turned, we arrived at an opening in a high wooden fence rather like a park paling; this opening was closed by horizontal bars, and at its side was a regular English stile, with steps on both sides and a rail at the top. Driving through the opening, we entered what might well be called a park-most beautiful greensward, with many a fine old tree, walnut, beech, oak, and others, entirely surrounded by the fence. At one extremity of the enclosure stood the house. In all that part of the country the houses of the proprietors stand within enclosures of this description, and the wealth and importance of the owner may be estimated by the extent of the enclosure. That of our host was over 200 acres. The house was built entirely of wood, and in its general appearance somewhat resembled a Swiss cottage. It was raised above the ground on piles, a precaution necessary in those river-flooded valleys to guard against the sudden inundations that take place. A broad flight of steps led up to a covered verandah, from which doors opened out into the different apartments, all on one floor. The balusters of the staircase, the pillars of the verandah, the doors, and, indeed, the whole of the front of the house, were most beautifully and elaborately carved. At the foot of the staircase stood our host, a fat, jolly-looking man, in a parrot-green native costume, and very unlike in appearance the majority of his wild handsome-looking countrymen. In the verandah above were two ladies, to whom the prince, after welcoming us in a most affectionate manner, presented us; they were his wife and daughter, plump and comely dame and damsel, but not types of the exquisite beauty to be met with so often in the Trans-Caucasus.

As it was not yet dinner-time we were invited to refresh ourselves with a slight zakousky, the usual avant-diner, consisting of caviare, smoked ham, sardines, bread, &c., washed down with a glass of vodka. Prince Mirsky then sat down to a game of chess with our host, while some of us talked to the ladies, and others walked in the park.

No. 163.-VOL. XXVIII,

At two o'clock we were summoned to dinner. In a large hall opening out of the verandah and occupying the whole breadth of the house were spread two tables, one for the guests and chief personages, the other for the dependants, and each having a sort of division to separate those who sat above the salt from those who sat below. The only ladies were our host's wife and daughter. Soup began the repast, and then to each person was handed a plate covered with pieces of three or four kinds of fish. Hardly was there time to begin upon this when another plateful of some kind of meat was put down, and then another and another, till the space in front of each guest was crowded with several platefuls of different kinds of food. While we were occupied in getting through the contents of some of these plates a flourish of horns was heard, and a sort of procession entered the hall, bearing on a huge silver tray the hindquarters of an ox roasted.

Before, however, getting through any more food, let me say something about the drink. At the commencement of the dinner an "arbiter bibendi," or toastmaster, was, according to the usual custom, appointed, the approval by the guests of the choice being courteously asked and of course given. This post in all home festivals is generally confided to some relation well known for his drinking qualifications, and whose success and endurance in drinking-bouts have given him a certain prescriptive right to the honour. In this instance the office was allotted to a cousin of our host's, a tall handsome wild-looking fellow, whom we had remarked among the horsemen accompanying us for his daring horsemanship, splendid costume, and abundant hair. The toolambatch, as the symposiarch is called, did not assume his functions at the beginning of dinner, and for a short time we drank peaceably out of wine-glasses. The drink was the red wine of the country, slightly rough and acrid but not strong. On the entrance of the quarter of beef a small silver cup was given to each person at the upper table, and filled by the four

G

attendants whose especial duty it was to serve the wine, and then the toolambatch, rising, proposed the health of the Emperor of Russia. As soon as the toast had been drunk, some half-a-dozen youths, who sat at the bottom of the upper table, began chanting in a rather dolorous tone what we were informed were verses from the Psalms, and we were further told that there were certain psalms especially set apart for such occasions, a few verses being chanted after each toast, and that it was considered a great feat if these psalms were all got through before everybody was hors de combat.

The quarter of beef was put down in front of the toolam batch, who, drawing the long dagger always worn by the natives at the fastening of the belt in front, cut away horizontally at it until he arrived at a perfectly smooth, even surface of meat. He then stopped to propose another toast, which was drunk out of the same silver cups as before. Returning to his work at the beef, he began cutting most delicate wafer-like slices, which he handed hanging on the dagger to his neighbour, who in turn handed them on to another, and so on. Excellent indeed were these slices, and extraordinary the number of them one managed to devour. Another after a time relieved the toastmaster of the task of carving, and then another; but the demand for slices never seemed to cease, and they appeared not to come amiss even in the middle of a sweet dish, for platefuls of all sorts and kinds of food, of which it would be impossible to give a list, were constantly being put before us. A few more toasts were drunk out of the small silver cups, and then some larger ones, about the size of an ordinary tumbler, were brought in, and placed here and there at intervals to serve for every three or four of the convives. The silence and stiffness which had prevailed during the first part of the proceedings were beginning to disappear, tongues were loosed, and it was surprising to find how languages, which in ordinary moments came haltingly or not at all, now flowed freely from unac

