we should vinture on tastin' him, Jem Bloss sings out like mad, 'There's a sail!'

"An' sure enough there was; an' prisintly she hove in sight dis-tinct, and she saw us. So we wur picked up, an' well cared for, an' only one died afterwards; an' the Golden Cross landed us at Batavia, where she wur bound. One av the officers told us that they had spoken the Josephine, off the Cape, an' heerd av our boat bein' lost, though they never thought it wur our boat when they picked us up.

Well, mates, to cut my yarn, we as wur saved got sthrong, an' prisintly shipped in different vissils. I hailed for London in a Dutchman, the Frau Baboose.

"When I got there, I slung my hammock at Poll Cartney's; her house is in the Highway, but it's respictable, an, that's more nor can be said av many av 'em in Radcliffe.' Second night, jist afore goin' to bed, a black sailor came in, an' as he samed a hin-tilligent sort av feller, we talked a bit while Poll got him some grub ready.

"Afther supper, 'Now,' says he-an' his English were surproisin' good, but, though a nigger, he'd been a dale amang sailors' let's have a blow!' an' out comes his poipe; a riglar African, cut stone an' carved reelly'splendifferous,' an' colored red-an'-black.

"Got any plug," says I, manin' to hand Sambo some.

"Lots,' says Sambo; 'you try some of mine,' and he tossed over his pouch.

"As thrue as you live, the nigger tossed over poor Tom Porgle's pouch av rat skin! If iver a feller wur scared, it wur me! The room swum round, an' I thought the Divil were in it. Tom Porgle's idintical pouch! I carried on like a crasy cow for iver so long, ontil Poll Cartney brought me to wid a back-hander; shure! she's a jewel is Poll, wid a heart as light as her fist is heavy, an' faith! she's pritty liberal in givin' both! So at last I wur able to obtain a dacent ixplanashun av the mysthery." "Pay out, Paddy!" said Bob Harris. "Let's know how the nigger came by the pouch."

"Ye see,

"Be me sowl, 'twould bother ye to guess," said O'Hara. sharks move about from place to place, like bad tenants! Some av 'em, I know, lo-cate (as Zachy says) in pertikler wathers, an' some av 'em can be considherably taught-like,-look at that ould Jamaiky divil, Port Royal Jack,' as cruised atween the ship an' the shore, an' wur as good as a cintary to privint disirthers, or sailors takin' lave widout axin,'-but there's sharks as 'll be in one Oshun this year, an' thousands o' miles away nixt, purwidin' the latitude suits 'em. Well, mates, this heer nigger had bin bum-boatin'-like off Bonny (ye know the Bight av Benin), an' he wur dixterus in the wather, an' could swim inyway; an' it wur quoite fun wid him to foight the sharks single-handed, barrin' his knoife. One mornin' he seed a big one, an' made for it. Ingagin' it in front,—

al'ays matin' the divil face to face, but divin' whin it turned to snap at him, he'd come up onder' an' plunge his knoife into him, an' thin swim round by its tail to its head, while the shark wur all abroad an' in a condishun of appleplexy. (Paddy in all probability meant "perplexity;" or, indeed, it might be "apoplexy," he intended, though I never knew a shark to suffer from the latter complaint.) An' so he'd repate the operashun until the divil floated over. He'd killed this heer big one an' towed it ashore, whin the thought come to him to open it, an' so he did. But all he could find in the divil wor some say-boots, an' what looked like tarp'lin throusers, loike woise a sou'westher. In the throuser-pocket wur somethin' bulgy, and whin he come to overhaul it, he found it wur the rat-skin pouch. An' in the pouch he found a folded paper.

"I axed him what it wur. He said he didn't know, 'case he couldn't rade, but he'd kipt it, balaivin' it moight be a charrum."

"Fetish, I reckon!" quoth Zachariah Burge.

