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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78191 ***


     “_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.




                            HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
                           A WEEKLY JOURNAL.


                     CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.


     N^{o.} 21.]      SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1850.      [PRICE 2_d._




                   THE RAILWAY WONDERS OF LAST YEAR.


The unblushing individual who inflated the first bubble prospectus in
the early days of Railway scheming must regard, if he be still in
existence (and we have good reason to believe that he lives, a
prosperous gentleman), with superlative amazement the last Report of Her
Majesty’s Railway Commissioners.

When in his dazzling document the preposterous “promoter” certified the
forthcoming goods transit at six times the amount his most sanguine
“traffic-taker” could conscientiously compute; when he quadrupled the
boldest calculations of the expected number of passengers—when, in
short, he projected his prognostics beyond the widest bounds of
probability, and then added a few cyphers at the end of each sum, to
make “round numbers”—he was not so mad as to believe that he lied in the
least like truth. Mad as he was _not_, he never could have supposed that
an after-time would come when his lying prospectus would be pronounced
as far short of, as his mendacious imagination endeavoured to make it
exceed, the Truth. But that time has arrived.

Let us suppose a friend of his, a far-seeing prophet, reading a proof of
the pet prospectus by the aid of magnifying glasses; let us figure the
statistical foreteller of future events assuring its author that, twenty
years thence, his immeasurable exaggerations would be out-exaggerated by
what should actually come to pass; that his brazen bait to catch
share-jobbers would shrink—when placed beside the Railway records of
eighteen-hundred-and-forty-nine—into a puny, minimised, understatement.
How he would have laughed! How immediately his mind would have reverted
from the sanguine seer to the terminus of flighty intellects known as
Bedlam. With what remarkable unction he would have said, “Phoo! Phoo! My
good fellow, you must be lapsing into lunacy. What! Do you mean to say I
have not laid it on thick enough? Why, look here!” and he turns to the
latest of the Stamp Office stage-coach returns: “Do you mean to tell
me—now that coach travelling has arrived at perfection, and that the
wonderful average of coach passengers is six millions a year—that,
instead of quadrupling the number of travellers who are likely to use my
line, I ought to multiply them by a hundred? Why, you may as well try to
persuade me that I ought to promise for our locomotives twenty, instead
of fifteen, miles an hour; which—Heaven forgive me—I have had the
courage to set down. Stuff! If I were to romance at that rate, we should
not sell a share.”

And our would-be Major Longbow would have had reason for the faith that
was in him. In his highest flights he dared not exceed too violently the
statistics of G. R. Porter, or have added too high a premium on the
expectations of George Stephenson. The former calculated that up to the
end of 1834, when not a hundred miles of Railway were open, the annual
average of persons who travelled by coach was about two millions, each
going over one hundred and eighty miles of ground in the year.[1]
Supposing each individual performed that distance in three journeys, the
whole number of _persons_ must have multiplied themselves into six
millions of _passengers_. As to speed, Mr. George Stephenson said at a
dinner-party given to him at Newcastle in 1844, that when he planned the
Liverpool and Manchester line, the directors entreated him, when they
went to Parliament, not to talk of going at a faster rate than ten miles
an hour, or he “would put a cross upon the concern.” Mr. George
Stephenson _did_ talk of fifteen miles an hour, and some of the
Committee asked if he were not mad! Mr. Nicholas Wood delivered himself
in a pamphlet as follows:— “It is far from my wish to promulgate to the
world that the ridiculous expectations, or rather _professions_, of the
_enthusiastic speculatist_ will be realised, and that we shall see
engines travelling at the rate of twelve, sixteen, eighteen, twenty
miles an hour. Nothing could do more harm towards their general adoption
and improvement than the promulgation of such NONSENSE!”

Footnote 1:

  “Porter’s Progress of the Nation,” vol. ii. p. 22.

It would seem, then, that the Longbow of the aboriginal prospectuses was
actually modest in his estimate as to passengers and speed. But only a
few years must have made him utterly ashamed of his moderation and
modesty. How disgusted he must have felt with his timid prolusions, even
when 1843 arrived. For that year revealed travellers’ tales that
exceeded his early romances by what Major Longbow himself would have
called “an everlasting long chalk.” Within that year, seventy railroads,
constructed at an outlay of sixty millions sterling, conveyed
twenty-five millions of passengers three hundred and thirty millions of
miles, at an average cost of one penny and three quarters per mile, and
an average speed of twenty-four miles per hour, with but one fatal
accident.

But if our parent of railway proprietors were astonished at what
happened in 1843, with what inconceivable amazement he must peruse the
details of 1849! We should like to see the expression of his countenance
while conning the report of Her Majesty’s Commissioners of Railways for
last year. At the end of every sentence he would be sure to exclaim,
“Who _would_ have thought it?”

From this unimpeachable record of scarcely credible statistics, it
appears that at the end of 1849 there were, in Great Britain and
Ireland, five thousand five hundred and ninety-six miles of railway in
active operation; upwards of four thousand five hundred and fifty-six of
which are in England, eight hundred and forty-six in Scotland, and four
hundred and ninety-four in Ireland. Besides this, the number of miles
which have been authorised by Parliament, and still remain to be
finished is six thousand and thirty; so that, if all the lines were
completed, the three kingdoms would be intersected by a net-work of
railroad measuring twelve thousand miles: but of this there is only a
remote probability, the number of miles in course of active construction
being no more than one thousand five hundred, so that by the end of the
present year it is calculated that the length of finished and operative
railway may be about seven thousand four hundred miles, or as many as
lie between Great Britain and the Cape of Good Hope, with a thousand
miles to spare. The number of persons employed on the 30th of June,
1849, in the operative railways was fifty-four thousand; on the unopened
lines, one hundred and four thousand.

When the schemer of the infancy of the giant railway system turns to the
passenger-account for the year 1849, he declares he is fairly “knocked
over.” He finds that the railway passengers are put down at _sixty-three
million eight hundred thousand_; nearly three times the number returned
for 1843, and _a hundred times_ as many as took to the road in the days
of stage-coaches. The passengers of 1849 actually double the sum of the
entire population of the three kingdoms.

The statement of capital which the six thousand miles now being hourly
travelled over represents, will require the reader to draw a long
breath;—it is one hundred and ninety-seven and a half millions of pounds
sterling. Add to this the cash being disbursed for the lines in
progress, the total rises to two hundred and twenty millions! The
average cost of each mile of railway, including engines, carriages,
stations, &c., (technically called “plant,”) is thirty-three thousand
pounds.

Has this outlay proved remunerative? The Commissioners tell us, that the
gross receipts from all the railways in 1849 amounted to eleven
millions, eight hundred and six thousand pounds; from which, if the
working expenses be deducted at the rate of forty-three per cent. (being
about an average taken from the published statements of a number of the
principal companies), there remains a net available profit of about six
millions seven hundred and twenty-nine thousand four hundred and twenty
pounds to remunerate the holders of property to the amount of one
hundred and ninety-seven millions and a half; or at the rate, within a
fraction, of three and a half per cent. Here our parent of railway
prospectuses chuckles. _He_ promised twenty per cent. per annum.

In short, in everything except the dividends, our scheming friend finds
that recent fact has outstripped his early fictions. He told the nervous
old ladies and shaky “half-pays” on his projected line, that Railways
were quite as safe as stage-coaches. What say the grave records of 1849?
The lives of five passengers were lost during that year and those by one
accident—a cause, of course, beyond the control of the victims; eighteen
more casualties took place, for which the sufferers had themselves alone
to blame. Five lives lost by official mismanagement, out of sixty-four
millions of risks, is no very outrageous proportion; especially when we
reflect that, taking as a basis the calculations of 1843, the number of
miles travelled over per rail during last year, may be set down at eight
hundred and forty-five millions; or _nine times the distance between the
earth and the sun_.

Such are the Railway wonders of the year of grace, one thousand eight
hundred and forty-nine.




                            THE WATER-DROPS.
                             A FAIRY TALE.


                           CHAPTER THE FIRST.

    The Suitors of Cirrha, and the young Lady; with a reference to her
                                   Papa.

Far in the west there is a land mountainous, and bright of hue, wherein
the rivers run with liquid light; the soil is all of yellow gold; the
grass and foliage are of resplendent crimson; where the atmosphere is
partly of a soft green tint, and partly azure. Sometimes on summer
evenings we see this land, and then, because our ignorance must refer
all things that we see, to something that we know, we say it is a mass
of clouds made beautiful by sunset colours. We account for it by
principles of Meteorology. The fact has been omitted from the works of
Kaemtz or Daniell; but, notwithstanding this neglect, it is well known
in many nurseries, that the bright land we speak of, is a world
inhabited by fairies. Few among fairies take more interest in man’s
affairs than the good Cloud Country People; this truth is established by
the story I am now about to tell.

Not long ago there were great revels held one evening in the palace of
King Cumulus, the monarch of the western country. Cirrha, the daughter
of the king, was to elect her future husband from a multitude of
suitors. Cirrha was a maiden delicate and pure, with a skin white as
unfallen snow; but colder than the snow her heart had seemed to all who
sought for her affections. When Cirrha floated gracefully and slowly
through her father’s hall, many a little cloud would start up presently
to tread where she had trodden. The winds also pursued her; and even men
looked up admiringly whenever she stepped forth into their sky. To be
sure they called her Mackerel and Cat’s Tail, just as they call her
father Ball of Cotton; for the race of man is a coarse race, and calling
bad names appears to be a great part of its business here below.

Before the revels were concluded, the King ordered a quiet little wind
to run among the guests, and bid them all come close to him and to his
daughter. Then he spoke to them as follows:—

“Worthy friends! there are among you many suitors to my daughter Cirrha,
who is pledged this evening to choose a husband. She bids me tell you
that she loves you all; but since it is desirable that this our royal
house be strengthened by a fit alliance with some foreign power, she has
resolved to take as husband one of those guests who have come hither
from the principality of Nimbus.” Now, Nimbus is that country, not
seldom visible from some parts of our earth, which we have called the
Rain-Cloud. “The subjects of the Prince of Nimbus,” Cumulus continued,
“are a dark race, it is true, but they are famed for their beneficence.”

Two winds, at this point, raised between themselves a great disturbance,
so that there arose a universal cry that somebody should turn them out.
With much trouble they were driven out from the assembly; thereupon,
quite mad with jealousy and disappointment, they went howling off to
sea, where they played pool-billiards with a fleet of ships, and so
forgot their sorrow.

King Cumulus resumed his speech, and said that he was addressing
himself, now, especially to those of his good friends who came from
Nimbus. “To-night, let them retire to rest, and early the next morning
let each of them go down to Earth; whichever of them should be found on
their return to have been engaged below in the most useful service to
the race of man, that son of Nimbus should be Cirrha’s husband.”

Cumulus, having said this, put a white nightcap on his head, which was
the signal for a general retirement. The golden ground of his dominions
was covered for the night, as well as the crimson trees, with cotton. So
the whole kingdom was put properly to bed. Late in the night the moon
got up, and threw over King Cumulus a silver counterpane.


                          CHAPTER THE SECOND.

The Adventures of Nebulus and Nubis.

The suitors of the Princess Cirrha, who returned to Nimbus, were a-foot
quite early the next morning, and petitioned their good-natured Prince
to waft them over London. They had agreed among themselves, that by
descending there, where men were densely congregated, they should have a
greater chance of doing service to the human race. Therefore the
Rain-Cloud floated over the great City of the World, and, as it passed
at sundry points, the suitors came down upon rain-drops to perform their
destined labour. Where each might happen to alight depended almost
wholly upon accident; so that their adventures were but little better
than a lottery for Cirrha’s hand. One, who had been the most
magniloquent among them all, fell with his pride upon the patched
umbrella of an early-breakfast woman, and from thence was shaken off
into a puddle. He was splashed up presently, mingled with soil, upon the
corduroys of a labourer, who stopped for breakfast on his way to work.
From thence, evaporating, he returned crest-fallen to the Land of
Clouds.

Among the suitors there were two kind-hearted fairies, Nebulus and
Nubis, closely bound by friendship to each other. While they were in
conversation, Nebulus, who suddenly observed that they were passing over
some unhappy region, dropped, with a hope that he might bless it. Nubis
passed on, and presently alighted on the surface of the Thames.

The district which had wounded the kind heart of Nebulus was in a part
of Bermondsey, called Jacob’s Island. The fairy fell into a ditch; out
of this, however, he was taken by a woman, who carried him to her own
home, among other ditch-water, within a pail. Nebulus abandoned himself
to complete despair, for what claim could he now establish on the hand
of Cirrha? The miserable plight of the poor fairy we may gather from a
description given by a son of man of the sad place to which he had
descended. “In this Island may be seen, at any time of the day, women
dipping water, with pails attached by ropes to the backs of the houses,
from a foul fetid ditch, its banks coated with a compound of mud and
filth, and strewed with offal and carrion; the water to be used for
every purpose, culinary ones not excepted; although close to the place
whence it is drawn, filth and refuse of various kinds are plentifully
showered into it from the outhouses of the wooden houses overhanging its
current, or rather slow and sluggish stream; their posts or supporters
rotten, decayed, and, in many instances broken and the filth dropping
into the water, to be seen by any passer by. During the summer, crowds
of boys bathe in the putrid ditches, where they must come in contact
with abominations highly injurious.”[2]

Footnote 2:

  Report of Mr. Bowie on the cause of Cholera in Bermondsey.

So Nebulus was carried in a pail out of the ditch to a poor woman’s
home, and put into a battered saucepan with some other water. Thence,
after boiling, he was poured into an earthen tea-pot over some stuff of
wretched flavour, said to be tea. Now, thought the fairy, after all, I
may give pleasure at the breakfast of these wretched people. He pictured
to himself a scene of love as preface to a day of squalid toil, but he
experienced a second disappointment. The woman took him to another room
of which the atmosphere was noisome; there he saw that he was destined
for the comfort of a man and his two children, prostrate upon the floor
beneath a heap of rags. These three were sick; the woman swore at them,
and Nebulus shrunk down into the bottom of the tea-pot. Even the thirst
of fever could not tolerate too much of its contents, so Nebulus, after
a little time, was carried out and thrown into a heap of filth upon the
gutter.

