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nail was discovered close by that hand; and both the porter and sta

the thief might have dropped tion-master delared that he had no it on putting out his light, which, cloak on him at the time; and as he by the valet's account, he must have got into a second-class carriage, the done, when he was near the door in porter even said to him, question, and required the light no sharp morning, sir ; I'm afraid you'll

Another circumstance in be cold. Furthermore, as to the Losely's favour. Just outside the purpose for which Losely had wished door, near a laurel-bush, was found to borrow of the money-lender, his the fag-end of one of those small brother-in-law stated that Losely's rose-coloured wax-lights which are son had been extravagant, had conoften placed in lucifer-match boxes. tracted debts, and was even hiding If this had been used by the thief, it from his creditors in a county town, would seem as if, extinguishing the at which William Losely had stopped light before he stepped into the air, for a few hours on his way to London. he very naturally, jerked away the He knew the young man's employer morsel of taper left, when, in the had written kindly to Losely several next moment, he was out of the days before, lamenting the son's exhouse. But Losely would not have travagance; intimating that unless his gone out of the house ; nor was he, debts were discharged, he must lose por any one about the premises, ever

the situation in which otherwise he known to make use of that kind of might soon rise to competence, for taper, which would rather appertain that he was quick and sharp, and to the fashionable fopperies of a that it was impossible not to feel inLondon dandy. You will have ob- dulgent towards him, he was so lively served, too, the valet had not seen and so good-looking. The trader addthe thief's face. His testimony rest- ed that he would forbear to dismiss ed solely on the colours of a cloak, the young man as long he could. It which, on cross-examination, might was on the receipt of that letter that have gone for nothing. The dog had Losely had entered into communicabarked before the light was seen. tion with the money-lender, whom he It was not the light that made him had come to town to seek, and to bark. He wished to get out of the whose house he was actually going at courtyard ; that looked as if there the very hour of Gunston's arrival. were some stranger in the grounds But why borrow of the money-lender, beyond. Following up this clue, the if he had just stolen more money than lawyer ascertained that a strange he had any need to borrow? man had been seen in the park to- “The most damning fact against wards the grey of the evening, walk- Losely, by the discovery in his posing up in the direction of the house. session of the £5 note, of which Mr And here comes the strong point. Gunston deposed to have taken the At the railway station, about five number, was certainly hard to get miles from Mr Gunston's, a strange over ; still an ingenious lawyer might man had arrived just in time to take have thrown doubt on Gunston's teshis place in the night train from timony-a man confessedly so carethe north towards London, stopping less might have mistaken the number, there at four o'clock in the morning. &c. The lawyer went, with these The station-master remembered the hints for defence, to see Losely himstranger buying the ticket, but did self in prison ; but Losely declined not remark his appearance. The his help, became very angry--said porter did, however, so far notice that he would rather suffer death him as he hurried into a first-class- itself than have suspicion transferred carriage, that he said afterwards to to some innocent man; and that, as the station-master, Why, that gentle- to the cloak, it had been inside his man has a grey cloak just like Mr carpet-bag. So you see, bad as he Losely's. If he had not been thinner was, there was something irrconsisand taller, I should have thought it tently honourable left in him still. was Mr Losely.' Well, Losely went Poor Willy! he would not even subto the same station the next morning, pona any of his old friends as to his taking an early train, going thither general character. But even if he on foot, with his carpet-bag in his had, what could the Court do since

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he pleaded guilty? And now dis- ture," said Alban Morley. “And, miss that subject, it begins to pain after all, he really owed Gunston me extremely. You were to speak that £100. For out of the sum to me about some one of the same stolen, Gunston received anonymousname when my story was concluded. ly, even before the trial, all the missWhat is it?"

ing notes, minus about that £100 ; “I am so confused," faltered Lio- and Willy, therefore, owed Gunston nel, still quivering with emotion, the money, but not, perhaps, that " that I can scarcely answer you- kind, forgiving letter.

