The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-08-02 00:00:00

EPITOME OF NEWS.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN,

The " Civita Cattolica " states that at Shanghai a
volume is about to be published containing the" Ave
Maria" in 340 languages.
The tea-plant has lately been introduced near Souk-
goum Kaleh, on the Black Sea, and the Russians are
confident that they will soon be able to do without
either Chinese or Indian teas.
There are seventeen quinine factories in the world—
six in Germany, four in America, three in France, two
in Italy, and two in England. The annual production
amounts to about 4,250,0000z5.
Dr. Knorre of Berlin, has succeeded in adding a new
member to the 237 lesser planets already known. The
latest addition to the solar system is very faint, but it
has been obserN ed on four occasions at Berlin.
At one o'clock on Saturday a serious accident
occurred at Woking Station to the Portsmouth excur-
sion train, when by some means four carriages, well
filled with passengers, ran of the likes. Several pas-
sengers were severely shaken, but no one was injured
to any alarming extent.
A few nights since a body, terribly battered and
mutilated, was discovered close to Gaenserndorf, a vil-
lage near Vienna, on the Northern Railway. An inquiry
was at once instituted, which resulted in the arrest of
three Slovaks, who are chaged with murdering and
robbing the deceased in a train, and then throwing the
body on to the rails in order to conceal the crime.
A sailing boat, with five young men in it, crossing
the Clyde from Dumbarton to Port Glasgow, was cap-
sized by a sudden squall. The steamer Athole, which
was passing at the time, rescued four of the occupants
of the boat, but the fifth, James Woods, of Port
Glasgow, was drowned. Hugh Carson, one of the sur-
vivors, was in the water for 35 minutes, and was so
exhausted that he had to be removed to the Greenock
Infirmary.
Last week's receipts of cotton at all United States
ports were 3000 bales; since Ist September, 4,795,000
bales. Week's exports to Great Britain, 15,000 bales;
ditto to Continent, 3000. Total since Ist September,
3,761,000 bales; stock at all ports, 240,000 bales;
stock at interior towns, 20,090 bales.
A return just published shows that the total numbet
of persons employed by the railway companies of the
United Kingdom is 367,793, of whom more than 55,000
are in the service of the London and North-Western
Railway, and 43,699 in that of the Midland Railway.
The returns of the Board of Inland Revenue show
that reply cards are not in much esteem among thzi
English public. At first there was no indisposition to
give them a trial, for in the year ending March 31,
1883, nearly 2t millions were issued for home use,
besides 169,500 foreign reply cards. In the succeeding
twelve months the issue of home cards fell to 755,940
and of foreign cards to 29,700.
In 1882 there were in the United Kingdom 1346
co-operative societies, with 661,000 members, and a
share capital of £7,432,000. The business they did
amounted to £26,616,000, upon which they earned a
profit of £212,000 or 26 per cent.
Her Majesty took a first prize for the best pen of
fourteen Down ewes, and a second prize for the best
Channel Islands heifer under three years of age, at the
annual meeting of the Royal Isle of Wight Agricultural
Society.
In the course of the autumn a monument will be
erected to the late Dr. Moffat, the African missionary,
in Ws native village of Ormiston, near Thanent, in East
Lothian. The obelisk, which is to be of red granite
and twenty feet in height, will be furßished with a
bronze relief of the features of the eminent missionary.
Two Frenchmen have invented a new kind of harp,
made entirely of wood. Instead of strings the inventors
use long strips of American fir. The sound is pro-
&iced, as in the ordinary harp, by the contact of the
fingers; but the player wears leather gloves covered
with

The official return of the expenses of Sir F. Fitz-
Wygram, M.P.' at the recent election for South Hants,
gives the total as £1405 4s. lid. The expenses of Mr.
Deverell, the Liberal candidate, were £1139 59. 4d.
A Paris correspondent says: Teller, the French
Serle, has tried his hand at building a paper boat, and
is said to have achieved a success.
The steamer Alberta, of the Canadian Pacific Rail-
way Line, on Sunday night collided with the steamer
Osborne, on Lake Superior. The Alberta was badly
damaged, while the Osborne sank, eight of her crew
being drownpd.
In London, on Tuesday night, at a public meeting in
the Shorediteh Town-hall, a committee of residents in
Hoxton was formed to raise funds for the purchase of a
testimonial to be presented to the police officers Garner
and Snell, in recognition of the,r bravery. A resolution
was also passed praising the two men Priee and Williams
for the courage they displayed in assisting the police to
•
capture the burglars.
Lord Salis`gury and Sir Stafford Northcote intend to
go on a political tour in Scotland towards the end of
September. They will address meetings at Edinburgh,
Aberdeen, and other towns.
According to reports from nearly every province of
Southern Russia the crops are likely to be abundant
and excellent. •
The Governor-General of Dutch India telegraphs
that this year's coffee crop on the Government's planta-
tion is estimatm 010.000

