The Press. — London, England, 1854-03-18 00:00:00

256 months from January to July inclusive, there were sixty. four admissions to the hospital, or, on the average, 41 per cent. per month ; and only two deaths, both of dysentery. Many of these men had suffered frequently in the plains from acute dysentery and hepatic affections, and many others had aggravated these complaints by excessive drinking, and two were cases of delirium tremens. During the same period the number of entries at Calcutta or Dina pore would probably have more than trebled this. Dr. Hooker rarely deals with the affairs of British India, rightly deeming that field al ready too well trodden; but his few notes on Indian affairs aro valuable enough to make us wish for more. As a specimen we select the description given of " Thuggee ": Here I had the pleasure of meeting Lieutenant Ward, one of the suppressors of Thuggee (Thuggee, in Hindostan, signifies a deceiver; fraud, not open force, being employed). This gentleman kindly showed me the approvers or king's evidence of his establishment, belonging to those three classes of human scourges, the Thug, l)akoit, and Poisoner. Of these the first was the Thug, a mild-looking man, who had been born and bred to the profession : he had committed many murders, saw no harm in them, and felt neither shame nor remorse. His organs of observation and destructiveness were large, and the cerebellum small. He explained to me how the gang waylay the unwary traveller, enter into conversation with him, and have him suddenly seized, when the superior throws his own linen girdle round the victim's neck and strangles him, pressing the knuckles against the spine. Taking off his own, he passed it round my arm, and showed me the turn as coolly as a sailor once taught me the hangman's knot. The Thug is of any caste, and from any part of India. The profession have particular stations, which they generally select for murder, throwing the body of their victim into a well. • • • • • Major Sleeman has constructed a map demonstrating the number of "Bails," or regular stations for committing murder, in the kingdom of Oude alone, which is 170 miles long by 100 broad, and in which are 274, which are regarded by the Thug with as much satisfaction and interest as a game preserve is in England: nor are these " bails " less numerous in other parts of India. Of twenty assassins who were examined, one frankly confessed to having been engaged in 931 murders, and the least guilty of the number to 24. Sometimes 150 persons collected into one gang, and their profits have often been immense, the murder of six persons on one occasion yielding 82,000 rupees ; upwards of 8,0001. Of the various facilities for keeping up the system, the most prominent are, the practice amongst the natives of travelling before dawn, of travellers mixing freely together and taking their meals by the wayside instead of in villages ; in the very Bails, in fact, to which they are inveigled by the Thug in the shape of a fellow-traveller ; money remittances are also usually made by disguised travellers, whose treasure is exposed at the custom-houses, and, worst of all, the bankers will never own to the losses they sustain, which, as a visitation of God, would, if avenged, lead, they think, to future, and perhaps heavier, punishment. Had the Thugs destroyed Englishmen they would quickly have been put down ; but the system being invariably practised on a class of people acknowledging the finger of the Deity in its execution, its glaring enormities were long in rousing the attention of the Indian Govern ment. A few examples of the activity exercised by the sup pressors may be interesting. They act wholl) through the information given by approvers, who are simply king's evidences. Of 000 Thugs engaged in the murder of 64 people, and the plunder of nearly 20,0(X)l.,all except seventy were captured in ten years, though separated into six gangs, and their operations continued from 1826 to 1830: the last party was taken in 1836. Aud again, between the years 1826 and 1835, 1,562 Thugs were - seized, of whom 382 were hanged, and 909 transported; so that now it is but seldom these wretches are ever heard of. To show the extent of their operations I shall quote an anecdote from Sleeman's Reports (to which I am indebted for most of the above information). He states that he was for three years in charge of a district on the Nerbudda, and considered himself acquainted with every circumstance that occurred in the neighbourhood; yet, during that time, 100 people were murdered and buried within less than a quarter of a mile of his own residence ! It would be an improvement if some of the botanical and scientific details which encum ber these journals were removed to an appen dix, or otherwise reserved for separate discus sion. They interfere with the narrative, and, being scattered up and down, want method and arrangement. Purple Tints of Paris : Character and Manners in the New Empire. By Bayle St. John. London : Chapman and Hall. WE cannot be expected to agree with all the con elusions of a writer who regards the late French RV Inc with \be- \ ded admiration, and corn all who opposed it. een us upon this large ier our criticism contro to consider at all the . the work is written. k to indicate by a few nature of the materials There is a charm in th which Mr. St. John ,J ~a ,t Republic with unbounded prehensively condemns . The antagonism betweei T Jiff fa.Lkx2 "valc4velarendc if we undertook • :r ! • :; •a .1 Which ' Ail: I ;.41:re • me tasl xl e as r tip ble na t stration. - 4 otiTsk, ti o : ce wit THE PRESS. interpellates his personal experiences which rivets the reader's attention, if it does not conclude his judgment. Mr. St. John is not only an agreeable writer, he is familiar with phases of Parisian life at which Englishmen generally obtain but a cursory glance. The relations of