness should emanate? Private vice has but to make a few steps and a few proselytes, and it becomes public corruption: individual discontent wants only time and circumstance to spread out into general disorder. Such, indeed, are the real revolutionists; men bad and blind -blind because they are bad-a huge Polyphemus, sightless and strong, waiting only some crafty guide to lead the monster on against society. Nor is such want likely to remain long unsupplied.-Wyse on Education.

THE GERMAN NIGHT WATCHMAN'S SONG. FROM "SOUVENIRS OF A SUMMER IN GERMANY."

translation.]

[A few nights since I heard a man's voice under the window singing a few simple notes. An hour flew away, and the song rose once more under the window. The singer proved to be the watchman of the little town, and his Nacht-lied, or night song, as it is beautifully called-a sort of hymn, each verse adapted to the hour at which it is sung. There is something delightful in Now, supposing, what is highly probable, that the this idea; it is deeply characteristic of the spirit of natural relimoney had not been returned, in what a situation gion which seems to pervade Germany, and the custom is primishould I have been placed! Take into consideration tive and poetical to the greatest degree. What can be more touch all the circumstances of the case. Knowing that Mring than to hear the guardian of the silent village, as he walks his F—was going to reside some months in France, I nightly rounds, thus drawing a simple moral from the fleeting must have been presumed to calculate that he would hours; and invoking for the sleeping inhabitants the protection have a considerable sum of money in his custody. of that God who neither slumbers nor sleeps. The following is a Finding out his residence in London, arranging to go with him to France, getting him to come to my lodging and into my own bedroom, introducing the subject regarding the securing of the money, so as to ascertain where it was concealed, would all have appeared as certain proof that I had arisen during the night, and taken possession of the money. It could scarcely have availed me to deny all knowledge of the circumstance, or allege the improbability of my having committed a robbery where it could be so easily detected. Such circumstances have often occurred before, where the desire could not be resisted. Nor could Mr F have been blamed had he made application to the public authorities to investigate the matter. What a clear case of circumstantial evidence would any judge or jury have made out against me! At the very least, the loss of reputation for life would have been the ultimate consequence."

DANGER OF IGNORANCE.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of eight, good sirs, has struck.
Eight souls alone from death were kept,
When God the earth with deluge swept-
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.

Lord! through thine all-prevailing might
Do thou vouchsafe us a good night!
Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of nine, good sirs, has struck.
Nine lepers cleansed returned not,
Be not thy blessings, man, forgot.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord, &c.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of ten, good sirs, has struck.
Ten precepts show God's holy will,
Oh! may we prove obedient still.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord, &c.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour eleven, good sirs, has struck.
Eleven apostles remained true,
May we be like that faithful few!
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord, &c.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of twelve, good sirs, has struck.
Twelve is of time the boundary-
Man! think upon eternity.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord, &c.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of one, good sirs, has struck.
One God alone reigns over all;
Nought can without his will befall.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord, &c.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of two, good sirs, has struck.
Two ways has man to walk been given,
Teach me the right-the path to heav'n.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.
Lord, &c.

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of three, good sirs, has struck.
Three Gods in one-exalted most,
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Unless the Lord to guard us deign,
Man wakes and watches all in vain.

Lord, &c.

