From Chambers's Journal. MR. BROWN'S LAST ASCENT.

In practising gymnastics, he had knocked out three teeth; in yachting at Cowes, he had been four times nearly drowned; in shooting ONE fine summer-morning, a few years on the moors of Scotland, he had left the since, there was wonderful excitement in the grouse unharmed, but had blown off two of Irish village of Ballydooley. All the idle men, his own fingers. A taste for pyrotechny had women, and children in the neighborhood- singed handsomely his eyebrows, hair, and comprehending about nine-tenths of the popu- whiskers; and as to railway travelling, his lation-were assembled on the large level com-hair-breadth 'scapes and moving accidents, mon which served as a race-course and galling- amid collisions, upsets, and explosions, would green; and all thronged towards some object have served to fill two or three handsome in the centre, which formed the nucleus of the orange-colored volumes of the English Rail way Library, or the French Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer.

crowd.

"Yea, then, what's the name of it at all, at all?" demanded one ragged gossoon.

"Is it tied to the tail of it he's going to go up?" asked another.

"Ah, don't be foolish!" exclaimed an old man, the " sense-carrier" of the district; "don't ye see the long ropes he's going to hold on by?"

At length, having tried three elements of earth, water, and fire, it occurred to Mr. Brown that the remaining one of air, as a medium of locomotion, might be more agreeable, and could not be more perilous, than the others. He accordingly the year before, when resid ing on his estate in Devonshire, had purchased "Well, well!" groaned an old woman, tak- an excellent balloon, and, strange to say, had ing her dudeen or short black pipe, out of her made several ascents, and had come down again mouth, and sticking it, lighted as it was, within in perfect safety. On this occasion, he medi the folds of her cross-barred cotton necker- tated a flight over the Green Isle, and intendchief; "them English are mighty quare peo-ed to come down at Belfast; but the best inple. I'm sure, when we heard that this Mr. formed members of the crowd asserted that Brown, with his sacks of goold, was coming he was going "every step of the way to Ameto Ritclarm, after buying out the rale ould stock of the Deasys, we thought he'd have carriages and horses galore, and maybe a fine yacht in the harbor; but it never entered the heads of any of us that nothing less would serve him than going coorsing through the air like a wild-goose at the tail of a ballone, or whatsomever they call it."

For some time past, the process of inflating the balloon had been going on; and now the great gayly-painted orb towered tremulously above the heads of the gaping spectators, and pressing against the cords by which it was held down, it seemed only to await the arrival of the bold aeronaut to dart upwards on its

way.

rikky."

A London friend, who had come to Ireland on a fishing excursion, had promised to join Mr. Brown in his flight; but, as it would seem, his courage failed, and he came not. In nowise discouraged, however, Mr. Brown was about to step into his aerial car, when a tall, strongly-built man suddenly stepped forward, and politely saluting the aeronaut, said: "May I ask you a question, sir?"

"Is it true that you are going to America?” "No; merely to Belfast, wind and weather permitting."

and accordingly signified his acquiescence. merely remarking to the stranger that his costume seemed too light for the regions of cold air which they would have to traverse.

"Belfast," repeated the stranger in a mus ing manner-"the north of Ireland. Well, "Here he is!" exclaimed the outward strag- that is just the direction towards which Í glers of the crowd; and presently a carriage want to go, and I hate land travelling. Will drew up, and out stepped Mr. Brown, the Eng-you, sir, accept me as a companion? lish millionnaire, who had lately become an Mr. Brown hesitated for a moment; but as Irish landed proprietor. Mr. Brown was a lit- he really wished for some one to accompany tle dapper man, whom a very small amount of him, he saw no serious objection to the plan, pugilistic force would have sufficed to lay level with the soil of his adoption. He was one of those unlucky individuals who meet an accident at every turn-who, in entering a room, invariably slip, tumble, knock down some piece of furniture, or sit down beside their chair instead of upon it. He seldom escaped upsetting his ink-stand; sending his meat and drink the "wrong way," and then coughing and choking for half an hour; cutting his fingers, tearing his coat, or knocking his forehead against a door, so that he rarely appeared in Society without scars, plasters, or bandages.

"Bah!" was the reply. "I have passed through more changes of climate than that, and I am happily very robust.”

