of esprit de corps, for the master having his boys constantly under his supervision can more effectually establish a correct tone of manner and proper appreciation of honour, than amongst boys over whom, out of school hours, he has no control. This may be very true; but it is quite possible, though of minor importance, that the same affection of boys for the honour of their schools is as strong in large public day schools as in larger boarding schools, and the supervision of the master similarly exercised.

Again, it is claimed for the boarding school that it is a far fitter place for a boy to spend his hours of recreation than his home. There discipline, good temper, mutual concession, and the advantages of co-operation are taught more effectually by companionship in manly games than in anything else. Patience in defeat and determination to benefit by it on a future occasion are great things to learn. Advantages such as these, together with consequent good health and muscular development from outdoor exercise in manly pursuits, are of no mean value. Such may be said as truly of our large public day schools for boys, such as Merchant Taylors', St. Paul's, and others, as well as of the many excellent day schools for girls belonging to the Girls' Public Day School Company.

Even those who give preference to a boarding school over a day school will at least admit that a large day school is preferable in many ways to a small

boarding school, because not only are the latter generally private ones, but because the advantages of the former are chiefly, if not entirely, absent in the smaller school. The advantages of class instruction are lost in the smaller school because of the paucity of assistant teachers, and the fact that the lower boys are forced on too fast or the higher ones kept back because the funds are not sufficient to permit of fewer boys being placed under one master.

Further, though the subjects taught are the same in both schools, the number of masters to teach is less. so that several of the subjects have to be taught by one master, who naturally cannot be expected to teach every subject equally well, or as well as a master whose whole time is given to the teaching of one, or at most two, subjects only. Moreover, competition in a small school is less keen and less close than in a large school, and consequently of less value in stimulating the intellect.

It has often been stated that the boarders, as a rule, gain superior places in examinations, and also scholarships to those gained by day scholars. If this be true, how is it that large public day schools, like Merchant Taylors' and St. Paul's, secure the largest share of scholarships for the Universities between them? No; the tendency is rather the other way, and it is becoming daily more recognised that for a child, and especially for a boy, a large public day school is the best. Even the foundationers

of Westminster School, better known as the Queen's Scholars, are under Dr. Rutherford's guidance being gradually converted into day scholars.

The question of expense has not been considered at all in these columns, but to many the additional expense attendant on sending a boy to a large boarding school will be a deterrent. The usual expense is from £70 to £80 a year, with extras, to £200 a year at Eton during the period. of the school year, which may be taken at about forty weeks.

It has been sufficiently stated on very good grounds why children should not preferably be sent to boarding schools. In the choice of day schools preference should be given to a large one, and especially to a public one. By the term public schools is meant those which derive their income either wholly or partially from endowments, as distinguished from a private school,

MARTIN

HAD been working double tides for a month: at night on my morning paper, as usual; and in the morning on an evening paper as locum tenens for another man who was taking a holiday. This was an exhausting plan of work, although it only actually involved some six hours' attendance a day, or less, at the two offices. I turned up at the head-quarters of my own paper at ten in the evening, and by the time I had seen the editor, selected a subject, written my leader, corrected the slips, chatted, smoked, and so on, and cleared off, it was very usually one o'clock. This meant bed at two, or even three, after supper at the club.

This was all very well at ordinary periods, when any time in the morning would do for rising, but when I had to be up again soon after seven, and round at the evening paper office by eight, I naturally felt a little worn and disgusted with things by midday, after a sharp couple of hours' leaderette scribbling and paragraphing, with attendant sundries.

But the strain was over, and on the first day of comparative comfort I indulged in a midday breakfast and the first undisgusted glance at a morning paper for a month. I felt rather interested in an inquest, begun the day before, on the body of a man whom I had known very slightly before I took to living in chambers.

His name was Gavin Kingscote, and he was an artist of a casual and desultory sort, having, I believe, some small private means of his own. As a matter of fact, he had boarded in the same house in which I had lodged myself for a while, but as I was at the time a late homer and a fairly early riser, taking no regular board in the house, we never became much acquainted. He had since, I understood, made some judicious Stock Exchange speculations, and had set up house in Finchley.

Now the news was that he had been found one morning murdered in his smoking-room, while the room itself, with others, was in a state of confusion. His pockets had been rifled, and his watch and chain were

* Copyright, 1894, by Arthur Morrison.

gone, with one or two other small articles of value. A friend had sat smoking with him in the room where the murder took place on the night of the tragedy, and he had been the last person to see Mr. Kingscote alive. A jobbing gardener, who kept the garden in order by casual work from time. to time, had been arrested in consequence of footprints, exactly corresponding with his boots, having been found on the garden beds near the French window of the smoking-room. I finished my breakfast and my paper, and Mrs. Clayton, the housekeeper, came to clear my table. She was sister of my late landlady of the house where Kingscote had lodged, and it was by this connection that I found my chambers. I had not seen the housekeeper since the crime was first reported, so I now said:

"This is shocking news of Mr. Kingscote, Mrs. Clayton. Did you know him yourself?"

She had apparently only been waiting for some such remark to burst out with whatever information she possessed.

