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His love of nature included that of quadrupeds and birds, the latter to such an extent that the 'feathered songsters' of Knowl Hill, taught by their instinct whom to trust, would perch on his shoulder while he was writing on the lawn, follow him about the garden, and allow him to stroke them while sitting on the nest. One of his most admired poems is an address to a Thrush, which made its home in the row of limes round his garden:

All through the sultry hours of June,
From morning blithe to golden noon,
And till the star of evening climbs
The gray-blue East, a world too soon,
There sings a Thrush amid the limes.

God's poet, hid in foliage green,
Sings endless songs, himself unseen;
Right seldom come his silent times.
Linger, ye summer hours serene!

Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes!

May I not dream God sends thee there, Thou mellow angel of the air,

Even to rebuke my earthlier rhymes With music's soul, all praise and prayer? Is that thy lesson in the limes?

Closer to God art thou than I:
His minstrel thou, whose brown wings fly
Through silent æther's summer climes.
Ah, never may thy music die!

Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes!

Mortimer Collins's philosophy and religion were thoroughly unconventional, but very real; and were so much a part of the man himself, and not merely a one-day habit, that signs of both occur frequently in all his writings, whether prose or poetry, in novel or newspaper. We cannot help seeing the large-heartedness of the man, and his charitable feelings towards his fellow-creatures. As the writer of the preface Attic Salt remarks: "For the young and old like, for the rich man and the poor, for boy and for girl, for business man and for poet, he has written words of counsel which are worth their weight in gold; and for a young man or for a girl just entering life, I can imagine few authors from whose works they could gather aivice so precious-advice which would make them more manly and more womanly, or have upon them a more lasting influence for good.'

And yet, with all his seriousness, he was posessed of a bright, subtle humour, which occasionally took the form of that persiflage which is so conspicuous in some of Byron's writings. He has great freedom of style; occasionally, however, showing the errors of haste and worry-as in a Lim who was overworked. And this might be the ease, for he was one of the hardest workers in the literary world of his time. There seems to be no doubt that his death occurred from overtrain of the mental powers and from want of rest; for he had taken no holiday for some In the month of July 1876, Mortimer Collins died of rupture of the heart.' Lamented by his widow, and by a large number of friends, his loss seemed personal even to many who knew Lim only by his books; for we see in them the

years.

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We all knew Boggs. He was captain of a Target Excursion and Clam Chowder Association, composed of the greatest blackguards of the Sixth Ward, known by many to be one of the worst districts of New York. His nod could influence five or six hundred votes, and cause the ballot-box to be stuffed with as many more. It will therefore hardly be a matter of surprise if, under these circumstances, Boggs set all justice at defiance, and cherished within his bosom such a free scorn of law and order, as could only be entertained by a New York ruffian under the golden rule of the Tammany Ring, of which our acquaintance was a staunch supporter.

Boggs was 'capper' for a dishonest gambling saloon in Ann Street, and probably part proprietor. He did a flourishing business in several mock-auction shops known to the police as Peter Funk Dens. His advertisements, headed by a flaming woodcut representing bags of gold pouring forth untold riches, might be found in most of the 'respectable' weeklies; and in short, though he had as many changes as Proteus, we knew of a surety that no matter what new swindle might be started, from a Wall Street gudgeon broker to a Third Avenue lottery-shop, it was simply a change rung upon the genius of Boggs. Not Jonathan Wild in his palmy days was surrounded by a more devoted band than our acquaintance. His blacklegs and political loafers were thoroughly trained; and the various members of the 'Sawdust Gang' were at any moment ready to sacrifice themselves, so that their leader might escape the penalties due to his free style of making a living. He had been that at last the police gave up all hope of arrested so many times and discharged as often, ever proving anything against him. a stout, good-humoured-looking man of forty, with coal-black eyes set close together, closecropped black hair, a small retreating forehead, short cropped moustache, and a rather sallow complexion. A gorgeous watch-chain reposed on his white vest; and above it flashed a cluster of diamonds in the centre of a snowy shirtfront, which many a humble thief in his own fierce ward longed to clutch. But that cluster was as secure as if in the bank; for at the back of Boggs's 'spring-bottom lavender pants,'

He was

there reposed a Colt's four-shooter, which its owner was apt to produce on short notice and use freely. Boggs was a good-humoured freehanded rascal, full of quaint stories and short cynical sentences; but if he conceived himself offended, fearful was the language he used, and most woful his vengeance. Having thus endeavoured to give a description of Boggs, we will take our leave of him for the present, promising that we shall encounter him again.

