THE GIRL’S OWN QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

The Examiners report on the Second Twenty-four Questions.

Practice makes perfect, so though the first instalment of answers in this competition was good, the second proved better, and we look forward to the third and last being the best of all. It takes time to discover to what fountains one ought to go for information; but once that is done, the rest is comparatively easy—you fill your pitcher and come away triumphant.

The number who engaged in this second trial was slightly under that of those taking part in the first. Out of every hundred girls who started with questions 1-24, about fifteen failed to put in an appearance. Many causes, from whimsicality to illness, no doubt account for this. It was often, we are sure, unavoidable, for some girls whom we missed had done so well that they would have had a good place had they only continued.

We give here our notes on questions 25-48 inclusive, so that competitors may check their own answers and see in some cases what they might have replied had they been fortunate enough to find out. General remarks on the competition, as we said last month, will follow when we come to intimate who the painstaking girls are who have won prizes and certificates.

25. Who was the monarch who once attended the rehearsal of his own funeral?

The monarch we had in view in framing this question was Charles V., Emperor of Germany and King of Spain. After his abdication in 1555-56 he retired to the monastery of St. Juste in the north of Estremadura, and here he resolved to celebrate his own obsequies. His domestics marched to the chapel of the monastery in funeral procession with black tapers in their hands, and he himself followed in his shroud. He was laid in his coffin with much solemnity. “The service for the dead was chanted, and Charles joined in the prayers which were offered up for the repose of his soul, mingling his tears with those which his attendants shed, as if they had been celebrating a real funeral.” Judging by the numbers who failed to answer, this was one of our difficult questions.

26. What is the largest palace in the world used as a residence?

Three palaces were prominent in the answers given—the Vatican at Rome, the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg, and the Palace of Versailles in the neighbourhood of Paris. The last-named, however, was mentioned by error, as it is now not a residence, but little more than a showplace. But it is huge enough, for in the heyday of its prosperity it accommodated about ten thousand persons—courtiers, dependents, etc. To the Vatican, the residence of the Pope, apparently belongs the credit of being of all palaces that on the largest scale. It is said to contain no fewer than seven thousand rooms. It became the fixed residence of the Popes in 1377. The Winter Palace at St. Petersburg is also an enormous structure, in which six thousand persons have frequently had a habitation.

27. What is the exercise most conducive to physical beauty?

The answers to this query were as varied as could be. Dancing, fencing, cycling, swimming, golfing, dumb-bell drill, and many other forms of exercise all had their advocates. Some girls said, “Housekeeping for ever!” and recommended constant devotion to sweeping and dusting; but others remarked that that was too narrow a view, and that we ought to move about in the open air as well. Most, however, held that the right form of exercise was walking, the cheapest, safest, and best of all. “And see,” says one competitor, “that you persevere in it and do it in all weathers, but the very worst, and particularly in winter.”

28. What was the first street ever lit by gas?

This was Pall Mall in London, which was first lit by gas on the 28th of January, 1807. The introduction of gas-lighting into London is due to the zeal and unwearied patience of a German named Winsor. He managed to gain some supporters, “and,” says a writer in Chambers’s Book of Days, “the long line between St. James’s Palace and Cockspur Street blazed out in a burst of gas-lamps on the night in question to the no small admiration of the public.” Westminster Bridge was lit with gas for the first time on the last night of 1812. Two years later in other parts of the metropolis gas was introduced on the streets, and from that time the new mode of lighting gradually made its way all over the world.

29. How fast can one read when reading silently?

Most competitors gave an answer to this question; but why did not all? It was easy enough, because the best answer a girl could make was to record the result of experimenting on herself. It was pointed out by many with much truth that the rate of reading varies greatly with different individuals and also with the kind of book read. We cannot, for instance, read philosophy as rapidly as history, or history as fast as a work of fiction. Poetry also, says a sensible competitor, must be read slowly in order to appreciate the style and rhythm. A moderately rapid reader, says this same competitor, will read history at the rate of about 600 words in five minutes, fiction at about 2,000 words in the same time, and poetry at about 700 words. The 600 and 700 words here given appear slow compared with the 2,000; but there is all the difference in the world between reading to remember and criticise and reading merely for a pastime.

