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<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78176 ***</div>

<div class='tnotes covernote'>

<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p>

<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p>

</div>

<div class='double titlepage'>

<div class='nf-center-c0'>
<div class='nf-center c001'>
    <div>“<i>Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS.</i>”—<span class='sc'>Shakespeare.</span></div>
  </div>
</div>

<div>
  <span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>
  <h1 class='c002'>HOUSEHOLD WORDS.<br> <span class='xlarge'>A WEEKLY JOURNAL.</span></h1>
</div>

<div class='nf-center-c0'>
<div class='nf-center c001'>
    <div><span class='large'>CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.</span></div>
    <div class='c001'>N<sup>o.</sup> 11.]&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1850.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<span class='sc'>Price</span> 2<i>d.</i></div>
  </div>
</div>

</div>

<div class='chapter'>
  <h2 class='c003'>FROM THE RAVEN IN THE HAPPY FAMILY.</h2>
</div>

<p class='c004'>Halloa!</p>

<p class='c005'>You <i>won’t</i> let me begin that Natural
History of you, eh? You <i>will</i> always be
doing something or other, to take off my
attention? Now, you have begun to argue
with the Undertakers, have you? What next!</p>

<p class='c005'>Ugh! you are a nice set of fellows to be
discussing, at this time of day, whether you
shall countenance that humbug any longer.
“Performing” funerals, indeed! I have heard
of performing dogs and cats, performing goats
and monkeys, performing ponies, white-mice,
and canary-birds; but, performing drunkards
at so much a day, guzzling over your dead,
and throwing half of you into debt for a
twelvemonth, beats all I ever heard of.
Ha, ha!</p>

<p class='c005'>The other day there was a person “went
and died” (as our Proprietor’s wife says) close
to our establishment. Upon my beak I
thought I should have fallen off my perch,
you made me laugh so, at the funeral!</p>

<p class='c005'>Oh my crop and feathers, what a scene it
was! <i>I</i> never saw the Owl so charmed. It
was just the thing for him.</p>

<p class='c005'>First of all, two dressed-up fellows came—trying
to look sober, but they couldn’t do it—and
stuck themselves outside the door. There
they stood, for hours, with a couple of crutches
covered over with drapery: cutting their
jokes on the company as they went in, and
breathing such strong rum and water into our
establishment over the way, that the Guinea
Pig (who has a poor little head) was drunk
in ten minutes. You are so proud of your
humanity. Ha, ha! As if a pair of respectable
crows wouldn’t have done it much better?</p>

<p class='c005'>By-and-bye, there came a hearse and four,
and then two carriages and four; and on the
tops of ’em, and on all the horses’ heads, were
plumes of feathers, hired at so much per
plume; and everything, horses and all, was
covered over with black velvet, till you
couldn’t see it. Because there were not
feathers enough yet, there was a fellow in the
procession carrying a board of ’em on his
head, like Italian images; and there were
about five-and-twenty or thirty other fellows
(all hot and red in the face with eating and
drinking) dressed up in scarves and hatbands,
and carrying—shut-up fishing-rods, I
believe—who went draggling through the
mud, in a manner that I thought would be
the death of me; while the “Black Jobmaster”—that’s
what he calls himself—who
had let the coaches and horses to a furnishing
undertaker, who had let ’em to a haberdasher,
who had let ’em to a carpenter, who had let
’em to the parish-clerk, who had let ’em to
the sexton, who had let ’em to the plumber
painter and glazier, who had got the funeral
to do, looked out of the public-house window
at the corner, with his pipe in his mouth, and
said—for I heard him—“that was the sort of
turn-out to do a gen-teel party credit.” That!
As if any two-and-sixpenny masquerade,
tumbled into a vat of blacking, wouldn’t be
quite as solemn, and immeasurably cheaper!</p>

<p class='c005'>Do you think I don’t know you? You’re
mistaken if you think so. But perhaps you
do. Well! Shall I tell you what I know?
Can you bear it? Here it is then. The
Black Jobmaster is right. The root of all
this, is the gen-teel party.</p>

<p class='c005'>You don’t mean to deny it, I hope? You
don’t mean to tell me that this nonsensical
mockery isn’t owing to your gentility. Don’t
I know a Raven in a Cathedral Tower, who
has often heard your service for the Dead?
Don’t I know that you almost begin it with
the words, “We brought nothing into this
world, and it is certain that we can carry
nothing out”? Don’t I know that in a monstrous
satire on those words, you carry your
hired velvets, and feathers, and scarves, and all
the rest of it, to the edge of the grave, and get
plundered (and serve you right!) in every
article, because you WILL be gen-teel parties
to the last?</p>

<p class='c005'>Eh? Think a little! Here’s the plumber
painter and glazier come to take the funeral
order which he is going to give to the sexton,
who is going to give it to the clerk, who is
going to give it to the carpenter, who is going
to give it to the haberdasher, who is going to
give it to the furnishing undertaker, who is
going to divide it with the Black Jobmaster.
“Hearse and four, Sir?” says he. “No, a
pair will be sufficient.” “I beg your pardon,
Sir, but when we buried Mr. Grundy at
number twenty, there was four on ’em, Sir;
I think it right to mention it.” “Well, perhaps
there had better be four.” “Thank
you, Sir.  Two coaches and four, Sir, shall
<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>we say?” “No. Coaches and pair.” “You’ll
excuse my mentioning it, Sir, but pairs to the
coaches, and four to the hearse, would have a
singular appearance to the neighbours. When
we put four to anything, we always carry four
right through.” “Well! say four!” “Thank
you, Sir. Feathers of course?” “No. No
feathers. They’re absurd.” “Very good,
Sir. <i>No</i> feathers?” “No.” “<i>Very</i> good,
Sir. We <i>can</i> do fours without feathers, Sir,
but it’s what we never do. When we buried
Mr. Grundy, there was feathers, and—I only
throw it out, Sir—Mrs. Grundy might think
it strange.” “Very well! Feathers!” “Thank
you, Sir,”—and so on.</p>

<p class='c005'><i>Is</i> it and so on, or not, through the whole
black job of jobs, because of Mrs. Grundy and
the gen-teel party?</p>

<p class='c005'>I suppose you’ve thought about this? I
suppose you’ve reflected on what you’re
doing, and what you’ve done? When you
read about those poisonings for the burial
society money, you consider how it is that
burial societies ever came to be, at all? You
perfectly understand—you who are not the
poor, and ought to set ’em an example—that,
besides making the whole thing costly, you’ve
confused their minds about this burying, and
have taught ’em to confound expence and show,
with respect and affection. You know all
you’ve got to answer for, you gen-teel parties?
I’m glad of it.</p>

<p class='c005'>I believe it’s only the monkeys who are
servile imitators, is it? You reflect! To be
sure you do. So does Mrs. Grundy—and
she casts reflections—don’t she?</p>

<p class='c005'>What animals are those who scratch
shallow holes in the ground in crowded
places, scarcely hide their dead in ’em, and
become unnaturally infected by their dead,
and die by thousands? Vultures, I suppose.
I think you call the Vulture an obscene bird?
I don’t consider him agreeable, but I never
caught him misconducting himself in that way.</p>

<p class='c005'>My honourable friend, the dog—I call him
my honourable friend in your Parliamentary
sense, because I hate him—turns round three
times before he goes to sleep. I ask him
why? He says he don’t know; but he always
does it. Do <i>you</i> know how you ever came to
have that board of feathers carried on a
fellow’s head? Come. You’re a boastful
race. Show yourselves superior to the dog,
and tell me!</p>

<p class='c005'>Now, I don’t love many people; but I do
love the undertakers. I except them from the
censure I pass upon you in general. They
know you so well, that I look upon ’em as a
sort of Ravens. They are so certain of your
being gen-teel parties, that they stick at nothing.
They are sure they’ve got the upper
hand of you. Our proprietor was reading
the paper, only last night, and there was an
advertisement in it from a sensitive and
libelled undertaker, to wit, that the allegation
“that funerals were unnecessarily expensive,
was an insult to his professional brethren.”
Ha! ha! Why he knows he has you on the
hip. It’s nothing to him that their being
unnecessarily expensive is a fact within the
experience of all of you as glaring as the sun
when there’s not a cloud. He is certain that
when you want a funeral “performed,” he has
only to be down upon you with Mrs. Grundy,
to do what he likes with you—and then he’ll
go home, and laugh like a Hyæna.</p>

<p class='c005'>I declare (supposing I wasn’t detained
against my will by our proprietor) that, if I
had any arms, I’d take the undertakers to
’em! There’s another, in the same paper,
who says they’re libelled, in the accusation of
having disgracefully disturbed the meeting in
favour of what you call your General Interment
Bill. Our establishment was in the
Strand, that night. There was no crowd of
undertakers’ men there, with circulars in
their pockets, calling on ’em to come in
coloured clothes to make an uproar; it wasn’t
undertakers’ men who got in with forged
orders to yell and screech; it wasn’t undertakers’
men who made a brutal charge at
the platform, and overturned the ladies like a
troop of horse. Of course not. <i>I</i> know
all about it.</p>

<p class='c005'>But—and lay this well to heart, you Lords
of the creation, as you call yourselves!—it <i>is</i>
these undertakers’ men to whom, in the last
trying, bitter grief of life, you confide the
loved and honoured forms of your sisters,
mothers, daughters, wives. It <i>is</i> to these
delicate gentry, and to their solemn remarks,
and decorous behaviour, that you entrust the
sacred ashes of all that has been the purest to
you, and the dearest to you, in this world.
Don’t improve the breed! Don’t change the
custom! Be true to my opinion of you, and to
Mrs. Grundy!</p>

<p class='c005'>I nail the black flag of the black Jobmaster
to our cage—figuratively speaking—and I
stand up for the gen-teel parties. So (but from
different motives) does the Owl. You’ve got
a chance, by means of that bill I’ve mentioned—by
the bye, I call my own a General Interment
Bill, for it buries everything it gets hold
of—to alter the whole system; to avail yourselves
of the results of all improved European
experience; to separate death from life; to
surround it with everything that is sacred and
solemn, and to dissever it from everything
that is shocking and sordid. You won’t read
the bill? You won’t dream of helping it? You
won’t think of looking at the evidence on which
it’s founded—Will you? No. That’s right!</p>

<p class='c005'>Gen-teel parties, step forward, if you please,
to the rescue of the black Jobmaster! The
rats are with you. I am informed that they
have unanimously passed a resolution that the
closing of the London churchyards will be an
insult to their professional brethren, and will
oblige ’em “to fight for it.” The Parrots are
with you. The Owl is with you. The Raven
is with you. No General Interments. Carrion
for ever!</p>

<p class='c005'>Ha, ha! Halloa!</p>

<div class='chapter'>
  <span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>
  <h2 class='c003'>HOW WE WENT FISHING IN CANADA.</h2>
</div>

<p class='c004'>There were three of us. Our purpose was
fishing, in Canadian fashion, <i>under</i> the ice,
and our destination was the township of New
Ireland, distant about seventy miles from our
starting point, Quebec, and situated about midway
between the St. Lawrence and the American
line. Our conveyance was a stout,
commodious, yet light, and not inelegant sleigh,
with seats for four, and plentifully supplied
with buffalo robes, which are dressed so as to be
as soft as blankets—useful in a temperature of
twenty degrees below Zero, and ornamental
from their fringes, which were garnished with
various devices, all of which had some reference
to the wild denizens of the forest.
Under each seat was a box, which we stowed
with a goodly supply of creature comforts
and a few books, thus prudently making provision
against the contingencies of privation
and <i>ennui</i>. Our locomotive power consisted
of two small but very spirited horses, which
were neatly harnessed, with a string of
merry sleigh bells dangling from the girths
of each.</p>

<p class='c005'>In this comfortable condition we in due
time arrived at “Richardson’s,” one of the
most celebrated hostelries in the seignory
of St. Giles.</p>

<p class='c005'>Here we put up for the night, tempted to
do so by the superiority of the accommodation,
especially as we had but an easy day’s
journey before us for the morrow. During
the morning it was so intensely cold that our
breath formed thick crusts of ice on the shawls
which we had round our necks, whilst the
bushy whiskers of our companion Perroque
were pendant with tiny icicles. As our
horses warmed, almost every hair on their
backs formed the nucleus of a separate
icicle, which, by-and-bye, made them all stand
erect, and caused the animals to look more
like porcupines than horses. About midday
it began to moderate, and by nightfall
the temperature had risen considerably.
The wind had by this time set in, with a steady
current from the east. This, with the change
of temperature, made us somewhat uneasy as
to the weather; but our hopes rose when we
found that it was yet a brilliant starlight
about 10 o’clock, when we retired to rest.
But even then the coming tempest was not
far off; and in about two hours afterwards
the wind was howling fearfully about the
house, which it shook to its very foundations,
whilst the driving snow pattered against the
windows as if clouds of steel filings had been
driven against them. I was soon soothed to
sleep by the wild lullaby of the winter night, and
did not awake again until eight in the morning,
when I was called by a servant, who entered
my room with a lighted candle in her hand.
I should otherwise have been in darkness, for
the snow had, over night, completely blocked
up my window. My room was on the ground-floor,
and looked to the east. Against that
side of the house, the snow had been piled by
the wind in an enormous wreath, which partly
encroached upon the windows of the floor
above. Blungle, my other friend, who had
recently arrived from the region of Russell
Square, London, slept in a room contiguous to
mine, but he refused to get up, declaring that
although it was still the middle of the night, he
was too wide awake to be humbugged. It was
not until breakfast was sent in to him, and
he found by the state of his appetite that
it must have been several hours since he had
supped, that he condescended to examine his
window, which discovered to him the true
state of the case.</p>

<p class='c005'>The wind was still high, and although the
snow had ceased to fall, the tempest abated
nothing of its fury. The dry snow was driven
like light sand before the blast, until the air
was thick with it. Neither man nor beast
was astir, every living thing taking shelter
from the storm. By-and-bye, the heavy pall
overhead began to rend, and a few faint
gleams of sunshine would occasionally light
up the wild turmoil and confusion that raged
below. About ten o’clock, the clouds were
rolled away, and the sun shone steadily
out. For a full hour afterwards the wind
maintained its strength, but by noon had
so far abated, that the drift had almost
ceased.</p>

<p class='c005'>But, by this time, the roads had become
utterly impracticable. They were, indeed,
obliterated; the snow lying, in some places,
lightly upon them; and in others, forming
huge swelling wreaths, either across or along
them. We were eager to go forward, but
were dissuaded by our host from attempting
it, till the afternoon, when the road might be
at least practicable. On such occasions the
law requires the owners of land to “break
the roads” passing through or by their
respective properties; and by two o’clock
every sleigh in St. Giles’s was out for the
purpose. As soon as a track was opened, we
prepared to start. The road for the first
quarter of a mile had been well sheltered;
and as the evergreens were still standing,
there was but little difficulty in keeping the
old track, which afforded a firm footing for
the horses. But beyond that the evergreens
had been prostrated and buried in the snow;
and it was evident that our pioneers had
floundered in the midst of difficulties. Such
was presently our own fate, our horses having
plunged into the soft snow, where it was fully
six feet deep, from which we had with no
little difficulty and labour to dig them out.
This quenched our enthusiasm, and we returned
to the inn, where we remained for another
night.</p>

