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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78178 ***
+
+
+     “_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+
+
+                            HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
+                           A WEEKLY JOURNAL.
+
+
+                     CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+      N^{o.} 14.]      SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1850.      [PRICE 2_d._
+
+
+
+
+                            THE GOLDEN CITY.
+
+
+“The fitful flame of Young Romance,” fed by the Arabian Nights’
+Entertainments, Fairy tales and Heathen Mythologies; the wonderful
+fables of Genii and Magicians; stories of towns springing up,
+ready-built, out of deserts; tales of cities paved with gold; the Happy
+Valley of Rasselas; the territories of Oberon and Titania, Robert Owen’s
+New Harmony, and the land of Cockaigne; Gulliver’s Travels, the
+Adventures of Peter Wilkins, legends of beggars made kings, and
+mendicants millionaires; Sinbad the Sailor, Baron Munchausen, Law of
+Laurieston, Major Longbow, Colonel Crocket, the Poyais loan; illimitable
+exaggeration; undaunted lying; the most rampant schemes of the most
+rabid speculators; the wildest visions of the maddest poet; the airiest
+castle of the most Utopian lunatic—any one of these, and all of them put
+together, do not exceed the wondrous web of realities that is being
+daily woven around both hemispheres of the globe. Not to mention
+conversations carried on thousands of miles apart, by means of
+electricity, and a hundred other marvels that Science has converted into
+commonplaces, we would now confine ourselves to the latest “wonderful
+wonder that has ever been wondered at”—the gold region of California;
+but more especially to its capital, San Francisco.
+
+The story of the magic growth of this city would have defied belief, had
+it not rapidly grown up literally under the “eyes of Europe.” When the
+returns were made to the United States’ authorities in 1831, it
+contained three hundred and seventy-one individuals, and very few more
+resided in it up to the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, in the
+Sacramento River. Even in April, 1849, we learn from a credible
+eye-witness, that there were only from thirty to forty houses in San
+Francisco; and that the population was so small, that so many as
+twenty-five persons could never be seen out of doors at one time. There
+now lie before us two prints; one of San Francisco, taken in November,
+1848, soon after the discovery was made, and another exactly a year
+afterwards. In the first, we are able to count twenty-six huts and other
+dwellings dotted about at uneven distances, and four small ships in the
+harbour. In the second, the habitations are countless. The hollow, upon
+which the city partly stands, presents a bird’s-eye view of roofs,
+packed so closely together, that the houses they cover are innumerable;
+while the sides of the surrounding hills are thickly strewed with tents
+and temporary dwellings. On every side are buildings of all kinds, begun
+or half-finished, but the greater part of them mere canvas sheds, open
+in front, and displaying all sorts of signs, in all languages. Great
+quantities of goods are piled up in the open air, for want of a place to
+store them. The streets are full of people, hurrying to and fro, and of
+as diverse and bizarre a character as the houses: Yankees of every
+possible variety, native Californians in _sarapes_ and sombreros,
+Chilians, Sonorians, Kanakas from Hawaii, Chinese with long tails,
+Malays and others in whose embrowned and bearded visages it is
+impossible to recognise any especial nationality. In the midst is the
+plaza, now dignified by the name of Portsmouth Square. It lies on the
+slope of the hill; and, from a high pole in front of a long one-story
+adobe building used as the Custom House, the American flag is flying. On
+the lower side is the Parker House Hotel. The Bay of San Francisco is
+black with the hulls of ships, and a thick forest of masts intercepts
+the landscapes of the opposite coast and the islet of Yerba Buena. Flags
+of all nations flutter in the breeze, and the smoke of three steamers is
+borne away on its wings in dense wreaths.—The first picture is one of
+stagnation and poverty, the other presents activity and wealth in
+glowing colours.
+
+“Verily,” says the correspondent of a Boston Paper, “the place was in
+itself a marvel. To say that it was daily enlarged by from twenty to
+thirty houses may not sound very remarkable after all the stories that
+have been told; yet this, for a country which imported both lumber and
+houses, and where labour was then ten dollars a day, is an extraordinary
+growth. The rapidity with which a ready-made house is put up and
+inhabited, strikes the stranger in San Francisco as little short of
+magic. He walks over an open lot in his before-breakfast stroll—the next
+morning, a house complete, with a family inside, blocks up his way. He
+goes down to the bay and looks out on the shipping—two or three days
+afterward a row of storehouses, staring him in the face, intercepts the
+view.”
+
+An intelligent traveller from the United States, has recorded his
+impressions of this marvellous spot, as he saw it in August, 1849:—
+
+“The restless, feverish tide of life in that little spot, and the
+thought that what I then saw and was yet to see will hereafter fill one
+of the most marvellous pages of all history, rendered it singularly
+impressive. The feeling was not decreased on talking that evening with
+some of the old residents, (that is of six months’ standing,) and
+hearing their several experiences. Every new comer in San Francisco is
+overtaken with a sense of complete bewilderment. The mind, however it
+may be prepared for an astonishing condition of affairs, cannot
+immediately push aside its old instincts of value and ideas of business,
+letting all past experiences go for nought and casting all its faculties
+for action, intercourse with its fellows, or advancement in any path of
+ambition, into shapes which it never before imagined. As in the turn of
+the dissolving views, there is a period when it wears neither the old
+nor the new phase, but the vanishing images of the one and the growing
+perceptions of the other are blended in painful and misty confusion. One
+knows not whether he is awake or in some wonderful dream. Never have I
+had so much difficulty in establishing, satisfactorily to my own senses,
+the reality of what I saw and heard.”[1]
+
+Footnote 1:
+
+  “Eldorado,” by Bayard Taylor, correspondent to the “Tribune”
+  newspaper.
+
+The same gentleman, after an absence in the interior of four months,
+gives a notion of the rapidity with which the city grew, in the
+following terms:—
+
+“Of all the marvellous phases of the history of the Present, the growth
+of San Francisco is the one which will most tax the belief of the
+Future. Its parallel was never known, and shall never be beheld again. I
+speak only of what I saw with my own eyes. When I landed there, a little
+more than four months before, I found a scattering town of tents and
+canvas houses, with a show of frame buildings on one or two streets, and
+a population of about six thousand. Now, on my last visit, I saw around
+me an actual metropolis, displaying street after street of well-built
+edifices, filled with an active and enterprising people and exhibiting
+every mark of permanent commercial prosperity. Then, the town was
+limited to the curve of the Bay fronting the anchorage and bottoms of
+the hills. Now, it stretched to the topmost heights, followed the shore
+around point after point, and sending back a long arm through a gap in
+the hills, took hold of the Golden Gate and was building its warehouses
+on the open strait and almost fronting the blue horizon of the Pacific.
+Then the gold-seeking sojourner lodged in muslin rooms and canvas
+garrets, with a philosophic lack of furniture, and ate his simple though
+substantial fare from pine boards. Now, lofty hotels, gaudy with
+verandas and balconies, were met with in all quarters, furnished with
+home luxury, and aristocratic restaurants presented daily their long
+bills of fare, rich with the choicest technicalities of the Parisian
+cuisine. Then, vessels were coming in day after day, to lie deserted and
+useless at their anchorage. Now scarce a day passed, but some cluster of
+sails, bound _outward_ through the Golden Gate, took their way to all
+the corners of the Pacific. Like the magic seed of the Indian juggler,
+which grew, blossomed, and bore fruit before the eyes of his spectators,
+San Francisco seemed to have accomplished in a day the growth of half a
+century.”
+
+In San Francisco, everything is reversed. The operations of trade are
+exactly opposite to those of older communities. There the rule is
+scarcity of money and abundance of labour, produce, and manufactures;
+here cash overflows out of every pocket, and the necessaries of
+existence will not pour in fast enough. Mr. Taylor tells us, that “a
+curious result of the extraordinary abundance of gold and the facility
+with which fortunes were acquired, struck me at the first glance. All
+business was transacted on so extensive a scale that the ordinary habits
+of solicitation and compliance on the one hand, and stubborn cheapening
+on the other, seemed to be entirely forgotten. You enter a shop to buy
+something; the owner eyes you with perfect indifference, waiting for you
+to state your want: if you object to the price, you are at liberty to
+leave, for you need not expect to get it cheaper; he evidently cares
+little whether you buy it or not. One who has been some time in the
+country will lay down the money, without wasting words. The only
+exception I found to this rule was that of a sharp-faced Down-Easter
+just opening his stock, who was much distressed when his clerk charged
+me seventy-five cents for a coil of rope, instead of one dollar. This
+disregard for all the petty arts of money-making was really a refreshing
+feature of society. Another equally agreeable trait was the punctuality
+with which debts were paid, and the general confidence which men were
+obliged to place, perforce, in each other’s honesty. Perhaps this latter
+fact was owing, in part, to the impossibility of protecting wealth, and
+consequent dependence on an honourable regard for the rights of others.”
+
+While this gentleman was in San Francisco, an instance of the fairy-like
+manner in which fortunes are accumulated, came under his observation. A
+citizen of San Francisco died insolvent to the amount of forty-one
+thousand dollars the previous autumn. His administrators were delayed in
+settling his affairs, and his real estate advanced so rapidly in value
+meantime, that after his debts were paid, his heirs derived a yearly
+income from it of forty thousand dollars!
+
+The fable of a city paved with gold is realised in San Francisco. Mr.
+Taylor reports:—“Walking through the town, I was quite amazed to find a
+dozen persons busily employed in the street before the United States
+Hotel, digging up the earth with knives and crumbling it in their hands.
+They were actual gold-hunters, who obtained in this way about five
+dollars a day. After blowing the fine dirt carefully in their hands, a
+few specks of gold were left, which they placed in a piece of white
+paper. A number of children were engaged in the same business, picking
+out the fine grains by applying to them the head of a pin, moistened in
+their mouths. I was told of a small boy having taken home fourteen
+dollars as the result of one day’s labour. On climbing the hill to the
+Post Office I observed in places, where the wind had swept away the
+sand, several glittering dots of the real metal, but, like the Irishman
+who kicked the dollar out of his way, concluded to wait till I should
+reach the heap. The presence of gold in the streets was probably
+occasioned by the leakings from the miners’ bags and the sweepings of
+stores; though it may also be, to a slight extent, native in the earth,
+particles having been found in the clay thrown up from a deep well.”
+
+The prices paid for labour were at that time equally _romantic_. The
+carman of one firm (Messrs. Mellus, Howard, and Co.) drew a salary of
+twelve hundred a year; and it was no uncommon thing for such persons to
+be paid from fifteen to twenty dollars, or between three and four pounds
+sterling per day. Servants were paid from forty to eighty pounds per
+month. Since this time (August, 1849), however, wages had fallen; the
+labourers for the rougher kinds of work could—poor fellows—get no more
+than something above the pay of a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British
+army, or about four hundred per annum. The scarcity of labour is best
+illustrated by the cost of washing, which was one pound twelve shillings
+per dozen. It was therefore found cheaper to put out washing to the
+antipodes; and to this day, San Francisco shirts are washed and “got up”
+in China and the Sandwich Islands. So many hundred dozens of dirty, and
+so many hundred dozens of washed linen form the part of every outward
+and inward cargo to and from the Golden City.
+
+The profits upon merchandise about the time we are writing of, may be
+judged of by one little transaction recorded by Mr. Taylor:—“Many
+passengers,” he writes, “began speculation at the moment of landing. The
+most ingenious and successful operation was made by a gentleman of New
+York, who took out fifteen hundred copies of ‘The Tribune’ and other
+papers, which he disposed of in two hours, at one dollar a-piece!
+Hearing of this I bethought me of about a dozen papers which I had used
+to fill up crevices in packing my valise. There was a newspaper merchant
+at the corner of the City Hotel, and to him I proposed the sale of them,
+asking him to name a price. ‘I shall want to make a good profit on the
+retail price,’ said he, ‘and can’t give more than ten dollars for the
+lot.’ I was satisfied with the wholesale price, which was a gain of just
+four thousand per cent.”
+
+The prices of food are enormous, and, unhappily, so are the appetites;
+“for two months after my arrival,” says a respectable authority, “my
+sensations were like those of a famished wolf;” yet the first glance at
+the tariff of a San Francisco bill of fare is calculated to turn the
+keenest European stomach. “Where shall we dine to-day?” asked Mr.
+Taylor, during his visit. “The restaurants display their signs
+invitingly on all sides; we have choice of the United States, Tortoni’s,
+the Alhambra, and many other equally classic resorts, but Delmonico’s,
+like its distinguished original in New York, has the highest prices and
+the greatest variety of dishes. We go down Kearney Street to a two-story
+wooden house on the corner of Jackson. The lower story is a market; the
+walls are garnished with quarters of beef and mutton; a huge pile of
+Sandwich Island squashes fills one corner, and several cabbage-heads,
+valued at two dollars each, show themselves in the window. We enter a
+little door at the end of the building, ascend a dark, narrow flight of
+steps and find ourselves in a long, low room, with ceiling and walls of
+white muslin and a floor covered with oil-cloth. There are about twenty
+tables disposed in two rows, all of them so well filled that we have
+some difficulty in finding places. Taking up the written bill of fare,
+we find such items as the following:—
+
+                                 SOUPS.
+                                              Dol. Cents.
+               Mock Turtle                       0     75
+               St. Julien                        1     00
+
+               FISH.
+               Boiled Salmon Trout, Anchovy
+               Sauce                             1     75
+
+               BOILED.
+               Leg of Mutton, Caper Sauce        1     00
+               Corned Beef, Cabbage              1     00
+               Ham and Tongues                   0     75
+
+               ENTRÉES.
+               Fillet of Beef, Mushroom sauce    1     75
+               Veal Cutlets, breaded             1     00
+               Mutton Chop                       1     00
+               Lobster Salad                     2     00
+               Sirloin of Venison                1     50
+               Baked Maccaroni                   0     75
+               Beef Tongue, Sauce piquante       1     00
+
+So that, with but a moderate appetite, the dinner will cost us five
+dollars, if we are at all epicurean in our tastes. There are cries of
+‘steward!’ from all parts of the room—the word ‘waiter’ is not
+considered sufficiently respectful, seeing that the waiter may have been
+a lawyer or a merchant’s clerk a few months before. The dishes look very
+small as they are placed on the table, but they are skilfully cooked and
+are very palatable to men that have ridden in from the diggings.”
+
+Lodging was equally extravagant. A bedroom in an hotel, 50_l._ per
+month, and a sleeping berth or “bunk”—one of fifty in the same
+apartment—1_l._ 4_s._ per week. Social intercourse is almost unknown.