'On the estates Of the Duke of Edinburgh- at Eastwell,
and of Lord Hothfleld, at Hothfield-place, young phea-
sants are to be seen flying about the meadows in
thousands. The prospects of sport on the estates were
never better than this year.
A man named Reilly, working a mowing machine in a
field near Gmnard, met with a terrible accident. The
machine caught his foot, and cut it completely off above
the ankle, leaving his foot and ankle in the boot. His

leg was amputate-d.
The census taken this year on the 1.13 April, by
order of the statistical department of the Greek
Ministry of the Interior, shows that the population of
Athens is now 84,903, or 18,069 more than in 1879, when
the previous census was taken. In 1856, the inhabi-
tants were 30,069 ; in 1861, 41,298; in 1870, 44,510;
and in 1879, 66,834.
An important International Art Exhibition will take
place next year in St. Petersburgh. The present excel-
lent relations between Eussip, and Germany will enable
the latter to participate offfeially in the exhibition, at
which the art and artists of the Empire will probably

be very strongly rep:esented.
The yearly consumption of beer in Munich is 470
quarts to each man, woman, and child, or about three
pints a day for each person. What is actually drunk
by the men is,*on an average, from two and a half to
three quarts per day. The beer is very light, containing
-only four per cent. of alcohol. There is a brewery for
'every thousand inhabitants in Bavaria.
Three hundred silver coins, mostly bearing the effigy
of Queen Elizabeth, have just been found by six men
while walking on Crawshay's Cray, Pontypridd. The
coins which were discovered concealed in a stone moun-
tain wall, bear dates ranging from 1560 to 1605, those
of the latter date having inscribed the effigy of King
James 1., the profiles being clear and distinct.
In consequence of the appearance of the Siberian
plague in the neighbourhood of Gatschina, and near
the camp of the troops of the St. Petersburg district, a
special committe under General Prince Shokoffskoi has
been formed, charged to adopt stringent measures for
preventing the spread of the disease to the horses of
the cavalry during the manceuvres.
The additions to the Zoological Society's a
'sm-park,eaylioy
inefrhndoomneum,
Idnoudnriianigropmlraesstlennwdtieeadekbriynci‘lurterdeclgbAlea.
eEdwards; Rhesus g en t
Lieutenant A. H. Oliver, RN.; a short-toedpresented
South European, presented by Mr. W. R. Taylor-
bronze-winged pigeon from Australia, presented by Mr.
J. Lathom ; five Natterjack toads, British, presented
by Mr. W. Stanley; three striolated buntings from
. Africa, deposited; a four-homed antelope from India;
Macarthy's ichneumon from Ceylon • three common
squirrels, British; six Aldrovandi's limulds from North-
West Africa, purchased; two Virginian deer; an Argus
pheasant. bred in thsi gardens.,

Laura Lawrence, a respectably dressed young woman,
residing at East Molesey, was summoned at Hampton
Petty Sessions on Monday for plucking flowers at the
Royal Gardens, Hampton Court Palace, on July 18th.
Defendant was seen by one of the gardeners to pick a
rose and some carnations from one of the flower beds,

and she now admitted the act, adding that at the timil
she did not think of what she was doing. The magis-
trates imposed a fine of 10s., and Bs. costs.
The number of failures in England and Wales
gazetted during the week ending Saturday, July 26,was
58. The number in the corresponding week of last
year was 183, showing a decrease of 125, being a net de-
crease in 1884, to date, of 4080. _
_

On Tuesday morning a girl named Byrne, step-
daughter of Mr. Mack, Royal Hotel, Galway, was shot
by her sweetheart, a man named Thomas Perry. He
fired five shots at her and then attempted to shoot
himself. She died in a few minutes. Perry, who
Has formerly steward to Mrs. Newsham, Edenderry,
says he came 112 miles to shoot the girl. He is in cus-
tody.
In London last week 2530 births and 1995 deaths were
registered. Allowing for increase of population, the
births were 168 below, while the deaths exceeded by 226,
the average numbers in the corresponding weeks of
the last ten years. The annual death-rate from all
causes, which had increased in the five preceding
weeks, from 17.8 to 26-1, was 259. There were 17
deaths from small-pox.