<p class='c005'>Next morning we were enabled to proceed,
though but slowly, on our way. Leaving
St. Giles’s, we entered St. Sylvestre, the last, on
this road, of the belt of French seignories lying
between the St. Lawrence and the “Townships.”
<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>It is almost exclusively inhabited by
British settlers. In the townships, Frenchmen
are as rare as negroes in Siberia. The
first township we came to was that of Leeds;
on entering which we found a great change in
the whole aspect of the country. From being
flat and monotonous it became suddenly varied
and undulating, and appeared to consist of a
succession of rather lofty ridges, with broad
belts of fertile table land at their summit. On
gaining the top of the first, we turned to enjoy
the prospect which lay behind us. It was
really magnificent. The air was so clear and
crisp, that almost every object embraced within
the distant horizon had a distinct form and
outline. The level tract over which we had
passed lay extended beneath our feet, stretching
for about forty miles to the St. Lawrence.
In appearance it was as variegated as a
carpet,—the white patches of every shape
and size with which it was interspersed
indicating the clearances amongst the dark
brown woods. The bold and precipitous banks
of the St. Lawrence could be traced for miles,
whilst here and there the stream itself was
visible. The distant city, on its rocky promontory,
came out in fine relief against the
sky, its tin covered spires glistening in the
sunshine like silver pinnacles. A little to the
right, the outline of the chain of hills lying
behind it, although they were fully sixty miles
distant from us, was distinctly visible in the
far-off heavens.</p>

<p class='c005'>On quitting Leeds, our way led chiefly
through the woods, the clearances being now
the rare exception.</p>

<p class='c005'>At length we reached the district, or “township,”
of New Ireland, which having been
settled by immigrants from Maine and New
Hampshire, more than forty years ago, is
now reckoned one of the wealthiest and most
prosperous parts of the country. To one of
its well-to-do farmers we had introductions,
and took up our quarters. His large and
spacious house was built upon a high bank,
overlooking one of the smaller lakes, from
which our sport was to be derived, because
it afforded one of the best fishing grounds in
the neighbourhood. Shortly after breakfast
(the buck-wheat cakes and pumpkin pie were
beyond praise), we prepared for a day’s sport.
Our tackle would appear rather odd to
English sportsmen: our lines consisted of
strong hempen cords, of which we provided
ourselves with about a dozen. To each were
attached two very large hooks, dressed upon
thin whip-cord. We had likewise three axes,
and as many chisels of the largest size, attached
to handles about six feet long. In addition to
these we had a shovel and a broad hoe. They
were all stowed into a large hand sleigh,
which was dragged to the fishing ground by a
servant.</p>

<p class='c005'>The lake was about three miles long and
half-a-mile wide. It lay in a beautiful valley,
embossed in the deep and sombre pine woods,
which covered the lower grounds. It was one
of a series, some of which were smaller and
others much larger than itself. For fully five
months in the year the surface of each is frozen
to the depth of several feet. We started
off to skate to the upper end, which was two-and-a-half
miles distant. My friend Blungle,
not an accomplished skater, made so very
false a start, that he was speedily noticed
spinning round rapidly on the ice on a pivot,
of which his heels and his head formed opposite
angles—precisely like a rotatory letter V.
Perroque, our French comforter and guide
is a perfect Perrot in skates, and performed
the most graceful evolutions around our prostrate
friend, in a manner that produced a
pretty and highly diverting tableau. At
last, however, he managed to “feel his feet”
better, and we all soon afterwards reached
the fishing ground.</p>

<p class='c005'>The spot selected was close to the head of
the lake, where the stream flowing from that
immediately above, fell into it. Here the
fish are generally attracted by the greater
quantity of food there deposited by the
stream. In winter they have additional
inducements, owing to the greater warmth
of the water from the number of springs in
the neighbourhood, and to the greater abundance
of light which they enjoy through the
ice which is here comparatively thin. Indeed,
over some of the springs no ice forms during
the coldest seasons. Our first care was to
make at least half-a-dozen holes in the ice.
This sportsman-like operation we commenced
with our axes, making each hole about three
feet in diameter. When we got down about
a foot or so the axes became useless to us,
and we had to resort to our chisels, with
which we speedily progressed; clearing the
holes of the broken ice with the shovel first
and afterwards with the hoe. We were not
long at work, before we found the utility of
the long handles of both hoe and chisels, the
ice which we had to perforate being fully
three feet thick. There is a legend in the
neighbourhood, of an Irishman, who, having
forgotten his chisel, very wisely got into the
hole which he was cutting, that he might use
his axe with better effect; he, of course, kept
going down as the hole got deeper and deeper,
until, at last, he went down altogether, and,
according to the report, made food for the
fish he intended to capture.</p>

<p class='c005'>Things being thus prepared, we baited our
hooks with pieces of fat pork, and dropped
them into the water—the lines being set in
each hole—the other end of each line was
attached to the middle of a stick, about six
feet in length, so placed, that it could not
be dragged into the hole.  These we left
lying upon the ice, some distance from the
holes, so as to give us warning of a bite, and
the fish an opportunity of running a little
when hooked. The contemplative angler of
the Waltonian School has no chance here,
for he would be inevitably frozen to an
icicle before he obtained so much as a bite.
<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>For amusement as well as for warmth, therefore,
we skated in the immediate vicinity of
our lines, of which we seldom lost sight. The
fish, which is a species of pike, and attains a
large size, sometimes weighing upwards of
thirty pounds, are soon attracted to the spot
by the columns of light descending through
the apertures in the ice. It is seldom, therefore,
that the angler has to remain long in
suspense ere some token is afforded him that
his labour is not likely to be in vain. A few
minutes after the casting of the nets, I happened
to approach the hole in which mine
were set, and was looking inquisitively into its
leaden depths, eager, if possible, to catch a
glimpse of what was going on underneath,
when suddenly the stick to which one of the
lines was attached, was dragged towards the
aperture with great velocity, and catching me
by the heels, turned poor Blungle’s laugh
completely against me; for it laid me at once
upon my back, with my legs spanning the
hole. I should certainly have gone with it,
but that the stick, when the fish came to the
end of his run, lay firmly across it, and kept
me up. Having risen, I thought it my time,
and began to pull at the line. From the
power with which I had to contend, however,
I found it necessary to have a better foundation
than my skates afforded me; so getting
upon my knees, I soon brought my captive to
light, and deposited him upon the ice. He
was a splendid fish, weighing upwards of
twenty pounds, and floundered prodigiously
for a few minutes. The frost, however, soon
tranquilised him, and in about a quarter-of-an-hour
he was as hard and brittle as an
icicle.</p>

<p class='c005'>We continued our sport for some time with
tolerable success, having, by three o’clock,
caught eleven fish, the smallest of which
weighed eight pounds. But our pleasures were
brought to an untimely period by Blungle,
whose ill luck had now passed into a proverb
amongst us. Hitherto no fish had favoured
his line with so much as the passing compliment
of a nibble. He had given up the attempt,
and for nearly two hours had been
amusing himself by skating up and down the
lake. Practice had improved him, and like
all beginners, he was proud of his prowess,
and was particularly anxious to redeem his
lost character for skating by one extraordinary
achievement. He had been warned to give
what a nautical friend of our host called a
“wide berth” to the mouth of the stream
which ran into the lake. Bold in the strength
of his newly acquired skill, he neglected this
advice, and about three o’clock shot rapidly
past us in the direction of the stream. In
less than a minute there was a loud agonising
cry for help.</p>

<p class='c005'>We looked round. Every vestige of Blungle
was invisible, except his head, and that
was seen just above the ice, his body being
immersed in water. He had ventured too
far, and the ice had given way with him.
Mirth instantly was changed to the acutest
apprehension. In that part, the ice was so
weak, that he might have broken it by pressing
his arms against it. But this he could not
do; for although his toes touched ground, he
happened to be standing on the tail of a small
bank, off which the water rapidly deepened
in one direction. For a moment or two we
were perplexed what to do, when it occurred
to us that we might turn the hand sleigh to
account. Having tied the three chisels with
their long handles, firmly together, we tied
the long pole thus furnished, to the sleigh,
and pushed it towards him; Perroque putting
a large piece of pork upon the sleigh, that he
might bite at it. He hesitated for some time
to relinquish his secure foothold; but at
length, seeing that it was his only chance,
and being terrified by a great fish which came
up and stared him hungrily in the face, he
seized the sleigh, which we then pulled towards
us, and got safely to land. It crushed
and broke the weak ice, but rose upon
that which was stronger, dragging Blungle
with it.</p>

<p class='c005'>For some time he lay where we landed him,
and would soon have been as stiff as the fish,
had we not raised him to his feet, when he
immediately started for the house. We followed
him as soon as we could, dragging our
tackle, implements, and spoils along with us,
and were not long in overtaking him; for
before he had got half-way down the lake, his
clothes had become quite stiff, and he looked
like a man in a cracked glass case. On reaching
the house, it was with difficulty we undressed
him and put him to bed; when by
dint of warmth without, and brandy administered
within, we gradually thawed him. He
did not afterwards join our fishing; but confined
himself to improving his skill in skating
in the centre of the lake.</p>

<p class='c005'>We remained altogether four days, by
which time we had caught as many fish as we
had room for in our sleigh. We then bade
adieu to our kind host and his family, and
after a pleasant journey, arrived towards the
evening of the second day, at Quebec. The
fish, which were still frozen and in excellent
condition, we distributed in presents to our
friends.</p>

<div class='chapter'>
  <h2 class='c003'>A WISH.</h2>
</div>

<div class='lg-container-b c006'>
  <div class='linegroup'>
    <div class='group'>
      <div class='line'>Oh, that I were the Spirit of a Plant,</div>
      <div class='line'>Rear’d in Imagination’s evergreen world,—</div>
      <div class='line'>To lift my head above the meadow grass,</div>
      <div class='line'>And strike my roots, far-spread and intervolved,</div>
      <div class='line'>Deep as the Central Heart, wherefrom to taste</div>
      <div class='line'>The springs of infinite being! From that source</div>
      <div class='line'>What pregnant fermentations would arise;</div>
      <div class='line'>What blossom, fruit, perfume, and influence;</div>
      <div class='line'>To purify mankind’s destructive blood,—</div>
      <div class='line'>So full of life and elevating powers—</div>
      <div class='line'>So cloy’d and clogg’d for exercise of good.</div>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

<div class='chapter'>
  <span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>
  <h2 class='c003'>THE BLACK DIAMONDS OF ENGLAND.</h2>
</div>
<h3 class='c007'>CHAPTER I.—THE DIAMONDS.</h3>

<p class='c008'>The history and adventures of the ‘great
diamonds’ of Eastern, Northern, Southern,
and Western potentates, have been often
chronicled; their several values have been
estimated at hundreds of thousands, and at
millions; but not a syllable has ever been
breathed of their utility. The reason is
tolerably obvious; these magnificent diamonds
are of <i>no</i> practical use at all, being
purely ornamental luxuries. Now, it has
occurred to us that the diamonds indigenous
to England, are the converse of these brilliant
usurpers of the chief fame of the nether earth
(to say nothing of the vain-glories on the
upper surface) being black, instead of prismatic
white—opaque, instead of transpicuous;
and in place of deriving a fictitious and fluctuating
value from scarcity and ornamental
beauty, deriving their value from the realities
of their surpassing utility and great abundance.
They certainly make no very striking
figure in the ball-room dress of prince or
princess; but it is their destiny and office to
carry comfort to the poor man’s home, as well
as to the mansion of the rich; they are not
to be looked upon as treasures of beauty, they
are to be shovelled out and burnt; they are
not the bright emblems of no change, and no
activity, but like heralds, sent from the depths
of night, where Nature works her secret
wonders, to advance those sciences and industrial
arts which are equally the consequence
and the re-acting cause of the progress of
humanity.</p>

<p class='c005'>In the reign of King Edward the First of
England, a new fuel was brought to London,
much to his subjects’ objection and the perplexity
of his majesty. Listen to the history—not
of the king, but of the great event of
his time which few historians mention.</p>

<p class='c005'>If chemical nature beneath the earth be
accounted very slow, human nature above
ground is comparatively slower,—and without
the same reason for it. The transmutations
beneath the earth require centuries for their
accomplishment, and of necessity;—the proper
use of new and valuable discoveries on the
surface, is a matter of human understanding
and rational will. In the former case, the
thing is not perfect without its number of
centuries; in the latter, the thing has very
seldom been acknowledged without great
lapse and loss of time, because mankind will
<i>not</i> be made more comfortable and happy
without a long fight against the innovation.
Wherefore coals, the most excellent material
of fuel,—for cooking, for works of industry
and skill, for trades and arts, and the cutting
short of long journeys,—have only been in
use during the last three centuries.</p>

<p class='c005'>The first mention of coals, as a fuel, occurs
in a charter of Henry the Third, granting
licenses to the burgesses of Newcastle to dig
for coals; and in 1281, this city had created,
out of these diggings, a pretty good trade.</p>

<p class='c005'>In the beginning of the fourteenth century,
coals were first sent from Newcastle to London,
by way of a little experiment on the minds of
the blacksmiths and brewers, and a few other
trades needing fuel; but for no other purposes.
So the good black smoke rose from
a score or two of favoured chimneys.</p>

<p class='c005'>As one man, all London instantly rose up
against it, and was exceeding wroth. Whereof,
in 1316, came a petition from Parliament to
the king, praying his Majesty,—if he had any
love for a fair garden, a clean face, yea, or a
clean shirt and ruff,—and if he did not wish his
subjects to be choked, or, at the very best, to
be smoked into bad hams,—to forbid all use of
the new and pestilent fuel called “coals.”</p>

<p class='c005'>So the king, seeing the good sense and
reasonableness of the request, forthwith
issued a Proclamation, commanding all use of
the dangerous nuisance of coals to cease from
that day henceforth.</p>

<p class='c005'>But the blacksmiths and brewers took
counsel together, and they were joined by
several other trades, who had found great
advantage in the use of coals; and they resolved
to continue the same, as secretly as
might be—forgetting all about the smoke,
or innocently trusting that it would not again
betray them.</p>

<p class='c005'>No sooner, however, did the black smoke
begin to rise and curl above the chimneys,
than it was actually seen by many eyes!—and
away ran the people bawling to Parliament;
and more petitions were sent; and
his Majesty, being now very angry, ordered all
these refractory coal-burning smiths, brewers,
and other injurious rogues to be heavily fined,
and their fire-places and furnaces cast down
and utterly demolished.</p>

<p class='c005'>All this was accordingly done. Still, it was
done to no purpose; for so very excellent was
the result to the different trades of those who
had smuggled and used the prohibited fuel,
that use it by some means they would, let
happen what might. More chimneys than
ever now sent up black curling clouds, and
more fire-places and furnaces were destroyed;
and so they went on.</p>

<p class='c005'>At length it was wisely discovered that
nobody had been choked, poisoned, “cured”
into a bad ham, or otherwise injured and
transformed. Now, then, of course, it was
reasonable to expect, as the advantages were
proved to be so great and numerous, the
injuries trivial, and the dangers nothing, the
use of coal would become pretty general,
without more prohibition, contest, or question.</p>

<p class='c005'>No, indeed; this is not the way the world
goes on. Social benefits are not to be forced
upon worthy people at this rate. Centuries
must elapse—even as we find with the growth
of metals and minerals beneath the earth.
In the latter case, it is a necessary condition;
in the former, it is made one.</p>