There are few villages in the country which do not present us specimens of the uneducated; we meet him in the gin-shop and in the street; he is an idler, a drunkard, a quarreller: we hear of him in every riot, he is an aider and abettor in every outrage. His family are slovenly, reckless, debased, wretched. He is a quarreller because a drunkard; and he is a drunkard because he is idle. But why is he idle? Because he has never felt the value of labour, the pleasure of thinking, the joy of a good conscience. He has never been habituated to form judgments of these things. The powers necessary to form such judgments have been neglected. He has never been taught to examine, to inquire, to attend. He has become passive. He feels the pressure of want brought on by his own habits; but how does he try to remedy it? All his life he has been taught to spare, as much as possible, his own exertions, and to hang, beggar-like, as much as possible on those of others. He is the slave, from laziness, of authority. It is not in a sudden emergency he is likely to throw it off. All his life he has sacrificed, with the shortsighted selfishness of ignorance, the future to the present, and every interest, public and private, to his own. He is turbulent, but not independent: he talks of freedom, and is a slave to every man and thing around. But indolence is not a merely passive vice. Better to 66 wear out" than to "rust out" has been truly said; but he who "rusts out" "wears out" too. No greater burden than sloth; no greater consumer of the spirit and body of man than doing nothing and having nothing to do. Every day spent in inactivity renders action more difficult; every hour which does not add, steals away some instrument of virtue and happiness, and leaves the sluggard more at the mercy of those visitations of sickness or want to which even the industrious are exposed. Nor is this all. Omission of duty soon becomes commission of crime. Painful reflections now beset him. They are sought to be extinguished, but not by reform. Conscience drives him to fresh vice. This goes on for a time; but health, means, companions, must at last fail. Then it is that he sees, for the first time, how bootlessly he has squandered away the healthy morning-tide, the working hours of life. He has paid down existence, and all that makes existence a glory and a good, in advance. Body The learned languages are still considered by many, and soul are spent. He becomes sullen and sour. Dis- emphatically, education. To teach them, and to teach appointments thicken on him, and they are all of his own little else, was a portion of the wisdom of our ancestors: causing. His farm is covered with weeds, his shop de- but though wisdom in them, it does not follow it is such serted, his children profligates and rebels, his house- in us. With them it was knowledge, not for ornament hold a hell. He gradually becomes an enemy to all but use. It was the instrument of action as well as of social ordinance, to law, justice, truth, good faith-to all thought. Law, diplomacy, medicine, religion, all was that makes community to man. He envies and hates the Latin: a man who was no "Latiner" was a mere "vilgood and happy; he looks on every check as a wrong, lein" in education; he was deemed unfit in civil life for on every prosperous man as a foe. Whither is he to any situation destined for the "ingenuous" and free. rush for rescue from these encompassing evils? The But to insist on it at present, but above all as the only gospel he never understood, and therefore never prac- thing necessary, and to the sacrifice of many other things tised. His religion is an hypocrisy or a superstition. It really so, is a folly of which our ancestors could not have affords him now no direction in his errors, no consolation been guilty: they did not require Hebrew to prescribe in his afflictions. He finds in it neither warmth nor light. for a patient, nor was it in Greek trochaics they negoThe religion he learned never penetrated to the spirit: it tiated loans or ratified treaties of peace. Our social was a tinkling cymbal, a jargon of meaningless and pro- existence has been multiplied and spread out by recent fitless words. But crime, which had long been ripe in discovery and extensive and rapid communication to an thought, is at last on the point of bursting into act. He extraordinary degree. We require means and instruis at last ready for every desperate attempt. Education ments corresponding with this diversity and extent, and has been held up as the great principle of all modern we are still to be limited to one little manageable, and, restlessness and disorder. Is this the case? Let facts as we are taught to manage it, of little use. Of what answer. Here are men uneducated enough, ignorant advantage to a merchant, to the head of a manufactory, enough, to produce the most perfect quiet, if ignorance to a military man, or to any of the numerous classes deand absence of education could produce it. Yet is it pendent on our public offices, the most complete knowfrom materials like these you are to expect the tranquil-ledge of the ancient languages? It is a luxury, but lity and prosperity of a great nation? Is it in the nature luxuries are but poor substitutes for necessaries. Men of things, that out of elements so utterly evil, peace and cannot live on cakes, neither will erudition conduct

Hark, while I sing! our village clock
The hour of four, good sirs, has struck.
Four seasons crown the farmer's care,
Thy heart with equal toil prepare-
Up-up-awake! nor slumber on,
The morn approaches, night is gone!
Thank God, who, by his power and might,
Has watched and kept us through this night!

THE LEARNED LANGUAGES.

through life. If they will read the ancient authors, let them read them in translations. It is not the best, but the best is attainable at too dear a rate. We live too fast in the present age to spend so much time in words. Things press upon us at every step, and an education dealing with things-a real or reality education, as the Germans term it is the education best fitted for the practical, the reality-men-for the active classes of the community. Wyse on Education.

[If the above propositions be correct, why do men who consider Latin unnecessary in general education continue to introduce Latin words and sentences into their writings? By doing so, they only keep up the delusion which in other respects they are endeavouring to dissipate. It should be a fixed rule with all who wish to see youth instructed in a knowledge of things instead of words, never at any time or in any circumstances to use a single Latin or Greek expression.]

