A STRANGE story was told to the French Academy at a late sitting. A certain Abbé, Richard by name, who had been engaged upon the Suez Canal, took a journey into Palestine and Egypt in search, among more important matters, of flint implements. He came to Timnath, the burial place of Joshua, and identified the locality of the tomb, which had been previously defined by an archæologist sent out by the French Government in 1863. Here he prosecuted his search, and was rewarded by the discovery of a number of stone knives which he accepts as those made by Joshua in obedience to divine command for circumcision of the people of Israel, and which knives the Septuagint asserts were preserved and buried with his body! A curious part of the matter is that these flints, which are thus persumably historic (though they may not be the tools which M. Richard considers them) are perfectly identical with those which are claimed as pre-historic. Thus it would seem that, instead of fixing the age of a flint implement by the stratum in which it is found, the period of the earth formation should, on the contrary, be established by the stone tools it may contain.

THE public conscience has begun to quake about the coal exhaustion business. What a far-sighted calculator announced some years ago concerning the short duration of our supplies at the present rate of consumption has been abundantly supported by the investigations of a Royal Commission; and folks now believe what previously they sneered at. A century's stock, and then-empty cellars! We ought to save, but how? I had a long say two years ago on the powers that may come to be utilised as coal gives out. But we should strive to economise the precious fuel itself. Why should we export it so freely? It is the nation's property, and the nation should profit when it is parted with. No one likes to suggest a tax, but I hold up my hand in favour of taxing exported coal; and I raise my voice to suggest that the wasteful squander of coal which we see in gas-lighted shops and gin-palaces, that have six times the burners they need, should be checked by a thumping tax upon every single burner in a house beyond a given number, to be liberally fixed in proportion to the requirements of the consumer. I take it that more than half the gas produced is wasted for mere glitter and dazzle; and what could be taxed with greater propriety? I commend this hint to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, feeling sure that a less objectionable impost could not be levied.

As an Englishman, labouring under the burden of the experiences and prejudices of several generations, I have, of course, a constitutional aversion to revolutions, and I am not in a hurry to have all my notions of government, of nationality, and of patriotism upset. Naturally, therefore, the poet's dream of the "Federation of the World" does not possess for me any special attraction. But when I am alone, and shake myself free of that sense of responsibility which becomes me at my age as long as the eyes of my neighbours are upon me, I take the liberty of speculating a little wildly about the possibilities of the future, more especially if I am

hard pressed by the consideration of a grievance which openly acknowledges itself to be an evil and an injustice, and for which nevertheless there appears to be no remedy forthcoming. Now I have recently been provoked into the indulgence of quite an ultra-Radical sentiment (in the seclusion of my closet) by reading up the controversy about the nonexistence of a copyright treaty between this country and the United States. While I was under this spell of irresponsibility I reasoned thus: This separation of national interests is not much better than the old parochial feeling of which I have heard so many complaints in my time. When the population of these islands of ours was less than half a dozen millions there used to be nearly as many kings as now there are lordlieutenants, and an Englishman's rights were limited to an area across which he might perhaps walk at his leisure between sunrise and sunset on a summer's day. Now that we are thirty or forty millions, our privileges are absolutely unlimited by landmarks. How long shall we remain at this point? While all the nations of Germany and Italy have become united under a couple of crowned heads, there are prophets fortelling the day when Europe shall be formed into an eastern United States. But why confine the coming political millennium within those narrow boundaries? At this very moment Brother Jonathan and John Bull are robbing each other every day of their literary manufactures because they do not happen to belong to "the same parish." Surely this must be regarded as a token that men who are courteously admitted to be civilised are living still under very primitive conditions. In my responsible moments most heartily do I deprecate the doctrines of those Utopian dreamers who would set up a President of the Planet, and establish a Congress for the management of the affairs of the four quarters of the globe; but in my heart I cannot help wishing that peoples, who profess to have cast aside the ways of barbarians, would deprive the Utopian political philosophers of arguments in favour of their theories, by recognising the rights of property of their brethren who live beyond the borders of their respective territories.

