126

'EOTHEN

KINGLAKE.

knowledge he belonged to a pre-scien- | rendezvous at Hamburg. The route the tific age. Kinglake once spoke of himself fellow-travellers took was via Berlin, as "little bookish by nature," and certainly Dresden, Prague, Vienna. From the lathis very genuine enthusiasm for classic ter place they went down the Danube to scenes was not the result of the Greek in- Semlin. Prince Demidoff, in his travels stilled into his unwilling mind by the ped- in 1830, alludes to the recent introduction agogue who ruled over the "dismal days " of steamboats on the river, and declares of his schoolboy life. It was the English that "in making the Danube one of the of Pope's translation that tired him with great commercial highways of the world, a love of Homer's battles. steam has united the East with the West." But nature had placed the iron gates of the Danube in the way of this consummation.

In speaking of his travels, at a time when the recollection was not yet too remote, Kinglake would on rare occasions give in a few vivid words the description of a picturesque incident, in a manner impossible to reproduce, but which remained stamped with the seal of genius on the listener's memory. Sometimes it was an account of the landing near Abydos after a glorious sail through classic Hellespont; the wild ride that brought them within sight of the tomb of Achilles, and the keen starlight that canopied their bivouac on the banks of the Scamander. He made you feel the rapture that kindled his own nature when, at length, standing on the plains of Troy, the beautiful story lost its fabulous character, and assumed the proportions of reality; and then was he enabled to identify in a manner satisfactory to his own mind the sight of the far-famed city.

In another mood the traveller has been known to recall the unwonted sentiment of reverence that subdued his spirit when the end of a long day's ride brought him among the hills of beautiful Galilee, and when, within sight of Nazareth, he saw the sun go down in solemn splendor.

A man can better face the prosaic limitation, the tedious conventionality of our indoor, plodding life in the West after he has steeped his soul in the glamor of the Orient. Something of this may have led Kinglake to take his pleasure in the East, "to fortify himself," as he said, "for the business of life." Some of his early friends found it difficult to understand what motive could impel a man of his temperament to undertake so toilsome and so dangerous a journey; for in his day the impediments and risks of travel had to be taken into account. The desire did not arise, it is true, from any special orthodox reverence for the "holy places," for Gibbon might have been his sponsor in all matters of faith.

When Kinglake arrived at Semlin, the frontier town of Turkey, Belgrade frowned upon him from the other side of the Save. On entering this fortress, it was to commit himself to a plague-suspected country, with "wheel-going Europe" left behind. And now he was to see with his own eyes "the splendor and the havoc of the East."

The romance of travel belongs to the past. The traveller of to-day, instead of starting from Belgrade on horseback, with a retinue of dragomen and tatars armed to the teeth, leaves his hotel in an omnibus, and departs from the railway station armed only with a Cook's ticket; leaving at 9.30 A.M., say, on Tuesday morning, and he is due at Constantinople at four o'clock on the afternoon of the next day. So passes away the glory of travel.

It took Kinglake fifteen days to accomplish the ride of eight hundred and fifty miles from Belgrade to Constantinople'; he was delayed somewhat by the illness of his friend, but not long, for there was no hospitality to be obtained en route for a sick man, who by token of his sickness fell under the terrible suspicion of being plague-stricken. Our travellers journeying through the majestic forests of Servia, rousing the eagles of the Balkans " in the pass of Sapoli, and toiling on from thence to Philippopolis and Adrianople, trod in the very steps of the first Crusad ers. The iron road of to-day does not deviate very far from the same line of march. His Eastern tour, in point of time, extended beyond its original limits, owing in great part to the serious outbreak of the plague in Egypt, where he was detained. He was absent altogether more than fifteen months, and did not return to England till October, 1835.

The record of his travels did not appear Half a century and more has passed in print till 1844, and then not till the MS. since this Eastern journey took place. It had been rejected by some of the leading is needless to say how much is changed. publishers. From the moment that his It was early in July, 1834, that Kinglake book made him famous, Kinglake's intigave his college friend Lord Pollington, a mate friends delighted in calling him

From The Leisure Hour.
COST OF A LONDON FOG.

A LONDON fog is not merely a cheerless
and disagreeable, but also a very costly
affair. Some years ago, after a day of
regular fog in the month of January, the
following statement was issued by the
Gas Light and Coke Company: "Ninety
million cubic feet of gas were sent out
during the twenty-four hours ending at
midnight. This quantity was an increase
on that of the corresponding day in the
previous year (which may be taken as an
ordinary January day) of thirty-seven per
cent., or over thirty-five million cubic
feet."

