for their attainments in any branch of knowledge. Anyway, the third-form room was a very hotbed of mischief.

moves nations; and without a creed men | much more distinguished for their profiremain inert and passive. What does ciency in the art of practical joking than this imply, except that the heart implicitly believes in a guidance far in advance of the absolute teaching of experience, looks, in fact, to spiritual sources for an It happened that about this time we authority which it is quite certain that the had hit upon a novel and pleasant form of slow accumulations of our petty lives has amusement with which to beguile the monot provided for us? These illustrations | notony of our studies, Tunder's defective of Coleridge's power of impressing on us vision giving us ample opportunity for the that by the constitution of our minds we recreation. There were to be had at the are compelled to expect, and forced to Greychester toyshops little wooden frogs receive, light from above, might be multi- made to jump with a spring. It was a plied almost indefinitely. And, therefore, matter of intense and absorbing delight we hold that Mr. Traill is utterly wrong in to us to range our frogs in line and test the slighting estimate which he has formed their powers by seeing which would take of Coleridge as a source of wide-spreading the longest jump. The excitement on intellectual convictions. these occasions was great. Tunder's cane was constantly being brought into use, but until one ill-fated day I managed to escape it. One hot summer afternoon, Smithson Minor, who sat next to me, brought out of his pocket a couple of new spring-frogs, and making me a present of one, proposed that we should have a match between them, just to see what they were like. Now, if I had had my wits about me, I should have suspected that some snare lay hidden under this unusual generosity on the part of Smithson Minor, for, as a rule, he was not of a giving sort, and rarely parted with anything but for full and ample consideration. But I suspected nothing; the day was warm; a little relaxation from our struggles in decimal fractions seemed desirable, and old Tunder was safely moored at his desk just in front of us, correcting exercises, so that Smithson's proposal appeared both kind and opportune, and met with a ready acceptance on my part.

From Chambers' Journal. QUEEN MARGERIE. WHEN I look back on my schoolboy days, there is one scene that always stands out before me with peculiar force and vividness; there is one occurrence that happened then more deeply graven than any other upon my memory; and that is no small thing to say, for I can call to mind any number of exciting things that took place when I was at Greychester. I could tell of many a victory that we gained, against heavy odds, by land or water; for there was scarcely a Greychester lad who could not pull an oar, as well as handle a bat, with more or less dexterity; and both on the cricket field and on the river our opponents always found us pretty stubborn antagonists. I could tell many a story of our adventures and hairbreadth escapes, and of those little exploits and mischances of my own in which I figured as the hero or culprit, as the case might be, from the day on which I received my first "swishing" until I left as top of the sixth. There is a grim sort of interest, I always fancy, about one's first sound thrashing that makes it, in a fashion, a landmark in a schoolboy's career. Even now I remember how I came by mine. It was soon after I entered the school, and I was in the third form - Tunder's. Old Tunder, we called him, not that he really was old, for he was not much over forty, but to a schoolboy with the best of life before him, forty seems a patriarchal age. Tunder was anything but a profound scholar, and he was, moreover, very nearsighted, so that there was perhaps some reason for the boys of his form being

at

But Smithson Minor, though I knew it not, was a traitor, and compassed my ruin; for the frog which he had given me was equipped with a spring of some fourfold strength. Somewhere in the course of his researches at the toyshops he had come across it, and his keen scent for mischief had quickly detected a rare opportunity for fun. He got his funmy expense. The frogs were carefully stationed at the lower edge of the desk, Smithson Minor giving them a last touch, just to see, he said, that it was a fair start, but in reality to point mine in a particular direction. The course would be the upward slope of the desk; ample space, we thought at least I thought- for the most actively disposed jumper; and if by chance one of them did overshoot the mark and tumble on the floor, then we should have the additional excitement of

us Tunder's attention and Tunder's cane. Everything was ready; the critical moment came. The frogs jumped, and mine won-won easily, beating all previous records, for it soared majestically into the air and swooped down full on to old Tunder's nose! He regarded it quietly for a moment or two, and then taking it into his hands, said slowly and sarcastically: "The proprietor of this ingenious toy has evidently more leisure on his hands than he knows how to dispose of; if he will kindly step this way, I will give him something that will engage his attention for a time."

recovering it at the risk of drawing on to | very low down in their forms, and they had a quickness and readiness that carried them above fellows of more plodding industry. They had one fault- I sup pose every schoolboy has one, many more than one - and it was this failing that gained them their nickname. Kindly and good-natured enough as a general rule, each of them had a quick and impetuous disposition, which was liable, under no very great provocation, to blaze out into hot passion. They resented anything like dictation or unfair treatment so much, that their high spirit could at times scarcely brook even a fair and proper op. position to their ideas and opinions, and instead of trying to gain their argument, they would lose their temper. But, to do them justice, there was nothing sullen, or mean, or vindictive about them; and their fits of temper were shortlived. They tried earnestly to guard against their besetting weakness, sometimes succeeding, and always bitterly lamenting afterwards if they failed. Occasionally, they came to words between themselves; but in a moment or two they would be as friendly as ever again, pulling a pair together, or tossing for sides at cricket. Once, however, they came to blows, and it is that scene which is so vividly painted on my memory.

