No. 965.-VOL. XIX.

ON HAVING A HOBBY.

Ir is matter of common observation that hobbies and their authors obtain but scant justice from the world at large. There are few persons who have not heard the pet projects of others mercilessly reviewed, and summarily condemned. The hobby-maker and the hobby-minder have come to be regarded as illustrative of a type of mental weakness out of which no good thing can be expected to come. Social history, however, is full of examples proving that many of the inventions which have revolutionised the world must have had their beginnings in studies that agree in every respect with the prevailing idea of a hobby. The whole history of invention is, in its earlier epochs, a record of hobbies, often frustrated, generally condemned, but afterwards bearing fruit in the shape of benefits and inventions which have made the modern world the wondrous age that it is.

It may thus be admitted that the repression of hobbies is often fraught with discouragement to a possible inventor, and may cause irretrievably the loss of many a useful art or process. There are, it is true, many absolute dreamers whose hobbies appear from their very nature to have no chance of realisation in any shape. We now look with lawful suspicion upon any attempt to make a pet project of 'perpetual motion;' and we do not hesitate to say even a harsh thing regarding the man who contends that the earth is a flat plain, in face of the schoolboy's demonstration that the masts of an approaching vessel appear above the horizon before the hull. Such ideas are good examples of the hobby pure and simple, from the prosecution of which no good can be expected, and the study of which can be of no practical benefit to mankind, whose judgments, based on ascertained facts of science, are entitled to respect and belief. But the mistake commonly made consists in judging the merits of all subjects of special study by the demerits of a few hobbies; and against this

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fallacy it is important that we should be on our guard.

There exist, however, another class of selfimposed studies, often pursued with avidity and care, but which meet with scant sympathy from the great bulk of even thoughtful and educated persons. We refer to hobbies connected with the abstract sciences, and with branches of study undertaken voluntarily and for no purpose of gain, but from what appears to be an infinitely higher motive-that of the social improvement of mankind, or of personal culture and higher education. Let us illustrate this class of typical hobbies' by a few examples. The employment of women in trades and professions hitherto closed to the sex, was deemed the hobby of a few energetic persons not so very long ago, even by those who might be supposed to have sympathised with the extension of the sphere of labour open to women, and with the increase of opportunities whereby the great army of working-women might earn their bread. Apart altogether from the vexed question of what higher professions are fitted for women, there remained the plain fact that many avenues existed wherein women might find profitable employment for their time, talents, and education. Yet, for long, the 'employment-of-women' question remained in the light of a veritable hobby. As such it was regarded by the outside public, and as such it met at first with but little sympathy from those who were best able to forward its interests. Now, however, opinion on this subject has completely changed. The hobby of a few earnest men and women has become part and parcel of our social order. Women now find employment in the most varied ways and fashions, and are enabled to earn a livelihood in positions of trust from which but a few years ago they were mercilessly debarred. The electric telegraph and postal services absorb a vast amount of female labour; the printing trade similarly employs females to a large extent; and these excellent examples but serve to indicate other results which the pursuit of a hobby-in

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the best, such opinions are those of a special bias which, entirely unacquainted with the pleasures and mental profit such studies afford, is incompetent to pronounce a just verdict upon the matter in question. A wise writer, speaking of the scant sympathy which the mental hobbies of men and women meet with from the outer world, says: "Whatever you study, some one will consider that particular study a foolish waste of time.' And again he asks: What, when it is not your trade, can be the good of dissecting animals or plants? To all questionings of this kind, there is but one reply. We work for culture. We work to enlarge the intelligence, and to make it a better and more effective instrument. This is our main purpose; but,' concludes this author, it may be added that even for our special labours, it is always difficult to say beforehand exactly what will turn out in the end to be most useful.'

In the foregoing words is contained the full answer to the popular quibbles respecting the hobbies of science-study in which we may indulge. We seek a culture which some favourite study alone can give. We wish to find an intellectual prop on which we may lean when our days of weariness come, and when the idle time with its ennui and air of do-nothing-ness approaches. But the utility of such studies is not unrepresented in the argument. Such hobbies increase our powers of observation, and train our perceptions to note, to weigh and balance probabilities; in a word, they serve as a direct means of mind-training in right methods of thought. The botanist's observation of a flower, for instance, in its exactness and precision, instils habits of a like kind which cannot fail to exert some influence on the business habits of everyday life. And thus the pursuit of a hobby may mean an absolute gain to the common business of existence. To cite but two well-known names from the workers in science who pursue their hobbies with benefit to themselves and to the world at large-Mr De la Rue is none the worse a business man because of his discoveries in astronomy, and Sir John Lubbock is at once a naturalist, a banker, and a member of parliament. sides, it should be noted that in such hobbies the beginnings of great discoveries often lie hidden; and there are none amongst us who may value lightly the addition of knowledge to man's estate.

