case the Brahmins would have hesitated, and as the evidence was quite irresistible, he was found guilty, and sentenced to transportation for life, we presume to the Andamans. It should be noted, as a singular illustration of the juxtaposition of two civilizations, that Wassadeo's counsel, a native, set up the newest scientific defence, and pleaded for acquittal on the ground that his client was a monomaniac, always dreaming of kingdoms, and had imagined all the occurrences written down in his diary, the heaviest evidence against him. As we have said, the attempt illustrates at once the strength and the weakness of the British position in India. It is weak, because there must be thousands of men like Wassadeo, ambitious, semi-educated, and able men, who would risk life to overthrow British dominion, who enjoy the passive sympathy of masses of their countrymen, and who can appeal, in the first place, with a certain assurance of success to the multitudes of violent men who, armed with swords, spears, or matchlocks, are ready in any part of India for any violent or illegal enterprise. Wassadeo was unlucky, but had he carried out his second idea at first, he might easily have appeared in Poona with a determined band, have released the convicts, and have then gathered a force, as the new Sivajee, sufficient to be formidable. Tantia Topee, also a Marhatta, did it in 1857, though no doubt his force had a nucleus of regulars; and in the vast extent of western India men who can march thirty miles a day, and live on the plunder of small villages, can always escape pursuit for a time. But it is precisely at this point, when an insurrection has become successful enough to be visible, that the British government, at first so weak, becomes suddenly and irresistibly strong. The band, long screened by the tacit conspiracy of the people, is at last perceived by government, and instantly an organization is set in motion which it must either evade, or defeat, or perish under fire. Escape is impossible without subdivision, which means the dissolution of the band, for the government has cavalry, and the telegraph, and the command of endless spies; and in a week the armed police and soldiery of half-a-dozen districts are in motion to every point at which the insurgents may be expected, while so long as the band exists the pursuit is never given up. The only alternative is to fight, and a fight between native insurgents, however brave or determined, and the troops is, after all, only a fight between a mob and regular soldiers. The defence, if the country is very difficult, may be protracted, as it has been in the, to us, unintelligible insurrection at Rampa, in suppressing which the Madras government seems, from some unknown cause, to be constantly baffled; but the soldiers, guided by trained officers, supported if needful by artillery, and fully supplied, can never be beaten in the end. The rank and file of the insurgents slip away, the ringleaders are either betrayed or surrender, or are hunted through India for months or years, and the end is a trial and an increase to the population of the Andamans. It is easy to see how a popular insurrection could succeed in the Deccan for a time, but almost impossible to perceive how, if the soldiers remained faithful, it could fail to be put down; and that is, no doubt, the native conviction also-a conviction which only disappears when a success, however trifling, has been gained over the troops, or a regiment itself has mutinied. Then the danger becomes real and great. We see nothing for Englishmen to repent of in the trial or in the fate of Wassadeo. He may have a moral right of rebellion against the foreigner, but if we have any right to remain in India at all, we have a right to repress rebellion, and the anarchy it would be certain to produce. Men who attempt to overthrow established society, are properly compelled to do it under heavy penalties; and Wassadeo himself relied on the ignorance of the country-folk, while his patriotism was mixed up inextricably with personal envy and ambition. He desired to found a raj quite as strongly as to drive out the foreigner. But we may be allowed to regret that our system forbids us to make any adequate use of the talents men like Wassadeo must possess, or to offer them any legitimate career. He had not a chance in the world, however remote, of rising to the kind of position he thirsted for, unless he emigrated to a native state, and there attached himself to the household of some powerful noble. Wassadeo, though he became a dacoit, did not outrage his countrymen's notions of morality, and was porbably no worse than any Indian adventurer, while he was unusually free from bloodthirstiness. He would have made a good chief of police or head of a department in a native state, and it is difficult to doubt that the British method suppresses such men and their aspira From The Pall Mall Gazette. tions a great deal too completely. There of fruits in syrup, four kinds of fresh is no remedy, that we see, unless we fruit; four dishes of hors d'œuvre (two allow natives of capacity to rise to princi- varieties in each dish)-ham and chicken, palities; and they can hardly display fish and gizzard, tripe and vermicelli, duck capacity, except by movements which and pork chops. Dishes set before each native princes, like our own government, guest- almonds and watermelon pips, put down as insurrections. There is a pears and oranges. Sweet and salt dishes source of weakness there, nevertheless, served in cups set before each guestand some day the imprisoned air may two kinds of salted cakes, ham broth, a explode the ice, the government and the broth composed of pork, chicken, and missionaries together every year turning crab boiled down, two sweet cakes, a cup out thousands of students thirsty for ca- of lotus fruit, a cup of almond milk. reers which they can never hope to find. Roast and boiled meats -sucking pig, It is not pleasant to think of them, or roast duck, boiled chicken, boiled pork. any of them, in chains for treason at the Entremets- a dish of cakes with broth, Andamans. slices of pheasants. Last service: mutton broth, almond jelly, white cabbage, pork and broth, bowls of rice, cups of green