I stepped that way, and found him as good as his word. I went back to my place sadder, if not wiser, than when I left it; and for that day and for several days to come, I found that a sitting posture was not altogether free from discomfort.

Poor old Tunder! he was not a bad sort of fellow after all. He left the school not very long afterwards, and then we found out how many kindly and generous things he had done in a quiet, unobtrusive sort of way. I don't suppose his salary as an under-master was a very large one, and I know from what he said himself that he had no private income, so that Like myself, the Stewarts were town he must have practised considerable econ- boys, and as our homes were not very far omy and self-denial to have been able to apart, we generally went to and from indulge in those unsuspected acts of char-school together, the intimacy thus formed ity in the poorer parts of Greychester being gradually ripened by congenial which came to light after he had gone. I tastes and pursuits into a warm and lasthave lost sight of him for some time; but if he should still be living, and should chance to read these lines, he will see that in spite of the spring-frog episode, I can still speak of him with respect, and even affection.

ing friendship, which made them almost like brothers, and their house quite a second home to me. Their father, who had been a retired naval officer, possessed of ample independent means, had died a year or two before, and they lived with But I am wasting time in gossiping their widowed mother and a sisterabout so paltry an affair as my first flog-child, when first I knew her, of about six ging, and almost forgetting that I have a or seven. Margerie her name was story of a very different kind to tell- a Queen Margerie, in a playful way, they story so tinged to a certain extent with always called her; and well she deserved sadness, that even now it costs me some-her title, for she held absolute and soverthing to relate it. Indeed, I should not eign sway over every heart in the house. do so, did I not think that — apart from hold, and indeed over all who knew her. the passing interest it may have it may serve in some cases to point a moral and give a warning.

Two of my particular chums at school were Frank and Charlie Stewart, popularly known as the two young Hotspurs. Why, I will tell you. They were fellows of the real good sort, as we used to say, good run-getters in a cricket-match, and pulling a first-rate oar. Not that they were dunces either, for they were never

I wish I were a word-painter, so that I could portray Queen Margerie as I see her in my mind's eye now. I wish a more skilful hand than mine could place the portrait before you the portrait of a child

- somewhat small for her age, you might say, and perhaps somewhat fragile-looking-with clustering, soft, brown hair, brightened here and there by a gleam of gold; hazel eyes, always lit up with mirth and happiness, except when the story of

some one's troubles filled them with tears; and soft cheeks, where the shadow of ill. humor seemed never to find a restingplace. And then, what pretty ways she had; talking in such a demure, old-world fashion, with a voice deep for a child, and yet with such music it, and doing everything so pleasantly and lovingly, that no wonder those about her made her their idol.

"Go away! I replied in wonderment. "How can a child like that go away? What do you mean? "

He made no answer, but went on, as if in continuance of his own remarks: "It would kill my mother, and I think it would me, if Margerie were to Then he stopped short.

I began to understand his meaning; but I said no more, for this was a sort of mood I had never seen Frank Stewart in before, and I did not know how to meet it. So the conversation ceased, and for a time I forgot all about it.

It was one afternoon some time after this that the Stewarts, one or two other fellows, and myself, were going home from school, not quite in our usual spirits, for a cricket-match we had played the day before had ended rather unusually for us

Chief among the idolaters were her two brothers. If I had not seen it, I should never have thought that two school lads could have been so tender and loving to a child. No trouble and no self-sacrifice did they grudge her, gratifying her wishes, as far as lay in their power, as soon as they were uttered; often, indeed, anticipating them before they were spoken. It was curious, and yet pleasant, to see how they would come to her with the story of-in our suffering a disastrous defeat. their feats and adventures, like knights of True to human nature, instead of taking old, who valued most their victories in kindly to our reverse of fortune, we tried the jousts in that they gained them the to find a pair of shoulders on which we smile of the queen of the tournament. If might conveniently put the whole load of either of them had won a prize, or made blame, and the owner of the shoulders the top score in a match, or done some happened to be Frank Stewart, who had other redoubtable thing, his chief pleas been the captain of our eleven, and who, ure was in the thought of Queen Marge- we thought, had not managed matters rie's delight at the news. "Tell me all very discreetly. In the course of our disabout it," she would say, nestling eagerly cussion on the subject, the two brothers close to him, "tell me every word -every irritated each other to such an extent that word from beginning to end." Then they came to blows. We tried to pacify would he give her a full and graphic ac- them; but in vain. I am afraid that, like count, she listening with growing interest every British schoolboy, we had just a the while, and gazing at him with a look sort of lurking fondness for a good fair of pride, until the tale was ended; and fight, which made the fray not without then her joy at the history of his success interest for us. Anyway, we watched it was to him his crowning reward. so intently that we did not see a childish figure come to the garden gate leading to the Stewarts' house, and pausing a little to take in what was passing, run quickly down the road towards us. We saw and heard nothing until Queen Margerie was close to the struggling lads, calling on them piteously to stop; but in a moment - blinded and deafened with excitement one of them stumbled against her, and fell, dragging the other with him, heavily over her to the ground.

