FLINT JACK. I. On the 6th of January, 1862, a considerable gathering of geologists and their friends took place at the rooms in Cavendish Square, in which, at that time, the meetings of the Geologists Association were held, under the presidency of Professor Tennant. Two popular subjects were announced for the evening's consideration; the one being "On Lime and Lime-stones," by the President; the other, "On the ancient Flint Implements of Yorkshire, and the Modern Fabrication of similar specimens," by the Rev. Thomas Wiltshire, the Vice-president. These announcements attracted a full attendance of members, and of their wives and daughters. The ladies rapidly filled the upper portion of the lectureroom nearest the platform; but courteously left the foremost row of seats to be occupied by the friends of the President and the Committee. It soon became evident that it was to be a crowded meeting, and as the back seats gradually filled, many a wistful glance was cast at these reserved seats; yet, by common consent, they were left vacant. Presently, however, an individual made his way through the crowd whose strange appearance drew all eyes towards him, and whose effrontery in advancing to the foremost seats, and coolly sitting down in one of them, was greeted by a suppressed titter on the part of the ladies. He was a weather-beaten man of about forty-five years of age, and he came in dirty tattered clothes, and heavy | navvy's boots, to take precedence of the whole assemblage: it was natural, therefore, that the time spent in waiting for the President's appearance should be occupied in taking an inventory of his curious costume and effects. ness, and have recently received their finishing touches from his own confessions and from his committal to Bedford Jail. According to his own account, the individual known, among other names, as Flint Jack, was born in the year 1815, at Sleights, near Whitby, in Yorkshire. His real name is Edward Simpson; his father was a sailor; and the boy appears to have led a respectable life, earning his living, from the age of fourteen, as servant or assistant to gentlemen engaged in geo.i logical pursuits. Against this, we must mention that some of those who know him best deny that his dialect is that of a Yorkshireman, and point to one of the names by which he was known twenty years ago ("Cockney Bill,") as suggesting a more likely origin. However this may be, Simpson has gained credit, and has satisfactorily accounted for his own knowledge of geology, by stating that for five years he was in the service of Dr. Young, the historian of Whitby, and was a constant attendant on all his fossil-hunting expeditions. Subsequently (as he affirms) he entered on a similar engagement with Dr. Ripley, also of Whitby, with whom he remained six years. On the death of his master, in 1840, he seems to have com menced business on his own account, wandering about the neighbourhood of Whitby, gathering and selling fossils. At any rate, it was at this time that he became well known on the Yorkshire coast, and acquired the name of Fossil Willy. He was then engaged in honest traffic. The young man is de scribed as more than ordinarily intelligent; and he appears both then and afterwards to have had a great delight in beautiful scenery, and in the rambling life which continually brought him into fresh localities. In 1841 Fossil Willy was carrying on a successful trade with two gentlemen in Scarborough, who were collectors of fossils. He included Filey and Brid very handy" in cleaning fossils. All his rambles were performed on foot; and he seems at this period to have led a pleasant life, and to have been tolerably well off. We have no clear account of the circumstances under which h began to act dishonestly. It was at Whitby, in 183, according to his own account, that he saw a British barbed arrow-head for the first time, and was asked if he could imitate it. If this really was the suggestion of some other mind than his own, the tempter has much to answer for. The flint arrow-head which he copied led to his downfall; it was the commencement of a long series of forgeries, and the extinction of Jack's honest trade. To search for the real objects was a work of time and labour; to manufacture spurious ones became so easy and so profitable that the temptation was too great for the individual henceforth appro priately named Flint Jack. His earlier efforts, how ever, in this new traffic, were comparatively clumsy. He could not settle on the best form of tool, and at last he discovered it by mere accident. Taking up. one day, the hasp of a gate which was loose, he struck a blow with it on a flint, and a fine flake fell off, of a size and form which, by a little chipping of the edges could easily be converted into an arrow-head. Thus it became evident that a curved piece of iron was the tool required, and Jack was no longer at a loss. A hi of iron rod six or eight inches long, and curved at the ends, is still his chief tool, to which he sometimes adds a small round-faced hammer of soft iron, and a common bradawl. But Jack can make a water-worn pebble from the sea-beach to answer his purpose, on an emergency, as well as the hammer. He wore a dark cloth coat, hanging in not unpicturesque rags about the elbows; it was buttoned over a cotton shirt which might once have been white, but which had degenerated to a yellow brown. About his neck was a fragment of a blue cotton handkerchief; his