POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. Fourth Series CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. No. 945.-VOL. XIX. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1882. A WORD IN SEASON. THIS day fifty years ago, we issued the first number of Chambers's Journal; and here we are still in the land of the living, ready as far as possible to do our duty in the way of attempting to instruct and amuse the public. The office we voluntarily assumed as a Journalist, is sometimes perhaps not very gracious. It may occasionally grate on the feelings of those addressed; but this is a matter which one with conscientious convictions must not regard. We would not needlessly try to disturb popular notions that, however absurd, are of no great importance. Many things in themselves ridiculous, are not worth writing about, and ought properly to be left to the remedial influences of time. So much cannot be said of follies that trench on commonsense, and that, however fashionable, are mischievous in their permanent consequences. Without further discussion, we go to a case in point, which seems to have been strangely neglected by the daily organs of public opinion. On a late occasion, as universally known, the tomb of a noble family was theftuously rifled of its contents. The embalmed body of the late Earl of Crawford and Balcarres was stolen during the night from the elegantly adorned coffin in which it reposed in a vault connected with the family mansion of Dunecht. It does not appear that any of the costly trappings of the coffin were removed. The theft was simply that of a dead body, of no commercial value; and why it should have been odiously abstracted, remains a mystery, unless it was for the purpose of being restored for an extorted money consideration. There stands the broad fact, at which the public have been very much scandalised. Sympathising with the noble family whose feelings have been so grossly outraged, and sincerely anxious that the remains of the deceased Earl should be restored to his family, we seize upon the occasion of pointing out as lightly as may be the error that had been heedlessly committed in a method of entombment that was susceptible of such a vile species of PRICE 11d. larceny. In plain terms, why was the body of the deceased Earl not buried in the earth, in the manner pointed out by tradition, and we would almost say by religious obligation? If there be one natural law more imperative than another, it is that of consigning the remains of mortality, without unnecessary delay, to the dust which is the common destiny of mankind. The simple and affecting words in the funeral service, Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' are not to be treated with indifference. They enjoin that which is not only decent and proper, but what is agreeable to enlightened physical science. We would go even a little further. The denial of burial in this manner is a violation of natural rights. Every human being is entitled to claim that, after death, his body shall be allowed to dissolve into its original elements. So far from suffering any degradation in being buried in the earth, it is an honour, and ought to be viewed as a pious realisation of a primary injunction and heritage. Nowhere are we with any authority taught to treat the body of a deceased relative as a thing to be stuffed with chemicals, preserved as a curiosity in an ornamented box, and laid on a stone shelf to fester in state for centuries. Vary the process of attempted preservation as we like, the thing is wrong, and though satisfying a whim, no good can come of it. In order to be convinced that all attempts at preservation of the mortal frame after death are to the last degree futile, we have only to reflect on the conditions which necessarily attend on dissolution. The body is largely resolvable into gases that naturally seek dispersal in the air, the earth, or anywhere. They must get away, or a fearful state of pollution, dangerous to the health of the living, is the consequence. At all events, something very unsightly will ensue. It is therefore an act of kindness to all concerned to do nothing to obstruct the ordinary and long-established method of sepulture-that is, burial in the earth. With a view to insure speedy dissolution into the original elements, a medical scientist has suggested burial in wicker coffins. Perhaps this world. Being a nobleman, he had been, by way would be to contend unnecessarily with the of distinction, laid in a leaden coffin, and placed current of popular feeling. It would be enough in a gloomy vault, liable to become a piteous if interment were to imply the use of simple spectacle to future generations. wooden coffins, as it used to do within our recollection. Deal boards, though ornamented according to fancy, soon