pressure steam-engine celebrity) when he visited this Cornwall district on business. Trevithick's wife "has spoken of drives with her husband in this much-envied postchaise. It was kept for the aristocracy by Mr. Harvey, who lived opposite Newton's Hotel in Camborne. It was the only comfortable carriage to be let on hire, fit for gentlefolk, in the West of England, to supply the twenty or thirty miles of country from Truro to the Land's End."1 Penzance must then have been a small place. Even in 1851 the population was only 9214, whereas now it is 18,123. Tradition asserts that Sir Walter Raleigh smoked his first pipe of tobacco in England, after his return from America, in Penzance. "The nasty habit," remarks Mr. J. O. Halliwell, "is still in vogue amongst the Penzancians, if that be any evidence of the accuracy of the tradition." The first news of the great victory, and Nelson's death, which this county received arrived at Penzance Quay. That was a memorable day for Penzance, and also for England. JUS CHAPTER VIII RED HAIR UST as one man's meat is another man's poison, so an expression which in some places may be quite harmless in others may become a term of derision or even of opprobrium. Here is a concrete instance. In Cornwall, particularly the Land's End district, it is not advisable to dub a person "a red-haired Dane," though in most parts of England, especially inland, the expression would as likely as not provoke no comment at all, or be regarded as simply frivolous. As an example of the inopportuneness of using this singular phrase, I may mention that it led to a policecourt case being heard in 1867 at Penzance Town Hall. It came out in evidence that the defendant had called the complainant "a red-haired Dane," and this naturally (in this part of the country) led to an assault--no one was surprised. Though it is now some forty years ago since the case was tried, the strong repugnance of Cornishmen to be dubbed by this strange appellation is nearly as strong as ever. The origin of the singular local dislike to red-haired people is capable of quite a plausible explanation, which in default of a better is worthy of some credence at least. The Celtic nations hated the Danes, and were always fighting them, and not only in Cornwall, but also all along our coasts where the Danes or Norsemen made their ravages, this deep-rooted prejudice against people with red hair, red-headed," more or less remains ingrained in the national character. 66 I once had a practical illustration of this aversion in Celtic Ireland, which caused me annoyance and much inconvenience. In Achill Island, off the west coast, where the people are very Celtic, it is to this day considered most unlucky and unfortunate to meet a red-haired person when about to embark on any important undertaking. I wanted to go deep-sea fishing off Achill Head, where very deep is the water and very good is the fishing, and the distance from the exceedingly primitive village of Dooagh being great, the long four-paddled canoe had to be used, and a fine day selected, as the waves there-right out in the wild Atlanticare often very rough. After waiting several days, at length a calm morning dawned, with every prospect of a fine spell of weather, and I got ready to start, and my men were all walking down to the shore laden with the necessary fishing paraphernalia and gear, when, as fate would have it, we met a red-haired man. At once dubious glances were cast to the sky; fears were freely expressed about the weather: a shift of wind was on its way"; 66 sure, tomorrow would be a lovely day," and so on. Finally one of my men said it was too late to go now, so off he went home; then another sidled slyly away, and eventually all four turned tail, and I had to give up my excursion to Achill Head, all through having met this man of ill-omen. 66 Maybe this deep-rooted and very prevalent prejudice against people with red hair dates back still further in Celtic history than even the periodical and piratical descents of the Danes on our shores. The Celts, we should remember, were a most religious people, and tradition (whether truly or not must ever remain a mystery) assigns to Absalom's hair a reddish tinge; and Judas, the traitorous disciple, is ever painted with locks of the same unhappy hue. Matthew Arnold refers to this traditional appearance of Judas in his poem Saint Brandan " :— 66 Taking, therefore, into account the deep-seated religious fervour of the people, they may have associated the redhaired Danes as well with these undesirable Biblical characters. Miss Gwilt, in Armadale, and other wicked heroines of not long ago, were mostly remarkable for their red hair. Shakspere, too, seems to have been imbued with the like morbid feeling of distrust for those on whose hapless heads the invidious mark appeared-or else he merely represents the feeling on the subject which was prevalent in his day. Rosalind, in complaining of her lover's tardiness in coming to her, says to Celia : "Ros.: His very hair is of the dissembling colour. "Celia: Something browner than Judas's.' And Marston follows suit in the Insatiate Countess : "Thais: I ever thought by his red beard he would prove a Judas." The expression "carrots," as applied to red hair, has, according to some authorities, nothing to do with the vegetable usually associated with boiled beef, but is a corruption from Roman Catholic times in England, when a red-haired man or woman was called Iscariot. Indeed, it is not improbable that the tap-root gained its name from the same source. The ingeniousness of the derivation is at any rate interesting, even if in later researches etymologists disprove it. It seems to be somewhat generally supposed, and I have found the feeling prevalent far more than I had anticipated, that red-haired people are dissemblers, deceitful, or at any rate not to be trusted like those whose hair is of a different colour. I have even heard of some people who will not admit into their service any whose hair is thus to them objectionable. But the feeling of aversion has even gone to greater lengths. Lipsalve says in the Chaste Maid of Cheapside: "How ill-advised were you to marry with one with a red beard!" to which Mrs. Glister replies: "O, Master Lipsalve, I am not the first that has fallen under the ensign! There's no complexion more attractive in this time than gold and red beards." And then the First Puritan illuminates the discussion with the remark, "Sure that was Judas. there with the red beard," and the Second Puritan, "Red hair the brethren like not." Further, the West Country Counsellor, in the Bagford Ballads, also pillories the same coloured hair : 66 Nay, I further declare, you may know by their hair : If it be red or yellow, then, then you may swear They will never prove true, but will love more than you.” And in Howell's English Proverbs we are thus enlightened : "A red beard and a black head, Catch him with a good trick, and take him dead." However, R. Tofte, in 1615, wrote this rhyme, wherein the hair that is red is given a better character : "The red is wise, In Celtic Wales, too, pen cock (red hair) is a term of reproach universally applied to all who come under the category. But Jonson, the ponderous, even if at times witty, harps on the old strain in the Poetaster, where he says:-"To a red man read thy reed, With a brown man break thy bread," thus throwing considerable doubt upon the ruddy-haired. Buckle, the suggestively thoughtful, is of opinion that the prevalent antipathy was because red hair was a mark of leprosy. His authority for this I know not. It certainly cannot be that a fair complexion (though usually associated with this pigment in hair) is necessarily or even probably a sign of leprosy. It is said, too, to be a fact that red-haired people are more subject to rheumatism than those of a dark complexion. There can be, I think, little doubt that the Danes, Norsemen, or Vikings-all more or less red-haired-paid terribly destructive piratical visits to West Penwith and other parts of our coasts, though we have no documentary history of actual descents upon the coast of Cornwall. The Danes, however, were fighters, not writers, which perhaps explains the matter. It seems clearly established that at one stage in the history of that county the King of Cornwall persuaded the Danes to join their forces with his in order to resist the encroachments of the Saxons. But the memory of the terrible times when "the red-haired Danes" committed atrocities never died out. The awful tales were handed down from father to son, perpetuating a vindictive hate never to die out. Who can say, in the face of such facts, that we English are devoid of a vendetta? As the result of rapes committed by the invaders, or of subsequent intermarriages with these Norsemen and Danes, many people at and near Land's End to-day bear clear ethnological proof in their appearance that they have in their veins the blood of these plucky old pirates of the ancient seas. The mixture with the Celtic race has produced |