THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2331, 3 November 1898, Page 55

THE SKETCHER.

LQNDON OF THE NOVELISTS. I. ZANGWILL. THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES. We have never yet fully realised the infinite possibilities of romance that exist under cover of that picturesque phrase, the stranger within our gates. The subject of our alien population has been , relegated to the arid region of statistical records, the uncerulean atmosphere of blue books, the narrowing confines of red tape ; and novelists have left almost unexplored that wide field in our midst inhabited by foreign people presenting such a picturesqueness of contrast to ourselves — such divergence in feature and costume — such pathos of home sickness augmented by the isolating barrier of race, and the difficulty of striking root in adverse soil. At most, our novelists have done little more than scratch the surface here and there, and we get their meagre results in thin stories and fugitive essays ; but where shall we look for a vivid and complete picture of the Italian quarter in London, the Chinese quarter in New York? Which of our historical romances* has given us studies of the Flemish settlements in Edward Ill's reign, the emigrations to Spitalfields in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? These as yet have not been made to live for us by translation into the domain of fiction ; and one whole aspect of our social life — one great social problem — still awaits its emotional interpreter. •CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO. ■ Fortunately, however, the most remarkable among our alien population — those belonging to ..the homeless race that through the centuries has won from hostile lands not only the means of livelihood but an abundance of worldly goods — the Jews, and especially tho East End Jews, have found a worthy chronicler in the person of Mr Zangwill. The survival of this people through eras of persecution — through still more difficult eras of prosperity, is one of the most extraorainary marvels of history. The divergent climates and customs of countries in which Jews have settled seem to have had an almost inappreciable effect upon the national character. In Mr Zangwill's just published volume on " The Dreamers of the Ghetto" we are struck most of all by the fact of this most remarkable persistence of type. Men of such different temperaments as Heine, Spinoza, Lasalle, Beaconsfield, living in such diversity of environment, have yet in common the great root qualities of their inalienable race. *Superficial divergences may be apparent to the Jews themselves; thus we learn from "The Children of the Ghetto" that Dutch Jews in London are regarded with especial disfavour but to the outsider the thoughts and habits of these, as well as of Polish, Russian, German; and English Jews, are, in essentials, precisely the same. The children of the Ghetto, therefore, afford to Mr Zangwill a more effective clash of contrast with Londoners than any other of the alien people — the clash of race, the clash of religion ; we have an Oriental race, grave, sedate, ceremonious, set against the eager restlessness of our Western nature; "a people with an incurable talent for the picturesque " fixed amid the colourless prose of London streets ; " the vivid tints of the East " shown up upon " the uniform grey of English middle-class life." Our author finds it, however, impracticable to do more than broadly indicate the lines of contrast, since the lives of the children of the Ghetto at no point touch the lives of Londoners closely enough to give him opportunity for detailing comparison. The Jews, who during the Middle Ages were confined by harsh edicts within a barrier of gates, have come to look upon the limitations of the Ghetto as a necessity of being ; and where no such limitations are imposed from without the Jews of to-day create them from within. To use a fine expression of Mr Zangwill's, the poor and ignorant " are their own Ghetto gates," but even here, in our London Ghetto, "the rose of romance blows yet a little longer in the raw air of English reality." The topography of the London Ghetto is easily fixed. The social life focusses round Petticoat lane — "The Lane," as it is affectionately called— "the stronghold of hardshelled Judaism, the Alsatia of infidelity." The Lane was the great market place, with Wenfcworth street and Goulston street for chief branches ; "in festive times the latter was a pandemonium of caged poultry, clucking and quacking and cackling and I screaming." Zachariah square, or "The! Ruins," was also a- branch of the all- j ramifying f&ir. Here lived Malka, who '

"kept a. second-hand clothes store in Houndsditch, a supplementary stall in the halfpenny exchange, and a barrow on the Ruins of a Sunday." The Ansells lived in Fashion street, " a dull, narrow, squalid | thoroughfare in the East of London con- ; necting Spitalfields with Whitechapel and \ branching off into blind alleys." | In the Ghetto, Zangwill tells us, "there ; waa no flaunting vice, no rowdiness, no drunkenness, only the squalor of an Oriental city without its quaintness and colour." THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT. In dreadful contrast to the moderation and decorum of the Jewish poor Mr Zangwill gives us a few pictures of the debased and drunken condition of the Londoners of the East End. The most terrible and striking of such juctures occurs in "The Premier and the Painter," a humorous fantasia of portentous length, seven-eighths of i which was written by Mr Zangwill. One i chapter is called with pardonable plagiarism "The City of Dreadful Night." It contains a sketch, satiric, grotesque, of the East End Sunday, redeemed from flippancy I by its exaggeration of power, and instinct I with a horror derived direct from the | crude and impressive genius of Dore. From this chapter I quote a few extracts which give xis our London under the form of I curious, unf orgetful metaphors : — Crouched beneath the tangled jungles of Night, the serpents of streets lay numb and torpid. Yet were many alive at fanged head and poisonous tail, and occasionally a central gang-lion quivered with vitality. For the demon of alcohol had galvanised them with his electric thrill, and touched them with unholy fire. . . Before the glistening bars Disease held his ghastly revels, while Death grinned in the corner and rubbed his hands.." " Mushrooms in growth and toadstools in operation, they studded the meadows of stone, flaunting and bright-eyed as poppies, and like them, offering to drouse the wakeful care." : But it would be a mistake to suppose that Zangwill concerns himself over much with tragedies of this kind. He has observed, understood, and written about the Ghetto tragedies, but it is chiefly the humorous aspect of Cockneydom that strikes him. "The Premier and the Painter" contains real insight into Cockney ways under its fantastic covering. But "The Old Maids' Club," " The Bachelors' Club," '"'The King of Schnorrers," are mere essays in pleasant fooling or in trivial fooling, as the case may be. "The Big Bow Mystery" is a commonplace detective imbroglio, and " Merely Mary Ann," though she is a slavey in i London, has only a shallow veneer of Londonism over her country upbringing. This somewhat feeble and repulsive "sketch has its setting in Baker terrace, a little South London side street which "was a defeated aspiration after gentility." The LONDON OF THE ARTIST. With regard to "The Master," however, the case fs different. Although the book lacks the originality of subject that made the " Children of the Ghetto " so fascinating — although its plot and characterisation are to a certain extent commonplace — yet the conception as a whole is far more artistic, the human interest stronger, and the writing more picturesque than in the earlier work. Especially we get some imaginative and delightful studies of London as it ia observed by the young artist, i Matthew Strang, which seem to me com- ! parable 5o the delicate idylls of colour which Mr George Moore has painted for ; us. Moore's hay-laden barges on the Thames — his black and white of Trafalgar Square— his corners of the Temple, are all j so many little gems in the galleries of the mind. Mr Zangwill gives us whole series of pictures, equally detached, equally vivid in colour. And running alongside with these we have a painful study of the suffering and failure which fall to the young man's lot in London. I extract a few passages of notes from the Master's sketch book : " . . Lurid splotches of sunset against tall, grimy chimneys ; tawny barges gliding over black canal waters shot with quivering trails of liquid gold from the morning sun ; ragged Rembrandtesque figures asleep under glooming railway arches, over which trains flew with shining windows ; street perspectives afc twilight, with strange vivid skies ; filmy evening rain blurring the lights of the town to a tender haze ; late omnibuses tearing by glistering, moonlit pavements and casting tbe shadows of the • outside passengers on the sleeping houses; foggy forenoons, with the eve of day inflamed and swollen in the yellow heaven. . ." And scattered up and down the book we find even more subtle colour studies than these, where we read of "the play of light on the fish of a huckster's barrow " or in another place of " the yellow sand scat-

