ment, close to the mysterious child. Without the slightest appearance of surprise or alarm, but with every appearance of respect, the cabman alighted from his seat, and, carefully taking up the child, who made no resistance, placed it in the vehicle; he then mounted in most orderly fashion, and was speedily out of sight. Almost in a state of frenzy did Solomon Gunn rush back to his bed-chamber; when he perceived a light opposite to the window, which, as has been said, looked upon a narrow lane. There was no gas in this lane, but, as he soon found, the light proceeded from the first floor window of the house opposite, and showed the interior of a small, meanly-furnished room. Two old men, seated at opposite sides of a little table, were plainly visible. One was reading an old book bound in vellum, the other was smoking a pipe. After a while, the smoker, having knocked the ashes out of his pipe, refilled it, and breaking off the end that had been in his mouth, presented it to his companion, who gave him the book in return. The smoker was now the reader, and seemed to take up the subject just where his friend had left off; the reader was now the smoker, and looked as if he were completely absorbed in the contemplation of the clouds that he propelled. When the contents of the pipe had been reduced to ashes, he knocked them out, refilled the bowl, and he and his companion again interchanged occupations. This process was repeated again, and again, and again; the pipe becoming shorter at every fresh transfer, till it was almost reduced to the bowl. The last smoker then carefully put it into his waistcoat-pocket, while the last reader laid down the book. They then both walked close to the window, each with a candle in his hand, and presented their full faces to Solomon Gunn, whose eyes had been riveted on them for he knew not how long, and who now recognised them as the originals of the military gentleman and the civilian, whose portraits, front and back, adorned the sitting-room and the bed-chamber. to everything connected with that unfortunate hostelry, and would invariably shake her head, and utter an admonishing "Come, come, Sol!" whenever he began to describe the two old men and the globe of gold-fish. His aunt, who almost made a profession of table-rapping, who kept a journal of her spiritual experiences, and who placed perfect confidence in every humbug who boasted that he had held converse with Julius Cæsar or Alexander the Great, became an incarnate sneer whenever he began to recount his series of odd coincidences. As for the more facetious of his male acquaintance, they expressed their incredulity with a coarse intrusive candour, that was thoroughly disgusting. The most indulgent among them all, just admitted that a lost child might possibly have been in the street at one o'clock in the morning, but further than that, would not concede a jot. Three distinct hypotheses were advanced by different people to account for Solomon Gunn's singular narrative. According to one, he was inebriate on the night when he sojourned at the strange inn; according to another, he had mistaken a dream for a reality; according to a third, he had fallen into a dreadful habit of mendacity. The more advanced upholders of the last hypothesis doubted whether he had ever visited the town where the inn was; and a few actually went so far as to offer the proof of an alibi, and show that Solomon Gunn had passed the wonderful night at his own lodgings. As for an hypothesis to the effect that his statement might perhaps be true, or perhaps the exaggerated expression of a truth, such an hypothesis did not occur to a single individual among all Solomon's acquaintance. Now, why was Solomon's narrative met with such absolute incredulity, even by the habitually credulous? It referred to no supernatural agency; it treated simply of a number of strange coincidences, and odd events, all explicable on natural grounds: though the facts that would probably account for them had not fallen within the sphere of Solomon's observation. The most provoking part of this affair, how- Here, indeed, was his weak point. Had his ever, was, that whenever Solomon Gunn described story wandered into a supernatural region, had to his acquaintance the phenomena that had it been embellished with so much as a single occupied his attention during his sojourn at this spectre, a considerable section of his friends remarkable inn, he was invariably met with a would have listened to it with profound reverence. manifestation of thorough incredulity. From Those who concede one ghost will concede a hardened men of business, who can conceive no-hundred when required; and if the originals of thing beyond the limits of their own narrow ex- the two mysterious portraits had glided into perience, this was to be expected; but he had no Solomon's bedroom with winding-sheets about better success with the superstitious, the