perish, or at least do not seriously prevent the natural process of decay. In walking through a country churchyard, it can be seen that within a few years most of the graves have sunk to a level with the surface, which we may take to indicate that already 'the poor inhabitant below' has less or more mingled with the adjoining dust. Of course, these explanations will have very little weight with those who habitually regulate their proceedings by what is thought to be fine or fashionable. On this large class of persons we shall accordingly press other considerations, that can scarcely fail to touch their feelings. We wish them to have some regard for the dead. It will not do to place the remains of a dear relative, embalmed or unembalmed, in a durable leaden coffin, and think that a grand thing has been effected. There must be a consideration of the consequences to the deceased, who, if they could speak, would declare that they had been subjected to a grievous outrage. To make this plain, we shall try to relate what has fallen under our notice. One of these leaden coffins more rent in pieces than the others, contained a form which was recognised by a medical gentleman present to be the remains of a young female, probably a young lady of quality in her day, admired for her beauty and the splendour of her long yellow tresses. What a fate had been hers. On touching the head, a part of the scalp came off, along with a stream of hair that doubtless had at one time been the pride of the wearer. Melancholy sight! And why had the body of this gentle creature with her flowing tresses been consigned to a condition that brought it under the gaze of a body of official investigators, more than a century after dissolution, instead of being decorously laid in the dust, there to sink into the undisturbed rest that had been beneficently destined by its Creator? Let those who maintain the practice of entombing in leaden coffins and vaults, answer the question. ous. Unwillingly, we have touched on this painful topic, in order, if possible, that the public may be led to give some consideration to a method of sepulture, which we, and many others, hold to be altogether erroneous, if not absolutely mischievAs concerns the general weal, it may matter little, except as affording a bad example, that certain noble families should adhere to the practice of entombing in vaults in the manner we have feebly pictured. A very different thing must be said when we refer to the interment of distinguished individuals in Westminster Abbey. The body of the greatest man who ever lived is, after all, only a piece of decaying mortality, and we can see no reason why it is to be treated differently from the rest of the human race. Let honours by all means be showered on his memory; let every possible respect be paid in accompanying his remains to the tomb; but let that tomb be in the open air, under the canopy of heaven, where flowers may blossom on his grave. On no account, should it be laid in a leaden or other species of durable coffin, and placed in a confined situation under a roof. Two or three years ago, it was our fate to inspect officially certain vaults in an ancient church of much historical interest that was undergoing repairs. The object was to ascertain beyond a doubt who had been buried in three leaden coffins. They were doubtless great personages, but there was nothing to tell us who they were, and it was expected that we might find inscriptions of some kind, to throw light on the subject. The coffins, though they had been originally as strong as lead could make them, had been entombed from a century to a century and a half. Their condition was lamentable. The lead was here and there broken into large fissures, through the forcible explosion of confined gases, and it was not difficult to distinguish the contents. All had been embalmed according to the best rules of art. But the result showed how miserable had been the effort to secure an imitation of immortality. The With a firmly entertained opinion on this point, appearance of the bodies generally was that of we respectfully object to the growing practice of ragged skeletons dipped in tar, black, horrible, entombment of individuals honoured by the and repulsive; the whole a painful satire on the nation, in Westminster Abbey. If such honours so-called embalming system. One of the bodies are to be conferred, let there be an open-air was that of a nobleman of high rank. To think spot selected for the purpose, a Valhalla worthy of a man in his social position, who had figured in of a great and wealthy nation. It is to be gorgeous pageants, being condemned after death, regretted that the grand old fane, on which all by the over-kind solicitude of relatives, to a fate look with admiration, is begun to be spoken of too revolting for