Going to the assignment book of the journal on which the writer was engaged in the summer of '75, he found the following: 'Mr Blank will work up gang of counterfeiters; particulars in his desk.'

The 'particulars' consisted of a letter from one of the Chicago readers of the journal, stating that he had received the following circular from New York.

Private and confidential.

DEAR SIR-We have made extensive inquiries about you in your city, and find that you are a good business man, and one to be trusted thoroughly to do a great trade with.

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We have on hand a number of fac-simile United States' notes ranging from five to one hundred dollars, of which inclosed is a specimen. We will send them to you cash on delivery at the following rates: good 25 dollars 100 dollars queer; 50 dollars = 250 dollars queer; 75 dollars = 550 dollars queer; 100 dollars dollars queer.-Hoping to be favoured with a large order, for it is a sure fortune, we remain your obedient servants, PAUL AND PAUL. P.S.-If you send us a big order, we will deal with no one else in your town.

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Our correspondent informed us that he had passed the five-dollar specimen with ease, the teller of the first National Bank having assured him that it was a good one.

The circular bore no address, so that it was evident some one in the post-office had been 'squared'—that is, bribed a not uncommon

Occurrence.

Obviously, the first thing to be done was to purchase some of the 'queer' from Messrs Paul and Paul, not only for the purpose of proving the uttering, but also to establish a confidence which might enable one to get at them directly.

The writer wired to his correspondent, telling him to write to Messrs Paul and Paul, inclosing them twenty-five dollars, and stating that he would arrive in town on a certain date to make further large purchases if he found them go well. Meanwhile, Captain Allair of the Second precinct was interviewed, and preparations made to effect a capture.

In less than a week, a letter arrived, per Adams' express, from Chicago inclosing a tin case filled with fac-similes of United States' notes to the amount of one hundred dollars. The writer had of course, long before this, come to

the conclusion that Boggs, and no other, was the party at the bottom of the swindle.

And a most ingenious one it was; for the party so swindled could get no redress except by acknowledging himself a knave. Paul and Paul knew very well that their victim would take right good care to keep his own counsel. To use a nautical term, we were all 'taken aback,' and had been neatly done out of twenty-five dollars.

It was no use working it up through the postoffice. At the first intimation of danger from that quarter, the rogues would decamp long before we could prove anything against them. Besides, as the writer stated in his last paper, it is a point of honour amongst New York journalists not to be beaten.

Rogues are proverbially careless; and it was just that forlorn hope which started the writer off to Philadelphia, whence he wrote to Messrs Paul and Paul, saying that he had received their circular, and passed the five-dollar note Adams' Express Company, owing to his being easily, adding that he was afraid to trust the so well known amongst the community. But he would come to New York and buy a thousand dollars-worth of the 'queer' if it was as good as specimen.

teller of the tenth National Bank. The bait was The letter purported to come from the paying a large one, and the rogues, forgetting their usual caution, fell into the trap. Ere long, a letter arrived, telling the writer to come on to New York on Wednesday following, by the nine o'clock train; to put up at the New York Hotel, corner of Fulton and Pearl Streets, where He was on по

a man would call on him. account to speak to anybody. If he did, he would see no one, as he would be 'shadowed' all the way from Philadelphia.

Captain Allair promptly engaged a room; and on the appointed day, half-a-dozen plain-clothes policemen were scattered about the hotel.

rôle of a dashing young bank clerk, wrote his The writer arrived from Philadelphia in the name down in the hotel book, was given his key, and went up to his room, to find Sergeant Omahony under the bed.