MACAIRE AND THE DOG.

A gentleman named Macaire, officer of the bodyguard of Charles V., king of France, entertained a bitter hatred against another gentleman, named Aubry de Montdidier, his comrade in service. These two having met in the Forest of Bondis, near Paris, Macaire took an opportunity of treacherously murdering his brother officer, and buried him in a ditch. Montdidier was unaccompanied at the moment, excepting by a greyhound, with which he had probably gone out to hunt. Julius Scaliger, who tells the story, does not mention whether the dog was tied or muzzled, or in what manner the assassin got the deed accomplished without its interference. But, be this as it might, the hound lay down on the grave of its master, and there remained till hunger compelled it to rise. It then went to the kitchen of one of Aubry de Montdidier's dearest friends, where it was welcomed warmly, and fed. As soon as its hunger was appeased, the dog disappeared. For several days this coming and going was repeated, till at last the curiosity of those who saw its movements was excited, and it was resolved to follow the animal, and see if any thing could be learned in explanation of Montdidier's sudden disappearance. The dog was accordingly followed, and was seen to come to a pause on some newly-turned-up earth, where it set up the most mournful wailings and howlings. Scaliger says, that these cries were inexpressibly touching. Those who heard them dug into the ground at the spot, and found there the body of Aubry de Montdidier. It was raised and conveyed to Paris, where it was soon afterwards interred in one of the city cemeteries.

The dog attached itself, from this time forth, to the friend, already mentioned, of its late master. While attending on him, it chanced several times to get a sight of Macaire, and on every occasion it sprang upon him, and would have strangled him had it not been taken off by force. This intensity of hate on the part of the animal awakened a suspicion that Macaire had had some share in Montdidier's murder, for his body showed him to have met a violent death. Charles V., on being informed of the circumstances, wished to satisfy himself of their truth. He made Macaire and the dog be brought before him, and beheld the animal again spring upon the object of its hatred. The king interrogated Macaire closely, but the latter would not admit that he had been in any way connected with Montdidier's murder.

Being strongly impressed by a conviction that the conduct of the dog was based on some guilty act of Macaire, the king ordered a combat to take place be tween the officer and his dumb accuser, according to the practice, in those days, between human plaintiffs and defendants. This remarkable combat took place on the isle of Notre-Dame at Paris, in presence of the whole court. The king allowed Macaire to have a strong club, as a defensive weapon; while, on the other hand, the only self-preservative means allowed to the dog consisted of a hole or recess, into which it could retreat if hard pressed. The combatants appeared in the lists. The dog seemed perfectly aware of its situation and duty. For a short time it leapt actively around Macaire, and then, at one spring, it fastened itself upon his throat, in so firm a manner that he could not disentangle himself. He would have been strangled had he not cried for mercy, and avowed his crime. The dog was pulled from off him, but he was only liberated from its fangs to perish by the hands of the law. The fidelity of this dog has been celebrated in many a drama and poem. It is usually called the Dog of Montargis, from the combat having taken place at the Chateau of Montargis.

We again beg to state, that a paragraph which we some time ago copied from a London newspaper, purporting to describe a

remarkable mode of curing deafness, has been discovered by us to have been originally put in circulation as a quackish puff. The very vile practice, of which nearly all newspaper proprietaries

are guilty, of inserting paid paragraphs pretending to convey the

opinions of the editor, renders it extremely difficult to know what is true from what is false in the public prints; and we

deeply regret having on the above occasion been imposed upon by one of these fabricated announcements, and thereby given it a circulation which it by no means deserved.

LONDON: Published, with permission of the proprietors, by W.S. ORR, Paternoster Row; and sold by all booksellers and newsmen.-Printed by Bradbury and Evans, Whitefriars. Complete sets of the Journal are always to be had from the sets. Persons requiring their volumes bound along with titlepages and contents, have only to give them into the hands of any bookseller, with orders to that effect.

publishers or their agents; also, any odd numbers to complete

[graphic]

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

"CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE," &c.

[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

NUMBER 428.

MORAL EPIDEMICS. THERE is a remarkable analogy between diseases of the body and diseases of the mind, and it is shown in nothing more strikingly than in the tendency of some morbid mental conditions to spread, like common bodily ailments, and take possession of great bodies of people. Some of the most puzzling things in the history of superstition may be explained upon this principle.