description. Had he been a as likely soon to be in a condition dangerous to parish pauper, he would have been buried in the the public health. Already it has been hinted earth, and his body would long since have mould- that quicklime should be employed to quell ered into dust, while the exuberant gases would the pestilential exhalations that, in spite of have been harmlessly wafted away in the gentle all precautions, escape from the graves underbreezes that serve to give life to the vegetable neath the pavement. Expedients of this kind Journal will but feebly stem the evil. Nature cannot long be outraged with impunity. The pent-up gases will continue to force their way to the surface, and communicate a stuffiness to the atmosphere, that ventilation may attempt to assuage, but cannot possibly extinguish. We could say much more on a subject so abounding in practical application; but perhaps it is not necessary to go into further details. Fashion has established usages which, though indefensible, are almost too inveterate to be upset, or even to be the subject of remonstrance. The impropriety of burial in populous cities has been recognised by the legislature in sundry enactments. So far, a step has been taken in the right direction. There seem, however, to be still exceptional cases which the law does not touch. Looking to the practice as concerns Westminster Abbey, there appears to be no let or hindrance to intermural interment. The end in this case, we believe, is supposed to justify the means, no matter what inconvenience or absurdities may ensue. As is customary in England, statesmen will look on with calm indifference so long as there is no particular clamour; while Fashion insists that there ought to be no deviations from customs sanctioned by the established practices of a past era. Be it so. We have uttered our note of warning, and trust it may be taken in good part by those who are more specially concerned. What we have said, we believe to be true and deserving of earnest attention. Were our suggestions acted on, they would do a great deal more than put a stop to the scandalous rifling of funeral vaults. They would serve to introduce a degree of common-sense into a custom that bears on the welfare and happiness of the community. MR PUNCH, W. C. and novices in 'the purfession' have to practise continually for months on this unmusical instrument in out-of-the-way corners of parks and commons before they are perfect in its use. At the sound of this shrill shrieking and squeaking, while the crowd gathers, staring at the upright box with eyes and mouths ready to laugh at anything, a still greater number fly from the unknown tongue in supreme disdain. Punch and Judy is, to them, the essence of vulgarity-only what common people like. There is a general objection even to giving Punch a passing glance, albeit he is exerting himself with his whole body and a cudgel to the extreme of folk, there were two men managing that very puppet energy. But, after all, ye contemptuous vulgar show. A dog was there too, a living and intelligent professional dog with a red-andblue collar, stared at and curiously examined by the street dogs when they meet him off the stage. And think you, when two men and a dog are working all day from street to street with tended jollity, is it not worth while to give a these poor puppets and a stock-in-trade of prethought for once to what it is all about? The most popular of novelists, clear of sight and quick of sympathy, did not think it beneath notice. His attraction towards the contrasts of life and the oddities of human nature, led him to mingle Punch and Judy with the history of Little Nell, than whom he never imagined a heroine more spiritually beautiful or more exquisitely refined. Out of their meeting came a scene of most complex impressions. Little Nell, in the churchyard, stitching the dilapidated Judy together, while Codlin and Short mend their puppets among the tombstones, and the old man looks on with childish interest and with his vacant smile-this makes a wonderful focus of solemn and ludicrous ideas, the real and the unreal; the grotesque, the vulgar, and the mercenary, side by side with the beauty of innocence and tenderness, and all the great human sorrows of the worn-out mind and of the beggared child. The idea of the showman Short secretly wishing in his rough way to guard the helpless pair from falling into worse hands, AN unnatural squeaking, merry and shrill, heralds is just the kind of pleading for the good heart the drama at the street corner. Forthwith there of the poor that we expect to find mixed is a scamper of little tatterdemalions, a rush of with the fancies of one who knew them well. nursemaids, and a more gradual assembling of He took the showmen into his story for the folks richer in spare time than in anything