trustful, their shoulders, they would not only have been the romantic. His grandmother, who believed implicitly believed in by Solomon's grandmoin ghosts rather more firmly than in flesh and ther, aunt, and female cousin, but would have blood, and who was always boring her friends conferred passports of credibility on the lonely with the interpretation of her dull dreams, never-child, the headless shepherds, and the gold-fish. theless refused to believe his tale about the inn. But inasmuch as the story kept within the limits His cousin Kitty, whose faith in the prophetic of the natural world, all tested it by those power of gipsies was utterly disgraceful to a civilised age, and who every day was anticipating a husband with a complexion "between a heart and a club," was a thorough infidel with respect common-sense arguments which they would have applied to the ordinary affairs of life, and aii came to the conclusion that so many strange oc'currences as Solomon Gunn had described, could not have taken place within the compass of a single day. A French philosopher of the last century asserted that it is by no means hard to make a multitude believe in an absolute impossibility, but that to persuade it of the truth of something that is extremely improbable, without being impossible, is difficult indeed. To illustrate this assertion we have told the story of Solomon Gunn. VOLUNTEER CAVALRY. THERE is a great talk of raising corps of Volunteer Cavalry throughout England, in addition, of course, to the numerous regiments of rifle volunteers which have been formed in every part of the kingdom. land of the sun; the next best hand across country whom he can call to mind was a Manchester cotton-spinner; and the third best in his list is a lieutenant-colonel of infantry. Lower in the social scale, amongst tradesmen, shopkeepers, and small farmers, how many there are who can, how few who cannot, ride, although nearly all are untaught. There are very many more men-taking high and low, rich and poorwho can ride, in England, than who could shoot before the rifle corps were raised. In fact, we are a nation of horsemen, and with a little care and a little training, might turn out such a body of volunteer cavalry as the world has not yet seen. It may be urged that the yeomanry regiments are composed of the riding classes, and that they hardly come up to the beau idéal of cavalry. This is true, but it is to be accounted for. If appropriately dressed, well mounted, and The English yeomanry areusefully armed, volunteer cavalry can be made most effective, particularly when used, as such with all respect be it spoken-a bad imitation troops would be in England, purely on the de- of all that is objectionable in the English fensive, and in their own country. As an old dragoon; in the British horse soldier as he was dragoon officer, the writer is of opinion that a -as in but too many respects he is-not as thousand volunteer cavalry, if brought into he ought to be. In all the yeomanry corps the field as they ought to be, would do quite the writer has seen on parade, the men were as good service in the defence of their country more stiff-stocked, more tightly strapped, more as a thousand regular cavalry. Further, if, small-jacketed, more unwieldly armed, more in the event of an invasion of England, he was German-seated on horseback, and had a more allowed his choice of commanding the House-general appearance of pipe-clayed helplesshold Brigade of Cavalry, numbering some two ness, than the most ultra regulation of our thousand four hundred sabres, or a similar regular dragoon regiments. number of properly-trained and well-officered volunteer cavalry, he would, under all circumstances save that of a regular charge upon even ground like that of Hounslow Heath or Salisbury Plain, greatly prefer to lead the latter troops. There is no country in the world where so many men of every class are good horsemen as in England. In France and other continental lands, the upper and some few of the middle classes ride occasionally to display themselves and their horses; but with us nearly every class ride, and ride for riding's sake. In what town out of Great Britain would we ever see-as is seen every week in London, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, or Dublin-the lawyer, the doctor, the banker, or the merchant, one day trim and neat in his office or on 'Change -apparently without a thought beyond the case in court, the sickness of his patient, the rates of discount, or the price of cotton-the next day clad in scarlet and tops, well mounted, and riding to hounds? Nay, even of our listless swells," who through the London season look as if they had barely energy to shave and dress, how many are there who in the hunting-field show themselves in the first rank of a numerous and hard-riding phalanx? The most courageous horseman the present writer ever saw—whether after