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Adelaide, August 8th. 1852.

My dear Frank,

After a rough voyage of three weeks we arrived here in good health. We had a very agreeable lot of chaps on board, I mean when they were not spewing, which all of them did with few exceptions - I was one of these, for having come from a country where I had known the want of grub I thought it very imprudent of the passengers to throw theirs to the fishes. Fred and Ander$$ looked particularly blue and spouted so much that they looked "very like a whale". Not to be wondered at when great rough chaps laid in bed calling out for sago. Seeing and hearing so many above and below all sick at once was most disgusting and certainly would have upset my etiquette had I not resorted to those very efficacious restoratives a "Tot and a quid." I never wish to go to sea again with women and children, the former because they are all sick and prevent one from smoking below (deck), the latter because they make such a devil of a stink.

From the best authorities we have heard accounts of the Diggins and are better pleased and more sanguine than ever, but find we sho uld not have come quite so soon, at least people say so, we shall know more about it when we get to Melbourne. The things to be considered are these, during the winter there are comparatively few diggers and those constantly leaving are selling off cheaply so that tools are reasonable but at the same time Flour is risen from £8, to £23, pr Bag on account of the roads being one complete bog, when the weather takes up flour will be cheap and tools risen. I hope my dear Brother you will do your best on the Farm, as the Diggins are the most complete lottery in the world - you may be working in the middle and get nothing while all around may be making hundreds a day, however there is an equal chance for all, so we might be lucky - it is some encouragement that all the Diggers intend returning and all say go and try your luck, of course there is no certainty, but should we be unsuccessful it will be great satisfaction to think we have left one at home in whom we have the greatest confidence, on the other hand Fortune favours us we shall lose no time in sending you a share.

The murders and robberies made so much of at the Swan and here are nothing among so many, and thousands of Diggers do not hear of them till their return. Hundreds leave their tents unprotected during the day with pounds of gold in them - the greater part of those who are robbed are people who never had so much money, get drunk in consequence and swagger about with rolls of notes as thick as — are never seen in such hands at the Swan.

This indeed is a wonderful country, when we approached the coast we were delighted to see numbers of farms from the deck of the vessel with a stately range of hills in the background. We took a pilot on board and came up the creek or river for several miles which one could almost shoot across, at the head of which are good wharves and numbers of ships alongside. There are a number of hotels, some better than any at the Swan near the wharves and at the port are inns, shops and stores. There is a fine road from the port to the city 8½ miles & good land all the way with farms except the first mile which is samphire ground like the Villa. The spring carts & omnibus' convey you for 1/6 in about an hour to Hindley Street where you see as many or more people than ever you will at a Fair in Perth - all walk, ride & drive as though they have important business in hand. The display of goods in the shops is excellent but the buildings are not generally good there, there are however some that surpass any at the Swan altogether, the shops and stores are all adjoining, & the lanterns which the Publicans are obliged to keep are almost sufficient to light the street as well -

Ander = (W.S.H's brother)
 * Fred Hester, son of the Magistrate Cpt Hester


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 coming under his tender care and being exhorted by his pious counsels.

The two hangmen climbed on the platform of the grisly erection, and, calmly indifferent to the nature of their bed, were in a few moments fast asleep and snoring as merrily as if every man in the world had been hung and there was nothing else for them to do but to take it easy for the rest of their days.

The hard weariness of work and the easy weariness of wine had made them so heavy-headed that their slumbers were not disturbed by the sound of footfalls, though the footfalls echoed strangely loud in the lonely deserted place-the footfalls of a woman, swift and impatient, the footfalls of a man swiftly pursuing. In another moment the woman and the man came into the open space, now bright and shining with the risen sun. The woman was Katherine de Vaucelles; the man was Noel le Jolys.

As Katherine entered the silent square, she paused for a moment a few paces from the church, and turning, looked at her silent follower.

"Why do you follow me?" she asked, and Noel le Jolys, who had dogged her footsteps from the palace, answered her briskly:

"You should not walk unguarded. Therefore I shadow you."

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 Katherine scorned him.

"You may well play the shadow, for you cast no shadow of your own. The streets are very idle—the streets are very quiet. I would sooner have my loneliness than your company. Let me pass to my prayers." For Noel had glided between her and the church, and stood barring her passage deferentially.

"For your lover?" he asked, and Katherine flashed at him:

"You have a small mind to ask, yet I have a great mind to answer. My prayers are for a brave gentleman whom I shall never see again."

As she spoke, the cup of her heart seemed to run over with red tears, and the bitter waters trembled in her eyes. Her thoughts wandered over the long white night and her sleepless sorrow, and her vigil by the window, looking out into the rose garden, and her tired eyes straining in vain through the dark for any sight, and her tired ears straining in vain for any sound of the battle in which the lord of her heart was risking his life. For she knew it now; she had learned it through those age-long hours of agony, that he whom she called her enemy was the lord of her heart, that in spite of all her rage at the cheat that had been put upon her, she loved,

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 not the great noble who had done so much to save France—no, nor the ragged poet who had lent her his sword-arm and his sword, but just the man, by whatever name he might be called and in whatever way of life his wheel of fortune might spin, whose hand had proved to be of the right size to hold her heart in its hollow. The Katherine of yesterday seemed to be dead and buried, to have died a fiery death of fierce thoughts, fierce agonies, fierce exultations, and from that travail a new Katherine had come into being with cleansed eyes to see the world truly and with a cleansed soul to know a great soul's truth.

Noel watched her silence but it meant nothing to him, and he tripped into her high thoughts cheerfully.

"I am a brave gentleman," he said, patting himself approvingly upon the breast. "I slew Thibaut d'Aussigny last night. The king has taken me back into favour. If I played the fool's part yesterday, I can play the wise man's part to-morrow. I was a bubble and a gull and a dunce, if you like, but I meant no harm to the king, and the king smiles on me. Cannot you do the like?"

Katherine came out of her dream and stood upon the earth again, and disdained him.

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 "No, for you envy a great spirit and your envy makes you a base thing."

Noel protested pettishly:

"He is no man-angel. He is made of Adam's clay like the rest of us."

Katherine's thoughts had wandered away from her escort; her mind's eyes were busy with waving banners, the shock of meeting lances, the glitter of steel coats and the beating of steel upon steel. Through all the melley, her fancy spied one shining figure in bright armour like, so it seemed to her, Archangel Michael or Archangel Gabriel, riding in the pride of the fight with a smile on his lips, sorrow in his heart, and a token of white ribbon between his breast-plate and his breast.

She answered, not Noel's words, but her thoughts:

"My pride has the right to hate him, but I think he is still my soul's man."

Noel was about to speak again, when he suddenly fell back and doffed his bonnet. Perched on the steps of the church stood the stooped sable figure of the king, just coming from his matinal devotions. In the shadow behind him stood his shadows—Tristan and Olivier.

Katherine, her attention swerved by Noel's glance, turned and swayed a reverence to Louis as

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 he slowly descended the steps. The king surveyed them sardonically.

"Good morning, friends," he said. Then turning to Noel, he ordered, "Take the top of your speed to St. Anthony's gate and bring hot news of the battle."

Noel bowed and sped on his errand. Katherine requested:

"Have I your majesty's leave?"

Tristan and Olivier withdrew themselves discreetly apart, under the shadow of the gallows, that building of all human buildings which was most dear to their hearts and most sacred in their eyes.

Louis came very close to the pale girl and whispered:

"Are you so hungry for your devotions that you cannot waste some worldly words on me? Are you still angry with me for the trick I played on you?"

Katherine's pale face flushed a little as she answered:

"It is wasted spirit to be angry with a king."

Louis grinned.

"You are as pat with your answers as a clerk at matins. Could you give me your heart now if I bent my knee?"

Katherine stifled a great sigh.

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 "I lost my heart last night; I have not found it again."

Louis flung up his hands in contemptuous amusement.

"The fellow was a fool to blab so glibly. I would have carried the jest farther. But he stood on the punctilio and would not win you without confession."

The girl's heart swelled.

"I am glad he had so much honour," she said, and the shining figure in the bright armour seemed more archangel-like than ever.

Louis looked at her intently, tickling his chin with his forefinger.

"If you wait in the church for his homecoming, you will see how the jest ends," he said.

Katherine made the king a profound reverence and slowly entered the church, every pulse of her body pleading in prayer for her lost lover. She scarcely heeded an old, bowed woman who tottered out, propped on a crutch stick, and who dropped the great lady a respectful curtsey as she passed and went her ways into the silent streets. So the two women in the world whom Villon loved met for the firsf time.

Louis, left alone, beckoned to Tristan and Olivier, who hurried down to him.

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 "There goes a brave lady, gossips, a fair lady, a chaste lady. She sails in the high latitudes of lore and deserves to find the Fortunate Islands. Are there not better things to do with Master Villon than to hang him?"

Olivier protested:

"This Villon is such a damnable double dealer that the ass-headed populace loves him better than you."

The king's visage soured.

"That is enough to hang him. Yet I have a kind of liking for the fellow, and my dream troubles me—the star that fell from heaven."

