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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78194 ***
+
+
+     “_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+
+
+                            HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
+                           A WEEKLY JOURNAL.
+
+
+                     CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+    N^{o.} 24.]      SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1850.      [PRICE 2_d._
+
+
+
+
+                      ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHEAPNESS.
+
+
+                             THE STEEL PEN.
+
+We remember (early remembrances are more durable than recent) an epithet
+employed by Mary Wollstonecraft, which then seemed as happy as it was
+original:—“The _iron_ pen of Time.” Had the vindicatress of the “Rights
+of Women” lived in these days (fifty years later), when the iron pen is
+the almost universal instrument of writing, she would have bestowed upon
+Time a less common material for recording his doings.
+
+Whilst we are remembering, let us look back for a moment upon our
+earliest schooldays—the days of large text and round hand. Twenty
+urchins sit at a long desk, each intent upon making his _copy_. A nicely
+mended pen has been given to each. Our own labour goes on successfully,
+till, in school-boy phrase, the pen begins to splutter. A bold effort
+must be made. We leave the form, and timidly address the writing-master
+with—“Please, sir, mend my pen.” A slight frown subsides as he sees that
+the quill is very bad—too soft or too hard—used to the stump. He dashes
+it away, and snatching a feather from a bundle—a poor thin feather, such
+as green geese drop on a common—shapes it into a pen. This mending and
+making process occupies all his leisure—occupies, indeed, many of the
+minutes that ought to be devoted to instruction. He has a perpetual
+battle to wage with his bad quills. They are the meanest produce of the
+plucked goose.
+
+And is this process still going on in the many thousand schools of our
+land, where, with all drawbacks of imperfect education, both as to
+numbers educated and gifts imparted, there are about two millions and a
+half of children under daily instruction? In remote rural districts,
+probably; in the towns certainly not. The steam-engine is now the
+pen-maker. Hecatombs of geese are consumed at Michaelmas and Christmas;
+but not all the geese in the world would meet the demand of England for
+pens. The supply of _patés de foie gras_ will be kept up—that of quills,
+whether known as _primes_, _seconds_, or _pinions_, must be wholly
+inadequate to the wants of a _writing_ people. Wherever geese are bred
+in these islands, so assuredly, in each succeeding March, will every
+full-fledged victim be robbed of his quills; and then turned forth on
+the common, a very waddling and impotent goose, quite unworthy of the
+name of bird. The country schoolmaster, at the same springtime, will
+continue to buy the smallest quills, at a low price, clarify them after
+his own rude fashion, make them into pens, and sorely spite the boy who
+splits them up too rapidly. The better quills will still be collected,
+and find their way to the quill dealer, who will exercise his empirical
+arts before they pass to the stationer. He will plunge them into heated
+sand, to make the external skin peel off, and the external membrane
+shrivel up; or he will saturate them with water, and alternately
+contract and swell them before a charcoal fire; or he will dip them in
+nitric acid, and make them of a gaudy brilliancy but a treacherous
+endurance. They will be sorted according to the quality of the barrels,
+with the utmost nicety. The experienced buyer will know their value by
+looking at their feathery ends, tapering to a point; the uninitiated
+will regard only the quill portion. There is no article of commerce in
+which the market value is so difficult to be determined with exactness.
+For the finest and largest quills no price seems unreasonable; for those
+of the second quality too exorbitant a charge is often made. The foreign
+supply is large, and probably exceeds the home supply of the superior
+article. What the exact amount is we know not. There is no duty now on
+quills. The tariff of 1845—one of the most lasting monuments of the
+wisdom of our great commercial minister—abolished the duty of
+half-a-crown a thousand. In 1832 the duty amounted to four thousand two
+hundred pounds, which would show an annual importation of thirty-three
+millions one hundred thousand quills; enough, perhaps, for the
+commercial clerks of England, together with the quills of home
+growth;—but how to serve a letter-writing population?
+
+The ancient reign of the quill pen was first seriously disturbed about
+twenty-five years ago. An abortive imitation of the _form_ of a pen was
+produced before that time; a clumsy, inelastic, metal tube fastened in a
+bone or ivory handle, and sold for half-a-crown. A man might make his
+mark with one—but as to writing, it was a mere delusion. In due course
+came more carefully finished inventions for the luxurious, under the
+tempting names of ruby pen, or diamond pen—with the plain gold pen, and
+the rhodium pen, for those who were sceptical as to the jewellery of the
+inkstand. The economical use of the quill received also the attention of
+science. A machine was invented to divide the barrel lengthwise into two
+halves; and, by the same mechanical means, these halves were subdivided
+into small pieces, cut pen shape, slit, and nibbed. But the pressure
+upon the quill supply grew more and more intense. A new power had risen
+up in our world—a new seed sown—the source of all good, or the dragon’s
+teeth of Cadmus. In 1818 there were only one hundred and sixty-five
+thousand scholars in the monitorial schools—the new schools, which were
+being established under the auspices of the National Society, and the
+British and Foreign School Society. Fifteen years afterwards, in 1833,
+there were three hundred and ninety thousand. Ten years later, the
+numbers exceeded a million. Even a quarter of a century ago two-thirds
+of the male population of England, and one-half of the female, were
+learning to write; for in the Report of the Registrar-General for 1846,
+we find this passage:—“Persons when they are married are required to
+sign the marriage-register; if they cannot write their names, they sign
+with a mark: the result has hitherto been, that nearly one man in three,
+and one woman in two, married, sign with marks.” This remark applies to
+the period between 1839 and 1845. Taking the average age of men at
+marriage as twenty-seven years, and the average age of boys during their
+education as ten years, the marriage-register is an educational test of
+male instruction for the years 1824–28. But the gross number of the
+population of England and Wales was rapidly advancing. In 1821 it was
+twelve millions; in 1831, fourteen millions; in 1841, sixteen millions;
+in 1851, taking the rate of increase at fourteen per cent., it will be
+eighteen millions and a half. The extension of education was proceeding
+in a much quicker ratio; and we may therefore fairly assume that the
+proportion of those who make their marks in the marriage-register has
+greatly diminished since 1844.
+
+But, during the last ten years, the natural desire to learn to write, of
+that part of the youthful population which education can reach, has
+received a great moral impulse by a wondrous development of the most
+useful and pleasurable exercise of that power. The uniform penny postage
+has been established. In the year 1838, the whole number of letters
+delivered in the United Kingdom was seventy-six millions; in this year
+that annual delivery has reached the prodigious number of three hundred
+and thirty-seven millions. In 1838, a Committee of the House of Commons
+thus denounced, amongst the great commercial evils of the high rates of
+postage, their injurious effects upon the great bulk of the
+people:—“They either act as a grievous tax on the poor, causing them to
+sacrifice their little earnings to the pleasure and advantage of
+corresponding with their distant friends, or compel them to forego such
+intercourse altogether; thus subtracting from the small amount of their
+enjoyments, and obstructing the growth and maintenance of their best
+affections.” Honoured be the man who broke down these barriers! Praised
+be the Government that, _for once_, stepping out of its fiscal tram-way,
+dared boldly to legislate for the domestic happiness, the educational
+progress, and the moral elevation of the masses! The steel pen, sold at
+the rate of a penny a dozen, is the creation, in a considerable degree,
+of the Penny Postage stamp; as the Penny Postage stamp was a
+representative, if not a creation, of the new educational power. Without
+the steel pen, it may reasonably be doubted whether there were
+mechanical means within the reach of the great bulk of the population
+for writing the three hundred and thirty-seven millions of letters that
+now annually pass through the Post Office.
+
+Othello’s sword had “the ice-brook’s temper;” but not all the real or
+imaginary virtues of the stream that gave its value to the true Spanish
+blade could create the elasticity of a steel pen. Flexible, indeed, is
+the Toledo. If thrust against a wall, it will bend into an arc that
+describes three-fourths of a circle. The problem to be solved in the
+steel pen, is to convert the iron of Dannemora into a substance as thin
+as the quill of a dove’s pinion, but as strong as the proudest feather
+of an eagle’s wing. The furnaces and hammers of the old armourers could
+never have solved this problem. The steel pen belongs to our age of
+mighty machinery. It could not have existed in any other age. The demand
+for the instrument, and the means of supplying it, came together.
+
+The commercial importance of the steel pen was first manifested to our
+senses a year or two ago at Sheffield. We had witnessed all the curious
+processes of _converting_ iron into steel, by saturating it with carbon
+in the converting furnace;—of _tilting_ the bars so converted into a
+harder substance, under the thousand hammers that shake the waters of
+the Sheaf and the Don; of _casting_ the steel thus converted and tilted
+into ingots of higher purity; and, finally, of _milling_, by which the
+most perfect development of the material is acquired under enormous
+rollers. About two miles from the metropolis of steel, over whose head
+hangs a canopy of smoke through which the broad moors of the distance
+sometimes reveal themselves, there is a solitary mill where the tilting
+and rolling processes are carried to great perfection. The din of the
+large tilts is heard half a mile off. Our ears tingle, our legs tremble,
+when we stand close to their operation of beating bars of steel into the
+greatest possible density; for the whole building vibrates as the
+workmen swing before them in suspended baskets, and shift the bar at
+every movement of these hammers of the Titans. We pass onward to the
+more quiet _rolling_ department. The bar that has been tilted into the
+most perfect compactness has now to acquire the utmost possible tenuity.
+A large area is occupied by furnaces and rollers. The bar of steel is
+dragged out of the furnace at almost a white heat. There are two men at
+each roller. It is passed through the first pair, and its squareness is
+instantly elongated and widened into flatness;—rapidly through a second
+pair,—and a third,—and a fourth,—and a fifth.—The bar is becoming a
+sheet of steel. Thinner and thinner it becomes, until it would seem that
+the workmen can scarcely manage the fragile substance. It has spread
+out, like a morsel of gold under the beater’s hammer, into an enormous
+leaf. The least attenuated sheet is only the hundredth part of an inch
+in thickness; some sheets are made as thin as the two-hundredth part of
+an inch. And for what purpose is this result of the labours of so many
+workmen, of such vast and complicated machinery, destined?—what the
+final application of a material employing so much capital in every step,
+from the Swedish mine to its transport by railroad to some other seat of
+British industry? _The whole is prepared for one Steel-pen Manufactory
+at Birmingham._
+
+There is nothing very remarkable in a steel pen manufactory, as regards
+ingenuity of contrivance or factory organisation. Upon a large scale of
+production the extent of labour engaged in producing so minute an
+article is necessarily striking. But the process is just as curious and
+interesting, if conducted in a small shop as in a large. The pure steel,
+as it comes from the rolling mill, is cut up into strips about two
+inches and a half in width. These are further cut into the proper size
+for the pen. The pieces are then annealed and cleansed. The maker’s name
+is neatly impressed on the metal; and a cutting-tool forms the slit,
+although imperfectly in this stage. The pen shape is given by a convex
+punch pressing the plate into a concave die. The pen is formed when the
+slit is perfected. It has now to be hardened, and finally cleansed and
+polished, by the simple agency of friction in a cylinder. All the
+varieties of form of the steel pen are produced by the punch; all the
+contrivances of slits and apertures above the nib, by the cutting-tool.
+Every improvement has had for its object to overcome the rigidity of the
+steel,—to imitate the elasticity of the quill, whilst bestowing upon the
+pen a superior durability.
+
+The perfection that may reasonably be demanded in a steel pen has yet to
+be reached. But the improvement in the manufacture is most decided.
+Twenty years ago, to one who might choose, regardless of expense,
+between the quill pen and the steel, the best Birmingham and London
+production was an abomination. But we can trace the gradual acquiescence
+of most men in the writing implement of the multitude. Few of us, in an
+age when the small economies are carefully observed, and even paraded,
+desire to use quill pens at ten or twelve shillings a hundred, as
+Treasury Clerks once luxuriated in their use—an hour’s work, and then a
+new one. To mend a pen, is troublesome to the old and even the
+middle-aged man who once acquired the art; the young, for the most part,
+have not learnt it. The most painstaking and penurious author would
+never dream of imitating the wondrous man who translated Pliny with “one
+grey goose quill.” Steel pens are so cheap, that if one scratches or
+splutters, it may be thrown away, and another may be tried. But when a
+really good one is found, we cling to it, as worldly men cling to their
+friends; we use it till it breaks down, or grows rusty. We can do no
+more; we handle it as Isaak Walton handled the frog upon his hook, “as
+if we loved him.” We could almost fancy some analogy between the gradual
+and decided improvement of the steel pen—one of the new instruments of
+education—and the effects of education itself upon the mass of the
+people. An instructed nation ought to present the same gradually
+perfecting combination of strength with elasticity. The favourites of
+fortune are like the quill, ready made for social purposes, with a
+little scraping and polishing. The bulk of the community have to be
+formed out of ruder and tougher materials—to be converted, welded, and
+tempered into pliancy. The _manners_ of the great British family have
+decidedly improved under culture—“_emollit mores_:” may the sturdy
+self-respect of the race never be impaired!
+
+
+
+
+                  TWO CHAPTERS ON BANK NOTE FORGERIES.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+Viotti’s division of violin-playing into two great classes—good playing
+and bad playing—is applicable to Bank note making. The processes
+employed in manufacturing good Bank notes we have already described: we
+shall now cover a few pages with a faint outline of the various arts,
+stratagems, and contrivances employed in concocting bad Bank notes. The
+picture cannot be drawn with very distinct or strong markings. The
+tableaux from which it is copied are so intertwisted and complicated
+with clever, slippery, ingenious scoundrelism, that a finished chart of
+it would be worse than morally displeasing:—it would be tedious.
+
+All arts require time and experience for their development. When
+anything great is to be done, first attempts are nearly always failures.
+The first Bank note forgery was no exception to this rule, and its story
+has a spice of romance in it. The affair has never been circumstantially
+told; but some research enables us to detail it:—
+
+In the month of August, 1757, a gentleman living in the neighbourhood of
+Lincoln’s Inn Fields named Bliss, advertised for a clerk. There were, as
+was usual even at that time, many applicants; but the successful one was
+a young man of twenty-six, named Richard William Vaughan. His manners
+were so winning and his demeanour so much that of a gentleman (he
+belonged indeed to a good county family in Staffordshire, and had been a
+student at Pembroke Hall, Oxford), that Mr. Bliss at once engaged him.
+Nor had he occasion, during the time the new clerk served him, to repent
+the step. Vaughan was so diligent, intelligent, and steady, that not
+even when it transpired that he was, commercially speaking, “under a
+cloud,” did his master lessen confidence in him. Some enquiry into his
+antecedents showed that he had, while at College, been extravagant; that
+his friends had removed him thence; set him up in Stafford as a
+wholesale linen draper, with a branch establishment in Aldersgate
+Street, London; that he had failed, and that there was some difficulty
+about his certificate. But so well did he excuse his early failings and
+account for his misfortunes, that his employer did not check the regard
+he felt growing towards him. Their intercourse was not merely that of
+master and servant. Vaughan was a frequent guest at Bliss’s table;
+by-and-by a daily visitor to his wife, and—to his ward.
+
+Miss Bliss was a young lady of some attractions, not the smallest of
+which was a handsome fortune. Young Vaughan made the most of his
+opportunities. He was well-looking, well-informed, dressed well, and
+evidently made love well, for he won the young lady’s heart. The
+guardian was not flinty hearted, and acted like a sensible man of the
+world. “It was not,” he said on a subsequent and painful occasion, “till
+I learned from the servants and observed by the girl’s behaviour that
+she greatly approved Richard Vaughan, that I consented; but on condition
+that he should make it appear that he could maintain her. I had no doubt
+of his character as a servant, and I knew his family were respectable.
+His brother is an eminent attorney.” Vaughan boasted that his mother
+(his father was dead), was willing to re-instate him in business with a
+thousand pounds; five hundred of which was to be settled upon Miss Bliss
+for her separate use.
+
+So far all went on prosperously. Providing Richard Vaughan could attain
+a position satisfactory to the Blisses, the marriage was to take place
+on the Easter Monday following, which the Calendar tells us happened
+early in April, 1758. With this understanding, he left Mr. Bliss’s
+service, to push his fortune.
+
+Months passed on, and Vaughan appears to have made no way in the world.
+He had not even obtained his bankrupt’s certificate. His visits to his
+affianced were frequent, and his protestations passionate; but he had
+effected nothing substantial towards a happy union. Miss Bliss’s
+guardian grew impatient; and, although there is no evidence to prove
+that the young lady’s affection for Vaughan was otherwise than deep and
+sincere, yet even she began to lose confidence in him. His excuses were
+evidently evasive, and not always true. The time fixed for the wedding
+was fast approaching; and Vaughan saw that something must be done to
+restore the young lady’s confidence.
+
+About three weeks before the appointed Easter Tuesday, Vaughan went to
+his mistress in high spirits. All was right: his certificate was to be
+granted in a day or two; his family had come forward with the money, and
+he was to continue the Aldersgate business he had previously carried on
+as a branch of the Stafford trade. The capital he had waited so long
+for, was at length forthcoming. In fact, here were two hundred and forty
+pounds of the five hundred he was to settle on his beloved. Vaughan then
+produced twelve twenty-pound notes; Miss Bliss could scarcely believe
+her eyes. She examined them. The paper she remarked seemed rather
+thicker than usual. “Oh,” said Bliss, “all Bank bills are not alike.”
+The girl was naturally much pleased. She would hasten to apprise
+Mistress Bliss of the good news.
+
+Not for the world! So far from letting any living soul know he had
+placed so much money in her hands, Vaughan exacted an oath of secresy
+from her, and sealed the notes up in a parcel with his own seal; making
+her swear that she would on no account open it till after their
+marriage.
+
+Some days after, that is, “on the twenty-second of March,” (1758) we are
+describing the scene in Mr. Bliss’s own words—“I was sitting with my
+wife by the fireside. The prisoner and the girl were sitting in the same
+room—which was a small one—and although they whispered, I could
+distinguish that Vaughan was very urgent to have something returned
+which he had previously given to her. She refused, and Vaughan went away
+in an angry mood. I then studied the girl’s face, and saw that it
+expressed much dissatisfaction. Presently a tear broke out. I then
+spoke, and insisted on knowing the dispute. She refused to tell, and I
+told her that until she did, I would not see her. The next day I asked
+the same question of Vaughan; he hesitated. ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘I dare say it
+is some ten or twelve pound matter—something to buy a wedding bauble
+with.’ He answered that it was much more than that, it was near three
+hundred pounds! ‘But why all this secresy,’ I said; and he answered it
+was not proper for people to know he had so much money till his
+certificate was signed. I then asked him to what intent he had left the
+notes with the young lady? He said, as I had of late suspected him, he
+designed to give her a proof of his affection and truth. I said, ‘You
+have demanded them in such a way that it must be construed as an
+abatement of your affection towards her.’” Vaughan was again exceedingly
+urgent in asking back the packet; but Bliss remembering his many
+evasions, and supposing that this was a trick, declined advising his
+niece to restore the parcel without proper consideration. The very next
+day it was discovered that the notes were counterfeits.
+
+This occasioned stricter enquiries into Vaughan’s previous career. It
+turned out that he bore the character in his native place of a
+dissipated and not very scrupulous person. The intention of his mother
+to assist him was an entire fabrication, and he had given Miss Bliss the
+forged notes solely for the purpose of deceiving her on that matter.
+Meanwhile the forgeries became known to the authorities, and he was
+arrested. By what means, does not clearly appear. The “Annual Register”
+says that one of the engravers gave information; but we find nothing in
+the newspapers of the time to support that statement; neither was it
+corroborated at Vaughan’s trial.
+
+When Vaughan was arrested he thrust a piece of paper into his mouth, and
+began to chew it violently. It was, however, rescued, and proved to be
+one of the forged notes; fourteen of them were found on his person, and
+when his lodgings were searched twenty more were discovered.
+
+Vaughan was tried at the Old Bailey on the seventh of April, before Lord
+Mansfield. The manner of the forgery was detailed minutely at the
+trial:—On the first of March (about a week before he gave the twelve
+notes to the young lady) Vaughan called on Mr. John Corbould, an
+engraver, and gave an order for a promissory note to be engraved with
+these words:—
+
+  “No. ——.
+
+      “I promise to pay to ——, or Bearer, ——, London ——.”
+
+There was to be a Britannia in the corner. When it was done, Mr. Sneed
+(for that was the _alias_ Vaughan adopted) came again, but objected to
+the execution of the work. The Britannia was not good, and the words “I
+promise” were too near the edge of the plate. Another was in consequence
+engraved, and on the fourth of March Vaughan took it away. He
+immediately repaired to a printer, and had forty-eight impressions taken
+on thin paper, provided by himself. Meanwhile, he had ordered, on the
+same morning, of Mr. Charles Fourdrinier, another engraver, a second
+plate, with what he called “a direction,” in the words, “For the
+Governor and Company of the Bank of England.” This was done, and about a
+week later he brought some paper, each sheet “folded up,” said the
+witness, “very curiously, so that I could not see what was in them. I
+was going to take the papers from him, but he said he must go upstairs
+with me, and see them worked off himself. I took him upstairs; he would
+not let me have them out of his hands. I took a sponge and wetted them,
+and put them one by one on the plate in order for printing them. After
+my boy had done two or three of them, I went downstairs, and my boy
+worked the rest off, and the prisoner came down and paid me.”
+
+Here the Court pertinently asked, “What imagination had you when a man
+thus came to you to print on secret paper, ‘the Governor and Company of
+the Bank of England?’”
+
+The engraver’s reply was:—“I then did not suspect anything. But I shall
+take care for the future.” As this was the first Bank of England note
+forgery that was ever perpetrated, the engraver was held excused.
+
+It may be mentioned as an evidence of the delicacy of the reporters
+that, in their account of the trial, Miss Bliss’s name is not mentioned.
+Her designation is “a young lady.” We subjoin the notes of her
+evidence:—
+
+“A young lady (sworn). The prisoner delivered me some bills; these are
+the same (producing twelve counterfeit Bank notes sealed up in a cover,
+for twenty pounds each), said they were Bank bills. I said they were
+thicker paper—he said all bills are not alike. I was to keep them till
+after we were married. He put them into my hands to show he put
+confidence in me, and desired me not to show them to any body; sealed
+them up with his own seal, and obliged me by an oath not to discover
+them to any body. And I did not till he had discovered them himself. He
+was to settle so much in Stock on me.”
+
+Vaughan urged in his defence that his sole object was to deceive his
+affianced, and that he intended to destroy all the notes after his
+marriage. But it had been proved that the prisoner had asked one John
+Ballingar to change first one, and then twenty of the notes; but which
+that person was unable to do. Besides, had his sole object been to
+dazzle Miss Bliss with his fictitious wealth, he would most probably
+have entrusted more, if not all the notes, to her keeping.
+
+He was found guilty, and passed the day that had been fixed for his
+wedding, as a condemned criminal.
+
+On the 11th May, 1758, Richard William Vaughan was executed at Tyburn.
+By his side, on the same gallows, there was another forger: William
+Boodgere, a military officer, who had forged a draught on an army agent
+named Calcroft, and expiated the offence with the first forger of Bank
+of England notes.
+
+The gallows may seem hard measure to have meted out to Vaughan, when it
+is considered that none of his notes were negotiated and no person
+suffered by his fraud. Not one of the forty-eight notes, except the
+twelve delivered to Miss Bliss, had been out of his possession; indeed
+the imitation must have been very clumsily executed, and detection would
+have instantly followed any attempt to pass the counterfeits. There was
+no endeavour to copy the style of engraving on a real Bank note. That
+was left to the engraver; and as each sheet passed through the press
+twice, the words added at the second printing, “For the Governor and
+Company of the Bank of England,” could have fallen into their proper
+place on any one of the sheets, only by a miracle. But what would have
+made the forgery clear to even a superficial observer was the singular
+omission of the second “n” in the word England.[1]
+
+Footnote 1:
+
+  Bad orthography was by no means uncommon in the most important
+  documents at that period; the days of the week, in the day-books of
+  the Bank of England itself, are spelt in a variety of ways.
+
+The criticism on Vaughan’s note of a Bank clerk examined on the trial
+was:—“There is some resemblance, to be sure; but this mote” (that upon
+which the prisoner was tried) “is numbered thirteen thousand eight
+hundred and forty, and we never reach so high a number.” Besides there
+was no water-mark in the paper. The note of which a fac-simile appeared
+in our eighteenth number, and dated so early as 1699, has a regular
+design in the texture of the paper; showing that the water-mark is as
+old as the Bank notes themselves.
+
+Vaughan was greatly commiserated. But despite the unskilfulness of the
+forgery, and the insignificant consequences which followed it, the crime
+was considered of too dangerous a character not to be marked, from its
+very novelty, with exemplary punishment. Hanging created at that time no
+remorse in the public mind, and it was thought necessary to set up
+Vaughan as a warning to all future Bank note forgers. The crime was too
+dangerous not to be marked with the severest penalties. Forgery differs
+from other crimes not less in the magnitude of the spoil it may obtain,
+and of the injury it inflicts, than in the facilities attending its
+accomplishment. The common thief finds a limit to his depredations in
+the bulkiness of his booty, which is generally confined to such property
+as he can carry about his person; the swindler raises insuperable and
+defeating obstacles to his frauds if the amount he seeks to obtain is so
+considerable as to awaken close vigilance or enquiry. To carry their
+projects to any very profitable extent, these criminals are reduced to
+the hazardous necessity of acting in concert, and thus infinitely
+increasing the risks of detection. But the forger need have no
+accomplice; he is burdened with no bulky and suspicious property; he
+needs no receiver to assist his contrivances. The skill of his own
+individual right hand can command thousands; often with the certainty of
+not being detected, and oftener with such rapidity as to enable him to
+baffle the pursuit of justice.
+
+It was a long time before Vaughan’s rude attempt was improved upon: but
+in the same year, (1758), another department of the crime was commenced
+with perfect success;—namely, an ingenious alteration, for fraudulent
+purposes, of real Bank notes. A few months after Vaughan’s execution,
+one of the northern mails was stopped and robbed by a highwayman;
+several Bank notes were comprised in the spoil, and the robber, setting
+up with these as a gentleman, went boldly to the Hatfield Post office,
+ordered a chaise and four, rattled away down the road, and changed a
+note at every change of horses. The robbery was, of course, soon made
+known, and the numbers and dates of the stolen notes were advertised as
+having been stopped at the Bank. To the genius of a highwayman this
+offered but a small obstacle, and the gentleman-thief changed all the
+figures “1” he could find into “4’s.” These notes passed currently
+enough; but, on reaching the Bank, the alteration was detected, and the
+last holder was refused payment. As that person had given a valuable
+consideration for the note, he brought an action for the recovery of the
+amount; and at the trial it was ruled by the Lord Chief Justice, that
+“any person paying a valuable consideration for a Bank note, payable to
+bearer, in a fair course of business, has an understood right to receive
+the money of the Bank.”
+
+It took a quarter of a century to bring the art of forging Bank notes to
+perfection. In 1779, this was nearly attained by an ingenious gentleman
+named Mathison, a watchmaker, from the matrimonial village of Gretna
+Green. Having learnt the arts of engraving and of simulating signatures,
+he tried his hand at the notes of the Darlington Bank; but, with the
+confidence of skill, was not cautious in passing them, was suspected,
+and absconded to Edinburgh. Scorning to let his talent be wasted, he
+favoured the Scottish public with many spurious Royal Bank of Scotland
+notes, and regularly forged his way by their aid to London. At the end
+of February he took handsome lodgings in the Strand, opposite Arundel
+Street. His industry was remarkable; for, by the 12th of March, he had
+planed and polished rough pieces of copper, engraved them, forged the
+water-mark, printed and negotiated several impressions. His plan was to
+travel and to purchase articles in shops. He bought a pair of
+shoe-buckles at Coventry with a forged note, which was eventually
+detected at the Bank of England. He had got so bold that he paid such
+frequent visits in Threadneedle Street that the Bank clerks became
+familiar with his person. He was continually changing notes of one, for
+another denomination. These were his originals, which he procured to
+make spurious copies of. One day seven thousand pounds came in from the
+Stamp Office. There was a dispute about one of the notes. Mathison, who
+was present, though at some distance, declared, oracularly, that the
+note was a good one. How could he know so well? A dawn of suspicion
+arose in the minds of the clerks; one trail led into another, and
+Mathison was finally apprehended. So well were his notes forged that, on
+the trial, an experienced Bank clerk declared he could not tell whether
+the note handed him to examine was forged or not. Mathison offered to
+reveal his secret of forging the water-mark, if mercy were shown to him;
+this was refused, and he suffered the penalty of his crime.
+
+Mathison was a genius in his criminal way, but a greater than he
+appeared in 1786. In that year perfection seemed to have been reached.
+So considerable was the circulation of spurious paper-money that it
+appeared as if some unknown power had set up a bank of its own. Notes
+were issued from it, and readily passed current, in hundreds and
+thousands. They were not to be distinguished from the genuine paper of
+Threadneedle Street. Indeed, when one was presented there, in due
+course, so complete were all its parts; so masterly the engraving; so
+correct the signatures; so skilful the water-mark, that it was promptly
+paid; and only discovered to be a forgery when it reached a particular
+department. From that period forged paper continued to be presented,
+especially at the time of lottery drawing. Consultations were held with
+the police. Plans were laid to help detection. Every effort was made to
+trace the forger. Clarke, the best detective of his day, went, like a
+sluth-hound, on the track; for in those days the expressive word
+“blood-money” was known. Up to a certain point there was little
+difficulty; but beyond that, consummate art defied the ingenuity of the
+officer. In whatever way the notes came, the train of discovery always
+paused at the lottery-offices. Advertisements offering large rewards
+were circulated; but the unknown forger baffled detection.
+
+While this base paper was in full currency, there appeared an
+advertisement in the Daily Advertiser for a servant. The successful
+applicant was a young man, in the employment of a musical-instrument
+maker; who, some time after, was called upon by a coachman, and informed
+that the advertiser was waiting in a coach to see him. The young man was
+desired to enter the conveyance, where he beheld a person with something
+of the appearance of a foreigner, sixty or seventy years old, apparently
+troubled with the gout. A camlet surtout was buttoned round his mouth; a
+large patch was placed over his left eye; and nearly every part of his
+face was concealed. He affected much infirmity. He had a faint hectic
+cough; and invariably presented the patched side to the view of the
+servant. After some conversation—in the course of which he represented
+himself as guardian to a young nobleman of great fortune—the interview
+concluded with the engagement of the applicant; and the new servant was
+directed to call on Mr. Brank, at 29, Titchfield Street, Oxford Street.
