CLIPPINGS FROM NEW BOOKS.

Evening Star, Issue 6775, 15 December 1884, Page 3

CLIPPINGS FROM NEW BOOKS.

fEGRET SOCIETIES. The influence of secret societies is no new fact, but on the contrary, one of the oldest facts of which history takes notice. Ancient Egypt, in days before the very dawn of Grecian civilisation, was largely affected by mysterious confederations, professing to teach an occult morality and a transcendental faith. The same kind of associations existed in China from the earliest times; they were found in Persia and in Hindostan ; Pythagoras established a secret society at Grotona, in Southern Italy ; and the ole worship of Isis, originating in the land of the Pyramids, spread like a masked and subtle poison throughout the whole extent of the lonian Empire, though frequently forbidden and proscribed. The early Christian ages abounded in these muffled organisations for the promotion of particular views; while Mohammedan countries were afflicted with bodies such as Assassins and the Thugs. In the Middle Ages there were the various brotherhoods of military knights, the Bosiorucians and similar mystical fraternities, and the tenible Vehmgerichte of Germany, a secret association for the trial of offences and the punishment of ill-doers, which, irregular though it was, came at length t > be regarded as a legal tribunal, to which the Emperors themselves paid great respect. More tremendous than any, perhaps, was the Inquisition, which exercised a spiritual despotism of the most frightful and irresponsible character. Tb e present century he s seen the more or less successful action in Italy of political bodies like the Carbonari and the Adclfia, operating by concealed methods on the government of the country; as well as the organised system of confiscation enforced by murder, which the infamous Camorrista were enabled to set in force under the Bourbon rule at Naples. The Masonic societies and the various Trades Union bodies are secret associations existing amongst ns as this day; and it may safely be said that whenever any elaborate form of civilisation has been reached, there will certain sections of society band themselves together, under rules and conditions not known to the uninitiated, for the purposes of seif-protection and aggression, or both. In , ancient times, however, these associations had, generally, some exalted or metaphysical end in view, though the mysticism not unfrequently degenerated into the grossest sensuality. Our own days are more practical and prosaic; and the modern secret society is commonly a league for dethroning Kings and Emperors, for putting down Churches, for raising the rate of wages, for abolishing capital, or for inaugurating some Commuhistical Utopia, which shall at once annihilate affluence on the one hand and pauperism on the other. —From “Cassell’s Illustrated History of the Franco-German War." THE SMUGGLER OF TO-DAY. The bold smuggler who wore a red sash, and cried “ Foiled ! ” as he applied a torch to the powder magazine of his lugger when the revenue cutter got the best of the fighting, is no more to be seen; but a good deal of quiet and business-like smuggling is still carried on by Englishmen. There are half-a-dozen places in London alone where very fair cigars may be bought at an advance -of id apiece on the Gibraltar price. The contraband trade is carried on with great I shill; and the offenders who are caught; usually owe their ill-fortune to the fact tha« they have been clumsy enotgh to offend -’some foreign „dealer, who telegraphs la warning to the authorities. The yachtsnufen , who ware so heavily punished about a month ' ago were betrayed by a jealous Dutohmafa; »nd most of the engineers and firemen und

aailois who arc detected suffer through not conciliating certain persona at “ the other aide. 1 ’ The English officers aro vigilant enough, yet a steady supply of contraband goods comes into this country. For a long time the Whitby preventive men have been at theii' wits’t ml in face of the wholesale Smuggling that goes on there. The abortive raid made on the smacks during last week only serves to show the careful organisation of the smugglers. A messenger left the town in goon time, and most of the fleet received warning, so that tho officers secured only one culprit. All along the north-east coast the contrabandists work with impunity almost. The coastguard has his little cottage on the cliff or in a village; four or five miles away his mate lives in another village; and the two meet once or twice a week, so that reports may be passed on to tho chief boatman, »nd from the chief boatman to the officer of the station. Whether every coastguard la awake and watchful over his four miles of chore during the hours between midnight and dawn may be doubted. At such places as Dunwich a boatman traverses the cliff all night; and at Alnmouth, Berwick, Shields, and other towns there are hands told off for night duty; but near the smaller villages complete watchfulness is hardly to bo expected. The black French smack sails calmly north and south, and innocent fishing boats encounter her. There is a signal, and “ Now, then, Frenchy !” a business transaction takes place; and the innocent fishing boat returns to the cove in the dim hours before dawn.

