unblushing plagiary; some regretted the bad effect it would have on the rising generation; while others bestowed exaggerated praise, and called it the tale of the season.'

Mr. Quille took care to send Mrs. Temple every favourable critique, and begged her to enter into an engagement to supply his firm with a three-volume novel before the end of the season. The bait was tempting, the praise most flattering to weak human nature. But Helen had seen her fault, and resolved never again to lay herself open to such remorse as she had felt ever since her story was in print. The more it became known, the more hateful it was to her. Almost she felt inclined to write a public recantation, but she felt the uselessness and absurdity of such an act: there was nothing but to sit still and silent in secret self-abasement. Yet though the evil already done could not be recalled, it should not be repeated. Helen rejected Mr. Quille's proposal, and told him how deeply she regretted having yielded to his wishes. If she continued to write, it must be in a very different style; if he declined to accept her work, she must seek another publisher.

A satirical smile curled Mr. Quille's lip as he read this letter, and he passed it to his brother-in-law, who was also a publisher, and happened to be in the office at the time.

Mr. Bland, who had fully discerned the talent evinced in Helen's story, was much interested in the repentance she expressed for her blameable writing, and said, after reading her letter attentively, 'I cannot agree with you in thinking it a pity she should come to this determination. Such art as hers should not be perverted in these pernicious sensation novels. She must be a noble woman. Few authors, after such a success, would have been able to resist the temptation to become rich and popular, and determine to sacrifice fame to principle.'

I think her a foolish fanatic,' returned Mr. Quille. Already she has worried me so much with these morbid fancies and scruples, that I will take her at her word, and have nothing more to do with her. Why, she is a widow, with a large family, a sick boy, and scarcely money enough to buy them food; and yet she throws away her chances in this absurd manner! It is worse than absurd, it is unnatural.'

'The more there is to sacrifice, the more heroic is her conduct,' rejoined Mr. Bland. I confess it raises my opinion of human nature. One might expect such self-denial in an authoress who had only herself to maintain; but few mothers would let their consciences stand in the way of their children's advantages.'

'Well, Bland, as you admire Mrs. Temple's motives so much, you had better engage her to write goody books for you. She is an interesting elegant woman, and I should not like her to starve; yet one really cannot afford to take bad bargains for the sake of her conscience.'

Next morning Mrs. Temple received two notes. One was from Mr.

Quille, declining her services on the conditions named. After reading it, she cast one anxious look at her children; then, whispering to herself, Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and its righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you,' she tore up the note, saying unflinchingly, 'One dark phase of my life is past; thus ends my connection with pernicious literature.' Then, with a sorrowful glance at Johnnie's pale face, she took up the second letter.

Quickly her sadness turned into joy, as she saw before her the very opening she had often longed for. Mr. Bland mentioned having heard of her recent determination, and admiring the high-minded self-denial it evinced, begged her to write him a story on whatever subject her own inclinations might suggest, and to consider him as her regular publisher. Then, with a thankful, Lord, I knew Thou wouldst not let me fall again into temptation, but deliver me from evil,' the mother clasped her children to her breast, and loved them doubly for having preferred her duty before their immediate material interest.

Thenceforth writing was a pure pleasure to her; never again did book of hers contain aught that her strictest self-judgement needed her to wish cancelled for the sake of others. Mr. Bland had never reason to regret his discerning kindness. The belief in the controlling power of religion strengthened in him day by day, as he saw how Mrs. Temple fulfilled her good resolution. And the blessings of earth and Heaven descended on writer and publisher, and stole into many a reader's heart. Out of the eater had come forth sweetness; out of repented evil the Lord had brought forth good.

(To be continued.)

AUSTRALIE.

THE CHOLERA AT PLYMOUTH IN 1849.

BY S. W.

IT has long been the writer's opinion that a history of the last visitation of cholera at Plymouth, could it have been narrated at the time by an eye-witness, would have been as full of interest and deep pathos as that of the Plague at Milan in Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi, with the additional value of truthfulness in every detail, not in the general features only. The events were remarkable in themselves-still more remarkable in that they were the occasion of eliciting the first actual Sisterhood work of any magnitude done among us after the English revival.

The office of chronicler, by no means an easy one at this distance of time, was unexpectedly imposed upon her by a friend. She has found a good deal of difficulty in fulfilling it, and nothing but her confidence in

him would have carried her on. It has not been possible to obtain full and accurate statistics on which to base the little account. The notices in the local newspapers were but scanty and meagre; and though some record was kept by the Plymouth Board of Health, it is now missing.

