humor; and, in his most cheerful moods, he loved to tell droll stories that would make the benches rock with laughter. And as for his gloomier moments, it must be remembered that he had a very large family, and that he was very poor. sionally entrusted with the superinten- | but, in spite of occasional outbursts of dence of a body of readers. One day, I anger, he was essentially a good-natured, observed from a distance that the boys, kindly man, endowed with much native who were ostensibly reading by turns Goldsmith's "Abridged History of Rome," were all shaking with laughter, which they scarcely attempted to suppress, but which was utterly unnoticed by their auditor. What could it mean? To my delight I was summoned to take a place in the class, and the boy whom I found next to me immediately solved the mystery by whispering into my ear, "Such fun! Whenever a word ends with 'ing,' say 'ink' instead. We're all doing it, and he don't find it out." .ment. I entered at once into the scheme, which was, indeed, productive of much amuseWhen we had to utter such words as "approachink" or "considerink," the mirth was mild; but when it fell to the lot of one fortunate youth to state that Tarquin was "kink" of Rome, there was almost a roar. Still our excellent old gentleman never discovered that anything abnormal had occurred; and, when we were dismissed, no doubt he confessed, in his inward heart, like England in the old sea-song, "that every man that day had done his duty." As might be supposed, corporal punishment was not much in vogue at a school so extraordinarily lax in discipline. What would have been the fate of the audacious "kink-maker" under the rule of Mrs. Jackson I dread to conjecture. But the learned doctor did not wholly ignore the use of the cane, though it might be observed that this was regulated rather by the state of the doctor's own temper than by the degree of a boy's delinquency. One peculiarity showed at least that he had studied his Roman history to some advantage, and had taken the elder Brutus for his model. Among the pupils were his two sons; and if ever the cane was in requisition with an exceptional vigor, what clouds of dust rose from the jackets of those devoted lads! If we chosen few - who stood at the head of the classical scholars, had been passed into the first part of the Æneid, we should at once have been reminded of the illustrious Trojan concealed in a cloud by his divine mother. But we knew of no book but the second. All things considered, I am of opinion that, if any of the pupils at the academy which I have tried to describe, and of which I saw the end, are alive now, they still look back with a kindly feeling upon the figure of Dr. Saunders himself. His notions of instruction were detestable; From The Saturday Review. THE ORIGIN OF RANK. WHAT is the origin of the divinity which "doth hedge a king"? Why is it that in some countries kings and chiefs are fabled to be descendants of the gods, or to have power to hold converse with the gods, or to be able to control the weather, or, even in recent history, to heal with their touch certain diseases? No one answer will suffice to settle all these questions. The sacredness of royalty, and of other ranks lower than that of royalty, has been an affair of slow growth. Among different peoples different causes have contributed to the belief. The transcendent attributes ascribed to the king of England were partly derived from ecclesiastical ideas and ceremonies, partly from an adoption of the notions of Roman imperialism. But these notions, again, had grown out of instincts still further back in the development of the human mind, and we may perhaps trace the divinity of Divus Julius and the rest to the superstitions which serve savages for physics and metaphysics. Mr. Herbert Spencer's last volume has some matter bearing on this topic; but an important worker in the field is almost forgotten. Towards the end of the last century a learned and ingenious writer, Professor Millar of Glasgow, composed, at the suggestion of his friend Adam Smith, a treatise on the origin of rank. Millar adopted the comparative method now so fashionable, though he was of course guiltless of the word sociology. "By real experiments," he wrote, " not by abstracted metaphysical theories, human nature is unfolded." For his real experiments he went to a collection of the reports of trav ellers: "When illiterate men, ignorant of the writings of each other, and who, unless upon religious subjects, have no speculative systems to warp their opinions, have in different ages and countries described the manners of people in similar circumstances, the reader has an opportunity of comparing their several descriptions, and, from their agreement or dis agreement, is enabled to ascertain the If we look at the account of the Fuegians, credit that is due to them" Reasoning described in Admiral Fitzroy's cruise, we on data thus obtained, Millar