customed lips. The point had been reached,

ἐπεὶ πόσιος καὶ ἐδητύος ἐξ ἔρον ἕντο,

though it is needless to say that, as at the Homeric banquets so on this occasion, the desire of drinking being satisfied was no obstacle to the continuance of that occupation. The serious business of the feast appeared only to begin when a good-sized cup was brought in and handed to the toolambatch, who "crowned it with wine"-it held nearly a bottle-and drank the bumper off to the health of the ladies. He then refilled it and passed it to his left-hand neighbour, by whom it was emptied and returned to the toolambatch, to be again filled by him and passed to the second person on his left, and so on all round the company. The psalm-chanting had become by this time much less doleful, and if the time was not so good as at the commencement, and the general swing a trifle irregular, it must be said that the whole effect was more lively and inspiriting. Indeed, the repeated toasts were beginning to tell in many instances, and the ladies, who had behaved most admirably, and had viewed the scene with a kindly interest, begotten no doubt of habit, now rose to depart. Prince Mirsky, who by his position had the privilege of exempting himself from the stringent law which allows no man to quit the table so long as the toolambatch is erect, accompanied them. One of his aides-de-camp, who knew what was coming, managed to sneak out unobserved, and could not be found till just before we went away. The other remained, and begged on behalf of himself and the other two strangers that they might be allowed to sit there merely as spectators. The request, however, was politely but firmly refused, until it was urged that two of us had been and still were very unwell. plea was accepted. But alas for my bad luck, no available excuse could be found for me, and to my horror I saw myself without hope of escape let in for a carouse to which anything I had hitherto witnessed was but a joke.

The

Toast now succeeded toast in quick succession; but all was done with a gravity and staidness befitting so important a proceeding. The wine was of the same kind as at first, but the quality was if anything rather better. The manner of drinking continued as before, the toolam batch first filling the cup and drinking himself, and then refilling it for each one from left to right. After two or three rounds out of one cup, another of somewhat larger size was brought, and thus progressively we got on to goblets of most formidable capacity.

What need to tell how the scene progressed, what toasts were drunk, what victims consigned to forgetfulness? Suffice it that our numbers were at length reduced to four, the toolambatch, myself, and two others, one the only remnant of the chorus, which had long since ceased to celebrate the toasts, leaving, I suspect, the psalms unfinished. Was the end approaching, and what was that end to be? I asked myself with increasing horror when I saw brought in a huge bowl, wide-mouthed, deep-bottomed, and two-handled, into which the toolambatch with unfaltering hand emptied three and a half bottles, and then with much emphasis proposed to drink to the health of the "dead men." With fascinated eyes I watched him as slowly, but without a pause he drained the monstrous cup, literally

"Pleno se proluit auro,"

and longed that he might be numbered with those whose health he was drinking. But no, he finished, and holding the edge on his thumb nail showed that only the ruby drop was left. Defections had left me immediately on his right, so that my turn came last. The first on his left accomplished the task, though with many a pause. The next began well, stopped, tried again with faltering hands, again paused, once more tried, and then placing the cup on the table sank among the dead. I was partially saved, for it was the law that when anyone succumbed in the act of drinking the person next to him should only finish what was left. My predecessor

had almost completed his task, and I managed to finish it without accident.

We three remaining ones now sat eyeing one another like gladiators in a ring, and measuring one another's strength and endurance. A minute or two elapsed, and then the toolam batch, to whom the cup had been returned, rose once more, and calling for more wine, proposed to drink to the health of the "living." It was a desperate emergency. To face again the chance of having to swallow that awful magnum seemed out of the question. What was to be done-feign defeat, and fall among the dead, and so avoid the impending fate? I thought of the words Horace puts in the mouth of Vibidius,

"Nos nisi damnose bibimus, moriemur inulti ;" and then as the beginning of the following line

"Et calices poscit majores"

came mechanically to mind, a sudden thought seized me. "What!" I exclaimed, starting up, "do you propose to drink to the victors out of the same demand a larger one: cup as to the vanquished? Not so, I

'Capaciores affer huc, puer, scyphos.'"

The toolambatch, though his face, when the meaning of this outburst had been explained to him, showed slight symptoms of astonishment, lost none of his equanimity, but turned to the servants and asked for a bigger cup. There was none. "Never mind," I said, my classical memories now thoroughly aroused, "bring that here," pointing to a large earthen pitcher which had been used as a wine cooler, and which must have held over two gallons; 66 we will drink out of that." With one look of blank amazement at the proposed flagon the toolam batch quietly declined the task, which would have fallen to him first, of trying to empty it. Then," said I, "we drink no more." Such was the law, and there was no appeal. My cópioμa had succeeded, the toolambatch was no Socrates, and our symposium at once broke up.

FRED A. EATON.

PART II.