+There are no females, and men have no better resource than gambling,
+which is carried on to an extent, and with a desperate energy, hardly
+conceivable. “Gambling,” says a private correspondent, whose letter,
+dated April 20, 1850, now lies before us, “is carried on here with a
+bold and open front, so as to alarm and astonish one. Thousands and
+thousands change hands nightly. Go in, for instance, to a place called
+‘Parker House,’ which is a splendid mansion, fitted up as well as any
+hotel in England; step into the front room, and you see five or six
+Monte, Roulette, and other gaming-tables, each having a bank of nearly
+half a bushel of gold and silver, piled up in the centre. That the
+excitement shall not be wholly devoid of diversion, the Muses lend their
+aid, and a band plays constantly to crowded rooms! Step into the next
+building, called ‘El Dorado,’ and there a similar scene is presented,
+and which is repeated, on a smaller scale, all over the town. The
+gamblers seem to control the town, but of course their days must be
+numbered. Fortunes are made or lost daily. People gamble with a freedom
+and recklessness which you can never dream of. Young men who come here
+must at all times resist gaming, or it must eventually end in their
+ruin: the same with drinking, as there is much of it here.”
+
+The variety of habits, manners, tastes, and prejudices, occasioned by
+the confluence in one spot of almost every variety of the human species,
+is another bar to a speedy deposit of all these floating and opposite
+elements into a compact and well assimilated community. “Here,” writes
+the same gentleman, “we see the character and habits of the English,
+Irish, Scotch, German, Pole, French, Spaniard, and almost every other
+nation of Europe. Then you have the South American, the Australian, the
+Chilian; and finally, the force of this golden mania has dissolved the
+chain that has hitherto bound China in national solitude, and she has
+now come forth, like an anchorite from his cell, to join this varied
+mass of golden speculators. Here we see in miniature just what is done
+in the large cities of other countries; we have some of our luxuries
+from the United States and the tropics, butter from Oregon, and for the
+most part California, Upper or Lower, furnishes us with our beef, &c.
+The streets are all bustle, as you may imagine, in a place now of nearly
+thirty thousand inhabitants, independent of a small world of floating
+population.”
+
+Not the smallest wonder, however, presented in this region, is the rapid
+manner in which social order was shaped out of the human chaos. When a
+new placer or “gulch” was discovered, the first thing done was to elect
+officers and extend the area of order. The result was, that in a
+district five hundred miles long, and inhabited by one hundred thousand
+people—who had neither government, regular laws, rules, military or
+civil protection, nor even locks or bolts, and a great part of whom
+possessed wealth enough to tempt the vicious and depraved,—there was as
+much security to life and property as in any part of the Union, and as
+small a proportion of crime. The capacity of a people for
+self-government was never so triumphantly illustrated. Never, perhaps,
+was there a community formed of more unpropitious elements; yet from all
+this seeming chaos grew a harmony beyond what the most sanguine apostle
+of Progress could have expected. Indeed, there is nothing more
+remarkable connected with the capital of El Dorado, than the centre
+point it has become.
+
+The story of Cadmus, who sowed dragons’ teeth, and harvested armed men,
+who became the builders of cities; the confusion of tongues at the Tower
+of Babel; and the beautiful allegory of the lion lying down with the
+lamb; are all types of San Francisco. The first, of its sudden rise; the
+second, of the varieties of the genus Man it has congregated; and the
+third, of the extremes of those varieties, which range from the
+Polynesian savage to the most civilised individuals that Europe can
+produce. It is a coincidence well worthy of note, that, besides the
+intense attraction possessed from its gold, Upper or New California is
+of all other places the best adapted, from its geographical position, to
+become a rendezvous for all nations of the earth, and that the Bay of
+San Francisco is one of the best and most convenient for shipping
+throughout the western margin of the American continent. It is precisely
+the locality required to make a constant communication across the
+Pacific Ocean with the coasts of China, Japan, and the Eastern
+Archipelago commercially practicable. Its situation is that which would
+have been selected from choice for a concentration of delegates from the
+uttermost ends of the earth. If the Chinese, the Malay, the Ladrone, or
+the Sandwich Islander had wished to meet his Saxon or Celtic brother on
+a matter of mutual business, he would—deciding geographically—have
+selected California as the spot of assembly. The attractive powers of
+gold could not, therefore, have struck forth over the world from a
+better point than in and around San Francisco, both for the interests of
+commerce and for those of human intercourse.
+
+The practical question respecting the Golden City remains yet to be
+touched. Does it offer wholesome inducements for emigration? On this
+subject we can do no more than quote the opinions of the intelligent and
+enterprising gentleman, to whose private letter we have already
+referred:—“This, I should say, is the best country in the world for an
+active, enterprising, steady young man, provided he can keep his health,
+as the climate, without due precaution, is not a healthy one. In the
+summer season, the weather is pleasantly warm from morning till noon,
+then it is windy till evening, and dusty, and then becomes so cold as to
+require an over-coat. This weather lasts to October, when the wind gets
+round to the south-west. It is dry, warm, and pleasant now (April). This
+and the rainy season are the pleasantest and warmest here. Thousands, on
+arriving, fall victims to the prevailing disease of dysentery. On the
+latter account, therefore, I should not advise, or be the indirect means
+of inducing, any one to make the adventure here, because it is
+impossible to foresee or calculate whether or not he can stand the
+climate and inconveniences of this country; and, if so, he is sure to be
+exposed to a miserable and too often neglected sickness, and ending in a
+miserable death. I have not been ill myself so far, as my general health
+has been extremely good, and I never looked so well as now. The climate
+seems to operate injuriously on bilious habits; but to those who can
+stand it, it is decidedly pleasanter than England. Fires are never
+necessary. Out of doors, at night, a great-coat is required, but in the
+house it is always warm. The whole and only question, with a man making
+up his mind to locate in California, should be in regard to his health.
+Business of all descriptions is better here than in any other part of
+the world, and he who perseveres is sure to succeed.
+
+“There are various opinions afloat, in regard to the fertility of the
+soil, some holding that there are productive valleys in the interior
+which would supply sufficient sustenance for home consumption: others
+assert the reverse. Certain it is, however, that in many parts in the
+interior, the climate is delightful, but owing to the long continued dry
+season, I have doubts as to her ever raising a sufficient supply of
+vegetable necessaries of life: our market now is supplied from the
+Sandwich Islands and Oregon.
+
+“As to gold mining, it is altogether a lottery; one man may make a large
+amount daily, another will but just live. There is an inexhaustible
+quantity of gold, however, but with many it is inconceivably hard to
+get, as the operations are so many, and health so very precarious, that
+it is a mere chance matter if you succeed in getting a large sum
+speedily. It seems a question, whether it would not be advisable for the
+American Government to work the mines ultimately:
+
+“California must ‘go-a-head:’ the east will pour through the country her
+immense commerce into the States, and the mines will last for ages.
+Finally, I would now say to my friends, that, if you are inclined to
+come to this country, upon this my report of it, you must, to succeed,
+attend to my warnings as to drinking and gambling, and to my precautions
+against climate.”
+
+
+
+
+                    THE MODERN “OFFICER’S” PROGRESS.
+
+
+                         II.—A SUBALTERN’S DAY.
+
+However interesting it might prove to the noble relatives of Ensign
+Spoonbill to learn his progress, step by step, we must—for reasons of
+our own—pass over the first few weeks of his new career with only a
+brief mention of the leading facts.
+
+His brother officers had instructed him in the art of tying on his sash,
+wearing his forage cap on one side, the secret of distinguishing his
+right hand from his left, and the mysteries of marching and
+counter-marching. The art of holding up his head and throwing out his
+chest, had been carefully imparted by the drill-serjeant of his company,
+and he had, accordingly, been pronounced “fit for duty.”
+
+What this was may best be shown, by giving an outline of “a subaltern’s
+day,” as he and the majority of his military friends were in the habit
+of passing it. It may serve to explain how it happens that British
+officers are so far in advance of their continental brethren in arms in
+the science of their profession, and by what process they have arrived
+at that intellectual superiority, which renders it a matter of regret
+that more serious interests than the mere discipline and well-being of
+only a hundred and twenty thousand men have not been confided to their
+charge.
+
+The scene opens in a square room of tolerable size which, if simply
+adorned with “barrack furniture,” (to wit, a deal table, two
+windsor-chairs, a coal scuttle, and a set of fire-irons,) would give an
+idea of a British subaltern’s “interior,” of rather more Spartanlike
+simplicity than is altogether true. But to these were added certain
+elegant “extras,” obtained not out of the surplus of five and
+three-pence a day—after mess and band subscriptions, cost of uniform,
+servant’s wages, &c., had been deducted—but on credit, which it was
+easier to get than to avoid incurring expense. A noble youth, like
+Ensign Spoonbill, had only to give the word of command to be obeyed by
+Messrs Rosewood and Mildew, with the alacrity shown by the slaves of the
+lamp, and in an incredibly short space of time, the bare walls and floor
+of his apartment were covered with the gayest articles their
+establishment afforded. They included those indispensable adjuncts to a
+young officer’s toilette, a full length cheval, and a particularly lofty
+pier-glass. A green-baize screen converted the apartment into as many
+separate rooms as its occupant desired, cutting it up, perhaps, a little
+here and there, but adding, on the whole, a great deal to its comfort
+and privacy. What was out of the line of Messrs Rosewood and Mildew—and
+that, as Othello says, was “not much”—the taste of Ensign Spoonbill
+himself supplied. To his high artistic taste were due the presence of a
+couple of dozen gilt-framed and highly-coloured prints, representing the
+reigning favorites of the ballet, the winners of the Derby and Leger,
+and the costumes of the “dressiest,” and consequently the most
+distinguished corps in the service; the nice arrangement of cherry-stick
+tubes, amber mouth-pieces, meerschaum bowls, and embroidered bags of
+Latakia tobacco; pleasing devices of the well-crossed foils, riding
+whips, and single sticks evenly balanced by fencing masks and boxing
+gloves; and, on the chimneypiece, the brilliant array of nick-nacks,
+from the glittering shop of Messrs Moses, Lazarus and Son, who called
+themselves “jewellers and dealers in curiosities,” and who dealt in a
+few trifles which were not alluded to above their door-posts.
+
+The maxim of “Early to bed” was not known in the Hundredth; but the
+exigencies of the service required that Ensign Spoonbill should rise
+with the _reveillée_. He complained of it in more forcible language than
+Dr. Watts’ celebrated sluggard; but discipline is inexorable, and he was
+not permitted to “slumber again.” This early rising is a real military
+hardship. We once heard a lady of fashion counselling her friend never
+to marry a Guardsman. “You have no idea, love, what you’ll have to go
+through; every morning of his life—in the season—he has to be out with
+the horrid regiment at half-past six o’clock!”
+
+The Hon. Ensign Spoonbill then rose with the lark, though much against
+his will, his connection with that fowl having by preference a midnight
+tendency. Erect at last, but with a strong taste of cigars in his mouth,
+and a slight touch of whiskey-headache, the Ensign arrayed himself in
+his blue frock coat and Oxford grey trowsers; wound himself into his
+sash; adjusted his sword and cap; and, with a faltering step, made the
+best of his way into the barrack-square, where the squads were forming,
+which, with his eyes only half-open, he was called upon to inspect,
+prior to their being re-inspected by both lieutenant and captain. He
+then drew his sword, and “falling in” in the rear of his company,
+occupied that distinguished position till the regiment was formed and
+set in motion.
+
+His duties on the parade-ground were—as a supernumerary—of a very
+arduous nature, and consisted chiefly in getting in the way of his
+captain as he continually “changed his flank,” in making the men “lock
+up,” and in avoiding the personal observation of the adjutant as much as
+possible; storing his mind, all the time, with a few of the epithets,
+more vigorous than courtly, which the commanding officer habitually made
+use of to quicken the movements of the battalion. He enjoyed this
+recreation for about a couple of hours, sometimes utterly bewildered by
+a “change of front,” which developed him in the most inopportune manner;
+sometimes inextricably entangled in the formation of “a hollow square,”
+when he became lost altogether; sometimes confounding himself with “the
+points,” and being confounded by the senior-major for his awkwardness;
+and sometimes following a “charge” at such a pace as to take away his
+voice for every purpose of utility, supposing he had desired to exercise
+it in the way of admonitory adjuration to the rear-rank. In this manner
+he learnt the noble science of strategy, and by this means acquired so
+much proficiency that, had he been suddenly called upon to manœuvre the
+battalion, it is possible he might have gone on for five minutes without
+“clubbing” it.
+
+The regiment was then marched home; and Ensign Spoonbill re-entered the
+garrison with all the honours of war, impressed with the conviction that
+he had already seen an immense deal of service; enough, certainly, to
+justify the ample breakfast which two or three other famished subs—his
+particular friends—assisted him in discussing, the more substantial part
+of which, involved a private account with the messman, who had a good
+many more of the younger officers of the regiment on his books. At these
+morning feasts—with the exception, perhaps, of a few remarks on drill as
+“a cussed bore”—no allusion was made to the military exercises of the
+morning, or to the prospective duties of the day. The conversation
+turned, on the contrary, on lighter and more agreeable topics;—the
+relative merits of bull and Scotch terriers; who made the best boots;
+whether “that gaerl at the pastrycook’s” was “as fine a woman” as “the
+barmaid of the Rose and Crown;” if Hudson’s cigars didn’t beat Pontet’s
+all to nothing; who married the sixth daughter of Jones of the
+Highlanders; interspersed with a few bets, a few oaths, and a few
+statements not strikingly remarkable for their veracity, the last having
+reference, principally, to the exploits for which Captain Smith made
+himself famous, to the detriment of Miss Bailey.
+
+Breakfast over, and cigars lighted, Ensign Spoonbill and his friends,
+attired in shooting jackets of every pattern, and wearing felt hats of
+every colour and form, made their appearance in front of the officers’
+wing of the barracks; some semi-recumbent on the doorsteps, others
+lounging with their hands in their coat pockets, others gracefully
+balancing themselves on the iron railings,—all smoking and talking on
+subjects of the most edifying kind. These pleasant occupations were,
+however, interrupted by the approach of an “orderly,” who, from a
+certain clasped book which he carried, read out the unwelcome
+intelligence that, at twelve o’clock that day, a regimental
+court-martial, under the presidency of Captain Huff, would assemble in
+the officers’ mess-room “for the trial of all such prisoners as might be
+brought before it,” and that two lieutenants and two ensigns—of whom the
+Hon. Mr. Spoonbill was one—were to constitute the members. This was a
+most distressing and unexpected blow, for it had previously been
+arranged that a badger should be drawn by Lieutenant Wadding’s bull
+bitch Juno, at which interesting ceremony all the junior members of the
+court were to have “assisted.” It was the more provoking, because the
+proprietor of the animal to be baited,—a gentleman in a fustian suit,
+brown leggings, high-lows, a white hat with a black crape round it, and
+a very red nose, indicative of a most decided love for “cordials and
+compounds”—had just “stepped up” to say that “the bedger _must_ be
+dror’d that mornin’,” as he was under a particular engagement to repeat
+the amusement in the evening for some gents at a distant town and
+“couldn’t no how, not for no money, forfeit his sacred word.” The
+majority of the young gentlemen present understood perfectly what this
+corollary meant, but, with Ensign Spoonbill amongst them, were by no
+means in a hurry to “fork out” for so immoral a purpose as that of
+inducing a fellow-man to break a solemn pledge. That gallant officer,
+however, laboured under so acute a feeling of disappointment, that,
+regardless of the insult offered to the worthy man’s conscience, he at
+once volunteered to give him “a couple of sovs” if he would just “throw
+those snobs over,” and defer his departure till the following day; and
+it was settled that the badger should be “drawn” as soon as the patrons
+of Joe Baggs could get away from the court-martial,—for which in no very
+equable frame of mind they now got ready,—retiring to their several
+barrack-rooms, divesting themselves of their sporting costume and once
+more assuming military attire.