30. What famous philanthropist was known as the “Nightingale of the House of Commons?”

When a girl shoots a bow at a venture she may hit the mark, but more often she does not. Here are some of the random shots at this answer—the Earl of Shaftesbury, John Bright, Mr. Gladstone, Sir Henry Fawcett, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Lord Coleridge, the Earl of Chatham, and William Pitt. No, it was none of these—it was William Wilberforce, who will always be associated with the abolition of the slave trade. His remarkably sweet voice, so often used on behalf of those unable to plead for themselves, obtained for him the name to which we have referred in our question.

31. How many hours a day should we give to sleep?

There was a good deal of common-sense shown here in the answers, it being generally allowed that no hard and fast rule could be laid down. “Sleep till you have slept enough,” says one girl; “and enough is not the same with everybody.” The time will be found to vary, with grown-up people, from six to eight hours in the twenty-four, it very much depending on whether they are strong or weakly. One competitor quotes a medical authority to the effect that “the weakly very rarely require more than nine hours’ sleep at the utmost, and a longer indulgence will scarcely ever fail to injure them.”

32. What is the most famous signal ever made to the British Navy?

Hardly any competitors omitted to answer this question; almost every one right too. The ever-to-be-remembered signal was that made by Lord Nelson, before the battle of Trafalgar—“England expects every man to do his duty.” It was a signal, says Southey, in his Life of Nelson, received throughout the fleet with a shout of answering acclamation, “made sublime by the spirit which it breathed and the feeling which it expressed.” As everyone knows, it was the last signal of our great naval hero, for he received his mortal wound in the heat of the action.

It is worth mentioning that one girl, whom we guess to be a humorist, would have it that the most famous naval signal was that made to the British fleet at the conclusion of the greatest naval review ever seen—that held in commemoration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, in 1897. The Commander-in-Chief signalled that, at the request of the Prince of Wales, he “ordered the mainbrace to be spliced,” which, says our competitor, refers to “an extra ration of grog!”

33. What useful discovery was made by lighting a fire on the sand and using pieces of natron (sub-carbonate of soda) to support the cooking-pot?

The story of the discovery of glass—whether an actual historical fact or only a legend we shall not too particularly inquire—proved to be well known to all our girls. To quote one of them: “The credit of inventing glass was always given by the ancients to the Phœnicians. It was a discovery made quite accidentally by some Phœnician merchants, who were homeward bound in a ship laden with natron or soda. A storm came on, which obliged them to land on a sandy tract under Mount Carmel. There they rested their cooking pots on blocks of natron, and when the cooking was over found glass produced, by the union under heat of the alkali and the sand of the shore.”

34. What are the “borrowed days,” and how do they come by their name?

Those who did not answer this question, and those who answered it wrongly, are now informed that the “Borrowed Days” referred to, are the last three days of March. According to a popular tradition they were borrowed by March from April, in order to accomplish the destruction of a parcel of unoffending young sheep, a purpose, however, in which March did not succeed. The story is told in a well-known Scottish rhyme:—

Some girls got the “borrowed days” mixed up with the extra day that comes in Leap year. One told us that they were “the mild days of winter borrowed from Spring.” Another gave them as “Sunday, Monday and Saturday.” Three or four furnished an interesting piece of local information to the effect that in Cheshire the name “Borrowed Days,” is given to the first eleven days of May.

35. What is the simplest and least troublesome of all cookery processes?

Some girls surprised us by apparently knowing little about this woman’s subject; a few surprised us still more by not answering at all. There was room for difference of opinion. Boiling, steaming, grilling, toasting, roasting, and baking all met with support, but on the whole we side with the girls who said stewing. It is a method that certainly requires very little attention, barring the care that must of course be taken to keep the stew from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning, if the stewing be done in a saucepan or in a jar. Some competitors fell into error by giving such answers as “boiling an egg,” “making a milk pudding,” “boiling a potato in its jacket,” and “preparing a Devonshire junket.” They should have taken note that the query spoke of processes not of performances.

36. Are there any extinct volcanoes in Great Britain?

“Not one,” says a confident competitor. In opposition to this, however, we have the answers of a great many who knew better, and were well aware that “the volcanoes of Britain are still around and beneath us, on the sea-coast and in the heart of the country, under our great cities and in our most favourite holiday haunts.” Some gave examples from central England, and one girl quoting from an article that appeared not long ago in the Leisure Hour, pointed out that “what is now the heart of England, was once dotted with volcanic vents.” Others took their illustrations from Devonshire, from North Wales, from the neighbourhood of Edinburgh and from the Western Isles of Scotland.

