12

"Is it a secret?"

festivity with reluctance and regret, and who "No; I will tell it you. When I feel that was, from time to time, urged on by his I am dying, I order a grave to be dug,-a keepers, and a woman, who fancied herself to very deep grave. You are aware that in the be Saint Catherine, and was subject to strange centre of the earth there is an immense lake, fits of ecstasy and improvisation, were also full of red water-and-and—” conspicuous among the dancers. Lucca, who Count Pisani, who had overheard the latter played the violin with extraordinary spirit, part of this conversation, here suddenly inter-every now and then marked the time by rupted Lucca, saying, Signor Dante, these stamping his foot on the ground, whilst, in a people are very anxious to have a dance. stentorian voice, he called out the figures, to Will you indulge them by playing a quadrille?" which, however, the dancers paid not the He then hurriedly dispatched one of the slightest attention. The scene was indeattendants for a violin, on which instrument, scribable. It was like one of those fantastic he informed me, Lucca was a masterly per- visions which are sometimes conjured up in a former. dream.

66

The violin being brought, the Count handed As we were passing through the court yard, it to Lucca, who began to tune it. Mean- on our way out, I espied Costanza, the young while, the Count, drawing me aside, said, lady who had so determinedly refused to join "I interrupted your conversation, just now, in the dance. She was now kneeling down somewhat abruptly; because I observed that on the edge of a fountain, and intently gazing Lucca was beginning to wander into some of on her own countenance, which was reflected his metaphysical delusions, and I never allow from the limpid water as from a mirror. him to talk on such subjects. These metaphysical lunatics are always very difficult to

cure.

"But yonder comes one who will never be cured! pursued the Count, shaking his head, sorrowfully, whilst he directed my notice to a young female, who was advancing from another part of the garden, attended by a female servant or nurse. By this time the dancers had begun to range themselves in their places, and the young lady's attendant was drawing her forward, with the view of inducing her to take part in the quadrille.

The young lady, whose dress and general elegance of appearance seemed to denote that she was a person of superior rank, was disinclined to dance; and as the attendant persisted in urging her forward, she struggled to escape, and at length fell into a paroxysm of grief.

I asked the Count what had caused the insanity of this interesting patient. "Alas!" replied he, "it is a melancholy story of romantic vendetta, which might almost figure in a work of fiction." Costanza's husband had been murdered on her bridal day by a rival.

When Costanza was first brought to the establishment, her madness was of a very violent character; but, by degrees, it had softened down into a placid melancholy. Nevertheless, her case was one which admitted of no hope.

Some time after my visit to Palermo, I met Lucca in Paris. He was then, to all appearance, perfectly himself. He conversed very rationally, and even appeared to recollect having seen and conversed with me before. I enquired after poor Costanza; but he shook his head sorrowfully. The Count's prediction was fully verified. Lucca had recovered his senses; but Costanza was still an inmate of the Casa dei Matti.

POISON SOLD HERE!

66

"Let her alone! Let her alone!" said Count Pisani to the attendant. "It is useless to contend with her. Poor girl! I fear she will never endure to see dancing, or to hear music, without this violent agitation. Come hither, Costanza," said he, beckoning kindly Two centuries ago poisoning was a science; to her. "Tell me what is the matter?" now, thanks to a sluggish and never"Oh, Albano ! Albano!" shrieked the poor minding" legislature, the art may be safely maniac. "They are going to kill Albano!" practised by the meanest capacity. The exAnd then, overcome by her emotion, she citing extent to which murder has been resank, exhausted, into the arms of her attend-cently done by poison fills a column of every ant, who carried her away. newspaper and furnishes a topic for general Meanwhile, the sound of the violin had conversation. Nor is it a new thing. A pardrawn together, from various parts of the liamentary return states, that, in the ten years garden, a number of patients, male and which ended with 1849-putting aside accifemale, and the quadrille was formed. Among dental poisonings, which were countless-the the most conspicuous figures in the group appalling number of two hundred and fifty were the son of the Emperor of China, and the man who believed himself to be dead. The former wore, on his head a splendid crown, made of gilt paper; and the latter, who was enveloped in a white sheet, stalked about with the grave and solemn air which he conceived to be common to a ghost. A melancholy madman, who evidently shared in the

nine persons were murdered by poison (chiefly by arsenic), yet the practical difficulties of detection were so great that no more than eighty-five convictions took place: thus out of every three poisoners one only could be detected. So easy is murder by poison and so difficult is detection! The mystery is easy of solution; as we shall soon show.

