An interesting and gossiping volume of personal reminiscences, entitled Camp, Court, and Siege: a Narrative of Personal Adventure and Observation during two Wars, 1861-65, 1870-71 (Sampson Low & Co.), has been given to the world by Colonel Hoffman, an officer whose position during two great wars enabled him to record much that escaped the notice of other observers. Colonel Hoffman held an important post in the Federal army during the American civil war, and at its close received an appointment in the diplomatic service of his country. As Secretary to the American Legation in Paris, and chargé d'affaires during the temporary absence of the United States minister, Mr Washburne, he witnessed the events which preceded the Franco-German war, and afterwards remained in Paris, in common with other members of his Embassy, during the siege. The recollections he has strung together relate rather to the byways than to the beaten track of history during these periods; and it is this fact which gives his unpretending volume its chief interest and novelty. Our readers will probably be amused in spending with us a short time over its pages.
Colonel Hoffman was in 1862 captain on the staff of Brigadier-general Williams at Hatteras, an island which lies in the direct route of vessels bound from the West Indies to Baltimore, New York, &c. The ‘guileless natives’ of this place are, we are informed, well known as wreckers, and in pursuit of this calling they adopt a plan which is simple but effective. A half-wild kind of horse called a ‘marsh pony,’ is bred upon the island, and one of these animals is caught, one of its legs is tied up, a lantern slung to its neck, and the pony is thus driven along the beach on a stormy night. The effect is just that of a vessel riding at anchor; but other ships approaching are soon made unpleasantly aware of the difference between a merchantman riding out the gale, and this Hatteras decoy.
From Hatteras, Captain Hoffman was ordered to join General Butler's expedition to New Orleans, and proceeded in a vessel which took three regiments, numbering three thousand souls. A fact which transpired on the voyage he commends to the attention of those parish authorities in England who refuse to enforce the Vaccination Act. A man who had been ill with small-pox, but was supposed to be cured, was on board this vessel, and two days after they had sailed his disease broke out again. The men among whom he lay were packed as close as herrings in a barrel, yet only one took it. They had all been vaccinated within sixty days.
Ship Island, off Mobile in the Gulf of Mexico, was their first destination to await supplies for the expedition. An odd thing here was the abundance of fresh water obtainable everywhere by digging a hole two feet deep in the sand; in two hours it became full, but after using it for a week the water would be found brackish, when all that was necessary to procure another supply was to dig a hole as before. And yet the island scarcely rises five feet above the sea. While staying at this place the writer witnessed a curious freak of lightning. Eight prisoners were sleeping side by side in a circular tent, when a terrible thunderstorm broke out. The sentry stood leaning against the tent-pole, with the butt of his musket on the ground and the bayonet touching his shoulder. The lightning struck the tent-pole, leaped to the bayonet and tore the stock to splinters, but only slightly stunned the sentry; thence it passed along the ground and struck the first prisoner, killing him; glided by the six inside men without injury to them, but struck and killed the eighth man as it disappeared.
We now come to the writer's reminiscences of warfare.
A characteristic anecdote is told of General Sherman's coolness. ‘He had a pleasant way of riding up in full sight of the enemy's batteries accompanied by his staff. Here he held us while he criticised the manner in which the enemy got his guns ready to open on us. Presently a shell would whiz over our heads, followed by another somewhat nearer. Sherman would then quietly remark: “They are getting the range now; you had better scatter.” As a rule we did not wait for a second order.’ On one occasion Sherman sent out a strong party to reconnoitre, and Captain Hoffman asked permission to accompany them. It was given; and the general added: ‘By the way, captain, when you are over there, just ride up and draw their fire, and see where their guns are. They won't hit you.’ The order was obeyed, and Hoffman was not hit; but he does not recommend the experiment to his friends.
There are occasionally amenities in warfare, and imbittered as was the conflict between North and South, still some curious instances occurred. At the siege of Port Hudson the soldiers on both sides established a sort of entente cordiale. Growing weary of trying to pick each other off through loopholes, one would tie a white handkerchief to his bayonet and wave it above the parapet; and presently a similar signal would be made on the other side. This meant a truce; and in a moment the men would swarm out on both sides, and commence chaffing each other. After a while some one would cry out: ‘Get under cover now, Johnnie,’ or ‘Look out now, Yank; we are going to fire,’ when handkerchiefs would be lowered and hostilities recommence. No one dared to violate this tacit truce without notice; had any one done so, his comrades would have roughly handled him.
