The Press. — London, England, 1854-12-23 00:00:00

1224 " Yon ate going to stay at that door all day and all night, and for many a long year," the fairy said, very majesti cally ; and Gruffanuff, coming out of the door, straddling before it with his great calves, burst out laughing, and cried " Ha, ha, ha! this is a good un ! Ha—ah—what's this ? List me down-o—o—li'm !" and then he wile dumb! For, as the fairy waved her wand over him, he felt him self rising off the ground, and fluttering up against the door, and then, as if a screw ran into his stomach, he felt a dreadful pain there, and was pinned to the door; and then his arms flew op ever his head ; and his legs, after writhing about 'wildly, twisted under his body ; and he felt cold, cold growing over him, as if he was turning into metal, and he said " and could say no more, because he was dumb. He was turned into metal! He was from being brasen, brass! He was neither more nor less than it knocker ! And there he was, nailed to the door in the blitzing summer day, till he burned almost red-hot : and there he was, nailed to the door all the bitter winter nights, till his brass nose was dropping with icicles. And the postman came and rapped at him, and the vulgarest boy with a letter came and hit him up against the door. And the King and Queen (princess and prince they were then), coming home from a walk that evening, the King said, " Hullo, my dear ! you have had a new knocker put on the door. Why, it's rather like our porter in the face! Whet has become of that boozy vagabond'!" And the house maid came and scrubbed his nose with sandpaper; and once, when the Princess Angelica's little sister was born, he was tied up in an old kid glove ; and, another night, some larking young men tried to wrench him off, and ptl# him to the moat excruciating agony with a turnscrew. then the Queen had a fancy to have the colour of the dock altered; and the painters dabbed him over the mouth and eyes, and nearly choked him, as they painted him pea green. 1 warrant he had leisure to repent of having been rude to the Fairy Blackstick ! The companion passage to this is the re transformation of Gruffanuff, just as his wife, who has become a grand Court lady, is leading poor Prince Gigho to the altar to make him her husband : Giglio came up the steps with his horrible bride on his arm, looking as pale as if he was going to execution. He only frowned at the Fairy Blackstick—he was angry with her, and thought she came to insult his misery. " Get out of the way, pray," says Gruffanuff, haughtily. " I wonder why you are always poking your nose into other people's affairs ?" " Ire you determined to make this poor young man unhappy?" says Blackstiek. "To marry him, yes ! What business is it of yours ? Pray, madam, don't say ' you' to a Queen," cries Gruff anuff. " You won't take the money he offered you ?" No. " " Yon won't let him off his bargain, though you know you cheated him when you made him sign the paper." "Impudence ! Policemen remove this woman !" cries Gruffanuff. And the policemen were rushing forward, but with a wave of her wand the Fairy struck them all like so many statues in their places. " You won't take anything in exchange for your bond, Mrs. Gruffanuff?" cries the fairy, with awful severity. " I speak for the last time." " No! " tt -4 . No! " shrieks Oruffanuff, stamping with her foot. • I'll have my husband, my husband, my husband !" " You shall have your husband !" the Fairy Blackstick cried; and advancing a step laid her hand upon the nose of the knocker. As she touched it, the brass nose seemed to elongate, the open mouth opened still wider, and uttered a roar which made every body start. The eyes rolled wildly ; the arms and legs uncurled themselves, writhed about, and seemed to lengthen with each twist ; the knocker expanded into a figure in yellow livery, six feet high ; the scrtws by which it was fixed to the door unloosed themselves, and Jenkins Grulemuff once more trod the threshold off which he had been lifted more than twenty years ago " Master's not at home," says Jenkins, just in his old voice ; and Mrs. Jenkins, giving a dreadful youp, fell down in a fit, in which nobody minded her. Of Mr Thaekeray's pantomime style the subjoined extract will suffice : Little Betsinda came in to put Gruffannff's hair in papers; and the countess was so pleased that for a wonder she complimented Betsinda. " Betsinda!" she said, " you dressed my hair very nicely to-day ; I promised you a little present. Here are five sh— no, here is a pretty little ring, that I picked—that I have had some time." And she gave Betsindn the ring she had picked up in the court. It fitted Betsinda exactly. " It's like the ring the princess used to wear," says the maid. " No such thing," says Gruffanuff, I have had it this ever so long. There—tuck me up quite comfortable ; and now, as it's a very cold night ( the snow was beating in at the window), you may go and warm dear Prince Giglio's bed, like a good girl, and then you may unrip my green silk, and then you can just do me up a little cap for the morning, and then yon can mend that hole in my silk stocking, and then you can go to bed, Betsinda. Mind, I Shall want my cup of tea at five o'clock in the morning." " I suppose 1 had best warm