A sporting friend writes to us, that, having end of a counter, their wives are often shot away all his powder, the other day, he serving out groceries to customers at the had occasion to go into a rural grocer's shop other. In this way, it has been asserted for more. While he was being served, there by medical practitioners, that minute doses came in a little girl, who ended a long order of poison get mixed with food or medicine for tea, sugar, soap, currants, red-herrings, oftener than is imagined. The partakers and flour, with the remarkable demand- of such food fall ill, and the only pathology "and two ounces of arsenic." No comment they can arrive at is, that "they have eaten whatever was made by the shopkeeper; who something that has disagreed with them," pulled a small blue paper of poison, out of its though they never know what. proper compartment in a drawer, with the same composure as he handed over the packages of tea, sugar, currants, and flour. The little girl jumbled them all into her apron, and went her way. "Perhaps," remarked our friend, " some of those ingredients are for a pudding."

"Loikely," answered the huxter, with a strong Derbyshire accent.

"And should the blue paper burst, or a little mistake be made by the cook, the whole family will be poisoned."

"They should moind what they 're at." This was the only life-preserver which occurred to the chandler's mind-"They should mind what they're at!" His conscience was not concerned in the transaction; but if its dictates had been awakened, they would have been perfectly satisfied by his knowledge of the fact that his customers were troubled with rats; and he enquired no further. The sportsman mentioned the several cases of poisoning which had recently occurred in various parts of the country; some accidental; some wilful; but the grocer could get no further than-"They should moind what they 're at."

After the poison has left the shop, the risks increase a hundred-fold. Take the cottar's case. He lives in a small cottage; his single cupboard (at once the receptacle of food and physic) contains in a broken jug at the top-shelf a packet of arsenic. The label, if ever there was one, is torn away, or, if there, unintelligible to the unlearned cottar's family. This is the remains of the arsenic he used in summer for his sheep, or in spring to steep wheat-seed. It is put away, unknown by his family and forgotten by himself. His child some day falls ill; he is at work; the wife "fancies she has some cream of tartar somewhere, and that is good for a fever." She goes to the fatal jug, deals out the poison, and innocently kills her offspring. At the inquest a verdict of Accidental Death is returned. This poor woman, throughout her embittered life, is the victim to the want of legislative enactments to prevent such catastrophes. Her neighbours look on her for a time with a strange mixture of pity and superstitious undefined suspicion.

For the criminal, arsenic is the most deadly of all drugs to their victim, while it is the safest to themselves. Besides the numberless It must occur, however, to everyone, that feasible excuses they can frame for having it while poisons are allowed to be sold as un- in their possession, it can be administered restrictedly as bread, the public-especially the humbler portion of it-even supposing them to be "minding what they're at" with unceasing vigilance, are never wholly free from the danger of having the doom to which they sentence vermin, transferred to themselves, either by accident or by vicious design.

with the least fear of detection. Oxalic acid
disgusts the palate with a sweet acid taste;
and, to be murderously effectual, must be
administered in large quantities. Not only
the taste, but the colour and smell of laudanum
betray its secret at once. The favourite,
because most efficient, of the three poisons of
unscientific murderers-arsenic-is colourless,
flavourless, and inodorous.
Hence, in all
recent cases of wilful poisoning, arsenic has
been the poisoner's drug; for he has art enough
to know, without reading blue-books, that the
chances are two to one in his favour.

In country places life's-bane is procurable more easily than many of its necessaries. The inscription over every chandler's door, says that he must be "licensed" to sell tea, coffee, tobacco, and snuff; but he may sell arsenic without the smallest restriction. In While the legislature refrains from adminis spring and summer seasons, tons and tons of tering some check to the sale of drugs dethat deadly material pass over the counters of structive of life, in every other European general dealers in the agricultural districts, country, no person is allowed to sell poison to be used either to prevent smut in wheat, without a license and a guarantee that he to cure sheep of scabies, or to kill vermin. is fully alive to the precautions necessary, not Hence arsenic becomes as much a part of the only to its sale, but to properly storing it. In, stores of a farmer's, shepherd's, or cottager's however, imposing a necessary restriction in cupboard, as his family's food. It is by no this country, it must not be forgotten that, means uncommon to see a provincial drug-legitimately employed, arsenic, in particular, gist's apprentice "weighing up "two-ounce is a most useful drug, and the liberty of the packets of arsenic, and dispensing medicines farmer and the manufacturer to obtain it over the same counter- perhaps with the should not be shackled. To compel, theresame scales! When the innumerable hux-fore, an agriculturist to scour the country ters are busy at the same work at one to obtain a magistrate's or surgeon's signa

Minor precautions might also be added. THE "FRESHMAN'S" PROGRESS. The plan of forcing vendors of poisons to sell it in bottles of particular shapes, or in papers URGENT business demanding my presence at of a certain colour, could not always be ad- Yarmouth, some few weeks ago, I was induced hered to, in spite of threatened pains of fine to entrust my life and limbs to the care of the and forfeiture. Of this class of preventive, Eastern Counties Railway Company. It hapthe best we have seen is the sympathetic pened to be about the time of the commencepowder, which Mr. Slade Davies proposes ment of Term at Cambridge University, and should be added to arsenic, in the proportion the remaining compartments of the carriage of one per cent. When brought in contact in which I found a place, were filled with with liquid or other aliment, it immediately Freshmen-young men who, as the term imchanges colour so as to ensure detection.