Nubis, in the meantime, had commenced his day with hope of a more
fortunate career. On falling first into the Thames he had been much
annoyed by various pollutions, and been surprised to find, on kissing a
few neighbour drops, that their lips tasted inky. This was caused, they
said, by chalk pervading the whole river in the proportion of sixteen
grains to the gallon. That was what made their water inky to the taste
of those who were accustomed to much purer draughts. “It makes,” they
explained, “our river-water hard, according to man’s phrase; so hard as
to entail on multitudes who use it, some disease, with much expense and
trouble.”

“But all the mud and filth,” said Nubis, “surely no man drinks that?”

“No,” laughed the River-Drops, “not all of it. Much of the water used in
London passes through filters, and a filter suffers no mud or any
impurity to pass, except what is dissolved. The chalk is dissolved, and
there is filth and putrid gas dissolved.”

“That is a bad business,” said Nubis, who already felt his own drops
exercising that absorbent power for which water is so famous, and
incorporating in their substance matters that the Rain-Cloud never knew.

Presently Nubis found himself entangled in a current, by which he was
sucked through a long pipe into a meeting of Water-Drops, all summoned
from the Thames. He himself passed through a filter, was received into a
reservoir, and, having asked the way of friendly neighbours, worked for
himself with small delay a passage through the mainpipe into London.

Bewildered by his long, dark journey underground, Nubis at length saw
light, and presently dashed forth out of a tap into a pitcher. He saw
that there was fixed under the tap a water-butt, but into this he did
not fall. A crowd of women holding pitchers, saucepans, pails, were
chattering and screaming over him, and the anxiety of all appeared to be
to catch the water as it ran out of the tap, before it came into the tub
or cistern. Nubis rejoiced that his good fortune brought him to a
district in which it might become his privilege to bless the poor, and
his eye sparkled as his mistress, with many rests upon the way, carried
her pitcher and a heavy pail upstairs. She placed both vessels, full of
water, underneath her bed, and then went out again for more, carrying a
basin and a fish-kettle. Nubis pitied the poor creature, heartily
wishing that he could have poured out of a tap into the room itself to
save the time and labour of his mistress.

The pitcher wherein the good fairy lurked, remained under the bed
through the remainder of that day, and during the next night, the room
being, for the whole time, closely tenanted. Long before morning, Nubis
felt that his own drops and all the water near him had lost their
delightful coolness, and had been busily absorbing smells and vapours
from the close apartment. In the morning, when the husband dipped a
teacup in the pitcher, Nubis readily ran into it, glad to escape from
his unwholesome prison. The man putting the water to his lips, found it
so warm and repulsive, that, in a pet, he flung it from the window, and
it fell into the water-butt beneath.

The water-butt was of the common sort, described thus by a member of the
human race:— “Generally speaking, the wood becomes decomposed and
covered with fungi; and indeed, I can best describe their condition by
terming them filthy.” This water-butt was placed under the same shed
with a neglected cesspool, from which the water—ever absorbing—had
absorbed pollution. It contained a kitten among other trifles. “How many
people have to drink out of this butt?” asked Nubis. “Really I cannot
tell you,” said a neighbour Drop. “Once I was in a butt in Bethnal
Green, twenty-one inches across, and a foot deep, which was to supply
forty-eight families.[3] People store for themselves, and when they know
how dirty these tubs are, they should not use them.” “But the labour of
dragging water home, the impossibility of taking home abundance, the
pollution of keeping it in dwelling-rooms and under beds.” “Oh, yes,”
said the other Drop; “all very true. Besides, our water is not of a sort
to keep. In this tub there is quite a microscopic vegetable garden, so I
heard a doctor say who yesterday came hither with a party to inspect the
district. One of them said he had a still used only for distilling
water, and that one day, by chance, the bottoms of a series of
distillations boiled to dryness. Thereupon, the dry mass became heated
to the decomposing point, and sent abroad a stench plain to the dullest
nose as the peculiar stench of decomposed organic matter. It infected,
he said, the produce of many distillations afterwards.”[4] “I tell you
what,” said Nubis, “water may come down into this town innocent enough,
but it’s no easy matter for it to remain good among so many causes of
corruption. Heigho!” Then he began to dream of Princess Cirrha and the
worthy Prince of Nimbus, until he was aroused by a great tumult. It was
an uproar caused by drunken men. “Why are those men so?” said Nubis to
his friend. “I don’t know,” said the Water-Drop, “but I saw many people
in that way last night, and I have seen them so at Bethnal Green.” A
woman pulled her husband by, with loud reproaches for his visits to the
beer-shop. “Why,” cried the man, with a great oath, “where would you
have me go for drink?” Then, with another oath, he kicked the water-butt
in passing—“You would not have me to go there!” All the bystanders
laughed approvingly, and Nubis bade adieu to his ambition for the hand
of Cirrha.

Footnote 3:

  Report of Dr. Gavin.

Footnote 4:

  Evidence of Mr. J. T. Cooper, Practical Chemist.


                           CHAPTER THE THIRD.

  Nephelo goes into Polite Society, and then into a Dungeon.—His Escape,
    Recapture, and his Perilous Ascent into the Sky, surrounded by a
    Blaze of Fire.

Nephelo was a light-hearted subject of the Prince of Nimbus. It is he
who often floats, when the whole cloud is dark, as a white vapour on the
surface. For love of Cirrha, he came down behind a team of rain-drops
and leapt into the cistern of a handsome house at the west end of
London.

Nephelo found the water in the cistern greatly vexed at riotous
behaviour on the part of a large number of animalcules. He was told that
Water-Drops had been compelled to come into that place, after undergoing
many hardships, and had unavoidably brought with them germs of these
annoying creatures. Time and place favouring, nothing could hinder them
from coming into life; the cistern was their cradle, although many of
them were already anything but babes. Hereupon, Nephelo himself was
dashed at by an ugly little fellow like a dragon, but an uglier fellow,
who might be a small Saint George, pounced at the dragon, and the heart
of the poor fairy was the scene of contest.

After a while, there was an arrival of fresh water from a pipe, the flow
of which stirred up the anger of some decomposing growth which lined the
sides and bottom of the cistern. So there was a good deal of confusion
caused, and it was some time before all parties settled down into their
proper places.

“The sun is very hot,” said Nephelo. “We all seem to be getting very
warm.” “Yes, indeed,” said a Lady-Drop; “it’s not like the cool
Cloud-Country. I have been poisoned in the Thames, half filtered, and
made frowsy by standing, this July weather, in an open reservoir. I’ve
travelled in pipes laid too near the surface to be cool, and now am
spoiling here. I know if water is not cold it can’t be pleasant.” “Ah,”
said an old Drop, with a small eel in one of his eyes; “I don’t wonder
at hearing tell that men drink wine, and tea, and beer.” “Talking of
beer,” said another, “is it a fact that we’re of no use to the brewers?
Our character’s so bad, they can’t rely on us for cooling the worts, and
so sink wells, in order to brew all the year round with water cold
enough to suit their purposes.” “I know nothing of beer,” said Nephelo;
“but I know that if the gentlemen and ladies in this cistern were as
cold as they could wish to be, there wouldn’t be so much decomposition
going on amongst them.” “Your turn in, Sir,” said a polite Drop, and
Nephelo leapt nimbly through the place of exit into a china jug placed
ready to receive him. He was conveyed across a handsome kitchen by a
cook, who declared her opinion that the morning’s rain had caused the
drains to smell uncommonly. Nephelo then was thrown into a kettle.

Boiling is to an unclean Water-Drop, like scratching to a bear, a
pleasant operation. It gets rid of the little animals by which it had
been bitten, and throws down some of the impurity with which it had been
soiled. So, after boiling, water becomes more pure, but it is, at the
same time, more greedy than ever to absorb extraneous matter. Therefore,
the sons of men who boil their vitiated water ought to keep it covered
afterwards, and if they wish to drink it cold, should lose no time in
doing so. Nephelo and his friends within the kettle danced with delight
under the boiling process. Chattering pleasantly together, they compared
notes of their adventures upon earth, discussed the politics of
Cloud-Land, and although it took them nearly twice as long to boil as it
would have done had there been no carbonate of lime about them, they
were quite sorry when the time was come for them to part. Nephelo then,
with many others, was poured out into an urn. So he was taken to the
drawing-room, a hot iron having, in a friendly manner, been put down his
back, to keep him boiling.

Out of the urn into the tea-pot; out of the tea-pot into the slop-basin;
Nephelo had only time to remark a matron tea-maker, young ladies
knitting, and a good-looking young gentleman upon his legs, laying the
law down with a tea-spoon, before he (the fairy, not the gentleman) was
smothered with a plate of muffins. From so much of the conversation as
Nephelo could catch, filtered through muffin, it appeared that they were
talking about tea.

“It’s all very well for you to say, mother, that you’re confident you
make tea very good, but I ask—no, there I see you put six spoonfuls in
for five of us. Mother, if this were not hard water—(here there was a
noise as of a spoon hammering upon the iron)—two spoonsful less would
make tea of a better flavour and of equal strength. Now, there are three
hundred and sixty-five times and a quarter tea-times in the year——”

“And how many spoonfuls, brother, to the quarter of a tea-time?”

“Maria, you’ve no head for figures. I say nothing of the tea consumed at
breakfast. Multiply——”

“My dear boy, you have left school; no one asks you to multiply. Hand me
the muffin.”

Nephelo, released, was unable to look about him, owing to the high walls
of the slop-basin which surrounded him on every side. The room was
filled with pleasant sunset light, but Nephelo soon saw the coming
shadow of the muffin-plate, and all was dark directly afterwards.

“Take cooking, mother. M. Soyer[5] says you can’t boil many vegetables
properly in London water. Greens won’t be green; French beans are tinged
with yellow, and peas shrivel. It don’t open the pores of meat, and make
it succulent, as softer water does. M. Soyer believes that the true
flavour of meat cannot be extracted with hard water. Bread does not rise
so well when made with it. Horses——”

Footnote 5:

  Evidence before the Board of Health.

“My dear boy, M. Soyer don’t cook horses.”

“Horses, Dr. Playfair tells us, sheep, and pigeons will refuse hard
water if they can get it soft, though from the muddiest pool.
Racehorses, when carried to a place where the water is notoriously hard,
have a supply of softer water carried with them to preserve their good
condition. Not to speak of gripes, hard water will assuredly produce
what people call a staring coat.”

“Ah, no doubt, then, it was London water that created Mr. Blossomley’s
blue swallowtail.”

“Maria, you make nonsense out of everything. When you are Mrs.
Blossomley——”

“Now pass my cup.”

There was a pause and a clatter. Presently the muffin-plate was lifted,
and four times in succession there were black dregs thrown into the face
of Nephelo. After the perpetration of these insults he was once again
condemned to darkness.

“When you are Mrs. Blossomley, Maria,” so the voice went on, “when you
are Mrs. Blossomley, you will appreciate what I am now going to tell you
about washerwomen.”

“Couldn’t you postpone it, dear, until I am able to appreciate it. You
promised to take us to Rachel to-night.”

“Ah!” said another girlish voice, “you’ll not escape. We dress at seven.
Until then—for the next twelve minutes you may speak. Bore on, we will
endure.”

“As for you, Catherine, Maria teaches you, I see, to chatter. But if
Mrs. B. would object to the reception of a patent mangle as a wedding
present from her brother, she had better hear him now. Washerwoman’s
work is not a thing to overlook, I tell you. Before a shirt is worn out,
there will have been spent upon it five times its intrinsic value in the
washing-tub. The washing of clothes costs more, by a great deal, than
the clothes themselves. The yearly cost of washing to a household of the
middle class amounts, on the average, to about a third part of the
rental, or a twelfth part of the total income. Among the poor, the
average expense of washing will more probably be half the rental if they
wash at home, but not more than a fourth of it if they employ the Model
Wash-houses. The weekly cost of washing to a poor man averages certainly
not less than fourpence halfpenny. Small tradesmen, driven to economise
in linen, spend perhaps not more than ninepence; in the middle and the
upper classes, the cost weekly varies from a shilling to five shillings
for each person, and amounts very often to a larger sum. On these
grounds Mr. Bullar, Honorary Secretary to the Association for Promoting
Baths and Wash-houses, estimates the washing expenditure of London at a
shilling a week for each inhabitant, or, for the whole, five millions of
pounds yearly. Professor Clark—”

“My dear Professor Tom, you have consumed four of your twelve minutes.”

“Professor Clark judges from such estimates as can be furnished by the
trade, that the consumption of soap in London is fifteen pounds to each
person per annum—twice as much as is employed in other parts of England.
That quantity of soap costs six-and-eightpence; water, per head, costs
half as much, or three-and-fourpence; or each man’s soap and water
costs, throughout London, on an average, ten shillings for twelve
months. If the hardness of the water be diminished, there is a
diminution in the want of soap. For every grain of carbonate of lime
dissolved in each gallon of any water, Mr. Donaldson declares, two
ounces of soap more for a hundred gallons of that water are required.
Every such grain is called a degree of hardness. Water of five degrees
of hardness requires, for example, two ounces of soap; water of eight
degrees of hardness then will need fifteen; and water of sixteen degrees
will demand thirty-two. Sixteen degrees, Maria, is the hardness of
Thames Water—of the water, mother, which has poached upon your
tea-caddy. You see, then, that when we pay for the soap we use at the
rate of six-and-eightpence each, since the unusual hardness of our water
causes us to use a double quantity, every man in London pays at an
average rate of three-and-fourpence a year his tax for a hard water,
through the cost of soap alone.”

“Now you must finish in five minutes, brother Tom.”

“But soap is not the only matter that concerns the washerwoman and her
customers. There is labour also, and the wear and tear; there is a
double amount of destruction to our linen, involved in the double time
of rubbing and the double soaping, which hard water compels washerwomen
to employ. So that, when all things have been duly reckoned up in our
account, we find that the outlay caused by the necessities for washing
linen in a town supplied like London with exceedingly hard water, is
four times greater than it would be if soft water were employed. The
cost of washing, as I told you, has been estimated at five millions a
year. So that, if these calculations be correct, more than three
millions of money, nearly four millions, is the amount filched yearly
from the Londoners by their hard water through the wash-tub only. To
that sum, Mrs. Blossomley, being of a respectable family and very
partial to clean linen, will contribute of course much more than her
average proportion.”

