the temporary absence of her son, who was to
return as soon as he had realised his forty-five
lacs (four hundred and fifty thousand pounds).
It was said that a mercantile firm in Calcutta,
in which an illustrious native gentleman was
a partner, advanced the means required for
the purpose of establishing the black man's
right to the earldom.

The attorney possessed himself of the proofs.
He had the papers of the Honourable Francis
Gay, amongst which were letters from the
late Lord Millflower to his eldest brother,
Lord Larkspeare. He also, in the presence
of credible witnesses, received from the
hands of Ellen, the dead man's uniform;
secondly, he had the deposition on oath of the
superintending surgeon, and of several other
officers who were cognisant of every particular.
Many gave these depositions with
reluctance, but felt bound to speak the truth
when interrogated. In a word, the attorney
got his case up remarkably well.

Black and Blue and the attorney left
Calcutta in one of the large passenger ships, and
in the month of April landed at Gravesend,
whence they journeyed to London. Here,
Black and Blue was prevailed upon to wear
Christian clothes. In his snow-white muslin
dress, his pink turban, and his red slippers
covered with gold embroidery, Black and Blue
had looked an aristocratic native,
notwithstanding he was so very black. [Colour is no
criterion of high caste, or rank in India. The
late Maharajah Rooder Singh, of Darbungah,
whose family—to borrow a phrase from
Burke's Peerage—is one of stupendous
antiquity, had the complexion of an African;
while his younger brother, Basdeo, who
now sits on the throne, is far fairer than his
Highness the Maharajah Dulleep Singh.] But,
in his black trowsers, black waistcoat, black
surtout coat, white neckcloth, black beaver
hat, and Wellington boots, poor Black and
Blue looked truly hideous: while his slouching
Indian gait would have led most people
to conclude that he was intoxicated. Poor
Black and Blue had never tasted anything
stronger than water in the whole course of
his life.

The attorney had an interview with
Frederick, the Earl of Millflower. He wrote to
the firm in Calcutta to that effect, and he
further stated that the Earl had set him at
defiance, and that he was about to institute
the suit in the proper court.

This was the last that was ever heard in
India of Black and Blue, or of the attorney.
Inquiries were instituted, but with no avail.
There were many conjectures; the one most
generally entertained was, that poor Black
and Blue, and his undoubted claim, were
disposed of by the attorney for a sum which
satisfied him, and that Black and Blue was
secretly led into indulgences in some foreign
country, and died of their effects. But his
mother, who is still living, will not believe
that he is dead, and feels convinced that some
day or other he will turn up and be restored
to her.

"What on earth became of that black
earl?" is a question very often put by many
who were acquainted with his strange
history.

OUR IRON CONSTITUTION.

A GOOD deal has been said, and a good deal
more has yet to be said, as to the condition
of Britannia. It is certain that she has a
disease or two against which she scarcely
could make head (as she has done for years
past) were she not blessed with an iron
constitution. She has an iron brain that works
exactly like a steam-engine; the breath of her
nostrils is the blowing off, or rather the
turning on, of steam. The breath of her
lungs is the blast of the furnace; into her
fiery mouth is poured the iron ore, as fast as
it is to be brought out of the mine, which is
Britannia's pantry. She not only digests this
food easily, but converts it into living
substance. Her fist is the steam-hammer; her
arteries—which ramifying, interlacing, run in all
directions from the heart, called London—have
an iron lining, and, with rapid even beat, there
rushes along each, an iron torrent. Of iron are
the tools which make the country rich in
peace—the ploughshare and the spade; with
iron she multiplies, ten thousand-fold, by her
machinery, the strength of her hands. We
cook our food in iron vessels, over iron
ranges. Of iron are the weapons that have
made us powerful in war—the sword, the
shell, the cannon. With iron we span gulfs
of the great sea; of iron we are building
ships like towns, to ride upon the deep.
Girdling the world with iron, we make of the
dead metal a quick and subtle messenger.
Of iron, too, we are now beginning to
construct luxurious palaces and houses. Success
in arts and arms, as all the world acknowledges,
iron begets rather than gold; for,
little service could gold buy, if there were no
iron to render it. They say that there is in
ordinary human blood a trace of iron, to
which it owes the richness of its colour and
the vigour it gives to the frame. Into the
weak body our physicians pour iron as medicine,
and often, as administered by them, it
brings strength to the limbs and colour to
the cheek. The present strength of Britain,
we may very reasonably say, is due to the
fact that this fortunate country has more iron
in its blood than any other.

Speaking humanly, the founder of the iron
constitution of Britannia was Henry Cort, of
Gosport, in the County of Southampton.
Before Henry Cort's time, we had little or
no wrought iron of our own, and what we
used we bought of Sweden or of Russia.
Having no forests from which to draw wood-
charcoal in plenty, we were content, perforce,
to get crude iron from our ore, and ask the
foreigner for the wrought metal, which alone