Half an hour afterwards, a knock announced the agent of Paul and Paul. He found the gentleman from Philadelphia,' apparently in the greatest agonies of a sudden attack of cholera and remorse, and was despatched for brandy.

some

'No,' said the writer on his return; this is a judgment on me for this wicked thing I was about to do. I'll go back; I won't have anything to do with it.'

'Brace up and be a man,' said Paul and Paul's agent. Have you the money?'

'Yes,' responded the writer; 'I took it out of it with "queer" to-morrow morning. the bank-vault before I left, intending to replace But I won't do it now. I am afraid this is a judgment.'

'How much have you got?' 'Fifteen hundred dollars.'

But the prying

when it came in their way.
specials that were always poking their nose in
places where they had no business, and ferreting
out things that would otherwise be left alone,
would be taught a lesson that they would not
soon forget.

The man's eyes fairly glistened with greed, as the writer, by a great effort, got up and unlocked a hand-bag, showing a pile of United States' greenbacks, which were furnished by the police for the purpose.

'Don't you touch them!' added the writer sternly. I won't part unless I see the "queer.” Have you got it with you?'

'No,' said the agent; 'you must come to our place of business.'

'What's the address? I'll come and see you in the afternoon, if I'm better.'

'I durs'n't tell you the address,' said the agent cautiously. But come with me. It's only a few minutes walk from here, and you needn't buy unless you've a mind to.'

Thus adjured, the writer put on his coat and vest, and was going without the bag; but the agent begged him to bring it, as he was almost sure to buy some 'queer.'

A drink was obtained at the bar, for the double purpose of allowing Sergeant Omahony to get out of the room, and the plain-clothes men to form a link-line right and left; these rogues being so suspicious, that if the same man follows them for a hundred yards, they fear a shadow.'

For a good twenty minutes the agent kept his supposed victim twisting and turning up and down various streets, within five minutes' walk of the hotel all the time, and at last turning down a dirty little street, announced that they had arrived. After traversing a narrow passageway, and ascending a dirty flight of stairs, a door was opened to a signal; and behold the writer in the presence of Boggs, surrounded by some of his Sawdust Gang!

'Here's the gentleman that wants to buy the "queer," said the agent.

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But Boggs jumped up with a mighty oath, and clapped his hands behind him.

surrounded.'

It's no use, lads,' exclaimed the writer. Hands up! You can't escape. The place is At the same moment, Sergeant Omahony and the others bounced into the room, and in a twinkling we had the handcuffs on.

These were taken as the mere vapourings of one who had had a lucrative swindle spoiled; but knowing the character of the man and the reputation of his gang, the writer was particularly careful where he went for some time afterwards.

He

About six months after the above described events, the writer was challenged by a friend to a game of billiards, and unthinkingly entered a billiard saloon near Ann Street, which was the down-town headquarters of the gang. turned round the venetian screen which faced the door, to find himself in the presence of Boggs and some five more of the most desperate of his ruffians. Almost instantly, one of the party made a movement to get between him and the door. To make a sudden dash for liberty was to invite a conflict, and probably be either shot or beaten senseless ere assistance could arrive. A second's reflection convinced the writer that there was only one course to pursue. Walking boldly up to the cue-rack into the centre of the room away from the door, he turned to Boggs, and said: 'I understand, Mr Boggs, that you have announced your intention of putting out my eyes, and I have come to give you an opportunity of doing so. Will you commence now?'

Boggs was silent, evidently thinking matters out. The writer pursued his advantage. 'I am going to play a game of fifty up, Mr Boggs,' he said; during that time, you can make up your mind.'

Selecting a cue, the writer placed a silver whistle, such as are used to call cars, carelessly in his mouth, and began the game. The mental torture endured in those fifteen minutes was something dreadful. Every moment the writer expected a sudden rush, a knife-thrust, or a bullet. But nothing occurred save muttered 'I'm a commission merchant, and I want to whisperings, and once or twice the word 'plant' ell coals,' yelled Boggs; and then his wrath fell became audible. When the game was over, the upon the agent. You didn't know that fellow, writer put away his cue, and walked with a You fool!' yelled Boggs. 'Don't you know he's slowness that forced him to perspire from inward a special?' And then turning rapidly on the perturbation towards the receiving clerk, and writer: 'I'll be at you for this, if I get a life-deposited the price of the game. Then he turned stretch for it.'

