Journal

white people, are the bane of this fair spot. The population is fourteen thousand; their revenue from all sources over thirty thousand pounds, and of this nearly thirteen thousand pounds is duty collected on wines, spirits, and malt liquors. Rather more than a third is collected on all necessaries of life. There are a sufficient number of churches, and church-going is the fashion; but the coloured population, with much religiosity, or religious sentiment, are deficient in practical religion. Education is in an unsatisfactory condition, though it is being improved. A practical difficulty is the dislike of the whites to have their children taught at the same schools as the coloured

children.

The climate of Bermuda is trying, but upon the whole good. It is sufficiently bracing in winter to make warm clothing necessary, but seldom cold enough for a fire. Few of the houses have grates or stoves in the parlours, and on chilly days, if kept indoors, one misses the cheery glow of the fire. The winter season is more like the Indian summer of America than anything else. When the south wind blows, man and beast are depressed. Horses trip, and their riders scarcely care to keep them on their legs. You go to bed in good spirits, and awake feeling like a washed-out rag. What is the matter? During the night, the wind has gone from north south. You care for nothing and nobody. If enough energy be left to complain, you say with the aesthetes: 'Hollow! hollow! hollow! I despair droopingly. I am limp.' The dampness is another disagreeable feature. Boots and shoes and kid gloves, and everything that will mould, are ruined if not constantly worn or watched. Mould and cockroaches are great enemies to books, destroying their bindings very quickly. Ants and other insects are also trying to Europeans at certain seasons.

People in this mild and equable climate live to a great age. I saw several old men between eighty and ninety years old daily parading the streets quite as a matter of course. I also knew of numbers of very old people who were unable to walk out, but were in good health, and in perfect possession of all their mental, and most of their physical faculties. The people in general are healthy. It is a great mistake to suppose that yellow-fever has a home in Bermuda. has been there several times, but on each occasion it originated from infection from outside.

It

It is probable that the good health of the Bermudians is largely due to their use of rainwater for all purposes, no other being available. In all the islands, there is neither lake nor rivulet. The rain is collected in large cemented tanks, built under the houses. Every roof has to do duty in collecting water for man and beast; and on the hill-sides you will see large spaces laid with stone, cemented and edged, from which the rain-water runs into large tanks lying below. These are generally built for some special purpose, as for barrack supplies or washing establishments.

One is surprised to see so little land under cultivation, cedar clothing the hills, with an occasional fiddle-wood and calabash tree, and oleander, tamarisk, and mangrove skirting the marsh-lands everywhere. Of the twelve thousand acres of land in the largest islands, less

than a third are in tillage and grass, the rest remaining in wood, marsh, and natural pasture. The fact, however, that most of the land is rocky, or very thinly covered with earth, accounts to a large extent for this apparently neglected state of cultivation.

The comparative absence of the smaller forms of animal life in Bermuda renders solitary_walking an insupportable loneliness. In the sombre cedar woods, no bright-eyed squirrel sits aloft, and relieves the dreariness by his chattering and scampering; no song-birds, such as there are in England, fill the air with melody. Innumerable ants noiselessly pursue their endless labours; and no sound breaks the silence but an occasional chirp from a cricket or grasshopper, the hum of the cicada, and the occasional whirring wings of some silent bird. But when tired of quiet woods and gardens, the visitor in Bermuda will find much that is interesting on the sea-shores. The beaches are lovely, white as snow, and abounding in shells, no less than two hundred and sixty-nine varieties being found in this little isle. The seaweeds are wonderfully delicate and beautiful, and fish in endless variety swarm in the waters.

The government of Bermuda consists of a Governor, Legislative Council, and House of Assembly. The questions in debate are seldom of great importance, and the law-making is singularly cautious and tentative. New laws are put on their trial for a certain time before being finally approved. It is quite a gay place in winter, chiefly from the presence of vessels of war. The flag-ship gives dances on board; and the military officers stationed on the island get up paper chases on horseback, and other amusements. Still, life at Bermuda is rather dull, and not unlike that which is spent on board ship. You meet the same people every day and almost every hour. News comes but once a fortnight. No wonder that much gossip is talked, and monstrous inventions-called 'shaves'-are retailed which could have no possible foundation. Bermuda, though having certain advantages, is, on the whole, too far removed from the world's business and bustle-from telephones and telegraphs.