<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>The many good services and value of coals
being now ascertained, as well as their harmlessness
(except that they certainly did give
a bad colour to all the public edifices and
great houses), and the progressive increase of
many luxuries of life, together with their
advantages to numerous trades besides those
of the wisely-valiant and not-to-be-denied
blacksmiths and brewers who first adopted
and persisted in using them, every facility
for their importation into London was
naturally expected by the citizens of that
highly-favoured place. Innocent human nature!
vain hopes of children, who always
expect reason from those who preach it!
For now, various lets and hindrances were
cunningly devised, in the shape of taxes and
duties, so as to check the facilities of interchange
between London and Newcastle.
So, the new fuel—the product of the mine
destined one day to become the Black
Diamonds of England—had to struggle for
its freedom through a succession of “wise and
happy reigns.”</p>

<h3 class='c009'>CHAPTER II.<br> <span class='c010'>THE EMANCIPATION OF THE DIAMOND.</span></h3>

<p class='c008'>Before a cargo of coals could be discharged
from a collier, it was necessary to get the
permission of the Lord Mayor to land them.
And how was this to be obtained? By what
sort of dulcet persuasion, we are left in no
difficulty to conjecture; but as to the amount
of the sum, a modest official veil of darkness
enshrouds the record. The perquisites, however,
granted to the aldermen, are fortunately
within reach of knowledge; and accordingly
we find it set down that the corporation were
empowered to measure and weigh coals, either
in person, and in their gowns, or by proxy, if
they preferred that course, and to charge the
sum of 8<i>d.</i> per ton for their labour. This
was confirmed by a charter in 1613. By this
tax the City made some 50,000<i>l.</i> a year, and
rejoiced exceedingly.</p>

<p class='c005'>This system of protection, under several
forms and pleasant variations, long continued,
and was extended all over England,
the pressure falling most unequally, to the
injury of the least wealthy and the poor,
according to the immemorial custom of
Governments. Some of the people of London
were audacious enough to complain that they
did not need to be protected from the Newcastle
coals, but all on the contrary, would
give any fair sum to obtain them; and that,
indeed, what they really needed was to be protected
from the Lord Mayor and Corporation,
and other taxes and duties. But these people
were reproved as ignorant and froward, and
told that they understood nothing at all:—what
they had to do, was simply—to pay,
first for the protection, and then for the
coals. So they paid. But the importance of
the article being found to exceed even the
greediness of the impost, the use of coals
became general during the reign of Charles
the First; the same, with other taxes, being
demanded, from the reign of William the
Third downwards.</p>

<p class='c005'>In 1830, and not before, the heaviest of
the above duties were abolished; those, however,
which were collected from the Londoners
being excepted—for their old impertinence—together
with two or three sea-ports, who had
also spoken.</p>

<p class='c005'>Who shall repress a truth? Coals were
excellent good things—there was no reason
in denying it. But any foolish people, and
there will always be more than enough found
to do it, <i>can</i> repress a truth for an abominably
long period, denying it without reason, yet
very effectually. Or, when they admit it,
then comes the tax and penalty to be paid for
the fact. Thus was the free introduction and
use of coals repressed throughout England
until 1830; from which date, its grand rise
from the bowels of the earth into a new and
most extensive importance may be dated.</p>

<p class='c005'>Yet, as extremes meet, and as human
nature delights in opposites, if only by way
of reaction or relaxation, so the long-continued
obstinate slowness of past ages bids fair,
in our own day, to enter upon an extreme
change to flighty prematurities, and the over-leaping
of all intermediate and necessary knowledge.
But the reign of the fast-ones is now
approaching its height; which having once
reached, it will then have a rapid decline into
contempt, and so give place to regular and
steady advances upon solid ground.</p>

<p class='c005'>Still, we are not to infer from the present
flourishing state of things, that the great
black-diamond millionaires are very numerous,
or that fortunes are readily accumulated in
the trade. Coal mines are hazardous speculations:
costly is the sinking of shafts—precarious
the lives of men and property
from constant dangers of explosion or inundation;
whereof it comes that no Insurance
Office will guarantee such property against
these or any other accidents. True may it be
that the large coal owners on the Tyne and
the Wear rejoice in a sort of monopoly;
as do other owners; but herein shall we
not find the cause of coals being sold in
London at nearly three times the price they
cost at the pit’s mouth. The cause is to be
sought in the expenses of transit (which,
alone, are often equal to, and not unfrequently
exceed, the cost price); in the loss of screening;
the expenses of lighters and lightermen
wharfs, officers, and wharfingers, coal-heavers,
carmen, horses, waggons, sacks—to say nothing
of long credit, or bad debts;—and the profits of
the various middle-men, among the most
numerous of whom are the brass-plate coal
merchants (whose establishments simply consist
of an order-book, wherein it appeareth
that they get a little more than they give);
and the retailers of various gradations.</p>

<p class='c005'>All these difficulties, and all these reductions
and dues, notwithstanding, and in spite
of,—the coal trade has risen during the last
twenty years to a magnitude in quantity and
<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>influence which may be regarded as one of
the greatest commercial triumphs of this our
England.</p>

<p class='c005'>The coal-fields of the United States of
America are upwards of fourteen times larger
extent than ours; yet, in 1845, while the
American coal mines produced 4,400,000 of
tons, the coal mines of England produced
upwards of 32,000,000 of tons. In the same
year, our production of iron was more than
four times the American amount. Moreover,—and
here may the gravest historian exalt
his pen, and yet be accounted no flourisher,—we
have for some years past been able to
supply coals to all the great powers of the
globe. In 1842, England exported 60,000 tons
of coals to the United States of America;
88,000 tons to Russia; 111,000 tons to Prussia;
515,900 tons to France;—not to speak of the
hundreds of thousands of tons exported in the
same year to Germany collectively, to Holland,
to Denmark, Sweden, the East Indies and
China, &#38;c., &#38;c.</p>

<p class='c005'>The use of coals has now extended, not
only over the civilised world, but in its potent
form of steam has reached most of the remoter
regions. From Suez to Singapore are
steam vessels already in course of passage, and
the line will soon be carried to Australia.
When the American locomotives have made
their way to the shores of the Pacific, their
vessels will be ready to carry onward the
traffic to China and the Indian Islands from
the east; “and thus,” as writes a learned
critic, discoursing of the virtues of steam-coal,
“complete the circuit of the globe.”
Whereby, “a steam voyage round the world
will in a few years, be so practicable, that the
merchant and tourist may make the circuit
within a year, and yet have time enough to
see and learn much at many of the principal
‘stations’ on his way.”</p>

<p class='c005'>All rightful honour, then, to these priceless
Diamonds—whether they be black spirits or
furnace-white, flame-red spirits, or ashy-grey—whether
cannel coal and caking coal—cherry
coal and stone coal—whether any of
the forty kinds of Newcastle coal, or any of
the seventy species of the great family, from
the highest class of the bituminous, down to
the one degree above old coke.</p>

<h3 class='c009'>CHAPTER III.—THE COAL EXCHANGE.</h3>

<p class='c008'>Near to the Custom House rises one of the
most ornate edifices in the metropolis,—the
Coal Exchange of London,—in which is carried
on one of our most stupendous trades.</p>

<p class='c005'>It is Wednesday—a market day—we ascend
the steps of a beautiful sort of round tower,
and pass through the folding swing-doors of
the principal entrance. The space here, or
little vestibule, forms the base of the centre
of a well-staircase of iron. You look up,
through the coiling balustrades as they climb
up to the top, and at the very top you see a
painting in the Rubens style of colouring,
(though a long way <i>after</i> Rubens in other
respects,) of the figure of a prodigal lady, who
is upsetting a cornucopia, full—<i>not</i> of coals—but
of all the most richly coloured fruits of
Italy and the East, which seem about to
descend straight through the centre of the
well-staircase, and shower down upon your
wondering and expectant head. Cupids—or,
at least, little chubby boys, tumbling in the air—are
also in attendance on this theatrical
Goddess of Abundance.</p>

<p class='c005'>Passing from this entrance into the grand
central market, you find yourself in a circular
area boarded with oak planks of a light and
dark hue, arranged in a kind of mosaic of
long angles, which converge to a centre piece,
wherein a great anchor is inlaid. Beside
this, there is a wooden dagger, to the blade
of which a legend of no interest is attached.
Three ranges of cast-iron galleries rise all
round, terminating above in a large glass
dome, with an orange-coloured centre of
stained glass. Around the floor of the area,
at due intervals, long desks of new polished
oak, with inkstands let into the wood, stand
invitingly ready for the transaction of business.
The City Arms, on a series of small shields,
is the simple adornment of the outer balustrade-work
of the three galleries,—except,
also, that these galleries often have many
lady-visitors who lean over and contemplate
the ‘dark doings’ of the busy black-diamond
merchants who congregate below.</p>

<p class='c005'>But let it not be supposed that the ornaments
of the Coal Exchange of London are
confined to the City Arms, or even the beauty
of the lady-visitors. Private offices, and
recesses for business, having the most neat,
orderly appearance, even to a primness and
propriety worthy of the Society of Friends,
are observable round the area, beneath the
galleries; but the panels of the woodwork
that separate these offices, rejoice in the most
lively adornments, <i><span lang="fr">à la Jullien</span></i>. They are
covered with emblematic, fanciful, and not
very characteristic pictures and designs, all in
the brightest hues; and, being painted on a
light ground, they have a look of gaiety and
airiness quite of a continental character. The
weight and gravity of the City has, for once—and
by way of smiling antagonism to what
every one would expect of a coal-market—determined
to emulate the gayest places of
public amusement in France or Germany.
Restaurants, cafés, dancing-rooms—and oh!—shall
we say it—a touch of Cremorne! In
one panel you see a figure of <i>Watchfulness</i>,
typified by a robed lady, with a wise-faced
owl at her side. The river Severn is typified
by Naïads and a dolphin—by a little poetic
licence. In another panel we have <i>Charity</i>,
bearing a couple of children, with a figure of
old Father Thames sitting among rushes
below. Then, we have <i>Perseverance</i> for the
Avon, emblemed by a snail at the foot of a
brunette lady with black eyes,—the favourite
style of beauty of the artist, Mr. Sang. The
Trent and the Tyne are similarly illustrated,
<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>and all in the brightest colours, on a light
ground.</p>

<p class='c005'>Let us now return to the principal entrance,
and ascend to the first gallery. The panels
all round, are painted as below. The chief
subject of most of them appears to be a colliery—that
is, the works above ground, such
as the little black house of the steam-engine,
with its long chain passing over the drum,
and then over a wheel above the pit’s mouth.
The first we come to is the celebrated Wallsend
colliery. Each has fanciful designs above
and beneath, as if to atone for the dark reality
of the centre piece, picturesque as this is
always made. Over some of these we find
heraldic monsters of the right frightful Order
of the Griffin, prancing above greyhounds who
crouch on each side of a large ornamental
cup, not unlike a head-dress of the ancient
South American Indians, which however is
supported by a lady in the bright costume of
a Mexican peasant, wearing wings. Beneath
there lies a rich grouping of grapes, arborescent
ferns, with vulture-headed griffins, and
flowers of the cactus. The collieries are occasionally
varied with a sea-piece, in which, of
course, a black collier-vessel is sailing from
the North. Sometimes the scene is a shore-piece
with a collier boat; but presided over
by the usual sort of nut-brown mining beauty
with Italian eyes, and hair in no particular
order, bearing a fruit-basket on her head,
piled up with all sorts of ripe fruit of the
most tempting size and colour. Beneath her,
we again find the griffin vultures holding
watch over some logs of antediluvian trees.</p>

<p class='c005'>Wandering onwards in this way, we observed,
a little in advance of us, a seafaring
man, in a rough blue pilot coat, with a face
so weather-beaten that it looked as hard as a
ship’s figure-head, and a pair of great dangling
hands that seemed hewn out of solid oak.
He was very busy in front of one of the
panels, admiring a lady with very good-humoured
black eyes, and cheeks as red as ripe
tomatos, carrying on her head a basket of
Orlean plums and alligator pears, richly
grouped with a profusion of grapes, and crimson
flowers of the cactus. Her face was turned
smilingly upwards at a collier brig in full sail.</p>

<p class='c005'>We congratulated him on his ‘choice,’ and
the suggestion appearing to please his fancy, a
little colloquy ensued, from which it turned
out that he was Thomas Oldcastle, of Durham,
captain of the collier brig ‘Shiner,’ of
South Shields, and having just discharged his
cargo at Rotherhithe, had come to London to
amuse himself for a few hours. Arriving at
the entrance in the course of our talk, we ascended
the stairs together, and soon reached
the second gallery.</p>

<p class='c005'>The flooring of this gallery—in fact the
whole of it, like the previous one, was of cast
iron. In the semicircle of the entrance was a
picture of Newcastle, on one side, with its iron
bridge and railway combined, and its old stone
bridge below. It was very well and characteristically
painted, and of a sombre and rather
smoky colour, which Captain Oldcastle said
was too like to be very pleasing. His thoughts
were evidently reverting to the very highly coloured
operatic ladies below. On the other
side of this entrance was a picture of Durham,
with the cathedral among the trees—also a
very good and truthful picture. Captain Oldcastle,
after great deliberation, and the slow
pocketing of both hands, was obliged to confess
that it was something like the old place.
But this wall was not right—any how—and
that spire did not look so—when last he saw
it—in short, it was clear he wanted reality,
could not make out perspective differences,
and preferred the handsome looks of the brunette
fruit-bearer in the lower gallery.</p>

<p class='c005'>But though our honest friend had no good
taste in pictures, there was a great mass of
good solid practical knowledge in the hard-outlined
head of this rough captain of the
North Sea. It turned out that he was an
old friend of Mr. Buddle, the coal engineer of
Wallsend, and often quoted him as authority.
Chancing to ask him some question about
the number of people employed in the coal trade
on the Tyne and the Wear, he said
that he had heard Buddle say (twenty years
ago) there were nearly 5,000 boys, and quite
3,500 men <i>underground</i> in the works near the
Tyne: and nearly 3,000 men, and 700 boys
above ground. On the Wear, he said there
were 9,000. All of these were employed in the
mines, and taking the coal to the ships on
the two rivers. Captain Oldcastle estimated
the vessels employed at about 1,400, which
would require 15,000 sailors and boys to
work them “as all ought to be.” Besides
these, there were lots more hands in other
parts of the great coal trade of the north.</p>

<p class='c005'>But as this estimate of his friend Buddle,
we remarked, had been made twenty years
ago, was it not pretty certain that the
numbers had immensely increased by this
time? To this the Captain replied that
it was so, no doubt; and supposing that
every other district, besides the North, of
the entire coal trade of England, had increased
in the same proportion, and if you
added to this all the agents, factors, clerks,
subordinates, whippers, lightermen, wharfingers,
&#38;c., there would be found upwards
of 200,000 men engaged in the Coal trade
of England,—enough, he added with a grimly
comical look, if a war broke out, to furnish
the army and navy with 20,000 men each, at
a week’s notice.</p>

<p class='c005'>“If they liked the work,” we added; but
the Captain had walked on, attracted by a
picture in one of the panels. It was a portrait
of a miner in his underground dress—when
he wears any—the darkness of his figure and
position in the mine being pleasantly and
appropriately relieved by an immense quantity
of highly coloured <i>tropical</i> fruits, flowers,
griffin vultures, long and sleek-necked cranes,
arborescent ferns, various logs of wood known
<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>in fossil botany, with here and there a string
of choice jewels,—rubies, emeralds, and carbuncles
of prodigious size, such as one has
seen in “Blue Beard” and “Pizarro.” The
next figure was a miner with a Davy-lamp,
whom Captain Oldcastle shrewdly conjectured
to be looking out for some of those
jewels so profusely accorded to the fortunate
miner in the previous picture.</p>