+
+At the appointed hour, the court assembled. Captain Huff prepared for
+his judicial labours by calling for a glass of his favourite “swizzle,”
+which he dispatched at one draught, and then, having sworn in the
+members, and being sworn himself, the business began by the appointment
+of Lieutenant Hackett as secretary. There were two prisoners to be
+tried: one had “sold his necessaries” in order to get drunk; the second
+had made use of “mutinous language” _when_ drunk; both of them high
+military crimes, to be severely visited by those who had no temptation
+to dispose of their wardrobes, and could not understand why a soldier’s
+beer money was not sufficient for his daily potations; but who omitted
+the consideration that they themselves, when in want of cash,
+occasionally sent a pair of epaulettes to “my uncle,” and had a
+champagne supper out of the proceeds, at which neither sobriety nor
+decorous language were rigidly observed.
+
+The case against him who had sold his necessaries—to wit, “a new pair of
+boots, a shirt, and a pair of stockings,” for which a Jew in the town
+had given him two shillings—was sufficiently clear. The captain and the
+pay-serjeant of the man’s company swore to the articles, and the Jew who
+bought them (an acquaintance of Lieutenant Hackett, to whom he nodded
+with pleasing familiarity), stimulated by the fear of a civil
+prosecution, gave them up, and appeared as evidence against the
+prisoner. He was found “guilty,” and sentenced to three months’ solitary
+confinement, and “to be put under stoppages,” according to the
+prescribed formulæ.
+
+But the trial of the man accused of drunkenness and mutinous language
+was not so readily disposed of; though the delay occasioned by his
+calling witnesses to character served only to add to the irritation of
+his virtuous and impartial judges. He was a fine-looking fellow, six
+feet high, and had as soldier-like a bearing as any man in the Grenadier
+company, to which he belonged. The specific acts which constituted his
+crime consisted in having refused to leave the canteen when somewhat
+vexatiously urged to do so by the orderly serjeant, who forthwith sent
+for a file of the guard to compel him; thus urging him, when in an
+excited state, to an act of insubordination, the gist of which was a
+threat to knock the serjeant down, a show of resistance, and certain
+maledictions on the head of that functionary. In this, as in the former
+instance, there could be no doubt that the breach of discipline
+complained of had been committed, though several circumstances were
+pleaded in extenuation of the offence. The man’s previous character,
+too, was very good; he was ordinarily a steady, well-conducted soldier,
+never shirked his hour of duty, was not given to drink, and, therefore,
+as the principal witness in his favour said, “the more aisily overcome
+when he tuck a dhrop, but as harrumless as a lamb, unless put upon.”
+
+These things averred and shown, the Court was cleared, and the members
+proceeded to deliberate. It was a question only of the nature and extent
+of the punishment to be awarded. The general instructions, no less than
+the favourable condition of the case, suggested leniency. But Captain
+Huff was a severe disciplinarian of the old school, an advocate for
+red-handed practice—the drum head and the halberds—and his opinion, if
+it might be called one, had only too much weight with the other members
+of the Court, all of whom were prejudiced against the prisoner, whom
+they internally—if not openly—condemned for interfering with their day’s
+amusements. “Corporal punishment, of course,” said Captain Huff,
+angrily; and his words were echoed by the Court, though the majority of
+them little knew the fearful import of the sentence, or they might have
+paused before they delivered over a fine resolute young man, whose chief
+crime was an ebullition of temper, to the castigation of the lash, which
+destroys the soldier’s self-respect; degrades him in the eyes of his
+fellows; mutilates his body, and leaves an indelible scar upon his mind.
+But the fiat went forth, and was recorded in “hundreds” against the
+unfortunate fellow; and Captain Huff having managed to sign the
+proceedings, carried them off to the commanding officer’s quarters, to
+be “approved and confirmed;” a ratification which the Colonel was not
+slow to give; for he was one of that class who are in the habit of
+reconciling themselves to an act of cruelty, by always asserting in
+their defence that “an example is necessary.” He forgot, in doing so,
+that this was not the way to preserve for the “Hundredth” the name of a
+crack corps, and that the best example for those in authority is Mercy.
+
+With minds buoyant and refreshed by the discharge of the judicial
+functions, for which they were in every respect so admirably qualified,
+Ensign Spoonbill and his companions, giving themselves leave of absence
+from the afternoon parade, and having resumed their favourite “mufty,”
+repaired to an obscure den in a stable-yard at the back of the Blue
+Boar—a low public house in the filthiest quarter of the town—which Mr.
+Joseph Baggs made his head-quarters, and there, for a couple of hours,
+solaced themselves with the agreeable exhibition of the contest between
+the badger and the dog Juno, which terminated by the latter being bitten
+through both her fore-paws, and nearly losing one of her eyes; though,
+as Lieutenant Wadding exultingly observed, “she was a deuced deal too
+game to give over for such trifles as those.” The unhappy badger, that
+only fought in self-defence, was accordingly “dror’d,” as Mr. Baggs
+reluctantly admitted, adding, however, that she was “nuffin much the
+wuss,” which was more than could be said of the officers of the
+“Hundredth” who had enjoyed the spectacle.
+
+This amusement ended, which had so far a military character that it
+familiarised the spectator with violence and bloodshed, though in an
+unworthy and contemptible degree, badgers and dogs, not men, being their
+subject, the young gentlemen adjourned to the High Street, to loiter
+away half an hour at the shop of Messrs. Moses, Lazarus and Son, whose
+religious observances and daily occupations were made their jest, while
+they ran in debt to the people from whom they afterwards expected
+consideration and forbearance. But not wholly did they kill their time
+there. The pretty pastry-cook, an innocent, retiring girl, but compelled
+to serve in the shop, came in for her share of their half-admiring and
+all-insolent persecutions, and when their slang and sentiment were alike
+exhausted, they dawdled back again to barracks, to dress for the fifth
+time for mess.
+
+The events of the day, that is, the events on which their thoughts had
+been centered, again furnished the theme of the general conversation.
+Enough wine was drunk, as Captain Huff said, with the wit peculiar to
+him, “to restore the equilibrium;” the most abstinent person being
+Captain Cushion, who that evening gave convincing proof of the
+advantages of abstinence, by engaging Ensign Spoonbill in a match at
+billiards, the result of which was, that Lord Pelican’s son found
+himself, at midnight, minus a full half of the allowance for which his
+noble father had given him liberty to draw. But that he had fairly lost
+the money there could be no doubt, for the officer on the main-guard,
+who had preferred watching the game to going his rounds, declared to the
+party, when they afterwards adjourned to take a glass of grog with him
+before he turned in, that “except Jonathan, he had never seen any man
+make so good a bridge as his friend Spoonbill,” and this fact Captain
+Cushion himself confirmed, adding, that he thought, perhaps, he could
+afford next time to give points. With the reputation of making a good
+bridge—a _Pons asinorum_ over which his money had travelled—Ensign
+Spoonbill was fain to be content, and in this satisfactory manner he
+closed one Subaltern’s day, there being many like it in reserve.
+
+
+
+
+                        THE BELGIAN LACE-MAKERS.
+
+
+The indefatigable, patient, invincible, inquisitive, sometimes tedious,
+but almost always amusing German traveller, Herr Kohl, has recently been
+pursuing his earnest investigations in Belgium. His book on the
+Netherlands[2] has just been issued, and we shall translate, with
+abridgments, one of its most instructive and agreeable chapters;—that
+relating to Lace-making.
+
+Footnote 2:
+
+  Reisen in den Niederlanden. Travels in the Netherlands.
+
+The practical acquaintance of our female readers with that elegant
+ornament, lace, is chiefly confined to wearing it, and their researches
+into its quality and price. A few minutes’ attention to Mr. Kohl will
+enlighten them on other subjects connected with, what is to them a most
+interesting topic, for lace is associated with recollections of mediæval
+history, and with the palmy days of the Flemish school of painting. More
+than one of the celebrated masters of that school have selected, from
+among his laborious countrywomen, the lace-makers (or, as they are
+called in Flanders, _Speldewerksters_), pleasing subjects for the
+exercise of his pencil. The plump, fair-haired Flemish girl, bending
+earnestly over her lace-work, whilst her fingers nimbly ply the
+intricately winding bobbins, figure in many of those highly esteemed
+representations of homely life and manners, which have found their way
+from the Netherlands into all the principal picture-galleries of Europe.
+
+Our German friend makes it his practice, whether he is treating of the
+geology of the earth, or of the manufacture of Swedish bodkins, to begin
+at the very beginning. He therefore commences the history of
+lace-making, which, he says, is, like embroidery, an art of very ancient
+origin, lost, like a multitude of other origins, “in the darkness of
+by-gone ages.” It may, with truth, be said that it is the national
+occupation of the women of the Low Countries, and one to which they have
+steadily adhered from very remote times. During the long civil and
+foreign wars waged by the people of the Netherlands, while subject to
+Spanish dominion, other branches of Belgic industry either dwindled to
+decay, or were transplanted to foreign countries; but lace-making
+remained faithful to the land which had fostered and brought it to
+perfection, though it received tempting offers from abroad, and had to
+struggle with many difficulties at home. This Mr. Kohl explains by the
+fact, that lace-making is a branch of industry chiefly confined to
+female hands, and, as women are less disposed to travel than men, all
+arts and handicrafts exclusively pursued by women, have a local and
+enduring character.
+
+Notwithstanding the overwhelming supply of imitations which modern
+ingenuity has created, _real Brussels lace_ has maintained its value,
+like the precious metals and the precious stones. In the patterns of the
+best bone lace, the changeful influence of fashion is less marked than
+in most other branches of industry; indeed, she has adhered with
+wonderful pertinacity to the quaint old patterns of former times. These
+are copied and reproduced with that scrupulous uniformity which
+characterises the figures in the Persian and Indian shawls. Frequent
+experiments have been tried to improve these old patterns, by the
+introduction of slight and tasteful modifications, but these innovations
+have not succeeded, and a very skilful and experienced lace-worker
+assured Mr. Kohl, that the antiquated designs, with all their formality,
+are preferred to those in which the most elegant changes have been
+effected.
+
+Each of the lace-making towns of Belgium excels in the production of one
+particular description of lace: in other words, each has what is
+technically called its own _point_. The French word _point_, in the
+ordinary language of needlework, signifies simply _stitch_; but in the
+terminology of lace-making, the word is sometimes used to designate the
+pattern of the lace, and sometimes the ground of the lace itself. Hence
+the terms _point de Bruxelles_, _point de Malines_, _point de
+Valenciennes_, &c. In England we distinguish by the name of Point, a
+peculiarly rich and curiously wrought lace formerly very fashionable,
+but now scarcely ever worn except in Court costume. In this sort of lace
+the pattern is, we believe, worked with the needle, after the ground has
+been made with the bobbins. In each town there prevail certain modes of
+working, and certain patterns which have been transmitted from mother to
+daughter successively, for several generations. Many of the lace-workers
+live and die in the same houses in which they were born; and most of
+them understand and practise only the stitches which their mothers and
+grandmothers worked before them. The consequence has been, that certain
+_points_ have become unchangeably fixed in particular towns or
+districts. Fashion has assigned to each its particular place and
+purpose; for example:—the _point de Malines_ (Mechlin lace) is used
+chiefly for trimming nightdresses, pillow-cases, coverlets, &c.; the
+_point de Valenciennes_ (Valenciennes lace) is employed for ordinary
+wear or negligé; but the more rich and costly _point de Bruxelles_
+(Brussels lace) is reserved for bridal and ball-dresses, and for the
+robes of queens and courtly ladies.
+
+As the different sorts of lace, from the narrowest and plainest to the
+broadest and richest, are innumerable; so the division of labour among
+the lace-workers is infinite. In the towns of Belgium there are as many
+different kinds of lace-workers, as there are varieties of spiders in
+Nature. It is not, therefore, surprising that in the several departments
+of this branch of industry there are as many technical terms and phrases
+as would make up a small dictionary. In their origin, these expressions
+were all Flemish; but French being the language now spoken in Belgium,
+they have been translated into French, and the designations applied to
+some of the principal classifications of the workwomen. Those who make
+only the ground, are called _Drocheleuses_. The design or pattern, which
+adorns this ground, is distinguished by the general term “the Flowers;”
+though it would be difficult to guess what flowers are intended to be
+portrayed by the fantastic arabesque of these lace-patterns. In Brussels
+the ornaments or flowers are made separately, and afterwards worked into
+the lace-ground: in other places the ground and the patterns are worked
+conjointly. The _Platteuses_ are those who work the flowers separately;
+and the _Faiseuses de point à l’aiguille_ work the figures and the
+ground together. The _Striquese_ is the worker who attaches the flowers
+to the ground. The _Faneuse_ works her figures by piercing holes or
+cutting out pieces of the ground.
+
+The spinning of the fine thread used for lace-making in the Netherlands,
+is an operation demanding so high a degree of minute care and vigilant
+attention, that it is impossible it can ever be taken from human hands
+by machinery. None but Belgian fingers are skilled in this art. The very
+finest sort of this thread is made in Brussels, in damp underground
+cellars; for it is so extremely delicate, that it is liable to break by
+contact with the dry air above ground; and it is obtained in good
+condition only, when made and kept in a humid subterraneous atmosphere.
+There are numbers of old Belgian thread-makers who, like spiders, have
+passed the best part of their lives spinning in cellars. This sort of
+occupation naturally has an injurious effect on the health, and
+therefore, to induce people to follow it, they are highly paid.
+
+To form an accurate idea of this operation, it is necessary to see a
+Brabant Threadspinner at her work. She carefully examines every thread,
+watching it closely as she draws it off the distaff; and that she may
+see it the more distinctly, a piece of dark blue paper is used as a
+background for the flax. Whenever the spinner notices the least
+unevenness, she stops the evolution of her wheel, breaks off the faulty
+piece of flax, and then resumes her spinning. This fine flax being as
+costly as gold, the pieces thus broken off are carefully laid aside to
+be used in other ways. All this could never be done by machinery. It is
+different in the spinning of cotton, silk, or wool, in which the
+original threads are almost all of uniform thickness. The invention of
+the English Flax-spinning Machine, therefore, can never supersede the
+work of the Belgian Fine Thread Spinners, any more than the Bobbin-Net
+Machine can rival the fingers of the Brussels lace-makers, or render
+their delicate work superfluous.
+
+The prices current of the Brabant spinners usually include a list of
+various sorts of thread suited to lace-making, varying from 60 francs to
+1800 francs per pound. Instances have occurred, in which as much as
+10,000 francs have been paid for a pound of this fine yarn. So high a
+price has never been attained by the best spun silk; though a pound of
+silk, in its raw condition, is incomparably more valuable than a pound
+of flax. In like manner, a pound of iron may, by dint of human labour
+and ingenuity, be rendered more valuable than a pound of gold.