No

"Eōthen." Among such as survive, the | Benjamin Franklin. He thus introduced
name applied personally is familiar his plan to the people of Paris: "I was
enough, and serves to recall, not without the other evening in a grand company,
a sense of regret, the brilliant promise where the new lamp of M. Lange was ex-
of Kinglake's manhood - a promise not hibited, and much admired for its splendor.
wholly redeemed by his career either at But inquiry was made, whether the oil it
the bar or in Parliament, or even by the consumed was not in proportion to the
literary work that occupied the last thirty light it afforded; in which case there
years of his life.
would be no saving in the use of it.
one present could satisfy us in that point;
but I was pleased to see the general con-
cern for economy, for I love economy ex-
ceedingly.' A few days after, Franklin
published his project, which was no other
than a recommendation to use sunlight
more, and artificial light less. The paper
is in Franklin's best style, full of sound
sense and genial humor, but our reference
to it is only on account of the calculation
he makes as to the cost of candle-light.
Suppose, he says, there are one hundred
thousand families in Paris, and that these
families consume in the night half a pound
of bougies, or candles, per hour. Taking
one family with another this, he thought
a moderate estimate. In the six months
between March 20 and September 20 there
are one hundred and eighty-three nights,
during seven hours of which candles are
burnt; in all twelve hundred and eighty-
one hours. These hours multiplied by
one hundred thousand give the total of
one hundred and twenty-eight million one
hundred thousand hours. At the current
price of wax and tallow, he demonstrated
that the city of Paris could save ninety-six
million seventy-five thousand livres, in the
half year, by early rising and using sun-
light! There would be also considerable
saving in the other six months, though the
days are shorter. It is pleasant to recall
this jeu d'esprit of Franklin, as it sets us
a-thinking what must be the actual cost of
candle-light and lamp-light in the hundreds
of thousands of houses and work-rooms,
shops and offices, during a regular London
fog.

The price was at that time three shil-
lings per thousand cubic feet, so that the
public had to pay to this one company
£5,250 extra on account of the fog. No
less than nine thousand five hundred tons
of coal were carbonized during the twenty-
four hours to produce ninety million cubic
feet of gas
the largest quantity ever
sent out in one day by the Gas Light and
Coke Company.

Let it be remembered that this was the quantity ascertained and declared by only one of the companies supplying gas to the public; others having also an enormous production, such as the South Metropolitan Gas Company, the strike at the works of which at Lambeth last year caused so much difficulty and annoyance. What was the total amount over the average due to that January day's fog, there are no statistics to show; but it is evident that the cost to the public for additional | light must be very great.

Nor is it by gas bills only that the cost of a fog is to be reckoned, in the matter of artificial light. Gas meters and the rec. ords of gas companies afford some approximate statistics, but how can we reckon the total expense to the multitudes who use candles and lamps of every kind?

Many readers will remember the famous "Economical Project,” as he called it, of

There are many things besides the increased expense for light that must be counted in the cost of a fog. We wonder how much the railway companies have to pay for the detonating signals, heard on every line and near every station, on a foggy morning or evening, for the safety of the crowds of passengers, as well as of property. Inquiry at one of the chief stations failed to obtain any trustworthy estimate of this expense.

The largest and most serious loss due to fog is caused by the total cessation of labor and traffic on the river. Not the steamers only, but the barges and lighters

AN ACT OF CHIVALRY. - The Kobe Shim- | his strength gave out, and he was carried down bun, a Japanese native paper, tells, in its the stream. Then arose a cry from the specquaint way, an exciting story of how an En- tators, for they saw that the Japanese was glishman whom a Japanese endeavored to going to sink. By this time the Englishman save from drowning was able to reciprocate had almost reached the opposite bank, but his would-be salvor's humanity. The English- when he heard the cries of the crowd he turned who is a resident at Tokyo, being on his about, and seeing the drowning Japanese he way to Yokohama, and finding no ferry boat again faced the current, and, coming up with owing to the swollen state of the river, deter- the drowning man, caught him with one arm mined to swim across with his clothing in a and, swimming with the other hand he brought bundle tied on his head. The daring attempt him ashore amid the cheers of the crowd. attracted a crowd of sightseers, one of whom, "How chivalrous was his action!" exclaims observing that the stranger was in apparent the Japanese journalist in conclusion. "His difficulty, plunged in and swam to his rescue. name we know not, but he has our highest The Japanese, according to the narrative, was admiration." a good swimmer, but the waters ran swiftly,

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Fifth Series, Volume LXXIV.

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No. 2442.- April 18, 1891.

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ethe

III.

THE Contrasts of English AND FRENCH
LITERATURE,

light VII. UNCLAIMED STOCKS, DIVIDENDS,

mp

BANK DEPOSITS,

VIII. BIBLICAL DRAMA IN SOUTH STAFFORD

SHIRE,.

IX. OUR VILLAGE BOOK CLUB,.

A SONG IN WINTER,

THE DYING Knight,

ROSES AND MEMORIES,

to MISCELLANY,

or

CLUB,.

CONTENTS

AND

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