<p class='c005'>In walking round these galleries, amidst so
many adornments attracting the attention, a
visitor might be excused for not too hastily
turning his thoughts to utility. But this
thought, in these too practical days, will obtrude
itself. The number of the private
rooms for offices, on each gallery, is considerable;
their accommodations, all that could
be desired; their appearance most neat, quiet,
and unexceptionable; but by far the greater
part are <i>empty</i>. Nobody will take them.
Many of those on the ground-floor, or area of
the market—obviously the best place by far—are
unlet. These are of the high-priced,
of course; still, as the price decreases with
the ascent, why are not more of the upper
offices taken? Here—in the very centre of
all the great Coal trade of England!—and not
one-third, not one-fourth, we think, of the
offices let? We expressed our astonishment
to the Captain.</p>

<p class='c005'>“Oh!” said he, “the City is a queer place,
and the City authorities are a rum sort of
reasoners. They asked too much rent for
these berths at first; and though but a few
factors and merchants can afford to give it,
the City still persists. And so they are
obliged to go to the expence of fires in all
the empty offices to keep them aired three-quarters
of the year round, rather than see
the place full at a moderate rent. That’s
how I read their log.”</p>

<p class='c005'>We now ascended to the third gallery.
Here, the cold, though not the “beggarly
array of empty boxes,” was most expressive
of the mismanagement, <i>somehow</i> and <i>somewhere</i>
of this well-placed, and most commodious
building, on which so much money has been
expended.</p>

<p class='c005'>The paintings in the entrance of this uppermost
gallery were of ‘Shields’ on one side,
and ‘Sunderland’ on the other. That of
Shields was a view of colliers in the river by
moonlight, with a dull sky of indigo blue, and
smoky clouds—very well done, and truthful,
having a sufficient mixture of reality for the
nature of the subject, and of fancy for the
picturesque. The picture of Sunderland, with
its one-arched iron bridge, which is so high
above the water, that a collier can pass underneath
without striking her topmasts, is also a
night scene; but by torch-light; the red
flashes of which fall upon a train of little
upright waggons full of coals, coming from
the pit to be shipped.</p>

<p class='c005'>The panels round this gallery are adorned
with paintings of gigantic ferns, fragments of
the trunks of the lepidodendron, and the
sigillaria, and other stems and foliage of those
antediluvian plants and trees which subsequently
contributed most largely to the coal
formations. These paintings are interspersed
with various miners’ tools, above which rises
the glass dome of the building.</p>

<p class='c005'>Descending the well-staircase, we asked
Captain Oldcastle what capital he thought
was employed by the great coal owners on the
Tyne and Wear. He said—quoting his friend
Buddle again, as authority—that they could
not have embarked less than a million and a
half of money, without reckoning any of the
vessels on the river; but taking these into
the account, the capital employed would not
amount to less than between eight and ten
millions. And this estimate was made by
Buddle twenty years ago!</p>

<div class='chapter'>
  <h2 class='c003'>THE GREAT PENAL EXPERIMENTS.</h2>
</div>

<p class='c004'>Prison Life, like life in all other circumstances,
has its extremes; and these have
been pushed to the farthest verge of contrast
by the ‘great experiments’ that have
lately been essayed. There is an aristocracy
of prisoners, and a commonality of prisoners;
there are palace prisons, and kennel prisons
in which it would be cruelty to confine refractory
dogs. We have hardened criminals
put into training in Model Prisons for pattern
penitence, and novices in crime thrust into
dens with the most depraved felons; so as to
bring them down in morals to the lowest
practicable level. The study of some of these
extremes is instructive. It shows what results
have been produced by the ‘great experiments’
which have been tried; either how
much reform they have effected; or how many
misdemeanants they are likely to add to the
already over-populated dangerous class. For
the sake of impartiality we shall in each instance
offer no description of our own; but we
intend to cite what has already been in print.</p>

<p class='c005'>A graphic but eccentric pen has supplied a
vivid description of the palace order of gaols.
“Some months ago,” says Mr. Carlyle, in a
recent pamphlet, “some friends took me with
them to see one of the London Prisons; a
Prison of the exemplary or model kind. An
immense circuit of buildings; cut out, girt with
a high ring wall, from the lanes and streets of
the quarter, which is a dim and crowded one.
Gateway as to a fortified place; then a
spacious court, like the square of a city; broad
staircases, passages to interior courts; fronts
of stately architecture all round. It lodges
some Thousand or Twelve-hundred prisoners,
besides the officers of the establishment.
Surely one of the most perfect buildings,
within the compass of London. We looked
at the apartments, sleeping-cells, dining-rooms,
working-rooms, general courts or
special and private; excellent all, the ne-plus-ultra
of human care and ingenuity; in
my life I never saw so clean a building; probably
no Duke in England lives in a mansion
<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>of such perfect and thorough cleanness. The
bread, the cocoa, soup, meat, all the various
sorts of food, in their respective cooking-places,
we tasted; found them of excellence superlative.
The prisoners sat at work, light work,
picking oakum and the like, in airy apartments
with glass roofs, of agreeable temperature and
perfect ventilation; silent, or at least conversing
only by secret signs; others were
out, taking their hour of promenade in clean
flagged courts; methodic composure, cleanliness,
peace, substantial wholesome comfort,
reigned everywhere supreme.”</p>

<p class='c005'>This is the great model experiment. We can
easily reverse the picture. It is but a short walk
from Pentonville to Smithfield—scarcely two
miles—yet, in the prison world, the two places
are antipodes. Here, within the hallowed
precincts of the City, stands Giltspur Street
Compter, upon the state of which we produce
another witness. Mr. Dixon, in his work on
London Prisons, testifies that in this jail the
prisoners “sleep in small cells, little more than
half the size of the model cell at Pentonville,
which is calculated (on the supposition that the
cell is to be ventilated on the best plan which
science can suggest, regardless of cost) to be
just large enough for <i>one</i> inmate. The cell in
Giltspur Street Compter is little more than half
the size, and is either not ventilated at all, or is
ventilated very imperfectly. I have measured
it, and know exactly the quantity of air which
it will hold, and have no doubt but that it
contains less than any human being ought to
breathe in, in the course of a night. Well, in
this cell, in which there is hardly room for
them to lie down, I have seen <i>five</i> persons locked
up, at four o’clock in the day, to be there confined,
in darkness, in idleness, to pass all those
hours, to do all the offices of nature, not
merely in each other’s presence, but crushed
by the narrowness of their den into a state of
filthy contact which brute beasts would have
resisted to the last gasp of life! Think of
these five wretched beings—men with souls, and
gifted with human reason—condemned, day
by day, to pass in this unutterably loathsome
manner two-thirds of their time! Can we
wonder if these men come out of prison,
after three or four months of such treatment,
prepared to commit the most revolting crimes?
Could five of the purest men in the world live
together in such a manner without losing every
attribute of good which had once belonged to
them? He would be a rash man who would
dare to answer—‘Yes.’ Take another fact
from Newgate. In any of the female wards
may be seen, a week before the Sessions, a
collection of persons of every shade of guilt,
and some who are innocent. I remember
one case particularly. A servant girl, of
about sixteen, a fresh-looking healthy creature,
recently up from the country, was charged
by her mistress for stealing a brooch. She
was in the same room—lived all day, slept
all night—with the most abandoned of her sex.
They were left alone; they had no work to do;
no books—except a few tracts for which they
had no taste—to read. The whole day was
spent, as is usual in such prisons, in telling
stories—the gross and guilty stories of their
own lives. There is no form of wickedness,
no aspect of vice, with which the poor creature’s
mind would not be compelled to grow
familiar in the few weeks she passed in Newgate
awaiting trial. When the day came,
the evidence against her was found to be the
lamest in the world, and she was at once
acquitted. That she entered Newgate innocent
I have no doubt; but who shall answer
for the state in which she left it?”</p>

<p class='c005'>Let us not wrong the City in supposing it
singular in promoting these loathsome prison
scenes. A hundred passages, in nearly as
many blue books, are ready for quotation, to
show how some of the ‘great experiments’ in
not a few of the National prisons have turned
out. One, however, will do. Here is a sentence
or two from the Government’s own
report of the state of one of its own hulks
at Woolwich—the same Government which
has been so good as to dispense upwards of
90,000<i>l.</i> of the public money in building the
Pentonville Model. We cannot quote it
entire, by reason of some of the passages
being too revolting for reproduction in these
pages:—</p>

<p class='c005'>“In the hospital ship, the “Unité,” the great
majority of the patients were infested with
vermin, and their persons in many instances,
particularly their feet, begrimed with dirt.
No regular supply of body linen had been
issued; so much so, that many men had been
five weeks without a change; and all record
had been lost of the time when the blankets
had been washed; and the number of sheets
was so insufficient, that the expedient had
to be resorted to of only a single sheet at
a time to save appearances. Neither towels
nor combs were provided for the prisoners’
use.&#160;*&#160;*&#160;* On the admission of new cases
into the hospital, patients were directed to
leave their beds and go into hammocks, and
the new cases were turned into the vacated
beds, without changing the sheets.”</p>

<p class='c005'>Is anything more shocking than the Compter,
Newgate, and the Unité to be conceived?
Do travellers tell us of anything worse in
Russia, or China, or Old Tartary? “O! yes;
there is Austria and its life-punishments
in Spielberg,” some one may suggest, “surely
there is no London parallel for that.” But
Mr. Dixon answers there is:—in the Millbank
Penitentiary. ‘The dark cells,’ he
says, ‘are fearful places, and sometimes melancholy
mistakes are made in committing
persons to them. You descend about twenty
steps from the ground-floor into a very dark
passage leading into a corridor, on one side
of which the cells—small, dark, ill-ventilated,
and doubly barred—are ranged. No glimpse
of day ever comes into this fearful place.
The offender is locked up for three days, and
fed on bread and water only. There is only
<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>a board to sleep on; and the only furniture
of the cell is a water-closet. On a former
visit to Millbank, some months ago, I was
told there was a person in one of these cells.
“He is touched, poor fellow!” said the
warden, “in his intellects.” But his madness
was very mild. He wished to fraternise with
the other prisoners; declared that all mankind
are brethren; sang hymns when told to be
silent; and when reprimanded for taking these
unwarranted liberties, declared that he was the
“governor.” They said he <i>pretended</i> to be
mad; which, seeing that his vagaries subjected
him to continual punishments, and procured
him no advantages, was very likely!
They put him into darkness to enlighten his
understanding; and alone, to teach him how
unbrotherly men are. Poor wretch! He was
frightened with his solitude, and howled fearfully.
I shall never forget his wail as we
passed the door of his horrid dungeon. The
tones were quite unearthly, and caused an involuntary
shudder. On hearing footsteps, he
evidently thought they were coming to release
him. While we remained in the corridor, he
did not cease to shout and implore most
lamentably for freedom: when he heard us
retreating, his voice rose into a yell; and when
the fall of the heavy bolts told him that
we were gone, he gave a shriek of horror,
agony, and despair, which ran through the
pentagon, and can never be forgotten. God
grant that I may never hear such sounds
again! On coming again, after three or four
months’ absence, to this part of the prison, the
inquiry naturally arose, “What has become of
the man who <i>pretended</i> to be mad?” The
answer was, “Oh, he went mad, and was sent
to Bedlam!”’</p>

<p class='c005'>What happens at Pentonville, and what
takes place at Millbank, is done under the
same eye, under the same legislative supervision.
The two “great experiments” of iron
and feather-bed prison reform are worked out
by the same power. The despots of Russia,
Austria, and China, are at least consistent.
They have not carried on opposite systems—one
of extreme severity, and another of superlative
‘coddling.’ In no other country but
this does Justice—blind as she is—administer
cocoa and condign misery to the same degree
of crime with the same hand.</p>

<p class='c005'>We have thrown these facts together,
merely to awaken attention to them. We
purposely abstain from suggestive comment.
We know that the subject of reformatory
punishment is fraught with difficulties, to conquer
which all the “great experiments” have
been tried. But they have only been “great”
because of their great expense and their great
failure; and when the failure is incontestable—proved
beyond doubt by the direst results,—should
they not be abandoned, and something
else tried, instead of being made an absolute
matter of faith, and a test to which certain
county magistrates, whom we could name,
bring every man who is unhappy enough to be
within their power? The cause of it is plainly
and constantly presented at the bar of every
Police Court and in the dock of every
Sessions House. It has resulted from an utter
misapprehension of means to end, and a lofty
disregard of the good old adage, “prevention
is better than cure.” Although it has been
daily observed that ignorance—moral more
than intellectual—ignorance has been the
forerunner of all juvenile crime, we have
never tried any very great experiment upon
<i>that</i>. On the contrary, we spend hundreds
of thousands every year to effect the manifest
impossibility of re-forming what has never
been formed. We have tried every shade
of system but the right. Ingenuity has been
on the rack to invent every sort of reformatory,
from the iron rule of Millbank, to the
affectionate fattening at Pentonville—except
one, and that happens to be the right one.
Punishment has occupied all our thoughts,—training,
none. We condemn young criminals
for not knowing certain moralities which we
have not taught them, and—by herding them
with accomplished professors of dishonesty in
transit jails—punish them for immoralities
which have been there taught them. Instances
of this can be adduced in so large a proportion
as to amount to a rule; to which the
appearance of instructed juvenile criminals at
the tribunals is the exception. Two or three
glaring cases occurred only the past month.
We select one as reported in the “Globe”
newspaper of Tuesday, May 7:—</p>

<p class='c011'>‘<span class='sc'>Bow-Street Police-Court.</span>—This day, two
little children, whose heads hardly reached the
top of the dock, were placed at the bar before
Mr. Jardine, charged with stealing a loaf. Their
very appearance told the want they were in.
The housekeeper to Mr. Mims, baker, Drury
Lane, deposed, that they, about eight o’clock last
evening, went into the shop and asked for a
quartern loaf, and while her back was turned
to get it for them, they stole a half quartern loaf,
value 2½<i>d.</i>, which was lying on the counter, and
made off with it. Police constable, F 14, deposed,
that he was on duty in Drury Lane, and seeing
them quarrelling over the loaf, he asked them
where they had got it. One of them answered,
they had stolen it. After ascertaining how they
came by it, he took them into custody. In
defence, the prisoners said they were starving.
Mr. Jardine sentenced them both to be once
whipped in the House of Correction.’</p>

<p class='c005'>These children were without means, friends,
or any sort of instruction. They were whipped
then for their ignorance and want, for both
which they are not responsible. After whipping
and a few imprisonments they will
doubtless be boarded and instructed by
fellow prisoners into finished thieves. The
authorities tell us, that five-eighths of the
juvenile criminals—and a few become professional
after the age of twenty—who are
received into jails, have not received one
spark of moral or intellectual training!</p>

<p class='c005'>These, and a thousand other facts too obvious
<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>for the common sense of our readers to
be troubled with, induce us to recommend
one other ‘great experiment’ which has
never yet been tried. It has the advantage
of being a preventive as well as a cure—it
is—compared with all the penal systems
now in practice—immeasurably safer, more
humane, and incalculably cheaper. The
‘great experiment’ we propose, is <span class='sc'>National
Education</span>.</p>