+
+Lace-making, in regard to the health of the operatives, has one great
+advantage. It is a business which is carried on without the necessity of
+assembling great numbers of workpeople in one place, or of taking women
+from their homes, and thereby breaking the bonds of family union. It is,
+moreover, an occupation which affords those employed in it a great
+degree of freedom. The spinning-wheel and lace-pillows are easily
+carried from place to place, and the work may be done with equal
+convenience in the house, in the garden, or at the street-door. In every
+Belgian town in which lace-making is the staple business, the eye of the
+traveller is continually greeted with pictures of happy industry,
+attended by all its train of concomitant virtues. The costliness of the
+material employed in the work, viz., the fine flax thread, fosters the
+observance of order and economy, which, as well as habits of
+cleanliness, are firmly engrafted among the people. Much manual
+dexterity, quickness of eye, and judgment, are demanded in lace-making;
+and the work is a stimulater of ingenuity and taste; so that, unlike
+other occupations merely manual, it tends to rouse rather than to dull
+the mind. It is, moreover, unaccompanied by any unpleasant and harassing
+noise; for the humming of the spinning-wheel, and the regular tapping of
+the little bobbins, are sounds not in themselves disagreeable, or
+sufficiently loud to disturb conversation, or to interrupt the social
+song.
+
+In Belgium, female industry presents itself under aspects alike
+interesting to the painter, the poet, and the philanthropist. Here and
+there may be seen a happy-looking girl, seated at an open window,
+turning her spinning-wheel or working at her lace-pillow, whilst at
+intervals she indulges in the relaxation of a curious gaze at the
+passers-by in the street. Another young _Speldewerkster_, more
+sentimentally disposed, will retire into the garden, seating herself in
+an umbrageous arbour, or under a spreading tree, her eyes intent on her
+work, but her thoughts apparently divided between it and some object
+nearer to her heart. At a doorway sits a young mother, surrounded by two
+or three children playing round the little table or wooden settle on
+which her lace-pillow rests. Whilst the mother’s busy fingers are thus
+profitably employed, her eyes keep watch over the movements of her
+little ones, and she can at the same time spare an attentive thought for
+some one of her humble household duties.
+
+Dressmakers, milliners, and other females employed in the various
+occupations which minister to the exigencies of fashion, are confined to
+close rooms, surrounded by masses of silk, muslin, &c. They are debarred
+the healthful practice of working in the open air, and can scarcely
+venture even to sit at an open window, because a drop of rain or a puff
+of wind may be fatal to their work and its materials. The lace-maker, on
+the contrary, whose work requires only her thread and her fingers, is
+not disturbed by a refreshing breeze or a light shower; and even when
+the weather is not particularly fine, she prefers sitting at her
+street-door or in her garden, where she enjoys a brighter light than
+within doors.
+
+In most of the principal towns of the Netherlands there is one
+particular locality which is the focus of lace-making industry; and
+there, in fine weather, the streets are animated by the presence of the
+busy workwomen. In each of these districts there is usually one wide
+open street which the _Speldewerksters_ prefer to all others, and in
+which they assemble, and form themselves into the most picturesque
+groups imaginable. It is curious to observe them, pouring out of narrow
+lanes and alleys, carrying with them their chairs and lace-pillows, to
+take their places in the wide open street, where they can enjoy more of
+bright light and fresh air than in their own places of abode.
+
+“I could not help contrasting,” says Kohl, “the pleasing aspect of these
+streets with the close and noisy workrooms in woollen and cotton
+manufactories. There the workpeople are all separated and classified
+according to age and sex, and marshalled like soldiers. There domestic
+and family ties are rudely broken. There chance or exigency separates
+the young factory girl from her favourite companions, and dooms her to
+association with strangers. There social conversation and the merry song
+are drowned in that stunning din of machinery, which in the end
+paralyses even the power of thought.”
+
+Our German friend is a little hard upon factory life. Though not so
+picturesque, it does not, if candidly viewed, offer so very unfavourable
+a contrast to that passed by the Belgian Lace Workers.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE POWER OF MERCY.
+
+
+Quiet enough, in general, is the quaint old town of Lamborough. Why all
+this bustle to-day? Along the hedge-bound roads which lead to it, carts,
+chaises, vehicles of every description are jogging along filled with
+countrymen; and here and there the scarlet cloak or straw bonnet of some
+female occupying a chair, placed somewhat unsteadily behind them,
+contrasts gaily with the dark coats, or grey smock-frocks of the front
+row; from every cottage of the suburb, some individuals join the stream,
+which rolls on increasing through the streets till it reaches the
+castle. The ancient moat teems with idlers, and the hill opposite,
+usually the quiet domain of a score or two of peaceful sheep, partakes
+of the surrounding agitation.
+
+The voice of the multitude which surrounds the court-house, sounds like
+the murmur of the sea, till suddenly it is raised to a sort of shout.
+John West, the terror of the surrounding country, the sheep-stealer and
+burglar, had been found guilty.
+
+“What is the sentence?” is asked by a hundred voices.
+
+The answer is “Transportation for Life.”
+
+But there was one standing aloof on the hill, whose inquiring eye
+wandered over the crowd with indescribable anguish, whose pallid cheek
+grew more and more ghastly at every denunciation of the culprit, and
+who, when at last the sentence was pronounced, fell insensible upon the
+greensward. It was the burglar’s son.
+
+When the boy recovered from his swoon, it was late in the afternoon; he
+was alone; the faint tinkling of the sheep-bell had again replaced the
+sound of the human chorus of expectation, and dread, and jesting; all
+was peaceful, he could not understand why he lay there, feeling so weak
+and sick. He raised himself tremulously and looked around, the turf was
+cut and spoilt by the trampling of many feet. All his life of the last
+few months floated before his memory, his residence in his father’s
+hovel with ruffianly comrades, the desperate schemes he heard as he
+pretended to sleep on his lowly bed, their expeditions at night, masked
+and armed, their hasty returns, the news of his father’s capture, his
+own removal to the house of some female in the town, the court, the
+trial, the condemnation.
+
+The father had been a harsh and brutal parent, but he had not positively
+ill-used his boy. Of the Great and Merciful Father of the fatherless the
+child knew nothing. He deemed himself alone in the world. Yet grief was
+not his pervading feeling, nor the shame of being known as the son of a
+transport. It was revenge which burned within him. He thought of the
+crowd which had come to feast upon his father’s agony; he longed to tear
+them to pieces, and he plucked savagely a handful of the grass on which
+he leant. Oh, that he were a man! that he could punish them all—all,—the
+spectators first, the constables, the judge, the jury, the
+witnesses,—one of them especially, a clergyman named Leyton, who had
+given his evidence more positively, more clearly, than all the others.
+Oh, that he could do that man some injury,—but for him his father would
+not have been identified and convicted.
+
+Suddenly a thought occurred to him,—his eyes sparkled with fierce
+delight. “I know where he lives,” he said to himself; “he has the farm
+and parsonage of Millwood. I will go there at once,—it is almost dark
+already. I will do as I have heard father say he once did to the Squire.
+I will set his barns and his house on fire. Yes, yes, he shall burn for
+it,—he shall get no more fathers transported.”
+
+To procure a box of matches was an easy task, and that was all the
+preparation the boy made.
+
+The autumn was far advanced. A cold wind was beginning to moan amongst
+the almost leafless trees, and George West’s teeth chattered, and his
+ill-clad limbs grew numb as he walked along the fields leading to
+Millwood. “Lucky it’s a dark night; this fine wind will fan the flame
+nicely,” he repeated to himself.
+
+The clock was striking nine, but all was quiet as midnight; not a soul
+stirring, not a light in the parsonage windows that he could see. He
+dared not open the gate, lest the click of the latch should betray him,
+so he softly climbed over; but scarcely had he dropped on the other side
+of the wall before the loud barking of a dog startled him. He cowered
+down behind the hay-rick, scarcely daring to breathe, expecting each
+instant that the dog would spring upon him. It was some time before the
+boy dared to stir, and as his courage cooled, his thirst for revenge
+somewhat subsided also, till he almost determined to return to
+Lamborough; but he was too tired, too cold, too hungry,—besides, the
+woman would beat him for staying out so late. What could he do? where
+should he go? and as the sense of his lonely and forlorn position
+returned, so did also the affectionate remembrance of his father, his
+hatred of his accusers, his desire to satisfy his vengeance; and, once
+more, courageous through anger, he rose, took the box from his pocket
+and boldly drew one of them across the sand-paper. It flamed; he stuck
+it hastily in the stack against which he rested,—it only flickered a
+little, and went out. In great trepidation, young West once more grasped
+the whole of the remaining matches in his hand and ignited them but at
+the same instant the dog barked. He hears the gate open, a step is close
+to him, the matches are extinguished, the lad makes a desperate effort
+to escape,—but a strong hand was laid on his shoulder, and a deep calm
+voice inquired, “What can have urged you to such a crime?” Then calling
+loudly, the gentleman, without relinquishing his hold, soon obtained the
+help of some farming men, who commenced a search with their lanterns all
+about the farm. Of course they found no accomplices, nothing at all but
+the handful of half-consumed matches the lad had dropped, and he all
+that time stood trembling, and occasionally struggling, beneath the firm
+but not rough grasp of the master who held him.
+
+At last the men were told to return to the house, and thither, by a
+different path, was George led till they entered a small,
+poorly-furnished room. The walls were covered with books, as the bright
+flame of the fire revealed to the anxious gaze of the little culprit.
+The clergyman lit a lamp, and surveyed his prisoner attentively. The
+lad’s eyes were fixed on the ground, whilst Mr. Leyton’s wandered from
+his pale, pinched features to his scanty, ragged attire, through the
+tatters of which he could discern the thin limbs quivering from cold or
+fear; and when at last impelled by curiosity at the long silence, George
+looked up, there was something so sadly compassionate in the stranger’s
+gentle look, that the boy could scarcely believe that he was really the
+man whose evidence had mainly contributed to transport his father. At
+the trial he had been unable to see his face, and nothing so kind had
+ever gazed upon him. His proud bad feelings were already melting.
+
+“You look half-starved,” said Mr. Leyton, “draw nearer to the fire, you
+can sit down on that stool whilst I question you; and mind you answer me
+the truth. I am not a magistrate, but of course can easily hand you over
+to justice if you will not allow me to benefit you in my own way.”
+
+George still stood twisting his ragged cap in his trembling fingers, and
+with so much emotion depicted on his face, that the good clergyman
+resumed, in still more soothing accents; “I have no wish to do you
+anything but good, my poor boy; look up at me, and see if you cannot
+trust me: you need not be thus frightened. I only desire to hear the
+tale of misery your appearance indicates, to relieve it if I can.”
+
+Here the young culprit’s heart smote him. Was this the man whose house
+he had tried to burn? On whom he had wished to bring ruin and perhaps
+death? Was it a snare spread for him to lead to confession? But when he
+looked on that grave compassionate countenance, he felt that it was
+_not_.
+
+“Come, my lad, tell me all.”
+
+George had for years heard little but oaths, and curses, and ribald
+jests, or the thief’s jargon of his father’s associates, and had been
+constantly cuffed and punished; but the better part of his nature was
+not extinguished; and at those words from the mouth of his _enemy_, he
+dropped on his knees, and clasping his hands, tried to speak; but could
+only sob. He had not wept before during that day of anguish; and now his
+tears gushed forth so freely, his grief was so passionate as he half
+knelt, half rested on the floor, that the good questioner saw that
+sorrow must have its course ere calm could be restored.
+
+The young penitent still wept, when a knock was heard at the door, and a
+lady entered. It was the clergyman’s wife, he kissed her as she asked
+how he had succeeded with the wicked man in the jail?
+
+“He told me” replied Mr. Leyton, “that he had a son whose fate tormented
+him more than his punishment. Indeed his mind was so distracted
+respecting the youth, that he was scarcely able to understand my
+exhortations. He entreated me with agonising energy to save his son from
+such a life as he had led, and gave me the address of a woman in whose
+house he lodged. I was, however, unable to find the boy in spite of many
+earnest inquiries.”
+
+“Did you hear his name?” asked the wife.
+
+“George West,” was the reply.
+
+At the mention of his name, the boy ceased to sob. Breathlessly he heard
+the account of his father’s last request, of the benevolent clergyman’s
+wish to fulfil it. He started up, ran towards the door, and endeavoured
+to open it; Mr. Leyton calmly restrained him, “You must not escape,” he
+said.
+
+“I cannot stop here. I cannot bear to look at you. Let me go!” The lad
+said this wildly, and shook himself away.
+
+“Why, I intend you nothing but kindness.”
+
+A new flood of tears gushed forth; and George West said between his
+sobs,
+
+“Whilst you were searching for me to help me, I was trying to burn you
+in your house. I cannot bear it.” He sunk on his knees, and covered his
+face with both hands.
+
+There was a long silence, for Mr. and Mrs. Leyton were as much moved as
+the boy, who was bowed down with shame and penitence, to which hitherto
+he had been a stranger.
+
+At last the clergyman asked, “What could have induced you to commit such
+a crime?”
+
+Rising suddenly in the excitement of remorse, gratitude, and many
+feelings new to him, he hesitated for a moment, and then told his story;
+he related his trials, his sins, his sorrows, his supposed wrongs, his
+burning anger at the terrible fate of his only parent, and his rage at
+the exultation of the crowd: his desolation on recovering from his
+swoon, his thirst for vengeance, the attempt to satisfy it. He spoke
+with untaught, child-like simplicity, without attempting to suppress the
+emotions which successively overcame him.
+
+When he ceased, the lady hastened to the crouching boy, and soothed him
+with gentle words. The very tones of her voice were new to him. They
+pierced his heart more acutely than the fiercest of the upbraidings and
+denunciations of his old companions. He looked on his merciful
+benefactors with bewildered tenderness. He kissed Mrs. Leyton’s hand
+then gently laid on his shoulder. He gazed about like one in a dream who
+dreaded to wake. He became faint and staggered. He was laid gently on a
+sofa, and Mr. and Mrs. Leyton left him.
+
+Food was shortly administered to him, and after a time, when his senses
+had become sufficiently collected, Mr. Leyton returned to the study, and
+explained holy and beautiful things, which were new to the neglected
+boy: of the great yet loving Father; of Him who loved the poor, forlorn
+wretch, equally with the richest, and noblest, and happiest; of the
+force and efficacy of the sweet beatitude, “Blessed are the Merciful for
+they shall obtain Mercy.”
+
+I heard this story from Mr. Leyton, during a visit to him in May. George
+West was then head ploughman to a neighbouring farmer, one of the
+cleanest, best behaved, and most respected labourers in the parish.
+
+
+
+
+                                FLOWERS.
+
+
+        Dear friend, love well the flowers! Flowers are the sign
+        Of Earth’s all gentle love, her grace, her youth,
+        Her endless, matchless, tender gratitude.