tered on slippery days along the tram lines, and showing like a splinth of summer sunshine." % Enough hag perhaps been said to show that Mr Zangwill has given us clear insight into one whole side of London life hitherto beyond our understanding, and that he has furthermore discovered and revealed new beauties in the great city which at first only turned to him its ugliness and its prose. For two such divers gifts Mr Zangwill has our gratitude ; ' and the very fact of their diversity seems to promise the revelation of some other entirely new aspect of London from him in a near future — Ethel Wheeler in the Weekly Sun.

MONTENEGRO.

An extract from a "Visit to Dalmatia and Montenegro," by Herbert Kilburn Scott, in Belgravia. The Montenegrins have a joke to the effect that when the Creator was in the act of placing stones upon the earth the bag that held them burst, and they all fell on this part of the world. It certainly gives a fair description of the geographical features of the country. Dozens of times have invading armies been held in check by these limestone rocks, and up to a few years ago a military occupation of the country would have been extremely difficult, on account of the absence of roads and means of subsistence. Now, however, that the above-mentioned roads have been made, it is an open question whether they may not prove disastrous, should the Montenegrins be again involved in war ; in fact, every improvement made in opening up the country tends to insecurity. [ At present the greatest difficulty in travelling in the country lies in finding suitable restingplaces where one may get a decent meal and clean bed. So far, in all Montenegro there : is practically only one hotel (that at Cettinje), and anyone making a stay in tHe country, and going away from the capital, must therefore trust to the hospitality of the inhabitants. Before going forward to Montenegro, I stayed at Cattaro several days, and visited Teoda Caminara, and several other of the small villages in the Bocche. At the first-named place there is a naval school, and also part of the Austrian squadron is stationed there. On one of these excursions my attention was called by the guide to three Montenegrin tobacco smugglers being chased along the mountain side by Austrian soldiers. After watching the chase for some time, we noticed one of the smugglers disappear into a cave, and come out immediately afterwards without his load, and then run after his friends, who had dropped their packs as they ran. The men were agile as cats, and it waa a wonderful sight to see the way they jumped fiom rock to rock ; they soon outpaced the Austrians, and both pursued and pursuers shortly afterwards disappeared round a bend in the mountain. The men who had been watching now thought they might as well appropriate the pack of tobacco which had been left in the cave, and this they were just about to do when the Austrians turned up again, and it now became our turn to run. Fortunately they decided that an Inglieski could not be mixed up with smugglers, and I was allowed to depart, but my two guides, who had disappeared almost as quickly as the real smugglers, did not report themselves again until several hours afterwards. At the end of the Bay of Cattaro a valley opens out between the mountains, through which a fairly good road leads to Budua, 12 miles distant. This town, called Butua by Pliny, was one of the most important Roman cities of Dalmatia. It is now almost deserted, but the fortifications and castle which remain point ib out as having been an important place in the time of the Venetians. In the ninth century it was almost destroyed by the Saracens ; and Turkish armies have also visited it twice — the first time hi 1571, when they nearly razed it to the ground ; and again in 1687, on which occasion it was gallantly defended by the Venetian General Cornaro. ... The name Montenegro, or Tzernagora, meaning "black mountain," is a rather peculiar title, inasmuch as the mountains are of limestone formation, and are therefore anything but black. Some etymologists explained this apparent misnomer by saying that several hundred years ago the now barren mountains were covered from base to summit with immense forests of oak and pine, and that the constant warfare having cleared away almost every vestige of cover, the soil had no longer any network of roots and undergrowth to bind it to the rocks and has been gradually washed away. The people of the country think it got its name from the deep purple shade which the rocks assume during the after-glow at sunset, and it appears to me that this is the most likely explanation. Although the country has been extended twice in recent years, in 1878 and again in 1880, it is even now only about twothirds the size of Wales. The population is about 300,000, distributed over some 500 villages and towns. The old part of the country is arid and rocky, but the recently annexed portions consist of forest and arable land, and it also takes in the northern half of the Lake of Scutari, which is a valuable possession on account of the excellent fishing. I cannot, from experience, recommend the boats used on this lake. They are of the flat-bottomed, gondola build, and can only be used with safety when the water is quite calm. I shall not soon forget being in one of these. Most of the villages lie on the slopes of the mountains, but the houses are often so scattered that they appear rather to be separate hamlets than the component parts of a village. There are no streets — properly so called — nor fortifications of any kind, the mountains having, so far, formed a quite sufficient barrier. The houses have good walls of stone, but only the better-class houses at Cettinje and Rieka are two storeys high and have tiled roofs, the peasants' houses being generally roofed with thatch or wooden shinples. The fireplace is simply a raised hearth on the floor with a cauldron suspended from a ring fixed in the wall, and the smoke escapes as best it can through a hole in the roof, chimneys being only met with in the better-class houses Only a few of the natives are engaged in handicrafts, their disposition being to let strangers come into the country and do this work for them. The Prince has tried hard to alter this state of things, and in this way

