If Any Number Of
Such Persons Took Up Their Residence In Villages, The Advantage To
Farmers Would Of Course Be That They Would Have Good Customers For All
Minor Produce At Their Doors.
It is not too much to say that three parts
of England are quite as much in need of opening up as the backwoods of
America.
When a new railroad track is pushed over prairie and through
primeval woods, settlements spring up beside it. When road trains run
through remote hamlets those remote hamlets will awake to a new life.
Many country towns of recent years have made superhuman efforts to get
the railway to their doors. Some have succeeded, some are still trying;
in no case has it been accomplished without an immense expenditure, and
for the most part these railroad branches are completely in the control
of the main line with which they are connected. In one or two cases
progress has been effected by means of tramways, notably one at
Wantage - an excellent idea and highly to be commended. All these are
signs that by slow degrees matters are tending towards some such scheme
as has been here sketched out. While local railroads are extremely
expensive, slow in construction, and always dominated by main lines, and
while tramways need rails, with the paraphernalia rails require, they
have this drawback - they are not flexible. The engines and cars that run
upon them must for ever adhere to the track: there may be goods, produce,
ricks, cows, fruit, hops, and what not, wanting to be landed only a
quarter of a mile distant, but the cars cannot go to the crops. The
railroad is rigid, everything must be brought to it. From town to town it
answers well, but it cannot suit itself and wind about from village to
hamlet, from farm to farm, up hill and down dale. The projected road
train is flexible and capable of coming to the crops. It can call at the
farmer's door, and wait by the gate of the field for the load. We have
lately seen France devote an enormous sum to the laying down of rails in
agricultural districts, to the making of canals, and generally to the
improvement of internal communication in provinces but thinly populated.
The industrious French have recognised that old countries, whose area is
limited, can only compete with America, whose area is almost unlimited,
by rendering transit easy and cheap. We in England shall ultimately have
to apply the same fact.
FIELD SPORTS IN ART.
THE MAMMOTH HUNTER.
The most ancient attempt to delineate the objects of sport in existence
is, I think, the celebrated engraving of a mammoth on a portion of a
mammoth's tusk. I call it an engraving because the figure is marked out
with incised lines such as the engraver makes with his tool, and it is
perfect enough to print from. If it were inked and properly manipulated
it would leave an impression - an artist's proof the most curious and
extraordinary in the world, for the block was cut with flint instruments
by the Cave-men an incredible number of years ago, perhaps before England
was separated from the Continent by the sea, while the two were still
connected, and it was dry land where now the - Calais-Douvres - steams so
steadily over the waves. But it would be an artist's proof with the
lights and shades reversed, the lines that sketch the form of the mammoth
would be white and the body dark, yet for all that lifelike, since the
undulating indentations that represent the woolly hide of the immense
creature would relieve the ground. This picture of a prehistoric animal,
drawn by a prehistoric artist, shows that Art arose from the chase.
Traced to the den of primeval man, who had no Academy to instruct him, no
Ruskin to guide, and no gallery to exhibit in, it appears that Art sprang
from nature, and not from science. His life was occupied with the hunt,
and he represented that which filled his thoughts. Those who understand
wild sports will not for a moment doubt that the mammoth was taken in
pits or otherwise destroyed despite its huge strength; no matter if it
had been twice as large, the cunning of man would have been equal to the
difficulty. The mind is the arrow that slays the monster. The greater the
danger the greater the interest, and consequently the more the
imagination would dwell upon the circumstances of the chase. Afterwards
resting in the cave round about the fire and thinking of the mighty work
of sport which had been accomplished, the finger of the savage would
involuntarily describe the outline of the creature so laboriously
captured. His finger might describe it upon the scattered ashes whitening
the ground beside him. Or it might describe the outline simply in the
air. Speech in its inception was as much expressed by the finger as the
tongue; perhaps the fingers talked before the mouth, and in a sense
writing preceded language. Uttering the unpolished sound which in their
primitive society indicated the mammoth, the savage drew rapidly a figure
with his finger, and his companions read his meaning written in the air.
To this day it is common for the Italian peasantry to talk with their
fingers; a few syllables suffice, illustrated and emphasised by those
dexterous hands. A more subtle meaning is thus conveyed than could be put
in words. Some of the most ancient languages seem bald and incomplete,
too rigid; they need intonation, as it were, to express passion or
changes of emotion, and when written the letters are too far apart to
indicate what is meant. Not too far apart upon the page, but far apart in
their sense, which has to be supplied as you supply the vowels. In actual
use such languages must have required much gesture and finger-sketching
in the air. The letters of the Egyptians largely consist of animals and
birds, which represent both sounds and ideas.
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