The Press. — London, England, 1854-02-18 00:00:00

FEBRUARY 18, 1854. before Yucatan was again troubled; this time by a land expedition, three thousand strong, under the command of the conqueror himself. From Mexico their road was long; danger and uncertainty impended over the fate of the enterprise ; food fell short; enemies abounded ; allies proved treacherous or cowardly ; the whole line of country was unexplored ; rivers had to be crossed without bridges, and roads cut through dense, matted jungles. History has few records of a march more bold or pain. ful; but Cortes was not to be stopped, and in little more than six months he had reached the frontier town of Nito, having traversed the peninsula of Yucatan in all its breadth, and received at least the nominal submission of its tribes. The full conquest of this territory, however, was reserved for later warriors. From 1524 to 1547 we read of perpetual expe ditions, marches, battles, skirmishes, and all the incidents of a fierce struggle for supremacy, where numbers counterbalanced skill, and love of liberty contended with thirst of con quest. In 1542 the decisive blow was struck, and Merida established as the seat of govern ment. From that time to this European laws have prevailed in Yucatan ; but to the present day there are tracts of country which no white man's foot has trodden, and tribes which re fuse to acknowledge any government save that of their own chiefs. It is singular that our knowledge should become more imperfect as we draw nearer to modern times. Up to 1700 there are graphic, and even minute, records of Spanish proceedings ; but at that date history fails, and we can only look for information to recent travellers : What further incidents consequently befel in completing the pacification of the interior of Yucatan must remain matter for speculation. That the country of the Itzttex was never completely subjugated may be safely inferred from the fact that the Indians who occupy the Great Peten, to which they have given the name of Flores, though nomi nally subject to Guatemala, are still, in reality, an inde• pendent race. Their warlike propensities, however, have yielded to the desire of commercial intercourse with their neighbours, and a small trade is carried on by them, on one side with Tabasco. by way of the river San Pedro, and on the other with the settlement of British Honduras. But, with respect to their actual condition, our present information falls short of what was known by the Spaniards at the close of the seventeenth century. We have looked vainly for an extract which may give a favourable sample of Col. Fan court's style. Ho writes simply and well; and, though his work contains few striking pas sages, no reasonable reader will call it dull. Reminiscences of a Huntsman. By the Hon. Grantley F. Berkeley. London : Longman and Co. Wz have been much amused and not a little pleased with Mr. Grantley Berkeley's sporting autobiography. It is written with no incon siderable degree of cleverness, and a manly spirit pervades it from first to last. It is full of pictures from nature, and interspersed with humorous anecdotes and lively sketches of character, in which there is nothing offensive. He tells us of the days when, with the late Earl Berkeley's staghounds, he hunted the Uxbridge and Harrow country, and his records of the suburban encroachments of London upon his old preserves are very singular. Compelled to give way before the progress of the great city, he then took up the Oakley hounds in Bedfordshire, on their resignation by the present Duke of Bedford, and his account of the various difficulties that he met with is well worthy of perusal. Several of the phases of aristocratic life in the country are cleverly painted, and it would seem that the difficulty of pleasing all parties is as great in hunting as in politics. Some of the anec dotes of fashionable notorieties are very droll. Of the late Lord Alvanley the author says No man went harder than the late Lord Alvanley, and no man ever caught more falls. Not a good horseman, I have seen him, when his horse refused a fence, roll over his head into it, which a good horseman ought never to do. One day he had been hunting with me and we ran over an unfortunate line of country, the stag leaving the legitimate scene of our sports, and setting his head for Hounslow, Isleworth, Twickenham, and Brentford. Lord Alvanley left us before I had taken the deer, in good time to join his friends in the bay window at White's. They asked him, " What sport ?" and he replied, " Devilish good run ; but the beds went awfully heavy, and the glass only 161 Allowing the distance walked at two miles and a half per hour, according to the noble journalist's account, he would have covered a distance of .16,200 miles, or very nearly once and a half of the circumference of the globe ; and during that time he was never confined to his bed one day by sickness or accident.