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They took trays from the porters' heads,

babes from perambulators; They stuffed their pockets full of greens, clothes, jewellery, potatoes; Tripped bobbies up; knocked workmen down; grinned as they broke the laws; And all their crimes were greeted with uproarious applause!

The Guilder's mind, though fanciful, was logical and strong.

He laughed; but still he knew the Clown and Pantaloon were wrong;

And yet he felt that, if reformed, the pair

would lose their fun

And this reflection much perplexed the Rev. Gladys-Dunne !

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And, as the Rev. Gladys-Dunne these anxious questions pondered,

It gradually dawned on him how widely he had wandered

In following Jack-o'-Lantern schemes, by fog and bog ignited,

And dreaming that the Church and Stage could ever be united!

All players, comic or sublime, live lives of make-believe,

Appearing most successful when most shrewdly they deceive;

All plays, from tragic to burlesque, in prose, blank-verse, or rhyme,

Are only variations of the speaking pantomime!

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A CATAMARAN VOYAGE,

LETTER I.

AND HOW IT ENDED.

RELATED IN LETTERS TO A FRIEND.

BEING old enough by this time to be my own medical adviser, when nothing serious is the matter with me I sometimes give myself a prescription and try to follow it. What is the best prescription when one is simply a little dull, when the ordinary occupations of one's existence do not seem so interesting as usual, and although there is plenty to do, the best of reasons does not seem an adequate reason for doing it? The proper prescription, I fancy, in such a case is not so much rest as a week or two of active and interesting amusement. Then comes the great difficulty for men on the wrong side of forty, and that is, to find the amusement which really interests them, and which does not turn itself into work. Men who like shooting and fishing are fortunate in the seasons of those sports, but unluckily for me I never could interest myself in either. I cannot amuse myself with any of the fine arts, because they always turn themselves into hard work for me. One thing, however, never fails to amuse me really, and that is boating, including the construction of boats. This passion is just as lively in me to-day as it was thirty years ago, and it still goes in the same direction and works at the same problem, which is the improvement of the double boat, or what is now called the catamaran.

Mr. MacGregor (Rob Roy) says that we who like double boats are very much attached to our own idea, and obstinate in the pursuit of it. This is an exact description of the manner in which human beings arrive at valuable results in everything. All successful inventors, or improvers of inventions, are men very much attached to their own idea, and obstinate in the pursuit of it."

66

The first catamaran I ever constructed was launched on the 1st of June 1850; the last is to be launched this autumn (1880). In the interval of thirty years between the two dates the improvement of this contrivance has been one of my favourite subjects of reflection and experiment. It will be observed that no civilized man ever really

invented a catamaran or a double canoe. The first inventor was an unknown but very intelligent savage, who, having no resource in boat-building but the hollowed tree, which is of necessity narrow, was ingenious enough to apply an outrigger at some distance from his canoe to give it stability, or else he united two canoes by a bridge, and so made them carry a large sail and go fast. Models of these savage contrivances may be found in all well-furnished naval museums. They are of the most various kinds, some being simply a pair of canoes joined by poles; others a canoe in the middle, with two sharpened logs for outriggers, one on each side; others a canoe with one such outrigger only; others, again, little more than a raft of three logs, the longest in the middle, the shorter ones at a little distance on the sides.

Civilized men have taken up this idea in various different countries. particularly in France, England, and America. In France, M. Pécot sailed a double cylindrical boat on the Seine in 1843, which went faster under sail than all other boats then existing on that river, and was not inconvenient for rowing. Count Lemesle made experiments, about 1850, with a double boat on the sea. Mr. Richardson, of Bala, in Wales, made many similar experiments with a view to tubular life-boats. His object was not speed, but safety. My object in pursuing similar experiments has been safety and convenience in pleasure-boats. An American, Mr. N. G. Herreshoff, of Bristol, U.S., has been making experiments during the last four years for speed, and has so far succeeded that, under the most favourable conditions, he sails at the rate of eighteen miles an hour, without an ounce of ballast. Of late years my own improvements have been for portability, as the catamaran form offers great possibilities. in this direction. At the same time I have tried for convenience of arrangement, with a view to long river voyages. The catamaran which I have just constructed is so contrived that, although it is more than twenty feet long with seven feet of beam, the largest separate piece measures seven feet by twenty inches, and can be carried by one man.