A striking instance is noted of the effect produced by the imagination when exalted by the excitement of battle. A staff-officer by Captain Hoffman's side dropped his bridle, threw up his arms, and said: ‘I am hit; my boot is full of blood.’ He was helped from his horse, and sent to the ambulance, the captain mentally wishing him farewell. Next day he appeared at headquarters as well as ever; he had been struck by a spent ball, which had broken the skin, but inflicted no serious injury. Captain Hoffman saw the same effect produced on another occasion. A man limped from the field supported by two others, and said his leg was broken. He was pale as death, and had the chaplain to read to him; but the surgeon was surprised to find no hole in his stocking, and cutting it off, nothing was discernible but a black-and-blue mark on the leg. Men notoriously brave may thus occasionally be imposed upon by their imagination.
Woman's wit, in the opinion of Colonel Hoffman, played an important part at times in the conflict, the ‘rebels’ gaining many an advantage over the Northern men by its influence. ‘In such matters,’ he remarks, ‘one woman is worth a wilderness of men. I recollect one day we sent a steam-boat full of rebel officers (exchanged prisoners) into the Confederacy. They were generally accompanied by their wives and children. Our officers noticed the most extraordinary number of dolls on board—every child had a doll—but they had no suspicions. A lady told me afterwards that every doll was filled with quinine; the sawdust was taken out, and quinine substituted. Depend upon it that female wit devised that trick.’
Woman's ingenuity also displayed itself in other ways. A bag of intercepted letters from the Confederate side gave an instance. A Southern young lady, writing to her brother-in-law in Mobile, narrated how she had successfully played a trick upon a Boston newspaper, compelling it to unwittingly belaud its foes. She sent them a poem called The Gypsy's Wassail, the original in Sanscrit, with a translation in English, expressing every patriotic and loyal sentiment. The ‘Sanscrit’ was simply English written backward, and properly adjusted, read as follows:
The Wassail was published with a compliment to the ‘talented contributor;’ but in a few days the trick was discovered and exposed.
We pass on to the writer's European recollections. He received his appointment to the Legation at Paris in 1866, when the imperial court was at the height of its splendour. The Emperor, when he designed to be, was always happy in his reception of diplomates, and the formal introductory speeches were followed by informal conversations. He liked to ventilate his English, but could not speak the language perfectly. To an American officer (Colonel Hay) he observed, for instance: ‘You have made ze war in ze United States?’ (Vous avez fait la guerre?)—meaning, ‘Did you serve?’ The colonel was strongly tempted to tell his Majesty it was not he made the war, but Jeff. Davis. The Empress spoke English not so fluently as the Emperor, but with less accent. American ladies were always well received by her, and her balls were sometimes called by the envious bals américains. If the Embassy desired one or two presentations beyond the usual number, the inquiry was generally made: ‘Is it a young and pretty woman?’ and if it were, there was no difficulty, for the Empress was pleased to have her balls set off by beautiful and well-dressed women.
Comparison is favourable we are told, in American eyes, to British over the French imperial display on a very important occasion—the opening of parliament by the sovereign, as contrasted with that of the Corps Législatif. The spectacle in this country bears the palm, says Colonel Hoffman, both in splendour and interest. Her Majesty's demeanour is much admired. ‘Short and stout as is the Queen, she has the most graceful and stately walk perhaps in Europe. It is a treat to see her move.’ The Empress of the French, however, created great enthusiasm on these occasions. ‘Her beauty, her grace, and her stately bearing carried the enthusiasm to its height. You would have sworn that every man there was ready to die for his sovereign. Within less than four years she sought in vain for one of them to stand by her in her hour of danger.’
In the year of the last Paris Exhibition (1867), Napoleon III. entertained in his capital the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, the latter accompanied by Bismarck and Moltke. Sixty thousand men passed before the sovereigns in review, and it was on the return from the spectacle that the Emperor Alexander was shot at by a Pole. The ball struck the horse of one of the equerries, and blood spurted from the animal upon the Emperor's second son, who was with him in the carriage. It was reported that the Emperor of the French turned to his imperial guest and said: ‘Sire, we have been under fire together for the first time to-day.’ To which the Emperor replied with much solemnity of manner: ‘Sire, we are in the hands of Providence.’ That evening the writer saw the Russian Emperor at a ball at his own Embassy, not more than two hundred persons being present. He looked pale and distrait, and Madame Haussmann, wife of the celebrated baron, was trying, but without much tact, to make conversation with him. ‘He looked over her head, as if he did not see her, and finally turned upon his heel and left her. It was not perhaps polite, but it was very natural. The Emperor and Empress of the French made extraordinary exertions to enliven the ball; but there was a perceptible oppression in the air.’ The would-be assassin was not condemned to death, the jury finding ‘extenuating circumstances.’
