earlier days is absent, and there is nothing, of course, was that it should be spent ing to disturb the feeling of the absolute in masses for his soul, and in bespeaking right to property which seems, notwith the prayers of religious persons and of standing the development in an opposite the poor generally on his behalf. John direction of Socialist thought, to grow Pynchin, in 1392, leaves nothing to his continually stronger in modern life. The family or to his friends, but provides that average Englishman stares at you with "when men may espy any poor man of unmixed amazement, if you tell him that religion, whether monk, canon, or friar," the privilege of making a will is a conces- such poor man is to have six-and-eightsion, and a revocable concession, from pence. Lady Alice West, in 1395, after the State to the individual. He is quite giving her best beds and second-best beds unable to realize the idea of his being to her daughters and daughter-in-law, probound by any duty outside the ties of ceeds to develop an elaborate scheme for family attention in distributing it. It is, the benefit of the souls of Sir Thomas he feels, absolutely his own, and when he West, of her relatives, and of all Chrisceases to be able to keep it himself, he tian folk. Besides a sum of 14£ 10s. shows his ownership by leaving it to (equivalent to about £160 of our money) those who are nearest to him. This may for forty-four hundred masses, there are account for the really curious rarity of nearly twenty bequests of one hundred bequests outside the circle of kindred. shillings to various religious bodies, such Legacies suggested by feelings of friend- as "the Menouresses dwelling without ship, by admiration of political services, Aldgate,” “the Friars of Newgate," "the or appreciation of literary excellence, all Friars of Ludgate," for the same purpose. of them more or less common at other A bailiff or reeve and sundry old servants times, are now rare exceptions to the are not forgotten, but they are of far less general rule. An admirer, indeed, of Lord account than the dispensers of purgatorial Beaconsfield bequeathed to him a consid-relief. It is characteristic of the prevailerable sum, on the condition that she should have a niche in his family vault, and two or three other eminent personages in our time have received similar gifts; but the sentiment or the imagination of wealthy testators is now very seldom capable of such efforts.

*

If we go back to mediæval or to classical times, we shall find ourselves in the presence of a widely different state of feeling. A curious volume just edited for the Early English Text Society, by Mr. F. J. Furnivall, shows us the passion for religious and charitable bequests apparently at its height. The wills published are not selected for any peculiarity in their contents, but because they are the earliest that are written wholly or partially in English. They tell us much of great interest relating to domestic life at the time (they take in about fifty years from 1387), but the characteristics that predominate in all, with but few exceptions, is the subjection of the family feeling to the absorbing interest in the future welfare of the soul. The earliest of them all (that of John Corn, in 1387) says: "I bequeath my goods in two parts, that is for to say, half to me." John Corn reminds us of the miser who, having been with difficulty persuaded to make a will, left his property to himself. His mean

The Fifty Earliest English Wills. Edited by F. J. Furnivall. (The Early English Text Society.)

ing feeling of the time that only one secular priest is found among the recipients of Lady Alice's bounty, the vicar of Newton Valance is to have forty shillings. This noble lady, however, seems to have had the territorial instinct, and does not alienate her lands. We find other testators more thorough in their devotion to the same object. Thomas Walwayne leaves the third of the value of his land to go to the building of the steeple of Marcle Church, and after providing for the immediate saying of a thousand masses, leaves land for the founding of a chantry, "where a priest is to sing continually." John Chelmeswyk goes far beyond this. After many smaller bequests for spiritual purposes, he gives £70 to two priests to sing for seven years for his soul. His manors of Hay and Tasley are to be sold for the same purpose, and if he die childless, his manor of Haverton is to be similarly disposed of. Here a secular priest, the parson of Tas ley, comes in for nothing but the friendly gift of some bedding. Richard Bokeland, in 1436, provides for a million masses at fourpence each (a more liberal payment than Lady Alice West's, forty years before). William Newland makes provision for pilgrimage to be made for his spiritual benefit. His executors are to find a man who will go to Jerusalem for fifty marks (something about £300 of our money). Another is to go to Canterbury barefoot

for ten shillings, and a third to the shrine | less it so happens that a man is on very of St. James of Compostella for £5. An- friendly terms with either of us, we reother common characteristic of these ceive the same legacies, and from the wills, one of which, by the way, we may same quarters." We do not suppose that find traces in the provision of modern Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Browning among testators, is the jealousy shown of wives. poets, or Mr. Payne and Mr. Besant In one, it is provided that the widow, as among novelists, could exchange a similar a condition of holding the manors be- experience. Roman testators were not queathed to her, was to make a solemn free, as we have grounds for knowing, vow of chastity, in the presence of the from selfishness and caprice, but in this bishop and the congregation. respect they certainly showed a larger and more liberal sense of duty than the wealthy now seem able to attain.

From The Globe.

HOW THE EGYPTIAN LAND TAX IS PAID.