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Not the least important uses of such hobbies that remain to be noted, are their effect of teaching us to enjoy life more fully, and the aid they give us in reaching those higher ideals which every consideration of life's value prompts us to attain. How much of the beauty and fairness of the world must we lose if outward Nature is simply a blank, and if we know nothing of the constitution of the universe around us. The feeling of delight in what is fair and bright is intensified a thousand-fold, when we begin to understand the rationale of Nature, and when every flower and insect speaks to us in a language of which we know something. To high and low alike, the pursuit of such hobbies must serve powerful means for encouraging aspirations after nobler desires and higher and purer pleasures. Every effort to understand the why and wherefore of Nature is in reality but an expres

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sion of the desire to seek and find a higher ideal. Hobbies form in reality the beginning to many of a new intellectual life; and the cultivation of such tastes is not a matter which should escape the notice of the educationist, who, in his contact with the young, and by encouraging a taste to observe, may lay the foundations of future studies which will assuredly tend to ennoble and to perfect life.

Speaking of the training of the young in what many persons would be apt to consider hobbies and nothing more, a writer in Nature (1870) aptly says: Few have yet realised the enormous gain that will accrue to society from the scientific education of our women. If, as we are constantly being told, the "sphere of woman is at home, what duty can be more clearly incumbent upon us than that of giving her the opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of the laws which ought to guide her in the rule of her house? Every woman on whom the management of a household devolves may profit by such knowledge. If the laws of health were better known, how much illness and sorrow might be averted! What insight would a knowledge of chemistry afford into the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of different articles of food! What zest would be given to a country walk with the children, or a month by the seaside, if the mother were able to teach the little ones intelligently to observe and revere the laws of Nature! Above all, what untold sufferings, what wasted lives, are the penalty we have paid for the prudish ignorance of the physiology of their bodily frame in which we have kept our daughters. These considerations have had far too little place with us at present. We trust that a new era is dawning upon us.'

Thus the despised pet schemes and studies of the few may be justified in their beneficial effects upon the many; and thus also may we learn to recognise that there may exist true wisdom in the much-abused practice of 'having a hobby.'

VALENTINE STRANGE.

A STORY OF THE PRIMROSE WAY.
CHAPTER XXIV.-'OF HOW MUCH HAVE YOU
ROBBED US?'

HAD Garling's nerves been of steel instead of the ordinary human fibre, a shade tougher than common, he must needs have shaken a little when that grip fell upon his arm and the voice of his employer sounded in his ear. His head turned slowly, and he looked across his shoulder, meeting Lumby eye to eye. There was a wicked light in the eyes of both men. The merchant looked like a duellist ready to give account of a hated foe; the cashier's glance was like a snake's. Away rumbled the train; and for a half-minute after it had gone, the two stood on the deserted platform, looking at each other in the light of a lamp which stood close by, casting its rays between them. In the tension of his nerves, Lumby gripped harder and harder. In the tension of his nerves, Garling was unconscious of the grasp, after the first shock it gave him. Cool and ready as he was by nature, and swiftly as his mind

recovered itself, that wicked frozen glance lasted long enough to betray him a hundred times

over.

'May I ask,' he said in a voice that grated curiously, and had to be strangely forced to make it audible, the meaning of this rather remarkable greeting?'

The merchant kept his eyes upon him, and for sole answer gripped by the other arm and shook him, very slightly, but strongly. This position made it somewhat difficult for Garling to look round; for his employer having in the first instance approached him from the rear, had laid his right hand on Garling's right arm, and now having grasped the other with his left, he stood almost behind his captive. The latter made no attempt to move, but kept that wicked backward-glancing eye upon the other's face. 'Pray, explain this curious action!' he said in the same grating tones.

'You villain!' cried the other, shaking him anew-you scoundrel!' His voice also had undergone a change, and sounded harsh and

low.