roof of the carriage, seemed, by its flickering fly. A tender farewell is waved to him from rays, to attest, rather than to dispel, the the hands of the assembled family. Little presence of night. A thick fog rolled over scraps of advice and affection are wafted to the already darkened fields, and pressed him on their latest breath. Crack goes the against the closed windows. I could not help whip, the wheels go round, the green gardenthinking of the light-hearted companions from gate opens with a creaking sound-as if it too whom I had just parted; I thought-shall I had its share in the general solicitude—and a own it-with regret upon my own college new world lies before him. career; I thought upon the Universities themWhile this young man-call him what you selves, not as some do with a feeling akin to please-is hurrying onwards towards a scene contempt, as though they were Augean stables of which he has hitherto had no experience, which none but a Hercules could cleanse; nor let us pause for a moment and consider his as others, who gaze upon them with rapture, true position, as well as that of hundreds of as if beholding an embodied perfection; but others who are similarly situated. Divesting rather with a sense of regret as of something him of the fictitious interest, with which the noble, which has been diverted from its right time and circumstances may, in the opinion of use. It appeared to me and the circum- some, appear to invest him-losing sight for stances of time, scene, and place, will account a minute of the fact that he is about to "walk for, if they do not excuse the poor metaphor in the shades of Academe," or "to breathe -that I saw two fine engines torn from the the spirit of Mathesis," or to stray on the iron road of progress, and drawn slowly along banks of the argent Cam," or "to become a the great highway of learning by a pair of bulwark of our glorious Collegiate institubroken-winded, ill-conditioned old mules, tions,"-let us calculate some of the difficulties Sloth and Bigotry. which will first present themselves in his future course, and how he is prepared to guard against them.

Those young men too, the current of whose lives had been ordained for a few moments to mingle with mine, in what light would they He has been educated at home, perhaps, look back upon this very evening, if it arose, strictly under the parental eye-for I know in after years, to haunt them on a lonely many parents who think this kind of educajourney, or in a sick chamber? They would tion the surest protection against future contemplate it, no doubt, as a new era in their temptation. He has not been suffered to existence, but an era of what kind? Of more learn what vice is. He has been guarded earnest perseverance, of increased usefulness, from the society of the profligate Smiths and of nobler aims and aspirations? Or of feverish Joneses of the neighbourhood. His reading excitement, unreal pleasure, dissipation and has been superintended in the same careful debt? Would the University, upon whose manner. His "Hume's History of England' books their names were enrolled, put forth all is a "Mitchell's Hume" with the sceptical her mighty energies, employ all her resources, to urge them on in the one path, and to keep them from the other? Or would these be left to their own choice? Such fancies mingled with the bitter experience of past years, and with a faint hope for the future, raised by the reflection that the public were getting impatient of the rusty teaching and lax training of the two ancient scats of learning. This stream of thought flowed on until it seemed to assume a definite form, and out of it I shaped a picture for myself, not like that of poets and dreamers, drawing its colours from In a word, he has been kept as a child up an unseen and unreal world, but needing, to the very moment of his becoming a man. alas! only the framework of name and in- With the thoughts of a child, and the feelings dividuality to become a true representation of a child, and the strength of a child, he is of of what is taking place every year-yes, every a sudden to be brought in contact with the year, that Mr. Christie rises to demand a world of Cambridge or Oxford, which, though reform in our Universities, and that Sir Robert on a smaller scale, is still a faithful representa Inglis sounds the alarm at his post to save tion-it is a daguerreotype, not a miniaturethe Academic Capitol from invaders, which of the great world beyond. He may, of course, have at last made a small and polished breach, stand the ordeal-in very many cases, he does through which, in ample state, the Royal-but it will be in spite of his early training, Commission is about to enter. not by means of it.

passages left out. He has never heard of Don Juan, or been inside a theatre. The races take place twice every year within a mile of the vicarage, but he has never been to them. He has never been down in the morning later than half-past seven o'clock, or been out of bed by ten at night. He waters the mignonette beds with his sisters after breakfast, and listens to the touching English ballads which they sing of an evening. A youth, so brought up, is surely-if any one can be-secure from harm.

