for six hours it cruised up and down in front of Tynemouth at a speed of nineteen knots. Why a watering-place which possesses such special attractions of its own is so little known beyond the limits of Northumberland is a point that baffles understanding.

I renewed my acquaintance with picturesque Cullercoats, beloved of artists, and Whitley, where for many a summer I had enjoyed myself as a child among the sands and rocks, in the course of a long drive. Unlike Tynemouth, these once beautiful spots had been altered for the worse. The plague of cheap building had afflicted them, and the fields I knew of old were now a wilderness of bricks. But my drive carried me beyond the building limit. I went as far as Seaton Delavel Hall, once one of the stateliest of English mansions, the work of Sir John Vanbrugh, and generally recognized as superior in beauty to Blenheim itself. The greater part of the mansion has stood for more than a century in ruins. The "wicked Delavels" have disappeared, and the strange rites and unholy sports which were once carried on within the grey walls are now only matter of tradition. One of the three huge pavilions which constitute the hall has been restored by the present owner, Lord Hastings, and he lives there on the scene of the former grandeur of an ancient family.

I saw

It was at Delavel Hall that I had an unusual experience. As we drove near the front of the house, my companion bade the coachman stop, and pointed out the different features of the building to me. "Do you see the housemaid standing at that window?" said my host's wife, indicating an upper window in the central pavilion. some one at the spot indicated, but my defective vision did not allow me to recognize the sex or condition of the stranger until I had donned my spectacles. Then I saw plainly and un mistakably a woman clad in the dress of a housemaid apparently watching us as we sat in the carriage. "Well," I said by and by, "what about the housemaid?" "Oh, don't you know?

That is the ghost!" I laughed at the notion, for there was certainly nothing ghost-like about the figure I was watching. At a sign from my host, the carriage advanced a few paces, and instantly the woman at the window vanished. I saw at the same moment that the window at which I had seen the figure belonged to the ruined portion of the hall. The apparition was of course nothing more than an optical illusion, the effect of lights and shadows from the carved stone-work adjoining the window; but so real was the spectral appearance that I was not surprised that local tradition claimed it unhesitatingly as the ghost of a building which, if tradition speaks truly of its former owners, might certainly well be haunted.

But it is not Seaton Delavel Hall, it is the engine-house of a colliery that stands within a stone's throw of the gates at the foot of the long avenue, that furnishes the haunted ground of this part of Northumberland. As I drove up to the well-remembered pitbuildings, I was surprised to see that smoke was issuing from the tall chimney, and that there were signs of cheerful life about the place. When last I had seen it the shadow of doom hung over it, and the rusting iron-work, the mouldering pit-heap, the disused tramways, all told their own tale of ruin and death.. Four-and-thirty years ago, in the month of January, 1862, all England was awaiting in breathless suspense the issue of a struggle which was being carried on at this spot. More than two hundred men and boys had been made prisoners in the pit, by the blocking of the single shaft which gave admission to it. The accident was due to the breaking of the great beam of a pumping-engine, which worked directly above the opening of the shaft. When the beam broke one-half fell into the pit and choked it. For a whole week, a bitter week in mid-winter, I was one of those who stood on this pit-heap and watched the ceaseless and heroic efforts of brave men to rescue the imprisoned miners. To the last we hoped

suspended by ropes in the depths of the pit, with water pouring incessantly upon them, with the crumbling sides of the shaft continually giving way, threatened at every moment by a terrible death, but not for a single instant by day or night desisting from their efforts. In the mean time, all England was thrilled with the story of the imprisoned miners, and shared in the suspense which chained the wives and mothers of the captives to the pit-heap, day after day throughout that week of anguish. It was in the dead of the winter night that those of us who stood upon the platform at the mouth of the pit learned the dreadful truth. A sharp signal had been given from below, and at once the sinkers working in the shaft had been drawn up. For a moment we hoped that the signal meant that the lost had been recovered, and our hearts beat quickly with joyous anticipation. But too soon the bitter

truth was made clear. As the sinkers were brought to the surface, it was found that all were unconscious, and we knew that they had succumbed to the deadly gases of the mine. Restoratives were at hand, but before they could be applied to the victims, the master-sinker, Coulson by name, whose own son was among the men lying on the pit-heap unconscious, stooped and kissed his boy, and then calmly took his place in the dangling noose, and bade them lower him into the shaft. There was not one of us who would have given sixpence for his life at that moment. That has always seemed to me to have been the bravest deed I ever witnessed.