skin was of a gipsy brown, his hair hung in lank black locks about a forehead and face that were not altogether unprepossessing, except for the furtive and cunning glances which he occasionally cast around him from eyes that did not correspond with each other in size and expression. His corduroys, which were in a sorry condition, had been turned up; and their owner had evidently travelled through heavy clay, the dried remains of which bedaubed his boots. Altogether he was a puzzling object to the ladies; he had not the robust health or the cleanliness of a railway navvy; he differed from all known species of the London working man; he could scarcely be an ordinary beggar "on the tramp," for by what means could such an individual have gained admittance to a lecture-room in Cavendish Square? Yet this last character was the one best represented by the general appearance of the man, who carried an old greasy hat in one hand, and in the other a small bundle tied up in a dingy red cotton handkerchief. The most amusing part was the comfortable assurance with which he took his seat, unchallenged by any of the officials, and the way in which he made himself at home by depositing on the floor, on one side his hat, on the other side his little red bundle, and then set to work to study the diagrams and specimens which were displayed on the platform. At length the President, Vice-president, and Com-lington in his walks, and became " mittee entered the room, and the business of the evening commenced. Many glances were cast at the stranger by the members of the Committee, but no one seemed astonished or annoyed at his presence; and, in fact, he was allowed to retain the prominent position which he had chosen for himself. He listened attentively to the President's lecture, and to the discussion which followed; but his countenance betrayed a keener interest when the second paper of the evening, that on Yorkshire Flint Implements, was read. And here the mystery of the stranger was suddenly revealed, for in the course of his remarks on the clever fabrications of modern times, by which these ancient flint implements were successfully copied, the Vice-president stated, that, through the efforts of Professor Tennant, a person was in attendance who, with the aid of only a small piece of iron rod, bent at the end, would, with remarkable dexterity, produce almost any form of flint weapon desired. He then desired the stranger to mount the platform, and the man, taking up his hat and bundle, seated himself in a conspicuous position on the platform, and prepared to exhibit his skill. He undid the knots of his red handkerchief, which proved to be full of fragments of flint. He turned them over, and selected a small piece, which he held, sometimes on his knee, sometimes in the palm of his hand, and gave it a few careless blows with what looked like a crooked nail. In a few minutes he had produced a small arrow-head, which he handed to a gentleman near, and went on fabricating another with a facility and rapidity which proved long practice. Soon a crowd had collected round the forger, while his fragments of flint were fast converted into different varieties of arrow-heads, and exchanged for sixpences among the audience. This was the first appearance before the public, in London, of the celebrated "Flint Jack," whose life and adventures have since been traced with some minute The trade on which Jack had now entered require a considerable knowledge of antiquities, and he took care to avail himself of any opportunities which came in his way of visiting museums and private collections, In this manner he became acquainted with the forms and materials of urns, beads, seals, &c., with a view to their imitation. In the beginning of 1844 he was assisting an antiquarian at Bridlington to form a collection of British flints. The genuine ones are abundant in that neighbourhood; but Jack was able to supplement his gatherings to any extent by his own fabrications. In the sale of these, and in the collection of materials for his manufacture, he is said to have walked, ordinarily, thirty or forty miles a day, distributing among purchasers his ancient stone and flint implements with a lavish hand, of which the neighbourhood still bears traces. One of his Bridlington customers (Mr. Tindall), speaking of a purchase made by him of thirty-five flint implements, says, "I bought them because they differed much in their make and shape from any that I had found myself. They were very dirty, and I could not get them clean with cold water, so I put eight or nine of the dirtiest into a saucepan, and boiled them. When I drained off the water I found that several of them were made up of splinters struck from the flint when in course of being made, and which Cockney Bill had joined together with boiled alum to make them perfect." Jack was always careful to give the history of his specimens, and to describe the localities and the tumuli whence they were obtained. He sold to the gentleman just named an apparently ancient urn, which he said he had extracted from a tumulus on a certain farm called East Hunton. Immediately afterwards, Mr. Tindall took three men with him to the locality, and having discovered and opened the tumulus, he actually found two urns, several flint implements, and an axe-head of stone; but he is quite certain that this tumulus had never been opened previously. What, then, was the history of Jack's ancient urn? It