On the outbreak of war in 1870, the American Legation was requested to undertake the protection of North German subjects in France, and procured the consent of the French government thereto. Thirteen distinct nationalities, European and South American, eventually came under the same protection, and caused plenty of employment. Partly on this account, when the representatives of the great European powers had left Paris for Tours, after the downfall of the Empire, the United States Legation remained, and its members endured the unpleasant experiences of the siege. To Colonel Hoffman, however, the anticipation of this was a matter of perfect indifference—or rather he looked forward to it with some degree of liking. ‘I had quite a curiosity to be a besieged. I had been a besieger at Port Hudson, and thought that I would like to experience the other sensation. The sensation is not an unpleasant one, especially in a city like Paris. If you have been overworked or harassed, the relief is very great. There is a calm or sort of Sunday rest about it that is quite delightful. In my experience, the life of the besieged is altogether the most comfortable of the two.’ And the writer professes to think that the suffering endured in famous sieges, and the heroism of the inhabitants, have been much exaggerated. There were, however, many points of considerable difference between the circumstances attendant upon the siege of Paris and that, say, of Saragossa or Plevna. The Germans never made a bombardment in earnest. ‘We were being bombarded, but after a very mild fashion. I have since talked with a German general who commanded at the quarter whence most of the shells entered the city. He assured me that there never was the slightest intention to bombard Paris. If there had been, it would have been done in a very different style.’ But shells fell during nineteen days into the city, and nearly two hundred people were killed by the explosions. In both bombardments, that by the Germans and afterwards by the French government troops, much of the mischief done is reported to have been caused by the mere wantonness of the artillerymen, who under such circumstances are eager to hit something, it matters little what it may be. Indifference acts also on the side of the besieged, and during the worst of the bombardment, men and boys were to be seen lurking in the Champs Elysées near the Arch, and darting to secure the fragments of an exploded shell while they were still too hot to hold, or crying Obus! and suddenly squatting, to watch the effect upon elderly gentlemen passing by. A large business was done in these fragments as relics after the siege.
As regards provisions, the members of the Legation were of course as well off as it was possible to be under the circumstances. The staple diet, however, which Mr Washburne and the Secretary preferred to expensive luxuries, was ‘our national pork and beans, and the poetic fish-ball.’ Occasionally they indulged in small portions of elephant, yak, camel, reindeer, porcupine, &c., at an average rate of four dollars a pound. This meat came from the Jardin d'Acclimation, where it was found impossible to get food for the animals. Colonel Hoffman gives the preference among these varieties of flesh to that of the reindeer, which resembles venison, but he thinks all these meats but poor substitutes for beef and mutton. Horseflesh was the main stay of the population in the way of fresh meat; it was rationed and sold by the government at reasonable prices, nine and a half ounces per day being allowed to each adult. It is ‘poor stuff at best,’ says the writer. ‘It has a sweet, sickening flavour. The only way I found it eatable was as mince mixed with potato.’
The transmission and receipt of intelligence gave rise to some of the most memorable experiences of the siege, and what was done by balloons and pigeons is likely to form a precedent for similar episodes in all time. The French had always a fancy for ballooning, and were probably in advance of the rest of the world in this respect. They soon started a service of mail-balloons twice a week from Paris, despatching them at first in the afternoon; but it was found that they did not rise quickly enough to escape Prussian bullets, and the hour of departure was therefore changed to one in the morning. The speed of the balloons was sometimes marvellous. One descended in Norway on the very morning it left Paris. Another fell into the sea off the coast of Holland a few hours after its departure, and the passengers were rescued by a fishing-smack. Out of ninety-seven balloons despatched, ninety-four arrived safely—about the proportion, says Colonel Hoffman, of railway trains in these later times. Two fell into the hands of the enemy, and one was supposed to have been drifted out to sea and lost. A balloon was seen off Eddystone Lighthouse; and a few days afterwards a gentleman spending the winter at Torquay received a letter from the rector at Land's End, stating that a number of letters had drifted ashore, supposed to have been lost from a balloon, and among them was one addressed to him. It proved to be a balloon-letter from Colonel Hoffman, and is still preserved as a souvenir of the siege—and the sea. The pigeon experiment Colonel Hoffman considers proved a failure, as so few birds succeeded in reaching their destination. Two or three times, however, a carrier arrived safely, bringing with it one of those marvels of scientific skill, which under the microscope revealed correspondence equal to the contents of a good-sized newspaper.
