The Sketcher.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 229, 29 January 1876, Page 5

The Sketcher.

HANDWRITING. (From the Saturday Revieiv.) Of the minor quackeries which have supplanted the old arts of divination, few are more specious than that which professes to discover character from handwriting. There must, as people say, be "something in it ;" and nothing is easier than to overleap the little gap which separates this proposition from the conclusion that it is absolutely true. Nobody can doubt the probability of the phrenological assumption that there is some correlation between the moral and intellectual faculties and the structure of the brain. The assumption once made, it is but a trifling step with most people to assume that phrenologists have made an accurate and exhaustive account of our faculties, that they have assigned to each its proper place in the brain, and that they are able further to infer the brain from the external shape of the head. On the same principle, it is obvious enough that a man's character must in many ways affect his handwriting. It is natural to infer that the handwriting reveals the character ; and it is equally natural that clever persons should make a decent income by professing a special power of interpreting this revelation. The difficulties which intervene are trifling. You have only to frame an exhaustive psychology, to show how every quality of mind affects a man's handwriting, and to eliminate all the accidental influences which mask the influence of the writer's idiosyncrasies. These tasks once accomplished, character may be divined from the writing, as, indeed, it might be divined from the cut of. a man's clothes, or his peculiarities in eating, drinking, walking, or performing any other function. . We do not profess to have attained this degree of skill; but there are some humbler lessons which may be deduced from even & superficial examination of handwritings. It is

curious to remark, for example, how a person unconsciously stamps his own peculiarities on paper, and how we unconsciously learn to interpret signs too fine to be definitely stated in an articulate shape. The process by which we recognise a familiar handwriting which to the uneducated eye is precisely like a thousand others is a striking example of that " illative sense " upon which Dr. Newman has enlarged. When Mr. Chabot gives the reasons which justify him in identifying the handwriting of Junius, for example, with that of Sir Philip Francis, he is only bringing into the distinct light of conscious observation a thousand small peculiarities by which we have already been quite unconsciously biassed. It is an instance of the common paradox that our judgments are guided by innumerable precedents which, as it would seem, the judgment is itself unable to grasp. Thus a kind of blind instinct outruns the fully developed reasoning process, and leads us to form unavoidable prejudices which may, in one sense, be called unreasonable, and which yet in fact represent the conclusions of what we must call unconscious reasoning. When we look at the travellers' book in a foreign hotel, we pick out at a glance the writings of the prominent nationalities ; we form an instinctive guess as to the relative proportions of the English and American guests ; and we at once form a prejudice for or against people in regard to whom we have no other sources of knowledge. One difference, indeed, is conspicuous enough in this case. All Americans appear to an Englishman to write precisely the same hand, whether on the same principle that makes all negroes alike to a white man, and all sheep alike to every one but a shepherd, or whether there is really a greater uniformity of writing. We are inclined to think that the last is to a great extent true. The sight of a traveller's book is equivalent to an essay of De Tocqueville's upon the levelling influence of democracy. In the infinite variety of English hands you see every class of society represented ; the bold round hand of the bagman is varied with the delicate spider lines of the lady, _ and the dashing scrawl of the sportsman ; a judicious compromise between formality and selfassertion indicates the travelling statesman, and a hopelessly unintelligible confusion of scratches and blotches infalliby shows the professional author. American hands, on the contrary, all seem to have been turned out of one mould, and that the commercial. They would be irreproachable hands for a clerk wishing to conduct the correspondence of a respectable firm ; but Englishmen are generally inclined to think that they are rather wanting in delicacy and personal character. We must admit, however, that the Americans have the best of the argument. The first and most essential quality of handwriting is that it should be legible, as the first quality of style is that it should be lucid. In that respect there can be no doubt that Americans have the advantage of us, whether their excellence be owing to their system of education or to some more impalpable correlation between the national character and the organisation of their fingers. Some of our less excellent national characteristics are indeed forcibly represented in our handwriting. It represents, in the first place, the dogged self-assertion which, from various points of view, is our greatest excellence or our greatest fault. As regards handwriting, it is simply a nuisance. A true Briton holds that he may gratify his own personal tastes to the complete disregard of his feelings ; he may thrust the hard angularities of his person upon all who come in his way on condition that they may return the compliment. If his writing is a hideous scrawl, where half-a-dozen letters are run into one and a. perfectly arbitrary system of symbols introduced where it seems good to him, he does not understand that anybody has any business to complain. He may write to you in a set of hieroglyphics as mysterious as the Egyptian, and your only consolation is that in replying you may adopt the cuneiform system. And, in the next place, he has a profound disbelief in the very possibility of education. He implicitly denies that his writing can be changed by anything short of a miracle. It is a law of nature that his n's and m's, and u's and a's, should be made on precisely the same pattern, and that ordinary terminations such as "ing" should be represented by a random sprawl with a vague curl at the end of it. You might as well request him to add an inch to his stature as to alter the length of the tails of hiss's and y's. And yet nothing can be more certain than that everybody who is not crippled or paralysed could, if he pleased, write intelligibly, if not elegantly. It should be considered just as much a breach of good manners to send a letter which requires an expert for its interpretation as to indulge any offensive habit in society. Why should you wantonly put your neighbors to inconvenience when the observance of half-a-dozen simple rules will make everything easy ? Everbody, for example, who can write at all can make a single letter distinctly. The task of making an a or a 5 in sufficient conformity with accepted types to be capable of being read by those who run is certainly not beyond the capacity of the The great source of indistinctness in writing is simply an unwillingness to take this amount of trouble.