37. What famous musical composition came to a violinist in a dream?

The competitors who did not answer this question were a numerous company. Some made such guesses at it as Haydn’s “Creation,” and the “Moonlight Sonata.” But—without going into the dream question—Haydn was not a violinist, and neither was Beethoven. The musician of our query was the famous violin player, Giuseppe Tartini, and the composition was his singularly fine piece, “Il Trillo del Diavolo.” One night the Evil One appeared to Tartini in a dream. “The idea struck me,” says the composer, “to hand him my fiddle, and to see what he could do with it. But how great was my astonishment when I heard him play with consummate skill a sonata of such exquisite beauty as surpassed the boldest flight of my imagination.” When Tartini awoke he seized his violin and tried to reproduce the sounds he had heard. “But,” he sorrowfully says, “it was in vain. The piece I then composed, the Devil’s Sonata, although the best I ever wrote, was far below the one I had heard in my dream!”

38. When did witchcraft cease to be recognised as a crime by the law of England?

This query was generally well answered, and there was really no difficulty about it. The last trial for witchcraft in England was that of Jane Wenham, who was convicted at Hertford in 1712. Feeling towards witchcraft had, by that time, begun to change, however, and she was not executed. Twenty-four years later—that is to say, in 1736—came the repeal of the famous statute against witchcraft passed at the accession of James I. At the same time was repealed the Act of the Scottish Parliament passed in 1563 making it a capital offence to use witchcraft, sorcery, or necromancy, or to pretend to such knowledge, or to seek help from witches.

39. What famous book was mislaid when in manuscript and partly written, and was only discovered by the author nine years afterwards in the drawer of an old writing-desk?

Puzzled? Yes, many were puzzled and answered nothing. A few bold spirits ventured on such guesses as The Vicar of Wakefield, Evelyn’s Diary, Peter Simple, and Jessica’s First Prayer! The book in question was the Waverley of Sir Walter Scott. About a third of the first volume of this work was written about the year 1805, and then thrown aside in the drawer of an old writing-desk and entirely forgotten. Nine years afterwards, the author himself says, “I happened to want some fishing tackle for the use of a guest, when it occurred to me to search the old writing-desk already mentioned, in which I used to keep articles of that nature. I got access to it with some difficulty, and in looking for lines and flies, the long-lost manuscript presented itself. I immediately set to work to complete it.”

40. What English cathedral was set on fire and severely damaged by a man who was afterwards found to be insane?

The fire was that caused in York Minster on the 2nd of February, 1829, by Jonathan Martin, who, as the question says, was subsequently discovered to be out of his mind. Having taken it into his head that it was his duty to destroy the cathedral, he concealed himself after evening service on the 1st of February behind a monument in the north transept, and in the night collected inflammable material which he set fire to. The whole of the beautiful tabernacle work of carved oak, the stalls, the pulpit, the organ, the roof, and much of the stonework of the choir, were all destroyed, the east window which was in great danger, being saved with difficulty. The building was restored at a cost of about £65,000, which was raised by a national subscription. This question was well answered. A few girls gave instances of fires at the cathedrals of Carlisle and Salisbury, but the insane incendiary was left out of account. Four or five gave the burning of St. Paul’s in the Great Fire of 1666, as that well-known event is described in Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth’s Old St. Paul’s, but they should have remembered that a novelist’s facts should be verified before quoting them as history.

41. What is the best diet for brain-workers?

There is no doubt that brain-workers—whether literary, professional or business people—need the best of food served in the most agreeable manner, and in variety and abundance. If it were possible to live by brain alone, without any exercise of the muscles, then the diet might be exclusively confined to those articles which contain the fat, salt and phosphorus of which the brain is composed. But this being out of the question, a wide variety of food is necessary for the brain-working classes, its quantity and quality being adapted to nourish the whole body with special reference to the nervous system. An important point is that the food be light and easily digested. Most girls answered this question, and many sensible replies were received.

42. What saint was so able a musician that, according to tradition, an angel descended to earth enraptured with her melodious strains?