Pass onscarcely recollect myself. But-but quick — the subject is worse than

-while you were describing this the gout. You have heard before the poor William Losely, his talent for name of Losely-possibly. There are mimicry and acting, I could not many members of the old Baronet's help thinking that I had seen him." family; but when or where did you Lionel proceeded to speak of Gentle- hear it " man Waife. “Can that be the man ?" "I will tell you ; the man who

Alban shook his head incredu holds the bill (ah, the word sickens lously. He thought it so like a me), reminded me when he called romantic youth to detect imaginary that I had seen him at my mother's resemblances.

house--a chance acquaintance of hers “No," said he, “my dear boy. My -professed great regard for meWilliam Losely could never become great admiration for Mr Darrell — a strolling player in a village fair. and then surprised me by asking if Besides, I have good reason to be- I had never heard Mr Darrell speak lieve that Willy is well off; probably of Mr Jasper Losely.” made money in the colony by some "Jasper !" said the Colonel; “Jaslucky hit : for when do you say you per!-well, go on.” saw your stroller ? Five years ago? “When I answered 'No,' Mr Poole Well, not very long before that date (that is his name) shook his head, - perhaps a year or two-less than and muttered— A sad affair-very two years I am sure-this eccentric bad business—I could do Mr Darrascal sent Mr Gunston, the man who rell a great service if he would let had transported him, £100! Gun- me;' and then went on talking what ston, you must know, feeling more seemed to me impertinent gibberish than ever bored and hipped when he about ‘family exposures' and 'polost Willy, tried to divert himself by verty making men desperate,' and becoming director in some railway better compromise matters,' and company. The company proved a finally wound up by begging me, if bubble; all turned their indignation I loved Mr Darrell, and wished to on the one rich man who could pay guard him from very great annoywhere others cheated. Gunston was ance and suffering, to persuade him ruined-purse and character-fled to to give Mr Poole an interview.' Calais; and there, less than seven Then he talked about his own chayears ago, when in great distress, he racter in the City, and so forth, and received from poor Willy a kind, af- entreating me 'not to think of paying fectionate, forgiving letter, and £100. him till quite convenient; that he I have this from Gunston's nearest would keep the bill in his desk; norelation, to whom he told it, crying body should know of it; too happy like a child. Willy gave no address; to do me a favour'-laid his card on but it is clear that at the time he the table, and went away. Tell me, must have been too well off to turn should I say anything to Mr Darrell mountebank at your miserable exhi- about this or not?” bition. Poor, dear, rascally, infam- Certainly not, till I have seen Mr ous, big-hearted Willy,” burst out Poole myself. You have the money the Colonel. “I wish to Heaven he to pay him about you? Give it to had only robbed me!"

me, with Mr Poole's address; I will “Sir,” said Lionel,“ rely upon it, call and settle the matter. Just ring that man you describe never robbed the bell." (To the servant, entering) any one-'tis impossible.”

.“ Order my horse round." Then, “ No-very possible !-human na- when they were again alone, turning

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to Lionel abruptly, laying one hand spoiled by women-if Charles Haughon his shoulder, with the other grasp- ton, on entering life, could have seen, ing his hand warmly, cordially in the mirror I have held up to you, "Young man,” said Alban Morley, the consequences of pledging the “I love you, I am interested in you morrow to pay for to-day, Charles --who would not be ? I have gone Haughton would have been shocked through this story ; put myself posi- as you are, cured as you will be. tively to pain—which I hate- solely Humbled by your own first error, be for your good. You see what usury lenient to all his. Take up his life and money-lenders bring men to. where I first knew it; when his Look me in the face! Do you feel heart was loyal, his lips truthful. now that you would have the moral Raze out the interval ; imagine that courage' you before doubted of? he gave birth to you in order to reHave you done with such things place the leaves of existence we thus for ever?

blot out and tear away. In every “For ever, so help me Heaven ! error avoided say—“Thus the father The lesson has been cruel, but I do warns the son ;' in every honourthank and bless you for it.”

able action, or hard self-sacrifice, “I knew you would. Mark this ! say-Thus the son pays a father's never treat money affairs with levity debt.'” --MONEY IS CHARACTER! Stop. I Lionel, clasping his hands togehave bared a father's fault to a son. ther, raised his eyes streaming with It was necessary — or even in his tears, as if uttering inly a vow to grave those faults might have re- Heaven. The Colonel bowed his vived in you. Now, I add this, if soldier-crest with religious reverence, Charles Haughton-like you, hand- and glided from the room noisesome, high-spirited, favoured by men, lessly!