A SEA MONSTER. (From Tlie Times.) The Inflexible, double-turret armor clad which is in course of construction at Portsmouth, was frequently referred to during the debate on Mr. Brassey's motion ; and from the novelty of her design and many circumstances connected with her—not the least important of which is the fact that she represents at the present time the highest attainment of constructive genius as applied to naval warfare — she is well deserving of the attention which she arouses. She is in every sense the most formidable engine of war that has ever been conceived. With the exception of the three broadside ships of the Minotaur class she is the largest displacement in tona, and will prove the most costly ship that was ever built. It is,

indeed, only by superlatives that she can be described. In addition to her armament she will be furnished with a submerged prow, so that she will be able to butt an enemy with her head as well as penetrate him with her guns ; while in addition to engines working up to 8000 indicated horse-power, she will be provided with a couple of iron masts, which will, however; be ' mainly used as derricks. Among her other excellent qualities she will by spreading havoc around, be herself impervious to any guns afloat in any ship except our own ; and, notwithstanding her stupendous offensive and defensive power, she will, according to a recently pronounced dictum of Mr. Reed, be as fast, as handy, and as mobile as any vessel that has preceded her. The Inflexible was commenced at Portsmouth on the 24th February, 1874, and may be regarded as one-fourth completed, though, so far as external appearances goes, she appears to be in a much more forward condition. There are six hundred men employed upon her hull at present, and upwards of 2000 tons of iron have been worked into the ship. Nearly the whole of the beams, with the exception of a 'few aft on the upper deck, are in their places, the structures for receiving the engines and boilers are being proceeded with, the stern tubes for the twin screws are being fixed, and the teak backing is being arranged for the iron plates on the sides of the citadel. The stern-post was manufactured at the Mersey forge, Liverpool, in consequence of the pressure of work at the yard, but the rudder itself, which is of colossal proportions, is being forged at the dock-yard smithery. The monitor is expected to be ready for launching in April, when it is probable that her present name will be changed. And now for a few particulars of the ship itself. The Inflexible has been succinctly described by her designer, Mr. Barnaby, as a rectanaular-armored castle, 110 ft. in length, and 75ft. in breadth, and protected by 24in. total thickness of iron. The other parts of the ship, which are not armor-plated, are simply used as means to float and move this invulnerable iron citadel. Altogether the Inflexible is 320 ft. in length, and 75ft. in breadth. Her mean draught is 24ft., and her displacement 11,000 tons. The cellular compartments of the double bottom have less depth than is the case with the monitors of the Devastation type, but they are built up of heavier angle iron and plating. All the longitudinal frames are made of steel. The outer skin-plating is three-fourths of an inch in thickness, except the garboard plates on each side of the keel, and here the thickness is increased to 13-16ths of an inch. The armor castle or citadel, which rises to 10ft. above the water-line of the vessel, will enclose within the protection of its walls the engines and boilers, the two turrets with their four 80-ton guns, the hydraulic loading gear, and the magazines. The armor of the citadel will be of different thicknesses of iron, making, however, with the teak backing—which will vary inversely to the thickness of the plating—a uniform thickness of 41in. throughout. The backing will be interposed sandwich fashion, the armour alternating with a strake of wood. The platings at the water level will be 24in., in two thicknesses of 12in.; above the water level it will consist of two thicknesses of 12in. and 4in. The turrets themselves will be iron of a single thickness of 18in. The deck will be formed of lin. iron, supporting armor plating 2in. in thickness. The ship proper, being entirely unarmored, will be divided into no fewer than 127 watertight compartments, containing altogether somewhere about 150 watertight doors, but having none of the armor bulkheads of the Devastation. Other novel features in the design of the ship are the position and extent of the superstructures which are erected upon the deck at either end of the citadel, the position of the turrets, and the disposition of the steering gear. The superstructures will be built up along the line of the keel forward and aft of the armored castle, and are intended to afford sleeping accommodation for the officers and crew. By this arrangement the disadvantages which attach to the berthing in the monitors of the Thunderer class will be avoided. As the structures are built on the upper deck, the accommodation which they will afford will be roomy, and thoroughly ventilated, there will be no need of fans, and artificial light will be dispensed with. It is evident that, as the superstructures are erected along the centre of the deck, they would be directly in the line of fire had the Inflexible's turrets, as is the case with all other turret vessels, been also on a line with the keel. The turrets of the Inflexible, however, are placed out of the centre, the fore-turret being on the port side of the ship, and the after-turret on the starboard, so that the four guns can be discharged together in line at an enemy right ahead or on either beam, or in pairs astern and towards every point of the compass. The whole of the steam steering gear is placed below the water line, so that it is impossible that the rudder-head, though unprotected by armour, can be injured by shot or shell during an engagement. The rudder, which is squarely formed, will be worked by_ a tiller 4ft. 6in. below water. It was first intended that the tiller should move in a water chamber, the chain apertures being defended against leakage by stuffing-chocks. This plan, however, has been modified, and the rudderhead will pass through a ring in the usual way. The prow is a very massive and very dangerous looking protuberance, and will be wholly under water. As originally designed, it was made to be removable, being placed in position only in case of war. This arrangement, however, has been revised, and it is now decided to fix it permanently. It has been lately detached for alteration, the curve of the nose having been considered too abrupt. The coal, of which the Inflexible will carry the enormous quantity of 1200 tons, will be stored at the water line along the unarmored side of the ship, where the missiles of the enemy cannot reach them, and a still more secure place will be found below for more perishable stores. The armor plating

