That the skin or cuticle of grasses contains a large proportion of silex is proved by its hardness, and by large masses of vitrified matter being found wherever a haystack or heap of corn is accidentally consumed by fire. It is said that wheat-straw may be melted into a colourless glass by the blowpipe, without any addition, and that barley-straw will melt into a glass of a topaz yellow colour. ASHING THE PILOT. Ir was on a cold, damp, foggy January morning in the south of China-yes, cold, damp, and foggy in the south of China, where every one believes it to be continually broiling hot-that one of the ships of the squadron left the English colony of Hong Kong, with stores and provisions for the men-of-war at Canton, distant about eighty miles. The war with China had been entered into but a very few months, and there was great scarcity of ships at hand, to cope with an enormously superior force of Chinese, had the latter behaved with the pluck of only ordinary cowards, and had all come out in a body to eject the intruders from their waters. But this they did not do, preferring to cruise about in large detachments of a hundred or more junks, up their creeks, where it was too shallow for English ships to venture, and pounce on such undefended merchant craft as had not already taken the hint and cleared out. ing a 10-inch shot, whose weight is 85lbs. Of these they now proceeded to give the Chinese a taste, who, however, did not appear to be taking the slightest notice of them, and stood to be fired at for about a quarter of an hour without reply. They notwithstanding had all their guns laid for a particular point, and when our ship got within range, they let her have it to the heart's content of the greediest old fireeater on board. Down came rattling on deck, ropes, backstays, and splinters from wounded spars, to the grief of the poor old boatswain, who was running about with a musket in his hand, taking random shots at the enemy in general, anathematising them, and saying aloud what he thought they deserved for disturbing his masts and rigging. Never did men work guns better, or stick to them closer than on this occasion, and indeed it required all their energy to administer anything like condign punishment to so preposterously superior a force, who opened the ball on their part in the following manner: After waiting quietly to be fired at until it suited them to "show out," the Admiral of the Red squadron, or senior admiral, fired one gun, which was followed by the next in order, namely, that of the White squadron, then by the Blue, when they all set to as hard as they could, with what immediate effect has been already seen. Never was single ship, perhaps, in a more critical position, and never, perhaps, did single ship maintain that position better, the numerous shot splashing the water up over her decks, cracking into the hull, or whistling overhead, and cutting up the masts and rigging. Presently a heartrending yell was heard below, when, on some one going to see what was the matter, it was discovered that the pilot (a Chinaman, and well known in the old Chinese war) had, while trying to avoid the shot by skulking below, just managed to catch one, not far from the captain's cabin door, which had knocked away his thigh close up to the body. When he was discovered, he was talking Chinese in such a particularly rapid manner, that the generous seaman who carried him to the surgeon in the cockpit declared that it was too fast for him clearly to understand, which perhaps was as This having at length been brought about, well, as he might have been equally unintelligible the steamer was again got under weigh, and had had he spoken in anything but "Canton Engnot proceeded far, when the signalman reported lish." The shot that had struck him was an a large number of war junks ahead, with every- extraordinary one, having passed through three thing apparently ready for action. Upon this cabins and the ward-room, doing more or less the captain ordered the drummer up to beat to damage in each, and after wounding the pilot, quarters, the first lieutenant standing on the had entered the captain's steward's berth, breakbridge giving his orders: Action on the fight-ing an infinity of Her Majesty's crockery and ing bolt, starboard bow!" glass, and falling expended to the deck. But to return to the subject: on the morning in question the entire Escape Creek fleet, consisting of about two hundred and fifty mandarin war junks, in three squadrons, Red, White, and Blue, was at the mouth of the creek from which it took its name, and our man-of-war, when off the Bogue forts (not long captured), found the weather to be too foggy to proceed, the river being a dangerous and intricate one, in consequence of which it was found advisable to anchor, until Phoebus should have come out strong and given one or two of his own peculiar looks at the mist, causing it to vanish in a manner which clearly showed its antipathy to strong rays of heat. As soon as they are within range they let the Chinamen feel how very heavy English shot are, especially when well directed by experienced hands. On the present occasion they have a particularly good opportunity of judging, as the ship in question carries the heaviest guns our navy knows, of which she has four in her broadside now exposed to the enemy. These consist of two weighing 95 cwt., and throwing a 681b. shot, and two weighing 85 cwt., throw. But while this was going on below, other things were being enacted on deck, where some of the most marvellous escapes yet recorded were taking place. The captain of the after gun had just given the word "Elevate!" with a view to improving his shot, the second captain was on the point of stepping in to withdraw the coin (or