“Well, Mr. Orator, I was not listening to all you said, but what I heard
I do think much exaggerated.”

“I take it, sister, from the Government Report; oblige me by believing
half of it, and still the case is strong. It is quite time for people to
be stirring.”

“So it is, I declare. Your twelve minutes are spent, and we will always
be ready for the play. If you talk there of water, I will shriek.”

Here there arose a chatter which Nephelo found to be about matters that,
unlike the water topic, did not at all interest himself. There was a
rustle and a movement; and a creaking noise approached the drawing-room,
which Nephelo discovered presently to be caused by Papa’s boots as he
marched upstairs after his post-prandial slumberings. There was more
talk uninteresting to the fairy; Nephelo, therefore, became drowsy; his
drowsiness might at the Same time have been aggravated by the close
confinement he experienced in an unwholesome atmosphere beneath the
muffin-plate. He was aroused by a great clattering; this the maid caused
who was carrying him down stairs upon a tray with all the other
tea-things.

From a sweet dream of nuptials with Cirrha, Nephelo was awakened to the
painful consciousness that he had not yet succeeded in effecting any
great good for the human race; he had but rinsed a tea-pot. With a faint
impulse of hope the desponding fairy noticed that the slop-basin in
which he sate was lifted from the tray, in a few minutes after the tray
had been deposited upon the kitchen-dresser. Pity poor Nephelo! By a
remorseless scullery-maid he was dashed rudely from the basin into a
trough of stone, from which he tumbled through a hole placed there on
purpose to engulf him,—tumbled through into a horrible abyss.

This abyss was a long dungeon running from back to front beneath the
house, built of bricks—rotten now, and saturated with moisture. Some of
the bricks had fallen in, or crumbled into nothingness; and Nephelo saw
that the soil without the dungeon was quite wet. The dungeon-floor was
coated with pollutions, travelled over by a sluggish shallow stream,
with which the fairy floated. The whole dungeon’s atmosphere was foul
and poisonous. Nephelo found now what those exhalations were which rose
through every opening in the house, through vent-holes and the
burrowings of rats; for rats and other vermin tenanted this noisome den.
This was the pestilential gallery called by the good people of the
house, their drain. A trap-door at one end confined the fairy in this
place with other Water-Drops, until there should be collected a
sufficient body of them to negotiate successfully for egress.

The object of this door was to prevent the ingress of much more foul
matter from without; and its misfortune was, that in so doing it
necessarily pent up a concentrated putrid gas within. At length Nephelo
escaped; but alas! it was from a Newgate to a Bastille—from the drain
into the sewer. This was a long vaulted prison running near the surface
underneath the street. Shaken by the passage overhead of carriages, not
a few bricks had fallen in; and Nephelo hurrying forward, wholly
possessed by the one thought—could he escape?—fell presently into a
trap. An oyster-shell had fixed itself upright between two bricks
unevenly jointed together; much solid filth had grown around it; and in
this Nephelo was caught. Here he remained for a whole month, during
which time he saw many floods of water pass him, leaving himself with a
vast quantity of obstinate encrusted filth unmoved. At the month’s end
there came some men to scrape, and sweep, and cleanse; then with a
sudden flow of water, Nephelo was forced along, and presently, with a
large number of emancipated foulnesses, received his discharge from
prison, and was let loose upon the River Thames.

Nephelo struck against a very dirty Drop. “Keep off, will you?” the Drop
exclaimed. “You are not fit to touch a person, sewer-bird.”

“Why, where are you from, my sweet gentleman?”

“Oh! I? I’ve had a turn through some Model Drains. Tubular drains, they
call ’em. Look at me; isn’t that clear?”

“There’s nothing clear about you,” replied Nephelo. “What do you mean by
Model Drains?”

“I mean I’ve come from Upper George Street through a twelve-inch pipe
four or five times faster than one travels over an old sewer-bed;
travelled express, no stoppage.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes. Impermeable, earthenware, tubular pipes, accurately dove-tailed. I
come from an experimental district. When it’s all settled, there’s to be
water on at high pressure everywhere, and an earthenware drain pipe
under every tap, a tube of no more than the necessary size. Then these
little pipes are to run down the earth; and there’s not to be a great
brick drain running underneath each house into the street; the pipes run
into a larger tube of earthenware that is to be laid at the backs of all
the houses; these tubes run into larger ones, but none of them very
monstrous; and so that there is a constant flow, like circulation of the
blood; and all the pipes are to run at last into one large conduit,
which is to run out of town with all the sewage matter and discharge so
far down the Thames, that no return tide ever can bring it back to
London. Some is to go branching off into the fields to be manure.”

“Humph!” said Nephelo. “You profess to be very clever. How do you know
all this?”

“Know? Bless you, I’m a regular old Thames Drop I’ve been in the
cisterns, in the tumblers, down the sewers, in the river, up the pipes,
in the reservoirs, in the cisterns, in the teapots, down the sewers, in
the river, up the pipes, in the reservoirs, in the cisterns, in the
saucepans, down the sewers, in the Thames—”

“Hold! Stop there now!” said Nephelo. “Well, so you have heard a great
deal in your lifetime. You’ve had some adventures, doubtless?”

“I believe you,” said the Cockney-Drop. “The worst was when I was pumped
once as fresh water into Rotherhithe. That place is below high-water
mark; so are Bermondsey and St. George’s, Southwark. Newington, St.
Olave’s, Westminster, and Lambeth, are but little better. Well, you
know, drains of the old sort always leak, and there’s a great deal more
water poured into London than the Londoners have stowage room for, so
the water in low districts can’t pass off at high water, and there ’s a
precious flood. We sopped the ground at Rotherhithe, but I thought I
never should escape again.”

“Will the new pipes make any difference to that?”

“Yes; so I am led to understand. They are to be laid with a regular
fall, to pass the water off, which, being constant, will be never in
excess. The fall will be to a point of course below the water level, and
at a convenient place the contents of these drains are to be pumped up
into the main sewer. Horrible deal of death caused, Sir, by the damp in
those low districts. One man in thirty-seven died of cholera in
Rotherhithe last year, when in Clerkenwell, at sixty-three feet above
high water, there died but one in five hundred and thirty. The
proportion held throughout.”

“Ah, by the bye, you have heard, of course, complainings of the quality
of water. Will the Londoners sink wells for themselves?”

“Wells! What a child you are! Just from the clouds, I see. Wells in a
large town get horribly polluted. They propose to consolidate and
improve two of the best Thames Water Companies, the Grand Junction and
Vauxhall, for the supply of London, until their great scheme can be
introduced; and to maintain them afterwards as a reserve guard in case
their great scheme shouldn’t prove so triumphant as they think it will
be.”

“What is this great scheme, I should like to know?”

“Why, they talk of fetching rain-water from a tract of heath between
Bagshot and Farnham. The rain there soaks through a thin crust of
growing herbage, which is the only perfect filter, chemical as well as
mechanical—the living rootlets extract more than we can, where impurity
exists. Then, Sir, the rain runs into a large bed of siliceous sand,
placed over marl; below the marl there is siliceous sand again—Ah, I
perceive you are not geological.”

“Go on.”

“The sand, washed by the rains of ages, holds the water without soiling
it more than a glass tumbler would, and the Londoners say that in this
way, by making artificial channels and a big reservoir, they can collect
twenty-eight thousand gallons a day of water nearly pure. They require
forty thousand gallons, and propose to get the rest in the same
neighbourhood from tributaries of the River Wey, not quite so pure, but
only half as hard, as Thames water, and unpolluted.”

“How is it to get to London?”

“Through a covered aqueduct. Covered for coolness’ sake, and
cleanliness. Then it is to be distributed through earthenware pipes,
laid rather deep, again for coolness’ sake in the first instance, but
for cleanliness as well. The water is to come in at high pressure, and
run in iron or lead pipes up every house, scale every wall. There is to
be a tap in every room, and under every tap there is to be the entrance
to a drain pipe. Where water supply ends, drainage begins. They are to
be the two halves of a single system. Furthermore, there are to be
numbers of plugs opening in every street, and streets and courts are to
be washed out every morning, or every other morning, as the traffic may
require, with hose and jet. The Great Metropolis mustn’t be dirty, or be
content with rubbing a finger here and there over its dirt. It is to
have its face washed every morning, just before the hours of business.
The water at high pressure is to set people’s invention at work upon the
introduction of hydraulic apparatus for cranes, et cætera, which now
cause much hand labour and are scarcely worth steam-power.
Furthermore——”

“My dear friend,” cried Nephelo, “you are too clever. More than half of
what you say is unintelligible to me,”

“But the grand point,” continued the garrulous Thames drop, “is the
expense. The saving of cisterns, ball-cocks, plumbers’ bills, expansive
sewer-works, constant repairs, hand labour, street sweeping, soap, tea,
linen, fuel, steam-boilers now damaged by incrustation, boards,
salaries, doctors’ bills, time, parish rates——”

The catalogue was never ended, for the busy Drop was suddenly entangled
among hair upon the corpse of a dead cat, which fate also the fairy
narrowly escaped, to be in the next minute sucked up as Nubis had been
sucked, through pipes into a reservoir. Weary with the incessant
chattering of his conceited friend, whose pride he trusted that a night
with puss might humble, Nephelo now lurked silent in a corner. In a
dreamy state he floated with the current underground, and was half
sleeping in a pipe under some London street, when a great noise of
trampling overhead, mingled with cries, awakened him.

“What is the matter now?” the fairy cried.

“A fire, no doubt, to judge by the noise,” said a neighbour quietly.
Nephelo panted now with triumph. Cirrha was before his eyes. Now he
could benefit the race of man.

“Let us get out,” cried Nephelo; “let us assist in running to the
rescue.”

“Don’t be impatient,” said a drowsy Drop. “We can’t get out of here till
they have found the Company’s turncock, and then he must go to this plug
and that plug in one street, and another, before we are turned off.”

“In the meantime the fire——”

“Will burn the house down. Help in five minutes would save a house. Now
the luckiest man will seldom have his premises attended to in less than
twenty.”

Nephelo thought here was another topic for his gossip in the Thames. The
plugs talked of with a constant water supply would take the sting out of
the Fire-Fiend.

Presently, among confused movements, confused sounds, amid a rush of
water, Nephelo burst into the light—into the vivid light of a great fire
that leapt and roared as Nephelo was dashed against it! Through the red
flames and the black smoke in a burst of steam, the fairy reascended
hopeless to the clouds.


                          CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

                Rascally Conduct of the Prince of Nimbus.

The Prince of Nimbus, whose goodnature we have celebrated, was not good
for nothing. Having graciously permitted all the suitors of the Princess
Cirrha to go down to earth and labour for her hand, he took advantage of
their absence, and, having the coast clear, importuned the daughter of
King Cumulus with his own addresses. Cirrha was not disposed to listen
to them, but the rogue her father was ambitious. He desired to make a
good alliance, and that object was better gained by intermarriage with a
prince than with a subject. “There will be an uproar,” said the old man,
“when those fellows down below come back. They will look black and no
doubt storm a little, but we’ll have our royal marriage
notwithstanding.” So the Prince of Nimbus married Cirrha, and Nephelo
arrived at the court of King Cumulus one evening during the celebration
of the bridal feast. His wrath was seen on earth in many parts of
England in the shape of a great thunderstorm on the 16th of July. The
adventures of the other suitors, they being thus cheated of their
object, need not be detailed. As each returns he will be made acquainted
with the scandalous fraud practised by the Prince of Nimbus, and this
being the state of politics in Cloud-Land at the moment when we go to
press, we may fairly expect to witness five or six more thunderstorms
before next winter. Each suitor, as he returns and finds how shamefully
he has been cheated, will create a great disturbance; and no wonder.
Conduct so rascally as that of the Prince of Nimbus is enough to fill
the clouds with uproar.




                        A CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD.


There is an establishment in Paris, for providing instruction for
artisans of all ages and others employed during the day, which is well
worthy of imitation in this country. It has occasioned the
establishment, in all parts of France, of a number of evening schools,
at which instruction is given without charge to the pupil. We are by no
means clear that in this respect a sound principle is observed; holding
it to be important that those who _can_ pay anything for the great
advantages of education should pay something, however little. But into
this question we do not now propose to enter.

The institution was originated in 1680, by Dr. J. Baptiste de la Lulli,
Canon of Rheims, lingered on till 1804, but was revived and brought to
its present condition of efficacy in 1830. It consists of a parent or
training establishment in Paris (Rue Plumet, 33) from which teachers are
provided for any locality, in any part of France, or even Italy, for
which an evening school may be petitioned by the residents. There are
connected with it at present no fewer than five thousand teachers, who
call themselves “Brothers of the Christian Schools” (_Frères des Ecoles
Chrétiennes_). Four thousand are employed in France, and one thousand in
Italy. They are not a Church, but a Lay Community (_Religieux laïques_).
A certain number remain ready at the central establishment to obey any
call that may be made for their services.

Before such a requisition is made, the municipal authorities, or any
number of benevolent individuals who may choose to subscribe, must have
provided a house and school-room, with all proper accommodations, and
must certify that a certain number of pupils are willing to enrol
themselves. On application to the central establishment three qualified
Christian Brothers are sent down, at salaries not exceeding six hundred
francs, or twenty-four pounds per annum in the provinces, or thirty
pounds a year in Paris. Fewer than three Frères are not allowed to
superintend each school; two for the classes, and a probationer to
perform the household duties; but, when the schools outgrow the
management of that number a fourth is added, to take the management of
the whole, and is called a _Frère-directeur_. The classes are limited to
sixty for writing, and one hundred for other branches of education. This
limitation is necessary, because the monitorial system is not followed,
and the whole weight of the duties falls on the masters.