VALENTINE STRANGE.

A STORY OF THE PRIMROSE WAY. CHAPTER XXII.-'I MUST GIVE MYSELF WHAT LAW I CAN.'

In his

THERE was a triumph in Garling's heart, though it had to share its throne with fear. He had fought against the world single-handed, and he was winning. Most crimes spring from egotism; and Garling's egotism was too great to leave the rest of the world the barest elbow-room. self-centred lonely life, this many a year, he had schooled himself thoroughly in that creed of Number One, which never needed teaching, and yet is taught so widely. You and I, who go about diffusing our sympathies on other people, miss the selfish, lonely raptures which warm the heart of the true egotist. He is not merely Gulliver in a Lilliput, to his own feeling, but he is so without the shadow of a reason; for

egotism and vanity may be, and often are, as separate as the Poles; and he knows himself no taller, no wittier, no wiser, no handsomer, than the rest of mankind; but he is I, and that stupendous fact raises him until his forehead strikes the stars. He is the central fact of the universe. Round him, men and circumstances revolve, ministering to his comfort, or afflicting his bones. If Nature raises a tornado, it is on purpose to wreck his paper-boat in a gutter. Should a trampled people, after long centuries of groaning, rise, and tear the oppressor from his place of power, it is to depreciate the value of his shares in the market. If anything affect him not, it is nothing, though it wreck or build a world. And when a man thus armed as in triple brass against the woes of others and their Joys, is cursed with the good gift of brains, he may scourge a continent like the great Bonaparte; or wreck a business firm or so, and break a trusting heart or two, like Garling.

Mary's life had been on the whole so dull, that a little sunshine went a long way with her. Her father's unexpected yielding had let in so broad and warm a gleam upon her darkened life, that in the few hours that passed between his going and his coming, the girl's heart had opened like a flower. When he returned that night, sunk deep in his own secrecy, and a world's width away from her in his desert egotism, she gave him a shy and tender welcome, and fluttered about him with shy and tender ways. His heart had no door for her, and her poor little attentions stung him. He bade her go to bed; and when she obeyed him, he kept his place with folded arms by the dull fire, and hugged himself, and worshipped his own triumph. Suddenly, as if a peal of thunder had broken in on music, one thought crashed through him, and brought him to his feet. What if his employer had heard the talk in his room that afternoon! Amazing, that he had never thought of that before. It was enough-had he heard it-to arouse Suspicion-though Trust had drugged her dead! Then fear took hold of him, and terror encompassed him. But he was not a man to be cowed, and could face even the phantoms from his own abysses; and his stout courage had beaten down his fears long before his nerves had ceased to twitch and tremble at them. In these matters the soul is like the wind, and the body like the sea. A child, chidden for a fault, falls asleep crying, and his pure mind runs into pure dreams, and his little heart is glad; but however the wind has fallen, the sea still heaves. You may hear him sobbing, though he smiles in his dream. And this elderly scoundrel's nerves still twitched and trembled, though his heart had grown stout again.

'If I am caught at last,' he said, 'and lose the game I have played for, what do I lose? The game, and only the game. Credit and liberty are mine still, and I am as well-to-do as honesty could have made me. There lies a quarter of a million safely housed in the Bank at Madrid, and accessible to me only. I am caught? Well and good. "Let me go again, if you please, or, though you hang and quarter me, you touch none of your money." Like other men, I have dreamed my dream, and I waken. Dream? It is no dream! What time remains for detection? I

can be away at any hour. Why stay at all? Why stay?''

