ber also exhibits a ridiculous full-length portrait of "Mrs. Catharine M'Caulay," the admired authoress, who is standing in a constrained attitude, holding a little bird (probably a canary) on her extended hand. Bickerstaff's Boston Almanack was also a sinner in this direction. It showed a penchant for savages men and beasts. Thus in 1768 the cover exhibits a terrific picture of a family of Patagonian giants. Other numbers have figures of New Zealanders (1775), "the Orang Outang" (1769), and "an exact and elegant representation of that Furious WILD BEAST" which ravaged the South of France in 1764 and 1765.1 The Wild Beast of the Gévaudan, as the creature was called from the district where its depredations were most extensive, appears to have been a hyena escaped from a travelling show. The contemporary accounts are obviously exaggerated, for there was a veritable reign of terror in Languedoc. Still, if only half of what was reported is true, the situation was bad enough. The most sensational narrative, but one of the best authenticated, comes from Montpellier, Feb. 8, 1765: — On the 12th ultimo the wild beast attacked seven children, five boys and two girls, none of whom exceeded eleven years of age. The beast flew at one of the boys; but the three eldest of them by beating him with stakes, the ends of which were iron, obliged him to retire, after having bitten off a part of the boy's cheek, which he ate before them. He then seized another of the children; but they pursued him into a marsh which was close by, where he sunk in up to his belly. By continually beating him, they rescued their companion; who, though he was under his paw for some time, received only a wound in his arm, and a scratch in the face. A man at last coming up, the creature was put to flight. He afterwards devoured a boy at Mazel, and, on the 21st, flew on a girl, who, however, escaped 1 Bickerstaff for 1773. with some dangerous wounds. The next day he attacked a woman, and bit off her head. Captain Duhamel, of the dragoons, is in pursuit of him, and has caused several of his men to dress themselves in women's apparel, and to accompany the children that keep cattle. The bravery of the children was recognized by King Louis XV, who awarded four hundred livres to the eldest of the boys, who had particularly distinguished himself, and ordered three hundred to be distributed among his companions. The description of the beast printed in the St. James's Chronicle for June 6, 1765, along with a woodcut, from which that in Bickerstaff's Boston Almanack was doubtless taken, is disquieting enough: It is larger than a Calf of a year old, strongly made before, and turned like a Grayhound behind. His Nose is long and pointed, his Ears upright and smaller than a Wolf's, his Mouth of a most enormous size, and always wide open; a Streak of Black runs from his Shoulders to the Beginning of his Tail. His Paws are very large and strong; the Hair on his Back and Mane thick, bristly, and erect; his Tail long and terminating in a Bush, like that of a Lion; his Eyes small, fierce, and fiery. From this description it appears that he is neither a Wolf, Tiger, nor Hyena, but probably a Mongrel, generated between the two last, and forming, as it were, a new Species. The animal was killed in September, 1765, but not, we are gravely assured, until it had destroyed more than seventy persons.1 1 Mason Jackson, The Pictorial Press, its Origin and Progress, London, 1885, pp. 206-13. A MURDER WILL OUT N almanac as conceived by Mr. Thomas should be an annual compendium of human interests. Now nothing is more interesting than Murder. Murder is the material of great literature, - the raw material, if you will, but is not raw material essential to production, as well in art as in manufactures? What distinguishes De Quincey's famous Postscript on certain memorable murders from the grewsome scareheaded "stories" of the purveyor for the daily press? Surely not the matter! The bare plot of the sublimest of Greek tragedies, the Agamemnon of Eschylus, finds its closest parallel in a horrible butchery in low life that occurred in New York a few years ago. Conventional phrases are always tiresome enough, but none is more so than that of "morbid curiosity" as applied to the desire to know the circumstances of a great crime. The phrase is like a proverb: it is only half true, though it masquerades as one of the eternal verities. Curiosity is natural; without it a man is a mere block, incapable of intellectual advancement. And curiosity about crime and criminals is no less natural, no further morbid that is, diseased or abnormal than that which attaches to any other startling event or remarkable personage. Like all other forms of curiosity, it may become morbid, and perhaps it is well to restrain it, but that is not the question. On one point, at all events, all reasonable men will agree: The detection of murder is laudable and necessary. Nobody can be blamed for what everybody must feel,an interest in the thousand ways in which murders come to light. The old theory was that this crime was so abominable in God's sight that he would not suffer it to be concealed. As Chaucer says, in a deservedly famous passage: O blisful God, that art so iust and trewe! God's Revenge against Murder was a famous seventeenthcentury book. It was even held that the ordinary laws of nature were sometimes suspended or supplemented by miraculous intervention, if the guilty man could be revealed in no other way. With all this in view, we may fairly hold that Mr. Thomas would not have done his duty by his time if he had not given his readers a specimen of the countless anecdotes that illustrate our theme. Accordingly, it is with no small satisfaction that the philosophic observer of life and letters notes the following article in the Farmer's Almanack for 1796: MURDERS STRANGELY DISCOVERED. IN the second year of the reign of King James I, one Anne Waters settling an unlawful love, or rather lust, on a young man in the neighbourhood; and finding their frequent meetings were interrupted by her husband, they agreed to strangle him: which being done, they buried him under a dunghill, in the cow-house. The man being missed by his neighbours, and the woman artificially dissembling her grief, and admiring what was become of him, all were at liberty to make their own conjectures; but none 1 That is, "loathsome." 2 That is, "hidden." suspected the wife of contributing to his absence, but assisted her inquiries after him. In this time one of the inhabitants of the village dreamed, "That his neighbour Waters was strangled, and buried under a dunghill in the cow-house ;" and, telling his dream to others, it was resolved the place should be searched by a constable; which being done, Waters's corps was found; and some other concurring suspicions appearing, the wife was apprehended; and, confessing the truth, was burnt, according to law in that case provided. PARTHENIUS, treasurer to Theodobert, King of France, having killed his dear friend, Ausanius, and his wife; when no man accused, much less suspected him guilty of such a crime, Providence so ordered the affair, that he discovered it himself after this strange manner. As he was taking his repose in bed, he suddenly cried out, "Help, help, or I am ruined to eternity;" and being demanded what made him in such a terrible fright, he, between sleeping and waking, answered, "That his friend Ausanius, and his wife, whom he had murdered long ago, summoned him to answer before the tribunal of God Almighty." Upon which words he was apprehended, and, upon conviction, stoned to death. A close parallel to the first of these stories is an item in the New England Journal for December 1, 1729:1— Last week, one belonging to Ipswich came to Boston and related, that, some time since, he was at Canso, in Nova Scotia; and that on a certain day there appeared to him an apparition in blood and wounds, and told him, that at such a time and place, mentioning both, he was murdered by one, who was at Rhode Island, and desired him to go to the said person, and charge him with the said murder, and prosecute him therefor, naming several circumstances relating to the murder; and that since his arrival from Canso to Ipswich, the said apparition had appeared to him again, 1 As quoted by J. B. Felt, History of Ipswich, Essex, and Hamilton, Cambridge, 1834, pp. 208-9. |