has boen likened to the Great Peter, Czar of Russia, as he has much the same aspirations and the same difficulties to contend with. During the last 10 years especially lie has shown himself very anxious to civilise his mountain tribes as much as possible, and by steady persistence much progress has been irade. In Montenegro there is a larger proportion of men who apparently live without; any visible means of subsistence than in any other country in Europe. Their one idea is fighting, and many of them think manual labour beneath them. It was only after a considerable amount of trouble that smithies were, erected at Cettinje, and the people persuaded to come and take lessons from the skilled workmen the Prince had specially brought into the country to teach them. Afc first a good many refused to learn ; the Prince, however, nothing daunted, went himself to the forge, and, putting on workmen's clothes, spent some time learaing_the trade. After this his people thought they might as well follow his example, with the result that smithies are now established all over the Principality. Shoemakers, farriers, and other trades were equally difficult to establish, but the Prince's undaunted will and his extreme popularity have weaned, or are gradually weaning, the people from the old idea that to live is to fight.

SCHOOLBOYS WITH TITLES.

As a rule, the titled schoolboy i 8 one of the simplest and most amiable of fellows, though rarely among the most industrious, said a master of one of our great public schools whicn is a favourite educational nursery of the Peerage. Generally you will find that the more eminent a man i 3 socially the more accessible and unaffected he is, and with rare exceptions the observation applies to his sons. For instance, the most captious schoolboy — and I can assure you there is no more keen critic of form than the modern boy — could find no fault in the demeanour of our young Princes, the Duke of Albany and Prince Arthur of Connaught, at Eton. They share the rough-and-tumble life of tho great public school as heartily as the simplest of their fellows, and although they had a lot of schoolboy prejudice to face, they have lived it all down by sheer amiability, and are two of the most popular boys in the school. They are naturally exempt from fagging, although they would be the last to claim such a privilege ; but in all their school relations they are as simple and lovable British boys as you could find anywhere. They join heartily in the games and the raids on the tuck-shop ; and when they go up to the Castle on Sundays to lunch with their " grandmother," they usually take one or other of their school friends with them. But, unhappily, all titled schoolboys are not built on the same lines, and some assume rather ridiculous airs of importance and patronage towards their "social inferiors." I recall one boy, whom we will call Lord " Skipton," the eldest son of- a rather new earl, who had not been in the school a day before he had got every boy'a back up by his absurd pretensions. It would have been better for that young scion if his lot had been cast in a bear-piC. The brooding storm waa precipitated on the second day he was with us. A fourthfonn boy caught sight of the inflated youngster strutting along in solitary state, and shouted out to him, " Hi ! you Skippy, come here! " The young lord looked round in amazement, while the blood almost rushed to his face. Walking up to the bigger boy, almost choked with indignation, he said, " Look here, you cad, when you dare to speak to me in future, remember to address me as ' Lord Skipton ! ' " " Very well, Lord Skipton ! I will address you now as you deserve " ; and he gave the potential earl such a thrashing as he never had in his life. This was the beginning of evil days for "young Skippy." He, was the butt of the whole school ; and for refinement' of torture, the public schoolboy is hard to beat. Placards were attached to the boy's back with such legends as " Behold a Lord ! " " Lord Nozoo," and the unconscious wearer of the hall-mark was greeted with shouts of laughter wherever he went. At other times the boys would treat him with ludicrous ceremony. They would form a double line, through which he was compelled to pass, as they made low obeisance to him ; or a deputation would wait upon him and present him with a humble petition " not to be such an ass, in spite of his ancestry." Before the end of the term the boy had not a grain of conceit left in him, and long before he went up to Oxford he was one of the most popular boys in the school. About the same time we had a very offensive boy, the son of a peer of modern creation, who had perhaps more money than breeding. The youngster was inordinately proud of the pocket money with Avhich he was too lavishly supplied, and displayed it with an ostentation which no boy could stand. If he pulled a handful of marbles out of his pocket, there would be quite as many sovereigns as marbles, which he would impressively pick out before the other fellows and replace. At another time he would pull out a packet of letters, and contrive to drop a £5 note. Moreover, as one boy truly put it, " Spondulicks ia such a mean cad ; he spends every penny on himself." As the result of a little conspiracy one day when he was displaying his gold to a group of boys one of them said : " I say, I'll toss you for a sovereign." The young Cioesus hesitated, but after a lot of merciless chaffing agreed to toss — and lost. "Double or quits"/" said his challenger, and the boy, anxious to recover his lost coin, tossed again, and again lost;. The boy now began to be seriously alnimcd, b*ut under threats of a thrashing he continued until he had not only lost all the money he had, but was heavily in debt. " Now/ look here," said the winner, " this is a debt of honour, and if you can't stump up I'll write off to your governor and tell him all about it." At this threat the boy burst into tears, and begged for mercy so pathetically that the winner promised to restore the money and cancel the debt on condition that he "never showed any of his beastly money again." He wag dismissed with at Round kick.

and the cure was complete : for no boy evei* saw the colour of Spondulicks's money afteil, that lesson.

TAKING OUT POLICIES AS A PROFESSION.

ACCIDENT CLAIMANTS ABOUND NOWADAYS.'