tea." Many of these dishes are known to us in Europe, and appear to be more eccentric than in reality they are. Thus, for instance, the swallows'-nests built by the Collocalia brevirostris with a gelatine sea herb called gelidium, and costing as much as thirty dollars a pound, are cooked with chicken broth, and when ready for table might almost be taken for a dish of vermicelli. There is another dish, not included in the above bill of fare, called "rotten eggs" (pitan); but everybody who has tasted them says that they are excellent, being simply tame ducks' eggs, the shells of which have been covered with a thick layer of ashes, lime, soda, powdered tea, and grated liquorice-root. The yellow of the egg gradually turns from yellow to green, and then to black; and the deeper the color the more delicate the flavor. Sharks' fins, whether white (peh yu tche) or black (he yu tche), and the trepang, dried and smoked, are both very popular in China; but though sharks' fins, very much like skate, are generally liked by Europeans, the trepang has a nauseous taste. It is an error to suppose that Chinese of the wealthier class make their meals off the almost illimitable number of strange dishes which we read of in books of travel. These dishes exist and appear at official banquets, which, however, do not give a more correct idea of Chinese cooking than a public dinner in London or in Paris would of the achievements which a good chef in England or France could accomplish for a small party of gourmets. The big dinners of the kind described are generally given in China at restaurants, which, contrary to the general custom of the country, have two and even three stories, the kitchen and public room being on the ground floor, with private rooms on the floor above. A correspondent of the Journal des Débats, who was present at a banquet given by a French official in the employ of the Chinese government to Chen Pao-Chen, the viceroy of the Two-Kiangs, after the examination of the students in the naval Though the correspondent of the Débats arsenal, sends the following as the bill of has never seen rats and dogs eaten, he fare: "Four large 'classical' or stock admits that the evidence of their doing so dishes swallows'-nest soup with pig- is overwhelmingly strong. Archdeacon eons' eggs, sharks' fins with crabs, tre- Gray, who resided for a quarter of a cenpang (bêche-de-mer) with wild duck, duck tury at Hong Kong and Canton, gives a with cabbage. Dishes served in cups minute description in his book on China placed before each guest swallows' of the restaurants in which the flesh of nests, sharks' fins, wild cherries, vegeta- these animals is served, and he tells us bles, mushrooms with ducks' feet, quails, that in a street at Canton rats are hung pigeons in slices, dish of sundries. Four up for sale with poultry. They are dried medium-sized dishes-ham and honey, and salted, and are very much affected by pea-soup, vegetables, trepang; four large dessert dishes-pea-cheese with bamboo-roots, bamboo-roots, chicken, shellfish; four dishes of dry fruits as ornaments, four kinds of dry fruits, four kinds ladies whose hair is falling off, as the flesh of rats is believed to be an excellent preventive of baldness. Pork is one of the staples of Chinese cookery, the best bacon and hams coming from the prov inces of Fokien and Quang-Tung, the flavor of the hams being much improved by keeping them for a year or two in sawdust after they have been cured. As in Europe, certain places in China are renowned for their products, such as Pekin for its sweetened ducks; Tou-liou, a small village near that city, for its vinegar (tsou); Tchin-Kiang, in the Kiang-su, for a sauce made with fermented beans and salt, which the Chinese use as we use Worcester or Harvey sauce. The Chinese are generally very abstemious; and though a Chinese servant will occasionally ransack his master's cellar when he gets the opportunity, champagne being in that case preferred to any other wine, it may generally be taken for granted that a native who does not walk straight in the street is suffering from an overdose of opium rather than of alcoholic liquor. A coolie will keep body and soul together upon eight shillings a month; with twice that sum he is able to live very comfortably, for the Chinese sapeque, which is the current coin, is not above the fifteen-hundredth fraction of a tael (65.), and for ten sapeques he can buy a dish of rice or of vegetables from a vendor in the streets. Boiled rice is the basis of Chinese food, and the symbol of it, so to speak; for a waiter, when asking you whether you are going to take a meal, will ask you whether you will have some rice, and "Have you eaten your rice?" is the equivalent of "How do you do?" In the north of China wheat and canary-seed are also consumed in great quantities, boiled and made into small rolls; cakes made of boiled wheat are held in high esteem, and these with a little fish or some vegetables will enable a Chinaman to make an excellent dinner. A Chinaman in comfortable circumstances takes, in addition to his breakfast, dinner, and supper, various light refreshments between meals - the kuo tså leading up to the morning, the kuo tsong to the midday, and the tien chen to the evening meal, while the chéau ya and the kuo yia are partaken of during the night by those who cannot get to sleep. This is why the street-vendors are so numerous, and the street cries, varying according to the hour of the day, so discordant; cakes of wheat boiled in oil and hot rice-cakes during the early morning, beans and boiled rice towards noon, the blood of ducks and pigs boiled and dried, eggs cooked just before the chickens which they contain were hatched, baked pears, etc., towards night-time being in turn the most in demand. Kitchen utensils are of the simplest description. An earthen pan and an iron stove are used to cook every kind of food; while the two chopsticks of bone or ivory are generally preferred to knives, forks, and spoons, though the two last-named, and even the first, are sometimes used now for conveying food to the mouth. From The Pall Mall Gazette. BRIGANDAGE IN ITALY. ROME, Sept. 12. OBSERVING for some time past that the old plague of brigandage seemed to