else. same reason that he took heroes and heroines The squeaking is the voice of Punch. No human-because they were human; and he never conorgans unaided could afflict the ear with so loud and high a talking treble. In Mr Punch's atterance there are professional secrets involved. Every one is free to know that there is in use a little apparatus formed of two bits of metal and a disc of some stuff like silk, held completely inside the showman's mouth; but what the metal is, and what the stuff is, the showman will respectfully decline to tell, saying only that it is not a whistle, nor a call, but an unknown tongue-a secret of the purfession.' The 'unknown tongues' offered for sale at a high price, are of an inferior kind; for there are many sorts, one for the open air, another for use in the house, different ones for speaking and for singing-and for selling. The man can speak in his ordinary voice, or even take a drink, without letting the apparatus be seen by taking it out of his mouth; OR THE DRAMA AT THE STREET CORNER, founded them with their puppets. But for the puppets too, and for the show, he had a hankering sympathy; or how could he have hit upon so apt a description of the sad lot of Punch travelling in his private capacity: 'Here was that beaming Punch, utterly devoid of spine, all slack and drooping in a dark box, with his legs doubled up round his neck, and not one of his social qualities remaining.' In Italy, Punch and Judy in its present form is nearly three centuries old. It was introduced into England by Piccini-called by his successors Porsini-who died about forty years ago, after having exhibited his show for half a century. The puppet play, in which Addison saw Punch in the days of Queen Anne, was quite a different thing. Addison speaks in the Spectator of the two shows as 'the opera at the Haymarket, and that under the little Piazza in Covent Garden-the two leading diversions of the town;' and a loquacious showman will still describe his drama 'in two hacts' as 'not a comedy, neither a tragedybut a hopera!' In those old times the Punch of the Covent Garden Piazza danced with 'a welldisciplined pig;' and various stories were shown in the box theatre on different days, from Old Testament tales down to Whittington and his Cat. But though every Punch that ever squeaked is a cousin of the Italian Puncinello-or Policinellothe Punch that married Judy dates from the Italian play-writer Silvio Florillo, about 1600, and the coming to England of that particular Punch and his indestructible Judy dates from old Piccini. It may give further interest, though perhaps not thanks, to Piccini's memory, to add that he is regarded also as the father of all that play upon barrel-organs. He got money at an almost incredible rate, and spent it as freely as it came. When Cruikshank made his sketches of the progress of Punch and Judy, he found the old showman at work still, aged and miserably poor, putting up at a public-house in the Coal Yard,' Drury Lane. From the Coal Yard, Piccini only removed onceto St Giles' Workhouse, where he died a pauper, after having in his day caused an incalculable amount of laughing and brightening of poor faces, and of childish faces poor and rich. This man is said to have made at one time as much as ten pounds a day; his puppets were known to high and low, and it is recorded against at least one Secretary of State, that in the midst of business the voice of Punch could lure him round the corner. As the show became more common, Punch's income dwindled away. According to Mr Mayhew, to whom we are indebted for many secrets of the 'London poor,' the exhibitors of Punch and Judy forty years ago collected five pounds a week in the hat; while now, though they still are few enough for every showman to know all the others, and where they are throughout the country, each pair only barely make their living. They have to tramp for it many miles a day, while one of them exhausts himself with the strain of several hours of the instrument in the mouth, and the other, who plays the reed and drum at each 'pitch,' has to carry half a hundredweight of stage and properties in transit from one pitch to another. Their stock of puppets is expensive, costing several pounds if it be new; there is a large quantity of cloth and tinsel, the doctor requires the luxury of an ermine wig, and the head of each figure costs some shillings when it comes from the hand of the special Punch-andJudy carver. Latterly the dialogue has changed, the coarser elements of the original being omitted in the modern versions; and the live Toby is a further improvement, for Piccini had only a stuffed dog where now an intelligent animal is hoisted to the proscenium-much against his will if the truth be told, and with a shamefaced air of feeling too shaky in his part and too big