concluded find a similar absence of rank produced by that the earliest form of authority in hu- similar causes. "The perfect equality man society, if not that of mothers in among the individuals composing the groups where marriage was not yet intro- tribes must for a long time retard their duced, was that of the father in the family civilization. . . . At present even a piece circle. As the family grew into the village, of cloth is torn in shreds and distributed, precedence and honor were allotted to old and no one individual becomes richer than age and experience; and, still later, when another. On the other hand, it is difficult, rival villages become hostile, courage and to understand how a chief can arise till strength marked the chief. Now that his there is property of some sort by which authority was increased and established he might manifest and still increase his by the institution of property, his power authority." In the same book, however, was at once displayed and strengthened by we get a glimpse of one means by which the share he took in distributing tribal authority can be exercised; "the doctorland. His good services, too, in dealing wizard of each party has much influence out justice were acknowledged, and next over his companions." Among the Eskimo "the dispositions which gave rise to hero- this element in the growth of authority worship led mankind to regard their prin- also exists. A class of wizards called ances, while still alive, as sprung from a gakuts have power to cause fine weather, heavenly original." and by the gift of second sight and magical practices, can detect crimes, so that they necessarily become a kind of civil magistrates. The angakuts use a peculiar official language chiefly made up of allegorical expressions. Here, then, we have no chiefship, nor sacred rank, for the excellent reason that, though superstitious respect for certain people is felt, yet these people lack a material basis for their power in the shape of wealth. How important this basis is may be gathered from Sir Henry Maine's remark about ancient Irish nobility, "Personal wealth was the principal condition of the chief's maintaining his position and authority." The same remark holds true of Homeric Greece and early societies in general." Without following Millar's account of later monarchy in Europe, it must be noticed that the divinity ascribed to chiefs, which he notices at so late a stage of the evolution of the idea of rank, was probably present much earlier. At the same time, though he allows too little influence to superstition in building up the fabric of society, he allots just importance to the factor of property. Property and divine rank seem to have been essential to each other in the making of social order; and where one is absent among contemporary savages, there we do not find the other. As an example of this we might take the case of two people who, like the Homeric Ethiopians, are the outermost of men and dwell far apart at the ends of the world. It is now necessary to pass from examThe Eskimo and the Fuegians, at the ex-ples of tribes who have superstitious treme north and south of the American respect for certain individuals, but who continent, agree in having no private prop- have no property and no chiefs, to peoples erty and no chiefs. The bleak plains who exhibit the phenomenon of superstiof ice and rock are, like Attica," the tious reverence attached to wealthy rulers mother of men without master or lord." or to judges. To take the example of Among the "house-mates" of the smaller Ireland, as described in the "Senchus settlements there is no head-man, and in Mor," we learn that the chiefs, just like the larger gatherings Dr. Rink says that the Angakuts of the Eskimo, had "power "still less than among the house-mates to make fair or foul weather" in the literal was any one belonging to such a place to sense of the words. At the same time, be considered a chief." The songs and there was no country in which the power stories of the Eskimo contain the praises to pass out of the common run of men of men who have risen up and killed any and rise to chief's estate by mere increase usurper who tried to be a ruler over his of wealth, and after a due number of gen"place-mates." No one could possibly erations, was more fully recognized than establish any authority on the basis of in Ireland. "While the Brehon laws sugproperty, because "superfluous property gest that the possession of personal wealth in implements, etc., rarely existed." If is a condition of the maintenance of chiefthere are three boats in one household, one tainship, they show with much distinctness of the boats is "borrowed" by the com- that, through the acquisition of such wealth, munity, and reverts to the general fund. the road was always open to chieftainship." 