At Geneva, on Tuesday, on behalf of the Salvation
Army, Colonel Clibborn had an interview with the
President of the Government, but was informed that
the meetings of the army would be prohibited for the

present. -
Frederick Wood, aged 30, who had been living apart
from his wife, appeared at her house in Great Eastern-
road, Glasgow, on Tuesday, and asked her to live with
him again. On her refusing he threatened to "do for
her," and with a reaping hook made a terrible gash
across her arm. He then fled, and on his meeting his
mother-in-law also threatened her and inflicted a wound
across her shoulders. The women were taken to the
infirmary, and Wood was arrested.
The revenue received from the Ist of April last to thi
26th inst. amounts to £25,406,532, or 1;1,509,232 less
than the £26,915,764 received in the corresponding
period ending the 28th of July, 1883. The expenditure r
up to the 26th inst. was £27,543,001, being £2,334,752
less than the expenditure for the similar period of 1883.
The balance on the 26th inst . amounted to £2,505,480,
and on the 28th of July, 1883, were £3,149,755.
On Tuesday Miss Jessie Craigen was summoned for
the fourth time to the Marylebone Police-court for de-
.. . . _ .

livering a public address on Primrose-hill contrary to
the bye-laws. Mr. de Rutzen, in fining the defendant
40s. and costs, said that if she repeated the offence she
would do it with her eyes open to the consequences.
The defendant refused to pay the fine, remarking that
she would rather go to prison.
Intelligence from Philippopolis states that the ad-
ministrator of the Forest Office of Baron Hirsch at

Bellowa, an Austrian subject, was attacked by brigands
on returning from a journey and carried off into the
country. The brigands demand a thousand Turkish
pounds as ransom. The Governor of Bournelia has
promised that energetic efforts shall be made to rescue
the enntured Austrian
The extensive corn and flour mills at Rosmadda,
about three miles from Limerick, were destroyed by
fire on Sunday, none of the grain stored therein being
saved. The mills were the property of Messrs. John-
stone Brothers, merchants, of Limerick.
The number of visitors to the International Health
Exhibition for the week ending the 26th of July was
155,655; total since the opening, 1,492,607.
A Reuter's telegram from St. Petersburg, dated July
27, says that the passenger steamer Aniouta capsized
on the 24th inst. during a storm on the Volga. Twenty
passengers were drowned.
The reports concerning the harvcst in France are not
so favourable as was expected. There is a fairly general
complaint that the excessive heat has ripened the wheat
too rapidly. In the central, southern, and western
departments the year is expected to give an ordinary
yield.
The late Mr. Nicholas Anchorena, who died two
months sinee at Buenos Ayres, was probably the richest
farmer in the world. His executors report his rural
estate as follows: Land, 1710 square miles; cows,
152,000; sheep, 410,000. He also owned much house
property in Buenos Ayres and his assets have been
valued at £2,400,000 sterling. He inherited £200,000
from his father thirty years ago. ,

The Crown Prince and Prin-cess of Germany were on
Saturday morning conducted over the International
Health Exhibition by the Duke of Buckingham and Sir
P. Cunliffe Owen.

An outbreak of Russian peasants and workmen has
occurred at Klimoff in the Government of Tschernigoff
against tradespeople belonging to the sect of Old
Believers. Several shops were sacked, and in the rioting
that ensued one man was killed and two wounded.
A Paris journal announces that the Nihilist Hart-
mann, whose attempt to assassinate the Czar some
years ago caused general attention, has committed
suicide. It is stated that he was driven to self-destruc-
tion by want.
A cricket match has been played during the present
Donegal Assizes in the grounds of Camus Rectory,
near Strabane, when eleven ladies challenged the same
number of gentlemen to a match, the former using bats
and the latter broomsticks. The ladies were captained
by Miss Claudine Humphreys, and the game resulted
in a victory for the ladies by one wicket.
Paris advices state that, as usual at this period of
the year, the French grain markets have been thinly
attended, and that the business transacted has been in
consequence unimportant. Quotations have scarcely
varied, but, if anything, prices have shown heaviness.
Business in the French ports has presented scarcely
any interest.