<div class='chapter'>
  <h2 class='c003'>THE ORPHAN’S VOYAGE HOME.</h2>
</div>

<div class='lg-container-b c006'>
  <div class='linegroup'>
    <div class='group'>
      <div class='line'>The men could hardly keep the deck,</div>
      <div class='line in2'>So bitter was the night;</div>
      <div class='line'>Keen north-east winds sang thro’ the shrouds,</div>
      <div class='line in2'>The deck was frosty white;</div>
      <div class='line'>While overhead the glistening stars</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Put forth their points of light.</div>
    </div>
    <div class='group'>
      <div class='line'>On deck, behind a bale of goods,</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Two orphans crouch’d, to sleep;</div>
      <div class='line'>But ’twas so cold, the youngest boy</div>
      <div class='line in2'>In vain tried not to weep:</div>
      <div class='line'>They were so poor, they had no right</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Near cabin doors to creep.</div>
    </div>
    <div class='group'>
      <div class='line'>The elder round the younger wrapt</div>
      <div class='line in2'>His little ragged cloak,</div>
      <div class='line'>To shield him from the freezing sleet,</div>
      <div class='line in2'>And surf that o’er them broke;</div>
      <div class='line'>Then drew him closer to his side,</div>
      <div class='line in2'>And softly to him spoke:—</div>
    </div>
    <div class='group'>
      <div class='line'>“The night will not be long”—he said,</div>
      <div class='line in2'>“And if the cold winds blow,</div>
      <div class='line'>We shall the sooner reach our home,</div>
      <div class='line in2'>And see the peat-fire glow;</div>
      <div class='line'>But now the stars are beautiful—</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Oh, do not tremble so!</div>
    </div>
    <div class='group'>
      <div class='line'>“Come closer!—sleep—forget the frost—</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Think of the morning red—</div>
      <div class='line'>Our father and our mother soon</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Will take us to their bed;</div>
      <div class='line'>And in their warm arms we shall sleep.”</div>
      <div class='line in2'>He knew not they were dead.</div>
    </div>
    <div class='group'>
      <div class='line'>For them no father to the ship</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Shall with the morning come;</div>
      <div class='line'>For them no mother’s loving arms</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Are spread to take them home:</div>
      <div class='line'>Meanwhile the cabin passengers</div>
      <div class='line in2'>In dreams of pleasure roam.</div>
    </div>
    <div class='group'>
      <div class='line'>At length the orphans sank to sleep</div>
      <div class='line in2'>All on the freezing deck;</div>
      <div class='line'>Close huddled side to side—each arm</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Clasp’d round the other’s neck.</div>
      <div class='line'>With heads bent down, they dream’d the earth</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Was fading to a speck.</div>
    </div>
    <div class='group'>
      <div class='line'>The steerage passengers have all</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Been taken down below,</div>
      <div class='line'>And round the stove they warm their limbs</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Into a drowsy glow;</div>
      <div class='line'>And soon within their berths forget</div>
      <div class='line in2'>The icy wind and snow.</div>
    </div>
    <div class='group'>
      <div class='line'>Now morning dawns: the land in sight,</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Smiles beam on every face!</div>
      <div class='line'>The pale and qualmy passengers</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Begin the deck to pace,</div>
      <div class='line'>Seeking along the sun-lit cliffs</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Some well-known spot to trace.</div>
    </div>
    <div class='group'>
      <div class='line'>Only the orphans do not stir,</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Of all this bustling train:</div>
      <div class='line'>They reach’d their <i>home</i> this starry night!</div>
      <div class='line in2'>They will not stir again!</div>
      <div class='line'>The winter’s breath proved kind to them,</div>
      <div class='line in2'>And ended all their pain.</div>
    </div>
    <div class='group'>
      <div class='line'>But in their deep and freezing sleep</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Clasp’d rigid to each other,</div>
      <div class='line'>In dreams they cried, “The bright morn breaks,</div>
      <div class='line in2'>Home! home! is here, my brother!</div>
      <div class='line'>The Angel Death has been our friend—</div>
      <div class='line in2'>We come! dear Father! Mother!”</div>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

<div class='chapter'>
  <h2 class='c003'>ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHEAPNESS.</h2>
</div>
<h3 class='c007'>TEA.</h3>

<p class='c008'>The history of tea, from its first introduction
to England, may be read in the history of
taxation. It appears to have escaped the
notice of nearly all writers on tea, that the
first tax is a curious illustration of the original
mode of its sale. By the act of the
22d and 23d Charles II., 1670–1, a duty of
eighteenpence was imposed upon ‘every <i>gallon</i>
of chocolate, sherbet, and tea, made and sold,
to be paid by the makers thereof.’ It is manifest
that such a tax was impossible to be
collected without constant evasion; and so,
after having remained on the Statute Book for
seventeen years, it was discovered, in 1688,
that ‘the collecting of the duty by way of
Excise upon the liquors of coffee, chocolate,
and tea, is not only very troublesome and unequal
upon the retailers of these liquors, but
requireth such attendance of officers as makes
the neat receipt very inconsiderable.’ The
excise upon the liquor was therefore repealed,
and heavy Customs’ duties imposed on the
imported tea.</p>

<p class='c005'>The annals of tea may be divided into
epochs. The first is that in which the liquid
only was taxed, which tax commenced about
ten years after we have any distinct record of
the public or private use of tea. In 1660, dear
old Pepys writes, ‘I did send for a cup of tea
(a China drink) of which I never had drank
before.’ In 1667, the herb had found its way
into his own house: ‘Home, and there find
my wife making of tea; a drink which Mr.
Pelling, the Potticary, tells her is good for
her cold and defluxions.’</p>

<p class='c005'>Mrs. Pepys making her first cup of tea is a
subject to be painted. How carefully she
metes out the grains of the precious drug,
which Mr. Pelling, the Potticary, has sold her
at a most enormous price—a crown an ounce
at the very least. She has tasted the liquor
once before: but then there was sugar in the
infusion—a beverage only for the highest. If
tea should become fashionable, it will cost in
housekeeping as much as their claret. However,
Pepys says, the price is coming down;
and he produces the handbill of Thomas
Garway, in Exchange Alley, which the lady
peruses with great satisfaction; for the worthy
merchant says, that although ‘tea in England
hath been sold in the leaf for six pounds, and
sometimes for ten pounds the pound weight,’
<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>he ‘by continued care and industry in obtaining
the best tea,’ now ‘sells tea for 16<i>s.</i> to 50<i>s.</i>
a pound.’ Garway not only sells tea in the
leaf, but ‘many noblemen, physicians, merchants,
&#38;c., daily resort to his house to drink
the drink thereof.’ The coffee-houses soon ran
away with the tea-merchant’s liquid customers.
They sprang up all over London; they became
a fashion at the Universities. Coffee and tea
came into England as twin-brothers. Like
many other foreigners, they received a full
share of abuse and persecution from the people
and the state. Coffee was denounced as ‘hell
broth,’ and tea as ‘poison.’ But the coffee-houses
became fashionable at once; and for a
century were the exclusive resorts of wits
and politicians. ‘Here,’ says a pamphleteer
of 1673, ‘haberdashers of political small wares
meet, and mutually abuse each other and the
public, with bottomless stories and headless
notions.’ Clarendon, in 1666, proposed, either
to suppress them, or to employ spies to
note down the conversation. In 1670 the
liquids sold at the coffee-houses were to be
taxed. We can scarcely imagine a state
of society in which the excise officer was
superintending the preparation of a gallon
of tea, and charging his eightpence. The exciseman
and the spy were probably united in
the same person. During this period we may
be quite certain that tea was unknown, as a
general article of diet, in the private houses
even of the wealthiest. But it was not taxation
which then kept it out of use. The
drinkers of tea were ridiculed by the wits, and
frightened by the physicians. More than all,
a new habit had to be acquired. The praise of
Boyle was nothing against the ancient influences
of ale and claret. It was then a help to
excess instead of a preventive. A writer in 1682
says,—‘I know some that celebrate good Thee
for preventing drunkenness, taking it before
they go to the tavern, and use it very much
also after a debauch.’ One of the first attractions
of ‘the cup which cheers but not inebriates’
was as a minister of evil.</p>

<p class='c005'>The second epoch of tea was that of excessive
taxation; which lasted from the five
shillings Customs’ duty of 1688 to 1745,
more than half a century, in which fiscal
folly and prohibition were almost convertible
terms. Yet tea gradually forced its way into
domestic use. In a Tatler of 1710 we read
‘I am credibly informed, by an antiquary
who has searched the registers in which the
bills of fare of the court are recorded, that
instead of tea and bread and butter, which
have prevailed of late years, the maids of
honour in Queen Elizabeth’s time were
allowed three rumps of beef for their breakfast.’
Tea for breakfast must have been
expensive in 1710. In the original edition of
the Tatler, we have many advertisements
about tea, one of which we copy:—</p>

<div class='nf-center-c0'>
<div class='nf-center c012'>
    <div><i>From the Tatler of October 10, 1710.</i></div>
  </div>
</div>

<p class='c011'>“Mr. Fary’s 16<i>s.</i> Bohee Tea, not much inferior
in goodness to the best Foreign Bohee Tea, is sold
by himself only at the Bell in Gracechurch Street.
Note,—the best Foreign Bohee is worth 30<i>s.</i> a
pound; so that what is sold at 20<i>s.</i> or 21<i>s.</i> must
either be faulty Tea, or mixed with a proportionate
quantity of damaged Green or Bohee, the
worst of which will remain black after infusion.”</p>

<p class='c005'>‘Mr. Fary’s 16<i>s.</i> Bohee Tea, not much inferior
in goodness to the best Foreign Bohee
Tea’ was, upon the face of it, an indigenous
manufacture. ‘The best Foreign Bohee is
worth 30<i>s.</i> a pound.’ With such Queen
Anne refreshed herself at Hampton Court:</p>

<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
  <div class='linegroup'>
    <div class='group'>
      <div class='line'>‘Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey,</div>
      <div class='line'>Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea.’</div>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

<p class='c005'>When the best tea was at 30<i>s.</i> a pound, the
home consumption of tea was about a hundred
and forty thousand pounds per annum. A
quarter of a century later, in the early tea-drinking
days of Dr. Johnson, the consumption
had quadrupled. And yet tea was then
so dear, that Garrick was cross even with his
favourite actress for using it too freely.
‘I remember,’ says Johnson, ‘drinking tea
with him long ago, when Peg Woffington
made it, and he grumbled at her for making
it too strong. He had then begun to feel
money in his purse, and did not know when
he should have enough of it.’ In 1745, the
last year of the second tea epoch, the consumption
was only seven hundred and thirty
thousand pounds per annum. Yet even at
this period tea was forcing itself into common
use. Duncan Forbes, in his Correspondence,
which ranges from 1715 to 1748, is bitter
against ‘the excessive use of tea; which is
now become so common, that the meanest
families, even of labouring people, particularly
in boroughs, make their morning’s meal of it,
and thereby wholly disuse the ale, which
heretofore was their accustomed drink; and
the same drug supplies all the labouring
women with their afternoon’s entertainments,
to the exclusion of the twopenny.’ The excellent
President of the Court of Session had
his prejudices; and he was frightened at the
notion that tea was driving out beer; and
thus, diminishing the use of malt, was to be
the ruin of agriculture. Some one gave the
Government of the day wiser counsel than
that of prohibitory duties, which he desired.</p>

<p class='c005'>In 1745, the quantity of tea retained for
home consumption was 730,729 lbs. In 1746,
it amounted to 2,358,589 lbs. The consumption
was trebled. The duty had been reduced, in
1745, from 4<i>s.</i> per lb. to 1<i>s.</i> per lb., and 25 per
cent. on the gross price. For forty years
afterwards, the Legislature contrived to keep
the consumption pretty equal with the increase
of the population, putting on a little
more duty when the demand seemed a little
increasing. These were the palmy days of
Dr. Johnson’s tea triumphs—the days in
which he describes himself as ‘a hardened
and shameless tea drinker, who has for many
years diluted his meals with only the infusion
of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has
<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses
the evenings; with tea solaces the midnights;
and with tea welcomes the morning.’ This
was the third epoch—that of considerable
taxation, enhancing the monopoly price of an
article, sold to the people at exorbitant profits.</p>

<p class='c005'>In 1785, the Government boldly repealed
the Excise duty; and imposed only a Customs’
duty of 12½ per cent. The consumption of
tea was doubled in the first year after the
change, and quadrupled in the third. The
system was too good to last. The concession
of three years in which the public might freely
use an article of comfort was quite enough
for official liberality and wisdom. New duties
were imposed in 1787; the consumption
was again driven back, and by additional
duty upon duty, was kept far behind the
increase of the population for another thirty
years. In 1784, the annual consumption was
only 4,948,983 lbs.; in 1787, with a reduced
duty, it was 17,047,054 lbs.; in 1807, when we
had almost reached the climax of high duties,
it was only 19,239,212 lbs. This state of
things, with very slight alteration, continued
till the peace. The consumption had been
nearly stationary for thirty years, with a duty
raised from 12½ per cent. to 96 per cent.
Those were the days, which some of us
may remember, when we paid 12<i>s.</i> a pound
for our green tea, and 8<i>s.</i> for our black; the
days when convictions for the sale of spurious
tea were of constant occurrence; and
yet the days when Cobbett was alarmed lest
tea should become a common beverage, and
calculated that between eleven and twelve
pounds a year were consumed by a cottager’s
family in tea-drinking. During this fourth
epoch of excessive taxation, the habit of tea-drinking
had become so rooted in the people,
that no efforts of the Government could
destroy it. The teas under 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a pound
(the Company’s warehouse prices without
duty), were the teas of the working classes—the
teas of the cottage and the kitchen. In
1801, such teas paid only an excise of 15 per
cent.; in 1803, they paid 60 per cent.; in
1806, 90 per cent. And yet the washerwoman
looked to her afternoon ‘dish of tea,’ as
something that might make her comfortable
after her twelve hours’ labour; and balancing
her saucer on a tripod of three fingers,
breathed a joy beyond utterance as she cooled
the draught. The factory workman then
looked forward to the singing of the kettle, as
some compensation for the din of the spindle.
Tea had found its way even to the hearth of
the agricultural labourer. He ‘had lost his
rye teeth’—to use his own expression for his
preference of wheaten bread—and he would
have his ounce of tea as well as the best of his
neighbours. Sad stuff the chandler’s shop furnished
him: no commodity brought hundreds
of miles from the interior of China, chiefly by
human labour; shipped according to the most
expensive arrangements; sold under a limited
competition at the dearest rate; and taxed
as highly as its wholesale cost. The small
tea-dealers had their manufactured tea.
But they had also their smuggled tea. The
pound of tea which sold for eight shillings in
England, was selling at Hamburg for fourteenpence.
It was hard indeed if the artisan
did not occasionally obtain a cup of good tea
at a somewhat lower price than the King and
John Company had willed. No dealer could
send out six pounds of tea without a permit.
Excisemen were issuing permits and examining
permits all over the kingdom. But
six hundred per cent. profit was too much for
the weakness of human nature and the power
of the exciseman.</p>

<p class='c005'>From the peace, to the opening of the
China tea-trade in 1833, and the repeal of
the excise duty in 1834, there was a considerable
increase in the consumption of tea,
but not an increase at all comparable to
the increase since 1834. We consumed ten
million pounds more tea in 1833 than in 1816,
a period of sixteen years; we consumed in
1848, a period of fifteen years, seventeen
million pounds more than in 1833. In 1848
we retained for home consumption, 48,735,791
pounds. It is this present period of large
consumption which forms the fifth epoch.</p>

