within the last few months; but George III., Sir Walter Scott, Goldsmith, Louis XV. (whose gold snuffbox, enamelled after Fragonard, created such excitement when it realized 3,3501. in 1898), have rarely been mentioned; while Jean Jacques Rous'seau, whose collar of brown holland, with his initials "J. J. R." in red on the inner side, an article of attire referred to more than once in his letters, that was up for auction three years ago, has not been honored with a quotation for many months.

The article of attire once the property of the martyred King Charles that found its way into the market recently was a coat of blue silk embroidered with silver, with the sleeves and pocket turned up with scarlet cloth and lined throughout with red silk. This garment, a very precious relic, the King was wont to don on State occasions, and at other times to keep at Broughton Castle, in Oxfordshire, the seat of Lord Saye and Sele. The price obtained for the coat, 251. 48., although it failed to attract any attention at the time of the sale, at which, by the way, the hide of the unfortunate French horse Holocauste, who was shot after meeting with an accident in the race for the Derby of 1899, was knocked down for 21. 5s., was distinctly disappointing, especially when compared with the sum, 2101., given in 1898 for the fine sky-blue silk vest thirty-two inches long, which was worn by the King on the day of his execution. It was, perhaps, the fact that the vest was stained in several places with the blood of the martyred monarch that so greatly enhanced its value, for it not only eclipsed the price given for the Broughton Castle relic, but exceeded by 251. five times the value set upon one-half of a cloak worn by him on the same fatal thirtieth of January, 253 years ago, which was sold in 1899 for 371. The other

half of the cloak, we gather, must be in the possession of the Royal family, for it is recorded that it was sold to Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Fourth George.

Although the figure representing the sum which the First Charles's coat of State sold for on the last occasion furnished something of a surprise to the collector of relics, he ought not to have been altogether unprepared, in view of the fact that in February, 1898, a Court waistcoat, embroidered and worked in colored silk, that was once the property of the Second Charles, "Le Roi No. 2," was knocked down for nine guineas. The nightcap worn by Charles I. on the night before his execution was presented to the Carisbrook Castle Museum about three years ago by Queen Victoria, and will consequently never figure in the auction-room; but in the unlikely event of the Wellington Pennells disposing of the King's white kid hawking gauntlet, embroidered with silver, that has been in their possession for over 200 years, or Mr. Beeston, of Market Drayton, selling the gloves worn by the King on the scaffold, and Lord Essex parting with the portion of the Garter donned by the ill-fated Charles on the same occasion, they and other possessors of relics of a kindred nature will have in the above figures a gauge whereby they can obtain an idea of the sums they may expect to receive.

When the blue velvet saddle embroidered in gold, with its stirrups of fine gilt bronze that was once the possession of Dom Pedro II., ex-Emperor of Brazil, and the green velvet saddle embroidered in silver and gold, once the property of the Empress Amélie, widow of Dom Pedro I., realized as much as 80l. two years last July, the handsome price obtained on the occasion of the sale proved beyond a doubt that the vendor had exercised

considerable discrimination in choosing the date of the auction, in which respect he was closely followed by the individual who arranged to sell several Napoleonic relics on the anniversary of Waterloo Day three years ago. Relics of the great Napoleon are always eagerly sought after, as is evinced by the fact that when in 1899 a silver-gilt sword, chased with classical ornament, and contained in the original leather-covered travelling case affected by Bonaparte when on tour, was put up to auction, it fetched no less than 6501. At another sale the same year a glass-tipped drinking goblet or tumbler used on similar occasions by the great soldier fetched 157. 158., or 15s. more than a small silver teapot, in an oak box, that was used by the Iron Duke on his later campaigns (the Dublin Hall-mark bears the date 1807), realized about the same time.

These figures would suggest that further search in the State lumber-rooms of the French Government might be profitable, insomuch as at the last battue at the one-time head-quarter offices of the Paris garrison, in May, 1899, there were unearthed, in an old garret, all the pots, kettles, pans, and moulds, all marked with a First Empire crown and the initials "G. I.," comprising the batterie de cuisine of the officers of the Imperial Guard of the Great Napoleon, that would doubtless fetch a considerable sum if put up for sale. In July, 1900, a silver-gilt snuff-box, embossed with a wreath of vine leaves and grapes, "Presented," as the inscription inside tells us, "to Archd. Arnott, surgeon of His Majesty's XXth Foot, by Napoleon Bonaparte, on his death-bed at St. Helena, 1821," excited no little interest amongst those collectors affecting the Napoleonic era. The box, which bore on a panel the letter "N" roughly scratched by the

dying man before he gave it to the doctor, fetched 1407., or about seven times the sum obtained for a lock of Napoleon's hair, which, with a handkerchief that realized the modest sum of 18s. (an outlay that purchased in 1899 a piece of the stump cut off the stake at which Bishop Hooper was burnt in St. Mary's Square, Gloucester), was sold on the same day.