Tristan commented bluffly:

"Hang the rascal while you can and thank heaven you are well rid of him."

Even as he spoke the world seemed suddenly to be full of many noises and many voices. From beyond the gate on the ways that led to the city walls came the clamour of hoarse shouts and cries and the thudding din of running feet. From the other side, from the street that led to the Louvre, came the ordered tramp of soldiers.

Olivier interpreting one interruption, said:

"The people are coming from the walls."

And Tristan interpreted the other.

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 "The queen, sire," he announced.

Through the narrow space that led into the open square there came a line of soldiers escorting a number of splendidly caparisoned litters—the carriages of the queen and the queen's chief ladies. Louis advanced to the first litter, and extending his hand, assisted the queen to descend and conducted her with an elaborate display of polite affection to the gorgeous dais by the side of the church, where they sat side by side on the small thrones that had been prepared for them. The ladies and gentlemen of the court ranged themselves in their places behind the royal pair and the Scottish archers formed a solid force in front. Through the open gateway came a few running, shouting enthusiasts, outstrippers of the mass of citizens who were returning from the walls. Even the heavy sleep of Trois-Echelles and Petit-Jean was not proof against all this tumult. They awoke, rubbed their eyes, then climbing briskly to their feet, leaned over the platform on the handrails of the gallows and surveyed the scene with interest.

Noel le Jolys pushed his way through the crowd aboat the gateway and advanced to the king.

"Sire," he said, "the latest message from the battle: The day is wholly ours. The Grand Constable

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 returns in triumph. You can hear his music now."

Louis nodded.

"It is very well," he affirmed gravely.

Through the gateway the crowd of people was pouring thick and fast, shouting and cheering and filling the square in front of the dais with a throng of enthusiastic men, women and children, all waving their arms, flinging flowers and yelling welcomes at the topmost pitch of their lungs. The sound of military music and the tramp of marching men could be heard approaching louder and louder.

Five girls had forced their way to the very front row of the throne and were applauding and shouting with the rest. These were the light ladies of the Fircone, Isabeau, Jehanneton, Denise, and Blanche with Guillemette, fat Robin Turgis' fat daughter. They were all in a state of great excitement, for their lovers had vanished over night and their Abbess had disappeared like a dream, and they knew not what had become of them. They had little fear for their lovers, for the good gentlemen of the Fellowship of the Cockleshell had a way of diving into the deep waters of existence at intervals in order to escape the too attentive eye and the too particular finger of the law, and the girls had a vague idea of some

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 great scheme on hand which might easily result in trouble for the brotherhood. As for their Abbess, they were none too sorry to be free from her somewhat decisive authority, and they chattered and babbled like birds escaped from a cage.

By this time the advance guard of the army began to pour in through the narrow mouth of the gateway and to form a line in front of the populace, thus leaving a wide open space between the assembled people and the seated king. From every window heads were thrust and hands extended waving scarfs of silk or scattering flowers. The blare of the soldiers' music grew louder and louder, the tramp of horse and men came nearer and nearer, and then, when the cheering was at its shrillest and the rain of flowers thickest, Villon rode in through the gateway on his great warhorse with his five ruffians close at his heels. Villon's lifted hand gave the signal for a halt and he leaped lightly off his horse and advanced towards the king, a glorious figure to the eyes of the crowd in his shining armour with a scarlet coif upon his helmet. If for a moment his glance rested on the gaunt skeleton of the gallows there came no change in the proud composure of his face. Immediately behind him followed the faithful ragamuffins, each of whom bore vivid signs in slung arm,

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 swathed leg or bandaged forehead of the lusty work he had done in the king's name upon the king's enemies. But the slings and swathes and bandages were of no common sort, but splendid bits of silk of many colours, bearing fantastic devices and rich in threads of gold and silver.

As Villon and his fantastic escort strode towards the presence, Noel interposed indignantly. He stretched a pair of protecting arms wide out to ward off from the king the approach of so singular a deputation, while he demanded angrily:

"In heaven's name, sir, who are these scarecrows who flaunt their tatters in the presence of the king?"

The king nursed his chin with an amused smile as Villon answered:

"The scarecrows are rogues who have fought like gentlefolk and these rags are the banners of the enemy."

Even as he spoke the rapscallions stripped the pieces of silk from arm and leg and forehead, shook them out into such semblance of their original shape as battle had left to them and flung them with a gesture of imperial pride on the ground at the foot of the dais.

"Well answered," said Louis regally, while two pursuivants pounced swiftly upon the bits of silk,

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 and gathering them up with reverential fingers, laid them upon the railing in front of the king's chair to be examined with loving care by the queen.

Standing erect, Villon addressed the king:

"Louis of France, we bring you these silks for your carpet. An hour ago they wooed the wind from Burgundian staves and floated over Burgundian helmets. I will make no vain glory of their winning. Burgundy fought well, but France fought better, and these trophies trail in our triumph. To a mercer's eyes these bits of tissue are but so many squares of damaged web. To a soldier's eye, they cover crowded graves with honour. To a king's eye, they deck one throne with lonely splendour. When we here, who breathe hard from fighting, and ye, who stand there and marvel, are dust, when the king's name is but a golden space in chronicles grey with age, these banners shall hang from Cathedral arches and your children's children's children, lifted in reverent arms, shall peep through the dim air at the faded colours, and baby lips shall whisper an echo of our battle."

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S Villon ended a great peal of music came from the church, the magnificent music of a Te Deum Laudamus; while from the soldiers who choked the archway, a glowing sea of steel, there rose one common cry of "God save the Grand Constable!"

Olivier leaned over and whispered to the king;

"They cheer him, sire."

Louis waved him impatiently aside, and leaning over the railing, spoke:

"My Lord Constable, and you, brave soldiers, the King of France thanks you for your gift. Victory was indeed assured you by the justice of our cause. My Lord of Montcorbier, you may promise these brave fellows that their sovereign will remember them."

Swiftly Villon turned and addressed the motley throng behind him:

"In the king's name, a gold coin to every man who fought and a cup of wine to every man, woman and child who wishes to drink the king's health."

The king smiled wryly.

"Ever generous," he said.

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 "To the end, sire," Villon answered, with an ironic salutation, which Louis answered by an ironic question.

"What have you now to do?"

Villon saluted the king again.

"My latest duty, sire," he answered, and once again he turned to address the multitude:

"Soldiers who have served under me, friends who have fought with me, and you, people, whom I have striven to succour, listen to my amazing swan song. You know me a little as Count of Montcorbier, Grand Constable of France. I know myself indifferently well as François Villon, Master of Arts, broker of ballads and somewhile bibber and brawler. It is now my task as Grand Constable of France to declare that the life of Master François Villon is forfeit and to pronounce on him this sentence, that he be straightway hanged upon yonder gibbet."

His words fell like the beat of a passing bell upon the ears of an absolutely silent crowd and for some few year-long seconds the silence brooded over the place. The five wantons on the fringe of the crowd caught at each others' fingers and gasped. Was that splendid gentleman their old friend, François Villon? As for the five rogues who knew the secret, they had begun to laugh at Villon's first words, but the laughter dried upon their lips as he ended.

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 From the church suddenly the exultant music of the Te Deum ceased to swell and in its place crept forth upon the silent air the awful notes of a Miserere. The king had been at the ear of the organist that morning and had planned his effects well. The melancholy music stirred the people to murmurs of surprise and protest.

Guy Tabarie, flourishing his notched and bloody sword, thrust his round body forward.

"What jest is this?" he asked.

And Villon answered him:

"Such a jest as I would rather weep over to-morrow than laugh at to-day. For the pitcher breaks at the well's mouth this very morning. Messire Noel, to you I surrender my sword. I like to believe that it has scraped a little shame from its master's coat."

He drew his great war-sword and handed it to Noel le Jolys, who, for one of the few times in his life, astonished into forgetfulness of courtly etiquette, had been staring, open-mouthed, at the astonishing revelation that had just been made to him. The gleam of the war-worn weapon recalled him to himself and he took it from the hands of the doomed man with a grave courtesy which meant something more than the official fulfillment of a formal duty. Noel le Jolys was a soldier and his eyes paid homage to a brave man.

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 Villon turned to Tristan.

"Master Tristan, perform your office upon this self-doomed felon."

With great alacrity, Tristan moved towards Villon, but his motion was met by such angry murmurs from the crowd, and not from the crowd alone, but from the soldiers who had followed Villon to victory, that even he shrank back instinctively before its menace. There came cries from a thousand throats, calling on the king to pardon the Grand Constable, calling upon those who loved him to rescue him.

"King, is this justice?" René de Montigny, shouted, and his question evoked a roar of approval from the multitude.

The king's keen glance surveyed the scene with no sign of fear and no sign of annoyance. Leaning easily upon the railing, as a man might lean who surveyed an amusing farce or interlude, he addressed the crowd:

"Good people of Paris, you have heard your Grand Constable pronounce sentence upon a criminal. Has Master François Villon any reason to urge, any plea to offer, why the sentence should not be carried out?"

Villon waved his hand disdainfully.

