Various

“ In a large armchair in a long low drawing-room sat the Princess Henrietta Maria. Tom bowed low as soon as he saw her, and then—acting upon directions which had been supplied to him by Mr Fegan—advanced and respectfully kissed the tips of her outstretched fingers.
‘Mr M‘Dum tells me,’ said the Princess, ‘that you are in all respects competent to act as our private secretary. We particularly need the services of an amanuensis just now, because we are drawing up some memoirs of our family. The documents are here in the castle; but our health does not permit of sufficient progress with the work. ”

“ It is a question whether some return should not be required from medical men of every child born alive, with the address of its parents.
Absolute care in vaccination and its universal adoption, combined with a compulsory re-vaccination on arriving at the age of puberty, would without doubt have by this time fulfilled Jenner’s most sanguine expectations, and smallpox would have become extinct. At the same time, if the government make vaccination compulsory, they have a most important duty to the public to perform. ”

“ The child instinctively paused and turned her face away.
‘Is an impostor, and ought to be taken up by the policeman,’ said Tuppit, cheerfully completing the sentence for her; ‘and he is quite right so far. All the same, Ada, there are great magicians always close by us. There is the Good Magician, Love, who makes you fond of your father and mother and ready to do kindly things for other people. Then there are the wicked magicians Anger and Envy, who make you hate everybody and everybody hate you. ”

“ Again, the Indian juggler does not appear before his audience with the swagger of the man who knows his power to command the applause of crowded houses. On the contrary, he appears meekly before you at the foot of your veranda steps, obsequiously salaaming, quite prepared to be turned away with rough words, but hoping to be invited up the steps to perform; for he knows that if he once reaches the top of the veranda steps, he will, an hour thereafter, be one rupee, perhaps two rupees, richer, and he will thus have earned his living for a week. ”

“ Let the newer instinct of admiration for nature’s wonders have scope. Let the desire for knowledge of nature’s greatest mystery—life—have some opportunity. Let there be kept a source of supply for zoological societies and museums, so that science may ever have material for its investigations. ”

“ Without vaccination, the application of steam and navigation and land travel would have, during the past fifty years, scattered smallpox in every part of the habitable globe; (c) Vaccination has not impaired the strength and vigour of the human race, but has added vastly to the sum of human life, happiness, and health; (d) Inoculation for smallpox, which preceded vaccination, induced a comparatively mild and protective disease, but multiplied the foci of contagion, kept smallpox perpetually alive, and increased its fatal ravages among mankind. ”

“ M‘Dum took it, and having opened it, read aloud:
‘My dear Mr M‘Dum—My friend Mr Checkstone has seen in the paper that a secretary is wanted at Balquhalloch. He is a young man of means, family, good education, and address; he is, moreover, a sociable companion; and you may in all matters rely upon his discretion. I therefore highly recommend him to you. I take advantage of his journey to Scotland to send to you half-a-dozen boxes of very prime cigars; and remain yours very faithfully,
George Fegan.’
‘And here are the cigars,’ added Tom, pointing to a package which he had brought in with him. ”

“ The person who transmits the message listens to the words as they drop from the lips of the speaker; he subjects them to a process of mental analysis, arranges every syllable phonetically, touches the corresponding key on his instrument, and there appears on narrow slips of paper, as if by magic, a phonetic representation of the speech to which he is listening—not only on the materials before him, but on corresponding materials at the distant station with which his instrument is connected. ”

“ One pupil looks up with a smile and says, ‘Is it not a fascinating employment?’ another remarks in an under-tone, ‘Well, this is a study;’ while another declares it to be ‘simplicity itself;’ and so the work goes on. The teacher—whose patience is sorely tried sometimes—always seems ready and willing to render the needful assistance, and is kind and considerate alike to all. ”

“ By securing the preservation of these noblest of nature’s works, Congress will be but extending the work it has so grandly sustained in the past, in the support of scientific research and the education of the people. ”

“ The inoculated person became a centre of infection, and communicated it to many others. It was found after the introduction of inoculation that the mortality from smallpox increased from seventy-four to ninety-five in one thousand; and many of those that recovered, lost the sight of one or both eyes, or were otherwise disfigured. It is not to be{594} wondered at, with such a state of things as this existing, and the whole medical profession at their wits’ end for a remedy, that Jenner should be looked upon, as soon as vaccination became established, as a saviour of his race. ”

“ Whether the animal lymph is as potent a protector from smallpox as that which has been passed through the human system, cannot as yet be determined, though there would seem to be no ground for any reasonable doubt upon the subject. That the humanising process does in some way, at present quite inscrutable, affect it, seems evident from the fact that the vaccine from the calf loses its efficacy somewhat sooner than that from the human subject. ”

“ That vaccination has not done all that was claimed that it would do by Jenner, is true, as the occasionally recurring epidemics of the disease only too fatally testify. But the gain from the time when cities were depopulated and a large percentage of the whole human race was scarred and disfigured by it, to a time when no such suffering is now experienced, is a gain indeed, although it be but an imperfect one. ”