<p class='c005'>The present duty on tea is 2<i>s.</i> 2¼<i>d.</i> a pound.
The experienced housewife knows where to
buy excellent tea at 4<i>s.</i> a pound. But there
are shops in London where tea may be bought
at 3<i>s.</i>, and 3<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> a pound. Such low priced
teas are used more freely than ever by the
hard-working poor. The duty is now unvarying,
but enormously high. It is unnecessary
to assume that the cheap teas are now
adulterated teas. In the London Price
Currents of the present May, there are several
sorts of tea as low as 8<i>d.</i> per pound, wholesale
without duty. The finer teas vary from
1<i>s.</i> to 2<i>s.</i> In 1833, previous to the opening of
the China trade, the price of Congou tea in
the Company’s warehouses ranged from 2<i>s.</i> to
3<i>s.</i> per pound; in 1850 the lowest current
price was 9<i>d.</i>, the highest 1<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> In 1833, the
Company’s price of Hyson tea varied from 3<i>s.</i>
to 5<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>; in 1850, the lowest current price
was 1<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i>, the highest 3<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i></p>

<p class='c005'>With the amount of duty on tea twice as
high in 1850 as in 1833, how is it that tea may
be universally bought at one half of the price
of 1833? How is it that an article which
yields five millions of revenue has become so
cheap that it is now scarcely a luxury? Before
we answer this, let us explain why we say
that the duty is twice as high now as in 1833.
Before the opening of the China trade tea was
taxed under the Excise at an ad-valorem
duty of ninety-six per cent. on one sort, and
one hundred per cent. on another, which gave
an average of about half-a-crown a pound.
Those who resisted the destruction of the
Company’s monopoly predicted that the
supply would fall off under the open trade;
that the Chinese would not deal with private
merchants; that the market for tea in China
<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>was a limited one; that tea would become
scarcer and dearer. The Government knew
better than this. It repealed the Excise duty
with all its cumbrous machinery of permits;
and it imposed a Customs’ duty <i>at per pound</i>,
which exists now, as it did in 1836, with the
addition of five per cent. Had the duty of
1833 been continued,—the hundred per cent
duty—the great bulk of tea, which is sold at
an average of a shilling a pound would have
been only taxed a shilling a pound; it is now
taxed 2<i>s.</i> 2¼<i>d.</i> By a side-wind, the Government,
with what some persons may call financial foresight,
doubled the tax upon the humbler consumers.
But it may be fairly questioned
whether, if the tax of 1833 had continued, the
Government would not have secured as much
revenue by the poor doubling their consumption
of tea. The demand for no article of
general use is so fluctuating as that for tea.
In seasons of prosperity, the consumption
rises several millions of pounds above the
average; in times of depression it falls as
much below. Tea is the barometer of the
poor man’s command of something more than
bread. With a tax of 2<i>s.</i> 2¼<i>d.</i> a pound, it is
clear that if sound commercial principles,
improved navigation, wholesale competition,
and moderate retail profits, had not found
their way into the tea-trade, since the abolition
of the monopoly in 1833, the revenue
upon tea would have been stationary, instead
of having increased a million and a half. All
the manifold causes that produce commercial
cheapness in general—science, careful employment
of capital in profitable exchange,
certainty and rapidity of communication,
extension of the market—have been especially
working to make tea cheap. Tea is more and
more becoming a necessary of life to all
classes. Tea was denounced first as a poison,
and then as an extravagance. Cobbett was
furious against it. An Edinburgh Reviewer
of 1823, keeps no terms with its use by the
poor: ‘We venture to assert, that when a
labourer fancies himself refreshed with a mess
of this stuff, sweetened by the coarsest black
sugar, and with azure blue milk, it is only
the warmth of the water that soothes him for
the moment; unless, perhaps, the sweetness
may be palatable also.’ It is dangerous even
for great reviewers to ‘venture to assert.’
In a few years after comes Liebig, with his
chemical discoveries; and demonstrates that
coffee and tea have become necessaries of life
to whole nations, by the presence of one and
the same substance in both vegetables, which
has a peculiar effect upon the animal system;
that they were both originally met with
amongst nations whose diet is chiefly vegetable;
and, by contributing to the formation
of bile, their peculiar function, have become
a substitute for animal food to a large class
of the population whose consumption of meat
is very limited, and to another large class
who are unable to take regular exercise.</p>

<p class='c005'>Tea and coffee, then, are more especially
essential to the poor. They supply a void
which the pinched labourer cannot so readily
fill up with weak and sour ale; they are
substitutes for the country walk to the factory
girl, or the seamstress in a garret. They
are ministers to temperance; they are home
comforts. Mrs. Piozzi making tea for Dr.
Johnson till four o’clock in the morning, and
listening contentedly to his wondrous talk, is
a pleasant anecdote of the first century of tea;
the artisan’s wife, lingering over the last
evening cup, while her husband reads his
newspaper or his book, is something higher,
which belongs to our own times.</p>

<div class='chapter'>
  <h2 class='c003'>THE SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN.</h2>
</div>
<h3 class='c007'>IN THREE PARTS.—CHAPTER VI.</h3>

<p class='c008'>The new clergyman was, as the landlord
had supposed he would be, a very different
person from Mr. Finch. If he had not been
a fearless man, he would not have come: much
less would he have brought his wife, which
he did. The first sight of this respectable
couple, middle-aged, business like, and somewhat
dry in their manner, tended to give
sobriety to the tone of mind of the Bleaburn
people; a sobriety which was more and more
wanted from day to day; while certainly the
aspect of Bleaburn was enough to discourage
the new residents, let their expectations have
been as dismal as they might.</p>

<p class='c005'>Mr. and Mrs. Kirby arrived when Bleaburn
was at its lowest point of depression and woe.
The churchyard was now so full that it could
not be made to hold more; and ten or eleven
corpses were actually lying unburied, infecting
half-a-dozen cottages from this cause.
There was an actual want of food in the place—so
few were able to earn wages. Farmer
Neale did all he could to tempt his neighbours
to work for him; for no strangers would
come near a place which was regarded as a
pesthouse; but the strongest arm had lost its
strength; and the men, even those who had
not had the fever, said they felt as if they
could never work again. The women went
on, as habitual knitters do, knitting early and
late, almost night and day; but there was no
sale. Even if their wares were avouched to
have been passed through soap and water
before they were brought to O——, still no
one would run the slightest risk for the sake
of hose and comforters; and week after week,
word was sent that nothing was sold: and at
last, that it would be better not to send any
more knitted goods. In the midst of all this
distress, there was no one to speak to the
people; no one to keep their minds clear and
their hearts steady. For many weeks, there
had not been a prayer publicly read, nor a
psalm sung. Meanwhile, the great comet
appeared nightly, week after week. It seemed
as if it would never go away; and there was
a general persuasion that the comet was sent
<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>for a sign to Bleaburn alone, and not at all
for the rest of the earth, or of the universe;
and that the fever would not be stayed while
the sign remained in the sky. It would have
been well if this had been the worst. The
people, always rude, were now growing desperate;
and they found, as desperate people
usually do, an object near at hand to vent
their fury upon. They said that it was the
doctor’s business to make them well: that he
had not made them well: that so many had
died, that anybody might see how foul means
had been used; and that at last some of the
doctor’s tricks had come out. Two of Dick
Taylor’s children had been all but choked, by
some of the doctor’s physic; and they might
have died, if the Good Lady had not chanced
to have been there at the moment, and known
what to do. And the doctor tried to get off
with saying that it was a mistake, and that
that physic was never made to go down anybody’s
throat. They said, too, that it was only
in this doctor’s time that there had been such
a fever. There was none such in the late
doctor’s time; nor now, in other places—at
least, not so bad. It was nothing like so bad
at O——. The doctor had spoken lightly of
the comet: he had made old Nan Dart burn
the bedding that her grandmother left her—the
same that so many of her family had died
on: and, though he gave her new bedding, it
could never be the same to her as the old.
But there was no use talking. The doctor
was there to make them well; and instead of
doing that, he made two out of three die, of
those that had the fever. Such grumblings
broke out into storm; and when Mr. and
Mrs. Kirby descended into the hollow which
their friends feared would be their tomb, they
found the whole remaining population of the
place blocking up the street before the
doctor’s house, and smashing his phials, and
making a pile of his pill-boxes and little
drawers, as they were handed out of his
surgery window. A woman had brought a
candle at the moment to fire the pill-boxes:
and she kneeled down to apply the flame.
The people had already broken bottles enough
to spill a good deal of queer stuff; and some
of this stuff was so queer as to blaze up, half
as high as the houses, as quick as thought.
The flame ran along the ground, and spread
like magic. The people fled, supposing this
the doings of the comet and the doctor together.
Off they went, up and down, and into
the houses whose doors were open. But the
woman’s clothes were on fire. She would
have run too; but Mr. Kirby caught her
arm, and his firm grasp made her stand, while
Mrs. Kirby wrapped her camlet cloak about
the part that was on fire. It was so quickly
done—in such a moment of time, that the
poor creature was not much burned; not at
all dangerously; and the new pastor was at
once informed of the character of the charge
he had undertaken.</p>

<p class='c005'>That very evening Warrender was sent
through the village, as crier, to give a notice,
to which every ear was open. Mr. Kirby
having had medical assurance that it was
injurious to the public health that more
funerals should take place in the churchyard,
and that the bodies should lie unburied, would
next day, bury the dead above the brow, on a
part of Furzy Knoll, selected for the purpose.
For anything unusual about this proceeding,
Mr. Kirby would be answerable, considering
the present state of the village of Bleaburn.
A waggon would pass through the village at
six o’clock the next morning; and all who
had a coffin in their houses were requested to
bring it out, for solemn conveyance to the
new burial ground: and those who wished to
attend the interment must be on the ground
at eight o’clock.</p>

<p class='c005'>All ears were open again the next morning,
when the cart made its slow progress down
the street; and some went out to see. It was
starlight: and from the east came enough of
dawn to show how the vehicle looked with
the pall thrown over it. Now and then, as it
passed a space between the houses, a puff of
wind blew aside the edge of the pall, and then
the coffins were seen within, ranged one upon
another,—quite a load of them. It stopped
for a minute at the bottom of the street; and
it was a relief to the listeners to hear Warrender
tell the driver that there were no more,
and that he might proceed up to the brow.
After watching the progress of the cart till it
could no longer be distinguished from the wall
of grey rock along which it was ascending,
those who could be spared from tending the
sick put on such black as they could muster,
to go to the service.</p>

<p class='c005'>It was, happily, a fine morning;—as fine a
November morning as could be seen. It is
not often that weather is of so much consequence
as it was to the people of Bleaburn
to-day. They could not themselves
have told how it was that they came
down from the awful service at Furzy
Knoll so much more light-hearted than they
went up; and when some of them were asked
the reason, by those who remained below,
they could not explain it,—but, somehow,
everything looked brighter. It was, in fact,
not merely the calm sunshine on the hills, and
the quiet shadows in the hollows; it was not
merely the ruddy tinge of the autumn ferns
on the slopes, or the lively hop and flit of the
wag-tail about the spring-heads and the stones
in the pool; it was not merely that the fine
morning yielded cheering influences like these,
but that it enabled many, who would have
been kept below by rain, to hear what their
new pastor had to say. After going through
the burial service very quietly, and waiting
with a cheerful countenance while the business
of lowering so many coffins by so few
hands was effected, he addressed, in a plain
and conversational style, those who were present.
He told them that he had never before
witnessed an interment like this; and he did
<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>not at all suppose that either he or they should
see such another. Indeed, henceforth any
funerals must take place without delay; as
they very well might, now that, on this beautiful
spot, there was room without limit. He
told them how Farmer Neale had had the
space they saw staked out since yesterday, and
how it would be fenced in—roughly, perhaps,
but securely—before night. He hoped and
believed the worst of the sickness was over.
The cold weather was coming on; and, perhaps,
he said with a smile, it might be a comfort
to some of them to know that the comet
was going away. He could not say for himself
that he should not be sorry when it disappeared;
for he thought it a very beautiful
sight, and one which reminded every eye that
saw it how ‘the heavens declare the glory of
God;’ and the wisest men were all agreed
that it was a sign,—not of any mischief, but
of the beauty of God’s handiwork in the firmament,
as the Scriptures call the starry sky.
The fact was, it was found that comets come
round regularly, like some of the other stars
and our own moon; and when a comet had
once been seen, people of a future time would
know when to look for it again, and would be
too wise to be afraid of it. But he had better
tell them about such things at another time,
when perhaps they would let their children
come up to his house, and look through a
telescope,—a glass that magnified things so
much, that when they saw the stars, they
would hardly believe they were the same
stars that they saw every clear night. Perhaps
they might then think the commonest
star as wonderful as any comet. Another
reason why they might hope for better health
was, that people at a distance now knew
more of the distress of Bleaburn than they
had done; and he could assure his neighbours,
that supplies of nourishing food and
wholesome clothing would be lodged with the
cordon till the people of the place could once
more earn their own living. Another reason
why they might hope for better health was,
that they were learning by experience what
was good for health and what was bad. This
was a very serious and important subject, on
which he would speak to them again and
again, on Sundays and at all times, till he had
shown them what he thought about their
having, he might almost say, their lives and
health in their own hands. He was sure that
God had ordered it so; and he expected to be
able to prove to them, by and by, that there
need be no fever in Bleaburn if they chose to
prevent it. And now, about these Sundays
and week days. He deeply pitied them that
they had been cut off from worship during
their time of distress. He thought there
might be an end to that now. He would not
advise their assembling in the church. There
were the same reasons against it that there
were two months ago; but there was no place
on earth where men might not worship God,
if they wished it. If it were now the middle
of summer, he should say that the spot they
were standing on,—even yet so fresh and so
sunny,—was the best they could have; but
soon the winter winds would blow, and the
cold rains would come driving over the hills.
This would not do: but there was a warm
nook in the hollow,—the crag behind the
mill,—where there was shelter from the east
and north, and the warmest sunshine ever felt
in the hollow,—too hot in summer, but very
pleasant now. There he proposed to read
prayers three times a week, at an hour which
should be arranged according to the convenience
of the greatest number; and there he
would perform service and preach a sermon
on Sundays, when the weather permitted.
He should have been inclined to ask Farmer
Neale for one of his barns, or to propose to
meet even in his kitchen; but he found his
neighbours still feared that meeting anywhere
but in the open air would spread the fever.
He did not himself believe that one person
gave the fever to another; but as long as his
neighbours thought so, he would not ask them
to do what might make them afraid. Then
there was a settling what hours should be
appointed for worship at the crag; and the
mourners came trooping down into the hollow,
with brightened eyes, and freshened faces, and
altogether much less like mourners than when
they went up.</p>

<p class='c005'>Before night, Mr. Kirby had visited every
sick person in the place, in company with the
doctor. The poor doctor would hardly have
ventured to go his round without the assistance
of some novelty that might divert the
attention of the people from his atrocities.
Mr. Kirby did not attempt to get rid of the
subject. He told the discontented, to their
faces, that the doctor knew his business better
than they did; and bade them remember that
it was not the doctor but themselves that had
set fire to spirits of wine, or something of that
sort, in the middle of the street, whereby a
woman was in imminent danger of being burnt
to death; and that their outrage on the good
fame and property of a gentleman who had
worn himself half dead with fatigue and
anxiety on their account might yet cost them
very dear, if it were not understood that they
were so oppressed with sorrow and want that
they did not know what they were about.
His consultations with the doctor from house
to house, and his evident deference to him in
regard to matters of health and sickness,
wrought a great change in a few hours; and
the effect was prodigiously increased when
Mrs. Kirby, herself a surgeon’s daughter, and
no stranger in a surgery, offered her daily
assistance in making up the medicines, and
administering such as might be misused by
those who could not read the labels.</p>