"I have nothing whatever to say, sire. François

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 Villon must die. It's bad luck for him, but he has worse luck and so—to business."

As he spoke he drew near to the line of Scottish archers and two of their number laid hands on him, one at either side. The sight of their hero thus in the very clutch of justice spurred the multitude to renewed exasperation. Angry demands for justice, for mercy, for rescue, shook the summer air. Unarmed citizens broke into an armourer's shop hard by, and, seizing whatever weapons they could lay their hands upon, flourished them aloft in significant assertion that their words were but the prefaces to deeds. Again Tabarie's bull voice bellowed to those about him:

"Kings must listen to the voice of the people. Shall the man who led us to victory die a rogue's death?"

And again his thunder heralded a storm. Soldiers and citizens alike seemed prepared to rescue Villon by force from the hands of his enemies. The Scottish archers with levelled arquebusses formed a line in front of the dais and every courtier drew his sword. Only the king seemed unmoved, only the king seemed entertained by the wind he had sowed, the whirlwind he had reaped. He asked quite quietly:

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 "Does Master François Villon ask his life?"

Villon shook his head.

"No, sire. Master François Villon played and Master François Villon pays."

As he spoke the angry people, swaying like a sea, shouted new shouts of rescue, clamoured new cries for pardon. Olivier, green-pale, whispered eagerly to the king:

"Sire, the rogues are in a damnable temper. Can you not gain time, postpone, promise?"

Louis answered imperturbably:

"Are the fools so fond of the fellow? I know a way to stop their shouting."

As he spoke, for the first time he rose from his seat, a frail, small, black figure, to dominate those raging waves of humanity, while Olivier, holding up his hand to order silence, shouted:

"Peace, peace! The king would speak with his good people of Paris."

The noisy voices dropped slowly into silence to hear what the king said.

"Good people of Paris, I am no tyrant. But a king is the father of his people, and his ears can never be shut against the cries of his children. You all love this man? Hear, then, my judgment! This man's life is forfeit. Which of you will redeem it?

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 If there be one among you ready to take Master François Villon's place on yonder gibbet, let that one speak now."

There was a brief silence as the mob began to realize the meaning of the king's words, a silence broken by angry cries.

"What does he mean? Take his place on the gallows! A trick—a trick!"

Louis grinned complacently.

"No trick, friends, but a simple bargain. Here is a man condemned to death; here is an idle gibbet. If ye prize him so highly, let one among you die for him. It has been said by the wise Apostle: 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' On my word as a king, when such a splendid volunteer is swinging at the end of yonder rope that moment Master François Villon shall go free. Come, who will slip neck in noose for the sake of a hero?"

Villon protested haughtily:

"No man shall die for me."

But, indeed, his protest was premature. The anger of the crowd dwindled into sullen clamours.

"The king laughs at us! 'Tis too much to ask."

A faint, exultant smile flickered over the king's face as he asked:

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 "Now, friends, where is your idol's supplement? Who will be his lieutenant, who will be heir to his heritage of a cross bar and a rope? You are not so brisk as you were. Does your devotion falter? Were you mocking me and him?"

Villon looked at the king with a kind of disdainful admiration.

"King of foxes!" he applauded, and the king heard him and smiled again.

"Tristan," he said, "go into yonder church and bring me an inch of candle."

Tristan bowed and entered the church. The king went on:

"Our royal mercy is mild, our royal mercy is patient. As it is our hope and our belief to live in history as a good and gracious sovereign, we would not have it said of us that we denied even a felon all due and reasonable opportunity."

Even while he spoke, Tristan came out of the church carrying in his hand a great gold candlestick in whose socket a little piece of candle, scarce an inch high, still was burning. He gave it into the hands of one of the soldiers of the Scottish Guard, who held it in his strong grasp and stood as immovable as a statue, while the thin faint flame pointed spear-like towards heaven in the warm and windless air.

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 Louis stopped and whispered to a page behind him who bowed and entered the church. Then the king spoke again to the silent, wondering crowd:

"So long as this candle burns, so long François Villon lives. If while it burns, one of you is moved to take Master Villon's place on the gallows, so much the better for Master Villon, and so much the worse for his substitute. Herald, proclaim our pleasure."

At a sign from Montjoye, the royal herald, two pursuivants stirred the air with the blast of golden trumpets. Then Montjoye spoke:

"The king's grace and the king's justice is ready to grant life and liberty to François Villon if anyone be found willing to take his place on the gallows and die his death that he may live his life!"

As Montjoye's words died away a great silence fell upon the assembled people, a silence so still and cruel that men's hearts grew cold and the warm June air seemed to be sighing over fields of ice. The king leaned over and addressed his prisoner confidentially:

"Master Villon, Master Villon, you see what human friendship means and the sweet voices of the multitude."

Villon answered boldly:

"Sire, it is no news to me that men love the dear habit of living."

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 Louis signalled to Montjoye.

"Proclaim again," he said; and once more the pair of pursuivants blew their trumpets and once again Montjoye made his singular proposition of pardon to the assemblage.

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T fell this time upon fresh ears, the ears of an old woman who was patiently pushing her way through the crowd in her effort to reach her humble lodging. She had succeeded in making her way to the open space as the last words of the herald's offer were being spoken, and suddenly her dulled brain caught the full significance of Montjoye's speech. Looking wildly around her, she saw where Villon stood, an armoured figure held captive, and without attempting to realize the meaning of what she beheld, she dropped her stick and tottered forward to the dais, where she fell on her knees with clasped, entreating hands.

"Sire, sire, I will die for him!"

Villon's heart leaped to his throat when he saw her.

"Mammy, mammy, go away!" he cried, and he made a vain attempt to move towards his mother, a movement instantly restrained by the crossed weapons of his captors. At the same moment Katherine de Vaucelles came out of the church door in obedience to the summons of a royal page, who

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 had found her at her prayers, and who told her that the king desired her presence. She paused at the head of the steps in amazed survey of the crowded place and a scene that at first she could not understand.

"Who is this woman?" Louis asked, looking down at the poor old dame, who knelt before him and besought him. Olivier answered in his ear:

"The fellow's mother, sire."

A very little tenderness came into Louis' eyes, a very little tenderness trembled on his lips.

"Woman, we cannot hear you," he said. "By God's law you have given him life once and by my law you may not give him life again."

"Sire, I beseech you," Mother Villon entreated; but the king's pity was not to be purchased so.

"Take her away and use her gently," he said.

Noel le Jolys stooped to obey the king's command, but the old woman, rising to her feet, repulsed him fiercely.

"No! no!" she said. "I will not leave my son," and she flung her old body passionately upon the prisoner's neck and clasped with her lean arms his mailed shoulders.

Louis bade Montjoye proclaim for the last time, and once again the trumpets thundered and once

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 again the cold, calm voice of Montjoye propounded the grim terms of the king's clemency.

The silence that followed was swiftly broken by; the sweet, clear voice of a girl.

"I will," said Katherine de Vaucelles from her stand on the church steps, and on the instant all eyes were turned to the spot where the maiden stood with face as white as pear-blossom and her hands tightly clenched by her sides. She moved slowly down the steps in the dead silence and paused before the king's throne.

"I will die for him, sire," she said quietly.

From Villon's lips there came a mighty cry of "Katherine!" and a fain spot of colour rose on the king's cheeks.

"Mistress, we speak to men," he said.

Tristan pressed his great hands together.

"By St. Denis, our women seem to make the best men," he grunted.

Katherine stood, tall and proud, facing the king. Mother Villon, stirred by this heavenly interference, left her son to fall at the feet of the angel lady and kiss the hem of her garment.

Katherine spoke bravely:

"Sire, I love this man and would be proud to die for him. It may chime with your pleasure to slay

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 him; it cannot chime with your honour to deny me. Your word is given and a king must keep his word."

The king made an impatient gesture.

"We speak to men."

Villon caught at his words.

"I speak to a woman," he cried, and gazirig passionately at his love, he called to her: "Katherine, my Katherine, death is a little thing. For love is deathless and you give me a better thing than life."

With unmoved voice, with unchanged face, Katherine persisted:

"Sire, I claim your promise."

Louis again denied her.

"We speak to men. Tristan, do your office."

At this moment the situation suddenly changed. Villon unexpectedly wrenched himself free from the control of the two soldiers beside him, whose hold had relaxed in their wonder at what was passing, and sprang towards Katherine. His act instantly inspired the hearts and hands of his sympathisers, and in a second he was caught up and encircled by a crowd of armed and determined men, who drove back the Scottish archers. Villon snatched a drawn sword from the hand of René de Montigny and held it high in the air while he shouted:

"No, by God's rood, the candle of my grace has not

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 yet burnt to the socket! People of Paris, shall I not speak to my lover before I die?"

The place was a raving bedlam of noise and menace. The Scottish archers did not dare to make any attempt to recapture their escaped prisoner, but kept their line in front of the royal dais, while Villon stood by the side of Katherine with drawn sword, an archangel of insurrection, ready at any moment to fling the forces behind him upon his adversaries. Yet the king remained as unmoved as if he had been witnessing a puppet show. In his thin, even voice, he commanded:

"Speak to her while the candle burns, not a second longer."