He took a Bradshaw from the table, and studied it. There was a night-train set down there, leaving Waterloo Station for Southampton at half-past nine o'clock. A steam-packet for Cadiz, calling at Corunna, was set down for the ninth and twenty-fourth of each month. This was the twenty-second. He decided in a flash. Whatever pretence of business was to be done to-morrow at the office, he would do, and be away by that night-train. So then, at last, the time was here; looked forward to for years, and terrible now it came. As he sat beside the fire, he could see the office going on for an hour or two, even a day or two without him-everybody going on in the old routine; and then, scared and astonished faces, whisperings, fears, amazement, the principals summoned; a meeting with the Bank manager, everybody present grave and pale-and then, the crash, and he on the seas far out of reach, or safely housed at Madrid.

'Let me see,' he mused again, I must give myself what law I can.' He sat at the table, and wrote on the firm's paper one letter, running thus:

MEMORANDUM.

TO MESSRS HUTCHINSON & Co., Liverpool. Kindly read inclosed, and if it suit your views, indorse, and forward to Parrivacini & Co., Buenos Ayres.

Then, on plain letter-paper, he wrote, dating from his own chambers:

SIR-Pray, excuse my absence for a day. I am called away by private business of an urgent and particular nature.-Yours respectfully, E. GARLING.

This epistle was intended for Mr Lumby, at the offices of the firm. He inclosed it in an addressed envelope, which he stamped, and left open. Then putting both it and the memorandum in another envelope, he addressed it to Messrs Hutchinson & Co. of Liverpool, and posted it at once with his own hand.

a

'Lawson will open it,' said Garling with chuckle, as he turned homewards again, and thinking he sees a blunder, will post the inclosure at once. It will reach London, bearing the Liverpool post-mark, on Wednesday morning. If by that time there should be any suspicion, the post-mark will send them to Liverpool, whilst I am at the other end of the country.' Lawson was the manager of the firm to which this ingenious blind was addressed; and so excited was Garling's imagination at this time, that to think of Lawson was to see him seated in his own room, smiling gravely at the supposed blunder by which the wrong letter had been inclosed to him. The inclosure was not in Garling's usual neat and trim caligraphy, but was written at headlong speed, to look hasty and flurried. 'If it gives me but the day's law, it will serve my turn,' said the cashier as he stood before his dying fire again. The night was late by this time, and the tide of life in the City's streets ran low. He sat for awhile listening to the fainter tones of traffic, and busy with the trifles of his scheme. The railway station with its hurrying crowds, its gleam of light and gloom

of shadow, the guard's lamp waving, the train moving. The packet with its deck aswarm with life, the signal given, the hand-shakings and embraces; the ship in motion on dark waters, the lights of the town twinkling lower and lower, the long rolling of the open sea. He saw these things as he sat there. It was vain to strive to sleep, so he heaped on more coals, and sat out the night, busy with trifles all the time. The night wore by, and the dawn looked in miserably, and after a time, Garling heard the step of the laundress on the stairs, and retreated to his bedroom, where he bathed and shaved and dressed, emerging a little paler than ordinary, but not much. At the usual time, he went to the offices and to his own room there. The common routine of business done, he inspected the enormous ledgers which lined the room, mechanically pursuing the precaution of the previous night, whilst in his heart he laughed at it. But it weakened his knees beneath him to see that from one of those volumes the dust so carefully strewn had vanished. It was but a child's precaution, and yet it had discovered something.

'No creature has the keys but him and me,' said the cashier in a hoarse inward murmur. 'Is the hunt afoot already? Was that fool overheard here, after all?' And for all his courage, a cold perspiration burst out upon his forehead. But no man guessed his troubles, and no man watched his movements as he went in and out. He walked to his bankers. 'Why should I finesse and wait?' he asked himself, and went calmly in and demanded to see the manager, by whom he was received with marked respect. 'Do you know,' asked Garling, closeted with the manager, 'what people are saying about your affairs here?' The stroke he was prepared for was insolent in its audacity.

'What are they saying?' asked the manager in surprise.