Not nearly sufficient, in the writer's opinion, was done in the way of sorties from Paris. He contends that the garrison should have made a sortie every night, with sometimes a thousand and sometimes a hundred thousand men. ‘Had they done so,’ he says, ‘they would have soon worn out the Germans with constant alertes, and with comparatively little fatigue to themselves. But the entire French army was in want of organisation.’ On the other hand, the members of the naval service have Colonel Hoffman's warmest admiration. ‘The officers,’ he says, ‘are a very superior class of men, and the sailors under them fought gallantly during the war, for there was a large number of them detailed to the army. They felt strongly the deterioration of the sister-service.’ The colonel was once dining at a Versailles restaurant near a French naval officer, when one of the army, accompanied by two non-commissioned officers, entered and made a great disturbance. ‘Cette pauvre armée française! cette pauvre armée française!’ muttered the naval officer.
The poorhouse and the policeman have considerably abated Irish mendicants, especially in the towns; but in the country and in remote places, ‘the long-remembered beggar’ is still an institution. The workhouse is held in abhorrence by this class of vagrant, and any amount of suffering is preferred to the confinement, the enforced cleanliness, and the discipline it involves. The Irish poor are, as a rule, indifferent to creature comforts. They love their liberty under hedge and open sky; and resemble the dog in the fable, who preferred his precarious bone and freedom to the good feeding and luxuries of his tied-up friend. A wretched old woman, decrepit and barefoot, appearing on the hall-door steps of a house she was in the habit of visiting, would be remonstrated with in vain by her patrons, however delicately the obnoxious subject, the poorhouse, was approached.
‘Now, Biddy, it is all very well in summer to go about; but in this bitter wintry weather, would it not be better to go where you would have a good bed and shelter, and be warmed and fed and comfortably clothed, instead of shivering about, ragged and hungry? Why not try—only for a while, you know, till summer comes back—why not try the poorhouse?’
‘The poorhouse!’ (firing up); ‘I'd rather die than go there! I'd rather lie down under the snow at the side of the road and die! But sure the neighbours will help me. There isn't one 'ill refuse me an air of the fire or a night's lodging, or maybe a bit and sup of an odd time. And you're going to give me something yourself, my lady, avourneen, you are! Don't I see it in yer face? You're going to bring out the dust of dry tay and the grain of sugar and the couple o' coppers to the poor old granny. Ah yes! And maybe the sarvant-maids will have an ould cast petticoat to throw to her, for to keep the life in her ould carcase this perishing day.’
Before the famine of 1846-7, which brought about a change in the food of the peasantry, systematic begging was the annual custom. Potatoes were then the sole food of the working-classes, and the farmers paid their labourers by allowances of potato-ground (half or quarter acres), with seed to till it. Money, therefore, was little in circulation among the lower orders. In the interval between the consumption of the old potatoes and the coming in of the new—expressively known as ‘the bitter six weeks’—there were occasionally great privation and distress. Whole families turning out of their cabin and leaving it with locked door, might at this time be seen trooping along the roads—the father away ‘harvesting’ or getting work where he could. As they went along, stopping at every cabin on their route, a few potatoes would be handed to them—less or more, according as the stock of the donors was holding out—so that by nightfall the bag on the mother's back would have increased to sufficient proportions to furnish a good meal for the family. And thus they continued to live until the new potatoes were fit to dig, when the cabin-door was unlocked, and plenty once more the order of the day.
The charity of the poor to the poor is very touching, and nowhere do we see more of this than in Ireland. The people are naturally good-natured and full of kindly impulses; and they attach moreover, a superstitious, almost religious value to the blessing of the poor, with an equal dread of their curse.
A fatal instance of the latter feeling occurred near Limerick some years since.
A young man fell in love with a girl who did not return his affection; telling him plainly that it was useless to persevere, as she never could care for him. He took his disappointment so much to heart that he fled the country and went off to America.