an Indian boar on the Deccan Hills, or an English fox on the Leicestershire grass-lands, is a civil servant of the late East India Company, who lived for thirty years in the English volunteer cavalry should be composed entirely of men not weighing more than eleven stone, who own at least one horse. No person should on any pretence whatever be enrolled in its ranks who is obliged to borrow or hire the horse of another. The great secret why in our Indian wars the irregular cavalry have their horses in better condition than the other mounted corps, is that almost every man is owner of the animal he rides. In some of these regiments a great number of horses are owned by one proprietor, who hires horsemen to ride them, but these corps never have their horses in as good condition as in troops where every man owns the charger he rides. All troops should practise in peace what they have to perform in war. The weapon or the uniform which is not suitable for a campaign should be made over to the "properties" of the nearest theatre; it is not fit for a soldier to use or to wear. Thus, if volunteerslike all other troops-are to be useful in the field, they should adhere strictly to the rules likely to make them so, and amongst these, one of the foremost should be one forbidding any member of the corps to ride other than his own horse on parade. Of late years a great improvement has been made in our English cavalry style of riding, the men being taught to use shorter stirrups, and adopt a much more hunting style of seat than formerly. The volunteer cavalry should in the first place be taught to ride, and should be brought together once a month or so to prove that they have not forgotten what they have learnt. But this teaching should be simply | lighter, smaller in the bore, and longer in the how to manage their horses when together, to sit barrel, than the arm lately introduced into our well and firmly, with a shorter seat than that of English cavalry. This rifle should not be carried, our present dragoon corps, and to be handy with as our dragoons carry their carbines, strapped their weapons when mounted. Their horse ac- to the horse, outside the rider's right thigh, but coutrements should be very few and very simple. slung round the body with a strap: the muzzle The plain every-day hunting saddle, covered with coming behind and above the left shoulder, the a plain, inexpensive, dark-coloured but uniform butt behind and below the right hip, after the saddle-cloth, and a plain uniform bridle-each manner of our own Cape Mounted Rifles, and man using the bit to which his horse is best of the Chasseurs d'Afrique. In this fashion accustomed-would be all the trappings required, the weapon may not only be carried loaded with and could be provided by any large outfitter at a the greatest safety, but is easy to be got at when very small cost. wanted, and when thus slung, the right arm is free to use the sword. Volunteer cavalry should recollect that they are chiefly useful as mounted riflemen, and should therefore spare no pains in making themselves perfect marksmen. The arms of the volunteer cavalry should be a curved sharp-cutting sabre, and a short breechloading rifle. No pains and no time should be spared in making the members of the corps good and expert swordsmen, mounted as well as dis- Without entering upon any of the numerous mounted. To use this arm well on horseback controversies respecting the most appropriate requires the rider to have complete command of colour in which a volunteer should be clothed, his horse. One of the great faults of our English it may be well to give some general hints as to dragoons is, that they are not taught to be handy what is the best style of dress for a mounted with their swords. Moreover, their swords are soldier in England. Hitherto our rifle volunteers too straight in make, too blunt on the edge, and have been too apt to run into extremes in their too large in the handle. The writer has taken an dress: some adopting by far too many of the active part in four great cavalry engagements, Germanic military fopperies which have long besides having been present at more than a proved a standing nuisance in our regular army; dozen cavalry "affairs" in India; but he can others seeming to think that to be easy and comrecollect only three occasions-one, the case of fortable to work in, their uniforms must be more an officer of the 3rd Light Dragoons, one, the or less ridiculous to look at. Both of these are case of a trooper of the same regiment, one, great mistakes. A soldier's uniform should be the case of the English commander of an irre- what in campaigning is called "workman-like," gular corps-in which a direct cutting blow from but it should at the same time be decidedly mia regulation cavalry sword took effect as it was litary in appearance. For a mounted man there intended. For all offensive purposes the regula-can