'You will learn soon enough,' answered Garling. I am getting nervous, perhaps; but I have the savings of my lifetime here, and I can't afford to risk them. I want to close my account.'

The manager looked thunderstruck, and assured him that if any damaging rumours were afloat, they were utterly unfounded.

Perhaps I am nervous,' said Garling; but I will close my account, if you please.'

The official demurred. It was not courteous or business-like. Fears were preposterous.

'I will close my account, if you please,' reiterated Garling. Or,' he added, 'I too may have occasion to spread the rumours.'

Southampton. Will you come there with me tonight? I want to take a house for him, and give him a surprise when he comes down to his new situation.'

And

And this was the man she had thought so cruel! She would have overwhelmed him by her thanks; but he stopped her. 'You will know better in a day or two for what you have to thank me,' he said, meaning it quite truly, though the words carried a different sense to the speaker and the hearer. Then, locking his precious bag in his own room, he told her to have all things packed and ready by nine o'clock; and she having promised, he went to the offices again and bided his time. Cold and hard, and grimly selfpossessed as he looked, he suffered torments of suspense and dread. But he bided his time, and got through his routine, and finally went his way, leaving the mine to explode and the House which had nourished him to fall in ruins. there was not a touch of ruth, or pity, or repentance in him. At nine o'clock, he had a fourwheeled cab at his door, and the start was made in ample time. Familiar Fleet Street rumbled past him. He would never tread its pavement any more, but there would be rare talk of him there in a day or two. Let them talk-whoever chose! He had a quarter of a million sterling out in Spain, and he could afford to be talked of. Waterloo Road. The bridge with the river flowing dark below it. The station with its hurrying crowds. He had seen them all last night, in fancy so vivid they had all seemed real. He saw them in reality now, and they all seemed like a dream. Mary was already seated in the railway carriage, and he was standing at the door with the black bag in his hand. Except for his daughter, the carriage was untenanted, and he laid the bag on the seat, and for one moment looked round, asking dimly if this were really a farewell to London. The guard's lamp waved, the whistle sounded, and Garling's foot was on the step of the carriage, when a hand with a grip of iron took him by the arm.

'One word with you before you go, Garling.' The cashier's head turned more like that of an automaton than of a living creature.

'Are you going?' cried the guard.

"No!" shouted Lumby, with his grasp tightening on Garling's arm. The two men-defrauder and defrauded-looked each other in the eyes. One read guilt, and the other suspicion bursting into certainty. The train started.

CONCERNING BOOK TITLES.

He went home, and found his daughter there, sewing. Mary,' he said, with placid gravity, 'I have a piece of good news for you.'-She looked at him silently, with a half-smile. She was beginning to think he meant kindly by her. I have found a place for Mr Search. It is in

Charles

of Aggravating Ladies. In this way he hopes to get further information on the subject.

The author of Aggravating Ladies has some sensible remarks about indexes. A good index is indispensable in every work of importance, and this matter is now so well understood, that it is usually very carefully attended to. In the printing account of the United States government for 1880, an item of seventeen hundred pounds was set down as paid for the compilation of an index for the Congress Reports. The British Parliament in 1778 paid twelve thousand nine hundred pounds for compiling indexes to the Journals of the House of Commons. A concordance to any great author is equally valuable as a work of reference. At one time, the Bible was the only book to which there was a concordance; Shakspeare, Milton, Pope, and Tennyson have now each been provided with one.

Olphar Hamst in his little book also throws out some useful hints as to the best methods of cataloguing books. The style and practice vary greatly in different libraries. It is well for rapid consultation that each work should be entered, not only under the author's name, but under the subject title, be it simple or compound.

