WE

TABLE TALK.

RELIGIOUS MANIA.

E are apparently as incapable in modern days as were our ancestors of dealing with religious mania. In extravagances of language and of conduct, the proceedings of the Salvation Army recall the religious epidemics of the Middle Ages, and the utterances which shock the sensibilities of the orthodox are, allowing for the influences that have been exercised by the Reformation first, and subsequently by Puritanism, almost identical with those of the religious fanatics, or convulsionaries, if I may be pardoned the use of the word, of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Here, for instance, is a short extract from a hymn sung by the Flagellants, whose first appearance in England was made in 1352.

Jesus, by Thy precious blood,
Save us from the fiery flood;
Lord, our helplessness defend,

And to our aid Thy Spirit send.

If man and wife their vows should break,
God will on such His vengeance wreak ;
Brimstone and pitch, and mingled gall,
Satan pours on sinners all.

Truly, the devil's scorn are they,

Therefore, O Lord, Thine aid we pray, &c.

These verses scarcely differ from those which are now shouted up and down the streets by members of the Salvation Army. Outbreaks of religious enthusiasm have been frequent in all countries and times. In 1774 the Orkney and Shetland Islands were subject to a curious religious visitation, resulting, with those affected, in violent convulsions. Thirty-two years previously, the preaching of a Lanarkshire minister started a species of religious mania which extended over a wide district and produced most extravagant proceedings. In 1800 an catburst of religious frenzy, resulting in a species of dancing mania, spread over the Western States of America. It is fully described in an essay on the Chorea Sancti Viti, by Felix Robertson (Philadelphia, 1805). Similar instances could be indefinitely multiplied. Ebullitions of the kind are, however, brief. In stating this fact, I furnish the best solace to those to whom these proceedings of

the Salvation Army are wearisome or blasphemous. Not even the interested motives of those to whom such manifestations are profitable will assign the latest demonstration a lease of life much longer than that of its predecessors.

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HOSPITAL WARDS FOR PAYING PATIENTS.

EFORE very long it is to be hoped that every principal hospital in London will be furnished with wards for paying patients such as have proved successful at St. Thomas's. During the last year, the forty-one beds which at that institution are set apart for patients willing to pay for hospital privileges have been in constant request. On more than one occasion, indeed, the demand has been in excess of the supply. That men with domestic surroundings will readily exchange for the formal and sometimes perfunctory service of a hospital the constant and affectionate ministrations of home is not probable. To a man living in chambers, however, who, when he hears his outer door shut, knows himself alone, whatever happens, through the entire night, and to whom the presence of a nurse of somnolent and probably bibulous temperament brings little thought of comfort, the chance of being in case of illness transferred to a hospital affords a feeling of relief. There are cases, indeed, of exceptionally severe suffering, requiring special attention, in which a householder, at some expense of personal comfort, would be glad to rid those around him of severe responsibility and arduous strain. For all reasons the multiplication of these wards is to be desired.

RISKS OF OCEAN TRAVELLing.

O far from contributing to the security of life, and enabling men to battle successfully with winds and waves, the advance recently made in ship-building seems to have largely augmented the "perils of the deep.". I doubt if the public mind grasps the state of affairs so far as regards the risks of ocean travelling. In the course of the year 1882, three thousand one hundred and eighty-two sailors, or not much short of two per cent. of the entire body of English seamen, were drowned or otherwise killed at sea. Put in another shape, these figures appear more significant. Sixty years is a not unknown period during which to follow a vocation. In the course of a sixty years' pursuit of his calling, however, a sailor at the present average of loss will be drowned. Of every two men who remain sailors for thirty years, one will be killed. That this terrible state of affairs exists is vouched for by no less trustworthy an authority than the President of the Board of Trade, whose statistics I employ. A

portion of this heavy impost may be laid to the charge of exceptional weather. Few of us are without personal experience of the successive gales of the past autumn. The main cause of destruction remains, however-human greed. In spite of all that has been done to secure protection for seamen, ships constantly put forth overloaded or otherwise in an unseaworthy state. Among those who are responsible for the massacre of seamen are mercantile corporate bodies, such as railway companies and others. So long as a satisfactory dividend can be declared, the fact that vessels sail forth overloaded is not seldom, to the managers of these, a matter of absolute insignificance. More than once I have personally known ships belonging to our great companies sent out under conditions which, in case of heavy weather, implied all but certain loss. So long as the cargo and the vessel are fully insured, loss of life seems to be a matter of infinitesimal importance.

FOR

PREVENTION OF DISASTER AT SEA.