will not be placed on the citadel until after the vessel has left the slips and floated into No. 13 dock, which is being prepared for her in the extension works. When completed the Inflexible will have more machinery on board than any craft afloat, not excepting the Thunderer. She will have engines for propulsion, ventilation, hoisting, moving turrets, loading guns, steering, lifting shot and shell, turning capstan, lowering boats, &c, the whole of which will be supplied by the eminent Scotch firm of Elder and Co. She will be a vast floating engine-room, and when commissioned will have as her complement 850 officers and men. The expense of her construction is £400,000, making, with her engines, a total cost of £521,000.

BREAKFAST. (From the Sanitary Record.) Let a healthy man really "break" his "fast" with a substantial meal, and not break his breakfast with irritating little nips or slops beforehand. After the stomach has at its leisure emptied itself during sleep of its contents, and sent them to repair the worn tissues and exhausted nerve-force, and the blood has been ventilated and purified by washing and dressing with the window open, then is the time when the most perfect of all nutritive articles, farinaceous food, can be consumed in largest quantities with advantage. Butter also, and fat and sugar, troublesome customers to weak digestions, are then easily coped with, and contribute their invaluable aid to performing the duties of the day. For example, many persons can drink milk to a fair and useful amount at breakfast, with whom it disagrees at other hours. And the widely advertised " breakfast bacon" by its name warns the consumer against indulgence later on in the day. Cafe au lait and sweet creamy tea are to many men poisonous in the afternoon, though in the prime of the morning they are a wholesome beverage to the same individuals.

