who had proclaimed himself a native of New England, and who spoke with a somewhat more cultivated accent than the others, “you mean well, no doubt, but you must see that any further interference on your part would be as useless to the prisoner as dangerous to yourself.”
In the angry faces of those around me I read a confirmation of his words, and with a heavy heart I became silent. As we rode out of the wood I observed that the “Regulators” took the same road that I did, and, disagreeable as was to me their companionship, no opportunity presented itself immediately of separating myself from them without doing so in such a manner as to manifest, more palpably than was prudent, my distaste for their society. In about a quarter of an hour, however, we reached another fork in the road, and having directed Ned, in an undertone, to keep close to me, I dropped rather behind the rest of the party, determined that whichever path my companions took, I would follow the other. But the possibility of my desiring to part company with them had, I soon found, been anticipated, and, for certain reasons, provided against by the “Regulators.”
“Mister Scudder,” said the judge, who had been engaged for the last few minutes in a whispered colloquy with three or four of the party, “straingers who travel out West must abide by Western law. We’ve dun what we consider justice on yonder critter, and we won’t allow no man to hinder it. You needn’t git mad,” he added, as he perceived the colour rise in my face at this brusque language, “but you’ve got to go ’long with us for an hour or two, so that we may be certain that you don’t take the back track and set the feller free.”
I had no alternative but to yield obedience to this decision, and we continued our route in silence. We had not ridden many miles when the rapid gallopping of a horse was heard behind us, and in a few moments the animal which had been the unconscious instrument of punishing the wrong done its owner, dashed into our midst, covered with foam, and evidently much terrified. Whether his rider had himself precipitated the catastrophe, or whether the horse, tired of standing still, had started off of his own accord, can never, of course, be known; but to those who are acquainted with the natural timidity of the animal, and the readiness with which he is startled by anything not within the ordinary range of his experience, it will not appear surprising that he should have been thoroughly frightened at finding himself relieved of his burthen in so sudden and so unusual a manner.
It was to me an almost inexpressible relief to know that all was over, that whatever the sufferings of the unhappy wretch had been, they were now ended. And it was with a much lighter heart that, so soon as the slight confusion incident to stopping and securing the horse had subsided, I resumed my journey.
“I guess, Mr. Scudder,” said the judge to me with a grim smile, “we needn’t trouble you now to go ’long with us any further than you’ve a mind to. You’ve seen how we treat them as steal our hosses, and you kin tell your folks when you git back East, that we sarve nigger-stealers the same way.”
While this stern warning was yet ringing in my ears, the whole party struck into a gallop and were soon out of sight. Such was my first, but by no means my last, experience of Lynch law in the West.
“SILVERTOWN.”
The boy’s most popular notion connected with india-rubber is, that it is good to make “bladder pop;” and in order to make this material, it has to go through a process of manufacture which comes to boys by a kind of instinct. We all remember during “map days,” how the india-rubber, too often called into requisition, grew hot and crumbled, and as the pieces broke off, how they found their way into the mouth to undergo the process of mastication, and how, when chewed to a proper consistency, it became ductile, non-elastic, and sticky,—qualities requisite to make it imprison the air, which, on pressure, forced its way through the yielding substance in the shape of bladders, that burst with a pop, the sole reward of the school-boy for hours of very tiring jaw-work. How little we imagined, when employed in this manner, and enjoying by anticipation the simple pleasures of the final pop, that we were going through a process which science has since indicated as the best method of manipulating india-rubber for the purposes of the domestic arts. In the powerful machinery employed by the manufacturers of caoutchouc, we see but an elaboration of the masticating powers of the boy’s jaw, which, with the heat of the mouth, works up the sixpenny square of india-rubber into the substance we are all so well acquainted with.
We paid a visit, the other day, to “Silvertown,” the little manufacturing village at North Woolwich, belonging to the Messrs. Silver, in which the many substances into which india-rubber can be transformed are produced by the powerful and curious machinery there at work; and it was whilst watching the different processes, that we came to the conclusion, that the boy is father to the man, even in a manufacturing capacity, as we have already hinted.
How little we are able to forecast the uses to which a new material may ultimately be applied, is perhaps as much evidenced by this substance, Caoutchouc, as by any other in existence. As far back as the year 1770, Dr. Priestley, in the introduction to his book on Perspective, says, “Since this work was printed off, I have seen a substance excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the marks of a black-lead pencil. It must therefore be of singular use to those who practise drawing. It is sold by Mr. Maine, mathematical instrument maker, opposite the Royal Exchange. He sells a cubical piece of about half-an-inch for three shillings, and he says it will last for several years.”
How little this philosopher imagined that a substance thus incidentally mentioned in a drawing-book, was destined to become one