Few secrets are more closely kept than' those of accident insurance offices. You may search the law reports, you may make exhaustive personal inquiries in all directions, and the chances are that in the end you will have only a. dozeD or so cases of | fraud on such corporations. When an accident company is swindled, it rarely prose-> cutes ; it prefers to pay rather than let the public know how it may possibly be bled. Over and over again has a professional in-i surer ran away with thousands before ha has been tripped up, and yet he has been allowed to go scot free. From the early days of accident insurance it has been an invariable rule to divulge as little as possible about this side of the business. That there may be wisdom in maintaining a policy of secrecy was amusingly illustrated a few years back. A gentleman, whose superiors were likely to order him to go abroad, had certain private reasons for wanting to remain in England. At about this time he took out several policies against accidents, concealing from the different companies, of course, that he was going in forcompensation on a wholesale scale. Shortly afterwards he made a claim in respect of a serious injury, caused, as he alleged, by the accidental discharge of a pistol, though nobody witnessed the occurrence. A doubt arose whether the wound was not self inflicted? Look at the motives — first, evading employment abroad ; second, cheques from insurance companies. But while the majority of the offices refused to meet the claims made on them, one or two thought it expedient to give him heavy compensation. Now, a certain gentleman well known ia the insurance world subsequently cited this incident (with variations) to induce a commercial traveller to take out an accident pclicy. Apparently it convinced the waverer, for he straightway filled up a proposal form. More than that, in less than a month later he reported a precisely similar accident! His was the old, old story. He was playing with a pistol when it went off and disabled him. And the humour of it was that the company, having no actual proof of selfmutilation, waa obliged, much against its will, to pay him several hundred pounds. Never since has the manager referred to used the story in question as an aid to canvassing. But, little as the methods of defaulting accident offices are usually talked of, I have lying before me a notebook filled with actual cases, each of which was given to ma orally by a gentleman within whose experience it came. From these I gather that ifc is a frequent misfortune of those who insure witlx a particular object in view — namely, compensation claiming — to drop from a railway train. Years ago a foreigner was granted a policy by a company for £1000 in case of death by accident, and a weekly sum while he should j be totally disabled through any casualty. Scarcely had he had time to study the policy ' when he fell out of a railway carriage in motion, alighting on some bricks, and there-! by dislocating his spine. He was picked up and conveyed to % neighbouring hotel, where he lay for a long time in a most critical condition. So trifling a thing might have snuffed out his life, indeed, that a medical man addressed a warning to the insurance company. " The injured man," he wrote, " is married to an Englishwoman, and if she only shakes his bed she will lose a husband and gain a thousand pounds." Startled at this intelligence, the officei 1 engaged the services of a doctor, who carefully watched the man for six months. At the end of that time he, being able to get about again, brought an action against the railway company, from which, notwithstanding certain evidence in the flatter's favour which was produced, he obtained respectable damages. In the face of this result it would have been useless for the insurance office to go to law ; so it paid the unfortunate alien compensation in full. The same office subsequently had a narrow escape of being "' let in " by the same kind of accident. Receiving a claim for certain injuries which a man alleged he had sustained at Croydon, the secretary himself ran down to investigate, and, disbelieving the claimant's story, refused to pay a farthing. That disposed of that case ; nothing more was heard of it. Only a few months later this particular policy-holder wrote that he had scalded his foot Again the secretary went to see the trickster, and this time he came to the conclusion that the claim was genuine. Before, however, compensation was sent there came to hand an anonymous letter, in which it was stated that the man's foot had been scalded of set purpose. The writer of this epistle was then unearthed. He had been, it was discovered, an accomplice of the professional claimant, and had spoiled the "game" because he had quarrelled with his oft-suffering partner. To save his own skin he confessed all ; declaring that that wily rascal had purposed to fall out of a train at the earliest opportunity, after his foot had healed. "** Self-maiming is also commonly resorted to by rogues who prey on accident offices. Government returns clearly demonstrate tha& since such companies have given a lump sura for the loss of a hand the proportion of Americans -who have suffered that loss has increased enormously. And, although there are no statistics to show what the effect of that departure has been in this country, nothing can be more certain than that the number of one-handed men in England is greater in relation to population than ever it was. Self-mutilation is difficult to prove; indeed, it cannot be proved in one case out of a hundred — nay, out of a thousand. But for all that many limbs are doubtless lopped off for the sake of compensation. Once a man insured himself in several accident offices for a very large sum in the aggregate. After a time while out^hooting his gun went off and awa.v flew his leftJi t ,