Let the vigor, good humor, and refreshment then felt by a healthy man be utilised without delay in eating a hearty meal immediately after he is dressed, and not frittered away in the frivolities of other occupations, Let not reading, writing, or business —muscular, political, or economical—exhaust the nervous system. The newspapers and letters should not be opened, preferably not delivered, till the appetite is thoroughly appeased. A Christmas box to the postman will probably set you in such a part of his beat as will keep these unexploded shells out of sight till the proper moment. Or, let the master of the house have a bag, and sufficient self-command to retain it locked till his household's stomachs are ready to receive the contents without spoiling a meal. Commercial men should insist upon being written to at their offices, and " O Lectores benevoli" pray don't bother the doctors too early. As to the hour of the clock at which breakfast should be ready, that must depend on the avocations of the breakfaster, on his dinner time, bed-time, and time for rising. Practical and scientific members of agricultural societies say that the most important part of a prosperous farmer's work, be he great or small, is over by eight in the morning. The more acres he farms, the earlier must it begin. And this is not a light occupation, mind and body being earnestly active at the same moment, moving about quickly over a considerable space of ground and foreseeing the successful carriage of the day's labour. Many robust agriculturists fall into severe forms of dyspepsia, heartburn, water-brash, intestinal neuralgia, emaciation, consumption, hypochondriases, or, still worse, into dram-drinking and its banefulconsequences, solely from attempting this task before they have fortified themselves by a breakfast. Purveyors of all perishable produce, butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers, market-women, &c, have laid upon them the same necessity of getting their most serious work over, and beginning the mechanical occupation of selling, by the hour when their customers are abroad. And medical men know how frequently these classes suffer from neglecting the precaution here enforced. At the hour when these people are, or ought to be, taking their breakfast, or even later, there is a continuously recruited army of workers, purveyors of intellectual food, food as perishable and as eagerly hungered for as the last-named, who are just sitting down to supper. They prepare themselves for rest, if prudent, by a moderate meal principally of animal food and fermented liquor, which they have then leisure to digest slowly and completely, so as to repair the wear of the bodily machine by the past toil. There should be no morning meal for them till afternoon, otherwise it proves a break-rest as well as a break-fast. There are in England many thousand persons employed nightly for the periodical press, and though the greater number, especially of the brainworkers, are "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," yet in their digestive functions and the nutrition of their tissues, they do not seem to suffer more than other sections of the industrial population. When they do suffer it is usually in consequence of being roused up too early in an attempt to join the established breakfast at the established family hour. The up-all-nighters, who cannot attempt this, complain less frequently than the mere late workers. Those who are born to consume the fruits o£ the earth rather than to sow and reap them, will also do well to follow the same rule that we have recommended for their more industrious brethren. It is true they do not suffer so much from a neglect of it, but they will enjoy life much more by obedience. The adoption of what may be called the French use, namely, a cup of coffee or milk on rising, and nothing else till a heavy dejeuner about noon, is associated with a mode of life which fails to develop to their utmost the inborn capacities for exertion, and is being gradually discredited as the upper classes in Europe come more and more to find their pleasure in work. . . . The drinks at breakfast should be scrupu>

lously aqueous. Alcohol in any form, or at any time, connected with breakfast, before, after, or in the middle, is injurious in direct proportion to its quantity.

