Chapter XV (2)

The late Sir William Siemens was an ardent advocate for the use of gas as a heating agent. At the British Association of 1882, he said: ‘The time is not far distant when both rich and poor will largely resort to gas, the most convenient, the cleanest, and cheapest of heating agents, and when raw coal will only be seen at the colliery or gasworks. In all cases where the town to be supplied is within, say, thirty miles of the colliery, the gasworks may with advantage be placed at the mouth, or, still better, at the bottom of the pit, whereby all haulage of fuel would be avoided, and the gas in its ascent from the bottom of the colliery would acquire an onward pressure sufficient, probably, to impel it to its destination.’ No doubt, if this scheme could be realised, we would all be deeply indebted to the great man who first suggested it. More than one half of the coal now consumed would be saved by its adoption. At present, we must be content with the old order of things.

It is astonishing, however, that so few people employ gas instead of coal as a cooking agent, especially in summer. It secures an immense saving of labour, not to speak of its superiority over coal in respect to coolness. In the hot summer days, cooking with a coal-fire in an ordinary range is a tremendous trial to the poor cook. The kitchen is like an oven. What a difference if gas is used! The moment it is no longer required it can be turned off, and the temperature of the kitchen is soon lowered. By using a gas-stove, no coal is required during the summer. It is less expensive than coal. Of course, care must be taken to have it turned off directly it is no longer required, and a proper economy exercised in its use. Mr Fletcher, of Warrington, a high authority on gas for cooking and heating purposes, says: ‘The cost of gas, even if wastefully used, must be considered not only as regards the saving of coal, but also, what is far greater, the saving in weight of meat roasted, which is considerable, and the reduced wear and tear, waste, dirt, and consequent labour. Taken altogether as affecting the total housekeeping expenses, gas is cheaper than coal for cooking at any price not exceeding twelve or fourteen shillings per thousand cubic feet; coal being, say, twelve to fourteen shillings per ton.’ The majority of people, however, pay very much less for their gas, and more for coal; in which case, gas will be much cheaper than coal.

Asbestos heated by gas makes a suitable fire. It is cleanly, quiet, free from dust, and convenient; and it can be turned on or extinguished in an instant.

Enough has been written to show that economy of fuel is not merely theoretical and fanciful, but that it is practicable and worthy of earnest attention.

THE SIGN OF THE _RED INDIAN_.

Just on the outskirts of the seaport and garrison town of Chubleigh, in the south-west of England, stands a little old-fashioned hostelry called the _Red Indian_. How it came by its name is involved in obscurity. The antiquity of the inn is undoubted, and a tradition is current in the district, that during the unfortunate Monmouth’s rebellion it was used as the temporary head-quarters of Colonel Kirke. In its back-garden, a wooden seat is still shown to visitors on which that bloodthirsty officer, surrounded by his ‘lambs,’ is alleged to have sat in judgment, and thence ruthlessly consigned to the gallows scores of the unoffending rustics of the locality. From time immemorial, the _Red Indian_ has been in the hands of a family named Slade. The present proprietor, though, generally speaking, as deliberate in manner as John Willet, is yet apt to be garrulously communicative in talking of his inn and its interesting historical associations. Above the rustic porch over the door there is fixed a large, rudely carved, wooden figure of a savage holding in its hand a tomahawk. The Indian’s nose was long ago knocked off by a well-directed stone thrown by some mischievous urchin; his original coat of paint has peeled off, and large cracks are visible, which run the whole length of the figure. Altogether, this Indian is as disreputable-looking a sign as a traveller might perceive throughout the length and breadth of England. Nevertheless, it is in connection with this dilapidated timber savage that the writer obtained, from the landlord of the _Red Indian_, materials for the following story.

