tendants having fled, he tied a belt full of gold coins round his waist, and took refuge in the porter's lodge, tying up a dog in front of the door, and putting a couch and a cushion against it. That is a pathetic touch; the pathos consisting in the ludicrous inadequacy of the means he took to stave off impending destruction, as there is pathos in Homer's account of how Hector took from the head of the dandi. fied Greek he had slain the cap, the little weasel-skin cap, which he had put on in the morning, pleased at heart with other thoughts than those of Hector's spear which should gride through bone and sinew. With true sense of fitness, Suetonius does not tell us if the dog laid about him with his teeth, or the sofa and the cushion were thrust back by main force. "In a moment," says he, "the leaders in the pursuit had burst in, and were searching every nook and cranny." Vitellius is drawn from his hiding-place. His hands are bound behind his back. A halter is placed on his neck. Half-naked he is dragged into the forum, and along the sacred way; his head is pulled back by the hair, and he forced to hold it up by the sword-point beneath his chin. How changed a man from the Vitellius of a few months earlier who, entering Italy with all the elation of newly acquired sovereignty, had hailed the mule drivers and foot passengers so affably, inquiring if they had breakfasted, and showing clearly by the guttural noises he emitted that he had done so himself.

sharply, saying that he was either a fool or guilty of gross impiety. This rather reminds one of a story of Frederick the Great. One evening a new chamberlain, saying grace at table, began: "The Lord bless you," instead of "thou." The king interrupted grace. "You hound! In God's eyes you and I are a pair of scurvy 1 dogs. Read grace aright." Augustus was offended with the timidity with which his subjects approached him, as if he were a being from another sphere, and asked some one who was presenting him with a petition why he held it out to him as if he were giving alms to an elephant? He liked well enough to unbend, as where he writes to Tiberius: "We have passed the holidays right pleasantly. We played every day, and kept the dice-board warm. Your brother kept shouting at the top of his voice all the time. On the whole, however, he did not lose much. After heavy losses he gradually pulled up beyond all expectation. I lost twenty thousand sesterces on my own account, but only because I was profusely generous, as I generally am. If I had insisted on having the stakes which I let people off, or kept to myself what I gave all round, I should have won quite fifty thou sand. But I prefer this way of doing things. My kindness will raise me to celestial glory." Here we have a trace of that light irony which is exemplified so strongly in Augustus's death-bed remarks. It must have been a nuisance sometimes being an emperor. So felt Tiberius when having casually expressed a wish to see some of the sick people in the town, he found, on going out, all the sick people in the place ranged in classes according to their ailments on the steps of a temple. He was much embarrassed, and went and apologized to each individual, not omitting the poorest. But more to be pitied than WHO does not know " Sally" at the those men who recognized the falseness Zoo? This great educated Chimpanzee of their position, were those of weak and has been taught by her keeper to do many common mind who took it as it came, en- things which excite the wonder of the gap. joyed themselves as gods, and then, casting crowd around her cage, the onlookers in no heroic mould, found themselves face to face with the tragic fate which so often cut short their exercise of supreme power. From such a point of view we may pity Vitellius when his licentious gluttony was interrupted by vague rumors of approaching danger; when apprehension gave way to alarm, and alarm to deadly terror; when he first laid down the crown and then resumed it; fled from his palace and then returned, to find it desolate but haunted by alarms. Suetonius tells the story how, after searching and finding no one, his at

M. S. DIMSDALE.

From Chambers' Journal. OUR FIRST-COUSINS.

being especially surprised to see that she is able to count up to five. We have seen dogs taught apparently to count much larger amounts, and elephants are credited with considerable powers of calculation untaught; but we always expect more of the Quadrumana, because of their close simulation of humanity, and their possession of those adaptable hands, which we are accustomed to regard as the special symbols of capability.