When Coulson disappointed our fears by coming back to the surface alive he told the awful tale. The obstruction had been at last removed, but "the pit

was foul," and we knew that it held none but the dead. As I look at the place on this bright July day of 1896, I find it difficult to realize all the horrors of which I was a witness here forty years ago. Yet I can still see the uncoffined dead being brought to bank -twenty hours being occupied in that task alone. I can recall the smile of peace which rested upon every grimy face; ay, and I recollect the tears with which the brave men who had gone down into the depths of the pit told me of how they had found the victims sitting in long rows side by side, waiting for the help which was to come too late, and of how the fathers had their boys folded in their arms, whilst brothers and friends sat with clasped hands, in patient silence. One slight record of the captivity was left in the shape of a cheap memorandum book, in which one of the prisoners had pencilled a few words telling of the prayer meeting that had been held and the "exhortation" that had been given in the early hours of their imprisonment. But the record broke off little more than four-and-twenty hours after the closing of the shaft, and we comforted ourselves with the thought that their agony had been brief, as their end was undoubtedly painless. Away yonder stands the grey tower of Earsdon Church, steeped in the summer sunlight. At its foot, in one vast common grave, lie the two hundred men and boys who died thus in the New Hartley Pit in January, 1862. I can still see the long procession of coffins being carried between the leafless hedges. I seem to hear again the wail of the old hymn, “O God, our help in ages past," which filled the air as the whole manhood of the village of Hartley was borne to the tomb. It is haunted ground, truly, on which I stand; and I realize afresh not only the perils and heroism of the miner's daily life, but the fact that the man who, after the lapse of a generation, revisits the home of his youth, must of necessity sojourn among ghosts.

WEMYSS REID.

From The Fireside Magazine. OLD CURES FOR HYDROPHOBIA.

Strangely fanciful and astonishingly ignorant were the prescriptions for most diseases in times of old. The reniedies for hydrophobia would not be appreciated in these days at the value once given to them. Thus the dried liver of a boar drunk in wine was esteemed very efficacious. Hyæna's liver was also strongly recommended; but a still more sovereign remedy was the liver of a young puppy. The fat of a seal mixed with the marrow of a hyæna was prescribed both for outward and inward application. A fieldmouse's tail, burned and beaten into dust, was sometimes applied to the wound, but not with any hope if the tail had been cut off while the mouse was alive. Unicorn's horn-that precious medicine so highly esteemed as an antidote to all poisons-was occasionally used in cases of hydrophobia; but the difficulty here was in getting the genuine article, there were so many imitations. Sheep's wool undressed applied to the wound was supposed by some to work a perfect cure in seven days, The gall of a bear steeped in water was reckoned an excellent remedy; but the patient had to fast three days before taking this savory physic, which was a great drawback. Other remedies were a snake's skin and a male crab pounded together, young swallows burned and beaten to powder, the hairs of a dog laid upon the wound, the roots of dog-roses, the tongue of a ram with salt, and green figs soaked in vinegar. Amulets-an easy kind of medicine-were frequently

recommended. Patients were advised to wear a hyæna's skin or a young wolf's skin, in which the root of gentian had been enclosed, or sometimes a dog's tooth was fastened in a leaf and tied round the patient's arm. A tale is told of some priests belonging to a certain church of St. Lambert in a city of Picardy who undertook to cure hydrophobia in a very special manner. When a sufferer was brought to them they cut a cross in his forehead; they then burnt a piece of the saint's robe, laid it upon the part that had been bitten, sewed up the wound, and applied a plaster. After this operation the patient was put on a diet of hard-boiled eggs and water. If he failed to recover within the space of forty days, he was regarded as incorrigible; they bound him hand and foot in his bed and smothered him. One heroic remedy mentioned by Pliny was to salt the flesh of a mad dog and eat it. The head of a dog powdered was also considered efficacious. Cheese made of goat's milk, mixed with wild marjoram was sometimes prescribed. A common practice was to plunge the patieut into cold water-sea water, if possible. The case is related of a girl who, suffering from the fearful malady, was repeatedly plunged into a tub of water in which a bushel of salt had been dissolved until she became insensible; then she was left in the tub, propped against the sides. At length she regained her senses, and found herself not only able to look at the water, but even to taste it. No little capital was made out of this cure.

Vinet's Statue at Lausanne.-After long and only partially explained delay, his native country, Switzerland, is preparing to honor the memory of Vinet by a memorial in Lausanne, where he passed most of his life. It is now above half a century since the good man and great theologian died. He was one of the chief founders of the Free Church of Switzerland, a worthy colleague of Malan and Merle d'Aubigné, and the true successor of

Zwinglius in modern times. At his death funds were raised for erecting a suitable memorial, and the sum has since reached the amount of 40,000 francs. Several memorial tablets have been erected by his loving pupils or the admirers of his works, but now the rulers of the Canton de Vaud have resolved to have a statue in their capital of the man whose memory they have always honored.