both the young gentlemen's beds, ma'am," says Betsind a. Gniffanuff,fer reply, said, " Hatt•aulo l--Gisn-hawhoo ! —Hong-hrho !" In fact she was snoring sound asleep. Her room, you know, is next to the King and Queen. and the princess is next to them. go pretty Betsinda went away for the coals to the kitchen, and filled the royal warming-pan. No*, she was a very kind, merry, civil, pretty girl ; but here must have been something very captivating about THE PRESS. her this evening, for all the women in the servants'-hall began to scold and abuse her. The housekeeper said sbe was a pert, stuck-up thing : the upper-housemaid asked, how dare she wear such ringlets and ribbons, it was quite im proper ! The cook (for there was a woman-cook as well as a man-cook) said to the kitchen-maid that she never could see anything in that oreetur : but as for the men, every one of them, coachman, John, Buttons the page, and Monsieur the Prince of Crim Tartary's valet, started up, and said— " My eyes !" " 0 mussey !" What a pretty girl Detainda is. 0 jemmany. !" " 0 ciel !" " Hands off ; none of your impertinence, you vulgar, low people !" says Betainda, walking off with her pan of coals. She heard the young gentlemen playing at billiards as she went up stairs: first to Prince Giglio's bed, which she warmed, and then to Prince Bulbo's room. He came in just as she had done ; and as soon as he saw her, " O! 0 1 O! 0 1 O! O! what a beyou—oo--ootiful creature you are. You angel—you peri—you rosebud, let me be thy bulbul—thy 13a1bo, too ! Fly to the desert, fly with me ! I never saw a young gazelle to glad me with its dark blue eye that had eyes like thine. Thou nymph of beauty, take, take this young heart. A truer never did itself sustain within a soldier's waistcoat. Be mine ! Be mine ! Be Princess of Crim Tartary ! My royal father will approve our union : and, as for that little carrotty haired Angelica, I do not care a fig for her any more." "Go away, your Royal Highness, and go to bed, please," said Betsinda, with the warming pan. But Bulbo said," No, never, till thou swearest to be mine, thou lovely, blushing chambermaid divine ! Here at thy feet, the royal Bulbo lies, the trembling captive of Betsinda's eyes." And he went on, making himself so absurd and ridiculous that Betsinda, who was full of fun, gave him a touch with the warming-pan, which, I promise you, made him cry " 0-o-o-o ?" in a very different manner. Prince Bulbo made such a noise that Prince Giglio, who heard him from the next room, came in to see what was the matter. As soon as he saw what was taking place, Giglio, in a fury, rushed on Bulbo, kicked him in the rudest manner up to the ceiling, and went on kicking him till his hair was quite out of curl. Poor Betsinda did not know whether to laugh or to cry ; the kicking certainly must hurt the prince, but then he looked so droll ! When Giglio had done knocking him up and down to the ground, and whilst be went into a corner rubbing himself, what do you think Giglio does ? He goes down on his own knees to Betsinda, takes het hand, begs her to accept his heart, and offers to marry her that moment. Fancy Betsinda's condition, who had been in love with the prince ever since she first saw him in the palace garden, when she was quite a little child. " Oh, divine Betsinda!" says the prince, " how have I lived fifteen years in thy company without seeing thy per fections ? What woman in all Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, nay, in Australia, only it is not yet discovered, can presume to be thy equal ? Angelica? Pish ! Gruff snuff? Phoo ! The Queen? Ha, ha! Thou art my Queen. Thou art the real Angelica, because thou art really angelic." " Oh, prince ! I am but a poor chambermaid," says Betsinda, looking, however, much pleased. " Didst thou not tend me in my sickness, when all for sook me ?" continues Giglio. " Did not thy gentle hand smooth my pillow, and bring me jelly and roast chicken ?" " Yes, dear prince, I did," says Betsinda, " and I sewed your Royal Highness's shirt-buttons on, too, if you please, your Royal Highness," cries this artless maiden. The book is a clever piece of fooling, and to country firesides, where stage pantomime is inaccessible, will be productive of almost as much fun its the best king and queen of burlesque that our theatres now can boast. Sudden Death. By Dr. Granville. London: Church,3l. DR. GRANVILLE brings together, in the first instance, a collection of facts connected with sudden deaths, some derived from his own experience, but principally from the returns of the ttegistrar-General, and from these facts draws certain general conclusions. He finds that sudden deaths, or " apoplectic seizures, " paralytic threatenings, and actual strokes, " are more common than in former times," and that " the proportion of such deaths to " the general mortality of the country is fast " increasing." But what is called sudden death he regards merely as the abrupt ter mination of a disease which has, in most cases, been some time in progress, and he thinks that warning, care, and medical skill, might have great effect in checking the malady and in prolonging life. He says : Under Nature's laws, there is no such thing as sudden death lt will be seen that in every case where death has abruptly