to bite Punch. The length of the performance, the dialogue, and the characters, all vary with the whim of the showman. Originally, the dramatis personae were Punch, Scaramouch, the Baby-always nameless, though imperishable as the Phoenix-a Courtier-intro duced for the purpose of taking off his hat with one hand, and stretching up suddenly with a yard of calico neck-a Servant, a Blind Beggarman, a Constable, a Police Officer, Jack Ketch, Sathanas-sometimes called the Rooshan Bear, to spare the sensibilities of the audience-Toby the dog, Hector the horse, Judy, and Pretty Polly, who awakened jealousy in that formidable lady's bosom, and led to the cudgel-wielding which thenceforth found no end. The properties were: the bell wherewith Punch annoyed his neighbours, jocosely making them by dint of torture agree with him that it was an organ, a fiddle, a trumpet, or a drum; the hangman's gallows and ladder; a second back-scene with a prison window; and a large supply of short coffins shown by the reproduction of one, into which the puppet victim was doubled and tidily packed by the hands of Punch himself. Any public character was also introduced, from Bonaparte, or the candidate at an election, down to Joe Grimaldi. Grimaldi remains under the name of Joey; others have passed away, or come fitfully. There was a Ghost added to the original version, but that awful sheeted Being now sometimes remains in the shades below. There was a Distinguished Foreigner called in to minister to the vulgar contempt for foreigners' by saying nothing but 'shallaballah!' There was at another time a certain Jones, the true owner of Toby, who agreed with Punch to struggle for that valuable property till there was risk of dragging the dog in two. Altogether, it is a shifting and changing drama, but its main elements are always the same; and Punch and Judy, with its upright theatre frame and box of limp grotesque puppets, has crossed the Atlantic and even reached the shadow of the Andes; while eastward Mr Punch has travelled also, and his familiar squeak has drawn a pig-tailed crowd about him as himself a Distinguished Foreigner in the streets of Canton. But for his personal character, and for the morality of this tragic drama, we can say nothing. If we consider his character at all, we must shake our heads at Mr Punch; though before our heads were so high, we have all shaken with laughing at him. If he were not a puppet, we could not tolerate such a monster-a merry monster too; and Mr Punch may congratulate himself that the interest in him is worn out among great dignitaries now, or the Lord Chamberlain's attention might be called to his frightful career of crime and its shocking triumph. Punch not only kills the wife of his bosom, the baby, the doctor, the beadle, and any number of other characters that chance to visit him, except the clown, whose agility, even in escaping, wins his favour; he wades through all the slaughter with the most rampant hilarity; he ensnares and hangs the hangman; he first cheats and then slays his Satanic majesty himself, and finally, uplifting that shapeless heap of horror upon the end of his stick, he whirls below with an extra squeaking flourish of victory. He also avows a cultivated taste which ought to debar him from brutality. He sings the baby to sleep with the lullaby from Guy Mannering, or a travesty of it; he professes a joy in music when he is performing on his big bell, or as he facetiously calls it in these days, his piano-sixty; he declares a passion of poetic admiration for Judy the moment before Journal he causes her to flee, mortally injured, for the interference of the beadle. Piccini introduced into the original version a pretty enough canzonetta with native words and melody fresh from the Italian streets, and put it into the mouth of this miscreant. The little song, Quando pens'io a la mia bella, has been translated: When I think on you, my jewel, On your lover take some pity, And relieve his bitter smart. Think you Heaven has made you pretty But to break your lover's heart? There is a touch of sixteenth century fragments, 'To Phyllis' and 'To Chloe,' about the last lines. It must have been an alarmingly sudden change, when the constable rushed in upon the close of the song, and Punch, slaying him, rejoiced over his corpse to the tune of Green grow the Rashes, O!' The final catastrophe has always remained the same. In the more complete versions the black and horned visitor presents himself first to demand 'Mr Punch that was hanged;' the imperturbable hero gives him the coffined hangman in the most off-hand manner, and cheats him while they exchange politenesses. But whether this scene be included or not, the arch-enemy is always the last victim. Once, it is said, a showman tried to reform this fearful drama, and as a more proper ending, made