wedge), when a shot came, and, shivering it to pieces, went crashing through the bulwarks on the other side, not, however, hurting a man, though, had it come two seconds later, it must inevitably have killed the second captain of the gun. 66 But these things are thought nothing of on board ship by the people among whom they happen, coming as they do "in the way of business," as a commercial" would say. In another part of the deck, two of the officers were standing together, the one asking the other a question, when a round shot came right between their heads, and then went banging into one of the quarter boats hoisted up behind them, the two flying apart, and actually putting their hands to their heads to feel if those necessary appurtenances were still in their possession. At another of the guns, a shot came in and took off the truck (or, as a shore-going person would say, “the wheel"), actually cutting away part of a man's trouser with a splinter, and not hurting one of the gun's crew, who were standing closely round it. The ship arrived at Canton that evening, and on examining casualties, it was found that the poor old boatswain's department had suffered the most severely; the hull, which was peppered all over, coming next; the human department being found to have suffered little, few being severely wounded, beyond the only one in the ship who had in a cowardly manner gone below, and there received the wound which a few hours afterwards terminated his existence. He had, however, been such a favourite with the men for his comical half English ways, that when his death was discovered, and the car penters were set to work to build his coffin, a deputation of the petty officers came aft to ask if it might be a swell one, covered with purser's fine blue cloth. The first lieutenant went down to the captain, who could see no objection, and consequently, when the coffin was made, the carpenter's mate was despatched to the purser's steward for the cloth for the outside and the flannel for the in- | terior, saying that he came by the first lieutenant's order. It was consequently a very respectable affair when complete, being studded all over with brass nails, &c., every one thinking that the deceased man's wife would be very highly satisfied with it, and think it very hand some. One morning, when the ship had returned to Hong Kong, a tremendous howling was heard not very far off, in which four or five voices were evidently concerned, and on looking over the side, it was found that the interesting family of the late pilot, Ashing, consisting of the widow and some very strong-lunged children, were coming off to fetch the body. They insisted on being shown the shot-holes in the bulkheads, and the direction the shot had taken which had proved fatal to their relative, "for," as a Chinaman said, "s'pose they no see, they speakee man-o'-war man makee killee him." The body was taken ashore in their boat, and as it was lifted over the side, the remark of an old quartermaster was, "Ah! that comes of dodging about down below when he ought to have been conning the ship on deck;" which was indeed true, as the chances are that had he remained at his post he would not have been touched, all those on the bridge having escaped. When on shore the coffin was opened, the body was taken out and put into an orthodox Chinese one, made from the trunk of a tree, the cloth was stripped off and sold to the native tailors to make waistcoats for such naval officers as might order them. The first lieutenant's state of mind may be faintly imagined when, on pay-day, he found himself charged with the whole of the cloth and flannel used. On applying to the purser's steward for an explanation, that functionary extenuated himself calmly enough by saying, " "Well, sir, the man who came for the stuff said that it was by your order." This was true, though the subject had never entered the gallant officer's head before, and nothing more could, therefore, be said. Very likely he had the satisfaction of again paying for some of the cloth on settling his next tailor's bill. The whole of the officers and men in the ship subscribed several days' pay for the future maintenance of the widow, who, according to the customary affection of Chinese wives, thought the money, no doubt, rather a good exchange, and quickly looked out for another husband. THE WHIP. HIT-HIM-HARD is an old dog, who has not yet had his day. With the ancients, the whip was the symbol of power. The Romans represented their gods, even gentle Venus, whip in hand, and Cicero thought it an omen when he dreamt that Jupiter gave young Octavian a whip. The regal sceptre is but an ornate form of the stick, which rules. Although Christian culture brought the art of flogging to perfection, it was an old heathenish habit. The Persians accounted it a great disgrace to be beaten with rods, but their kings thrashed with their own hands high state officers, and the court ceremonial required the objects of this condescension to return thanks to their sovereign for the favour he had so bestowed. Artaxerxes Longimanus thought it unsuitable for the great men of his empire themselves to be so punished, and he ordered that the beating should be given to their clothes. Distinguished personages deserving favour of the Parthian kings, were beaten with rods in their presence, and ambitious young nobles contested with each other for this mark of royal favour. With the Indians, the cane was in high esteem. The head of a family had power to cane his wife, daughter, or servant, and even his own mother if a widow. The custom of beating slaves, of course, is as old as slavery, and prevailed amongst the free Scythians, as we know from the story told by Justin, which is to be found in every grammar