Paris paper publishes a despatch from Moussey, in
the Department of the Vosges, statingthan an epidemic
supposed to be purple typhus is raging there. Ten
persons have succumbed, and thirty others are said to
have been attacked.
Plans have been preparedlor construction of a ship
canal 127 miles long from Dublin to Galway, at acost
eight millions for ships of 1500 tons of twelve millions
for ships of 2500 tons, and of twenty millions for ships
of 5000 tons and upwards..
From reports published on Monday, the Scotch
harvest will approach the average of second-rate years.
Wheat will be the best crop of the cereals, oats coming
next, and barley occupying third. place. Beans will be
as abundant as they were two years ago, but the hay
crop will be light. The potato crop promises to be the
best for many years, vith no symptom of disease. The
turnip crop is now beyond danger.
On Sunday a large number of people assembled at
Ostend from the provinces of Belgium and France to
witness the races on the Wellington Course. Their
Majesties the King and Queen of the Belgians and suite
arrived on the ground from the palace at three o'clock,
,and took their places at the grand stand, where they
witneased the racinr
Fifty men. have been drowned within three months
on the dangerous bar at the mouth of the Columbia
River in Oregon.
Two men—Joha Smith and George Adams—were
hunting near Boulter, in Ontario. Adams mistook
Smith's cap for the head of a bear, and shot him
fatally.
The largest cattle ranch in the world is in Grant
County, New Mexico. It encloses an area 40 miles
wide and 60 miles long, and comprises 1,500,000 acres
of grazing land.
Miss Emma Kempf was fatally burned by her clothes
catching fire from a spark from a cigar smoked by a
young man with whom she was riding in a waggon at
Racine, Wisconsin.
A most destructive fire has occurred at the town of
Marash, in Asia Minor. A thousand shops, 200 houses,
4 hotels, 3 mosques, and the Municipal Palace have
been burned to the ground.
In the match, Notts v. Yorkshire, played at Notting-
ham for the benefit of J. C. Shaw, the receipts for the
three days amounted to £284. The Marylebone Club
have headed the private subscription list with a donation
of £l5, and it is believed that in the aggregate Shaw
will get about £4OO.

Ear-ly on M-onda-y morning a police-constable per-
ceived smoke issuing from a house in Dantzig-street,
Manchester, and ,on effecting an entrance found the
premises on fire' and a woman named Ann Chambers
burned to death in bed.

The Queen has sent through Sir Henry Ponsonby to
the Secretary of the Royal Agrkuitural Benevolent In-
stition, of which Her Majesty is the patron, a special
donation of £5O, in recognition of the demands made
upon the funds of the institution in consequence of the
long prevailing agricultural distress.

Monda-y a- shocking outrage was committed at
Market-hill, near Newry, on a farmer named Bradlett.
A dispute arose between him and another farmer named
Mitchell, and during the altercation the latter stabbed
him with a pitchfork, inflicting a wound in the abdo-
men, from the effects of which it is feared hg will not
recover.

„
The last estimate upon manufactures in the United
Staes is that there are 356,000 establishments, employ-
ing 6,000,000 hands and 4,500,000,000 dols. in capital,
and with an annual product worth 8,000,000,000 dols.;
which is 2,000,000,000 dols. more than Great Britain.
Koshiway, liief of the Sac and Fox tribes upon the
Pottowatomie reservation in Kansas, war murdered a
few days ago, and his body was thrown into the river.
He was opposed to the policy of the other chiefs of the
tribe, who wished to remove to the Indian territory.
Fourteen British vessels and five foreign vessels were
reported as actual wrecks last week, making the total
for the present year 872 against 1076 for last year.
Eleven were steam vessels, with a total tonnage of 6725
tons. Of these eight were British owned, one sinking
by collision. About 200 lives were lost, principally by
collision off Cape Finisterre.
The suicides in the United States during the last
three months number over 400, or about one to every
125,000 of the population.
Nearly ten million pounds of high explosives are
used annually in the United States East of the Rocky
Mountains.