+At this interview Brank inveighed against his whimsical ward for his
+love of speculating in lottery-tickets; and told the servant that his
+principal duty would be to purchase them. After one or two meetings, at
+each of which Brank kept his face muffled, he handed a forty and twenty
+pound Bank note; told the servant to be very careful not to lose them;
+and directed him to buy lottery-tickets at separate offices. The young
+man fulfilled his instructions, and at the moment he was returning, was
+suddenly called by his employer from the other side of the street,
+congratulated on his rapidity, and then told to go to various other
+offices in the neighbourhood of the Royal Exchange, and to purchase more
+shares. Four hundred pounds in Bank of England Notes were handed him,
+and the wishes of the mysterious Mr. Brank were satisfactorily effected.
+These scenes were continually enacted. Notes to a large amount were thus
+circulated; lottery-tickets purchased; and Mr. Brank—always in a coach,
+with his face studiously concealed—was ever ready on the spot to receive
+them. The surprise of the servant was somewhat excited; but had he known
+that from the period he left his master to purchase the tickets, one
+female figure accompanied all his movements; that when he entered the
+offices, it waited at the door, peered cautiously in at the window,
+hovered around him like a second shadow, watched him carefully, and
+never left him until once more he was in the Company of his
+employer—that surprise would have been greatly increased.[2] Again and
+again were these extraordinary scenes rehearsed. At last the Bank
+obtained a clue, and the servant was taken into custody. The directors
+imagined that they had secured the actor of so many parts; that the
+flood of forged notes which had inundated that establishment would at
+length be dammed up at his source. Their hopes proved fallacious, and it
+was found that “Old Patch,” (as the mysterious forger was, from the
+servant’s description, nick-named) had been sufficiently clever to
+baffle the Bank directors. The house in Titchfield Street was searched;
+but Mr. Brank had deserted it, and not a trace of a single implement of
+forgery was to be seen.
+
+Footnote 2:
+
+  Francis’s History of the Bank of England.
+
+All that could be obtained was some little knowledge of “Old Patch’s”
+proceedings. It appeared that he carried on his paper coining entirely
+by himself. His only confidant was his mistress. He was his own
+engraver. He even made his own ink. He manufactured his own paper. With
+a private press he worked his own notes; and counterfeited the
+signatures of the cashiers, completely. But these discoveries had no
+effect; for it became evident that Mr. Patch had set up a press
+elsewhere. Although his secret continued as impenetrable, his notes
+became as plentiful as ever. Five years of unbounded prosperity ought to
+have satisfied him; but it did not. Success seemed to pall him. His
+genius was of that insatiable order which demands new excitements, and a
+constant succession of new flights. The following paragraph from a
+newspaper of 1786 relates to the same individual:—
+
+“On the 17th of December, ten pounds was paid into the Bank, for which
+the clerk, as usual, gave a ticket to receive a Bank note of equal
+value. This ticket ought to have been carried immediately to the
+cashier, instead of which the bearer took it home, and curiously added
+an 0 to the original sum, and returning, presented it so altered to the
+cashier, for which he received a note of one hundred pounds. In the
+evening, the clerks found a deficiency in the accounts; and on examining
+the tickets of the day, not only that but two others were discovered to
+have been obtained in the same manner. In the one, the figure 1 was
+altered to 4, and in another to 5, by which the artist received, upon
+the whole, nearly one thousand pounds.”
+
+To that princely felony, Old Patch, as will be seen in the sequel, added
+smaller misdemeanors which one would think were far beneath his notice;
+except to convince himself and his mistress of the unbounded facility of
+his genius for fraud.
+
+At that period the affluent public were saddled with a tax on plate; and
+many experiments were made to evade it. Among others, one was invented
+by a Mr. Charles Price, a stock-jobber and lottery-office keeper, which,
+for a time, puzzled the tax-gatherer. Mr. Charles Price lived in great
+style, gave splendid dinners, and did everything on the grandest scale.
+Yet Mr. Charles Price had no plate! The authorities could not find so
+much as a silver tooth-pick on his magnificent premises. In truth, what
+he was too cunning to possess, he borrowed. For one of his sumptuous
+entertainments, he hired the plate of a silversmith in Cornhill, and
+left the value in bank notes as security for its safe return. One of
+these notes having proved a forgery, was traced to Mr. Charles Price;
+and Mr. Charles Price was not to be found at that particular juncture.
+Although this excited no surprise—for he was often an absentee from his
+office for short periods—yet in due course and as a formal matter of
+business, an officer was set to find him, and to ask his explanation
+regarding the false note. After tracing a man who he had a strong notion
+was Mr. Charles Price through countless lodgings and innumerable
+disguises, the officer (to use his own expression) “nabbed” Mr. Charles
+Price. But, as Mr. Clarke observed, his prisoner and his prisoner’s lady
+were even then “too many” for him; for although he lost not a moment in
+trying to secure the forging implements, after he had discovered that
+Mr. Charles Price, and Mr. Brank, and Old Patch, were all concentrated
+in the person of his prisoner, he found the lady had destroyed every
+trace of evidence. Not a vestige of the forging factory was left. Not
+the point of a graver, nor a single spot of ink, nor a shred of silver
+paper, nor a scrap of anybody’s handwriting, was to be met with.
+Despite, however, this paucity of evidence to convict him, Mr. Charles
+Price had not the courage to face a jury, and eventually he saved the
+judicature and the Tyburn executive much trouble and expense, by hanging
+himself in Bridewell.
+
+The success of Mr. Charles Price has never been surpassed; and even
+after the darkest era in the history of Bank forgeries—which dates from
+the suspension of cash payments, in February, 1797, and which will be
+treated of in a succeeding paper—“Old Patch” was still remembered as the
+Cæsar of Forgers.
+
+
+
+
+                      THE TWO GUIDES OF THE CHILD.
+
+
+A spirit near me said, “Look forth upon the Land of Life. What do you
+see?”
+
+“Steep mountains, covered by a mighty plain, a table-land of
+many-coloured beauty. Beauty, nay, it seems all beautiful at first, but
+now I see that there are some parts barren.”
+
+“Are they quite barren?—look more closely still!”
+
+“No, in the wildest deserts, now, I see some gum-dropping acacias, and
+the crimson blossom of the cactus. But there are regions that rejoice
+abundantly in flower and fruit; and now, O Spirit, I see men and women
+moving to and fro.”
+
+“Observe them, mortal.”
+
+“I behold a world of love; the men have women’s arms entwined about
+them; some upon the verge of precipices—friends are running to the
+rescue. There are many wandering like strangers, who know not their
+road, and they look upward. Spirit, how many, many eyes are looking up
+as if to God! Ah, now I see some strike their neighbours down into the
+dust; I see some wallowing like swine; I see that there are men and
+women brutal.”
+
+“Are they quite brutal?—look more closely still.”
+
+“No, I see prickly sorrow growing out of crime, and penitence awakened
+by a look of love. I see good gifts bestowed out of the hand of murder,
+and see truth issue out of lying lips. But in this plain, O Spirit, I
+see regions—wide, bright regions,—yielding fruit and flower, while
+others seem perpetually veiled with fogs, and in them no fruit ripens. I
+see pleasant regions where the rock is full of clefts, and people fall
+into them. The men who dwell beneath the fog deal lovingly, and yet they
+have small enjoyment in the world around them, which they scarcely see.
+But whither are these women going?”
+
+“Follow them.”
+
+“I have followed down the mountains to a haven in the vale below. All
+that is lovely in the world of flowers makes a fragrant bed for the dear
+children; birds singing, they breathe upon the pleasant air; the
+butterflies play with them. Their limbs shine white among the blossoms,
+and their mothers come down full of joy to share their innocent delight.
+They pelt each other with the lilies of the valley. They call up at will
+fantastic masques, grim giants play to make them merry, a thousand
+grotesque loving phantoms kiss them; to each the mother is the one thing
+real, the highest bliss—the next bliss is the dream of all the world
+beside. Some that are motherless, all mother’s love. Every gesture,
+every look, every odour, every song, adds to the charm of love which
+fills the valley. Some little figures fall and die, and on the valley’s
+soil they crumble into violets and lilies, with love-tears to hang in
+them like dew.
+
+“Who dares to come down with a frown into this happy valley? A severe
+man seizes an unhappy, shrieking child, and leads it to the roughest
+ascent of the mountain. He will lead it over steep rocks to the plain of
+the mature. On ugly needle-points he makes the child sit down, and
+teaches it its duty in the world above.”
+
+“Its duty, mortal! do you listen to the teacher?”
+
+“Spirit, I hear now. The child is informed about two languages spoken by
+nations extinct centuries ago, and something also, O Spirit, about the
+base of a hypothenuse.”
+
+“Does the child attend?”
+
+“Not much; but it is beaten sorely, and its knees are bruised against
+the rocks, till it is hauled up, woe-begone and weary, to the upper
+plain. It looks about bewildered; all is strange,—it knows not how to
+act. Fogs crown the barren mountain paths. Spirit, I am unhappy; there
+are many children thus hauled up, and as young men upon the plain; they
+walk in fog, or among brambles; some fall into pits; and many, getting
+into flower-paths, lie down and learn. Some become active, seeking
+right, but ignorant of what right is; they wander among men out of their
+fog-land, preaching folly. Let me go back among the children.”
+
+“Have they no better guide?”
+
+“Yes, now there comes one with a smiling face, and rolls upon the
+flowers with the little ones, and they are drawn to him. And he has
+magic spells to conjure up glorious spectacles of fairy land. He frolics
+with them and might be first cousin to the butterflies. He wreathes
+their little heads with flower garlands, and with his fairy land upon
+his lips he walks toward the mountains; eagerly they follow. He seeks
+the smoothest upward path, and that is but a rough one, yet they run up
+merrily, guide and children, butterflies pursuing still the flowers as
+they nod over a host of laughing faces. They talk of the delightful
+fairy world, and resting in the shady places learn of the yet more
+delightful world of God. They learn to love the Maker of the Flowers, to
+know how great the Father of the Stars must be, how good must be the
+Father of the Beetle. They listen to the story of the race they go to
+labour with upon the plain, and love it for the labour it has done. They
+learn old languages of men, to understand the past—more eagerly they
+learn the voices of the men of their own day, that they may take part
+with the present. And in their study when they flag, they fall back upon
+thoughts of the Child Valley they are leaving. Sports and fancies are
+the rod and spur that bring them with new vigour to the lessons. When
+they reach the plain they cry, ‘We know you, men and women; we know to
+what you have aspired for centuries; we know the love there is in you;
+we know the love there is in God; we come prepared to labour with you,
+dear, good friends. We will not call you clumsy when we see you tumble,
+we will try to pick you up; when we fall, you shall pick us up. We have
+been trained to love, and therefore we can aid you heartily, for love is
+labour!’”
+
+The Spirit whispered, “You have seen and you have heard. Go now, and
+speak unto your fellow-men: ask justice for the child.”
+
+To-day should love To-morrow, for it is a thing of hope; let the young
+Future not be nursed by Care. God gave not fancy to the child that men
+should stamp its blossoms down into the loose soil of intellect. The
+child’s heart was not made full to the brim of love, that men should
+pour its love away, and bruise instead of kiss the trusting innocent.
+Love and fancy are the stems on which we may graft knowledge readily.
+What is called by some dry folks a solid foundation may be a thing not
+desirable. To cut down all the trees and root up all the flowers in a
+garden, to cover walks and flower-beds alike with a hard crust of
+well-rolled gravel, that would be to lay down your solid foundation
+after a plan which some think good in a child’s mind, though not quite
+worth adopting in a garden. O, teacher, love the child and learn of it;
+so let it love and learn of you.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHIPS.
+
+
+                    EASY SPELLING AND HARD READING.
+
+An interesting case of educational destitution presents itself in the
+following letter. It is written by the son of a poor, but honest,
+brickmaker of Hammersmith, who emigrated to Sidney, and is now a
+shepherd at Bathurst. While the facts it contains are clearly stated,
+and the sentiments expressed are highly creditable to the writer—showing
+that his moral training had not been neglected by his parents—the
+orthography is such as, we may safely affirm, would not have emanated
+from any human being with similar abilities, and in a similar station,
+than an Englishman.
+
+England stands pre-eminent in this respect. The parents of this
+letter-writer were too poor to _pay_ to have their child taught, and
+consequently with the best will in the world to be an ordinary scholar,
+he is unable to spell. The clever manner in which such letters are
+selected as represent the sounds he is in the habit of giving to each
+word, shows an aptitude which would assuredly have made with the
+commonest cultivation a literate and useful citizen. More amusing
+orthography we have no where met; but the information it conveys is of
+the most useful kind. The reader will perceive that the points touched
+upon are precisely those respecting which he would wish to be informed;
+were he about to emigrate.
+
+The epistle not only gives a truthful picture of an Australian
+shepherd’s condition, but is in itself a lesson and a censure on that
+want of national means of education from which at least one-third of the
+adult population of England suffer, and of which the writer is an
+especial victim and example:—
+
+  “Deer mother and father and sisters i root thes few lines hooping to
+  find you All well for I arr in gudd halth my self and i wood root
+  befor onley i wos very un setled and now i have root i houp you will
+  rite back as soon as you can and send how you all arr and likwise our
+  frends and i am hired my self for a sheeprd 12 munts for 19 pound and
+  my keep too for it wos to soun for our work when i arive in the cuntry
+  it is a plesent and a helthay cuntry and most peple dows well in it as
+  liks onley it is a grait cuntry for durnkerds and you do not Xpket for
+  them to do well no weer i have not got any folt to find of the cuntry
+  for after few theres man can bee is own master if hee liks for the
+  wagers is higher then tha arr at hom and the previshen is seeper and
+  peple do not work so hard as thay do at tom and if any wne wish to com
+  com at wonce and don with it same as i did and take no feer oof the
+  see whot ever for i did not see any danger whot ever and it is a
+  cuntry that puur peapole can get a gud living in hoostlue wich thay
+  can not at tom i arr vrey well plesed off the cuntry and i should bee
+  very happy if i had som relishon over with mee and i am 230 miles up
+  the cuntry and wee had a very plesent voyge over in deed and likwise
+  luckey and vrey litle sickenss and no deths deer mother and father i
+  houp you will lett our frends no how i am geeting on and der frends
+  you take no heed what pepole says about horstler take and past your
+  own thouths about it and if any body wishes to com i wood swade them
+  to com con pepole can geet a gud living there wer tha cant at tome and
+  pepole beter com and geet a belly full then to stop at tome and work
+  day and night then onely get haf a bely ful and i am shuur that no
+  body can not find any folt off the cuntry eXcep tis pepole do not now
+  when tha arr doing well [price of pervison] tee lb 1_s_ to 3_s_ suuger
+  lb 2_d_ to 6_d_ coofe lb 8_d_ to 1_s_ bred lb 1_d_ to 2_d_ beef lb
+  1_d_ to 2_d_ mutten ditto baken lb 6_d_ to 1_s._ poork lb 2_d_ to 4_d_
+  butter lb _6_d to 1_s_ chees lb 4_d_ to 8_d_ pertos price as tome sope
+  lb 4_d_ to 6_d_ starch and blue and sooder home price candles lb 4_d_
+  to 6_d_ rice lb 2_d_ to 4_d_ hags hom price trekle lb 4_d_ to 5_d_
+  solt lb 1_d_ peper nounc 2_d_ tabaker lb 1_s_ to 6_s_ beer 4_d_ pot at
+  sednay and up in the pool 1_s_ spirts hom price frut happles pars
+  horengs lemns peshes gusbryes curneth cheerys cokelnut storbyes
+  rasberys nuts of all sorts vegtbles of all sorts price of cloths much
+  the same as tome stok very resneble sheep 2_s_ 6_d_ heed wait about 80
+  pounds fat bullket about 1000 wit 3_l_ pour hors from 2_l_ to 10_l_
+  ther is wonderful grait many black in the cuntry but tha will not hurt
+  any one if you will let them aolne.
+
+                         traitment on bord ship,
+
+  wee arive in the 7 febery and sailed to graveshend then wee stop ther
+  2 days then wee sailed from ther to plymeth and wee stop ther 9 days
+  and took in loot more emigrant then wee sailed from ther to seednay we
+  arive to seednay 8 of June wee had it vry ruf in the bay of biskey and
+  three mor places beside but i did not see any dainger of sinking not
+  the lest for wee had a vry plesent voyges over in deed the pervison on
+  bord ship Monday pork haf pound pea haf pint butter 6 ounces weekly
+  tea 1 ounce per week 9 ounces daily biscuit Tusday beef haf pound rice
+  4 ounces flour 1 pound per week Wendesday pork haf pound peas haf pint
+  raisins haf pound per week cooffee 1 ounce and haf per week Thursday
+  preserved meet haf pound Friday pork haf pound peas haf pint Sadurday
+  beef haf pound rice 4 ounces sugar three Quarter pound per week Sunday
+  preserved meat haf pound fresh woter three Quarrts daily vinegar haf
+  pint per week Mustard haf ounce per week salt tow ounces per week lime
+  Juse haf pint per week my der sisters i houp you will keep your selvs
+  from all bad company for it is a disgrace to all frends and likwise
+  worse for you own sellvs o rember that opinted day to com at last tis
+  behoups that wee shal bee free from all dets o whot a glorious tirm it
+  will bee then wee shal feel no more pains nor gref nor sorows nor
+  sickness nor truble of any cind o whot a glorious term it will bee
+  then o seeners kip your selvs out off the mire for feer you shuld sink
+  to the bootem the sarvents wagars of houstler tha geets ges haf as
+  much mour as tha gets at tome and my sister Maryaan shee kood geet 16
+  punds a year and Sarah get 20 pound and Marther get 8 or 9 pound and
+  tha arr not so sharp to the servents as tha arr at tome i houp you
+  will send word wot the yungest child name is and how it is geeting on
+  and send the date when it wos born and i houp this will find you all
+  weel and cumfortble to. J. R.”
+
+
+
+
+                          A VERY OLD SOLDIER.
+
+
+The following is a chip from a block whence we have already taken a few
+shavings:—“Kohl’s Travels in the Netherlands.” It describes the National
+Hospital for the Aged at Brussels. Some of the inmates whom he found in
+it, though still alive, belong to history. It must have been with a sort
+of archaic emotion that our inquisitive friend found himself speaking to
+a man who had escorted Marie Antoinette from Vienna to Paris, on the
+occasion of her marriage!
+
+“The magnitude of the _Hospice des Vieillards_ in Brussels,” says Mr.
+Kohl, “fully realises the idea of a National establishment. The building
+itself fulfils all the required conditions of extent, solidity, and
+convenience. The gardens, court-yards, and apartments are spacious and
+well arranged. The sleeping and eating rooms are large, and well
+furnished; and it is pleasing to observe, here and there, the walls
+adorned with pictures painted in oil-colours. The inmates of this
+_Hospice_ pass their latter days in the enjoyment of a degree of
+happiness and comfort which would be unattainable in their own homes.
+The chapel is situated only at the distance of a few paces from the main
+building, and is connected with it by means of a roofed corridor; thus
+obviating the difficulties which prevent old people from attending
+places of public worship when, as it frequently happens, they are
+situated at long and inaccessible distances from their dwellings. In
+winter the Chapel of the _Hospice_ is carefully warmed and secured
+against damp.
+
+“At the time of my visit to the _Hospice des Vieillards_ in Brussels,
+the establishment contained about seven hundred inmates, of both sexes,
+between the ages of seventy and eighty. Of this number six hundred and
+fifteen were maintained at the charge of the establishment, and
+seventy-five, being in competent circumstances, defrayed their own
+expenses. That the number of those able to maintain themselves should
+bear so considerable a relative proportion to the rest, is a fact which
+bears strong testimony in favour of the merits of the establishment.
+Those who support themselves live in a style more or less costly,
+according to the amount of their respective payments. Some of the
+apartments into which I was conducted certainly presented such an air of
+comfort that persons, even of a superior condition of life, could
+scarcely have desired better.
+
+“I learned from the Governor of the _Hospice_ that the average cost of
+the maintenance of each individual was about seventy-five centimes per
+day, making a total diurnal expenditure of six hundred francs, or of two
+hundred thousand francs per annum. But as this estimate includes the
+wages of attendants and the expenses consequent on repairs of the
+building, it may fairly be calculated that each individual costs about
+three hundred francs per annum. The _Hospice_ frequently receives
+liberal donations and bequests from opulent private persons.
+
+“For such of the pensioners as are able to work, employment is provided:
+others are appointed to fill official posts in the veteran Republic. Now
+and then a little task-work is imposed; but the _Hospice_ being rich,
+this duty is not exacted with the precision requisite in establishments
+for the young, where the inmates having a long worldly career before
+them, it is desirable that they should be trained in habits of
+regularity and industry. The pensioners of the Brussels _Hospice des
+Vieillards_, enjoy much freedom; and they are even allowed some
+amusements and indulgences, which it might not be proper to concede to
+young persons. For example, they are permitted to play at cards; but it
+will scarcely be said there is anything objectionable in such an
+indulgence to old persons who have run out their worldly course; for
+even were they fated once more to enter into society, their example
+could neither be very useful nor very dangerous. Here and there I
+observed groups of the pensioners, male and female, seated at cards,
+staking their pocket-money, of which each has a small allowance, on the
+hazard of the game. The penalties assigned for misdemeanours are very
+mild, consisting merely in the offending party being prohibited from
+going out, or, as it is called, _la privée de la sortie_. In extreme
+cases the delinquent is confined to his or her own apartment.
+
+“It has seldom been my lot to visit a charitable institution, which
+created in my mind so many pleasing impressions as those I experienced
+in the Hospital for the Old in Brussels. It was gratifying to observe in
+the spacious court-yards the cheerful and happy groups of grey-haired
+men and women, sunning themselves in the open air. Some were playing at
+cards, whilst here and there the females were seated at work, and men
+sauntering about smoking their pipes and gossiping. Every now and then I
+met an old man whistling or singing whilst he paced to and fro. More
+than one of these veterans had been eye-witnesses of interesting
+historical events, which now belong to a past age. Several of them had
+served as soldiers during the Austrian dominion in Belgium. Of these the
+porter of the Hospital was one.
+
+“The most remarkable character in the whole establishment was an old
+Dutchman, named Jan Hermann Jankens, who was born at Leyden in the year
+1735. At the time when I saw him, he was one hundred and nine years of
+age; or, to quote his own description of himself, he was ‘_leste,
+vaillant, et sain_.’”
+
+                 “Il nous rapelle en vain
+                 Apres un siècle de séjour,
+                 Ses plaisirs ainsi que ses amertumes.”
+
+“These lines were inscribed beneath his portrait, which hung in his own
+apartment. I remarked that the painter had not flattered him. ‘You are
+right, Sir,’ replied he; ‘the fact is, I am much younger than my
+portrait,’ and to prove that he was making no vain boast, he sprang up,
+and cut several capers, with surprising agility. His faculties were
+unimpaired, and he was a remarkable example of that vigorous
+organisation which sometimes manifests itself in the human frame; and
+which excites our wonder when we find that such delicate structures as
+the nerves of sight and hearing may be used for the space of a century
+without wearing out. Until within two years of the time when I saw
+Jankens, he had been able to work well and actively. His hand was firm
+and steady, and he frequently wrote letters to his distant friends. When
+in his one hundred and seventh year, he thought, very reasonably, that
+he might give up work. ‘And what do you do now?’ I enquired. ‘I enjoy my
+life,’ replied he; ‘I saunter about the whole day long, singing,
+smoking, and amusing myself. I spend my time very gaily!’
+
+“‘Yes, Sir; he dances, drinks, and sings all day long!’ exclaimed, in a
+half-jeering, half-envious tone, another veteran, named Watermans, who
+had joined us, and who, though _only_ ninety years of age, was much more
+feeble than Jankens.
+
+“I learned from the latter that he had had fifteen children; but that of
+all his large family, only one survived, though most of them had lived
+to a goodly age. His memory was stored with recollections of events
+connected with the marriage of Louis the Sixteenth; for, when a soldier
+in the Austrian service, he had formed one of the military escort which
+conducted Marie Antoinette into France. He sang me an old song, which
+had been composed in honour of the Royal nuptials, and which he said was
+very popular at the time. It was in the usual style of such effusions; a
+mere string of hyperbolic compliments, in praise of the ‘beauteous
+Princess,’ and the ‘illustrious Prince.’ It sounded like an echo from
+the grave of old French loyalty. Jankens sang this song in a remarkably
+clear, strong voice; but nevertheless, the performance did not give
+satisfaction to old Watermans, who, thrusting his fingers into his ears,
+said peevishly, ‘What a croaking noise!’
+
+“Heedless of this discouraging remark, the venerable centenarian was
+preparing to favour me with another specimen of his vocal ability, when
+the great bell in the court-yard rang for supper. ‘Pardon, Sir,’ said
+Jankens, with an apologetic bow, ‘but—supper.’ Whereupon he hurried off
+in the direction of the refectory, with that sort of eager yearning with
+which it might be imagined he turned to his mother’s breast one hundred
+and nine years before.
+
+“‘It is amazing that that old fellow should have so sharp an appetite,’
+observed the petulant Watermans, hobbling after him in a way which
+showed that he too was not altogether unprepared to do honour to the
+evening meal.”
+
+This Hospital for the Aged is a sort of National Almshouse not solely
+peculiar to Belgium. Private munificence does in England what is done
+abroad by Governments; but it is to be deplored that a more general
+provision for the superannuated does not exist in this country.
+Workhouses are indeed asylums for the old; but for those who are also
+decayed in worldly circumstances, they cannot afford those comforts
+which old age requires. Except Greenwich Hospital for sailors, and
+Chelsea Hospital for soldiers, we have no national institution for old
+people.
+
+
+
+
+                         THE HOUSEHOLD JEWELS.
+
+
+               A Traveller, from journeying
+                 In countries far away,
+               Re-passed his threshold at the close
+                 Of one calm Sabbath day;
+               A voice of love, a comely face,
+                 A kiss of chaste delight,
+               Were the first things to welcome him
+                 On that blest Sabbath night.
+
+               He stretched his limbs upon the hearth,
+                 Before its friendly blaze,
+               And conjured up mixed memories
+                 Of gay and gloomy days;
+               And felt that none of gentle soul,
+                 However far he roam,
+               Can e’er forego, can e’er forget,
+                 The quiet joys of home.
+
+               “Bring me my children!” cried the sire,
+                 With eager, earnest tone;
+               “I long to press them, and to mark
+                 How lovely they have grown;
+               Twelve weary months have passed away
+                 Since I went o’er the sea,
+               To feel how sad and lone I was
+                 Without my babes and thee.”
+
+               “Refresh thee, as ’tis needful,” said
+                 The fair and faithful wife,
+               The while her pensive features paled,
+                 And stirred with inward strife;
+               “Refresh thee, husband of my heart,
+                 I ask it as a boon;
+               Our children are reposing, love;
+                 Thou shalt behold them soon.”
+
+               She spread the meal, she filled the cup,
+                 She pressed him to partake;
+               He sat down blithely at the board,
+                 And all for her sweet sake;
+               But when the frugal feast was done,
+                 The thankful prayer preferred,
+               Again affection’s fountain flowed;
+                 Again its voice was heard.
+
+               “Bring me my children, darling wife,
+                 I’m in an ardent mood;
+               My soul lacks purer aliment,
+                 I long for other food;
+               Bring forth my children to my gaze,
+                 Or ere I rage or weep,
+               I yearn to kiss their happy eyes
+                 Before the hour of sleep.”
+
+               “I have a question yet to ask;
+                 Be patient, husband dear.
+               A stranger, one auspicious morn,
+                 Did send some jewels here;
+               Until to take them from my care,
+                 But yesterday he came,
+               And I restored them with a sigh:
+                 —Dost thou approve, or blame?”
+
+               “I marvel much, sweet wife, that thou
+                 Shouldst breathe such words to me;
+               Restore to man, resign to God,
+                 Whate’er is lent to thee;
+               Restore it with a willing heart,
+                 Be grateful for the trust;
+               Whate’er may tempt or try us, wife,
+                 Let us be ever just.”
+
+               She took him by the passive hand,
+                 And up the moonlit stair,
+               She led him to their bridal bed,
+                 With mute and mournful air;
+               She turned the cover down, and there,
+                 In grave-like garments dressed,
+               Lay the twin children of their love,
+                 In death’s serenest rest.
+
+               “These were the jewels lent to me,
+                 Which God has deigned to own;
+               The precious caskets still remain,
+                 But, ah, the _gems_ are flown;
+               But thou didst teach me to resign
+                 What God alone can claim;
+               He giveth and he takes away,
+                 Blest be His holy name!”
+
+               The father gazed upon his babes,
+                 The mother drooped apart,
+               Whilst all the woman’s sorrow gushed
+                 From her o’erburdened heart;
+               And with the striving of her grief,
+                 Which wrung the tears she shed,
+               Were mingled low and loving words
+                 To the unconscious dead.
+
+               When the sad sire had looked his fill.
+                 He veiled each breathless face,
+               And down in self-abasement bowed,
+                 For comfort and for grace;
+               With the deep eloquence of woe,
+                 Poured forth his secret soul,
+               Rose up, and stood erect and calm,
+                 In spirit healed and whole.
+
+               “Restrain thy tears, poor wife,” he said,
+                 “I learn this lesson still,
+               God gives, and God can take away,
+                 Blest be His holy will!
+               Blest are my children, for they _live_
+                 From sin and sorrow free,
+               And I am not all joyless, wife,
+                 With faith, hope, love, and thee.”
+
+
+
+
+                      THE LABORATORY IN THE CHEST.