be no better head-dress than the helmettion sword is of no more use than a walking-shaped cap commonly worn in India, and now stick of iron would be; that is to say, it will to be seen in many London shops. Made of light knock down, but not cut through. Not so the native tulwar, or Indian sabre, used by the natives all over the East, and also by the troopers in our Indian irregular corps. In his late Diary in India, Mr. Russell bears testimony to the fearful wounds effected by this weapon on our soldiers. With slight modifications, this Asiatic sabre is the weapon used by the Chasseurs d'Afrique, who have, when called upon, done terrible execution with it upon their foes throughout Algeria. Little teaching is required to make any man of ordinary strength who wields it, a good swordsman, and it is in every respect more easily managed than the cut and thrust sword now used by our cavalry. But to have this weapon as effective as possible, it should be provided with a stout leather, instead of a steel, scabbard: the latter only serving to blunt the edge, which, as in the East, should at all times be kept as sharp grey waterproof felt, and with very slight military ornaments (such as the number of the wearer's corps) upon it, it will not only look well, but sit as easy to the head as a hunting-cap. The neck should be free from anything in the shape of stock, and merely protected from the cold by the stand up collar (which must be quite loose) of the tunic. The latter garment may be of such colour as the volunteers of the corps decide upon, but in the writer's opinion, scarlet is best adapted for a British regiment. Above all things the tunic should be loose and easylarge enough to admit of the wearer's being able to retain a waistcoat, or other warm clothing, under his uniform in cold weather. All military dress should, externally, be quite uniform; that is, no one member of a regiment should be allowed to differ in the slightest degree-not so much as in the number of his buttons or the placing of them on his coat-from his fellows; but men cannot all But besides being good swordsmen, our vo- be expected to have the same feelings of hot and lunteer cavalry should be expert rifle shots, able cold. Hence it is that the tunic should be perto hit any object half as large as a man's body at fectly loose, and merely confined at the waist by a' distance of at least three hundred yards. To the sword-belt, which should be of black or effect this, good fire-arms and much practice are brown leather, with pouch-belt to correspond. required. The best-in fact the only-rifle which There is no better riding gear for the nether a mounted soldier should use, is the rifled breech-man, than wide pegtop trousers, booted with loading carbine, which should be somewhat leather nearly up to the knee; this obviates as a razor. 66 the necessity of wearing Wellington boots under drilled to work them. In each troop there should the trousers, than which a greater nuisance does be a captain, two lieutenants, and a cornet; with not exist when soldiers are campaigning, or even an adjutant, an assistant-surgeon, a veterinary suron guard in times of peace, and have to sleep geon, and a quartermaster, for each squadron. dressed. The Wellington boot at present worn There is hardly a county-hardly a district by our dragoons under their trousers-or over--in England, where some retired officers who alls," as cavalry men call them-causes the feet have seen service with cavalry, either in India, to swell if slept in, and if taken off, is excessively the Crimea, or the Cape, are not to be found, and troublesome to get on again, should the corps from such a class the adjutancy of volunteer be roused out suddenly in the night. A very ex- cavalry should be filled up. All the officers should cellent dress for mounted soldiers, is the ordinary be selected by those who compose corps in which hunting "Napoleon" boot, pulled over trousers they are to command, but none should be selected made of dark blue corduroy. But there are, as who had not, in one or other branch of the a matter of course, many details of costume which service, seen what campaigning really is, and must be left to the members of the corps them-served somewhere or other in the field before an selves. enemy. In the event of invasion such a body of men would be found invaluable in aid of regular troops. As guides, as scouts, as escorts, and to hang upon the flank of the enemy at all times, they would be of the greatest possible service. Break off railway communication, and call out a body of men to which every fox-hunter in England would belong, and what enemy could make head through our enclosed fields and lanes and country roads? Train these same fox-hunters to use their rifled carbines and their swords, as Englishmen, when properly taught, can use such weapons-to charge as their countrymen charged at Moodkee, at Aliwall, at