'OR a state of affairs such as I have described it is difficult to suggest a remedy. To interfere with the principle of insurance is to strike at the root of mercantile providence. In the possible abuse of this system lies, however, the chief temptation to the crimes constantly committed. It is difficult to bring home to the delinquent the guilt of a murder every witness of which has fallen a victim to its commission. We might, however, apply to marine insurance the kind of legislation accorded to insurance against fire. If honesty could be guaranteed, dwelling-houses in London might be insured against fire at an annual cost of less than half a crown per house. A large number of fires are, however, ascribable to the direct action of men who seek to defraud insurance companies. Very rarely is one of these crimes found out. When however it is detected it is called arson, an ugly sounding word, . and subjects the criminal to the penalties of felony. Let us deal in the same spirit with those who send out ships, which are to the sailors prisons, with a certainty rather than a chance of being drowned. So humane are we that we shrink from the exaction of a death penalty. When, however, one or two directors and managers of public companies have been branded as felons and imprisoned for life, another state of affairs will commence.

NOT

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

WOT a few thinking men are prepared to support the views of Sir James Stephen in his History of the Criminal Law of England, that we have gone too far in the indulgence we extend to

criminals, by reserving for crimes of murder alone the punishment of death. Sir James holds that capital punishment might well be reimposed upon "many crimes which outrage to a great degree the moral feelings of the community, or testify to an incorrigible hostility to society and social laws on the part of the offender." Whether we have not proceeded too fast and too far in more than one direction is a question over which a thoughtful man will be disposed frequently to ponder. It is too early as yet, however, to weary in well-doing, or indeed to decide if we have done well. Merciful legislation is yet barely more than a generation old. Those are yet alive who can remember the exaction of a death forfeit for petty larceny. To kill a confirmed criminal is a far easier task than to convert him, and a far less costly process than to maintain him in prison. If we compare, however, the state of things now existing with that which prevailed in the early years of the century, we shall find justification for confidence in the expediency of what has been done. The strongest argument seems to be lost sight of by Sir James Stephen. We cannot in our own interest afford to treat with merciless severity crime that is the outcome of disease, nor to depart from the example of pitifulness we have set. It behoves a great nation to teach the lesson of respect for life, and costly as is the process, we shall have to keep in constant confinement those whose freedom is prejudicial or dangerous to the general weal. If we take the ground of mere expediency and economy, homicidal maniacs, as well as criminals, should be put to death. The application of a high standard is fatal to any return to past systems of capital punishment.

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ARE WE SYCOPHANTS?

CURIOUS fact struck me in the course of peregrinations first undertaken with a view of seeing if any traces of Chaucer's Stratford-atte-Bow could still be found. One and all of the publichouses, to which a large portion of the degradation around me was attributable, bore the names of warriors and nobles. The signs they carried were Lord Exmouth, Lord Rodney, and other appellations of men renowned for territorial influence or for valour. Are we, then, a race of tufthunters, that those who have the least conceivable connection with royalty or aristocracy should be taught a lesson such as this? Might we not, if hero-worship is to be inculcated by tavern signs, mix with our aristocratic worthies a few of those to whom the public is indebted for something more conducive to our well-being than a military or naval triumph?

SYLVANUS URBAN.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

AUTHOR OF

MAY 1883.

THE NEW ABELARD.

A ROMANCE.

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN,

THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD," "GOD AND THE MAN," ETC.

CHAPTER XII.

IN A SICK ROOM.

Ah blessed promise! Shall it be fulfilled,

Tho' the eye glazes and the sense is still'd?

Shall that fair Shape which beckon'd with bright hand

Out of the mirage of a Heavenly Land,

Fade to a cloud that moves with blighting breath

Over the ever-troublous sea of Death?

Ah no; for on the crown of Zion's Hill,

Cloth'd on with peace, the fair Shape beckons still!

The New Crusade.

T was a curious sensation for Ambrose Bradley, after bitter experience of a somewhat ignominious persecution, to find himself all at once-by a mere shuffle of the cards, as it were— one of the most popular persons in all Bohemia; I say Bohemia advisedly, for of course that greater world of fashion and religion, which Bohemia merely fringes, regarded the New Church and its pastor with supreme indifference.

But the worship of Bohemia is something; nay, Bradley found it much.

He could count among the occasional visitors to his temple some of the leading names in Art and Science. Fair votaries came to him by legions, led by the impassioned and enthusiastic Alma Craik. The society journals made much of him; one of them, in a series of articles called "Celebrities in their Slippers," gave a glowing picture of the new Apostle in his study, in which the sweetest of VOL. CCLIV. NO. 1829.

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