+
+
+The mind of Mr. Bagges was decidedly affected—beneficially—by the
+lecture on the Chemistry of a Candle, which, as set forth in a previous
+number of this journal, had been delivered to him by his youthful
+nephew. That learned discourse inspired him with a new feeling; an
+interest in matters of science. He began to frequent the Polytechnic
+Institution, nearly as much as his club. He also took to lounging at the
+British Museum; where he was often to be seen, with his left arm under
+his coat-tails, examining the wonderful works of nature and antiquity,
+through his eye-glass. Moreover, he procured himself to be elected a
+member of the Royal Institution, which became a regular house of call to
+him, so that in a short time he grew to be one of the ordinary phenomena
+of the place.
+
+Mr. Bagges likewise adopted a custom of giving _conversaziones_, which,
+however, were always very private and select—generally confined to his
+sister’s family. Three courses were first discussed; then dessert; after
+which, surrounded by an apparatus of glasses and decanters, Master Harry
+Wilkinson was called upon, as a sort of juvenile Davy, to amuse his
+uncle by the elucidation of some chemical or other physical mystery.
+Master Wilkinson had now attained to the ability of making experiments;
+most of which, involving combustion, were strongly deprecated by the
+young gentleman’s mamma; but her opposition was overruled by Mr. Bagges,
+who argued that it was much better that a young dog should burn
+phosphorus before your face than let off gunpowder behind your back, to
+say nothing of occasionally pinning a cracker to your skirts. He
+maintained that playing with fire and water, throwing stones, and such
+like boys’ tricks, as they are commonly called, are the first
+expressions of a scientific tendency—endeavours and efforts of the
+infant mind to acquaint itself with the powers of Nature.
+
+His own favourite toys, he remembered, were squibs, suckers, squirts,
+and slings; and he was persuaded that, by his having been denied them at
+school, a natural philosopher had been nipped in the bud.
+
+Blowing bubbles was an example—by-the-bye, a rather notable one—by which
+Mr. Bagges, on one of his scientific evenings, was instancing the
+affinity of child’s play to philosophical experiments, when he bethought
+him Harry had said on a former occasion that the human breath consists
+chiefly of carbonic acid, which is heavier than common air. How then, it
+occurred to his inquiring, though elderly mind, was it that
+soap-bladders, blown from a tobacco-pipe, rose instead of sinking? He
+asked his nephew this.
+
+“Oh, uncle!” answered Harry, “in the first place, the air you blow
+bubbles with mostly comes in at the nose and goes out at the mouth,
+without having been breathed at all. Then it is warmed by the mouth, and
+warmth, you know, makes a measure of air get larger, and so lighter in
+proportion. A soap-bubble rises for the same reason that a fire-balloon
+rises—that is, because the air inside of it has been heated, and weighs
+less than the same sized bubbleful of cold air.”
+
+“What, hot breath does!” said Mr. Bagges. “Well, now, it’s a curious
+thing, when you come to think of it, that the breath should be
+hot—indeed, the warmth of the body generally seems a puzzle. It is
+wonderful, too, how the bodily heat can be kept up so long as it is.
+Here, now, is this tumbler of hot grog—a mixture of boiling water, and
+what d’ye call it, you scientific geniuses?”
+
+“Alcohol, uncle.”
+
+“Alcohol—well—or, as we used to say, brandy. Now, if I leave this
+tumbler of brandy-and-water alone——”
+
+“_If_ you do, uncle,” interposed his nephew, archly.
+
+“Get along, you idle rogue! If I let that tumbler stand there, in a few
+minutes the brandy-and water—eh?—I beg pardon—the alcohol-and-water—gets
+cold. Now, why—why the deuce—if the brandy—the alcohol-and-water cools;
+why—how—how is it we don’t cool in the same way, I want to know? eh?”
+demanded Mr. Bagges, with the air of a man who feels satisfied that he
+has propounded a “regular poser.”
+
+“Why,” replied Harry, “for the same reason that the room keeps warm so
+long as there is a fire in the grate.”
+
+“You don’t mean to say that I have a fire in my body?”
+
+“I do, though.”
+
+“Eh, now? That’s good,” said Mr. Bagges. “That reminds me of the man in
+love crying, ‘Fire! fire!’ and the lady said, ‘Where, where?’ And he
+called out, ‘Here! here!’ with his hand upon his heart. Eh?—but now I
+think of it—you said, the other day, that breathing was a sort of
+burning. Do you mean to tell me that I—eh?—have fire, fire, as the lover
+said, here, here—in short, that my chest is a grate or an Arnott’s
+stove?”
+
+“Not exactly so, uncle. But I do mean to tell you that you have a sort
+of fire burning partly in your chest; but also, more or less, throughout
+your whole body.”
+
+“Oh, Henry!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilkinson, “How can you say such horrid
+things!”
+
+“Because they’re quite true, mamma—but you needn’t be frightened. The
+fire of one’s body is not hotter than from ninety degrees to one hundred
+and four degrees or so. Still it is fire, and will burn some things, as
+you would find, uncle, if, in using phosphorus, you were to let a little
+bit of it get under your nail.”
+
+“I’ll take your word for the fact, my boy,” said Mr. Bagges. “But, if I
+have a fire burning throughout my person—which I was not aware of, the
+only inflammation I am ever troubled with being in the great toe—I say,
+if my body is burning continually—how is it I don’t smoke—eh? Come,
+now!”
+
+“Perhaps you consume your own smoke,” suggested Mr. Wilkinson, senior,
+“like every well-regulated furnace.”
+
+“You smoke nothing but your pipe, uncle, because you burn all your
+carbon,” said Harry. “But, if your body doesn’t smoke, it steams.
+Breathe against a looking-glass, or look at your breath on a cold
+morning. Observe how a horse reeks when it perspires. Besides—as you
+just now said you recollected my telling you the other day—you breathe
+out carbonic acid, and that, and the steam of the breath together, are
+exactly the same things, you know, that a candle turns into in burning.”
+
+“But if I burn like a candle—why don’t I burn _out_ like a candle?”
+demanded Mr. Bagges. “How do you get over that?”
+
+“Because,” replied Harry, “your fuel is renewed as fast as burnt. So
+perhaps you resemble a lamp rather than a candle. A lamp requires to be
+fed; so does the body—as, possibly, uncle, you may be aware.”
+
+“Eh?—well—I have always entertained an idea of that sort,” answered Mr.
+Bagges, helping himself to some biscuits. “But the lamp feeds on
+train-oil.”
+
+“So does the Laplander. And you couldn’t feed the lamp on turtle or
+mulligatawny, of course, uncle. But mulligatawny or turtle can be
+changed into fat—they are so, sometimes, I think—when they are eaten in
+large quantities, and fat will burn fast enough. And most of what you
+eat turns into something which burns at last, and is consumed in the
+fire that warms you all over.”
+
+“Wonderful, to be sure,” exclaimed Mr. Bagges. “Well, now, and how does
+this extraordinary process take place?”
+
+“First, you know, uncle, your food is digested—”
+
+“Not always, I am sorry to say, my boy,” Mr. Bagges observed, “but go
+on.”
+
+“Well; when it _is_ digested, it becomes a sort of fluid, and mixes
+gradually with the blood, and turns into blood, and so goes over the
+whole body, to nourish it. Now, if the body is always being nourished,
+why doesn’t it keep getting bigger and bigger, like the ghost in the
+Castle of Otranto?”
+
+“Eh? Why, because it loses as well as gains, I suppose. By
+perspiration—eh—for instance?”
+
+“Yes, and by breathing; in short, by the burning I mentioned just now.
+Respiration, or breathing, uncle, is a perpetual combustion.”
+
+“But if my system,” said Mr. Bagges, “is burning throughout, what keeps
+up the fire in my little finger—putting gout out of the question?”
+
+“You burn all over, because you breathe all over, to the very tips of
+your fingers’ ends,” replied Harry.
+
+“Oh, don’t talk nonsense to your uncle!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilkinson.
+
+“It isn’t nonsense,” said Harry. “The air that you draw into the lungs
+goes more or less over all the body, and penetrates into every fibre of
+it, which is breathing. Perhaps you would like to hear a little more
+about the chemistry of breathing, or respiration, uncle?”
+
+“I should, certainly.”
+
+“Well, then; first you ought to have some idea of the breathing
+apparatus. The laboratory that contains this, is the chest, you know.
+The chest, you also know, has in it the heart and lungs, which, with
+other things in it, fill it quite out, so as to leave no hollow space
+between themselves and it. The lungs are a sort of air-sponges, and when
+you enlarge your chest to draw breath, they swell out with it and suck
+the air in. On the other hand you narrow your chest and squeeze the
+lungs and press the air from them;—that is breathing out. The lungs are
+made up of a lot of little cells. A small pipe—a little branch of the
+windpipe—opens into each cell. Two blood-vessels, a little tiny artery,
+and a vein to match, run into it also. The arteries bring into the
+little cells dark-coloured blood, which _has been_ all over the body.
+The veins carry out of the little cells bright scarlet-coloured blood,
+which _is to go_ all over the body. So all the blood passes through the
+lungs, and in so doing, is changed from dark to bright scarlet.”
+
+“Black blood, didn’t you say, in the arteries, and scarlet in the veins?
+I thought it was just the reverse,” interrupted Mr. Bagges.
+
+“So it is,” replied Harry, “with all the other arteries and veins,
+except those that circulate the blood through the lung-cells. The heart
+has two sides, with a partition between them that keeps the blood on the
+right side separate from the blood on the left; both sides being hollow,
+mind. The blood on the right side of the heart comes there from all over
+the body, by a couple of large veins, dark, before it goes to the lungs.
+From the right side of the heart, it goes on to the lungs, dark still,
+through an artery. It comes back to the left side of the heart from the
+lungs, bright scarlet, through four veins. Then it goes all over the
+rest of the body from the left side of the heart, through an artery that
+branches into smaller arteries, all carrying bright scarlet blood. So
+the arteries and veins of the lungs on one hand, and of the rest of the
+body on the other, do exactly opposite work, you understand.”
+
+“I hope so.”
+
+“Now,” continued Harry, “it requires a strong magnifying glass to see
+the lung-cells plainly, they are so small. But you can fancy them as big
+as you please. Picture any one of them to yourself of the size of an
+orange, say, for convenience in thinking about it; that one cell, with
+whatever takes place in it, will be a specimen of the rest. Then you
+have to imagine an artery carrying blood of one colour into it, and a
+vein taking away blood of another colour from it, and the blood changing
+its colour in the cell.”
+
+“Aye, but what makes the blood change its colour?”
+
+“Recollect, uncle, you have a little branch from the windpipe opening
+into the cell which lets in the air. Then the blood and the air are
+brought together, and the blood alters in colour. The reason, I suppose
+you would guess, is that it is somehow altered by the air.”
+
+“No very unreasonable conjecture, I should think,” said Mr. Bagges.
+
+“Well; if the air alters the blood, most likely, we should think, it
+gives something to the blood. So first let us see what is the difference
+between the air we breathe _in_, and the air we breathe _out_. You know
+that neither we nor animals can keep breathing the same air over and
+over again. You don’t want me to remind you of the Black Hole of
+Calcutta, to convince you of that; and I dare say you will believe what
+I tell you, without waiting till I can catch a mouse and shut it up in
+an air-tight jar, and show you how soon the unlucky creature will get
+uncomfortable, and begin to gasp, and that it will by-and-by die. But if
+we were to try this experiment—not having the fear of the Society for
+the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, nor the fear of doing wrong,
+before our eyes—we should find that the poor mouse, before he died, had
+changed the air of his prison considerably. But it would be just as
+satisfactory, and much more humane, if you or I were to breathe in and
+out of a silk bag or a bladder till we could stand it no longer, and
+then collect the air which we had been breathing in and out. We should
+find that a jar of such air would put out a candle. If we shook some
+lime-water up with it, the lime-water would turn milky. In short, uncle,
+we should find that a great part of the air was carbonic acid, and the
+rest mostly nitrogen. The air we inhale is nitrogen and oxygen; the air
+we exhale has lost most of its oxygen, and consists of little more than
+nitrogen and carbonic acid. Together with this, we breathe out the
+vapour of water, as I said before. Therefore in breathing, we give off
+exactly what a candle does in burning, only not so fast, after the rate.
+The carbonic acid we breathe out, shows that carbon is consumed within
+our bodies. The watery vapour of the breath is a proof that hydrogen is
+so too. We take in oxygen with the air, and the oxygen unites with
+carbon, and makes carbonic acid, and with hydrogen, forms water.”
+
+“Then don’t the hydrogen and carbon combine with the oxygen—that is,
+burn—in the lungs, and isn’t the chest the fireplace, after all?” asked
+Mr. Bagges.
+
+“Not altogether, according to those who are supposed to know better.
+They are of opinion, that some of the oxygen unites with the carbon and
+hydrogen of the blood in the lungs; but that most of it is merely
+absorbed by the blood, and dissolved in it in the first instance.”
+
+“Oxygen absorbed by the blood? That seems odd,” remarked Mr. Bagges,
+“How can that be?”
+
+“We only know the fact that there are some things that will absorb
+gases—suck them in—make them disappear. Charcoal will, for instance. It
+is thought that the iron which the blood contains gives it the curious
+property of absorbing oxygen. Well; the oxygen going into the blood
+makes it change from dark to bright scarlet; and then this blood
+containing oxygen is conveyed all over the system by the arteries, and
+yields up the oxygen to combine with hydrogen and carbon as it goes
+along. The carbon and hydrogen are part of the substance of the body.
+The bright scarlet blood mixes oxygen with them, which burns them, in
+fact; that is, makes them into carbonic acid and water. Of course, the
+body would soon be consumed if this were all that the blood does. But
+while it mixes oxygen with the old substance of the body, to burn it up,
+it lays down fresh material to replace the loss. So our bodies are
+continually changing throughout, though they seem to us always the same;
+but then, you know, a river appears the same from year’s end to year’s
+end, although the water in it is different every day.”
+
+“Eh, then,” said Mr. Bagges, “if the body is always on the change in
+this way, we must have had several bodies in the course of our lives, by
+the time we are old.”
+
+“Yes, uncle; therefore, how foolish it is to spend money upon funerals.
+What becomes of all the bodies we use up during our lifetimes? If we are
+none the worse for their flying away in carbonic acid and other things
+without ceremony, what good can we expect from having a fuss made about
+the body we leave behind us, which is put into the earth? However, you
+are wanting to know what becomes of the water and carbonic acid which
+have been made by the oxygen of the blood burning up the old materials
+of our frame. The dark blood of the veins absorbs this carbonic acid and
+water, as the blood of the arteries does oxygen,—only, they say, it does
+so by means of a salt in it, called phosphate of soda. Then the dark
+blood goes back to the lungs, and in them it parts with its carbonic
+acid and water, which escapes as breath. As fast as we breathe out,
+carbonic acid and water leave the blood; as fast as we breathe in,
+oxygen enters it. The oxygen is sent out in the arteries to make the
+rubbish of the body into gas and vapour, so that the veins may bring it
+back and get rid of it. The burning of rubbish by oxygen throughout our
+frames is the fire by which our animal heat is kept up. At least this is
+what most philosophers think; though doctors differ a little on this
+point, as on most others, I hear. Professor Liebig says, that our carbon
+is mostly prepared for burning by being first extracted from the blood
+sent to it—(which contains much of the rubbish of the system
+dissolved)—in the form of bile, and is then re-absorbed into the blood,
+and burnt. He reckons that a grown-up man consumes about fourteen ounces
+of carbon a day. Fourteen ounces of charcoal a day, or eight pounds two
+ounces a week, would keep up a tolerable fire.”
+
+“I had no idea we were such extensive charcoal-burners,” said Mr.
+Bagges. “They say we each eat our peck of dirt before we die—but we must
+burn bushels of charcoal.”
+
+“And so,” continued Harry, “the Professor calculates that we burn quite
+enough fuel to account for our heat. I should rather think, myself, it
+had something to do with it—shouldn’t you?”
+
+“Eh?” said Mr. Bagges; “it makes one rather nervous to think that one is
+burning all over—throughout one’s very blood—in this kind of way.”
+
+“It is very awful!” said Mrs. Wilkinson.
+
+“If true. But in that case, shouldn’t we be liable to inflame
+occasionally?” objected her husband.
+
+“It is said,” answered Harry, “that spontaneous combustion does happen
+sometimes; particularly in great spirit drinkers. I don’t see why it
+should not, if the system were to become too inflammable. Drinking
+alcohol would be likely to load the constitution with carbon, which
+would be fuel for the fire, at any rate.”
+
+“The deuce!” exclaimed Mr. Bagges, pushing his brandy-and-water from
+him. “We had better take care how we indulge in combustibles.”
+
+“At all events,” said Harry, “it must be bad to have too much fuel in
+us. It must choke the fire I should think, if it did not cause
+inflammation; which Dr. Truepenny says it does, meaning, by
+inflammation, gout, and so on, you know, uncle.”
+
+“Ahem!” coughed Mr. Bagges.
+
+“Taking in too much fuel, I dare say you know, uncle, means eating and
+drinking to excess,” continued Harry. “The best remedy, the doctor says,
+for overstuffing is exercise. A person who uses great bodily exertion,
+can eat and drink more without suffering from it than one who leads an
+inactive life; a foxhunter, for instance, in comparison with an
+alderman. Want of exercise and too much nourishment must make a man
+either fat or ill. If the extra hydrogen and carbon are not burnt out,
+or otherwise got rid of, they turn to blubber, or cause some disturbance
+in the system, intended by Nature to throw them off, which is called a
+disease. Walking, riding, running, increase the breathing—as well as the
+perspiration—and make us burn away our carbon and hydrogen in
+proportion. Dr. Truepenny declares that if people would only take in as
+much fuel as is requisite to keep up a good fire, his profession would
+be ruined.”
+
+“The good old advice—Baillie’s, eh?—or Abernethy’s—live upon sixpence a
+day, and earn it,” Mr. Bagges observed.
+
+“Well, and then, uncle, in hot weather the appetite is naturally weaker
+than it is in cold—less heat is required, and therefore less food. So in
+hot climates; and the chief reason, says the doctor, why people ruin
+their health in India is their spurring and goading their stomachs to
+crave what is not good for them, by spices and the like. Fruits and
+vegetables are the proper things to eat in such countries, because they
+contain little carbon compared to flesh, and they are the diet of the
+natives of those parts of the world. Whereas food with much carbon in
+it, meat, or even mere fat or oil, which is hardly anything else than
+carbon and hydrogen, are proper in very cold regions, where heat from
+within is required to supply the want of it without. That is why the
+Laplander is able, as I said he does, to devour train-oil. And Dr.
+Truepenny says that it may be all very well for Mr. M‘Gregor to drink
+raw whiskey at deer-stalking in the Highlands, but if Major Campbell
+combines that beverage with the diversion of tiger-hunting in the East
+Indies, habitually, the chances are that the Major will come home with a
+diseased liver.”
+
+“Upon my word, sir, the whole art of preserving health appears to
+consist in keeping up a moderate fire within us,” observed Mr. Bagges.
+
+“Just so, uncle, according to my friend the Doctor. ‘Adjust the fuel,’
+he says, ‘to the draught—he means the oxygen; keep the bellows properly
+at work, by exercise, and your fire will seldom want poking.’ The
+Doctor’s pokers, you know, are pills, mixtures, leeches, blisters,
+lancets, and things of that sort.”
+
+“Indeed? Well, then, my heart-burn, I suppose, depends upon bad
+management of my fire?” surmised Mr. Bagges.
+
+“I should say that was more than probable, uncle. Well, now, I think you
+see that animal heat can be accounted for, in very great part at least,
+by the combustion of the body. And then there are several facts that—as
+I remember Shakespeare says—
+
+                     “‘help to thicken other proofs,
+                   That do demonstrate thinly.’
+
+“Birds that breathe a great deal are very hot creatures; snakes and
+lizards, and frogs and fishes, that breathe but little, are so cold that
+they are called cold-blooded animals. Bears and dormice, that sleep all
+the winter, are cold during their sleep, whilst their breathing and
+circulation almost entirely stop. We increase our heat by walking fast,
+running, jumping, or working hard; which sets us breathing faster, and
+then we get warmer. By these means we blow up our own fire, if we have
+no other, to warm ourselves on a cold day. And how is it that we don’t
+go on continually getting hotter and hotter?”
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Bagges, “I suppose that is one of Nature’s
+mysteries.”
+
+“Why, what happens, uncle, when we take violent exercise? We break out
+into a perspiration; as you complain you always do, if you only run a
+few yards. Perspiration is mostly water, and the extra heat of the body
+goes into the water, and flies away with it in steam. Just for the same
+reason, you can’t boil water so as to make it hotter than two hundred
+and twelve degrees; because all the heat that passes into it beyond
+that, unites with some of it and becomes steam, and so escapes. Hot
+weather causes you to perspire even when you sit still; and so your heat
+is cooled in summer. If you were to heat a man in an oven, the heat of
+his body generally wouldn’t increase very much till he became exhausted
+and died. Stories are told of mountebanks sitting in ovens, and meat
+being cooked by the side of them. Philosophers have done much the same
+thing—Dr. Fordyce and others, who found they could bear a heat of two
+hundred and sixty degrees. Perspiration is our animal fire-escape. Heat
+goes out from the lungs, as well as the skin, in water; so the lungs are
+concerned in cooling us as well as heating us, like a sort of regulating
+furnace. Ah, uncle, the body is a wonderful factory, and I wish I were
+man enough to take you over it. I have only tried to show you something
+of the contrivances for warming it, and I hope you understand a little
+about that!”
+
+“Well,” said Mr. Bagges, “breathing, I understand you to say, is the
+chief source of animal heat, by occasioning the combination of carbon
+and hydrogen with oxygen, in a sort of gentle combustion, throughout our
+frame. The lungs and heart are an apparatus for generating heat, and
+distributing it over the body by means of a kind of warming pipes,
+called blood-vessels. Eh?—and the carbon and hydrogen we have in our
+systems we get from our food. Now, you see, here is a slice of cake, and
+there is a glass of wine—Eh?—now see whether you can get any carbon and
+oxygen out of that.”
+
+The young philosopher, having finished his lecture, applied himself
+immediately to the performance of the proposed experiment, which he
+performed with cleverness and dispatch.
+
+
+
+
+                  THE HOME OF WOODRUFFE THE GARDENER.
+
+
+                IN EIGHT CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.
+
+It was observed by Woodruffe’s family, during one week of spring of the
+next year, that he was very absent. He was not in low spirits, but
+absorbed in thought, and much devoted to making calculations with pencil
+and paper. At last, out it came, one morning at breakfast.
+
+“I wonder how we should all like to have Harry Hardiman to work with us
+again?”
+
+Every one looked up. Harry! where was Harry? Was he here? Was he coming?
+
+“Why, I will tell you what I have been thinking,” said their father. “I
+have thought long and carefully, and I believe I have made up my mind to
+send for Harry, to come and work for us as he used to do. We have not
+labour enough on the ground. Two stout men to the acre is the smallest
+allowance for trying what could be made of the place.”
+
+“That is what Taylor and Brown are employing now on the best part of
+their land,” said Allan; “that is, when they can get the labour. There
+is such difference between that and one man to four or five acres, as
+there was before, that they can’t always get the labour.”
+
+“Just so; and therefore,” continued Woodruffe, “I am thinking of sending
+for Harry. Our old neighbourhood was not prosperous when we left it, and
+I fancy it cannot have improved since; and Harry might be glad to follow
+his master to a thriving neighbourhood; and he is such a careful fellow
+that I dare say he has money for the journey,—even if he has a wife by
+this time, as I suppose he has.”
+
+Moss looked most pleased, where all were pleased, at the idea of seeing
+Harry again. His remembrance of Harry was of a tall young man, who used
+to carry him on his shoulders, and wheel him in the empty water-barrel,
+and sometimes offer to dip him in it when it was full, and show him how
+to dig in the sand-heap with his little wooden spade.
+
+“Your rent, to be sure, is much lower than in the old place,” observed
+Abby.
+
+“Why, we must not build upon that,” replied the father; “rent is rising
+here, and will rise. My landlord was considerate in lowering mine to
+3_l._ per acre, when he saw how impossible it was to make it answer; and
+he says he shall not ask more yet, on account of the labour I laid out
+at the time of the drainage. But when I have partly repaid myself, the
+rent will rise to 5_l._; and, in fact, I have made my calculations, in
+regard to Harry’s coming, at a higher rent than that.”
+
+“Higher than that?”
+
+“Yes: I should not be surprised if I found myself paying, as
+market-gardeners near London do, ten pounds per acre, before I die.”
+
+“Or rather, to let the ground to me, for that, father,” said Allan,
+“when it is your own property, and you are tired of work, and disposed
+to turn it over to me. I will pay you ten pounds per acre then, and let
+you have all the cabbages you can eat, besides. It is capital land, and
+that is the truth. Come—shall that be a bargain?”
+
+Woodruffe smiled, and said he owed a duty to Allan. He did not like to
+see him so hard worked as to be unable to take due care of his own
+corner of the garden;—unable to enter fairly into the competition for
+the prizes at the Horticultural Show in the summer. Becky now, too,
+ought to be spared from all but occasional help in the garden. Above
+all, the ground was now in such an improving state that it would be
+waste not to bestow due labour upon it. Put in the spade where you
+would, the soil was loose and well-aired as needs be: the manure
+penetrated it thoroughly; the frost and heat pulverised, instead of
+binding it; and the crops were succeeding each other so fast, that the
+year would be a very profitable one.
+
+“Where will Harry live, if he comes?” asked Abby.
+
+“We must get another cottage added to the new row. Easily done! Cottages
+so healthy as these new ones pay well. Good rents are offered for
+them,—to save doctors’ bills and loss of time from sickness;—and, when
+once a system of house-drainage is set agoing, it costs scarcely more,
+in adding a cottage to a group, to make it all right, than to run it up
+upon solid clay as used to be the way here. Well, I have good mind to
+write to Harry to-day. What do you think,—all of you?”
+
+Fortified by the opinion of all his children, Mr. Woodruffe wrote to
+Harry. Meantime, Allan and Becky went to cut the vegetables that were
+for sale that day; and Moss delighted himself in running after and
+catching the pony in the meadow below. The pony was not very easily
+caught, for it was full of spirit. Instead of the woolly insipid grass
+that it used to crop, and which seemed to give it only fever and no
+nourishment, it now fed on sweet fresh grass, which had no sour stagnant
+water soaking its roots. The pony was so full of play this morning that
+Moss could not get hold of it. Though much stronger than a year ago, he
+was not yet anything like so robust as a boy of his age should be; and
+he was growing heated, and perhaps a little angry, as the pony galloped
+off towards some distant trees, when a boy started up behind a bush,
+caught the halter, brought the pony round with a twitch, and led him to
+Moss. Moss fancied he had seen the boy before, and then his white teeth
+reminded Moss of one thing after another.
+
+“I came for some marsh plants,” said the boy. “You and I got plenty
+once, somewhere hereabouts: but I cannot find them now.”
+
+“You will not find any now. We have no marsh now.”
+
+The stranger said he dared not go back without them: mother wanted them
+badly. She would not believe him if he said he could not find any. There
+were plenty about two miles off, along the railway, among the clay-pits,
+he was told; but none nearer. The boy wanted to know where the clay-pits
+hereabouts were. He could not find one of them.
+
+“I will show you one of them,” said Moss; “the one where you and I used
+to hunt rats.” And, leading the pony, he showed his old gipsy playfellow
+all the improvements, beginning with the great ditch,—now invisible from
+being covered in. While it was open, he said, it used to get choked, and
+the sides were plastered after rain, and soon became grass-grown, so
+that it was found worth while to cover it in; and now it would want
+little looking to for years to come. As for the clay-pit, where the rats
+used to pop in and out,—it was now a manure-pit, covered in. There was a
+drain into it from the pony’s stable and from the pig-styes; and it was
+near enough to the garden to receive the refuse and sweepings. A heavy
+lid, with a ring in the middle, covered the pit, so that nobody could
+fall in, in the dark, and no smell could get out. Moss begged the boy to
+come a little further, and he would show him his own flower-bed; and
+when the boy was there, he was shown everything else: what a cartload of
+vegetables lay cut for sale; and what an arbour had been made of the
+pent-house under which Moss used to take shelter, when he could do
+nothing better than keep off the birds; and how fine the ducks were,—the
+five ducks that were so serviceable in eating off the slugs; and what a
+comfortable nest had been made for them to lay their eggs in, beside the
+water-tank in the corner; and what a variety of scarecrows the family
+had invented,—each having one, to try which would frighten the sparrows
+most. While Moss was telling how difficult it was to deal with the
+sparrows, because they could not be frightened for more than three days
+by any kind of scarecrow, he heard Allan calling him, in a tone of
+vexation, at being kept waiting so long. In an instant the stranger boy
+was off,—leaping the gate, and flying along the meadow till he was
+hidden behind a hedge.
+
+Two or three days after this one of the ducks was missing. The last time
+that the five had been seen together was when Moss was showing them to
+his visitor. The morning after Moss finally gave up hope, the glass of
+Allan’s hotbed was found broken, and in the midst of the bed itself was
+a deep foot-track, crushing the cucumber plants, and, with them, Allan’s
+hopes of a cucumber prize at the Horticultural Exhibition in the summer.
+On more examination, more mischief was discovered, some cabbages had
+been stolen, and another duck was missing. In the midst of the general
+concern, Woodruffe burst out a-laughing. It struck him that the chief of
+the scarecrows had changed his hat; and so he had. The old straw hat
+which used to flap in the wind so serviceably was gone, and in its stead
+appeared a helmet,—a saucepan full of holes, battered and split, but
+still fit to be a helmet to a scarecrow.
+
+“I could swear to the old hat,” observed Woodruffe, “if I should have
+the luck to see it on anybody’s head.”
+
+“And so could I,” said Becky, “for I mended it,—bound it with black
+behind, and green before, because I had not green ribbon enough. But
+nobody would wear it before our eyes.”
+
+“That is why I suspect there are strangers hovering about. We must
+watch.”
+
+Now Moss, for the first time, bethought himself of the boy he had
+brought in from the meadow; and now, for the first time, he told his
+family of that encounter.
+
+“I never saw such a simpleton,” his father declared. “There, go along
+and work! Now, don’t cry, but hold up like a man and work.”