<p class='c005'>“That is what the Good Lady does, when
she can get out at the right time,” observed
some one; “but now poor Jem is down, and
his mother hardly up again yet, it is not every
day, as she says, that she can go so far out of call.”</p>

<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>“Who is this Good Lady?” inquired Mr.
Kirby. “I have been hardly twenty-four
hours in this place, and I seem to have heard
her name fifty times; and yet nobody seems
able to say who she is.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“She almost overpowers their faculties, I
believe,” replied the doctor; “and, indeed, it
is not very easy to look upon her as upon any
other young lady. It comes easier to one’s
tongue to call her an angel than to introduce
her as Miss Mary Pickard, from America.”</p>

<p class='c005'>When he had told what he knew of her,
the Kirbys said, in the same breath,</p>

<p class='c005'>“Let us go and see her.” And the doctor
showed them the way to Widow Johnson’s,
where poor Jem was languishing, in that
state which is so affecting to witness, when
he who has no intellect seems to have more
power of patience than he who has most.
The visitors arrived at a critical moment,
however, when poor Jem’s distress was very
great, and his mother’s hardly less. There
lay the Good Lady on the ground, doubled up
in a strange sort of way; Mrs. Johnson trying
to go to her, but unable; and Jem, on his bed
in the closet within, crying because something
was clearly the matter.</p>

<p class='c005'>“What’s to do now?” exclaimed the
doctor.</p>

<p class='c005'>Mary laughed as she answered, “O nothing,
but that I can’t get up. I don’t know how I
fell, and I can’t get up. But it is mere fatigue—want
of sleep. Do convince Aunty that I
have not got the fever.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“Let’s see,” said the doctor. Then, after
a short study of his new patient, he assured
Mrs. Johnson that he saw no signs of fever
about her niece. She had had enough of
nursing for the present, and now she must
have rest.</p>

<p class='c005'>“That is just it,” said Mary. “If somebody
will put something under me here, and
just let me sleep for a few days, I shall do
very well.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“Not there, Miss Pickard,” said Mrs.
Kirby, “you must be brought to our house,
where everything will be quiet about you;
and then you may sleep on till Christmas, if
you will.”</p>

<p class='c005'>Mary felt the kindness; but she evidently
preferred remaining where she was; and, with
due consideration, she was indulged. She
did not wish to be carried through the street,
so that the people might see that the Good
Lady was down at last; and besides, she felt
as if she should die by the way, though really
believing she should do very well if only let
alone. She was allowed to order things just as
she liked. A mattress was put under her, on
the floor. Ann Warrender came and undressed
her, lifting her limbs as if she was an infant,
for she could not move them herself; and
daily was she refreshed, as she had taught
others to refresh those who cannot move from
their beds. Every morning the doctor came,
and agreed with her that there was nothing
in the world the matter with her; that she
had only to lie still till she felt the wish to
get up; and every day came Mrs. Kirby to
take a look at her, if her eyes were closed:
and if she was able to talk and listen, to tell
her how the sick were faring, and what were
the prospects of Bleaburn. After these visits,
something good was often found near the
pillow; some firm jelly, or particularly pure
arrow-root, or the like; odd things to be
dropped by the fairies; but Mrs. Kirby said
the neighbours liked to think that the Good
Lady was waited on by the Good People.</p>

<p class='c005'>Another odd thing was, that for several
days Mary could not sleep at all. She would
have liked it, and she needed it extremely,
and the window curtain was drawn, and
everybody was very quiet, and even poor
Jem caught the trick of quietness, and lay
immoveable for hours, when the door of his
closet was open, watching to see her sleep.
But she could not. She felt, what was indeed
true, that Aunty’s large black eyes were for
ever fixed upon her; and she could not but be
aware that the matter of the very first public
concern in Bleaburn was, that she should go
to sleep; and this was enough to prevent it.
At last, when people were getting frightened,
and even the doctor told Mr. Kirby that he
should be glad to correct this insomnolence,
the news went softly along the street one day,
told in whispers even at the further end, that
the Good Lady was asleep. The children
were warned that they must keep within
doors, or go up to the brow to play; there
must be no noise in the hollow. The dogs
were not allowed to bark, nor the ducks to
quack; and Farmer Neale’s carts were, on no
account, to go below the Plough and Harrow.
The patience of all persons who liked to make
a noise was tried and proved, for nobody
broke the rule; and when Mary once began
sleeping, it seemed as if she would never stop.
She could hardly keep awake to eat, or to be
washed; and, as for having her hair brushed,
that is always drowsy work, and she could
never look before her for two minutes together
while it was done. She thought it all very
ridiculous, and laughed at her own laziness,
and then, before the smile was off her lips, she
had sunk on her pillow and was asleep again.</p>

<h3 class='c009'><span class='c014'>PART III.</span><br> CHAPTER VII.</h3>

<p class='c008'>It was a regular business now for three or
four of the boys of Bleaburn to go up to the
brow every morning to bring down the stores
from O——, which were daily left there under
the care of the watch. Mr. Kirby had great
influence already with the boys of Bleaburn.
He found plenty for them to do, and, when
they were very hungry with running about,
he gave them wholesome food to satisfy their
healthy appetite. He said, he and Mrs. Kirby
and the doctor worked hard, and they could not
let anybody be idle but those who were ill: and,
now that the regular work and wages of the
place were suspended, he arranged matters
<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>after his own sense of the needs of the people.
The boys who survived and were in health,
formed a sort of regiment under his orders, and
they certainly never liked work so well before.
Every little fellow felt his own consequence,
and was aware of his own responsibility. A
certain number, as has been said, went up to
the brow to bring down the stores. A certain
number were to succeed each other at the
doctor’s door, from hour to hour, to carry
medicines, that the sick might neither be
kept waiting, nor be liable to be served with
the wrong medicine, from too many sorts
being carried in a basket together. Others
attended upon Warrender, with pail and
brush, and helped him with his lime-washing.
At first it was difficult, as has been said, to
induce the lads to volunteer for this service,
and Mr. Kirby directed much argument and
persuasion towards their supposed fear of
entering the cottages where people were
lying sick. This was not the reason, however,
as Warrender explained, with downcast eyes,
when Mr. Kirby wondered what ailed the
lads, that they ran all sorts of dangers all
day long, and shirked this one.</p>

<p class='c005'>“’Tis not the danger, I fancy, Sir,” said
Warrender; “they are not so much afraid of
the fever as of going with me, I’m sorry to say.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“Afraid of you!” said Mr. Kirby, laughing.
“What harm could you do them?”</p>

<p class='c005'>“’Tis my temper, Sir, I’m afraid.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“What is the matter with your temper? I
see nothing amiss with it.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“And I hope you never may, Sir: but I
can’t answer for myself, though at this
moment I know the folly of such passion as
these lads have seen in me. Sir, it has been
my way to be violent with them; and I don’t
wonder they slink away from me. But—”</p>

<p class='c005'>“I am really quite surprised,” said Mr.
Kirby. “This is all news to me. I should have
said you were a remarkably staid, quiet, persevering
man; and, I am sure, very kind
hearted.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“You have seen us all at such a time, you
know, Sir! It is not only the misfortunes of
the time that sober us, but when there is
so much to do for one’s neighbours, one’s
mind does not want to be in a passion—so to
speak.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“Very true. The best part of us is roused,
and puts down the worse. I quite agree with
you, Warrender.”</p>

<p class='c005'>The boys were not long in learning that
there was nothing now to fear from Warrender.
No one was sent staggering from a
box on the ear. No hair was ever pulled;
nor was any boy ever shaken in his jacket.
Instead of doing such things, Warrender
made companions of his young assistants,
taught them to do well whatever they put
their hands to, and made them willing and
happy. While two or three thus waited on
him, others carried home the clean linen that
his daughter and a neighbour or two were
frequently ready to send out: and they daily
changed the water in the tubs where the foul
linen was deposited. Others, again, swept
and washed down the long steep street,
making it look almost as clean as if it belonged
to a Dutch village. After the autumn
pig-killing, there were few or no more pigs.
The poor sufferers could not attend to them;
could not afford, indeed, to buy them; and
had scarcely any food to give them. Though
this was a token of poverty, it was hardly to
be lamented in itself, under the circumstances;
for there is no foulness whatever, no nastiness
that is to be found among the abodes of men,
so dangerous to health as that of pig-styes.
There is mismanagement in this. People
take for granted that the pig is a dirty animal,
and give him no chance of being clean;
whereas, if they would try the experiment of
keeping his house swept, and putting his food
always in one place, and washing him with
soap and water once a week, they would find
that he knows how to keep his pavement
clean, and that he runs grunting to meet his
washing with a satisfaction not to be mistaken.
Such was the conclusion of the boys
who undertook the purification of the two or
three pigs that remained in Bleaburn. As
for the empty styes, they were cleaner than
many of the cottages. After a conversation
with Mr. Kirby, Farmer Neale bought all the
dirt-heaps for manure; and in a few days
they were all trundled away in barrows—even
to the stable-manure from the Plough
and Harrow—and heaped together at the
farm, and well shut down with a casing of
earth, beat firm with spades. Boys really
like such work as this, when they are put
upon it in the right way. They were less
dirty than they would have been with tumbling
about and quarrelling and cuffing in the filthy
street; in a finer glow of exercise; with a
more wholesome appetite; and far more
satisfaction in eating, because they had earned
their food. Moreover, they began to feel
themselves little friends of the grown people—of
Mr. and Mrs. Kirby, and the Doctor,
and the Warrenders—instead of a sort of
reptiles, or other plague; and Mr. Kirby
astonished them so by a bit of amusement
now and then, when he had time, that they
would have called him a conjuror, if he had
not been a clergyman. He made a star—any
star they pleased—as large as the comet, just
by making them look at it through a tube;
and he showed them how he took a drop of
foul water from a stinking pool, and put it
between glasses in a hole in his window-shutter;
and how the drop became like a
pond, and was found to be swarming with
loathsome live creatures, swimming about,
and trying to swallow each other. After
these exhibitions, it is true the comet seemed
much less wonderful and terrible than before;
but then the drop of water was infinitely more
so. The lads studied Mr. Kirby’s cistern—so
carefully covered, and so regularly cleaned
out; and they learned how the water he
<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>drank at dinner was filtered; and then they
went and scoured out the few water-tubs
there were in the village, and consulted their
neighbours as to how the public of Bleaburn
could be persuaded not to throw filth and
refuse into the stream at the upper part,
defiling it for those who lived lower down.</p>

<p class='c005'>One morning at the beginning of December—on
such a morning as was now sadly frequent,
drizzly, and far too warm for the
season—the lads who went up to the brow
saw the same sight that had been visible in
the same place one evening in the preceding
August. There was a chaise, and an anxious
post-boy, and a lady talking with one of the
cordon. Mr. Kirby had learned what friends
Mary Pickard had in England, and which of
them lived nearest, and he had taken the
liberty of writing to declare the condition of
the Good Lady. His letter brought the
friend, Mrs. Henderson, who came charged
with affectionate messages to Mary from her
young daughters, and a fixed determination
not to return without the invalid.</p>

<p class='c005'>“To think,” as she said to Mary when she
appeared by the side of her mattress, “that
you should be in England, suffering in this
way, and we not have any idea what you were
going through!”</p>

<p class='c005'>Mary smiled, and said she had gone through
nothing terrible on her own account. She
might have been at Mr. Kirby’s for three
weeks past, but that she really preferred being
where she was.</p>

<p class='c005'>“Do not ask her now, Madam, where she
likes to be,” said Mr. Kirby, who had been
brought down the street by the bustle of a
stranger’s arrival. “Do not consult her at
all, but take her away, and nurse her well.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said the Doctor; “lay her in a good
air, and let her sleep, and feed her well; and
she will soon come round. She is better—even
here.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“Madam,” said Widow Johnson’s feeble
but steady voice, “be to her what she has
been to us; raise her up to what she was
when I first heard her step upon those stairs,
and we shall say you deserve to be her friend.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“You will go, will not you?” whispered
Mrs. Kirby to Mary. “You will let us
manage it all for you?”</p>

<p class='c005'>“Do what you please with me,” was the
reply. “You know best how to get me well
soonest. Only let me tell Aunty that I will
come again, as soon as I am able.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“Better not,” said the prudent Mrs. Kirby.
“There is no saying what may be the condition
of this place by the spring. And it might
keep Mrs. Johnson in a state of expectation
not fit for one so feeble. Better not.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“Very well,” said Mary.</p>

<p class='c005'>Mrs. Kirby thought of something that her
husband had said of Mary; that he had never
seen any one with such power of will and
command so docile. She merely promised
her aunt frequent news of her; agreed with
those who doubted whether she could bear
the jolting of any kind of carriage on the road
up to the brow; admitted that, though she
could now stand, she could not walk across
the room; allowed herself to be carried on
her mattress in a carpet, by four men, up to
the chaise; and nodded in reply to a remark
made by one little girl to another in the
street, and which the doctor wished she had
not heard, that she looked “rarely bad.”</p>

<p class='c005'>The landlady at O—— seemed, by her
countenance, to have much the same opinion
of Mary’s looks, when she herself brought
out the glass of wine, for which Mrs. Henderson
stopped her chaise at the door of the
Cross Keys. The landlady brought it herself,
because none of her people would give as
much as a glass of cold water, hand to hand
with any one who came from Bleaburn. The
landlady stood shaking her head, and saying
she had done the best she could; she had
warned the young lady in time.</p>

<p class='c005'>“But you were quite out in your warning,”
said Mary. “You were sure I should have
the fever: but I have not.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“You have not!”</p>

<p class='c005'>“I have had no disease—no complaint
whatever. I am only weak from fatigue.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“It is quite true,” said Mrs. Henderson,
as the hostess turned to her for confirmation.
“Good wine like this, the fresh air of our
moors, and the easy sleep that comes to
Good Ladies like her, are the only medicines
she wants.”</p>

<p class='c005'>The landlady curtsied low—said the payment
made should supply a glass of wine to
somebody at Bleaburn, and bade the driver
proceed. After a mile or two, he turned his
head, touched his hat, and directed the ladies’
attention to a bottle of wine, with loosened
cork, and a cup which the hostess had contrived
to smuggle into the pocket of the
chaise. She was sure the young lady would
want some wine before they stopped.</p>

<p class='c005'>“How kind every body is!” said Mary,
with swimming eyes. Mrs. Henderson cleared
her throat, and looked out of the window on
her side.</p>

<div class='chapter'>
  <h2 class='c003'>YOUNG RUSSIA.</h2>
</div>

<p class='c004'>Certain social theorists have, of late years,
proclaimed themselves to the puzzled public
under the name and signification of ‘Young.’
Young France, Young Germany, and Young
England have had their day, and having now
grown older, and by consequence wiser, are
comparatively mute. In accordance with
what seems a natural law, it is only when a
fashion is being forgotten where it originated—in
the west—that it reaches Russia, which
rigidly keeps a century or so behind the rest
of the Continent. It is only recently, therefore,
that we hear of ‘Young Russia.’</p>