or reading-book. By the Greeks, even prisoners of war, taken in honest battle, were beaten, and the heroes seem to have found pleasure in whipping, with their own hands, the bravest and highest of their adversaries. In one of the tragedies of Sophocles, Minerva intercedes in vain for a prisoner whom Ajax means to whip to death. Greek slaves were very often whipped, especially by the excitable Greek ladies. Greeks beat their wives, and Romans were sometimes beaten by their mistresses, as Ovid tells, when he advises men not to regard such stripes as disgracing. Annually, on a certain day, all the marriageable Spartan bachelors met at the altar of Juno the young unmarried women, each armed with a whip, to revenge her single-blessedness on the bare backs of the bachelors, by flogging them round the altar. The whip played a very conspicuous part in both the public and private life of the Romans. The lictors, always attending the consuls, wore their bunches of rods not merely for state show, although it was not permitted to beat Roman citizens except in the case of their being thieves: but slaves were beaten with smooth leather straps, called ferula; more painful were the rutiva, made of several strips of parchment twisted together; and the superlative was the ox-hide, called flagellum, often with right terrible. Most terrible of all was an instrument imported from abroad, the Spanish whip, used only by very severe masters. They had not only the right of whipping slaves at pleasure, but even of killing them. The wit of the people divided the slaves according to the kind of whip with which their backs were most acquainted. Plautus, who had been a baker's servant, and, probably, as such had collected very intelligible notes about the matter on his own back, abounds in jokes and allusions illustrative of this subject; such joking is a poor fellow's astonishment that dead oxen should dance on living men. Some masters, not satisfied with the plain Spanish whip, made it more terrible by fastening small nails or bones, and little leaden balls to it. Slaves were stripped, their hands tied to a tree or post, and their feet hindered from kicking by the clog of a hundredpound weight. The most trifling faults were punished in this manner, and a poor fellow might even be flogged for the mere amusement of his master's guests. It was no rare occurrence that a slave died under the whip, and there was no more regret than for the loss of a pan or other piece of household property. The Roman ladies were particularly cruel to their slaves. The poor girls in attendance, scratched and bleeding from wounds made with the long pins the ladies wore as an ornament, sometimes filled the whole house with their cries. The cruelty towards the slaves increased so much that the emperors made some effort to check it. Laws were made, pursuant to which such masters as would forsake their slaves in sickness forfeited their rights on them after their recovery; and a Roman who would intentionally kill a slave was to be banished Rome. Any lady who would whip or order whipping of a slave, to such a degree that death ensued before the third day, was to be excommunicated for from five to seven years. person The young Roman libertines often chose the disguise of a slave's dress for their love adventure. Rich people kept so great a crowd of slaves, that they did not know them all ally, and thus the introduction into houses was made easy. Sometimes, however, the master of the house got a hint, perhaps from the shrewd lady herself, and the intruder was flogged as a runaway slave, or a spy. Such an occurrence gave particular delight to the real slaves. It was a misfortune that happened to the celebrated historian Sallust, who courted Faustina, daughter of Tulla, and wife to Milo. After having received a severe flogging, Sallust was released on paying a considerable sum. are Caligula used the whip with his own hand, and on the spot; even upon people who, by talking too loudly at the theatre, spoilt his enjoyment of the players. He did not much care who the offender was. Even the vestals were not exempt from this punishment. The vestal Urbinia was whipped by a priest, and led in procession through the streets. Other vestals, we told, had been whipped for the same offence. The guilty one, covered over with a thin veil, was whipped by a priest in a dark room. Even empresses were not always spared, at least in the Christian time and in Constantinople, where the mother of Justinian II. was so admonished. To be whipped, however, was, in the eyes of a Roman, the lowest disgrace, and for this reason judges ordered Christians to be whipped at their first examination. The custom of inflicting pain on the body in order to please Heaven did not begin with the Christians. Herodotus relates that, at Bubastis, all the Egyptians, men and women, attending the ceremonies, beat themselves whilst the fire was consuming the sacrifice. The Cariens living in Egypt did even more, as they used to cut their foreheads with knives to show that they were foreigners. The Syrians also beat and maltreated themselves in honour of the mother of their gods, and Apuleius describes a scene only equalled by the performances of medieval flagellators. We find the same custom in Greece, and especially amongst the Lacedemonians, who used to flog themselves partly in honour of their gods, partly in order to become inured to pain. On a certain day a great number of youths were cruelly beaten at the altar of Diana; but it was voluntary, and the boys thronged to this rude sport; it having been considered a great honour to be able to endure sharp flogging without uttering a sigh. The ceremony was carried on with great solemnity; a priestess of Diana, holding a small statue of