hand. For the loss he had sustained he claimed heavy compensation from each of the insurance companies. Now, the simple fact that it was the left hand that Avas lost is almost sufficient to stamp this story as doubtful. A man naturally prefers to dispense with the. sinister in preference to the right hand, as beggars sound in bmb invariably bind up the left hand or the whole left arm wTicn they become " cripples " for a time. Further, an agent of one of the offices incidentally learned that an insurance company had for certain reasons previously refused to do business with the injured man. Yet. the. companies, lacking as they did anything tangible that could be presented to a jury, could not absolutely refuse to pay tho claims made upon them. In the. end they came to a compromise with the in- ■ sured, giving him altogether a very hand some amount. Some men even go the length of selling themselves piecemeal to accident offices. In one remarkable case an English corporation gave a reckless rogue, then living in Canada, heavy compensation for the loss of a leg. Years afterwards he. Avent to America, as - sumed another name, and successfully charged the. company for a hand of which he had deprived himself. The fraud Avas even- . tually discoveied, but it was only by a sheer - fluke. Miscellaneous accidents serve the purpose . of large numbers of artful dodgers who - make a business of taking out policies. '' I remember a fellow who Avorked on a comprehensive, scale," said the manager of a leading office. "Having received a claim from him I Avent doAvn to see him, and found him lying in bed, reading the Bible. Avith edifying' assiduity. Something— l could hardly say what— made me suspicious, although the medical certificate he put in —it was for a scalded leg— Avas perfectly regular and his statement and injuries-Avere consistent with it. "So I made inquiries of other accident companies, and the lipshot was that I found he had a long insurance career and had received hundreds of pounds for various accidents. Of course he had not disclosed these facts in his proposal form. When I saAv him again I aslied him for his policy, pointed out to him that by a clause in it i elating bo misrepresentation it Avas valueless, and then I told him something about his past. After that he owned up, and the intervieAv snded by my putting the policy in my pocket and threatening him Avith the police." "We once had a proposal from a man," [ the secretary of another office told me, " and not long afterwards he sent in a claim. There arc claims which strike you as being fraudulent immediately you look at them. Often you cannot give any reason ; a special instinct tells j r ou that there is something , wrong. It was so in this instance ; and accordingly Aye sent a man down to see the doctor. " ' Oh, this is the same case,' ho said. 'I sent you a certificate for this man once before.' "We Avere rather surprised to hear that. But, although Aye hunted up our records, Are \ could find no trace of it. You see, tfcpre really was something wrong. Well, yfittrs , aftenvards, from another part of the country, I got a claim Avhich I kneAv instantly had come from the same man. I recognised the handwriting. The sequel proved that I was not mistaken. We followed the matter up, and discoA-ered that the fellow was then claiming from three or four offices, under different names, for different kinds of accidents. He paid the penalty, for he Avas prosecuted and promptly sent to prison " In his possession Avas found a book, kept as carefully as a ledger, containing full details of his swindles on insurance companies. This, of course, Avas to prevent him from playing the same trick tAvice on one office." For the next case I am indebted to a gentleman stationed in the provinces. " A certain doctor," he said, "not only insuied himself against accidents, but induced one or two of his clients to do likeAvise. One of these men soon afterwards sent in a claim for something like £40, Avhich Aye paid. A month or so later another met Avith an accident, in respect of Avhich Aye paid £50. Then the doctor himself had a few similar misfortunes. Next, the man I referred to first sent in a second claim. That made us a little suspicious. " Meeting the manager of another company one day, I began discussing the number of claims that had come from ft particular district. In consequence of certain facts that then came to light, he accompanied me to the house of the injured man, Avhere I introduced him as a friend. I asked the invalid whether he was insured in any other company besides ours, and he replied in the negative. " ' Very good,' I remarked. ' Some time Ago we paid you £40 for an accident, and I understand that is the only amount you received.' " ' Yes.' "'Then,' said my friend, who had remained silent, 'is that your signature to a receipt from our company?' "The man instantly turned pale. The next moment, forgetting all about his injured knee, he threAV himself on the ground before us and begged for mercy. His explanation was that he had had a great deal of sickness in the family, and had got deeply into the doctor's debt. As he was subject to a form of chronic rheumatism, the medico suggested that he Avas A^ery liable to accidents, and had better get insured. He thereupon took out tAvo policies, made claims |n due course, and gave nearly the Avhole of the money he received to the doctor in payment of his debt. " Subsequently Aye went to that gentleman. He repudiated any responsibility in the matter, and also denied the truth of his patient's statements. We then reminded him of a singular fact Aye had discovered — ihat in five years he had made no feAver than 25 claims on various insurance companies. 'After that avc went to see the other patient fhe had induced to insure, and that case, we found, Avas also fraudulent. "We threatened the doctor ; but we took no steps to prosecute him. Months passed, and I heard nothing of the fellow except that he had made a claim on another office, land that the manager had choked him off by asking him if he kneAv me. One day, Jiowevcr, I received a country paper, in which it was stated that the medical man Jva,d had a stained class Avjndow placed in. t.ha

parish church where ho worshipped 'in ] gratitude for mercies vouchsafed,' or some- > thing to that effect." Ladies are not more conscientious than the sterner sex in their dealings with insur- ' ance companies. In fact, if I must tell the i truth, they are considerably less so, Avhile [ they are vastly more difficult to checkmate ; than men. Certain offices have been bled by them very freely ; but ask yourself the question, What could not a thoroughly unscrupulous Avoman do if she made a business of taking out policies?

THE « LITTLE »» POWERS. FUNNY EUROPEAN COUNTRIES YOU NEVER HEARD OF.

Of course, ifc is obsurd to hint that any reading adult, much less a schoolboy, does not know the States of Europe, by heart. Yet in that continent there are miniature republics and principalities having their own laAvs and rulers, boasting annies — such as they are — of which avc never see a Avord in the papers from year's end to year's end. If the names of some of these were mentioned offhand to 20 average men, it is doubtful whether one could eA*en state the continent in which they are located. We have heard a good deal of the " Great Powers " of Europe during the past year or so ; now let us have a chat about the " Little Powers." Take the republic of Andorra. Most readers Avould be inclined to guess anyAvhere but the. Pyrenees as its situation. Nevertheless, there it is, 175 square miles (fourfifths the size of the Isle of Man) of independent territory, between the French department, of Ariege and the Spanish province of Lerida. Enclosed by mountains, AA'hich render it almost inaccessible, lies this little and interesting republic, Avith its 6000 people. ; In character the Andorrans are a happy- i natured, Avork-loving, generous, gooc-living people, with a fond love for liberty. They are chiefly engaged in farming and cattle- ; breeding and trading in avool, Avood, and i charcoal, with a special keenness and apti- | tude for smuggling into the tAvo big States on either side Avithout detection. j Andorra has its own army, 600 strong, ] and all able-bodied persons Avould take up ; arms in the event of invasion, for patriotism i soars high among these hardy mountaineers of the Pyrenees. The principality of Liechtenstein is never heard of amongst the PoAA'ers of Europe in saying what Turkey shall do, and how China shall be done. This is an unobtrusive princedom just one-fifth the size of Rutland, the smallest county in England. But its ruler, Prince Johann 11, has been on the throne 40 years, and is supposed to be still there, as nothing to the contrary has yet reached England. The chief town of Liechtenstein bears the same name, and is on Lake Constance, having just. 1000 inhabitants. There are not move than 9500 people in the Avhole principality, Avhich is separated by the Rhine. The Prince's revenue in 12 months amounts to a little over £10,000, and his expenditure to a little under that sum ; so that the profits are so small that he has not been able to keep his territory out of debt, though even his liabilities are on a trifling scale, amounting only to £5280. The most attractive thing about Liechtenstein is that the people pay no rates, and are not liable to conscription for the army Avhich doesn't exist. San Marino is another republic of Avhich little is knoAvn beyond its own borders. Yet it. Avas founded away back in the fourth century ; and it has an army of its OAvn, regularly drilled and profusely ornamented, numbering 950 in all, officered exclusively by generals. The entire area is 33 square miles, and very hilly, but the soil is well adapted to the culture of the vine. Some day San Marino claret may come into fashion, and then the little republic will spring into notoriety and affluence. Formerly you could only get to San Marino city by a mule track up the mountain side ; but now there is a serviceable high road ascending Monte Titano, and though there are but 1500 inhabitants, the quaint little place boasts five churches, a museum, and a theatre. The republic is not supplied with a printing press. The people say they don't want to have questions of copyright sprung upon them to upset their equanimity. In addition to the "Little Powers" here described, there are the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the principality of Monaco, both independent States, neither of Avhich have, however, succeeded in burrowing in the same thick obscurity Avhich hides the countries mentioned above. A holiday in either of these four Avould be doubtless a novel and interesting experience.