Few queries were better or more fully answered than this one, the essence of most of the replies being that the saint was St. Cecilia, a young Roman lady of noble birth, who suffered martyrdom about 329—perhaps earlier. She “has long been regarded as the tutelary saint of music and musicians, but the period at which she was first so looked upon is involved in obscurity.” When the tradition mentioned in the question originated is equally unknown. It is an odd fact that early writers make no mention of her skill in music.

43. What is the origin of the three ostrich feathers as a badge of the Prince of Wales?

This has long been a matter of perplexity to antiquaries. The cherished and popular belief, however—quoted by almost all our competitors—is that the feathers were derived from the blind King of Bohemia, who lost his life at the battle of Crecy in 1346. The feathers do not appear in connection with our Princes of Wales till after that battle. The ostrich feather, it appears, was a distinction of Luxemburg, and John, Count of Luxemburg, was the original style and title of the King of Bohemia, who fell so bravely at Crecy. The first Prince of Wales to assume the feathers was of course Edward the Black Prince, the victor of Crecy.

44. When did ignorant people in this country imagine that they had been defrauded out of eleven days by those in authority?

It was in 1752 when the Act for the change of Style came into operation in this country. After the 2nd of September of that year, the following day was held to be not the 3rd, but the 14th, thus dropping out eleven days. The common people of England, we are told, “were violently inflamed against the statesmen who had carried through the bill for the change of style, and generally believed that they had been defrauded out of eleven days (as if eleven days of their destined lives) by the transaction. Accordingly for some time afterwards a favourite opprobrious cry to unpopular statesmen in the streets and on the hustings was, ‘Who stole the eleven days? Give us back the eleven days!’” A few girls failed to answer this question, but not so many as we expected.

45. Who was the hermit who lived for over thirty years on the top of a pillar?

This was the famous St. Simeon Stylites, so called from the Greek word stylos, a pillar. He lived early in the fifth century and adopted his original mode of life by way of penance, beginning with residence on the top of a pillar nine feet high. This was raised by degrees to the somewhat incredible height of sixty feet. He lived on his pillar situated on a mountain-side thirty or forty miles from Antioch for over thirty years, and died on the top in the year 459. He was the founder of the singular race of pillar-saints who, though never very numerous, existed in Eastern lands down to the twelfth century.

46. What famous stone in this country is said to have been Jacob’s pillow?

Competitors were right in saying that this is the Coronation Stone now in Westminster Abbey, brought from Scotland by Edward I. on his return from invading that country in 1296. According to some, it was originally the stone on which Jacob rested his head when he slept at Bethel and had a vision of angels ascending and descending the ladder between heaven and earth. Old chroniclers give a pretty circumstantial account of its wanderings till it arrived at Scone, the coronation city of the ancient kings of Scotland, from which King Edward carried it away. We notice that two or three girls describe the stone as of marble—“black marble,” says one. They are wrong. It is a block of sandstone—to be particular, “a dull reddish or purplish sandstone, with a few small embedded pebbles.”

47. Why is the wedding-ring worn on the fourth finger of the left hand?

Nearly everybody gave an answer and a good answer. We shall quote one competitor in full, and she will reply for all the rest: The selection of the fourth finger of the left hand as the wedding-ring finger both in Pagan and Christian times is accounted for by several reasons. In an ancient ritual of marriage, the husband placed the ring on the top of the thumb of the left hand whilst he said, “In the name of the Father”; he then removed it to the forefinger, saying, “And of the Son,” and then to the middle finger with the words, “And of the Holy Ghost,” and with the final word “Amen” he placed the ring on the fourth finger, where it remained.

The ancient supposition that a vein led direct from the fourth finger to the heart, and the fact that this finger is used less than any other, the ring being thereby less liable to receive injury, were doubtless also at the root of this old custom.

48. How did the forget-me-not get its name?

Several popular traditions, all no doubt equally authentic, were quoted in reply, hardly any competitor omitting to answer. According to some, the name perpetuates the last words of a lover to his mistress as he threw her the flower she craved of him at the cost of his own life in the Danube.

Another tradition told, with variations, by a good many was that “Adam, as he named the plants in Paradise, bade them all remember their names. One little flower, that had allowed its thoughts to wander, had to ask the father of men to repeat what he had said. ‘By what name dost thou call me?’ ‘Forget-me-not,’ was the reply; which has caused that humble flower ever since to droop its head in shame and ignominy.”