With one accord, Villon's adherents drew back and Villon was left with Katherine alone in the open space.

Katherine whispered to him:

"François, will you not take life at my hands?"

Villon answered her tenderly:

"Dear child, if that crowned Judas there had taken you at your word, do you think I would have outlived you by the space of a second?"

She looked fixedly into his eyes.

"You are resolved?"

He smiled back at her.

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 "I am as stubborn as a mule and no pleadings will move me."

She looked over her shoulder with a shudder.

"Dearest, the candle flickers in the wind. There is a dagger in your girdle. Slay me and yourself."

"You mean it?" he gasped, and she answered firmly:

"By God's Mother and God's Son."

A sudden, wonderful thought flashed through Villon's mind. He had won love, he could not hope to win life, but at least he might so manage as to die a soldier's death and not a knave's. He whispered to her eagerly:

"Then we will spoil old Louis' pleasure yet. Lore, will you marry me here at the foot of the gallows?"

She answered him:

"With all my heart."

Instantly he turned and left her and strode towards the throne.

"King, I crave your patience, but your sentence must tarry and turn, for I claim to marry this lady."

Louis smiled derisively.

"It is too late. Sing your neck-rhyme and have done, for your noose is too large for a wedding ring."

Villon gave him back smile for smile.

"Sire," he said, "I am a Master of Arts of the

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 University of Paris and as such have the right in extremis to any sacrament of the church. I have lived a confirmed bachelor, but now I have a mind to change my state. Find me a priest, King Louis."

Olivier stooped to the king.

"He speaks the truth, sire. He can claim this right"

Louis leaned forward interested.

"What do you hope to gain by this?"

Villon answered calmly:

"The right to die like a soldier by the sword, not like a rogue by the rope."

A murmur of approval stirred the silent crowd, but it died away as Katherine suddenly advanced and stood, a white figure like a fair lily, between the king and Villon.

"Nay, you gain more than this. I am the Lady Katherine de Vaucelles, kinswoman of the royal house, mistress of a hundred lands, Grand Seneschale of Gascony, Warden of the Marches of Poitou. In my own domains I exercise the High Justice and the Low. This man is of humble birth, and when I marry him he becomes my vassal. Over my vassals I hold the law of life and death."

Villon dropped on his knees beside his lady.

Louis clapped his thin hands together as a man might applaud a play.

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 "You are a bold minion and you have a quick wit. But if you marry this gaol bird you decline to his condition. Your high titles fall from you, your great estates are forfeit to the crown and you and he must go out into exile together; the beggar woman with the beggar man."

Katherine turned to Villon where he knelt beside her.

Tis a little price to pay for my lover."

Villon looking up into her eyes, questioned her:

"Do you think I'm worth it, Kate? 'Tis a big price to pay for this poor anatomy."

She repeated her words.

Tis a little price to pay for my lover. Do you doubt me?"

Unheeded a man-at-arms pushed his way through the crowd to the king's dais and whispered some words in the ear of Noel le Jolys, who in turn whispered in the ear of Olivier and Olivier hearing, grew paler than before. Villon caught Katherine by the hand.

"No, Kate, no! The world is wide, our hearts are light. For a star has fallen to me from heaven and it fills the earth with glory."

His words fell on the king's ears like the voice of an oracle. Standing in his place with staring eyes

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 and trembling fingers, he repeated falteringly the mystic words.

"A star has fallen from heaven. My dream, my dream!"

Olivier plucked at his mantle, whispering with twitching lips:

"My liege, this story spreads like the plague in the city and every alley vomits mutiny."

Louis pushed him aside.

"Rub your pale cheeks," he said; "for all is well. Destiny has spoken."

Then leaning over and stretching his thin hand towards the crowd, he cried:

"People of Paris, that man shall have his life; this woman her lover. I have tried a man's heart and found it pure gold; a woman's soul and found it all angel. True man and true woman, to each other's arms!"

And Katherine and Villon obeyed the king.

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Page:Criminal Procedure Act 1865 (UKPGA Vict-28-29-18 qp).pdf/1

An Act for amending the Law of Evidence and Practice on Criminal Trials.

HEREAS it is expedient that the Law of Evidence and Practice on Trials for Felony and Misdemeanor and other Proceedings in Courts of Criminal Judicature should be more nearly assimilated to that on Trials at Nisi Prius: Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, as follows; that is to say,

1. That the Provisions of Section Two of this Act shall apply to every Trial for Felony or Misdemeanor which shall be commenced on or after the First Day of July One thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, and that the Provisions of Sections from Three to Eight, inclusive, of this Act shall apply to all Courts of Judicature, as well Criminal as all others, and to all Persons having, by Law or by Consent of Parties, Authority to hear, receive, and examine Evidence.

2. If any Prisoner or Prisoners, Defendant or Defendants, shall be defended by Counsel, but not otherwise, it shall be the Duty of Rh


text:
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T about this point in his narrative, Dom Gregory, as those happy few who are familiar with his manuscript in the Abbey of Bonne Aventure are aware, diverges from the full current of his story to indulge in some philosophical reflections upon the character of Louis XI.

What, Dom Gregory asks in cautious interrogation, were the real intentions of the monarch with regard to François Villon and the Lady Katherine de Vaucelles? His enemies no doubt assert that he played with their destinies for a purely malignant purpose and was only prevented from carrying his evil intentions into effect by the storm of popular indignation that threatened him. Others, again, who pretend to a more intimate acquaintance with the shifty character of the king, insist that he did indeed purpose to send Master Villon to the gallows, or at least and worse, into a beggar's exile, but that lie was stayed by Master Villon's happy use of the phrase concerning a star fallen from heaven, which words, harping upon the superstitious wits of his majesty, made him believe that the dream which had puzzled him was interpreted and fulfilled. In this

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 regard Dom Gregory records with a sly gravity how many suggest that Master François used those words of set purpose with the very intention of playing upon the strained strings of the king's mind. But there be those, too, Dom Gregory adds, and we gather from his manner that he is inclined to include himself in their number, there be those partisans of the king who maintain that the king's cruelty was from the start a mere mask for clemency, that he only intended a little malicious sport with the too outspoken lover and the too disdainful lass, and that it had never been in the scope of his thoughts seriously to punish either the broker of ballads or the valiant maid of Vaucelles.

Starting from this point, Dom Gregory indulges in a great many reflections upon kings and kingship and the consequences of kingly acts, all of which seemed perhaps more momentous at the time when they were written and in the sleepy Abbey where they lie enshrined, than in busier and more bustling times. One could have wished that Dom Gregory had let such philosophies go by the board and had given us instead some greater knowledge of what happened to François Villon and Katherine de Vaucelles after they fell upon each other's necks in that open place in Paris, with the mob huzzahing,

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 the king staring and Tristan's strange satellites busily dismantling the useless gibbet. But here Dom Gregory is little less than dumb. Losses in the manuscript account for much of his silence; perhaps his ecclesiastical indifference to the wedded state may account for more. If we can gather vaguely from other sources that the poet and his mistress settled down on a small and quiet estate in Poitou, lived a peaceful country life for many years and died a peaceful country death at the end, it is the most we can hope to gain with surety. We are glad to believe in their happiness, for he was a true lover and she was a fair woman.

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Page:Criminal Procedure Act 1865 (UKPGA Vict-28-29-18 qp).pdf/2

 202

the presiding Judge, at the Close of the Case for the Prosecution, to ask the Counsel for each Prisoner or Defendant so defended by Counsel whether he or they intend to adduce Evidence, and in the event of none of them thereupon announcing his Intention to adduce Evidence, the Counsel for the Prosecution shall be allowed to address the Jury a Second Time in support of his Case, for the Purpose of summing up the Evidence against such Prisoner or Prisoners, or Defendant or Defendants; and upon every Trial for Felony or Misdemeanor, whether the Prisoners or Defendants, or any of them, shall be defended by Counsel or not, each and every such Prisoner or Defendant, or his or their Counsel respectively, shall be allowed, if he or they shall think fit, to open his or their Case or Cases respectively; and after the Conclusion of such Opening or of all such Openings, if more than One, such Prisoner or Prisoners, or Defendant or Defendants, or their Counsel, shall be entitled to examine such Witnesses as he or they may think fit, and when all the Evidence is concluded to sum up the Evidence respectively; and the Right of Reply, and Practice and Course of Proceedings, save as hereby altered, shall be as at present.

3. A Party producing a Witness shall not be allowed to impeach his Credit by general Evidence of bad Character, but he may, in case the Witness shall, in the Opinion of the Judge, prove adverse, contradict him by other Evidence, or, by Leave of the Judge, prove that he has made at other Times a Statement inconsistent with his present Testimony; but before such last-mentioned Proof can be given the Circumstances of the supposed Statement, sufficient to designate the particular Occasion, must be mentioned to the Witness, and he must be asked whether or not he has made such Statement.