Under these circumstances, such statistical notices as the following paper contains, together with much of its subject-matter, had to be collected in great measure through the kindness of friends. The writer knows very well how much she owes to them, and trusts that she has not used their information so as in any way to jar upon their feelings.

It will perhaps be best to relate in the first place the circumstances attending this outbreak of cholera, and afterwards what the Sisters did to meet the case. And be it remembered all along, that there is a great difference between the years 1849 and 1870. Now, the first thought, all England over, in any great calamity, is to send for a Sister. Then, there was scarcely a Sister to send for. And in Plymouth, the only place in which they were beginning to get into working order, the popular voice would certainly not have said 'Come,' but 'Get you gone.'

The Asiatic cholera, that sore judgement of God upon man in this nineteenth century, is supposed to have emerged from the delta of the Ganges in 1817. After ravaging the several provinces of India for thirteen years, it proceeded in a north-westerly direction, passed through Russia, and reached St. Petersburgh early in 1831. It bent southwards to France, committed great ravages in Paris; turned northwards again, and appeared at Sunderland late in the same year-by way of Hamburg, as was believed. During January and February 1832, it made its way through England, and on the 13th of the latter month broke out in London. Through the following summer it was rife in that city and its neighbourhood, as well as in many of our provincial towns, those of the west of England suffering severely. There were above eleven hundred cases and 345 deaths in Exeter during three months. Plymouth was described to me by an eye-witness as being a plague-stricken place that summer, abandoned by such of its inhabitants as could go elsewhere, and avoided by strangers; its streets silent and grass-grown, the ordinary routine of life suspended. From this time the fatal disease never entirely left our island; but we heard little of it till the fatal year 1849, when it burst out with terrible violence, and swept off between seventeen and eighteen thousand of our fellow countrymen, chiefly in the summer and autumn months.

Early in the June of that year, the ship 'American Eagle' arrived in Plymouth harbour, with several of the crew disabled by sickness. A message was sent on shore for a doctor, and at the request of the American Consul, Mr. Fox, now of Athenæum Terrace, Plymouth, went on board immediately. He found things in a sad state. There were several decided cases of cholera, and not a creature to nurse them, no comforts or appliances of any kind. He at once sent to a lady on whom he could rely, a relation of his own, stating the circumstances,

She lost no time in getting

and begging her to engage some nurses. together the best within her reach, among them a valuable person, afterwards head nurse at the Cholera Hospital, Plymouth. They arrived at the ship one morning at eight o'clock, and paused on the deck to pick up the corpse of a boy, a poor little fellow who had sickened and died on the bare boards in a most pitiable state. With the help of the medical officer, the body was removed and placed for interment, and the nurses began their duties; but during the day every one was attacked with cholera. Happily, all recovered, and were soon able to resume their work.

For six weeks the unhappy vessel was ravaged by the pestilence. The medical officer, I believe, never left it, often sleeping on deck wrapped up in a sail, till he obtained from Government the grant of two hulks, one for an hospital, the other for a convalescent home. The former was anchored close to the vessel, the latter to the left of the Breakwater. This additional space was of great service to nurses as well as patients. Meanwhile, the scourge fell very heavily on a secluded hamlet not very far off-Noss Mayo, in Revelstoke parish. I have been fortunate enough to become acquainted with the clergyman then in charge of that place, and have obtained from him a deeply interesting account of the visitation. Of course I am thankful to give it in his own words.

My dear Miss W

Pinhoe Vicarage, Exeter,

July 30th, 1870.

You have asked me to give you some little account of the fatal attack of cholera which occurred in my old parish of Revelstoke in 1849. It is with deep interest, and with very conflicting feelings, that I endeavour to recall the events of those terrible weeks; feelings of sadness as I remember how so many of my dear parishioners were suddenly hurried away, and of gratitude as thoughts come to me of my own preservation, and of so much which I then witnessed displaying the true devotion and affection of Christian people.