Maddened with rage and despair at the loss of her only son—the darling of her heart and her sole support, for she was a widow—the bereaved mother went straight from the ship that took away her boy, to the young woman's house. Kneeling down on the threshold, and stretching her arms to heaven with frantic gesticulation, she called down its vengeance upon her trembling hearer, pouring forth a torrent of imprecations upon her head.
By the broken heart of her son—by the widow's hearth made desolate—by the days and nights of lonely misery before her, she cursed the girl! And the latter, appalled by her bitter eloquence, and superstitiously convinced that those awful curses would ‘cleave to her like a garment,’ never rallied from the terror and the shock to her nerves of this vindictive outbreak. She went into a decline, haunted by the woman's dreadful words; and her death confirmed the popular belief.
To return to our subject. Although the use of Indian meal and griddle-bread as articles of food in place of the exclusive potato, together with increased wages and the payment of labour in cash instead of kind, have abolished the annual begging migrations, mendicants still abound. The tourist season brings them out, as numerous as the flies in summer, and equally troublesome. A party of English clergymen visiting Killarney were pestered, as most travellers are there, by beggars. These reverend gentlemen had, for greater convenience, adopted the usual tourist costume, with the exception of one who belonged to the ultra High Church party, and retained his clerical garb in all its strictness. His dress caused him to be mistaken by the peasantry wherever he went for a Roman Catholic priest; and he was not a little startled when, in Tralee, a girl flung herself down on her knees before him in the muddy street to ask his blessing. The abject obeisance of the people to their priests in those days, was an unaccustomed sight to an English clergyman.
The traveller in question soon became accustomed to the position, and used it for the benefit of his party. Tormented on one occasion by the importunities of a crowd of beggars who followed them, he suddenly stopped. Drawing a line across the road with his stick, he cried to the clamorous troop: ‘Pass that mark, and the curse of the priest will be upon you!’ All fled in a moment!
Another time the same individual utilised the mistake in the cause of humanity. The party were travelling on a jaunting-car, and going up a steep hill, the driver was flogging his horse unmercifully.
‘My friend,’ said the clergyman, addressing the man, ‘do you know what will happen to you, if you do that—when you go to the next world?’
‘O no, yer Riverence. And sure how could I?—What is it now?’ pulling off his hat and looking greatly frightened.
‘You will be turned into a horse, and devils will be employed to flog you, just as you're flogging now that poor beast of yours.’
‘Ah, don't, yer Riverence—don't say that now! for the love of heaven, sir, don't! An' I'll promise on my two knees to give him the best of thratement from this out, and never to lay whip into him that way again.’
The beggars in towns are often very caustic in their remarks, and indulge in personalities more witty than polite, when unsuccessful in their demands.
A late well-known Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, remarkable for a peculiarly shaped and very ugly nose, resisting the importunities of a woman for ‘a ha'penny for the honour of the blessed Vargin,’ she turned upon him with: ‘The Lord forgive you! And that He may presarve yer eyesight, I pray; for faix 'tis yerself has the bad nose for spectacles.’
Another spiteful old beldam of the same stamp attacked Sir A. B. for alms, following him down the whole length of Sackville Street. The baronet had tender feet, which with other uncomely infirmities, caused his gait to be none of the most graceful.
‘Ye won't give it—won't ye?’ broke out the woman in an angry whine. ‘O thin, God help the poor! And look now; if yer heart was as soft as yer feet, it wouldn't be in vain we'd be axing yer charity this day.’
‘That the “grace of God” may never enter into your house but on parchment!’ was the terse and bitter anathema in which another gave vent to her wrathful disappointment. She knew that all writs are on parchment, and had probably learned from cruel experience the formula with which they commence: ‘Victoria, by the grace of God, Queen, &c.’
The ingenious proceedings of Captain C—— touching the mendicant fraternity, should not be omitted while on the subject.
When about to be quartered with his men in Mullingar, a friend told him before going there that the place was infested with beggars; and that his predecessor, the commanding officer of the last troop, had been greatly annoyed by them. The captain listened attentively, resolving to take his measures. On the night of his arrival at the hotel he called up the waiter.
‘I am informed,’ he said, ‘that you have a great many beggars in this town.’
‘Well, yes, sir; we certainly have,’ replied the waiter.
‘I wish to see them all—all collected together under the windows of this hotel. Do you think that could be managed?’
‘If you wish it, sir. O yes; Certainly, sir,’ said the man, with the usual waiter-like readiness to promise everything under the sun; albeit a little taken aback at so unusual a request.
