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the most constrained and irksome posi-ground with his foot during all that petions. For weeks, and even months,riod, and, on account of his infirmity, was men have sat and walked with their exempted from the usual kinds of convict bodies bent double. A man feigning labour, and employed at work which he palsy of the lower limbs was placed by could do in a sitting posture. When behimself in a room with food which he ing discharged at the expiry of his period could reach only by walking to the place of involuntary service, he coolly observed where it was laid, and at the end of two to an official: "I will try to put down my days he had not tasted it. Another, sim-leg: it may be of use to me now." He ulating paralysis of the arm, allowed the was as good as his word, threw away amputating knife to be placed beneath it, his crutch, and walked off with a firm step! and would have submitted to the opera- With some, the temptation to give an airtion for its removal. A soldier counter-ing to the little secret which they have feiting blindness was placed on the steep been obliged to keep so long, and which bank of a river, and ordered to march for- has stood them in such good part, is ward, which he unhesitatingly did, and wholly irresistible. Without this flaunting fell into the stream. The medical writer of their imposture in the face of their who relates this case queries whether the victims, some rascals would deem their cheat would have gone forward had a triumph only half achieved. A trooper precipice instead of a river been before who pretended he had lost the use of his him. No doubt these may be called ex- right arm, after resisting for a length of ceptional instances of fortitude, as the time the most testing hospital discipline, great majority of malingerers are made of at last succeeded in procuring his dismore commonplace stuff. A mere hint charge. When he was leaving the regifrom a navy surgeon that an equivocal ment, and fairly seated on the top of the complaint would be benefited by transfer- coach, he waved the paralytic arm in trience to an African climate, or the appli- umph, and cheered at the success of his cation of the actual cautery, has been the stratagem. An Irish soldier, reported means of effecting a miraculously rapid unfit for service from loss of power of the cure. A French physician, after watch-lower limbs, arranged for a more dramatic ing a spurious epileptic fit for some time, avowal of his deceit. Having obtained put his hand on the heart of the cheat, his discharge, he caused himself to be and turning to the attendants, said: "It taken on a field-day in a cart to the is all over with him; carry him to the Phoenix Park, Dublin, in front of his regdead-house." Immediate resuscitation iment, which was drawn up in line. He was the result, and the man never had had the cart driven under a tree, on which another attack. A Shetland clergyman he hung his crutches, jumped suddenly was greatly annoyed at the weekly occur- with agility out of the cart, sprung three rence of a kind of contagious convulsions times from the ground before the faces which attacked many of his congregation of his astonished comrades, then turned in church. At length the good man hit his back to the regiment, and after a on a plan which put a speedy termination series of expressive gestures, which we to the infliction. He announced from cannot particularly describe, scampered the pulpit that he had learned that no off at full speed! In a case of deception treatment was so efficacious as an imme-once practised in a New York court of diate ducking in cold water; and as his sessions, there seems to have been no kirk was fortunately contiguous to a pre-arrangement of the dénouement which fresh-water lake, the proper hydropathic occurred. A man who had been for some treatment could always be secured. It is a most unfortunate coincidence for the malingerer that the means which would be the most beneficial in the treatment of the real disease are often the most distasteful to him.

The difficulties and discomforts to be endured in this department of art in attaining the desired object, no doubt enhance the enjoyment of it in those few cases in which success at last crowns their labours. A convict sentenced to seven years' penal servitude kept his right knee bent so as not to touch the

time in prison awaiting his trial for perjury, had a paralytic seizure a few days before the period fixed for the trial, and one of his sides was thus rendered completely powerless. In this helpless condition he was carried on a bed from prison into court. During the trial he became so faint that a recess was granted to enable him to recover, the prosecuting attorney kindly lending his assistance in conveying him out of court. The sight of an infirm fellow-being trembling on the brink of the grave had a visible influence on the court and the jury. The

From The Spectator.

evidence, however, was conclusive, and a real disease, from which he died in a the jury convicted him. The court, in few days. view of his speedily being called to a higher tribunal, instead of sentencing him to the state prison, simply imposed a small fine, which his brother, who manifested the utmost fraternal solicitude, promptly paid. The next day the prosecuting attorney met the fellow apparently WHY is it that most people are affected in good health on the street. The latter in a curiously unpleasant way, — unpleaslaughingly told him that he had recovered, ant and irritating, but without either the and dropping his arm, and contracting his leg, hopped off, leaving the learned counsel to his own reflections.

