CLEVER USES OF FEAR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2057, 27 July 1893, Page 41

CLEVER USES OF FEAR.

It is said that the late Charles Keene, the celebrated Punch artißt, once won a wager by the shrewd use of fear. The bet was made with a brother painter, who, together with Keene himself, was staying at a country house near Godalming. Host and guests were off to London. The undertaking was to secure the trio a compartment in the train to themselves, and yet bribe nobody to this end. Time and place, and the rush of city passengers, made the thing look in the last degree unlikely. But Charles Keene had a gruesome plan. He persuaded his cronies to decorate his face in the tints of a desperate illness. Then, muffled in many wraps, he took a corner seat close to the window, and his friends appeared full of attentive solicitude. The trick achieved its purpose. A single glance was enough for the people who peeped into that carriage. The idea of travelling with oontagious disease made them shudder. They left the schemers to themselves, and gave Keene easy success with his wager. During the chronic Irish" troubles of the last 20 years there have not been wanting individuals of both sexes who have turned public perplexity to private advantage through the medium of a prevailing fear. A case in which a girl won a husband indirectly by means of this sort of artifice was once mentioned in the House of Commons. The victim was a landlord in Westmeath. He followed field sports with' zest, and hated the fuss and confinement of towns. He bad no particular reason to think that he was obnoxious to bis neighbours. But one morning a threatening letter was delivered. It was the first of a series. Terrible effusions of malice they were, decorated with the conventional coffin, and steadily increasing in violence of ' tone. Detectives were engaged, but this Bory of the Hills was not to be trapped. Ultimately the menanced man fled for safety to Dublin. Daring bis stay in the capital his daughter was wooed and won by an eligible suitor. On the marriage morning light was poured in upon the mystery of the unwilling exile. The bride at her farewell had the grace of confession. She advised her father to go home, and assured him that he was quite safe. Longing for Dublin gaieties and matrimonial chances, she had written every one of the letters that had scared him into compliance with her desires. A recalcitrant English musician, who in the course of his travels reached a semibarbarous court, was tested by a manoeuvre nob without its humorous side. He was ordered to sing, and refused. The excuse made was, one commonly held as adequate-- '

i! genuine— a cold. But it was not accepted. Cold or no cold he must oblige the company. The Englishman's temper stiffened at such an inconsiderate command, and he still refused. He was seized upon, and by-arid-bye brought into a large ball. Forced into a chair to which ropes were attached, the musician no doubt began to be anxicus, and with abundant reason. He was hoisted from the ground, and a bear was turned loose on the floor below. The choice, was given him— to oblige with a song or face the surly brute underneath. Fear overmastered obstinacy, and the suspended vocalist did as he was told. In much the same way the Confederate General Imboden broke in an obdurate engineer to obedience during the American Civil War. The general was in charge of an important train making a forced run. After a few miles the engine fire went down, and ' the train came to a standstill. The engineer declared there was danger, and he was actually drawing bolts and preparing more delay. ■ • It was a caße for sharp measures. Imboden came to the front, and his .attitude was significant. He stood by the sympathiser with the North, and a cocked pistol was an elcquent argument. The fire was made up, the alleged mischief was adjusted in some obscure fashion, and with the general and his revolver on watch in the engine cab a - speed of 40 miles an hour was obtained. Fear was brought into play at exactly the right moment. Colonel Walpole, a kinsman of the great Minister, make a clever use of fear during the seige of St. Maloes. The troops came up with a veteran who stood sternly at bay. He refused to surrender, and yet all the party recoiled from takirg the life of one man fighting against odds. A happy thought struck Colonel Walpole, who was in command. He looked the man over and said : " I see you are a brave fellow, and don't fear death ; but very likely you fear a beating. If you don't lay down your arms this instant, my men shall drub you as bDgfas they can stand over you." The ruse was effective. Conceiving the threat to be serious, and dreading the shame of the castfgation, the old soldier yielded. A man on a Pennsylvanian railway smartly dismissed a loafer who asked for work, but, there was reason to think, would do as little of it as he conveniently could. "You want a job on this line, eh,?" ho Baid. "Well, I daresay you can wait a while? Sit down and rest. We kill about two hands a day hereabouts, and I guess in a little while we Bball hear of somebody who's lost a leg or an arm. Then'll be your chance, and you can have the job." The applicant preferred to proceed, and inquire in safer quarters. Signor D'Albertis, an Italian traveller who penetrated the wilds of New Guinea, made a conquest of the natives by a ruse finding its leverage in terror. There had been repeated robberies of iiis own and his men's property, and mere words were of no avail either to recover what waß stolen or to protect what remained. The explorer planned a surprise. He caused a hole to be bored under a great rock sometimes used by the natives as a seat, and carefully prepared a mine. Gunpowder was laid, and all was ready at a given signal to fire the train. , Then the voluble thieves were drawn together and s hint 'given them to gaze in that direotion. To their astonishment and consternation they saw the rock fly in all directions, while their ears were filled with the thunder of the explosion. There was surely magic in it, and these were men to be feared and obeyed. And so full restitution was made of the stolen goods.