‘Very well; let them be all here to-morrow at twelve o'clock precisely.’
Such a motley assemblage of rags and wretchedness as presented itself under the hotel windows next day was seldom seen. The tidings had spread like wild-fire; and from every lane and alley of the town came crowding in the blind, the lame, the maimed, the aged—beggary, deformity, idiotcy, and idleness in all their varieties. Curiosity and greed were equally on the qui vive, and the excitement of the eager crowd may be imagined.
At length the captain appeared on the balcony. There was a breathless silence.
‘Are you all here,’ he said, ‘every one?’
‘Every mother's sowl of us, plaze your honour, barring Blind Bess with her crippled son, and the Gineral.’
‘Then call Blind Bess and the General,’ said the captain. ‘I want you all.’
‘Sure enough, here's Bess,’ cried a voice, as a double-barrelled mendicant in the shape of a blind woman with a sturdy cripple strapped on her shoulders, came hurrying up.
‘And here's the Gineral driving like mad up the street. But sure yer honour won't give him anything—a gintleman that keeps his carriage!’ shouted a wag in the crowd.
A dilapidated old hand-cart dragged by a girl now made its appearance. It was covered at top with a piece of tattered oil-cloth, and from a hole cut in the middle of this protruded the head of ‘the Gineral,’ decorated with the remains of an old cocked-hat. The shrivelled face of the old cripple was half covered with a grizzly beard, and his rheumy eyes peered helplessly about in a feeble stare.
‘Now,’ said the captain, ‘ladies and gentlemen’—— A murmur in the crowd, especially among the feminine portion.
‘Ah thin, bless his darlin' face; 'tis he that has the civil tongue in him, and knows how to spake to the poor!’
‘Not a bit o' pride in him; no more than in the babby unborn!’
‘Sure any one to look at him would know he was good! Isn't it wrote upon his features?’
‘No nagur [niggard] like the one was here before him, that never gave a poor man as much as a dog would keep in his fist.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen—you are, I am told, all here assembled. I have requested your attendance in order to state that I have given, for your benefit, one pound to the parson, and one pound to the priest of the parish; and further to inform you that during my stay in Mullingar, not a single farthing beyond these sums will I bestow on any one of you!’
A howl of disappointment rose from the listeners. The captain did not wait to note the effect of his words. He disappeared into his room in time to be out of reach of the chorus of abuse with which—their first surprise over—his speech was received by his enraged audience.
From a recent number of that entertaining journal of sports and pastimes, Land and Water, we take the following account of the curious habits of the woodcock.
‘Probably no kind of game is more keenly sought after in this country than this, the head of the Snipe family; and we will undertake to say that many an ardent gunner, who has become aware that some of these birds of passage have already reached our shores, will keep a more than usual sharp look-out for “cock” when beating up his coverts for pheasants and such-like perennial game. It is astonishing what a fillip to the day's sport a single woodcock added to the bag will give. Row after row of cock-pheasants, noble in proportions, and in their really beautifully variegated plumage, may be laid out with other game on the lawn at the evening count-up, and the host may proudly scan these evidences of the prowess of himself and his guests and the excellence of his preserves; but his eye will always seek its goal in that little russet-coloured bird, the only representative of his species, amongst the other spoils of the chase. The man too who has been lucky enough to have shot him, no matter how indifferently he has behaved at those occasional “rocketers” that have presented themselves to him during the day, is regarded as the hero of the party. The reasons why this annual visitant has such distinguished attention paid him, and always such a warm welcome awaiting his arrival, are that, compared with other game, he is scarce, peculiar, inconstant in his habits, difficult to shoot, and last, but not least, unsurpassed by any, and equalled by few other birds that fly in these islands, as a gastronomic delicacy. There are very few places in England where even in the most favourable seasons woodcock are found in sufficient numbers to warrant shooting expeditions being organised purposely for their pursuit, but they are generally taken with the rest, extra vigilance being observed in beating out all likely localities. The first immigration of the woodcock from the continent generally takes place some time in October, when he will be generally found near the coast for some few days after landing. He is purely a winter visitant and nocturnal, and arrives in England with an easterly wind, and by the light of the moon or in the early dawn. If the elements are unfavourable to his flight, or he is too weak to accomplish the whole journey without a rest, he drops wherever he can find a rock or an island in his course. Lighthouse keepers sometimes find him dead on the lantern, and occasionally, on Lundy Island, woodcocks are found in considerable numbers, thin and weak, and but the shadow of what they will be a few days after their arrival at their favourite boring-grounds. During migration-time the inhabitants used to set nets from house to house in the street of Heligoland to trap them, and probably do so now.