THE LITERARY SIN OF SINGULARITY.

anguish or the solacement of great and dignified pain, by what is new-fangled? This adjective we take to indicate innovaIt is, however, a rare thing nowadays tion which is unnecessary, capricious, and for a clinical artist to attain his end and accompanied by no demonstrable imenjoy the full fruition of his labours. In provement upon what went before. Is most cases he has no other reward than the unpleasantness of arbitrary innovation the pleasure received from the exercise due to a lurking conservatism in every of his art. This æsthetic satisfaction breast, which instinctively throws the would need to be great to enable him to onus probandi upon him who substitutes bear even the prosaic hardships and dis- the new for the old? Or is it that mere comforts of his lot. But in addition to habit, and the profound, though unreathese, he is sometimes overtaken by a soned wisdom of keeping the inevitable species of poetical justice in the shape of friction of life at a minimum, lend a a penalty paid in kind. The feigned dis- charm to the old as compared with the ease, in fact, occasionally becomes a real new? Even if it were allowed that habone. Montaigne mentions some curious it makes fools of us, yet habit's fools are instances of this occurring within his too numerous to be despised; and the own experience. It is chiefly in simulat- fools of habit have as much right to their ing the class of nervous diseases that the prejudices as the coxcombs of the schools danger lies of this avenging Nemesis. to their affectations. What is quite cer The continued repetition of the manifes-tain is, that sudden change from what we tations of the affection seems eventually are accustomed to, unless pointedly for to make an ineradicable impression on the better, is fidgetting; and no man can the nervous centres. Two French sailors be pronounced without qualification a taken prisoners by the English in the public benefactor, who adds to the fidgets wars of the First Napoleon, successfully of existence. An amount of deference to feigned insanity for six months, and at the feelings of the majority, rigorously the end of that period got the reward of limited, no doubt, by the requirements of their clever deception by recovering their duty and self-respect, but still consideraliberty; but it was at the expense of their ble, falls within the claims of social reason, which was really gone. The courtesy. A lawyer's wig may be an exmeans adopted to simulate one disease tremely foolish thing, and anyone setting have sometimes produced another of a forth that it has neither utility nor beauty more serious kind. Soldiers have so would, if he spoke well, deserve a hearpersistently kept up a state of irritationing; but were a sucking barrister to start in a factitious sore as to bring on a dis- up suddenly in court and commence ease which required amputation of the pleading a case without a wig, no degree limb. Others have lost their sight by of rationality in the proceeding itself, no the methods taken to induce a temporary engaging audacity of countenance or inflammation in the eye. The historian splendour of hair, would preclude his beRobertson mentions a case which, ing voted a prig. whether true or not, is, at all events, physiologically possible. He says that Pope Julius III. feigned sickness to avoid holding a consistory, and in order to give the greater colour of probability to his illness, he not only confined himself to his apartment, but changed his diet and usual mode of life. By persisting in this plan, however, he contracted

It must be admitted that authors of great genius have not always been sufficiently regardful of what we stoutly maintain to be one of the rights of man, the right not to be fidgetted. Mr. Carlyle, for example, has in all his books paraded certain German mannerisms, with merciless unconcern for the habitudes of common English readers. All substantives, for

one thing, or almost all, were initialed | ble volumes on Rousseau, we have been with capital letters, a usage peculiarly un- conscious of a perpetual small irritation fortunate for Mr. Carlyle, whose meta- from his elaborate scorn for some of those phors are those of a poet, and who was modes or usages which, to the best of our under no temptation to personify the knowledge, have been uniformly observed beautiful with the assistance of a big B. by English authors. Mr. Morley denies Mr. Carlyle, however is not only a man of the capital letter to a number of words genius, but a man whose genius is recog- which have always been so honoured. nized as a special, personal quality, and Not only does he write "trinity" and there is some fairness therefore in look-christian," but "god." We have "being upon him as a privileged person. lief in god," "love of god,” “the idea of Younger men who have not proved them- god," "the word of god," the "supreme selves to possess transcendent genius, being." The word "god" is thus printed have no right to give themselves airs. It in phrases taken from the Bible. Mr. may in all candour be doubted whether Morley remarks, for example, that "in the the meaning of some of these would not old ages of holy men there were not a generally be clear enough, without our few whom love for the god whom they had being informed that the realities of which not seen, constrained to active love of they treat are "objective," or the ideas their brethren whom they had seen," an they define "subjective." Philosophical antithesis borrowed from the New Testaprecision may be promoted by the use of ment. The term is constantly occurring the terms "egoistic” and “altruistic," but in Mr. Morley's pages, and whenever it a good many of the budding sages who per- occurs, a minute prick of surprise and petually introduce them might make shift irritation will certainly be experienced by with our old-fashioned friends, "selfish" a large proportion of English readers. and "unselfish." Occasionally the ped- On the mere ground that it is new-fanantry takes the form of fastidious ex- gled, this innovation is objectionable, but clusiveness put in force against a particu- we venture to affirm that it lies open to lar word. The adjective "reliable," for graver exceptions than can be based on instance, has of late been fiercely ostra- its uncalled-for newness. Is Mr. Morley cised by our literary coxcombs, and it re- sure that the usage he adopts is in a quires some boldness in a writer to de- grammatical sense correct? Does the cline to substitute for it in every connec- word "god" convey the meaning which, tion the word "trustworthy." Both are in some cases at least, he must intend it excellent words, but in meaning they are to bear? He is doubtless of opinion that not absolutely identical. There is a faint belief in a living God is so completely shade of difference between the signifi- obliterated from the minds of men that cance of the one and the significance of the word is a mere cipher for certain abthe other. You speak of an official trust-stract notions, as the word "freedom worthy in all situations, and of a soldier the word "patience" is a cipher for cerreliable in every emergency. The one tain abstract notions. He infers, thereword leans on permanence and the quali-fore, that the word "God" is not a propties which create deliberate confidence, er name. His premiss we need hardly the other is suggestive of qualities re- say, appears to us a wild as well as false quired in startling difficulty and sudden assumption; but even if it were correct, danger. Of the two, however, "reliable" there remains a sense in which the word strikes us as the more comprehensive. is a proper name. There is none other You speak of a trustworthy merchant, but by which to designate the object of worof a reliable man. Even if it is insisted ship reverenced by Christians, as disthat the two words mean the same thing, tinguished from Mahometans, Jews, or we refuse to admit that one of them ought Chinese. Mr. Morley may say that there to be on that account drummed out of the are no Christians; but even he will adlanguage. English, as compared, for ex-mit that there once were; and he has left ample, with German, is not particularly himself no term by which to specify the rich in terms, and a variation of sound is Divinity worshipped by St. Paul and St. sometimes only a less advantage than an Bernard. He must have recourse to some additional touch of meaning.