<p class='c005'>The main principles of all these national
youths are alike. They are pleasingly picturesque—simperingly
amiable; with a pretty
and piquant dash of paradox. What they
<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>propose is not new birth, or dashing out
into new systems, and taking advantage of
new ideas; but reverting to old systems, and
furbishing them up so as to look as good
as new. Re-juvenescence is their aim; the
middle ages their motto. Young England, to
wit, desires to replace things as they were in
the days of the pack-horse, the thumb-screw,
the monastery, the ducking-stool, the knight
errant, trial by battle, and the donjon-keep.
To these he wishes to apply all possible
modern improvements, to adapt them to
present ideas, and to present events. Though
he would have no objection to his mailed
knight travelling per first-class railway, he
would abolish luggage-trains to encourage
intestine trade and the breed of that noble
animal the pack-horse. He has indeed done
something in the monastic line; but his efforts
for the dissemination of superstition, and his
denunciations of a certain sort of witchcraft,
have signally failed. In truth, the task he
has set himself—that of re-constructing society
anew out of old materials—though highly
archæological, historical, and poetic, has the
fatal disadvantage of being simply impossible.
It is telling the people of the nineteenth
century to carry their minds, habits, and
sentiments back, so as to become people of
the thirteenth century; it is trying to make
new muslin out of mummy cloth, or razors
out of rusty nails.</p>

<p class='c005'>‘Young Russia’ is an equal absurdity, but
from a precisely opposite cause; for, indeed,
this sort of youth out of age is a series of
paradoxes. The Russian of the present day
<i>is</i> the Russian of past ages. He exists by rule—the
rule of despotism—which is as old as
the Medes and Persians; and which forces
him into an iron mould that shapes his appearance,
his mind, and his actions, to one
pattern, from one generation to another.
Hence everything that lives and breathes in
Russia being antique, there is no appreciable
antiquity. The new school, therefore—even
if amateur politics were allowable in Russia,
which they are not, as a large population of
exiles in Siberia can testify—has no materials
to work upon. Stagnation is the political
law, and Young Russia dies in its babyhood for
want of sustenance. What goes by the name
of civilisation, is no advance in wealth, morals,
or social happiness. It is merely a tinsel coating
over the rottenness and rust with which
Russian life is ‘sicklied o’er.’ It has nothing
to do with a single soul below the rank of a
noble; and with him it means champagne, bad
pictures, Parisian tailors, operas, gaming, and
other expences and elegancies imported from
the West. Hundreds of provincial noblemen
are ruined every year in St. Petersburg, in
undergoing this process of civilisation. The
fortunes thus wasted are enormous; yet there
is only one railroad now in operation throughout
the whole empire, and that belongs to the
Emperor, and leads to one of his palaces a
few miles from the Capital. Such is Russian
civilisation. What then is Young Russia to
do? Ask one of its youngest apostles, Ivan
Vassilievitsch.</p>

<p class='c005'>This young gentleman—for an introduction
to whom we are indebted to Count Sollogub—was,
not long ago, parading the Iverskoy
boulevard—one of the thirteen which half
encircle Moscow—when he met a neighbour
from the province of Kazan. Ivan had lately
returned from abroad. He was a perfect
specimen of the new school, inside and out.
Within, he had imbibed all the ideas of the
juvenile or verdant schools of Germany,
France, and England. Without, he displayed
a London macintosh; his coat and trowsers
had been designed and executed by Parisian
artists; his hair was cut in the style of the
middle ages; and his chin showed the remnants
of a Vandyke beard. He also resembled
the new school in another respect:
he had spent all his money, yet he was separated
from home by the distance of a long—a
Russian—journey.</p>

<p class='c005'>To meet with a neighbour—which he did—who
travelled in his own carriage, in which he
offered a seat, was the height of good fortune.
The more so, as Ivan wished to see as much of
Russian life on the road as possible, and to note
down his <i>impressions</i> in a journal, whose white
leaves were as yet unsullied with ink. From
the information he intended to collect, he
intended to commence helping to reconstruct
Russian society after the order of the new
Russiaites.</p>

<p class='c005'>The vehicle in which this great mission
was to be performed, was a humble family
affair called a <i>Tarantas</i>.<a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c015'><sup>[1]</sup></a> After a series of
adventures—but which did not furnish Ivan a
single <i>impression</i> for his note-book—they
arrive at Vladimir, the capital of a province
or ‘government.’ Here the younger traveller
meets with a friend, to whom he confides
his intention of visiting all the other Government
towns for ‘Young Russia’ purposes.
His friend’s reply is dispiriting to the last
degree:—</p>

<div class='footnote' id='f1'>
<p class='c005'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. For further particulars of this comfortable conveyance,
its occupants, and their adventures, we must refer the
reader to Count Sollogub’s amusing little book, to which
he has given the name of ‘The Tarantas.’</p>
</div>

<p class='c005'>“There is no difference between our government
towns. See one, and you’ll know them
all!”</p>

<p class='c005'>“Is it possible?”</p>

<p class='c005'>“It is so, I assure you, Every one has a
High-street; one principal shop, where the
country gentlemen buy silks for their wives,
and champagne for themselves; then there
are the Courts of Justice, the assembly-rooms,
an apothecary’s shop, a river, a square, a bazaar,
two or three street-lamps, sentry-boxes
for the watchmen, and the governor’s house.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“The society, however, in the government
towns must be different?”</p>

<p class='c005'>“On the contrary. The society is still more
uniform than the buildings.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“You astonish me: how is that?”</p>

<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>“Listen. There is, of course, in every government
town a governor. These do not
always resemble each other; but as soon as
any one of them appears, police and secretaries
immediately become active, merchants
and tradesmen bow, and the gentry draw
themselves up, with, however, some little awe.
Wherever the governor goes, he is sure to find
champagne, the wine so much patronised in
the province, and everybody drinks a bumper
to the health of the ‘<i>father of the province</i>.’
Governors generally are well-bred, and sometimes
very proud. They like to give dinner
parties, and benevolently condescend to play
a game of whist with rich brandy-contractors
and landowners.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“That’s a common thing,” remarked Ivan
Vassilievitsch.</p>

<p class='c005'>“Do not interrupt me. Besides the governor,
there is in nearly every government town
the governor’s lady. She is rather a peculiar
personage. Generally brought up in one of
the two capitals, and spoiled with the cringing
attentions of her company. On her husband’s
first entry into office, she is polite and affable;
later, she begins to feel weary of the ordinary
provincial intrigues and gossips; she gets
accustomed to the slavish attentions she receives,
and lays claim to them. At this period
she surrounds herself with a parasitical suite;
she quarrels with the lady of the vice-governor;
she brags of St. Petersburg; speaks with disdain
of her provincial circle, and finally draws
upon herself the utmost universal ill-feeling,
which is kept up till the day of her departure,
when all goes into oblivion, everything is pardoned,
and everybody bids her farewell with
tears.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“Two persons do not form the whole
society of a town,” interrupted again Ivan
Vassilievitsch.</p>

<p class='c005'>“Patience, brother, patience! Certainly
there are other persons besides the two I have
just spoken of: there is the vice-governor and
his lady; several presidents, with their respective
ladies, and an innumerable crowd of
functionaries serving under their leadership.
The ladies are ever quarrelling in words,
whilst their husbands do the same thing upon
foolscap. The presidents, for the most part,
are men of advanced age and business-like
habits, with great crosses hanging from their
necks, and are during the daytime to be seen
out of their courts only on holidays. The
government attorney is generally a single
man, and an enviable match. The superior
officer of the <i>gens-d’armes</i> is a ‘good fellow.’
The nobility-marshal a great sportsman. Besides
the government and the local officers,
there live in a government town stingy landowners,
or those who have squandered away
their property; they gamble from evening to
morning, nay, from morning to evening too,
without getting the least bit tired of their
exercise.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“Now, about the mode of living?” asked
Ivan Vassilievitsch.</p>

<p class='c005'>“The mode of living is a very dull one.
An exchange of ceremonious visits. Intrigues,
cards—cards, intrigues. Now and then, perchance,
you may meet with a kind, hospitable
family, but such a case is very rare; you much
oftener find a ludicrous affectation to imitate
the manners of an imaginary high life. There
are no public amusements in a government
town. During winter a series of balls are
announced to take place at the Assembly-rooms;
however, from an absurd primness,
these balls are little frequented, because no
one wants to be the first in the room. The
‘<i>bon genre</i>’ remains at home and plays whist.
In general, I have remarked, that on arriving
in a government town, it seems as if you were
too early or too late for some extraordinary
event. You are ever welcomed: ‘What a
pity you were not here yesterday!’ or, ‘You
should stay here till to-morrow.’”</p>

<p class='c005'>In process of time Ivan Vassilievitsch and
his good-natured fat companion, Vassily
Ivanovitsch, reach a borough town, where the
Tarantas breaks down. There is a tavern and
here is a description of it.</p>

<p class='c005'>‘The tavern was like any other tavern,—a
large wooden hut, with the usual out-buildings.
At the entrance stood an empty cart.
The staircase was crooked and shaky, and at
the top of it, like a moving candelabrum, stood
a waiter with a tallow candle in his hand. To
the right was the tap-room, painted from time
immemorial to imitate a grove. Tumblers,
tea-pots, decanters, three silver and a great
number of pewter spoons, adorned the shelves
of a cupboard; a couple of lads in chintz
shirts, with dirty napkins over their shoulders,
busied themselves at the bar. Through an
open door you saw in the next room a billiard
table, and a hen gravely promenading upon it.</p>

<p class='c005'>‘Our travellers were conducted into the principal
room of this elegant establishment, where
they found, seated round a boiling tea-urn,
three merchants,—one grey-haired, one red-haired,
and one dark-haired. Each of these
was armed with a steaming tumbler; each of
them sipped, smacked his lips, stroked his
beard and sipped again the fragrant beverage.</p>

<p class='c005'>‘The red-haired man was saying:—’</p>

<p class='c005'>“I made, last summer, a splendid bargain:
I had bought from a company of Samara-Tartars,
some five hundred bags of prime
quality, and had at the same time a similar
quantity, which I purchased from a nobleman
who was in want of money, but such dreadful
stuff it was, that if it had not been for the
very low price, I would never have thought
of looking at it. What did I do? I mixed
these two cargoes, and sold the whole lot to a
brandy-contractor at Ribna, for prime quality.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“It was a clever speculation,” remarked
the dark-haired.</p>

<p class='c005'>“A commercial trick!” added the grey-haired.</p>

<p class='c005'>‘Whilst this conversation was proceeding,
Vassily Ivanovitsch and Ivan Vassilievitsch
<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>had taken seats at a separate little table;
they had ordered their tea, and were listening
to what the three merchants were saying.</p>

<p class='c005'>‘A poor looking fellow came in and took
from his breast-pocket an incredibly dirty
sheet of paper, in which were wrapped up
bank-notes and some gold, and handed it over
to the grey-haired merchant, who, having
counted them over, said:’</p>

<p class='c005'>“Five thousand, two hundred and seventeen
roubles. Is it right?”</p>

<p class='c005'>“Quite right, Sir.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“It shall be delivered according to your
wish.”</p>

<p class='c005'>‘Ivan asked why the sender had not taken a
receipt?</p>

<p class='c005'>‘The red and dark-haired merchants burst
out laughing; the grey-haired got into a
passion.’</p>

<p class='c005'>“A receipt!” he cried out furiously, “a
receipt! I would have broken his jaw with
his own money had he dared to ask me for a
receipt. I have been a merchant now more
than fifty years, and I have never yet been
insulted by being asked to give a receipt.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“You see, Sir,” said the red-haired merchant,
“it is only with noblemen that such
things as receipts and bills of exchange exist.
We commercial people do not make use of
them. Our simple word suffices. We have
no time to spare for writing. For instance,
Sir: here is Sidor Avdeievitsch, who has
millions of roubles in his trade, and his whole
writing consists of a few scraps of paper, for
memory’s sake, Sir.”</p>

<p class='c005'>“I don’t understand that,” interrupted Ivan
Vassilievitsch.</p>

<p class='c005'>“How could you, Sir? It is mere commercial
business, without plan or <i>façade</i>.
We ourselves learn it from our childhood:
first as errand-boys, then as clerks, till we
become partners in the business. I confess it
is hard work.”</p>

<p class='c005'>Upon this text Ivan preaches a ‘Young
Russia discourse.’</p>

<p class='c005'>“Allow me a few words,” he said with
fervour. “It appears to me that we have in
Russia a great number of persons buying and
selling, but yet, I must say, we have no systematic
commerce. For commerce, science and
learning are indispensable; a conflux of civilised
men, clever mathematical calculations—but
not, as seems to be the case with you,
dependence upon mere chance. You earn
millions, because you convert the consumer
into a victim, against whom every kind of
cheat is pardonable, and then you lay by
farthing by farthing, refusing yourselves
not only all the enjoyments of life, but
even the most necessary comforts.... You
brag of your threadbare clothes; but surely
this extreme parsimony is a thousand times
more blameable than the opposite prodigality
of those of your comrades who spend their
time amongst gipsies, and their money in
feasting. You boast of your ignorance, because
you do not know what civilisation is.
Civilisation, according to your notions, consists
in shorter laps of a coat, foreign furniture,
bronzes, and champagne—in a word,
in outward trifles and silly customs. Trust
me, not such is civilisation.... Unite yourselves!
Be it your vocation to lay open all
the hidden riches of our great country; to
diffuse life and vigour into all its veins; to
take the whole management of its material
interests into your hands. Unite your endeavours
in this beautiful deed, and you may be
certain of success! Why should Russia be
worse than England? Comprehend only
your calling; let the beam of civilisation fall
upon you, and your love for your fatherland
will strengthen such a union; and you will
see that not only the whole of Russia, but
even the whole world will be in your hands.”</p>

<p class='c005'>‘At this eloquent conclusion, the red and
the dark-haired merchants opened wide their
eyes. They, of course, did not understand a
single word of Ivan Vassilievitsch’s speech.’</p>

<p class='c005'>“Alas, for Young Russia,” Ivan dolefully
remarks in another place;—</p>

<p class='c005'>“I thought to study life in the provinces:
there is no life in the provinces: every one
there is said to be of the same cut. Life in
the capitals is not a Russian life, but a weak
imitation of the petty perfections and gross
vices of modern civilisation. Where am I
then to find Russia? In the lower classes,
perhaps, in the every-day life of the Russian
peasant? But have I not been now for five
days chiefly amongst this class? I prick up
my ears and listen; I open wide my eyes and
look, and do what I may, I find not the least
trifle worth noting in my ‘<cite>Impressions</cite>.’ The
country is dead; there is nothing but land,
land, land; so much land, indeed, that my
eyes get tired of looking at it; a dreadful
road—waggons of goods, swearing carriers,
drunken stage-inspectors; beetles creeping on
every wall; soups with the smell of tallow-candles!
How is it possible for any respectable
person to occupy himself with such
nasty stuff? And what is yet more provoking,
is the doleful uniformity which tires you
so much, and affords you no rest whatever.
Nothing new, nothing unexpected! To-morrow
what has been to-day; to-day what
has been yesterday. Here, a post-stage, there
again a post-stage, and further the same post-stage
again; here, a village-elder asking for
drink-money, and again to infinity village-elders
all asking for drink-money. What
can I write? I begin to agree with Vassily
Ivanovitsch; he is right in saying that we do
not travel, and that there is no travelling in
Russia. We simply are going to Mordassy.
Alas! for my ‘<cite>Impressions</cite>.’”</p>

<p class='c005'>Whoever wants to know more of this amusing
Young Russian, must consult “The <i>Tarantas</i>.”
We can assure the reader that the
book is fraught with a store of amusement—chiefly
descriptions of town and country life in
Russia—not often compressed into the modest
and inexpensive compass of a thin duodecimo.</p>
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<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'>

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    <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
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</div>

 <ul class='ul_1 c001'>
    <li>Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

    </li>
    <li>Renumbered footnotes.
    </li>
  </ul>

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<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78176 ***</div>
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