+ ~ -
 
Please report pronunciation problems here. Select and sample other voices. Options Pause Play
 
Report an Error
Go!
 
Go!
 
TOC
 

cups of ample size, though not of the
highest finishat the top of the table, and
beside them a goodly array of bottles
corked and sealed. Gradually a company
of about half the number of that which has
just broken up has assembled. That the
proceedings are to be more of the free-and-
easy order than those that have gone
before is testified by the fact that the greater
part of those who come in enter the room
smoking their pipes; and in this particular
the chairman, who is none other than the
worthy laird who had officiated in that
capacity just before, is no exception. When
he has got us all seated, and the elder
installed in his former office, Boniface is
ordered to draw the corks of the eight
bottles ofit is no slander to say itvery
ordinary port that grace the top of the
table. The liquor, it is understood, has
been, or will be, paid for by the winners
of the cups; and it has got to be drunk
out of the challenge cups, handed round the
table among the company. Here there is
no toasting, and no particular order to be
observed in anything; only the cups have
to be filled and emptied; so much does the
rite of christening render imperative. And
in due course they are emptied, amid infinite
noise of speeches and songs, tobacco smoke,
and incoherent talk about cattle and cattle
breeding, and many things relating thereto,
to me very unintelligible. The indifferent
port seems to tell more rapidly on the
bulk of the company than the whisky-punch
imbibed at our previous sitting had done.
No doubt the two hours we have spent over
the national compound have done their
part in helping to mellow all our hearts;
but I rather think the general sentiment
of the company is expressed by the red-
nosed cup-man, when, as the result of an
abortive effort to stand in equilibrio, he
declares that, "that sour dirt o' wine's
nae like gude honest whisky; it'll turn a
man's head afore he's half gate on." How
many are tipsy at the close of the christening,
which takes place about half-past
ten o'clock, I will not venture to guess.
The chairman, who has proved himself, as
he is on all hands declared to be, a jolly
good fellow, certainly is not. Neither is
the srong-headed old elder, for, as we are
breaking up, with considerably more noise
than haste, he tucks his challenge cup
under his arm, and marches sturdily out.
The ostler has his pony at the door, the
elder mounts with a ponderous swing,
shouts "Good-nicht, boys!" and in three
minutes thereafter we can hear only the
receding footfalls of his nag, half a mile
off, as he clatters on his homeward way in
the grey gloamin' light.

   PHYSIOGNOMY OF LUGGAGE.

THERE is a physiognomy in the human
back, the wave of the rim of a hat, the
height of a shirt-collar, by which a man
may be recognised quite as well as by his
beaming face. The ignoring of this familiar
truth, for a purpose, was singularly
illustrated in the RUSH trial, when the
endeavour was made to shake the maid-servant's
identification of that murderer, because she
had only seen his back. Yet we do not
remember that the learned judge or
anybody else asked the jury to consider whether,
in their daily experience, they were accustomed
to know people by their backs as
well as by their faces.

To know such a man's walk, the shape of
such an other man's back, &c., seems to
belong to a specially acute and Indian-
like instinct: while sailors, in refutation
of that meagre sense, which excuses some
failure of recognition by such a
pretence as "I could not see his face," talk
airily, and with a metaphor drawn from
their own profession, of knowing some
unfamiliar figure "by the cut of his
jib." These loose expressions all point
to a deeper principle: to the curious
marks which the interior soul leaves
behind it, wherever it comes in contact with
earthy matter, or earthy manners and
modes. It all comes under the head of
style, which, we have been told, "makes
the man."Tell us a particular style, and
we shall know the man. And in dearth
of all other helps and tokens show us a
man's trunk, and we may be pretty sure
as to what he is.

Standing on the wooden pier at Folkestone,
watching the sole dramatic show of
the place, the departing packet, there is no
moment so exciting for the jaded voluptuaries
of the place as when the three or four
great vans are seen rolling down along the
rails. These huge trains hold the baggage
of the great caravan, and each is halted by
a yawning cavity in the pier, down which
slopes, at an easy angle, a sort of Montagne
Russe. Open fly the waggon doors, sailors
and porters swarm round like bees at a hive's
mouth, and fling themselves on the
baggage warehoused within. This rattles on
the ground with hollow thump and sharp
clash of hasps and handles, while a skilful