Queen Margerie, how mother, brother, servants adored thee! I believe if the sacrifice of their own lives had been nec essary to preserve thine, not one of them would have hesitated to pay the price.

They overdid it," do you say? Nay, believe me, they did not, for a child in the home may be among the very richest gifts for which heaven claims our gratitude. A child's presence may fill with sunlight the house which else would be wrapt in gloom; a child's influence may preserve purity in the mind which but for it might become stained and corrupted; a child's love may serve to keep warm the heart which the cares and worries of life might otherwise make cold and selfish.

"I wonder," said Frank Stewart once to me, in an abstracted sort of way, as if he had been pondering over some weighty matter, "I wonder what we should do if anything were to happen to Margerie; if she were to- to go away."

The boys quickly rose unhurt, but the child never stirred. There she lay, the poor little face deadly pale, except where there were a few stains of blood from a bruise on the temple; and one arm seemed to have suffered some injury. There was for a moment a faint look of recognition, just a feeble attempt to smile, and then there was unconsciousness.

The whole thing took place so suddenly that none of us at first could realize it. For an instant or two the Stewarts seemed

brown hair, with here and there a gleam of gold, bright hazel eyes, and a gentle face without a trace of ill-humor. It is true you may see on her forehead the faintest traces of a scar, but then, I say, it is a beauty-mark. Sometimes she says, in a make-believe solemn way, that she wonders how I could have married any one with one arm stiff and good for noth. ing. But I know she is only joking, for I don't think her arm is a whit worse now than any one else's.

perfectly dazed, kneeling by the child, and | truth. I am continually looking at her, calling her by name, as if she were only because, to my mind, she is the prettiest making a pretence of being hurt, and picture one can look at. She has soft, would spring into their arms presently. Then the truth seemed to burst upon them, restoring their self-possession; for, taking the little form gently to his breast, Frank Stewart strode hurriedly homewards, entreating us, as he went, to bring a doctor. We lost no time on our errand, and medical help was soon at hand. Shortly afterwards, we heard that the arm was fractured, but that that was not so serious as the injury to the head, from which the gravest results might be feared. We did not see the Stewarts again at school during that term, of which a few days only remained. For three days they watched with their mother by the child's bedside, scarcely ever taking food or sleep. At times she was conscious, and gave them one of her old looks, or feebly held out her hand to touch theirs. Once or twice she rallied enough to speak a little, but not a word passed her lips about her injuries or the cause of thein. She only asked them not to forget her when she had gone, for she seemed to think that the shadows would soon be falling about her.

Once, I remember, when I called to make inquiries, Frank Stewart came down to see me. I scarcely knew him, he looked so altered. It is bad enough to see her dying," he said sobbing: "but to think of its being my fault!"—and he broke down utterly.

What words of comfort could a schoolboy utter in the presence of such grief? What could I say, when I feared they were only waiting for the King's mes senger to take Queen Margerie where pain and weariness are not known? For though the doctor said there was chance, that chance seemed but a slender

one.

a

Fifteen years since then, is it? Why, it scarcely seems as many months. How well I remember it, and yet my schoolboy days ended long ago, and now I am a staid married man. My wife, to tell the truth, is sitting near me as I write, and

now and then she comes and looks over my shoulder at what I have written, say ing with a smile that she wonders how I can exaggerate as I have done once or twice. I turn the tables on her by reply. ing that instead of being a help to me, she is my greatest hindrance, for as long as she is in the room I am always neglecting my work to look at her. And that is the

But I am not the only one who wor ships her. There are her two brothers, for instance, who are quite as foolish as I am. The elder of them is a lieutenant in the navy, and he misses no opportunity of sending her wonderful treasures and curiosities, which he collects for her on his travels. Before long, our modestsized dwelling will be a storehouse of marvels. The other, a young lawyer, who lives with his widowed mother, is a perfectly infatuated brother, and under one pretext or another is always coming to see that all is going well with his idol. I tell him sometimes, laughingly, that I shall become jealous if this sort of thing goes on; that I shall forbid him the house, and bar the doors against him. But my threats are of little use; for he says that neither husband nor bolts nor bars shall prevent his coming, like a loyal subject, to pay allegiance to Queen Margerie. For the one slender chance did prevail, and my story ends happily after all.