be breaking out afresh in various parts of Italy, I had the curiosity to cut out such paragraphs in the Italian papers as referred to this subject, and I send you the result of about ten days' cuttings. It may be said to be not altogether reassuring, either to the public or the brigands. At Cornigliano a bold attempt was made to plunder a tramway car: seven thieves jumped on to one, stopped it, and ordered the passengers to give up their money; but a custom-house officer, coming up, inspired the travellers with courage to resist, and the thieves were driven off. They have since been arrested. Another case of highway robbery was reported from Jesi, in which some travelling pedlars were stopped, and stripped of all worth taking from them, by five men, three of whom were afterwards captured by the police. Near Ravenna an attack was made on a country house by six robbers, who, however, met with an unexpected resistance, and had to give up the attempt. Less fortunate were the Signori Belli, who also were attacked in their farm near Perugia by two men, who revenged themselves for an unsuccessful defence by shooting the elder of the brothers and stabbing him fourteen times; the men are known, but have so far escaped. Near Avellino Signor Simeoni was captured by brigands, who demanded a ransom of twelve thousand francs; but the police were so soon on their track and pursued them so closely that they released their prisoner. The worst case recorded so far is that of Signor Sala, in Sicily, in the district of Porto Adriano. Signor Sala was returning to Palermo with a sum of money in his possession and an escort of seven of his servants. At a spot called Montescuro three brigands stopped the party. Sala tried to escape, but a volley was from the brigands killed him and one of | forcements, they went forth to intercept the servants. The only one of the party them, and, separating into three parties, who did not run away at once returned the hid themselves beside the road. After a fire, and killed a certain La Russa, a no- while, Salpietra, with some of his compantorious brigand long sought after by the ions, rode up (for brigands travel on police, for whose capture a sum of one horseback in Sicily). As they neared the thousand francs had been offered; but first party they were challenged, and at the others escaped. Between Subiaco once fired on the police. The police and Senni a carriage containing two returned the fire, wounding the horses. brothers Ciccarelli and a relation of theirs The second party now hurried up and was stopped a few nights ago by three opened fire, killing Salpietra and another men watching the road; they all had brigand, but not before a trooper had guns, and ordered the party to alight and been shot. The neighborhood give up their money, at first requiring one searched for the rest of the band, but if hundred francs and afterwards one thou- they were following they took alarm on sand francs. One of the brothers stepped hearing the firing, and decamped. Anforward as if to render his share, but, in- other brigand has lately been shot near stead of doing so, seized the gun of one of the mines of Pubussini. It was ascerthe robbers. His two companions threw tained that he usually slept in a hut near themselves on the other two, and a des- the mines; so one night the police surperate struggle ensued, in the course of rounded it. Instead of surrendering which the guns went off and wounded one when summoned, he fired several times at of the brothers. The other, however, his assailants, and was in turn shot at and managed to shoot one of the brigands; killed. Again, another brigand was killed and his companions, seeing they were by one of his companions, and found burgetting the worst of it, fled, dragging with ied on the side of Monte Sterpino, in Sicthem their wounded companion. The po- ily; and in an encounter with gendarmes lice were soon on their track, and will no at Mozzano Appio two brigands were doubt capture them, or at least the killed and one wounded. Although, wounded one, ere long. The death of therefore, it is rather disheartening to Salpietra, in Sicily, one of the bandits find that there are so many brigands who escaped from a prison-van last year, about after being so frequently assured has already been telegraphed. The latest that the last brigand had been accounted particulars about his death state that the for, it is at least satisfactory to find that police had information that the band of so much resistance is offered to attacks which he was one of the chiefs would from these malefactors, and with such pass through a certain district on a cer- good effect. tain night. Accordingly, obtaining rein hands. Nature. THE RE-DISCUSSION OF ANCIENT SOLAR that this interesting research is in excellent ECLIPSES. The publication of recent investigations on the motion of the moon, appearing to render a new discussion of the ancient eclipses of the sun desirable, the work has been commenced under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, by Mr. D. P. Todd, of the American Nautical Almanac office. The computations so far relate to the eclipses of Thales, Larissa, Ennius, Agathocles, and Stiklastad, and to the two eclipses of the thirteenth century, which have formed the subject of an important memoir by Celoria, of the observatory at Milan. It is proposed to extend the original scope of the research to include a large number of ecliptic dates, and great facilities are expected from the use of Newcomb's Tables of Eclipses, which have recently appeared. We shall allude further to these tables in a future column. It will be seen THE well-known Boulak Museum at Cairo has been undergoing repairs, and the fine collection was deposited in a neigboring warehouse under what seemed proper guardianship. But, the Times correspondent writes, robbers the other day broke in through the roof, and they must have been robbers of a certain rank of intellect, for some eighty or a hundred scarabees of great value pecuniarily, and im possible to replace, as they related to the early dynasties, were abstracted, although they were things of no apparent worth to an ignorant per. son. Nature. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. |