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BLOOD.

Blood is a mighty river of Life, to be compared in calibre with hairs the mysterious centre of chemical than hairs are with cables. These and vital actions as wonderful as vessels form a network finer than they are indispensable, soliciting our the finest lace-so fine, indeed, that attention no less by the many pro- if we pierce the surface at almost blems it presents to speculative in any part with the point of a needle, genuity, than by the many practical we open one of them, and let out its conclusions to which those specula- blood. In these vessels the blood tions lead. It is a torrent impetu- yields some of its nutrient materials, ously rushing through every part of and receives in exchange some of the the body, carried by an elaborate net- wasted products of tissue ; thus mowork of vessels, which, in the course of dified, the stream continues its rathe twelvemonths, convey to the vari- pid course backwards to the heart, ous tissues not less than three thou- through a system of veins, which sand pounds’weight of nutritive mate- commence in the myriad capillaries rial, and convey from the various that form the termination of the tissues not less than three thousand arteries. The veins, instead of subpounds' weight of waste. At every dividing like the arteries, become moment of our lives there is nearly ten gradually less and less numerous, pounds of this fluid rushing in one con- their twigs entering branches, and tinuous throbbing stream, from the the branches trunks, till they reach heart through the great arteries, the heart. No sooner has the blood which branch and branch like a poured into the heart from the veins, tree, the vessels becoining smaller and than it rushes through the lungs, and smaller aş they subdivide, till they from them back again to the heart are invisible to the naked eye, and then and arteries, thus completing the they are called capillaries (hair-like circle, or circulation. vessels), although they are no more This wondrous stream, ceaselessly circulating, occupies the very centre bules, Blood-cells, and Blood-discs. of the vital organism, midway be. It is a pity that one term is not tween the functions of Nutrition finally adopted ; and blood-discs and the functions of Excretion, feed- seems on the whole the best, as ing and stimulating the organs into being descriptive, without involving activity, and removing from them all any hypothesis. Meanwhile, since their useless material. In its torrent physiologists use all these terms, the upwards of forty different substances reader must be prepared to meet are hurried along : it carries gases, with all in this paper. it carries salts-it even carries metals The first person who saw these and soaps! Millions of organised blood-discs was undoubtedly Swamcells float in its liquid ; and of these merdamm, in 1658 ; but as his obcells, which by some are considered servations were not published till to be organic entities, twenty mil- many years afterwards, and as in lions are said to die at every pulse Science priority, can only rightfully of the heart, to be replaced by other be awarded to him who first pubmillions. The iron which it washes lishes, the title of discoverer is given onwards can be separated. Professor to Malpighi, who saw and described Bérard used to exhibit a lump of it them in the blood of a hedgehog in in his_lecture-room-nay, one inge- 1661. He saw them, but did not nious Frenchman has suggested that understand them. They appeared to coins should be struck from the him to be only globules of fat. The metal extracted from the blood of commencement of accurate knowgreat men. Let no one suggest that ledge dates from Leewenhoek, who, in we should wash our hands with the 1673, detected them in human blood. soap extracted from a similar source ! “These particles,” he says elsewhere,

Although to the naked eye the are so minute, that one hundred of blood appears as a homogeneous them placed side by side would not fluid, having a colour more or less equal the diameter of a common scarlet, the microscope assures us grain of sand; consequently, a grain that it is a fluid which carries cer- of sand is above a million times the tain solid bodies of definite shape size of one such globule.” We and size—so definite, indeed, that a have now the exact measurement of mere stain, no matter where, will, to these discs, which was not posthe experienced eye, betray whether sible in his day. Extending his obit be the blood of a mammal, a bird, servations, Leewenhoek found that a reptile, or a fish. Prick your in birds and fishes, as well as in finger with a needle, place the drop quadrupeds, the colour of the blood on the glass-slide under your micro- due to these discs. He scope, cover it with a thin glass, and seems to have been puzzled by the look. You will be surprised, per- fact, that in fishes the discs are haps, to observe that the blood which not round, but oval; and he at first had so deep a tint of scarlet in the attributed this to the compression mass, is of a pale reddish yellow, exercised by the vessels. It is innow that it is spread out on the structive to hear him confess that he slide; whereupon you conclude that could not persuade himself" that the the depth of tint arose from the natural shape of the particles of dense aggregation of those yellow blood in fishes was an oval; for indiscs, which you observe scattered asmuch as a spherical seemed to me about, some of them adherent to- the more perfect form.” + He was gether, and presenting the appear too good an observer, however, to ance of piles of half-sovereigns. It permit such metaphysical concepis these floating solíds” of the blood tions long to mask the truth, and, upon which your attention must accordingly, he described and figured now be fixed. They are variously the blood-discs in the fish as oval. I named Blood-corpuscles, Blood-glo- It is to Hewson that science is