‘As soon as they have recovered strength enough after landing they disperse, and take up their quarters generally in the neighbourhood of springs and soft boggy grounds, but there is no dependence to be placed on their movements. A dozen may be seen in one covert to-day, while to-morrow not a single bird can be found in the whole district. To-day they are flushed amongst the heather on the hill-sides; to-morrow in the deepest and most thickly-wooded dells, or under the hollies and laurels in the home-covert drives. To describe the personal appearance of this confirmed rover is not necessary, as his long beak, bright eye, tête carrée, old-oak coloured body, and his black-and-white tipped tail, are well known, and although there are occasionally found specimens somewhat differing in colour and size, one may live in an ordinary cocking district for twenty years and never meet with one of these variations in the colour of his coat, although some very much varying in proportions from their fellows may be killed in the same district every season.
‘His peculiarities may perhaps be worth notice. His wings are each provided with a little symmetrical, pointed feather, found at the extremity of what is known as the bastard wing, which feather was many years ago sought after by miniature-painters for mounting, to use as a brush in the exercise of their art. The ear is a curious structure, is as proportionately large as that of the owl, and is situated at the extremity of the gape of the beak. The eyeball is enormous, and together with the ear, occupies nearly all the external space on either side of the head. The sexes are almost undistinguishable by external marks, although some naturalists affirm that the outermost feather in the wing of the hen-bird presents a stripe of white on the exterior veil, which in that of the cock-bird is regularly spotted with black; this is a very fine distinction, and not always to be depended on. Another criterion is the size, which offers a peculiarity in that the hen is generally the larger bird. Woodcock are great gluttons, and to this fact we think it very probable their solitariness is partly attributable. Like a goose to a Cornishman—Cornishmen are reputed heavy feeders—one boring-ground may be enough for one woodcock, but is “starvation for two.” Recognising this fact, apparently our long-billed friends do not usurp each other's feeding-ground, having probably an instinctive knowledge that the tenant in possession can find sufficient accommodation for the vermiform portions of life to be found therein. Hence a feeding-ground seldom yields more than one woodcock, although when that one is shot its place is very commonly found occupied by another the next day. Where the latter came from, or why it did not jointly occupy with the former tenant—except for the reason adduced above—is a mystery.
‘The manner of flight of a woodcock when flushed is very irregular. Sometimes he will flap lazily down a ride in front of you like an old red owl startled from his noonday sleep and stupefied by the glare of the sun. At other times he will rise and dart about and zigzag amongst the stems of the trees with a velocity scarcely credible after witnessing an example of one of the owl-like flights previously mentioned. When he indulges in his twisting and darting tricks, he is a wonderfully easy bird to miss. Sometimes he will fly off slowly for a short distance, turn sharply to the right or left behind a tree, bush, hedge, or other object, dart swiftly onwards for fifty yards or so, and suddenly drop, or perhaps, as if receiving a new impetus from his sudden change of direction, speed away to some far-distant shelter. In covert, however, a woodcock's ulterior point, whatever peculiarities of flight he may indulge in on being flushed, is generally the first opening between the tree-tops; when shooting, therefore, as a general rule fire at the first glimpse, no matter how near he is—for the chances are it is the only sight of him you will obtain—and hold the second barrel ready for the aforesaid opening, through which, if you keep a sharp look-out, you may see him dart.’
On the Peacock island in Potsdam we find amongst the white marble statues an image of Rachel, the celebrated French tragedian, placed there in memory of her triumph over a monarch who had been by no means friendly disposed towards her. We mean Nicholas, Emperor of Russia, whose dislike to her had been caused by her republican sympathies and turbulent sentiments, which he abhorred, and on account of which he had prohibited her entrance into Russia; he is even known to have said that he wished never to set eyes on her. This inclement verdict of the powerful monarch was no small stumbling-block in the great tragedian's way, for Russia is a mine of gold; foreign artists and many a Rachel and Patti of our days might relate wonderful, almost fabulous tales of costly gems raining down upon them on the stage amid the enthusiastic cheers of an enchanted audience.
