works, “Hard Cash, a Matter-of-Fact Romance,” is a novel with a purpose, and was written with the object of exposing abuses connected with the lunacy laws and the management of private lunatic asylums.  Entitled “Very Hard Cash,” it first appeared serially in the pages of “All the Year Round,” then under the editorship of Charles Dickens, and although its success in that form was by no means extraordinary, its popularity on its publication in book form in 1863 was well deserved and emphatic.  The appearance of “Hard Cash,” which is a sequel to a comparatively trivial tale, “Love me Little, Love me Long,” provoked much hostile criticism from certain medical quarters—­criticism to which Reade replied with vehemence and characteristic vigour.  His activity in the campaign against the abuses of lunacy law did not end with the publication of this story, since he conducted personal investigations in many individual cases of false imprisonment under pretence of lunacy.

I.—­The Dodd and Hardie Families

In a snowy-villa, just outside the great commercial seaport, Barkington, there lived, a few years ago, a happy family.  A lady, middle-aged, but still charming; two young friends of hers, and an occasional visitor.

The lady was Mrs. Dodd; her periodical visitor her husband, the captain of an East Indiaman; her friends were her son Edward, aged twenty, and her daughter, Julia, nineteen.

Mrs. Dodd was the favourite companion and bosom friend of both her children.  They were remarkably dissimilar.  Edward was comely and manly, no more; could walk up to a five-barred gate and clear it; could row all day, and then dance all night; and could not learn his lessons to save his life.

In his sister Julia modesty, intelligence, and, above all, enthusiasm shone, and made her an incarnate sunbeam.

This one could learn her lessons with unreasonable rapidity, and Mrs. Dodd educated her herself, from first to last; but Edward she sent to Eton, where he made good progress—­in aquatics and cricket.

In spite of his solemn advice—­“you know, mamma, I’ve got no headpiece”—­he was also sent to Oxford, and soon found he could not have carried his wares to a better market.  Advancing steadily in that line of study towards which his genius lay, he was soon as much talked about in the university as any man in his college, except one.  Singularly enough, that one was his townsman—­much Edward’s senior in standing, though not in age.  Young Alfred Hardie was doge of a studious clique, and careful to make it understood that he was a reading man who boated and cricketed to avoid the fatigue of lounging.