SNAKE-BITE 
39 
1852-54 
when he often used to hear that kind of music. 
Dickens is a handsome man, but much more 
there is real goodness and genius in every mark 
in his face, and the lines in it are very strongly 
marked. We all took a stroll round the garden 
by moonlight, before the party left. 
On October 30, 1852, Owen writes to his 
sister Catherine : ‘ I enclose an autograph of 
Charles Dickens. Keep the cover for your scrap- 
book, but return me the note. It relates to a little 
paper I wrote for his “ Household Words,” on 
Poison Snakes, d propos of an accident at the 
Zoological Gardens. A keeper in the snake-room 
had been drinking farewell to a friend who was 
going to Australia, and early in the morning 
entered the snake-room with a few companions. 
Being a trifle the worse for his potations, he began 
to act as a snake-charmer, by way of sport — 
swinging poisonous snakes over his head and so 
forth^ A cobra, highly incensed at this treatment, 
bit him on the nose. The man was taken imme- 
diately to the London Hospital, but died within the 
hour. . , . 1 
‘ Dickens brought his wife and wife s sister here 
last Thursday, and we had Mr. Forster (editor of 
“ Examiner ” ) and Mr. Kenyon (a poet), both old 
friends of his, to meet him. Dickens was^ very 
happy and in great force. ... The diversity of 
trees and shrubs in our grounds, all decaying after 
their own fashion, produces a rich contrast and 