4. If a Witness, upon Cross-examination as to a former Statement made by him relative to the Subject Matter of the Indictment or Proceeding, and inconsistent with his present Testimony, does not distinctly admit that he has made such Statement, Proof may be given that he did in fact make it; but before such Proof can be given the Circumstances of the supposed Statement, sufficient to designate the particular Occasion, must be mentioned to the Witness, and he must be asked whether or not he has made such Statement.

5. A Witness may be cross-examined as to previous Statements as to previous made by him in Writing or reduced into Writing relative to the Statements Subject Matter of the Indictment or Proceeding, without such in Writing. Writing being shown to him; but if it is intended to contradict such


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 Rh

such Witness by the Writing, his Attention must, before such contradictory Proof can be given, be called to those Parts of the Writing which are to be used for the Purpose of so contradicting him: Provided always, that it shall be competent for the Judge, at any Time during the Trial, to require the Production of the Writing for his Inspection, and he may thereupon make such Use of it for the Purposes of the Trial as he may think fit.

6. A Witness may be questioned as to whether he has been convicted of any Felony or Misdemeanor, and upon being so questioned, if he either denies or does not admit the Fact, or refuses to answer, it shall be lawful for the cross-examining Party to prove such Conviction; and a Certificate containing the Substance and Effect only (omitting the formal Part) of the Indictment and Conviction for such Offence, purporting to be signed by the Clerk of the Court or other Officer having the Custody of the Records of the Court where the Offender was convicted, or by the Deputy of such Clerk or Officer, (for which Certificate a Fee of Five Shillings and no more shall be demanded or taken,) shall, upon Proof of the Identity of the Person, be sufficient Evidence of the said Conviction, without Proof of the Signature or official Character of the Person appearing to have signed the same.

7. It shall not be necessary to prove by the attesting Witness any Instrument to the Validity of which Attestation is not requisite, and such Instrument may be proved as if there had been no attesting Witness thereto.

8. Comparison of a disputed Writing with any Writing proved to the Satisfaction of the Judge to be genuine shall be permitted to be made by Witnesses; and such Writings, and the Evidence of Witnesses respecting the same, may be submitted to the Court and Jury as Evidence of the Genuineness or otherwise of the Writing in dispute.

9. The Word “Counsel” in this Act shall be construed to apply to Attorneys in all Cases where Attorneys are allowed by Law or by the Practice of any Court to appear as Advocates.

10. This Act shall not apply to Scotland. LONDON: Printed by and, Printers to the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty. 1865.


text:
Page:1852-08-08 Letter from W.S. Hall to his brother Frank, p2.tif

all around the City is good land, highly undulating with scarcely any timber except here and there where it has been preserved, many of the hills are without but covered in grass. The hills I speak of are a range running the same as our ones but rather more lofty - you must have remembered we are here at the most pleasant time of year when every spot is covered with good feed even in towns, in summer I suppose it presents the appearance of a brickfiel with clouds of dust.

We shall not stop here long, not more than a week from this & are sorry to lose any time, even a day, but did not think it advisable to go on immediately as the winter commences a month later. We are staying at the Phoenix Robert Hall's whose charge is one pound per week each but he kindly took us at 15/- each having known us at the Swan. You must not neglect to pay the interest to Luke, £5, in October and £5. later, he will have the other £10. in hand from Dyett's surplus rent, if you are compelled you must sell Henry's or others stock to make up the money - Luke behaved in every respect like a Brother tous and lent us £30. without asking or interest, we really stood in need of this as we had little more than £50. among us when we left - should you require advise in the affair with Luke or any other matter of business he would be glad to be of service to you at any time and you may depend on him as you would on a brother.

I hope when you go to town you will never play at cards as a young man by practice gets a relish for it, tho. I have often played and lost anything I consider it a bad practice, if you wish to say years hence as you could now that you never were the worse for liquor you will seldom treat & never be treated to grog as I am confident it makes drunkards of many. I am happy to say in this matter I speak as I think and not from experience for you know I seldom took more than did me good at the Swan, and though on board we had plenty of everything to desire we were all very abstemious, ,$$ we drink scarcely anything here & do not care if we never saw it. I hope if we are not successful at the Diggins we may find lucrative employment, so as to be able to assist you speedily, of this be assured. A man came in the other day with a half pound nuggett which was first of the size I have seen. R. Hall has a bag with about 8lbs, in which he got at the Diggins, such things are quite common. Such numbers of people are leaving & all taking money with them in Gold or Silver have left the place almost without, and the Banks have issued 5/- notes to meet the demand. Sovereigns are at 4¾ per cent premium and Silver about the same but with Bullion the banks are almost overflowing. An escort overland will be in here in a day or two, last time it brought a ton & quarter.

Try and improve yourself and write as soon as we let you know our whereabouts. With kind love to Papa & Mama.

Believe me, Your Affect$n$ Brthr. W. S. HALL

Remember me kindly to Stewards, Davis', Middletons, Cap. Hester and all who may inquire after me.

Tell Bob I shall not fail to write to him an account of the Diggins and give him and Edward my kind regards and love to Laetitia & Theodosia.

 * His brother, Henry Hastings Hall

This letter to his brother is so different in tone to the respectful ones to his parents.


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 1


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 2


text: Criminal Procedure Act 1865

title: Criminal Procedure Act 1865


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 3


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 4


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 5


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 6


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 7


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 8


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 9


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 10


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 11


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 12


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 13


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 14


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 15


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Chapter 16


text: If I Were King (McCarthy novel, R. H. Russell)/Epilogue


text: 1852-08-08 Letter from W.S. Hall to his brother Frank


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Page:Trade Unions in Soviet Russia - I.L.P. (1920).djvu/87

 In the spring of 1920, in 34 governments of great Russia the estates managed by the Governmental Agricultural Departments included 2,625 Soviet estates managed by the government agricultural Department with the total area 1,399,385, with 624,899 of ploughed land.

In the interest of industrial organisation and increase of efficiency the union established a definite standard of labour which the workers are expected to maintain.

The union recognises piecework and the premium bonus system as a stimulus for raising production, but this so far has not been introduced, nor has the naturalisation of wages (payment in kind) which in the future will be the corner stone of the union wage policy. The wages of Agricultural workers and employees are defined in special scales worked out by the Central Committee of the union. This scale is to be supplemented when details are worked out.

Little has been done for the protection of labour. This is explained by the fact that the union has only existed a short time; it was therefore impossible not only to introduce radical measures for the protection of labour, but even to study this question in order to find a rational solution of the various problems. Moreover, the union was prevented from carrying out this work by the extraordinary conditions which prevailed, when the whole attention of the Republic was concentrated on the struggle with the White Guards who were supported by the Allies.

The greatest achievement of the unions was the organisation of the Institute of agricultural labour, which is functioning now in most of the Governments. The immediate tasks which the union is endeavouring to achieve in the sphere of protection of labour are: the regulation of food supplies, improvement of housing conditions, seeing to the observation of the Labour Laws in Agriculture, the introduction of a normal working day, the abolition of child labour up to the age of 14, the reduction of the working day for* young persons under 18.

The carrying on of educational work was even more difficult than work in connection with the protection of labour. The lack of trained workers was severely felt, so also was the scarcity of necessary appliances and literature which would answer the demand of the moment.

Recently, however, work in this direction is being conducted more smoothly. In all the governments of Russia a three months' course has been started as well as a one year technical course for training expert agriculturalists; and these should be able to control and direct the Councils of Public Economy and carry out various measures in agriculture.

The union hopes by the end of 1920 to have started a sufficient number of such courses to enable at least the majority if not all workers on the Soviet estates to take them up.


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Page:Journal of Conversations with Lord Byron.pdf/38

 Byron said, "As some one must play the devil, I will do it."

Shortly before her departure from Genoa, Lady Blessington requested Byron to write some lines in her album, and, accordingly, he composed the following stanzas for her:—


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 One of her most pleasant books after the "Conversations with Lord Byron," is her "Idler in Italy," published in two volumes in 1839.

To this literary industry Lady Blessington was incited by pecuniary necessity, brought about by her splendid style of living. But both her jointure and her literary earnings proved insufficient to meet her expenditure; and when the famine in Ireland cut off in a great measure the returns of the Blessington property, it became necessary in 1849, to dispose of the costly fittings and furniture of Gore House.

Count D'Orsay had gone to Paris in the hope, as was understood, of obtaining a post under Louis Napoleon, with whom he had been on terms of much intimacy. Lady Blessington followed him in April, 1849, and died at Paris almost suddenly on the 4th of June, 1849. Count D'Orsay died at Paris, August 4, 1852.


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[Note.—The first section of the document, dealing with the general development of Trade Unionism in Russia, has been omitted as it covers the same ground as Lozovsky's article.]

At the present moment our Trade Union includes all clerks, whatever their profession, working in the distributive and supplying organs (food distribution organs, co-operatives, etc.) and in all Soviet institutions (commissariats, Soviets, councils of national economy, "Centres," etc.), with the exception of the Commissariat of the Means of Communication and of Posts and Telegraphs, the employees which form part of the corresponding industrial unions.