was simply this. The cunning fellow knew that the neighbourhood was pretty well stocked with arrow-heads; he was also aware that these implements are often found accompanied by urns, and that it might reasonably be expected by his patrons that in finding the one he would sometimes light upon the other. He had therefore established, in a secret place among the cliffs of Bridlington Bay, a manufacture of ancient pottery," and this urn was probably the fruit of his own industry. A wild and solitary life must have been that of this ancient potter, as he moulded his clay into the rude shapes of which he had seen specimens in museums, and then set them out to dry in sheltered places among the rocks, finishing by a slight firing of the articles by means of dried grass, and brambles. Jack's early productions in this way appear to have gulled the public; but they did not satisfy his own correct taste. Later in his career he spoke with great contempt of his early manufacture of urns. The windy cliffs among which he worked were found unfavourable, and he removed to a more sheltered and wooded region about Stainton Dale, between Whitby and Scarborough, where he was equally screened from observation, and where he built himself a hut, and carried on his pottery works. After a large baking of urns he would set off to some favourable mart for their sale. On one occasion he sold an ancient urn to a gentleman in Bridlington, which was so much valued by the owner, that on accidentally letting it fall, and breaking it to pieces, he gave it back to Jack for repair, and paid him handsomely for joining the fragments together in a clever way. A few days afterwards, however, there was discovered, in a corner of the room where the accident had happened to the urn, a large portion of the bottom and side of the same, which had been overlooked when the fragments were given to Jack. This untoward discovery shook Jack's credit in Bridlington, and doubtless caused him to turn his steps in another direction. In a future notice we shall trace his further wanderings, and the audacious counterfeits on which he subsequently ventured. A NIGHT WITHOUT A NEST NE bright April morning, after a great deal of twittering and chirping, two robin redbreasts decided that they really would begin to build a nest. They chose out for it a snug, leafy corner of a great oak tree, and then they flew away to the wood close by, for the best twigs and moss they could find. After they had put all these nicely together, they spent two or three days hunting the hedges and farmyards for wool that had fallen off the sheep's backs, that the nest might have a soft lining, and be very warm and comfortable through the cold winds that do come sometimes even in April. The nest was finished at last, and then, after a short time, there were four little eggs lying on the woolly lining, and soon three little heads popped their beaks out of three broken eggshells (for a young bird never came out of one of the eggs), and three small voices twittered out into the fresh spring air. The father and mother robin were very proud of their new children, and they used to sing to each other, when the other birds were not listening, that they believed there were not such pretty young robins as theirs in the whole wood. Their breasts were as red as the inside of a red rose, and their backs were as soft and as brown as a beech-nut. The poor parent robins did not know how soon two sad accidents were to happen, for a great cruel bird swooped down and killed one of the little robins just as it was beginning to fly, and soon after the second little robin fell from the nest one very windy day, and died from the fall. So now the father and mother had only one little bird left, and they sung to it, and watched over it, and fed it with a great deal of care; it seemed as if they could never take enough care of it. One day they were going out to hunt for fat, juicy worms for its supper-these worms were to be found in a mudbank some way off, so they bid their little child good-bye and flew away, chirping to it as they went. The little robin was now in the nest by herself, and her heart began to beat very fast; for though she was now some months old, and could fly pretty well, still she was very timid, and easily frightened. Once she heard a bee buzz close to her car, and she trembled all over; then came a sound like voices speaking, and she shivered again, and made herself very small in the great empty nest. The voices seemed to come nearer and nearer, and after a few minutes the robin heard a loud rough sound just underneath the nest. Peeping out her little head, she saw down below two things-two beings-moving about there that she had never seen in her life before. She knew, however, from what her mother had told her, that these must be two of her worst enemies-men--boys, who often dragged down nests from the trees, and carried the young birds away to torture and kill them, or to shut them up in cages, from which they could never escape, or fly again under the blue sky. The poor little robin caught the glimmer of two strange blue things that looked like eyes, and she shook all over with fright. Then she heard the two creatures moving about, the boughs of the tree began to crack, the leaves to fall, and she knew that danger was coming nearer and nearer, and that the beings she dreaded so much would soon be close up to the nest where she was. Anything would be better