+        When the Sun smiles on thee,—why thou art glad:
+        But when on Earth he smileth, _She_ bursts forth
+        In beauty like a bride, and gives him back,
+        In sweet repayment for his warm bright love,
+        A world of flowers. You may see them born
+        On any day in April, moist or dry,
+        As bright as are the Heavens that look on them:
+        Some sown like stars upon the greensward; some
+        As yellow as the sunrise; others red
+        As Day is when he sets; reflecting thus,
+        In pretty moods, the bounties of the sky.
+
+          And now, of all fair flowers, which lovest thou best?
+        The Rose? She is a queen, more wonderful
+        Than any who have bloomed on Orient thrones:
+        Sabæan Empress! in her breast, though small,
+        Beauty and infinite sweetness sweetly dwell,
+        Inextricable. Or dost dare prefer
+        The Woodbine, for her fragrant summer breath?
+        Or Primrose, who doth haunt the hours of Spring,
+        A wood-nymph brightening places lone and green?
+        Or Cowslip? or the virgin Violet,
+        That nun, who, nestling in her cell of leaves,
+        Shrinks from the world, in vain?
+
+          Yet, wherefore choose, when Nature doth not choose,
+        Our mistress, our preceptress? _She_ brings forth
+        Her brood with equal care, loves all alike,
+        And to the meanest as the greatest yields
+        Her sunny splendours and her fruitful rains.
+        Love _all_ flowers, then. Be sure that wisdom lies
+        In every leaf and bloom; o’er hills and dales;
+        And thymy mountains; sylvan solitudes,
+        Where sweet-voiced waters sing the long year through;
+        In every haunt beneath the Eternal Sun,
+        Where Youth or Age sends forth its grateful prayer,
+        Or thoughtful Meditation deigns to stray.
+
+
+
+
+                        THE CATTLE-ROAD TO RUIN.
+
+
+There is more animal food consumed in England than in any other country
+in the world. We do not merely say more, in proportion to the size of
+England, and the numbers of its inhabitants—for then we should only
+utter what every-body must know—but we mean actually _more_, without any
+such proportional considerations. Considering, then, this vast amount of
+animal food, in all its manifold bearings, it is impossible not to be
+struck with a sense of what vital importance it is to the health and
+general well-being of the community that this food should be of a
+perfectly wholesome kind. That very great quantities are not only
+unwholesome, but of the worst and most injurious kind, we shall now
+proceed to show. We will set this question clearly before the eyes of
+the reader, by tracing the brief and eventful history of an ox, from his
+journey to Smithfield, till he rolls his large eye upward for the last
+time beneath the unskilful blows of his slaughterer.
+
+A good-natured, healthy, honest-faced ox, is driven out of his meadow at
+break of day, and finds a number of other oxen collected together in the
+high road, amidst the shouting and whistling of drovers, the lowing of
+many deep voices, and the sound of many cudgels. As soon as the expected
+numbers have all arrived from the different stalls and fields, the
+journey of twenty miles to the railway commences. Some are
+refractory—the thrusting and digging of the goad instantly produces an
+uproar, and even our good-natured ox cannot help contributing his share
+of lowing and bellowing, in consequence of one of these poignant digs
+received at random while he was endeavouring to understand what was
+required of him. From this moment there is no peace or rest in his life.
+The noise and contest is nearly over after a few miles, though renewed
+now and then at a cross-road, when the creatures do not know which way
+they are to go, and some very naturally go one way, and some the other.
+The contest is also renewed whenever they pass a pond, or brook, as the
+weather is sultry; and the roads are so dusty, besides the steam from
+the breath and bodies of the animals, that their journey seems to be
+through a dense, continuous, stifling cloud. It is noon; and the sun is
+glaring fiercely down upon the drove. They have as yet proceeded only
+twelve miles of their journey, but the sleek and healthy skin of our
+honest-faced ox has already undergone a considerable change—and as for
+his countenance, it is waxing wroth. His eye has become blood-shot since
+they passed the last village ale-house, where he made an attempt, in
+passing, just to draw his feverish tongue along the water of the
+horse-trough, but was suddenly prevented by a violent blow of the hard
+nob-end of a drover’s stick across the tip of his nose. Besides this,
+the wound he has received from the goad, has laid bare the skin on his
+back, and the sun is beginning to act upon this, as well as the flies.
+By the time the twenty miles are accomplished, he is in no mood at all
+for the close jam in which he is packed with a number of others in one
+of the railway cattle-waggons. He bellows aloud his pain and
+indignation; in which sonorous eloquence he is joined by a bullock at
+his side, who has lost half one horn by a violent blow from a drover’s
+stick, because he had stopped to drink from a ditch at the road-side,
+and persisted in getting a taste. Our ox makes the acquaintance of this
+suffering individual, and they recount their wrongs to each other; but
+the idea of escape does not occur to them; they rather resign themselves
+to endure their destiny with stolidity, if possible. Hunger, however,
+and worse than this, thirst, causes sensations which are quite beyond
+all patient endurance; and again they uplift their great voices in anger
+and distress.
+
+Our rather slow-minded ox has now arrived at the opinion that some
+mischief is deliberately intended him, and feels convinced that
+something more is needed in this world than passive submission. But what
+to do, he knows not. His courage is high—only he does not comprehend his
+position. Man, and his doings, are a dreadful puzzle to him. His
+one-horned friend fully coincides in all this. Meantime, they are
+foaming with heat, and thirst, and fever.
+
+After a day’s torture in this way, the animals are got out of the
+waggon, by a thrashing process which brings them pell-mell over each
+other, many landing on their knees, some head foremost, and one or two
+falling prostrate beneath the hoofs of the rest. The journey to London
+then commences, the two friends having been separated in the recent
+confusion.
+
+With the dreadful scenes, among the live cattle, which regularly take
+place in Smithfield market, our readers have already been made
+acquainted; it will now be our duty to display before them several
+equally revolting, and, though in a different way, still more alarming,
+scenes and doings which occur in this neighbourhood, and in other
+markets and their vicinities.
+
+Look at this ox, with dripping flanks, half-covered with mud; a horrid
+wound across his nose; the flesh laid bare in a rent on his back, and
+festering from exposure to the sun and the flies; his eye-balls rolling
+fiercely about, and clots of foam dropping from his mouth! Would any one
+believe that three days ago he was a good-natured, healthy, honest-faced
+ox? He is waiting to be sold. But who will give a decent price for a
+poor beast in this unsound condition? He is waiting with a cord round
+his neck, by which he is fastened to a rail, and in his anguish he has
+drawn it so tight that he is half-strangled; but he does not care now.
+He can endure no more, he thinks, because he is becoming insensible.
+Presently, among several others brought to the same rail, he recognises
+his friend with the broken horn. They get side by side, and gasp deeply
+their mutual torments. There are no more loud lowings and bellowings;
+they utter nothing but gasps and groans. Besides the fractured horn,
+this bullock has since received a thrust from a goad in his right eye,
+by which the sight is not only destroyed, but an effect produced which
+makes it requisite to sell him at any price he will bring. This being
+agreed upon, he is led away to a slaughter-house near at hand. Our poor
+ox makes a strong effort to accompany his friend, and with his eye-balls
+almost starting from his head, tugs at the cord that holds him by the
+throat, until it breaks. He then hastens after the other, but is quickly
+intercepted by a couple of drovers, who assail him with such fury, that
+he turns about, and runs out of the market.
+
+He is in too wretched and worn-out a condition to run fast, so he merely
+staggers onward amidst the blows, till suddenly a water-cart happens to
+pass. The sight of the shining drops of water seems to give the poor
+beast a momentary energy. He runs staggering at it head foremost—his
+eyes half-shut,—falls with his head against the after-part of the wheel
+as the cart passes on,—and there lies lolling out his tongue upon the
+moistened stones. He makes no effort to rise. The drovers form a circle
+round him, and rain blows all over him; but the ox still lies with his
+tongue out upon the cool wet stones. They then wrench his tail round
+till they break it, and practise other cruelties upon him; but all in
+vain. There he lies.
+
+While the drovers are pausing to wipe their sanguinary and demoniac
+foreheads, and recover their breath, the ox slowly, and as if in a sort
+of delirium, raises himself on his legs, and stands looking at the
+drovers with forlorn vacancy. At this juncture the Market Inspector
+joins the crowd, and after a brief glance at the various sores and
+injuries, condemns the ox as diseased—therefore unfit for sale. He is
+accordingly led off, limping and stumbling to the horse-slaughterer’s in
+Sharp’s Alley, duly attended by the Inspector, to see that his order of
+condemnation be carried into effect. They are followed at a little
+distance by two fellows, whose filthy habiliments show that they have
+slept amidst horrors, who keep the diseased ox in view with a sort of
+stealthy, wolfish “eye to business.”
+
+The dying ox, with the drover, and the Inspector, having slowly made
+their way through the usual market difficulties, and (to those who are
+not used to it) the equally revolting horrors of the outskirts, finally
+get into Sharp’s Alley, and enter the terrific den of the licensed
+horse-slaughter-house.
+
+It is a large knacker’s yard, furnished with all the usual apparatus for
+slaughtering diseased or worn-out horses, and plentifully bestrewn with
+the reeking members and frightful refuse of the morning’s work. But even
+before the eye,—usually the first and quickest organ in action,—has time
+to glance round, the sense of smell is not only assailed, but taken by
+storm, with a most horrible, warm, moist, effluvium, so offensive, and
+at the same time so peculiar and potent, that it requires no small
+resolution in any one, not accustomed to it, to remain a minute within
+its precincts. Three of the corners are completely filled up with a heap
+of dead horses lying upon their backs, with their hoofs sticking bolt
+upright; while two other angles in the yard are filled with a mass of
+bodies and fragments, whose projecting legs and other members serve as
+stretchers for raw skins,—flayed from their companions, or from
+themselves, lying all discoloured, yet in all colours, beneath. By this
+means the skins are stretched out to dry. A few live animals are in the
+yard. There is one horse—waiting for his turn—as the ox-party come in;
+his knees are bent, his head is bowed towards the slushy ground, his
+dripping mane falling over his face, and almost reaching with its lank
+end to the dark muddled gore in which his fore hoofs are planted. A
+strange, ghastly, rattling sound, apparently from the adjoining
+premises, is kept up without intermission; a sort of inconceivably rapid
+devil’s-tattoo, by way of accompaniment to the hideous scene.
+
+Two dead horses are being skinned; but all the other animals—of the
+four-footed class we mean—are bullocks, in different stages of disease,
+and they are seven in number. These latter have not been condemned by
+the Inspector, but have been brought here to undergo a last effort for
+the purpose of being made saleable—washed and scrubbed, so as to have
+the chance of finding a purchaser by torchlight at some very low price;
+and failing in this, to be killed before they die, or cut up as soon
+after they die as possible. They were all distinguished by slang terms
+according to the nature and stage of their diseases. The two best of
+these bad bullocks are designated as “choppers;” the three next, whose
+hides are torn in several places, are called “rough-uns;” while those
+who are in a drooping and reeking condition, with literally a
+death-sweat all over them, are playfully called “wet-uns.” To this
+latter class belongs our poor ox, who is now brought in, and formally
+introduced by the Inspector, as diseased, and _condemned_. The others he
+does not see—or, at least, does not notice—his business being with the
+ox, who was the last comer. Having thus performed his duty, the
+Inspector retires!
+
+But what _is_ this ceaseless rattling tattoo that is kept up in the
+adjoining premises? The walls vibrate with it! Machinery of some kind?
+Yes—it is a chopping machine; and here you behold the “choppers,” both
+horses and diseased bullocks, who will shortly be in a fit state for
+promotion, and will then be taken piece-meal next door. Ay, it is so, in
+sober and dreadful seriousness. Here, in this Sharp’s Alley, you behold
+the largest horse-slaughter-house in the city; and here, next door, you
+will find the largest sausage manufactory in London. The two
+establishments thus conveniently situated, belong to near
+relations—brothers, we believe, or brothers-in-law.
+
+Now, while the best of the diseased bullocks or “choppers” are taken to
+the sausage machine, to be advantageously mixed with the choppings of
+horse-flesh (to which latter ingredient the angry redness of so many
+“cured” sausages, _saveloys_, and all the class of _polonies_ is
+attributable), who shall venture to deny that, in the callousness of old
+habits, and the boldness derived from utter impunity and profitable
+success, a very considerable addition is often made to the stock of the
+“choppers,” from many of the “rough-uns,” and from some of the more
+sound parts of the miserable “wet-uns?” Verily this thing may be—“’tis
+apt, and of great credit,” to the City of London.
+
+But a few words must be said of the “closing scene” of our poor
+condemned ox. We would, most willingly, have passed this over, leaving
+it to the imagination of the reader; but as no imagination would be at
+all likely to approach the fact, we hope we shall be rendering a service
+to common humanity in doing some violence to our own, and the readers’
+feelings, by exposing such scenes to the gaze of day.
+
+Owing to some press of business, the ox was driven to a neighbouring
+slaughter-house in the Alley. He was led to the fatal spot, sufficiently
+indicated, even amidst all the rest of the sanguinary floor, by its
+frightful condition. They placed him in the usual way; the slaughterman
+approached with his pole-axe, and swinging it round in a half-jocose and
+reckless manner, to hide his want of practice and skill, he struck the
+ox a blow on one side of his head, which only made him sink with a groan
+on his knees, and sway over on one side. In this attitude he lay
+groaning, while a torrent of blood gushed out of his mouth. He could not
+be made to rise again to receive the stroke of death or further torment.
+They kicked him with the utmost violence in the ribs and on the cheek
+with their iron-nailed shoes, but to no purpose. They then jumped upon
+him; he only continued to groan. They wrenched his already-broken tail
+till they broke it again, higher up, in two places. He strove to rise,
+but sank down as before. Finally they had recourse to the following
+torture: they closed his nostrils with wet cloths, held tightly up by
+both hands, so that no breath could escape, and they then poured a
+bucketful of dirty slaughter-house water into his mouth and down his
+throat, till with the madness of suffocation the wretched animal was
+roused to a momentary struggle for life, and with a violent fling of the
+head, which scattered all his torturers, and all their apparatus of wet
+rags and buckets, he rose frantically upon his legs. The same
+slaughterman now advanced once more with his pole-axe, and dealt a blow,
+but again missed his mark, striking only the side of the head. A third
+blow was more deliberately levelled at him, and this the ox, by an
+instinct of nature, evaded by a side movement as the axe descended. The
+slaughterman, enraged beyond measure, and yet more so by the jeers of
+his companions, now repeated his blows in quick succession, not one of
+which was effective, but only produced a great rising tumour. The
+elasticity of this tumour which defeated a death-blow, added to the
+exhaustion of the slaughterman’s strength, caused this scene of
+barbarous butchery to be protracted to the utmost, and the groaning and
+writhing ox did not fall prostrate till he had received as many as
+fifteen blows. What followed cannot be written.
