than they have ever before enjoyed for less money. We shall never know what the reduction is in babies burnt; but of the fact of the reduction there can soon be no question.
I must resist the temptation of speculating on the effect on industry of the extinction of candles. It would be amusing to relate what has happened already, and to show what must be expected when there is no demand for dips, moulds, composition, or wax; or for candlesticks or snuffers, of any form or size; and when a brisk trade springs up in lamps, chains, and shades, from the humblest to the most elaborate and graceful. But that view will wait. Our candle-makers export such vast quantities of the commodity that the change at home will not show any great immediate influence on the tallow-trade or the northern fisheries. That part of the subject may wait. And I cannot but feel that my main topic is somewhat too grave for it.
However few may like to speak of it, we all really wish to know something of the endurableness of death by fire. There ought to be a good deal of evidence on this head, considering the number of lives so lost in all ages. There is, in fact, a good deal of evidence; but it is so various as to be found very perplexing. The only rational conclusion is that there are great varieties of suffering, in accordance with the differences in men’s frame of body, and yet more, state of mind.
We must remember that nearly all who perish in conflagrations of dwellings die by suffocation, except the few who die as Mr. Braidwood did. Persons who have had severe burns from which they have recovered have said that all the bodily pain was afterwards: either the flame did not hurt, or the perturbation of mind rendered it unfelt. An acquaintance of mine, burnt in the hands in saving a child, and suffering tortures afterwards, even said that the sensation was for the instant rather pleasant than otherwise. But this has no bearing on what we want to know,—the endurableness of being burnt to death.
We need not, unhappily, go back to the old records of religious martyrdom for evidence. Men are burned alive now, year by year,—not only in Red Indian warfare, nor in missionary life among the heathens,—but in the United States, and wherever slavery exists.
In 1836 a negro was so burned in Missouri. The management of the deed was as cruel as the deed itself. Suffice it that, after the longest half-hour he had ever passed, one gentleman said to another, “His pain is over, he does not suffer now:” when a voice from the foot of the tree, and behind the fire, said “Yes, I do.” This victim had been very quiet: and his steady utterance of prayers and hymns showed what we are glad to know. But there is more direct evidence.
There has never been any doubt about the exhilaration of spirit with which men and women could meet that death, and any other. It is so common in the history of martyrdom that we all expect to find it, in every new instance. Latimer’s exultation about lighting a great candle in England animates without surprising us: and we can sympathise with Ridley’s noble economy in the midst of his last walk, when, seeing, on his way to the stake, a poor man barefoot, he slipped off his own shoes, and gave them to the staring stranger, saying it was a pity a pair of shoes so wanted should be burned. All this we understand: but the declaration of several of the martyrs in the midst of the fire that they felt no pain has perplexed many. The dying men themselves supposed it a miracle. We know now that when the skin has been acted upon to a certain point, sensation is lost. There have been instances of this absence of pain in fatal cases within a few months.
The best thing we know, in this matter, is the beautiful anecdote of one of our Protestant martyrs (was it Fisher of Hadleigh?) and his imperilled friends. Those friends expected that their turn would be next; and in the brotherly spirit of the time and circumstances, they talked over the whole matter with him. They would be present, on a rising ground in front of the stake,—which was very cheering to him: and he engaged to make a sign, if he found the pain endurable,—which would be very cheering to them. He would raise his hands above his head, in a manner agreed upon. They went and looked on; and for long they saw nothing. They could not wonder;—it was too much to expect the sign. At last, the victim raised—not his hands, for they were gone, but his arms, above his head, and kept them there so long as to leave no doubt of his intent. For all generations since this has been a comfort. It may make no difference, in any case, about encountering the martyrdom; but it is a great and genuine solace to know that the faculties may work truly in such extremity.
It is an extremity which is now never endured but by somebody’s fault: and it is doubtful whether the proportion of victims to ignorance and carelessness diminishes. Do we mean that there shall ever be an end to deaths by fire?
SLAPTON.
Our village of Slapton is well known throughout Devonshire. Pleasure-seekers troop hither for the day. Excursion-steamers make trips to us. Numerous, and sometimes royal, visitors enjoy the hospitalities of the Sands Hotel. The coast-railway from Dartmouth to Plymouth will make Slapton a fashionable watering-place. At present, we are somewhat difficult of access. Totnes is our nearest railway-station. The place, however, is so justly celebrated throughout the county which contains it, and so deserving of a more extended fame, that a short account of it may not be uninteresting to the general reader. He may have read Flavel’s work, prefaced “from my study at Slapton.” He may have heard of Admiral Hawkins’ glory in his great house of Poole; yet, forgetful, it is ten to one that he will say, as my friends said when I settled here, “Where in the world is Slapton?”
The parish of Slapton is washed by the sea. On its left is Dartmouth Harbour. On its right is the Start. The village itself nestles some three-quarters of a mile inland, where no wind can touch