+
+Moss did cry; he could not help it; but he worked too. He would fain
+have been one of the watchers, moreover; but his father said he was too
+young. For two nights he was ordered to bed, when Allan took his dark
+lantern, and went down to the pent-house; the first night accompanied by
+his father, and the next by Harry Hardiman, who had come on the first
+summons. By the third evening, Moss was so miserable that his sisters
+interceded for him, and he was allowed to go down with his old friend
+Harry.
+
+It was a starlight night, without a moon. The low country lay dim, but
+unobscured by mist. After a single remark on the fineness of the night,
+Harry was silent. Silence was their first business. They stole round the
+fence as if they had been thieves themselves, listened for some time
+before they let themselves in at the gate, passed quickly in, and locked
+the gate (the lock of which had been well oiled), went behind every
+screen, and along every path, to be sure that no one was there, and
+finally, perceiving that the remaining ducks were safe, settled
+themselves in the darkness of the pent-house.
+
+There they sat, hour after hour, listening. If there had been no sound,
+perhaps they could not have borne the effort: but the sense was relieved
+by the bark of a dog at a distance; and then by the hoot of the owl that
+was known to have done them good service in mousing, many a time; and
+once, by the passage of a train on the railway above. When these were
+all over, poor Moss had much ado to keep awake, and at last his head
+sank on Harry’s shoulder, and he forgot where he was, and everything
+else in the world. He was awakened by Harry’s moving, and then
+whispering quite into his ear:—
+
+“Sit you still. I hear somebody yonder. No—sit you still. I won’t go
+far—not out of call: but I must get between them and the gate.”
+
+With his lantern under his coat, Harry stole forth, and Moss stood up,
+all alone in the darkness and stillness. He could hear his heart beat,
+but nothing else, till footsteps on the path came nearer and nearer.
+They came quite up; they came in, actually into the arbour; and then the
+ducks were certainly fluttering. In an instant more, there was a gleam
+of light upon the white plumage of the ducks, and then light enough to
+show that this was the gipsy boy, with a dark lantern hung round his
+neck, and, at the same moment, to show the gipsy boy that Moss was
+there. The two boys stood, face to face, motionless from utter
+amazement, and the ducks had scuttled and waddled away before they
+recovered themselves. Then, Moss flew at him in a glorious passion, at
+once of rage and fear.
+
+“Leave him to me, Moss,” cried Harry, casting light upon the scene from
+his lantern, while he collared the thief with the other hand. “Let go, I
+say, Moss. There, now we’ll go round and be sure whether there is any
+one else in the garden, and then we’ll lodge this young rogue where he
+will be safe.”
+
+Nobody was there, and they went home in the dawn, locked up the thief in
+the shed, and slept through what remained of the night.
+
+It was about Mr. Nelson’s usual time for coming down the line; and it
+was observed that he now always stopped at this station till the next
+train passed,—probably because it was a pleasure to him to look upon the
+improvement of the place. It was no surprise therefore to Woodruffe to
+see him standing on the embankment after breakfast; and it was natural
+that Mr. Nelson should be immediately told that the gipsies were here
+again, and how one of them was caught thieving.
+
+“Thieving! So you found some of your property upon him, did you!”
+
+“Why, no. I thought myself that it was a pity that Moss did not let him
+alone till he had laid hold of a duck or something.”
+
+“Pho! pho! don’t tell me you can punish the boy for theft, when you
+can’t prove that he stole anything. Give him a whipping, and let him
+go.”
+
+“With all my heart. It will save me much trouble to finish off the
+matter so.”
+
+Mr. Nelson seemed to have some curiosity about the business; for he
+accompanied Woodruffe to the shed. The boy seemed to feel no awe of the
+great man whom he supposed to be a magistrate, and when asked whether he
+felt none, he giggled and said “No;” he had seen the gentleman more
+afraid of his mother than anybody ever was of him, he fancied. On this,
+a thought struck Mr. Nelson. He would now have his advantage of the
+gipsy woman, and might enjoy, at the same time, an opportunity of
+studying human nature under stress—a thing he liked, when the stress was
+not too severe. So he passed a decree on the spot that, it being now
+nine o’clock, the boy should remain shut up without food till noon, when
+he should be severely flogged, and driven from the neighbourhood: and
+with this pleasant prospect before him, the young rogue remained,
+whistling ostentatiously, while his enemies locked the door upon him.
+
+“Did you hear him shoot the bolt?” asked Woodruffe. “If he holds to
+that, I don’t know how I shall get at him at noon.”
+
+“There, now, what fools people are! Why did you not take out the bolt? A
+pretty constable you would make! Come—come this way. I am going to find
+the gipsy-tent again. You are wondering that I am not afraid of the
+woman, I see: but, you observe, I have a hold over her this time. What
+do you mean by allowing those children to gather about your door? You
+ought not to permit it.”
+
+“They are only the scholars. Don’t you see them going in? My daughter
+keeps a little school, you know, since her husband’s death.”
+
+“Ah, poor thing! poor thing!” said Mr. Nelson, as Abby appeared on the
+threshold, calling the children in.
+
+Mr. Nelson always contrived to see some one or more of the family when
+he visited the station; but it so happened, that he had never entered
+the door of their dwelling. Perhaps he was not himself fully conscious
+of the reason. It was, that he could not bear to see Abby’s young face
+within the widow’s cap, and to be thus reminded that hers was a case of
+cruel wrong; that if the most ordinary thought and care had been used in
+preparing the place for human habitation, her husband might be living
+now, and she the happy creature that she would never be again.
+
+On his way to the gipsies, Mr. Nelson saw some things that pleased him
+in his heart, though he found fault with them all. What business had
+Woodruffe with an additional man in his garden? It could not possibly
+answer. If it did not, the fellow must be sent away again. He must not
+burden the parish. The occupiers here seemed all alike. Such a fancy for
+new labour! One, two, six men at work on the land within sight at that
+moment, over and above what there used to be! It must be looked to.
+Humph! he could get to the alders dryshod now; but that was owing solely
+to the warmth of the spring. It was nonsense to attribute everything to
+drainage. Drainage was a good thing; but fine weather was better.
+
+The gipsy-tent was found behind the alders as before, but no longer in a
+swamp. The woman was sitting on the ground at the entrance as before,
+but not now with a fevered child laid across her knees. She was weaving
+a basket.
+
+“Oh, I see,” said Woodruffe, “This is the way our osiers go.”
+
+“You have not many to lose, now-a-days,” said the woman.
+
+“You are welcome to all the rushes you can find,” said Woodruffe; “but
+where is your son?”
+
+Some change of countenance was seen in the woman; but she answered
+carelessly that the children were playing yonder.
+
+“The one I mean is not there,” said Woodruffe. “We have him safe—caught
+him stealing my ducks.”
+
+She called the boy a villain—disowned him, and so forth; but when she
+found the case a hopeless one, she did not, and therefore, probably
+could not, scold—that is, anybody but herself and her husband. She
+cursed herself for coming into this silly place, where now no good was
+to be got. When she was brought to the right point of perplexity about
+what to do, seeing that it would not do to stay, and being unable to go
+while her boy was in durance, she was told that his punishment should be
+summary, though severe, if she would answer frankly certain questions.
+When she had once begun giving her confidence, she seemed to enjoy the
+license. When her husband came up, he looked as if he only waited for
+the departure of his visitors to give his wife the same amount of
+thrashing that her son was awaiting elsewhere. She vowed that they would
+never pitch their tent here again. It used to be the best station in
+their whole round—the fogs were so thick! From sunset to long after
+sunrise, it had been as good as a winter night, for going where they
+pleased without fear of prying eyes. There was not a poultry-yard or
+pig-stye within a couple of miles round, where they could not creep up
+through the fog. And they escaped the blame, too; for the swamp and
+ditches used to harbour so much vermin, that the gipsies were not always
+suspected, as they were now. Till lately, people shut themselves into
+their homes, or the men went to the public-house in the chill evenings;
+and there was little fear of meeting any one. But now that the fogs were
+gone, people were out in their gardens, on these fine evenings, and
+there were men in the meadows, returning from fishing; for they could
+angle now, when their work was done, without the fear of catching an
+ague in the marsh as they went home.
+
+Mr. Nelson used vigorously his last opportunity of lecturing these
+people. He had it all his own way, for the humility of the gipsies was
+edifying. Woodruffe fancied he saw some finger-talk passing, the while,
+though the gipsies never looked at each other, or raised their eyes from
+the ground. Woodruffe had to remind the Director that the whistle of the
+next train would soon be heard; and this brought the lecture to an
+abrupt conclusion. On his finishing off with, “I expect, therefore, that
+you will remember my advice, and never show your faces here again, and
+that you will take to a proper course of life in future, and bring up
+your son to honest industry;” the woman, with a countenance of grief,
+seized one hand and covered it with kisses, and the husband took the
+other hand and pressed it to his breast.
+
+“We must make haste,” observed Mr. Nelson, as he led the way quickly
+back; “but I think I have made some impression upon them. You see now
+the right way to treat these people. I don’t think you will see them
+here again.”
+
+“I don’t think we shall.”
+
+As he reached the steps the whistle was heard, and Mr. Nelson could only
+wave his hand to Woodruffe, rush up the embankment, and throw himself
+panting into a carriage. Only just in time!
+
+By an evening train, he re-appeared. When thirty miles off, he had
+wanted his purse, and it was gone. It had no doubt paid for the gipsies’
+final gratitude.
+
+Of course, a sufficient force was immediately sent to the alder clump;
+but there was nothing there but some charred sticks, and some clean pork
+bones, this time, instead of feathers of fowls, and a cabbage leaf or
+two. The boy had had his whipping at noon, after a conference with his
+little brother at the keyhole, which had caused him to withdraw the
+bolt, and offer no resistance. Considering his cries and groans, he had
+run off with surprising agility, and was now, no doubt, far away.
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+The gipsies came no more. The fogs came no more. The fever came no more;
+at least, in such a form as to threaten the general safety. Where it
+still lingered, it was about those only who deserved it,—in any small
+farm-house, where the dung-yard was too near the house; and in some
+cottage where the slatternly inmates did not mind a green puddle or
+choked ditch within reach of their noses. More dwellings arose, as the
+fertility of the land increased, and invited a higher kind of tillage;
+and among the prettiest of them was one which stood in the corner,—the
+most sunny corner,—of Woodruffe’s paddock. Harry Hardiman and his wife
+and child lived there, and the cottage was Woodruffe’s property.
+
+Yet Woodruffe’s rent had been raised; and pretty rapidly. He was now
+paying eight pounds per acre for his garden-ground, and half that for
+what was out of the limits of the garden. He did not complain of it; for
+he was making money fast. His skill and industry deserved this; but
+skill and industry could not have availed without opportunity. His
+ground once allowed to show what it was worth, he treated it well; and
+it answered well to the treatment. By the railway, he obtained what
+manure he wanted from the town; and he sent it back by the railway to
+town in the form of crisp celery and salads, wholesome potatoes and
+greens, luscious strawberries, and sweet and early peas. He knew that a
+Surrey gardener had made his ground yield a profit of two hundred and
+twenty pounds per acre. He thought that, with his inferior market, he
+should do well to make his yield one hundred and fifty pounds per acre;
+and this, by close perseverance, he attained. He could have done it more
+easily if he had enjoyed good health; but he never enjoyed good health
+again. His rheumatism had fixed itself too firmly to be entirely
+removed; and, for many days in the year, he was compelled to remain
+within doors, or to saunter about in the sun, seeing his boys and Harry
+at work, but unable to help them.
+
+From the time that Allan’s work became worth wages, in addition to his
+subsistence, his father let him rent half a rood of the garden-ground
+for three years, saying—
+
+“I limit it to three years, my boy, because that term is long enough for
+you to show what you can do. After three years, I shall not be able to
+spare the ground, at any rent. If you fail, you have no business to rent
+ground. If you succeed, you will have money in your pocket wherewith to
+hire land elsewhere. Now you have to show us what you can do.”
+
+“Yes, father,” was Allan’s short but sufficient reply.
+
+It was observed by the family that, from this time forward, Allan’s eye
+was on every plot of ground in the neighbourhood which could, by
+possibility, ever be offered for hire: yet did his attention never
+wander from that which was already under his hand. And that which was so
+great an object to him became a sort of pursuit to the whole family.
+Moss guarded Allan’s frames, and made more and more prodigious
+scarecrows. Their father gave his very best advice. Becky, who was no
+longer allowed, as a regular thing, to work in the garden, found many a
+spare half-hour for hoeing and weeding, and trimming and tying up, in
+Allan’s beds; and Abby found, as she sat in her little school, that she
+could make nets for his fruit trees. It was thus no wonder that, when a
+certain July day in the second year arrived, the whole household was in
+a state of excitement, because it was a sort of crisis in Allan’s
+affairs.
+
+Though breakfast was early that morning, Becky and Allan and Moss were
+spruce in their best clothes. A hamper stood at the door, and Allan was
+packing in another, which had no lid, two or three flower-pots, which
+presented a glorious show of blossom. Abby was putting a new ribbon on
+her sister’s straw bonnet; and Harry was in waiting to carry up the
+hampers to the station. It was the day of the Horticultural Show at the
+town. Woodruffe had been too unwell to think of going till this morning;
+but now the sight of the preparations, and the prospect of a warm day,
+inspired him, and he thought he would go. At last he went, and they were
+gone. Abby never went up to the station: nobody ever asked her to go
+there; not even her own child, who perhaps had not thought of the
+possibility of it. But when the train was starting, she stood at the
+upper window with her child, and held him so that he might lean out, and
+see the last carriage disappear, as it swept round the curve. After that
+the day seemed long, though Harry came up at his dinner-hour to say what
+he thought of the great gooseberry in particular, and of everything else
+that Allan had carried with him. It was holiday time, and there was no
+school to fill up the day. Before the evening, the child became
+restless, and Abby fell into low spirits, as she was apt to do when left
+long alone; so that Harry stopped suddenly at the door when he was
+rushing in to announce that the train was within sight.
+
+“Shall I take the child, Miss?” said Harry. (He always called her
+“Miss.”) “I will carry him——But, sure, here they come! Here comes
+Moss,—ready to roll down the steps! My opinion is that there’s a prize.”
+
+Moss was called back by a voice which everybody obeyed. Allan should
+himself tell his sister the fortune of the day, their father said.
+
+There were two prizes, one of which was for the wonderful plate of
+gooseberries; and at this news Harry nodded, and declared himself
+anything but surprised. If that gooseberry had not carried the day,
+there would have been partiality in the judges, that was all; and nobody
+could suppose such a thing as that. Yet Harry could have told, if put
+upon his honour, that he was rather disappointed that everything that
+Allan carried had not gained a prize. When he mentioned one or two, his
+master told him he was unreasonable; and he supposed he was.
+
+Allan laid down on the table, for his sister’s full assurance, his
+sovereign, and his half-sovereign, and his tickets. She turned away
+rather abruptly, and seemed to be looking whether the kettle was near
+boiling for tea. Her father went up to her; and on his first whispered
+words, the sob broke forth which made all look round.
+
+“I was thinking of one, too, my dear, that I wish was here at this
+moment. I can feel for you, my dear.”
+
+“But you don’t know—you don’t know—you never knew——.” She could not go
+on.
+
+“What don’t I know, my dear?”
+
+“That he constantly blamed himself for saying anything to bring you
+here. He said you had never prospered from the hour you came, and now——”
+
+And now Woodruffe could not speak, as the past came fresh upon him. In a
+few moments, however, he rallied, saying,
+
+“But we must consider Allan. He must not think that his success makes us
+sad.”
+
+Allan declared that it was not about gaining the prizes that he was
+chiefly glad. It was because it was now proved what a fair field he had
+before him. There was nothing that might not be done with such a soil as
+they had to deal with now.
+
+Harry was quite of this opinion. There were more and more people set to
+work upon the soil all about them; and the more it was worked the more
+it yielded. He never saw a place of so much promise. And if it had a bad
+name in regard to healthiness, he was sure that was unfair,—or no longer
+fair. He and his were full of health and happiness, as they hoped to see
+everybody else in time; and, for his part, if he had all England before
+him, or the whole world, to choose a place to live in, he would choose
+the very place he was in, and the very cottage; and the very ground to
+work on that had produced such a gooseberry and such strawberries as he
+had seen that day.
+
+
+
+
+                              THE SINGER.
+
+
+              Unto the loud acclaim that rose
+                To greet her as she came,
+              She bent with lowly grace that seemed
+                Such tribute to disclaim;
+              With arms meek folded on her breast
+                And drooping head, she stood;
+              Then raised a glance that seemed to plead
+                For youth and womanhood;
+                A soft, beseeching smile, a look,
+                As if all silently
+              The kindness to her heart she took,
+                And put the homage by.
+
+              She stood dejected then, methought,
+                A Captive, though a Queen,
+              Before the throng, when sudden passed
+                A change across her mien.
+              Unto her full, dilating eye,
+                Unto her slender hand,
+              There came a light of sovereignty,
+                A gesture of command:
+              And, to her lip, an eager flow
+                Of song, that seemed to bear
+              Her soul away on rushing wings
+                Unto its native air;
+              Her eye was fixed; her cheek flushed bright
+                With power; she seemed to call
+              On spirits that around her flocked,
+                The radiant Queen of all;
+              There was no pride upon her brow,
+                No tumult in her breast;
+              Her soaring soul had won its home,
+                And smiled there as at rest;
+              She felt no more those countless eyes
+                Upon her; she had gained
+              A region where they troubled not
+                The joy she had attained!
+              Now, now, she spoke her native speech,
+                An utterance fraught with spells
+              To wake the echoes of the heart
+                Within their slumber-cells;
+              For at her wild and gushing strain,
+                The spirit was led back
+              By windings of a silver chain,
+                On many a long-lost track;
+              And many a quick unbidden sigh,
+                And starting tear, revealed
+              How surely at her touch the springs
+                Of feeling were unsealed;
+              They who were always loved, seemed now
+                Yet more than ever dear;
+              Yet closer to the heart they came,
+                That ever were so near:
+              And, trembling to the silent lips,
+                As if they ne’er had changed
+              Their names, returned in kindness back
+                The severed and estranged;
+              And in the strain, like those that fall
+                On wanderers as they roam,
+              The Exiled Spirit found once more
+                Its country and its home!
+
+              She ceased, yet on her parted lips
+                A happy smile abode,
+              As if the sweetness of her song
+                Yet lingered whence it flowed;
+              But, for a while, her bosom heaved,
+                She was the same no more,
+              The light and spirit fled; she stood
+                As she had stood before;
+              Unheard, unheeded to her ear
+                The shouts of rapture came,
+              A voice had once more power to thrill,
+                That only spoke her name.
+              Unseen, unheeded at her feet,
+                Fell many a bright bouquet;
+              A single flower, in silence given,
+                Was once more sweet than they;
+              _Her_ heart had with her song returned
+                To days for ever gone,
+              Ere Woman’s gift of Fame was her’s,
+                The Many for the One.
+
+              E’en thus; O, Earth, before thee
+                Thy Poet Singers stand,
+              And bear the soul upon their songs
+                Unto its native land.
+              And even thus, with loud acclaim,
+                The praise of skill, of art,
+              Is dealt to those who only speak
+                The language of the heart!
+              While they who love and listen best,
+                Can little guess or know
+              The wounds that from the Singer’s breast
+                Have bid such sweetness flow;
+              They know not mastership must spring
+                From conflict and from strife.
+              “These, these are but the songs they sing;”
+                They are the Singer’s life!
+
+
+
+
+                       A LITTLE PLACE IN NORFOLK.
+
+
+Theodore Hook’s hero, Jack Bragg, boasted of his “little place in
+Surrey.” The Guardians of the Guiltcross poor have good reason to be
+proud of _their_ little place in Norfolk. When the Guiltcross Union was
+formed, Mr. Thomas Rackham, master of the “house,” set aside a small
+estate for the purpose of teaching the Workhouse children how to
+cultivate land. This pauper’s patrimony consisted of exactly one acre
+one rood and thirty-five poles of very rough “country.” A certain number
+of the boys worked upon it so diligently, that it was soon found
+expedient to enlarge the domain, by joining to it three acres of “hills
+and holes,” which in that state were quite useless for agricultural
+purposes. Two dozen spades were purchased at the outset to commence
+digging the land with, and six wheel-barrows were made by a pauper, who
+was a wheelwright; pickaxes and other tools were also fashioned with the
+assistance of the porter, who was a blacksmith. By means of these tools,
+and the labour of some fourteen sturdy boys, the whole of this barren
+territory was levelled, the top sward being carefully kept uppermost. We
+copy these and the other details from Mr. Rackham’s report to the
+Guardians, for the information and encouragement of other Workhouse
+masters, who may have the will and the power to “go and do likewise.”
+
+It appears then, that by the autumn of 1846 one acre of the new land was
+planted with wheat, and two roods twenty three poles of the home
+land—the one acre one rood and thirty-five poles mentioned above—was
+also planted with wheat, making in all one acre two roods and twenty
+three poles under wheat for 1847. This land produced eighteen coombs
+three pecks beyond a sufficient quantity reserved for seed for the wheat
+crop of 1848. The remainder of the land was planted with Scotch kale,
+cabbages, potatoes, &c., &c., which began coming into use in March,
+1847. The entire domain is now under fruitful cultivation.
+
+“The quantity of vegetables actually consumed by the paupers according
+to the dietary tables only,” says Mr. Rackham, “is charged in the
+provision accounts. Persons acquainted with domestic management and the
+produce of land are aware that, where vegetables are purchased, a great
+deal is paid for that which is useless for cooking purposes. In the
+present case this refuse is carefully preserved and used for feeding
+pigs, which were first kept in April 1848. This accounts for the large
+amount of pork fatted, as compared with the small quantity of corn and
+pollard used for the pigs. The leaves, &c., not eaten by the pigs,
+become valuable manure. If the Guardians would consent to keep cows,
+different roots and vegetables might be grown to feed them with; and
+these would produce an increased quantity of manure, whilst an increased
+quantity of manure would afford the means of raising a larger amount of
+roots and green crops, and secure a more extended routine in cropping
+the land. This would add to the profit of the land account, and give
+much additional comfort to the aged people and the young children in the
+workhouse.” But Mr. Rackham is ambitious of a dairy, chiefly for the
+training of dairy-maids: who would become doubly acceptable as farm
+servants.
+
+Besides other advantages, the experiment presents one dear to the minds
+of rate-payers—it tends to reduce the rates. The average profit per
+annum on each of the acres has been fifteen pounds. Here are the
+sums:—The profit of the first year was sixty pounds two shillings and
+fourpence farthing; second year, fifty-one pounds seventeen shillings
+and sixpence; to Christmas, 1849, three-quarters of a year, sixty-seven
+pounds two shillings and one penny farthing; total, one hundred and
+seventy-nine pounds one shilling and elevenpence halfpenny.
+
+As at the Swinton and other pauper schools, a variety of industrial arts
+are taught in the Guiltcross Union house, and the fact that sixty of the
+boys and girls who have been trained in it are now earning their own
+living, is some evidence of the success of the system pursued there.
+
+Of one of the cultivators of this “little place in Norfolk” (not we
+believe an inmate of the Union), an agreeable account was published in a
+letter from Miss Martineau lately in the Morning Chronicle. It shows to
+what good account a knowledge of small farming may be turned. That lady
+having two acres of land, at Ambleside, in Westmoreland, which she
+wished to cultivate, sent to Mr. Rackham to recommend her a farm
+servant. The man arrived, and his Guiltcross experience in cultivating
+small “estates” proved of essential service. He has managed to keep two
+cows and a pig, besides himself and a wife, on these narrow confines;
+for Miss Martineau calculates that the produce in milk, butter,
+vegetables, &c., obtained from his skill and economy for herself and
+household, quite pays his wages. This is her account of him:—
+
+“He is a man of extraordinary industry and cleverness, as well as rigid
+honesty. His ambition is roused; for he knows that the success of the
+experiment mainly depends on himself. He is living in comfort, and
+laying by a little money, and he looks so happy that it would truly
+grieve me to have to give up; though I have no doubt that he would
+immediately find work at good wages in the neighbourhood. His wife and
+he had saved enough to pay their journey hither out of Norfolk. I gave
+him twelve shillings a week all the year round. His wife earns something
+by occasionally helping in the house, by assisting in my washing, and by
+taking in washing when she can get it. I built them an excellent cottage
+of the stone of the district, for which they pay one shilling and
+sixpence per week. They know that they could not get such another off
+the premises for five pounds a year.”
+
+This is all very interesting and gratifying, but there are two sides to
+every account. Supposing the system of agricultural and other industrial
+training were pursued in all Unions in the country (and if it be a good
+system, it ought to be so followed), then, instead of boys and girls
+being turned out every three years in sixties, there would be accessions
+of farmers, tailors, carpenters, dairy-maids, and domestic servants
+every year to be reckoned by thousands. Supposing that every fourteen of
+the agricultural section of the community had been earning fifteen
+pounds a year profit per acre, we should then have a large amount of
+produce brought into the market in competition with that of the
+independent labourer. When, again, the multitude of boys had passed
+their probation, themselves would be thrown in the labour market (as the
+sixty Guiltcross boys already have been), so that their older and weaker
+competitors would, in their turn, be obliged to retire to the Workhouse,
+not only to their own ruin, but to the exceeding mortification of the
+entire body of parochial rate-payers. The axiom, that when there is a
+glut in a market any additional supply of the same commodity is an evil,
+applies most emphatically to labour. In this view, the adoption of the
+industrial training system for paupers and criminals would be an evil;
+and an evil of the very description it is meant to cure—a pauperising
+evil.
+
+The easy and natural remedy is a combination of colonisation, with the
+industrial training system. In all our colonies ordinary, merely animal
+labour is eagerly coveted, and skilled labour is at a high premium.
+There a competition _for_, instead of against, all sorts of labour is
+keenly active. Yet great as is the demand, it is curious that no
+comprehensive system for the supply of skilled labour has yet been
+adopted. Except the excellent farm school of the Philanthropic Society
+at Red Hill, no attempt is made to _teach_ colonisation. The majority of
+even voluntary colonists are persons utterly ignorant of colonial wants.
+They have never learned to dig or to delve. Many clever artists have
+emigrated to Australia, where pictures are not wanted; not a few
+emigrant ladies, of undoubted talents in Berlin work and crochet, have
+always trembled at the approach of a cow, and never made so much as a
+pat of butter in their lives. Still they succeed in the end; but only
+after much misery and mortification, which would have been saved them if
+they had been better prepared for colonial exigencies. The same thing
+happens with the humbler classes. Boys, and even men, have been sent out
+to Canada and the Southern Colonies (especially from the Irish Unions),
+utterly unfitted for their new sphere of life and labour.
+
+If, therefore, the small beginnings at Guiltcross be imitated in other
+Unions (and it is much to be wished that they should be), they will be
+made to grow into large results. But these results must be applied not
+to clog and glut the labour market at home; but to supply the labour
+market abroad.
+
+If to every Union were attached an agricultural training school, upon a
+plan that would offer legitimate inducements for the pupils to emigrate
+when old enough and skilled enough to obtain their own livelihood, this
+country would, we are assured, at no distant date be de-pauperised.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ Page           Changed from                      Changed to
+
+  565 the deuce—if the brand—the       the deuce—if the brandy—the
+      alcohol-and-water                alcohol-and-water
+
+ ● 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 78194 ***
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+  <body>   
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78194 ***</div>
+
+<div class='tnotes covernote'>
+
+<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p>
+
+<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='titlepage double'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>“<i>Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS.</i>”—<span class='sc'>Shakespeare.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_553'>553</span>
+  <h1 class='c002'>HOUSEHOLD WORDS.<br> <span class='xlarge'>A WEEKLY JOURNAL.</span></h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div><span class='large'>CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.</span></div>
+    <div class='c001'>N<sup>o.</sup> 24.]&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1850.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<span class='sc'>Price</span> 2<i>d.</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHEAPNESS.</h2>
+</div>
+<h3 class='c004'>THE STEEL PEN.</h3>
+
+<p class='c005'>We remember (early remembrances are
+more durable than recent) an epithet employed
+by Mary Wollstonecraft, which then seemed
+as happy as it was original:—“The <i>iron</i> pen
+of Time.” Had the vindicatress of the
+“Rights of Women” lived in these days (fifty
+years later), when the iron pen is the almost
+universal instrument of writing, she would
+have bestowed upon Time a less common
+material for recording his doings.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Whilst we are remembering, let us look
+back for a moment upon our earliest schooldays—the
+days of large text and round hand.
+Twenty urchins sit at a long desk, each intent
+upon making his <i>copy</i>. A nicely mended pen
+has been given to each. Our own labour
+goes on successfully, till, in school-boy phrase,
+the pen begins to splutter. A bold effort
+must be made. We leave the form, and
+timidly address the writing-master with—“Please,
+sir, mend my pen.” A slight frown
+subsides as he sees that the quill is very bad—too
+soft or too hard—used to the stump.
+He dashes it away, and snatching a feather
+from a bundle—a poor thin feather, such as
+green geese drop on a common—shapes it into
+a pen. This mending and making process
+occupies all his leisure—occupies, indeed,
+many of the minutes that ought to be devoted
+to instruction. He has a perpetual battle to
+wage with his bad quills. They are the
+meanest produce of the plucked goose.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>And is this process still going on in the
+many thousand schools of our land, where,
+with all drawbacks of imperfect education,
+both as to numbers educated and gifts imparted,
+there are about two millions and a
+half of children under daily instruction? In
+remote rural districts, probably; in the towns
+certainly not. The steam-engine is now the
+pen-maker. Hecatombs of geese are consumed
+at Michaelmas and Christmas; but not all
+the geese in the world would meet the demand
+of England for pens. The supply of <i><span lang="fr">patés de
+foie gras</span></i> will be kept up—that of quills,
+whether known as <i>primes</i>, <i>seconds</i>, or <i>pinions</i>,
+must be wholly inadequate to the wants of a
+<i>writing</i> people. Wherever geese are bred in
+these islands, so assuredly, in each succeeding
+March, will every full-fledged victim be
+robbed of his quills; and then turned forth
+on the common, a very waddling and impotent
+goose, quite unworthy of the name of bird.
+The country schoolmaster, at the same springtime,
+will continue to buy the smallest quills,
+at a low price, clarify them after his own rude
+fashion, make them into pens, and sorely
+spite the boy who splits them up too rapidly.