The fundamental nucleus of the- union is the committee of clerks elected at the general assembly of the employees of a given institution or concern. In large combined institutions, divided into big departments, each of which has a strictly determined sphere of functions, and situated sometimes in various parts of the city, the committees are elected separately every department or enterprise connected with the said institution. The functions of these committees include the representation of the clerks' interests before the management, the recruiting of new members for the union; the collection of members' contributions; keeping up a permanent contact with the local administration of the union; the application of the decisions and resolutions of the union among the clerks of the given institution; carrying out all the work of the union in way of wage classification, protection of labour, culture and educational work; and raising labour productivity through the application of labour discipline in the separate institutions.

All committees of a town or district are united in the local branch of the union (district branch, branch of the city in Government towns). The chief governing body of the local


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April 1, 1823.—Saw Lord Byron for the first time. The impression, for the first few minutes, disappointed me; as I had, both from the portraits and descriptions given, conceived a different idea of him. I had fancied him taller, with a more dignified and commanding air; and I looked in vain for the hero-looking sort of person with whom I had so long identified him in imagination. His appearance is, however, highly prepossessing; his head is finely shaped, and the forehead open, high, and noble; his eyes are gray and full of expression, but one is visibly larger than the other; the nose is large and well shaped, but, from being a little too thick, it looks better in profile than in front-face; his mouth is the most remarkable feature in his face, the upper lip of Grecian shortness, and the corners descending;


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deep and general interest with which every detail connected with Lord Byron has been received by the public, induced the writer to publish her Conversations with him. She was for a long time undecided as to adopting this measure, fearful that, by the invidious, it might be considered as a breach of confidence; but as Boswell's and  Mrs. Piozzi's disclosures, relative to Dr. Johnson, were never viewed in this light, and as Lord Byron never gave, or implied, the slightest injunction to secrecy, she hopes that she may equally escape such an imputation.

The many pages suppressed, filled with poems, epigrams, and sallies of Lord Byron, in which piquancy and wit are more evident than good-nature, bear testimony, that a wish to avoid wounding the feelings of the living, or to cast a darker shade over the reputation of the dead, has influenced the writer much more than the desire to make an amusing book; and she trusts that, in portraying Lord Byron, if she has proved herself an unskilful, she incurs not the censure of being considered an unfaithful, limner.


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 branch is the conference of committees, which form the branch; the running work of the branch is carried out by its executive, elected at the conference of Committees.

All district branches of a given Government or region form the Government branch of the union, controlled by the Government conference and the Government executive; the Government conference is composed of representatives elected at the district conferences of committees at a fixed proportion, and in the Government town at the city conference of committees; the Government executive and the revision committee are elected by the Government conference.

The number of branches of the union is 416; they are united into 41 Government departments. Thus each Government department on the average includes ten branches. At the present moment the federation unites 646,040 members on Russian territory, excluding Siberia, the Ukraina and Turkestan, where the process of organisation of the union is not yet terminated—while at the time of the Second Special Congress in May, 1919, the union counted only 350,000 members; i.e., in the course of one year the number of members increased by about 300,000 or 100 per cent. Each district branch on the average includes 800 members; and all the 375 district branches, about 300,000 members. Each city branch Me a Government town) has on the average 8,440 members, and 41 Government towns together contain 346,000 members.

To these we must add 25,000 members in Turkestan, where the branches of the unions are being united by the regional committee which only in the end of March of this year got into touch with the central committee of the union—it could not do it before, this region being cut off from Soviet Russia.

As regards the borders—Siberia, Ukraina (the Ural is included in the above figures), no exact information can be obtained up to now; neither regarding the restoration of the union organisations destroyed or more or less damaged during the domination of Denikin and Koltchak, nor regarding the number of members of the organisations which have already been called into life again, with the exception of the Kharkoff, Kieff and Ekaterinoslaff branches counting together about 35,000 members.

The chief organ of the union is the All-Russian Congress convoked once a year. This elects the central committee and its Board for the management of the activity of the union, which varries on the daily routine work and represents the union.

The plenum of the central committee is convoked every two months. The delegates to the All-Russian Conference are elected at the Government conferences according to a fixed proportion. At the 2nd Special Congress in 1919 the central committee elected was composed as follows: 21 members, of whom 12 were communists, 6 partisans of the independence of the trade union movement, 3 internationalists; the Board of the central committee was composed of 11 members—6 communists, 3 partisans of the independence of the trade union movement and 2 internationalists; after the fusion of the Inter-


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Rh them under hatches till all is over. Let each of us take the helm himself and run straight through the vessel nearest him. We will have the guns loaded and see if we can't account for one or two more with our broadsides. I believe we should be no safer if we fled back up stream, and our men would be demoralized into the bargain. So now you know my mind; and all I have to say is, when you meet the enemy keep her head straight."

"I quite agree with you," said Gell, "and am glad you have so decided. But I thought it right to put before you the alternative."

The other two hurried on board their respective ships to give their necessary orders. I turned to the boatswain, ordered him to clear the decks and fasten down the hatches upon all the passengers, and then to see that all the guns were loaded and manned. The gunners were not to wait for orders, but were to fire whenever they saw a good opportunity for disabling the craft as we steamed by.

I took the helm myself, with a pilot beside me in case of accidents. We weighed again, and steamed down about a cable's length apart, the Roanoke first,


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 nationalist with the Communist party the internationalist members of the central committee and of the Board fused with the communists, thus increasing the number of votes of the latter.

The wage classification of our union on an All-Russian scale began to be applied only in February, 1919. The entire wage fixing work of the union is concentrated in the Tariff Department of the Central Committee. At present all the branches of the union have central tariff taxation commissions, whose duty it is to apply the tariffs in the area of their branch.

Every institution or enterprise, together with the committee of employees, organises a tariff commission composed of representatives in equal number of the clerks and the administration.

These commissions divide the clerks into groups and categories of the tariff net work, classifying the work of every single person, and fixing according to the tariff system the rate of pay, after which the lists are passed on to the Central Tariff Commission of the branch of the union. After having been confirmed by the latter Commission the tariffs become obligatory for the given institution. In case conflicts arise which cannot be settled in the Tariff Department of the Central Committee, the Higher Tariff Commission must be applied to the decisions of which are final in all questions of detail of principle.

Recently the Central Committee drew up a project for normal terms of labour and the introduction of the premium system of wages. These questions are quite new and extremely difficult for our union, but the first steps in this direction have been taken already the general scheme of the premium system of pay is worked out. This premium question is closely bound up with the question of raising the productivity of labour and of labour discipline; therefore when speaking of this question, several points besides the one fundamental point, that of strict regulation of the terms of labour—have to be considered, such as: reduced staffs, individual initiative, definite tasks (the execution of a definite piece of work, within a definite period) the stage of service in an institution (this being introduced for the purpose of combating the frequent changed of service from one institution into another).

In the provinces the premium system! of wages will be applied only after the schemes worked out by the Central Commission of the Union have been confirmed.

The distribution of special industrial clothing among the clerks also belongs to the sphere of activity of the tariff commission. According to the lists presented for the first receipt 138,000 garments have been received (footwear, various upper) clothing, warm clothing, overalls, gloves, half sleeves, etc.), which is about 70 per cent. of all the things required. The lists to be presented for the second receipt are not yet drawn up.


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80 then Gell in the Hope, while I brought up the rear with the America. We moved forward in echelon, so as to shape a course for three of the blockading squadron.

Those were anxious minutes as we steamed swiftly down the three miles that parted us from the enemy's line. As we neared it we could see that he was preparing to give us a warm reception. What precise methods of offence he would display we knew not, but it was not for nothing that those queer spars of steel were performing strange antics on each of the uncanny looking crafts.

And now we are close upon the central ships of the blockading squadron. They were not at anchor; on the contrary we saw them set their engines in motion and steam furiously to meet us. Dana being slightly in advance was the first to encounter his opponent. The two vessels, having a cumulative speed of nearly fifty knots, met with a terrific crash. But the Roanoke passed on but slightly injured, while the other immediately began to fill and sink. The cheer sent up by Dana's men was re-echoed from our decks.

An instant later Gell charged a second vessel.


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Rh But whether he kept a less straight course or whether the enemy's ship ported her helm, she was not immediately sunk, but a gaping hole was made along her side. As I passed her in the America my gunners gave her the coup-de-grace with one of our great shells, which struck her boiler and exploded her. Two seconds more and I was close upon the vessel I had selected for attack, and was expecting each moment to be thrown off my feet with the shock of collision, when with astonishing velocity she put her helm hard down and stood across the river. Seeing her manœuvre I starboarded my helm at almost the same instant, and (her way being checked by the rudder) managed to strike her full and fair amidships. Incredible as it may appear we passed clean through that vessel as if she had been built of so much paper, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that we suffered no more damage than the scraping of the paint off our sides.

But other vessels came swarming round us, and the odds were great. Our guns began to fire rapidly, and so good was the sailors' practice that scarce a shot missed its mark, while I think every one of our heavy shells struck and blew up the boilers of the vessel at


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76 our two ships, which we renamed the "America" and the "Hope," were found well stocked. It was evident that they had been about to be commissioned for a distant cruise. The Roanoke, however, required stores of all sorts; for these her crew foraged pretty successfully in New Orleans, sailors being good hands at such work. Dana took command of his own ship, but spared the best of his non-commissioned officers to Gell and myself, who were nominally in command of the others. The Roanoke's crew were equally divided amongst us, giving about thirty men to each; little enough to work such ships as ours. Fortunately we could supply our own engineers.