cut short the thread of life there had been a preparation, more or less, antecedent to the occurrence, which must inevitably have led to it, unless interfered with by a timely and successful watching on the part of a medical attendant. The death ntay have occurred unexpectedly, and in the opinion of Mends and b3standers the victim may have seemed to have been struck down dead, as if by lightning. But, in reality, the event was only the natural termination of an inward skate of things, which insidiously and unsus pectedly was treraring the blow. In di eases of tiaddan death, so callad, in which an opportenity has boa adarded SATURDAY, for a farther and closer investigation, sufficient cause bas been detected and clearly made out to convince us that the instantaneous closing of life was merely the natural termination of a train of morbid operations which had been going on within for a longer or shorter period of time ; and that, so far, such a kind of death was in no way dissimilar from that which follows the termination of a long illness. The author is incidentally led to consider the question—What is life ? But he finds, and can give, no satisfactory definition of the great fact With which all are familiar. "On " no topic," he says, "have physiologists of all " ages differei More widely than in their " definition of life." His analysis of the statistics of " sudden deaths " contains many passages of general interest. He infers that the cholera is rather an " inexplicable visita tion " from Heaven, ordained for all•w•ise purposes, than the offspring of filth and unsalubrious localities, and he makes out a prima facie case to show that this awful pestilence does not in reality increase the average rate of mortality. Referring to some tabular returns, which give the deaths in 1849 (a year of cholera) as 08,432, and in 1850 as only 48,579, Dr. Granville remarks : In contemplating the two preceding tables, what reader will not be struck by the remarkable fact that, whether as regards the total number of deaths in all England, or the total number of deaths in the metropolis only, the large inctease which appears in the year of the cholera (1849) is followed in the succeeding year (1850) by a most striking diminution in the amount of deaths, so much so as to bring that year's mortality considerably below the average number of deaths of the years preceding the cholera year ? Thus in table 1., for all England and Wales, the deaths of that year were 440,839, being the largest amount in any one year since the census of 1841. But in the year following that of the cholera (1850) the number of deaths fell to 868,995, being not only 71,844 less than in the cholera year, but even less than the number of deaths of the year preceding that of the cholera by as many as 80,838. The same observations apply to the metropolitan deaths, which in the cholera year were 68,432, whilst in the succeeding year they only reached 48,579, a difference of 19,1353. The principle is further developed in a fol lowing passage : If we take the deaths of the two years together which preceded the cholera, and strike the mean ; and treat the year of the cholera and the compensating year that follows, in the same manner, we shall find that the four years pre. sent nearly the same average. Thus, the mortality of all England was : In 1847 .. .. 423,304 In 1848 .. 399,893 Together .. .. 828,157—Ater. 411.668 In 1849, year of cholera .. 440,899 In 1860 .. .. .. 388,095 Together .. .. 809,834—Aver. 404,017 And for the metropolis the mortality was : In 1847 .. In 1648 .. .. 59,131 .. 57,028 Together .. .. 118,759—Aver. 5A,318. In 1849, year of cholera .. 88,432 In 1850 .. .. .. 48,579 Together .. 117,011—Aver. 68,605. So that, in reality, it is found, when the aggregate of the four years is taken, either for the whole of England or for the metropolis only, that no greater number of people died in those years because of the cholera intervening than if the cholera had not visited us. The author conceives that in the reports of the Registrar-General the deaths from cholera are greatly exaggerated, and his figures sup port his view ; but as we assuredly do perceive some kind of connection between this in scrutable disease and dirt, defective ventila tion, improper food, and other evils incident to an uncared-for and over-crowded popula tion, the "warning from on high," we may humbly suppose, is intended to direct our attention to this social misery and neglect, as well as to put our houses in order, in the sense of making our wills, and living soberly. Generally, Dr. Granville treats sudden death as a great calamity, and thinks it is justly placed in that " beautiful Kyrie of plaints and supplications :-- Flom battle, and murder, And from sudden death, (hood Lord deliver us.' " Yet many wise and good men have doubted whether sudden death be not rather a mercy than a calamity when it closes a well-ordered life. Illness is deceptive; often the mind is in no state to contemplate dissolution, and often a " slow-sudden " death finds the work of preparation still delayed. When the cer tainty of death has been calmly contemplated, when in the daily course of lite the lamp has been kept burning and the "filet shod,' the swirl unites of the stroke, however it may int MI