+The better quills will still be collected, and
+find their way to the quill dealer, who will
+exercise his empirical arts before they pass
+to the stationer. He will plunge them into
+heated sand, to make the external skin peel
+off, and the external membrane shrivel up; or
+he will saturate them with water, and alternately
+contract and swell them before a charcoal
+fire; or he will dip them in nitric acid,
+and make them of a gaudy brilliancy but
+a treacherous endurance. They will be sorted
+according to the quality of the barrels, with the
+utmost nicety. The experienced buyer will
+know their value by looking at their feathery
+ends, tapering to a point; the uninitiated will
+regard only the quill portion. There is no
+article of commerce in which the market value
+is so difficult to be determined with exactness.
+For the finest and largest quills no
+price seems unreasonable; for those of the
+second quality too exorbitant a charge is often
+made. The foreign supply is large, and probably
+exceeds the home supply of the superior
+article. What the exact amount is we
+know not. There is no duty now on quills.
+The tariff of 1845—one of the most lasting
+monuments of the wisdom of our great commercial
+minister—abolished the duty of half-a-crown
+a thousand. In 1832 the duty
+amounted to four thousand two hundred
+pounds, which would show an annual importation
+of thirty-three millions one hundred
+thousand quills; enough, perhaps, for the
+commercial clerks of England, together with
+the quills of home growth;—but how to serve
+a letter-writing population?</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The ancient reign of the quill pen was first
+seriously disturbed about twenty-five years
+ago. An abortive imitation of the <i>form</i> of a
+pen was produced before that time; a clumsy,
+inelastic, metal tube fastened in a bone or
+ivory handle, and sold for half-a-crown. A
+man might make his mark with one—but as
+to writing, it was a mere delusion. In due
+course came more carefully finished inventions
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_554'>554</span>for the luxurious, under the tempting names
+of ruby pen, or diamond pen—with the plain
+gold pen, and the rhodium pen, for those who
+were sceptical as to the jewellery of the
+inkstand. The economical use of the quill
+received also the attention of science. A
+machine was invented to divide the barrel
+lengthwise into two halves; and, by the same
+mechanical means, these halves were subdivided
+into small pieces, cut pen shape, slit,
+and nibbed. But the pressure upon the quill
+supply grew more and more intense. A new
+power had risen up in our world—a new seed
+sown—the source of all good, or the dragon’s
+teeth of Cadmus. In 1818 there were only
+one hundred and sixty-five thousand scholars
+in the monitorial schools—the new schools,
+which were being established under the
+auspices of the National Society, and the
+British and Foreign School Society. Fifteen
+years afterwards, in 1833, there were three hundred
+and ninety thousand. Ten years
+later, the numbers exceeded a million. Even
+a quarter of a century ago two-thirds of the
+male population of England, and one-half of
+the female, were learning to write; for in the
+Report of the Registrar-General for 1846, we
+find this passage:—“Persons when they are
+married are required to sign the marriage-register;
+if they cannot write their names,
+they sign with a mark: the result has hitherto
+been, that nearly one man in three, and one
+woman in two, married, sign with marks.”
+This remark applies to the period between
+1839 and 1845. Taking the average age of
+men at marriage as twenty-seven years, and
+the average age of boys during their education
+as ten years, the marriage-register is an
+educational test of male instruction for the
+years 1824–28. But the gross number of
+the population of England and Wales was
+rapidly advancing. In 1821 it was twelve
+millions; in 1831, fourteen millions; in 1841,
+sixteen millions; in 1851, taking the rate of
+increase at fourteen per cent., it will be
+eighteen millions and a half. The extension
+of education was proceeding in a much quicker
+ratio; and we may therefore fairly assume
+that the proportion of those who make their
+marks in the marriage-register has greatly
+diminished since 1844.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>But, during the last ten years, the natural
+desire to learn to write, of that part of the
+youthful population which education can
+reach, has received a great moral impulse by
+a wondrous development of the most useful
+and pleasurable exercise of that power. The
+uniform penny postage has been established.
+In the year 1838, the whole number of letters
+delivered in the United Kingdom was seventy-six
+millions; in this year that annual delivery
+has reached the prodigious number of three
+hundred and thirty-seven millions. In 1838,
+a Committee of the House of Commons thus
+denounced, amongst the great commercial
+evils of the high rates of postage, their injurious
+effects upon the great bulk of the
+people:—“They either act as a grievous tax
+on the poor, causing them to sacrifice their
+little earnings to the pleasure and advantage
+of corresponding with their distant friends,
+or compel them to forego such intercourse
+altogether; thus subtracting from the small
+amount of their enjoyments, and obstructing
+the growth and maintenance of their best
+affections.” Honoured be the man who broke
+down these barriers! Praised be the Government
+that, <i>for once</i>, stepping out of its fiscal
+tram-way, dared boldly to legislate for the
+domestic happiness, the educational progress,
+and the moral elevation of the masses! The
+steel pen, sold at the rate of a penny a dozen,
+is the creation, in a considerable degree, of the
+Penny Postage stamp; as the Penny Postage
+stamp was a representative, if not a creation,
+of the new educational power. Without the
+steel pen, it may reasonably be doubted
+whether there were mechanical means within
+the reach of the great bulk of the population
+for writing the three hundred and thirty-seven
+millions of letters that now annually
+pass through the Post Office.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Othello’s sword had “the ice-brook’s
+temper;” but not all the real or imaginary
+virtues of the stream that gave its value to
+the true Spanish blade could create the elasticity
+of a steel pen. Flexible, indeed, is the
+Toledo. If thrust against a wall, it will bend
+into an arc that describes three-fourths of a
+circle. The problem to be solved in the steel pen,
+is to convert the iron of Dannemora into a
+substance as thin as the quill of a dove’s pinion,
+but as strong as the proudest feather of an
+eagle’s wing. The furnaces and hammers of the
+old armourers could never have solved this
+problem. The steel pen belongs to our age
+of mighty machinery. It could not have
+existed in any other age. The demand for
+the instrument, and the means of supplying
+it, came together.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The commercial importance of the steel pen
+was first manifested to our senses a year or
+two ago at Sheffield. We had witnessed all
+the curious processes of <i>converting</i> iron into
+steel, by saturating it with carbon in the converting
+furnace;—of <i>tilting</i> the bars so converted
+into a harder substance, under the
+thousand hammers that shake the waters of
+the Sheaf and the Don; of <i>casting</i> the steel
+thus converted and tilted into ingots of higher
+purity; and, finally, of <i>milling</i>, by which the
+most perfect development of the material is
+acquired under enormous rollers. About two
+miles from the metropolis of steel, over whose
+head hangs a canopy of smoke through which
+the broad moors of the distance sometimes
+reveal themselves, there is a solitary mill
+where the tilting and rolling processes are
+carried to great perfection. The din of the
+large tilts is heard half a mile off. Our ears
+tingle, our legs tremble, when we stand close
+to their operation of beating bars of steel into
+the greatest possible density; for the whole
+building vibrates as the workmen swing before
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_555'>555</span>them in suspended baskets, and shift the bar
+at every movement of these hammers of the
+Titans. We pass onward to the more quiet
+<i>rolling</i> department. The bar that has been
+tilted into the most perfect compactness has
+now to acquire the utmost possible tenuity.
+A large area is occupied by furnaces and
+rollers. The bar of steel is dragged out of the
+furnace at almost a white heat. There are
+two men at each roller. It is passed through
+the first pair, and its squareness is instantly
+elongated and widened into flatness;—rapidly
+through a second pair,—and a third,—and a
+fourth,—and a fifth.—The bar is becoming a
+sheet of steel. Thinner and thinner it becomes,
+until it would seem that the workmen can
+scarcely manage the fragile substance. It has
+spread out, like a morsel of gold under the
+beater’s hammer, into an enormous leaf. The
+least attenuated sheet is only the hundredth
+part of an inch in thickness; some sheets are
+made as thin as the two-hundredth part of an
+inch. And for what purpose is this result of
+the labours of so many workmen, of such vast
+and complicated machinery, destined?—what
+the final application of a material employing
+so much capital in every step, from the
+Swedish mine to its transport by railroad to
+some other seat of British industry? <i>The
+whole is prepared for one Steel-pen Manufactory
+at Birmingham.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c006'>There is nothing very remarkable in a
+steel pen manufactory, as regards ingenuity of
+contrivance or factory organisation. Upon a
+large scale of production the extent of labour
+engaged in producing so minute an article is
+necessarily striking. But the process is just
+as curious and interesting, if conducted in a
+small shop as in a large. The pure steel, as
+it comes from the rolling mill, is cut up into
+strips about two inches and a half in width.
+These are further cut into the proper size for
+the pen. The pieces are then annealed and
+cleansed. The maker’s name is neatly impressed
+on the metal; and a cutting-tool
+forms the slit, although imperfectly in this
+stage. The pen shape is given by a convex
+punch pressing the plate into a concave die.
+The pen is formed when the slit is perfected.
+It has now to be hardened, and finally cleansed
+and polished, by the simple agency of friction
+in a cylinder. All the varieties of form of the
+steel pen are produced by the punch; all the
+contrivances of slits and apertures above the
+nib, by the cutting-tool. Every improvement
+has had for its object to overcome the rigidity
+of the steel,—to imitate the elasticity of the
+quill, whilst bestowing upon the pen a superior
+durability.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The perfection that may reasonably be demanded
+in a steel pen has yet to be reached.
+But the improvement in the manufacture is
+most decided. Twenty years ago, to one who
+might choose, regardless of expense, between
+the quill pen and the steel, the best Birmingham
+and London production was an abomination.
+But we can trace the gradual acquiescence
+of most men in the writing implement
+of the multitude. Few of us, in
+an age when the small economies are carefully
+observed, and even paraded, desire to
+use quill pens at ten or twelve shillings
+a hundred, as Treasury Clerks once luxuriated
+in their use—an hour’s work, and
+then a new one. To mend a pen, is troublesome
+to the old and even the middle-aged
+man who once acquired the art; the
+young, for the most part, have not learnt it.
+The most painstaking and penurious author
+would never dream of imitating the wondrous
+man who translated Pliny with “one grey
+goose quill.” Steel pens are so cheap, that if
+one scratches or splutters, it may be thrown
+away, and another may be tried. But when
+a really good one is found, we cling to it, as
+worldly men cling to their friends; we use it
+till it breaks down, or grows rusty. We can
+do no more; we handle it as Isaak Walton
+handled the frog upon his hook, “as if we
+loved him.” We could almost fancy some
+analogy between the gradual and decided improvement
+of the steel pen—one of the new
+instruments of education—and the effects of
+education itself upon the mass of the people.
+An instructed nation ought to present the
+same gradually perfecting combination of
+strength with elasticity. The favourites of
+fortune are like the quill, ready made for
+social purposes, with a little scraping and
+polishing. The bulk of the community have
+to be formed out of ruder and tougher materials—to
+be converted, welded, and tempered
+into pliancy. The <i>manners</i> of the great
+British family have decidedly improved under
+culture—“<i><span lang="fr">emollit mores</span></i>:” may the sturdy
+self-respect of the race never be impaired!</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>TWO CHAPTERS ON BANK NOTE FORGERIES.</h2>
+</div>
+<h3 class='c004'>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class='c005'>Viotti’s division of violin-playing into two
+great classes—good playing and bad playing—is
+applicable to Bank note making. The
+processes employed in manufacturing good
+Bank notes we have already described: we
+shall now cover a few pages with a faint
+outline of the various arts, stratagems, and
+contrivances employed in concocting bad
+Bank notes. The picture cannot be drawn
+with very distinct or strong markings. The
+tableaux from which it is copied are so
+intertwisted and complicated with clever,
+slippery, ingenious scoundrelism, that a
+finished chart of it would be worse than
+morally displeasing:—it would be tedious.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>All arts require time and experience for
+their development. When anything great is
+to be done, first attempts are nearly always
+failures. The first Bank note forgery was
+no exception to this rule, and its story has a
+spice of romance in it. The affair has never
+been circumstantially told; but some research
+enables us to detail it:—</p>
+
+<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_556'>556</span>In the month of August, 1757, a gentleman
+living in the neighbourhood of Lincoln’s Inn
+Fields named Bliss, advertised for a clerk.
+There were, as was usual even at that time,
+many applicants; but the successful one
+was a young man of twenty-six, named
+Richard William Vaughan. His manners
+were so winning and his demeanour so much
+that of a gentleman (he belonged indeed to a
+good county family in Staffordshire, and had
+been a student at Pembroke Hall, Oxford),
+that Mr. Bliss at once engaged him. Nor had
+he occasion, during the time the new clerk
+served him, to repent the step. Vaughan was so
+diligent, intelligent, and steady, that not even
+when it transpired that he was, commercially
+speaking, “under a cloud,” did his master
+lessen confidence in him. Some enquiry into
+his antecedents showed that he had, while at
+College, been extravagant; that his friends
+had removed him thence; set him up in
+Stafford as a wholesale linen draper, with a
+branch establishment in Aldersgate Street,
+London; that he had failed, and that there
+was some difficulty about his certificate.
+But so well did he excuse his early failings
+and account for his misfortunes, that his employer
+did not check the regard he felt
+growing towards him. Their intercourse was
+not merely that of master and servant.
+Vaughan was a frequent guest at Bliss’s
+table; by-and-by a daily visitor to his wife,
+and—to his ward.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Miss Bliss was a young lady of some attractions,
+not the smallest of which was a handsome
+fortune. Young Vaughan made the most
+of his opportunities. He was well-looking, well-informed,
+dressed well, and evidently made
+love well, for he won the young lady’s heart.
+The guardian was not flinty hearted, and
+acted like a sensible man of the world. “It
+was not,” he said on a subsequent and painful
+occasion, “till I learned from the servants
+and observed by the girl’s behaviour that she
+greatly approved Richard Vaughan, that I
+consented; but on condition that he should
+make it appear that he could maintain her.
+I had no doubt of his character as a servant,
+and I knew his family were respectable. His
+brother is an eminent attorney.” Vaughan
+boasted that his mother (his father was dead),
+was willing to re-instate him in business with
+a thousand pounds; five hundred of which
+was to be settled upon Miss Bliss for her
+separate use.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>So far all went on prosperously. Providing
+Richard Vaughan could attain a position
+satisfactory to the Blisses, the marriage was
+to take place on the Easter Monday following,
+which the Calendar tells us happened early
+in April, 1758. With this understanding, he
+left Mr. Bliss’s service, to push his fortune.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Months passed on, and Vaughan appears to
+have made no way in the world. He had not
+even obtained his bankrupt’s certificate. His
+visits to his affianced were frequent, and his
+protestations passionate; but he had effected
+nothing substantial towards a happy union.
+Miss Bliss’s guardian grew impatient; and,
+although there is no evidence to prove that
+the young lady’s affection for Vaughan was
+otherwise than deep and sincere, yet even she
+began to lose confidence in him. His excuses
+were evidently evasive, and not always true.
+The time fixed for the wedding was fast approaching;
+and Vaughan saw that something
+must be done to restore the young lady’s confidence.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>About three weeks before the appointed
+Easter Tuesday, Vaughan went to his mistress
+in high spirits. All was right: his certificate
+was to be granted in a day or two; his family
+had come forward with the money, and he
+was to continue the Aldersgate business he
+had previously carried on as a branch of the
+Stafford trade. The capital he had waited so
+long for, was at length forthcoming. In fact,
+here were two hundred and forty pounds of
+the five hundred he was to settle on his
+beloved. Vaughan then produced twelve
+twenty-pound notes; Miss Bliss could scarcely
+believe her eyes. She examined them. The
+paper she remarked seemed rather thicker
+than usual. “Oh,” said Bliss, “all Bank bills
+are not alike.” The girl was naturally much
+pleased. She would hasten to apprise Mistress
+Bliss of the good news.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Not for the world! So far from letting any
+living soul know he had placed so much
+money in her hands, Vaughan exacted an
+oath of secresy from her, and sealed the notes
+up in a parcel with his own seal; making her
+swear that she would on no account open it
+till after their marriage.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Some days after, that is, “on the twenty-second
+of March,” (1758) we are describing
+the scene in Mr. Bliss’s own words—“I was
+sitting with my wife by the fireside. The
+prisoner and the girl were sitting in the same
+room—which was a small one—and although
+they whispered, I could distinguish that
+Vaughan was very urgent to have something
+returned which he had previously given to
+her. She refused, and Vaughan went away
+in an angry mood. I then studied the girl’s
+face, and saw that it expressed much dissatisfaction.
+Presently a tear broke out. I then
+spoke, and insisted on knowing the dispute.
+She refused to tell, and I told her that until
+she did, I would not see her. The next day
+I asked the same question of Vaughan; he
+hesitated. ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘I dare say it is
+some ten or twelve pound matter—something
+to buy a wedding bauble with.’ He answered
+that it was much more than that, it was near
+three hundred pounds! ‘But why all this
+secresy,’ I said; and he answered it was not
+proper for people to know he had so much
+money till his certificate was signed. I then
+asked him to what intent he had left the
+notes with the young lady? He said, as I
+had of late suspected him, he designed to give
+her a proof of his affection and truth. I said,
+‘You have demanded them in such a way that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_557'>557</span>it must be construed as an abatement of your
+affection towards her.’” Vaughan was again
+exceedingly urgent in asking back the packet;
+but Bliss remembering his many evasions, and
+supposing that this was a trick, declined
+advising his niece to restore the parcel without
+proper consideration. The very next day
+it was discovered that the notes were counterfeits.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>This occasioned stricter enquiries into
+Vaughan’s previous career. It turned out
+that he bore the character in his native place
+of a dissipated and not very scrupulous person.
+The intention of his mother to assist him was
+an entire fabrication, and he had given Miss
+Bliss the forged notes solely for the purpose
+of deceiving her on that matter. Meanwhile
+the forgeries became known to the authorities,
+and he was arrested. By what means, does
+not clearly appear. The “Annual Register”
+says that one of the engravers gave information;
+but we find nothing in the newspapers
+of the time to support that statement; neither
+was it corroborated at Vaughan’s trial.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>When Vaughan was arrested he thrust a
+piece of paper into his mouth, and began to
+chew it violently. It was, however, rescued,
+and proved to be one of the forged notes;
+fourteen of them were found on his person,
+and when his lodgings were searched twenty
+more were discovered.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Vaughan was tried at the Old Bailey on
+the seventh of April, before Lord Mansfield.
+The manner of the forgery was detailed
+minutely at the trial:—On the first of March
+(about a week before he gave the twelve
+notes to the young lady) Vaughan called on
+Mr. John Corbould, an engraver, and gave an
+order for a promissory note to be engraved
+with these words:—</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“No. ——.</p>
+<p class='c008'>“I promise to pay to ——, or
+Bearer, ——, London ——.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>There was to be a Britannia in the corner.
+When it was done, Mr. Sneed (for that was
+the <i>alias</i> Vaughan adopted) came again, but
+objected to the execution of the work. The
+Britannia was not good, and the words “I
+promise” were too near the edge of the plate.
+Another was in consequence engraved, and on
+the fourth of March Vaughan took it away.
+He immediately repaired to a printer, and had
+forty-eight impressions taken on thin paper,
+provided by himself. Meanwhile, he had
+ordered, on the same morning, of Mr. Charles
+Fourdrinier, another engraver, a second plate,
+with what he called “a direction,” in the
+words, “For the Governor and Company of
+the Bank of England.” This was done, and
+about a week later he brought some paper,
+each sheet “folded up,” said the witness, “very
+curiously, so that I could not see what was in
+them. I was going to take the papers from him,
+but he said he must go upstairs with me, and
+see them worked off himself. I took him upstairs;
+he would not let me have them out of
+his hands. I took a sponge and wetted them,
+and put them one by one on the plate in
+order for printing them. After my boy had
+done two or three of them, I went downstairs,
+and my boy worked the rest off, and the
+prisoner came down and paid me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Here the Court pertinently asked, “What
+imagination had you when a man thus came
+to you to print on secret paper, ‘the Governor
+and Company of the Bank of England?’”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The engraver’s reply was:—“I then did not
+suspect anything. But I shall take care for
+the future.” As this was the first Bank of
+England note forgery that was ever perpetrated,
+the engraver was held excused.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It may be mentioned as an evidence of
+the delicacy of the reporters that, in their
+account of the trial, Miss Bliss’s name is not
+mentioned. Her designation is “a young lady.”
+We subjoin the notes of her evidence:—</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“A young lady (sworn). The prisoner delivered
+me some bills; these are the same
+(producing twelve counterfeit Bank notes
+sealed up in a cover, for twenty pounds each),
+said they were Bank bills. I said they were
+thicker paper—he said all bills are not alike.
+I was to keep them till after we were married.
+He put them into my hands to show he put
+confidence in me, and desired me not to show
+them to any body; sealed them up with his
+own seal, and obliged me by an oath not to
+discover them to any body. And I did not
+till he had discovered them himself. He was
+to settle so much in Stock on me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Vaughan urged in his defence that his sole
+object was to deceive his affianced, and that
+he intended to destroy all the notes after his
+marriage. But it had been proved that the prisoner
+had asked one John Ballingar to change
+first one, and then twenty of the notes; but
+which that person was unable to do. Besides,
+had his sole object been to dazzle Miss Bliss
+with his fictitious wealth, he would most probably
+have entrusted more, if not all the notes,
+to her keeping.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>He was found guilty, and passed the day
+that had been fixed for his wedding, as a condemned
+criminal.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>On the 11th May, 1758, Richard William
+Vaughan was executed at Tyburn. By his
+side, on the same gallows, there was another
+forger: William Boodgere, a military officer,
+who had forged a draught on an army agent
+named Calcroft, and expiated the offence with
+the first forger of Bank of England notes.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The gallows may seem hard measure to
+have meted out to Vaughan, when it is considered
+that none of his notes were negotiated
+and no person suffered by his fraud. Not
+one of the forty-eight notes, except the twelve
+delivered to Miss Bliss, had been out of his
+possession; indeed the imitation must have
+been very clumsily executed, and detection
+would have instantly followed any attempt to
+pass the counterfeits. There was no endeavour
+to copy the style of engraving on a real
+Bank note. That was left to the engraver;
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_558'>558</span>and as each sheet passed through the press
+twice, the words added at the second printing,
+“For the Governor and Company of the Bank
+of England,” could have fallen into their
+proper place on any one of the sheets, only by
+a miracle. But what would have made the
+forgery clear to even a superficial observer
+was the singular omission of the second “n”
+in the word England.<a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c009'><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f1'>
+<p class='c006'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. Bad orthography was by no means uncommon in the
+most important documents at that period; the days of the
+week, in the day-books of the Bank of England itself, are
+spelt in a variety of ways.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>The criticism on Vaughan’s note of a Bank
+clerk examined on the trial was:—“There is
+some resemblance, to be sure; but this mote”
+(that upon which the prisoner was tried)
+“is numbered thirteen thousand eight hundred
+and forty, and we never reach so high
+a number.” Besides there was no water-mark
+in the paper. The note of which a fac-simile
+appeared in our eighteenth number, and dated
+so early as 1699, has a regular design in the
+texture of the paper; showing that the water-mark
+is as old as the Bank notes themselves.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Vaughan was greatly commiserated. But
+despite the unskilfulness of the forgery, and
+the insignificant consequences which followed
+it, the crime was considered of too dangerous
+a character not to be marked, from its very
+novelty, with exemplary punishment. Hanging
+created at that time no remorse in the
+public mind, and it was thought necessary to
+set up Vaughan as a warning to all future
+Bank note forgers. The crime was too dangerous
+not to be marked with the severest
+penalties. Forgery differs from other crimes
+not less in the magnitude of the spoil it may
+obtain, and of the injury it inflicts, than in
+the facilities attending its accomplishment.
+The common thief finds a limit to his depredations
+in the bulkiness of his booty, which is
+generally confined to such property as he can
+carry about his person; the swindler raises
+insuperable and defeating obstacles to his
+frauds if the amount he seeks to obtain is so
+considerable as to awaken close vigilance or
+enquiry. To carry their projects to any very
+profitable extent, these criminals are reduced
+to the hazardous necessity of acting in concert,
+and thus infinitely increasing the risks of
+detection. But the forger need have no
+accomplice; he is burdened with no bulky
+and suspicious property; he needs no receiver
+to assist his contrivances. The skill of his own
+individual right hand can command thousands;
+often with the certainty of not being
+detected, and oftener with such rapidity as
+to enable him to baffle the pursuit of justice.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It was a long time before Vaughan’s rude
+attempt was improved upon: but in the
+same year, (1758), another department of the
+crime was commenced with perfect success;—namely,
+an ingenious alteration, for fraudulent
+purposes, of real Bank notes. A few months
+after Vaughan’s execution, one of the northern
+mails was stopped and robbed by a highwayman;
+several Bank notes were comprised in
+the spoil, and the robber, setting up with
+these as a gentleman, went boldly to the Hatfield
+Post office, ordered a chaise and four,
+rattled away down the road, and changed
+a note at every change of horses. The robbery
+was, of course, soon made known, and
+the numbers and dates of the stolen notes
+were advertised as having been stopped at
+the Bank. To the genius of a highwayman
+this offered but a small obstacle, and the
+gentleman-thief changed all the figures “1”
+he could find into “4’s.” These notes passed
+currently enough; but, on reaching the Bank,
+the alteration was detected, and the last
+holder was refused payment. As that person
+had given a valuable consideration for the note,
+he brought an action for the recovery of the
+amount; and at the trial it was ruled by the
+Lord Chief Justice, that “any person paying
+a valuable consideration for a Bank note,
+payable to bearer, in a fair course of business,
+has an understood right to receive the money
+of the Bank.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It took a quarter of a century to bring the
+art of forging Bank notes to perfection. In
+1779, this was nearly attained by an ingenious
+gentleman named Mathison, a watchmaker,
+from the matrimonial village of Gretna Green.
+Having learnt the arts of engraving and of simulating
+signatures, he tried his hand at the
+notes of the Darlington Bank; but, with the
+confidence of skill, was not cautious in passing
+them, was suspected, and absconded to Edinburgh.
+Scorning to let his talent be wasted,
+he favoured the Scottish public with many
+spurious Royal Bank of Scotland notes, and
+regularly forged his way by their aid to
+London. At the end of February he took
+handsome lodgings in the Strand, opposite
+Arundel Street. His industry was remarkable;
+for, by the 12th of March, he had
+planed and polished rough pieces of copper,
+engraved them, forged the water-mark, printed
+and negotiated several impressions. His plan
+was to travel and to purchase articles in shops.
+He bought a pair of shoe-buckles at Coventry
+with a forged note, which was eventually detected
+at the Bank of England. He had got
+so bold that he paid such frequent visits in
+Threadneedle Street that the Bank clerks
+became familiar with his person. He was
+continually changing notes of one, for another
+denomination. These were his originals, which
+he procured to make spurious copies of.
+One day seven thousand pounds came in
+from the Stamp Office. There was a dispute
+about one of the notes. Mathison,
+who was present, though at some distance,
+declared, oracularly, that the note was a good
+one. How could he know so well? A dawn
+of suspicion arose in the minds of the clerks;
+one trail led into another, and Mathison was
+finally apprehended. So well were his notes
+forged that, on the trial, an experienced Bank
+clerk declared he could not tell whether the
+note handed him to examine was forged or
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_559'>559</span>not. Mathison offered to reveal his secret of
+forging the water-mark, if mercy were shown
+to him; this was refused, and he suffered the
+penalty of his crime.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mathison was a genius in his criminal way,
+but a greater than he appeared in 1786. In
+that year perfection seemed to have been
+reached. So considerable was the circulation
+of spurious paper-money that it appeared
+as if some unknown power had set up a
+bank of its own. Notes were issued from
+it, and readily passed current, in hundreds
+and thousands. They were not to be distinguished
+from the genuine paper of Threadneedle
+Street. Indeed, when one was presented
+there, in due course, so complete
+were all its parts; so masterly the engraving;
+so correct the signatures; so skilful
+the water-mark, that it was promptly
+paid; and only discovered to be a forgery
+when it reached a particular department.
+From that period forged paper continued to
+be presented, especially at the time of lottery
+drawing. Consultations were held with the
+police. Plans were laid to help detection.
+Every effort was made to trace the forger.
+Clarke, the best detective of his day, went,
+like a sluth-hound, on the track; for in those
+days the expressive word “blood-money” was
+known. Up to a certain point there was
+little difficulty; but beyond that, consummate
+art defied the ingenuity of the officer.
+In whatever way the notes came, the train of
+discovery always paused at the lottery-offices.
+Advertisements offering large rewards were
+circulated; but the unknown forger baffled
+detection.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>While this base paper was in full currency,
+there appeared an advertisement in
+the Daily Advertiser for a servant. The
+successful applicant was a young man, in the
+employment of a musical-instrument maker;
+who, some time after, was called upon by a
+coachman, and informed that the advertiser
+was waiting in a coach to see him. The young
+man was desired to enter the conveyance,
+where he beheld a person with something of
+the appearance of a foreigner, sixty or seventy
+years old, apparently troubled with the gout.
+A camlet surtout was buttoned round his
+mouth; a large patch was placed over his left
+eye; and nearly every part of his face was
+concealed. He affected much infirmity. He
+had a faint hectic cough; and invariably
+presented the patched side to the view of the
+servant. After some conversation—in the
+course of which he represented himself as
+guardian to a young nobleman of great fortune—the
+interview concluded with the engagement
+of the applicant; and the new servant
+was directed to call on Mr. Brank, at 29,
+Titchfield Street, Oxford Street. At this
+interview Brank inveighed against his whimsical
+ward for his love of speculating in lottery-tickets;
+and told the servant that his
+principal duty would be to purchase them.
