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BALLOU'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

VOL. XXXIX.-No. 3.

MARCH, 1874.

WHOLE NO. 231.

HEADS OF THE PEOPLE.

There is no more amusing study, for one who takes an interest in it, than that of the "human face divine," especially as it is revealed in all its varieties of form, feature and expression within the borders of a crowd. There one may find representatives of almost every class in society, from the fresh unconscious rosiness of childhood to the seamed and wrinkled face upon which the years in passing have traced the "tablet of unutterable thoughts." And what a difference may be seen in the countenances of the aged! Upon the heads of

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some the crown of years rests with a silvery brightness, lending a certain grace even to the bowed figure and time-narked features, while the eyes, once so bright, now somewhat dimmer than of old, beam out upon the world with a kindly light from which the exaction of youth has entirely faded. Cold indeed must be the heart that does not yield reverence to such beautiful old age. But alas! there is another and less pleasing side to the picture; and what sight can be more repulsive to the finer feelings than a wrinkled, withered face, out of which the eyes peer maliciously, in which the lips wear a continual expression of dis

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studying the peculiarities and characteristics of humankind, we begin to look about us with the eye of a connoisseur, sure to find something upon which to fasten our attention.

The first face, as good fortune will have it, which meets our eyes, is that of a golden-haired, blue-eyed child whose sweetly expressive countenance needs but little study to enable us to determine its character. Pretty rogue! the task of the physiognomist would be slight were all faces as open and innocent as yours, where the gayety of childhood is mingled with the sweetness of innocence, Just beside you is

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"papa," an average business man, we should say at first glance, with nothing very remarkable about him, though we happen to know that he seems exceedingly like a hero to the dainty wife whose face is not in the crowd. And perhaps you would like to know why. One day, during the time when she was "heart-whole and fancy-free," the present Mrs. Darley started out with the very prosaic intention of doing a little shopping. She was a very pretty object to look at as she tripped along, as fresh and sweet as a rosebud, and all went well until she found it necessary to cross to the other side of the street. She may have been a little absent-minded, but be that as it may, she found herself confronted by a rapidly-advancing horse-car, and in stepping aside to avoid that, she inadvertently placed herself exactly in the path of a runaway horse which its drunken driver was powerless to control, and which came dashing madly along with almost lightninglike speed. But though she did not know her terrible danger, it was seen by a gentleman on the platform of the horse-car, and he sprang forward and drew the astonished girl out of the horse's path to the imminent risk of his own life or limbs. So this is why Darley's wife thinks him a hero; and such was the beginning of their acquaintance; and now she is Mrs. Darley and the mother of the sweet baby we first looked at, who has coaxed "papa" to take her out to-day-hence her presence in the crowd. Perhaps you will notice after this that Darley has a very square and prominent chin, and a decided animation in his eye that separate him somewhat from the list of ordinary men with the reader of faces.

That weather-beaten man next to Darley is a fireman, and good service he has rendered in his department. During the terrible fires in which our city suffered so severely he won both praise and admiration for his energetic bravery, and saved many lives and much property from destruction in conjunction with others of hls comrades His face is a noble one, though not so beautiful in feature and complexion as some, and he is a type of those who do not know how to shirk their duties.

Just back of the fireman is a lad whom we will call Tommy Wildfoot. He is a little larger than his pipe, but not much. Evidently he would not enjoy peace of mind

if he should wear his hat in its proper place on the top of his head, and he is not wellbred enough to mind if he does smoke into ladies' faces. His character and countenance belong to a certain class of young America distinguished more for an aping of the vices of older and wickeder persons than for anything else. Let us hope that when he is a little wiser he will cease to be an object of pitying contempt, and will redeem himself in the eyes of his friends by a more sensible way of showing his manliness.