THE OLD INHABITANT. (From the Queenslander.) " And now, Mr. Chairman, I beg to propose as a committee to carry out the object of this meeting, Messrs. Landgrabber, Cornerallotment, and Stickinthemud, all old and respected inhabitants of this town, and from their long residence here, thoroughly acquainted with our wants." As yet the Old Inhabitant may be found in full vigor among us, especially in provincial towns ; but as there is much reason to fear that, at no distant date, the species will be extinct, or, by a process of evolution, lose many of its interesting peculiarities, a slight sketch of him as he appears at the present time may therefore be acceptable. In outward appearance the Old Inhabitant maintains a conservative respectability ; he has a tendency to dark - colored clothes, eschewing new-fangled fashions, and never, to his credit be it said, does he appear in a " chimney-pot" hat. In demeanor he is somewhat reserved, especially in the presence of a stranger, but will thaw rapidly under the influence of a social glass, which, by the way, he never refuses, for he is not a teetotaller, and generally holds the 1.0.G.T. in profound contempt. Still he is a temperate man, and rarely exceeds the bounds of sobriety ; but then his temperance would be wild excess in a less practised toper, for many, many years of constant nipping have so thoroughly seasoned him that it is only by drinking very fast that he can succeed in becoming intoxicated. The Old Inhabitant has generally been either a storekeeper or a publican, " when that fine street, sir, was nothing but a scrub, and One-Eyed Mick put up his bark humpy on what is now the site of the Royal Hotel." He wisely bought land in all directions in those earlier days, and the subsequent progress of the town has floated him into affluence. This progress, the Old Inhabitant generally believes, has been entirely produced by the enterprise of himself and his fellows ; and when he sells for a thousand pounds a piece of land that originally cost him a gallon of rum, a suit of old clothes, and a double-barrelled carbine, he looks for approval as one who has done the town a service. New comers are useful, so he thinks ; they buy allotments and increase the value of property ; and they form, he admits, nine-tenths of the population ; but he regards them as a French Marquis of the old school used to regard the canaille, for the Old Inhabitant has the aristocratic instinct strongly developed. He pays willing deference to all rank and title ; he is intensely loyal; and when the Governor visits his town, he never fails to present himself in a shining black coat, at the extraordinary performance known as a levee. The cup of happiness is filled for the Old Inhabitant when he is gazetted as J.P.; it is true that he seldom graces the Bench with his presence, unless some publican, with whom he is connected, is in danger of losing his license, or some friend is in trouble. In these cases he never allows mere legal considerations to outweigh the claims of friendship. The proprietor of the local newspaper finds in the Old Inhabitant a steady subscriber and an occasional contributor. In the latter capacity, however, he is rather dangerous, for it generally happens that he cherishes a long-standing feud with some other old inhabitant and eagerly seeks for an opportunity to " slate " him—a process which consists in cramming as many libels into a letter as it will hold, or he can induce the editor to publish. He dearly loves to see a good abusive round of personalities, and is apt to find his newspaper dull unless seasoned in this fashion ; for his interest in intelligence from other parts of the world is slight, and although his journal may record the fall of dynasties or the fate of empires, he will look eagerly to the "local" columns; and if they be deficient, turns in disgust from his reading. But when he sees a paragraph commencing something after this fashion : —" It is with extreme regret that we notice Mr. X, in spite of the many warnings we have given him, continues his nefarious career," then the eye of the Old Inhabitant lights up, he strikes the table with his fist, and affirms that the " Examiner is an independent journal, and its editor a most deserving young man." The Old Inhabitant is a profound admirer of municipal institutions, and can detail minutely every deed of the Corporation of his town from the time when, as alderman, he victoriously terminated a protracted debate by smiting his opponent on the head with an umbrella across the Council Board, and then chases him ignominiously the length of the main street. This happened in that golden age to which he often recurs, when the town had barely five hundred inhabitants, and when everybody had big cheques and knocked them down manfully. They were not afraid of spending .a shilling then, he will tell you, and when a man walked into a public-house to get a drink, the landlord used to go to the door, and looking up and down the street, hail everyone within hearing, telling them that So-and-so was going to shout. There were none of those blanked teetotallers then, he says, and a man did not think he was going to die just because he had a touch of D.T. And if they did quarrel in the-Council, they made it up afterwards, for the Mayor generally shouted for the aldermen, and they drowned all unpleasantness in a friendly glass. Mayor and aldermen, he thinks, sadly, are not what they were; but his interest in municipal affairs is unabated. _He is generally present at municipal nominations, and addresses the ratepayers on the "momentzous crisis" produced by the resignation of Mr. Brown, and the candidatures of Messrs. Jones and 'Robinson for the vacant seat in the North Ward. His fine rolling eloquence when denouncing the selfish greed of Mr. Smith, "who prostituted his position, Mr. Chairman, as an alderman of this municipality, and misappropriated the municipal funds to get ten chains of splendid—l may

say, magnificent roadway made opposite his paltry property," is impressive in the extreme. But it is in Parliamentary elections that the Oldest Inhabitant shines. He always supports the local candidate, especially in opposition to one from Brisbane. All Old Inhabitants hate Brisbane—in fact, they hate all towns but their own, and the bigger they are the worse they hate them. The Oldest Inhabitant it is who writes those marvellous squibs which pepper the advertisement columns of the local paper. He is an active member of the candidate's committee, and he delights in a lavish flow of grog. As a canvasser he is energetic, and terribly unscrupulous ; but it is pleasant to see the happy excitement that beams from his countenance as he hurries from place to place. He delights in stormy election meetings, and bravely faces a howling mob to support or oppose a vote of confidence. The abolition of the hustings and open nomina.tion was bitterly resented by the Old Inhabitant ; indeed, he thinks elections are very tame affairs now-a-days. He will shake his head sadly, and tell you of the glorions election they had years ao-o, when the two candidates, each arm-and-arm with honored supporters, marched up and down the town with banners flaunting over their heads, and surrounded by affectionate and admiring adherents. The two parties, he tells you, perambulated the town till they met, and then his eye flashes as an expressive pantomime tells his hearer the end of his narrative. He has his good points, has the Old Inhabitant. He generally subscribes liberally to public charities, unless, indeed, his pet enemy happen to be on the managing committee. He is useful on ornamental occasions, fills up the rank and file of deputations, and delights in presenting addresses, and taking the chair at public dinners. Even in his feuds and quarrels it is impossible to dislike him, for he so thoroughly enjoys the strife —indeed when two Old Inhabitants are "slating" each other on the same platform, one can generally detect a sort of friendly twinkle in their eyes, an indication that they are fighting out of a sheer good-natured desire to afford each other some fun. Peace to the Old Inhabitant, I say; may he yet linger among us, and when his time comes, may his funeral procession be as long as his heart could desire, and may the grass grow green upon his grave.