IN my last address we had already heard the sound of those much-feared and much-abused words, "the organization of labour." Turn them into French, and they become at once terribly suggestive. Vague ghosts of Communism and Socialism rise up before us, till timid folk feel inclined to put their fingers in their ears, and run away shrieking for the police. Unhappily for unhappy France, they are, inseparably I fear, connected there with terrible memories with bitter class hatreds, unclosed social wounds; with bloodstained barricades, and armed men behind them, asserting against society, in blind but deadly earnest, the first "right of labour," as the Paris workman holds it-the right "to live working, or die fighting." I do not care to consider curiously why it is that we have no such memories to brood over, but would for myself earnestly deprecate the tone of complacency in which our press too often takes up this tale; and thanks, not God, but our remarkable national characteristics-our reverence for the constable's staff, our distrust of ideas, and the rest-that our people

not Red Republicans, Socialists, Communists, or even as these Frenchmen. We have a sorrowful enough record in the past, of bitterness and unwisdom-an anxious enough present, with our South Wales strikes, agricultural labourers' unions, and drinking ourselves out of the Alabama indemnity in one year-a future enough overcast, to keep our attention sadly and earnestly fixed at home. We shall want all our breath to cool our own broth. When such "serious changes are going on in the structure" of the society to which he belongs, it is only the eyes of the fool that are in the ends of the earth.

If

The "organization of labour" in this kingdom has gone on in two parallel lines for the last twenty years and more, and at a rate as remarkable as that of the increase of our material riches. Mr. Gladstone had added to his statement, as to what the last fifty years have done for us in this direction-that in the organization of labour, and the consequent change in the condition of the working classes, the same period had done more than the 300 years since the first Statute of Labourers-or indeed than the whole of previous English history-he would have been making a statement even more certain, and more easy of proof, than that which he did make. Let me very shortly make good my words. It was not until the year 1825 that the laws prohibiting combinations of workmen were repealed. They had lasted since the early Plantagenet times. Under them no open combination of artisans or labourers, such as the Trades Unions which we know, was possible. There were unions, indeed, but they met as secret societies, and worked by secret penalties and terrorism. After 1825 they came at once into the light, and there was a remarkable decrease, indeed almost a cessation, of those sanguinary crimes connected with trades' disputes which had disgraced the previous quarter of a century. It took another quarter of a century to effect the next great change. From 1825 till 1849-50 may be called the period of local Unionism. In the latter year it entered on a new phase, that of federation. The first sign of the change was the great strike of the engineers at Christmas 1851. Public attention was drawn to this struggle, involving as it did the prosperity of the most skilled, and most thoroughly national, of our great industries, and the country was startled to find that a league of upwards

of 100 local unions, all federated in one amalgamated society, were sustaining the local contests in Oldham and London. This federation, although beaten in 1852, has gone on steadily gaining power and numbers ever since. There were then some 11,000 members, belonging to 100 branches in Great Britain and Ireland, and the funds of the society at the end of the great strike went down to zero; in fact, it came out of the contest in debt. There are now upwards of 40,000 members, nearly 300 branches, which are spread over all our colonies, the United States, and several European countries, and the accumulated fund amounts to more than 150,000l. The example of the engineers has been followed, as we all know, by almost every other great industry. The Boilermakers' Union, the Masons' Union, the Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners', and the vast ironworkers and coalworkers' unions, in England, Scotland, and Wales, are the best known. Each of these is growing steadily, and aims at absorbing the whole trade. And not only are the unions of the separate trades federated in great amalgamated societies, but these societies are again in federation. They hold a Congress at the opening of each new year. It sat at Leeds at the beginning of this year, when another step in advance was proposed, being nothing less than the incorporation of all the unionists in the kingdom into one vast society. This proposal was indeed rejected; but even as it is, for all practical purposes the unions throughout the country are allied in a federation, which promises to be drawn closer and closer every year, and to become more and more powerful. Such have been, shortly speaking, the results of the twenty-five years of federated unionism.

And now let us look, as fairly as we can, at this "problem of civilization," and ask what it means and where it tends. That unionism is a great power, and likely to become a greater one still, no one will deny. That it is an army, by which I mean an organization for fighting purposes, goes without talk. That nearly

all unions have their sick and provident funds, and their benefits of one kind and another, is perfectly true; but these are not their vital function. They are organized and supported "to speak with their enemies in the gate," and to fight whenever it may be thought advisable. And when it comes to fighting, they may use every penny of the funds (as the Amalgamated Engineers did in 1852) without a thought of the provident purposes contemplated by their rules. You can't have armies and battles without training professional soldiers. They must come to the front as naturally as cream rises if you let milk stand; and the Trades Unions train leaders who are essentially fighting men. I do not use the word as implying any censure. Many cruel and unfair attacks have been made on these men as a class with which I do not in the least sympathise. Many accusations have been brought against them which I know to be untrue. There are good and bad amongst them, as in all other classes; but, on the whole, they have done their work faithfully, and without giving needless offence. Indeed, I have often found them far more ready to listen to reason, to negotiate rather than fight, than their rank and file. They have supported the attempts to establish Courts of Arbitration and Conciliation, and are, as a rule, honest representatives, and in advance of their constituents. But the fact remains they are fighting men, at the head of armies; and their business is constant watchfulness, and prompt action whenever a fair opportunity occurs. They accept and act on the principles of trade which they have learnt from their employers and see proclaimed in all the leading journals. Their business is to enable their members to sell their labour in the dearest market, and to limit and control the supply. "Morality," they maintain with their betters, “has nothing to do with buying and selling." They have nothing to do with the question whether their action is fair or just to employers, or whether it will bring trouble and misfortune on workmen outside the union. Employers and