'You will regret this violence,' said Garling. Lumby, without replying, thrust an arm through his, and led him from the platform. It would have been useless for Garling to resist, and he knowing that, was too wise to try. Lumby held to him so tightly, that when they came to enter the hansom, they bundled in together awkwardly, and the cashier found divers corners of himself contused. The cabman having received his instructions, drove in the direction of the offices, and the merchant gripped his captive all the way. In Garling's mind there was such blank despair and rage as only a foiled scoundrel is permitted to experience. To have come so near, after waiting so long, and at last on the very verge of victory, to be thus ignominiously taken, was maddening. Frenzies of rage and disappointment shook his heart, and if he had had a weapon in his hand, there were moments in that brief ride in which he would have willingly struck his captor dead. But he had still a stake to play for, though all his base gains of the past nine years were lost; and that stake was dear to him, for it was nothing less than liberty. There was such a strain of caution in the man, that he had counted on this failure all along, and had planned as carefully to meet it as if it had been certain. Not that it was any the less exasperating, now it came, for this prevision. His murderous glance, as he east it now and again sideways on the fixed and silent face beside him, was warrant enough for that.

The offices being reached, Mr Lumby made the cabman dismount and ring the bell; and it was not until the night-watchman had opened the door that he permitted Garling to alight. Somethin' real serious on foot,' thought the nightwatchman, noting even on Garling's impassive face a shade he had never seen there until now, in all his knowledge of him. The cabman dismissed, the merchant marshalled Garling to his own room. As he went, the cashier saw that the gas jets were lighted all along that way, and nowhere else, as though warning had been given of their coming. He was in a mood to notice everything more elosely than usual, and the great doors closing outside sounded to him like the closing of the

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doors of a jail with him an inmate. other time, he thought, the sound would have fallen on his ears unheeded. He was cool enough to smile at that, and to murmur to himself 'Nerves!' by way of explanation.

The merchant locked the door, and always holding a wary eye upon the other, turned up the gas. Garling laid his hat upon the table, and stood observant. There was so little change in him, so little sign of fluster or fear, that his employer was almost staggered, looking at him. Could he look so cool, and yet be guilty? They faced each other.

'I have had reason given me lately,' said Lumby slowly, panting a little as he spoke, 'to suspect your probity. I have been making an investigation of those books, and have found that you began a fraud upon the firm nine years ago. presume, since I found you in the act of escape to-night, that you have completed your fraud. Or had you learned that I was tracing you?'

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Garling looked at him with glittering eyes, his head bent somewhat downward, his lips drawn tighter than was common with him, and a little paler. His skin had fallen from its ordinary sallow hue to a sort of stony gray.

'When did he begin to suspect?" he asked himself. How much does he know? Is there anything I can save from this ruin of my plans?' But he answered never a word.

'Speak!' said the merchant, panting at him, in an agitation terrible to look at. Of how much have you robbed the firm?' His face was alternately gray and purple. His features jerked and quivered, his hands shook, and a visible tremor possessed his whole body.-Garling read his own advantage in all these signs, and still said not a word. Speak! you-you scoundrel!' cried Lumby falling anew upon him, and seizing him by the waistcoat and the bosom of his shirt. Of how much have you robbed us?'

'Of not one halfpenny!' said Garling stonily. The words and manner so amazed the merchant that he dropped his hands. The cashier moved quietly, so as to place the table between them, keeping his eyes on Lumby as he stepped, and, laying one hand on the table, leaned slightly forward, whilst with the other he arranged his disordered dress. In this attitude he spoke again: 'Of not one halfpenny, or of everything according as you use me.'

If any third person could have looked upon the scene at this minute, he might well have been excused had he mistaken the several parts they played. The just employer sank into a seat with his hands drooping by his sides and a face of extreme pallor. The fraudulent cashier, pale enough in all conscience, but self-possessed and firm, looked down upon him across the table, still fumbling with his hand at his bosom, Coupled with the calm in which he stood and the cruel look upon his face, the action, simple as it was, seemed deadly. It was as if he searched slowly and calmly for a weapon, and had the will to use it. Lumby made a great effort, and resumed something like composure.

'I might have guessed beforehand,' he said slowly, in a voice unlike his own, that if you chose a criminal course, you would go boldly and warily. I know now that you have chosen

such a course, and I tell you that the safest plan for you is to make a clean breast of it and confess everything. Of how much have you robbed us?'

'Either of nothing, or of everything,' responded Garling. It is in your power to bring down utter ruin, or to recover all. Your treatment of me will determine that.'

'You mean that the firm is in your power?' 'Precisely,' said Garling.