"Well," said Mr. Brown, looking at the massive frame of the unknown, "my car is large enough. Come, in the name of Prov dence!" So they took their places, and the word was given: "Let go!" The fifteen men whose hands were severely

pressed by the straining cords, desired nothing| "Faster!" shouted the giant; and seizing better, and in a moment the freed balloon be- the remaining sacks of sand, he scattered their gan to ascend majestically. The crowd shout-contents to the clouds. Mr. Brown fell on his ed and clapped their hands. knees.

"Ah!" cried Mr. Brown, "this is delight- "Ah!" he exclaimed, "if you have no reful! Don't you think so?" Not receiving gard for your own life, at least have some pity any answer, he turned and looked at his trav- on mine. I am young, rich, happy; I have a elling-companion. There he was, lying almost mother and a sister: in their name, I conjure flat on his face and hands, with his head over you to stretch your hand up to the valve, and the side of the car; his eyes were fixed, his save us from a dreadful death, by allowing hair bristling. some gas to escape."

higher and higher. Come, my friend, help dead. I saw her last week near Belfast. She me: let us both blow as hard as we can on the is living with a family who love her, and treat balloon. As we are beneath, our breath must her as their own. In a very short time, if you help it to rise. Blow! blow!" Mr. Brown, will allow us to descend, you will meet her." moved by terror, tried to obey. The madman looked at him with a wild doubt

66

"It does not stir! Come, mount on my ing gaze. shoulders, and push the balloon!" And with- "Yes," continued Brown eagerly, anxions out consulting him any further, the giant caught to confirm the impression he had made; "you him up, as if he had been a feather, and held will see her, your darling little Emma, running him above his head, saying: "Now, push the to meet you with out-stretched arms, and her balloon!" The unlucky victim tried to obey, fair golden curls waving in the wind"but the blood blinded his eyes. There was a horrible buzzing in his ears, and lights flashed before him. For a moment, he thought of throwing himself over, in order to end his torments.

"Ha!" shouted the madman, "it does not go!" At that moment the trembling hand of Mr. Brown touched accidentally the cord of the safety-valve. He made it play, and the collapsing orb began to descend rapidly. Through the clouds it darted downwards, and the earth re-appeared.

"Ah!" cried Annesley, "instead of pushing the balloon, as I told you, you drew it downwards. Push upwards!-push, I say!" "You see that I am pushing as hard as I

can."

"No; for here is the earth!"

"You lie! you lie! Emma's hair was as black as jet! Man! you never saw her! How much do you weigh?"

Ah! a mere nothing-only a few pounds!" Gerald Annesley seized Mr. Brown with both hands, and held him suspended over the side of the car. In another moment, he would have dropped him into the abyss of space. "Annesley!" exclaimed the poor man," you want to mount higher?"

"Yes! yes!"

"Then, how much do you weigh yourself?" "Two hundred pounds."

"Well, if you were to throw yourself over, the balloon, lightened of such a great weight, would dart upwards with inconceivable ra

"It is only that the clouds are rising towards pidity." The madman reflected for a mothe upper regions."

"Well, let us do the same. Let us throw out all our ballast."

"We have no more." Gerald Annesley laid Mr. Brown gently in the bottom of the

ment.

"True!" he said; "you are right!" He laid Mr. Brown in the bottom of the car, and stared wildly around.

My Maker!" he cried, "I go to meet Thee; I go to embrace my child, my Emma!" And flinging himself over, he disappeared.

The balloon and its owner reached the earth in safety; the latter, however, lay for many weeks raving in brain-fever. When he recovered, he gave orders to have his perilous plaything sold at any sacrifice, and soon afterwards provided himself with an excellent care taker in the shape of a pretty young wife, under whose tutelage "the masther," as his Irish valet remarks, "is growing a dale more handy in himself." So this was Mr. Brown's last as

cent to the clouds.

NORTHUMBRIAN BURR.-Is it not possible that this burr, or, as the Northumbrians term it, "cinder in the throat," may be the last trace of the mode in which the Saxons pronounced many words which now begin with the simple r? For instance, Ripon, in Yorkshire, is called by the earlier chroniclers Hripum; in later times

we find the first two letters changing places. Now it appears to me, that if we attempt to pronounce the word Hripum as it is written, the result will necessarily be a guttural sound; either identical with, or closely resembling, the burr of the Northumbrians when dealing with the letter r.-Notes and Queries.

From Chambers's Journal.

A CONCERT IN SYDNEY.