It was, as you perhaps know, mainly in the village of Noss, where four-fifths of the Revelstoke people lived, that the fearful sickness raged. You purposed, I think, paying a visit to the place. If you did so, you must, I am sure, have been struck, as I have often been, with the charming position of the village, lying as it does round its little creek-a creek of the lovely Yealm, embosomed in hills clothed almost down to the water's edge with orchards and fir-groves. How well do I remember often gazing down upon it towards the close of the day from some of the steep declivities on the eastern side! There would be lying beneath me the white-washed cottages-the pretty school and chapel, each with its tiny bell-cot, the brimming tide at its full, rippling past the walls of the old wave-worn quay, and flooding the little pebbled beach-the whole flushed here and there with the rays of the setting sun. Could anyone, ignorant of what was going on among us, have stood there in that sad month of June, and imagined that it was a plague-stricken village which reposed so peacefully below?

But I must not linger to describe the loveliness of the spots so dear to me, and for ever associated in my mind with unnumbered kindnesses of many friends, as I wish at once to tell you of the strange and sudden way in which the fatal epidemic broke out among us. There was cholera in England at the time there had been none, I think, since the first visitation in 1832, and the very name then bore a terror with it which comparative familiarity and better modes of treatment have now happily removed. It had crept as far south and VOL. 11.

34

PART 65.

west as Bristol. We had heard of the ravages it had committed in towns, and we of course imagined it would eventually reach Plymouth, (some seven or eight miles distant from us,) but little did we fancy that we were in God's mysterious Providence to be ourselves so suddenly attacked. It was, I think, on the 4th of June, just as I was setting out for Plymouth to present some candidates for Confirmation, that I heard of one of the Noss fishermen having been seized with sudden illness. I had no time to cross the water then, (I lodged on the opposite side of the river,) but purposed doing so immediately on my return. In the evening, as I was riding home, accompanied by two friends whom I had overtaken, I met the late Dr. Yonge, an eminent physician of Plymouth. He did not know me, but he drew in his horse, and told my friends that he had been called to the village of Noss to see a case of sudden illness. 'I am sure,' he added, that it is Asiatic cholera; and I judge, from the appearance of the village, so closely shut in by the hills, that it will spread rapidly. The man himself cannot live many hours.'

I felt, I must confess, the sensation of alarm which the sudden revelation of peril occasions, but recovering myself with a silent prayer for preservation, I rode home quickly, crossed over to the village, and found all that Dr. Yonge had said to be but too true. There had been communication with a French vessel from an infected port, and the plague had begun. I am sure you will feel that that expression may well be used, when I tell you that within a fortnight from that day I had buried thirty-seven of my poor parishioners beneath the old sea-beaten walls of Revelstoke Church. And my work had begun. Everything was to be done, and without delay. The calamity was sudden. There were no resident gentry in the parish; and perhaps your own experience has told you the helplessness of a mass of poor people when an emergency occurs. In a very short time, however, in spite of the alarm produced by the increasing mortality, we had got into something like working order. Nurses were procured from the Plymouth hospitals; a young naval surgeon (his name, I think, was Bowden) had volunteered to come to the aid of our local doctors; the London Board of Health sent us down one of their skilled medical officers, and all that devotion and energy on the part of the medical staff could effect was unremittingly done. Mr. Y- of P, a gentleman whose name is a synonym for all that an English country clergyman and 'squire of good estate should be, had very thoughtfully written to a local paper, describing the suddenness of our calamity, and the wants of our poor. This brought in generous contributions from all the country round, and enabled us to provide ample supplies of linen, bedding, and every other requisite. We constantly traversed the village, watching the whole as well as the sick; † still all our efforts seemed in vain; the sickness continued apparently unchecked.

If I here pause to relate to you in detail one of the saddest cases which occurred during that terrible first fortnight, it may shew you something of what we had to contend with. One morning (I think from what I find in the register

*The population was 349 or 350, the total number of deaths fifty-three.

When I visited Revelstoke this summer, and crossed from Noss to Newton Ferrass in a little boat, we were rowed by a man named Forster, who said he had been employed as messenger at the time of the cholera, to go about the place at intervals night and day, carry medicines, and report cases. The circumstances of the visitation seemed indelibly impressed on his memory. He mentioned six deaths in one night; fourteen persons cut off in one family-the parents, married sons and daughters, and their children. One history which he related was very touching. On a poor woman being attacked with the complaint, her husband started for Plymouth to fetch Dr. Yonge, in whom it seems everyone had most faith. He was seized with cramp on the way, and was unable to proceed. Some passers-by carried him to the hospital, where he shortly died. Whether his wife recovered or not I cannot remember.-S. W.