There is, however, something "uncanny" in the hand of a monkey; it is held

66

We once unintentionally excited the anger of a monkey at the Zoo by giving it something to which it had not been accustomed. In searching for scraps to put into the provision bag for a party of young people who were accompanying us to see the animals, we came across some macaroni, and the thought struck us that probably the monkeys might like it; and so some of them did; others did not attempt to eat it, but held it up to their eyes like a spyglass, to look through the little hole, then broke it, and examined each piece minutely. But a little girl of our party offered a piece to a monkey, who took it, tasted it, and did not like it; whereupon his fury knew no bounds; he seemed to think the child had intentionally insulted him, or had perhaps intended to poison him. He rushed at her, chattering, and trying to seize her with those nimble fingers; shook the bars of the cage with impotent rage, and followed her all round the room vociferating angrily.

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out to you with such an air of demand; The monkeys we see in the streets are there is nothing deprecatory or beseeching not usually interesting specimens; they about the action; it is always imperative; jump about, crack nuts, and amuse chiland if you, by mistake, seize it in friendli- dren, and thus draw coppers from the ness, as that of a man and a brother, it is pockets of mammas and nurses; but somegenerally snatched from you with an angry times they show some originality. We chatter, as much as to say: I want none were greatly interested, one day lately, by sle of your sentiment. Give!" It is not watching one of them. It was quite a always food that is demanded, but some small monkey, evidently young, and very thing, no matter what, to gratify their active. Some one had given him a paper acquisitiveness or love of mischief. bag; this he investigated minutely, picked out every crumb carefully, then tried to put it on his head as a cap; but suddenly an idea came to him. At a little distance there was a fox terrier barking at him; so Jacko thought he would try to frighten him. Seizing the paper bag in his teeth so as to hide his face, he crept towards the dog on all fours, and then jumped at him. The success of the manoeuvre was complete; the dog turned, and ran away down an area with his tail between his legs. Then the monkey skipped with delight, and proceeded to try the same experiment upon a cat, who lay basking on a window ledge. Climbing the area rails, he jumped most skilfully on the hind legs (or hands!) over the spikes till he came opposite the cat, and sat down before her, still holding the paper bag between his teeth. But the cat was not so easily frightened; she only made a hasty movement forwards and crouched, ready to spring. So the monkey sat still, apparently indifferent, put the paper bag on his head, and tried to tempt the cat by swinging his tail in front of her, evidently prepared for a bit of fun; but the master, not wishing to encourage a squabble, pulled the string, and made him return to his perch upon the organ. There was certainly originality in that monkey, as well as the usual love of mischief, notwithstanding the air of repression which must inevitably surround these little ministers to the poor organ-man's pocket. Apropos of which, we were told of one monkey who sought for a penny which had fallen unobserved, held it up to show the donor, whom he discriminated among many spectators, that he had found it, and then climbed up and put it in his master's pocket.

The Hottentots say that baboons can talk, only they will not, for fear they should be made to work; and there certainly is but little work to be got out of those cunning hands. Nevertheless, we read of some baboons who have been taught to do useful work. There was an obituary notice a year or more ago in all the Cape papers of one of these trained baboons, well known in the colony, who used to act as signalman on the railway, in place of his master, who was lame. The story was doubted by the English papers, who copied it; but we have met with many people who had seen the animal at his work. Mrs. Carey Hobson, too, in one of her pleasant little "South African Stories," tells of a baboon who had come under her own notice, who had been taught to ride after a Dutch Boer as groom, and to dismount and hold the horse by sitting on the bridle when his master went into a house; and we have seen a troop of monkeys of various kinds taught to do a great many curious tricks; but in these, again, they have been rivalled by dogs.