FROM THE DIARY OF A WANDERING FIDDLER.
OUR readers probably remember Mishka
Hauser and his Tahitian Concert; we have
now from his pen the following sketch of his
Australian Adventurers:

pression; and natives of the Celestial Empire, sauntering about with comical gravity, and staring with small twinkling eyes at the wonders of Sydney. Every individual of these varieties of mankind seems to be possessed by the demon of money-making. Mammon is the idol worshipped by the whole population.

We paid a visit to the Chinese quarter, and I feared I should lose my hearing by the deafening noise. Jugglers, dancers, and peddlers stop the thoroughfare-all shouting at the top of their voices, and trying to carry off the stranger by force into their shops and stalls; but each neutralizing by competition the attempts of his neighbor. A dispute arises, and ends in a row; and whilst they take hold of one another's tails, we escape from the riotous neighborhood and its furious din.

It took us five dreary weeks to reach Port Jackson from Tahiti. Dense mist covered the beautiful bay when we arrived on the 25th of November, but the rays of the rising sun soon dispelled it, and we beheld Sydney with delightful surprise rising, like the fata morgana, from the waves. The town is situated between two promontories, which from the Bay of Sydney, protected by two forts, and affording safe anchorage to the largest ships. Charming groves of trees and villas are dotted over the After sunset, weary and exhausted by my shores; proud steamers and innumerable ships, wanderings, I entered a coffee and eatinggayly displaying the flags of all the sea-faring house in one of the most fashionable streets. nations, float on the waves; and on the land- I found a merry company here, laughing and ing place there is a concourse of men of dif- shouting, with billiard-balls rattling, and the ferent races clustering and moving like bees. corks of champagne bottles popping. It was Sydney is the centre of the commerce of the the strangest assembly of adventurers and Pacific; it is the seat of the government of gold-hunters of respectable men and swindNew South Wales, has large public buildings, lers-of physicians, gamblers, and merchants three theatres, many banks, an orphan asy--of Americans, Chinese, and Jews; the last lum, a philosophical and an agricultural so- mostly from Germany, apparently well pleased ciety, a topographical bureau, several hospi- with their new home, the country of gold, tals, schools, and even a university and ob- which has everywhere so strange an attracservatory. All the streets, as well as the dials tion for the children of Israel. of the clocks, are lighted with gas; the brickhouses, of light structure, look comfortable; the paving is tolerably good; whilst a motley crowd of Europeans, Chinese, Papuans, and Malays, in picturesque attire, enlivens the novel scene.

Several Germans called on me soon after my arrival: they had seen my name in the papers; and since in a foreign country it is pleasant to meet even with those slight acquaintances we scarcely notice at home, I was very agreeably surprised by their attention, and went under their guidance to see the sights of Sydney.

Deep, I might say solemn, silence prevailed in the adjoining rooms, which are the palaces of play. Recklessness and crime are seated here round the green table; many thoughtless young men are fleeced every day; law has as yet no sufficient weight here to stop the doings of vice. The rage of gambling has a baneful influence on social life in Sydney. Rapacity and sensuality have established their headquarters in the town; and though much has already been done, still more remains to be done in establishing a higher moral tone of society in a commonwealth, founded originally by the thieves and swindlers of England, The centre of the town is Victoria Place: and now grown into absolute anarchy by init is the head-quarters of its civilization. We considerate immigration, the natural consesee here book-shops, reading-rooms, coffee-quence of the discovery of the Diggings. houses, hotels, confectioneries, elegant stores, The hotels and eating-houses are establishand a rich display of jewellery, shawls, and ed on the English principle, but they are just all the luxuries of European life. And what as expensive as the American hotels at San a crowd of people of all nations, languages, Francisco. It was in vain I watched carefulmanners, and customs! Here Englishmen, ly the strings of my purse, for it requires here with their angular deportment and apathetic fully four pounds a day to live respectably. countenance; there the calculating Ameri- But even such expenditure seems too slow for cans, with their sharp features; the bashful some lucky miners, who are anxious to spend Germans, green and awkward, scarcely daring their money as quickly as they gained it. to speak aloud; forward Irishmen, quite at home in Australia; and, again, ugly Papuans, combining cunning and stupidity in their ex