+After one or two meetings, at each of which
+Brank kept his face muffled, he handed a
+forty and twenty pound Bank note; told the
+servant to be very careful not to lose them;
+and directed him to buy lottery-tickets at
+separate offices.  The young man fulfilled
+his instructions, and at the moment he
+was returning, was suddenly called by his
+employer from the other side of the street,
+congratulated on his rapidity, and then told
+to go to various other offices in the neighbourhood
+of the Royal Exchange, and to
+purchase more shares. Four hundred pounds
+in Bank of England Notes were handed him,
+and the wishes of the mysterious Mr. Brank
+were satisfactorily effected.  These scenes
+were continually enacted. Notes to a large
+amount were thus circulated; lottery-tickets
+purchased; and Mr. Brank—always in a coach,
+with his face studiously concealed—was ever
+ready on the spot to receive them. The surprise
+of the servant was somewhat excited;
+but had he known that from the period he left
+his master to purchase the tickets, one female
+figure accompanied all his movements; that
+when he entered the offices, it waited at the
+door, peered cautiously in at the window,
+hovered around him like a second shadow,
+watched him carefully, and never left him
+until once more he was in the Company
+of his employer—that surprise would have
+been greatly increased.<a id='r2'></a><a href='#f2' class='c009'><sup>[2]</sup></a> Again and again
+were these extraordinary scenes rehearsed.
+At last the Bank obtained a clue, and the
+servant was taken into custody. The directors
+imagined that they had secured the
+actor of so many parts; that the flood of
+forged notes which had inundated that establishment
+would at length be dammed up
+at his source. Their hopes proved fallacious,
+and it was found that “Old Patch,” (as the
+mysterious forger was, from the servant’s
+description, nick-named) had been sufficiently
+clever to baffle the Bank directors. The
+house in Titchfield Street was searched; but
+Mr. Brank had deserted it, and not a trace of
+a single implement of forgery was to be seen.</p>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f2'>
+<p class='c006'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. Francis’s History of the Bank of England.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>All that could be obtained was some little
+knowledge of “Old Patch’s” proceedings.
+It appeared that he carried on his paper coining
+entirely by himself. His only confidant
+was his mistress. He was his own engraver.
+He even made his own ink. He manufactured
+his own paper. With a private press
+he worked his own notes; and counterfeited
+the signatures of the cashiers, completely.
+But these discoveries had no effect; for it
+became evident that Mr. Patch had set up a
+press elsewhere. Although his secret continued
+as impenetrable, his notes became as
+plentiful as ever. Five years of unbounded
+prosperity ought to have satisfied him; but it
+did not. Success seemed to pall him. His
+genius was of that insatiable order which
+demands new excitements, and a constant
+succession of new flights.  The following
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_560'>560</span>paragraph from a newspaper of 1786 relates
+to the same individual:—</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“On the 17th of December, ten pounds was
+paid into the Bank, for which the clerk, as usual,
+gave a ticket to receive a Bank note of equal
+value. This ticket ought to have been carried
+immediately to the cashier, instead of which
+the bearer took it home, and curiously added
+an 0 to the original sum, and returning, presented
+it so altered to the cashier, for which
+he received a note of one hundred pounds. In
+the evening, the clerks found a deficiency in
+the accounts; and on examining the tickets of
+the day, not only that but two others were
+discovered to have been obtained in the same
+manner. In the one, the figure 1 was altered
+to 4, and in another to 5, by which the artist
+received, upon the whole, nearly one thousand
+pounds.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>To that princely felony, Old Patch, as will
+be seen in the sequel, added smaller misdemeanors
+which one would think were far beneath
+his notice; except to convince himself and
+his mistress of the unbounded facility of his
+genius for fraud.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>At that period the affluent public were
+saddled with a tax on plate; and many experiments
+were made to evade it. Among
+others, one was invented by a Mr. Charles
+Price, a stock-jobber and lottery-office keeper,
+which, for a time, puzzled the tax-gatherer.
+Mr. Charles Price lived in great style, gave
+splendid dinners, and did everything on the
+grandest scale. Yet Mr. Charles Price had
+no plate! The authorities could not find
+so much as a silver tooth-pick on his magnificent
+premises. In truth, what he was too
+cunning to possess, he borrowed. For one of
+his sumptuous entertainments, he hired the
+plate of a silversmith in Cornhill, and left the
+value in bank notes as security for its safe
+return. One of these notes having proved a
+forgery, was traced to Mr. Charles Price; and
+Mr. Charles Price was not to be found at that
+particular juncture. Although this excited no
+surprise—for he was often an absentee from his
+office for short periods—yet in due course and
+as a formal matter of business, an officer was
+set to find him, and to ask his explanation
+regarding the false note. After tracing a man
+who he had a strong notion was Mr. Charles
+Price through countless lodgings and innumerable
+disguises, the officer (to use his own
+expression) “nabbed” Mr. Charles Price.
+But, as Mr. Clarke observed, his prisoner and
+his prisoner’s lady were even then “too many”
+for him; for although he lost not a moment
+in trying to secure the forging implements,
+after he had discovered that Mr. Charles Price,
+and Mr. Brank, and Old Patch, were all concentrated
+in the person of his prisoner, he
+found the lady had destroyed every trace of
+evidence. Not a vestige of the forging factory
+was left. Not the point of a graver, nor a single
+spot of ink, nor a shred of silver paper, nor a
+scrap of anybody’s handwriting, was to be met
+with. Despite, however, this paucity of evidence
+to convict him, Mr. Charles Price had
+not the courage to face a jury, and eventually
+he saved the judicature and the Tyburn executive
+much trouble and expense, by hanging
+himself in Bridewell.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The success of Mr. Charles Price has never
+been surpassed; and even after the darkest era
+in the history of Bank forgeries—which dates
+from the suspension of cash payments, in
+February, 1797, and which will be treated of
+in a succeeding paper—“Old Patch” was
+still remembered as the Cæsar of Forgers.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>THE TWO GUIDES OF THE CHILD.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c010'>A spirit near me said, “Look forth upon
+the Land of Life. What do you see?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Steep mountains, covered by a mighty
+plain, a table-land of many-coloured beauty.
+Beauty, nay, it seems all beautiful at first,
+but now I see that there are some parts
+barren.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Are they quite barren?—look more closely
+still!”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“No, in the wildest deserts, now, I see some
+gum-dropping acacias, and the crimson blossom
+of the cactus. But there are regions that
+rejoice abundantly in flower and fruit; and
+now, O Spirit, I see men and women moving
+to and fro.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Observe them, mortal.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I behold a world of love; the men have
+women’s arms entwined about them; some
+upon the verge of precipices—friends are
+running to the rescue. There are many wandering
+like strangers, who know not their
+road, and they look upward. Spirit, how
+many, many eyes are looking up as if to God!
+Ah, now I see some strike their neighbours
+down into the dust; I see some wallowing
+like swine; I see that there are men and
+women brutal.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Are they quite brutal?—look more closely
+still.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“No, I see prickly sorrow growing out of
+crime, and penitence awakened by a look of
+love. I see good gifts bestowed out of the
+hand of murder, and see truth issue out of
+lying lips. But in this plain, O Spirit, I see
+regions—wide, bright regions,—yielding fruit
+and flower, while others seem perpetually
+veiled with fogs, and in them no fruit ripens.
+I see pleasant regions where the rock is full
+of clefts, and people fall into them. The men
+who dwell beneath the fog deal lovingly, and
+yet they have small enjoyment in the world
+around them, which they scarcely see. But
+whither are these women going?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Follow them.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I have followed down the mountains to a
+haven in the vale below. All that is lovely
+in the world of flowers makes a fragrant bed
+for the dear children; birds singing, they
+breathe upon the pleasant air; the butterflies
+play with them. Their limbs shine white
+among the blossoms, and their mothers come
+down full of joy to share their innocent delight.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_561'>561</span>They pelt each other with the lilies of the
+valley. They call up at will fantastic masques,
+grim giants play to make them merry, a thousand
+grotesque loving phantoms kiss them;
+to each the mother is the one thing real, the
+highest bliss—the next bliss is the dream of
+all the world beside. Some that are motherless,
+all mother’s love. Every gesture, every
+look, every odour, every song, adds to the
+charm of love which fills the valley. Some
+little figures fall and die, and on the valley’s
+soil they crumble into violets and lilies, with
+love-tears to hang in them like dew.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Who dares to come down with a frown
+into this happy valley? A severe man seizes
+an unhappy, shrieking child, and leads it to
+the roughest ascent of the mountain. He will
+lead it over steep rocks to the plain of the
+mature. On ugly needle-points he makes the
+child sit down, and teaches it its duty in the
+world above.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Its duty, mortal! do you listen to the
+teacher?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Spirit, I hear now. The child is informed
+about two languages spoken by nations extinct
+centuries ago, and something also, O Spirit,
+about the base of a hypothenuse.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Does the child attend?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Not much; but it is beaten sorely, and its
+knees are bruised against the rocks, till it is
+hauled up, woe-begone and weary, to the upper
+plain. It looks about bewildered; all is strange,—it
+knows not how to act. Fogs crown the
+barren mountain paths. Spirit, I am unhappy;
+there are many children thus hauled up, and
+as young men upon the plain; they walk in
+fog, or among brambles; some fall into pits;
+and many, getting into flower-paths, lie down
+and learn. Some become active, seeking right,
+but ignorant of what right is; they wander
+among men out of their fog-land, preaching
+folly. Let me go back among the children.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Have they no better guide?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Yes, now there comes one with a smiling
+face, and rolls upon the flowers with the
+little ones, and they are drawn to him.
+And he has magic spells to conjure up glorious
+spectacles of fairy land. He frolics with them
+and might be first cousin to the butterflies.
+He wreathes their little heads with flower
+garlands, and with his fairy land upon his lips
+he walks toward the mountains; eagerly they
+follow. He seeks the smoothest upward path,
+and that is but a rough one, yet they run up
+merrily, guide and children, butterflies pursuing
+still the flowers as they nod over a host
+of laughing faces. They talk of the delightful
+fairy world, and resting in the shady places
+learn of the yet more delightful world of God.
+They learn to love the Maker of the Flowers,
+to know how great the Father of the Stars
+must be, how good must be the Father of the
+Beetle. They listen to the story of the race
+they go to labour with upon the plain, and
+love it for the labour it has done. They learn
+old languages of men, to understand the past—more
+eagerly they learn the voices of the
+men of their own day, that they may take
+part with the present. And in their study
+when they flag, they fall back upon thoughts
+of the Child Valley they are leaving. Sports
+and fancies are the rod and spur that bring
+them with new vigour to the lessons. When
+they reach the plain they cry, ‘We know you,
+men and women; we know to what you have
+aspired for centuries; we know the love there
+is in you; we know the love there is in God;
+we come prepared to labour with you, dear,
+good friends. We will not call you clumsy
+when we see you tumble, we will try to pick
+you up; when we fall, you shall pick us up.
+We have been trained to love, and therefore
+we can aid you heartily, for love is
+labour!’”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The Spirit whispered, “You have seen and
+you have heard. Go now, and speak unto
+your fellow-men: ask justice for the child.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>To-day should love To-morrow, for it is a
+thing of hope; let the young Future not be
+nursed by Care. God gave not fancy to the
+child that men should stamp its blossoms
+down into the loose soil of intellect. The
+child’s heart was not made full to the brim of
+love, that men should pour its love away, and
+bruise instead of kiss the trusting innocent.
+Love and fancy are the stems on which we
+may graft knowledge readily. What is called
+by some dry folks a solid foundation may be
+a thing not desirable. To cut down all the
+trees and root up all the flowers in a garden,
+to cover walks and flower-beds alike with a
+hard crust of well-rolled gravel, that would
+be to lay down your solid foundation after a
+plan which some think good in a child’s mind,
+though not quite worth adopting in a garden.
+O, teacher, love the child and learn of it; so
+let it love and learn of you.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>CHIPS.</h2>
+</div>
+<h3 class='c004'>EASY SPELLING AND HARD READING.</h3>
+
+<p class='c005'>An interesting case of educational destitution
+presents itself in the following letter.
+It is written by the son of a poor, but honest,
+brickmaker of Hammersmith, who emigrated
+to Sidney, and is now a shepherd at Bathurst.
+While the facts it contains are clearly stated,
+and the sentiments expressed are highly creditable
+to the writer—showing that his moral
+training had not been neglected by his parents—the
+orthography is such as, we may safely
+affirm, would not have emanated from any
+human being with similar abilities, and in a
+similar station, than an Englishman.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>England stands pre-eminent in this respect.
+The parents of this letter-writer were too
+poor to <i>pay</i> to have their child taught, and
+consequently with the best will in the world
+to be an ordinary scholar, he is unable to
+spell. The clever manner in which such
+letters are selected as represent the sounds
+he is in the habit of giving to each word, shows
+an aptitude which would assuredly have made
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_562'>562</span>with the commonest cultivation a literate and
+useful citizen. More amusing orthography
+we have no where met; but the information
+it conveys is of the most useful kind. The
+reader will perceive that the points touched
+upon are precisely those respecting which
+he would wish to be informed; were he about
+to emigrate.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The epistle not only gives a truthful picture
+of an Australian shepherd’s condition, but
+is in itself a lesson and a censure on that want
+of national means of education from which at
+least one-third of the adult population of England
+suffer, and of which the writer is an
+especial victim and example:—</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“Deer mother and father and sisters i root thes
+few lines hooping to find you All well for I arr in
+gudd halth my self and i wood root befor onley i
+wos very un setled and now i have root i houp
+you will rite back as soon as you can and send
+how you all arr and likwise our frends and i am
+hired my self for a sheeprd 12 munts for 19 pound
+and my keep too for it wos to soun for our work
+when i arive in the cuntry it is a plesent and a
+helthay cuntry and most peple dows well in it
+as liks onley it is a grait cuntry for durnkerds and
+you do not Xpket for them to do well no weer
+i have not got any folt to find of the cuntry for
+after few theres man can bee is own master if hee
+liks for the wagers is higher then tha arr at hom
+and the previshen is seeper and peple do not work
+so hard as thay do at tom and if any wne wish to
+com com at wonce and don with it same as i did
+and take no feer oof the see whot ever for i did not
+see any danger whot ever and it is a cuntry that
+puur peapole can get a gud living in hoostlue wich
+thay can not at tom i arr vrey well plesed off the
+cuntry and i should bee very happy if i had som
+relishon over with mee and i am 230 miles up the
+cuntry and wee had a very plesent voyge over in
+deed and likwise luckey and vrey litle sickenss
+and no deths deer mother and father i houp you
+will lett our frends no how i am geeting on and
+der frends you take no heed what pepole says
+about horstler take and past your own thouths
+about it and if any body wishes to com i wood swade
+them to com con pepole can geet a gud living
+there wer tha cant at tome and pepole beter com
+and geet a belly full then to stop at tome and
+work day and night then onely get haf a bely ful
+and i am shuur that no body can not find any folt
+off the cuntry eXcep tis pepole do not now when
+tha arr doing well [price of pervison] tee lb 1<i>s</i> to
+3<i>s</i> suuger lb 2<i>d</i> to 6<i>d</i> coofe lb 8<i>d</i> to 1<i>s</i> bred lb 1<i>d</i>
+to 2<i>d</i> beef lb 1<i>d</i> to 2<i>d</i> mutten ditto baken lb 6<i>d</i> to
+1<i>s.</i> poork lb 2<i>d</i> to 4<i>d</i> butter lb <i>6</i>d to 1<i>s</i> chees lb
+4<i>d</i> to 8<i>d</i> pertos price as tome sope lb 4<i>d</i> to 6<i>d</i>
+starch and blue and sooder home price candles lb
+4<i>d</i> to 6<i>d</i> rice lb 2<i>d</i> to 4<i>d</i> hags hom price trekle
+lb 4<i>d</i> to 5<i>d</i> solt lb 1<i>d</i> peper nounc 2<i>d</i> tabaker lb
+1<i>s</i> to 6<i>s</i> beer 4<i>d</i> pot at sednay and up in the pool
+1<i>s</i> spirts hom price frut happles pars horengs
+lemns peshes gusbryes curneth cheerys cokelnut
+storbyes rasberys nuts of all sorts vegtbles of all
+sorts price of cloths much the same as tome stok
+very resneble sheep 2<i>s</i> 6<i>d</i> heed wait about 80
+pounds fat bullket about 1000 wit 3<i>l</i> pour hors
+from 2<i>l</i> to 10<i>l</i> ther is wonderful grait many black
+in the cuntry but tha will not hurt any one if you
+will let them aolne.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>traitment on bord ship,</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c012'>wee arive in the 7 febery and sailed to graveshend
+then wee stop ther 2 days then wee sailed from
+ther to plymeth and wee stop ther 9 days and took
+in loot more emigrant then wee sailed from ther
+to seednay we arive to seednay 8 of June wee had
+it vry ruf in the bay of biskey and three mor
+places beside but i did not see any dainger of
+sinking not the lest for wee had a vry plesent
+voyges over in deed the pervison on bord ship
+Monday pork haf pound pea haf pint butter
+6 ounces weekly tea 1 ounce per week 9 ounces
+daily biscuit Tusday beef haf pound rice 4 ounces
+flour 1 pound per week Wendesday pork haf
+pound peas haf pint raisins haf pound per week
+cooffee 1 ounce and haf per week Thursday preserved
+meet haf pound Friday pork haf pound
+peas haf pint Sadurday beef haf pound rice 4
+ounces sugar three Quarter pound per week
+Sunday preserved meat haf pound fresh woter
+three Quarrts daily vinegar haf pint per week
+Mustard haf ounce per week salt tow ounces per
+week lime Juse haf pint per week my der sisters
+i houp you will keep your selvs from all bad company
+for it is a disgrace to all frends and likwise
+worse for you own sellvs o rember that opinted
+day to com at last tis behoups that wee shal bee
+free from all dets o whot a glorious tirm it will
+bee then wee shal feel no more pains nor gref nor
+sorows nor sickness nor truble of any cind o whot
+a glorious term it will bee then o seeners kip your
+selvs out off the mire for feer you shuld sink
+to the bootem the sarvents wagars of houstler
+tha geets ges haf as much mour as tha gets at
+tome and my sister Maryaan shee kood geet
+16 punds a year and Sarah get 20 pound and
+Marther get 8 or 9 pound and tha arr not so sharp
+to the servents as tha arr at tome i houp you will
+send word wot the yungest child name is and how
+it is geeting on and send the date when it wos
+born and i houp this will find you all weel and
+cumfortble to. J. R.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>A VERY OLD SOLDIER.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c010'>The following is a chip from a block
+whence we have already taken a few shavings:—“Kohl’s
+Travels in the Netherlands.” It
+describes the National Hospital for the Aged
+at Brussels. Some of the inmates whom he
+found in it, though still alive, belong to history.
+It must have been with a sort of
+archaic emotion that our inquisitive friend
+found himself speaking to a man who had
+escorted Marie Antoinette from Vienna to
+Paris, on the occasion of her marriage!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“The magnitude of the <i><span lang="fr">Hospice des Vieillards</span></i>
+in Brussels,” says Mr. Kohl, “fully realises
+the idea of a National establishment.
+The building itself fulfils all the required conditions
+of extent, solidity, and convenience.
+The gardens, court-yards, and apartments are
+spacious and well arranged. The sleeping
+and eating rooms are large, and well furnished;
+and it is pleasing to observe, here and
+there, the walls adorned with pictures painted
+in oil-colours. The inmates of this <i><span lang="fr">Hospice</span></i>
+pass their latter days in the enjoyment of a
+degree of happiness and comfort which would
+be unattainable in their own homes. The
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_563'>563</span>chapel is situated only at the distance of a
+few paces from the main building, and is connected
+with it by means of a roofed corridor;
+thus obviating the difficulties which prevent
+old people from attending places of public
+worship when, as it frequently happens, they
+are situated at long and inaccessible distances
+from their dwellings. In winter the Chapel
+of the <i><span lang="fr">Hospice</span></i> is carefully warmed and
+secured against damp.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“At the time of my visit to the <i><span lang="fr">Hospice
+des Vieillards</span></i> in Brussels, the establishment
+contained about seven hundred inmates, of
+both sexes, between the ages of seventy and
+eighty. Of this number six hundred and
+fifteen were maintained at the charge of the
+establishment, and seventy-five, being in competent
+circumstances, defrayed their own expenses.
+That the number of those able to
+maintain themselves should bear so considerable
+a relative proportion to the rest, is a
+fact which bears strong testimony in favour
+of the merits of the establishment. Those
+who support themselves live in a style more
+or less costly, according to the amount of
+their respective payments. Some of the
+apartments into which I was conducted certainly
+presented such an air of comfort that
+persons, even of a superior condition of life,
+could scarcely have desired better.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I learned from the Governor of the
+<i><span lang="fr">Hospice</span></i> that the average cost of the maintenance
+of each individual was about seventy-five
+centimes per day, making a total diurnal
+expenditure of six hundred francs, or of
+two hundred thousand francs per annum.
+But as this estimate includes the wages of
+attendants and the expenses consequent on
+repairs of the building, it may fairly be calculated
+that each individual costs about three
+hundred francs per annum. The <i><span lang="fr">Hospice</span></i>
+frequently receives liberal donations and
+bequests from opulent private persons.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“For such of the pensioners as are able to
+work, employment is provided: others are
+appointed to fill official posts in the veteran
+Republic. Now and then a little task-work
+is imposed; but the <i><span lang="fr">Hospice</span></i> being rich, this
+duty is not exacted with the precision requisite
+in establishments for the young, where
+the inmates having a long worldly career
+before them, it is desirable that they should
+be trained in habits of regularity and industry.
+The pensioners of the Brussels
+<i><span lang="fr">Hospice des Vieillards</span></i>, enjoy much freedom;
+and they are even allowed some amusements
+and indulgences, which it might not be proper
+to concede to young persons. For example,
+they are permitted to play at cards; but it
+will scarcely be said there is anything objectionable
+in such an indulgence to old persons
+who have run out their worldly course; for
+even were they fated once more to enter
+into society, their example could neither be
+very useful nor very dangerous. Here and
+there I observed groups of the pensioners,
+male and female, seated at cards, staking
+their pocket-money, of which each has a
+small allowance, on the hazard of the game.
+The penalties assigned for misdemeanours are
+very mild, consisting merely in the offending
+party being prohibited from going out, or, as
+it is called, <i><span lang="fr">la privée de la sortie</span></i>. In extreme
+cases the delinquent is confined to his or her
+own apartment.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“It has seldom been my lot to visit a
+charitable institution, which created in my
+mind so many pleasing impressions as those I
+experienced in the Hospital for the Old in
+Brussels. It was gratifying to observe in the
+spacious court-yards the cheerful and happy
+groups of grey-haired men and women, sunning
+themselves in the open air. Some were
+playing at cards, whilst here and there the
+females were seated at work, and men sauntering
+about smoking their pipes and gossiping.
+Every now and then I met an old man
+whistling or singing whilst he paced to and
+fro. More than one of these veterans had
+been eye-witnesses of interesting historical
+events, which now belong to a past age.
+Several of them had served as soldiers during
+the Austrian dominion in Belgium. Of these
+the porter of the Hospital was one.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“The most remarkable character in the
+whole establishment was an old Dutchman,
+named Jan Hermann Jankens, who was born
+at Leyden in the year 1735. At the time
+when I saw him, he was one hundred and nine
+years of age; or, to quote his own description
+of himself, he was ‘<i><span lang="fr">leste, vaillant, et sain</span></i>.’”</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“<span lang="fr">Il nous rapelle en vain</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Apres un siècle de séjour,</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="fr">Ses plaisirs ainsi que ses amertumes.</span>”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>“These lines were inscribed beneath his
+portrait, which hung in his own apartment.
+I remarked that the painter had not flattered
+him. ‘You are right, Sir,’ replied he; ‘the
+fact is, I am much younger than my portrait,’
+and to prove that he was making no vain
+boast, he sprang up, and cut several capers,
+with surprising agility. His faculties were
+unimpaired, and he was a remarkable example
+of that vigorous organisation which sometimes
+manifests itself in the human frame; and
+which excites our wonder when we find that
+such delicate structures as the nerves of sight
+and hearing may be used for the space of a
+century without wearing out. Until within
+two years of the time when I saw Jankens,
+he had been able to work well and actively.
+His hand was firm and steady, and he frequently
+wrote letters to his distant friends.
+When in his one hundred and seventh year,
+he thought, very reasonably, that he might
+give up work. ‘And what do you do now?’
+I enquired. ‘I enjoy my life,’ replied he; ‘I
+saunter about the whole day long, singing,
+smoking, and amusing myself. I spend my
+time very gaily!’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“‘Yes, Sir; he dances, drinks, and sings
+all day long!’ exclaimed, in a half-jeering,
+half-envious tone, another veteran, named
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_564'>564</span>Watermans, who had joined us, and who,
+though <i>only</i> ninety years of age, was much
+more feeble than Jankens.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I learned from the latter that he had had
+fifteen children; but that of all his large
+family, only one survived, though most of
+them had lived to a goodly age. His memory
+was stored with recollections of events connected
+with the marriage of Louis the Sixteenth;
+for, when a soldier in the Austrian
+service, he had formed one of the military
+escort which conducted Marie Antoinette
+into France. He sang me an old song, which
+had been composed in honour of the Royal
+nuptials, and which he said was very popular
+at the time. It was in the usual style of such
+effusions; a mere string of hyperbolic compliments,
+in praise of the ‘beauteous Princess,’
+and the ‘illustrious Prince.’ It sounded like
+an echo from the grave of old French loyalty.
+Jankens sang this song in a remarkably
+clear, strong voice; but nevertheless, the performance
+did not give satisfaction to old
+Watermans, who, thrusting his fingers into
+his ears, said peevishly, ‘What a croaking
+noise!’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Heedless of this discouraging remark, the
+venerable centenarian was preparing to favour
+me with another specimen of his vocal ability,
+when the great bell in the court-yard rang for
+supper. ‘Pardon, Sir,’ said Jankens, with an
+apologetic bow, ‘but—supper.’ Whereupon
+he hurried off in the direction of the refectory,
+with that sort of eager yearning with
+which it might be imagined he turned to
+his mother’s breast one hundred and nine
+years before.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“‘It is amazing that that old fellow should
+have so sharp an appetite,’ observed the
+petulant Watermans, hobbling after him in
+a way which showed that he too was not
+altogether unprepared to do honour to the
+evening meal.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>This Hospital for the Aged is a sort of
+National Almshouse not solely peculiar to
+Belgium. Private munificence does in England
+what is done abroad by Governments; but it
+is to be deplored that a more general provision
+for the superannuated does not exist in this
+country. Workhouses are indeed asylums for
+the old; but for those who are also decayed
+in worldly circumstances, they cannot afford
+those comforts which old age requires.
+Except Greenwich Hospital for sailors, and
+Chelsea Hospital for soldiers, we have no
+national institution for old people.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>THE HOUSEHOLD JEWELS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>A Traveller, from journeying</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>In countries far away,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Re-passed his threshold at the close</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Of one calm Sabbath day;</div>
+      <div class='line'>A voice of love, a comely face,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>A kiss of chaste delight,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Were the first things to welcome him</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>On that blest Sabbath night.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>He stretched his limbs upon the hearth,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Before its friendly blaze,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And conjured up mixed memories</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Of gay and gloomy days;</div>
+      <div class='line'>And felt that none of gentle soul,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>However far he roam,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Can e’er forego, can e’er forget,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The quiet joys of home.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Bring me my children!” cried the sire,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>With eager, earnest tone;</div>
+      <div class='line'>“I long to press them, and to mark</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>How lovely they have grown;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Twelve weary months have passed away</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Since I went o’er the sea,</div>
+      <div class='line'>To feel how sad and lone I was</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Without my babes and thee.”</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Refresh thee, as ’tis needful,” said</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The fair and faithful wife,</div>
+      <div class='line'>The while her pensive features paled,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And stirred with inward strife;</div>
+      <div class='line'>“Refresh thee, husband of my heart,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>I ask it as a boon;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Our children are reposing, love;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Thou shalt behold them soon.”</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>She spread the meal, she filled the cup,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>She pressed him to partake;</div>
+      <div class='line'>He sat down blithely at the board,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And all for her sweet sake;</div>
+      <div class='line'>But when the frugal feast was done,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The thankful prayer preferred,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Again affection’s fountain flowed;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Again its voice was heard.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Bring me my children, darling wife,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>I’m in an ardent mood;</div>
+      <div class='line'>My soul lacks purer aliment,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>I long for other food;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Bring forth my children to my gaze,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Or ere I rage or weep,</div>
+      <div class='line'>I yearn to kiss their happy eyes</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Before the hour of sleep.”</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“I have a question yet to ask;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Be patient, husband dear.</div>
+      <div class='line'>A stranger, one auspicious morn,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Did send some jewels here;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Until to take them from my care,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>But yesterday he came,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And I restored them with a sigh:</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>—Dost thou approve, or blame?”</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“I marvel much, sweet wife, that thou</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Shouldst breathe such words to me;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Restore to man, resign to God,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Whate’er is lent to thee;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Restore it with a willing heart,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Be grateful for the trust;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Whate’er may tempt or try us, wife,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Let us be ever just.”</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>She took him by the passive hand,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And up the moonlit stair,</div>
+      <div class='line'>She led him to their bridal bed,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>With mute and mournful air;</div>
+      <div class='line'>She turned the cover down, and there,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>In grave-like garments dressed,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Lay the twin children of their love,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>In death’s serenest rest.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“These were the jewels lent to me,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Which God has deigned to own;</div>
+      <div class='line'>The precious caskets still remain,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>But, ah, the <i>gems</i> are flown;</div>
+      <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_565'>565</span>But thou didst teach me to resign</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>What God alone can claim;</div>
+      <div class='line'>He giveth and he takes away,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Blest be His holy name!”</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>The father gazed upon his babes,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The mother drooped apart,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Whilst all the woman’s sorrow gushed</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>From her o’erburdened heart;</div>
+      <div class='line'>And with the striving of her grief,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Which wrung the tears she shed,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Were mingled low and loving words</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>To the unconscious dead.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>When the sad sire had looked his fill.</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>He veiled each breathless face,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And down in self-abasement bowed,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>For comfort and for grace;</div>
+      <div class='line'>With the deep eloquence of woe,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Poured forth his secret soul,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Rose up, and stood erect and calm,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>In spirit healed and whole.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Restrain thy tears, poor wife,” he said,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>“I learn this lesson still,</div>
+      <div class='line'>God gives, and God can take away,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Blest be His holy will!</div>
+      <div class='line'>Blest are my children, for they <i>live</i></div>
+      <div class='line in2'>From sin and sorrow free,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And I am not all joyless, wife,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>With faith, hope, love, and thee.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>THE LABORATORY IN THE CHEST.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c010'>The mind of Mr. Bagges was decidedly
+affected—beneficially—by the lecture on the
+Chemistry of a Candle, which, as set forth in
+a previous number of this journal, had been
+delivered to him by his youthful nephew.