the family, the indirect influences which operate in the training of the French youth, the Bohemian life of Paris, with its actors and accessories, its Agricoles and Fifines, its attics, its cremeries, its contrasts, its tragi-comedy—all these topics are here most abundantly and effectively illustrated. For his acquaintance with the realities beneath the surface of Parisian existence Mr. St. John would seem to be qualified to edit Balzac, with notes and appendices, and he draws upon his stores freely, yet in no objectionable manner. Under the title " Female Govern ment" we find the following : Paris has been said to be the hell of horses, the purgatory of husbands, and the paradise of women. In truth, female government is pushed to a great extent in a bourgeois family. Men have gravely asked me if the position of women in England does not border on slavery; because they have heard that, whilst the wife is not supreme, she at the same time stays a great deal at home. In France the empire is established in the honeymoon by a young wife over a somewhat faded husband; but the cause of its continuance is the natural indolence of the male sex. Sterne's description of the glove-lady is still in some sort correct. Men in business scarcely ever venture on any great operation without consulting their wives or their mistresses ; and, as I have said, in humble life the women almost always keep the books. A husband has generally nothing to do with the details of household affairs ; he never buys linen, plate, ut furniture, much less provisions. The man would be eternally ridiculous who should think of bringing home " a bit of fish " for dinner. He is supposed not to know the price of any article of first necessity. In genteel society he scarcely ever is aware who his wife has invited to dinner until he sees his guests. The lady of the house overlooks everything — even the dress of her husband; she buys his shirts, his cravats, his gloves : her taste presides over all; and so much the better. I think, if we were to allow our ladies to dress us as they please, we should soon cease to be so ridiculously unlike every other nation in appearance that every other nation appears ridiculous to us. We might, also, learn some other pleasant things. For example, the habit which couples, young and old,—those who are in different obey custom,—have of bringing occasionally, one to the other, a bouquet of flowers, merely as a polite atten tion, to testify that the stay-at-home has been thought of by the absent. In England I observe that a lady displays to her husband a pretty lace shawl she has bought for her self; and he draws her attention to the capital box of cigars he has bought for himself. In some of their manifestations the paternal and filial sentiments are strong in France : We may constantly meet with instances of extreme affection of both father and mother towards their offspring. A pleasant sight may sometimes be witnessed in the streets of Paris—elegant young men walking along, arm in -arm, with old ladies dressed in the comical simplicity of the provinces, in thick shoes and odd bonnets—mothers come up to visit their sons, who, instead of being ashamed of them, promenade them about everywhere, and hold up their heads with pride when any companion heaves in sight. Sometimes these good ladies, it is true, appear at odd times and in odd ways. Once upon a time an im mense quantity of lace and starch, amalgamated into a sort of winged balloon, was seen coming up my staircase, supported by a little woman some three feet and a half high, bearing a basket as big as herself. She had heard that her son was ill, and had set out to nurse him with a huge amount of provisions, not only delicacies for him, but coarse stuff for herself. She was persuaded that nothing wholesome was to be got in Paris. Her dutiful offspring was not quite so bad as he represented himself to be, and was in fact going down stairs on an expedition to the country with some Rose Pompon or other, when the shrill voiee of Madame Joseph was heard keeping the mother at bay. In an instant I was requested to help "to form a chain," and a variety of articles—the old bonnet in which Rose had come, with the bandbox in which the new one had been brought, a faded shawl, and other things which I was requested not to look at, that had formed the chrysalis out of which the pretty flurried butterfly that gave them to me had issued,—the whole kit, I say, was passed rapidly into my room, whither the said Rose also retired during the ill-timed maternal visit. My neighbour received his mother with the languor necessary in an invalid, and never left her side during the whole week that she remained, sending obdurate messages to the disappointed beauty, and behaving, as he said, wagging his crown, like one who knows his filial duties. The conversation of Society is not as brilliant as it once was : But, even now, the language of the salons is a thing apart; and, as I have observed, the first impression pro duced on those who hear it is, that great felicity of expres- sion is allied to sharpness of thought. I have often taken down the heads of conversations, and shall transcribe one which a lady whispered in my ear was extremely witty, or spirituel. It appeared to me also very brilliant at the time, because of the vivacity with which it was carried on, but was reduced to nothing on paper. The topics were : " Some ladies improve, like wine, by time : they, in fact, ncvcr grow old. It must not be even said that they are ugly ; but if they are, so much the better. Beauty flies, SATURDAY, but ugliness remains." On this theme all sorts of amusing remarks were made ; but I could not help being reminded of the laboured conflicts of wit by which the jesters in our old comedies fill up the intervals of action. Of course, to any one who did not examine what was said, in my cold-blooded way the whole