The coming of age of Lord Clandeboye, the eldest
son of his Excellency the Earl of Dufferin, was on
Monday celebrated at Clandeboye, co. Down.
Seven steamers landed live stock and fresh meat at
Liverpool last week from the 'United States and
Canada. The total imports amounted to 2779 cattle,
126 sheep, 5492 quarters of beef, and 325 carcases of
mutton, which,
when compared with the arrivals of the
preceding week, shows a slight decrease in live stock
and fresh meat.
Ch'en Yiian-Chi, Premier Secretary of the Chinese
Legation, died on Saturday afternoon at the Legation
in Portland-place, London. He lost his wife in Paris
about three years ago, since which he has been in un-
settled health.
On Monday afternoon Mrs. Higgins, the wife of a
pignoforte dealer, was walking along Oldham-street,
Manchester, carrying in her arms her infant daughter,
aged sevea weeks, when a ladder which had been used
by a painter fell and struck the infant on its head,
knocking it out of its mother's arms. The chid was
taken to the infirmary, but died within a few minutes
of its admission.
Two men, named Hallas and Priestley, were found on
Monday in a quarry at Stainland, near Halifax, the first-
named being dead, and the other unconscious. They
left a house in the neighbourhood of the quarry shortly
before eleven o'clock on Sunday night, and, it being
very dark at the time, it is thought they accidentally
fell into the anarry .

1


(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
AMBITION'S LADDER.
vy the Author of " Atherstone Grange." "A Life fa
a Love," dv.

CHAPTER V.
LOST IN THE FOG.
And all around
The life of London shifted like a cloud—
Men sinned, and women fell, and children cried,
.&O. want went ragged up and down the lanes.
Piesi twelve o'clock, a thick tog, not a cab to be
got, 'cad nearly two miles from home! Pleasant,
oPon my word! However, it can't be helped, I sup-
i3°Be, so I must make the best of a bad job and trudge
2 t foot—that is, if I can find my way through the
O. Let me see now."
• And Dr. Sampson stood for a few minutes peer-
fg through the sulphurous cloud which enveloped
aliol to take his bearings before quitting the circle of
`dimly diffused light afforded by the lamps of the
Vauxhall railway station, where he had just landed
alter an evening spent with an old college friend at
bis wick. Dr. Sampson was, as far RS stature went,
a very little man, thin and wiry, and possessed of a
strong faith in the science of phrenology, and a close
atody of his own head had convinced him that of all
organs locality was the one he had most fully de-
veloped. Therefore, regardless of the fog, in the
confidence this belief inspired, he paused only for
8 briefest space before plunging boldly into the
..atkness, and trudged stoutly along, scorning the
oare idea of enquiring his road, even had anyone
leen about to 'inform him ; till after about a quarter
of an hour's brisk walk, which should, according
to his reckoning, have brought him to the Clapham
Road, he suddenly found that he had not the least
notion of where his steps had led him to.
" T't! t't !" he exclaimed, testily. "It can't be
that I have lost my way, surely! And yet !—I
ought to be well round the Oval now. I kept well
to my right after leaving the station I'm certain of
that—unless this confounded fog has deceived me,
and I crossed the wrong road."
Which was precisely what had happened to him,
and in spite of the system of mnemonics on which he
pridea himself, there seemed very little prospect of
Dr. Sampson being able to recover his path unless
other guidance than his own came to the rescue.
And of that there appeared no chance, for not a
soul was to be seen in the streets, not a light in any
•of the windows of the squalid houses among which
he found he had wandered.
"Pleasant, upon my soul!" he muttered again,
hardly knowing whether to laugh or be annoyed at
the mischance which had befallen him. "I wonder
what Atkins will think of it. She'll have a fit, I
shouldn't wonder, or fancy I've been garotted and
,robbed. Ugh! not an unlikely neighbourhood for
such a thing to happen in, judging from appear-
ances."
And he pictured to himself Mrs. Atkins, his house-
keeper (for the doctor was a bachelor), rushing
frantically to the nearest police station, breathless
and bonnetless, to make known the alarming fact
of his absence from home at least two hours beyond
his usual time, a circumstance that from the nature
of her master's practice was almost without pre-
Sedent. He looked round again, the fog having
lifted a little enabling him to make out more clearly
Nvhere he was, and caught sight of a tall, slight
nglire that hurriedly emerged from a gloomy, cut-
Oat-looking alley without any lights.
A female, evidently, and young, if ono might
dg
loe from her free, springy movements.
fr. Sampson started briskly in pursuit of her.
Here! hi! my good girl, he shouted, panting
th the haste he had made to catch her. " Where-
abouts am T, can you tell me ?"
The girl answered him briefly, still continuing her
rapid walk, and without even turning her head.
Lambeth Walk. Keep straight on, and you'll
come to the bridge."
Thank you very much," politely replied the
socthr. "But if it's all the same to you I don't want
te -come to the bridge. rm trying to find my way to
Clapham."