—firing away about 750 pounds' weight of powder, and four tons of shot. We have cited enough to show the various nature of this lively and agreeable volume. The crowded state of our columns prevents our dwelling on some of Mr. Berkeley's curious contributions to natural history. The work cannot fail to fascinate all lovers of sport, while its vivacity and personal records will amuse the general reader. A Letter to the Viscount Palmerston, M.P., on the Monitorial System of Harrow School. By Charles John Vaughan, D.D. London : Murray. Remarks Addressed to the Rev. Dr. Vaughan, Head Master of Harrow School, in Reply to his Recent Letter to Viscount Palmerston. By Anti-Monitor. London : Ridgway. Da. VAUGHAN, head master of Harrow, is a disciple of Arnold; and, under his manage• ment, that school illustrates the working of the Arnoldean system even better, perhaps, than the Rugby of the present day. Like all who studied under that remarkable person, he is deeply impressed with the merits of his teach er's theories, and vindicates them against all assailants with a zeal which savours of per sonal aflection. There can be no surer testi mony to the vast power wielded by Arnold than the constant deference paid to his opinion by every one who came within the sphere of his influence—a deference which the lapse of twelve years since his death has scarcely diminished. The point discussed in this pamplet is the existence and extent of monitorial power— that is, of power directly exercised by the higher and older boys of a school over the lower, and formally delegated to them by the master. This system almost inevitably involves the permitted infliction, under strict regulations, of corporal punishment by caning; which is quite enough to make it objectionable in the eyes of modern reformers. Dr. Vaughan's de fence is this. He argues that if " priepostors," or " sixth-form boys," are to have any autho rity allowed them, it must be supported by the right to punish ; and as impositions, or extra tasks, to be performed out of school hours, interfere with the ordinary discipline of a school, such punishment can only be of a corporal nature. This, however, he treats as an accidental and not very important result of the system ; the real question being, "By " whom, and in what manner, shall the police " of a public school be carried on? " Three modes of doing this present them selves. You may adopt the private-school system, by which a constant supervision is exercised over the boys by under-masters, whose express office it is to observe them in their hours of play. By this means an effectual police is established, but established at the cost of personal freedom and by means which prevent the development of a healthy public opinion among the boys themselves—to create which ought to be almost the first object of a schoolmaster. The second and third methods are merely different developments of the monitorial sys tem, well defined by Dr. Vaughan: — Ten, or twenty, or thirty, of those boys who are (gene rally speaking the elder, at all events the abler, the more diligent, the more meritorious—selected by no favour, ex empted from none of the rules and restraints of school, but yet brought by their position into a more intimate in terconrse with their master, and largely influenced (if he be what a muter ought to be) by his principles of judg ment and discipline—are empowered to exercise over their juniors a legalised and carefully regulated authority, while at the same time they are left to mix with them on terms of perfect freedom at times and in places to which no master's inspection could by possibility extend. But this system may be administered in two ways : either the monitors may be the master's deputies, charged to report to him, and exer cising no office except that of espionage ; or they may be invested with a derived, yet inde pendent, authority in minor matters—an au thority doubtless capable of being abused, yet limited , power appeal last but the asparagus beds went awfully heavy, and tne glass all through was up to one's hocks ; the only thing wan tin g missed - the last • was a landing net, for the deer got into the Thame s, and Days out limited by the power of appeal in " THE PRESS. Berkeley had not the means to get him ashore. They say that garden stuff is ris since they saw us among 'em." That splendid artist of sweet comestibles, Mr. Gunter, the renowned ice and pastry cook of Berkeleysquare, who was always one of my field, was