The schools thus established in the various quarters of Paris are very
numerous; six thousand apprentices and artisans attend them after their
hours of work—young boys, youths, and adults—the numbers having declined
since the revolution of 1848. “I have,” says Mr. Seymour Tremenheere, in
a note to his Report on the state of the mining population, “at
different times visited some of those evening schools in the Fauxbourgs
St. Antoine and St. Martin, containing from four hundred to six hundred,
in separate class-rooms of sixty to a hundred each, all well lighted,
warmed, and ventilated. The gentle and affectionate manner of the
Frères, and their skill in teaching, were very conspicuous, and
sufficiently explained their success. The instruction consists, in
addition to the doctrines of Christianity, which are the basis of the
whole, of reading, writing, arithmetic, a little history, drawing
(linear and perspective), and vocal music. In all the classes, many
adults who had been at work all day were to be seen mixed with young men
and boys, patiently learning to read, or to write and cypher. In the
drawing-classes, some were copying ornamental designs, or heads, for
their own amusement; others, to improve themselves as cabinetmakers, or
workers in bronze, or in other trades for which some cultivation of
taste is requisite.”

The superiority of the system of teaching adopted by the Christian
Brothers has been proved by a severe test. In Paris, as in London, it is
the custom, once a year, to assemble all the parochial schools; not,
however, as a mere show for the purpose of uniting in ill-executed
psalmody, but with the better and more useful view of testing the
improvement of the scholars, and of ascertaining the degrees of
diligence and proficiency attained by the masters. The parochial
scholars compete for prizes, given by the corporation of the city; not
only among themselves, but with the other elementary schools—those of
the Christian Brothers among the rest. At these competitions, it has
happened, of late years, that the pupils of the latter have been the
victors. In one year, they gained seventeen prizes out of twenty; in
another, twenty-three out of thirty-one; and, last year, they carried
off the highest forty-two prizes: the fortunate candidates of all the
other schools only claiming the inferior rewards. In addition to these
evening schools for adults and young men who are already gaining their
livelihood, the Frères Chrétiens have set on foot Sunday evening sermons
at different churches, and also meetings for lectures on religious and
moral subjects adapted to the wants of, and calculated to influence, the
same class. “I recently was present at one of these meetings in the
Faubourg St. Antoine” (we quote our former authority), “where a series
of eloquent and forcible addresses was delivered—one, by a Professor of
History, on some of the leading points of Christian morals; another, by
a gentleman of literary attainments, on Death and a future state; a
third, by a gentleman of independent position, on the religious
condition of some of the forçats at Toulon; a fourth, by a member of the
university, on the displacement of labour by machinery, and its ultimate
advantage to the labourer; all of whom had come forward to aid in the
task of combating irreligion, and the various forms of error pervading
the minds of so many of the working classes of Paris. These were
followed by hymns, and by prayers. A deep sense of religion is, indeed,
the animating spirit of all the endeavours of the Frères Chrétiens for
the benefit of the lower classes, and the principle which sustains them
in their self-denying and arduous career.”

The lovers of “great comprehensive systems,”—to whom we adverted in a
former page—might, by copying the plan of the French Christian Brothers,
carry out a scheme which would be of the utmost use in this country. It
would also have the advantage of encouraging small beginnings, and
combining them into one great and efficacious whole. We can hardly wait
until the present adult generation of ignorance shall die out to be
succeeded by another which we are, after all, only half educating. Why
not offer inducements, and form plans, for the instruction of grown-up
persons, many of whom, having come to a sense of their deficiencies,
pine for culture and enlightenment, which they cannot obtain? A central
establishment in London—on a general plan somewhat similar to the
Government Normal Schools already in existence, but with less cumbrous
and costly machinery—could be formed at a small expense; and we doubt
not that many a knot of benevolent well-wishers would, in their various
localities, be eager to provide all the scholastic _matériel_ for the
less favoured artisans and day-workers around them, could they look with
confidence to some central establishment for the formation of teachers,
in which they could place implicit confidence.

The monitorial system, in a school consisting of all ages—in which a
small boy, from his intellectual superiority, might be placed over the
heads of pupils, greater, older than himself—is manifestly
impracticable; and a larger number of teachers than is usual in schools
for children only, would be necessary.

We will borrow from Mr. Tremenheere a comparison between the
intellectual acquirements and moral conduct of French workmen and those
of English workmen, in the mining districts of each country. We do not
assume that the superiority of the French workmen has been occasioned
solely by the evening schools of the Christian Brothers, but, after what
we have already shown, we consider it reasonable to infer that, since
1830, those establishments have had a large share in the formation of
their character. In a former report,[6] Mr. Tremenheere described the
habits and manners of the French colliers and miners, especially those
at the iron and coal-works in the coalfield near Valenciennes. He was
compelled, by the force of unexceptionable evidence, to show how
superior they were in every respect, except that of mere animal power,
to the generality of the mining population in this country. At the large
iron-works at Denain, employing about four thousand people, there were
thirty Englishmen from Staffordshire. These men were earning about
one-third more wages than the French labourers; but, they spent all they
earned in eating and drinking; were frequently drunk; and in their
manners were coarse, quarrelsome, disrespectful, and insubordinate. The
English manager—who had held for many years responsible situations under
some of the leading iron-masters in Staffordshire—stated with regret,
that so different and so superior were the intelligence, and the
civilised habits and conduct, of the French, that, if any thirty
Frenchmen from these works were to go to work in Staffordshire, “they
would be so disgusted, they would not stay; they would think they had
got among a savage race.”

Footnote 6:

  “Report of Inspection of French and Belgian mines, 1848—Appendix.”

There have been, lately, forty Frenchmen employed at one of the large
manufactories in Staffordshire, by the Messrs. Chance, at their
extensive and well-known glass-works at West Bromwich, in the immediate
neighbourhood of some of the great iron-works. Mr. Chance gives the
Commissioner the following account of these men:—“A few years ago, we
brought over forty Frenchmen to teach our men a particular process in
our manufacture. They have now nearly all returned. We found them very
steady, quiet, temperate men. They earned good wages, and saved while
they were with us a good deal of money. We have had as much as fifteen
hundred pounds at a time in our hands belonging to these men, which we
transmitted to France for them. One of them, who sometimes earns as much
as seven pounds a week, has saved in our service not much short of four
thousand pounds. He is with us now. He is a glass-blower. We have about
fourteen hundred men in our employ (in the glass-blowing and alkali
works) when trade is in a good state. I am sorry to say that the
contrast between them and the Frenchmen was very marked in many
respects, especially in that of forethought and economy. I do not think
that, while we had in our hands the large sum mentioned above as the
savings of the Frenchmen at one time, we have had at the same time five
pounds belonging to our own people. They generally spend their money as
fast as they can get it.”

In Scotland, evening schools abound, and come in effectually to aid the
universal system of primary instruction existing over that part of our
island. A Wesleyan local preacher told Mr. Tremenheere of the Scotchmen
employed on the Northumberland and Durham collieries, “when you go into
some of the Scotchmen’s houses, you would be surprised to see the books
they have—not many, but all choice books. Some of their favourite
authors in divinity are very common among them. Many of them read such
books as Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and are fond of discussing the
subjects he treats of. They also read the lives of statesmen, and books
of history; also works on logic; and, sometimes, mathematics. Such men
can be reasoned with about anything appertaining to their calling, and
they know very well why wages cannot be at particular times higher than
a certain standard. They see at once, by the price current in the
market, what is the fair portion to go to the workman as wages,
according to the circumstances of the pit and the general state of the
trade. Such men will have nothing to do with the union. They scorn to
read such penny and twopenny publications as we have been talking about.
They are fonder of sitting down after their work and reading a chapter
of the Wealth of Nations. They will also talk with great zest of many of
their great men—their own countrymen, who have raised themselves by
their own industry. There are, undoubtedly, some men that come out of
Scotland bad men, but these are not informed men. I am speaking of all
this neighbourhood, where I have lived all my life. There are a great
many Scotch at all the collieries here, and most of them very
respectable men, exceedingly so. You may ask me why the union is so
strong in parts of Scotland—as in Lanarkshire? It is because in
Lanarkshire the pitmen are one-third Irish, and many of the worst Scotch
from other counties. Those who come here are among the best in their own
country, I should think, from the accounts they give me. When a
Scotchman comes here he earns English wages; but he does not spend them
as an Englishman does. A Scotchman often, rather than lose buying a good
book, will lose his dinner. The Scotchwomen begin to keep their houses
cleaner after they get into England, and by degrees they come to keep
them as clean as the Englishwomen; and the first generation after their
fathers come are equal to the English in their wish to keep everything
clean about them. They are generally very saving, and lay out the
over-plus of their earnings in books and furniture or lay it by. They
have a great disposition to have their children well taught. Indeed, I
have seen several lads that have been educated in the Scotch schools,
and I find them very well taught; they can reason like men.

“I don’t think I ever saw Adam Smith’s works in more than one or two
English pit-men’s houses. They are backward to attempt anything that
requires steady thinking, such as that book, or any work on logic or
mathematics. The Scotch often study both. This makes one of the great
differences between the best working-men of the two people. The English
seldom attempt even English grammar or geometry; they always tell me
they are obliged to give way when they have made a trial.[7] They had
rather read any popular work, such as the ‘Christian Philosopher,’ the
‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ or Walter Scott’s novels. They love to read their
country’s history, and they like to talk of its renown in the ancient
French wars of Edward the Third and Henry the Fifth. They are also great
readers of Napoleon’s and the Duke of Wellington’s wars, and their soul
seems to take fire when they talk of their country’s victories. They are
fond of biography, and especially that of men who rose from being poor
men to be great characters. They are very generous in their
dispositions, and will share their loaf with the poor, as all the
beggars and trampers from Newcastle and all the country know. They are
greatly improved in my time as to drinking habits; there is much less of
it, and their money is chiefly spent in living well and making a great
show in furniture and dress. The women, too, are improving, and manage
their families much better than they used to do. The English pit-boys
are exceedingly quick at school—much more so than the Scotch, I think.
What I most want to see is better descriptions of schools—schools under
masters of ability, who can teach their boys to think and reason. You
will find boys who have been at such schools as most of those we have
now, that can write a good hand and do some cyphering; but when you come
to ask them questions that exercise the mind, they have no idea what to
answer. If there were such schools for the boys, the men would soon be a
different race; for what the men want is to be taught to exercise their
reason fairly, which would prevent their being led away as they are
now.”

Footnote 7:

  We doubt the _general_ applicability of this description, without
  questioning its correctness in this case.

With a little modification, this description of the pitman applies, in
its more favourable characteristics, to the English operative generally.
No one can read it without being convinced that there is sound and
hopeful material, in the generous English character to work upon. The
natural ability, the deep feeling, the quickness of perception, the
susceptibility to religious and moral impressions, the sound common
sense where the rudest cultivation has been attained, and the heartfelt
patriotism, of the humble orders of this country, are unequalled in the
world. Surely this is a rich mine to work; surely it should not be left
to unskilled workers, or to chance; but should be faithfully confided to
the heads and hearts of men, trained up to its improvement, as to a
noble calling, and a solemn duty! In all parts of this land, the people
are willing and desirous to be taught. Open schools anywhere, and they
will come—even, as the Ragged Schools have proved, out of the worst dens
of vice and infamy, in the worst hiding-places, in the worst towns and
cities. But, unless the art of teaching is pursued upon a system, as an
art, thoroughly understood, and proceeding on sound principles, the best
intentions and the most sincere devotion can do next to nothing. For
want of competent teachers, there are opportunities being lost at this
moment, we do not hesitate to say, in the Ragged Schools of London
alone, the waste of which, is of more true importance to the community,
than all the theological controversies that ever deafened its ears, and
distracted its wits. Meanwhile, the sands of Time are running out
remorselessly, and, with every grain, immortal souls are perishing. We
want teachers, competent to educate the mind, to rouse the reason, to
undo the beastly transformation that has been effected—to our guilt and
shame—upon humanity, and to bring God’s image out of the condition of
the lower animals. What we have suffered to be beaten out of shape, we
must remould, with pains, and care, and skill, and cannot hope to put
into its rightful form hap-hazard. And such would be the glorious office
and main usefulness of a comprehensive, unsectarian—in short,
Christian—Brotherhood in England.




                           AN EVERY DAY HERO.