*See Living Age, No. 580, p. 31. DXCII. LIVING AGE. VOL. X. 50

Nearly 500 gambling-houses disgrace the town, and many thousands of men spend their lives in them. It is impossible to describe the wiles and tricks of the miserable corrupters of public morality; no means is too vicious for them,

and the most refined allurements are resorted | niary sacrifice I was ready to make in order to, in order to lead the unsophisticated stranger to be puffed by his paper. I was startled by to perdition. There is, for instance, a gam- this bluntness, and replied that, in case of sucbling-house here, which twice a week gives cess, I would surely give him material proofs free dinner parties. Whoever has a black of my gratitude; but he did not find my dress-coat, white waistcoat, and patent-leather answer precise enough, and requested me to boots, may enter and enjoy the dainties on come at once to a definite understanding, and the open table. Of course, after dinner he is to pay a certain sum, without which, according invited in return to try his fortune at dice, to him, it would be impossible for me to sucwhen the fumes of champagne have clouded ceed. Telling him that I wished to adjourn his brain. Many a foreigner has gone into the conference, as I could not at once come to this house for the sake of fun, and left it a a decision, I left this temple of editorial integdespairing beggar. rity and public spirit. The other editors The Botanical Garden-the Hyde Park of were less rapacious and more friendly: they Sydney-is dreary and dusty, since the dry gave me, indeed, the best advice about my season, lasting eight months in the year, de- concerts. The costs are enormous, but so are stroys the vegetation, and produces clouds of likewise the prices of tickets: a box, L.5; sand and dust. Two rows of stiff gum-trees stalls, L.2; pit, 10s. On the whole, however, form a long avenue leading into the Garden, my prospects were far from promising. I could filled with the fashionables of Sydney. Seat- not feel sympathy with the population of Syded on chairs and benches, we see ladies who ney, and did not expect to meet with any have long ago passed the summer-solstice of from them. Everybody here being immersed their life these centres of attraction are sur- in the cares of profit and loss, is cold and rounded and courted by young men, and in reserved, and in society dull and stupid. Pothis paradise of the passées they are sure to litical meetings alone are apt to draw out their arrive speedily at the blessedness of married eloquence, and nothing but drunken revels life. Many a bachelor in Sydney remarks, and cock-fights amuse them. How could we sighingly, that the choice among the unmar- expect a taste for the fine arts in such a state ried ladies lies within a rather too narrow of society? compass; but the demand is great, the supply The English maintain here the stereotyped small, and Europe very distant. Close to this customs and manners of the mother country ; place, on a green meadow, the hopeful off- although the climate should suggest some modspring of the Australian gold-ocracy are gam-ification, still nobody deviates from the English boling, and making as terrible a noise as if routine, even the ugly Austral negroes copying they tried to prove themselves the worthy the habits of their masters in the most ridicu children of those men who, under the shade of yonder coffee and ice-cream stall, are transacting business-buying and selling gold with tremendous yells.

lous way, though they hate them cordially. The Papuans are probably the dirtiest race of humanity-ugly, lean, and long; they are dull, though cunning, thievish, and cowardly; A few days after my arrival, I paid my visits the sight of a sword or pistol frightens them to the different editors of Sydney. At my first into fits. Several thousands of these benighted call, I came to a palace-like house, the ground- people live in Sidney, where they have acfloor occupied by the printing-office. On the cepted the vices of civilization; their dress is first floor, among other advertisements, I found made up from the most heterogeneous articles a tablet, informing visitors that the editor can--for instance, they wear a black dress-coat not be spoken with unless paid for his valuable with a lady's straw-bonnet, or the Chinese cap time: accordingly, everybody without excep- and broad Malay trousers. Most of them are tion is advised to buy a ticket of admission at clever barbers or lazy servants in the hotels, e door of the waiting room-one hour cost-pickpockets or policemen; all of them are ening 10s.; half an hour, 6s.; fifteen minutes, 3s. thusiastically fond of brandy; and their proSuch were the contents of this singular price- pensity for thieving is scarcely to be checked current of time. I went into the waiting- by any means. Thus it happened that my room, and buying, from the Australian negro, black dress-coat which, on the day of my first in red livery, an hour of his master's time, I concert, I handed to the servant to be brushed, entered the parlor with a strong feeling of disappeared in an inexplicable way. Happily curiosity. The editor received me in a very I had another in reserve, and made a most unprepossessing and sluggish manner. "You careful toilet. Suddenly the waters of the sky are an artist, and come from Europe to make poured down in a truly Australian shower, money?" said he in a not very friendly tone. though no clouds were visible; but soon this But when he understood that I had come from ceased, and full of the brightest hopes, I had South America and California, his face lighted an open cab called, and hastened to the conup, and his voice became less abrupt. He cert-hall. But, oh! what a discomfiture, unasked me, without longer preface, what pecu- heard of in the annals of musical adventures !