+
+It is proper to add that scenes like these, resulting from want of skill
+in the slaughterman, are by no means so common in Smithfield, as in some
+other markets—Whitechapel more especially. But they occur occasionally
+in an equal or less degree, in every market of the metropolis.
+
+The two haggard, wolf-eyed fellows who had prowled after the ox, and his
+Inspector, now step forward and purchase the bruised and diseased corpse
+of the slaughtered (murdered) animal, and carry it away to be sold to
+the poor, in small lots by gas-light, on Saturday nights, or in the form
+of soup; and to the rich, in the disguise of a well-seasoned English
+German-sausage, or other delicious preserved meat! So much for the
+Inspector, and the amount of duty he so ably performed!
+
+We make the following extract from a pamphlet recently published,
+entitled, “An Enquiry into the present state of the Smithfield Cattle
+Market, and the Dead Meat Markets of the Metropolis.”
+
+  “The _wet-uns_ are very far gone in disease, and are so bad that those
+  who have to touch them, carefully cover their hands to avoid immediate
+  contact with such foul substances, naturally fearing the communication
+  of poison. A servant of a respectable master butcher, about a
+  twelvemonth ago, slightly scratched his finger with a bone of one of
+  these diseased animals; the consequence was that he was obliged to go
+  to the hospital, where he was for upwards of six weeks, and the
+  surgeons all agreed that it was occasioned by the poison from the
+  diseased bone. It is also a fact, that if the hands at any time come
+  in contact with this meat, they are frequently so affected by the
+  strong smell of the medicine which had been given to the animal when
+  alive, that it is impossible for a considerable time to get rid of it;
+  and yet, it will scarcely be believed, none of these poisonous
+  substances are thrown away—all goes in some shape or form into the
+  craving stomachs of the hungry poor, or is served up as a dainty for
+  the higher classes. Even cows which die in calving, and still-born
+  calves, are all brought to market and sold. Let these facts be
+  gainsayed; we defy contradiction.”
+
+We must by no means overlook the adventures and sufferings of sheep; nor
+the unwholesome condition to which great numbers of them are reduced
+before they are sold as human food.
+
+A sheep is scudding and bouncing over a common, in the morning, with the
+dew glistening on her fleece. She is full of enjoyment, and knows no
+care in life. In the evening of the same day, she is slowly moving along
+a muddy lane, among a large flock; fatigued, her wool matted with dust
+and slush, her mouth parched with thirst, and one ear torn to a red rag
+by the dog. He was sent to do it by the shepherd, because she had lagged
+a little behind, to gaze through a gap in the hedge at a duck-pond in
+the field. She has been in a constant state of fright, confusion, and
+apprehension, ever since. At every shout of the shepherd’s voice, or
+that of his boy, and at every bark of the dog, or sound of the rapid
+pattering of his feet as he rushes by, she has expected to be again
+seized, and perhaps torn to pieces. As for the passage of the dog over
+her back, in one of his rushes along the backs of the flock, as they
+huddle densely together near some crooked corner or cross-way—in utter
+confusion as to what they are wanted to do—what they themselves want to
+do—what is best to do—or what in the world is about to be done—no word
+of man, or bleat of sheep, can convey any adequate impression of the
+fright it causes her. On one of these occasions, when going through a
+narrow turnpike, the dog is sent over their backs to worry the leaders
+who are going the wrong way, and in her spring forward to escape the
+touch of his devilish foot, she lacerated her side against a nail in the
+gatepost, making a long wound.
+
+The sudden pain of this causes her to leap out of the rank, up a bank;
+and seeing a green field beneath, the instinct of nature makes her leap
+down, and scour away. In a moment, the dog—the fury—is after her. She
+puts forth all her strength, all her speed—the wind is filled with the
+horrors of his voice—of the redoubling sound of his feet—he gains upon
+her—she springs aside—leaps up banks—over hurdles—through hedges—but he
+is close upon her;—without knowing it, she has made a circle, and is
+again nearing the flock, which she reaches just as he springs upon her
+shoulders and tears her again on the head, and his teeth lacerate anew
+her coagulated ear. She eventually arrives at the railway station, and
+is crushed into one of the market waggons; and in this state of
+exhaustion, fever, and burning thirst, remains for several hours, until
+she arrives in the suburbs of Smithfield. What she suffers in this place
+has been already narrated, till finally she is sold, and driven off to
+be slaughtered. The den where this last horror is perpetrated (for in
+what other terms can we designate all these unnecessary brutalities?) is
+usually a dark and loathsome cellar. A slanting board is sometimes
+placed, down which the sheep are forced. But very often there is no such
+means of descent, and our poor jaded, footsore, wounded sheep—all foul
+and fevered, and no longer fit food for man—is seized in the half-naked
+blood-boltered arms of a fellow in a greasy red nightcap, and flung down
+the cellar, both her fore-legs being broken by the fall. She is
+instantly clutched by the ruffians below—dragged to a broad and dripping
+bench—flung upon it, on her back—and then the pallid face and patient
+eye looks upward!—and is understood.
+
+And shall not we also—the denizens of a Christian land—understand it?
+Shall we not say—“Yes, poor victim of man’s necessities of food, we know
+that your death is one of the means whereby we continue to exist—one of
+the means whereby our generations roll onward in their course to some
+higher states of knowledge and civilisation—one of the means whereby we
+gain time to fill, to expand, and to refine the soul, and thus to make
+it more fitting for its future abode. But, knowing this, we yet must
+recognise in you, a fellow-creature of the earth, dwelling in our sight,
+and often close at our side, and trusting us—a creature ever harmless,
+and ever useful to us, both for food and clothing; nor do we deserve the
+good with which you supply us, nor even the proud name of Man, if we do
+not, at the same time, recognise your rightful claim to our humane
+considerations.”
+
+In the course of last year, there were sold in Smithfield Market, the
+enormous number of two hundred and thirty-six thousand cattle; and one
+million, four hundred and seventeen thousand sheep. A practical
+authority has curiously calculated the number of serious and extensive
+bruises, caused by sheer brutality, rather than any accidents, in the
+course of a year. He finds that the amount could not be less than five
+hundred and twelve thousand. These are only the body-bruises, and do not
+include any of the various cruelties of blows and cuts on the nose,
+hocks, horns, tails, ears, legs, &c. Of course, this fevered and bruised
+flesh rapidly decomposes, and is no longer fit for human food. The flesh
+of many an animal out of Smithfield, killed on Monday, has become
+diseased meat by Tuesday evening—a fact too well known. The loss on
+bruised meat in the year has been calculated, by a practical man, at
+three shillings a head on every bullock, and sixpence on every sheep,
+making a total loss of Sixty-Three Thousand Pounds per annum. This loss,
+it is to be understood, is independent of the quantity of bruised and
+diseased meat, which _ought_ to be lost, but is sold at various markets,
+as human food. It is also independent of the numbers of diseased calves
+and pigs brought to market every week, and sold. Very much of this
+diseased meat is sold publicly—in Newgate Market, and Tyler’s Market
+more especially—and at any rate there is a special and regular trade
+carried on in it. One soup establishment, for the working classes, is
+said to carry on a business amounting to between four hundred and five
+hundred pounds weekly, in diseased meat. It is also used by sausage,
+polony, and saveloy makers; for meat pies, and a-la-mode beef shops; and
+is very extensively by many of the concocters of preserved meats for
+home and foreign consumption. It is said that one of the Arctic
+Expeditions failed, chiefly, in consequence of the preserved meats
+failing them. They would not keep. Is it any wonder that they would not
+keep? What they were made of—wholly, or in part—has been sufficiently
+shown.
+
+  “In Newgate Market,” says the writer previously quoted, “the most
+  disgraceful trade is carried on in diseased meat; as a proof of which,
+  we assert that one person has been known to purchase from one hundred
+  and twenty, to one hundred and thirty diseased carcases of beasts
+  weekly; and when it is known that there are from twenty to thirty
+  persons, at the least, engaged in this nefarious practice in this
+  market alone, some idea may be formed of its extent.
+
+  “The numbers of diseased sheep from _variola ovina_, of small-pox,
+  sent to this market, are alarmingly on the increase, and it is much to
+  be feared that this complaint is naturalised among our English flocks.
+  It is very much propagated in the metropolis. It is an acknowledged
+  fact that upwards of one hundred sheep in this state were weekly, and
+  for a considerable period, consigned for sale from one owner, who had
+  purchased largely from abroad, and this took place at the early part
+  of the present year (1848), and was one of the causes of the inquiry
+  in Parliament, and the subsequent act.
+
+  “An Inspector is appointed to this market with full powers, acting
+  under a deputation from the Lord Mayor; but the duties of the office
+  must be of a very difficult nature, and probably _interfere materially
+  with the other avocations_ of the Inspector, as we find but little
+  evidence of his activity. Compare our statement above with the return
+  laid before the Board of Trade, and it will appear that of fifty
+  diseased carcases not one on an average is seized.
+
+  “Close adjoining to Newgate Market, is Tyler’s Market, it is only
+  separated by Warwick Lane. This market is said to be private property,
+  and that no Inspector has ever been appointed. Every description of
+  diseased meat is sold here in the most undisguised manner: it is
+  _celebrated_ for _diseased pork_. It has been stated by a practical
+  man, one well acquainted with the facts, and fully capable of forming
+  a correct opinion, that nearly one half of the pigs sold in this
+  market during the pork season of 1847, ending March, 1848, was
+  diseased and unfit for human food; and of all other diseased animals,
+  what has been said of Newgate applies with far greater force to this
+  market. In Leadenhall Market diseased meat is also sold, though not to
+  the same extent. Whitechapel Market is situate to the south of the
+  main or high street bearing the above name. It is rather difficult to
+  describe the trade carried on here. The situation of the shops—_long,
+  dark, and narrow_, with the _slaughterhouses behind_—is well adapted
+  for carrying on the disgraceful practices in either a wholesale or
+  retail manner to a very great extent. Some of the very worst
+  description of diseased animals brought to Smithfield alive are here
+  slaughtered, and large quantities of meat from the country, totally
+  unfit for food, arrive in every stage of disease, and are sold by the
+  pound and the stone, to a fearful extent. The following are the names
+  of the other meat markets, to all of which some diseased animals and
+  meat find their way,—and to _none_ of them is any Inspector
+  appointed:—
+
+  “Clare Market, retail; Newport, wholesale and retail: St. George’s,
+  retail; Oxford, retail; Portman, retail; Brook’s, retail; Sheppard’s,
+  retail; Boro’, retail; Carnaby, retail; Spitalfields, retail;
+  Finsbury, retail. At all of these markets the meat is exposed for sale
+  on Saturday evenings, under the glare of projecting gas burners; and
+  the poor, who receive their wages on that day, and are the principal
+  customers, are deceived by its appearance in this light; their object
+  is of course to obtain the cheapest and the most economical joints;
+  the meat without fat, which is generally most diseased, is selected by
+  them, being considered the most profitable, though the fact is that
+  this species of meat has been proved to be the cause of cancerous
+  diseases, and diseases of the chest and lungs.”
+
+The above was attested by one of the witnesses before the Committee of
+1828. To think of these abominations having gone on regularly ever
+since! Why, it looks as though our legislators had received a
+communication from one of the Inspectors, assuring honourable gentlemen
+that “it was all nonsense, all this talk about diseased meat! If the
+meat was now and then a little queer—though _he_ had never seen such a
+thing—none of the poor were any the worse for eating it!” But we will
+answer for one thing;—the Inspector never breathed a word about the
+_preserved meats_ which so frequently present themselves with a modest
+air in purple and white china as delicacies for rich men’s tables!
+
+The _foreign stock_, and the circumstances under which they arrive, must
+not be passed over. They are confined during four or five, or even six
+days, in the dark and stifling hold of the vessel, and it frequently
+occurs that in all this time there is scarcely any food given them (we
+are assured, on good authority, that there is often _none_) nor one drop
+of water. The condition in which they arrive may be conjectured. Besides
+the extensive preparations for the Monday’s market, which are made by
+the drovers and salesmen of the home stock during Sunday, the
+desecration of the “day of rest” is immensely increased by the supply of
+foreign stock, which arrives at the railway at the same time. Foreign
+vessels, (we are quoting from evidence before a Committee) bringing
+cattle, endeavour to arrive here on Sunday as early as possible, in
+order that the salesman may see the stock before the animals are brought
+into the market. There is also a very large supply of calves from
+Holland, which are all carted from Blackwall; and the confusion and
+uproar there, and at Brewer’s Quay on a Sunday morning, passes all
+belief. Great quantities of cattle are also sent on Sunday in order to
+avoid the expense of _lairage_, or standing-room. About two thousand men
+and boys are employed in this real Sunday desecration. Need we say, it
+is of the most shocking and cruel nature? _Here_ is something really
+worthy of the storm that is so much wasted on minor matters in this
+much-vexed question.
+
+
+
+
+                            CLASS OPINIONS.
+
+                                A FABLE.
+
+
+A Lamb strayed for the first time into the woods, and excited much
+discussion among other animals. In a mixed company, one day, when he
+became the subject of a friendly gossip, the goat praised him.
+
+“Pooh!” said the lion, “this is too absurd. The beast is a pretty beast
+enough, but did you hear him roar? I heard him roar, and, by the manes
+of my fathers, when he roars he does nothing but cry ba-a-a!” And the
+lion bleated his best in mockery, but bleated far from well.
+
+“Nay,” said the deer, “I do not think so badly of his voice. I liked him
+well enough until I saw him leap. He kicks with his hind legs in
+running, and, with all his skipping, gets over very little ground.”
+
+“It is a bad beast altogether,” said the tiger. “He cannot roar, he
+cannot run, he can do nothing—and what wonder? I killed a man yesterday,
+and, in politeness to the new comer, offered him a bit; upon which he
+had the impudence to look disgusted, and say, ‘No, sir, I eat nothing
+but grass.’”
+
+So the beasts criticised the Lamb, each in his own way; and yet it was a
+good Lamb, nevertheless.
+
+
+
+
+               THE REGISTRAR-GENERAL ON “LIFE” IN LONDON.
+
+
+The Modern Babylon, so great in other things, has a giant’s appetite for
+mortality. On an average, a thousand persons die in London weekly, and
+are, as a rule, buried under the ground on which they fall. In old days
+there was no general record of the character and locality of this great
+concentrated mortality; but since the establishment of our present
+system of registration of births, marriages, and deaths, we are able to
+test not only how many people die, but where they die and what they die
+of; and are able to tell moreover, to a considerable extent, how far the
+mortality may be ascribed to inevitable and how far to removable causes.
+We can now, in fact, almost say, how many die by the folly of man and
+how many by the law of nature.
+
+The volumes in which this information is given are by no means
+attractive at a first glance. They appear under the authority of a
+government office, and contain column after column and page after page
+of forbidding-looking figures, printed in the smallest and closest of
+type. Yet these account-books, in which the business done by the great
+destroyer is posted up from day to day, and year to year, contain some
+highly curious and important facts.