I no

"Then you had better turn round and go the
other way," said the girl. "Just now you're walk-
ing in exactly the opposite direction."
And without any further notice of him she quick-
ened her pace, andwould soon havebeen out of reach
but that Dr. Sampson hastened in front of her and
asked her to stay.
"Unless you're in a very great hurry," he said,
" you would be doing me a service by putting me
somewhere from whence I can find my way. The
fact is I am almost as much lost here as though I
were in the middle of the desert. I can't tell one
street from another, they are all so much alike."
"I am sorry I can't oblige you sir," was the curt
but not uncivily spoken reply. "If you turn back
and keep straight on till you can't get any further,
and then bear to the left, you'll come out somewhere
on your road. I'd not mind showing you the way
myself, but I'm in a hurry to get to the doctor's."
And she made another attempt to depart only to
be again prevented.
"If that is all," said Dr. Sampson, "perhaps we
can help each other. lam a doctor."
" You?" said the girl a little doubtfully.
"Yes. Nothing very surprising about that, is
there ?"
"No, but—"
"But you're afraid I'm hoaxing you to procure a
guide, eh? No, no, my girl, you may take my word
safely. Who do you want a doctor for ?"
"A little boy, sir."
"What is the matter with him F"
The girl shook her head.
"I'm sure I don't know, sir, only that he is very
ill, and don't seem to know nobody—anybody, I
mean."
"Fever, I suppose," said the doctor,-noticing with
some little curiosity the girl's correction of her lan-
guage. "Is he delirious ?"
" I can't say, sir," she replied with a puzzled look.
"dle talks very wild, if you mean that. But if
you're a doctor, as you say, you'll be able to tell
when you see him, won't you ?"
. "I hope so, my girl, and give him something that
will bring him round again. So make haste and let
me see my patient."
Without another word the girl turned and retraced
. her steps. Dr. Sampson followed her closely, but, to
tell the truth, began almost to repent his offer and
wish that he had allowed her to seek another

physician, more accustomed to such places, when,
after turning out of the comparatively open thorough-
fare, he found himself being led through a perfect
labyrinth of lanes and alleys shrouded in darkness.
However, there was no help for it now, since it
would have been impossible to find his way out of
the maze unassisted, and he followed on, asking a few
questions as they went, the answers to which gave
him very little information save that the sick boy
was no relation to his guide, who believed he was an
orphan, and that he was very delicate, perhaps made
more so by the damp air from the river, upon which
they lived, her father having a wharf there.
By the time Dr. Sampson had learned so much as
this they had arrived at their destination, the girl
stopping at the end of a narrow lane which led down
to the muddy bank of the river, the entrance to
which an open yard to the right lay through a pair
of rickety, decayed wooden gates
_which stood partly

open.
Here she halted somewhat abruptly, and turning
to the doctor addressed him in low but very earnest
tones.
"I want to give you a word of warning before you
•go any further, sir," she said. "You may perhaps
see something inside that you won't quite under-
stand, and-"
c yes ?I,
"Don't try," she added emphatically. 4xlt
wouEn't do you any good if you did, and might do
other people a lot of harm. Besides, I warn you, it
wouldn't he safe for you to notice anything but what
you're going for."
" Don't be afraid on that score," answered Dr.
Sampson, not without an unpleasant conviction that
the .fog that night had helped to place him in a very
awkward position, but seeing no road out of it.
"Doctors are like clergymen, you know ; we never
talk about things that come to our knowledge by
accident."
"I thought it was better to tell you, that's all,"
sal.(l the girl shortly. "You might have blamed me
afterwards if I hadn't."
So speaking, she pushed open the gate upon its
creaking hinges wide enough to admit Dr. Sampson,
and led the way through the yard to the foot of a
ladder reared against what appeared to be a loft on
the top of a low brick building, destitute of either
deers or windows. Behind her he mounted the
ladder to find himself, on reaching the summit, in a
long,
bare shed, the flooring of which was very in-
cure _ in places, and with a heavy iron ring to lift a
trap-door in the centre.
the no light in. the place, but the girl trod
tue wants firmly, and the doctor was about to follow
her across them when he felt his arms firmly grasped
from behind,
his business, and heard a rough, coarse voice demand
"It's all right, father," said the girl, turning
tack. "This gentleman is only thdoctor
I went
•to fetch."
"Oh, are you there? I thought it was some in-
fernal sneaking spy or other. I arkses your pardon,
sir."
And Sampson, released from the vice-like
grasp
across in
on which he had been held, made his way
s
giving en trance to a smaller apart-
ment overhan ag the river, through the window
gn.
of which the remains of an old crane could be