We searched the place, and found quantities of tin cases ready for packing, and letters showing the swindle to have been in full blast.

At the station, Boggs was searched, and over Reven hundred dollars found on him. But he had recovered his ready knavishness by this time, and coolly informed Captain Allair that the writer had 'rounded on him because he had refused to'square him.'

Borgs was committed for trial before the United States' Court on a charge of attempting to utter counterfeit money; but Colonel Spencer, his counsel, got him off with flying colours; whereupon he coolly turned round in court and vowed a solemn oath to put out the writer's eyes at the first opportunity. The police, he said, he had no animus against. They merely did their duty

towards the gang. 'I am glad for your own sake, Mr Boggs,' he said, 'that you didn't make any attempt on my eyes. Take my advice; it will never be wise to do it.'

'You don't think I'm such a flat as to run my head into a police plant,' said Boggs in awful language; but I'll get you dead to rights yet."

The writer then withdrew; but so great was the reaction from the strong tension of the nervous system suddenly relaxed by safety, that he was seized by an excessive fit of trembling, which lasted nearly three hours.

This was the last time the writer ran across Boggs. He was killed some time after in a barroom fight on election-day in the Sixth Ward; and his gang, bereft of the presiding genius, soon afterwards broke up. He was a fair sample of the

superior class of the New York chevalier d'industrie; more refined and gentleman-like than his brother of the Pacific slope, but certainly by no means his inferior in ferocity or cunning.

TYPOGRAPHICAL TRIPPINGS.

READERS blessed with a keen appreciation of the ridiculous have to thank remiss 'readers' of another sort for much unlooked-for amusement. Erring compositors have a knack of blundering as felicitously as though some mischief-loving sprite ruled the work of type-setting, and impelled the perpetration of mistakes looking exceedingly like premeditated jokes. One cannot help being a little suspicious when a tenderhearted politician is made to declare he would rather the Russians stabbed their horses in the Bosphorus, than that the Turks should be permitted to exercise their cruel propensities unchecked; a temperance-advocating bishop reported as exhorting his hearers not to give up the bottle; and a senator as expressing the wish that he had a widow in his bosom-possible as it may be that the conversion of 'stabled' into 'stabbed,' 'battle' into 'bottle,' and 'window' into 'widow,' came about quite accidentally, without malice aforethought.

We can sympathise with Mr Proctor's dismay upon finding himself responsible for 'links, bonds, and stripes for the violent kind of spectres,' in a paper on Spectroscopic Photography, when what he had written was, 'lines, bands, and striæ near the violet end of the

spectra.'

Swift's Battle of the Rooks, Macaulay's Laps of Ancient Rome, Palmer and Drake's Dessert of Exodus, have been priced in a bookseller's list; and a work on block-printing catalogued as containing 'sixty-nine engravings either from wood or metal, twelve of which have been inscriptions, representing scenes of Christian mythology, figures of patriarchs, saints, devils, and other dignitaries of the Church.' For the last, we cannot hold the printer blamable; but he is assuredly answerable for the chronological impossibility involved in the announcement for sale of an old History of England by Hume (published in 1767), from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to Revolution 1868. By another mishandling of figures, an inquiring correspondent was informed that an Act for abolishing Gretna Green marriages was passed in 1856, and came in force on the 1st of January 1837. Trifling with figures is a thing to be avoided. The Hamburg almanacs for 1880 announced the holding of the February horse-fair on the 4th instead of the 24th of that month; and the influx of horses and horse-dealers into the city upon the first-named day caused much perturbation to the authorities, who, ignorant of the blunder of the almanac-mongers, had made no arrangements for the reception of the visitors. They got over the difficulty, to their own and everybody else's satisfaction; but ordained that henceforth no

almanac should be published until it had received official certification.

