taking the pork-trade in winter,— toute la vie en
programme; the débris of a town, the roughs,
the boys, school-children. The stage was broad,
planked, with a drop-curtain behind,— subject,
the Doge marrying the sea, I believe; in front,
a piano and chair. Presently, Mr. Oliver, a
well-natured looking man (one thought of that),
came forward, leading and coaxing along a little
black boy dressed in white linen, a little black
boy somewhat fat and stubborn in build. Tom
was not in a good humour that night; the
evening before, he had refused to play altogether;
so his master perspired anxiously before he could
get him placed in rule before the audience, and
repeat his own little speech, which sounded like
a Georgia after-dinner gossip. The boy's head,
as I said, rested on his back, his mouth wide
open constantly; his great blubber lips and
shining teeth, therefore, were all you saw when
he faced you. He required to be petted and
bought, like any other weak-minded child. The
concert was a mixture of music, whining, coaxing,
and promised candy and cake.

"He seated himself at last before the piano, a
full half yard distant, stretching out his arms
full length, like an ape clawing for food; his
feet, when not on the pedals, twisting incessantly,
he answering some joke of his master's
with a loud " Yha! yha!" Nothing indexes
the brain like the laugh; this was idiotic.

"Now, Tom, boy, something we like from
Verdi."

The head fell further back, the claws began
to work, and those of the composer's harmonies
which you would have chosen as the purest exponents
of passion began to float through the
room. Selections from Weber, Beethoven, and
others whom I have forgotten, followed. At
the close of each piece, Tom, without waiting
for the audience, would applaud himself violently,
kicking, pounding his hands together, turning
always to his master for the approving pat on
the head. Songs, recitations such as I have described,
filled up the first part of the evening;
then a musician from the audience went up on
the stage to put the boy's powers to the final
test. Songs and intricate symphonies were
given, which it was most improbable the boy
could ever have heard; he remained standing,
utterly motionless, until they were finished, and
for a moment or two after; then, seating himself,
gave them without the break of a note.
Others followed, more difficult, in which he
played the bass accompaniment in the manner I
have described, repeating instantly the treble.
The child looked dull and wearied during this
part of the trial, and his master perceiving it,
announced the exhibition closed, when the musician
(who was a citizen of the town, by the
way) drew out a thick roll of score, which he
explained to be a fantasia of his own composition,
never published.

"This it was impossible the boy could have
heard; there could be no trick of memory in
this, and on this trial," triumphantly, " Tom
would fail."

The manuscrpit was some fourteen pages
long,— variations on an inanimate theme. Mr.
Oliver refused to submit the boy's brain to so
cruel a test; some of the audience even interfered,
but the musician insisted, and took his
place. Tom sat beside him,— his head rolling
nervously from side to side, struck the opening
cadence, and then from the first note to the last,
gave the secondo triumphantly. Jumping up, he
fairly shoved the man from his seat, and proceeded
to play the treble with more brilliancy and
power than its composer. When he struck the
last octave, he sprang up, yelling with delight.

"Um's got him, massa! um's got him!"
cheering and rolling about the stage.

The cheers of the audience— for the boys
especially did not wait to clap— excited him
the more. It was an hour before his master
could quiet his hysteric agitation.

That feature of the concerts which was the
most painful, I have not touched upon. The
moments when his master was talking, and Tom
was left to himself, when a weary despair seemed
to settle down on the distorted face, and the
stubby little black fingers, wandering over the
keys, spoke for Tom's own caged soul within.
Never by any chance, a merry, childish laugh of
music in the broken cadences; tender or wild,
a defiant outcry, a tired sigh breaking down
into silence whatever wearied voice it took, the
same bitter, hopeless soul spoke through all.

"Bless me, even me, also, my Father!"

A something that took all the pain and pathos
of the world into its weak, pitiful cry.

Some beautiful caged spirit, one could not
but know, struggled for breath under that brutal
form and idiotic brain. I wonder when it will
be free! Not in this life; the bars are too
heavy. But. (do you hate the moral to a story?)
in your own back alley there are spirits as beautiful,
caged in forms as bestial, that you could
set free if you would. Don't call it bad taste
in me to speak for them. You know they are
more to be pitied than Tom for they are dumb.

THE STORY OF MAJOR STRANGEWAYS.

A VERY extraordinary criminal investigation
took place in the time of the Commonwealth, of
which the chief facts have been handed down in
the Harleian Miscellany (vol. iv.). In the following
narrative we have kept strictly to the
circumstances of the case:

An old oak-panelled room— dusky, yet lustrous
— rises before our sight out of the darkness of
more than two centuries ago. A sense of far-reaching
silence out of doors seems to indicate
that the house to which this room belongs is
situated somewhere in the country; and the
fire-arms, whips, cudgels, foxes' heads, and stags'
antlers, suspended over the mantelpiece, tend to
confirm the impression thus produced. Huge,
solid logs of wood, which have burned to an
intense red, fill the great gap of the fireplace;
and from the centre of this sleepy brightness
comes, every now and then, when some of the