From The Spectator. CHANGES IN DIET AND MEDICINE.

SOME Competent person and to be competent he must possess in some directions an encyclopædic knowledge should write a monograph on this subject. An example of the curious and interesting facts with which it abounds may be found in some statistics with which Dr. C. J. Hare has illustrated a recent lecture on

These "Good Remedies out of Date."* statistics are drawn from the books of

some of the chief metropolitan hospitals, and illustrate very significantly the changes which have taken place in medical practice and in what this practice more

The lecture itself we have not been able to procure, and are so prevented from making a fuller acknowledg ment to its author.

as

or less consciously reflects, national discrepancy of facts; but the general rehabits of life. They deal with an article sult has been decrease. Guy's begins of diet, milk; with alcoholic liquors, which, with a large expenditure in beer, whatever their value, a fiercely contro much as £2 12s. in 1831, and exhibits verted point, are used as a substitute for, a uniform decrease, decade after decade, or auxiliary of, diet; and with a thera till in 1882 it reaches the minimum of peutic agent, once well known to our fourteen shillings. It has furnished no middle-aged readers, but with which the statistics about wine and spirits before younger generation is quite unfamiliar, - 1862, when it shows an expenditure not the leech. far short of two pounds. This diminishes With regard to milk, the changes of to eighteen shillings in the course of the practice, though not uniform, and, indeed, next twenty years. It is needless to go exhibiting some curious fluctuations, has in detail through the figures presented by been in the direction of an increase which the other hospitals. The maximum is may be almost called enormous. The fig found in the Westminster, under the year ures refer to the first years of five succes- 1862, when the aggregate expenditure for sive decades, beginning with 1832, and, as beer, wine, and spirits amounted to four the accommodation of the hospitals has pounds ten shillings per bed. The same varied, may be best exhibited under the hospital also supplies, twenty years later, form of the average cost per bed. The the minimum, having reduced its outlay minimum figure in the table belongs to under this head to a sum little exceeding Guy's Hospital under the year 1842, when one pound. It is a curious fact, though a the cost per bed was a little under seven wholesome fear of our medical friends forshillings for the year. Ten years before bids us to theorize upon it, that one hosit had been about as much under twelve, pital presents the maximum and minimum and it rose to nearly the same figure ten in the use of one article, and the maximum years after. It was eighteen shillings in in another. It may also be noted that the 1862, thirty shillings in 1873, and exceeded year 1862 seems to mark a period when three pounds when another decade had alcoholic liquors were largely used in medbeen completed. At St. George's, the ical practice. The average expenditure of minimum seems never to have been so the four hospitals in that year was £3 15s. small. But here, too, we find a curious In 1882 it had sunk to £2 35. Many of fluctuation, the cost having fallen from our readers will remember the name of five-and-twenty shillings in 1832 to sixteen Dr. Todd, and the influence which his in 1852. University College Hospital was example in largely prescribing alcohol in not founded in 1832, but at the next de- certain kinds of disease had upon the cade it presents the highest figure of the medical practice of the day. If our sta four to which Dr. C. J. Hare's statistics tistics were more complete, it might be refer, thirty-four shillings. The next possible to fix the year at which this indecade shows the decrease, common, it fluence had reached its height. It must will have been observed, to the four insti- not be forgotten that we still find, in 1882, tutions, and indicating if we may gener- a divergence of practice in this respect alize from so limited a number of instances which probably represents a similar diver-a change in medical opinion. The fig gence of general opinion. In 1862, the ures in the four last decades are 145., £2 highest expenditure was £4 10s., and the 6s., £2 8s., and 3 8s. respectively. The lowest £375. In 1882, the figures were figures supplied by Westminster Hospital respectively £3 (about) and £1 4s. This do not differ materially, but are specially is, indeed, one of the most interesting interesting as showing the maximum ex- topics of the day. At some workbouse penditure hitherto reached, the very infirmaries, where theory is probably stim large sum of four pounds ten shillings.ulated by economic considerations, alcoThe effect of this diet upon hospital patients must, we should think, be strongly marked. There is no article in respect of which the food of the poor differs more from that of the well-to-do middle and upper class; and even among these the annual expenditure of a family without young children would hardly amount to three pounds per head.

In the matter of alcoholic drinks, we find, as we might have expected, a much greater

holic liquors are almost entirely disused; and there is at least one minor hospital where the same practice is followed. Here, then, is a large field for the col lector of facts, who will, we hope, precede by a long distance the constructor of theories.

And now to come to the leech. Here, unfortunately, Dr. C. J. Hare's figures refer to two hospitals only; but their character is so marked in both instances that