All things considered, there seems fair reason
for believing that Chévreul has suggested what
will prove a clue, not only to the chief facts
connected with the divining-rod, but also to
some other phenomena which are every now
and then starting up to perplex us. That the
affair is partly mental and partly muscular, mind
acting unconsciously upon muscle through the
medium of nerve, seems to be the conclusion
most likely to lead to the truth. There has
been another theory started, to the effect that,
when a person is walking forward, holding a
divining-rod in the usual way, there will be a
mechanical tendency to close the prongs of the
fork a little, by the natural though unconcious
tendency to use the hands and arms; that when
he walks backwards, the tendency will be to
open them a little; and that this closing and
opening will lead to a downward or an upward
bending of the outer end of the rod. Whether
this be a fact or not, it leaves unexplained the
alleged bending of the rod when the experimenter
is standing over hidden veins and springs. As
to the discovery of murders and robberies by
the divining-rod, the test would be, not to tell
the dowser beforehand that such a crime has
been committed, but to leave the rod to find
out that fact; this would be what Bacon would
have called an experimentum crucis.

THE CAT O' NINE TAILS.

THE anecdote I am going to relate describes
what really took place some years ago at Meerut,
in the North-West Provinces of India. I was
at the time a junior subaltern in a line regiment
stationed at that place. There had been a good
deal of discontent among the men relative to the
quality of the bread they were receiving from
the commissariat. They complained that it was
neither so well baked, so white, nor so good in
taste, as the loaves served out to the horse artillery
and the dragoon regiment stationed with us
in the same garrison. After due inquiry into the
case, a board of officers had declared that, although
the native contractor who served our regiment did
not give as good bread as the contractor who had
the contract for the two mounted corps, yet
what he furnished was quite as good as government
required; and that the men of the other
regiments paid a certain sum per week out of
their own pockets in order to have a better
quality of loaves served out to them. The result
of the examination was deemed quite
satisfactory by our colonel, but hardly so by the men.
The regiment had newly come to India, and,
having in England been accustomed to see every
corps receive precisely the same quality of
rations, could not understand why there should be
a difference between the food which was given
to them and that served out to other corps. In
the abstract they were right, and yet there was
really no remedy. The native contractor who
served them could not be made to give better
bread than he was under engagement to do,
nor, on the other hand, could our commanding
officer interfere with the interior economy of
other corps by insisting that their men should
not pay for a better quality of bread. Moreover
the bread furnished to our men was
quite good enough for any one; so much so,
that our colonel—as he told the regiment on
parade, when speaking on the subject—and
many of the officers, always bought and used
at their own houses this very bread which the
men condemned, and for some weeks would not
taste. There was, in short, a general strike
as to bread-eating, throughout the regiment.
Any soldier who presumed to touch his ration
of bread was annoyed aud worried by his
comrades. The men were obliged to receive the
loaves, but day after day some eleven or twelve
hundred loaves were taken away by the native
cook-boys, aud thrown to the dogs or given to
the lowest caste workmen in the station. All
this time the ill feeling augmented. Our
commanding officer was a thoroughly good soldier,
but he was cursed with that very worst quality
one in his position can have—procrastination. He
never did to-day what he could leave undone
until to-morrow. More than once did the captains
of companies and the adjutant mention to
him that the men were, without any just cause
whatever, getting more and more discontented;
but he never showed the least intention to take
action in the matter until forced.

I was going my rounds as orderly officer, at
breakfast-time, and had to visit every barrack-
room to ask if there were any complaints. In
each room I observed, what had been going on
for the last three weeks, that the ration loaves
of the men lay untouched, and that with their
tea and meat—for in India the cook-boys
generally manage to turn out something substantial
for the soldieirs breakfasts—they were eating
bazaar bread (loaves bought in the bazaar or
market) or native cakes called chowpatties,
both of which were of an infinitely worse
quality than any bread the contractor had ever
furnished. Still, if they preferred to spend
their money thus, it was no affair of mine.
At one or two of the barrack-rooms there was
a sullen half complaint, half inquiry, as to
when they might expect better rations, made
to my routine question of "Any complaints?"
and I gave such answers as I could. But when
visiting one of the last barrack-rooms, and just
as I had turned to leave it, a ration loaf, hurled
with no small strength, struck me on the back
of the head, knocked off my forage-cap, and
almost sent me prostrate on the floor. With
this pleasant missile there reached my ears the
exclamation, in a broad Irish brogue, "There's
bread for your  breakfast, anyhow!"

Here was a case of the grossest insubordination.
Without the slightest provocation
some one had struck and insulted a superior
officer in the execution of his duty. Of course
the first step I had to take was to find out who
that individual was. I turned round and
demanded who had thrown the loaf; not a man
would speak. There were at. the time about fourteen
men in the room, aud, having finisheded their