When the present century was in its infancy, the son of the then proprietor, and grand-uncle of the present landlord, was engaged in the capacity of boatswain of a privateer, which had been fitted out with the object of preying on the French merchant service. In the Mediterranean, the privateer captured a large vessel, which in part was laden with the product of the labours of a Parisian curiosity-hunter, who had been despoiling ancient Grecian temples, with the object of supplying the virtuosi of the French metropolis with antique sculptures and bronzes, and thereby securing a large profit to himself. The privateersmen were greatly disappointed at not finding specie, and what they considered marketable merchandise, on board the Frenchman, and attached but little value to the battered though priceless bas-reliefs and statues. Boatswain Slade took a great fancy to a life-sized bronze gladiator, which he considered would prove an acceptable addition to the attractions of the back-garden of his father’s inn, and managed, for a few shillings, to effect its purchase from the captain.

Shortly after the glorious victory of Trafalgar, the privateer was paid off at Chubleigh; and the boatswain conveyed the statue on shore to his father’s inn. The gladiator was placed on a brick pedestal, flanked on either side by two rusty carronades; and the bareness of the surroundings was relieved by the artistic disposal of a number of huge shells which the boatswain had brought from ‘foreign parts.’ The host of the _Red Indian_, however, was soon struck by the idea of making the figure a sign for his hostelry. He had but little sentimental regard for the rich green mould of antiquity, so, with execrable vandalism, carefully scraped it off the statue, and had the gladiator painted a bright scarlet by a local artist, who took payment for his work in the old ale for which the hostelry was famous. This operation performed, the metamorphosed gladiator was removed to a prominent position in front of the inn door, and for years did duty as a Red Indian. Its brilliant appearance was a perpetual source of gratification and delight to the host and his numerous customers; while inquiring strangers were proudly informed that it had been captured from the frog-eaters. Once a year the extemporised Indian received a fresh coat of paint; and save when its head was decorated at times with a disused tin pail or an old hat by some facetious individuals, it was not otherwise interfered with.

At the close of the year 1815, Chubleigh was _en fête_ in connection with the disembarkation of the 31st Regiment of Light Dragoons, which during that year had performed doughty service at Waterloo, and which had just returned from the occupation of Paris. The piping times of peace had again returned, and, naturally enough, the officers and men who had assisted to destroy the power of the once dreaded ‘Boney’ were the objects of popular pride and enthusiasm among the inhabitants of the town. When the regiment settled down in quarters, invitations to the houses of the principal townsmen were showered on the officers, and each vied with the other to entertain these heroes of Waterloo.

The younger officers, several of whom had left school to join their regiment in Belgium, gave themselves prodigious airs; but no one considered himself of so much importance as a raw young Connaught-man, a cornet named Mike Macnamara. Mike, a warrior of about nine months’ service, created great amusement both in the officers’ mess and in the houses to which he was invited by boasting about the number of Frenchmen whom he had placed _hors de combat_ in the late short but eventful campaign. His bounce together with his extreme simplicity rendered him the butt of his brother-officers, and he was in consequence the victim of numerous practical jokes. In these days, and for many years subsequently, rough horseplay and the perpetration of the most uncomfortable imaginable practical jokes were characteristic of the spirited gentlemen who officered the regiments of British cavalry. Those of our readers who took the trouble, some years ago, to wade through the evidence at the Tichborne trial, will remember the description of the ruthless tricks played on the simple undoubted Roger by his brother-carabineers. At the present day, military practical joking is somewhat out of fashion, and any games that may be played are curtailed of their former disagreeable proportions, and have assumed a comparatively mild character.

Cornet Macnamara’s room was the favourite arena for a display of the ingenious tricks of his facetiously inclined brother-officers. Thistles and dead cats were placed between his sheets; trapfuls of live rats were let loose in the apartment; the nuts of his iron bedstead were unscrewed, so that when the poor fellow turned in, the framework of the couch tumbled to pieces and landed the mattress on the floor, while at the same time he was douched by a tub of water from the shelf above, which was fastened with cord to the mattress, and upset simultaneously with the collapse of the bed. On such occasions Mike was naturally wroth, and expressed himself as anxious to call out the offenders; but despite his utmost vigilance and caution, he could never capture his tormentors.