        “Tell us,” the children to their grandsire said,
        “Some wondrous story! tell us of the wars,
        Or one of those old ballads that you know
        About the seven famous champions,
        St. George, St. Denis, and the rest of them.
        We have delight in those heroic stories,
        And often tell them over to ourselves
        And wish that there were heroes now-a-days.”
          The old man smoked his pipe; the children urged
        More eagerly their wish, athirst to know
        Something about the great men of old times,
        Deploring still that these degenerate days
        Produced no heroes, and that now no poets
        Made ballads that were worth the listening to.
          The old man smiled and laid aside his pipe;
        Then, gazing tenderly into their faces,
        Said he would tell them of as great a hero
        As any which the ballads chronicled—
        The good old ballads which they loved so well.
        “Once on a time,” said he, “there was a lad,
        Whose name was John; his father was a gardener.
        He had great skill in flowers even when a child;
        And when his father died, he carried on
        The gardener’s trade. One autumn night he found
        A young man hiding in his garden-shed,
        Haggard and foot-sore, wanting bread to eat;
        A fugitive who had escaped the law,
        And being now discovered, prayed for mercy,
        And told his tale so very touchingly
        That the young gardener promised him a refuge,
        And strictest secresy. For weeks and months
        The stranger worked with him, receiving wages
        As a hired labourer. Both were fine young men,
        Well-grown, broad-chested, full of strength and mettle;
        In outward seeming equal to each other,
        But inwardly the two were different.
          “The stranger, George, had not a gardening turn,
        He was book-learned, and had a gift for figures,
        And could talk well, which in itself was good;
        But he was double-faced, and false as Judas,
        Who did betray the Saviour with a kiss.
        He had, in truth, been clerk to some great merchant,
        Had wronged his trusting master, and had fled,
        As I have said, from the pursuit of law.
        Of this, however, John knew not a word,
        Knew only that he had been in sore trouble,
        And, for that cause, he strove to do him good;
        And when he found him useless in his trade,
        He introduced him to the Squire’s bailiff,
        Whose daughter he had courted many a year.
        This bailiff was a simple, honest man,
        Who not designing evil, none suspected.
        He found the stranger, clever, quick at reckoning,
        Smart with his pen; a likely man of business;
        And, therefore, on a luckless day for him,
        Brought him before the Squire. Ere long he had
        A place appointed him which gave him access
        To the Squire daily; principles of honour
        Were all unknown to him: all means allowable
        Which served his ends. He gained a great ascendance
        Over the Squire, and ere four years were passed,
        He was appointed bailiff.
                                          “The old bailiff
        Was sent adrift, and the kind, worthy, Squire,
        His thirty years’ employer, turned against him!
        It was a villain’s act, first, to traduce,
        And then supplant—it was a Judas-trick!
        The gardener John, who wooed the bailiff’s daughter,
        Had married her before this plotter’s work
        Was come to light; and they, poor, simple folk,
        Invited him among their wedding-company,
        And he, with his black plots hatching within him,
        Came, full of smiles, and ate and drank with them;
        The double-faced villain! The old bailiff
        Was turned adrift, as I have said already,
        And his dismissal looked like a disgrace,
        Although the Squire brought not a charge against him,
        Except that he was old, and younger men
        Could better carry out his modern plans!
        And modern plans, God knows, they had enough!
        Old tenants were removed; and soon a notice
        Came to the gardener, John, that he must quit;
        Must quit the little spot he loved so well,
        And where the poor, heart-broken bailiff, found
        A home in his distress. It mattered not
        Their likings or convenience, go they must;
        The Squire was laying out his place afresh—
        Or the new bailiff, rather; and John’s garden
        Was wanted for the fine new pleasure-grounds!
          “The man of work—the man who toils to live,
        Must still be up and doing; ’tis his privilege
        That he has little time to wring his hands,
        And hang his head because his fate is cruel.
        John was a man of action, so, to London
        Came he, and, ere a twelvemonth had gone round,
        Had taken service as a city fireman.
        It was an arduous life; a different life
        To that of gardening, of rearing pinks,
        Budding the dainty rose, and giving heed
        To the unclosing of the tulip’s leaf.
        But he was one of those who fear not hardship;
        And when he saw his little fortunes wrecked
        By the smooth villain whom he had befriended,
        He left his native place with wife and children,
        Mostly because it galled his soul to meet
        The man who had so much abused his goodness,
        And, in the wide and busy world of London,
        Where, as ’tis said, is room for every man,
        He came to try his luck. He was strong-limbed,
        Active and agile as a mountain goat,
        Fearless of danger, hardy, brave, and full
        Of pity as is every noble nature.
          “He was the boldest of the London firemen.
        Clothed in his iron mail like an old warrior,
        He rushed on danger, his true heart his shield;
        Fear he had none whene’er his duty called.
        Oft clomb he to the roofs of burning houses;
        Sprang here and there, and bore off human creatures,
        Frantic with terror, or with terror dumb,
        Saving their lives at peril of his own.
        Such men as these are heroes!
                                          “One dark night,
        A stormy winter’s night, a fire broke out
        Somewhere by Rotherhithe—a dreadful fire—
        In midst of narrow streets where the tall houses
        Were habited by poor and squalid wretches,
        Together packed like sheep within their pens,
        And who, unlike the rich, had nought to offer
        For their lives’ rescue. Here the fire broke out,
        And raged with fury; here the fireman, John,
        ‘Mid falling roofs, on dizzy walls aloft,
        Through raging flames, and black, confounding smoke,
        And noise and tumult as of hell broke loose,
        Rushed on, and ever saved some sinking wretch.
        Many had thus been saved by his one arm,
        When some one said, that in a certain chamber,
        High up amid the burning roofs, still lay
        A sick man and his child, who, yesternight,
        Had hither come as strangers. They were left,
        By all forgotten, and must perish there.
        Whilst yet they spoke, upon a roof’s high ridge,
        Amid the eddying smoke and growing flame,
        The miserable man was seen to stand,
        Stretching his arms for aid in frantic terror.
          “Without a moment’s pause, amid the fire,
        Six stories high, sprang John, who caught the word
        That still a human being had been left.
        Quick as a thought o’er red-hot floors he leapt,
        Through what seemed gulfs of fire, on to the roof
        Where stood the frantic man. The crowds below
        Looked on and scarcely breathed. They saw him reach
        The yet unperished roof-tree—saw him pause—
        Saw the two men start back, as from each other.
        They raised a cry to urge him on. They knew not
        That here he met his former enemy—
        The man who had returned him evil for good!
        And who had lost his place for breach of trust
        Some twelvemonths past, and now had come to want.
          “The flames approached the roof. A cry burst forth
        Again from the great crowd, and women fainted.
        And what did John, think you—this city fireman?
        —He looked upon the abject wretch before him,
        Who fell into a swoon at sight of him,
        So sensitive is even an evil conscience,
        And, speaking not a word, lifted him up
        And bore him safely down into the street—
        Then shook him from him like a noisome thing!
          “Anon the man revived, and with quick terror
        Asked for his child—his little four years’ son—
        But he had been forgotten—still was left
        Within the house to perish. Who would save him!
        Grovelling before his feet the father lay,
        Of all forgetful but of his dear child,
        And prayed the injured man who had saved his life
        To save the boy! ‘Why spake ye not of him?
        He was more worthy saving of the two!’
        Said John, abrupt and brief—and straight was gone.
        Once more he scaled the roof. The crowd was hushed
        Into deep silence: it had but one heart,
        Had but one breath, intense anxiety
        For that brave man who put again his life
        In such dire jeopardy. None spoke,
        But many a prayer was breathed. Along the roof
        Anon they saw him hurrying with the child.
        The red flames met him, hemmed him round about!
        Escape was not! The women sobbed and moaned
        Down in the crowd below; men gazed and trembled,
        And wild suggestions ran throughout the mass
        Of how he might be saved. But all were vain,
        Help was there none! Amid the roaring flames
        His voice was heard; he spake, they knew not what;
        They hurried to and fro; the engines drenched
        The burning pile. He made another sign!
        Oh, God! could they but know what was his wish!
        —They knew it not! The fierce flame mastered all—
        The roof fell in—the child—the man was lost!”
          The grandsire paused a moment, then went on;
        “Yes, in our common life of every day
        There are true heroes, truer, many a one,
        Than they whose deeds are blazoned forth on brass!
        —Now leave me to myself; give me my pipe—
        You’ve had your will; I’ve told you of a hero,
        One of God’s making—and he was, your own father!”




              THE LIFE AND LABOURS OF LIEUTENANT WAGHORN.


The great benefactors of our species may be divided into two grand
classes—the men of thought, and the men of action; the men whose genius
was chiefly in the realm of mind, and those whose power lies in tangible
things. Let no one set up the idle and invidious comparison as to which
of the two is the nobler, since both are equally needful to the world’s
progress; all great thoughts and theories, dreams and visions (let us
never fear the truth, but honor it even in using terms of vulgar and
shortsighted opprobrium) of men of genius and knowledge, being the germ
and origin of great actions,—and all great actions being the practical
working out of the former, without which no good to mankind at large can
be accomplished. To set thought and action, therefore, in opposition to
each other, is like setting the arms and legs of Hercules to quarrel
with his head while performing his labours. Nor can the distinction,
thus broadly stated, be drawn at all times with any definite precision,
since the man who conceives and developes a new principle, is sometimes
able to carry it out himself. This combination of powers in the same
individual is very rare, and is obviously one reason why, in most cases,
the originator of a new thing is neglected as a visionary, and a madman.
But the energy of thought to conceive and design displayed by Lieutenant
Waghorn, was more than equalled by the energy of character and action
required to carry out his stupendous plans. Sometimes with the best
assistance—sometimes with none—sometimes in defiance of contest,
opprobrium, and opposition—the vigour of mind and body of this man
caused him to undertake and to succeed in projects which are among the
most prominent of those which especially characterise the genius of the
present age.

We have intimated that Mr. Waghorn was both a man of thought and action,
but this must be understood with certain marked limitations. Mr.
Waghorn’s mind was of that peculiar construction, which appears never to
think earnestly except with a view to action. Even that quality, which
in other men is of the most ideal kind, and commonly exerts itself in
matters of little or no substantiality of fact and purpose, with him
partook of the physicality of his strong nature as much as the admixture
was possible,—so that he may be said to have had a practical
imagination. His objects and designs were welded into all the materials
of his understanding and knowledge; his ambitions and hopes were fused
with the generation of the mighty steam-forces that were to drive his
ships across the ocean and inland seas; the elasticity of his spirit was
identified with the flying speed of Arab horses, and dromedaries
carrying the “mail” across the desert; and when he projected a wonderful
shortening of time and space, he at the same moment beheld the broad
massive arm of England stretched across to govern and make use of her
enormous Indian territories, comprising a hundred million of souls. He
never thought of himself; he was too much engaged with the vastness of
his designs for his country. We shall see how that country rewarded his
efforts.

Thomas Waghorn was born at Chatham, in 1800. At twelve years of age he
became a midshipman in Her Majesty’s Navy; and before he had reached
seventeen, passed in “navigation” for Lieutenant, being the youngest
midshipman that had ever done so—the examination requiring a great
amount of both theoretical and practical knowledge, and being always
conducted with severity. This made him eligible to the rank of
lieutenant, but did not include it. At the close of the year 1817, he
was paid off, and went as third mate of a Free-trader to Calcutta. He
returned home, and, in 1819, obtained an appointment in the Bengal
Marine (Pilot-Service) of India, where he served till 1824. At the
request of the Bengal Government, he now volunteered for the Arracan
War, and received the command of the Honourable East India Company’s
cutter, Matchless, together with a division of gun-boats, and repaired
to the scene of action in Arracan, with the south-eastern division of
that army and flotilla. He was five times in action, saw much rough work
by land and by sea, and escaped with only one wound in the right thigh.
He remained two years and a half in this service, and after having
received the thanks of all the authorities in that province, he returned
to Calcutta in 1827, with a constitution already undermined from the
baneful fever of Arracan, where so many thousands had died.

Weakened as he had been, Mr. Waghorn nevertheless rallied to the great
project he had secretly at heart, namely, “A steam communication between
our Eastern possessions and their mother-country, England.” Even before
his departure from Calcutta on furlough, in 1827, ill in health, and
only imperfectly recovered from the Arracan fever, still, between its
attacks, his energies returned. He communicated his plan to the
officials, namely, the Marine Board at Calcutta, who forthwith advanced
it to the notice of the then Chief Secretary to the Bengal Government,
the present Mr. Charles Lushington, M.P. for Westminster; through whom
he obtained letters of credence from Lord Combermere, then acting as
Vice-President in Council (Earl Amherst, Governor-General, being on a
tour in Upper India), to the Honourable Court of Directors of the East
India Company in London, recommending him, in consequence of his
meritorious conduct in the Arracan War, “as a fit and proper person to
open Steam Navigation with India, _viâ_ the Cape of Good Hope.”

On his homeward voyage, Mr. Waghorn advocated this great object publicly
by every means in his power (the numerous attestations of which lie open
before us) at Madras, the Mauritius, the Cape, and St. Helena. Directly
he arrived in England, he set about the same thing, and advocated the
project at all points, particularly in London, Liverpool, Manchester,
Glasgow, Birmingham. But the Post Office, at that time, was opposed to
ocean steam-navigation; and so, unfortunately, were the East India
Directors,—with the single exception of Mr. Loch. Two whole years were
thus passed in fruitless efforts to make great men open their eyes. At
length, in October, 1829, Mr. Waghorn was summoned by Lord Ellenborough,
the then Chairman of the Court of Directors, to go to India, through
Egypt, with despatches for Sir John Malcolm, Governor of Bombay, &c.,
and more especially, to report upon the practicability of the Red Sea
Navigation for the Overland Route.

On the 28th of October, having had only four days’ previous notice from
the India House, Waghorn started on the top of the Eagle stage-coach
from the Spread Eagle, Gracechurch Street. All his luggage weighed about
twenty pounds. The East India Company’s steam-vessel Enterprise was
expected to be at Suez, in the Red Sea, from India, on or about the 8th
of December. It was much desired that despatches from England should
reach her at this place, which Mr. Waghorn undertook they should do. He
could not speak French nor Italian, both of which would have been very
advantageous; but he had some knowledge of Hindostanee, and a little
Arabic.

On this “trip,” as Waghorn calls it, so extraordinarily rapid was the
first part of his journey, _viz._ to Trieste (accomplished in nine days
and a half, through five kingdoms) that an enquiry was instituted by the
Foreign Office respecting it; for at this time our Post Office Letters
occupied fourteen days in reaching that place. Yet Waghorn had been
obliged to travel upwards of one hundred and thirty miles out of his
direct way, in consequence of broken bridges, falling avalanches, and
the disabling of a steamer.

Instantly enquiring for the quickest means of getting on to Alexandria,
he was informed that an Austrian brig had sailed only the evening
before, and having had calms and light airs all night, she was still in
sight from the tops of the hills. Away he dashed in a fresh posting
carriage, because if he could reach Pesano, through Capo D’Istria,
twenty miles down the eastern side of the Gulf of Venice, before the
Austrian vessel had passed, he might embark from this port as passenger
for Alexandria. On reaching Pesano, he could still distinguish the
vessel, and he accordingly strove to increase the rapidity of his chase
to the utmost. He got within three miles of the vessel. At this juncture
a strong northerly wind sprang up, and carrying her forward on her
course, she was presently lost to sight. Exhausted in body, and
“racked,” as he says, by disappointment after the previous excitement,
he returned to Trieste.

Ascertaining that the next opportunity of getting to Alexandria would be
by a Spanish ship, which was now taking in her cargo in the quarantine
ground, he instantly hastened there. The captain informed him that he
could not possibly sail in less than three days, and required one
hundred dollars for the passage. Waghorn directly offered him one
hundred and fifty dollars if he would sail in eight-and-forty hours.
Whereupon the captain found that it _was_ just possible to do so; and he
kept his word.

  “After a tedious passage of sixteen days,” says Waghorn, to whom every
  hour that did not fly was no doubt tedious, “I arrived at Alexandria,
  but hearing that Mr. Barker, who held the combined offices of Consul
  General in Egypt, and agent to the Honourable East India Company, was
  at his country-house at Rosetta, I hired donkeys, and was on my way
  for it after five hours’ stay at Alexandria.”

One ludicrous characteristic of the Alexandrian donkeys is worth
recording. Never in future can we regard the epithet of “an ass,” as
being properly synonymous with stupidity. The creatures ambled and
trotted along very well during the first day; but on the subsequent
morning, when they clearly perceived that a long journey was before
them, they fell down intentionally four or five times, with all the
signs of fatigue and weakness. The drivers informed him that it was a
common practice of the donkeys.