R4MMING A SHARK.

A RED SEA INCIDENT.

An incident probably unprecedented in the annals of our mail steamers is communicated to us (says the Daily Telegraph) by a correspondent as having occurred in the Red Sea. The Austral, at present on her homeward voyage from Australia, was steaming through that torrid stretch of water- when, on the morning of the 20th inst., a seaman looking over her bows observed something unusual at the point where the swiftly-cleft waters fell away in spray and sweeping wave on either side of the driving prow. The cleancut curves were marred by the presence of some obstacle clinging to the bows, an obstacle which' a little investigation showed to be the carcase of a great fish. To clear it away was, of course, an immediate duty, but the ship had to be stopped before this could be accomplished, a fact which is not surprising to anyone who has contemplated the resistless rush of clear, green Avatev past the bows of a fast-going steamer. Shooting by with railway speed, flecks of foam, air bubbles, and rippling wave crests are levelled down into a vision of parallel lines drawn on the green depths below, and ending in a broad splash of white Avhere the riven Avaters are thrown to right and Jeft by the power of 7000 horses. Such is the impression Avhich is borne in upon the halfmesmerised brain after a feAV minutes' steadfast watching. It is the sea that appears to be moving, and one is tempted to forget that in raalitv it is the great leviathan that

| is rushing onward, displacing a thousand ' tons of Avater every second, while a thousand tons are surging in the stern to fill the gulf left by the swift-advancing hull. It is only ' from a small boat that one can realise the i comailsion that the passage of a great liner I causes on the surface of the deep. The curv- ; ing jets rising 10, 15, or 20 feet into the air from the cutwater, the long waves doAvn the sides of the ship, and the S23outing crossseas astern appeal to the occupant of a tossing small craft far more forcibly than they do to the spectator on the spacious deck of a floating palace. But a few feet in front of this turmoil the sea is as Nature's ever-varying mood has, for the time being, made it. The railway rush is a thing of the imagination, and the only Avarning of the coming upheaval is a throbbing vibration, Avhich, travelling through the solid Avater faster than sound through air, clears small fry and large alike out of the track Avith Avhat speed they may. Of all the denizens of the deep, none, perhaps, is more wary in this respect than the shark. Greedy as he is, he hates the big liner with its untiring muscles of steel, and j a speed that keeps him at least busy if he Avould lie in her Avake for any length of time. ■ An Arab dhoAv, a big sailer, or a lumbering , tram]) steamer is more to his mind, and their comparatively sloav progress through Avater j makes the exciting, but somewhat dirty, I sport of shark fishing possible, although it is almost unknoAvn on the modern mailboats. j But let something go Avrong on board, and j sloav doAvn the engines, and the fell instinct j of eA'il which characterises these deep-sea I marauders Avill bring a sinister escort round the ship in a few hours. Then rifle bullet and baited hook may both play then: parfc, and the captain finds the shark seconding him admirably in keeping passengers interested and amused while tedious repairs are progressing. As a general rule, hoAvever, the mailboat passenger does not see so much of this illfamed fish as does many a Avayfarer of the sea. EA-er and again he may descry a tall j dorsal fin motionless on the surface, for the I shark, like his felloAv ruffian on shore, " loves J to lie a-basking in the sun," and sometimes 1 a squadron of five or six may be -observed , taking their afternoon siesta, a happy family, I These are the only traits of a shark's character which appeal to man — his love of the sunshine and his propensity to sleep. One does not imagine any other fish indulging in such a luxury. Indeed, it Avere hardly Avise on their part to do so, seeing lioav fatally true it is for most of them that " small fish haA r e bigger fish expressly made to eat 'em," and even the heaviest cod might Avake up to .find himself inside that triple roAv of teeth that fulfils its purpose Avith merciless efficiency. But the shark fears nothing that SAvims, and can afford to sleep with the soundness begotten of a thoroughly bad conscience. This it was that proved fatal to the deceased citizen of the Red Sea. Twenty-two feet long he Avas and everything had prospered Avith him. Probably he had had a happy day among the little ones, and " good hunting " was folloAved by sound sleeping. "Rocked in the cradle of the deep," his dreams— if a shark is capable of anything so intellectual— Avere doubtless of the slaughter by which he lived. In all likelihood he never aAvoke. The great Orient liner caught him as he slept, and although after death his sinewy sides held out for hours against a strain Avhich has probably torn many of his felloAvs in two, the Austral, Avith her dead-weight of 10,000 tons, must have ! doubled him up, limp and lifeless, across her | proAv the moment she struck him, snuffing out the big fierce brute as easily as a man might crush a beetle in his path. To the beetle the man, to the shark the liner, to the man his fate. To quote one of Kipling's haunting refrains, "All three are one." j

UimmS AND COSTLY ENTERTAINMENTS.