Late one evening, a party of revellers from barracks were passing the _Red Indian_, when they espied the vermilioned gladiator. Nothing would satisfy them but to feloniously remove the statue and return with it to quarters—a work of considerable difficulty, as the figure was heavy. Arrived thither with their load, some one suggested that it should be placed in Cornet Macnamara’s room; and this idea was hailed with general enthusiasm. A scout was despatched to the messroom, in order to keep watch on Mike’s movements, and give the alarm in case he should appear on the scene. With great labour the gladiator was hoisted to the top of the staircase of the officer’s house; and Mike’s room door having been forced open, the jokers placed the statue in front of his dressing-table, on the top of an inverted iron coal-box. The staircase at the time was in process of being whitewashed, so the officers obtained possession of a tub of the mixture, and smeared the ‘Red Indian’ a dirty white; then taking the sheets from Mike’s bed, they hung them about the figure, turning it into a respectable-looking ghost. Afterwards, the officers dropped one by one into the messroom, and joined a group who were listening with great amusement to a new-fangled story which was being retailed by Macnamara regarding his prowess at Waterloo.

Mike, after clapping an additional two Frenchmen to the previous grand total of the number who had fallen by his sword, as narrated in his tale of the previous night, left the messroom in order to proceed to his quarters, whither, in a minute or two, he was stealthily followed by the whole of the officers, who anticipated great fun from the consternation of their victim when beholding the ghastly apparition in his bedroom. Mike gaily entered the apartment, singing a love ditty of his native land, and began to fumble for his tinder-box. After several attempts, he at last managed to light his candle, and of course at once perceived the ghost. The cornet was filled with the superstitious notions of a certain section of his countrymen, and started back nearly overcome with terror. ‘Ye saints in glory! what’s that?’ he cried; then leaving the room, he plunged madly down the staircase, and rushed yelling across the parade ground in the direction of the messroom. In his headlong progress, poor Mike did not observe a party of two ladies and a gentleman, who happened to be the colonel, accompanied by his wife and daughter, who had just returned from a dinner-party. Mike ran full tilt against his commanding officer, and knocked him into a puddle in the barrack square. The ladies screamed loudly; and the colonel, with many objurgations, got on his feet and confronted his assailant.

‘You—Cornet Macnamara!’ he angrily exclaimed. ‘What do you mean, sir, rushing about like a madman at this time of night? Consider yourself under arrest, sir.’

‘Faith, colonel,’ answered the unfortunate Mike, ‘I am very sorry, sorr, but I did not percaive ye. But, sorr, I wint up to me room just now, and as I hope for salvation, I found the divil in it, wid a big white shate wrapped round him!’

The irate colonel at once surmised that another trick had been played on his subordinate; so he sent the ladies home to quarters, and then called loudly for the sergeant of the guard with a file of men.

When this detachment of the guard appeared on the scene, the colonel ordered them to follow him to Macnamara’s room, where, by the light of the sergeant’s lantern, he showed the trembling cornet that there was nothing supernatural in the character of the figure that had frightened him so much. He then, under the circumstances, relieved Mike from arrest and proceeded home.

Mike waited until the commanding officer and the men of the guard were clear of the staircase, and then slid the gladiator off the coal-box. He edged the statue to the top of the stair, and by main strength toppled it over the banister; and an instant later, with a loud crash, the gladiator was smashed into fragments on the flagstones of the lobby, four stories beneath.

It is needless to say that there was great anger and consternation in the breast of the worthy host of the _Red Indian_ when, next morning, he awoke and found that his cherished statue had mysteriously disappeared. It was not long, however, before he obtained a clew to its whereabouts, as a customer informed him that late the previous night he ‘met a lot of milingtary chaps carrying summut’ in the direction of the barracks. This ‘summut’ Mr Slade shrewdly conjectured was his ‘Red Indian;’ and he at once wrote to the regimental quarters to make inquiries into the matter.