was

* LEEWENHOEK: Select Works, i. 89.

+ Ibid., ii. 233. I In the larva of the Ephemeron the blood-discs are as nearly as possible oatshaped.

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indebted for the most accurate and mals, larger in reptiles and fishes exhaustive investigation of the blood than in birds. But they are largest which has been made from 1770 of all in the Triton and Proteus, down to our own time; and it has which as reptiles are exceptions to the been even asserted by one whose rule. Nor can the rule be taken word is an authority,* that Hewson's absolutely, even within those limits works contain the germ of all the we have named, since although repdiscoveries made in our own day: tiles are less advanced in organisaThere is something at once painful tion than mammals, and have larger and instructive in the fact that, after discs, it is not the least advanced the publication of researches só pre- among the mammals that have the cise and important as those of Leew- largest discs ;—for instance, the rumienhoek and Hewson, the whole sub- nants are less advanced than the ject should have been suffered for quadrumana, yet among mammals many years to lapse into ignorant the ruminants have the smallest neglect ; and instead of any progress discs; and in man they are as large being made, we find the most eni- as in rodents, I nent physiologists at the beginning The structure of these bodies is of the present century (Richerand necessarily difficult of study. Leewenand Majendie, for example) denying hoek, and others, observed that in positively that the blood-discs ex- the discs of the fish and reptile there isted, or that the microscope could is always a central spot, which aptell us anything about them.f Never- pears dark, or clear, according as it theless, there is not an amateur of is viewed by transmitted, or reflected, the present day who is not familiar light. This appearance was interwith them. Science has carefully preted as indicating a perforation in registered the exact measurements the disce, which would consequently and form of these discs, in upwards imply that they were like quoits. of five hundred different species of But Hewson settled this doubt by animals! Contempt of microscopic proving the central spot to be a solid research seriously retarded the pro- nucleus, which he saw escaping from gress of Physiology ; it has its paral- its envelope, to float free in the lel in a similar contempt inspired by liquid-an observation subsequently the great Linnæus respecting the confirmed. It is worthy of remark application of the microscope to that this nucleus is seen with diffiBotany; and as the physiologists of culty when the blood is newly drawn this century have had to rediscover from a vessel, although it speedily what was known to Leewenhoek and becomes distinct, especially if a little Hewson, so also have the botanists water be added. This has led Valenhad to rediscover what was familiar tin, Wagner, Henle, Donders, and to Malpighi.

Moleschott to the conclusion that the There must assuredly be some re- nucleus is not present normally, but lation between the form and size of arises from internal coagulation on these discs and their function ; but exposure to the air : a conclusion what that relation is, no one has yet rejected by Mayer and Kölliker, the made out. In general, the larger former averring that he has seen the discs are found in the less advanced nucleus while the blood-discs were organisms : that is to say, they are still circulating in the capillaries of a larger in the embryo than in the young frog's foot. We have not ouradult, larger in birds than in mam- selves been able to see this in the

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* MILNE EDWARDS: Leçons sur la Phys. et l'Anat. Comp., i. 44. The works of Hewson have been edited, and in a very valuable inanner, by Mr GULLIVER, for tbe “ Sydenham Society."

+ MILNE EDWARDS notices a similar denial made by M. GIACOMINI at the Pisa Congress of scientific men in 1839–

-a denial wbich pretended to be based on original investigations.

# In man their diameter varies between sooo and odoo of an inch ; and their average thickness is 12.1oo of an irfch. Vierordt estimates that in about Ifo of a cubic inch there are as many as 5,055,000 of these discs. VOL. LXXXIII.-NO, DXII.

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