It was five o'clock on the 22nd of July, 1949, when we weighed anchor. As we began to glide away in stately procession past the banks I felt a desire to call for three cheers, but respect for the dead man lying on board the Roanoke withheld me. But Dana, without my consent, and much against my judgment, thought proper to fire twenty-one guns as a salute to the old country. For this freak we had to pay. For the sound of his fire roused our watchful foe, who had passed down the river in the night, after their unsuc-


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Rh cessful attempt to find us anywhere up stream. It was, no doubt, the noise of their engines that had struck my dreaming ear as I was dozing off to sleep; and now as we rounded the first point below New Orleans we saw to our dismay a mighty flotilla stretching in a long line across the water, prepared to dispute our passage.

There was no evading them. No friendly night to cover us; no wooded creek in which to ride unobserved, for we had fairly confronted them now; no alternative course by which we might give them the slip, and escape to sea.

I made the signal to drop anchor, and then for Dana and Gell to come aboard at once. The spirits of our poor folks had again sunk to zero. Fortunately however the sailors, who had not yet encountered the foe and had no superstitious terror of him, were rather elated at the prospect of a fight.

"Well, gentlemen," said I as soon as we were in my state-room, "what are we to do now?"

"I see nothing for it," said Dana, "but to run through them."


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 scheme of things was also comprehended. There was no experience and no event too trivial, and none too imposing, to find a record in Hardy's lyrics. The whole range of his interests and of his ideas achieved expression here, as well as his immediate imaginative reaction to events of the time, nowhere recorded in his prose works.

Some of these poems showed Hardy in an entirely new light—that of a "laureate" poet; but the most obviously "occasional" pieces demonstrated once for all the fact that that official distinction could never be his.

The passing of Edward VII and the accession of the present George called forth two notable poems. For A King's Soliloquy—On the Night of His Funeral was a lament over the unfruitfulness, "the days of drudgery, the nights of stress" of the life of a monarch, even when he is determined to get the best of all the enjoyments that his extraordinary opportunities put within his reach;—the "average track of average men" is to be preferred—and the poem ends on a fatalistic note:

The Coronation was a most extraordinary working-out of an idea that might have been molded into a masterpiece. The older rulers of the island are awakened by the noises of the erection of the temporary scaffolding for the ceremony at Westminster, and speculate on the significance of the disturbance. The reader speculates


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78 "Unless," said Gell, "we think it wiser to make a bolt up stream."

"They would soon overhaul us," replied Dana. "They are light river boats, and no ironclads can match them in speed."

"True, but if we could keep clear of them for a couple of hours it would get dark, and we might let them pass us in the night."

"But can you undertake that they shall not overtake us in less than two hours? And if they come up higher and line the river where it is narrower our chance of getting through them unobserved will be less."

"Well but if we run through them by daylight we must fight. Now I don't know about your men, but ours are in such an abject state of funk that I don't believe they would have the pluck to fire a shot."

"Gentlemen," said I, "one thing is clear, that we must make up our minds at once. It is a choice of dangers, and on the whole I think the less is to run through the lines. Our ironclads can destroy any number of such flimsy craft. I think we can depend upon the sailors. As for our own folks we will clap


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 just as vainly on the meaning, or "point" of the poem itself, and the crudity, both of expression and of technique, is apt to cause some embarrassment to the Hardy-enthusiast. Here is a choice selection of the royal dialogue:

One does not wonder that patriotic British journals did not scramble for Hardy's poetical comment on news of the day;—what would the average Londoner have thought of his morning paper, if, on the day after the coronation, "Eliza" had "squeaked" at him from the printed lines that represented the laureate's celebration of the event? . . . To say nothing of the gracelessness


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82 which it was aimed. Unfortunately we had but four of these heavy guns on board the America. and only two on the Hope and the Roanoke, and having been once fired they remained useless after, for without the proper hydraulic machinery it would have taken long, longer than the conflict lasted, to get them re-loaded.

But though we had destroyed ten of the foe we were not yet out of the wood. An evil looking craft of great size, and no river-boat this time but an ironclad, the skin of which our smaller shot was unable to pierce, came alongside us and manœuvring so as to avoid being rammed, suddenly dropped an immense arm of steel on our foremast. What was the meaning of this manœuvre? I soon discovered. Rapidly hauling in the arm which had clutched the mast with immense force, she proceeded to pull us over on our beam ends, until our ports were all but under water. At a word from me, two sailors rushed up the shrouds to disengage us. But their axes were useless against the steel bars, and had it not been for the presence of mind of the boatswain who cut the topmast stays we must have been sunk. But as soon as these were gone the mast snapped with a report like a cannon


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 of bringing in "Hal" and his notoriously complex domestic problems. The whole poem was a most unusual thing to find in Hardy: an example of really bad work. A sudden and complete transition from the ridiculous to the sublime may be effected by turning to examine another occasional poem, the lines of the loss of the "Titanic," The Convergence of the Twain. From the first stanza,

to the last,

the language and the thought achieve an exaltation and a grandeur that touch the heart of the reader more forcibly and tellingly than any more sensational or sentimental treatment of the theme could possibly do. Here the "Immanent Will, that stirs and urges everything" definitely displaced the poet's earlier and more awkward conception of Chance and Time as agents of Destiny.

The ballads of the Napoleonic wars found in the Wessex Poems represent Hardy's continued interest in a theme that had already occasioned The Trumpet-Major and was eventually to find its consummation in The Dynasts. Edmund Gosse wrote that they were conceived, and a few lines written, long before their completion.


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 Certainly they represent their author's most spontaneous work, and have drawn admiration when his other poems only succeeded in drawing sneers or other more vigorous tokens of hostility. One of the first reviewers of Wessex Poems went so far as to express a belief that Hardy could possibly do a great historical romance on the Napoleonic wars.

Leipzig, the tale of the taking of the city by the Allies in 1813, told by "old Norbert with the flat blue cap" on an evening in the master-tradesman's parlor at the Old Ship Tun at Casterbridge, is remarkable for its dramatic handling of the event that was to form the bulk of Act III of the third part of The Dynasts; for its swiftness of movement and vividness of expression that anticipated much of the vigor of execution so notably characteristic of the later poems, and for its iterated emphasis on the poet's disillusioned view of warfare:

San Sebastian, again a dramatic monologue, stresses the sordid and horrid aspects of war—it is a tale of the undying remorse that clings to the spirit of a man who has committed outrages such as always accompany the taking and plundering of towns when the soldiery are released from control. The Peasant's Confession, likewise a tale of remorse, takes us to the field of Waterloo, and explains the failure of Grouchy to arrive on the field in time by the fact that Napoleon's messenger was be-


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 trayed and slain by a treacherous peasant. Five full stanzas are devoted to a Homeric or Æschylean catalogue of the noted fallen—a mere enumeration of the names of familiar and unfamiliar heroes. It will be seen that this is an anticipation of the technique of The Dynasts. The dramatic quality of the story is vividly reflected in the speed and the broken rhythms of the verses. The Alarm was based, like many an episode in The Trumpet-Major, on an actual Hardy-family tradition dealing with Bonaparte's threatened invasion of England, when all the country was in a fever of excitement and preparation.

In contrast to these poems, based on history and local legend, were those occasioned by Hardy's own experiences and observations in times of war. The "War-Poems" in Poems of the Past and the Present were written at various times during the Boer War, and give a picture of that struggle as viewed from Southampton, London, and Wessex. The first thing that one realizes after a mere glance through this group is that, for all his philosophic generalization, Hardy was by no means insensible to the external picturesqueness of the military spectacles he witnessed. The colorful excitement of embarcation scenes, the tramp of a battery through rain and mud, with wives and sweethearts trudging alongside as best they may, the crowds about the war-office watching the bulletins,—all these impressions are recorded. Nor was he less alive to the inevitable and natural emotions aroused in the crowds through the stirring up of the spirit of patriotism and of the love of adventure that is a part of everyone's nature. Soldierly enthusiasm


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Rh shot; the ship recovered equilibrium with a great lurch, and the enemy's ship slewed round on the sudden relaxation of the strain. I saw my chance, got my vessel's head round, and made for the enemy. Crash went my bows into her quarter, and at the same moment Gell who had seen our danger crashed into her from the other side, our bowsprits nearly meeting across her deck. She began to fill and sink, but so firmly were we wedged, that it was only by putting on full steam and reversing the engines that Gell and I succeeded in disengaging ourselves from being carried down with our sinking foe.