"Yes, sir," she exclaimed: "shocking indeed. Pore young feller! I see him often when I was at my sister's, and he was always a nice, quiet gentleman, so different from some. My sister, she's awful cut up, sir, I assure you. And what d'you think 'appened, sir, only last Tuesday? You remember Mr. Kingscote's room where he painted the woodwork so beautiful with gold flowers, and blue, and pink? He used to tell my sister she'd always have something to remember him by. Well, two young fellers, gentlemen I can't call them, come and took that room (it being to let), and went and scratched off all the paint in mere wicked mischief, and then chopped up all the panels into sticks and bits! Nice sort o' gentlemen them! And then they bolted in the morning, being afraid I s'pose of being made to pay after treating a pore widder's property like that. That was only Tuesday, and the very next day. the pore young gentleman himself's dead, murdered in his own 'ouse, and him goin' to be married an' all! Dear, dear! I remember once he said

Mrs. Clayton was a good soul, but once she began to talk someone else had to stop

E

her. I let her run on for a reasonable time, and then rose and prepared to go out. I remembered very well the panels that had been so mischievously destroyed. They made the room the show-room of the house, which was an old one. They were indeed less than half finished when I came away, and Mrs. Lamb, the landlady, had shown them to me one day when Kingscote was out. All the walls of the room were panelled and painted white, and Kingscote had put upon them an eccentric but charm-" ing decoration, obviously suggested by some of the work of Mr. Whistler. Tendrils, flowers, and butterflies in a quaint convention wandered thinly from panel to panel, giving the otherwise rather uninteresting room an unwonted atmosphere, of richness and elegance. The lamentable jackasses who had destroyed this had certainly selected the best feature of the room whereon to inflict their senseless mischief.

I strolled idly downstairs, with no particular plan for the afternoon in my mind, and looked in at Hewitt's offices. Hewitt was reading a note, and after a little chat he informed me that it had been left an hour ago, in his absence, by the brother of the man I had just been speaking of.

"He isn't quite satisfied," Hewitt said, "with the way the police are investigating the case, and asks me to run down to Finchley and look round. Yesterday I should have refused, because I have five cases in progress already, but to-day I find that circumstances have given me a day,or two. Didn't you say you knew the man?" "Scarcely more than by sight. He was a boarder in the house at Chelsea where I stayed before I started chambers."

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Ah, well; I think I shall look into the thing. Do you feel particularly interested in the case? I mean, if you've nothing better to do, would you come with me?"

"I shall be very glad," I said. "I was in some doubt what to do with myself. Shall you start at once?"

"I think so. Kerrett, just call a cab. By the way, Brett, which paper has the fullest report of the inquest yesterday? I'll run over it as we go down.'

As I had only seen one paper that morning, I could not answer Hewitt's question. So we bought various papers as we went along in the cab, and I found the reports while Martin Hewitt studied them. Summarised, this was the evidence given

Sarah Dodson, general servant, deposed that she had been in service at Ivy Cottage,

the residence of the deceased, for five months, the only other regular servant being the housekeeper and cook. On the evening of the previous Tuesday both servants retired a little before eleven, leaving Mr. Kingscote with a friend in the smoking or sitting room. She never saw her master again alive. On coming downstairs the following morning and going to open the smokingroom windows, she was horrified to discover the body of Mr Kingscote lying on the floor of the room with blood about the head. She at once raised an alarm, and, on the instructions of the housekeeper, fetched a doctor, and gave information to the police. In answer to questions, witness stated she had heard no noise of, any sort during the night, nor had anything suspicious occurred.

Hannah Carr, housekeeper and cook, deposed that she had been in the late Mr. Kingscote's service since he had first taken Ivy Cottage-a period of rather more than a year. She had last seen the deceased alive on the evening of the previous Tuesday, at half-past ten, when she knocked at the door of the smoking-room, where Mr. Kingscote was sitting with a friend, to ask if he would require anything more. Nothing was required, so witness shortly after went to bed. In the morning she was called by the previous witness, who had just gone downstairs, and found the body of deceased lying as described. Deceased's watch and chain were gone, as also was a ring he usually wore, and his pockets appeared to have been turned out. All the ground floor of the house was in confusion, and a bureau, a writing-table, and various drawers were open-a bunch of keys usually carried by deceased being left hanging at one keyhole. Deceased had drawn some money from the bank on the Tuesday, for current expenses; how much she did not know. She had not heard or seen anything suspicious during the night. Besides Dodson and herself, there were no regular servants; there was a charwoman, who came occasionally, and a jobbing gardener, living near, who was called in as required.

Mr. James Vidler, surgeon, had been called by the first witness between seven and eight on Wednesday morning. He found the deceased lying on his face on the floor of the smoking-room, his feet being about eighteen inches from the window, and his head lying in the direction of the fireplace. He found three large contused wounds on the head, any one of which would probably have caused death. The wounds had all

been inflict

ed, apparently, with the same blunt instrumentprobably a

club or life preserver, or other similar weapon. They could not have been done with the poker. Death was due to concussion of the brain, and deceased had probably been dead seven or eight hours when witness saw him. He had since examined the body more closely, but found no marks at all indicative of a struggle having taken place; indeed, from the position of the wounds" and their severity, he should judge that the deceased had been attacked unawares from behind, and had died at once. The body appeared to be perfectly healthy.

Then there was police evidence, which showed that all the doors and windows were

"Hewitt was reading a note."

found shut and completely fastened, except the front door, which, although shut, was not bolted. There were shutters behind the French windows in the smoking-room, and these were found fastened. No money was found in the bureau, nor in any of the opened drawers, so that if any had been