When the poor landlord discovered the gladiator in its fragmentary state, he became most angry and abusive; but was somewhat consoled when an emissary from the mess informed him that the officers would make good the damage, and requested him to inform them by letter next day the price at which he valued his statue. The landlord then procured the services of a passing cart and had the pieces removed to the inn. After a long consultation with his wife, he decided to assess the damage at ten guineas; and by way of making the most of the business, communicated with a marine store-dealer in town, intending to sell the smashed gladiator as old metal.

The colonel made the most strenuous though unavailing efforts to discover the practical jokers, and roundly abused the whole of the mess for their treatment of poor Mike; but after a while, the affair passed off in a general laugh.

Affairs, however, were speedily fated to take a turn which caused the implicated parties to laugh the other way. A large vessel arrived in the port of Chubleigh from Alexandria, which had among her passengers a celebrated London virtuoso, who, some months before, had been induced to pay a visit to Egypt by reason of the excitement produced in antiquarian circles by the discoveries of the celebrated Belzoni. This gentleman was posting to London when his chaise broke down opposite the _Red Indian_, and he entered the hostelry while the vehicle was being repaired. After partaking of a little refreshment, he took a walk in the garden, and his eye caught the fragments of the gladiator, which had been shot in a corner while waiting the arrival of the marine store-dealer’s cart. Having elicited the story of the statue from the host, the antiquary submitted the pieces to a most careful examination; and despite the whitewash and coats of paint with which the figure had been adorned, he recognised it as a specimen of the work of the renowned ancient Greek sculptor Lysippus; and in answer to the excited inquiry of the astonished landlord, appraised its value at six hundred pounds!

Having, at the host’s urgent request, given a written opinion on the matter, the virtuoso departed on his journey, and then Mr Slade hurried with his certificate to a Chubleigh attorney, in whose hands he placed the matter, with instructions to leave no stone unturned to recover the full amount from the officers.

Words could scarcely express the chagrin of the purloiners of the gladiator, when the colonel of the 31st Light Dragoons read at mess the contents of the letter he received from the legal adviser of the landlord of the _Red Indian_. The commanding officer further significantly hinted that the implicated parties would have to uphold their reputation as officers and gentlemen by paying the amount demanded, or run the risk of being cashiered.

At first, the jokers were inclined to dispute the claim, and invited the opinion of an expert; but that authority, when he had inspected the figure, corroborated the London man’s decision, with a further assurance that the statue was cheap at the money.

Cornet Macnamara, with reasonable show of justification, stoutly declined to pay a farthing of the six hundred pounds. It was, however, with a very bad grace, indeed, that the sum was subscribed by the interested parties; and served as a valuable lesson to them to modify for the future their spirit of mischief.

When Mike discovered the identity of his tormentors, he sent a challenge to each, and an arrangement was come to by which a representative was selected by ballot to meet the Irishman. The old trick of leadless pistols was resorted to; the combatants fired three shots at each other without any perceptible result, and then the seconds interfered, and declared honour satisfied.

A Jew purchased the fragments of the gladiator from the officers for a few guineas; but the wily Israelite well knew that a genuine Lysippus is almost as valuable broken as whole. He had the pieces skilfully rejoined, and disposed of the statue to a local virtuoso for a large sum, who in turn bequeathed it to the Chubleigh Museum.

With part of the money the lucky landlord of the _Red Indian_ received for his gladiator, he invested in a wooden figure, which did duty for a sign equally well, and which he placed above the porch out of the reach of predatory officers, and where, as has been mentioned, it still stands, battered, cracked, and mouldy.

Shortly after the episode of the gladiator, the 31st Light Dragoons were hurriedly despatched to Lancashire, in order to quell the bread riots which had broken out in that county; and the actors in the comedy just narrated were heard of no more by the good folks of Chubleigh.