IN Turkey proper and the provinces directly subject to the jurisdiction of the Porte, the land tax is still universally col lected in kind. It is farmed out to the highest bidder, after the custom which has obtained in all Oriental countries from the earliest times a system, be it said, which is most embarrassing to the minister of finance and most oppressive in its operation towards the peasant proprietor or crown tenant. The former can never reckon in advance on what the land revenue of any year will produce, for every year the tithe fetches a different price at the annual sales at Stamboul; while the latter is often mulcted in a fifth instead of a tenth at the arbitrary valuation of the saraff, the difference going into this unscrupulous official's pocket. The taxpayer has virtually no redress, a compliance with his petty tyrant's demands being his only chance of saving what is left to him of his crops, which would otherwise be exposed indefinitely to the accidents of weather until the valuation was satisfied. The alarming decrease of the land under cultivation in Syria is mostly owing to the operations of this iniquitous system of collecting the land tax. Under the pretence of levying a rate of twelve per cent. on the gross produce of the land a tax has been for years extorted which left the farmer no possibility of gain at all, and consequently no encour

Circumstances change, again, entirely when we get back to the testamentary dispositions of Roman times. We find, indeed, that property was extensively burdened for religious purposes, so much so, that an inheritance free from these troublesome and onerous obligations - sine sacris hereditas-became a proverbial phrase for exceptional good-fortune; but these burdens were rather provisions of immemorial age for the performance of the worship peculiar to a family than recent bequests. But a distinguishing characteristic of the wills belonging to the period which literature has made familiar to us is the wide range taken by the testator's bounty. That the emperor was frequently made a legatee was doubtless due in part to the necessities of the time. "It is only a bad emperor," says Tacitus, "whom a good father would make his heir." But other motives are extensively recognized. Legacy-hunting became a regular profession, on which satirists were never tired of expending their wit. Of course, this was partly due to the childlessness then so commonly found in the wealthy class. But it was certainly developed by the prevailing custom of looking beyond the family circle in dealing with property. It was evidently the custom, perhaps we might say, the fashion, for a wealthy Roman to divide a considerable part of his property among his friends. Nor did he always wait till he could no longer enjoy it himself. We find Pliny, for instance, making up the property of one friend to the qualification of an eques, and giving a marriage portion to the daughter of another. But legacies of this kind were of continual occurrence. Nor was it only friends who were thus favored. Literary excellence was evidently consid-agement to continue the business of agriered to be a claim. One of Pliny's let- culture. In Egypt formerly, as in other ters is curiously significant upon this parts of the Ottoman Empire, the fellamatter. He is writing to Tacitus, and heen were compelled to sell their produce has been flattering himself that they are to the government officials, who subpretty nearly on a level. "Whenever tracted, before payment, the amount they there is any talk on literary matters, we are claimed in taxation. But, even before named together. And you must have Ismail's time, the government began to noticed in wills the following fact. Un-substitute money payments; and now, all

over the country, it is the rule rather than | lining of his blue cotton petticoat, he bethe exception for the miri and oushur, takes himself as a matter of course to the levied respectively on the haradji and little Greek merchant in the nearest town oushurich lands, to be paid in Egyptian Koos or Kench, Assiout or Assouan, as piastres. For all that, the fellah is any- the case may be - and asks for "a trifling thing but safe from imposition. The Copt advance." It is his dealings with this tax-gatherer, being of the old stock, enjoys unscrupulous money-lending fraternity a monopoly of the "wisdom" the Egyp- that have brought him to his present altians are now blessed with; and he sets most hopeless pass. And he is still deeply to work with a perfect understanding of in their debt. He had practically no other the national proverb that "however close resources but to bargain away his birthyou skin an onion, a clever man can al- right for "something down" when the ways peel it again." He is usually gov-miri on a feddar or acre was as much as ernment registrar as well as collector; and the power of fixing the rate to be levied affords him an ample scope for imposition. Starting with the knowledge that the fellah makes it a point of honor not to pay his miri or land tax if he can in any way baffle the saraff, it may be easily conceived that its collection is not an easy matter. Indeed, however delicately this unpleasant duty may be performed in lower Egypt, which is more under the influence or dread of European opinion, it is pretty certain that in the upper Nile districts it would be often a very hard affair to maintain the balance between revenue and expenditure without that magician's wand, kurbag-the whip of hippopotamus hide, judiciously applied to the soles of the feet of the recalcitrant fellah. In a village of the Saeed, or upper Egypt, the mode of procedure is something in this wise. The Cairo authorities have sent their rescript to the mudir, or head of a mudirieh or province, instructing him to get in the land tax (which is pretty sure to be in arrears) with all possible expedition. The mudir sends on the order to the various mamours, or little local governors, of his mudirieh, and the mamour, in his turn, despatches his cavass for the Sheykh el Beled, the sheykh or paternal head of the village community. This worthy is admonished sharply to see that his brother fellabeen pay their miri without more ado. He leaves the great man's presence with a promise on his lips, but his heart in his slippers, and goes from mud hut to mud hut with the saraff levying contributions. Devoutly will he bless Allah if even with the help of the "stick" he succeeds in collecting the proper quota. If he fails, the village lock-up" is his due. In Ismail's time the village prisons were full of Sheykhs el Beled, whose villages could not or would not pay their taxes. If the fellah's power of resistance should be overcome, and he really has no piastres sewn up in the

