have been properly treated in the homes of the patients.
Here there is no almsgiving, unless it be in the first instance, to open the house. The affair would cut no figure at all on the platform in St. James’s Hall, where the speakers, who blow a trumpet before one another, would frown on such a trumpery amount of almsgiving; but to those whose care is for the welfare of their neighbour, the institution is valuable, for the very reason that the good it does is unconnected with almsgiving. The patients and their families are benefited without any danger to their independence, or any loss of self-respect.
This is a single illustration of the best principle and method of charity, as the St. James’s Hall speakers are of the worst. There is probably no place and no time in which every one may not find opportunity for true charity, while there is no place or time in which we ought to admit the intrusion of self-appointed censors on our duty to our neighbour. I trust there will be no response to any man or group of men who may lay down the law about how much of our incomes we ought to bestow in alms. I will only add, that at times when, as at present, we are compelled to give alms to an unusual amount, we should be doubly careful not to neglect the higher kinds of charity in which the expenditure is of something better than money.
THE DEAD MAN’S HAND.
I was looking over some old family papers in my library one cold winter’s night, some years ago, when I met with the following strange story. I well remember the circumstance, for it was the last night of the old year, and there was a deep snow on the ground. After a snug dinner in the library, all alone, I had the fire made up, put my feet on the fender, and was fast going off into a doze, when I remembered that I had left unfinished a box of old family papers which my lawyer had brought up for my inspection a week ago. I drew the tin box well up on to the hearth-rug, made a dive, and fetched up a packet of yellow papers tied up with red tape. Expecting some old deed or other, I was somewhat surprised when my eye fell on the following words: “The Dead Man’s Hand; or, Truth is Stranger than Fiction.”
I have since ascertained that the papers in question were the property of my grandfather, who was a barrister. I believe he had a large practice at the bar, before he retired on coming into the property. The only other fact I know about him is, that the place is still shown in the ha-ha, where, after a hard run with the Downshire hounds, he was thrown from his horse and carried home to rise no more.
The “Dead Man’s Hand” was not a lively subject on a dark December night, with two feet of snow on the ground, and the winter wind howling wildly through the elm trees, and dying away in a sullen roar in the distant chase. However, I snuffed the candles, stirred up the fire, which cast a ruddy glow into the dark corner where the old book-case stands, and read as follows:—
Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Some years ago I was engaged in a very singular case, the leading points of which I will endeavour to recall. I remember it made a deep impression on me at the time; and, even now, some of the circumstances and persons come to my memory painfully distinct. The face of one old woman often haunts me—there—I see her now, in the witness-box, haggard and withered as a witch; a malevolent smile playing round her face, and her eye—what an evil eye it was—gleaming with a wild light: the whole countenance indicative of suppressed cunning. I was a young man then, and had not at that time met with the success which afterwards fell to my lot. Briefs, in those days, were godsends indeed. I remember very well, that I had sat all day in my dull lonely chambers, and my small boy, dignified with the name of clerk, had sat all day in his duller and lonelier room, when creak, creak, creak, came a footstep on the old stairs. Few steps ever got past the second floor, so I listened anxiously at that critical juncture—yes—no—yes, on it came past the capacious maw of Mr. Deedes, that eminent conveyancer, whose table is covered with hundred-guinea abstracts and twenty-guinea settlements.
Rat-tat-tat came the knock at the door; off rushed the clerk, in such a hurry that he upset the ink over my “Reports,” for which he was threatened with instant dismissal on the next provocation, my wrath being only appeased by the extremity of penitence and humility to which he was thereby reduced. I believe we should really have parted shortly afterwards, when I caught the young scamp in my wig and gown, pantomiming out of the back window, had I not remembered his wretched home in Scragg’s Court, Fetter Lane, and his mother, who plaintively said, she was “a lone, lorn widder with thirteen childer.”
But this by the way. My quick ear caught the word “Brief,” uttered by a strange voice in the passage, and I waited in some anxiety, apparently plunged in a mass of papers—Viner’s Abridgment, the Statutes at Large, and other works of the same light nature, forming a sort of breastwork round me. My clerk, who seemed suddenly to have increased in height and self-importance, and to be a clerk in large practice, inquired in a sufficiently loud voice, if I could see Mr. from Messrs. , a large and wealthy firm—their very names made my mouth water—or should he wait till, &c. &c.
The attorney’s clerk was shown in. Why had he wanted to see me, for he had nothing to say, his only observation being about the hour of consultation? I know that attorney’s clerk saw in a moment the amount of my business to a T, and I was glad when he was gone. The brief was large and the fee a heavy one; and my leader was Mr. Serjeant Wasp. Why and how had it been given to me? Had Messrs. & observed my indefatigable manner in court—of doing nothing? or was legal success written in my countenance?
But I was too anxious for much speculation, and lightly laying to my soul the flattering unction that I certainly deserved it, wherever it came from, unfolded it.