For example-witchcraft. It has always appeared to enlightened inquirers as a very strange peculiarity attending this superstition, that so many of the individuals accused of it were themselves, as appears from their confessions and otherwise, under the impression that they were witches. We could not of course expect that any individual accused of this imaginary crime would have rested a defence upon an allegation of its imaginary character, for the belief in it was then universal. But we might have expected that most of the accused would represent themselves as innocent in thought, word, and deed. The contrary of this is the

case.

Vast numbers readily confessed to those very impossible things in which the superstition consisted -to intercourse, for instance, with supernatural beings, including the prince of evil spirits, to midnight journeyings through the air, and to successful practisings against the health and prosperity of their neighbours. How should this be?

An extensive observation of witch cases supplies a key to the mystery. It is found that there is a remarkable sameness in them all, even those of different countries presenting in general the same leading features. Almost always we find that the culprit has received visits from Satan in a human form, and sold to him her soul and hopes of salvation. The acts of reverence paid to him, and the marks which he makes upon their bodies to distinguish them as his flock, are always the

same.

The description of a witch meeting in the county of Nairn, in the north of Scotland, A.D. 1662, is identical with the accounts given by Glanvil of meetings of Swedish witches in the Blocula; and always a broomstick or the stalk of any common shrub is sufficient equipage for the old ladies, if they only, on mounting, pronounce a certain sentence in the name of their grisly master. The things which witches can do are always the same, and have been so in all ages. Their power of raising storms is alluded to by the Roman poet Tibullus. Their power of destroying any one by making a waxen image of him, and melting it away before a slow fire, is adverted to by Ovid as well as Shakspeare. The very things which they use for their incantations-toads, newts, fragments of human bodies, and the ashes of the dead-have undergone no change in the course of time; and their taking the form of hares and cats, their enchantments to produce sickness, and their malicious efforts to stop mills, and drain their neighbours' cattle of milk, are all stated and ordinary parts of witch procedure, repeated over and over again, without variation, in every part of Christendom. It is, in short, quite evident that the confessions of these unfortunate persons took their form from what may be called the code of popular doctrines on the subject of witchcraft. And the history of this code is a very instructive one. It first took a decided shape in a bull of Pope Innocent VIII., in 1484, by which witchcraft was amply described, and powers were granted for its punishment. From this time, much was written on the subject; prosecutions were frequent; public attention was strongly attracted; and, exactly in proportion as more and more witches were burnt, so did more and more witches come into being. Before the issue of the bull, the offence was obscure and rare; but, in thirty years after, it was so common, that

SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 1840.

Geneva saw five hundred burnt in three months;
Lorraine nine hundred in a few years; and in France
the number burnt was described as "almost infinite."
The delusion lasted in Germany, and most other coun-
tries of Europe, till the latter part of the seventeenth
but occasionally flaming up into a greater blaze than
century, not always manifesting the same intensity,
disease, which sometimes slumbers a little, and some-
usual. Its whole features were those of a contagious
ever a reawakening took place, the delusion always
times seems to revive with fresh strength. But when-
went on for a while, increasing and spreading, and
this sheerly in consequence of the strong bent of the
public mind to the subject, until it seemed, as it were,
attention. There can be no doubt that the whole evil
to burn itself out, or something else occurred to divert
arose from that unhappy bull, followed up as it was
trines were by these means extensively made known
by books commenting on and explaining it. The doc-
and deeply impressed. Working on minds unenlight-
to prosecutions and executions, by which the excite-
ened, unreasonable, bigoted, and barbarous, they led
ment was further increased. Then all the persons of
a certain order, namely, those of weakest and most
excitable minds, brooding over what all were talking
were guilty of the crime; and the doctrines of demon-
of, would work themselves up into a belief that they
ology, which had been made familiar to them, would
take form in their minds as recollections of actual
transactions in which they had been engaged. Hence
their confessing to an impossible offence, and hence
the uniformity or general resemblance of all the con-
fessions.