the goddess in her hand, presided, and priests seriously examined the wounds inflicted by the whip, in order to discern future events by them. These painful exercises were encouraged by all parents, although some ambitious youths dropped dead under, or died after, the whipping, without having shed a tear. To such young heroes columns were erected in a public place. The custom outlived even the liberty of the Lacedemonians; and, in the time of Tertullian, the father of the Church, this festival was kept. The Thracians had adopted a like custom. There existed philosophical sects in Greece who instructed the youths in inurement to work, want, and pain. These philosophers and their pupils flogged themselves severely, or tore off parts of their skin with instruments made for the purpose; for which they were often ridiculed by the philosophers of other schools. In Italy the feast of Lupercal had been kept before the building of Rome. It fell on the 15th of February, and was in honour of Pan. The skins of the sacrificed animals were cut into strips, with which the young men, after having beaten themselves, ran through the streets of Rome to whip all women they met. It was thought to be well with the woman who received a blow. The old religion, the republic, and the empire perished; but this merry festival was kept up by the Roman ladies. Moses introduced the whip into the law of the Jews. The instrument consisted of three strings, two of which were short, but the middle one long enough to embrace the whole body. The strokes were limited to thirteen, as one stroke more would have been two stripes beyond the law. None of the Jewish writers recommended self-torment till the year in which two rabbis compiled the Babylonian Talmud, which introduced many new superstitions into the Jewish rite. One of them was the voluntary flogging, afterwards called by the Christiansdiscipline." The Jews proceeded in this manner: Two persons, feeling repentant, retired to a corner of the synagogue. Having confessed to each other their sins, one of them threw himself on the ground, lying north and south. His comrade then applied to his back thirty-nine stripes with a leathern strap, while the prostrate one, incessantly repeating the thirty-eighth verse of the seventy-eighth psalm, struck his breast with his fist whenever the lash fell. When one had received his allowance, the two men changed places, and the ceremony was repeated as before. not only the rule in all the monasteries and nun- About the middle of the fourteenth century, a desperate longing for penitence came over the world, first manifesting itself in Perugia, by a great pilgrimage of penitents, who flogged at themselves cruelly. A flogging epidemic spread over Italy and Germany. Ten thousand penitents, headed by the clergy, with crosses and banners, overran the country. At first laughed at, and even refused entrance in the towns, they ended by infecting others with their insane zeal. At this time the Black Death was raging, and the end of the world was believed to be at hand. In Germany almost one half of the population died. The fanatics accused the Jews of having poisoned the wells, and these were persecuted and murdered by the mob, who were assisted by the pilgrims. The fanaticism became so ungovernable as to be dangerous to the Church, and Pope Clement VI. condemned the flagellators in a bull. Nevertheless, their practices were continued for many years, though Church and State combined to put them down. At last, the Church resolved to patronise and take under her own control the brotherhoods of flagellators. In Rome there existed no less than a hundred of such fraternities, and they were also to be found in other Italian towns, in France, and Germany, flourishing especially during the sixteenth century; when the Jesuits patronised them. King Henry III. of France once ran This practice became general in the eleventh through the streets with his courtiers, barecentury. One of its chief patrons was the footed, and clad in sackcloth, all flogging themCardinal Bishop of Ostia, Peter de Damiani. In selves. Many confessors abused this custom of his works he refers to the exploits of a monk, penance, and the discipline is not yet wholly Dominicus, with whom he was personally ac-out of date. Within the present century, scenes quainted. This monk often got through the penance of a hundred years in six days. According to the rules of his monastery, three thousand strokes were one year's penitence; Dominicus, therefore, gave himself three hundred thousand strokes in less than a week. To accomplish this feat, he armed both his hands with rods, and Damiani tells us that the body of the holy man looked "like the herbs which an apothecary has crushed in a mortar for a ptisan." Becoming used to the rods, Dominicus substituted for them a more solid whip, with several leather tongues. This kind of devotion was occurred in the neighbourhood of Salerno as atrocious as any that could have happened half a thousand years ago. Flogging in schools was customary, both among the ancient Greeks and Romans. Then, as they do now sometimes, masters abused their authority. Plutarch and Quintilian wrote against this manner of punishing children. In monasteries the novices were treated cruelly, and, while monks and priests were everywhere chosen as teachers, the custom of flogging pupils was a thing of course. It was not even thought improper for a young monk to apply the rod to a young lady if she were his pupil. The history of the unfortunate Abelard is known by every one, and he tells us himself that he often gave the rod to Heloise, not out of anger, but because of gentler feelings. How dangerous it is to beat young children with the rod Rousseau has argued, but we are