LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 186, 13 January 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

UNDER THE SEAT,

' Smoking-carriage, sir ?' asked the tip-ex-pecting porter, as he bore my rugs and minor packages along the platform. I said yes, and he made me comfortable, and received his sixpence. Then the guard came to look after my well-being, but got nothing more than innocent gratitude, which was perhaps all he desired. I have no doubt that I did him injustice in attributing his efforts to induce a fat old gentleman with a cough ; a lean old gentleman who was snuffy; and a middleaged gentleman enveloped' in wraps, the lower part of whose face was covered up like a female Turk's, an evident window-shutter, to enter my carriage, in order to spite me. Duty to his employers alone made him endeavor to fill up, but the British- anxiety to get as much room as possible for my money was strong within me, and stirred uncharitable suspicions. You may lead a horse to the water, or an antinicotinian old gentleman to a smokingcarriage, but you can't make him get in : and when each in turn put his hand into my compartment, he jibbed, for some late occupants of it had been cigar, not pipe smokers, and it was rather strong. So I was apparently left alone—alone with the Times and all the comic weeklies, and a modern poem.

The doors were banged, the engine whistled, the train began to move. It would not stop again till we got to Peterborough so that I was safe to be undisturbed so far. There were six seat?, and I could occupy as many of them as a limited number of members permitted. I almost wishtd myself an Octopus, to. take full advantage of the situation. Calming down, I hung up my hat, put on a gaudy piece of needlework won in a bazaar raffle, lit my pipe, cut my papers, and began to enjoy myself. I sat in the left-hand corner, with my back to the engine, absorbed in a big lawsuit. It is great fun to read a cross-exami-nation, and watch how a clever lawyer will make an honest man perjure himself. 'lt reads almost like a crime,' I remai-ked aloud; ' but then it is an honorable, lawful, and beneficial crime. Soldiers kill people's bodies, lawyers kill people's reputations, all for the good of society in the long, run..' While I was uttering the word ' Run,-' my ankles were grasped suddenly and firmly; then, before I could recover from the shock, they were jerked backwards under the seat with such force that I was thrown forwards sprawling. I tried to rise, but my wrist was seized, and the arm twisted Until I was helpless, and presently I found myself on the floor of the carriage, face downwards, a sharp knee being scientifically pressed into the small of my back, and both arms fixed behind me. My elbows were tied together, and then the knee was removed, and my ankles were secured. During this latter operation, 1 kicked and struggled. ' Hum !' said a deliberate voice, ■ that will be awkward. Let's see ; ah, these will do.'

( Those ' gwere my sticks and umbrella, wliick some one proceeded to apply as splints to the backs of my legs, using the straps which had kept them in a bundle to fix them at the ankle and above the knee. When he had done, I was as helpless as a trussed turkey. '" , ' ' Then I was turned over carefully and tenderly, and for the first time saw my assailant. He was a gentlemanly looking man, dressed in a black coat and waistcoat, gray trousers, and neckcloth. His hair and whiskers were just turning grimly, his chin and upper lip were clean shaved, His forehead was high, his eyes prominent and fixed ill their expression, his nose aquiline, his mouth a slit. He was of middle height, spare but wiry ; indeed his muscles must have been exceptionally elastic and feline, for you would never have thought, to look at him, that he could stow himself away under the seat of a rail-. way carriage so compactly. He contemplated me, with his chin, in his right hand, and his rigid elbow on his left hand, and said thoughtfully; ' J ust so. All for the good of society in the long-run—an admirable sentiment, my dear sir ; let it be a consolation to you, if I should cause you any little annoyance.' He took a shagreen spectacle-case from his pocket, wiped the glasses carefully with a silk handkerchief, and adjusted tiiem on his nose. Then he produced an oblong box, which he unlocked, and placed on one of the scats. After which he sat down cpuctly m the place I had occupied five minutes before, a position which brought him close over my head and chest, as I lay supine and helpless at his feet.

' Do you know anything of anatomy?' he asked. I was as completely in his r wer as a witness in the cross-examining counsel's, and prudence dictated that I should be equally ready to answer the most frivolous and impertinent questions with politeness. I said that I did not.