66 con make war and have a voice in the sale of land." It would also be possible, perhaps, to show how the original influence gained by magical pretensions was differentiated as the influence obtained by property and by distinction in war increased. Thus we have seen that the diviner in Eskimo tribes becomes a kind of civil magistrate, with an unintelligible jargon of his own, and with the knowledge of certain magical devices by which he contrives to detect the guilty. It appears from a passage in "Senchus Mor" that the Irish Brehons at a very early date used magical modes of discovering guilt — afterwards demned as heathen- and employed a hopeless sort of slang in the delivery of their judgments. The chiefs, who had advanced on the secular line of accumulating wealth, although still credited with power over the weather, ceased to comprehend the members of the sacred caste who had confined themselves to the development of their more ancient divining functions. "The Brehons," said the chiefs, "have their judgment and their knowledge to themselves. We do not in the first place understand what they say." ("Sen. Mor.” iii. xxxi.) The chiefs then demanded a reform in legal terminology, which was reluctantly granted by the more conservative Brehons. ("Early History of Institutions," p. 135.) | noticed how, in early Scotland and in In Africa, in the same way, as Bosman, Sweden, divination and property in land the old traveller, says, "As to what dif- went together; and Schoolcraft remarks ference there is between one negro and that in some of the American tribes another, the richest man is the most hon-"priests and jugglers are the persons that ored," yet the most honored man has the same magical power as the poor angatuks of the Eskimo. The king of Loango, according to Abbé Proyart, “has credit to make rain fall on earth." Among the Zulus, the chief is lord of the air, and has power to make fair or foul weather, as in early Ireland. "It happens among black men," according to one of Canon Callaway's converts, "that when the chief has called out an army, and has collected all his bands, he addresses them, and then they sing a song which excites their passions, that their hearts burn with the desire of seeing the enemy; and though the heaven is clear it becomes clouded by the great wind which arises. . . . Therefore it was affirmed among the great chiefs that the heaven is the chief's.' No doubt these examples might be largely increased. In New Zealand, for example, private property almost looks like an extension of the superstitious respect paid to certain men of the privileged class. Whatever the chief has touched is tapu, and no one else may lay hands on it without running serious risk of supernatural punishment. All rangatiras, or men of noble birth, possess this power of securing their goods, and few natives, according to the lively author of " Old New Zealand," "can resist the shadowy terror of the tapu." Thus it is just possible that the sacred element! in rank was not only prior to, but even produced, or helped to produce, the element of wealth, which later became the more powerful and the really essential element in aristocracy. It only needs a moment's reflection to show that the right of property in a superfluous stick or a handy sharp stone is not a very simple idea, especially before the invention of pockets. The moment the owner lays down his chattel the community absorbs it. Even if the proprietor is a strong man, he cannot protect his fishing-rod when it is out of his sight; and the extension of his own personal sacredness to his goods and chattels was thus an extremely important step in the history of society, and a step, if we may judge by the Fuegians and the Eskimo, which was resisted by the democratic instincts of the community. It would not be difficult to multiply instances of the connection between personal powers of divination or magic and right over property. Mr. E. W. Robertson has Supposing the kings of northern European nations to have sprung from the successful chiefs of earlier tribal associations, it is easy to see that they would inherit the powers of their distant predecessors. Their divinity is drawn, among other sources, from the ancient beliefs in divination and human power over the weather, and other attributes of the medicine-man. This religious sentiment, in a less high degree, had attached to the person of inferior chiefs. At the same time the divine descent of the Greek heroes, and of the northern rulers who trace their line to Woden, has been perhaps too hastily explained by Mr. Spencer, and by the author of the pedigrees of Ethelwulf in the "Chronicles." It would need a very large amount of evidence to convince us that Odin was a man, or "manifestly a medicine-man." There is far more in the greater myths of the race than can be accounted for by facts selected from the lowest conditions of human belief. But, just as many aristocracies have been founded by conquering races, so no doubt | long step in human history. Through it the peculiar sacredness of dios Mevéλaos