We have often wondered whether these street monkeys are kindly treated; but an incident we witnessed would seem to show that they are often petted and cared for almost like children. An Italian woman had a monkey and an organ, in the front of which was the monkey's bed. The little creature being tired, began to pull aside the covering, which the woman perceiving, immediately left off her organ-grinding,

opened the bed carefully, and then placed | to retain two armed men, until the leader, the monkey in it as tenderly as though it believing he had seen all his enemies had been a baby, fondling it and kissing it safely off the premises, led his troop to as she laid its head upon the pillow; and raid as usual, and was shot dead; his folthe way in which it received the caresses, lowers rushed away helter-skelter in conand then shut its eyes and went off to sternation, and carrying off the young to sleep contentedly, was absurdly human. a place of safety.

Whatever may be the intelligence of tame or domesticated monkeys and baboons, the measure of their capacity must be judged by their actions in a state of nature. It has often been said that baboons will sit and warm themselves at a fire, but cannot be taught to put on a stick to keep it alight. Emin Pasha, however, declares he has seen them carrying torches; but most people think he must have mistaken the dwarf aborigines for baboons. The following account, however, given by an eye-witness, shows a wonderful amount of intelligent cunning in a wild baboon, even to the point of counting to a small extent.

"As is well known, baboons always have a leader, whom they obey implicitly. A troop of baboons, led by an old male of great size, had for a long time done much mischief in a certain mountainous district of Cape Colony, so it was determined to shoot the leader. It was easy to resolve, but not so easy to do; for at the most distant sight of a man with a gun, the whole troop would vanish; whilst for unarmed men they cared nothing. The leader would march down the mountain defiantly, with a large bough in his hand, which he used as a stick, followed by the whole tribe, and commit terrible depredations in gardens and vineyards, destroying much more than they ate, but always keeping at a respectful distance from anything like an ambush. At last the farmers round determined to build a wall in a vineyard, and shoot the enemy from behind it. The wall was built, the baboons watching the operation from a safe distance, and coming down when the workmen were gone, to examine it minutely. It seemed also as though they were in the habit of counting; for if, by way of experiment, one man remained behind, no baboon ever put in an appearance. But at last man, the tyrant, contrived by superior cunning to outwit the baboon, who had certainly shown himself to be no ignoble foe. By introducing behind the sheltering wall an extra number of watchers, in batches of two or three at a time, with carefully concealed guns, and then sending away the usual number, and repeating this manœuvre several times, they succeeded in fairly puzzling the baboon, and were able

It is not always, however, that monkeys and baboons forsake a wounded comrade. They will moan and weep over the dying in a manner so intensely human, that hunters used at one time to avoid shooting them, looking upon it as little short of murder. Especially is this the case when there are females with their young ones. If the mother be shot, the little one will cling about her, weeping like a human baby, will dip its hand in the blood and hold it up imploringly; whilst a wounded monkey will try to stanch the blood with its hand or with leaves, all the time crying and groaning in a way which is most distressing to a tender-hearted sportsman.

But of late, the depredations of baboons at the Cape among the lambs, which they catch and rip open in order to drink the milk found in the stomach, have hardened the hearts of the farmer against them; and he shoots them without compunction, especially as they now begin to eat the flesh of their victims, and seem likely, as in the case of the Kea parrot of New Zealand, to become true carnivora, instead of, as formerly, eaters of fruit and insects only.

From Chambers' Journal. SOME SAVAGE CONTRIBUTIONS TO

CIVILIZATION.

MOST savage tribes possess two things in common with one another -a national beverage, which they use at special seasons of rejoicing and festivity; and a poison of some description, which they employ to test the guilt or innocence of their offenders; or, in times of war, as an arrow-poison to ensure a fatal result to the wound inflicted by the weapon. Both of these are always composed of a very powerful product of the vegetable kingdom, and it is therefore not surprising that most of the known agents have been taken advantage of by doctors and hygienists, and form important additions to the science of medicine and dietetics.