than that; and so putting forth all her strength, she made a great jump, and away she flew, away, away, so fast, faster than she ever thought she could fly. At last, out of breath, she stopped, but she did not know where; everything was strange, the trees were so thick and close together, and nothing seemed to be in the least like her old home in the oak tree. It was now far on in the afternoon, the sun was near the west, and the red clouds were gathering round him; the bees and butterflies were flying home, and some of the flowers were beginning to close their eyes and to fall fast asleep. The little robin, perched on the bough of a chesnut tree, saw all these signs of approaching evening, and she knew enough to know that the cold night would soon set in, and that it would be well if she could soon find some kind of a resting place. Her wings, too, were stiff from her long flight, and she was quite ready for any worms, even a thin one, if she could only get it. A chirping sound overhead made her look up; it came from a thrush's nest in one of the branches, where the mother thrush was singing softly to its little children. The sound seemed so homelike, that the little robin took heart and cried out timidly-"Oh! please let me into your nest; I won't take up much room, indeed I won't, and I can't find my way home; and I'm afraid to go, if I knew it." "Go away," called out the mother thrush, looking down. 66 Go away, I never encourage beggars. Why didn't you stay at home ?" And her voice was so cross and sharp, that the little robin was afraid to answer her, and flew off a little further to a white hawthorn tree. On one of the boughs was a wren's pretty little nest, and the robin thought how very comfortable it would be if she could only get into a corner of it, put her sleepy little head under her wing, and rest for a while. She perched close beside the nest, and presently out started a little brown head, and a voice cried, Who's there?" and then a number of smaller brown heads started up, and a number of sharp bright eyes stared the robin in the face, and a number of small voices tried to say, "Who's there?" too. 66 "Please, please let me in," was all the poor little wanderer could say; for she felt quite ashamed at meeting so many strange curious eyes. 66 "Let you in indeed!" cried mother wren, indignantly. A likely story. Why we've barely room for ourselves; it's hard work squeezing and packing, as it is, with this large family I have round me. We must build a larger nest next year. No! no! away with you, young redbreast! we've no room for you, not an inch.' "Oh, dear! oh, dear!" chirped the poor little bird, as she flew off to one of the boughs of a thick hazel hedge, for she was now so tired that she could not fly high any longer. A nest was in the hedge, and she tapped her beak against the nearest branch, hoping that the birds inside would hear her and look out. So sure enough they did; two heads instantly appeared, and a hoarse, noisy voice called, "Who's that! and what do you want here ?" "It's only me," said the little robin; " and I'm afraid of being out all the night by myself. Would you let me into your nest-only for one night-I'm very small, indeed I am." The hedge-sparrows burst out into a hoarse noise that sounded like a laugh. Not we," they cried; "we've had enough of visitors. That old wretch of a cuckoo came and left two of its plaguing young ones here, and here they are still, eating us out of house and home. We don't want any more visitors, I can tell you, young redbreast, and the sooner you're off the better." So saying, they put their heads under their wings again, and settled themselves for a comfortable, long sleep. The poor little robin's heart began to sink within her, for the night was coming on fast, and it was beginning to be quite dark. She shivered with terror as she thought of the bats and owls and terrible night monsters that might kill her, or hurt her terribly; and she was now so cold and stiff that she felt she could not fly fast or far to get out of their way. It seemed as if she was forgotten by every one. All the other little birds had warm nests and good suppers, while she knew not where to find her beautiful nest; and as for her father and mother, they might be miles and miles away. No one cared for her; all the birds seemed to think of their own ease and comfort, not one of hers, poor desolate wanderer; and, perched on a lime bough, she cried bitterly with cold, hunger, and fright. Oh! if some one would only let me in," she sobbed; "if some one would only let me in." "What are you doing there? be off, I say, be off," cried an angry voice; and looking up, the little robin saw a large crow's nest high up in the tree. Half dead with fright, she flew away with all speed, for the great black head and the loud harsh voice frightened her out of her wits. It was now far on in the night; the moon came out now and then, but often a dark cloud hid it from sight, while the stillness and strangeness of everything around struck fear into the poor little bird, and chilled her to the heart. She seemed alone in the wood-world; alone, except when the flapping of owls' wings or the rustling of branches warned her that danger was at hand. Tired and worn out, she hopped along on the grass; but she could not get on fast, for her wings were draggled and wet with dew, and the cold night wind numbed her with its chilly breath. She thought if she could find some