Balaklava, and, more lately, in India-and man for man-nay, even at the odds of three to two-no cavalry in the world could withstand them. Rifled field guns are terrible instruments, but would prove useless, or nearly so, when horses and artillerymen were harassed by men who knew the country well, and who were ready behind every hedge. The writer is of opinion that for every hundred volun To be soldier-like, all uniforms must be workman-like; that is to say, they must be made, more with a view to their being useful and appropriate in the field, than handsome, or what young ladies call "lovely," in the ball-room. The great fault of nearly all our English uniforms is, that they are endowed with much more of the latter than of the former quality; hence the reason that on service English officers wear so many strange and "fancy" costumes, to the great astonishment of all who behold them. In the Crimea, almost from the commencement of the campaign, there was hardly a single officer clothed in the regulation dress of the corps or department to which he belonged, insomuch that it was generally impossible to say what regiment, or even what branch of the service, any individual belonged to; whereas the French officers, having a much simpler, easier, cheaper, and more soldier-like uniform, were always dressed as ordered for their rank and corps. Even in our foreign garrison towns some strange sights in this respect are to be wit-teer cavalry raised, and properly trained, the nessed. Not many months ago the writer saw near the main guard at Malta, an officer dressed in scarlet tunic, and sword and sash, having on his head a green wide-awake hat, with a blue veil. On asking who he was, the wearer of this motley costume turned out to be the officer on guard, who preferred an easy to an uneasy headdress: little thinking what comments on the dis-powers, quick intelligence, clear and ready cipline of the English army he was inducing from three or four French officers stopping for the day in Malta en route to China. The organisation of volunteer cavalry, although a simple matter, is one of moment. A national mounted force of this kind should be raised and drilled by squadrons, not by regiments. Each squadron should consist of two troops, and each troop of not more than eighty, nor less than sixty, effective men and horses. Each squadron should be commanded by an officer with the rank of major, to whom the captain of each troop should be responsible for the men under his command. The more difference there is between the dresses of different squadrons, the better. To each squadron should be attached, as formerly in all dragoon regiments serving in India, two galloper guns, with an officer and a certain number of men same number of our regular dragoons might be spared to fight our battles in other countries. VIDOCQ, FRENCH DETECTIVE. IN TWO PORTIONS. PORTION THE FIRST. VIDOCQ, who was gifted with sound reasoning speech, and who talked better and more to cates in high repute, was no writer, and never the purpose than three-fourths of the advoknew the most elementary rules of grammar and orthography. His well-known Memoirs, therefore, were edited from his notes, not by himself, but by a couple of literary gentlemen. This dressed-up and unoriginal autobiography has lately been analysed and completed in an interesting volume, "Vidocq; Vie et Aventures," by M. Barthélemy Maurice, who has the double merit of industry in the collection of authentic facts, and spirit in weaving them into a narrative. François-Eugène Vidocq was born at Arras, on the 23rd of July, 1775, in a house close to that in which Robespierre first saw the light sixteen years before him. His father, who was a baker by trade, intended that his son should succeed to the business, and employed him at an early age to carry the bread to the customers' houses; of which heavy charge, in consequence of his unusually robust constitution, he was capable at an earlier age than other lads. Like many celebrated robbers, François opened his apprenticeship by stealing from the paternal till. At first, he only abused the confidence with which it was left open to his attacks; when it was kept locked, he stormed it with the help of a false key, which at last compromised him. When there was no cash, he laid hands upon the loaves and the household chattels, and sold them for what he could get, to whomsoever would buy. One day, he pledged the family plate at the Mont-de-Pieté for a hundred and fifty francs, by which he earned the honour of his first detention at The Baudets, or The Donkeys-the town prison, where he had ten days of dungeon by way of a fatherly correction. He left so well corrected tirat he broke open his parent's cash-box, took the whole of its contents, about two thousand francs, and escaped to Ostend, with the intention of embarking for America. How he was plundered of his plunder, how he joined a company