told that many French nurses beat children confided to their care, because they think this exercise conducive to their right growth. The ladies of the New World appear to have been favoured with the power of the whip by law. Such a law prevailed amongst the Mozcas, one of the tribes of New Granada, and was seen exemplified one day by the Spanish general Quesada. Happening to call on the chief of a place called Suesca, the general found him writhing under the discipline of all his nine wives. He had got drunk one night with some Spaniards; his affectionate executioners had carried him to bed that he might sleep himself sober, and awoke him in the morning to receive the rigour of the law. solemn day all pupils made a pilgrimage to a neighbouring wood in order to gather birch branches which they tied into rods. They then returned home, singing half mournful, half jocular songs, paraded through the streets, and finally gave their collection to the school-house. Amongst the Franks and Burgundians the rod and whip also played an important part in domestic discipline. In the old German epic, the Nibelungenlied, the noble Chriemhild, sister to King Gunthar, was beaten by her adored husband, the hero Sigfried, for having told a secret which had been confided to her. Princess Gudrun, who was kept a prisoner by the wicked queen whose ugly son she had refused to marry, was bound to a bedpost and beaten with thorny rods. Ladies in those times were again more cruel than men, and we find several decrees of synods ordering excommunication for those who would beat their slaves to death. neglected to leave her carriage to kneel down when meeting the emperor in the street, was carried off to the house of correction, and then beaten with rods three days consecutively. The Empress Elisabeth of Russia, jealous of the beautiful wife of the Chancellor Bestuschen, ordered the knout to be given her in public: after which ceremony the poor lady's nose and ears were slit, and she was sent to Siberia. At the courts, even ladies of honour were beaten. Catherine de Medicis, Queen of France, Public schools were everywhere in close asso- not seldom laid her ladies over her knees, to ciation with the monasteries, or, at least, priests punish them with her own hands. At the Ruswere directors of them. In many schools in sian court the ladies of honour, down to a very Austria, particularly in the nunnery schools, the recent time, suffered the rod for gossiping or rod is in its glory. In all schools under the over-freedom. The Semiramis of the North direction of the Jesuits, corporal punishment was very free with this kind of punishment, has been thought to be of the greatest import- and thought, probably, not much of it, for it ance. In many German colleges the "blue is reported that she sometimes got a horseman" was a dread. The pupil in disgrace was whipping herself from her favourite Potemled by the father director to the place of punish- kin. Paul the First was also very free with ment, where a masked man awaited him, con- the stick, even upon ladies. The wife of cealing under a large blue cloak an enormous a rich hotel-keeper, named Remuth, having birch, which he applied with great severity. We find a curious tale in Delolme's Memorials of Human Superstition, about the fathers of St. Lazare, in Paris. Their establishment was a kind of banking-house, at which a cheque, payable in blows, was cashed for the bearer. Many parents or guardians availed themselves of this convenience in favour of refractory sons or pupils. Young people were sometimes clever enough to delude somebody else into the delivery of the sealed cheque for a thrashing, which was always made payable to the bearer, notwithstanding all his protestations. Even ladies took revenge on faithless lovers by sending them with notes to the good fathers of St. Lazare, and the victims of the jest took care not to complain of the treatment they received, lest they should be laughed at by the public. This seminary became at last a terror of Paris. The fathers of St. Lazare lent their hands to such criminal dealings as occurred frequently in private lunatic asylums in England, and the government suppressed the institution. In Protestant schools the same folly prevailed. One Dr. Maier called the rods and sticks the school-swords given by the Lord into the hands of the schoolmasters after the fall of Adam. He called them also school-sceptres, before which the children were to bow, and school-weapons with which the devil was to be driven out of the hearts of young people. In the last century a particular feast of the rod was kept in some Protestant countries. On this The rule in the houses and castles of Europe, a few centuries ago, was very strict, and the rod was thought necessary to the orderly management of servants. In many places it was held to be a personal offence to the master if any one dared to beat another person at a less distance than two hundred yards from the entrance. He who committed such an offence was dragged to the kitchen, where every one of the house officers and servants struck him. Punishment over, the head-cook, or the kitchen-master, presented the offender with a slice of bread, and the butler gave him a goblet of claret or other red wine. Such an execution, which in most cases was left to the discretion of the kitchen-people, was great fun to them, particularly if the offender was the house-priest or the jester. The pages of course came into a large inheritance of whipping. Henry the Third of France at one time caused six score of pages and lacqueys to be whipped in the Louvre, for having mimicked, in the servants' hall, the procession of the penitents, by hanging handkerchiefs over their faces with holes in the place of the eyes. |