long tuft of grass or fern she might creep in and rest a little; but just then a rustling in the hedge close by made her start, and by the moonlight struggling through a cloud she saw, indistinctly, a great bushy thing moving quickly along. It was a fox's tail, and to the little robin it seemed a monstrous frightful apparition, something that was coming upon her, and from which she must escape as she would escape from death. Fear gave her strength, and up, up she flew, never once stopping to take breath; still up, till, panting with fright and weariness, she sank down upon the branch of a tree, her heart beating as if it would burst her pretty red breast. All the birds that lived in this tree seemed to be, greatly to her relief, sound asleep; for as she never thought of finding a friend now, it was something to meet with no enemies. Her bright little eyes were dim with watching and fatigue, and the moon was not out of the cloud yet; but as she looked about again she caught a glimpse of a nest on the next bough. Two birds were there, and awake, too, for she heard them talking to one another-their voices sounded low, and as if they were very sad What birds could they be? They were not thrushes, nor blackbirds, certainly not crows. They must be robins. Perhaps they would be kind to her because she was a robin. She drew nearer to the nest; the birds inside popped out their heads; they stretched out their necks far, far, still farther, and then they gave one great cry of joy, that made a great many birds wake up, thinking it was morning. The little robin had found her father and mother, and the father and mother had found their little robin: they had been all round the wood looking for her, and at last, after a long search, they had given her up for lost. Now they chirped and twittered over her in the fulness of their delight, and in a minute she was in the nest, covered by their warm wings. So she knew that during all her long wanderings she had been only coming nearer and nearer her safe home; and that though she did not know it at the time, all the scoldings and cross words, that had seemed almost too much to bear, had only made her fly the closer to her father and mother. They all three made a great supper on the big fat worms, and then, wrapped closely together and filled with a great joy, they fell fast asleep, and slept till the sun was far up in the blue sky. PARISIAN SKETCHES. IN no improvement of late years has Paris made a greater advance over London than in the organization, erection, and management of the public markets. In making this assertion we do not allude to the Islington Cattle Market, but to Covent Garden, Billingsgate, the Borough, Clare Market, and others of the same description. Even in the comparison between the most celebrated of these-Covent Garden-and the corresponding one in Paris, there is something humiliating to us, boasting as we do of our metropolis of Paris, or less accommodation for the immense amount of business performed in them; now, all is order and cleanliness. The Halles of Paris then were frequently in so disgraceful a state of dirt and neglect as even to threaten a contagion; and it is considered more than probable that the virulence of the first attack of cholera in Paris was aggravated by it. Certainly the effluvium in warm, close weather, spread for a considerable distance around it. The fish market in it-though then transacting not a tithe of the business it does at the present day, when the railroads afford so much facility for bringing fish up to Pariswas disgracefully managed, to a proverb. Miserable sheds covered the stalls of the dealers in poultry, butter, and eggs, under which they were nearly stifled being the richest and most populous in the world. The greatest credit that can be given to Covent Garden is the immense amount of business carried on in spite of its inconvenient locality and restricted space. The new Halle, or Grand Central Market in Paris, with possibly less business transactions in it, is ten times larger and wonderfully more convenient; and the minor markets, that in the Rue St. Honoré especially, are equally in their way to be admired. The Halles Centrales are quite of modern erection. A harlequin's wand (supposing it to be really endowed with the power it appears to exercise on the stage) could hardly have effected a more wonderful metamorphosis in the aspect of the locality than has been made by the more practical agency of the architect and builder. Prior to the year 1830, greater confusion could hardly have existed than reigned in the Halles by the heat in summer and almost frozen by the cold in winter. All the marketable produce had to be unpacked in the open air, no matter what the weather might be. At last the nuisance increased to such an extent as to call for the intervention of government. Still, little was done for some time, the Halles seeming to be considered by the authorities as a sort of timehallowed nuisance; just as our own civic legislators for so many years seem to have regarded Smithfield, till public opinion proved too strong for them, and they were obliged to give way. It was not till the year 1851 that the reorganization of the Halles Centrales of Paris was fairly taken in hand by the government, and it was in December of the same year that the President of the Republic laid the first stone of the present market buildings. In his speech on the occasion he reminded his auditors |