complimented by Lord Alvanley on the appearance of his horse. " Yes, my lord," he replied, "but he is so hot I can hardly ride him." " Why the devil don't you ice him, then, Mr. Gunter ? " was the funny rejoinder. While he was hunting his father's stag hounds Mr. Grantley Berkeley often got into collision with unruly farmers. On one occa sion he was assaulted while trying to save the deer, and ho gives the following graphic description of what ensued : I had but just time to thrust my fingers into the staple to prevent the lock going in, and then, with my back to the door, I begged the men to let me save the life of the stag, and assured them if they did so I would pay all damage. A brutal reply was all that this appeal elicited ; and one of them, a very powerful man, seizing my arm, endeavoured to force the lock through or between my fingers ; on this, as he hurt me considerably, I struck him over the wrist with my fist in an endeavour to knock his hold off, when he drew back and hit left and right at my face. I was close to the barn door, my hand fixed in the staple, and very little room given me to give way; but, bad judges of distance as these fellows usually are, his left hand never reached me, and his right only struck the peak of my hunting cap, which, however, it knocked off over my face, and the cap gave me a bloody nose. The other fellows also showed fight, so I withdrew my hand from the staple, returned the blow on the arm of the man who struck me with the heavy iron hammer of my whip, and kept them at bay. Jast then the field arrived at the gate, and I called out, " Gentlemen, will you sit by and see this ?" In an instant such a lot of goodly legs flew over their horse's manes as made it evident to me there was no lack of help, and in another moment Mr. George Hawkins, Mr. William Norton, of Uxbridge, Mr. Baring, and, though last, not least, Mr. Gulley, some time member for Pontefract, were with me. There were many others equally ready and resolute, but my memory does not serve me after such a lapse of time with their names; I assure them that they are not intentionally omitted. When my assistants arrived at the barn door, to my infinite amuse ment, I saw a huge ruffian, the one who had struck at me, squaring at Mr. Gulley, and threatening to strike him ; the latter simply collected himself, and, drawing his hands together on his chest, said in a calm but ominous tone, " You'd better not." So thought the countryman, or some sort of instinct came to his rescue, for, turning quickly away, he soughtsome other foe in the melee which had then commenced. We wish that we could find room to extract the author's humorous sketch of an action for da mages against him in which the respective styles of Scarlett and Brougham in a court of justice are well described. Not the least interesting parts of this amusing work are its accounts of Berkeley-chase, Heron-park, and Charborough park, with all their various sporting resources. Of the noble proprietor of the second of these places Mr. Berkeley writes : I know no place more deserving of sporting notice than Heron Court; and Lord Malmesbury combines in his person every knowledge of what is due to a country life, as well as the more refined attributes of London society. In this last year, 1852, we have seen him leave his manors and rivers, his farms and his gun, and, when called on to assist the Prime Minister, Lord Derby, with a firm hand and thoroughly enlarged mind guide the foreign policy of the United Kingdom ; and leave the interests of his country peaceably and honourably maintained, his sovereign on the best of terms with every foreign power. His more important duties over, and a change in the Government taking place, with honour he returns to his hospitable hall, resumes the gun, and is as much of the country gentle. man and sportsman as ever. Lord Malmesbury is an excellent illustration of what a country gentleman and sportsman should be, as recommended to the rising generation in the commencement of this work. He has not permitted his love of field sports to overwhelm the more important and refined duties and accomplish. ments of life ; but in his leisure hours he can be a perfect sportsman, and when the Crown requires it an able minister. The following statistics would alarm the weak nerves of the Peace Society Grand total killed by the late Lord Malmesbury, in forty seasons, to his own gun, from 1798 to 1840. Black Game Partridges . Quails Landrails 95 Pheasants Woodcocks l,OBO Snipes 4,694 Wild Swans 3 Wild Geese Fowl 2,756 Other - 10 Bitterns Golden Plover 5,211 Hares 7,417 Rabbits -- Total 18 442 Summary of shots killed and missed in forty seasons, ending 1840. Shots Killed 16,768