Mr. John Morley is no literary coxcomb or dainty academical pedant, and has something much better than crotchetty egotism by which to command the attention of readers; but in perusing his forci

or

such ugly circumlocution as "the christian god. The Being referred to in the Biblical phrases which Mr. Morley quotes - the Being worshipped in Europe in the mediæval time-is, on any showing, as real as the mythological personages of the

Iliad; and Mr. Morley recognizes their designations as proper names. He does not degrade his Aphrodite into aphrodite. In like manner, he speaks not of mars, but of Mars. The only ground on which Mr. Morley's usage can be grammatically defended is that the Christian God is a more purely imaginary entity than any of those which Homer or Virgil celebrated. The only name by which the former has ever been designated in literature is derived from the appropriation, in a specific sense, of the generic term "god"; and in its specific application it becomes a

proper name.

It can hardly be a matter of conscience with Mr. Morley to refuse to print the word "God." The mind cannot grasp the idea of duty as absolutely enjoining a man to exhibit disrespect of what, to him, are vanishing or vanished illusions. If he was free to adopt a different course from that which he has chosen, civility and a reasonable consideration for his readers might have pleaded persuasively in favour of the common usage. It is one which is endeared to the English public by associations which it is not, we trust, cant to call sacred. It is the usage of the Bible, of the Prayer-Book, of every-day correspondence, of the newspaper press, of universal English literature. To dismiss the word God" from literature would be to initiate a great change. Not only is it the sole designation of the God of the New Testament; it has the largest generic application, as well as this specific appropriation, for it indicates more comprehensively than any other term the monotheistic element in all religions. It is on the strength of a common use of this word that Her Majesty's Indian subjects can remonstrate with the Archbishop of Canterbury when he calls them heathens. Every one acquainted with Greek and Latin authors must have remarked that, though they ordinarily speak of a crowd of gods, they have a way also of speaking of God, when they refer to no one god in particular. A spontaneous belief in one God seems to have constituted the natural and universal religion of mankind. The All-Father whom the old Germans worshipped in their woods was in like manner a monotheistic conception. A usage which appeals to the faith and the sympathy of the whole human race in the present and in the past ought not to be flippantly cast aside.

From The Pall Mall Gazette. GODCHILDREN.

To renounce the devil and all his works on behalf of a full-grown and pious individual would be an enterprise sufficiently hazardous; but to do so in the name of an infant, over whose destinies one is likely to have not the slightest control, is one of those things that merit consideration, and which, generally speaking, obtain none. You become godfather as you become juryman or sheriff, with a thought only to the present discomfort of the thing and not recking the responsibilities that will surely dog you from the moment you have stammered," I renounce them all." And here, be it noticed, we allude only to the Nemesis which will keep its attentive eye on you in this world, having nothing to say as to what may await you under other conditions of being. To begin with, then, it may be observed that there are certain men especially marked out for the visitation of sponsorship. Be sure that so soon as you have settled down into a snug form of existence-bachelor quarters, a teapot of your own, and occasional returns on dividend day-an appeal will be made to you to confer your name on a lusty little object bawling itself hoarse in swaddling clothes. You must certainly at some time or other have a cousin or a friend with a baby, and to disregard his invitation would argue a strength of mind and hardness of heart of which few men are capable. The French, who are a great people for forms, used to surround the functions of godfather with peculiar and costly terrors. The ceremonial cost a mint of money, and was attended with an amount of racing about among vestries and bon-bon shops which inspired harrowing reflections during many a month afterwards. In England, you could formerly get clear of your scrape with the gift of a caudlecup to the mother; of a silver knife, fork, and spoon to the baby; but civilization, which does so much towards improving everything, has suppressed the caudle-cup and inaugurated claret-jugs, tea-urns, or coffee services; while it is a pleasure to remark that the knives, forks, and spoons, which used to be trifling objects of insignificant value, have been growing more artistic and presentable and dearer every year. If your godchild be a boy, you may occasionally rely upon a partner in your misery; but not always, for certain fathers have contracted the habit of themselves acting as second sponsors, which leaves you the undivided honour of fee