his Satanic majesty carry off Punch; but the crowd dispersed; his comrade of the reed and drum could not get a copper in the hat; the attempt had to be given up, and public opinion in favour of Mr Punch had its sway henceforth, and he his triumph, regardless of the proprieties. No doubt the plot owes part of its popularity to the belabouring of beadles and policemen, and to this naughty conduct, too, the Lord Chamberlain might object; it is on a level with the delight of the crowd at the pantomime, when the clown runs the perennial hot poker through the policeman's body. Naughty too, it is, that the people should applaud the onslaught upon the gentleman of the ermine wig; he is naturally disgusted with his 'stick-lickrish-physic! physic! physic!' rapped out in a wooden tune on his own head; but this is clearly an unwarrantable satire upon a learned profession, and an insinuation that physicians prescribe what they would not relish-as if they could prescribe anything that anybody would relish! So also does the victory over the hangman call forth similar wicked applause, when the adroit Punch, pleading that he never was hanged before and does not know how to do it, lures the head of that obliging official into the noose to show him the way. All this is bad enough; but what is to be said of the fatal skirmish with Judy ?-what of the flinging of the baby out of winder,' and in among an unfeeling crowd? Perhaps, that it is an unfeeling baby. But that is a poor excuse. Clearly the drama does not bear investigation from a moral point of view. The only poetical justice in it is dealt out by Toby, when he barks in protest, and then lays obstinate hold of Punch by the nose; and yet Punch never hurts Toby. In reality, the play depends for popularity upon the grotesque aspect of the figures, the mystery of their moving with such agility, the rapid liveliness of the plot, and the impudent jokes and horseplay, which are always the fun to make a street crowd grin and laugh. It is the puppets, independent of the plot, that furnish the amusement of children. They do not know, nor would they care to know, that a dexterous hand works Punch, with one finger in his nodding head, and a thumb and finger up his armless sleeves; and for the younger ones-ay, and for some of the older ones too-it is the puppets themselves that speak in squeaking voices. The murderous stick held so deftly, if awkwardly, between both hands, the wooden raps and knock-down blows, suggest no horror to the little people-nor to the big people either. The diminutive things with their limp bodies and sounding timber heads, are too obviously puppets for their murder to be shocking. If the squeaks became frightened screams, and sank to moans; if the prostrate Judy bled even the plainest of red paint; if there was any simulation of suffering such as we see on the larger stage-then the crowd would cease to laugh, Punch would be a miscreant indeed, and the Lord Chamberlain-or Policeman X-would interfere at the street corner. But as it is, the little drama, though its palmy days of novelty are over, is sure to flourish long. All the children like Punch, and the young generations are fresh always, though Punch be fresh no longer. He still attends their juvenile parties, but not so many as he was asked to once-four of a night-lucky rover! if his own boasts be true. Children are pleased with him, if they be truly childish at all, from the little ladies in evening white and the beaux in knickerbockers, down to the ragged boys and girls, with faces quite as happy, running through the mud after the show. So perceiving him to be a favourite with the little ones-and is not that a certificate of character ?-and trusting he has but a wooden semblance of wickedness, we find ourselves saying to Punch, in the words of the poet: 'With all thy faults, I love thee still!' VALENTINE STRANGE. A STORY OF THE PRIMROSE WAY. BY DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY. CHAPTER IV.-HIRAM 'LOOKS AROUND FOR SOMETHING TO GET A LIVIN' AT.' THE Black Horse at Brierham was not a luxurious hostel, but it satisfied Hiram Search. It was an easy matter to satisfy him just then, and even the Black Horse was more attractive to a weary man than the open fields. Hiram was hungry as well as tired; and the unpretending inn had bread-and-cheese and cider, all home-made and wholesome. The landlord, discerning Hiram's foreign extraction by his tongue, pressed him to eat. 'I shall charge 'ee vorpence whatever 'ee gets outside on,' said the landlord; 'zo eed better take thy vill.' He was not the man to go back from this hospitable invitation; but Hiram accepted it in such good faith, that the watching landlord grew sceptical of profit on his custom. You be main hungry, aperiently, mate,' said the landlord. Hiram was too busy to waste |