* Ah!' he said; 'well, perhaps you may have heard of the spleen? Exactly. Now-, science has never as yet been able to find out the use of that organ, and the man who bequeathed that knowledge to posterity, would rank with the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, and confer an inestimable benefit on humanity for the remainder of the world's lease. I propose to dissect you.' 'You will not get much glory by that,' said I, forcing myself to seem to take this outrageous practical goke in good part. 'An ungrateful generation may or may not profit by your discoveries, but it will infallibly hang you.' 'Not so/ he blandly replied. 'I am a surgeon, who once had a very considerable practice, but I had to stand my trial for an experiment, which proved fatal, on one of my patients. The jury, unable to under stand the sacrifices which an earnest inquirer' is ever ready to offer at the shrine of science, declared me mad, and I w;as placed in confinement. You see that I can act with impunity.' ' And he openod the box. I broke out in a cold sweat. Was it all real? . Could the man be in earnest? 'But;' said I, 'surely you can get dead bodies to dissect, without having recourse to a crime? And. again, if generations of anatomists have " failed, in twenty thousand investigations, to discover the use of the spleen—if you yourself have always failed hitherto, why should you suppose that this one attempt should be more successful than the others?' , . • ' Because, my dear sir,' said the man, with the smile of one who has caught a bright idea, ' all former investigations, including my own, have been made on dead subjects, while I propose to examine your vital organs with a powerful masmifying-glass, while they are exercising their normal functions.' ' What!' I gasped. ' You will never have the barbarity'—- And here my voice choked. 'Oyes; I have conquered that prejudice against inflicting suffering which is natural to the mind enfeebled by civilisation. For many years 1 secretly practised .vivisection upon animals: I once had a. cat, an annual very tenacious of life, under my scalpel for a week. But we have no time to waste,in conversation. You will not be put to any needless suffering; these instruments are not my own, blunted for want of use; I took the precaution of borrowing the case of the gentleman under whose care I have been placed, before making my escape.' While speaking thus, he took out the hideous little glittering instruments, and examined them one by. one. They were of various appalling shapes, and I gazed upon them with the horrible fascination of a bird under the power of a snake. Of one only could I tell the use : a thin, trenchant blade, which cut you almost to look at it. He knelt across me, arranged his implements on the seat to his right: laid a note-book, pencil, and his watch on that to his left, and took off my neckcloth and collar, murmuring : ' The clothes are very much in my way ; I wish you were properly prepared for the operation. It flashed across me, in my despair, that I had heard of madmen 'being foiled by an apparent acquiescence in their murderous intentions.

'After all,' I forced myself to say, 'what is one life to the benefit of the human race ? Since mine is demanded by science, let me aid you. Remove these bonds, and allow me to take off my coat and waistcoat.' He smiled, and shook his head. 'Life is sweet; I will not trust you,'he said, unfastening my waistcoat, and turning back the lapels as far as he could. Then taking a pair of scissors, he proceeded to cut my shirt-front away, so that presently my chest was bared to his experiments. Whether I closed my eyes, or was seized with vertigo, I do not know, but for a moment or two I lost sight of everything, and had visions; a sort of grotesque nightmare it was, the figures in which I recall but very indistinctly; but I remember that the most prominent of them was a pig, or rather a pork, hanging up outside a butcher's shop, the appearance of which bore a mysterious resemblance to myself. These delirious fantasies were dispelled by a sharp pang; the anatomist had made a first slight incision.. I saw his calm fac 3 leaning over me ; the cruel blade with which he was about to make another and a deeper cut; his fingers, already crimson with my blood ; and I struggled frantically. My operator immediately withdrew his armed hand, and stood erect. Then,. watching his opportunity,,he placed his right foot on the lower part, of my breast-bone, so that by pressure he could suffocate me. : ~ • '' Listen, my friend,' he said : ' I will eiir deavour not to injure, any vital organ, but if you wriggle about,., I shall not be able to avoid doing so. Another thing, if you'-—,. He was interrupted by three sharp whistles from the engine, so shrill and piercing as to drown his voice. . ' Impede me by these absurd convulsive movements, I shall be compelled to sever those muscles which He oonxplcCed His sentence. There was a mighty shock, a crash as if all the worlds had rushed together. I was shot under the seat, where I lay uninjured, and in safety, amidst the most horrible din; breaking, tearing, shrieking, cries for help, and the roar of escaping steam. , I had strained tie bonds which secured my elbows in my struggles, and the jerk of the collision snapped them ; so that when I began to get my wits together, I found my hands free. To liberate my legs was then a very easy matter, but not so to extricate my•self, the next thing 1 set about. The whole top of the carriage, from where the stuffed cushion part ends, was carried sheer away; and amidst the debris-which encumbered my movements lay the mangled and decapitated body of .the madman who, intending to assail my life, had, by keeping me down at the bottom of the carriage, saved it., Moral —When alone in a railway carriage it may be worth while to take a look below the seats. • . • >