Earlier in the year, when Chantrey's bust of Scott realized 2,250 guineas, and a small tortoise-shell and silvermounted casket, "Presented to Mrs. David Garrick by her esteemed friend Samuel Johnson, 1762," sold for 1201. 15s., a pair of pistols, once the property of Napoleon I., fetched 471. 5s. The Napoleon legend was very much in evidence that year. Of literary relics, the MS. diaries formerly the property of the aforementioned Mrs. David Garrick, having been unearthed in the office of a Lincoln's Inn firm of solicitors, where they had been lying for eighty years, were put to auction in July and sold well. The diaries, which contained many items similar to that appearing under the date "September 4, 1751.-A quarrel in the green-room between Old Cibber and Mrs. Clive, by his saying the stage wanted a handsome woman" (not the most tactful remark to make in an actress's presence) fetched 601., and the sale altogether realized 2531. 2s. 6d.

An inkpot used, as a letter from Mr. W. E. Henley attested, by the late Robert Louis Stevenson on numerous occasions, is another literary relic that was in the market recently, and it realized for the fund on whose behalf it was sold some 251., or about onethird of the sum given three years ago for a silver ornamental taper-stand originally purchased and presented to his mother by Sir Walter Scott with his first fee (51. 58.) as an advocate. The Malacca cane, 4 feet 71⁄2 inches long, having a ferrule 5 inches in

length, and a cream-colored earthenware jug, bequeathed by Shakespeare to his sister Joan Hart, realized 1557. early in the year 1900, and proved to be one of the few lots of relics that did not show an enhanced value upon their previous figures. Many years ago the jug sold for 201. and the cane for 51., but in 1893 the pair realized 1621. 5s. A lock of Grace Darling's hair, together with a piece of the "Forfarshire," the nine survivors of whose crew she rescued in 1838, sold for 41. 5s. recently; but Lord Beaconsfield's pony chaise, when sold at Hughenden a year last October, only realized the small sum of 29s. A model of a ship cut out of a tree felled by Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden in 1866 is one of the few memorials of the great Home Rule statesman that have come into the miscellaneous division of the relic market of late years, but the price, 5s., was far from indicating the prospect of an immediate boom in Gladstonian relics.

Another class of relic that has enjoyed a very 'quiet time recently is the Crimean War trophy; but in view of the fact that in a couple of 'years' time the jubilee of the campaign will be at hand, prices can be safely expected to harden, in the which most likely event the individual who purchased a very small portion of the colors of a Russian regiment, taken at Inkerman by the Grenadier Guards, together with a brass eagle, for 31. 10s. three years last April-a sum that would probably have been enhanced had the sale 'been deferred to the anniversary of the battle on November 5-will, should he care to sell, have every reason to congratulate himself upon his astuteness.

The great run on Napoleonic relics which existed a few years ago is gradually giving place to a "bull" tendency in respect to the effects of Nelson, which may be accounted for,

to a certain extent, by the raid on the Nelson relics at Greenwich, which, however, does 'not affect the relic market in any other manner than to add to the interest that will be evinced at the next great sale of the Admiral's effects that takes place. If the miscreant who stole the nation's relics of the national hero was led to do so by the prices that were current when several mementoes of 'the great sailor were put up to auction about two years ago he must by now be 'very sensible as to the difference that lies between the sentimental and actual values of booty such as he acquired. Two years last March a silver twohandled cup presented to the Admiral by Lady Hamilton inscribed "From Emma, July 2, 1798," sold for 1157. 10s.; a rapier, the pommel set with a turquoise and brilliant cluster, which was taken from a French officer at the battle of the Nile and courteously presented to Nelson by Admiral Bruys, fetched 501., and a gold ring with an intaglio bust of Nelson engraved "Lord Nelson, ob. 21 October, 1805," 71. 78. Should any of these relics be put up to auction three years hence-i.e., in the Nelson and Trafalgar Centenary Year-it will be interesting to note the prices they realize. A corner in Nelson relics, if engineered during the next three years, would, in view of the hundredth anniversary of his death, in all probability, be not unattended by pecuniary success.

Mementoes of Oliver Cromwell are as infrequently sold as New River Shares; it is therefore somewhat remarkable that in the course of half-adozen months two relics of the Protector should change owners. Another peculiarity with regard to these sales is the disproportionate values put upon the respective relics. For instance, an old English "beutel," resembling a military water-bottle, mounted with two silver shields hav

ing a medallion portrait of the Lord Protector and the Royal Arms engraved thereon, which also bore the inscription "Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, 1653," sold for 847., or about one-fifth the sum received for a richly embroidered cope formerly the property of Pope Sixtus IV. (14711484), which was in the market at the same time; while the collection of eleven pieces, comprising a portion of the Protector's layette, and including a cap with the words "Sweet Bab, don't cry-1599"-the date of his birth-embroidered upon ft, fetched but 327. in Longman's Magazine.

the aggregate. The average price of these latter garments, by the way, compared most unfavorably with the value set upon the tiny shoe worn by the baby King of Rome, which was presented in a crystal casket, resting on a cushion of violets, "as a memento of her triumphant resurrection of L'Aiglon," to Madame Sarah Bernhardt recently, or with the small enamelled gold Masonic ring, once the property of the Hon. Miss Aldworth, née St. Leger, the only lady Freemason, which realized 127. two years. last July.