In steamers the illegal work is done on a larger scale, and sometimes—or so it is said —there are strange passages between the representatives of thj law and the contraband traders. One captain, whose ship had just been quitted by a boat’s crew of the gentlemen whom sailors unkindly call “sharks," was suddenly revisited by a mysterious person, who said: “The chaps in the boat say this isn’t your proper money, captain; they think I’ve done them.” In explanation of this remark it has been conjectured that the “ honorarium ” which the captain had laid upon the first box of cigars that stood on the cabin table was not so large as those which had been deposited there on former occasions, But all the smuggling that goes on round the coast is a mere driblet compared with that by which the Spanish Government is defrauded in tho Mediterranean. Daring Englishmen are usually employed in this work, and a few years ago one skipper not only ran L 5,000 worth of tobacco into Portuguese waters, but performed a still more striking feat by bringing the consignment home to the English coast. The agents at Gibraltar were thus punished for attempting to evade tho law, for they lost their L 5,000. The ultimate destination of the tobacco is not known to history, but a few private individuals could perhaps tell a very interesting story about that. Smuggling from Gibraltar involves danger, but the gains from a winning venture are so great that many tneu run the risk. Three years ago a smuggling exploit had a veiy tragic ending. The captain of an English steamer lay at the coal-huik all one day and brought his boat quietly out at dusk. About seven in the evening three feluccas stole out from the harbor and drew up astern of the steamboat. They were made fast and tho engines were put full speed ahead. But the coastguards were on the look-out, and before the towing steamer had got fairly away-with the feluccas tho captain was hailed from a launch rowed by a set of eager men, Gradually the steamer reached her full speed of twelve kuots, but she did not get away from the launch until several bullets had whistled through her rigging. A snorting gale was blowing into the Gut, and the captain found that a swift jerky sea was running. He drove the boat into it aud the seas rushed aboard of her, keeping her decks awash. The steamer fared badly, but the feluccas were much worse off. The rush of the steamer tore the little craft through the hills of flying water and fairly smothered them. The captain of the last felucca chopped the hawser and drifted away astern —into captivity as it happened, for he was caught; the foremost boat swerved a little and offered her broadside to a sea that sunk her and drowned all hands; the other felucca hung on pluckily, but tho bravery of her men was in vain. The gale freshened; the steamer could barely hold her own, and the seas that thundered down on her were too much for the smuggling craft. At uight the skipper of the felu- ca severed his hawser and made for tho shore. The steamboat nearly went to tho bottom ; but after a nasty passage the captain brought her home all right. Soon he heard that the crews of the feluccas which escaped the storm had been caught and sentenced to penal servitude ; whereupon he determined to engage in no more smuggling ventures —unless the towage fee happened to be very heavy indeed. The modern smuggler is not so desperate as the old-fashioned “fly-by-nights ”; but he is much more business-like, and perhaps more successful. —‘St. James’s Gazette,’

SOMETHING ABOUT DREAMS, Various distinguished writers, remarking on the phenomena of dreaming, agree in affirming that the thoughts of our sleeping hours must invariably bear some defined relation to the antecedent thoughts and events of our lives—it may bo to the acts of the previous day; or, on the other hand, to ideas separated from our last waking moments by an interval whose years make up the best part of a life’s duration. To say that dreams may deal with subjects of which we have never had any knowledge whatever is to suggest the indefensible proposition that we can and do remember all the events a’d ideas which have occurred and been present with us during cur entire existence, or, in one word, that memory is practically omniscient and infallible; while against the idea just noted we must place the opposing thought that the brain’s action being largely unconscious in the common operations of receiving—and certainly in those of registering and preserving—impressions, it is more logical to conclude that dreams usually represent images and conceptions of material things—these material ideas or events being often indistinctly presented, frequently altered and transmogrified in their reproduction, and commonly projected within the range of cur night thoughts in a fashion which mayidefy our recognition and comparison of thorn as parts of the waking life of former days. There is no lack of proof from many sides of the extreme probability that these assumptions represent the whole or the greater part of the truth about dreams. That the event suggesting a dream is ono which may cause us aonae trouble in identifying it with our distorted visions is easy of proof from the side of practical experience. Impressions on some special sense will produce very characteristic dreamy, the origin of which may take such trouble in its determination that we might well be tempted to deny the material origin o t the vision. Dr Reid had a blister applied to his head, and dreamt accordingly that,ne had been tc iped by Indians. Here the cfiunaction between the dream and the outward impression, manipulated, so to speak, hy the brain, was clear. But that connection may be anything but patent in cases wnere a person dreams of being frozen to death, the exciting cause having been merely ajdeficiency of bedclothes on a chilly night, ✓'ln a case related by Dr Carpenter, whore/ an eminent judge dreamt of being tontfented by a crowd of lizards which were cradling over him, the origin of the dream was Jstill more difficult to trace. The cause of Ihis reptilian visitation was readily explicable, however, on his entering the apartment in which he had spent the previous evening, when he saw on the base of a clock a [number of carved lizards. A similar infitance is afforded by a personal experience of/the writer, in which ho dreamt that he was walking in a forest in which lizards of elvery hue and kind were engaged in a oiimbat with humming birds. Puzzling himself over the origin of this dream, it at last dawned upon his recollection that some tume previously he had travel'ed in a Railway carriage having for his vis a vis (B, lady whose hat was decorated with humming birds’ plumage, fastened by a brooch accurately representing a lizard. By the same kind of association revived by memory, and often projecting forgotten reminiscences into the mental foreground, dreams are suggested which deal with events at first sight apt to be mistaken fpr those of utterly spontaneous nature, Maury relates that in early life he visited a village on the Marne named Trilport, His lather bad built a bridge at this spot. The subject;

Of one dream was that his childhood days were again being spent at Trilport, and that a man in uniform, on being asked his name, told Maury that he was the bridge gate keeper, and mentioned lis naiile, which Maury distinctly remembered when he woke. Of this name he hud no recollection whatever, but on inquiring of an old servant of his father’s if a person of the name in question was once gatekeeper at Trilport Bridge, she replied in the affirmative, and mentioned that the man kept the gate when the bridge was built.—‘Gentleman’s Magazine.’