Here our glance falls on a well-remembered face, on which the eyeglasses seem perfectly natural adjuncts to the features. Surely that is Miss Saponica Selwyn, a member of one of our first families, and a single lady of uncertain age. How little she changes from year to year! The same prim pursed-up mouth, the same fastidious nose and critical glance that we have been wont to see for-well, a long time. Perfect indeed must be the man or woman who escapes her lash of criticism, yet she has a fund of kindness under it all, and is really the friend of the needy, though she has little patience with idlers and the improvident. Another thing we can venture to whisper, which is that this lady is what is familiarly called "an old maid from choice." She has had good offers, but honestly preferred her independence to the chains of wedlock, since none of her suitors fulfilled her ideas of the "perfect man." If any regret ever rises to trouble her heart in regard to the life she has chosen, she keeps it firmly under subjection, and no one knows it.

Behind Miss Selwyn we see young Mrs. Frisky, who dotes on fashion, and has no sorrow so great as that which fills her morsel of a heart at being denied any new and becoming, and also costly trifle. She is pretty, but weak and vain, and her face is a very good index to her character, while the tout ensemble of the woman, from her elaborately-fashionable headgear to the lowest ruffle and ruching on her dress, betrays the mere automaton of fashion. Poor Frisky himself has sad cause to rue his wife's extravagant wishes, which keep him in a financial agony much of the time.

Glancing along, we see another characteristic head-more truthful than pleasant in its indications. That is old Mr. Moneylove, who has amassed an immense for

tuns, but has the reputation of being the most intensely disagreeble man in town in his own family. He has been known to angrily denounce his accomplished and lady-like daughter as a "brainless little fool" before assembled guests, and is said to treat his wife and children more like slaves whose whole duty is to minister to his comfort and gratify his whims than as equals and companions. Consequently, his old age is loveless, and he is really miserable with all his gold.

But as we turn from the face of hard and sensual old age our eyes brighten as they rest on the truly beautiful face of the young heiress Bella Rich. Certainly, this is a motley assemblage, and there are some people who always look distinguished in a crowd; of these is Bella. She is royal in her beauty and in her presence, one of nature's and fortune's favorites-would there were more of them! See how clear is the glance of her lovely eyes-she makes one think of Lady Geraldine

"For her eyes alone smile constantly; her lips have serious sweetness,

whose black face shows over Bella's shoulder, is equally a representative in her way of another strata in the great structure of society. Like some of the useful portions of architecture which do very good service in upholding the whole edifice, though not so ornamental as the more delicate finish, Aunt Mollie performs her duties well, and so deserves praise in her own proper sphere.

The man we see further down is the captain of a vessel lately returned from a trip to South America-a man of force and decision, and much more of a character than the eye-glassed youth at his side.

In the background we get glimpses of the man of fashion, the horse-car conductor, the day-laborer, "sweet seventeen," and Jack tar, fresh from the forecastle. The redoubtable Mrs. Biffins has her face partially turned from us, and is evidently sailing along in search of "bargains," for she is the terror of clerks, and a marvel to her acquaintances, who often flatter her by requesting her to make some purchase for them, adding, "You are so much better at a bargain than we are, you know;" while

And her front is calm-the dimple rarely ripples her son, the young man at her side with

on her cheek:

But her deep blue eyes smile constantly--as if they in discreetness

Kept the secret of a happy dream she did not care to speak."

There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and in this case but one glance from delicate aristocratic beauty to African obesity. But good cook Mollie,

the Grecian nose, looks intensely disgusted at the whole affair.

After all, it is of faces more than of heads that we have discoursed, and in order that our readers may see how correctly we have described them, we have had the whole crowd photographed, and present a fac-simile of it on our first page.

AN EXTINCT BIRD.

The dodo of the island of Mauritius, like the apteryx of New Zealand, has been rejected by incredulous people as merely a creation of the imagination, since it is not now in existence, though accounts were given of it as late as the last of the seventeenth century. But, however unlikely it may appear at the first glance, the proofs that the dodo did exist in large numbers within two centuries, and that it has since been exterminated, are conclusive and indisputable.

This singular bird was discovered by Vasco da Gama in 1497, and has been mentioned by various voyagers, from the Dutchmen Jacob van Neck and Wybrand van Warwijk, in 1598, to Captain Talbot, in 1697. A work was published in London

in 1848, entitled "The Dodo and its Kindred," in which many quaint descriptions and figures of the bird are given, showing that it was common in the 17th century, and was often used as food by sailors.