110e.X1.
but the doctor took very little notice of anything
but the lad, who, stretched upon a wretched mattress
that lay in one corner, WaS tossing restlessly from
side to side. and murmuring incetsantly to himself
snatches of sentences in all the in coherence of
fever.
"I must trust you to take no notice of what ho
EaYsy" whispered the girl. " Remember what I told
you.,,
"I am not a policeman, but a doctor," arswered
r,Sampson ; "you need have no fear of me.
Arid "
u turning away from her he examined his patient
more closely.
. He was a slight, delicate-looking lad, apparently
about nine or ten years old, with features that were
almost girlish in their refinement. There could be
0 doubt
that the air' had spoken the truth in saving
= • '
. 040tinbbh

, • • - •

that no relationship ey_isled between that fair,
delicate boy and the dark-featured, handsome girl—
for she was handsome in spite of her mean surround-
ings, and the coarse, ill-made attire which she wore,
moving and speaking with as much innate grace as
though her home were a palace, her garments of the
daintiest both in shape and material—such as would,
indeed, have befitted the owner of a form and face
like hers.
"Hum !" said the doctor, looking gravely at the
boy. "We shall have no easy job to pull him
through, I'm afraid. Not while he remains here at
any rate. A hospital would be the best place for
him."

"No, he mustn't be taken away," said the girl,
quickly. "Alick says so."
" Indeed ! And pray, may I ask who is Alick,
and what authority he has in the matter? Is he his
father ?"
"Father !" And the girl laughed. "Why, Alick
is only 'a little older than me, Besides, I told'lyou
he was an orphan. No, Alick is no relation to him;
but he takes care of him, and won't let him be taken
away."
"That remains to be proved," said the doctor.
"However for the present it would be hardly safe
to move him. But, whether Alick objects or not, he
must be got out of this place as soon as it can be
done without risk. Are you quiet here?"

"Mostly."
"Which means, I presume, that sometimes it is
noisy. Now attend to what I say, young woman.
I don't know what business is carried on here, nor
do I want to be told; but one thing I must insist
upon, that this little lad must be carefully looked
after, and no noise allowed to reach his ears on any
account. I'll write a prescription for him, and if
you will lead me into some neighbourhood from
whence I can find my way home, I'll knock up some
chemist on the road and get him to make it up for
you."
"You will come again to see him, won't you ?"
"Without fail. That is, if the gentleman who
gave me st rough a reception does not object to my
visits."
"Oh! you're welcome to come if you like," in-
terposed the person referred to, who stood in the
doorway watching them. "I aint got no objections
to nobody as doesn't go prying into things what aint
concern of his."
"I am extremely obliged, I am sure," politely
answered Dr. Sampson, wondering not a little what
secrets they were so anxious to hide from him. "And
now, as I can do no further good here for the pre-
sent, I will go, if you please.'
The girl led the way again, and they were soon in
the streets, through which, by many a short cut, the
doctor followed her to a point he was able to
recognise, and fulfilled his promise to get the draught
which he had ordered compounded,
"You quite understand my- directions' I hope ?"
he asked the girl, whom he had carefully tutored as
they went.
"Oh, yes, sir."
"And I will come and see him again to-morrow
evening. Though how lam to find my way --"
"I will meet you here at any time you like and
show you, if you like," said the girl,
"I shall be obliged if you will. At seven o'clock
say, or a quarter-past. Will that do ?"
" Yes ; it will be quite dark then."
So they parted, the girl hurrying back with the
medicine, and Dr. Sampson securing a cab and
driving home just in time to calm the fast-rising
apprehensions of his housekeeper, who was prepar-
ing to sally forth in search of him.

CHAPTER VI.
A DEN OF THIEVES.
A youth of crime
May be redeemed by after penitence;
But schooled in vice there is no fellowship,
No honest dealing save 'mongst honest men.