Embarking on the Nile, our traveller made it his business to navigate
the boat himself, in order to take soundings, and to obtain as much
knowledge as would promote both the immediate and future objects of his
journey.

Mr. Waghorn rested at Rosetta, to recover from his fatigue, and then set
out for Cairo on a _cangé_, a sort of boat of fifteen tons’ burthen,
with two large latteen-sails. The _rais_, or captain, agreed to land him
at Cairo in three days and four nights, or receive nothing. This he
failed to do, in consequence of the boat grounding on the shoal of
Shallakan. Waghorn’s notions of a reason for fatigue, may be curiously
gathered from a remark he makes incidentally on this occasion. “The
crew,” says he, “were _almost_ fatigued: we have been continually
tacking for _five_ days and nights.” Being out of all patience, he left
the boat, and again mounting donkeys, proceeded with his servant to
Cairo. He left his luggage behind him, merely taking his despatches.

Having obtained camels, and a requisite passport from the Pasha,
Mohammed Ali, to guarantee his safe passage across the Desert of Suez;
Mr. Waghorn left Cairo on the 5th of December for Suez, and at sunset
had pitched his tent on the Desert at six miles distance.

At dawn of day, he was again on his journey, and managed to travel
thirty-four miles beneath the burning sun before he halted. The next day
he journeyed thirty miles, and in the evening pitched his tent only four
miles short of Suez. The next day, he reached the appointed place, and
there rested, the Enterprise not having yet arrived.

While waiting with the greatest impatience the arrival of this steamer,
Mr. Waghorn appears to have endeavoured to calm himself by jotting down
a few observations on the Desert he had just crossed. These
observations, slight and few as they are, must be “made much of,” as
they are, of all things, the rarest with him. He always saw the _end_
before him, and nearly all his observations were confined to the means
of attaining it.

  “The Desert of Suez, commencing from Cairo, a gentle ascent, about
  thirty-five miles on the way; then, the same gradual descent till you
  arrive at the plains of Suez. The soil of the first five miles from
  Cairo is fine sand; then, coarse sand, inclinable to gravel. Within
  twelve miles of Suez” (notice—he is tired already of description, and
  brings you within twelve miles of the place) “you meet many sand-hills
  between, till you arrive at the plains before mentioned, which form a
  perfect level for miles in extent, leading you to the gates of Suez.

  “The antelopes I observed in parties of about a dozen each, and the
  camel-drivers informed me that they creep under the shrubs about
  eighteen inches high, to catch the drops of dew, which is the only
  means they have of relieving their thirst. I saw partridges in covies
  of from six to seven, but nowhere on the wing: they were running about
  the Desert, and I was informed they were not eaten even by the Arabs.”

Considering the food they pick up in the Desert, perhaps this is no
wonder.

Having informed us that camels are to be had very cheaply at Suez—say a
dollar each camel for fifty miles’ distance—and that the water is very
brackish, he suddenly adds, with characteristic brevity, “To save
recapitulation in _describing_ Cossier, it is the same as Suez, _viz._,
camels are to be had in abundance at a trifling expense, and the water
is as bad.”

He remained at Suez two days, waiting with feverish anxiety the expected
arrival of the Enterprise. She still did not appear—a strong N.W. wind
blowing directly down the sea. Being quite unable to endure the suspense
any longer, he determined to embark on the Red Sea in an open boat,
intending to sail down its centre, in hopes of meeting her between Suez
and Cossier.

All the seamen of the locality vigorously remonstrated with Mr. Waghorn
against this attempt, and he well knew that the nautical authorities,
both of the East India House and the British Government, were of opinion
that the Red Sea was not navigable. But he had important Government
despatches to deliver—had pledged himself to deliver them on board the
Enterprise, and considering that his course of duty, as well as his
reputation as a traveller, were at stake, he persisted in his
determination. Accordingly, he embarked in an open boat, and without
having any personal knowledge of the navigation of this sea, without
chart, without compass, or even the encouragement of a single precedent
for such an enterprise—his only guide the sun by day, and the North star
by night—he sailed down the centre of the Red Sea.

Of this most interesting and unprecedented voyage, the narrative of
which everybody would have read with such avidity, Mr. Waghorn gives no
detailed account. He disappoints you of all the circumstances. All
intermediate things are abruptly cut off with these very characteristic
words:—“_Suffice it_ to say, _I arrived_ at Juddah, 620 miles, in six
and a half days, in that boat!” You get nothing more than the sum total.
He kept a sailor’s log-journal; but it is only meant for sailors to
read, though now and then you obtain a glimpse of the sort of work he
went through. Thus:—“_Sunday_, 13th, strong N.W. wind, half a gale, but
scudding under storm-sail. Sunset, anchored for the night. Jaffateen
islands out of sight to the N. Lost two anchors during the night,” &c.
The rest is equally nautical and technical. In one of the many scattered
papers collected since the death of Mr. Waghorn, we find a very slight
passing allusion to toils, perils, and privations, which, however, he
calmly says, were “inseparable from such a voyage under such
circumstances,”—but not one touch of description from first to last.

A more extraordinary instance of great practical experience and
knowledge, resolutely and fully carrying out a project which must of
necessity have appeared little short of madness to almost everybody
else, was never recorded. He was perfectly successful, so far as the
navigation was concerned, and in the course he adopted, notwithstanding
that his crew of six Arabs mutinied. It appears (for he tells us only
the bare fact) they were only subdued on the principle known to
philosophers in theory, and to high-couraged men, accustomed to command,
by experience, _viz._, that the one man who is braver, stronger, and
firmer than any individual of ten or twenty men, is more than a match
for the ten or twenty put together. He touched at Cossier on the 14th,
not having fallen in with the Enterprise. There he was told by the
Governor that the steamer was expected every hour. Mr. Waghorn was in no
state of mind to wait very long; so, finding she did not arrive, he
again put to sea in his open boat, resolved, if he did not fall in with
her, to proceed the entire distance to Juddah—a distance of four hundred
miles further. Of this further voyage he does not leave any record, even
in his log, beyond the simple declaration that he “embarked for
Juddah—ran the distance in three days and twenty-one hours and a
quarter—and on the 23rd anchored his boat close to one of the East India
Company’s cruisers, the Benares.”

But, now comes the most trying part of his whole undertaking—the part
which a man of his vigorously constituted impulses was least able to
bear as the climax of his prolonged and arduous efforts, privations,
anxieties, and fatigue. Repairing on board the Benares, to learn the
news, the captain informed him, that in consequence of being found in a
defective state on her arrival at Bombay, “the Enterprise was not coming
at all.” This intelligence seems to have felled him like a blow, and he
was immediately seized with a delirious fever. The captain and officers
of the Benares felt great sympathy and interest in this sad result of so
many extraordinary efforts, and detaining him on board, bestowed every
attention on his malady.

“Thus baffled,” writes Mr. Waghorn, “I was six weeks before I could
proceed onward to Bombay by sailing vessel.” On arriving at Bombay with
his despatches, the thanks of the Government in Council, &c., were voted
to him, “for having, when disappointed of a steamer, proceeded with
these despatches in an open boat, down the Red Sea, &c.” There was
evidently much more said of a complimentary kind, but Waghorn cuts all
short with the _et cætera_.

He reached Bombay on the 21st of March, having thus accomplished his
journey from London in four months and twenty-one days—an extraordinary
rapidity at this date, 1830. Of course, the time he was detained in
Cairo, Suez, Cossier, and Juddah (where he lay ill with the fever six
weeks), ought to be deducted, because he would have saved all this time,
fever inclusive, if he had not expected the Enterprise from India.

He now turned his attention to a series of fresh exhortations to large
public meetings which he convened at different places—Calcutta, Madras,
the Isle of France, the Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, &c., on the
subject of shortening the route from England to India, and greatly
lessening the time. He described the various points of the new route he
proposed, and also the new kind of steam-vessel which it was advisable
to have built and fitted up, for the sole purpose of a rapid
transmission of the mail. In an “Address to His Majesty’s Ministers and
the Honourable East India Company,” which we find among his papers,
there occurs the following passage—simple in expression, noble in its
quiet modesty, but pregnant with enormous results to his country, all of
which have already, in a great degree, been accomplished.

  “Of myself I trust I may be excused when I say that the highest object
  of my ambition has ever been an extensive usefulness; and my line of
  life—my turn of mind—my disposition long ago impelled me to give all
  my leisure, and all my opportunities of observation, to the
  introduction of steam-vessels, and permanently establishing them as
  the means of communication between India and England, including all
  the colonies on the route. The vast importance of three months’
  earlier information to His Majesty’s Government and to the Honourable
  Company, whether relative to a war or a peace; to abundant or to short
  crops; to the sickness or convalescence of a colony or district, and
  oftentimes even of an individual; the advantages to the merchant, by
  enabling him to regulate his supplies and orders according to
  circumstances and demands; the anxieties of the thousands of my
  countrymen in India for accounts, and further accounts, of their
  parents, children, and friends at home; the corresponding anxieties of
  those relatives and friends in this country; in a word, the speediest
  possible transit of letters to the tens of thousands who at all times
  in solicitude await them, was a service to my mind,” (of the greatest
  general importance) “and it shall not be my fault if I do not, and for
  ever, establish it.”

By his indefatigable efforts in India, having extensively made known his
plans and methods for accomplishing these great objects, and bringing
home with him the testimonial of thanks he had received from the
Governor in Council of Bombay, he returned to England. Let his own
words—homely, earnest, straightforward, full of sailor-like simplicity,
impulsive, and fraught with important results—relate his reception.

  “Armed with the record of the Governor’s thanks, I commenced an active
  agitation in India for the establishment of steam to Europe. In
  prosecution of this design, I returned to England, expecting, of
  course, to be received with open arms—at the India House especially.
  Judge of my surprise on being told by the successor of Mr. Loch
  (Chairman of the court), that the India Company required no steam to
  the East at all!

  “I told him that the feeling in India was most ardent for it; that I
  had convened large public meetings at Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta,
  and, in fact, all over the Peninsula, which I had traversed by _dawk_;
  that the Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck, was enthusiastic in
  the same cause, and had done me the honour to predict (with what
  prescience need not now, in 1849, be stated), that if ever the object
  was accomplished, it would be by the man who had navigated the Red Sea
  in an open boat, under the circumstances already named.

  “To all this the Chairman made answer that the Governor-General and
  people of India had nothing to do with the India House; and if I did
  not go back and join _their_ pilot service, to which I belonged, I
  should receive such a communication from that House as would be by no
  means agreeable to me!

  “On the instant I penned my resignation, and placing it in his hands,
  then gave utterance to the sentiment which actuated me from that
  moment till the moment I realised my aspiration—that I would establish
  the Overland Route, in spite of the India House.”

How little must the public of the present day be prepared to find such a
condition of affairs, or anything in the shape of antagonism in such a
quarter, now that the Overland Route has become not only a practical
thing for the “mail” but for ordinary travellers and tourists, and a
matter of panorama and pantomime, of dioramic effects and burlesque
songs—the sublime, and the ridiculous! But how did it fare with our
enterprising sailor, after penning his resignation, and handing it in
with such a declaration and defiance?

  “This avowal,” says Lieutenant Waghorn, “most impolitic on my part as
  regarded my individual interests, is perhaps the key to much of the
  otherwise inexplicable opposition I subsequently met with from those
  upon whose most energetic co-operation I had every apparent reason to
  rely. I proceeded to Egypt, not only without official recommendation,
  but with a sort of official stigma on my sanity!

  “The Government nautical authorities reported that the Red Sea was not
  navigable; and the East India Company’s naval officers declared, that,
  if it _were_ navigable, the North-Westers peculiar to those waters,
  and the South-West monsoons of the Indian Ocean, would swallow all
  steamers up! And, as if there were not enough to crush me in the eyes
  of foreigners and my own countrymen, documents were actually laid
  before Parliament, showing that coals had cost the East India Company
  twenty pounds per ton, at Suez, and had taken _fifteen months_ to get
  there.”

Notwithstanding all these apparently overwhelming allegations, Mr.
Waghorn succeeded in convincing the Pasha of the entire practicability
of his plans; and having fully gained the confidence of that potentate,
he obtained permission to proceed according to his own judgment. By
means of his intimate knowledge of the whole route and all its
contingencies, Mr. Waghorn saw that coals might be brought readily
enough to Alexandria—then up the Nile—then across the Desert on
camels—for not more than five pounds per ton. He immediately hastened
back to England, and was “fortunate enough” to impress his conviction on
this point on a very able public servant, Mr. Melville, Secretary to the
East India House; and through his instrumentality one thousand tons of
coals were conveyed by the route, and by the means above-mentioned, from
the pit’s mouth to the hold of the steamer at Suez, for four pounds
three shillings and sixpence.

  “From that hour to this (June, 1849), the same plan, at the same, and
  even a smaller cost, has been pursued in respect of all the coals of
  the East India Company,—the saving in ten years being _three quarters
  of a million_ sterling, as between the estimated, and the actual cost
  of coal.”

Having now most deservedly obtained the friendship of the Pasha, Mr.
Waghorn was enabled to establish mails to India, and to keep that
service in his own hands during five years. On one occasion he actually
succeeded in getting letters from Bombay to England in _forty-seven
days_; and immediately afterwards both the English Government and the
Honourable East India Company, at the pressing solicitations of the
London, East India, and China Associations (Mr., since Sir George
Larpent, Chairman) started mails of their own—taking from Mr. Waghorn
the conveyance of letters, without the least compensation for the loss,
from that time to this (1849); these authorities having, till then,
repeatedly declared that they had no intention of having mails by this
route at all.

It should not be omitted, that, during these efforts, Mr. Waghorn
feeling that his position in India would be much advantaged, and
therefore his means of utility, if he could receive the rank of
Lieutenant in the British Navy, made repeated applications to this
effect, from 1832 to 1842. But in vain. He thought that his great
services might have obtained this reward for him, especially as it would
add to his means of usefulness. But no. Government, like the serpent, is
a wonderful “wise beast,” and the ways of Ministers are inscrutable. All
spoke of his merits, but none rewarded them. At length, in 1842, Lord
Haddington, being Head of the Admiralty, did grant this scarce and
astonishing honour! Egypt actually beheld the man, who had brought
England within forty-seven days of her sands, before any steam system
was in operation between the two countries, permitted to write the
letters R.N. after his natural name!

