lap. It was inevitable, and there was no use repining; for so profoundly had the phalanstery schooled the minds and natures of those two unhappy young parents (and all their compeers), that, grieve as they might, they never for one moment dreamt of attempting to relax or set aside the fundamental principles of phalansteric society in these matters.

By the kindly rule of the phalanstery, every mother had complete freedom from household duties for two years after the birth of her child; and Clarence, though he would not willingly have given up his own particular work in the grounds and garden, spent all the time he could spare from his short daily task (every one worked five hours every lawful day, and few worked longer, save on special emergencies) by Olive's side. At last, the eight decades passed slowly away, and the fatal day for the removal of little Rosebud arrived. Olive called her Rosebud because, she said, she was a sweet bud that could never be opened into a full-blown rose. All the community felt the solemnity of the painful occasion; and by common consent the day (Darwin, December 20) was held as an intra-phalansteric fast by the whole body of brothers and sisters.

On that terrible morning Olive rose early, and dressed herself carefully in a long white stole with a broad black border of Greek key pattern. But she had not the heart to put any black upon dear little Rosebud; and so she put on her fine flannel wrapper, and decorated it instead with the pretty coloured things that Veronica and Philomela had worked for her, to make her baby as beautiful as possible on this its last day in a world of happiness. The other girls helped her and tried to sustain her, crying all together at the sad event. She's a sweet little thing,' they said to one another as they held her up to see how she looked. If only it could have been her reception to-day instead of her removal !' But Olive moved through them all with stoical resignation-dryeyed and parched in the throat, yet saying not a word save for necessary instructions and directions to the nursing sisters. iron of her creed had entered into her very soul.

The

After breakfast, brother Eustace and the hierarch came sadly in their official robes into the lesser infirmary. Olive was there already, pale and trembling, with little Rosebud sleeping peacefully in the hollow of her lap. What a picture she looked, the wee dear thing, with the hothouse flowers from the conservatory that Clarence had brought to adorn her, fastened neatly on to her fine flannel robe! The physiologist took out a little phial from his pocket, and began to open a sort of inhaler of white muslin. At the same moment, the grave, kind old hierarch stretched out

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Olive

his hands to take the sleeping baby from its mother's arms. shrank back in terror, and clasped the child softly to her heart. No, no, let me hold her myself, dear hierarch,' she said, without flinching. Grant me this one last favour. Let me hold her myself.' It was contrary to all fixed rules; but neither the hierarch nor any one else there present had the heart to refuse that beseeching voice on so supreme and spirit-rending an occasion. Brother Eustace poured the chloroform solemnly and quietly on to the muslin inhaler. By resolution of the phalanstery,' he said, in a voice husky with emotion, I release you, Rosebud, from a life for which you are naturally unfitted. In pity for your hard fate, we save you from the misfortune you have never known, and will never now experience.' As he spoke, he held the inhaler to the baby's face, and watched its breathing grow fainter and fainter, till at last, after a few minutes, it faded gradually and entirely away. The little one had slept from life into death, painlessly and happily, even as they looked.

Clarence, tearful but silent, felt the baby's pulse for a moment, and then, with a burst of tears, shook his head bitterly. It is all over,' he cried with a loud cry. It is all over; and we hope and trust it is better so.'

But Olive still said nothing.

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The physiologist turned to her with an anxious gaze. Her eyes were open, but they looked blank and staring into vacant space. He took her hand, and it felt limp and powerless. Great heaven,' he cried, in evident alarm, 'what is this? Olive, Olive, our dear Olive, why don't you speak?'

Clarence sprang up from the ground, where he had knelt to try the dead baby's pulse, and took her unresisting wrist anxiously in his. Oh, brother Eustace,' he cried passionately, 'help us, save us; what's the matter with Olive? she's fainting, she's fainting! I can't feel her heart beat, no, not ever so little.'

Brother Eustace let the pale white hand drop listlessly from his grasp upon the pale white stole beneath, and answered slowly and distinctly: She isn't fainting, Clarence; not fainting, my dear brother. The shock and the fumes of chloroform together have been too much for the action of the heart. She's dead too, Clarence; our dear, dear sister; she's dead too.'

Clarence flung his arms wildly round Olive's neck, and listened eagerly with his ear against her bosom to hear her heart beat. But no sound came from the folds of the simple black-bordered stole ; no sound from anywhere save the suppressed sobs of the frightened women who huddled closely together in the corner, and gazed horror-stricken upon the two warm fresh corpses.

'She was a brave girl,' brother Eustace said at last, wiping his eyes and composing her hands reverently. Olive was a brave girl, and she died doing her duty, without one murmur against the sad necessity that fate had unhappily placed upon her. No sister on earth could wish to die more nobly than by thus sacrificing her own life and her own weak human affections on the altar of humanity for the sake of her child and of the world at large.'

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And yet, I sometimes almost fancy,' the hierarch murmured with a violent effort to control his emotions, when I see a scene like this, that even the unenlightened practices of the old era may not have been quite so bad as we usually think them, for all that. Surely an end such as Olive's is a sad and a terrible end to have forced upon us as the final outcome and natural close of all our modern phalansteric civilisation.'