OPPONENTS of Mr. Darwin's theory of the transmutation of species by natural selection defy the philosopher to produce an animal specimen in a transition stage of development, and Mr. Darwin does not accept the challenge. I will remind him of a source whence he may draw more or less convincing illustrations for the next edition of his fascinating work. Four hundred years before the Christian era there lived a Greek, named Ctesias, who, being taken prisoner by Artaxerxes, and subsequently appointed by that monarch Court physician, had special opportunities for making himself acquainted with Persia. Hence he compiled the annals of that country in twenty-three volumes, and furthermore wrote a history of India. It is in this latter work, abridged by Photius-the only form in which we possess it-that I find several descriptions of contemporaneous animals which only require credence to render them invaluable as aids to the development of faith in Mr. Darwin's theory. To mention three

classes of our probable forefathers, there are the Crocoltas, the Martichore, and the Calystrian. The Crocoltas was, at the time it came under the observation of Ctesias, so far advanced towards full development that it could devise schemes for getting the better of other people. It had at its command the power of imitating the human voice, an accomplishment which it unscrupulously used in furtherance of its depredations. Its favourite occupation was lying perdue within earshot of any body of workmen that might be about, with the view of becoming acquainted with their several names. When occasion served, the wily Crocoltas would call out the name of a desirable workman, and, gradually retiring, lure him by repeated calls to a distance from his comrades, and then proceed to dine off him. Readers familiar with the early records of foreign missionary labour will not need to be reminded that this cannibalistic tendency is not totally eradicated from the breasts of more advanced specimens of budding humanity. The Martichore was, if possible, a still more undesirable personage to meet in a dark lane. Its face was the face of a man, and its ears betokened the same species; but there the "development" suddenly ceased, for the body of the Martichore was of the shape and size of a full grown lion. Its skin and hair were of a bright vermilion colour, and its teeth, whereof it was furnished with three rows as a means to the economising of time during the process of mastication, were exceeding white. It could, in time of need, unfold a terrible tail, the article resembling in general that of a scorpion, save that the stings with which it was lavishly furnished were about a foot in length, and that in addition to the one which terminated the tail, there were others on either side of it.

BUT I introduce my third illustration, the Calystrian, with no small degree of confidence. Ctesias himself does not hesitate to speak of the Calystrians as "human beings," though he is fain to admit that they had faces like dogs, and that they conducted their conversation after the manner of dogs. They lived "in the mountains of India" and drove a good trade with the peoples of the plain, exporting yearly a considerable amount of amber, and also dealing largely in swords, javelins, and bows, in the manufacture of which they were very expert. They understood the dialects of their neighbours, and by dint of intelligent barking, assisted by signs, managed to get along very comfortably. In addition to the peculiarity of dogs' heads, the mark of the beast was apparent in tail similar to those of dogs, except that they were "longer and less hard to the touch." Tails were a possession common to both sexes of this interesting community. Ctesias, whose narration certainly does not lack minuteness, adds that the tribe numbered twenty thousand tails; that the members clothed themselves with the skins of wild animals killed in chase; that they sometimes lived to be two hundred years of age; and that whilst the women were rather given to tubbing, the men were content with an occasional washing of the face and hands-a circumstance in which the candid reader will perceive a point of resemblance to later and fuller

developments of the species. Louis XIV., for example, was in this respect a strict Calystrian, for it is a matter of history that after his arrival at years of discretion he never had but one bath, and submitted to that only at the repeated and earnest solicitations of his friends.

THE suggestion that this evidence of Ctesias should be admitted in support of Mr. Darwin's position will probably be met by the declaration that his assertions are fabulous; but I venture to observe that the statements hereinabove reported are gravely set forth in a weighty history, and that the author's reputation is vouched for by the fact that he is repeatedly quoted by such authorities as Pliny, Aristotle, and Diodorus Siculus. Besides, development is the very root of Mr. Darwin's theory, and may we not believe that, by a course of judicious selection of brides by the better looking amongst the male Calystrians, the caudal appendage may have gradually disappeared, the bark have become articulate speech, and the dog face have broadened slowly down into the human?

I HAVE received two letters combatting my dramatic contributor's criticism of the histrionic ability of Mr. J. L. Toole. The avowal that my critic's judgment in the matter differs from my own will satisfy the most aggressive of my two correspondents. I think Mr. Toole's Caleb Plummer a fine piece of acting, artistic and full of pathetic force. But, like my famous predecessor in Sylvanus Urban's chair, I allow a certain liberty and independence of expression to my writers. In the case of "Players of Our Day," I have engaged the best critical pens I can find, with a view to the reflection in these pages of an impartial and just estimate of our leading actors and actresses.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

DECEMBER, 1871.

THE VALLEY OF POPPIES. BY THE AUTHOR OF "CHRISTOPHER KENRICK" AND "THE TALLANTS OF BARTON."

CHAPTER XXIII.

WHILE I JINGLED MY GLASS WITH THE LAWYER'S IN THE CITY.

F she had died before the menials of a savage and uncertain Law had broken in upon our peace, I could have better borne the bitterness of our parting. Had she slipped from my side for ever during those strangely happy hours at Boulogne, I had not

suffered one-half the agony which tore my soul when I stood by her sweet silent face in our cottage on the Thames. Or had it pleased God to spare her to me until I had wiped out those foul stains of worldly humiliation which seemed to cling to our nest in those VOL. VII., N.S. 1871.

3 D