four hundred piastres. When he was thoroughly driven into a corner by the corvées and murrains of 1867-70 the Greek usurers would only open their pursestrings at the rate of something like thirty per cent. per month. Now they will grant advances at six and even four per cent. per month. But they are very careful first to investigate their security, and will seldom lend at all until they have the guarantee of the Sheykh el Beled or village cadi, as to the borrower's respectability. A government register is kept of all such loans, so that the property cannot be alienated until the debt is paid. Sharks though they be, the short-sighted fellah would rather go to these Greek usurers than to such acknowledged lending establishments as the Credit Foncier or the Bank of Egypt, on the ground that they give him more time. In other words, they will go on "renewing" so long as the security of the farm is sufficient to cover principal and interest; whereas the Cairo Bank refuses advances after one or more failures to pay the interest on the original loan. But a scheme is now under the consideration of the government whereby not only the chief lending establishment of Cairo- the Credit Foncier but also the borrowing habits of the fellaheen shall be brought under the direct control of the Egyptian finance minister. The proposal has naturally proceeded from the Credit Foncier itself, which is of course anxious that the lending business of the country should be attracted to its establishment, provided that the government give them something like a guaran tee for their advances. The scheme, as at present foreshadowed, aims at fixing a maximum rate of interest to be charged for loans to the fellaheen, who, it is argued, could borrow with increased assurance and on comparatively easy terms of repay. ment from a bank under government su pervision. The idea is said to meet with Lord Dufferin's approval; and, undoubt

edly, any regulation which can be enforced | long since, however, a cutting was driven

to keep down the rate of interest to a rea sonable level will be an incalculable boon to the fellaheen.

From The Academy.

TREASURE TROVE AT THE CAPE.

A CURIOUS and interesting piece of news, which reads like a page from Mr. Charles Reade's "Foul Play," has been communicated to a correspondent in a private letter from the Cape.

through this sand-bar in order to convey water to the docks. The cutting brought about a change in the tide-levels, and disclosed the position of the wreck below. In 1856 one Mr. Adams, a diver, went down, and succeeded in recovering two brass six-pounder guns, some bars of silver, a large number of coins, and a quantity of rare china. Mr. Adams, however, died, and the search was never resumed until the other day, when Colonel Robley - who had gone out, after a heavy storm, to examine the spot, and actually saw the deck of the galliot under the seaIt appears that Col. H. G. Robley, who took steps to renew the operations. Havis now stationed at Cape Town, read not ing obtained a government concession, he long since in the history of that place is now, by the help of a professional diver, how a Dutch galliot, on her way from working the wreck "on salvage." The Batavia, anchored in Table Bay in May, name of the old ship was the "Harleem," 1648. On the 16th of that month, being and she was laden with cases full of curidriven ashore by a furious north-west gale, osities and antiquities for sale to European she sank off the mouth of Salt River. museums. These cases, judging from the The crew built a few huts and supported contents of those which Mr. Adams rethemselves as they could till they were covered in 1856, contained gods, rare taken off in 1649 by a Dutch fleet home-china, old glass, bales of Oriental silks, ward bound. The spot was reported as a suitable locality for stores, gardens, and the like, whereupon the Dutch East India Company fitted out an expedition consisting of three ships under the command of Van Rubeck, who landed in April, 1652, founded the present colony, and became its first governor. Being interested in the narrative of the early disaster, Colonel Robley learned that the whereabouts of the old galliot were perfectly well known. Embedded deep in sand, she still lay on the bar at the mouth of the river. Noting enterprise.

etc. Colonel Robley has bought from the family of the deceased Mr. Adams some valuable vases, coins, and the like, and hopes to be rewarded by the discovery of a large number of similar treasures. The china is not at all injured by having been two hundred and thirty-five years under the sea; but the silver articles have suf fered considerably, and the silks must of course be spoiled. Colonel Robley is overwhelmed with applications from persons eager to take shares in bis interest

THE RISE AND FALL OF AN OIL CITY. The Philadelphia Times calls attention to the curious history of the average oil region city, taking Pithole, in Venango County, as an illustration. "Twenty years ago," it says, "the site of Pithole was covered with wheat-fields, and to-day waving corn and wheat and wild flowers cover the same spot. But between that day and this there arose and fell one of the most remarkable cities the world has ever seen. Twenty thousand people gathered there in a single year, and when the great oil-wells failed to pour out a torrent of wealth, the gaudy theatres closed, the mammoth hotels became tenantless and the churches lost their worshippers. Banks, newspapers, stores, and offices ceased to exist almost as suddenly as they were called into being, and the life and light

of the famous city went out forever. To-day there is one voter in Pithole, and the town may be said to be solid for Beaver, for the lone voter is postmaster, justice of the peace, store. keeper, and chief man of the place. It may also be said that there is but one other man in the neighborhood, and he does not vote. There are dozens of villages in the old oil country that exist only in the memories of men who saw their birth and death. The new wells in Warren County are strangely like the wells of Pithole, and the rush to the new town of Garfield bears an almost fateful resemblance to the craze which was the guiding spirit of the wonderful city in Venango. The ultimate results may not be the same, but if not, then the rule and the law of all petroleum cities will be broken for the first time.

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