'The ways of the Cosmos are wonderful,' said brother Eustace solemnly; and we, who are no more than atoms and mites upon the surface of its meanest satellite, cannot hope so to order all things after our own fashion that all its minutest turns and chances may approve themselves to us as right in our own eyes.'

The sisters all made instinctively the reverential genuflexion. ፡ The Cosmos is infinite,' they said together, in the fixed formula of their cherished religion. The Cosmos is infinite, and man is but a parasite upon the face of the least among its satellite members. May we so act as to further all that is best within us, and to fulfil our own small place in the system of the Cosmos with all becoming reverence and humility! In the name of universal Humanity. So be it.'

J. ARBUTHNOT WILSON.

177

A Sunken Treasure.

Ir is not with the object of seducing any busy brain into promoting a company for the recovery of sunken treasure that these words are written, but simply to give an authentic instance of riches reposing at the bottom of the Deep, which has hitherto defied the ingenuity of man to wholly extract the spoil from its guardianship. The list of treasure lost in the sea would indeed be a long and melancholy one: instancing, for example, the 'Madagascar,' from Australia, which, in the early days of the gold fever there, having on board the precious yellow dust in enormous quantity, was never heard of, and left not even the faintest clue to speculation as to her fate. And, in later years, the Thunder' steamer, from Calcutta to China, with some 300,000l. worth of silver, destined never to reach the expectant consignees, was supposed to be lying abandoned among the awful sandbanks at the mouth of the Hooghly, but, in spite of many rumours, never to be seen there. These are instances, out of many, of treasures never heard of. The wreck of the Royal Charter' steamer, from Australia, lost in a frightful gale on the Anglesea coast in October 1859, with some 800,000l. of gold on board, will doubtless occur to the reader's mind, coupled as it was with such a lamentable loss of life. In this case, happily, a great part of the treasure was recovered subsequently, but there is still a fortune left at Moelfra for the fortunate being who can find it. In old days Vigo Bay had always an attractive sound to treasure seekers, from the reported wealth on board the Spanish fleet destroyed there by Sir G. Rooke in 1702; but the infinite pains, money, and patience expended over its recovery have been thrown away, the silver (even if it is there, which is somewhat doubtful) obstinately refusing to make a reappearance in the world.

In writing of the treasures that the sea has in its keeping, one is always painfully reminded of the romance that surrounds them, and of the illusory character of their whereabouts: the vain search after which has cost immense labour, much money, and many valuable lives. However, the present article is not to follow any ignis fatuus, such as Captain Kidd's reputed hoards in the West Indies, &c., &c., but to relate the sober truth of an enormous sum in specie and bullion buried in a watery grave, and only awaiting the fortunate meeting of certain conditions of wind, tide, and sand

VOL. LIV, NO. CCXIV.

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yet to gladden the eyes, and enrich the pocket, of the happy beholder.

As in most stories the narrator begins with the birth of his hero, so, in this instance, we commence in like manner with the building and launching, by the French Government, in 1785, of the 'La Lutine' frigate of 32 guns, whose sad fate it is purposed here to chronicle. It is not, however, until the year 1793 that our interest in this ship begins, and then she formed part of a very notable exploit wrought by Admiral Hood. In December of that year, the Admiral then at Toulon finding that the Republican troops were rapidly increasing in his neighbourhood, and had erected batteries which commanded both the town and the fleet, was compelled to evacuate the town, having first brought off all his forces, some 8,000 men, without any loss, and set fire to, and destroyed, the famous arsenal. He next turned his attention to the men-of-war in the harbour, and destroyed the major part of that magnificent fleet by fire, carrying away with him, for the future use of his country, one ship of the line of 120 guns, three of 80 guns, eight of 74 guns, two frigates of 32 guns, and one sloop of 24 guns. One of the frigates in this nice little present to King George was our 'La Lutine,' and she was promply fitted out by the Admiral as a bomb ketch.

Our story now leaps over the space of six years, to 1799, in which year a most grievous crisis had arisen in the commercial world of Hamburg and Bremen, mainly owing to the stagnation of commerce occasioned by our expedition to Holland. Nearly all the great bankers and leading merchants, whose connections extended through every great city in Europe, were declared bankrupt, and many a giant of finance was laid low: the total amount of failures which took place in Hamburg in the short space between September 6 and October 25 was 26,753,763 banco marks,' which sufficiently shows the severity of the crisis. The losses to our own merchants were very great in consequence, and credit sustained such a terrible shaking that the ordinary mode of remitting money by bills of exchange was perforce suspended, and one million and a half sterling was the sum that the London merchants had resolved to send over immediately, to revive confidence and trade. The large Jewish bankers in London, also, were obliged to send specie and bullion to the relief of their brethren in Hamburg, and it was in the service of transporting part of these treasures that the 'Lutine' was employed on her

1 Over 2,000,000l. sterling; but this, of course, in these days would represent a much larger sum.