+That learned discourse inspired him with a
+new feeling; an interest in matters of science.
+He began to frequent the Polytechnic Institution,
+nearly as much as his club. He also
+took to lounging at the British Museum;
+where he was often to be seen, with his left
+arm under his coat-tails, examining the wonderful
+works of nature and antiquity, through
+his eye-glass. Moreover, he procured himself
+to be elected a member of the Royal Institution,
+which became a regular house of call
+to him, so that in a short time he grew to be
+one of the ordinary phenomena of the place.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Bagges likewise adopted a custom of
+giving <i>conversaziones</i>, which, however, were
+always very private and select—generally confined
+to his sister’s family. Three courses
+were first discussed; then dessert; after
+which, surrounded by an apparatus of glasses
+and decanters, Master Harry Wilkinson was
+called upon, as a sort of juvenile Davy, to
+amuse his uncle by the elucidation of some
+chemical or other physical mystery. Master
+Wilkinson had now attained to the ability of
+making experiments; most of which, involving
+combustion, were strongly deprecated by the
+young gentleman’s mamma; but her opposition
+was overruled by Mr. Bagges, who
+argued that it was much better that a young
+dog should burn phosphorus before your face
+than let off gunpowder behind your back, to
+say nothing of occasionally pinning a cracker
+to your skirts. He maintained that playing
+with fire and water, throwing stones, and such
+like boys’ tricks, as they are commonly called,
+are the first expressions of a scientific tendency—endeavours
+and efforts of the infant mind
+to acquaint itself with the powers of Nature.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>His own favourite toys, he remembered,
+were squibs, suckers, squirts, and slings; and
+he was persuaded that, by his having been
+denied them at school, a natural philosopher
+had been nipped in the bud.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Blowing bubbles was an example—by-the-bye,
+a rather notable one—by which Mr.
+Bagges, on one of his scientific evenings, was
+instancing the affinity of child’s play to philosophical
+experiments, when he bethought him
+Harry had said on a former occasion that the
+human breath consists chiefly of carbonic acid,
+which is heavier than common air. How
+then, it occurred to his inquiring, though
+elderly mind, was it that soap-bladders, blown
+from a tobacco-pipe, rose instead of sinking?
+He asked his nephew this.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Oh, uncle!” answered Harry, “in the
+first place, the air you blow bubbles with
+mostly comes in at the nose and goes out at
+the mouth, without having been breathed at all.
+Then it is warmed by the mouth, and warmth,
+you know, makes a measure of air get larger,
+and so lighter in proportion. A soap-bubble
+rises for the same reason that a fire-balloon
+rises—that is, because the air inside of it
+has been heated, and weighs less than the
+same sized bubbleful of cold air.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“What, hot breath does!” said Mr. Bagges.
+“Well, now, it’s a curious thing, when you
+come to think of it, that the breath should be
+hot—indeed, the warmth of the body generally
+seems a puzzle. It is wonderful, too,
+how the bodily heat can be kept up so long as
+it is. Here, now, is this tumbler of hot grog—a
+mixture of boiling water, and what d’ye
+call it, you scientific geniuses?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Alcohol, uncle.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Alcohol—well—or, as we used to say,
+brandy. Now, if I leave this tumbler of brandy-and-water
+alone——”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“<i>If</i> you do, uncle,” interposed his nephew,
+archly.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Get along, you idle rogue! If I let that
+tumbler stand there, in a few minutes the
+brandy-and water—eh?—I beg pardon—the
+alcohol-and-water—gets cold. Now, why—why
+the deuce—if the <a id='t565'></a>brandy—the alcohol-and-water
+cools; why—how—how is it we don’t
+cool in the same way, I want to know? eh?”
+demanded Mr. Bagges, with the air of a man
+who feels satisfied that he has propounded a
+“regular poser.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Why,” replied Harry, “for the same
+reason that the room keeps warm so long as
+there is a fire in the grate.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“You don’t mean to say that I have a fire
+in my body?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I do, though.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Eh, now? That’s good,” said Mr. Bagges.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_566'>566</span>“That reminds me of the man in love crying,
+‘Fire! fire!’ and the lady said, ‘Where,
+where?’ And he called out, ‘Here! here!’
+with his hand upon his heart. Eh?—but
+now I think of it—you said, the other day,
+that breathing was a sort of burning. Do
+you mean to tell me that I—eh?—have fire,
+fire, as the lover said, here, here—in short,
+that my chest is a grate or an Arnott’s
+stove?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Not exactly so, uncle. But I do mean to
+tell you that you have a sort of fire burning
+partly in your chest; but also, more or less,
+throughout your whole body.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Oh, Henry!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilkinson,
+“How can you say such horrid things!”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Because they’re quite true, mamma—but
+you needn’t be frightened. The fire of one’s
+body is not hotter than from ninety degrees
+to one hundred and four degrees or so. Still
+it is fire, and will burn some things, as you
+would find, uncle, if, in using phosphorus, you
+were to let a little bit of it get under your
+nail.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I’ll take your word for the fact, my boy,”
+said Mr. Bagges. “But, if I have a fire burning
+throughout my person—which I was not
+aware of, the only inflammation I am ever
+troubled with being in the great toe—I say,
+if my body is burning continually—how is it
+I don’t smoke—eh? Come, now!”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Perhaps you consume your own smoke,”
+suggested Mr. Wilkinson, senior, “like every
+well-regulated furnace.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“You smoke nothing but your pipe, uncle,
+because you burn all your carbon,” said Harry.
+“But, if your body doesn’t smoke, it steams.
+Breathe against a looking-glass, or look at
+your breath on a cold morning. Observe how
+a horse reeks when it perspires. Besides—as
+you just now said you recollected my telling
+you the other day—you breathe out carbonic
+acid, and that, and the steam of the breath
+together, are exactly the same things, you
+know, that a candle turns into in burning.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“But if I burn like a candle—why don’t I
+burn <i>out</i> like a candle?” demanded Mr.
+Bagges. “How do you get over that?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Because,” replied Harry, “your fuel is renewed
+as fast as burnt. So perhaps you
+resemble a lamp rather than a candle. A
+lamp requires to be fed; so does the body—as,
+possibly, uncle, you may be aware.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Eh?—well—I have always entertained an
+idea of that sort,” answered Mr. Bagges,
+helping himself to some biscuits. “But the
+lamp feeds on train-oil.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“So does the Laplander. And you couldn’t
+feed the lamp on turtle or mulligatawny, of
+course, uncle. But mulligatawny or turtle
+can be changed into fat—they are so, sometimes,
+I think—when they are eaten in large
+quantities, and fat will burn fast enough.
+And most of what you eat turns into something
+which burns at last, and is consumed
+in the fire that warms you all over.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Wonderful, to be sure,” exclaimed Mr.
+Bagges. “Well, now, and how does this
+extraordinary process take place?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“First, you know, uncle, your food is digested—”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Not always, I am sorry to say, my boy,”
+Mr. Bagges observed, “but go on.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Well; when it <i>is</i> digested, it becomes a
+sort of fluid, and mixes gradually with the
+blood, and turns into blood, and so goes over
+the whole body, to nourish it. Now, if the
+body is always being nourished, why doesn’t
+it keep getting bigger and bigger, like the
+ghost in the Castle of Otranto?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Eh? Why, because it loses as well as
+gains, I suppose. By perspiration—eh—for
+instance?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Yes, and by breathing; in short, by the
+burning I mentioned just now. Respiration,
+or breathing, uncle, is a perpetual combustion.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“But if my system,” said Mr. Bagges, “is
+burning throughout, what keeps up the fire in
+my little finger—putting gout out of the
+question?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“You burn all over, because you breathe
+all over, to the very tips of your fingers’
+ends,” replied Harry.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Oh, don’t talk nonsense to your uncle!”
+exclaimed Mrs. Wilkinson.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“It isn’t nonsense,” said Harry. “The air
+that you draw into the lungs goes more or
+less over all the body, and penetrates into
+every fibre of it, which is breathing. Perhaps
+you would like to hear a little more about
+the chemistry of breathing, or respiration,
+uncle?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I should, certainly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Well, then; first you ought to have some
+idea of the breathing apparatus. The laboratory
+that contains this, is the chest, you
+know. The chest, you also know, has in it
+the heart and lungs, which, with other things
+in it, fill it quite out, so as to leave no hollow
+space between themselves and it. The lungs
+are a sort of air-sponges, and when you enlarge
+your chest to draw breath, they swell
+out with it and suck the air in. On the
+other hand you narrow your chest and
+squeeze the lungs and press the air from them;—that
+is breathing out. The lungs are made
+up of a lot of little cells. A small pipe—a
+little branch of the windpipe—opens into each
+cell. Two blood-vessels, a little tiny artery,
+and a vein to match, run into it also. The
+arteries bring into the little cells dark-coloured
+blood, which <i>has been</i> all over the
+body. The veins carry out of the little cells
+bright scarlet-coloured blood, which <i>is to go</i>
+all over the body. So all the blood passes
+through the lungs, and in so doing, is changed
+from dark to bright scarlet.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Black blood, didn’t you say, in the
+arteries, and scarlet in the veins? I thought
+it was just the reverse,” interrupted Mr.
+Bagges.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“So it is,” replied Harry, “with all the
+other arteries and veins, except those that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_567'>567</span>circulate the blood through the lung-cells.
+The heart has two sides, with a partition
+between them that keeps the blood on the
+right side separate from the blood on the left;
+both sides being hollow, mind. The blood on
+the right side of the heart comes there from
+all over the body, by a couple of large veins,
+dark, before it goes to the lungs. From the
+right side of the heart, it goes on to the
+lungs, dark still, through an artery. It comes
+back to the left side of the heart from the
+lungs, bright scarlet, through four veins.
+Then it goes all over the rest of the body
+from the left side of the heart, through an
+artery that branches into smaller arteries,
+all carrying bright scarlet blood. So the
+arteries and veins of the lungs on one hand,
+and of the rest of the body on the other, do
+exactly opposite work, you understand.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I hope so.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Now,” continued Harry, “it requires a
+strong magnifying glass to see the lung-cells
+plainly, they are so small. But you can fancy
+them as big as you please. Picture any one
+of them to yourself of the size of an orange,
+say, for convenience in thinking about it;
+that one cell, with whatever takes place in
+it, will be a specimen of the rest. Then you
+have to imagine an artery carrying blood of
+one colour into it, and a vein taking away
+blood of another colour from it, and the
+blood changing its colour in the cell.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Aye, but what makes the blood change
+its colour?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Recollect, uncle, you have a little branch
+from the windpipe opening into the cell which
+lets in the air. Then the blood and the air are
+brought together, and the blood alters in
+colour. The reason, I suppose you would guess,
+is that it is somehow altered by the air.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“No very unreasonable conjecture, I should
+think,” said Mr. Bagges.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Well; if the air alters the blood, most
+likely, we should think, it gives something to
+the blood. So first let us see what is the
+difference between the air we breathe <i>in</i>, and
+the air we breathe <i>out</i>. You know that
+neither we nor animals can keep breathing
+the same air over and over again. You
+don’t want me to remind you of the Black
+Hole of Calcutta, to convince you of that;
+and I dare say you will believe what I tell
+you, without waiting till I can catch a mouse
+and shut it up in an air-tight jar, and show
+you how soon the unlucky creature will get
+uncomfortable, and begin to gasp, and that it
+will by-and-by die. But if we were to try
+this experiment—not having the fear of the
+Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
+Animals, nor the fear of doing wrong, before
+our eyes—we should find that the poor mouse,
+before he died, had changed the air of his
+prison considerably. But it would be just as
+satisfactory, and much more humane, if you
+or I were to breathe in and out of a silk bag
+or a bladder till we could stand it no longer,
+and then collect the air which we had been
+breathing in and out. We should find that
+a jar of such air would put out a candle. If
+we shook some lime-water up with it, the
+lime-water would turn milky. In short,
+uncle, we should find that a great part of the
+air was carbonic acid, and the rest mostly
+nitrogen. The air we inhale is nitrogen
+and oxygen; the air we exhale has lost
+most of its oxygen, and consists of little more
+than nitrogen and carbonic acid. Together
+with this, we breathe out the vapour of water,
+as I said before. Therefore in breathing,
+we give off exactly what a candle does in
+burning, only not so fast, after the rate.
+The carbonic acid we breathe out, shows that
+carbon is consumed within our bodies. The
+watery vapour of the breath is a proof that
+hydrogen is so too. We take in oxygen with
+the air, and the oxygen unites with carbon,
+and makes carbonic acid, and with hydrogen,
+forms water.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Then don’t the hydrogen and carbon combine
+with the oxygen—that is, burn—in the
+lungs, and isn’t the chest the fireplace, after
+all?” asked Mr. Bagges.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Not altogether, according to those who
+are supposed to know better. They are of
+opinion, that some of the oxygen unites with
+the carbon and hydrogen of the blood in the
+lungs; but that most of it is merely absorbed
+by the blood, and dissolved in it in the first
+instance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Oxygen absorbed by the blood? That
+seems odd,” remarked Mr. Bagges, “How
+can that be?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“We only know the fact that there are some
+things that will absorb gases—suck them in—make
+them disappear. Charcoal will, for
+instance. It is thought that the iron which
+the blood contains gives it the curious property
+of absorbing oxygen. Well; the oxygen
+going into the blood makes it change from
+dark to bright scarlet; and then this blood
+containing oxygen is conveyed all over the
+system by the arteries, and yields up the
+oxygen to combine with hydrogen and carbon
+as it goes along. The carbon and hydrogen
+are part of the substance of the body. The
+bright scarlet blood mixes oxygen with them,
+which burns them, in fact; that is, makes
+them into carbonic acid and water. Of course,
+the body would soon be consumed if this were
+all that the blood does. But while it mixes
+oxygen with the old substance of the body, to
+burn it up, it lays down fresh material to
+replace the loss. So our bodies are continually
+changing throughout, though they seem to
+us always the same; but then, you know, a
+river appears the same from year’s end to
+year’s end, although the water in it is different
+every day.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Eh, then,” said Mr. Bagges, “if the body
+is always on the change in this way, we must
+have had several bodies in the course of our
+lives, by the time we are old.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Yes, uncle; therefore, how foolish it is to
+spend money upon funerals. What becomes
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_568'>568</span>of all the bodies we use up during our lifetimes?
+If we are none the worse for their
+flying away in carbonic acid and other things
+without ceremony, what good can we expect
+from having a fuss made about the body we
+leave behind us, which is put into the earth?
+However, you are wanting to know what
+becomes of the water and carbonic acid which
+have been made by the oxygen of the blood
+burning up the old materials of our frame.
+The dark blood of the veins absorbs this carbonic
+acid and water, as the blood of the
+arteries does oxygen,—only, they say, it does
+so by means of a salt in it, called phosphate
+of soda. Then the dark blood goes back to
+the lungs, and in them it parts with its carbonic
+acid and water, which escapes as breath.
+As fast as we breathe out, carbonic acid and
+water leave the blood; as fast as we breathe
+in, oxygen enters it. The oxygen is sent out
+in the arteries to make the rubbish of the
+body into gas and vapour, so that the veins
+may bring it back and get rid of it. The
+burning of rubbish by oxygen throughout
+our frames is the fire by which our
+animal heat is kept up. At least this is
+what most philosophers think; though doctors
+differ a little on this point, as on most others,
+I hear. Professor Liebig says, that our carbon
+is mostly prepared for burning by being first
+extracted from the blood sent to it—(which
+contains much of the rubbish of the system
+dissolved)—in the form of bile, and is then
+re-absorbed into the blood, and burnt. He
+reckons that a grown-up man consumes about
+fourteen ounces of carbon a day. Fourteen
+ounces of charcoal a day, or eight pounds two
+ounces a week, would keep up a tolerable
+fire.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I had no idea we were such extensive
+charcoal-burners,” said Mr. Bagges. “They
+say we each eat our peck of dirt before
+we die—but we must burn bushels of charcoal.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“And so,” continued Harry, “the Professor
+calculates that we burn quite enough fuel to
+account for our heat. I should rather think,
+myself, it had something to do with it—shouldn’t
+you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Eh?” said Mr. Bagges; “it makes one
+rather nervous to think that one is burning
+all over—throughout one’s very blood—in this
+kind of way.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“It is very awful!” said Mrs. Wilkinson.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“If true. But in that case, shouldn’t we
+be liable to inflame occasionally?” objected
+her husband.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“It is said,” answered Harry, “that spontaneous
+combustion does happen sometimes;
+particularly in great spirit drinkers. I don’t
+see why it should not, if the system were to
+become too inflammable. Drinking alcohol
+would be likely to load the constitution with
+carbon, which would be fuel for the fire, at
+any rate.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“The deuce!” exclaimed Mr. Bagges, pushing
+his brandy-and-water from him. “We
+had better take care how we indulge in combustibles.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“At all events,” said Harry, “it must be
+bad to have too much fuel in us. It must
+choke the fire I should think, if it did not
+cause inflammation; which Dr. Truepenny says
+it does, meaning, by inflammation, gout, and
+so on, you know, uncle.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Ahem!” coughed Mr. Bagges.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Taking in too much fuel, I dare say you
+know, uncle, means eating and drinking to
+excess,” continued Harry. “The best remedy,
+the doctor says, for overstuffing is exercise.
+A person who uses great bodily exertion, can
+eat and drink more without suffering from it
+than one who leads an inactive life; a foxhunter,
+for instance, in comparison with an
+alderman. Want of exercise and too much
+nourishment must make a man either fat or
+ill. If the extra hydrogen and carbon are
+not burnt out, or otherwise got rid of, they
+turn to blubber, or cause some disturbance in
+the system, intended by Nature to throw them
+off, which is called a disease. Walking, riding,
+running, increase the breathing—as well as
+the perspiration—and make us burn away
+our carbon and hydrogen in proportion.
+Dr. Truepenny declares that if people would
+only take in as much fuel as is requisite to
+keep up a good fire, his profession would be
+ruined.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“The good old advice—Baillie’s, eh?—or
+Abernethy’s—live upon sixpence a day, and
+earn it,” Mr. Bagges observed.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Well, and then, uncle, in hot weather the
+appetite is naturally weaker than it is in cold—less
+heat is required, and therefore less food.
+So in hot climates; and the chief reason, says
+the doctor, why people ruin their health in
+India is their spurring and goading their
+stomachs to crave what is not good for them,
+by spices and the like. Fruits and vegetables
+are the proper things to eat in such countries,
+because they contain little carbon compared
+to flesh, and they are the diet of the natives
+of those parts of the world. Whereas food
+with much carbon in it, meat, or even mere
+fat or oil, which is hardly anything else than
+carbon and hydrogen, are proper in very cold
+regions, where heat from within is required to
+supply the want of it without. That is why
+the Laplander is able, as I said he does, to
+devour train-oil. And Dr. Truepenny says
+that it may be all very well for Mr. M‘Gregor
+to drink raw whiskey at deer-stalking in the
+Highlands, but if Major Campbell combines
+that beverage with the diversion of tiger-hunting
+in the East Indies, habitually, the
+chances are that the Major will come home
+with a diseased liver.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Upon my word, sir, the whole art of preserving
+health appears to consist in keeping
+up a moderate fire within us,” observed Mr.
+Bagges.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Just so, uncle, according to my friend the
+Doctor. ‘Adjust the fuel,’ he says, ‘to the
+draught—he means the oxygen; keep the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_569'>569</span>bellows properly at work, by exercise, and
+your fire will seldom want poking.’ The Doctor’s
+pokers, you know, are pills, mixtures,
+leeches, blisters, lancets, and things of that
+sort.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Indeed? Well, then, my heart-burn, I
+suppose, depends upon bad management of
+my fire?” surmised Mr. Bagges.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I should say that was more than probable,
+uncle. Well, now, I think you see that
+animal heat can be accounted for, in very
+great part at least, by the combustion of the
+body. And then there are several facts that—as
+I remember Shakespeare says—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>“‘help to thicken other proofs,</div>
+      <div class='line'>That do demonstrate thinly.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Birds that breathe a great deal are very
+hot creatures; snakes and lizards, and frogs
+and fishes, that breathe but little, are so cold
+that they are called cold-blooded animals.
+Bears and dormice, that sleep all the winter,
+are cold during their sleep, whilst their
+breathing and circulation almost entirely
+stop. We increase our heat by walking fast,
+running, jumping, or working hard; which
+sets us breathing faster, and then we get
+warmer. By these means we blow up our
+own fire, if we have no other, to warm ourselves
+on a cold day. And how is it that we
+don’t go on continually getting hotter and
+hotter?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Bagges, “I suppose
+that is one of Nature’s mysteries.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Why, what happens, uncle, when we take
+violent exercise? We break out into a
+perspiration; as you complain you always do,
+if you only run a few yards. Perspiration is
+mostly water, and the extra heat of the body
+goes into the water, and flies away with it in
+steam. Just for the same reason, you can’t
+boil water so as to make it hotter than two
+hundred and twelve degrees; because all the
+heat that passes into it beyond that, unites
+with some of it and becomes steam, and so
+escapes. Hot weather causes you to perspire
+even when you sit still; and so your heat is
+cooled in summer. If you were to heat a
+man in an oven, the heat of his body generally
+wouldn’t increase very much till he became
+exhausted and died. Stories are told of
+mountebanks sitting in ovens, and meat being
+cooked by the side of them. Philosophers
+have done much the same thing—Dr. Fordyce
+and others, who found they could bear a heat
+of two hundred and sixty degrees. Perspiration
+is our animal fire-escape. Heat goes out
+from the lungs, as well as the skin, in water;
+so the lungs are concerned in cooling us as
+well as heating us, like a sort of regulating
+furnace. Ah, uncle, the body is a wonderful
+factory, and I wish I were man enough to
+take you over it. I have only tried to show
+you something of the contrivances for warming
+it, and I hope you understand a little about
+that!”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Well,” said Mr. Bagges, “breathing, I understand
+you to say, is the chief source of
+animal heat, by occasioning the combination
+of carbon and hydrogen with oxygen, in a
+sort of gentle combustion, throughout our
+frame. The lungs and heart are an apparatus
+for generating heat, and distributing it over
+the body by means of a kind of warming
+pipes, called blood-vessels. Eh?—and the
+carbon and hydrogen we have in our systems
+we get from our food. Now, you see, here is
+a slice of cake, and there is a glass of wine—Eh?—now
+see whether you can get any
+carbon and oxygen out of that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The young philosopher, having finished his
+lecture, applied himself immediately to the
+performance of the proposed experiment,
+which he performed with cleverness and
+dispatch.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>THE HOME OF WOODRUFFE THE GARDENER.</h2>
+</div>
+<h3 class='c004'>IN EIGHT CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.</h3>
+
+<p class='c005'>It was observed by Woodruffe’s family,
+during one week of spring of the next year,
+that he was very absent. He was not in low
+spirits, but absorbed in thought, and much
+devoted to making calculations with pencil and
+paper. At last, out it came, one morning at
+breakfast.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I wonder how we should all like to have
+Harry Hardiman to work with us again?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Every one looked up. Harry! where was
+Harry? Was he here? Was he coming?</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Why, I will tell you what I have been
+thinking,” said their father. “I have thought
+long and carefully, and I believe I have made
+up my mind to send for Harry, to come and
+work for us as he used to do. We have not
+labour enough on the ground. Two stout men
+to the acre is the smallest allowance for trying
+what could be made of the place.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“That is what Taylor and Brown are employing
+now on the best part of their land,”
+said Allan; “that is, when they can get the
+labour. There is such difference between that
+and one man to four or five acres, as there
+was before, that they can’t always get the
+labour.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Just so; and therefore,” continued Woodruffe,
+“I am thinking of sending for Harry.
+Our old neighbourhood was not prosperous
+when we left it, and I fancy it cannot have
+improved since; and Harry might be glad
+to follow his master to a thriving neighbourhood;
+and he is such a careful fellow
+that I dare say he has money for the journey,—even
+if he has a wife by this time, as I
+suppose he has.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Moss looked most pleased, where all were
+pleased, at the idea of seeing Harry again.
+His remembrance of Harry was of a tall
+young man, who used to carry him on his
+shoulders, and wheel him in the empty water-barrel,
+and sometimes offer to dip him in it
+when it was full, and show him how to dig in
+the sand-heap with his little wooden spade.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_570'>570</span>“Your rent, to be sure, is much lower than
+in the old place,” observed Abby.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Why, we must not build upon that,” replied
+the father; “rent is rising here, and
+will rise. My landlord was considerate in
+lowering mine to 3<i>l.</i> per acre, when he saw
+how impossible it was to make it answer;
+and he says he shall not ask more yet, on
+account of the labour I laid out at the time of
+the drainage. But when I have partly repaid
+myself, the rent will rise to 5<i>l.</i>; and, in fact,
+I have made my calculations, in regard to
+Harry’s coming, at a higher rent than that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Higher than that?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Yes: I should not be surprised if I found
+myself paying, as market-gardeners near
+London do, ten pounds per acre, before I die.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Or rather, to let the ground to me, for
+that, father,” said Allan, “when it is your
+own property, and you are tired of work, and
+disposed to turn it over to me. I will pay
+you ten pounds per acre then, and let you
+have all the cabbages you can eat, besides.
+It is capital land, and that is the truth.
+Come—shall that be a bargain?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Woodruffe smiled, and said he owed a duty
+to Allan. He did not like to see him so hard
+worked as to be unable to take due care of his
+own corner of the garden;—unable to enter
+fairly into the competition for the prizes
+at the Horticultural Show in the summer.
+Becky now, too, ought to be spared from all
+but occasional help in the garden. Above
+all, the ground was now in such an improving
+state that it would be waste not to bestow due
+labour upon it. Put in the spade where you
+would, the soil was loose and well-aired as
+needs be: the manure penetrated it thoroughly;
+the frost and heat pulverised, instead of binding
+it; and the crops were succeeding each
+other so fast, that the year would be a very
+profitable one.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Where will Harry live, if he comes?”
+asked Abby.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“We must get another cottage added to the
+new row. Easily done! Cottages so healthy
+as these new ones pay well. Good rents are
+offered for them,—to save doctors’ bills and
+loss of time from sickness;—and, when once
+a system of house-drainage is set agoing, it
+costs scarcely more, in adding a cottage to a
+group, to make it all right, than to run it up
+upon solid clay as used to be the way here.
+Well, I have good mind to write to Harry
+to-day. What do you think,—all of you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Fortified by the opinion of all his children,
+Mr. Woodruffe wrote to Harry. Meantime,
+Allan and Becky went to cut the vegetables
+that were for sale that day; and Moss delighted
+himself in running after and catching the pony
+in the meadow below. The pony was not very
+easily caught, for it was full of spirit. Instead
+of the woolly insipid grass that it used to crop,
+and which seemed to give it only fever and no
+nourishment, it now fed on sweet fresh grass,
+which had no sour stagnant water soaking its
+roots. The pony was so full of play this morning
+that Moss could not get hold of it. Though
+much stronger than a year ago, he was not
+yet anything like so robust as a boy of his age
+should be; and he was growing heated, and
+perhaps a little angry, as the pony galloped
+off towards some distant trees, when a boy
+started up behind a bush, caught the halter,
+brought the pony round with a twitch, and led
+him to Moss. Moss fancied he had seen the
+boy before, and then his white teeth reminded
+Moss of one thing after another.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I came for some marsh plants,” said the
+boy. “You and I got plenty once, somewhere
+hereabouts: but I cannot find them now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“You will not find any now. We have no
+marsh now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The stranger said he dared not go back
+without them: mother wanted them badly.
+She would not believe him if he said he could
+not find any. There were plenty about two
+miles off, along the railway, among the clay-pits,
+he was told; but none nearer. The boy
+wanted to know where the clay-pits hereabouts
+were. He could not find one of them.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I will show you one of them,” said Moss;
+“the one where you and I used to hunt rats.”
+And, leading the pony, he showed his old
+gipsy playfellow all the improvements, beginning
+with the great ditch,—now invisible from
+being covered in. While it was open, he said,
+it used to get choked, and the sides were
+plastered after rain, and soon became grass-grown,
+so that it was found worth while to
+cover it in; and now it would want little
+looking to for years to come. As for the
+clay-pit, where the rats used to pop in and
+out,—it was now a manure-pit, covered in.
+There was a drain into it from the pony’s
+stable and from the pig-styes; and it was
+near enough to the garden to receive the
+refuse and sweepings. A heavy lid, with a
+ring in the middle, covered the pit, so that
+nobody could fall in, in the dark, and no smell
+could get out. Moss begged the boy to come
+a little further, and he would show him his
+own flower-bed; and when the boy was there,
+he was shown everything else: what a cartload
+of vegetables lay cut for sale; and what
+an arbour had been made of the pent-house
+under which Moss used to take shelter, when
+he could do nothing better than keep off the
+birds; and how fine the ducks were,—the five
+ducks that were so serviceable in eating off the
+slugs; and what a comfortable nest had been
+made for them to lay their eggs in, beside the
+water-tank in the corner; and what a variety
+of scarecrows the family had invented,—each
+having one, to try which would frighten the
+sparrows most. While Moss was telling how
+difficult it was to deal with the sparrows,
+because they could not be frightened for more
+than three days by any kind of scarecrow, he
+heard Allan calling him, in a tone of vexation,
+at being kept waiting so long. In an instant
+the stranger boy was off,—leaping the gate,
+and flying along the meadow till he was hidden
+behind a hedge.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_571'>571</span>Two or three days after this one of the
+ducks was missing. The last time that the
+five had been seen together was when Moss
+was showing them to his visitor. The morning
+after Moss finally gave up hope, the glass of
+Allan’s hotbed was found broken, and in the
+midst of the bed itself was a deep foot-track,
+crushing the cucumber plants, and, with them,
+Allan’s hopes of a cucumber prize at the
+Horticultural Exhibition in the summer. On
+more examination, more mischief was discovered,
+some cabbages had been stolen, and
+another duck was missing. In the midst of
+the general concern, Woodruffe burst out
+a-laughing. It struck him that the chief
+of the scarecrows had changed his hat; and
+so he had. The old straw hat which used to
+flap in the wind so serviceably was gone, and
+in its stead appeared a helmet,—a saucepan
+full of holes, battered and split, but still fit to
+be a helmet to a scarecrow.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I could swear to the old hat,” observed
+Woodruffe, “if I should have the luck to see
+it on anybody’s head.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“And so could I,” said Becky, “for I mended
+it,—bound it with black behind, and green
+before, because I had not green ribbon enough.