A little more remains to be told of the statue by Lysippus. We must come down to 1851, the year in which the Great Exhibition was held in Hyde Park. A middle-aged Frenchman landed at Chubleigh from Havre on his way to London, and while taking a walk about the town, entered the _Red Indian_. The landlord, who had profited so handsomely by his statue, had years before gone to his rest, and his son the ex-boatswain, then an aged man, reigned in his stead. The Frenchman was interested in learning that his host had taken a share in the old war, and after a time, he had narrated to him the whole history of the statue.

‘Vat vas de name of de vessel you took?’ he eagerly asked.

‘The _Hercules_, sir.’

To the landlord’s astonishment, Monsieur leant back in his chair and indulged in a fit of uncontrollable laughter, and recovering himself, asked to be directed to the Museum. Having reached that establishment, he was not long in picking out the Lysippus, of which the learned in Chubleigh were so proud. The Frenchman put on his glasses and examined the gladiator’s toe-nail, and then gave vent to another guffaw, which speedily brought round him the officials of the establishment. He asked to see the secretary; and when introduced to the presence of that functionary, exclaimed: ‘Begar, sir, dat gladiateur is no more a Lysippus dan I am de Czar Nicholas of all de Russias. My oncle, who die ven I vas a leetle boy, keep vat you call a foundree in Athens, and have casts, or _replicas_ you call dem, made of all de antiques. He den put dem down a sewer until dey get a green magnifique; dey look like de real article; and he make heaps of money by selling dem as such in Paris. Your gladiateur is one of dem!’

‘But, my dear sir,’ asked the astounded secretary, ‘how are you going to substantiate your statement?’

‘Come wit me,’ said the Frenchman; and the twain proceeded to the statue. ‘My oncle,’ resumed the Frenchman, ‘deal in de antique, as I have told you; and in case he himself be cheated wit his own spurious statues, he have a private mark. Here is dis mark—a leetle hole drilled under dis toe-nail!’

The secretary communicated the purport of Monsieur’s statement to the Museum directors; experts were called who substantiated the Frenchman’s assertion that the work was spurious, and was no more the production of Lysippus than an Italian moulder’s plaster-cast of Venus is the work of Phidias. In disgust, the directors ordered the statue to be transferred to the lumber-room of the establishment, and its description, ‘Gladiator, by Lysippus, B.C. about 324; bequeathed by the late ——, Esq.,’ disappeared from the Museum catalogue.

ANOTHER ‘SHIP-CANAL.’

Another has been proposed, although the idea is not new, but seems to have been an old idea revived, and that is, to cut a canal from the sea to Birkenhead Docks across the low flat country lying between the outfalls of the Dee and Mersey, and thus getting a wide passage which will enable ships to avoid the bar of the Mersey. Elaborate plans have been prepared by an eminent engineer; and as the whole scheme seems feasible, and as money for great schemes seems to be readily forthcoming in this wealth-producing country, there can be no reason why the ‘ship-canal of Birkenhead’ should not be carried out as well as the ‘ship-canal of Manchester.’ It would have a great and reviving effect on the town of Birkenhead, which by this means may one day become an important commercial city, a rival to, instead of a mere suburb of, her wealthy sister on the opposite Lancastrian shore; and the expectations of half a century ago of a grand city, with magnificent streets, and squares, and splendid commercial docks, may even yet be realised.

THIS IS ALL.

Just a saunter in the twilight,
Just a whisper in the hall,
Just a sail on sea or river,
Just a dance at rout or ball,
Just a glance that hearts enthral—
This is all—and this is all.

Just a few harsh words of doubting,
Just a silence proud and cold,
Just a spiteful breath of slander,
Just a wrong that is not told,
Just a word beyond recall—
This is all—and this is all.

Just a life robbed of its brightness,
Just a heart by sorrow filled,
Just a faith that trusts no longer,
Just a love by doubting chilled,
Just a few hot tears that fall—
This is all—ah! this is all.

ROSIE CHURCHILL.

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