“ In the first place, they should undoubtedly ascertain that every known precaution is taken by all public vaccinators to protect from harm, or disease likely to arise from vaccination, those whom they compel to undergo the operation. Secondly, none but properly certified practitioners should be appointed to the stations. It is not alone sufficient that they be skilful vaccinators, they should also be able to take lymph skilfully from the vesicles without the admixture of the minutest particle of blood. An ignorant or careless vaccinator may do more harm than it is possible to trace. ”

“ The fact is that Miss Stuart—the Princess Henrietta Maria as we call her here—wants a well-educated amanuensis. I manage her estates and her household, but—and I needn’t attempt to disguise it—my education has been neglected. I am not good at letter-writing. Still, I have worked my way gradually up into my present position, and I am not disposed to imperil it. The man who comes here must be my ally. He will be paid four hundred a year, and will keep his place as long as he likes, provided that he gets on well with me. ”

“ In the foregoing, I have given as fair a description as I can of an Indian juggling entertainment; and probably you will agree with me in thinking that the feats of the poor Indian juggler are quite as wonderful as those of a first-class British magician, while the former suffers from numerous disadvantages which the latter is entirely free from. ”

“ This time the juggler plucked the tree up out of the earth, displaying the roots and the remains of the original mango-stone from which the tree was supposed to have sprung.
The snake trick, which was the next item in the entertainment, is one which has a peculiar fascination for native onlookers, for the fatal ravages of poisonous serpents in India for centuries have produced a horror of such reptiles among natives. Our juggler showed us a parched skin which had once belonged to a large cobra. We examined it carefully, and were quite sure it was a serpent’s skin and nothing more. ”

“ It was while the ravages of smallpox were being felt and deplored over the whole country, that Jenner was quietly investigating and experimenting in his native village; and gradually little facts and incidents relating to cowpox were collected, until in his own mind an opinion was firmly rooted that this disease communicated by the cow was a safeguard against smallpox. About the time when he had formed this opinion, an accidental case of cowpox occurred in his neighbourhood, and he caused drawings of the pustules to be made, and took them with him to London. ”

“ While education is doing much to relieve the question of the employment of women of some of the difficulties by which it has been surrounded, there is still great need of further effort ere the three million of women who are compelled to earn their daily bread shall be enabled to do so with anything approaching ease and comfort. ”

“ The government of India offers a money reward for every poisonous snake killed in the country; and the result is that there exists in India at the present day a class of men, called snake-charmers, who earn their living by going about in search of serpents. They play on the peculiar instrument before mentioned, and if any serpent is within hearing distance, it is irresistibly attracted to the musician. ”

“ According to popular opinion, says Mr Hunt, in his Romances of the West of England, ‘there is a clause in the borough charter compelling the legitimate mayor to surrender his power to the “Mayor of Mylor” on the day in question, and to lend the town-sergeant’s paraphernalia to the gentlemen of the shears.’ At the yearly fair, too, held in the village of Tarleton, a mock-mayor was until a very few years ago elected, this ceremony forming part of the after-dinner proceedings. ”

“ As agents are being appointed in the towns and cities in England and other countries, ladies will in future be saved the journey to London, as they will be able to attend classes in their own neighbourhood, as they do their cookery class. As an agency, the Society has found employment for numbers of women, who, as far as we are aware, are satisfied with the results. ”

“ She regarded herself as a British princess; she insisted upon her servants treating her as such; she lived in considerable state, and had a large household; and whenever she had occasion to sign her name, she signed it magnificently, ‘Henrietta Maria, P.’
Young Charles Edward, on the other hand, inherited no fortune worth speaking of. His father had squandered his means in dissipation; and dying, left a paltry five thousand pounds, upon the interest of which the son, until 1880, lived in chambers in the Inner Temple. ”

“ But first I must see Fegan and make inquiries. I won’t do anything risky; trust me for that. While I benefit myself, I shall doubly benefit you. When I have called on Fegan, I shall at once, if necessary, go down to Balquhalloch and see the great M‘Dum. When I wire to you, you can realise; and I can draw upon you for any sum up to a thousand, eh?’
‘So be it,’ assented Charlie. ‘And I hope you will get the appointment and help me out of my difficulties. Why, if only my aunt would do the proper thing, I could marry. She might easily spare, say, a thousand a year ”

“ Before leaving, we are introduced to the secretary, who, like the rest of the inmates of the establishment, until now has been a stranger to us; and as we are introduced, and she raises her bright, cheerful, honest English face, we feel that with her we shall meet with a friend able and willing to advise. When we leave the first classroom, we ascend more stairs, and are ushered into a room where skirts are to be discoursed upon—the ‘short’ to the ‘trained’ skirt being included in the lesson. ”

“ To the other part of the room, parents will in a few days bring their children, and have them vaccinated directly from the animal thus prepared, and may thus escape whatever evils,{595} real or imaginary, pertain to the practice of arm-to-arm vaccination. The calf having done its involuntary service to humanity, is, before dismissal, again weighed, and is usually found to have increased considerably—not, it may be presumed, in consequence of vaccination, but from the good feeding it has received. ”

“ There is no hurry; you can stay as long as you please, and will be kindly received; and you will pass on from stage to stage of the study until you are perfectly acquainted with the whole, each ‘draft’ being made separately and in its proper place in the course of lessons. Cutting and fitting are certainly women’s work, and those who have taken up this new branch of industry benefit not only themselves but others. ”