+But nobody would wear it before our eyes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“That is why I suspect there are strangers
+hovering about. We must watch.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Now Moss, for the first time, bethought
+himself of the boy he had brought in from
+the meadow; and now, for the first time, he
+told his family of that encounter.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I never saw such a simpleton,” his father
+declared. “There, go along and work! Now,
+don’t cry, but hold up like a man and work.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Moss did cry; he could not help it; but he
+worked too. He would fain have been one of
+the watchers, moreover; but his father said he
+was too young. For two nights he was ordered
+to bed, when Allan took his dark lantern, and
+went down to the pent-house; the first night
+accompanied by his father, and the next by
+Harry Hardiman, who had come on the first
+summons. By the third evening, Moss was
+so miserable that his sisters interceded for
+him, and he was allowed to go down with his
+old friend Harry.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It was a starlight night, without a moon.
+The low country lay dim, but unobscured by
+mist. After a single remark on the fineness
+of the night, Harry was silent. Silence was
+their first business. They stole round the
+fence as if they had been thieves themselves,
+listened for some time before they let themselves
+in at the gate, passed quickly in, and
+locked the gate (the lock of which had been
+well oiled), went behind every screen, and
+along every path, to be sure that no one was
+there, and finally, perceiving that the remaining
+ducks were safe, settled themselves
+in the darkness of the pent-house.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>There they sat, hour after hour, listening.
+If there had been no sound, perhaps they
+could not have borne the effort: but the sense
+was relieved by the bark of a dog at a distance;
+and then by the hoot of the owl that was
+known to have done them good service in
+mousing, many a time; and once, by the
+passage of a train on the railway above.
+When these were all over, poor Moss had
+much ado to keep awake, and at last his head
+sank on Harry’s shoulder, and he forgot where
+he was, and everything else in the world.
+He was awakened by Harry’s moving, and
+then whispering quite into his ear:—</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Sit you still. I hear somebody yonder. No—sit
+you still. I won’t go far—not out of call:
+but I must get between them and the gate.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>With his lantern under his coat, Harry
+stole forth, and Moss stood up, all alone in
+the darkness and stillness. He could hear
+his heart beat, but nothing else, till footsteps
+on the path came nearer and nearer. They
+came quite up; they came in, actually into
+the arbour; and then the ducks were certainly
+fluttering. In an instant more, there was a
+gleam of light upon the white plumage of the
+ducks, and then light enough to show that
+this was the gipsy boy, with a dark lantern
+hung round his neck, and, at the same
+moment, to show the gipsy boy that Moss was
+there. The two boys stood, face to face,
+motionless from utter amazement, and the
+ducks had scuttled and waddled away before
+they recovered themselves. Then, Moss flew
+at him in a glorious passion, at once of rage
+and fear.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Leave him to me, Moss,” cried Harry,
+casting light upon the scene from his lantern,
+while he collared the thief with the other
+hand. “Let go, I say, Moss. There, now we’ll
+go round and be sure whether there is any
+one else in the garden, and then we’ll lodge
+this young rogue where he will be safe.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Nobody was there, and they went home in
+the dawn, locked up the thief in the shed,
+and slept through what remained of the night.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It was about Mr. Nelson’s usual time for
+coming down the line; and it was observed
+that he now always stopped at this station till
+the next train passed,—probably because it
+was a pleasure to him to look upon the improvement
+of the place. It was no surprise
+therefore to Woodruffe to see him standing on
+the embankment after breakfast; and it was
+natural that Mr. Nelson should be immediately
+told that the gipsies were here again,
+and how one of them was caught thieving.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Thieving! So you found some of your
+property upon him, did you!”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Why, no. I thought myself that it was
+a pity that Moss did not let him alone till he
+had laid hold of a duck or something.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Pho! pho! don’t tell me you can punish
+the boy for theft, when you can’t prove that
+he stole anything. Give him a whipping, and
+let him go.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“With all my heart. It will save me much
+trouble to finish off the matter so.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Nelson seemed to have some curiosity
+about the business; for he accompanied
+Woodruffe to the shed. The boy seemed to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_572'>572</span>feel no awe of the great man whom he supposed
+to be a magistrate, and when asked
+whether he felt none, he giggled and said
+“No;” he had seen the gentleman more
+afraid of his mother than anybody ever was
+of him, he fancied. On this, a thought struck
+Mr. Nelson. He would now have his advantage
+of the gipsy woman, and might enjoy, at
+the same time, an opportunity of studying
+human nature under stress—a thing he liked,
+when the stress was not too severe. So he
+passed a decree on the spot that, it being now
+nine o’clock, the boy should remain shut up
+without food till noon, when he should be
+severely flogged, and driven from the neighbourhood:
+and with this pleasant prospect
+before him, the young rogue remained,
+whistling ostentatiously, while his enemies
+locked the door upon him.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Did you hear him shoot the bolt?” asked
+Woodruffe. “If he holds to that, I don’t
+know how I shall get at him at noon.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“There, now, what fools people are! Why
+did you not take out the bolt? A pretty
+constable you would make! Come—come
+this way. I am going to find the gipsy-tent
+again. You are wondering that I am not
+afraid of the woman, I see: but, you observe,
+I have a hold over her this time. What
+do you mean by allowing those children to
+gather about your door? You ought not to
+permit it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“They are only the scholars. Don’t you
+see them going in? My daughter keeps a
+little school, you know, since her husband’s
+death.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Ah, poor thing! poor thing!” said Mr.
+Nelson, as Abby appeared on the threshold,
+calling the children in.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Nelson always contrived to see some
+one or more of the family when he visited the
+station; but it so happened, that he had
+never entered the door of their dwelling.
+Perhaps he was not himself fully conscious of
+the reason. It was, that he could not bear
+to see Abby’s young face within the widow’s
+cap, and to be thus reminded that hers was a
+case of cruel wrong; that if the most ordinary
+thought and care had been used in preparing
+the place for human habitation, her husband
+might be living now, and she the happy
+creature that she would never be again.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>On his way to the gipsies, Mr. Nelson saw
+some things that pleased him in his heart,
+though he found fault with them all. What
+business had Woodruffe with an additional
+man in his garden? It could not possibly
+answer. If it did not, the fellow must be
+sent away again. He must not burden the
+parish. The occupiers here seemed all alike.
+Such a fancy for new labour! One, two, six
+men at work on the land within sight at that
+moment, over and above what there used to
+be! It must be looked to. Humph! he
+could get to the alders dryshod now; but
+that was owing solely to the warmth of the
+spring. It was nonsense to attribute everything
+to drainage. Drainage was a good
+thing; but fine weather was better.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The gipsy-tent was found behind the alders
+as before, but no longer in a swamp. The
+woman was sitting on the ground at the
+entrance as before, but not now with a
+fevered child laid across her knees. She was
+weaving a basket.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Oh, I see,” said Woodruffe, “This is the
+way our osiers go.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“You have not many to lose, now-a-days,”
+said the woman.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“You are welcome to all the rushes you
+can find,” said Woodruffe; “but where is your
+son?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Some change of countenance was seen in
+the woman; but she answered carelessly
+that the children were playing yonder.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“The one I mean is not there,” said Woodruffe.
+“We have him safe—caught him
+stealing my ducks.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>She called the boy a villain—disowned him,
+and so forth; but when she found the case a
+hopeless one, she did not, and therefore,
+probably could not, scold—that is, anybody
+but herself and her husband. She cursed
+herself for coming into this silly place, where
+now no good was to be got. When she was
+brought to the right point of perplexity about
+what to do, seeing that it would not do to
+stay, and being unable to go while her boy
+was in durance, she was told that his punishment
+should be summary, though severe, if
+she would answer frankly certain questions.
+When she had once begun giving her confidence,
+she seemed to enjoy the license.
+When her husband came up, he looked as if
+he only waited for the departure of his visitors
+to give his wife the same amount of thrashing
+that her son was awaiting elsewhere. She
+vowed that they would never pitch their tent
+here again. It used to be the best station in
+their whole round—the fogs were so thick!
+From sunset to long after sunrise, it had
+been as good as a winter night, for going
+where they pleased without fear of prying
+eyes. There was not a poultry-yard or pig-stye
+within a couple of miles round, where
+they could not creep up through the fog.
+And they escaped the blame, too; for the
+swamp and ditches used to harbour so much
+vermin, that the gipsies were not always
+suspected, as they were now. Till lately,
+people shut themselves into their homes, or
+the men went to the public-house in the chill
+evenings; and there was little fear of meeting
+any one. But now that the fogs were gone,
+people were out in their gardens, on these
+fine evenings, and there were men in the
+meadows, returning from fishing; for they
+could angle now, when their work was done,
+without the fear of catching an ague in the
+marsh as they went home.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Nelson used vigorously his last opportunity
+of lecturing these people. He had
+it all his own way, for the humility of the
+gipsies was edifying. Woodruffe fancied he
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_573'>573</span>saw some finger-talk passing, the while,
+though the gipsies never looked at each
+other, or raised their eyes from the ground.
+Woodruffe had to remind the Director that
+the whistle of the next train would soon be
+heard; and this brought the lecture to an
+abrupt conclusion. On his finishing off with,
+“I expect, therefore, that you will remember
+my advice, and never show your faces here
+again, and that you will take to a proper
+course of life in future, and bring up your
+son to honest industry;” the woman, with a
+countenance of grief, seized one hand and
+covered it with kisses, and the husband took
+the other hand and pressed it to his breast.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“We must make haste,” observed Mr.
+Nelson, as he led the way quickly back; “but
+I think I have made some impression upon
+them. You see now the right way to treat
+these people. I don’t think you will see them
+here again.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I don’t think we shall.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>As he reached the steps the whistle was
+heard, and Mr. Nelson could only wave his
+hand to Woodruffe, rush up the embankment,
+and throw himself panting into a carriage.
+Only just in time!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>By an evening train, he re-appeared. When
+thirty miles off, he had wanted his purse, and it
+was gone. It had no doubt paid for the gipsies’
+final gratitude.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Of course, a sufficient force was immediately
+sent to the alder clump; but there was
+nothing there but some charred sticks, and
+some clean pork bones, this time, instead of
+feathers of fowls, and a cabbage leaf or two.
+The boy had had his whipping at noon, after
+a conference with his little brother at the
+keyhole, which had caused him to withdraw
+the bolt, and offer no resistance. Considering
+his cries and groans, he had run off with surprising
+agility, and was now, no doubt, far
+away.</p>
+
+<h3 class='c014'>CHAPTER VIII.</h3>
+
+<p class='c005'>The gipsies came no more. The fogs came
+no more. The fever came no more; at least,
+in such a form as to threaten the general
+safety. Where it still lingered, it was about
+those only who deserved it,—in any small
+farm-house, where the dung-yard was too
+near the house; and in some cottage where
+the slatternly inmates did not mind a green
+puddle or choked ditch within reach of their
+noses. More dwellings arose, as the fertility of
+the land increased, and invited a higher kind
+of tillage; and among the prettiest of them
+was one which stood in the corner,—the most
+sunny corner,—of Woodruffe’s paddock. Harry
+Hardiman and his wife and child lived there,
+and the cottage was Woodruffe’s property.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Yet Woodruffe’s rent had been raised; and
+pretty rapidly. He was now paying eight
+pounds per acre for his garden-ground, and
+half that for what was out of the limits of the
+garden. He did not complain of it; for he
+was making money fast. His skill and industry
+deserved this; but skill and industry
+could not have availed without opportunity.
+His ground once allowed to show what it was
+worth, he treated it well; and it answered
+well to the treatment. By the railway, he
+obtained what manure he wanted from the
+town; and he sent it back by the railway
+to town in the form of crisp celery and salads,
+wholesome potatoes and greens, luscious
+strawberries, and sweet and early peas. He
+knew that a Surrey gardener had made his
+ground yield a profit of two hundred and
+twenty pounds per acre. He thought that,
+with his inferior market, he should do well
+to make his yield one hundred and fifty
+pounds per acre; and this, by close perseverance,
+he attained. He could have done it
+more easily if he had enjoyed good health;
+but he never enjoyed good health again. His
+rheumatism had fixed itself too firmly to be
+entirely removed; and, for many days in the
+year, he was compelled to remain within
+doors, or to saunter about in the sun, seeing
+his boys and Harry at work, but unable to
+help them.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>From the time that Allan’s work became
+worth wages, in addition to his subsistence,
+his father let him rent half a rood of the
+garden-ground for three years, saying—</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I limit it to three years, my boy, because
+that term is long enough for you to show
+what you can do. After three years, I shall
+not be able to spare the ground, at any rent.
+If you fail, you have no business to rent
+ground. If you succeed, you will have money
+in your pocket wherewith to hire land elsewhere.
+Now you have to show us what you
+can do.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Yes, father,” was Allan’s short but sufficient
+reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It was observed by the family that, from
+this time forward, Allan’s eye was on every
+plot of ground in the neighbourhood which
+could, by possibility, ever be offered for hire:
+yet did his attention never wander from that
+which was already under his hand. And
+that which was so great an object to him
+became a sort of pursuit to the whole family.
+Moss guarded Allan’s frames, and made more
+and more prodigious scarecrows. Their
+father gave his very best advice. Becky, who
+was no longer allowed, as a regular thing,
+to work in the garden, found many a spare
+half-hour for hoeing and weeding, and trimming
+and tying up, in Allan’s beds; and
+Abby found, as she sat in her little school,
+that she could make nets for his fruit trees. It
+was thus no wonder that, when a certain July
+day in the second year arrived, the whole
+household was in a state of excitement, because
+it was a sort of crisis in Allan’s affairs.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Though breakfast was early that morning,
+Becky and Allan and Moss were spruce in
+their best clothes. A hamper stood at the
+door, and Allan was packing in another,
+which had no lid, two or three flower-pots,
+which presented a glorious show of blossom.
+Abby was putting a new ribbon on her sister’s
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_574'>574</span>straw bonnet; and Harry was in waiting to
+carry up the hampers to the station. It was
+the day of the Horticultural Show at the
+town. Woodruffe had been too unwell to
+think of going till this morning; but now
+the sight of the preparations, and the prospect
+of a warm day, inspired him, and he thought
+he would go. At last he went, and they were
+gone. Abby never went up to the station:
+nobody ever asked her to go there; not even
+her own child, who perhaps had not thought
+of the possibility of it. But when the train
+was starting, she stood at the upper window
+with her child, and held him so that he might
+lean out, and see the last carriage disappear,
+as it swept round the curve. After that the
+day seemed long, though Harry came up at
+his dinner-hour to say what he thought of the
+great gooseberry in particular, and of everything
+else that Allan had carried with him.
+It was holiday time, and there was no school
+to fill up the day. Before the evening, the
+child became restless, and Abby fell into low
+spirits, as she was apt to do when left long
+alone; so that Harry stopped suddenly at the
+door when he was rushing in to announce that
+the train was within sight.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Shall I take the child, Miss?” said Harry.
+(He always called her “Miss.”) “I will carry
+him——But, sure, here they come! Here
+comes Moss,—ready to roll down the steps!
+My opinion is that there’s a prize.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Moss was called back by a voice which
+everybody obeyed. Allan should himself tell his
+sister the fortune of the day, their father said.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>There were two prizes, one of which was
+for the wonderful plate of gooseberries; and
+at this news Harry nodded, and declared himself
+anything but surprised. If that gooseberry
+had not carried the day, there would
+have been partiality in the judges, that was
+all; and nobody could suppose such a thing
+as that. Yet Harry could have told, if put
+upon his honour, that he was rather disappointed
+that everything that Allan carried
+had not gained a prize. When he mentioned
+one or two, his master told him he was unreasonable;
+and he supposed he was.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Allan laid down on the table, for his sister’s
+full assurance, his sovereign, and his half-sovereign,
+and his tickets. She turned away
+rather abruptly, and seemed to be looking
+whether the kettle was near boiling for tea.
+Her father went up to her; and on his first
+whispered words, the sob broke forth which
+made all look round.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I was thinking of one, too, my dear, that
+I wish was here at this moment. I can feel
+for you, my dear.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“But you don’t know—you don’t know—you
+never knew——.” She could not go on.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“What don’t I know, my dear?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“That he constantly blamed himself for
+saying anything to bring you here. He said
+you had never prospered from the hour you
+came, and now——”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>And now Woodruffe could not speak, as
+the past came fresh upon him. In a few
+moments, however, he rallied, saying,</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“But we must consider Allan. He must
+not think that his success makes us sad.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Allan declared that it was not about gaining
+the prizes that he was chiefly glad. It was
+because it was now proved what a fair field he
+had before him. There was nothing that
+might not be done with such a soil as they had
+to deal with now.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Harry was quite of this opinion. There
+were more and more people set to work upon
+the soil all about them; and the more it was
+worked the more it yielded. He never saw a
+place of so much promise. And if it had a
+bad name in regard to healthiness, he was
+sure that was unfair,—or no longer fair. He
+and his were full of health and happiness, as
+they hoped to see everybody else in time; and,
+for his part, if he had all England before him,
+or the whole world, to choose a place to live
+in, he would choose the very place he was in,
+and the very cottage; and the very ground
+to work on that had produced such a gooseberry
+and such strawberries as he had seen
+that day.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>THE SINGER.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Unto the loud acclaim that rose</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>To greet her as she came,</div>
+      <div class='line'>She bent with lowly grace that seemed</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Such tribute to disclaim;</div>
+      <div class='line'>With arms meek folded on her breast</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And drooping head, she stood;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Then raised a glance that seemed to plead</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>For youth and womanhood;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>A soft, beseeching smile, a look,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>As if all silently</div>
+      <div class='line'>The kindness to her heart she took,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And put the homage by.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>She stood dejected then, methought,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>A Captive, though a Queen,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Before the throng, when sudden passed</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>A change across her mien.</div>
+      <div class='line'>Unto her full, dilating eye,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Unto her slender hand,</div>
+      <div class='line'>There came a light of sovereignty,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>A gesture of command:</div>
+      <div class='line'>And, to her lip, an eager flow</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Of song, that seemed to bear</div>
+      <div class='line'>Her soul away on rushing wings</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Unto its native air;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Her eye was fixed; her cheek flushed bright</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>With power; she seemed to call</div>
+      <div class='line'>On spirits that around her flocked,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The radiant Queen of all;</div>
+      <div class='line'>There was no pride upon her brow,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>No tumult in her breast;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Her soaring soul had won its home,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And smiled there as at rest;</div>
+      <div class='line'>She felt no more those countless eyes</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Upon her; she had gained</div>
+      <div class='line'>A region where they troubled not</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The joy she had attained!</div>
+      <div class='line'>Now, now, she spoke her native speech,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>An utterance fraught with spells</div>
+      <div class='line'>To wake the echoes of the heart</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Within their slumber-cells;</div>
+      <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_575'>575</span>For at her wild and gushing strain,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The spirit was led back</div>
+      <div class='line'>By windings of a silver chain,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>On many a long-lost track;</div>
+      <div class='line'>And many a quick unbidden sigh,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And starting tear, revealed</div>
+      <div class='line'>How surely at her touch the springs</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Of feeling were unsealed;</div>
+      <div class='line'>They who were always loved, seemed now</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Yet more than ever dear;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Yet closer to the heart they came,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>That ever were so near:</div>
+      <div class='line'>And, trembling to the silent lips,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>As if they ne’er had changed</div>
+      <div class='line'>Their names, returned in kindness back</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The severed and estranged;</div>
+      <div class='line'>And in the strain, like those that fall</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>On wanderers as they roam,</div>
+      <div class='line'>The Exiled Spirit found once more</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Its country and its home!</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>She ceased, yet on her parted lips</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>A happy smile abode,</div>
+      <div class='line'>As if the sweetness of her song</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Yet lingered whence it flowed;</div>
+      <div class='line'>But, for a while, her bosom heaved,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>She was the same no more,</div>
+      <div class='line'>The light and spirit fled; she stood</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>As she had stood before;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Unheard, unheeded to her ear</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The shouts of rapture came,</div>
+      <div class='line'>A voice had once more power to thrill,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>That only spoke her name.</div>
+      <div class='line'>Unseen, unheeded at her feet,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Fell many a bright bouquet;</div>
+      <div class='line'>A single flower, in silence given,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Was once more sweet than they;</div>
+      <div class='line'><i>Her</i> heart had with her song returned</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>To days for ever gone,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Ere Woman’s gift of Fame was her’s,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The Many for the One.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>E’en thus; O, Earth, before thee</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Thy Poet Singers stand,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And bear the soul upon their songs</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Unto its native land.</div>
+      <div class='line'>And even thus, with loud acclaim,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The praise of skill, of art,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Is dealt to those who only speak</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The language of the heart!</div>
+      <div class='line'>While they who love and listen best,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Can little guess or know</div>
+      <div class='line'>The wounds that from the Singer’s breast</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Have bid such sweetness flow;</div>
+      <div class='line'>They know not mastership must spring</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>From conflict and from strife.</div>
+      <div class='line'>“These, these are but the songs they sing;”</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>They are the Singer’s life!</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>A LITTLE PLACE IN NORFOLK.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c010'>Theodore Hook’s hero, Jack Bragg, boasted
+of his “little place in Surrey.” The Guardians
+of the Guiltcross poor have good reason to
+be proud of <i>their</i> little place in Norfolk.
+When the Guiltcross Union was formed, Mr.
+Thomas Rackham, master of the “house,”
+set aside a small estate for the purpose
+of teaching the Workhouse children how to
+cultivate land. This pauper’s patrimony consisted
+of exactly one acre one rood and
+thirty-five poles of very rough “country.”
+A certain number of the boys worked upon
+it so diligently, that it was soon found expedient
+to enlarge the domain, by joining to
+it three acres of “hills and holes,” which in
+that state were quite useless for agricultural
+purposes. Two dozen spades were purchased
+at the outset to commence digging the land
+with, and six wheel-barrows were made by a
+pauper, who was a wheelwright; pickaxes
+and other tools were also fashioned with the
+assistance of the porter, who was a blacksmith.
+By means of these tools, and the labour of
+some fourteen sturdy boys, the whole of this
+barren territory was levelled, the top sward
+being carefully kept uppermost. We copy
+these and the other details from Mr. Rackham’s
+report to the Guardians, for the information
+and encouragement of other Workhouse
+masters, who may have the will and the
+power to “go and do likewise.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It appears then, that by the autumn of 1846
+one acre of the new land was planted with
+wheat, and two roods twenty three poles of
+the home land—the one acre one rood and
+thirty-five poles mentioned above—was also
+planted with wheat, making in all one acre
+two roods and twenty three poles under wheat
+for 1847. This land produced eighteen coombs
+three pecks beyond a sufficient quantity
+reserved for seed for the wheat crop of 1848.
+The remainder of the land was planted with
+Scotch kale, cabbages, potatoes, &#38;c., &#38;c., which
+began coming into use in March, 1847. The
+entire domain is now under fruitful cultivation.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“The quantity of vegetables actually consumed
+by the paupers according to the dietary
+tables only,” says Mr. Rackham, “is charged
+in the provision accounts. Persons acquainted
+with domestic management and the produce
+of land are aware that, where vegetables are
+purchased, a great deal is paid for that which
+is useless for cooking purposes. In the present
+case this refuse is carefully preserved and
+used for feeding pigs, which were first kept
+in April 1848. This accounts for the large
+amount of pork fatted, as compared with the
+small quantity of corn and pollard used for
+the pigs. The leaves, &#38;c., not eaten by the
+pigs, become valuable manure. If the
+Guardians would consent to keep cows,
+different roots and vegetables might be grown
+to feed them with; and these would produce
+an increased quantity of manure, whilst an
+increased quantity of manure would afford
+the means of raising a larger amount of roots
+and green crops, and secure a more extended
+routine in cropping the land. This would
+add to the profit of the land account, and
+give much additional comfort to the aged
+people and the young children in the workhouse.”
+But Mr. Rackham is ambitious of a
+dairy, chiefly for the training of dairy-maids:
+who would become doubly acceptable as farm
+servants.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Besides other advantages, the experiment
+presents one dear to the minds of rate-payers—it
+tends to reduce the rates. The average
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_576'>576</span>profit per annum on each of the acres has been
+fifteen pounds. Here are the sums:—The
+profit of the first year was sixty pounds two
+shillings and fourpence farthing; second year,
+fifty-one pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence;
+to Christmas, 1849, three-quarters of
+a year, sixty-seven pounds two shillings and
+one penny farthing; total, one hundred and
+seventy-nine pounds one shilling and elevenpence
+halfpenny.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>As at the Swinton and other pauper schools,
+a variety of industrial arts are taught in the
+Guiltcross Union house, and the fact that
+sixty of the boys and girls who have been
+trained in it are now earning their own living,
+is some evidence of the success of the system
+pursued there.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Of one of the cultivators of this “little place
+in Norfolk” (not we believe an inmate of the
+Union), an agreeable account was published
+in a letter from Miss Martineau lately in the
+Morning Chronicle. It shows to what good
+account a knowledge of small farming may be
+turned. That lady having two acres of land, at
+Ambleside, in Westmoreland, which she wished
+to cultivate, sent to Mr. Rackham to recommend
+her a farm servant. The man arrived, and
+his Guiltcross experience in cultivating small
+“estates” proved of essential service. He has
+managed to keep two cows and a pig, besides
+himself and a wife, on these narrow confines;
+for Miss Martineau calculates that the produce
+in milk, butter, vegetables, &#38;c., obtained
+from his skill and economy for herself and
+household, quite pays his wages. This is her
+account of him:—</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“He is a man of extraordinary industry and
+cleverness, as well as rigid honesty. His
+ambition is roused; for he knows that the
+success of the experiment mainly depends on
+himself. He is living in comfort, and laying
+by a little money, and he looks so happy that
+it would truly grieve me to have to give up;
+though I have no doubt that he would immediately
+find work at good wages in the
+neighbourhood. His wife and he had saved
+enough to pay their journey hither out of
+Norfolk. I gave him twelve shillings a week
+all the year round. His wife earns something
+by occasionally helping in the house, by
+assisting in my washing, and by taking in
+washing when she can get it. I built them
+an excellent cottage of the stone of the district,
+for which they pay one shilling and sixpence
+per week. They know that they could not get
+such another off the premises for five pounds
+a year.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>This is all very interesting and gratifying,
+but there are two sides to every account.
+Supposing the system of agricultural and
+other industrial training were pursued in all
+Unions in the country (and if it be a good
+system, it ought to be so followed), then, instead
+of boys and girls being turned out every
+three years in sixties, there would be accessions
+of farmers, tailors, carpenters, dairy-maids,
+and domestic servants every year to
+be reckoned by thousands. Supposing that
+every fourteen of the agricultural section of
+the community had been earning fifteen
+pounds a year profit per acre, we should then
+have a large amount of produce brought into
+the market in competition with that of the
+independent labourer. When, again, the multitude
+of boys had passed their probation,
+themselves would be thrown in the labour market
+(as the sixty Guiltcross boys already
+have been), so that their older and weaker
+competitors would, in their turn, be obliged
+to retire to the Workhouse, not only to their
+own ruin, but to the exceeding mortification
+of the entire body of parochial rate-payers.
+The axiom, that when there is a glut in a
+market any additional supply of the same
+commodity is an evil, applies most emphatically
+to labour. In this view, the adoption
+of the industrial training system for paupers
+and criminals would be an evil; and an evil
+of the very description it is meant to cure—a
+pauperising evil.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The easy and natural remedy is a combination
+of colonisation, with the industrial
+training system. In all our colonies ordinary,
+merely animal labour is eagerly coveted, and
+skilled labour is at a high premium. There
+a competition <i>for</i>, instead of against, all sorts
+of labour is keenly active. Yet great as is
+the demand, it is curious that no comprehensive
+system for the supply of skilled labour
+has yet been adopted. Except the excellent
+farm school of the Philanthropic Society at
+Red Hill, no attempt is made to <i>teach</i> colonisation.
+The majority of even voluntary colonists
+are persons utterly ignorant of colonial
+wants. They have never learned to dig or to
+delve. Many clever artists have emigrated
+to Australia, where pictures are not wanted;
+not a few emigrant ladies, of undoubted talents
+in Berlin work and crochet, have always
+trembled at the approach of a cow, and never
+made so much as a pat of butter in their lives.
+Still they succeed in the end; but only after
+much misery and mortification, which would
+have been saved them if they had been better
+prepared for colonial exigencies. The same
+thing happens with the humbler classes.
+Boys, and even men, have been sent out to
+Canada and the Southern Colonies (especially
+from the Irish Unions), utterly unfitted for
+their new sphere of life and labour.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>If, therefore, the small beginnings at Guiltcross
+be imitated in other Unions (and it is
+much to be wished that they should be), they
+will be made to grow into large results. But
+these results must be applied not to clog
+and glut the labour market at home; but to
+supply the labour market abroad.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>If to every Union were attached an agricultural
+training school, upon a plan that
+would offer legitimate inducements for the
+pupils to emigrate when old enough and
+skilled enough to obtain their own livelihood,
+this country would, we are assured, at no
+distant date be de-pauperised.</p>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c015'>
+</div>
+<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'>
+
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c016'>
+    <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<table class='table0'>
+  <tr>
+    <th class='c017'>Page</th>
+    <th class='c017'>Changed from</th>
+    <th class='c018'>Changed to</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c019'><a href='#t565'>565</a></td>
+    <td class='c020'>the deuce—if the brand—the alcohol-and-water</td>
+    <td class='c021'>the deuce—if the brandy—the alcohol-and-water</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+  <ul  class='ul_1'>
+    <li>Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+
+    </li>
+    <li>Renumbered footnotes.
+    </li>
+  </ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78194 ***</div>
+  </body>
+  <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57i (with regex) on 2026-03-11 16:04:17 GMT -->
+</html>
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+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78194
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78194)