Therefore Mademoiselle Rachel was highly pleased when in the summer of 1852 she received an invitation to act before the court at Potsdam, where the Emperor Nicholas was just then staying as the king of Prussia's guest. The famous actress had been desired to recite several scenes from French plays, but neither in costume nor in company of other actors. She therefore arrived attired in black, the most costly lace covering her beautiful arms and shoulders; but the gentleman who, by the king's orders, was at the station to receive her, expressed his doubts whether the royal and imperial party would not object to so melancholy and mournful an apparel; and on reaching the palace, the artist was kindly invited by the late Princess Charles (sister to the Empress Augusta, and wife of the Emperor's brother) to wear a few gayer-looking things of her own. Such an offer could not be refused, and Mademoiselle Rachel appeared in the gardens adorned with roses. On inquiring for the stage, she was told that there was none erected, and that she was expected to stand on a grass plot in front of the seats of her noble audience. This demand roused her quick temper, so that she was on the point of returning to Berlin, when her official attendant, the above-mentioned gentleman, pacified her by remarking that she would be on the same level with the audience, that her art would prove the greater for the want of any stage apparatus; and (last but not least) he reminded her of how much was at stake—an enormous honorarium and perhaps the repeal of that fatal interdiction. After a moment's hesitation and a struggle with herself, Mademoiselle Rachel took her cicerone's arm, and suffered him to lead her to the spot destined for her performance.
The evening was lovely; the moon, half-hidden behind a group of poplars, threw her silvery light on the pond and the gently murmuring fountain. A few torches and lights illuminated the face of the artist, while the court sat in the shadow. Deep silence ensued upon her appearance—one could hear the crickets chirp—and then she began her orations. The listeners seemed spell-bound: that was not human speech, it was music dropping from her lips. She was determined to be irresistible; and she succeeded so well, that even the hitherto unfriendly Emperor himself, won by her art, rose from his seat when she had ended, and meeting her half-way, kissed her hand in presence of the assembled court, assuring her that henceforth she would be welcome in Russia.
What were the praises, flatteries, and congratulations of the others who were crowding round the happy artist, compared to the homage rendered to her by the mighty ruler of Europe's vastest country, the monarch from whom a sign ordered thousands of his subjects to be or not to be!
Thus was one of the greatest autocrats in Europe won over by the acting and the elocution of—a woman!
In entering on the forty-seventh year of Chambers's Journal, we are able to say with some pride that at no period in its long career has the work, to judge from its circulation, been more acceptable. In other words, the issue is greater than ever, notwithstanding the numerous rivals in cheap literature that have sprung up, and to which we have never had any particular objection; for in this as everything else there is room for all. This prolonged and even increased appreciation of the Journal is, however, a little surprising. From the time we penned the opening address in 1832, a kind of new world has sprung up. We feel ourselves to be surrounded by masses of people who have no recollection of the backward state of affairs in the reign of William IV., because they were not then born. Our professed object, as originally set out, was to offer some elements of popular instruction, without trenching on matters of political or religious discussion, and that was done to the best of our ability. Originally the humbler classes were chiefly aimed at, but it soon became apparent that the work found its main supporters among families of a considerably higher station in society; aspiring youths in the middle classes, especially, adopting it as a weekly favourite. We are happy to think that among the sons and grandsons of those early patrons the work is received with undiminished interest. While one generation has succeeded another, we have in the varying fashions of the day never swerved from the principle on which we set out. Obloquy and vulgar persecution have been employed to gain us over to take a side. All in vain. At the outset we had resolved that nothing should induce us to become the sycophants of any sect or party whatever, and we can safely aver that that resolution has been kept. What others may do is nothing to us.
Does not the result bear the useful moral, that honest independence of principle is best after all? Dozens of rivals patronised by sects and parties have within recollection gone down; and here we are after six-and-forty years as lively as ever—rather better. It is well understood that Chambers's Journal is a publication which does not intrude any peculiar views on religion or politics; that it tries to avoid controversial topics; and aims only at offering wholesome amusement and instruction—in short, always something which will, if possible, elevate and amuse, while in no respect offending. We feel that that has been the rôle assigned to us by Providence, and we intend to keep it. Encouraged by ever-increasing success, we shall continue to spare no pains in making the work an entertaining Magazine for the family fireside. In offering these few explanations, the Editors—which in the present case is almost equivalent to Publishers—again have pleasure in acknowledging their obligations to the long roll of writers who help to sustain them in their efforts.
W. & R. C.
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