In conjunction with others, partners in the undertaking, Lieutenant
Waghorn now arranged for the carriage of passengers, the building of
hotels at Alexandria, Cairo, and other places, and he soon familiarised
the Desert with the novel spectacle of harnessed horses, vans, and all
the usual adjuncts of English travelling, instead of the precarious Arab
and his primeval camel. These, with packet-boats on the Nile, and the
canal (and afterwards with steamers), duly provided with English
superintendants, rendered Eastern travel as easy as a journey of the
same length in the hot summer of any of the most civilised countries.

Lieutenant Waghorn had now every prospect of making this hitherto
undreamed-of novelty as profitable to himself in remuneration of his
many arduous labours, as it was serviceable and commodious to the vast
numbers of all countries, especially his own, who availed themselves of
it. But unfortunately, just when his enterprise, industry, capital, and
his possession of Mehemet Ali’s friendship were beginning to produce
their natural results, the honourable English Government and the
honourable East India Company “gave the monopoly of a chartered contract
to an opulent and powerful Company!” Lieutenant Waghorn had coupled with
his passenger system the carriage of overland parcels, which was a
source of great profit, and through it there was a constant accession to
the comforts of the passengers in transit. But it would seem as if the
Government and the India House regarded this man only as an instrument
to work out advantages for them, in especial, and the world at large,
but the moment he had a prospect of obtaining some reward for himself,
it was proper to stop him. Had he not been allowed to write Lieutenant
before his name, and R.N. after it? What more would he have?

  “This Company,” says Waghorn, “already extensive carriers by water,
  gleaned from my firm the secret of conducting my business with an
  alleged view to supply it on a much more comprehensive scale, and _to
  employ us in so doing_; but when nothing more remained to be learned
  from us, we were forthwith superseded, though with a useless and
  utterly unproductive expenditure, on the part of our successors, of
  six times the money we should have required to accomplish the same
  end. Overwhelmed by the competition of this giant association, I was
  entirely deprived of all advantages of this creation of my own energy,
  and left with it a ruin on my hands, though to have secured me at
  least the Egyptian transit would not only have been but the merest
  justice to an individual, but would have been a material gain to the
  British, public, politically and otherwise. In my hand the English
  traffic was English, and I venture to say that English it would have
  continued to this day, had I not been interfered with. But my
  successors gave it up to the Pasha.”

The absence of all circumstantial descriptions and all graphic details
in the papers, both printed and in manuscript, we have previously
noticed. We had at first made sure of being able to present our readers
with a picturesque and exciting narrative of the Life and Adventures of
Lieutenant Waghorn—for adventures, in abundance, both on the sea and the
Desert, he must assuredly have had; but he does not give us a single peg
to hang an action or event upon, not a single suggestion for a romantic
scene. Once we thought we had at last discovered among his papers a
treasure of this kind. It was a manuscript bound in a strong cover, and
having a patent lock. Inside was printed, in large letters, “Private:
Daily Remembrancer: Mr. Waghorn.” It contains absolutely nothing of the
kind that was evidently at first intended. It is crammed full of
newspaper cuttings; and the only memoranda and remembrances are two or
three melancholy affairs of bills and mortgages made to pay debts
incurred in the public service. So much for his daily journal of events
while travelling. He was manifestly so completely a man of action, that
he could not afford a minute to note it down. Had it not been for the
vexatious oppositions by which he was thwarted, and the painful
memorials and petitions he was subsequently compelled, as we shall find,
to present in various quarters, we verily believe he would have given us
no written records at all of a single thing he did, and all that would
have been left, in the course of a few years after his death, would have
been the “Overland Route,” and the name of “Waghorn.”

We must now take a cursory view of his labours. To do this in any
regular order is hardly possible, partly from the space they would
occupy, but yet more from the desultory and unmanageable condition of
the papers and documents before us.

During many years he sailed and travelled hundreds of thousands of miles
between England and India, more particularly from the year 1827 to 1835,
inclusive; passing up and down the Red Sea with mails, before the East
India Company had any steam system on that sea. On one very special
occasion, on this side the Isthmus, in October 1839, when the news
arrived at Alexandria from Bombay, of Sir John (late Lord) Keane’s
success at Ghuznee, he managed to obtain the use of the Pasha of Egypt’s
own steamer, the Generoso, the very next day after Her Majesty’s steamer
left Alexandria; and he personally commanded this vessel, and conveyed
the mail to Malta, which was immediately sent on by the Admiral there,
to England. Of such acts of special usefulness on occasions of great
emergency, numerous instances might be related of him. His services in
Egypt are well known to all who dwell there, or have travelled in that
country. For the information of such as may not have any personal
knowledge of these things, we may mention a few of the most prominent.
Lieutenant Waghorn and his partners, without any aid whatever, with the
single exception of the Bombay Steam Committee, built the eight halting
places on the Desert, between Cairo and Suez; also the three hotels
established above them, in which every comfort and even some luxuries
were provided and stored for the passing traveller—among which should be
mentioned iron tanks with good water, ranged in cellars beneath;—and all
this in a region which was previously a waste of arid sands and
scorching gravel, beset with wandering robbers and their camels. These
wandering robbers he converted into faithful guides, as they are now
found to be by every traveller; and even ladies with their infants are
enabled to cross and recross the Desert with as much security as if they
were in Europe.

He neglected no means of making us acquainted with our position and line
of policy in these countries. He wrote and published pamphlets in
England to show the justice and sound policy of our having friendly
relations with Egypt, in opposition to the undue position of Turkey
(1837, 1838); also, to make his countrymen conversant with the character
of Mehemet Ali, and with the countries of Egypt, Arabia, and Syria
(1840); another on the acceleration of mails between England and the
East (1843); and a letter to Earl Grey on emigration to Australia
(1848). At this time, in conjunction with Mr. Wheatley, he had
established an agency for the Overland Route to India, China, &c., and
had offices in Cornhill, which are still in active operation. The
enormous subsequent increase of letters to India by the mail, may be
inferred from this fact—that in his first arrangement, Lieutenant
Waghorn had all letters for India sent to Messrs. Smith and Elder of
Cornhill, to be stamped, and then forwarded to him in Alexandria: the
earliest despatches amounted to one hundred and eighty-four letters;
this number is now more than doubled by the correspondence of Smith and
Elder alone, on their own business. They were the first booksellers who
rightly appreciated Mr. Waghorn’s efforts; and they cordially
co-operated with him.

  “When he left Egypt, in 1841, he had established English carriages,
  vans, and horses, for the passengers’ conveyance across the Desert
  (instead of camels); indeed, he placed small steamers (from England)
  on the Nile and the canal of Alexandria. Every fraction of his money
  was spent by him in getting more and more facilities; and, had the
  saving of money been one of the characteristics of his nature, the
  Overland Route would not be as useful as it now is—and this is
  acknowledged by all. Mr. Waghorn claimed for himself, and most justly,
  the merit of this work: he claimed it without fear of denial; and
  stated upon his honour, that no money or means were ever received by
  him from either Her Majesty’s Government or the East India Company to
  aid it. It grew into life altogether from his having, by his own
  energy and private resources, worked the ‘Overland Mails’ to and from
  India for two years, (from 1831 to 1834) in his own individual person.
  ‘Will it be believed,’ says he, ‘that up to that time Mr. Waghorn was
  thought and called by many, a Visionary, and by some a Madman?’”

It may very easily be believed that this was thought and said, as it is
a common practice with the world when anything extraordinary is
performed for the first time; and though it may be hard enough for the
individual to bear, we may simply set it down as the first step to the
admission of his success. But it is very clear the Pasha was wise enough
to recognise the value of the man who had done so much, and not only
accorded him his friendship and assistance on all occasions, but sent
him on one occasion as his confidential messenger to Khosru Pasha, Grand
Vizier to the Sultan at Constantinople, in 1839, as well as to Lord
Ponsonby, who was there as Ambassador from England at this time.

Nor did his merit pass unrecognised in his own country; first by the
public generally, though, perhaps, first of all by the “Times”
newspaper, the proprietors of which were subsequently munificent in
their pecuniary assistance of his efforts in the Trieste experiments, as
indeed were the morning papers generally. In six successive months he
accomplished the gain of thirteen days _viâ_ Trieste over the Marseilles
route. Lords Palmerston and Aberdeen, as foreign ministers of England;
Lords Ellenborough, Glenelg, and Ripon, and Sir John Hobhouse, as
presidents of the India Board, were also fully aware of his labours in
bringing about the “Overland Route” through Egypt, and thus giving
stability to English interests in our Eastern empire.

And now comes the melancholy end of all these so arduous and important
labours. Embarrassed in his own private circumstances from the
expenditure of all his own funds, and large debts contracted besides,
solely in effecting these public objects, he was compelled, after vainly
endeavouring to extricate himself by establishing in London an office of
agency for the Overland Route, to apply to the India House and the
Government for assistance. His constitution was by this time broken up
by the sort of toil he had gone through in the last twenty years, and he
merely asked to have his public debts paid, and enough allowed him as a
pension to enable him to close his few remaining days in rest. He was
still in the prime of life; but prematurely old from his hard work.

In consequence of various memorials and petitions the India House
awarded Lieutenant Waghorn a pension of 200_l._ per annum; and the
Government did the same. But they would not pay the debts he had
contracted in their service. If he had made a bad bargain, he must abide
by it, and suffer for it. Both pensions, therefore, were compromised to
his creditors, and he remained without any adequate means of support.
The following extract, with which we must conclude, is from his last
memorial:—

  “The immediate origin and cause of my embarrassments was a forfeited
  promise on the part of the Treasury and the India House, whereby only
  four instead of six thousand pounds, relied on by me, were paid
  towards the Trieste Route experiments in the winter of 1846–7, when,
  single-handed, and despite unparalleled and wholly unforeseen
  difficulties, I eclipsed, on five trials out of six, the long
  organised arrangements of the French authorities, specially stimulated
  to all possible exertion, and supplied with unlimited means by M.
  Guizot. On the first of these six occasions, there arose the breaking
  down, on the Indian Ocean, of the steamer provided for me, thereby
  trebling the computed expenses through the delay; and when, startled
  by this excessive outlay, I hesitated to entail more, the Treasury and
  the India House told me to proceed, to do the service well, and make
  out my bill afterwards. I did proceed. I did the service not only
  well, not only to the satisfaction of my employers, but in a manner
  that elicited the admiration of Europe, as all the Continental and
  British journals of that period, besides heaps of private
  testimonials, demonstrated. My rivals, to whom the impediments in my
  path were best known, were loudest in their acknowledgments; and the
  only drawback to my just pride was the incredulity manifested in some
  quarters, that I could have actually accomplished what (it is
  notorious) I did at any time, much less among the all but impassable
  roads of the Alps, in the depth of a winter of far more than ordinary
  Alpine severity. I presented my bill. _It was dishonoured._ I had made
  myself an invalid, had sown the seeds of a broken constitution, in the
  performance of that duty. The disappointment occasioned by the
  non-payment of the two thousand pounds, has preyed incessantly upon me
  since; and now, a wreck alike almost in mind and body, I am sustained
  alone by the hope, that the annals of the Insolvent Court will not
  have inscribed upon them the Pioneer of the Overland Route, because of
  obligations he incurred for the public, by direction of the public
  authorities.”

The date of this memorial is June 8th, 1849. High testimonials are
appended to it from Lords Palmerston, Aberdeen, Ellenborough, Harrowby,
Combermere, Ripon, Sir John Hobhouse, Sir Robert Gordon, and Mr. Joseph
Hume. But it did not produce any effect; the debts and the harassing
remained; and the pioneer of the Overland Route died very shortly
afterwards;—we cannot say of a broken heart, because his constitution
had been previously shattered by his labours. Yet it looks sadly like
this. He might have lived some years longer. He was only forty-seven.
The pension awarded him by the India House he had only possessed
eighteen months; and the pension from Government had been yet more
tardily bestowed, so that he only lived to receive the first quarter.

At his death both pensions died with him, his widow being left to
starve. The India House, however, have lately granted her a pension of
fifty pounds; and the Government, naïvely stating, as if in excuse for
the extravagance, that it was in consequence of the “eminent services”
performed by her late husband, awarded her the sum of twenty-five pounds
per annum. This twenty-five pounds having been the subject of many
comments from the press, both of loud indignation and cutting ridicule,
the Government made a second grant, with the statement that “in
consequence of the _extreme_ destitution of Mrs. Waghorn,” a further sum
was awarded of fifteen pounds more! This is the fact, and such are the
terms of the grant. Why, it reads like an act of clemency towards some
criminal or other offender;—“You have been very wicked, you know; but as
you are in _extreme destitution_, here are a few pounds more.”

While these above-mentioned petitions, memorials, and struggles for life
and honour were going on, great numbers of our wealthy countrymen were
rushing with bags of money to pour out at the feet of Mr. Hudson, M.P.,
in reward for his having made the largest fortune in the shortest time
ever known;—and soon after the Government munificence had been bestowed
on the destitute widow of Lieutenant Waghorn, the Marquis of Lansdowne
and the Marquis of Londonderry, in their places in the House of Lords,
eulogised the splendid “military ability” of F. M. the late Duke of
Cambridge, speaking in high terms of the great deeds he would have
achieved, “if he had only had an opportunity,” and voting a pension of
twelve thousand pounds a year to his destitute son, and three thousand
pounds a year to his destitute daughter.

We have now beheld the labours, and the reward, of the pioneer of the
Overland Route; who, for the establishment of this route and for
manifold services subsequently rendered, received the “thanks” of three
quarters of the globe, that is to say, of Europe, Asia, and Africa,
“besides numberless letters of ‘thanks’ from mercantile communities at
every point where Eastern trade is concerned!” His public debts are not
paid to this day.




                                 CHIPS.


                       THE KNOCKING UP BUSINESS.

New wants are being continually invented, and new trades are,
consequently, daily springing up. A correspondent brings to light a
novel branch of the manufacturing industry of this country, which was
revealed to him in Manchester. Lately, he observes, I was passing
through a bye-street in Manchester, when my attention was attracted by a
card placed conspicuously in the window of a decent-looking house, on
which was inscribed, in good text,

                 “KNOCKING UP DONE HERE AT 2D. A WEEK.”