+
+The average of a thousand deaths a week in London is by no means evenly
+distributed over the year, or over all parts of the metropolis. Each
+season and each parish has its peculiarities. Nor is mortality spread
+evenly over the various years of life, for the grim tyrant has a special
+appetite for humanity at particular ages.
+
+We have already, in some words about weather wisdom, spoken of certain
+diagrams in which the changes of our English seasons have been
+delineated, and in which the characteristics of succeeding years are
+shown by curved lines. At the Registrar-General’s sanctum—a quiet office
+in the quietest part of Somerset House—Mr. Farr has reduced those curves
+to circles, and the results display themselves in the shape of coloured
+diagrams, showing the varying temperature of years, and the degree in
+which temperature influences mortality. The mean temperature of the year
+arrives in spring about the 115th day, and in autumn about the 293rd day
+of the year. The coldest period is the first three weeks in January, the
+hottest days being from about the 200th to the 220th of the year. In the
+diagrams that exhibit these facts, certain spaces represent each one
+hundred deaths, and we soon see how much more favourable to life in
+England warm weather is than cold. In hot countries the reverse is the
+rule, hot seasons being fatal seasons, because excess at either end of
+the scale it is which does the mischief. In England the plague and other
+epidemics, which made such havoc amongst our forefathers were brought to
+killing intensity, in unusually hot seasons. But deficient as our
+sanitary regulations now are, they have been so greatly improved within
+the last century or two, that summer is no longer our period of greatest
+average mortality, unless we suffer from some terrible visitant like
+cholera, and then, of course, all ordinary calculations are set at
+nought. Moderation suits all human beings. Our excess of heat or of cold
+raises the mortality; moderate warmth being more favourable, however,
+than moderate cold.
+
+Mortality in the Metropolis seems regulated by a variety of
+circumstances, the principal being the elevation of each district above
+the level of the river Thames; the number of persons who live in the
+same house; the size and character of the house as regards ventilation
+and cleanliness; the state of the sewerage; the number of paupers in the
+neighbourhood; and the abundant and good, or scanty and bad, supply of
+water. Each London parish has its rank and value in the registrar’s
+records of health and death; and the figures are so exact, that there is
+no evading the verdict they pronounce. At first thought, one might be
+inclined to expect that all the health would be found where all the
+wealth and fashion are congregated. But it is not so. As a rule, those
+districts stand well whose inhabitants are most blessed with the good
+things of this life, but, running through the catalogue as arranged in
+the order of their salubrity, we find some localities above the average
+of health—nay, one at the very top—which fashion knows nothing of.
+
+In these statements of the registrar, the different districts of the
+Metropolis are placed in a list according to their healthiness, those in
+which the fewest persons die in a year out of a given equal number,
+standing first, followed by those next in sanitary order, until we come
+down to those which are but just above the average for all London.
+Passing that Rubicon, we see the names of those parishes in which death
+gets more than his proper proportion of victims every year; and then,
+one after another, down, down the list, until we reach its lowest
+depths, in those places where filth and fever reign paramount, and where
+such a destroyer as Cholera finds hundreds of victims already weakened
+by previous unhealthy influences, and ready to fall a rapid and easy
+prey.
+
+Let us go through this graduated scale, that shows how health and
+disease struggle for the mastery, and how death turns the balance.
+
+First on the list stands Lewisham, a large parish stretching from
+Blackheath across the open hilly fields towards Norwood, and including
+the hamlet of Sydenham. Its rural character, scattered population, and
+good water, explain its pre-eminence on the sanitary scale. The second
+name on the list carries us at once from a green suburban parish to one
+of the centres of fashion and aristocracy,—to St. George, Hanover
+Square. The presence of this parish, so high up on the scale, is due to
+several circumstances; and its claims to such prominence are more
+artificial than those of its rural competitor for the palm of
+healthfulness. The scale is made out from the census of 1841, which was
+taken during the height of the London season, when St. George’s was of
+course much fuller than it is on the general average of the year. Its
+population, too, is to a great extent composed of servants “in place,”
+and, therefore, generally young and in good health, and who, when
+dangerously sick, are sent to the hospitals, or to the country to die.
+The masters and mistresses of St. George’s, also, are so circumstanced,
+that when in bad health they can try the sea-air, or retire to country
+seats. All these facts tend to lessen the mortality of the district, and
+thus tend to place it high up on the sanitary scale. Its advantages are,
+an average elevation of forty-nine feet above the high water mark of the
+Thames; its neighbourhood to the parks; its wide open streets; a supply
+of water drawn from a Company whose system of filtration is very good; a
+comparatively thin population, compared with its extent, there being, in
+this parish, only sixty-six persons to an acre; and the size and
+character of its houses, which return an average rental of 153_l._ a
+year.
+
+From the fashionable “west end” we have to travel to a suburban spot for
+the third place in rank on the health-scale. It is the sub-district of
+Hampstead. All who have been upon its breezy heath, with its elevation
+three or four hundred feet above the river, and its open view of the
+surrounding country, will readily understand why Hampstead should rank
+high in salubrity—though its average of rental may be low, and though
+more persons (as they do) live in each house than in the houses of
+Bermondsey and Rotherhithe.
+
+Fourth on the list comes Hackney, which has only thirteen persons to an
+acre. This advantage will be seen more strongly, when we know that
+Hampstead has but six, and Lewisham, but two; whilst East London has two
+hundred and eighty, and Southwark, one hundred and sixty-five persons
+per acre. Hackney also has water from the New River, a comparatively
+pure source; and, though its houses are small, with a rental of but
+35_l._, the number of occupants to each is but seven.
+
+For the fifth in order of salubrity we have again to cross the Thames.
+It is Camberwell. This parish lies very low, being only four feet above
+the water mark; but, then, it is fringed on one side by the open
+country; is sheltered from cold winds; is thinly peopled, having only
+twelve persons to an acre, and only six occupants to a house. Its
+drainage is, almost necessarily, bad, but its neighbourhood to the green
+fields compensates for many sanitary evils.
+
+Wandsworth, with a burden of poor rates almost equal in poundage to that
+inflicted upon Southwark and Lambeth comes next. The recommendations of
+Wandsworth are, a population of only four to an acre. This indication of
+ample open spaces explains the general healthiness of the parish. Its
+position and bad drainage have rendered it liable to very heavy loss
+from epidemics. Cholera found a larger proportion of victims in
+Wandsworth than in the densest peopled parish on the north of the river.
+
+“Merry Islington” ranks only seventh in spite of its high and dry
+position, and its New River water, and its neighbouring fields. Its
+elevation is eighty-eight feet above the river; its density of
+population, twenty-five to an acre; its average rental 35_l._; its
+annual deaths, one in fifty.
+
+Kensington and Chelsea follow next, and with them are included Brompton,
+Hammersmith, and Fulham. They all lie low, but are in pleasant company
+with fields and open spaces; their people are well to do in the world,
+and a large portion drink good water.
+
+The City of London district—that is, the portion of the city round about
+the Mansion House, and including the houses and warehouses of the rich
+traders, who cluster near the Lord Mayor’s chosen dwelling-place—comes
+next in order. This is explained by the elevation of the ground, which
+is thirty-eight feet above the river; by the value of the property
+(average rental 117_l._) which excludes the poor; by the fact that the
+Lord Mayor and his neighbours do not drink Thames water; and that their
+wealth enables them to live well, and to obtain the best medical
+aid,—both for rich and poor. The most affluent also reside out of town,
+and many of their old people are drafted off in their old age to
+alms-houses, and to country unions. The mortality of this part of the
+city is two hundred and fourteen a year out of ten thousand living.
+
+Next after the neighbourhood of the civic ruler, we have the locality
+which has been chosen for the palace of the sovereign—St. James’s. The
+population of this parish is dense,—being two hundred and nine to an
+acre, though its rentals are high. The palace stands in by no means the
+best portion of the district, but the saving points are the parks and
+the absence of Thames water.
+
+St. Pancras follows St. James’s, its recommendations being an elevation
+of eighty feet above the river, and a population not one-third so
+closely packed as that of the parish occupied by the palace. Its density
+is sixty persons to an acre. Pancras, however, has many poor, and
+consequently heavy rates.
+
+Marylebone, its neighbour, claims to follow Pancras, with a greater
+elevation and a better class of houses, yet with bad drainage and a
+heavier mortality. In Marylebone two hundred and twenty-two persons die
+in a year out of ten thousand. The population is more dense than in the
+poorer district of Pancras, but the near neighbourhood of Regent’s Park
+and open country about Primrose Hill has, of course, a favourable
+influence.
+
+We have now to re-cross the river for the thirteenth place upon this
+London Sanitary Scale. It is Newington, a suburban parish, with a level
+two feet below the water mark, and with bad water, yet having fewer
+deaths than more noted and more wealthy quarters. Like Wandsworth,
+however, it suffered severely from Cholera, as its swampy position would
+lead one to expect.
+
+The district round the palace of the Archbishop—Lambeth—follows next in
+order. It is raised but a very few feet above the high water level; its
+rents are low, its poor rates high, its nuisances many; and its water
+supply bad. But it has the air-draught from the river on one side, and
+it is not very far from the fields on the other; and more than all, it
+has but thirty-nine persons to an acre, and so it escapes with fewer
+deaths in a year than its unfavourable position would lead one to
+anticipate. It is, however, another of those spots where Cholera made
+great havoc.
+
+From what may be called one river side extremity of South London, we
+skip over the central water-side parishes, and go to the opposite
+extremity of the metropolis to find at Greenwich our next healthiest
+district. Like Lambeth, this place lies low, is badly drained, and has a
+poor class of houses, and consequently of people. The secret of its
+position on the scale of health is to be found in the fact that the
+population is not dense, being only twenty-one to an acre; that it has a
+fine park for a playground, and is in near neighbourhood to Blackheath,
+and thence to the open and healthy hills and fields of Kent.
+
+Now we must return again to the centre of London for its next most
+healthy parish. It is St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields; but having, it is
+almost needless to say, no rural character, except by name. Trafalgar
+Square, with its fountains, is almost its only enjoyable open space. The
+density of population is not over great for such a position; the rental
+high; the deaths two hundred and forty to ten thousand living each year.
+
+Away east again for our next and last parish that stands above the
+general average of London. Stepney is the place, with its multitude of
+small houses at low rentals. It has its water from the river Lea, and
+its inhabitants have not very far to go when they wish for a ramble in
+the fields. Its yearly contribution to our total mortality is two
+hundred and forty-two out of ten thousand souls.
+
+And here a dark line has to be drawn; for Stepney is close down upon the
+average mortality of all London. Each parish already named pays less
+than the average tribute to death—those presently to be enumerated pay
+more. The contributions vary from Clerkenwell, which is the least
+unhealthy on the black list to Whitechapel, which is the most unhealthy.
+This last parish indeed is the worst in all the metropolis. Between the
+two extremes of insalubrity, the districts range in the following order:
+Clerkenwell, brought down in the scale by its nests of poverty, and
+doubtless, by its huge over-gorged grave-yard. Bethnal Green, with its
+host of small houses, and average rental of only 9_l._ The Strand—the
+great thoroughfare of fine shops—with a back neighbourhood of filthy
+alleys and riverside abominations. Shoreditch, with its stock of poor
+people and old clothes. Westminster—regal, historical Westminster—raised
+but two feet above the water level, and famous alike for its abbey, its
+palace, and its rookeries. Bermondsey, just level with the water line,
+and poisoned by open drains and unsavoury factories. Rotherhithe, damp
+and foggy. St. Giles’s, another spot renowned for vice, poverty, and
+dirt. St. George’s, Southwark, low, poor, and densely crowded. Next come
+the two portions of the City of London, technically described as East
+London and West London, being in fact those parts beyond the centre
+surrounding the Mansion House—the portions indeed especially indulged
+with the frowsiness of Cripplegate and the choked-up smells of
+Leadenhall; the abominations of Smithfield; the exhalations of the Fleet
+ditch; the fever-engendering closeness of the courts off Fleet Street;
+and the smoky, ill-smelling sinuosities of Whitefriars. Next below these
+“City of London districts” we have Holborn, with a density of two
+hundred and thirty-seven to an acre, and a yearly mortality of two
+hundred and sixty-six to ten thousand living. Then St. George’s in the
+East, with a population far less closely packed than that of Holborn,
+yet sending two hundred and eighty-nine souls to judgment every year out
+of ten thousand living. Next St. Saviour’s and St. Olave’s, the two
+other Southwark parishes who drink Thames water taken from the stream
+near their own bridge, and therefore below the Fleet ditch. St. Luke’s,
+the locality of another rookery. And, lastly, the zero of this register,
+Whitechapel—with its shambles, its poverty, its vice, and its heavy
+quota of two hundred and ninety deaths a year out of ten thousand
+living.
+
+This glance at the results displayed in the registrar’s thick volume of
+figures, published last year, gives us not only an idea of the curious
+information to be gleaned from the labours of Mr. Farr and his brother
+officers, but shows also how unevenly death visits the different
+portions of our huge city. If from our family of two millions the
+destroyer takes a thousand souls a week to their final account, the
+first and most certain to fall victims are those who, from ignorance, or
+recklessness, or poverty, outrage the natural laws by which alone health
+and life can be preserved.
+
+A comparison between the chances of death which the Londoner runs as
+compared with those suffered by his fellow countrymen in other districts
+of England, might be put familiarly somewhat after this fashion. If a
+man’s acquaintances were fixed at fifty-two in number, and they lived in
+scattered places over England, he would annually lose one by death in
+forty-five. If they lived in the southeastern counties, the loss would
+be at the lower rate of one in fifty-two. If they all lived in London,
+he would lose one out of thirty-nine.
+
+This additional mortality is the penalty now being, day by day,
+inflicted upon sinners against sanitary laws in the English metropolis.
+
+
+
+
+                                  BED.
+
+                   “Oh, Sleep! it is a gentle thing,
+                     Beloved from pole to pole!”
+
+
+Was the heart’s cry of the Ancient Mariner at the recollection of the
+blessed moment when the fearful curse of life in death fell off him and
+the heavenly sleep first “slid into his soul.” “Blessings on sleep!”
+said honest Sancho Panza: “it wraps one all round like a mantle!”—a
+mantle for the weary human frame, lined softly, as with the down of the
+eider-duck, and redolent of the soothing odours of the poppy. The fabled
+Cave of Sleep was in the Land of Darkness. No ray of the sun, or moon,
+or stars, ever broke upon that night without a dawn. The breath of
+somniferous flowers floated in on the still air from the grotto’s mouth.
+Black curtains hung round the ever-sleeping god; the Dreams stood around
+his couch; Silence kept watch at the portals. Take the winged Dreams
+from the picture, and what is left? The sleep of matter.
+
+The dreams that come floating through our sleep, and fill the dormitory
+with visions of love or terror—what are they? Random freaks of the
+fancy? Or is sleep but one long dream, of which we see only fragments,
+and remember still less? Who shall explain the mystery of that loosening
+of the soul and body, of which night after night whispers to us, but
+which day after day is unthought of? Reverie, sleep, trance—such are the
+stages between the world of man and the world of spirits. Dreaming but
+deepens as we advance. Reverie deepens into the dreams of sleep—sleep
+into trance—trance borders on death. As the soul retires from the outer
+senses, as it escapes from the trammels of the flesh, it lives with
+increased power within. Spirit grows more spirit-like as matter
+slumbers. We can follow the development up to the last stage. What is
+beyond?