66

"Maybe," said Paddy. Well, I axed to see it, an' if he didn't go to his say-chist in Poll Cartney's, an' come back with the identical will! I tould the nigger part of the sarcumstances, an' made him balave that the parruchment wur only a letther of poor Tom's, an' as Tom an' me had bin sich frinds, I said I should loike to have it as a kapesake, bein' no good to him; an' so, afther wettin' the nigger, I swapped my knoife wid him for the will. Now I'd drawed money in London, an' havin' toime to spare, I made a sort av pleasure-run to Leith, an' walked over to Edinburgh. It wur moighty hard work to me to foind poor Tom's son in that big cithy, for d'ye see, I wouldn't thrust meself to ax lawyers; but at last I sighted him, an' hove to in his master's shop. The young man wur flabbergasted, an' no misthake!

"I made over the will to him, an' though I'd as lave face a shark as a lawyer, wint wid him an' made what they call a 'davit-but it's not like ours on board ship-an' he proved the dockymint, and got the money paid over. I lit him pay back my expinses, but no more, 'case, ye see, he wur poor Tom's son, an' Tom had bin my ould frind an' shipmate.

"I'd loike to have had that rat-skin pouch, but the nigger wouldn't trade it, though I tried him hard. Besoides having been made by Tom, it wur right down cu'rous; iviry part a'most of the hanimal presarved: ears, fate, tail; wid bades for the oies, an' some av the whany-twany' whoite taath nately stitched in."

"It's a wonder some of them Lunnon tobaccynists don't make an' sell such; they'd be pop'lar," said Joe Harbridge.

"Faix, an' ye're roight!" said Paddy. "But what does a landsman know in com-parishun wid a salt?"

"An' was that all that remained of Tom Porgle ?" enquired Rufe. "Barrin' his say-boots and sou'-westher!" said Paddy; "Be the powars! ivirything ilse wor di-gested!"

ON OATHS.

A HISTORY of oaths, in its full extent, would range over the whole known period of the world's existence, from the time of the children of Israel downwards. Those who have treated of this subject go back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for the earliest examples of oath taking; while even the habit of rash and profane swearing, for which our countrymen are said to be remarkable, is traced by more than one eminent authority to the patriarch Joseph, who, in the course of conversation with his brethren, twice within the limits of one sentence, makes use of the expression, "by the life of Pharaoh." As the same authorities state, in extenuation, that the patriarch had lived a long time at the Egyptian court, and may have contracted the habit from the society in which he moved, this objectionable practice may be assumed to be of considerable antiquity. Even with regard to some of the oaths in use in our own country, the history would reach back to the earliest period of our annals, and would come down to the present time. The history would scarcely be a pleasant one, for in many of its chapters it would be a story of the grossest bigotry and oppression, and in others a picture of superstition. At the same time it would well illustrate the manner in which men's notions concerning the relation of the unseen to the visible would have been modified with the advance of civilization.

The habit of exacting an oath as a guarantee that the person taking it will do or not do any act, has its roots in a period when the action of the spiritual powers upon the every day affairs of life, was held to be direct and incessant, to a degree which at present we can scarcely realize. In an age of miracles, when the imagination filled the world with unseen beings of supernatural power, banded together for the destruction, or for the succour of mankind, it would seem nothing wonderful for a person to make a solemn promise in the presence of his Maker, and to expect a swift and sure punishment if he broke his word, no matter how trivial the subject might be; while the difficulty of carrying out an investigation in early times, and the weakness of the law, as compared with the strength of those who were nominally subject to it, made it highly convenient to be able to constrain men's consciences, when their bodies could not be coerced. Conditions of this kind explain the existence of many oaths in the early period of their history. Take, for example, the "Oath and Abjuration of Thieves." This was administered at the church door to a robber, murderer, or other felon, who had fled into a church, upon confession of felony. The oath begins with this candid avowal :-"This hear thou, Sir Coroner, that I am a robber of sheep, or of any other beast, or a murderer of one or more, and a felon of our Lord the King of England." Then, after stating that he has done many such

evils in the land, the juror abjures the realm, and promises to hasten to a port, and to do his best to get a passage, undertaking, if unsuccessful, to go every day into the sea up to his knees, assaying to pass over. Those who imposed this oath must have relied, with more certainty than we can, upon the belief in the mind of the juror that if he broke his engagement he would be punished by some supernatural power, and they might calculate, with some confidence, that the course of a man's actions would be determined by his oath, even against his inclinations.