of acrobats and dancing-dogs, how he enlisted, fought, deserted, enlisted again into another regiment, deserted again to the Austrians, got flogged or caned, deserted back again, and got wounded in the leg, were long to tell though it was short to do. For, having received his discharge, in consequence of fresh wounds, he married, at the age of eighteen, a lean and ugly woman much older than himself, but who was the sister of one Chevalier, an aidede-camp of that monster of the Revolution, Joseph Lebon. Having met with what he deserved from this amiable female, after disgraceful wanderings in Belgium he moved to Lille, where he lived by acting as the accomplice of swindlers. A violent assault committed on an officer procured him three months' imprisonment in the Tour Saint-Pierre; but, as he did not want for money, he secured therein a private chamber called the Eil-de-Boeuf, or the Bull's Eye. There were in this prison, at the same time with himself, two ex-sergeant-majors of his acquaintance, who were awaiting the departure of a gang of galley-slaves, and a husbandman condemned to six years of reclusion, who did nothing but lament his fate, and continually repeat that he would give this and that sum of money to regain his liberty. As his position was really pitiable (he had a wife and seven children, and when the scarcity was at its worst had stolen a few pecks of wheat to keep them from starving), and as the offers which he made were not to be despised, the two sergeant-majors at first undertook to draw up in his favour a petition for a free pardon; but they afterwards thought it an easier and a quicker plan to fabricate an order for his discharge, which the gaoler, conniving at the scheme, received as good and available, and immediately put into execution. This document, soon discovered to be false, was concocted in Vidocq's chamber, if not with his collaboration. He was found guilty of forgery and the employment of forged papers purporting to be public and authentic writings. Years afterwards, to justify himself against an accusation that he had been often condemned-once to death-he took care to publish in his Memoirs the text of the judgment pronounced against him, the 7th Nivose, an V (27th of December, 1796), by the criminal tribunal of the Département du Nord, sitting at Douai, a judgment which condemns him to eight years in irons, and six hours of public exposure. It is a singular position for a man to be in, to be obliged to make use of such a document as a sort of certificate of comparative respectability. Vidocq, it seems, never underwent any other condemnation than this. This is the proper place to mention, once for all, two extraordinary faculties which Vidocq possessed: the first, was the power of adapting his physiognomy to circumstances; the second, of doing whatever he would with his stomach, either in the way of abstinence or of absorption. A first-rate actor will mould his features to represent those of a youth, or of a man a hundred years old; and this, no doubt, is a wonderful feat; but, after all, it is performed in a theatre, by lamp-light, and at a certain distance from the nearest spectator; whereas it was by broad daylight, in immediate contact with former accomplices, with professional thieves, in the presence of turnkeys, gendarmes, and commissaries of police, that Vidocq assumed whatever stature, gait, physiognomy, age, and accent, best suited his purpose. He was tall, and of athletic build; and yet, when he was more than sixty years of age, his favourite disguise was to dress himself in female attire! The peculiar disposition of his stomach was still more remarkable. We find him, in his moments of distress, going without food two or three whole days; and afterwards, when he kept one of the best tables in Paris, quitting it to go and devour in a filthy den, with every appearance of gluttonous appetite, boiled potatoes, lumps of bacon, and even those shapeless remnants of food left on people's plates in restaurants, which the poor wretches reduced to feed on them style " un arlequin"-a harlequin. We find him drinking, with equal gaiety and in equal quantities, iced champagne and the cheap "vin-bleu," or blue wine, which was consumed outside the barriers of Paris; and swallowing from morning till night, and from night till morning, half-pints and pints of that corrosive poison which is retailed, under the name of eau-de-vie, in the taverns and "souricières," or mouse-traps, which surround the halles or markets. His other personal appetites were equally under the command of his intellect and his will. Be it remembered that the leading points of this wonderful individual's character may legitimately be the object of public curiosity, not because he lived the life of a convict for several years, but because for twenty years he was the chief of the Police of Surety, a service which he created, and at the head of |