Harold Macfarlane.

Craft cramp, or craft palsy, is a nervous disease "caused by handicraft or interfering with it; the body being otherwise unaffected." Dr. Vivian Poore, a well-known specialist, says (A System of Medicine, vol. viii.), there can be no reason why any occupation which involves the incessant repetition of some one action should not give rise to a "cramp" of this sort. A French scientist, Dr. Duchenne, describes these peculiar cramps or palsies as "professional impotences, whereby the patient finds himself unable to perform the particular acts by which he earns his living." In extreme cases the patient may become totally and permanently incapacitated.

Sometimes, to begin with an example not too familiar, the impotence may take the form of a strange affection of the eyes, from which miners have been known to suffer. What is called "miner's nystagmus" has been found among workers in mines both in England and in France. In walking or creeping along the narrow, low-roofed tunnel of a mine, the miner goes with his head down and his eyes strained upwards. Again, the miner engaged in getting coal by "holing," lies prone

on his side in an awkward and uneasy attitude, and his eye is turned "obliquely upwards and to one side." In both situations the strain upon the eye is extreme, and may give rise to nystagmus, when the organ of vision is thrown out of gear, so to speak, and the sight ceases to be true. Cases not wholly dissimilar are those of students or hard readers, whose eyes give out or who suffer from vertigo; of postmen worrying over ill-addressed envelopes; and of savants engaged in the terrible labor of deciphering manuscripts. Duchenne records the case of a patient of his own, a young man, who committed suicide when his eyes had refused their office of reading. Dr. Poore was consulted by a watchmaker who was "seized with a painful cramp" whenever he tried to hold his watchmaker's lens in his eye. These are instances of the failure, through fatigue, of what are called the muscles of accommodation.

Stammering, as distressing as any among the lesser disorders we are prey to, is an obvious hindrance in some callings, and would completely debar its victim from entrance into others. A stammerer in the pulpit

could seldom edify; a stammerer on the stage would be impossible. An extreme instance of stammering as a "professional impotence" is that of the auctioneer who suddenly found himself unable to say, "going, goinggone!"

As illustrations these are, however, for the most part a little out of the

common.

What is universally known as writer's cramp is the nervous disease of handicraft the doctors are best acquainted with. It is what one might almost call the current, household, or ready-made instance of craft palsy. "Cases of difficulty in writing," says Dr. Poore, "are far more common than all the other craft palsies taken together. In the past twenty-five years I have seen many hundred cases of craft palsy of one kind and another, and of these at least ninety per cent. have been cases of 'writing difficulty.'" There are patent reasons for this. Most of us are writers to some extent, and the name of the professional clerk is legion. Hence, if there were anything in the mere act of writing which was especially liable to derangement, we should expect to find that the palsy of writing, among those who use the pen for a living (I speak here of the pen as a tool and of penmanship as a clerkly calling), was not only a usual and prevalent, but a quite preponderant disease of its kind. Now, the act of writing is, in fact, exceptionally liable to derangement. It is, in the main, exceptionally liable to derangement because of the immense and extraordinary variety of muscular exertion which goes to produce the properly written word. My pen, as I write these lines, moves almost automatically, and I am conscious of no effort but the intellectual one of giving birth and form to my successive sentences. But the mother who gives the child its first lessons in writing

sees the pen clutched convulsively betwixt finger and thumb, the little legs twisted around the leg of the table, the eyes fixed, the mouth twitching, the forehead puckered; all these terrific efforts directed to the making of the first pot-hook-"almost every muscle of the body is engaged." And this conscious strain in the endeavor to write continues during years. The schoolboy, after four, five or six years in class, is still painfully “forming his hand"; and the full-blown clerk has not acquired it within a year or two's drudgery at the ledger. Some of us never write to be read, but only to be deciphered. It is to be noted that the form of muscular fatigue called writer's cramp is usually confined, or chiefly confined, to the fingers which grasp the pen. The muscles which drive it seem to be much less affected. In all occupations which involve a prolonged, habitual, and more or less incessant muscular strain, there is a liability to break down; but, as might be expected, the break-down rarely occurs in early life. The craft palsy, that is to say, is the untoward result of sticking steadily to the trade one has to live by; of sticking to it till the muscles concerned are So completely wearied that they will no longer respond to the bidding of the brain -willy nilly, they go on strike: and the disease affects alike the highly skilled artisan, the indifferent one, and the bungler. When the craft palsy proper attacks a very young worker, some congenital defect is generally looked for.

Old women earning a little by knitting, which is a complicated process, are sometimes forced to lay their needles aside.

The professional pianist, compelled to practise many hours a day, is liable to a disabling form of wrist cramp. We may not often hear of the collapse of a Paderewski; but the humbler ar