ing the parson, beadle and clerk; of be-behaved to dear Harry (dear Harry is stowing a gratuity on the wet-nurse, and your godson's brother), for whom a nomof paying for all the vehicles which have ination has been obtained at the Bluetransported an enthusiastic tribe of female friars' school regardless of expense. At relatives to the church. However, every this don't frown, or wish anybody off to year has its wet days, and if you have been Beersheba; for, after all, why should your admired for your generosity, praised for poor little wretch of a godchild be comyour good-nature, and have surmounted pelled to hang his head among his breththe kissing of the baby, you may go to ren at possessing a curmudgeon godbed with the idea that this sort of thing father? Set off at once for Redfriars does not occur every day. No; but eleven School, which is a more luxurious place months after, or near abouts, it cannot than Bluefriars; pay up the entrance fees but gratify you to be invited to the cele- as though you liked it; and if the grateful bration of your godson's birthday, and to father, whilst thanking you for your kindbe assured that the dear child is growingness, express a doubt as to whether he so lovable and intelligent in every way. can afford to keep dear Tommy at so This suggests a second present, and what crack an academy as this, assure him can you give? The dilemma begins to loom without pulling a face that you had all ahead clear and unavoidable. If you offer along contemplated taking the expenses something valuable this year you must of dear Tommy's education on your own continue to do so every year under pain shoulders. That is the way to do busiof being thought to evince a diminishing ness; and depend upon it your godson interest in an innocent child who has will show his gratitude. He will never done nothing to deserve neglect; if, on omit to call upon you for a tip before gothe other hand, you pay your respects with ing back to school; he will let you know a fluff ball or a few sticks of barley sugar, when he thinks the time come for buying how escape the humiliating conviction him a watch; and if you visit him during that your best friend will regret not hav- his school half, regale him with a dinner, ing confided the office of godfather to a and offer him a couple of sovereigns; you person more regardful of the decencies of may be persuaded he will welcome you Îife and of the obligations incurred at the with affability and describe you to his font? Be a man under such circum- comrades as a brick-which, as things stances; remember that you can do very go, is a fair return for the money. Possiwell without that new double-barrelled bly, however, when later you are dragged breech-loader you had set your heart on; into a disbursement of capital to afford and go to the jeweller, who will help you Tommy a fair start in life, it may occur to select something chaste and appropri- to you that, at this price, you might just ate, highly suitable for a wedding or birth- as well have married and begotten a son day present. Of course, if you are sus- of your own. But pray dismiss this notion. pected to be very well off, this will not In the first place, it is too late to recall always be deemed enough. Certain spon- what is past; and in the next place, think sors, imbued with the responsibilities of how delighted you would have been to their mission, invest a fixed sum in the have a godfather do for you what you are funds every year in their godchildren's doing for Tommy. names; and you may generally venture upon a similar course without any fear that cold water will be thrown on so happy an idea. At this time, though, you may count upon a period of comparative immunity. You pay your yearly tribute, send a gift of grapes and a note of congratulation when your little protégé recovers from the measles; but no extra taxation will be laid upon you till towards the tenth birthday. The godson is then growing apace; he is blessed with an appetite which may cause you to meditate upon those sinful lusts of the flesh which he was to be free from; and his parents display an affectionate anxiety for consigning him to a schoolmaster, hinting, as they announce this, how generously another godfather has

It is well to remark here that the man who discharges his first duties as a godfather with spirit and liberality will probably find himself obliged to stand sponsor on many subsequent occasions. Good godfathers are, indeed, quoted in the social share list quite as highly as good dinner givers and smart croquet-players. Well-stuffed seats are provided for them in places of festive resort, mothers of families are pleased to see them looking so healthy, great care is taken to enumerate to them all the moral imperfections of any lady they may have thought of marrying, and they are generally saddled with a pretty goddaughter or two in addition to their godsons. Now, goddaughters open to spheres of activity and dis

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