I pictured to myself a young man, of I would not, however, be perfectly sure that eighteen or nineteen, leaving home for the the youth whom we are picturing to ourselves first time. His father, the good old clergy- is so innocent as his friends give him credit man, is in the hall beside the corded trunks. for. To the deepest dungeon and the most His mother and his sisters stand around him. secluded hermitage some whispers of the A moment more and the trunks are on the world will float, of that world which, perhaps,

we only plunge into the more deeply, the more paradoxical as it may seem-the temptations we fancy that we have shut it out from our to which a Freshman is exposed are tenfold view. There is no lock sufficiently strong to greater at Cambridge or Oxford than if he keep out vicious propensities, any more than could be permitted, at the same time of life, the Hellespont could part Hero from her and with the same views, to take lodgings in Leander, or Bishop Hatto's Rhenish tower London, and read for his degree in the metropreserve him from the avenging rats. The polis itself. In the latter case, surrounded boy whom you so fondly cherish, may have by virtuous companions, and with persons imbibed the first rudiments of pipe-smoking older than himself to overlook his conduct, from the labourer who works in your garden; he might be protected from evil by the very he may have drunk out of the spirit-flask of magnitude of the place in which he resides. my lord's gamekeeper, whom he meets in his It would start up before him like a phantom walks, when you are not by; he may have learn to ogle the girls of the village, and you none the wiser. Things not in themselves, perhaps, particularly vicious or criminal, but here are the materials ready laid; and let but the spark of college temptation be applied, and they may burn up all the fiercer and brighter for having lain dry so long.

in the gas-lighted street, it would vindicate its existence in the columns of the newspaper, but it would not be a dweller in the same college, in the same quadrangle, on the same staircase, perhaps in the very next room. For the smaller the field in which the monster Vice has to work, the more frequently will he obtrude himself upon our daily walks and occupations, and I am not one of those who believe that he is always hated as soon as seen.

But, under any circumstances, and supposing him to have already undergone the ordeal of a school, or a private tutor's establishment-I wish to be understood as speaking of In the midst of all this, at the period of all the middling classes-there are some peculiar others when he most requires advice and trials to be noted, which now, more particu- assistance, what will his Tutor-his College larly than at any other period of his life, will Tutor-do for him? Is that functionary really assail our young friend. He has never in his what he is presumed to be the guardian of life before been entrusted with a larger sum youth, the overseer of his pupils, their adviser, than five pounds, and here he is with fifty their reprover, their comforter, their friend ? pounds in his pocket and (though he may not -or does the multiplicity of his engagements, yet be aware of the fact by bitter experience) and the number of his pupils (about one credit to an unlimited extent. He has never hundred and fifty to each tutor, at Trinity) in his life purchased for himself an article of prevent him from being anything but a fargreater value and importance than a cricket- off and half-fabulous being, a kind of myth bat or a fishing-rod; yet here he is about to grown out of the old legends that haunt the provide himself with all the articles of a banks of the Cam, and still cherished from a bachelor's establishment, without the remotest love of antiquity, or-to speak the plain, sober idea of their market price-without knowing truth-a person seen, at most, once at the whether the sum he gives for each will be beginning and once at the end of every Term, twenty-five per cent., or fifty per cent., or a on hurried visits of ceremony? Will the hundred per cent. above its proper value. If Fellows do anything for him-the Fellows, his socks have wanted darning at home, one of whose salaries were originally accorded to the maid-servants has darned them accord- them, on the ground that they should act as ingly; new shirts and new flannel waistcoats tutors to the undergraduates? Or is the have succeeded to the senior portion of his original intention of the Founder adhered to linen by an easy and imperceptible process, by in those cases only where it is clearly unsuited his mother's watchful care, without his paying to the present day? Are the greater part of any attention to the matter. He remembers the Fellows residing elsewhere, and still rethat to have helped himself to a third glass of ceiving their stipends? Are the Universities port wine after dinner, would have called a to continue, like the Pyramids, immutable frown to the face of his father; now, he can and unchangeable in our land of change and drink champagne or hock for his breakfast, if mutability? Will the Royal Commission he feels so disposed. To be out after ten report on these things? o'clock at night would assuredly have I am not, however, the Royal Commissionrequired some explanation at the Vicarage; if I were, I would found my report on other now, he is not required to be in his College evidence than that of the Dignitaries and till midnight-within those precincts he can Fellows, who will, of course, have their views go where he chooses, and spend the whole as to what reforms are necessary—I would night at a roystering party, if he has a mind seek evidence that would reveal the rottento do so. If he run into debt, the discovery ness of the system which urges the young will not, in all probability, be made for three friend whom I pictured departing from the years and a quarter, till he takes his degree. door of a poor Vicarage, amidst the adieus of Youth is sanguine-by that time his father's his affectionate and anxious friends, into a rich fifth cousin may have dropped off, leaving career of debt and vice.

him a fortune. A thousand things may have I went on picturing to myself this young happened. Nor should it be forgotten that- man after a residence at College of a few days.