The machine can be taken up any staircase, even up a church steeple, and the ground space that it requires, when in store during the winter months, measures less than seven feet by three. In places where a good many porters can be had at once the catamaran goes up into an attic in five minutes. It is therefore a convenient thing for a man who has no boat-house, or who lives at a distance from water, and likes to keep his boat at his own home. On roads the catamaran may be transported either in two carts or one four-wheeled waggon, and a single horse drags it easily. It occupies a corner of a railway van, and the cost of transporting it by rail is less than that of one first-class passenger. From the railway station to the river it goes on a dray, which costs not much more than a cab. It contains twelve separate water-tight compartments, in which food, clothing, and other matters may be stored, and there is a special place on deck for the stowage of a tent and its appurtenances. The interior is lined with canvas covered with india-rubber, and on this is a second lining of strong waterproof paper glued with a thick solution of shellac. The builder assures me that, whatever may be the other faults of the catamaran, not a drop of water will ever enter. The hatchways have been the subject of most anxious cogitation, but a plan has at last been hit upon, which, whilst permitting them to open freely, shuts them so effectually that water cannot possibly filter downwards from the deck.

LETTER II.

THE launch is fixed for to-morrow on an artificial lake near my house, and large enough for exercise in sailing. By way of precaution, however, we have brought the catamaran to the water the day before, for a little private launch with the workmen only. It was soon put together and on the water, floating lightly enough, when just as we were proceeding to step the masts, the prying curiosity of a youthful joiner threw a damper on all our happiness. It had occurred to him to try the key of the hatchways (there are twelve hatchways, and one key with a strong lever opens them all), just to look inside one of the water-tight compartments, when he cried out, "There's water under the false bottom; I can see it through the pump-hole !" Of course the builder and I were very quickly there to look. Yes! we could see a gleam of reflected sky through the pump-hole, as if it went through the earth,

and we saw the sky of the antipodes. "Perhaps," I said, with deep misgiving, "perhaps it is only that compartment. Let us examine the others." Lid after lid was opened, and the result, in a word, was that every one of the twelve compartments leaked, but that some were leaking much faster than the one we had at first examined.

Here was a pretty discovery! It was evident that the india-rubber solution with which the canvas was applied had not been of the slightest use. It had not glued the canvas to the wood; and moreover, the paper, which was to have been a protection also, and on which many a quart of strong shellac solution had been expended, was coming away like wetted blotting-paper. All that we could do was to pump, and whilst two men were rigging the catamaran, a third was pumping incessantly. But we cannot afford to keep a man always pumping when we are out upon the river, and it has become a serious question whether we shall be able to start (my two sons and I) on a contemplated voyage down the Saône and the Rhône. To add to our pleasures, a party of friends is invited to witness the launch to-morrow, and provision is already made for their entertainment. They are to be at the lake early, and have déjeuner there. Please observe that they all expect a sail on the catamaran, which by to-morrow will probably be sunk in the shallow bay, with her two masts peering above the level of the water like the masts of sunken vessels as you see them depicted in The Graphic and the Illustrated London News.

LETTER III.

OUR party is over; the lunch was a perfect success, the launch a perfect failure.

We had lunch in a barn, swept and garnished for the occasion, and furnished with a long table composed of planks on trestles. It was a very merry and pleasant party, certainly one of the most goodhumoured and willing-to-be-pleased that ever met at a picnic. There were English people and French people, and people who were both at the same time; there were ladies of all ages, and some were pretty and some were witty, and some were both pretty and witty. There were young men who met again after being divided by great spaces of land and sea, and who relapsed into boyhood for the occasion; there were children delighted with the novelty of using a barn as a salle à manger, and tolerably good in consequence. Amidst all these

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