To the same state of feeling may be traced the "Oath of the Champion." The difficulty of determining a disputed claim to the pos session of land made it convenient to try the question by a combat between the champion of the man in possession, and of the claimant, more particularly when men could, with confidence, hope "that God would give victory to him that right had, and of whose party the victory fell out." The words of the oath were, "This hear, ye judges, that I have this day neither eate, drunke, nor have upon me either bone, stone, ne grasse, nor any inchantment, where through the power of the Word of God might be inleased (i.e., entangled) or diminished, and the Devil's power increased, and that my appeale is true, so help me God and his saints, and by this booke." After the oath the combat was begun, but it does not seem to have been particularly dangerous, "for their weapons were but batons," nor were the champions bound to fight "but until the stares appeare." After the battle, victory was proclaimed, and the vanquished champion acknowledged his fault in the audience of the people, or pronounced "The horrible word, Cravent," and thereupon judgment was given, and the recreant lost all his rights as a free man.

In these early times an oath was a sufficient constraint of itself, without any terrors beyond what the imagination supplied. In judicial proceedings it is true that the penalties of perjury attached to a wilful breaking of an oath, but to the two other classes into which oaths are usually divided, political oaths and promissory oaths, or oaths of office, no material punishment was affixed. But if we take up the history of oaths at a later period, we find a great change in their nature and object. Instead of being a simple declaration of duty, and relying for their sanction upon the credulity of the juror, they became after the Reformation, in many cases, political or religious tests, and a penalty was attached, not to the neglect to observe them, but to the refusal to take them. The first that was employed in this manner was the oath of allegiance. This is the oldest of our existing oaths, having its origin, we are told, in the days of King Arthur. It was revived in the days of King Edgar, and in early times it was, or ought to have been, administered publicly to every male above the age of twelve years in the tourne or the Court Leet. Its primitive form was :-"I will be true and

faithful to the King and his heirs, and truth and faith bear of life and limb and terrene honour, and will not know or hear of any ill or damage intended him without defending him therefrom." In accordance with the spirit of the times it was a simple declaration of the duty of allegiance which every subject owed to the King. The breach of the duty constituted the crime of high treason, but no special penalty was attached to a breach or refusal of the oath. In the time of King Henry VIII., an attempt was made to settle the succession to the crown upon the issue of the King's marriage with his Queen Anne, and an Act was passed with that object in the year 1533 which enacted that all persons should be sworn to keep its contents. This was upset three years afterwards by another Act which, after stating that the King's marriage with Queen Anne was utterly void, makes a fresh settlement of the crown upon the issue of the Kings marriage with Queen Jane, and imposes an oath of faith, truth, and obedience to the King and his heirs by this marriage. Refusal to take this oath was constituted high treason, and brought with it liability to suffer death and forfeiture. It may be observed that though the oath thus prescribed was in effect the oath of allegiance, the definite statutory form which is now generally understood by that name was not imposed till a later period. About the same time we find a notice of an oath which illustrates the early history of trades unions. In the year 1536 it is mentioned that "divers, masters, wardens, and fellowships of crafts, caused prentices or young men, immediately after their years were expired, before they were made free of their occupation or fellowship, to be sworn upon the Holy Evangelists that they, nor any of them, after their years or time expired, should not set up or open any shop, house, nor cellar, nor occupy as freemen without the assent and licence of the master warden or fellowships of their occupations upon pain of forfeiting their freedom or other like penalty to the great hurt of such apprentices." Here we have an example of the double aspect which oaths had by this time come to bear-first, an appeal to Heaven to bear witness that a certain course of action would be pursued with a tacit assent to whatever vague and mysterious penalties might be administered from that quarter upon failure of duty; and, secondly, a means of imposing temporal disadvantages upon an obnoxious person. The majority of oaths to which penalties were attached were those employed as political tests, and the punishment was inflicted for refusal to take them. When the oath was merely one of fidelity in discharge of duties, a refusal to take it was hardly to be anticipated, and the penalty for non-observance was, as a rule, left to the discretion of Heaven.

(To be continued.)