Last season a leader of London society spent nearly £3000 upon one dinner party for 40 guests alone ; and, successful as the entertainment undoubtedly was, it is difficult to understand where the huge sum of money went. Needless to say, the dinner itself was of the finest quality, but ib could scarcely have cost more than' £200, and the large balance must therefore have been expended upon novelties quite beyond the fare. Among the attractions which dazzled and delighted the 40 lucky guests, one of the most charming was the transformation of the dining and drawing rooms into bowers of white, cieam, and pink roses. Every inch of the walls, doors, and ceilings was" covered by a beautiful, fragrant rose, and the carpets were smothered in rose petals. All the china used at dinner was rose-tinted and petal-formed, being specially made for the occasion. A string band played during Jhe whole of the evening in a conservatory, where a small fountain shot up a shower of eau-de-Cologne instead of water. It is said that the latter small novelty cost the extravagant hostess more than £80 in eau-de-Cologne alone. There were crystallised rose-leaves at dessert, and rose-water in the finger bowls. The windows in the salon were draped with curtains of roses ; indeed, it was a rose dinner with roses everywhere, and if one looks for the proverbial thorn, it pricks in the £3000 estimated cost of the evening's entertainment. A short time ago a wealthy New York lady gave what she designated a " wardinner " to 30 of her friends, and it certainly proved a remarkably unique entertainment. The dining table was spread with a silk " Star-spangled Banner," and the walls and windows were draped with others. In some way, small or great, every course and item suggested the Avar spirit. There Avere dishes of delicate sweets made to represent cannons on carriages and with ammunition ; there was a fine goose Avith a model battleship of dressing on its back ; then a boar's head, with a small model of a Spanish gunboat in its mouth. Facing each diner stood tAvo small silver cannons, which belched out salt and pepper. Each diner had a silk American flag as a napkin and a crystal ship's hulk as a finger bowl ; and during dinner a splendid band played martial music, Avhich must have seriously retarded digestion. After dinner the gentlemen smoked Havana cigars, which they lit from a silver cannon . fed by spirits

for flames ; while, later, they drank coffee with the ladies from cups shaped like conning towers. It is another American lady who has earned the reputation of being the most extravagant private entertainer of the age. Having almost inexhaustible means at her command, she has brought extravagance up to the level of a fine art. She has been known to pay 11 guineas a head to the caterers who provided a dance supper, and that without considering wines. At an evening entertainment this reckless lady gave a short time ago she made a display of her wealth which had been rather more suited to the table of an Eastern monarch than to that of the wife of a New York merchant. Everything down to the very table was specially made for the occasion. The tablecloth and napkins were embroidered with gold thread ; the fruit knives had golden blades ; the fruits and sweets were placed upon silver-gilt dishes and plates ; and every spoon and fork was of silver-gilt. In the middle of the table was a small scent fountain, and an ingenious electric contrivance threw coloured lights upon the spray as it rose from a jewelled stem and fell upon a bed of exquisite roses, reposing in a massive , golden bowl. The dinner, consisting of 10 ebborats course?, was entirely served upon silver-plated plates and dishes, and every guest had a footman to attend specially to his or her wants. After dinner the guests repaired to the salon to enjoy a concert of all the most famous artists at that time in America, who were engaged at huge expense for the occasion.

ST. BERNARD.

(Churchman.)

Born in 1091, dying in 1153, St. Bernard's life coincides with the central portion of the Middle Ages, and is well summed up by a Avell-known historian : — He saw the i first and second Crusades, the beginnings [ of scholasticism, a great reformation movement in the church, and the noblest period of growth and influence monasticism was ' destined to know. And in all these, as we shall see, we find Bernard a foremost actor, an energetic and zealous worker. He was born near Dijon, of noble and pious parents. His father was a man of high character, a brave soldier, and a kind-hearted and charit- | able man. His mother was his worthy ( help- ; meet, caring for her children, dedicating her '■ six sons to the lord from their birth, visit- : ing the fatherless and widowed in their afflic- ! tion, and keeping herself unspotted from j the world. Of the children Bernard was the third son, and one of his earliest recollections : must have been the events connected with I the First Crusade. We have no time to j dwell upon this at any length. Enough to' remind you of the terrible tales of sufferingendured by the Christians in the Holy Land | at the hands of the Turks, who had taken I possession of Palestine in 1076 ; the preach- I ing of Peter the Hermit, who had been to ' Jerusalem, and seen with his own eyes the cruelties which were being perpetrated; his triumphant progress through Europe, as he | stirred up the people everywhere to an uncontrollable enthusiasm the starting of the first expedition ; its many disasters' and at i length its final success, when in 1099, at the hour of 3 on a Friday afternoon, the army of Crusaders, with Godfrey of Bouillon at its head, mounted the walls of Jerusalem, and ' " wading through the blood of the Saracens up to the knees of their horses," took possession of the Holy City. . . . At the age of 22 he joined the humble and poor monastery of Citeaux. It belonged to the Cistercian Order and the rule of St. ■Benedict was strictly observed in it. The discipline was severe, and the asceticism practised by the monks in striking contrast to (he luxurious self-indulgence which had ! found its way into many religious communities at that time. Having entered upon this life, Bernard did not rest until by the force of his chai-acier and the consistency of his life he so commended the stop he had taken that in a short time he induced his brothers and many friends to follow his example. It is interesting to learn that the head of this monastery was Stephen Harding, an Englishman, whose great desire was to reform monasticism, and who found in Bernard a true friend, a like-minded enthusiast, and a wise adviser. The life at Citeaux was hard, but not severe enough for Bernard, who with the proneness to extremes which so often characterises the young, carried his austerities t) an extraordinary degree of extravagance, ■which he himself lived to repent. We are told that he strove " not only to subdue the desires of the body, which come through the senses, but the senses themselves. He stopped his ears that he might not hear the idle talk. of friends who came to visit him ; passed whole nights without sleep, and but ' for the interference of his friends would have . sacrificed his life." In his later years he • lamented much the excessive mortification he '. had practised, by which he had enfeebled his bodily powers, unfitted himself for work, and ' shortened his life. After two years spent in this way, having been chosen by the abbot to go forth and begin a monastery where reforms could be more easily carried out, he left Citeaux with 12 companions, and founded the abbey with which his name will always remain associated. There the purity of his life, the austerity of his self-denial, the wondeiful influence he gained over all who came in contact with him, aided by the reputation of prophetic visions and miraculous gifts, soon made him famous. The inmates increased to 700, among whom was Henry, brother of the King, and afterwards Archbishop of Rheims, and others whose names are well known in church history. We are ' told that in a short time no less than 160 monasteries were founded by him and his dis- ' ciples, while the very name of the valley where the monastery was situated was ; changed from the Valley of Wormwood to ' Clairvaux, or the Bright Valley. His first great opportunity came to him in 1130, when, after the death of Pope Honorius 11, two rival Popes were set vp — Gre- , gory, Cardinal of St. Angelo, under tfie name of Innocent 11, and Peter Leonis, Cardinal of' St. Mary, grandson of a wealthy Jew who had become a Christian, under the name of Anacletus 11. In less than three hours on the same day these two men were consecrated Popes in Rome, and for eight years they struggled for the sunrernacy. Anacletus, by