dialogue, carried on in choice language, without confusion or hesitation, ea h speaking in turn, as if repeating a part, and all allowing one person to guide and direct, as it were, the manoeuvre, must have seemed a remarkable exercitation. I remember one trait that was rather applauded. It was mentioned that a certain St. Simonian had preached on the emancipa• tion of women at Cairo, in Egypt. " That is to say, in the desert," quoth some one. It is not uncommon to meet in society an elegant little old gentleman who has gained a reputation in his small circle for wit and learning on the strength of a few axioms, a few smart sayings, and a few celebrated friends. Ho descends from the ancient aristocracy, but has taken tints from the first empire. I like to analyse him. In every circumstance of life, at all the turns and corners of con versation, he has a pretty phrase, an anecdote, a quotation, pat to the purpose; and he has been so accustomed to speak with applause, that every arrowy sentence is feathered and gilded, as it were, by a witty smile and a jocular twinkle of the eye. What he says is not humorous, and therefore lie does not laugh • but he sometimes emits an elegant chuckle, that never fails to produce the effect. I have heard him speak on politics. He had a peculiarly sarcastic way of taking his pinch of snuff as he pronounced Albion to be perfidious, and explained how it emancipated its slaves for the pleasure of ruining its neighbours. His philosophy is that of the eighteenth century, and his morality that of courts in all ages. When he blasphemes it is always in a judicious way. He disapproves of fanaticism, even in infidelity. Now and then he informs young people from the country that he has discovered an irrefutable argument against the immortality of the soul. He knows a Jew who has told him that the Pentateuch, like the Iliad, is a s collection of rhapsodies hastily put together ; from which it is evident that there is no such thing as a future state of existence. Moses furnishes him with an inexhaustible supply of jokes; and he shows his courage by unsparing witticisms about a person, an offence against whom, we are warned, cannot be forgiven. This pleasant old gentleman sometimes makes little quatrains, of course sparkling with verbal wit, on people who invite him to dinner, and repeats them just at the nick of time as improvisations—which they may be In France, where the word improvisation is applied not only to eloquent written speeches, but to elaborate books. nix astonishing with how little wit the world is amused. Mr. St. John contributes to the long cata logue of notable French misapprehensions of English affairs : I might collect thousands of instances from French books and newspapers of ludicrous mistakes. A few, however, will suffice. It is, perhaps, nothing that a Frenchman never uses an English name or quotes an English expression without making some strange error, for this may be laid to that broad-shouldered class the printers, to whom I shall certainly attribute any mistakes of that sort that may be found in these pages. That eloquent and ingenious writer, M. Wry, will scarcely plead this excuse for introducing a set of jolly companions rejoicing over a pint of half-naff, and it is not probable that wiaki is a trip of the compositor. He must be answerable, too, for attributing queer tastes to our low English thieves, whom he represents as first drinking gin and then absinthe. Our worthy neighbours entertain the oddest possible ideas of our propensities in the way of eating and drinking. We are supposed to spend one half of the day in swallowing tea, and the other half in gorging potatoes. M. Audot, in his notes on the gardens of the south of Italy, goes out of his way to inform his readers that the English are not only accustomed to eat radishes as a dessert, but even carry them about in their pockets to crunch on the public walks. As I have said, it is commonly believed that there are no vegetables or fruits in England, and encouragement to this notion is given by a scientific writer in the Conslitalionnel, who, however, only says that our vegetables do not ripen as they ought to do. A short time before the article appeared I had had a grave discussion with a lady on the subject, and indignantly asserted that the English soil did produce cabbages and cauliflowers. She kept a copy of the paper, and, handing it to me as I went in, triumphantly ex claimed, " There, did I not tell you that there were no vegetables in England ? " "Madame," replied I, with a seriousness worthy of a better cause, b " if there are vegetables that do not properly ripen, that is a proof that there arc vege tables," &c. A clever writer named Viardot has recently given an account of his sporting experiences in England, and tells us that a worthy country gentleman—a regular sportsman— took him out for a morning's shooting, and at midday gave him a cup of tea and a thin slice of bread and butter. " Not even an egg I " he indignantly exclaims. I scarcely recognise in this the exuberant hospitality of my country. men, and must think that M. Viardot wrote from his prejudices, not from his experience. These are slight matters, but all matters are slight when isolated by analysis. Let us go on. " I have traversed England from end to end," says M. Mary, " and I never saw but one shepherd. He was a young man, well dressed and well gloved, reading the Morning Chronicle under a tufted ash." The same writer has the impudence to descride England as the land of women of easy virtue— la terre des Pinnies faciles. I am well aware that there is a great fund of romantic feeling and ill-regulated enthusiasm in young English ladies, which sometimes leads them to go to lengths of familiarity with foreigners that they would never think of with their own countrymen ; I but I am quite sure that M Aler)'3 remark is a boast in- a.‘