112 MEMOIK OF ALFRED SMEE. [CHAP. X. 



the inhabitants ; and when I went to the ford, had I attempted to pass, I 

 should certainly hare been drowned, showing how long the effects of 

 roguery may be felt. 



The Laird carried out honestly his compensation to the peasants and 

 his promises to the Fairy; and was always happy and contented after- 

 wards. All the villagers ever since have protected his partridges, grouse, 

 and deer, and reserved to him three miles of river, containing five fine 

 salmon pools, for his own private use. He lived to the ripe old age of 91, 

 and on his tombstone he ordered to be engraved, after his name, date of 

 birth, and age at death 



BEWARE OF BABBITS ! ! 



The previous year the two following letters were published in 

 the ' Times : ' 



It was known all over London that the venerable church of St. 

 Saviour's was this morning struck by lightning, when the majestic peal 

 of thunder rolled throughout the metropolis at about half -past eight, and 

 this afternoon I examined the course of the electric force in its destruc- 

 tive career. 



The church has a noble central tower, with four stone turrets, one at 

 each angle, and each turret is surmounted with a large copper vane, over 

 which is placed a copper ball. The south-east turret has been struck 

 by lightning ; and as a result, the stones of which it was composed were 

 thrown off in all directions, exactly as the bark of a tree is thrown off 

 when that is struck by lightning. The force with which the stones com- 

 posing the turret were scattered may be appreciated when it is stated that 

 one stone was thrown at least fifty yards to the western extremity of the 

 churchyard, where it broke two iron rails and then injured a house. 

 Other stones were thrown on the roofs of the houses near London Bridge. 

 Some were thrown on the roof of the church, breaking through to the 

 pavement below, and all the surrounding houses bear more or less 

 the marks of violence with which large stones were thrown from the 

 turret at the top of the tower. 



An inmate of one of the almshouses below told me that what with 

 the lightning, the roar of the thunder, the pelting rain, the falling 

 stones, and the breaking in of the roofs, she really thought the end of the 

 world had arrived. The copper ball at the top of the vane bore the marks 

 of the lightning discharge. The turret itself being composed of stone, 

 and therefore a bad conductor of electricity, offered a resistance to the 

 transmission of the electric force, and was consequently disintegrated 

 and its component parts thrown outwards. The electric force then passed 

 to the flat lead roof at the top of the tower, and was thence conveyed by a 

 water-pipe to the lead-gutters on the roof of the southern aisle of the nave. 

 From this roof it passed down two other water-pipes to the churchyard. 

 On the most easterly of these pipes, or the nearest to the tower, the pipe 

 showed a curious lateral discharge, forming a funnel-shaped hole, and on 

 the more westerly water-pipe a dilation existed, but without the aperture. 

 From the examination which I made, it is demonstrated that, had there 

 been a conductor from the vane to the water-pipes, at a cost of two or 

 three pounds, the present damage, which is roughly estimated at 500, 