We have another remarkable example of such a
moral epidemic in the history of the Anointers of
Milan, which has lately been placed before the British
notion that the plague could be propagated by a dele-
public in a translation from an Italian work. The
the walls of a house, was, it seems, one of old date.
terious ointment, applied to the person, or even upon
In 1630, four Frenchmen fled from Madrid, under
suspicion of having attempted to propagate the disease
by such means in that city. The king sent circulars
amongst the rest to Milan, where the plague was
describing the supposed culprits to various states, and
The intelligence produced a
strong impression in the infected city, and, ere long,
raging at the time.
it was discovered that several houses had been se-
look at the houses, and to speculate on the nature of
cretly anointed during the night. People flocked to
the offence and its probable authors. The excite-
ment was much increased by a proclamation stating
the fact, and offering a reward for the discovery of the
delinquents. Great anxiety was felt to detect the
up on suspicion, and tortured to make them confess.
anointers, and very soon a few persons were taken
them, they were condemned and executed, generally
Though scarcely any evidence could be brought against
in the most barbarous modes that could be devised;
and thus the excitement was still further increased.
ment was pulled down, and a tall pillar erected on the
The house of the supposed compounder of the oint-
houses were discovered to be anointed, or supposed to
spot, to commemorate his guilt. Meanwhile, more
be anointed, and the public appetite for victims was
increased. At one time fifteen hundred persons were
in prison on suspicion. Scores were broken on the
wheel, or had their flesh torn with red-hot pincers
from their bodies; and many only anticipated that
fate by dying in prison of the pestilence. It is re-

*Trial of the Anointers during the Plague of Milan, A. D. 1630. London, Rolandi.

PRICE THREE HALFPENCE.

markable, that, as the punishments increased, the
number of houses anointed, or supposed to be an-
ointed, increased also, till at length it became a wonder
how so much ointment was made. It may now be
fairly doubted if any house really was anointed,
although the historians of the time inform us without
the least appearance of doubt in their own minds,
every night. But whether anointing really took place,
or was only a delusion of the senses, there can
that hundreds and thousands were smeared over
be no doubt of one important fact, that many persons
at length spontaneously confessed that they had been
lence. The probability is that, as in the case of
guilty of anointing with a view to spread the pesti-
mind, after long and intense pondering on the sup-
posed act, at length came to believe that they had been
witchcraft, the persons of more weak and excitable
delirious excitement, some had actually done or at-
guilty of it; but it is not impossible that, under a
tempted to do that which so many were supposed to
be doing. However the truth may be in this respect.
we have an equally instructive illustration of what we
have ventured to call moral epidemic.

History is full of similar illusions spread under the we shall therefore leave uncommented on; but in all, influence of great excitement. Some are of a nature the rule is universal, that certain shapes of ideas are requiring to be spoken of with tenderness, and which worked out into realities, and even rapture is felt in the strictest conformity to a model. The craziest minds are first affected, and then the next craziest, and so on. What one says he has felt, another soon thinks he feels; and thus the epidemic goes on, till, the materials of excitement being exhausted, it comes to a natural death.

The same law holds with regard to crime. In the farm buildings in the county of Kent, were burnt by autumn of 1830, some corn-stacks, barns, and other their property with the same treatment, unless the wages of farm labour were raised, and the use of manight, and several farmers received letters, threatening months of the year, these nocturnal acts of incendiarism were extended into Hampshire, Wiltshire, Buckchinery discontinued. In the course of the three last ingham, Sussex, and Surrey, and some took place so far north as Berwickshire. There is considerable reason to believe that they were, to a great extent, not, as ordinary crimes are, the result of wicked disposispoken of the first burnings with great alarm. Much tions, but merely imitative acts. The newspapers had political importance was attached to them. The popular fancy was caught by the odd term "Swing," which, from being the signature of threatening letters, came in a little time to distinguish the whole transactions. Thus much excitement was at length felt. There can be little doubt that, almost from the first, some of the burnings arose from the excitement alone; but, latterly, the most of them, if not all, had probably no other origin. One of the criminals afterwards conno motive whatever: only he had been incessantly fessed that he had set fire to his master's ricks from thinking of the burnings, and even had dreamt of them, and at length he had risen from his sleep, and gone out and done the deed. We may fairly presume that much of the guilt of this dreadful time would not have been incurred, if the first outrages had not obtained so much notoriety. In an early age, when there were no newspapers, it is probable that, with the same tieth part of the outrages committed. popular discontent, there would not have been a twen

The effect which the performance of Schiller's play of the Robbers had upon the university youth of Germany, in making them go out upon the highway, is

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