the

Journalists nowadays give such free play to their invention, that the credulity of newspaper readers is sufficiently taxed without asking them to believe that certain causes were heard in the Common Fleas Division; that the Copenhagen police intercepted a box of Orsini bonds on its way to Princess Thyra as a wedding-gift; that freeze, and the heat eighty-four in the shade ;' one summer day at Coventry there was a fresh that two hundred tenant-farmers went to a farm near Loughrea, belonging to a 'suspect' in Galway jail, and cut, bound, and stacked four acres of cats (for 'oats'); and that Professor Virchow, on his appearance upon the platform at the International Congress, was greeted with an oration from a very large number of friends; that the snouts of ten thousand Democrats rent the air' at an open-air demonstration. According to a newspaper report of the last royal progress to Westminster, Gold Stick' was ousted from his accustomed place in the procession by The Old Stick ;' an official who might have done his sovereign good service when "The Queen drove two cows to visit the King and Queen of Denmark at Lisburne House,' though Her Majesty might drive through Cowes without his assistance. Just before the General Election, one of the organs of Her Majesty's Opposition | announced that the Liberals of Marylebone had repaired all the breeches in their ranks, and buckled on the armour of battle. Another public instructor lately informed us that among works of art to be seen in London streets were the statutes of King George III. with his pigtail, in Pall Mall, and of the Duke of Bedford ploughing in his ducal robes in Russell Square; while among less curious news items we read of a ship becoming a perfect rock; of the purchase of a plot of land for the Ionic Sol Fa College; of a builder charged with not doing his work in a proper way, 'nor had the copings, coigns, been made of stones, bricks, or other inflammable material;' and of a dead man who 'bore an accidental character, and the jury returned a verdict of excellent death.' In a mining-camp story, a player at poker deals himself a bigger hand than ever the Heathen Chinee could accomplish, namely, 'both bowers and the king, besides two acres; and another story-teller says: the gate, an honest tar, with one wooden leg, and suspiciously ample nether garments, craved arms;' blunders of which the writers were as innocent as the Philadelphian editor who found himself died in the street had been kicked obliged to apologise for stating that a man who policeman, through the compositor taking the up by a liberty of substituting a k for a p, with as little respect for an 'editorial' as that shown by his brother-typos, to whom we are indebted for Happy is the country which has no animals,' 'Master M'Grath (the famous greyhound) is a good god,' and 'American preachers pay great attention to manner, but British preachers pray very little.'

At

When editors themselves suffer at their printer's hands, mere advertisers cannot expect to escape. A music-master desiring the public should know that his system of instruction extended from the primary elements to thorough-bass, saw

e

the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Bisaccia, has telegraphed that owing to imperative circumstances, his visit must be postponed. Magistrate issued a distress warrant against his goods.'

A HOLIDAY EPISODE.