The following description of the bird by an old writer-Bontius-will be interesting to the reader by reason of its quaintness as well as its accuracy: "The droute or dodærs, is for bigness of mean size between the ostrich and a turkey, from which it partly differs in shape and partly agrees with them, especially with the African ostriches, if you consider the rump, quills and feathers; so that it was like a pigmy among them if you regard the shortness of its legs. It hath a great ill-favored head, covered with a kind of membrane, resem

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achs. If they be old, or not well boiled, they are of difficult concoction, and are salted and stored up for provision of victual. There are found in their stomachs stones of an ash color, of divers figures and magnitudes, yet not bred there, as the common people and seamen fancy, but swallowed by the bird; as though by this mark also nature would manifest that these fowls are of the ostrich kind, in that they swallow any hard things though they do not digest them."

Another writer, Sir F. Herbert, who visited the Mauritius in 1625, does not agree with Bontius in his estimation of the dodo as food. In his amusing book of travels he says, "The dodo, a bird the Dutch call walghvogel, or dod-eersen; her body is round and fat, which occasions the slow pace, or that her corpulencie, and so great as few of them weigh less than fifty pound; meat it is with some, but better to the eye than stomach, such as only a strong appetite can vanquish. It is of a melancholy visage, as sensible of nature's injury in framing so massive a body to be directed by complimental wings, such, indeed, as are unable to hoise her from the ground, serving only to rank her among birds. Her train, three small plumes, short and improportionable, her legs suiting to her body, her pounces sharp, her appetite strong and greedy. Stones and iron are digested; which description will be better conceived in her representation."

The truth of these word-pictures of the dodo will be seen on glancing at our fine representation on page 208. It is said that these strange birds were at one time so plentiful that sailors were in the habit of killing them merely for the sake of obtaining the stones in their stomachs, which they found very useful for sharpening their clasp-knives. In 1638 a living spscimen was exhibited in London, and described by Sir Hamon Lestrange as a "great fowle, somewhat bigger than the largest turkeycock, and so legged and footed, but stouter and thicker, and of a more erect shape, colored before like the breast of a young fesan, and the back of dun or deare color."

The Dutch began to colonize the Mauritius in 1644, and the dodos were soon exterminated by the colonists, and by the dogs, cats and rats which came with them and devoured the eggs and young in the

nests; so that after the French took possession of the island, in 1715, and named it the Isle of France, the dodo was not mentioned as a living bird. Singularly enough, this remarkable extinction of an animal by human means has left behind less traces to satisfy the student of natural history in regard to the appearance and formation of the bird than have been found of animals tlie period of whose existence must be dated many years. further back, but which perished from geological causes. Its position among the feathered tribes was long held a matter of doubt, and it was generally placed between the ostrich and the bustard; but after a careful examination of the relics it was decided that it belonged to the pigeon family.

Aside from the rude drawings of the early voyagers, there are in existence at least six oil paintings of the dodo by eminent artists, which are doubtless faithful representations of the living birds from which they were copied. The first of these paintings, and the one used in all books of natural history, is from the hand of an unknown artist, but he was probably one of those who painted the others. There are three pictures by Roland Savery, one at the Hague, another in Berlin, and a third in Vienna dated 1628; a fifth painting is in the Ashmolean museum, by John Savery, and a sixth in the gallery of the Duke of Northumberland, painted by Goeimare, and dated 1827.

The most important relics of the dodo are a foot in the British museum, and a head and foot in the Ashmolean museum at Oxford, England, that have been rendered familiar by numerous casts. These portions of the bird are all that have been preserved of the perfect specimen deposited in the Ashmolean museum, which was suffered to fall into decay, no one seeming to be aware of its great value. When the skin was destroyed, the head and feet were laid away with other objects, according to the code of regulations, aud were afterward discovered to the great delight of the finder. They were perfect enough to prove that such a bird had really once existed, and that it had been correctly represented by artists and draughtsmen. The head preserves the beak and nostrils, the bare skin of the face, and the partially feathered occiput; the eyes are dried into the head, but the horny end of the beak is gone.

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