the lavish use of his great wealth and the power his family had gained in Rome, soon got the upper hand in that city. He took possession of (the then) Sfc. Peter's by force, and Innocent was forced to betake himself to France for safety. There the important question Avas, .What would the King and church of France do? Whose side would they take in the dispute? For ou that decision the ultimate issue in a great measure depended. A council Avas summoned by; Louis VI at Etampes to consider the matter, which, Avrites the historian, '' the man on Avhom the eyes of the church had long been fixed Avas commanded to attend." Bernard obeyed the summons very reluctantly, but once there he took a leading part in the discussion, and so powerful was his advocacy j that his counsel prevailed, and the assembly pionounced in favour of Pope Innocent. Spain and Germany quickly followed the example set by France, and then Bernard took on himself the task of persuading Henry lof England. The King happened to be ab ' the time on the Continent, on territory that belonged to England, and there Bernard sought him. And Avhen the King seemed inclined to listen to the prelates about him, \ Avho urged him to support Anacletus because of his Avealth, Bernard said, " Are you afraid j that you may sin by giving your obedience j to Innocent? Think how, you may ansAver j for your other sins, and let this sin rest on ; me." At last Henry yielded, and accom- • panied Bernard to Chartres, Avhere he pro- | nii.sed his support to Innocent. We are not ' surprised to learn that Bernard after this j gained an immense influence over the Pope, and, became his most trusted companion, so that Avhen he left France and returned to Ifaly Bernard accompanied him, and by his splendid eloquence and Avinning poAver persuaded the people everywhere to acknowledge Innocent as the rightful Pope. At length, j Avhen Anacletus died in 1138 and a successor Avas set up, Bernard so prevailed Avith him that he renounced his claim, stripped off his insignia, and, led by the saint, prostrated himself at the feet of Innocent and paid him homage. His letters, sermons, and treatises tell of his poAver as a Avriter, Avhile his hymns, translated from the original Latin, are Avell known to us. Wo must, however, be careful to distinguish him from Bernard of Cluny., from Avhose pen we have " Jerusalem the golden," '■ Brief life here is our portion," " For thee,O dear, dear country," and "The Avorld is very evil." The best khoAvn hymns of St. •Bernard of Clairvaux are " Jesu, the very; thought of Thee," " 0 Jesu, King most wonderful," "Jesu, the yery thought is sAveeV* " O Jesu, Thou the beauty art," and " Jesu, Thy mercies are untold." There remains little more to say of this great saint. He sought no honour, refused aU dignities, and c'ied, as for 38 years he had lived, tho Abbot of Clairvaux. Up to the last he did not spare himself, and the closing act of his life Avas a successful effort to reconcile the combatants in a fierce Avar winch had sprung up betAveen the toAvn of Metz and the neighbouring barons. He rose from his sick bed, Avas carried to the place in a litter, and, having accomplished his Avorjc of peacemaking, returned to the quiet of the abbey he loved so dearly, Avhere he breathed his last on May 20, 1153. A letter Avhich he Avrote to a friend only a few days before his death tells hoAv, in perfect trust, he commanded his spirit into the hands of a faithful Creator and most merciful Saviour. " Pray ye to the Saviour Avho willeth not the death of a sinner tiiafc He Avould not delay my timely exit, but. that still He would guard it. Fortify with a our prayers a poor umvorthy creature, that the enemy aa'lio lies in Avait may find no place Avhore he may fix his teeth and inflict a, wound." He died as he had lived, a humble iolloAver of the master he had served so faithfully. His contemporaries called him the thirteenth Apostle, and 10 years after his death he was canonised by the church as a saint and doctor. I cannot better conclude than by quoting the words with -which Luther, writing some 400 years later, sums up his life and character, and which are given by a modern Avriter of St. Bernard's life : — "Thus died Bernard, a man so godly, so holy, and so chaste that he is to be commended and preferred before all the Fathers. He, being grievously sick and haA'ing no hope of life, put not his trust in his single life, in which he had yet lived most chastely, nor yet in his good works or deeds of charity, of Avhich he had done many ; but removing them far out of his sight, and receiving the benefit of Christ by faith, he said, ' I have liA-ed Avickedly, but Thou, Lord Jesxis, dosfc possess the Kingdom of Heav-en by double right— first, because Thou art th« Son of God ; secondly, because Thou hn?t purchased it by Thy Death and Passion. Tho first Thou keepest for Thyself as Thy birthright ; the second Thou givest to me, not by the right of my Avorks, but by the right o f grace.' He set.not against the wrath of Of d his monastic, state nor his angelical life, li:c he took of that one thing Avhich was necsfi*f ary, : and so was saved."

— Stern necessity — the rudder <tf do 1-oat-—Virtuous Indignation. — First B>)rglar (indignantly): "Well, if bc>e ain't anudder one o1o 1 them rascally tvsnkkeepers short in his accounts-— this ca.'Li book says £500 cash in hand, a .id there nir/t but £200 in the safe. Wot in thunder is society a-coming" to? I sun 3l see io it that his employer gits notofitd o' this— business men should" protect one anudder."