'I do not know how that can be,' said Lumby; 'but it is a question easily tested.' He struck his hand heavily upon the bell which lay upon the table.

I recommend you to pause,' said the cashier coldly. If you fulfil your present purpose, you are ruined.'

'I will see,' returned the merchant.

'You will see,' said Garling calmly. 'You propose to arrest me? Good. You may save yourself the trouble of opening your doors to-morrow. If I am arrested, the firm is bankrupt-hopelessly insolvent.'

'We shall see,' said Lumby. The cashier's voice and face, however, made such impression on him, that when the heavy footsteps of the night-watchman sounded in the corridor, he arose and waited at the closed door for his knock. The knock came, aud Lumby opening the door, said only: 'Wait at the end of the corridor. I may want you in a moment.' He kept his eyes on Garling; and if in that stony and impassive countenance of his he had read a touch of fear or of boasting, either would have decided him. But he saw neither one nor the other. Garling had this advantage: he was enacting in earnest a scene which he had countless times rehearsed in fancy-and to play it well or ill was almost life or death to him. The door was closed and locked again, and the heavy footsteps retreated to the end of the corridor. Lumby, though liable to sudden gusts of passionate anger, and less under control than the other, was growing strung to something like the enemy's pitch. The intensity of mood had been beyond words already; but the intensity of manner was now increased tenfold by the near neighbourhood of the man, which reduced speech almost to a whisper. The merchant felt he had Lothing to lose by a pause-he could afford to wait long enough to get light to go by.

'Are you prepared,' he asked, 'to make a full confession and restitution? Is that your meaning?'

'I may be induced to mean something like that,' the cashier answered. 'You may be induced?'

'I may be induced.' The villain's composure was a study.

'To mean something like that?'-with bitter irony.

Something nearly approaching to it; yes'with perfect business-like precision and quiet. 'Will you be so good as to tell me how we are in your power?'

'I will explain,' said Garling, clearing his throat slightly.

Thank you,' returned Lumby-'if you will be so good. Their eyes met again, and Garling's fell. His face became a little paler in its gray; but he cleared his throat again and went on.

His hand was still fumbling at his breast automatically, though he had forgotten the purpose which first sent it there.

I proceeded in this matter,' he said harshly and drily, with much caution and foresight. I have never been a spendthrift, and in fact I have always lived well within my income. As a result of that, I have been enabled to employ such sums as I have transferred to my own service to considerable advantage, and ultimately to pass them, through varying channels, to swell the store I had begun to accumulate abroad.'The merchant listened with a face as gray as Garling's own. The accumulations becoming in course of years, say three or four years, considerable, I was enabled to keep up a constant circulation of capital with such irregular additions and diminutions in the flow as would occur naturally in the course of an extensive business. At the end of perhaps five years, the impossibility of further operations of that simple order clearly declared itself. But by throwing up my plans at that time, I should have killed the goose which laid the eggs without having filled my basket. You will understand that at this time-now four years ago-everything that could be drawn from the firm in its then condition had been drawn, and that the firm lived by the continued circulation of that foreign hoard. I had laboured, as you know, to increase the scope of the House's operations, and in that direction I still laboured with some not inconsiderable measure of success.' Half-a-dozen times in the course of this statement the cashier raised his eyes, and meeting his employer's glance, looked down again. It would have been possible, since the original capital of the House was not only intact but multiplied, to have proceeded upon this plan indefinitely. But I found myself already past middle age, anddelays are dangerous. The channels in which the funds flowed-if I make myself clear-were circular. It was competent for me to arrest them at any point of the circle. That was a work of much delicacy, and demanded care and time. You will excuse me for offering you at this point only a general statement, and for avoiding detail which might obscure a broad view of the position. In brief, the various channels have all been directed into one reservoir, and have there discharged themselves. There is a drop or two in the London pipes, but nothing elsewhere. And the disadvantage of the House, and my advantage is, that the reservoir is available to me only.'

Mr Lumby sat still and looked at Garling. He had read of frauds, heard of them in plenty, had even assisted at the investigation of one or two; but he had never met with anything like the massive insolence, the colossal audacity of this defrauder.

'You had completed your work,' he said at length, and you were going to-night-Garling slightly inclined his head, and moistened his dry lips a little with the tip of his tongue-'leaving the firm insolvent?'

'Leaving the firm insolvent!' Garling answered like a husky echo.

'And being caught,' said Lumby with a transient flush of triumph, 'you are ready to disgorge?'