The last honours of this eventful day rested with Dana. We had now fairly broken through the enemy's line, and had proved ourselves more than a match for these soulless machines, with all their mechanical perfection and blind implacable fury. As we dropped down the river, leaving the discomfited host behind, we found ourselves in the reverse formation to that in which we had attacked, for I was now leading the way, Dana bringing up the rear. Our fighting we thought was at an end; but we proved to be mistaken. For suddenly there appeared from I know not where


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 coupled with, soldierly fatalism and soldierly melancholy, breathes through the lines of The Colonel's Soliloquy. The many splendid dramatic possibilities were not overlooked by any means; witness The Going of the Battery and Song of the Soldiers' Wives and Sweethearts, which make their readers live through the anguish of parting and the joy of meeting. The irony of events is here represented by the characteristic A Wife in London, in which the poor unfortunate receives on one day a cablegram announcing the death of her husband, and on the next a letter from him, full of rosy hopes and plans for the future.

To the realization of the essentially tragic quality of events as they affect individuals he added the disillusive conclusions about war that force themselves upon the unimpassioned thinker when the superficial excitement induced by the "herd instinct" has worn off. On Christmas-eve, in 1899, the poet wondered at the inconsistency of tacking "Anno Domini" to the years that were as yet unilluminated by that spirit of peace for which Christ died; and the souls of the slain, in another poem written at the same time, rushing homeward like the Pentecost-Wind, discover to their dismay that they are remembered for their homely and commonplace characteristics rather than for their words and deeds of military prowess. Hardy already longed for the time when saner, softer policies would prevail, and patriotism scorn to stand "bond-slave to realms, but circle earth and seas," in the universal brotherhood of man. How far was this spirit of lovingkindness removed from the imperialistic bluster of Kipling!—who, with all his genius, never once


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84 a huge war-vessel of enormons dimensions, which bore down at once upon the nearest of our little squadron, which happened to be the Roanoke.

Dana fired several shots at this great galleon, but they glanced harmlessly off her invulnerable skin. And now for the first time our fire was returned. From want of guns, or whatever reason, none of the other vessels had fired a shot against us. But this monster proceeded to discharge huge shells, which came singing over our heads, or splashing the water high above us where they struck. One of these shells would have been quite enough to destroy the Roanoke, or the America or Hope either; fortunately they were very badly aimed, or not aimed at all. So Dana commenced to run his vessel rapidly round the great monster, like a swordfish round a whale, now trying a shot, now assailing her with his ram, but soon finding that her solid construction made him the chief sufferer in these encounters. Presently one of her great arms fell on his mast, and nearly swamped his ship as it had done mine. Like us he also had to sacrifice his topmast. And all the while the great shot and shell were pouring out of the huge guns, and it became


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 achieved the wonderful suggestion, accomplished by the employment of simple, dignified, and rhythmical language, of such a poem as Drummer Hodge:

The Sick God closed these Boer-War poems. Here the delicious feeling of relief upon the conclusion of peace and the cessation of familiar horrors, led Hardy to the supposition that the growth of sanity and loving fellowship in humanity, (or, to translate it into the language of the Hardy-philosophy—the growth of consciousness in the all-pervading Immanent Will) was gradually bringing about a lack of interest in the art of war and an increasing feeling of disgust at its methods. Men, he felt,


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Rh clear to all that there could be but one end to the fight, since the enemy was invulnerable, and sooner or later one of the shot was sure to sink the Roanoke. At the same time if we joined in the attack we should only impede his movements, and in no respect help our comrade.

Dana seems to have felt as we did that unless he could devise some other means of offence than his guns and ram the battle must end in his destruction. So circling round and round her, near enough to let the shot and shell pass over him, yet far enough off to be beyond those terrible arms, he made his preparations. Presently we saw him draw off to the distance of perhaps seven hundred yards, at which range the shot and shell fell just beyond him. Was he going to ram again, hoping that at great speed he would be able to crash through the sides even of this steel wall? It seemed so, for he began to advance under full steam. We trembled for the result, for even if successful, his own already damaged bows must have been completely shattered.

But as he got close to the enemy, we saw his speed checked, the engines reversed, and instead of striking


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86 the enemy a furious blow it seemed doubtful if he would touch her at all. But just as the great arm was extented to clutch mast or smoke-stack again, a spar of great length was run out from the Roanoke's bowsprit, armed with a torpedo at the end, at such a level as to strike the monster's side just below the surface of the water. A loud explosion followed, and through the mountain of water and spray we saw the Roanoke speeding away, and the monster seemingly uninjured. Not so however in reality. A breach had been made in her side, and as we watched we saw that she was slowly but surely settling down. The sun was now on the point of setting, having remained above the horizon just long enough to light us to victory. Darkness fell rapidly, but still we could see the flash of the great guns of the sinking ship, and hear the shells hurtling over our heads. It was quite dark when these sights and sounds suddenly ceased.

The enemy had sunk in ninety fathoms of water.


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74 engaged in packing up their possessions in order to transfer them on board the respective ships to which they were assigned. A Committee of some half dozen of the principal men were writing tickets and distributing them amongst the different families with a view to getting them on successive boatloads without crowding or confusion. While busily engaged in this occupation a boat hailed us, and in a few moments Lieutenant Dana stepped on board. Approaching me he whispered in my ear two words which made me start with dismay. Recovering myself, I told the committee to continue their work, and that I was obliged to go on board the Roanoke but would return shortly.

"How did it happen?" asked I, as soon as we were in the boat.

"Why, sir," replied Lieutenant Dana, "he was on watch until twelve o'clock when I relieved him, and he said he would turn in, but I was to call him when I went off my watch at four. I had been pacing the deck for some time and then sat down on the gunwale in the bows, lighted a cigar, and watched the moon which was slowly going down. Suddenly I


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Rh thought I heard a slight report like a distant pistol shot, and listened intently for further sounds. But all was perfectly still. This was about a quarter before one. I stayed on watch till four, when I went and knocked at his door, and got no answer. I called out 'Four o'clock, sir,' and still got no answer. So I went in, and there found the poor fellow on his knees beside his berth. Quite dead, sir, and the revolver beside him, with one barrel discharged."

On reaching the ship we proceeded to the cabin which Dana had locked up, and found it was as he had said. Poor Lieut. Danvers had died by his own hand, through grief and disappointment at the loss of his promised bride. Yes, in spite of Shakespeare and Rosalind, some men have died for love, and he was the last. Poor fellow: his quiet reserved manner had given no indication of the dreadful shock he had received. So with one more heavy blow to burden our sad hearts we prepared our fateful voyage.

There was much to be done, but thanks to the system of tickets we got all our people on board with the minimum of trouble. The greater part of the labour of provisioning was saved us by the fact that


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The Westminster Balance-sheet—Comparison with an Industrial—Smaller Proportion of "Doubtful" Assets—The Big Reserve Fund—The Profit and Loss Account—Its Reticences—Fallacious Inferences. Therefrom—The Nationalization Risk


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 —The Dividend Question—The Union Discount Figures—The Discount Companies' Function—Their Advantages.


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is the process by which we hand over money to somebody else expecting to receive an income, as a fee for the use of it, and to be able to get it back, if and when we want to do so. Whenever we invest we run a risk, which is infinitesimal if we are careful enough, but very real if we are rash or careless, of getting no income on our money and never seeing a farthing of it again. We are thus parting with funds which we could spend pleasantly in a hundred ways that our inclinations will suggest, and we do so because we decide that the pleasure of immediate spending is less important than the benefit of increased income in future and the possession of a store of wealth to be used in time of need or left to our dependents. To secure this benefit we take the risk that has been mentioned, and the ideal to be aimed at by the judicious investor


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 is to make the risk as small as possible while getting from his investment the largest and most rapidly expanding income that he can, and being able to get his money back with the greatest possible addition to it.

Incidentally, whenever we invest we are increasing the world's capital fund, and so making economic progress possible. We may not act with that intention, but the fact remains that if everybody spent all that they earn or receive, there would, as the world is at present organized, be no fund out of which industry, commerce and transport could be maintained and expanded, and the rising tide of production, into which we all have to dip for life and comfort and luxury, would grow stagnant and then begin to ebb. The "functionless" shareholder, as he is called by Socialists who find it easier to beg questions than to answer them, in fact provides industry with the sinews of toil without which it would wither into impotence, and in doing so risks the loss of money that he might have spent comfortably on satisfying self-indulgence.

This he does, whether he takes up new securities as offered, or whether he adopts the usually safer system of buying existing securities in the market. If he subscribes to new issues he evidently hands over money to


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 be invested in industry; if he buys old ones he lets a holder out who wants cash, and he helps to provide that market for securities without which the present system of financing industry could not be maintained.

So much had to be said concerning the benefit that the investor unwittingly works for the rest of mankind, because many people still believe that there is something mean and unsocial about the act of saving and investing, that the nicest and most generous thing to do with money is to spend it, and that thereby they "give employment" and quicken the wheels of trade. Undoubtedly we give employment when we spend money, but no more than when we invest it, and when we invest we give employment in a way that increases the world's equipment for production and so goes on giving more and more employment, and increasing the stock of goods on which we live. It is certainly possible for any given man or woman to spend too little and save too much, from the point of view of his or her own benefit, but from that of the benefit of the community we are very far from the peak at which over-saving is in sight.

By investing then we are certain to benefit other people (though if we are careless about it the other people may be the last whom we