and all the little germ of a childish delusion the rest may be partly derived from the must have been working to ends of the confusion which leads the inferior races utmost value in the construction of society to regard victorious foreigners as distinct - to ends of extraordinary importance and divine. That stream of tendency when contrasted with the slightness of has mingled with others of more na- the means. The science which busies tive origin to make up the transcendent itself with these matters is not so new attributes of kings. In advanced civiliza- as we are apt to suppose. Professor tions, the flattery of courtiers and theolo- Millar, in Adam Smith's time, worked by gians has fallen back on the naïve exag- its method, as we have seen, and anticigerations of savages. From the early pated a great deal of what has since been Greek adventurer who, landing on the advanced as original. But his investigacoast that was to be Hellas, found, like tion of the origin of rank omitted what, by Mr. Wallace in the Aru Islands, that he the light of later researches, looks like a was believed by the simple folk to be able most important factor, the factor which to control the weather, or from the diviner, now exists as superstition, but in an imwith his magical drum and jar and sacred measurably distant age was part of as person, to the deified emperors of Rome | rational a scheme of the universe as was or to the divine right of the Stuarts, is a within reach of our ancestors. A COURT RECEPTION IN TURKEY. - In | herself in the most graceful manner of bendEurope social life is diversified by court receping low before royalty; there a lady has to tions, the opera, the theatre, balls, dinner-par- practise how she may best advance demurely ties, garden-parties, rides and drives, walks, with a long square train passed between her shopping, church-going, and foreign travel. feet, drop suddenly on her knees, dip her foreAll these have their counterpart more or less head three times to the ground, kiss the hem true or grotesque in Turkey. Take, first, court of the august personage's keurk, or furred robe, receptions. These, it is true are rare, but if that happens to be worn at the time, and, they are very magnificent when they do occur. after all this, retreat with good grace, and The grandest was that held in 1868 at the fête without losing her jewelled cap at the feet of of the circumcision of Youssouff Izzeddin her imperial sovereign. Some of the younger Effendi. As this was a public occasion, an- married ladies were courageous enough to swering to our court drawing-rooms, the wives adopt the European corsage, combined with and daughters of all the great pashas were Turkish train and trousers; but the most obliged to present their congratulations in per- amusing of all were three young khanums who son to his Majesty; and, the strictest rule of appeared in white court dresses made in faultall Turkish etiquette being for the time super-less Parisian style, trimmed with wreaths of seded by another even more stringent, no woman, whatever her rank, dare veil her face in the presence of the Commander of the Faithful. I leave it to the imagination of those ladies who have undergone the ordeal of preparing a train and a curtsy for our own court, what anxious cares were bestowed on ugly green and garnet-colored satin gowns, puffed pantaloons to match, on huge wadded paletots worn over the dress, and on French satin shoes. But, above all, the head-dress was the most difficult to arrange, many of the ladies having short-cropped hair. Everything depends on the set of the hôtose or coiffure of colored silk gauze, and on the blaze of jewels affixed to it; crescents of diamonds, aigrettes of diamonds, sapphires and rubies, pearls almost the size of strawberries, pear-shaped diamond earrings as large as hazel-nuts, or coronets resembling oldfashioned imperial crowns. Moreover, the head dress must be most firmly attached, for, as with us, a court débutante has to exercise white roses gemmed with dew, and very simple coiffures to match. These youthful princesses looked altogether lovely, and when they advanced up the crowded presence-chamber they excited murmurs of admiration; they also saluted the sultan by a deep curtsy only, he standing; but on passing to where the Validé Soultan was seated near her son, they made to her the customary acknowledgments. His Majesty was evidently much charmed by the grace and dignity of the sisters, and showed them marked attention by insisting that they should be seated-a sign of condescension and respect not extended to any other lady present. The Validé humored her son's whim, saying to the eldest of the young princesses, while patting her on the shoulder, and motioning her to be seated on the low cushions beside her, "Ghel, kiss'm, ghel! Khosh gueldiniz, safa gueldiniz! Buyuriniz otouriniz!" (Come, my child, come! Be welcome. Sit beside me.) Cornhill Magazine. |