+
+         “And in that _sleep of death_, what dreams may come!”
+
+says Hamlet—pausing on the brink of eternity, and vainly striving to
+scan the inscrutable. Trance is an awful counterpart of sleep and
+death—mysterious in itself, appalling in its hazards. Day after day
+noise has been hushed in the dormitory—month after month it has seen a
+human frame grow weaker and weaker, wanner, more deathlike, till the
+hues of the grave coloured the face of the living. And now he lies,
+motionless, pulseless, breathless. It is not sleep—is it death?
+
+Leigh Hunt is said to have perpetrated a very bad pun connected with the
+dormitory, and which made Charles Lamb laugh immoderately. Going home
+together late one night, the latter repeated the well-known proverb, “A
+home’s a home, however homely.” “Aye,” added Hunt, “and a bed’s a bed
+however _bedly_.” It is a strange thing, a bed. Somebody has called it a
+bundle of paradoxes: we go to it reluctantly, and leave it with regret.
+Once within the downy precincts of the four posts, how loth we are to
+make our exodus into the wilderness of life. We are as enamoured of our
+curtained dwelling as if it were the Land of Goshen or the Cave of
+Circe. And how many fervent vows have those dumb posts heard broken!
+every fresh perjury rising to join its cloud of hovering fellows, each
+morning weighing heavier and heavier, on our sluggard eyelids. A caustic
+proverb says;—we are all “good risers at night;” but woe’s me for our
+agility in the morning. It is a failing of our species, ever ready to
+break out in all of us, and in some only vanquished after a struggle
+painful as the sundering of bone and marrow. The Great Frederic of
+Prussia found it easier, in after life, to rout the French and
+Austrians, than in youth to resist the seductions of sleep. After many
+single-handed attempts at reformation, he had at last to call to his
+assistance an old domestic, whom he charged, on pain of dismissal, to
+pull him out of bed every morning at two o’clock. The plan succeeded, as
+it deserved to succeed. All men of action are impressed with the
+importance of early rising. “When you begin to turn in bed, its time to
+turn out,” says the old Duke; and we believe his practice has been in
+accordance with his precept. Literary men—among whom, as Bulwer says, a
+certain indolence seems almost constitutional—are not so clear upon this
+point: they are divided between Night and Morning, though the best
+authorities seem in favour of the latter. Early rising is the best
+_elixir vitæ_: it is the only lengthener of life that man has ever
+devised. By its aid the great Buffon was able to spend half a century—an
+ordinary lifetime—at his desk; and yet had time to be the most modish of
+all the philosophers who then graced the gay metropolis of France.
+
+Sleep is a treasure and a pleasure; and, as you love it, guide it
+warily. Over-indulgence is ever suicidal, and destroys the pleasure it
+means to gratify. The natural times for our lying down and rising up are
+plain enough. Nature teaches us, and unsophisticated mankind followed
+her. Singing birds and opening flowers hail the sunrise, and the hush of
+groves and the closed eyelids of the parterre mark his setting. But “man
+hath sought out many inventions.” We prolong our days into the depths of
+night, and our nights into the splendour of day. It is a strange result
+of civilisation! It is not merely occasioned by that thirst for varied
+amusement which characterises an advanced stage of society—it is not
+that theatres, balls, dancing, masquerades, require an artificial light,
+for all these are or have been equally enjoyed elsewhere beneath the eye
+of day. What _is_ the cause, we really are not philosopher enough to
+say; but the prevalence of the habit must have given no little pungency
+to honest Benjamin Franklin’s joke, when, one summer, he announced to
+the Parisians as a great discovery—that the sun rose each morning at
+four o’clock; and that, whereas, they burnt no end of candles by sitting
+up at night, they might rise in the morning and have light for nothing.
+Franklin’s “discovery,” we dare say, produced a laugh at the time, and
+things went on as before. Indeed so universal is this artificial
+division of day and night, and so interwoven with it are the social
+habits, that we shudder at the very idea of returning to the natural
+order of things. A Robespierre could not carry through so stupendous a
+revolution. Nothing less than an avatar of Siva the Destroyer—Siva with
+his hundred arms, turning off as many gaspipes, and replenishing his
+necklace of human skulls by decapitating the leading conservatives—could
+have any chance of success; and, ten to one, with our gassy splendours,
+and seducing glitter, we should convert that pagan devil ere half his
+work was done.
+
+But of all the inventions which perverse ingenuity has sought out, the
+most incongruous, the most heretical against both nature and art, is
+Reading in Bed. Turning rest into labour, learning into ridicule. A man
+had better be up. He is spoiling two most excellent things by attempting
+to join them. Study and sleep—how incongruous! It is an idle coupling of
+opposites, and shocks a sensible man as much as if he were to meet in
+the woods the apparition of a winged elephant. Only fancy an elderly or
+middle-aged man (for youth is generally orthodox on this point,) sitting
+up in bed, spectacles on his nose, a Kilmarnock on his head, and his
+flannel jacket round his shivering shoulders,—doing what? Reading? It
+may be so—but he winks so often, possibly from the glare of the candle,
+and the glasses now and then slip so far down on his nose, and his hand
+now and then holds the volume so unsteadily, that if he himself didn’t
+assure us to the contrary, we should suppose him half asleep. We are
+sure it must be a great relief to him when the neglected book at last
+tumbles out of bed, to such a distance that he cannot recover it.
+
+Nevertheless, we have heard this extraordinary custom excused on the no
+less extraordinary ground of its being a soporific. For those who
+require such things, Marryat gives a much simpler recipe—namely, to
+mentally repeat any scraps of poetry you can recollect; if your own, so
+much the better. The monks of old, in a similar emergency, used to
+repeat the seven Penitential Psalms. Either of these plans, we doubt
+not, will be found equally efficacious, if one is able to use them—if
+anxiety of mind does not divert him from his task, or the lassitude of
+illness disable him for attempting it. Sleep, alas! is at times fickle
+and coy; and, like most sublunary friends, forsakes us when most wanted.
+Reading in that repertory of many curious things, the “Book of the
+Farm,” we one day met with the statement that “a pillow of hops will
+ensure sleep to a patient in a delirious fever when every other
+expedient fails.” We made a note of it. Heaven forbid that the recipe
+should ever be needed for us or ours! but the words struck a chord of
+sympathy in our heart with such poor sufferers, and we saddened with the
+dread of that awful visitation. The fever of delirium! when incoherent
+words wander on the lips of genius; when the sufferer stares strangely
+and vacantly on his ministering friends, or starts with freezing horror
+from the arms of familiar love! Ah! what a dread tenant has the
+dormitory then. No food taken for the body, no sleep for the brain! a
+human being surging with diabolic strength against his keepers—a human
+frame gifted with superhuman vigour only the more rapidly to destroy
+itself! Less fearful to the eye, but more harrowing to the soul, is the
+dormitory whose walls enclose the sleepless victim of Remorse. No
+poppies or mandragora for him! His malady ends only with the fever of
+life. _Ends?_ Grief, anxiety, “the thousand several ills that flesh is
+heir to,” pass away before the lapse of time or the soothings of love,
+and sleep once more folds its dove-like wings above the couch.
+
+“If there be a regal solitude,” says Charles Lamb, “it is a bed. How the
+patient lords it there; what caprices he acts without control! How
+king-like he sways his pillow,—tumbling and tossing, and shifting and
+lowering, and thumping, and flatting, and moulding it to the
+ever-varying requisitions of his throbbing temples. He changes _sides_
+oftener than a politician. Now he lies full length, then half-length,
+obliquely, transversely, head and feet quite across the bed; and none
+accuses him of tergiversation. Within the four curtains he is absolute.
+They are his Mare Clausum. How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a
+man’s self to himself! He is his own exclusive object. Supreme
+selfishness is inculcated on him as his only duty. ’Tis the two Tables
+of the Law to him. He has nothing to think of but how to get well. What
+passes out of doors or within them, so he hear not the jarring of them,
+affects him not.”
+
+In this climate a sight of the sun is prized; but we love to see it most
+from bed. A dormitory fronting the east, therefore, so that the early
+sunbeams may rouse us to the dewy beauties of morning, we love. Let
+there also be festooned roses without the window, that on opening it the
+perfume may pervade the realms of bed. Our night-bower should be
+simple—neat as a fairy’s cell, and ever perfumed with the sweet air of
+heaven. It is not a place for showy things, or costly. As fire is the
+presiding genius in other rooms, so let water, symbol of purity, be in
+the ascendant here; water, fresh and unturbid as the thoughts that here
+make their home—water, to wash away the dust and sweat of a weary world.
+Let no _fracas_ disturb the quiet of the dormitory. We go there for
+repose. Our tasks and our cares are left outside, only to be put on
+again with our hat and shoes in the morning. It is an asylum from the
+bustle of life—it is the inner shrine of our household gods—and should
+be respected accordingly. We never entered during the ordinary process
+of bed-making—pillows tossed here, blankets and sheets pitched hither
+and thither in wildest confusion, chairs and pitchers in the middle of
+the floor, feathers and dust everywhere—without a jarring sense that
+sacrilege was going on, and that the _genius loci_ had departed. Rude
+hands were profaning the home of our slumbers!
+
+A sense of security pervades the dormitory. A healthy man in bed is free
+from everything but dreams, and once in a lifetime, or after adjudging
+the Cheese Premium at an Agricultural Show—the nightmare. We once heard
+a worthy gentleman, blessed with a very large family of daughters,
+declare he had no peace in his house except in bed. There we feel as if
+in a City of Refuge, secure alike from the brawls of earth and the
+storms of heaven. Lightning, say old ladies, won’t come through
+blankets. Even tigers, says Humboldt, “will not attack a man in his
+hammock.” Hitting a man when he’s down is stigmatised as villainous all
+the world over; and lions will rather sit with an empty stomach for
+hours than touch a man before he awakes. Tricks upon a sleeper! Oh,
+villainous! Every perpetrator of such unutterable treachery should be
+put beyond the pale of society. The First of April should have no place
+in the calendar of the dormitory. We would have the maxim “Let sleeping
+dogs lie,” extended to the human race. And an angry dog, certainly, is a
+man roused needlessly from his slumbers. What an outcry we Northmen
+raised against the introduction of Greenwich time, which defrauded us of
+fifteen minutes’ sleep in the morning; and how indiscriminate the
+objurgations lavished upon printers’ devils! Of all sinners against the
+nocturnal comfort of literary men, these imps are the foremost; and
+possibly it was from their malpractices in such matters that they first
+acquired their diabolic cognomen.
+
+The nightcap is not an elegant head-dress, but its comfort is
+undeniable. It is a diadem of night; and what tranquillity follows our
+self-coronation! It is priceless as the invisible cap of Fortunatus;
+and, viewless beneath its folds, our cares cannot find us out. It is
+graceless. Well; what then? It is not meant for the garish eye of day,
+nor for the quizzing-glass of our fellow-men, or of the ridiculing race
+of women; neither does it outrage any taste for the beautiful in the
+happy sleeper himself. We speak as bachelors, to whom the pleasures of a
+manifold existence are unknown. Possibly the æsthetics of night are not
+uncared for when a man has another self to please, and when a pair of
+lovely eyes are fixed admiringly on his upper story; but such is the
+selfishness of human nature, that we suspect this abnegation of comfort
+will not long survive the honeymoon. The French, ever enamoured of
+effect, and who, we verily believe, even _sleep_ “_posé_,” sometimes
+substitute the many-coloured silken handkerchief for the graceless
+“_bonnet-de-nuit_.” But all such substitutes are less comfortable and
+more troublesome; and of all irritating things, the most irritating is a
+complex operation in undressing. Æsthetics at night, and for the weary!
+No, no. The weary man frets at every extra button or superfluous knot,
+he counts impatiently every second that keeps him from his couch, and
+flies to the arms of sleep as to those of his mistress. Nevertheless,
+French novelette writers make a great outcry against nightcaps. We
+remember an instance. A husband—rather a good-looking fellow—suspects
+that his wife is beginning to have too tender thoughts towards a
+glossy-ringletted Lothario who is then staying with them. So, having
+accidentally discovered that Lothario slept in a huge peeked nightcowl,
+and knowing that ridicule would prove the most effectual disenchanter,
+he fastened a string to his guest’s bell, and passed it into his own
+room.
+
+At the dead of night, when all were fast asleep, suddenly Lothario’s
+bell rang furiously. Upstarted the lady—“their guest must be ill;”—and
+accompanied by her husband, elegantly coiffed in a turbaned silk
+handkerchief, she entered the room whence the alarum had sounded. They
+find Lothario sitting up in bed—his cowl rising pyramid-fashion, a
+fool’s cap all but the bells—bewildered and in ludicrous consternation
+at being surprised thus by the fair Angelica; and, unable to conceal his
+chagrin, he completes his discomfiture by bursting out in wrathful abuse
+of his laughing host for so betraying his weakness for nightcaps.
+
+The Poetry of the Dormitory! It is an inviting but too delicate a
+subject for our rough hands. Do not the very words call up a vision? By
+the light of the stars we see a lovely head resting on a downy pillow;
+the bloom of the rose is on that young cheek, and the half-parted lips
+murmur as in a dream: “Edward!” Love is lying like light at her heart,
+and its fairy wand is showing her visions. May her dreams be happy!
+“Edward!” Was it a sigh that followed that gentle invocation? What would
+the youth give to hear that murmur,—to gaze like yonder stars on his
+slumbering love. Hush! are the morning-stars singing together—a lullaby
+to soothe the dreamer? A low dulcet strain floats in through the window;
+and soon, mingling with the breathings of the lute, the voice of youth.
+The harmony penetrates through the slumbering senses to the dreamer’s
+heart; and ere the golden curls are lifted from the pillow, she is
+conscious of all. The serenade begins anew. What does she hear?
+
+                     “Stars of the summer night!
+                         Far in yon azure deeps,
+                     Hide, hide your golden light!
+                         She sleeps!
+                     My lady sleeps!
+                         Sleeps!
+
+                     Dreams of the summer night!
+                         Tell her her lover keeps
+                     Watch! while in slumbers light
+                         She sleeps!
+                     My lady sleeps!
+                         Sleeps!”[3]
+
+Footnote 3:
+
+  The first and last stanzas of a Serenade of Longfellow’s.
+
+
+
+
+    Published at the Office, No 16, Wellington Street North, Strand.
+            Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London.
+
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ Page           Changed from                      Changed to
+
+  320 Reisen in der Niederlanden.      Reisen in den Niederlanden.
+      Travels in the Netherlands       Travels in the Netherlands
+
+ ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+ ● Renumbered footnotes.
+ ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+ ● The caret (^) is used to indicate superscript, whether applied to a
+     single character (as in 2^d) or to an entire expression (as in
+     1^{st}).
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78178 ***