Amongst the native beverages thus utilized may be mentioned the coca of the Peruvians, the kola of the West Africans, the kava-kava of the Fijians, the guarana

of the Brazilians, and the maté of the Para- | disease. Curare is mainly used hypoderguayans; whilst amongst the poisons may mically in cases of tetanus; strophanthus be included the wourali or curare of the has also been used internally for the same South American Indians, the ouabaïo of complaint; but its name was made by its the Somalis, the Strophanthus hispidus of importance as a cardiac tonic. Ouabain, the west coast of Africa, and the Calabar the glucoside derived from the ouabaïo, or ordeal bean of Calabar. The three has the same chemical and physiological first-named poisons are used by the natives properties as strophanthus, but it is very as arrow-poisons; whilst the last, as the much more toxic. In some experiments name implies, plays the part of a relent- recently made in Paris upon frogs, it was less judge, and very often of an execu- found that after a subcutaneous injection tioner at the same time. No doubt, many of one-fortieth of a milligramme of crysof our readers are aware of the mode of tallized ouabain, the heart was stopped in procedure. A meeting of the tribe is six minutes; while the same quantity of called together under the presiding genius strophanthin took twelve minutes. The of the medicine-man, who, after sundry injection of even so small a quantity of gesticulations and howlings, selects the crystallized ouabain as one-eightieth of a victim, and forces him to partake of the milligramme stopped the heart in eight or poisonous beans. If report speaks truly, nine minutes. Generally, the toxic dose a favorable or fatal result rests entirely of ouabain for a rabbit is one-tenth of a with the prisoner. The natives say that milligramme per kilogramme of the weight if the man has a free conscience he will of the animal, death ensuing in twentynot be afraid, but will eat largely of the five minutes; whereas of strophanthin beans, relying upon his fetich to preserve four-tenths of a milligramme are required him; whereas, a guilty man will be fearful, to cause death in about fifty minutes. and eat as sparingly as possible. Taken in quantity, the beans act as an emetic; whilst small doses ensure death. In this country, pharmacists extract the active principles, which are known to oculists and surgeons under the names of Eserine and Physostigmine, and are employed by them with most gratifying results in the various diseases to which the eye is subject.

The arrow-poisons proper, as a rule, act as muscular poisons; the minute quantity which finds its way into the blood from the arrow is hurried round with the corpuscles, and as soon as it reaches the heart, paralyzes the muscles and stops its action. Their great importance, therefore, in medicine is in cases of heart

Introduced by the stomach, the poison acts far less powerfully. A young dog weighing three kilogrammes two hundred and eighty grammes, being given eight milligrammes in thirty cubic centimetres of water, was seized with all the symptoms of ouabain poisoning, but survived. Ouabain was found to have an anæsthetic action on the eye, but produced at the same time irritating effects. The experiments were conducted upon rabbits; but subsequent experiments upon the cornea of man have not been sufficiently favorable to warrant its use for this purpose. The last complaint for which it has been tried is whooping-cough, and the infinitesimal doses given have produced marvellous results.

Short Cuts has unearthed a peculiarly delightful letter of the Duke of Wellington's, which runs as follows: " Strathfieldsaye, July 27th, 1837.-Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington is happy to inform William Harries that his toad is alive and well." During one of his country walks, the duke found a little boy lying on the ground, bending his head over a tame toad, and crying as if his heart would break. On being asked what was the matter, the child explained that he was crying "for his poor toad." He brought it something to eat every morning, but he was now to be sent away to school a long distance off, and he was afraid that nobody else would give it anything to eat, and that it would die. The duke, however, consoled him by saying

that he would himself see the toad well fed, and by further promising to let the boy hear as to its welfare. During the time the boy was away at school, he received no less than five autograph letters similar to that given above; and when he returned for the Christmas holidays, the toad was still alive to gladden his heart. The story is even more delightful than that of the duke's indignation when he found that a party of children at Strathfieldsaye-among whom, we believe, was the present prime minister-were having their tea without jam. The incident roused him to immediate action, and he at once rang the bell and issued a general order that "children's tea" was never to be served in his house with such "maimed rights."

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