himself described as the exponent of a method extending from primeval liniments to thoroughbore. The members of a Quartette Society discovered all too late that 'When married wretches sink to sleep,' did duty in their programme for 'When wearied wretches sink to sleep.' A patent-medicine vendor found himself lauding the virtues of 'Live Pills;' and a waste-paper ON a glorious October morning, the writer, in dealer who advertised for old ledgers had occa- company with other excursionists bound for Westsion to wonder how many landladies would ward Ho, found himself upon the Ilfracombe pier, respond to the tempting offer of so much per awaiting the arrival of the Swansea steamer. The hundredweight for lodgers without covers.' day promised to be a most enjoyable one; a bright Sometimes the victimised advertiser has had clear sun was shining overhead, its hot rays reason to be grateful to the wrongdoer. On the being pleasantly tempered by the delicious freshnight of the first performance of The Woman ness of the ocean spray, dashing at intervals high in Red at a country theatre, the house was over the pier-head. Long white fleecy clouds lay packed, much to the surprise of the manageress, in streamers along the horizon, moving steadily who had not found the townsfolk very eager across the sky under the coaxing influence of a for theatricals. She discovered next day that the stiff north-westerly breeze, which at times caused play had been misprinted The Woman in Bed. the feathery crests of the billows to rise gracefully Sometimes things get mixed, and nicely too, in the offing, in picturesque relief to the dark if not quite so neatly as was done by the blue foreground of the Bristol Channel. At length printer of a Canadian newspaper who tagged a faint wreath of smoke in the direction of the part of a recipe for tomato catsup on the Mumbles announced the approach of the overopening paragraph of an article on Catholicism due steamer, her labouring movements and the in Africa, with the following result: "The glistening condition of her paddle-boxes as she Roman Catholics claim to be making material eased up alongside the pier half an hour later, advances in Africa, especially in Algeria, telling of the heavy seas she had encountered in where they have a hundred and eighty-five crossing. thousand adherents, and a missionary society for Central Africa. During the past three years they have obtained a firm footing in the interior of the continent, and have sent forth several missionaries into the equatorial regions. They are accustomed to begin their work by buying heathen children and educating them. The easiest and best way to prepare them is to first wipe them with a clean towel; then place them in dripping pans and bake them until they are tender. Then you will have no difficulty in rubbing them through a sieve, and will save them by being obliged to cut them in slices and cook for several hours."

An atmospherical phenomenon was witnessed in the west of England in October 1880, which must have been of a very remarkable nature, f we may accept a local journal's description of it as correct. It ran thus: A singular phenomenon was observed in the sky last night. A tlue Police Court charged with stealing a quantity of apples. The prosecutor said he had been the victim of frequent robberies, and in the eastern horizon it disappeared amidst a shower of sparks. The sight was witnessed from the bridge by a Large number of spectators, and the Bench were unanimously of opinion that no case had been proved and dismissed the sky was clear, the temperature low, and very little wind blowing.' Still better, or worse, as an example of printer's mixture, was the announcement given forth by one of the London dailies: 'Her Royal Highness Princess Louise arrived this evening in the Duke of Argyll's steam yacht Columbia. Her Royal Highness, who was received on landing by Lady Evelyn Campbell, drove immediately suffering from typhus fever, and told her mother it was an attack of gout. This was too bad, yet the Princess was not more hardly treated than the heir to the throne, of whom a Scottish newspaper said: "The Prince of Wales, who had accepted an invitation to shoot in France with

Nothing daunted, however, by such dispiriting signs, the passengers were soon crowding her deck; and backing astern, she slowly swung round, and commenced her journey down Channel. The fluttering white handkerchiefs on the fast receding pier grew fainter and fainter; and crossing the romantic cove of Wildersmouth, we experienced the first evidences of the rough sea, in the obstinate pitching of our little steamer. With a strong head-wind, she wavered as she rose upon the crest of a wave, until the succeeding billow striking her before she had time to dip into the hollow, caused her to quiver with the smartness of the blow. The majority of us, however, appeared to be fair sailors; and if any felt uneasy in their minds, they yet summoned up sufficient courage to stifle such at this early period of our voyage. Hugging the coast, we made progress past the Tors, with the charming walks dotted here and there with tiny specks, recognisable as pedestrians, evidently engrossed with the erratic motions of our steamer. An hour's struggle with the tide and head-wind brought us at length off Morte Point, one of the most dreaded spots on this rugged coast. A tremendous 'race' sets in here from off the sides of Lundy Island, and breaks with terrific force upon the eastern headland of Bideford Bay. We recalled it as being the scene of many a terrible shipwreck; in one year, five vessels rapidly followed each other here to destruction.

Upon clearing this point, a wide curve of land now met our view; and the full force of the Atlantic billows, having a clear sweep of nearly ten miles to shore, caused our small vessel to roll uncomfortably, and very sensibly diminished the number of passengers on deck. The huge green rollers careering majestically shoreward, presented a thrilling spectacle. Westward Ho, we were informed, lay somewhere in the centre of the extensive curve; but the distance which intervened prevented it from being clearly sighted. The

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