LATE as it was before the girl got back with the
medicine, the place into which Dr. Sampson had
so strangely found his way presented a very dif-
ferent appearance upon her return to that which he
had witnessed.
Then, save for the girl and her father and the
sick boy, it seemed to be untenanted; now some
seven or eight men were congregated there, seated
on a couple of rough forms placed on each side of
a tat le, at which some of them were playing cards
and blowing great clouds of tobacco, moistening
their mouths every now and then; with deep
draughts from a huge tin can of beer. Some were
respectable mechanics apparently, others of a class
impossible to describe from outward 4ppearances,
but all with that indescribable something about
their manner which betrays an existence of con-
tinual watchfulness, of being hunted, with all men's
hands against them. One of the party was singing
in by no means soft tones when the girl entered, but
though she cast a displeased glance at the vocalist,
remembering what Dr. Sampson had told her re-
specting the necessity of perfect quiet, she said not
a word, merely hurrym„cr past the group to the inner
room, where she found her charge still asleep, though
restless as before.
Meanwhile the young gentleman without was in-
terrupted in the display of his vocal powers by a
not over politely worded request, or command
rather. to "shut his tater-trap."
"I suppose as how yer fancies as you're in a
moosic 'all, or a free-and-easy, don't yer ?" growled
the master of the establishment, Joe Bradley, who
had come up through the trap before mentioned
during the noise, unnoticed, and stood in the centre
of the assemblage. "You've got a werry sweet
voice, I daresay, but don't you think it 'ud be as
good not to raise it so loud? I don't want to have
no discredit brought on this 'ere caravan if you do,
so just you shut up. It's all well enough for some o'
you gents as carries on yer perfession out o' doors
to kick up a shine, but to a 'ard working man like
me, and a stay-at'-home hartist in these yere
articles "—and here Joe Bradley exhibited on the
palm of his open hand some bright-looking shil-
lings and half-crowns which, if not silver, were at
least an excellent imitation—" the sight of a bobby
on the premises wouldn't be pertickler cheerin .
So, if yer wants to warble, my chicken, you'd
better fold some other place for makin' a row, or
the chances is as the whole lot on us may have to
sing a toon as we won't like."
Mr. Bradley, or as he was commonly called,
" Rnowing Joe," was by no means a prepossessing
individual. Indeed, he was about as unpleasant a
party to look at as can well be imagined. He had
a low, very low, forehead, thatched with stubbly
thick hair of sanguineous hue, a coarse brick-dust
complexion and villainous-looking mouth, with pro-
truding fangs rather than teeth, surrounded by the
bristles of a week's growth of beard, small ferret-
like eyes, and a head shaped like a cannon-ball—
altogether making up as unattractive a tout ensemble
as could well be imagined.
Such as he was, however, there he stood in all
the majesty of ownership, for he was the lessee of
the old wharf and its buildings, though what busi-
ness he carried on there it puzzled his neighbours to
imagine or rather, would have puzzled them had
they felt inclined to trouble their heads about the
matter. But the inhabitants of Standgate Bank and
its locality were not wont to enquire too curiously
into the affairs, legitimate or otherwise, of other
people.
Ostensibly, Joe Bradley was a coal merchant,
such at least being the announcement which fol-
lowed his name, painted in dirty white letters on a
rusty black plank nailed over the gate which gave
entrance to the yard; but no one had ever been
known to purchase even as much as a single sack of
coals from Knowing Joe," neither was it supposed
that the battered old tenement contained any greater
quantity of that commodity than sufficed for the
wants of its inmates.

IP, However, there the legend remained on the rusty
black board until it was nearly obliterated by dust
and smoke.

As Joe Bradley observed, "'What's the odds?'
It pleases me, and don't 'urt no one else." And
there the matter rested. _ _ _ _ _

"Beg pardon, guv'nor, I'm sure," humbly apolo-
gised the delinquent to whom Mr. Bradley's
sarcastic remonstrance had been addressed. " I
wasn't aware as my harmony was disturbin' the
company."
"Company be blowed !" emphatically returned
Joe. "You might mako as much din as you
liked for all I care if it wasn't that the coppers
might be about. Why you might have been heered
over the water. Come, clear off, the o'le
of yer. There's work to.be done down below as
won't wait. Barney, you'd better give an eye to it
directly."
"All serene, guv'nor," answered the man ad-
dressed as " Barney." "Come along, boys, we can
finish the hand downstairs."

And one after another the group rose and de-
scended the ladder, whose top appeared through the
trap by which Joe Bradley had come upon them,
leaving that worthy alone with his daughter and her
sick charge.

(To be continued.) 1