I stopped a few moments to consider what it could mean, and chose out of
a hundred conjectures the most feasible, namely:—that it referred
perhaps to the “getting up” of some portion of a lady’s dress, or
knocking up some article of attire or convenience in a hurry. I asked
persons connected with all sorts of handicrafts and small trades, and
could get no satisfaction. I therefore determined to enquire at the
“Knocking up” establishment itself. Thither, accordingly, I bent my
steps. On asking for the master, a pale-faced asthmatic man came
forward. I politely told him the object of my visit, adding, that from
so small a return as 2d. a week, he ought to get at least half profit.
“Why, to tell you the truth, Sir,” rejoined the honest fellow, “as my
occupation requires no outlay or stock in trade, ’tis _all_ profit.”
“Admirable profession!” I ejaculated, “If it is no secret, I should like
to be initiated; for several friends of mine are very anxious to
commence business on the same terms.”

Not having the fear of rivalry before his eyes, he solved the mystery
without any stipulations as to secrecy or premium. He said that he was
employed by a number of young men and women who worked in factories, to
call them up by a certain early hour in the morning; for if they
happened to oversleep themselves and to arrive at the mill after work
had commenced, they were liable to the infliction of a fine, and
therefore, to insure being up in good time, employed him to “knock them
up” at two-pence a week.

On further enquiry, he told me that he himself earned fourteen shillings
per week, and his son—only ten years old—awoke factory people enough to
add four shillings more to his weekly income. He added, that a friend of
his did a very extensive “knocking up” business, his connexion being
worth thirty shillings per week; and one woman he knew had a circuit
that brought her in twenty-four shillings weekly.

There is an old saying, that one half the world does not know how the
other half live. I question whether ninety-nine hundredths of your
readers will have known till you permit me to inform them how our
Manchester friends, in the “Knocking up” line, get a livelihood.




                   STATISTICS OF FACTORY SUPERVISION.


The Rev. Mr. Baker has recently issued a pamphlet, defending the moral
tone of the factory system against the charges brought against it in the
Rev. H. Worsley’s Prize Essay on Juvenile Depravity. We purposely
abstain from discussing the merits of the controversy, believing that
the truth lies between the two extremes advocated respectively by the
reverend disputants. Mr. Henry, however, gives a table of statistics, an
abstract of which we cannot withhold. It shows the number of spinning
and power-loom weaving concerns in the principal manufacturing districts
of Lancashire and Cheshire; also, the number of partners, so far as they
are known to the public.

It appears that in Ashton-under-Lyne, Dunkinfield, and Moseley, there
are fifty-three mills in the hands of ninety-five partners; Blackburn,
and its immediate neighbourhood, has fifty-seven mills and eighty
partners; Bolton, forty-two mills and fifty-seven partners; Barnley,
twenty-five spinning manufactories and forty-six proprietors; at Heywood
there are twenty-eight mills in the hands of forty-six masters.
Manchester, it would appear, is not so much the seat of manufacture as
of merchandise. Though it abounds in warehouses for the sale of cotton
goods, there are no more than seventy-eight cotton factories, having one
hundred and thirty-nine masters. Oldham has the greatest number of
mills; namely, one hundred and fifty-eight, with two hundred and
fifty-two proprietors; Preston, thirty-eight mills, sixty-two partners;
Stalybridge, twenty cotton concerns and forty-one proprietors;
Stockport, forty-seven mills and seventy-six masters; while Warrington
has no more than four mills, owned by ten gentlemen. The total number of
cotton manufactories in these districts is five hundred and fifty, which
belong to nine hundred and four “Cotton Lords.”

Mr. Baker’s “case” is that a proper moral supervision is exercised over
the tens of thousands of operatives employed in these factories; and
that such supervision is not delegated from principals to subordinates.
It would seem, from his showing, that of the nine hundred and four
proprietors, no more than twenty-nine do not reside where their concerns
are situated; and that of the entire aggregate of mills, there are only
four in or near to which no proprietor resides. Lancashire and Cheshire
cotton factories, therefore, are as regards absenteeism, the direct
antithesis of Irish estates. The consequence is, that while the former
are in a state of average, though intermittent prosperity, the latter
have gone to ruin.




                  COMIC LEAVES FROM THE STATUTE BOOK.


The most manifest absurdities while remaining in fashion receive the
greatest respect; for it is not till Time affords a retrospect that the
full force of the absurdity is revealed. When men and women went about
dressed like the characters in the farce of Tom Thumb, we of the present
day wonder that they excited no mirth; nor can we now believe that
Betterton drew tears as _Cato_ in a full-bottomed wig. A beauty who a
dozen years ago excited admiration in the balloon-like costume of that
day, would now, if presenting herself in full-blown leg-of-mutton
sleeves, excite a smile. The more intelligent natives of Mexico are now
more disposed to grin than to shudder, as they once did, at their
comical idols. Everybody has heard of the monkey-god of India. In our
day, those who once adored and dreaded him, would as readily worship
_Punch_, and receive his squeakings for oracles, as to bow down before
the Great Monkey.

Amongst the most prominent superstitions in which our forefathers
believed, as a commercial opinion and rule of legislation, was
“Protection;” and we have not awakened too recently from the delusion
which descended from them not to perceive its absurdities, especially on
looking over their voluminous legacy, the Statute Book. Before, however,
we open some of its most comical pages, let us premise that the question
of Protection is not a political one. Of the precise force and meaning
of the term, there is a large class of “constant readers” who have no
definite idea. The word “Protection” calls up in their minds a sort of
phantasmagoria composed chiefly of Corn-law leagues, tedious debates in
Parliament, Custom-houses, excisemen, smugglers, preventive-men and
mounted coast-guards. They know it has to do with imports, exports,
drawbacks, the balance of trade, and with being searched when they step
ashore from a Boulogne steamer. Floating over this indefinite
construction of the term, they have a general opinion that Protection
must be a good thing, for they also associate it most intimately with
the guardianship of the law, which protects them from the swindler, and
with the policeman, who protects them from the thief. That powerful and
patriotic sentiment, “Protection to British Industry,” must, they think,
be nearly the same sort of thing, except that it means protection from
the tricks of foreigners instead of from those of compatriots. They
confess that, believing the whole matter to be a complicated branch of
politics, they have had neither time nor patience to “go into it.”

In supposing the question of Free Trade or Protection to be a political
one, they are, as we have before hinted, in error. It has no more to do
with politics than their own transactions with the grocer and the
coal-merchant; for it treats of the best mode of carrying on a nation’s,
instead of an individual’s dealings with foreign marts and foreign
customers. They are also wrong in supposing that protection to life and
property is of the same character as that to which British industry is
subjected. The difference can be easily explained; and although
doubtless the majority of our readers are quite aware of it, yet for the
benefit of the above-described, who are not, we will point it
out:—Connected, as everybody knows, with whatever is protected, there
must be two parties—A, in whose _favour_ it is protected; and B,
_against_ whom it is protected. Legitimate and wholesome protection
preserves the property we wish to guard against our enemies; impolitic
and unwholesome protection too securely preserves property to us which
we are most anxious to get rid of—by sale or barter,—against our best
friends, our customers.

These elementary explanations are absolutely essential for the thorough
enjoyment of the broad comedy, which here and there lightens up that
grave publication, the Statutes at Large.

When the laws had protected English manufacturers, and producers from
foreign produce and skill; they, by a natural sequence of blundering,
set about protecting the British manufacturing population one against
another, and the German jest of the wig-makers, who petitioned their
Crown Prince “to make it felony for any gentleman to wear his own hair,”
is almost realised. In the palmy days of Protection, a British
bookbinder could not use paste, nor a British dandy, hair-powder,
because the British farmer had been so tightly protected against foreign
corn, that the British public could not get enough of it to make bread
to eat.

These were perhaps the most expensive absurdities into which John Bull
was driven by his mania for protection, but they were by no means the
most ludicrous. Among his other dainty devices for promoting the woollen
manufacture, was the law which compelled all dead bodies to be buried in
woollen cloth. There may not be many who can sympathise with the agony
of Pope’s dying coquette:—

             “Odious! In woollen! ’Twould a saint provoke;
             Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke.”

But every one must be astounded at the folly of bribing men to invest
ingenuity and industry, to bury that which above ground was the most
useful and saleable, of all possible articles. The intention was to
discourage the use of cotton, which has since proved one of the greatest
sources of wealth ever brought into this country.

The strangest and most practical protest of national common sense,
against laws enacting protective duties, was the impossibility of
compelling people to obey them. To those laws the country has been
indebted for the expensive coast-guards, who cannot, after all, prevent
smuggling. The disproportionate penalties threatened by protective laws,
show how difficult it was to ensure obedience. In 1765, so invincible
was the desire of our ladies to do justice to their neat ancles, that a
law had to be passed in the fifth of George the Third, (chapter
forty-eight,) decreeing that “if any foreign manufactured silk
stockings, &c., be imported into any part of the British dominions, they
shall be forfeited, and the importers, retailers, or vendors of the
same, shall be subject, for every such offence, to a fine of two hundred
pounds, with costs of suit.” The wise legislators did not dare to extend
the penalties to the fair wearers, who found means to make it worth the
while of the vendors to brave and evade the law.

The complicated and contradictory legislation into which the _ignis
fatuus_ of Protection led men, made our nominally protective laws not
unfrequently laws prohibitive of industry. To protect the iron-masters
of Staffordshire, the inhabitants of Pennsylvania (while yet a British
colony) were forbidden, under heavy penalties, to avail themselves of
their rich coal and iron mines. To protect the tobacco growers of
Virginia (also in its colonial epoch) the agriculturists of Great
Britain were forbidden to cultivate the plant—a prohibition which is
still in force—even now, that the semblance of a reason or excuse for
the restriction exists.

The petty details into which these prohibitions of industry, under the
pretext of protecting it, descended, can only be conceived by those who
have studied the Statutes at Large. An act was passed in the fourth of
George the First (the seventh chapter) for the better employing the
manufacturers, and encouraging the consumption of raw silk. This act
provides “that no person shall make, sell, or set upon any clothes or
wearing garments whatsoever, any buttons made of serge, cloth, drugget,
frieze, camlet, or any other stuff of which clothes or wearing garments
are made, or any buttons made of wool only, and turned in imitations of
other buttons, on pain of forfeiting forty shillings per dozen for all
such buttons.” And again, in the seventh year of the same George, the
twenty-second chapter of that year’s statutes declared that “No tailors
shall set on any buttons or button-holes of serge, drugget, &c., under
penalty of forty shillings for every dozen of buttons or button-holes so
made or set on.... No person shall use or wear on any clothes, garments,
or apparel whatsoever, except velvet, any buttons or button-holes made
of or bound with cloth, serge, drugget, frieze, camlet, or other stuffs
whereof clothes or woollen garments are usually made, on penalty of
forfeiting forty shillings per dozen under a similar penalty.” These
acts were insisted on by the ancient and important fraternity of metal
button-makers, who thought they had a prescriptive right to supply the
world with brass and other buttons “with shanks.” Shankless fasteners,
made of cloth, serge, &c., were therefore interdicted; and every man,
woman, and child, down to the time when George the Third was king, was
_obliged_ to wear metal buttons whether they liked them or not, on pain
of fine or imprisonment.

The shackles and pitfalls in which men involved themselves in their
chase after the illusive idea of universal protection were as numerous,
and more fatal than those with which Louis the Eleventh garnished his
castle at Plessis-le-Tours. It was impossible to move without stumbling
into some of them. British ship-builders were allowed to ply their trade
exclusively for British ship-owners; but, in return, they were compelled
to buy the dear timber of Canada, instead of that of the Baltic. British
ship-owners had exclusive privileges of ocean carriage, but had to pay
tribute to the monopoly of British ship-builders and Canadian lumberers.
British sailors were exclusively to be employed in English ships, but in
return they were at the mercy of the press-gangs. Dubious advantages
were bought at a price unquestionably dear and ruinous.

The condition of our country while possessed by the fallacy of
protection, can be compared to nothing so aptly, as to a man under the
influence of a nightmare. One incongruity pursues another through the
brain. There is a painful half-consciousness that all is delusion, and a
fear that it may be reality—there is a choking sense of oppression. The
victim of the unhealthy dream, tries to shake it off and awaken, but his
faculties are spell-bound. By a great effort the country has awakened to
the light of day, and a sense of realities.

The way in which the rural population, great and small, were protected
against one another, may be well illustrated by an extract from the
third of James the First, chapter fourteen. This act was in force so
lately as 1827, for it was only repealed by the seventh and eighth of
George the Fourth, chapter twenty-seven. The fifth clause of this
precious enactment made a man who had not forty pounds a year a
“malefactor” if he shot a hare; while a neighbour who possessed a
hundred a year, and caught him in the fact, became in one moment his
judge and executioner. After reciting that if any person who had not
real property producing forty pounds a year, or who had not two hundred
pounds’ worth of goods and chattels, shall presume to shoot game, the
clause goes on to say—“Then any person, having lands, tenements, and
hereditaments, of the clear value of one hundred pounds a year, may take
from the person or possession of such malefactor or malefactors, and to
his own use for ever keep, such guns, bows, cross-bows, buckstalls,
engine-traps, nets, ferrets, and coney dogs,” &c. This is hardly a comic
leaf from the statute book. Indignation gives place to mirth on perusing
it. Some portions of the game-laws still in force could be enumerated,
equally unreasonable and summary.

Most of the statutes contain a comical set of rules of English Grammar,
which are calculated to make the wig of Lindley Murray stiffen in his
grave with horror; they run thus:—“Words importing the singular number
shall include the plural number, and words importing the plural number
shall include the singular number. Words importing the masculine gender
shall include females. The word ‘person’ shall include a corporation,
whether aggregate or sole. The word ‘lands’ shall include messuages,
lands, tenements, and hereditaments of any tenure. The word ‘street’
shall extend to and include any road, square, court, alley, and
thoroughfare, or public passage, within the limits of the special act.
The expression ‘two justices’ shall be understood to mean two or more
justices met and acting together.”

Thus ends our chapter of only a few of the mirth provocatives of the
Statutes at Large.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 ● 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 78191 ***