It may be mentioned by the way that there are five libraries in the United Kingdom which are entitled, under the Copyright Act, to a copy of every new book as it appears. These are the British Museum; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the University Library, Cambridge; the Advocates Library, Edinburgh; and Trinity College Library, Dublin. When it is remembered that, for each of the past two years, the number of new books published (exclusive of new editions) has amounted to some thousands, it is evident that the work of cataloguing must be continually carried on in those libraries that either purchase or receive new books. Certain American publishers have adopted an idea of some utility to librarians. Three or four copies of the title of a book are printed on the fly-leaf of the volume at the beginning, which copies can be readily clipped out and used as required. This saves transcription, as well as the danger of error in transcribing.

Amusing blunders occasionally happen in the citation of book titles. We have heard of a lady who wished to possess a copy of the late Dr John Brown's delightful Horce Subsecive (Hours of Leisure'); but not having caught the title accurately, or failing to understand it, she ordered from her bookseller 'Dr John Brown's Horrors of Society! Even booksellers have been known to get 'mixed' in the matter of titles and authors; as seems to have been the case with the one who advertised for sale, Mill on Representative Government; ditto, on the Floss.' Titles are likewise not unfrequently treated in a very fragmentary and mutilated form. The late Rev. Dr Guthrie was not a little amused, when calling on his publisher, to hear a bookseller's boy shout out in his hearing for 'two dozen of Dr Guthrie's Sins. The full title, of course, was The City: Its Sins and Sorrows. There is no harm in such abbreviations in ordinary conversation, or in buying and selling; but it is another matter when we come to record the title of a book in the catalogue of a public or private library. There, at least we expect fallness and completeness. Some accurate system

must also be adopted which will prevent the recurrence of such an odd entry as, HerselfThe Memoirs of a Lady, by,' which Querard, the French bibliographer, found, much to his amusement, in the catalogue of a well-known French library. It is here the bibliographer can be of use, in order to reduce to system, and describe correctly, the various departments and subdivisions of literature. Research is thus rendered easier, and the student saved trouble and annoyance. French literature is peculiarly rich in works of this kind; and although England is still in the background in this respect, the reproach has been somewhat removed of late by the publication of such excellent bibliographies as Mr Shepherd has given us of Carlyle, Dickens, Thackeray, and Ruskin. This, unfortunately, is not a paying branch of literary work, and those who devote themselves to it require great enthusiasm and patience, wide and accurate scholarship, with the necessary leisure and opportunity for its execution.

The titles of magazines are a study in themselves; and while there is a dash of novelty about the names of some of the new-comers, many of the old and standard favourites still retain the name of the publishing house from which they first emanated. To change the title of a magazine means very often to kill it. The larger proportion of our popular literature and our best novels first find their way to the public through the pages of a magazine. The accumulated mass of material thus given to the public in a single year is very great, and any help in the unlocking of its treasures is of importance. Mr W. F. Poole, a well-known American librarian, made an attempt in this direction when he issued his Index to Periodical Literature in 1853, of which a new edition, very much enlarged, is now in progress, and in the preparation of which many British librarians have generously assisted, each taking in hand certain periodicals, and so dividing the labour.

The competition of modern times, arising from what we have above referred to, namely, the great number of books issued, necessitates the use of titles that shall be striking and attractive. As examples of these 'catchy" titles we may name Miss Braddon's Dead Sea Fruit, Dead Men's Shoes, To the Bitter End, The Trail of the Serpent; also Bulwer Lytton's Strange Story, Night and Morning, and What Will He Do With It? A glance at any railway book-stall will supply other examples by the score.

Brevity seems to be a necessary quality for a good title, and herein lies one striking difference between modern titles and those of a couple of hundred years ago. The same fondness for contrast and alliteration—often carried to an inordinate extent may be observed in these old titles, but their length is generally much beyond our modern limits. Here are a few from the days of Cromwell: A Reaping Hook well tempered for the stubborn Ears of the coming Crop, or Biscuits baked in the Oven of Charity, carefully conserved for the Chickens of the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the Sweet Swallows of Salvation;' 'A Pair of Bellows to blow off the Dust cast upon John Fry;' 'High-heeled Shoes for Dwarfs in Holiness;' 'Hooks and Eyes for Believers' Breeches ;' The Shop of the